Full text of "The Catholic world"

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

MONTHLY MAGAZINE

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE,

( ^">s

. - XXXI.

APRIL, 1880, TO SEPTEMBER, 1880.

NEW YORK:

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO,
9 Barclay Street,

1880.

THE NATION PRESS, 27 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK.

CONTENTS.

Age, The Intellectual Outlook of the, . . 145
American Principles and American Catholics, 94
Anglican Church, Ritualism and the, . . 757

A Perplexing Case, 841

Ardennes, The Forest of, .... 506

Aspects of National Education, . . .398

Bardic Poetry, Irish, 791

Beaconsfield, Lord, 410, 491

Benedictines, The, 243

Canossa ? Is it, . . . . . . 577

Catalogues (The) of the Manuscripts in the

Vatican Library, 833

Catholic Church, Genesis of, . 4, 192, 477, 683, 805

Catholic Colonization, 273

Channing Centennial, The Outcome of the, . 421

Chaucer and his Circle, 695

Colonization, Catholic, 273

Countess (The) Ida Hahn-Hahn, . . '. 308

Christian Art Raphael, 816

Christianity, The New, . . . -39) 257

Divorce and some of its Results, . . . 550

Education, Aspects of National, . . . 398

Education in England, Elementary, . . 603

Elementary Education in England, . . 603

English Light Literature, 203

Episcopal Church, The Reformed, . . . 354

Famines, Irish, 669

Follette, 65, 172

Forest (The) of Ardennes, . . . .506

Genesis of the Catholic Church, . 4, 192, 477,

683, 805
Group (A) of Roman Sanctuaries, . . . 592

Hahn-Hahn, The Countess Ida, . . .308
Human Species, Quatrefages on the, . . 212

Intellectual Outlook of the Age (The), . . 145

Introductory, i

Ireland and the Land Question, . . . 433
Ireland, The Religious Struggle in, within

the Century, 83

Irish Bardic Poetry, 79 1

Irish Famines, 669

Is it Canossa? . ... 577

Land Question, Ireland and the,

433

Lejeune, Pere, 565

Leo XIII., The Princeton Re-view and, . 380

Light Literature, English, .... 203

Lord Beaconsfield, 410, 491

Mary Stanley, 55

Military Novel, The, 161

Modern Thought and Protestantism, . . 289

Monroe Doctrine, The, 116

Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Crooks, and Harper's

Weekly, .134

My Raid into Mexico, 21, 233, 335, 454, 619, 770

National Education, Aspects of, . . 398
New Christianity, The, .... 39, 257
Non-Catholic School Books and Catholic

Schools, 41

Ober-Ammergau in 1880, The Passion Play

at, 648, 736

Outcome (The) of the Channing Centen-
nial, 421

Passion Play (The) at Ober-Ammergau in

1880, 648,736

Pere Lejeune 5^5

Pompey's Secret, .' 535

Princeton Review (The) and Leo XIII., . 380

Princeton Review (The) and St. Thomas, . 521

Protestantism, Modern Thought and, . . 289

Quatrefages on the Human Species, . . 212

Raphael Christian Art, 816

Reformed (The) Episcopal Church, . . 354
Religious Struggle (The) in Ireland within the

Century, 8 3

Ritualism and the Anglican Church,

Roman Sanctuaries, A Group of, . . 59 2

School-Boolcs (Non-Catholic) and Catholic

Schools 6 4*

Serena's Vow, 3^4

Socialism in America, Some of our Present

Weapons against, . . . 7 21

Some of our Present Weapons against Social-
ism in America, 7 21

Stanley, Mary, ....

St. Thomas, The Princeton Review and, . 5

Vatican Library, The Catalogues of the
Manuscripts in the,

CONTENTS.

POETRY.

. 92

A Retrospect of Many Years, .

. 33
. 272

Dignities,

449

Easter Morning, 6 3

Golden,

On Dives in Hell,
Our Intercessor,

82
79

"Placare Christe Servulis,'
Pro Patria,

" Quicumque Christum Quaeritis,"

St. Thomas Aquinas,

Sunrise, .....

170
39<5

. 231

. 158
. 682

The Agony on the Cross 54

The Prodigal at his best, 16

The Two Roads of Virtue, .... 476

The Visit to the Forge, 499

Three Weighty Axioms, . . . .832

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Address (An) on State Medicine, . . .288
After the Ball, and Other Poems, . . .284

America, 43

Ancient Rome in its Connection with the

Christian Religion, . . . -575, 7 IQ
Answer to Mr. Jay's latest Letters directed

against Rome, 136

Ard Righ Deighionach na Teamhrach, . . 571

Blanid, 57

Catholic (The) Birthday Book, . . . 43 2

Claims of a Protestant Episcopal Bishop, . 856
Christian (The) Mother, . . . .288

Directory fcr the Laity frequenting the

Church of the Friars Preachers, . . 288

Divorce (Le), 4=9

Elocutionist (The), 715

German (A) Catholic Novelist, . . .141

Hand-Book of British and American Litera-
ture, 860

Her Lover's Friend, and Other Poems, . . 284

His Majesty Myself, 431

Historical (An) and Critical Account of the

so-called Prophecy of St. Malachy, . . 141

Homes of Homeless Children, .... 718

Homo Sum, ....... 859

Hovels (The) of Ireland, 432

Hymns by Frederick William P'aber, D.D., . 714

Jacques Marquette et laDecouverte de la Val-

lee du Mississippi, . . . . . .576

Last Journey and Memorials of the Re-
deemer, 138

Last (The) Monarch of Tara, .... 571

Lays and Legends of Thomond, . . . 716

Legend of the Best Beloved, .... 716
Life (The) and Character of Leonard Woods,

D.D., LL.D., 567

Life (The) of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus

Christ, 7 i 4

Life (The) of Venerable Sister Margaret

Bourgeois, , 712

Lives of the Catholic Heroes and Heroines of
America, 430

Marie Antoinette : An Historical Drama, . 860
Medu'la Theologise Dogmaticae, . . .144
Miracle (The) of the i6th of September, 1877,

at Lourdes, 207

Odd or Even, 720

CEuvres completes de S. E. le Cardinal De-
champs . . 144

Olden Times, 575

Only a Waif, 7^0

Our Common-School System, . . . -573

Our Homes, ....... 7^0

Prophecy of St. Malachy, ..... 141
Psychological Aspects of Education, . . 287

Rea'ities cf Irish Life, 432

Recollections of an old Pioneer, . . . 569

Sacred Year, The, 720

Science and Scepticism 720

Sketches of the Lives of Dominican Saints of

Olden Times, ...... 575

St. Angela Merici and the Ursulines, . . 713
St. Malachy, An Historical and Critical Ac-
count of the so-called Prophecy of, . . 141
Statuta Diceccsis Novarcensis, .... 288

Three Lectures delivered in Chicago, . . 431
Three Roses of the Elect, . . . .431
The Church of the Parables and True Spouse

of the Suffering Saviour, .... 141
The Passion Play of Ober Ainmergau in the

Summer of 1871, 576

The Refutation of Darwinism, . . . 139
The Sisters, . . . . . . .859

The Stoneleighs of Stoneleigh , . . .574
Twenty-eighth, etc., Annual Reports of the
New York State Museum of Natural His-
tory, 575

Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt, . . 716
Voices from the Heart, 719

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXXI. APRIL, 1880. No. 181.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE change in the public opinion and sentiment respecting
the Catholic Church which has taken place in England and
America within the memory of the present generation was late-
ly a new phenomenon. We are now so used to it that it is a
trite theme, and when some Cassandra's melancholy wail over
the progress of Romanism is occasionally heard, it finds no re-
sponse in the Valley of the Connecticut or the Valley of the Mis-
sissippi.

There are causes of this change wider and more far-reaching
than any theological or religious tendency of reaction among
orthodox Protestants backward toward the church of their fore-
fathers. The change is universal and comprehensive. It is a
general loosening of the band which has held intellectual, social,
and political forces under the control of 4ocal, partial, and tradi-
tional direction in certain lines. The release of the present from
the controlling power of the past results in all kinds of move-
ments under the most various and capricious impulses. When
the Roman emperor placed the statues of Moses and Christ in
his private fane, this was an indication, not of a specific tendency
toward Judaism or Christianity, but of a loss of power in heathen
tradition, and an opening of the Roman mind toward everything
in the world which had any power of fixing attention and awak-
ening interest. Barriers were weakening and passing away
which had kept out Christianity, and the opening was made for
it to come in and strive for the mastery. In a like manner, it is
characteristic of our unsettled and restless age to have a universal
and boundless curiosity to investigate and understand all things
in the past and present world, even to peer beyond into the invi-

^ INTRODUCTORY. [April '

sible and the future by all means lawful and unlawful. The his- j
tory and religion of Egypt, of India, of China, the history and
organization of the Catholic Church, are alike objects of curiosity
in so far as they present something unknown which it is desirable
and interesting to know, or even afford a novelty in the way of
intellectual recreation. Besides mere curiosity, there is undoubt-
edly a desire after the knowledge of that truth which gives per-
fection to the intellect and sets before the will the supreme good
to be loved and pursued ; a longing for fixed and certain princi-
ples, an anxiety to find the right methods for diffusing the best
blessings of life among the multitude, correcting evils in society,
improving the political order, and in general promoting human
welfare. There is a longing to know God, which can never be
stilled, a thirst for divine truth, a desire for light on the destiny of
man, a restless search for satisfying answers to those questions of
the soul which spring up unbidden always and everywhere, for
solutions of problems which are for ever presenting themselves
before the human mind.

Eagerness to read whatever is written by men who seem to
have ability to think, to possess information and experience, and to
have the art of communicating their ideas and knowledge intelli-
gibly and agreeably, is a necessary consequence of this active fer-
ment of minds, this wakeful and restless inquisitiveness in respect
to every object of curiosity. The importance, the extensive sphere
of influence, the universal power which the press has acquired
under these circumstances is so obvious, that all we could say on
this topic would be only a repetition of that which has so often
been said before as to have become a mere truism. One thing
only we observe on this'head, that is, how periodical literature has
assumed a new form purposely adapted to meet the longing for
multifarious knowledge and the discussion of all sides of all
questions; A number of English and American reviews have
adopted the plan of seeking for competent contributors from all
professions, all parties, advocating all sorts of doctrines and opin-
ions, and giving information on all sorts of matters with which
they have familiar acquaintance. In this motley crowd, cardi-
nals, bishops, Jesuits, eminent Catholic writers of the clerical and
of secular professions, are welcome figures, because they add to
its variety, they make a new attraction to readers, and their pro-
ductions enhance the spiciness of a review. This is one opening
which has given opportunity for presenting Catholic ideas, cor-
recting misconceptions, gaining a hearing for a version of his
torical facts, and an interpretation of present movements in the

i88o.] INTRODUCTORY. 3

world, very different from the one which has been commonly
accepted. Nevertheless, it may be doubted whether the chief
influence, the most efficacious action, of Catholic intelligence and
learning through the press is or can be exerted through this
channel.

The way is more clear and open now, for the full exercise of
all their intellectual power by Catholics through the medium
of literature of every description, than it has ever been before.
There is an inexhaustible treasure at their command, in history,
belles-lettres, philosophy, ethics in all its branches, as well as in
theological and religious doctrine. And what it is most impor-
tant to emphasize in respect to all these matters is : that Catholics
possess those universal, certain, and most needful principles for
determining truth and making knowledge practically applicable
to the great needs of the human mind and heart, to the temporal
and eternal welfare of nations and of mankind ; which are lacking
or imperfect everywhere else except in genuine, Catholic, synthe-
tical science.

The work which it is desirable to have accomplished, in the
continuance and completion of the partially-constructed English
literature of a thoroughly Christian and Catholic type, is colossal.
It requires time, labor, and the concurrence of many capable
workmen. One important department of this work is to be exe-
cuted by means of the periodical press. By the channel of re-
views and magazines, that thought and learning which are gath-
ered in the larger reservoirs of books in greater quantity and
depth, are distributed, and made to percolate more easily and
freely over the extensive surface needing their salutary waters.

We may affirm of the best and most permanent portion of the
Catholic periodical literature of Europe and America, that it is
something more than a mere channel for diffusing in small and
diluted quantities the science and knowledge embodied in more
bulky volumes. The aggregation of its matter gradually forms a
large and important part of the most solid and permanent 1
ture. Many volumes, indeed a whole library, of the mos
able quality, in several distinct departments of knowledge, are (
tained in the collection of the reviews published within t
quarter of a century. Much of this matter cannot be foun
any other form. The most distinguished writers of the work
the ranks of the Catholic Church have contributed to

"k is, however, for the most part, the immediate effect pro-
duced by each number and each article at the time when tl

4 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [April,

pear, and the general, continuous impression made by the fre-
quent repetition of single and particular impressions, which is to
be relied on for a wide-spread influence on public opinion. It is
like the regular and frequent preaching of sermons, the continu-
ous lecturing in the class-room, the daily conversation of the in-
telligent and well-informed. And, in this respect, it has an advan-
tage over the more dignified literature of portly volumes, and
fulfils a purpose for which they are not available. Small vessels
of light draught and armament are required in naval warfare for
enterprises which are unsuited to the heavy bulk of ships of the
line and frigates. The light and active operations of the periodi-
cal press are most especially suited to the present and immediate
exigencies of the cause we have in hand, the diffusion of Catholic
knowledge, the dissipation of popular errors, the general pro-
motion of religion, virtue, intellectual, moral, social, and political
well-being, by the inculcation of Catholic principles. It is cer-
tainly a work worthy of the most highly gifted and cultivated
minds to bestow their labor on the popularizing of the most ex-
cellent of all sciences, the diffusion of the most important and
salutary of all branches of practical knowledge, by means of the
periodical press. And those who aid in any other way to in-
crease the circulation and enhance the influence of Catholic
periodical literature are rendering one of the best kinds of ser-
vice to the cause of truth, of good morals, and of the improve-
ment of the social order.

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

THE title chosen for the series of articles we propose now to
begin does not make their intended scope plain at first sight.
An explanation is, therefore, necessary. Any title which would
be self-explanatory would be too long, therefore one has been
chosen which will stand for a sign of the idea we have in mind,
and the bearing of our intended discussion, when we have de-
fined our terms and distinctly stated our thesis.

By the term Genesis we intend to designate as the theme of
consideration the origin of the Catholic Church. The term
Catholic Church, which is used variously by writers who differ

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 5

essentially in doctrine, and may be, even by a Catholic, more or
less extended or restricted in its sense, we take according to the
following definition : A society of men professing- the doctrine of
Christ y under the lawful and universal teaching and governing autho-
rity of the Roman Pontiff and the Prelates subject to him, for the culti-
vation of supernatural holiness and the attainment of eternal salvation*
This society exists ; it has an origin and sufficient cause. There
are several theories respecting its origin and cause, or, as we have
designated what is included in these terms, its genesis. If we pro-
posed to consider the topic of the Genesis of the Catholic Church
in all its universality, it would be necessary to discuss all these
theories. Our intention is, however, more particular and re-
stricted. We have in view what may be regarded as one theory
in a general sense, though it is liable, and actually subject in the
individuals who propose it, to variations more or less marked
and important. This theory, like every other, except the Catholic
theory, is one which denies the divine and supernatural genesis
of the Catholic Church, assigning human and natural causes of
its origin. If it be requisite to give this theory a name, we can
think of none more suitable than this : the theory of modern miti-
gated Protestantism. This name describes it sufficiently, if we
take Protestantism as denoting the positive system of belief held
in common by the greater sects and derived from their original
symbols and confessions. The theory of antique extreme Protes-
tantism is too well known to need more than mere mention. The
distinction between this and the modern, mitigated theory will
appear with abundant clearness in the course of our discussion.
We are now ready to proceed with our examination of this theory
and of its pretensions to credibility, in order to test its rational
value, to measure its conformity to historical facts, to doctrinal
principles admitted by its advocates, and to whatever common
criteria of truth we can find, so as to arrive at a correct estimate
of what it is worth as opposed to the Catholic theory of the true
church.

It may seem, perhaps, that we begin by a digression which
wanders far from the direct path to the actual point of discussion,
in asking the attention of every serious-minded Protestant who
believes that Christianity is a divine religion to the following
statement of Mr. Mallock, and his candid judgment respecting its
general truth. We will make it appear, however, in due time,
that this divergence is only for the sake of gaining a point of de-

* Bonal's Theology, treatise De Vera Ecclesia.

6 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [April,

parture for a straight course through a deep and safe channel
of argument.

" To some minds the true nature of the Protestant movement was long
ago apparent ; but it has only lately become clear to the general apprehen-
sion. Long ago it was seen by some that that movement was really neither
the restorer of a corrupted creed, nor the corrupter of a pure creed ; but
that logically and essentially it was the solvent of all creeds whatever, and
that, when it had come to maturity, its essential nature would be visible.
And now that time has come. Let us look at England, Europe, and Ame-
rica, and consider the condition of the entire Protestant world. Religion,
it is true, we may still find in it;. but it is religion from which the super-
natural element is fast disappearing, and in which the natural element is
fast becoming nebulous." *

The fact here asserted must be admitted. Nor can it be
denied that there is a chronological sequence in the order of
events connecting this fact with the assigned cause. That the
one is the natural effect of the other may be shown later on,
though at present it cannot be assumed, since it enters into the
subject of discussion. The existence of the fact is acknowledged
by a celebrated Protestant writer in a paper of considerable
ability and interest, read before the Evangelical Alliance during
the Sixth General Conference held at New York in the month of
October, 1873. The paper, as a whole, confirms in the most ex-
plicit and emphatic terms the statement of Mr. Mallock. It con^
tains some very absurd remarks about the Catholic Church,
which read as if the learned professor had suffered a sudden in-
terval of insanity, interrupting a course of most calm and rational
argument. This brief diatribe, the tribute exacted by Caesar,
comes in under the general proposition that the present condition
of the Christian Church " is in a high degree most subsidiary to
the criticism of negation." Afterwards he proceeds to say :

" Protestantism, on the contrary, internally divided and enervated, sev-
ered from the foundation of the Holy Scriptures and her own Confession of
Faith, is in the eye of the greater part of the people something quite nega-
tive, so that her criticism of negation is considered to be nothing else but
the legitimate development of the Protestant principle, and the most eman-
cipated spirits of the nineteenth century are but the bold continuers of the
work of the sixteenth century. As among the conservative party, too, there
is nobody who considers himself bound, entirely and literally, to the Con-
fession of Faith, and it therefore seems impossible even as regards the
leading facts of Christianity to fix any positive limits to the liberty of in-
struction to the entire satisfaction of all parties. Here and there, again, the
life-giving doctrine of the church has become a petrifaction of such rigid
orthodoxy that materialism may be expected to be embraced by all who be-
" Dogma, Reason, and Morality," Nineteenth Century, December, 1878.

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. j

gin to doubt in the doctrine of a mechanical inspiration of the sacred writ-
ings. I doubt very much, indeed, if the ' Essays and Reviews ' in England
would have met with such warm sympathy if the theology of that country
had borne a more progressive character that is, in the right or sound sense
of the word. But wherefore expatiate any longer on this subject ? If now,
in such a condition of the church, in which we meet with such perfect rigid-
ity, on the one hand, and such confusion on the other, talented young
preachers, as, for instance, some years ago, your Parker, declare that only
and alone in the interest of true religion and morality they are desirous of
delivering the won'd from the antiquated notions of supernaturalism, then it
is a matter of course that they should find sympathy among serious, more
noble minds, and above all among the multitude."*

The foregoing testimony from a document which is entitled to
great consideration both from the character of the writer and the
authority it receives from the respectable body under whose aus-
pices it was published, is only a sample of many similar testi-
monies from like sources which might easily be brought forward.
Besides the open acknowledgment of the extent and force of the
destructive tendencies at work in Protestantism, it contains also
evidence of a change in the conservative portion of the great Pro-
testant body, from the antique and extreme form of what they re-
gard as orthodoxy, to a modern and mitigated form of the same.
In this modern form, several very important doctrines which are
brought into great prominence by the controversy with destruc-
tive criticism and every sort of scepticism or negation, are held
by the conservative Protestants in common with Catholic theolo-
gians. Some others which are erroneous explanations of really
revealed and Catholic truths, as, for instance, the Calvinistic tenets
of original sin and predestination, are softened down or set aside,
and more simple statements are substituted, which set forth the
fundamental ideas at the bottom of the theological theories which
are constructed on them as their basis, diminishing the contradic-
tion which exists between the Protestant and the Catholic doc-
trinal systems.

The attacks on the foundations of Christianity by rationalists
and infidels have not had their beginning in our own day ; and it
is not, therefore, a new thing for Protestant scholars to discover
that a defence of these foundations is a matter of necessity.
Paley, Bishop Butler, and others have written with consummate
ability on these topics, at a former period. In more recent times,
a considerable number of works of the most thorough learning

* Proceedings of the E. A., p. 242. Dr. Van Oosterzee's Paper. The text has been exact-
ly copied, and the faulty construction of some sentences is either due t.
skill in writing English or to mistakes in printing.

8 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [April,

and solid argumentative force have been produced, and additions
are continually being- made to this number. Notwithstanding
the increasing extent of that downward movement toward the
abyss of doubt and unbelief which we have noted above, there
remains still, both among the learned and the multitude, in Pro-
testantism, a strong opposing and counteracting force of religious
belief and sentiment, controlling many intellectual, moral, and
other energies, with which an active defensive and offensive war
is maintained against the invasion of infidelity.

The exigencies of this warfare have naturally brought about a
closer alliance of different kinds of Protestants with each other,
and a disposition to dispute less about matters of internal contro-
versy, while more attention and effort are bestowed upon what is
considered to be the very essence itself of the Christian religion ;
upon its historical foundations, its rational grounds, its first princi-
ples, its agreement with all branches of natural science ; the ways
and means of making it prevail and obtain living, practical power
in the world. This direction and effort of the minds and hearts
of many persons in different sects, and in several parts of Chris-
tendom, has naturally produced a mitigation and moderation in
theological opinions, and a tone of mind which is more liberal
and rational, in the just and good sense of those words, than the
one which was dominant at an earlier period.

Under these circumstances, it could not be that studious and
reflecting men should fail of obtaining some better knowledge of
the Christendom of past ages, or of feeling some warmer sympa-
thies toward great and holy men in these by-gone times who
labored zealously for the Christian cause, awakening in their
bosoms. The pressure of the hostile, anti-Christian forces has
unavoidably driven them back nearer to the main body of Chris-
tians from which they have been so long separated. The fear of
seeing infidelity and immorality triumph on the earth, and the
sense of their own weakened and divided state, have necessarily
turned their thoughts toward the immovable, invincible church
of all ages and nations. Its aggressive and advancing attitude, at
the very time when infidelity and rationalism are the most au-
dacious and menacing, has compelled them to regard it with a
most eager and anxious interest. Especially, since it has begun
already to draw within its ranks and around its banners, num-
bers from their own scattered and weakened bands.

During the first half of the present century, Protestants knew
as little about the Catholic religion as men in general knew about
the ancient history of Egypt before the discoveries of Champol-

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 9

lion and Lepsius. The writer remembers that in his boyhood he
would as soon have thought it worth while to examine into the
evidences of Buddhism as into the proofs of the Catholic Church.
When the controversy between Hughes and Breckenridge came
out, he was most curious to see what an intelligent man could
possibly have to say in arguing for the Catholic side. But at
present the attitude of the nobler and better-informed minds
among Protestants is very different. This change is partly due
to the effect produced by the numerous conversions from Protes-
tantism to the Catholic faith, in Germany, Great Britain, and the
United States. The intellectual and moral character of some of
these converts, and the quality of the works which they have
published, have compelled the attention of studious and reflecting
persons to what has seemed to them a new and surprising pheno,
menon. They have been obliged to look into history, and to in^
vestigate Catholic doctrine, in order to find out what it is which
gives to the Catholic religion, even in this age, convincing power
over the minds and attractive force over the hearts of men, who
are acknowledged to be intelligent, learned and upright. Some
theory had to be found, in order to account for the phenomenon,
and the one which we are now about to mention and examine
seems to be the most ingenious and plausible view which a per-
son can take from the position of mitigated Protestant ortho-
doxy.

The idea of the church as the medium through which the
doctrine and law of Christ are perpetually taught by a living and
infallible authority, is lofty and attractive. This is especially the
case, in view of the natural longing of the mind for an obvious
and unerring criterion of certitude in theology, and a sure safe-
guard against doubt, and of the efficiency which an infallible au-
thority in the church possesses to establish this certitude, de-
cide controversies, and prevent endless divisions and diversi-
ties among Christians.

Moreover, the system of theology which is presented by the
authority of the Catholic Church together with the whole body
of doctrine taught under her direction, is symmetrical, compre
hensive, logical, by contrast with the fragmentary systems of ]
testant theology. For this reason it is attractive to the :
which seeks for knowledge in divine things, and desires to s;
the demands of rational nature by inquiring into the cause
relations of the objects of thought which are within the
the intellect.

The Catholic religion also satisfies the natural desire f

io GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [April,

ledge of the invisible and spiritual world, and for communion
with its inhabitants, by the doctrines and practices connected with
the belief in purgatory, in angelogy and hagiology, and in the
glorious attributes and offices of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

It offers greater security of salvation, more efficacious and
tangible means of sanctification and perfection, and gives greater
scope to aspirations after a high and heroic ideal of life and
action, than any other form of religion.

Then again, it presents an aspect of historical grandeur, ex-
tent, unchangeableness, and permanence, which is unique and un-
paralleled.

It appeals, too, to the imagination and the aesthetic part of
human nature by its splendor of liturgical and ceremonial wor-
ship, and its employment of all the fine arts in making more beau-
tiful all the exterior and sensible parts or adjuncts of religion.

Finally, it opens a prospect of the church in the future, tri-
umphing through the whole extent of the earth, and brightening
with its peaceful glories the close of time, in the consummation
of the series of events by which the purposes of God in respect
to the earth are to be fulfilled.

The essential part of this conspectus is identical with the idea
expressed by the common formula that the church is one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic. Evidently, if the Catholic Church is
truly, in its concrete existence, in correspondence with the ideal
of the church as presented in the foregoing description, it must
have a divine origin. But, in the hypothesis we are considering,
the lofty and attractive idea which exercises such a subduing and
winning power over the minds and hearts of a great number of
persons, has only an abstract and imaginary entity ; it is an ens
rationis existing only in the mind, without any concrete and real
object of which it is the representative image. The hypothesis
that an ideal of this sort presents itself before the minds of those
who embrace the Catholic faith as if it were real, exercising all
the power of an existing reality, is resorted to expressjy in order
to account for the phenomenon of the conversion of intelligent
and educated Protestants. Of course it must equally account
for the adhesion of those of similar character to the Catholic
Church who have been educated within its c6mmunion.

When we look closely into this theory, the phenomenon itself
which it professes to explain takes on an aspect still more strange,
and bewildering to an ordinary observer, than it had before.

There have been and there still are ideals of this sort capable
of exciting the enthusiastic devotion of many votaries, for motives

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

more or less rational or having; a plausible appearance of being ra-
tional. The ideal of the kingdom of Israel, before the imagination
of Abraham and the patriarchs, is an instance of this sort. The
ideal of the kingdom of the Messias, before the imagination of
the prophets, is another. So, also, the Anglo-Catholic cherishes
an ideal of a united Christendom constituted without the papal
supremacy, the millenarian of a glorious reconstitution of Chris-
tendom by Christ in person, the Jew of a restoration of Israel by
a coming Messias, the Future-Churchman of a glorious state of
perfected humanity, the Positivist of an evolution of life which
shall be better worth living than the actual life of the past has
been. In all these instances, the ideal presents itself to the mind
as a vision of that which is to be, but as yet does not exist. If
there be any illusion, it is produced by a false judgment respect-
ing causality, not by a hallucination concerning actual effects in
concrete existence. There is a rational criterion by which the
falsity of the judgment can be shown.

There are also ideal conceptions concerning a state or condi-
tion of things supposed to have had existence in the past. Such
were the ancient myths of divine or semi-divine dynasties, and
pre-existing eras of time, before the beginning of authentic histo-
ry. Thus, also, there may be a romantic ideal conception of the
beginning and formation of Christianity, or of the condition of
Europe during the middle ages. There are numerous theories ;
about the prehistoric period of the earth and man, the origin and
development of the human race and of different nations, the con.
struction of the Homeric poems, or of the books of the Old and
New Testaments, and concerning many other matters ; which may
be purely ideal, without any objective reality at their foundation.
But, whenever a test and criterion of positive evidence can be
applied to such ideals, their illusion is dissipated, and they are
proved to be either certainly false or wholly conjectural. The
confronting of the ideal with the real manifests its conformity
or its want of conformity to the truth of things in their actual ex-
istence.

What is strange and unique in the phenomenon, which the
hypothesis we are now considering professes to explain, is the
fact : that whoever has this particular ideal in his mind as the ideal
of that genuine Christianity which the prophets foreshadowed and
Christ announced, finds a present, concrete, really exi
ciety which corresponds to his idea. Not only this ; the idea is
projected into his mind from this concrete, really existing anc
present object. The Catholic Church is not a dreamer's vision,

12 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [April,

or a castle in Spain constructed by the imagination of enthusias-
tic idealists out of the airy nothings of desire and hope, which
never is, but is always to be built with real stuff in the world of
actual existence. Neither is it a thing of remote and obscure
times, existing in reminiscence ; changed, magnified, enveloped in
mists of tradition and fable, mystic legend and poetic myth by
reason of its distance ; so that it affords scope for an unreasoning
belief or a speculative theory, unverifiable by evidence, devoid of
reasonable credibility.

Suppose that one should have originally constructed this
ideal of the church and of the true religion by the operation of
his own mind and from a priori principles ; nevertheless, as soon
as he contemplates the reality existing in the Catholic Church
he beholds the actual object corresponding to his preconceived
theory. This is no creation of his intellect or imagination. It
is a parallel case to another supposition, viz., that Aristotle or
Plato should have evolved the idea of a divine Teacher of truth
which glimmered faintly upon their minds into a distinct form,
and then have seen the living Saviour himself born and fulfilling
his redeeming work in their own day.

The idea or hypothesis which may have presented itself as
lofty, attractive, desirable, cannot be* regarded in its merely ideal
existence ; or assigned as an explanation of the assent and sub-
mission of the mind to the objective truth, of which it had a pre-
sentiment before it perceived its evidence. Newton anticipated
the induction by which the law of gravitation is proved, by scien-
tific forecast. It was not the loftiness and attractiveness of the
theory which convinced him of its truth, though this aspect of a
great law of nature gave him an inkling which led him to the
discovery of its evidence. If similar inklings and predispositions
prepare some minds to investigate the evidence of the Catholic
Church with a readiness of mind and heart to give assent to it,
because of the loftiness and attractiveness of the idea regarded
merely as a hypothesis, this only shows that they have their souls
attuned to the truth and harmony of the divine order, by natural
reason or the grace of God.

Bishop Butler argues that there ought to be a predisposition in
the mind to which the truths of natural theology and of divine
revelation are proposed for the first time, to welcome evidence in
their favor ; because they present ideas in conformity to that
which is highest in our nature. This is true, likewise, in respect
to the idea of the Catholic Church. Even those who are tho-
rough and firm Protestants, if they see clearly enough this idea

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 13

to account for the conversion of intelligent and refined persons
through their intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic temperament,
by the lofty and attractive nature of ideal Catholicism, cannot
help forming and expressing a conception of something which
it is eminently desirable we should find to be objectively true.
They even sometimes are unable to suppress the acknowledgment
that they feel it to be so. They, certainly, make it seem so to
others, and it would not be strange if their language should oc-
casionally produce an effect on listeners or readers, precisely op-
posite to the one intended. Adaptation to minds inclined toward
lofty and attractive ideals is no note of falsity. On the contrary,
the absence of it is a note of falsity, the semblance of it is a mark
of some verisimilitude, and its certain existence is a sure sign of
the presence of the only real term of adequation to the human
intellect, the truth ; and of the real object of desire and love, that
beauty which is the splendor of truth. The semblance may be
mistaken for reality, and the reality may be hidden or obscurely
manifested, if the objective truth is not so clearly presented be-
fore the intellect as to give it a certain criterion and measure of
its own subjective operations. It may construct for itself, in the
effort to measure the works and plans of God by a subjective
and defective criterion which is an inadequate measure of the
divine ideal, a false ideal of its own, or one which has only veri-
similitude. Aristotle's physical theory of the universe is an in-
stance of a false ideal hypothesis, which had a semblance of truth
before the true theory was discovered. The nebular hypothesis
is one which has a similar verisimilitude, incapable, so far as we
can see at present, of being either converted into a certainty or
deprived of its probability, by a clearer manifestation of the
objective truth. The same may be said of the hypothesis that
the stellar orbs have been created to be the abode of other orders
of intelligent beings, beside angels and men. Both these theories
appear to the most intelligent minds in the aspect of lofty and
attractive ideas. Yet, they are not therefore to be judged by
reason to be certain. One thing, however, is certain:
whenever the divine idea is disclosed to the human intellect,
reason finds in it a much greater congruity to itself, than t
which appeared to give a sublime and attractive aspect 1
ideal image shaped by its own finite effort. The O>pernicai
theory presents a view of the order of the universe wh:
surpasses in every way the Ptolemaic, as an object of
cency to the intellect and the imagination. If we could
with certainty what plan the Creator chose in view of

14 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [April,

end for which he made the worlds, we might be able to perceive,
if we could understand fully the reason of it we would certainly
perceive, how greatly it surpasses any other plan which the
human mind can conjecture. Meanwhile, so long as we remain
within the limits of hypothesis, whatever is lofty and attractive
in any theory more or less probable or merely conjectural, is a
mark of approximation to the real truth. The semblance pleases
because it seems to make an adequation between the intellect and
reality. If the semblance is deceptive, it is because it falls short
of the reality. When the reality is confronted with it, it no
longer appears lofty or attractive, but dwindles and fades like a
cloud-castle.

For the sake of argument, we consider the Catholic Idea at
present merely as a hypothesis. Our opponents assert that it
has only a semblance of truth without any foundation in ob-
jective reality. If this be so it is a unique phenomenon with-
out its like in the world. There are no other ideals, except
this one, which can keep up a lofty and attractive semblance in
face of the reality. There is nothing lofty or attractive, to a
mind enlightened by true philosophy or the Christian revelation,
in any other rational speculation or religious belief. Polytheism,
Mohammedanism, Buddhism, and the other forms of paganism,
have no semblance of truth and present no ideal attraction to any
man who is rational and enlightened even by natural knowledge,
even though he be prejudiced by his education in their favor.
Judaism, apart from its natural theology and ethics, presents no
lofty and attractive ideal, if the genuine and true doctrine of the
Messias is subtracted. The notion of a Messias to come who
will re-establish the old Jewish polity and law, and reign as a
national sovereign at Jerusalem, has nothing in it which is fit
to win belief or admiration from intelligent and educated persons.
It can only subsist by the force of blind, unreasoning prejudice
and >a narrow, belittling education, even among those who be-
long to the Jewish race.

Neither is there any system of philosophy which is exclusive
of all supernatural religion, having even a semblance of truth,
sublimity, ^and beauty, when confronted with the creed ^i Chris-
tendom and the philosophy which is in harmony with divine re-
velation. This species of idealism, born of doubt, has sunk into
the senile despair of pessimism, agnosticism, and nihilism. The
effort of Positivism to educe from the potentiality of matter, by
experimental science, a Form which shall supplant the lofty and
attractive ideal of theology and Christology, is a/w alter. It has

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. I?

no charm to seduce worshippers of the true God and believers
in Christ, who understand the object of their belief, hope for
the fulfilment of the divine promises, and strive with an upright
will for the attainment of the sovereign good.

How is it, then, that an altered semblance of the genuine idea
of Christianity, an image changed in lineaments and proportions
from the divine original by the refracting medium of human in-
tellect and imagination, can appear to be more majestic and beau-
tiful than the true and exact representation of the same ? It is
impossible that when the two are confronted, the purely ideal
should appear lofty and attractive by comparison with the real,
unless there is some impediment in the intellect or the heart of
the contemplator which perverts his judgment. If there are two
copies of an acknowledged masterpiece, by different artists, one of
which is exact, the other decidedly unfaithful, the one who prefers
the second shows a great defect of artistic judgment. It would
be very strange indeed if another person who had the correct and
cultivated taste to appreciate the true copy, should account for
the other's preference of the unfaithful copy by its beauty and
attractiveness. If the original still exists, uninjured arid unalter-
ed, so that the two copies can be compared with it, the faithful
copy is vindicated at first sight. The admirer of the unfaithful
copy can only defend the correctness of his judgment by deny-
ing the genuineness of the ancient painting which purports to be
the original, or maintaining that it has been altered by a later
hand, and by insisting that his favorite copy represents the
authentic masterpiece which has been counterfeited or defaced.
If he is able to win a number of persons over to his opinion, it
will certainly be a very strange way of refuting its correctness, to
begin by acknowledging the competence of those who have pro-
nounced judgment in its favor, and accounting for their error by
the superior beauty of the false copy. Those who are looking on
while the dispute is waged will assuredly find themselves more
puzzled and unsettled as to the respective merits of the two
copies, and the real character of the supposed original, than they
would have been if they had been left to look at the several pic-
tures and make up their minds for themselves.

Just so, in the real case in hand. The theory for explaining
conversions to the Catholic Church by its ideal attractions makes
the phenomenon more inexplicable than ever, so long as the divine
origin of the church is denied. Can those who profess to have
the true idea point to the original masterpiece of divine wi:
dom, the genuine, pure, and perfect Christianity of Christ and the

1 6 THE PRODIGAL AT HIS BEST. [April,

apostles, presenting itself to our contemplation as the criterion
of comparison between the Protestant idea and the ideal Catholi-
cism which possesses such an attractive power over the best
minds and the most noble hearts ?

Has it been preserved from the beginning, intact in its pristine
beauty, in any shrine or secret hiding-place, to be brought out
and exposed to the admiring gaze of the world in these last days ?
If so, in whose possession does it exist, and where are those to
be found who have that perfect knowledge of its excellence, and
those certain evidences of its authenticity, which are requisite to
convince us that the Catholic Church is only a poor and unfaith-
ful copy of the genuine and original Christianity ?

It is plain that this is the just exigency of the argument con-
cerning the Catholic theory of the true church, and the real essence
of the religion which the apostles taught, and commanded to be
received by all men, in the name and by the authority of the Lord
Jesus Christ. A mere comparison of subjective ideas, hypothe-
ses, and theoretical conceptions, existing in the minds a*id imagi-
nations of different sorts of Protestants, or of Catholics, will not
suffice. There must be a real and objective criterion by which
all these conceptions can be measured, and a rule given for a
certain judgment excluding all fear of error and every motive of
reasonable doubt.

These are only preliminary considerations. If we are per-
mitted to go on further with our design, we will enter more tho-
roughly into this subject in some future articles.

THE PRODIGAL AT HIS BEST.

And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat.

I MUCH approve, my prodigal, thy choice of food ;
Husks for wild prodigals were always reckoned good.
Preferring swine to harlots, too, doth manifest
That at thy worst estate now art thou at thy best.

i88o.] DANTE'S PURGATORIO.

DANTE'S PURGATORIO.

TRANSLATED BY T. W. PARSONS.

CANTO EIGHTEENTH.

THE lofty Doctor ended his discourse
And gazed intently in mine eyes to see

If I looked satisfied. The stinging force
Of a new thirst was still tormenting me,

And I stood silent ; but within : ' Perchance,'
I said, ' this too much questioning of mine

Annoys him.' He, true Father ! at a glance
The timid wish unuttered could divine,

And spake, in speech emboldening my advance.
' Master,' I said, ' in thy light's ray mine own

Sight is so quickened that I see most clear
Far as thy reasoning bears or maketh known :

Wherefore, I pray thee, gentle Father dear,
To show me what love is, to which alone

Every good act and bad thou dost refer.'

* Turn unto me the sharpest gleams,' he said,

' Of thine own intellect, and thou wilt find
Their error manifest by whom are led

Most men the self-made leaders, themselves blind.

* The mind, create with tendency to love,

Towards aught which pleases it is quick to spring,
Soon as from pleasure it begins to move.

Your apprehension from some real thing
Unfolds in you an image that it wove

And turns the soul that way. If, growing fond
Of such an object, she incline thereto,

That inclination love is nature's bond,
By sense of pleasure newly bound in you.

Then as the flame which ever upward strives,
Born, by its fashion, to ascend where fire

In its own element the longest lives,
So mounts the kindled soul into desire,

A motion spiritual, without repose,

VOL. XXXI. 2

1 8 DANTE' s PURGATORIO. [April,

Until the soul enjoy what gives delight.

Now mayst thou note how truth is hid from those
Who say that all love in itself is right ;

For even though haply its material should
Seem always good, not every impress might

Be without fault, albeit the wax were good.'

' Thy words, and my swift intellect, that sped

After each word, have opened to my mind
Love and its working ; yet more doubt,' I said,
/ ' Impregnates me. Unless the soul may find

Some other footing, and to love be led,

What merit whether right or wrong it go ? '

He answered : ' Far as reason may discern

Here I can tell thee ; all else thou shalt know
From Beatris ; when faith works, thou wilt learn.

Every essential form that is connected
With matter, yet from matter separate,

Has in it a specific grace collected
Which never doth its nature demonstrate

Unless it work ; felt only by the effect,
As life in plants by the green leaves is shown.

How dawn the first desires, whence intellect
The first ideas hath, is to man unknown :
These are in you as business in the bee

To make his honey ; and this primal will

No praise deserveth and from blame is free.
Now since all others flock towards this one still,

The power that counselleth is born in you,
Consent's doorkeeper, standing on the sill.

Here is that principle to which is due
Occasion of your good or ill desert

As ye chose good, and from the bad withdrew.
The deepest reasoners alway did assert

This innate freedom, of whose law they knew,
And hence bequeathed their ethic rules to men.

That every love which kindleth you doth rise
From such necessity supposing then,

The power to govern it within you lies.
Freedom of will is named by Beatris

The noble faculty ; in thy replies
Should she discourse thereof, remember this.'

i88o.] DANTE'S PURGATORIO. I9

Almost at midnight the belated moon
Rose, like a burning bucket in whose blaze

The dwindled stars but few or faintly shone
Crossing the. constellations by those ways

Which men in Rome see flaming, when the sun
Sets 'twixt Sardinia and the Corsic isle.

That gentle shade from whom Pietbla's town
Is now more famed than Mantua was erewhile,

Had loosed the burden that had weighed me down
And on my questionings relieved my mind

By plain solution. Drowsily and dumb
I stood, like one to somnolence inclined ;

But soon my dreaming was dispelled by some
That suddenly ran crowding up behind

Our shoulders, close toward us already come.
And as along Ismenus and thy shore,

Asopus ! night saw rush the frenzied throng
Whenever Thebes would Bacchus aid implore,

So from the first I marked that led along

This people, curving round the cornice, pour
Whom just love warms and good will spurreth on.

Soon they were full upon us, all so fast
Of that great multitude came and were gone !

And two in front cried, weeping as they passed
* To the hill-country Mary sped amain !

And Caesar to smite Lerida made haste,
Struck at Marseilles, then darted into Spain T

' Quick ! quick !' the next cried ; ' not a moment waste
Through want of love ! so grace may freshly grow

For us, as in well-doing we make haste.'

" O ye, in whom a zeal more fervid now

Pays haply for that negligence and sloth
Which lukewarmness once gave your doing well !

This being who lives, and sure I utter truth,
Would climb the hill, should sunlight aid us. Tell,

Therefore, where we the nearest pass may find ?"
These were the words that from my leader fell.

And straight one spirit replied : " Follow behind
Our footsteps, thou wilt find the open place.

Our own ascent so fills our every thought
We may not linger : therefore yield us grace

If penitence in courtesy lack aught.

20 DANTE'S PURGATORIO. [April,

Once at San Zeno, in Verona, I

Was Abbot, in good Barbarossa's days,
Whom still to mention maketh Milan sigh.

He in the grave one foot already has
Who for that monastery soon must mourn,

And for the sway he held therein be sad
Because that son of his, the evil-born,

In his whole body bad, in mind most bad,
He in the seat of its true pastor placed."

If more he said, or ceased, I cannot tell,
Even now beyond us he so far had raced ;
But this with pleasure I remember well.

He then, my help at every need who brought

Said : l Turn this way ; observe the pair that come
Their own sloth biting with remorseful thought.'

Behind the rest they murmured : ' Those for whom
The Red Sea opened, all were dead before

Jordan beheld their children in his land !
And they, who could not to the close endure

His labors with ^Eneas, kept the strand
Of Sicily, nor lived for glory more.'

When the swift spirits round the hill had fled
So far they were not in our vision's range,

A new thought entered me, from which was bred
, Full many another novel thought and strange,

Until mine eyes in pleasing drowsihed
I closed, and thinking did to slumber change.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 21

MY RAID INTO MEXICO.

CHAPTER I.

A STARTLING LETTER.

I WAS in my snuggery, and in the act of taking down a favorite
muzzle-loader for the purpose of carefully overhauling it prepara-
tory to a murderous assault upon the partridges, when Billy Bri-
erly, my factotum, hastily entered with the post-bag.

" Yer for to pay eighteen pinse, no less, Masther Joe," he rue-
fully exclaimed, as he flung the " leathern conveniency " upon
the table.

" Eighteen pence for what, Billy ? "

" For a letther that's wrote inside o' the bag, sir. I axed
Missis Brien for to let me luk at it, but ye'd think it was for her
ould foxy wig I was axin'. I never seen sich indignancy.

" * None o' yer impidince, Billy Brierly,' sez she.

" ' Arrah, what are ye talkin' about, Missis Brien ? ' sez I.

" * I suppose it's the contints ye'll be wantin' next.'

" * Faix, if they're as haytin' as the contints o' that whiskey-
bottle ' I seen the bottle behind the Weekly Freeman, an' she had
a dhrop in her eye 'I'd as lieve let them alone.' An' Tdidn't
wait for her answer, Masther Joe."

" You were pretty nearly right, Billy," I observed, as I took
the key of the bag from its nail under my father's portrait that
hung over the mantelpiece.

" I hope the letther's a lucky wan, anyhow, Masther Joe.
Mebbe there's goold, or Bank of Ireland notes in it." And Billy
commenced to dust. a fishing-rod that lay in a corner, while both
eyes were riveted on the mouth of the letter-bag, which I pro-
ceeded slowly to open.

There were three letters one from my sister Nellie, then on
a visit at the house of a Mr. and Mrs. Bevan, near London ; one
from Charley Blaine, of the Connaught Rangers, then quartered
at the Beggar's Bush Barracks, Dublin ; and one from

The envelope was square and of unusual size. A deep blai
border ran round it on all sides till very little white remainec
It was sealed with black wax, the seal being the size of a \
crown piece. .

" That's her, Masther Joe," Billy exclaimed, unceremonio

22 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

coming to my side. " Somebody's dead and gone, glory be to
God ! and left ye a barony, may their sowls rowl in glory,
amin ! "

I had no debts. I did not know what a dun meant. I looked
the whole world in the face, for I did not owe the whole world a
shilling. I was at peace with mankind and, what is of consid-
erably more importance, with womankind and yet I hesitated
before opening this sinister-looking epistle, feeling (I know it
now, though I but vaguely realized it then) that its contents were
destined to influence my future life.

I was alone, save for my sister, my mother having died in giv-
ing her birth. My father's death is thus recorded in the London
Times of Thursday, May 17, 1868 I quote the extract with a
beat of sorrowful pride at my own heart :

" Mr. Mike Nugent, M.P. for Meath County, one of the most single-
minded men whom Ireland ever sent to Parliament to represent her inter-
ests, expired suddenly last night, within the precincts of the House of Com-
mons, from rupture of a vessel connected with the heart, the direct result of
over-excitement. His impeachment of the ministry, which we print in full
in our Parliamentary columns, however ill-judged, ill-timed, and mistaken,
was a very masterpiece of fiery invective, and which, had he lived, would
either have placed him in the custody of the Usher of the Black Rod, or
opposite the pistol-mouth of more than one occupant of the Treasury
Benches."

I was at Stoneyhurst College, and but eighteen, when the
ghastly news of my poor father's death reached me. Had I been
of age I would have been unanimously elected for the county in
his place by his sorrowing constituents, solely as a mark of love
and esteem for the memory of their tried, and true, and unflinch-
ing representative.

My story commences on the 2gth of September, 1874, and I
shall now speak in that date.

My ancestral estate, Dromroe, is unencumbered, and its rent-
roll yields me a clean 1,500 a year. My sister has 5,000 in-
vested in Hibernian Bank shares, which pay eight per cent. I
live the life of a country gentleman. I shoot, fish, hunt, dine,
and all that sort of thing. I am a magistrate, and a tolerably
active one ; for, under Father Moore's agis, I sit upon a rascally
Orange brother of the bench, and by my determined attitude keep
that worthy from doing any very outrageous wrong to my papist
countrymen. My opinion on horseflesh is considered pretty
sound, and I am not a bad judge of a cow, while I have bought
sheep at the great fair of Ballinasloe against Peter Aungier, of

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 23

Knoc^fork. I go up to Dublin for the first Leve"e, and hang out
at the Stephen's Green Club, of which I am a member. I always
run up for the spring and autumn cattle-shows. I have made
two or three dashes to Paris, and up the Rhine. And now I think
the reader knows enough about myself and my surroundings to
enable me to proceed With my story.

I carefully examined the envelope of the ominous-looking
epistle. The direction, accurate as a tradesman's, was in the
writing of a woman, but the hand was foreign : " Joseph Walter
Nugent, Esq., J.P., Dromroe, Drumshaughlin, Co. Meath, Ire-
land." The stamp bore the effigy of a president of Mexico. The
post-mark of Mexico appeared upon one corner, Vera Cruz upon
the other.

"Out wud it, Masther Joe avic" cried Billy Brierly, his
curiosity getting the better of his prudence.

I burst the seal and read as follows :

" 84 CALLE MARASCALA, MEXICO,

"August 13, 1874.

" You do not remember me, Joseph Walter Nugent, and I had totally
forgotten your existence till accident brought your name to my ears a few
days ago. I was a close friend of your dear, good mother. We went to the
same seminary in Stephen's Green, Dublin, kept by a Miss Parsley. We
slept in the same room. My maiden name was Fanny Jane Palles. I was
your mother's bridesmaid. I have her daguerreotype by me as I write.
I, with my father, who was a wine-merchant, went to reside in Spain. There
I met a Sefior Manuel San Cosme, a Mexican. I married him, and Mexico
has ever since been my home. Your mother's death was communicated to
me by a friend in Dublin, and I mourned her as a sister. Your father died
the death of a patriot, and a hero. I was not aware that any of the family
survived, and it was only a few days since that I learned all about you from
an Irish gentleman who came out here on a mining speculation. He is a
Mr. Van Dyck O'Shea."

The letter then proceeded to repeat a lot of complimentary
things that O'Shea had said about me, and to congratulate me on
my position as a landed proprietor, and then went on to say :

". God has not blessed me with children, so I turn to the son and daugh-
ter of my dearest friend. My husband died of the vomito on the 24th of
September, 1870. Pray for the repose of his soul. I am rich, very rich.
Sefior San Cosme was the owner of very extensive coffee and sugar planta-
tions, as well as of mines, and left me the mistress of enormous wealth,
live alone in a large house. I want to see you. Could you not make a trip
to this country ? Young men travel so much nowadays that a few thousa
miles are as nothing to them. The voyage will repay you. No words
depict the absolute loveliness of this exquisite country. The railroad from
Vera Cruz to the capital is the most marvellous ride in the world
should come in November, so as to avoid the hot weather in the tierra ca-

24 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

tiente. On chance, and lest money might prove a barrier to your setting
out, my banker has placed two thousand pesos I think about four hundred
pounds to your credit in the Bank of Ireland."

The remainder of the letter, which was very long and very
affectionate, was taken up with family details and urgent en-
treaties that I would undertake the. journey without delay. The
postscript, and, indeed, the greater portion of the epistle, I un-
consciously read aloud :

" P.S. If Billy Brierly is still alive and in your service I would be glad if
you would hand him twenty pounds."

" Arrah, who is she at all, at all, Masther Joe?" cried my re-
tainer. " Is she a fairy prencess or what? Twinty poun' ! It's
only coddin' she is ; an* that's poor sport for man or baste."

" You may remember her, Billy, as Miss Palles.''

" A little dark wan, wud eyes like coals o' fire ; a daughter av
a red-nosed gintleman that nearly murthered ould Tim Finnerty,
the butler, in regard to a cork bein' in a bottle of claret wine.
Remimber her ! Faix, it's meself that does, an' if she's in rale
airnest now it'll be many a long day afore I forget her."

" The lady is in earnest, Billy."

" Twinty poun' ! Be the mortial ! av Mary Lannigan hears I've
got it she'll marry me in spite o* the divvle, Masther Joe. Av it
was wan, or two, or even five poun' I'd be safe as the Rock o'
Cashel ; but twinty wud ruin me intirely."

Mary Lannigan was Major Butler's cook, fat, fair, and forty.
In her earlier years she had been jilted by a sergeant of consta-
bulary, for whom she had thrown over the major's " own man."
The village bard, himself smitten by the charms of Miss Lanni-
gan, wrote a ballad, one verse of which is much too good to bury.
In speaking of the major's valet :

" He was a nice young man,
And very fond of Mary.
She liked the poliss well,
But loved the con-sta-bu-lay-ry."

Billy could scarcely realize his good fortune.

" Twinty poun' ! " he muttered. " Faix, it wud buy a barony.
I cud pick up a cupple av heifers at the fair av Killeshardin, an'
a score or two av sheep, an' that cabin that Luke Dillon is so
consaited of ; an' I cud give Father Tom money for Masses for
me father's an' mother's sowls, God rest thim in glory, amin!
An' I cud lay in a gallon o' sperrits, an' but is the countess in
airnest, Masther Joe, or is it only a bam ? "

Mexico ! I had read Prescott's fascinating history of its

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 25

conquest by Hernando Cortez, and had inwardly resolved that
some day or other I should find myself contemplating Dom Pe-
dro del Alvarado's marvellous leap or seat myself beneath the
tree of the Nocke Triste.

Here was a chance a golden one to boot. Not that I had
the slightest intention of accepting my travelling expenses. But
here was a motive for travel a visit to one of the most pictu-
resque countries on the face of the earth, and to my mother's
bridesmaid.

I would lose the hunting. My two hunters would eat their
heads off ; and if I lent them to some of my friends, good-by to
their knees. A friend's horse is a machine, and nothing more ; at
least so some people consider.

Could I manage to leave so soon ? How long would the
journey take? I referred to the letter.

" Come by way of New York say ten days. From New York
you can travel via Havana by steamship direct to Vera Cruz
thirteen days or you can come by rail to New Orleans, and from
thence across the Gulf of Mexico six days."

" Would three months do it?" I exclaimed aloud.

"Do what, Masther Joe?" anxiously demanded Billy.

" Take me to Mexico and back, Billy."

" Is it in Rooshia or Turkey, sir ? "

" Oh ! it's a long way off."

" Faix, ye needn't tell me that, anyhow.'

" This letter invites me to Mexico, to start in November."

" Is it an' lave the huntin', Masther Joe ? "

" Yes."

I shall never forget the indignant expression on Billy's face as
he hotly exclaimed :

" Let her keep her money, Masther Joe. We don't want it.
I'd rayther nor the twinty poun' see ye bate the consait out av
Captain Mansfield over the Mooney's Meadows; an' ye know,
Masther Joe, he got a leg o' ye at Mullytiernay, bad luck to
him ! "

This artful thrust almost decided me. If the truth must
told and it shall be Captain Mansfield had beaten me at more
weapons than one. At a ball at Carton, the Duke of Leinster's, I
was introduced to and danced with a Miss Florence (
felt -considerably spooney," and called by special permisi
at her father's house at Dundrum, near Dublin. I do not
how far this sudden gust of the tender passion would have
me had I not been somewhat rudely "brought up " upon finding

26 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

Captain Mansfield not only in the running, but carrying the col-
ors of the favorite ; so I sulkily backed out of the race, owing
the gallant captain what is commonly known as a silent grudge,
and fully determined upon letting him have a quid pro quo as
soon as opportunity presented itself.

The hunting season was at its close, and but one run remained
to the devoted Kildares. I had a hunter for which I paid the
extravagant price of four hundred guineas ; but he was a beauty,
and with a pace that left the field " on the long hill." Mansfield,
on this particular day, was superbly mounted, and Charlie Bar-
rington, one of the boldest riders in the hunt, made some twitting
remark about " fetching a cropper " in love as in pink, which
was caught flying by the men lounging in the saddles.

" Let us see who'll fetch a cropper in pink ! " I shouted with a
wild laugh. " Not I." And at that instant the view-halloo was
sounded. I flashed forward, followed by Mansfield. We got
into plough, and I got pounded.

Billy Brierly could not have selected a better mode of block-
ing up the path to Mexico, since I was bound, coute qiiil coute, to
have it out with Sidney Mansfield during the approaching hunt-
ing season.

I put the letter in my pocket, and shouldering my gun and
whistling to the dogs, went out amongst the turnips. But, do
what I would, the bright visions conjured up by the single word
Mexico would glow before my mind's eye, until the very idea
became a source of pleasurable irritation.

I was rather proud of this Mexican letter, and resolved upon
showing it to Mrs. Stavely Butler, a lady residing at a little dis-
tance from Dromroe, our nearest and dearest friend. She was
with my dear mother in her last moments, and it was to Timolin,
Major Butler's princely residence, that my infant sister Nellie was
conveyed, there to find a second mother in the major's good, kind,
and estimable wife. Mrs. Butler had been a Miss Fitzgerald, of
Tillytown ; and never did the blue blood of the Geraldines beat
in a truer or more womanly heart.

I started on foot for Timolin the next morning, a walk of five
miles. At the gate lodge, a Gothic archway flanked by two round
towers and almost smothered in the gentle caresses of amorous
ivy, I met Major Butler, a tall, superbly-built man of fifty, with
a back as straight as a lightning-rod and the shoulders of an
athlete. He wore his beard, which was somewhat grizzled, and
brought his hair low on the forehead in order to conceal a scar,
the outcome of a night in the trenches before Sebastopol, when

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 2;

the Russians made a desperate sortie by the Romanoff Road.
High breeding revealed itself not only in his appearance but in
every gesture and movement In the Crimea " Tommy " Butler
was brave to recklessness, earning for himself the sobriquet of the
" dare-devil Irishman," his audacity being irrepressible, while his
hair-breadth escapes were nearly allied to the marvellous. Of
the Ormonde family, Billy's union with a Geraldine served to
enable history to repeat itself at length and at leisure; and if
ever feud of race was extinguished in unalloyed happiness, such
was accomplished when Billy Butler was united to Eileen Fitz-
gerald.

The Butlers had two children Patricia, a girl of sweet sev-
enteen, and Pierce, a son graduating in Trinity College, Dublin.
Trixy, as she was called, had been the playmate of both my
sister and myself, while Pierce, being somewhat younger, had
served in the role of football for all three of us. He was a
gentlemanly lad of fifteen, very civil and obliging, and exceed-
ingly anxious to be considered a full-blown man instead of
the hobbledehoy boy with a squeaking voice that he really
was. When he came to Timolin for vacation I made much of
him, inviting him for the grouse-shooting, while when in Dub-
lin I took him to the theatre, after giving him a swell " tuck-out "
at the club and otherwise rendering his life full of bloom. He
repaid my attention by making me his confidant an office of
no sinecure, since Master Pierce was madly in love with half the
young ladies in the county, all of whom were considerably older
than himself, and he was furiously jealous of such rivals as the
ordinary chances of life happened to fling across his path and
their name was legion. It is scarcely necessary to say that
Patricia Butler and my sister Nellie were inseparable; when
apart I have known Nellie to write three letters a day to Ti-
molin, sending Billy Brierly on horseback with the epistles, to
the latter individual's intense disgust.

" Begorra," I overheard him say to a stable-boy, " av it was
Masther Joe was writin' to Miss Thricksy I wudn't be so surprised,
for she's as sweet as a blossom av clover, an' has an illigant for-
tune av her own an' what the major likes for to lave her whin
he goes ; but for two faymales to be writin' like schoolmasthers
wan to another, an' killin' man an' baste convayin' thim, bangs
Banagher. Be me song, they're only fit for Swift's madhouse."

" Why, I thought you were shooting cassowaries at Timbuc-
too, Joe," exclaimed the major. " Where have you been since
Monday morning? Your aunt" (we always called Mrs. Butler

28 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

" aunt ") " and Trixy were getting uneasy about you. They
have ordered the bays out for this afternoon to drive over to
Dromroe. There was a letter from Nellie this morning. I am
going over to Paddy Gannon's about that trespass business.
You'll find the womenkind up at the house. I'll be back to
luncheon. Have you corne to stay ? " This all in a breath ; and
ere I could make reply the major was already en route to Paddy
Gannon's.

Timolin House stood in an open, backed by a great elm-grove
in which a colony of rooks kept up a perpetual cawing. An
.Italian portico, approached by a number of steep steps, led to a
square, galleried hall panelled in oak black as ebony. A magni-
ficent oaken staircase ascended to the gallery, from which state
apartments and corridors gave right and left, in the hall was a
billiard-table, and engaged in playing a game stood Trixy Butler
and a man whom I did not know. This man held her cue, held
her hand ; the stroke was a difficult one one that she evidently
was not mistress of. The ball lay under the cushion, and to reach
it with the point of her cue she was compelled to throw back
her lithe frame. Her face was turned toward her instructor, and
this is exactly what Trixy was like on that particular occasion :
Patricia Butler was not a rustic beauty, not a loveliness to be
tricked out in white muslin and a blue sash, to adorn a rose-bow-
ered cottage, but splendid rather a girl to create a great love in
a great heart. Her hair was of a deep, lustrous brown ; her nose
was not retrousse", but it was decidedly saucy ; her eyes were clear
gray, heavy-lidded, with black, sweeping lashes ; her mouth was a
trifle too large, but her lips were moist, " cherry-ripe," and exquis-
itely curved. Her forehead was low and broad, her skin creamy
white. She was slender, but promised to develop into a large
woman. Who was the strange man ? I felt as though I had a
right to know ; that Trixy should have sent me word to come
over and meet him. What terms of intimacy they seemed upon !
He was tall and to^-looking ; was he an officer from the Cur-
ragh Camp ? He looked the dragoon in mufti. Somehow or
other I felt irritated without knowing why. I was Trixy's right-
hand man ; I was her brother, her cousin, her chum, her protec-
tor. Who was this languid swell, who in a few moments seemed
to have become master of the situation ?

I entered the hall and was passing up-stairs to the gallery
when Patricia cried out :

" Where are you going, Joe ? Have you nothing to say for
yourself for being absent without leave ? "

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 29

" I have been awfully busy, and "why I came to say it 1 do
not know " and I'm going to Mexico."

" Going where ? "

" To Mexico."

" O bother ! " And she commenced to chalk her cue, the air
of incredulity upon her face being inconceivably irritating.

" Here is the letter of invitation," brandishing the senora's
epistle. " I'm going to show it to aunt."

" An invitation to Mexico ! Who ever heard of such a
thing?"

" What is more, Patricia," I added loftily, " the friend who
wrote this has placed five hundred pounds in the Bank of Ire-
land to my credit to clear travelling expenses."

" Let us all go," cried the girl, with a laugh. " What do
you say, Captain Ballantyne ? "

" I don't mind," drawled the officer, staring very hard at her,
not at me.

" Let me see the invitation before you go, Joe. Now, Cap-
tain Ballantyne, it is your play. My last break made me thirty-
eight." And with the top of her cue she proceeded to mark the
score.

This was being c/tasse'd with a vengeance. I announce an
intention of departing some seven or eight thousand miles, and
I am disbelieved, laughed at.

" Who is this Captain Ballantyne, aunt? " I angrily asked as I
entered the drawing-room.

" He's in the Third Dragoon Guards, Joe ; an Englishman ;
a son of an old friend of the major's."

" He's a snob that's what he is."

" A snob ! "

" A confounded snob, aunt. I wonder you allow Trixy to
play billiards with a fellow she knows nothing about. I wonder
at Trixy for doing such a thing."

My manner must have been very hot, for Mrs. Butler gazed at
me almost in consternation.

" What is the matter, Joe? " she asked.

" Matter, aunt ? Nothing."

" Are you ill ? "

" No, I am not ill, aunt. I am annoyed that Trixy should make
so free with a stranger, that's all."

" But he's not a stranger, Joe, and his father is no strai
Joe. Why, it was at his father's place near Manchester, I
Hall, that your uncle and I stopped last summer when you a

30 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

Nellie ran over to Paris. So you see Trixy regards him, as we
do, in the light of an old friend."

" Oh ! by all means," I bitterly exclaimed ; " and if you please,
aunt, we'll drop the subject."

" li you please, Joe," said Mrs. Butler gravely.

" I ran over to pay you a P. P. C. visit, aunt."

" Where are you going to, Joe to Dublin ? "

" Well, yes, and London."

"London will be rather dull just now. It is quite out of
season."

" I shall just stop there for a day or two, and then run down
to Liverpool." I felt an intense pleasure in leading up to Mexico
by easy stages.

" Liverpool is a busy place, Joe almost American, I believe."

" I shall have an opportunity of comparing notes."

" How do you mean?"

" I mean that I expect to be in New York early next month.'*

My aunt opened her eyes very wide.

" And to be in Mexico in November, aunt."

" Mexico ! " she gasped. " Impossible ! You are jesting, Joe ! "

" This is no jest, aunt," I exclaimed, as I placed the Senora
San Cosme's letter in her lap. " Read it, please."

Still gazing at me in a bewildered sort of way, Mrs. Butler
mechanically unfolded the epistle.

" Mexico ! " she murmured, as she commenced the perusal.
" This is a wonderful letter, Joe wonderful ! " she repeated. " I
knew her as Miss Palles. Your dear mother and I have often
spoken of her. O dear me! but how this brings up the past.
Where have eighteen years flown to ? "

A silence ensued, broken only by the click, click of the billiard
balls in the hall.

" And you have resolved on going, Joe ? "

" I have."

" What are we to do without you at Christmas ? I cannot
imagine your Christmasing anywhere but here. The girls will
be terribly lonely."

" Not when you can command such gay dragoons as Captain
Ballantyne."

" Tush, Joe ! What is he, a mere stranger? "

" Why, a moment ago, aunt, you made him out an old friend."

" You will run a great many risks," continued Mrs. Butler,
without heeding my caustic remark. " Mexico has a fearful cli-
mate, and "

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 3I

" The best in the world," I interrupted. I had been reading
Prescott late into the night.

" What does Jane Palles I mean Senora San Cosme mean by
the vomito, and by advising you to go at a certain time of the
year? I think you had better speak to the major about this trip,
Joe. America is all very well it is next door to us ; but none of
us know anything about Mexico, except that Cortez conquered it.
The major will give you good, sound advice. As for myself, I "

At this moment Patricia entered, followed by Captain Ballan-
tyne.

"What's all this nonsense about Mexico, mamma?" she
brusquely demanded, snatching the open letter from her
mother's lap. " May I read this ? " to me.

" It will scarcely interest you."

" I shall try. Oh ! " she added, after she had perused a few
lines, " it is too long and too gushing. Whom is it from ? "

Mrs. Butler undertook to explain.

" One moment, mamma, please. Joe, you'don't know Captain
Ballantyne. Captain Ballantyne, this is my young man, Joe
Nugent, my second brother, in fact; always' useful, always on
hand, good for anything but a flirtation."

Thus addressed, the captain in a leisurely and deliberate man-
ner proceeded to extract a rimless eye-glass from a cunningly-
hidden-away pocket of his coat, to wipe it, plunge it into the
corner of his left eye, thereby puckering the remainder of his face
into ten thousand wrinkles, and, these elaborate preparations con-
cluded, to stare at me while he drawled :

" Seen you before."

" Possibly," I grunted.

" Ride a weedy nag, eh? "

My blood boiled.

" I ride the best cattle in the county, sir, and the worst weeds
I ever saw are those which carry the officers of the King's Dra-
goon Guards aye, and at the tail of every hunt."

" You're young man is down on me like tallow," exclaimed
the dragoon, turning languidly to Trixy.

Patricia looked up.

" What's the matter, Joe ? "

"The matter is," Mrs. Butler interposed, "that Joe threatens
to leave us, and that must be prevented."

" You don't mean to say that you are even dreaming of accept-
ing this farcical invitation?" observed Trixy.

" I fail to see anything farcical in the matter."

32 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

" Listen to this, captain," she said, preparing to read.

" Excuse me, Trixy. I do not choose that a total stranger
shall hear that letter fead, or any portion of it." My irritation
had now reached fever-heat. I was rapidly going from bad to
worse. I longed with a most unchristian spirit for some oppor-
tunity to pick a quarrel with the dragoon.

Mother and daughter exchanged a quiet glance.

" I am in the way here," said Ballantyne, " so

" Excuse me" interrupted Patricia. " Here is your letter, Joe.
When you are in better humor you'll read it to me."

I bowed stiffly, and, carefully folding it, replaced the missive
in my pocket.

"Have you any commission for Nellie, aunt?" I asked, my
plans forming themselves with feverish rapidity.

" A goodly number ; but we shall have plenty of time to go
over them."

" There is no time like the present," I retorted, making a stu-
pid attempt to laugh*; " and as I start for Dublin this evening

"This evening?" echoed Mrs. Butler.

" This evening ? " echoed Trixy.

" Yes. I'll do the 3.30 up, get to the club for dinner at 5.30,
leave Westland Row by the 6.45 for the mail-boat, and be in
town " I spoke of London as town because it was correct form
" to-morrow morning for tub and breakfast."

" And do you really mean to say, Joe, that you are going to
Mexico ? " asked Patricia.

" Such is the fact."

" And you'll travel thousands and thousands of miles to see
another country when you've not done a hundred miles of your
own ? You're a goose, that's what you are or a gosling ; that
would suit you better."

" Trixy, my dear, you are too hard on Joe," Mrs. Butler in-
terposed.

" I wish I could be harder, mamma. The idea of a man not
seeing his own country first ! Why, Joe hasn't been to Killarney,
or Connemara, or the Giant's Causeway, or the Cliffs of Mohir,
or the sweet county of Wicklow. He hasn't been anywhere in
Ireland, and now, without saying a word to anybody, poof ! "
clapping her dainty little hands " he's off to a place nobody
knows anything about. How long do you propose to remain
away ? " she added, turning to me as she spoke.

" Sabe Dios ! " I replied, having snapped up these two words
of Spanish from Prescott.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 33

" Here's more of it," cried the girl. " He doesn't know when
he is to return. I really shouldn't wonder if one of those dam-
son-eyed, lazy, fanning, good-for-nothing sefioritas were to fas-
cinate you, Joe, and that some fine morning poor Nellie will come
running across the fields to announce the arrival of Sefior and
Senora Nugento at Dromroe."

" Quite possible," I coolly observed, endeavoring to imitate
the moustache-twisting of Captain Ballantyne.

" And you'll lose the hunting, and what will Florence O'Neill
say ? Ah ! you are blushing, Joe. And won't Captain Mans-
field have a walk-over! What are you going to do with the
horses? Let Billy Brierly put them under the plough? I'd like
to see Sunbeam helping to sow wild oats." And Miss Butler
laughed immensely at her own conceit.

In vain did my aunt protest, coax, entreat. I was adamant.
A vile, stubborn pride bade me hold on to my expressed inten-
tion, or get laughed at as a bragging and blatant ass.

" Take this, Joe," sobbed Mrs. Butler, as she slid a small silver
crucifix into my hand. " Never part with it night or day. It
belonged to my great-great-grandmother. Keep it with you
always, and you'll come safely back to us."

" I won't bid you good-by, Joe," snapped Patricia. " I think
you have acted a disgustingly shabby part. Nellie is away, I
am alone, and "

" Captain Ballantyne will console you, Trixy," I hoarsely
whispered into her ear as I sprang down the steps.

My hasty and braggart resolve involved me in considerable
trouble. I had to compass the details of a month into one hour:
to arrange for the closing of Dromroe, the disposal of the horses,
the sale of the cattle, the stowing of fodder, the purchase of
stock, the collection of the rents, the wages of farm hands and
retainers, and a number of minor details too numerous to men-
tion here.

" Musha, but this is the quarest dart I ever heard tell of,
Masther Joe," observed Billy Brierly. " It's as if ye wor dhruv
out av the counthry, an' bet up in regard to manes. It won't
sound well, sir ; an' unless Father Luke announces it from the
althar there'll be quare talk in the barony. Yer not afeerd
Captain "

" Hold your tongue, Billy ! " I angrily burst in.
would seem to me that I am still in leading-strings, and
cannot act for myself."
VOL. xxxi. 3

34 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

"Who sez that?" cried Billy. "Tell me who sed that, Mas-
ther Joe, an' I'll bate him from Lloyd to the Hill o' Tara. Is
Mexico a Christian counthry, sir ? Mike Molowny, the boy that
does be about the chapel beyant at Kilduddery, sez it's as wild as
Arabia, no less, an' full av all soarts of combusticles ; that he
knew a cousin of Murty Roony's second wife, that wint to say
an' was wracked somewhere in Roosia, an' that he wandhered to
Mexico, where they feathered him an' med him a bird. Oh !
sorra a lie in it, sir. Some o' the feathers is over beyant at Thur-
laghula."

I wrote a few lines of P. P. C., and, assisted by Bitty, packed
a very stylish-looking portmanteau purchased in London, my
monogram, J. W. N., in bold relief upon the solid leather in at
least half a dozen different places. As the hour for my departure
approached I remarked that Billy Brierly seemed exceedingly
desirous of disembosoming himself of a something that refused
to come to his lips. He was redolent of soap-suds, and wore
a cast-off suit of my own which I had given him on the previ-
ous day a shepherd's plaid with horn buttons. His shirt-collar
loomed up from behind a blue scarf dotted with white spots,
and altogether my retainer wore a spry and smart appearance
somewhat, nay, exceedingly, unusual with his ordinary outer man.

Seeing that he was like a hen on a hot griddle, I asked him if
he had anything particular to say to me.

" I'd rayther say it on the car, sir."

" Tim Lenihan is to drive me to the station, Billy. I want
him to take the mare to Martin Coyle's."

Billy stood on one foot, then on the other; then, lightly
scratching his ear, he exclaimed, " That twenty poun' is no bam,
sir, is it ? "

" Indeed it is not, Billy ; and, only I am short of money till I
get to Dublin, I'd give it to you now."

" How far wud it take me, Masther Joe ? "

" Take you where?"

" On the road, sir. "

" What road ? "

" The road you're going for to thravel, sir."

" The road to Mexico, Billy ? "

" That same, sir."

" Not very far," I laughed.

" Av I worked me passage wud it land me in Mexico,
Masther Joe ? "

" No, indeed it would not, Billy."

1 880.] . MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 35

If ever sadness fell like a veil over a human face, I saw it then
in Billy Brierly's.

" I'm bet up, thin," he murmured.

" What are you thinking of, Billy going with me ? "

" Yis, sir, I was, thin," he promptly replied, " I've been wud
the family, man an' boy, for twinty-five years, an' it heart-scalds
me for to think av a Nugent av Dromroe goin' to thravel like
wan av thim bagmin that comes to Navan or Kells, wud nothin'
but a leather portmantle an' a rug. All the quollity has their
own man, an' they airn respect be it. See all that yez made av
Misther Marmadale whin he kem here last summer, all bekase
he had a spalpeen av a vallett. Aye, an' over beyant at Timolin
rale gintlemin always brings their own body-sarvints. Av ye
take me wud ye, Masther Joe, ye won't be sorry. I'll thravel in
corduroy an' fourth class, if there's such a thing to be had. I
won't cost ye much, sir, and " this in a confidential tone " av
there's a hand at spoil-five stirrin' mebbe it's thravellin' scot free
I'd be; for, barrin' Mrs. Connors, av Drumshaughlin, I'm aiqual
to any player of any nation. Besides, Masther Joe, I'd keep up
the family credit in Roosia or Asia, likewise Arabia, or wherever
ye go. I'll live on the fat o' the land in New York, for Phil Ga-
vin, me own second cousin, is a snug an' warm man in the gro-
cery business, an' sinds Father Tom his tin poun' as regular as
his Aisther egg. Av there's any fightin' to be done in regard
to batin' or wrastlin', I'm that supple that I cud well, sir, I bet
Corny Dinnehy, last Tuesday was a fortnight, below in Donnel-
ly's Hollow, an' any furriner that wud dare say Boh ! to a Nugent
I'd brequest on me knuckles."

" But, Billy"

" For the love o' heaven, Masther Joe, don't lave me afther
ye ! Ye won't miss what ye'll have for to pay for the likes o' me.
The twinty poun' '11 do somethin', anyhow, an' ye can stop the
rest out o' me wages, av it tuk the rest o' me life for to re-
deem it."

The idea of Billy's companionship in foreign parts u liked me
well." Many a day had we tramped the heather together after
the grouse, or waded breast-high when the trout were coming up
the river in a fresh. Billy was far better company than half the
swells going. His ideas were quaint, his mode of expressing them
exquisitely ludicrous. He was always in earnest ; and isn't ear-
nestness in this blast fag end of the nineteenth century a pearl
without price? To travel alone is at best a dreary venture
enough, and chance acquaintanceship does not always pay.

36 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

is only when one is away that home seems so bright, so sacred,
and that home subjects become so dear to the memory. Have
we not all of us at some time or other experienced a craving
for a " round gossip " anent those whom we have left behind us ?
How such a gossip, when it did come to pass, served to shorten
the road and to render the day worthy of being marked by
a white stone in the calendar of the heart !

The cost of taking Billy was not appalling ; and while I fore-
saw that his advent would add but little to my dignity, I calcu-
lated that the account would balance itself by the sheer fun of
the thing. In addition to this I knew that my adventures would
travel from Dromroe to Timolin, and many an episode that I
might possibly forget or be disinclined to speak about would
reach Patricia Butler by this sure but roundabout road. In one
second my mind was made up : I would take Billy Brierly
with me.

" Pack up your trunk, Billy ; you haven't a moment to lose."

" Whoop ! It's reddy, sir."

" Put it on the car."

" It's on the car, Masther Joe, more power to ye."

" Why, it seems to me that you had resolved upon coming
whether I liked it or not."

A delighted grin that reached from ear to ear stole over his
face as he cried :

" I wouldn't be conthrairy wud ye for the Marquis o' Head-
fort's domain, Masther Joe ; but whin I seen ye reddy for to dart
to the other ind of the wurld while ye'd be axin' for the lind av a
sack, I sez to meself : ' The masther's mad, or he's bet up wud
love, an' he'll want you, Billy Brierly, as shure as eggs is eggs,
in aither case.' So here I am, sir, and, be me song, we'll rouse
the griddle afore Dromroe sees the two av us agin."

It was not until I found myself in the compartment of a first-
class carriage, and speeding over the plains of royal Meath, that
I realized my own imbecile stupidity in the rush of events. If
anybody had told me at ten o'clock that before five hours I
should be en route to Mexico, I would have laid one thousand
to one against the event, and now my journey had fairly com-
menced, and I was in for it whether I liked it or not. In a
moment of pique I had permitted myself to act the part of a brag-
gart donkey, to pah! my long ears reddened while I thought
of my arrant idiocy. To be bad friends with Trixy, of all people
in the world ! I would write to her from the Club no ; she
would show my letter to Captain Ballantyne. They would

i88oj MY RAID INTO. MEXICO. 37

sniggle over it. Let it go; I had plunged up to my chin in
idiotcy, and there was no use in attempting to flounder out of
it now.

In driving down Sackville Street I perceived Pierce Butler,
gotten up to mow down everything before him, from his cream-
colored chimney-pot hat to his lavender kids. I hailed him and
jerked him on to the outside.

"What brings you to Dublin at this time o' day, Joe? "he
demanded. " Everything is as dull as ditch-water. I wouldn't
be here if it wasn't that my heart, sir, is a little touched by Sir
John Stewart's daughter. She's stopping at the Royal Marine
Hotel at Kingston a monstrous fine girl, sir. I don't mind pre-
senting you, Joe. Honor, you know. How are my people?
When did you see 'em ? Anybody at Timolin ? "

" A Captain Ballantyne."

" Of the K. D. G.'s. He's Manchester, and not half bad. I
suppose you know he's spoons on Trixy? "

" Ah ! "

" Oh ! yes. I'm afraid he has too much cotton in his veins to
suit the Mum " (his mother). " She don't .care for him a bit,
but both the paters are ding-dong about it. But you know all
about it, Joe ; you're in the family bandbox."

" I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to know
anything about it," I tartly retorted.

" Why, I thought that the pater and you had hatched the
entire plot. The Mum would prefer you, Joe, and Trixy I say,
did you see that man I'm after nodding to? That's Jim Mace,
the great pugilist. Did you remark how friendly he was to me ?
I tell you what, Joe, it's something to be noticed by such a swell
as Mr. Mace."

I relegated this champion of the prize-ring to all the infernal
gods. Jim Mace's nod had destroyed my chance of hearing Miss
Butler's ideas upon both the gallant captain and myself. I felt at
that moment as though I should have liked to have been pound-
ing Jim Mace's visage for the belt. Wouldn't I have won it in a
single round ?

We stopped at Burton Bindon's, in D'Olier Street, for oysters,
and had a tuck-out of Poldoodies, the real Red Bank Burren,
green as to body, with a black fin. I have " done " London
" natives," Ostend huitres a la Sis, New York Blue Points, and
Mexican La Manchas ; but before all, in piquancy of flavor, in
deliciousness of relish, stands the Poldoody from the sweet county
of Clare.

38 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [April,

Pierce was intensely astonished when he learned of my pro-
jected trip.

" You're right, Joe," he exclaimed. " See as much of the
world as possible. For my part, I'll do the London season next
year, and then I start for a tour right round the globe."

" In eighty days ?"

" No, I'll take it easy, and get a good pull out of every
country I visit. Europe is effete, worn out, threadbare ; there
is nothing for a man to do now but to plunge on tigers ; even
buffalo-potting has had its day. I'm sick of small game, sir,
and that's why I slip Timolin and its tame, turnip-eating par-
tridges."

This wasn't bad from a lad of fifteen.

" Are you thinking of getting married, Pierce ? " I asked, with
as much gravity as I could decently muster.

" I was, Joe, I was. That daughter of Lord Headfort's, Lady
Maude, hit me badly. She married Teignmouth, of the Rifle
Brigade, last May. It cut me up not a little, I tell you, Joe ; but
no man, woman, or child knew what /suffered. You didn't ? "

" Indeed I did not, Pierce."

" I thought not. The classics prate about a Spartan boy
and a fox, and Prometheus and a vulture gnawing at his liver ;
but what is that to a dead hope, sir, gnawing at a man's heart ?
Eh, Joe ? "

I looked at the honest lad's rosy cheeks, clear, bright eyes not
unlike his sister's, and sun-kissed gills, and burst into a loud guf-
faw.

Pierce stopped short ; we were on the platform of the railway
station at Westland Row. " Joe Nugent," he exclaimed, flushing
angrily, " let me tell you, sir, that if you had confided the secrets
of your heart to me I would not insult the bet feelings in your
nature by such bad form." And ere I could call him back he had
disappeared in the crowd.

It was a glorious moonlight night, and as the steamer Con-
naught shot out into Dublin Bay the shore from Bray Head
to the Pigeon House was bathed in liquid pearl. I thought, as
I gazed on the rapidly-retreating coast, of the many days that
must elapse ere I should cast my eyes upon it again perhaps
never. I thought of my dear, dear friends at Timolin and
of Trixy's saucy, piquante ways. Why should she not like
love, this gay dragoon ? What was it to me whether she did or
not ? There was nothing in the man, but if he pleased her that
ought to prove sufficient for me. My mind's eye pictured the

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 39

wedding in the dear little chapel at Kilduddery Trixy in white
satin and orange blossoms, the man in the scarlet coat and
golden trappings of his distinguished regiment. I saw the de-
jeuner in the old oaken dining-room, the major standing up to
propose the bride's health, my aunt in tears. I saw Trixy arrayed
for the road. I flung a slipper after her. I saw her kiss hands to
the home she was leaving for ever, and then

" Masther Joe, is that Hollyhead?" This from Billy at my
elbow, as he pointed to the flash-light that guards this treach-
erous Welsh headland. " I hope it is, sir ; for if I've a mile fur-
ther for to thravel me shin-bones will be thrun up an' ugh ! "

Having seen my retainer ensconced in a second-class carriage
beside a Welshman who had no English, and to whom Billy
gave tit for tat in Irish, to the astonishment of a sergeant of artil-
lery, a Jeames in plush, and a woman with a screaming infant in
her arms, I repaired to my blue-enshrined compartment ; and
although the " Wild Irishman," as this mail-train is called, trav-
elled at the rate of sixty miles an hour, I was soon graciously
visited by Queen Mab, who favored me with a series of the most
perplexing dreams, in all of which Patricia Butler held a promi-
nent place, and, instead of Captain Ballantyne, a personage
strongly and strangely resembling myself.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE NEW CHRISTIANITY.

EVEN in this age of novelties a new Christianity might well
be considered a rash venture. Time was when any one caring
aught for Christianity would be deterred from the undertaking
by the malediction pronounced by St. Paul against any one, even
an angel from heaven, preaching a new Gospel. But the enter-
prise of British thought has shrunk neither from the difficulty
nor the anathema, and the new Christianity now stands before
the world, claiming its attention, and receiving it, too. Through
Dean Stanley, whom we may consider its high-priest, this novel
in religion has been specially brought to our notice ; and through
him we have been introduced to Matthew Arnold as its prophet,
and to Max Miiller as its theologian.

To Matthew Arnold belongs the position of its prophet, b

40 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [April,

in virtue of his own assertion and through the admission of his
compeers. In his works on religion he gives forth his pronounce-
ments on God, man, and duty with an inspirational authority no
whit below that of Isaias or Ezechiel. He tells both those who
have rejected Christianity and those who cling to it that they
are all wrong, that they have all misunderstood Christianity, and
that all must learn from him the true nature and meaning of reve-
lation and Christianity, the true system of religion not a new
species of Christianity, like the ever-multiplying sects, but a new
genus, differing radically from them all, and which, he predicts, is
to meet with universal acceptance which the world has all this
time been awaiting at his hands. He tells us himself, in his Last
Essays, how the London clergy assembled in Sion College, not
many months ago, to learn wisdom at his feet ; and Dean Stanley
declared, in his address to the assembled Protestant Episcopal
clergy of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, that " Matthew Ar-
nold has left an enduring mark in the light he has thrown on
the importance of the Bible, and in the form which he puts on
theology a form which is the test of ultimate permanence."

Max Miiller we will consider the theologian of the new Chris-
tianity on the strength of Dean Stanley's recommendation : " Max
Miiller's researches are a store-house of wise theology." True, he
says the same of Tennyson's poems; but. the poet-laureate will
possibly not feel slighted if, considering the difference in their
literary pursuits, we rather look to Max Miiller for a precise
theological statement of views. And no one, probably, will dis-
pute the right of the Dean of Westminster Abbey himself to be
the high-priest and chief preacher of the new Gospel.

All three, in their various departments in life, are eminent men.
Matthew Arnold is proclaimed the first of living critics, Max
Miiller stands in the front rank of philologists, a,nd Dean Stanley
has a wide-spread fame as an elegant writer and speaker. In
venturing to criticise the system of religion which they offer to
the world, far be it from us to judge or speak lightly of their
ability, or even of their sincerity. Men at least as great and as
sincere as they have erred in all past time. Nor is it our object
merely to criticise, but to learn. The work of great minds is
always interesting, even when they err most strangely ; and even
in their failure and shipwreck they instruct, provided that, in-
stead of being either fascinated by their brilliancy and plausibility
or tempted to despair of truth amid the failures of such minds,
we can stand on some sure vantage-ground and ' study their
course calmly and fairly. It will be our aim throughout to state

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 4I

their views in their own words, and to weigh them in the balance
of reason and facts.

In the exposition of their system we will commence with
Dean Stanley. He is the most cautious and conservative of the
three, and hence is best fitted to lead us gradually into their new
dispensation. In the year 1878 he paid a visit to America, and
gave numerous sermons and addresses in several of the principal
cities, from Baltimore to Quebec, and before audiences of Protes-
tant Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists,
and Baptists. These discourses he subsequently published in book
form, and they show how assiduously he. put his trip to profit for
the dissemination of his views. Extracts from this volume will
serve to present them in a somewhat systematic manner :

1. THE BIBLE. "The crude notions which prevailed twenty years ago
on the subject of inspiration have been so completely abandoned as to be
hardly anywhere maintained by theological scholars." (He is giving an
account of the " liberal theology " in England.) " Of the eleven thousand
English clergy who set their hands to a declaration in favor of those crude
notions fifteen years ago, there are probably not fifty who would now do it
again " (p. 9).

" Colenso's views are now, in principle, assumed almost as certain."

2. DOGMAS. " Liberal theology insists not on the dogmatic or the por-
tentous, but on the moral, side of religion " (p. 9).

The doctrines of the Atonement, of future punishment, of the Trinity,
the Athanasian Creed, "the quarrels about predestination and justifica-
tion," all are quietly swept aside as questions of a bygone age (pp. 9
and 10).

" Episcopal succession " and other doctrines " have been mere wreath
of foam on the waves of enthusiasm " (p. 91).

3. MIRACLES. "The question of miracles has at least reached this point,
that no one would now make them the chief or sole basis of the evidence
for religious truth " (p. 12).

4. JESUS CHRIST. "The Atonement will never again appear as
formerly by Catholic and Protestant churches " (p. 9).

"That manifestation of divine love, that visible representation of
best perfections of humanity, which was made in the image of God " (p. 253).

5. CHRISTIAN TRUTH is represented, not as a revelation handed <
but as an eclectic system, built up by inquiry (p. 82) and by all the i
streams of past and present time (pp. 166, 167).

6. CHRISTIAN DUTY comprises, for him, no religious obligat
only natural morality. " On both sides of the Atlantic it is equally
that a serious, steadfast, upright walk of life is the one thing n
commend us in the sight of the All-Holy and the All-Wise " (p. 254).

7. RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES, since they tend to the disintej
rejection of dogmas, are applauded as useful, and even necessary,
proportion as any church is civilized, and national, and comprehen
there must be divisions, and those very divisions are the sign of

42 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [April,

hension and of vitality" (p. 166). "I have often remarked that, if the
church were in absolute and uniform agreement through all its parts, its
downfall would be already sealed. I am glad to recognize this same diver-
sity in the Episcopal Church of America." Nay, he feels "that the Ameri-
can Episcopal Church ought to be, in a special sense, the natural home of
the broader sentiments " he advocates (p. 63).

8. THE QUAKERS are lauded as " not only Christian but angelic," in
their spirit, because of their attaching no importance to " ceremony, doc-
trine, forms, and authority, but only to the moral improvement of man-
kind " (p. 129).

9. IMMORTALITY is not a matter of certainty but only of " humble
trust." " The moral and spiritual nature of man outlasts all convulsions in
this life, and will, we humbly trust, outlast death itself" (p. 210). And the
end of man is expressed in terms which would be quite acceptable to positi-
vists and materialists : "The end of man is to enjoy the triumph of good-
ness and the triumph of truth above all earthly consideration and through
all the ages of our existence."

The cautious equivocalness of the terms employed might some-
times leave us in doubt as to his real meaning, and charity might
seem to require that we should put an orthodox Christian inter-
pretation on the words of the Dean of Westminster Abbey. But
in his preface to his sermons, intended, no doubt, as a key to his
meaning in them, there is a passage which can leave no doubt,
and which we quote in full :

" We must look for the true face of our religion in the face of those who
have best represented it. We sometimes claim, and justly claim, as the
glory of our faith, that it has attracted to itself the strength of intellects
such as Shakspere and Newton, Pascal and Rousseau, Erasmus and Spi-
nosa, Goethe and Walter Scott. But then do we sufficiently remember what
is the aspect of Christianity which commanded the reverential attention of
men so different each from each ? Was it the Christianity of Nicsea, or
Geneva, or Westminster, or Augsburg, or the Vatican ? No. It was, by
the very nature of the case, something of a far more delicate texture, of a
far deeper root."

Surely there could hardly be a more sweeping rejection of
all Christian revelation, whether as understood by Catholics or
Protestants, than the latter half of this passage. And the first
half, starting us in quest of those " who have best represented
Christianity," besides Shakspere, Newton, Pascal, Erasmus, and
Walter Scott (whom an ordinary Christian would hardly se-
lect as " the best representatives of his religion "), gives us three
others whose names we read with amazement at the effron-
tery that could put them forward as representative Christians
Rousseau, whose name suggests all that is the reverse of Chris-
tian ; Spinosa, the father in modern times of materialistic pan-

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY

theism, who wrote that the Incarnation had no more meaning
to him than a square circle ; and Goethe, who rejected revela
tion, and in whom there was as little of the Christian as there
was much of the poet. After offering such an array of represen
tative Christians Dean Stanley hardly need inform us that the
Christianity which they represented, and which he desires to be-
come universal, is something quite different from what all the
world has hitherto understood by Christianity.

But before pausing for comment we will in like manner state
the views of the other expounders to whom Dean Stanley re-
fers us.

Matthew Arnold uses no reserve in acknowledging his
views. We gather them from his works, God and the Bible, St.
Paul and Protestantism, and Last Essays on Church and Religion,
which, in the following quotations, we will indicate by the
initials.

His starting-point is the sweeping assertion : " The religion
of tradition, Catholic or Protestant, is unsound and untenable "
(L. E. xii.)

i. GOD "is the Eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness.
The Biblical language about God is approximative and poetical merely "
(G. B. xxxvi.)

To refute the idea that God is a person who thinks and loves,
he says : " We have really no experience whatever, not the very
slightest, of persons who think and love, except in man and the
inferior animals " (G. B. 69).

" The proposition that this world, as we see it, necessarily implies an in-
telligent designer with a will and a character, ... is utterly impalpable "
(L. E. 131).

He develops his idea of God and the manner of arriving at it :

" Finally, men become aware of a law of nature which concerns their
own life and conduct in the highest degree, of an eternal not ourselves that
makes for righteousness. For this is really a law of nature, collected from
experience, just as much as the law of gravitation is. ... We no more
pretend to know the origin and composition of the power that makes for
righteousness than of the power that makes for gravitation. All we profess
to have ascertained about it is that it has effect on us, that it operates.
Some deny that it operates. The fool hath said in his heart : There is no
God" (G. B. 107).

Lest we should be deceived by the term " Eternal " which he
applies to his God, he explains it :

" Eternal, as that which never had a beginning and can never have an
end, is a metaphysical conception, to which experience has nothing to say.

44 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [April,

[This is, for him, sufficient reason for its instant rejection.] But eternal,
(zvt'-ternus, the age or life-long, as men applied it to the Eternal that makes
for righteousness, was no metaphysical conception " (G. B. 108).

From this idea of God it can easily be foreseen what his no-
tions are concerning all the truths of Christianity.

2. REVELATION means that " Israel had an intuitive faculty, a natural
bent for the ideas of righteousness. . . . We put aside all the preternatural.
. . . We give an explanation which is natural. But we say that this natural
explanation is yet grander than the preternatural one " (G. B. 143).

3. THE TRINITY. " The personages of the Christian heaven and their
conversations are no more matter of fact than those of the Greek Olym-
pus " (G. B. xxi.)

4. JESUS CHRIST. "At the stage of experience where men are now
arrived it is evident, to whoever looks at things fairly, that the miraculous
data of the Bible proceed from a medium of imperfect observation and
boundless credulity. The story of the magical birth and resuscitation of
Jesus was bred in such a medium " ! (G. B. xxvii.)

Throughout his books our divine Lord is everywhere blas-
phemously spoken of in the language of Strauss and Renan.

The fall of man is represented as a fable (G. B. xix.), heaven
as a misconception which our Lord did not believe in (L. E.
xxvi.), and the belief of St. Paul and the other apostles in the
miracles and resurrection of our Lord as a delusion like to that
by which good men have believed in witchcraft (L. E. 17 and
fol.)

5. VIRTUE AND THE MORAL LAW. " Man proposed to himself the pro-
duction simply of his own happiness. But experience of what made for
this, such experience slowly led him to the laws of virtue " (L. E. 119).

CHARITY is the experience that our instinct to live and be happy is
served by yielding to others (L. E. 115).

CONSCIENCE is the sense, or summing up of right experience, of what
best conduces to our instinct to live and be happy (ibid?)

6. THE BIBLE is a mass of " poetry and legend, growing round and in-
vesting the truth that righteousness is salvation " (G. B. 325), " righteous-
ness " being throughout represented as simply the social conduct which
contributes to present well-being.

After thus drawing out in detail a system of atheistic humani-
tarianism Mr. Arnold has the effrontery to sum up by saying :

" The best friends of mankind are those who can lead it to feel anima-
tion and hope in presence of the religious prospect thus profoundly trans-
formed. The way to effect this is by bringing men to see that our religion,
in this altered view of it, does but at last become again that religion which
Jesus Christ really endeavored to found " ! (G. B. 325).

And in his " Address to the London Clergy at Sion College,'*

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 45

published in his Last Essays under the title, " The Church of Eng-
land," he scouts the idea that he is an enemy to the church, and
puts himself forward as its friend, champion, and instructor. In
the same work (pp. 33 and the following) he advises the minis-
ters of the Church of England to adopt and disseminate the new
Christianity which he offers them, and yet stretch their con-
science so far as to remain in the church and the ministry, hush-
ing their scruples by the internal intention of giving only as
poetry and art what the people suppose is given them as doctrine
and religious ministration.

And the London clergy assembled to be lectured by this
man ! And Dean Stanley proclaims to the world " the light
which he has thrown on the importance of the Bible," and de-
clares that the form which he aims at putting on theology " is the
test of ultimate permanence."

Dean Stanley has referred us to the researches of Max Muller
as " a store-house of wise theology." With an examination, there-
fore, of the eminent philologist's religious views we will com-
plete our synopsis of the new Christianity. His views concern-
ing religion have been presented in a somewhat systematic form
in a series of lectures delivered by him during the year 1878
in the chapter-house of Westminster Abbey on The Origin and
Growth of Religion, as Illustrated by the Religions of India. For
the sake of brevity and clearness we will summarize first his
facts, and then his theory and conclusion :

i. FACTS, (a) Fetichism is not, as asserted by some, the primitive form
of religion. There is no trace of it in the early Vedas, but only in the later
ones (p. 58).

(&) The idea of the Infinite is found in the earliest traces of Hindoo
thought, as the foundation and basis of religion. Aditi, the infinite, is the
first deity and the mother of all the gods.

(f) In their early literature the idea of faith, " belief in what neither
their senses could apprehend nor their reason comprehend," is clear and
definite (p. 290).

(d) The Vedas show how this idea of the infinite gradually went through
the stages of " nenotheism," polytheism, scepticism, and monotheism,
resolving itself into " belief in one being which is the Self of everything,"
even including " our own finite Ego " (p. 362).

He pictures very graphically the practical effect of these
grades of belief on the life of the various grades of Hindoo li
but into this we do not enter, as it does not concern our pr
subject.

2. THEORY AND CONCLUSIONS, (a) The idea of the infinite springs

46 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [April,

from the perception of something beyond what our senses grasp (p. 33
and following).

(b) This idea, implicitly contained in every perception of the senses, be-
comes explicit gradually by the action of the senses and reason on limited
things (pp. 35, 36,), etc. Language was developed in like manner.

(c) He does not admit revelation. "The only revelation we claim is
history, or, as it is now called, historical evolution " (p. 30). " The theory,
very prevalent during the Middle Ages (!), that religion began with a prime-
val revelation, ... is a purely gratuitous theory " (pp. 245-6).

(d) In this perception of the infinite, thus arrived at, "we have the root
of the whole historical development of human faith " (p. 43).

(e) In these deep-lying, crypt-like ideas of the past he sees a refuge
from the Christianity of the present, and concludes with the suggestion
that " the Crypt of the Past may become the Church of the Future " (p.
364).

This, then, is the " store-house of wise theology " to which we
are referred by Dean Stanley. Surely we must find it hard to
decide whether we should wonder the more at the hardihood of a
Christian minister who refers to such views as " wise theology,"
or the insincerity of one who, while thus esteeming such theories,
can still, hold the position of a Christian minister. It is truly
a new Christianity to which he has introduced us, which, com-
mencing with his own cautious and gently-worded elimination
of Christian dogmas, develops into Matthew Arnold's outspoken
humanitarianism, and culminates in Max Miiller's cloaked yet not
concealed theory of Hindoo-Teutonic pantheism.

In our analysis and criticism of the system we will commence
with Max'Miiller, because he alone of the three makes even a
pretence of being argumentative or philosophical, and the testing
of his work will show the value of the rest.

In the earliest stage of historic man to which we have access
through the Sanskrit literature we find the human mind in pos-
session of the ideas of the infinite and of faith, clear and strong
so strong as to give direction to all the thought which that
ancient literature reflects. The crucial question is, Whence did
these ideas come ? Only two answers are possible : either they
came from a primitive revelation, making man acquainted with
God, and faith, and duty, or they grew by a process of natural
development from mere sense-perceptions. The first is the an-
swer of Christianity ; and though Max Miiller, with an ignoring
of history and of present facts which seems incredible, attempts
to relegate it to the middle ages, it is and has been the convic-
tion of Christendom in all the ages of modern history. And with
the voice of all modern times blend the voices of all the ages and

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 47

nations of antiquity in asserting the same. To say nothing of the
Hebrews, and without adducing here the many available quota-
tions from the sacred books of the Chinese, the Egyptians, the
Persians, the Greeks and Latins, it is sufficient to mention the
well-known fact that all those ancient chronicles commence with
the memory, more or less distinct, of a better time long past,
variously called "the first heaven," " the Arcadian era," "the
reign of Saturn," "the golden age," etc., when peace and plenty
reigned throughout the world, and the heaven-instructed human
race possessed a wisdom of which only the shattered fragments
remained in the possession of their descendants. And not only is
the conviction stamped with the seal of history and recommend-
ed by its universality, but it has also served as the solid and suffi-
cient basis of all the intellectual and moral teaching which has
immortalized the greatest among the ancients, and which consti-
tutes the glorious pre-eminence of Christianity.

The second answer is that of the theorizers in our day, de-
scendants of Lucretius and Epicurus in olden times, who make
themselves singular among the bulk of mankind by admitting
nothing but natural evolution. To this theory Max Miiller,
though lecturing in Westminster Abbey, has given his unequivo-
cal adhesion. And for what reason ? There ought certainly to
be good and solid reason for rejecting the common belief of man-
kind, the foundation of all Christian doctrine and morality. It is
in possession, and can be dislodged only by a contrary that is
demonstrated by facts and reason. Is such the contrary pre-
sented by Max Miiller? Far from it.

1. In order to embrace it he contradicts himself. He says (p.
359) : " Nor did we find in their sacred books any traces of what is
commonly meant by primeval revelation," although he had said
(p. 164), speaking of the universal belief in "external revelation "
among primitive peoples : " The Hindoos say the same, and they,
as well as the Greeks, appeal to their ancestors, who had lived
in closer community with the gods, as their authority on what
they believe about the gods"; and in confirmation thereof he
refers in a foot-note to "Rig-Veda, i. 179, 2; vii. 7 6 > 4- Muir's
Sanskrit Texts, iii. p. 245."

2. He does not allege a single /art to support the theory,
the contrary, the facts are all on the other side, since he s
man to have been possessed of the ideas in question at the
earliest period at which we become acquainted with the hur
mind. He can adduce no intellectual facts previous to that <
of history ; he knows that not a single fact of such inteil

48 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [April,

evolution has taken place within the historic period ; and he
equally knows that the assertions of the earliest writers concern-
ing anterior facts are dead against him.

3. He has not even attempted to demonstrate by reason the
untenableness of the conviction which he rejects. Beyond the
usual may-bes and guesses, and clever illustrations of how such evo-
lution might have gone on, which are the staple of the evolution
theorizers, he only ventures on the bare statement of the shallow
sophism that, " even if a complete grammar and dictionary had
suddenly come down from heaven, they would have been useless
to beings that had not themselves elaborated their percepts into
concepts ; and the same with religion " (p. 248). But this argument
is an absurd ignoratio elenchi. Christianity does not teach that God
gave a grammar and dictionary to a speechless man, or that he
offered religion to a being previously without it, but that he creat-
ed man endowed with thought and speech, possessing at once the
faculty for religion and its subject-matter that, in a word, the
work of the Creator produced what they imagine nature elabo-
rating during long ages. To ignore this, as he does, is to beg the
question.

4. Not only has Max Miiller not demonstrated the premises
from which he derives so sweeping a conclusion, but he has, in
previous works of his, demonstrated the falseness and impossi-
bility of his premises. In his Science of Language he says :

" The fact that every word is originally a predicate, that names, though
signs of individual conceptions, are all, without exception, derived from
general ideas, is one of the most important discoveries in the science of
language. It was known before that language is the distinguishing charac-
teristic of man ; it was known also that the having of general ideas is that
which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes ; but that these
two were only different expressions of the same fact was not known till the
theory of roots had been established as preferable to the theories both
of onomatopoeia and of interjections. But, though our modern philo-
sophy did not know it, the ancient poets and framers of language must
have known it. For in Greek language is logos, but logos means also
reason, and alogon was chosen as the name, and the most proper name, for
brute. No animal thinks, and no animal speaks, except man " (i. 383).

" Through reason we not only stand a step above the brute creation ;
we belong to a different world " (ibid. 379).

And the final conclusion, bearing directly on the point now in
question, he thus plainly and eloquently states in his Chips from a
German Workshop (ii. 7) :

" Many things are still unintelligible to us, and the hieroglyphic language
of antiquity records but half of the mind's unconscious intentions. Yet

iSSo.J THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 4 9

more and more the image of man, in whatever clime we meet him, rises
before us, noble and pure from the very beginning ; even his errors we
learn to understand, even his dreams we begin to interpret. As. far as we
can trace back the footsteps of man, even on the lowest strata of history,
we see that the divine gift of a sound and sober intellect belonged to him
from the very first ; and the idea of a humanity emerging slowly from the
depths of an animal brutality v can never be maintained again."

These passages, in which he drew conclusions from facts,
instead of sacrificing facts to theories, not only state but prove
the impossibility of the development of human thought and lan-
guage from a previous brute condition. But it is a well-known
fact that the theory of the gradual formation of language by
speechless men, to which Max Muller has committed himself in
his latest work, is always associated with the theory of man's de-
velopment from a lower animal form, and is logically insepara-
ble from it. Therefore, in demonstrating the impossibility of the
one he has demonstrated the equal impossibility of the other, and
has thus refuted himself beforehand. He is not the first writer
who, having laid down true principles, has wandered from them
in the formation of fanciful theories.

But, it may be said, the refutation of the materialistic evolu-
tionists does not refute Max Muller, since he is not a materi-
alist but admits the existence of God. So much the worse for
his consistency and logic. If he believes in God, and that man
is a special work of God, and that religion is the intellectual and
moral link which binds man to God, and, as he elsewhere calls it,
" the greatest gift that God has bestowed on the children of
man " (Chips, i. 7) ; and if, as no one can deny, the development
and elaboration of religion by man from his mere sense-percep-
tions would necessarily be the work of long ages, even if it could
be admitted as possible at all, then it is, utterly repugnant to
reason that God should have left countless generations of men
without that all-important gift, which he could so easily bestow
from the beginning, that all might equally possess the knowledge
of their common destiny and of the means to it. Whoever admits
such premises is forced to admit the primitive revelation.

But, it may be urged, though Max Muller admits the existence
of an infinite God, he does not admit the relationship of Creator
and creature ; for it is evident that he has accepted the conclu-
sion at which the Hindoos arrived, and which modern pantheists
adopt, of an impersonal God, the all-comprising Self of the uni-
verse, of whom all things are the development, and who has self-
consciousness in man. Once more we answer that if it were
VOL. xxxi. 4

50 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [April,

demonstrated that such is God, then indeed revelation would be
impossible, and the evolution theory would have to be fallen back
upon. But, again, this impersonality of God is not a demon-
strated premise, but a gratuitous assumption. It is not self-evi-
dent, as the contrary conviction of mankind clearly shows. It is
not demonstrated by the fact that the march of Hindoo thought
for centuries led to it, since he proves (Growth of Religion, p. 64)
that " retrogression in religion is seen again and again in the
history of the world.'* It is, we repeat, a gratuitous assumption,
and the entire theory built upon it is a begging of the question.

And surely no stronger proof of the absurdity of the panthe-
istic idea could be wished for than that supplied by the history
which Max Muller has given of the various stages through which
the notion of the Deity has passed. If the Deity is the all-com-
prising Self, then man's notion of the Deity is the Deity's con-
sciousness of itself, as the German pantheists have taught. But
what can be imagined more ludicrously absurd than the idea of
the Deity having such changing, contradictory, unworthy, and
odd notions about itself as make up the strange kaleidoscope of
the nenotheism, the fetichism, the polytheism, the monotheism,
the pantheism, the atheism, the philosophies, the theologies, and
the agnosticism of ancient and modern times ?

The gratuitousness, the self-acknowledged impossibility, and
the evident absurdity of the theory which Max Miiller presents
as a substitute for historic Christianity is a sufficient refutation of
the system he offers, and a sufficient vindication of the religion he
rejects. But it is worth our while to go further, and from the
sound premises which Max Muller and his associates supply, or
which they must admit in common with us, to show how immo-
vable are the foundations of the old Christianity, which they
would fain overturn and replace with their new.

Max Muller tells us, and truly, that the foundation of the reli-
giousness which is a universal characteristic of humanity is man's
idea of the Infinite, his reaching out toward the Infinite. Turn
we then to the universe, and ask whether it is the Infinite.

Beginning with se/f, the first object of experience, we ask our-
selves if we are the Infinite. Instantly everything in us answers,
No. Our tiny span of life ; our puny strength, needing so many
helps and safeguards, and yet crumbling away daily ; the smallness
of our knowledge, the frequency of our errors, the very question
and doubt which by laborious thought we are trying to solve, all
say, No, we are poor, limited, finite things ; we are far from being
the Infinite.

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY, ^

We ask the collective human family whether it is the Infinite,
and it answers, No ; we number but a few hundred millions of frail
beings tottering towards the tomb, and during our brief life so
many are our imperfections and miseries that one-half of mankind
is ever in dread of the violence, the viciousness, and the igno-
rance of the other half, while myriads of graves around us sum-
mon us to worms and rottenness at last ; we are not the Infinite.

We ask the heavenly spheres whether they are the Infinite,
and they answer, No ; we too are changing, limited, finite things ;
we are not where we were or what we were an hour since, nor
where or what we shall be an hour hence ; huge as our bulk is, it
is limited, for we are some greater and some smaller than others,
and with your spectroscope you can analyze the parts that make
us up ; tremendous as is the speed of our movements, you can
measure it as so many miles a minute ; and though your eyes fail
to reach the limits of our domains, and your imagination faints
under the thought of the vast expanse, we are a certain number,
and our entire extent can be measured in miles, even as any por-
tion of it can be ; and such is not the infinite.

We ask the mighty mass of matter from which all material
things are formed whether it is the Infinite, and it answers, No ; I
am made up of parts that can be measured, and are therefore
limited ; and hence, though my entire mass is far beyond your
measures and scales, yet it is truly and necessarily measurable
and limited ; part, I am fixed in rocks and metals ; part, I run
and heave in the watery streams and depths ; part, I float in
subtle gas or subtler ether ; part, I seethe in volcanic fires or
course and dart in electric currents ; and in my solid, and nebu-
lous, and fluid, and ethereal masses I stretch out the universe ;
but one of these parts is not the other, each is limited by each
of the others, and from limited and finite parts an unlimited and
infinite whole cannot result ; I am not the Infinite.

Thus we have gone through all the realms of sense and ex-
perience in search of the Infinite. We have questioned each and
every part of the universe ; and each of them and all of them to-
gether have answered, loud enough to be heard by any one not
wilfully deaf, that they are not the Infinite. Yet Max Miiller's
facts show that the Infinite must be ; that it was the main object
of the thoughts, and aspirations of the human mind at the very
earliest period of which we have a literary footprint ; that it is
the fundamental thought of all religion ; that it is inseparably
correlated to the most prominent and potent facts in history.
Therefore we must look for it up beyond the realms of sense

5- THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [April,

and experience, to Him who " dwells in light inaccessible," and
to whom all transient, limited, finite things must owe their exist-
ence.

Again, looking to the realms of fact, we see that every or-
ganic, living thing comes from, and depends for its existence
upon, some previously existing organic, living thing. No trace
of " spontaneous generation," of transition from inorganic to
organic nature, has ever been found, or need be looked for.
Mr. TyndalFs researches have put this beyond question. And
it is useless for sophists to say that the relation between any
organic thing and that from which it proceeds is simply one of
succession. Facts show that it- is one of dependence and causa-
tion, that the latter could not exist unless produced by a former.
The universality of this fact, or rather law of nature's course, is
constantly recognized and counted on in tfte practical life of
mankind. The bulk of human industries and calculations are
based upon it and depend upon it. No one ever dreams of deny-
ing it, unless in a moment of unreasonable and obstinate theo-
rizing. It is likewise a fact that the series of generated things
is not abstract and indefinite, like an arithmetical progression,
but a definite series of real and concrete beings. It may go
on indefinitely ; but as far as it has gone at any given moment, it is
definite. Now, experience shows that a definite series of concrete
units, no matter how far back it may stretch, must have a first
unit ; the chain must have a first link ; the series of producers
and produced must lead up to a first producer. If there was no
first there could be no second, or third, or thousandth. Again, this
is so plain a conclusion of reason from experience, and is so con-
stantly acted on in all human calculations, that no one but an
unpractical theorizer would ever dream of denying or doubt-
ing it. Now let us ask, Whence came that first in the series
of producers ? It is idle for agnostics to evade the truth which
this question suggests by answering, " We do not know." Were
they to answer thus concerning any living thing now existing,
or any one in the long series of living things, they would be
laughed at by all practical people. Let them, then, be honest
and face the question, Whence came the first in the series ?
Common sense needs no proof of the proposition that it did
not produce itself; to say that it resulted from spontaneous
generation would be to sacrifice all the testimony of all facts
and scientific researches to a preconceived theory. To impar-
tial, unbiassed common sense, therefore, as well as to the high-
est metaphysical reasoning (which we do not appeal to, because

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 53

Matthew Arnold has such a horror of it), there remains but one
conclusion, and that a most evident one : the first in the series of
producers must have received its existence from a Being not pro
duced by any other, self-existent, outside and independent of the
series of contingent and dependent producers. And thus the
logic of facts and experience compels us to admit a First Cause
and creation as the only explanation of the universe.

Will the agnostics have recourse to their staple sophism, and
say that the ideas of self-existence and of creation are " unthink-
able" and therefore not to be admitted? But even Herbert
Spencer's reasoning ought to show them that they use the wrong
word, that they ought not to say unthinkable but unimaginable,
and that the existence of a thing is not to be rejected simply
because it cannot be pictured in the imagination. Long before
him Kant showed that though the manner of being of the nou-
menon cannot be imagined, yet its existence must be admitted,
or there could be no phenomena. And with them Max Miiller
declares that the existence of the " Ding an sich " must be ad-
mitted, though it escapes our power of. imagining. Can the ag-
nostics picture in their imagination Avhat the force of gravita-
tion is, or the transmission of organic life? They know these
things only in their results the things themselves are " unthink-
able." And yet he would be truly an agnostic of agnostics who
would deny their existence. And so it is with self-existence and
creation. They are ideas which cannot be pictured in the imagi-
nation ; but that there must be a self-existent Being is as evidently
concluded from the existence of a series of dependent producers
as gravitation is concluded from falling bodies; ard creation is
as necessarily concluded from the existence of the finite and
changing universe as is the transmission of organic life from the
fact that one organic thing proceeds from another. Let us retort
their argument, and say that the existence of a universe of con-
secutive and dependent things, without creation and a self-ex-
istent Being, is not only " unthinkable," but absurd and contra-
dictory. We have to choose between what must be true, though
.it cannot be comprehended, and what cannot be true, and can
neither be comprehended nor apprehended. This is a dilemma
which some pretentious writers of the day need to ponder; and,
to an unbiassed mind, it cannot fail to explode the mass of so-
phistry which has been built upon the equivocation contained
in this word " unthinkable"

54 THE AGONY ON THE CROSS. [April,

THE AGONY ON THE CROSS.

REVEALED TO MOTHER JULIANA.

THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER.*

THEN Christ shewed me a part of His Passion near to His dying.

Lo ! the sweet Face appeared to my sight all dryed up and blood-
less,

Lang'ring with deadlie pallor, wretchedful, dreedful, and griev-
ous,

Turning more dead into blue as life left His Body :

And, as the Flesh turned still more deep dead, darker in colour.

Chieflie His holy and beautiful Countenance shewed forth His
Passion ;

And above all in His Lips was seen this changing of colour,

Which that before were so ruddie and fresh, so livelie and liking.

Ah ! what a woeful, pittiful changing to see this deep dying !

Flesh and Blood all dryed, as it seemed, and cloggered together.

Tearfullie gazing, I saw the sweet Body wax browner and blacker,

Changed from its fair, fresh, livelie colour into dry dying.

For at the time our Blessed Saviour dyed on the Roode-Tree

There was a wind, wonder cold, to my Sight, blowing over Him
sharplie.

Bloodshed and pain within and the cold wind meeting together

Dryed up by process of time all moisture within the sweet Body.

Bitter and sharp was the pain, yet it lasted full long to my
seeming.

Part after part slowly drying with marvellous suffering,

While any spirit had life in His Flesh so long did He suffer.

This long pain seemed to me as though He were dead all a
sennet ;

* A chapter done into verse from the " Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love made to a devout
servant of our Lord, called Mother Juliana, an anchorite of Norwich, who lived in the days of
King Edward the third." Whoever has perused this remarkable spiritual treatise cannot fail
to have noticed how readily the charming simplicity of the original prose diction lends itself to a
versified form. This chapter has been chosen as being appropriate to the present season, from a
number of others which have been similarly treated by one of our contributors. The work reis-
sued by the firm of Ticknor & Fields in 1864 was a precious contribution to our Catholic spiritu-
al literature. We learn with great pleasure that a new edition has been projected in England,
based upon the original manuscript. ED. C. W.

i88o.] MARY STANLEY.

Dying alway continual just at the point of out-passing ;
Suff'ring ever the great hard death-pain. By this it meaneth
Christ's sweet Body was so discolored, so dry, and so clongen,
Deadlie and piteous, as dead all a sennet, continuallie dying.
Great was Christ's pain all the time, yet methought that the pain

which He suffered
Drying in flesh was the hardest of all, and the last of His Passion.

MARY STANLEY.

FAMILIES, it is well known, often become noted for certain
special characteristics some for beauty, others for wit ; mayhap
both combined, as in the Sheridans or they possess a kind of
hereditary fund of common sense, of eloquence, scientific tenden-
cies, or, in short, mental powers of no common order, which, if
united to energetic temperaments, always make them be found in
the foremost ranks of their contemporaries. Such distinction be-
longs pre-eminently to the Stanley name in England, and so far
shows no sign of diminution or decay. The Earls of Derby
have so frequently become famous that the world now considers
this more or less a matter of course ; but the qualities which have
produced such result in their regard are also to be met with, at-
taining the same end, in branches of the parent tree. Thus, it is
only necessary to name the present Dean of Westminster, the
Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, to remember his great abilities
and high literary attainments ; or his father, former Bishop of
Norwich, to acknowledge that he was a leader in his class and
generation ; while his eldest sister, Mary, whose death last No-
vember has caused such wide-spread sorrow, possessed all the
characteristics of her race, making her one of those beings who
bear the stamp of strong individuality so rare in this age of
monotonous uniformity, and likewise one of the brightest orna-
ments, during recent years, of the Catholic Church in England.

For in 1856, despite her education and surroundings, Miss
Stanley left the communion of her birth and entered the fold of
the one, universal church, to become its devoted child, and to find
in it ever after that rest to her soul of which years of doubt had
previously deprived her. At the same time no convert ever re-
mained more attached to her Anglican family and the friends of

56 MARY STANLEY. [April,

her early associations, or recognized their worth more heartily,
joining them in all those works of charity which spring from the
love of God the attraction to her and the connecting link be-
tween them. In this, as in so many other of her noble qualities,
she is a fitting model to set before us in this age of strife and diffi-
culty, proving the possibility of living in the midst of religious
thought different from our own, not merely without creating
rancor, but rather winning affection, yet never yielding one iota
of supernatural or dogmatic principle. A loving, warm nature,
it is true, opened her heart wide to all ; but this inherent ten-
dency was greatly strengthened by her recognizing the image of
our Lord in all his creatures not only feeding the hungry and
clothing the naked, therefore, of all creeds indiscriminately, but
regarding those in her own rank of life from the same point of
view, and allowing no difference in faith to make a breach in her
affections or immediate domestic circle. And that this has now
been fully acknowledged is evident from the numberless tributes
to her memory that have proceeded from her non-Catholic as well
as Catholic friends, each vying with the other in warmth and ten-
derness of expression. Thus, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, herself
so noble and high-minded, sent a wreath to Miss Stanley's grave
with the inscription : " In tender remembrance of the gentle
Christian lady who was in life a good Samaritan. May we be as
Mary Stanley ! " Again, the Viscountess Strangford has written
the most pathetic elegy which one woman could pen upon an-
other ; while from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey the following
amongst other .words have been spoken, probably for the first
time in praise of a Catholic since the Reformation all which
show the deep impression her Christian and high principles made
on those who had the privilege of knowing her : '

"One there was," said Canon Prothero in that abbey, "who lately tar-
ried amongst us, who united rare gifts to untiring energy in the service of
God and man. Placed in a position which could claim an equality with the
highest in the land, yet ever lovingly joining hand and heart with the low-
est ; with intellect and sympathies so perfectly balanced that the acuteness
of the one and the tenderness of the other were mutually exercised and de-
veloped, her religious faith, while it claimed her devoted service, left her
heart space to cherish goodness of whatever creed. Of social powers which
- endeared her to the most exclusive, and of a charity which made her equally
known and welcome to the dwellers in the cellars and garrets of the most
wretched courts in Westminster all will mourn, all will remember for long
years and tell their children of, Mary Stanley." And later that same day
another canon Fleming spoke of her as the " one who had stood beside
her friend, Florence Nightingale, in self-sacrifice when in the Crimea they

i88o.] MARY STANLEY. ^

nursed the sick and wounded soldiers ; one whose home labors, so many-
sided, yet always unostentatious and discriminating, cannot be forgotten in
this Westminster ; one whom ' when the ear heard, it blessed,' ' when the eye
saw, it bare witness' to her; around whose memory shall fall 'the blessings
of those who were ready to perish,' . . . and who says to us, whatever our
lot, whatever our difficulties, whatever our differences, ' Go and do thou
likewise.' "

This beautiful character, however, was not formed in a day ;
far from it. The more eager the nature, the more impulsive the
temperament and sharp-witted the intellect, the greater are the
struggles, the more constant is the need of discipline ; and perhaps,
as years rolled on, nothing was more striking in Miss Stanley
than her ever-increasing self-control, moving forward progres-
sively with a daily enlarged indulgence for the weaknesses of
others.

Mary Stanley, eldest daughter of Edward and Catherine
Stanley the memoir of whose lives has so lately been published
by their son, the Dean of Westminster was born in 1813 at
Alderley, the family living in Cheshire, to which her father, as
younger son, had been appointed a short time previously. There
her youth was spent and many of the best points in her character
developed by her most remarkable parents, while her warm heart
was given full play in visiting the poor, much in her father's
fashion, then so uncommon among English ecclesiastics, and
which has been so well .described by the dean, her brother, his
son. Consequently, when he was made Bishop of Norwich Miss
Stanley was found ready to aid in all his philanthropic schemes
and to start systems till then untried. Those who would gauge
the difficulties aright must not measure them by the standard
of the present day, when activity in good works, charity organi-
zations, self-helping associations, and the like are the rule and not
the exception. In the first half of this nineteenth century, when
the bishop and his daughter began to work, no sisterhoods ex-
isted in Protestant England ; nay, any project which savored in
the slightest degree of " popery " was, for that reason alone,
looked upon with disfavor. At first, indeed, Miss Stanley never
thought of such matters. Catholicity, and everything connected
with it, was, by her own account, odious to her ; so she labored on,
working out plans and ideas for herself, persevering in her chari-
table efforts even against hindrances. No father ever had a more
energetic and willing helper ; for her eager spirit, combined with
an aptitude for organization worthy of France, preserved her
from discouragements and infused life into all those who aided

58 MARY STANLEY. [April,

her. Thus, amongst many charities she started a home for work-
ing girls, still known in Norwich, we believe, as the " Stanley
Home"; also a lace-school, to teach which she devoted a whole
year to learning lace-making herself, and which gave employment
to numbers ; but, above all, a penny savings-bank, her father's and
her own favorite work, running through all her undertakings in
life like the golden thread in a rich tissue, one of their aims in
everything being to promote thrift and industry, and therefore
always choosing, between any two schemes, that in which the self-
helping poor could be best encouraged.

In this manner she worked on for twelve years up to the
period of her father's death, when, with the rest of the family,
she left Norwich, amid the regrets of the population, finally
settling in London with her mother and sole surviving brother,
the present Dean of Westminster.

But a radical change was taking place in Miss Stanley's mind,
the precursor of the great grace which was to be vouchsafed to
her in all its fulness later, though at this period it never amounted
to more than serious doubts as to the orthodoxy of the Anglican
communion doubts which flitted across her mind, she would
say, strangely enough for the first time during an ordination
service in Norwich Cathedral. Hitherto she had known but a
few Catholics, nor did she enlarge her acquaintance with them
until after her conversion ; but gradually and by the very force of
her good works she was led on imperceptibly to recognize the
beauty and truth of all things Catholic. Often she would relate
how, in her struggles for improvements at Norwich, she would
discover with amazement that systems new to her were in full
activity, and had been for ages, in Catholic communities ; and how,
when in her perplexity she used to discuss the question with a
celebrated fellow-worker who was then on the high-road to the
Catholic Church, but has since lapsed into Unitarianism, the latter
would answer that there was no explanation except the one most
unpalatable to them " that the Catholic was a living, true Church,
of which the English was but a dead branch." Once this new
light was let in upon her soul every circumstance concurred to
increase its intensity, her many tours on the Continent helping,
but above all the divisions and absence of authority within the
English Church itself driving her forward with a force that gra-
dually became irresistible. In her distress she also flew to Arch-
deacon now Cardinal Manning, then a bright star of the English
Church, but only to find him more unsettled than herself, advanc-
ing with giant strides to the fold, of which he has since become

i88o.] MARY STANLEY.

a shining light. Not so soon convinced, however, as he, struo--
gling, moreover, not to break loose from her early associations
and the companionship in faith of her dearly-loved family, with
that feeling of strong attachment which is the great trial to
Catholic converts in England, Miss Stanley did not follow the
present cardinal's example for fully two years.

In the meantime the Crimean War took place, and, as we have
seen, stirred by the same enthusiasm, she offered her services
almost simultaneously with her friend Miss Nightingale ; and so
well known was her activity and experience in good works that
the government willingly accepted them, despatching her to the
East in charge of forty nurses. There, near Scutari, at Kulalee,
the great ambassador of that day, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,
obtained for her an empty Turkish barrack, which his noble-
hearted lady aided her powerfully in transforming into a hos-
pital, where twelve hundred sick soldiers were received during
the winter; the Irish Sisters of Mercy from Kinsale Convent,
and others from England, being amongst the nurses. This epi-
sode in her history would require a volume to itself ; suffice, there-
fore, to say that she here stayed many months, organizing and
superintending everything with a skill, presence of mind, and
cheeriness which endeared her to all concerned.

Nothing, however, lulled Miss Stanley's doubts and mental
struggles, and a few months after her return home she was re-
ceived into the Catholic Church, feeling, she used to say, as
though she had entered a haven of rest which every succeeding
year only made more thoroughly tranquil. Never, perhaps, was
her steady faith more fully shown than during the Council win-
ter, which she passed in Rome, when, amidst the din and turmoil
of that time, her mind was not for an instant disturbed, the Holy
Spirit guiding the Church being visibly clear to her through and
above the clamor of its human elements. And this orthodox prin-
ciple, daily clearer to her intelligent and spiritual mind, solaced and
supported her under every fresh circumstance, enabling her also
to see how, no matter what abuses or " fallings-off " took place
either in the past or present, that the church shakes them off
with an energy that is divine, springing up afresh with the
strength of a young eagle. Nay, more, instead of narrowing,
her conversion naturally only widened, her sympathies ; for while
it filled her with humility for the grace bestowed upon her, she
gained thereby an ever-increasing conviction of the existence of
invincible ignorance, meeting as she did, in her daily intercourse
with other creeds, such numbers whom she knew to be too no-

60 MARY STANLEY. [April,

ble-minded not to sacrifice every 'worldly interest to follow truth,
could they but see it as distinctly as herself. Her own experi-
ence, however, had shown her the futility of constant argument ;
hence her guiding principle henceforward was never to com-
mence it. To those who inquired sincerely she would give " rea-
son for the faith that was in her," or perhaps simply advise them
to apply to the nearest parish priest the doctrines of the church
being everywhere the same, she would say, and not requiring
the gloss of any personal prestige. For all others she merely
prayed, but with an earnestness of which few ever had the least
idea.

To these principles, steadily carried out with a Christian
charity and tenderness rarely equalled, improved, too, by the
daily discipline of her most spiritual inner life, Mary Stanley
owed the remarkable influence and popularity which she enjoy-
ed and used for such high purpose in her generation, and which
now makes her loss well-nigh irreparable. Nor had her task been
so easy as may now appear ; for though her immediate family
never allowed her to feel any difference for her change of faith,
many others from secondary motives did resent it at the time,
and heartburnings had not failed her. But this, she would say,
is only what every convert must at first expect the price to be
paid for the blessing they receive. That it need not last or be-
come an obstacle to peace and love depends, on the other hand,
altogether upon the conduct of each individual. A hard struggle
it doubtless is to an affectionate heart, but meekness and loving
endurance surely bring their recompense in the end. Acting on
this conviction, Miss Stanley never separated from an old friend,
while at the same time the church rarely has possessed a more
faithful or obedient child.

Looking for no honor, and at all times content that " others
should reap where she had sown," as her mother often predicted
would be her fate in life, Miss Stanley settled down quietly to her
" charities " on returning from Constantinople, devoting herself
to them with all the greater energy now that her religious scru-
ples and doubts had at length found repose.

Her brother was not yet Dean of Westminster, nor did he
even think about it, so that it was a singular chance which at-
tracted her to the district that later became his home, and led
her to purchase a house in Westminster in the centre of squalor
and neglect. There she speedily organized various undertak-
ings similar to those she had established at Norwich : a lodg-
ing-house for poor women, with a kitchen and a matron ; an

i88o.] MARY STANLEY. 6 t

industrial laundry in her garden, and a work-room where she
found work for women. In this circumstances at the moment
favored her, for the government was giving contracts to supply
clothing for the army. Instantly Miss Stanley sent in an
offer, which was accepted, and in one year, employing soldiers'
widows and children in preference to others, she delivered
no less than forty thousand shirts to the British War Office, It
was quite a sight to see her superintending, nay, more often
cutting out the materials herself, inspecting and encouraging
even when .obliged to reject work which might not reach the
prescribed standard. In course of time the system was changed
by the authorities, but Miss Stanley also changed to others ; for
one of her great characteristics was a singular readiness to take
up or lay down a work the instant anything showed that its suita-
bleness had ceased. But it were endless inconsequence to enu-
merate her achievements ; for, besides her own special " works,"
no national event ever failed to touch her heart and bring forth
her powers. Thus in them all was she active : in Lancashire dur-
ing the cotton famine ; in 1870, at the time of the Franco-German
war, when she undertook one department of the " Society for
Aid to Sick and Wounded"; or was to be found helping regularly
at the district Soup Kitchen in Westminster, especially when
smallpox was raging there, and, the heads of families fearing to
-attend, Miss Stanley did more than double duty; while at an-
other time she originated the " Flower Mission," which has
since grown so vast, never allowing any of them, however, to
interfere with her own much-loved penny savings-banks, private
clothing clubs, and the like. Her hand and, above all, her
head were always ready, again, as her mother said when she
begged the motto " to be put on Mary's grave " : " Never weary
in well-doing." Work amongst the poor, and charity of all kinds,
was to her as necessary as air and food, but at the same time
it was of the genuine kind. Of her the Weekly Register has said
that she was "the sort of Christian worker and philanthropist
of whom we now need .a large army. Miss Stanley did for her-
self and by herself, and she did always, what most of us wish
that others would do for us. She mingled personally with the
poorest of the poor, and was as practical as she was earnest in
uplifting them. She talked no rubbish about < not giving to the
undeserving,' but worked hard to make the undeserving deserv-
ing. She succeeded in many thousands of instances. She was
modest, sympathetic, and hard-working the three requisites
of practical charity. Five hundred Miss Stanleys in the metro-

62 MARY STANLEY. [April,

polls would get rid of more than half the * undeserving.' ' Her
tastes and pursuits, it is true, are now shared by many pious
and good women ; not always, we fear, with the entire absence
of amour-propre which distinguished her on every occasion. Few,
for instance, had any idea that when in good health her day
began by early Mass so early that one gentleman, who often
reached London by the night mail, used to say that the only
person he ever met when driving to his house in Park Lane was
Miss Stanley toiling up the hill to half-past seven o'clock Mass
in Farm Street. At breakfast with her family or friends her
thoughts were given to topics of general interest, without hurry
or allusion to her own affairs ; yet ten A.M. saw her installed
in her house at York Street, Westminster, where until the
afternoon she was the " servant of the poor." Thenceforward
again she belonged to her own rank of life, mingling in that
sphere of intellect and general interests which her position
placed at her command. Even there, however, she took every
opportunity of continuing her acts of kindness and Christian
charity, rarely passing a day without visiting a sick or afflicted
friend. The pleasant stories, tender sympathy, brightness, and
courage which her presence brought them are still fresh in
the memories of countless numbers; while others tell of the
ready counsel, the benefit of her experience, and the encour-
agement in charitable aspirations she constantly afforded them.
To one she would characteristically say : " If you stop to count
the difficulties you will never do anything in life. Begin ! and
they will vanish " ; or another she helped to bear some domestic
cross and to march on in firmer reliance upon supernatural aid.
Her warm, affectionate heart and sympathizing nature attracted
confidence and drew love towards her, whilst in return such a
strengthening influence seemed to go forth from her Christian,
Catholic mind that waverings and faintheartedness somehow
vanished. And what a loyal friend and true she was ! show-
ing a steadiness under weal or woe, a delicacy of feeling a
consideration, a power of silence and discretion, an inventive
thoughtfulness, a recollection in absence, which none but those
who had personal experience of it could ever imagine. Even
in the midst of the great whirl of London evening society, the
social elements of which none more keenly enjoyed, she was
ever doing kindnesses and ready to enter into the joys of others.
A rare and beautiful character Mary Stanley's truly was one
to whose many-sidedness it is impossible in a short notice to
do even scant justice, full of sound common sense and practical

i88o.] EASTER MORNING. 63

wisdom, which an intense love of God, and, through him, of her
neighbor, purified and idealized, enabling her to use her gifts
for the highest purposes without being aware of her importance,
or ever seeking to shine before those amongst whom she never-
theless was a bright star and made a mark in her generation
that will be of lasting benefit.

All the more do we recognize this now as we read Cardinal
Newman's address on the change towards Catholics in England
during the last thirty years, and see the part in it which he assigns
to those converts, sisters, daughters, and others, who have proved
to their Protestant families that they had not lost their " human
affections and human tastes, and were still human beings in whom
they could be interested, sympathize with, and exchange good of-
fices before the question of religion came into consideration ; . . .
possessing that moral magnetism which unites men to each other,
and may be expressed by the word ' neighborly/ ". . . while " the
converts on their side have not denied the existence of strong
religious sentiment in those they had left behind." First amongst
these the name of Mary Stanley springs to many lips, and for such
reasons her memory daily grows dearer to her large and varied
circle of friends. " Her works," no doubt, " follow her," but
their influence remains behind to enlighten and guide the weary
wayfarers along the same narrow path. Nay, more, her reward
seemed almost foreshadowed here on earth, for the two dearest
wishes of her heart were fulfilled in the constant presence of her
much-loved relatives -beside her sick-bed, and, on the other hand,
in the spiritual ministrations of her old and faithful friend, the
present Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. In a singular de-
gree peace and love were hers, while the prayers of sick and
poor still rise to heaven in her behalf.

EASTER MORNING.

I arose, and am still with you. Alleluia." ROMAN MISSAL.

FOR six long weeks I seemed to hear
Our Lord's dear, human voice,

Whose peaceful sweetness made my soul
In sorrow most rejoice ;

64 EASTER MORNING. [April,

I hearkened to his tender words,

I touched his garment's hem,
Wandering by blue Genesareth,

Through proud Jerusalem ;
I flung my palm beneath his feet,

I sought Gethsemani,
Where, weary with the thought of sin,

I wept its misery.

I followed unto Pilate's hall,

Weeping for reed and crown ;
I saw the patient Son of God

Beneath the Cross bend down
Burdened with mine iniquity,

Sore bruised for my sin,
The bitter cup of gall for him

And love my share therein.
I knelt beneath the cruel tree,

The wood with load so sweet,
And bent with love, so rich in grief,

To kiss the wounded feet.

When now, on Easter morn are oped

The gates of Paradise,
I come with Magdalen to bear

Forgiven love's sweet spice,
Through all the glory of the day

Earth seems to feel some loss :
Still is the voice for which love longs,
t And bare the uplifted Cross ;
My soul's true love is taken away.

Nay, little one, be wise :
Among the lilies lo ! he waits,

Clad in his love's disguise.
In blessing shall he speak once more,

Calming thy love and fear ;
Rejoice, and fear not : his great love

Still holds him prisoner here.

l88o.] FOLLETTE.

FOLLETTE.

BY KATHLEEN O*MEARA, AUTHOR OF "A WOMAN'S TRIALS," " IZA*S STORY," "A

SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE," "FREDERIC OZANAM,"

" PEARL," ETC.

CHAPTER VII.
VICTOR'S BRIBE.

THE old man was failing rapidly ; he grew weaker from day
to day, until one morning, about a week after he had banished
Follette to her room, he found he could not get out of bed.
When Victor went in to him he saw that a great change had
taken place ; the old man was very white, and his voice was so
feeble that he could hardly raise it above a whisper.

" I'm not well, lad ; I don't know what's amiss, eh?" he said,
with a helpless, inquiring look at the strong young fellow, who
stood, in the pride of his health, looking down on him.

" It's the weather, patron ; the sudden heat of the last few
days has been too much for you. You'll be all right to-morrow,"
said Victor in a cheerful tone.

" Ah ! you think I will. To-morrow, eh ? " And the trembling
fingers fretted over the shabby brown coverlet, and the sunken
eyes fixed a look of searching appeal on Victor's face. " You
don't think I ought to take some physic, something to put me on
my legs, eh ? "

" I would not meddle with physic, if I were you, patron ; it's
nothing but the heat. I'm limp myself these two days ; I feel as
if my legs were going to give way under me."

"Ah! you feel that, do you? a strong young fellow like
you, eh? No wonder if I feel a bit queer. It's the heat. Then
3'Ou wouldn't send for anybody, eh?"

" Certainly not. I'd rather spend the money on food than on
doctors. They're a set of sharks ; they give folks stuff to make
them sick, and then make believe to cure them."

" The villains ! I'm not up to their tricks. There was that
old man that attended my father ; you remember him ? A clever
fellow he was, and honest, eh? He lived at Earache."

" He did, and he was buried there ten years ago."

" Dead ! Eh ? Ha ! That's a pity. Suppose I got ill, what
should we do ? There's a man at Cotor, isn't there ? '

" A fool and a scoundrel. He'd half kill you and take the skin

VOL. XXXI. 5

66 . FOLLETTE. [April,

off your back. If you got ill and must have some one, I'd send to
'Tarbes and have a regular good doctor from there. It would be
better to pay a hundred francs for one visit all in lump, and be
cured, than to be fleeced by degrees for nothing."

"What! what! Eh? A hundred francs! What villains to
trade on the sufferings of us poor devils ! The law ought to pre-
vent it ; it's wicked. But if one were ill "

" Pshaw ! you'll be all right to-morrow, patron," said Victor,
with a shrug, and the contemptuous gesture comforted Gripard
more than sympathy would have done.

" Ah ! you think so, lad ? To-morrow," he repeated to himself.
But he turned with loathing from the food Victor brought him,
and touched nothing all day.

To-morrow came, and Gripard, instead of being all right, was
worse. He was exhausted by the long fast, and had passed a
feverish night ; his eyes were like burning glass, and he wandered
slightly, calling for Jeanne, and then remembering and asking for
Follette. Victor noticed these symptoms, and his pulses quick-
ened with a horrible hope. If the old man were to die at once,
before Jules came back, all would be right. Follette might go her
way ; she would be a good riddance once everything was in Vic-
tor's possession. He had been as fond of her as it was in him to
be fond of any one ; but she had tired him out, and he would
gladly hand her over to Jules or anybody else. The game had
narrowed to a few throws, and at this moment it was entirely in
Victor's hands. He believed that Gripard was dying an easy,
natural death that he, Victor, had done nothing to accelerate. He
did not stick at many things to accomplish an end, but he would
have stuck at this ; he would not lift a finger to hasten the old
man's death, but neither would he lift a finger to postpone it.
There was no reason, in fact, why anybody should. Gripard
might just as well go now, to-day, as in a month's time ; he had a
miserable life of it, and he was of no use to anybody by staying,
whereas by going just at the right moment he would be of very
great use to somebody.

When Gripard again hinted in a timorous way at sending for
a doctor or getting some physic, Victor pooh-poohed the notion,
and wondered at a wise man wanting to fool away his money to
sharks.

" But where is Follette ? Why does she not come and look
after me ? " Gripard asked again in a querulous tone.

" Follette is up-stairs ; you forbade her to come down till she
gave in about the marriage," said Victor.

i860.] FOLLETTE. 67

" Never mind that. I want her now. Tell her to come
to me."

But it would not have suited Victor's purpose at all to bring
the two together at the present moment, and luckily it was easy
enough to keep them apart. He took care not to inform Follette
that her uncle was ill, and she was not likely to find it out in any
other way. Follette at first had made up her mind that she would
eat nothing that Victor brought her, but this heroic resolution
soon broke down under the imperious cravings of a healthy
young appetite ; the poor child watched eagerly for the sound of
her jailer's step at her door, and the moment his back was turned
she fell ravenously on her scanty rations. But she fed on hope
more than on the bread and cold soup. It was a Avonder to her-
self how she kept up her heart through those dreary days ; but
she did, and even her spirits to a surprising degree. She sat at
her casement, where the June sun came streaming in, warm and
golden, and she watched the silver chord of the river curling
between the green banks where wild flowers, forget-me-nots, and
bluebells grew plentifully, and her heart went out to the sweet
glory of the summer till she could almost have sung with the
birds. Birds will sing when the sun shines, even if they are in a
cage and robbed of their mate. Follette felt that the door of her
cage would open ; captivity could not last for ever. It was not
that she expected death to come and set her free. She had turned
her thoughts that way for the first two days, when she had meant
to starve rather than take her food from Victor; but it would
not do. She discovered that she was too young and strong for
death to think of her ; while she was weak and hungry the black
shadow seemed very close, but with her hunger it vanished, and
now it seemed to have receded into some dim region amongst
terrors too remote to become real. Why should she die in her
vigorous spring-time, when the whole world was so full of life,
when the day of resurrection that came round year after year
had called up the fields and the forest into a new and glorious
youth after the long winter's sleep ? There were flowers in the
grass and foliage on the trees, and the summer breeze swept over
them and wafted songs of hope and deliverance to Follette
through her open window. She listened to the rustle of the leaves
and the distant heaving of the forest, and the hum of the bees that
the butterflies were chasing round the old lavender-bush by the
gate, and she felt that God was very good, who had made all
these beautiful things ; and God was her father. The old life of
monotonous work wore an enchanted glory as she looked out

68 FOLLETTE. [April,

through the bars of her cage at the gray belfry that stood high
and clear against the darkening green of the forest and the liquid
blue of the sky, while the deep tone of the Angelus bell mingled
with the voices of children playing on the road, and with the
scent of the lavender and the honeysuckle. It all seemed won-
drously fair to Follette, and when God gave the old life back to
her she would be more docile and humble and brave, and not take
it all for granted without a word of thanks, as in the old days.

The most exciting occupation of the day to her was to watch
her uncle and Victor going in and out of the house ; no one
else crossed the inhospitable threshold of Quatre Vents. But it
struck her as odd that she should not have seen her uncle for some
days ; she could scarcely have missed him coming and going, for
she had nothing to do but watch for him, and even if she were
looking away she would have heard the sound of his step on the
gravel. At last she determined to ask Victor if he were ill.

" The rheumatism has come back into his legs, and he can't
walk," was the reply, given in a dry tone.

" There's nothing more the matter ? "

" What more would you have ? That ought to content you,
seeing it's your fault ; it's worrying about you that brought back
the pains." And with this he turned and left her.

Follette felt very miserable. She did not believe it was her
doing that her uncle's legs had got bad again ; but she would
gladly have gone down and rubbed them for him, and done what
she could to atone for having vexed and thwarted him. When
Victor came up next morning she begged him to ask her uncle
to let her come and rub him.

" I will not speak to him, and I will come up-stairs as soon as
I have done the rubbing," she said entreatingly.

" I don't think he is in a mood to care to see you ; but I will
ask him," said Victor.

He returned in a short time with the message that her uncle
was very angry at her daring to propose coming into his pre-
sence until she was ready to say she would do his bidding in all
things " in all things" Victor repeated, emphasizing the words
significantly. Follette made no answer, and Victor went away.
He left the house immediately, but by the back door, so that she
might not see him and take advantage of her uncle's being alone
to come down and sue for pardon.

Meantime Gripard lay in bed, helpless, longing for Follette
and calling to her by the hour ; but his voice was too feeble to
reach her. Follette's room was over the scullery ; the large room

1880.] FOLLETTE. 69

over the kitchen had been occupied by Gripard's parents and
never used since their death ; beyond it was Jeanne's room, and
Gripard's was under this ; he was consequently a long way off
from Follette, with closed doors between them. He was very
wretched ; he knew that he was very ill, perhaps too ill to recover.
Victor's assurance, repeated with cool indifference every day, that
he would be all right to-morrow, had ceased to give him any
comfort, but he was too much afraid of Victor to tell him so and
insist on having a doctor. He felt his isolation and the unkind-
ness of the neighbors keenly, forgetting that it was his own doing
if they neglected him now that he wanted them, seeing that when
he did not want them he had been rude and churlish and kept
everybody from his door. But as the days dragged on, and the
long, wakeful nights, his thoughts turned inwards, and he saw
within himself the answer to many things that had seemed to him
unjust. His own life stood out in strong relief against the dark-
ness, and it was not a consoling picture to gaze at during the
watches of the night. He had saved his money and put his heart
into it, and now in his necessity it could not procure him even
the necessaries of life. He had worshipped a false god, he had
consecrated his life to him, and the false god refused him a bless-
ing ; he had no one else to pray to in his extremity, and the false
god mocked him. The gold that he had gloated over many a
night, feasting his eyes on it and drinking in the chink of the glit-
tering coins like the sweetest music ; the gold that he had gath-
ered into his palm and kissed as if it had been a living thing that
could feel his caress the gold was of no more use to him now
than so much dirt. Any pauper, any sick dog who could crawl
out and show his wounds on the roadside, was better off than he,
for the dog would excite compassion in some passer-by, and he
would throw him a bone or a glance of pity. And here was Gri-
pard abandoned under his own roof, not able to get a drink to
quench his thirst. Why did Follette not come to him ? He had
been fond of the little thing, and not unkind until she thwarted
him. He had told himself that it was for her good that he was
forcing her into a hateful marriage ; that he was thereby securing
her interests ; but this sophistry was silenced now. In that hide-
ous spectre of his own life that haunted him day and night he saw
that Follette, too, had been sacrificed to the false god ; that he had
been thinking only of providing a keeper for his money. The
terror of being " ruined when he was in his grave " had made him
pitiless and cruel to his sister's child. He saw, moreover, that
Victor had duped him, that he was a bad, heartless fellow ; the

70 FOLLETTE. [April,

love of money, which had made a bond between them once,
now made the young man hateful in his eyes. It was for the
sake of such a man as this that he had acted like a hard tyrant
to gentle, loving little Follette ! Gripard bit the bed-clothes in
his rage and misery, and called out to Follette by the hour:
" Come to me, petiote ! I will forgive thee everything. I am bet-
ter than thou thinkest, my little Follette. I have done the best
for thee, and thou shalt marry Jules ! . Only come to thy poor
old uncle, my Follette ! " But the cracked, weak voice died away
in the low-ceiled room, and then the old man would lapse into
silence, while the tears trickled down his face, wetting the brown
coverlet.

Follette, sitting at the window, wondered that she did not see
Victor going out, but concluded that her uncle would not be left
alone, and that Victor was staying at home to keep company with
him, perhaps to rub him. There was some comfort in this, and
in the good smell of bouillon that came up from the kitchen, for it
proved that her uncle was taking nourishing food. If she had
but known, these savory fumes were an additional suffering to
him. He longed for bouillon, but Victor said it would increase the
fever, and that he could not let him have a drop ; it was for him-
self that the pot-au-feu was simmering on the hearth, and amazing
the dumb household gods by its unaccustomed presence there.

The rich miser was not much better fed than Follette, and
nothing but love of life and the cravings of exhausted nature en-
abled him to touch the meagre messes that Victor set before him.
Victor considered he was doing quite enough in providing the
old man with his usual food ; since it had been enough for him to
live on, it was enough for him to die on, and there was no kind-
ness in prolonging unnecessarily a life which was now no better
than a living death. But while waiting with placid patience for
the end Victor had some personal preoccupations that made him
anxious to postpone it until his arrangements were made. He
wanted to ascertain where Gripard had secreted his money. The
will would eventually put him in undisputed possession of all the
old man had, but if he could get hold of the money beforehand
he would avoid the slander and ill-will that was certain to follow
when the extent of the legacy became known. The will was so
worded that it gave no clue to the amount of the testator's pro-
perty, but the truth would soon be discovered and all Bacaram
would be informed of it ; whereas if Victor could find the money
beforehand, and stow it away in some place of safe-keeping, no

i88o.] FOLLETTE. ji

one need ever be the wiser. If the sum was a good round one, as
he suspected, he meant to come Don Magnifico over Bacaram and
present Quatre Vents to Follette ; thus he would apply a salve to
his own conscience and earn a character for disinterestedness and
magnanimity. Little as Victor cared for his fellow-creatures, he
felt bitterly their aloofness and the latent mistrust which he read
in their cold looks and altered manners of late. Ever since
Jeanne's death a marked change had come over the village to-
wards him. People noticed that Gripard had grown surly and
suspicious ; he had never been neighborly, but he now quarrelled
with the few old friends who had always been tolerated, if not
actually welcome, at Quatre Vents. Mme. Bibot felt especially
aggrieved at this treatment ; she had never borne much love to
Victor, and she interpreted the changed state of things at Quatre
Vents according to her lights that is to say, her prejudices : Vic-
tor was circumventing the old man, and the pair were persecuting
little Follette to death. Now, if it turned out that Gripard left
his house or his money to the designing knave it would be a clear
case of " captation," and the law would break the will. Proofs
were plentiful ; and as to witnesses, their name would be legion.
Bacaram, you see, was valiant in prospective battle for Follette's
future interests, but, though everybody suspected she was at the
present moment the victim of some sort of foul play, no one stir-
red a finger to come to her assistance. Meantime they relieved
their feelings and satisfied their sense of justice by tacitly show-
ing Victor what they thought of him ; they kept aloof and cast
cold looks upon him. Victor understood the meaning of this
ostracism perfectly, and he enjoyed in imagination the pleasure
of confounding the malignity of his enemies, and making them
stare in wonder at his generosity and their own short-sighted-
ness.

"If I could wheedle or frighten the secret out of the old
man ! " he thought, as he ate his comfortable supper that evening
with an appetite that no mental preoccupations had power to
affect. Still, he was much exercised in his mind. Several slices of
boiled beef, piles of fried potatoes, and a couple of roasted apples
disappeared from before him, and then, pushing aside the dishes,
he leaned his elbow on the table and proceeded to ruminate at
leisure on the subject of his anxiety. Suddenly a look of triumph
lit up his face.

" I have it ! I will bribe him with a bowl of bouillon."

He took up the candle and went into Gripard's room.

" He is dying ; there is no time to lose," thought Victor, as

72 FOLLETTE. [April,

he approached the bed, holding the light so that it fell full on
Gripard's face.

" How do you feel, patron?"

" Badly, lad, badly. What ails Jeanne that she doesn't come
to me ? Tell her to come at once."

" Jeanne is gone. Don't you remember? You mean Follette."

" Aye, aye, Follette. I was always fond of the little one ; she
is Martha's child. Martha is angry. She won't speak to me. I
want her to fetch M. le Cure."

" You're not as bad as that, patron. You want more food to
make you strong ; you've let yourself go too low. You'd like a
bowl of beef-soup, wouldn't you ? "

" Beef soup ? Aye, aye ; Jeanne spends too much money.
They're all robbing me ! Too many mouths to feed."

This was terrible. It seemed to Victor that, in his eagerness
to clutch at his opportunity, he had lost it. He had starved the
old man into delirium, and it was now doubtful whether it was
not too late to undo the mischief. Should he start off for
the nearest doctor, or should he try to revive his strength by
nourishment ? Gripard looked as if he might die in the night ;
his voice was shrill, but weak as an infant's ; he could not lift his
hand, and his eyes were like dying lamps, deep sunk in their
sockets. It was a pitiable sight the living corpse huddled upon
the neglected bed and gasping for breath in the poisoned air of
the room, while the hot fingers kept restlessly moving to and fro.
Still he was not unconscious, though he wandered. Victor might
possibly extract the secret from him.

" Patron," he said, " I'm sure a little wine would do you good.
You have a few bottles in the cellar, have you not ? Tell me
where the key is and I will fetch one up."

" Eh, eh ! The cellar ? Who's there ? There's nothing in the
cellar but empty bottles. D'ye hear? Nothing else." The
lack-lustre eyes glared at Victor with an expression that startled
him, it was so fierce ; in the delirium of death the ruling passion
blazed up as strong as ever.

" You are not afraid of me, patron ? Don't you know me ? "
said Victor, in a voice meant to be caressing.

"Know thee? Aye, a cunning varlet! A thief . . . ras-
cal . . ."

" Nay, patron, you mistake me for Jules," said Victor depre-
catingly.

" Jules ! Jules was a good lad. Thou art a knave and a hypo-
crite ! Thou wouldst rob me ! Get thee from my sight ! "

tl88o.] FOLLETTE. 75

" Thank heaven I have the will ! " thought Victor. But he
must make a last effort- to get hold of the money. He was turn-
ing away when Gripard showed increased signs of agitation ; he
tried to point to something and mumbled incoherently. Victor
lowered the light and looked round and about the bed, but he
could see nothing.
" What is it, patron? " he said, bending closer to catch what
the other was trying to say.

With a desperate effort Gripard put out his hand and clutched
the candle, pulled it to him, and blew it out with his panting breath.
" Thou wouldst ruin me before I am in my grave ! Wasting
light ... as if candles grew like grass ..."

They were now in total darkness, for Victor had taken the
precaution to close the door ; he groped his way to it, and the
red embers on the kitchen hearth sent a flickering glow into the
bed-room.

Victor reclosed the door, relighted his candle, poured some
bouillon into a saucepan, and set it on the fire. In a few minutes
it was hot, and he carried it in to Gripard.

" Here is something that will do you good, patron," he said ;
and laying the candlestick at a safe distance, he lifted Gripard's
head with his left hand, and held the bowl to him with the other.
The old man made a querulous, beaver-like noise, mumbling some-
thing about Jeanne squandering his money ; but when the soup
touched his lips he clutched the bowl with both hands, and held
it till he had finished every drop, swallowing the bouillon in
short, greedy gulps. Then he drew a long breath and fell back
on his pillow, smacking his lips.

" Perhaps you'll sleep a bit now," said Victor, " and then by
and by I'll bring you some more."

"Aye, lad, aye," said the old man ; "it was good."
" You are not angry with me for bringing it to you ? I bought
the meat out of that crown you gave me to buy ribbons for Fol-
lette. I did not spend the money."

" That was well. Thou art a wise lad."

Victor drew the coverlet straight and tucked the old man in
with ostentatious care. As he was leaving the room it struck
him that a breath of fresh air might help the effect of the bouillon,
so he opened the casement wide and let in the pure night air.
The stars were out, and a young silver crescent was set in the
deep-blue sky ; the church, the gray belfry tower, the forest, the
cottages floated in the sweet moonlight. The village was asleep ;
only one cottage on the other side of the river showed a lighted

74 FOLLETTE. [April,

window, that glowed like a danger-signal where all was security
and peace. The noisy little Dole hushed its chatter, and sped
along with a subdued, silvery tinkle that made the stillness deep-
er. Victor leaned against the window-sill and enjoyed the beauty
of the night. Not that he saw it ; but he felt it in some dull way,
as perhaps the animals do, unconsciously touched by its serene
and tender loveliness, though there was no response within him
to the pure influences of the stars or the mystic moonlight.
After a while he closed the window, and, seeing that Gripard lay
perfectly quiet, he went back into the kitchen, and sat down and
thrust his hands into his pockets, and began to consider what his
next step should be.

He felt sure the bouillon would prove beneficial ; the old man
had taken it with a gusto that showed there was yet some vitality
left in him. If he got a snatch of sleep, and then had another
bowlful, the chances were that he would come back to his right
mind. Victor waited about an hour, and then opened the door
gently; the light from the kitchen sent a bright line across the
floor, but no sound came from the bed.

" How do you feel now, patron ? " he asked in a low voice ; but
there was no answer, so he closed the door and sat down again.
Suddenly he remembered that he had bought a newspaper and
not yet looked at it. He took it out, and proceeded to peruse it
with his usual cautious attention, beginning at the beginning, and
going through every column as if it were of the utmost impor-
tance not to miss one line. There were a few clever robberies
and a good murder ; the heading Gazette des Tribunaux fur-
nished an exciting trial. The Nouvelles de 1'Etranger and the
Bourse were dry reading, for Victor had no interest in any of the
topics they included ; but he went through them conscientiously
all the same. At the top of the third page something quickened
his attention and made his features contract with an angry ex-
pression ; the offensive passage appeared in a review of the exhi-
bition of sculpture, and ran thus :

" Amongst these latter there is a group which has attracted
much interest. It consists of two figures, an old woman and a
young girl ; the delicate beauty of the latter, the graceful curves
of the head and neck, the firm, spirited lines of the figure, are in
striking contrast with the decrepit form and wrinkled but charac-
teristic features of the old granddame. The composition indi-
cates power and originality ; and as we understand that M. Jules
Valdory is not much over twenty, he bids fair to take rank in his
art and reach success while young enough to enjoy it."

I880.] FOLLETTE. 75

Victor read the article twice over, and then muttered some-
thing between his set teeth. It was a mercy this had not appeared
sooner. If Gripard had seen it Jules might have run a chance of
being forgiven.

" I don't grudge him his success, since it is not likely to inter-
fere with mine," said Victor, as he laid down the newspaper. He
was in a mood to deal out pardons and magnanimity to all man-
kind ; he wanted to make a compromise with his conscience, for
he was intent on something which, if it could not be called a deed
of darkness in the worst sense, must needs be done in the dark
and would never bear the light. Victor felt an urgent longing
for justification before his inward self that secret tribunal whose
decrees overrule all others, and whose condemnation lies so
heavily on a human being that the esteem and praise of the whole
world besides cannot console him for it. The dread of being
haunted all his life by the Nemesis of this secret court poisoned
beforehand the fruits of his success, and stimulated him to seek a
verdict of acquittal at any cost, even if he obtained it on a quibble.

" Follette shall have Quatre Vents," he said to himself, " and
Jules will make his fortune, and they will both be all the happier
for working on together instead of coming into a lot of money
that they would not know how to spend. Jules would throw up
work and go to the dogs, and Follette would be a miserable
woman. They both will have reason to bless me for delivering
them from the curse of too much money."

But he had not yet delivered them from it ; he had yet to get
the key of the cellar. It was probably under a tile on the roof
or up some chimney ; heaven and Gripard alone knew misers
had such wonderful cunning in those things !

Victor opened the door again, but not a word came from the
bed. The old man was sleeping as sound as a child ; or good
God ! could it be? He took a step nearer, and, holding the candle
high above his head, looked and listened with bated breath. The
sound of Gripard's breathing, quick and regular, fell on his ear
like sweetest music. He laid down the candle on the chimney-
piece, and fetched a bowl of bouillon, which he placed on a table
close to Gripard's hand in case he should wake and feel inclined
to take it.

"The sleep is the best food he could have. Qui dort, dim\"
thought Victor, and he left the room and went softly up-stairs
and to bed.

Victor was up with the dawn next morning, and crept down

76 FOLLETTE. [April,

the moment he was dressed to see how Gripard was. He found
him awake and perfectly collected. He had slept the candle out,
and awoke when it was quite dark, so Victor escaped a scolding
for his extravagance ; he had not seen the soup, which was now
removed discreetly before the shutters were opened.

" You are a new man to-day, patron. That bouillon did you
good. You'd like a little more of it? " Victor said.

" Aye, lad. Have you any more ? "

" I have a good bowlful. You needn't grudge taking it. I
told you I bought the meat and a lot of bones out of my own
money."

" That was well. It's the least you may do for me, lad ; I've
done a deal for you, eh ? "

" You have, patron, and I'm not ungrateful, although you said
hard things to me last night."

" Last night, eh ? Well, never mind ; I wasn't quite myself
last night. But that bouillon did me a deal of good."

" It sent you to sleep, and that's the best physic. You must
have a little good wine now. The doctor told me so yester-
day."

"Ah! That scoundrel from Earache, eh? Is he coming
here?"

" No, patron. I met him, and put him up to a dodge for get-
ting his hay cheap, and then I got an opinion out of him by way
of payment."

" Knowing lad ! " said Gripard, with a feeble chuckle. " And
what did the rascal say ? "

" He said I was to give you bouillon, and then if I found it
agreed with you 1 was to give you more with a glass of old
Bordeaux three times a day. He assured me this was the best
medicine he could prescribe, and the only one you wanted. But
when I spoke about it last night you called me hard names."

" Did I ? Eh ? Never mind what I said last night. Get me
the bouillon."

" And how about the wine ? Shall I fetch a bottle from the
cellar?"

" The cellar ! Ah ! I'm not sure I care about the wine. That
doctor man is a scoundrel ; you said yourself he was. I wouldn't
mind what he said. Bring me the bouillon." Victor stood hesi-
tating ; then his pale blue eyes gleamed with a light that was not
goodly to see. Without making any answer he went into the
kitchen and proceeded to light the fire. In a very short time the
soup was hot ; he had a good bowlful of it to his breakfast of cold

I880.] FOLLETTE, 77

beef and salad, and then, filling out a cupful, he took it in to
Gripard.

" See if it wants salt," he said, holding him out a spoonful to
taste.

" Excellent ! Give it me, lad." And Gripard held his shak-
ing hand toward the bowl ; but Victor stepped back.

" You sha'n't taste another drop till I have the wine ready for
you to take after it. Give me the key of the cellar to fetch up a
bottle."

"The key? the cellar, eh? I have no key; I don't know
where it is. I'll look for it by and by, when I've taken the bouil-
lon ; I'll be able to get up and find it. Give me the bouillon,
quick, lad." And he held out his hands piteously, entreating with
his trembling fingers.

" You sha'n't have a drop of it," said Victor quietly ; and he
laid the bowl down where the savory fumes could reach the old
man and tickle his greedy longing.

" My good lad ! I beg thee let me have it ! I will find the
key when I have refreshed myself. I can't get up to look for
it now."

" You can remember well enough. Where do you always
keep it ? In this room somewhere ? "

" I don't know where it is. My head is astray. I will remem-
ber after a while. Let me have the soup ; that will strengthen
me. Come, my good lad ! "

" You sha'n't have a drop of it," repeated Victor, thrusting his
hands into his pockets and leaning against the door. " What a fool
you are, patron ! Only think," he went on in a tone of persua-
siveness, " whom are you keeping those few bottles of wine for ?
For Follette, who won't say, God rest your soul ! when she gets
them ? Or for me, who never touch wine ? I hate it. You know
I do."

" That's right, lad. It's poison, wine is, and costs a deal of
money. It never did any one any good."

" Not unless they want it as you do now, patron ; and I tell
you if you don't have it you'll die. The doctor declared it was
the one thing to save your life that and the strong soup."

" Aye, aye ; but the soup first, and then we'll have the wine.
I'm fainting for want of the soup."

" You shall have it when I have fetched the wine," was the
dogged reply, and Victor drew his thin lips together.

Gripard fell back on his pillow with the whine of a baffled ani-
mal. His tormentor's hard face showed signs of indecision. What

78 FOLLETTE. [April,

if love of money should prove stronger than love of life, and that
the old man should conquer him by that most irresistible of
forces, the force of inertia? He was capable of letting himself
die of hunger rather than risk his treasure. One thing was made
clear, however : the money was in the cellar.

" Look here, patron," said Victor, softening his tone and open-
ing wide the kitchen door, so that Gripard from his bed could
see the big clock on the wall, " it wants three minutes of six now ;
if you tell me where the key is I will fetch the wine and hand you
back the key before the clock strikes six. I could not carry away
much wine in that time, could I ? And that's why you won't
trust me, is it not? You're afraid I'd steal a few bottles."

He spoke so warmly, with an expression of contemptuous
vexation, that Gripard began to relent. It was possible, after all,
that the lad did not suspect the cellar contained anything but the
wine, and, if so, he would not go peering about to look for any-
thing else, so there would be no great harm in letting him fetch a
bottle. The soup was smoking under Gripard's nose, mocking
his hunger, and he could not snatch at it. Victor saw his eyes
wander greedily from it to him.

" Three minutes, eh ? And you'd come straight back ? "

" Straight back. You can see the clock from this," he said,
pointing to the big white dial ; " it's now only two minutes to the
hour. Where is the key ? Come ! the soup is getting cold.
Trust me for two minutes."

His face wore a coaxing, humorous look that fairly disarmed
the miser's suspicions.

" Well, well, the key? Where is it? See on the table there.
No ? Where has it gone to ? Try in my pocket. Not there ?
Could it have dropped under the bed ? " Victor looked, but of
course saw no key.

" It would not have slipped between the flooring, patron got
under some loose board? "

" Nay, nay ; the boards an't loose, lad. Look behind the pil-
low." He grew visibly agitated as Victor, in obedience to his di-
rections, tried one place after another ; but when the young man
looked behind the pillow, thrusting his hand right under the bol-
ster, Gripard trembled so that the bed shook.

"I must be on the right track now," thought Victor. "It
would not have slipped under the mattress, patron ? " he said, still
searching.

" N-n-no," said Gripard, but his teeth chattered with fright.

" All right," thought Victor ; "fai chaud ! je brille ! The key is

l88o.] FOLLETTE. 79

somewhere near here." He asked no more questions, but thrust
his hand under the mattress, the old man making a piteous little
cry as he felt the strong arm travelling under him from the head
to the foot of the bed.

" Here it is," he said quietly, as if it were the most natural
thing in the world for a huge rusty key to have slipped accidental-
ly into the depth of a mattress through a slit in the ticking.

" Ha ! Thou art a handy fellow. Whatever brought the
plaguy thing there ? Make haste, lad, eh ? Thou won't be long
away, eh?"

" No, not more than the time to go and come," said Victor,
and the clock struck six as he spoke.

"Leave the door open, wide back, eh? I don't like to be all
alone," said Gripard ; and his eyes followed Victor with the look
of a creature at bay, terrified, but still with a hope of escape.

Victor lighted a candle and went down to the cellar. Some
dozen bottles were ranged on a step opposite the door ; he took
the nearest to hand, and without a minute's delay went back to
the kitchen.

" Here I am ! " he said, ostentatiously holding out his two
hands, one filled with the bottle, the other with the key and the
candle. " I've hardly had time to plunder the cellar, have I ?"

" Thou art a smart lad ; but the soup is getting cold," said
Gripard.

" I hope you will go yourself for the next bottle you want,"
said Victor, laying down the wine. " I've nearly sprained my
wrist locking the door ; it opened easily enough, but it was
the devil to lock it. Heu ! " And he rubbed his wrist and made
a face as if in great pain.

" It's a trifle stiff, but there's a way of doing it; I ought to
have told thee how to do it. It wants a good shake. Where
is it, lad the key ? I want to show thee how to put it in."

Victor had left it on the kitchen table. He fetched it and
handed it to Gripard, who, instead of explaining how it was to
be used, clutched it with his trembling fingers and hid it under
the bed-clothes. Victor's face wore a half-smile of amusement
and contempt as he watched him. Was it possible the old
sharper took him for such a fool as to have locked the door and
given him back the key ? Yet the old sharper did.

" The bouillon, lad give it me quick ; it must be cold," he
said in a tone of peevish impatience, holding out a hand for the
bowl.

" Shall I warm it up? " said Victor.

80 FOLLETTE. [April,

" Nay, nay ; it is hot enough. Give it me here ! "

There was just a moment's hesitation as Victor took up the
bowl; but he handed it to Gripard, and as he watched him
gulping down the soup with a loud noise the fresh, fair face
presented a curious study of varying expression : mistrust, tri-
umphant cunning, greed, and contemptuous pity chasing each
other like flitting shadows in the pale blue eyes and over the
thin, firm lips. If this succulent nourishment should prove strong
enough to revive the old man permanently, Victor might indeed
vote himself a fool, for he would have overshot the mark ; but
the fear seemed to vanish like a dark shadow from the keen face,
and a horrid light of hope shot from the eyes and from the corners
of the slit mouth. If ever death was written on a human face
it was on Gripard's ; there was no mistaking the glaze of the
sunken eyes that stared from the back of his head ; the fallen
jaw, the restless fingers feeling on the coverlet for something
they never found these signs were too reassuring to let any
serious fears enter Victor's mind.

When Gripard had finished the soup Victor uncorked the
wine and poured out a glass, and held it to the sick man's lips ;
but Gripard had not swallowed the first sup when he was seized
with such a violent fit of coughing that Victor thought he was
going to choke ; he rallied, however, and got back his breath,
and lay panting on his pillow. Victor waited a few minutes,
and then made some remark to the effect that he was sorry, but
that the wine would do him good by and by. Gripard opened
his eyes, and the vindictive glance they sent out was so horrible
that it made Victor start as if a witness from the other side
of the grave had risen up and accused him of his murderous
thoughts. He turned away and went quietly out of the room.

It was past the hour for taking Follette her bread and soup ;
she was beginning to feel hungry and to wonder if he meant to
cut her off the meal to-day, when she heard the welcome tread
of his step on the stair.

" I put down a pot-au-feu for your uncle," he said, " so I have
brought you some bouillon."

" How is he?" inquired Follette.

" Better ; he has been having a lot of strong soup. All that
ails him is weakness ; if he took proper food he would be all
right soon."

" Is his rheumatism very bad ? "

" No, it's only his legs ; there's nothing else amiss with him."

" I wish he would let me come and rub them," said Follette,

1 8 80.] FOLLE T TE. ' 3 j

with sweet self-forgetfulness. " Does he ever speak of me at
all?"

" He asks every day after you."

" Ha ! Then he misses me ? "

" Of course he does ; you would be so useful to him now. He
asks every day if you are not going to beg his pardon and prom-
ise to do what he bids you."

Follette's face, which had lit up with hope for a moment, fell,
and she turned her head away and looked out of the window.

" I always tell him that I can see you are coming round," con-
tinued Victor; " that you are more amiable to me, and that one
of these days it will all come right."

Follette looked up quickly and flashed a glance of amazement
and indignation at him.

" You need not look as if I had accused you of a murder,"
said Victor. " I don't believe a word of it ; I don't want you to be
civil to me ; I would not marry you now if you went on your
knees to me ; but I don't want to keep you cooped up here like
a dog in a kennel, half-starved and miserable. You think it's as
much my doings as Gripard's, but you are mistaken. I'd set you
free this minute, if I dared; and I tell lies to keep him from
starving you outright and cursing you all day long. You'll
think the worse of me for that, too."

Follette did not know what to think of him. Her uncle's last
words had been so harsh and cruel that they justified her in be-
lieving him capable of anything ; and if it was true that Victor
took her part and tried to represent her as in a more docile spirit,
it only showed that her uncle was still enraged against her, since
he would not give her a chance of proving whether it was true or
not. Another point in favor of Victor's sincerity was that her be-
ing out of the way must be a great inconvenience to him ; it
threw the cooking, such as it was, and the washing-up, and a lot of
other work on him that must be irksome to the last degree.

" Let me go down with you now, and see if he will let me
rub him," she said, a sudden impulse seizing her.

" Go by yourself, if you like to risk it," replied Victor, " but
wait till I am out of the house. He would turn us both out the
moment he saw you that I'll swear to and lucky if we escaped
without broken bones. I just hinted yesterday that if Mine.
Bibot came in she would make some of that mess with barley and
sorrel that he likes ; he shook his stick at me, and- swore if I let
her or anybody else inside the door he'd break my skull. And he
looked as if he would have had the greatest pleasure in doing it

VOL. XXXI. 6

82 ON DIVES. [April,

on the spot. It's wonderful the strength he has ; and he is so
savage-tempered it's all I can do to hold my own with him.
But you can do as you like when I am out of the house. Do you
want anything before I go ? "

Follette could hardly believe it was the same Victor who had
jeered and taunted and persecuted her with such apparent satis-
faction these weeks past, and who now spoke so frankly and kind-
ly, offering to oblige and help her.

He was the most puzzling human being she had ever known
one time so odious and cruel, and then again so good-natured and
anxious to please her.

Follette's face was an open book that any one might read.
Victor read it plainly enough as she looked at him, debating
whether she should believe in him or not.

" You think I'm deceiving you, that I am plotting something
to hurt you," he said, meeting her troubled, candid glance.
"Well, I can't help it. You will find out some day .that I'm
not as black as you fancy ; that I am a good friend to you, and a
generous one."

" Tell me the truth about Jules ?" said Follette.

" I have nothing to tell. He did not answer my letter."

" Perhaps he never got it."

" Perhaps," said Victor in a tone of assent.

" Write to him again. I will believe you are true and kind,
if you do that," said Follette, standing up and following him
with clasped hands.

" Will you ? " He turned round and met her upturned, ap-
pealing face. " Then I'll write to him."

" Merci ! " said Follette ; something nearly choked the word in
her throat, but Victor heard it.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

ON DIVES IN HELL

ASKING A DROP OF WATER FROM HEAVEN.
1 Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue.'

THE cunning rogue ! How well he knew
That if from heaven he could entice
One drop of its refreshing dew,
That single drop would quite suffice
To quench all hell's fire in a trice !

i88o.] THE RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE 'IN L

THE RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE IN IRELAND WITHIN

THE CENTURY.

ii.

A SKETCH of the progress of Catholicism in Ireland would be
manifestly incomplete without some remarks on the national-
school system. The principles of the church being totally at
variance with the indiscriminate reading of Holy Scriptures
without note or comment, it was impossible that the Catholic pre-
lates should accept the system of united education as originated
by the British government, which ordered the reading of the
Bible in every school.

The government thereupon consented to omit the clause
which was regarded as objectionable, and finally agreed upon a
measure which entirely prohibited the use of the sacred volume.
This new measure raised a storm of indignation amongst the Pro-
testants of the country, and had for its result the establishment of
church education schools, supported exclusively by them. Scrip-
ture extracts and religious books were made use of in the na-
tional schools for many years after the Scriptures had been ex-
cluded ; but these were afterwards discouraged, and later on even
the practice of exhibiting on the walls of the national schools
a tablet containing the Ten Commandments was discontinued.
How completely thenceforward the authority of Scripture was
excluded from the system of national education was made mani-
fest in the year 1862, when the Protestant occupant of the see of
Down, who was a supporter of the national system, drew up a
memorial to the lord lieutenant, requesting that the rule regard-
ing the Scriptures might be so far relaxed as to enable the
managers and teachers of national schools to make such slight
and casual reference to the word of God at the time of secular
instruction as occasion should absolutely demand. The com-
missioners announced in their answer that a compliance with
the memorial would be subversive of the fundamental principle of
the national system of education. The whole tendency of the
system of national education in Ireland has been practically to
thwart the development of religious principles, and could never
make progress in a country where religion is so deeply sown m
the hearts of the people as in Ireland. Amongst the Catholics it

84 THE RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE [April,

could never make more than a temporary and partial success, for
it was theoretically opposed to the teaching of the church and
only sanctioned for a time by those in authority, who believed
that by altogether rejecting what was offered them they would
lose something that might hereafter be turned to account. It
was felt that practically, in districts exclusively Catholic, many of
the rules of the national system could be dispensed with, and that
in this way it might be productive of good.

The Catholic hierarchy do not and never have assented to the
principle upon which the national system is founded ; but hav-
ing almost exclusively the patronage of the schools of three out
of the four provinces, and a preponderating influence upon the
board, they avail themselves of the system as the only means of
providing schools for the large number of children who might
otherwise receive at the hands of Protestants an education tainted
with error.

Previous to the passing of the act which disestablished and
disendowed the Anglican body in Ireland the national school
system had no more bitter opponents than the Protestant cler-
gy ; but among the many changes brought about by disestablish-
ment few are more worthy of note than the sudden disposition of
the Protestant body to place their schools under its protection.
They suddenly discovered, under the load of pecuniary difficul-
ties that was then laid upon them, that the national system was
worthy of support, and they began to abandon their own schools
for those in which the Bible was a forbidden book.

The whole system of national education in Ireland, though in
theory mixed, is, as a matter of fact, denominational. Through-
out the south and west the number of Protestant children at-
tending the schools is very small. Both Catholics and Protes-
tants are opposed to the system of mixed education, and sepa-
rate whenever they can manage it. In many instances, natu-
rally enough, Catholics and Protestants may be found side by side,
especially in the northern provinces, and then we see the bad
results that would necessarily flow from such a system, were it
carried out in its integrity.

It has been shown by a Parliamentary return obtained by
Major Myles O'Reilly that in national schools of which Presby-
terians have control thousands of Catholic children have been
more or less compelled to attend, and that in these schools they
were taught Protestant catechisms, were instructed by Protes-
tant teachers, and were obliged to read the Protestant version
of the Bible. Lord Plunkett regarded the system of national

i88o.] IN IRELAND WITHIN THE CENTURY. 85

education as an indirect but great means for Protestantizing Ire-
land, and declared that the more generally education was afford-
ed to the Catholics the more would it tend to the advancement
of religion by dispelling superstition and prejudice. Archbishop
Whately supported the National Board for similar reasons, and
endeavored to introduce books which gave great offence a fact
which is brought to light in a life of him written by his daugh-
ter.

The year 1850, famous in England for the violent anti-papal
manifestation consequent on the re-establishment of the hierarchy,
incidentally gave rise to trouble in Ireland. . The bill which was
hurriedly brought forward to checkmate the Catholic bishops
of England, not content with declaring the assumption of terri-
torial titles in England as contrary to law, went out of its way
to treat Ireland in exactly the same manner. Now, by the year
1850 the Catholic Church in Ireland had so completely risen from
the ashes of her former condition that her bishops and archbishops
had been already officially recognized. Such legislation was there-
fore a return to the old path of the penal laws. It is. scarcely
necessary to say that this act remained totally inoperative in Ire-
land. Indignation meetings were held all over the country to pro-
test against the absurdity of the measure, and the Archbishop of
Tuam, the present Most Rev. Dr. MacHale, affixed his signature
of John, Archbishop of Tuam, to every document and letter, both
public and private, thus openly bidding defiance to those in pow-
er to prosecute. The late Cardinal Cullen, then Primate of all
Ireland in the see of Armagh, presided at a large and influential
meeting in which it was determined to ignore the statute and
brave the penalties. Catholic prelates never derived their juris-
diction from Parliament or from the crown, and therefore no pow-
er in the state was justified in declaring the exercise of it either
invalid or unlawful. The late Dr. Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry,
when examined by a committee of the Houses of Parliament, de-
clared that such legislation was a step backwards, and that it was
manifestly absurd that a bishop of 7,000 persons should be com-
petent to sit in the legislature whilst the bishop of 223,000 was
deprived even of the name and semblance of social rank ; that
both ought to be admitted or excluded, but that if only one was
admitted he who represented the larger number had the best
right to be there.

When the Queen visited Ireland many of the Catholic prelates
were presented to her as territorial bishops, and precedence was
given to them over the nobility and dignitaries of the Protestant

86 THE RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE [April,

Church. When the government offered the office of Visitor to
the Queen's Colleges to the late Cardinal Cullen and the Arch-
bishop of Tuam their rank was recognized.

We have this on the authority of the present premier, when
Mr. Disraeli, in a letter written to the lord lieutenant of the
county of Buckingham with reference to a meeting to protest
against papal aggression. He therein uses these remarkable
words : " The fact is the whole question has been surrendered
and decided in favor of the pope by the present government,
and the ministers who recognized a pseudo-archbishop of Tuam
as a peer and a prelate cannot object to the appointment of a
pseudo-archbishop of Westminster, even though he be a cardinal."

The great injury done to Ireland by the legislation of 1851
was to make a church long since disinherited by old laws com-
pletely proscribed by a new law. All the Catholic bishops and
priests who took part in securing the succession of bishops were
subjected to legal penalties as well as to the reproach that their
very existence was against law, not for public acts only, or acts
which might conscientiously be avoided, but for acts the known
and habitual performance of which they could evajde only by sub-
stituting for a hierarchy fourteen centuries old a system of vicars-
apostolic such as exists in half-pagan lands or lands under reli-
gious persecution. The act is not here alluded to either for the
sake of recrimination or discussion. It is only worth referring
to so far as it touches on the question of Catholic development
in Ireland ; and on this point a law specially aimed at a certain
class of persons in England who were supposed to have infringed
the rights of the Anglican Establishment was strained to apply to
Ireland, whom in this instance no one accused of having done any
wrong.

The methods employed for the propagation of Protestantism
are not the least remarkable among the evidences of the impos-
sibility of furthering it by legitimate means and opposing the
steady progress of Catholicism. Children who were left orphans
have been systematically brought up as Protestants, although it
was often notorious that both parents had been Catholics. The
government theory was that any child without a home belonged
to the religion of the state and must be brought up in that faith.

A notorious instance of this took place in Gal way in the' year
1858. The parish priest of the town, who was also Catholic chap-
lain of the workhouse, baptized an infant of the town that had
been rescued from death, and brought it to the workhouse and
registered it as a Catholic.

i88o.] IN IRELAND WITHIN THE CENTURY. 87

The attorney-general, on ascertaining the fact, severely repri-
manded the master of the workhouse for a dereliction of duty, in-
forming him that he should have been aware that it was his duty
to make a Protestant of any child brought in such a condition to
the workhouse. The poor-law commissioners proceeded to dis-
miss the parish priest from his office of chaplain to the workhouse ;
but he continued still to fulfil the duties of that office, and was
cited before the Court of Queen's Bench.*

Many instances have occurred of children deserted or neglect-
ed by their parents, and known to be Catholics, who have been
confided to the care of Protestant nurses and surreptitiously
brought up in a religion to which they did not belong.

Irish Protestants have invariably buoyed themselves up with
the belief that popery was decreasing, and it is curious to read
some of the pamphlets and speeches at the commencement of this
century. One of the most remarkable is taken from a pamphlet
written in 1818 by the Rev. Mr. Phelan, a Fellow of Trinity Col-
lege, in which he makes use of the following language : " Popery
is fast verging to decay, and the only real danger is that the
papists will be converted by Protestant dissenters instead of the
orthodox champions of the Establishment. The people are every-
where ready to throw off popery."

Another is a passage by an English barrister, Mr. James Lord,
who edited in the year 1854 a relume of the same Mr. Phelan
which treated of the policy of the Church of Rome in Ireland,,
where the following amazing statement is found :

"An anti-Protestant policy has not achieved even for Ireland anything
approaching to a realization of the golden dreams of the fond visionaries by
whom it was so strenuously applauded. Ireland, it is evident, has not been
regenerated. But what statesmen could not do, what legislation hitherto
has failed to accomplish, we now see coming to pass by the silent influence
of the Gospel of peace and salvation. Irish church missions to the Roman
Catholics are effecting a great and rapid change in the feelings and conduct
of the population of Ireland ! . . . From every quarter of Ireland we hear
of many glad to receive the Gospel of peace and salvation, and of the ranks
of popery being thinned by the dissemination and reception of the truth."

This extract is remarkably apropos at the present time, when
the trial is actually in progress in Dublin of seventeen persons
who have been accused of attacking members of the society in
Connemara for insisting on practising a course of proselytism
which is repudiated with disgust by the entire population of the
province.

* These facts may be found in the Dublin Freeman of November 15, 1859.

THE RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE

[April,

At the close of the year 1864 an association under the auspices
of Cardinal Cullen was founded, styled the National Association,
which contributed enormously to make the life of politics guided
by men of sense and order.

The distinct cry for disestablishment was raised by this asso-
ciation, and was put forward as the primary object to be attained.

It was decided that an institution so bad and so indefensible
must be got rid of, if the Irish people were ever to attain reli-
gious equality ; and therefore every means available was to be
made use of to accomplish this end. In the year 1861 out of
twenty-four hundred and twenty-eight parishes there were one
hundred and ninety-nine in which there was not a single Anglican ;
but at this time thirty or forty of them had been suspended, the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners for Ireland being in receipt of the
revenues, but paying various sums for the spiritual oversight of
the parishes to neighboring incumbents (English State Church in
Ireland, by Brady).

On the i6th of March, 1868, Mr. Gladstone declared that the
hour had arrived for the destruction of the Anglican Establish-
ment in Ireland.

On the 23d he propounded his celebrated resolutions, and on
the 3Oth of the same month the House of Commons decided, by
three hundred and thirty-one votes to two hundred and seventy,
that a committee should be appointed to examine the question.

The Gladstone cabinet, coming into power towards the close of
the year, came in bound to proceed with the disestablishment.

The clergy were exasperated, and the landlords, who dreaded
the loss of places for their relations, were in despair, and both
violently opposed the measure.

The Orange party declared that as article 5 of the Union
declared that the Churches of England and Ireland as by law
established were to form one church, the existence of which was
to be regarded as an essential part of the Union, it was impossible
to proceed with disestablishment without a revolution. The Act
of Union was, they said, a contract between two parties, by which
Irish Protestants gave up the right of legislating in Ireland for
the perpetual maintenance of a Protestant Church. If, therefore,
England broke her part of the compact, they were entitled to
break theirs and agitate for the return of an Irish Parliament.

This angry spirit very soon disappeared. Their inherent
hatred of Catholicism was too great, even under these circum-
stances, to enable them to act in common with those Catholics
who desired repeal of the Union and a h.ome Parliament; and

i88o.] IN IRELAND WITHIN THE CENTURY. 89

after a few violent speeches and a certain amount of quasi-sedi-
tious language, they relapsed into a state of sullen defiance only
broken by periodical acts of violence during the months that they
commemorate great Protestant triumphs.

But it was not only the Orange party who endeavored to stir
up feelings of dissension in the country ; for persons holding high
offices, civil as well as ecclesiastical, did not scruple to invoke the
aid of prejudice and passion, and to inflame the public mind by
assertions that the High-Church section of the English Establish-
ment had conspired with the heads of .the Catholic Church in
Ireland for the restoration of a species of papal supremacy in
Great Britain. As a matter of fact, the advocates of disestablish-
ment in Ireland included many Protestants of position and learn-
ing strongly opposed to the religious teaching of Rome, such as
peers and commoners of distinction, deans, archdeacons, and other
dignitaries ; but the assertion was nevertheless repeatedly made
that the bill was alone supported by Irish Catholics, English
radical dissenters, and men who were traitors to their church
and the destroyers of the honor of their country.

When the Reformed Church ceased to exist as an established
church she ceased her old life of false pretensions to be the
national church of the country ; and though she has since then
arrogated to herself the title of " Church of Ireland," no one be-
yond the small sect of Episcopalians regards her as such. Op-
position to her has in a great measure ceased, and as years pass
away she will come to be regarded as a curious relic of an era of
bigotry and tyranny ; and Anglican clergymen, who for three hun-
dred years were the nominal pastors of a flock which persisted in
remaining apart, can scarcely now imagine there is any proba-
bility of inducing Irish Catholics to desert the old faith. The
disestablishment and disendowment of Protestantism so long an-
ticipated came after all, but in a modified form, for the Anglican
Church retained some 'three hundred endowed churches, twelve
or fifteen hundred fabrics of churches, nine hundred ecclesiastical
residences, and the life-services of some two thousand clergymen.
Enjoying as it did a monopoly of the wealth of the country, it
would have been no great hardship if the Protestants had
stripped of everything; and yet, mild as Avere the terms of the bill,
it was denounced by the leading Protestant prelates as a measure
" of unmitigated severity," " the very atrocity of tyranny,"
annals of this country affording no precedent for such a measu
of confiscation."

One of the most important things for Irish Catholics was

QO THE RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE [April,

they should learn to act in unison with the ecclesiastical authori-
ties, and that the upper classes should be taught that justice and
prudence required their complete co-operation with the peasan-
try in all matters connected with the development of the church
in Ireland.

It was the great aim of the late Cardinal Cullen to do this,
and in founding the Catholic University of Dublin his great de-
sire was to infuse into the upper classes of Irish society a united
spirit of loyalty to the church and of refined intellectual culture
which would make the Irish Church ten times as powerful
throughout the British Empire as she previously had been.

Through no fault of his the university has not hitherto had
the success which was anticipated at its foundation, nor is it
probable that it can ever rise to the position that it ought to oc-
cupy until the government take some measures to pass a bill cal-
culated to satisfy the aspirations of the church.

It is impossible to say whether the university will ever obtain
the right of conferring degrees solely as the Catholic university
and without its being affiliated to any other institution 1 ; but we
cannot help hoping that before long a difficult problem may
be solved which, if indefinitely postponed, may be productive
of great discontent in Ireland.

It is one of the most unhappy features connected with Irish
Catholicism that the curse of politics is introduced into the
very heart of its life. Sometimes one political scheme is the
source of dispute, sometimes another; sometimes the virulence
of party spirit is contented with general questions and abstract
proposals, sometimes it concentrates itselt in attacks on individ-
uals opposed to one another in political action. The Catholic
University has shared the fate of similar undertakings, and one
of the chief difficulties connected with it arises from this spirit
of party politics. Catholics in the heat of political animosity
forget the bond of union which should stand good in questions
connected with the religious education of the young, and expend
their energies in mutual recriminations.

The Rev. Samuel Haughton, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity
College, Dublin, in a pamphlet published in the year 1868, en-
titled University Edzication in Ireland, declared that there were
three methods of settling the question :

"i. To secularize Trinity College by throwing open its fellowships and
scholarships to all students, irrespective of religious qualification.

" 2. To open the University of Dublin to other colleges than Trinity Col-

i88o.] IN IRELAND WITHIN THE CENTURY. 91

lege, thus transforming the University of Dublin into a national Irish uni-
versity on the model of the University of France.

"3. To grant a charter and endowment to a Roman Catholic university
in which the education given shall be based on religion."

He proceeded to demonstrate the difficulties in the way of
the first two methods, which he pronounced to be so fatal as to
leave no alternative but to accept the third horn of the educa-
tional dilemma. He stated that English politicians in this mat-
ter seemed disposed to imitate the doctrine of Bumble, that the
great principle of out-of-door relief is to give the paupers exactly
what they don't want, and then they get tired of coming. An
overwhelming majority of the bishops ask for a Catholic univer-
sity charter and endowment, and are supported in this claim by
the great mass of the laity, but hitherto without success. Instead
of a chartered university they received queen's colleges, which
from the outset were condemned as godless, or makeshifts.

In spite, however, of these and similar difficulties, the church
has made vast progress. Every year more of the landed pro-
perty is passing into the hands of Catholics ; Catholic laymen fill
posts of honor and offices of high responsibility ; Catholic pre-
lates assume their rightful positions. Within the last fifteen
years we have seen one of the most illustrious of Irish prelates
raised to the dignity of a member of the Sacred College of Cardi-
nals and appointed apostolic delegate of Ireland, whilst to an-
other was entrusted the delicate and difficult mission of a super-
vision of the Canadian churches. Magnificent churches and ca-
thedrals are springing up as if by magic all over the land, built
by the subscriptions of an ill-used and persecuted peasantry.
Convents and monasteries, as centres of renewed life and vigor,
have accumulated with marvellous rapidity, and exist as a pal-
pable manifestation of the immense strides the church has made
within the last fifty years. Prominent amongst these magnificent
buildings must be cited the cathedrals of Armagh, Sligo, Queens-
town, Killarney, and Monaghan, which have taken the place of
the former churches built and endowed by the piety of Catholic
forefathers.

The church has of late years made great progress in Ulster,
and it is question if at the present moment the Catholic popu-
lation is not a large numerical majority. In 1866 the Catholics
numbered 966,000 souls, whilst all the Protestant sects united
were only 947,000. These numbers were given during the :
ting of Parliament in 1870, by Mr. Dowse, then solicitor-gener
for Ireland.

92 A SONG IN TOWN. [April,

The church in Ireland, as history shows us, has always thriven
under persecution, whether that persecution has been political
or social, whether openly avowed or concealed under specious
names. No man can see sufficiently far before him to know
whether a particular religion will gain most at a particular time
by prosperity, which is often invidious, or by the strengthening
trials of adversity ; but in the case of Ireland it has been made
apparent that the religious principles of a nation cannot be trifled
with, and that what is morally wrong can never be politically
right.

The motto that the Catholics in Ireland have taken for them-
selves is that promulgated by Charles James Fox, who said :
" I am told that the Catholics have already got so much that
they ought not to ask for more. My principle is directly the
reverse of this. Until men obtain all they have a right to ask
for they have comparatively obtained nothing."

Irish Catholics know they have not yet obtained all they are
justified in demanding from a government that professes justice,
and, therefore, they will never cease importuning and agitating
until that which is their due is granted to them. So long as
Parliament only legislates for Ireland in compliance with the
wishes and religious prejudices of England and Scotland, Irish
Catholics have just cause for complaint.

A SONG IN TOWN.

Now, with the spring, the maples' half-waked fires,
Kindling the boughs; scarce let the sky look through ;
The willows green shut out the misty blue
That makes more far the stream-bound city's spires.
Spent is the wealth of golden daffodils,
While violet wild its sapphire treasure spills
And with the heavens' lost blue the greensward fills.

In narrow yards, by builded brick pent in,
The lilac leaf-buds their sweet blades unfold ;
Proud dandelions spread their fairy gold,
Whereof who plucks shall winged riches win.
With April roses are the fruit-trees crowned
The branches gray in snowy fetters bound-
By May's soft breath ere long to be unwound.

i88o.] A SONG IN TOWN. 93

From one high window of my city home,

Where pitying skies look down on shed and wall
Whereon no kindly touch of art doth fall
To soften ugliness' firm-fastened doom,
I list the sounds that rise from court and street
The parrot's noisy laugh of pleased conceit,
Rattle of carts, canaries' warbling sweet.

I mark the cats that slumber in the sun,

Crouch in the shade, or wander up and down
With fearful step poor pariahs of the town

Life's scanty blessing through life's terror won.

I watch the cloud-fleets wind-blown o'er the blue,

That wears afar a lovelier depth of hue

Where'er the unstayed sails it shineth through.

Lo ! suddenly the blue crowns sloping hills,
Cloud-shadow unto shadow giving chase,
The rustling forest mingling in the race,

While leaping stream the cool, green hollows fills.

I see the bracken climb the pasture steep,

The paper-birches still the sunshine keep

Far in the wood where darkness rests most deep.

I see on sunny cliff the harebell swing,
And, lifted o'er the narrow realm of sod,
The gracious sceptre of the golden-rod
Bends, royal welcome proudly offering.
Sweet scent of forest-hidden bloom drifts by,
Warm breath of pines that in the sunshine lie,
Their perfume blending with their minstrelsy.

Beyond the little hills I see uprise

The clustering mountains' rocky citadel,
In whose vast choirs ^Eolian anthems swell,
While broad-winged eagles cleave the sun-steeped skies.
So rests again beyond the clouds my thought ,
So fades the vision, with earth's freshness fraught,
With subtle magic in one moment wrought

By clear, sweet notes of caged forest bird

My neighbor's thrush, that pours his unchained song
Heedless of bars or thought of prison-wrong,

Only life's sweetness by spring's sunshine stirred !

94 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES

Of old, to music, rose a city's walls ;

To-day a city unto music falls,

The woodland's glamour barren streets enthralls.

O sweet, brown bird, sing ever o'er and o'er

The wilderness song thy prison cannot dim,
' And symbol be of soul's immortal hymn
That from earth's prison evermore doth soar,
That, keeping note of its celestial birth,
Wakes caged sorrow unto holy mirth,
Brings sights of heaven to transfigure earth.

[April,

AMERICAN PRINCIPLES AND AMERICAN CATHO-
LICS*

THE early history of Maryland deserves to be told again and
again. Ever since the settlement of America it has been the cry
of bigotry and intolerance that Catholic principles are inconsistent
with civil and religious liberty, and destructive of the political
institutions which lie at the foundation of our free government.
Maryland furnishes the triumphant answer to this complaint.
Maryland was the only State of the Union planted by Catholic
enterprise, ruled originally by a Catholic proprietor and Catholic
freemen, and directed by a dominant Catholic spirit. It was also
the only colony which adopted from the first the American max-
ims of liberty and equality, and adhered to them so long as the
original founders and their disciples held power. Neither New
England nor Virginia believed in religious toleration, or would
trust political privileges to those who rejected the theology of
the dominant majority. Catholic Maryland furnishes the only
instance in our history of a colony founded and consistently
administered upon what are known as American principles.

Although Lord Baltimore and his companions have been cor-
dially enough praised, few Protestant writers are willing to see
that they stood alone in their opposition to the prescriptive doc-
trines of the age, and that it was a hundred and fifty years before

* History of Maryland from the Earliest Period to the Present Day. By J. Thomas
Scharf . 3 vols. 8vo, pp. xvi : 556 ; xiv : 635 ; xvi : 782, xxxviii. Baltimore : John B. Piet.
1879.

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS.

the other colonies reached the position upon which the Catholic
settlers planted themselves in 1634. Some historians, of whom
the Rev. Edward D. Neill, in his Founders of Maryland, is a con-
spicuous example, will have it that the famous Act of Tolera-
tion was agreed to by Lord Baltimore out of no more kindly
motive than a desire to tempt Puritans to settle on his vacant
lands, and was passed by Protestant votes in the Assembly,
despite the opposition of the Catholic members. Such, at least,
is the impression conveyed by a reading of his book, though
Mr. Neill does not make himself distinctly responsible for the
statements. Other authors, including Bancroft and Hildreth,
accuse the Maryland Catholics of violating their own laws and
pledges in order to persecute Quakers ; and this is a charge
which Mr. Neill repeats with emphasis and alacrity. But the
dispute, it seems to us, must now end. The new and elaborate
History of Maryland, by Mr. J. Thomas Scharf, dispels all reason-
able doubts upon the controverted points. Mr. Scharf has ap-
parently gone to original MS. sources of information which his
predecessors had not the opportunity to explore ; and in his three
substantial volumes he has presented the precious results of dili-
gent research among the records of the Province and State, the
MSS. in the possession of the Maryland Historical Society, and
documents in the British State Paper Office. A candid student
of the work cannot resist the conclusion that the Protestants
of Maryland had no share in the establishment of the American
principles of equality and freedom of worship there, and that
the Catholics never swerved in the least from their pledge of
toleration.

Catholics and Puritans both left England to escape the
despotism of the established church ; but there was the impor-
tant difference between them that while the settlers on Massa-
chusetts Bay brought to this country in full fierceness the pre-
vailing intolerance of their time, and applied to all who dif-
fered from them the same sort of severity from which they
had suffered at home, the Catholics claimed no freedom for
themselves which they were not ready to grant to all others.
George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, was a singularly
just, able, and chivalrous man. He was an adherent of the
established church, a Secretary of State, a favorite of King
James I., a member of Parliament for the University ^ of
ford. Having been interested for many years in American en-

g6 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

terprises, he purchased in 1620 a grant for the southeastern
peninsula of Newfoundland, where he established a fishing
and planting colony at a spot known as Ferry land. In 1623
he obtained a royal patent; and it is perhaps significant of
the religious bent of his mind, and of an ambition to spread
the light of the Gospel among " barbarous people wanting the
knowledge of Almighty God," that he called his province Ava
Ion the ancient name of Glastonbury, where pious tradition
affirmed that the faith was first planted in Britain by Joseph
of Arimathea. A year after his purchase Calvert publicly an-
nounced his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church and
resigned his secretaryship of state. James retained him, how-
ever, in the privy council, and in 1625 raised him to the peerage
as Baron of Baltimore in Ireland. Charles I. likewise showed
him every mark of friendship, and it was with some difficulty
that he obtained leave at last to retire from the court. He
visited Avalon, and was disheartened by the severity of the
climate. Touching at Jamestown on a voyage of examination
along Chesapeake Bay, he was expelled from the colony as
a papist, and the authorities of Virginia wrote to the king's
privy council, begging that no Roman Catholic might ever
be permitted to come among them. " Among the many bless-
ings and favors," so runs this address, " for which w r e are
bound to bless God and which the colony has received from
his most gracious majesty, there is none whereby it hath been
made more happy than in the freedom of our religion which
we have enjoyed, and that no papists have been suffered to set-
tle their abode amongst us." There could not be a better il-
lustration of the spirit in which most of the Protestant foun-
ders of America interpreted the phrase " religious liberty." It
meant with them the liberty to suppress religions which they
did not like. In reality no form of religion was " free " in Vir-
ginia. Anglicanism was there established by law, and atten-
dance at its services was compulsory. The state church was
the servant of the civil power ; other churches were not tole-
rated at all.

Lord Baltimore saw enough of inhospitable Virginia to know
that it was a much better country than Avalon, and after his re-
turn to England he applied for a new grant from the crown, cov-
ering lands south of the James River. His petition was success-
ful, but in consequence of the objections of the Jamestown people
the locality of the proposed colony was afterwards placed further
north, and the charter w r as drawn for a region which corre-

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS.

spends substantially with the present States of Maryland and
Delaware and a strip of Pennsylvania. Lord Baltimore is said
to 'have written the charter with his own hand. In nearly all
its provisions it was identical with the charter of Avalon. It con-
ferred extensive and unusual privileges upon the proprietor, mak-
ing the province in effect a palatinate, whose head was invested
with powers and prerogatives falling little short of those of roy-
alty itself. He could establish courts, summon assemblies, exe-
cute laws, grant pardons, confer titles, wage war. On the other
hand certain rights were secured to the people which, plain as
they seem now, were not conceded to other colonies until they
had been won by revolution. The settlers were exempt from all
taxation whatever by the crown, and were thus free from the
exaction which a century later proved more powerful than any
other single cause in rousing the colonies to arms. Still more
important was the recognition of the right of self-government ;
for Lord Baltimore of his own motion embodied in the charter
the provision that the laws of the province should be enacted by
the lord proprietary, but only " of and with the advice, assent,
and approbation of the free men of the same province, or of the
greater part of them, or of their delegates or deputies." When
the question afterwards arose whether the proprietary or the As-
sembly had the initiative, Lord Baltimore gave way. The laws
did not require the royal assent. In case l sudden accidents "
should demand a remedy before the freeholders or their deputies
could be called together, the lord proprietary was empowered
to make any necessary " ordinances " not affecting " the right or
interest of any person or persons of or in member, life, freehold,
goods or chattels." Besides these liberal political privileges, the
charter secured to the colonists valuable rights of foreign trade
which were not enjoyed by their neighbors of Virginia.

Lord Baltimore intended to make his own home in the New
World; but he died (1632) before the charter passed the great
seal, and left his fortune and his enterprise, as well as his title, to
his eldest son, Cecil. It was in the name of this nobleman that
the charter of Maryland was published and confirmed, June 20,
1632 ; and it was he who fitted out the famous Catholic colony
which sailed for the Chesapeake in November, 1633. Cecil Cal-
vert did not accompany the expedition, but he sent two of his
brothers, Leonard and George. Leonard Calvert was to be gov
ernor. The expedition consisted of about three hundred pe
sons, twenty of whom ranked as gentlemen, while the rest were
laborers and servants, including women. There were two Je:

VOL. XXXI. 7

98 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

priests in the company, Father Andrew White and Father John
Altham (otherwise known as John Gravener ; for in consequence
of the severity of the persecution against Jesuits in England the
fathers of that society often travelled under assumed names), and
two lay brothers, John Knowles and Thomas Gervase. The in-
teresting narrative of the voyage by Father White gives us a
graphic and beautiful picture of the beginning of the enterprise,
the dangers and excitements of the long voyage on unfamiliar
seas, the landing on the alluring shores of the bay in the first
weeks of spring, the just and pleasant intercourse with the sava-
ges, and the celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation on
St. Clement's Island, where the colonists went ashore and Mass
was offered under the trees.

"After we had completed the Sacrifice we took upon our shoulders a
great cross, which we had hewn out of a tree, and advancing in order to the
appointed place, with the assistance of the governor and his associates and
the other Catholics, we erected a trophy to Christ the Saviour, humbly re-
citing on our bended knees the Litanies of the Sacred Cross with great
emotion."

There were a few Protestants in the party all of them proba-
bly servants but the adventure was distinctly and admittedly
Catholic in its origin, its management, and its spirit.

Historians agree that the chief object of the second Lord Bal-
timore as well as of the first was to found an asylum for the per-
secuted followers of the Catholic faith. Although the personal
favor in which both the Calverts were held at court saved them
from many of the trials visited upon their brethren, they must
have shared the general uneasiness which disturbed the minds of
all dissentients from the established church of England at the be-
ginning of the reign of Charles I. The marriage of the king with
the Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria of France, intensified the
popular dread and hatred of Catholics ; and Charles was not in-
disposed to satisfy public clamor by increased severity in the
execution of the penal laws. Priests were hunted like wild ani-
mals, imprisoned, or driven from the kingdom. Laymen who re-
fused to attend the services of the state church were amenable
to a fine of twenty pounds sterling a month or the confiscation of
two-thirds of their personal estate ; and they thought themselves
fortunate when they were allowed to compound with the exche-
quer by a fixed annual payment, amounting to a tenth, or even a
third, of their income. This cruel exaction, however, did not pur-
chase for them the privilege of hearing Mass ; it was only a fine

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS. 99

for staying away from the Protestant service. Their misery was
greatly aggravated by the unauthorized extortions of the pursui-
vants, who ransacked and pillaged their houses under the pre-
tence of searching for priests or " superstitious objects " ; and al-
though there were fewer imprisonments than in the time of
James, the savage laws remained in their full enormity, and at
any moment the hangman might be set to work again. The
Puritan, too, while he never ceased to stimulate the ferocity of
the nation against papists, was himself suffering at the pillory and
the whipping-post. It is no wonder that both looked abroad
for peace.

Lord Baltimore's charter, of course, did not stipulate for the
toleration of Catholics ; the English people would not have borne
that ; it secured the desired end, as the founder imagined, by
leaving the whole question of religion to be regulated by the lord
proprietary and the colonists themselves ; and it is quite certain
that they determined from the start to settle it upon the plan of
perfect freedom to all impartially. It has been urged, indeed, by
some unfriendly writers that the charter protected the rights of
the established church of England ; but Mr. Scharf shows plainly
that this is an error. The references to religion in the document
are very few. The preamble speaks of the " laudable and pious
zeal " of the founder to " extend the Christian religion," but this
phrase surely cannot be supposed to apply particularly to a form
of Christianity which Lord Baltimore rejected. It meant nothing
more than Christianity in general ; it was the usual formula in-
serted in nearly all such instruments at that day. The same
general interpretation of Christianity must be applied to the con-
dition in one of the last clauses of the charter, which reads : " Pro-
vided always that no interpretation thereof [of the charter] be
made whereby God's holy and true Christian religion, or the al-
legiance due to us, may in anywise suffer by change, prejudice,
or diminution." " If these words mean the Church of England,"
says Mr. Scharf, " then there is no toleration in the charter, and
freedom for Catholics and dissenters was no more secured in
Maryland than in England ; for a connivance much more a
toleration was looked upon in those days as a diminution of
the rights of the established cnurch." Thus, if we assume that
this proviso compelled Lord Baltimore to recognize the freedom
of the established church, we are driven to the absurdity of also
assuming that it forbade his tolerating any other church, and that,
having resolved to open an asylum where those of his faith could
worship God in security, he devised for his colony a charter

ioo AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

which prohibited the principal object of the emigration. There
is only one other passage in the charter relating to religion. It
empowers the lord proprietary to hold " the patronages and ad-
vowsohs of all churches which (with the increasing worship and
religion of Christ) happen to be built, together with license and
faculty of erecting and founding churches and chapels, etc., and
of causing them to be dedicated and consecrated according to
the ecclesiastical laws of our kingdom of England." A license to
do a thing does not carry the obligation to do it. And that the
charter was not supposed at the time to confer any special privi-
leges upon the established church is quite clear from the history
of the colony. If the English Church had the same rights in
Maryland Which the law gave it in England, then it was entitled
to tithes and glebes ; but these it never had until the Protes-
tants obtained the ascendency and changed the spirit and statutes
of the province. Forty-four years after the settlement ministers
of the established church petitioned the home government against
the proprietary, and demanded a provision for themselves be-
cause the Catholic clergy had lands ; but Lord Baltimore showed
that the priests had obtained their lands in the same manner as
the lay settlers under " the conditions of the plantations," and
that no provision was made by the law for the support of any
religion.

It rested, then, entirely with the proprietary and the colonists
to exclude any denomination they saw fit ; and this could be
done without a formal act of exclusion, since Calvert held the
title to the whole territory and might refuse to lease or grant
lands at his full discretion. He chose rather to exercise a gene-
rous hospitality.

" Maryland," says a recent history,* " became a very asylum for the per-
secuted of. other provinces. Puritans who had been harshly treated in
Virginia removed across the Maryland line, gladly accepting so near a
refuge ; and to those in Massachusetts who should be persecuted for any
independent opinions Calvert sent a special invitation to make their homes
under his government. The self-interest of the proprietary, and a desire to
hurry on the growth of the colony, doubtless had much to do with this ;
yet it is impossible not to acknowledgethe broad spirit of such a course ; it
would have been wise statesmanship had it not been a little beyond the
appreciation of many who profited by it."

A proclamation of the governor, having the force of law, for-
bade " all unreasonable disputations on points of religion, tending

* Bryant and Gay, Popular History of the United States, vol. i. chap. xix.

1 8 So.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS.

101

to the disturbance of the public peace and quiet of the colony,
and to the opening of faction in religion," and this ordinance ap-
pears to have been rigidly enforced against Catholics. The oath
of office taken by the governor contained a pledge " not to trou-
ble, molest, or discountenance any person professing to believe
in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion " ; not to permit
any one to be molested on account of his religion ; not to make
any religious discrimination in bestowing offices and rewards.
In 1648, after the death of Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore en-
trusted the governorship of the province to William Stone, a
Protestant. The Act of Toleration, passed in 1649, was only the
formal ratification of the rule of government adopted at the foun-
dation of the colony and steadfastly observed thus far under all
circumstances. The manner in which Mr. Neill treats this in-
cident is remarkable, to say the very least. He says nothing
about the numbers of Protestants and Catholics in the Assembly
of 1649 which voted the law; but he alleges that Protestants
were an overwhelming majority in the colony, at that time, and
that in the next Assembly (1650) the Catholic burgesses were
only four out of thirteen ; that Lord Baltimore did not approve
the act for " many months " ; that it was " contrary to the teach-
ings of the Church of Rome, since it was the recognition of
Christians who rejected the pope " ; and that the Catholic bur-
gesses the next year objected to it. The only inference which
an uninstructed person could draw from this curious account of
the affair is that the Toleration Act was passed by the Protestant
inhabitants of the province, against the wishes of the lord proprie-
tary and of a Catholic minority. Yet we can hardly believe that
Mr. Neill designed such a gross misconstruction of well-known
facts. That the enactment of the law was attributable entirely
to the Catholics of Maryland is a truth about which there can
be no serious controversy. Far from disliking it, Lord Baltimore
was the author of it. He framed it, and sent it out in 1648 for
the action of the Assembly. And it is useless to make conjec-
tures about the religious complexion of that body, because the
question was settled years ago. The law-making power consisted
of (i) the lord proprietary ; (2) .the governor and council ; (3) the
House of Burgesses. The lord proprietary was a Catholic. The
governor in 1649 was a Protestant, and the six councillors were
equally divided; but governor and councillors, all seven, were
appointed by the lord proprietary and represented his personal
interests and wishes. There were nine burgesses. Five were
certainly Catholics ; one was probably a Catholic ; two were cer-

102 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

tainly Protestants or in sympathy with the Protestant part of the
population ; and there is " some probability," but no proof, that
there was a third Protestant. It is supposed this point is not
clear that bills were first passed by the burgesses and the
council separately ; it is known that the final enactment was
made by the two bodies in joint session voting as one house. It
is known also that on the day of the passing of this bill two of
the councillors were absent, one a Catholic, the other a Protes-
tant. The Toleration Act, therefore, originated with the Catholic
proprietary. It was voted by the governor and council, who
were his special representatives. It was voted by the House of
Burgesses, in which the preponderance of the Catholics was most
decided. It was voted by both branches of the Assembly jointly,
in which the Catholic element was again in a clear majority. It
was at last formally ratified by Lord Baltimore. Mr. G. L. Davis,
moreover, in his Day-star of American Freedom, has made it plain,
as we think, that in 1649 the Catholics, instead of being " few,"
mustered as many as three-fourths of the population of the
province.

But this is not all. Nobody who believes that the Act of
Toleration was framed or passed by Protestants can have read
it. Neither in Maryland nor anywhere else, at that day, was
it assumed that the state had no right to enforce the observance
of religious duties, and Lord Baltimore's scheme of toleration
meant nothing more than equality and fair play for all denomi-
nations. Hence the " Act concerning Religion " (that was the
official title of the celebrated statute), before providing that no
person professing to believe in Jesus Christ should " be in any-
ways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for or in respect
of his or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof," im-
posed penalties for the employment of offensive language such
as " heretic, schismatic, idolater, Puritan, Presbyterian, popish
priest, Jesuited Papist, Roundhead, Independent, etc." ; and pre-
scribed a fine of ^5 for " uttering any reproachful words or
speeches concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary." This does
not read much like a Protestant law.

ii.

Very different from the equitable rule of the Catholics in
Maryland was the course of legislation in the other colonies.
Virginia for a hundred years maintained the established church
of England, making attendance at its services compulsory

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS.

103

and forcing everybody to contribute to its support. The ear-
liest statutes of the colony which have been preserved (1624)
impose a fine of a pound of tobacco for absence from church,
to be increased to fifty pounds if the delinquency continued a
month. A law of 1643 made it the duty of the governor and
council to remove nonconformists from the colony "with all
conveniency." Popish priests must be expelled within five
days after their arrival ; and no popish recusant could hold
any office. Ministers who came from New England to preach
in private houses to the independents of Virginia were sent
away under this law. The treatment of Quakers was especially
severe. They were to be imprisoned without trial until they
gave bonds to leave the colony. To return a second time
after expulsion was felony. No one might buy or distribute
their books. No one might entertain a Quaker under penalty
of 100. A shipmaster who brought a Quaker into Virginia
was fined 100. When one of the persecuted sect pleaded
conscience as a reason for not going to the established church,
the court replied : " There is no toleration for wicked con-
sciences." To meet the case of the Baptists, the Assembly of
1662 enacted that all who refused to have their children bap-
tized by " the lawful minister," "out of averseness to the ortho-
dox established religion or the new-fangled conceits of their
own heretical inventions," should be fined two thousand pounds
of tobacco.

In New England, founded by men who left the mother
country to avoid the persecutions of the established church,
the laws against dissent from the colonial authority were still
more severe. The doctrine of religious liberty was generally
treated as a damnable heresy, denounced from the pulpit and
punished by the law. The rule established by the Puritans in
the settlements of Massachusetts Bay was a rigid theocracy, and
their policy was to exclude from the jurisdiction all sects ex-
cept their own. Under the system of government adopted by
the General Court in 1631 the magistrates had full authority
in spiritual matters, and there was the closest possible union of
church and state. Nobody was admitted as a citizen and voter
who was not a church-member, and church-membership was not
easily obtained. Not more than a quarter of the adult inhabi-
tants ever enjoyed this privilege. " It is said," wrote the Massa-
chusetts preacher, Nathaniel Ward, chief author of the Body of
Liberties, " that men ought to have liberty of their conscience,
and that it is persecution to debar them of it. I can rather stand

IO4 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

amazed than reply to this ; it is an astonishment to think that the
brains of men should be parboiled in such impious ignorance ; let
all the wits under the heavens lay their heads together and find
an assertion worse than this (one accepted), I will petition to be
chosen the universal idiot of the world." In 1629 two brothers
named Browne were expelled from the colony as " factious and
ill-conditioned " persons because they celebrated worship after
the forms of the established church. A certain Sir Christopher
Gardiner was banished on " suspicion " of being a papist. Roger
Williams was banished for denying the right of persecution, and
was at last obliged to take to the woods in midwinter to avoid
being transported to England. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and her
adherents were first imprisoned and afterwards exiled for heresy.
Three Baptists who went. from Rhode Island to Lynn to visit a
sick brother, and ventured to hold religious service by his bed-
side, were arrested, marched to church, and then thrown into
Boston jail (1651), whence after ten days they were taken before
the governor, his deputy and assistants, and fined thirty, twenty,
and five pounds respectively. Reminded by the prisoners that
there was no law for such a summary punishment, Gov. En-
dicott cried out that they denied infant baptism ; they ought to
be put to death ; he would not have such trash brought into the
jurisdiction. Two of the Baptists were released after some days,
their fines being paid by their friends. The third, a preacher
named Holmes, refused to pay and was unmercifully whipped.

In 1647 the General Court, "taking into consideration the
great wars, combustions, and divisions which are this day in
Europe, and that the same are observed to be raised and fo-
mented chiefly by the secret underminings and solicitations of
those of the Jesuitical order, men brought up and devoted to the
religion and the court of Rome, which hath occasioned divers
states to expel them their territories," enacted that no Jesuit
should be allowed to enter the jurisdiction, and any one of that
order who returned after being sent away should be put to
death.

Quakers were prosecuted with extreme severity. Two wo-
men of the society of Friends, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin,
arriving in Boston from Barbadoes in 1656, were imprisoned,
searched for " signs of witchcraft," and " thrust out of the jurisdic-
tion." Eight Quakers who landed from London soon afterwards
were treated in the same manner. A special law was passed the
same year to rid the colony of this " cursed sect of heretics." To
bring a known Quaker into the colony was punishable with a fine

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS. I0 c

of 100. The heretic himself was to receive twenty stripes and
to be imprisoned in the house of correction until he could ' be
sent away. The shipmaster who brought him must give bonds to
carry him back again, or in default thereof must go to jail. To
defend Quaker opinions was punishable with fines, imprisonment,
and banishment. The next year the penalties were increased.
For entertaining a " known Quaker " there was a fine of forty
shillings an hour. Every male Quaker was to lose one ear on the
first conviction, and the other ear on the second ; and both males
and females on the third conviction were to have their tongues
bored with a red-hot iron. All who attended the meetings of the
sect were to be fined. The zeal of the persecuted people rose ;
the activity of the magistrates was redoubled. The executioner's
three-corded and knotted whip was constantly in play ; an order
was issued in 1657 that all the Quakers then in jail should be
scourged three times a week. Women made a considerable pro-
portion of the offenders, and they were stripped, tied up, and
flogged like the men till their backs were gashed and bloody.
One woman was publicly whipped with a new-born babe at her
breast. A man and his wife were banished for sympathizing
with persecuted Quakers. Their two children, a boy and a girl,
left behind entirely destitute, had no means of paying the heavy
fines laid upon them for absence from church, and the court
ordered them to be transported to Virginia or Barbadoes and
sold. Later it was enacted that " all children and servants, and
others," who could not pay the fines for non-attendance at meet-
ing, should be " sold for slaves to Barbadoes or Virginia or other
remote parts."

Still the Quakers came. At last in 1658 the Commissioners of
the four United Colonies of New England recommended that all
Quakers who returned a second time after being banished should
be put to death. Massachusetts presently passed a law to this
effect. In 1659 Mary Dyer, Marmaduke Stephenson, and Wil-
liam Robinson were sentenced to the gallows. The two men
were hanged on Boston Common. Mary Dyer was reprieved
after the rope was around her neck. She returned the next year,
and, being brought before the General Court, was hanged the
next morning. William Leddra was hanged on Boston Common
in 1 66 1. Wenlock Christian was sentenced to death, but he was
saved by the restoration of Charles II., who ordered the perse-
cution to be stopped.

The people of the original Pilgrim settlement at New Ply-
mouth are commonly supposed to have been more tolerant than

106 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

those of the neighboring colony of Massachusetts Bay. Certainly
they were less fierce. " They were never betrayed into the ex-
cesses of religious persecution," says Mr. Bancroft, " though they
sometimes permitted a disproportion between punishment and
crime." That depends upon what we call excess. They re-
stricted the franchise to church-members. They adopted the
Boston law of 1656 against the Quakers. They banished a man
for no other offence than protesting against the severe usage of
these unfortunate people. They whipped Quakers. They de-
creed a fine of $, or a whipping, for entertaining a Quaker. In
1645 three of the magistrates favored an act of toleration. " You
would have admired," wrote Winslow to Winthrop, " to see how
sweet this carrion relished in the palate of most of the deputies."
But Governor Bradford, sustained by a majority of the magis-
trates, stifled the proposal, fearing it " would eat out the power
of godliness."

The colonies of New Haven and Connecticut joined Massachu-
setts Bay and Plymouth in the anti-Quaker act of 1656. Rhode
Island refused. Roger Williams, in founding that colony, adopted
the principle of complete toleration, and his charter, ten years
after the settlement of Maryland, guaranteed to everybody the
privilege of worshipping according to his conscience. But the
laws of Rhode Island subsequently (the date is uncertain) dis-
franchised Catholics, and this disqualification was not repealed
until 1784. Connecticut, in order to check the progress of the
Methodists and revivalists, passed laws to prevent ministers from
preaching in any parishes except those over which they were
settled ; if they came from other colonies they were to be ar-
rested and sent away as vagrants (1742); and the "new lights,"
or revivalists, were forbidden to establish churches of their own.

In New York, under the Dutch, only the Reformed Church
was tolerated by law, and Gov. Stuyvesant was a severe persecu-
tor of Quakers and Lutherans ; but the general disposition both of
the settlers and the home authorities was more lenient than the
law, and by tacit consent several denominations were allowed to
have places of worship. After the English took possession of the
colony religious liberty was destroyed. The first legislative as-
sembly of the province, called by the Catholic Governor Dongan
under authority of the Duke of York (afterwards James II.), en-
acted the Charter of Liberties, which guaranteed to the people
important political privileges and the right to practise any form
of the Christian religion without molestation. But after the ac-
cession of William III. this was repealed. " Papists " were made

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS.

10;

the objects of repressive laws. In 1700 it was enacted that every
priest coming into the province, or found therein, after the ist of
November, should suffer perpetual imprisonment, as an incendiary
and disturber of the public peace and safety. If he broke jail and
were recaptured he should suffer death. The penalty for harbor-
ing a priest was a fine of 200 and three days in the pillory.* In

1701 Catholics were disfranchised and excluded from office. In

1702 liberty of conscience was granted to all the inhabitants of
New York except papists. A similar discrimination was made in
New Jersey. In Pennsylvania the fundamental code, called the
Great Law, enacted by Penn and his associates on their first
arrival, conferred the franchise upon all freeholders and tax-
payers who believed in Jesus Christ, and promised toleration
to "all persons who confess and acknowledge the one Al-
mighty and Eternal God to be the creator, upholder, and ruler
of the world," etc. But this rule- seems not to have been
thought applicable in its full extent to Catholics, who were ad-
mitted to the colony, indeed, but only on sufferance. " There is
a complaint against your government," wrote Penn from Lon-
don, in 1708, to James Logan, the secretary of the colony, "that
you suffer public Mass in a scandalous manner. Pray send the
matter of fact, for ill use is made of it against us here." Some
years later, when Gov. Gordon proposed to interfere with the
open celebration of Mass in Philadelphia, the council would not
consent. The church in Philadelphia, says Hildreth, was "the
only Catholic Church allowed previous to the Revolution in any
Anglo-American colony." But "papists" in Pennsylvania dur-
ing the later years of the colony were denied the right of bearing
or possessing arms. South Carolina, although a majority of
her people were dissenters, required all members of the Assem-
bly to receive communion in the Church of England, or at least
to make a formal declaration of adherence to the Establishment
(1704). The charter of Georgia (1732) granted the " free exercise
of religion " to all inhabitants " except papists."

When the colonies declared their independence of Great
Britain they were far from abandoning the British principles of
persecution ; indeed, intolerance, as we have seen, was firmly
rooted in nearly all the American communities. In the Consti-
tutional Convention of New York (1777) John Jay (in whose
family bigotry seems to be hereditary) caused an amendment
be made to the naturalization clause, forbidding the Legislatu

* See A Brief Sketch of the Catholic Church in the Island of New York, by the Rev. J. R.
Bayley. New York, 1853.

io8 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

to admit any foreigner to citizenship who would not abjure
allegiance to the pope " in all matters ecclesiastical as well as
civil " ; and this exclusion remained in force imtil by the Consti-
tution of the United States the control of naturalization was
vested in Congress. When the section as to religious toleration
was brought up Mr. Jay proposed to except from its benefits
" the professors of the religion of the Church of Rome, who
ought not to hold lands in, or be admitted to a participation of
the civil rights enjoyed by the members of this State, until such
time as the said professors shall appear in the Supreme Court
of this State, and there most solemnly swear . . . that they
renounce and believe to be false and wicked the dangerous and
damnable doctrine that the pope or any other earthly authority
hath power to absolve men from their sins," etc. This clause
was defeated after a long debate, and Mr. Jay finally obtained
the adoption of a proviso, " that the liberty of conscience hereby
granted shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentious-
ness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of
this State."*

The constitution of South Carolina made the Christian reli-
gion the established creed of the State, and prescribed a belief in
five specified dogmas as a qualification for holding office. Jews,
Unitarians, Universalists, and many others were excluded by
this rule ; and there was also a religious test for voters. The
constitution of New Jersey provided that no " Protestant "
inhabitant should be denied the enjoyment of any civil right
on account of his religious principles, and that any person who
professed " a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect " might be
elected to office. The constitution of Pennsylvania exacted of
every member of the Legislature a belief in the existence of God,
the inspiration of the Scriptures, and a system of divine rewards
and punishments. Massachusetts required every minister or
public teacher of religion to subscribe to the constitution and
to read it once a year to his congregation. New Hampshire
provided that members of the Legislature must be " of the
Protestant religion " ; and this disqualification of Catholics, Jews,
and free-thinkers, though it had long been a dead-letter, was not
removed from the constitution until 1877.

*See Archbishop Bayley's Brief Sketch,

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS. IO9

in.

Such was the spirit of the Protestant colonies; and their
intolerance has been excused on the ground that they per-
secuted people in self-defence; they came into the wilderness
to found churches and communities of their own, and they
had a right to exclude all who were hostile to their civil and
religious systems. It will hardly be pretended, however,
that the Protestants had any such exclusive rights in the Ca-
tholic colony of Maryland. Let us see how they conducted
themselves there. From the earliest days of the settlement
Lord Baltimore was vexed by a Virginia trader named Clai-
borne, established on Kent Island within the limits of the
Maryland grant. This person refused to acknowledge the
jurisdiction of the lord proprietary, and was at open war with
the government of the province. The Puritan colonists, who
had entered Maryland at the hospitable invitation of the pro-
prietary, and had there been protected in the enjoyment of
freedom of worship and all other privileges, joined him in
overthrowing Calvert's authority, and for two years (1644-46)
the legitimate governor was a fugitive. During this period
the Catholic party suffered severely ; many were ruined by
fines and confiscations ; the mission stations of the Jesuits
among the Indians were broken up ; and the venerable apos-
tle, Father White, with several of his companions, was sent
in chains to England, there to endure a long imprisonment.
In justifying this rebellion afterwards, in a memorial to Par-
liament, Captain Ingle, one of the partisans of Claiborne, repre-
sented that he had felt it to be his duty to " assist the well-af-
fected Protestants against the said tyrannical government and
the papists and malignants " a plea which sufficiently indicates
'the religious character of the movement. Indeed, almost on
their first arrival the Puritans had professed a scruple about
swearing allegiance to a lord proprietary who " upheld Anti-
christ." It would not have been surprising if the experience
of the behavior of these sectaries during the Claiborne rebel-
lion had discouraged Lord Baltimore from the further prose-
cution of his experiment of toleration and equal rights ; but
he never wavered in his purpose. Two years after the sup-
pression of the Puritan revolt he appointed a Protestant gov-
ernor, made arrangements for the admission of more Protes-
tant settlers, and drew up the famous " Act concerning Reli-
gion," which was passed by the Assembly in 1649.

i io AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

Soon afterwards Cromwell appointed Claiborne and others
commissioners " to reduce Virginia and the inhabitants thereof."
They had no authority to meddle with Maryland, but they
assumed it, deposed the lord proprietary's officers, and sum-
moned a new Assembly (1654), " for which Assembly all such
should be disabled to give any vote, or to be elected members
thereof, as have borne arms in war against the Parliament
or do profess the Roman Catholic religion." No sooner had
this body come together than it substituted for the generous
Toleration Act of 1649 the following law : " It is hereby en-
acted and declared that none who profess and exercise the
popish (commonly called the Roman Catholic) religion can be
protected in this province by the laws of England formerly
established, and yet unrepealed : Nor by the government of
the commonwealth of England, etc., but to be restrained from
the exercise thereof." Liberty of conscience was then granted
to " such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ," but " pro-
vided such liberty be not extended to popery or prelacy." But
the Parliament was not ready to approve these high-handed
proceedings, taken without any legitimate authority. It was
only four years since the Protestant inhabitants had signed a
Declaration in the following words:

"That according to an act of Assembly here, and several other strict in-
junctions and declarations by his said lordship for that purpose made and
provided, we do here enjoy all fitting and convenient freedom and liberty in
the exercise of our religion under his lordship's government and interest ;
and that none of us are any ways troubled or molested for or by reason
thereof within his lordship's said province."

Lord Baltimore was also able to satisfy Cromwell that the Ca-
tholic colonies were not enemies of the state ; and if the Protec-
tor took no active steps to right the lord proprietary he at least*
allowed him to try to right himself. In 1656, accordingly, Lord
Baltimore's government was re-established at St. Mary's, and the
new governor, Fendall, was specially instructed to restore the
Toleration Act of 1649, "and particularly that part thereof
whereby ' all persons in the said province are to have liberty of
conscience and free exercise of their religion.' " The Puritans,
however, held out for a while at Providence (now Annapolis), and
until 1658 there were two rival governments in the province the
Catholic government, mild, generous, and tolerant ; the Protes-
tant, cruel, bigoted, and unjust.

Hardly had peace been restored than Governor Fendall allied

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS. Iir

himself with the Puritan party in a conspiracy to overthrow the
proprietary (1659). The lower house of the Assembly declared
itself the sole source of power, subject only to the king. The
council, or upper house, was dissolved. The authority of the
proprietary was disavowed, and Fendall accepted a new commis-
sion from the revolutionary Assembly. It was by this rebellious
>dy that the law against Quakers, to which we have already
-eferred, was passed in July, 1659. They were "to be whipped
from constable to constable until they be sent out of the pro-
vince " ; but in a few months the Fendall usurpation came to
an end, and Lord Baltimore, sending over his brother, Philip Cal-
vert, as governor, restored toleration once more. Nothing could
shake his determination to deal with strict impartiality by all
men. He died in 1672, and his son and successor, Charles, the
third Lord Baltimore, inherited his equitable policy. In a revi-
sion of the code after the accession of the new lord the Act of
Toleration was confirmed ; and that it was faithfully observed
is attested by a "declaration," signed by the principal colonists
belonging to the Church of England in 1682, in consequence of
a fresh attempt of the Puritans to effect a Protestant revolution.
Although it appeared from these witnesses that the Catholics
were not favored above others either in religious or political mat-
ters, the English ministry ordered that all the offices in Maryland
should be put into Protestant hands.

Immediately after the accession of William of Orange the
Protestants (now a large majority in the colony) rose in rebellion
against the proprietary, against whom they had no complaint
whatever to make except that he was a papist.. A crazy report
was spread abroad that the Jesuits and lay Catholics had entered
into a conspiracy with the Indians to massacre all the Protestant
inhabitants. An "Association in Arms for the Defence of the
Protestant Religion " was formed under the leadership of a fana-
tic named Coode. The city of St. Mary's was captured. The
authorities were all deposed. A convention was called (1689);
and the insurgents, styling themselves " representatives of their
majesty's Protestant subjects in the province of Maryland," drew
up a lying and hypocritical address to King William, complaining
of "the great grievances and expressions" they had long lain
under (but not specifying any), and begging the king " to appoint
such a deliverance to his suffering people, whereby for the future
their religion, rights, and liberties might be secured under a Pro-
testant government " directly appointed by the crown. Although
there were not Avanting remonstrances to the throne from other

ii2 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

Protestants, exposing the outrageous falsehoods of Coode's ad-
dress, the king promptly approved the conduct of the " Associa-
tors," authorized them to continue the administration of the pro-
vince for the time being, instituted proceedings for the forfeiture
of the charter, and, without waiting for the law to take its course,
sent over a royal governor. The new Assembly which thereupon
convened first signed an address of thanks to the crown for " re-
deeming them from the arbitrary will and pleasure of a tyranni-
cal popish government under which they had so long groaned,"
and then immediately put an end to that equality in religion
which had hitherto prevailed in Maryland by passing an act to
establish the Church of England in the province, dividing the
counties into parishes, and levying a contribution of forty pounds
of tobacco upon every taxpay er for the support of the state reli-
gion (1692). The Toleration Act and all other laws passed under
the proprietary were repealed. Later it was enacted that the
Book of Common Prayer and the rites and ceremonies of the
Church of England should be used " in every church or other
place of worship within this province." So strenuous were the
complaints of the Quakers and others of this extraordinary law
that another statute was substituted, which allowed all Protes-
tant dissenters to have meeting-houses under certain conditions,
and left Catholics the only victims of intolerance in a Catholic
colony.

The violence and ingratitude of the dominant party grew
daily more and more monstrous. In 1704 two priests were sum-
moned before the governor, John Seymour, for the offence of
saying Mass ; and that functionary addressed them in the follow-
ing language, which, considering the history of Maryland, seems
inimitable :

" It is the unhappy temper of you and all your tribe to grow insolent
upon civility and never know how to use it ; and yet of all people you have
the least reason for considering that if the necessary laws that are made
were let loose they are sufficient to crush you, and which (if your arrogant
principles have not blinded you) you must need to dread."

The minutefc of the council add, in connection with this case :

"The members of this board, taking under their consideration that such
use of the popish chapel of the city of St. Mary's, where there is a Protes-
tant church, and the said county court is kept, is both scandalous and of-
fensive to the government, do advise and desire his excellency the gov-
ernor to give immediate orders for the shutting up the said popish chapel
and that no person presume to make use thereof under any pretence what-
ever."

ii4 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES [April,

to usurp his father's rights by nominating a governor for Mary-
land. He did not survive his father long enough to enjoy the
inheritance which he thus partially anticipated, but the reward
of apostasy was bestowed upon his infant son, Charles Calvert,
the fifth baron. The announcement of the restoration of the pro-
prietary government was made to the Assembly (1715) in the
following terms :

" His majesty (who is the true defender of the faith) was readily induced
to reinstate the noble family of Baltimore in their ancient right of govern-
ing this province, from the pious consideration of their having embraced the
Protestant religion."

The Catholic inhabitants of Maryland in 1708 were about
three thousand, or only one in thirteen of the whole popula-
tion ; but the Protestants were in great dread of their increase.
An import duty of twenty shillings a head was laid upon all
"negroes and Irish papists," while Irish Protestants were ad-
mitted free (1704). In the space of sixteen years no fewer than
twelve acts were passed to prevent the importation of Irish immi-
grants. But the most striking exhibition of Protestant inhospi-
tality was made in 1755. The Protestants, as we have seen, ob-
tained a shelter and welcome among the Catholics of Maryland
when they fled from the persecutions of other Protestants in New
England and Virginia. It was how their turn to be kind. Ves-
sels arrived at Annapolis with nine hundred destitute Catholic
exiles from Acadia. Individual generosity contributed some-
thing for the relief of their hunger ; " but we must own with
shame," says Mr. Scharf, " that, if not treated with positive inhu-
manity, they were almost everywhere viewed with suspicion and
dislike, and even the charity which their meek wretchedness ex-
torted was grudgingly bestowed." The electors and freeholders
of Talbot County represented to the Assembly that the religious
principles of the exiles were dangerous in a Protestant country,
and begged that the " pest " might be removed, at the unhappy
people's own expense, as had been done in Virginia and Carolina.

The persecuting spirit lasted in Maryland until the Revolution,
when the alliance of the colonies with France produced a general
change in the laws relating to religion. As late as 1754 the peo-
ple of Prince George's County instructed their delegates to urge
a law " to dispossess the Jesuits of those landed estates which
under them became formidable to his majesty's good Protestant
subjects of this province ; to exclude papists from places of trust
and profit, and to prevent them from sending their children to

i88o.] AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS. H5

foreign popish seminaries for education." In 1755 the Assembly
urged the governor to " issue his proclamation commanding all
magistrates and other officers duly to execute the penal statutes
against Roman Catholics within this province." The church war-
dens of various parishes adopted an order commanding " all per-
sons not having lawful excuse to resort to their parish church or
chapel on every Sunday and other days, and then and there to
abide in decent manner during the time of common prayer,
preaching, or other service of God." In 1756, when an appropria-
tion of 40,000 was voted for the defence of the colony during
the French and Indian war, a double tax was laid on the lands of
all Catholics !

With this incident we leave the long narrative of injustice.
The conduct of the Protestants of Maryland is wholly without pal-
liation. They came into a peaceful and hospitable State, where
Catholic liberality offered them a refuge from oppression, and
they abused the privileges voluntarily granted them to dispos-
sess their entertainers. For the Puritans of New England and
the Anglicans of Virginia there are many excuses to be made.
They founded colonies in their own way for their own people ;
hey asked nobody to join them who did not share their opinions ;
hey ruled according to the principles of civil and ecclesiastical
government which prevailed everywhere in their day. They
might well point to the overthrow of Catholicism in Catholic
Maryland as a proof that toleration was a mistake. We do not
cite their persecution-laws lor the purpose of reproaching them.
Those laws were in accordance with the opinions of the seven-
teenth century, and it is unreasonable to condemn a community
absolutely for not being in advance of its age. But the nation
now prides itself upon a system which is radically opposed to the
original New England and Virginia ideas that is, the policy of
equal rights and privileges for all religious denominations, special
privileges for none. People call it the distinctively American
policy ; and most of our Protestant fellow-citizens seem to imagine
that the Catholic Church is bitterly hostile to the policy, and
would overthrow it if it could. Our purpose in this review has
been to show, by a calm statement of admitted facts, what the
policy of American Catholics has been in the past. They alone,
of all the colonists of the United States, adopted on their first
arrival the present policy of religious equality, and rigidly ad-
hered to it under all circumstances and in spite of outrageous
provocations.

ii6 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

THE renewed and increasing interest, more particularly in
France and in the United States, in the projects for connecting
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by means of a ship-canal across
some portion of the isthmus connecting North and South Ame-
rica, has brought into great prominence the Monroe doctrine.
In its name resolutions have been offered in Congress warning off
intruders, not, indeed, from this country, but from other coun-
tries over which we make no claim to exercise sovereign rights.
Congressmen have delivered eloquent speeches, appealing to it
as countenancing and sustaining certain theories of public policy
of their own which they were anxious the country should adopt
and act upon. The newspapers have not been slow in availing
themselves of the topic as timely. Editors of daily journals are
usually too busy in writing something, or in seeking something to
write about, to find time to become masters of nice points of in-
ternational law, even when they are connected with the history
of their own country. From public men better things are ex-
pected. There is no law compelling a senator or a representative
to discuss a question of international law or to offer a resolution
upon it. His existence does not depend upon his daily supply
of " copy " on some interesting topic to insatiate caterers to
an unsatisfied public. He has the leisure, had he the desire, to
make himself acquainted with his country's history and policy ;
and it is highly reprehensible that persons in public station, who
should feel its responsibilities, will, in sheer anxiety for an ephe-
meral popularity, permit themselves to speak, and even write,
confidently on matters of which they are far from masters.

It is now nearly sixty years since the Monroe doctrine was
originally promulgated. The infants of President Monroe's
day are the leaders and statesmen, the fathers and mothers,
the grandfathers and grandmothers of to-day. There are per-
sons now living who have direct knowledge of the circum-
stances under which the declarations since called the Monroe
doctrine were made. But they are not many. The doctrine
has, however, never b.een permitted to fade out of the public
mind. If Americans did not know what the thing was they
could not justly complain that they did not hear the name often
enough. When the Panama Mission was proposed in 1825

iSSo.J THE MONROE DOCTRINE. II7

there was a great debate in Congress as to the meaning of the
doctrine, and, though only a couple of years had elapsed- since its
promulgation, a considerable diversity of views as to its scope
and value was developed. In 1848, in the Yucatan debate, the
subject was again elaborately discussed. Then, too, it was plain
that there were diverse views entertained in regard to the Mon-
roe doctrine, as Senator Calhoun, who was a member of Presi-
lent Monroe's cabinet when the declaration in question was
made, and who urged President Monroe to make it, was com-
pelled to oppose a policy which was declared by its supporters
to be based upon the doctrine in dispute. In 1856, in the
debates on the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, the subject was again
reviewed, with the old result of showing a diversity of views
regarding it. During the French occupation of Mexico, and the
reign of the unfortunate Maximilian in that country, the Monroe
doctrine was constantly invoked by a not inconsiderable num-
ber of persons, who urged that the United States should make
war upon Napoleon and Maximilian in the interest of our sister
republic, and in vindication of a policy which was assumed to
have been outraged by them. And now the interoceanic-canal
project brings the matter prominently forward again. If the
knowledge of a subject depended upon familiarity with its name
the Monroe doctrine would be nearly as well known as the
multiplication-table. But unfortunately names are not indexes
to things. Every reader has heard of the name " Monroe doc-
trine." There are very few, however, who have read the terms
of that doctrine. This article is devoted to an explanation of the
doctrine itself. It will begin, therefore, with the declarations of
President Monroe himself, cited textually. These declarations
are three in number. The first is found near the beginning of
President Monroe's annual message transmitted to Congress on
December 2, 1823, and is in the following words:

" At the proposal of the Russian imperial government, made through
the minister of the emperor residing here, a full power and instruc-
tions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St.
Petersburg to arrange, by amicable negotiation, the respective rights and
interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A
similar proposal had been made by his imperial majesty to the government
of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. The government of
the United States has been desirous, by this friendly proceeding, of mani-
festing the great value which they have invariably attached to the friendship
of the emperor, and their solicitude to cultivate the best understanding
with his government. In the discussions to which this interest has given
rise, and in the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion

n8 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights
and interests of the United States are involved, that the American conti-
nents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and
maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future coloni-
zation by any European powers" (Annual Register, 1823, Star pp. 184
and 185).

The second declaration is much longer and more carefully
worded than this. A part of it is what is usually quoted as the
Monroe doctrine, and is found near the close of the same state
paper. Its language is as follows :

" It was stated at the commencement of the last session that a great ef-
fort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of
the peoples of those countries, and that it appeared to be conducted with
extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be remarked that the result has
been so far very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in
that quarter of the globe, with which we have so much intercourse, and
from which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and interest-
ed spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the
most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on
that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers, in matters
relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport
with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seri-
ously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence.
With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more imme-
diately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened
and impartial observers. The political system of the Allied Powers is essen-
tially different from that of America. This difference proceeds from that
which exists in their respective governments. And to the defence of our
own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure,
and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under
which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted.
We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing be-
tween the United States and those powers, to declare that we should con-
sider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of
this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing
colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered,
and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared
their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on
great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not
view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling
in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other
light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the
United States. In the war between those new governments and Spain we
declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition ; and to this we have
adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur
which, in the judgment of the competent authorities of this government,
shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indis-
pensable to their security.

.. i88o.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. ug

" The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is still unset-
tled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be adduced than that
the Allied Powers should have thought it proper, on any principle satisfac-
tory to themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal concerns of
Spain. To what extent such interpositions may be carried on the same
principle is a question in which all independent powers whose govern-
ments differ from theirs are interested, even those most remote, and surely
none more so than the United States. Our policy in regard to Europe,
which was adopted at an early age pf the wars which have so long agitat-
ed that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same which is, not
to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers ; to consider the
government de facto as the legitimate government for us ; to cultivate
friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm,
and manly policy; meeting in all instances the just claims of every power,
submitting to injuries from none. But in regard to those continents cir-
cumstances are eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible
that the Allied Powers should extend their political system to any portion
of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness ; nor can
any one believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would
adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we
should behold such interposition, in any form, with indifference. If we
look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new
governments, and their distance from each other, it must l obvious that
she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States
to leave the parties to themselves, in the hope that other powers will pur-
sue the same course" (Annual Register, 1823, Star pp. 192-194).

The third declaration, which is subsequent to these in time, is
of minor importance. It is found in the annual message of Presi-
dent Monroe transmitted to Congress on the 7th of December,
1824. After referring to the kindly interest taken by the United
States in the new nations of Spanish America the President con-
tinues :

" In this their career, however, we have not interfered, believing that
every people have a right to* institute for themselves the government
which in their judgment may suit them best. . . . The deep interest which
we take in their 'independence, which we have acknowledged, and in their
enjoyment of all the rights incident thereto, especially in the very im-
portant one of instituting their own governments, has been declared and is
known to the world. Separated as we are from Europe by the great Atlan-
tic Ocean, we can have no concern in the wars of the European govern-
ments, nor in the causes which produce them. The balance of power be-
tween them, into whichever scale it may turn in its various vibrations, can-
not affect us. It is the interest of the United States to preserve the most
friendly relations with every power, and on conditions fair, equal, and ap-
plicable to all. But in regard to our neighbors our situation is different.
It is impossible for the European governments to interfere in their concerns,
especially in those alluded to, which are vital, without affecting us ; indeed,
the motive which might induce such interference in the present state of the

i2o THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

war between the parties, if a war it may be called, would appear to be equally
applicable to us. It is gratifying to know that some of the powers with
whom we enjoy a very friendly intercourse, and to whom these views have
been communicated, have appeared to acquiesce in them " (Annual Register,
1824, Star pp. 128 and 129).

The first thing which will impress the careful reader is that
there are two doctrines here, and not one. The citation above
given in regard to the proposed negotiation with Russia in re-
ference to the Northwest boundary contains a declaration on the
subject of colonization, no matter by whom attempted ; while the
declarations in regard to Spanish America have regard to for-
cible intervention on the part of the Allied Powers of Europe
for the restoration of the authority of Spain on this hemisphere.
Whether these three declarations are or not part of one compre-
hensive scheme of foreign policy, it is important to remember that
one of them is in scope and origin quite different from either
of the others as different, indeed, as peaceful colonization and
armed intervention were and are.

These declarations sprang from diverse causes. The one in
regard to colonization, which will be first dealt with, was occa-
sioned by a state of facts in outline as follows : Great Britain,
Russia, and the United States were rival claimants for certain
territory bordering on the Pacific Ocean. By the third article
of our treaty with Spain in 1819 his Catholic majesty ceded to
us " all his rights, claims, and pretensions " to all lands west of
the Mississippi River, and east and north of a certain line running
from the mouth of the river Sabine to certain points on the Red
River and the Arkansas and along the forty-second parallel of
north latitude. As Mexico achieved her complete independence
of Spain, this treaty practically extinguished all the claims of that
nation to be regarded as a continental power in North America.
The United States had certain claims of their own to the North-
west country, founded upon the discoveries of Captain Gray at
the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792, and of Captains Lewis
and Clark, under the auspices of President Jefferson, in 1805-6.
To these were added settlements of our people in the country,
which were rendered more easy as our acknowledged territory
was contiguous to that in dispute. To make all our claims more
complete Spain had in reality quit-claimed to us whatever rights
and pretensions she had in that quarter of the world. She had,
as is well known, claimed all the northwestern coast of America
as far as Prince William Sound, in the sixty-first degree of north
latitude, upon the ground of prior discovery and long possession.

i88o.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 121

In 1790 a dispute arose between England and Spain in re-
gard to Nootka Sound. England refused to recognize the
Spanish pretensions, ostensibly on the ground that the earth
is the common inheritance of man, of which each individual
and each nation has a right to appropriate a share by occupa-
tion and cultivation. This principle would seem to exclude
an individual as well as a nation from appropriating more of
the earth's surface than he or it could properly occupy and
cultivate, and, were it fully acted upon, it would leave open to
colonization all portions of the earth's surface not in actual
occupation and cultivation. This dispute, which probably
had its origin in the evident signs of Spain's inability to retain
much longer her American dependencies, was amicably settled
by a convention which provided for freedom of commerce
and navigation in the South Seas, under the restrictions that
this freedom should not be made a pretext for illicit trade
with the Spanish settlements ; that British subjects should
not fish within ten marine leagues of the shores already occu-
pied by Spanish subjects ; and that wherever either party
should have made settlements since April, 1789^' the other
should have free access to trade. Whatever rights Spain had
under this convention were transferred to us by the treaty of
1819. The claims of Great Britain remained in as full force
against us as they had previously against Spain. In a certain
sense, therefore, this treaty, the ratifications of which were
not finally exchanged until February 22, 1821, brought us a
lawsuit, though, as we already had one about the same subject-
matter upon our hands, it did not increase our difficulties. By
our treaty with Great Britain of 1818 there was to be a joint
occupation of the territory for ten years without prejudice to
the rights or claims of either party.

Russia had interests in the territories bordering on the
North Pacific Ocean, then usually called the South Seas, which
were opposed to the pretensions of both Great Britain and
the United States. On the i6th (4th O. S.) of September,
1821, the Emperor Alexander issued a proclamation, claiming
exclusive sovereignty over the whole northwest coast of
America from Behring Straits to the fifty-first degree of
north latitude, over the Aleutian Islands and the coast of Sibe-
ria from Behring Straits to the South Cape in the island of
Ooroop, in the Kurile Islands, lying off the southern point of
Kamtschatka. This proclamation went further, and declared
the Pacific Ocean within those limits "closed," and naviga-

122 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

tion and fishery of foreign vessels within the islands, ports,
and gulfs within them was interdicted, and confiscation of the
cargo was fixed as the penalty for any ship to touch at, or
even to approach within one hundred Italian miles of, any of
the Russian establishments enumerated in the ukase.

This was a three-cornered controversy. Neither disputant
could make an aggressive movement without uniting the other
two to resist it. Great Britain and the United States had a
controversy of their own to settle as to boundaries a contro-
versy, by the way, which was not settled for a quarter of a
century after this time but they both agreed to oppose the
Russian claim. The most obnoxious part of that claim to Eng-
land was the restrictions on commerce in the Pacific Ocean.
And it should be constantly remembered, in reading the old
disputes about colonial rights and boundaries, that one main rea-
son of the resistance to certain lines on the one side and of
insisting upon them on the other was the right which the pos-
session of colonies gave the parent country to monopolize the
trade with them and exclude all other nations from participa-
tion in its benefits. Trade monopoly, or at least commercial
facilities, was on all sides the real bone of contention. While
the United States government was not indifferent to the objec-
tionable features of making the whole Northern Pacific Ocean
a closed sea, as though it were an inland gulf across which the
headlands could be seen, still the pretension that Russia was
the sovereign of lands down to the fifty-first parallel, while
we then claimed that our northern limit was above the fifty-
fourth parallel, was the most offensive to us.

The passage in the President's message under consideration
will now appear in its proper light. John Quincy Adams was
Secretary of State under President Monroe. He had numerous
conversations with the Russian ambassador in relation to this
question, and his diary (see the sixth volume of his 'Memoirs,
edited by Charles Francis Adams) leaves no doubt that it had
given him a great deal of anxiety. Some months before the
President's message was written he had hit upon the ground
taken in that document. In writing to Mr. Rush, our then
minister at London, under date of July 2, 1823, the Secretary of
State encloses copies of his instructions to Mr. Middleton, and
uses these words : " The American continents henceforth will no
longer be subject to colonization. Occupied by civilized nations,
they will be accessible to Europeans and each other on that foot-
ing alone, and the Pacific Ocean, in every part, will remain open

i88o.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 12 $

to the navigation of all nations in like manner with the Atlantic."
The President's message is but a variation of this language. The
meaning of the declaration in the message, though, as Senator
Calhoun pointed out in his speech in the Yucatan debate, the
language is a little confused, is perfectly plain. The continent is
all occupied either by independent nations or by dependencies
of European powers. It is assumed by the Secretary of State and
the President that, though the boundaries of these states may
not be accurately denned at the moment, yet they are capable of
definition ; and that, whether they are or are not, no nation can
claim to appropriate any portion of the American continents by
new settlements.

The two other declarations grew out of quite a different mat-
ter. The Spanish colonies on the continents of North and South
America had one after another thrown off their allegiance to the
mother-country. The efforts to subdue them had completely
failed. The United States very early recognized the belligerency
of the revolted colonies ; but it was not until 1822 that their com-
plete independence was acknowledged by our government in the
accrediting of ministers to them. British commerce had profited
greatly by the disruption of the colonial bonds. In consequence
of the action taken at the Congress of Verona in 1822 a French
army of one hundred thousand men entered Spain in April, 1823,
and, marching across the country, reinstated Ferdinand VII. as
monarch and suppressed by force the constitutional government
of the Cortes. It was an open secret in diplomatic circles in
Europe that as soon as Spanish home affairs were settled satis-
factorily to the Allied Powers in this case France, Russia, Prus-
sia, and Austria it was proposed to hold a congress to take
into serious consideration the affairs of Spanish America. And
though nothing had been done or said officially, the opponents of
Spain feared that the Allies would send an army to America for
the purpose of effecting what the mother-country bad failed to
accomplish. There was no question that the utterances of the
Allies covered the case of the new nations formed out of Spain's
revolted colonies. The only question was how far the Allies
would be prepared to go in making that language good.

George Canning was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Liver-
pool cabinet. He was bitterly opposed to the schemes of the Al-
lies. That the people of England were not opposed on principle
to armed intervention in the affairs of foreign nations was clearly
demonstrated by their action in the Napoleonic wars. The cabi-
netand the country was behind it protested vigorously against

124 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

the intervention of the Allies in the affairs of Naples, Piedmont,
and Spain, though only a few years afterwards England inter-
vened in the affairs of Portugal. The cause of Canning's sensi-
tiveness in regard to intervention is not far to seek. He was
afraid that British commerce would suffer should Spain succeed
in re-establishing her supremacy in Spanish America, while, on
the other hand, he feared that France was not wholly disin-
terested in her action that if her king and government were
quick to draw the sword in defence of the principle that consti-
tutional reform effected by revolt and open force is equally null
and disallowed by the. public law of Europe, they would not
simply take the approval of their consciences for their pay, but
that they would seek and obtain a more substantial reward for
their services. The air was full of rumors. England Avas in one
quarter credited with a desire for ,Cuba ; on the other hand, it
was asserted that France had her eye upon that island, and the
British government unquestionably believed that there was a
basis of fact underlying that assertion. Here was motive enough
for British opposition to the schemes of the Allies. They would
result in dimming the lustre of British achievements during the
Napoleonic wars in maintaining the European balance of power
and being the mainstay of kings ; they would, if completely suc-
cessful, materially injure British commerce, and Britain was not
flourishing at that time ; and they might end in aggrandizing
Britain's ancient enemy, France, by the possession of a most pro-
ductive island in the New World and advantages nearer home.

Be the cause what it may, George Canning conceived it his
mission to thwart the Allies in every way that he could, and he
determined, come what might, that no military assistance should
be lent to Spain for the subjugation of her revolted colonies.
The United States government was , sincerely anxious that the
independence of the nations created out of the late Spanish colo-
nies should be acknowledged by Great Britain. Canning raised
the objection against this course that there were no governments
to recognize. Revolutions followed each other so rapidly that a
minister accredited to one president or chief of state would find
another installed in his place before he could reach his post. The
American scheme for the pacification of Spanish America was
immediate recognition of the independent nations into which our
government claimed it had been organized. Canning had a
scheme of his own, which he exhausted his ingenuity in pressing
upon Minister Rush. To those who wish to understand this
matter that diplomatist's account of his embassy, entitled in the

i88o.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 125

most recent edition The Court of London from 1819 to 1825, is re-
commended. The Canning scheme was a joint declaration by
Great Britain and the United States that neither of them desired
any portion of the Spanish possessions for themselves, and while
they would not in any way interfere to prevent an amicable
arrangement between the colonies and the mother-country, yet
they would not see with indifference the intervention of any
foreign power in the affairs of Spanish America, nor the transfer
of any portion of it to such power. Mr. Rush had no instructions
that would carry him as far as this at least in direct terms. He
sets before us, as clearly as he can, Canning's arguments and his
own. It is plain that he thinks the Englishman had the best
of it. Even in Rush's Memoranda Canning's arguments are still
worth reading, and some of his phrases read very much like those
used in the President's message. Rush was finally so impressed
with Canning's proposal the Foreign Minister became more
persistent as the French army approached Cadiz that he said he
would stand on his general letter of instructions and join in the
British declaration, if the British government would recognize
the independence of the Spanish colonies. Canning declined,
and reserved to himself the right to protect British interests,
even if, unfortunately, the United States, who were also interested
in the matter, should not join in the proposed declaration.

The conferences between Canning and Rush took place in the
months of August, September, and October, 1823. Mr. Rush
acquainted his government with the purport of each immediately
after its occurrence. The utterances of the Allies and the move-
ments taken in support of them were watched with the intensest
interest in Washington and in the whole country. The perusal
of Adams' diary would lead one to infer that the Republican
leaders, more particularly Mr. Calhoun, were panic-stricken in
consequence of them. Calhoun was a logician, if ever a statesman
was one. He analyzed the declarations of the powers, and he
came to the conclusion that they carried irresistibly with them
the forcible reversal of the American Revolution, and the relega-
tion of the United States of America to the position of colonies
of his Britannic majesty. He was for closing at once with Can-
ning's offer. To be sure, it might embarrass us in the future to
declare in the present that we wished for no part of what was
lately Spanish America, but it seemed to him that this was the
only mode of preserving all the new nations in their indepen-
dence of Spain. He greatly feared armed intervention in Spanish
America. He dreaded nothing so much- as the landing of ten or

126 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

fifteen thousand veteran French and German troops in Mexico
and Central America. He would have regarded such an event
as almost inevitably sealing the fate of the late dependencies and
handing them over to the rule of Spain once more. It is worthy
of a passing remark that from the time of the reception of Can-
ning's proposition in this country dates the good feeling of
our Southern Democratic statesmen for England a feeling which
bore fruit during the civil war.

Secretary Adams says that the President was demoralized for
a time, and the solemn opening of the message of December 2,
1823, lends support to that assertion. The crisis was considered
so grave that the two great ex-presidents of the Republican party,
Jefferson and Madison, were consulted in relation to it, and copies
of Rush's letters recounting his interviews with Canning were
submitted to them. Jefferson responded in an elaborate letter
favoring the acceptance of the British proposition, though his
caution and knowledge of American diplomacy and policy sug-
gested to him an inquiry, whether it was or was not true that we
desired no part of Spanish America for ourselves. This subject
was a staple topic of cabinet discussion ; Calhoun, who was Sec-
retary of War and an original Republican or, as we should say
now, a Democrat and Adams, who was Secretary of State and
originally a Federalist or Whig, taking opposite sides upon it.
The secretary could not bring himself to believe that Canning
was not trying to entrap us in some way. He felt sure that he
was not an enthusiast for human liberty, like his colleague Cal-
houn or the President, with whom they were both associated.
His plan was for England to join the United States in recognizing
the independence of the new states, and he could not bring him-
self to believe, when the British government would not do that,
that its proposal of a joint declaration was not sinister as far as
we were concerned. Rush, in London, was greatly impressed
with Canning's earnestness ; Adams, in Washington, felt that the
scheme was to surprise the United States into a measure which
would be found in the long run not to benefit us but to be of
great service to England.

Adams was much more enamored of his anti-colonization
declaration in his despatches to Middleton and Rush than
he was in regard to this declaration warning off the Allies
from Spanish America. Monroe and Calhoun felt very differ-
ently. A little strip of territory we could well afford to lose.
It would not be absolutely destructive, even if Russia succeeded
for a time in making the North Pacific Ocean a closed sea;

i88o.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 127

and even on this point they rightly inferred that in a little
time this matter would be all straightened out. But the cause
of American liberty would to their view be imperilled, if the
colonial yoke was again placed upon the necks of the nations
which had sprung into existence out of what were once the
Spanish dependencies in North and South America. Calhoun
retained this opinion to the last, as may be seen from his speech
on the Monroe doctrine in the Yucatan debate in 1848. He
denied that the colonization feature was any part of that doc-
trine as it was originally promulgated, and declared that the
paragraph in relation to it was not read or discussed in the
cabinet meetings, and that President Monroe incorporated it
in the message on the suggestion of Mr. Adams. The correct-
ness of this statement has been questioned, among others by Mr.
Cass, on what seem at least unsatisfactory grounds. That Mr.
Adams and Mr. Monroe discussed this point there can be no
doubt. There is just as little doubt that Mr. Adams was anx-
ious that our whole policy should make " one system," whether
it related to the Northwest boundary or to the recognition
of the independence of the Spanish-American states. But the
two questions were not identical. The colonization matter
was, in a sense, future, contingent, and theoretical. No great
nation had urged us to take any step looking to it, while as a
matter of fact Canning himself vied with the Russian diploma-
tists in scouting it when it was brought to his knowledge.
The protection of our sister republics of Spanish America was,
on the other hand, present, pressing, and practical. A great
nation, with whom we were anxious to be on good terms, had,
in a way most flattering to our national vanity, pressed it upon
us. By accepting Canning's lead we might do ourselves a
good turn and help along at the same time, as it was plausibly
urged, the cause of human liberty. We might hope to earn
the blessings of untold millions of human beings for our bold-
ness, and this when the act was not as bold as it seemed. It
should not be overlooked in this connection that there is no
mention of the anti-colonization declaration in Jefferson's let-
ter, and that the two declarations are separated widely in the
President's message.

The result of all these discussions, in the cabinet and out
of it, is seen in what was actually done. The United States
did not join England in making the joint declaration. England
did not accede to the wishes of the United States and recog-
nize the independence of the new states. President Monroe

128 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

made in his annual message the second declaration cited above.
In it are embodied and embedded the suggestions that the Presi-
dent had received from all quarters, official and unofficial. It
does not commit the United States to anything. It was a de-
claration, and nothing more. When it reached England it sent
up the price of Colombian stocks on the London market, and
it was received with great enthusiasm in Spanish America. Can-
ning, who recognized in it at least the original germ, was of
course pleased with it, and it is to this fact that the closing words
of the third citation from President Monroe's messages given
above refer.

Canning made no paper declaration. As soon as he found that
the United States minister would not act in conjunction with
him he determined to act alone. Recognizing that the French
king held the destinies of Spain in his hand, and that if he could
be impressed with the danger of attempting to reconstruct Span-
ish power in America the designs of the Allies would be com-
pletely frustrated, he made an appointment with Prince Polignac,
the French ambassador in London, to discuss the crisis. The
conferences were oral, but a minute of them was made, and the
memorandum was after a .time laid before Parliament. In the
conference of October 9, 1823, Mr. Canning, after saying that
the British government would remain neutral, if unfortunately
war between Spain and her revolted colonies was prolonged
declared emphatically that " the junction of any foreign power
in an enterprise of Spain against the colonies would be viewed
by them as constituting an entirely new question, and one upon
which they must take such decision as the interests of Great
Britain might require."

These conferences were decisive. It was seen that England
was in earnest. Only eight years had passed away since Wa-
terloo was fought. The " Iron Duke " was still in his prime.
France was not in a condition to risk a war with England for the
sake of Spain. Whatever enterprises had been thought of were
abandoned, and the congress to decide the fate of Spanish Amer-
ica if such a congress had been really in contemplation was
never held. In a very few years the independence of all the na-
tions of Spanish America was acknowledged by Spain as well as
by the other monarchies of Europe.

The truth of history compels the declaration, however unro-
mantic it may sound, that the Monroe doctrine had very little
if any influence upon this result. Had we joined England in
making Canning's proposed declaration we could have very

i88o.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 129

properly claimed a part of the credit for its accomplishment.
But we had at that time a handful of troops and no navy to
speak of. Our declaration was a moral force nothing more.
It had no sanction. It did not propose any action. The
Spanish American states thought that it did, but the Panama
debate undeceived them. Adams says that Wirt, who was
attorney -general in Monroe's cabinet, raised the question at one
of the meetings as to what we proposed to do in case some
one without the fear of words before their eyes did what
we declared would disturb our equanimity if attempted to be
done, but the question was not answered, and the subject was
not pursued further. Adams himself seems to have pondered
over that view of the subject, and much of his reluctance to
accept Canning's proposition may be perhaps traced to his fear
that it might lead to war, for which we were then, as now, ill-
prepared.

Fortunately the doctrine was never put to the test. It re-
mained a formula of words, and still remains one. It has never
been acted upon.

In 1825, in the debate on the Panama Mission, it was made en-
tirely clear that our statesmen repudiated the construction put by
the Spanish American statesmen upon President Monroe's decla-
ration as a promise of aid and protection in case the new repub-
lics were attacked. The United States did not propose to become
a republican knight-errant. We were going to attend to our busi-
ness and permit other peoples to attend to theirs. We were happy
to see republics springing up on the continent, but we did not pro-
pose to defend their existence and integrity at all hazards. This
was cold water on the republican enthusiasm which saw in the
Monroe doctrine a scheme for regenerating the world on demo-
cratic principles under the auspices and, if need be, under the mili-
tary protection of the United States. When President Polk, who
had to pass officially upon the Oregon or Northwest boundary
question, took up the colonization branch of the doctrine and en-
deavored to have Congress authorize an armed intervention in
Yucatan, the result was a failure. Congress was too conserva-
tive to accept the bait. In 1856 the debate on the Clayton-Bul-
wer Treaty, which guaranteed the neutrality of an interoceanic
canal, which, it was then as now thought, was on the eve of being
built, it was again made apparent that the Monroe doctrine was
words and nothing more. The French occupation of Mexico
came within the principle of the second branch of the Monroe
doctrine, for one of the avowed objects of the original interven-
VOL. xxxi. 9

130 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

tion in which, by the way, England, forgetting Canning, joined
was to effect a change of the form of government of that country.
And yet we did not think it our duty to take up arms in defence
of a sister republic. To be sure, we had a great war on our own
hands when the intervention began. But in 1865 we had at least
a million of men that, had we so chosen, we might have thrown
into Mexico. It is not unlikely that some of the disbanded Con-
federates would have accepted service under our flag in a foreign
war. Indeed, the acquisition of Mexico or a large slice of it
as payment for the expulsion of the imperialists would have been
most acceptable to a considerable portion of our people. And
yet the government of that day, not over-nice in many matters,
hesitated, and finally refused to raise a finger in favor of this doc-
trine. The foreigner was finally "frozen out," but not by the
Monroe doctrine.

An analysis of the declarations of President Monroe as set
forth at the head of this article will show the following elements :

1. That the American continents are not open to further or
future colonization that is, that every portion of their surface is
contained within the boundaries of some state or dependency.

2. That, though in favor of liberty in Europe as well as in
America, it is no part of our policy to take part in European
wars.

3. That we are so intimately connected with movements in
this hemisphere, that the whole nation is so devoted to the de-
fence of our own system, under which it has enjoyed unexampled
felicity, and that the political system of the Allied Powers of
Europe is so different from ours, that we owe it to candor and the
amicable relations existing between us and them to declare that
we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their sys-
tem to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace
and safety.

4. That with the existing dependencies of European powers
we do not propose to interfere ; in the war between Spain and
her late colonies we intend to remain neutral until some change
should occur in the attitude of other nations which, in the opinion
of our government, would render a change of attitude on our part
advisable ; and that the attempt to oppress or control the destiny
of the Spanish American states by other European nations would
be regarded as manifesting an unfriendly feeling towards us.

5. That, in view of the events in Spain and Portugal, we must,
though far away, ask ourselves how far the principle of armed in-
tervention will lead ; that we treat the nations of Europe con-

iSSo.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. \^\

siderately and without meddling ; that the extension of their
system to this continent would endanger our peace and happi-
ness ; and hence, in view of the inferences that Spain unassisted
cannot conquer the late colonies, and that they will not voluntarily
return to their allegiance, we are in favor of leaving the parties to
themselves, hoping that other nations will do the same ; but if, un-
fortunately, they do not follow our example, it will be impossible
for us to behold their interposition with indifference.

6. That we have not interfered in the career of the South
American states, believing it most conducive to their interest and
to our own to permit them to institute such forms of government
as they thought best suited to their condition.

These six points substantially cover all the declarations on this
subject to be found in Mr. Monroe's two messages. Put into the
briefest form, they are these: no more colonies on this hemi-
sphere ; non-intervention in European wars ; non-intervention in
the internal affairs of republics on -this continent ; the attempted
extension of the system of the Allies to this continent dangerous
to our peace ; and the armed intervention of European nations to
aid Spain in subduing her revolted colonies would show an un-
friendly feeling to us, and would leave us at liberty to throw off
our neutrality, if our government thought it advisable so to do.

Is there anything in this doctrine that is at present available ?
The colonial question is long dead. Colonization, in the view of
the publicists, is the appropriation of a portion of the earth's sur-
face which is, or is claimed to be, unoccupied, through the estab-
lishment thereon of one or more fixed settlements of emigrants
from abroad, such appropriation being supposed to be made in
the name of the parent country, and such colonies claiming its
protection and acknowledging its political supremacy. No Euro-
pean nation proposes to appropriate any portion of the American
continents in this way at this time. Colonization in this sense has
ceased, joint occupations have ceased, and boundaries are for the
most part well settled. If no one is claiming adversely to this
declaration how can it be invoked to warn off intruders ? A man
of straw is set up simply to be knocked 'down.

No " allied powers " are now proposing to extend their system
to this continent. Some of the allies of half a century ago have
quite as much as they can attend to at home. Europe is too un-
settled at this time to admit of American enterprises, even if
success in them was more promising than it is likely to be. No
armed intervention is threatened anywhere. Certain South
American republics have been engaged in war for some time

132 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. [April,

past, but no European power has attempted to take advantage of
the conflict. No practical application can be made of this doc-
trine at this time to any enterprise now proposed. Indeed, the
only answer to the Monroe-doctrine enthusiasts is to tell them to
study its text. It may or may not be advisable to have a new
doctrine which would embody the policy that they are anxious
to have adopted, but the fact must not be overlooked that the
doctrine which they claim as sustaining their pretensions is in flat
contradiction to them.

The text of the entire doctrine is before our readers. There
have been no authorized additions to or emendations of it. It has
not developed in the last half-century, and as a matter of fact it
could not, because it has never been acted upon. Is there any
warrant in it for the pretension that foreign companies of capital-
ists, or, for that matter, foreign nations, cannot acquire land in any
independent nation on this hemisphere for any purpose which the
contracting parties may agree -upon, without leave asked of the
. United States, and without the formation of such a contract being
in any sense a proper one for representations from our govern-
ment against it as unfriendly to it, unless the purpose was clearly
hostile to our people ? Clearly not. Is there any warrant in it for
declaring that an independent nation on this hemisphere cannot
make cessions to European capitalists of lands and privileges
within its boundaries for the purpose of prosecuting and com-
pleting a great public work, even if that should be an inter-
oceanic ship-canal ? None. It neither comes within the letter
nor the spirit of the Monroe declaration to protest against such
cessions or such enterprises. Is there any warrant in it for the
claim that the United States, being the greatest nation on this
hemisphere, must be consulted in regard to either the external or
internal policy of other and independent nations on the hemi-
sphere, and that the United States may veto such proposed policy
if our government sees fit ? None. On the other hand, the
language is expressly to the contrary. This pretension would
transfer to the American continents the complicated balance of
power of the Old World, and it would lay a grievous burden upon
the United States in keeping minor and more turbulent states in
order, and perhaps, as the wealthiest and in a sense the most vul-
nerable state of the New World, in being made responsible for
their good conduct by the warlike nations of Europe.

The United States has no suzerainty over any independent
nation on this hemisphere any more than it has over European
nations. Each is final judge for itself in matters of policy. We

i88o.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 133

would undoubtedly be interested parties in an interoceanic ship-
canal. Its completion might render it more easy to concentrate
fleets upon our southern and Atlantic coasts, or it might send
them more quickly to our Pacific coasts. It will affect the move-
ments of commerce. We are a great commercial people ; our
merchants will not permit this matter to pass them without scan-
ning it narrowly. But the mere fact that a projected public im-
provement in a neighboring and a friendly nation may affect us in
common with the rest of the world does not give us the right to
dictate to that state as to who shall build the improvement, as to
whether it shall be built at all or not, or to finally take the whole
matter into our own hands for settlement. Such a course would
be officious intermeddling ; and that is pointedly condemned by
President Monroe in common with Washington, Jefferson, and
Madison.

Let it be remembered that three things, and only three, are
condemned by President Monroe in his doctrine colonization,
extension of the political system of the Allies to this hemisphere,
and forcible intervention by them to effect the reconquest of
Spanish America and all the confusion vanishes. An indepen-
dent nation can cede or grant away its territory. It is not colo-
nization to occupy or take possession of such territory, even if it
be done by a European government ; nor is it an attempt to ex-
tend the political system of Europe to this hemisphere, nor yet
an attempt to intervene in the interest of Spain in Spanish Ameri-
can affairs. And in this connection it is important to remember
that it was foreign coercion that Monroe condemned, and not
voluntary acceptance of the monarchical principle, nor yet recon-
quest by Spain, and that the movements to which he so often re-
fers as not indifferent to us in our political capacity are not social
and industrial movements, whatever may be their source, but
military and political movements which are thought to threaten
the very existence of our form of government. The only claim
that the United States can legitimately and appropriately make
in its political capacity in regard to the interoceanic canal is that
its international character shall not be definitely fixed without
consultation with its government. If we have any claim to dic-
tate upon the subject, such a claim is not found in the general
rules of international law, nor in our own settled policy of non-
intervention and treating all nations fairly and courteously, nor
yet in the real Monroe doctrine as cited textually at the head of
this article.

134 MR. HAWKINS, MR. CROOKS, ETC. [April,

MR. HAWKINS, MR. CROOKS, AND HARPERS

WEEKLY.

THE article of Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins in the Christian
Advocate on the subject of " The Roman Catholic Church in
New York City, and the Public Money and Public Property
of the People," is quoted with warm approval in Harper s Weekly
by G. R. Crocks, whom we believe to be a clergyman and for-
merly editor of the Methodist of this city. Mr. Crooks' contribu-
tion to the budget is still more astonishing than the production of
Mr. Hawkins. He fully adopts the falsehood about the cathe-
dral property we will not say with a consciousness that it is a
falsehood, but at least with the knowledge that it is not cer-
tainly true. He alleges, with a reckless profusion of violent
language, that the church obtained the land from the city by
" fraud" and shameless theft; and then adds: "The story of
this robbery has been fold and denied, but Mr. Hawkins gives
it in detail, and relies on official records to make his charges
good." If this means that Mr. Hawkins has cited or referred
to any records or deeds or other official authority in justifica-
tion of his false statements, Mr. Crooks has been guilty of fabri-
cation, for Mr. Hawkins has done nothing of the kind. Mr.
Hawkins made the charge upon his own unsupported word.
The " details " of the purchase of the land were given by us
in our denial of the story ; and the public records are open
to anybody who chooses to verify our account. But Mr.
Crooks gives the readers of Harper s Weekly to understand that
the proof has been furnished on the o.ther side.

The article in Harper s Weekly closes with the following
words : " One remedy alone will adequately protect the city from
these intolerable evils in time to come the withdrawal of appro-
priations of public money from sectarian institutions of every
kind, whether Protestant or Catholic, Jewish or Christian."

This leads us to wonder whether Mr. G. W. Curtis is still the
editor of the paper from which we quote. For in the Constitu-
tional Convention of 1867 Mr. Curtis was one of the most earnest
and eloquent opponents of the pagan policy here recommended.
He agreed with Mr. Erastus Brooks that "sectarianism cannot
be, must not be, supported by the State, nor must it, if presented
in the form of a true charity, be. disowned by the State." And

i88o.] GOLDEN. l ^

after commending the charitable foundations of the Catholic
Church he spoke as follows :

" Any system which this State should adopt which should strike at the
very root of such institutions would necessarily bring the State to this
question : ' Are you willing to do, absolutely and to the utmost, what is now
done by the institutions already in existence ? ' I do not believe that the
State is willing to do it. I believe the experience of this State to be that
of Massachusetts. Massachusetts in the year 1863 established a board of
charity. In the very first report which that board made, after looking over
the whole ground, they announced that in their judgment the true policy
of the State was to give assistance to the private foundations, of whatever
sect, that already existed, rather than to establish new public institutions."

These are sensible remarks, and they express the well-con-
sidered and long-established policy of the great State of New
York.

GOLDEN.

" Speech is silver ; silence is golden."

WHEN a sage has spoken wisdom's speech
Haste not thou thy lesser thought to preach !

Silence !
His echoes teach.

When sweet music gives, by voice or string,
To the air a soul on throbbing wing,

Silence !
Its pulses sing.

When the lightning strikes the woods ablaze,
And the tempest's call the sea obeys,

Silence !
The thunders praise.

When from neighbor's house is borne the bier,
Vex not thou with words of shallow cheer !

Silence !
For God is near.

When by slander crushed, by wrong opprest,
Fiery anger burns thy tortured breast,

Silence !
Time bears the test.

136 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [April,

When before God's throne thou, poor and weak,
Trusting, loving, wouldst his mercy seek,

Silence !

That he may speak.
DETROIT, 1879.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ANSWER TO MR. JAY'S LATEST LETTERS DIRECTED AGAINST ROME. By
Rev. M. W. Newman, Mount Kisco, N. Y. Republished from the Mt.
Kisco Weekly. Mt. Kisco, N. Y. 1879.

Answer to Mr. Jay's Letters entitled "The Bible and Rome," and "The
Bible, the Republic, and the Pope." By Rev. M. W. Newman, Pastor
of St. Francis' Roman Catholic Church, Mount Kisco, N. Y. 1879.

There is a peculiar class of persons in Protestant communities who
acquire a certain kind of notoriety by publicly repeating oft-refuted char-
ges and oft-exposed calumnies against Catholics. They ransack the not
very short history of the Catholic Church, as it would appear, for no other
purpose than to note whatever ugly thing has been laid to her charge,
without any regard to the likelihood of its truth or the trustworthiness of
its author. They are not over-nice, either; for whatever mud may have
accumulated during many centuries in the gutters of the church they
stuff their pockets with and fill their hands full of it, paying little or no
heed to its offensiveness. Even all this does not satiate their morbid appe-
tites ; they pick up any idle rumor, garble and mutilate passages from wri-
ters, insinuate base motives and invent fresh calumnies, and with fiendish
delight fling these accumulations in conspectu omnium into the faces of
Catholics.

This peculiar kind of industry was plied in the last generation in this
country by the Breckenridges, Beechers, Brownlees, Maria Monks, and
Angel Gabriels, who stirred up the passions of men of the baser sort, and
as a result Catholic convents and churches were sacked and burnt down,
" Know-nothing " political parties were organized for the persecution of
Catholics, and smelling committees were appointed by our State legislatures
to ruthlessly invade and violate the sanctity of the homes of Catholic wo-
men devoted to the service of God and to the good of men. Such were
the precious fruits of the labors of these representatives of the anti-popery
fanatics in this country of religious freedom and universal toleration.

Every generation seems to furnish a new set of men of this species.
To-day we have the Thompsons, the Hawkinses, the Jays, the Edith O'Gor-
mans, and the Cooks. What will be the outcome of their bigotry ? Who
knows? Sacking and the burning of convents and churches, Know-nothing-
ism, smelling committees are out of date. These men are not making all this
fuss for nothing. There is a cat in this bag of meal somewhere, and these
men are patriotic. Who can tell what is coming next ? Thompson has been
rewarded for his vituperation of Catholics by being lifted into the position

1 880.] NE W PUBLICA TIONS.

137

of overseer of the gallant navy of the United States. Whose turn comes
for the next leap ? Perhaps the presidential election is too close, and their
promotion will be put off; and if on the winning side, we shall see Dexter
Hawkins our minister to Rome, and John Jay appointed as our ambas-
sador to the court of .

Our remarks have been suggested by reading the replies of Rev. M. W.
Newman to John* Jay's accusations against Catholics. These replies show
remarkable ability, are courteous in tone, and, though not elaborate, are suf-
ficiently so to completely refute Mr. Jay's numerous charges.

But, nothing daunted, Mr. John Jay republishes his refuted and stale
charges, adding to these some fresh ones, accompanied with base insinua-
tions from his own imagination, and publishes this hotch-potch in two arti-
cles in the International Review under the title of " The Roman Catholic
Question."

We acknowledge that we felt no little surprise in finding a man well-
born, 01 good breeding, and of high social standing engaged in such a de-
grading work. We could not help asking ourselves what motive can pos-
sibly actuate one whose reputation is that of a gentleman, who is looked
upon as a prominent member of a respectable Christian denomination, and
what must be the habit of his thoughts, his tastes, and his aims, to publish
an unfounded rumor against the Catholic priesthood which he must know
is calculated to bring down upon them the weight of the popular prejudice
of a community? How could a man of his supposed character, without
blushing for shame, venture to publish such " an unpleasant rumor," whol-
ly without foundation, against one whose whole course of life as a clergy-
man, as a bishop, and as a cardinal has been one of careful and studious
avoidance of all meddling with political questions and parties, and whose
attention and labors have been so exclusively devoted to the fulfilment of '
his priestly functions and ecclesiastical duties ? In testimony of the truth of
this we can confidently appeal to all our citizens without distinction of creed
or political bias, or to any one who has had the honor of his personal
acquaintance. How John Jay could make the base insinuation which he
makes in the following extract we must leave to all upright, fair-minded,
and honorable men to judge :

" A wider and deeper feeling, however, was aroused in New York by an
unpleasant rumor, which was confirmed by the language of Governor
Lucius Robinson, that the vote for Mr. Kelly, by which the Democratic
party in that State had been divided and defeated, was stimulated, if not .
organized, by Roman priests acting under the vigilant eye of His Eminence
Cardinal McCloskey, and encouraged by a sheet sanctioned by his ap-
proval."

What makes this insinuation seem passing strange in such a community
as ours is the fact that Protestant bishops may enter upon presidential
electioneering campaigns ; Protestant ministers flood Congress with their
petitions, and be elected in such numbers as to control State legislation ;
seventy-five Methodist ministers may call in a body on the President of
the United States, and give for their reason that "they had been appointed
by God to be the leaders of men," and not a whisper is heard of clerical in-
fluence or of the union of church and state from our Thompsons, Hawkin-
ses, Jays, and Cooks ; but let a Catholic priest, one perhaps unacquainted

138 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [April,

with the character of our institutions and the spirit of our people, over-step
ever so slightly the limits of his sphere, and instantly you will hear "the
little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweet-heart," bark and howl at the top
of their voice !

Mr. Jay follows Meyrick, Coxe, and Kingsley in their attempt to show
from the writings of moral theologians that Catholics subvert some essen-
tial parts of morality. The excoriating castigation which Newman gave to
Kingsley ought to be a lesson. Moral theology, like moral philosophy, is a
science in many parts abstruse and difficult. It requires to be studied and
discussed scientifically, and not in the offhand manner in which sciolists
dabble in medicine, law, physics, etc., and parade their little scraps of quo-
tation ad captandum vulgus. Mr. Jay has much more reason to be alarmed
at the symptoms of disbelief in the Bible and disregard of the laws of God
and man apparent among the Protestant clergy, than at any dangers to the
republic from Catholics. Let him turn his attention in that direction, and
let alone matters which he does not understand.

Mr. Jay has thrice repeated a charge against Pius IX., of blessed mem-
ory, and in our January number we challenged him to prove the truth of
his assertions. And now, forsooth, he complains of our not furnishing
" proof" of a negation ! Let him prove his charges against Pius IX. This
he cannot do. Until then we hold him to be an accuser of the innocent.
Let him prove that the Confederate government sent " envoys " to the pon-
tifical government, and that they were received " officially " or " diplomati-
cally." Let him prove that Pius IX. assumed that the Union was dissolved
and recognized the president of the Confederate government " officially " or
" diplomatically." Thus far he has brought forward no evidence which will
bear out these repeated assertions. When he has accomplished this task
it will be in order to discuss the questions of international law, but not be-
fore then.

LAST JOURNEY AND MEMORIALS OF THE REDEEMER; or, Via Crucis as it is
in Jerusalem. With topographical, archaeological, historical, traditional,
and Scriptural notes. By Rev. J. J. Begel, Pilgrim to the Holy Places.
(With numerous engravings.) i vol. 8vo. New York : The Catholic
Publication Society Co. 1880.

This is a book to linger lovingly over, especially in the holy penitential
season of Lent, when the church in an especial manner commemorates the
sorrows and sufferings, the passion and death of the divine Redeemer of
mankind. The book, too, is of a most unique kind and awakens curiosity
at every page. The author, himself a devout pilgrim to the holy places, has
with extreme reverence and jealous care traced, as it were, the very foot-
steps of our Lord on his last sad journey from the judgment-hall of Pilate
to the awful consummation on Calvary. We follow, in his company, every
turn of the memorable road, halt at each stopping-place, view the surround-
ings, collect the minutest incidents connected with the scene. Not a thing
has escaped the keen eye of our pilgrim, who illustrates his text with de-
lightfully quaint and curious engravings. The Way of the Cross is one of
the most touching and ancient devotions in the church. Father Begel's
beautiful and most interesting work cannot fail to add a new interest to this
ancient devotion. Indeed, as one reads his earnest pages it is impossible to

1 880.] NE W PUBLICA TIONS. l ^

shake off the impression that the reader is actually one of the crowd who
witnessed the toilsome journey up the hill of Calvary that ended in the sav-
ing sacrifice of our Lord. It is out of such feeling, doubtless, that the devo-
tion of the Way of the Cross originally arose. The notes and observations
of the author, and his manner of dealing with atheistic objections to the
facts and incidents of the Passion, are of great value and make his work the
only one of its kind in the English language. It does for the Passion what
Father O'Brien's work has done for the Mass, and is an excellent companion
volume to that valuable work.

THE REFUTATION OF DARWINISM; AND THE CONVERSE THEORY OF
DEVELOPMENT ; BASED EXCLUSIVELY UPON DARWIN'S FACTS, etc. By
T. Warren O'Neill, Member of the Philadelphia Bar. Philadelphia-
J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1880.

Mr. O'Neill has formerly contributed some scientific articles to THE
CATHOLIC WORLD which attracted considerable attention and were
favorably noticed by some of our principal newspapers. The book which
he has now produced is a work which shows a great deal of talent and in-
vestigation, and is well written. It will undoubtedly receive due attention
from those who are adepts in the scientific matters of which it treats,
and competent to discuss its arguments and proofs. For the present we
confine ourselves to an analysis of its argument, without attempting to
criticise or pronounce any formal judgment.

The author considers that Darwin's argument may fairly be summed
up in the following proposition :

Given the improvements which, he shows, have occurred within the last
hundred years among the domestic breeds and varieties of animals and
plants ; and, given a length of time (say, ten millions of years) ; it is pro-
bable that, by means of the slight accretions of development which we see
arising in a mysterious manner under domestication, the higher animals
and plants have evolved from the lower.

The first objection to his theory is, that he has left a glaring hiatus at
the very start of his argument an hiatus which covers the interval be-
tween his facts and the very first principle of his theory. In other words,
he has not resolved the law or the cause of those improvements which
he would indefinitely accumulate.

This is objectionable on two grounds : First, on the ground of logic,
or the principle of the inductive philosophy, which requires that each
point should be resolved and made clear before it is permissible to advance
one step beyond ; and, second, on the ground that the probabilities are
that such law or cause of the improvements would, if resolved, have dis-
closed whether there was a limit or not to such improvements.

The second objection is that he has assumed (in his calculation of what
these improvements would amount to in a million or so of years) that
there is no limit to the improvements. This is objectionable, first because
it is wholly gratuitous, and, second, because it is peculiarly illegitimate
under the circumstance of his failure to resolve the law of improvements,
which most probably would have told him whether there was or was not
a limit.

140 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [April,

The third point is that he does actually give the law and the cause of
such improvements, and that law is his most important factor namely,
reversion, or the power of any organism to regain what its species has
lost, whether the feature lost was lost one generation or millions of genera-
tions back.

The fourth point is that the ascription of these improvements to rever-
sion necessarily sets a limit to the number and kind which any species
may make no more characters may be regained than were once lost, if
the law of reversion be the law or cause of the improvements and such
law militates against his indispensable assumption of no limit.

This is the author's theory, and he considers that it is recommended
by being scientific, where Darwin's is unscientific in not resolving the
cause of the very data (improvements) which he uses ; and is further re-
commended by being in perfect accordance with the facts.

Then he proceeds to prove it ; and that by means of the phenomena of
crossing and close interbreeding.

Darwin says that it is " a great law of nature " that good results from
crossing two varieties of any one species, and that it is " a great law of na-
ture " that evil results from interbreeding, or the marriage of relations in
blood.

He adduces a large number of facts seemingly confirming his view.

Now, a priori upon the theory of reversion, it follows that all of the
positive characters of a species were once united in each individual. Now,
a priori the loss of any of the characters of a species should be deleterious
to the individuals which have parted with any such characters ; and, on the
other hand, the regain by such an individual of such lost characters should
abate the evil consequent before on the absence of such characters.

Now, these principles obtain among animals and plants, as a matter of
fact, and the facts of crossing and close interbreeding demonstrate them.

An analysis of Darwin's facts of crossing and close interbreeding dis~
closes that the evil effects of close interbreeding are in proportion to the
departure which the individuals have suffered from the type of the sum of
all the positive characters of their species, and that the good resulting from
crossing is in proportion to the return which the individuals make towards
the perfect type of therr species.

In other words, when two individuals are similarly wanting in any posi-
tive characters of their species, not merely the evils upon the parts, but also
the evil upon the aggregate of each individual, is intensified, and they suffer
lessened fertility and lessened constitutional vigor.

When the individuals are observed to be wanting in many characters,
proper to their species, the evil effects are observed to be very great. When
they are wanting in a less number of characters the evil is less. When the
number is less again, the evil is again less; and so on, running through a
long graduated series of evil effects corresponding most faithfully, degree
for degree, with an observed, like graduated series of structural defects.

When, however, the individuals have all the positive characters of their
species when, in other words, they realize the original perfect type of the
said species they are observed to be free from all evil results from close
interbreeding, and capable of being interbred in the closest degree, brother
and sister, for ever, without any evil effects.

1 880.] NE W PUBLICA TIONS.

141

The good results from crossing two varieties are observed, by an analy-
sis of Darwin's facts, to be due to each parent contributing to the offspring
a character or characters which the other parent lacks. Each supplies a
deficiency in the other. The offspring has two characters of its species,
where either of its crossed parents had one ; and by so much is advance
made towards the original perfect type which is the sum of all the positive
characters of the given species. Where the parents each have much to
contribute to the offspring which the other lacks, great is observed to be the
good effects from the cross, viz., increase of fertility and of vigor. Where
less, and less, and less is the amount which each parent has to contribute
which its mate lacks, why less, and less, and less is the degree of the good
which results from the cross.

.With respect to interbreeding : Relationship is prolific of evil, not in it-
self, but because it implies similarity of defects in the relatives.

The sum of all these proofs is that there is but one normal type for each
species, that type which is the sum of all- the positive characters of the given
species ; that all the different varieties are but injurious modifications (seg-
ments) of such type ; that in proportion as -an individual departs from such
perfect type of its species, is physiological evil (as well as structural evil)
entailed upon it ; that within a very narrow margin of departure from the
perfect type these evils are equivalent to absolute sterility and death to the
individuals ; that, on the other hand, in proportion as modified individuals
return to the perfect type of their species will be physiological regain, or
abatement of the evils entailed by their modification.

This shows that each species is normally immutable.

THE CHURCH OF THE PARABLES AND TRUE SPOUSE OF THE SUFFERING SA-
VIOUR. By Joseph Prachensky, S.J. I vol. i6mo. New York : The
Catholic Publication Society Co. 1880.

It is strange that the small quantity of our Lord's own oral teaching
committed to writing and preserved, should not receive more attention than
it does. The reason is because it is divine and so much above mere human
teaching that it is hidden from our minds. We cannot appreciate it, just
for the same reason that a barbarian cannot appreciate the Madonna del
Santo Sisto. The hidden meaning must be drawn out and explained to us ;
then we find the depth of the Parables, their richness and fulness. Father
Prachensky has given an exposition of the teaching contained in the Para-
bles concerning the Catholic Church, which is most solid, instructive, and
replete with the sweetness of true spiritual manna, such as is only gathered
in the meadow of Holy Scripture. This book ought to help many Protes-
tants to find the true church. It will surely edify and console all devout
Catholics who read it.

AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF THE SO-CALLED PROPHECY OF
ST. MALACHY REGARDING THE SUCCESSION OF POPES. By M. J. O'Brien,
Catholic Priest, i vol. i8mo. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son. 1880.

Father O'Brien sums up all the information there is to be had about the
Prophecy of St. Malachy in a brief compass, and decides the case against its

142 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [April,

authenticity, condemning it as a forgery of some unknown author, probably
of the latter half of the sixteenth century. He conjectures that the Epitome
of the History of the Roman Pontiffs by Panvinius was the basis of the
legends attached to the names of the popes and anti-popes from Celestine
II. to Paul IV., and maintains that there are many blunders in the Epitome
closely followed in the Prophecy. If he had gone more fully and minutely
into this part of his subject he would have made his treatise much more
satisfactory.

St. Malachy died in 1148. His prophecies were first published in 1595.
There is no extrinsic evidence of their authenticity. Of course the corre-
spondence between the legends and historical facts in the case of all the
popes before Gregory XIV. (1590) proves nothing in their favor, in the ab-
sence of any evidence that they existed before this date. The only evidence
of their genuineness as prophecies besides the mere tradition, which cannot
be traced beyond Arnold Wion, whose Lignum Vita was published in
1595, is to be sought in their fulfilment from that time to the present. In
the case of all the popes and anti-popes before Gregory XIV. the designa-
tion given to them has a literal and exact correspondence with some fact
recorded by historians. From that time down they are so vague and mys-
tical that most of them will apply just as well to one pope as to another,
and some of them cannot be explained at all. There are, however, a few
exceptions. The legends of Innocent X., Alexander VII., Pius VI., Pius
VII., Gregory XVI., and Pius IX. present a curious coincidence of predic-
tion with fact, upon which, we suppose, really rests whatever credit attaches
to the Prophecy of St. Malachy in the opinion of enlightened and instructed
persons. There is a great deal of popular faith in it, and there are some re-
spectable writers, such as the Abbe Cucherat, who warmly defend it, though
critics and historians agree in rejecting it as wholly apocryphal. Those
'who have any curiosity to read these prophecies and their explanation
will find Father O'Brien's little volume worth purchasing and reading. It
is a very small octodecimo of one hundred pages.

A GERMAN CATHOLIC NOVELIST (Amara George-Kaufmann).

Our notice of a contemporary German authoress might fitly begin with
the leading question, " What is genius ? " Is it the capacity for doing all
things well, or does it confer the privilege of reaching excellence in one
point in so marked a degree as to achieve an easy renown ? We would
draw attention to a lady who may be little known to English-speaking
Catholics, but who nevertheless in her own country has long established
her claims to celebrity. Amara George possesses at once a threefold power
rarely united, for she touches the poet's lyre with no uncertain hand, whilst
she can descend to the labor of faithful and perfect translation, and shows
the same mastery over prose in fiction which she displays in her poetry.
At a period of life when most girls, or many, remind one of the witty French
definition of a young lady, " Elle s'habille, elle babille, elle se deshabille,"
she struck a chord sweet and strong enough to find an echo in the stalwart
hearts of the German public. She has kept the nom de plume under the
shadow whereof the Bliithen der Nacht * blossomed in the literary dawn. If,

* In Bluthen der Nacht.

i88o.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. i^

as we suspect, the name of Amara was chosen with intent by the melan-
choly muse of the poetess, whose early youth had known much bitterness, a
great compensation was sent to her by Providence for some, at least, of her
premature suffering. A gentleman of kindred spirit, himself a poet of no
low order, attracted by Amara's talent, ended by choosing her as his wife.
Since their marriage they have lived, if we mistake not, in deep retirement
at Wertheim, a lovely village on the Main on the borders of Baden and
Bavaria. Cares and a not too liberal share of this world's goods have not
quenched the poet's fire ; or rather, in the midst of the cruelly-imposed
drudgery of the German Hausfrau, Amara's pen has soared above her sur-
roundings. If matrimony has sobered her muse she has given proof of a
quality not often possessed by poetical minds. The solicitude after many
things might have effectually prevented Virgil from singing of arms and
the man who exchanged the Trojan ruins for the Lavinian shores ; and if
the Bluthen der Nacht has had no successor in kind, Amara has turned her
mind to a work more in keeping with the duties of married life. Her trans-
lation of the Formation of Christendom * is as perfect a thing of the sort as
could be found. The poet's nicety and fineness have been directed to the
most delicate comprehension of the author's meaning. But Catholic Ger-
many at this moment is essentially a land of repression. Only the first two
volumes, we believe, of Amara's consummate translation have seen the light.
The third awaits more propitious days, and in the meantime the activity
which is one note of genius does not expend itself in fruitless desires. Die
Schlosskapelle zu Kleinhenbach was literally written in the kitchen during
moments snatched from the saucepan. The motto Age quod agis might be
suggested here by a matter-of-fact-loving reader, but all in vain ; for
Amara's cooking is as excellent as her literary work, and we who say it
may exclaim in Virgilian phrase, Experto credite.

After a long interval Amara has given another proof of her poetical soul.
Dissonanzen und Akkorde \ is her latest work. It is a novel full of deli-
cate work and Catholic enthusiasm. The scene is laid in a princely Ger-
man court and its appurtenances for it would be hard to say which of the
two prominent figures excites the most interest. A reigning Furst, caught
in a storm in one of his own woods, seeks refuge in a lonely little house,
where he finds an old man and the old man's lovely daughter. A great
deal of mystery surrounds Herr Gordon and Melena, and perhaps it is a lit-
tle disappointing to discover at last that the father is no more than an
Austrian Graf. Of course the reader guesses at once that the Fiirst is en-
chanted with the beautiful girl, in whose conversion he takes a lively in-
terest. To our mind the most masterly part of the story is the painting of
the princely court and the charming Princess Asta. A delightfully original
scene is that which takes place on the top of the ruined tower between her
and Prinz Gregor. He begs for a description of her lover, who is no other
than himself, and Asta yields to his desire without betraying her secret.
Her intuitive clear-sightedness discovers the presence of a rival, and she
starts off impulsively, with some notion of a religious vocation, to a saintly
aunt whose time is spent in prayer and charity. There the lively princes
realizes what goes to make up a lifelong sacrifice, and she returns after a

* By Mr. Allies.

t Dissonanzen u. Akkorde. Von Amara George-K aufmann. Mainz. 1879.

144 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [April, 1880.

time to the luxury of Waldenstein. The Oberforsterin is a well-chiselled
character faithfully copied from nature. Then we have a model German
priest, a Dr. Walter; and English readers, who know so little of the class,
may see in him a good specimen of his race. We think the book as a
whole has the faults of a poet. Its characters are somewhat too ideal and
its situations tob full of complications and mystery. Another flaw, in the
minds of Catholic readers, will be the ultimate and double wedding of rela-
tions. We must protest against such marriages in fiction as much as we
are, bound to disapprove of them in life ; but, apart from this, Amara has
written an exquisite book.

The cleverness of the children of Mammon is a sufficient reason for
extolling the talent of righteousness in whatever corner of the Catholic
world it may appear. The poetess, in her remote village of Baden, is a
spiritual relation whose vigor for Catholic interests deserves high praise
and encouragement. Every effort which lends strength against what
threatens to be the submersive tide of popular and sensual literature should
be hailed by the lovers of truth, by the sons and daughters of the mother of
saints. Life is rapidly bearing us away to the shores of eternity ; if we can-
not do great things ourselves, let us at least bestow the encouragement of
our support upon those who can. We close our notice of Amara George
by lines which belong to her own pen :

" Alle die Stunden,
Alle Verunden,
Eine, die letzte,
Todtetund heilt."*

CEUVRES COMPLETES DE S. E. LE CARDINAL DECHAMPS, ARCHEVEQUE DE

MALINES, PRIMAT DE BELGIQUE. Malines: H. Dessain. 1879.

There are few prelates in the church to-day whose influence has been so
wide and powerful as that of Cardinal Dechamps, and none whose works
deserves more attentive study, especially his apologetical and philosophical
treatises ; for his influence has been mostly exercised in two great ques-
tions : the constitution of the church and the origin of ideas. We do not
intend to enter into an appreciation of the cardinal's intellectual labors in
this short notice. Eighteen octavo volumes are too vast a matter to be dis-
posed of so briefly. To our clerical brethren who would keep up with the
theological and philosophical discussions of the day we recommend the
study of the works of Cardinal Dechamps, and shall endeavor to lay before
our readers at an early date an ample account of their valuable and im-
portant contents.

MEDULLA THEOLOGIZE DOGMATICS. Auctore H. Hurter, S.J. Innspruck :
Wagner; Paris: Bloud et Barral ; New York: F. Pustet & Co. 1879-
1880.

We have already noticed and praised in the highest terms Father
Hurter's Larger Theology. The Medulla is a condensed compendium of
the same in a small compass of seven hundred and fifty octavo pages.
The typography is excellent. A most serviceable and convenient manual
for students of theology.

* Bliithen der Nacht.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL. XXXI. MAY, 1880. No. 182.

THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE.

IT is an obvious fact that a considerable number of minds in
our day have been trained in scientific studies and are devoted to
intellectual pursuits. It is equally evident that the general dif-
fusion of education will enlarge the circle of this class of persons
and extend their influence. And it is quite natural that minds so
trained, when their attention is turned to the study of religion,
should look for its presentation under scientific forms. This ex-
pectation is not to be censured or thwarted ; on the contrary, it
should be met with due consideration and fairly satisfied. For
the claim which Christianity lays upon man is that of a " reason-
able service," and, unless it can make this demand good in the
court of reason, it must lose its hold upon his intelligence, cease
to exert its influence upon society, and give up the idea of ever
winning the homage of the whole human race.

And it was precisely this scientific presentation of Christian-
ity with the aid of philosophy that was aimed at, and in great
part achieved, by the Schoolmen. " For it is due to the service of
philosophy that sacred theology take up and enrich itself with
the nature, habit, and genius of a true science." * Before their
day positive theology, which consisted in proving the divinity of
Christianity by the authority of the inspired Scriptures and the
words of Christ delivered to his apostles and handed down from
generation to generation in his church with the testimony of the
Fathers, had received its completion. This prepared the way for
the Schoolmen, who added to the arguments of positive theology
those drawn from philosophy. Philosophy, as held by them, con-
sisted in those truths which had been " discovered with the sole

* Leo XIII., Encyclical ^Eterni Patrts.

146 THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. [May,

light of natural reason by the eminent thinkers of the past," espe-
cially by their prince, Aristotle, who reduced these truths into a
system, but not unmixed with most serious, not to say appalling,
errors. St. Thomas, the prince of the Schoolmen, with the aid
derived from the writings of his precursors, especially of St.
Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Augustine, Boethius, St. Anselm,
Blessed Albert the Great his master, and above all from the light
of his own incomparable and sanctified genius, eliminated these
errors, and at the same time modified, enlarged, and enriched
with his own ideas the boundaries and scope of philosophy.

The aim of the Schoolmen was to produce, by the full play of
the light of natural reason on the intelligible side of Christian-
ity, aided by philosophy and consistent with positive theology,
a strictly logical demonstration of Christianity. The great task
which they had before them was that of the synthesis of natural
and revealed truth, of science and faith. But there came a halt in
the march of this intellectual progress.

In the early part of the sixteenth century earnest and zealous
efforts were made by sincere churchmen to reform the evils and
extirpate the abuses existing in the church, more especially in
Germany. This most praiseworthy movement was turned, by
certain leaders whose passions swayed their judgments, com-
bined with temporal princes who made use of these to gain
despotic power, from that of reform into one of heresy, schism,
and revolution. Seized with the insane idea of destroying the
church which Christ had built, they conspired together and
organized a systematic opposition, protesting defiantly against
her doctrines, and rudely overturning, wherever they succeeded
in gaining the power, what she had with great difficulty reared
and with greater sacrifices sustained.

Consistently with the fundamental principle of their system of
confining the attention exclusively to the Bible, and the interpre-
tation of its texts by the sole light of the internal illumination of
the Holy Spirit, they denied the value of human reason, contemn-
ed philosophy, opposed the spread of education and the study
of the liberal arts and sciences, burnt up or sold as waste paper
precious manuscripts, depopulated the schools and universities^
and shattered to pieces, wherever they came within their reach,
all works of art.

Hence Melancthon, the learned scholar, imbued with this
fanaticism, abandoned his studies, apprenticed himself to a baker
in order not to distract his attention with human learning from
the internal workings of the Holy Spirit. Every ignorant peasant

iSSo.] THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. 147

might consistently entertain the fancy that he was called to be
a preacher of the Gospel as many did and that he was even all
the better fitted to become a preacher of the Gospel by very rea-
son of his crass ignorance. This original characteristic trait of
contempt for all human learning and culture survives here and
there among Protestant sects even to our own day, more notably
among the Society of Friends, the Methodists, and the Plymouth
Brethren. Accordingly the ideal of Christianity was sought
after by going back to its imperfectly-developed stage, that of the
primitive church. This reaction against intellectual activity and
lenial of progress properly named itself Protestantism.*

It has taken the greater part of three centuries for the body of
:hose who have been infected by this contagion to throw off its
effects, and to regain their intellectual and moral health sufficient-
ly to walk again erect. This state of convalescence upon which
the better part of the descendants of original Protestantism have
entered has taken place by the intellect slowly assimilating
those truths which the leaders of this secession from the church
denied, and in rejecting their principal errors. For the intellect,
according to its own laws, as St. Thomas teaches, seeks truth, as-
similates it when found, and has a natural abhorrence of error,
and, when once detected, rejects it. Thus the Protestantism of
the nineteenth century, or what goes now pretty much by that
name, is the reverse of the Protestantism of the sixteenth century.

The process of this transformation has been somewhat as fol-
lows: The truths of divine revelation and of human reason
against which a protest was made in the beginning, have been
placed in such a clear light by long and frequent discussion that
further controversy about them in our day is hardly possible.
Where will you find an intelligent man among Protestants who
could be induced to repeat Martin Luther's diatribes against
human reason? or against man's free-will? or against human na-
ture ? On the other hand, touching its errors, how many Presby-
terians of this generation hold and believe the five points of Cal-
vinism pure and simple ? The same might be said with equal
truth of the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglicanism. Very few among
Protestants of this century take the pains to read their creeds,
and those who do, and get an idea of their contents, either clamor
for their change or would smile at the simplicity of one who
seriously asked whether they believed in them. Even the hu-

* These undeniable facts of history are not to be found in D'Aubigne, but they will be found,
and much more of the same sort, in Dollinger's Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwickelung, etc.,
Regensburg, 1848.

148 THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. [May,

man sciences appear to have had for their mission, especially
since their revival in our times, to undermine the positions as-
sumed by Protestantism in its attacks on the Catholic Church,
and the drift of their real discoveries harmonizes with Catholic
philosophy and theology.* This confirms the truth of the teach-
ing of St. Thomas, who says that " the study of creation tends to
the destruction of error and the fortifying of the truths of divine
faith." f Every forward step in the sciences is a conquest of
truth, and as the supernatural finds its confirmation in the natu-
ral, so every advance in the natural sciences is a new conquest of
Catholicity over heresy. It is from this point of view we can
fully appreciate the affirmation of Leo XIII., that " Christ is the
Restorer of the sciences." %

So thoroughly have the principal errors of Protestantism been
exposed that few, if any, can be found who could witness without
impatience and disgust the killing for the hundredth time these
" extinct Satans." Old issues are abandoned, the Protestantism
of creeds lies at death's door, and those of the next generation
who have not become Catholics, if they can still be called Protes-
tants, may retain a general respect for the Christian religion, per-
haps, but little beyond that.

Even unbelievers frankly acknowledge : " Granting that God
Almighty came upon earth to found a religious system, they
would be at loss to make out where such a system is to be found,
if not in the Church of Rome." Others who fancy that they
are emancipated from the Christian faith, occupying themselves
with the futile attempt to impeach Christianity with ideals bor-
rowed unwittingly from its stores, 'publicly confess that if
once you concede the Messianic .idea another phrase for the
divinity of Christ the Catholic Church is undoubtedly the com-
plete embodiment and exponent of the Christian religion. The
fact has become plain at last that Protestantism affords no longer
any shelter for thoroughly intelligent and upright men to call
themselves Christians and escape becoming Catholics.

Seeing this has compelled certain refractory and self-sufficient
persons to make the attempt to invent a new religion as a substi-
tute for Christianity; while, with keener insight, another class
proclaims the utter hopelessness, not to say ridiculousness, of the
sporadic efforts of these deluded men to accomplish their self-im-

* Those of our readers who would follow this train of thought we advise to read the volume
entitled Contemporary Evolution, by St. George Mivart.

f Contra Gentiles, lib. ii. c. ii., iii. JEncyc. JBttmiPatris.

Westminster Review, July, 1872.

i88o.] THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. 149

posed task, and, recognizing the fact that there is no real alter-
native between the Catholic Church and atheism, these more
far-seeing persons openly avow themselves atheists.

These, however, compose but a small number ; the larger part
of the body of Protestants have a more healthy tone, which is in-
dicated by their willingness to listen to the genuine voice of rea-
son, their enthusiasm for the general diffusion of education and
their sacrifices in favor of the higher branches of studies, their
love for the fine arts and pursuit of the natural sciences, their
instinctive attachment to liberty and desire for progress these,
and other signs of the same nature, are all proofs of the early
stages of recovery of that intellectual and moral activity which is
the true standard of man's normal health. Therefore, to all whose
eyes are not blurred and whose ears are not deaf, it is clear and
audible that the main tendencies of the times in which we live
are moving with increased rapidity and growing harmony to-
wards the great truths of the Catholic faith.

Is not this interpretation of the signs of the times in accor-
dance with the intention and significance of the invitation of the
reigning pontiff, Leo XIII., to the Catholic world to turn its at-
tention to the study of the Schoolmen, especially St. Thomas,
with the view of completing, with the assistance of all our mo-
dern scientific resources, the noble work of the evolution on ra-
tional principles of the truths of the Catholic faith ?

Pius IX. fearlessly placed before the eyes of the world the
evil tendencies of the age, at the same time condemning its errors
and vices, in the hope of saving society from being plunged into
an unfathomable abyss.- Leo XIII. , his worthy successor, has
been given, let us hope, the more consoling mission of pointing
out to the world the good tendencies of the age, interpreting its
truths and virtues in that light which will make the way clear to
society of a loftier and better future.

The whole drift of the foregoing might be summed up in
these words : If an exposition of the Catholic religion were made,
following the efforts of the Schoolmen, especially St. Thomas,
profiting at the same time by the knowledge, discoveries, and ex-
perience since acquired, in the light of such a presentment the
prejudices against the Catholic faith would disappear, its beauty
would find unbidden entrance into the hearts of men, the religious
revolution of the sixteenth century would be reversed, and hu-
manity as one man would advance with rapid strides to bring
down the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and, in so doing, fit it-
self for its loftier and ampler destiny above.

150 THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. [May,

Assuming, then, the fact, which many among themselves frankly
acknowledge, that Protestantism as an organized opposition to
the Catholic Church has spent its main strength, and as an ade-
quate representation of Christianity is an utter failure, is doomed
to disappear and is disappearing rapidly ; assuming that in the
eyes of intelligent men the efforts to invent or construct a new
religion are unworthy a moment of serious thought ; and granting
that " the problem of problems of this hour " is, as Mr. Tyndall
has put it in his Bristol address, " how to yield the religious senti-
ment reasonable satisfaction," the question then immediately be-
fore us is this : What prospect is there that the Catholic religion
will solve this problem of problems ?

This is the question with which we started out, and insisted
on being frankly met and fairly answered. Religion, Christianity,
the Catholic Church which is Christianity in its unity and total-
ity in a concrete form has for its actual task to answer satisfac-
torily the intellectual demands of the age, and honestly to accept
modern civilization and its onward tendencies.

The Catholic Church, so far from shrinking from this precise
problem and these imperative demands, hails them with inmost
delight. She is not only ready to face them fearlessly, but, con-
scious of the indwelling divinity and the possession of divine
truth, she looks upon this problem and these demands as the very
opportunities prepared by her Divine Spouse to secure, by her
satisfactory solution and answers, a new and glorious triumph.

This is what we shall now attempt to show.

Catholics often complain, and not seldom justly too, of the
distorted ideas and wrong opinions current among Protestants
concerning the doctrines, the sacraments, the worship, and the
discipline of the Catholic Church. Comte de Maistre, in his usual
emphatic style, did not hesitate to characterize the history written
during these three last centuries as a general conspiracy against
truth. There is no doubt a large dose of truth in this assertion,
but is not this falsification due, in some measure at least, to the
fact that in an age of active religious controversy one is apt to
fix his attention upon those truths or virtues which are in dispute,
even to the exclusion of others equally important and perhaps
more essential, but which are not contested ? The former are
quite naturally, in the heat of the contest, unduly accentuated ;
and the latter quite left out of sight and, it would appear, almost
forgotten. Occasion is thus given to narrow-minded and unfair
opponents to select these points, forge from them a caricature,
and impose, with a certain show of learning, this monster of their

i88o.] THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. 151

own imagination upon the ignorant as the Catholic Church.
These controversialists play the part in ecclesiastical matters
which the Trollopes and Dickenses did in their one-sided descrip-
tions of our people and in their estimate of our popular institu-
tions, and the best that can be said of them is that they fed the
prejudices of their countrymen and for a short time relieved
their spleen by affording them a little merriment.

It is not from the knowledge of her true character that the
Catholic religion suffers in the minds of a large portion of the
non-Catholic community, but from the false impressions which
they have received. But the crisis of the fever of controversy
is passing away, a change is coming over people's minds, and
there is reason to hope that if the Catholic religion were pre-
sented to their attention without exaggerations, and in the light
of its real character, the more impartial and intelligent minds
would assimilate this knowledge. At least, the experiment is
worth trying, and for our purpose we will take up what may be
called the root of the issue of the religious controversy of these
last three centuries the burning question, so to speak, of autho-
rity.

The impression has been made on the minds of no inconside-
rable portion of the non-Catholic community that the Catholic
religion is one based exclusively upon an external authority which
finds its absolute expression in the commands of the pope ; and
if obedience is not the sole virtue of a good Catholic, it is at least
the one above all others put in practice by the Catholic system.
And it may be asked : Have not learned authors and distinguished
controversialists given countenance to this false impression by
fixing their attention wholly, it would seem, upon the evils of re-
bellion against the authority of the Church of Christ, as is shown
by their declaration that the essence of religion, of Christianity,
of Catholicity is authority ; and in the assertion that on becoming
Catholic one has to make an entire surrender, in religious matters,
of his personal liberty and his own will, and much more in the
same strain ?

Those who represent the Catholic religion in this distorted
shape appear not to be aware of the fact that there is a large
class of men, not to say whole nations and races of men, who are
over-sensitive, perhaps, to the exercise of any authority outside
of themselves in religious matters, or, as for that, in any matters
whatsoever ; men who instinctively look upon every act of such
an authority, legitimate or not, as an attack upon their personal
liberty, to which they are irresistibly attached ; men who are in-

152 THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. [May,

clined to think that that religion which relies chiefly, if not solely,
upon its authority must teach doctrines contrary to reason and
proclaim precepts repugnant to the best impulses of our nature,
or why, they ask, does it require the force of an external authority
to impose these upon our acceptance ? finally, men who, if com-
pelled to make a choice, would a thousand times rather suffer
from the license of liberty than the despotism of authority.

But it might be said in extenuation of, if not justification for,
presenting Christianity under the exclusive form of an external
authority, that a wise strategist makes that his point of defence
against which the attacks of the enemy are mainly directed ; and
as the attacks of the enemies of the church were aimed against all
external authority in religion, even though divinely appointed,
hence the reason for strenuously insisting upon and emphasizing
the necessity of authority. It might also be said, further, that
when an exaggerated or false idea of liberty has penetrated into
the minds of a numerous class of men, loosened the bonds which
hold them together in society, excited disturbances, and caused
revolutions, it behoves the friends of order, progress, and civili-
zation to drive home the conviction of the necessity of authority,
to define and concentrate its powers, to insist upon the practice
of the virtue of obedience and make it conspicuous. To all this
it may be added, in favor of authority and obedience, that there
are individuals, and even the larger portion of the human race
perhaps certainly this applies to some races who find their
highest contentment in religion, and, as for that, in their social
and political relations, not so much from convictions arising from
intrinsic evidence as in the exercise of obedience to an external
authority. The knowledge of truth and their duty is never con-
veyed to the minds of these individuals or races of men so satis-
factorily as when under the form of an external authority whose
claims commend themselves to their intelligence, and which is
venerable by its great antiquity. How perfect must be their
satisfaction in finding themselves in possession of a religion like
the Catholic, which unites in itself all the authorities of past cen-
turies and all the ancient traditions of the human race from its
cradle !

Finally, what was more natural than the appeal made to the
external authority of the Holy Scriptures ? the validity of which
both parties in the controversy that we are now treating ac-
cepted, and therefore it seemed to them the shortest and best way
of settling their disputes.

Granting, then, the worthiness of their motives, the grievous

i88o.] THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. 153

evils flawing from disobedience, and the suitableness of present-
ing" Christianity to a people of certain characteristics under the
form of external authority, still when theologians or ecclesiasti-
cal authors venture to treat of Christianity as to its essence or
nature, and aim at presenting it to a people unlike their own,
they should bear in mind what are its real constitutive principles,
and be careful not to employ language that is open to an interpre-
tation the reverse of their real meaning. To declare, then, that
the essence of Christianity is authority, and on becoming a Chris-
tian one must entirely surrender his personal liberty and his own
will, are great mistakes, and, we were about to say, unpardonable
ones. For whatever attractions authority may have in the eyes
of a large portion of mankind, however absurd it may be to at-
tack an authority directly and divinely appointed, and however
great may be the evils of rebellion, no provocation should lead
one in his defence of Christianity, or in his zeal for its propaga-
tion, to present it in so one-sided an aspect or to twist it into such
a shape.

It is an error, and a gross one, to declare that the essence of
Christianity is authority. It is no such thing. Authority never
was and never can be the essence of anything, much less the es-
sence of the highest and best of all things religion. The essence
of Christianity is the elevation of rational creatures, by the power
of the Holy Spirit, to a union with God above that which they
enjoy by their birth. Thus religion communicates to man's soul
the indwelling Holy Spirit, who superadds to the relation man
received from his Maker in the act of creation, one that makes
him a participator in the divine nature and which transforms
him from a creature into a child of God. This is the essence of
Christianity in its relation to man.

Authority is always secondary to something else as its end,
and never an end in itself. Hence authority may be defined in
its most general sense as a power subservient to the end for
which men are associated together. Thus parental authority is
subservient to the proper rearing and education of children.
Political authority is subservient to the securing of the general
welfare of a people. The authority of the church is subservient
to the attainment of the end for which the Christian religion was
revealed that is, the promotion and safeguard of the action of
the indwelling Holy Spirit by which the soul is united to God.
Therefore it may be laid down as an axiom of Christianity that
the outward authority of the church effaces itself in a direct ratio
to the action of the Holy Spirit within the soul.

154 THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. [May,

As to the assertion that in accepting the invitation of the
church to become a Catholic one must, in religious matters, make
an entire surrender of his personal liberty and his own will, this
sentence requires no little explanation to understand its meaning,
and it is not quite sure that a correct meaning can be attached to
it certainly not as it stands.

" Personal liberty and one's own will " constitute an essential
part of our nature, and these faculties are not ours to surrender,
if such a surrender were possible or desirable. Were this act in
man's power it would then be possible for him to annihilate him-
self. Again, this act of surrender always supposes the persistent
action of the faculties surrendered. A surrender of this sort is
therefore as impossible as it is absurd. Once more, personal lib-
erty and one's own will constitute man a rational, responsible
being, and an invitation to such a surrender is an insult offered
to his manhood and dignity, and ought to be treated as $uch.
Catholicity, which is the concrete name for Christianity, makes
no such impossible, absurd, and degrading invitation to men.
Her martyrs, rather than make such a surrender, voluntarily
underwent the cruellest torments and cheerfully suffered the most
ignominious deaths.

Christianity violates no law of our being, asks no surrender of
our faculties, and is in perfect harmony with all the genuine in-
stincts of our nature. Christianity is truth, and invites men to
exercise their faculties in search after truth, and, when found,
to follow the truth and emancipate themselves from all servitude.
" You shall know the truth," so runs the Master's promise, " and
the truth shall make you free." This is Catholicity, and such too
is its explication by St. Thomas.*

Were we to clothe the invitation of the Catholic Church to
men of this age with words, it would run somewhat thus : O men
who are prone by nature to seek knowledge ! seek earnestly to
know, and to know all things visible and invisible, above all the
Sovereign Truth, to the uttermost of your faculties, for it is unto
this end your Creator bestowed them upon you. Exert your will
to gain all the good possible in every order of being, above all
the Supreme Good ; your appetites were given to no other end.
Maintain your personal liberty, cost what it may ; the cost cannot
be too great to preserve such a divine treasure. God does not
ask of you to surrender your nature or its faculties, for these are
fresh from his hands ; but to " go on with the same limbs that
clad you at your birth to blessedness."

* Summa, I. 2, art. cvii. cviii.

1 88o.] THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. 155

Doubtless to be a Christian in the ages of persecution was
equivalent, in most cases, to martyrdom ; subsequently, in order
to keep one's self pure and unspotted from the world, the deserts
were peopled with Christians ; but as persecution ceased and
pagan society was transformed by Christianity, so the promi-
nence of martyrdom and retirement from the world ceased to
characterize the Christian life. Unquestionably there are epochs
whose prevalent errors and vices require of Christians the prac-
tice of special virtues to counteract them and to be faithful to
God and their consciences, and the practice of these virtues even
at times to a heroic degree. But it would be a misapprehension
of the true idea of Christianity, and a misplaced zeal, to insist up-
on the practice, for instance, of poverty or that of blind obedience,
as it is called, or any other of the lesser Christian virtues, as nec-
essary to salvation for all Christians and in all times, or even as
the most proper form and adequate exhibition of Christian perfec-
tion.

No one can dispute that the Holy Spirit inspires a number of
souls to give themselves to the preaching of truths and the prac-
tice of virtues necessary to counteract the errors and vices of cer-
tain epochs. These favored souls do great service to the church
of God both by their zeal and their example to the faithful, and
the history of the different religious orders from the early ages of
Christianity, approved and sanctioned by the church, places this
beyond doubt. It is no less true that the principle of religious
perfection is an integral part of the eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ,
but religious institutions and their peculiar forms of acquiring
this perfection are adapted to the peculiar needs of their times
and their special circumstances. When they have answered the
principal needs which called them forth they still continue to
exist, and to be serviceable in many ways, but not as the most
active and efficient agents of the church for meeting the pressing
wants of the hour. The church alone is the immortal bride of
Christ, bringing forth at every period children like giants ready
to run their course. Herein lies the secret of the succession of
her eminent pontiffs, her founders of great religious orders, and
her saints, both men and women.

But it may be asked : Does not the invitation of the Gospel
require of all men who would enter into eternal life to surrender
the perversion of their personal liberty and to renounce their self-
will ? Most assuredly it does, and this will be found written on
almost every page of the Gospels. If this be your meaning, why
not use language that will convey your thought to those whom

156 THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. [May,

you address? The time has come to use words in their true
sense, and he who would gain the men of this generation must
address their intelligence, acknowledge their liberty, and respect
their dignity.

May not the pushing forward external authority, and often
when quite out of place, be one of the principal causes why there
exists in the community such a wide-spread sympathy, both open
and secret, for every attempt at resistance to authority ? A spe-
cific prolonged beyond season may produce a worse disease than
the one removed, and end in killing the patient. May not the
prominence given to the practice of obedience, forcing it, so to
speak, to cover ground which it cannot occupy or defend, have
contributed in part to that general apathy among the faithful
concerning which there is so common a complaint ? Men, to be
strong, robust, and active, need food that is not lacking in nutri-
tion. The mission of vanquishing heresy and rebellion was of its
nature a transitory one, and a wise physician diminishes both
the size and the frequency of his doses when the patient is in a
state of convalescence, and recommends a more generous diet.
All honor to the champions of truth without whose heroic labors
its victory over error would not have been, humanly speaking,
achieved ! Thanks to their resistance to the attacks of error,
truths and virtues of great importance, and which otherwise
would have lain latent, have been brought to the front. It is
principally owing to their zeal that the way has been opened
for the church to return to her accustomed orbit, and to enter
upon a course which will be characterized by spontaneity, expan-
sion, individual initiative, and energetic action.

Let us now suppose, as the smoke of the successful battle with
heresy vanishes from the field, that the truths brought forth so con-
spicuously in this conflict were properly adjusted, like the one we
have taken as an illustration ; and this is what is meant by the re-
sumption and completion of the great task of the Schoolmen. If
this were accomplished, and the Catholic Church were seen in
the light of such a fair presentment, the false impressions and the
prejudices springing from these would disappear from the minds
of men as the mist yields before the light of the rising sun ; their
intelligence would seize hold instinctively of its divine truths, and
mankind, lifted as it were by one wave of thought and joy, would
pursue with happier zeal its great end.

This is not a pleasant word-picture drawn by effort of the
imagination ; it is only the representation of the Catholic Church
in her true light,' and, as a proof of its truth and reality, we dare

i88o.] THE INTELLECTUAL OUTLOOK OF THE AGE. 157

appeal to the unanimous testimony of the consciousness of every
well-informed Catholic. It was in this light St. Augustine, that
Jofty genius, beheld the Catholic Church when he exclaimed:
" Too late have I known thee, O ancient truth ! Too late have
I loved thee, O beauty ancient and ever new ! "

Let him, therefore, who would serve the Catholic Church in
this generation, show her in her own true light, in her unity and
universality, in all her beauty and majesty. It is this true vision
of her divinity that will captivate man's intelligence, secure the
unbidden homage of his will, and elicit his uttermost action and
passion. Herein lies the mysterious force of her duration for so
.many centuries, the secret of the power of her sway over more
than two hundred millions of souls, and the reason for the stream
of her converts and the capture of the ablest and noblest minds of
our century.

Let us once more resume and close. If the interior and intel-
ligible side of the church were exposed to view in such a light
that men would be led to see clearly and appreciate her essential
character ; if it were shown unmistakably that all her externals,
when not abused or exaggerated, are strictly subservient to the
securing of her essential end, there are better and stronger rea-
sons to hope for a greater tide to set in towards entering into her
fold in the nineteenth century than there was to leave it in the
sixteenth. For such a movement has in its favor the aim and
power of the Holy Spirit, the noblest aspiration of man's soul
that for common brotherhood and the co-operation of that law
of unity which reigns throughout all creation.

The providence of God in the course of events appears to be
preparing for such a movement by lifting the church out of the
cradle of that race which has served her from her infancy, and in
breaking the swathing bands of princes which protected her ten-
der limbs, in order to clothe his divine spouse with the vest-
ments of youth, and to place her in all her attractiveness before
the eyes of all men, so that in beholding her divine beauty they
may be carried away with joy and delight. The same Provi-
dence is so directing the issues of the world, the movements of
nations, the intellectual, moral, social, and political needs of so-
ciety, that the necessity of her divine action and aid is seen more
and more plainly and felt more keenly ; while, on the other hand,
the enemy of mankind, in spite of himself, is driving those who
will not be moved by higher motives, by their fears of common
dangers, unless they are atheists or anarchists, into the fold of the
church.

158 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. [May,

As to Catholics, the controversies of the day will force on
them the scientific evolution of their faith, for only the intelligent
grasp of the truth in its entireness is adequate to meet the whole-
sale attacks and conquer the numerous errors of our age. Ca-
tholics are left no choice. They must either raise up their
thoughts and courage to the height of the aims of Christianity as
the absolute and universal religion destined to gain the entire
world, or cease to be Catholics, and content themselves to take
the ignoble part of one among the thousand of different religious
sects, and with them finally disappear and be forgotten.

But such a supposition is a sin against the idea of a Divine
Providence, a denial of the divinity of Christianity, and infidelity
to the best instincts of our nature. Our hearts are therefore
lifted upward, and our hopes are onward ; for the great church
which civilized and Christianized Europe, formed its people in-
to nations, and hito one great Christian family properly named
Christendom, is fully competent to do the same work, and with
greater ease considering modern facilities and appliances at her
disposal, for the whole world.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.

SONNETS BY AUBREY DE VERB.
I.

HE left the fortress-palace of his sires :

The blood of princes coursing through his veins

Flushed him no more with pride's insurgent fires

Than streams, hill-born, make proud the sundered plains :

He loved that lowly life the world disdains ;

Contemned the insensate pomp that world admires ;

He walked, soul conversing with those choirs

That sing where peace eternal lives and reigns.

i88o.] ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.

Tender Loretto to her breast elate

Caught him a youngling. Silent, meek, serene,

His small feet sought the poor beside her gate

That wondered at the brightness of his mien,

Even then a holy creature, dedicate

To Wisdom's sovran seat, and Sacred Queen.

II.

Beauteous Campania ! In the old Roman morn
The great ones of the nations rushed to thee :
In thy rich gardens by the full-voiced sea
Wearied they slept, and woke like men re-born.
Not so the greatest of thy sons ! In scorn
He passed the snare ; his spirit strong and free
Less honoring Pestum's roses than that thorn
The crown of Calvary's Victim. Who was he?
The Ascetic who refused a prelate's throne
Lest worldly aims with cares divine should mix ;
The Builder, lifting fanes of thought, not stone,
Far less poor Babel Towers of sun-burnt bricks ;
The man who summed all truth,* yet drew alone
His sacred science from his crucifix.

III.

Great Saint ! In pictures old a sun there flamed

Soft sphere of radiance on thy vest of snow ;

It taught us that from hearts by sin unshamed,

The mind's inspirer best, alone could flow

Sapience like thine. " Master of those who know ! " f

At heaven's high mark alone thy shaft was aimed :

Therefore, by thee unwoo'd, by thee disclaimed,

Science terrestrial sought thy threshold low.

Beneath thy cell she knelt : all pagan lore

From mines of Plato and the Stagyrite

To thee she tendered. Thou, with spiritual light

Piercing each ingot of that golden ore,

To gems didst change them meet to pave the floor

Of God's great Temple on the empyreal height.

* The allusion is to the Summa Theologia,

t " II maestro di color chi sanno " (Dante, Inf. iii.)

160 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. [May,

IV.

Prince of the Christian Wisdom of the Past !
Gazing for aye on Faith's sidereal skies
'Twas thine to map her stars in galaxies,
To ill-taught eyes a splendor random-cast.
The old world's Ptolemaic gaze aghast
Had shrunk from Nature's dread Infinities ;
Through thee that heaven of Faith for happier eyes
Attained Truth's beauty, yet retained the Vast !
Pledge of the promise of the years to come !
. When lesser sciences, self-crowned this day,
Shall joy to own the great Creator's sway,
And, bringing huge, yet sifted, harvests home,
With nobler pride the increase of earth shall lay
Beneath the mighty Mother's cross-crowned Dome.

The Householder, his treasures numbering o'er,
Draws forth the ancient now, anon the new,
With equal hand and unperturbed review
Measuring all gifts of after and before,
And to all needs adjusting. Impious war
This day the Novel wages 'gainst the True :
More need to win the aggressor, or subdue,
Redress Truth's balance, Virtue's strength restore.
Great Pontiff ! Glad at heart the Church this hour
Beholds thee from the treasure-house of God
Lifting that Tome, the ages' amplest dower :
Once more thou smitest with the Apostle's rod
A rock long sealed. Ere long the fount of Power
Shall rise and cleanse the nations like a flood.

i88o.] THE MILITARY NOVEL.

THE MILITARY NOVEL.*

ALTHOUGH Tennyson bids the New Year bells

" Ring out the thousand wars of old,"

the love of war, like hope, seems to spring eternal in the human
breast. Military ardor is congenial to this undisciplined heart
of ours. The major part of history is but a recital of wars.
Fame reserves her choicest laurel for the brow of the con,
queror ; music attunes for him her most inspiring notes, and art
stands with pencil or with chisel in hand to give him her lofti-
est triumphs. It is true that Napoleon I. said that he would go
down to posterity with the Code in his hand ; but do we not
rather associate his hand with the sword ? And although Alex-
ander founded the city which bears his name, and which per-
petuates his memory far more effectually than Arbela or the
passage of the Granicus, what reader of Plutarch does not read
listlessly his civic achievements ? The reorganization of the
Roman commonwealth brought about by the splendid adminis-
trative abilities of Julius Caesar is, to the ordinary reader, com-
pletely eclipsed by the consummate generalship of the Gallic
campaign and the rout of Pharsalia. The classical reader is
amused at the evident desire of the old poets and historians to
summarize rapidly their hero's victories of peace (generally the
most enduring ones) ; for he sees that they are not in their element
until the cloud of battle encircles them and the loud clash of
resounding arms echoes through their lines. Homer, we think,
must have yawned while penning the wisdom of Nestor, but
he exulted when he sang the battle of the gods.

As our day is pre-eminently " scientific " (a man after a while
will have to pull off his boots on strictly scientific principles, and
with the least expenditure of force, lest that act may disturb the
exquisite poise of the cosmos), we purpose profoundly investigat-
ing this natural love of fighting, which all philosophers agree
in condemning, even if they have to knock down their opponents.
St. Thomas of Aquin, who, by the way, never quailed before any
antagonist in the schools or out of them, dwells with evident sym-
pathy upon the virtue of fortitude, which, as one of the four car-
dinal virtues, fell within the scope of his Summa. Judging from

* -The Life of Charles Lever. By W. J. Fitzpatrick, M.R.I. A. 1879.
VOL. XXXI. II.

1 62 THE MILITARY NOVEL. [May,

the quality of the adjectives which he applies to cowardice and
poltroonery and every word is weighed we are of opinion that
he would have been a rather dangerous gentleman to attack, even
if he would have observed the moderamen inculpates tutelce ; though
it would be hardly safe to trust too implicitly to this principle,
even in the case of a saint. Well, St. Thomas gives us plainly to
understand that, if fortitude is not maxima virtutum, it comes very
near it, and he doubts if virtues, particularly those of the religious
life, can be practised at all without a very large admixture of this
courage and heroism which, in the natural state, blaze out in war.
The fact is, man is, or was created to be, courageous by nature ;
and it is this latent virtue which is evoked by the spirit-stirring
drum and ear-piercing fife. War certainly develops the highest
qualities of manhood, sometimes to an extent which verges on
ferocity. The Darwinian nonsense about the fierce " struggle for
existence " as originating and keeping up courage is disproved by
natural history, which has established the cowardice of the lower
animals, taken as a class, whereas man is the only animal that can
properly be called brave. His reason points out a thousand per-
ils ; his imagination centuples them, but his will overcomes them.
The blind fury of the wounded lion is not courage, any more than
the stealthy prowling of the fox is wisdom. But the man who
goes into battle with an almost physical certainty of death is cour-
ageous. Nor is his blanched face or trembling hand any evi-
dence of timidity. On the contrary, as Wellington observed, this
indicates the supreme courage which controls even the physical
frame. We shall pass over, however, any philosophical or ethi-
cal principles involved in the question of war, as not being ger-
mane to this essay, which treats of the general literary expression
and description of famous wars, and particularly of the mar-
vellous graphic power in this line possessed by the late Charles
Lever. Sallust has a pregnant thought that military glory is
largely dependent for its perpetuance upon literary genius ; and
certainly, in this sense at least, the pen mightier than the sword.
Long since the keenest blade would have rusted, if its gleam had
not been reflected by the pen.

By far the greatest part of the imagery of Holy Writ is taken
from the scenes of war. Indeed, it is from war that we have the
terminology of that conflict within our own breast which consti-
tutes the profoundest problem of theology, and which has given
rise to countless heresies on the subject of free-will in its relations
to the action of divine grace. St. Paul repeatedly speaks the
language of battle, and the Prince of Peace himself said that he

1 880.] THE MILITAR Y No VEL. ! 53

came to bring the sword. Excepting the few didactical books of
the Old Testament, it is mainly a chronicle of wars carried on,
too, with exceeding vigor. The Holy Ghost himself inspired
those glorious songs of battle and of victory which have been the
watchwords of ages ; and there is nothing in the whole range of
literature to equal David's lament over those brave men that fell
upon Gelboe. Achilles' wail over Patroclus is tame in compari-
son. It may be, as the Society of Friends holds, that the Scrip-
tural wars were undertaken at the divine instance and for the
purpose of carrying out certain divine counsels, and, as wars of
this exceptional nature, they were no justification of war as such ;
but there is no question of the importance attached by the sa-
cred word to individual courage and generalship. The warriors
of Israel are sharply defined from the " weak-kneed," and due
credit is given to the warlike qualities possessed by the enemies
of the chosen people. The defeat of the Israelites who trusted in
the Ark of the Law as in a talisman of victory, without having
invoked the name of the God of Armies (Sabaoth) and then strik-
ing the Philistine hip and thigh, appears to have been an evidence
of God's displeasure at what, after all, was their cowardice ; al-
though, no doubt, latet mysterium, as St. Augustine would say.
The friends of peace, however desirable their aspirations may be,
cannot disprove the lawfulness of war when undertaken for the
causes and under the conditions which a Christian international
law has wisely ordained. It is not always possible to secure
" peace with honor."

Perhaps one of the strongest evidences in favor of the
church's wise regulation of the reading of the Scriptures is
unconsciously afforded by Lord Macaulay's analysis of the
fanatical warring of the Puritans, who overthrew the English
kingdom and brought its monarch to the block. Those gloomy,
melancholy men, whose fitting chief was Oliver Cromwell, lov-
ed to brood over their wrongs, and to find solace for them
in the pages of the Old Testament. By an easy process of
fancy, particularly when under the domination of strong re-
ligious feeling, they began to regard themselves as the Israel
of God, called upon to do battle against the idolatrous Philis-
tine, "to bind their kings in chains, and their nobles in mana-
cles of iron." Prolonged meditation upon those passages of
Holy Writ which, like trumpet tongues, seemed to call for the
king's taking-off, gradually produced that temper of mind
which made an hallucination little short of a divine inspiration.
Such is the universality of Holy Writ that the Puritans quick-

164 THE MILITARY NOVEL. [May,

ly found analogies, coincidences, and striking parallelisms in
the most harmless texts, if that word expresses the inaptitude
of a text to bear a warlike interpretation. Of course the con-
sequence of such meditation was soon in active play. On the
Continent the same distortion of the Bible had been going on,
with precisely the same results. The polygamy of the pa-
triarchs sufficiently warranted the imitation of their example
by those who were so zealous in diffusing to a benighted pa-
pistical world the matrimonial life of the men who lived in
the infancy of the earth, and after a deluge which had extin-
guished all human life except the "just man" and his sons,
in grace with the God who had punished the human family
for the very abuse of the laws regulating matrimony which
abuse the Biblicists did not perceive they were reviving. The
sects flew to the Bible for the sanction of the most iniquitous
wars, of insubordination to constituted authority, and of social-
istic and communistic principles which no modern state, Chris-
tian or pagan, would for a moment hesitate to repress.

The remarkable development of the military principle per-
ceptible in ancient Greece and in Rome appears to have had its
source more in a love of glory than in the justifying principle of
self-defence. If we accept Schlegel's theory (Philosophy of His-
tory), that Greek civilization, like the language itself, came from
ancient India, we can understand why the soldier should have
been so honored a personage. There is not the slightest doubt
that the arts of war were cultivated in Greece from the earliest
period, and the courage of the Athenian, if more polished and
cultured, was not less firm than that of the Spartan. Besides,
the nation's literature, which is always the best reflex of its mind,
shows that war held a higher place in their thoughts than even
their beloved art. The whole course of Athenian as of Lace-
daemonic education was to train up the youth for a prospective
soldier. Plato (Republic) applauds the strangling of deformed
children at birth. But while Sparta contented herself with form-
ing the best soldiers, Athens aimed higher and sought to make
the soldier fit for the senate also. Cornelius Nepos, who, how-
ever, is not by any means a philosophical historian, speaks of this
double culture of Athens as having given her illustrious men
incomparably the advantage over her rival. The union of the
highest military with the highest civil abilities is exceeding-
ly rare. Mme. de Remusat, in her recently-published Memoirs
speaks of Napoleon's chagrin at the wretched political failures of
those of his marshals whom he entrusted with civil power, and

iSSo.] THE MILITARY NOVEL. !6 5

who, though invincible in the field, were imbecile in the cabinet.
Yet he thoroughly despised the physical cowardice of that prince
of diplomatists, Talleyrand, who shook like an aspen at a dis-
charge of artillery, and yet could outwit Napoleon himself, who
still was no mean diplomatist. Everybody has heard of the
downright poltroonery of Frederick the Great in his first battle,
though he steeled himself by " philosophy " in time to love the
smell of gunpowder.

Plutarch ascribes Alexander's thirst for military renown to
his love of Homer. And surely we need not wonder that the
Greeks were a nation of warriors, trained as they were to the
hearing of that immortal verse, which even we fidppapoi cannot
read without a thrill. No succeeding poet has thrown such a
splendor over deeds of personal prowess, or infused such a divine
enthusiasm into what after all is only the butchering of our fel-
low-men. The horrors of war, its sickening details, its general
fruitlessness, its intrinsic barbarism are hidden in Homer under
the aegis of Minerva, or scattered by the blaze of the armor of
Achilles. Only now and then does Homer make us feel war's
true misery, as when Priam begs the dead body of Hector in
lines over which many a father has wept when thinking of the
" unreturning brave." Besides, the Greek drama, whose match-
less perfection stands like one of their own statues, enforced upon
the people the opinion, which is not theologically true, that death
for one's country is the supreme sacrifice and atonement, which
Zeus himself cannot reject, the soldier, loved of gods and men,
entering all-radiant into Elysium as soon as the funeral rites
were performed. So, too, Odin at once admits the slain warrior
into Valhalla, and Mohammed's houris wait for him at the gates of
Paradise. It is in keeping with Protestant historical philosophy
to represent the plenary indulgence given to the Crusaders as
a free pass to heaven, permission to rob, murder, and burn all
and everything on the way to the Holy Sepulchre, and to maltreat
all the paynim women that should fall into their hands. Gibbon,
however, has saved English history from this wretched and
ignorant calumny, though we noticed it quite recently in a
school history intended for the "higher classes of colleges and
for the private reader." We pity the " private reader," for there is
some chance in a " college " to get at the truth in these matters.

Rome being a nation of soldiers, its literature, of course,
bristles with arms. One cannot help regretting that the great
Latin historians did not devote their fine powers to humbler but
more important themes than the thousand-and-one wars in which

1 66 THE MILITARY NOVEL. [May,

their nation was engaged. How little do we know about the
internal policy of the ancient Roman state ! The few treatises
of Tully are of comparative little worth, and his orations have
the fault of all orations, in that they belong to special pleading.
The lost decades of Livy and the lost treatise of Cicero de Gloria
are no losses at all compared with the utter perishing of much of
Varro. Pace poetarum, permit us to say that the preservation of
one old law is of far greater importance than that of a dozen old
poems. Mommsen regretfully admits that the authentic period
of Roman legal history cannot be pushed farther back than the
era of Justinian ; yet we know, de facto, that the Republic and the
early Empire were the best governed of ancient or of modern
states. Surely were the Romans the domini gentium, and we are
governed by their laws to this day.

Sallust is the Roman military novelist. His great hero Cati-
line stands out in stronger colors than even those in which the
fervid eloquence of Cicero depicts him. After we get through
the prosy introduction which, in accordance with the fashion of
the times, was deemed necessary to every treatise for the Hora-
tian maxim in medias res is too bold a one for anybody but a
genius to adopt we are at once introduced to the conspirators.
We attend their nightly meetings. We study the character of
the chief, bold, unscrupulous, the haughty patrician despising the
plebeian, spending the wealth of modern principalities in his
gaming and rioting, speaking with a nervous eloquence which
fascinates us, thunder-smitten with the bolt of Cicero's invective,
hurrying from Rome, marshalling his followers and disposing of
them with the skill of an old campaigner, fighting with a personal
desperation which puts Richard III. to the blush, and dying like
a Roman. Sallust has also given us that strange Numidian king,
Jugurtha, with his rapid changes of fortune, until his sombre
death in prison. The Roman historian is graphic in the highest
degree, and, if he lacks the exact historical method of Livy, rivals
him in word-painting. Of course Livy's speeches have never
been surpassed. The Agricola of Tacitus is another charming
military novel. Life in the camp, and the rigors of a Roman
march and hibernation, were never better drawn. Caesar was too
cold and cautious to let his fancy sport with facts, and this is why
some find the Commentaries rather dull reading. But they have
been the text-book of all the great soldiers of modern times, nor
are they wanting in those touches of romance, tenderness, and
courtesy which are all the more affecting when we think of the
man who wrote them.

i88o.] THE MILITARY NOVEL. !6;

The institution of chivalry gave rise to a beautiful literature
with which English readers are not very familiar, except in its
transfusion into Tennyson's Arthurian legends. The Trouba-
dours sang of knightly worth, and held up to the soldier that
noble ideal of honor which the military profession has never
since lost. This refining influence was doubtless exerted by the
church, who had to deal with those barbarian hordes whose
strong arms pulled down the noble fabric of the ancient Roman
civilization. It is rather fashionable, we believe, to laugh at the
old chivalric legends, and to stigmatize the whole institution as a
system of authorized plundering. Of course most of the knights
labored under the opprobrium of having been Catholics ; but that
was not their fault, poor fellows ! for the star of the Reformation
had not as yet risen. Nor must people take all their ideas of
chivalry from the pages of Don Quixote, which is an ex-prof esso
satire. Surely any influence for good which could strip war of
many of its horrors, tame the savagery which war naturally en-
genders, and cultivate respect for women, who are the most de-
fenceless in periods of violence and bloodshed, should merit some
approval from the disciples of a Kulturkampf that finds ecstasy in
a flower and the Infinite in a shell. If it were not for that mise-
rable Catholic Church that for ever is thrusting herself in every
institution which should have been the pure product of the
" light-seeking tendency," chivalry, no doubt, would be loudly ap-
plauded. But up pops some old saint, or some council, or some
pope, in the place of our ethereal culture, and forces us to ac-
knowledge him or it as the author of every beneficent institution
of modern times. Really, Culture cannot possibly evolve herself
so long as that unmannerly old Roman Church persists in living.

When Charles Lever began to work the vein of military ro-
mance in modern English literature, he had the first choice.
The military episodes in Smollett are only episodes, and can be
easily left out of his stories. Sir Walter Scott had taken up the
mediaeval and the Stuart times, and so Lever fell fresh upon that
period of military enthusiasm which the Napoleonic wars had
awakened. Although later he wrote some excellent society nov-
els, still his fame will ultimately rest upon Charles O'Malley, Tom
Burke of Ours, and perhaps the Knight of Gwynne. His later stories
are written more carefully and display a wider range of thought
and experience, but they never had and never will have the popu-
larity given to the three we have mentioned. He was the first
to get down from the stilts upon which the older romancers

X 68 THE MILITARY NOVEL. [May,

walked, after the fashion of the actors of the ancient Greek drama,
to give themselves an imposing appearance. It took Thackeray
years of painful toil to acquire that style of easy familiarity which
so charms us. It is the perfection of art. Compare the conver-
sations in a modern story with the conversations of the charac-
ters in, say, Dr. Johnson's Rasselas. Now, Lever was the first
to write a conversation as it would have taken place the most
difficult thing in a novel and the very essence of a good play.
There is hardly a stilted talk in all Lever's books, and this is what
gives one the full measure of his extraordinary power. Fitzpat-
rick says that he talked better than he wrote. What a delightful
companion he must have been! J. T. Fields says of Dickens'
conversation that the novelist disliked continuousness of talk, and
was best when he was burlesquing. This gives us rather a mean
idea of the man.

But Lever lived with men who had made conversation a
study. They prepared themselves for a dinner. They were the
successors of the brilliant set that gathered around Brinsley
Sheridan ; and even that incomparable wit sometimes thought
out his jokes. With possibly the exception of the French, who
are rather sharp and witty than humorous, the educated
Irish are the pleasantest and most jovial people in the world.
Lever lived with a good set. He heard the stories which were
afterwards to make the world shake its sides with laughter. He
knew very many military men, who had a punctilious sense of
honor, brave, high-bred manners, and a happy temper born of
their profession ; who held their lives as naught, and who conse-
quently had repose of character and demeanor. The guard-room,
the mess-table, the camp, the review, have all their legends and
traditions. Besides, most of the officers were university men, and
all the more agreeable on that account, as presumably not prigs.
When Charles O ' Malley, Jack Hinton, and Harry Lorrequer appear-
ed they were most eagerly read and appreciated in military
circles, which showed that they were fair transcripts of the life.
The " inextinguishable laughter " which, like that of the Homeric
gods, appears to be the happy heritage of the Irish people, broke
from him in his delineations of such characters as Mickey Free.
The famous old days of wassail, of hunting and of duelling, the
madcap though virtuous women, the frolic of dance and wedding,
the quickly-consoled grief of funerals, and all that topsy-turvy
society which the war introduced or profoundly modified, live
again in his pages. He wrote a remarkably pleasing and easy
style. It reads like talk. There is no attempt at rhetoric, no

iSSo.] THE MILITARY NOVEL. ify

cunning surprises, no maudlin sentiment, no obscene jests. It
flows on like the interesting chat of one who has a pleasingly,
modulated voice ; and we can easily believe that his manuscript
went to the printer with scarcely an interlineation or alteration.

He was quick to perceive the profound interest which
his countrymen took in the character and deeds of the first
Napoleon. This man had an extraordinary attraction for the
Irish people, partly because of his splendid military talents,
and partly because of his unrelenting hatred of the " heredi-
tary foe." While in Maurice Tierney Lever described the open-
ing scenes of the Reign of Terror, it was in Tom Burke of Ours
that he most fully introduced the Little Corporal; but he rep-
resents him as harsh, brutal, ungrateful, and suspicious, par-
ticularly as regarded his foreign soldiery. This was done in
order to deter Ireland from her wild dream that " Boney "
would redeem her from bondage. We doubt if Lever himself
felt much satisfaction in describing the glories of the British
arms, unless it were from the consciousness that it was his
own countrymen who did most of the fighting.

The Napoleonic sketches of Lever are valuable from the
circumstance that he was personally acquainted with many
who had intimate dealings with the emperor, and he himself
was resident consul at Trieste for many years, and so quite
competent to catch the evanescent forms of French life and
thought. We certainly have the modern Cassar well repro-
duced his short, sturdy figure, his impassive face with its
clear, olive complexion, his quick, nervous, abrupt movements,
his explosions of wrath, and his almost preternatural acute-
ness in reading men's faces. The iron frame that needed no
repose, the ceaseless vigilance, the military prescience, the
strange charm of manner that made people love him while
they trembled in his presence (thus reversing the ancient ty-
rant's saying about " hate me, but fear me "), the sublime con-
fidence in victory, are well caught by Lever and well described.
Military men say also that his descriptions of battles and sieges
are remarkably accurate, in marked contrast in this respect
with many romances, whose battle-plans would, if executed,
invariably issue in their hero's defeat. Victor Hugo's famous
description of the battle of Waterloo (Les Mise'rables] is alto-
gether fanciful, besides being, in a military point of view, simply
absurd.

Dr. Fitzpatrick deserves the thanks of all the admirers of
Lever for this very excellent biography. His Life of Bishop

i ;o TRANSLATION OF THE HYMN [May,

Doyle won for him the gratitude of all ecclesiastics. This Life
of Lever is far superior to any in the much-bepraised " English
Men of Letters" series, and immeasurably surpasses Trollope's
Thackeray, whose genius was akin to that of Lever. The
amount of pleasant reading collateral with the life is very
great, and the doctor, while relishing a witty story himself, has
that rarer gift of knowing how to tell it well to others.

TRANSLATION OF THE HYMN " PLACARE CHRISTE

SERVULIS."

FOR THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS.

[The Marquess of Bute found no translation of this hymn which he deemed worthy to be in-
serted in his English Breviary. The desire of proving by experiment whether or no this hymn
can be well translated suggested the attempt whose result is here given to the public. The
translator makes no boast of success, but perhaps others may be induced to try their hand, and
some one of these efforts prove worthy of critical approbation.]

HYMNUS.

PLACARE, Christe, servulis,
Quibus Patris clementiam
Tuae ad Tribunal gratiae
Patrona Virgo postulat.

Et vos beata per novem
Distincta gyros agmina,
Antiqua cum presentibus,
Futura damna pellite.

Apostoli cum Vatibus,
Apud severum Judicem
Veris reorum fletibus
Exposcite indulgentiam.

Vos purpurati Marty res,
Vos candidati prsemio
Confessionis, exules
Vocate nos in patriam.

Chorea casta Virginum
Et quos eremus incolas
Transmisit astris, Ccelitum
Locate nos in sedibus.

i88o.] "PLACARE CHRISTE SERVULIS:*

Auferte gentem perfidam
Credentium de finibus ;
Ut unus omnes unicum
Ovile nos Pastor regat.

Deo Patri sit gloria,
Natoque Patris unico ;
Sancto simul Paraclito,
In sempiterna sascula.

HYMN.

Benignly on thy servants look,
O Christ ! and from thy Father's book
The record of our crimes erase,
For whom the Virgin asks his grace.

Blest Spirits in your nine-fold choirs,
From Angels to Seraphic Fires,
Avert all past and present ill,
In future days protect us still.

Apostles, with the Prophets, plead
For weeping sinners in their need,
That from their Judge severe they gain
Pardon, effacing guilt's dark stain.

Martyrs in purple, Saints in white,
Call to the long-expected sight
Of God, us exiles, who await
The opening of the golden gate.

Virgins, who walk a spotless band,
And Hermits from the desert land,
Who dwell above the stars, prepare
Celestial seats with us to share.

Dire demons from all bounds expel
Where Christ's believing subjects dwell,
That they in peace his rule may own,
One Lord, one Faith, one Church alone.

Father, thy Name be glorified.

Praise to the Son, lor men who died.

Adoring worship, as is meet,

We give thee, Holy Paraclete !

1/2

FOLLETTE.

[May,

FOLLETTE.

BY KATHLEEN O'MEARA, AUTHOR OF "A WOMAN'S TRIALS," " IZA*S STORY," "A

SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE," "FREDERIC OZANAM,"

" PEARL," ETC.

CHAPTER VIII.
VICTOR'S VICTORY.

IT was not altogether a lying impulse that prompted him to
make the promise. He was bent, as we know, on making a good
name for himself on triumphing over his slanderers and leaving
Bacaram admired and respected by all. Now, a letter written
by him to Jules in the nick of time might prove a very skilful
move in this little game. The point was to ensure that it did not
come an hour too soon, as that might spoil everything.

He went down-stairs and looked into Gripard's room ; the
old man was quiet, but awake and breathing hard.

" I'm going round to the field for an hour. You'll not want
anything till I come back? " he said.

Gripard turned his eyes on him, and then closed them wearily,
as if to say, " Let me alone."

Victor went to the front door, opened it, shut it with a loud
noise, then stealthily barred it, and, lighting his candle, descended
to the cellar.

It was a large cellar, with a flight of stone steps leading down
to it ; the stones were broken here and there, so that you needed
to be careful in setting down your foot, lest you should tread on
a vacuum and find yourself falling headlong on to a heap of empty
bottles that filled one-half of the place, piled up almost to the ceil-
ing ; the nearest corner on the other side was full of coal ; some
empty beer-barrels partly eaten by the rats lay rotting along the
wall opposite the door. Victor held the light high above his
head, and stood on the last step, peering round him, debatin}
where he should begin his search. The ground was not flagg<
or tiled, but made of beaten clay, so there seemed little likelihoc
of the money being buried under the surface ; it was more prol
bly concealed in some of the barrels, or under the coals or th<
empty bottles. The barrels were the easiest to explore, so h<
began with them. He rolled them over and held the light int<
them ; but it soon became clear that they had been long the rece]

l88o.] FOLLETTE. l ^

tacles of nothing more precious than rats and dirt. He next pro-
ceeded to turn over the coal ; but his efforts were equally fruitless
in this direction. The bottles came last. He took them down,
one by one, until the pile was lessened by half. It was tiresome
work, and he began to fear it might be all for nothing and that
the gold was not here at all.

Before removing the lower half of the pile it occurred to him
to examine the walls carefully ; so he carried the candle all round
them, looking closely into every crevice and crack, sounding
every suspicious-looking spot. But nothing came of this ; thick
green and black mould grew in patches from the flooring to the
rafters, but offered no possible hiding-place for anything under it.
He paused for a moment, and then went back to the empty bot-
tles. As the pile diminished on one side and rose on the other
his hopes sank lower and lower. Was it likely that Gripard
would have wasted his time and strength in periodically perform-
ing this operation to get at his money and count it ? Most cer-
tainly he had been in the habit of going down into the cellar of a
night ; but it was just possible that he might have already done
what Victor now contemplated doing carried off the money to
some other hiding-place. And yet his reluctance and dismay
when Victor had asked for the key betrayed an alarm which was
not to be explained by the presence of a few bottles of old Bor-
deaux.

Victor took heart as he thought of this. He went up to the
kitchen and fetched two more candles, and set them so that they
dispelled something of the dense gloom, and then set to work
again. He took a bottle in each hand and conveyed them to the
pyramid that rose rapidly beside the old one. The operation
went on quickly, till at last he came upon one bottle that seemed
made of lead ; it was so heavy that Victor had to put both hands
to it. His heart gave a great thump against his side. He held the
bottle up to the light ; it was perfectly opaque, corked and tightly
fastened with a string. He cut the string with his pocket-knife
and pulled up the cork ; the jerk made the bottle tilt a little, and
out ran a stream of golden coins, that dropped on the ground
with a pure metallic ring, flashing like little stars in the tawny
light.

Victor stifled a scream of joy, and, without waiting to gather
up the golden drops, went back to continue his search. The next
bottle he took up was weighted in the same way, and the next,
and so on with over a dozen ; they were large quart-bottles, ca-
pable of holding some five hundred golden louis, Victor calcu-

FOLLETTE.

[May,

lated at a rough guess ; for, though he was trembling with excite-
ment and his pulses beat wildly, his head was cool and his mind
collected, and he was able to look rapidly from the present mo-
ment to the splendid horizon beyond. But after a little while the
vision was too much for him. The perspiration stood in big
drops on his forehead ; he sat down on the stone steps and wiped
it off, and gasped for breath. The coins glistened at his feet ; he
took them up and held them in the palm of his hand, and made
them ring, and feasted his eyes on them till his mouth watered.
What a prospect now opened before him ! It was as if a ma-
gician had appeared and struck the ground with his wand, and
changed in an instant the conditions of his life and the aspect
of the whole world. There was an end of toil, of shabby penury,
of stealthy petty gains, of meagre fare, of dulness, of everything
that constituted poverty and made up the bitter sum of its hate-
ful realities there was an end of it all now ; contempt, humilia-
tion, dependence, fatigue, cold slops, and all that Victor loathed.
His love of the gold was not concentrated on its mere posses-
sion, as was Gripard's, but on the good things its possession en-
sured. There was nothing he longed for and loved that gold
could not buy ; he revelled in the thought, and glutted his greedy
appetites at the feast that imagination spread out before them
a feast that no reality would ever equal ; for here there was no
danger from surfeit, and satiety and disappointment were im-
possible. It was a moment of more perfect enjoyment than any
the future had in store for him, let the money be spent as it
might. For one moment he knew what rapture meant.

Dreaming on the broken step, he saw himself transported
into a hew world, changed into a new man, living a new life ; he
saw himself dwelling in a fine house, feeding on the fat of the
land, wearing fine clothes, married, a father, a man of importance
amongst his acquaintance, looked up to and respected for he
would perform charitable deeds and be strictly honorable in all
his dealings ; he would be generous, beginning by the gift of
Quatre Vents to Follette ; he fancied himself even helping Jules,
patronizing the poor devil who had to struggle on, step by step,
chipping stone through the long summer's heat while Victor
sat at ease in pleasant summer shade. It would be a luxurious
balm to his conscience to play the liberal patron to Jules ; but not
just yet : he should let time flow on and wash out an awkward
interval between this and then, so as to leave room for the possi-
ble growth of wealth by some swift and wonderfully lucky pro-
cess a stroke of fortune on the Bourse, or something of that sort.

1 880.] FOLLETTE. i;5

When people were prosperous it was easy enough to account for
their prosperity : they had been clever, and knew how to turn
their chances to account ; they were not drones or bats, who went
about with their eyes shut ; men with energy and ability are sure
to succeed, etc. When a man is willing to spend his money
handsomely nobody looks too closely into its origin. Victor
sketched out the future in rapid pictures as he sat with his head
buried in his hands, forgetting the dark, slimy cellar in this illu-
minated palace of fancy, when suddenly a noise at the kitchen,
door dispelled the vision. He started to his feet and looked
round with a scared expression. The thirteen black bottles
stood in a group like a band of little demons or wizards whose
wonder-working powers were spell-bound momentarily under
this disguise, but who might fling it away in the twinkling of an
eye, and, at the touch of a counter-charmer, start up in their ter-
rible activity.

There was another knock at the kitchen-door. Victor blew
out the candles, and, without waiting to put away the .bottles,
ran up to see who was there. It proved to be a pedlar from
Tarbes, who came round twice a year, and whom Jeanne had al-
ways patronized to the extent of a bright kerchief or some other
bit of finery for Follette. Follette saw him from her window, and
it reminded her of her old friend and the pleasant excitement the
pedlar's visit used to be in the days that seemed so happy now
that they were passed. She watched him go out the gate, and
then began to cry.

Victor was annoyed at being disturbed, and had dismissed the
man with scant courtesy, bidding him carry his pack elsewhere
and never return to Quatre Vents. He shut the door upon him,
bolted it, and then went in to see Gripard.

" I have been longer away than I expected," he said. " I hope
you have not been wanting me?."

Gripard muttered some inarticulate remark and moaned.

" I'm afraid you're feeling badly," said Victor.

Gripard turned his eyes on him with a look of dull resentment
that to Victor's excited fancy seemed full of solemn denuncia-
tion.

" Would you try a little wine now ? "

" Leave me alone," Gripard answered, moving his head with a
feeble effort to turn away. " Where is Follette ? Follette ..."
he repeated as Victor was leaving the room.

" She is up-stairs. She won't come near you. You remember
you said you would beat her if she did."

FOLLETTE.

" Tell her to come to me ... I forgive it all ... I want to
give the petiote a kiss ... I was always fond of Martha . . .
Tell her to come and give me a kiss . . ."

" I'll ask her to come, but I doubt if she will," said Victor.
He returned in a few minutes.

" It's no use, patron ; she won't come," he said. " I begged
hard of her, but she is afraid of you."

Gripard closed his eyes and moaned.

" Mon Dieu ! . . . I am sorry ... I will make up ... Fol-
lette ... my little Follette ... it is too late . . ."

He went on muttering incoherently for some minutes, and
then was silent. Victor waited, and wondered if the end was
coming ; but the old man continued to breathe regularly, though
he seemed oppressed ; his hand lay quietly on the coverlet, no lon-
ger fidgeting and restless.

"He will see the sun rise again," thought Victor ; and he de-
bated whether the moment was come to call in a neighbor and
write that letter to Jules. It would not be pleasant for him if
Gripard died without a soul's knowing anything about it, with no
doctor, and Follette kept out of the way up-stairs. Still, a false
move just now might ruin everything upset his scheme and de-
stroy his character and prospects. Gripard was quite conscious
enough even at this crisis to understand the importance of a wit-
ness to anything he had to say, and he was in a state to make a
declaration which would have legal weight. Victor had the will
in his possession, but a death-bed declaration accusing him of
" captation " might make it null and void, or at any rate would
produce a very ugly effect. He had made up his mind to put the
will in a bottle and hide the bottle in Gripard's chimney. This
would be characteristic of the testator, and divert all suspicion
from the legatee, and prove that Gripard had kept his secret to
himself. It would be easy for Victor to direct the search with-
out taking any part in it. After revolving these and other cir-
cumstances rapidly in his mind he crept quietly from the room
and closed the door on the dying man. The first thing to be
done was to convey the magic bottles out of the house ; there
was a spot on the hillside that he had in his mind's eye, a sort of
cave formed by a projecting boulder, that had been useful to him
in little mercantile transactions that did not court the light of
day. He could not, however, begin this operation until the dark-
ness closed in and enabled him to steal out with his burden unno-
ticed. He had only counted thirteen golden vials, but he ex-
pected to find a great many more. He was impatient to make

1880.] FOLLETTE. 177

sure of this and to know the exact amount of his treasure-trove ;
but prudence counselled him to wait prudence or conscience.
He began to fancy that people were wondering why he had not
gone out this morning, and that they were commenting on the
cause of his staying at home. It never occurred to him before to
think that any one paid attention to his comings or goings ; but
now he was in a fidget to show himself, to let people see that he
was the same Victor to-day that he was yesterday, that there was
nothing to keep him indoors and prevent his going about his own
and Gripard's business as usual ; so he took the precaution of
closing over the cellar-door, and, without trusting himself again
into its glorified precincts, he put on his cap and went forth in-
to the village. Mme. Bibot's cottage was the first that came in
view. She was at the door gossiping with a neighbor. He was
glad of the opportunity of speaking to her, and determined to men-
tion the fact of Gripard's illness incidentally ; so he touched his
cap with a friendly nod when he came within range of the old
woman's notice, and swerved towards the cottage with a view to a
closer greeting ; but Mme. Bibot, without paying the slightest
heed to these indications, dismissed her visitor and shut the door
in Victor's face just as he was crossing the road to it. He bit his
lip and reddened, and, muttering something under his breath,
strode on, whistling the tune of a buccaneering song. But
though he swaggered and carried a bold face, he was keenly mor-
tified, and began to wish he had stayed at home,. It was absurd
to let himself be vexed by an old woman's snub. He voted himself
a fool, and had half a mind to walk back and ask her what she
meant by her insolence ; but the other half of his mind prevailed,
and he walked on, chafing inwardly and protesting he cared not a
dry nut what any one in Bacaram thought of him. It was, no
doubt, the excitement of the money that had undone him a little ;
the sight of those bottles and the gold stars that had flashed out
on the gloom of the cellar was enough to make a man a trifle
nervous. Yet, for all his plausible explanations, Victor knew that
he would have willingly opened one of the golden vials and
spilled the contents all over Bacaram, if only he could have made
Bacaram look kindly on him. He had never gone out of his way
to make friends, but he had found it pleasant to be on friendly
terms with everybody in general, and, until his selfish, dishonest
scheming made it desirable to keep people away, he had been
civil and welcoming to the few privileged old friends of Jeanne
who were tolerated at Quatre Vents. He longed for a nod of
familiar recognition this morning ; but, as if by tacit accord,

VOL. XXXI. 12.

1 78 FOLLETTE. [May,

everybody looked the other way when he passed, or else an-
swered his greeting so coldly that it made any nearer approach
impossible. He felt that he was tabooed, and strode on, whistling,
his head in the air and his hands in his pockets, painfully con-
scious that the groups at the shop-doors suspended their gossip
to pass a word of unfriendly comment as they looked after him.
It was a lovely summer's morning ; the sun was high in the
heavens ; the air was heavy with noonday heat, but a breeze
sprang up in the mountains and cooled it, and wafted the scent of
daffodil and sweet-pea and roses from the cottage gardens to Vic-
tor as he went. The village had never looked so pretty, he
thought, as this morning when it frowned on him while smiling
on all the world besides. He stopped at the blacksmith's, and
bought a packet of nails and bargained about a kettle that he
wanted to have soldered ; then he stopped at the butcher's and
bought some sausages ; and after this he turned his steps home-
wards, but not through the village. He did not care to challenge
its surly looks again, and he wanted to make ready that hole
upon the mountain to which he must carry his band of wizards
after dark ; so he struck across the fields. In a few minutes he
was high above Bacaram, looking down on its red tiles and.
patches of flower-gardens from a stretch of sloping grass-land,
over waves of yellowing corn and fields of sweet-smelling beans,
where the lark's song rose and fell, giving a voice to the joy and
beauty of the summer's day.

Victor made ready his hiding-place, and then the Ange-
lus bell sent its peal along the hillside, summoning him not to
worship but to his dinner. The golden feast he had partaken of
had not been so sufficing as to stand in lieu of more substantial
food, and the bell reminded him that it was time to be hungry ;
so while simple folk knelt or crossed themselves, and lifted up
their hearts to the Creator of the beautiful world around, Victor
hurried back to fry his sausages.

He found everything just as he had left it. But the house
seemed preternaturally still ; the sunlight washed the kitchen
floor ; the old clock on the wall sent its loud tick-tack through the
house ; the ashes, a white heap on the hearth, looked very deso-
late in the golden sunshine. Victor stirred them to find a hot
ember, and relighted the fire to cook his sausages. He meant to
give Follette one. He would have taken a bowlful of golden
louis to her, if she would have accepted it and made friends with
him. It was unaccountable how he thirsted for a drop of human
sympathy just now when he was lifted beyond all real need of it.

I880.] FOLLETTE.

He had never cared for it before ; he had only cared for substan-
tial things, money, or money's worth ; but now that he had come
into ample possession of these he was seized with a craving for
this sentimental thing called sympathy. It was absurd, and he
mocked at himself for a fool.

" I will have plenty of friends when I leave this miserable
hole," he said to himself. " When people have money they can
always make friends ; they have only to spend it and make merry
with people who don't want them."

While the sausages were frying he went in to look at Gri-
pard. The old man had turned on his side, and lay with his face
to the wall. He looked round when the door opened ; his eyes
had a strange expression, as if they were sightless.

" I thought you were asleep," said Victor ; " I did not like to
disturb you. Will you eat something now ? "

Gripard turned his vacant gaze on him, and repeated : " Eat
something . . ."

" I bought a sausage," said Victor, coming nearer and bring-
ing out his words very distinctly, as if that would help their
meaning to reach the weak brain. " I would have put down an-
other pot-au-feu, only you would have scolded me for spending so
much money."

" Money . . . aye, aye ... it was that rascal . . 5' muttered
Gripard, and the glazed eyes grew strong, as if a light were
kindled in them ; but it was only for a moment- the light went
out and left them in darkness again.

" Muddled ; this time it's for good," said Victor, after watch-
ing him fixedly and with as much emotion as if the dying man
had been a frog or a rat. Yet he had a curious reluctance to let
his benefactor die of hunger. He felt it would be a form of
murder to let him starve for want of any sort of food ; but to let
him sink for want of the right sort was a different thing. If
the old idiot was obstinate and stupid, and refused what was
offered him, he could not be hungry ; and if he was not hungry
there was no need for him to eat at all.

" I will bring him a bit of sausage," he thought, and he went
back to attend to the cooking. There were potatoes to be fried,
and this took some time. When all was ready he sat down and
partook of a hearty meal ; and then he carried in a plateful to
Gripard, and held it close to him, thinking that the savory smell
of the sausage might tickle his appetite ; but the old man, with a
feeble sign of disgust, turned his head away, mumbling irritably.
Victor felt he had done his duty, and had now nothing to re-

!8o FOLLETTE. [May,

proach himself with. He added more potatoes and took the
plate up to Follette.

She was at her wheel, spinning away in the sunshine that
streamed round her through the open window. Gripard had
sent up the wheel, not from kindness, but that she might not eat
the bread of idleness. It struck Victor with a sudden sense of
wonder that she should have borne his persecution so cheerfully ;
he could almost have fancied that she had some substantial source
of help to keep her up. But he had watched her too closely for
that ; she had received neither food, nor visits, nor messages, and
yet after three weeks' confinement in her little garret, with barely
enough of food to keep away hunger, and no companionship but
his presence twice a day with such refreshment as it brought,
Follette looked far from unhappy. She had grown thin and pale,
and looked all eyes ; but there was a luminous glow in their velvet
depths that lent them a fascination they had lacked before, while
her pallor, though it told of suffering and weakness, was trans-
parently lovely as the petals of a tea-rose, and gave a touch of
pathos to the innocent young face that heightened its charm.
Victor took in all this as he stood at the door with the plate and
a glass of wine in his hand, and he bethought him that Jules was
a lucky dog, and had no need to complain if he missed Gripard's
money-bottles.

" I've brought you a glass of old wine/' said Victor. " I drew
it for your uncle, but he would not touch it after the first glass ;
he is not so well to-day."

Follette let him put down the dinner on the bed, her usual
table, and, looking up with anxious eyes, " Is he very angry with
me still?"

" He is angry with everything and everybody, but it's partly
the rheumatism."

" I wish he would let me come and rub him ! Does he stay
in his chair all day long without moving ? "

" He hasn't got even that far to-day ; he won't stir out of his
bed," said Victor, shrugging his shoulders.

Follette joined her hands and said " Oh ! " in a tone that Victor
fancied held a note of sympathy for him as well as Gripard. He
thrust his hands deep into his pockets, tossed back his head
with an air of good-humored endurance, and was leaving the
room.

" Victor, that letter have you written it ? " said Follette.

It was the first time she had called him by his name since he
had been her jailer.

I880.] FOLLETTE. igl

" I am going to write it now. And look here, Follette," he
continued, turning back and meeting her eyes full of timid thanks
and hope, " I don't mean to stand this sort of thing any longer.
Gripard is as cross as a bear, but I don't mind that ; but I mind
doing his dirty work, keeping you locked up, and letting him
starve himself to death for that's what's the matter with him, and
nothing else. He's very queer this morning ; I never saw him
like that before, and if he's not better to-night I'll go and fetch
the doctor from Cotor to-morrow, and have you down to nurse
the old man, whether he likes it or not. He won't like it ; he'll
howl like the devil when he sees you ; but you won't mind that? "

" No, not if I can be of any use to him," said Follette. " But
is he so very ill ? Are you frightened ? "

" Not I ! Only one never knows what turn rheumatism may
take, and I don't see why I should have the whole weight of his
aches and his infernal temper to bear. A doctor would bully him
into having proper food. There, eat your sausage before it gets
cold. I'm going to write that letter."

He went straight down, and cleared the kitchen table, and
wrote it :

" MY DEAR JULES : You'll be wondering why I write to you again, as
you never thought it worth while to answer my last letter. But it's Follette
that makes me write. She is fretting about you, and she is very lonely
since Jeanne's death, and now Gripard is ill. He has been bad with the
rheumatism these ten days, and now it is very bad. I have a hard time of it,
I can tell you, for he does nothing but swear at me from morning till night ;
and if it was not that he's been kind to me when nobody else was I would
not stay an hour in the house. He won't let me send for a doctor, and he
won't let Follette near him ; and she frets awfully about it. If you were
here you might do something. The old man talks about you now, and I
think he is inclined to make it up with you. You might find it worth your
while to come back and see him. He won't give me money to get food.
He says he has no money. He says he won't make a will. Quatre Vents
is all he has, and that goes to Follette. It's the devil to confess, I can tell
you, listening to him groaning and swearing all day long. You ought
to come back. He was fond of Jeanne, and gave her a funeral any man
might have been proud of.

" Votre tout devoue, VICTOR BART."

When this was written he took it up to Follette. She could
not read it, but she liked to think he thought she could.

" Thank you ! I am sure you've said everything right,
don't want to read it," she said, blushing faintly ; and she just
glanced at the address and handed him back the envelope.

" I will post it by and by when I go out," said Victor.

1 82 FOLLETTE. [May,

told him he ought to come back, if it was only for a day ; that he
owed that to the old man. I said all I could."

He went away without waiting for her to thank him, and
Follette sat with a new gladness in her heart, watching to see him
go out to post the letter. But Victor was in no hurry. He had
made up his mind to post it that day, but there was a late post
twice a week, and this happened to be one of the days for it ; he
meant to wait and send the letter by that. He was not actuated
in this delay by hesitation, his purpose did not falter, but he
shrank from the shadow of risk, and it was safer to let death
advance a few steps nearer to the dying man before summoning
to his side those whose presence might prove fatal to Victor's
interests. He went out into the field and began to dig up
potatoes.

" After all," he said to himself, his mind running on the possi-
ble results of the letter " after all, once the money is safe out of
the house, it does not matter much who comes or what happens.
If he came to himself and rallied enough to tell tales, it would
pass for a sick man's ravings; and, if it came to that, I could
destroy the will."

He paused in his work and rested both hands on his spade,
following the train of thought this idea called up.

" Why not destroy the will now? " he said suddenly. " That
would do away beforehand with the possibility of any charge of
undue influence. I should miss the satisfaction of making Follette
a present of Quatre Vents, but, ma foi, it will be something to
escape slander and get off with the money scot-free ! "

He went on digging for a while, then paused again, resting
one hand on the spade and the other on his hip, and looked back
at the house, as if seeking for some sign amidst the brick chimneys
and moss-grown tiles that glowed ruby-red and emerald-green in
the western sunlight. It would certainly be very pleasant to
play Don Magnifico, and he had played it so long now in imagi-
nation that it cost him something to give up the role in reality.
Still the success of the part would hardly compensate him for the
disagreeables it might involve. If Jules came down, as Victor
inclined to believe he would, there wai^certain to be a row. And,
after all, was it sure that he would be able to give Quatre Vents
to Follette ? The law was a puzzling contrivance, and might not
lend itself complacently to his little scheme ; it might keep Quatre
Vents for itself. Gripard was fond of telling stories that proved
a wonderful capacity in the law for devouring everybody that
came near it ; folks went to it to settle a disputed propeVty, and

I880.] FOLLETTE. ^3

by the time the dispute was settled the property had disappeared.
This might happen to Quatre Vents. He made up his mind for
the present to hide away the will with the bottles. Later it
might serve his purpose to show it ; but for the present he must
deny himself the glory of strutting before Bacaram as Don
Magnifico.

Victor threw aside his spade and went out by the field on to
the open hillside towards Cotor. He had a vague notion that he
was going to fetch the doctor ; it would do no harm, anyhow, to
go and look him up, and say that he might be sent for to Quatre
Vents to-morrow. This anxiety about Gripard would look well ;
if " something happened " in the night it would be seen that
Victor had not been neglectful or indifferent. Follette was there
to bear witness that he had wanted to send for the doctor long
ago. He strode on at a leisurely pace, with the air of a man
bent on business but with plenty of time to spare.

It was a delicious evening ; everything was still as a child's
sleep ; the birds were in their nests ; not an insect chirped in the
grass ; the curly-horned cattle had done their browsing in the
heat of the day, and now chewed the cud, lying like sphinxes on
the hillside, solemn and motionless, their mild eyes gazing into
the sunset, where flames of gold and crimson rose up from the
altar of the west, wafting the smoke of the earth's incense to
heaven in a vesper psalm of praise. Victor was no lover of
nature ; he worshipped an idol that left no room in his heart for
any purer love ; but though the ears of his soul were deaf to the
sweet vesper song that rose from the forest, and the mountain,
and the plain, chanting in the full glory of their summer pomp,
their harmonies touched his senses, and soothed though they
could not bless him. The serene beauty of the sunset spread a
glamour over the future, over life in all its aspects ; and there was
something of the fond regret of a farewell in his gaze as it tra-
velled over the familar landscape the ripening grain-fields, the
river, now sparkling like a topaz stream under the burning sky,
and hurrying on between green banks, past cottages where vines
and honeysuckle grew. He lingered as he went, not aware that
he was moved by the splendor and serenity of the scene, but
conscious of an unusual reluctance to turn away from it.

He 'posted the letter to Jules at Cotor, saw the doctor, and
then wended his way back to Quatre Vents. The moon was up
by the time he reached Bacaram, and she wore an aspect that
Victor did not like, veiling her silver face behind a reddish haze.
The breeze which in the early morning had freshened the hot air

1 84 FOLLETTE. [May,

had sunk away long ago, and the heat had now become intolera-
ble ; the village might have been the mouth of a leaden furnace.
Victor stood to wipe the drops from his brow, and gasped for a
breath of air. At the same moment a wail rose up on the hills,
and swept past him in a sudden gust, and died away towards the
forest. He knew what that meant : it was Nature's lament before
her wrath broke forth upon the land. A storm was coming, and
he hurried on home, so as to get done what he had to do before
the chained winds were let loose.

On entering the house Victor's first act was to light a candle
and go into Gripard's room. The old man's eyes were open, but
he turned them on him without a shadow of recognition.

"Don't you know me, patron Victor, your-old friend?"

" The old mill . . . blown down in the storm ... eh ? ...
Jeanne carried me ... eh ? ... Where is Jeanne ? "

The words came faint and indistinct ; his breathing was diffi-
cult.

" There is not a moment to lose. He won't hold out over the
night," thought Victor, and he left the room.

He did not want any supper he had made a meal at the pub-
lic-house at Cotor but he took up some bread and cheese and
wine to Follette.

" I was kept out late on business," he said ; " I went to see the
doctor, and he will be here to-morrow."

" May I not come down? " said Follette, alarmed by this an-
nouncement.

" No, not yet ; but if he gets worse in the night I will call you
up."

" You promise me ? "

" I do."

He left her without more parley, and went down and lighted
another candle. His hand shook a little, but this was no won-
der : he had had a long walk in the heat, and the task before him
had a sort of criminal excitement about it that might well set his
pulses beating. He had left the wheelbarrow outside in the gar-
den, but before going down for the bottles he went to the back
door, intending to fetch a lantern which was kept in the out-
house. When he opened the door he saw that the storm was ris-
ing fast. The sky was strewn with black clouds, through which
the moon fled like a frightened bird ; heavy drops of rain began
to fall, each drop big enough to wet a man's hand, and a low,
whistling wind swept down the garden straight into his face.

I880.] FOLLETTE. 185

He hurried out to the shed, got the lantern, and was re-entering
the house when it occurred to him it would be a wise* precaution
to wheel the barrow against the door, lest a strong gust of wind
should make it slam. The cellar-door was at the other end of the
narrow passage, and stood open. As he advanced towards it the
wind rose with a howl and blew out his candle. Luckily, he had
left another lighted on the cellar-steps, and he hurried on to place
it out of the draught, for the wind now roared down the passage
as through a tunnel. Victor cursed the storm for coming just
when he wanted a fine night for his expedition. However, there
was one comfort he was safe to meet no prowlers on the hillside ;
nobody would venture out while the bourrasque raged, unless
they were on an errand of life and death. Life and Death ! They
met under the roof where the old man lay dying, and whence
the young one was about to sally forth and brave the elements for
what to him was life.

The cellar looked like an open tomb with a light in it, as Vic-
tor, descending cautiously, placed the light on a beer-barrel, and
then, taking a bottle in each hand, went up the stone steps. He
had nearly reached the top when the wind came rushing down
upon him with a shout and slammed the door in his face. Vic-
tor uttered a cry of horror, missed his footing, slipped, and fell,
extinguishing the candle in his fall.

For a moment he was too stunned to realize what had befallen
him ; but he quickly recovered his senses, and his first conscious
thought was that he was a lost man, caught in his own trap and
buried alive. He had fallen on the pile of bottles and smashed
them to pieces under him ; when he tried to rise he found that
he could not move. His back pained him horribly ; so did his left
hand ; he drew it up to feel if it was broken, and found that it was
covered with blood from a cut that seemed almost to have severed
the thumb from the palm. It was bleeding copiously ; the hot
stream poured over his right hand, and added a sensation of sick-
ness to the pain and despair. He tried to get at his handkerchief
to stanch the wound, but he was lying on his pocket and could
not reach it ; he put out his right hand, groping for something to
take hold of, but he could feel nothing but pieces of cut glass,
one of which had already inflicted that deep wound on his left
hand.

He groaned with agony and rage, and cursed his fate. Pre-
sently the rats came running over him, over his breast and neck
a whole army of them. The candle, which he had thrown over,
lay close to his head, and the ravenous creatures were scudding

1 86 FOLLETTE. [May,

to the feast from every corner of the cellar ; some dropped from
the rafters straight down on his body ; one actually fell on his
upturned face. The loathsome smell and the heavy tread of the
vermin as they touched him made his whole body quiver, and
the movement, involuntary as it was, gave him such torture that
he shrieked aloud ; but the rats pursued their feast undisturbed,
hissing close to his ears as they nibbled away at the candle. It
soon disappeared under their sharp teeth, and then the revellers
scampered off to their holes and corners, passing over the pros-
trate body of the strong man, who writhed under the contact of
the smooth, warm creatures, while he dared not move a foot to
chase them away ; they nibbled at his shoes, and he had to bear
it, for the least motion was intolerable. Would he die like this
and be eaten up by the rats ? The wind howled dismally down
the passage, breaking with tremendous force against the cellar-
door, but not strong enough 'to burst it open. Would Follette
hear it and come down and let him out ? he wondered. Presently
there was a great crash upon the house-top right over him, fol-
lowed by a sound as of iron bars dancing all along the roof ; crash !
crash ! it went, and then died away in a boom. Follette used to
be terribly afraid of thunder, and would run and take shelter near
Jeanne whenever one of these bourrasques came. Perhaps she
would be frightened now and run down to him. But Follette
had gone to bed just as the wind was rising ; it had lulled her to
sleep, and now the storm only bound her young slumbers with a
faster chain. She was dreaming of Jules, of the forest and the
winter fair, not of Victor, who was sending out cries for help in
the darkness. After a while he grew exhausted ; his hand was
still bleeding profusely, and he became conscious of a stiffness
in the jaws that made it more and more difficult to keep on call-
ing out. He felt his face ; there was no cut or bruise that he could
discover, but the stiffness increased, until at last, at the end of a
couple of hours, he could not open his mouth.

It was now ten o'clock ; he heard the clock in the kitchen
strike the hours. Unless he died of exhaustion he would have
to spend the night watching in this living tomb. And if he lived
till morning what awaited him ? Release, perhaps, but with it
discovery and consequences that even in this extremity Victor
could not think of without an additional thrill of horror. His
body was a helpless log, that had lost every faculty except that of
suffering ; but his mind was perfectly lucid and active, and ex-
erted its powers with the cruel energy of a vivisector torturing a
curarized dog. Memory took the brush and made the victim's life

1 880.] FOLLE TTE. l gpr

pass before him in a series of pictures, that were intolerably vivid ;
it was as if the demons, into whose hands he seemed already to
have fallen, were painting a hideous phantasmagoria on the dark-
ness, and forcing his eyes wide open to stare at it. He saw every
act of his from his childhood upwards, and there was very little
that was good to look at : he had told lies as long as he could re-
member, and been cruel, and loved nobody, and hated most p*eo-
ple, and never stuck at anything to get money or to gain his own
ends ; he had cheated Gripard, and robbed old Jeanne, and perse-
cuted Follette, and planned to rob her, too ; and, last of all, he had
committed murder in his heart. There was no shirking it now ;
no sophistry, no plausible arguments could palliate the facts or
make black look white ; the outer darkness made a background
against which the truth stood revealed with pitiless light, like
fiery writing on a black sky a vision of judgment that froze up
his soul within him. He groaned and tried to shut it out, but
it was no use ; the letters of fire burned their way through his
closed lids. After a while everything grew confused: it was
Jules whom he had starved to death ; Nicol sat on the beer-barrel
grinning and making hideous grimaces, while the sound of his
mocking laughter reverberated through the cellar, and Victor
wondered if it would wake old Jeanne, who lay dead on the
kitchen table.

While he lay stretched on his uneasy couch, a prey to the cruel
tortures of conscience, Follette slept soundly, and did not awake
till the dawn came peeping in through her shabby little curtain.
Then she rose up, and, looking out of the window, perceived some
traces of the night's work ; broken boughs lay scattered about
the road, with tiles and uprooted palings, and Follette knew that
a bourrasque had passed over the village one of those swift, sud-
den storms that rise up in the mountains at a moment's warning,
and sweep over the country in passionate gusts, sometimes de-
stroying in an hour the toil and hopes of a year. She uttered
an exclamation of distress as, clasping her hands, she surveyed
the scene ; then she dressed herself quickly, and made her room
tidy, and waited for her breakfast, as hungry as a young bird. It
was so long coming that she began to think something had hap-
pened ; the kitchen clock struck six, but no other sound broke
the stillness of the house. Victor had promised that he would
call her if her uncle grew worse during the night ; but he
might have forgotten his promise. Or perhaps he had gone for
the doctor ; if so she might be wanted down-stairs. She opened
her door and listened, but everything was quiet except the clock,

1 88 FOLLETTE. [May,

that sent its tick-tack up to her. Follette crept softly down-stairs ;
the shutters were up, and the door still barred and bolted. Vic-
tor evidently had not gone out. Perhaps he was with her uncle ;
she stepped close to the door on tiptoe, but could hear nothing.
An impulse seized her to open the door and go in ; but fear
checked it. Gripard might be very angry at seeing her, and, ill as
he was, this was sure to do him harm. She stood, full of per-
plexity, in the middle of the kitchen, and looked round as at an old
friend whom she had been a long time without seeing ; the fami-
liar objects the wide, black hearth, the dresser, and the pots and
pans had a weird look in the shuttered darkness, while the sun
shot rays in through the slits and made fantastic figures on the
walls. While she looked round her, hesitating, a knock came to
the door ; without asking who was there Follette slipped back
the bolt and lifted the bar. A stranger stood on the threshold,
attired in a travelling dress, his cap pulled low over his forehead.

" Follette ! " said a well-known voice.

" Jules ! " And with a cry of joy she fell into his outstretched
arms.

There was no time to linger in the joy of the meeting. Fol-
lette, in breathless haste, told Jules what had been going on at
Quatre Vents, and her present alarm and bewilderment.

" Victor has been up with him in the night and fallen asleep.
I will run up and wake him," said Jules ; and he sped up the
steep brick stairs, and knocked at Victor's door, and opened it.
" He must be with Gripard," he said, returning to the kitchen ;
and he opened Gripard's door softly and looked in. The shut-
ters were closed, but there was light enough to show the old
man on his bed, lying very still, with his eyes open. Jules put
back the shutters and went over to the bed, Follette following
close to him.

" Patron, I have come a long way to see you, and here is Fol-
lette ; won't you speak to us ? "

" Follette ! . . . Come here, ma petiote ! " gasped the old man.

Follette bent over him tenderly.

" May I give you a kiss, uncle? Will you forgive me?" she
said, forgetting, in a rush of pity and affection, that it was she
who had everything to forgive.

" Ah ! . . . petiote . . . kiss me," said Gripard, bringing out the
words with a great effort, in gasps. " I was too ... hard on thee
. . . but I meant for the best ... I'm sorry . . . tell Jules . . .
he'll be good to thee . . . Victor is a bad fellow ... I was
deceived . . . forgive ..."

1 830.] FOLLETTE. 189

The old man could say no more, but he tried to clasp Fol-
lette's hand ; her tears were falling fast, and there was a look in
his eyes for one moment that seemed to thank her for it ; then
they closed, and he went on muttering incoherently : " Petiote
. . . the will ... in the forest . . . mon Dieu ! ... ah ! ...
mon Dieu ! . . ."

" He is dying ! " said Jules under his breath ; " let us kneel
down and pray for him."

Follette dropped on her knees, and they prayed together for the
soul that was passing away. Follette held the hand of the dying man
in hers till he breathed his last. Then Jules said : " It is all over.
Come away/' And he raised her and drew her from the room.

She was sobbing so bitterly one would have thought the hard
old uncle had been the tenderest of fathers ; and so he now seem-
ed to Follette. Jules took her in his arms and comforted her, but
he quickly remembered that there were things to be done which
must not be postponed.

" I will run down for Mme. Bibot," he said, letting her go ; but
Follette clung to him like a frightened child.

" Take me with you. Don't leave me here by myself ! " she
said, glancing towards the door of the death-chamber. " Where
do you think Victor is ? " she added, looking up with alarm and
wonder through her tears.

" Could he be in the garden? Let us look," said Jules.
They opened the kitchen door, and saw that the door at the other
end of the passage was wide open, and the place strewn with
leaves and brambles and rubbish of all sorts which had been blown
in by the storm.

" What can this mean? " said Jules in surprise.

They stood looking round in utter bewilderment, when a
sound that seemed to come from under their feet made both
start. Follette turned white as death.

" Good God ! it is from the cellar. It must be Victor ! " said
Jules ; and he went close to the door and listened.

They heard it again, but it was impossible to say whether it
came from a human being or an animal ; the sound was like a
stifled groan, and seemed to come from under some weight or
intervening obstacle that muffled the voice.

Jules put his mouth to the keyhole and called out: "Is it
you, Victor?" The groan was repeated as with great effort,
but no other answer was audible.

" How in heaven's name did he get locked up here, and how
are we to get him out ? " said Jules.

1 90 FOLLE TTE. [May,

" Uncle had a key, but I never knew where he kept it," said
Follette. " Can't the door be opened without one?"

" We'll go for the blacksmith," said Jules ; and he sent his
voice down into the cellar, bidding Victor have patience, that he
would be released as quickly as possible.

In ten minutes the village was on foot, and a crowd collected
in the kitchen of Quatre Vents while the smith picked away at
the lock of the cellar. When the door was opened a ghastly
sight met the curious eyes that peered down into the darkness.
Victor was stretched on his back, his face livid and stained with
blood, while a faint moan issued now and then from between his
clenched jaws. Several men went down with Jules and lifted
him up ; but the agony this caused to his spine, which had been
severely injured in his fall, was so great that it made the eyes
literally start in his head ; a sound that was indescribable came
from his locked jaws, and then he was silent. They carried him
up and laid him on the kitchen table.

" Good God ! he is dead ! " exclaimed Jules, and the crowd
recoiled, awe-struck. It was, in truth, a corpse that was in the
midst of them a corpse bereft of any beautifying touch of death,
and made hideous by the convulsions of the last struggle, by
throes of physical agony which the superadded pangs of remorse
had cruelly intensified.

The crowd were still gazing at the a\yful spectacle when
Mme. Bibot came out from Gripard's room with the key of the
cellar in her hand. They made way for her to approach. The
whisper was going round . that Victor had been .murdered ; but
Mme. Bibot pointed to the thumb that gaped, half severed from
the hand, and then to the clenched jaws, and said : " There has
been no foul play ; he has died by the will of God."

A paper was found in Gripard's pocket, stating that at his
death Follette would receive a message from a certain notary at
Tarbes. The message proved to be a will, in which everything
was left to her. " In a recent will," said the testator, " I bequeathed
all I should die possessed of to Victor Bart. I now desire that it
go to my niece, Follette, in her own right, hoping still that she
will marry Victor Bart and that he will make her a kind husband."

He estimated the money at about two hundred thousand
francs, but said that Follette would find a paper containing all
particulars. No such paper was now to be found, and the cir-
cumstances of Victor's death, taken with the discovery of the
gold that filled the bottles, led to the belief that the rest had been

1880.] FOLLETTE. ! 9 !

stolen by Victor and hid away where it would probably never be
found. Jules and Follette resigned themselves contentedly to the
loss, and determined to think no more of it, when a guide to the
missing treasure unexpectedly appeared in the person of their
faithful friend, the dwarf. Nicol had seen Gripard several times
prowling about the forest in a particular direction ; once he had
spied him on his knees, but not saying his prayers, he felt perfect-
ly sure. Nicol shared the common belief as to the fabulous
wealth of the miser, and made up his mind that Gripard was
burying money ; but he held his tongue at the time, meaning to
tell Follette some day. He now led Jules and her to the spot,
and there, very near the surface of the soil, which was overlaid
with a pile of brambles, they discovered a long line of bottles laid
close together on their sides.

There was great rejoicing at Bacaram and beyond it at the
happy termination of the loves of Jules and Follette. They had
made friends in their days of poverty, and these were called in to
share their brighter fortunes. Jules did not return to Paris, but
built an atelier to Quatre Vents and made his home there. He
enjoyed amongst his friends, and the population all along that
side of the mountains, the reputation of being a great sculptor;
and if the enthusiastic praise of the world we live in, and fame
therein unalloyed by envy, may be taken as witnesses of genius,
Jules Valdory must certainly have possessed it. But he himself
never believed this. He did not complain of failure, but he
knew that he had failed. He had turned aside from the rugged
path of that alluring but difficult ascent which might have led
him to high artistic achievement. It was not a deliberate renun-
ciation, but he had renounced. Had he tarried for some years
longer in the keen and stimulating atmosphere of poverty, he be-
lieved that it was in him to have climbed to the upper hill-tops.
Yet he bethought him there must have been a flaw in his voca-
tion, since it had needed this goad to keep it faithful ; and if so, it
was no wonder the goddess whom he had served with doubtful
allegiance, and then deserted to walk in sunny paths with Fol-
lette, should have ceased to bless him with her divinest inspira-
tions. But she continued still to smile upon him, and many a
humble hearth was made brighter by the graceful and delicate
creations that found their way there from the atelier at Quatre
Vents. So Jules was fain to content himself with the flickering
light which the smouldering embers gave out, and sought no
more to rekindle the flame which had burned so brightly on the
altar of his early passion.

192 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [May,

Our lives are manifold in their sympathies, but we are shallow^
creatures and can hold only one great love at a time ; for such a
love must reign supreme, and tolerates no rivalry. Before we
elect our sovereign we are, some of us, like needles between
opposing magnets, drawn this way and that, until the stronger
force prevails ; one moment we waver and recoil, attracted by
the magnet that tempts us to ourselves. Most of us fall short of
our ideal from want of courage, for the highest is only to be
reached through sacrifice.

Who shall say whether France lost a sculptor in Jules Val-
dory, or whether he renounced the nobler ideal in forsaking the
marble for Follette's love ?

THE END.

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

ii.

IDEAL Catholicism, which is admitted by the most noble and
generous of those who deny its objective truth to have a grand
and winning aspect, is conformed to a just demand of our rational
nature. It is reasonable to desire and expect in a divine religion,
that essential character and those attributes and qualities which
are represented in the Catholic Idea. It is reasonable to desire
and expect that the true religion should eventually prevail and
triumph" in the world, by the working of adequate causes under
the supreme wisdom and efficacious concurrence of its divine
Author. It is reasonable to expect that it should furnish abundant
satisfaction to the aesthetic part of our nature, making all the arts
subservient to the dignity of divine worship and to the glory of
the Creator. It is reasonable to expect that the true church and
religion of Christ should fill up all the ages, from the First to
the Second Coming of Christ, with its history, showing itself in
grand proportions which surpass all human institutions. It is
reasonable to expect that it should offer full scope to the highest
aspirations after sanctity of life, and heroic achievements in the
order of supernatural virtue, together with copious and efficient
means for the fulfilment of these desires. The desire for commu-

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 193

nion with the invisible and spiritual world is equally reasonable.
It is reasonable to expect that it should give to all men of faith
and good-will the greatest possible security of salvation compati-
ble with the conditions of a state of trial and probation. It is
reasonable to expect that it should contain a complete revelation
of the counsel of God respecting human salvation, with all the
means for constructing, on the basis of reason illuminated by
faith, a consistent and harmonious science of theology and philo-
sophy, logically concordant with all human science. Finally, it
is reasonable to expect that it should furnish an unerring external
criterion of certitude in doctrine and morals, as a supplement of
the internal criterion, and afford a sure safeguard against the
accidents of error to which the human mind is liable in matters
so sublime and important.

Every other form of philosophy or religion falls short of this
just demand of our rational nature, and therefore, primd facie,
presents an appearance of being a merely human, local, and tem-
porary invention of the short wit of man, or a travesty and dis-
figurement of the .divine reality. There is a presumption at first
sight that they are false. Only that form of religion which is
embodied in the Catholic Church presents the appearance of real
conformity to the rational idea of a divine religion perfectly
adapted to the demands of our rational nature. It is, therefore,
presumptively true, at first sight. Moreover, this very appear-
ance is to a great extent so identified with the substantial reality,
which must underlie it unless it be a mere illusion, that the
reality is undeniable, to the extent of the clear manifestation of
this identity.

The future triumph of the Catholic Church as an ideal expec-
tation is shown to have a real foundation of probability by its
past triumphs, by the want of any rival power competent to
thwart or forestall its progressive movement, by the fears and
prognostications of its opponents, and by other reasons which
derive their force from the evidence which other elements in the
Catholic Idea present of their objective truth.

The external splendor and beauty of the Catholic Religion is
real because it appears. Beauty is something quod visum placet.
In this respect, we need no argument, for we have the concession
of our opponents.

The real existence of the ideal sanctity of the Catholic Church
is, at least partially, manifested by the mere statement of the
theory which accounts for its attractive power by this reason, and
is so obviously a fact of history that it is generally conceded.

VOL. XXXI. 13

194 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [May,

The reality of communion with the spiritual world is more
enveloped in obscurity, and is less easily accessible to investiga-
tion by the greater number of persons. It chiefly depends on
verification by another criterion outside of its own evidence, and
we pass it by. The same is true of the security given by the
sacraments to the hope of forgiveness and salvation.

That the Catholic Church is the grand historical embodiment
of Christianity is conceded, except in regard to its earliest period,
and needs no proof.

The logical harmony and consistency of the doctrine of the
Catholic Church, and the unwavering certitude produced by the
criterion of authority, in so great a multitude of men through
many ages, is really a conclusive proof of the objective truth of
the doctrine and of the unerring character of the criterion, though
in controversial argument other proofs are requisite in order to
complete the demonstration.

We have previously said that the whole essence of the Catholic
Idea is expressed in the formula : the church is one, holy, catholic,
and apostolic. All else springs from or accedes to this quaternion
of the ancient symbols of faith, understood and interpreted in the
genuine sense of Catholic theology. We may sum up the primd
facie evidence of the objective reality of that which is represented
by the Catholic Idea, and prepare for giving the ulterior evidence
of its total objective truth, in terms of the universal creed ; which
are more suitable to our topic than any others,. since they are
hallowed by the perpetual usage and veneration of Christians.

The ancient and historical church whose proper name is the
Catholic Church is, in point of fact, at the present time indis-
putably one and catholic, with no rival claimant pretending to
be strictly and exclusively the possessor of these glorious insignia
of the true church of Christ. The same society presents a primd
facie appearance and presumptive claim to the note of sanctity, in
the lofty ideal which it proposes to generous souls emulous of
heroic virtue and great deeds in the arena of the spiritual com-
bat ; in the grand and consistent system of doctrine, the effica-
cious and abundant means of sanctification and salvation, the per-
fect moral code, the certain principles of universal ethics, which it
proffers with authority in the name of God to all mankind. Also,
in the abundant and extraordinary effects actually produced in all
ages and in all parts of the world, in the moral and spiritual re-
generation, the political, social, intellectual improvement and civi-
lization of nations and multitudes, and in the wonderful saints
whose names and deeds adorn the annals of Christendom. The

iSSo.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 195

note of apostolicity appears, also, in the immemorial antiquity of
her hierarchical order of bishops under the headship of the Pope,
universally extended and subsisting in continuity of legitimate
succession, continuity of doctrine, and continuity of law and or-
ganization. The supreme pontiffs and the bishops under their
jurisdiction, at the earliest epoch when the hierarchical order is
conceded to have been in universal possession, had neither in-
truded into the domain of any pre-existing possessors of apostolic
succession, set up any new claim, or separated from any prior
community having a different doctrine and order. They held
their position by virtue of an universally accepted claim of right-
ful succession from the prince of the apostles and his colleagues.
Their right to this succession is therefore to be presumed to be
founded on a valid title of inheritance, on the principle of law :
melior cst conditio possidentis.

It is evidently a very reasonable and modest assertion, that the
Catholic Idea presents &primd facie appearance of being no mere
concept pf the mind, no ens rationis, no illusion of the imagination,
having only an ideal existence, alluring, seducing, and deceiving
those whom it has captivated, by its lofty and attractive sem-
blance of truth ; but a concept having its foundation in an objec-
tive reality. It is not possible to apply to that body of educated
Protestants who have embraced the Catholic faith the sarcastic
criticism of Napoleon I. on the French Emigre's : "It is easy to de-
ceive that party, because it starts always, not from what exists, but
from what it wishes to believe." If there be an ideal illusion
which has deceived them, it is not one which is a creation of intel-
lectual speculation or imaginative poesy, it is no visionary struc-
ture like a castle in the clouds. The illusion is something exist-
ing in reality, it is the Catholic Church itself, which professes
and appears to be what it really is not, the one true church found-
ed by Jesus Christ. This is the Protestant theory, that the Ca-
tholic Church is a grand illusion, a great fabric invented and
constructed by men, substituted for the genuine apostolic Chris-
tianity, and falsely pretending to have a divine origin.

According to this theory, the actually existing unity and ca-
tholicity of this great and ancient society of men professing the
doctrine of Christ have a human cause and principle, namely, a
hierarchy exercising an authority in teaching and ruling devoid
of any divine right and deriving from an invalid title, a hier-
archy which is really a fraudulent usurper of dominion in Chris-
tendom. The apparent sanctity of this united and catholic so-
ciety must be, for the same reason, an illusion, when considered

196 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [May,

as a specific and exclusive note marking the true church of Christ.
The appearance of apostolicity must be an illusion and the foun-
dation of all the other illusive appearances which make the Catho-
lic Church seem to be, in its primd facie aspect, and by its pre-
sumptive claim of possession, the true church of divine origin.
Let. the illusion be exposed, and it will cease to be imposing and
attractive. Let the genuine ideal which represents the authentic
and original reality, the Christian religion which Christ and the
apostles preached, be presented in the light of evidence, and the
splendor veri will win both the intellects and the hearts of those
who have been deceived by a false semblance of truth and beauty.
There is no charm in a prospect of future triumph which calm
reason perceives to be only visionary ; and it becomes abhorrent
when the cause itself is not invested with the attributes of truth
and justice. There is no great or abiding power in things which
are only extrinsically beautiful, and which are not an embodiment
and representation of spiritual truth and reality. The show of
historical grandeur does not command the admiration of the
mind, if it is a hollow semblance. Pretended wisdom loses all
appearance of sublimity as soon as its fallaciousness is detected.
The magic is all gone from the marvellous as soon as it is dis-
covered to be an illusion ; and all authority loses its claim to
respect when it is known to be usurped without right or title.
The more supernatural, miraculous, mysterious, and divine a reli-
gious system professes to be, the more absurd, ridiculous, and
odious is the imposture, if the whole rests on fable and false pre-
tensions ; the greater the dominion it claims over the mind, the
conscience, the will of its subjects, and over human society, the
more unbearable is the yoke of its spiritual despotism, and the
more degrading the servitude of those whom it holds in bondage.
A reasonable man would as soon bow down before one of the
hawk-headed divinities of Egypt, or drown himself in the Ganges,
as pay homage to an Ideal Catholicism which is a counterfeit of
real Christianity ; if the reality can be shown him with clear evi-
dence and confronted with the false ideal. If man cannot live by
bread alone without intellectual and spiritual food to nourish his
soul, neither can he live on visionary dreams of the future, or the
romance of history, or baseless theories, or aesthetic excitement, or
fabulous mythology, or the illusions of false spirituality, or on the
word which proceeds from the mouth of man ; but by every word
which proceedeth from the mouth of God. Let it be shown that
the Catholic Church is not the true church founded by the apos-
tles, the just and exclusive possessor of a unity, sanctity, and ca-

iSSo.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. i 97

tholicity of divine origin, and the Catholic Ideal is shattered. Let
the genuine original, the work created by the word of the divine
Christ, the masterpiece of the wisdom of God, be presented to
view ; with an antiquity more ancient, a catholicity more catho-
lic, a unity more perfect, a priority of right to the apostolic suc-
cession ; with the splendor of truth and the beauty of holiness
emanating from it like the light which shone around the head of
Moses on Sinai and of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration ;
and the falsehood of counterfeit Christianity will be made evi-
dent.

If there is any such thing as the genuine Protestant Idea of
the church and religion of Christ, those who call the Catholic
Idea an illusion should be able to present it clearly and distinctly
in its objective form, with the evidence of its correspondence to
that reality whose existence and divine origin is unquestioned;
that it may be confronted with the Catholic Idea. We will not
here inquire into the pretensions of the many and various repre-
sentations of Christianity which are rivals in claiming primitive
authenticity. We will suppose that the genuine Protestant Idea
is something definite, recognized as held in common by orthodox
Protestants, and a sufficient basis for an evangelical alliance of the
sects professing to adhere to the Reformation.

Now, there must be a sure criterion of the judgment of the
mind upon the respective truth or falsehood of these two opposite
ideas, the Catholic and the Protestant. They present a dilemma,
one term of which must be true and the other consequently
false. God has given a revelation and promulgated a religion to
the whole world through Jesus Christ and his apostles. It is cer-
tain in itself, clear and distinct in its manifestation, and can be
known with certitude by all to whom it is sufficiently proposed.
It is the object of a faith and obedience which are strictly re-
quired from men by their sovereign Lawgiver as the condition of
everlasting salvation. It is evident, therefore, that the objective
verity of this divinely-revealed doctrine and law of Christ is suffi-
cient to cause in the mind to which it is presented the true idea,
in and through which it is perceived, and assented to with a sub-
jective certitude. It is also evident that no fraudulent substitute,
falsely appearing in lieu of this objective verity, can effect the
same certitude by presenting a similar evidence, sufficient to jus-
tify an equally firm assent. It is only objective and certain truth
which can produce subjective certitude. Error in the rational
judgments of the human mind is only an accident, not a result
liable to occur from its natural and normal operation, as a subject

198 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [May,

having its proportionate object duly presented before it. In the
present case, no deficiency in the object or in the medium through
which it manifests itself can be supposed. The only deficiency
must lie in the subject himself and affect either his intellect or his
will or both together, by placing an impediment to his receiving
a true conception of the object or eliciting a full and firm assent.
If this impediment exists, he may fail of gaining the subjective
certitude which the objective verity is capable of producing, and
he may make a false judgment. But this false judgment can only
be an opinion which appears to be probable, it cannot be a cer-
tain, undoubting assent. Moreover, if the truth has once gained
its rightful and complete possession of the mind and will, it can
never be ousted by error unless passion perverts the will and
through the will debauches the intellect.

We come back how to our first position and starting-point, the
consideration of the phenomenon presented by the conversion of
intelligent and educated Protestants to the Catholic Church, and
the theory which accounts for it by the lofty and attractive ideal
of Catholicism.

There have been many thousands of converts from various
Protestant sects, who have gone back to the communion of the
church of their forefathers, from the time of the Reformation to
the present day, and their number is continually augmenting.
They have been from every class in society, from all professions,
of every grade and variety of intelligence and education, under
all sorts of circumstances. A considerable number of these con-
verts have been men of high intelligence, great learning, exem-
plary probity of character, devoted piety, who have been brought
up in the knowledge and practice of the Protestant religion from
their childhood. These men have not been captivated by any
illusion of the imagination which the unerring criterion of sober
reason and evidence cannot approve, or an enlightened conscience
sanction. They have embraced the Catholic faith at the com-
mand of conscience enlightened by intelligence and knowledge.
The cause of their doubting the soundness of the instruction re-
ceived by their Protestant education has been, that the develop-
ment of their understanding by thoughtful meditation and of their
science by investigation and study, has revealed to them a lack
of solidity in the reasons on which it is based, and of evidence in
support of the truth of its alleged historical foundations. Their
motive for investigation into the Catholic controversy has been
the desire and love of truth, a sincere longing to know the will of
God and fulfil it, for the sake of securing their own salvation and

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 199

promoting the eternal welfare of their fellow-men. It is impos-
sible to assign any impediments which could have hindered them
from perceiving and obeying the truth, by affecting either the
intellect or the will. Liability to error, through intellectual or
moral deficiency from the right rule of reasoning and volition, is
an accident which cannot be reasonably supposed in the present
case. The number of persons is too large, the differences of men-
tal character, pursuits, local and personal circumstances, are too
many and great to allow of any accident which might affect the
mental operations of individuals, having any common influence to
pervert the judgment of all. As for prejudice, it has been the
other way in its influence. All the passions, the human motives,
the natural associations and predispositions, the temporal inter-
ests involved, the vis inertia, have been on the side of not chang-
ing. Many inconveniences, losses, trials, sufferings, and sacrifices
have been arrayed before the view of those who have been mak-
ing their deliberation, as the consequence of embracing and pro-
fessing the Catholic faith, to deter them from obeying the voice
of reason and conscience. Most, if not all, converts of the sort we
are now considering, would have preferred to remain in some
Protestant communion, or to keep aloof from any church, rather
than to be received into the Catholic Church ; if they could have
satisfied their conscience that they would not sin grievously
by so doing. All the sources of truth and knowledge, all the
means and aids for arriving at certain conclusions, have been
within their reach. The Holy Scriptures, history, theology, have
been open to their researches. They have made diligent use of
these means, in many cases prolonging their studies for years be-
fore making a final decision. The light which comes from above
has been sought for by fervent prayer and the purification of
the heart from sin.

The question, how they came to be convinced and converted
by the power of the Catholic Idea at the end of such an intellec-
tual and moral discipline, presents itself anew, to every reason-
able Protestant, as a psychological phenomenon which appears
more and more inexplicable on any theory which he can find, the
more closely it is looked into. The theory of a lofty and attrac-
tive ideal overmastering the mind and the heart is something,
which only adds another phenomenon to be explained, but do
not itself explain anything. Whence does Catholicism derive
ideal grandeur and attractiveness, in the view of men who tho-
roughly understand the Protestant idea, and whose concept*
what Catholicism really is, in respect to its essence and origin,

200 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [May,

is derived from deep study and reflection ? Why is not that idea
which is supposed to truly represent the divine reality more lofty
and attractive to their apprehension than any other ? Why has it
not, confronted with the Catholic Idea, made manifest the illu-
sion, the semblance, the actual falsity of the counterfeit ?

Besides these highly gifted and learned men of illustrious re-
putation, a great number of persons, intelligent, educated, and sin-
cere, have given a due examination to the evidences of the Cath-
olic religion, and with all the signs of a prudent, deliberate, and
conscientious deliberation, have embraced it with firm and un-
wavering assent. Others, not educated, but sensible, upright, and
fearing God, under circumstances which were a sure test of their
earnest convictions and pure motives, have given a testimony to
the power of the Catholic religion to come home to the minds and
hearts of men of good-will in every grade of mental cultivation
and in all conditions of life, which, to those who know the history
of the workings of these humble and obscure souls in seeking for
the truth and grace of God, is no less striking than that of deep
thinkers and learned scholars.

There is one signal instance of a man whose genius and uni-
versal learning rank him among the greatest names of the modern
age, Leibnitz, giving the whole weight of his authority in favor of
the Catholic Church, yet never entering her communion. Others,
such as Leo of Halle, the historian, have approximated in many
respects so nearly to the complete system of Catholic doctrine,
that the common judgment of men taxes them with an illogical,
inconsequent faltering of judgment in holding back from a full
.confession of the total and absolute truth of Catholicism. Every
one who has the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the
facts in the case knows, that there are many persons who not only
come very near to Catholic doctrine in their convictions, but who
are fully convinced of its entire truth, and yet never openly pro-
fess it, because they are deterred by various private motives con-
nected with their temporal and worldly interests. There is also
another large class of individuals, who have no distinct and
formed convictions, but who nevertheless admit hypothetically,
that if there is any divine religion the Catholic religion presents
the best or even the only claim to be so considered. Many will
acknowledge that if Christianity be true the Catholic Church
must be accepted by the same motives of credibility. Adherents
of different Protestant sects often proclaim that the Catholic ar.
gument is conclusive against all other parties except their own.
Intelligent Jews generally recognize that the only credible alter^

i8So.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 201

native of Judaism is Catholic Christianity. Sceptics and infidels
also very commonly estimate Protestantism to be an inconse-
quent and incomplete sort of Christianity, a segment or broken
frustum of the logical and historical whole; which must be,
according to reason, entirely true or entirely false. The im-
mense weight of the judgment of those learned and conscientious
men ; who have concluded from the premises of natural theology
and of revealed religion that the genuine Christianity of Christ
and the apostles is embodied in the Catholic Church, perfectly
and exclusively ; is therefore increased by a great amount of ex-
trinsic testimony to its logical validity and reasonableness.

The remarkable conversions of learned and pious Protestants
to the Catholic Church have their counterpart in similar conver-
sions from the Greek schismatical communions, from Judaism,
from the religions of India, China, and Japan, and from the sects
of infidel philosophy.

But we must not confine our attention to converts alone.
Multitudes of persons educated in the Catholic religion, intelli-
gent, learned, and sincere, have given their close attention and
careful study to the investigation of the grounds and reasons of
Catholic belief, and to the arguments of all sorts of adversaries
who have assailed it and who have sought to establish some
other system, whether theological or purely philosophical. The
succession of these gifted, learned, and virtuous scholars and doc-
tors in sacred science is unbroken and numerous, from the epoch
of the earliest Christian Fathers to the present moment. They
have possessed, at different periods of time, all the special advan-
tages which accrue from being near to the beginnings and sources
of Christianity ; coeval with its most momentous epochs of devel-
opment, of conflict, of disaster, or of triumph ; or contempora-
neous with the most advanced stage of progress in all kinds of
science and knowledge. Under all vicissitudes of times and na-
tions, all mutations in human affairs, all phases and conditions of
the church and the world, all intellectual and moral movements,
one unerring and unchanging rule of faith has bound them in
unity of profession under the authority of the successors of St.
Peter and his fellow-apostles. The same rule has held in obe-
dience to the doctrine and discipline of the Roman Church a
countless multitude of the faithful. The Catholic Church can
reckon in her communion, since the foundation of the Roman See
of Peter, more than 250 popes, 100,000 bishops, 20,000,000 priests,
and 10,000,000,000 lay members. This is an enormous army of
witnesses to the power of the Catholic Rule of Faith and of the

202 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [May,

authority claimed to be given by Jesus Christ to the Catholic
Church, to convince and bring into willing captivity the minds
and hearts of men of every class, condition, time, and country.
The consent and concurrence of all the Eastern sects which have
separated themselves from the supreme Roman See goes to aug-
ment the mass of this testimony against the fundamental principles
and doctrines of Protestantism. Even the best learning of the
Protestant sects, according to their scale of approximation to-
ward the position of the Greek Church, which is the least remov-
ed from Catholicity in doctrinal confession, gives witness against
almost all the contentions of Protestantism and in favor of their
contraries, taken singly and part by part.

A Protestant may deduct from all this testimony as much as
he may please to deny the value of a competent and reasonable
judgment, on the score of ignorance, credulity, mental or moral
supineness, and the vis inertia of human nature in the great mass
of men. There remains still the great number of those whose
intellectual and moral competence cannot be reasonably ques-
tioned. Their unanimity and firmness of assent to the certain
and entire truth of the object of faith proposed with authority by
the Catholic Church is a psychological phenomenon, which must
be accounted for by the assignment of an adequate cause and suf-
ficient reason, by those who deny that it is produced by evidence
and by the grace of God. The least that can be said, in view of
undeniable facts admitted by the most enlightened and noble
minds of Protestantism, is well expressed by an anonymous writer
in these words : " If I had had the misfortune of not being a Ca-
tholic, two things would have disquieted me, I must aver : the
first of these is the number and the intellectual superiority of
those who have believed in the Roman Church, after examina-
tion, since the time of Luther and Calvin ; the second is the num-
ber and the intellectual superiority of those who have abandoned
Luther and Calvin to return to Rome. I should conclude that at
least there is reason for examining, and I should make this exami-
nation." *

We may add to this another reason for disquiet, the consent
of those learned and holy men who lived near the times of the
apostles, and in those ages following in which the extension of
the papal power, and the growth of Roman doctrine, are sup-
posed by non-Catholics to have modified essentially the original
Christianity of the ante-Nicene period. We may add, also, the
consent of all ages and nations confessing Christ from the begin-

*From Feisset's Cathol. et Protest., cited in Bonal's Theology, vol. i. p. 423, eleventh ed.

a y

i88o.] ENGLISH LIGHT LITERATURE. 203

ning to the date of Luther's revolution. This disquieted Luther
himself and made him tremble, and there is equal reason why his
disciples should be disquieted with their master. " How often
has my heart tremblingly palpitated, and reprovingly brought
before me their strongest and only argument : Art thou alone
wise? Are there so many universally in error? Have such
great ages been in ignorance ? What if thou dost err, and art
dragging a multitude into error with thyself, to their eternal
damnation ! " *

ENGLISH LIGHT LITERATURE.

IT would not be easy to say what is light literature. " What-
ever is not a treatment of grave subjects " would be a simple
evasion of definition. Some of the gravest of subjects may be ren-
dered light from the winningness or cunning of the style. There
are some writers who can "make play even out of science, while
there are others who write ponderously on trifles. The greatest
of English writers, Shakspere, was generally most light when
most profound. The ripple on the deep- waters to use the com-
monest of illustrations seems more playful than the ripple on
rivers. Perhaps our consciousness of depth imparts a charm.
Perhaps, too, our sense of the deep wisdom of great writers im-
parts a self-satisfaction of appreciation. No doubt a reader is
more prepared to enjoy a book when his own sense of apprecia-
tion is flattered. On this principle the young lady who gave her
impression of Euclid as being " the wittiest book she ever read "
would be justified by the complacency with which she under-
stood Euclid, or tried to imagine that she understood it. Proba-
bly lightness is quite indefinable, because it depends less on the
writer than on the reader. The educated mind finds a pleasure,
even a merriment, in the perusal of the deep pleasantries of " the
profound." Such pleasantries would be utterly imperceptible to
the less cultivated to the less penetrating average reader. Let

*Mire Lutherum torquebat illud argumentum : "Quoties, inquit, mihi palpitavit tremulum
cor, reprehendens objecit eorum (Catholicorum) fortissimum et unicum argumentum : Tu solus
sapis ? Totne errant universi ? tanta saecula ignoraverunt ? Quod situ erres, et tot tecum in
errorem trahas damnandos asternaliter ! (Lutheri Opp., t. ii. fol. 344- Apud Bonal, vol. i.
p. 409).

204 ENGLISH LIGPIT LITERA TURE. [May,

us take it that lightness is, to each separate reader, the gratifica-
tion of his own sense of play, and not the aiming at light tone or
light subject, which aiming is often unsuccessful.

For example : what are called " comic papers " are generally
the reverse of being light. The effort after lightness makes
heaviness. Besides, as Amelot observed, " nothing pleases less
than a perpetual pleasantry." And to take up a paper, or even a
book, foreknowing that we are going to be tickled, puts the mind
into an attitude of criticism which spoils (what Akenside called)
the " gay surprise." Reading professed wit is something like in-
venting it ; there is an effort to detect in the reader, as there
was an effort to evolve in the writer. All efforts are fatal to
lightness, on the part of both writer and reader. " The ludi-
crous," if there be any, becomes as ponderous as its definition
which was given by the idealist, Kant " The ludicrous is the
deliverance of the absolute, captive by the finite." Exactly !
Nothing could be more simple or more intelligible ! We feel
ourselves very much wiser and we feel ourselves also much
" lighter."

Of the many sorts of light literature that is, professedly
light novels probably hold the chief place. That is to say, that
when a man wants to amuse himself he ordinarily asks for a
" good novel." He does not ordinarily take up a volume of
Macaulay's History which is really the very ideal of light read-
ing, because it is both exquisite and satisfying but he takes up
some professedly inventive work which declines to use legs, but
uses wings. Now, unquestionably romance may be amusing, far
more than dull fact or homely life ; but it must be said that it is
surprising how very few romancers have used all the privileges of
their craft. Considering that romance has no limits, no restric-
tions ; that it soars into the infinite (theoretically) ; that all worlds,
both the known and the unknown, are at the disposal of the airy,
winged writer, it is really astonishing that not one novelist in a
hundred even essays to get out of " the actual." Allegory, ana-
logy* poetry, aspiration are at the bidding of the imaginative
writer, who theoretically leaves the roads and the pavements,
and mounts up with wings as an eagle. Or even if his invention
be built up of known materials, he can rear an Aladdin's palace
and can transport it. He has unlimited credit at his banker's his
imagination and can draw checks for ten million aspirations.
Yet the romancer, who is the Dives of material, is ordinarily the
pauper of creativeness.

Want of object is what spoils most works of fiction. If you

i88o.] ENGLISH LIGHT LITERATURE. 205

say that the sole object is to divert, you have to define what you
mean by diversion. There is the diversion of intellect, of heart,
of even soul. But the appeal in each case must be made with
distinct reference to the immediate state of mind of the reader.
Thus, the intellectual reader must be diverted from the dry paths
in which his intellect is accustomed to roam ; the emotional
reader must be stirred with such sentiments as do not recall his
private sorrows ; and the reader of what is called a religious novel
must find a tendency which does not shock his belief. Now, as a
rule, in nine novels out of ten, it cannot be said that there is
such fitness. Let us consider the English novel, since there is
no country in the world which is more prolific in romances than
practical and common-sense Britain. Three volumes, neatly
bound, largely printed, containing perhaps nine hundred pages,
propose themselves to our favor as meritorious compounds of in-
vention, sensation, composition. Of most of these novels it may
be said without injustice that they are constructively and intellec-
tually " bosh." The normal features are weak-headed " spoon-
ing " a word perhaps derived from nursery habits the sugges-
tion of the confines of impropriety, an improbable plot with a
more improbable issue, and a sort of general debilitating of the
brains. Our will is not strengthened, our heart is not solaced,
and our soul well, we were not supposed to have one. Or
sometimes religion, in one form or another, will be mixed up with
morbid emotionalism. There are lady writers who are prone to
indulge their piety in the very middle of their rhapsodies on
passion. But most writers leave out religion altogether as in-
consistent with the worship of the senses. What enfeebles us
chiefly is the exaltation of the passions above all which is intelli-
gent and aspiring. Love is the most charming of all weaknesses,
or sometimes the most strengthening of all virtues ; but love
which is simply sentiment or emotion fails to gratify any reader
who has brains. Now, it cannot be doubted that to write a first-
rate love-novel demands the highest intellectual gifts. To be able
to impress the reader with the conviction that the affections were
the homage of a fine intellect and fine character, to make both the
hero and the heroine at once perfectly natural and exquisite, re-
quires that the writer should have elevated conceptions as well
as great power of description ; whereas to make a man fall in
love with blue eyes and a pink face, with the sweep of a muslin
skirt or with little boots ; or to insist that the grandest passion
can be begotten out of one glance from beneath the folds of a
Honiton lace veil, is only to insist that there is nothing so trivial

2o6 ENGLISH LIGHT LITER A TURE. [May,

as what ought to be the truest of feelings. " He met her once ;
'twas in an omnibus ; she looked ; he looked ; 'twas done " may
be perfectly true of the two captives in question, but it is hardly
worth immortalizing in type. And yet such a wondrous capti-
vation is assumed to be fine fiction on the simple ground that it is
very feeble fact. Most romancers seem to consider that the merit
of fiction is that it is fact without vertebrae or without force ;
while at the same time it is called upon to propose marvellous
issues as if the marvellous and the weak were identical.

Of excellent and really interesting novels there are scores,
perhaps hundreds, in England. Lytton was a master of the his-
torical school, and also of the philosophic and aspiring. Who
has not wondered over the reach of his Zanoni and over the
power of the Last of the Tribunes ? Lytton was the exact op-
posite of Dickens ; for whereas Dickens was only at home in the
simple sentiment of simple life, Lytton loved the big and the in-
tellectual. Yet both these great writers were profoundly inno-
cent in their grooves ; they never did harm to a single reader.
It would be happy if one could say the same thing of most novel-
ists. Without mentioning names, it must be affirmed of the chief
novelists who, in England, command the most attention, that they
mar both their own characters and their readers' by descending to
the tricks of sensationalism. They do not compel us to rise with
them, but allure us to descend far below them. They suggest
just so much as may be the seed of morbid thought, and then seek
their own refuge in a new chapter. Yet such very talented wri-
ters are really without apology for even one idle descent into
the unworthy. Their readers do not require it of them. They
even regard such descent as disrespectful. The comic actor, Mr.
Toole, says that he only plays burlesque because most people like
it better than pathos ; but in a theatre there are different audi-
ences to be pleased, whereas in books there may be the writing
for class. And yet experience has shown that all classes are
capable of being educated to prefer the best standards. Just as,
in music, the English people now prefer the best masters, and
will not listen at public concerts to trumpery music, so in
fiction there needs nothing but " education " to lead people to
hate morbid trash. The cheap editions of Lytton or Sir Walter
Scott have led the masses to prefer such sound reading; nor
would they ever care to invest money in twaddle, if they could
always buy sense just as cheaply.

There is nothing new in that fictional sensationalism which is
characteristic of many modern novels, unless it be a certain real-

1 88o.]

ENGLISH LIGHT LITERATURE.

207

ism in sensation, as distinguished from the old love for mystery.
The romances of the middle ages were full of sensation or rather
of extravagance in allegory but there was nothing realistic about
them. In these days sensation takes the form of strange crime
or of multiplication of incident. The pretty legends which were
fostered by the Crusades were often extravagant, but not morbid.
In such romances as Sir Bevis of Hamtoun, as in hundreds of
others of the same kind, there is the wildest exaggeration or su-
perlative, but the idea is the praise of what is healthy. Even in
that objectionable buffoonery which was levelled against reli-
gion there was the profession of scorning what was unreal, not
of making what was wicked to be interesting. Jugglers and min-
strels, satirists and court fools did not seek to entertain by being
morbid, but rather by too wild a truthfulness. And so, later on,
we do not find that sensation became essentially realistic until
twenty years ago. Take a comparatively modern novel, Melmoth
the Wanderer, written by the Rev. Mr. Maturin ; the sensation is
derived from religious mystery, though the horribleness of the
idea could not be passed. It was not until the locomotive
and the telegraph did away with the illusions of distance that
novel-readers seemed to prefer the " vulgar world " to either the
super or the preter-natural. They also have come to prefer
the " vulgar world " to the scintillations of original thought.
Those very learned treatises which have been written on the
characteristics of true humor, true wit, true satire whether by
German, French, or English philosophers are not needed for
the explanation of a pleasure which is grounded on the liking for
" the morbid." When three volumes are made to depend for
their interest on the issue of some vulgar, amorous intrigue, on
the exposure of some tortuous criminal, or on the unravelling of
some deeply-dug plot, we feel that we are only reading a po-
lice report, dressed up with fanciful detail. Wit, humor, mys-
tery, sentiment are all dragged down into the gutters ; whereas
in earlier romances there was at least an aspiration, however
rugged or fantastic the style.

In no department of literature is there a wider hiatus than
between the best and the worst English novels. Spite of the
glorious backbone of quite modern romancing such as Sir
Walter Scott has happily left us there is a perpetual issue of
sensational catchpennies intended for Saturday-night readers.
Murder is the fine art of such catchpennies, with fitting aux-
iliary crimes. And then the illustrations ! Well, the Illustrated
Police News only depicts in the actual what these novelists depict

208 ENGLISH LIGHT LITERATURE.

in the fanciful. It is true that such trash is counterbalanced by
the issue of good, cheap romances ; and, better still, it is true that
some of the best English romances are being constantly repro-
duced in cheap editions. If we can now buy Scott's, and Lytton's,
and Dickens' novels for a few cents, we need not complain that
the poorer class of readers are driven to feed on cheap husks. At
every bookstall there is choice of sound romances, as well as of
sound histories, sound essays. A dollar will purchase a day's
profit. And it is also to be admitted that the bad forms of street-
literature have recently been swept down the gutters.

Can newspapers be spoken of as light literature ? It may be
said, Yes, if to interest the reader be really the chief point in
lightness. And since what interests us to-day may not interest
us to-morrow, and may be utterly forgotten the third day, the
lightness is undeniable in one sense, that the interest is ephemeral
or for the hour. Yet the higher sense of lightness must certainly
involve benefit to the spirit, the intelligence, the fancy. Now, it
is questionable whether perpetually shifting interests be really a
benefit to the reader. It must have happened to many men to
pass a week or a fortnight without so much as " seeing a news-
paper," and to have occupied the time in reading sound works
which have strengthened and gladdened their minds. Such inter-
vals were most refreshing. The escape from the forced know-
ledge of a score of follies or disasters was in itself an enjoyable
serenity. Whereas the having the mind occupied, for some hours
every day, with facts which, though interesting, are distracting,
is only a profit provided that the distraction bars off much less
profitable thought. Men whose misfortune it is to be " literary,"
in the sense only of " writing for the papers," know well with
what weariness they read the news, which has no newness from
its perpetual novelty. Probably there is no task more wearisome
than making a digest of news for a weekly paper. " Lightness "
has no part in that task. But, at least, journalists do this for
money ; and therein is a substantial profit. Whether the aver-
age effect of reading the papers is light or is heavy in the public
mind it would be difficult to form any conclusion ; yet it is pro-
bable that the pleasure from what pleases us is not equal to the
pain from what pains us. Distraction, absorption, intense inte-
rest may be as opposed to enjoyment as to serenity. Besides,
everybody reads himself in current events, reads with his own
spirit, his own experience ; nor is it possible to dissociate one's
own ego from the myriad of human items in a newspaper. No
human being can read through any one of the daily papers with-

i88o.] ENGLISH LIGHT LITERATURE. 209

out having his principles contradicted, his sympathies assailed
or perhaps harrowed, his remembrances or affections disturbed.
Is this lightness? If it be, then the reason must be this: that
the normal state of the reader's temperament is heavy.

Whereas for lightness, in the purest senses of the word light-
ness which imparts profit with serenity take such exquisite ex-
amples as the writings of Addison, of Lamb, of Sydney Smith, of
Goldsmith. Sheridan, or Sterne, or Swift might be light, but
they did not respect our refinement. Probably Charles Lamb was
the most typical of English writers, whose lightness was the soft
breeze of a May day. He could make us laugh with most joyous
appreciation while making us feel innocent as babies. It may be
true that Sterne and Swift both Anglican clergymen, though at
an exceptional period of Anglicanism could make us laugh as
loudly as Charles Lamb ; but there is a laughter which is health,
and which produces health from a sense of its purity, and even
sweetness. Charles Lamb was the king of such laughter. Bur-
lesque, parody, irony were all too coarse for Charles Lamb,
unless they were sweetened by good-humor. He was the very
baby of literary innocence, with a dimpled and chubby, smiling
face. Byron with his gorgeous abilities, or Theodore Hook with
his joke-cracking, or Douglas Jerrold with his brain-wit (more
than heart-wit), or Thackeray with his intellectual acerbity, or
even Dickens with his deep diggings into sentiment, did not lighten
our hearts like Charles Lamb, who was frisky as his name, and as
harmless. Perhaps Addison was most like him in spirit, though
Addison's gift of satire was his forte. The Spectator papers stand
out from all writings as the merriest yet the purest of satires. " I
always fear to take up the Spectator" said an aged Oxford don to
the present writer, " as often as the Thursday mornings come
round, when I must select a fragment for Latin composition, be-
cause I know I can never read a first sentence without reading
the whole paper and a dozen others." Old-fashioned and pre-
cise as was the style (though Addison was only principal contri-
butor), there is a lightness and a perfect horror of vulgarity, with
a lofty disregard of all " breadth." And it is the more creditable
that this should have been so, since the epoch of Addison was not
refined. Sterne and Swift both descended to a level which they
found ready made by " society " ; but Addison appeared to force
his own refinement into the very people whom he lashed with
brilliant satire. Nor can it be said truly that any reading is
" light " reading which does not caress us while it lashes us. It
is impossible to call much of Byron light reading, because it is so

VOL. XXXI. 14

210 ENGLISH LIGHT LITERATURE. [May,

cruelly severe. Some one has called Byron " the devil's avenging
angel " ; and certainly he does more harm than good, even- while
he is purposing to do good. If Charlotte Corday was " the angel
of assassination " it was because she inflicted vengeance on the
wicked ; but poor Byron, glorious but unhappy Byron, inflicted
vengeance for the sheer fun of his own caprice. An opposite of
Byron was Goldsmith, who, in broad merriment as well as in
tender story, was free from all venom or vinegar. His spirit was
like the spirit of Dickens, though his sphere and his aspiration
were different. Dickens has been called the most genial of
writers ; yet this is hardly true, considering the terrible pathos
which he fetches out of every-day suffering. The spirit of
Dickens -was certainly genial, but his subject-matter was as often
harrowing as cheering. And here it may be remarked that the
individuality of Dickens for he was not a bit like any writer
who had gone before him has led to his being imitated by
crowds of writers, who fancy that they can exactly copy his
style. Mistake quite as ruinous as vain ! Nobody can copy
anybody's style. Dr. Johnson said that every writer has his stvle,
if only he does not spoil it by imitation ; but in the last ten years
we have had a hundred venturers who try to clothe their own
thoughts in Dickens' ego. And it invariably happens that when
one man copies another man, no matter whether in writing or in
manners, in peculiarities of wit or of habit, he always exaggerates
the weak points, while failing to catch the charm of the strong
points. A man might as well try to convert his Roman nose into
a Grecian nose as to appropriate another's individuality. It is
safe to try to avoid another's faults, but it is futile to try to copy
his graces. And we have now numerous writers that is, in fic-
tion-loving England who utterly destroy whatever " style " they
may possess by appropriating a style which they have not.
Spontaneity is the highest charm of writing, as it is of an engag-
ing personal presence ; and though " imitation is the higKest form
of flattery," it is the most fatal of the obstacles to " style."

To a certain class of minds a weekly religious newspaper is
presumed to be " improving light reading." Well, there are a few
weekly papers which are both religious and light, and also im-
proving in many senses ; but there are others which are only re-
ligious in the sense of bitter controversy, improving in the pro-
portion of their being despised, and light in the total absence of
sound sense. In regard to magazines, it must be admitted that
there are many which are brimful of sense and instruction ; while
even of the lightest sort there are very few indeed which of-

1 880.] ENGLISH LIGHT LITER A TURE. 2 1 1

fend against propriety or taste. The newest feature, however, in
leading magazines is the mixture of opposites in principles. In
one and the same magazine we have two brilliant articles writ-
ten necessarily by antagonistic champions advocating the exact
opposites of positions, theological, historical, or scientific. This
may be a boon to the " unattached," but it is suggestive of rest-
essness, or even scepticism. The " lightness " of such reading
ust consist in the instability with which the reader may sit to
is principles. And as the controverted points which are treated
in this fashion are almost always important Christian verities, it
cannot be regarded as respectful to Christianity that its verities
should be posed like two prize-fighters. However, it is better
hat the reader the general reader should have a chance of con-
sidering both sides than that he should know only one side that
side being the wrong side, as well as unfair to the right side.

On the whole, it is gratifying that, considering the quantity,
the quality of light reading should be so good. The streams of
light reading which issue from the English press are not often
poisoned, if polluted. To expect that they should be quite pure
would be unreasonable ; but they are as pure as any light reading
of any country. They are far superior to French light reading,
equal to if not better than the German, and not inferior to the
Spanish or Italian. Saving the giants of the old Greek and Ro-
man literature in such departments as would now be called light
English light writers need not be much ashamed of intellectual
or moral inferiority. The popular taste in this direction may
perhaps be best judged by the literature which is fashionable on
the stage. Good writing is more thought of in modern com-
edy than is even scenic effect or sensation. Farce and burlesque
must always remain what they have ever been, but comedy is
aspiring, in a literary sense. The severity of criticism a whole-
some trait of a free press obliges much carefulness and excision.
The passing tone of society must be always imaged on the stage,
but lightness is not allowed to kill force. The humor, the wit,
the irony of modern comedy are about equal to such graces in
past times always excepting, of course, the "gods" of such
literature, who are individual in all ages, and not imitable.
Shaksperes, like Homers and Virgils, are no more to be copied
than to be created. They crop up when they will and where they
will, and their ancestral begettings remain a mystery. Carlyle
says of Shakspere and it is a big thought and a big truth that
he must be regarded as a product of the middle ages. Arguing
on such a principle, we might anxiously inquire : What product

212 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

might we expect from the last three centuries ; what giant can
be begotten of the three hundred years which have passed (in
" enlightened " England) since Queen Elizabeth ? We are afraid
that we must not be sanguine. The Victorian era chiefly differs
from the Elizabethan in its want of heritage of staid and grave
thought.

QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES *

THE precision which characterizes the statements of most
French writers is notably displayed in the latest work of M. de
Quatrefages. However .much the reader may be inclined to
differ with his views and conclusions, he need be at no loss to
ascertain them definitely and clearly. And when we reflect on
the many painful hours it has cost readers to unearth the true
meaning of some scientific writers, who veil either superficiality
or crudeness in a murky mass of verbiage, the quality of clearness
which belongs to M. de Quatrefages' book becomes doubly grate-
ful and refreshing.

Even Mr. Darwin, who has won golden opinions from the
critics for profuseness of illustration and aptness of metaphor, not
seldom balks and baffles his readers by vagueness and obscurity.
But in method as well as in statement M. de Quatrefages excels,
and the logical mind experiences a substantial satisfaction in
accompanying him along his various lines of inquiry. This luci-
dity of arrangement likewise enables the reader to separate at a
glance the wheat from the chaff, and to give prominence to those
views which are most deserving of consideration.

The author begins by regarding man as the possessor of pro-
perties that pertain in common to all bodies, both organic and
inorganic, and then as endowed with a special organization which
brings him into the category of living beings. While allowing to
man the possession of certain attributes which belong equally to
his inferiors in the animated world, he holds that man is essen-
tially (i.e., generically) distinct from the latter, wherein, we must
confess, he is guilty of some confusion both in terms and in
thought. And first, in regard to terms, he is at fault when he
writes :

* The Human Species. By A. de Quatrefages, Professor of Anthropology in the Museum
of Natural History, Paris.

I880.] QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. 213

" We can now return to the problem which gave rise to these expan-
sions, and ask the question, Whether man should take his place in the
animal kingdom ? a question which evidently leads to another : Is man dis-
tinguished from animals by important and characteristic phenomena abso-
lutely unknown in the latter? For more than forty years I have answered
this question in the affirmative, and my convictions, tested by many contro-
versies, are now stronger than ever."

Is there not a little ambiguity here ? In the first place, the
author asks one question which leads to another, an affirmative
answer to which latter is equivalent to a negative answer to the
former, and yet he ignores the radical difference between both
by making answer in the affirmative alone.

Now, it is evident that man may be distinguished from other
organized living beings by important and characteristic pheno-
mena, and yet not lose his real essential identity as animal. M.
de Quatrefages assumes the point at issue when he asks whether
man is in any essential respect distinct from animals, since he
thereby takes it for granted that man is not an animal.

Had he asked, Is man distinct from other organized sentient
beings ? he would have made himself understood. It is easy to
perceive that man and such beings possess many characteristics
in common, that they love, hate, and are jealous ; but it is not so
clear that they possess the faculty of reason which M. de Quatre-
fages claims for them. He says :

" The relative development of intelligence certainly establishes an enor-
mous difference between man and animal. It is not, however, the intensity
of a phenomenon which gives value to it from our present point of view,
but simply its nature. The question is whether human intelligence and
animal intelligence can be considered as of the same order."

In answering this question he says : " As a rule philosophers,
psychologists, and theologians have replied in the negative and
naturalists in the affirmative." Now, it is not, to say the least,
in the best taste for an author gratuitously to declare that he is
advocating an opinion which is not in favor with philosophers,
since he thereby challenges the opposition of not a few who may
not be at all interested in his aspect of the discussion. This view
of the equal parti cipancy of man and beast in the God-like faculty
of reason is precisely the same as that advocated by Herbert
Spencer, who says that the faculties of brutes differ not from ours
in nature, though immensely in degree. We cannot subscribe to
this opinion, for if it were true that the intellectual faculties of
men and the highest capacities of beasts were identical in nature,
though differing in degree, we would, at times at least, perceive
on the part of the latter some approach to the performance of the

214 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

operation which is pre-eminently characteristic of reason, and is,
indeed, the triumph of its supremest effort viz., that of abstraction.
Now, it is easily demonstrated that the lower order of animals
never accomplish this process of abstraction. Their knowledge,
like ours, comes to them through the senses, but it is never
divested of its sensible properties, never filtered through the
active intellect to come forth the pure word of the mind. They
know multitude, but they have no idea of .number ; they perceive
two objects differing in size, but they have no idea of relative
magnitude ; they know that a warm apartment differs from a cold
one, but they have no generic idea of heat and cold. Thus, then,
the power of abstracting may be set down as the distinctive
badge of reason, and this power man alone among animals pos-
sesses. This view of the question does away with the purely
logomachical discussion as to whether the lower animals reason
a discussion in the meshes of which M. de Quatrefages unwarily
allowed himself to be caught.

But while we thus deprecate the attempt to obliterate those
lines which separate the rational from the irrational animal, we
fully agree with M. de Quatrefages in his view of what consti-
tutes an essential and consequently ineradicable difference be-
tween man and the lower animals. That they both reason he
maintains, and in so far he classifies them under a common head,
assigning to them an animal soul, the power of voluntary move-
ment, and a greatly differing amount of intellectuality. The phe-
nomena, however, which are distinctively characteristic of the
human mind are, according to our author, the sentiments of re-
ligion and morality, and it is for the purpose of strengthening his
position in this respect that he brings forward biological facts.
These sentiments essentially discriminate man from the brute
creation. This line of distinction is certainly much more obvious
than that which separates reason from brute instinct, and is right-
ly regarded by M. de Quatrefages as an unanswerable objection
to the doctrine of evolution. The origin of the sentiment of mo-
rality is differently accounted for by the disciples of the different
schools of biology. John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Win-
wood Reade, Huxley, Vogt, Tyndall, and Lewes hold that it is
the result of the continued operation of the law of natural selec-
tion, that utility is the parent of right, and that the sentiment of
duty is the outcome of evolution. Moral sentiment is, according
to these speculators, the result of a struggle for life, wherein those
individuals survived who possessed traits and tendencies most
helpful to the preservation of the race or species, and those who

IS80.] QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIE S. 21$

exhibited tendencies of an opposite character perished. The con-
centrated and gradually consolidated results of such survival
were separated from the original appetite of which they were
born, and became organized experience. Thus virtue became, as
Mr. Mivart well puts it, " a sort of retrieving which the thus im-
proved human animal practises by a perfected and inherited habit,
regardless of self-gratification, just as the brute has acquired the
habit of seeking prey and bringing it to his master instead of
devouring it himself." These writers all point to the records
of ethnography in support of their opinion. Sir John Lubbock
maintains that the moral sense is entirely wanting in savages, and
in proof he cites the case of the Australians, Tahitians, Tasma-
nians, and other degraded savage tribes. That this statement is
entirely false M. de Quatrefages abundantly proves, and in such
a manner that the Aryan claimant for a code >f morality supe-
rior to that in vogue amongst the lowest tribes of Oceanica ought
to feel that silence in the matter is the better policy. The polish-
ed gentlemen who lounged in the baths of Diocletian, or simper-
ingly inquired amid their cups, " Quid dia poemata narrent?"
knew such vices as would startle the simple-minded Polynesians ;
and when the most repulsive form of immorality can boast of a
Greek appellative, combined according to the most select rules of
Attica, it is hardly logical to point to the excesses of some savage
peoples in proof that they are devoid of moral sentiments.

A celebrated traveller, speaking of the inhabitants of the Fiji
Islands, remarks : " The people are simple and confiding when we
arrive, perfidious when we leave them. Once sober, brave, and
honest, we make them drunken, lazy, and finally thieves. After
having inoculated them with our vices we employ these very
vices as an argument for their destruction." Does not this sound
like evolution a Venvers ?

The evolutionary explanation of morality possesses, however,
a defect which it is strange that a man of Herbert Spencer's
penetration overlooked. Actions viewed in se are indifferent,
morally speaking. They may be materially good and formally
bad. It is the form that gives the flavor of morality to an action ;
and granting that, out of the struggle for the survival of the fit-
test, a sentiment may have been evolved which conduces to the
good of the race, that sentiment can give birth only to a line of
conduct that is materially good, and so lack, according to the
common feeling of mankind, the indispensable element of moral-
ity. The repulsive vices of savage tribes are not so immoral as
the corruptions of modern society, because they often lack the

2l6 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

element of formality which is never absent from the peculations
of the confidential clerk or the impure dilettanteism of the fash-
ionable rout. Materialistic physiology pretends to discover in
the structural development of the brain the origin of the moral
sentiment, and thus to shed light on the conclusions of evolution-
ary biology. Naturally its attempts are fanciful and far-fetched.
Maudsley asks, " Whence is derived the beginning or the first
shoot of a moral sense? The answer, which may be thought not
so fit, but which, nevertheless, I propose to make, is that the root
of the moral sense must be sought in the instinct of propagation.
... It is not appropriative but distributive ; not egoistic, so to
speak, but altruistic." Such is the system of ethics evolution
would have us accept, and such the anthropological inquiries of
M. de Quatrefages utterly overthrow. He proves conclusively
that there is no law-observing progress in the growth of morality
among men, but, on the contrary, that there is a marked increase
of vice in the great centres of modern civilization, over what we
find in the secluded hamlet or among the nomads of the desert.
Nay, more, he shows that the white man's intercourse with his
less favored brethren has left a serpent's trail behind, poisoned
and corrupt. The annals of ethnography and ethnology contain
nothing to show that there ever existed a tribe of men utterly de-
void of moral sense, and it is certain that their peculiar ideas in
some matters is no less at variance with the principles of strict
morality than are many notions floating in society the immoral-
ity of which is obvious, and yet which Christians alone, and, for
the most part, Catholics alone, repudiate and disavow. What has
been said of morality is equally applicable to religion. The evo-
lutionists see in it but an extravagant development of social cohe-
sion which serves to unite members of the species under circum-
stances calculated to retard its progress. God and his attributes
are relegated to the domain of the Unknowable by Mr. Spencer,
for there his influence on the growth and development of human-
ity is calculated to do less harm. But religion, they say, has
played an important part in the history of human existence ; it
marks a stage in the progress of evolution ; and consequently the
lower races of men possessed no religion. Yet it is readily de-
monstrable that no tribe of men, no matter how degraded, has
been entirely devoid of the sentiment of religion. M. de Quatre-
fages has proved this beyond all question, as Mr. Mivart and
many other naturalists did before him. We will not dwell on the
proofs, which our author adduces in support of his view as to
the universality of a religious sentiment, further than to remark

18SO.] QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. 2 1/

that he has effectually silenced the most obstinate of his adversa-
ries by showing that an erroneous conception of the Deity and
his attributes differs immensely from a denial of his existence.
M. de Quatrefages bases his belief in the unity and immutability
of the human species on the possession of these two sentiments,
tnd this conviction furnishes the key-note to his whole treatise.
He says :

" It is not, therefore, in the phenomena connected with the intelligence
that we shall find the basis of a fundamental distinction between man and
animals. But in man the existence has been proved of fundamental phe-
nomena of which nothing either in living beings or inanimate bodies has
hitherto been able to give us any conception, ist. Man has the perception
of moral good and evil independently of all physical welfare or suffering.
2d. Man believes in superior beings who can exercise an influence upon his
destiny. 3d. Man believes in the prolongation of his existence after this life."

Having thus categorically stated his views as to the essential
difference between man and other organized beings, the author
proceeds to the consideration of the various attempts that have
been made to solve the riddle of the origin and history of man-
kind. Two leading theories have been broached in solution of
the difficulties that surround the problem, both beset with ob-
scurities and perplexities which have sorely taxed the patience
of investigators. Polygenism regards the different races of men
as descended from as many primitive stocks as there are varieties
of type, whilst monogenism teaches that varieties are but branches,
all springing from one parent trunk in which were contained the
possibilities of all types. Polygenism is the simpler but less sci-
entific answer to the question whence we came, and has been re-
jected by Buffon and Linnseus, Cuvier and Lamarck, Blainville,
the two Geoffreys, Miiller the physiologist, and Humboldt. Mod-
ern science of the sober type takes precisely the same ground as
that taken by the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century when
it maintained against the reformers of Geneva that pre-adamitism
was inadmissible. Yielding to the tendency to make private
judgment supreme arbiter in such matters, M. la Peyrere, a Pro-
testant officer in Conde's army, inferred from certain passages in
Genesis that the Jews alone were descended from Adam and Eve,
and that the Gentile world had a pre-adamitic origin. A heated
controversy over the matter was waged by theological writers on
both sides, till patient search in the book of nature settled the
question in favor of monogenism. Polygenism stands powerless
before difficulties it does not even pretend to grapple with,
while monogenism multiplies difficulties, indeed, but at the same
time supplies the means for getting rid of them. The more the
problem bristles with them the greater delight does the natural-

218 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

1st experience in facing it, provided the least gleam of hope makes
him feel that success will crown his efforts. It was in this spirit
that M. de Quatrefages undertook his task ; and though he has
trodden thorny paths in the course of his speculations, still an
ample harvest of truth has rewarded his labors. With a due ap-
preciation of the importance of a clear and accurate meaning of
terms, he discusses the various definitions of the word species, and
contents himself with one which, though differently formulated
and somewhat restricted in its application, is substantially the
same as that given in our ordinary hand-books of scholastic phi-,
losophy. " Species," he says, "is a collection of individuals more
or less resembling each other, which may be regarded as having
descended from a single primitive pair by an uninterrupted and
natural succession of families." The definition is perhaps open
to the charge of being overloaded with terms and being too re-
stricted in application, but it at least so far agrees with the true
conception of species that it admits its objective truth and allows
it to possess a foundation in reality (fundamenttim in re\ inde-
pendent of mere mental operation. Species thus understood is
subject to variation, but excludes transmutation as destructive
of the essence of specific character and calculated to bring con-
fusion into the whole domain of science.

Darwin makes transmutation the basis of his theory of devel-
opment, and so does away with the notion of species and genera,
and even makes scientific classification impossible. M. de Qua-
trefages, proceeding in what he deems to be a strictly scientific
method, appeals to analogy in support of his conclusions, and es-
pecially bases them on observations made in the vegetable and
lower animal kingdoms. If plants and brutes exhibit phenomena
which determine species, the same phenomena occurring under
similar circumstances among men ought to lead to the same logi-
cal results. We just remarked that species admits of variation,
but that varieties, notwithstanding very pronounced morpholo-
gical differences, invariably retain the essential characteristics of
the species. This fact has an important bearing on the conse-
quences drawn from the crossing of varieties. Original sexual
characteristics never disappear throughout the ever-changing fea-
tures of variation, for the reason that there is no attempt to vio-
late the law of specific descent. Varieties thus produced may
interchange, and the result is called a mongrel. The crossing of
species, if fruitful, results in the production of a hybrid. Mongrel
reproduces mongrel, and hybrid, if productive, reproduces hybrid.
In view of these obvious facts M. de Quatrefages draws the con-
clusion that if the phenomena accompanying the sexual results

1 88o.]

QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIE S.

2I 9

which follow from the union of mongrels (the crossing of varie-
ties) essentially differ from those which characterize the union of
hybrids (crossing of species), we have a means of determining
whether the most opposite types of men differ as varieties of the
same species or as species totally distinct.

A variety is denned as " an individual, or a series of indivi-
duals belonging to the same sexual generation, which is distin-
guished from the other representatives of the same species by
one or several exceptional characters." According to this defini-
tion mere morphological differences go for naught so long as
identity of sexual origin is indisputable. Indeed, the history of
plants especially points to the widest range of morphological
difference between varieties. We have only to allude to the
acacia, one thornless specimen of which, discovered in 1805, has
given birth to all the thornless acacias now distributed over every
part of the globe. Thus the morphological differences between
plants, clearly the outcome of the same specific stem differences
that are destructive even of supposed botanic peculiarities must
be extremely striking. But even in the animal kingdom the same
fact is equally perceptible and impressive. Dogs and horses de-
void of hair are known to exist. Certain breeds of European oxen
imported into the warm countries of Central and South America
begin by exhibiting a very fine coat of hair, which in the course
of time altogether disappears. This phenomenon has been well
known for years, and no objection had been made against specific
origin on account of it ; but when a few travellers told of men en-
tirely hairless, speculation became rife as to the identity of their
origin with European races. And yet mature inquiry revealed
the fact that those so-called hairless men had made themselves
so by depilation. Variations in size are still more striking be-
tween many animals specifically similar than between the most
widely-separated races of men.

The following table exhibits these differences at a glance :

SPECIES.

RACE.

DIFFERENCE.

RATIO.

Dogs (length)

Small Spaniel..
St. Bernard

m. ft. in.
0.305 I
1.328 3 4.27

O.2O O 7.87

m. ft. in.
1.025 2 4.27

0.2

Rabbits (length).. .

Belier

O.6O I 11.62

0.40 I 3-74

O.3

Shetland

0.76 2 5.92

Horse (height)

Man (mean height).

Dray-horse. . . .
j Bosjesman
( Patagonian ....

i. 80 5 10.85

1.37 4 5-93
1.72 5 8.ii

1.04 3 4-94
0.35 i 2.18

0.8

22O QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. play,

Morphological differences, therefore, may prevail quite exten-
sively without infringing upon specific identity. And it is worth
while here to remark that the. science of zoology, to which pro-
perly belong the consideration and discussion of generic relations,
herein differs from physiology in that it does not exaggerate the
importance of morphological characters, but deems them to
depend on variation of species, while physiology refers them
either to transmutation of species or to specifically distinct ori-
gins. Comparative physiology, it is true, is a useful science and
has been rich in valuable results, but it should be regarded only
as a branch of zoology, and in the hands of the naturalist alone
can hope to avoid excesses into which it has fallen when made
subservient to human physiology. The existence of marked mor-
phological differences being no bar to similarity of specific con-
stitution, the question presents itself, How may we determine the
difference between species and mere varieties ? As before hinted,
M. de Quatrefages places this difference in the essential pheno-
mena which characterize hybrids and mongrels. Hybrids, as a
rule, are non-productive, whereas increased fertility exists among
mongrels.

Many interesting facts in natural history are adduced by our
author in support of his conclusion that every feature attending
the propagation of mongrels and hybrids respectively, points with
telling force to specific similarity between the latter and specific
difference between the former. When varieties (individuals of
the same species) cross they become, after a few oscillations, con-
solidated and settled for many generations, but suddenly manifest,
even in a remote link, a return to characters of either parent of
pure breed. This phenomenon is called atavism ; but it is impor-
tant to bear in mind that atavism is never accompanied by a
complete disappearance of traits pertaining to the parent from
which there has been a family departure. To show at how
remote a point such a phenomenon may occur Darwin cites
the example of a fowl-breeder who, after forty years' endeavor
to free his poultry-yard from a Malay strain, found it still occa-
sionally recurring. Atavism, therefore, is the physiological
bond which unites mongrels with their ancestors, marking an
identity of specific origin. With hybrids the facts are entirely
different. In their case infertility is the rule and marked irregu-
larity the characteristic of the few deviations therefrom. More
than two thousand years ago Herodotus regarded the fertility of
mules as a prodigy, and in the year 1828 the whole Mussulman
population of Algeria gave themselves up to long fasts, with

221

I880.] QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES.

the view of appeasing the divine wrath as made manifest, Dame
Rumor hath it, in the fact that a mule had conceived. Every
attempt, indeed, to perpetuate the product of certain species
which the common sense of mankind holds to be essentially dis-
tinct has been thwarted at every step or signalized by all manner
of irregularities and failures. The most interesting phenomenon
which has characterized the few successful attempts at crossing
species is what may be called reversion. Reversion is a return of
a hybrid product to its prototype with a complete loss of the
characteristics of the original parent from a resemblance to which
there had been a departure. One of the two bloods is irrevocably
dispelled, and the reverted progeny is as pure as though there
never had been an intermingling of species. Atavism is proof of
the physiological bond between all the representatives, more or
less modified, of one species ; reversion is a complete sundering
of the same bond between the descendants of two species acci-
dentally or artificially united. The only exception that seems to
impugn this conclusion is that of a species of wheat which, uniting
with another species, has maintained a distinct form for many
generations. This hybrid is known in botany as the ^Egilops spel-
tczformis. But the clever naturalist who has so far succeeded in
keeping it alive assures us that it is only by means of the most
painstaking precaution that this artificial plant can be preserved.
So, in view of the marked differences which obtain between the
results of mongrelism and hybridism, it is fair and logical to infer
that mongrels belong to a species really and essentially identical,
to employ a scholastic expression, and hybrids are separated by
the impassable chasm of distinct specific constitution.

Unscientific writers, 'men little versed in the rules of logic, for
whom terms are shaded off from each other only by a hazy line of
demarcation, are readily betrayed into confounding the terms spe-
cies, race, and variety ; and since words are mere arbitrary symbols
of thoughts, so, they believe, the thoughts represented by them are
separated only by a purely arbitrary difference. It is a significant
feature of the logical condition of the scientific mind when M. de
Quatrefages feels called upon to defend himself against the charge
of what he calls orthodoxy, as though heterodoxy should be the
distinctive badge of the true votaries of science. To M. de Qua-
trefages it is a matter of little moment whether his conclusions,
drawn from what he deems the most carefully considered scien-
tific premises and data, are in accord with the doctrines of the
Christian Church or opposed thereto, so long as they have the
sanction of truth and logic. He proclaims himself to be a free

222 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

lance in the great army of truth-seekers, and recognizes neither
friend nor foe in the pursuit of his legitimate quarry. His posi-
tion is logical for one who is indifferent to the claims of Chris-
tianity, and practically, though not theoretically, consistent with
the attitude of a Catholic towards truth ; for the latter pushes his
investigations fearless of consequences, since he knows that each
truth is a sister to the other, and all borrow lustre from the truth
that is divinely revealed.

But M. de Quatrefages says he is not engaged in theological
controversy, and pursues his course irrespective of it, and so, he
maintains, his orthodoxy is all unconscious and the unavoidable
outcome of strictly scientific research. He insists that those who
confound species with race ignore all the researches of the past,
and especially the magnificent labors of Buffon, the Geoffreys,
Kolreuter, and Naudin. They overlook the constant facts of our
poultry-yards, our orchards, and our stables, and shut themselves
up in the narrow confines of a withering scientolism. In this
class he does not hesitate to include even Darwin, and charges
him with having overlooked the radical differences between hy-
bridism and mongrelism in the experiments he made upon the
Bombyx cynthia and the Bombyx arrindia, having failed to state
that disordered variation appeared in the second generation, and
that reversion to one of the parental types was rapidly approach-
ing completion. Species is therefore a reality and not a develop-
ment from a homogeneous pangenetic cell into a heterogeneous
and constantly diversified compound. The statement alone is
barbarous and unscientific. If now we apply the law which
governs hybridism and mongrelism to the human family, we will
find that every characteristic of mongrelism attaches to the race,
and that we observe neither disordered variation nor reversion in
the union of the most widely separated varieties of men. On the
contrary, fertility and permanence of type characterize the union
of the latter a fact totally at variance with the results of hybrid-
ism. The words which conclude M. de Quatrefages' chapter on
the unity of the human species are both forcible and significant,
and bear the stamp of impartial scientific conviction. He says :

" Now, I wish that candid men who are free from party spirit or preju-
dice would follow me in this view, and study for themselves all these facts,
a few only of which I have touched upon, and I am perfectly convinced that
they will, with the great men of whom I am only the truth-enforced follower
with Linnaeus, Buffon, Lamarck, Cuvier, Geoff roy, Humboldt, and Miiller
arrive at the conclusion that all men belong to the same species, and that
there is but one species of man."

I880.] QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. 22$

These words have the true scholar's ring about them, and it
is pleasant to meet on the highroads of science a man who has
shaken the dust of discipleism from his shoes and is willing to
accept the returns of observation and experience for what they
are worth. M. de Quatrefages might, indeed, have attacked the
doctrine of evolution from a more radical stand-point, and conse-
quently with more effect, were it not that he would thus be led to
wander from the proposed object of his labors. If it is true that
all experience is opposed to the obliteration of specific lines be-
tween animals seemingly congeneric, how much more at variance
with the claims of evolution is the fact that species far remote do
not exhibit the slightest tendency to interchange ! If there is no
essential, and consequently no impassable, barrier between species,
why will not the* bear and the bison, or the fox and the ferret,
propagate hybrids ? It may be answered that evolution is a slow
process and leads to results by gradual change ; but we retort that
such gradual change so called, and such slow process so claimed,
are only misnomers for permanence of type, and that if there
were no essential and insuperable difference between species de-
viations from the law of non-essential separation would occasion-
ally occur, and we would have monstrosities from time to time,
and such confusion as would render the labors of the naturalist
nugatory, if not null. If we come to regard species as " an arti-
ficial combination which is necessary for convenience" (Darwin),
we might as well abandon for ever all hope of establishing zoolo-
gical grades on a basis of necessary order.

Though the leading features of Mr. Darwin's theory have
already been frequently discussed, and the claims of "natural
selection," together with the laws of divergence, continuity, perma-
nent characters, and finite heredity have been rejected for valid
reasons, we deem it proper to call the attention of our readers
to the views entertained by M. de Quatrefages on these sub-
jects. He does not agree with the majority of anti-Darwinians,
who seem to be actuated by feelings of personal hostility to
the great naturalist, and who reject his theories in toto be-
cause of the pernicious consequences to which they lead. That
there is a struggle for existence and a consequent selection
no one, says M. de Quatrefages, can for a moment deny. The
whole face of nature is a battle-field where the weakest must
yield to the strongest and the unwary fall victims to the wily.
In this struggle every man has his hand unconsciously lifted
against his brother, and is unwittingly seeking out a flaw in
the armor of his dearest friend, that he may pierce him to the

224 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

heart. The very law of existence necessitates this struggle, else
the earth could not hold its swarming millions. But that the
survival of the fittest thence ensues is not true. If the battle
were always waged in the open plain, then, indeed, the victory
might fall to the strongest and the guerdon be given to the fleet-
est. But other circumstances constantly occur to paralyze the
strength of the bear or the panther, or to baffle the agility of the
tiger. M. de Quatrefages illustrates this fact quite interestingly
by a reference to the natural history of the rat in France. A va-
riety of brown rat entered France in the last century, having made
its way from the banks of the Volga. He was more ferocious than
the indigenous black rat of the country he invaded, and the latter
was soon exterminated. He seemed, however, to hold the weak
and timid mouse in greater detestation even than the black rat ;
but as he could not follow the little creature into its tiny home, he
was compelled to desist from attacking it. Mere trifles some-
times turn the scales in favor of the stupid and the weak, and the
richest prizes fall to their lot. It is true, however, that, all things
considered and in the majority of cases, those animals survive to
whose existence environments are most favorable ; and it is like-
wise true that adaptation to such environments must work some
change in the rudimentary intelligence and instincts of animals.
So far M. de Quatrefages is willing to accept the law of natural
selection, though he prefers, and it seems to us with good reason,
the term elimination, since selection denotes a conscious process.
When, however, Mr. Darwin attributes to the law of natural selec-
tion, to the struggle for existence and the consequent survival of
the fittest, the power of indefinitely modifying organized beings so
as to render it possible for any given organism, when duly sub-
jected to the above conditions, to be changed into any other what-
soever, he is at war with common sense, experience, and facts.
Common sense proclaims the existence of species, experience veri-
fies it, and innumerable facts attest it. The vital flaw, therefore,
in the Darwinian theory is the denial of the reality of species, and
it is on this point that M. de Quatrefages tries conclusions with
the English naturalist. He says :

" I have been unable to find in any of his works a single precise state-
ment in regard to the meaning of the word species, and this accusation is
the more -severe from being brought with justice against an author who
claims to have discovered the origin of species."

Mr. Darwin is an indefatigable student and a successful na-
turalist. Indeed, the science of biology is indebted to him for its
greatest triumphs, and his name will live wherever true science is

I880.] QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. 22$

cherished and sacredly guarded. But he is no logician, and his
reasoning should put a school-boy to the blush. He gives no de-
finition of species ; he constantly uses it as a synonym for race and
variety, and thus paves the way to the most bewildering confu-
sion. We appeal to all those who have read his works entitled
The Descent of Man and The Origin of Species, and ask them if this
arraignment is not perfectly just, and whether they have not risen
from the perusal of these treatises as from the contemplation of a
beautiful panorama which seemed to begin nowhere and to end
nowhere, having no definite aim or purpose. That his works are
replete with interesting facts no one can gainsay his magnificent
work on pigeons alone is proof of this but his reasoning is radi-
cally defective. He argues in a vicious circle after this fashion :
Nature everywhere presents morphological differences and re-
semblances susceptible of classification. This classification results
in a hierarchy of organized beings, throughout which we perceive
a gradual ascent from a lower and consequently more simply or-
ganized class to a higher and more complex one ; therefore the
latter are the outcome of the former, and there are no specific dif-
ferences, there is no species, whatever the word may mean. The
conclusion of this enthymeme he makes the antecedent of another,
and reasons inversely in this manner: There is no specific dif-
ference between organized beings i.e., there is no real species ;
therefore there has been a development from a lower to a higher
order that is, there has been a transmutation of species. This is
his argument in a nutshell ; and no matter how he may multiply
facts, dazzle us with brilliant discoveries, or enchant us with the
witchery of his style, he cannot escape from the charge of uncon-
secutiveness.

Huxley, who is called the philosopher of evolution, must have
been aware of this radical defect in the reasoning of Darwin when
he wrote : " I adopt the theory of Darwin under the reserve that
proof should be given that physiological species can be produced
by Selective crossing." Why, on this very point the whole con-
troversy turns. There is nothing to accept, indeed, that is new
but this. M. de Quatrefages does not confine himself to the
mere expression of the charge he brings against Darwin, but
supports it by unassailable proof. Arguing that no amount of
morphological change can obliterate original specific identity, he
mentions a fact of great interest which the advocates of develop-
ment will find very hard to explain.

" At the present time," he writes, " there is a stag in Corsica which, from
its form, has been compared to the badger-hound ; its antlers differ from
those of European stags. Those who confine themselves to morphological
VOL. xxxi. 15

226 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

characters will assuredly consider this as a distinct species, and it has often
so been considered. Now, Buffon preserved a fawn of this pretended
species and placed it in his park ; in four years it became both larger and
finer than the French stags, which were older and up to that time consider-
ed more finely grown. Moreover, the formal evidence of Herodotus, Aristo-
tle, Polybius, and Pliny attests that in their time there were no stags either
in Corsica or Africa. Is it not evident that the stag in question had been
transported from the continent to the island ; that under the new condi-
tions the species had undergone temporary morphological modification,
though it had not lost the power to resume its primitive characters when
placed in its primitive conditions of life ? Are we, then, to conclude that in
time nature could have completed the action and entirely separated the
Corsican stag from its original stock ? We may answer in the negative, if
any weight is to be attached to experience and observation."

Haeckel, in Germany, has been boldest in applying the trans-
mutation theory to man. According to this naturalist all organ-
ized being had its origin in what he calls the Monera, correspond-
ing to the pangenetic cell of the English evolutionists. From
this elementary condition man advanced by slow degrees up to the
state in which we now find him. But in order to arrive there he
had to pass through twenty-one evolutions. It is true, science has
not hitherto been able to discover specimens of each of the twen-
ty-one types ; several links in the chain are still missing ; but that
circumstance, which would be a wet blanket to the reasoner who
takes only facts for premises, in no way damps the ardor of the
scientific enthusiast. At present man's nearest known progenitor
is the tailless catarrhine ape, such as the orang and the chimpan-
zee ; but Haeckel supposes that there has been an intermediary
type, though this purely hypothetical being no man yet has seen.
We have here served up to us a large dish of theory supported
on a hypothesis and flanked by a feeble garniture of facts. But
so long as it comes under the dignified name of science we must
make no wry faces at it. This immediate progenitor of the human
family is called the pithecoid man by Haeckel.

" Our earliest ancestors," says Darwin, " were without doubt once cover-
ed with hair, both sexes having beards ; their ears were pointed and capable
of movement, and their bodies were provided with a tail having the proper
muscles. . . . The foot, judging from the condition of the great toe in the
foetus, was then prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in
their habits, frequenting some forest-clad land ; males were provided with
canine teeth, which served as formidable weapons."

And Haeckel, speaking of the sozoura, a supposed amphibious
animal, reasons as follows : " The proof of its existence arises from
the necessity of an intermediate type between the thirteenth and

I880.] QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIE S. 22/

the fourteenth stages." It is very evident that the purely gratui-
tous nature of this hypothesis, this ideal necessity of an inter-
mediary, invalidates the whole superstructure of speculation rest-
ing on it. But, more than this, M. de Quatrefages proves con-
clusively that the admission of such hypotheses and such transi-
tional states is in direct variance with that fundamental law which
constitutes the chief charm of Darwin's system the law of perma-
nent characterization, by virtue of which all the descendants of
the first mollusks have been mollusks, and all the descendants of
the first vertebrates have been vertebrates.

" The consequence of these facts," says M. de Quatrefages, " from the
point of view of the logical application of the law of permanent characteriza-
tion, is that man cannot be descended from an ancestor who is already char-
acterized as an ape, any more than a catarrhine tailless ape can be descended
from a tailed catarrhine. A walking animal cannot be descended from a
climbing one."

And this follows necessarily from Darwin's own law of the
permanent characterization of types. Another defect in the Dar-
winian mode of dealing with nature is the attempt to make patho-
logical facts account for specific changes in organized beings.
The conditions known as microcephalism, cretinism, and idiocy
are purely morbid and can never play a role in the production
of changes which are natural and abiding. We notice this strik-
ingly in what is called inherited tendency to disease a tendency
that is very variable and capricious. Phthisical and rheumatic
diatheses appear, disappear, and reappear with the greatest irregu-
larity, and so can" in no manner be regarded as factors in the pro-
duction of new and permanent typal features.

M. de Quatrefages next proceeds to the discussion of the
views held by his learned compatriot, M. Naudin, who belongs to
a very different school of evolutionists. According to this natu-
ralist all things sprang from a protoplasm the existence of which
lie does riot even pretend to account for. Under the influence
of the evolutive force proto-organisms appeared, which, by rea-
son of their increased activity, were speedily followed by mesor
organisms, till man appeared upon the earth. He says that
the Mosaic account of man's creation is true, if rightly under-
stood, but that it is purely allegorical. The clay of the Bible
is the primordial human blastema from which Adam sprang.
At first Adam was neither male nor female. " It was from
this larval form," says M. Naudin, "that the evolutive force
effected the completion of the species. For the accomplish-
ment of this great phenomenon Adam had to pass through

228 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

a state of immobility and unconsciousness very analogous to the
nymphal state of animals undergoing metamorphosis." This
theory M. de Quatrefages rightly censures as not scientific. It
is bad enough for men of science to build up theories in direct
conflict with revealed truth, but it is still more illogical to admit
those truths in a sense which only a bizarre fancy can attach to
them. But it is not the fanciful interpretation which M. Naudin
has put upon the Biblical genesis of man that M. de Quatrefages
so much finds fault with, but the attempt to mix up dogma
with science. M. de Quatrefages proclaims himself above all a
votary of science ; she is the only oracle to whose voice he will
listen and to whose utterances he will lend weight. Very well ;
but if the conclusions to which science has led him are, as they un-
doubtedly are in his case, reconcilable with dogma, why should he
go out of his way to cast a slur upon the latter ? He says that
science could not fail to contradict certain beliefs which were
drawn from a book written in an entirely different sense from its
own and explained by the aid of data which were incomplete or
false. Now, if there is any one man of science who ought at least
to respect the Mosaic genesis, it is M. de Quatrefages, since science
has enabled him to reach conclusions that are easily reconciled
with the statements contained in Holy Writ, and, per contra, to
refute theories . opposed to it. This, however, does not alter the
character of his scientific labors, which must stand as a monument
of patient and impartial investigation and as illustrating the illo-
gical and one-sided character of anti-Christian science. There is
one argument against the doctrine of evolution which M. de Qua-
trefages would have found very available had he considered it
worth his while to study the results of scholastic inquiries. The
law of causality is a corollary from the principle of sufficient rea-
son, and as such enjoys with the former the character of an abso-
lute a priori and analytical truth, and its laws are necessary and
immutable.

An efficient cause must contain all the perfections of the effect
as such, on the principle that nemo dat quod non habet. We have itali-
cised the words " as such," so that it might not be urged against
us that at times effects are superior to their causes, for that is true
only when we fail to estimate the influence of concurrent activity.
This is especially the case in natural history, where we find the
progeny often superior to the parent, owing to judicious crossing
or careful handling. In respect to such results the parent is not
cause, and the offspring is superior through the operation of other
agencies. But the offspring receives its natural constitution from

I880.] QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. 229

the parent, and this can never be superior in the former. The sire
of Parole may not have been as fast as his celebrated offspring,
but this superior speed is clearly traceable to the new strain in-
fused by the dam and by intelligent treatment in the stable and
the paddock. But his equine nature he received from his parents,
and, on the principle of causality just adverted to, it would have
been impossible for him to receive a superior one. Now, evolu-
tion reverses this indefeasible order of reason and clearly lands
us in the impossible. For this reason it is absurd to suppose
that the stupid ostrich or simple sheep potentially contains the
intelligence of man. Thistles do not produce roses, nor do bram-
bles give forth figs.

In discussing the antiquity of the human family M. de Quatre-
fages enters into very interesting details, and, guiding himself by
the most recent and best-established discoveries in the domain of
geology, he favors a higher antiquity for man than do the majority
of naturalists. Yet, with good sense and sound discrimination, he
commits himself to no conclusion which facts do not fully verify,
and he constantly informs us that he wishes to enforce no view
when he advances an opinion partaking of a greater or less
amount of verisimilitude.

" In fact," says he, " the most careful judges acknowledge that man has
seen the accomplishment of one of the great changes on the surface of the
globe. He has lived in one of the geological periods to which he was but
lately thought to be a stranger ; he has been contemporary with species of
mammalia which have not even seen the commencement of the present
epoch. There is, then, nothing impossible in the idea that he should have
survived other species of the same class, or have witnessed other geological
revolutions, or have appeared upon the globe with the first representatives
of the type to which he belongs by organization. But this is a question to
be proved by facts. Before we can even suppose it to be so we must
wait for information from observation."

This language, while revealing a scientific spirit loyal to the
truth, clearly shows us that geology is still groping amid doubt
and unsupported speculation in its endeavors to cast light upon
the origin of the race.

The most interesting chapters in M. de Quatrefages' trea-
tise are those devoted to the consideration of the original lo-
calization of the human species. Being a monogenist, he ad-
mits the descent of the entire human race from one primitive
pair, and must defend himself against the arguments of Agassiz,
who is the great advocate of the multiplicity of human local ori-
gins. Whilst Darwin admits the perpetual instability of specific
forms and consequent recurring transmutations, Agassiz believes

230 QUATREFAGES ON THE HUMAN SPECIES. [May,

in absolute immutability. Both opinions, however diametrically
opposed, proceed from the same vague and capricious use of the
terms species and race. With Darwin, species is a mere artifi-
cial combination adopted for convenience' sake. Agassiz, indeed,
admits a bond of union between the races of men as close as the
physiological bond which unites them in the eye of the monoge-
nist, but he holds them to be the result of separate and indepen-
dent creations. He says : " Whilst in every zoological province
animals are of different species, man, in spite of the diversity of
his races, always forms one and the same species." Yet he adds
elsewhere : " The chimpanzee and the gorilla do not differ from
each other more than Mandingos from the Negroes of Guinea ;
there is less difference between either of them and the orang
than there is between the Malay or the white and the Negro."
It is evident from these passages, occurring in different portions
of his work, but here placed in juxtaposition in order the more
vividly to mark their inconsistency, that Agassiz had no definite
idea of species. He says that men always form one and the same
species, and yet he identifies with certain races of men beings spe-
cifically distinct, while he marks off other races from each other.
Trifling and accidental differences and resemblances are insisted
upon by the Cambridge professor in support of his view, and he
even goes so far as to maintain that the various languages had
distinct and separate origins wherever they were spoken before
the intercourse between nations became general. He contends
that there is just as much relation between one human language
and another as between the growling of different species of bears,
the mewing of cats, the barking of dogs, or the liquid warbling
of feathered songsters. It is truly strange to what an extent the
habit of theorizing induces intellectual blindness. If there is one
science more than any other to which ethnology and ethnography
owe a debt of gratitude, that science is philology ; and we doubt
rfot that the labors of Max Miiller have contributed a large
share to the elucidation of the problems which are suggested by
the natural history of man. Philology has so clearly established
the community of the origin of languages that what was only
surmised a short time ago is now everywhere accepted as an un-
doubted scientific fact. We do not, therefore, consider any other
argument in support of the doctrine of universal human filiation
than the crystallization of the fact in language necessary. M. de
Quatrefages, however, goes farther, and in opposing the notion
that there is a coincidence in the appearance of human races
throughout the globe, and the character of the fauna and flora ac-

l880.] " QUICUMQUE CffXISTUM QU^RITIS." 231

companying them, conclusively proves that Agassiz adopted an
unscientific mode of procedure. The labors of M. Alphonse Ed-
wards, M. de Candolle, Andrew Murray, and Dum6ril are in-
voked, and they show clearly that such alleged coincidence does
not exist. In working out his theory of man's original cosmopo-
litanism Agassiz has divided the globe into nine great regions or
kingdoms corresponding to nine .races of men distinct in origin.
This distribution M. de Quatrefages holds to be purely gratui-
tous. The very first division, indeed, he entirely rejects; for Poly-
nesia we know to have been peopled from the Indian Archipelago,
and hence is exclusively an animal and vegetable centre. We
will not follow the author through the discussion of each separate
kingdom, but simply state that he questions the correctness of
Agassiz' opinion as to each one of them having been a distinct
centre of human appearance, and in each instance he supports his
opposition by plausible, if not convincing, arguments.

The fifth book of M. de Quatrefages' treatise is taken up with
a consideration of the manner in which the globe was originally
peopled ; and we can assure our readers that they will find his
method of explaining the formidable difficulties which beset the
naturalist's way, in his efforts to account for the many migrations
of tribes and peoples by sea and land, highly ingenious, if not con-
vincing.

TRANSLATION OF THE HYMN "QUICUMQUE CHRIS-
TUM QU^ERITIS."

FOR THE FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.
HYMNUS.

QUICUMQUE Christum quseritis,
Oculos in altum tollite :
Illic licebit visere
Signum perennis glorias.
Illustre quiddam cernimus,
Quod nesciat finem pati,
Sublime, celsum, interminum,
Antiquius ccelo et chao.

232 " QUICUMQUE CHRISTUM QUMRITIS." [May,

Hie ille Rex est gentium.
Populique Rex Judaici,
Promissus Abrahae patri,
Ejusque in aevum semini.

Hunc et Prophetis testibus,
lisdemque signatoribus
Testator et Pater jubet
Audire nos et credere.

Jesu, tibi sit gloria,
Qui te revelas parvulis,
Cum Patre et almo Spiritu
In sempiterna saecula.

HYMN.

Who seek of Christ the sign
Lift up your eyes on high !
Perennial, divine
Splendor illumes the sky.

Unfading glory glows
In that eternal light,
Whose source no orb that rose
At morn, or sets at night.
His infinite embrace
All being did enclose,
E'er countless orbs in space
From night and chaos rose.

Descending from the skies
Nations their Sovereign bless,
And Judah sees arise
Her Sun of Righteousness.

By Abraham foretold,
His promised Seed appears,
Awaited from of old
By sages and by seers.

The Father's voice is heard
In witness to His Son ;
Believing in his word
All nations shall be one.

Jesus we glorify,
Who gives the humble, heaven ;
The Father, God Most High,
And Him whose gifts are seven.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 233

MY RAID INTO MEXICO.

CHAPTER II.

I MEET ,500,000.

"How did you get on, Billy?" I asked of my retainer as we
awaited the distribution of luggage at Euston Square.

" Finely, sir. That chap in the yalla small-clothes thought for
to cod me, Masther Joe, but I tuk the consait out av him lively
enough. We were discoorsin' about sportin' whin he ups an' axis
me I seen him winkin' at the sargint av I ever shot a Welsh
rabbit.

" ' No, but I shot scores av Irish wans/ sez I ; an' all that was
in the place comminced for to roar wud the laffin'.

" ' Wud ye back yerself to hit a Welsh rabbit at the first
shot ? ' sez he, wud a grin like Counsellor MacDonagh's whin he
has ye tight in the box.

" ' I wud,' sez I.

" ' Sure ? ' sez he.

" ' Sartain,' sez I ; l an' more than that,' sez I, ' give me a da-
cent gun an' I'll bag nineteen outav twinty.'

" Well, Masther Joe, av they laughed afore they laughed till
ye'd think they'd rowl the thrain aff the rails. I seen, sir, that
I was bein' codded, so me blood riz, an', turning to yalla small-
clothes, I sez:

" ' I'll tell ye,' sez I, ' what I can hit,' sez I, ' an' wud the
shillelah that never missed fire.'

" ' What's that ? ' axed the sargint.

" ' A yalla canary,' sez I, pointin' at the other chap's breeches ;
'an' I'll go bail,' sez I, ' that I'll make him sing like a stuck pig,'
sez I. I had him there, Masther Joe."

I drove to the Tavistock, in Covent Garden, and having tub-
bed and breakfasted at this most comfortable of all old-fashioned
hostelries, sallied forth to visit my sister, accompanied by Billy
Brierly. I took him through the central arcade to show him the
flowers and fruits, at which his expressions of astonishment and
delight recognized no bounds.

"Why, the marquis "Lord Headfort was the Alpha and
Omega of Billy's idea of earthly power and grandeur " has no-
thin' in all Headfort for to aiqual this, Masther Joe. I wish I had

234 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [May,

ould Sandy McPherson, the head gardener, here for wan minnit,
an' it's little he'd think av his roses an' polyanthusis. Murdher ! will
ye luk at that bokay, sir. Faix, it's a little rainbow, no less ; and
thim pears, Masther Joe luk at thim pears ; they're as big as Bar-
ney Brien's boneens. Thirty shillin's apiece ! That wud keep a
dacent family for a quarther anyhow. Wisha, but I'd thank ye
for grapes as large as Crafton apples. An' luk at thim pays, large
as walnuts ; a cupple o' thim wud swally a young duck. Mur-
dher ! there's a rose ; it's bigger nor a cauliflower an' redder nor
ould Casey's nose. Why, there's as much flowers here, sir, as
wud cover the Hill o' Tara, an' more. What lashin's o' money
they must have up here, Masther Joe ! Luk at that lady whisht !
she's payin' a goold sovrin for that little pot o' mignonette. Why,
she'd get as much for sixpence below at Kilduddery as wud scint
a score of parlors."

Having hailed a hansom arid stepped into it, I expected that
Billy would have followed me.

" Make room up there, avic," he said to the driver.

" You cawnt come up here."

" Faix, it luks like it. Where am I for to go ? "

" Inside."

" Is it an' scrooge the masther ? Oh ! no ; bedad, I know bet-
ther manners nor that, ye spalpeen ! "

" Wot a h'Irishman you are ! " laughed the driver.

" Av ye come down on the flags here I'll show ye what soart
av an Irishman I am," was Billy's indignant rejoinder.

" Begorra, this flogs, Masther Joe," cried Billy after he had
taken an inch of seat. " Why, I'd as lieve be in a light-house as
dhrivin' from that sate up there. They call it handsome. / don't.
Arrah, there's nothin' like the jauntin'-car for convaynience and
comfort afther all. A man on the dhriver's sate av a car is an em-
peror on his throne ; he has the whole world foreninst him. Aye,
ye near done it that time ! " shouted Billy, as our horse, owing to
the sudden pull up of an omnibus, inadvertently thrust its head
into the vehicle. " Musha, but the thraffic is shupayrior. I wish
Father Tom seen this, an* he'd never be hard on a boy for
dhrivin' fast through Kilduddery agin."

I have seldom enjoyed a ride more than this one. Billy's
astonishment, bewilderment, consternation ; his exclamations and
comments, his desire to find fault with everything English,
amused me intensely.

" Arrah, but the sthreets are crowded enough anyway ; but
where's Sackville Sthreet? That's me darlint. That's the sthreet

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 235

that flogs Europe. Oh ! the buildin's is big enough, but there's
not wan av thim aiqual to the Four Coorts, or the Bank av Ire-
land, th' ould Parliament House, where, plaze God, we'll have
th' Irish Parliament agin, an' you, Masther Joe, sittin' for the
county. Aye, why wudn't London be big? Isn't the half av
the quollity av Ireland livin' here? bad cess to all absintees ! "

The people with whom my sister was on a visit were a Mr.
and Mrs. Bevan, residing in a handsome house at Knightsbridge,
facing the Park, and nearly opposite to the Albert Memorial.
Mr. Bevan was a needle-manufacturer and an old beau, who late
in life fell violently in love with a Miss Thornton, of Mulhallow,
whom he met at the Meath Hunt Ball. Miss T. was not in her
premiere jeunesse by any means, and as Mulhallow was mortgaged
up to the hall-door, and its proprietor somewhat hard up, Ara-
bella accepted the "needle-man," as he was sneeringly named in
the county, and became mistress of a superb London residence
and of every comfort that an elderly man's darling could have for
the mere asking.

Mr. Bevan was a very fussy old gentleman, very proud of
his wife, his children he had two his home, his plate, his pic-
tures, his cellar, his servants, his horses, and of his trade. He was
a member of two or three guilds, a Common Councilman of the
city of London, with a lynx-eye for the position of lord mayor
an office which he held in greater reverence and respect than
even the occupancy of the throne of England.

My sister small, round as a ball, blue-eyed, chestnut-haired,
and neat as a new pin was overwhelmed with astonishment when
she entered the drawing-room and beheld me. I had sent up word
that a gentleman from Ireland wished to have a word with her.

" What has happened, Joe? " a great terror in her eyes. " Is
auntie ill ? "

In a few words I told her of the receipt of the Senora San
Cosme's letter, and placed it in her hands.

My sister, a warm-hearted little thing, gushed and wept over
the epistle, kissing it and otherwise manifesting the tender
pleasure its perusal had afforded her.

" It's like a dream, Joe," she smiled through her tears. " It
seems awfully unreal ; one reads of these things, but they seldom
happen in real life. What a tribute to our darling mother's mem-
ory ! And to send so much money how thoughtful ! And Billy
Brierly remembered ! I wonder what Billy will do with his for-
tune ? Dear Joe, you will pay the senora a visit ? Such a visit
becomes a duty."

236 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [May,

" I am en route, Nellie."

" What ! now ? "

" Yes." And I unfolded my plans to her.

" What did Trixy say ? " asked Nellie after a pause.

" Trixy's ideas upon the subject would not weigh with me in
the least."

My sister stared at me.

" I had a letter from her this morning, Joe, and she says you
have not been there for ages ; that they were about fitting out an
exploring expedition to start from Timolin in search of you."

" How very good of them ! Nellie, did you ever meet a Cap-
tain Ballantyne at Timolin ? "

" I have met him." And my little sister blushed like a red, red
rose.

" Confound it, Nellie ! he's not worth blushing about," I
angrily cried.

" You won't start for some days?" exclaimed my sister, speak-
ing very rapidly. " You'll come and stop here, of course. Mrs.
Bevan would be awfully offended if you didn't ; so would Mr.
Bevan. There are any number of spare rooms here. We are to
have a dinner-party to-morrow night. We go to Bournemouth
on Friday for a month. You slept on the train ; where did you
breakfast ? "

" At the Tavistock."

" Telegraph for your portmanteau. I must overhaul your
wardrobe, Joe. You'll have to pass through the bitter cold of
North America, to the warmth of the South, and again to the
tierra caliente at Vera Cruz. I know all about it. I got my medal
at the Sacr6 Cceur for an essay on Mexico. Tell me, Joe," she
suddenly added, " have you and Trixy fallen out ? "

" Oh ! dear, no." And I felt myself reddening up to the roots
of the hair. " Why do you ask ? "

The entrance of Mrs. Bevan prevented the reply. How fat
she had grown, with a great waist, and a double chin, and a wad-
dle ! she who, when she rode to hounds, possessed the smallest
waist in the field.

" I didn't know you, Joe, and wondered who the handsome
cavalier might be sitting so close to my little guest."

As I glanced at myself in one of the superb mirrors that
reached from carpet to ceiling, I saw a man of four-and-twenty, a
little over six feet high, with a lot of light chestnut, curly hair, a
light chestnut, curly beard, a pair of large, heavy-lidded blue eyes,
and a small nose. I am told that my head sits my broad shoul-

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 237

ders well, and that my figure is there ! I have said enough anent
the appearance of J. W. N.

" What a surprise, Nellie ! Joe, your room is of course ready
for you, and the sooner you claim it the better ; for 1 expect some
ladies to arrive to-day who wouldn't hesitate to declare that
bachelors should be put to sleep on the roof. / would willi'ngly
give you a latch-key, Joe ; but Mr. Bevan wouldn't sleep a wink
until he had fastened the door after you. He goes round every
night, and sees to every bolt and lock himself. Nellie was nearly
frightened to death, the first night she arrived, upon finding him
in her room testing the window-bolt."

" The fact is, Mrs. Bevan, that"

" That you want to remain en garqon in the dissipated city of
London. It will not do, Mr. Joseph. You must come here ; be-
sides, I promise you an attraction in the shape of an heiress a
Miss Wriothesly, the only child of George Russel Wriothesly, the
deputy chairman of the Bank of England think of that, sir
with a fortune of half a million."

" I won't have Joe marry anybody but " here my sister hesi-
tated.

" I know to whom you allude," laughed Mrs. Bevan " Pa-
tricia Butler. I met her last year a good deal when I went home.
Well, Joe might do worse, and he might do better."

" I assure you, Mrs. Bevan," I hastily exclaimed " I have
no intention of seeking the honor of an alliance with Miss But-
ler. She's too military for a poor country lout like me." And as
I spoke I hated myself for being minus a red coat and a plumed
helmet and spurs.

Nellie, who had been watching me with anxious eyes, inter-
posed with " For shame, Joe ! Trixy doesn't care for any mili-
tary man. / know it."

" You should have seen her playing billiards with one of the
K. D. G.'s, Mrs. Bevan," I laughed " a brainless booby. She was
playing a game."

" Are you jealous, Joe ? " asked Mrs. Bevan, with an arch
smile.

" He is not" cried my sister hotly. " He has no cause to be
jealous."

" No right, you mean, Nellie " ; and I added : " I shall ask
leave of absence till to-morrow, Mrs. Bevan, as I have a number
of things to do. Nellie, do you know who is in the hall ? "

" Who, Joe ? "

" Billy Brierly."

238 M Y RAID INTO MEXICO. [May,

" Billy Brierly" breathlessly.

" Yes ; I am going to take him with me to Mexico."

In a second my sister had bounded to the door, and was
down the stairs before Mrs. Bevan or I could gain the lobby.

" Faix, it's here I am, sure enough, Miss Nellie ; but it's yerself
that's lukkin rosy an' well. All Dromroe sint respects to ye, an*
so wud the bastes av they cud have spoke. Yis, miss, we're goin'
to forrin parts. Masther Joe isn't saysoned enough for to thravel
be himself, so I'm goin' along wud him -sorra a know I know
where. Och, but this is a shupayrior house, miss, an' the furni-
ture's as fine as at the marquis' beyant. Faix, it's snug quarters
yer in, an' it's well wan av the family is provided for anyway ;
there's no knowin' what tratemint we'll get afore we return, if the
Lord spares us."

Mrs. Bevan greeted Billy.

" Troth, but yer fine and comfortable here ma am, an* it's
well th' English air agrees wud ye."

" Am I not getting too stout, Billy ?"

" Sorra a bit, ma'am ; there isn't an ounce of flesh on ye that
isn't well reared an' as prime as there is in the land."

" Have you made the acquaintance of Timmins yet the but-
ler?"

"No, ma'am."

Mrs. Bevan rang a bell, and a round-faced, rosy as to the nose,
solemn-looking individual, arrayed in an apron and a white choker
that would have done credit to Beau Brummel, appeared in re-
sponse to the summons.

" Timmins, this is Billy Brierly, Mr. Nugent's confidential
servant ; take him under your especial charge."

" Yes, madam. Mr. Brierly, will you be pleased to walk this
way ? " And stepping as if on eggs, Billy disappeared with the
solemn-looking butler in the direction of the lower regions.

I got out of stopping for that night at Knightsbridge. I
dreaded the tete-a-tete with old Bevan over a Chateau Lafitte I
am not a claret man even yet and a dissertation upon the de-
pression of trade in general and of the needle trade in particular.
So begging to be excused, and promising to put in an appear-
ance with my impedimenta upon the following day, I went into the
city.

I called at my tailor's, and ordered some light clothing suita-
ble .to the Mexican climate ; then slipped down to the Foreign
Office and drew an old school-fellow, Ernest Ramsay, one of the
clerks, who proposed a Star and Garter dinner.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 239

" There's a swell cipher telegram after coming in from India,
old man," observed Ernest, " and I am awfully afraid I cawnt get
away before four o'clock this slavery is horrible but if you'll
draw me at our club in Piccadilly at four-thirty we'll take the
train to Richmond. It's the only thing to be done, 'pon honor,
Joe."

As we sat on the terrace overlooking the silver Thames I
mentioned the fact of having been asked to meet Miss Wriothesly,
very pleased to be able to communicate such information to Ram-
say, who had been putting in a lot of asides about his swell Lon-
don circle.

" She's got no end of coin, Joe all in her own right, too.
The mother was a Cuban or Mexican, or something in that way,
who left her a ringing half million. She's awfully eccentric,
though, and tells a fellow fairly and squarely what she thinks
about him before he's two minutes talking to her. She's trodden
on an awful lot of corns. Young Coventry, of our office, says
he'd give up his chance of the title you know he's Lord Bolfid-
dert's heir-presumptive to be able to talk to her once as she talks
to him. She's as cool as a pickled sardine ; and the worst of it is,
she's as pretty as one of Sir Joshua Reynolds' best. Look out
for the siren, my juvenile ; for she can sing sweetly, even though
it be the dirge over a lover sinking into the Slough of Despond."

I spent my morning and forenoon in strolling about the West
End of London, in gazing at the closed and papered windows of
the palatial residences of the swells who were away at their mag-
nificent parks, or travelling on the Continent, or roving in their
yachts. The clubs were empty, the streets wore a listless, life-
less appearance. A number of tourists with eyes and mouths
wide open gaped at the public buildings ; but " out of town " was
in the atmosphere, and a general dulness seemed to hang in the
air like a haze. I drove out to Mount Street to pay a visit to
my former monitor at Stoneyhurst, and spent a delightful two
hours with the most genial and cultured man in the wide world.
At six o'clock I reached Knightsbridge, and as the hansom
dashed up to the flagway Billy Brierly made his appearance
from a sort of side wicket.

" Masther Joe," he half whispered as he shouldered my port-
manteau, " the dickens a bit ye need for to go to forrin' parts.
Yer bread is baked, avic : there's a little wan up-stairs that's richer
nor the Queen, an' she's reddy for to come to Dromroe at yer
beck. I heerd Mrs. Bevan tellin' Miss Nellie. It's a racin'-

240 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [May,

stable ye'll be keepin', Masther Joe, an' it's Mullinavoyallish ye'll
be buy in', an "

I did not wait till Billy placed the topmost story on his aerial
castle, but lounged up to the drawing-rooms. One of these apart-
ments there were three or four was a dream of rose-pink and
gold ; its windows were all lace, and out beyond them stretched
a balcony radiant with glowing geraniums and the last roses of
summer. Beside a wilderness of ferns dripping with the spray
blown from the pouting lips of a tiny water-nymph stood a small,
pale girl with rippling hair of a golden brown wound round a
small and delicately-shaped head. She turned as I entered, and I
saw that her eyes were clear and large and full of expression.

" You are the wild Irishman," she said.

" You are the heiress," I retorted with a laugh.

" My misfortune, not my fault."

" Misfortune ! "

" Even so," shrugging her shoulders. " You arrived yester-
day, your sister tells me. How very like her you are ! "

" She has all the beauty of the Nugents."

" I don't know that," she said gravely. " You are far above
the average as regards good looks, and when you travel a little
that wonder of expression consequent upon perpetual home in-
fluences will wear off."

Tolerably candid, thought I.

" You are a Home-Ruler ? " This interrogatively.

" I am."

" I thought so. You look honest enough to go in for an idea.
Ah me ! these ideas. What can you do ? " she suddenly asked.
" Sit down, Home-Ruler."

She spoke, not imperiously, but as one accustomed to be
obeyed the sic volo, sic jubeo. She sank into the cushions of a
fauteuil, and I perched myself upon, a gilt gimcrack by courtesy
termed a chair.

"What can I do?"

" Yes."

" In what way ? "

" Any way."

" I really do not know what you mean."

" Are you a musician ? "

" No."

"An artist?"

'" No."

"A linguist?"

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 241

" No."

" I see : you are the usual Irishman. You can ride, and
shoot, and fish, and talk * horse and dog-.' You dance pretty well ;
you are too young to drink whiskey-punch, and too unsophisticat-
ed to flirt. Why will they only half-educate these people ? " And
leaning her elbow upon the arm of the fauteuil, and placing her
chin in her hands, the owner of 500,000 favored me with a pro-
longed stare.

At first I felt the hot blood of anger swelling round my heart ;
but it soon cooled off when I realized that it was a small, pale girl,
with grave and earnest eyes, who talked in this way in a low and
musical voice. I burst into a loud laugh an honest ringer.

" You are good-tempered," she quietly 'said.

" Not always, Miss Wriothesly."

" Which means that if I were a man I should be held account-
able for my spade-is-a-spadeism."

" x What do you think ? "

" Well, I suppose your Irish blood would boil over. What a
mistake it is that people will not say what they think ! "

" You would live in the Palace of Truth."

" I would if I could. Let me see if you are candid. You have
candid eyes. Tell me what you think of me straight, and fair,
and square."

I did not hesitate one second. " I think you are very queer,"
I said.

"And "

" And, if you are not affected, I rather like your ways."

" Do you think that I am affected ? "

" I shouldn't wonder."

" Your reasons," leaning over towards me, her elbows on her
knees, her hands clasped.

" Well, I suppose you are compelled to be original. A girl
like you with an awful lot of money has to do something, if she
chosen to be considered bizarre. I suppose you are educat-
ed to the tips of your fingers, and," I added with a laugh, for I
thoroughly enjoyed the t$te-d-tete, it was so unlike anything I had
ever put in before, " must show something for the money."

"I am not affected," she exclaimed somewhat hotly, " as you
will find when you know me better."

"Oh! / don't count for anything I am only an Irish bog-
trotter. But I'd like to see you with a howling swell ; I'd like
to see how you'd treat him I mean a fellow up in the inner ten-
thousand."

VOL. xxxi. 16

242 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [May,

" I am the same to all and every one of your sex."

" Then I don't imagine you are very popular with us."

" I am sure of that" she laughed.

" I wonder what you would be like if you hadn't money ? " I
said, speaking my thoughts as they came to me.

It was her turn to laugh, and right merrily.

" Do you know I have often pondered over that myself," she
exclaimed. " I suppose hard fortune would compel me to round
off some of the angles in my character, but the substratum would
remain. I like you, Mr. Home-Ruler, and I'll sing you a song."
She rose and approached the piano, easily, and gently, and natu-
rally, without any trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness.
" Shall it be a French song, all tears, and fountains, and bits of
ribbon ; or an English song, all lanes, and hedges, and church-
spires ; or a Jacobite song, all claymores and Charleses ; or an
Irish melody ? Ah ! I will select for you." And passing her
white fingers softly over the keys, till the music resembled the
rippling of summer seas or the sighing of the summer winds,
she began " Savourneen Dheelish."

She had not much voice, but it seemed to me to be exquisitely
trained, and she sang with intense tenderness and expression.

" Brava, brava ! " and Mr. Bevan bustled in. " Well sung, my
dear ; but ahem I don't think I care to have the piano opened
till after dinner. I am all system ! Ah ! Mr. Joseph, you are wel-
come here. I found a cane of yours in the wrong place, Mr.
Joseph in the wrong place, my young friend and gloves flung
into a hat that lay upon an ormolu table, when the hat should
have been hung on the rack, Mr. Joseph. I should like to thump
you two for kicking up this Persian rug. Mr. Joseph, it's time to
dress. Come with me. No, by this door, if you please ; I like
people to enter by that one."

" Why, you are more fussy than ever, Mr. Bevan," laughed
the heiress.

" It's system, my dear ; it's not fuss. There, now, you are
dogs-earing my wife's music. I should like to thump you."

" And, upon my word, I should like to return the compliment,"
said Miss Wriothesly, still good-humoredly.

" Glad you met that girl don't rub your hands along the
wall, Mr. Joseph. She's got five hundred thousand a good
thing to take over to Meath ; would buy the whole county. Be
careful about splashing the paper, Mr. Joseph ; it takes stains like
a new dress-coat. Why did they put your portmanteau on a
chair when the stand was here ? Please help me to lift it. No,

i88o.] THE BENEDICTINES. 243

no, no, don't remove the stand ; that's its place. You'll find hot
and cold water turned on. Use both, if you please. I like peo-
ple to use everything in my house. I'll leave you now."

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE BENEDICTINES.

BY ONE OF THEMSELVES.

THE Benedictines celebrate this year the fourteenth centennial
of the birth of their founder, and His Holiness Leo XIII. has
granted extraordinary privileges for the celebration of the Feast
of St. Benedict. But St. Benedict does not belong exclusively to
the members of his order. The world at large has as much
interest in him as the Benedictines themselves. A general sketch
of the Benedictine Order will be timely just now, and give an
idea of what the order has accomplished in the past and the
means by which it succeeded in performing its providential work.

The spirit that animated St. Benedict was the same as that pour-
ed out upon the church on the Day of Pentecost. This spirit does
not operate on all in like manner. It is, if it be proper to say so,
the common property of all that belong to Christ, but its mani-
festations are not the same in all. For we well know that it
adapts itself to all legitimate wants and circumstances, suits every
individual temperament, every national peculiarity, and elevates
human nature without destroying it. It is not restricted by limits
of climate, nor bound by any special form of civil government,
neither is it peculiar to any particular race of men. It is a catho-
lic spirit, embracing all ages of history, all races of men, and all the
regions of the earth. The Benedictine Order is not so well known
in this country as some other orders. It is, comparatively speak-
ing, a new-comer here. Yet we Americans cannot forget that
the first American bishop received episcopal consecration at the
hands of a son of St. Benedict, the Right Rev. Charles Walmes-
ley, of England. This, certainly, ought to be a link of endear-
ment between Americans and the Benedictine Order. Fourteen
hundred years is a long time. Can we wonder that the vicissi-
tudes of this long time have left their marks on the work of St.

244 THE BENEDICTINES. [May,

Benedict ? Certainly, it would be folly to say of the Benedictine
Order now what must be said of it as it was of old. Of old, for
instance, there were far more Benedictine monasteries than there
are now members of the order. The number of Benedictine
monasteries at one time exceeded sixty thousand. Yet with two
sons of St. Benedict on St. Peter's throne in this century, with so
many Benedictines adorned to-day with a bishop's mitre, with the
recent establishments of the order in France, in Australia, and
'here in America, and it may be justly added with the lustre in
which the famous old English congregation (as they call it) of
the order has shone resplendent ever since the days of the Pro-
testant Reformation, not to mention other symptoms of vigorous
life who will say that, with all this, the old tree has become de-
crepit and is going to decay ?

What we present to view, then, is no mere fossil of the past,
no petrifaction of a once living growth, but a still living tree, an
oak of fourteen hundred years' standing, that has, indeed, been
beaten by storms and rifled by whirlwinds, but which, replacing
its lost branches, still stands firmly rooted in the soil. Of course
nothing like completeness can be even approached in this article.
For it must be remembered' that the history of the Benedictine
Order fills many a ponderous volume. That history is intimately
interwoven with the weal and woe of Europe's nationalities in
their advance towards civilization or in their struggles to pre-
serve it.

St. Benedict was born in the year of our Lord 480, not far
from the city of Rome, and he was of patrician birth. But his
greatness came of a source different from that of his birth. When
still a child of a very tender age as his great biographer, the first
Gregory, tells us the Spirit of God taught him to see and to fear
the corruptions of this world ; and the world, in consequence,
beheld the miracle of a little boy emulating the example of the
great anchorites of Egypt. The prince of this world, the devil,
saw it too ; and the fierce conflicts which he prepared for a St.
Anthony were quickly hurled by him upon this wonderful youth.
The temptations of the flesh thus aroused by diabolical machina-
tions became at last so violent that the young hermit, in order to
overcome them, flung himself naked into a bush of briers, rolling
therein till the excruciating pain had killed the last glimmer of
the flame excited by the devil. Many hundred years afterwards
the spot was visited by the seraphic Francis. That bush of briers

i88o.] THE BENEDICTINES. 245

was still there ; and St. Francis, to honor the heroic conduct of
St. Benedict, engrafted on it the scion of a rose. To this day
that rose-bush flourishes. But God, to sanction, as it were, the
singular piety of his saints, and as a memento of the victory of St.
Benedict, has marked the leaves of that rose-bush with the image
of a serpent. After that victory of the youthful saint the devil
did not again dare to harm his person.

God did not suffer the light of his saint to remain hidden un-
der a bushel. St. Benedict was at last discovered in his retreat?
by shepherds, and the fame of his sanctity was rapidly spread
abroad. Very soon the monks of a neighboring monastery chose
him, notwithstanding his youth, for their abbot. But these un-
fortunate men could not stand the rule of a saint. They have be-
come an example to us of the depth to which human depravity
may sink. For they tried to get rid of their new abbot by ad-
ministering poison to him in a cup of wine. The saint, however,
made the sign of the cross over the cup before he put it to his
lips, and it flew to pieces. St. Benedict then, understanding at
once what hideous attempt had been made, left those reprobates.
But no longer could he enjoy solitude, for disciples gathered
about him from near and far.

For many years he now quietly governed his spiritual family.
But the enemy of mankind, divining by his diabolical instinct the
future greatness of that small beginning, of course tried to nip it
in the bud. A wicked man of the neighborhood annoyed the ser-
vants of God by obtruding on their sight shameful spectacles.
The saint, perceiving that this sort of persecution was aimed at
his own person rather than at his disciples, resolved on seeking
new quarters for himself. So he took some of his disciples with
him, but not with the intention of depriving those whom he left
behind of the benefit of his further direction, and went up to the
mountain near which he had hitherto lived. There he found
people that were still heathens, whom he converted, and at the
same time he built the monastery called Monte Casino. In this
monastery he spent the rest of his life.

How can one refrain from speaking of Monte Casino, the
cradle of western monasticism, that home of sanctity, seat of
learning, sanctuary of kings, and refuge of pontiffs ?

There is not, nor was there ever, a monastery so famous in
history as Monte Casino. Many a one great in this world parted
with all his riches and worldly renown for the sake of wearing
the hcfod of a simple monk at Monte Casino, first among Avhom
shines the Blessed Carloman, King of the Franks and uncle of

246 THE BENEDICTINES. [May,

Charles the Great. Many of its abbots and monks were clothed
with the purple of princes of the church ; nay, even St. Peter's
chair itself was not unfrequently filled by a Casinensian monk.
But its greatest glory, aside from that of being the shrine of St.
Benedict and of his sister, St. Scholastica, consists in the multi-
tude of saints who flourished there.

Monte Casino, too, was the place where the greatest mind of
the Catholic Church was moulded. Let the Dominicans glory in
their St. Thomas ! Their glory is just. But the Benedictines
justly claim to have laid the foundation for the greatness of that
wonderful mind. The Dominicans, however, owe still more to
the Benedictines. In the year 1073 died in Spain the holy abbot
of Silos. At the tomb of that saint a noble lady prayed Heaven
for a son. Her prayer was granted ; and the child, in honor
of the Benedictine saint, was named Dominic. The Franciscan
family, also, was most nobly encouraged in its infancy by the chil-
dren of St. Benedict. The monks gave to the seraphic father his
loved Portiuncula, and the nuns sheltered and protected St. Clare.
Aye, and the Jesuits, -too, must be grateful to them ; for, apart
from the valiant aid given them in their founder's life-time by the
great Benedictine abbot, Blosius, when God called from the
world the Knight of Loyola, was it not in a Benedictine monas-
tery * and from a son f of St. Benedict that Ignatius received
his first lessons in sanctity ? That was the same monastery
whose abbot, accompanied by a number of his monks, was the
first Christian missionary to set his foot on American soil in

H934

But to return to Monte Casino. 'Towering high upon a moun-
tain peak, it looks like an eyrie which an eagle built, and its noble
form is visible far and wide to the wanderers in the plains. May
not this* eminence in the natural order have been but the shadow
of the future eminence of St. Benedict's institution in the super-
natural order ? Monte Casino is really the cradle of the Benedic-
tine Order, because there St. Benedict wrote his Rute, and, as we
shall see, that Rule made his order. Thus the very thing under-
taken by the devil to destroy St. Benedict's work became, under
God's providence, the means of giving it lasting success. For,
chiefly, he was moved to write a rule by his fatherly care of the
absent ones that belonged to him. Once moved to write a rule, he
intended to place monasticism itself on a footing more safe and
sound than had been thought of before.

* Montserrat. t Garcias di Cisneros.

\ The Venerable Bernard de Bueil.

i88o.] THE BENEDICTINES.

247

ii.

Monasticism is an early growth in the church of God. It
flourished in the East long before St. Benedict's time, and assum-
ed wonderful dimensions (though, as for that, in Benedictine times
not a few monasteries were to be found with considerably more
than one thousand monks). At one time a large part of Egypt
was peopled exclusively by monks. That must have been the
time to which the prophet Isaias alluded in the nineteenth chapter
of his prophecies. Monasteries in the East became as large as
cities.

Monasticism was brought to the West by the great St. Atha-
nasius, and there flourished, about one hundred years before St.
Benedict, such holy founders as St. Eusebius in Italy, St. Martin
of Tours, St. Honoratus of Lerins, John Cassian, the illustrious
ascetical writer, and St. Roman, who founded several monasteries
in the Jura Mountains. Nor must we forget that wonderful
monk from Lerins who brought the faith to Ireland, the glorious
St. Patrick. Contemporaneous with St. Benedict were St. Equi-
tius and the statesman, scholar, and monk, Cassiodorus, both in
Italy. After him, but still contemporaneous with his work, was
the great Irishman, St. Columban. In fact, the work of the Irish
saint (which began in France and ended in Italy) eclipsed that of
St. Benedict for a considerable length of time ; and if one had
judged of the future from the look things had in the beginning,
he would certainly have pointed to St. Columban as the man to
be known in history as the patriarch of the monks of the West.
But the monastic institutions founded by these and other holy
men (that of St. Columban not excepted), however flourishing
they were at one time or other, no matter what impulse they
gave to holy life, were all deficient in one thing : there was a
defect in proper organization a defect which, in the East, had
already resulted in most fatal consequences, and which in the
West too, about the time St. Benedict was born, was beginning
to work mischief. Stability and fixedness of rule were wanting.
The introduction of these features into monastic life is the great
merit of St. Benedict.

The state of a monk was endowed with a certain universality
that did not bind him strictly to one superior or to a fixed spot.
We do not assert, however, that, practically speaking, stability
was unknown to monks before St. Benedict. What we deny is
that afnte-Benedictine stability was more than a virtue of conve-
nience, and we know that the history of ancient monasticism bears

248 THE BENEDICTINES. [May,

us out. For an illustration of the truth of what we state we
merely point to the travels of St. Patrick from one religious mas-
ter and from one monastery to another. Then, as to rule, of
course St. Benedict was not the first to write a rule for the regu-
lation of monastic life, the essence of which consists simply in a
life of conformity with the counsels of the Gospel. But not one
of these rules was anything beyond an ascetical guide. Monastic
legislation, in the strict sense of the term, was first thought of by
St. Benedict. Even St. Columban, who wrote his rule in the
same spirit, did not, for all that, make stability obligatory for his
monks, neither did he forbid them to change his rule for another
one. Hence they could, and in time they actually did, change it
for that of St. Benedict. What, then, was it that gave this pre-
dominance to the Benedictine rule ?

in.

First of all, that feature of stability, when once its nature and
working were fairly understood, could not of course but com-
mend itself most favorably to all in whose hands the destinies of
monastic institutions rested. Then, too, the rule of St. Benedict
was remarkably free from impressions of his mere individuality.
He had not made his own heroic ways of life a law for others,
but had written a rule which satisfies the demands of the most ad-
vanced as well as it suits the weakness of human nature. This
difference between the Benedictine and the Columban rule was
well marked ; for the rule of the Irish saint could not be follow-
ed unless by men who were saints themselves. But we find also
some very potent external causes by which this predominance
was brought about.

In the year 583 Monte Casino was destroyed by the Lom-
bards. Now, again, the blow no doubt aimed by the old enemy
at the destruction of the hated work once more served to estab-
lish it only the more firmly. The Casinensians escaped and fled
to Rome, and the pope domiciled them in his own palace near the
Lateran basilica, where they remained for one hundred and
thirty years. (After the lapse of that time Monte Casino was re-
built.) We feel instinctively how this turn in their affairs must
have rendered both them and their peculiar institution conspicu-
ous in the eyes of the Christian world. Benedictine monasticism
had at once very significantly become the monasticism of the
Roman Church. Nor was the young order slow in rendering
yeoman service to the Holy See. For it is chiefly due to the in-

i88o.] THE BENEDICTINES. 249

fluence of Benedictine activity that the disputes about celebrating
Easter, which then threatened to bring on a Western schism,
were composed in conformity to Roman custom. To this very
day that ancient eminence of the Benedictines in Rome is attested
by their holding the great basilica of St. Paul extra muros. Soon
a Benedictine was elected to the Papacy. For a monk to become
pope was a thing never heard of till then, and such a pope as St.
Gregory the Great. That St. Gregory must be left to the Bene-
dictines, the Bollandists to the contrary notwithstanding, has
been clearly proved by Mabillon, as the scholarly Montalembert
has judged. Lastly, the rule of St. Benedict bore a stamp with
which, up to that time, no other monastic rule was distinguished :
the formal approbation of the Holy See by St. Gregory's pre-
decessor.

Thus, then, it happened that bishops and princes combined in
urging on all monks the adoption of that rule ; and the religious
life which flowed from so many different sources the splendid
monasticism of Lerins, of Bangor, of lona, of Luxeuil and Bobbio
all these various streams became tributary to, aye, and formed,
the mighty and majestic river flowing thenceforward through his-
tory as the Benedictine monasticism of the West.

IV.

And now let us glance at the work accomplished by monasti-
cism. The Roman Empire had become Christian one hundred and
fifty years before St. Benedict was born. Christianity was the reli-
gion of the state. There was, certainly, a great advantage in this ;
but let us not overrate that advantage. What brutal heathen-
dom could no longer do was done no less brutally, and even some-
times more effectively, by heresy. Strange to say, the imperial
power was always more or less hostile to the true interests of the
religion of Jesus Christ. At Constantinople the emperor tried to
govern with the heathen notion of Caesar's supremacy both in
state and church, and many bishops flattered his ambition in this.
The bishop of Constantinople himself, if he did not happen to be
a saint, claimed at first the highest rank and jurisdiction in the
church next after that of the Roman Pontiff. But he soon
claimed equality, and finally even superiority. Need it be said
how the first Benedictine pope answered that arrogant pride ?

*Servus Servorum Dei Servant of the servants of God became thenceforward the title of
Roman Pontiffs.

250 THE BENEDICTINES. [May,

That answer will shine for ever and ever, in letters of heavenly
light, on the brow of pontiffs before the throne. But how dread-
fully has that pride been punished ! One look at the once glo-
rious East tells the tale.

A long time previous to the period we have in view a flow of
nations came pouring out of Asia by way of the Caucasus and the
Ural Mountains. To resist that barbarous onslaught tasked to the
utmost all the military resources of the Romans. But at the
time we speak of that is, when the Benedictine Order was about
to appear on the stage of the world the barbarous nations then
bordering on the confines of the empire, and, as it were, walling
themselves up against it (some of them having even embraced
Christianity, though in a spurious form), not able to hold out any
longer against the tremendous pressure in their rear from the
North, dashed over the frontiers and rushed right into what then
was, and what, indeed, has remained to be, the very heart of
Christian civilization. Rome's military power was on the wane
and the empire tottering. In the year 476 (just four years before
the birth of St. Benedict) the Herulean chief Odoacer destroyed
the western half of the Roman Empire. After seventeen years
the throne of Odoacer was upset by the Ostrogoth Theodoric.
Then came the Lombards, and after them the Normans. Nation
pushed upon nation, and like a flood barbarism swept on. Occa-
sionally, too, there came a Genseric, or Alaric, or Attila, or T6tila,
heralding the terror of death and leaving desolation in his track.
Where is the imagination bold enough to form a conception of
the gloom, and anguish, and wide-spread agony of that time?

But it has been said above that some of these barbarous races
had become Christians. Their Christianity was of a spurious
kind, however, and made them rather worse than they might
have been without it. The Vandals, for instance, were Christians
of this sort. But what did they make of Africa? Africa was
once the most fertile garden of Christ, one of the brightest gems
in the crown of God's church. Africa the home of a St. Au-
gustine, of a St. Fulgentius alone numbered as many bishops as
are now counted in the world altogether. Are we not justified
in assuming that so fertile a Christianity must have reached from
one end of the continent to the other? And what is left of that
ancient Christian civilization of Africa to-day? Abyssinia, per-
haps ; but what a sad remnant is that ! Behold, then, the work
of heresy !

Now, a large part of Europe in fact, the largest part was
deep in the night of heathenism. The Franks in Gaul ; the Goths

i88o.] THE BENEDICTINES. 25I

in Italy and Spain, the Lombards too ; in England the Anglo-
Saxons; the Germans and Saxons between the Rhine and the
Baltic Sea ; the Swedes and Danes, and the Normans generally,
also the Slavonic tribes, and, in a word, all the barbarous races of
Europe had yet to be converted to the light of faith. What made
this a task of special difficulty was the fact that all these nations
hated the Christian religion because it was the religion of the
Romans. Then, again, their savageness was an almost insupera-
ble obstacle to the light of faith. Steadily on the move, nation,
as has been said, pushing upon nation, war was their only work.
What tilling of the soil had to be done was done by slaves cap-
tives made in war. Pillage and robbery were noble exploits.
Revenge of the most revolting kind was with them a sacred, a
religious duty. Those ancestors of ours were giants in body, but
not less so in brutality. With a passionate fondness they clung
to their national superstitions, and these, of course, were in per-
fect keeping with their brutalized natures. When the Christian
missionary spoke to them they would either kill him at once or
else treat him with supreme disdain. The powers of darkness
held them bound in thousand fetters.

The reader may wonder how, if all that was so, it could have
happened that some of them had left their ancient form of reli-
gious worship for even a spurious form of Christianity. No
matter how it happened. Perhaps it can easily be explained
when it is remembered that the devil may have had no reason to
object to that kind of conversion. However, only few of these
barbarous races, and even these but partly, had been perverted in
that manner. The vast majority of them were still heathens pure
and simple, and to convert them was a task, a problem not to be
solved by the usual methods. We simply point to Cologne,
Treves, and the many other Roman colonies of that time, which
had been Christian strongholds for centuries, distinguished, too,
by saints, and yet the barbarous populations surrounding them
were not converted. Their conversion, and consequently Eu-
rope's civilization, was a work reserved for monasticism.

In the East monasticism had, on the whole, gone to decay, and
in the West, too, when St. Benedict was born, decay was fast set-
ting in. But the monks of the West were not to be wrecked like
those of the East. The providential means to avert it was the rule
of St. Benedict. Monasticism in the West was saved by becoming

252 THE BENEDICTINES. [May,

Benedictine. The motto of the monks was: Or a et Labor a* No
doubt the reader will wonder how the life of a monk, checked as
it was by stability, could serve missionary purposes. We will see.

First of all, let it be remembered that those ancient monks
were giants in sanctity, just as the people they had to deal with
were giants in body, vice, and brutality. Those fierce ancl un-
tamed, and almost untamable, minds, whether of Celts, or
Franks, or Saxons, were appalled at the sight of the monks com-
ing among them with a practical display of their Ora ct Labora
of men whose sanctity, with all its Christlike meekness, had yet
about it a robustness, too, a vigor and a masculine energy aye,
almost a holy fierceness beyond anything we can well imagine.
But it must not be imagined that this new missionary method of
monasticism was anything but the most simple thing in the world.
The monks moved right into the lands of the barbarians (in
squads, not singly), built themselves houses, and strong ones, too,
and stayed right where they were. What else ? Well, to under-
stand the matter thoroughly, let the reader just look, for illustra-
tion's sake, to the habits of the little bee. Monasticism took the
hint of its activity from that pattern of nature. This is the whole
secret. Would not the barbarians interfere with this proceeding?
Of course ! But martyrdom had no terrors for the monks. Often,
however, the divine power that was with the monks kept their
assailants at bay. Step by step monastic foundations advanced
till at last the people had become accustomed to them. In fact,
it was, curiously enough, invasion parried by invasion. Every
monastery, too, was a school.

Lastly, Benedictine stability was not an unreasonable one.
There was nothing in it to prevent missionaries from going into
the neighboring country to preach the Gospel, nor yet was there
anything in it to prevent distinguished monks from becoming
bishops, when, of course, their mode of action had to be that of
St. Paul.

Of the famous spots in Benedictine history Sicily ranks
first. St. Placidus was sent there with thirty companions. He
was a favorite son of St. Benedict, and he with his compan-
ions, through piratical cruelty, became the first offerings of the
Benedictine Order on the altar of martyrdom. Next comes
France. St. Maur (whose name, by the bye, has been converted
by the English into Seymour), that other favorite son of St. Bene-
dict, was sent there. But France at that time was in a certain
sense a Christian country that is to say, the king and many of

* Pray and work.

i88o.] THE BENEDICTINES.

253

the chiefs were Christians ; the bulk of the Franks were not. But,
again, the Franks were not precisely the people of the land which
we now call France, but which was then called Gaul. They
were simply invaders of Christian Gaul ; and though that an-
cient Christian population of the land had been decimated fear-
fully, yet it was not extinct. It happened that Florus, chief
minister of King Theodebert, fully realizing the necessity of in-
fusing new life into the ancient Christianity of the land, caused
one of the bishops to request St. Benedict for a colony of his
monks. As said, St. Maur was sent as leader of this band.
Florus, rejoiced, built for the Benedictines the famous Glanfeuil,
entering himself as a simple monk and dying a saint. In Spain
the rule of St. Benedict, was adopted by St. Emilian, himself a
monastic founder and contemporary of St. Benedict. From this
religious family went forth that admirable light in the church
of Spain, St. Leander (St. Gregory's most intimate friend), the
second on the list of doctors of the church Ordinis Sancti Bene-
dicti, by whose efforts the whole Visigothic nation was con-
verted. And soon the fame of monasticism was made brighter
still in Spain by names like that of a St. Isidor, or a St. Ildephons,
the latter third among Benedictine doctors of the church.

To England Gregory despatched the noble band headed by St.
Austin. It is well known how the great pontiff, when still a sim-
ple monk, had longed to proceed to England in fact, had already
been on the way. God had a higher destiny for him in store.
He had to retrace his steps. But when pope the first thing he
did was to send missionaries to England, most of whom are now
on the list of canonized saints. England, indeed not the modern
but the good old Catholic England filled Benedictine history
with its richest glories. Who, for instance, can count the num-
ber of holy kings and queens of England ? England and Ireland,
united in the bond of holy and Catholic sisterhood, fairly poured
out a stream of monks into the barbarian world, enriching the re-
cords of civilization with the glorious names of a St. Willibrord,
of two Sts. Suitbert, of a St. Boniface, Virgil, Liutger, and hosts
of others. What a list of holy nuns, too, could here be given !
For truly those ancient monks knew what they were about ; they
assigned to womanhood a full share of their own arduous labors.
Ireland's Benedictines did not rest till they had verily reached
the North Pole.

It would now be in order to speak of the days of Benedic-
tine martyrdom (owing to renewed barbarian invasions, to which
brief reference will be made a little further on) in Spain, Ireland,

254 THE BENEDICTINES. [May,

England, France, Italy, and Germany. Then St. Benedict's chil-
dren entered heaven by the thousands with the palm. Further-
more, much might now be said of the labors of a St. Anscharius,
of two Sts. Adalbert, and of another St. Boniface. But enough :
we must look back once more.

As the vanguard of monks moved onwards steadily, those in
the rear were by no means idle, and could not be. The work
itself, from its very nature, was slow and tedious and the times
warlike as ever. But meanwhile there were grand conquests.
They may not, we will admit at once, be always due to strictly
missionary efforts ; but then such men as the Frank, Charles the
Great he almost a monk and entitled to the name of saint* and
certainly the greatest friend the Benedictines ever had such men
may, nay, must, be classed among the missionaries of religion.
The Christian heroism of Charles, much more than his invincible
sword, conquered the sturdy Saxon chief Wittekind, the father of
the Saxon dynasty of German emperors, among whom we count
the monk-emperor, Henry the Saint. But of old the public
honors due to a saint were given to Wittekind also. Such were
grand conquests for which the monks must receive due credit.

That pressure of nations of which we have spoken did not
cease at once. Against its crushing force the newly-converted
races had to defend their civilization with almost superhuman
efforts. First of all, they would no longer move. The character
of the young nations of Europe was being formed after the pat-
tern of that of the monks. But as a mass of floating ice, when
stopped at a certain point, whilst higher up the stream the crush
comes steadily on, will form a solid wall, causing the roaring
waters to rise till they can float off the moving mass in some
other direction ; so were those moving populations, by this
wall of stability in their front, now held in a jam that reached
all the way back over the Ural and Caucasus Mountains,
till at last an outlet was found for the stream of nations by way
of Arabia, and thence, dividing, it formed two branches: one
rushing upon the empire of the East, the other pushing the Mo-
hammedanized Vandals, by this time known as Saracens, out of
Africa back into Spain, France, and Italy. Under that tremen-
dous pressure the Eastern empire went to pieces. Spain's strug-
gle against it lasted seven hundred years. Also France and Italy
felt it severely. At the same time the current pressing from
the North still held its course. But the monks were there,

* In the diocese of Cologne, and in other dioceses of Europe, Charlemagne has the public
honors of the church given to saints.

iSSo.] THE BENEDICTINES. 255

and, therefore, the Christian civilization of Europe held its own.
Later on in history, when the struggle between Christendom and
the avalanche of infuriated barbarism (that had already over-
whelmed the East, and threatened likewise to overwhelm the
West) began to make it questionable which was to conquer, the
cross or the crescent, what did the world behold? Fighting
monks, most valiant knights, of the Order of St. Benedict.*

To speak of the various branches that shot forth from the
parent stem of Benedictine monasticism would impose on us the
task of speaking of twenty orders. All these are no longer in ex-
istence, but the stock itself is safe and sound. Neither can we
speak of a Bede, Dunstan, Anselm names so great both in the
history of the church and of the world who were also Benedic-
tine monks. There was a time when the Holy See itself seemed to
have become an heirloom of the sons of St. Benedict. The pig-
mies of the present love to descant on the ignorance of the monks.
We will only say that among the doctors of the church eight
were Benedictine monks. So much for monkish ignorance.

There is one other glory of monasticism that cannot be passed
by in silence. It was in the eleventh century. The Holy Roman
Empire was established. But not every emperor was a holy
man. Byzantine ideas were not foreign to many of them. Never,
indeed, was there a time when the church of Christ was per-
mitted to forget that it is militant on earth. Often did the civil
power attempt to subvert its constitution and to deprive it of its
liberty and independence. In the eleventh century many bishops
who, for wise reasons, had been endowed with temporal sover-
eignty by the great Saxon Otto, forgot their sacred character and
were tainted with simony. The inferior clergy, to a very large
extent, lived in shameful concubinage, and were clamorous for the
legalizing of priestly marriage, wherein they were upheld by that
imperial monster, the infamous Henry IV. Those were indeed
sad times. Even in many monasteries religious discipline had
given way to laxity of morals. To know these things of the past,
and to behold how the church has lived through them, even the
worst, triumphantly, is one of the best evidences that a divine
power guides her destinies. And yet that time saw a Romuald,
Bruno, Gualbert, Damiani, Bernard, Malachy. But everything
else in that time, if we except the still undimmed splendor of
Monte Casino, was thrown into the shade by the dazzling bright-
ness of a monastery in Burgundy in which the light of sanctity

* The orders of Christian knighthood in the middle ages were Benedictine monks, because
they followed the rule of St. Benedict.

256 THE BENEDICTINES. [May,

had been shining uninterruptedly for two hundred years. We
mean Clugny, the famous monastery founded by William, Duke
of Aquitaine, of glorious and saintly renown, to which three thou-
sand other monasteries were affiliated by the end of the eleventh
century. This monastic confederation (which, it need scarcely be
said, was thoroughly Benedictine) was the focus of the movement
by which the march of Csesarism in religion was checked, which
made a haughty emperor travel to Canossa, and by which also
the demon of corruption was banished from the ranks of the
clergy. That movement was brought to a successful issue by the
genius of Hildebrand, a Roman monk of Clugniacensian affilia-
tion. But a detailed description of this would require as much
space again as has been already taken up.

What man more than Hildebrand has had to bear the brunt of
the vilest vituperation ? But his contemporaries honored him by
making him the seventh of Gregories, history honors him by
calling him the second of his name justly great, and the church
honors him by calling him a saint.

To sum up : had it not been for this glorious energy of the
monks of the eleventh century, the Latin Church to-day, like its
Eastern sister, would be weighed down with a married priesthood.

Here we might stop, were it not for the question which many
a one will ask: What of the activity of the monks in the in-
terest of science, literature, art, agriculture, architecture? But
the monuments of such activity are spread over all the world.
They may speak for themselves. Is there nothing in the more
recent history of the Benedictine Order worthy of mention ? Far
be it from us to say that there is nothing. But we have said
enough for our purpose. Still, in conclusion, we must take a
parting look at the grand figure of the patriarch of Western
monasticism, that man in whom, as the church in the monastic
office declares, the spirit of the prophets and patriarchs of old was
combined. Did he know the greatness of his work when, at
Monte Casino, he established monasticism on the law of stability ?
For, beyond any doubt, all the grand results of Benedictine acti-
vity flow from the secret power of that peculiar law ; and wher-
ever we find in our historical reading that the labors of the Bene-
dictine monks were crowned with signal success, we also find that
they worked in a compact body not moving as a flying column,
but stationary behind the ramparts of the cloister. The church
must have all kinds of arms, but her Benedictines took charge of
the heavy artillery.

St. Benedict may have foreseen the grand results of his work ;

i88o.J THE NEW CHRISTIANITY.

257

for he was certainly a man singularly gifted with wonderful
lights from above. Yet it can hardly be realized that his humble
soul dwelt even for a moment on the greatness of his work. One
by one, though but slowly at first, his monasteries arose. They
were the strongest bulwarks of the church against the havoc and
corruption of the times, and piety fled to them for refuge. They
were the foundation of a new civilization for Europe ; and it is no
fulsome flattery, but strictly historic truth, to say we owe it to
the Benedictines that Mohammedanism found a barrier in Europe.
And no wonder; for the strength of St. Benedict and of his
children was that of the Day of Pentecost. He did not fly from
the world, brooding on plans for its reformation, but simply
sought to secure the salvation of his own soul. In that solitude
the seed of grand virtues was sown in his heart. Eventually God
led others to him. And had he not, as it were, been cruelly
driven from his own, perhaps he would not have written his ad-
mirable Rule. But when he had written it, then was the seed,
gathered from that rich harvest of virtue and wisdom which had
ripened in his soul, sown broadcast over the world. Storms,
indeed, threatened the coming crop ; but it came, and a goodly
crop it was. It kept on multiplying and increasing till it filled
the world and peopled heaven. There now the patriarch stands
among his children like a cedar in Mount Libanus, and his sons
and daughters like as branches of palm-trees stand about him.

THE NEW CHRISTIANITY.
II.

IN our former article, having accepted Max Miiller's conclu-
sion that there must be an Infinite Being as the only object and
explanation of the universal religious craving of mankind, we
sought for the Infinite in the universe of sense and experience,
but in vain ; and therefore we concluded from this and from other
arguments that the Infinite must be distinct from the universe,
and that the universe must be the work of his creative power.

But although among the facts of experience we do not find the
Infinite, there is among those facts one which points to him like
an unerring index-finger. That is the sense of moral right and
wrong which every man has within him. Experience and re-

VOL. XXXI. 17

258 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [May,

search show that this fact, the fact of conscience, is universal, as
wide as the limits of mankind ; they show that it is a fact of all
times, as clear in the earliest trace of man that we possess as it is
to-day ; and they show that it is something- which man could not
make and cannot unmake, because it rules him with an authority
which he may not obey, but which he cannot ignore or disown.
Man may drown the voice of conscience in the din of his pas-
sions ; he may break from its control in the rush of his lawless de-
sires ; he may tell it that he will not listen to its monitions nor
care for its approval or its condemnation ; but the voice is there
though he heed not, and the authority is there though he rebel.
He may try to discredit its dominion by calling it a usurper, by
picturing it as a growth of mistaken training and superstitious
weakness, or at most as a merely natural accumulation of heredi-
tary experience ; but he never succeeds in satisfying even himself,
and the common sense of mankind only laughs at his vain endeavor.
Conscience is the inner voice low, indeed, and small, yet more
awful than any outside tumult which tells man ever of duty
and responsibility, of the course of conduct demanded by his ori-
gin and his destiny. It is a supreme rule which he cannot abolish
or ignore, a tribunal which he cannot overturn, and before which
he knows that he is at the bar of a Judge whose sentence he can-
not evade. Conscience is the foot-print of Infinite Justice and
Holiness in man's nature, and it points unerringly to the Infinite
Lawgiver, telling at once of our freedom and of his authority.

This brings us to Matthew Arnold's notions concerning God
and conscience. Our readers will remember that, as stated in his
own words in our previous article, he defines God to be " the
eternal not-ourselves that makes for righteousness." Going on in
his definitions, he limits the meaning of his word " eternal " to
" cevi-ternus, or life-long," thus bounding it by the limits of indi-
vidual experience. He next analyzes his term " righteousness,"
and limits it to the well-mannered morality which secures social
pleasantness in life and avoids grossness and jarring. This being
so, he finally reduces God to mean that law of nature by which
man is prompted to social morality, just as falling bodies are na-
turally impelled towards their centre by the law of gravitation.
Throughout his works on religion he appeals to experience as the
foundation and vindication of his definition. Then let us consult
experience.

As we have just seen, every reasonable being has experience of
that within himself which " makes for righteousness," and he learns
from the words and acts of other people that they have the same

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 259

experience within them. This something within ourselves " that
makes for righteousness " all the world calls conscience. It is the
behest of " the law written in men's hearts, their conscience bear-
ing witness to them, and their thoughts within themselves accus-
ing them or else defending them " (Rom. ii. 15). But our experi-
ence goes no further. Of a something " not ourselves that makes for
righteousness " we have no experience whatever. The experience
of one and of all tells only of the impulse or law which each one
feels within himself. True, if I am not ready to stultify my rea-
son, as we will presently see that Matthew Arnold would have us
do, I can conclude from the internal law to a universal and supreme
Lawgiver ; and mankind have ever agreed in so concluding. And
thus the something in me " that makes for righteousness " tells
me of the true " Eternal not-ourselves," who does not himself
"make for righteousness," because he is necessarily perfect right-
usness or he would not be the Infinite, but who is the mea-
sure and rule and judge of all righteousness, who lays on us
the obligation of " making for righteousness," and has put in our
moral nature that mainspring of right action, that rule and that
impulse, which direct us in all our acts to make for him who
is the Eternal Righteousness. But it was reserved for him whom
Dean Stanley calls the first of living critics to confound two
things so palpably distinct, and to be guilty of the almost childish
sophism of taking conscience for God and defining one for the
other.

Having turned conscience into God, Matthew Arnold does
not save his credit for consistency by subsequently degrading con-
science into the mere result of experience and calculation of the
best means for living pleasantly. Thereby he only illustrates the
rule that error contradicts itself. The assumption for he does
not attempt proof is so contrary to the facts of consciousness
that nothing but a preconceived theory could have suggested it.
Such might be conscience and its dictates, if there was no God but
a law of nature. But that such are not conscience and its dictates
no one can doubt who honestly listens to and analyzes its behests.
It is not of pleasant living and social propriety that it speaks
although these elements of good order naturally result from obe-
dience to its rules but of justice and judgment and retribution to
come. This is not theory but experience, and we confidently ap-
peal to the judgment of mankind.

The conclusions thus far arrived at concerning God, creation,
and conscience are the evident results of reason working upon
facts. There is no escape from them, save to deny the reliable-

260 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [May,

ness of reason and thus stultify man. And this Matthew Arnold
has not shrunk from doing in order to maintain his pet notion.
He not only asserts the " relativity of knowledge " in its lowest
form, but he cuts off reason's wings completely. Not to follow
him through all the tiresome self-stultification of his chapter on
metaphysics in God and the Bible, the following specimen will
suffice. He says that from the beauty of design and the har-
monious working of a watch we have no right to conclude, by
force of reason, that some intelligent being devised and made it ;
we simply happen to know, as a fact of experience, that men make
watches, and conclude accordingly. Hence, in regard to any,
even the most complicated and admirable, works, from a bud or
an ear to the universe, we have no right to conclude that they
argue an intelligent designer, since we have no experience of that,
but are only justified in concluding that " they work harmonious-
ly and well " ! It is passing strange that " the greatest of living
critics " does not see that such a principle would paralyze rea-
son, would render induction as impossible as deduction, and
would annihilate not only metaphysics but all science. A more
striking instance could hardly be imagined of the resolve to force
a conclusion at any cost. Its author has evidently sided with
those sceptics who entirely deny the power of reason to gene-
ralize, abstract, argue, or conclude, and who are well called " ag-
nostics " that is, philosophical Know-nothings.

Against them all, and Matthew Arnold among them, we
simply appeal to facts and experience. It is a fact that man has
reason, that he does reason ; that even these gentlemen reason
when they argue against the validity of reason ; that all human
life is based on the fact that man reasons and depends upon the
validity of his reasoning ; and that even the errors which he may
detect in himself or others, far from invalidating reason, only
serve to show more clearly its power when it works in normal
circumstances. And it is a fact that this reason, whose powers
and reliableness are thus forced on man's acceptance, mounts un-
hesitatingly from second causes to the First Cause, from the reli-
gious craving which seeks the Infinite to the Infinite himself,
from conscience to the supreme Lawgiver in a word, from all
nature up to nature's God. These are facts of man's intellectual
nature, facts to which all experience and all history testify, and
they are the sufficient refutation of those philosophical Know-
nothings who claim to be the champions of fact and experience,
but who instantly reject or ignore all facts and experience which
make against their preconceived theory which protest against

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 261

their project of stultifying man in order to keep him down among
the gross and transient things of sense, in order to hinder him
from looking up and soaring up to that adorable First Beginning
and Last End who has left his foot-prints in the things of sense,
that they may show man's mind and heart the way up to him.

As if to provide against the failure of their attempt to degrade
God into a mere fact of consciousness, and to stultify reason,
which tells the contrary, Matthew Arnold and his fellow-agnos-
tics next go to the other extreme of elevating God so high that
reason can never reach him or tell aught concerning him. They
declare that, by ascribing the attributes of infinite perfection to
God, Ave make God in the likeness of man, and put form and
limit upon Him who has none. But nothing could be farther
from the truth than such assertions. It is not we but they who
make God in the likeness of man ; for what else is it to assert
with Matthew Arnold that God is only a law of man's nature, or
with Max Miiller that God is the all-comprising Self which has
its consciousness in man ? Put these notions in their plain, crude
form, and we have the assertion of one German pantheist that
" man makes God," or of another that " every man is his own
God."

We, on the contrary, knowing that all created perfection is
his gift, and that it is worthy of the Giver and tells us of him,
recognize in man's noblest powers some little shadowing forth of
God's perfections, and see that man is made in the likeness of
God.

Nor do we, by comparing the finite with the Infinite, put form
and limits on the Infinite. According to the clear and positive
teaching of St. Thomas, since all creatures are comprised within
the limits of genera and species, and God, the First Cause, is
above and beyond all genera and species, there can be no generic
or specific comparison between God and creatures, but only a
comparison of analogy. Hence, seeing that intellect and will are
the highest perfections of the creature, we naturally and neces-
sarily conclude that in God there are perfections analogically
corresponding to these noblest qualities of his creatures ; but we
also know that the divine perfections infinitely transcend the per-
fections of the creature, so that there can be no specific compari-
son between them. Hence St. Thomas says :

" Est autem via remottoms utendum, praecipue in consideratione divinse
substantiae. Nam divina substantia omnem formam, quam Lntellectus nos-
ter attingit, sua immensitate excedit ; et sic ipsam apprehendere nan possu-

262 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [May,

mus cognoscendo quid est, sed aliqualem ejus habemus notitiam cognoscen-
do quid non est" (Summa, contra Gent. 1. i. c. xiv.)

And like to this is the doctrine of St. John of the Cross in his
sublime treatise, The Ascent of Carmel. Comparisons and ima-
ginary representations, he says, are only the means that help be-
ginners to an imperfect notion of God ; but in proportion as we
advance to a more perfect knowledge of God and union with
him, all such comparisons in the mind, and forms in the imagina-
tion, and feelings in the sensibility must be transcended and dis-
regarded, since God is the Illimitable and Incomprehensible,
whom no such things can equal or represent. The finest passages
that have ever been penned about " the Unknowable " do not ap-
proach the sublimity of what the Angel of the Schools and the
great mystical theologian have taught concerning the incompre-
hensibleness of the Deity, and this in perfect consistency with
their acceptance of all that reason demonstrates and revelation
teaches concerning him. Because they are fully aware that their
minds cannot grasp his infinity, they do not refuse to believe any-
thing that he deigns to tell his creatures about himself and his
works.

And, again to retort the argument, is it not they who put
form and limits on the Illimitable by reducing him to a mere law
of nature, like to gravitation ? The pretended reverence of the
agnostics reminds us of that of the pagan persecutors, who put
the Christians to death as atheists because they did not accept
the gods of the Pantheon ; and their reasoning is like that of the
wolf which accused the lamb of muddying the brook. The ef-
forts of these men to decry reason, or to cast discredit on its fun-
damental conclusions, must be in vain. Their unworthy task is
akin to that of the old Greek sophists. Their work is in conflict
with the consciousness and the common sense of all mankind ;
and should the memory of their sophistry live, it will be in the
record of the dead and buried enemies of reason ; nor will the
ignominy of their failure be the less because, while trying to
strangle reason, they pretended to be her champions. Impar-
tial criticism will inevitably pass the .same condemnation on their
reverential sophistry as on their degrading agnosticism, and will
proclaim the victory of the great truths which, by these un-
worthy means, they have labored to undermine.

The two great truths of reason on which all other rational
truths hinge are these which we have thus far discussed : there
is an Eternal, Infinite God distinct from the universe, and the

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 263

universe is the work of his creative power. It was the gradual
wandering away from these truths that led the minds of the sages
of old into the labyrinth of error in which Plato and others like
him cried out despairingly for guidance from on high ; and it has
been the wandering away from the same truths that has caused
all the errors of our modern speculators, and of the authors of the
new Christianity among them. When Christianity brought back
the pagan world to these two truths, all other truths became
plain in their light, and the prayer of Plato was answered. And
when, to-day, we establish these same old truths against our
philosophical Know-nothings, their fabric of error dissolves like
mist-clouds before the risen sun, and the eternal hills, which had
been shut from view for a while, stand out as grand and as beau-
tiful as ever.

If God were only a law of nature, or the sum of all the laws
of nature, then miracles would be impossible, as these men assert.
But when God is seen to be the Author of nature, who freely
gave it its laws, and could have given it a thousand different
codes of laws had he so chosen, and who makes its workings sec-
ondary to the spiritual welfare of his intelligent creatures, then
the possibility of miracles becomes self-evident, and the proof of
their existence, like that of other possible things, becomes matter
of reliable testimony.

If man were not a being distinct from and dependent on his
Creator, then revelation would be impossible, as they assert, or,
which is the same thing, would be simply a natural outworking
of intellect, and the Bible would not be a divine inspiration, but
only an inspiration of poetry, as they say. But when we recog-
nize that man is God's creature, and that he has from his Creator
this nature of ours with all its cravings and all its needs, and,
above all, with that need of learning and being taught which is a
prime fact of individual experience and of history, then we clearly
see that the revelation of the needed truth and of the Creator's
will is not only possible, but, we may venture to say, a debt
which the Creator owes to the creature whom he has so consti-
tuted, and the Bible appears in its true character as the divinely-
inspired record of that revelation.

If man were not a creature, and if revelation were impossible,
then dogmas would indeed be mere human fancies, as these men
pretend, and the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption, sanc-
tification, and salvation might well be spoken of as "the mere
foam on the sea of enthusiasm." But when man is seen to be a
creature, and revelation a divine teaching given him concerning-

THE NEW CHRISTIANITY.

[May,

his destiny, his duties, his relation to his God, what God has dop *
for him and what he owes to God, then dogmas are a necessity of
revelation, and he who spurns them so flippantly spurns the gift
of God, and refuses to receive from his Creator the teaching
which would show him his destiny and guide him to it.

Were God and man what these men fancy, then might immor-
tality and the hereafter be regarded as the vague, shadowy un-
certainties of which Dean Stanley ventures to express only an un-
certain hope, or become the wild, pantheistic absorption in Nirvana
of which the old Hindoos dreamed, and which Max Miiller seems
to have imbibed from them ; and ere long it would be rejected ut-
terly, as by Matthew Arnold, who believes in no hereafter, and
pretends that Christ believed in none. But when we know that
man is God's creature and has God's revelation, then the im-
mortality of which that revelation tells becomes a blessed cer-
tainty, and we can exultingly exclaim, like Job, " I know that my
Redeemer liveth," and, like St. Paul, " I know whom I have be-
lieved, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto him, against that day."

If God and man were nothing but nature, advancing and de-
veloping by its intrinsic force, then might Christian truth, if such
a thing could exist at all, be only an advancing development of
the human intellect, receiving constantly additions of truth not
possessed before ; and then might Christ be only a phenomenal
development of human nature, more far-seeing than his fellows ;
and then might clinging to "traditional religion" be unreason-
able ; and then might divisions among Christians, which tend to
loosen their grasp on the old "traditional religion," be a blessing ;
and then might the " liberal theology " which aims at shaking off
the grasp altogether, and flinging " traditional religion " into the
ocean of the dead past, be a burst of sunlight for mankind. But
when God and man and revelation are seen to be what unbiassed
reason clearly sees them to be, then Christ our Lord is recog-
nized as the "God with us" whom prophecy foretold, "the Word
made flesh " whom St. John proclaimed, " the Way, the Truth,
and the Life " that he declared himself to be. Then the truth
which he commanded his apostles to teach all nations was that
" fulness of truth " which he brought from the bosom of the Fa-
ther, and from which all nations were to draw the living waters
that they need, with no need itself to draw from any nation or
any age. Then the Christian religion is essentially a " traditional
religion " that is, handed down, generation after generation, from
Christ. Then the differences among Christians, which reject one

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 265

or another part of that treasury of truth, and by which men take
religious opinions for religious faith, are sad causes of loss of God-
given and therefore necessary truth, sad evidences of that dire
crumbling and falling to pieces which must befall the lopped-off and
withering branches of which Christ himself tells. Then, in fine,
the " liberal theology " which would rob man of faith altogether
is an attempt to deprive him utterly of the gift of God, to cut
him adrift from his Creator, and to plunge the world into the
abyss of intellectual and moral darkness which St. Paul pictures
in his Epistle to the Romans, of which profane history testifies so
clearly, and from which the light and the power of the Christianity
now sneered at as "traditional religion" alone saved the world.
This brings us to one of the wildest of Matthew Arnold's as-
sumptions namely, that his new Christianity is to shed upon the
world the effulgence of righteousness, of morality. His God is
the power " that makes for righteousness," and his theology puts
aside dogma, that righteousness may reign without a rival.
In reading his honeyed sentences one would be almost tempted
to believe that dogmatic, traditional Christianity was a power
antagonistic to morality, an obstacle to righteousness. Can it
be possible that " the greatest of modern critics," when on the
mountain-top of the prophetical character which he has as-
sumed to himself, does really become oblivious of that bound-
less wealth of not merely genteel morality, but heroic virtue,
which dogmatic Christianity has inspired in all the ages of its
existence? Does he know nothing of the heroism of the mar-
tyrs, who in myriads rejoiced to lay down their lives for their
dogmatic faith ? Has he never heard of the pioneers of Christi-
anity, those generations of noble-hearted men whose glories Mon-
talembert has celebrated, who, amid untold hardships gladly
borne, carried to benighted millions the blessings of civilization
through the teaching of that same dogmatic faith, and through
the influence of the personal holiness which that faith inspired in
themselves ? Has he, then, no knowledge of, or no esteem for,
that pure, sweet, virginal chastity which, ever since Christianity
began, and thanks to its dogmatic teachings and sacramental aids,
has graced with its loveliness the deformity of this sad world, as
the sweet, humble daisies clothe the rough mountain-side with
spring-time beauty ? Can he ignore the almost countless army
of consecrated ones who, in this age as in every age, fill the world
with the sweet charity of their ministrations to every need of suf-
fering humanity, and who find the inexhaustible fountain of their
devotedness in the divine faith and divine love of the old tradi-

266 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [May,

tional Christianity ? Does he fail to discern in the course of his-
tory that unfailing stream of virtue domestic and civil, private
and public virtue which, amid the world's corruption, has never
ceased to make myriads of lives admirable, myriads of homes
happy, myriads of careers honorable, and all flowing from the
same blessed source, the old traditional Christianity ? Or if he
knows all this, does he claim that his new Christianity is to give
a better morality, or as good a morality, or any morality at all ?
What morality can there be where there is no God to look up to,
no heaven to hope for, no divine law to follow ? What morality
can there be where it is taught that nature is the only law, and na-
ture's development the only rule? Theorizers may indulge in
Utopian imaginings ; but practical men, who take men as they,
are, know but too well, from common sense and from history,
what the bulk of men are when nature is their rule, and what
mankind could not fail to become were nature their only God.
Utilitarian logicians like Locke and Hobbes have reasoned out
the conclusions, which experience has wrought out more than
once in the world's history, showing that the logical and inevi-
table result of such principles would be to turn the " one fold of
the Good Shepherd " into what Horace has well called " the herd
of Epicurus* pig-sty." Facts and experience are as destructive
of Matthew Arnold's moral pretensions as we have seen them
to be of his notions concerning conscience, and God, and all re-
vealed dogmas.

Can it be necessary, in order further to explode this absurd
counterfeit of Christianity, to quote its authors against them-
selves, and refute them by their own arguments ? A few words
only on this point. Dean Stanley quotes approvingly the beauti-
ful words of Hooker on his death-bed, who, meditating on the
number and nature of the angels, and their blessed obedience and
order, without which there could be no peace, even in heaven,
prayed that such peace might come to earth through the same
reign of order and obedience. This prayer Dean Stanley echoes
heartily. But where is the obedience where there is no com-
mandment ? and where can there be commandment where there
is no revelation, and, in the last analysis, no God distinct from
man? and without this obedience how can there be order and
peace? The "liberal theology" which rejects all dogma, and
makes man's nature the arbiter of his conduct, is the very oppo-
site of obedience, order, and peace, and launches forth mankind
every man according to his own conceit in the wild ways
unrestrained anarchy, intellectual and moral.

I88 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 26/

Matthew Arnold truly says :

"So prodigious a revolution does the changing of the whole form and
feature of religion turn out to be that it unsettles all other things too
brings back chaos. When it happens, the civilization and the socie'ty to
which it happens are disintegrated, and men have to begin again " (X
E. p. 40).

No words could be more in accordance with common sense
and experience ; and yet they contain the most crushing condem-
nation of his own theories. Who that looks beneath the plausible
cloak which he throws over them, as we have tried to do, can fail
to perceive that what he offers is a complete changing of all that
Christianity and religion have always meant to the world ? And
what result then could be expected but the chaos which he rightly
declares to be the inevitable result of such change? Oh! who
could picture the dread upheaval? Byron's fearful "dream,
which was not all a dream," would then indeed find its realization
in the moral world. Society would soon display a worse dark-
ness and chaos than that which he beheld when

" The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.

The world was void ;

The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless
A lump of death a chaos of hard clay.

The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished. Darkness had no need
Of aid from them she was the Universe ! "

Turn God into a law of nature ; turn heaven into such com-
fort as we can find here below ; turn conscience into a mere expe-
rience of what best conduces to our own easy living ; and what
would life and the world be, for childhood, for youth, for old
age ? Would not the sun be quenched indeed, and, in the horrid
darkness, would not the dead world shrivel up and crumble into
chaos ?

After this careful examination of the doctrines put forth by
Arnold, Stanley, and Miiller we may surely be allowed, without
any accusation of uncharitableness, to express our amazement at
the effrontery that is capable of propounding such views under
the name and guise of Christianity. Tt is not hard to see why it

268 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [May,

is done. Experience has shown, as Arnold himself fully states,
and as Froude has since testified, that the teachings of crude and
naked rationalism and unbelief have produced a popular reaction
in favor of dogmatic Christianity. Therefore rationalism and
unbelief must be clothed in the garb of Christianity, in order that
they may meet with popular favor. Hindoo pantheism sounded
less repulsive, no doubt, when heard amid the Christian surround-
ings of the lecture-hall in Westminster Abbey, and labelled by its
venerable dean as " a storehouse of wise theology." Biblical ra-
tionalism and the praises of Rousseau and Spinoza shock less, no
doubt, when breathed forth in the gentle, silvery tones of the
honored clergyman in charge of England's grandest ecclesiastical
monument. Rank materialism and humanitarianism sound less
revolting, no doubt, in the elegant diction of one who claims to
be the champion of Christianity and the Bible, and whose utter-
ances are recommended by his being chosen to lecture the Angli-
can clergy of London on the nature and destiny of the Church
of England. But who will say that such Christianity is not a
counterfeit and a sham ? Or who will say that such a counterfeit
is honest ? And who can help fearing that this counterfeit Chris-
tianity will do incalculably more damage in deceiving the unwary
and breaking down safeguards than its destructive errors could
have done if put forth in their genuine and honest absurdity and
repulsiveness ? And who, in fine, can help wondering at the atti-
tude of the Church of England, in countenancing this conspiracy
against Christianity, by tolerating and honoring its authors ?

But the cloak is too flimsy ; and when this counterfeit Chris-
tianity will have met the fate which all counterfeits deserve, the
true Christianity of all nations and ages will shine with all the
more lustre because of this attempt on the part of infidelity to
counterfeit it. Nothing is counterfeited but what is valuable ;
and so unbelief does homage to Christianity, as hypocrisy to vir-
tue.

Grudgingly, too, but most strikingly, do these would-be
authors of a new dispensation pay homage to the Catholic
Church. It is interesting and instructive to remark the difference
between the views of Catholicity expressed by Dean Stanley and
those put forward by Matthew Arnold a difference arising from
their different stand-points. Matthew Arnold stands further on
the road of humanitarianism than Dean Stanley. The dean is
leading on, through paths of Biblical rationalism, to the term
which Arnold has already reached. Stanley, therefore, in his ef-
forts to cast aside dogmas, looks on private judgment as the

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 269

hammer which breaks down dogmatic faith ; and he compliments
Protestantism, on both sides of the Atlantic, on the unsettledness
of creed and the multiplicity of sects and divisions, which are ac-
complishing the breaking-up process which he desires. Arnold
has reached the goal of simple humanitarianism he has no dog-
mas to get rid of and so he regards Protestantism as only a ham-
mer, only a disintegrator; and he looks back to the Catholic
Church as the great and only representative of unity t which is es-
sential to all order. He says :

" ' The dissidence of Dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant re-
ligion,' have some of mankind's deepest and truest instincts against them,
and cannot finally prevail. If they prevail for a time that is only a tempo-
rary stage in man's history ; they will fail in the end, and will have to con-
fess it. ... This, at any rate, is certain : that the great and sure gainer by the
dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion is
the Church of Rome. Unity and continuity in public religious worship are
a need of human nature, an eternal aspiration of Christendom, but unity
and continuity in religious worship joined with perfect mental sanity and
freedom. A Catholic Church transformed is, I believe, the church of the
future " (L. E. p. 227).

We can forgive the sneer for the honesty of the avowal. His
ideal, then, is like that apt expression of Comte's notion : " The
Catholic Church with its Christianity left out," or " the play of
Hamlet with Hamlet left out." But what has just been said of
the result for Christianity is equally true of the result for the Ca-
tholic Church. The homage paid to her by these advocates of
unbelief will live and do her honor when their system of unbelief
will have mingled in the dust of countless systems before it.
Both by their acknowledgments and by their attacks they pro-
claim that she is the only efficient guardian of dogmatic and tra-
ditional Christianity, and therefore of faith and of the hopes of
the human race. Thus they echo the homage which Huxley paid
her as the only power that could efficiently resist the destructive
theories of false science.

And, as we have seen in these investigations, she maintains
the old truth and refutes the novelties of error, not by hushing
reason, not by a crushing and blinding intellectual despotism, as
these men would have the world believe, but, on the very con-
trary, by defending and maintaining reason against these innova-
tors, who know that there is no hope for their materialism, save
in chaining reason to the rock, like Prometheus, that the vultures
may devour it. Under such terms as " agnosticism," " the rela-
tivity of knowledge," and the like, they deny the noblest powers

270 THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. [May,

of reason, and fancy they overthrow its work by sneering at it as
metaphysics. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, maintains
that the powers of reason are the starting-point and foundation of
faith ; that man is not a mere animal, capable only of seeing and
feeling and comparing sensations, but a rational being, enlighten-
ed by " the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh
into this world," and capable of knowing truth which does not
depend on experience, but to which he knows that experience
must conform. He sees that three times three must be nine, and
that, in the world of experience, they never can be found other-
wise ; he sees that the three angles of a triangle must be equal to
two right angles, and that experiment never can make a triangle of
which this will not be true ; and from simple truths like these,
and the insight they give into reason's power to apprehend abso-
lute and necessary truth, she bids man recognize the nature and
the end of this God-like gift of intellect. As with his bodily eyes
he looks from the stones and the rocks and the mountains away
into the starry depths, so with the eyes of his intellect she bids him
spurn the fetters of materialism and look from nature up to
nature's God ; and as with the telescope he scans the immensities
of the universe, so through divine faith she makes him acquainted
with the mysteries of God. And knowing that God is the author
of the old truth which she hands down from the beginning, she
knows full well that it never can be contradicted by any natural
truth or fact that man may discover. She points to her sons,
gracing the highest walks in philosophy and science, as well as
in theology, and bids the world recognize in them and in their
mother church that glorious compatibility, yea, that essential con-
nection, between the highest morality and the highest intellectual-
ity which Socrates proclaimed, and which Professor Jowett and
Matthew Arnold quote from him, while inconsistently striving to
hold man down from those noble intellectual conclusions to which
even Socrates pointed up. She challenges the world to look
honestly into her teaching and her work, and say whether she
does not fulfil that ideal which Dean Stanley has so well pic-
tured :

" So to put forth old truths that they may with each successive age
wear a new aspect ; so to receive new truths that they may not clash rudely
with the old this is the function which God entrusts to each new genera-
tion of mankind" (Add. and Serm., p. 138).

She stands before the world, the temple of the Most High, the
tabernacle of God with men ; her trenches dug deep in the
primitive revelation whence man received the divine truth which,

1
I

i88o.] THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 271

even in the first faint gleam of profane history and literature, we
find him possessed of; patriarchs and prophets the immovable
flag-stones from which her structure mounts ; the apostles her
twelve foundations, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-
stone ; the Holy Scriptures the solid base, from which the wis-
dom of her Fathers and Doctors and theologians rises like mighty
columns to support the gorgeous arches of her heavenly liturgy ;
generations of saints, of high and low degree, the living stones that
build up her massive walls ; the genius and the virtue of all ages
adorning every niche and beautifying every nook and corner ;
the chanted or whispered prayer of all ages floating up in harmo-
nies which rival the " holy, holy, holy " of the Seraphim, while
the perpetual indwelling of the Holy Spirit fills it with the
majesty of God. Such is the church which "the Lamb slain
from the beginning of the world " has made the sheepfold of all
ages. And as we gaze upon its beauteous and vast and immova-
bly solid proportions, the uncertainty, the doubt, the wreck and
chaos of the void without make us bow down in more lowly
thankfulness for the blessing, and with deeper yearning that they
who so sadly stray may yet hear the voice of the Good Shep-
herd and come to rejoin their brethren in the one fold.

Mr. Gregg, another of the leaders in the movement we have
been describing, declares, and Arnold and Stanley echo the as-
sertion, that their rejection of the old Christianity comes mostly
from their early teaching concerning predestination, justification
by imputation, and salvation by faith alone. As Moehler has
well shown in his great work on symbolism, the notions which
they reject were never the teachings of the Catholic Church, but
are the very foundations of the " reformed " theology. Through
the mistaken following of these exaggerated and erroneous doc-
trines their forefathers left the old church. Ever since, as then,
she has not ceased to mourn their wandering and to condemn the
false doctrines which led them astray. And now that their de-
scendants are forced by common sense to join in the condemna-
tion, should not common sense also guide them back to the di-
vinely constituted guardian of Christian truth from -which these
very doctrines that they reprobate have separated them ? May
the day soon come when men of noble intellects and honest hearts
will recognize that, instead of the vain attempt at building up a
new Christianity, duty calls them to turn their energies to the
worthy and salutary task of recalling men to the old God-given
Christianity and the old God-established church which, in the
words of St. Augustine, are " ever old, yet ever new " !

272 AVE MARIA. [May,

AVE MARIA.

TO-NIGHT above the valley lights

We keep our broad hearth-fire,
Whose sparks, set free from earthly bonds,

For evermore aspire :
To thee we turn, beside its glow,

With thought of deep desire :
May not our life like these spent stars

In ashes pale expire
Ave Maria,
Gratia plena,
Bear thou our souls 4 still higher.

The midnight blue of summer sky

Above the hills lies spread ;
The silent stars fill full of peace

The infinite depths o'erhead ;
Dark lie the hollows of the hills

As if death shadowed :
O Mother ! let thy mantle blue

Its folds about us spread
Ave Maria,
Gratia plena,

Keep us in peace, pure Maid.

Near seem our feet to heaven to-night,

Our pathway fair and clear ;
Our mountain throne God's footstool is,

Bring thou our hearts as near ;
Give us his grace for our good-night,

So banish every fear,
From any thought of dread or ill

Keep thou our visions clear
Ave Maria,
Gratia plena,
Pray for us, Mother dear.

i88o.] CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. 273

CATHOLIC COLONIZATION *

ONE of the greatest social and political problems of the day is
to determine what to do with the poor. And by the poor is not
meant the indigent merely, or that large class of persons whom
nature or misfortune throws for their care and hope of life in this
world on the charity of their fellows ; but men and women of in-
telligence befitting their station, of good principles, sound health,
active minds, and nimble hands, who rejoice in labor and find no-
thing so sweet in this world as their own bread, but who, from the
shiftings of trade and commerce and the ebb and flow of circum-
stance, are often threatened with, and sometimes stranded in, hope-
less poverty. At the best large numbers of them perpetually lead
a hand-to-mouth existence, and struggle from the cradle almost to
the grave to keep body and soul together. When mere life is an
everlasting struggle what care can be bestowed on the children of
those whose own lot is so wretched ? Humanly speaking, it is an
accident whether they turn out well or ill ; the chances being
naturally that they turn out ill, for the odds of life are all against
them. In Europe to-day this is especially true, and for two chief
reasons : first, the constant and ever-increasing drain upon the peo-
ples by their governments to support vast armies and armaments,
which, it is claimed, are necessary to keep the peace among these
very peoples, though in themselves they are peaceable enough
and hate war ; second, from the overcrowding of the populations
in the more powerful states without corresponding avenues of in-
dustry and employment for them. Not a great nation in Europe
but is cursed with poverty. Poverty among large masses means
danger of every kind. And this poverty is growing rather than
diminishing in precise proportion to the exactions of the govern-
ments.

The great haven of refuge for these people is this country, this
vast continent of as yet undeveloped resources and almost illimi-
table spaces, which Providence would seem to have opened up to
relieve an exhausted world. And the people have come here.
They have been coming in streams for the last fifty years. A
century ago the population of the United States was about three
millions. It is now nearly forty millions, and there is still room

* The Religious Mission of the Irish People and Catholic Colonization. By the Right Rev.
John L. Spalding, D.D., Bishop of Peoria. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.
1880.

VOL. XXXI. 18.

274 CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. [May,

and ample means of support for all Europe, so far as the pro-
ducts of the soil and the means of livelihood go. But we have
now a nation formed, with large and populous cities. Thousands
upon thousands of those who come to better their lives and for-
tunes, on arriving see wealth and industry around them. They
make the mistake of staying where they land. It is natural for
them to think that in centres of such wealth and busy commerce
there must be room for them. Each one is but an individual.
He cannot tell upon the crowd. He forgets the aggregate.
And so, instead of pushing onward and inward to where the
throng is less and there is greater room for him and the exercise
of such powers and faculties as he may possess, he settles down a
helpless straw in a vast whirlpool of industry.

For one newly arrived who will succeed in our cities five will
fail or eke out an existence little better than that they have been
accustomed to in the past. For our cities are now established.
Each one may be said to have his place there. They are over-
crowded, in fact. For the great mass of those who now come
we speak of the poorer, the agricultural classes especially there
is no place any longer in our great cities. They must go else-
where. Hence colonization has become a question to demand the
attention of this government and the governments of the States,
and within a few years the transportation of immigrants, on their
arrival, to regions suitable for their maintenance and occupation
will doubtless be arranged on a systematic plan. Indeed, every
encouragement to that end is already offered by the government
in the way of cheap transportation and the allotment of cheap and
fertile lands. But at present much is left to individual or co-op-
erative efforts on the part of individuals. Hence have arisen the
various colonization societies already in existence, which have for
their primary object the care of the immigrants on their arrival
here.

We are here considering Catholic immigrants chiefly ; and,
without inquiring into the causes, it is safe to say that up to th<
present Catholics as a body have been singularly neglectful oi
Catholic interests in this most important matter. This seeming
neglect may have been a matter of necessity while the church
was still in a state of formation. It is now, however, in a position
to act as a unit in any great matter of Catholic interest, and sureb
none can be greater than to watch over the spiritual and social
well-being of the stream of Catholic immigrants annually touch-
ing our shores ; to guide it to a sure channel and hold it fast ii
the bosom of the church. The great work of the Catholic

i88o.] CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. 275

Church on earth is to preach the Gospel and plant the church.
The church has preached and continues to preach the Gospel
here, and has planted the church in the large cities and places
adjacent. But hitherto there has been no systematic scheme on a
large scale to make use of the ample means at our hands of plant-
ing the church in the new regions of the republic by assisting
the great work of colonization. If there are to be colonies at all,
as there must be, what is to hinder the erection of Catholic colo-
nies, any more than Swedish or Mennonite, German or Mormon ?
Thousands of Catholics land yearly on these shores to seek a
home and maintenance for themselves and families, and the means
of bringing up their children in the knowledge, love, and fear of
God. There is no reason whatever why they should be lost in
the crowd. On the contrary, from the very fact stated, that the
great centres of population are already crowded to excess, there
is every inducement and reason for the new immigrants to push
out in bodies, on their arrival, to places and homes prepared for
them beforehand. Catholics are now strong enough, wealthy
enough, and numerous enough to do something in this way.
And the fact that they have not done something already is pro-
bably due to the lack of being fully awakened to the necessity
and feasibility of such a plan. Nor is the work to be at all con-
sidered in the light of a charity, but rather as a practical business
enterprise calculated to repay richly those who honestly under-
take it.

It is to bring the subject home to Catholics in this country
and elsewhere that Bishop Spalding has written the volume that
gives occasion for the present notice. His desire is to rouse Ca-
tholics to a sense of what they are missing in neglecting the great
opportunities now before them which are being so eagerly seized
by others. Our cities are thronged with Catholic poor, them-
selves and their children often going to destruction. There is no
reason why they should be poor, and no reason why they should
go to destruction. There is every reason, for the sake of both
body and soul, why they should be removed from surroundings
that constantly threaten the life of both. To show how easily
and successfully this may be accomplished is the main purpose of
Bishop Spalding's book. The bishop is the president of the
" Irish Catholic Colonization Society " established last year ;
and the aims and objects of this society may best be told in his
own words :

" It was the knowledge of these facts, together with the deep conviction

276 CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. [May,

of the urgent need of doing something to help to bring about a redistribu-
tion of our Catholic population, that led to the formation of the Irish Ca-
tholic Colonization Society of the United States, which is a joint-stock
company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. Its history is
told in a very few words. The St. Patrick's Society of Chicago took the
initiative by issuing invitations to a National Conference to consider the
subject of Irish Catholic Colonization, and to be held in that city on the
1 7th of March, 1879. The conference assembled on the appointed day, with
a numerous and representative attendance ; and it was admitted on all sides
that there was urgent need of devising some practical means whereby the
settlement of our people upon the cheap lands of the States and Territories
of the Union might be facilitated and increased. But as deliberation is
hardly possible in a large and hurried meeting, it was deemed advisable to
appoint a committee, to be composed of bishops, priests, and laymen, with
power to give definite shape to the general thought of the conference.
This was accordingly done, and the committee met in Chicago on the i8th
of April, 1879, and again on the 2oth of May following, and, after long dis-
cussions and consultations, finally determined to form and incorporate, un-
der the laws of Illinois, a joint-stock company, to be known as " THE IRISH
CATHOLIC COLONIZATION ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES."

The object of the association, as set forth in the act of incorporation, is
"to promote, encourage, and assist the settlement of Irish Catholic citizens
and immigrants on the lands in the States and Territories of the United
States." The capital of the company is to be used in the purchase of lands,
which are resold to colonists on advantageous terms, and yet so as to se-
cure to the stockholders a fair return upon their investment. The associa-
tion, moreover, builds an emigrant-house, a church and priest's residence
in each colony, and, in certain cases, advances the money to plough twenty
or thirty acres on each farm the average price being about two dollars per
acre and also to put up cottages at a cost of from one hundred and fifty to
two hundred dollars each. The farm, with these improvements, is sold to
the settler on time, and the association secures itself from loss by retaining
the title until full payment shall have been made. The colonies are estab-
lished exclusively on railroad lands, which, when bought in large tracts and
for cash, are frequently sold for less than half the price which the settler
who buys a small farm on time would have to pay. In this way the asso-
ciation can afford to resell on time at a much higher rate than it paid, and
yet give to the colonist exceptionally favorable conditions, besides the so-
cial and religious privileges which it secures to him. For every hundrec
dollars invested it draws interest at six per cent, on, say, one hundred and
fifty dollars, so that the business is not only safe but profitable. The secre-
tary is the only officer in the association who receives a salary, and the
only outlay of money for which no return is made is ttye amount spent in
the erection of an emigrant-house and provisional church a sum equiva-
lent to from three to four thousand dollars.

" Though the motive which prompted the action of the men who organ-
ized this company was, I may say, exclusively religious and benevolent, yet
their whole endeavor was to place the enterprise upon a purely business
basis, since they were persuaded that in this way they could most easily and
certainly attain the object aimed at. It would be a perfectly safe proceed-

i88o.] CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. 277

ing to buy fifty or a hundred thousand acres of land in Minnesota or Ne-
braska at the prices at which it is offered, and then simply to await the ad-
vent of population and consequent rise in value. The association buys the
land, and, instead of trusting to the incoming tide of immigration, puts the
colonists on it at once, and consequently has an immediate .sale at a fair
price."

The capital stock of the society is $100,000 a small sum truly
for the great work contemplated. But the society thought it
wiser, Bishop Spalding informs us, to begin with a small capital :
i. Because the enterprise is necessarily to some extent experimen-
tal at least, it must so appear to most of those who are asked to
contribute towards it ; and 2. Because of the serious doubt on the
part of the company whether subscribers could be procured at all
in sufficient numbers to justify making the experiment. And, in
truth, it was found extremely difficult to raise even $100,000 for
the purpose ; and it is questionable whether the sum would have
been raised at all, had not Bishops Spalding and Ireland verita-
bly " stumped " the country in order to explain the objects, plans,
and possibilities of the association's scheme. Their cautious re-
ception struck a chill to enthusiasm. Indeed, Bishop Spalding
complains of " the dearth of large and enlightened views among
wealthy Catholics on the work and wants of the church in the
United States," and remarks that " even the better sort seem to
have little idea of anything that reaches beyond a parish charity."
Nevertheless, to reasonable men the reluctance to take up such a
scheme on mere assurances, no matter whose the authority, must
appear natural and wise. Besides, Bishop Spalding himself
shows in his volume the unfortunate and ill-grounded prejudice
that had been created in the minds of Catholics against anything
in the shape of Catholic colonization on a systematic scale. The
society, then, ought to congratulate itself and take courage rather
from the opposition it may have received and overcome and the
slowness to respond to its appeal. This has necessitated a lively
ventilation of the whole question, a shaking up of dead bones, the
publication of Bishop Spalding's book in itself no mean result.
The attention not of Catholics alone, but of the public press and
public men of the country, has been drawn to the society and its
objects ; so that those who share its labors cannot complain that
there is any attempt to deceive them. The fullest possible inves-
tigation into the whole matter has been made by keen, intelligent,
and practical men. Finally, they have approved of it.

" The money has been called in and certificates have been issued to the
subscribers. The association has bought ten thousand acres of land in

278 CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. [May,

Minnesota and twenty-five thousand in Nebraska. In the Minnesota
colony the farms have all been sold, and the land in the Nebraska colony,
which has just been opened, will without doubt be taken up in a very short
time."

Well, there is an actual beginning at all events ; and needless
to say if this initial movement succeed in the manner so confi-
dently predicted for it by those who set it going, it is likely to in-
augurate a movement vast in size and import not only to Catho-
lics but to the whole country. If it be shown that bodies of
Catholics can be caught up on their arrival, or even after their
arrival that men willing to go and work where work is plen-
tiful and yields a rich reward can be transplanted from the
crowded cities to the free prairies of the West, with success
ensured, one may say, beforehand there is likely within a few
years to be a much-needed thinning-out of our poverty-stricken
city populations. Moreover, those from other lands who con-
template coming hither will have half their doubts and diffi-
culties solved beforehand. The main thing for these people to
determine before coming is where to go and what to do. If
this be wisely decided for them in advance, how different their
lot and prospects for the future ! Suppose a number of Irish
families, small farmers or such like, life-long neighbors, with a suf-
ficiency of means to start for the United States, get together
and agree on the point of their destination, after communicat-
ing with such a society as this with how much more courage
and hope can they leave the home that no longer holds out any
prospects of future advancement for themselves and their fami-
lies, than if they purposed starting at all costs, in a hap-hazard
way, to do the best they could and trusting to Providence to help
them ! But this is just the work contemplated by the associa-
tion of which Bishop Spalding is the president.

It must be remembered that the association of which we
speak has always Catholic colonists in view. It is intended that
they should be kept, and their children moulded, in the faith ; that
there should be ample means for the blessings of Catholic wor-
ship and Catholic education. Numbers of Catholic waifs and
strays in New York City alone are being constantly transported
out West to the homes of farmers. For the most part these are
lost to the faith. They are set down among Protestants; the
chances are that they never see a priest unless by accident, while
it is known that the attempt to obliterate their faith is not the
least motive actuating those who send them out. The New York
Tribune has published several lists of boys sent out in this way by

i88o.] CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. 279

means of funds placed in the hands of the editor, Mr. Reid, for
that purpose. Of course we do not dream of accusing Mr. Reid
of being actuated by a spirit of proselytism in the benevolent
work of which he is the trustee. He simply takes the children
who are sent to him and disposes of them according to demand.
It is sad, however, to see many an Irish and Catholic name in the
lists, while perhaps a third of those sent out in this way from the
House of Refuge are unquestionably of Catholic parentage.

Had Catholics only a few more colonies of the kind already
established in Minnesota and such as is now set on foot by the
Irish Catholic Colonization Association, there would be homes
and employment for these unfortunate children where they would
be received and welcomed without detriment to their faith.
Here is the plan of the association as sketched by Bishop
Spalding :

"The colony is placed under the immediate supervision of the bishop in
whose diocese the land lies. He, with the approval of the association, ap-
points the priest who is to take charge of the work. The ground is exam-
ined, section by section, before purchase. The site for the church and vil-
lage, which is generally determined by nature or the position of the rail-
road, is agreed upon in advance. The colonists, upon their arrival, find the
priest waiting for them, who conducts them either to their own cottages,
standing in readiness, or else to the emigrant-house, where they remain until
their own is built. They reach the colony at seed-time, and in a few days
are busy planting their gardens and sowing wheat. If temptation to dis-
couragement comes the priest and the church are there to inspire confi-
dence."

This is no fancy sketch. It is simply true, and we can imagine
nothing better calculated to appeal to the best instincts and hopes
of men anxious to better themselves and improve their condition
in this world than just such an inducement as is here held out.
Those who know of families or persons likely to take up this
mode of life can easily communicate with the association, which
has offices in Chicago, St. Paul, and Omaha. As Bishop Spal-
ding forcibly says : .

" There is not a priest in the whole country who may not become an
active worker in this cause ; for everywhere a few Catholics at least are
found who are leading a migratory life, keeping railroads in repair, or labor-
ing in villages, or working as hired hands in shops and business houses.
Now, if priests everywhere would take upon themselves the duty of warn-
ing against the dangers of such a mode of life, pointing out at the same
time how easy it is to establish a settled home .in the midst of one's coun-
trymen, where the young will grow up in the observance of all the old tradi-
tions of faith and purity, it certainly would not be rash to hope for vast
results from such preaching. I do not think there is a better way of incul-

280 CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. [May,

eating morality than to persuade people to seek those surroundings which
of themselves tend to promote religious earnestness and purity of conduct.
My own limited experience is proof sufficient for myself, at least, that the
number of Catholics who are anxious to get a thorough knowledge of this
question of colonization is very great. What they read awakens interest
but does not satisfy them. The laboring man is slow to realize what he
hears or reads of, and many doubts and difficulties present themselves to
his mind which a tract or book cannot explain. He needs some one who is
thoroughly familiar with the subject in all its details, and with whom he
can talk at his ease and with the full confidence that he is his friend. When
he has once rightly understood the matter he will in turn become a per-
suader of others ; and so the good work tends of itself to thrive. From the
priest, however, the impulse should come."

And now what is required of the colonist in order that he
may embark on the enterprise with a fair hope of success ? He is
not expected to go absolutely without scrip or staff. Some little
capital is necessary, and it is the object of the association to
assist those who have some means over the first year or two of
struggle. " To settle under favorable conditions," says Bishop
Spalding, on the authority of Bishop Ireland, whose experience is
as thorough in this matter as his wisdom is sound and practical,
" a family should bring about five hundred dollars to meet the
expenses of building a cottage and buying the indispensable im-
plements of agriculture." It is not necessary that a man should
know much, or indeed anything, about farming at the outset. It
is necessary, however, that he be strong and willing to work.
All who go and settle in these colonies are by no means farmers
when they first arrive there. They are men of all classes and
ways of life. The practical working of the movement has been
successfully tested by Bishop Ireland, of Minnesota, to whom
Bishop Spalding gives " the place of honor " in the whole move-
ment. " A joint-stock company," the latter tells us, " similar in
every respect to the one of which 1 have spoken, except that its
capital is smaller and its aims local, was organized in St. Paul
three years ago ; and the colony which it has founded is thorough-
ly successful, while the property which it now holds represents
more than double the amount of the capital originally invested in
the business." This is a point on which we cannot insist too
strongly in the grave matter of recommending an enterprise of
this kind to public favor. Those who engage in it are entering
on no wild-goose chase nor on a completely novel experiment.
Catholic colonies are already in existence and flourishing, though
with less advantages than the present association offers to the
colonists. They have been planted in Minnesota by Bishop Ire-

i88o.] CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. 281

land. He opened his first colony in 1876, and here is his pro-
cess :

" His working plan, which is the same for all his colonies, is very simple.
He selects a tract of land of fifty or a hundred thousand acres, the exclu-
sive right to dispose of which for three years is given to him by the rail-
road company. Through a bureau, which he has organized for this pur-
pose, he brings these lands, with full details as to price and conditions
of sale, to the notice of Catholics who may desire to secure homes. He
chooses a priest, with a special view to his knowledge of farming and farm
life, to preside over the new colony. He is on the ground to receive the
first settler, who upon his arrival finds a father and a friend. The church is
the first building put up, and around this the earliest colonists choose their
lands. Town sites are laid out at proper distances along the line of the
railroad. In a few weeks after the colony is opened there is a post-office
and a country store, but no saloon. The lumber to build the cottages of
the settlers is brought by the railroad at reduced rates. Farms are selected
in advance for those who, properly recommended, write to declare their in-
tention of becoming colonists.

" The country is a rolling prairie. No trees ar'Q to be felled, no roads are
to be made, and, as there is a herd law in these Western States, no fences
are built. The one difficulty which makes the beginning tedious is the
necessity of ploughing the wild prairie a year in advance of sowing the first
crop, as the roots of the grass that has been growing for centuries hold the
upturned sod in a compact and matted mass, which will break up only after
it has been frozen and thawed. Vegetables and corn, however, can be
raised after the first ploughing. When those who have bought farms so
desire, the priest has twenty or thirty acres of each farm ploughed the sum-
mer before their arrival, so that when they come they begin at once to sow
their wheat, and in four months reap the harvest. The farming is of the
most elementary kind. Everything is done by machinery which is so sim-
ple that a man learns to handle it in a day. Care, moreover, is taken to
intersperse practical farmers among the mechanics and city people ; and as
great good-will prevails, those who have skill are ready to train their less
fortunate neighbors. Then the priest is always there to give counsel and
to inspire a cheerful and hopeful spirit. Six or seven years are given to
make payment for the land, and the price of purchase is received by the
railroad company in instalments and with a low rate of interest. It often
happens that a single crop sells for more than the entire cost of the land.
As the country is wholly free from malaria, sickness is almost unknown,
and this most active cause of discouragement and failure in new settlements
is therefore absent. From the very beginning there is generally a daily
mail, which enables the colonists to keep up old and dear associations with
their friends and kindred at home."

A point of deep interest and vast importance is this :

" Another important result of Bishop Ireland's efforts is the practical
demonstration of the fallacy of maintaining that persons who have lived
long in cities, and who have been occupied in factories or in mechanical
trades, will not succeed in agricultural colonies. In these settlements al-

282 CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. [May,

most every condition of life, from banking to mining, is represented.
There are colonists from the cotton and woollen mills of Massachusetts,
from the coal-mines of Pennsylvania, and from the tenement-houses and
saloons of New York and Boston ; and it is precisely among this class that
the greatest appreciation is often found of the blessings which they have
found in God's open and free country. It has been proven, in fact, that
even the vices which are bred in cities and factory towns generally disap-
pear amid these healthful surroundings. The quiet, the retirement, the
family life, the personal influence of the priest, who knows each member of
his flock, the almost certain hope of soon reaching independence, the effect
of good example, and the heightened self-respect which comes of owning
the land and being one's own master, all co-operate to develop moral
character, and consequently to increase the power to overcome the help-
lessness which often results from long-indulged vicious habits."

The first having proved a success, Bishop Ireland established
a second colony in Big Stone County, Minnesota. There in
three months, during the spring of 1878, he located one hundred
and seventy-five families on government lands. Within the same
period a church was* erected, one hundred and fifty cottages
were built on the claims, and around each cottage from five to
ten acres of land were ploughed. The colonists arrived in time to
plant their corn and vegetables, the yield was sufficient to sup-
port them during the winter, and there has been a constant and
truly astonishing progress ever since.

The bishop has since started his fifth colony. He has placed
300,000 acres of the most fertile land in the possession of Ca-
tholics, who are living in thriving communities, many of them
having already paid for their farms. Villages have sprung up.
Grist-mills have been built,. and flour is sent directly from Swift
County (one of the colonies) to Liverpool. The farmers find a
market for their grain at the railroad depots.

Successful colonies have also been established in Kansas, Ne-
braska, Virginia, and Arkansas. But sufficient evidence is already
given of the easy, practical, and successful working of these colo-
nies. That is what -is to be driven into the Catholic mind by
those .interested in Catholic welfare and desirous of advancing Ca-
tholic interests. For it is to be taken for granted that there will
now be no dispute as to the desirability of planting such colonies,
provided only there be a fair prospect of success. In the colo-
nies mentioned there has been not even partial failure. With
such evidence before us of what has been accomplished in a few
years with such slender mean% there can no longer be serious
doubt as to the possibility of organizing and conducting to a suc-
cessful issue a scheme of Catholic colonization which shall cover

i88o.] CATHOLIC COLONIZATION. 283

all the requirements of colonists, and ensure a good return to
them and to those who assist them in the manner demanded by
the association which has Bishop Spalding for its head.

All that has been attempted in this article is to set before our
readers the practical features and working of this association to
promote and secure Catholic colonization : what it aims at doing,
what it has succeeded in doing, what its prospects of success are,
judging from similar associations on a smaller scale and with less
advantages. If our readers are not satisfied with what has been
set before them, their course is plain. Let them not touch it. If
the movement, under the circumstances, is not its own best advo-
cate, then all other argument is thrown away. Meanwhile, for
those who would look deeper and go more thoroughly into the
whole question, as it is calculated to affect not only Catholics and
the future of Catholics in this country, but to a great extent the
future of the country itself, we recommend Bishop Spalding's vol-
ume, with a chapter or two of which we have contented our-
selves here. The book is stamped with the earnest eloquence,
keen observation, and philosophic reflection that have become
characteristics of the distinguished author. It is impossible at
any time to read or listen to Bishop Spalding, when treating of a
great subject, without feeling that he is absolutely and passion-
ately in earnest, and brings out all the faculties of his mind and
heart and soul to enforce his point and carry his conclusion. It
is characteristic of such a man that he should not be content, in a
movement of the kind he contemplates and urges, with setting a
mere business document before people, and proving his process
by the book of arithmetic, even though he be secure there. He
appeals to a larger book than the ledger, without forgetting or
neglecting its demands. He looks to faith, and hope, and charity
in the hearts of men ; to the bettering of the condition of count-
less poor ; to the raising up of a new and strong and pious gene-
ration in the freest of countries, in days when faith is everywhere
decaying and the very foundations of Christian life are threat-
ened. So we find him open his book with a chapter oji " The
Church and the Spirit of the Age," followed by one on " The
Religious Mission of the Irish People," to whom, of all peo-
ples, he addresses himself. He goes on to contrast city with
country life, and the advantages that the latter in a country such
as this presents to the average man. His chapters on " The
Irish in the United States " and " The Work of the Church in the
United States " will be quoted as authoritative for years to come.
Indeed, the whole book is likely to call forth wide attention and

284 NE w PUBLICA TIONS. [May,

discussion for the facts it presents, quite apart from the incisive
and vehement style and glowing yet forcible eloquence of the
author. If good for anything at all, it will be good for this : it
will lift a veil that has hung for years over Catholic eyes, awaken
a new Catholic energy of vast public benefit and usefulness, and
give a new and needed turn to Catholic thought and Catholic
activity.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AFTER THE BALL, AND OTHER POEMS. By Nora Perry. Boston : Hough-
ton, Osgood & Co.

HER LOVER'S FRIEND, AND OTHER POEMS. By Nora Perry. Boston :
Houghton, Osgood & Co.

One of the rarest things in literature is a perfect lyric poem. It would
seem as though there was a special faculty, differing from all other forms of
poetical genius, and more in the nature of the gift of a musical voice, which
gives a distinct and peculiar charm to certain happy lyrics, so that they stir
the senses and settle in the mind by the effect of their rhythm as much as by
their meaning. At any rate, the happy faculty seems to be beyond the
reach of the most careful art and finish, for it is frequently absent from
verses that display the highest perfection of both, while it is to be found in
some rude and rough melody or giving lasting vitality to some light trifle or
careless snatch of song like those of Catullus and Herrick. We do not
mean by this that the most careful finish is not bestowed upon apparently
rude melodies like " Ye Mariners of England," for we know very well that it
is, and in that case particularly ; or that the apparently careless rapture of
Herrick's bird-notes was not the result of that sort of skill which, as mu-
sicians know, requires a rarer faculty for the adequate interpretation of a
Scotch or English ballad than for the rendering of a florid aria from an
opera ; but it is not to be obtained by labor and polish alone, and we might
enumerate very many instances where lyric poetry displays all the elements
of melody and finished skill except just the one property of singing in the
ear of the mind and living there in form as in meaning. It may be consid-
ered rank heresy, but we are inclined to point to Tennyson as an example
where the finest skill in word-melody, the most exquisite finish in rhythm,
and the most perfect lyrical form fail in the faculty of rhythmic vitality, and
to say that, while we read and admire, we do not feel the thrill that seizes
us when the lyric spirit of the poem is like the sound of a voice or an instru-
ment in living force and vitality. We say this remembering the "Bugle
Song," as well as many exquisite gems of verse, hardly less artificially perfect,
which shine like gems in his pages, and also excepting the blank-verse of
the " Morte d'Arthur " and the grave music of the measure of the " Lotos-
Eaters," which have a rhythm of vital magic. Among other modern poets,
Mr. Browning Has the faculty on the rare occasions when he plays out his

i88o.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 285

air without vagary or variation, and gives us a melody instead of an impro-
visation or a fugue. It is the best gift of Miss Ingelow, and belongs, with rare
skill in the management of the refrain, to Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In
Mr. Swinburne it is perverted beyond its purpose to the predominance of
mere sound over meaning, which is nearly as fatal to its perfection as the
reverse. Mr. Swinburne's melodies live in the ear solely by their own
force, and oppress and obscure the meaning instead of happily blending
with it and intensifying it as in the happy medium that makes the perfect
lyric. The music of his verse is unsurpassed, but the musical element is too
powerful for the poetry.

Miss Nora Perry, a native poet comparatively little known, possesses the
true lyrical faculty in a very high degree, and, as an example is worth pages
of disquisition, we select the poem entitled " Riding Down " as, aside from
charming naivett and delicate sweetness of feeling, a very striking specimen
of sentient lyric melody :

RIDING DOWN.

Oh ! did you see him riding down,
And riding down, while all the town
Came out to see, came out to see,
And all the bells rang mad with glee ?

Oh ! did you hear the bells ring out,
The bells ring out, the people shout,
And did you hear that cheer on cheer
That over all the bells rang clear ?

And did you see the waving flags,

The fluttering flags, the tattered flags,

Red, white, and blue, shot through and through,

Baptized with battle's deadly dew ?

And did you hear the drums' gay beat,
The drums' gay beat, the bugles sweet,
The cymbals' clash, the cannon's crash,
That rent the sky with sound and flash ?

And did you see me waiting there,
Just waiting there and watching there,
One little lass amid the mass
That pressed to see the hero pass ?

And did you see him smiling down,
And smiling down, as riding down
With slowest pace, with stately grace,
He caught the vision of a face

My face uplifted, red and white,
Turned red and white with sheer delight,
To meet the eyes, the smiling eyes,
Outflashing in their swift surprise ?

286 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [May,

Oh ! did you see how swift it came,
How swift it came, like sudden flame,
That smile to me, to only me,
The little lass, who blushed to see ?

And at the windows all along,
Oh ! all along a lovely throng
Of faces fair beyond compare
Beamed out upon him riding there.

Each face was like a radiant gem,
A sparkling gem, and yet for them
No swift smile came, like sudden flame,
* No arrowy glance took certain aim.

He turned away from all their grace,
From all that grace of perfect face ;
He turned to me, to only me,
The little lass, who blushed to see !

It may be said that this measure is palpably artificial, but if it is so it
fully hits the mark and produces its effect. It gives an exact interpreting
cadence to the feeling of the poem and the scene. As another example of
what may be termed without over-refinement the picture of landscape in
rhythm and verse, as pure music sometimes essays and almost succeeds in
giving, the following seems to add the breath of spring and the song of
birds to a perfect picture of June :

" So sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing,

So sweet the daffodils, so fair to see ;
So blithe and gay the humming-bird a-going
From flower to flower a-hunting with the bee.

" So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes,

The calling, cooing, wooing everywhere ;
So sweet the water's song through reeds and rushes,
The plover's piping note, now here, now there."

We might pick out other examples of what seems to us an almost abso-
lute felicity of lyric melody ; but if these do not carry conviction with them,
then our ear is entirely at fault.

In her first volume Miss Perry is especially happy in expressing the shy
and tender grace of young maidenhood just upon the verge or within the
edge of love. There have been poets specially felicitous in depicting the
grace and feeling of childhood, but none, we think, so charmingly interpre-
tative of the period of " sweet sixteen." The poem that gives the name to
the first volume, " After the Ball," is familiar in all the books of poetical se-
lections, and certain others, such as " Apple Blossoms," have been seized
and made familiar with more than ordinary remembrance. The apparent
artlessness of these poems is not, we apprehend, any less consummate art
than is manifest in Herrick's verses of invocation to his various loves.

A decided merit to these poems is that there is no straining for effect,

1 8 So.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 287

no tagging on of a moral as if to give purpose to a picture which is its own
excuse for being. There is a fashion nowadays, particularly among the
minor poets, of -supplying a forced raison d'etre for verses by working them
down to a precept of morality oran artificial climax of enforced epigram, so
that it is a relief to find one who is content to paint a perfect little picture
and let it stand as such. It is far better, it is far more effective even, than
when the moral or tag of antithesis is too obvious or forced; and we would
recommend to those who consider such adjuncts necessary one of the
magazine articles where Michael Angelo Titmarsh describes and moralizes
upon the pictures in the yearly exhibition in the National Gallery, lament-
ing the effect produced on his mind by such pictures with a moral as " The
Indian Mail " and " The Governess." There is a virility and a purpose to
Hogarth's moral teaching in pictures, although we sometimes smile at its
very crude directness, and it was appropriate both to the time and his
character. But in most modern attempts it is false and affected ; and the
same may be said of the artificial epigram invented and successfully used
by Heine, but which his imitators fail in giving with any neatness or effect
without his exquisite skill in verse. The greater part of Miss Perry's lyric
poems are entirely without this labored moralizing or antithetic epigram,
which is so much striven for in modern brief poems, and are content to be
simply pictures or purely expressions of emotion. This, to our minds, de-
notes an artistic sense that thoroughly knows its purpose.

In her second volume the author strikes a stronger chord. " Her
Lover's Friend " is nobly conceived and finely executed. " For the King "
also strikes us as being conceived with a noble originality of sentiment
expressed with dramatic force. In ballad verse and skill in narration
" Lady Wentworth," "The Rebel Flower," and others are striking exam-
ples ; and as a whole it is an advance upon the first volume in strength and
intensity, although we miss and would gladly have more of the fresh and
peculiar charms of the simpler lyrics.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATION. By Brother Azarias. New
York : E. Steiger. 1879.

Brother Azarias is always welcome, because he always has good
thoughts in good words. This little brochure, which costs only ten cents,
is, in the first place, a very pretty little pamphlet. Little children ought
always to have pretty dresses, and little books also, in order that they may
attract attention and please the eye, which their insignificant size is unable
to do, without some aid from ornament. Brother Azarias' pamphlet con-
tains an essay read before the University Convocation of New York at
Albany, July 11, 1877. It is written against the method of cram in schools
and colleges, and the system of fitting out every student with an intellectual
jacket made on the same measure and of the same stuff. We advise every
one who cares about matters of this kind to buy the little book and read it
for himself.

THE MIRACLE OF THE i6TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1877, AT LOURDES. Translated
from the French of Henri Lasserre by a Lady. Dublin : M. H. Gill &
Son. 1880.

This authentic account of one of the remarkable miracles wrought at
Lourdes will interest all pious Catholics. It is a most beautiful and affecting

288 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [May,

history, and that M. Lasserre is the author of it will recommend it to every
one who has read his famous book on the Apparition of Our Lady to Berna-
dette. As for the unbelieving, they will still continue to shut their eyes and
ears with a marvellous and stupid incredulity which is proof against the
clearest evidence, and yet make believe they are scientific.

STATUTA DICECESIS NOVARCENSIS. New York : Benziger Bros. 1878.

This volume is very well and neatly printed, and contains an appendix
in which are several valuable documents, useful formulas, and general in-
structions, most of which are in English, and are necessary for all persons
who in any way are concerned with the business affairs connected with
churches and ecclesiastical institutions in the diocese of Newark. The
Statutes were prepared in several synods, presided over by the former and
the present bishop. They will be serviceable, not only to the clergy of the
diocese, but to all who may have occasion to prepare similar collections of
Statutes in diocesan synods. Where the body of Statutes already exists in
any diocese, the publication of the same in a similar form, with an equally
full and useful appendix, would be very serviceable to all parochial clergy-
men as well as to all others concerned. We may safely recommend this
collection as a model.

THE CHRISTIAN MOTHER: THE EDUCATION OF HER CHILDREN, AND HER
PRAYER. From the German of Rev. W. Cramer. Translated by a Fa-
ther of the Society of Jesus. New York : Benziger Brothers. 1880.

We could not praise this book too highly. It gives a true and exalted
idea of the dignity and responsibilities of Christian motherhood, and fur-
nishes excellent advice for the successful carrying out of its holy mission in
society. If every young wife and mother would peruse this beautiful little
work, ponder over its useful lessons and take them to heart, the next gene-
ration would not fail to show a vast improvement in religion and morality.
There are also to be found in this neat volume beautiful prayers and devo-
tions specially suited to the state of life indicated. It has the imprimatur of
His Eminence the Cardinal.

AN ADDRESS ON STATE MEDICINE. Delivered by Dr. R. J. O'Sulljvan
before the Medico-Legal Society.

Dr. O'Sullivan is very energetic in urging a much-needed reform in the
ventilation of the public schools, churches, etc. The present address
touches to some extent on the same important subject and the responsi-
bility of civic and educational authorities in the promotion of public health,
while it humorously hits off the relations of the medical and legal pro-
fessions.

DIRECTORY FOR THE LAITY FREQUENTING THE CHURCH OF THE FRIARS
PREACHERS (the Dominican Fathers). For the year 1880. Dublin : M.
H. Gill & Son. 1880.

Those who are in the habit of attending divine service at Dominican
churches will find this little manual, which costs only a few cents, very con-
venient.

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXXI. JUNE, 1880. No. 183.

MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM.

IT is remarkable that (so-called) science should have given
the death-blow to Protestantism, seeing that Protestantism
claimed to emancipate science. The boast of the Reformers
was that they freed the human intellect from the thraldom
of Roman Catholic authority, threw open all knowledge to
all Protestants, and did away with the ignorance, both natu-
ral and spiritual, which fifteen centuries of " popery " had
fostered. Yet, after a sufficiently long trial, we find that the
new enlightenment has settled down into the rejection of the
Sacred Scriptures, while the Catholic Church alone is defending;
those Scriptures against " science," against " liberty," against
"progress." It is manifest that these three words are capable of
being understood in senses which are radically opposed. Sci-
ence, in the apprehension of modern thought, has come to mean
the worship of "the Unknowable." Liberty means the right of
disbelieving. Progress means return to barren paganism. The
apostles of modern thought claim the privilege of being pro-
foundly ignorant of every truth which has been revealed by the
Incarnation. They use language which is the worship of crass
ignorance. " By continually seeking to know, and being continu-
ally thrown back with a deepened conviction of the impossibility
of knowing, we may keep alive the consciousness that it is alike
our highest wisdom and our highest duty to regard that through
which all things exist as the Unknowable," wrote Herbert Spen-
cer in his First Principles. " The idea of a future world is the
last enemy whom speculative criticism has to oppose, and, if pos-
sible, to overcome," wrote Strauss. So that to be an " advanced

290 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM. [June,

thinker" is to have returned to a state of mind which would have
been thought disgraceful by the (virtuous) Greek or Roman pa-
gan. Well might Mr. Ruskin say of modern thought : " We our-
selves, fretted here in our narrow days, know less, perhaps, in
very deed, than the ancient heathen, what manner of spirit we
are of, or what manner of spirit we ignorantly worship." This it
is to be an " advanced thinker." In Athens, about two thou-
sand years ago, there was an altar raised to God, who was " un-
known." But by certain scientists, in the year 1880, the " Un-
knowable " is not thought worthy of an altar. The old Athe-
nians were more " advanced " than modern scientists, for they
proclaimed that there was a God, though he was " unknown."
Modern scientists decline to proclaim that there is a God. It
would be impossible to proclaim that there is not a God, but if
there be one he must do without an altar. In truth, the only
altars which modern scientists think of rearing are such as are
in honor of their own ignorance.

We have said that the fall of Protestantism, its intellectual
dissolution, is due, finally, to the " progress of modern science,"
though we use the word progress in the sense only of license,
and the word science in the sense only of conceit. It would be
simply ludicrous to dignify speculation speculation in certain
departments of materialism, without the aid of superior know-
ledge and sound philosophy as science in that really exalted
sense which treats of all things as auxiliaries of truth. If the ob-
ject of all search is to know the truth, and if the confession of
modern thought is that it is " unknowable," we do not perceive
that either the object or the attainment of modern thought can be
regarded as more than playful or diverting. And even so far as
modern experimentalism can go, the chief doctors of such experi-
ments are all at issue. Mr. Huxley calls the science of Mr. Dar-
win " only a hypothesis," and Mr. Owen speaks still more disre-
spectfully of it. It is needless to say that the French physiolo-
gists cast ridicule on Mr. Darwin's " gasconades " and on Mr.
Huxley's "anatomical paradoxes." Nor does any one out of
England allow the claim of originality to the " hypotheses " of
English modern scientists. The polysyllabic vocabulary of this
modern philosophy is probably its chief claim to attention. Os-
mosis and protoplasm are such very fine words that we are
tempted to forget that they mean but little. Yet it would not
matter if their inventors were content with bare " hypothe-
ses "; but they will insist on their own infallibility. This shows
that they are not really scientific. The grave Professor Fara-

i88o.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM. 291

day warns us to remember the " large assumptions " which have
been made in turn for each novel discovery, and never to allow
ourselves to be led from " facts and laws " to a worship of
"theory and hypothesis." No one need object to indulgence
in speculation, provided it be stamped " speculation "; but we
have a right to be irritated against vain doctrinaires who in-
sist on our taking them for apostles. And we are still more
irritated when such teachers mock authority and pronounce
themselves superior to it. Mr. J. S. Mill, who said that he
should prefer eternal punishment to worshipping a God who
could invent it ; or Mr. Grote, who " cordially sympathized " with
that view ; or Mr. Tyndall, who can prove that prayer is never
heard ; or Mr. Lecky, who is disposed to regard future judicial
awards in the light of " pernicious superstitions," are all welcome
to their private ideas about science, but we do not want their opin-
ions about God. They tell us that he is to them unknowable ;
and, therefore, we do not value their ideas of him. The Pall
Mall Gazette, which assures us that eternal damnation is " wholly
obnoxious to modern philanthropy," and that if such a shocking
hypothesis could be entertained we should be driven to think
disrespectfully of the Almighty, no doubt expresses its own " re-
ligious " convictions ; but religion happens to be outside its sci-
ence. That in one and the same breath men should say, " We
do not know God ; he may exist, but we know nothing about
him," and yet should add, " We condemn him for being judi-
cial, whereas we are so superbly free-thinking," does strike us as
a little wanting in that precision which should distinguish the
new apostles of pure reasoning. One thing is certain : that, what-
ever they may think, Almighty God will not alter his judg-
ments ; and it would be more prudent and " philosophical " to
make peace with the Just One than to revile him for our stupid
wickedness. A God who offers us his love on certain fixed condi-
tions of which the chief condition is that we love him can hard-
ly be " monstrous," as the Pall Mall suggests, quoting J. S. Mill
and Leigh Hunt.

Yet there is no class of men that gets so angry with God's
judgments as the class which merely speculates on his existence.
It is only of late years that English Protestantism has gone so far
as to question the dogma of reprobation ; and this scepticism has
been concurrent with the growth of so-called science, which has
undermined the belief in revelation. No new thing has been dis-
covered by modern science which could in the least degree affect
Bible testimony ; but, the true keeper of the Scriptures being dis-

292 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM. [June,

carded as untrustworthy, the false keepers have had no power to
make resistance. The Catholic Church alone can meet modern
thought with weapons which are more keen than its own. The
logic of Catholicism, being based on the simple postulate that the
Creator cannot be judged by the creature for if that were possi-
ble the finite in apprehension could gauge the whole intellect of
the Infinite can consistently bid the creature to kneel and cover
its eyes while the Adorable Wisdom communicates his truths.
And this attitude is the true dignity of the creature. It is in
obedience that the creature is alone dignified. For obedience to
the divine law is unity with the Divine Mind, and therefore
exalts the reason above nature. But human reason lost its dig-
nity at the time of the Reformation by divorcing its researches
from divine authority. If it be true, as Kant observed, that " rea-
son is subject to an inevitable delusion," so that, as Coleridge
further observed, " rationalists " (that is, men who believe in
nothing but their own reason) " in the very outset deny all rea-
son, and leave us nothing but degrees to distinguish us from
brutes," it follows that the new theory of " every man his own
teacher " must result in the profound ignorance called modern
thought. The 'Ritualists, who have perceived this inevitable re-
sult, but who have not the courage to get back to the divine au-
thority, yet who confess with Mr. Hallam that " Protestantism,
appealed to the ignorant," and with Mr. Lecky that " it was a
fruit of intrigue and corruption," have tried hard to substitute a
fictitious divine authority for that one church which the Divine
Wisdom founded. The result has been to multiply the difficulties
of Anglicanism in contending with sceptical Protestantism, and
to confuse the necessary strength of the divine authority with the
necessary weakness of a human one. Anglicans are beginning to
grow weary of all judgment, because Ritualists have made some
judgment child's play. It is true that modern thought (as dis-
tinguished from English churchism) takes a very different esti-
mate of the Catholic Church and of the fictitious corporations
of Protestantism. Modern thought smiles complacently at Pro-
testantism plus Ritualism, though it never presumes to smile at
the Catholic Church. It may hate her, abuse her, misrepresent
her, but it never presumes to make light of her. Mr. Huxley
draws a very wide distinction between the professors of the Ca-
tholic philosophy and the " comfortable champions of Anglican-
ism and Dissent." And, more strange still, the boldest advocates
of modern thought confess that Protestantism is not a religion
at all. That very talented magazine, the Westminster Review*

i88o.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM. 293

speaks of " the corner-stone of Protestantism as an admirable one
for a temple of free thought, and for nothing else." And so
thoroughly appreciated is Anglicanism by the sceptics that Mr.
Tyndall does not hesitate to claim the Anglican clergy as his al-
lies in the downward path of infidelity, and as preparing the pub-
lic mind for great changes which it would never do to intro-
duce by any violence. On the other hand, Mr. Huxley, in utterly
reckless language, speaks of the Catholic Church as " that one
spiritual organization which is able to resist, and must as a mat-
ter of life and death resist, the progress of science and modern
civilization." Seeing that the Catholic Church has ever been, in
all ages, the mother of science and civilization as even the Cal-
vinist historian, Guizot, admits what Mr. Huxley should have
said would have been this : The Catholic Church has always dis-
tinguished between the conceits of mere unaided speculation and
the sound development of thoroughly assured science, just as she
has always distinguished between a true civilization and the pagan
license of men who are half-believers. The sole mission of the
Catholic Church is to " resist" erroneous theories and to " resist"
erroneous habits of life. She alone, as Mr. Huxley confesses, is
" able " to do this, because her science is always associated with
divine knowledge, and her civilization is after the pattern of
Christ's life. It is really too ridiculous to talk of the Catholic
Church as being opposed to true science, true civilization, when
but for the Catholic Church there would not have been a man
now in England who would have known anything of the science
of theology which is the science of eternal salvation nor any-
thing of that true civilization which is built on the science of
theology. More than this, the very liberties which we enjoy are
the fruit of purely Catholic civilization, slightly altered, devel-
oped, or marred, according to the national circumstance. Let
us briefly consider this question of " liberty " in connection with
science and civilization ; since free thought claims liberty for its
own, whereas we say that free thought does not possess it.

It is obvious that modern thought, or free thought, or scepti-
cism it does not matter what we may call it mistakes the tyr-
anny of the ignorance of what is true for the liberty of knowing
it and possessing it. What is liberty ? The best answer is that
in heaven alone is there perfect, ineffable liberty. And what is
the liberty of heaven? Absolute^conformity of mind, will, and
heart to the perfectly known wisdom of God. This is also the
" Catholic " liberty, modified only by the living by faith instead
of the living by sight. Yet the two liberties are identical in

294 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM. [June,

spirit. The Catholic philosophy makes the knowledge of God's
truths which is all one with the key of salvation the main object
and aspiration of the intellect, and affirms of the intellect that it
can only enjoy liberty when it is anchored on the Rock of eternal
truth. Away from that anchorage it is the slave of every ca-
price, the plaything of vanity or passion, the mere cork on the
waters of speculation now a little above the surface, now below
it. Modern thought says of liberty that it is the privilege of
doubting, the sublime possession of every means of going wrong,
plus the total impossibility of being assured that is, infallibly as
to what are the conditions of salvation. And as is this theory, so
is its practice, and so is its penalty and its suffering. Who are
now the teachers of modern thought, or who are its too contented
victims ? It would be indecent to ridicule the apostles of the
Unknowable, and happily it is superfluous to do so. As to their
victims, they are chiefly young men who are grateful for an apo-
logy for being heathens, and who know about as much of true
science, true philosophy, as they know of the occupations of the
angels. These young men (and also old men) seem to imagine
that the Divine Wisdom is to be discovered, like the root of a cab-
bage, by digging downwards but not by winging upwards ; and
they always cut themselves off from the whole of their higher
nature in setting about to reason on his being. To hear half a
dozen Englishmen who have caught the disease of modernism
(which, by the way, is no more " modern " than was the imbecility
of the first sin), you would imagine that they kept their souls in a
cupboard of their intellects, and never permitted them to see the
daylight nor to have fresh air. The glorious sun may shine
them full in their faces, but they turn away their eyes and ask
for candles. The candles are, for the most part, the " daily news-
papers." The journalists, who judge everybody, judge everything,
judge this world, judge the next world, judge God and this, too,
with such infallible authority that the Sovereign Pontiff might
fairly wonder at such powers are the principal doctors, recluses,
and mystic saints who unravel the truths hidden from the church-
Such teachers are the more listened to and obeyed on the ground
that they " represent public opinion." Sterne was so rude as to
call public opinion a long-eared ass ; but public opinion does not.
take that view of itself, and since the press always flatters its
readers, and assures them that they are its judges, the public re-
turns the compliment by imputing to its journalists the most
superior enlightenment and progress. Whether the writers or
the readers are most to be pitied we need not here stay to*

i88o.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM. 295

inquire. But that both the writers and the readers have lost the
liberty of pure reasoning- by becoming slaves of caprice or of
complacency is so obvious that any grave man who " takes in " a
daily paper must marvel what the next age will come to.

Whereas the church loves to appropriate every new step in
science as a fresh testimony to the wisdom of the faith as multi-
plying the evidences of the exquisite harmony between the natu-
ral and supernatural law modern thought uses every fresh dis-
covery to cut itself further off from God. St. Thomas in his
wonderful Summary, St. Augustine in his De Civitate Dei, did not
treat of science as leading frvm God, but as leading up to him by
perfectly plain proof. The same may be said of the illustrious
Cardinal Newman, and of all the profound thinkers of Catholic
ages. It was true also of pre-Christian philosophers that the
best of them aspired to know God. Aristotle and Plato would
most certainly have been Catholics had they "philosophized " in
the year 1880. They always soared in aspiration, though they
lacked that full knowledge which belongs only to the " fulness of
time."

" Many prophets and kings desired to see the things which we
see," but modern thought desires only not to see. And in pro-
portion to the blindness is the slavery. It is remarkable that great
Protestant historians, notably Guizot, and Ranke, and Macaulay,
with also Hallam and Lecky and others, avow their conviction
that the introduction of free thought which took place, or at
least was systematized, by the Reformation was the lowering of
the dignity of Christian liberty by enslaving every will to its own
caprice. " The truth shall make you free " became interpreted
with the formula, " Every kind of error shall enslave you." " Ye
shall be as gods," which was the promise of the Reformation,
was fulfilled by a diabolical mental chaos. Politically as well as
religiously the tyranny of " reformed " thought was felt through-
out every Protestantized country. In England and in Scotland,
in Ireland and in Prussia, in Denmark, in Switzerland, in Holland,
there was the grossest material tyranny exercised over consciences
which did not approve of the new religion. States used their
Protestantism for crushing out the liberties which their Protes-
tantism was assumed to ensure. And hence, morally, the condi-
tion of Protestant countries soon fell to a level with the mental
chaos. England is now less moral than it ever was less moral
even than in the days of Queen EliEabeth. Dr. Pusey has said
so, and so have said a host of modern writers, including most of
the apostles of free thought. And the reason is so obvious that

296 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM, [June,

the simplest intelligence can connect the effect with the cause. If
it is of no importance wliat we believe nor whom we obey, nor
scarcely whether we believe or obey at all, how can it matter
whether morality, \vhich is a fruit, be less healthy, less strong,
than its parent stem ? If I am not certain about the conditions of
the future life, the conditions of the intellect and of the will, why
should I fret myself about interior living or about exterior con-
formity to speculations ? " Society " may force on me a code of
prudence, but " religion " cannot take me by her right hand. I
may be naturally most decorous, and even virtuous ; but to be so
supernaturally I must believe. And sin\:e modern thought tells
me that the only law which is not certain is the law of the divine
will in regard to faith, I feel myself emancipated from the re-
straints of a code which a Mr. Mill or a Mr. Spencer may think
reasonable. If my intellect, which is the superior of my senses
since reason is more dignified than emotion is under no necessity
of obedience, why should my senses be under any obedience to
an unknown and unknowable God ? The law of nature may teach
me a good deal, but it cannot teach me the Seven Beatitudes ; still
less can it teach me that the Incarnation, with Holy Communion,
make both mind and body the home of God. Such an infinite
exaltation not only commands high morality but makes it an in-
tellectual necessity. Modern thought makes morality a conve-
nience, and also a dignified natural state ; but the Catholic reli-
gion makes it equally a duty, and a requisite of intellectual har-
mony. Without the Incarnation morality is a duty, a duty to
Jew and to pagan ; but with the Incarnation it is intellectual fit-
ness such as all " science " and " philosophy " must approve.

The tendency of modern thought is to make a fallacy out of
the syllogism which the church can construct upon morals. The
Divine Intellect being united with the church's intellect on all
points of faith and of morals, and the Divine Nature being united
with every Catholic's nature when a Catholic communicates at the
altar, a Catholic regards morality less as a duty of obedience than
as the essentially harmonious state of the Christian intellect.
This is theoretically undeniable ; but because sin works on every
human will, every Catholic is liable to commit sin ; and here
comes the sacrament of penance to recleanse the mind and the
body. Modern thought cannot propose any such remedy, any
more than it can kneel to the divine purity. And therefore
modern thought, both practically and theoretically, both morally
and intellectually, both in regard to knowledge and to action, has
degraded the mind and the body. That Protestants have been,

i88o.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM. 297

normally, good persons, and have retained what is commonly
called high principle, is due to the traditions of the Catholic faith,
which modern thought now seeks wholly to uproot.

It must be admitted that the profession to know is more intel-
lectual than the profession not to know ; so that the Catholic
philosophy, even assuming it to be erroneous, is more intellectual
than modern thought. If to aspire to know the truth be intel-
lectual, what must be the knowledge, if attained ? And Catholics
for eighteen centuries have avowed their conviction that they
know what is said to be " unknowable." They prove their con-
sistency by the intellectual harmony of every pne of the doctrines
of their faith ; by affirming, while others only deny ; by being
always on the side of a simple positive, as opposed to the cham-
pions of a simple negative. Now, the positive is more honorable
than the negative ; it is more intellectual, because divine ; for it is
not known of the Creator that he teaches by denying, but, on the
contrary, by always affirming. Modern thought can affirm noth-
ing of the Divine Will, except that it is unknown and unknowable.
Save so far as the plants and trees intimate laws, or so far as vir-
tue and vice seem to imply them, the apostles of modern thought
know no more of t v ;e Divine Mind than did the ox and the ass in
the stable at BetLiehem. Take the articles which are published
in some of the first-class magazines in regard to elementary
Christian verities ; .they are made up either of questioning or of
groping ; they are either written in hostility or in speculation ;
their writers are as birds who have no wings and no feathers,
and who wonder how their ancestors climbed the sky. Once a
month or once a quarter we have stupendously-learned articles,
written by undeniably able men, but always wearing the aspect
of pain and of struggle, never of serenity and of conviction. The
claims of the Holy See to the gratitude of mankind, with its
claims to be revered as a Christian teacher, are treated as incon-
veniences to be got rid of, because they interfere with modern
thought. Not to believe, to obey, to be assured, are the desires,
the cravings of the writers ; rather to increase the burden of
doubt under which honest hearts groan, but under which modern
thought skips with playful vanity. It is such a heartless, such a
dried-up kind of thinking ! Omit the soul, omit the life-blood,
omit the instincts of the deeper nature, and cling only to the little
frettings of paper controversy as the only paradise of the (possi-
bly) immortal mind ! Whereas Catholic theologians can fight on
paper, and fight hard, they fight always with the knowledge of
certain truth ; but modern thought is as much at sea on the

298 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROTESTANTISM. [June,

alphabet of Christian knowledge as it is at sea on the conclusions
of its own philosophy.

The same with the journalists ; the same with the platform ora-
tors ; the same even with the pulpit-opinionists. It is curious that
modern thought has mounted the pulpit-stairs and has largely
impregnated Protestant sermons. A certain timorousness as to
the pleadings of modern science, with a certain affectation of be-
ing superior to it, infects the discourses of deans, canons, and rec-
tors, and the charges of the governing prelates. These teachers
are puzzled in dealing with phenomena which are necessarily sub-
mitted to the human judgment, because they know that all Pro-
testantism is the offspring of human judgment, and they have no
right to (consistently) condemn one part of it. Hence they are
obliged to speak of science that is, anti-Christian science as
being opposed to the teaching of the Scriptures, while at the
same time they must permit the license of interpreting those
Scriptures according to the individual proclivity. Yet if a man
is fully capable of interpreting the Scriptures, of determining
their Avhole teaching for himself, it is obvious that he must be ca-
pable of interpreting human dicta, which are invented or formu-
lated by man's brain. The natural is less obscure than the su-
pernatural, needing nothing but brain not the Holy Spirit. So
the Anglican preachers are caught always in this dilemma when
dealing with the aggressions of modern thought : that they must
prove by their own wits that their views of modern thought are
as sound as are their views of the Scriptures. And their audien-
ces must equally judge both. Since revelation and science an
both proposed to all Protestants as being (theoretically) withii
the compass of their criticism, the Protestant clergy cannot teacl
in regard to either with any higher credential than human wits.

Thus the aggressions of modern thought have no barrier t<
beat against more potent than poor human brains 'or more steac
fast than poor human will. And we all know what these two an
capable of ! If it be true of religion as Bassanio says in T/u
Merchant of Venice, " In religion what damned error but somi
sober brow will bless it, and approve it with a text ? " it is at least
equally true of many scientific theories that men can persuad(
themselves of what they will. And Avhen their persuasions are ii
harmony with their repose, and release them from the irksom<
ness of obedience, it is not remarkable that free-thinkers an
found generally among the ranks of free-livers, easy gentlemen,
" fast " young men. It is so comfortable to sit in an easy-chair,
smoke a cigar, and talk " scientific scepticism," it is so pleasing

i88o.] SCHILLER' s " HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS" 299

to the vanity to be not bound as are other men by the shackles
of prejudice and tradition, that modern thought has carried the
natural temperament by storm almost before it has attacked the
natural brains. To be one's own pontiff, intellectually and reli-
giously, is to have a disciple most docile and obedient. No fear
of any jar between teacher and taught when the active and the
passive are but one mood. Thus we do not wonder that the
spirit of modern thought is more diffused than is the intellectual
apprehension. Not one free-thinker in ten thousand could intel-
lectually work out the " scientific scepticism " he approves ; nor is
there any disposition to do so, for what he wants is the apology
for repose. Unless a man be startled into earnestness by some
call of disaster or of disease, he will prefer to glide calmly down
the stream of modern thought that is, to be idle and vain. If
the Catholic Church catch him at the right moment she will take
him into the haven of heavenly science ; but if he be left outside
in cold Protestantism he will but pass from false science to shal-
low sentiment.

TRANSLATION OF SCHILLER'S " HOMAGE OF THE

FINE ARTS."

THIS lyrical operetta was composed by Schiller in four days,
but a little while before his death, and performed at the theatre of
Weimar, in honor of the newly-arrived Grand Duchess Maria
Paulowna, sister of Alexander I., Emperor of Russia. The idea of
the poem is, that the inhabitants of a quiet valley, representing
Weimar, having received a rare exotic, under which emblem is
represented the young foreign princess, wish to plant it so firmly
that it may thrive in their soil and air, but are perplexed how
they may do this. The genius of Art with his companions appears
to them, sent from the Neva by the mother of the princess, and
consoles them with the hope that their kindness, and the cultivat-
ed society in which the refined pleasures of art are appreciated
and enjoyed, will compensate the fair and illustrious stranger for
the privation of the splendors of the imperial court of Russia.
The seven Arts then appear and disclose to the princess the sphere
open to her activity as a patroness of their works, offering their
services to give usefulness, happiness, and embellishment to her

300 SCHILLER'S "HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS." [June,

life. It is a pleasant fact to record, that the grateful princess,
after Schiller's death, provided for the education of his sons.

THE HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS.

The scene is in the open country. In the centre is an orange-tree covered with fruit and
adorned with garlands. Country-people are engaged in planting the tree in the ground, while
maidens and children hold it on each side with festoons of flowers.

A FATHER.

Grow and flourish in thy bloom !
Flourish, golden-fruit-crowned tree !
Brought from far ; now joyously,
In our soil we give thee room,
Thy delicious fruits to nourish,
In unfading green to flourish.

ALL THE COUNTRY-PEOPLE.

Blooming tree, thy branches fair
Spread in beauty in our air !

A YOUTH.

Fragrant blossoms, in the light,
, Through all time their leaves expand !

While with golden fruit bedight,
Thy graceful limbs all storms withstand.

ALL.

Through all times thy limbs expand,
Thy firm-knit stem all storms withstand !

A MOTHER.

Holy earth ! receive the stranger,
Power ! who rulest mead and field,
With the speckled flocks a ranger,
Let thy care this treasure shield.

MAIDEN.

Guard this tree, ye gentle Dryads !
Father Pan ! protect this stranger,
Flitting band of free Oryads !
Bind all storms which threaten danger.

ALL.

Guard this tree, ye gentle Dryads !
Father Pan ! and free Oryads !

i88o.] SCHILLER' s " HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS." 301

YOUTH.

Give thy warmth, O laughing JEther !
Keep the sky serene and blue,
Shine, O Sun ! with genial radiance,
Earth ! diffuse refreshing dew.

ALL.

Shine, O Sun ! with genial radiance,
Earth ! diffuse refreshing dew.

FATHER.

Life and pleasure on thy part
Give to every pilgrim's heart,
Share the joy our welcomes give,
Let thy fruit delicious nourish
Offspring who long time shall flourish,
To latest age thy memory live !

ALL.

Give all pilgrims joy and pleasure,
Share with them the costly treasure
Which our joyous welcomes give thee.

All commence a dance around the tree. The music of the orchestra accompanies them and
gradually changes into a more elevated style. Genius is seen descending from the sky with
seven goddesses, and while the country-people withdraw to the sides of the stage, he places him-
self in the middle, with the Arts on each side.

CHORUS OF THE ARTS.
We come from afar,
Wandering with each other
Through all lands and all ages,
From one folk to another,
Seeking a fixed habitation on earth ;
Where a permanent seat
May give rest to our feet,
While we, tranquil and still,
Our high mission fulfil ;
But have sought it in vain from the day of our birth.

YOUTH.

What dazzling vision meets my sight,
Of beings who are more than mortal !
Descending in a wondrous light
That streams from heaven's open portal.

GENIUS.

Where war-weapons clash
And bayonets glisten,

Where the wild waves of passion tumultuous dash,
We hasten our flight, and we stay not to listen
To sounds of confusion, but pass like a flash.

302 SCHILLER'S " HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS" [June,

CHORUS OF THE ARTS.
We detest the untrue,
From the scoffers depart,
We seek for the upright
And single of heart.
Where the simple and child-like
A welcoming give
We set up our dwelling
And peacefully live.

MAIDEN.

Whence comes the emotion
That stirs my heart's core
Like a magic alluring, and banishing fear
Of these wonderful forms, which familiar appear,
Though I know that I never have seen them before?

ALL.

Whence comes the emotion
That stirs our heart's core ?

GENIUS.

Hush ! I see some human beings,
And they seem on joy intent ;
See the graceful tree whose branches
Weight of fruit and flowers hath bent.

Of a feast these tokens tell.
Speak ! and what has happened say !

FATHER.

In these vales we shepherds dwell,
And we keep a feast to-day.

GENIUS.
O gentle swain ! what is this feast ?

MOTHER.

A royal princess from the East,
Our gentle queen, we honor;
To this quiet, still retreat
She has come, to be our blessing,
From her high imperial seat.

YOUTH.

See her ! every grace possessing,
In her radiance mild and sweet.

GENIUS.
Wherefore do you plant this tree ?

i88o.] SCHILLER' s "HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS." 303

YOUTH.

It was brought from foreign strand ;
She towards home is turning sadly :
We would bind her heart, most gladly,
To our own, our Fatherland.

GENIUS.

Therefore, do you set this tree
With its roots so deeply planted,
That your youthful queen enchanted
Here a new, dear home may see ?

MAIDEN.

Ah ! how many a tender band
Draws her to her native land !
Childhood's fairy haunts are left
.By her, of Paradise bereft ;
No more to kiss her loving mother,
No more embrace her hero-brother,
No more her head to fondly rest
Upon a sister's gentle breast !
Can we give her compensation
Equal to so great privation ?

GENIUS.

Holy love no limit bindeth,
In all lands a home it fmdeth.
From a flame no force is taken,
Which another flame doth waken.
So, when love her heart remindeth
Of her childhood's home forsaken,
Old friends not lost, she others bindeth
To her heart, at home with you,
Old love blending with the new.

MOTHER.

Marble halls the royal maiden
Trod of old, 'mid golden treasures ;
Here, the trees with blossoms laden,
Meadows green and simple pleasures,
The golden sun the only splendor,
Cannot please the royal maiden.

GENIUS.

Shepherds ! your simplicity

In a noble heart to see

Hath no power, but learn of me

Greatness from the soul goes forth,

Seeks without no borrowed worth.

304 SCHILLER' s " HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS." [June,

YOUTH.

O noble stranger ! show us how to bind
Her heart to ours, and how her love to win ;
Around her garlands sweet we fain would wind
To draw her willing steps our homes within.

GENIUS.

A noble heart soon finds itself at home,

And builds around itself its world,

Just as the tree takes kindly to the loam

And soon its limbs are strong, its leaves unfurled.

So doth the lofty mind, the generous heart,

To life give beauty by its skilful art ;

Quickly the tender bands of love are wound,

One finds his country where true joy is found.

ALL THE PEOPLE.

beauteous stranger ! say, how can we wind

A wreath this noble heart to our green fields to bind ?

GENIUS.

Already woven is this tender band,
She is no stranger to your pleasant land ;
Me, and these Seven, well your princess knows :
We only need to her our forms disclose.

Here Genius and the seven Arts come forward and form a semicircle, at the same time
throwing aside their mantles and disclosing the insignia which denote their several attributes.

GENIUS.
(Addressing the Princess?)

1 am the Spirit and the Form Ideal
Served by these Spirits ruling each an Art ;
We give the crown of beauty to the Real,
To altar and to palace grace impart.
Long in thy House Imperial we are guests;
Thy Empress-Mother in her secret shrine
Served with devotion all our high behests,
And on her altar fed the flame divine

With her pufe hand ; now, Princess, we have come.
Entreated by her love, with thee to live,
To decorate for thee thy new-found home
With all that Genius and the Arts can give.

ARCHITECTURE.

( Wearing a mural crown and holding a golden ship in the right
Thou sawest me throned above cold Neva's stream
Thy great ancestor called me to the North.
I built for him that city which doth seem
A second Rome; my magic summoned forth

i88o.] SCHILLER' 's "HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS." 305

Those gardens bright from wintry waste forlorn,
That capital whose streets and precincts stand
Adorned with palaces superb and temples grand,
Where gay and busy crowds incessant stream ;
I built the fleets above the sea that tower,
Floating from 4ofty masts the sign of Russia's power.

SCULPTURE.
(Holding a stattte of Victory?)

Me hast thou, also, often seen with wonder
In god-like forms of old mythology.
Upon a rock no time shall rend 'asunder
There stands a hero's statue shaped by me.

(Lifting up the statue of Victory?)

This image, formed by me, thine eye beholdeth,

Presents the semblance of that Victory

Thy valiant Alexander captive holdeth,

Above his army's battle-flags to fly.

My art can only fashion the statue's lifeless form,

His art doth shape a nation of men with life-blood warm.

PAINTING.

Me, also, Princess, thou wilt recognize,
Joyous creator of the bright illusion
Which makes appear before admiring eyes
The real and ideal in a strange confusion,
And works a magic on the sense deceived,
Bringing the loved ones back from death's dark prison,
. To cheat the sorrow from the heart bereaved,

As if, by wonder-working power, they to new life had risen.
Those whose farewell has left theni broken-hearted,
My pictured semblance keeping, seem scarcely to have
parted.

POETRY.

No limit holds me by a fixed dimension,

Freely I pass all bounds with speed of light,

My kingdom equals thought in its extension,

Words are the wings on which I take my flight.

Whatever moves on earth, in heaven's blue field,

Whatever nature works in mystery,

Unveiled to me lies open and unsealed,

For nothing bounds the power of Poesy.

Yet naught more beautiful my search can find

Than beauty of the soul with grace of form combined.

VOL. XXXI. 20.

3o6 SCHILLER'S " HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS" [June,

M.USIC.

( With a Lyre.)

The charm of tones which on the harp-strings thrill
Thou knowest well ; and, mistress of my art,
Canst waken with its melodies, at will,
The soft emotions of the human heart.
The senses waken at my touch to gladness,
When roll my harmonies with current strong ;
Their gentler murmurs lull the soul to sadness,
And make it long to melt and die in song.
The ascending cadences of melody
Like mystic ladder join the earth to sky.

DANCING.
( With a Cymbal)

The higher, more religious life is still,
In tranquil contemplation fixed intent,
But youth's vivacity must have its fill
Of restless movement, and on joy is bent.
The age that often heedless is of duty,
And leaps its bounds in gayety aerial,
Controlled by soft and silken rein of beauty,
From grossness purified, and made ethereal,
Gladly the measure keeps I gently place,
Guiding its movements by the charm of grace.

DRAMA.
( With a double Mask?)

A twofold countenance to thee is shown,

One bright with joy, the other wan with pain ;

For, like a shuttlecock, our hearts are thrown -

From laughter unto grief, and back again.

Scenes ever shifting cross the mirror's face

Wherein I show the depths and heights of life.

Instructed by the images I trace

In panoramic view, thy bosom's strife

Is hushed to peace ; its tumults are subdued,

When all the scenes of life grouped in one whole are viewed.

GENIUS.

Presiding spirits of the Higher Art,

We pay our homage to your Princely Grace,

With proffer of all service on our part.

Give the command, and we will run apace,

To fill with life the mass inert of stone,

And build a city beautiful and grand

Like Thebes obedient to the lyre's sweet tone ;

iSSo.] SCHILLER'S " HOMAGE OF THE FINE ARTS:'

ARCHITECTURE.
Make massive pillars ranged in order stand,

SCULPTURE.
Marble obey the hammer's skilful blows,

PAINTING.
The painted canvas beauteous forms disclose,

Music.
The stream of harmonies thine ear entrance,

DANCING.
The choirs of graceful youths around thee dance.

DRAMA.
Life's varied scenes shall pass the stage along,

POETRY.

Plumed fancy bear thee on her pinions strong
Upward, enchanted, to the heaven of song.

PAINTING.

As Iris every color's brilliant line

Spins for its texture from the sun's refraction,

So shall the tissue of thy life entwine

The mystic Seven by their united action.

307

ALL.

For by united force of all the spirit's powers
A truly noble life in just proportion towers.

308 COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. [June,.

COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN.

" I BELIEVE ! Oh ! for words to express the feelings with which I say : I
believe ! What an admixture of unearthly happiness with earthly pain do
they express happiness at having found the eternal truth, pain at having
found it so late ; happiness at having looked upon and recognized the eter-
nal beauty, pain at having recognized it so late ; happiness that one's whole
life has been but one continued thirst for that truth, a longing for that
beauty, pain that the source of both has been found so late ! It would in-
deed be bitter pain to have to say myself that a little stronger effort of the
will, one more decided step of the heart towards light and knowledge, might
have led me years ago to the path which I am now treading, were it not
that that pain is overcome by the immortal feeling of victory which lays
hold of one and so fuses together his earthly and immortal life that he for-
gets to count by days and by years, because days and years come to have a
different meaning and a different value when he can say : ' I believe ! ' With
some such feeling as mine must the messenger from the scene of war, in
ancient times, have hastened home with the news of battles won. The poor
herald is weary and sore. He is covered with dust, and blood is pouring
from his wounds. But he heeds not. He does not know that he is tired or
bleeding ; nor would he care if he did, for his soul is filled with only one
thought. Victory ! he cries, victory ! The fatherland is safe ! And so cry
I, poor messenger that I am poor, yet infinitely happier than he, because
l?e exults in only earthly victories. Victory! I cry too. I believe ! "

These are the opening- lines of the gifted Countess Hahn-
Hahn's Von Babylon nach Jerusalem, in which she gives us an ac-
count of her conversion to the Catholic Church. They are evi-
dently the cry of exultation of a soul that had long lived in
spiritual darkness and now for the first time beheld the sun of
divine truth in all its brightness ; of a soul translated from the
polar snows of Lutheranism to the Eden of the Catholic Church
of a heart that had" gone through many a bitter conflict, but cam<
out laurel-crowned at last from the fight. Hers is the enthu-
siasm of the convert to the Catholic Church an enthusiasm fn
quently so apparent both to Protestants and to those born of Q
tholic parents who have never known what it is to be out of th<
church. Countess Hahn-Hahn explains its secret. " It is," sh<
says, " if I may say so, the privilege of those who have lived in
immense error. When at last they obtain the faith they have
an immense faith. They are transformed by it, as was Saul th<
Pharisee and Augustine the Manichsean."

Countess Hahn-Hahn was born at Tresson, Mecklenburg-
Schwerin, in 1805. She was married to her cousin in 1826, but

i88o.] COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. 309

separated from him not many years after. Among the writers of
her native country she occupies a very prominent place. She has
written poems, novels, and descriptions of travel ; for she had, be-
fore she entered the church, travelled extensively in Europe and
the East, having visited Switzerland, Italy, Sicily, Spain, France,
England, Egypt, and the Holy Land. But it is not with her
writings or her travels that we are here concerned so much as
with her conversion to the Catholic Church with her journey
from the "Babylon" into which she was born to the " Jerusa-
lem " of the church, of which she was the faithful daughter for
nearly thirty years.

Countess Hahn-Hahn was born of Lutheran parents and bap-
tized and confirmed a Lutheran. Looking back over her life, in
her forty-fifth year and in the full maturity of her powers, she
tells us, however, that, although thus baptized and confirmed, she
had, when in the ranks of Lutheranism, no religion ; for she asks :
" How could I have revealed religion, since I had no church?
Protestants, indeed, teach the existence of an invisible church a
very sublime idea but it is hard to conceive, or to make any one
understand, how one can have actual living relations with a
notion so vague as an invisible church." Her heart was always
naturally Catholic, and the teachings of Lutheranism did not ap-
peal to it.

" I remember very well," she tells us, " the time that preceded my con-
firmation in the Lutheran Church. I received instruction from a good old
preacher, to whom I went in the afternoon. The scene comes up before me
now as if it was but yesterday his green room, the long writing-table at
which he sat just opposite me, his kind old face, the little velvet cap on his
snowy head. It was in the winter. Tall, leafless trees stood before the
window, and the declining sun cast the shadow of their boughs on the wall
before me. Crows flew croaking about the trees in search of their quar-
ters for the night. An atmosphere heavily laden with tobacco-smoke
filled the room. I distinctly remember all this, but not one word of what
the good old gentleman told me and of what I went there to learn can' I re-
member. This has always seemed a very strange fact to me. I have never
been able to recall what I was then taught. And yet I was seventeen years
of age. I had a good memory, was anxious to learn, and was not devoid of
noble aspirations. I listened to him devoutly. My religious feelings were
not inactive ; but of all he told me I carried nothing positive away. I had
a feeling that what he told me. was not the truth."

Lutheranism seemed to her what it really was a state insti-
tution. Yet, like other young persons born and educated in the
same atmosphere as herself, she read the Old and New Testa-
ments. She even loved them. She delighted in the literary

3io COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. [June,

beauties of the prophets and the Psalms. She was not a rational-
ist her heart was too true and warm for that but her Bible-
reading did not bring her the gift of faith ; for she tells us :

" Of Christian faith there was not a trace in me. . . . The Holy Scriptures
are a sublime fragment-truth which Protestants took with them when they
left the church. The soul that seeks a full knowledge of the truth can
never consider itself in possession of it simply because it has the Bible.
Objective confirmation of the truth is wanting it ; and this objective con-
firmation is necessary safely to repose in the faith."

Dissatisfied with the religion she had been brought up in, she,
like a great many outside the church in our own day, adopted
the theory so flattering to natural vanity and self-sufficiency, that
every one has a special revelation through nature, through feel-
ing, through beauty and art. Under the influence of this theory,,
she tells us, she became an out-and-out heathen. Pride, self-
confidence, and independence, she humbly and frankly confesses,
were her ruling traits. She recognized no authority. She read,,
thought, travelled, and wrote. Her sympathies were with all that
was high and noble, or what she conceived to be such. She was
aristocratic, conservative, monarchical. Her writings had brought
her a great reputation. But her soul was not at rest. Her lot
seemed a happy one to others, but not to herself. To a friend
who had remarked to her that her position was an enviable one,
and how much she had to be thankful for, she replied : " Yes, yes,
yes, I have all that, and that may be a great deal ; but I feel as if
I had nothing. I shall be wretched until I find something that
absorbs me entirely." She prophesied truly. Her heart did not
find rest until it was absorbed by the faith in the Catholic
Church.

Protestantism is, as she justly remarks, the " religion of indi-
vidualism." It may disclaim the title, just as it denies that it
almost necessarily leads to infidelity. But by its fruits it is
known. It did not make Countess Hahn-Hahn a Christian, but it
had the anti-Christian effect of making her the preacher, through
her works, of the philosophy of individualism as it was after-
wards developed in Mill's book on liberty. Man's destiny, she
claimed, is the attainment of internal satisfaction. Hence his
right to assert his individuality and cultivate independence. But
while asserting his own individuality it is his duty to respect the
equal right of others to assert theirs. The man who recognizes
these limits and develops himself within them is in a state of equili-
brium, and, although he may be wanting in external happiness, he
will find rest in the harmony between his will and his obligations*

i88o.] COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. 311

The person who surrenders his own right or does not recognize
that of others must fail in his endeavors, frequently perish en-
tirely. Such was the philosophy of her works. She saw its
error when she became a Catholic. She recognized then how
dangerous a principle it was to make man, blinded as he so fre-
quently is by feeling and passion, the judge in his own case and
the executor of his own rights. The Protestant doctrine of
morals was not a safe guide. " Protestantism had no sublime doc-
trine of morals because it had no faith, and no faith because it
had no church." It had lost the principle of authority ; " it at-
tached more weight to the words of the fallen monk of Witten-
berg than to the words of Jesus : ' Thou art Peter.' '

Countess Hahn-Hahn was seventeen years of age before she
set foot in a Catholic church. St. Hedwig's, in Berlin, was the
first she ever entered. She was told it was modelled after the
Pantheon in Rome, and she thought that, if such was the case, the
Pantheon was far from beautiful. This was the only impression
it made on her mind. Many and many a time was she in Berlin
after this, but St. Hedwig's Church did not attract her. " I never
thought of it again," she writes, " until I thought of it never to
forget it." It was in this same St. Hedwig's Church that she
made her profession of the Catholic faith almost thirty years
after she had entered it with the curious eyes of a girl of seven-
teen. Two years later AVC find her again for a moment in a Ca-
tholic church in Dresden. The music at High Mass made a pleas-
ing impression on her mind, but she did not understand the Mass
anrl felt no interest in it. She had no knowledge whatever of
Catholics. She was not acquainted with any. All her informa-
tion concerning them was derived from works of history. An-
other two years, and we find her in a Catholic country, in Wurz-
burg, and then on the Rhine. Here the Catholic Church was
not confined within the limits of the four walls of a building,
and she saw something of Catholic life. Its sacred emblems were
everywhere. There was the crucifix by the wayside, the chapel
in the tree-shade, the shrine on the hill-top, the church-domes
in the city, the convent, the Angelus bell. For the first time she
breathed the air of Catholicity, and realized that religion was not
a mere shadow without substance, but that it was something ac-
tual, a fact in the world about her. This was a real discovery to
her. Shortly after she spent some time in a small village in
which there was a Protestant and a Catholic chapel. She went
to the Catholic chapel to pray. Protestant churches did not
seem to her the place to pray in ; and Protestant preaching she

312 COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. [June,

found exceedingly wearisome. Protestant sermons were " cold
reflections divided into three parts." They were " subjective
opinions," with no claim to be considered the word of God.
Every one that heard them had a right to say : " I put a different
interpretation on that text" the right of private judgment ! No
wonder she did not feel at home in Protestantism. No wonder
she tells us that it never afforded her a moment's happiness in
her life. Indeed, long before she became a Catholic she used to
say, and she said it thousands of times : " I was born in a Protes-
tant country and in a Protestant age, with a Protestant head ; but
my heart is Catholic." And when she once added, " But the
head is good for nothing, the heart is everything," a friend told
her she did not show her wisdom in believing the dogmas of the
Catholic Church ; to which she replied: " Do you think me wiser
than Bossuet or Fenelon ? " She refused to read the sermons of
the celebrated Schleiermacher, which a friend had sent her, be-
cause " their language was not sufficiently like the language of
Christ to the fishermen of Galilee." " Without knowing it," she
says, " I hit the nail on the head. I longed for the pure doctrine
of the Eternal Word as it has been preached for eighteen centu-
ries by the servants of the church."

For several years after this she lived entirely surrounded by
Protestant influences. The consolation her religion refused her
she found to some extent in Fenelon's works, in Thomas a Kem-
pis and St. Augustine. Next to God's grace, which is the ulti-
mate source and cause of Catholic faith, it was her own unrest,
the untenableness of Protestantism, and her study of mankind, of
political institutions, and of the world, that led her into the fold
of the church.

She was in Naples when the king ordered the Jesuits to quit
his kingdom. She hated the revolution with all her strength, and
felt genuine sympathy for the exiled sons of St. Ignatius. She
saw them from her balcony on the ship in the bay the ship that
was to carry them off into exile. She studied the calm expressed
on their serene countenances.

" It was," she writes, " a majestic sight. Crowded like slaves into a nar-
row space, they were as undisturbed as if taking a stroll towards Capri or
Ischia. Their demeanor was that of men who looked upon themselves as
strangers upon earth, but in the service of their God. They had in their
veins the blood of martyrs, and if it did not flow, it was not because of the
humanity of their enemies."

To a friend in Dresden she wrote :

" These men are indeed happy. They live for an immortal idea, for the

i88o.] COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. 313

civilizing power of the Catholic Church ; and if there is no room for them in
Europe they seek other quarters of the globe as a theatre of action. I
have always had great respect for the Jesuits. Now that the radicals pour
the vials of their wrath upon their heads, I begin to love them."

After she had become a Catholic she said that her soul was
always a sleeping Catholic, and when it awoke it found itself Ca-
tholic. We look in vain through the account she gives us of her
inner life for any feeling of antipathy to Catholics or the church
even when not a member of the fold. When in Italy she was
more attracted by the art of the middle ages than by the antique.
There were moments, she tells us, when she preferred the old
Florentine masters, like Fiesole, Lorenzo di Credi, Sandro Boti-
celli, to Raphael. The devotion, the union with God, the beauty
of soul that their works expressed entranced her. They spoke to
her sleeping Catholic soul. A similar feeling possessed her in
Spain, whither she went after leaving Italy- She made, she
writes, but one Catholic acquaintance in Spain Murillo ! She
even then divined the secret of his genius. Murillo was to her
the painter of Catholic dogma of saints, of ecstasies, of visions
"those stars in the infinite firmament of Catholic dogma." In her
opinion, Murillo stood alone in Christian art. The Florentine
painters painted saints as well as he, but they painted them as if
they had come down from heaven, while Murillo painted real
men ascending up to heaven as saints. This is why she called
him the painter of Catholic dogma. His subjects are not purely
ideal or classic souls that never felt the pain or breathed the air
of this world. They are men made saints by the sacraments.
And thus it happens that his St. Thomas of Villanueva, his
vision of St. Francis of Cantalizio, can be compared with nothing
else in art. She confesses that at this time she knew nothing of
the sanctifying effects of the sacraments, nothing of the Mother
of God to whom the church prays ; but, she adds, Murillo knew
them, and his sublime genius gave expression to his sublime faith.

Hitherto we have seen the countess no more than an admirer
of the faith. She even then accounted it a great good fortune to
any one to have been born into the church. When in the Orient
she felt genuine regret, she says, that she could not call herself a
Catholic. She writes :

" But now that I was received everywhere in the pilgrim-houses of the
monasteries with the greatest hospitality, and witnessed the life of these
humble men who had come hither from Spain and Italy and learned the
Eastern languages, that they might teach little children and look after the
wants of pilgrims ; now that I saw the Catholic Church in its glory, in its

314 COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. [June,

charity and poverty, I began to love it. But as one longs to be united to
the object he loves, and as the idea of joining the Catholic Church had not
even entered my mind, I became the victim of great grief."

And she felt this grief on Carmel more than anywhere else.
From the monastery there she wrote some letters to friends in
Europe, so Catholic in spirit and tone that it was rumored she
had become a Catholic. She indeed thought of the church now,
but had no conception of what a change her entering into it im-
plied.

" I was," she says, " so well satisfied with myself, with my course, the
way I was going and what I aimed at, that the thought of having to be
reconciled with God, of contrition, forgiveness, of a change of life, found
not the least place in my mind."

The presence of an Anglican bishop in Jerusalem while she
was there caused her to draw a contrast between the Protestant
and the Catholic clergy between the absolute and undivided
devotion of the latter to humanity and to God and the divided
affections of the latter. She had read of bishops of the church,
of St. Augustine, Charles Borromeo, and Fenelon, great souls,
great minds, great hearts, genuine followers of the apostles.
And what a contrast they presented to the gentleman bishop
with his fashionable wife from England !

" My ideal," she says, " of a man was a bishop, but what had an Angli-
can bishop in common with my ideal ? He might indeed be a very upright
and honorable man, but what more than so many other upright and honor-
able men who lead a respectable life, but who are in nothing above men in
the ordinary ways of life ? They had not, like my favorite, St. Augustine,
overcome the world in anything."

And so it was with the Protestant missionaries. How could
they preach to the heathen to leave all things and take up the
cross ? What had they sacrificed, and how could a person feel
any enthusiasm for a cause for which he had sacrificed nothing ?

In the spring of 1844 Countess Hahn-Hahn returned from
the East. Europe was in an alarming condition. Revolutionary
movements were brewing everywhere. On the I4th of July she
wrote in her diary :

" Unheard-of events are impending over Europe. I tremble to think
what the next fifty years may bring forth. As things are now nothing can
remain, neither church, nor state, nor society. The process of dissolution
has begun in the minds of men. Its external manifestations may be sup-
pressed for a time, but how long ? "

She studied the communistic systems of the time, and found
that to renovate the world they called " not organic but mechani-

i88o.] COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. 315

cal " forces into existence. At the same time she studied the
writings of Luther, and saw more clearly than ever that Protes-
tantism Avas the religion of individualism ; that it was, in fact, as
she expresses it, no religion at all, being wanting in that common
bond which unites soul to soul to train them for the kingdom of
heaven. She now wrote :

" I was born in a Protestant country, in a Protestant age, and my
thoughts still run in Protestant channels. But I loathe the Evangelical
Church which is at present the fashion. No ; if there be any church for
me at all, it is the Catholic."

About this time an event which caused a great sensation in
Germany afforded her much food for thought. It was the expo-
sition of the robe at Treves. Thousands of pilgrims ascended and
descended the Rhine to be present at it, and not the lower classes-
only, but the upper and educated classes as well. She wrote at
the time :

" I do not know whether it is the same garment Christ wore on earth,
but it is the same faith that moved the sick woman to touch the hem of
his garment and cured her."

Dissatisfied with her inner life, she turned to Swedenborg.
She read his New Theology, in which she says nothing pleased her
but his refutation of Protestantism. There are evidences in her
Sybille, written about this time, of her leaning towards the Catho-
lic Church. " I do not know whether Catholics," we read there,,
" are better than Protestants, but I do know that they are hap-
pier."

The spring of 1846 found Countess Hahn-Hahn in England,
where she remained six months. Its cathedrals were empty.
" Of course," she writes, " they were empty. They were built
for the religion of the whole world ; they are too broad for a
sect." In Ireland she again saw the church in its beauty, in
poverty, oppressed, and martyred. The famine of the winter of
1847 was approaching. The church in Ireland awakened her
soul from its sleep. It was charity personified, full of compassion
and devotion. But, strange, it did not seem to bring her any
nearer, herself, to the sanctuary of the church. She tells us :

" The absolute necessity of beginning at the beginning, and of learning
the positive doctrine of the church, was something that did not enter my
mind. Or did I think that the truth would strike me like lightning or come
to me as it did to the Apostle Paul, or was it a reminiscence of Lutheranism
that the will was not competent to co-operate in the work of conversion or
in the knowledge of divine things ? "

316 COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN. [June,

During the sermons which she heard while in Ireland she
wept at the thought that they were not addressed to her and
that she was not a Catholic.

After her return to Germany she found her native country
unbearable. Over and over again she said to herself : " Thou
hast no fatherland, no church." The whole world, in fact, became
so unbearable to her that she sank into deep melancholy. She was
wont to exclaim : " O that I were a Catholic ! " She suffered in-
describable torments of mind. She walked her balcony in Dres-
den frequently until two and three o'clock in the morning. Her
mind was in a ferment. Life and travel had been preachers to her
of the Catholic faith. Her soul was empty and truth was knock-
ing for admission to it. Her own observation had satisfied her
that there was no salvation for society but in a return to the
Catholic Church. She saw the necessity of putting an end to
her vacillation. She sent for three books, Luther's larger and
small Catechism, Boeckel's Confessions of the Evangelical Reformed
Church, and the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent.
After reading the last-named book she wrote :

" If it is sufficient to join the Catholic Church to have the faith that it
is the visible body of the invisible God, that its dogmatic structure is the
form through which he reveals himself; if it is sufficient to have an ardent
longing to unite one's self to the church, because it alone is imperishable on
this perishable earth, and it alone offers what the soul craves as its proper
food if this faith and longing are sufficient I must profess myself a
Catholic."

After many a conflict she publicly professed her faith in the
Catholic Church in Saint Hedwig's, in Berlin, on the 26th of May,
1850 ; and with a rapture which only the soul that has sought the
light as she sought it and found it she says. And so

" I returned from Babylon to Jerusalem, from a foreign country to my
home, from isolation to society, from division to unity, from unrest to
peace, from a lie to truth, from the world to God !"..." The exit from the
dark cavern in which I lived was on the summit of a mountain, and by
many a dark, labyrinthine way I reached it. And now I stood on the top of
that mountain, in the open air, in a bracing atmosphere, under a boundless
canopy of stars reflected in an equally boundless sea. And a voice said to
me : ' This is the church of Christ ' ; and I fell down in adoration. ... I
have found God in his revelation, and I believe.' "

Her pen as a writer was ever after active in the cause of reli-
gion. Her means she employed in the erection of a convent of
the Good Shepherd in Mainz ; and she lived in the convent she
had erected, without, however, joining the order, until her happy

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHUXCH. 317

death on the I4th of January last. Her days were full of good
deeds, and her soul of peace, after she had hearkened to the voice
that said to her : " To thy tents, O Israel ! "

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

in.

THE Protestant idea of the church and the religion founded
by Jesus Christ cannot show any testimony in its behoof, worthy
to be regarded as an offset to that which bears witness to the
truth of the Catholic Idea. We do not know what more precise
statement of the Protestant theory which would be acceptable to
evangelical Protestants could be made than this. The Gospel
is made known to true believers by the word of revelation, inde-
pendently of any church authority, and appropriated in a sav-
ing manner by them, individually, without dependence on any
church power. What the Gospel really is in itself, according to
a common consent of evangelical Protestants, we leave for them
to settle among themselves, if they can. We are willing to give
them the benefit of the most orthodox and catholic formulas of
doctrine which can be found in the works of their most generally
esteemed writers.

This theory or idea of original, genuine Christianity, cannot
cite any testimony in its favor from antiquity, except in its ne-
gative aspect, as in opposition to the authority of the Roman
Church. The system called evangelical did not exist before
Luther. Its modern professors do not wish to claim affinity
with the Arians and the other ancient heretics. Nevertheless
heretical and schismatical sects, long since given over to con-
demnation by all who call themselves orthodox Christians, are
the only witnesses out of past history who give any aid or com-
fort to Protestants in their denial of the exclusive right and su-
preme authority of the Catholic Church. We must, therefore, in
order to reason and judge impartially, estimate the value of this
sort of testimony in favor of the negative side of Protestantism.

We do not find in the authors and disciples of these new
doctrines and sects a calm and concurrent testimony of men who
were seeking earnestly to understand and obey the teaching of

318 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [June,

Christ, that they had found themselves and their fellow-Christians
generally to have been led astray into error, away from the
right road of faith and salvation, by the Catholic Church. They
do not profess to have discovered the true church and religion
of Christ which had been perverted and altered by an usurping
ecclesiastical authority, and set themselves to work as reformers
to restore genuine, apostolical Christianity. The great heresi-
archs whose errors were condemned by the first six councils
invented new theories of their own for a rational explanation of
the mysteries of the faith. They pretended to be good Catholics
and to teach in accordance with the doctrine received always,
everywhere, and by all. They were ready to have the matters in
dispute examined and adjudicated by councils. They appealed to
the pope and the Roman Church, extolling their authority so
long as they had any hope of obtaining sanction or at least es-
caping condemnation. This was the conduct of the most noto-
rious authors of errors and sects from Valentinus to Luther and
Henry VIII. Eutyches, for instance, when accused of heresy by
Flavian, the Patriarch of Constantinople, appealed to St. Leo in
these words : " I asked that these things might be made known
to your Holiness, and that you would make what judgment might
seem good to you, being ready to follow in all things that which
you shall have approved. . . . To you, therefore, I fly and be-
seech . . . that you will pronounce that sentence concerning the
faith which shall seem right in your eyes." Photius, the author
of the Greek schism, wrote in equally obsequious terms to Pope'
Nicholas I. Luther's protestations of loyalty to the Holy See
during three years, from 1518 to 1521, are well known to all read-
ers of history. To return to the heretics of ancient times, it was
after the long and fierce contest which they waged against the
orthodox had brought upon them a solemn and final sentence of
condemnation and excommunication that they openly renounc-
ed the authority of the Roman and the whole Catholic Church.
Moreover, each new sect as it arose anathematized all other sects
which had preceded, and was by them equally put under the ban.
Each one sided with the Catholic Church against all heresies
except its own, and professed to be by right in communion with
the church, the councils, the doctors and saints of the time pre-
ceding its own condemnation, strove vehemently to conquer for
itself the legitimate domain of the oecumenical society, and loudly
proclaimed that it was unjustly and unlawfully shut out from the
communion of the orthodox. All these sects were completely
vanquished in controversy, irrevocably condemned by the su-

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 319

preme tribunal of the church and the common consent of the
faithful, and most of them were in the course of time re-absorbed
into the orthodox society. Those which continued to exist as
separate churches, namely, the Eutychians and Nestorians, after
running a course of outward prosperity for a certain period,
dwindled and withered away into the dead remnants which are
still standing like old decayed trees in Egypt and other territo-
ries once belonging to the ancient empire of the East.

The Reformation, with the local and temporary movements
which were its harbingers, was a great political and ecclesiastical
convulsion the motive power of which was in the passions. The
reflection which succeeded its original impulsive movement and
elaborated a theory of the doctrinal and historical aspects of
Christianity, was an after-thought, and the result of its acts, which
were more spontaneous than deliberate. The calm and critical
judgment which has been gradually formed by Protestant and
other non-Catholic students of its history, in the more recent
period, has deprived it of all prestige, as a return and reappear-
ance of primitive and apostolical Christianity effected by sages
and saints, confessors and martyrs, new apostles the successors of
the first apostles and apostolic men who were the original found-
ers of Christendom. We may quietly leave to the offspring of
these seceders from the Catholic Church the task of estimating
the characters of their religious ancestors, and judging of the in-
tellectual and moral quality of the results which followed their
revolt against the authority of the Roman Church. Indeed, we
need only take the estimate which the reformers mutually ex-
pressed of one another, and their own description of the fruits
which followed their enterprise of preaching a new Gospel as a
substitute for the old and universal religion which they endeav-
ored to supplant. Protestantism cannot boast of either the wis-
dom or the moral virtue of its first founders and leaders. They
inspire no veneration either as doctors or saints. Their testi-
mony, and the testimony of the masses of men who followed them
and constituted the first Protestant churches, has no intellectual
or moral weight against the truth of the Catholic doctrine and in
favor of any different idea of true, genuine Christianity. Just as
soon as the first violence of the movement of secession had spent
itself, and the church had gained time and opportunity to rouse
herself to resist and repel it, it shrank and subsided within limits
which it has never since been able to overpass, but which the
ancient religion has steadily and successfully invaded, besides
conquering new territories which have fully compensated for all

320 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [June,

its lost domain. The people were brought back to the obedience
of the church by hundreds of thousands. The learned who were
in danger of wavering, who actually wavered, or abandoned the
communion of the church, as time passed on and the tendencies,
of the movement showed themselves more plainly, were in some
cases confirmed in their ancient faith, in others reclaimed to it,
and in certain notable instances, though not reconciled to the
Catholic communion, they recoiled from Protestantism in its
naked, undisguised form, and drew back upon a middle position
like that which is occupied by English High-Churchmen. This
was especially the case during the latter part of the sixteenth
and the earlier part of the seventeenth century. Hallam observes
that

"The progress of the Catholic Church for the first thirty years of the
seventeenth century, was as striking and uninterrupted as it had been in the
final period of the sixteenth. Victory crowned its banners on every side. . . .
The nobility, both in France and Germany, who in the last age had been
the first to embrace a new faith, became afterwards the first to desert it.
Many also of the learned and able Protestants gave evidence of the jeopardy
of that cause by their conversion. It is not just, however, to infer that they
were mainly influenced by this apprehension. Two other causes mainly
operated : one, to which we have already alluded, the authority given to
the traditions of the church, recorded by the writers called fathers, and
with which it was found difficult to reconcile all the Protestant creed ; an-
other, the intolerance of the reformed churches, both Lutheran and Cal-
vinistic, which gave as little latitude as that which they had quitted. . . .
The defections, from whatever cause, are numerous in the seventeenth cen-
tury. But two, more eminent than any who actually renounced the Protes-
tant religion, must be owned to have given evident signs of wavering,
Casaubon and Grotius. ... If Casaubon, as he had much inclination to
do, being on ill terms with some in England, and disliking the country, had
returned to France, it seems probable that he would not long have con-
tinued in what, according to the principles he had adopted, would appear a
schismatical communion. . . . We can hardly deem it an uncertain question
whether Grotius, if his life had been prolonged, would have taken the easy
leap which still remained ; and there is some positive evidence of his design
to do so. But dying on a journey, and in a Protestant country, this avowed
declaration was never made." *

Justus Lipsius, who was a prodigy of learning, was one of
those who actually did return to the bosom of the church.

The dogmatic and polemic theology of Protestantism, from
the time of Luther to the present moment, in that part of it which
is anti-Catholic, has been shifting, inconstant, and so far as it has
not given evidence of gross perversion of Catholic doctrines and

* Hist. Lit.) vol. ii. p. 30.

1880.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 321

isrepresentation of the real teachings and testimonies of anti-
quity, characterized by ignorance or superficial knowledge of
patristic and catholic learning. The controversial writings of
rotestants have become, to a great extent, obsolete, and an
bject of indifference or disdain to the most learned and enlight-
ed Protestants themselves. Indeed, the more heretical have
en ably refuted by those which are less so, in an ascending
eries* from the Extreme Left of Protestantism until we arrive at
he Extreme Right, which, in many important respects, occupies
atholic ground, and is our ally in the contention with the Protes-
ntism of Lutheran and Calvinistic sects.

We have no intention of disparaging those who are reckoned
y Protestants as among their great men and great writers. We
o not deny the genius and powerful character of Luther, the
graceful accomplishments of Melanchthon, the learning and meta-
physical talent of Calvin, or the remarkable qualities of other
men concerned in the Reformation, according to the common
verdict of the learned. We consider, however, that the men
who are the most worthy of praise on account of the works they
have written on matters of religion, and who are also to be hon-
ored for their moral excellence, among Protestants, are such as
arose after the scission had become an accomplished and perma-
nent fact. Many of the works of Protestant writers of the best
class are chiefly remarkable on account of their rhetorical and
literary excellence. Such as are deserving of a great and lasting
reputation as works of sacred science are either substantially in
agreement with sound orthodox doctrine, or to a considerable
degree tinctured with a Catholic infusion. The Christian truth,
piety, and morality which they contain and inculcate are derived
from those Catholic sources which have continued to send an ir-
rigating stream through such channels as have not been cut off
entirely from communication with the great current of Catholic
tradition. But when we examine the purely and distinctively
Protestant exposition of the idea of Christianity as placed in di-
rect and formal opposition to the Catholic presentation, we do
not find any such testimony to its convincing power over the
mind or its attractive force over the moral nature, as deserves to
be called an offset to the testimony of the host of witnesses to
the undoubting certitude given to the intellect, and the complete
satisfaction given to the heart, by the Catholic Faith.

Those Protestants who have retained the foundation of belief
in Jesus Christ as defined by the Nicene Creed have, as Cardinal
Newman has recently said, " a half-gospel." When the genera-

VOL. XXXI. 21.

322 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [June,

tion of bad, indifferent, and ignorant Catholics, who either know-
ingly and wilfully renounced the communion of the Catholic
Church, or were either seduced or driven into schism by fraud
or violence, had passed away, and a new generation arose, born
and educated in the Protestant sects, the grace of God together
with the still powerful influence of Christian principles, doctrines,
and practices, brought them back upon that foundation from
which the storm of revolution had threatened to sweep them
away altogether. The influence of the Protestant principle of
doubt and negation was in a measure impeded and counteracted.
All the Christian faith and piety which have survived the sepa-
ration from the visible centre of unity are the result of the half-
gospel to which a multitude of sincere and upright souls have
clung as their greatest treasure, and not of that spurious half
which the Reformers stuck upon it in lieu of the genuine coun-
terpart, to make a new gospel, a counterfeit which might pass
for the original Gospel of Jesus Christ, recast and restored in its
pristine integrity. The positive effect of Protestant principles
and ideas has been to produce, in the first place, a general indif-
ference and neglect of religion in the majority of the people. Its
second effect has been to produce divisions, sects, and disunion
among those who are called orthodox. Its most logical and
direct effect has been to shake and subvert the foundations of all
supernatural and natural religion, and to generate universal scep-
ticism. Only the minority, which seems to be continually de-
creasing, has continued upon the foundation of belief in Jesus
Christ as the Divine Redeemer of a fallen race, and professed
to live accordingly. In so far as this relatively small number,
whether actually greater or smaller, has been composed of per-
sons who have known no more of the complete Christian truth
than is contained in the Protestant Confessions, their conviction
of the certainty and security of their belief is a testimony to the
evidence of Christianity, but not to the want of evidence in Ca-
tholicity. A dense mist has hidden the Catholic Church from
their eyes or given it an entirely altered appearance. Even
scholars and controversial writers, though learned and well-in-
formed in their own sphere, have generally been surprisingl
ignorant of Catholic history, philosophy, theology, morals, li
rature, ascetical and spiritual doctrine, and of the whole act
life of the Catholic Church.

Moreover, as controversy has gone on, as knowledge has
creased, as prejudices have been dissipated and the mist of ign
ranee has been gradually dispersed by the light of truth, Pro-

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 323

testant polemics have changed and weakened. Suffer us to keep
the half-gospel we possess, in peace, and let us be contented to
agree that the substance and essence of the gospel is all contained
in this half, but do not insist on determining what the other half
is with certainty and unanimity ! This is the tacit appeal which
we can read in the countenance and bearing of those who are
not content with their isolated condition, between the Catho-
lic Church on the one side and the constantly swelling host of
rationalists on the other. It is a confession that Protestantism
has failed to reproduce the original Ideal Christianity. D'Au-
bigne, the author of a sprightly romance pretending to be a his-
tory of the Reformation, says :

" But modern Protestantism, like old Catholicism, is, in itself, a thing
from which nothing can be hoped a thing quite powerless. Something
very different is necessary to restore to men of our day the energy which
saves." *

This is the opinion of all non-Catholics at the present time, ex-
cept the small number of those who still cling tenaciously to the
old-fashioned unmitigated Protestantism. M. Chastel, in his in-
troduction to Bolsec's Life of Calvin, says :

"A Geneve, les mots Protestantisme, Calvinisme, ne veulent pas dire
enonciation de certains principes, affirmation de certaines theories re-
ligieuses, mais demolition de I'edifice catholique, negation, aneantissement
des traditions du passe."

This statement may be generally extended, making all due ex-
ceptions, to the entire domain of Protestantism. A century ago,
Rousseau had addressed the Genevese in the following language :

" O Genevois, ce sont de singulieres gens que*messieurs vos ministres ;
on ne sait ni ce qu'ils croient, ni ce qu'ils ne croient pas, on ne sait pas
meme ce qu'ils font semblant de croire. Leur seule maniere d'affirmer leur
foi est d'attaquer celle des autres."t

There is something of infidel malice in the sharp point of this
taunt. There was some truth in it, also, at the time it was ut-
tered, and there is much more at the present time, even substitut-
ing Protestants for Genevese. The declarations of Protestant
ministers themselves, in regard to their own mental condition and
that of a great number of their brethren, manifest a most unset-
tled, doubting, changing state of religious opinion. The common

* Hist. oftheRef., vol. i., Preface, p. 9.
t Deuxieme Lettre de la Montagne.

324 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [June r

public sentiment about them, often most distinctly asserted by
the secular press, and to which they make no emphatic and de-
cided answer, is : that their body is pervaded by doubt and un-
certainty respecting matters which were formerly considered
fundamental and were commonly taken for granted. We are not
concerned with Unitarians and avowed rationalists who form the
Extreme Left of Protestantism, and to whom the passages just
now quoted are most strictly applicable. We may, therefore,
prescind from consideration such doctrines and principles as the
common consent of the mitigated orthodox can be supposed to
hold by, as essentials of Christianity. In regard to everything
else, we may fairly impute to them agreement in sense with a fa-
mous saying whose author we do not now remember, that it is
easier to declare where Christian truth is to be sought for, than
what it actually is.

We cannot find any distinct and complete Idea of Christianity,
set over against the Catholic Idea, sustained by an orderly sys-
tem of evidences, and with a great consensus of witnesses to its
power of convincing and satisfying the intellect and the heart as
a full revelation of the divine truth and law. The opposition to
the Catholic Idea is therefore mostly in the form of negation. As
a lofty- and attractive Ideal, it is left to stand without a rival.
And we see now the full significance of the admission that the
power of the appeal of the Catholic Church to the educated Pro-
testant mind lies in the loftiness and attractiveness of this ideal.
The advantage conceded to the Catholic Church consists in the
ability to present this ideal as having an apparent foundation in
reality, whereas Protestantism cannof pretend to do the same.
Protestantism acknowledges and boasts of its own vagueness and
indistinctness of form and outline. It rejoices in its nebulosity,
and its theory of Christianity may fitly be called a kind of nebu-
lar hypothesis. Of course, thinking men cannot get on without
shaping some kind of ideal of Christianity, and forming some or
other theory. But each one is left free to do this for himself.
His intellectual ingenuity and imaginative power have free scope.
The nebulous mass must be supposed to have begun at the origin
of Christianity the process of solidifying, and to be undergoing
the same transformation now, and thus to be progressing toward
the perfect state which will be attained in the future. There
free room, therefore, for speculation on the whole of the past
tory of Christianity, on its present state, and its future prospe
It cannot be denied that a certain advantage has been gained
the contention against the Catholic Church, by those who have

ai ta

3 is

lin

1 8 So.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 325

thus cut loose from a defensive and offensive warfare in favor of
any distinct and positive system professing to be the original, or-
ganized Christian religion, which existed in the first period of the
church, and has been restored in its later epoch. A great deal of
responsibility has been shuffled off by this change of base. The
polemics of the past are to a great extent rendered obsolete. On
both sides, we have to begin afresh, and this is an advantage to
our opponents, as well as a new task imposed on our side. Those
who maintain that neither Old Catholicism nor antiquated Pro-
testantism is adequate for the work of Christianity in the present
and coming time, can admire and criticise both, with freedom,
while they assume a position and attitude of philosophical im-
partiality and superiority. They escape, in this way, from the
difficulties in which they would be involved, if they remained on
the old ground of contention. A great part of what we can say
in favor of Catholicism and against old-fashioned Protestantism,
they can concede, and give it a transeat. They think they have
gained, also, another advantage, by conceding something to their
own Extreme Left of rationalism and negative criticism, in their
contention for what they consider essential orthodoxy against
partial or total infidelity.

We consider t'hat two of the best and ablest of the leaders of
this new, moderate school, are Guizot and Milman, and we be-
lieve that their influence has been very great. The criticism
which Cardinal Newman put forth on Milman's Latin Christian-
ity, while this illustrious prelate was still a Protestant, sets forth
with admirable clearness and ability the nature and bearings of
the new theory, which at the time gave so great a shock to the
orthodox Protestant sentiment, but which has gained over such a
very general assent of those who are by no means prepared to go
to the greater length of Stanley and Arnold, although, in many
cases, this is only a qualified assent, not implying a full concur-
rence with the minimizing views of Milman.

Guizot's view may be briefly stated as the theory of a Chris-
tianity determined only in a few dogmas and principles, left in-
determinate in all else, and subject to a human and natural devel-
opment, which is, however, strongly affected by the new moral
quality, the divine impulse, imparted by the Christian revelation
and the great events which introduced it.* Milman's view is
essentially similar, and he sums up what his leading idea and aim

* Vid. Hist, de la Civiliz. en Europe lemons 2, 6, 12, etc. Civ. en France^ 1. 3, 12, 13,
29, etc.

326 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [June,

had been in the composition of his great works, in the preface to
the latest edition of his History of the Jews : *

"A comprehensive, all-embracing, truly Catholic Christianity, which
knows what is essential to religion, what is temporary and extraneous to it,
may defy the world. Obstinate adherence to things antiquated, and irre-
concilable with advancing knowledge and thought, may repel, and for ever,
how many I know not, how far I know still less. Avertat omen Deus ! "

It is strange what a charm there is in the word " Catholic,"
for those who retain the Christian tone and temper of mind, and
unite with it that philosophical enlargement of the understanding
to which a narrow sectarianism is so repugnant. Those who
reject Old Catholicism must have some sort of vague, undefined,
shadowy substitute for it which they can call Catholic Chris-
tianity. Their position obliges them to attempt to show that our
Catholic Idea is an illusion, that is, not the just apprehension and
concept of genuine Catholicity. They must, then, show what this
really is. We have seen already that they cannot show any rival
concrete Catholicity, having priority, continuity, and present
actuality of existence, with evidences of right to oust the Catho-
lic Church from her possession. Their Idea, such as it is, is only
in the mind as an ens rationis, with no foundation, thus far, except
an individual interpretation of Scripture ; and awaiting realization
in the future, so its advocates are led by their fancy to hope.
All they can have is a theory, but a theory they must have, and
are forced to frame, when they attempt to disprove the reality of
that idea of the Catholic Church which they acknowledge to be
lofty and attractive.

This theoretical view has a striking analogy with another fa-
mous theory elaborated by that great genius, Immanuel Kant, ii
his Critique of Pure Reason. It pretended to refute scepticisi
without returning to the old philosophy, which the Reformer D(
Cartes was supposed to have demolished, just as Luther is su]
posed to have demolished the old religion. The theory was, th<
there is no reality to be an objective term of doubt, and that pu]
reason is only a way we have of thinking. This gets rid of al
questions after the manner of the Scotch boy who answered all
the queries of an inquisitive American girl about the reasons f(
local customs with : " It's a way we hae, miss." It was Kant'
theory, as it was the boy's, not to have any. So, also, it is 01
modern Protestant idea that we cannot have an Ideal Christianity
and do not want a theory of it, because there is none. Th(

* New York ed. 1871, vol. i. p. 40.

: :

880.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 327

bject of affirmation, of contention, of doubt, is put out of the
way. What are Catholic doctrines, what are Protestant doc-
trines ? It is a way which Catholics and Protestants have of
looking at things. What are their ecclesiastical organizations,
modes of worship, laws and customs ? It is a way they have of
doing things. There is no complete, perfect organic Christian
church and religion, established and determined from the begin-
ning by Jesus Christ through the ministry of the apostles. There
are certain revealed facts, dogmas, and moral principles. The
means, methods, agencies, for elaborating doctrine, ethics, wor-
ship, organization of active energies for propagating truth, holi-
ness, and well-being among men ; in view of the conversion of the
world to God ; are left to human prudence, to choice, to circum-
stances, to the operation of natural causes, to the. developments
and modifications of various times and various places, and to the
course of events ; not excluding, of course, the general provi-
dence of God and the influences of his divine grace. Christianity,
therefore, is identical with civilization, including the culture of
the religious part of human nature ; it is civilization affected by
the facts, doctrines, and ethical principles which are supposed to
constitute the essential part of the revelation made by Jesus
Christ. Its catholicity is the universality of its prevalence under
all forms and modifications.

Thus, our idea of Christianity is taken away, without substi-
tuting any other which can even appear to fill its place. When
the Protestant princes of Germany confiscated the property of
the Catholic Church, they did not confer it upon the Protestant
Church but appropriated it to their own use. When the Greek
Patriarch of Moscow was deposed, no other was appointed in his
room, but a new bureau of the imperial government was insti-
tuted, to regulate ecclesiastical affairs henceforth as one branch
of secular administration. Thus this theory despoils the One,
Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church of her claim to a divine
origin and authority, without investing any Protestant church
or collection and alliance of churches with the queenly robes of
the Spouse of Christ. All alike are regarded as human institu-
tions ; imperfect, voluntary, and equal societies ; having a legiti-
mate and useful function in Christendom, for the advancement of
its civilization, and in the outlying world for reclaiming it from
barbarism, ignorance, and superstition. Thus, the obligation of
ignoring or decrying all historical Christianity between some
supposed primitive period of pure religion and the appearance of
Luther is avoided, and the necessity of thorough partisanship

328 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [June,

with the Reformation is likewise done away with. The separation
of the Protestant societies from the Catholic Church is excused
and justified, yet the modern, the mediaeval, and the ancient
Catholic Church need not be condemned. The unity, catho-
licity, sanctity, even the apostolicity of the church under the
supremacy of the Roman Pontiff, as historical facts, can receive
the votes of men of this party, in the form of placet juxta modum.
Any evidence of what doctrines, worship, polity, and usages were
prevalent in any age, however early, can be received. The great-
est latitude for individual opinions in respect to doctrine, the in-
terpretation of Scripture, philosophy, science, modes and means
of promoting religion and morals, from the nearest approach to
the widest departure from Catholic orthodoxy, can be allowed ;
provided only that what is assumed to be essential is sacredly
preserved.

It is not to be denied that a great apparent advantage, for
the time being, accrues to those who have taken up this position
of moderate, evangelical rationalism. Their theory permits
them to remain quietly in the inheritance of their fathers, in
whatever communion they happen to be, or may choose for
themselves, without much restraint on their liberty, of thought
and action. They feel that they hold a strong position on the
basis of natural theology and the motives of credibility which
sustain the great facts of divine revelation, against unbelievers
and pure rationalists. They flatter themselves that they are essen-
tially united with the great body of Christians in all ages. They
look out for some future development of what they call Catholic
Christianity, which will combine all the elements at present dis-
united in some synthesis more universal than any whose formula
has been hitherto discovered. In the meanwhile they are* not
committed to any very great amount of positive affirmation
which they are bound to prove, beyond the domain of those
truths which are contained in what may be called common secu-
lar and common Christian science. They are in the attitude of
inquirers, eclectics, free, impartial, philosophical thinkers. And,
no doubt, so long as they feel safe, they can be happy.

Nevertheless, it is our firm conviction that they are in a most
unsafe position, more like that of Jules Verne's party on the
floating, melting ice-island, than that of people who dwell on
solid land. Newman said thirty years ago, in respect of Milman's
View of Christianity, that such a theory must prove too much for
those who adopt it, and will control them instead of being con-
trolled by them. Men who are bolder and more clear-sighted,

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 329

more logical and consistent, than those who hold this theory,
according- to the German expression, as eine Halbheit, sustain and
propagate it in a more comprehensive and universal form. The
negative and rationalistic principle which this theory contains
must sweep away all in whom it predominates over the orthodox
spirit, and the convictions of reason which are consonant with
Catholic faith. The solid reasons which sustain their orthodox
convictions cannot long give them security in holding their mid-
dle ground, which is only a halting-place in the transition which
they must make to complete Catholicity, or the entire negation
of all supernatural religion. Their negative principle saps the
basis of certainty beneath their orthodox convictions. Logic is
inexorable and merciless in its conclusions. Given sufficient time,
every error must run its full course. Those who hold a half-
gospel may be as individuals so firmly fixed in their belief that
their perseverance in the same is morally certain. But they have
no security for their children, their pupils, or the body of the
people who look up to them as teachers. The orthodox and
pious portion of the great Protestant multitude, if they had been
born and educated in the Catholic Church, would be faithful and
practical Catholics. The rejection of the Catholic Church by an
intelligent and deliberate act, accompanied by sufficient know-
ledge of the cause to remove the impediment of invincible igno-
rance, is an act in diametrical contradiction to the doctrines and
principles which those who are called orthodox profess as being
the essence of the Christian religion. There is no alternative,
therefore, between going forward, or going backward. And this
we hope to show, more at length, by the arguments which are to
follow.

330 A RETROSPECT OF MANY YEARS. [June,

A RETROSPECT OF MANY YEARS.

BY CARDINAL WISEMAN.

Being verses which spontaneously glided through the author's mind on a sleepless night,
August 25, 1864, and during the following days. N. C. W.

[Never before published.]
I. EDUCATION.

OH ! 'tis sweet, when life is failing,

Back to look on labors blest ;
After years of stormy sailing,

Port to sight for endless rest.

Early, e'en on childhood's morrow,

Its new flowers begin to till :
Leave good room for growth of sorrow,

But weed out all germs of ill.

Thirsty panting after knowledge,

With the zest of unseen joy,
May depict the life in college

Of a lone, unmurmuring boy ;

To whom pastime gave no pleasure,

Nor to run, or row, or climb ;
For whom book or thought the measure

Filled of fragmentary time.

Quaint devices he remembers

Which from that far distance loom,

Such as glow in crumbling embers
With the evening's deepening gloom.

Warps they seemed of future history,
Drawn in threads so frail and thin

That e'en friends would hint, with mystery,
At decay that lurked within.

For wan features, frame ill-knitted,
Wrung compassion from the strong :

Oh ! how many who then pitied,

In their tombs have slumbered long !

i88o.] A RETROSPECT OF MANY YEARS. 331

Some, by virtue now illustrious,

Keep remembrance of him still-
Poring-, plodding, slow, industrious,

Without soar of wit or will.

II. ROME.

Till Rome's mighty spirit beckoned,
Not as though 'gainst him it strove ;

For its signal did but second
Hidden claims of early love.*

Docile to the call supernal,

Soon adored he where alone
With the temporal th' eternal

Holds, in peace, one common throne.

Oh ! how good is youthful toiling,
Without help from hand or mind ;

Grand the self-sustained uncoiling
Of the serpents round us twined !

Nights of anguish, days of labor,
Then bright flashings of God's sun,

Made Gethsemani and Thabor
Blend their mountains into one.

Rome, what art thou but the treasure

Of free, rich, exhaustless grace ?
Gold the treasure, gold its measure,

With it thrown into th' embrace ? f

Garden where the rose have furnished

Virgins, white, and martyrs, red ;
House whose pavement feet have burnished

Of apostles, deathward led.

* Some years before the restoration of the English College at Rome was thought of the wri-
ter, with a friend, afterwards his school-fellow at Rome, and then a bishop, joined in society to
study Roman antiquities by the aid of a wretched old plan ; and they were called familiarly by
their school-fellows " The Romans." They wrote a little book or story, of which the writer re-
members nothing but the title, Fabius, of which he never thought when he wrote the story of
Fabius' daughter.

t Rome not only grants boundless spiritual graces, but liberally confers on many the powers
to bestow them.

33 2 A RETROSPECT OF MANY YEARS. [June,

There 'tis sweet 'mid tufts to linger
Which some buried crypt conceal,

Just when evening's " rosy finger "
Loosens Mary's Angel-peal.

Sweeter at some old " Confession," *
Where your hands your tears can hide,

To pray God soon from oppression
To deliver the Lamb's Bride :

Or beg* pilgrim saints, who hover

Within Peter's princely dome,
To assist us to recover

Faith, for our dear English home.

Sweetest when a pontiff filleth

With all grace his hands outspread,

Then, reversing them, distilleth
On the kneeling Levite's head ;

When he sheds the " oil of gladness "

On his consecrating palm,
Bids him soothe all pain and sadness

With that healing, saving balm ;

And anoints the stripling, eager

With his shepherd sling to smite
The Goliaths who beleaguer

Juda's host with bitter spite.

III. THE RETURN.

Was it well so safe a harbor
With a bark so frail to quit ?

Would a bird from sheltered arbor,
Without stronger pinions flit ?

If command still higher follows,
E'en the skiff must ocean brave ;

Instinct like the " stork's or swallow's " f
Drives the bird o'er earth and wave.

* Martyr's tomb. t Jeremias viii. 7.

i88o.] A RETROSPECT OF MANY YEARS. 333

And with us, how much more holy

That which comes from Jordan's Dove,

Which bears not the body solely
On these burning wings of love :

" Dost thou love me, thy Creator ?

Dost thou love thy fellow-clay ? "
Though our answer be with Peter,
" Lord, thou knowest spare my ' yea ' ! "

IV. THE HIERARCHY.

Wherefore, now the bark is floating
On the evening-sun-lit main ;

May it not be worth the noting
What has been its loss or gain ?

Riches, pleasure, earthly honor-
Have these been her golden freight ?

Has the worldling smiled upon her,
Or applauded her the great?

Sailed she not 'twixt raking volleys,
Now with jeer dealt, now with yell,

Here the witling's hissing follies,
There the statesman's booming shell ?

So she bear her Chieftain's banner
On the shore to be made fast,

What cares she if breezes fan her
Or her limp sail flap the mast ?

v. ITS FRUITS.

Now its tree is firmly planted,

With its healthy saplings grouped,

Ne'er defiant hath it flaunted
Nor ingloriously drooped.

For as, round the olive springing,
Rise in sheaves its graceful shoots,

Heaven's dew was quick in bringing
Happy offspring from its roots.

334 A RETROSPECT OF MANY YEARS. [June,

Where Religion sat imploring

For a hermit's humblest cell,
Noble piles, sublimely soaring,

Rise by Rome's creative spell.

Synods, held with modest splendor,
Guide the church by steadfast rule ;

Faith's new bulwarks round defend her
Learning's seat or lowly school.

Still more, Piety up-raises

Against sin a surer dam
Holy men sing midnight praises,

Virgins watch before the Lamb. *

VI. SOLI DEO LAUS.

O Lord God ! who made or granted
All these wondrous gifts but THOU ?

Men have watered may have planted
Thou with life canst sole endow !

As for me, the smallest sharer

In thy work of gracious love,
Make me e'er thy burden-bearer

Toil below, its wage above !

Without nature's gifts or graces,

Aught that charm to life imparts,
With few sympathizing faces,

Fewer sympathizing hearts,

Be my journey lone and darkling,

Now in age, as erst in youth,
So I Mary's crown see sparkling ;

See thee triumph LOVE and TRUTH !

Oh ! how glorious to behold you

Handmaid one, the other, Lord ;
In well-ordered love enfold you

Her, companion ; thee, reward.

ST. NICHOLAS' DAY, 1864.

* Several communities now rise at midnight to sing the Divine Office, and others practise
perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 335

MY RAID INTO MEXICO.

CHAPTER III.

CHECK ALL ROUND.

MR. BEVAN'S fussiness during dinner was something to set
one's teeth on edge, while the manner in which he ordered about
the two maids, smart as to cap and smart as to apron, absolutely
made me feel inclined to shy my dinner-roll at his head. It was
some source of comfort to me to behold the waitresses making
silent grimaces at one another when their duties brought them in
close proximity in the neighborhood of the sideboard ; and one of
these young ladies had my entire sympathies when I saw her
double up her hand after the fashion of the P. R., and shake it
menacingly behind mine host's chair a piece of pantomime per-
formed solely with a view to relieving her injured and excited
feelings.

" Eh ! what's the meaning of this, Pumpsy ? " his pet name for
his wife. " Another cracked soup-plate ! This will never do ! I
bought this set at Christie & Manson's, a dead bargain, for eight-
seventeen-nine, and here's another plate cracked. When was the
last one cracked ? Let me see, the loth of June. Who cracked this
one? Either of you girls? "to the waitresses. " Of course not.
It was done between you, anyhow, and I'll deduct the cost of
the plate equally between you. Mr. Joseph, not taking cucumber
with your salmon ! I insist upon it. Please use another fish-knife.
Kate, another fish-knife for Mr. Nugent ; I see that the handle of
the one he's using is cracked. Nellie, don't take sweetbread to
leave it on your plate. Miss Wriothesly, I fear your bracelet will
chip that glass. Please move the glass in a little ah ! that's right.
Pumpsy, why use these glasses every day ? We got three of
them smashed in five years. Kate, don't hold the dish in that
way ; Mary will be sure to knock against you, and who's to pay
me for my carpet? There, now, Mr. Joseph, you've spilled the
salt ! How I should like to thump you ! Kate, mind what you're
about ; you can't do two things at once. That's no way to help
peas. See there, three of them on the cloth. Ah ! you've bruised
one ; that will stain. How I should like to thump you ! Some
saddle of mutton, Miss Wriothesly ? Don't say no if you mean
yes. Who sharpens these knives? You do, Mary ? Well, then,

336 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

please sharpen them, but don't wear the edges clean off. Tim-
mins " to the butler " didn't I leave some claret yesterday ?
No ? But I'm certain that I did. I did not finish the decanter.
What wine is this ? A Brand Mouton ! Who told you to decant
a Brand Mouton ? Eh ? Not I, indeed. How do I stand in this
wine ? I'll look at your book after dinner. Mr. Joseph, be care-
ful not to spill a drop of claret on this table-cloth ; if you do I'll
thump you. Oh ! please fold your napkin the other way. Pump-
sy, you must look after things more closely ; I noticed the cook
hand a large basket to a boy to-day as I came in. Oh ! no, you
won't, but I will ; I'll look into this. Mr. Joseph, I pay high wages
and buy the best of everything, but I'd rather pay half a crown
a pound for beef than lose one farthing's worth of suet. Ah !
here are the darlings," as his two little daughters came frisking in
with the dessert, all blushes and lace and embroidery. " If you're
not going to finish that apple, Mr. Joseph, please give it to Maudie.
Miss Wriothesly, let me have a couple of those nuts for Louisa.
Ah ! here's another tear in -your frock. How is this ? I pay a
nurse-maid for keeping you from wearing out your clothes, and
here's what I get for my money. Pumpsy, are those new shoes
on Maudie? Good heavens! I paid seven-and-six for a pair for
her not two months ago. This sort of thing cannot go on. Don't
turn the nut-crackers that way, Mr. Joseph ; you might strain
them. Miss Wriothesly, do, for gracious' sake ! have a care with
that fan. It's all very well to laugh, but I hate breakages.
There's somebody scraping the leg of the table with their foot.
Is it you, Nellie ? By the way, Nellie, you burn your gas a little
too late. I want every light in my house turned out at eleven
o'clock ; I hate to run up a heavy gas-bill," etc., etc.

When the ladies had retired Mr. Bevan was good enough to
inform me of the exact cost of each and every article in his house,
where he purchased, and the articles which he obtained at whole-
sale price. He was also good enough to give me an insight into
his career as a commercial man, illustrated by several smart
things he had accomplished during his climb up the lad-
der.

" Look after the pence, Mr. Joseph, and the pounds will take
care of themselves," he exclaimed, as we rose to join the ladies.
" How I should like to thump you for shoving back your chair
like that ! See, you have knocked it against this chair, and it's
a miracle there was no damage. There, now, you will kick up
the mat. How I should like to thump you !"

" Can you ride well?" Miss Wriothesly asked me when I had

1 88o.]

MY RAID INTO MEXICO.

337

taken a cup of coffee, Mr. Bevan in terror lest I should spill a
drop on his velvet carpet.

" Well, I"

" Yes or no ? "

" Yes."

" Can your sister ? "

" She has a splendid seat. She has ridden with the Meaths
and the Kildares."

" A woman who clears a six-foot wall might have no seat for
the Row."

" Nellie has ridden over and over again in the Phoenix Park ;
and let me tell you, Miss Wriothesly, that "

" Don't flare up. Always the Phoenix Park ! I never yet met
an Irishman who didn't howl about the ' Phaynix.' "

" I don't know about howling, Miss Wriothesly, but

" Take any other word you prefer. Will gushing do ? "

" We have the finest park in the world," I eagerly exclaimed.
" You could take all your London parks put together out of it,
and we wouldn't miss them. We have acres upon acres of sev-
enty-pile velvet that to gallop on it makes you feel as if you were
not of this earth at all. And then the deep-wooded glades with
elms centuries old, and hawthorns which in early summer are one
sheet of white and pink blossom and the air is perfumed for
miles; and then the glorious background of the Dublin Moun-
tains, and in the immediate foreground the Liffey winding, as your
Thames does at Richmond, a silver thread. You should see a
review of the troops on the Fifteen Acres. The flash of the dra-
goon helmets and sabres and bayonets, the red coats against the
green sod and green background ; the smoke of the cannon mixing
with the trees and enveloping them as with a white veil; the
charges of cavalry and the skirmishing of the infantry I tell
you, Miss Wriothesly, that a review in the Phcenix Park is a su-
perb sight ! "

" I know a dragoon who is quartered in Dublin now a Cap-
tain Ballantyne. Have you met him ? "

"Yes."

" He's rather nice, but lazy."

"Ah!"

" Does his soldiering with his hands in his pockets, and would
saunter half a mile to look at a public clock sooner than take the
trouble of unbuttoning his frock-coat to consult his watch. Where
did you meet him ? "

" At a neighbor's Major Butler's."

VOL. XXXI. 22.

338 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

" I've heard your sister speak of them ; by the way, of course
you've flopped your young affections at the feet of Miss Straw-
berries-and-Cream, haven't you?"

I would have given the year's rent of Tubbermore to have
been able to reply sarcastically, but it wasn't in me. I blushed,
jackass that I was, and almost yelled a denial.

" Ah ! a lover's quarrel. Now I see it all," cried Miss Wrio-
thesly. " Strawberries-and-Cream falls out with young Turnips-
and-Mangel-wurzel, and he resolves to leave her for ever. Straw-
berries-and-Cream betakes herself to a flirtation aye, with Cap-
tain Ballantyne, and "

" She is perfectly welcome as far as / am concerned," I inter-
rupted.

" Oh ! of course she is. We know all about that, Mr. Turnips-
and-Mangel-wurzel ; but, nevertheless, what would you not give
to see the captain bowled out, and Strawberries-and-Cream howl-
ing for her dear Turnips-and- Mangel-wurzel ? "

" Howling seems to be a pet word with you, Miss Wriothesly."

" So it is. You are right. It covers a great deal of ground.
It means a lot. But here's Timmins to howl that my carriage
awaits me. Revenons, not to Phoenix Park but to Rotten Row.
I'll give you and your sister a mount for to-morrow morning at
eleven. You shall ride a cob fit for a Chancellor of the Exche-
quer. If you have played me false about your riding I'll dis-
mount you. I wouldn't be seen in the Row with a man who
didn't know how to ride, except for a wager, for the Phaynix ";
adding with a light laugh, " Eleven o'clock bang, 37 Park Lane !
Good-night, Turnips ! "

I lay awake for a considerable time after going to bed, cud-
gelling my brains for a witty nickname wherewith to dub the
heiress in return for the agricultural sobriquet she was facetious-
ly pleased to confer upon me, but without success. Anything
I thought of was so personal as to amount to an impertinence.
And yet what could be more personal than Turnips ? True, I
was a farmer, and of a race of farmers ; but I was a magistrate for
my county, my father and grandfather had represented it in the
Imperial Parliament, my great-grandfather in the old House in
College Green, and I thank Heaven he voted dead against the
Union, although offered a peerage for his vote I have Lord Cas-
tlereagh's letter in my possession ; I held up my head with the
best blood in Ireland ; I was invited to the carpet-dances at the
Viceroy's ; I belonged to the best club in Dublin ; and to be called
Turnips-and-Mangel-wurzel ! It was really too provoking.

1 8 So.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 339

What would Trixy say if she knew she had been christened
Strawberries-and-Cream ? Wouldn't she flare up ! Wouldn't she
give Miss Wriothesly one, tw,o with the left, and counter with
the right ! Wouldn't she invent a name for the heiress, a stin-
ger ! It would be a good bit of fun to write to Patricia, and
\o ; catch me writing to her ! Bah ! Nellie might. And I fell
deep, resolved upon getting my sister to indite a long, long letter
to Miss Butler, and to lay particular stress upon the fact of my
laving entered into a desperate flirtation with a beautiful girl
>ossessed of half a million of money.

As my sister and I drove up to the residence of the banker's
laughter at five minutes to eleven the following morning, the
:hree mounts, in the care of as many grooms, were being led up
ind down the lane, and three more perfect beauties I never laid

eyes on. My cob so riveted my attention that I forgot the
cabman, my sister, the heiress, everything, as I gloated over the
charms of this tidy bit of blood.

" More power, Masther Joe."

I turned to behold Billy Brierly at my elbow.

" How did you get here ? "

" Faix, thin, I spint a shillin' on wan av thim quare machines
that we come in on Thursda', Masther Joe, the Lord forgive me ! "

" A hansom?"

" Yis, sir. Divil a haporth o' hansom in it, more betoken.
That's th' English ignorance. Anyway," he added, " it's long
afore we'd call that a handsome conthrivance in Ireland no, be
me song. Sorra an outside-car I seen since I come, Masther Joe."

" What brought you here, Billy ? Any message from Mrs.
Be van ? "

" No, Masther Joe, but I'll tell ye the whole truth, sir. Ye
see I heerd the young wumman that attinds on Miss Nellie an'
an ill-mannered, upsettin', impidint crayture she is I heerd her
say that Miss Nellie's ridin'-habit wasn't worth layin' a brish on.

" ' What habit are ye talkin' of ? ' sez I.

" ' That's none of you're bisness,' sez she.

" ' Isn't it ? ' sez I.

" ' No,' sez she.

" ' Well, thin,' sez I, ' I'll show ye it's me bisness, for dickins
resave the sight av a brish it'll get from your dirty hands.
Give it to me,' sez I, ' an' I'll brish it ; an' as for cloth, there's not
such a bit av stuff in all Europe.'

" ' Faix, it'll make a nice display,' sez she, ' in the Rotten
Row,' sez she.

340 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

" * In where ? ' sez I.

" ' In Rotten Row,' sez she agin, as bowld as brass. Well,
Masther Joe, I felt the blood leppin' in me veins as if I'd got a
welt av a kippeen at Bonabeela fair.

" * Did ye say rotten ? ' sez I.

" ' I did,' sez she.

" ' Ye did ? ' sez I.

" * I did,' sez she agin.

" ' Yer the ignorantist, vulgarestest faymale,' sez I, * that ever
I seen in all me thravels, an' I wudn't demean meself be houldin"
talk wud the like o' ye.' So I tuk Miss Nellie's habit, an giv it a
rousin' brishin', Masther Joe, an' then I heerd where yez was
comin'. ' An' be the mortial,' sez I to meself, * I'll see what soart
av a baste the masther's goin' for to throw his leg across,' for this
is a great day for ye, Masther Joe. I hear she owns the Bank
av England more power, avic. I wanted for to see av ye got a
dacent mount somethin' that wud give thim a taste av the
greens and that's why I spint the shillin', Masther Joe ! "

Billy's admiration for the cob was equal to mine.

" It's as nate a baste as ever I seen. Wudn't it warm the
cockles of Father Tom's heart for to see the darlint! There's
showldhers for ye ! There's a toss av the head ! See the deep
chest an' th' iligant withers. Bedad, Masther Joe, ye can give
thim the dale, an' keep the five spots in the heel av yer
fist."

Leaving Billy to make friends with the grooms, I entered the
Wriothesly mansion. Everything was in the most luxurious
splendor, coupled with the most aesthetic taste. The heiress was
noted for her " nocturnes," and " arrangements," and " harmo-
nies," to use the modern art jargon. Her windows were veiled
with lace of the tenderest pink, like the heart of a blush-rose ;
her walls were of that pale neutral tint which enhances the bril-
liancy of showy women, and makes the pallor of the white kim
chaste and refined ; nothing jarred, either in form or tint ; am
the result was a universal sense of bien-etre and perfect taste.

" Nellie ! " she exclaimed, " you would look a fat little pock<
Venus, if your habit fitted you. But in this thing you are
laundress* bale. You must let my artist build one for you
my proper expense. What do you think of this chef-d'oeuvre ?
pirouetting. " Mind ! I am not sewn into it, as the Empress
Austria is into hers. Baker ! " this to a flunky in plush, powdei
and silk stockings a giant, with a pair of calves to his shining
legs like small beer-barrels " luncheon to-day at half-past tw<

iSSo.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 341

Is there anything special that it would please your Hibernian
Highness to have ? "

" Yes," I gravely replied.

" Name the delicacy."

" Crubeens and cabbage."

" Crubeens / " elevating her eyebrows.

" Pigs' feet."

" Are you serious ? "

" Oh ! no, he's not," laughed Nellie, as, offering the heiress my
arm, we descended the wide, velvet-carpeted, bronze-and-hot-
house-flower-lined staircase.

" More power, miss ! " observed Billy Brierly, stepping for-
ward, removing his hat, and literally scraping acquaintance.
" Faix, ye needn't be wan bit ashamed o' yer stable. Sorra a
betther set o' bastes ever tasted oats. It's over beyant at Drom-
roe th' ought for to be."

" My servant, Miss Wriothesly. He goes to Mexico with
me," I explained in reply to her wondering, if not startled, look of
inquiry.

" Faix, av he'll be sed be me, the dickins resave the sight o'
Mexico he'll ever see, barrin'" this with an air of intense know-
ingness " barrin he goes wud another partner."

As. we were about to ride away the heiress sent one of the
grooms for the swell flunky, at whom Brierly stared as though
he had been a wax-work.

" Take Mr. Nugent's servant to Perkins, and tell Perkins to
let him have everything he wants," said Miss Wriothesly from the
saddle.

" I'm thankful to ye, miss," cried Billy, " but I'm goin' for
to folly yez, for I'd rather see Miss Nellie canther nor ate all
th' vittles betune this an' Dunshaughlin."

Later on the heiress remarked :

" No English servant would lose an extra good luncheon on
such a plea. Mr. what's his name ? "

" Brierly, Billy Brierly."

" William Brierly shall be invited to dinner in the house-
keeper's room, and Mr. Perkins, the butler, shall be instructed to
administer cakes and ale to thy trusty varlet."

How brightly that girl talked, always saying exactly what it
pleased her to say, hitting out right and left, and bowling con-
ventional hypocrisy at to use a cricketer's phrase every over !

" Now," she exclaimed as we entered the Row, " I'll pro-
ceed to make known to you some of the notabilities of the Liver

342 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

Brigade, so named by Edmund Yates because nine persons out
of every ten ride here for their livers by order of their trusted
doctors. What else would set a plodding detachment of stout,
grave men pounding away up and down on long-suffering steeds
every morning at a given hour? The very bad cases that is to
say, the Liver Brigade proper do their penances at seven, eight,
and nine o'clock."

All the menkind this young girl saluted, all the womenkind
she gaily nodded to. She pointed out so many notabilities to
me that I became fairly bewildered. What envious glances some
of the caballeros cast at me as I rode by the side of this gold-
mine ! How I longed that Trixy might ride up ! I fancied her
astonished expression ; her inquiring gaze ; I would raise my hat,
bow coldly, and instantly turn smilingly and earnestly to my
companion, so as to let Miss Butler see that I was on terms of
dangerous intimacy with one who had peers of the realm at her
feet instead of a trumpery dragoon captain.

" C'est immense, cest immense! Si Richelieu me voyait main-
tenant / " I could scarcely refrain from exclaiming.

Members of the cabinet and legislature, high public func-
tionaries, dukes and double duchesses, judges and M.P.'s, a whole
bench of bishops, well-known litterateurs and sons of the brush,
swells of the army and navy, batches of feminine beauty, merry
children some of the boys with a grip of the knees speaking of
long practice and early training financiers and honest citizens,
galloped, cantered, trotted, and ambled past, many of them en-
gaged in shaking their livers and worshipping at the shrine of
health.

" We are out of season, you know, Mr. Nugent, yet we can al-
ways, as the Americans say, * give you a good show in London/ '
was Miss Wriothesly's observation as we slowed into Park Lane
after our morning's ride. I should mention that Billy Brierly, at
a jog-trot, kept on the pathway in the Row that borders the rid(
and that whenever he caught my eye he would remove his h;
and whirl it triumphantly over his head.

" Well, now, Masther Joe," he exclaimed when I subsequently
encountered him, " there was the world an' all of grandeur
yant in that place to-day. There was lords an' ladies, a polissm;
a nice, friendly man that, only he daren't stir off his bate, wi
have thrated me to a pint an' jooks, an' all soarts o' quollity in it
There was all soarts av bastes, some av thim not fit for to tal
an informer to the gallows, an' more aiqual to the Marquis
Headfort's Brown Fan. But the natest sate an' the lightest h<

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 343

was yer own, Masther Joe, an' the dawniest lady, afther Miss Nel-
lie, was yer partner. More power, Masther Joe, troth but we're
doin' well in this counthry the Bank av England no less!
'Wow, ow, sez the fox.'" And Billy commenced to sing as he
left me, for I had rebuked him sternly :

" I'm a lady of quality that lives in the sea ;
Come down, Maurice Connor, an' be married to me ;
Silver plates an' goold dishes you'll have, an' you'll be
The king of the fishes when you're married to me."

" I'm obliged to you, madam, for a goold dish and plate ;
If a king, an' I had it, I'd dine in great state ;
With your own father's daughther I'd be sure to agree,
But to drink the salt wather wudn't do so wud me."

" What is the matter, Nellie ? " asked Mr. Bevan next morn-
ing at breakfast. " Your eyes are red. Ha ! you've been burn-
ing my gas take care of that plate, child ; it is too near the edge
of the table yes, you have. I detest waste. I'd rather light this
house from cellar to garret every night in the year than waste one
cubic foot of gas. Do you know what gas costs per thousand
cubic feet? Pumpsy, my dear, our gas-bills are out of all propor-
tion. Mr. Joseph, if you break your egg that way my cloth will
suffer. Mary, what do you mean by bringing me toast so burnt
as this ? Now I'll have to waste yes, waste it by scraping. For
heaven's sake ! girl, don't fling about my cutlery in that way.
What do you mean ? Pumpsy, you should see to all this. What
makes your eyes red, Nellie?"

Put into a corner, my sister replied somewhat pettishly : " Be-
cause I've been crying, Mr. Bevan."

" Crying, Nellie ! " we all exclaimed in a breath.

" What has annoyed you, dear?" asked Mrs. Bevan.

" Anybody ill at Timolin?" I demanded.

" Broken anything ? " was Mr. Bevan's inquiry in an anxious
tone.

Nellie seemed inclined to blubber again.

" What, is it ? " I asked, now seriously alarmed.

" I I had a a letter from Trixy this morning, and and "
she stopped.

" And what ? Is aunt ill ? Has the major been thrown ? "

" N-no."

" Then what is the matter? "

"Cap-Cap-Captain Ballantyne ha-ha-has proposed for her."
And here my sister fairly burst into a whirlwind of sobbing.

344 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

My heart seemed to give one beat backward and then to leap
into flame. I knew that I grew white, and then I felt the color
flowing and glowing up in my very hair.

I had on a tightish boot, and, in order to force my sensations
under and to manifest unconcern, I squeezed my foot against the
leg of my chair until the counter torture was sweet agony.

I knew that Nellie was looking at me, and that the eyes of Mrs.
Bevan were riveted upon me.

" I don't see any reason for crying over this, my dear child/*
exclaimed Mrs. Bevan.

" Nor for crumpling your napkin into a million creases," add-
ed her husband.

" A gay dragoon ! Why, it's an offer half the girls in England
are angling for."

" Miss Butler always doated on the military," I laughed.
What a harsh, grating laugh that was !

" Mr. Joseph, you are slashing my table-cloth as if you were
a dragoon," said Mr. Bevan in considerable concern. " Good
heavens ! Pumpsy, he has cut two holes in it already."

This was too true. I was not aware of the fact.

" I beg pardon," I stammered. " I'll get you another table-
cloth to-day."

" That's all mighty fine, but you can't match the set."

" I'll do my best, sir."

" Do ! There, now ! I knew that pepper-caster would go over.
Let me see if it's damaged. Yes, here is the commencement of
a crack. Dear, dear, dear ! "

This interlude brought me to myself. Why should Trixy not
marry Captain Ballantyne ? It was a good match, and if she
liked him what more need there be said on the subject ? Why
should it affect me of all persons ? How glad I was to think that
I would be in Mexico when the wedding came off ! I would write
her an awfully jolly letter, full yes,/?/// of fun, and congratulate
her. What present would I make her? A splendid one. No
matter what it might cost, I would give her a handsomer gift
than anybody else would give her. We were old playmates and
strong, good friends. She was my second sister. Yes, of course
it was a brotherly love I had for her, and as her brother I felt
hurt that she had not confided in me. She should have told me.
It was mean and shabby in her to have withheld her confidence.
I would not write to her. I was justly and righteously offended
by her conduct, and I would show her that I felt it keenly.
Ballantyne of all men ! I had no objection to a dragoon, but this

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 345

fellow, a cold, sneering, brainless idiot, who had won her by his
laced jacket and his jingling spurs ! It was too bad. Should I
write to aunt ? Why or wherefore ? It was none of my business.
/ was not consulted. It was not my affair.

A thousand thoughts like these played hide-and-go-seek, and
leap-frog, and blind-man's-buff, and fool-in-the-corner in the brief
space of a few seconds in my heart, and I think I owe it to the
ecstasy of my tight boots that I did not utter my ideas aloud.

"Is this a good offer for the girl?" demanded Mr. Bevan of
Nellie.

" He is very rich."

" What do you call rich, Nellie ? We have men in the city of
London who call themselves poor on ten thousand a year."

" He has five thousand a year now, and will have three times
that sum when his uncle dies."

" Is he a Catholic ? " demanded Mrs. Bevan.

" Yes."

" And of good family ? "

" He is one of the Lancashire Ballantynes, and they held the
faith when everything else was lost."

" Ton my word, I think your young friend has made a very
good market," said Mr. Bevan. " Has she any money? "

" Oh ! yes," I chimed in. '"Miss Butler has five or six thou-
sand pounds in her own right. Pierce, her brother, when he
comes of age, will touch twenty thousand."

" You should have cut out this dragoon, Mr. Joseph," chuck-
led mine host.

" Joe has better work before him," cried mine hostess. " He
has to go in and win the five-hundred-thousand er."

" With all my heart ! " laughed Bevan ; " and if he can cut
into her heart as he has cut into my table-cloth he'll handle the
grammatins."

I must own that the idea of winning one of the greatest heir-
esses in England seemed at this particular moment very rose-
hued. Imagine what Trixy would say when she heard from Nel-
lie that I had achieved such a conquest! What a sensation in
Dunshaughlin ! After all, are not our home triumphs the tri-
umphs ?

" What will they say at home ?" Ah ! if we always kept this
one thought before us would we not win many a race on the
great field of life ?

But the idea of my going in for the heiress was too pre-
posterous. " Turnips ! " " Mangel-wurzel ! " That was quite

346 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

enough. However, it would sound well, and I would get Nellie
to mention casually that I was entered for the race.

" Does your friend say anything about the wedding?" asked
Mrs. Bevan of my sister.

"What wedding?"

" What wedding ! Why, the Ballantyne-Butler case."

" Who spoke of a wedding ? " demanded Nellie.

" Why, you did, of course."

" Excuse me ! "

" What ! "

" I never spoke of a wedding."

" Oh ! well, you spoke of a proposal, and one is the avant cour-
rier of the other."

# Not always," said my sister, quietly glancing at me.

I do not know why I was on thorns, or, as Billy Brierly would
have expressed it, " like a hen on a hot griddle."

" Speak out, you little Irish sphinx ! " laughed Mrs. Bevan ;
" we don't want any conundrums."

Nellie drew forth Trixy's letter. I recognized the great, large
characters, many of the words resembling print.

" Keep the back of that note for me, if it's blank ! " exclaimed
Mr. Bevan. " I never allow the back of a letter to be wasted.
I make use of every one of 'em."

I pretended to be busily engaged in buttering a piece of dry
toast.

" Mr. Joseph, please don't send the sparks from that toast into
the salt-cellar."

I could have toasted him.

" I have no secrets here," said Nellie, with a little sob, "so I'll
read what dearest, darling Trixy says."

How I scraped that toast !

" Before you commence, dear, just push that cup in a little,
will you ? No, the other one. And, Pumpsy, that egg mighl
drop out of the stand on to the table."

Nellie commenced.

" The letter begins with you, Joe," she said, " and

" Ends with Captain Ballantyne, I presume," was my stiJ
rejoinder.

" Precisely."

" Pass me over, please, Nellie."

" And come to the captain," laughed Mrs. Bevan.

"Very well, I'll please you both," said my sister. "Aft<
telling me a lot of home news she goes on to say : ' I want t(

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 347

prepare you for a surprise, darling ; or, as it didn't surprise mam-
ma, perhaps it will not startle you. Captain Ballantyne you
have met him has, as you are aware, been stopping here (Joe
treated him dreadfully), and has been attentive to me after the
blast fashion of his cloth. He is a thoroughly well-bred man, and
the very best style. He is handsome and rides not only like a
dragoon but a whipper-in. Well, dear, I was alone with him in
the conservatory yesterday ; it was after breakfast, and I was
doing my usual scissoring, cutting a bouquet for the altars of Our
Lady at Derrycunnehy for Father Henry Moore, when Captain
Ballantyne suddenly exclaimed

" Pumpsy, that egg will fall," cried Mr. Bevan.

" Oh ! bother you and the egg," retorted his wife.

" My dear, I"

" Can't you hear Nellie out? "

Mr. Bevan having adjusted the egg to his satisfaction, my
sister resumed :

" * Suddenly exclaimed, " Miss Butler " but no, Nellie, it is
only after long years that we tell these things, riest-ce pas ? I
shall pass over what the words were, but he asked me to marry
him. Now, are you surprised, dear ? I suppose not, you are so-
awfully quiet and sensible ! ' '

" And Miss Butler fell into the captain's arms, crying, ' I am
yours,' and if they don't live happily, that you and I may," I burst
in.

" Really, Joe, this is excessively rude," exclaimed my sister in
a pout.

I was silent, and Nellie proceeded with the reading of the
letter :

" ' Of course, dear, I said no and

"Who said no ?" I interrupted.

" Trixy."

" Has Trixy refused Captain Ballantyne ?"

" Yes."

Was it relief that I felt at this announcement, or what ?

" ' Of course I said " no," and really the poor fellow seemed as
if somebody had struck him. He almost reeled. I respected his
manly grief at this disappointment, but could not console him.
After a few seconds, during which I tore poor Father Moore's bou-
quet into pieces, he gasped : " May I hope? " I said : " You may
not" ; and the hard words came from me like steel bolts, Nellie.
Then he was silent, while he slowly pulled his moustache. " May
I ask you a question, Miss Butler? " I did not imagine what was

348 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

coming, so I assented. "You will not be annoyed at what may
seem an impertinence?" I made no reply. " Miss Butler," he
said, " has your love been given to another? " Nellie, I couldn't
trifle with the man, for I saw that he was terribly in earnest, so I
said the small word "yes." He pressed his hand over his eyes
and forehead, and, like one that is blind, seemed to grope his way
to the drawing-room. I went out on the lawn, and tying a hand-
kerchief over my head, crossed the fields to Dromroe, where I saw
Joe's hunter, who ate the roses out of Father Moore's wrecked
bouquet. When I got back to Timolin Captain Ballantyne had
taken his departure a telegram from his colonel. I knew what
that telegram meant, Nellie.' "

My sister paused.

" And so there is a real Simon Pure in the case," observed
Mrs. Bevan.

" The girl was quite right to be candid," said Mr. Bevan,
" but I blame her for wasting those flowers."

" I suppose Edgar Wilde is first favorite ? " I suggested, bitter-
ly resenting Trixy's preference for such a lisping idiot. He lived
within four miles of Timolin and was always perfumed like a hair-
dresser's apprentice. He could speak of nothing but Paris, and
was always giving us bits of French, well-pronounced enough,
but, pah ! who cared for them, except, perhaps, Miss Butler?

My sister flung a keen glance at me as I suggested this per-
fumed personage.

" I do not think so, Joe."

" Then it must be Sir Oscar O'Brien."

" I think not."

" These are the two favorites, anyhow, Nellie."

" I wouldn't back either."

" I have it ! " and in my excitement I thumped the table. " It's
George Wynne Harvey."

<? He's old enough to be her father."

" Shows her sense," said Mr. Bevan ; " and, Mr. Joseph, do not,
for gracious' sake ! bang the table that way again. I should so
like to thump you !"

" Miss Wriothesly," announced Mary, the heiress following
closely upon the heels of the soubrette.

" What people to feed you are !" cried Miss Wriothesly.
41 Don't stir, anybody. I've done my muffin- worry ing two hours
ago. What keeps you here to such an hour? " to Bevan. " Papa
has made or lost a million before this. Go away ; I don't want
your fuss ! "

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 349

" Don't lean against that table, dear ; the bronze "

" I'll knock it down just to make you caper. I want to show
little Nell here South Kensington Museum this morning. I'll
throw Turnips in."

" You will not throw Turnips in !" I angrily retorted.

" Ah ! the Irish blood is boiling, is it ? Don't you wish I was
a man, and wouldn't you have me ' out ' in the Phaynix, the Fif-
teen Acres, if I was ? " And Miss Wriothesly laughed right musi-
cally at her own conceit.

" If you had been here five minutes ago you would have
heard a very charming letter read," said Mrs. Bevan.

" From a mankind or a womankind ? "

" From a woman about a man."

" Naturally."

" The romantic details of a proposal and a refusal."

"Can we not demand an encore? Who read it? You, Tur-
nips?"

" My sister read it."

" Then your sister will read it again. Will you not, little
Nell ? "

" If you knew Trixy I'd "

" But I mean to know her. She's Strawberries-and-Cream.
Eh, Turnips ? "

" Is it fair to to speak of a gentleman's being refused ? " que-
ried my sister.

" Well, what a villageoise you are, to be sure ! But keep your
secret, dear ; it's glad tidings of great joy to me to know there
is one of my sex capable of saying no to any matrimonial offer.'

" A most eligible offer," added Bevan.

" And a gay dragoon to boot," exclaimed his wife.

" Does Trixy show good cause? "

" Nellie here considers it sufficient."

" If she endorses the refusal it must be a case of the heart.
Trixy is spooney on another. Am I right? "

"Quite right, Miss Wriothesly."

" '.''hen Trixy is right, Nellie is right, and the dragoon was
wrong- to have popped. Now, Nell, fling on that village bonnet
and that country-town cloak, and come with me, my pretty maid."

" I'd have you to know," retorted my sister tartly, "that I get
all my garments at Mrs. Manning's, of Grafton Street, Dublin,
and that she is modiste to the lady-lieutenant."

While Nellie was putting on her things, and Mrs. Bevan see-
ing off her liege lord, the heiress suddenly confronted me with

350 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

" You're a pretty fellow, Turnips ! "

I did not understand her.

" With your brogue, and your blarney and bothering ways,
why don't you go back to Ireland and make it up with Strawbet-
ries-and-Cream ? "

" I have no falling-out with Miss Butler."

" Yes, you have."

" Really, Miss Wriothesly, I"

" The dignified don't become you, Home-Ruler. Don't put
on side. There are very few men who laugh as heartily as you,
whom the haw-haw suits, and you're not of the elect. Tell me ! "
and here she approached me very closely, fixing her eyes on
mine, " is there anything between you and Miss Beatrice But-
ler?"

" Nothing."

"On honor?"

" Upon my honor."

" Has there been ? "

" Never."

" Do you imagine that you have caused this man's rejec-
tion?"

"I?"

" Yes, you / "

" / had nothing to say to it."

Miss Wriothesly approached still closer as she asked :

" Is Miss Butler " she suddenly stopped, and, turning on her
heel, muttered :

"Les femmes ont toujours quelque arriere pensee."

What a strange idea this girl had taken up, that I pshaw !
this was too ridiculous. No, Trixy was spooney on George
Wynne Harvey. He was a gentleman, anyhow, and one of the
greatest swells in the county. If he were but ten years younger
there could be no possible objection to him, especially as he was
heir to an earldom. What a superb countess Trixy would
make !

" Now we are all ready. Come, Turnips!" exclaimed Miss
Wriothesly.

" I shall have the honor of escorting you to your carriage."

" To South Kensington Museum, you mean."

" You must excuse me."

" I never excuse an idle man."

" I happen to be a busy one to-day. 4 '

" Busy ? "

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 351

" I have letters to write."

" Of course you have : one to your steward to look after the
cows and the sheep and the pigs ten lines ; one to your groom
to see that your hunter doesn't eat his head off five lines. One
to your chum, whoever he may be, to say that you have met one
of the queerest girls in the world fifty lines. That's about the
backbone of your business, unless you intend to congratulate Miss
Strawberries-and-Crearn on her pluck."

" I can't see much pluck in a girl refusing an idiotic dra-
goon."

We were descending the staircase.

" ' Oh ! beware, my lord, of jealousy ;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on.' "

"Where will you find that passage, Turnips ?" laughed the
heiress.

I felt very pleased in being able to name Othello.

" Do you know what Rochefoucauld says ? Of course you
don't. I'll tell you : ' La jalousie est le plus grand de tous les
maux, et celui que fait le moins de pitie aux personnes qui le cau-
sent.' '

" I don't believe in jealousy," cried my sister.

"Not yet, ma petite. What do you think of my blood chest-
nuts? " added Miss Wriothesly, turning to me.

The animals in question, attended by two elegantly-appointed
grooms, who stood like animated statues at their heads, were su-
perbly matched, and worth, at the very lowest figure, ^400 apiece.
The light phaeton to which they were attached was also a gem
in its way.

" Don't you think I've a pretty strong fist?" said Miss Wrio-
thesly, doubling back her hand and displaying a tiny, blue-veined
wrist peeping from between her cuff and her glove.

" You don't mean to say that you tooled these bloods? " I ex-
claimed.

" Alone I did it."

I suppose there was something in my glance, for she asked me
in an arch tone :

" Do you admire me now ? "

My honest affirmative seemed to afford her a childish plea-
sure.

" You'll come and see me handle the ribbons ? "

Really"

352 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [June,

" Assist Nellie into the back seat. Williams ! Henderson !
you can go home. Now, Turnips, help me up, and then jump in
beside me ; for these horses, like all well-bred animals, are inclined
to be saucy."

Why should I refuse an offer that half the swells in London
would have sacrificed any and every engagement for ? I had no
engagement. In fact, I had nothing whatever to do but to stroll
about the streets, gazing into the shop-windows ; and yet a
strange spirit of perverseness held me fast.

"Why won't you come, Joe?" asked my sister.

" The man who hesitates is lost," cried Miss Wriothesly.
" Nellie, come round to me. Williams ! Henderson ! you'll take
your seats behind. Now, then ! " and without so much as deign-
ing to bestow a further glance upon me, the heiress seized the
reins, and, giving them a gentle shake, was almost out of sight
ere I could return my lifted hat to my head.

" What a jackass ! " I muttered.

" Troth, ye may well say that, Masther Joe," exclaimed Billy
Brierly, who had unnoticed witnessed the whole scene. " Musha,
but yer in a quare humor to-day, sir. Av they swore it on the
buke, I wudn't believe ye'd let a sate behind sich bastes go beggin',
an' beside sich a darlint av a leddy who's achin' wud love for ye,
an' '

" Billy, be ready to start in the morning," I interrupted.

" For where, sir? "

" Liverpool."

A look of incredulity appeared in my follower's face.

" Is it in airnest ye are, Masther Joe? "

" We'll do the morning train from St. Pancras."

" Are ye still thinkin' av goin' to Mexyco, Masther Joe ? "

" Why, of course I am."

" An' av lavin' yer chances ? '

" What chances, Billy ? "

" The Bank av England, no less."

Billy's face wore such a melancholy expression that I bursl
into a fit of laughter.

" Troth, it's no laffin' matther, Masther Joe. It makes me
heart ache for to think of yer bein' so onraysonable. Arrah
what's come over him at all, at all? " I heard him growl as I as-
cended the steps. "An' whips o' money, an' an illigant young
faymale reddy for th' axin' aye, or wudout it. Begor, av h<
only stayed he'd be saved that thrubble. She's reddy to lep at
his biddin'."

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 353

I encountered Mrs. Bevan in the hall.

"You here, Joe?" she exclaimed.

"Yes, Mrs. Bevan."

" Have the girls has Miss Wriothesly left you in the lurch ? "

" I have left myself in the lurch."

" You don't mean to say that you refused to go ! "

" I do " ; and I laughed.

" That you refused the box-seat ? I heard her arrange the
programme with Nellie."

" Such is the ungallant fact."

Mrs. Bevan stared at me for a second.

" Joe," she said, " you are the biggest fool I ever heard of.
Do you know what you are doing? "

I laughed.

" Pshaw ! Step in here a moment."

I followed her into Mr. Sevan's sanctum.

" Sit down."

She seated herself opposite me.

" Joe, if you play your cards properly you will win a very
high stake. You will win .500,000, with a very charming girl.
Don't interrupt me, please. She is struck with you. We cannot
account for these things, but such is the fact. / know it. Nellie
knows it. She is a girl who will marry the man of her own
choosing. She refused the Marquis of Pombuly not* a month
ago a young and handsome Guardsman and her father lives,
moves, and has -his being in her. Now, Joe, don't be a fool and
lose this chance, this certainty. You've done a very stupid thing
just now, so make up for it in the best way you can. I'll propose
an expedition for to-morrow."

" I have proposed one, Mrs. Bevan."

" That's good. The Crystal Palace ? "

" Liverpool. I'm off in the morning."

" Are you mad ? You shall not go to-morrow. I say this,
and I w/7/be obeyed."

TO BE CONTINUED.

VOL. XXXI. 23

354 THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [June,

THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

SUCH is the title and designation of a new sect which appears
destined to create confusion in the ranks of the bishops and clergy
of all Protestant Episcopal societies, but especially in those of the
Established Church of England. Based on the same principles
as those of other Protestant sects, it claims to be a purified Church
of England.

Its origin, so far as can be ascertained, dates back some seven
or eight years. In the autumn of the year 1873 a gathering of
Evangelical Christians of all lands and all denominations was held
in the city of New York under the auspices of the Evangelical
Alliance. The meeting was doubtless intended by its congeners
as a counterpoise to the CEcumenical Council of the Vatican in
1869, which had created no small stir in Protestant circles, but
the result, instead of being an illustration of unity, was further
division and the birth of new sects.

During the sitting of this conference the present Dean of Can-
terbury (Dr. Payne Smith) and Bishop Cummins, an assistant
bishop of the diocese of Kentucky, partook of the Lord's Supper
in a Presbyterian meeting-house an act which gave great offence
to many English and American Episcopalians of the High-Church
and ritualistic schools of thought. The authorities of the new
sect inform us that the tempest raised proved to Bishop Cummins
that all hope of true catholicity in the Protestant Episcopal
Church of America was at an end, so he thought it necessary to
resign his office. In his letter of resignation, dated November 10,
1873, Bishop Cummins gave three reasons for his withdrawal :
ist, the progress of ritualism, which he was powerless to stop ;
2d, the conviction that the root of evil was in the Prayer-Book ;
3d, the anti-Christian outcry against the united Communion. He
concluded his letter in the following words :

" I therefore leave the church in which I have labored "in the sacred
ministry for twenty-eight years, and transfer my work and office to another
sphere of labor. I have an earnest hope and confidence that a basis for the
union of all Evangelical Christendom can be found in a communion which
shall retain or restore a primitive episcopacy and a pure Scriptural liturgy."

Immediately after his secession he proceeded to organize the
new communion which he had called into existence ; a bishop was

i88o.] THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 355

consecrated in the person of Dr.' Cheney, and a new prayer-book
was adopted from which all passages supposed to have a Puseyite
tendency were eliminated, something after the mode of that
which Lord Ebury and the Prayer-Book Revision Society have
endeavored to introduce into England. Meanwhile the bishops
of the Protestant Episcopal Church, from which he had seceded,
held a meeting and agreed that he should be formally deposed.
By their canon law, however, they discovered they could do
nothing in the matter for six months. The Reformed Episco-
pal Church was therefore well started before the bishops of the
other church had time to degrade their seceding brother a fact
which gave great force to the movement.

It remains to be seen whether it is likely to continue to in-
crease, but there can be no doubt that it has hitherto made great
progress. We find from the official report (1879) tnat it extends
from British Columbia and the remote Bermudas to England,
that it has five bishops, nearly a hundred clergy, and numbers its
communicants by thousands, and that it already possesses a uni-
versity nobly endowed. It is stated that in England within the
last three months the missionary chaplain has inaugurated four
churches, and that its clergy are at work in nine dioceses.

A schism already appears to have broken out in its ranks, for
in some announcements we are told that Bishop Sugden is the
presiding bishop in England, and in others that Bishop Gregg
is the primate. Various recriminating letters have also passed
between the contending parties, who apparently are opposed to
one another more on the question of jurisdiction than that of doc-
trine. Attention was drawn to the whole movement in the year
1878 by the charges of two Anglican bishops (Chi Chester and St.
Albans), who in pompous language declared that intruders, under
the guise of Anglican bishops and clergy, had appeared in their
dioceses and performed services that could scarcely be distin-
guished from those of the Established Church of the country. The
appointment and consecration of a bishop in the person of Dr.
Toke, who had formally seceded from the Anglican communion
after the Bennet judgment, gave rise to much criticism, especially
from the fact that his consecrator, Bishop Gregg, had been for-
merly vicar of a well-known church near Birmingham and a dis-
tinguished member of the Evangelical party. This proceeding
drew down strong denunciations from the Bishop of St. Albans,
who solemnly warned the laity of his diocese of the snare that was
laid for them. Bishop Toke had been, till within a few months
of his consecration, rector of Knossington, a village near Oakham,

356 THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [June,

in the Midland District, and was a member of the committee for
the Old Testament revision. Both the bishops of Chichester and
St. Albans, in attacking this new sect, assumed the Catholic argu-
ment i.e., they entered a protest against any one intruding into
the diocese of a lawful bishop as ipso facto committing an act of
schism, and in high-flown language warned the people against the
want of jurisdiction on the part of the new sect. The Bishop of
St. Albans went further, for he assumed the complete invalidity
of Dr. Gregg's orders and denied that he had any right to offi-
ciate at all. The correspondence is amusing. Dr. Gregg writes
thus :

" MY LORD : In your charge delivered on Tuesday you not only ques-
tioned the validity of my consecration as derived from a deposed bishop of
the American Episcopal Church, but you failed to state the real reason for
the formation of the Reformed Episcopal Church in this country viz., the
extreme sacerdotalism which almost everywhere prevails and will ruin the
Church of England. The bishop through whom the historical succession
reached me had his consecration directly through the Anglican com-
munion, and had not been deposed when the succession was transmitted
through him to the three bishops by whom I was validly and canonically
consecrated. . . . That there is a real cause for the existence of the Re-
formed Episcopal Church in this country is witnessed by the fact that in
the diocese of St. Albans alone we have hundreds, if not thousands, of active
sympathizers, and those not entirely confined to the laity. The cries which
reach me from oppressed churchmen in many places for an Evangelical
ministry are indeed distressing, and convince me, much as we all love the
dear old Church of England, that when she ceases to be Protestant she
must cease to exist.

" I am, my Lord, etc.,

" HUSBAND GREGG, D.D. M.D., Bishop"

In reply the Bishop of St. Albans wrote as follows :

" REV. SIR : You assert that the bishop through whom the historical
succession reached you had his consecration directly through the Anglican
communion, and had not been deposed when the succession was trans-
mitted. I presume that the bishop to whom you refer was Dr. Cummins.
My statement was that this bishojD, though not yet formally deposed, lay
under prohibition from performing any episcopal act, which prohibition was
publicly notified December i, 1873, just a fortnight before he proceeded to
consecrate that bishop through whom, as you say, you derived the histori-
cal succession. I have authority to state that none of the American bishops
have ever recognized as valid the act of pretended consecration performed
by Dr. Cummins, or any act growing out of it.

" I am, etc.,

"T. L., St. Albans."

It is curious that the Bishop of St. Albans should fail to see

i88o.] THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 357

that according to his line of argument the Reformation of the
sixteenth century was wrong. If it is wrong now (assuming, of
course, that the present Protestant prelates were real bishops) for
Dr. Gregg to start a new church in England because he considers
that the existing one has fallen into grievous error, it must have
been equally wrong for Henry VIII. or Dr. Cranmer to have
done so ; and yet the bishops of Chichester and St. Albans cannot
justify their position without admitting 'that their ancestors at-
tacked the existing church of their day. Again, if it is wrong for
Bishop Gregg to intrude into their dioceses, on what grounds do
they justify the conduct of the body to which they belong in
France, Germany, Italy, and over the Continent of Europe ? If
they declare that the invalidity of Bishop Gregg's orders is suffi-
cient to prevent their regarding him as a bishop, on what grounds
can they object to Catholics for using a similar line of argument
against themselves ? In the debate on this subject by the bishops
assembled in convocation, as reported in the Guardian of May 5,
1878, one of that body informed his brethren that Rome invari-
ably ignored all churches but herself, and that, though Anglicans
might object to her line of conduct in partitioning England into
dioceses and ignoring the Establishment, she only acted according
to precedent, but that such was not the case with any other epis-
copal communion. Some of the bishops not only objected to the
action of the Reformed Episcopal communion, but erven ignored
the validity of the orders of its clergy. Others, like the Bishop of
Winchester, admitted that there was episcopal ordination. The
majority, whilst they repudiated the new sect, were of opinion
that the excesses of the ritualistic party had brought it into life,
and that as long as ritualism prevailed, so long would the Re-
formed Episcopal Church continue to develop and increase.

It is an acknowledged fact that a great change has within the
last forty or fifty years come over the Established Church in Eng-
land, and that extreme forms of ritualism have been practised by
a large body of clergy which are offensive to many. It is there-
fore not surprising that a church professing to be a " Reformed
Church of England " should by such persons have been deemed
necessary. Low-Churchmen do not realize the guilt of schism as
High-Churchmen do, nor do they hold the same notions as regards
the apostolical succession. They prefer bishops to presbyters, as
being more respectable and more convenient, but attach small im-
portance as to the manner by which the bishops originally obtain-
ed their orders or jurisdiction. It is probable, therefore, that if
ritualism should continue to increase there will be a large acces-

358 THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [June,

sion to the new sect from the ranks of the Evangelicals. It is cu-
rious to observe the importance that is attached- to the question of
the validity of orders by Bishop Gregg. He is careful to point
out that his consecration was lawfully and canonically derived
from the same source as the existing prelates of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in America, and that he is therefore a valid
bishop even in the eyes of the High-Church party.

The Standard considered the introduction of the new sect into
England sufficiently serious to write a leading article upon it, and
denounced in unmeasured terms all those who refused to admit
the transcendent virtues of the Establishment. The Standard
would probably have written in the same strain in the sixteenth
century. According to it a church stands or falls by the amount
of state support that it receives, and that anything more than
nationality and respectability should be required is beyond its
conception. And yet the Established Church of England differs
solely from the Reformed Episcopal Church in the fact that it
is by law established i.e., by an act of Parliament. On no other
grounds can its bishops or clergy claim supremacy or jurisdic-
tion to the exclusion of other bodies. Given independence of
judgment in religion, there will necessarily be as many opinions as
there are individuals. Hence the diversity of sentiment existing
amongst all those who are outside the pale of the church as to
what really ^constitutes the true notion of Christianity. In the
eyes of most of the Anglican prelates the crown is all-powerful.
The crown granted them whatever amount of jurisdiction they
imagine they possess, and it is to the crown and acts of Parliament
that all appeals against them must be referred. The dispute be-
tween the clergy of the Established Church and those of the new
sect is simply a civil matter, which would of course be given in
favor of the state-appointed clergy. The Church of England,
after a hazardous reign of three hundred years, seems to be
reaching a period of her existence beset with difficulties. In
addition to the ever-increasing number of Nonconformists, she
is internally torn with divisions, and externally attacked by a
new sect exactly the same as herself, but freed from state control.
The Catholic Church in England is also for her a prospective
enemy which is likely enough some day to assume its rightful
position, and dispossess its opponents of much that they had pre-
viously considered their own. The Anglican bishops are, in fact,
confronted with a movement that they cannot control, and that
cannot be put down by episcopal denunciations a movement
begun by a bishop who had seceded from the church in which

i88o.] THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 359

he had been brought up, and conducted in a purely Anglican
fashion.

Our Church Record, the official organ of this sect, published
monthly, thus writes in the October number for 1879:

"Our church has already ruffled the Anglican episcopal bench- it has
disturbed the drowsiness of Convocation ; it has fluttered the church papers,
and by God's blessing it will yet and before long awaken echoes in the re-
presentative chamber at Westminster." . . . " Our church is not intended to
be either a proselytizing trap nor a cave of Adullam." ..." The final result
of the solemn meeting of Anglican prelates held in 1878 at Lambeth, with
reference to the Reformed Episcopal Church, is that their lordships, having
considered the subject of sufficient importance, thought it necessary to
obtain special legal counsel in the matter. Their lordships were solemnly
advised as to the need of grave caution, as otherwise they might become in-
volved in serious ecclesiastical and legal difficulties, inasmuch as the orders
of Bishop Gregg and Bishop Toke are most unquestionably as valid as those
of their lordships. The legal advisers even went so far as to state to the
Archbishop of Canterbury : ' The orders conferred by Bishops Gregg and Toke
are as undoubtedly valid as any conferred by your grace' The result is of the
utmost ecclesiastical importance, and fully accounts for the grave and fra-
ternal silence recently so strictly observed by our bishops' episcopal breth-
ren in the Establishment, and which has proved so enigmatical to the public
in general and the church public in particular."

The heads of this sect declare that they have separated from
the Church of England for exactly the same reasons that the
Church of England separated from the Church of Rome viz., the
growth and rapid spread of Romish errors and practices. What
the Church of England did at the Reformation, that, they say, the
Reformed Episcopal Church has now done. Article XII. of its
Constitution states that, except where otherwise canonically speci-
fied, or where contrary to Evangelical and Protestant principles,
this Reformed Church conforms to the laws and customs of the
Church of England, and is thus not a new but an old church.
It has undoubtedly found a lodgment both in England and Ame-
rica, and is fast gaining adherents. It adheres to episcopacy but
not prelacy (whatever this may mean) ; it accepts the Anglican
Prayer-Book, minus all passages that it considers sacerdotal ; it
repudiates any doctrine approaching to a belief in the Real Pre-
sence, and is entirely opposed to confession, priestly authority, and
regeneration in baptism. It asserts that the Anglican Church has
lapsed into something closely allied to popery, and that Evangeli-
cals have no remedy but a series of expensive and tedious law-
suits, which seldom produce results that are considered satisfac-
tory. It professes not to desire to depart from the old historic

360 THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [June,

line, and rejoices that its bishops and clergy can trace their descent
from the see of Canterbury ; but cherishes a fraternal spirit to
men of other denominations, and permits its clergy to exchange
pulpits with ministers of other persuasions. It professes to hold
itself aloof from Anglicanism solely on the grounds of ritualism,
and that, were the sacerdotalists expelled from the ranks, its mem-
bers would gladly return to the Church of England ; but that, on
the contrary, should the sacerdotalists gain the day, it hopes to be
a house of refuge and a rallying-point for the promotion of a
Church of England truly and entirely evangelical, which shall
go forth " fair "as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible to the
systems which oppose God's word as an army with banners."
It seems certain that so long as a large body of the Anglican
clergy persist in imitating the ceremonies of the Mass, whether of
Roman or Sarum rite, hear confessions, and adorn their churches
to such an extent that it is hard for an outsider' to know whether
it is a Catholic place of worship or not, so long will the members
of this new sect have an argument to justify their conduct and the
sympathy of a large number of Protestants. Bishop Gregg, in a
charge delivered the ist of July, 1879, uses tne following remark-
able language :

" Why do we as a church exist ? The need for our existence arises
from the spread of the doctrines and practices of Rome in the Established
Church of this land. Under various terms Catholic revival, etc. we find a
wide-spread effort to assimilate the doctrines and services of the Church of
England to those of Rome. . . . Church restoration has come to be re-
garded in many cases as a restoration of Romanism. . . . Our mission is to
complete the work of the Reformation. . . . We are one with the Church
of England in all points in which the Church of England is one with the
word of God. . . . We are tired of modern superstitions and mediaeval ab-
surdities. . . . Our mission is to give back to England, to her dominions
and dependencies and colonies, the Church of England as she used to be.
. . . We have no priests save the Lord Jesus Christ and all his spiritual
people, no altar save Calvary, no atoning sacrifice save the Lamb of God,
no real presence save that of Christ in the heart. . . . We love the old
paths, and say that the old wine is better than the new."

The Anglican prelates who resent the intrusion of the Re-
formed bishops in England fail to see that, according to their
own argument, they should discourage all attempts at prosely tism
on the Continent, and that it is grossly inconsistent for them to
patronize elsewhere what they repudiate in Great Britain. With
marvellous inconsistency they attack a man like Bishop Gregg
foK subverting apostolic order and decency in England, whilst they

i88o.] THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 361

encourage M. Loyson and Bishop Reinkens for doing precisely
the same thing in France and Germany.

In Taifs Magazine for January, 1851, written at the time of the
so-called Papal Aggression, the following passage occurs, which,
with reference to this new Reformed Episcopal Church, seems
almost prophetic :

'* The queen's prerogative, we had always simply imagined, was to ap-
point archbishops and bishops of the Established Church. Is it now meant
that she has the prerogative of appointing the prelates of other churches
too ? No. If the Times and its multitudinous followers are to be taken as
exponents, it means there shall be no other bishops in England. Now look
where this leads. Quoth the Times : ' England has bishops and dioceses
of her own, and no others can be appointed without insult to the crown and
kingdom, and just liabilities on the part of the offenders.' We have here a
hint of the circumstance which renders it a possibility to foist such falla-
cies on the public, as well as the consequences to which they point. To
change the names, Scotland had synods and presbyteries of its own those
of the Established Church as appointed by legislative authority yet the
Scottish dissenters, happening to be Presbyterians, have over and over again
made new synods and presbyteries without ever thinking that they had in-
sulted the crown and kingdom and come under just liabilities. It has so
happened, however, that none of the dissenters from the Church of Eng-
land are Episcopalian's, otherwise there would have been other bishops and
dioceses long ago, and the fallacy in present use would never have been
born, or at least could never have lived. But will there never be any dis-
senters in England save the Roman Catholics requiring bishops for their
church government ? Is there not an exceeding likelihood that ere long
we shall see some coming out of the English Church, carrying their Episco-
pal principles with them ? Lately it seemed as if this exodus were to be
composed of the Evangelical party, and, if we are not mistaken, a sort of
beginning or nucleus already existed in the person of Mr. Shore, of Exeter ;
and now it is more likely to be the Puseyites, beginning with Mr. Bennet.
But nobody knows whose may be the first turn or whose the next ; but any
man may know who chooses to consider that if this doctrine of no bishops
nor dioceses, save those of the Established Church, being permissible is to
be held good, Episcopal dissenters are things prohibited."

What is here hinted at is that which has now actually come
to pass : there has been a secession from the ranks of the Low-
Church side, inaugurated by Bishop Cummins and styled the
"Reformed Episcopal Church/' and a secession from the High-
Church ranks styled " Corporate Reunion," which at present
possesses bishops (whose names are, however, withheld from the
public on the plea of expediency). The English people in gen-
eral, but the Anglican bishops and clergy in particular, fail to see
that, on the principles of religious and civil liberty which are pro-
fessedly those of the nation, it is illogical and absurd to complain

362 THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [June,

of any proceedings such as those of this new sect. A Reformed
Episcopal Church, based on the theory of the right of episcopacy,
must necessarily have bishops ; these bishops must of necessity
have power, and therefore there must be territorial divisions. In
this way it is inevitable that they should officiate in the dioceses
of the Establishment if they are to exist at all. A country has po-
litical liberty when all its citizens are equally ruled under one free
constitution, against which no man can be allowed to speak be-
yond certain limits without incurring the penalty of sedition ; but
a country has religious liberty, not when her citizens live under
one church, however sound and liberal, but when every man
chooses a church for himself and is at liberty, by all argument of
mere speech, to maintain its claims, however absurd and arrogant.
An Episcopal Church, therefore, is not tolerated if it is interfered
with in its liberty of appointing bishops, determining their num-
bers and rank, and bestowing on them any title that does not in-
fringe on existing rights.

The rise of this new sect, which seems to be on the increase
in this country and England, should make all Protestants (but An-
glicans especially) examine the origin of their various commu-
nions. They will find that, on the true Catholic theory i.e., the
theory of the only true church (the Church of Rome) every one
of the numberless forms of Protestantism stands on the same
foundation of revolt, and that they are agreed on the one single
point of aversion to the Church Catholic.

They will find it impossible to urge against any sect that de-
parts from amongst them the arguments brought forward by the
bishops of St. Albans and Chichester, and that behind them, ever
looming in the distance, stands a church which has lasted for
eighteen centuries and which will last until the end of all things.
The Anglican bishops spend their lives in a perpetual protest.
They protest against the Church Catholic on the grounds that it
has intruded into their domain, forgetful of the fact that they were
themselves interlopers some three centuries ago. The Scottish
bishops of the Protestant Episcopal communion protest against
the action of any bishops in Scotland that do not recognize their
authority (witness the disturbance caused by the appointment of
Bishop Beckles, a London vicar, as overseer to the English
Episcopal congregations in Scotland) ; and now the bishops col-
lectively protest against the new Reformed Church of England
and sneer at its prelates and clergy.

On the Catholic theory that the church is one and indivisible,
it is perfectly consistent (however much Protestants may disap-

i88o.] THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 363

prove of such a theory) for the Holy See to send bishops and
prelates all over the world, and to treat existing arrangements
such as were found in England in 1851 and in Scotland in 1878 as
invalid ; but for a body of men whose raison d'etre is private judg-
ment and whose most extreme ritualistic wing do not venture to
assert more than that the Anglican communion is a branch of the
Catholic Church, to uphold it is the height of absurdity.

Religious liberty in the present day in England includes not
only the absence of persecution, but encouragement to discard
every kind of religion and the power of adopting pagan or atheistic
principles. Nevertheless, side by side with this apparent liberty,
in no country are the opposing sects so intolerant of one another
as in England, and numbers feel in duty bound to hate and per-
secute every one who disagrees with them. The Established
Church has always taken the lead in acts of intolerance. She has
persecuted Catholics and dissenters at various epochs with the
utmost ferocity, and her recent attack-on the Reformed Church
of England affords indication of what she Avould yet be capable
were the spirit of the times more favorable.

Hallam tells us that for more than one hundred and fifty
years of her existence she continued to be the servile handmaid
of monarchy and the steady enemy of public liberty ; and even to
this day, with all her professions of liberality and breadth of prin-
ciple, we find her in constant antagonism to the whole body of
Nonconformists.

The Reformed Episcopal Church, even if it should fail in its
own task, will at least have exposed the fallacy of the claims of
the clergy of the Established Church of England.

364 SERENA'S Vow. [June,

SERENA'S VOW;

OR, THE LACE LEGEND.

FROM the time that St. Eloi, in the year of grace 606, built the
little wooden church where now stands the cathedral of St. Sal-
vator,* and dedicated it to Blessed Mary ever Virgin, the city
of Bruges has always been renowned for its devotion to the Holy
Mother of God.

This devotion is not only shown by the devout observation of
her festivals, the magnificence of the processions in her honor, the
placing of her statue over the chief entrance of public buildings,
the door of the dwelling-house, or at the corner of the street
statues which, in spite of the gueux of former times and the revo-
lutionists of eighty years ago, are still so numerous : it is not or
must we, alas ! begin to say it was not ? only in the religious and
domestic life of Bruges that the thought of our Mother and
Queen was habitually interwoven, but more or less in the com-
mercial life as well, and the invention of the most famous manu-
facture of the country was attributed to her maternal interposi-
tion, by the city which, centuries ago, acquired the name of Maria-
stadt, or the town of Mary.

Lace, as is generally known, and as its name in Italian, Merletti
de Fiandra, testifies, was a Flemish invention ; f but it is not gen-
erally known that it is Our Lady herself to whom the tradition of
the country points as having taught the delicate art of lace-mak-
ing to a maiden of this antique city, among whose rudely-paved
and tortuous streets so many sweet old legends of her gracious
interference linger.

There still exists in the Rue Breydel, \ narrow as it is, a still
narrower street, or rather alley, anciently the lane of the Garre,
and now called Zeep Straet, or Soap Street a remnant of the old-

* St. Sauveur (or St. Salvator) became the metropolitan church after the destruction of the
ancient cathedral of St. Donatian. The present church of Our Lady, dating from 1225, owes
its origin to a chapel built by St. Boniface, A.D. 744, on the bank of the Reye, and called Onze
Lieve Vrouwe ter Reyen ("Our dear Lady of the Reye ").

t The invention of guipure is said to have arisen from the circumstance of a Venetian sailor
bringing home to his betrothed (who was a lace-maker) a branch of coral. She tried to imitate
its curious ramifications with her needle, and succeeded in producing this variety of the fabric.

J Now usually called the Rue Bride (or Bridle Street), the change being a mistake ; this street,
like some others in Bruges, now misnamed in French, taking its name from that of a family.

i88o.] SERENA'S Vow. 365

est part of Bruges. Until a few years ago this gray and gloomy
lane opened, at its further end, upon one of the canals ; but this
outlet is now closed up, and the only visible trace it retains of
the canal is, low down on the right hand, the arch of an ancient
bridge, beneath which, when we lately explored this interesting
but by no means inviting locality, the water could not be seen for
the utter darkness in which it lay.

In one of the antique and sombre houses of this alley houses
which, by the way, are lofty as well as massive, and here and there
adorned with niches, in which the saints are featureless and shape-
less from the wear of time and the damp of many centuries once
lived an aged couple who, like Quasimodo in his cathedral, seem-
ed part and parcel of their ancient dwelling. Their costume had
undergone no change since the day when, a youthful pair, they
had first taken up their abode in the lane of the Garre (to which
they were to give their name) as venders of Oile-kucken, * the said
delicacies being improved by a sprinkling of currants for pur-
chasers able to lay out an extra Hard for the additional luxury.

Beneath a vast chimney, the mantelpiece of which was adorn-
ed with a plate of wrought iron representing the Passion of Our
Lord, hung a huge black pot which for sixty years had been
kept full of boiling lamp-oil. Constantly replenished and never
emptied, this unctuous bath, like the famous German vintages
which are filled up as fast as taken from, always retained a por-
tion of its original stock.

Conne and his wife from whom, thanks to the general appre-
ciation of their oil-cakes, the lane of the Garre soon took the name
of the Garre von Conne seated before their magic caldron,
threw into it balls of paste, which, after a few turns in the oil, were
taken out, with a long two-pronged fork, round, golden, and appe-
tizing, while a group of expectant street-boys, whose tendency to
haunt the precincts of a bun-shop is an acknowledged fact, semper,
ubique, et ab omnibus, awaited the happy moment when they might
scald their fingers and tongues in consuming them.

The furniture of the abode was in keeping with the toilette of
its owners. It consisted of an old carved chest blackened with
oily vapors ; an iron lamp which emitted a dubious light, but
made up for its deficiency as a luminary by its liberality in the way
of smoke and odor ; a pair of wooden candlesticks, a few heavy
chairs, a table not so much spotted as soaked with grease, and a
few earthenware jars more or less mutilated. It was said, how-
ever, that the old couple had further in the house which, like al-

* A kind of bun fried in oil, and still extremely popular, especially on fasting-days.

366 SERENA'S Vow. [June,

most all Belgian houses, went very far back comfortable and
well-furnished rooms, to which they retired after the ringing of
the curfew ; but as no one had been inside, this was little more
than a conjecture of the neighbors, who sometimes saw a light
in the small diamond-paned windows of the further front later
in the night.

In this mysterious alley, which, as its name of Garre indicates,
was a landing-place, lived the heroine of the legend.

To the historian, the archaeologist, and the artist, Bruges, in
spite of all it has undergone, from gueux of the sixteenth and
French revolutionists of the eighteenth century, and from modern
masons, plasterers, and painters, is full of interest. Every epoch is
encrusted in its monuments, and stamped not only on its public
edifices, but on the lowly Godshuis* &&& the still humbler home
beneath whose low-arched doorway passes the woman of the
people, clothed in the long Spanish capuchin or hooded cloak.
Zeep Straet belongs to the primitive Bruges of which the Burg f
was the cradle, and which was originally occupied by malefac-
tors, w.ho, after committing their robberies or murders in the sur-
rounding woods, assembled there to share the produce of their
misdeeds.

But besides its streets, with their still painfully mediaeval
paving, Bruges has also what Pascal called its chemins qni mar-
chent its canals. We are not now speaking of the wide
canals, navigable by vessels of heavy tonnage, but the smaller
ones which wind around the oldest part of the city, and which
have dwindled in size and number in proportion as its com-
mercial prosperity has diminished. No longer are their waters
furrowed by vessels laden with rich cargoes from the Levant.
The quays, formerly encumbered with merchandise, are now
gardens, Avhich, by encroaching more and more upon the canals,
have in many places narrowed them until they are no longer
navigable except by boats and small craft.

Nothing can be more picturesque than an excursion on a sum-
mer evening along these capricious meanderings, which lead one

* Almshouses for the aged and infirm in each parish. These, usually one-storied dwellings,
kept beautifully neat by their poor occupants, surround a small court, in which each has a strip
of garden. In this court is the little chapel, which the old women delight in ornamenting to the
best of their taste and ability. If the result is sometimes more remarkable than beautiful its in-
tention is none the less edifying.

t An open space, partly planted with trees, especially on the site of the cathedral of St. Dona-
tian. Around it are the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the Chapelle du Saint-Sang
(originally St. Basil), the ancient Records Office, and a part of the Palais du Franc, etc.

i88o.] SEKENA'S Vow. 367

into the very heart of the fifteenth century. Here and there
thick shrubberies and their over-topping trees are musical with
nightingales ; the long tresses of the weeping- willow lash our
faces as we row along, or flowering shrubs, lilac or Guelder-rose,
scatter their blossoms over us. The swallows, heedless of the
splashing oars, swoop in graceful curves over the water, plenti-
fully supping on our tormentors as they fly.* The reeds and
flowering flags are thick, the cresses abundant, the white water-
lilies float amid their broad leaves like souls at rest; and this
dreamy voyage would be one of perfect calm, were it not for the
irrepressible croaking of the countless frogs, which seem to mock
with their vociferations the stately swans, loftily sailing through
the myriads of the mud, or sleeping, like miniature fleets at an-
chor, lulled by the music of the evening Angelus or the resound-
ing melodies flung from the wondrous chimes of the old belfry
tower.

We pass under the bridges from which the city takes its
name. Some of these low, deep arches are hung with climbing
plants. On the ruinous flights of steps, or in the gardens from
which they descend to the water, we may chance to see robust
and fair-skinned maidens, who might have sat to Rubens, busily
knitting as they chat together, a little apart from their more
meditative elders, who, almost in silence, enjoy the coffee or to-
bacco whose mingled fumes and fragrance spoil or enhance the
sweetness of the evening air. The old balconies in fine brick-
work like the setting of jewelry, the graceful turrets and quaint
gables with their interlaced mediaeval patterns and ribbed
mouldings, their arched windows and leaded casements, gleam-
ing amid the en wreathing foliage of the vine, 'are there in all
their primitive purity. For the modern bourgeois who have, for
the most part, swept away all these picturesque irregularities
from the front looking into the street, and replaced them by a
dead level, painted the color of fresh butter, and pierced with a
row of rectangular windows, all alike in their featureless ugliness
have hitherto tolerated the mingled manipulations of nature and
antique art on the water-front, where no one can see them but the
few who know of these solitudes, and the still fewer who care to
explore them.

It was during an excursion of this kind that we discovered the
Grunthuus, the most curious and also the best-preserved ancient
residence in Bruges, but whose land side is almost wholly masked
by mean and modern constructions. The old tower and its

* The gnats of Bruges have the venom of mosquitoes.

368 SERENA'S Vow. [June,

arched gateway have disappeared, but the main building, which
is of the purest Gothic, is intact. The splendid dwelling * has
fallen indeed from the days of its glory, when the noble ladies
of past times, in gold brocade and vaporous veils from the
looms of Cambrai, went to hear Mass in the oratory of the
Church of Our Lady, with which it communicated by a gallery
(now destroyed), and in which the carved oak tribune still re-
mains. The chambers where Edward IV. of England received
such royal hospitality were, until the last few weeks, spread with
old rags ; and the vestibules, whose marble floors had resounded
with the steps of archers and the spurred heel of noble knights,
re-echoed with the shrill voice of the auctioneer selling the un-
redeemed pledges of the unthrifty, the unfortunate, and the poor.
The Grunthuus had been turned into a mont-de-pie't^ or pawn es-
tablishment. Its front on the canal, well-nigh unknown, except
to the occupants of the small dwellings on the other side, seems
for ever gazing mournfully into the sluggish waters which bathe
its ancient foundations and mirror its slow and stately decay.

At the period to which our legend belongs the town, still sur-
rounded by dense forests, was circumscribed within the limits of
these interior canals.

Very long ago a poor woman named Barbara lived with her
five children in the Garre von Conn6. She was the widow of a
brave sailor who was lost at sea, leaving nothing to his family but
the somewhat sombre dwelling which sheltered them. Barbara
was not old, but grief and poverty had bent her frame, enfeebled
her sight, and so undermined her strength that a few turns of
her spinning-wheel sufficed to fatigue her.

All the care of the house and household fell, therefore, upon
Serena, the eldest girl. Tall, and too thin and grave for her
years, with a dark circle round her large eyes, melancholy from
premature anxiety and want, she only needed a little sunshine
and fresh air, a little freedom from care, a little happiness, to
make her a beautiful girl ; but the poor child, who had only the
earnings of her spinning-wheel to provide for all the wants of the
family, was sinking beneath the task which she fulfilled with the
devotedness which springs from an ardent faith and a firm ad-
herence to duty.

Her home, being at the end of the Garre, opened on to a small
garden, with a gate upon the quay. Several steps led down into

* This interesting building is now being restored ; the rags are swept away, and the mont-de-
pittt transferred to other quarters.

i88o.] SERENA'S Vow. 369

this garden, from the low stone door-way around which thick
ivy clustered, the shelter of countless birds.

The room in which the family chiefly lived, and which over-
looked the canal, was lighted by a casement filled with stained
glass a present to the sailor from a craftsman to whom he had
rendered some service. In winter, when the wind shook the
leaded panes, it seemed as if the antique dames and long-winged
angels danced and trembled in the frame-work ; but in summer
the gladsome sunbeams pursued the forms of angels, ladies, birds,
and dragons into the room, throwing them on the polished oak
table, the clean sanded floor, or the fair hair of the children, and
scattering rainbow-hues on the tiles of the chimney and the row
of wooden trenchers on the shelf.

The winter had been long and a hard one for the poor, in
spite of the charitable aid so freely given to those who would ap-
ply for it at the convent gates, and at the return of spring the
poverty in the widow's house was extreme. Serena compelled
herself to conceal from her mother her own sadness and fatigue ;
but daily, when the silvery bell of the chapel of St. Basil * rang
the morning Angelus, the early dawn found her there, kneeling
before the Mother of Sorrows, and there, one day, her trembling
lips pronounced the following vow :

" Holy Virgin, if you will show me a way to provide for my
mother and sisters, / promise to stifle the joy and hope of my heart ;
and, moreover, to none will I tell my vow, lest I be too sorely
pressed to break it ! "

This joy and this hope must have been very precious, for
after her sacrifice Serena wept long and bitterly at Our Lady's
feet.

On the opposite quay, facing Dame Barbara's house, lived a
wood merchant, Master Van Oost, on whose landing-place barges,
laden with timber from the Isles, often unloaded their cargoes.
Serena's father had many a time moored the little vessel of
which he was captain on his own side of the quay, and, being al-
ways ready to give a helping hand to his neighbor, friendly rela-
tions sprang up between the two families, which stood the test of
misfortune.

The merchant would willingly have assisted Dame Barbara,
had she not thrown over her poverty a certain austere dignity
and reserve which made those to whom this poverty was no
secret afraid to offer aid which might have wounded her some-

* Founded by Thierry of Alsace and Sibylle of Anjou. Consecrated in 1150.
VOL. XXXI. 24

SERENA'S Vow. [June,

what proud nature, besides exposing those who offered it to an
almost certain refusal.

It was between the children of the two families that the
closest intimacy had been established. Their connecting link
was the rowing-boat moored by the water-stairs of Master Van
Oost, whose eldest son, Arnold, during an hour of leisure, would
daily cross in it to the opposite quay, when the whole troop of
young ones would jump in and row along the broad canals of
what became, later on, the " Venice of the North."

Years passed. Arnold, who was a wood-carver's apprentice,
intelligent and industrious, advanced from boyhood and youth to
manhood. Serena, patient, grave, and toiling, though younger
than he by several months, seemed older than her years.

The moment when the friendship of childhood and the affec-
tion of youth becomes transformed into a deeper and tenderer
feeling can no more be pointed out than the exact spot can be
shown where the streamlet becomes a river or the river an arm
of the sea. The current grows more strong and rapid, and its
Irresistible force is only realized when it encounters an obstacle.

Serena no longer allowed herself to be rocked on the smooth
waters of the canal, and carefully avoided being left alone with
Arnold ; but from his window he would watch her whenever,
after a meal, she came out to throw to the swans the crumbs re-
maining from the poor repast ; and in the evenings, when Master
Van Oost went off to his favorite hostelry in Wool Street near
the Steen-huus * (which even at that time was in existence), his
son would cross over to Dame Barbara's, where, after throwing
on the smouldering hearth a goodly bundle of waste wood with
which he came provided, he would carve at an oak panel or
bracket, or would relate some history or legend he had learnt at
the school of the Benedictines, while Serena and her mother spun.
At the ringing of the curfew the widow rose to retire, and Ar-
nold, with a long look at Serena, took his departure until the
morrow.

He had always been in the habit of accompanying the widow
and her children in their walk between Mass and Vespers on
Sundays, when they went outside the fortifications to the vast
woods around the castles of Maele or St. Michel. While Dame
Barbara rested and the children played Arnold would help Se-

* The Steen-huus, or Gast-huus (built a little before 1188), is the very large and ancient hospi-
tal close by the church of Notre Dame. A portion of the building is now a museum of paintings
by Flemish masters. Here also is the marvellous shrine of St. Ursula, the work of Hans
Memlinc.

i88o.] SEKENA'S Vow. 371

rena gather flowers, which they made into two large bunches,
one for the altar of Our Lady in the chapel of St. Basil, and the
other to place before her image in Serena's room ; and it must be
owned that, if Arnold had had his own way, the chapel of St. Ba-
sil would not always have had the best.

It was during one of these walks that the young couple had
agreed that, when Arnold should be old enough and skilful enough
to be elected a master in the Corporation of Sculptors, they
would ask the consent of their parents for their marriage. It has
been remarked that many eminent statuaries have been sons of
potters or of bakers. Their talent revealed itself in childhood in
moulding the clay or the dough. Arnold, as a child, when play-
ing with bits of wood picked up in -his father's shed, and shaping
them with a clumsy knife, had first shown his taste for carving,
and since his apprenticeship began his progress had been so
great that, notwithstanding his youth, he had reason to hope that
the Sculptors' Guild would receive him before the age at which
it was their general rule to admit their members.

It was while Arnold was absorbed in the chef-d' ceuvre he was
preparing for the examination of the master-sculptors, happy in
his work and in the fair dream it was to enable him to realize,
that the distressing poverty in Serena's home impelled her to
make her vow to " stifle the joy of her heart," if Our Blessed
Lady would show her a way to maintain her family.

When she returned from the church of St. Basil her mother
perceived her more than usual paleness, and asked if she were ill.
Serena answered that she had not slept very well, but said no
more.

On the morrow, which was Sunday, Arnold, as usual, joined
the family in their country walk. It was a beautiful day near the
end of the month' of May. The delicate gossamers, called by the
people les fits de la Vierge, believing them to be threads detached
from Our Lady's distaff, floated in the air, giving sure sign of
fine and settled weather. Serena, silent and pensive, was sitting
on the grass in a flowery meadow near Engelendael, while Ar-
nold, standing near, was tying up with rushes the flowers he had
been gathering, and at the same time pondering as to what might
be the secret cause of her sadness.

All at once the air above them was slightly obscured by a soft
shadow falling over Serena, and in another moment her black
apron was covered with an innumerable quantity of gossamer
threads. She observed with amazement that their interlacing
formed the most delicate and graceful figures imaginable flow-

372 SERENA'S Vow. [June,

ers, birds, and arabesques. With wondering attention she studied
the marvellous arrangement of these threads, while she felt within
herself " This is Our Blessed Lady's answer to me ! If a poor
little field-spider can make, at her command, this beautiful and re-
gular design, with a thread too fine to be felt, why should not I,
an intelligent being, be able to do the same with the thread of
my distaff?"

But how was the ethereal fabric to be taken home? Ar-
nold solved the problem by making a light frame-work of small
branches ; the apron was laid upon it, and thus, with the utmost
care and caution, safely conveyed to the house in the Garre von
Conne.

That evening Serena prayed long and fervently, and all night
long the miraculous web was interwoven with her dreams.
Awaking at daybreak, she hastened to the chapel of St. Basil,
and knelt before the statue of Our Blessed Lady.

" Holy Virgin ! " she said, while the tears coursed down her
cheeks, " you have accepted my vow. Help me to be as thank-
ful as I ought. Help me to stifle my heart ; and, Blessed Mother,
comfort Arnold ! "

Still she knelt until, calmed and fortified by prayer, she
returned to her lowly home. On entering the house she kissed
and embraced her mother with more than her usual warmth.

" Give me your blessing, mother," she said, " for I am going
to undertake a difficult work."

" And what may that be, my child ? " asked the widow, struck
by the almost spiritual look of her daughter's pale and earnest
face. " Methinks you are strangely solemn to-day."

" I would fain copy the pattern which yesterday fell upon my
lap, as if from heaven."

" Nay, child ! " said Barbara, " that were surely folly.
While you were wasting precious time in attempting a work
impossible for mortal fingers your spinning would be naught.
Irma is slow, and Teresia unskilful save in entangling the thread
and you know full well that you must spin not fewer than tei
skeins a week, if we are all to live."

" Mother, I ask for but one week. I will take my little gol<
cross to Matheas. He will give enough for it to keep us foi
those few days. And never fear ! Onze Lieve Vrouw has not d<
ceived me : I am certain to succeed ! "

Dame Barbara made no further opposition. She even beg*
to share her daughter's conviction.

" Do as you list, my child," she said, " and may the Blesse(

1 8 So.] SERENA'S Vow. 373

Virgin aid you ! While you essay to copy this marvellous pat-
tern I will pray for you."

Serena then set to work. Taking- her finest thread, which she
herself had spun, bleached, and twisted, she cut the ends, and
made patient and repeated endeavors to imitate the model before
her. But her threads every moment mingled and got entangled,
obliging her to take fresh ones or undo what she had done.

Arnold came in, and, after watching her a few moments, per-
ceived her difficulty. He then cut short lengths of wood and
fastened one to each end of the thread, thus hindering them from
ravelling. A great step had been made : the bobbin was invented.
This was no small advance for the first day.

On the morrow, after the first Mass at St. Basil's (w^hich from
Easter to All-Saints was always at four o'clock), Serena resumed
her work with fresh courage. A firm cushion had been given her
by a nun of a neighboring convent, and on this she fixed her
work. The pillow was invented. The cushion suggested pins.
Some, indeed, were remaining upon this one, and Serena made
use of them to keep her threads in place. In short, she worked
so continually and to such good purpose that, on the following
Saturday evening, she placed round the neck of Our Lady's statue
in the church of St. Basil a fabric of which the design resembled
that of her pattern.

It was not the evenly-made Valenciennes of our days, nor the
fine appliqut of Brussels, nor the delicate point of Mechlin, but it
contained the germ of each, and was the starting-point of all. It
was something unknown, strange, and charming the infancy of
lace. Fresh attempts succeeded better and better, and, to make a
variety, Arnold designed the patterns, which Serena copied in
much finer thread.

The fame of the wonderful invention quickly spread abroad.
All the noble ladies of the place, as well as the chatelaines of
Maele, Wynandael, Tilleghem, and others around Bruges, came to
see Serena at work, and gave orders for lappets for their coifs,
for collars, or wristlets of the marvellous tissue. They paid
largely, and competence and comfort were no longer strangers in
the widow's home.

Arnold, for his part, did not remain inactive. The work
which was to win him an entrance into the corporation was almost
finished. In fact, it had been really so for some time, but the
young sculptor, never satisfied with the result of his endeavors,
daily added a few more touches, which yet never gave the perfec-
tion to which he aspired.

374 SERENA'S Vow. [June r

The true artist never succeeds in the complete expression of
the ideal which he conceives. In vain he hears it repeated that
his work is beautiful ; he always says in his heart, " I thought I
should have done better."

It has been said that that which is greatest and noblest in the
human heart can never fully express itself. Do what the artist
may, he always remains behind and below his ideal ; he awaits an
inspiration, as a plant awaits a ray of sunshine to expand its buds
into blossoms.

But the sunbeam Arnold waited for was the encouragement of
a smile from Serena. One day, when he was quitting the house,
she turned her calm, pure eyes upon him, and smiled, as she bade
him " Goeden dag ! " At once everything became couleur de rose to
him. Leaping into the boat, he returned gaily home, and went to
bestow a last scrutiny on his masterpiece. It was a massive oaken
chest, with arched panels, richly carved with fruit, flowers, and
scroll-work ; and as it now reflected his own contentment, he was
at last satisfied and pronounced it finished. Happy eyes are as
lenient as morose and anxious ones are apt to be over-critical ;
the one, as the other, seeing all things in

" Hues of their own, fresh borrowed from the heart."

Arnold accordingly went at once to. the dean of the Guild of
Sculptors, and announced that his work was ready to be sub-
mitted to the judgment of the jury.

Fifteen days afterwards the young wood-carver, dressed in
his best doublet and finest linen, as if he were going to a Ker-
messe* eagerly unmoored the boat and rowed across the canal.
Three bounds brought him into the widow's house. Bursting
into the room where Dame Barbara was sitting, he knelt by her
side, and said, as he seized both her hands : " Mother, I am elected
a master-sculptor ! Will you have me for your son ? " " With
all my heart ; and may God bless you, my dear boy ! " exclaimed
the poor woman, as she bent to embrace him, and then looked up
joyfully at Serena, who, in the deep window-recess, was busied
with her lace.

She stood up, and the late autumn sunshine cast the rich hu<
of the pictured panes upon a face white and cold as marble. Sh<
tried to speak, but no sound escaped her ashy lips ; and had not
Arnold sprung forward and caught her in his arms she woul<
have fallen. Laying her gently on a couch, he reproached hii

* Feast of the patron saint of the parish,

i88o.] SERENA'S Vow. 375

self bitterly, in the belief that his too sudden request was the sole
cause of the shock a belief which was shared also by Dame Bar-
bara, who doubted not that it was occasioned by excess of joy.

" Spreek, mijn liefstes lief ! " " Speak, dearest love ! " he said
as he knelt by her, as she lay white and unconscious, while her
mother gently bathed her brow. " Why should my words seem
sudden when you know how I love you, how I have always loved
you my own Serena ! "

She seemed to hear the last words, for she uttered a faint
moan.

" Think," he continued, " how happy we shall be together ! "

" Never ! " she whispered, with her eyes still closed. " Ar-
nold, have pity ! If you love me, leave me! "

That winter was the longest and, in spite of the increase of
external comforts, the dreariest that Serena had ever known.
Her strength was failing, and her only solace seemed to be in
going alone to St. Basil's or to the cathedral of St. Donatian,
which was almost equally near to her own home. But, besides
teaching her beautiful art to her sisters, she worked at it as as-
siduously as ever herself ; and, having now means to succor the
indigent, many a poor family in or near the Garre von Conne had
cause to bless the pale-faced girl who spoke so little but who did
so much.

Arnold, beyond measure distressed and perplexed, knew not
to what cause to attribute Serena's refusal, especially as her own
suffering was evidently sapping not only her health and happi-
ness, but her very life. Even Master Van Cost, seeing his son's
despair, humbled himself to go and entreat the maiden not to re-
ject a love so deep and true as Arnold's love for her, or at least
to give some reason for disappointing an affection she had never
forbidden.

Finding her impenetrable, although most sorrowful and gen-
tle> Van Oost rose angrily, saying that he was a fool for demeaning
himself to ask any girl to accept his son, who was as fine a young
fellow as you would find between the Yser and the Maes ; in
fact, that there were plenty of rich burgesses who would give their
ears to have him for a son-in-law ; and as for their daughters, why,
their heads were turned if he did but doff his cap to them after
Mass on Sundays! "And now," he added, " I and my son will
trouble you no longer. I shall counsel him to pay his court to a
certain worthy damsel whose father has had a word with me on
the matter ; and, by Our Lady ! the damsel, for her part, will not

376 SERENA'S Vow. [June,

be the one to let him lack a hearty welcome, or to turn a deaf ear
and a cold shoulder to so gallant a youth ! "

So saying, Van Oost drew up his portly person to its full
height and stalked out of the room. Turning, as he left the
door, to give a parting scowl, he saw Serena standing, her hands
clasped on her breast, her eyes closed, and her thin face contracted
with such an expression of misery and woe that, angry as he
was, his kindly heart was touched, and, more perplexed than ever,
he pondered, as he returned to the boat, whether Serena might
have been looked on by the Evil Eye, and be perchance the vic-
tim of some malignant spell. "Anyhow," he soliloquized, "her
mother declares that she loves him, since, though she avoids him
by day, she prays for him in her dreams by night. By St. Gode-
lieve ! there is some strange mystery in all this," he muttered,
crossing himself before he handled the oars. " Ab insidiis diaboli
liber a nos, Domine ! "

Van Oost told all his trouble to his son, and then suggested
for his consideration the rich faheviris daughter of whom he had
spoken to Serena, and who was, as he said, "a discreet maiden
with a well-lined purse and a comely person."

"Father," answered Arnold, " I have never disobeyed you
yet ; do not force me to do so now. I will wait for Serena a
year and a day, and if she will not then accept me I will go to
the wars. But something in my heart tells me to hope. Father
Placidus deems it a good sign, and bids me have patience, and,
above all, great trust in God and confidence in Our Lady's inter-
cession ; and, as you know, men account the holy monk a seer.
He would not bid me hope, if hope there were none."

Van Oost, after some demur, ended by promising to say no-
thing to the tchevin about his daughter.

Arnold, however, in spite of his latent hope, was too anxious
and unhappy to find it easy to work with the same assiduity as
before his grievous disappointment, and spent many a quarter of
an hour in watching for a glimpse of Serena, whose profile he
could sometimes see as she sat at work by the open lattice, in
her accustomed nook.

The long winter had passed away at last, melting before the
softness of advancing spring. One Sunday morning, towards the
end of May, Serena, after hearing Mass with the rest of her
family, had let them return home without her, and remained to
pray in the church of St. Basil. It was the anniversary of the
miracle. The richly-decorated upper chapel, crowded with wor-
shippers, seemed too bright for her sad heart, and she entered the

i88o.J SERENA'S Vow. 377

archway of the lower one, where she believed herself alone.
Kneeling on the floor before the ancient image of Our Lady of
the Poor, she stretched out her arms as if saying the Prayers of
the Cross, and said aloud : " Most Holy Virgin ! you accepted
my vow my mother and my sisters are in plenty but you
have not helped me to stifle my heart, and you have not made
Arnold happy. If he suffers as 1 suffer, sweet Mother, intercede
for us that we may die ! "

Behind the central pillar which supports the vaulted roof
knelt Arnold, unseen and unsuspected by Serena. With a thrill
of mingled joy and pain he had at once divined whose fragile form
was enveloped in -the long, black, hooded mantle, which almost
concealed the thin features of the wearer. He watched her kneel
with outstretched hands, and heard the tearful prayer which re-
vealed the mysterious secret. And it was, then, a vow ! Sick at
heart and cold as, death, he leant against the pillar, until at length
Serena rose. Then he stood up also and joined her at the en-
trance.

In a low, deep voice, in which distress and reproach were
mingled with affection, he asked, " Why did you make that
<vow?"

She started painfully on seeing him, and her pale cheeks
flushed with a too bright crimson. He knew it, then ! She her-
self had unwittingly let him know her secret, and now there was
nothing to hinder her from telling him all. When she had done
so she said : " And this was the day, a year ago, of the miracle.
Teresia and Irma are going with me to the meadow near Engel-
endael, perhaps for the last time before I die."

" And I also will go," said Arnold. " You must not forbid me,
Serena ; you must not refuse the last request I will ever make
you. To-morrow I will ask Father Placidus to let me make a
retreat of fifteen days with the Benedictines ; and after that 1 shall
either go to the wars or else as a pilgrim to the Shrine of the
Apostles. I must either fight or wander, for I have no heart
to work at home "without you, and I have no vocation for the
cloister; neither have you, Serena. Would that of our two
broken hearts God would make one whole one ! "

Serena did not refuse his last request. After the mid-day
meal Arnold, who had told his father what he had that morning
learned, rowed the three girls to the drawbridge of the Poorte
Sint Kruis, where they disembarked and took the road through
the woods between Assebrouck and Engelendael until they came
to the well-remembered meadow, fragrant and gay with its

378 SERENA'S Vow. [June,

many flowers, among- which the white butterflies frolicked and
flickered like summer snowflakes.

Teresia and Irma ran hither and thither, picking- orchids,
vetch, and ox-eye daisies, while Arnold remained by Serena, who,
glad to rest, sat down on the bank of a little stream. Sad as were
the two latter, still both were in a certain sense relieved, the one
by having unburdened her secret, the other by learning it, al-
though it sealed his fate ; but a courageous man prefers to know
the worst, whatever that may be.

The weather was calm, and the soft air scarcely waved the
rushes in the rivulet, as they whispered to the unheeding dragon-
flies darting gaily by, or resting on the clustering forget-me-nots,
which nestled beneath their tall stems and blade-like leaves like
patches of blue sky and stars compounded into flowery constel-
lations.

Gossamer threads flashed and floated here and there. And
surely were they not becoming more and more numerous ? Pre-
sently the graceful marvel of the previous year was repeated. A
gleaming cloud of Our Lady's Threads again came softly down
upon Serena's apron, which was of black silk bordered with blue.
Silently, rapidly, thickly fell the silvery filaments, until their in-
terlacing formed an exquisite bridal crown of orange-blossoms
twined with roses.

Breathlessly Arnold and Serena watched the formation of the
delicate design.

" Holy Virgin ! " sighed Serena, fearing to misinterpret the
meaning of what she saw before her, " is this the crown of a
bride of Christ or the crown of martyrdom ? There is no other
crown for me ! "

Scarcely had she spoken when it seemed as if an invisible
hand guided the gleaming threads until they wove the following
words in the centre of the crown :

" KIND VAN MIJ, IK LAT U OF UWE BELOFT."
(My child) I release you from your vow.)

Together the two uttered a cry of joy. Carefully holding-
her apron so as to preserve the precious design, the pledge and
proof of heavenly dispensation, Serena knelt by her beloved
on the flowery grass to thank the Mother of Mercy for her dou-
ble act of clemency. The sunshine that bathed the youthful pair
was not so bright as their gladness, or so fervid as their gratitude
and love. Like a long-pent-up stream now suddenly set free, the

I880.] SEREA'A'S VOW. 379

torrent of affection and happiness was almost overwhelming.
Teresia and Irma, seeing their sister and Arnold kneeling as
if in ecstasy, hastened from their wanderings among the flowers
to learn what wonderful event had happened. Great was their
joy when Arnold, pointing to the gossamer crown, exclaimed :
" See ! Heaven has spoken. I am to be your brother ! "

Then, eager to gladden the hearts of their parents, they re-
turned home without delay.

They found Master Van Oost with Dame Barbara, whose tear-
ful eyes told plainly that the subject of conversation had been her
daughter's vow.

What was the amazement of both when they saw Serena en-
ter, no longer the alabaster maiden who had left the house, as
if for her own funeral, an hour or two before, but with an un-
wonted glow of health and happiness upon her radiant face, lean-
ing on the arm of Arnold, whose frank and handsome countenance
showed the joy of his honest heart.

Teresia and Irma followed, carrying the apron with the exqui-
site lace-work of Our Lady, which they laid before the wondering
and delighted parents, while the young couple knelt to receive
their blessing.

When, not three weeks after, Arnold and Serena were united
in marriage by the good Father Placidus at the church of St.
Basil, the bride wore a veil of beautiful lace, not from motives of
vanity, but as an act of homage to her heavenly Benefactress,
over whose statue she hung it as an offering after wearing it on
this one important occasion. The happiness of Serena's married
life more than compensated for all the sad and laborious months
and years which had preceded it. No joy is ever half so sweet as
that which has been earned by pain, and especially by suffering
incurred from unselfish devotion and unflinching fulfilment of
duty.*

Dame Barbara lived to a good old age, surrounded by her
children and grandchildren. Serena, her sisters and daughters,
enriched by the work of their hands, made presents of it also to
many sanctuaries at home and abroad. Belgian lace was pur-
chased by noble personages for royal presents, and by merchants,
who made it known in Italy and the Levant, and even in Jerusa-
lem and Damascus.

Serena and her family initiated many young girls of Bruges in

* In saying this we would not be understood to imply approval, under ordinary circumstances,.
of anything so dangerous as an unauthorized vow, which might, in many cases, be an act of as
much presumption as devotion.

380 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XI I L [June,

the art of lace-making, and more especially religious, who again
taught it in their schools. To help the children to learn the pat-
terns they accustomed them to sing tellingen, or counting-songs,
while at work, each verse counting a fresh number in the meshes
of the lace. Anciently these tdlingen were all of a sacred charac-
ter,* so that, from its first beginning until now, a religious idea
has been (almost literally) interwoven with its chief characteristic
manufacture by the Catholic people of the antique Mariastadt.

THE PRINCETON REVIEW AND LEO XIII.

THE policy of Leo XIII. in recommending the study of the
scholastic philosophy under the guidance of the Angelic Doctor is
little understood and much criticised by men whose intellectual
vision, amidst the fumes of material progress, has been more or
less obscured. From their point of view no philosophy which is
not Baconian or Cartesian is capable of satisfying the wants of
modern aspirations and of modern science ; whereas, to their
amazement, the Pope the infallible Pope far from recommend-
ing such philosophies, ignores them altogether, and even endea-
vors to bring us back to what people consider a superannuated
form of philosophical thought, in the fond hope that the study
of the Thomistic doctrines will most effectually contribute to the
cause of intellectual progress, and in the avowed belief that the
scholastic method and the Thomistic principles will compare fa-
vorably with the modern methods and doctrines, both as instru-
ments of knowledge and as weapons of Catholic polemics. This
our modern thinkers cannot understand. They ask themselves :
How can the Pope assume so coolly and so confidently that a
transition can ever be made from the enlightened theories of our
adult science to the childish and obsolete unsubstantialities of the
dark ages ? or that the modern errors of which he complains are
likely to disappear before the semi-barbarous verbiage of a defunct
school ?

That such a manner of thinking should be very common

* We have before us one of these telltngen, called Die Passie ons Heeren, or "The Passion of
Our Lord," consisting of fifteen stanzas, of which each line ends alternately with " Kyrie Elei-
son," " Ave Maria." Two more recent and secular tellingen are those called the Minnebode and
the Dood van Philippus den Schoone (1509).

i88o.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIIL 381

among half-educated men is nothing but natural ; for they are apt
to undervalue that which transcends their narrow compass. That
the same view should prevail also among evolutionists, panthe-
ists, materialists,^ id genus omne,we can even more easily explain,
owing to the fact that the papal encyclical letter is confessedly
directed against them, as it aims to secure their defeat by the aid
of a new generation of philosophical athletes. But among those
who have ventured to express a disparaging opinion of the Pope's
wisdom in fostering the study of scholastic philosophy we are
surprised to find a man whose keen intellect, we thought, should
have fitted him, notwithstanding his Protestant prejudices, to
grasp at once the true purport of the papal document, and to an-
ticipate its beneficial results in the development of sound philo-
sophical culture. We speak of Prof. Archibald Alexander, of
Columbia College, who in the Princeton Review for March, in an
article entitled " Thomas Aquinas and the Encyclical Letter,"
endeavors to show, among other things, that His Holiness Pope
Leo XIIL, in issuing this important document, did not act wisely
at all ; for, says he, " there are certain characteristics of scholastic
thought, even of the scholastic thought of St. Thomas, that make
it useless in modern times."

This wonderful assertion might be let pass unchallenged, as it
can do very little harm, seeing the quarter from which it comes.
For all the world knows that the Supreme Pontiff of the church
needs not borrow wisdom of Columbia professors, that he may
provide for the wants of Catholic philosophical education. Still,
as Prof. Alexander has endeavored to substantiate his assertion,
and as he may be glad to know what we can reply to his conclu-
sions, we have thought it better to investigate the grounds of his
conviction, and thereby to show once more how unfit Protestants
are to discuss Catholic subjects.

It is the opinion of Prof. Alexander that Leo XIIL committed
a blunder in advocating the cause of scholasticism. Scholasticism
in general, and the scholasticism of St. Thomas in particular, ac-
cording to the critic, deserves no recommendation. He even
maintains that St. Thomas' arguments for the existence of God
and the spirituality of the human soul are not convincing, and that
St. Thomas' realism is utterly unsound and can be refuted with the
greatest ease by modern philosophy. As we cannot take up all
these subjects at once, and as, on the other hand, St. Thomas has
no urgent need of being defended, we will in the present article
limit ourselves to discussing the critic's view concerning the ex-
pediency of the Pope's encyclical letter.

382 THE u PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XI II. . [June,

The professor believes that " in the six centuries that have
elapsed since St. Thomas was born, the scholasticism of which
he was the most perfect representative has passed away. It has
gone as feudalism has gone." Now, this is not true. If the pro-
fessor had been better acquainted with the teaching of our Catho-
lic institutions he would have known that the Dominicans, the
Jesuits, the Franciscans, and all our great ecclesiastical bodies
have constantly followed, and still follow, though not with blind
servility, the scholastic method both in philosophy and in theo-
logy ; and that both in theology and in philosophy St. Thomas'
doctrine has been, and is still, the most approved standard of their
scholastic teaching.

Indeed, Descartes attempted to revolutionize philosophy, and
his ephemeral success was, for a time, looked upon as a decisive
victory over scholasticism. But the fact is that, although some
of his views concerning physical questions found many admirers,
most of his other views were soon exposed and refuted by emi-
nent philosophers, and the old scholastic principles had the best
of the struggle. The professor remarks that "revolution and
reformation " have now taken the place of " the sombre forms
of monastic reflection and scholastic learning." This may be
true so far as the Protestant and infidel world is concerned ;
but we beg the critic to reflect that neither revolution nor re-
formation could have any bearing on scholastic learning. We do
not think, for instance, that the guillotine of the French revolu-
tionists has beheaded any metaphysical principle ; nor do we be-
lieve that any Catholic dogma has been blown away by the
frothy declamations, paralogisms, and lies of the so-called Reform-
ers. That revolution and reformation have long been fight-
ing against the church is only too true ; but to say that they have
f ought philosophically, or that they have superseded the sombre (?)
forms of scholastic learning, is to give them credit for more than
they have achieved or can ever achieve.

The professor adds that with revolution and reformation
have come "other powers." Instead of Arianism the Church
encounters " atheism " ; instead of Arabian heresies, " material-
ism." This statement is true, but it has no bearing on scholasti-
cism. If atheism and materialism were philosophic powers, per-
haps a new departure might become desirable in philosophical
matters ; but, since neither atheism nor materialism has the sup-
port of philosophy, as the professor well knows, why should the
appearance of these errors be brought in as a reason for modifying
philosophy ? Does Mr. Alexander believe that the scholastic phi-

i88o.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. 383

losophy cannot cope with this twofold enemy as supported bv
modern thought? He should know that modern thought ha~s
done nothing but rehash the old objections of pagan and sceptical
writers, and that those objections have been answered again and
again by the schoolmen with such positive arguments as have
never been met by anything like sense or reason. Indeed, it re-
quires but little acquaintance with the history of philosophy to
recognize that if these errors do not die out among us, it is not
because they have not been exploded, but because their root is
the wickedness of the human heart, against which argument is
of no avail.

" Private judgment/' adds the author, " must vindicate its
claim to religious truth in considering the evidences of Christian-
ity." This means, we suppose, that private judgment claims a
right to rebel against religious truth ; for we know of no other
claim that would need vindication. It is a well-known fact,
though constantly ignored by the heterodox writers, that the
church does not require men to accept religious truth without
considering the evidences of Christianity. She never asks an
adult person to embrace religious truth before being sufficiently
instructed in, and convinced of, the evidences of Christianity.
This, we affirm, is the fact. Nevertheless, children and the great
majority of men are not philosophers, and hence their conviction
rnust greatly depend on authority. Thus it happens that chil-
dren and the great majority of adults act rationally when they
submit their private judgment to competent authority ; for they
have no better claim to discuss the evidences of Christianity than
a clown has to meddle with integral calculus. But as for those
whose intellect is sufficiently developed critically to discuss reli-
gious matters, the church not only allows them to investigate the
evidences of Christianity, but even invites them to do so ; for she
does not fear light, but ignorance. Of course the revealed mys-
teries are inaccessible to the criticism of reason, and therefore are
not a subject on which private judgment can be exercised ; but
the evidences of Christianity are not mysteries ; they are open
historical facts, which reason can examine without temerity, and
which show the divine origin of Christianity and, by implication,
the truth of the mysteries of our faith. It is ridiculous, therefore,
to speak of " claims to be vindicated " as against the church, with
reference to the evidences of Christianity.

But our professor has also another pretension. He wishes
the church to treat the evidences of Christianity by the light of
modern thought. Hence he is scandalized that, in view of modern

384 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. [June,

unbelief, the Roman Church " looks not forward to increasing-
light in science, but backward to her popes, her Fathers, and her
saints. From the seat of authority in Rome the decree has been
pronounced which indicates her proposed line of defence against
the dangerous influences of to-day." From these words we learn
that modern science, in the judgment of Prof. Alexander, should
be consulted no less than the popes, the Fathers, and the saints,
in order to effectually defend the church against the prevailing
errors. We are not quite of the same opinion. Modern science
contains much that is true, for it has inherited the discoveries of
many centuries ; but its new theories contain much that is illogi-
cal and visionary. Hence modern science, inasmuch as " mod-
ern," is weak, lame, capricious, inconsistent, and, to say it plainly,
unphilosophical. For a time we thought that it was walking on
stilts ; but now even its friends have begun to acknowledge that
it only walks on crutches, for such are, in fact, the tottering
hypotheses by which it supplies its deficiency of principles. His
Holiness, therefore, showed a great wisdom in looking backward
to the popes, the Fathers, and the saints, rather than to the broken
reed of " mefdern " science, for the universal restoration of Chris-
tian philosophy.

Yet from the fact that the. Pope does not explicitly recom-
mend the study of the natural sciences does it follow that he de-
sires us to forsake them ? This is, perhaps, what the professor
wishes the reader to infer from his words. But, in the first place,
every one will agree that what is already popular and fashionable
needs not be specially recommended ; and, in the second place, it
is evident from some passages of the encyclical letter that one of
the ends intended by the Pope in inculcating the study of the scho-
lastic philosophy was (absurd as it may seem to our enlightened
critic) the rational progress of natural science, whose perfection
requires the knowledge not only of facts and laws, but also of the
intrinsic principles on which the facts and laws ultimately depend.
Scientists, therefore^ if really anxious for the rational progress of
science, should offer sincere thanks to the Pope for his encyclical
letter. The doctrines which he seeks to promote not only do not
interfere with the legitimate development of science, but furnish
the scientists with positive means both for enlarging their views
and for reaching the bottom of the scientific questions. We know
that many modern scientists will be reluctant to believe that
science can be benefited by the scholastic thought. But as their
abhorrence of scholasticism is mainly derived from their igno-
rance of it, hence their opinion is no argument.

i88o.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XI I L 385

The Pope says in his letter that, in order that philosophy may
accomplish the desired end, " it must never deviate from the line
traced of old by the holy Fathers and approved by the solemn
vote of the Vatican Synod." On these words our professor re-
marks : " Every one who has looked impartially at the patristic
writings knows well that they differ widely on many points, and
thai some of their better doctrines must be dug out from the
midst of puerile speculations and useless discussions. Nothing
could well be more unsatisfactory than to search for the founda-
tions of faith in these remote authors." If this be the honest opin-
ion of Prof. Alexander we cannot congratulate him on his power
of penetration and discrimination. But we may charitably sup-
pose that in the words just quoted he has only expressed a
thought impressed on him by some of his heterodox friends. In-
deed, we would wager that the professor has never read a single
volume of a Greek or a Latin Father, and much less compared
the teachings of one of them with those of another, in order to
make the amusing discovery that " they differ widely on many
points" of doctrine, or that they make "useless discussions," or
that they indulge in "puerile speculations." No man of sane
judgment has ever ventured to affirm, as he does, that " every one
who has looked impartially at the patristic writings " has found in
them what the professor alleges. Protestants may indeed find
that some discussions of the Fathers are " useless " or " puerile "
as contrasted with their fractional Christianity ; but they must be
reminded that the Fathers were not Protestants, and did not write
for Protestants, and cannot be judged by men whose standard of
truth is a jumble of inconsistencies. At any rate, the Catholic
Church, which, even in the opinion of its enemies, stands fore-
most in the world as a competent judge of theological and philo-
sophical matters, reveres its Fathers as the channels of the apos-
tolic doctrine, and rightly so ; for their uniformity in all that re-
gards dogma cannot be accounted for otherwise than by the fact
that they all inherited the same apostolic traditions. When,
therefore, a Protestant writer sets up his wisdom against the wis-
dom of the church, its popes and its doctors, and finds that " no-
thing could well be more unsatisfactory than to search for the
foundations of faith in these remote, authors," he should be told
to go and study the authors of whom he ventures to speak so
recklessly in the face of the Christian world.

He has, however, the good taste to make an exception in
favor of St. Augustine. " Men like Augustine, it is true, stand
out from the long line of patristic writers with something like
VOL. xxxi. 25

386 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. [June,

philosophical renown." We should have thought that men like
Augustine, besides "something like" philosophical renown, have
also some real philosophical merit. But let this pass. The Pope,
however, could not, according to our professor, consider St.
Augustine as a suitable authority in scholastic matters. " It
would be inexpedient," says he, " to refer men to the works of
Augustine. He was not distinctively a papal writer. His works
have been an authority in many matters with Calvinists, Jansen-
ists, and other notorious rebels." St. Augustine was not a tho-
rough papal writer ? Would that Prof. Alexander were just as
papal as St. Augustine was! we are sure that Leo XIII. would
n6t require more from him. Did not St. Augustine declare to
the world that he did not accept any part of the Bible as canoni-
cal unless because it had been accepted as such by the Roman
Church ? Did he not, after the decision of a famous controversy
by the pope, utter these solemn and peremptory words : Roma
locuta est, causa finita est ? Does this sentence show that St. Au-
gustine was not " distinctively papal "?

Nevertheless, St. Augustine's works are not a regular treatise
of theology or of philosophy, but a multitude of distinct essays
en disparate topics, and mostly a refutation of Pelagianism and
of other heresies of the fifth century. And for this reason " it
would have been inexpedient" to refer the students of these
sciences to St. Augustine's works. Students of philosophy and
of theology must know something more than they can find in this
Father's works. They must ascertain what other Fathers, both
Greek and Latin, have taught, and they have to learn how all
such teachings logically conspire to form a body of solid and un-
impeachable doctrine. And this they must learn not by the im-
practicable method of going through the innumerable works of
the holy Fathers (for which the human life is too short), but by
the study of those less voluminous works in which the teaching
of the Fathers is faithfully collected, accurately analyzed, and
discussed with scientific order. This is the reason why the Pope
desires us to acquire a thorough knowledge of the scholastic
writers ; for these are the men who " undertook the mighty work
of carefully gathering up the rich and abundant harvest scattered
abroad in the works of the holy Fathers, into one place, as it
were, for the use and convenience of posterity."

From this our writer may easily understand, we hope, that the
reason why the Pope did not choose St. Augustine as a text-bool
of philosophy is not the one he has suggested. That the works
of St. Augustine have been used by Calvinists, Jansenists, am

iSSo.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. 387

other heretics as an authority in support of' their errors can
scarcely be a proof of the assertion that he was not sufficiently
papal. Has not the Bible been exposed to the same misfortune ?
Even in the first century of Christianity, as St. Peter complains,
there were men who twisted St. Paul's doctrines into heresies ;
and in our own time we see how obstinately all the Protestant
sects strive to support by the Bible the most antagonistic and ir-
reconcilable conceptions, though they are not ignorant that such
a mass of contradictions cannot have its origin and sanction in the
written word of God. Would, then, our professor conclude
that the Bible is responsible for the bad logic of its interpreters ?
If not, then why should St. Augustine be responsible for the foul
treatment he has met at the hands of Calvin, Baius, or Jansenius ?
His Holiness would revive scholasticism in the Catholic uni-
versities; yet, says our critic, "it must be evident to everyone
that scholasticism is a very broad and indefinite term. Abelard
was in his day the most powerful of the schoolmen, but he was
imprisoned for grievous heresy. Roscellinus, the teacher of Abe-
lard and the founder of Nominalism, was a schoolman, and, though
he was a dignitary of the church, he was summoned before the
Council of Soissons for heretical teaching. Erigena founded
scholasticism, but he, too, was a heretic." By this cheap erudi-
tion the writer intends to show that heresy and scholasticism can
walk together hand-in-hand to the great peril of orthodoxy. But
as His Holiness specifies which schoolmen ought to be followed, it
must be evident to every one that " scholasticism," with him, is
not a broad and indefinite term. St. Bonaventura the Seraphic,
and especially St. Thomas Aquinas, are set before us as the repre-
sentatives of scholastic philosophy ; hence neither Abelard, Ros-
cellinus, Erigena, nor any other rationalistic or pantheistic fol-
lower of their views, has a claim to rehabilitation in virtue of the
Pope's encyclical letter. Whether it be true that Roscellinus
was the teacher of Abelard, or that Abelard himself was really
imprisoned for heresy, we will not discuss ; we may say, how-
ever, that in the opinion of most learned writers these facts are
not established. Nor do we admit that Erigena was the founder
of scholasticism. St. John of Damascus, who lived more than a
century before Erigena, is considered the first scholastic writer
in philosophy as well as in theology. But waiving all these ques-
tions, what is certain is that scholasticism does not make men im-
peccable, and that when men are puffed up with pride no one
can wonder if they sometimes disgrace the profession of which
they might be a lasting ornament.

388 THE u PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. [June,

The professor remarks that, at first sight, it may seem a matter
of but little significance that the thought of St. Thomas should be
recommended from the papal throne, and that " it may seem
somewhat idle for an infallible Pontiff to abdicate in matters of
philosophy in favor of a Dominican friar." Nevertheless, " it can-
not seem to be a fact of little meaning that the sovereign of a
great hierarchy and the ruler of a powerful church should sug-
gest the study of any specific author to the universities which
own his sway. It can hardly be thought a matter of little interest
that scholasticism, set aside by Bacon and Descartes, should now
be revived. On examination it will be seen that the thought of
St. Thomas cannot be recommended at Rome without affecting
many interests and producing many results in the theological
world." This last sentence is true ; but we hardly believe that it
can be reconciled with the opinion of the professor viz., that the
scholastic thought is nowadays altogether useless. For if such
thought cannot fail to affect many interests and to produce
many results, how can it be pronounced useless ? Is it useless
to revive the cultivation of those scientific, moral, and theologi-
cal principles the abandonment of which has stopped the intel-
lectual progress of our race in all branches of knowledge, one
only excepted, and produced among Christians a pagan civiliza-
tion that devours its children ?

As to Bacon and Descartes, they may well be the idols of
modern thinkers ; but the Pope knows that these idols, and all
the other idols of a more recent fabrication, have feet of clay,
and he positively intimates that nothing but truth must be wor-
shipped in the temple of philosophy. To attain this end he very
appropriately reminds all Catholic teachers that St. Thomas' prin
ciples and St. Thomas' method are the best means at our co
mand ; and whoever has any familiarity with the works of the
holy doctor will acknowledge that the Pope is right.

Does it follow that " the infallible Pontiff abdicates in matters
of philosophy in favor of a Dominican friar " ? This preposter-
ous hit shows that the professor does not possess a superabundant
stock of logic. Does he mean that the Pontiff, because he is
infallible in his ex-cathedra definitions, should be debarred from
acknowledging the philosophical and theological merits of a
Dominican friar ? Or does he mean that the Pontiff, by recom-
mending St. Thomas' works, abdicates his official infallibility ?
Perhaps the professor thinks that the Pope, as being infallible,
should have set himself to work and given to the Catholics
an infallible course of philosophy ! But, even in this ludicrous

iSSo.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. 389

hypothesis, modern thought would have protested against reason
being superseded by faith. We remember what a stir was created
among modern thinkers by the famous Syllabus of Pius IX., in
which, however, only a few errors have been condemned. If any
new errors need to be condemned, we are sure that Leo XIII.
will know how to bring his infallible authority to bear upon them.
But as to an infallible philosophy, we sincerely believe that it is
not needed, and not even possible. The Catholic Church has
always recognized, and still recognizes, the value of reason. The
church is not bent upon hampering the natural development and
xercise of our intellectual faculties, as her enemies sometimes
imagine, but leaves reason free to roam through the fields of the
knowable, provided it does not overstep the boundaries of its
kingdom by meddling with supernatural things. It is for this
reason that Leo XIII., though recommending the study of St.
Thomas' philosophy, does not descend to particular conclusions,
but insists only on his principles, which are certain, and on his
method, which is admirable. Our conclusions from those princi-
>les need not be imposed by authority : they must be worked
>ut by our own reasoning faculty. It is in the nature of philoso-
>hy that it should be so.

The critic, in order to show that the philosophy of the middle
iges can make no fortune in this scientific age of ours, confidently
says : " It is certain that this period was unfruitful in scientific
discovery. Even had Bacon been born to explain the method of
induction to the contemporaries of Anselm, or Albert, or Thomas,
no one would have been allowed to follow it. The method that
begins with experience and experiment would have found little
favor with ecclesiastical authorities." We would remind the pro-
fessor that these silly calumnies have ceased to be fashionable.
Why should a professor of philosophy endorse, without the possi-
bility of proof, the idea that the contemporaries of Anselm, of
Albert, and of Thomas did not know the inductive method, or
were not alloAved to follow it ? Aristotle made a free use of in-
duction, and so did his contemporaries and his followers. The
schoolmen are no exception. In metaphysical questions the in-
ductive method has, of course, no very large place ; but did not
the schoolmen, and signally Albert the Great, make innumerable
experiments, and argue, when suitable, by induction? Prof.
Alexander says, No; for " Bacon had not yet been born to explain
the inductive method." But Bacon was not needed. The little
he knew of sound philosophy he had himself drawn from scho-
lastic sources, the method of induction as well as all the rest ; he

3QO THE u PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. [June,

added nothing to the body of the scholastic doctrines ; and had
he never been born, science would have progressed no less rapidly
and no less successfully than it has done. It is childish to believe
that the mediaeval philosophers needed Bacon to explain to them
the method of inductive reasoning. Even children and savages
have known in all ages the use of induction with no other teacher
than their rational nature. The only unenviable distinction won
by Bacon in this connection may be said to consist in his having
considered induction as the antagonist of deduction ; whereas in-
duction, if properly understood, is nothing else than a common-
sense deduction, of which the major premise is a universal prin-
ciple, whilst the minor contains some matters of fact.

Is it true at least that the middle ages made " no scientific dis-
covery"? Quite the reverse. It is to mediaeval thought and
experiment that we owe the first foundation and the first develop-
ment of modern science and art. What would we do in science
without optical instruments? Now, the principle of the construc-
tion of lenses, and their possible application to telescopic and
microscopic observations, was discovered in the thirteenth cen-
tury by the great Roger Bacon, a Franciscan, usually called Friar
Bacon ; and in the same century spectacles were made, for the
first time, in Italy. When was algebra first introduced into
Europe? In 1412, when scholasticism was supreme. The inven-
tion of clocks, wind-mills, water-mills, chimneys, steam-power, oil-
painting, looking-glasses, musical notes and musical science, archi-
tectural engineering, and a great number of mechanical contri-
vances for domestic, warlike, or agricultural purposes, all origi-
nated in those ages so " unfruitful in scientific discovery " ! What
about the mariner's compass ? What about the great invention of
gunpowder? What about the art of paper-making and the art
of printing? Are they not each and all mediaeval discoveries?
Let our critic consult some English or American cyclopaedia, o
Cantu's Universal History, or Humboldt's Cosmos, or any of the
best works on the history of literature and science, as Hallam,
Tiraboschi, Andres, Montucla, Lalande, etc., and he will see how
earnestly and how skilfully the men of that period labored in the
construction of that scientific building of which we are so proud.

But what about chemistry ? Did the ecclesiastical authorities
discountenance " the method which begins with experiment "
The first dawn of chemistry in Europe made its appearance in
the thirteenth century with Friar Bacon that is, with a school-
man educated by schoolmen. Then Raymond Lully, a disciple
and a friend of Friar Bacon, and himself a Franciscan, developed

i88o.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. 391

the first germs of this science by his numerous works. The " ec-
clesiastical authorities " did allow him to make " experiments."
He obtained nitric acid by distilling a mixture of nitre and green
vitriol. He observed how this new product could act upon
metals generally, and ascertained its power of dissolving gold
when mixed with sal-ammoniac. Had he discovered nothing else
this achievement alone would be a very sufficient reason for
denying the scientific " unfruitfulness " of his period ; but he did
much more than that, as he discovered various other chemical
compounds and pointed out the nature of their action upon each
other. Albert the Great, whom our professor imagines to have
been incapable of even understanding the experimental method,
was a great experimenter, had his furnaces, and was well ac-
quainted with chemical apparatus and with the methods of puri-
fying the precious metals. The " ecclesiastical authorities " did
not interfere with his experiments, nor did they condemn the
chemical treatises by which he plainly and intelligibly ex-
pounded his experimental method. Basil Valentine, a Benedic-
tine monk, was another shining light of mediaeval times in the
department of chemistry. He possessed a very considerable
merit as a chemical experimenter, and was much occupied in the
preparation of chemical medicines. He first introduced antimony
into medicine, and he knew most of the preparations of it which
at present exist in the pharmacopoeias of Europe. It is in his
works that we find the first accurate mention of the nitric,
muriatic, and sulphuric acids, with intelligible directions for pre-
paring them. He was already acquainted with a very considera-
ble number of metallic salts and compounds. In his works he
insists on the great necessity of experiments, and inveighs against
those physicians who are unable to prepare their own medicines.
Does all this show that the " ecclesiastical authorities," as we are
told by our wise professor, did not allow the use of the experi-
mental method ? The truth is that the creators and founders of
chemistry and the first scientific experimenters were monks and
schoolmen. It is not to Lord Bacon, then, but to the Catholic
friars and to the scholastic philosophers, that we are indebted for
the early introduction of the experimental method.

Our critic, however, who looks at the middle ages only through
the spectacles of modern prejudice, continues his imaginary de-
scription of the scientific condition of those times by saying:
" The church or the Bible was the source of scientific truth, and
non-ecclesiastical science was heresy. Men might reason about
principles given on church authority, but might not advance to

392 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. [June,

original investigation. Instead of facts and laws obtained by in-
duction, they had facts and laws determined by authority. To
these they applied the deductive method of Aristotle. As the
syllogism gives nothing in the conclusion which is not contain-
ed in the premises, scholastic science came to a stand-still." The
professor should have considered, before making these assertions,
that in the middle ages no science worthy of the name could be
learned except in ecclesiastical institutions or under ecclesiastical
tuition. The lay element of society was incompetent to teach
and not over-anxious to learn. It was, therefore, the duty and
privilege of the church to direct the first steps of the faithful in
the way of scientific culture. This is how the church naturally
became the teacher and the judge of scientific truth.

Is it true that, in consequence of such a condition of things,
" non-ecclesiastical science was heresy " ? Certainly not. Chem-
istry was not an " ecclesiastical " science, yet its cultivators were
not accounted heretics. What was heresy in the middle ages is
heresy still ; and yet the church, far from anathematizing secular
science as heretical, recommends it as useful and praiseworthy.
Of course there may be a " heretical " science, such as Biichner's,
Darwin's, or Haeckel's ; but in the middle ages the venerable
name of science was not prostituted by such foul epithets as
modern depravity has compelled us to attach to it. Science was
science simply, and heresy was heresy.

As to the " facts and laws admitted on authority," we might
remark that even in our enlightened century the authority of our
men of science is considered by the less learned a very sufficient
reason for admitting the modern theories. How, then, could it
be wrong, or prejudicial to science, in times of incipient culture,
to accept on the authority of the best informed the facts and the
laws that one could not directly ascertain by personal research ?
Does the critic think that learned men are no authorities simply
because they happen to be churchmen, or because they rely on
the Bible for a number of facts which science alone could not
easily verify or even detect ?

Lastly, to call Aristotle's method the " deductive method " is
to display a degree of ignorance which, if pardonable in others,
is a great blemish in a professor of philosophy ; for one can
hardly read two pages of Aristotle without noticing that the
Greek philosopher makes use of induction not less than of deduc-
tion. On the other hand, the assertion that " the syllogism gives
nothing in the conclusion which is not contained in the pre-
mises," and that for this reason "the scholastic science came to a

i88o.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. 393

stand-still," is supremely unphilosophical. If the use of the syllo-
gism causes science to come to a stand-still, we should conclude
that induction, too, must do the same, for all legitimate induction
is a virtual syllogism, and can be expressed in the syllogistic form.
The error of our professor consists in assuming that there may
be a form of reasoning by which conclusions can be drawn with-
out premises, or not contained in some premises. It must be evi 7
dent, however, that the truth affirmed in the conclusion of a syl-
logism is neither that which is affirmed in the major nor that
which is affirmed in the minor. It is, therefore, a new truth, and
therefore it is quite preposterous to affirm that the use of the syl-
logism must bring science to a stand-still. Every conclusion is
contained in its premises, just as every effect is contained in its
cause ; now, every effect has its own being distinct from that of
its cause, and the same is true of the conclusion with respect to
its premises. Every conclusion arises from the combination of
its two premises, as a chemical compound arises from its com-
ponents. Take calcium and oxygen, and you can make lime.
There is nothing in lime which was not contained in calcium and
oxygen, and yet lime is a new substance having its own peculiar
and specific properties. In a similar manner, there is nothing in
the conclusion which is not contained in the premises ; but the
conclusion itself is evidently a new truth, which can be utilized
for the construction of new arguments. To deny this is to at-
tempt the destruction of science no less than of philosophy.

A few words more, and we come to an end. The professor
thinks it improbable that the scholastic philosophy can have an
enlightening influence in the realm of physical science, or can be
of use in combating the dangers to the church that arise from
scientific quarters. It is obvious, however, that the realm of
physical science must be ruled not only by the facts observed, but
also by logic and metaphysics. The logic of the schoolmen
would not fail to acquaint the physicist with the art of analyzing
his own reasonings, of detecting latent equivocations, of avoiding
unlawful generalizations and other blunders which are now so
common with advanced scientists. Were such a logic only to
enable them to use a more accurate terminology, and to distrust
that pompous indefiniteness under which error frequently hides,
it would confer no small benefit on physical science. It is plain,
also, that the metaphysics of the schoolmen would throw much
light on scientific speculation. There are still many mysteries in
science. What is magnetism ? What is electricity ? What is
matter itself ? No answer can be given to these and similar ques-

394 THE u PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XI I L [June,

tions without the help of metaphysics. Experiment reveals facts,
induction discovers laws, metaphysics alone can point out the
connection of facts and laws with the intimate constitution of
things. But a thorough knowledge of metaphysics will bring
with it other beneficial results. To mention one of them, the
number of wild theories will diminish and nonsensical hypo-
theses will vanish before the light of metaphysical principles ; and
the time which now is wasted about fanciful, fallacious, or absurd
speculations (of which not a small number has been given out
in these latter years) will be more wisely employed in building
up on the rock of established truth. These remarks may seem
superfluous ; and so they are ; but we owed them to Professor
Alexander, whom we had to remind of the role of philosophy in
scientific matters. He believes, also, that the scholastic philoso-
phy " cannot be of use in combating the dangers to the church that
arise from scientific quarters." He may, of course, believe as he
pleases ; yet a little modesty would have suggested the thought
that the Pope is probably more competent than a professor of
Columbia College to form a just estimate of the case. But we
are sorry to see that our professor goes still farther, and directly
insults the majesty of the Pontiff in the following impertinent
words : " Indeed, the paragraphs upon this subject in the encycli-
cal letter make it evident that the writer was hardly familiar with
the means and methods employed by the schoolmen for reach-
ing scientific truth." We have no need of showing that a man
who, like Leo XIII., has spent a long life in the study of scho-
lastic philosophy must be sufficiently familiar with the means
and methods employed by the schoolmen for reaching truth. We
only wish to inform our critic that the schoolmen knew the right
methods of investigating scientific truth infinitely better than
most of our modern oracles ; but, unfortunately, they did not pos-
sess that store of facts and those instruments of discovery which
have been multiplied and accumulated in the course of centuries,,
and are now placed at our disposal. If the old schoolmen had
possessed these modern appliances they would have made an ex-
cellent use of them, without the least need of abandoning or modi-
fying their philosophical method. They would have applied to
the facts and laws now known the same rational principles which
they have applied to the scanty physical data of their time. And
this is what Leo XIII. directs us to do. Scientific truth does not
consist of facts alone. It is scientific then only when it accounts
for facts by their causes, and it is philosophical when it accounts
for them by their ultimate causes ; which is done by metaphysical

i88o.] THE li PRINCETON REVIEW" AND LEO XIII. 395

reasoning. And since nowhere but in the works of the school-
men can we find real metaphysical wisdom, hence to their philo-
sophy must we resort if we aim to improve scientific know-
ledge.

Prof. Alexander must, then, remain satisfied that the Pope
knows perfectly well what he is about. The encyclical letter,
though principally concerned with strictly philosophical matters
which have a close connection with the interests of religion and
morality, does not neglect the interests of science. The professor
asks : If the scholastic method was so conducive to the progress
of science, " why was the Baconian method such a revolution in
philosophy " ? Our answer is : It was a revolution, not because
it introduced anything new, but because it suppressed the nobler
half of philosophy, and thus lowered science to the level of empi-
ricism. We are far from condemning the experimental method ;
but we say that science ought to rise higher than experiment, and
ought to do so not by imagining fanciful theories, but by reason-
ing on truly philosophical grounds. These grounds are not to be
found in Bacon's system, but they are found in St. Thomas' writ-
ings ; and we are thankful to Leo XIII. for having raised his
voice from the Vatican to exhort Catholic philosophers to study
and follow the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor.

But we must end. We have reviewed hardly the first half of
Mr. Alexander's article, and have omitted many points of minor
importance mostly consisting of unproved charges against the
old Catholic thought. The other half of the article is an amus-
ing effort to destroy St. Thomas' philosophical and theological
reputation a ludicrous wrestling of a pigmy with a giant, of
which we may hereafter draw a sketch for the entertainment of
our readers.

396 PRO P ATRIA. [June,

PRO PATRIA.
I.

DIM with the distance seem to us the deeds
Of old-world champions, dying for the faith.
As some far mountain, whose head towereth
All ruby-crowned amid the skies' blue meads,
Is lost below in drifting clouds that win
Through loving fancy forms fantastical
Now .dragons fierce that climb the mountain wall,
Writhing, to fall like smitten shapes of sin
Where steadfast gleams the clear height's sunlit spear
So wreathe sweet legends round the saints' renown.
We see the shining of the martyr's crown,
His love's red glow, his faith unbroken, clear,
The heavenly peace that crowned his day's last strife
While love- wrought legends veil his lower life.

II.

But, as the changing clouds with dew are fraught,
Feeding the springs whose fruitfulness gives birth
To broad-waved rivers making rich the earth,

So is the Legend keeper of some thought

Whose fruitful dew begetteth noble deeds.
Rich guerdoned are the streams of life so fed,
Happy the plain where their broad waters spread,

Givers of manna for life's lowliest needs.

Who thinketh on St. Margaret's maiden feet
Before whose steps the dragons drew aside
Where, pure of heart, she trod unterrified,

But findeth in his thought a solace sweet

When hard beset him dragon shapes of sin,

Struggles, soul's purity, alone, can win.

III.

As born too late, seems this our western land,
To clothe with legend's holy mystery
The uncrowned saints' unfaltering charity

Undimmed by distance, like our peaks that stand

Seen for long miles against our sunset skies.

Scarcely the Indian's camp-fire smoke is wrought
To legendary forms, in his fond thought

Of dark-robed priest his heart doth canonize.

i88o.] PRO PATRIA. 397

Too near the life, that led him unto God,

To clothe with any tale more strange than this
That man, to win one soul eternal bliss,

Long leagues of wilderness, unwearying, trod,

Sought not himself, nor kingdom cared to win

Save that the pure alone can enter in.

IV.

More stately, mountains, with the distance, grow
We lose their height who sit beneath their shade
While, seen too far, in misty blue arrayed,

Lost are the varying lines we seek to know :

The glimmer of the streams that seek the plain,
The deep rock-crevice where the shadows rest
When sinks the golden sun far down the west ;

The light, unveiling, morning brings again.

So, still undimmed by years' long distance, rise
The lives heroic man hath lived for man
Since this our new world's little life began ;

And we, whose hour so near such honor lies,

Upon the hills love's daily labor trace

While scarce we know the heights that see God's face..

Dear Mother-country, that so late dost claim
Thy place among the nations of the earth,
When men upbraid thee for thy lowly birth

Droop not thine eyes with an unworthy shame ;

Fear not to lift thy broad, uncrowned brow ;
Anointing holiest of earth it bears.
God calls thee child : is prouder title theirs

On whom their fame the centuries bestow ?

Heroes for love of thee to death aspired,

Queens sold their gems to see unveiled thy face,,
Heirship is thine in Rome's undying grace ;

The King of kings thy beauty hath desired,

His Mother, for thy shield, hath given thee,

Made thee, like her, the peoples' sanctuary.

398 ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. [June,

ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.

THE question of education is now universally admitted to be
of the first importance, and false or narrow views on this subject
are justly deprecated as hurtful to the highest interests of soci-
ety. Education we may define to be the action of surroundings
upon the development of human character. Whoever perceives
that this is the real meaning of the word will at once understand
that the school is but one of many educational agents, and not the
most essential. Hence the shallowness and sophistry of the popu-
lar declamation that all that is necessary to form the mind and
character of future generations is a good system of schools. So-
ciety, in fact, educates, and the school is but one of the instru-
ments which it uses.

The first and the most important seat of education is the fa-
mily. The physical, moral, and intellectual predispositions of the
child depend upon the character of the father and mother ; and
their influence upon these original endowments is, as a rule, de-
cisive, whether for good or for evil. A little self-examination
will, in most cases, suffice to show that we have been made what
we are more by our home-surroundings than by the schools
which we have frequented. This may be affirmed even of those
whose intellectual training is thorough, and it is, of course, more
manifestly true of the masses of men.

Of ten children who have gone to public school, nine have
carried nothing more away than some feeble ability to read and
write ; and this, we freely admit, may exert a determinative influ-
ence upon their lives ; but what that influence will be will de-
pend upon causes other than the school. The school has but
given the child a key with which he may open the store-hous<
of printed knowledge. Whether he will open it at all, or what
he will pick out when he has opened it, is left undecided. H<
may sink back into primitive ignorance ; or he may devour th<
sensational juvenile literature which abounds and be ruined
irretrievably as if he had taken to drinking alcohol ; or he may be
drawn to the obscene relations that are to be met with in almost
every newspaper ; or he may improve his mind by reading what is
useful and refining. His reading, at all events, will be controlled
much more by his home surroundings than by the school. And
this is doubly true where the school has no moral or religious
character. The family influence precedes and interpenetrates the
process of school instruction, and if the example at home tends to

i88o.] ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 399

immorality and degradation it were a mere idle fancy to imagine
that this fatal blight may be cured by attendance at school. An-
other and a potent instrument of education is work and the work-
shop. The smith has strong arms and the farmer stiff knees ; and
their thinking and loving as well have been shaped by the kind
of work they do. They have a knowledge of many things of which
a doctor of the university is ignorant. And their superiority does
not lie in mechanical skill alone ; contact with the hard facts of
life has taught them patience, forethought, and self-control, which
are not learned in a school-room.

Then the whole spirit of the nation acts upon each individual
and tends to educate him. The people whom we meet in the
street, with whom we deal ; the social, commercial, and political
questions which occupy the public mind ; the national enterprises
of peace and war, together with the controversies thence aris-
ing ; the administration 'of the government ; constitutional liberty
and opportunities of acquiring wealth and position, are all educa-
tional forces. The value, then, of school education depends greatly
upon the home training by which it is preceded and accompanied,
and not less upon the kind of national life into which the youth is
plunged upon leaving the class-room. The elementary schools of
Germany are good far better, certainly, than those of the United
States and yet in enterprise, in energy, in progressiveness, in
the quick perception of opportunities to rise in the world, the
American is superior to the German, whose good qualities, such
as patience, forethought, and thrift, he does not derive from the
class-room. It is the fashion to attribute the successes of German
arms during the last fifteen years to the school system of that
country. Such shallow sophistry would not pass current a day
except in an age which is idolatrous of mental instruction. There
is a special training which makes good soldiers, and it is not nec-
essary that the recruits should have passed through a school
drill. Freedom and intellectual activity are not favorable to the
military virtues. The Spartans were better soldiers than the
Athenians, partly for the reason, no doubt, that they were less
free and less quick-witted. Philip and Alexander led barbarians
to battle, but they found little difficulty in overcoming the most
gifted and most educated of ancient peoples. The Greeks were
competent to be the schoolmasters of the Romans, but they were
not able to contend successfully with them in warfare. And in
battles which are fought with. Krupp cannon and needle-guns a
machine soldier is as serviceable as a hero.

The universal tendency is to exaggerate the value of what is

400 ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. [June,

popular, and all facts and arguments corroborate what public
opinion sanctions. The school has now taken the place of the
church, and the new believers hold that miracles shall cease to be
wonderful when all men shall have learned to read and write.
This faith in salvation through the newspaper will some day
be accounted one of the most incomprehensible superstitions of
any age. The garrulous, who are never silent, do not grow wise
or good with much talking ; and one who spends his life in
reading the contradictory views and statements of fact which fill
the newspapers will in the end, if any power of thought be left
him, most likely incline to think that the unknowable is all in all.
This knowing how to read means, for the multitude, the news-
paper only this and nothing more. And one might as well be
forced each morning to walk through some Cloaca Maxima as to
have his brain drenched with all the murders, suicides, robberies,
and adulteries that defile the land. And this making a gibe and a
jest of God and the soul, life and death, virtue and vice, coarsens
man's spiritual nature like the use of whiskey. The cheap news-
paper is a greater educational force than the school. Were it
not for it a very large proportion of those who have, been to
school would cease to read, as they do in parts of Europe,
where the schools are better than ours, but where the press is
dull and lifeless. The newspaper and the numberless opportuni-
ties of wealth that exist here make the American smart and
often odious. There is nothing that he does not know, because
there is nothing that he may not read in his newspaper. He has
no reverence for anything, visible or invisible, past, present, or to
come, because for him the thoughts, and loves, and hopes, and
aims of the noblest men and of countless generations percolate,
like common sewerage, through the editorial quill, so that he sits
in judgment upon the whole course of human affairs. For him
no her.o is possible, except some theatrical, Punch-and-Judy hero,
to be hoisted up at election-time, or paraded through the street
to make a holiday for the gaping crowd ; for have not the news-
papers told him that his great man is a drunkard, or a thief, or a
liar, or an adulterer? The great man wears clothes to no pur-
pose ; for this American knows that he is bald, or knock-kneed,
or spindle-shanked, or blind of an eye, or paralyzed.

Those who have never been to school are taught by the news-
paper, for, if they cannot read, they can hear ; and if they hear
some things that are evil, they learn also much that is good and
useful. The newspaper, as it exists with us, is an obstacle to in-
tellectual culture, while its moral and religious influence is doubt-

i88o.] ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 401

ful. That it tends to make thought and manners vulgar seems
equally certain, but it is beyond question the vehicle of a vast
amount of practical knowledge which could not in any other way
be so readily and so widely diffused ; and Americans probably
more than any other people are indebted to it for the kind of in-
telligence which distinguishes them.

Another powerful instrument of education is our commercial
and industrial life. The boy who is put at some business is re-
ceiving in all probability a better education than if he were kept
at school. He is made to realize the value and need of punctual-
ity and self-control, of prudence and economy, of judgment and
decision, of truthfulness and honesty. He is made to compre-
hend that industry and perseverance, united with these qualities,
mean success in life, mean wealth and position. The school-boy
talk about knowledge being power is translated for him into
practical wisdom. He sees now clearly to what use intelligence
may be put, and the desire to rise in his business spurs him on
to read and inquire. This is the school in which the typical
American receives his training. He may be unable to speak or
write his own language correctly ; he may be profoundly igno-
rant of the best thoughts of the greatest minds, and so wholly
lacking in culture ; but he is a keen observer of men and things,
quick to see an opportunity to make money, and with the nerve
to seize -it at the right moment. He is not a thorough business
man, for he is thorough in nothing ; but he is active, enterprising,
and smart, and with such an amount of self-confidence that he
will upon short notice amputate a leg or lead an army to battle.
Political life, as it exists with us, has immense power to educate.
Much has been written about restricting the right to vote to
those who are able to read and write ; but if this sort of ability
were sufficient to insure the wise exercise of this privilege, the
first thing to do would be to extend the suffrage to women ; for
in this country they have, as a rule, a better school education
than men, and read more. In fact, they are the teachers of the
vast number of those who learn to read and write. The news-
paper is the Bible of politics, and for nine-tenths of the voters it
is the country newspaper. It is impossible for us to think that
any one who is acquainted with our country press can feel con-
fident that it is a safe political guide for the sovereign American
citizen. Men who know thoroughly any one branch of the
science of government are clriven to despair when they see it
discussed in the columns of these journals.

Personal praise and abuse, with the ignorant and random use
VOL. xxxi. 26

4O2 ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. [June,

of commonplace and half truths, is generally the editor's stock in
trade. The stump-speech, which is the great secondary source of
political wisdom, has as its starting-point the mundus vult decipi,
and proceeds on the principle that it is always safe to lie, because
men are credulous. It is none the less true that American poli-
tics are a powerful mental stimulant. The very thought that one
is the creator of presidents is inspiring, and to have the able and
eloquent member of Congress come and shake us by the hand
makes it impossible that we should ever again have a mean
opinion of ourselves. And is not every American youth taught
to cherish the pleasant delusion that there is no good reason why
he should not be the president or thunder in the senate to startle
princes from their easy slumbers ? Lincoln was a rail-splitter,
and some have risen from lower depths.

The having a voice in the great and momentous questions
which concern the general welfare is at least suggestive of the
propriety of trying to get at some sort of knowledge of political
principles ; and though it is impossible for us to believe in the in-
fallible wisdom of the vox populi, or to hold that an absurd opin-
ion is any tne less absurd for having a majority of a million
voters in its favor, yet we cannot but admit that to think even
falsely and ridiculously is a greater mental effort than not to
think at all, and hence there is an educational efficacy in a society
which, like ours, compels men to have views of some kind on a
large number of important subjects. The Athenians were edu-
cated not by books but by their free and eager political life.
The meanest citizen was held to be competent to pass judgment
upon Socrates or to criticise an oration of Demosthenes ; and
though we have none of that fine perception, mental versatility,
metaphysical intuition, or delicacy of taste which distinguished
that gifted race, yet is the most uncouth voter among us not a
whit the less ready to give an authoritative decision upon the
highest and most far-reaching questions, stimulated to this igno-
rant audacity by being appealed to by impassioned orators as the
tribunal of final resort.

The fact "that almost every American either owns property or
knows that he may acquire it with comparative ease is one of the
greatest educational forces in our social life. Whatever may be
the cause, we instinctively identify ourselves with what belongs
to us, and our self-esteem grows with our possessions. The boy
who for the first time becomes the master of a horse, or a watch,
or a pair of boots, magnifies himself so indefinitely that he is
richer than the poor hungry millionaire, who thinks only of what

i88o.] ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 403

he has not. Whatever heightens self-respect increases the desire
to appear well in the eyes of others, and consequently the desire
to appear to be intelligent. The backwoods woman who is per-
fectly satisfied with herself so long as she lives in a cabin feels
the want of education the moment her husband strikes oil or
discovers a mine. The airs and makeshifts of these nouveaux riches
form the most strikingly comical side of our society. It is the
frequent and rapid passage from rags to silks and from huts to
palaces that gives us a bad name and makes the European pro-
verb, Americans are vulgar, seem not altogether libellous. For
it is not vulgar to be ignorant, or uncouth, or even coarse ; but it
is vulgar to pretend to be what we are not, to ape manners which
at best we can but caricature, and a man of taste would doubtless
discover that our fine city people are often more essentially and
irredeemably vulgar than our Western farmers. It is useless,
however, to find fault with a state of things for which there is no
remedy. A man will never resign himself to remain inferior to
his house and his clothes, and when industry or good fortune has
made these fine he will feel the need of striving to be worthy of
them. Hence there is an intimate and necessary relation between
education and property, between the general desire for greater
intelligence and the general opportunities for bettering one's tem-
poral condition. Study the public opinion of any American col-
lege, and unmistakable evidence will not be wanting that the pre-
ponderating thought is that knowledge is desirable chiefly because
it is an efficacious means to temporal success, and, first of all, to
money-making.

The influence of property upon education and character has
been pointed out very clearly by several English writers, who
understand thoroughly well that a population which is condemned
to hopeless poverty will not care to learn how to read and write,
and would derive little benefit from being able to read and write,
unless its condition in other respects be changed. To translate
the peasant from servile dependence to ownership of the soil has
been found to be the most efficacious way of awakening in him
the love of knowledge. " It is not to the intelligence alone," says
Mill, " that the situation of a peasant proprietor is full of improv-
ing influences. It is no less propitious to the moral virtues of
prudence, temperance, and self-control. The laborer who pos-
sesses property, whether he can read or write or not, has, as Mr.
Laing remarks, ' an educated mind ; he has forethought, caution,
and reflection guiding every action ; he knows the value of re-
straint and is in the constant and habitual exercise of it.' " Mill

404 ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. [June,

verifies the truth of this proposition by contrasting the virtues of
the peasant pr6prietors of the Continent of Europe with the vices
of the English laboring classes, who are shut out from all hope of
becoming owners of the land.

" Let any one," says Dr. Rigg, " compare the homes of the peasant pro-
prietors of Switzerland, of the Tyrol, or of the Norman Isles, with the
hovels of too many of our English peasantry, and he will see what nations
and races not so fond of comfort as we English are reputed to be will do
for themselves when they feel that they are building, enlarging, improving,
beautifying their own homes. Here, then, would come in another grand
educational influence, without the co-operation of which much of the in-
struction bestowed in schools must be in vain. The operation of all this
upon the laborer's hopes and views for his family will be apparent. The
peasant proprietors of Switzerland set a high value on education for their
children ; they know its worth. Let a man have a chance of rising a little
way in the world, of leaving a place and a name behind for his family, and
helping to set them a little higher than he has climbed himself such a
man will know how to prize school-training for his children. Let frugality,
providence, and an honorable ambition once be developed in the character
of the poor man, and he cannot but begin intelligently and far-sightedly to
regard the future career of his offspring. How can the hopeless, reckless,
from-hand-to-mouth laborer be expected to care for his child's education ?
. . . Assuredly, education in many cases will be to little purpose so long as
our slums and courts and many-storied tenements in low neighborhoods
remain as they are. Their education is undoing the Christian school edu-
cation." *

Now, this education through property and the facility of ac-
quiring property exists here in the United States under more
favorable conditions than anywhere else in the wide world. All
who practise sobriety and self-denial may better their condition
here, and there is consequently a universal incentive to thrift and
economy. Success in money-making means complete worldly suc-
cess in a society which is not settled, but which is yet working
and in ferment. The first families of the state are, in point of fact,
those who have the most money. They live in the finest houses,
they ride in the most showy equipages, they wear the most costly
clothes, they give the most sumptuous entertainments. Those
who are less wealthy, but of more aristocratic descent, will tell you
of their horror of the vulgar manners and insufferable airs of these
people, but they are none the less eager to ally themselves in
marriage with these rich barbarians. The granddaughters of
tailors, cobblers, and tanners are the queens of society, and there
is but a generation between the kitchen-maid and her mistress.

* National Education, p. 76.

i88o.] ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 405

"Proputty, proputty's ivrything 'ere; an', Sammy, I'm blest
If it isn't.the saame oop yonder, for them as 'as it's the best."

The career is open to all comers, and the machine belongs to him
who can use it to best advantage. A premium is set upon smart-
ness, and society offers the highest prizes to shrewdness and en-
terprise. The wide diffusion of intelligence among the masses of
our people is attributable to these favoring social influences far
more than to any excellence in our school-methods. In this fact
is found the explanation of the educational contrast between the
North and the South. In the slave States the poorer white popu-
lation had little opportunity to acquire wealth or position, and
consequently hardly any love of knowledge. Hence education
was confined to the wealthy planters. In the North, where the
peculiar institution did not exist to divide the people into dis-
tinct classes, the need of education was felt by the entire popula-
tion.

The school, as it exists in the United States, is open to criti-
cism on many sides. It is the fashion to praise what is called our
Common School System ; but, in point of fact, we have no school
system. The only feature in the public schools which is common
to them all is the manner of raising the money necessary for
their maintenance. There is no general method of teaching,
or discipline, or grading, or superintendence. Here the public
school is good ; there it is wretched. In the country, as a rule,
it is very inferior, and in the town or city it is frequently but
little better. Not only is there no national system of schools ;
there is not, in the strict sense of the word, even a State system.
The principle of local control prevails almost universally, and the
common schools are in the hands of boards, the members of
which are generally ignorant or half-educated politicians. The
great mass of the teachers have never had any professional train-
ing, and are therefore lacking in the most essential requirements
of educators. In most cases politics, favoritism, kinship, or lower
motives determine the appointment of the teacher, who generally
seeks the position merely as a temporary expedient ; and conse-
quently, even when competent in other respects, he lacks the pro-
fessional zeal and enthusiasm which in this high, not to say reli-
gious, ministry are of more value even than knowledge. An un-
learned mother, inspired by love, is better able to form a true
man than the most enlightened professor. Three-fourths of the
teachers in the public schools are young girls though the ques-
tion of age should not be emphasized who are merely waiting
for an opportunity to marry. They may possibly be able to

406 ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. [June,

teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, but it is simply ridiculous
to suppose that they are able to educate. There are no fixed
standards of examination to determine the competency of the
teachers, and only in exceptional cases are the schools graded.
Text-books are introduced and changed upon the most frivolous
pretexts, and publishing houses enter into rivalry, not to issue the
best class-books, but to offer the greatest inducements to school
boards. The attendance of the pupils is also most unsatisfactory ;
and in the greater number of schools the children are present
only a few months in the 'year.

To affirm that Americans are the best-educated people in the
world, and that our schools are the best, is worse than declama-
tion. This ignorant self-conceit makes us simply ridiculous in
the eyes of intelligent foreigners. We are quick-witted and en-
terprising ; have built cities and railways, and developed the ma-
terial resources of our country with great rapidity ; but, as we
have pointed out, other causes than the common school have con-
tributed to these results. In scholarship we are greatly lacking,
and our literature, which is at best feeble and without originality,
seems to have passed into the hands of a race of men whose
distinguishing characteristic is incurable mediocrity. When we
speak of our writers we speak of the dead or of those who are
standing upon the brink of the grave. Among the yOung or
those in middle life we do not recall a single name that is written
in such bold relief as to be recognized by all. In politics, it has
often been remarked, the tendency is to the reign of the more
vulgar sort of men. Where shall we look to-day to find men who
have the culture that adds such charm and sweetness to the writ-
ings of Jefferson, of Hamilton and Quincy Adams ? For our own
part we cannot find a great character among all these leaders of
rings and workers of the Machine. Nor is it possible for us to
imagine Washington in the hands of his friends, to be paraded
from town to town, and made a Punch-and-Judy hero of, for the
purpose of begging a nomination. The sense of the noble, the de-
corous, and the truly great seems to have perished in us, and our
hero is the man who has met with success. He may be a drunk-
ard, or the companion of thieves and defaulters, without generous
impulses, or lofty motives, or exalted aims all this is unimportant.
We are like the crowd of roughs around the boxers : our hero is
the man who wins. There is little cause for surprise that men
like Ernest Renan and Matthew Arnold should find that the
mark of Americans is " intellectual mediocrity, vulgarity of man-
ners, and lack of general intelligence," and that they should as-

i88o.] ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 407

cribe these defects to our school system. But the failure to de-
velop a higher culture is not the only or the most serious objec-
tion which is urged against our schools.

" The large majority of the schools of the States," says Dr. Rigg, one of
the ablest writers on education, " so far as I have been able to obtain any
evidence on the subject, appear to be wanting in almost every condition
which should belong to a national system of primary instruction. . . .
Nothing can be better established than the conclusion that, so far as the
provision and quality of elementary schools is concerned, and so far as
school attendance is concerned, the educational condition of the United
States is much inferior to that of England." *

And yet England, as we all know, is in this respect far behind
several of the Continental nations of Europe. The American
press is filled with complaints of the deplorable lack, among pub-
lic school pupils, of training for the productive employments of
life. There is an increasing distaste for manual labor, a growing
aversion to agriculture and mechanical trades, so that in the cities,
it is frequently said, the children of the poor receive just enough
education to unfit them for the only kind of work which they can
hope to find. Their training is one-sided and insufficient. Their
wits are sharpened, their vanity is stimulated, and, instead of set-
tling down to honest toil, they look around for some more re-
spectable way of gaining a livelihood. Their brains are crammed
with* book-learning when their hands should have been made in-
stinct with intelligence. American civilization gives rise to no
more pitiful product than the so-called " educated man," who
knows everything and nothing, who can do everything and
nothing, whose chief business is to discover how he may live
by his wits when he ought to work with his hands.

The moral result of common-school education is altogether
unsatisfactory. In certain places, where the public schools are
most thoroughly organized, the criminal classes increase in a
greater ratio than the total population. In California the youn-
ger convicts are almost universally able to read and write. Dis-
honesty and corruption prevail everywhere. The prisons are
full. The newspaper is the daily chronicle of murder, drunken-
ness, theft, prostitution, suicide, and divorce. The theatre has
sunk until it is only a school of licentiousness. Habits of luxury
and extravagance have become inveterate, and the chief aim of
life seems to be to put money in the purse. If our education fails
to support morality it must necessarily tend to undermine reli-

* National Education, p. no.

408 ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. [June,

gion which rests upon a moral basis. And, in fact, the disinte-
gration of Protestantism in the United States is rapid and wide-
spread. Indifference is universal. Dogmatic faith, without which
a church is like a body without the framework of the bones, is
hardly found any longer at all. Religion is not a rule of life, but
a sentiment, to be expressed in rhetorical phrase. The preacher
is not God's minister, but the servant of men. The church is a
social club, and he is the French cook, hired for his skill to con-
coct pungent sauces for appetites that are neither religious nor
intellectual. The masses of the people care as little for Protes-
tantism as for Mormonism. The most blasphemous and the
coarsest of scoffers is greeted by the most crowded and delighted
audiences. Every effort which has been made to awaken the
dying spirit of faith has proven ineffectual. Spasmodic revivals
are merely the forerunners of deeper and more deadly lapses into
hopeless indifference. If a popular lecturer starts up to refute
the objections of the scientists, it is soon apparent that he is a
theological mountebank, whose nostrums only the half-educated
will swallow. And shortly the announcement is made that the
course has been suspended for lack of financial support. Even
God's truth cannot be spoken unless sacrifice is offered first to
Mammon. A call to preach the Gospel means the offer of a good
salary ; and a higher call means a larger salary.

We have heard preachers and stump orators declare that the
common schools would prove fatal to the Catholic Church. They
did not perceive that a system of education which excludes reli-
gion is based upon the infidel assumption that it is non-essential,
and that the necessary tendency of such training is to undermine
the foundations of all religious faith. The belief and hope that
these schools would destroy the Catholic religion in America
blinded the Protestant leaders to their own danger. The Catho-
lics are forewarned and are doing all that can well be done to shun
the occasion of ruin ; while the Protestant ministers of the United
States are committed to the defence of a principle in education
which is weakening the cause which they are bound to defend.
That the minister of religion should applaud a system of educa-
tion which ignores religion would be incredible if it were not a
fact as wide as the nation. It is an anomaly in our social life that
this question of education should not be open to free discussion,
and that a man who refuses to shout with the crowd on this sub-
ject should be set down at once as a fool or an enemy. An
enlightened people ought to desire and encourage the fullest ex-
pression of honest opinion in a matter which is of such vital im-

i88o.] ASPECTS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 409

portance to the individual and the nation, to the church and the
state. What is known as the Catholic view of education is the
view which has prevailed everywhere in the past and which still
prevails in almost every country in Christendom. It is not the
view of Catholics alone ; it is the view hitherto received by all
the Protestant churches of Europe and by the founders of the
American common school, which, at first, was strictly a church
school. Why is it, then, that good sense and calm judgment dis-
appear the moment this controversy is broached ? Instead of
arguing the point with us, American Protestants fall into decla-
mation or abuse, and denounce us as traitors and the enemies of
liberty, because we insist that the citizens of a free country ought
to have the right to send their children to schools organized in
harmony with the education which is given to them in the family
and in the church to which they belong. Our views on this
subject are put to the vile use to which Republican politicians
devote the " Bloody Shirt." The Protestant partisans do not
seek to get at our real thought, but they catch up our objections
to the purely secular character of the public schools, and proceed,
without further ado, to denounce us as the foes of education ; and
this falsehood is inscribed on the red rag which they wave before
the common herd until it fills the air with dust and loud bellow-
ing'. All this is out of place. In discussing this question no
appeal should be made to the baser passions or to ignorant preju-
dice. The point at issue is not whether education shall be made
universal and our free institutions perpetual. We Catholics de-
sire this as ardently as our Protestant fellow-citizens ; and in
maintaining the principles of religious education we believe that
we are serving our country not less than the church.

Our liberties rest upon a Christian basis, and it is difficult to
understand how they are to be maintained and strengthened by
eliminating religion from public life and education. The ob-
stacles to the introduction of what is known as the denomina-
tional system of education are not imaginary, but neither are they
so great as to be insuperable ; and if the American people could
be brought to look at this question in a calm and impartial tem-
per, they could not fail to recognize that a purely secular school
system is irreligious ; and therefore at variance with the deepest
instincts and the highest interests of man.

4io LORD BEACONSFIELD. [June,

LORD BEACONSFIELD *

AMONG the Punch " cartoons " of Lord Beaconsfield is one
published in 1873, while Gladstone's administration was still in
power, entitled " The Two Augurs." Gladstone and Disraeli,
dressed as Roman augurs, are watching the omens in the smoke
of a sacrifice offered on an altar entitled "Session 1873," and
Disraeli, covering his lips with his hand, says with a sneer, " I al-
ways wonder, brother, how we chief augurs can meet on the
opening day without laughing," to which Gladstone answers
stiffly, " I have never felt any temptation to the hilarity you
suggest, brother, and the remark savors of flippancy."

It is a remark, however, which supplies a key to Lord Bea-
consfield 's consistent political conduct throughout his life. The
fact that principle seems to be absent from his policy has been
brought forward less prominently than circumstances would jus-
tify. Forethought and strength undoubtedly distinguish him ;
vacillating he never is, garrulous never ; he suffices to himself, he
seeks no counsel and tolerates none except such as he provokes
(or invites) for purposes of his own, as he did in 1867, when he
passed the most comprehensive Reform Bill yet affecting the
franchise question in England, by allowing the Liberals to cut
down all its sharn restrictions, which were only the dummies he
himself had provided as targets for their activity. He is abso-
lutely indifferent as to the weapons he uses ; politics are a game
in which the meanest piece on the board as well as the highest in
value has its place and its worth ; sympathies as well as principles
are only " pieces," material ready to his hand ; sentiments and
prejudices he applies as skilfully as a painter does colors ; in
everything there is the power derived from the fullest know-
ledge of human nature wielded by an intellectual automaton.
At least that is the impression which his conduct as a statesman,
during the few years of his entire supremacy, suggests to an on-
looker. It is impossible to believe that he has any end in view
save success and personal leadership ; impossible even to believe
that he will regret losing his supremacy, since he could hardly
have proceeded to higher honors than he has already reached.
He has made the sovereign his willing and unconscious tool ; he

* Lord Beaconsfield : a Study. By Georg Brandes. Translated from the German by Mrs.
George Sturge. London and New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 1880.

1 8 So.] LORD BEACOX SHIELD. 411

has led a class peculiarly wedded to precedent and averse to
change into the boldest innovations, which they enthusiastically
deemed the outcome of their own principles ; he has hoodwinked
those who pride themselves on their alertness to detect an adven-
turer ; he has conquered a position of unparalleled safety and as-
sumed what is tantamount to dictatorship, in spite of a combina-
tion of circumstances such as has never before stood in the way
of any political aspirant. Only his obvious want of principle pre-
vents his from being true greatness ; a career so triumphant, so
steadily progressive is a marvel, but it is not an example. It is
interesting as illustrating one of his favorite axioms, the influence
of race, and he has added one more to the many notable in-
stances of the extraordinary adaptability of the Hebrew race to
the conditions of Aryan life and thought. But his success is a
personal success ; he has identified himself with no cause or
principle, he is the champion or representative of nothing that
appeals to a sense of admiration or sympathy. Except the
" Empire," by which he means a very decided, very statesman-
like, very aggressive policy, at the same time appealing to the
British love of brute power and sense of national pride, he has
not even put forth a representative " cry " with which his policy
can be broadly identified ; he disdains everything which is not
himself, most of all the clumsy B forms of representative govern-
ment, the awkward questions of inquisitive and irrepressible par-
liamentarians, the dogged, middle-class instincts of truth and
honesty, the bluntness of the Anglo-Saxon character. Yet all
these are weapons convenient at certain times, and, disdaining
them, he nevertheless uses them, defers to the principles involved
in their existence, courts the necessary co-operation of blind fol-
lowers, whom he " educates " for his own purposes, and lives
among his contemporaries a life analogous in motive and in
means to that of the Egyptian priests, who controlled and used
the ignorant tools called kings, soldiers, and people. The in-
fluence of a strong mind over weak ones has been said, by the fa-
vorite of a French queen, to be the only magic ; Lord Beacons-
field has proved it once more. His own words, theatrically put
into the mouth of an apparition in his novel Tancrcd, sum up his
practice in this direction : " Fear not, faint not, falter not. Obey
the impulse of thine own spirit, and find a ready instrument in
every human being."

It is impossible, in dissecting his life as a politician, to over-
look his origin and education. The former has made his career a
protest and an effort a protest against disabilities unjust in them-

4I 2 LORD BEACONSFIELD. [June,

selves, and prejudices that amount almost to instincts, and which
legislation, custom, and better knowledge of political principles
are alike powerless to destroy in the mass of Englishmen ; and an
effort to conquer by personal influence a position which custom
and nature bestowed upon most of his associates, without one-
tenth of the latter being fitted for it, or even proud of it when
they possessed it. His father, a free-thinking Jew, had been con-
tent to shine as a litterateur, a Maecenas, an elegant and classical
person, not inordinately rich, but of artistic tastes which he could
afford to indulge. His grandfather, a more believing Jew, had
eagerly grasped all the power that commerce gives, and wished
to found a house such as Rothschild subsequently founded ; his
grandmother, a passionate, sensitive woman, revolted from the
humiliations of her lot as one of the " accursed race," and, by a
strange psychological twist, hated, not her oppressors, but her
own despised people (it is thought that George Eliot has drawn
her portrait as the Princess in Daniel Deronda). At school the
young Disraeli first felt the personal sting of his race : boys are
blunt and barbarous judges, as ignorant as they are pitiless, and
no laughter in the House of Commons could have been so sharp
a pain to the young politician as the taunts of his fellows were to
the school-boy. Vain and sensitive, Disraeli naturally found re-
venge and ambition more and more attractive, and cynicism and
secretiveness more and more convenient. His love of power,
and especially secret power for his mind was imaginative and
unscientific grew with his youth ; he became what he desig-
nated himself, under the alias of one of his early heroes, Vivjan
Grey, a precocious boy. He defiantly outraged the English
prejudices under which he smarted, and affected a dandyism
exaggerated even in the days of Beau Brummel and Count
d'Orsay, as well as a cosmopolitanism which ignored all the slow,
physical, peculiarly English modes of development ; though, in
this, at twenty, he was consistent with his later self of forty,
fifty, seventy, when he equally exaggerated a nationalism which
out-Englished the most insular of his followers. All or nothing
is the natural motto of ambition : at first he was " nothing,"
and made the most of it by an ostentatious display of his for-
eignness, which in secret he chafed under ; now he is " all,"
and no quixotism of British .self-assertion is too strained for him,
the representative of the modern imperialism. His lack of uni-
versity training went far to increase the fantastic tendencies of
a mind essentially un-English ; imagination as applied to politics
became an axiom with him, not in the sense of its being the right

i88o.] LORD BEACON AFIELD. 413

motive, but the obvious means of government. He took his
stand as an anti-Benthamite, not because he thought the Manches-
ter school of political economy wrong, but because he disliked
scientific methods of legislation, and revolted from the unpictur-
esqueness of the new political gospel. When defending his Re-
form Bill in 1867 he betrayed the same tendency that he con-
sciously gave way to in youth, and declared that, change being
inevitable, the point was " whether that change shall be carried
out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws, the tradi-
tions of the people, or whether it shall be carried in deference
to abstract principles and arbitrary and general doctrines." He
seemed unable to perceive that the first method which was only
a method, not an alternative was a matter of form, while the lat-
ter involved the principle of right government. The very reverse
of narrowminded, he had Jacobinical and Voltairian leanings which
made him the apologist of the theoretical side of the French Revo-
lution ; a brilliant versatility of intellect made him akin to all that
is commonly, for the sake of convenience, classed together as
" revolutionary "; yet his personal imperiousness, his impatience
of guidance or dictation, his tyrannical character, the inevitable
outcome of undue repression, made him, what all clever social
free-lances are, an autocrat. He was politically right when he
deprecated middle-class influence as destructive of imperial po-
licy : his supporters necessarily came from the extremes of so-
ciety the two poles, as it were. Dexterous manipulation of the
masses suited his character as leader of the landed interest, while
dazzling feats abroad and apparent remission of taxes at home
were convenient baits for the people. Had he remained another
year or two in office, and kept his late phalanx of voters in the
House of Commons, it is not unlikely that he would have given
an extended franchise to both England and Ireland (equalizing
the two), and drawn up some startling measure for the apparent
healing of the foremost causes of Irish discontent. That he has
hitherto opposed such measures and given no sign of interest in
Irish grievances is no reason why he may not have had popular
schemes ready to offer. With him such things are matters of
time and opportunity, and his judgment of the opportunity is
usually different from that of others, but as no principle is in-
volved it is easy to substitute one policy for the other at any
moment. Generalship is more popular than conscience, that
awkward possession for a politician. Beaconsfield may have
made an error of judgment for once in overrating the impor-
tance of English as contrasted with Irish prejudice, and there-

414 LORD BEACONSFIELD. [June,

fore bidding for the former against the latter ; but he is capa-
ble, if he sees his action in the light of an error, to cover his
tracks skilfully enough to retrieve his position. He may not
think this worth while, and it is well known that a dignified exit
is an incident as important in the career of a statesman as any
of the attitudes he has thought it convenient to maintain for a
time. Lord Beaconsfield, the advocate of imagination as opposed
to criticism, appeals to English passion and disregards Irish pas-
sion, to English sentiment and stigmatizes Irish sentiment, to Eng-
lish fancy and brands Irish fancy. He does not appeal to Eng-
lish principle, or logic, or simple love of fair play. The reason is
that he is persuaded that Irish sentiment does not and will not
pay. He wished to strike at the Liberal party through the
Home-Rulers ; the former saw his trap and avoided it ; the latter
are so incensed that they are content to oppose him without mak-
ing terms with his other opponents. But as he went to Berlin
ostensibly to humble Russia, and yet made a secret treaty with
Russia, and another side-treaty with Turkey with Russia's con-
sent and connivance, he is not incapable of doing what he says the
Liberals will do i.e., pay any price for the Home-Rulers' vote.'
If he makes no advances in that direction his wisdom and tact
are to be trusted ; the step would have been useless, and he pro-
bably knew it by experience. Such experiences are, at any rate,
justifiable from what we know of his past masterly proceedings.
His own definition of a statesman as " the child of circumstances,
. . . essentially a practical character," bound not to inquire " what
his opinions might or might not have been on this or that sub-
ject," but "only to ascertain the needful, the beneficial, and the
most feasible manner in which affairs are to be carried on," leads
one to be astonished neither at his contemptuous reticence in face
of the questions of opponents, nor at any startling or unprece-
dented device to retain a majority or to dress up a fact. In his
younger days he was fond of similes drawn from the art of con-
juring ; in his older ones these similes seem to spring to the
mind of the caricaturist as the readiest expression of the sober-
minded nation's dismay at the dexterousness of the sardonic and
self-restrained politician. His eloquence, once exuberant and
fantastic, has now passed to the other extreme, and is based on
the axiom that language was given us to conceal our thoughts,
while it has also progressed in the direction of the art, as a
speaker in the House of Lords said in the month of March, of
making an adversary look ridiculous.

It is a strange coincidence that his first speech should hav(

iS8o.] LORD BEACONSFIELD. 415

happened to be on an Irish subject, that his first patron should
have been O'Connell, and his first political difference should have
been the mutual disavowal of each other by these two remarkable
men. The details of the latter rather vulgar altercation are pretty
generally known, and are not creditable to either; O'Connell, it
is true, spoke passionately because he acted on pAiciple, while
Disraeli had no such excuse, his change of front being caused by
expediency ; but none the less both used unjustifiable and low
language, such as scarcely even the heat of electioneering could
excuse in a man. Disraeli's maiden speech, on the " Spottiswoode
Subscription" an unpopular subject in Ireland, as it dealt with
an unconstitutional attempt to help Protestant candidates, as such,
against Catholic candidates by means of English subscriptions is
well worth notice as the formal beginning of a career so trium-
phantly ended. His self-possession during the ordeal of laughter,
groans, hisses, and uncourteous interruptions of a still more un-
parliamentary nature, was an indication of his fitness for future
rule ; but it deserted him at the very last, when, after nearly an
hour of good-humored and telling speaking, delivered by fits and
starts as the laughter in the House permitted, he said, " Nothing
is so easy as to laugh," and by and by, with an unusually loud
and almost terrific voice, added, " I am not at all surprised, sir, at
the reception I have met with (continued laughter). I have begun
several times many things (laughter), and have often succeeded
at last. (' Question ! ') Aye, sir, I will sit down now, but the time
will come when you will hear me." He had employed some rhe-
torical forms in this speech, had allowed himself to be eloquent
after the fashion of novelists and popular orators ; but his failure
taught him conciseness and accuracy, and when he spoke next,
on matters of local importance with which he had made himself
perfectly familiar according to the business-like English standard,
he was listened to, and gradually compelled the respect and atten-
tion of the House. His first election was not the first occasion
on which he spoke politically; four times in three years he of-
fered himself as a candidate and was defeated, till in 1837, the
year of Queen Victoria's accession, he succeeded in getting a seat
for Maidstone in conjunction with Mr. Lewis, whose widow he
afterwards married.

Having failed as an ultra-Radical, he took up his position
as an ultra-Tory, with politico-poetical theories of the natural
alliance of the aristocracy with the masses against the middle-
classes a theory which his political idol, Bolingbroke, in a work
called A Patriot King, had broached before him. His German

4i 6 LORD BEACONSFIELD. [June,

biographer, studying him as much through his works as through
his actions, repeatedly impresses on the reader that " he was, by
nature, half popular tribune, half courtier. His sympathies went
with the poverty of the people and the splendor of the throne.
A less bourgeois, or bourgeois-aristocratic, character can scarcely
be conceived! 1 ' Brandes sees in him also, in connection with this
contempt for the bulk of the intellect and the principle of Eng-
land, " a freedom from prejudice very rare in England," as " he
has always pronounced those men to be great or eminent whose
distinguished qualities the crowd, with their petty bourgeois mor-
alizings, were disposed to overlook, on account of failings in their
private life as, for instance, Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Byron, and
Count d'Orsay." * In one of his political pamphlets, entitled
What is He ? he again emphasizes his dislike of " this age of bust-
ling mediocrity," and says concerning the " influence of indivi-
dual character, too much underrated " by it : " Great spirits may
yet arise to guide the groaning helm through the world of
troubled waters spirits whose proud destiny it may still be at the
same time to maintain the glory of the empire and to secure the
happiness of the people.!' The first time that he stood as a candi-
date in the Radical interest, in 1832, he made the most of what he
called his plebeian origin: he was the "man of the people, for he
had himself sprung from the people and had not a drop of the
Plantagenets or Tudors in his veins "; but had his audience known
what he meant they would have interpreted his declaration in
the sense in which he spoke in Tancred years later, when he care-
lessly mentioned the ancestors of English gentlemen as being
"tattooed savages " at the time the pure Sephardim of the Medi-
terranean were carrying on traditions of a learning and a civiliza-
tion already two thousand years old. In contrast with this
democratic affectation was his Vindication of the English Consti-
tution three years later, a pamphlet offering the original theory
that the House of Lords (including the bishops of the national
church as lords spiritual) was as representative as the House of
Commons, the bishops having often (?) risen from the lowest ranks
of the people, and forming " the most democratic element among
the many popular elements of the Upper House." Then he at-
tempts to prove that the Lower House is as hereditary in practice
as the Upper is in theory, and proceeds to denounce the oligarchi-
cal character of the Whig party, who were aiming at reducing the

* This conjunction strikes one as incongruous ; the two former being unquestionably
men in the field of intellect, while the latter was only a dilettante and leader of fashion, a trivia
minded man.

i88o.] LORD BEACONSFIELD. 417

sovereign to the position of the doge in the Venetian republic.
His own ideal from the beginning has been Cassarism, as far as the
English people can be brought to swallow it. An oligarchy he
considers, as he says in his Vindication, " hostile to genius " a term
through which we recognize his allusion to himself ; yet it was
from the same elements of oligarchical mediocrity, though en-
listed on the Tory side of the nobility, that he chose his stepping-
stones to power. As Napoleon looked upon men as food for
powder, so Disraeli considered them as raw material for any poli-
tical schemes which a man above them in resource and dexterity
could plan. The " stupid party," as the Tories have been called,
proved the best for experimenting upon ; the most malleable, once
you deferred to two or three really insignificant prejudices *of
theirs deemed by themselves a sine-qud-non of compromise with
any one ; and the party promising most satisfactory results when
thoroughly tamed and "educated." Its marvellous docility
within the last six years has proved his dictum, in the Life of
Lord George Bentinck, his colleague and dummy during the first
years of his leadership of the Tories in the House of Commons,
that " an aristocracy hesitates before it yields its confidence, but
it never does so grudgingly, ... an aristocracy is rather apt
to exaggerate the qualities and magnify the importance of a ple-
beian leader." Wielding power, whether by secret influence or
by outwardly legitimate means, is always his goal ; in his novels,
Vivian Grey, Sidonia, and Fakredeen, in various degrees, are his
most truly representative heroes. The former is a youth of en-
ergy and ambition who climbs to power through the influence
he gains over an aristocratic clique which he leads while they
fancy him their mouthpiece ; Sidonia is a mature and well-bal-
anced mind, uniting unerring political discernment to the careless-
ness of perfect good-breeding ; and Fakredeen is a brilliant vision-
ary with Asiatic dreams of a resuscitated empire, combined of Eng-
land and India, with a tributary Syria. Sidonia is probably the
author's favorite impersonation of his own aspirations and ideal ;
here is part of the description of this character : " He could
please ; he could do more he could astonish. He could throw
out a careless observation which would make the oldest diploma-
tist start a winged word that gained him the consideration, some-
times the confidence, of sovereigns. When he had fathomed the
intelligence which governs Europe, and which can only be done
by personal acquaintance, he returned to this country " * (Eng-
land). Sidonia, says Brandes, commenting on Disraeli's con-

* Coningsby.
VOL. XXXI. 27

4i 8 LORD BEACONSFIELD. [June,

ception, " does not trouble himself much about political forms.
He regards the political constitution as a machine, the motive
power of which is the national character ; . . . nationality is to
him only an intermediate idea; nationality is based upon race,
for without the impress of race nationality is inconceivable and
meaningless. . . . His faith in race concurs with his conviction
of the overwhelming influence of individual character, for it is
only as a personification of the race that the individual appears to
him to be great. * Man is made to adore and to obey ' is one of
his favorite axioms. ..." Convenient theories so long as you
happen to be of the superior race and are the individual to be
adored and obeyed.

The first step towards definite leadership that Lord Beacons-
field took identified him with the political branch of the Tracta-
rian party a knot of enthusiasts, poets, reformers, romanticists,
who aimed at a semi-mediaeval social revival, in which the church
and the state should form a new Utopia, Catholics and Anglicans
become one, monasteries, as the asylum of the poor, be restored,
chivalry be resuscitated, trade abolished, or at least restrained
from political power, the ancient class of yeomen flourish once
more, every one in every class do his duty, and progress or de-
velopment never more vex or disturb the public mind. The
knot of men who held these views were, on the whole, very
young, from eighteen to twenty-three, but even among them
there were two parties, one of which was more liberal than the
other, Sydney Smythe, Lord Strangford's son, being its represen-
tative, while Lord John Manners (son of the then Duke of Rut-
land) represented the more strictly mediaeval party. That the
" Young England " set, as they called themselves, were sincere
and generous in their belief there is no doubt ; the enthusiasm
spread among older men and women ; the Catholic tendencies of
many were spurred on by it ; Puseyism coalesced with it ; it
thought itself the herald of a national regeneration, and it only
collapsed because it had failed to take into account the necessities
of existence and the bent of the plodding but never retrograde
English mind. Disraeli, through an emotional and not unreal
sympathy with this idealism, was able to guide it skilfully to his
own ends by making himself, at forty, the leader of the new cru-
sade. The youths believed they had found their prophet, and
henceforth deferred to their providentially appointed leader.
Disraeli's best novels were written after this, and expressed,
through a good deal of mystical and sometimes sarcastic jargon,
the leading ideas of the new Christian socialism.

i88o.] LORD BEACONSFIELD. 419

Both the old political parties laughed at this new gospel, and
it is impossible that its self-constituted head should have believed
in it except as an instrument ; but it served his purpose admira-
blv, as it gave him a following and exhibited his powers as a
moderator, thereby vanquishing the prejudice even of the old
Tory fathers of his impetuous poetical reformers, so that the
former reluctantly came to acknowledge his influence as a ration-
al check on their sons' quixotism. The party, as a party, soon
melted away, but the best novels Disraeli wrote were the out-
come of his connection with it. Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred
types par excellence of the political novel, a species said to have
been created by this author all turn more or less on the union of
some of his friends' Utopian theories and his own ideal of a Tory-
Radical socialism. Brandes says that Sybil contains passages that
remind one of Lassalle, and a recent magazine article in England
has clearly put -forth the theory of identification of the Tory
policy with a modified socialism ; but Disraeli's cynical observa-
tion of his fellows compels him to admit, with a shrug as it were,
that the masses understand the monarchical form of government,
more readily than the republican, still less the constitutional.
" They follow the family affairs of a royal house with far greater
interest," comments Brandes, "than an abstract political event" ;
and quoting Walter Bagehot, that sagacious forerunner of his
time, he adds : " The women one-half the human race at least
care fifty times more for a marriage than a ministry" (The
English Constitution). It requires either enormous selfishness
or great strength of mind to escape becoming a pessimist after
the steady contemplation of this hopeless childishness of most
nations. The lack of intellectual aspirations among a people
whose ideal was summed up in domestic comfort warranted Dis-
raeli's sarcastic description of the Conservative party as those
whose ideas of politics consisted in ,1,200 a year, paid quarterly.
"To receive 1,200 a year is government; to try to receive
1,200 a year is opposition; to wish to receive 1,200 a year is
ambition.' The contrast between the acquiescence in received
ideas, the slavery to precedent and custom, which distinguished
all classes, and the principles they believe themselves religiously
to hold, is brought out with droll but veiled insistence in these
three novels. Sybil, whose heroine is a workman's daughter and a
Catholic, is a plea for Chartism that is, the only violent form in
which English socialism ever broke forth. Calling it sockilism,
however, hardly describes this movement accurately, as it at-
tacked neither religion nor property, bs.t was a premature at-

420 LORD BEACON SFIELD. [June,

tempt to extend the franchise and to abolish the state church.
Its hero, the younger brother of a traditional " wicked lord,"
is a mouthpiece of " Young England," and ends by marrying
Sybil (romantic marriages, flying in the face of English pre-
judices, are favorite incidents with Lord Beaconsfield) ; but
at the close his theories undergo the change that experience
and contact with unpleasant truths and disillusions generally
work on any but born visionaries, and Egremont rescues Sybil
(whose father turns out to be the real heir of a vast proper-
ty), only to relapse into the ordinary habits of an English gen-
tleman. Coningsby is less dramatic, less artistic, more evidently
a political pamphlet in disguise, but is full of good sketches drawn
from life, the general self-complacency of those who hold the
" loaves and fishes " being incisively portrayed. Tancred, the
most interesting but most cynical of the three, opens with the
description of a British couple in superlative degrees irreproach-
able, respectable, conventional, mediocre, and blue-blooded, and
their only child, Tancred, who puzzles and alarms them by his
idealism. His London adventures and his tour in the East where
he meets and marries a lovely and enthusiastic Jewess, and falls
in with a Hebrew Bedouin tribe, after an equally strange intro-
duction to a beautiful heathen queen, the impersonation of Ary-
anism are the occasion for a good deal of clever description of
types, and political prophecies of the Asiatic mission of England,
but the conclusion points to the final triumph of circumstances
over theories, and to the inevitable British tendency to " let
things alone." Brandes calls Tancred, in its relation to its au-
thor's Eastern politics, " a veritable palimpsest ; beneath a layer
of poetical and grotesque fantasies the book concealed for thirty
years the serious programme of his policy, and not until time has
by degrees during the last four years corroded the surface were
other critics enabled to decipher the concealed and instructive
original writing." In a future paper we shall glance at other
features of Lord Beaconsfield 's life and writings.

i88o.] THE OUTCOME OF THE CHANNING CENTENNIAL. 421

THE OUTCOME OF THE CHANNING CENTENNIAL.

WHAT has the Charming- centennial to tell us? Has it no
new truth to offer the world ? If it has some fresh thought
struggling for utterance, what more fitting occasion for its de-
liverance than the celebration of the centennial of the birth of its
leading champion ? But if one can judge from what has been
put in print on this memorable event and not a little of this sort
has been done two generations of men, more or less, have suf-
ficed to exhaust the Unitarian movement of its vitality. Uni-
tarianis-m, from Channing to its latest representative, apart from
its utterances against Protestantism, and especially against that
form of Protestantism given by John Calvin, has no intellectual
or moral significance or worth, and all its movements as a body,
in spite of the boundless aspirations and sublime purposes of
its members, have ended in nothing.

But the Unitarian movement was one of negation, and owes
its existence to its horror of Calvinism. Is it not, therefore,
ironical to ask : What has it new or original to offer the world ?
But could there be a denial of the false unless on the basis of a
supposition, implicitly or explicitly, of the true? Every thought
involves some truth.

Precisely ; Unitarianism was the recognition of the primary
truths of the natural order as over against the exaggeration of
the truths of the supernatural order by Calvinism. Unitarian-
ism, therefore, confined within its limits, was not a denial of
Christianity, but a denial and repudiation of Calvinism.

But Unitarians made the mistake of confounding Calvinism
with Christianity, and, with all their boasted intelligence, persist
in this egregious blunder. Hence as Calvinism represented the
truths of the supernatural order in such a shape as to contradict
the truths of the natural order, so Unitarianism, in opposition, re-
presented the truths of the natural order in such a shape as to
contradict the truths of the supernatural order. Perhaps this
was the best method of extinguishing the errors of both, on the
maxim of therapeutics, that contraria contrariis curantur.

Be this as it may, the result has been that the Calvinists for
the most part have quietly dropped their ultra tenets and adopted
others more in accordance with the truths of natural reason, or
subsided into unbelief ; and the Unitarians, finding nothing of

422 THE OUTCOME OF THE CHANNING CENTENNIAL. [June,

much account to protest against, have grown tired of reiterat-
ing their exhausted formulas, and are also for the most part on
the road to extinction. The two combatants have succeeded in
vanquishing each other. Neither of the original parties, as such,
continues to exist, and their descendants now meet on the same
platform, shake hands together, and exchange congratulations.
Their occupation is gone.

Some few of the younger Unitarian ministers affirm with un-
wonted emphasis the primary truths of reason and the first prin-
ciples of philosophy before their conferences, as though these
truths were recent discoveries of their own ! They seem not to
be awakened to the recognition of the fact that they were com-
bating Calvinism with truths fully accepted and maintained by
all past generations, and defended by pagan as well as Catho-
lic philosophers. Hence it is easier for an Unitarian to become
a Catholic than a Calvinist ; for the truths of the supernatural
order are in perfect consonance with those of the natural order.
Whereas a Calvinist in becoming a Catholic has not only to em-
brace the truths of the natural order, but also to correct the
errors which he holds of the supernatural order, from which diffi-
cult task the Unitarian is exempt. This truth, that the know-
ledge and certitude of the truths of the natural order are pre-
liminary to the belief of the truths of the supernatural order,
and that the former serve the latter as their necessary basis,
seems never for a moment to have entered the minds of the Uni-
tarians, and we fear it would require a surgical operation to
lodge it into their brains. The synthesis of the truths of both
the natural and supernatural order constitutes Christianity, and
this is the meaning of Catholicity.

But " the era of destruction," we are told, " is ended." What
now will the Unitarians do ? " A desire for an affiliation and a
longing to organize " have come to birth. " Organization and
construction " is now in season. But organize what ? Construct
but upon what ? There's the rub.

From Channing down to the present time their principal mis-
sion consisted in protesting. No one up to this date has brought
forth any " new principle or basis " for reconstruction which has
stood the test of one generation, not even a decade of years.
Their forte consists in pulling down. Scarcely one Unitarian of
'prominence, we venture to say, could have been found in the
recent gathering at Newport who would accept the task of de-
fending the Unitarianism of Dr. Channing. These Unitarians
are the logical offspring of Dr. Martin Luther, terrible as sappers

1 8 So.] THE OUTCOME OF THE CHANNING CENTENNIAL. 423

and miners ; but the less said of their organizing* and constructive
abilities the better. They excel in the way of demolition. The
early Unitarians refuted Calvinism, and their sons have buried its
remains ; and their grandsons, the free-religionists, have in turn
refuted Unitarianism, and its place of burial is already prepared.
But what now ?

That reason, the greatest gift of the Creator to man, is insuffi-
cient for itself is a truth recognized by the voice of all the sages
of the past, and confirmed by the testimony of the whole human
race of all ages. Even one who has preached up self-reliance
a r entrance is compelled to acknowledge :

" We cannot learn the cipher
That's writ upon our cell ;
Stars help us by a mystery
Which we could never spell."*

This confession is conspicuously sincere, and above all true,
since the light of Christianity has stimulated man's reason to
aspire and seek after what is infinitely far beyond his reach. As
for Unitarians, they can accept in no modified shape Protestantism,
for Calvinism is its only logical basis, and have they not shown
clearly that on all characteristic points Calvinism is in flagrant
contradiction with the plain dictates of -reason ? Some few weak-
kneed brethren have put up with Episcopalianism because it has
no dogmatic basis. It is so broad that one is left to believe what-
ever he likes and deny whatever he dislikes. It answers remark-
ably well as a temporary shelter for the emotional and social
instincts of one who is willing to let his reason and conscience
slide in religion, and it affords a respectable stopping-place to let
him down quietly into the gulf of unbelief. But intelligent men
who respect themselves cannot put up. with a sham, even though
its dimensions be ever so broad. They are restless to know what
is the fate of the man-child, and are inquisitive as to the meaning
of man. They are tormented with an eternal " Why ? "

Dr. Channing thought to build on the idea that Christ was a
being above man and below God. Few if any Unitarians of to-
day sympathize with this indefinable notion of their leader. At
best such a superangelic being was only a creation of fancy, and
had been better left in oblivion with its originator, Arius.

Theodore Parker changed this idea by subtracting from its
divine side and adding some defects on the human. Jesus was to
Parker a remarkable Jewish peasant, one unusually but not alto-

* Emerson.

424 THE OUTCOME OF THE CH ANN ING CENTENNIAL. [June,

gether free from the weakness of his race and the limitations of
his surroundings. Parker, as an exponent of "religion, felt called
upon to affirm the eternal elements in all religions, and to empha-
size the immanence of God in all creation, especially in man. He
dreamed of this divine immanence until he died, and died with
the idea not, perhaps, a very clear one that he might be a special
incarnation of this divine immanence himself. Had he lived New
England might have had the honor of giving birth to a modern
Buddha, a Babu Keshub Chunder Sen ; but he died, and likewise
his works.

Dr. Bellows, of this city, but of New England origin, struck
off in an opposite direction, and, with his accustomed dash,
startled many of his friends. To all appearances, in his Cambridge
address he made a rush for historical, organic Christianity, in order
to escape from a lifeless rationalism and stark unbelief. It was a
remarkable production, but his friends had no need of feeling
alarmed, for he came suddenly to a halt, resumed his usual
course, recovering his balance by asserting that the belief in
the divinity of Christ " is only the latest and least offensive rem-
nant of idolatry," and that " we may still hear Christ saying of
his idolaters what he said of his crucifiers : ' Father, forgive
them, they know not what they do.' " * And when he reached
Cairo in his Eastern trip he did not hesitate to express a greater
sympathy with Islamism than Christianity a sentiment which
reminds one of the great Reformer himself, one worthy of his
descendant, and full of reassurance to his friends of the Unitarian
persuasion. Had he been younger, who knows, he might have
been tempted to follow the example of one of the most brilliant
and gifted of the early Unitarian ministers of Boston, who went
to Turkey, turned Mohammedan, and became a Moslem preacher.

The Rev. O. B. Frothingham pushes straight forward on the
extreme left, and starts Free-Religionism. " Emerson," he tells
us, " preached individualism. So did Parker. So did all men of
that school. It was the logical outcome of their faith." But
individualism has done its best, and has " become rough and
rude and contumacious ; vagaries and whims and notions call-
ing themselves inspired, and a coarse kind of self-assertion, take
possession of the holy place, and utter their diatribe in the name
of prophecy." f This is the language of Mr. Frothingham in his
farewell sermon. This is all very true of individualism, and was
.equally true a generation ago, or two generations ago, yea, and

* Restatements of Christian Doctrine, p. 34.
t Liberal Christian, April n, 1868.

iSSo.] THE OUTCOME OF THE CH ANN ING CENTENNIAL. 425

never more true than it was three centuries ago, and is, though
he does not appear to see it, a thorough and complete condemna-
tion of the logical premise of Protestantism. Still he has an
occasional glimpse of its truth, for he says in the same sermon :
" Protestantism is only three hundred years old. It is a schism,
a departure from the old church, and it owes the savor of its
piety, its nobleness, its grandeur, its sincerity, to the ages that
lay behind it in the old church from Avhich it came."

But by what species of intellectual sleight of hand will Mr.
Frothingham escape individualism, the false premise of Protestant-
ism ? That is a curious as well as an interesting question. Lis-
ten! This is how it is done : " We are," so he says, "on the eve
now of organization, of construction on a new basis, under the
guidance and direction and impulse of a new principle." But can
he tell the world what is this " new basis " or " new principle "
which is to give this guidance and direction ? That is the ques-
tion. " I am not," he says, " prepared to say what this shall be";
again : " I am not conceited enough to think that I can set any-
thing right that is wrong, that I can answer any questions or
throw any light upon any unsolved problems." O blind leader
of the blind ! why have* you not the sincerity to retire into soli-
tude after the example of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and honestly
acknowledge, as he does :

"Alas ! the sprite that haunts us

Deceives our rash desire ;
It whispers of the glorious gods,

And leaves us in the mire.
We cannot learn the cipher

That's writ upon our cell ;
Stars help us by a mystery

Which we could never spell.

" If but one hero knew it,

The world would blush in flame ;

The sage, till he hit the secret,

. Would hang his head for shame.

But our brothers have not read it,
Not one has found the key ;

And henceforth we are comforted
We are but such as they." *

Though Mr. Frothingham has not " hit the secret," unlike the
" sage " he hangs not his head, but stands unabashed looking up-
ward and forward to what shall we call it? A new sect. No,

* Emerson.

426 THE OUTCOME OF THE CHANNING CENTENNIAL. [June,

that is not euphonious. What, then ? Why, to what he describes
as an " organization of something like a denomination, with cer-
tain pretty well understood articles upon which earnest, faithful,
intelligent people can agree, can co-operate, ... to do something
good for the world to address itself hopefully to vital prob-
lems."

The late president of the free-religionists may well despair of
enkindling the enthusiasm or awakening the hopes in our day
which a similar experiment excited among the Unitarians of Bos-
ton a generation ago under the leadership of Rev. George Rip-
ley. The best minds and the best hearts of that day were in sym-
pathy with this new departure promising a fresh era for human-
ity. The Brook-Farmers were animated with the greatest confi-
dence, and actuated by genuine enthusiasm united with a sincere
spirit of self-sacrifice. So far as the building up of an organi-
zation is the test of truth, their strength was wasted, their hopes
blasted, and as an experiment it issued into an utter failure.
Brook Farm stood not alone in the early days of Unitarianism,
when its young men and maidens saw visions and its old men
dreamt dreams. Fruitlands, under the esoteric Bronson Alcott,
was to have transfigured human life by the divinest inspirations :
poetry, painting, architecture, and all the economies yea, even
the drudgeries of human existence, were to be recast into loftier
forms of beauty. Why should not Pythagorases, Socrateses,
Platos, Aspasias appear again upon earth in the shape of the
youths and maidens of New England ? Why should not inspired
men and Sibyls utter their prophecy and tread the hills of Mas-
sachusetts and the streets of Boston as well as the hills of Pales-
tine and the streets of Jerusalem ? Nay, more, had they not all
the knowledge and experience of the past at their backs, and
were they not its heirs, and why should they not surpass the
patriarchs and prophets yea, and even Christ himself ? They
were fired with an ambition beyond the reach of all past mortals.
Did not their own poet sing :

" I am owner of the spheres,
Of the seven stars, and the solar years,
Of Caesar's hand and Plato's brain,
Of Lord Christ's heart and Shakspere's strain " ?*

Wilder dreams and more extravagant anticipations never en-
tered into the brain of man or woman, or were entertained in the
fancy of boy or maiden outside of Bedlam, than were rife among

* Emerson.

iSSo.] THE OUTCOME OF THE CHANNING CENTENNIAL. 427

the " Newnessites," as these come-outers were then called. Fruit-
lands took a far loftier flight than Brook Farm, and counted for
all its soaring, alas ! only an earlier tomb. Will our free-religion-
ists read their lesson? Do they fancy they can ever compete
with their predecessors? Mr. Frothingham and his followers may
have the enthusiasm to make the attempt ; if so, it will be found
only another example of " a substitution of impulse for judg-
ment." The truth is, his promised undertaking is the same as
that which O. A. Brownson organized in 1836, "The Society for
Christian Union Progress." but which he took pains to prevent
its growing into a sect.

Francis Ellingwood Abbot, a co-operator of Mr. Frothingham in
the free-religion movement, is a reformer of still another stamp.
Were his intelligence and knowledge equal to his confidence in
his own abilities and his lively fancy, he might make an effective
leader. He is not the man to entertain doubts about his faculty
to set anything right that is wrong, or to answer any question, or
of throwing the needed light on any unsolved problem. He im-
peaches in a lofty tone Christianity, solves with a profound in-
sight the problem of Christ, and with a patronizing air promises
" mankind will rank his religion high among the other great re-
ligions of the world." Bounteous thanks, O lama of free religion !
for your extreme condescension. We have not the space to fol-
low the m line of his argument on each one of these points, but
select as a specimen that concerning Christ.

With his accustomed assurance Mr. Abbot imagines that he
has " found the key " and " hit the secret," and gives it publicity.
After attempting to show how Jesus was educated by his en-
vironment, his fanciful analysis of the mystery of Christ is as
follows :

" Repelled though he was by the vulgar conception of the Christ as a
mere warlike prince, the idea of spiritual supremacy through religious re-
formation of his people struck a responsive chord in his soul. His deep
nature was thrilled and kindled by his country's hope, and with intense
earnestness must he have asked himself: 'Can I fulfil it? Am I the Call-
ed, the Anointed of God?' The consciousness of his wonderful religious
genius', fertilized and developed by the spirit of his age, fanned the wish
into a prayer, and the prayer into a conviction, and the conviction into an
enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm into a calm and omnipotent faith that he
was indeed the Messias, singled out from all eternity by the will of God,
foretold by prophets and kings, and awaited for weary centuries byhuman-
ity in tears."*

* A Lecture entitled The Genius of Christianity and Free Religion.

428 THE OUTCOME OF THE CHANNING CENTENNIAL. [June,

Thus the mystery of Christ is explained ! But how did Mr.
Abbot find this all out ? Such a question is impertinent. F. E.
Abbot knows, you know, and that's enough. Having- divulged
his pet idea, it is now incumbent upon him to repudiate all other
explanations and defend it against all attacks. This is the way
he pays his compliments, over the left, to his French confrere,
Renan :

" To him, however, who, in the face of sincerity like that of Jesus, ven-
tures to whisper the word imposture, I will not do insult to my own reve-
rence for human greatness by addressing any defence of Jesus from such a
charge. It should blister the mouth that makes it. Enough for me that in
the privacy of his own self-communings Jesus believed he heard the sum-
mons to a work of unparalleled sublimity ; that he valued not his blood in
comparison with obedience ; that he claimed the Messianic diadem with
death for its Koh-i-noor. Surely the suspicion of duplicity as the root
of such vast historic influence betrays in the suspecter a disgraceful faith
in the power of knavery."*

It is not difficult to imagine what would be Kenan's retort to
Abbot. " In my opinion," he would say, " Jesus knew what he
was about, and therefore his intellect was not deceived. I give
him at least credit for intelligence. In your opinion he gave
himself up to a delusion and became the dupe of his imagination.
My view saved his intellectual character, while yours sacrifices
that with his moral. For a voluntary delusion involves the intel-
lect with the moral nature, and damages both ! Again, you ob-
ject to the word imposture ; well, suppose we take your word in-
stead, and call it a delusion. ' A grand delusion,' then, was the
root of such a vast historic influence, was it ? Well, perhaps so !
That there is a difference between a knave and a dupe I admit.
The former is one who practises fraud, and the latter is one on
whom the fraud is practised ; but the productive cause in both is
the same, and if my mouth should be blistered for crying knave,
I see no reason why yours, in crying dupe, should escape the
same treatment. Frankly, Abbot, don't you think that our
theories have been, spider-like, evolved out of our own inner con-
sciousness, and, instead of exhibiting the secret of Christ's life,
we have only betrayed to the world the character of our own?"
The application is patent.

Now, as to the practical side, we must forbear entering upon
the history of " The Liberal League " of which Mr. Abbot was
the originator, and of placing before our readers, if his own de-
scription is correct, the flock of nasty birds which it gathered.

*ibid.

i88o.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 429

Suffice it to say that this, like former experiments, has ended in
a failure, but, unlike former ones, its end has been ignominious.

When will the Unitarians learn that the refutation of Calvin-
ism was not the end of their providential mission, but only an
episode in their true history ? When will they raise their minds
above the idea of the production of another religious sect only to
repeat old errors or to waste their strength in vain experiments ?
Will it require an evolution of a new generation of Unitarians
before they can understand that Christianity is the only religion
which can reasonably claim the attention of all mankind and sat-
isfy man's deep religious necessities ; and that their true mission
was to purify human nature from Protestant errors and all alien
mixture subversive of its dignity, and, thus prepared, Christianity
might take hold of its universal convictions, elevate man to his
divine manhood, and realize upon earth those inspirations which
have their origin in heaven ?

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

F. R. COUDERT. LE DIVORCE. Reponse a M. Dumas. New York : A La
Librairie du Courrier des Etats Urn's, Barclay Street. 1880.

As a novelty in our literature, we have here a brochure in French, from
the pen of a well-known New York lawyer, which a Parisian need not be
ashamed of. It is, as the title indicates, a reply to M. Dumas' defence of the
infamous project of a law of divorce proposed by M. Naquet. M. Coudert
exposes, in a trenchant and logical manner worthy of his legal knowledge
and ability, the gross ignorance and misrepresentations of M. Dumas, in re-
spect to the ideas and terms belonging to the subject, and in respect to his-
torical facts, and the legislation of various countries and times. He points
out the distinction between civil laws dating from heathen times and which
yielded but slowly to the authority of the church proclaiming the Christian
law, and the laws always enforced by the spiritual authority of the church,
and in due time incorporated into the civil code. Also, the difference be-
tween a declaration of the nullity of a matrimonial contract invalid from
the beginning, and, moreover, of a legal separation a mensa et thoro, from a
divorce, or dissolution of a valid contract of marriage. He shows that in
theory the law of England after the Reformation was based on the same
principle with the law of the church, that divorce was never legalized in
any state which was governed by Catholic law ; and in other Christian
countries only for one cause, and that with many restrictions, until a recent

NE w PUBLTCA TIONS. [June,

date. All these things were thrown into confusion by M. Dumas. What-
ever the French novelist has to say of the good moral effects of an easy
and general law of divorce is refuted in a very telling manner, and the evi-
dence of Roman authors and of Gibbon brought forward to prove the disas-
trous consequences of such a law among the ancient Romans.

Besides its argumentative conclusiveness and point, the brochure is a
very pretty specimen of intellectual sword-play with the keen weapons of
wit, ridicule, and sarcasm. It is all alive with a fine irony, and is quite as
amusing as it is solid and instructive. We like this way of treating such a
subject and such a writer. Immoral sophistry is best attacked by ridicule,
when the wit plays and flashes upon the point of argument. The following
is a specimen :

' " Je viens de lire votre livre sur le divorce. Je ne pretendrai pas qu'en
entreprenant la lecture de cet ouvrage, j'aie etc attire par le titre, ni que le
sujet possedat pour moi un attrait particulier ; c'est simplement parceque
ces pages etaient signees de vous et que depuis bien des annees j'ai con-
tracte 1'habitude de vous lire. Je ne m'en fais pas gloire, tant s'en faut, et
vos francs aveux de la part qu'a eu le Diable dans la production de vos
osuvres me fait soupgonner que j'aurais peut-etre mieux employe mon
temps a autre chose. Mais vous avez une fagon a vous d'eblouir les gens
et quand votre 'diable' parait en scene, ce qui par parenthese n'est pus
rare, il est mis avec tant de gout, il estsi joli gargon, si parfume, il s'exprimc
avec tant d'elegance, que Ton ne voit plus ses doigts crochus ni ses pieds
fourchus : 1'odeur de soufre que tout diable qui se respecte doit exhaler, est
deguisee d'une fagon dont vous possedez seul le secret. Pourquoi done
etes-vous venu avec une franchise quelque peu brutale, nous ravir nos illu-
sions, en nous le montrant sans cejoli appareil qui lui seyait si bien? "

The deadly stroke of this last sentence could not be surpassed by Louis
Veuillot. Poor Dumas in M. Coudert's hands fares like a wretched cat in the
power of a terrier. And, at the close, the author rises to a tone of indig-
nant sarcasm and true eloquence, in the vindication of France, worthy <>1
his generous blood and of his faith as a Christian gentleman. We advise
every one who can read French to peruse this pamphlet, if only for the sake
of its literary merit.

LIVES OF THE CATHOLIC HEROES AND HEROINES OF AMERICA. By John
O'Kane Murray, B.S., author of the Popular History of the Catholic
Church in the United States, etc., etc. New York : James Sheehy. 1880.

The heroes and heroines selected by Mr. Murray for his brief and com-
prehensive biographies are Christopher Columbus, Alonzo de O.jeda, Vasco
Nunez de Balboa, Hernando Cortez, St. Rose of Lima, Samuel de Cham-
plain, Father Isaac Jogues, Father de Brebceuf, Father Andrew White,
Mother Mary of the Incarnation, Miss Jane Monce, Father Marquette,
Robert Cavelier de la Salle, Venerable Margaret Bourgeois, Montcalm,
Commodore Barry, Archbishop Carroll, Charles Carroll of Carrollton,
Mother Seton, Bishop Brute, Father Gallitzin, Bishop England, Archbishop
Hughes, and Father de Smet. These names cover a very great and impor-
tant portion of the history of the New World. All possess peculiar attrac-
tions for the Catholic, and particularly the American reader. A know-

i88o.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 431

ledge of the lives and works of these illustrious men and women is neces-
sary for any one who would study American history. Mr. Murray has
scarcely thrown much new light on these lives, but he has done well to
group them together, and his narrative is rapid, graphic, and popular in its
style and tone. The volume is a very handsome octavo of 878 pages, with
numerous illustrations, and printed on toned paper in beautifully clear type.

THREE ROSES OF THE ELECT. By Mgr. de Segur. Twelfth edition. Trans-
lated from the French by a Priest of the Ancient Order of Mount Car-
mel, Whitefriar Street, Dublin. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son. 1880.

Another excellent little work from the tireless pen of that venerable
champion of the church, Monsignor Segur. The Three Roses of the Elect
are loyalty to the Pope, devotion to Mary, and love of the Adorable Sacra-
ment of the altar. These the learned and pious author explains in his usual
clear, simple, and attractive manner. This little book is at the same time
entertaining and instructive and conducive of the cherished devotions
mentioned.

His MAJESTY MYSELF. Boston : Roberts Brothers. 1880.

The scope of this novel, one of the " No-Name Series," is indicated by
he quotation from Coleridge on the title-page : " I once knew a man who
ad advanced to such a pitch of self-esteem that he never mentioned him-
self without taking off his hat." It is a cleverly yet somewhat crudely
written story, of what might be called the psychological school. It intro-
uces to us quite a number of strongly marked and contrasted characters,
nd the author is constantly taking a dive into their souls with a view of
shing up something very wonderful. It is not the most exhilarating kind of
reading ; but of its kind His Majesty Myself is by no means a bad specimen.
The main interest of the story centres about a couple of college youths who
re being educated for the ministry, their loves, and what becomes of them.
There is an over-flavor of parson about it for the general reader, and the
lives of the students as depicted at Old Orange seem cheerless enough.
The mistake of the author is in a strained effort to startle. Readers do not
sit down to a novel as to an electric bath or to a sermon. We like to take
our dose of horrors easily as we stretch our legs and yawn in the sun. It is
well to ease off once in a while and not rack a man's bosom through all
your two hundred and ninety-nine pages. The author is evidently very
much in earnest and writes with a purpose. He writes well though un-
evenly, at times with remarkable ability. Some of the scenes are most forci-
bly depicted, and the characters are all more or less picturesque, while some
of them are very interesting. One reads the book through ; and it only
needed a ifttle quiet rounding and finish to make it an exceptionally popu-
lar story.

THREE LECTURES, delivered in Chicago, St. Patrick's Day, 1880, by Rt.
Rev. John Hennessy, D.D., Bishop of Dubuque ; Rt. Rev. John Joseph
Hogan, D.D., Bishop of St. Joseph ; Rt. Rev. John Lancaster Spalding,
D.I)., Bishop of Peoria, by Request of the Irish-American Council of
Chicago, in aid of the Irish Relief Fund. P. T. Sherlock, publisher,
Chicago. 1880.

In the presence of the extreme suffering in Ireland, the customary

432 J\ T EW PUBLICATIONS. [June, 1880.

parades on St. Patrick's Day were, with natural good taste and feeling,
abandoned this year. In Chicago, where, it seems, there is an Irish-Ameri-
can Council representing the Irish societies of that city, the excellent plan
was adopted of substituting for the parade a lecture in each of the three
divisions of the city. The lecturers were the distinguished prelates whose
names are given above. The proceeds were devoted to the relief of the
distress in Ireland. Bishop Hennessy spoke on "The Ever-Faithful Ire-
land," Bishop Hogan on " Ireland's Sorrows," and Bishop Spalding on
"England's Crime." The three lectures as here reprinted form a valuable
contribution to Irish history, quite apart from the eloquence and oratorical
power displayed in each.

THE CATHOLIC BIRTHDAY BOOK. Compiled by a Lady. London : Burns
& Gates.

This volume may be described as a very pretty little pious diary. On
one side is printed the day of the month (three days going to a page), with-
appropriate verse or quotation from some saint or pious writer and a sugges-
tion for pious practice ; on the other side is a blank page for writing. Why
it is called " a birthday book " is hard to see, inasmuch as one can hardly
have three hundred and sixty-five birthdays in a year. It makes a pretty
present.

THE HOVELS OF IRELAND. By Fanny Parnell. New York : Thomas Kelly.

Miss Parnell is a bright and entertaining writer. The title of the pam-
phlet sufficiently expresses its scope and object. The pictures therein pre-
sented, as taken from testimony given in open court under oath, are heart-
rending. The proceeds from the sale of the pamphlet will be sent to the
Irish Land League for relief.

REALITIES OF IRISH LIFE. By W. Stewart Trench. Boston : Roberts
Brothers. 1880.

This is a republication of Mr. Trench's interesting and to an extent
valuable work. It is well to read both sides of a story. Mr. Trench wrote
his book from the landlord's side, and as such it stands to-day.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL. XXXI. JULY, 1880. No. 184.

IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION.

THE word FatJierland is suggestive of two root ideas in the
development of nations. Kinship was the tie that first held com-
munities together in primitive times. Passing from the house-
hold, it bound family to family, tribe to tribe, and held all in obe-
dience to a recognized head ; we see this illustrated in the Bib-
ical sketch of Lot and Abram. Nay, more, it influenced men
naturally or artificially of kin to each other to look upon others as
inferiors, if not foes. The Jew so regarded the Gentile ; in such
estimation was the outside world held by the Greek ; and not to
be a Roman was to be a barbarian. In progress of time, when
nomad habits had yielded to a settled style of living, and those
subject to a common head had increased in number, the land,
where it did not supplant, became blent with, kinship as an ele-
ment of association. Rock and grove, hill and stream, were hal-
lowed by lay of the minstrel ; the harp was tuned in praise of river
* and valley ; the Druid priest sought the shade of the oak as the
shrine of his devotions ; prince and peasant, soldier and sailor,
were animated alike by the sweet love of country.

But of all nations that have fostered this love or been led on
by this instinct, few, if any, have surpassed the Irish. Isolated
from the rest of Europe, they have spent on their island home a
wealth of affection and heroism that has evoked the wonder of
the world. Though darkened by sorrow and blighted by the
rule of the stranger, their native land remained still, for the Irish,
their darling ideal, fairer than the fairest or most favored on
earth. For them the emerald gem never lost its lustre, and its
ocean setting was a joy for ever.

UCCd

434 IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. [July,

" Freedom may be acquired, but cannot be recovered," says
Rousseau ; yet, though the angel of liberty took wing from the soil,
the Irish kept the lamp of the temple still burning. Stricken
down to the earth, they always rose with fresh strength for the
combat, and from the death-throes of each expiring generation
another was borne aflame with the quenchless love of liberty and
of country. This love was the spring of unceasing effort, of
truceless war, of peaceless rest in that indomitable people.

The form of government in Ireland at the time of its invasion
by the English, 1169, was monarchical, each of the provincial
kings acknowledging obedience to the Ard-Righ, then Ruaridh
O'Connor, King of Connaught. This form of polity had moulded
the manners and habits of the people for more than a decade of
centuries ; remodelled after the introduction of Christianity, it
was altered in detail, from time to time, to meet the wants of the
people ; and now providing, as far as human foresight could, for
every contingency likely to arise in such a country, it was loved,
honored, and obeyed by all. But no law sanctioned by the vene-
ration of ages, no usage dating back to the dawn of their civili-
zation, no tradition of honor or principle of Christianity, might
shield the Irish from the hunger of conquest that devoured the
warlike invaders on the coast. If they had not burnt their ships,
" J'y suis, j'y reste " flamed from every mast in the fleet.

Then the houses of the Irish were made of wood and wicker-
work, the residences of chiefs and kings being emblazoned with
bronze and gold, the roofs trellised with wings of birds of rare
plumage. After a hundred years of rest from invasion the island
blossomed with beauty and joy, smiled with peace and plenty.
All the air was glad with the hum of industry ; the spinning-wheel
whirred under the deft hand of the blue-eyed maiden singing at
her work ; the oats were ground at the mill ; at dusk, on his home-
ward path from the fields, the clansman laughed as he thought of
his wife cooing their babe in its crib; the tinkling bell called the
flocks to the fold, and the newly-emancipated slave drove in the
oxen from the hills. The people enjoyed Arcadian happiness;
they were social toward one another, hospitable to strangers,
and faithful to God. They could not brook a breach of the mar-
riage laws even in a king. This king, -Diarmid MacMurrough,
had to fly from his dominions, exiled by the moral sentiment of
his own kith and kin ; and it was to reinstate the adulterous mon-
arch on his throne that the English first profaned the holy soil of
Ireland. A king by whose orders a saint was slain, but one year
before, at the foot of the altar in Canterbury came to Ireland in

;

i88o.] IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. 435

the name of religion to stifle its first precepts, in the name of
peace to let slip the sleuth-hounds of war, in the livery of heaven
to do the work of hell.

It would be a subject of curious, if not profitable, speculation
to inquire what would have been the outcome of Irish institutions
if left to their own proper development. Forming a confederacy
not unlike that of the United States before the adoption of our
Constitution, in the march of events, and under the impulse of
enlarged knowledge acquired by the art of printing and other

iscoveries, would they, in time, have ripened into a republic and
spread the seeds of liberty in Northern Europe ? Or, again, would
the nominal supremacy accorded to the Ard-Righ have given way
to a real supremacy gained by some native king of overshadow-
ing strategy and statecraft ? And would such a ruler, seizing a
'avorable moment, and aided by his kinsmen the Scots, have
ossed the Channel and carved his way to royal success by an
Irish battle of Hastings ? He could hardly accomplish this un-
aided, for the population was about one to three, and this propor-

ion, as far as we can ascertain, held good for centuries. But
such a line of investigation would lead us too far from the matter
in hand.

Henry II. was poor after the wars in France, and it was just

t that time that hired troops were first organized, instead of the
feudal retainers. He found Ireland rich in flocks and herds, with
a fertile soil and abundance of gold. Henry at the outset pro-
fessed the kindliest feelings for the people ; he claimed simply an
honorary leadership or suzerainty over them. Soon, however,
the mask was thrown off, but his profession was not yet regarded
as the transparent sham that it was. Strongbow, who married
Eva, daughter of MacMurrough, claimed Leinster as his share of
the spoil. It was surrendered to Henry and reconveyed to the
earl. Meath, then forming a distinct principality and containing
eight hundred thousand acres, he granted to De Lacy. Ulster
was assigned to De Courcy, Connaught to De Burgh (or De
Burgo), and the larger part of Munster to Fitzstephen and De
Cogan. The remainder of the land was subdivided among four
other of the ten principal knights and barons who had pre-
ceded or accompanied the king. It need hardly be said that this
transfer was in conflict with every law, human and divine. No
wonder, therefore, that the English had to fight inch by inch for
the soil ; that those who had been in possession for centuries,
whose rights and privileges were carefully defined by their
Brehon code, would not, save at the cost of their lives, give up

436 IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. [July,

that possession, surrender those privileges, or submit to so fla-
grant a usurpation. The Irish lost the advantage gained by dis-
parity of numbers, owing to civil dissensions and the nature of
their weapons of defence. Men whose mettle was tried on many
a bloody field marched in full armor against them. Those knights
and esquires from abroad were the pink and flower of heroism ;
they had taken part in tilt and tourney before the polished courts
of Europe ; some had seen the Christian banners wave over An-
tioch, Ascalon, and Jerusalem. In 1 1 59, at the siege of Toulouse,
Henry had given the accolade to thirty such knights. Clad in
chain-armor, they were impervious to the archers and bowmen of
the chiefs ; but no steel, how well tempered soever, was proof
against the pikemen and spearmen of Ireland, and many barons
and knights who had passed unscathed through Saracen hosts bit
the dust before the onset of Irish chivalry. Inter arma silent leges ;
yet love, which is a law unto itself, was heard in the hush of the
strife. The winsome Irish ladies cast the spell of their witchery
over the braveries of war no mail was proof against their arrows
and within a generation the courtliest and bravest of the foe
had intermarried with daughters of the native chiefs. From this
stock sprang many of the families pre-eminent in later Irish
annals. Some retained their love for England through almost all
vicissitudes ; others, again, adopted the manners, habits, and lan-
guage of the Irish, and in after years, more Irish than the Irish
themselves, leaped to the van or led the forlorn hope in every
uprising. When King John landed, in 1210, it was less to war
against the Irish than to humble his own too powerful barons.
While as a matter of policy or statesmanship this system of inter-
marriage might be regarded of doubtful expediency, if not posi-
tively injurious to English interests and subsequent statutes
against it are numerous it is nevertheless true that the long
domination of the one country over the other is measurably owing
to this intermarriage and its results, for crises have occurred
when, were it not for such a tie, English power would have been
broken, and English supremacy would have perished for ever, in
Ireland.

The masses of the people winced under the foreign yoke, all
the more that those who held the land were forcibly expelled to
make room for English tenants. This was in direct defiance of
the Brehon law. According to this code, the land was held in the
name of the chief as the representative of the tribe, and no aliena-
tion could take place without the consent of the tribe. Periodi-
cally there was a redistribution of the land, and hereditary judges

i88o.] IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. 437

decided on all points of controversy. Holdings were tilled on
shares by men not members of the tribe ; but so jealous were the
people of personal freedom that few cared to receive a large
quantity of stock for tillage, lest it should trench on their sense of
independence. This might appear strange or incredible, if we
did not bear in mind that it was only a few years before that
slavery had been abolished in Ireland, bishops and priests being
the radical abolitionists. Before that time the English were in
the habit of selling their children and relatives as slaves to the
Irish ; and we know, from recent experience, that the most intense
love of liberty may be nourished side by side with the existence
of slavery.

An Irish contingent fought under Bruce at Bannockburn.
oon after a conference of the Irish chiefs was held, and it was
etermined to invite Edward Bruce, brother of the conqueror, to
he throne of Ireland. He arrived with the nucleus of an army,
was joined by the Irish and by some of the Anglo-Irish chiefs,
ought and won several battles, and was duly inaugurated and
ecognized as king near Dundalk, 1316. In the end he was worst-
d and slain ; emancipation was defeated by the Anglo-Irish and
heir followers. In 1342 a parliament was convened at Dublin to
nfiscate the estates of those who had become Hiberniores Hiber-
is ipsis. Their estates were declared forfeited, but were recon-
eyed in a few years. In 1360 Lionel, son of Edward III., came to
present his father, and in right of his wife, a Lady de Burgh, to
y claim to Connaught. He fought some battles with doubtful
esults, but assumed the title of Clarence from his alleged t victo-
ries in Clare. In 1367 he summoned a parliament at Kilkenny, and
this body began the first of a series of most odious laws. The line
of demarcation between both races was sharply defined. Trading
with the Irish, the use of Irish names, apparel, or language, was
punished as treason. Irish instincts of justice rebelled against
such palpable wrong ; they resisted the enforcement of such legis-
lation, and its scope was confined to the gradually narrowing
area of the territory known as the Pale. All outside its limits
were reputed and declared to be the Irish enemy.

Richard II., in all the pcmp and circumstance of war,
landed in Ireland in 1394. His dreams of a triumphant and awe-
inspiring progress through the country were rudely broken in
upon by the sleepless vigilance and bravery of the gallant Art
MacMurrough, who, if aided by his natural allies, would have
consummated his work by destroying English supremacy. But
again the foreign thrall was preserved by the Anglo-Irish senti-

438 IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. [July,

ment. Richard visited Ireland a second time in the first years of
the fifteenth century, but, without effecting anything of moment,
was recalled by the distant mutterings of war at home. Then
began a century of bloodshed, a carnival of crime, in England,
searing men's hearts to all the tender emotions and inflaming
their minds with the most ferocious passions. From Ireland
thousands sailed to take part in the struggle, and whole tracts of
country became depopulated. Thereupon the ancient proprietors
took possession of the vacated land. This was not regarded with
favor in England, and in the reign of Henry VI. the county of
Kildare was held forth as a prize to English settlers, with the pri-
vilege of holding it for six years exempt from tax. The under-
lying roots of English policy had already cropped out in the
growing upas-tree of extermination ; it did not reach the vigor
of maturity at once, but it grew, waxed strong, and was cherished
by every succeeding administration.

How great soever our sympathy for their sufferings, we are
forced to admit that the Irish were guilty of one pregnant crime,
the spring of unnumbered woes they never joined in love while
others joined in hate ; and yet if Ostmen, Normans, and Celts
could have been fused into one homogeneous body by any earthly
influence, this would have been accomplished towards the end of
the sixteenth century by Hugh O'Neil. In the reign of Philip and
Mary the land of the O'Tooles, the O'Byrnes, and the O'Moores, con-
fiscated in the previous reign, became King's County and Queen's
County. Antrim and Down, the territory of Shane O'Neil, were
confiscated in 1569. And in 1583 the estates of the Earl of Des-
mond, 583,000 acres, comprising a large part of Munster, were de-
clared forfeited and bestowed on English subjects. The author of
the Faerie Queenewas one of the beneficiaries, receiving three thou-
sand acres and the castle of Kilcolman, by the banks of the Mulla.
This confiscation of the estates of the Earl of Desmond was pre-
ceded by a war which, though not remarkable for the number of
men engaged or for the extent of territory overrun, was yet as
black with woe and big with ruin as any of which we have re-
cord. The pleasant downs and sunny reaches of Cork and Kerry
were littered with emblems of mourning ; the waters of the Mulla
and the Lee were dyed with the blood of the slain. Outside the
cities and towns not -a human being was to be seen for sixscore
miles, save when from out the woods and glens men crept forth
to look for food ; " looking like anatomies of death, they spoke like
ghosts crying out of their graves." Neither sex nor age was
spared ; old men and women were hustled into barns and burned

i88o.] IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. 439

to death ; infants were tossed on the spear-points of the soldiers,
and found hanging from trees, strangled with their n. others' hair.
Thirty thousand died from starvation. At last Elizabeth was in-
formed that she had nothing left to rule over but carcasses and
ashes ; then peace was proclaimed " they made a desert and called
it peace." The estates were divided up among English under-
takers, the chief condition being that no Irish should be among
the tenantry. One of those undertakers, writing in 1589, says
that, present at a session of the court where the Brehon Code was
administered, he saw twenty cases disposed of at one sitting, and
such a spirit of equity prevailed in the decisions that plaintiff and
defendant were for the most part satisfied. He writes, too, of the
Irish: "Although they did never see you before, they. will make
you the best cheer their country yieldeth for two or three days,
and take not anything therefor." And again : " They are obedient
to the laws, so that you may travel through all the land without
any danger or injury offered of the very worst Irish, and be great-
ly relieved of the best." Soon after this was written a war blazed
out against the English power ; the Ulster and Connaught forces
were united ; the campaigns were mapped out with consummate
skill, the battles fought with matchless bravery ; the genius of
O'Neil, the daring of O'Donnell, the dash of Tyrconnel, the intre-
pidity of their brother chiefs and clansmen, all gave promise of
bursting the shackles for ever. But again the Anglo-Irish colony
saved Ireland to the English. O'Neil made a gallant effort to con-
solidate all the Irish in one invincible phalanx ; he appealed, he
coaxed, he threatened, but Lord Barrymore and men of his ilk
maintained that their first allegiance was due to England. Eng-^
land concentrated the flower of her troops in Ireland ; time after
time the English flag went down in defeat before the heroism of
the Irish ; but at last, and when the film of death had fallen on
the eyes of Elizabeth, O'Neil surrendered. In ten years Ireland
had cost the queen three million four hundred thousand pounds.
But O'Neil did not lay down his arms until the sky was overcast
with the gloom of despair. Of his allies, some had sailed to Spain ;
others, with face to the foe, met death on the battlefield. Nor
" corn nor horn " was left by the enemy; the ghastliest scenes of
Desmond's war were re-enacted ; thousands of corpses were un-
buried, and famine threw its tentacles over the perishing remnant
of the people.

Sir John Davies, English attorney-general, writing about
this time, says : " There is no nation or people under the sun that
doth love equal or indifferent justice better than the Irish. '*

440

IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION.

[July,

O'Neil knew the English, root and branch, and felt that he might
as well try to draw water from an empty well as to get any meas-
ure of justice from their government. But one alternative remain-
ed, and he tearfully embraced it. Loving his country with a pas-
sion that passeth understanding, he sailed away from her shores,
never to see them more. After a stormy voyage the vessel reach-
ed France, where he and his companions were treated with royal
hospitality by the king, who regarded O'Neil as third in rank of
the great military captains of the age. From France they travel-
led to Belgium, where they were received with the highest distinc-
tion. Soon after they reached Rome, and were treated in a man-
ner befitting alike their sad fortunes, exalted station and services,
and the generous sympathy and princely munificence of the au-
gust head of the church, Paul V. The verdict returned against
them by the pro-English jury was that a consciousness of guilt
and a fear of losing their heads had made them leave the country.

In the Parliament of 1614 a bill of attainder was brought in
against O'Neil and his fellow-exiles, confiscating their estates, which
covered six counties and comprised two millions of acres. Lon-
don companies were solicited to colonize those lands. With
characteristic shrewdness they sent over a delegation to report
on the prospect. Such a glowing account of the fertility of the
soil and kindred advantages was rendered that they invested at
once twenty thousand pounds. The land was distributed in sec-
tions of 2,000, 1,500, and 1,000 acres, and transferred to companies
and undertakers. Some provision, it is true, was made for the
native holders, but the foreigners, like a brood of harpies, depriv-
ed their lands and homes of all that made them dear to the
natives. The Adventurers were for the most part, says Reid, his-
torian of Presbyterianism, " such as either poverty, scandalous
lives, or, at the best, adventurous seeking of better accommoda-
tion had brought thither." Such men had no scruples in cheat-
ing the native proprietors. England had employed spies to dog
the footsteps of the exiles ; through them she heard of the atten-
tions paid to them, the pensions they received, the hopes they
cherished of once again raising the flag of freedom on their own
green hills. She still felt insecure of her sway in Ireland, and
hired spies to pick out flaws in the titles of property-owners. In
Connaught they had surrendered their estates.

The thirteenth of James I. legalized the surrenders, and the
estates were reconveyed under the great seal of England. Three
thousand pounds were paid for the enrolment ; but, by some
negligence of the officials, the enrolment was not made and the

i88o.] IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. 441

titles were declared invalid. In the reign of Charles I. the Con-
naught proprietors offered ; 120,000, to be paid in three annual
instalments, for securing what was called the Three Graces.
Two of these had to do with the land question ; one was that pos-
session for sixty years should bar all claims of the crown, the
other that enrolment should be a sufficient muniment of title. The
king promised the concessions demanded, received the money,
and then shamelessly refused to carry out his promise. His rep-
resentative, Wentworth, afterwards Lord Strafford, feeling that
the people looked upon this as a swindle, would fain give some
color of law to the royal claim of ownership, and for this purpose
had juries empanelled in the various counties, and all but forced
them to bring in verdicts for the king. Jury-packing was not al-
together successful; in Galway the jury, alive to a spirit of fair
play and with a patriotism worthy of their sires, rebelled against
the mockery of justice, and refused to bring in the verdict requir-
ed. They were carried off to Dublin ; each juryman was fined
^"4,000, and sentenced to be imprisoned till it was paid. The Par-
liament convened in 1640 passed some acts beneficial to Ireland ;
but Strafford was recalled by the civil war in England, and the
plantation of Connaught did not yet take place.

At this time Europe reeled before the shock of a war that ar-
rayed nation against nation, and made the earth tremble beneath
the tread of their armies. Religion was the watchword of the
combatants. Echoes of the strife in England and on the Conti-
nent had been wafted to Ireland, and her sons, smarting under
colossal injustice, for the third time within half a century buckled
on their armor, holding aloft the cross as the symbol of their faith
and nationality. Since Desmond's war Irish soldiers were in the
habit of enlisting in Spain, and these men saved from their daily
pay in the Netherlands a certain amount to equip an expedition
for Ireland. Delegates passed to and fro between the courts of
France and Spain and the Irish leaders. The Vatican, too, pro-
mised co-operation. Preparations were diligently made ; the up-
rising took place October 23, 1641, and was eminently successful
at the outset. The story of a massacre by the Irish was an after-
thought of the chief-justices, Parsons and Borlase, to inflame the
zealotry and fanaticism of the Puritans. Mr. Lecky gives an ad-
mirable resume of the authorities on the subject. For the first
time since the invasion the Anglo-Irish made common cause with
the native inhabitants. It was a neck-and-neck race for suprema-
cy, one side fighting for faith and fatherland, the other side for
the extirpation of the one and the transfer to themselves of the

442 IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. [July,

other ; it was a momentous struggle, carried on by the Puritans
with all the rancor and malignity that hate could devise or a love
of plunder inspire, and by the Irish with all the passion and enthu-
siasm that could be aroused by what was most sacred on their
altars, most endearing in their homes. The Parliament confiscat-
ed in advance two million five hundred thousand acres of land as
security for those who would lend money to equip an army
against the Irish. The Adventurers subscribed in all 360,000.
But the army organized was needed in England. The tide of
victory set now in one direction, anon in another. Sir Phelim
O'Neil was taken prisoner ; he was offered his freedom and the
restoration of his estates, if he would admit that he had received a
commission from Charles ; but the old man had rather meet death
proudly on the scaffold, and lose his possessions, than sully his
honor or stain his name by a lie. On the 24th of October, 1642,
the Confederate Catholics met at Kilkenny ; they adopted the pro-
visions of Magna Charta, and of the common and statute law of
England in all points not contrary to the Catholic religion or in-
consistent with the liberty of Ireland. They had two houses,
Lords and Commons, as a legislative body, and other departments
were established to perform all the functions of government. A
council of twelve was appointed to try cases in each county ; from
them lay an appeal to the Provincial Council, which met four
times each year, and from this body an appeal might be taken to
the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics of Ireland.
This was made up of twenty-four members chosen by the General
Convention. The framework of government was unexceptionable,
but clashing interests hampered the action of the executive. Or-
mond, in command of the royalist troops, played fast and loose
with all sides. Lord Glamorgan came over as special envoy
from the king, promising in his name to grant all they demanded
to the Confederate Catholics. Ormond had the envoy arrested for
treason ; he was released under a bond furnished by two Irish no-
blemen, and afterwards assigned to a command in Munster. Mean-
while " Don Eugenius" O'Neil, who had been a brilliant officer
in the Spanish service, had arrived, and soon gave proof of the tra-
ditional heroism of the family. In 1645 the SanPietro cast anchor
in Kenmare Bay, having on board His Eminence Cardinal Rin-
uccini, who brought with him money, arms, and ammunition. His
route was a royal ovation. Soon after reaching Kilkenny, and
making himself master of the situation by intimate knowledge of
the manoeuvres and calibre of Generals Preston, Mountcashel, and
O'Neil, he tendered the munitions of war to the last-named, the

i88o.] IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. 443

great Eoghain Ruadh. The cardinal having espoused and cham-
pioned an aggressive policy, O'Neil prepared to strike a blow in
its defence. General Monroe led the British troops in the north,
and, having heard of the designs of O'Neil, marched forth to give
him battle. It was the prettiest piece of fighting during the war ;
the utmost skill in strategy was displayed by both, but at the
close of the day Monroe was a fugitive, and O'Neil had won the
glorious victory of Benburb.

In August, 1649, like a whirlwind of wrath, Cromwell and his
Ironsides swept through the country. Scorched already by the
lava-streams of battle, it now quivered beneath a harvest of
slaughter. For five days the streets of Drogheda ran red with
the blood of men, women, and children ; and Cromwell called this
" a mercy of the Lord." Wexford underwent a like fate ; the
bold chieftain who would have checked the demon force of
butchery did not live to see the desolation.

" Sheep without a shepherd when the snow shut out the sky
Oh ! why did you leave us, Eochain ? Why did you die ? "

Lest any should escape from the sword, Cromwell used famine as
a machine to kill off the Irish. Scythes and reaping-hooks were
imported to cut down the growing corn ; and such became the
dearth of food that cattle had to be exported from Wales to Ire-
land. The English soldiers were clamoring for pay, and the un-
dertakers to be reimbursed for the outlay made. The land of the
Irish was the imperial exchequer by which and out of which
the payments should come. Two and a half millions of acres
were not sufficient for this purpose. Three millions of pounds
sterling were due the soldiers for pay and supplies, and it was
at last resolved that the whole Catholic people should be trans-
planted to Connaught, the old English of the Pale as well as the
native blood. All royalist commissioned officers who owned
over ten pounds were banished and sentenced to forfeit two-thirds
of their lands, the remaining third, or its equivalent in Connaught,
to go in support of their wives and children ; those who " showed
a constant and good affection " to the Parliament, and had not
been in arms during the war, forfeited one-third of their estates,
and received an equivalent for the remainder in Connaught. Pro-
testants, however, had the privilege of compounding the for-
feiture by paying one-fifth the value of their estates, or two
years' rent, the fee-simple being estimated at the valuation of ten
years' purchase. In March, 1655, after various extensions had
been made, the last day was fixed for the transplanting to be

444 IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. [July,

effected. Those who were delinquent were liable to be court-
martialled and hanged. The love of home, of early associations,
ever a characteristic of the Irish, made them linger near the
scenes of their childhood. True, but a few leagues spanned the
distance, yet was it a tearing up by the roots of all that had
sweetened life. Those who remained were arrested. Several
trials took place at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, the accused
were sentenced, and front and back on the lifeless remains was a
placard with the words, " For not transplanting."

The insolent soldiery were quartered in the best mansions of
the natives, who felt an added reluctance to go from the know-
ledge that their brothers in affliction would suffer from their
presence in some way as they had suffered from that of the sol-
diery. It was forbidden them, also, to reside within two miles
of the Shannon or four miles of the sea, while sections of Con-
naught were mere stretches of barren heath or moor. Of Clare,
then forming part of Connaught, it was written, with playful ex-
aggeration, " that it did not contain wood enough to hang a man,
water enough to drown him, or earth enough to bury him."
More than eight and a half millions of acres were confiscated and
allocated to the English soldiers and undertakers. The contest had
raged with more or less violence for thirteen years, during which
tinie six hundred thousand Irish and Anglo-Irish troops were slain.
Their valor was known of all men ; delegates from France, Spain,
and Poland had come to enlist the surviving remnant in the
armies of their respective countries. Some forty thousand sailed
away on this service. English merchants came over at this crisis
to glut their craving for gold by kidnapping men, women, and
children into slavery. Thousands were captured, and sent as slaves
to the sugar-plantations in the West Indies, Barbadoes, and Jamai-
ca. Over five hundred were shipped as slaves to New England,
and some of the Plymouth colony went on invitation to Ireland,
and received estates in the lands that had been confiscated. No
wonder Lord Clarendon has written that the sufferings of Ireland
from beginning to end of this Cromwellian war were greater
than any of which history bears record since the destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus. After the Restoration tyranny relaxed its
vise-like grip on the people. Charles II. was disposed to be
generous, but public sentiment was too bigoted to sympathize
with his feelings. In 1662 the Act of Settlement was passed ; this
was supplemented by the act of explanation, rendered necessary
by the insufficient supply of land for those declared innocent,
and to adjust clashing interests.

i88o.] IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. 445

When James II. succeeded to the throne he unbarred the dun-
geons of persecution and kindled hopes too soon to be quenched
in gloom. James himself was a Catholic, and the simple justice
that he did -in appointing men of his own religious belief to of-
fices of trust and honor, in recognizing their equality before the
law, gave umbrage to the Protestants, reawakened the slumber-
ing spirit of bigotry, and James had to fly from England. On
the 1 2th of March, 1689, he landed in Ireland from France with
:hirteen hundred men. The Irish flocked to his standard and
>ught for him with courage and heroism. In 1690 he sum-
loned a parliament to convene at Dublin. The members of this
>arliament were largely children of those whose lands were con-
>cated by Cromwell. The Act of Settlement was repealed, and
bill of attainder brought in against those who were known or
ipposed to be hostile to the king. Meanwhile Schomberg had
inded with ten thousand men, and William of Orange, son-in-law
)f James, landed at Carrickfergus with a much larger number,
'he North supported William, and at the battle of the Boyne
won a dearly-bought victory. The Irish, when the day was
>st, respecting military genius even in an enemy, voiced their
loughts in the phrase, " Change commanders, and we'll fight the
ittle over again." At Athlone they performed prodigies of va-
>r. General Douglas was repulsed, and William himself met
r ith the same fate at Limerick. Towards the end of 1690 he re-
jmbarked for England, appointing General Ginckel to the corn-
Land. On the 25th of August, 1691, he laid siege to Limerick,
'he story of its defence is too well known to need any notice,
ind it would overpass the limits of this paper to enter into an
analysis of the articles of capitulation. They granted the free
exercise of religion, security of person and property, the use of
arms, the right of suffrage, the practice of the trades and profes-
sions, and other concessions to the Catholics. But the ink with
which they were written was scarcely dry when, with worse than
Punic faith, the most solemn stipulations were violated. The Pe-
nal laws came into play a diabolical machine ingeniously con-
trived for the complete debasement and degradation of the peo-
ple.

Whether Plaritagenet, Tudor, Stuart, or Brunswick " a
plague on all their houses ! " the end in view was the same, the
trail of the serpent was over them all : the aggrandizement of
England was to be reached, be the method of doing it never so
repugnant to the dictates of justice and humanity. One million t
sixty thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two acres of land were

446 IRELAND AND. THE LAND QUESTION. [July,

confiscated. Catholics, the great majority of the population,
were disqualified by law from voting, from sitting in parliament,
from carrying arms, from serving on juries, from the bench, the
bar, and the university, from acting as school-teachers, and from
going abroad to receive an education which they could not get
at home unless they were brought up as Protestants.- They
could neither buy nor inherit land, nor receive it as a gift, nor
lease it for a longer time than thirty-one years, and then only on
condition of paying two-thirds its value. If the profits exceeded
a third an informer who made the discovery at once entered into
possession. The few Catholics who owned land were deprived
of the testamentary rights accorded to others. When the owner
died his land did not descend to the eldest son ; it was divided
equally among all the children (as the old Irish code had it).
But if the eldest son became an apostate the estate reverted to
him, and the father lost all power of disposition over it. If the
wife of a Catholic became a pervert she was free from his control,
and entitled at once to a fixed share in his property. If a young
Catholic child apostatized it was taken away from its parents,
and the chancellor provided for its present and prospective
wants from its parents' estate. These are but samples of laws
" written in blood and that should be registered in hell."

Property begets a sense of independence and confers a certain
rank in social life ; therefore the law robbed the Irish of the right
to acquire property, and for more than a hundred years they were
half buried in the grave of social ostracism and serfdom. Know-
ledge imbues the mind with breadth of vision, enables man by
word and pen to point out and lead the way to civil and political
well-being ; therefore, for the same period, the Irish, by English
laws, were plunged in the night of ignorance, merged in the flood
of political annihilation. Religion builds a ladder to the heavens,
and angels ascend and descend to comfort man in the stress of
his grief, to bear on high the incense of his prayers and aspira-
tions ; therefore the law banned the religion of the Irish, that not
a green thing might bloom in the desert of their lives. Domes-
tic love sweetens the bitterest lot, and invests with a halo of joy
the most woe-begone surroundings ; therefore the law gave a prize
to filial ingratitude, and did all it could to rend in twain the holi-
est affections of married life. Truly a " mater dolorosa," a verita-
ble mother of sorrows, was the island queen, mother Erin. But
perhaps there is one avenue the avenue of trade left open for
her progress. Even here she is weighted in the race. The woollen
trade was a thriving branch of industry in Ireland, therefore en-

i88o.] IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. 447

actments were carried to suppress it. The linen trade was next
encouraged and gave promise of great prosperity ; but the evil eye
of English selfishness withered its budding hopes, for " if Ireland
should fall into the making of fine linen it would affect the trade of
England." In 1785 a petition against the Irish linen trade, signed
by 117,000 persons, was presented from Manchester. Since the
reign of William III., however, this branch of industry has flour-
ished. The exportation of beef, of mutton, of hides, all were in
turn prohibited, or such a tariff imposed as was equivalent to pro-
hibition. The " Navigation Laws " affected Ireland as they did the
other countries of Europe, rendering all subordinate to English
mpremacy on the ocean. She was not allowed to draw wealth
from the soil, neither could she win it by the enterprise of her sons
on the sea, by manufactures, nor by their traffic with foreign
powers ; and, therefore, she remained a commercial cipher. But
the Argus-eyes sometimes slept, and the twenty-five hundred
miles of coast-line were utilized by the smuggler. And thus Ire-
land remained, with a short respite of independence, until the

twn of the present century. Yet is she dotted with land-locked
bays, and the tonnage of the world might find anchorage in her
larbors. Before the " curse of Cromwell " fell upon it like the
>reath of the plague, Galway was, next to London, the greatest
jmporium of trade in the three kingdoms. After that its marble

insions and warehouses crumbled to ruin, barks and sloops rot-

jd in the docks, and grass grew in the streets. Its importance
blasted, its prosperity withered, by the famine-breeding laws
>f England. Like desolation visited the other ports. The laws

>re down with the weight of mountain upon mountain of ini-
[uity on the strength, the energies, the enterprise of the Irish.
Compared with English law in Ireland, the Draconian code is not
unworthy of Justinian, of Alfred, or St. Louis of France. But in
spite of it all, with exuberant life and unconquerable vitality, the
old land has outlived the seven hundred years of war and legisla-
tion, and, though wearied by the strain, weakened by the loss of
the young and the brave of successive generations, she stands
forth to-day, begrimed with the dust of the conflict, wearing the
print of the chains, it is true, yet radiant with the consciousness
of work well done, and likely to bear the palm of success in the
near future.

The famine- wail that rings out through the earth calls forth
the echoes of charity to the stricken cabin-homes, and various
remedies are suggested to prevent the recurrence of so appalling
a visitation. This same cry was heard more than once in the last

448 IRELAND AND THE LAND QUESTION. [Ju

century. In the famine of 1741 greater loss of life took place than
during the war a hundred years before. In 1846-7 famine smote
its tens of thousands, typhoid decimating those whom it had
spared ; and rightly did coroners' juries bring in verdicts of wilful
murder against Lord John Russell and his cabinet. If not a
chronic, famine can hardly be called an exceptional, product of
English law iri Ireland. Driven to .one employment, with nothing
to stimulate increased industry, nothing to discountenance in-
creased idleness, the mass of the Irish tilled the battle-vexed soil,
and out of the fruits of their toil came the fund to pay the owner
of the fee-simple estate, to pay the four or five middlemen who at
times came between the owner and the tenant, to pay the draper,
the grocer, the lawyer, the doctor, and to provide for the wants
of a multiplying offspring. Improvements made by the tenant
served but to raise the rent for the landlord. And when an un-
propitious season came, when a blight fell on the staple crop,
at once the fund vanished, eviction or famine supervened.

Having proscribed commerce and manufactures in Ireland,
English law forced its people to agriculture. Even in this one
pursuit they were constrained to work under manifold disadvan-
tages. The old school of landowners, rich in acres and with but
little hard cash, adopted something of a laissez-faire policy. When
the harvest was abundant rents were promptly paid ; when it was
otherwise "the master" did not push the tenant to the wall. But
-with the sales made under the Encumbered Estates Act and
these in a few years amounted to more than a hundred millions
of dollars a new set of proprietors came into possession. Five-
sixths of the purchase-money was Irish capital, and the purchases
were made with a single eye to a large percentage on the
amount invested. Little if any allowance was thereafter made
for defective crops. The law gave the owner of the soil arbitrary
power over the fate and fortunes of the hapless tenant. No mat-
ter what the nature or expense of improvements made, they were
confiscated to the use of the landlord if the late " gale " was in
arrear. In the province of Ulster, indeed, the tenant had a pre-
scriptive right to a fair market price for his improvements ; yet
in the other provinces he was liable to be dispossessed without
compensation, and this whether the rent was paid or unpaid.
In such a condition of insecurity has he remained, and this preca-
rious state is an anachronism in the nineteenth century. Many
well-meaning men suggest a wholesale emigration as a panacea
for the ills of Ireland. But it would be a crime against civiliza-
tion, a sin against God, to depopulate a land that has done so

i88o.] DIGNITIES. 449

much for progress and advancement, to wipe out a race that has
battled for the right against tremendous odds, that never once
as a people did an act which should bring the blush of shame
to their cheeks. Be it with the pick-axe, the ploughshare, the
sword, or the cross, they have given proof in every field of a mag-
nificent manhood ; never false to the trust reposed in them, never
recreant to the word that was pledged, or false to the apostolate
for which they were ordained.

How long shall England remain in her pride of place ? Shall
the sceptre slip from her grasp when the chalice she made other
nations drink of is at last presented to her own lips ? When that
hour comes will it be a death-draught or a healing potion? With
Ireland it may rest to give the answer. Now, if she is so minded,
England may make partial atonement for the unparalleled wrong
she has done, for the hecatombs her fury has butchered. Never
again can she with impunity subject to another ordeal of vivisec-
tion a nation of soldiers that time and again has beaten her to her
knees at home, yet won half her battles abroad. The land ques-
tion is the key of the future. It is a problem that challenges the
highest intelligence and statesmanship, and imperiously demands
a fitting solution. In other lands a peasant proprietary has been
established with the best results for the governed and governing ;
with a due regard for vested interests, why may not a similar ex-
periment be tried in Ireland ? Such a measure would be fraught
with incalculable good for both countries, alike the fore-gleam of
commercial splendor for England and the dawn of a golden era
of prosperity for Ireland.

. DIGNITIES.

As a pillar of light on the wave of a brook is reflected,
Its gilded border is flaming as if by its own proper lustre,
But the stream bears the Avave on its course, and another
Flows into the track of the light, itself disappearing ;
So dignities cast their splendor on men who are mortal,
They are not glorious, only their brilliant position.

Schiller.

VOL. XXXI. 29

450

PURGATORIO.

[July,

PURGATORIO.

CANTO NINETEENTH.

IN that hour's dullness when the heat of day
Tempers the coldness of the moon no more,

Vanquished by Earth, or oft by Saturn's sway ;
When geomancers in the East, before

The dawn's white light, subduing soon the gray,
Read of their Major Fortune the bright score,

There came, in dream, a woman to my sight,
Stammering, cross-eyed, maimed in both hands, each one

Of her feet clubbed, with countenance dead-white.
I looked on her, and even as the sun

Comforts the cold limbs all benumbed by night,
So gave my gaze a glibness to her tongue ;

Her shape grew straight, and love's lost coloring ran
Back through her cheeks, as love would have them, young.

1 Then, with her speech thus loosened, she began
To sing so ! not to listen had been pain :

' I'm the sweet Siren, I am she who can
Misguide the mariners in the middle main ;

So full of pleasaunce is my voice to hear !
I turned Ulysses with the notes I pour

From his vague wanderings ; and whoso gives ear,
To grow familiar, seldom giveth o'er

Delight in following one so wholly dear :
Who learns to love me, leaves me nevermore.'

Scarce was her mouth shut when a lady came
Up close beside me, rapid in her tread,

Whose holy mien that other put to shame.
' O Virgil, Virgil ! ' angrily she said ;

' What wretch is this ? ' and while my Master bent
His steps toward her, fixed by her innocent face,

She seized that other, and her garment rent
Before her bosom, and disrobed the place

That broke my slumber with its noisome scent.

iSSo.] PURGATORIQ. 451

I turned mine eyes, good Virgil saying : ' At least

Thrice have I called thee : rise, and let us find
The pass where we may enter.' Ere he ceased

I had sprung up : the new-born sun behind
Spread o'er the circles and the day increased,

Till all the sacred hill in glory shined.
I, following, bore my forehead in a ridge,

Like one whose front is bent by thought severe,
Who makes himself the half-arch of a bridge,

When these words caught me : ' Come ! the pass is here,'
Benignly uttered, in so sweet a tone

As ne'er was heard upon this mortal strand.
With open wings, that seemed as of a swan,

The angel waved us upward with his hand
Between the two walls of the flinty stone,

Then moved those pinions and our faces fanned,
Affirming : ' Blessed are the souls that mourn !

They shall be comforted.' And while he stood
A little over us, my Guide in turn

Began to say to me : ' What means thy mood ?
What bends thy look so to the earth below ? '

' A recent vision that was mine,' said I,
' Makes me thus faltering, doubtful as I go,

For from the thought of it I cannot fly.'
' That ancient sorceress hast beheld,' said he,

* To whom the spirits up higher their misery ow&tt* t ii>.
Didst mark how man from her foul spell gets free?

Enough ! with haughty heel smite fast the ground,
And fix thine eye where heaven's eternal King

Lures thee with His great spheres' perpetual round.'
Even as the falcon, ere he makes his spring,

Looks at his foot, then turns him at the cry
To snatch the food that he is tempted toward

Through greediness thereof, the same was I;
And where the cloven rock did way afford

To one in climbing, I went up as high
As the next cornice round the mountain scored.

Loosed into this fifth circle freely forth,
I saw a people weeping all around

With down-turned faces prostrate on the earth.
'Adhasit pavimento, to the ground

452

PURGA TO RIO.

[July,

My soul did cleave ,' I heard ; but in their birth
These words were almost choked with sighs profound.

' O souls elect of God ! whose sufferings
Justice and Hope temper to lesser pain,

Direct us where the lofty stairway springs.'
' Free from our penance if ye come, and fain

Would find the way more quickly, ever bear
Towards the right hand, keeping the hill inside.'

So prayed the Poet, and some spirit there,
A little way before us, thus replied.

Which the hid speaker was, the sound betrayed :
Mine own eyes met the looking of my Lord ;

Whence of assent a cheerful sign he made
To what he saw my dumb desire implored.

And when I felt that he meant, yes, you can,
Straight I moved on that grovelling creature toward

(Whose words had made me note him), and began :
' Spirit ! whose grief that penitence matures

Without which God receiveth back no man,
Suspend awhile that chief concern of yours.

Tell who thou wast ; and wherefore prone ye lie ?
And wouldst thou that I help thee with my prayer ?

For I am living in the world on high.'
And he : ' Thou shalt know for what sin we bear

Our backs turned heavenward ; but know first that I
Was a successor once to Peter's chair.

OTTOBONO DE' FIESCHI.

1 Between Chiaveri and Sestri flows

Down a fair streamlet, from the name whereof
The title of my blood and family rose.

One month and little more was mine to prove
How the great mantle weighs on him that fain

Would keep it spotless : every load would seem
Feathers to that. Late penitence, how vain !

But when Rome's pastor T was made, the dream
Broke, and the falsehood of my life was plain.

That lofty seat I could not climb above,
Yet there I found the heart was not at rest,

Whence of this life awoke in me the love.

1 8 80. ] PUR GA TO RIO.

Up to that point I was a wretch whose breast

With avarice rank against my Maker strove.
Now here behold me to this doom depressed !

What avarice bringoth, now is rendered clear,
In the purgation of these penitent souls,

Nor has this mount a penance more severe.
Even as our vision, fixed on earthly goals,

Never looked upward, Justice sinks it here
Earthward long ages. And as avarice killed

Our zeal for good (so love's effect was lost !),
Bound hand and foot, till Justice be fulfilled,

Must we lie here to learn what Avarice cost,
Stretched moveless, long as the just Lord hath willed.'

I had kneeled down to him, and would have spoken,
But at my first word, listening, he perceived

By my near voice the reverential token,
And said : * Why stoop ? ' I answered : ' It relieved

Mine upright conscience not to stand before
Such dignity as thine.' Then he, as grieved :

' Straighten thy limbs, my brother err no more
I am the fellow-servant (bend thee not !)

Of these and thee to one supernal power.
If thou hast read, nor hast His voice forgot,

Where in the Holy Gospel he doth say
These words : They neither marry thou wilt know

Why I speak thus. Now I beseech thee, stay
No longer with me : I would have thee go :

Thy tarrying stops the tears which thou didst say
Mature the penitence wherefrom they flow.

I have, on earth, a kinswoman by name
Alagia innocent unless our line

Corrupt by bad example bring her blame
And she is all remains that once was mine.'

END OF THE CANTO.

454

MY RAID INTO MEXICO.

[July,

MY RAID INTO MEXICO.

CHAPTER III. CONTINUED.

THE words of Mrs. Sevan startled, bewildered me. Could
it be possible that this girl pshaw ! And I felt myself crimsoning
at the idea of winning " hands down " against the field such a
field ! where every horse hailed from a crack stable.

Five hundred thousand pounds meant twenty-five thousand a
year. It meant a palace in Park Lane, a villa at Nice or Como,
a shooting-box in the Highlands, a seat in Parliament, a title in
prospective, a superb stud of horses, a steam-yacht to go around
the world in ; it meant power, position, influence everything.
What would they say at Timolin, if they heard of it ? And I
imagined Aunt Butler reading aloud my marriage, solemnized at
the Pro-Cathedral, Kensington, by His Eminence the Cardinal,
while Trixy but would they not all come over to the wedding ?

I was not in love with Miss Wriothesly. I admired her, and
was more or less awed by the heiress, while the gas of my vanity,
owing to the revelations of Mrs. Bevan and the broad statements
of Billy Brierly, was gradually inflating my heart.

" Miss Wriothesly was really angry with you to-day, Joe,"
exclaimed my sister when I returned to Bevan's after a day's
sight-seeing.

" Was she ? "

" What did you mean by refusing to come with us ? "

" I wasn't ' on/ Nellie, that's all."

" Your refusal was not only impolite, Joe, but absolutely
savored of rudeness."

" In what way ? "

" Why, she got up the drive expressly for you, and sent an
apology to the Countess of Fife, who had engaged her for a dejeu-
ner visit to hear a promised operatic debutante sing. You should
apologize, Joe. Indeed you should."

" I shall have no opportunity, Nellie."

" To-night at the opera. She has offered you and me and
Mrs. Bevan seats."

" Well, I'll go on my marrow-bones. We'll part good friends,
anyhow. I start by the morning express for Liverpool."

1 8 So.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 455

" Oh ! I'm so glad. I mean, that is, because you wish to go,
Joe."

My sister did not press me to prolong my stay. If there had
been anything in what Mrs. Bevan had said Nellie would have
urged me to stop. This came to me actually in the form of a re-
lief.

" I should like to thump you two for taking out my wife and
horses to-night," exclaimed Mr. Bevan ; " but I suppose this little
affair demands sacrifices all round. Be very careful in letting up
or down the windows of the brougham, Joe ; and if you sit on the
box take care not to scratch the panels in any way."

" I would much prefer that you would take my place, sir."

" Tell that to the marines, Joe."

" Really, Mr. Bevan"

" Don't knot the cord of the blind " this was before dinner, in
the drawing-room. " See that, now; it's all out of gear. O dear,
dear, dear ! I wish people would keep their hands quiet. Please
not to lean on the back of that chair ; you see the rubbing of the
coat or the friction of the hot hands removes the gilding."

" Can I do anything for you in Liverpool to-morrow, Mr.
Bevan ? " I asked.

" Liverpool ! Why, Mrs. B. told me that you had given up
all idea of this wild-goose trip."

" Not exactly."

" Pumpsy ! " to his wife, who rustled into the room, looking
ever so handsome in amber satin and lots of drooping lace, " Joe
is off, dear."

" Off what ? "

" To Liverpool in the morning."

Mrs. Bevan turned a pair of eyes upon me that distinctly
asked, " Can this be possible ? "

" I want to catch the City of Brussels"

" Don't decide on anything, Joe. You know not what to-
night may bring forth. That's the dinner-bell. Your arm, cabal-
lero ? "

Miss Wriothesly's box was on the grand tier, and when we ar-
rived we found her, with her father and a vacant-faced, aristo-
cratic man, in possession.

Mrs. Bevan and Nellie were posted in front, the banker be-
hind Mrs. B., while the vacant-faced man, Lord Selmington, and
myself occupied the back of the box with the heiress.

Miss Wriothesly's reception of me was of the coolest.

456

My RAID INTO MEXICO.

[July,

" I'm awfully sorry to have missed the drive to-day, Miss
Wriothesly."

" You can do it any day."

" It would be trespass

" In a hansom for five shillings."

This was a facer.

" I fear that I acted rather rudely in

" Please let me hear this sccna." And she leaned forward.

I felt exceedingly sorry -at being in the box at all, at being the
recipient of any favor from her, however small.

" You were saying something, Mr. Nugent " this when Al-
bani had concluded amid a whirlwind of applause.

" I was saying that

" You should not lose this. She's going tb sing again."

The prima-donna, in obedience to an imperative encore, wei
through the scena.

" Is this your first opera ? "

This to me, who came regularly to Dublin in September for
a week's opera at the old Royal !

" I have heard this particular opera at least half a dozen times,
Miss Wriothesly."

" Indeed ! In Baireuth ? "

" No, in Dublin."

" What are you talking about, Joe ? " exclaimed my sister, who
had overheard the conversation. " This is Lohengrin, and its
second representation in London."

I had not consulted the programme, and imagined that I was
listening to the Huguenots ! I know a lot of fellows who would
have come out of this with flying colors ; as for me, I stuck fast,
and, muttering something miserably facetious about the music of
the future, dropped back and sulked, while Miss Wriothesly de-
voted herself with considerable animation to the idiotic-looking
Lord Selmington.

At the conclusion of the opera the heiress suddenly turned to
me.

" Has that fit of temper blown over yet, Turnips ? Don't look
so fearfully dignified. Take me down to the carriage. So you
regret having refused my offer to-day? Yes, you do. I'll give
you another chance. Let me see the day after to-morrow."

" I shall be on the Atlantic."

She raised her eyes and gazed at me intently. " Are you
really bent upon going?" she asked after a pause, in a low tone,
as we descended the staircase.

iSSo.J MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 457

" To-morrow morning."

" Don't go."

" It is written."

" Don't go at least until at least for some days."

I handed her into the carriage.

"You won't go?" were her last words as the superb equipage
drove off.

" Well," exclaimed Mrs. Bevan, as we got settled in the
brougham, " is it to be a six or a ten o'clock breakfast, Joe? "

" Six o'clock, if you please."

" Really and truly ? "

" Why, certainly."

She was silent for a second.

" This is too stupid of you, Joe. Don't speak to me ! I am
horribly disappointed."

As we stood on the platform at St. Pancras Station upon the
following morning my sister asked :

" Any message to Trixy ? "

" Not particularly."

" You'll send your love? "

" My fraternal regards, Nellie. That's the whistle. God bless
you ! Write to Mexico."

CHAPTER IV.

ACTIVE AND ENTERPRISING PEOPLE.

THE details of an ocean voyage are dreary enough at best,
and I for one shall not attempt to depict them here. I lost
sight of Billy Brierly when two hours out of the Mersey,
nor did I again behold him until we were off the Hook. I
suffered from sea-sickness the entire voyage, and didn't dare or
care to leave my berth, while Billy Brierly was, as he expressed
it himself, " laid out an' fit to be waked." The passage was a
"vicious" one throughout and without a break. If the good
ship wasn't pitching she was rolling, and when she was not en-
gaged in rolling she was pitching. The first thing I tasted after
six days was some chicken-soup ; then came beef-tea, and then
convalescence.

" Glory be to God there's anything left av me ! Sorra a worse
maulin' I ever got. I'm black an' blue inside, an' I'm tore to
pieces. An' only for to think, Masther Joe, that whin I was raich-
in' and sthrainin' for the bare life it's passin' Queenstown we wor'

453 Mv RAID INTO MEXICO. [July,

an' it's me stomick that kep me from gettin' a last luk at ould Ire-
land. Wirra, wirra ! Masther Joe, let us go home, avic, be dhry
land," was Billy's greeting after our enforced separation.

The sky was blue as boasted Italy's, and the sun shone out
with a brightness that almost dazzled, as we entered the Narrows.
The wooded slopes on Staten Island, from out of which coyly
peeped chateau and villa ; the grim twin forts of Wadsworth and
Hamilton ; the glistening white buildings on Coney Island ; the
harbor-shaped Upper Bay with its regal coronet of two cities ; the
lordly North River, bounded by the haze-capped Palisades ; the
low-lying shores of New Jersey, backed by the misty Orange
Mountains ; the giant ocean steamers, the monster excursion-
boats, and the teeming craft of every sort, shape, size, and de-
scription, painted a picture on the canvas of my memory, vivid,
luminous, and destined to fade but with the canvas itself.

" Faix it's no wondher the Malowneys refused for to lave it,
av it's all like that, Masther Joe," observed Billy, who, like myself,
was all eyes. " They tell me that that's Bruklin, where Mary
Donnelly is livin'. I wudn't wondher av wan av thim houses
was hers, Masther Joe. She was always fond o' the wather.
Why, now, isn't New York a sight av a place ! It's bigger, they
tell me, nor Dublin, an' that it's full o' naygurs. There's a very
dacent man that was bad wud me below comin' out ; there he is
standin' beside the faymale wud the two childher in her arms.
Lord help her ! she's goin' to some place in the woods to her hus-
band, who only sint over her passage-money ; but faix we med a
collection, an' it's like a prencess she'll thravel now. Well, Mas-
ther Joe, that man there knows me cousin Phil Gavin, an' he says
he's a warm man. He gev me his addhress, an' here it is. I'll
go billet on him, sir, an' keep down th' expinses. He's me sec-
ond cousin be me mother's side. She was a Gavin God rest her
sowl, amin ! a daughther of Ned Gavin av Ballymaccrooly ; an'
me father the heavens be his bed ! got five heifers wud her an'
twinty pound fortune. I'll go bail Phil will be* rale glad for to see
me. Musha ! did ye ever see the like o' thim steamboats, Masther
Joe ? " pointing to a snow-white leviathan crowded with passen-
gers. " It's Noah's Arks they all are, no less. The steward tould
me they were pleasure-boats, every wan, an' that some av the big
wans hould three thousand people a whole barony. Only to
think av the whole barony av Slaughdhafauddagh aboord av wan
vessel ! Father Tom himself wudn't believe it. Murdher ! but
the people here must be cruel fond av divarshin an' have whips
o' money. Arrah, Masther Joe, luk at thim little tug-boats ; an't

1 8 So.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 459

they as bould as brass, and sit the wather for all the world like
dooks ? That high steeple there the steward, a very knowledge-
able man, tould me is belongin' to Thrinity Church, or the Tele-
graph I don't know which, sir. Och, thin, I'll thank ye for ferry-
boats. Luk at that wan, sir, carryin' carts an' horses as well as
the people. An' murdher ! is it ? yis, it is be me sowkins, there's
wan wud a whole raihvay thrain on boord, bad cess to the lie in it !
An' the docks there's life ; why, the place is as lively as a bee-
hive at swarmin'-time. Wow, wow ! but it's no wondher the
Malowneys refused for to lave it. I don't see any wild Injuns,
Masther Joe," added Billy in a disappointed tone ; " but I suppose
they're out beyant the town a little ways, or up in thim woods
we seen as we come up."

The gentleman who shared my state-room was a Mr. Flink,
residing on Fifth Avenue, New York. He proved to be a nine-
teenth-century Samaritan, and his kindness to me during the tor-
ture-laden eight days and nine nights I can never forget.

As the City of -Brussels was being warped into her dock Mr.
Flink came to me and said :

" Mr. Nugent " we had exchanged cards ; in fact, I told him all
bout myself " you must go on to-morrow, if you want to catch
the boat that leaves New Orleans on Friday. Now, it is not
orth your while to expose yourself to the inconveniences of hotel
ife although we go very near perfection in our hotels here by
unlimbering at any of those places. I have a very large house
and a very small family. Put up with me, and ha ! ha ! /'// put
up with you. I have at least I had when I left in August four
retty good horses, and I can show you the sights (the elephant
e call it), if the brutes haven't eaten their own heads off. Do not
refuse me ; if I didn't mean it I wouldn't ask you. You'll find
us Americans very square people in our social relations, at all
vents," he laughed.

I thanked him most sincerely, and was about to refuse politely
but firmly when he interrupted :

" That's my adopted daughter. See the darling, how she
aves her handkerchief! I guess she'd know me at the Nar-
ows." And as he spoke Mr. Flink sprang upon the bulwarks to
whirl his soft felt wide-awake to a girl w r ith great, large black
eyes, heavily-marked brows, and very red lips, whose exquisite at-

f'e seemed to become her to perfection.
Did the apparition of this young lady influence me in my ac-
ptance of Mr. Flink's invitation ? I am afraid that it had some-
ing to do with it.

460 MY RAID IXTO MEXICO. [July,

" Be the mortial, but this bangs Banagher, Masther Joe," ex-
claimed Billy. " Faix it's yerself that knows how for to put yer
comether on the natives. We cud thravel free intirely an' intire-
ly, av it wasn't for the steam-boats an' railroads, bad scran to
thim ! "

By grace especial my luggage was passed by a most cour-
teous Custom-house official with a wave of the hand and a dab oi
chalk, and I found myself seated in a dashing carriage, Billy
Brierly occupying the box-seat with the colored driver, at whom
he was staring as though he would glue his eyes to the " naygur."

Mr. Flink had so many questions to ask his Itix protigc'e that I
remained silent, occupying myself in gazing out of the window.
We passed through a very dingy part of the city, frame and
red brick dwellings mingling and leaning against each other in
the most fraternal manner. Every second house seemed devoted
to lager-beer, and opposite every door stood an ash-barrel.
Frame houses were new to me, so was lager, and so were ash-
barrels. My heart throbbed with pleasure as I recognized i
many of the clean, well-dressed, comfortable -looking people wh
thronged the sidewalks or stood upon the door-steps the unmi
takable lineaments of the people of my country, Avhile sounds o
the rich, racy brogue greeted my ear over the din, and nois
and roar of the great city.

The number of street-cars astonished me. They seemed to
coming from all quarters and in countless numbers. A few day
before I had ridden in a tram-car in Dublin from the Stephen'
Green Club to the General Post-Office. This car did not appea
for fifteen minutes, and, were I to miss it, I should be detained a
least twenty. Here were cars coming one after the other in app
rently endless succession, and converging from all quarters ! I
Dublin the car stopped and waited for a solitary passenger ; he
the people jumped on and off like acrobats. A violent rappin
at the window caused me to turn my head, and I saw that Bill
Brierly was eagerly drawing my attention to something in th
air.

I followed the direction of his finger, and beheld a train tr
veiling at lightning speed right over our heads upon a cobvve
structure of spindle-shanked iron supports.

" Did ye ever see the like o' that, Masther Joe ? " he bawled
" It's a thrain ; there's people in it. The naygur here sez it ru
for six mile. Glory ! but this is a quare place."

We crossed Ninth Avenue, and got into the region of brown
stone fronts. I did not admire them. The brown stone, to m

iSSo.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 461

mind, presented a dirty and melancholy appearance. The adver-
tising dodges interested me highly, as did also a buggy, which
drew forth a yell of wonder from my retainer. The well-made-
up linen of men working at the meanest labor struck me, as also
the cigar in the mouths of all, vice the pipe. The long tails to
the horses also attracted me.

" Now/' exclaimed Mr. Flink, as the carriage spun into a mag-
nificent thoroughfare literally blocked with vehicles and cram-
med with foot-passengers, "you are on Broadway, one of the
streets of the world."

The height of the buildings, the magnificence of many, the
dinginess of others, the life, bustle, and animation of this great
artery, deeply impressed me. I longed to alight from the car-
riage, and, plunging into the tide, swim with the busy, earnest,
anxious, electric crowd.

" This is Union Square," observed Miss Flink. " That is Tif-
fany's, the largest jewelry store in the world. I'll take you
through it by and by. That is Sarony's, where you must be pho-
ographed. Now we are on Broadway again ! That is Arnold &

nstable's. You will imagine yourself in a Parisian store, if you
o in there. Now we are approaching Madison Square. That is
e Fifth Avenue Hotel. A pretty little square, is it not ? Now
e are on Fifth Avenue. You will travel miles between the most
splendid mansions in the world."

" Conchita thinks there is no place like New York," laughed
Mr. Flink.'

" Except one, papa."

" Ah ! I forgot the city of Mexico."

" Is Miss Flink a Mexican ? " I asked.

"Did I not tell you? Why, of course she is. Conchita," he
added, addressing the girl, " Mr. Nugent leaves for Mexico to-
morrow."

Conchita opened her great black eyes.

" To Mexico?"

" Yes." And in a few words I briefly explained the purport of
my travel.

" Ay de mi. I wish I was going too."

" I wish from the bottom of my heart that 3*011 were ! " I im-
petuously exclaimed.

I suppose the warmth with which I uttered these words pro-
duced effect, for the rich red blood leaped into Conchita's cheeks,
appearing like a veiled glow beneath her swarthy but transpa-
rent skin.

462 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [July,

" Some day." And with a sigh she turned her head away.

The carriage pulled up at an enormous brown-stone mansion.
The massive steps and balustrades ; the elaborate carving, both
on the entrance and on the magnificent double doors ; the marble
mosaic of the vestibule pavement ; the frescoed panels in the ves-
tibule itself ; the splendid sheets of plate-glass, and the exquisite
lace blinds and curtains, riveted my attention, eliciting an invol-
untary outburst of admiration. I merely mention these things in
order to narrate my first impressions, doubtless the impressions
of hundreds of thousands ; but these features were so new that
they instantly asserted themselves.

Again, I was struck by the height of the rooms, of the doors,
of the windows, and above all by the sumptuous elegance and
aesthetic taste of the furniture and decorations, the sensuous dis-
play of the wonders that the hand of man can create for yello 1
gold.

The servants disappointed me the colored coachman, wh<
wore a beard, an ill-fitting hat with a two-inch velvet band coi
fined by a gigantic buckle, a coat that had never been built f<
him, yellow trousers, and buttoned boots ; the man who open<
the door decorated with a moustache and enshrined in nond<
script garments, partly sporting, partly clerical !

I missed the liveries! I fancied that magnificent avenue
thronged with equipages, as when I first beheld it, the servanl
in red, yellow, white, pink, and purple plushes ; the burly coacl
men, in full-bottomed flaxen wigs, and enormous bouquets ii
their button-holes, sitting on their boxes like kings, and surroum
ed by their coat-of-armed hammercloths as by imperial mantles
then the gorgeous raiment of those superb beings whom Thacl
eray was so down upon, from their patent-leather pumps and sill
stockings to their golden-braided hats and powdered hair. I die,
miss the flunkies ; and when I beheld the darkies with velvet bam
round their hats I felt as if some calamity had fallen upon flui
kydom, and that it had gone into mourning, skin and all. I a
didly spoke my sentiments to Mr. Flink subsequently.

" We have some English turn-outs here, Mr. Nugent, and woi
thy of Hyde Park."

" Oh ! dear, yes ; but, unhappily, while the horses are superb, th<
carriages poems on wheels, and the entourages simply perfect, th<
hats of the servants generally spoil the whoie thing, and what th<
hats miss the coat-collars finish off. Just you observe it whei
next you ride in Central Park or on this magnificent avenue."

Miss Flink could talk of nothing but Mexico, its flowers, its

iSSo.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 463

fruits, its climate, its scenery. She gushed over it in a sort of
rapture. She showed me a lot of birds on cards, made by the
Indians and constructed of feathers. They were very beauti-
ful, the miniature peacock being simply wonderful. She also
showed me a number of figures in wax, representing water-car-
riers, muleteers, charcoal-burners, and other crafts. She set great
store by a bull-fight in wax, the figures one inch high ; anything
more perfect than the modelling of the horses and bulls I never
saw.

11 You must bring home a number of these models. You'll
get them at Puebla. It's the Philadelphia of Mexico. They are
ridiculously cheap. Be very careful about the packing. Of
course you'll bring back a full suit of charro"

I inquired what cJiarro meant.

" Sombreros, zarape, cJiaqneta, cJiaparrcras, e spue las, silla, re at a.
nd she ran off a number of terms on her fingers. " You know
what a sombrero means ? "

"A hat."

" A hat, and sunshade, and umbrella in one. You must get a
gray felt or a pure white laced and braided with gold. It will
cost you sixty dollars. Your zarapc, a mantle which you fling
across your shoulders I'll teach you how to fold it when you
come back must have the Mexican national colors, green, red,
and white. Your cJiaqucta, or jacket, should be of buff leather, the
shoulders encrusted with gold or silver embroidery and buttons,
the cuffs also; &faja, or blood-red sash, and the cJiaparrcras, or
leggings, open from the knee to show wide, flaring white linen,
and a stripe of gold or silver embroidery down the sides, with as
many rows of buttons as possible. Your cspuclas, or spurs, must
be of silver gilt or silver, with rowels so long" the length of her
little finger " and your silla y or saddle, senor if you buy one
must be peaked in front and back, mounted in ivory, and tipped
with gold or silver. Your chivarras, or saddle-bags, must be of
leopard-skin, your poncho of bear-skin, both embroidered in gold
or silver, and the holsters for your pistols must be encrusted with
embroidery ; so must your box-stirrups and the loop for your
reata, or lasso. However, you needn't mind the saddle ; it will
cost you any amount of money. A caballcro with whom I w T as ac-
quainted paid five thousand dollars for his. All you will require
will be the dress, and won't you be an acquisition at a fancy-
ball ! "

"The dress or the man, Miss Flink?"

" The cJiarro" she laughed.

464 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [July,

After luncheon we went for a carriage-ride in the Central
Park, the " we " consisting- of Mrs. Flink, Miss Flink, and myself.
Firstly, though, we drove to a telegraph office, where I " cabled "
my sister.

Mrs. Flink was as chatty a little dame as ever 1 encountered ;
fat, fair, forty-five, and -dressed in the highest art of the prevailing
mode namely, a pale lavender silk with tight sleeves, a pointed
bodice, flowing skirt very short in front, displaying open- worked
stockings and embroidered shoes. A skimpy-looking scarf was
drawn tightly across her shoulders, and she carried a reticule in a
hand encased in black mittens, the old-girlish effect of which was
ludicrous to behold.

This cliatty little dame rattled away like a sewing-machine on
all subjects, from grave to gay, from lively to severe.

" What a pity you did not get here while we were at New-
port, Mr. Nugent ! We shut up our cottage we call it a cottage,
although it has thirty rooms ; the reception-rooms are much more
commodious than those on Fifth Avenue, and it has three stones.
Newport is quite too lovely. It's a mixture of Passy, that delight-
ful little place near Paris, and Twickenham, that delightful little
place near London ; and I tell you, sir, that these two make, as rrr
husband says of cocktails, a good mix. I've been around all th<
best watering-places in England, Ireland, France, and Spain, an<
there's nothing like Newport. San Sebastian pushes it cloeb
cradled in the Pyrenees, with such a surf rolling into such an inl<
from the Bay of Biscay, with such pleasant people, all the swell
from Madrid and Seville, and such a band on the Passeo evej
evening military, my dear sir, seventy pieces ! O my ! but
makes one feel real good to sit at the Cafe San Marino, and si]
granazao and listen to the music. Have you ever been t<
Spain ? "

" I regret to say no."

"O my ! I was there when the empire was in full swing an<
Eugenie in full bloom. I've seen poor Napoleon bathing, an<

my ! wasn't he quite dreadful a pudgy, fat little man witl
closed eyes, and waxed moustaches hanging down as limp as th<
tail of a frightened puppy-dog. Eug6nie \vas coquettish even ii
the water, and used to wear such a duck of a bathing costume !-
Spanish red and yellow in bars. The ladies of the court dare not
imitate it ; but I did, and got laughed at for my pains, as the stuff
that was in mine wasn't a fast color, or, rather, so fast that while

1 was bathing the sea was dyed red and yellow as if the sun was
setting on it." And she laughed till she became purple in the

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 465

face, and let her merriment off in a cough. " Apropos oi watering--
places, you should see Martha's Vineyard ; that's a queer little
place. It's down Cape Cod way. I never saw such a place.
Little houses watch-boxes all open in front like dog-kennels,
stuck in the midst of stunted oaks, and the people trying to get
indoors sideways, as a tree is stuck right in front of each door.
The residents all seem half-asleep, and I do believe it must have
been in this wood that the Sleeping Princess was awakened with
a kiss. Such houses ! O my ! they look as if they had been
sown there in order to grow and then to be transplanted. Fancy !
I brought my carriage and servants, and there was no place to
drive when I got there," she rattled on.

" That's where the Astors live, and there's Vanderbilt's home ;
he's the great railway king, and so rich he doesn't know all the
money he has. That's the cathedral ; it will be a magnificent af-
fair when it is finished. Stop ! " This to the coachman, calling a
halt in order that I should examine the details of the glorious fa-
$ade at leisure.

Mrs. Flink had a nod for everybody.

" O my ! You should have been here in the season. When
i will you return ? You can't say ? If you give us a show about
February we'll give you a show. Everybody is out of town.
Newport is still full ; so are Long Branch and Cape May. People
are at their country-houses on the Hudson. Oh ! that's a river,
there's scenery for you ; and now that the leaves are on the turn
it is as pretty as a chromo. Have you tasted our oysters yet ?
You must taste them. We have the best oysters in the world.
My husband lives on them. He actually counts the hours be-
tween May and September till he can have them. He goes to Cape
May every summer to eat them, as there's no law against dredg-
ing them there ; they are the Virginia oysters, but he doesn't
think them real nice. He's crazy on Blue-Points. You shall
have Blue-Points to-day ; Conchita, don't forget. This is the
Scholars' Gate. I'm sure I don't know why it's called so. Did
you see that young lady on horseback ? That's one of our great
catches. She's a Miss Van Boomgee, an old Knickerbocker
family ; the grandfather was a pirate, but that's no matter. She
has two millions only think of it ! and that young fellow that's
riding with her hasn't five cents for a schooner of lager ; she
keeps him in pocket-money. That fat old woman who passed in
the landau is Mrs. Black Greensleeves. Her first husband desert-
ed her, and she quietly married another. Number One turned up
rich, and she dismissed Number Two ; Number One died, and she
VOL. xxxi. 30

466 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [July,

recalled Number Two. She's a horrid old monster,, and yet she's
asked everywhere. This is Mount St. Vincent. It was formerly
a convent, but the sisters sold it, and O my ! haven't they a lovely
place on the Hudson near Yonkers. That's the reservoir for the
Croton water."

Mrs. Flink never ceased for one half-second. Conchita lay
languidly back in the carriage, seemingly occupied by her own
thoughts. As her gaze was averted I could look at her without
being impertinent. Hers was a remarkable face, rich and warm
in coloring as a Tuscan sunset. The dark eyes were large and full
of a caressing expression such as is credited to the heavy-lidded
orbs of Juno ; and her scarlet mouth, mobile, restless, vivid, part-
ed over the most beautifully perfect teeth I had ever beheld.
The face was full of sentiment rather than beauty, though the
blue-black hair brushed carelessly back was of a tint to charm an
artist. There was a wistful pathos in the eyes that made me long
to hear the history of her adoption ; for somehow or other I con-
ceived the notion that she was unhappy, and that the luxury by
which she was now surrounded was at best for her but a gilde
cage.

We were alone, before dinner, in the drawing-room.

" Is there any commission I could execute for you in Mexi<
Miss Flink? " I asked, little guessing that I was about to spring
mine.

" Yes," eagerly ; "that is no thanks," a mournful caden<
in the last words, which almost died on her lips.

" Let me have the benefit of the doubt."

"What doubt?"

" You began with yes. Give me the chance of being useful.'

She leaned her forehead against the window-pane very tightl
and did not reply for a moment ; then, " You are English ? "

"No; Irish."

" Are Irishmen as sincere as Englishmen ? "

" Try one of them."

" Perhaps ! What time do you leave to-morrow ? "

" By the two-thirty train."

Still with her forehead hard pressed against the glass
asked : " Would you undertake a task that might involv<
trouble?"

" For you most cheerfully/'

"Danger?"

" More agreeable still."

" You laugh at danger."

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 467

" Certainly, in your service."

She turned almost fiercely upon me.

" Is this in jest, Mr. Nugent?"

She was excited, flushed, and looked a little wild.

" Miss Flink," I said, " if you honor me with a trust I shall en-
deavor to accomplish its purpose, whatever it may be. This is all
I can say." And a lot of quixotic blood commenced to dance in
my veins as I made this announcement.

She extended both hands. Her face was now pale and pite-
ous.

" You are good and generous, but "

At this moment Mr. Flink entered the hall, and Conchita, lift-
ing a finger of warning to her lips, rapidly and noiselessly glided
into the back drawing-room and disappeared.

" You need not unpack your baggage, friend Nugent. The
dies will dress for dinner ; they have nothing else to do. You
nd I will take things as we are. How did you enjoy your
ide? What are your impressions of New York ? "

Miss Flink did not appear at dinner.

" O my ! Conchita has a bad headache," exclaimed Mrs.
Flink. " I went in to see the poor child, and she was lying on
the bed undressed. Her hands were deadly cold, and her face as
flushed as a poppy. She had a lot of letters on the bed, and I
guess

" Do you consider it advisable to send for a doctor ? " inter-
osed Flink.

O my ! no. I asked her, but she implored of me not to
think of such a thing. She asked to be left alone. We have
some elegant doctors here, Mr. Nugent the cleverest men, who
live in such elegant houses and have such elegant wives. My
doctor comes in to see me with a smile on his face that is
as good as a glass of champagne. I'm not homoeopathy ; are
you? "

It was quite evident, then, that Conchita's commission was en
chemin, and that the agitation consequent upon my request was
bearing bitter fruit. What did she mean by danger ? The girl
was young and innocent, and beyond the possible reach of the
shadows of crimes that are the hot-beds of danger. Her idea of
danger must be a woman's silly fears. Mexico was surely as
safe as Texas, and how many good fellows of my acquaintance
were now living their own lives out there with skins as whole as
mine own ! Danger ! She did not mean from bright eyes, surely.
I might travel from one end of the country to the other, and

468 MY RAW INTO MEXICO. [July,

never meet eyes more full of slumbering fire than her own. Bri-
gands ? Possibly ! This must be the clue to her trumpet-note
of warning. Ever and anon came news of the stoppage of a dili-
gence, even of a train ; of brigands as polite as Claude Duval, of
assassins bloodthirsty as Garcia Espanola. Travel in the inte-
rior was not absolutely without its spice of danger just enough
to make a trip thoroughly enjoyable.

" My dear girl," I thought, " I am absolutely your debtor for
giving me such a chance of seeing life with a dash of color in it.
Hitherto my existence has been pulseless ; now I am on the border
of the most romantic land under the sun, and about to taste the
experiences of life in terra incognita." How hotly the heart beats
at four-and-twenty, and how foolishly !

My kind host insisted upon taking me to a theatre.

" We are the most theatre-going people in the world," said
Mrs. Flink. " We are fonder of the footlights than the French.
We have the prettiest and most comfortable theatres. You have
nothing on the other side to touch us. Marie Walton's little box
on the Tottenham Court Road is the nearest thing I know of
to a New York theatre. O my ! we have over twenty theatres,
not including I suppose as many more variety shows, for a mil-
lion of people. Here's a sum for you, Mr. Flink ! I'll take you
to Wallack's to-night. It's the home of comedy, just as your
Haymarket is, or, rather, was when the Buckstone company
was in full bloom. O my! I like Madge Robertson's acting in
1 New Men and Old Acres.' I saw it last spring. I went four
times. I have it off by heart. You'll see Boucicault's new play
to-night ; it's taking the town by storm. The ' Shag-ran ' how
do you pronounce it ? "

" Shock-rawn."

" O my ! is that Irish ? It must be a very difficult language.
I had a cook once who spoke Irish. It was quite too funny for
anything to hear her abusing people. Have you the same trou-
ble with servants in England as we have here ? O my ! whal
do you think a help said to me yesterday ? " And the chatty little
dame rattled at express pace into the much-vexed question of
help, illustrating her theme by anecdotes, until the carriage w;
announced.

" Will Miss Flink be able to accompany us?" I asked.

" I guess not. I'll see her now, and ask her, anyhow."

Mrs. Flink bustled to the carriage, announcing that Conchi
did not feel well enough to sit out the performance, and begged
to be excused.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 469

When I repaired to my room after the theatre I found Billy
Brierly lying in wait for me.

" Masther Joe, doesn't this bate all ? Faix, it's farther we might
go an' fare worse. This is the choicest billet I ever seen. Lash-
in's an* lavin's ! Hapes av everything ! Why, the servants aits
mate three times a day, and an ould bosthune av a housemaid
h' have, that wears goold ornamints in her ears and a false front
av hair th' ould faggot turned up her thumb-bottle nose be-
kase she wasn't proffered lamb wud mint sauce. I know the mint
sauce she'd get below at Inniskeeran, where she comes from.
Faix, it's Griffith's gruel she'd get a taste av. Shure yer not goin*
for to lave sich a place, Masther Joe a place where there's hapes
an' divarshin' an' all soarts for the quare counthry that's beyant?
There's nothin' but sand an' rocks an' Injuns in it, Masther Joe,
an' Yalla Jack that's the fay vor, the Lord be good to us ! ketches
every wan, an' it's only God's goodness that let's them get out av
it wud their lives."

Seeing the smile on my face, Billy continued :

" Troth, it's aisy to laugh whin yer safe, Masther Joe, but whin
yer life isn't worth a thraneen be raisin av lions an' tigers, an*
wild Injuns, an' Yalla Jack, the Lord save us, laughin' is could
mfort. Be sed be me, sir, an' take it quiet an' aisy here,
here's an illigant young leddy, av it's coortin' ye want though

me song, Masther Joe, th' Bank av England was a cruel miss
an' there's the best av lodgin' an' hapes o' dhrink, an' arrah,
Masther Joe, avic, take a good hait out av the place anyhow,"
this in a tone of persuasive blandishment.

"We're off at two-thirty to-morrow, Billy."

" Well, well, well, see that, now. Troth, yer an obstinate gin-
tleman, an' so was yer father afore ye, the heavens be his bed
this night ! Ye'll folly yer own coorses, right or wrong. An'
there's me cousin Phil Gavin, that I seen this day ; an' mebbe he's
not snug an' warm, Masther Joe, wud a shirt on him as white as
snow, an' three blazin' jewels set in. goold dazzlin' yer eyes in the
middle av it, an' a ring on his finger as big as the bishop's, an' a
black coat wud cloth in it as fine as Father James', an' illigant
boots polished as bright as the chaney on Biddy Bofferty's
dhrurn, an' a silk pocket-hankercher. But, Masther Joe, ye shud
see the shop he has. Faix, there's as much in it as wud feed a
barony for a twelvemonth, an' arranged beautiful in dhrawers, an'
counthers, an' glass cases, an' boxes. An' he has two boys help-
in' him not lumps av gossoons, but as nate as new pins, wud oil
on their hair, an' shirt-collars like Misther Rafferty's, an' lovely

4/o MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [July,

cravats. But, Masther Joe, his back parlor is fit for a prence. A
'carpet that ye'd think ye were walkin' on a clover-field, it's that
soft, an' lukkin'-glasses that covers the walls, an' picthers av Dan
O'Connell, an' Smith O'Brien, and Gineral Meagher in goold
frames foreninst the lukkin'-glasses ; an' what warmed the cockles
o' me heart, Masther Joe, was the fotygraf av Bornaleena, an' ould
Gavin's cabin in it, an' an illigant pig. Bedad, I felt somethin'
warm in the corner o' me eyes, Masther Joe, an' it's at home I was
wishin' meself wanst mere. And he is comin' for to pay his re-
spects to ye, sir, an' to know av there's anything he cud do for to
divart ye. He's' reddy for to walk to Calyforny for any wan av
the rale ould stock. Musha, but it's a quare thing that ye'd lave
this illigant place as if the poliss was afther ye, Masther Joe ! "

I was up pretty early upon the following morning, in order to
write to my sister, and was astonished to find everybody else up
and stirring. On looking out of my window I was still further
astonished to find Fifth Avenue filled with elegantly-attired peo-
ple, the men walking rapidly down-town ; the ladies, purses in
hand, going shopping ; while nurses, many of them in Normandy
caps, in charge of daintily-clad children, seemed as though they
had been out for hours.

" O my ! we are a very early people," exclaimed Mrs. Flink
when I had made my comment. " We have no time to put into
sleep. We sit up late and rise early. Mr. Flink breakfasts every
morning at half-past seven. I know what you do in England :
ten and half-past. Oh ! you are a lazy, old-fashioned lot. We
are a new, a busy, and a delightful people. We are Frenchy
without being volatile that's just what we are. We work hard,
very hard, even at our pleasures. Pleasure is a duty of life ; I
have always held it to be so. It's the most wholesome medicine
one can take. Of course too much quinine makes one giddy ; so
would too much pleasure. Conchita still suffers with her head,
dear child !" This in reply to my inquiring glance at Miss Flink's
vacant chair. " I insisted upon her remaining in her room.
Jarvis," to the servant, " take Miss Flink up this strong cup of
tea. Tell her, please, that I insist upon her drinking it. O my !
what a general soother tea is. I often wonder what would be-
come of us if the Chinese busted ! "

Mr. Flink insisted upon my accompanying him down-town. I
would willingly have remained indoors for the purpose of having
an interview with Conchita; but my worthy host seemed so bent
upon showing me Wall Street that there was nothing for it but
to yield.

i88o.J MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 471

Conchita's wondrous eyes and that last piteous expression
seemed to haunt me. I could not succeed in shutting them out.
I longed to help this girl in some way, longed for her confidence ;
and when I thought of her danger-laden commission my brain
was astir and my blood aglow.

What a glorious morning that was as we stepped forth on the
avenue ! It was a morning to cause even the most prosaic to feel
that life is lovely ; a morning to compel the imaginative to look
for something to happen before nightfall the ship to come in,
the prince to arrive, the shower of gold to fall. Mr. Flink
showed me the Brunswick and Delmonico's he took a cocktail at
each ; not I and the hall at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Then we
entered a stage and w^ere driven down Broadway, past the City
Hall, and the Tribune tower, and the magnificent Post-Office not
yet completed, and the Astor House, until we struck Wall Street,
at the corner of which we stopped to admire old Trinity Church.
Then we strolled down " the Street," every second man we met
nodding to Flink. We stepped into bankers' offices, and ex-
change offices, and brokers' offices. He pointed out half a dozen
financial swells whose nods meant millions. We went through
the Custom-house, and lastly to Mr. Flink's office in South Wil-
liam Street he was in the dried-fruit business where I left him
to read a pile of letters, bidding him au revoir and a thousand
anks for his gracious hospitality.

" You'll telegraph when you're coming back ? You'll stop with
us on your return, and, as everybody will be in town then, I guess
we'll give you a good time."

It was close upon half-past one when I reached Fifth Avenue,
where I found Mr. Philip Gavin waiting to greet me.

" I'm real sorry, sir, that you're goin' so soon, and so is my re-
lative here ; but you'll come back, Mr. Nugent, and and " here
he grew very red and fidgeted considerably " I've a great favor
torask of you, sir that is, if if you were in any way for to run
short of money, I've a trifle here, Mr. Nugent, that's entirely at
your disposal," lugging out a leather bag. " It's in gold, Mr.
Nugent, as greenbacks are doubtful, I am told, in Mexico."

" If I should fall short, Mr. Gavin," I said, after thanking him
from the bottom of my heart for his truly kind and generous
offer, " I know where to find a banker."

" You do indeed, Mr. Nugent, and it does me heart good for
to know that ye'd take it from me. I've got on wonderful well,
sir. I began on the leavings of a wan-pound note I had when I
landed twenty years ago. I done business for Philip Redmond,

472 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [July,

of Wexford Street, in Dublin, the corner of Protestant Lane,
where there's more pigs nor Protestants ; he's an alderman now,
sir, and it's myself that's proud of it. He could be lord mayor,
I'm told by them that knows, but he has more sense. He's wan
of the most honest, independent, clear-headed men that's in the
old country this minute. All an Irishman wants to get on here is
sobriety, and, when he has made a few dollars,to keep out of poli-
tics. There's so much temptation for a young man to drink here,
sir, that nine out of ten falls into bad ways. The summer is
hot that beer is like heaven to the man that has the drouth o
him ; the winter is so cold that spirits is equally deludin' ; an
between the two, Mr. Nugent, if a boy has a laynin' that way, he'
fairly destroyed before he knows where he is. I would sick
you, sir, if I gave you a list of the fine, able, intelligent young fel-
lows that have been sent out to me since I started for myself
aye, sicken you ! and all, all gone down through likker. If I w
to have a boy sent out to me now that I cared for, I wouldn't 1
him do more nor set his foot in New York ; I'd pack him out t
Texas, out to a farm where he'd be free of saloons, and where,
he did take a sup, he'd have a chance of . gettin' rid of it unde
God's open sky, instead of suckin' it in out of the very flower
and gilded walls of the decoy saloons that is rotting the heart'
core of this country, sir."

There was a thorough and honest earnestness about Phi
Gavin that revealed a secret of his success in life, and I was sorr
to have to bid him good-by ; but time was flying, I had yet to s
Conchita, and it was almost two o'clock.

As I passed up-stairs I encountered Miss Flink standing
most within the folds of a heavy porttere which shut off the ext
sion. Her face was very pale, and the red lids told tales of
sleepless night.

" I was waiting to see you," she calmly said.

" Thanks," was all I could say.

" Are you stilLin the same frame of mind as last evening ? "

" Indeed and indeed I am." I suppose I was very earnest, fo
a gleam came into her caressing eyes that bore the faintest
$on of a smile.

" I feel that I can trust you, Mr. Nugent, and I purpose d
ing so ; but "

" Let there be no reservation," I pleaded.

" I do not intend that there shall be. Here," she added, draw
ing a small, carefully-sealed packet from her bodice, " is a letter
which you will read, but not until you shall have reached th

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 473

city of Mexico. It tells you all. Enclosed is another letter ad-
dressed to a certain person, which, if after reading your own let-
ter you feel inclined to deliver, you will hand in person. If you
decide not to deliver it, burn it. Now, Mr. Nugent," as she
handed me the packet, " pledge your word of honor as a gentle-
man to keep secret all that has passed between us, all that may
pass between you and other parties. 1 have told you, and you
will see for yourself when you come to read what I have written,
that danger is "

" I don't care what you have written, Miss Flink," I cried.
" I'll read merely for instructions. Danger or no danger, I'll en-
deavor to carry out your wishes, and I pledge you my honor as a
gentleman never to reveal what has or may come to pass in con-
nection with this packet."

She gave me her hand. I lifted it to my lips, kissed it rever-
entially, and in a second the porttire had shut her from out my
sight.

Thrusting the packet into my breast-pocket, I darted up-
stairs, for I had not a second to lose. " Where was Billy Brier-

tl rang the bell.
" Mr. Brierly went out about ten o'clock, sir, and has not re-
rned," was the reply of the servant who responded to my sum-

Was this a dodge of Billy's to gain another day in New York?
d a day meant a fortnight, as the steamers of the Alexandre Line
ly left New Orleans every two weeks. No ; the man was true
as sunlight. He must have gone sight-seeing and have lost his
ay. This was too provoking. I should be compelled to go
ithout him. A fortnight, and the vomit o would be in search of
its prey.

" Mrs. Flink waits luncheon, sir."

^Closing my dressing-bag with a hurried snap, I hastened down-
stairs.

"O my! this is a bad city for a stranger to go roving in.
Have you read the Herald this morning ? There are no less than
three cases of people being inveigled into dens, drugged, and rob-
bed one of them murdered. Why did my servants let your man
go out? I'll send a general alarm to all the police stations. I'm
sure he has been dealt foully with. Had he any money, Mr. Nu-
ent ? " inquired Mrs. Flint all in a breath.
" About five pounds, I think."

" Twenty-five dollars. O my ! they'd kill a man for a five-dol-
lar bill. We must sound a general alarm."

474 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [July*

" I'll go and send it instantly," I cried, now thoroughly alarm-
ed for poor Brierly.

As I plunged into the hall for my hat, to my great delight I
recognized Billy's voice, in a sort of whine, on the basement
stairs.

Such a plight as he was in when he came to the surface ! His
new coat I bought the suit at Hyam's, in Dame Street, as we
passed through Dublin torn in a dozen places, his waistcoat but-
tonless, his trousers merely hanging to him, his cravat gone, his
shirt torn down his breast, while one eye was completely bunged
up and already proclaiming a rapidly-advancing mourning, the
other partially closed and red as a bull-terrier's.

" Good heavens ! Billy, what has happened ? " I eagerly de-
manded.

" Masther Joe, I'm kilt an' murthered. There's not a bone in
me that isn't bruck, an', savin' yer presence, there's not a spot on
me body but's welted into a jelly. O murther ! luk at me new
clothes, that ye ped seven-pound-tin for in Dame Sthreet ; they
worn't much good anyway, they'd no houldin'-out in them, 01
some o' thim wud have kep whole, not runnin' into flitthers.
Masther Joe ! this is a sore an' sorry day for me. Wirra ! wirra !
me illigant clothes wracked, me hat gone, me money gone, an*
me body. only fit for to be waked. What's to be done at all, al
all?" And Billy commenced to rock himself backwards and for-
wards, uttering a low, running moan.

" What is it ? What has happened ? "

" What will they say at Dromroe ? They'll say av all th<
gommochs that iver wint on the shaughraun, that I flog thim ; an'
Father Tom he'll laugh me out av the barony, and Biddy "

" Confound you ! " I cried, losing all patience, " what has ha]
pened ? Speak, you blockhead ! "

" See this, now. A poor boy meets wud misfortune, an' evei
wan turns a hand agin him. Here I am bet an' bruck, an' m<
clothes in flitthers, an' me hat "

The carriage was at the door to convey me to the statioi
Time was up.

" Do you wish to be left in New York ? " I fiercely asked.

" O Masther Joe ! don't name that name to me, av ye plaz(
sir. I'll tell ye what happened, bad luck to me foolishness !
I ever had any consait in me it's knocked clanean' cleverly out o'
me. I was walkin' along a sthrate, an' lukkin' into a windy at
a picther o' Gineral Meagher in the dock at Clonmel facin' th<
judge as bould as a ram, whin a well-dhressed, respectable-lukkin*

i 1880.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 475

i man comes up an' bids me the time o' day. We got into chat,
whin what do ye think but he tould me, whin he heard I was
from Dromroe, that he was from the same place.

" ' Do you know Father James ? ' sez I.

" ' I do well,' sez he.

" ' An' Father Luke ? '
' As well as I know meself.'
' An' Misther Moriarty, of Clonawelty ?'

" ' That same,' sez he.

" * An' Judy Callaghan, that keeps the public-house below at
the cross-roads ? ' sez I.

" ' Many's the golliogue I tuk there,' sez he.

" Well, Masther Joe, we got into conversation, an' he tould

me that he come out here on a vinture, an' that he was in the

hoighth av luck, an' that everything he done turned in goold ;

: that he had a fine house, where I'd be welkim, an' a horse an' car,

an' all to this, till he'd desave th' ould boy himself.

" ' D'ye know,' sez he after a while, ' I'd rayther nor a ten-
poun' note that I met ye a quarther av an' hour ago,' sez he.

"'How so?' sez I.

" * Well,' sez he, * there was a cupple av spalpeens av English-
men boastin' that the Irish that come out here is the poorest and
maynest people on the face o' the earth ; that they haven't a cint
and they're all beggars. " Why," sez the Englishman, " there was
a steamer come in yestherda, an' if you'll get me any wan av the
steerage passengers wud a five-poun note I'll give ye this." An'
he hauls out a Bank av England note for twenty poun'. Musha,
: but it's a pity I cudn't have made that English bragger ait his
own words ! ' sez this man to me ; ' an I cud, av I had met you,' sez
he.

" ' Bedad,' sez I, ' that's thrue for ye, for I've got five poun',
fifteen shillin's, an' tuppence- half penny in me breeches-pocket this
minnit.'

" ' I'd give double that to make that bragger ait his words,' sez
the man. t I wundher if he's there still? '

" ' Where ? ' sez I.

" ' Over beyant in that saloon. Let us thry.'

" Well, Masther Joe, over we wint, an' shure enough there
was me gintleman smokin' a cigar an' r^adin' a newpaper.

" ' See here, misther,' sez my man, ' may the divvle ' I ax yer
pardon, sir ' here's a man that kem over be the steamer yesther-
da.'

" * I don't believe it,' sez the other wudout raising his eyes.

476

THE Two ROADS OF VIRTUE.

" * I tell ye it's truth I'm telliri' ye ; an' what's more/ sez the
'he come steerage,' sez he, * an' has over five poun' in his pock(
sez he.

" ' I don't believe it,' sez the other in a sneerin' way.

" Masther Joe, that set me as mad as Andy Rooney's bull.

" ' D'ye believe this, me man? ' sez I, pullin' out me money.

" ' What ? ' sez he.

" ' This,' sez I.

t ye ignoraymus/ sez I, 'it's a five-poun' Bank av Irelai
note.'

" * Let me luk at it,' sez he.

" I gev it into his hand, Masther Joe ; an' what do ye think, si:
I seen him slip it up his sleeve, an' wriggle another piece av paj
out av the heel of his fist/

" I med for him, Masther Joe, an' gev him a welt in the butt
the lug that flured him, but th' other man set upon me, an' a cu]
pie av others that come in promiscuous like, an' while I w<
strugglin' wud thim the villyan that hed me money slipped awaj
I med for the doore, an' it was in me endayvor to get afther hii
that I was tore to flitthers. Masther Joe, avic, won't ye stop ti
I get satisfaction ? for have it I will, as shure as me name's Bil
Brierly."

Hastily enveloping my retainer in an overcoat, and borrowii
a hat for him, and thanking Mrs. Flink for all her kindness,
shoved Brierly down the steps, into the carriage, and arrived
the Grand Central Depot just to catch the train by the skin
my teeth.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE TWO ROADS OF VIRTUE.

THERE are two roads before us leading up to Virtue ;
If one is closed for you, the other must be open.
The happy gains the goal by work, the sufferer by patienc<
Well is it with the one who on both roads can travel.

Schiller.

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 477

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

IV.

E are now about to examine those reasons alleged against
the truth of the lofty and attractive Ideal of Catholicism which
seem to us the most worthy of consideration. They are very
like the reasons most commonly alleged at the present time
against the truth of Christianity. The method of arguing is that
which is supposed to be derived from the maxims of Lord
Bacon's inductive philosophy, and which is the common method
employed against all old and common principles, beliefs, doc-
trines, and institutions, by the negative, critical, sceptical disciples
of the modern Porch, the school of methodic doubt. It deals
with single facts and phenomena in detail, and proceeds chiefly in
its contention against all primary philosophy and science of the
universal by minute criticism of its molecular parts, by objec-
tions, the proposition of difficulties, the suggestion of doubts, and
the general weakening and undermining of the whole foundation
of certitude. Its attack upon all ancient wisdom is like that of
an army of worms upon the venerable folios of a library, boring
through the leaves, destroying the texture, and by the aid of
damp and mould effacing all legible impress from the pages of

I these monuments of genius and learning.
The religion of divine revelation, and its inspired documents,
from the earliest contained in the Book of Genesis to the latest
book of the last of the apostles, have been subjected to this attack
from the worms of negative criticism, who boast that they have
riddled the whole Bible through and through. Anti-Christian
writers pretend, also, that the damp and mould of age have de-
stroyed the Christian religion together with all other religions of
the past. Those who in a general sense may be classed under the
I title of Positivists fasten on the single facts of experience, the
phenomena of matter, those of inner consciousness, and the pheno-
mena of common, social, and political life, as the data and starting-
points of all reasonable conclusions. They declare that these do
not warrant belief in the truth of the old, lofty, and attractive
Ideal of Christianity and Theism, and are even irreconcilable
thereto.

It is evident that the cause of Christianity as well as that of

ny
th-

478 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Jul

Theistic Philosophy, which is now almost identified with it, i
poses a work of great magnitude and extent on its advocates an
defenders, for the reason that it is engaged to the positive mainte-
nance of such a wide area of historical and doctrinal territory,
embracing so large a number of objective points of assault which
must be held and defended, each by itself, as indispensable to
victory in the contention. The surrender of any one of these
exposes the whole domain of religion to devastation. Unbelievers
and sceptics, on the contrary, when they think they have establish
one fatal objection against the certainty of religion, congratu
themselves, like lawyers who have found one fatal flaw in a d
that their cause is won. They can then fall back upon whatev
view and rule of life they happen to fancy, and make as man
theories and hypotheses as they choose, with perfect liberty.

The case of Catholicism is perfectly analogous, for it is no
ing else than genuine and complete Christianity. Its essential
universality in the order of ideas and in the order of facts gives
it a long line of frontier, exposed to attack at every point and re-
quiring everywhere defence. Those who, because they believe i
a half-gospel, call themselves Evangelical Christians in their
tention with Catholics w T ho believe in the whole gospel are
the same attitude with those who reject the whole, in their
tention with both parties. They take hold of single phenom
and single facts which they think are irreconcilable with the g
eral truth of the Catholic Idea, and then do like those who w
spoken of in the last paragraph.

We do not admit, for a moment, that any of them really foil
the method of sound, inductive philosophy or are true disciples
the great Verulam. They are more like the colored preacher
Richmond, who most methodically doubted of all scientific tru
and made his own experience and his own interpretation of t
Bible his sole criterion. He saw the sun, he said, just then, ov
the corner of the next house, and an hour before he had seen it
another place : " Therefore, the sun do move." Here was exp
ence and observation of facts. Besides this, he had read the Bi
twenty times, and every text which spoke of the sun described
rising and setting and change of place in the heavens with ver
of motion. Here was the private interpretation of Scriptu
The good man, therefore, laughed to scorn all science, and was
rest in his faith.

His brethren in the ministry who hold a higher position in t
society of the educated and polite world, place themselves qui
on his level in a rational point of view. They have a certain p:

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 479

vate interpretation of the Scripture which they take for granted
is the right one, although there is an overwhelming consent of
past ages, of learned men, and of the Christian faithful in the pre-
sent age, against them. They make their observations on the
appearance of the Catholic Church in reference to their own
narrow field of vision, and look at facts and phenomena in her
tistory out of their own window, and quickly pronounce the
rand Idea of Catholicism, which they cannot help admiring,
illusion. Possibly the illusion is in their own minds, and their
whole View of Christianity, their estimate of historical facts, and
their interpretation of the Scripture is an illusion, in so far as it
negative and partial, and in opposition to the Catholic Idea.

The real reason why the multitude of Evangelical Protestants
;lieve in their half-gospel is, that the agglomeration of sects
thrown off from the body of the church by the convulsion of the
:teenth century has taken the place and presents the appear-
tnce of concrete, real Christianity, for those who have been born
id educated in countries where these sects are prevalent, and
mder the instruction of some one of the Protestant churches. A
dstory, a tradition, a teaching authority, a vast system of institu-
tions, rites and forms of worship, a literature, a moral atmos-
>here, have been evolved and consolidated by the intellectual,
digious, and political forces of movement, during the past three
jnturies, which threw off these rings from the central mass of
Christendom. If we can fancy a fragment of the earth carried
iway by a comet in an eccentric orbit around the sun, according
to Jules Verne's ingenious jeu d' esprit, or an artificial moon, as
[r. Hale has pleasantly dreamed, projected into space from the
trth, and furnishing a tolerable abode for the people carried
iway with it by accident, we may find an illustration of the con-
lition of Protestants. Those who were born and brought up on
the new asteroid, after the remembrance of the catastrophe which
had started it on its revolution had become dim, would regard it
as their world, and consider their separation from the earth as
their natural and normal condition. It is the same with those
who have been brought up in the Protestant churches. Not
only ecclesiastical institutions, but universities, colleges, reigning
dynasties, political constitutions, national wars, conquests, disas-
ters, laws, habits, customs, all that makes the little world of dis-
tinct and particular peoples and communities, coalesce and crys-
tallize, in the memory and imagination, into a composite whole.
All the elements blend and unite to make their religion, their civ-
ilization, their intellectual, moral, and civil republic, their home,

480 G EXE SIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [July,

their country, their world. Their minds and hearts submit, obey,
believe, and reverence, from a habit received in infancy and
strengthened by general consent and agreement, according to the
laws of human nature. Reflection, reasoning, inquiry, and study,
in their legitimate operation, only increase and confirm the Chris-
tian belief and convictions derived from early instruction, in re-
spect to everything which is really sustained by sufficient mo-
tives of credibility. So, also, with the upright, the conscientious,
the pious, their inner life, their spiritual experience, their Chris-
tian consciousness, gives light and warmth within the soul, which
it necessarily refers to the only source of light and life, to the
Divine Spirit of God. The habit and power of association con-
nect all that is true and good in the religion they have been
taught with those exterior forms, with that society, with all that
environment, to which they have been accustomed from child-
hood. The Lutheran Church, the Church of England, the
Church of Scotland, the Church of the Puritans, the Methodist or
Baptist or other religious society, is identified in the imaginatio
with pure Christianity. The sects which differ from the one in
which any individual has been brought up are generally esti-
mated according to their resemblance to his own, and a common
family likeness among them all makes it easy to fall into a way of
looking upon that which they have in common as essential Chri
tianity, and their differences as only non-essential variations. As
soon as the Catholic Church becomes partially known in its real
character, a similar estimate is formed of this society also. I
becomes manifest to those who are not completely possessed by
prejudice, that the Catholic religion contains everything whic
Protestants generally regard as essential to Christianity. It is
very easy and natural process of mind, by which, after the horizo
of general knowledge has become enlarged and extended,
vague, confused idea of the church, as one, holy, catholic, an
apostolic ; in such a wide sense as to take in the Catholic, Greek
and Protestant churches ; composing a sort of abstract totality
called the Christian Church, imperceptibly and gradually tak
the place of the older and more exclusive view of Christianity
In the concrete, the church is, for each one, his own particul
sect, though there may be alliances, interchange of courtesie
communion in religious observances with the members of othe
societies. There may be a willingness to attend even on Catholi
services, to hear the sermons and read the books of Catholi
clergymen, to participate in certain Catholic ceremonies and f
tivities. Protestant ministers' have gone so far as to read Cath

L o

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 481

lie sermons to their people from the pulpit, or even to invite
priests to preach to their congregations. A great many would be
delighted if the Catholic clergy would consent to come down
upon some common platform with themselves, take what is called
a liberal position, and join in a common alliance. The venerable
and learned Dr. Woolsey, ex-President of Yale College, and Pre-
sident of the Evangelical Conference of 1873, in his closing ad-
dress used these words :

"The remarkable communication from the 'Old Catholics' that was
presented to us shows that there are those beyond the bounds of ' Protes-
tantism ' who, although widely differing from us, recognize the same com-
mon Saviour, and have a sympathy with us. Suppose, now, a member of
the Church of Rome who preserved his connection with the Pope should
come to us and say, ' I am indeed a Catholic ; I cannot in conscience break
away from the church of my fathers ; but I believe in Christ, and I believe
that you love Christ and the kingdom of Christ in the world ; my heart is
with you and I wish to express my sympathy with you,' would you not re-
ceive him ? Would you not, when he said, ' I believe that through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as you,' call him
your brother ? [Decided expressions of assent from the members of the
i conference.] "

It is the exclusiveness of the Roman Church, what Dr. Van

Osterzee, in the paper read before this same Conference, calls her

" unprecedented hardness of heart," in denying the right of every

society, even that which is called " The Holy Eastern Church,"

to be called a part of the Universal Church, against which the

i principal contention is made. The real, positive motive for cling-

; ing to the half-gospel of Protestant orthodoxy is the conviction of

its truth and the love of the good which it contains, mingled with

the attachment springing from education and habit for every thing

which is associated with this object of belief and love.

In opposition to the claim of the Roman Church to be exclu-
sively and completely the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic
Church, and to her invitation and command addressed in the
name and authority of Jesus Christ to all the baptized to obey
her teaching and ruling authority in order to be saved, a plea in
bar of her right is put in, based on the assumption that the mem-
bers of particular Protestant churches are already ipso facto in
the communion of the Catholic Church and in the way of salva-
tion. Those who attempt to construct a theory and frame argu-
ments against the evidence of the right of the Roman Church to
the exclusive possession of the four notes of divine origin and
authority, proceed from this plea as their basis. They can always
VOL. xxxi, 31

482 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [July,

take it for granted when they are addressing Protestants. It is
this which gives them the feeling of security and dispenses from
the obligation of inquiring and studying diligently into the Catho-
lic evidences as a matter of personal and momentous concern.
The rise and progress of Catholicism may interest them, in the
same way that they are interested in the history of the Jews, the
history of the feudal system, of the temporal power of the Popes,
of the various schools of philosophy and art. But it is not a
momentous practical question, so long as it is taken for granted
that in any Protestant church sufficient and essential communion
is enjoyed with the Universal Christian Church. It is convenient
to have some sort of theory, for the sake of argument, and to
refute Catholic arguments for the divine origin of the authority
of the episcopal body under its supreme head. But any plausible
theory sustained by negative criticism will answer the purpose.
It being presupposed that the half-gospel is the whole gospel,
whatever is more than this must be regarded as human and acci-
dental, however lofty and attractive its ideal form may be. When
presented in an argumentative method, the plea for Protestantism
becomes an indirect syllogism. It professes to refute the exclu-
sive claim of the Catholic Church to the possession of the four
notes of divine origin. These four notes are like the four transcen-
dentals, being, unity, truth, and good, intrinsically one and
same thing under distinct notions. They contain each other,
one or more may be selected to represent the whole idea to
best advantage for certain purposes of argument. In the present
instance, it is the note of Sanctity which is impugned and to be
vindicated. And the purport of the objection is briefly thi
The good which exists in Protestantism is a proof that sanctit]
not the exclusive possession of the Catholic Church.

The gist of the argument seems to lie in the supposition, that
if the Catholic doctrine be true, there can be no good which is
the effect of divine grace in those who are outside of the visible
fold of the church, and therefore no possibility of salvation for
any one of them. The same objection extended to a wider sense
is made against Christianity in general by unbelievers. It is
taken for granted that a Christian must deny all goodness and
virtue to those who do not believe in Christ. The evidences of
virtue and goodness in those who are not Christians are then
turned into an argument against the exclusive and divine truth of
the Christian religion.

Whatever has been said by Christians or even by Catholics,
which can justify the assumption on which the foregoing objec-

ucu-

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 483

tion, taken either in a narrower or in a wider sense, is based, is
merely the private, personal opinion of individuals, who have ex-
aggerated the Catholic doctrine. The genuine doctrine of the
church as denned by authority, and the doctrinal exposition of
the best theologians whose works are in common use as text-
books, do not contain any such exaggerations. Much less is
there any similarity between the Catholic doctrine and the mon-
strous opinions of Calvinists, which have been condemned as
heretical or more or less approaching to heresy. Catholic theo-
logy does not teach the essential and total depravity of human
nature. Therefore, all there is of natural goodness and virtue in
the entire multitude of men who are outside of the communion of
the church can be cheerfully acknowledged, and receive due
honor, from the strictest and most orthodox Catholic. There is
no exact test and criterion by which to discern with unerring cer-
tainty natural from supernatural goodness and virtue in individ-
uals. It is difficult for one to know even in himself what springs
from nature, and what comes from grace. There is a natural reli-
gion and piety as well as a supernatural. We willingly admit,
lerefore, all the goodness which gives evidence of its existence in
lose who are separated from the communion of the Catholic
Ihurch. How much of this goodness springs from an inherent
inctification by the Holy Spirit we do not pretend to determine.
Jut we are not obliged by our Catholic belief to deny that it does
sometimes spring, from sanctifying grace. All those who are bap-
tized, if they have not the use of reason, are made children of God
by the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit ; and all who have the
use of reason, if they have the necessary dispositions, viz., faith,
hope, sorrow for every actual grievous sin, and a firm purpose
to sin no more. All infants who are baptized, no matter who
may administer the baptism, are made passively members of the
body of the Catholic Church. This passive union with the body
of the church is all that any person is capable of acquiring, with-
out the exercise of his own rational and voluntary acts. All bap-
tized children are therefore perfectly equal in this respect, and
there is no difference between the children of Catholic and those
of non-Catholic parents. The sanctifying grace infused by re-
generation cannot be lost except by grievous sin. Therefore, who-
ever preserves baptismal grace by keeping the commandments re-
mains the child of God, and dying in that state is certainly saved.
A person becomes an active member of the body of the church by
the personal act of faith and submission to the authority of the
lawful pastors of the church which he makes when he comes to

484 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [July,

years of discretion. If he fails to make that act he remains in
passive union with .the body of the church by virtue of the indeli-
ble character of baptism, but. he does not enter into active com-
munion with the society of the faithful. If he is not to blame for
his failure to profess the entire Catholic Faith, to obey the lawful
pastors of the church, and to fulfil the duties required of its mem-
bers, he incurs no guilt or punishment, and does not lose the bene-
fit of the grace already received in baptism. Neither is he shut
out from all means of grace and salvation. Whatever the sects
preserve of the treasures they carry away with them from the
Catholic Church, can be used by those who are born and brought
up within their bounds. They may have the whole or a large
portion of the Bible, many traditions, some or even all of the sac-
raments, a part of the faith, if it is a sect merely schismatical and
not heretical the whole faith ; they have prayer, and that grace of
God which is refused to none, and especially to none who have a
good will and sincerely endeavor to follow what light they have,
and to obey the dictates of their conscience. Even the unbaptiz-
ed, Jews, Mahometans, or Pagans, if they are faithful to the light
which is given to them, and make diligent use of the grace whicl
they receive, can have faith, hope, and charity, and obtain etern;
salvation, without an explicit knowledge of Christ or any kind
union with the body of the church, if their ignorance is altogethe
involuntary and invincible. This is in nowise inconsistent wit!
the Catholic doctrine that there is no salvation out of the churcl
It is necessary to know what is the complete definition of th(
church, in order to understand what is meant by being in the
church or out of it. Bonal gives this definition in terms whicl
are both terse and adequate.

"The church is a certain moral unit composed of men ; but man may
considered under a twofold respect, namely, either as corporeal, that is,
those relations which fall under sensible observation ; or as spiritual, th
is, in those relations which are impervious to the senses ; and therefore th
church, since, by the hypothesis, it coalesces from men who are dwelling o
the earth, is said to have a body or a soul, accordingly as it is regard
under the exterior or the interior respect.

"That is to say, the body of the church is a collection of men, who a
outwardly united together into the One, Apostolic, Catholic, and Ho
Church by the teaching and ruling authority of the successors of the apos-
tles, under their supreme head the successor of Peter.

"The soul of the church, however, is a collection of men who are inte-
riorly united into one spiritual church, by the spiritual and internal bond
faith and love." *

*Insttt. TheoL, vol. i. p. 388.

ndof

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 485

All those, and only those, who are thus inwardly united to the
soul of the church are in the state of sanctifying grace, and those
who die in the state of grace are saved. The outward and visi-
ble body of the church is the ordinary and appointed medium of
union with the invisible and spiritual soul of the church. Passive
union with the body suffices to effect the union with the soul for
those who have not the use of reason. For those who are made
free and responsible agents, actual faith and love are necessary,
faith for the inchoate and imperfect union which is not sufficient
for salvation, love for that perfect union which alone suffices.
Active union with the body of the church is the ordinary medium
of the union of the intellect to the object of faith, and of the will
to the object of love. And it is necessary, by a necessity of pre-
cept, for all those who know the will and commandment of God.
Those who wilfully and culpably fail to obey this precept cannot
have the love of God, and those who refuse the assent of faith to
all which the church proposes, the article of " One, Holy, Catho-
lic, and Apostolic Church " included, when the church and her
creed are sufficiently proposed to their minds, cannot have faith.
The true sense of the doctrine that out of the church there is no
salvation is therefore plain. Out of the soul of the church there is
absolutely no salvation for any human being. And as no one can
be united with the soul of the church who is by his own grievous
fault out of the passive and active union with the body of the
church, there is no salvation out of the visible body and society of
the faithful for such persons, and no other appointed and ordinary
way of salvation except the Catholic Church alone.

This is beautifully expressed by St. Augustine :

" I have said, my brethren, that what the Lord hath set before us, in eat-
ing of his Flesh and drinking of his Blood, is that we should dwell in him
and he in us. We dwell in him when we are his members, and he dwelleth
in us when we are his temple. But the bond whereby we are made his
members is oneness ; and what is the cause of oneness but love ? And love
of God, whence is it? Ask the apostle. 'The love of God,' saith he, 'is
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us ' (Rom.
v. 5). So ' it is the spirit that quickeneth.' It is the spirit that maketh lively
the limbs ; nor is the quickening power of the spirit shed through any
limbs but such as remain in union with the body whose the spirit is. The
spirit that thou hast in thee, O man, and whereby thou art a man, doth that
spirit shed life through any limb cut off from thy flesh ? By ' spirit ' I mean
soul. The soul quickeneth no limbs but such as remain attached to the body.
Cut one off, and the soul quickeneth it no more, for it is separate from the
oneness of thy body. These things I say, that we may love oneness and
dread division. In sooth, there is nothing which a Christian ought so
much to dread, as to be cut off from the Body of Christ ; he is no longer a

486 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [July,

member of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ no longer quickeneth him.
' Now, if any man,' saith the apostle, ' have not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of his ' " (Rom. viii. 9).*

The likeness of the church with its body and soul to man as
composed of soul and body is only analogical, inasmuch as the
church is a moral and riot a physical being. Hence, the union
with the visible church is not absolutely necessary to spiritual
life. The ordinary medium by which the knowledge of revealed
truth is communicated and grace infused, is not the only one
which God has provided, nor does he need to use any medium
whatever, if he chooses to work miraculously. In whatever way
knowledge of God and his truth sufficient for an act of faith is
communicated, that act can be elicited by the aid of interior grace,
and when faith exists in the soul, hope and love can follow from
it by the aid of the same grace. Faith in God as the supreme
good, together with the will to seek this good in preference to
all inferior good, is the only necessary disposition for receiving
sanctifying grace. God, who wills the salvation of all men and
has given his Son for all, cannot fail to infuse sanctifying grace
into a soul thus disposed, even though it is incapable of makin
use of the ordinary means. Those who have never even hear
of the Bible or of Christ can, therefore, be sanctified by the Hoi
Spirit and obtain salvation. If they have faith in God, they i
plicitly believe all that God has revealed, though they have n
explicit knowledge of anything except the one primary truth o
which their faith terminates. If they love God, they have th
implicit will to obey all those commandments which are unknow
to them. They are implicit and inchoate Catholic Christian
and if one had evidence that thousands or millions of such pe
sons have lived and died holily, their holiness would not furnis
the slightest objection to the exclusive claim of the Catholi
Church to the note of sanctity.

The great multitude of the baptized, having an explicit beli
in the principal articles of the Catholic faith, who have lived an
died out of the exterior communion of the church, not havi
wilfully apostatized, have had far better means and opportunities
of grace than those who have had no Christian instruction.
Protestants have not, it is true, any sacraments except baptism
and matrimony. But all those who have not abandoned the sym-
bols of doctrine which were retained by the great Protestant
sects, have the tradition and teaching of the Catholic Church and

* Twenty-seventh Tract on John. Lord Bute's Translation. Eng. Brev., Office of Sun
within the Octave of Corpus Christi.

unday

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 487

the true sense of the Bible brought into contact with their minds
and hearts, sufficiently for eliciting explicit acts of faith in several
of the principal mysteries contained in the Catholic Creed, Faith
is the root of all justification and Christian righteousness. No
matter how obscurely the object of faith may be presented to the
intellect, if it is really presented and a real act of divine faith
is elicited, this act contains virtually in its essence the principle
which gives form and quality to the clearest and most explicit
acts terminated on the object presented in the clearest and most
explicit manner. Though the knowledge of the truth actually
revealed by God may be very imperfect, yet all the unknown
truth is implicitly believed as virtually contained in the known
truth, and in the intention of believing on the veracity of God
whatever he has revealed as soon as it is made known. Wherever
sanctifying grace subsists, the habit of faith subsists as contained
in it, and this habit is not lost except by an act directly and wil-
fully contrary to the act of faith. So far as faith is concerned,
therefore, there is no difficulty in supposing that persons who are
out of the communion of the church may have it, if they have
once received the infused gift of faith, and are invincibly ignorant
f their obligation to obey the teaching authority of the Catholic
hurch. As baptism makes all who have been baptized passive
embers of the body of the church, faith makes all believers im-
rfect participators in her interior life, even though they may
be in the state of sin. But if they are free from sin by virtue of
perseverance in the state of baptismal innocence, or by virtue of
perfect contrition for their actual sins, they have then the fides
formata or faith made lively and perfect by love, which unites
them perfectly with the soul of the church.

When we consider, therefore, the question how far the moral
goodness and virtue, the religious zeal and piety, and all the
good works, whose existence among Protestants is manifest and
undeniable, proceed from the supernatural grace of the Holy
Spirit, it turns exclusively upon this one point : What is the pro-
bability that they are in good faith, having a sincere love of the
truth and faithfully obeying the dictates of conscience ?

In times and countries where the Catholic Church is not " as
a city set on a hill," in the face and eyes of all men, it is manifest-
ly impossible that she should be known except through laborious
study and research. This is possible only to a few, and in how
many cases those who have had learning and leisure enough to
be able to make this research have been bound in conscience to
make it, it is impossible to determine. It is reasonable, therefore,

488

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

[July,

to conclude, that under such circumstances, as a general rule,
those who have professed to hold and to put in practise the re-
ligious doctrines and precepts which they have been taught, have
been sincere and in good faith. In proportion to the general dif-
fusion of knowledge respecting the Catholic Church, and to the
extension of her visible being within the horizon of actual obser-
vation, the difficulty of recognizing her just claims, and the fa-
cility of perceiving the evidence of her divine character, are re-
spectively diminished and increased. But, for measuring the in-
terior obstacles which may prevent minds from perceiving the
evidence of Catholic truth when the exterior obstacles are r<
moved, we can have no exact criterion. How far even intelli-
gent and educated persons may be intellectually blinded by ii
herited prejudice, by misapprehensions, by an unconscious influ-
ence of old habits of thought, of associations, affections, natun
interests, and all the accidents which affect the intellect directly 01
through the heart, so as to persist in error without grievous wil
ful fault, we will not attempt even to conjecture. That all wh<
love God are the children of God, and will be saved, if they pei
severe, is certain. It is equally certain, that those who knowing,
ly and wilfully shut out the light of divine truth from their minds
or refuse to follow the light when it shines upon them, do not
love God. The question as to how many Protestants have be(
or are in good faith, or in the state of grace, has no bearing or
the practical matter of the duty of submission to the Catholic
Church. No one can evade obedience to the precept of the Loi
commanding all to hear the teaching word of the Catholic an<
Apostolic episcopate commissioned by himself, under the pretexl
that faith, accompanied by love, in whatever way it is acquin
suffices for justification and salvation. For faith, if genuine, ii
plicitly contains belief in the church and all the church propoj
and love cannot exist without the purpose of keeping all th<
commandments. Even though a person who has been up to
certain time in invincible ignorance or doubt respecting a part
the Catholic Faith, may be actually justified and holy, as soon
his ignorance becomes vincible he is bound to overcome it, as sooi
as his doubt becomes no longer prudent and reasonable, he ii
bound to put it aside by an act of firm assent' to the truth suJ
ciently proposed, and he is bound to act accordingly, by pi
fessing the faith and receiving the sacraments of the Catholi<
Church. If he fails to obey, he loses the grace of justificatioi
and if he fails to believe he loses the gift of faith.

The argument from the moral and supernatural goodness ex-

1 8 So.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 489

isting apart from the visible communion of the church against
her exclusive claims, is therefore worthless.

There is, moreover, a great responsibility resting upon the
consciences of all those who by reason of their superiority in in-
telligence and education and their public profession of belief in
the Gospel, are looked up to as guides and teachers in religion,
especially if they have the official position of presidency in their
ecclesiastical societies. Whatever may be proved in the abstract
of the nullity of their reasons for dissent from the secure judg-
ment of the universal church, they have practically a great
weight of authority in the estimation of a multitude of persons.
Their judgment passes for a judgment of men competent in the
matters to which they have given thought and study. The com-
mon sense of the multitude teaches them that there ought to be
consent and agreement of the competent in respect to things
which are made certain by adequate motives of scientific or
credible certitude. They naturally infer, therefore, that dissent
and disagreement among professed teachers of Christianity is a
sign of a want of sufficient grounds for a certain knowledge and
understanding of Christianity which is an inherent defect in its
very essence and nature. So, then, faith comes to be popularly
regarded as subjective and sentimental. Doctrines are only pro-
bable opinions. The widest door is open to indifferentism and
rationalism, to scepticism and infidelity. There can be no doubt
that the persistent and incurable divisions and dissensions which
are the necessary and logical result of the Protestant principle so
far obscure the visible evidence of the notes of the church, as to
weaken the power and influence of the Christian religion in the
nominally Christian portion of the world, and to hinder the con-
version of the rest of mankind.

There is, therefore, a double obligation resting on those who
profess faith in Jesus Christ as the divine Redeemer and Saviour
of the world, to submit to the authority of the one true church
which he has established. There is the duty which each one
owes to himself to secure his own salvation. There is the duty
which each one owes to all his fellow-men, to give his individual
co-operation to the only efficient and organized society in which
are concentrated all the powers and means for universally diffus-
ing the truth and grace of Christ. The tersely expressed maxim
of Schiller entitled " Pflicht fur Jeden," " Every man's duty,"
can be applied to this case : " Immer strebe zum Ganzen, und
kannst du selber kein Ganzes werden, als dienendes Glied
schliess an ein Ganzes dich an." " Always strive after the Whole,

490 THE VAIN DEVICE OF DIVES IN HELL. [July,

and if you cannot yourself become a Whole, join yourself as a
serviceable member to a Whole." The more personal worth,
moral and intellectual, the more collective energy, influence, and
control of the means and instruments of doing good works there
is, of which Protestants can boast, the greater is the evil of their
separation, the more desirable is their return to the bosom of the
mother church.

THE VAIN DEVICE OF DIVES IN HELL.

1 Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue.'

" How shall I ease this worst of all hell's pain,
Denied the sight of God ! Though it may seem in vaii
Yet will I have recourse to some device :
One drop of water I will beg from Paradise
So small a boon, yet ah ! how great to me,
Will not be missed from heaven's exhaustless treasury-
And, while it sparkles on the finger-tip
Of Lazarus, ere that it pass my thirsty lip,
Or that I plunge my tongue in its refreshing flood
And cool the flame-parched pulses of my blood,
For one brief moment full of bliss untold
Reflected in that tiny mirror's depths I will behold
An image erst imprinted by a ray
Of Light divine that shrined it there for aye
The pictured image of God's Blessed Face,
Whose sight makes heaven heaven, its lack this wofi

place.

O happy thought ! O wisely-planned device !
In that one drop mine eyes will see all Paradise.
Once seen, enough ! the sight can ne'er be lost again.
Farewell, thou cursed realm of banishment and pain !

Pain sharpens wit. Of pain, O Dives ! thou hast sure n<

lack;
But Paradise once lost, no wit can ever win it back.

i88o.] LORD BEACONSFIELD. 491

LORD BEACONSFIELD.

ii.

WHILE on the subject of his writings a few words on Disraeli's
style and method as a novelist, as apart from his politics, may
not be out of place. Brandes starts his study of the statesman
by examination of the writer, and carries the comparison almost
to exaggeration, as did many of Byron's critics when they in-
sisted upon seeing in each of the poet's heroes a reflection of him-
self in one or other of his moods. But the German biographer is
to be trusted in his judgment of the successive novels of his hero,
as far as style and literary accessories are concerned. He fails to
recognize in some of the earlier ones the tone of satire that keeps
the reader always on the alert as to the meaning *' between the
lines," but never misses the delicate touches of wit, the sparkling
bits of description, the caustic pen-portraits that appear amid a
mass of inflated and pretentious perhaps intentionally melodra-
matic talk. " His pathos," however, says Brandes, " which had
never been very simple (naturalness is the one thing no reader
ever found in Disraeli), had considerably degenerated. It had al-
ways been getting more abstract, pompous, and affected, until in
Lotliair, where he allowed himself full scope, it fell into the ab-
I surdities which Bret Harte has so capitally parodied." The pre-
, sent generation of American readers know Lothair by heart, while
the rest of Lord Beaconsfield's novels and other works are almost
unknown to them ; but the author is certainly not at his best in
, his last novel, which contains hardly any lesson or exhibits any
motive. The style is Disraeli's, but an exaggeration of himself ;
the flow of fancy is less free, the mechanism more apparent and
clumsy ; the contrast of principles, always embodied in pictur-
esque human representatives, and never soberly presented on their
own merits, is essentially Disraeli-like ; but the final triumph of
British Philistinism is more conspicuous than usual, and a weary
cynicism, the indifferentism of a thoroughly disillusioned man,
seems to paraphrase the old Hebrew dictum, " Vanity of vanity,
and all is vanity."

Brandes calls it a " more straightforward book " than the
three before-mentioned novels, and the " most openly free-think-
ing work that Disraeli has written," giving as a reason for this

492

LORD BEACONSFIELD.

outspokenness the fact that the author " stands at the summit
his wishes and has realized his schemes, so that he no long*
needs to take various circumstances into consideration." In'hii
earlier works, even in Alroy, there is hardly any sensuousness
not that he failed to appreciate its artistic value as an element
fiction, but because he had an aim in view with which sensuoi
description was incompatible : " He desires, above all things, to
read by the general public; to be a drawing-room author, recoi
mended by a mother to her daughter." We think another reas*
was -his leaning to the artificialities of civilized life, his keen relij
of the ultra-refinements which made of him in his youth a dand 1
a gastronome, and a fastidious social critic. Passion in its broad*
phases must be distasteful to such a nature, but that he had
sympathy with " bourgeois " prudery has been elsewhere demoi
strated. His love-scenes are often stilted ; the talk is such as ii
English sounds either pedantic or phrenetic ; his fancy leads hii
to an Oriental effervescence of simile which to Western, especially
English, readers is disagreeable because it seems theatrical : Enj
lishmen in real life are curt and clumsy at love-making, and thij
blundering wooing is in itself a distinctive charm of their ra<
Aptness of metaphor or -elegance of pleading are the last
to be expected of the mind of John Bull in love, but beneath thi
awkwardness there is true delicacy towards women and a since]
respect for them. Disraeli has never succeeded in representing
real English love-scene, while many novelists considered inferi*
to him have done so ; this is, no doubt, an accident of rac
Among other passions he is more at home ; ambition especial]
is vividly portrayed in his novels, and in. the Young Duke is
appallingly graphic gambling scene which Brandes singles out
masterly :

"Another morning came, and there they sat, ankle-deep in cards,
attempt at breakfast now, no affectation of making a toilet or airing tl
room. There they sat, in total, in positive forgetfulness of everything bi
the hot game they were hunting down. There was not a man in the rooi
except Tom Cogit, who could have told you the name of the town in whh
they were living. There they sat, almost breathless, watching every tui
with the fell look in their cannibal eyes which showed their total inability
to sympathize with their fellow-beings. All forms of society had long
forgotten. There was no snuff-box handed about now for courtesy, adi
ration, or a pinch; no affectation of occasionally making a remark uj
any other topic but the all-engrossing one. Lord Castlefort rested with
arms on the table. A false tooth had got unhinged ; his lordship, who
any other time would have been most annoyed, coolly put it in his pock<
His cheeks had fallen, and he looked twenty years older. Lord Dice hi
torn off his cravat, and his hair hung down over his callous, bloodl*

i88o.] LORD BEACONSFIELD. 493

cheeks, straight as silk. Temple Grace looked as if he were blighted by
lightning, and his deep-blue eyes gleamed like a hyena's."

Some of Bulwer's heroes get into like situations, though a
vein of light-heartedness foreign to Disraeli distinguishes Bul-
wer's sketches of fashionable dissipation. His Parisians is one of
his best efforts in that line, and the gloomy cynicism of some of
his early writings is as absent from that -work as the mysticism of
others. It is a temptation to compare the two writers, but it
would be unjust to Disraeli to pursue the comparison too minute-
ly. Kenelm Chillingly is a reformer as well as Tancred ; but
though he succumbs to the tyranny of custom, he has a deeper
nature, more akin to humanity, and one feels that the man
Kenelm, grown to middle age, will be wise and forbearing, while
Tancred at the same age will be jaunty and self-satisfied. Dis-
raeli's modern crusaders are always driven by feeling, impulse,
imagination, while two of the reformers sketched by another
novelist whose favorite problems are more social than political
present a sharp contrast to them in their fidelity to principle and
: reason. These are Felix Holt and Daniel Deronda. The for-
mer has the more definite purpose and the greater strength of
; mind ; the latter is somewhat superstitious and personally supine
: until the revelation he was waiting for rouses his energies, but it
is conscience, not expediency, which alike urges and detains his
' action. Deronda leads one to the kindred subject of Disraeli's
race affinities, and his worship of his nation, its history and its
local associations. He travelled early in Palestine, Syria, and
Egypt, and his love of the Biblical Jerusalem and belief in the
i destiny of the Hebrew people issued in the Wondrous Tale of Air oy ^
the hero being one of the princes of the Captivity who ruled as
tributaries under the caliphate of Bagdad, and took advantage of
a period of weakness and disorganization to set up an indepen-
dent Hebrew commonwealth, which collapsed from the causes
familiar to readers of Old Testament history heathen alliances
, and idolatrous wives. Lord Beaconsfield's constant and, one can-
not but believe, sincere love for his race is the redeeming trait of
a character not morally great, and more than commonly soured
at its source. This feeling was the deepest, truest, sweetest, and
healthiest of his nature ; it is the point which none can fail to
admire and sympathize with ; his noblest because his only disin-
terested emotion. It has served no political purpose, and the
fact of his being a Jew is to this day thrown in his teeth as an
opprobrium by ignorant men. He alone among the Tories has
been the consistent advocate of political equality for the Jews,

494 LORD BEACONSFIELD. [July,

though, as a rule, the Jewish vote is mainly enlisted on the Liberal
side. He was mindful of Jewish claims when the Berlin treaty
was made, though he affected great wariness and lack of enthu-
siasm on the subject of the kindred claims of other faiths and
races. He has been unswerving in his devotion to what he calls
the Semitic idea, which to him is rather a matter of race than of
revelation ; and some of the contrasts in his political career, the
contradictory advocacies to which he has committed himself, se-
renely finding explanations good enough for the questionei
whom he despised, may be referred to the conflict of his fun<
mental theory of the necessary union of church and state for tl
purposes of authority and order, with his hardly-concealed cc
viction that " Christianity was Judaism for the multitude."
This tender reverence for a faith which, in its most vital and 1<
formal sense, he regarded as still living was the highest feelii
he possessed ; it rose almost to the level of a principle, and
tainly attained the dignity of a motive ; yet it remained for
Moses Montefiore to become the champion of Jewish freedoi
and to identify himself with a project for the repopulation of
lestine by Jews.

The writer has had some slight personal knowledge of Loi
Beaconsfield and his wife. He was acquainted with Catholi<
both among the old English families and converts from Tn
tarianism ; he was once familiar with the movement which led
these conspicuous conversions ; he was on intimate terms wit
several Catholics of high principle, and he was a sensible
practical man in every-day life, and knew well that mediaeval ji
glery was out of fashion ; yet he has deliberately attributed it
Catholic prelates in Lothair a book oddly reminding one of
grotesque Young Duke, a tale of his earliest youth. Of course
did not believe in what he wrote, but it seems never to have
curred to English Catholics to be angry with him for the use
such- devices to stir up antagonism against a church becomii
socially powerful through a certain group of prominent convei
while they have bitterly denounced Gladstone's serious and 01
spoken attacks on " Vaticanism," the new substitute for the ol
Jesuit bugbear of England. Is it because they recognized the fi
tility of one attack and the weight of the personality connect*
with the other ?

Lord Beaconsfield's wife was not in any sense a remarkabl
woman, but she was receptive and sympathetic to a rare degre
Her husband was her idol, almost her fetich ; it has interested

* Tancred.

1 8 So.] LORD BEACONSFIELD. 495

writer more than once to hear her talk of him, which she would
do in the most unaffected way, never restraining herself by the
thought that every detail of his life could fail to be as absorbing
to others as it was to her. She was simple-minded and unsuspi-
cious, a woman to be esteemed and to a great extent imitated, but
lot a woman to influence or change the direction of a man's mind.
>he was touchingly devoted, as the famous story of her crushed
inger proved (though most wives would have done the same for
lany less deserving husbands), and valued her position as minister
his home-comforts as highly and simply as a political " hench-
lan " might his. It was her habit to sit up for him, whenever he
in " the House," to no matter what hour in the morning, and
lave some supper ready for him, which she attended to herself,
the time we speak of Lord Beaconsfield's policy was not so
ill-absorbing, and had not parted his countrymen into such vio-
lently emphasized camps, as within the last few years. It is al-
most impossible now for an Englishman to say with Brandes :
" To me Disraeli is neither an object of admiration nor dislike,
but simply a highly original and interesting character," nor to con-
clude that " when a critic tries to form a conception of and to de-
lineate the character " of a man whose life," like the lives of all great
characters, began in mystic, heroic dreams and a youth of poetic
emotion, ripening into a maturity fruitful of great deeds," he " had
need to be upon his guard, for the subject is ever changing and
demands an ever-changing method ; mere literary criticism must
become psychological, and psychology must embrace the emo-
tions of the individual soul and the spirit of the age. For his bio-
graphy by degrees becomes history, and his history expands at
length into a portion of the history of the world.".

The German author assumes throughout that Lord Beacons-
field's foreign policy has been as successful as he claims it to be,
and is recognized as such by Continental powers, who were pre-
viously accustomed to leave the probable action of England out
of their calculations. There is much color for this view, no
doubt, and the influence of Lord Beaconsfield in European coun-
sels has of late been conspicuous, but it is open to question
whether that influence has been profound or compelling. To dic-
tate and to endorse are two very different things, and it appears
to us as if the latter were more specially the role achieved by the
Tory government in European affairs. England has taken a
prominent part in Continental politics, to the neglect of home
legislation, although under the pretext of protection to British
interests abroad ; but she is weakened by internal dissensions and

496 LORD BEACONSFIELD. [July,

impatient of an ostentatious international interference which dis-
regards possible disorganization at home. Notwithstanding her
threats, Russia adroitly gained the endorsement of Europe for all
the important particulars of the previous treaty of San Stefano,
and has since held such a mysterious sword of Damocles over the
head of England in Asia that the latter was hurried by apprehen-
sion into complications most difficult to explain, excuse, or retire
from. At home the Conservatives declare and probably with
truth that, had the general election issued in their favor, it was
their intention to bring in various bills for the settlement of ques-
tions affecting land tenure, local government, extension and equal-
ization of the franchise, the burial of Nonconformists, the marriage
laws, etc. Lord Beaconsfield must have seen this necessity, and
he is not a man to set himself against the current of public opin-
ion when he finds its force growing irresistible. Whether or n
he was keen-eyed about the ultimate issue of the Home-Rule agi
tation remains to be proved by events. That his party would, i
it could, gain the support of the Home-Rulers seems to. be
sumed by the Liberals. If Lord Beaconsfield remained Ion
enough in power it would not be a surprise to any close obser-
ver of his policy to see him give manhood-suffrage to the peopl
and disestablish the Church of England. It counts as nothing
that he has always been the champion of the latter, and has neve
been theoretically the advocate of universal suffrage. This
litical versatility, even where the cause lies in conviction, as Eng
land universally recognized it did in Sir Robert Peel's repeal o:
the Corn Laws, does not meet with the approval of the mor
conscientious Brandes, who says : " That a party leader under
Parliamentary constitution should be placed at the helm
only signify that the nation, particularly that portion of it which
supports him, desires to afford him the opportunity of carrying
out his principles into practice in legislation ; if he finds it nee
sary, as head of the government, to change his principles, he
in duty bound to resign his office " ; yet he goes on to say wha
seems to contradict this axiom : " For power should be the rewar
of political sagacity, forethought, and success, and he who p
sesses these qualifications should also taste the sweets of power."
A view of English politics from a German stand-point has i
interest. Brandes sees in Lord Beaconsfield's Indian and East
ern policy a carrying out of the programme of Tancred. H
points to the creation of the official title, " Empress of India," to
the Prince of Wales' Indian tour, to the employment of Indian
troops in Europe, to the protectorate of Asia Minor, to the ac-

i88o.] LORD BEACONSFIELD. 497

quisition of Cyprus and the commercial control of the Suez
Canal by the buying up of the stock, to the Afghan war, and
" the strong inclination he (Lord Beaconsfield) has shown to make
short work of both Chambers when he wanted, by decisive action,
to steal a march on a powerful adversary who was under no ob-
ligation to announce his schemes to any popular assembly," as
indications that England has realized Disraeli's prophecy of be-
coming " an Asiatic power." The German critic, convinced as
he is of the weakness of the foreign policy that distinguished
Gladstone's administration, judges that it was not so much this
supineness, but the " daring and not always judicious internal re-
forms " of that government, which brought about its downfall.
Perhaps there is some truth in this, because government on prin-
ciple is often in advance of the times, and is apt to be precipitate
in introducing reforms. The Liberals in 1872, much to the dis-
may and disgust of the Tories, passed the Ballot Bill a measure
for the working of which the recent election provided the first
important occasion and in 1873 went on to touch that political
ark, the question of university education in Ireland. English-
men, though they had allowed the Irish Church to go overboard,
were not prepared for so large a measure of conciliation as was
involved in the abolition of the theological (Protestant) faculty
of Dublin University and of the chairs of history and philosophy.
As to the latter proposition, Disraeli had a weapon ready to his
hand : it was not needful to appeal to religious or national pre-
judice ; he could crush the government by fastening on it the
stigma of intellectual retrogression. He made a powerful speech,
skilfully mingled of conventional appeals to time-honored pre-
cedents and of denunciations of the illiberal and ignorant atti-
tude of the administration towards studies of the highest value.
Again, it was fated that on an Irish question Lord Beaconsfield
should array against himself the inflammable material in the
House and across St. George's Channel, while, with a persistent
parallelism, it was his own government which in 1879 solved
the same question for a time by a surrender, nearly as complete,

privileges quite as dear to Irish and English Protestants,
randes does not forget to mention the astounding vitality of this
extraordinary statesman, by pointing to the fact that since his
entrance into the Upper House, which every one thought meant
honorable retirement, " the deeds of Lord Beaconsfield have
thrown those of Benjamin Disraeli into the shade." He concludes
by asking, Is he a great man? is he a representative Jew? ani
answers with discrimination :

VOL. XXXI. 32

498 LORD BEACONSFIELD. [July,

" He is above all a great example of the steady perseverance of genius.
He understands the art of striving and waiting. . . . Perseverance is not a
simple, indissoluble quality. It may combine many elements and have
many sources. Lord Beaconsfield's perseverance may be assigned to his
imaginative character ; he has had, to a surprising extent, the faculty of fore-
seeing his destiny, and, because he foresaw it, he persevered. . . . He ap-
peared at first to be a born satirist, . . . but he did not find his peculiar
sphere until he created the form most natural to him, that of the political
novel. It was not a generally recognized form of art, but it was that which
gave the most flattering scope to his talents. . . . Can he truly be said to be
a representative of the Semitic race ? If the question be put in this direct
form it must be decidedly answered in the negative. For the Jewish mind
has revealed itself in far more affluent and nobler forms than in Disraeli's
comparatively limited mental range ; ... he certainly cannot be looked upoi
as the personification of the many-sidedness of the Jewish race : he is want-
ing in its idealistic tendencies. But of the persistent energy, the industry,
the perseverance, the practical instincts, the quickness and the wit, the
love of pomp and the ambition of his race (why not add the faculty ol
moulding and using alien material?), he is the typical representative. . . . L
he a great man ? Not if the word be taken in its precise and correct sense
... The statesmen . . . like Stein and Wilhelm von Humboldt (he mighl
add Pitt and Gladstone) were great men because, . . . undaunted by dis-
couragement, they . . . strove to raise their contemporaries to their own
level. They were also thoroughly upright and honorable men, and no one
could ever be in doubt what their opinions really were. Lord Beaconsfiel<
is a man of a different stamp. Born during the period of reaction, he soon
comprehended the age, accommodated himself to it, proclaimed its favorite
doctrines in novel forms, and only to a certain extent bade defiance to the
spirit of the age because he paid homage to still .stronger and more univer-
sal prejudices. From the first he was wanting in the scientific spirit ; ... it
is always to be regretted when a man who desires to rule his contemporaries
talks like a parish clerk of the greatest scientific problems and ideas of his
time. . . . Still, greatness is not an absolute quantity, and Lord Beaconsfiel<
is, at any rate, a man of great talent and ability. He was always ambitious,
and he whose first aim is to gain honor and power himself, and makes it
only a secondary consideration to employ his talents and the power they have
won for him in the service of humanity, will inevitably forfeit true great-
ness as he gains brilliance of position and renown. Like all others, h<
once, in his youthful days, came to a point where two ways met, the on<
leading to power and influence and high position, the other that followed by
tetter men, who seek success only in the second place, and above all things
remain true to their convictions. . . . When Lord Beaconsfield came to these
cross-roads his ambition and love of power made choice for him. But
scarcely was the choice made when all the love of truth and liberty whicl
he possessed began a long and continued revolt against it."

And here the author makes a labored apology for his subject
by comparing in detail the occasions when Disraeli shocked his
colleagues by championing the Chartists, the Jews, the unen-
franchised householder, all the elements deemed dangerous and

i88o.] THE VISIT TO THE FORGE. 499

revolutionary, with his theoretical strictness of Anglican ortho-
doxy and his uncompromising assertion of the natural headship of
the aristocracy. Brandes calls him a great statesman according
to the standard of the nineteenth century, or, if not, then at least
"a man capable of controlling a great political situation "; and
here he launches into an admiring review of the distinctive
Eastern policy of the English prime minister, which he con-
siders masterly, successful, and consistent. But is it honorable,
straightforward, or just ? Is it based on principle or on interest ?
Does the fact of such and such a thing being advantageous to
England make that thing right ? There is something beyond
patriotism, and that is justice ; and in their apprehension and in-
terpretation of these two words lies the issue to be fought out
between the two great political parties which the recent election
has placed face to face with each other in England in such signi-
ficant and important relations.

THE VISIT TO THE FORGE.

TRANSLATION FROM SCHILLER.

A GOOD young page was Fridolin,
Who Savern's countess served ;
Against his God he feared to sin ;
Loyal, would not have swerved,
Though proud caprice had marked the sway
His lady held in gentle way
That won his heart, for he was willing
The Lord to serve, hard tasks fulfilling.

From earliest dawn of coming day

Till tolled the Vesper hour,
Busy in serving her alway

He toiled with all his power ;
And if perchance his lady mild
Said, " Take it easier, my child,"
His moistened eye betrayed the feeling
That slightest rest, from work was stealing.

500

THE VISIT TO THE FORGE.

'Mid all the obsequious vassal throng

The countess prized this boy,
Sounded his praises loud and long,

Observed his ways with joy -
And tenderness, as though her son.
Such love the ready zeal had won
With which the page fulfilled his duty,
His winning mien and youthful beauty.

[July,

Now, in the huntsman Robert's breast

These honors to his comrade's worth
Woke jealousy, which gave no rest,

But into venomed spite broke forth.
A plan of malice dark he laid,
And to the count these words he said
As they from hunting were returning,
Which fired his soul with anger burning.

" How happy are you, noble sir,"
With cunning Robert spoke,

" Within whose breast no serpents stir,
Whose sleep no doubt has broke :

The wife who lives for you alone

Is girded by the spotless zone

Of chastity, all art repelling

Of love in lawless bosoms swelling."

The count with sudden anger frowned ;

" What words are these, you knave !
I build upon more solid ground,

And not upon the wave
Of woman's faithfulness in love,
That flattery's breeze can lightly move.
I am myself my lady's warder
From every tempter's snares to guard her.

" Most justly thought," the other said,
" Contempt alone deserves

A servant born, by madness led,
The lady whom he serves

i88o.] THE VISIT TO THE FORGE. 501

To love in such audacious wise,
On her to gaze with longing eyes
' What ! " said the count with look ferocious,
" Doth live and breathe that wretch atrocious ? "

" Ah well ! what every mouth doth fill

My lord hath never heard !
But if he choose to keep it still,

My mouth shall speak no word."
' Death on thee, villain ! " spoke the count,
In anger stern ; " thy tale recount.
Who dares to Cunegunda's beauty
His eyes to raise? " " The page on duty,

" The fair-complexioned, handsome page,"

The cunning villain said,
While hot and cold with feverish rage

The count attention paid.
Indeed, my lord ! and can it be
By festal board you do not see
Yourself neglected, and your servant
Waiting on her so spry and fervent !

" See here the verses breathing love

The daring wretch hath written,
And from the countess asking love

Like one with madness smitten.
The gracious countess, sweet and mild,
From pity for the silly child,
Said nothing ; I myself am sorry
My foolish talk has made you worry."

Then spurred in rage his charger fleet

The count to neighboring wood,
Where in its fierce and blazing heat

A smelting furnace stood.
Here day and night rose flaming red
The fires his busy vassals fed,
Which rocks might melt, and bellows blowing
Stirred sparks and flames like hell-fire glowing.

5O2 THE VISIT TO THE FORGE. [Jul

Water and fire their force unite,

In strong conjunction bound ;
The stream that leaps from rocky height

A mill-wheel whirls around ;
The clattering works go day and night,
The hammer beats with measured might,
The iron, forced to bend and weaken,
Submits and into shape is stricken.

Two knaves who seemed to suit his end

He called, and gave their task :
" The messenger I first shall send

Who in my name shall ask,
Have you fulfilled the count's command ?
You seize and with relentless hand
Fling down into yon hell-fire burning :
Let me not see his form returning."

Glad of the news that brutal pair

With hearts as iron hard,
Within their bosoms' savage lair

Soft feelings never stirred.
They in the fire fresh fuel threw,
The bellows with fierce joy they blew,
And, that their blood-thirst might be sated,
Impatient for their victim waited.

Then Robert with a smiling face

Spoke craftily this word :
" Get ready quick to run a race

On message of your lord."
To Fridolin the count said, " Go
Unto the forge, and be not slow ;
The blacksmiths ask if quick and willing
My last command they are fulfilling."

The page replied, " It shall be done,"

At once prepares to start,
Yet pauses, thinking of that one

He loved with all his heart ;
Runs to the countess to inquire
If on the way she might desire
Some task performed " To serve thee, lady,
Thy duteous page is always ready."

i88o.] THE VISIT TO THE FORGE. 503

Whereon the Lady of Savern

Replied in gentle tone,
" To hear a Mass my heart doth burn,

Yet sickness of my son
Obliges me in my own place
To send you to the seat of grace.
Go then to Mass, with this condition :
For me you pray with true contrition."

Glad of this welcome charge, the boy,

Both orders to obey,
Runs through the village street with joy,

Nor loiters on the way,
When lo ! the chime of clanging bells
From the church-tower its message tells
That to the altar, decked and lighted,
The Mass to hear all are invited.

" From the dear Lord run not away

Who meets thee on thy road,"
Thus spoke his heart and bade him stay

Within the house of God.
He did not hear the wonted noise
Of hurrying feet of altar-boys :
All worked at harvesting with fervor,
But never one to act as server.

Quickly the page made up his mind

The place of sacristan to take.
" ' Tis not," he said, " to lag behind

When time is spent for heaven's sake."
So first he helps the priest to vest,
Gives cincture, stole, and all the rest
Prepares, the Holy Mass for saying,
The Credence with due care arraying.

And now, with all made quickly ready,

He serves as ministrant :
The priest precedes with movement steady,

The Missal on his breast aslant,
Kneels on the right and on the left,
Observes each sign alert and deft,
Three times with silver bell announcing
The priest Ter-Sanctus is pronouncing.

504 THE VISIT TO THE FORGE. I July,

Then, when the priest low genuflects

At time of consecration,
And with both hands the Host erects

To make the elevation,
The present God the boy makes known
With silver bell's clear, tinkling tone.
All worship Christ with still emotion
And strike their breasts with deep devotion.

Each holy rite, precise and fine

Doth Fridolin fulfil,
In all the offices divine

Of well-taught, practised skill,
With form erect and level head,
Till, Dominus Vobiscum said
And spoken Ite Missa est,
The faithful are dismissed and blessed.

He next puts by the holy things

With speedy hand and neat,
The sacristy in order brings,

Then runs, with hasty feet
And quiet conscience, to the place
Of blazing forge and swift mill-race,
And as he goes he keeps on praying,
His last twelve Paters softly saying.

When he draws near the thick black smoke

And vassals round the fire,
He asks if what the count had spoke

Were done to his desire.
The vassals with a savage grin
Point to the fire the forge within :
" He is provided for securely ;
The count will praise his servants, surely."

He brought this word to Lord Savern,

Running with all his might,
Who, seeing Fridolin return,

Scarce trusted to his sight.
" Unhappy wight ! where hast thou hied ? "
" I come from forge." " Not so ! " he cried ;
" Upon the way thou wast delaying."
" Only so long as I was praying.

i88o.] THE VISIT TO THE FORGE.

" For, when from you on message sen:,

Your pardon I demand,
To ask the countess first I went

If she might aught command.
To hear a Mass upon my way
She ordered ; glad did I obey,
And, while I knelt in adoration,
Four chaplets said for your salvation."

The count grew faint in his dismay ;

His soul was filled with fear.
" And, boy ! what was the answer, say !

From forgemen you did hear? "
" My Lord ! I could not understand ;
They laughed and pointed with the hand
' He is provided for securely,
The count will praise his servants, surely

505

" But Robert ! " spoke the count. " Oh ! say,"

And then ran cold his blood,
" Did you not meet him by the way ?

I sent him to the wood."
" Neither in wood nor open ground,
Of Robert slightest trace I found."
Aghast, the count exclaimed, " This token
Show^s that the Judge on high hath spoken."

The count, with kindness never shown

Before, then grasped the hand
Of Fridolin within his own ;

And when, in tears, the two did stand
Before the lady, " See," he cries,
While she looks on with wondering eyes,
" God's angels guard this boy so holy :
His ways are just, man's judgments folly ! *

506

THE FOREST OF ARDENNES.

[July,

THE FOREST OF ARDENNES.

THE forest of Ardennes is to every lover of Shakspere
second Arcadia where they " fleet the time carelessly as they di<
in the golden world." In the most ideal of his plays he has soft-
ened the gloom of this once terrible forest, and transformed il
into the very realm of fancy and poetic loveliness. The shade oi
its melancholy boughs, its wild streams swollen needlessly wit!
the tears marked by the pensive Jaques as giving " more to that
which had too much," the banished duke holding his sylvan cou]
beneath the green roof of trees, the tenderness and sportive gayet;
of Rosalind, whose wit " bubbles up and sparkles like the livinj
fountain," make up a picture the very ideal of all that is paston
and romantic.

Boiardo, in his Orlando Innamorato, gives us another glimpse oi
this mysterious forest. It was here the beautiful Angelica foun<
Rinaldo sleeping beneath a leafy bower among lilies and wil<
roses, beside a running stream whose enchanted waters dispose
every one who tasted thereof to the gentle passion of love, whil<
not far off was a fountain that turned love as surely into hat(
A little later Orlando found her fallen asleep in the same plac<
exhausted with grief at Rinaldo's flight, the grass seeming t<
flower on all sides of her out of sheer joy at her presence, and th<
soft river murmuring, as it flowed along, its everlasting note ol
love.

The number of adventures told in ancient song and romanc<
as having taken place in the forest of Ardennes, whether by th<
Four Sons of Aymon, for instance, or by Renaud when his goo<
steed Baiart left the impression of its foot on one of the hai
rocks, show how deeply its sombre majesty impressed the imagi-
nation of the middle ages. From remotest times, indeed, it exer-
cised a strange fascination over the popular mind. The gloom ol
its sacred oaks covered with mistletoe ; the menhirs and dolmens
around which mysterious rites were performed ; the vast cav<
like the Trou du Han, which none durst enter, and the excej
tional character of the inhabitants, excited a general awe. In th<
time of Csesar it was . a place of refuge for exiles and criminals
Tacitus speaks of the " seven forests of Ardennes " that were ai
asylum for those under the ban of the law. In the middle ag(
too, it afforded shelter for all sorts of political offenders and th<

THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. 507

outcasts of society, who banded together in the greenwood like
Robin Hood and his followers, and lived by robbing and pillag-
ing, or taking part in the feuds of the neighboring lords. Those
more peacefully inclined became miners, smiths, or charcoal-
burners, whose grim appearance and lurid fires but added to the
sinister aspect of the place. Necromancers and sorcerers were
supposed to carry on their unholy spells and incantations in its
gloomiest recesses, and the table of the enchanter Maugis is to be
seen at this day. In the romance of Parthenopeus of Blois, Ar-
dennes is represented as an enchanted forest, many parts of which
had never been trodden by man, and where he who was lost
therein was likely to be devoured by. lions, tigers, leopards, and
all such animals as the poetic imagination of the people usually
assigned as guards to the abode of magicians. In this region were
the towers of Franchimont, sung by Scott, where fierce blood-
hounds kept guard with a huntsman beside the iron chest which
an aged necromancer for a hundred years had tried in vain to
open by magic word and spell. Fairies, elves, and all kinds of
fantastic beings not yet wholly extinct were believed to hold
revels by moonlight around the springs and in the openings of
the forest. There were ghostly regions, too, where phantoms
were seen flitting to and fro.

The mediaeval legends connected with the Ardennes greatly
enhance their poetic character. M. Michelet says they generally
turn upon the naive image of the church's transforming the wild
beasts of the forest into men and Christians. The wolf of Stave-
lot, for having devoured the bishop's ass, is compelled by the
holy man to labor in its stead and carry stones for the church he
is building. The cross of Christ appears to St. Hubert between
the antlers of a stag, and he spends seven years on the spot, ut-
terly weaned from the vanities of the world. The peasants still
hear the peal of his horn as he hunts by night in the forest he
once loved, and flock across the broad heaths from time to time to
visit his church, believing his body still entire, and that his beard
and nails continue to grow, like those of the Emperor Barbaross*a.

In ancient times the forest of Ardennes was a hundred leagues
in length, and extended from the Rhine to the Meuse, if not be-
yond. Now it occupies only a fourth of the department, 'and to
the mere passer-by is by no means imposing. It is an undulating
region of rather monotonous character, broken here and there by
pastures and villages, and the trees are far from being worthy of
their renown, at least in the eyes of those who have seen the
primeval forests of America. But if you leave the beaten track

piimCV

508 THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. [July,

for the cross-roads you find some beautiful woodland scenery
with heathery hills and numerous streams. The valley of the
Meuse " the silver Meuse," as Wordsworth calls it is especially
romantic with its ruined castles and tall limestone cliffs

" That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise
From the smooth meadow-ground serene and still."

Among the most striking castles in the Ardennes is that of
Bouillon, which hangs over the Semoi, its dungeons hewn out of
the cliff on which it stands. Not far from Spa is the interesting
castle called by the people Les Quatre Fits Aymon, once owned by
William de la Marck, the Wild Boar of Ardennes, so renowned
in history and romance. The feudal hold of Mirwart on the
Homme, in the very heart of the Ardennes, is of imposing as-
pect. Not far off is the picturesque village of Rochefort, over-
looked by its castle, where Lafayette was taken prisoner by the
Austrians in 1792. Here you can easily visit the old abbey of St.
Hubert, for ages a centre of particular religious interest. St. Hu-
bert was the great apostle of the Ardennes, and the gratitude of
the people is shown by his continued popularity and the number
of churches that tell the story of his conversion, on their walls
or in their windows. As the patron of hunters, he is of all climes.
His life, too, is of historic interest, for he not only Christian-
ized the vast forest, which till his time was chiefly covered with
the darkness of paganism, but he founded the thriving city of
Li6ge.

St. Hubert was a native of Aquitaine, but sprang from the
Merovingian race of kings. His grandfather, Charibert, the bro-
ther of Dagobert I., was crowned sovereign duke of Aquitaine in
the year 628, and held his court at Toulouse. He married Gi-
selle, the only daughter of Amandus, Duke of Gascony, whose
wife was the sister of St. Amand, a saint popular to this day in
southwestern France, and a man of such diffusive piety that
he is described as tout rayonnant with light divine. His niece
Giselle, who married the Duke of Aquitaine, left two sons,
named Boggis and Bertrand. Bertrand married Phigeberte, and
Boggis St. Ode, two sisters whose family is unknown. It was,
however, from Austrasia. Bertrand's only son was St. Hubert,
who was born about the year 656. St. Ode * became the mother
of Eudes, or Eudon, famous as the duke of Aquitaine in the time
of Charles Martel. She is said to have been the chief instructor
of St. Hubert's boyhood. His education otherwise was chiefly

* St. Ode is honored October 23.

eny

tS8o.] THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. 509

ilitary. It was in the vicinity of the Pyrenees, where hunting
s always been a passion among the nobility, that he acquired
at love for the chase for Avhich he became so noted. Here
ere to be found the wolf, bear, wild boar, and the urus, which
scd to gather around the mountain chapels and howl while the
octurnal offices were sung. At twenty-four years of age Hu-
rt went to Austrasia and became a member of the household of
epin d'Heristal, his kinsman, who held his court at Jupille, on
e Meuse. Pepin induced him to marry Floribanne, daughter
f the Count of Lou vain, in order to attach him permanently to
is interests. The court of Pepin was by no means a school of
irtue, and Hubert soon lost the early religious impressions made
y the teachings of his saintly aunt. Old legends say that one
hristmas, or, according to others, Good Friday, instead of at-
nding the religious offices of the day, he yielded to his love for
e chase and set out for the forest of Ardennes. Here he started
white stag of remarkable beauty, which suddenly turned towards
im, displaying between its horns the image of the crucified Re-
eemer, from which a voice issued : " Hubert, Hubert, how long
,'ilt thou pursue the wild beasts of the forest and neglect the sal-
ation of thy soul ? If thou returnest not to a better life thou
;ilt be cast into hell, out of which there is no redemption." Hu-
rt was the more struck at this marvellous apparition because
he image of Christ on the cross was very rare in the religious
presentations of that period. The cross was generally covered
with ornaments, or had on it some emblem of the great Sacrifice,
such as the paschal lamb. Hubert fell from his horse, his face to
he ground. He remembered the wondrous legends of the stag
hat had been told him as he sat on the knees of St. Ode in his
hildhood, in several of which that typical animal had received
the gift of speech. It was a white stag that led his ancestor Clo-
vis to the ford at Vicnne. It was another of unusual size, pur-
sued by St. Julian, that suddenly turned to reproach him and pre-
dict he would one day slay his father and mother. And a stag
with a crucifix between its horns led to the conversion of St. Eus-
ce in the second century.

Several artists have depicted St. Hubert prostrate in the for-
est before the cervus CJiristns, as St. Eucher, the monk of Lerins,
called the mystic stag two centuries before a picturesque sub-
ject, portraying the feelings of grateful adoration called forth in
the thoughtful sportsman when brought face to face with his
own heart in presence of the marvels of creative love.

On leaving the forest Hubert placed himself under the direc-

5io

THE FOREST OF ARDENNES.

tion of St. Lambert, the third successor of St. Amand as bishop
of Maestricht a bishop of such religious fervor that he is said to
have borne coals in the folds of his surplice to kindle the incense be-
fore the altar. He had been in exile seven years for his bold non
licet to Pepin for his unlawful attachment to the beautiful Alpaide,
the mother of Charles Martel. St. Hubert was bound to the
world by his marriage ties, but he now displayed the example of
every Christian virtue at the court of Thierry III., where some
say he held a high office. Floribanne died in 685 at the birth o
St. Floribert. " Thus did death," says the old chronicle, " come t
separate two hearts that had never been disunited by the least mis-
understanding." He now resolved to abandon the world, and to
this end returned his military belt (militia? cinguld) and collar to the
king, and resigned all his dignities, whether at Jupille or at th
court of Thierry. His father died about this time, and he
nounced all claims to the sovereignty of Aquitaine in favor of hi
cousin Eudes, reserving, however, the rights of his son Flori
bert, whom he confided to Eudes at three years of age to be
brought up. He then retired to a hermitage in the gloomy fo
est of Ardennes. Others seem to have followed his example.
We read of St. Monon, of Scotland, who became a hermit here a
little after, and was murdered in his cell by robbers. Not far
from St. Hubert's hermitage was the monastery of Ambra, or an
oratory surrounded by cells, built by St. Bere'gise, the almoner of
Pepin d'H6ristal, out of the remains of a fortress ruined by the
Huns in the fifth century.

After spending seven years in profound solitude St. Hubert
resolved to visit the tomb of the apostles, as his great-uncle St.
Amand had done before him, according to the pious custom of
the middle ages, when pilgrimages were not confined to any ag
or condition, or to either sex.

St. Sergius occupied the papal chair at the time of Hubert's
visit. The two saints met at the door of St. Peter's Church. A
angel of the Lord had just revealed to the pope the recent murde
of St. Lambert, and the arrival of one destined to succeed him as
bishop of Maestricht. He led St. Hubert to the shrine of the
apostles, where he made known to him in detail the martyrdom
of St. Lambert. This fearless saint had refused to bless the cup of
Alpaide at a banquet to which he had been invited. She was
doubly enraged at being frowned upon in the presence of all the
court, and her brother Dodon pursued the bishop as far as the
village of Leodium, where he pierced him to the heart with a jave-
lin while he was praying at the altar of SS. Cosmas and Damian.

THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. 511

St. Hubert's first act at his return home was to visit and weep
er the tomb of his master, St. Lambert, who had been buried in
; the crypt of St. Peter's at Maestricht among his sainted predeces-
sors. Dodon was. alarmed when he heard of his arrival, and went
to waylay him with a band of accomplices ; but the saint over-
came them with the potent sign of the cross and calmly continued
his way. He had a new church built on the spot where St. Lambert
was martyred, and in 708 solemnly transported his remains thither
in presence of a throng of bishops, priests, and laymen from both
sides of the Rhine. This church took the name of St. Lambert,
and became so popular a place of pilgrimage that the offerings
soon sufficed for a college of chaplains. St. Hubert owned a cas-
tle on Mt. Cornillon near by, and from the time of St. Lambert's
removal he conceived such an attachment to Leodium that he
called a council to confer on the expediency of making it
his episcopal see. Perhaps, too, his sagacious eye saw the
material advantages of the site. It now took the name of Le-
gia from a modest stream that rises at the village of Ans and
empties into the Meuse, whence the modern name of Liege. It
soon acquired importance and speedily increased in size. St.
Hubert surrounded it with a wall for defence, drew up civil
laws and municipal regulations, and devised a system of weights
and measures that are used more or less to this day. He made
St. Lambert's his cathedral, and built a church in honor of St.
Peter to commemorate the paternal kindness of Sergius at
Rome.

St. Hubert now undertook to evangelize the forest of Ar-
dennes. We can have no idea of the obstacles to Christian civil
ization in the forests of Gaul and Germany at this period. St.
Amand, however, had successfully encountered them in his two
missions to Gascony. St. Hubert emulated him in the Belgic
forests, where the immense extent, the severity of the climate,*
and the peculiar character of the people increased the difficulty.
In spite of the efforts of St. Remacle and other bishops to Chris-
tianize them, there were still many who worshipped Isis, Belenus,
Arduenna, etc. the latter, the protecting divinity of forests and
the chase, represented wearing a cuirass, a bow unbent in her
hand, and a dog lying at her feet. Here and there in the clear-
ings was a convent or an oratory around which had gathered a
hamlet or village, but the greater part was a wilderness with

* " The icy fang

And churlish chiding of the winter's wind."
Duke in As You Like it.

512 THE FOREST OF ARDENNES.

half-savage people who wandered in bands through the forest an
uncultivated pastures. The men were skilled in the use of we;
pons, and were fond of the chase and all kinds of martial exercij
The heads of their victims in battle they nailed to their cabii
among those of the wild beasts they had slain, and sometim<
they used the skulls as cups at their banquets, and handed thei
down to their children as tokens of their prowess. Some of tl
women were a kind of priestesses, supposed to be admitted to
mysterious commerce with the supernatural world. The whole
sex, in fact, have always taken a prominent and energetic part
public affairs in this region, particularly at Liege, that
tory of men," as it is called, doubtless because the women are
formidable. The forest of Ardennes was dear to St. Hubert'
heart, and its people the most cherished portion of his flock. P<
haps it was by the very power of his love that he induced thei
to abandon their profane rites and accept the Christian religion.

St. Hubert received a warning of his death a year before
took place, and during the intervening time devoutly perseven
in prayer, fasting, and alms-giving. One day he went to hi
church of St. Peter's at Liege, and after prolonged orisons turn<
to the wall, and, extending his arms, measured the place of hi
burial, saying: " Here prepare the place of my sepulture."
died soon after at Tervueren, near Brussels, where he owned Ian
by right of his wife. St. Floribert, his son, had returned froi
Aquitaine, and was with him, and his bed was surrounded
clergy and people, weeping and praying. This was on the 3Oth
May, 727.

The body of St. Hubert was washed with holy respect ai
borne to Liege. When it drew near the city the people cai
out in a .great multitude to meet it, the clergy in their robes, be*
ing the standard of the true cross, with many venerable relics
the saints, and torches and candles all lighted, with unguents ai
precious substances that gave out a sweet odor. With gre<
grief did they place the remains of their glorious pastor ai
bishop in the chapel at St. Peter's, as he had ordained. He w
buried in a stone coffin, which was found a few years since amoi
the ruins of St. Peter's when the canal was dug from Liege
Maestricht. It is a plain sarcophagus of the form in use at tl
time of the Merovingians.

The nearest relatives left by St. Hubert were his son Flori-
bert and his nephew Eudes. St. Floribert, like his father,
nounced his rights in Aquitaine in favor of his cousin, and
made bishop of Liege.

i88o.] THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. 513

The general veneration for St. Hubert still later forced Flori-
bert, now bishop, to enshrine his remains, which was done with
imposing solemnities November 3, 743, in presence of Carloman,
King of the Franks, and all his court. The tomb was opened, and
St. Floribert, uncovering his father's face, bathed it with tears.
It was wholly unchanged, though he had been buried sixteen
years ; the limbs were supple, there was no appearance of death,
and a sweet odor, as of precious spices, issued from the tomb.
The vestments he wore were likewise fresh and unstained. Car-
loman himself, aided by his lords, removed the body from the
tomb and placed it in a new sarcophagus richly sculptured.

But to return to the forest of Ardennes. The old rponastery
of Ambra, founded by St. Beregise in the heart of the forest,
when enlarged in the ninth century, took the name of Andage
from the neighboring stream, and was given to the Benedictines.
They petitioned for the body of St. Hubert, and the bishops in
council at Aix-la-Chapelle acceded to their request in presence of
Louis le Debonnaire. Walcand, Bishop of Liege, opened the sar-
cophagus and found the remains in the same state of preservation
as eighty-two years before. The emperor and a great number of
prelates and nobles accompanied them to the banks of the Meuse,
where they were received by the monks of Andage. On this oc-
casion Louis presented the monastery with rich sacerdotal gar-
ments, sacred vessels, some of the writings of the Fathers, a Psal-
ter written in letters of gold, and a copy of the holy Gospels
adorned with gold and precious stones. St. Hubert's remains
were placed in a chape 'lie ardent l e near the tomb of St. Beregise,
his friend and fellow-laborer in the forest of Ardennes.

Andage from this time became one of the most famous places
of pilgrimage in the north, and to this day crowds of people
come to the abbey church on the 3d of November, the anniver-
sary of the translation of St. Hubert's relics, to have their fore-
Iheads touched by the miraculous stole, and receive small cakes of
bread, blessed at his altar, which are given to the hounds as effi-
cacious in averting madness. A town of about twenty-five
hundred inhabitants has grown up around the abbey, which has
:aken the name of St. Hubert's. The old abbots were the feudal
ords of the surrounding district and the first peers of the duchy
)f Bouillon.

In former times there was an annual hunt on the 3d of
November in honor of the great saint of the greenwood. The
mnters and foresters used first to attend Mass with their hounds,
nd give a flourish on their hunting-horns at the Elevation. Tra-
VOL. xxxi. 33

514 THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. [July,

dition attributes its organization to the following occurrence:
Two lords of the Ardennes in remote times, going to hunt in the
forest for mere pleasure, found no game for a long time in spite
of beating up the woods. At length they bethought themselves
that St. Hubert was a mighty hunter before his conversion, and
made a vow to offer him the first animal they slew. It was hardly
made before their dogs came upon a wild boar

"As large as that in Erymanthean woods,"

which fled towards the abbey, and then stopped as if spent by
fatigue. The chief huntsman, amazed at the size of the animal,
at once resolved, in spite of his vow, to carry it home. As this
thought was passing through his mind the wild boar, as if un-
willing to be withheld from its sacred destination, rushed boldly
through hunters and hounds, and disappeared in the forest, to the
great discomfiture of his pursuers. From this time an annual
hunt was organized by the noblemen of the vicinity, who invaria-
bly consecrated their first game to St. Hubert, and also gave him
a tithe of what they took throughout the year.
The

" Dogs of black St. Hubert's breed,
Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed,"

were a race of hounds of remarkable keenness of scent, bred by
the abbots of Andage, and described as " mighty of body, With legs
somewhat low and short," and said to be descended from the dog
St. Hubert had with him the day of his conversion. The dukes
of 'Burgundy considered them the best of hunters, and they are
still in great request in Belgium and France. The old abbots
used to send three brace of them every year to the king of
France.

All people of the race of St. Hubert are said to have
power of curing hydrophobia by the imposition cf hands, but
have never heard whether the dukes of Fezensac, who are of t
lineage, exercise their prerogative or not. At Lim6, not fai
from Soissons, there is a relic of the saint, and hydrophobia is said
never to have been known in the place. The people assemble
his festival, and the following invocation is very popular:

" Saint Hubert glorieux,
Dieu me soit amoureux,
Trois choses me defend :
De la nuit du serpent,
Mauvais loup, mauvais chien ;

i88o.] THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. 515

Mauvaises betes enragees
Ne puissent ni approcher,
Me voir, ni me toucher,
Non plus qu'etoile au ciel."*

The ancient bishops of Liege loved the solitude of St. Hubert's
forest. Henry, one of them, wept on leaving the abbey, where
he had been passing Lent, out of sorrow at exchanging this abode
of peace for the tumult of the world. And what a touching, sig-
nificant legend is the following, giving us one of those delightful
glimpses into the old mediseval convents now and then afforded
us : Lambert, a monk of St. Hubert's, proud of his noble birth,
going to read the nocturns on the festival of SS. Peter and Paul,
was passing before the abbot without the usual sign of reverence
when he suddenly saw in his arms our Lord in a blaze of glory.
He could hardly read for trembling, and on retiring made a most
humble reverence to the abbot, and, to the surprise of all, burst
into tears.

In the night of October 15, 1568, while the monks of St.

.bert's were devoutly chanting the divine office, the lord abbot
had warning that a band of Huguenots was on the way to pillage
and destroy the abbey. They had barely time to secrete the
remains of St. Hubert, St. Beregise, St. Ostie, St. Grate, and St.
Areapile, with a few other treasures, and then make their escape
to the castle of Mirwart. The Huguenots pillaged the town,
abbey, and hospice, then set fire to the abbey, leaving little more
than the walls that still bear witness to this impiety. For a cen-
tury the monks labored to repair this calamity. The silver shrine,
adorned with gold and precious stones, in which St. Hubert's
body had been kept, had to be sold, with other valuable objects
they had saved, to relieve the actual distress into which they
were plunged. But the precise spot in which the saint's body
was so hastily buried has been forgotten. The hope of its dis-
covery is not wholly lost, and it may come to light after centu-
ries, like the body of St. Eutrope at Saintes.

The abbey was again laid desolate by the revolutionists of
1793. The church was redeemed from profanation in 1808, and
appropriated to the use of the parish, but the monastery has been
transformed into a penitentiary for young delinquents. The
number of religious houses throughout Europe thus changed into
prisons, asylums for idiots and the insane, military store-houses

* Glorious St. Hubert, may God be lovingly inclined to me. Three things defend me from :
injury by seipent, evil wolf, or dog. Let no mad beast come nigh, look at, or touch me, more
than the stars in heaven.

516 THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. [July,

etc., shows how sadly the scattered monks have been avenged by
the vast increase of human woes. There is, however, a perfume
of holy memories in such houses that always penetrates the heart
in spite of the desecration.

King Leopold I. visited St. Hubert's in 1843, an d placed the
church on the list of historic monuments. This led to its resto-
ration. The place is well worth a visit, not only from every
admirer of the great sylvan saint, but from the mere tourist, on
account of the fine proportions of the abbey, the sumptuous
palace of the abbot, and the large church of the flamboyant style.
On the facade of the church is an immense bas-relief of the appa-
rition of the miraculous stag, and on the pinnacle is a colossal
statue of St. Hubert, dressed in pontificals, with his hand raised
to bless the town gathered at his feet. The porch with its bronze
statues, the cruciform church with its four aisles separated by tall
fluted columns, the nave paved with rich marbles, the choir to
which you ascend by seven steps, and the graceful, flame-like
tracery of the windows, are all striking. The old stalls of the
monks have been preserved, sixty-four in number, the legend of
St. Hubert elaborately carved on the panels of one side, and the
life of St. Benedict represented with severe simplicity on t
other. In one of the chapels that surround the apse like a glo
is a cenotaph erected by King Leopold in 1848 in honor of
Hubert, with a recumbent statue of the saint in Carrara marble
on the top. It is a fine monument of the ogival style, sculptur
by Geef, the celebrated Belgian artist. On the sides are ei
bas-reliefs in which are sixty-six figures, depicting the life of
saint from his birth in Aqiiitaine to the enshrinement of his
mains by Carloman. At the corners are the four apostles of
region SS. Amand, Lambert, Beregise, and Aubain of Namur.

M. Michelet says the two churches of St. Hubert with its
grimage and St. Lambert with its asylum were the true nuclei
the Ardennes. No votary of St. Hubert will fail to visit the
he founded. Liege, on its three rivers, in the midst of a p
surrounded by hills, with the black cloud from its forges and f
naces overhanging it, has a physiognomy apart. Its nume
manufactories, the steeples and towers of its splendid church
its bridges, the beautiful Meuse with the gardens on its ban
all strike the eye, but, above all, the grand old palace of its so
reign bishops, flanked with towers, massive, imposing, and of f<
dal aspect. This palace was built by Erard de la Marck, one
the greatest bishops of Lie"ge, and a lover of the arts. It was
finished when he died, but he left money enough to complete

ine

i88o.] THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. 517

which was not till twenty years after its commencement. There
are two interior courts one surrounded by the bishop's apart-
ments and chapel, the other by the lodgings of his guards.
Around the exterior is a striking colonnade with blackened arches
and curious pillars differently ornamented, the capitals covered
with arabesques and coats of arms. Founded by a bishop on the
tomb of a saint, Liege rightfully became a principality of which
the sovereign was a bishop, and its electors priests. The latter
were the canons of the chapter of St. Lambert's, who were sixty
in number and air required to be of noble blood. When Pope
Innocent II. came to preside at the council of Liege in 1131, he
approached the city on a white horse, and the Emperor Lothaire
went out to meet him with the empress and a multitude of bish-
ops, abbots, lords, and commons, and escorted him to the palace.
Alexander, the bishop of that time, was a son of the Count of
Juiiers, and the chapter of St. Lambert's had among its members
two sons of the emperor, seven sons of kings, and about fifty sons
of dukes, barons, and sovereign counts. The pope celebrated
the office in the cathedral, surrounded by this brilliant throng,
and then crowned Lothaire and his consort. But none of the
princely clergy, not even the pope himself, excited so much in-
terest in the crowd as St. Bernard, around whom they gathered
so eagerly that he had to be borne above the assembly in a chair
to save him from the pressure. The celebrated standard embroi-
dered in silk and gold by Queen Adelicia of England (the fair
maid of Brabant) had been captured two years before, and now
hung in St. Lambert's as a trophy, and was only taken down to
be borne through the streets in the professions of Rogation week.
Besides other shrines, here was that of St. Lambert, covered with
gold, silver, and precious stones, among which was an antique
agate on which was cut the head of the Empress Faustina. In
the treasury were St. Hubert's buskins, and, among other valu-
ables, a St. George on horseback of solid gold, given by Charles
the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, to testify his regret for cruelty to
the city of Liege in 1468. This splendid cathedral, associated
ivvith so many venerable memories, built on the spot where St.
Lambert was martyred for the eternal principles of justice, was
itterly destroyed by the French revolutionists.

The church of St. Paul is now used as the cathedral a church
ounded by Bishop Heraclius in the tenth century. This bishop
nade extraordinary efforts to promote learning in his diocese.
Vll the old schools had been destroyed by the Normans, and in
ds zeal to repair the loss he not only established monastic schools

5i8 THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. [July,

throughout the province, but became a teacher himself in the ca-
thedral school, giving lectures and patiently explaining and re-
peating to those dull of comprehension. When absent he encour-
aged the pupils by playful letters in verse. He always travelled
with some of his scholars in attendance, and they took their books
with them, beguiling the way by study and discussions. It must
not be supposed these old parish schools were merely elementary.
Mabillon has given us, in a citation, a picture of an episcopal
school in the seventh century, showing that astronomy, meteo-
rology, natural history, mathematics, etc., were all studied. St.
Gregory of Tours relates that when Gontran, King of the Franks,
went to Orleans he was addressed by the scholars of the cathe-
dral school in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, and poems in
his honor were composed in these four languages.

The church left as a monument of Bishop Heraclius' piety was
rebuilt in the thirteenth century in the Gothic style. A light
garland of foliage, interspersed with birds, flowers, and other
figures, picked out with gold, runs around the triforium, looking
like the illuminations of some old manuscript. No one has ever
been allowed to be buried in this church.

Under the generally paternal government of its bishops Liege
became very wealthy and prosperous. But like Jeshurun, or, as
the Vulgate hath it, dilectus, it waxed fat and kicked. The peo-
ple with their riches acquired such a spirit of independence and
love of liberty that the annals of the city are full of terrible insur-
rections. These, however, were often fomented by neighboring
sovereigns, like Louis XL, for purposes of their own, though
there is no doubt there were few cities in Europe so democratic
as Liege under its bishops. Serfdom was early mitigated in the
Ardennes, and the communes acquired unusual privileges. Those
who sought justice repaired to the red door of the bishop's palace,
and, lifting the ring-shaped knocker, knocked loudly thrice. The
bishop was bound to appear and hear them instantly, says Mi-
chelet, and the jurisdiction of the ring was held in such awe for
thirty leagues around that the haughtiest knight, were he even
descended from one of the Four Sons of Aymon, trembled when
summoned to the bronze pillar at Liege, at the foot of which
laws, acts, and judgments were enacted.

There is one bishop of Liege who has acquired special
brity by Scott's novel of Quentin Durward. This was Louis
Bourbon, whose tragical end is so inaccurately described then
a prelate of such noble qualities that he deserved a better fo
but placed unhappily over a turbulent city, with Louis XI.

i88o.] THE FOREST OF ARDENNES. 519

cretly undermining his authority on one hand, and Charles the
Bold, his brother-in-law, almost as dangerous for his rash zeal, on
the other, he had a difficult role to fill. The chronicles of the
time represent him as a man of noble presence, pleasing manners,
and excellent heart. Amelgard says : " Never was there a milder,
more paternal sovereign, or a more indulgent, charitable bishop.
If any reproach can be cast- upon him by reasonable people it is
for encouraging by his lenity the natural turbulence of his sub-
jects." In the first part of his reign, however, he was reproached
for a lack of gravity and love of pleasure ; but it must be remem-
bered he was only nineteen years of age when invested with the
government, and had not received holy orders. At a later period
he endeavored to repair his errors and led an exemplary life
worthy of his sacred office.

It was not from the people of Liege that Louis de Bourbon's
terrible expiation came. He did not die in his palace, the victim
of his rebellious subjects, as Scott represents, but in trying to
avert the danger that menaced his capital. Learning one day
, ^that William de la Marck, the fearful enemy he had never been
able to overcome by force or benefits, who was not without
reason called the Wild Boar of Ardennes, was approaching with
twelve hundred horse and a large body of foot-soldiers, to avert
the danger of such a band of lawless men pillaging the city he
armed himself from top to toe, mounted a strong steed, and went
forth at the head of his forces. It is said this noble animal, as if
from a secret instinct of the danger that awaited his master, stood
motionless, and for a time refused to go. Hardly had the bishop
entered the defile near the Chartreuse before De la Marck sud-
denly sprang out of his ambuscade, and the bishop was unable
to retreat on account of the narrowness of the passage, or receive
aid from his men in the rear. His escort was soon overcome.
He was not warlike by nature, and, seeing himself at the mercy
of his mortal enemy, cried out: "Spare me, Seigneur d'Arem-
berg ; I am your prisoner." One of the band gave him a blow in
the face, at which the blood gushed out. He begged for his life
with clasped hands, but the Wild Boar sprang upon him, stabbed
him in the throat, and then coolly ordered his followers to de-
spatch him. The bishop's body fell from his horse and rolled
into a stream a few steps off, where they left it mangled and
nearly stripped of its clothes, till the remonstrances of the clergy
induced the ferocious Sanglier to allow it to be buried. The un-
fortunate prince was only forty-five years of age.*

* M. de Conde on the city of Liege.

520 THE FOREST OF ARDENNES.

Li6ge remained under its theocratic government until the
French Revolution. Its dynasty of ninety bishops lasted more
than a thousand years, and on the whole they raised the city to
an unusual degree of wealth and prosperity. The city stands on
a coal-bed, and the mining is carried on beneath the very streets.
An angel is said to have revealed its first discovery the discov-
ery of what has contributed so much to the prosperity of the
place. Limbourg, out of its sense of a similar blessing, has called
one of its coal-pits Hemelryck the Kingdom of Heaven.

One remembrance peculiarly dear to the Catholic heart is
sociated with Liege the institution of the festival of Corp
Christi, first celebrated in the church of St. Martin in 1247.
was on the mount once owned by St. Hubert the idea was co
ceived. Julienne, a holy Hospitaler nun of Mt. Cornillon, was i
spired with the desire of having the many blasphemies agai
the Real Presence expiated by a special festival in honor of th
miracle of divine love. She hesitated a long time, and then a
pealed to the canons of St. Lambert's, praying them to institute
and use the office she had composed. But they looked on her
visionary, and bluntly told her to betake herself to her distaff an
spindle. She finally had recourse to the bishop, Robert
Torote, who, after consulting many theologians, ordered t
solemnity to be instituted in his diocese on the Thursday aft
Trinity, and Julienne's office to be used on the occasion. But
died before his order could be executed, and no one was di
posed to carry out his intentions. She now petitioned the pa
legate at Liege, who seconded her devotion and induced t
chapter of St. Martin's to celebrate the festival. This was
1247. The pious legate himself officiated on the occasion
preached a sermon. But novelties, however holy, are always
garded as innovations, and as the other churches objected to t
festival, and the legate had taken his departure, the chapter of
Martin's refused to celebrate it the following year. But a ho
ecclesiastic had attentively followed this movement and saw t
finger of God therein, and when raised to the papacy in i
under the name of Urban IV. he remembered the wish of J
lienne. The miracle of Bolsena, that has been commemorated
so many magnificent works of art, also occurred about this tim
Urban entrusted the composition of the office to St. Thomas
Aquinas, and ordered the day to be celebrated not only at Liege,
but throughout the Christian world. Julienne did not witness
the establishment of the feast she had so much at heart. She
died in exile and her tomb is unknown.

i88o.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. 521

THE PRINCETON REVIEW AND ST. THOMAS.

PROF. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, in his article on " Thomas Aqui-
nas and the Encyclical Letter," which appeared in the Princeton Re-
view (March, 1880), and of which we have given the first part to
our readers in our last issue, after maintaining the preposterous
idea that the study of scholastic philosophy is calculated to hinder
the progress of natural science, proceeds to discuss the merit of
the Thomistic reasoning on philosophical and theological matters.
To his mind, St. Thomas' argumentation may have been good
enough for the middle ages, but it is now of no use in view of the
rationalistic tendency of modern thought. To support this asser-
tion the professor volunteers to show how some of the best argu-
ments of the holy doctor can be disposed of by the men of our
enlightened generation. It will be instructive to follow him for a
while, and we intend to do so ; but before we enter into the con-
test we think it useful to define our position with regard to St.
Thomas' teachings.

No Catholic pretends that all the views of St. Thomas are
unquestionable or that all his arguments are apodictic. It has
always been lawful for us, and is still lawful after the encyclical
letter of the Sovereign Pontiff, to controvert, abandon, and dis-
prove many opinions of the holy doctor about which good au-
thors are not agreed, and many also which rest on no other
proximate or remote foundation than old physical and cosmo-
logical hypotheses now definitively discarded by science. Hence
we can freely concede, consistently with our respect for St.
Thomas, that some of his arguments have lost their power
and must be set aside. Indeed, St. Thomas himself, if now alive,
would vbe the first to proclaim the necessity of doing so. But
while we admit this, we venture to add that even from those ar-
guments and views of the holy doctor which we can no longer
defend we can derive no small benefit ; for it frequently happens
that the very lines with which we may find fault on positive
grounds of science contain such a wealth of principles and such a
depth of analytical power as to make us doubt whether anything
half as good can be found in the most renowned philosophical
works of later times. Nor is this all ; for we believe also that
the metaphysical principles so accurately laid down and so uni-
formly insisted on by St. Thomas are the only possible test of
all the theories of modern science, so far as these are amenable to

522 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. [July,

rational treatment, and it is by them alone that we shall be ena-
bled to pronounce an intelligent judgment about the philosophical
value of many plausible conceptions of our time. We, then, look
upon St. Thomas as the wisest and most reliable of Christian
philosophers, and we hold, with the Pope, that in times like ours
nothing less than a serious study of the works of St. Thomas can
warrant the hope we entertain of a restoration of philosophy
throughout the Christian world.

Now let us hear what the professor has to say concerning the
value of the saint's arguments and views. " We are told by the
Pope," says he, "that there is no part of philosophy that St.
Thomas has not treated with acuteness and solidity. And here
let me say that from a speculative and dogmatic point of view no
one can fail to admire the teachings of St. Thomas. The ques-
tion is, however, as to their value in view of the tendencies of this
century." We might remark here that any teaching which is
speculatively and dogmatically true remains true for ever, in
pendently of the changing tendencies which may characterize d
ferent periods of time. The professor seems to think otherwis
for while he admires the teachings of St. Thomas " from a spe
lative and dogmatic point of view," he believes that such teac
ings have had their time and are of no further use to the pre
generation. How he can reconcile these two things we do n
understand ; but he endeavors to convince us that such is t
fact, whatever we may say to the contrary ; and in order to ma
a full demonstration of his assertion he proposes to scan " t
views of the saint concerning God, the soul, and logical doctrin

Having thus introduced the subject which he intends to inv
tigate, the professor takes up directly the arguments by which
Thomas, in his Summa Theologica, establishes the existence of G
It is our duty to follow him.

The first argument of the holy doctor for the existence of
is substantially as follows : Whatever is moved must be mov
by some mover ; which mover, if moved, is in its turn moved
another, and this latter again by some other. It is impossi
however, to go on in this way in infinitum, for in such a case
there would be no first mover, and therefore no other movers;
because these other movers are movers only inasmuch as they are
moved by a first mover, jusf as the staff can move other things
only inasmuch as it is itself moved by the hand. It is necessary,
therefore, to admit a first mover unmoved. And this is what all
call God.*

* Omne quod movetur, oportet ab alio moveri. Si ergo id a quo movetur, moveatur,

oportet

i88o.] THE u PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. 523

The professor thinks that this argument is hardly satisfactory
when considered in relation to modern science. For " it may be
disputed," he says, " whether we can arrive at an unmoved be-
ginning of motion " ; and he asks : " If a part of the essence of
matter is motion, why should we be required to pass beyond it to
the source of motion? " And lastly he affirms that the reasoning
of the saint " rests on a vulgar view of motion," and is open to the
objection of Kant against the cosmological argument.

If this be all that modern science can object to St. Thomas'
reasoning we need not fear much for the holy doctor's cause.
The objection assumes that the argument is drawn exclusively
from the movements of matter ; whereas it is well known that St.
Thomas habitually uses the word motion in a much wider sense.
Mechanical movements, of course, take place in material things
only ; but there are movements which affect the intellect, and
movements which affect the will, and other kinds of movements,
of every one of which it is true to say that they must be traced to
a first mover unmoved. St. Thomas, indeed, seems to attach a
special importance to those movements which can be perceived
by our senses, for such movements are better known, and their
explanation presents no difficulty to the popular mind ; and we
need hardly say that the holy doctor believed, with all his scien-
tific and philosophic contemporaries, that the movements of na-
tural things were subordinate to the movement of a primum mo-
bile controlled by a first mover unmoved. This cosmical theory
being now rejected, St. Thomas' argument, so far as it is con-
nected with this theory, is of little avail. Yet the argument itself
I does not borrow its strength from such a theory ; for, in the lan-
guage of St. Thomas, as we have said, to move and to be moved
have a very wide range, and apply to agents and patients of all
kinds. Every mover, as such, is a being in act, whilst all that
is moved is moved inasmuch as it is in potency. Accordingly,
every mover which is moved consists of act and potency. But
all act which is mixed with potency has an origin. Therefore
every mover which is moved has an origin. And since this
origin cannot be found in an infinite series, which has no origin,
hence there must be a first mover, not comprised in the series of

et ipsum ab alio moveri, et illud ab alio. Hie autem non est procedere in infinitum ; quia sic
non esset aliquod primum movens, et per consequens nee aliquod aliud movens ; quia moventia
secunda non movent nisi per hoc quod sunt mota a primo movente ; sicut baculus non movet,
nisi per hoc quod est motus a manu. Ergo necesse est devenire ad aliquod primum movens,
quod a nullo movetur : et hoc omnes intelligunt Deum. Summ. 77ieol., p. i, q. 2, a. 3. This
same argument is more fully developed by the holy doctor in his Summa contra Gent. , lib. i.
cap. 13.

524 THE u PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. [July,

things movable, which, being immovable, is a pure act free from
potency. This is, we think, the gist of the argument, the sensi-
ble movements being only the dress in which it was clothed to
make it more popular with the men of the thirteenth century.

We hold, then, that the argument of St. Thomas, or rather of
Aristotle, from which St. Thomas borrowed it, is good arid valid.
On the other hand, we scarcely see how the objection of Prof.
Alexander can be sustained. It is very easy to assume, but not
so easy to show, that motion " is a part of the essence of matter."
Philosophy, both old and modern, strongly protests against such
an assumption. Motion is a mere accident of matter, and no ac-
cident is an essential part of its subject, as even Prof. Alexander's
pupils will doubtless agree. Besides, motion is liable to change,
whereas the essence of matter is always the same. How, then,
could the former be a part of the latter ? Had the professor ob-
jected that, according to modern science, two particles of matter
can act on each other, and thus move and be moved without need
of exterior agents, the objection would have been more plausib
and would have deserved an answer. ' But to say that motion
" a part of the essence of matter " is merely to discharge a bl
cartridge, which makes a report without harming your enemy.

The second argument of the holy doctor is drawn from t
order of efficient causation. A series of ordinate causes that
of causes of which one depends on another cannot extend to i
finity, but must stop at a first and independent cause ; for in t
order of causality primum est causa medii, et medium est ca
ultimi. Hence there must be a first efficient cause ; in oth
terms, there must be a God. Such is the substance of the arg
ment.

The professor naively remarks : " To show that the causes
not proceed in infinitum by assuming that there is a first of t
series is a palpable argumentum in circulo" But, unfortunate
for the professor, this is not the case. St. Thomas argues fro
the order of the causes, which order evidently requires that t
last cause be ranged under the intermediate ones, and the int
mediate ones under a first one, which is the highest of them a
To show that this is not a mere assumption, it suffices to stri
out the first cause and see what will be the result of its di
pearance. What will become of the intermediate causes? Can
they be " intermediate " without something above them ? Clear-
ly not. Now, as St. Thomas argues, to imagine an infinite as-
cending series of causes without a first cause is to imagine that
there can be a multitude of terms which are all intermediate, e

1 8 So.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. 525

cept the last. This being impossible, it follows that such an infi-
nite series without a first cause is a palpable absurdity. We sub-
mit that this is not an argumcntum in circulo.

Again, it is evident that in an infinite ascending series of
causes every cause is also an effect, and is an effect before it can
be a cause, as it cannot act before being produced. Accordingly
in every one of these ascending causes the ratio effectus intrinsical-
ly precedes the ratio causce. Now, reason does not allow us to
give precedence to the ratio, effectus. It is, therefore, necessary
to put before it, and above it, something in which there is only
the ratio causes. And thus, even in the hypothesis of an infinite
series of causes, we cannot dispense with a first cause.

This suffices to show that the Angelic Doctor did not simply
assume that there was a first of the series, as he is charged with

I having done. On the other hand, were it true that he assumed
the necessity of a first cause to account for a series of effects, not
even then would he have made an argumentum in circulo. For
whatever reason and common sense teach and sanction as self-
evident can be freely assumed without violating the laws of

; dialectics, especially when dealing with adversaries who have

', themselves no standing ground but imaginary and worthless as-

: sumptions.

The third argument of the holy doctor, says the professor,

i " is derived from the accidental existence of all things. St.

' Thomas maintains that as the accidental cannot depend on the ac-
cidental, it must have its essence in the necessary. It is here
assumed that the necessary being or beings are God. It is as-
sumed that the necessary beings on which the accidental depends
do not form a continuous series, but lead us at once to God."

We are sorry to say that this passage is a tissue of clumsy
misrepresentations and inexcusable blunders. First, St. Thomas
does not speak at all of accidental, but of contingent, existence ;
hence the substitution of the former for the latter word in the
passage before us transforms the whole argument of St. Thomas
into an unintelligible conundrum. Is the professor ignorant that
in the language of philosophy the accidental and the contingent
are not the same thing ? or does he believe, as Spinoza did, that
all substance is necessary, and nothing can be styled contingent
but what is accidental ? But, whatever may be the professor's
ideas, this is evident : that the translation of the clear language of
St. Thomas into such an unmeaning jargon is not a fair manner
of propounding his views to the public.

Next comes the assertion that, according to St. Thomas, " the

526 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. [July,

accidental cannot depend on the accidental." This is a second
misrepresentation ; for neither in the argument itself nor any-
where else has St. Thomas ever uttered such a sentence or any-
thing equivalent to it. There are, according to his doctrine, a
great many accidents which depend on other accidents, though
they all idtimately depend on substances. Nor did he ever teach
that the contingent cannot depend on the contingent ; he says, on
the contrary, in the very argument we are considering, that con-
tingent things generate one another, and therefore depend on one
another.

Then follows a third misrepresentation. St. Thomas main-
tains, in the words of our critic, that the accidental " must have
its essence in the necessary." This, too, is a mere invention of
the professor, as St. Thomas does not use at all the word essence
in the whole argument. Is it true, at least, that the holy doctor
assumes "that the necessary being or beings are God"? No.
It is as false as all that has preceded. But perhaps St. Thoi
assumes " that the necessary beings on which the accidental
pends do not form a continuous series " ? Alas ! this, too, is
misrepresentation. St. Thomas merely says that those beii
whose existence is conditionally necessary that is, whose exij
ence is the necessary result of extrinsic causation cannot form
" infinite " ascending series ; and this he does not gratuitous]
" assume," for he cites the place where he has given the demc
stration of his assertion. When a writer needs to travesty
argument in such a shameful manner as the professor has d<
here, we cannot be much mistaken if we look upon such a cou]
as a desperate attempt at concealing or perverting a distastefi
truth. Let the reader judge for himself. We give the argum<
of the holy doctor :

" We see things in this world, in w r hich there is the possibilil
of being and of not-being ; for we see that many things are g<
erated and corrupted ; which conclusively shows the possibilil
of their being and not-being. Now, things of this kind cann<
exist from eternity ; for whatever has the possibility of being ai
not-being, at some time had no existence. If, then, all that exi<
had the possibility of being and of not-being, there would
been a time when nothing existed ; and, if so, nothing would noi
exist ; for what is not, cannot come into being except througl
something that is. If, then, nothing had existed, nothing could
have come into being, and there would still be nothing ; which
clearly is not the case. Hence not all that exists is susceptible of
being and not-being ; and accordingly something exists whi<

i83o.] THE u PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. 527

cannot but be. Now, this necessity of being may be conceived
to arise either from extrinsic causes or from the nature of the
being itself. But as the extrinsic causes, on which such a ne-
cessity of being- may depend, cannot be assumed to form an infi-
nite series, as we have already proved when treating of efficient
causes, we are compelled to admit that there is a being whose ne-
cessity of existing does not depend on other causes, but is intrin-
sic to it, and which is the cause of all that is necessary. And
such a being is God." *

The reader may now see how the professor has not only
garbled but entirely disfigured this passage so as to make it
wholly unrecognizable.

St. Thomas draws a fourth proof of the existence of God from
the degrees of perfection that we find in different things. The
argument is as follows : Things are more or less perfect according
as they approach more or less a supreme standard of perfection,
which is perfection itself. And, therefore, since there are things
more or less perfect as to goodness, truth, beauty, and other
qualities, there must be a supreme goodness, a supreme truth, a
supreme beauty, or, in other words, a being absolutely perfect,
from which all things less perfect derive. And such a being is
God.

This argument, too, is rejected by the professor as wholly un-
satisfactory. He says : " The fourth is a purely speculative ar-
gument that the imperfection of the universe implies a perfect
Being. There are comparative degrees of qualities which imply
a superlative degree. It is hardly necessary to point out the un-
warrantable conclusion ; it is sufficient to notice its uselessness in
modern controversy."

First, then, the argument is " purely speculative." Of course
it is ; for how could it be otherwise ? All arguments are specu-
lative ; and yet speculation, when based on facts, yields excellent
results. Now, the perfections (the critic says the imperfection) of

* Invenimus in rebus quasdam, quas sunt possibilia esse et non esse ; quum quaedam inveni-
itur generari et corrumpi, et per consequens possibilia esse et non esse. Impossibile est autem,
omnia qua? sunt talia, semper esse ; quia quod possibile est non esse, quandoque non est. Si
igitur omnia sunt possibilia non esse, aliquando nihil fuit in rebus. Sed si hoc est verum, etiam
nunc nihil esset ; quia quod non est non incipit esse, nisi per aliquid quod est. Si igitur nihil
fuit ens. impossibile fuit quod aliquid inciperet esse ; et sic modo nihil esset ; quod patet esse
falsum. Non ergo omnia entia sunt possibilia, sed oportet aliquid esse necessarium in rebus.
Omne autem necessarium vel habet causam suaa necessitatis aliunde, vel non habet. Non est
autem possibile quod procedatur in infinitum in necessariis quas habent causam suae necessitatis ;
sicut nee in causis efficientibus, ut probatum est in isto art. Ergo necesse est ponere aliquid
quod sit per se necessarium, non habens causam necessitatis aliunde, sed quod est causa necessi-
tatis aliis ; quod oinnes dicunt Deum. Summ. Theol^ p. i, q. 2, a. 3.

528 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. [July,

things are a matter of fact, and the principle that the less perfe<
is to be traced to the most perfect is a sound philosophical prii
ciple that is, another fact, though of the intellectual order.
Hence the " purely speculative " argument is, after all, an argu-
ment of the good sort.

Next we are told that the conclusion is " unwarrantable."
This bold assertion has no other ground than the false principl<
of the professor that an argument " purely speculative " cannot
lead to a warrantable conclusion. It seems to us that it wouk
have been more dignified for a philosopher to point out, if p.(
sible, some fallacy in the argument before venturing to deny il
conclusion. But perhaps to affirm with the greatest assuram
what one cannot prove is a method of modern criticism ; and, ii
such be the case, we can easily admit the " uselessness " of argi
ments " in modern controversy." It is very desirable, howevei
that professors should not encourage such a method by their
ample.

The fifth and last argument of St. Thomas is drawn from th<
government of the world. " There are things," he says, " whicl
are destitute of intellectual faculties, which, however, act for ai
end ; for we see that they always or regularly follow the same
mode of action in order to reach that which is best for them. Il
is evident, therefore, that it is not by chance, but by design, that
they reach their end. But beings which have no knowledj
cannot tend to an end, unless they be directed thereto by an ii
telligent mind ; just as the arrow cannot tend to the butt, unk
it be directed thereto by the archer. And therefore there is
intelligent being, by whom all natural things are directed to thei]
end. And such a being is God." *

This argument, says Prof. Alexander, " is the only one desei
ing of attention." Nevertheless he immediately adds: " It is
lame statement of the teleological argument, and is set forth in
few lines." And this he confirms by further adding that " the
form of the argument is so imperfect that it is in strong contrast
with the ordinary demonstrations of the author of the Summa."
Such is the professor's criticism of the argument before us.

We might thank the critic for condescending to admit that
this last proof of the existence of God deserves his attention, were

* Videmus quod aliqtia quae cognitione carent, scilicet corpora naturalia, operantur propter
finem, quod apparet ex hoc quod semper, aut frequentius, eodem modo operantur, ut consequan-
tur id quod est optimum. Unde patet quod non a casu, sed ex intentione perveniunt ad finem.
Ea autem, quas non habent cognitionem, non tendunt in finem, nisi directa ab aliquo cognoscente
et intelligente, sicut sagitta a sagittante. Ergo est aliquid intelligens, a quo omnes res natu-
rales ordinantur ad finem ; et hoc dicimus Deum. Summ. Theol., p. i, q. 2, a. 3.

1 8 So.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. 529

it not that he makes this confession with such a bad grace, sneer-
ing at the "lameness" and "imperfect form" of the argument.
Indeed, if a reasoning is lame which "is set forth in a few lines,"
all St. Thomas' reasonings must be accounted lame ; for he never
says in ten lines what he can condense in two. But the intelli-
gent reader, to whom we give here the argument both in Eng-
lish and in the original Latin of St. Thomas, will be struck, we
think, at the clearness, brevity, and naturalness of the language,
no less than at the perfection of the form, used by the holy doc-
tor. At all events, since the argument " is deserving of atten-
tion," let Prof. Alexander make an attempt at putting it in a bet-
ter and stronger form, and let him, for our benefit, print it in the
Princeton Review in its new form. The public will then compare
the old form with the new, and decide which is the best. But we
fear that the professor will not heed our suggestion ; for he can-
not beard St. Thomas with mere phrases and rhetoric, and he
would probably succeed only in showing that a " lame and im-
perfect form of argument " is the characteristic of modern in-
stead of scholastic reasoning, as the very article we are reviewing
abundantly demonstrates. Hence we need not detain our read-
:s any longer on this point.

After this cursory survey of the whole field of discussion con-
jrning the proofs of the existence of God, it is not difficult to
>preciate at its true value the final judgment passed by our pro-
ssor on the merit of the arguments of the holy doctor. He is
good as to concede that, " considering the time at which these
"guments were framed, they represent an extraordinary power,
compared to the atheism of that day." But after paying this
int compliment to the prince of the scholastics he immediately
>oils it by adding : " But it must be borne in mind that mediae-
val atheism was but a shadow of atheism now. It is quite clear,
at all events, that the reasoning of St. Thomas is not adapted to
confront this great foe of the modern church."

On these words we will make only two remarks. The first is
that mediaeval atheism cannot be called "but a shadow of the
atheism now." This assertion is false, not only because the pre-
sent cannot project its shadow on the past, but also, and princi-
pally, because the atheism of to-day, though stronger as to num-
bers, is not a whit stronger as to reasoning than the atheism of
all past centuries. The history of philosophy testifies that, as the
atheistic thought of the middle ages, so also the atheism of to-day,
is nothing but a rehash of the errors of Lucretius, which, though

often presented in the garb of modern science, are still the same
VOL. xxxi. 34

530 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. [July,

old, pitiful, worthless stuff, unimproved and unimprovable. Ask
any modern atheist to prove that there is no God ; you may be
sure that he will hardly know what to say, unless he alleges that
the existence of evil in the world is incompatible with the exist-
ence of a supreme and infinite Good. But this is but the old ar-
gument refuted a thousand times by Christian philosophers. No.
Modern atheism is neither scientifically nor philosophically a for-
midable foe ; it is neither the product of induction nor of deduc-
tion ; it is only a poor and naked attendant of wickedness and
moral imbecility.

Our second remark is that the professor, when he says tha
" St. Thomas' reasoning is not adapted to confront modern ath
ism," unwittingly proclaims a capital truth. Yes. Modern ath
ists are too frivolous to relish, and too ignorant to understand
St. Thomas' reasonings. Hence modern atheism cannot be co
fronted by such reasonings, unless they be divested of their met
physical apparel. If even Prof. Alexander, though a philosophe
and, we trust, not an atheist, nearly lost his wits, as we have see
upon a single page of the Summa Thcologica, what hope is the
that the sciolist and the undergraduate of Columbia College o
of Princeton College will be more fortunate than the profess
has been? But here let the critic remember that Leo XIII
when recommending the study of St. Thomas, was not addres
ing atheists. He addressed those learned men to whom th
church has confided the mission of Christian philosophical an
theological education. It will be the duty of the philosophe
and theologians formed by such men to "adapt" the reasoning
St. Thomas to the limited capacity of the modern sciolist.

We would also beg the professor to reflect that the encycli
letter of the Pope, while eulogizing the Angelic Doctor and urgin
the adoption of his doctrine and method, does not forbid, su
press, proscribe, or discourage the study of modern authors,
is in these authors, and not in St. Thomas, that he wishes us
learn our physics, our chemistry, our optics, and our astronomy
from these, and not from St. Thomas, he expects us to derive t
necessary knowledge of modern errors, their origin, their allege
grounds, and their refutation. The professor may be sure that
the study of the Thomistic philosophy will not make us forget
that we live in the nineteenth century, and have to deal, not with
Averroes or Avicenna, but with Tom Paine, John Stuart Mill,
Draper, Youmans, and Bob Ingersoll. Hence, when we meet a
modern atheist we shall not have to depend on St. Thomas alone.
We may draw our arguments from other sources also. We

1 8 So.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. 531

prove the existence of God by the existence of time, and by the
existence of place, and by the existence of morality, and by the
possibility of things, and by the necessity of mathematical truth,
and by the fulfilment of authentic prophecy, and by everything
we see in this world, though it were only an infinitesimal speck of
matter. These and such like proofs might be used to convince
an atheist of good faith, if there be any such. But as experience
and observation show that it is not in the intellect, but in the
wicked heart of man, that atheism originates, we are almost sure
that the argumentative method, whilst silencing the unbeliever
for a while, will not suffice to secure his conversion. The best
means for defeating atheism is practical, not speculative; but it
demands what an infirm society will be loath to do a constant
effort of the influential classes toward the abatement of intellec-
tual pride, hypocrisy, and lust; for these are the real factors of
atheism.

But Prof. Alexander, while ignoring altogether these moral
causes of atheism, endeavors to make the Holy See responsible
for all the evils that its spread may engender or develop in mo-
dern society. First, he assumes that the Holy See bids Catholic
teachers to depend on the reasonings of St. Thomas alone. Then
he points out that those reasonings " are not adapted " to confront
modern atheism. The consequence is, that therefore the Holy
See does not sufficiently provide against the spread of infidelity.
This consequence we have completely refuted in the preceding
pages.

The professor draws also, at least virtually, a second conclu-
sion viz., that the Holy See does not care to provide for the
spiritual needs of those who are out of the church. This is what
he insinuates very clearly in the following words : " Of course

, the Holy See may stand indifferent to infidelity without the
church, may assert her authority to support faith in spite of argu-
ment, may not recognize the power and novel forms of modern
scepticism. This is indeed the logical position of Rome, and, it

' may be said, her historical position." These odious insinuations
show how completely modern thought and Protestant prejudice
can stultify their adherents. We appeal to the professor himself.
On what ground did he make the astounding assumption that the
Holy See might stand indifferent to infidelity without the church ?
Has the Holy See ever given signs of such a pretended indiffer-
ence? Is there any nation on earth where the Catholic Church
does not earnestly labor, though amidst numberless difficulties,
for the enlightenment and conversion of infidels ? Do not the

S3- THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. [July,

secret societies and the Protestant bigots even denounce the
Catholic Church as an invader because it aims at snatching from
their clutches, and from eternal perdition, the souls of men ? It
is, therefore, worse than childish to assume, in the face of such
facts, that the church or the Holy See "stands indifferent " to
the infidelity of outsiders.

Nor is the second insinuation less unworthy of a man of sense.
He who assumes that the Pope "may assert his authority in sup-
port of faith in spite of argument " implies two things : first, that
there are arguments against faith which still need a solution ;
secondly, that, in matters of faith, authority must be overruled by
argument. We know full well that this manner of thinking is
very common among sectaries of all denominations ; for they can
in no other manner defend their state of permanent rebellion
against lawful authority. Still, is it wise to lay down the prin-
ciple that argument (whatever this word may mean) has a right
to supplant authority in matters of faith ? The history of Prot<
tantism shows that as soon as Martin Luther contrived to supei
sede the authority of the Pope by argument, CEcolampadius an<
Zwingli turned the same weapon against him in the matter of tl
Eucharist; and since that time the appeal to argument again;
authority has brought forth scandalous divisions, internecine wai
and religious scepticism, culminating at last in the Babelic confi
sion, which we now witness, of a hundred Protestant creeds coi
fiicting with one another, yet boasting all alike of "argument"
their foundation. Jesus Christ did not found his religion on ai
gument, but on faith ; for supernatural truth transcends reason an<
argument, and must be believed, not discussed. This is why tl
Holy See must " assert her authority in support of faith," rath(
than listen to your pretended arguments.

This, however, does not mean that the Holy See takes
notice of the arguments raised against revealed truth. Proi
Alexander, who so clearly assumes the contrary, could hardly
point out a single argument against faith which has not beei
studied, analyzed, and solved by Catholic writers. No heresy h;
ever been condemned before being refuted with rational an<
theological arguments. The very works of St. Thomas Aquinas,
which the professor considers " useless in modern controversy,"
contain the rational refutation not only of the ancient heresies but
of the modern as well ; for there is scarcely anything in model
heresies which has not seen the light in earlier times, and whicl
has not been repeatedly refuted by ecclesiastical writers. It
not easy to invent new errors in matters of faith after long cei

i88o.] THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. 533

turies of religious strife. The modern infidel stands exactly on
the same ground as the old pagan atheist and materialist, with
this difference, however : that the pagan, born in darkness, may
have trodden that ground with no wicked intent, whilst the
Christian, born in the light of truth, is inexcusable in following
blindly, and in spite of authorized warnings, the same wrong and
discredited track. The professor may say that the old errors
have appeared under new forms, and that atheism has changed
its garb ; but can he show that the new form and the new garb
have lent any philosophical strength to the old fallacies ? Where
are the arguments of the v new materialists, pantheists, atheists,
sceptics, agnostics, free-religionists, positivists ? From Voltaire
to Comte, from Kant to Biichner and Moleschott, from Berkeley
to Darwin and Herbert Spencer, no theory hostile to faith has
been advanced whose base is not an old refuted error, or an irra-
tional assumption, or a malicious distortion of historical or scien-
tific truths, or a combination of the three together. Some ol
them were so utterly extravagant that they soon died out for
want of followers ; others enjoyed but a precarious life, thanks to
the lawlessness of the times and the triumph of brutal force ;
others still survive, though in a hectic condition, by the aid of
continuous shiftings and transformations, showing that they have
no rational ground on which to rest. Now, let us ask, did the
church remain " indifferent " to these efforts of infidelity ? Did
she " assert her authority " without taking notice of the pre-
tended arguments? Great must be the ignorance or the bad
faith of the man who would venture to maintain, with Prof.
Alexander, that this is " the logical position of Rome, and, it may
be said, her historical position." Why, our libraries teem with
works of modern polemists who have analyzed and weighed
every one of those pretended arguments and exposed their
sophistry ; while even now no form of error is brought before the
public with which our Catholic dailies, weeklies, and monthlies
do not readily grapple with superior energy and with undoubted
success. No ; the Catholic Church is not afraid of argument.
She never has been and never will be. If there are persons or
sects whose " logical and historical position " is to assert their
views " in spite of argument," experience teaches us that they are
just such men as Prof. A. Alexander shows himself to be, or such
bodies as fight under the banner of modern thought.

The professor goes on to say that " in former days an Inqui-
sition made argument dangerous as well as useless" which is
a threadbare lie ; " but the present age demands liberty of

534 THE "PRINCETON REVIEW" AND ST. THOMAS. [July,

thought " which is absurd, as all ages have been free to think
with their brains to their own satisfaction. What is true is that
the unbelievers of the present age demand the liberty of nonsense
and the impunity of blasphemy. He adds that, if Leo XIII. sees
fit to notice the advance of infidelity, the dangers attending its
progress, and is moved to suggest a remedy, " it is of little ad-
vantage for him to point to the writings of the thirteenth cen-
tury." Here the critic forgets again that Leo XIII. requires us
to learn a great deal more than can be found in the writings of
the thirteenth century. "Roman Catholic dogma," continues
the professor, " may perhaps have stood still, but is it not rather
presumptuous to suppose that the unbelieving race has stood
still, that infidelity has not changed its form and atheism its
garb ? " We answer that the Pope is far from supposing that
the unbelieving race has stood still. He knows as well as the
professor that infidelity has changed its form and that atheism
has put on a scientific garb ; but he knows also that the change
of form- is a sign of fickleness, and the new garb a cloak
hypocrisy. Infidelity, like a tempestuous sea, hurls its wav
against the Rock of Peter ; but these waves, however giganti
soon disappear to make room for others, which in their turn wi
as surely disappear, whilst the Rock remains unmoved on i
solid foundations. It is on the solidity of this rock that Po
Leo XIII. wishes us to rest the cause of truth ; and it is for t
object that he so earnestly invites us to study the works of t
Angelic Doctor, than whom no one has been more acute, mo
orderly, and more thorough in expounding the principles
which every form of infidelity is to be crushed. But here ag
let the critic remember that, while studying St. Thomas, we a
not forbidden to read Draper, and Darwin, and Herbert Spence
and all the great charlatans of infidelity, and to draw from the
whatever profit we can ; for Fas est et ab hoste doccri.

And here we must come to an end. We have seen that th
criticism passed by Prof. Alexander on the arguments of St.
Thomas concerning the existence of God has no weight and is
most irrational. It would be easy to show that his additional
criticism of the views of the holy doctor regarding psychology
and logic is quite as reckless and unphilosophical. But we have
no room left for further discussion. We only remark that the at-
tempt of the professor at demolishing the old arguments against
atheism and materialism, without suggesting anything better
which may be substituted in their place, tends to create a sus-
picion that his criticism aims at unsettling the minds of his

i88o.] POMPEY'S SECRET. 535

readers and encouraging scepticism. To allay this suspicion
Prof. Alexander ought to give to his readers a sample of the
arguments which, in his philosophical system, prove God's exis-
tence and the spirituality of the human .soul. When he shall
have done this we shall be better able to ascertain by how nuich
modern wisdom transcends the wisdom of St. Thomas.

POMPEY'S SECRET.

ON the left bank of the Roanoke River, in Northampton
County, North Carolina, stands an abandoned, dilapidated man-
sion, which a century ago was the scene of many a revel and was
known far and wide as the most hospitable spot in the colony.
Here Tarleton and his Legion were sure of a hearty welcome, for

Euigald McPherson was a stanch royalist and never wearied of
inking to " God save the King " ; while, on the other hand, his
nny niece, Alice, born in America, dearly loved her native soil,
d always gave Marion's hand a warm shake whenever he passed
it way on any of his bold expeditions. Despite her uncle's
>wn, she was outspoken in her admiration of the daring trooper
who, during the dark days of our Revolution, did more than any-
y else to keep alive in the Carolinas the spirit of indepen-
ence.

One autumn evening in the year 1781 Alice was seated by
er bed-room window, gazing out upon a broad stretch of lonely
pine forest, the western edge of which was gilded by the rays of
the setting sun. A deep murmur was wafted from the forest a
solemn, lamenting voice it seemed, which accorded well with the
tenor of her thoughts. For Alice, the merry, frolicsome girl,
who had so seldom been known to weep, had tears in her eyes
now.

Presently going to her harpsichord, she played a lively air
to drive her sadness away ; but she did not succeed. Then for
the third time she read over a letter which lay on the window-
sill " He tells me that he is wounded," she sighed, " and that he
is going to his hiding-place in the Dismal Swamp. I have often
heard of this swamp. I must ask Pompey more about it."
Scarcely had Alice breathed the name of this faithful domestic

536 POMPEY'S SECRET. [July,

when there came a tap on the door, and in another moment the
aged slave stood before her. His crisp hair was snow-white, an
so was his beard. But there was nothing- of the pensiveness of ol
age about him ; his eyes twinkled as brightly, and there was a
much fun lurking in the corners of his mouth his huge mouth
as when he had first arrived from Africa long before Alice wa
born.

" Why, Miss Alice, did the letter I brought you awhile ag
contain bad news ? " said Pompey, who saw how red his youn
mistress' eyes were.

" Yes," replied Alice ; " General Marion has been wounded a
the battle of Eutaw Springs, and, pursued by Tarleton, he ha
been driven to his hiding-place in the Dismal Swamp. Now
Pompey, tell me about this swamp ; how far is it from here? "

" Well, I reckon, miss, you might ride there on Black Betty i
three or four hours ; it is about thirty miles off."

" I did not say I was going there, did I ? " said Alice. "
merely asked for

" For curiosity's sake," interrupted Pompey, with a low obei
ance and an inward chuckle. " I understand, Miss Alice ; I un
derstand. You have ridden pretty nigh over the whole country
and up and down the river, for the good Lord knows how man
miles, and now you just feel a little curiosity to visit the Dism
Swamp."

" Well, if I went there," continued Alice, " I might ride Blac
Betty, and yourself or ' Aunty ' (the latter was Pompey 's spouse
might accompany me on Dare-devil."

" To be sure," answered Pompey. " The mare would no
mind going that distance in the least, for she is three-quarte
bred ; and wherever Black Betty goes, there her colt will follow
In fact, .they cannot be kept apart. Dare-devil will leap over
seven-bar fence in order to get into the same field with hi
mother." .

Within half a minute after Pompey had done speaking his
humorous countenance fell, and, turning his ear to the door, he
listened intently to a couple of voices out in the hall.

" 1 am delighted to have ye come back so soon. Pray con-
sider my roof your home until spring-time," spoke Mr. Mc-
Pherson.

" This spot, albeit somewhat remote, and in these warlike days
a little dangerous to reach, hath a wonderful charm for me," re-
turned the other voice.

Here Alice clasped her hands, and, looking at Pompey with an

i88o.] POMPEY' s SECRET. 537

air of surprise and chagrin, " I declare, it is the dominie ! " she
exclaimed "the solemn old dominie back again to renew his
courtship and to stay until spring. Good heavens ! "

" Yes, miss, he is here again," said Pompey. " I was just go-
ing to tell you of his arrival when you commenced talking about
the Dismal Swamp."

" Well, I wish I was there," pursued Alice. " Indeed I do !
For now I shall not be able to dance for six months, nor sing
anything except hymns, and on the Sabbath I shall haye to keep
ten times stiller than a mouse. O Pompey ! I have a good mind
to lie abed every Sabbath from now until the dominie returns to
Richmond."

At these words Pompey 's elastic mouth grew suddenly
broader it really stretched from ear to ear and his droll ex-
pression made Alice, down-hearted as she was, burst into a laugh.

" Missie, how I love to see you laugh !" said Pompey ; then,
with the inimitable grin still on his face, he made a bow and with-
drew.

Leaving Alice hastily arranging her toilette, let us say a few
words about her history. She was an orphan. Her mother had
; died when she was a year old, and her father, a gallant naval offi-
: cer, had lost his life in an engagement with the French. Hap-
pily, Alice had a rich uncle, who, being childless, was willing to
i adopt her ; and although it is a common saying that stepmothers
: are unlovable to other children than their own, the good lady
who now welcomed little Alice was ever gentle and loving to
her. While her uncle's wife lived Alice was very happy. But
since her death, which had happened a twelvemonth before our
narrative begins, the girl's uncle had changed in his demeanor
towards her. From being genial Mr. McPherson became morose,
and was of late extremely bitter towards the rebels, as he called
all who favored independence. Indeed, he sometimes spoke of
returning to Scotland.

The reverend gentleman whose arrival Pompey had made
known to Alice had been an old schoolmate of Mr. McPherson's
in Edinburgh, and was now a Congregational clergyman settled
in Richmond. He had first met the girl when she and her uncle
were on a visit to that town shortly after Mrs. McPherson's
death. Alice had then touched his somewhat unimpressionable
heart. There were young ladies in his congregation doubtless
handsomer than Alice ; but they were too meek, too lamb-like
'king with demure step and downcast eyes. Such a carriage

i demeanor might do to commend from the pulpit ; but he

538 POMPEYS SECRET. [July,

wanted a wife with animation and spirit. So when, one spring
day, the fresh, merry maiden from the banks of the Roanoke was
introduced to him, looked him full in the face, and took his hand
with a frank, hearty grasp, the reverend gentleman inwardly said :
" I am a widower, and, although fifty-five, why not take to myself
a second spouse ? "

Mr. McPherson favored the suit, while Alice laughed in her
sleeve. It is true that during the clergyman's first visit to the
plantation, five months before, she had done her best to entertain
him, and thus unwittingly had led him to believe that his love was
requited. But this was a mistake ; several obstacles stood in the
way. The lightest of these was the good man's name, which
was Magillicuddy. " No ; I would sooner live and die a spinster
than change my name to Magillicuddy," Alice said to herself.
The second obstacle was Mr. Magillicuddy's nature: it was too
austere. There was not sufficient warmth about him. Having
passed a number of years in Massachusetts, Mr. Magillicud
had imbibed not a little of the Puritan gloom ; and, besid
Alice knew that he was a firm believer in witchcraft. " \Y
such a husband I could never smile," she said.

They formed an interesting trio the three who a half-h
later were seated at the supper-table. The dominie, though
naturally cadaverous-looking, had, thanks to his long journey on
horseback, a little color in his cheeks, and the brand-new wig, of
the same hue as his shaggy eyebrows a deep red fitted him to
perfection. The moment he concluded his tiresome grace Alice
lifted her eyes, and Mr. Magillicuddy, as he gazed upon her, felt
that it was well worth coming all the way from Virginia, over
the roughest of roads and on the hardest of saddles, merely to
look on so charming a creature. Alice had magnificent hair she
could almost hide herself in it and, perhaps in order to tease h<
reverend admirer, she had allowed it for the nonce to fall 1(
down her shoulders ; it was like a rippling stream of gold, wil
three or four wild roses and honeysuckles floating down the
stream.

The conversation at table for a time turned on the respective
merits of oatmeal and hominy Alice maintaining that no nourish-
ment was so wholesome as the latter ; while her uncle and his
guest declared oatmeal far superior to it.

" But ye cannot grow oats in this country any more than
can produce song-birds," concluded Mr. Magillicuddy.

" Song-birds ! " rejoined Alice. " Why, twice last week Pom-
pey's son One-eyed Caesar spent half the night trying to drr

ing
our

Illb

;

)m-

i88o.] POMPEY 's SECRET. 539

the mocking-birds away from the house ; they kept up such a
music that we could not sleep."

" Well, that is only one bird. Have ye any other ? " said the
dominie.

" To be sure. There is the whip-poor-will," answered Alice.

" And ye have the screech-owl," said Mr. Magillicuddy, trium-
phantly lifting up his heavy eyebrows.

At this a serious expression came over Alice's face, and, leaning
back in her chair, she said to herself : " Is he really going to stay
with us until spring ? " Then, thrusting her hand into her packet,
she clasped Marion's letter, and wished with all her heart that she
were beside her wounded lover.

The meal ended, they withdrew to the piazza, where Mr.
Magillicuddy asked Alice if she had read Cotton Mather's Won-
ders of the Invisible World.

" No," said Alice. " I find so many objects to wonder at and
I admire in this beautiful world that I have never cared to read it,
Is it interesting?"

" Very, Miss McPherson. It proves how we are surrounded
' by demons and other invisible beings, and

".And would scare the life out of me, if I should read a single
line," interrupted Alice.

" I will send for the book," put in Mr. McPherson.

" I have brought a copy with me," said the dominie; "and I
propose to read ye a chapter to-morrow, and every other Sab-
bath while I remain your guest."

Here Alice struck her forehead a pretty hard thump ; then,
: burying her face in her hands, she seemed grieved at something ;
! but in truth she was really giving vent to her joy at a happy
; thought which had suddenly flashed upon her. " Truly it is an
inspiration," said Alice irrwardly " an inspiration." Then, seiz-
ing a favorable moment when her uncle quitted the piazza to give
some orders to his overseer, she turned to Mr. Magillicuddy, and
; asked in a solemn tone whether he believed in presentiments.

" I do," responded the minister ; and he narrated a number of
instances, both in Scotland and in Massachusetts, where forebod-
ings had come true.

" Well, dear sir, I have a feeling that some calamity is threat-
ening me," said Alice, feigning alarm. " But pray do not tell my
.uncle, for it would cause him much anxiety."

The good Mr. Magillicuddy gazed at Alice in silence.

" You are less lively than usual this evening," said Mr. Mc-
Pherson to his niece when he came back.

540 POMPEY' s SECRET. [July,

" Be not cast down," whispered Mr. Magillicuddy in her
ear ; " and above all have recourse to prayer."

" I will retire and pray in the solitude of my chamber," an-
swered Alice in an undertone. With this she rose and bade her
uncle and his reverend guest good-night.

" Why, it is uncommonly early," said Mr. McPherson. " The
whip-poor-wills have only just begun to sing."

But Alice, pressing her hand to her brow, went away, leaving
Mr. Magillicuddy not a little disquieted by what she had confided
to him.

The girl no sooner reached her bed-room than she called to
One-eyed Csesar out of the window, and bade him tell his fath
that she wished to see him.

In a few minutes obedient Pompey stood in her presence.

" Pompey," said Alice, " I have a plan for getting rid of
Magillicuddy. It may not succeed ; but listen, tell me what y
think of it, and keep it a profound secret."

"Not a soul shall ever wring it off my tongue nor Aunty,
One-eyed Csesar, nor massa," answered Pompey.

Alice now proceeded to reveal her plan; and when she
ished speaking the old slave fell back against the wall in a par
ysm of laughter. Indeed, he quite forgot himself, and roared
loudly that Alice feared her uncle might come up-stairs to
what was the matter.

The morrow was the Sabbath, and Mr. Magillicuddy anti
pated much agreeable and edifying discourse on pious topics
Alice. But she did not appear.

" Miss Alice has a headache, massa," said Pompey.

"A headache !" ejaculated Mr. McPherson. " Why, it is
first she has ever had in her life."

So saying, he mounted to his niece's apartment, and inqui
from without what ailed her. In somewhat feeble accents Al
responded that by the morrow she would be quite herself agai

" By to-morrow ! By to-morrow ! " growled her uncle,
you to stay immured the whole of this blessed Sabbath ? "'

A couple of hot words followed on Mr. McPherson's p
But Alice heeded them not. She refused to unlock the door,
did any body lay eyes on her for the next twenty- four hours, s
Aunty.

" I wish the lass were present to listen to you," spoke Mr.
Pherson two hours later 'while the dominie was reading some
wonderful and awe-inspiring facts recorded in the sixth book,
seventh chapter, of Cotton Mather's Wonders of the InvL

'sible

i88o.] POMPEY' s SECRET. 541

World. Mr. Magillicuddy was fond of reading about satanical
molestations and premonitions of approaching- death, and in this
sixth book there were enough to satisfy him.

"It might sober her a little," added Mr. McPherscn. "My
niece is altogether too flighty. Indeed, I hardly believe she has
any faith in witches, demons, or anything that she cannot see and
feel."

" Be not too severe on Miss Alice," returned the dominie.
" She is an uncommonly fine young woman, and I pray the
Lord that no evil may befall her. But I must inform ye, sir, that
I had a very- mournful dream about your niece the past night
a very mournful dream ! "

" Did ye?" said Mr. McPherson.

The clergyman now told his dream, and Mr. McPherson
; laughed heartily, assuring him that Alice would outlive them
both.

Early Monday morning the sun was just above the horizon

Alice mounted on Black Betty, and aunty on Dare-devil, set

, out for a ride. The latter carried a big bag in front of her ; but

i this nobody noticed, and when Magillicuddy heard Alice's voice

King beneath his window he peeped out, murmuring :
; May the Almighty watch over and preserve this' precious
g ! May her dark foreboding of coming woe prove only a
; temptation of Satan ! "

Half an hour later, while the reverend gentleman was adjust-
ing his wig, the sound of many voices was wafted to him through
the open window. What had happened ? He heard a loud wail
on the staircase, and, opening the door, he discovered Pompey
swaying to and fro and wringing his hands, while a flood of tears
flowed down his cheeks. So great was the old man's grief that
he could not explain himself.

But presently his master appeared, looking much agitated, and
he told how Black Betty and Dare-devil had galloped back to
the stable a few minutes since without their riders, and that the
horses had evidently been in the river.

" Alice," said Mr. McPherson, " was always a rash girl. I
was often afraid she might be drowned Avhile fording the Roa-
noke. Again and again I cautioned her, but in vain. And now,
alas ! the worst may have happened."

" Verily, the ways of the Lord are mysterious," said Mr. Ma-
gillicuddy, rolling up his eyes and calling to mind Alice's sad
presentiment.

Needless to sav that Mr. McPherson lost no time in institut-

542 POMPEY' s SECRET. [July,

ing a search for the missing ones. Up and down the river and
along both banks he and his slaves sought for traces of them ;
but none were found.

When the sun went down the shadows of night rested on a
house of mourning. Every intemperate word which Mr. McPher-
son had spoken to Alice now came back upon his memory like a
haunting ghost. Mr. Magillicuddy could not sleep any more
than his host, while Pompey wandered in and out of the man-
sion, weeping and moaning ; all the other slaves remained awake
and lamenting, too, for old Aunty had been a kinswoman of
very many of them, and Miss Alice a most kind and indulgent
mistress.

Three mornings after the calamity Mr. Magillicuddy came
down to breakfast looking paler than usual, and, questioned by
Mr. McPherson if he felt ill, shook his head, and in a grave tone
inquired of the other : " Did you rest well, sir, during the
night ? "

" Not over well," answered Mr. McPherson ; " for, strange
relate, a screech-owl flew into my chamber and uttered its d
ful cry."

" Well, 1 heard music, sir aye music in the little room whi
dear, good Miss Alice used to occupy," pursued the dominie.

" Impossible ! " exclaimed Mr. McPherson.

" Oh ! my ears did not deceive me. It was her harpsichord
heard."

" Impossible ! " repeated his host.

" But then we are surrounded by invisible beings by ang
good and evil," went on Mr. Magillicuddy.

" Bah ! " said Mr. McPherson ; and this " Bah ! " he repea
a score of times during the day to his reverend friend, who va
ly recalled to his mind the many strange things told by Cott
Mather, inwardly hoping that Mr. McPherson's abode was not
be the scene of any satanical molestations.

The following night the inmates of the house rested a lit
better ; but when they arose in the morning Pompey met th
with an expression of awe, and informed them that an invisible
hand had flung a huge pumpkin at him as he was lying abed
trying to sleep ; " and your favorite hound, massa, has disap-
peared."

'< What ! Rover ? How can this have happened ? " exclaim
Mr. McPherson:

" O massa !" went on Pompey, shaking his head, " I begin to
fear I I do indeed"

ap-

i88o.] POMPEY' s SECRET. 543

" Well, well, you begin to fear what ? Speak out ! " said Mr.
McPherson sharply. But Pompey did not complete the sen-
tence ; whereupon his master laughed, and again said, " Bah ! "
to something which Mr. Magillicuddy whispered in his ear.

Within the ten days following Alice's death Mr. Magillicuddy
heard the sound of her harpsichord four times about the hour
of midnight, and he became so convinced that the house was
haunted that he made up his mind to leave it ; but, out of regard
for his host, he would stay yet another week, unpleasant as it was
to tarry under such a roof.

The twelfth day was noted by the disappearance of the best
cow on the plantation an imported cow, which had been a great
pet of Alice's. " And ye say you again heard music coming
from my dead niece's room ? " said Mr. McPherson.

" I did ; and the melancholy tune still rings in my ears," re-
sponded Mr. Magillicuddy.

" Well, sir, there were three screech-owls flitting about my
bed last night aye, three screech-owls," went on Mr. McPherson.
" But how in the world they got there is a mystery, for now I
take the precaution to close my window."

" We are surrounded by mysteries," put in Pompey, with a
shudder ; " and, massa, I must tell you that Black Betty has
vanished during the night."

" What ! has the mare gone too ? " cried Mr. McPherson ;
then, thumping the table with his fist, " Well, Satan must be at
the bottom of this business ; he really must."

" Ah ! now you are coming nigh till the truth," spoke Mr.
Magillicuddy.

" I was going to say," rejoined Mr. McPherson, " that to-night,
i to-morrow night, and every night this week I'll keep watch by
, Alice's chamber with my blunderbuss."

" Dat's it, massa," spoke Pompey ; "and let me put two bullets
in the blunderbuss."

" I will load it myself," said Mr. McPherson.

That night, true to his promise, Mr. McPherson loaded his
ancient weapon with a double quantity of lead, put in a fresh flint,
and, seating himself by the door of the chamber where the ghostly
music had been heard, waited with vigilant ear for the hour of
midnight.

The dominie in the meanwhile paced his room, too excited to
; sleep ; the negroes outside were grouped in front of their cabins,
ion the lookout, while Pompey, the Nestor of them all, remained
at the bottom of the main stairway, with his sharp eyes fixed up-

clous
Dirit-

544 POMPEY' s SECRET. [July,

on his master ; for the full moon was shining brightly, and he
could see his master as plainly as if it were day.

The hours went by. Ten o'clock struck, then eleven. Final-
ly the old family time-piece sounded midnight. Mr. McPherson
instantly cocked his gun ; but to his disappointment not a note
of music was heard. " Well, I'll watch yet awhile longer," he
said to himself " at least another hour."

Accordingly he resumed his seat, all his senses wide awake,
while Mr. Magillicudcly, who had been listening at the keyhole
of his door, began again to pray. But ere twenty minutes had
elapsed Mr. McPherson's head began to nod. Immediately
Pompey's face beamed with delight. Five minutes later his
master snored.

In his bare feet Pompey stole up the stairs ; he mounted as
noiselessly as a cat. He quaked like one with the ague when he
stooped to pick up the blunderbuss, which lay by his master's
feet ; then with trembling hand he drew forth the two balls.
As soon as Pompey got back to his post he gave a tremendoi
sneeze ; and while the echoes of his sneeze were dying
sounds were heard from Alice's harpsichord ! Touched by spirit
fingers, how weirdly it sounded to Mr. Magillicuddy, who wipe
the perspiration from his brow ! On the instant a loud rej
shook the building, followed by the rattling of a quantity
plaster about his ears.

Pompey rushed upstairs, 'overtaking Mr. McPherson bef<
he got to the middle of the haunted apartment.

"Who is here ? " cried the latter in an angry voice.

" Lord, Lord, massa ! whoever it is is killed dead sure," s;
Pompey.

" Confound the smoke ! Open the window and let out
smoke," said Mr. McPherson.

As soon as the smoke had sufficiently cleared away to alien
pretty good view of the chamber, the harpsichord stood
plainly enough, but not a living beii^g nor a dead one near it.

" Where did the bullets strike ? " said Pompey, carefully
ning his hands along the walls.

Mr. McPherson assisted him in the search ; but to his utt
amazement not a bullet-mark could be found, not even 'in the
broad screen which stood between the door and the harpsichord,
and which had been placed probably by the ghost exactly in
the line of fire.

" Mr. McPherson, I am exceedingly thankful to ye for your
hospitality," spoke Mr. Magillicuddy in broken accents, as he

i88o.] POMPEY' s SECRET. 545

peeped into the room, " but to-morrow I must go back to Rich-
mond."

" Well, I reckon we'll journey together," answered Mr. Mc-
Pherson, " for this house is in the power of Satan."

" Indeed it is, massa, sure," put in Pompey. " I wouldn't stay
h'yer another day, if I could get away."

But with the return of daylight and the glorious sunshine Mr.
McPherson's spirits rose. His belief that his home was haunted
or in any way under the influence of bad angels left him alto-
gether, and he implored his reverend guest to tarry at least one
more week.

" No, no, dear sir ; my flock is in sore need of me," returned
the dominie. " I may abide here until this day's sun is below the
horizon ; but depart I must ere it arises anew."

" Aye, journey by moonlight," interposed Pompey, " when
it is cool and pleasant ; and One-eyed Csesar will accompany you,
if massa is willing."

In vain Mr. McPherson begged his friend to postpone his de-
, parture in vain. That very evening, when the full moon would
i light up the road and the air be fresh and bracing, Mr. Magilli-
i cuddy vowed he would go.

" Bah ! witches and demons and ghosts be be hanged ! "
exclaimed Mr. McPherson. Then, recovering his temper, he pro-
jmised Mr. Magillicuddy that after sundown he would set out
'with him and accompany him a good twenty miles on the way.

When the sun was verging towards the horizon Pompey sur-
prised his master by appearing in holiday clothes ; he wore white
gloves, and the buckles of his shoes gleamed like real silver. By
and by the sun disappeared ; as the moon rose a gentle breeze
oegan to blow from the west.

" A capital night to travel," said the dominie.

" I am very sorry to lose ye," said Mr. McPherson.

" It breaks my old heart to have the good gentleman leave
is," put in Pompey, with uncovered head, and looking ever so
leferential.

"Why, Pompey, are you coming with us?" asked Mr. Mc-
'herson about half an hour later. " Methinks myself and One-
yed Caesar are a sufficient escort for Mr. Magillicuddy until he
caches the next plantation."

"I thought, massa, that I'd just exercise one of the horses ;
icy have had mighty little to do since good Missie Alice died,"
nswered Pompey, drawing his sleeve across his eyes.

" Well, I am glad that you have given Mr. Magiilicuddy Dare-
VOL. xxxi. 35

546 POMPEY' s SECRET. [July,

devil to ride," said Mr. McPherson ; and, turning to the preacher,
he said : " The rebels are the worst devils of all. But hap-
pily," he growled, " Lord Cornwallis has a large army in
Virginia ; and although the rebels have the French to help them,
Cornwallis, I am sure, will soon disperse the whole brood of
them ! "

" May ye prove a true prophet ! " responded Mr. Magilli-
cuddy. " Yet I fear the whole country is under satanic influence."

When the party had ridden about a quarter of a mile they en-
tered the lonely forest, whose stillness was unbroken save by the
crying of a catamount, and they were moving along at a jog-trot
even Pompey maintaining silence when of a sudden Dare-
devil, the colt, came to a full stop, stretched out his neck, snort<
violently, and with a neigh the beast sprang forward.

" Massa Magillicuddy ! Massa Magillicuddy ! " shouted P<
pey, "keep a firm seat, or the horse will toss you ! "

But this admonition was entirely needless ; so fast to D;
devil's neck did the dominie cling that there was some little
ger of the animal's being choked to death.

But what had caused this unexpected rush on the colt's p<
The way to the Dismal Swamp lay straight ahead through a wil-
derness. Alice, seated on the mare, was darting at full speed in
the van; twenty paces behind the mare galloped the mare's
colt, eager to overtake its mother, whom it had not seen for seve-
ral weeks ; behind Mr. Magillicuddy, though not far behind,
rode Mr. McPherson Pompey spurring his own steed so as to
keep close to his master, and chuckling at a great rate ; while still
further to the rear came One-eyed Caesar, who closed the excit
cavalcade, followed by all the slaves of the plantation men,
men and children, helter-skelter, shouting, laughing, tumblii
over one another in a strange sort of glee.

It took but a few minutes, however, for Black Betty and
fleet colt to distance Pompey, One-eyed Caesar, and their m;
who, though naturally sceptical in regard to witches and derm
now more than half believed that Satan was at the bottom of
extraordinary race.

" What means this, Pompey ? " cried Mr. McPherson as tl
speeded along. " How fast the dominie rides ! He'll soon
out of sight. What the deil is it all about ? "

" It means, massa, that we are all hurrying to the Disi
Swamp," answered Pompey.

" To the Dismal Swamp ! " exclaimed Mr. McPherson. "
ye rascal, ye've been at my wine. Ye're drunk ! "

i88o.] POMPEY' s SECRET. 547

" Not a drop, massa, not a drop. But dig the spurs into your
horse, massa, and we'll be there for the wedding."

" Wedding ! Are ye gone clean daft, or has the deil got into
ye ? " roared Mr. McPherson, who at the same time had constant-
ly to bend his head very low in order to avoid the hanging vines
and the branches of the pines and juniper-trees, through which
he was being carried at the rate of twenty miles an hour.

Pompey burst into a loud laugh, and as he rode on made a
hasty clutch at an object that dangled above his head from a
grape-vine ; he took it for a bird's nest, and was just in time to
catch it. The negro supposed it a bird's nest, but it was a wig
Mr. Magillicuddy's wig !

Leaving the jolly old slave and his master to pursue their way
to the swamp as fast as they can go, let us come nearer to bonny
Alice and the dominie.

The latter was really terrified by the sight of a female clad in
white and mounted on a steed which kept ever a few paces in
front of him. The cold drops of perspiration were swept off his
face by the leaves and briers through which he was rushing at an
unearthly speed. Yet such was his fright that these drops were
constantly renewed. He tried to collect his thoughts and to
pray ; but in vain. All he could do was to groan, and cling with
mortal grip to Dare-devil's neck. His hat and wig had blown
away ; his coat was sadly torn. Mr. McPherson and Pompey 's
voices had died away in the distance ; he was evidently alone
alone in the wake of a supernatural being !

But the longest, hardest ride must at length come to an end ;
and so did Mr. Magillicuddy's. His amazement equalled his
heartfelt thanks to the Lord when the phantom ahead of him
slackened its pace and revealed to his bewildered vision the face
and form of Alice McPherson.

" Do not fear me," she said " do not fear me. Touch my
hand, and you will discover that I am flesh and blood."

A brief explanation followed the handshaking, after which
Alice said : " Now, dear sir, let us ride side by side into the
swamp. I know the only safe entrance to it ; Drummond Lake is
not far off, and there we shall dismount and rest a short space
before the marriage ceremony is performed."

" Well, when I was a boy," said Mr. Magillicuddy, wrapping
i kerchief about his bald pate, " I read a good many fairy-tales ;
out verily this moonlight scamper through the wilderness doth
exceed them all for strangeness and weirdness."

Ha ! ha ! " laughed the merry girl. " Pompey kept my

548 POM PRY'S SECRET. [July,

secret well, did he not ? You little suspected that I was the
ghost who was performing on the harpsichord, eh ? "

" The cunning old fellow ! " pursued the dominie. " But I'll
not scold him for your sake, Miss Alice."

Presently Dare-devil pricked up his ears and snorted. " Pray
what is that light yonder ? " exclaimed Mr. Magillicuddy. " A
will-o'-the-wisp ? Look ! Do ye not see it ? "

" Aye, a will-o'-the-wisp," replied Alice, smiling.

" Ah ! you are joking," said Mr. Magillicuddy as they came in
sight of the lake ; " for I perceive it is a torch held by some-
body who is standing in a canoe."

In a minute the canoe touched the shore, and Marion, the bold
cavalry leader of the Carolinas, stepped out and was introduced
to the dominie. While they were shaking hands the hound
which had so mysteriously disappeared from the plantation like-
wise sprang ashore, and began to bark and frisk about its young
mistress, licking her hand. Even the cow which had also so
strangely vanished gave a low of recognition. While she was
lowing Mr. Magillicuddy perceived a log cabin hard by. It w<
built on a gentle knoll ; a cluster of sunflowers were blooming
the door ; above its roof drooped the branches of a juniper-tn
while round about it were sparkling myriads of fire-flies.

" I do not wonder that Tarleton has never discovered y<
place of retreat," spoke Mr. Magillicuddy as they sauntered
wards the cabin.

" Well, he is likely to have little cause for meeting me in coi
bat henceforth," answered Marion.

" What mean ye ? " inquired the dominie.

" I mean that Lord Cornwallis is closely beset on the peni
sula between the York and James Rivers, and it would not si
prise me if within a month we had peace."

" Peace ! sweet, blessed peace ! " exclaimed Alice, clasping
hands. " Oh ! how happy I shall be when it comes."

" But Lord Cornwallis will never surrender," said Mr. Magi)
cuddy " never surrender."

When they reached the hut they were welcomed by Aunty,
and Alice whispered a few words to her betrothed. Then, turn-
ing to Mr. Magillicuddy, she suggested that it might be better to
await the arrival of her uncle before beginning the ceremony.

" I quite agree with ye," said the dominie ; " and whatev<
objections he may have to the match which ye are about to mal
they will surely disappear in his great joy at finding ye alive and
well and not in the world of spirits."

i88o.] POMPEY' s SECRET. 549

Here Alice laughed a merry laugh, the hound yelped, and
i Marion expressed a hope that the rest of the party would make
haste.

But it was sunrise ere Mr. McPherson, Pompey, and One-eyed
Caesar made their appearance.

" Why, gracious heaven ! " he cried, " here is Alice, my
brother's child, come back to life. Alice J Alice ! "

" Was she ever dead ? " said the radiant maiden, as he clasped
her in his arms,

But unbounded as was Mr. McPherson's delight at this unex-
pected meeting with one whom he had believed dead, it cost him
a bitter pang to greet the* rebel Marion as Alice's affianced husband.

But the rising sun, the balmy breeze from the west, Alice's
kisses, and last, not least, Mr. Magillicuddy's generous appeal, all
helped to mollify his obdurate heart. Finally he said :

" Take her, General Marion, and treat her most tenderly ; for
Alice is a rare flower."

" But do not begin the wedding till the other folks arrive,"
put in Pompey. " They are coming, massa, just as fast as legs
can carry them."

This was true. It was not long till the head of the negro pro-
cession came in sight. But they could be heard long before they
were seen, for they were singing lustily and playing on twenty
banjos. The whole plantation was present, down to the youngest
baby three days old. It was a jovial spectacle.

Alice was beaming in her beauty ; the sunburnt, broad-should-
ered Marion, with one arm in a sling, looked every inch a soldier ;
Pompey's mouth stretched to its widest when the ring was
dipped on his young mistress' ringer, and, snatching up a banjo, he
struck up a lively reel, which in a trice set two hundred feet in
apid motion.

It is hard to say when the dance might have ended had not a
Granger appeared ; his steed was flecked with foam ; he had evi-
lently ridden fast and far.

While all eyes were fixed upon him he saluted Marion, and
Irew from his pocket a small slip of paper.

Marion's countenance glowed as he read the paper. Then,
naking his bride a sign to approach, " Read it, Alice," he said,

d read in a loud voice, for it is glorious news."

Alice took the paper and read as follows :

"YoRKTOWN, October 19, 1781.
'Cornwallis has surrendered. The work is done, and well done.

" GEORGE WASHINGTON."

550 DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. [July,

" Alas ! alas ! what have I lived to see? " cried Mr. McPherson.

" Well, dear uncle, the war has ended as I knew it would end
when it began seven years ago," said Alice. " We are now an
independent nation. And, dear husband " here she turned to-
wards the happy Marion " the country owes a great deal to you.
Your name will be placed high in the Temple of Fame."

" Your loving heart shall be my Temple of Fame. I care about
no other," responded Marion.

"But, Massa Marion," put in Pompey, "you ought to thank
me for this happy day."

" And he does thank you," said Alice ; " for indeed we should
not have been all assembled on the shore of Drummond Lake this
beautiful October morning but for

" For old Pompey's well-kept secret," interrupted the aged
slave, grinning.

With this the merry throng wended their way back to the
plantation, where we may be sure a grand feast was prepared.
And from that day forth, and for at least a generation afterwards,
whenever a slave confided anything of importance to another
slave which he did not wish to have repeated, he would tell him
to keep it like Pompey's secret.

DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS.

THE recent Encyclical of the Sovereign Pontiff on the subjec
of marriage gives in a condensed form the substance of a treatis<
which usually takes up the whole length of a year in the after
noon classes of the Propaganda. Now, when we consider the in i
numerable disquisitions of our theologians and, as a specimen, th<
three volumes of the late Father Perrone, S.J., Rome, 1858, D-
Matrimonio Christiana we cannot but admire the wonderful powe;
of condensing and the incisive brevity manifested in the Hoi \
Father's letter. In it, as with the hand of a physician, he touche
the ulcers of society, and lays bare the inward rottenness of an i
swerving from the original dignity, unity, and perpetuity of tin
contract which is indubitably the source and cradle of the
man race. Hence, with a wide grasp, it is treated of not only \\
reference to its inherent and essential characteristics as institute
by Almighty God, who acted as high-priest on the occasion of tb
first and typical marriage of one with one ; but also the differen
fallings-off from first purity are noticed, with their consequence

i88o.] DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. 551

i to
bui
twt
on.

0,^3

whether among the Jews or the nations at large, until the time of
our Lord, when, as teacher, he recalls marriage in the new law
to its first condition, saying : " From the beginning it was not so ;
but he who made man made them male and female ; . . . and they

wo shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but
e flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no
man put asunder" (Matt. xix. 4, 5, 6). This is the theme en-
larged upon by the Sovereign Pontiff in his capacity of teacher,
as vicar of our Lord, and it is one of the utmost importance, and

as challenged the respectful attention even of adversaries, who
ust admit the superiority of the principles inculcated by the Ca-
tholic Church, however much they may dissent in special cases
from them by their practice. It is especially to this subordinate
and latter part of the Encyclical that we devote our attention, in
which is depicted briefly the deplorable condition to which mar-
riage has been, and is, degraded both by a denial of its unity and
a persistent opposition to the teachings of the church in reference
to its sacramental character.

On general principles one should hesitate to admit a teaching

ased upon a confessedly dubious origin, and in direct opposition
to the harmony of Sacred Scripture, whilst admittedly against
tradition and the speaking voice of the church. This is, how-
ever, precisely the position of those who uphold divorce, with
freedom to enter new bonds wliich are themselves, of course, in
such theory, equally capable of being loosed. No one taking a
higher stand-point can fail to be impressed with the truth that,

vhatever may be said in favor of any separation in marriage, it
uld not have been, it never was, anything else than an excep-

ional condition a sort of miserable remedy which in its own na-
ture must not become the rule. Indeed, when we take the rela-
tive number of men and women all over the world, as manifested
by the most reliable statistics, or consider the nature of the ob-
ligations entered into by the contracting parties, we cannot but
feel the necessity of that oneness of which Christ speaks so em-
phatically : " Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh." It
is capable of demonstration that in number the sexes are relative-
ly such that, at all times, rather more men than women are born.
This general fact cannot but impress those who think, since any-
thing so wide-spread and constantly recurring must belong to na-
ture's law. On this we might enlarge, as well as upon the need
which offspring have of care in infancy, education and example in
youth, and their duties towards parents in after-life, all which is
touched upon by the Supreme Pontiff in graphic words.

tio

552 DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. [July,

We might fairly, also, lay aside the evidently wretched mis-
takes of various heathen nations in the matter of polygamy and
other worse deflections from the unity of marriage. The intel-
lectual, at all events, of our century will hardly deem them praise-
worthy. With equal propriety we may pass over the darkened
practice of the Hebrews, introduced, so far as we can find his-
torically, quite suitably by Lamech, " a murderer and adulterer."
This practice of polygamy had, as usual with things wrong, an
early following among that nation, always ready to go astray at
the smallest showing. To the Jews Moses conceded, " because oi
the hardness of their hearts " (Matt. xix. 8), the permission to senc
away their wives in a given case. It is plain that at our Saviour*!
time there was a general vagueness, in practice, concerning th<
unity of marriage. No one, however, ever dared to assert that
this was the normal or. best condition ; for woman thereby
deprived of her natural dignity, and sank to the wretched posi-
tion of handmaid and slave, or mere instrument of the lusts oi
man. The actual condition of women among the most advancec
nations of antiquity was just this, and no more, as we read both ii
Greek and Latin authors ; not to say a word of Oriental nations,
where they are still no better. This corruptio optimi pessima had
wrought its way among the Hebrews until the schools of th<
rabbis were divided in their laxity of granting causes deemed suf-
ficient to obtain divorce. At such a juncture of affairs our Lord is
asked by the Pharisees " whether a man can put away his wife
for every cause?" (Matt. xix. 3). Their object was, as usual, tt
tempt him " tentantes eum." Whereupon he calls to their attei
tion the indivisible or indissoluble nature of marriage, which in th<
law of God united parties so closely that they became one moral
and inseparable person. " He who made them from the beginning
made the two to be one flesh. -What, therefore, God hath joint
together let no man put asunder." This was the primitive coi
dition of marriage one with one to which he recalls the union,
namely, to its pristine unity, as the plural unit of a future family,
which is the chief object in matrimony. The Pharisees at onc(
object. They bring forward the action of their legislator : " Wh;
then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put
away ? " (verse 7). Our Lord corrects their phraseology : " Moses
permitted," he did not command, " and that because of the hardness
of your hearts ; but from the beginning it was not so."

Now, our Lord immediately subjoins : " But I say to you
the restoration of the first law is here definitely laid down" that
whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication,

iS8o.] DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. 553

and shall marry another, committeth adultery : and he that shall
marry her that is put away committeth adultery " (verse 9). The
marriage tie still remains, since the condition of both parties is
lade equal. He who puts away his wife, and takes another, com-
lits adultery ; and he who takes the dismissed is in the self-same
mdition. The exceptional clause refers plainly to the first por-
m of the verse, since the party put away is not free a vinculo,
>r the party acting at liberty to enter into new bonds. This is
:actly the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the difficulty it
resents was plain to his hearers, who subjoin : " If the case of a
mn with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry " (verse 10).
'here would be simply no ground for this remark had Christ
;ft matters just as they were in the minds of his hearers, or had
not actually inculcated by these words the higher doctrine of
itire indissolubility, of which the church has ever since been the
dthful and sole exponent. No more perfectly parallel case oc-
irs of an argument from the very lips of adversaries, except that
le taken from St. John vi., where Christ's hearers, understand-
ig him thoroughly concerning his real, bodily presence in the
rords of promise, say : " This is a hard saying, and who can hear
"

It is certainly true that in this theory (which is, nevertheless,
perfect harmony with all the traditional teachings of the
lurch) we have to admit the great inconvenience, hardship, and
positive suffering to which an innocent party may be put
icause of the permanent nature of this contract. Still, we
lould reflect that frequently the same hardships, and even abso-
lute misery, may take place in the case of any bargain. If a man
agrees to make a purchase, investing his wealth in any given
business, the well-known proverb, " Caveat emptor," is very just-
ly, other things being equal, placed before him. Men of honor
dare not decline the payment of debts which they make when
no equivalent, or at best a very doubtful one, is given. Ought
one complain because a contract lawfully entered into, a bargain
ratified between sensible parties, duly and carefully acting, cannot
broken ? In the very nature of things failures may occur ; yet
lot even the government can overthrow lawful contracts, how-
ever much of hardship, loss, or suffering may be entailed. Those,
lerefore, who plead for absolute separation with subsequent
freedom, really have a less ennobling idea of the dignity of mar-
riage than worldlings have of an ordinary business transaction,
for which they invoke, however unpleasant the consequences to
themselves, no interference on the part of government. It is not

554 DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. [July,

called in question that the type of a happy marriage is that
of one with one ; he, indeed, who is completely taken up with
the chaste affection he has for his spouse has no occasion to
swerve from his duty either in thought, word, or deed. Recipro-
cally she who bears due allegiance to her lord allows no possi-
ble claim for any other. Such a union is recognized to be the
origin of an offspring whose descent is nowise dubious. Can this
be sure in the case of a marriage admitted from its commence-
ment to be susceptible of solution ? Does any one desire for his
parents such a doubtful alliance ? Hence dissoluble marriage
not the highest ideal type.

The union best suited to procure permanent benefit for eacl
party is that in which rights once given are held sacred alway;
Those transferred in marriage are such as, to be held sacred, ac
mit no diminution. But this cannot be found unless in mon<
gamy, where the parties are, as far as rights are concerned, p(
fectly equal. When, moreover, the contract necessarily impli<
the giving over of actual rights which are irrevocable so far
effects are concerned, it follows that, being already given to on(
there is no possibility of copartnership. Hence, in taking a s<
ond, the rights of the first are invaded, and that which h;
already been given away, as the subject of an unalterable coi
tract, is made to be the material of a new one, which it cannot
without positive injustice.

The sequence of matrimony (as its name imports) is mothei
hood. Now, it is impossible to have children properly train<
up, educated, and cared for where the contract is transient. This
must always be the case where fancy is allowed to multipb
causes ot separation with freedom to contract new alliances. T<
this it not only must come by natural deduction and pronem
for change, but it has actually taken place wheresoever an opei
ing for caprice has been left among men. The long history
marriage sufficiently attests this sad fact when the evident fin
intention of the Institutor of marriage has been transgress
Logical necessity involves those in the guilt of crime who hole
that marriage is susceptible of absolute dissolution. For, in th<
last analysis, what do they say, if we look at it rightly, but this ?-
The parties now entering marriage are making a contract whicl
may last, it matters little whether a few hours, days, months,
years. In the meanwhile they reserve to themselves the unquz
fied right of severing the union entirely and entering into
bonds. This includes exactly the same grossness as any oth(
mere concubinage or prostitution. It is simply a contract f(

l88o.] DjVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. 555

pleasure or an agreement to voluptuousness, whether the yield-
ing be for an occasion of dalliance or until satiety sets in. This
may shock many of our very unthinking Evangelicals, who are
evertheless apt to arrogate a monopoly of thought to themselves,
as though it were their heritage. Yet we do very seriously call
to their attention that every such marriage in which, by the force
f their own teachings, the union may be dissolved (as so many
others equally ornate in their trappings and surroundings have
been), is a compact of iniquity, and in and of itself deserves no
other title than that of harlotry.

Grave men, nevertheless, keen and sharp in every business
transaction, refuse to see this inevitable conclusion, towards
which they drift ceaselessly when they resist the teaching of the
church of God. The sequence is, therefore, that not only can
there be no dignity, but not even common decency, where there
s opposition to the immutable unity of marriage. " What God
th joined together let no man put asunder," is true yesterday,
o-day, and for ever. The prevalence of legislation in civil courts
n this topic began naturally with the Reformers, who seem to
ave held with Luther that marriage is a worldly affair and be-
longs to the civil authorities. From his time specifically, and
among his followers and their never-ending divisions, laws have
been made, digests recorded, and statutes formed covering every
case from incompatibility of temperament onward to adultery. The
more consistent a nation was, and the more it preserved of reli-
gion, the fewer were the chances of absolute divorce. Even Eng-
land had no such infamous possibility until 1857, and South Caro-
lina, whilst a State and not a mere subjugated territory, never
blackened her fair fame or her Christian standard by a law ad-
mitting divortium a vinculo. The United States may indeed claim
a sort of disgraceful pre-eminence in this matter of divorce, since
many districts are lavish in the accumulation of causes' for abso-
lute separation, with the consequent freedom to enter legally into
new ties. To be sure, nobody respects those who enter into such
hideous alliances ; even among outsiders there is a blush still to
be discerned on the face of those who know, if they know any-
. thing, that "from the beginning it was not so." Passion, how-
ever, knows not law, and we have in. some of the widely-read
dailies a paragraph between the announcements of marriages and
deaths, intervening, for legal "divorces." It is distinctly true
that whilst many of these come under the head of absence, bad
treatment, etc., as moving causes for the setting aside of the mar-
riage tie, we read (and have rubbed our eyes to see whether there

556 DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. [July,

were no mistake) of admitted or proved adultery in several hun-
dreds of cases ! To such a frightful condition of iteration has this
come that one is alarmed to think that he is scarcely shocked at
what should send a thrill of horror through his soul. What,
indeed, would our daily papers do were they deprived of these
and kindred announcements ?

The warning voice of the Sovereign Pontiff is nowhere more
needed than in this country, where there is a real inclination to
hear the truth. Here, as the church is free to exercise her
beneficial effects, people who read notice carefully facts such, for
example, as the heroic stand taken by her Pontiff against Napo-
leon I. They see how sacredly she treats the tie of marriage, and
how perfectly consistent has been her history. As Mr. Bagshawe
remarks in his admirable work, The Credentials of the Catholic
Church, p. 224:

" The world, as such (in reference to the laws which regulate marriage),
has very little idea beyond external decorum, expediency, and conveni-
ence. It is easy enough to show, on occasion, that it would be convenient
to get rid of certain marriages ; that they are the cause of a good deal of
hardship, or even suffering. The world cannot be brought to see that there
is a higher law than any such expediency, and, therefore, it is clamorous to
get rid of the difficulty, either not seeing or disregarding the injury done
to the sanctity of Christian marriage.

" It is precisely on such occasions that the vigor of the church in up-
holding ' sanctity ' of doctrine is conspicuous. She is ready to maintain it
at all costs. She did so, as is well known, in the case of Henry VIIJ.'s
divorce, even at the expense of the schism which cut off England from her
obedience. She does so at the present day. It is to no purpose that infi-
del governments have introduced civil marriage and allowed divorce. The
church cannot prevent them from making laws, but she does not depart
one hair's-breadth from her own teaching. She admits of no compromise,
and never ceases to denounce, without hesitation, every union not sane
tioned by Christian principles, let governments and people say what they
will.

" What has been the conduct of Protestant sects in this matter ? What
has been that of the Church of England, the one which has retained most
of the instincts of Catholicism ? It is well known that in most Protestant
countries divorce has become so common that the idea of the indissolubility
of Christian marriage has almost died out. And what did the Church of
England do when a law was made to allow divorce? Did she protest? Did
she forbid ? Did she denounce ? No ; she did nothing. With many ex-
cellent qualities, the Church of England cannot go against the stream."

We may look at some singular specimens of the workings of
our divorce system, concerning which it must not be forgotten
that New England, as usual, is the head and front of the offend-

i88o.] DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. 557

ing. No portion of our country has a more directly Protestant
source, none a more free-thinking- progeny. They are, to say
the least, quite direct in their descent from Luther and his fol-
lowers, who acted upon the thought that marriage was a merely
civil contract, no more demanding religious sanction than the
sale and transfer of a cow. As in Germany, so also in New Eng-
land, divorce is easy, and is talked of before the marriage as a
not improbable sequence. 1 This is very neatly manifested by the
following clippings taken from down East :

[From the New York Sun of May n, 1879.]

" BARNSTABLE, MASS., May 7. A bevy of girls, pone of them seemingly
more than twenty years old, filed up the hill that leads to the County Court-
house this morning, and passed into the old graystone building. Almost
all of them were accompanied by elderly women, although one or two were
ith sprucely-dressed young men. The venerable Judge Otis Lord, of Sa-
em, took his seat upon the bench, and called the first case on the docket
or the term of the Supreme Court. There stepped forward a blue-eyed
irl, whose light brown hair fell upon her back in a heavy braid, the ends
f which were concealed in a blue love-knot. An elderly woman stood one
ide of her, and a young man with a flowing beard on the other. Then the
girl told her story. She wanted a divorce 'from her husband. Judge Lord
looked at her critically for an instant, as though astonished, not so much that
a pretty girl, who dressed and looked as though she had run into court from
school, should want a divorce, as that she should have already been mar-
ried. But she said she had been married four years, and that her husband
had left her after living with her a few weeks. She admitted that the hus-
and was living in the county, but urged, with a pretty tremulousness, that
he would not live with her. Her mother and the young man with the
beard corroborated her story,- and she went out of the court smiling, and
congratulated by several of the other girls and by two or three young
men.

Another case was called. There stepped to the stand a slender, gray-
eyed girl. She seemed to be less than eighteen 'years old. Her feeble, tot-
tering mother was with her. Yet she had been married, she said, five years,
and her husband would not support her after the first three months of her
wedded life. The husband, a fleshy young man, stood up in court and ad-
mitted it. Judge Lord frowned and nestled in his seat. But he simply
said, ' I will consider the matter.'

A plump, rosy-cheeked woman, .with a literary appearance that may
have been caused by the eye-glasses she wore, stepped up next. Her hus-
band was a sea-captain, who had promised to take her to sea, but when he
got as far as Boston with her he left her at a hotel.
" ' Well, why did he leave you ? '
" 'I suppose he loved another woman better.'

" This sea-captain had lived with the girl a few months, and although
he had often been in the same town since he left her, yet he had refused to
have anything to do with her for three years. The young woman got the
decree she desired, and a clerical-looking man escorted her from court.

553

DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS.

[July,

" Next came a pale-faced girl, whose features were regular, but whose
complexion was sallow. She seemed sickly. She was married in 1874, and
after a week of honeymoon her husband left her, with the remark that
he wanted nothing more to do with her.

" ' Did you go to him ? '

" ' No, sir.'

"'Why not?'

" ' Because his mother was always picking at me and finding fault.'

"Then Judge Lord, who had been visibly growing indignant, aros
' It is shocking to contemplate the state of morals in this great common-
wealth that is here to be observed. Has it come to this ? I am here t(
administer the law as it stands. The law says that desertion for three yeai
is cause for divorce. But I see clearly how it operates. A young man an(
woman agree to get married. They feel that they'll live together so lonj
as they find it mutually pleasant and agreeable so to do, and then by a soi
of tacit understanding they can live separate, and then one or the other, at
the end of three years, brings in a libel for divorce for desertion. The othe
party makes no opposition. The decree is granted, and then they are
liberty to go on and do the same thing over and over again. I say it is
terrible to contemplate such a state of morals in this commonwealth. G<
on.'

" A dark-eyed brunette stepped to the stand, and wanted a divorce
cause she had been obliged to leave her husband, as he had used harsh lan-
guage to her. With the brunette were an aunt and a fine-looking youn^
man from Boston. The young wife wore a fashionably-made garment
and over her wedding-ring was another, in the setting of which a diamon<
glistened. Her jaunty hat was draped with a long black ostrich-feathei
She looked pleadingly at the judge from beneath her long, shadowy
lashes. But after listening to her story Judge Lord again arose.

" ' I must say that it is terrible to contemplate such a state of society
Why ' and here he turned to the lawyers who were in the bar ' why, out
of all the large number of divorce cases before me recently, there were onb
two of the persons married before 1870! Does not this show that youi
people are entering into this solemn contract with the most trivial ideas
its importance, and with the feeling that they can be freed from the bon<
whenever they like ? I am not responsible for the laws as they stand,
can only administer them. But I will say that, so far as I can prevent it,
they shall not be used to facilitate the development of such a state of
morals.'

" The Supreme Court was in session ten days. In that time there wei
heard two civil causes, and one of these was the simple proving of a will
The entire time of the court, with the exception of that part devoted
these two cases, was taken up in the hearing of divorce suits. There wei
thirty of these in all. Two of them were based upon clearly-proved adul
tery ; the others were those of this bevy of young girls, who filed up to the
court-house, and sat in rows, like school-girls, upon the witnesses' seats.

'' There probably is no part of the United States in which there are fewei
foreigners than on Cape Cod. The people who live here are the descem
ants of the first settlers. The Cape is full of traditions, and the orthodo:
church has always had a strong foothold here. Yet there are probably to-

i88o.]

DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS.

559

day more divorced people on the Cape than in any similarly populated area
in the country. Young men and young women are to be found in every
town who have been man and wife, but are so no longer."

And from one of our contemporaries we cut, not without a
feeling of shame for our country, the following- statement in re-
ference to divorce, collated from original sources :

" The Vermont Chronicle is making a specialty in gathering divorce sta-
tistics, particularly with reference to the New England States. In a recent
issue it presented some startling figures in regard to divorces in Massachu-
setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont. The first of these States
has within the last nineteen years granted seven thousand two hundred and
twenty-three absolute divorces, and more than half of the whole number
were procured within the last seven years. The following tabulation shows
the operation of the divorce-mill in that State for the last ten years :

YEAR.

Number of
Divorces.

Number of
Marriages.

Ratio of Divorce
to Marriage.

In 1869,

339

14,826

to 43-7

In 1870,

378

14,721

to 38.9

In 1871,

326

I 5,74 6

to 48.3

In 1872,

342

16,142

to 47.2

In 1873,

449

16,437

to 36.6

In 1874,

648

I 5>564

to 24.0

In 1875,
In 1876, .

S1 l
526

13,663
12,749

to 23.6
to 24.2

In 1877,

55i

12,758

to 23.1

In 1878,

596

....

Total,

4,733

....

Ratio of divorces to marriages from 1869 to 1873, . . . . i to 42.9

Ratio of divorces to marriages from 1874 to 1877, . . . . i to 23.7

Ratio of divorces to population in 1870, . . . . . i to 3,855

Ratio of divorces to population in 1875, i to 2,858

" Rhode Island, according to the Chronicle, shows for the last nine years
one thousand six hundred and seventy divorces to twenty-one thousand
seven hundred and fifteen marriages, giving a ratio of one divorce to thir-
teen marriages, with a slight increase in the later years. There is one
divorce in that State to about every one thousand and two hundred of its
inhabitants. This beats Massachusetts in the divorce business.

" The statistics for Connecticut cover a period of nearly thirty years. In
1849 only ninety-one divorces were granted in that State ; yet, in conse-
quence of a change made in the law that year, the number was increased
more than one-third in a single year. In 1864 the number of divorces was
four hundred and twenty-six, and in 1877 it was four hundred and forty-
eight, which was about the annual average for a series of years. The ratio
of divorces to marriages in that State is as one to about ten and four-tenths.
The Chronicle estimates that there must be one divorce to every eight Pro-
testant marri-ages. Connecticut is said to be ' the land of steady habits,'
and this fact is illustrated in the uniformity of her divorce ratio for years
past. Her average deaths are not more regular than her divorces.

" The average ratio of divorces to marriages in Vermont is one to six-

560 DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. [July,

teen, which is better than that of Rhode Island and Connecticut, but not so
good as that of Massachusetts. Taking these four States together, the
number of divorces in 1877 was one thousand three hundred and thirty-one ;
and if we add Maine and New Hampshire, and assume for them about the
same proportion of divorces to population, we shall have not far from eigh-
teen hundred divorces in the New England States for that year.

"These statistics, which seem to have been carefully gathered by the
Chronicle, reveal an alarming state of facts as to the condition and stability
of families in New England. We noticed not long since that in a two days'
session of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts there were no les
than thirty-four applications from unhappy husbands or wives for a divorc
decree ; and in most of these cases the evidence showed that the marriages
sought to be thus dissolved were of comparatively recent date. The theoi
of the law is that marriage is not simply a contract, to be entered into
the option of the parties, and then to be dissolved at their mutual pleasure
but that it is an institution, as well as a contract, and, hence, that when th(
relation is once assumed it is permanent until terminated by death or b}
the authority of law. This is clearly the theory of the Bible. Both
and religion recognize marriage as the basis of the family ; and the famib
is not only the divinely-ordained instrumentality for perpetuating the ra<
but also the most important factor in the whole scheme of social, political
and religious existence. The state has an immense interest in preserving
the family, as an organization built upon the theory of monogamy ; an<
hence every civilized state has from time immemorial had its law for th(
regulation of marriage and the rights and duties resulting therefrom.

" It is undoubtedly true that there are cases in which married partk
should be divorced by the authority of the state, as the least of two evils
and yet a free-and-easy system of divorce, as the effect of lax and impropei
laws or of the bad administration of good laws, is both a nuisance and
curse to human society. The general tendency of divorce legislation is
toward a dangerous laxity, and the same is true of its administratioi
While we do not say that New England is in a worse condition than othe
parts of the country on this subject, we nevertheless think that the statis
tics given by the Chronicle deserve the most serious attention. A State
which the proportion of divorces to marriages is as one to ten should cer-
tainly study this question carefully, ascertain the causes, and devise ant
apply the proper remedy. There must be a radical fault in the laws or th<
morals, or both, of such a State.

" Including Vermont, the rate of divorce to marriage in the four States
for the last few years is as follows: Vermont, i to 16; Massachusetts, i to
23.7; Rhode Island, i to 13; Connecticut, i to 10.4. Massachusetts began
to decline last, and is better off as yet than either of the other three States;
but her downward tendency is fearfully rapid. Indeed, it is scarcely paral-
leled by the increase of divorce in Connecticut from 1849 to 1853. Taking,
now, the four States together, in the year 1877 there were granted 1,331
divorces in those States. If Maine and New Hampshire have a like recor
of temporary marriages, not far from 1,800 divorces are granted annually in
New England. The recent change for the better in the laws of Connecticut
had some effect toward improvement, which is said also to be very notice-
able in the Vermont courts.

i88o.] DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. 561

"One thing seems pretty well established, and that is that if married
people who have a notion that they would like to separate should find it
more difficult than it is, many who now part would remain together, and
would probably live as good lives as if they lived alone or with some
'affinity.' The strictness of the Catholic Church in regard to divorce goes
to show this. Divorces are extremely rare among Catholics. It is also
noticeable that any change toward greater liberty of divorce increases the
number of divorces. It has been so in our State, and we have been sadly
disgraced by it. The people of Massachusetts are also beginning to think
that a mistake was made in 1865 when Governor Andrew caused a bill to
be reported which allowed divorced people to be married again, and that
the further modification of the divorce laws of the State has been prolific of
, Too much freedom seems to have produced greater evils tha*i it was
nded to cure, and it is high time that people who believe in the family
and monogamy should turn their serious attention to the matter."

We may pass without remark many of the sidelong inferences
here made by the writer, with many of which we take the most
decided issue, since they are false in fact and illogical even in
theory ; but we call the attention of readers to the general tone of
ness which very properly pervades the whole piece. Indeed,
eresoever the state has intermeddled with that which is not of
its own competency and the sacraments are not, never were, and
cannot be under the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate such a
medley has been the natural consequence that chaos or Egyptian
kness would be day in comparison. The frightful multiplica-
of causes deemed sufficient for divorce in this country almost
akes plausible the description of Mr. Baring-Gould which we
quote further on.

These reproving statistics have at least a collaterally good
effect, since they force even the thoughtless to come to a general
conclusion that such consequences cannot arise from any good
source, and the time is undoubtedly fast approaching when these
questions, which include in their universality the whole common
*veal, having no satisfactory solution but in the Catholic Church,
nust force men to recognize her claims upon the world as the
)nly authority capable of grasping with and solving distinctly
he problems of life. We quote again from outsiders : Mr. Bar-
ng-Gould, in Germany, Past and Present, vol. i., article Marriage,
>age 163, speaks in the following manner regarding marriage as
mere civil transaction :

/"The inevitable result of the laxity of dealing with marriage by the
testant Church has been a corresponding laxity of morals. Thus,
iroughout Germany the statistics of illegitimacy show a much higher rate
mong the Protestants than among the Catholics. For instance :
VOL. xxxi. 36

562 DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. [July,

" Province of Prussia (Protestant), illegitimate births are 9.0 per 100.
Province of Brandenburg (Protestant), illegitimate births are 10.9 per 100.
Province of Pomerania (Protestant), illegitimate births are 10.0 per 100.
Province of Schleswig-Holstein (Protestant), illegitimate births are 9.6

per loo.

Province of Westphalia (Catholic), illegitimate births are 2.7 per 100.
Province of Rhineland (Catholic), illegitimate births are 3.0 per 100.

Statistik des Deutschen Retches, 1876."

So also in the towns that can be compared as almost exclusiv<
ly Catholic or Protestant :

" Berlin (Protestant), illegitimate births are 13.5 per 100.
Magdeburg (Protestant), illegitimate births are 9.6 per 100.
Hanover (Protestant), illegitimate births are 8.9 per 100.
Coblenz (Catholic), illegitimate births are 2.7 per 100.
Aix-la-Chapelle (Catholic), illegitimate births are 2.2 per 100.
Treves (Catholic), illegitimate births are 2.3 per 100.

" In Thuringia, where the population is wholly Evangelical, the average
illegitimate births in the towns is 12.0, at Altenburg 14.5, Coburg 12.8, Hild-
burghausen 10.8, Weimar 8.8. If marriage be a mere civil contract, then th
contract may be dissolved, and a fresh one entered into without scan
This is an obvious deduction, and has been drawn in Germany. The ci
board which binds together may dissolve the tie, and dissolve it for
most trivial reasons. Yet the percentage of divorce is not as high as mi
be expected. The actual number of divorced persons of both sexes in
many at the census of December i, 1871, was only 69,794. Out of 10,000
sons over the age of 15 there are in Prussia 30 divorces, in Saxony 37,
Wiirtemberg 32, in Bavaria 11, and in Baden 10. The reason of the ave
being no higher is that divorces are almost wholly among the Protesta
and amongst them are confined to the citizen, professional, and no
classes, whereas the peasantry rarely resort to the board for a divorce. It
is due also to the fact that the number of those who return themselves as
divorced at a census does not represent half of those who have
divorced. As a general rule two-thirds of those who get divorced ma
again. Consequently the average for Prussia should be 90 in 10,000, instead
of 30. In Transylvania it is said that among the German Lutherans two out
of every three girls who get married are divorced before the end of the year, and
that most married women have had three husbands"

Quoting also C. Boner, Transylvania, its Products and Pec
London, 1865, the following startling account is given :

" Among the Saxon peasantry a wife or a husband is a thing which
for convenience' sake be put aside or changed at pleasure. Divorce
thing of such every-day occurrence, is decided on so lightly and allowed
easily, that it has become a marked feature, indeed, a component part,
Saxon rural life. A separation of husband and wife after three, four,
even six weeks' marriage is nothing rare or strange ; and the woi
divorced will often want six or eight months of being sixteen. Amor
portion of the Saxons, marriage may almost be said to be merely a

es as
been
iarry

doi

i88o.] DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. 563

porary arrangement between two contracting parties ; very frequently
neither expects it to last long, and may have resolved that it shall not. In
the village near the Kochel sixteen marriages took place in one year ; at
the end of twelve months only six of the contracting parties were still liv-
ing together. In the place where I write this there are at this moment
eleven bridal pairs intending to celebrate their wedding a fortnight hence.
Of these eleven the schoolmaster observed that there would probably not
be many living together by this time next year. The clergyman, too, was
of opinion that before long many would come to him with grounds for a
separation. Divorce is easy, and belongs so intimately to married life that
even before the wedding it is talked of, and under certain probable even-
tualities looked forward to as consequent on the approaching union. ' Try
to like him,' says the father to the girl, ' and if later you find you can't do it
I will have you separated.' In the village where I was staying five suits for
separation were pending ; indeed, such cases are always going on. I have
talked over this crying evil with the Saxon clergy, and from these have
learned how futile the causes generally were. One husband did not be-
lieve what his wife had said, and she immediately wanted to be separated,
she could not live with a man who could not trust her.' Another did
>t eat his dinner with appetite. ' Oh !' said his wife, ' it seems my cooking
oes not please you ; if I cannot satisfy you,' etc. The chief cause of com-
plaint of another husband, whose pretty young wife I frequently saw at her
father's house, was that she had washed some linen again after his mother
had already washed it, and ' that was an insult to his mother.' "

f Hungary Mr. Boner says :

" In a Hungarian town of somewhat more than 4,000 inhabitants there
were pending in 1862 no less than 171 divorce suits. All these were among
the Calvinist population.

" In Denmark divorce is much more common than in Germany. From
what I have seen and heard I fear that morals are at a terribly low ebb in
the peninsula and its islands. Out of 10,000 in Germany over 15 years old
26 are divorced; in Denmark 50; in Hungary 44; in Switzerland (exclusive-
ly among the Zwinglians and Calvinists) 47 ; in Catholic Austria there are
only 4.8.

R" At Hamburg, out of the adult population, there are 70 divorced per-
s out of 10,000 remaining unmarried at the census of 1871 ; in Bremen
in Leipsic 48. On the other hand, in the purely Catholic towns, as
ves, there are only 7 ; at Cologne 9 ; at Miinster 9.
"The statistical report of the government, 1872, says : 'The proportion
itively to the religious confessions is unmistakable. In the specially
Evangelical districts divorces are frequent ; in the strictly Catholic districts
they are rare.'

" In the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, especially Vaud, divorce is
almost as frequent as among the Saxons in Transylvania. A friend who
lived in Vaud has told me how he sat down at table with a party, four gen-
tlemen, with their four wives, each of whom had been the wife of one of the
others. They met without the slightest restraint and as the best of friends.
It has not come to this yet in Germany ; not, at least, in the South. Di-
vorces are most frequent in the North. In 1877, in a town of South Ger-

564 DIVORCE, AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS. [July,

many, with a population of 25,000 (one-tenth Protestants), there were seven
divorces, all either among the Protestants or in cases of mixed marriages ;
and 245 marriages, or about three per cent., end in separation."

Summing up his interesting article on marriage, Mr. Baring-
Gould says, p. 167:

" Altogether the present condition of morals in Germany is such as to
impress one with the danger of dissociating the idea of marriage from reli-
gion. Where passion and temptation are strong, and the tie is regarded as
a mere business contract, there passion will have its way as every new
temptation arises. . . . But it is a danger to society when the marriage bond
is made so easy of rupture that marriage becomes a joining of hands, and
down the middle and up again, as in a country-dance, with ever-changing
partners. The economy of nature demands paramount care to be extended
to the protection of the child, and natural religion requires that the sai
tity of home will surround and hallow the nursery. But how can that be
home, or be called such, where the husband and the father are not necess
rily one, and that sacred where marriage is treated as a mere civil contrac
Divorce laws should be the thorny burrs protecting the child, and presei
ing a home and training for it. If it were not for children, law and soci,
customs would be sufficient to guarantee order. The foundations of tl
state are laid in the family, and not in the individual, and the first care of i\
state should be to hedge round that plural unit. The strength of a coui
try does not consist in its great armies, but lies in its multitudes of hous
holders, each a rootlet clinging to the soil and capable of infinite multipl
cation. We may hesitate whether that nation is advancing in a right
rection, and giving great promise of a future, where marriages are steadil
on the decline and divorces are becoming more common and shameless."

The following is taken from Hausner's Vergleichende Stati
tik von Europa, 1865, giving a synoptical view of the shame
North Germany :

"In Hamburg there is one prostitute to 48 inhabitants=every nint

girl.

In Berlin there is one prostitute to 62 inhabitants.
In London there is one prostitute to 91 inhabitants.
In Vienna there is one prostitute to 159 inhabitants.
In Munich there is one prostitute to 222 inhabitants.
In Dresden there is one prostitute to 236 inhabitants.
In Paris there is one prostitute to 247 inhabitants.
In Brussels there is one prostitute to 275 inhabitants.
In Strassburg there is one prostitute to 302 inhabitants.

We have taken thus much pains to lay before thinking mei
some remarks naturally elicited by this portion of the Encyclic;
With still greater happiness we point to the letter itself, conl
ing in small compass the doctrine of the Gospel in relation to
Christian marriage.

i88o.] PERE LEJEUNE. 565

[NOTE. It is possible that some persons looking superficially over this
article, or hearing some report of it from others, may take up the notion that
Protestant marriages in generai are condemned as invalid. To prevent all
mistakes of this kind, it may be well to state explicitly that the conjugal
contract between unbaptized persons is recognized as true and lawful mar-
riage under the natural law. Also, that all marriages of baptized persons,
between whom there exists no impediment, who intend to make a perma-
nent lifelong connubial contract, are recognized as valid and indissoluble.
Wherefore, when Protestants who are thus validly married are received
into the Catholic Church, no ceremony is needed to sanctify their marriage,
and the children born in wedlock from Protestant parents are recognized as
^itimate by the ecclesiastical law.]

LEJEUNE.

AT Rouen, in the Lent of 1629, a numerous auditory assem-

d around the pulpit of a young preacher, and listened with
eager attention to his familiar and persuasive eloquence. This
preacher, Pere Lejeune, one day began his discourse still in full
possession of his eyesight, but in the course of the sermon it was
suddenly obscured, and he was blind.

Passing his hand across his eyes for a moment, he continued
his address as if nothing had happened, and at its conclusion,
stretching out his arms to feel his way down the steps he could
no longer see, he requested that some one would assist him to de-
scend.

This blind priest was soon to rank among the most celebrated
missionary-preachers of his time. For forty years, notwithstand-
ing his infirmity, he fulfilled his difficult ministry with indefati-
gable courage. Lorraine, Flanders, Franche-Comte, Burgundy,
Provence in fact, every part of France received him in turn,
and the loving zeal which fired his heart everywhere gave force
to his plain-spoken admonitions.

Pere Lejeune was aided in his arduous task by Pere Lefevre,
who had been assigned to him by the superior of the Oratory as
^uide and reader. The hearty co-operation of these two religious

B their apostolic duties was touching to witness. For a period
more than twenty years might these inseparable missionaries
seen, the one leading his blind companion by the hand through
he streets of the towns, or holding his horse's bridle along the
row country paths ; or again, in some village presbytery, the

566 PERE LEJEUNE. [July,

one would dictate while the other wrote. But this happy fra-
1 ternity of fatigues, devotedness, and zeal was ended by the death,
in 1655, of Pere Lefevre. His loss was irreparable to Pere Le-
jeune, who did not find the same affectionate consideration and at-
tentive care in the successors of his first beloved guide.

The sermons of Pere Lejeune, of which three hundred and
sixty-two remain, are little known, having been thrown into the
shade by the renown of the great orators of the seventeenth
century ; and yet the works of this preacher deserve a better fate
than the oblivion into which they have fallen. They have a certain
originality and power peculiar to themselves, an independence
of thought and style which merits the attention of literary critics.
All the author's predilections are for the poor, and especially
poor country people ; so much so that he needed constraint be-
fore he could be induced to occupy the pulpits of the great towns.
Thus we find habitually in his sermons a simple, familiar, and
energetic tone, and expressions fresh and to the point, which are
the more telling because not rounded off into the conventio
isms of elegant phraseology.

In the freedom of his style, the archaism of his words,
the construction of his sentences, as well as in the mould of his
thoughts, Pere Lejeune appears to belong less to the century
Louis XIV. than to the period preceding it ; but he is superior
good taste and simplicity to many of the famous preachers of t
sixteenth century, nor do we find in his sermons the pedant
triviality, and affectation of the preachers who preceded him.

We will quote a few lines, taken at random, from this popu
orator. He is preaching on " Alms, which are meritorious in
sight of God."

" See you," he says, " on the one side, this poor man who has lost his
sight, who cannot take two steps without feeling before him with his stick,
and who stumbles at every little obstacle ? Do you see, on the other, that
man who has good eyes, eyes into which shines the light of heaven, eyes that
are well open ? It is this blind man who leads the man that can see. Again,
do you see this paralytic, stretched on his bed, motionless as a statue, crip-
pled in all his members, and unable to move himself ; and there a man
good health, gay, lively, robust, ready for anything ? It is the paralytic
carries this robust person, and who carries him very far. Once more,
you see this poor man covered with rags, who lies on straw and lives or
on alms ; and do you see, on the other hand, this count or marquis, in his a
riage, attended by a grand train of people, and covered with silk and gol
It is this poor man who feeds, clothes, and enriches this marquis ; for the n
bleman, who is rich, in good health, and who can see well, is taken to h
ven, borne into Paradise, and endowed with temporal goods by the charitie. 1
which he exercises toward the poor, the blind, and the paralytic."

ilia

:88o.] NEW PUBLICATIONS^ 567

In another place Pere Lejeune reminds masters that the
an who serves them is " neither a slave, nor a criminal, nor a

st, but their brother. What do I say ? the brother even of
esus Christ, child of the same Father, called to the same glory,
eir of the same kingdom." " These poor servants," he contin-
ues, " everywhere humiliated, everywhere repulsed and despised,
and treated as the sweepings of the house, do plenty of penance
that is hard enough here below, without its being necessary to
add other mortifications to those they have already." Again, he
raises his voice to deplore the extreme misery of his dear poor in
the country places. " You ought," he exclaims, " to have hearts
full of pity and the tenderest compassion for the poor peasants,
who are made the butt of every sort of disgrace. They have lit-
tle or no spiritual help, and scarcely any preaching. The nobles
tyrannize over them, the bailiffs overreach them, the gendarmes
pillage them, the townspeople deceive them, and they are ruined
by law-suits."

Thus this simple missionary-priest already saw plainly the in-
rable evils which were later on to drag France down into an
.byss. The* dying nation was asking for bread ; and yet this was
n the full tide of her military glory, and sixty years before Vau-
ban uttered the cry of alarm.

In the Life and Works of Pere Lejeune* M. 1'Abbe Renoux mer-
ts the thanks of the historian and literary man as well as the
Christian, by recalling these too-long-forgotten sermons, which,
besides dwelling with eloquence and simplicity on our unchang-
ing duties, furnish many an interesting glimpse into the manners
of the times in which they were preached.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

E LIFE AND CHARACTER OF LEONARD WOODS, D.D., LL.D. By Edwards
A. Park. Andover : Warren F. Draper. 1880.

This small pamphlet of fifty-two pages has an importance and interest
out of all proportion to its size. Dr. Park is the Professor of Dogmatic
Theology in the Andover Theological Seminary. For nearly half a cen-
tury he has been an instructor of youth, first as professor at Amherst,
where he was idolized by all the students, and for above forty years at

* Le Pere Lejeune, sa Vie, son CEuvre et ses Sermons. Par 1'Abbe J. Renoux, Prof. a la
Faculte de Theol." Paris : Bray.

5 68 NE w PUBLICA TIONS. [July,

Andover, of which he was an alumnus. There is a small number of Prote
tant clergymen in New England, not the most conspicuous or of the grea
est popular fame among their brethren, who have attained a degree <^
learning and culture very far above the common level of educated Ameri
cans and equal to that of the most cultured Europeans. Dr. Park is pre
eminent among these clerical scholars, and especially distinguished for
power of original thought, and for a style in speaking and writing of most
excellent and peculiar qualities. These qualities are shown in the pam-
phlet before us. They are wholly his own, and remind us of the days
when in his youth he held all, even the most giddy and boyish of his pupils,
willing captives under the spell of his purely and highly intellectual elo-
quence. As a piece of character-painting, the sketch of Dr. Woods is mas-
terly. The writer of this notice knew Dr. \Yoods intimately during the lat-
ter part of his student-life and his residence in New York, and for several
months lived in his father's family. We remember him perfectly, and the
reading of Dr. Park's description is like looking at one of Healy's portraits.
The subject of Dr. Park's biographical description, Dr. Leonard Woods, Jr
was a man of unique personality, one of the most gifted, cultivated, and fa
cmating men of his age in New England, of most lovable character, of
very singular career and history. That which makes the history of his i
tellectual and religious life most peculiar and interesting is the illustrati
it furnishes of the change which has taken place in the offspring of t
highest class of Puritans, what Oliver Wendell Holmes calls their Brahmi
cal caste. The effect of the more enlarged and refined intellectual a
social culture which has grown out of the older and simpler conditions
the Puritan commonwealth has been, as all know, a profound alteration
the traditional Calvinistic theology of the pilgrim-fathers of New Engla
Andover was founded with the express purpose of arresting the change a
restoring the genuine Puritan religion. The elder Dr. Woods was the gre
dogmatic and polemic theologian of the Total Depravity and Electi
scheme. Nevertheless, he was a most amiable and genial man, and, in
later years, one of his dearest and most respected friends was a Jesuit,
Iat6 venerable Father McElroy. Nothing could be more removed from
gloomy and fanatical Puritanism than was the tone and spirit which p
vailed in the great literary and social community inhabiting the delightfu
Hill of Andover. The human nature was too strong in the excellent di-
vines themselves, in their wives and sons and daughters, and in the crowd
of young men and boys gathered in the studious halls founded by the mu-
nificence of Phillips, and it was too well seconded by the beauty of the
nature which surrounded them, and the influence of classical study, of his-
torical and general research, of curious investigation into critical, philo-
sophical, and theological questions, to be quelled and confined by Calvinis-
tic dogmatism. It is a curious fact that in the family of Dr. Woods himself,
a son, a son-in-law, and two grandsons were Episcopalian ministers, while a
daughter with all her family became Catholics. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps is
a granddaughter of Dr. Stuart. Those who have read the poem of Oliver
Wendell Holmes at the centennial festivity of Phillips Academy, need not
be reminded of the change in Andover which is manifested by the fact that
a production of that kind, ridiculing the most sacred words of the Nicene
Creed, could be delivered before the faculty and alumni of that form

:;;

ion

I880.] NE W PUBLICA TIONS. 569

stronghold of orthodoxy. Dr. Park's discourse on Dr. Woods, pronounced
the chapel of the seminary, is an equally singular and significant phe-
menon in the eyes of those who remember the ancient Andover under
Dr. Porter's reign, although, of course, there is no resemblance between
these two productions, except the negative one of contrariety to old An-
dover ideas. It is a patent fact that Andover is almost as wavering and un-
settled as New Haven. We do not think that even Princeton is altogether
firm. Calvinistic orthodoxy ! your day is over, your parables are ended. It
is in vain that some who cling to the obsolete pretend to ignore the fact at
which they inwardly tremble. Two opposite currents tend, one toward ra-
tionalism and the New Christianity, the other toward the Catholic Church.

Dr. Leonard Woods, Jr., followed this second direction, but his move-
ment was as a hyperbolic asymptote, and seemed ever approaching without
er reaching the truth. Dr. Park observes a discreet reticence on this
stery in Dr. Woods' career. Mr. Everett, who is a Unitarian and there-
ore more untrammelled in his speech, in his Bowdoin discourse throws a
little more light on it, but still leaves us in the dark as to what Dr. Woods'
eoretical justification of his position midway between Catholicity and Pro-
stantism may have been. The enigma is easily solved by the supposition
at he had not the courage of his convictions. But, not having had any
rsonal communication with Dr. Woods since the time that he went as
fessor to Bangor, we do not feel competent to add anything to what is
id by his latest friends and confidants, and prefer to leave what is myste-
us in his belief, opinions, and conduct just where they leave it, without any
planation. The severe afflictions and sufferings of his later years are, in
ur eyes, a sign of the grace and mercy of God towards him. His soul was
shut out from communion with every being but God, and what passed in
that soul is a deeper mystery than the other. He died repeating the child's
prayer, " Now I lay me down to sleep," and we pray that God may grant
that prayer and give to his soul eternal repose with the just.

ECOLLECTIONS OF AN OLD PIONEER. By Peter H. Burnett (the first
Governor of California). New York : D. Appleton & Co. 1880.

The adventurous life of the frontiersman, the long and perilous march
of the emigrant train across the plains, the rush to new fields of explora-
ion, are things of the past.

The Western settlers of to-day travel for the most part in comfortable
ilroad carriages to their destination. From the very first they are sur-
unded by the appliances of civilization ; they have few of the discomforts
and none of the dangers of the generation that preceded them. Their lot
is a far easier one, but it is also far less interesting. There is a charm of ro-
mance about the life of a pioneer of the past generation compared to which
the present existence of a settler on the frontier is tame and monotonous.
If there be an heroic age in American history it was the age of the early
pioneers, and those adventurous spirits who forty years ago crossed the
Missouri River and passed through three thousand miles of unexplored
country to the Pacific were its heroes.

One of these old pioneers has now given us his recollections of those
times and events, and, though written in the most matter-of-fact style, his
narrative is full of interest.

570 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Jub

Mr. Burnett was born in Tennessee, and at an early age removed wi
his family to Clay Co., Missouri, then one of the last outposts of civiliz
tion. His account of the struggles and vicissitudes of frontier-life in t
Southwest is very entertaining. Lawyers will be particularly interested
reading his reminiscences of the Missouri bar, of which he was a member i
its most primitive state. His legal relations with Joseph Smith and oth
Mormon elders, and his estimate of them, are matters of general interest.

Though successful in his profession, and rising into prominence,
Burnett in 1843 determined to emigrate to Oregon, and, as he himself tel
us, for three reasons : first, to assist in planting an American colony on t
Pacific ; second, to restore the failing health of his wife ; and, third, to p
his business debts. The journey occupied five months. The pleasures a
hardships, the hopes and fears, of that momentous trip are briefly but
phically related in chapters iii., iv., v. Of the three objects he had in vie
the first two at least were happily accomplished in a few years after
arrival on the Pacific slope.

Oregon at this period was disputed territory. Both the English a
American governments claimed it, and the Hudson Bay Co. occupied
Mr. Burnett foresaw that if a considerable number of American citize
settled in it the territory would have to be ceded to the United States ; a
so it proved. His intelligence and patriotism had much to do with
curing for us this magnificent State. Mrs. Burnett, too, entirely regain
her health in that genial clime. And although Mr. Burnett did not ga
wealth in Oregon, he there gained the pearl which is above all price t
light of Catholic faith. The reasons that led to his conversion he
already given to the world in his admirable book, The Path -which led
Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church.

The news of the discovery of gold in California reached Oregon in
and Mr. Burnett at once determined to seek in the gold-fields the means,
long desired, of liquidating his debts. His description of the journey fro
the Columbia River to the Sacramento Valley is delightful reading,
did not remain long in the mines, however. He soon turned to the m
congenial pursuit of the practice of the law. From this- time his success i
life was brilliant. He became one of the leading lawyers of the State, judge
of the Supreme Court, and first governor of California. Here surely were
successes and honors enough to satisfy a man of far greater ambition tha
upright, simple, unostentatious Judge Burnett.

No one, we think, will read this autobiography who will not feel a genu-
ine admiration for the fine intellect, the sound judgment, the truthful mind,
and the honest heart of its author. Few men have had a more varied ex-
perience in life than he, and fewer still have been as competent to profit by
that experience. And now, when at the age of threescore years and ten he
gives us his opinions of men and things, he may well command our atten
tion.

BLANID. By Robert D. Joyce, author of Deirdre. Boston: Robei
Bros. 1879.

No one who has read Deirdre and will read Blanid can doubt that Di
Joyce is a poet " to the manner born." He has a fine imagination and
cellent descriptive powers. His verses have an easy and rhythmical floi

88o.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 571

requires genuine skill, if not inspiration, to carry the reader unwearied
rough a poem of two hundred and fifty pages, yet Dr. Joyce does this and
great deal more. Like its predecessor, Deirdre, Blanid is founded on one
of those old Celtic legends with which the author is so familiar, and which
he knows so well how to weave into the measure of his tuneful verse.

Blanid Blossom Bright the daughter of the king of the Isle of Man,
as many suitors among the princes of Europe, but disdains them all until
she meets Cuchullen, who proves to be the son of her father's mortal enemy.
The recital of their mutual love and its tragical ending form the theme, which
the space allowed to this short critique will not permit us to develop more
fully. The tale is well told, the versification melodious and smooth, and at
times full of fire or of tenderness. The poem contains many beautiful de-
scriptive passages, and there are several very musical bits of song scat-
red through its pages.

In our opinion the dedicatory verses are among the best in the volume
much better than the concluding ones, which seem rather hurried and
abrupt. A certain hastiness of execution all through, with an occasional in-
felicity in the choice of words, are- faults that mar the beauty of the poem.
Admirers of Deirdre will not be disappointed in Blanid, and those who
make first acquaintance with the poet through the medium of his latest
ork will, if we mistake not, seek still further to improve their opportuni-
s.

RD RICH DEIGHIONACH NA TEAMHRACH, SGEUL AIR EIRINN ANNS AN
SEISEADH Aois. The Last Monarch of Tara : a tale of Ireland in the
Sixth Century. By Eblana. Revised and corrected by the Very Rev.
U. J. Canon Bourke, M.R.I.A. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son, 50 Upper
Sackyille Street. 1880. (For sale by the Catholic Publication So-
ciety Co., New York.)

Respectable and fairly intelligent people are still to be met who do not
know that for a considerable period of time during the early part of the
middle ages Ireland was the sanctuary, and almost the only sanctuary, for
European learning. True, this fact has been often enough asserted, but it
has generally been so bound up in wreaths of shamrocks, lit up by " sun-
bursts," and accompanied with all the other stock paraphernalia of Irish
spread-eagleism that it has not met the attention it naturally deserves from
an historical point of view. That the Irish had a very ancient language of
their own, and that they had some schools of merit while England and
France were still in a semi-barbarous state, and while Germany was still
wholly barbarous, even the most invidious English writers have always ad-
mitted. For it could not be forgotten that several of the Carlovingian kings
of France, and the great Alfred of England himself, had gone to Ireland
for their education. Yet the admission was grudgingly made ; for how could
a country which not a century ago ranked among the lowest of European
states in point of average intelligence and education, have ever been re-
markable as the home of learning and the delight of scholars ? True, the
same question might have been asked about Greece ; but then Greece had
least preserved its language, though in a corrupt form, while the Irish,
a people, had pretty generally lost the use of their native tongue. Not
only that, but it was known to be a fact that many Irish who could speak
the ancient language were so much ashamed of it that they were accus-

572 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Jub

tomed among foreigners to deny any knowledge of it. If they had ev
been a learned, scholarly nation where were the remains of their ancie
learning? If these remains existed why were the people ashamed of
language that had once been the medium of this learning? Of course t
answer on the Irish side is easy enough. One of the many unfortunate r
suits of the almost continuous wars that have desolated their land for cent
ries has been the destruction of vast quantities of books and manuscrip
that, with our modern facilities of printing, would easily have made the
putation of any nation" for scholarship. But happily all have not been
stroyed. Great numbers of manuscripts still remain scattered through t
various libraries of the Continent and of England. The library of Dubl
University contains more than a thousand volumes of MSS. in Gaelic th
have not yet been translated. It is only within comparatively a few yea
and mainly through the exertions of German, French, and Italian schola
that these ancient works have been brought again to public attention a
placed within the reach of the learned world. Germans especially ha
done a great deal towards the resuscitation of the old Gaelic language, a
consequently towards the diffusion of knowledge concerning the works
those indefatigable old Irish monks who, not satisfied with turning Irela
almost into a vast monastery and university, carried their headlong enth
siasm for religion and learning all over the accessible parts of Europe, fr
Italy to Iceland. Before the tenth century came to an end Irish mon
had founded twelve monasteries in England, thirteen in Scotland, fort
eight in the various kingdoms and duchies of France, nine in Belgium,
in Italy, and twenty or more in Switzerland besides many in the southe
provinces of Germany. One hundred and fifty Irish saints, of whom thirt
six were martyrs, are patrons of churches in Germany alone ; Italy
thirteen Irish patron saints, and England forty-four.

Now, a nation that could have shown so active an intellectual life duri
a period when crass darkness was settling over the face of nearly all t
rest of Europe is surely deserving of study during that brilliant and, al
it must be said, almost only brilliant period of its very long and eventf
career. Histories of Ireland have never been very scarce, but for the mo
part they have been written in so unsystematic a way, they have so sad
mixed fact with fiction, and they have so habitually combined blata
boasting with whining complaint, as to disgust or repel serious readers.
The Last Monarch of Tara is an attempt in the form of fiction
convey a vivid idea of the Irish and the Irish way of living in the sixth ce
tury. The author, who is a lady, says of the book in her preface :

"The subject itself; the events recorded ; all the principal personages;
the religious, literary, civil, and military institutions in all their details ; the
manners and customs of all classes of the people ; their houses, furniture,
dress, ornaments, and everything which they used all these things need no
apology ; they are all of strict historical accuracy, and in proof of this she
refers her readers to the various authorities which she has consulted in the
compilation of this little work."

She has certainly been very industrious in her researches. The book
no doubt a trustworthy manual for the subjects named in the above extra
fnom her preface ; but many of the long-winded discourses might have
left out with advantage, first of all because they throw no light on the real
history of the time, and then because they are extremely tiresome and'wi

i88o.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 573

rcely ever be read by any of the readers of the book other than con-
ientious critics. It is altogether incongruous to put what might have
been the sentiments of O'Connell, say, into the mouth of a fighting chief of
independent Erin. Barring the fustian if we may be excused the expres-
sion the book is exceedingly interesting, and with a good index would be
most indispensable to the student of Irish antiquities.

OUR COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM. By Gail Hamilton. One vol. i2mo. Bos-
ton : Estes & Lauriat. 1880.

This volume deals with the present condition of the state school sys-
tem. It is not meant to be a discussion of the school question, although the
facts presented show the deplorable condition of the New England schools,
and will go far to justify'the opponents of the present regime.

That the state has an exclusive right to control the education of chil-
dren is taken for granted, but the methods by which those in control of the
school funds have departed from the original design of the advocates of
state schools, and turned the taxes levied for primary instruction into the
channels of higher education, are violently assailed, the authoress not even
hesitating to state that normal schools and kindred institutions are injuri-
ous to the growth of free citizens and fatal to the prosperity of the repub-

The basis of her argument against the higher education is that the free
common school is to qualify the whole body of citizens for the performance
of every duty that may fall to them by reason of their citizenship. The
h and industrial schools fit the few for special occupations in life, con-
uently the school funds are unlawfully burdened with the cost of giving
uable advantages to the few at the expense of the whole community,
ow costly these advantages are may be judged from the fact that one-
sixth of the money paid for instruction in Boston goes for the support of
schools which only one pupil out of twenty-two ever enters.

But the financial view does not absorb all of Gail Hamilton's attention.
She shows that although the common schools have failed to prepare chil-
dren for the active duties of life, the supplementary institutions of learning
have as plainly failed to better the condition of affairs. After crushing out
schools of a high grade established and conducted by private enterprise, the
new ones turn out graduates whose only reason for seeking the benefits of
the higher education was its cheapness and novelty, and who insist on be-
ing supplied with employment at public expense. To control places for
them the managers of the educational machine seized, or are seizing,
the patronage afforded by the common schools, and we may now see the
fruits of the sacrifice the American people have made for education. Their
common schools have been manipulated into mere feeders for the normal
and high schools, and the primary schools have been turned into houses of
refuge for the beneficiaries of the higher education.

The arguments against the establishment of industrial schools are sharp
and decisive, but the authoress allows herself to say so many witty things
that attention is drawn from the main points, and little good will come of
her efforts. The influence of the common schools has been to unfit those
subjected to their processes and influences for ordinary occupations. They
will not submit themselves to apprenticeship, and so lose all chance of get-

574

NEW PUBLICATIONS. [July>

ting a living by mechanical employments. How to obtain skilled labor is
now a problem with capitalists for the solution of which they and not the
public at large should pay. This, at least, is her conclusion.

Had the authoress brought the work to a close with the fourth chapter,
her effort might have accomplished something. Twelve additional papers
are inserted, each bristling with sharp points against forms of blanks, exami-
nation under the microscope, supervision, and kindred subjects, which make
the volume tedious, and in the end the reader can hardly help taking sides
with the unlucky committee-men who stirred up the wrath of this caustic

critic.

After patiently reading all that she has to say, we feel that she cared
more for making a startling book than for an earnest attempt to lop off ex-
crescences from the education plant and return to the common-school sys-
tem of the founders of this country " whose schools were, in fact, more
like the parochial schools of the Roman Catholics, of which we disappro
than like the actual public schools which we have established."

From the statement just quoted we are led to believe that Gail Hamilt
is aware that there are appearing on all sides parochial schools institu
for the specific purpose of giving a common school education without cu
ting off the child from religious influences ; and that they accomplish the
purpose at a less cost than the cumbrous machines into which the sta
schools have grown.

THE STONELEIGHS OF STONELEIGH, AND OTHER TALES. By the author
Tyborne, Dame Dolores, etc. London : Burns & Gates. (For sale by tl
Catholic Publication Society Co., New York.)

Besides " The Stoneleighs of Stoneleigh " this volume contains
Feast of Flowers " and " A Pearl in Dark Waters." All three of these illi
trate the struggle for the enjoyment of their commonest rights to wl
Catholics were, and are even yet, too often subjected in England. Yet th<
are not controversial tales, so-called, nor are they filled with the stiff ai
tiresome moral reflections so common to fiction written with a religioi
purpose. The first two are stories of to-day. " The Feast of Flowers " i*
touching and charming little tale, and has withal an air of reality. " A Pes
in Dark Waters " has considerable dramatic force. Its scene, like that
the other two stories, is in England, but during the bitter period for Catho-
lics when Puritanism hatched the frightful Popish Plot, that made martyrs
of so many holy, unoffending men and women. The various characters are
skilfully drawn. The time-serving Catholics who believed, yet disguised their
faith from fear of the malice that watched them, and those other warm and
devoted souls that displayed the harmlessness of doves if not the wisdom
of serpents, are well contrasted. Not the least interesting personage in the
story, which is in part founded on historical facts, is Father Colombiere
himself, the saintly confessor to the gentle Mary Beatrice, wife of the Duke
of York. The " Stoneleighs of Stoneleigh " skilfully depicts the trials
which many converts to the Catholic Church in England have to undergo
among their relatives and former friends. The young French-Canadian
girl who is the principal heroine is a sweet being ; her combined force of
will and gentleness of manner are no more than we occasionally observe in
the sex, but these qualities are here enhanced by the noble cause in which

1 8 So.] NE w PUB LIC A TIONS. 575

they are displayed. The Stoneleighs themselves are a very commonplace
lot, and appear all the more so by comparison with their foreign relative.
The plot of the story is effective, and, though to our mind it is inferior to
either of the two that follow it, " The Stoneleighs " will nevertheless repay
the reader for the time given to it. Whether the lesson will profit the class
is intended for we cannot say.

NCIENT ROME, AND ITS CONNECTION WITH THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

An Outline of the History of the City from its first foundation by

(Romulus (B.C. 753) down to the erection of the Chair of St. Peter in the
Ostrian Cemetery (A.D. 42-47). By the Rev. Henry Formby. Contain-
ing numerous illustrations in wood-engraving of the ancient monu-
ments, sculpture, coinage, and localities connected with the history of
the city, with the addition of a series of engravings illustrating the for-
mation and the antiquities of the Christian Catacombs. Royal 4to, pp.
xviii.-446. London : C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1880. (For sale by the Cath-
olic Publication Society Co., New York.)

In this magnificent book which, by the way, must be a joy to the eyes of
all who love fine book-making Father Formby develops his favorite idea
that the Gentile nations of antiquity, and especially Rome, preserved the
tradition of the one true God. "The Gentile world," he says, "and its
religion were not the enemy of Christ and his Gospel, but the sick man
waiting for the coming of his Physician." This he shows by an analysis
of the religious notions of the Romans as compared with the belief and
tices of the Hebrews. On this particular point, too, he quotes the re-
rkable brief of Leo XIII. to MM. Bonetty and Perny, August 12, 1878, in
hich the Holy Father takes the same ground. The work before us, which
is but the first volume of a series, deserves an extended review. Our only
object now is to call attention to this monument of learning and industry.

TWENTY-EIGHTH, TWENTY-NINTH, THIRTIETH, AND THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL
REPORTS OF THE NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.
By the Regents of the University of the State of New York. Albany.
1878-79.

These volumes contain a number of valuable scientific papers in the
departments of botany, geology, and entomology. Many of them possess
also a popular interest, and several are of considerable immediate practical
importance. The reports also contain an account of the state of the
museum, and of the contributions which are continually made to it. It is

R present in a very satisfactory condition, and is constantly improving and
coming more than ever a credit to the State, as well as to its learned
rector and to all those concerned in its care and arrangement.
FETCHES OF THE LlVES OF DOMINICAN SAINTS OF OLDEN TlMES. By M.

K. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son. 1880. (For sale by the Catholic Publi-
cation Society Co., New York.)

This beautiful and tasteful volume of " simple sketches," the author
states, is only intended for " simple people who, perhaps living near a Do-
minican friary, would like to know something about the saints whose feasts
they see so joyfully celebrated by the children who are the descendants of
the Dominican saints of olden times."

The Dominican Order can lay claim to a most glorious list of saints
whose exalted virtue and deep science have shed lustre on the world for
the past six hundred years ; and consequently a work of this kind, though

5 76 NE iv PUB Lie A TIONS. [July, 1 8 8<

merely containing short sketches of eminent and saintly members of th<
order, cannot fail to be interesting and instructive.

JACQUES MARQUETTE ET LA DECOUVERTE DE LA VALLEE DU MISSISSIPPI
Par le P. J. Brucker, de la Compagnie de Jesus. Lyon : Imprimeri(
Pitrataine. 1880. Extrait des Etudes Religeuses. (Pamphlet.)

The above is a reprint of an article that appeared not long since in th
Etudes Religeuses. It was called forth by the publication of a lecture delive
ed by M. Gravier at the reunion of a geographical society at Luxembourg i
1877. M. Gravier had thought to lend additional glory to his own city
Rouen by an attempt to prove that the honor of having first discovered t
Mississippi River belonged not to Marquette and Joliet, but to La Sail
who also was a native of Rouen. But M. Gravier's zeal for the glory of hi
beloved city is greater than his care for historical accuracy, as Pere Bruck
well shows ; for the documents relied on by M. Gravier to prove La Salle';
right to the honor had already been examined by Mr. Shea and by Mr. Par
man, and both of these eminent authorities had pronounced in favor
Marquette. Father Marquette, along with Joliet, set out from Pointe St. I
nace in May, 1673. Crossing Lake Michigan and ascending the Fox Ri
they reached the head-waters of the Wisconsin by a portage j. and descend!
that river to its mouth, they entered the Mississippi on the i7th of June, aft
about four weeks' journeying. They then continued down the Mississippi
about latitude 33. La Salle, on the other hand, who had already explor
the Ohio River, probably as far west as the falls at Louisville, made a voya
in 1679-80 in company with the Franciscan friar Hennepin, in which He
nepin explored a part of the Mississippi north of the mouth of the Illinoi
La Salle began another more successful attempt in 1681, and, following t
course of the Illinois Rivecf reached the Mississippi on the 6th of Februa
1682. The energetic Norman kept his course down the mighty river to i
mouths, which he reached on the 6th of April, two months after leaving t
Illinois.

De Soto had entered the Mississippi at its mouth, and had ascended it
far as the mouth of the Missouri as early as 1542, the year of his death ; b
it was undoubtedly the voyage that Marquette and Joliet made in 1673 down
the river to the country of the Arkansas which for the first time establish-
ed the real course of the Mississippi. This was six years before La Salle's
party first reached the river.

THE PASSION PLAY OF OBER-AMMERGAU IN THE SUMMER OF 1871.
the Rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D. Fourth edition. London : Burns
Gates. 1880. (For sale by the Catholic Publication Society Co., New
York.)

As this is the year for the world-famous Passion Play, to the man
who would wish to witness it, and yet have neither the means nor the
opportunity, this will be a welcome book. It is deeply interesting, ex-
tremely graphic, and very edifying. Although the author went to Ober-
Ammergau prejudiced against the play, yet he confesses that no sooner ha
it commenced than all his prejudices vanished : " It become at once man
fest that a spirit of deep religious reverence pervaded the performance, an
that with this was combined a degree of artistic taste which could not fail
win the respect and admiration of every cultivated mind." This seems
be the general sentiment of all who have witnessed it.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXXI. AUGUST, 1880. No. 185.

IS IT CANOSSA?

PRINCE BISMARCK'S long-pending negotiations with Rome to
bring about what he termed a modus vivendi between the Prussian
government and its Catholic subjects have been brusquely broken
The Chancellor and the Vatican have been unable to come
an agreement. The position of Prussian Catholics and the
vernment's relations towards them had become intolerable,
he contest proved to be one from which the government reaped
little honor and less profit. Prince Bismarck seems to have be-
come convinced of this some time back. He even took occasion
to disavow the authorship of the May Laws, which created the
Catholic disabilities in Prussia and to some extent in Germany.
Nevertheless, his full sanction was undoubtedly given to the
elaborate scheme of persecution which originated in the mind of
Dr. Falk. The result was that the May Laws, which set Catho-
lics, as Catholics, under the ban of the empire and of Prussia, were
passed. What Prince Bismarck hoped to effect by them matters
ittle now ; they have gone into history for judgment. What
ncerns men more at present is that the German chancellor,
having fully tried his experiment with the Catholic Church, be-
came convinced that it was a failure, and wished to withdraw it
with as good grace as possible. It was not because he came to
love Catholics more from the strenuous and, to him, unexpected
opposition he encountered from them. Quite the contrary. He
had created immense difficulties for them and wrought to the
church in Germany great material damage. Nothing but an
invincible force could have withstood the tremendous influence
he brought to bear on Catholic life in Germany, if not to quench

578 Is IT CANOSSA ? [Aug.,

it altogether, at least to turn it aside from the spiritual allegiance
and discipline that constitute its boundaries and safeguards. He
has since found that the difficulties he created recoiled upon his
government. Their most ostensible and, to him, remarkable out-
come was the creation of a great political party, that steadily
grew in power and strength, and was steadfastly arrayed in
legal opposition to the government that was arrayed against
those whom it represented. That was something that no states-
man could afford to undeceive himself about or affect to ignore.
A government must be carried on ; and a government like Prince
Bismarck's, that for several years past has been actually in a
minority, and only gained a scratch majority to pass its measures,
is a very uncomfortable source of power to a prime minister, as
well as an irksome burden to the country. It can be consoling
to no statesman, least of all to a man of Prince Bismarck's tempei
and remarkable achievements, to find steadily leagued against hii
the majority of the representatives of the German people. Am
the centre of that majority, or, as he recently expressed it, the ii
pregnable fortress around which all the floating elements of o]
position range themselves, is to-day the Catholic party in the Gei
man Reichstag, a party equally strong in the Prussian Di<
Political prudence, if no higher reason, would suggest that it w<
worth while to come to terms with such a party. According!]
we find Prince Bismarck, even in the reign of Pius IX., openii
negotiations towards a return to a truce, if not to a peace. Th<
were carried on with renewed vigor after the accession of
XIII. to the papal chair, and were only broken off this May.

Prince Bismarck, for reasons that will appear, gave up tl
diplomatic contest with Rome as hopeless, and attempted to ci
the Gordian knot by appealing directly to the German peopl<
He introduced into the Prussian Diet a new Ecclesiastical Bil
vesting in the government discretionary powers to exercise
not the May Laws at its own option, and involving material
changes in those laws. The bill was referred to a select coi
mittee, about a third of which consisted of Catholics, and aft<
deliberation was rejected as a whole, the Catholics voting wil
the majority. It was then referred back to the Diet, only to
again rejected piecemeal, at present writing. The bill as
stands satisfies nobody, save the devoted adherents of Prim
Bismarck, consisting chiefly of the Conservatives, who seem coi
tent to be satisfied with anything their chief imposes on ther
Thus Prince Bismarck's gift has been rejected, and what he woul
regar^i as his kind offices thrown back to him as worthless. Tl

1880.] Is IT CANOSSA ? 579

Catholics will not have his bill, the Liberals do not like it, yet
the chancellor seems resolved on pressing it through.

A flood of light has been thrown on the negotiations with the
Vatican by Prince Bismarck himself. On the eve of the presen-
tation of his bill in the Prussian Landtag he caused to be pub-
lished in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung & portion of the cor-
respondence carried on between him, through the medium of
Prince Reuss, the imperial ambassador at Vienna, and Mgr.
Jacobini, the papal pro-nuncio, who was commissioned by the
Holy See to treat with Prince Bismarck, having been appointed
to succeed Mgr. Massella in that office. This action of the
prince was undoubtedly intended to influence public opinion in
his favor. The publication was followed by others, showing
chiefly the chancellor's action in the matter, Mgr. Jacobini's re-
plies being briefly summarized or altogether suppressed. Never-
theless, there is quite enough to go upon so as to form a judg-
ment, from his own statement of the case, of the motives that in-
duced Prince Bismarck to seek a reconciliation with Rome. His
letters, taken in connection with the debates on his bill in Parlia-
ment and the comments of unbiassed critics, form a most instruc-
tive and valuable study in contemporary history on one of the
most remarkable struggles between church and state.

It may be as well to say here that 'in asking " Is this Canos-
? " nothing in any sense offensive is intended, still less of ex-
tation. There is little to exult in in the present deplorable con-
ition of the Catholic Church in Germany, a condition that Prince
Bismarck avers has moved himself to pity. There is, to be sure,
much matter for exultation in the noble stand made by the Ger-
man Catholics through all this bitter struggle in defence of their
religious rights and civil liberties, which are none other than the
rights and liberties of all freemen ; but it is deeper matter for
regret that such true men and loyal citizens of the state should
have been put to so cruel and severe a test. What Catholic can
exult, even in face of such a spectacle of calm and patriotic en-
durance, at that other spectacle the vineyard of the Lord laid
waste and bare, the priests and bishops scattered or dead, the
charitable and pious congregations broken up and their work de-
stroyed, the seminaries and educational establishments closed, the
altars of God in numberless instances unserved, and the Living
Sacrifice, which is the centre of Catholic life, unoffered for lack of
ministers to offer it ? Such is the situation of the church in Ger-
many to-day, and there is no need to doubt Prince Bismarck's
faith when he declares that he looks with compunction at

580 Is IT CANOSSA ? [Aug.,

the ruin he has wrought. No man with a heart could help feel-
ing shame and sorrow at the wasted spiritual life of a people. It
can do no man good to stop the honest work of honest men and
vainly strive to root out the deep religious convictions of mil-
lions of Christian people. The conflict between church and state
is always to be deplored. No Catholic can ever make the in-
human mistake of entering on such a struggle " with a light
heart." In the issue, as all history testifies, the church invari-
ably comes uppermost, for policies, and dynasties, and states even,
change, or disappear, or die out ; but God's church is eternal,
universal, and can afford to wait on its God. Meanwhile great
damage is done to both sides. Good works are broken up and
thrown back many years, many souls are probably lost, and bit-
ter strife and ill-feeling come in to poison peaceful civil life. The
work of the church is peace. It seeks no strife with rulers, and
only enters on strife when the direst necessity compels it. No
Catholic wishes to be arrayed against the government of
country, and the fiction of a " divided allegiance " is sufficient
exposed by Prince Bismarck's present action, whatever may
the outcome of that action.

Canossa is not our word, but Prince Bismarck's own expr
sion, with which he fired the anti-Catholic heart of German
shortly after entering on his self-imposed conflict with Rome a
with the Catholic subjects of Germany. " We will not go
Canossa," he thundered, and the phrase went ringing round t
world as the highest expression of German patriotism and poli
cal wisdom. It was caught up and applauded by all enemies
the church, and yet it was the hollowest kind of rhetori
trick uttered by such a man at such a time. Nobody asked hi
to go to Canossa or dreamt of his going there. As for the G
man Catholics, they simply wanted to be let alone as they alread
stood under the Prussian constitution, and it is to that state they
wish to return. As for Pius IX., he certainly never dreamed of
anything so foolish as inviting either Prince Bismarck or the
Emperor William to do penance at Canossa. He had no quarre
with them until it was forced on him. He was not in the habi
of advising Protestant governments as to their course of action
He had Catholic truth to maintain and guard, and he confinec
himself to that task. At the time of Prince Bismarck's defian
utterance Pius IX. did not possess a foot of territory or a singl
soldier. This was the pontiff whom Prince Bismarck, at th
head of the mightiest empire in Europe, affected to regard as

i88o.] Is IT CANOSSA f 581

summoning him to bend the knee at Canossa. The phrase had
its significance and brought its own revenge.

Canossa in Prince Bismarck's mouth professed to mean the
complete subjection of the state to the church. Canossa never
meant that even in the religio-political age when it was erected
into a landmark in history, and when the Pope was a recognized
political power and leader in European politics. The Catholic
Church never demanded the complete submission of the state to
the church even in Catholic days, as it never demanded it under
the old paganism, nor demands it under the new. From Peter
down it inculcates obedience to the powers that be, but it urges
on those powers justice, the justice of Christ, nothing more. If
to recognize this justice, which embodies the completest lawful
human liberty, be to go to Canossa, then let the phrase stand, for
to Canossa all governments must go at last, if they would have
rest and peace. It is to this Prince Bismarck is now turning
after being " weary weary to death," as he said in the Reichs-
tag, of the interminable struggle with the representatives of the
rman people. He declared just before the closing of the last
sion of the Reichstag that " the continued existence of the
pire is at stake," and that he only retained office by the express
will of the Emperor. At the same time he advised the deputies
that if they must have a new government they had better form it
from the clerical and conservative parties.

Prince Bismarck has reason to be tired to death, for it has
long been sufficiently manifest that Germany is weary of his
rule, and is fast losing that sense of personal reverence and belief
in his political infallibility that for a time possessed it. " The
whole German press," says the Berlin correspondent of the Lon-
don Times, certainly not an enemy of Prince Bismarck, " is still
discussing the result of the last Parliamentary campaign, and is
almost unanimous in the statement that all parties are very dis-
satisfied with the position of home affairs. Even the most ardent
admirers and friends of Prince Bismarck dare not defend the
measures of the government. Everybody wishes, indeed, earn-
estly that the political and economical situation might be some-
what improved. . . . On the whole, it may be confidently stated
that all parties are convinced that the present composition of
Parliament is in no way expedient, and that the Government will
oe obliged to make an appeal to the people." It is probably this
harassing situation of affairs that caused Prince Bismarck to be
nore instant in his advances to the Centre party, which he has

582 Is IT CANOSSA f [Aug.,

publicly testified is now the most compact, resolute, best-disci-
plined, and formidable in the Reichstag.

Previous to his delivery of the speech mentioned, Prince Bis-
marck had been very open and constant in his hints regarding the
negotiations with Rome. The official press was full of inspired
rumors ; the prince himself openly discussed the matter at his
soirees, where he is now accustomed to deliver himself instead of
in the Reichstag, as formerly. " We will lay down our weapons
in the fencing-school," he declared on one of these occasions
(May 4), " but give them up we will not. We believe that now
we shall soon have peace, but the time may shortly return when
we may want our weapons again." In this declaration lies the
gist of the whole matter the scope of the concessions to be
granted by Prince Bismarck and their extremely uncertain nature
and tenure. It was to be an armed truce with the Catholics, not
a treaty of peace, though he expected them to act as though it
were a peace, and was astonished and mortified at their lack
readiness to accept what he doubtless considers his generous co
cessions.

Later on came another version, thus given by the Berlin cor
respondent of the London Times, who is the best-informed writ
as to Bismarck's plans and policy known in the English press
"Almost all the papers are discussing a communication
spired by the government, in which it is once more stated th
Prince Bismarck wished to notify to the Parliament that he i
indeed, willing to conclude peace with the Pope, but at the sam
time is determined to wage a very rude war with the Centre p
ty." He goes on to describe the complexion of the various par-
ties, and concludes : " Mistrust towards the government prevails
in all quarters, and although the National- Liberals, under the
leadership of Herr Von Bennigsen, are ready once more to sup
port Prince Bismarck, no success can be expected before the lat
ter gives the sincerest proofs that he will strictly observe th
constitutional rights of the Parliament." Thus it will be seer
that the struggle is from first to last a purely political one, ir
which the Catholic complexion of the Centre party is a mere acci
dent. The Catholics are not the only or the most determined
opponents of Prince Bismarck's policy. It is not so much the
existence of the German empire that is at stake as the existence
of Prince Bismarck's method of government.

Meanwhile the new Ecclesiastical Bill was being formulated,
and Prince Bismarck himself is understood to claim the author-
ship of it. It contains one great vice : insecurity of tenure.

i88o.] fs IT CANOSSA ? 583

This surpasses even its incompleteness from a Catholic stand-
point. It unquestionably provides nominally for many important
concessions that would be a great boon to Catholics in their pre-
sent distressed condition in Prussia, but it carefully stops at the
provision. There is no guarantee that the concessions would be
general, or continuous, or even that they come into act at all. Is
it not reasonable for men to ask themselves, If the government is
in good faith in this matter, why stop so very short why stop at
all ? For all we are assured to the contrary, they may never go
beyond the formality of the bill. If the government, argue the
Centre, is anxious to relieve us of our disabilities, let it do so hon-
estly and we will give it our hearty support. But it simply says
to us : " Gentlemen, we will not hang you ; but for fear of future
.ccidents we will keep the halter round your necks." That is
rince Bismarck's bill, which the Catholics rightly reject. " It
as come," says the London Times, commenting editorially on
he chancellor's avowal that " the continued existence of the em-
ire was at stake" "it has come to be understood that, from the
int of view of a desire for unity, the excesses of the Culturkampf
ere a mistake, and the practical question has arisen how the mis-
,ke can be corrected with the least appearance of an abandon-
ent of error." Practical men, who understand representative
government, which that of Germany claims to be, and the de-
ands of freedom, will determine whether Prince Bismarck has
the present instance hit upon the happy method of solving
the difficulty.

"The government," says the Times correspondent, "has, in-
deed, explained the necessity of this bill only by the fact that the
views of the church struggle have been changed during the last
few years, and that the cabinet seems to be bound to agree to the
wishes of the Catholic population." It is needless to point out
here that the wishes of the Catholic population have been the
same from first to last in this struggle, and proclaimed without the
slightest attempt at concealment, so that there can have been no
difficulty on the part of the government of arriving at a clear com-
prehension of their views. There has certainly been no change
pf view on the part of the Catholic population. " The Progress-
ist organs," he continues, " have taken quite another view of the
subject, saying that the Centre party will neither be terrified nor
conquered by the bill," wherein the Progressist organs displayed
their nice discrimination and just appreciation of the actual situa-
tion. " The May Laws," according to the Progressists, " have
brought a very splendid triumph to the Clericals, for they have

584 fs IT CANOSSA ? [Aug.,

been regarded as martyrs by the Catholic people at large, and
they have at the same time gained the power to have controlled
by their deputies the political votes in the Parliament." Herein
lies the secret of the change in the government's attitude, as will
be seen when we come to the divulged correspondence. The
writer represents, as the subsequent facts showed, that both Pro-
gressists and Catholics would unite against the bill. "The Ultra-
montanes . . . will certainly demand the total abolition of the
May Laws, which have never been acknowledged by them. The
Progressist party is of the same opinion. Though they have
never been well contented with the May Laws, they do not wish
to give to the government such discretionary powers, by whic
Prince Bismarck would be able to make use or not of the laws
he might think profitable for his own political plans. The bill i
at the same time regarded by the Progressist press as the sever-
est defeat the government has as yet undergone " a defeat self-
inflicted and self-invited. The Conservative organs, on the othe:
hand, were hopeful that the bill would be passed, " in order t
restore peace between church and state for the welfare of th
German empire " a significant admission !

Well, we have travelled far on the road to Canossa since Dr
Falk, while still Minister of Public Worship, declared that und
no consideration whatever could a revision of the May Laws
allowed, a declaration that was reiterated and confirmed by hi
Protestant successor, Herr Von Puttkamer. While the discussio:
regarding the new bill was thus going on in the press an electio
at Reutlingen, in Wiirtemberg, returned a Democratic candidat
by a large majority over an Imperialist, and a Catholic was retur
ed by a still larger majority over a Liberal at Passau, in Bavaria.
This was not without significance at the moment. At the same
time the Pope notified Cardinal Jacobini that he disapproved of
the purely optional character of Prince Bismarck's bill, which
left the church just as much at his mercy as ever. A short time
previously an immense Catholic gathering, numbering nearly
twenty thousand persons, comprising many noblemen and Catho-
lic leaders, had assembled at Dortmund, Westphalia, and by their
resolutions ratified the attitude of the Centre party in the Reichs-
tag. They passed other resolutions of an eminently practical,
manly, and liberal spirit regarding the rights of Catholics, the re-
sponsibility of ministers, the system of elections, the freedom of
the press and of political meetings, and the question of education.

The intimation of the Pope's disapproval seems to have been
the final blow to Prince Bismarck. On the eve of the presenta-

i88o.] -Is IT CANOSSA ? 585

tiori of the bill in the Prussian Diet appeared his selections from
the correspondence between himself and the pro-nuncio in the

r orddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. The publications comprised
despatches from Prince Bismarck to Prince Reuss, the imperial
ambassador at Vienna, who was made the medium of commu-

ication between the Prussian government and the pro-nuncio,
Mgr. Jacobini, on behalf of the Pope, there being no German
representative at the Vatican. The Zeitung, which is an ^fficial
paper, set forth the reasons for the publication of the despatches,
as "simply intended to dispel doubts and erroneous impressions
in Prussian Parliamentary circles as to the genesis of the Eccle-
siastical Laws Amendment Bill now before the Landtag." The
Times correspondent, who gave them to his journal in English,
added that it could scarcely be doubted that Prince Bismarck by
this move hoped to gain over the allegiance of the Liberals to the
bill, as " showing them that, all concessions notwithstanding, he
is still as determined as before never to go to Canossa." Let us
see.

The " inexorable chancellor," as the correspondent delights to

11 him, sets out by stating : " If it has been believed that we
would not only disarm but also destroy our legislative weapons,

e have been credited with a piece of great foolishness, to which

have never given occasion by any one utterance of mine." In
that case it would seem useless to have entered on the negotia-
tions at all ; but Prince Bismarck explains himself. Mgr. Jacobini
seems to have asked what guarantees were there for the good dis-
position of the state towards the church, suppose a change of
government took place. The laws remained still standing. Prince
Bismarck, who throughout looks solely for coercion by the Pope
on the political action of the Centre party, asks what guarantee is
there on his side, suppose a change of popes and the entry of " a
more combative pope than Pius IX." The Pope simply offered
" the prospect of conciliatory action " between the Centre party
and the government, which was all he could well offer. Pros-
pects, however, are poor comfort to Prince Bismarck, who wants
a working majority in Parliament. " Of what avail to us," he
asks, " is the theoretical partisanship of the Roman Curia against
the Socialists when the Catholic faction in the country, simply
declaring their resignation to the will of the Pope, do openly with
their votes lend their aid to the Socialists and other subversive
elements?" What he wants is the Catholic vote to enable him to
pass his measures, and he asks the Pope to procure it for him in
consideration of certain possible diminutions in the exercise of

586 Is IT CANOSSA? [Aug.,

the May Laws. This is the man who started out in his war against
the church by proclaiming that it was impossible for Catholics to
obey the Pope and the civil government at the same time, and
that, as " in the kingdom of this world the state has dominion
and precedence/' when spiritual faith or allegiance comes in con-
flict with its sway the faith and allegiance must yield. He has
at length discovered his mistake, and now turns to the Pope to
help him out of his difficulties. O quantum mutatus ab illo !

" A year ago," says Prince Bismarck, " when the Catholic
party lent us their support in the customs questions, I came to
believe in the earnestness of the papal spirit of concession, and ii
this belief I was encouraged to proceed with the negotiatioi
which took place ; but since then the Clericals, openly avowing
themselves in the special service of the Pope, have assailed th<
government in the Landtag at all points." He cannot, or pr<
fesses not to be able to, discriminate between Catholic spiritu;
allegiance to the Holy See and Catholic freedom of action ii
pure politics. He seems to regard the Catholic body as pledge
to obey blindly whatever the Pope might see fit to indicate ev<
outside of his spiritual authority as head of the church. He d<
not see that he is moving here in a vicious circle ; for if h<
recognizes the Pope as all-powerful, should the Holy Father
choose, in his favor, he must concede the possibility of his bein^
equally powerful on the other side, should he choose to arraj
himself against the' government. But the Pope's authority d<
not extend and is never pressed to matters of mere politics, out-
side of questions that intimately affect faith and public morals.
For instance, in a question like that of divorce, or Christian
marriage, or baptism, the Pope, as the head of the Catholic
Church, would certainly have, and if need were exercise, auth(
rity over Catholics. But Prince Bismarck wishes him to extent
this authority to " the railway scheme, the liquor retail tax law,
the County Police Bill, and the Polish question," a propositioi
that to a Catholic is absurd and laughable. " In imperial policy
also," the prince complains to the Pope, "and especially in qu<
tions like the military budget, the Socialist law, and the
tax bills, the Catholic party oppose us to a man." Really it
looks as though Prince Bismarck asked the Pope to conduct ii
person the affairs of the German empire. " One word from the
Pope," he says, "or the bishops" (whom he seems to forget he
banished), " or even the most discreet dissuasive warning, would
put a stop to this unnatural alliance of the Catholic nobility and
the priests with the Socialists." There exists no such alliance ;

i88o.] Is IT CANOSSA ? 587

the Catholics only sided with the Socialists in matters that
affected the liberty of all German citizens. The net of a principle
necessarily embraces fish of divers kinds, and may not be broken
for fear of the intrusion of an occasional shark.

The prince goes on to rail against the Catholic press, which, in

jrmany, may be said to have been created by the persecution.

[e is particularly angry with " the low-priced prints" which
luring the first years of the conflict " did all in their power to
legrade the government of the king in the eyes of his subjects

id bar its activity." This complaint comes with peculiar grace
from the creator of the " reptile press" fund, and shows how
trangely sensitive the man is to attacks from any quarter. He

mfesses that "the diminution of the clergy, the disappearance
)f the bishops, the decadence of the care of souls, fill us with the
liveliest sympathy for our Catholic fellow-subjects, who are in

lis way abandoned by their pastors because the priests refuse to
>erform their functions from political motives barely intelligible
the laity." This is a mild manner of explaining away the im-

>sition by the government of oaths on the clergy that it was

ipossible for them conscientiously to take. He repeats his
statement that he never contemplated a revision or abrogation of
May Laws. " A return in principle to the legislation in force
in 1840 has been declared to be acceptable, but a reversion to the
state of things between that year and 1870 I always with great
emphasis declined on the three or four occasions when that was
lemanded of us."

A second publication, or revelation rather, followed this, and
jven the correspondent of the London Times is constrained to
concede that, "when all is said and done," the bill "may un-
doubtedly be construed, from the chancellor's own admission, as a
decided step of a voluntary nature in the direction of Canossa."
Cardinal Jacobini, in behalf of the Holy See, objected to the pro-
posals that " the worst of the way now sought to be pursued
by the Prussian government was the uncertainty wherein the
church would remain, and the want of a guarantee for the good
intentions of the imperial government. . . . The Pope must at
least hold out to the faithful the hope of peace, of a modus mvendi
founded on a legal basis being sooner or later obtained. ... In
Rome they would be content if, on the achievement of an un-
derstanding, the Prussian government on its part laid proposals
for altering the May Laws before the Prussian Parliament." If
this, which was surely not asking too much, were not conceded,
Mgr. Jacobini, " from the dry tone of Cardinal Nina's latest de-

588 Is IT CANOSSA ? [Aug.,

spatch," seemed to fear that the Holy Chair would then feel itself
bound to issue a declaration to the faithful in Prussia setting forth
the reasons why the negotiations have led to nothing." Further
despatches are given specifying the guarantees demanded by the
Pope with regard to the status of the bishops and clergy in
Prussia and the empire, which are all completely reasonable and
absolutely necessary to the free exercise of their ecclesiastical
office and functions. The nuncio was convinced that, as far as
Prince Bismarck's concessions went, " the Catholic clergy would
be a la merci of the government, there being in his opinion no
security for the exercise of the sacred ministry," as it is plain
there is not, beyond the whim or pleasure of the government.
Prince Hohenlohe then comes on the scene, speaking for Prince
Bismarck.

In his despatch he refers to the organization and tactics of the
Centre party, and observes that " for ten long years the govern-
ment has been confronted with a denial on the part of Rome of
its exercising any influence on that fraction, which includes a con-
siderable number of priests and is elected under sacerdotal pn
sure." It was this terrible fraction which " now destroyed all the
chancellor's hopes of achieving an understanding with the Pope."
He politely adds : " The assertion that the Roman Chair exercij
no influence on the Centre meets with no belief here." Next the
chancellor himself takes up the pen again, subsequent to th<
speech he made in the Reichstag, mentioned in the earlier porti(
of this article, wherein he assailed all parties in turn, but the Cen-
tre party most of all. In his despatch he reproduced the sub-
stance of the bitter reproaches he then made against the Centre.
He wants to know whether the Pope has or has not the power or
the will *' to restrain its political adherents in Parliament from
championing principles emphatically condemned by it" refer-
ring to the Catholic opposition to the extension of the Anti-Social-
ist Law. He confesses that, in view of all these things, his hopes
of a successful issue of the negotiations have been considerably
dashed, but concludes : " Nevertheless, the imperial govern-
ment, animated by the pacific mood in which it met the first ad-
vances of His Holiness, and penetrated by the sympathy it has
always felt for the orphaned congregations, will hesitate no
longer of its own initiative to lay before the Legislature such
measures as are compatible with the inalienable rights of the state,
and also according to its firm conviction, founded on the exam-
ple of other countries, to render possible the restoration of a
well-ordered diocesan administration and supply the ranks of a

CAA

i88o.] /s IT CANOSSA ? 589

diminished priesthood." Hence the bill now under discussion in
the Prussian Landtag.

As for the debates on the already half-rejected bill, it is
rofitless, in view of its rejection, to go at length into them. The
hief interest attaches to what lay behind it and influenced Prince
ismarck in his remarkable change of front. Herr Von Putt-
mer, the Minister of Public Worship, presented the bill to an
xtraordinarily crowded house, in a speech that closed with the
eclaration that the government " wanted peace with the Catholic
hurch, nor would they ever be able to answer to history and
heir conscience if they did not do all in their power to achieve
is " ! Dr. Falk replied in defence of the May Laws in a manner
hat may be easily imagined by those who have followed the
hread of this controversy. Towards the close of his speech he
deeply deplored " the prospect of a Clerico-Conservative ministry
ter the retirement of Prince Bismarck willing, perhaps, to go
Canossa." Dr. Windthorst, the Catholic leader, whose wisdom,
it, profound patriotism, and perfect skill as a Parliamentary
der and debater have been chiefly instrumental in leading up
he Catholic party to its present formidable position, spoke for
he Catholics. He declared that his party would give no definite
ote on the bill ; that in discussing it they were not to be under-
tood as compromising any of the church's rights, for without an
nderstanding with the Holy Chair they could not agree to any
clesiastical laws ; that perfect peace was not to be attained before
he state recognized and restored Catholics to the status quo ante.
This, he said, was not to be reached all at once, but they had
rned that very much was to be achieved by patience and per-
severance. He stated, as we have stated, that in temporal affairs
the Holy Father had nothing whatever to do with them. Did
the chancellor, he asked, fancy that the Holy See, which existed
for all states, would become the willing instrument of one ? He
repudiated the idea that the Centre party was merely a confes-
sional party. " They stood up for the rights of all alike, the Jews
not excepted." It was a mere empty phrase, he concluded, to
say that the Curia was but slightly inclined to advances ; the fact
being that " the extreme alacrity of the Pope in this respect might
almost justify the saying that His Holiness himself had already
gone to Canossa."

The fate of the bill is already known. It was destined from
the first to die a natural death. Its rejection by the Catholics
may afford Prince Bismarck the opportunity of throwing the
onus on their shoulders. But if he chooses to throw dust in his

590 fs IT CANOSSA ? [Aug.,

own eyes, he cannot hope to do so much longer in the eyes of the
world. Nobody is deceived by this skeleton of a concession t(
lawful Catholic demands, or by Prince Bismarck's motive in in-
sisting on holding in his own hand the discretionary power ovei
the May Laws. " Permissive persecution " is what the Londoi
Spectator (May 29) calls it. " It seems quite impossible," says this
journal, " that the Roman Catholic authorities should accept it
If the bill should pass by their help, and be put into executioi
for their advantage, they would be placed entirely at the mere]
of the minister of public worship. They could not reap th<
benefit of a single one of the provisions professedly designed foi
their benefit, except on condition of keeping on good terms witl
him. . . . From every point of view but that of momentary coi
venience, the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Prussi;
would be worse under the measure now under consideration thai
it is under the May Laws." The Falk Laws, says the Pall Mai
Gazette, " were an attempt to carry out a system of persecution ui
der conditions which rendered it impossible for them to succeed.
. . . All the suffering which the Catholics have undergone for
conscience' sake has not benefited Prince Bismarck an atom. .
If the Falk Laws are to be carried out, let them be pressed on
a portion of a deliberate policy sanctioned by the nation and t(
be persevered with as a matter of state ; if they are to be r<
pealed, let that too be done in accordance with usage, and in d<
ference to the judgment of the representatives of the peopl<
The half-way course of leaving their enforcement optional,
thus placing a power the more in the hands of a minister alread;
too powerful for the liberties of his countrymen, is merely to sur-
render those privileges of Parliament which in Prussia have been
so hardly and so recently acquired."

" The letter of Leo XIII.," says the London Times (May 20),
" to the Archbishop of Cologne, in February of this year, was a
still more distinct proof of the desire for peace. . . . Why should
the Prussian government care to persevere in this war with a
portion of its subjects ? What has it to gain ? The Falk Laws
were not measures for all time ; they were lois de circonstance.
... He (Prince Bismarck) must be well aware that severity
now uncalled for ; that some of the fears which he entertained ii
1873 have become manifestly groundless ; that the Roman Catho-
lic subjects of the empire are Germans first, and are as much
attached to it as are their Protestant countrymen. . . . The
pretext for the May Laws is almost gone. They can be worth
retaining, in the view of a statesman, only as a means of keep-

i88o.] Is IT CANOSSA? 591

ing a hold over the Centre party and securing their sup-
port."

Here the case of the Catholic Church against the Prussian
government may be allowed to rest for the present. What is to
be said further of a case where the defendant, who is at the same
time the judge, comes into court, admits that the main charges
against the plaintiff are groundless and untrue ; admits the griev-
ous sufferings that the plaintiff has undergone by reason of those
charges, grave damages to person, property, and character ; yet
insists by virtue of his office on holding in terrorem over the plain-
tiff's head the pains and penalties attached to charges which he
mfesses have neither foundation nor justification ? As is suffi-
jntly seen by the testimony here cited, public opinion abroad
mdemns Prince Bismarck. His own present action condemns
for, as later despatches show, he persists in doing something
relieve Catholic disabilities, and his bill, which was lame from
ie beginning, is being lopped through the Landtag by a species
mild mutilation. How it will come out of the process remains
be seen. Prince Bismarck, however, is hardly the man to sit
ig on the fence. He will finally adopt one course or the other,
id be wholly just or else fall back on his old form of complete
itagonism to the Catholic Church. It is plain to the world that
;tice has won another of its patient victories, though the full
may not be yet meted out to it. The German Catholics
ive come nobly through their baptism of fire, purified and
rengthened by it. Even the Orthodox Protestants now look to
jm as their champions against the aggressions of the state on
ie domain of conscience. The Socialists, who are by no means
wrong, though wild and vague in their demands, look to them
the champions of human freedom. The National-Liberal party
)ke down altogether here when the supreme test came and
>wed the essential hollowness of their claim to true liberal
inciples. The Conservatives look upon the Catholics as the
lief pillar of conservatism in the state. What does all this
to show but simply that the Centre is a true Catholic par-
where all right principles unite ? They have only to con-
me their patient struggle in the admirable manner in which it
las so far been conducted in order to win back not only their
:omplete civil and religious freedom, but to strengthen and con-
solidate the mighty empire whose existence Prince Bismarck says
lespairingly is at stake.

592 A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. [Aug.

A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES.

IN a lonely spot behind the Coelian Hill, at the entrance to th
romantic valley of Egeria, stands the ancient convent of San Sist
which inspired the pen of Lacordaire. It is now melancholy an
deserted, its spacious court like a farm-yard, its halls damp an
mouldering, and its cloisters fast going to decay, but still deepl;
interesting on account of its time-honored associations. On ttr
spot six early popes, martyred for the faith, were entombed. He
St. Dominic established the first house of his order at Rome, ai
wrought many wonders celebrated in art and legendary lo]
Generations of Roman nuns, and, after them, of exiled Iri
friars, lie buried beneath the pavements. In its solitary chur
are paintings by Giotto, and its venerable chapter-house is co
ered with the choicest productions of Pere Hyacinthe Besson, t"
Dominican artist, who was one of the early companions of La
daire, and who, sacrificing his natural tastes for the higher labo
of the priesthood, died in the East a martyr of charity.

There is a mournful, poetic aspect about the whole neigh
hood. In front are the gigantic ruins of the baths of Caracal
amid whose crumbling arches Shelley wrote his Prometheus
bound. They are no longer picturesque with wild flowers
shrubs, as in his day, but bare, gaunt, and unsightly. At t
north is the Ccelian Hill with its group of historic churches, a
along the southern base the valley of the Almo with its lone
fountain, where Numa sought inspiration. Close by the conv
and across the vast Campagna, runs the Appian Way, borde
by ruined tombs that make it the saddest way on earth, save o
The history of San Sisto goes back to the second century
the Christian era. The first church here was built in memory
the separation on this very spot of Pope St. Sixtus II. and St.
Lawrence, as the former was led away to be martyred.
" Whither goest thou, O my father ! without thy son and ser-
vant?" cried St. Lawrence. " Am I found unworthy to accom-
pany thee to death, and to pour out my blood with thine in testi-
mony to the truth of Christ ? " "I do not leave thee, my son,"
replied St. Sixtus. " In three days thou shalt follow me, and thy
battle shall be harder than mine, for I am old and weak, and my
course will soon be finished, but thou art in the strength of thy
youth and full of endurance. Thy torments will be longer

r, and

i88o.] A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. 593

thy triumph consequently the greater. Therefore grieve not, for
Lawrence the levite shall soon follow Sixtus the priest."

It was a noble Roman matron named Tigrida who gave the
land for the church, and here St. Sixtus was buried, whence it
was often called in ancient times St. Sixtus Tigrida. It also bore
the name of St. Sixtus in Piscina, because it was near the piscina
publica where the Roman people were taught to swim. The
church was afterward rebuilt and enlarged out of the ruined tem-
ple of Mars that stood near by, famed for its hundred columns.
Pope Innocent III. restored it in the thirteenth century, and the
place was given to St. Dominic, who founded a convent here and
gathered about him a hundred friars. He afterwards removed to
the more spacious convent of Santa Sabina, on the Aventine, and
gave San Sisto to some Dominican nuns he had brought from
Prouille, in France, to initiate a community of nuns from beyond
the Tiber into their holy practices. More than forty were estab-
lished here the first week in Lent, 1218. The first to take the
habit of St. Dominic was the Beata Cecilia, of the Cesarini family,
who was only seventeen years of age. She became the superior
of the house, and to her we are indebted for many valuable de-
tails of St. Dominic's labors at Rome. More than three centuries
later we find the nuns still in possession of San Sisto, but they
were finally driven away by the malaria, and in 1572 they estab-
lished themselves in the convent of San Domenico e Sisto, near
the Quirinal, which the present government has converted into a
Court of Accounts. From that time their old residence has been
known as San Sisto Vecchio, or the Old. It was then given to
the Irish Dominicans proscribed by Queen Elizabeth of England,
and here among others Thomas Howard, afterwards cardinal,
who sprang from the earls of Arundel, was in 1646 professed a
friar of the order of St. Dominic. They, in their turn, finally left
San Sisto on account of its unwholesomeness ; but the general of
the order retained a few rooms in the house, and the saintly Pope
Benedict XIII., who was a Dominican, and never ceased to be a
religious, whether as archbishop of Benevento or Sovereign Pontiff,
used to spend some days here, every spring and autumn, in re-
tirement, especially at Carnival time, occupying a chamber over
the chapter-room rendered so famous by St. Dominic. He re-
stored the church again, or, as it would seem, built another with-
in that of the thirteenth century, perhaps to obviate the damp-
ness. The walls are about a yard apart, at least at the apse,
where, on the outer and more ancient wall, some interesting half-
ruined paintings by Giotto have recently been discovered, among

VOL. XXXI. 38

594 ^ GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES.

them a striking figure of St. Paul and some lovely heads of saints
and angels. They have been cleaned, but with great difficulty,
owing to the narrowness of the space and the crumbling of the
wall on which they are painted.

The convent for a time was used as a paper manufactory, and
the lands are still owned by the city and planted as a nursery of
young trees, but the chapter-room has always been held by the
order. The church is too remote from the city to be frequented,
except in the third week in Lent, when a station is held here, and
the Roman clergy come out to pray and honor its ancient memo-
ries. It also gives a title to a cardinal priest, the actual pos-
sessor of which is Cardinal Parocchi, of Bologna the place where
St. Dominic died, and where he still lies enshrined.

When you enter the court of San Sisto from the Via di San
bastiano, the friary is directly in front, with the church at the left
and at the right the chapter-room, which belongs to the time
St. Dominic and witnessed some of his greatest miracles. It is
hall about forty feet long, twenty-eight broad, and eighteen higl
with low Roman arches supported in the middle by two granil
pillars, the bases of which are half buried in the soil. There is
small arched window at the east, beneath which is an altar erect
by Pope Benedict XIII. on the spot where St. Dominic said M<
for the young Napoleone, just killed by a fall from his horse. Tl
Napoleone was of the ancient Orsini family, like Pope Benedic
himself. The walls, in all about two hundred square yards,
nearly covered with scenes from the life of St. Dominic, execut<
by Pere Besson in his few intervals of leisure from the obli^
tions of the monastic life. Pere Besson used to descend from tl
convent of Santa Sabina by the same path St. Dominic took wh<
he went to see the nuns at San Sisto, and he was usually accoi
panied by Fra Angelo, a lay-brother said to have been as angelic
in person and character as his name. The lay-brother sat to hii
as a model and served him as cook. In 1853 Pere Besson installe
himself here for several weeks from Monday morning till Saturday
night, occupying the same rooms formerly used by Benedict XI E
By five o'clock in the morning he had finished his meditation am
said his office. He then descended to the great solitary chun
to say Mass, after which he painted till night, hardly stoppii
long enough to dine, and he ended the day, as he began it, wit
prayer. One day while on the top of a high scaffold, absorb(
in his work, he was surprised by a visit from Pius IX., who
been taking his constitutional. The Pope encouraged the artii
in his work and expressed a desire for its completion. When the

i88o.] A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. 595

friar knelt to receive the Pope's parting 1 benediction the latter
took the artist's hand and kissed it.

The chapter-room is entered by a porch from the outer court.
At the left, on entering, is the Madonna del Rosario. The Vir-
gin, seated on a throne with the Infant Jesus in her arms, gives
the rosary to St. Dominic and St. Catharine of Siena, who are
kneeling at her feet. Beautiful angels are grouped around, with
emblematic lilies and roses in the folds of their graceful garments.
This picture is considered by many as superior in delicacy and
religious expression to the celebrated Sassoferrato at Santa Sa-
bina.

Beyond, St. Dominic and St. Francis are kneeling to embrace
each other in the portico of a church a painting that rivals the
old Umbrian masters who have depicted the same scene, at least
in expressing the profound humility of St. Francis and the ardor
of St. Dominic's tender greeting. Lacordaire eloquently de-
scribes this scene, and tells how the embrace of these great
patriarchs of the religious life has been perpetuated in the orders
ey founded. The following is only an instance : Every year,
the festival of St. Dominic, a carriage is s.ent by the general
the Dominicans from the Minerva to the Ara Cceli, to bring
general of the Franciscans, who comes attended by several
his brethren. The guests are received with a fraternal em-
ce before the grand altar of the church, and while the Domini-
ns are engaged in the choir the Franciscans officiate at the
altar. They afterwards dine together in the refectory, and then
unite in singing the antiphon : " The seraphic Francis and the
apostolic Dominic have taught us thy law, O Lord !" A similar
ceremony takes place at the Ara Cceli on the festival of St.
Francis.

Next in the series is St. Dominic commissioned to preach the
Gospel. This is represented as taking place before the tomb of
the holy apostles, who appear visibly before him. St. Peter gives
lira a staff, and St. Paul the Gospels, saying : " Go and preach.
?or this purpose thou wast created."

On the pilasters that separate these paintings are the sweet
igures of four female saints of the Dominican Order in pairs St.
Vgnes of Montepulciano and St. Catharine of Siena ; St. Rose of
^ima and St. Catharine de Ricci with their peculiar attributes,
"or the corresponding pillars at the other end Pere Besson had
repared cartoons of four sainted friars of his order St. Thomas
Aquinas and St. Hyacinth, St. Peter Martyr and St. Vincent
errer figures incomparable for their grace and simple dignity.

596 A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. [Aug.,

At the right as you enter the chapter-room is the restoration
to life of the architect of the convent, struck down by the crum-
bling of an arch. Several friars, with faces full of awe, pity, and
hope, are kneeling around. St. Dominic is praying with outspread
arms and beautiful uplifted face, and the dead man is just coming
to life. Behind is the unfinished tower of the convent. This is
the poorest picture of the series, but full of feeling and tender
piety.

On the opposite wall is the artist s best work the restoring to
life of the young Napoleone Orsini, nephew of Cardinal Stefano
di Fossanuova, which took place on Ash Wednesday, 1218, in this
very room. In the painting you see the same low arches, the
same sunken pillars, reproduced. Orsini is lying on a mortuar
cloth such as you see still used in Italy. At the right, pale wi
emotion, are the nuns of St. Mary beyond the Tiber, come
take possession of their new abode among them the Beata
cilia, an eye-witness of the miracle, of which she has left an
count. At the left are the cardinals and bishops come to ta
part in the ceremonies of the day, among whom is Cardinal St
fano, who stands with clasped, supplicating hands. In the centr
surrounded by his brethren as pale as the nuns, is St. Domini
rapt in ecstatic prayer a little above the ground, with eyes a
arms raised to heaven. His face is said to resemble that of t
artist, but transfigured and beautified by a mysterious supernat
ral expression. He seems to raise Orsini from the dead by t
irresistible power of the prayer of faith that removes mountai
The young man is coming to life. His lower limbs are still sti
in death, but life is quickening in his frame. His half-raised h
his look of astonishment, his eyes full of love and gratitude, hi
extended arms, are all directed toward St. Dominic as by some
attraction he is unable to resist. The variety of characters an
costumes, the grouping, the varied attitudes, the happy arrange
ment of the draperies, the rich and harmonious coloring, abov
all the wonderful expression, make this a truly admirable picture

There is also a series of sixteen medallions in neutral tints
depicting other scenes in the life of St. Dominic.

Over the door is the miraculous dinner served by two beauti
ful angels in shining raiment. And along the lower wall, at th
left end of the room, is the striking procession of the nuns o
St. Mary beyond the Tiber with lighted torches in their hands, at
tending the venerated image of their Madonna, which is borne t
San Sisto in the night-time by St. Dominic out of fear of the peo
pie, who refuse to let it be carried away.

i88o.] A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. 597

The triumph of the cross is the principal motive of the whole
series, and that sacred symbol is everywhere to be seen surround-
ed by arabesques of charming originality. The pilasters are
adorned with lilies and roses, the chosen emblems of the Domini-
can Order. Long golden chains denote the captivating eloquence
of its members in the sacred desk. The arches are blue and sown
with golden stars. Everything is vigorous, expressive, and re-
ligious, but unfortunately the work was suspended by the artist's
second mission to the East, and never completed. What he ac-
complished, however, constitutes a genuine poem in honor of St.
Dominic ; but the room is poorly lighted, and the dampness of the
place is fast destroying the brilliancy of these beautiful paint-
ings.*

Opposite San Sisto Vecchio is the small but interesting church
of Santi Nereo ed Achilleo, where repose not only the two mar-
tyrs from whom it derives its name, but St. Flavia Domitilla, of
the imperial race of Titus and Domitian, who received the reli-
gious veil from Pope St. Clement one of the earliest instances of
a female of rank consecrating herself to a life of devotion and
good works. Her slaves Nereus and Achilleus, possibly Greeks

Rm their Homeric names, are said to have been instrumental in
* conversion to Christianity, or at least in her refusing to
rry the idolater Aurelian, to whom she had been betrothed,
ey were all banished to Pontia, or Ponza, one of the many isles
of the Mediterranean Sea consecrated by the memory of saints
and martyrs. Her faithful servants, Nereus and Achilleus, were
tortured to induce them to renounce the faith, and finally sent
with her to Terracina, on the mainland, where they were be-
headed. It is difficult to associate such a place as Terracina with
torture and martyrdom. It is on the shore of the Mediterranean
Sea. The hills around it are covered with the orange and citron,
which embalm the air with a delicious perfume that excites the
imagination and intoxicates the senses. The aloe and cactus
border the roads. Wild flowers grow everywhere in profusion.
The sea breaks against the cliffs, not with wild fury as on north-
ern shores, but with a measured roar as if merely to assert its
grandeur. You are on the borders of Campania Felix happy
land indeed.

St. Flavia Domitilla continued to live in this beautiful region,
and gathered around her other Christian maidens of like high
purposes, but in the time of Trajan she was, by order of the pre-

* In describing these paintings we have followed, but not confined ourselves to, M. Cartier's
excellent account.

598 A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. [Aug.,

feet, burned in her own house, together with her two foster-sis-
ters, Euphrosyne and Theodora. The remains of all these martyrs
were gathered up by a holy deacon named Cesareus and conveyed
to Rome, where they were deposited in a catacomb near the Via
Ardeatina. This catacomb, one of the earliest Christian cemeteries
in existence, now bears the name, not of the great Flavian family,
but of the two slaves, Nereus and Achilleus, who were buried here
with their mistress. Their remains were in the year 524 removed
by Pope John I. to the church of the Fasciola, on the Appian
Way, which from that time took their name. This church stood
on the site of an oratory mentioned as far back as 494, and
called Fasciola from the tradition that St. Peter, when led alo
the Appian Way, here dropped one of the bandages {fascice) fro
his ankles, that had been wounded by fetters in the Mamerti
prison. Many captive Jews then lived in this neighborhood, an
doubtless some Christians among them. Domitian restrict
the residence of the Jews to the valley of Egeria, where th
lived in great poverty and degradation, from prosperous me
chants forced to become mere hawkers and pedlars and labore:
whose only possessions were their baskets and a few wisps
straw. Juvenal speaks with great indignation of their livi
here, and says the Romans sold them the very shade of t
trees.

Pope Leo III. rebuilt the church of SS. Nereo and Achill
in the eighth century, but it fell into such a ruinous condition i
the course of time that in the thirteenth century Gregory IX.
the remains of the holy martyrs transferred to the church of
Adrian, in the Forum. Cardinal Baronius, a great lover of Ch
tian antiquities, at his elevation to the purple begged Pope Cle:
ent VIII. to give him the title of SS. Nereo and Achilleo, becau
he wished, out of pious veneration, to restore the church and pr
serve its primitive character. His solicitude is evident from an
inscription he placed in the tribune to this effect : " Whoever thou
mayst be that succeedest me as cardinal priest of this church,
beseech thee, for the glory of God and by the merits of the hoi
martyrs, to remove nothing, to change nothing, to bear nothin
away, but to preserve the antique character of this church pioui
ly restored, and so by the prayers of the saints may God com
always to thy aid." The pious wish has hitherto been sen
pulously respected.

When Cardinal Baronius had the relics of the holy martyr
brought back to this church there was a triumphal processioi
after the manner of those instituted by the old Romans to com-

iSSo.] A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. 599

memorate a great victory. It was not forgotten, in a place so
tenacious of ancient traditions, that St. Flavia Domitilla belonged
to a family that greatly contributed to the glory of the city. The
procession set out from the church of St. Adrian, built on the
ruins of the basilica of ^Emilius Paulus.

Instead of the prisoners of war who used to figure in such
eants were orphans and other captives of faith and charity,
ring torches, and accompanied by the pacific legions of con-
aternities and religious congregations, with a vast train of
riests and monks of different orders, soldiers of civilization who
k to bring the world under the sweet rule of Christ and Rome,
he sacred relics were borne on a car of triumph beneath a crim-
n canopy. All Rome was in attendance. The immense train
ent around to the grand staircase leading up to the Capitol, the
ouses on the way adorned with flowers and appropriate inscrip-
ons. At the foot of the staircase stood the Roman senators and
rinces to receive the holy relics, which were borne to an altar on
e square before the Capitol, and there set up amid the beating
f drums, the pealing of trumpets, and the discharge of cannon,
fter some prayers in honor of the martyrs the procession re-
med its march, passing down behind the Capitol, past the arch
f Septimius Severus and the Forum Romanum, and along the
ia Sacra to the arch of Titus, that celebrates the downfall of
erusalem. Beside the ancient inscriptions declaring that this
ch was erected by the senate and Roman people to the Emperor
itus for having overthrown Jerusalem and aggrandized the city,
ew inscriptions were set up by Cardinal Baronius in honor of
lavia Domitilla, with an allusion to the empire of the soul and
e grandeur of moral victories : " This triumphal arch, once de-
creed and erected to the Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasian for
having brought rebellious Judea under the dominion of the Ro-
man Empire, the senate and Roman people decree and consecrate
more happily to St. Flavia Domitilla, niece of this same Titus, for
having increased and propagated the Christian religion by her
; martyrdom."

On the other side was the following : " The senate and Ro-
man people to St. Flavia Domitilla, niece of Titus Flavius Vespa-
sian, who, by shedding her blood and giving her life for the faith,
more gloriously testified to the death of Jesus Christ than this
same Titus when, in accomplishment of the will of God, he was
made the avenger of that death by the destruction of Jeru-
salem."

Passing between the great Flavian amphitheatre an.d the Pala-

600 A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. [Aug.,

tine hill, where stood the ancient palace of the Caesars, they came
to the noble arch erected to Constantine in commemoration of
the triumph of Christianity by the victories over Maxentius and
Licinius. On it was placed this new inscription : " The senate
and Roman people to St. Flavia Domitilla and SS. Nereus and
Achilleus : on this same Via Sacra, where so many Roman empe-'
rors have passed in triumph after subjugating provinces to the
empire of the Roman people, these martyrs now pass in triumph
even more glorious, for they triumphed by the loftiness of thei
courage over the very conquerors themselves."

And on the other side : " The senate and Roman people to S
Flavia Domitilla: twelve emperors, her kinsmen, illustrated b
their brilliant deeds the Flavian family and the city of Rome
but she alone has shed more lustre on both by renouncing fo
Christ the empire and her own life."*

Cardinal Baronius, attended by several members of the Sacr
College, received the holy relics at the door of SS. Nereo an
Achilleo, and intoned the antiphon, " Enter, O ye saints
God ! " They were borne into the church, where, after appr
priate ceremonies, they were deposited in a tomb under the mai
altar. This altar is inlaid with mosaic, and over it is a canop
supported by pillars of African marble. It has a marble gratin
in front, through which objects are passed to touch the tomb, aft
the ancient custom. The tribune is raised above the nave, an
has a low marble screen, and there are two ancient ambons for th
epistle and gospel. On the arch above is the oldest known repr
sentation of the Transfiguration a mosaic of the eighth centur
Christ stands in an elliptical glory with Moses and Elias at hi
side, and the three disciples at his feet so overpowered by his
glory that they veil their faces with their mantles. On one side
is the Annunciation, and on the other the Virgin and Child at-
tended by art angel with his wings spread in an attitude of won-
der; the Child, though on his Mother's breast, seemingly sus-
tained by his own strength. This celebrated mosaic, of the time
of the Nestorian heresy, is a standing affirmation of the churd
that Mary was the Mother of God.

On the ceiling of the nave is painted the council held in
this church by St. Gregory the Great. The curious marble chair
or throne, resting on lions, which he occupied on that occasioi
is behind the main altar, and on it is graven the commencement
of his twenty-eighth homily, so applicable to our age, in which
all foundations are overthrown a homily delivered more than

*See Mgj. Gerbet's Rome Chrltienne.

I(J

ve.

i88o.] A GROUP OF ROMAN SANCTUARIES. 60 1

twelve hundred years ago in this church, or in the neighboring
catacomb, on the anniversary of the martyrdom of SS. Nereus
and Achilleus : " The saints before whose tomb we have gathered,
looking down from the elevation of their souls upon the prospe-
rous world, trod it under their feet. Life was before them, with
sured peace and every comfort ; and yet this world, blooming as

t seemed in itself, had already withered in their hearts. Behold

o-day it has withered in itself, but in our hearts it seems bloom-

ng still. Everywhere we see death, mourning, and desolation.
We are smitten on every side. On every side we are filled with
bitterness, and yet, blinded by our carnal desires, we love the
very bitterness of the world. We pursue it as it flies from us.
We cling to it when it crumbles to atoms."

A little beyond SS. Nereo and Achilleo, at the end of a grassy
urt, with a granite column before it is the antique church of
n Cesareo, mentioned by St. Gregory, well worth visiting for

ts carved marble pulpit and altar inlaid with mosaic, its ancient
episcopal throne, its rich columns of brocatelle marble from some
old pagan temple, and the tomb of the titular saint, with angels
drawing aside the curtains that screen it. Here St. Sergius was
elected to the Papacy in 687. It was he who introduced the sing-
ing of the Agnus Dei at the Mass the exclam^ion of St. John the
Baptist at the coming of the Son of God. Father O'Brien*
says it was already in use by the choir, as may be seen from the
Sacramentary of Pope Gregory the Great, but it was now
adopted by the clergy. Near this church used to stand the
lapis manalis brought solemnly into ancient Rome to procure

am.

Turning down a lonely lane a little beyond San Cesareo at the

eft, and passing between vineyards and gardens solitary enough
to be miles away from the city, you come to a little octagon
chapel close by the old Porta Latina, which is now walled up.
This is the chapel of San Giovanni in Oleo, which stands on the
spot where St. John the Evangelist was thrown into a caldron
of boiling oil in the time of Domitian, from which " he came forth
as from a refreshing bath." It was rebuilt in 1509 by Mgr.
Benoit Adam, of Burgundy, French auditor of the Rota. On the
front are his arms, bearing three eagles, with the device, Av

laisir de Diev. There is a grating through which you can look
, and sometimes the key is in the door. The chapel is some-
hat dilapidated, and the old frescoes of the apostle in the cal-

ron are nearly ruined, but nothing can obliterate the memories

* The History of the Mass.

602

VALUE AND WORTH.

of the spot. Beneath the altar are remains of the ancient furnace
that heated the caldron.

Near by is the large deserted church of St. John at the Latin
Gate, with a fine old campanile and a well on one side with a
sculptured marble curb. This curb between two marble columns
supports the cross-beam bearing the pulley to raise and lower
the buckets. The church is large, damp, and chill, with ancient
columns of different kinds, evidently from old Roman temples
The altar and doors are inlaid with mosaic bands. The tribui
has a beautiful Opus Alexandrinum pavement, and there are soi
frescoes of the Deluge and the Baptism of Christ. The churcl
gives a title to a cardinal, and on certain festivals its gray wall
are covered with rich hangings, its altars lighted, and the pav<
ment strewn with fragrant green leaves, for a solemn service ; bi
most of the year it is nearly deserted. These lonely churches,
which there are so many at Rome, which speak of past grandei
and a lively faith, and are large enough for throngs of worshi]
pers, appeal very strongly to one's heart. We are at first ui
happy because they seem forsaken and apparently useless in
remote, sparsely-inhabited part of the city, but the fact sooi
comes home to us that they are chiefly monuments of some gloi
ous memory of the church, as the triumphal arches were erecte
to commemorate some great victory. They were erected to tl
glory of God and not for human aggrandizement, and stand
witnesses of his grace. One learns to love this prodigality
churches not needed for man, which are slowly wasting away
silent worship of their own, as it were. It is a consolation
think there was a time when one place in the world broke 01
into all these expressions of praise and gratitude to God.

VALUE AND WORTH.

HAST thou something, then give it to me for its value ;
Art thou something, I give you my soul in exchange.

Schilk

i88o.] ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 603

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.

PERHAPS no country in the world to-day is a more interesting
subject of study and observation than England. The fact that
for centuries she has neglected the education of the masses makes
the public look with more than a passing interest at the manner
in which the present generation of the English laboring classes
are going to act with an intellectual instrument in their hands
unknown to their predecessors, and a sympathy better expressed,
probably, as a pretended interest in their welfare by political
leaders, to which these poorer classes have hitherto been strangers.
A country, or its government, which till 1870 had no fixed code
determining what should be done for the intellectual betterment
of the common people may well feel ashamed of such an accusa-
tion ; for only within the last ten years have even partial measures
been adopted for the intellectual development of eighty per cent,
of the English people.

One would suppose that when a country claiming the intelli-
nce which England assumes to herself had made up her mind
do something for the education of her people, the best of
odern systems, that to which the general verdict of public
inion has awarded the palm for excellence, would be adopted,
et, so far from this being the case, despite visits of inspection
ade to all the best elementary schools of the Continent, and
en to America, England adopted the effete and long-since con-
emned system known as the Lancasterian. There is not another
country in Europe to-day with a system of instruction which
would endure that adopted by England, and which, from present
indications, she proposes to cling to for many years. Let the
reader imagine an immense hall, say one hundred feet in length
by thirty in width, and in this, say, two hundred children, from
those in the ABC class to those studying the interest-tables, all
pursuing their studies with more or less noise or discipline this
depending on the tact of the master in charge and you have an
idea of the English elementary school-room. There may be a
curtain separating the classes ; this is the extent to which the
separate-room or mutual-simultaneous system has thus far pre-
vailed in England. However, these elementary schools are for
the poor, and are doubtless considered quite good enough for

III

604 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. [Aug.,

them. But what then of the pretended zeal of the so-called Re-
formation for the improvement of the people ?

G. T. Bartley, in The Schools for the People, tells us for the
thousandth time that " it is usually admitted that the first step
towards educating the great mass of this country [England] was
taken about the period of the great Reformation."* Yet even Mr.
Bartley, who wrote in 1871, admits f that " the Reformation in
England, and the consequent suppression of the monasteries and
religious houses, reduced the scanty means which then existet
for the education of the children of the poorer classes." Wit!
this second admission on record, we think Mr. Bartley h;
shown that it will take more than his word to prove that " th<
first step towards educating the great mass of the people w
taken about the period of the great Reformation." It is in spil
of, not because of, the Reformation that anything has been don<
in England for the education of the poorer classes. Italy, the
target for English tourists in their books of travel ; Austria, d<
spite her attachment to Catholic principles ; and, above all, Fran<
the eldest daughter of the church, had their systems of educati<
for the poor, and gave such evidence of the results of th<
systems that after the World's Fairs of 1853 an d 1867 Englam
shamed into a sense of her general ignorance, suddenly awoke
the fact that she had four millions of children of school age wl
were left to the enterprise of private charity or denomination;
industry for their instruction. Bartley tells us, in speaking
charity parochial schools, that

"In 1539 a bill was passed containing the following passage: 'th
the religious houses would be converted to a better use, that God's word
might be set forth and children brought up in learning." This result, how-
ever, was never realized, . . . for a century and a half after the Refor-
mation was complete . . . schools adapted for the lower classes to obtain
instruction in reading and writing can hardly be said to have been or-
ganized '' !

And to-day, that the Elementary Education Act of 1870 is in
operation, what does the English cod.e offer the child of the lowei
classes? Absolutely nothing more than " the three R's " ! The
child is to be taught to read intelligently, to write, and to ciph(
The master need not teach English grammar, and, so far as th<
government is concerned, the little boy or girl attending an el<
mentary school may leave it, after five years' instruction, ignorant
that there is such a place as the North Pole, or that our Savioui

* P -'- tP.3'5.

iSSo.J ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 605.

was not born in a city called London! Thus in 1880 England
finds herself with a code of instruction inferior, as to the absolute
scope of subjects, to that which France had insisted upon in some
of its elementary schools as early as 1719. Grammar and geogra-
phy are encouraged by a special grant when tauglit successfully,
but the fact remains that these essentially elementary subjects are
eft to the discretion of master and manager.

But the object of this paper is not so much to find fault with
the past, or even with the present, but to show what is being
done, and that with partial success, for a class hitherto neglected.

As organized in each district, the system embraces one or
more inspectors, appointed by her majesty ; inspector's assistants,
who do the heavy work of examination ; managers, generally the
pastors of the various denominations ; masters who direct the
schools ; assistant masters, and monitors. And here w r e must in
justice say how far ahead of America, in fair play to Catholics and
to all the denominations, is the English government. Where the
schools attached to the various churches, and accepting govern-
ment supervision, are sufficient for the reception of the children of
the locality, neither the Central Educational Department in Lon-
don nor the local authorities interfere, save to give the earned
grants annually. It is only where local certified schools are in-
sufficient in number or in accommodation that a board is elected
by the people, and on this body devolves the duty of selecting
sites, erecting schools, and furnishing the same, to the satisfaction
of the government and at the rate-payers' cost. Most of the
large cities and towns in England now have such school boards,
but others, such as Catholic Preston, with its spirited inhabitants,
have so far satisfied government without encumbering them-
selves with what proves a most expensive luxury in the shape of
a school board.

Where a school board exists this body takes the place of local
managers in the schools it directs. In parochial or denomina-
tional schools the managers consist generally of the pastor, his
vicars or curates, or, in the absence of the latter, of some respec-
table members of the church. Unlike most other countries,
while the government examines and certifies teachers, it does not
directly employ them. Contracts of agreement are made only
between manager and master, or, where a school board exists,

tween the board and the masters. This makes the supervision
more direct, but in cases where the manager knows nothing of
school discipline the influence is less effective ; or where boards,
give way, as they generally do, to the whims of the more demon-

606 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. [Aug.,

strative members, the master's life is anything but a pleasant one.
Most amusing samples of school board individualism might be
cited, but the curious may consult the files of this year's London
School-master.

Again, her majesty's inspectors being nominated through
the favor of the political party in power, these gentlemen, though
in all cases graduates of some of the leading universities, hav
usually but the vaguest, if indeed they have any, idea of school
management. This is probably one of the greatest blurs on
English school government. The principle of caste which ol
tains so universally in England all but excludes the most compe-
tent viz., experienced masters from becoming inspectors. Th<
result is that men who have grown gray in the school-room an
submitted year after year to inspection by a class of gentlemei
often having fewer years of existence than those whose work the 1
examine have of scholastic experience. It is not surprising thai
under, such a system the utmost dissatisfaction should be
pressed at the opinions given by these tyros in education;
work. What is most galling to manager and master is that, t(
some extent, the annual grants made to schools depend upon th<
report as to discipline, progress, etc., made by her majesty's ii
spectors. The wrong done has more than once been proved t(
be no imaginary one, as the pockets of all concerned in the
suits of annual inspection demonstrate. As a consequence, th<
master, in spite of long experience, changes some well-establishe(
principle to meet what may prove a passing whim of an inexp<
rienced inspector, only to find at the next annual review that
new man appears upon the scene, whose views are diametrically
opposed to those the unfortunate master has been endeavoring t<
conciliate during a preceding year's work. This state of thins
is likely to change shortly. Several members of the House
Commons have been interviewed by the National Union of Enj
lish Teachers, and they have promised to see that a bill shall be
introduced requiring inspectors to have some other qualifications
for their work than the good-will of a member of parliament or
the patronage of the reigning premier.

Before entering upon the domain of figures a word may be
said in praise of the English system of examination of school-mas-
ters. Here all are on an equal footing. Be the examined lay or
religious, the examiners of the papers presented for their judg-
ment are in ignorance the most complete. All work, save read-
ing, is done in writing, and the papers from all centres in Eng-
land and Scotland are sent to Whitehall, where the same co

visi

wei

1880.] ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 607

mission deal with all. In France, on the other hand, each centre
has its own* committee, subject to local whims and often to local
prejudices, and there religious going up for examination arc
obliged to state the fact in their papers ; results have proved that in-
justice of the grossest kind has thus been done members of reli-
ious congregations by ill-disposed examiners.

In the Blue Book on Elementary Education for 1878 we find
at there was accommodation for 3,653,418 scholars, while the
tal registration was 3,154,973, leaving room in the schools al-
dy erected for 500,000 children, supposing that all on the registers
were in actual and regular attendance. Here is the sore spot in
English elementary schools irregularit}^ of attendance. Of the
number above given as on the registers, i, 100,116 were (infants)
under 7 years of age ; 1,929,523 were between 7 and 13 ; 125,334
were above 13. Looking into these figures, howsoever cursorily,
we perceive that only one child out of nine is at school when over
thirteen years of age, showing at once how early the poor employ
their children to assist in keeping the family. Of the 3,154,973
on the registers, only 2,633,198 were present when the inspector
ited the schools for annual examination, while but 2,150,683
ere in average daily attendance. But, of these, 1,976,889 had
made 250 attendances out of a possible 400 or more half-days on
which the schools were open. Again, but 1,335,118 out of the
last number given were presented for examination, thus depriv-
ing the schools and saving to the government the possible gain
accruing from the examination of over 600,000 children. Of the
1,335,118 presented for examination in "the three R's" only 771,-
652 passed in all three, about 50 per cent. ; while 85.78 per cent,
passed in reading, 78.99 in writing, and only 69.97 in arithmetic.

Taking these figures, we find that two years ago a little more
than half of the children were present 250 half-days in the year ;
less than one-half on the registers were presented for examination ;
and only half of those presented, being one-fourth of those on register,
passed in the three elementary subjects. In other words, while
nearly a million of children, as admitted elsewhere in the
government reports, are not on the registers even, but one out of
four of those so inscribed passed an elementary review in reading,
writing, and arithmetic. This, if taken in connection with the
million not inscribed, gives one out of six thus passing the com-
plete elementary ordeal, while in arithmetic, the real test of intel-
ligence in the English schools, one out of five is the result !
To American readers this will appear a scathing review. Yet,
far from blaming the masters for what they have not done,

608 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. [Aug.,

any one who has seen these schools, and above all worked in them,
will be surprised that, with so stupid a system, so much can be
done.

Our readers will naturally ask : " What grade do Catholic
schools hold in the intellectual race ? " We prefer to allow an
authority to speak that will not be suspected. We quote from
the report of " The Poor-School Catholic Committee." The re-
port says :

"The test of success in teaching lies not only in grants for attendance
but especially in grants to children as the result of examination. It aj
pears that out of the gross number in attendance, amounting to 117,969, the
number of 31,062 received payment on account of attendance (only), while
69,620 were presented for examination in the six standards (classes), of whoi
35,804 were under 10 years of age, and 33,756 were over 10 years of
With regard to all those thus examined in the six standards, the percenta
of Catholic scholars who passed in reading, in writing, and in arithmetic
somewhat higher than the general average." *

Again, p. 25 :

tl Though, then, it is but too apparent that the results attained in th<
primary schools of the country still fall far short of what is required to ai
ford a complete elementary education to the children attending them, it is
satisfactory to find that upon a general average Catholic schools maintaii
their position very fairly in comparison with other schools ; in the lo
standards they show some superiority, but in the upper standards . . . there is
a falling off."

Though personal experience has taught the writer many re;
sons why Catholic schools show this falling off in the higher st;
dards, we prefer again to quote the P. S. C. C. as our authority

" One of the principal reasons for this inferiority in the higher sta
dards is not far to seek. Catholic schools, as a rule, are filled with t
children of the poorest persons in the land ; their success in the lower sta
dards shows the intelligence of the children, and the zeal of the manager
and teachers. Their failure in the upper standards and special subjects is
due to no indifference on the part of Catholics to the higher branches of i
struction, but mainly to the great difficulty in persuading, or even, und
the present law, in compelling, the poorest class of parents to keep their
children at school after the age when they may begin to earn a little, and
to the obstacles to any kind of study out of school which exist in the horn
of the very poor."

Not content with this plain and unstrained statement of facts
or reasons, the P. S. C. C. wisely add a paragraph which w<
think applies with its fullest force to American Catholic schools
The committee say :

* Rept. P. S. C. C, p. 24.

i88o.] ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 609

" But though it is fair and just to bear these facts in mind in comparing
Catholic with other schools, it is of the utmost importance at the same
time to recollect that unless every possible exertion is used to maintain
the standard of instruction in the higher subjects in our schools on a level
with that in Board or Protestant schools, we not only place a very serious
temptation in the way of Catholic parents, and put future generations of
Catholics on a disadvantageous footing with others of their own class in
keen competition of life, but under a system such as now exists in
keat Britain we run a most serious risk of having our children forced into
ion-Catholic schools on the ground of the superiority of the education
riven in them."

" Successive governments, successive Parliaments, have shown their de-
:rmination gradually but steadily to raise the level of instruction in ele-
icntary schools, especially in the higher subjects ; and it is therefore diffi-
ilt to exaggerate the importance of making every effort and every sacri-
;e to keep Catholic schools fully up to the mark. The faith of thousands
little children may depend on the success of these efforts."

We cannot refrain from adding one other reason, which the
S. C. C. seem to have overlooked, why Catholic schools
ss a lower percentage in the higher standards, and in spe-
ally-paid subjects. The monitors or pupil-teachers in the male
apartments of Catholic schools are woefully inferior not only
those in Protestant schools, but more particularly to the
male pupil-teachers in Catholic schools. The writer might
re cite instances without number in proof of this assertion,
he two following must suffice. Shortly after his taking charge
of a large Catholic school, meeting with the secretary of the
school board in the same town, the latter gentleman asked :
" Well, what are you doing to improve the schools ? " " Trying
to improve our pupil-teachers," was our curt reply. " Well
done!" responded the board secretary. "You have any amount

of room for work. Your female pupil-teachers in are the

best taught in England. Your males are the worst in Europe."
No better proof of the incapacity of Catholic pupil-teachers can
be had than the result of their examination for admission to the
Training College at the end of their term as pupil-teachers.
When we say that not thirty per cent, of the male Catholic pupil-
chers presented in late years for examination passed, while
venty per cent, of the others would be a fair assumed average
f success, the truth of our assertion is evident. Were further
proof needed, it might be found in an address delivered about
two years ago by His Lordship the Bishop of Liverpool, who, in
plain and urwarnished terms, spoke of the inferior class of pupil-
teachers thus far found in Catholic boys' schools. The honor-
VOL. xxxi. 39

6io ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. [Aug.,

able exceptions which might be cited would only prove the gen-
eral rule to the contrary.

But, our readers may ask, why are the Catholic male pupil-
teachers so inferior ? Two reasons will here suffice, i. Boys, as a
rule, when bright and sharp, find more congenial work elsewhere,
in which they become proficient much sooner than in teaching.
2. The salary thus far allowed them has been so insignificant as
not to deserve the name. Thus, a young man with talents, in-
struction, technical skill in teaching, and physical strength to en-
dure the strain of six hours' teaching and at least two hours of
private instruction, has been expected to do this, and clothe and
find himself in everything, besides helping his parents, for the
magnificent (!) sum of not more than 75 say $375 Americ
money. Here we are giving the most favorable terms which o
experience has taught us to . be the remuneration awarded the
young teachers. One of the Catholic inspectors, still on duty, a
among the most appreciated in the service, tells a good sto
which will illustrate the ludicrous state of affairs against whi
we are inveighing. A young lad of more than ordinary talen
and of such unusual skill as a teacher that he was held up at sch
conferences and in government reports by H. M. inspector as
model, had served three years of his apprenticeship. The fou
year had elapsed, and H. M. inspector came to examine the 'sen
in which the youthful prodigy had been indentured. In looki
over the staff H. M. I. noticed the absence of his promising frien
Upon inquiry he learned that the young man had obtained
better situation. Further investigation led to the discovery t
the young man had become a lamp-lighter with i per week sala
more than he had secured in the three previous years of se
vice. Here is the real difficulty. The board schools, howev
with the public funds to draw from, can pay the best of wages fo
the best of workmen. Hence the superiority of their male pupil-
teachers. Females, on the contrary, are greater slaves in Eng-
land than elsewhere. They must choose between service, the
factory, or the school-room. Naturally they select the last, and
put up with a minimum salary in the assured hope of an after
permanent situation. This brings us to the question of the trair
ing of masters and mistresses, one of the most interesting in th
English system, and that which redounds most honor upon Cz
tholics in the results thus far achieved in the female Catholic trair
ing establishments.

After the usual four or five years' apprenticeship all pupi
teachers are allowed to sit as normal scholars at some trainim

i88o.] ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 611

college, generally that of the denomination to which they belong,
where two years' instruction and theory are given at government
> expense. As a very large number present themselves annually
say thirty-five hundred females and one-third as many males
the very best only are accepted by the training colleges,
the others who pass being allowed to become assistant teachers,
ip so facto. The two years expired, an examination is held, when,
as a rule, all normal scholars pass, and are classified according to
capacity. They are then given schools, Where obtainable, and
having spent two years in the same school, and having obtained
two consecutive good reports, they receive the parchment, really
a certificate for technical skill in teaching. This obtained entitles
the college which trained them to ;ioo for each male and 75 for
each female teacher. It will thus appear that the first risk, pecu-
niarily, for the normal scholar's training falls upon the college
that accepts him ; the government paying only when evidence of
the work done by each college is given in the success of its stu-
dents in the school-room.

Apart from the trained, or normal college, students, the gov-
ernment accepts acting teachers, who, having had sufficient expe-
rience in the school-room, and having spent six months under a
certificated. teacher in an elementary school, are allowed to pre-
sent themselves for examination. Normal students, on the whole,
look upon this procedure as unfair to them, alleging that their
places are thus taken by untrained teachers. The argument is
specious at best, and unmanly in substance. Last year's examina-
tion of students demonstrated, as every previous year's examina-
tion had done, that these acting teachers are among the first in
the list of successful candidates. Certainly, a gentleman who
devotes, say, ten or twelve years of his life to teaching, who tra-
vels a little during that time and acquaints himself with the gene-
ral phases of instruction on the Continent, is quite as competent
as a young monitor who has never gone beyond the area of his
Dwn elementary school, and who has been trained under the one
naster during five years of indenture. Government acts wisely
n admitting these acting teachers who pass the examination
dentical with that required of normal scholars. These acting
.eachers, moreover, are obtained without the payment of the ;ioo

i)r the 75 claimed by training colleges for their students.
The law, which pays this sum only after two years' consecu-
ive good service, works harshly in regard to many graduates of
raining colleges who fail to get a school, or, having secured one,
ither do not keep it long enough to get two successive annual

612 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. [Aug.,

good reports, or, being successful, are discharged through mere
circumstances over which they have no control such, for instance,
as the opening of a new school taking away some scholars, and
thus reducing the staff required, or possibly illness, or some such
reason on the part of the aspirant for the parchment. This was
a special cause of very considerable pecuniary loss for St. Mary's
Catholic Training College, Hammersmith, London.

A little reflection will show also that the market for male teach-
ers is easily stocked, while female teachers are always in demand.
Many of the latter teach only for the time required to secure th<
grant for their training college, and then settle down in life t<
advantage, their education giving them a very favorable opporti
nity. The marriage of gentlemen, on the other hand, interferes ii
no way with their duties as masters, and thus they hold mucl
longer to their positions than females.

The Catholic Female Training College of Liverpool compet<
successfully with its rivals, denominational as well as seculai
Year after year the same words of praise are spoken of this inst
tution by H. M. Inspector of Training Colleges, the Reveren<
Canon Tinling, and His Lordship of Liverpool might well say,
the last distribution of prizes to the students, " that thus fai
to his lordship's knowledge, not one graduate of N9tre Dam<
Training College had failed to do herself credit and the instituti<
honor by her conduct." Thus far the Hammersmith Training Col
lege for young Catholic gentlemen has not been so great a succej
though we may possibly say with justice that in the last two yeai
the institution has looked up a great deal. This is owing, n<
doubt, to the influence and the energy of the new president of th<
P. S. C. C., who devotes so much of his time and energy to th<
work of Catholic education. In the Marquis of Ripon, who foi
years was connected with the " Educational Department " at
Whitehall, Catholic students will find not only a helper, but
urger forward whose words and example must be a most power-
ful incentive for Hammersmith normal scholars to place them-
selves, with their lady friends, at the top of the ladder among
training colleges.* We should here mention that a new female
training school, opened a few years ago by the Ladies of the Sa-
cred Heart at Wandsworth, promises soon to rival its elder sister
of Liverpool, Notre Dame. Such was the opinion lately ex-
pressed by the Marquis of Ripon, who has frequently visited am
who carefully watches both institutions.

* Since this was written the Marquis of Ripon has been appointed to the Viceroyship of In-
dia. ED. C. W.

i88o.] ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 613

A great lack in the English system, and one deplored by the
more intelligent, is the absence of what would correspond to our
igh and grammar schools. As a result you have the middle-class
ilclren left to the mercy of every adventurer who can hire a
room and pay his gas-bills. This is no exaggeration, as may be
dged from the fact that a bill has been under study for some
me past by Lyon Playfair, M.P., requiring all intermediate-
hool teachers to take out a certificate, which shall be a step in ad-
vance, as to difficulty, from that now required of elementary teach-
ers. These latter hailed the bill with delight at first, till the gov-
ernment made it understood that elementary teachers having been
trained for elementary schools, at government expense, their as-
piring to a higher position would not be encouraged. To say the
least, the decision was a harsh one, yet it is on the general princiv
le of class distinction to which England so tenaciously clings, and
m which we need scarcely hope in our day to see her delive'r-
. The plan proposed is, for peace' sake, to certificate those now
professional work, without examination, thus saving suscepti-
ilities, but requiring all future aspirants to the teacher's privi-
es in middle schools to undergo a thorough examination.
It would afford the writer great satisfaction to make known
e views of H. M. inspectors themselves in regard to the work
hich they inspect. This would possibly lead to a breach
confidence in some cases, but, in any case, it would unduly
ngthen this paper. Despite the paucity of results, both as to
tendance and examination, the Lords in Committee of Council
Education think that "the figures show a considerable im-
rovement upon returns " previously reported.

We give the code requirements for pupil teachers (Table I.).
his will give an exact idea of what is expected each year as the
minimum of work to be done, and will enable those competent
and with data at hand to compare the work of American schools
with that done across the water.

In the table, grammar and geography are given as part of the
code, but, as remarked in the early portion of this article, they are
optional studies, involving merely a lesser grant if not studied.
Where seventy-five per cent, of the school pass the ordinary ex-
amination specific subjects will be accepted, and paid for accord-
ing to the number who pass satisfactorily. Fifty per cent, of
those presented in grammar and geography passing entitles to a
grant for the entire average of school.

, But, it may be asked, do the inspectors generally give satisfac-
tion by their examinations ? A positive reply may safely be

614

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.

[Aug.,

TABLE I. STANDARDS OF EXAMINATION.

Standard
I.

Standard
II.

Standard
III.

Standard
IV.

Standard
V.

Standard
VI.

Read-
ing.*

To read a short
paragraph
from a book

To read with
intelligence a
short para-

To read with
intelligence a
few lines of

Improved
reading ; and
(in day

Reading with
fluency and
expression ;

not confined

graph from an

graph fromj prose or poet-

schools) re-

and (in day

to words of
one syllable.

elementary
reading-book.

a more ad-
vanced read-
ing-book.

ry selected by
the inspector.

citation of
not less than
75 lines of

schools) reci-
tation of not
less than 50

poetry.

lines of prose,

or 100 of po-

etry.

N.B. The passages for re-

citation may be taken from

one or more standard authors,

previously approved by the
inspector. Meaning and allu-

sions to be known, and, if well

known, to atone for deficien-

cies of memory.

Writ-
ing.

Copy in manu-
script charac-

A sentence from
the same book ,

A sentence slow-
ly dictated

Eight lines
slowly dictated

Writing from
memory the

A short theme
or letter ; the

ter a line of

slowly read

once from the

once from a

substance of

composition,

print, on slates once, and then
or in copy- dictated.
books,at choice Copy books

same book.
Copy books to
be shown (small

reading-book.
Copy books to
be shown (im-

a short story
read out
twice ; spell-

spelling,
grammar,
and hand-

of managers ; (large or half-

hand, capital

proved small

ing, gram-

writing to be

and write from
dictation a few

text) to be
shown.

letters, and
figures).

hand).

mar, and
handwriting

considered.

common words.

to be con-

sidered.

Arith-
metic.

Simple addition
and subtrac-
tion of num-

The four simple
rules to short
division (inclu-

Long division
and compound
addition and

Compound rules
(money) and
reduction (com-

Practice, bills
of parcels,
and simple

Proportion,
vulgar 'and
decimal frac-

bers of not

sive).

subtraction

mon weights

proportion.

tions.

more than four

(money).

and mea-

figures, and the
multiplication

sures)^

table, to 6

times 12.

Gram-

(x.) To point out

(x.) Parsing of

(i.) Parsing,

mar,
Geo-

the nouns in
the passages

the nouns,
verbs, and ad-

a simple sen-
tence.

with analy-
sis of a

and analysis]

of a short\

gra-

read or writ-

jectives.

"simple"

* complex"

phv

ten.

sentence.

and

(2.) Definitions,^ Outlines of

(2.) Outlines of

(2.) Outlines

His-
tory.

points of com-\ geography of
pass, form and] England, with

Great Britain,

of geogra-
phy of Eu-

of geogra-\
phy of the

motions of special know-
earth, the] ledge of the

Ireland, and
Colonies.

rope physi-
cal and po-

world.

meaning of a\ countv in

litical.

map.

which the

(3.) Outlines of

(3.) Outlines

school is situ-

history of

of history

ated.

England to
Norman Con-

of England
from Nor-

of England
from Henry

quest.

man Con-

VI I. to death

quest to ac-

of George

cession of

III.

Henry VII.

* Reading will be tested in the ordinary class-books, if approved by the inspector ; but these
must be of reasonable length and difficulty, and unmarked. If they are not so, books brought by the inspec-
tor will be used. Every class ought to have two or three sets of reading-books. The class examination
(Article 19 C.) will be conducted so as to show the intelligence, and not the mere memory, of the scholars.
The new subjects introduced into Article 28 are mainly taken, with the same object, from the 4th Schedule
(specific subjects) in the Code of 1874.

t The u weights and measures taught in public elementary schools should be only such as are
useful such as avoirdupois weight, long measure, liquid measure, time table, square and cubical
sures, and any measyre which is connected with the industrial occupations of the district.

1880.] ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 615

given the query. It is a very rare occurrence for an inspector's
motives and conduct to be impugned, though managers and mas-
ters at times find themselves disappointed in the results. When
such immense sums are to be distributed, and this distribution
depends solely upon the inspector's adjudication of success or
failure, they necessarily become exacting. This their instructions
require. Yet, while holding the balance so evenly between
schools and the government, they are specially instructed to be
lenient with schools newly introduced under inspection, and, upon
the remonstration of two managers, an examination may be can-
celled and a new test ordered. That this happens rarely, if
ever, will be the best criterion of the fairness with which govern-
ment inspectors do their duty. There is one point, however,
upon which all are agreed, and that needs immediate attention.
We refer to the absolute power for good or evil that H. M. in-
spectors possess in regard to masters' private character. Each
year the master's parchment receives an endorsement from the
visiting inspector, and from this written opinion the master has
no appeal. The " Black List,"' as it is called, 'is annually publish-
ed in the Blue Book on Education, and publication in this list sim-
ply means ruin to the unfortunate so treated. He may be insert-
d in this list for immorality, intemperance, careless registration,
r any other of the many faults into which a school-master may
all. He may be innocent, yet there is no court, within the
school system, to which the master may appeal. The Educational
Department receives no communication from teachers. Managers
alone may correspond with the London authorities ; and if the
manager be the complaining party through whom the master has
been punished, the master is as helpless in England as he would
be in Russia or Turkey. It is incomprehensible that no method
has been devised by which masters might be heard in self-defence
before suffering so serious an attack upon their professional
character as that to which we refer. But the fact is, the master
is completely at the mercy of H. M. inspectors.

The accompanying schedule of pupil-teachers' work (Table II.)
may prove of interest and instruction to assistant teachers in
American elementary schools, besides furnishing a possible
"course " for such among them as do not know how to divide
their work.

Thus far we have said nothing of the religious instruction
of the children. Here, we believe, is the brightest page in the
history of modern relations between England and the church.
Apart from the four hours' secular instruction of obligation to

616 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. [Aug.,

TABLE II. QUALIFICATIONS AND CERTIFICATES OP PUPIL-

3- 4-

Health.*

Character and Conduct.

N.B. Copies of all these Certificates should
be entered in the Log-Book.

Reading and Repe-
tition.

English Grammar and
Composition.

For Admission
(or end of itt
year, if ad-
mitted before
lit May, 1878).

A medical certifi-
cate that candidate
is not subject to any
infirmity likely to in-
terfere with profes-
sion of teacher.

A certificate from man-
agers that the moral
character of the candi-
dates and of their homes
justifies an expectation
that the instruction and

To read with fluency,
ease, and expression.

The noun, verb, and
idjective, with their rela-
ions in a simple sentence ;
and to write from dicta-
ion in a neat hand, with
correct spelling andpunc-

training of the school

uation, a passage of sim-

will be seconded by their

ile prose.

own efforts and the exam-
ple of their parents.

[In the following fears,
copy writing, one line of

large hand and one of

small hand, -will be re-

quired.}

End of ist (or
**) year.

Certificate from
managers that pupil-
teacher has not suf-
fered any failure of
health likely to inca-
pacitate for profes-
sion of teacher.

i. Certificate of good
conduct from the mana-
gers,
a. Certificate of punc-
tuality, diligence, obedi-
ence, and attention (o
their duties from the

To read as above ; and
to repeat 50 consecutive
lines of poetry with just
expression and knowledge
of the meaning.

The pronoun, adverb,
and preposition, with
heir relations in a sen-
ence; and to write from
memory the substance of
a passage of simple prose,
read to them with ordi-

master or mistress.

nary quickness, or a

short letter.

End of ad (or

Same as at end of

Same as above.

To read as above; and

The conjunction, with

yl) year.

first year, together
with one from a

to repeat 40 consecutive
lines of prose.

he analysis of sen-
ences; and to write full

medical practitioner.

notes of a lesson on a

subject selected by the

nspector.

End of 3d (or
4tX) year.

Same as at end of
first year.

Same as above.

To read as above ; and
to repeat too lines of

Recapitulation of the
preceding exercises ; the

poetry.

meaning in English of the

-atin prepositions ; and

o write a letter, or to

write from memory the

substance of a longer pas-
sage than at the end of

second year.

End of 4th (or
5*A) year.

Same as at end of
first year.

Same as above.

To read as above ; and
to repeat 80 lines of

Recapitulation of the
>receding exercises ; to

prose

enow something of the

* Scrofula, fits, asthma, deafness, great imper-
fections of the sight or voice, the loss of an eye
from constitutional disease, or the loss of an arm
or leg, or the permanent disability of either arm
or leg, curvature of the spine, hereditary ten-
dency to insanity, or any constitutional infir-
mity of a disabling nature, is a positive dis-
qualification in candidates for the office of
pupil-teacher.

N . B . The passages for
repetition in prose and
poetry must be of a secu-
lar character, and taken
from some standard Eng-
lish writer, approved oy
Her Majesty's inspector.
The meaning and allu-
sions if well known will
atone for deficiencies of

sources and growth of the
English language ; and
to write an driginal com-
position on some simple
subject selected by Her
Majesty's inspector.

memory.

pupil-

: pupil-teachers, before admission, must produce a certificate from the schoolmistress and manaj
sdlework to the inspector, together with a statement from the schoolmistress specifying whether t
ds, will obtain the opinion of some competent person upon the merit of the needlework. A paper

Female
Of plain nee
or afterwards
nation.

t At the examination for admission to Training Colleges marks will be given to candidates who have been

agers that
they have
paper of

i88o.]

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.

617

TEACHERS AT ADMISSION AND DURING THEIR ENGAGEMENT.

10.

ii.

Drawing.

Music.

Arithmetic

and
Mathematics.

Geography.

History.

Teaching, f

Additional
Subject.

Where suitable

Means of
Instruction exist.

Where suit-
able Meant of
Instruction
exist.

Male Pupil-
Teachers.

Female
Pupil-
Teachers.

Practice and
proportion

Practice
and bills of

The Bri-
tish Isles.

To teach a
class to the

i. A paper will be
set at the exami-

i. Pupil-teachers
who during their en-

The natural
scale, and the

(simple and
compound).

parcels.

satisfaction
of Her Ma-

nation of candi-igagement success-
dates for admis- fully work exercises

intervals
found in it.

jesty's in-

sion to Training

in freehand, geomet-

Shapes and

spector.

Schools (Articles
91, 92) in

ry, perspective, mo-
del, and blackboard

relative val-
ues of notes

i. Latin.

drawing are credited

and rests.

2. Greek.

with marks in any

Places of

3. French.

future examination

notes on the

4. German.

under Articles 44, 91,

treble staff.

or 100.

2. The exercises

Vulgar and
decimal frac-

Propor-
tion (sim-
ple and
comp'nd).

Europe.
\Mapstobe
drawn in
this and tht
following
years.]

The suc-
cession of
the English
Sovereigns
from the
reign of Eg-
bert, with
dates, to

The same,
and to show
increased
skill in in-
struction
and disci-
pline.

2. This paper will
contain grammati-
cal questions and
easy passages for
translation into
English.

3. Marks will also

may be worked in
any order, except
that pupil-teachers
cannot be examined
in blackboard draw-
ing till they have
passed in all the
other subjects.

3. Examinations are
held-

Relation of
treble staff to
bass. Places
of notes on
both. Simple-
common and
simple -triple
time.

the present

be given to any

(i) In March at

time.

candidate at that

the elementary

examination who,

schools in which

at one of the ex-
aminations held in
May of each year

drawing is taught.
(2) In May at the
Schools of Art and

Interest and

Vulgar

The Colo-

Outlines

The same.

by the Department
of Science and

Art Classes con-
nected with the

Scales and

percentages ;
and Euclid,
Book I., to end
of the XXVIth
Proposition.

fractions.

nies.

of British
history to
the acces-
sion of Hen-
ry VII.

Art, has taken a
first class in the
elementary stage,
or passed in the
advanced stage, of

Department of Sci-
ence and Art.

4. Pupil-teachers en-
gaged in schools at

intervals al-
tered by
sharps and
flats. Com-
pound times.

one of the follow-

which drawing is

ing subjects, viz.:

taught by a qualified
teacher should be ex-

5' p.

amined at their own

Euclid to the

Decimal

Asia and

Outlines of

The same.

7. Animal Phy-
siology.
8. Acoustics

schools in March.
Pupil-teachers en-
gaged in schools at

The minor

end of Book I.,
Algebra to
simple equa-
tions (inclusive)

fractions.

Africa.

British his-
tory from
the acces-
s on of Hen-
ry VII. to
the present

(Light and Heat).
q. Magnetism,
Electricity.
10. Physiography,
ii. Botany.

which drawing is not
taught, or at which
no examination is
held in March, and
pupil - teachers at-
tending Schools of

scale In its-
diatonic
forms.

time.

Art or Art Classes,

may be examined in

4. Candidates

May. They cannot

may obtain marks

be examined both in

Euclid, Book
II.; Mensura-
tion of Plane
Surfaces, and
Algebra to
quadratic equa-
tions (inclusive)

Interest
and reca-
pitulation
of the pre-
ceding
rules.

America
and the
Oceans.

Recapitu-
lation of the
above.

To satisfy
Her Majes-
ty's inspec-
tor of power
to conduct a
division of
the school,

at the admission
examination (Ar-
ticle 91) for any
one (but not more)
n each group (1-4,
and 5-11) of these
ii subjects.

March and May, nor
on the occasion of
H. M. Inspector's vi-
sit to their school.

5. Pupil - teachers
may also, with the
consent of the au-
thorities of a Train-

The minor
scale in its
chromatic
forms, and the
chromatic in-
tervals found
in it.

grouped

ing College, be ex-
amined in black-

the class-

board drawing (only)

at the examination

. '.,

held, towards the

give a collec-

c ose of the year, at

tive lesson.

each of these Col-
leges.

they possess reasonable competency as sempstresses ; and, at the annual examinations, must bring certified specimens
been receiving practical instruction in any other kind of domestic industry. The inspector, at the time of examination
tions on domestic economy is given to the female candidates for admission to Training Schools at the Christmas exami-

teachers for their practical skill in teaching.

618 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. [Aug.,

earn grants from the government, the reverend managers are as
free as possible to employ what time and means they deem best for
the spiritual welfare of the children. Statues, pious pictures,
everything that Catholic devotion holds to as external helps, are
allowed in English elementary Catholic schools. H. M. inspec-
tors are instructed never to question the children upon reli-
gious subjects, but are equally careful to show on every occasion
their respect for religion in general. Most of .the denominations
have an examining committee appointed to visit the schools out-
side of secular hours, and a report of each school is sent to the
proper ecclesiastical authorities. In Catholic schools this is car-
ried out on a very extensive scale. There can be few children
better instructed in the catechism text and its meaning than the
children of the Catholic elementary schools in England. In some
dioceses, however, the attention paid to mere verbal accuracy
tends to render anything like an appeal to the finer feelings of the
child's spiritual being almost an impossibility. Where the master
is taken up with " cramming " for an examination he is not like
to act with much effect upon the hearts of his little ones.

English Catholics naturally hold very tenaciously to the r
gious liberty now enjoyed in their schools. It is to be hoped t
the fears of some \vell-informed observers of the signs of the tim
are exaggerated. A sentiment has been finding expression amo
a few that the triumph of Liberalism in England would bring
the reign of secularism in her schools. This would be a g
error, one which all well-wishers of England would earnestly
plore. Catholics must see to it that the hard-earned victo
won in the cause of religious toleration be not smuggled aw
under any pretence. United with their ecclesiastical leaders,
who, having the divine mission to teach, have also the right to say
what shall be taught, the Catholics of England may in most con-
stituencies obtain, if not all, at least a fair share of their religious
rights.

England to-day advances money at nominal rates to Catholic
managers to aid in the erection of buildings. She even mak
absolute grants in the same view. She does all that can fair!
be expected to encourage elementary education within her own
boundaries. While cavilling, as Americans generally do, at what
England fails to accomplish, is there not reason rather to blush at
the conduct of the American authorities in so persistently ref
ing to listen to Catholic arguments in favor of equal rights in e
mentary education ?

lie

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 619

MY RAID INTO MEXICO.

CHAPTER V.

MEXICO.

OF the railway journey from New York to New Orleans I
have nothing- particular to say. I was intensely astonished at
the magnificence of the cars, their luxurious appliances, their sy-
baritic accommodations, from ice-water to hair-mattresses. The
sleeping-berths were a complete surprise, while the economy of
space studied in their make-up seemed more like a conjurer's
trick than a very prosaic, business-like arrangement.

" Is there no third-class, Masther Joe ? " anxiously demanded
Billy Brierly after we had proceeded a short way along the
banks of the beautiful Hudson. " No." " Is it all first-class,
sir ? " " Yes." " All goold, an' lukkin'-glasses, an' velvet, an' sates
soft as feather-beds that houlds ye whin yer down ? " " Yes."
"An' did ye have for to pay for me, Masther Joe?" "Of
course." " It's joking me y'are, sir." I showed him the two
tickets, exactly similar. " Is it cock the likes o' me in first-class y
Masther Joe? " still doubtingly. " There was nothing else for it,
Billy." " Be the mortial, we'll be bruck. Ye'll never hould out,
sir, at this rate. O murdher ! shure it's fourth- class is too good
for the likes o' me afther losin' me five poun' may the curse av
Crumrnle light on the gallas desayvor ! "

When the hour came for making up the sleeping-berths Billy
came to me I should mention that nothing would induce him to
sit even in the same car with me and with a face full of per-
plexity.

" There's a naygur here, Masther Joe, that's afther axin' me av
he'd make up me bed. * What d'ye mane ? ' sez I. l Will I
make up yer bed ? ' sez he. ' For what? ' sez I, just for to show
him that / was wide awake. ' For to sleep in,' sez he wud a
grin, an' showin' a set o' teeth like the notes on Miss Nellie's
pianay. I seen he was coddin' me, but I kep me temper.
1 Mebbe ye'd like for to have yer own bed med up ? ' sez I.
He laughed, sir, just as if somebody was ticklin' his troath wud a
feather. The laffin' riz me a bit, so I sez : ' Av ye want yer bed
med up, ye grinnin' black haythen, I'll shake ye into it while

620 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.,

ye'd be axin' for a lind av a sack.' He sed nothin', Masther Joe,
but what d'ye think he done, but he goes over an' takes a hoult
av the side av the ceilin' av the carriage, an' gives a pull at a
handle as if it was a doore, whin it's truth I'm tellin' ye, sir the
whole side kem out av the ceilin', an' there was a shelf wud a hair-
matthrass, an' bolsther, an' pillars, an' blankets, an' quilts, an' all,
reddy to lep into. I thought, Masther Joe, that the sight wud
lave me eyes. Faix, this is the cunthry where reddy-made beds
can be had for the pullin' av a handle. Faix, I suppose we'll see
little pigs runnin' about reddy roasted, wud knives an' forks stuck
in thim, be the time we raich wherever we're goin' ? "

It was on the second morning of our journey that the conduc-
tor came to me. " I guess you'd better step into the smoking,
car, sir ; your servant has got into trouble."

I rushed through the cars, to find Billy in the extreme corner
seat, held down by two of the employees of the line, while at the
ice-water tank stood a man bathing a still bleeding nose, and
otherwise bearing unmistakable evidences of rough handling.

" What is the matter ?" I asked, "This man ' commenced
one of the officials. " Arrah, hould yer whisht ! " burst in my re-
tainer scornfully. "What the dickins do you know about it, I'd
like for to larn ? Ye only cum in whin it was all over, at the
heel o' the hunt." Then addressing me : " Masther Joe, that
chap stannin' over there in an endayvor for to stanch his nose is
own brother to the villyan that stole me five poun'. What d'ye
think he done ? I got collogerin' wud him, an', afther tellin' him I
was from the ould cunthry, an' all to that, he ups an' axes me if I
have any Irish notes. * Why d'ye ax me, sir ? ' sez I, smellin' a rat
as quick as Tim Doyle's tarrier. ' Bekase,' sez he, ' I'd like for to
exchange.' Well, Masther Joe, I cudn't stan' it any longer, an'
that's how it happened." " I'll have you arrested at the next sta-
tion," exclaimed the proprietor of the injured nose, who turned
out to be a most respectable citizen of a little place called Saltrine.
" I'll have you locked up and fixed for six months, you Irish
A very energetic movement on the part of Mr. Brierly caused the
other to retreat with considerable agility in the direction of the
door, his sentence unfinished.

Luckily, I had a couple of bottles of champagne in a basket,
thoughtfully provided for me by the cheery Mrs. Flink, and, by
the aid of G. H. Mumm's Extra Dry, I was enabled to induce Mr.
Dealy to accept a humble apology from my retainer.

It was late at night when we reached New Orleans, and I
drove straight to the steamer City of Mexico, which lay at her

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 621

moorings at the Levee. I was lucky enough, thanks to a tele-
gram sent by Mr. Flink, to secure a deck state-room, and we were

Iready some distance down the Mississippi when I awoke upon

he following morning.

The sail down the Mississippi strongly and strangely reminded
me of the " lazy Scheldt." Given a few windmills, and the resem-

lance would be simply perfect the old chateaux with their trim-
ly and primly cut ever-so-green trees, in this instance laden with
golden oranges ; the banks rising on either side above the flat-
lying plantations, all of sugar ; the dull, dreary sameness, and with
no object to break a sky-line that seemed hundreds of miles any-
where. Where was Flushing? where the spire of the glorious Ca-
thedral of St. Jacques at Antwerp ? We were all day on the river,
and at sunset struck its narrow mouth in the South Pass, at a
place called the Jetties. Up to this it had been plain sailing
enough, but when we crossed the bar what a transformation !
Everybody got ill ; everybody was seized with the horrors of
sea-sickness ; everybody plunged into the clammy embraces of a
monster that spares neither age nor sex, that lays out the monarch

nd the tramp alike.

The ship, a wobbly tub, short, light, built to ape the buoy-
cy of a cork, rolled, ducked, bobbed like an inebriated por-
poise ; and although there was no sea on, the City of Mexico acted
as if she were enjoying the luxury of a ground-swell, or paying off
an *old grudge to the wretched beings who now groaned, and
moaned, and writhed over her decks. Shall I ever forget those
hours, which appeared like so many years nay, centuries ? I lay
in my berth on my back, my arms folded across my breast like
the stone effigy of some mediaeval warrior ; nor did I dare to stir
until the steward, on the morning of the fifth clay, announced the
" glad tidings of great joy " that the snow-capped peak of the
extinct volcano Orizaba was in sight. By a supreme effort I
rolled out of my berth, and through the open door on to the
deck. Never have I beheld a sight so sublime a sight so calcu-
lated to fill the soul as with the " chords of a great amen." There,
at a distance of over one hundred miles, stood the extinct volca-
no in silent, solemn, and awful grandeur, partly wrapped in a
antle of blue-gray cloud. For one brief second the sun shot
single ray across the dazzling white peak, and in that brief

econd I beheld, as it were, " the white radiance of eternity."
I continued to gaze at this grim and ghastly sentinel until he
disappeared high in the clouds, and it was hours ere the faint out-
lines of Montezuma's shores became mingled with the hazy horizon.

622 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.,

" Masther Joe," exclaimed Billy, who stood reverently gazing
at the snow-clad mountain, " they're tellin' me that that's the
North Pole. Musha, to think of me comin' to sich a could place,
an' the frieze coat that me father got his death in at the meetin'
at Tara, be raison av the sweatin' the hait av it gev him the
Lord be good to him this night, amin lyin' doin' nothin' in Mrs.
Casey's thrunk ! "

As we drew near Vera Cruz a norte suddenly sprang upon us.
This norte is a wind that blows off land and dead in the teeth of
approaching vessels, which must run out to sea or seek shelter as
best they can during its continuance. It possesses one good
quality, however : it temporarily frees the town of Vera Cruz from
the scourge of the deadly vomito, that most malignant form of
yellow fever, for the prevalence of which this town enjoys so un-
happy a reputation.

This norte, as the Americans say, " went for us." We put
on every pound of steam that the boilers would stand, in order
to reach the roadstead before the wind should come to its full
strength. We spun over the boiling, lashing, hissing, seething
waters, the norte whistling through the rigging with a hundred
bos'n power, and wrestling desperately with the ship, which
creaked and groaned, and squirmed and wriggled, as though en-
dowed with life and determined to force its way past its redoubt-
able antagonist. When almost within hail of shore we signal-
led for a pilot ; but that ancient mariner, wise in his generation, re-
fused to accept our invitation, so there was nothing for it but to
put to sea again, and run for the smooth water lying five miles
away between the mainland and the island of Sacrificio, growing
on which I beheld my first cocoanut-palms. It was on this island,
by the way, that the Aztecs annually cut the still palpitating
heart from out the breast of a handsome youth who for three
hundred and sixty-four days they treated as a monarch.

Shall I ever forget my first night in the tropics ? The glitter-
ing stars, bright as moons, throbbed in the whitish-blue vault of
heaven. The gentle queen of night shone fair, with all her virgin
satellites about her. The Southern Cross flashed in the glowing
canopy. From the shore that shore as yet a sealed book and
mystery to me came wafted the voluptuous perfumes of tropical
flowers, and the stillness was sweeter to the senses than music.

Oh ! it was a night to be quaffed like wine. I thought, as I half
reclined on my deck-chair, smoking a genuine " Lopez," of the
events of the last few days, that now appeared like ages of the
visit to Timolin, of Trixy, my departure for Dublin, of Miss

i88o.J MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 623

Wriothesly and " ce grand peut-etre" and, lastly, of Conchita.
The sealed packet lay right across my heart, and I longed to
reach the city of Mexico, in order to become master of its con-
tents.

The morning was a veritable glory. I hastily dressed and
went on deck, in order to lose nothing of the new revelation ; and
even while undergoing ablution my neck was continually craned
out of my state-room window to catch a glimpse of the vivid
scenes that, panorama-like, were about to unfold themselves to
my eager gaze.

On my right lay Fort Ulloa, grim, hoary, dented, toy sentinels
peeping from toy sentry-boxes, then toy bayonets flashing in the
tropical sunlight. This fort, which is also used as a prison, is
built upon a small island situated at the distance of about half a
mile from the mainland, and here, upon the 2ist day of April,
1519, the mailed heel of Hernando Cortez first imprinted itself
upon Mexican soil. On my left lay Vera Cruz the City of the
True Cross baked to a dull pink by the hea.t of a glaring, daz-
zling, and glittering sunlight. Out from behind a tawny sand-
bank, clear cut against the keen, full blue sky, stand the white
church-towers, surmounted by burnished crucifixes, the domes
and adobe houses relieved here and there by the crests of stately
palms en silhouette. On the right a white, feathery column tells
the sea-weary traveller that the ferro carril, or railway, lies in that
quarter ; while on the left stretches a dull, dead plain of sand,
eventually, and without a break, meeting the sky-line. Dim and
shadowy spectres fill in the background gigantic mountains
jealously veiled in zarapes of cloud.

" An' so this is Mexico, Masther Joe," observed Billy Brierly,
sidling alongside. " Faix, it luks hot enough, any way, an' lies as
low as Sandymount, near Dublin. It's not much to boast av afther
all. Sand is sand all the world over> an', be the mortial, there's hapes
av it here. Thim's illigant crosses, glory be to God ! See how the*
sun leps off them, an' plays wud thim chapels to no ind. Wudn't
this warm Father James' heart, Masther Joe, for to see th' ould
religion devartin' itself all over the place ? Musha, but an't the
natives as brown as Biddy Gallagher's taypot ! An', troth, it's not
much clothes they have for to spare. See that chap bawlin' him-
self hoarse over in that rickety little boat ; there's not as much on
him as wud hang upon a currant-bush. Aye, bawl away, the
whole o' yez ; sorra a word we know av what yez are sayin', an',
what's more, sorra a haporth we care."

Around the steamer shore-boats swarmed, blue-painted, with

624 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.

snowy awnings striped in red, and plied by rowers who f<
picturesqueness leave the Venetian gondoliers on the Rialtc
copper-colored fellows, in ever-so-white drawers cut away at tl
knee ; in blood-red sashes ; in scanty tunics bleached as the cap
Orizaba; in straw sombreros the hue of amber. Such flashii
teeth, and glittering eyes, and blue-black hair ! They howle(
gesticulated frantically as the runners who sell you the " c'r<
kyard " for the Punchestown races ; and it is only when you hai
consigned your impedimenta to their tender mercies that th<
relapse into anything approaching ordinary quiescence.

" Arrah, where are ye shovin' me, ye thief o' the world ! " roan
Billy, as a sinewy Indian was for thrusting him to the forwai
part of the boat. " Av ye lay a dirty finger on me bag "
Brierly's personal luggage consisted of an old-fashioned carp<
bag, with a brass padlock the size of a cheese-plate " I'll kno<
ye overboard. Have more manners nor to thrate a furriner as
he was a haythen like yerself. Ah ! wud ye?" this to another
the boatmen, who extended his hand for the bag. " Masther J<
wud ye be vexed wud me av I tached a cupple av these naygui
manners ? Ah ! ye greasy thief, av I had ye on the green
Bolliabawn I'd larn ye for to behave."

The mole at which we landed swarmed with picturesque hi
manity. Caballeros jostled aguadores, or water-carriers, scantil
draped. Indian flower-girls offered bouquets to senoras ai
senoritas enveloped in graceful mantillas. Officers in showy mil
tary uniforms chatted gaily with civilian swells affecting tl
shiniest silk hats, the shortest-tailed coats, the tightest pantalooi
and the daintiest of high- heeled, cushion-toed boots. Hawkei
of strange-looking confectionery, and still stranger-looking fruit,
cried their wares in shrill, startling voices. Porters, black
ebony, reeled beneath appalling loads, and gaily-accoutred mule
and donkeys added to the glitter of color and the dazzle
motion.

A Mexican gentleman whose acquaintance I made on boai
and who spoke the most perfect English, having been educated
at Ushaw College, took me under his charge. " You should not
stop in Vera Cruz," he said. " No foreigner should sleep in the
city at this season of the year. The yellow fever ever abounds,
and pounces upon the weakest victim. You'll take almuerzo that
is, midday breakfast with me at the Fonda Vera Cruziana, and
we'll start by the half-past two o'clock train for Orizaba, where I
would advise you to break the journey. Orizaba is about eighty
miles from Vera Cruz, in the tierra templada, or temperate country.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 625

We have, as you are possibly aware, the tierra caliente that is,
around here ; the tierra templada, which commences about thirty
miles from here as we ascend into higher latitudes ; and the tierra
fria, or cold country, after we pass the Boca del Monte, seven thou-
sand five hundred feet above the level of the sea."

Passing- under a massive archway, we were gravely scrutinized
by the zopilotes, or street-scavengers, who gazed at us from door-
steps, balconies, house-tops, and church-towers. The zopilote is a
buzzard, and to his buzzardship is relegated the duty of cleaning
the streets. What if- the vomito does appear every year, and
ry off a few hundred Vera-Cruzians with its pestilential breath ?
'he zopilotes have had the scavenging here since the time of
/ortez, and why change the system ?

" Did ye ever see sich a sight av crows, Masther Joe ? " de-
landed Billy, who trudged behind, carpet-bag in hand " as tame
cats, an' as big as them fowls Miss Patricia has beyant at
'imolin. I wished I was foreninst thim this blessed minit, ugly
th' are."

Senor Guadalupe Gonzalez, my guide, philosopher, and friend,
rave me a good deal of information about Vera Cruz, and in a
few words. Some men are gifted in this wayj while others
ire more in the line of Mrs. Nickleby than anything else.

" The city was founded at the end of the sixteenth century," he
said. " Originally a fortress, it is entirely surrounded by massive
walls and ramparts, the latter stretching a quarter of a mile along
the sea-shore, flanked on both sides by ancient forts, while on the
land side the ramparts are curved in the form of an arc, and
entered by a number of quaint gateways that you shall visit before
you leave. We have twelve thousand inhabitants proper, but the
floating population amounts to forty thousand. It is the capital
of the state of the same name, and through it passes two-thirds of
the Mexican exports and imports. It is infested by land-sharks
in the shape of custom-house officials, and I do believe," Senor
Gonzalez warmly exclaimed, " that much of our backwardness as
a nation is due to the prohibition duties and barefaced robberies
of these pirates."

What bizarre and picturesque sights met my gaze as I strolled
along ! Strings of mules, laden with every conceivable com-
modity, the leader ridden by the heavy villain of cheap melo-
Irama ; rude, quaint carts, the sides composed of netting, drawn
>y three mules, one in the shafts, the other two being outsiders,
the left-hand mule bestridden by a jaunty fellow in a gray felt
sombrero bound with silver lace, a skin jacket laced with silver
VOL. xxxi. 40

*626 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.,

cord, high buff boots, and a blood-red rajah, or scarf. Dark-
eyed senoritas peeped at us from beneath gaily-striped' awnings
stretched over richly-carved stone balconies, puffing blue-white
smoke from their coquettish cigarettes, their low, musical, gentle
laughter rippling on the summer air for it was eighty degrees
in the shade on this November day. Duennas, haggard and
hideous as ever Dore painted them, glared at us, suspicion
depicted in their wary glances. Milkmen, their cans encased
in skins, three on each side, jogged lazily along beside their
donkeys. Aguadores cried their wares. Indians in dazzling
white sped rapidly by in a sort of compromise between a run,
a trot, and a walk, while vistas of cool, delightfully cool, inl
riors gave us glimpses of coatless clerks, behind great iron
seated upon the lofty stools of their order, and of stores, d<
in shadow, containing wares as picturesque as their genei
surroundings.

Our walk lay through the market-place. " Now," exclaim*
Sefior Gonzalez, " you'll see plenty of color."

It was a veritable glory of reds, and greens, and yellow!
Such tropical fruits and flowers ! Such golds, and purples, ai
blues ! Indian women lay stretched on mats, indolently w r atchinj
their stock of glistening red and green pepper-pods, of papayas-
I give the names of the fruits as my companion pointed them 01
to me camote, chirimoya, chico zapote, zapote pueto, zicama, and fiftj
others I cannot now remember. Tortillas were being cooked ov<
red earthenware pans ; rancheros, or farmers, dismounted froi
gaily-bedizened mustangs, were bargaining for this, that, or tl
other ; Indians in zarapes and ponchos, all engaged in smoking
cigarettes, stood listlessly around. One side of the market was in
deepest shadow, the other lighted to a dazzle by a wondrously
luminous dayshine, with the keen blue sky above for a canopy. I
see those wondrous and glowing contrasts as I write the dazzling
white walls, the soft, warm, sensuous shadows, the centre all clot
of color, the blue overhead, and the quaint and picturesqu<
figures in every conceivable attitude of summer-noon lazine
In compliance with my desire to visit a church, in order to retui
thanks to God for my safe passage across the Gulf, Sefior Goi
zalez turned into the Plaza de Armas, and we entered the paris
church, La Parroquia, which was built in 1721. It is a handsome
and spacious temple, its facade ornamented by a Doric porti<
very imposing. Pushing aside a coarse woollen hanging, w<
found ourselves in the interior, the grand altar a blaze of gil(
ing from the floor to the ceiling, relieved here and there by col-

1 8 So.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 62}

ored statues of the saints and by medallion pictures. There
were but few seats, and these were solely occupied by the infirm
and old. The congregation knelt on the floor and in groups in
front of the numerous side-chapels. Gorgeous flowers decked
altar and aisle, their delicious perfume mingling with the aro-
matic odor of incense. The Holy Sacrifice had just commenced
at a side-altar, the celebrant bearing a most startling resemblance
to our dear padre at Dromroe. " Wisha," I heard Billy Brierly
mutter as he flung himself on his knees, " is it Father James that's
in it?"

I had heard a good deal of the march of infidelity in Mexico ;
that churches were closed for lack of congregations, and convents
suppressed for want of sisters ; and I was intensely elated to find
this parish church, at so late a Mass and on a week day, filled with

pious and devout a congregation as one could find even in
me remote valley of the wild west of Ireland. Ladies in man-
illas knelt by the side of Indian women in chiquitas--a. descrip-
ion of light blue scarf wound round the head and twisted across
he bosom while the number of men, aye, and of young men,
me in full ckarro, others in European dress, who came not to
mock but to pray, truly edified me.

" Av Father James was here for to see this wudn't he be joy-
ful, Masther Joe ! " exclaimed my retainer as we emerged into the
full blaze of the tropical dayshine. " I never seen the aiqual av
thim blacks for piety, sir. There was wan poore crayture be me
side, an' she gem me a welt in the stomick that nearly riz'd it as if
it was on say, an' it was only herself she was goin' for to bate in
regard to her rosary. She sed it aiqual to Biddy McGrane ; an*
only for to think that the blessed Mass was just as if we wor at
the little chapel av Erris-na-golliaun ! Masther Joe, avic, won't ye
write all this to Father James ? It's himself 'ill be joyful whin he
hears that the blessed Mass is so warm out here."

The Fonda Vera Cruziana, toward which we now bent our
steps what an appetite I had ! having partaken of nothing but
an orange and a cup of coffee on board the City of Mexico con-
sists of a large, theatrical-looking apartment, visible from the
street, surrounded by galleries and surmounted by a skylight
in fact, a sort of enclosed patio, or courtyard, with tables set
in coignes of vantage and tropical plants hedging each table.
The waiters were attired in white, and extremely civil.

One of the prettiest table ornaments I have ever seen any-
where is common to Mexico namely, a dish of radishes, each
radish reposing on a small, thin pat of butter shaped like a leaf.

628 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.,

The fanciful manner in which this dish is made up, and its deli-
cate color-contrasts, impart to it an indescribable prettiness. I
introduced it at Dromroe during the radish season with wonder-
ful success.

" Now," observed Senor Gonzalez, " I shall order a Mexican
breakfast pure and simple. This," helping me to a brown mess
about the consistency of stirabout, " is a national dish ; and what
pork and beans are to a Bostonian, maccaroni to an Italian, bouilli
a 1'abaisse to a Frenchman, caviare to a Russian, the frigoles are to
a Mexican. They are small beans. You'll pass that part of the
tierra templada where they flourish."

I must confess that the especial charm of the frigoles \vas Ios1
upon me. " You should eat them with a tortilla" presenting m<
with a round, thin cake not unlike a pancake. " Follow me
how I use it." Rolling the tortilla as one would a piece of paper,
he dipped the end into his plate, moving it round and round in
the purple-brown mess ; then, lifting it to his mouth, he bit
large piece off. Through a sense of politeness I endeavored t(
follow his example, but, hungry as I was, the effort proved
miserable failure. I was more fortunate in an omelette, and
fillet served with olives ; and as for the red mullet with zopott
sauce piquante, it was fit for one of those little dinners that Li
cullus was in the habit of giving at his charming suburban resi-
dence.

" I am so glad you like our mullet ! " observed Senor Gonzalez.
" We think a great deal of its flavor ; in fact, we cannot be beaten
in this fish. Montezuma used to have it served fresh in the capi-
tal, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles. The moment a
fish was caught it was placed in a basket of ice, and the basket
handed to a runner, who ran with incredible swiftness exactly one
hundred yards. This runner handed his precious freight to an-
other runner, who darted like a flash on his hundred yards, and
so on until the capital was reached, a runner being in readiness
at every hundred yards. There is a fish you will get in the capital
called pescado de lago. Now, do not fail to eat it. I have travel-
led a good deal. I have eaten your celebrated whiting, your
black sole, your turbot, your fresh sardine, your " " Have you
ever tasted a Dublin Bay herring?" I burst in. "I have."
" Well ? " " It is absolutely delicious ; but, as I was saying, this pes-
cado de lago, or lake-fish it is caught in Lake Tezcoco and Lake
Chalco, quite close to the city possesses a flavor all its own."

Sounds of altercation mingled with threats of dire vengeanc
in a voice there was no possibility of mistaking, arose in the ad-

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 629

joining apartment, where Billy Brierly was engaged in discussing
his first Mexican meal.

" Your fellow seems to be pitching into somebody or every-
body," laughed Gonzalez ; and at that instant Billy, his face one
blaze of indignation, and holding something out before him be-
tween his forefinger and thumb, strode into the comedor, or din-
ing-room, where Senor Gonzalez and I sat.

" D'ye know what they're afther doin' on me, Masther Joe,
bad luck to their impidence ? " he gasped. " What is the matter ? "
" Matther ! Is this a Christian land at all, at all ? What do
they take me for ? Is it for a baste or a cannibal ? Luk at that,
Masther Joe. May I never if it's not a snail a snail, sir and
;here's a whole dish full av thim beyant in the next room ! "

It took a deal of persuasion, both on the part of Senor Gonza-
ez and myself, to prove to Billy that snails are regarded as a
elicacy in Mexico. " Be the mortial, it's rats and cats, an' worse,
hey'll be givin' us afore we're done, Masther Joe. I won't ate a
it or sup barrin' bread an' butther, and mebbe an egg while
'm in the cunthry. I wouldn't take the barony o' Killoughlin
n' taste a bit av their mait, afther this turn."

Senor Gonzalez took me to the Commercial Club, where we
ad a cigar and some excellent coffee in the open courtyard.
41 Our coffee comes from Cordoba ; it is equal, if not superior,
;o Mocha," observed mine host. " I wonder some American or
nglish capitalist hasn't made several fortunes over it. Land is
cheap, labor is cheap, the berry takes care of itself, and transpor-
tation is cheap." "What about the land-sharks at Vera Cruz? "
I asked laughingly. " If Vera Cruz were burnt it would be a
good thing for Mexico."

We strolled through the city, always seeking the shady side of
;he street, and out to the walls. A few reed cabins roofed with
moss, and a few palm-trees, broke the great waste of sand, while
a cloud of dust here and there denoted the presence of a passing
donkey-train.

" Musha, Masther Joe, is that th' injin?" inquired Billy, as
arrived at the depot, alluding to the immense Fairlie locomo-
j, with its two chimneys and two boilers, and driver's hutch in
centre in fact, two locomotives rolled into one. This engine
manufactured expressly for the purpose of pulling the train
the steep grade from Maltrata to Esperanza, which is some-
hing like four per cent. " Faix, but it wud take the consait out
the Dublin and Kingstown line, anyways."
By an artful manoeuvre Senor Gonzalez succeeded in secur-

630 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.,

ing seats on the left-hand side of the train, as on this side lie the
most entrancing views. He also provided us with bananas and
the most delicious oranges I ever tasted. " You may take
siesta for a couple of hours, Mr. Nugent, as nothing worth lool
ing at will turn up until after the expiration of that time. Yoi
will excuse me now if I look at my letters." Such was the hig]
bred courtesy of this true Mexican gentleman that he actually
had not opened a letter until he had rendered me completely in-
dependent of his aid.

The railway between Vera Cruz and the city of Mexicc
two hundred and sixty-five miles is a very marvel of engineer-
ing, and, save that at Callao, in Peru, surpasses anything in iroi
roads yet constructed. It ascends seven thousand six hundn
f ee t four thousand seven hundred, in twenty-five miles. Il
passes from hot to temperate, and from the latter to the col<
country. It spans ravines, scales precipices, and plunges througl
the bowels of mountains below ; then up into the clouds it g(
and, in the teeth of almost insurmountable difficulties, skii
gracefully past the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe into the cit]
of Mexico. As Senor Gonzalez informed me, to construct this
line took thirty-six years, forty presidents, and one emperor.

In the highest possible spirits I commenced my journey intc
the land of Montezuma. That beautiful land was before me that
land of which conquerors have so wildly dreamed, of which poets
have so glowingly sung. A sort of " now for it " feeling tool
possession of me as we sped slowly past the crumbling walls of
Vera Cruz and out on to the tawny sands towards the dim, mys-
terious giants that loomed hazily upon us from the very clouds.
" I see that you are bent upon taking everything in," said Gon-
zalez, "and as I have had all my home-news I'll act as showman
for my beautiful country. You see yonder lagoon? That is
Cocas, and it was near this, about a mile to the left, that the
defenders of Vera Cruz surrendered to General Scott in 1847.
After the next curve we shall reach Tigeria, and we shall then be
one hundred and six feet higher than Vera Cruz." The country
so far was perfectly flat, showing now and then a strip of swamp
and a cheerless waste of sand, giving evidences of the scantiest
vegetation. " I'd as lieve be on the Bog av Allen, Masther Joe,"
was my retainer's observation, who sat behind me. Palms am
bananas were conspicuous by their absence, and low jungles, 01
patches of marsh with a few deformed cacti peering betweei
rough masses of rock and shingle, were all that told a tale -of the
tropics.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 631

" We are now approaching Soledad, on the Rio Jamapa," ob-
served the senor, " and this is the first place of any note that you
have reached. It boasts two hundred inhabitants, and it gave its
name to the celebrated convention between the invading power
and Mexico, signed on the igth of February by Generals Prim
and Doblado." The next place we reached was Paso del Macho,
situated fifteen hundred feet above the level of the coast, and still
in a thirsty, gritty country, sprinkled with gaunt shapes of rock,
and save where the monotony was relieved by a river refreshing
the crackling soil with its border of succulent green, or an Indian
village rich in unsymmetrical, downy-roofed cabins, the copper-
colored natives attired in the purest and scantiest of white the
cene scarcely demanded even so much as a passing comment.

But we were upon the very threshold of the beauties of the
line, and forty- seven miles from Vera Cruz. Aromatic odors,
rne by caressing breezes, saluted our nostrils ; vegetation now
ook the place of the dreary, desolate sand-wastes ; and at Paso del
Macho I began to realize that Mexico contained something more
ovable to the eye than distorted cacti and jagged masses of dull
gray rock.

As the train reached the bridge of San Alego the scenery, in
lithe voluptuousness of. its supreme beauty, flashed upon me.
The bridge, a marvel in itself, an iron cobweb three hundred and
eighteen feet long, springs from out a bed of verdure so rich, so
varied, so glowing, so concentrated that it would seem as a couch
for Titania herself reds, and yellows, and blues, and greens, and
purples, lichens and mosses, and ferns and orchids : a veritable
tropical glory. Tinted creepers clung amorously to the yielding
trees, and parasites orchid and bromelia, beautiful as butterflies
seemed fluttering on the branches, as if just alighted and about to
take wing. "This is glorious ! " I cried enthusiastically. " Oh ! I
am so delighted that you admire my beautiful, my adored
country," exclaimed the Mexican, his eyes filling with tears.
" Anybody who admires my country is my friend." " The bo-
kays is plintiful enough," mumbled my retainer, " but, faix, ould
Sandie McCall has a finer bloom at Heaclfort this minit, I'll go
bail " ; this with all the unction of depreciation.

The train now dashed past sugar-cane and coffee plantations,
bananas, palms, and other indwellers of the tropics, until the love-
ly Chiquihuite was reached, and I beheld the cascade, starting
from a rift in the sheer rock, falling like a cotton thread sixty feet
into a gloomy gorge. " What a header a fellow could take here,
sefior ! " " Wait till to-morrow, till you reach the Infiernillo, or

632 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.,

Little Hell," he laughed, adding, " Prepare for a grand treat
now; we are close to the Baranca de Metlac."

I had heard a good deal of this pass from some Mexicans on
board the steamer, and expectation was on tiptoe as we entered
it, so full of splendor, so grandly Dantesque ! The bridge that
spans the ravine is three hundred and fifty feet long and ninety
two feet high. It is shaped in a curve from one side to the other
and is one of the most marvellous successes of this railway, whic
is nothing short of a succession of engineering triumphs. " I
twenty minutes we shall reach Orizaba," said my cicerone, " an
you will then be eighty-two miles from Vera Cruz. You will soon
see the giant warder with his white helmet. He stands righ
over the town, and his height is only seventeen thousand feet
It was to Orizaba that Cortez with his band of desesperados ha
tened in the hope of looting its treasures, of the richness of whic
the Aztecs gave such a glowing description. Ah ! you can see th
cathedral now. Do you see that great steep mountain to th
right? Well, it was on that mountain that the French surpri
us. It was a surprise, and we got the worst of it, but at Pueb
we had our revenge. Do not forget to visit the house in whic
Maximilian bade farewell to Bazaine ; it is quite close to the town
Stop at the Fonda del Pedro. When you reach the capital sto
at the Iturbide hotel for a bath before you present yourself t
your friends, as the dust between Appam and the capital is som
thing awful. Here we are. You will alight here. Adios / a
ver" And the genial Gonzalez remained on the rear platform
waving me adieu, until lost in the distance.

" A nice gintleman, an' a nice-mannered gintleman," observ
Billy. " Av all Mexico is like him it's at home we are, no less."

I was both pleased and surprised to find a tram-car, drawn by
mules, waiting at the station. " Fonda San Pedro," said I to a
driver in a sombrero the size of one of the wash-tubs at home.
" Si sefior"; then he said something else that I could not under-
stand, but I trusted him nevertheless and boarded the car. The
yells, and shrieks, and vociferations of that driver as he urged his
mules, six of them, into a gallop still ring in my ears. The pace
was tremendous, and we thundered into the town, the mule-bells
ringing frantically, over a picturesque bridge spanning a still
more picturesque ravine ; nor did we draw rein until the Fonda
San Pedro was reached a great whitewashed building of two
stories, balconied, the entrance beneath a somewhat imposing
but gloomy arch.

Luckily, the manager spoke a little French, and in a few minutes

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 633

l zi

be
ico

\\l

was ushered into a room opening upon a balcony overlooking a
0, or great square courtyard, in which an army corps might
be manoeuvred, planted with the greenest of grass, clothed with
lor in shape of strange and exquisite flowers. My bed-room
was a monster apartment, red-tiled, the ceiling as high as the peak
of Orizaba, the windows barred with iron, the bed a piece of can-
vas laid on steel bars, upon which I subsequently grilled. Un-
savory-looking insects, all legs and arms, crawled upon the
dark, dank walls, and the whole place resembled a prison into
which a batch of political desperadoes had just been hastily
consigned.

My dinner was a very sorry affair, the soup being simply liquid
grease, the fish very much out of water, the joints stringy, the dul-
ces, or sweets, absolutely nasty. I was compelled to make a meal
of frigolcs and a poor meal it Avas. After dinner I took Billy with
e for a walk through the town. There was no moon that night,
ut there were stars and such stars ! flashing white light across
he clear, dark blue dome. Bizarre were the sights that greeted us
we strolled through the streets. Indian women, wrapped in
heirrebosos, sat beside quaint little stoves, engaged in cooking tortil-
serenos, or watchmen, enveloped in cloaks with conical hoods
:e Mother Shipton's night-cap, whistled at the corner of every
calle a long, low, wailing whistle, by means of which they maintain
a perpetual communication one with another ; Jiaciendados, or farm-
ers, rich in zarape and sombrero, overtaken by the pulque fiend, ut-
ring deep gutturals as they swung six inches of dust ; strings of
ules silently winding their way to a ranch high up on the side
of the volcano, to return on the morrow laden with ice for the
fever-thirst of Vera Cruz ; groups of Indians posed in every con-
ceivable attitude of indolent grace ; and, touching the dark blue
vault, the snow-capped peak of Orizaba, white in the starlight,
he plaza, or market-place, presented a scene such as Van Schen-
al would have loved to paint. A large marquee stood in the
middle of the square, the interior lighted by numberless kerosene-
lamps. Around this marquee were ranged a number of small
gaming-tables and lotteries, each table presided over by a pictur-
esque-looking ruffian in sombrero and zarape, his features complete-
ly concealed beneath the deep shadow thrown by the leaf of the
hat, while groups of eager and excited Indians pressed round,
watching the players as they wooed the deceitful smiles of fickle
rtune. If the scene outside the marquee was strange, how
uch more quaint and peculiar was that which greeted my eyes
hen I entered this temple of fortune ! for it was the great an-

634 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.,

nual game of guino, which came round once a year like a circus.
In rows that stretched from end to end sat Indians, the women
hooded in their blue ckiquitas, the men in the shadows of som-
breros. Before the Indians were long planks, laid so as to do
duty for tables, and opposite each player they all played a
card containing printed numbers, while the tables were plentifully
sprinkled with grains of corn for marking the g [ ame. At a desk*
upon an elevated platform sat an old lynx-eyed Mexican, remin
ing one of Quentin Matsys' celebrated picture of the Misers ;
sombrero gorgeously laced with gold drawn deep over his brow
a jacket profusely embroidered with silver, and a zarape of man
colors enshrouding the upper portion of his frame. Beside hi
on either hand stood two assistants attired in an equally exp
sive manner, one of whom chinked a leathern bag stuffed wi
pesos, while the other drew numbered chips from a canvas pouc
which, prior to each drawing, received a shaking that would ha
churned vinegar into butter. A band of four pieces discoursed
very discordant music; an instrument, a sort of compromise
tween a harp and a banjo, performed upon by a very pretty I
dian girl, carrying off the palm for jingle. The instant the o
gambler knocked on his desk with a small ivory-headed hamm
everybody became silent as the- grave, the band ceased to d
liver sounds suggestive of the groans of criminals upon the 1
turn of the rack, and each player instinctively seized a f
grains of the corn wherewith to mark the game.

" I'd give Paddy Gogarty's pratie-patch for wan rowl
spoil-five wud that ould varmint, Masther Joe," half-whisper
Billy Brierly "three chalks for five shillings. I wudn't lav
him a mag. Luk at th' eye av him ; it wud burn a hole in a bla
ket."

I did not feel in the least inclined for sleep, and long after t
other occupiers of the Fonda had sunk to rest I sat on the
cony attached to the window of my -room, thinking of home an
of all the stories I would have to tell to dear Aunt Butler and
Trixy, of course.

The morning was fresh and fragrant, and after hearing Mass
at the parochial church which contains a life-sized figure of our
Lord, presented to it in 1618 by the illustrious and saintly Pala-
fox y Mendoza, Bishop of Puebla and Viceroy of Spain I
proceeded to the train. The morning mists still enshrouded the
mountains in tulle illusion veils, but the white cap of Orizaba
stood high above the clouds, a clot of white on a patch of blu
The walk to the depot was through one vast blooming and e

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 635

quisitely-perfumed garden, the orange groves sending forth their
delicious odors to the caresses of the sun, the flowers lifting their
bejewelled chalices full of priceless dew. Casting a long, last, lin-
gering glance at the quaint old town sitting in the lap of verdure-
clad hills, I took up a position on the platform of the rear car, for
the purpose of thoroughly enjoying the delightful horrors of the
Baranca del Infiernillo. A few miles, and we were into it. The
Baranca is a chasm that divides two craggy steeps whose depths
I could scarcely measure. When I gazed down into them I felt
actually dizzy. Bridges span rifts, and gulfs, and yawning
chasms, while tunnels pierce opposing mountains and rocky pro-
montories. You emerge from the horrors of total darkness to
behold grim destruction awaiting you as you speed along in mid-
air. A nut, or bolt, or rivet, or rail out of place, and what a
crash ! Billy Brierly devoutly told his beads, and would scarcely
cast a glance into the awful depths. There is no trace of vege-
tation ; not a tree, not a shrub, not so much as a fern to break the

eer walls of clammy black rock.

What a leap into light as we emerged from the Dantesque
horrors of the pass into the plains of La Joya the jewel ! On
our right stood mountains dappled with bright flowers and
crowned by the foliage of forest trees. To the left the valley,
extending itself to the horizon, was rich in color as a Turkey car-
pet, and in its midst ran a silvery stream upon a bed of sand yel-
low in the glorious dayshine as gold, while the glacier-capped
Orizaba, flaunting its white mantle in delicate relief against the
Italian sky, stood sentinel over the many ranges of the Sierras in
distant and paramount grandeur.

At Maltrata we awaited the arrival of the train from Mexico,
and I watched for it, as did all the passengers, high in air, as
though gazing up at a balloon. Soon, like a child's toy, it made
its appearance slowly passing along the verdure-clad summit of
the mountain. Now it disappeared behind a jutting promon-
tory, only to reappear as it sped across a fairy-like bridge, again
to become lost in tufted foliage. Presently the white smoke be-
trayed its whereabouts, and once more it came into view, larger,
more defined, but still high on the mountain's brow. Then zig-
zag it twisted in and out, and under and over, until it reached
the level, where in a few minutes it slowly clank-clanked into
the station.

How dusty the occupants of the other train looked ! How
curiously they stared at those of the up-going train ! Both trains
were made up of first, second, and third class carriages, a special

636 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Aug.,

car being occupied by swarthy-looking, linen-clad soldiers, the
military escort, for the protection of the passengers from the at-
tentions of speculative banditti.

While waiting for the down train, in common with the rest of
our fellow-travellers; my retainer and I refreshed at an al fresco
stall erected upon the platform. This rudely-constructed count
literally groaned under the weight of red earthenware dish
and drinking-vessels of the size, shape, and description used
the Aztecs ere Hernando Cortez set his mailed heel upon the taw
sands at Vera Cruz. A primitive stove stood upon one end
the counter, and in an earthen pan the legs and wings of chicke
fried side by side with the savory-smelling lazita and cuchiL
The Indians thronged the platform in considerable force, t
women carrying their babies slung behind in their scarfs. Af
a delay of some twenty minutes the conductor urged us to b
the train by a violent clapping of his hands. What a picturesqu
looking fellow he was ! I see him now in his gray felt sombn
laced with silver, blue jerkin confined at the waist by a b
leather belt, great buff gauntlet-gloves like those worn by Cro
well's Ironsides, and buff boots to the hips an opera bouffe c
tume. When I gazed at the rugged cumbres above me ; at t
black spots that denoted so many entrances to so many tunne
at the delicate tracery of the iron bridges ; at the perpendi
lar and almost insurmountable barriers towering over me
when I came to consider that thirteen miles of climbing, with
ascent of two thousand three hundred feet, had to be accomplish
forthwith, I wished myself, as I had done at many a double fen
well over. "Av I get up there safe and sound, Masther J
an' back agin, I'll take the consait out av Miles Finnerty. I
discoorse him till he cries peccavvy, as shure's me name's Bi
Brierly. But, wirra, we're off, Masther Joe. Av I'm knocked in
smithereens ye'll see Father James an' " Here we entered a t
nel, and when we emerged Billy was praying with unexampled
votion. Upwards, upwards, upwards the train twisted and twin
like a serpent, skirting steeps on ledges of rock ; swinging slowly
round curves till the cars leant alarmingly over ; crossing ravines
and chasms and clefts, and diving into the very hearts of moun-
tains, on one side a grim wall of rock, on the other a fall of two
thousand feet sheer ! Upwards, upwards, upwards ! till the
beautiful valley of Maltrata lay beneath me, a soft and verdant
sward in the lap of giant mountains, two thousand feet below, till
the fields resembled the squares upon a chess-board, the chu
the queen, the trim white houses so many pawns one

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 637

green plain, with a bunch of daisies in the centre. Oh ! it seemed
strange to be above everything.

At Boca del Monte the air became chilly, and I was not sorry
to betake myself to a light overcoat. The country now became
flat and uninteresting, for we had quitted the tierra templada, and
ere now dashing along through the tierra fria, the region of the
oe, and cacti, and dwarf trees. From Apizaco the country was
one vast aloe or maguey plantation, this being the plant from
which the celebrated pulque, the lager-beer of Mexico, is obtained.
On we rattled through a dense cloud of dust, and from a place
lied Appam to the capital the dust was simply unendurable.
n vain did we close the windows and doors, in vain did I turn
my back to it, in vain stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth and
muffled myself as if the mercury was 28 below. The dust was
not to be resisted ; it came down upon me like the wolf on the
fold ; it entered my eyes, my nose, my mouth ; it filtered through
my garments like water, clinging to my irritated frame like the
irt of Nessus ; it blinded and choked me.

Right glad was I of the sagacious advice of Senor Gonzalez,
and, instead of driving straight to the Sefiora San Cosme's on my
arrival in ]NJexico, I jumped into a carriage and drove to the
Fonda del Iturbide and had a bath. Did I ever say Gracias
with more fervor than when a dark-eyed sefiorita handed me a

B.aintly-shaped tray containing a towel, a sheet, a wisp of
iguey fibre, two thin, flat cakes of soap in a brass dish such as
garo uses in The Barber of Seville, a tiny pot of .pink pomade,
d a small vial of bay -rum ? What mattered it that my bath-
om would have served to lave a squadron of cavalry, and that
a single candle served but to render darkness visible ? I had a
bath. By dint of patience and perseverance I managed to part
company with the dust, and, like a giant refreshed with wine,
sprang into the coach that was to bear me to the dear, kind, good-
hearted friend of my dead mother.

TO BE CONTINUED.

638

THE COUNT OF HAPSBURG.

[Aug.

THE COUNT OF HAPSBURG.

TRANSLATION FROM SCHILLER.

AT Aix-la-Chapelle, with stately mien and bearing,
King Rudolph sat in the ancient hall, on high ;
Imperial insignia and vesture wearing,
And kept his Coronation-Day's festivity.
The viands bore the Palgrave of the Rhine,
Bohemia's duke poured out the pearly wine,
And all the Electors of the empire, seven,
Serving encircled in a brilliant ring,
Each in due office, Christendom's chief king,
Like planets round their central sun in heaven.

Outside the hall, the people crowded round,

A jam and press, backward and forward swaying,

In high good humor ; frequent was the sound

Of cheering mingled with the notes of trumpets playing.

For, after bitter contest, now had come the close

Of the throne's vacancy, time of wars and woes ;

A ruler of the sovereign power now held possession :

No more blind tyranny of sword and spear ;

The weak and peaceful were no more in constant fear

The victims to become of mighty men's oppression.

Taking the golden goblet in his hand,

King Rudolph spoke with aspect kindly beaming :

"The feast 1 is glorious and the banquet grand,

All things this day auspicious well beseeming ;

But yet I miss the minstrel's joyous art,

Whose sounds melodious so delight my heart,

Whose lofty song gives god-like elevation.

Music and song I loved in youthful days.

To what I thought and did as knight I will be true alwayi

As emperor ; such is my determination."

Into the princely circle standing there

The minstrel, clad in mantle long and flowing,

Now entered ; silvery was his hair,

Which many years had whitened in their going.

1 88o.]

THE COUNT OF HAPSBURG.

639

" A sleeping melody waits these golden strings to move

When my hand wakes the harp to sing of love,

Or of the best and highest sounds the praise harmonious,

To give both soul and sense the pleasure they desire.

O emperor ! say, how shall I strike the lyre

In worthiest honor of this feast most glorious ?"

" I give the minstrel no commanding word,"

Thus spoke the ruler of the German nation.

" He is the servant of a mightier Lord,

Whose spirit comes in hours of inspiration,

Like to the storm-wind blowing in the air,

Of which we know not whence it comes or where

It goes ; or spring whose source lies deep within a mountain.

So doth the minstrel's song spring up within his breast,

Waking emotions from their secret place of rest

Deep in the bosom's hidden, unknown fountain."

Then quick the minstrel struck the strings,
With powerful hand his harp he sounded,
And of a noble hero sings
Who for a hunt on horseback bounded ;
A servant bearing all that he would need
Followed the knight, who rode a stately steed.
When they had reached a valley lone and lowly,
A tinkling, distant sound he heard, which meant
A priest was coming with the Blessed Sacrament,
His acolyte preceding walking slowly.

Down toward the ground the pious count bent low,

With head uncovered, that the faith beseeming

Every good Christian, and worship, he might show

To Him who came on earth for our redeeming.

A little streamlet running through the nook

Was swelled by Giessbach's waters to a rushing brook.

The traveller could not cross, for journey booted,

So, laying down the pyx with reverence meet,

Began to take the shoes from off his feet,

That he might wade across the stream barefooted.

" Now what is this ? " in haste spoke up the count,
Who saw- these movements of the priest with wonder.

640 TUE COUNT OF HAPSBURG. [Aug.

" My lord ! one going to his last account

Awaits Viaticum in the village yonder.

To him I go ; the bridge I thought to find

Across this brook, blown over by the wind,

The Giessbach's waves adown the stream have driven.

And so, barefooted, I will try this ford,

And bring to him the Body of the Lord

Who waits my coming, penitent and shriven."

The count then set him on his knightly steed,

The splendid bridle to his guidance giving,

That he might ride unto the man in need

Without delay, in hope to find him living.

Mounting his servant's horse, the count rode off apace,

All gay of heart, the bounding deer to chase ;

The holy priest, meanwhile, upon his way proceeding.

On the next morning early at the castle-gate was seen

The priest approaching slowly with a quiet, thankful mi<

Modestly by the bridle the stately charger leading.

" Now God forbid ! " cried out the noble count,

With sentiment of deep humility,

" That I for battle or for chase should mount

A horse that once has borne my Maker's Majesty.

Wilt thou not keep him for thyself, I pray ?

Employ him in God's service in some other way,

For I have given him to my Liege Lord a present,

From whom I hold in fief honor and earthly good,

Body and soul, my life, my breath, my blood,

And every other precious boon which makes life pleasant.

Then spoke the priest : " May God, our Sovereign Lord,

Who humble men that pray doth hear in heaven,

With glory in this world and in the next reward

The honor thou to him hast given !

Thou art a mighty count, thy name well known

For deeds in Switzerland of high renown ;

And may thy greatness still go on extending,

The six fair daughters blooming on thy stem

Adorn thy house, each with a diadem,

Thy royal line of offspring have no ending."

i88o.] NON-CATHOLIC SCHOOL-BOOKS. 641

The emperor's head was bowed in deepest thought,

For memory past scenes back to his vision brought.

He fixed upon the minstrel a gaze intent and long,

And in his eyes he clearly read the meaning of his song.

The priest now stood before him, that minstrel gray and old,

And he hid his flowing tears in his mantle's purple fold.

In their emperor, the count, the hero of the story,

By his downcast face and the tears within his eyes

The group of princes and bystanders recognize,

And of the prophecy fulfilled they give to God the glory.

[ON-CATHOLIC SCHOOL-BOOKS AND CATHOLIC

SCHOOLS.

FROM the cradle to the grave man has temptations thrust in
is face ad nauseam by hired agents whose labors would be
praiseworthy in a better cause. Catholics are not entirely free
from blame in the aid they unwittingly give this hydra. They
not unfrequently give the first taste of forbidden fruit to their
hildren, who are ever after unwise enough to be satisfied with
o other. We see this in the matter of books and literature,
ven among those who make an effort to have libraries, or at
least reading-matter, at home, it is common to find more literature
from the pens of non- Catholics than from writers of approved
faith and morality. They excuse themselves, it is true, by plead-
ing the paucity in numbers or poverty in intellect of Catholic
writers. Yet such a plea does but display their own ignorance
of Catholic literature. They will find a thousand-and-one ex-
cuses for not reading or patronizing Catholic publications. They
are " too dry," " not the kind they want/' or " not useful," or
" too uninteresting," or " not scientific enough," as if a man's

! ! faith prevents his being useful or beautiful, true or scientific.
But, as the evil is generally begun in the school-room, it is the
writer's only purpose here to put forward some objections to a
certain class of so-called " unobjectionable " school-books, and to
show why, even if which he does not believe Catholic school-
books have less merits, they are to be preferred to those com-
ing from 'other sources.
Not to speak of a large number of school-books which are
VOL. XXXI. 41

642 NON-CA THOLIC SCHOOL-BOOKS [Aug.

decidedly anti-Catholic, there are scarcely any compiled or a]
ranged by non-Catholics which do not contain more or less ol
jectioriable matter. Is it no evil that a Catholic child must lean
non-Catholic modes of thought and speech? Yet how is th<
child to learn other thoughts and language when you plac
nothing within his reach except what is written by those outsidt
the church? The publishers may, as they assert, be hon<
enough and we believe some of them are but it is not at al
agreeable to non-Catholic compilers to cull from Catholic write]
They may or may not be religiously inclined, but, in either event
they work for a, large class and select their matter to please th<
public. An array of bright names is taking. The result is th;
the infidel, the Methodist, the Presbyterian, the Episcopalian, an<
a dozen other denominations will be represented in prose
poetry, in hymns and sermons, in theology and the natural
ences. But no Catholic need expect a hearing. Thus it is th;
even in childhood the very thought is turned from the churcl
and the foundation of indifferentism is laid. This early imbuii
of the mind with false ideas is why the church contends
strongly for Catholic schools and instructors. Not all the mil
chief of the public school is done by the teachers. Perhaps mos
of the evil results are caused by the books in use among th<
pupils. Nor is the perversion of truth confined to readers ai
histories. At every opportunity a slur or an innuendo is brougl
in to lead the mind astray. Several books, to which was append<
a long list of recommendations, were handed to the writer wil
the request that he also would lend his approbation. Amonj
others was a geography. The topography, general design, an<
finish of the work were excellent. So far nothing more could
desired. But in vain did we look through it for any adequate
recognition of Catholics and their labors, although great pains
had been taken to inform the readers how -much was being done
by others. Excessive praise was lavished on the schools and
other works of non-Catholics. But it would be idle for the
Catholic' child to study the work with the hope of learning some-
thing of the many excellent schools his own church had founded
and maintained at heroic sacrifices. Shall we call that learning
where a false knowledge is acquired ? Surely it were better for
the child to learn nothing at all than to learn nothing but fals
hood. A new and entirely empty vessel is much more easifj
filled than one which has been defiled and must first be cleans
It is not a lightsome task, and one but rarely accomplished,
eradicate the early impressions of childhood.

i88o.] AND CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. 643

Moreover, even where no directly exceptionable matter has
been intruded, is not the absence of all Catholic thought and
knowledge a valid objection to such works ? How oft.en has it
not been urged that the absence of all religious training is tan-
tamount to teaching infidelity ? Yet by the use of non-Catho-
lic books the work of concealment is perpetuated. The child
left in ignorance of Catholic works and Catholic thought na-
turally concludes that there are none, or, what is still worse,
that they are of such a nature that silence in their regard is
best. His mind is biassed against Catholic schools and books,
and he belittles the labors of his more zealous brethren. He

nnot conceive that they have ever done anything remark-
ble, and he comes, little by little, to think they do not com-
pare with the more famous laborers of whom he has learned.
Thus indirectly a great wrong has been done, and one all
he more insidious because hidden from view. More open evils

and a far better chance of being refuted and banished from

e mind than does this secret poison. Once, while attending a
'atholic school examination, the writer asked the United States
history class pert enough, too, in their answers whether any
Catholics had taken a prominent part in the early history of this
country. A few thought not, but the greater number frankly
confessed they did not know. The fault lay in the text-book, at
which we should not have been surprised in a public school,
though we could not help being shocked by the fact in a Catho-
lic institution. Could those children be otherwise than ashamed
of Catholics in history when the subject was broached in com-
pany ? They knew no fact in the history of this country which
could redound to the glory of their church or of Catholics. Ca-
tholics have no reason to be ashamed of the part they have taken
in American history, unless it be that they have been too patient
under wrongs. As Catholics we owe nothing to the non-Catho-
lic community, though there are a great many unpaid debts now
due on their part. In saying that as Catholics we owe noth-

g to our non-Catholic fellow-citizens, we freely admit that the
church in this country enjoys more rights than in any country of
Europe ; nevertheless we have not all our rights as Catholics, and
without a proper system of education we shall never obtain them.
But how such an education is to be obtained while we use school-
books which totally ignore Catholics and their claims is beyond
comprehension.

Should the writer be thought too severe let the effort be
made to have a few Catholic thoughts or sentiments inserted in

644 NON-CATHOLIC SCHOOL-BOOKS [Aug.,

non-Catholic text-books. There is not one of these non-Catho-
lic publishers if he tell the truth but will reply that to ac-
cede to this request would be to ruin his trade. The resentment
of non-Catholics would be immediate and to the point. They
would not tolerate such works for a day, lest even accidentally
their children might learn some modicum of truth greater than
they are willing to allow. To their minds the risk of perversion
would be too great to be endured even for a short time. Muci
less would they consent to the use of such books during the
whole course of instruction. And they are right, if they believe
what they think.

It is not easy to see on what grounds this patronage of non-
Catholic books can be justified. Our money is all that is sought.
In every other matter the same publishers are perfectly reckle
of our reputation. Some of them would discard our trade t<
morrow, if, by so doing, they could make as much money. What
principles have many of them which would prevent their pul
lishing the foulest and lowest slanders against us, providin|
they could make it pay ? None whatever. It is maintained that
the same books are used in public schools, and that, to rendei
them agreeable to Catholics, pains have been taken to weed oul
objectionable matter. The assertion is valueless for the reasoi
already given. Because you will not teach your child all truths
is no reason why I should allow mine to be partly deceived. Th<
principle is absurd and deserves to be stigmatized by every hoi
est man. We shall be more highly appreciated, held in greatei
esteem, and command far more attention in our claims by a manb
course in this matter than we can expect by any half-hearte<
measures. A few well-deserved rebuffs from the Catholic body
would teach these men a lesson not soon forgotten.

They have no claims on the Catholic trade. Do they ever
patronize our books ? Do they show any liberality towards Ca-
tholic publications ? Let a strictly Catholic book be offered for
publication and it will be rejected. Had Mr. J. G. Shea, for in-
stance, been anything but a Catholic, or had he chosen to ignore
his Catholicity when writing, his works would have attained an
immense popularity. It is by no means a consoling thought that
Catholics have so little care for their own reputation, and are so
willing to help others at the expense of their brethren. We have
no wish to make them selfish or exclusive God forbid ! but we
do wish them to look to their own interests in matters of the ut-
most importance. Liberality wrongly displayed is no benefit tc
them or any other. Yet liberality thus far has been all on the

i88o.] AND CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. 645

side of the Catholics. We have tried non-Catholic schools and
put up with wrongs until there no longer existed any hope of
justice. Non-Catholic books have been used while the smallest
chance remained that there would be a change for the better.
Still no change came. It is true that, when a few Catholic pub-
lishers made the venture and risked their money, the non-Catho-
lic publishers, fearing to lose control of the trade, came forward
with a few corrections in their books corrections, too, which,
by no means radical enough, are all the more dangerous be-
cause they still leave the spirit of error untouched. Shall we

ndure such things unrebuked ? We certainly deserve to suffer

f we are too cowardly to speak.

But they do not rest here. Audacity could hardly go farther

han to ask the Catholic body to approve of the books of these

on-Catholic publishers. We have suffered so long that our
tience is thought our only virtue. We must bow to their will,
bmit to their imposition, not, indeed, without a murmur, but by
applauding their cruelty. This is truly

" The most unkindest cut of all " ;

but it well illustrates how low we must have sunk in their
opinion when they expect us quietly to undergo such treatment.

The fact that we have our own books, which have the first
claim to our support, does but add food for surprise. Naturally
we should support those who are heart and soul working hand
and hand with us, and who necessarily must partake in our sacri-
fices. It is a poor excuse that Catholic publications are not as
good as others. We do not believe it. What reward can Ca-
tholic publishers have for their time and money, if they receive
no patronage from Catholics ? They will look in vain for help
from outsiders. If their works are not all we could wish, make it
their interest to have them better, and they will not be long in im-
proving them. Do Catholic publishers lack enterprise ? Per-
haps no class of men have engaged in a more uncertain trade.
None have resisted more strenuously the seductions of public
opinion, or have clung more tenaciously to honor and uprightness,
where wealth has awaited their sacrifice at the shrine of the al-
mighty dollar.

You ask the publishers to do what cannot be done without
your assistance. You expect impossibilities of others, while you
are unwilling to do the possible. You accuse them of not per-
forming heroic acts, while you refuse to do your plain duty. It

646 NON-CATHOLIC SCHOOL-BOOKS F^ u g

is a shame and disgrace to some within the church or shall w
call it ignorance ? who have dollars for everything non-Catholic
but not one cent for the labors of their brethren. Certainly giv
non-Catholics their due when they have said or done anythin
that is good, or true, or beautiful. But among a certain class
Catholics we never hear praise of anybody or anything that
not outside the church. One would think that our own breth
were devoid of all knowledge. Are we to believe truths uttere
by non-Catholics more valuable than when told by those wh
knew them all their lives ? Or is it a source of pleasure to find
few truths hidden in a slough of error ? Perhaps they like th
labor. Let those who find faults in Catholic school-books wri
out the corrections and send them to the publishers. It cann
be possible these publishers would so stand in their own light
to prefer defective to perfect books. The truth, perhaps, is that
is easy to find fault in general ; so that we shall look in vain f
these fault-finders to aid in bettering the condition of existin
works. Least of all may we expect them to make any sacrifi
of time, inclination, or money in the cause of good education
works. A reasonable way, even in so important a matter, is th
last thing we may expect from these critical people. Indeed,
anxious are they to do good that they will not let slip the oppo
tunity even at another's expense. Their righteous indignati
has been aroused, and they must cast out Catholic school-boo
because they are not all they wish. " What is the fault wit
them ? " " Well well hem ! well "they " have not time
explain." Some of the best talent in the country has been e
ployed on these works, but the labor, the time, or the probab
poor pay earned in making them has no effect upon these u
charitable Catholics. They never dream that their course is an
thing but commendable.

'One would naturally expect Catholics to show a greater jud
ment than others in many things where their faith makes the
wiser. Is it a favor to them when a man whose pockets are i
terested sends them a work and asks their approval ? The favor
is done to the publisher. When the work is not all a reasonable
man should expect, especially if it is not such as can safely be put
in the hands of children, how can a Catholic conscientiously write
a glowing approbation, even to the " wishing the work may be
adopted in all our schools " ? Either the Catholic has not exam-
ined the work on has written nonsense. It is useless to say that
such approbations amount to nothing, or are a mere accommoda-
tion or an advertisement. There is no one in this world who

i88o.] AND CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. 647

cannot or does not more or less influence others. Publishers
know this perfectly well ; hence their anxiety to secure as many
recommendations as possible. How a Catholic can praise a work
in which Catholics are totally ignored is " past finding out."
Does he not stultify himself by so doing ? Will he not leave the
impression that he is either ignorant or careless, or lacks princi-
ple? It cannot be that he believes what he writes, otherwise
he must view faith and its dangers through a very small lens.
Perhaps it may be thought that by praising these works we
shall make their publishers more tender towards us and more
willing to do us justice. We have been patient sufferers long
enough. No amount of endurance on our part will remedy the
evil. Nothing but plain, outspoken language will answer.

What care non-Catholic publishers, as a rule, for Catholic con-
ience ? Nothing, so long as their pockets are well filled. But
even grant there are among them men who are just and wish to
o us no wrong. How, if we let every fault pass unchallenged,
an they know their books are not suitable ? Their knowledge of
th is limited to fragments, and shall we, who have the whole
truth and receive so many notes of warning from every source,
be silent where we should teach ? Certainly not. If their books
are really unobjectionable let them have 'their meed of praise ;
but otherwise let us tell them openly and plainly we cannot
approve of them. We shall then be more respected for our
manliness and more readily gain a hearing for Catholic truth and
justice. Men, finding us more zealous for our own rights, will
be less careless how they treat Catholic subjects. At least they
will not insult us by asking us to praise and purchase books
which directly or indirectly do us injustice.

648 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.

THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU, 1880.

THIS celebrated religious play, which is now being performi
by the villagers of Ober-Ammergau, in the Bavarian Highlands
in fulfilment of a solemn vow made to God, dates from the ye;
1634. In the year 1633 a fearful pestilence broke out in th<
neighboring villages. In Kohlgrub, distant three hours' journe
from Ammergau, so .great were the ravages made by the diseaj
that but two married couples were left in the village. Notwitl
standing the strict measures taken by the affrighted people
Ammergau to prevent the plague from being introduced in1
their hamlet, a day-laborer, Caspar Schuchler, who had
working at Eschenloe, where the plague prevailed, succeeded
entering the village, where he wished to visit his wife and chil
dren. In a day or two he was a corpse ; he had brought wil
him the germs of the disease, which spread with such fearfi
rapidity that within the following thirty-three days eighty-foui
persons belonging to the village died. Then the villagers, in tl
terrible strait, assembled and solemnly vowed that if God woul<
in his mercy, remove the pestilence, they would perform tl
Passion tragedy in thanksgiving every tenth year. From thi
hour, although a number of persons were suffering, not one di<
of the pestilence. In 1634 the play was first acted. The decadi
period was chosen for 1680, and the Passion Play, with certaii
unavoidable interruptions, has since been performed every tentl
year.

The oldest known text-book of the play is dated 1662, and n
its pages reference is made to a still older " acting copy." Up to
the year 1830 the play was performed in the village churchyard,
in the open air. Father Ottmar Weiss, of Jesewang, a Benedic-
tine monk formerly belonging to the now suppressed monastery
at Ettal, who died in 1843, thoroughly revised the text of the play,
removing unsuitable and inharmonious passages, and substitut-
ing prose for doggerel verse ; but the improved text of the tragedy
as it is now performed is the work of the former rector of the
village, the Geistlicher-Rath Daisenberger, a hale, ruddy, vene-
rable personage of eighty-two years, to whom 1 had the honor
of being presented, and who presided with serene dignity at the
first representation of the play of this year, on the i/th of Ma]
last. The breaking out of the Franco-German war in 1870 intei

i88o.J THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 649

rupted the performance of that year. Forty of the villagers, all
actors, were summoned to seek the bubble reputation at the
cannon's mouth. Of the forty, six never returned, two falling in
battle and four dying of their wounds one of the latter he who
had assumed the role of Simon of Cyrene. The delineator of the
person of Christ, Joseph Maier, owing to the deep interest taken
in the Passion Play by the King of Bavaria, Ludwig II., was re-
legated to special duty in Munich, and never went to the front.
In 1871 the play was resumed and the vow of the pious villagers
fulfilled.

The village of Ober-Ammergau is situated in the lap of the
avarian Alps, " far from the madding crowd." Save during the
performance of this " piteous tragedie," the noise of the busy
L, j world never reaches it ; the wave of progress breaks at the foot
of the crags of the giant Zugspitz. Leaving the Bavarian capital,
the Passion pilgrim has choice of several routes. One of these is
by the railroad to Stamberg, and along the shores of the lake to
Murnau, and from thence to Ammergau. Those who prefer

; crossing the beautiful lake Stamberg can take the steamer to

: Seeshaupt, and thence by conveyance to the hidden-away village.
Every mile of the journey yields its treasures of legendary lore,

i from Planegg, with its Virgin's Oak and world-renowned image
of the Madonna, to Miilthal, the birthplace of Charlemagne.
The placid blue waters of the Stamberg reflect as in a mirror
castled crags and wooded heights, lordly pleasure-houses and

: coquettish villas, time-tinted ruins and tiny villages like so many
bunches of lily-of-the-valley. White sails dot the lake, and the
steamer plying to and from the little town pays its own tribute

I to the charming surroundings in smoke as diaphanous as a bridal
veil. Schlossberg, the favorite summer residence of the king,
stands out in bold relief, and beneath it the enchanting Garden of
Roses. Past Leoni, the haunt of Munich artists, to St. Heinrich,
and Seeshaupt is reached. Between Seeshaupt and the Highlands
lies a broad plain of several miles in extent, guarded by the high
Persienberg, or the Bavarian Rhigi. Many tourists select Tulz, at
the foot of this mountain, as their gate to the Alps ; but the vast
majority proceed to Murnau, alias Wurmau, the " Valley of the
Dragon." Close to the village sleeps upon a little lake a veri-

I table poem in wood and water Staffelsee, a mite of an island in
which tradition asserts that a small chapel was consecrated by
St. Boniface. At Murnau I put up at the hostelry of Herr
Kotmuller. I can safely recommend his beefsteak, beer, and bed.
The village is the perfection of cleanliness, and the rude statue of

650 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.

the Mother of God, in the centre of the main street, possesses
wondrous quaint grace that binds one as if by a spell. It was
a glorious May morning that I spun out of the village in a c
riage drawn by a pair of horses. The air was laden with the
fume of fruit blossoms, intermingled with the delicious aroma
wild-flowers. Beside me, to the merriest measure, danced th
clear, sparkling little river Ammer ; birds carolled blithely
every branch, and the distant tinkle of a sheep-bell added its o
dulcet note to the harmonious whole. Ever and anon we pass
a wayside shrine or a primitive sanctuary, before which knelt
stood pious peasants, asking for God's grace as they wend
their way to their " long day's work." On every projection, hi
up against the sky-line, and standing out as if cut in steel, we
miniature Calvaries, the three crosses vividly distinct, while t
ascent to each Calvary was marked by twelve white stones t
Stations. The road from Murnau for more than a mile is arch
over by trees ; the leafy tunnel once pierced, and the heart lea
as the eyes greet the stupendous beauty that so suddenly flash
upon them. Rising majestically in front stand giant mountai
their snow-capped peaks penetrating the azure, impassable, insu
mountable ! To the right is the Etaller range, with the fir-ribb
Etaller Mandl more than five thousand feet above the valle
To the left the Herzogen stand, and the Krottenkopf seven tho
sand feet, while directly in front, barring the gorge, bidding d
fiance to invading Titans, stands the Zugspitz, more than
thousand feet high, its ghastly white summit dreaming in awf
quietude. Great- bars of sunshine slashed the mountain-sid
relieving the black shadows of the fir-trees in a weird and wond
ful way, while clots of molten gold dappled the snow or flung a
pink radiance on the dazzling white like the blush in the bud of
the moss-rose. The green, daisy-dappled fields stretched up-
wards to the fringe of woods, and tender tinted corn painted
the foreground from yellow to sage. Oh ! it was a " wondrous
bit o' nature a revelation."

Passing a farmhouse how picturesque are these Bavarian
houses, with their deep eaves, their wood-sculptured galleries,
their whitewash, their red tiles, and funny little windows of th
mediaeval ! we struck in a gorge or cleft in the mountains, anc
perched on a shelf of rock, found the little village of Oberai;
Here I dismissed the carriage, and having for the modest sum c
three marks seventy-five cents engaged a peasant to bear th
heat and burden of my baggage, prepared to ascend the steep am
romantic road that leads up the Etallerberg. And what a roa<

1 880.] THE PASSION PLA Y AT OBER-AMMERGA u. 65 L

that is ! fern-caressed and tree-shaded, while at every turn and
on every knoll is a " Gnadenkapelle," or chapel of grace, with its
enshrined image of the Mother of God, or a votive tablet erected
by the faithful with the beseechful " Ora pro me" humbly asking
the up-toiling pilgrim for his mite of prayer. One of these votive
tablets tells us how Alois Pfaulser died here of apoplexy in July,
1866, consequent upon over-exertion in climbing the hill. Another
bears a strange history. At the spot where it stands was formerly
erected a group of Christ on the Cross, with the Virgin and St.
John. The sculptor insisted upon its removal to Ober-Ammer-
gau ; the peasants protested. The sculptor obtained the neces-
ary authority, and, whilst engaged in superintending the lifting
the statue of St. John, the statue fell upon and crushed him to
eath. This road is lined on either side with images of the Ma-
onna, as the pious Bavarians believe in the old proverb which
ys, " The way to the representation of the Passion Play should
a way of penance." Upwards ! the Ammer murmuring on my
ft a thousand feet below, a streak of silver in the tree-shadowed
lley, while on my right rose the precipitous Ettalberg sheer
er the road, threatening to join issue with the towering moun-
in at the other side of the river. Upwards ! passing peasants on
t, greeting them with a return " Gros Gott " " God be with
you." Upwards ! ever and anon stopping to gaze into the fearful
depths, and to recover breath for the collar-work yet to be done.
Upwards ! passed by sybaritic pilgrims riding in carriages, losing
half the beauties of the marvellous scenery. Upwards ! and the
entrance to the Ammerthal is gained at last. A titanic crag once
passed, and lo ! the matchless loveliness of the valley of the
Ammer stole upon me like a sweet strain of music soft, dreamy,
delicious : a plain of verdure such as one sees in the Emerald
Isle, keen, lustrous, in the lap of giant mountains draped in a
yellow veil of dayshine. Nestling beneath the protecting
shoulder of the Ettaler Mandl stands the guardian of the valley,
the ancient Benedictine monastery of Ettal a monastery no
longer, save in name. It is asserted that here was the cradle of
the Passion Play, and that the Passion was performed in the
monastery so early as the twelfth century. Ettal is so closely
interwoven with Ober-Ammergau that it needs ample mention.
Its miraculous image of the Mother of God has ever rendered it
a place of noted pilgrimage. The legend goes that the German
mperor Ludwig the Bavarian, after having been crowned at
ome, was attacked at Milan. Having taken refuge in the mon-
tery of St. Victor, he implored heavenly aid, when a monk ap-

652 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.

peared to him, who placed a beautiful image of the Madonna i
his hands, promising him the gift of divine grace if he woul
pledge himself, upon arriving in the valley of the Ammer, t
found a Benedictine monastery wherein to enshrine the imag
The emperor made promise, and, escaping from his enemies, rod
up the Ettalerberg which the Passion pilgrim ascends to-da
Upon arriving at the entrance to the Ammerthal his horse f
thrice upon its knees. Interpreting this as a sign from on hig
he ordered a small chapel to be built upon the spot, and in t
year 1330 journeyed from Munich to lay the foundation-stone
the monastery of Ettal. The villagers of Ober-Ammergau pe
form a play written for them by the Geistlicher-Rath Daise
berger, entitled " The Founding of the Monastery of Ettal."

In 1744 the abbey, the church, and the library were reduced t
ashes by a stroke of lightning, while nearly all the treasures we
destroyed. The prior, at the risk of his life, succeeded in rescui
the statue of the Madonna. The church was rebuilt in 1/44. I
1803 Ettal shared the ruin of monastic institutions in Bavaria, a
its pious monks were driven to seek refuge in other lands. T
day the church alone tells the pitiful story of the former splend
of the monastery, the miraculo*us statue being the object of a
nual pilgrimage to tens of thousands ; but the remaining buil
ings are used for brewing purposes, and the cloisters that on
echoed to the footfall of sainted men now sullenly respond to t
sabots of " varlets of the vat."

The proprietor of the brewery is the Count von Pappenhei
hereditary grand marshal of the kingdom, who, 'together with
wife and children, resides in the great right wing. The fres
paintings in the dome of the church, as well as those over the altars,
are wondrous in the richness and freshness of their color. It is
rumored that the monastery will be refitted as a college. The late
king, Maximilian, was in favor of this project, and the present mon-
arch is nowise averse to it. Let us hope, then, in the near future to
hear the Angelus ring out over the sweet valley of the Ammer as
it rang out five hundred years ago when Ludwig the Bavarian ful-
filled his vow to Mary, hailed Full of Grace. Two miles from Ettal
stands Ober-Ammergau, the road leading through the valley and
beside the crystal river. Up in the air stands cross-crowned
Kofel, keeping watch and ward over its beloved village from a
height of three thousand feet. Quaint little houses, each adorned
with a fresco representing some sacred subject, mark the entrance
to the village, while the church, with its mosque-like dome, pee
jealously over the pointed roofs. On a lofty eminence at th

v-<*-

znng

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 653

other side of the village is erected a colossal marble group of the
Crucifixion. Composed, as it is, of white marble, it attracts the
eye at a considerable distance. The inscription on its base runs :
Presented to the community of Ober-Ammergau by King Lud-
ig II. of Bavaria, in commemoration of his majesty's visit to
Ober-Ammergau to witness the Passion Play in 1871, and his
appreciation of the earnest labors of the villagers in the perform-
ance of the vow made by their forefathers in the year 1633." The
village is singularly irregular, a house being jotted here and there
in a manner to drive a Baron Haussmann wild. The streets, if such
they may be termed, are exquisitely clean, as are all the surround-
ings, the show of whitewash on the houses being absolutely daz-
zling. The children are the rosiest, chubbiest, and most blue-
ed little urchins I have ever gazed upon. They are modest
t fearless, and will reply to your questionings in a wondrously
est way, their pellucid blue eyes raised to yours in a piquant
wistfulness defying description.

I sought lodging at the house of the peasant who plays the

: part of Herod ; but his son, a fair, long-haired youth of sixteen,

who assumes the role of the Joseph sold into captivity, informed

Be that every room had been let for a week before. I then tried
regor Lechner, the Judas ; he too was full. Tobias Plunger
late the same story. After a somewhat weary search I found
bed beneath the roof at the house of Frau Krach, the mother of
nastasia Krach, selected to play the important part of the Vir-
; gin Mary. I was located up two flights of ladders, and could
! stand upright in the centre of the room only ; but my bed was fit
for the Sleeping Princess, so neat was it. The walls were cov-
ered with holy pictures, and the wooden crucifix at the head of
my bed was the handiwork of mine host. It is in my possession
now ; the divine dolor on that face is a perfect marvel of expres-
sion.

Many influences have been at work to produce the peasant
i players of Ammergau. Imprimis is the ceremonial life of the
church, and then comes the skill of the villagers in wood-carv-
! ing. All the more intelligent members of the community are
wood-carvers, and the religious subjects which they select ad-
mirably fit them for the figures they perform on the stage, as well
as for correctness of form and pose. What they cut in their
homes they endeavor to represent ; and treating the subjects, as
they do, reverentially, they approach the characters full of a holy
awe combined with passionate fervor. The best performers in the
village are wood-carvers. The three men who have represented

654 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.

"Christus" since 1850 Plunger, Schauer, and Maier are al
skilled in this profession. But the great training-school for th<
Passion Play has been the village church with its cererm
nies, its processions, its music. The village school is coi
ducted in the same spirit, the preceptor acting under the parisl
priest, being necessarily not only a musician but likewise a coi
poser. The children are taught to sing passages from the Pas
sion Play, which is at once the Alpha and Omega of the lives
the villagers ; and when the public theatre is taken down at th<
end of the great decennial season, the stage, which still remains
is utilized for rehearsals, as well as for the performance of som<
of Daisenberger's masterpieces.

" For over thirty-five years," says Mr. J. P. Jackson in his admirabl
work, has the Geistlicher-Rath Daisenberger " devoted his whole life to tl
education of his flock. His whole existence is so completely interwovei
with that of his parishioners that we must attribute their progress, partici
larly in the dramatic line, mainly to him. Whoever has seen that
man of God, with his countenance so expressive of benevolence to us all
whether Protestants or Catholics, will recognize his image in the descri]
tion which Victor Sche.ffel makes of a rural priest in the Schwarzwah
though the framework is that of a long-past century."

Father Daisenberger, now eighty-two years old, is the son of
peasant of Oberau. His youth was spent in the monastery
Ettal, where his love of music and the religious drama rendere
him conspicuous. In 1845 ne was appointed spiritual shephen
at Ober-Ammergau. " I undertook the labor," says the worth]
priest, in allusion to his revision of the Passion Play, " with th<
best will, for the love of my divine Redeemer, and with only one
object in view namely, the edification of the Christian world."
In addition to his literary efforts Father Daisenberger undertook
the important charge of educating his parishioners up to the
level of their dramatic vocation. In his capacity .as pastor of
the flock he assumed the direction and arrangement of the
dramatic representations, leaving to the church-warden the ar-
rangement of the tableaux, and to the schoolmaster the direction
of the music and the rehearsals. In training the community for
their arduous and honorable task the following order was o
served : The committee distributed to the players their separat
parts. Next came rehearsals for individual actors. In the eve
ing the Pfarrer invited a certain number to his dwelling, wher
they had first to read their parts in a clear voice, and afterward
to recite them from memory. All the more prominent actors
had private lessons, and special attention was paid to those who

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 655

had to perform the most important functions on the stage. It
was scarcely probable that so elaborate a preparation could issue
in a failure. Luclwig I. ordered a revision of the text of the Pas-
sion Play by Father Daisenberger. The good father has also
published a history of the village, while he has compiled number-
less Biblical and historical plays and dramas. The addresses of
the Choragus in the Passion Play have been written by him after
the Greek model of strophe and antistrophe.

The actors in the Passion Play are elected after the most care-
ful investigation as to their respective merits. The parish priest
is chairman of the committee, consisting of forty-five house-
holders of the village, to whom the selection is relegated. In the
last week in the December prior to the performance the election
takes place and before the meeting the members of the com-
littee attend Mass and receive Holy Communion. The leading
les are disposed of in advance, although in 1 869 there were four
ligible candidates for the part of the Christus. A majority of
ie committee decides the election. There is no grumbling, and

actor thankfully accepts the part allotted him.
I arrived at Ober-Ammergau upon the evening of Saturday,
ie village was a scene of the liveliest animation. Every house
is full, every garden had its table, and each table its cheery
tests. From all the neighboring hamlets the inhabitants came
>oping in, the men, many of them too few, indeed in the
icturesque mountain dress, consisting of the conical hat adorned
r ith the cock's feather or the beard of the chamois, the short jer-
of gray trimmed with green, the stout leather breeches to the
ice, and the elaborately-embroidered gaiters. The women, too,
ire remarkable for the white neckerchief, the black corsets, the
skirts, and the buckled shoes. Alpenstock in hand, they
trudged into the village, their shoes white with the dust of the
roads, while on their backs reposed the stereotyped colored
umbrella and the inevitable chamois-skin wallet. All the Gast-
hofs, or little inns, did a roaring business, the famous foaming beer
and the trusty sausage being well to the fore. The Gasthof Stern,
the Delmonico'sof Ammergau, was literally besieged. Enterpris-
ing excursion companies have rented two of the hotels, and enor-
mous posters, in letters four feet in height, announcing this all-im-
portant fact, cover the entire facades. Apropos of enterprise, one
of these firms endeavored to purchase all the seats in the covered
portion of the theatre, with a view to reselling them well not
at a loss ; but the people of Ober-Ammergau would not agree to
this, and a peremptory order was issued to the effect that no tickets

656 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Au{

should be sold to any persons whatsoever until said persons had
registered as lodgers in the village. On Sunday morning I attend-
ed the nine o'clock Mass. N-ever had I beheld the ceremonies of o
holy church carried out in a manner at once so impressive a
so perfect. The splendid dignity of the clergymen, the grace
the acolytes, the marvellous precision, the magnificence of t
music, the rhythmical responses of the congregation in a wo
the ensemble was such as to give me a foretaste of the Passi
drama to be performed upon the following day. One sopra
voice in the choir was simply phenomenal. The church w
literally crammed, and of the thousand English visitors in t
village at least six hundred were present. Several " Hi
Church " divines exhibited a laudable piety and reverence, an
have little doubt that many unhappy heretics who came to mock
remained to pray. In the churchyard I encountered Anastasia
Krach, the young girl who plays the solemn role of the Virgin
Mother. She is a modest, meek-eyed maiden, with an openn
and purity of expression seldom to be met with outside the w
of the cloister. She has been a servant in the village, and
character is spotless. She is deeply sensible of the perilous ho
conferred upon her. " Oh ! " she exclaimed, " I feel so honor
so thankful. I always wish to die at the foot of the cross. I
not help weeping from the moment I come upon the stage unti
leave it. I choke with sobs. Oh ! if I could but die on that
vary. I feel the whole time as if I was not myself, but as if I
our Holy Mother. I am lifted from myself just as when I go
Holy Communion." This in a tearful 'earnestness. More than
once have I surprised this girl at her devotions as I passed fro
my apartment downwards, and I have seen her stretched on t
floor before a little altar erected in the principal living-room, in
very paroxysm of prayer. I spent a portion of Sunday in visit!
Joseph Maier, the Christus ; Gregor Lechner, the Judas ; and
Maria Lang, the Magdalene. Maier is a tall, slight, exceedingly
graceful man with soft, dark eyes and sweet expression. His a
pearance is exceedingly Nazarene, albeit his hair is brown
his beard of the same hue. I felt a little disappointed at this, as
looked for the wine-color that Guido loved to paint. His manner
is humility itself, and he is eagerly desirous of pleasing without
being in the least fawning or sycophantic. His little wood-
carver's bench stood in a corner of his room, and, as he raised his
arms on high in explanation of the manner of suspension on the
cross, came a bolt of sunlight against him ; and as his reflection
grew strong upon the wall, Holman Hunt's picture of " The Sh

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 657

dow of the Cross " was literally before me. Lechner is a lynx-
eyed man, a veritable Judas to gaze upon. Avarice and cunning-
lurk in every wrinkle of his face. His manner is Shylocky. The
selection of the committee for this role has been admirable. Maria
Lang, like Werther's Charlotte, was engaged in cutting bread and
butter when I entered her pretty dwelling. She is a bright, cheery
young girl, but one who realizes the importance of the task allot-
ted to her. She informed me that when she comes to anoint the
head and feet of Christ with spikenard she feels as if she would
swoon. In the evening I made pilgrimage to the group of the
Crucifixion, the gift of the king, of which I have already made
mention, and it was a glorious sight to behold hundreds of pea-
sants kneeling, the men bareheaded, wrapped in silent prayer at
the foot of the marble cross, some on the steps, some on the
gravel, some on the green grass. The setting sun gilded the
; gigantic cross upon the summit of Kofel, three thousand feet in
the air, as I turned toward the village, and the sweet tones of
the Angelus came wafted over the dappled meadows on a breeze
laden with the odor of a myriad of wild-flowers. Oh ! I was in a
Catholic land, where the faith was as the mountain air, pure, un-
tainted, bracing, glorious ! In the evening a band, preceded by
the fire brigade, passed through the village the prelude to the
play of the morrow. At ten o'clock every light was out and Am-
'mergau silent as the grave.

BThe booming of a cannon discharged beneath the precipitous
fel at five o'clock Monday morning set the village in motion,
a trice everybody was on the alert and en route to the church.
The number of communicants was enormous ; almost all of the
actors in the Passion Play approached the Holy of Holies. The
pastor delivered a short but pithy discourse, in which he exhorted
those who intended to be present at the performance to visit it in
x proper spirit and to take its great teaching into their hearts.
c\s early as seven o'clock the different paths leading to the thea-
re were literally choked, as thousands of peasants who failed to
)btain tickets hoped to gain admittance even at the eleventh hour,
paid eight marks not quite two dollars and was provided with
i cane-bottomed chair of the newest and most improved turn-up
)attern. The prices range from one mark to eight. From three
narks upwards the seats are covered ; the remainder are open to
ain and shine. The Ammergau Passion Theatre is a structure of
'ery unpretending exterior. It is built entirely of boards. The
uditorium is 118 feet wide and 168 feet deep. Its area is nearly
3,ooo square feet, and it can seat 6,000 persons. The stage
VOL. xxxi. 42

658 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.,

bears traces of the ancient classic theatre of Greece ; some con-
tend that it is but -a more perfect form of the mystery -theatre
of the middle ages. There are five distinct places of action for
the players : first, the proscenium for the chorus, for processions,
etc. ; second, the central stage for the tableaux vivants and the
usual dramatic scenes ; third, the palace of Pilate ; fourth, the
palace of Annas ; fifth, the streets of Jerusalem. A vast space is
thus placed at the disposal of the manager, not inferior in extent
to that in the nine-compartment stage used in the old mystery,
plays, yet infinitely more artistic in its arrangement. Over the
curtain, on a blue ground, are painted the figures of Faith, Hope,
and Charity, while in relief is a pelican feeding her young from
her heart's blood. But what a background ! High against the
blue sky stand the lordly Alps, the firs like needles in the azure,
their sides now ragged and rugged, now sloping and mantled in
the softest and most vivid verdure. Away in the distance the
silver Ammer meanders through pied meadows in the sweet
mergau valley, while Kofel with its guardian cross keeps solei
watch and ward over all. What resting-places for weary eyes,
what scenes of enchanting loveliness " outside the walls of Jeru-
salem " !

The Passion Play, which consists of eighteen acts, possesses two
peculiarities namely, tableaux vivants, or prophetic Old T<
ment types, and a chorus of Schutzgeister.

"Our main object," says Father Daisenberger in his text-book, " is
represent the story of Christ's Passion, not by a mere statement of facts,
but in its connection with the types and figures and prophecies of the Old
Testament. By this manner of treatment an additional, strong light will be
cast upon the sacred narrative ; and the thoughtful spectator will be able
to realize the grand truth that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, made man foi
our salvation, is the central figure of the inspired volumes. As in the his-
tory of the Christian Church the life of the Saviour and all his sacred acti
are continually repeated and reproduced, to the extent that (according
Scriptural commentators) he lives over again, suffers and triumphs again,
his saints, so it happened before his appearance in the flesh that the h
patriarchs and other saints of the Old Testament foreshadowed his co
by the events of their history and by their virtuous lives. For he is
eternal Sun of the spiritual world, the Sun of Justice, sending forth
divine rays to illuminate in all directions both his predecessors and succ
sors, no less than his contemporaries. Many of the incidents in the lives
the ancient Fathers bear a striking and obvious resemblance to various
in the life of our Redeemer, and set forth the sufferings, and death, and
surrection so minutely that the Evangelists continually mention some pn
phecy which was fulfilled. Thus, the heroes of the Scriptures, Adam, th
obedient Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Job, David, Micheas, Jonas, Daniel, ar

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 659

so many others who labored and suffered in his Spirit, represent in part,
though imperfectly, his life, and through what they accomplished and suf-
fered they became the prophets of that which in him, the Urbild, the primi-
tive type, should take place. In this fundamental thought is the represen-
tation of the Passion arranged and performed on the basis of the entire
Scriptures."

Thus does Father Daisenberger connect the Old Testament
with the New. The chorus of Schutzgeister, or Guardian Angels,
is a charming and prominent feature of the Passion Play. This
horus consists of nineteen persons, ten males and nine females,
e leader being styled the Prologue or Choragus. They are at-
ed in flowing tunics of vivid colors, with an upper garment in
e form of a cloak richly embroidered in gold, and each wears a
Iden tiara or crown. They advance from the recesses on either
de of the proscenium, and form a line, slightly concave, across the
ont of the stage. After the line is formed the Choragus an-
unces the prologue to each act in a sweet yet strong chant ; the
lo is taken up either alternately or by the whole chorus, until
e bell rings for the curtain to rise upon the stage within the
age to reveal a tableau vivant. Then the Choragus retires back-
ard, and forms, with one-half of the chorus, a division on the left
the stage, while the other -half withdraws in a like manner to
e right, " wheeling like a gate." This leaves the stage open.
When the curtain descends upon the tableau the chorus again
wheels into line, and in the chant which follows the connection
between the picture just vanished and the act in the Passion of
our Lord is pointed out. Then the chorus moves majestically
off the stage ; and thus from the opening to the end. These spirit-
singers prepare the audience for the coming scenes, and explain
and interpret in delightful harmony the connection between the
type and the fulfilment. They preside as Guardian Spirits over
he entire performance.

Boom ! and a cannon discharged under Kofel announces eight
o'clock. A deathlike silence falls upon six thousand people.
Every hat is removed, many a fervent prayer is uttered, while
thousands devoutly make the sign of the cross. The sun is shin-
ing down upon us, and birds flit across the stage. To the right
and left, in admirable perspective, are the streets of Jerusalem. A
child-actor emerges from one of the houses. It is clothed in a
strange gear, and is barelegged and barefooted. It shades its
eyes with its little hands and disappears. A strange thrill passes
through the audience at the sight of this child. It is the first
actual indication of the Passion Play. Behind the curtain the

660 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.,

six hundred performers are, with their parish priest, engaged in
prayer. Boom ! and the orchestra commences a low, wailing
music, sweet, inexpressibly sweet, and solemn. The chorus of
Schutzgeister appear upon the stage. They form in line, and,
with hands meekly folded on the breast, remain in this attitude
while the Choragus opens the play by explaining the main object
of the whole performance how the fallen race became reconcilec
to God through the blood of his only-begotten Son. This mail
object, the whole extent and scope of the Passion' Play, is to
exhibited in two tableaux. The first type represents the expulsioi
of Adam and Eve from Eden, symbolical of the fall ; the secon<
the Adoration of the Cross, typical of redemption. I give th<
first verse of the intoned prologue as a sample of what follows
through the play :

Wirf zum heiligen Staunen dich nieder,

Von Go ties Fluch gebeugtes Geschlecht!

Friede dir ! Aus Sion Gnade wieder \

Nicht ewig ziirnt Er,

Der Beleidigte ist sein Ziirnen gleich gerecht.

" Ich will " so spricht der Herr

" Den Tod des Sunders nicht vergeben

Will ich ihm : er soil leben !

Versohnen wird ihn selbst meines Sohnes Blut."

Preis, Anbetung, Freudenthranen, Ewiger Dir !

The following is the translation :

O human race ! by sin and shame laid low,
Adore thy God ; bend down and kiss the dust ;
Peace then shall come, and grace from Sion flow ;
Not ever spurns He,
The offended One ; although his wrath is just !

" I will " the Lord doth say

" Not that the sinner die forgive

Will I his guilt, and he shall live !

My Son's own blood shall now atone for him !"

Praise, worship, tears of joy to thee, Eternal One !

After delivering this verse the chorus divides and the first
typical picture is revealed to us. We see Adam and Eve cower-
ing before the angel, who drives them from Eden with a flaming
sword. In the background is Paradise, and the tree whose mor-
tal taste brought death unto the world, with the tempter peering
from its branches. The attitudes of the performers were adrrji-
rably suitable, and the rigidity of their pose simply marvellous. I
may mention here that all the actors in the tableaux vivants would

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 661

seem to be possessed of a wondrous power of remaining- still. All
through the various scenes they seemed as if cast in bronze.
Even the tiny children maintain a marble-like rigidity, and one little
fellow of two years, who lay in his mother's lap during the tableau
of the manna in the wilderness, never allowed so much as a muscle
to move no, not even when some of the falling manna dropped
upon his chubby, rosy, dimpled face. I had him under my opera-
glass, for I was told he was the boldest boy in the village, and
had insisted upon being permitted to take part in the drama.
The curtain remains up for about five or six minutes. The second
tableau reveals the Adoration of the Cross, the Choragus previ-
ously announcing the message of salvation. This tableau is im-
mensely effective alike from the variety of colors, the number of
persons on the stage, and the charmingly artistic grouping. A
host of angelic forms village children clad in the brightest hues
-pose round the cross, either kneeling or in attitudes expressive of
ving devotion, their tiny hands elevated toward the signal of
Ivation. The infant dramatists exhibit a wondrous training,
ch one proving an absolute study. To me this was the most
entrancing of all the tableaux. In the hymn which the children
nt is embodied the general outline of the play, and the whole
ope of the drama of redemption. Translated from the German
it runs thus :

: enti
Icha

! SCO]

Eternal God, oh ! hear thy children's prayer,

Though, children-like, we pray with faltering tone ;

Those who to see the Sacrifice repair

Bow low in faith and worship at thy throne !

Oh ! follow close by the Redeemer's side,
The while he, patient, treads the thorny path ;

Nor leave him while he struggles with the tide,
Until for you the victory he hath.

Now everybody is hushed in breathless awe. You can hear a
in drop in that audience of six thousand. Save for the twittering
of the birds as they flit across the stage, not a sound is heard.
Hearts almost cease to beat and every eye is strained down the
vista of the street in Jerusalem, for the first act of the Passion is
about to commence, and we are about to witness Christ's entry
into Jerusalem. I should mention that the Passion Play con-
sists of two parts the first part from Christ's triumphal entry
into Jerusalem to his betrayal, the second from the captivity in
Gethsemani to the Resurrection and Ascension. I have been in
the midst of many silences, but, save at the moment of the

662 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER.AMMERGAU. [Aug.,

elevation of the Sacred Host in church, I have known nothing
like that which now reigned ; it was positively painful.

Presently, as if in the distant streets, come glad tidings of
great joy. There are sounds of jubilation and gleesome shoutings
and singings. Then the street begins to be filled with a multitude
of people of both sexes, attired in yellows, and blues, and oranges,
and pinks, and purples, till the eye feasts on color. Down the
slope of Olivet they have come, singing hosanna. Every person
waves a palm-branch, and scores of tiny children, bare-breasted,
bare-limbed, push joyously through the throng, all gazing at one
figure, and never so much as a look toward the six thousand who
sit in awed silence fearfully watching them. In the midst of
the crowd appears our Divine Lord, seated upon an ass, his dis-
ciples following. I may not describe my sensations as I gazed
upon him. I cannot. The first prayer lisped at my mother's
knee welled up in my heart through the fountain of memory,
and it gushed from my heart to my lips as the meek, serene, and
glorious God-man passed visibly before me. Sobs resound
upon all sides, and a murmur ascended to heaven like incen
The effect upon that vast audience was marked by a high de
of intensity. Over five hundred persons are on the stage,
recognize his disciples John, the best beloved ; honest, rug
Peter ; Matthew, James, Andrew, and the rest. Judas we mark
his gabardine of flame-color surmounted by an orange man
We look for him with a fearful, abhorrent curiosity. Bursts fo
a hosanna chorus, and the Man of Sorrows, still seated upon t
ass, passes around, casting blessing on the people. It was as
the pictures of the mediaeval painters had become endowed wi
life. Maier, when on the stage, is the possessor of a majestic gr
such as it is impossible to convey in words. He looks as if he
had stepped from out the frame of some ancient master. I
not miss the wine-colored hair, since his grenat mantle almost
fleeted itself in his beard, and his whole appearance was so a
ingly realistic, so intensely Nazarene. The St. John of Johan
Zwink is as perfect a creation as it is a perfect picture. Mi
loving, yearning, he follows his Master, his whole soul in eve
gesture, in every look. Zwink, in his appearance, is the very e
bodiment of all that we could imagine of the youngest and
beloved. I could scarcely realize this wondrous, this awe-stri
ing scene as it solemnly passed before my eyes. Was I in Je
salem ? Had my life and its pitiful worldly work been but
dream, and had I awakened at last ? Had my mental vision be
cleared, and was the Son of God taking a visible form and acting;

i
I

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 663

his part on the theatre of the world ? There was no dream-like
vagueness here. All was vigor and reality. Spell-bound I gazed,
riveted, fascinated. There stood the form with which my ima-
gination had been busy since my childhood that of the Saviour
himself. Full of mildness and majesty, it seemed to exercise an
indescribable authority. No spectator can gaze upon the Sa-
viour, although in the drama, and remain unmoved ; and there
was no spectator in that vast concourse of people whose heart at

he moment of his appearance was not keenly affected. Christ
dismounts from the ass. He addresses his disciples : " The hour
is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Amen, amen I
y to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die,
itself rem-aineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much
it " (John xii. 23, 24). All the jubilation has now subsided,

nd the curtain rises upon the Temple, represented in the central

tage. Jesus approaches the buyers and sellers, and acts in ac-
rdance with the scene described in Mark xi. 15: " And when

e was entered into the Temple, he began to cast out them that
Id and bought in the Temple, and overthrew the tables of the
money-changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves." As he
utters the last words, " Take what is yours, and leave this sacred

lace," he seizes a number of cords, and, advancing to where the
traffic is most unseemly, overturns seats and tables, dashing jars
to the ground, which break into a hundred pieces, and letting
loose a number of live doves, who affrightedly flutter back to the
village. Maier's dignified composure during this scene serves to
imbue it with a marvellous realism, while his soft, mellifluous
voice seems suited, as near as may be, to his super-exalted role.
Sadoc, one of the high-priests, derides the authority of Christ, and
here is born the germ of the conspiracy that leads to the great
catastrophe.

The second act gives us the High Council, preceded by the
bleau of the sons of Jacob conspiring against their brother

oseph. The addresses with which the Choragus opens each act
e the composition of Father Daisenberger. They differ from

he form of the Greek strophe and antistrophe in one single par-

icular namely, that whilst on the Greek stage they were spoken
by different members of the chorus, in the Passion Play they are
delivered by the Choragus alone. I give the address by the
Choragus prior to the second act, as a type of its successors
throughout the play :

"All hail! Welcome to the band of brothers whom love divine hath
here assembled ; who wish to share the sorrows of their Saviour, and to

664 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.,

follow him step by step on the way of his sufferings to the cross and t<
the sepulchre. All who have come hither from far and near feel them-
selves united in brotherly love, as the disciples of the One who died for
all, and who, full of mercy and compassion, gave himself up to the bittei
death for us. Let our gaze and heart, then, be directed towards him in hai
monious thankfulness. Behold ! he feeleth the approach of the hour
tribulation. He is ready to drink of the cup of sorrow. For now the sei
pent brood of the envious have formed a plot with avarice to bring hii
speedily to ruin. That bitter form of malice which once inspired the
brothers of Joseph with murderous desires, so that they shamelessly coi
plotted in fanatical wickedness to put the innocent to death, is urging 01
the fallen priestly race to remove the Herald of truth from the number
the living."

This is delivered in recitative by the Choragus, Johann Di<
mer, whose splendid basso fills the entire auditorium, every not
and every word falling like the strokes of a clock upon the ear.

The first tableau in act ii. reveals the plain of Dothain, ii
which Joseph found his brethren and their flocks, and upon whicl
the sequel of the Biblical narrative took place. In the foregroun<
are the brothers of Joseph, and near them, in the garment of man]
colors which his father gave him as a sign of distinction, Josepl
himself. The well into which he is to be cast is on the right, anc
beside it a man of huge stature who is prepared to cast hii
into it.

Act ii. gives us the scene in the High Council. The scene is ii
the Jewish Sanhedrim. Caiphas and Annas preside. The breast
Caiphas is graced with the shield or breastplate containing tweb
precious stones, with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel tl
most exalted of all Jewish decorations. Caiphas violently d<
nounces Christ, and the aged Annas cries : " By my gray hairs
swear not to rest until the inheritance of our religion is secured
by his death." The commission is given from the Sanhedrim to
the usurers who attend, still smarting under being driven from
the Temple, to find out Christ's place of sojourn, and one of thei
intimates that he knows a disciple of Christ who is capable
betraying his Master.

Two tableaux precede act iii. young Tobias taking leave
his parents, and the lamenting bride of the Canticles. These two
tableaux indicate the principal scenes in the third act namely, the
anointing of the Saviour's feet by Mary Magdalene, and the parl
ing from his Mother. Here we have the young Tobias leaving
his home, the angel Raphael taking him by the right han<
Every detail is perfect, nor is the dog mentioned in the Biblical nar-
rative omitted. The tableau prepares the audience for the scen<

W UJ

irri

wit

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 665

that succeeds the departure of Christ from Bethany, that place
so loved by him, the home of Simon the leper, and of Lazarus
whom he raised from the dead, and of Mary and Martha, and
whither it was his practice to repair at sunset, tarrying until
morning, when he returned to Jerusalem. The sorrowing bride
is surrounded by her bride-maidens daughters of Jerusalem-
all of whom endeavor to console her by singing and harp and
cymbal playing. " This tableau," says Mr. Jackson, "has been
frequently condemned as the least appropriate symbolic picture
of the play, but the idea embodied in it is peculiarly delicate.
One of the most usual comparisons adopted in Scripture to set
forth the union of Christ and the church is that of a marriage, in
which Christ is represented as a bridegroom and the church as
bride."

The anointment takes place in the house of Simon. Christ
nd his disciples seat themselves at the table, and Martha waits
pon them. Jesus sits to the left of the table, and whilst he is
ngaged in addressing his disciples Mary Magdalene enters hur-
iedly, and, casting herself at the feet of her Saviour, proceeds to
noint them. Maria Lang, the Magdalene, acquits herself fairly.
She is not by any means a good actress, nor is her personnel after
Correggio ; but the tender, pitiful grace of the role obliterates all
shortcomings, and the actress is lost in the repentant, soul-wrung
woman frantically wrestling toward the light. Judas is sore and
itated at the waste of so much costly ointment, and remonstrates
ith his Master. But Christ replies : " Why do you trouble
this woman ? for she hath wrought a good work upon me." Then
s Maier uttered the following he seemed to me to be filled with
upernatural beauty : " Amen I say to you, wheresoever this
gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she
hath done shall be told for a memory of her." His disciples ask
whither the Master is now about to lead them, imploring him not
to go to Jerusalem ; but the Master replies : " Follow me ; the rest
ye shall see."

The parting at Bethany, where Jesus takes leave of his Mother,
is deeply pathetic. Anastasia Krach, the Madonna, looks the
Virgin as Rubens painted her. She is graceful, and there is a
sorrowful quietude in her every action that typifies the gruesome
shadow in her heart. As the parting takes place all are laden
down with sorrow, save Judas, who, still stirred to the depths of
his avaricious soul at the waste of the precious ointment, ex-
claims : " These three hundred pence would be just enough for
me. If I had secured them I could now live contentedly. No ;

666 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.,

1 will no longer be one of his disciples, but will take the first oj
portunity of quitting his company." Here is the germ of the b<
trayal of the kiss in the Garden of Gethsemani.

Act iv. is devoted to Christ's last journey to Jerusalem, th<
tableau being King Assuerus repudiating Vasthi and elevating
Esther. The Choragus, assisted by the entire chorus, chant!
the solemn warning :

Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! arise,
And hear the voice that speaks to you of peace ;
And know, if this last warning you despise,
The day of grace for evermore will cease.

The tableau is the narrative of the book of Esther. We see
King Assuerus just as he has selected Esther from among th<
virgins and placed her beside him on the throne, Vasthi regan
ing him with looks of scorn and hatred.

In the opening scene of the journey to Jerusalem the audience
beholds the Redeemer and the apostles passing the brow of Oli-
vet on their way to Jerusalem. He bids Peter and John repai]
to the city to prepare the Passover lamb. To the others he says
" The hour is near in which the Scriptures shall be fulfilled. A<
company me this day for the last time to my father's house." Al
except Judas follow Christ to the Holy City. Iscariot remain?
behind wrestling with his fire-laden thoughts. In the masterfi
soliloquy which follows, the idea of the betrayal crawls like som<
noisome reptile into life. Dathan and other exasperated buyei
and sellers of the Temple arrive. Dathan pours the leprous distil
ment into the too willing ear of Iscariot, and hies to the Sanhedrii
to announce his success. Judas plucks the last white blossom
from his conscience.

" Traitor " ! That loathsome name

I must not, will not bear ! Traitor? and yet

I do a harmless thing : the Council asks

At such an hour where the good Master dwells.

And if I tell, 'tis no betrayal false.

Act v. contains the Last Supper, preceded by two tableaux

1. The Lord sending manna to the Israelites in the wilderness ;

2. The grapes brought by the spies from Chanaan. The special
significance of the tableaux is thus indicated by the Choragus
through the charming diction of Father Daisenberger :

" Our Divine Benefactor, about to enter upon the career of his suffer-
ings, urged by the impulse of his infinite charity, provides spiritual nourish-
ment for his children during the time of their pilgrimage on earth. Being

1 8 So.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 667

himself prepared to be a sacrifice, he institutes a sacrament that shall pro-
claim through centuries and to the end of time his love for humanity.
With the rain of manna the Lord miraculously fed the children of Israel in
the desert, and gladdened their hearts with grapes from Chanaan. But
Christ offers us a better banquet, one from very heaven. From his myste-
rious body and blood grace and bliss flow upon humanity."

The first tableau, revealing the rain of manna, is a magnificent
spectacle, and is by many considered the most effective of the
numerous tableaux. The groups in this marvellous picture are
composed of nearly five hundred persons, two hundred being chil-
dren, some of whom are almost infants. Moses, from whose head
rays of sunlight seem to radiate, points with a staff to heaven.
Mothers hold their babes toward the refreshing rain, while every
hand is stretched and every eye turned to the cloud from whence
the supply of manna falls in endless and grateful shower Oh ! it
as a beauteous sight to behold the tender children, their inno-
cent and lovely faces lifted toward heaven, extending baskets and
garments to catch the delicious food for which they so eagerly
yearned. Each child seemed as though its little heart were set
upon the task. Each face was suffused with the rosy red of ex-
citement, and tiny hands quivered in eager graspings. The color-
ing was a perfect glory, the harmonies of tone a lesson even to a
Burne Jones or a Morris. Passing the second tableau, which is
utterly dimmed by its superb predecessor, the great, the awful,
the divine mystery of the Last Supper is presented to us. Here
was Leonardo da Vinci's picture in its most minute detail. Here
was the chamber in the house of Mark. The Saviour and his
disciples stand round the table, the master of the house and a
servant in attendance. After all are seated Christ is in the centre,
with Peter at his right and John on his left. To the right of
Peter, Judas, James the elder, Andrew, Thomas, and Simon ; to
the left of John, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the younger,
Philip, and Thaddeus. The lamb and wine are placed on the
table, and after prayer arises a discussion amongst the disciples
in reference to the place of honor in the kingdom of the future,
which they expect in an earthly sense. The Redeemer makes no
reply to the questioning, but asks for water and a towel where-
with to wash the feet of his disciples. All through this awe-in-
spiring scene the acting of Maier is simply marvellous. Placing
a white cloth about him, Christ addresses Peter, " Peter, reach
hither thy foot." Peter recoils, exclaiming, " Lord, dost thou
wash my feet ? " Christ makes answer, " What I do thou know-
est not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." Then Peter rever-

668 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Aug.

ently cries, " Thou shall never wash my feet." Jesus again mak
answer, " If I wash thee not thou shalt have no part with me.'
Then Peter cries, " Lord, not only my feet, but also my han
and my head." He removes his sandals, the servant places th
vessel into which the apostle thrusts his foot, and pours wate
over it from a pitcher. Christ, kneeling upon one knee, wipes th
foot with a linen cloth. In like manner the feet of all the di
pies are washed. Every one in that audience felt a thrill as th
Saviour approached Judas. The betrayer shrinks from our Lor
shrinks as though the touch of the Master bore death with i
When the feet are washed John assists the Redeemer in repla
ing his mantle. As Christ utters the words, " Now ye are cle
yet not all," Judas starts as if stricken by a bolt.

And now follows the institution of the Blessed Eucharis
The silence in the audience was almost painful ; we are spel
bound, removed from earth, as it were, translated into anoth
state of being. Christ first takes the bread, and, lifting it toward
heaven, prays, " O Father! give thy blessing." Then he brea
the bread, giving a portion to each of his disciples, beginnin
with Peter, following with John, and placing a fragment on th
tongue of all, saying, in the sanctifying words that vibrate in th
Catholic heart : " Take ye and eat : this is my body, which
given for you ; this do in commemoration of me." As he pla
the heavenly food on the tongue of Judas the latter is struck wit
consternation. Christ then raises the cup, and, lifting his eye
towards heaven, gives thanks, and, handing it to his disciples, e^
claims, in the words of Matthew, " Drink ye all of it ; for this i
my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for man
for the remission of sins." Again as he tenders it to each in su
cession he says, " As often as ye do this, do it in remembrance o
me." John allows his head to droop on his Master's breast, and
after a pause Christ announces that one of them will betray him.
" Master, is it one of the twelve ? " demand the disciples, speak-
ing all together. Christ responds in the affirmative. Then
comes the question, " Is it I ? " asked by each in turn, Judas last,
to whom the Lord replies, " Thou sayest it." John urges that he
will tell them who the betrayer may be. Christ answers him,
" He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it."
He then dips the sop, and, rising, advances to Judas, who would
fain have rejected it, but may not. Then the Redeemer places
the sop in the mouth of Iscariot, saying, u Judas, that thou doest,
do quickly." Judas, so soon as he tastes the bread, starts to his
feet, and, casting one last ghastly look of horror upon his Master,

i88o.] IRISH FAMINES. 669

rushes forth from the apartment. Then Christ utters the mem-
orable words, " Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is
glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God also will
glorify him in himself, and immediately will he glorify him.
Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek
me, but whither I go ye cannot come." Peter here affirms that
he will give his life for the Master. Christ makes answer, " O Si-
mon ! amen I say unto thee that this night, before the cock crow,
thou shalt deny me thrice." This act of the Passion Play moves
the very inmost soul. It brings one face to face with the institu-
tion of the Divine Sacrament. One is absolutely living and
breathing in the Real Presence. We are spectators of the insti-
tution of the Holiest of Holies. We are with Christ in the house
of Mark ; we hear him speak, we see him move ; we could touch
his robe, if we would nay, we could touch his hand. It was
overwhelming. Even when the curtain descended- the sense of
awe remained, and with it a sublimity of feeling impossible, yea,
tterly impossible, to describe.

CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

IRISH FAMINES.

ONCE again, for the third time within eighty years, for the
third time within the memories of living men, the voice of Ire-
land has been heard above the turmoil of antagonistic national po-
licies appealing to the peoples of the earth for aid for her perish-
ing children. Three times within less than a century, twice since
the accession of Queen Victoria, alone of the countries of Europe,
Ireland has had to mourn her people decimated, exiled, and im-
poverished. No country in the world has been so often or so
sorely tried by want as Ireland. No doubt in the middle ages
the occurrence of famine in the most favored portions of the
globe w T as no unprecedented event. The operation of the feudal
system occasionally drew away, sometimes for lengthened peri-
ods, the tillers of the soil, and the consequent neglect of agricul-
tural operations naturally tended to produce scarcity and pov-
erty. In the words of Hallam : " Evil indeed were those days in
France, when out of seventy-three years, the reigns of Hugh Ca-
pet and his two successors, forty-eight were years of famine.
Evil were the days for five years from 1015, in the whole western

670 IRISH FAMINES. [Aug.,

world, when not a country could be named that was not desti
tute of bread." * In 1314, in the reign of Edward III., a famin
of terrible magnitude ravaged England. " Even the king's famil
found it difficult on some occasions to procure bread for the
ble." A pestilence ensued, bands of robbers plundered and mur
dered, so that " the whole country presented one great theatre
rapine, anarchy, and bloodshed." f In 1437 famine and plagu
again devastated both France and England ; but, after all, the r
cords of such events in the national chronicles of most countrie
even during the middle ages, are sparse and few. Far otherwi
however, is it when we examine those of Ireland ; for no other E
ropean nation has suffered so much from famine. Search th
chronicles of every province from Orenburg to Estramadur
from the Morea to Tromsoe, visit every city and town from Troits
to Lisbon, from Tripolitza to Hammerfest, and never a line wi
you find that robs the Irish of the title of the most suffering pe
pie Europe has known a title cruelly earned by the terrible fr
quency of the recurrence of their trials. Most other peoples ca
look back on the pages which record their former sufferings, an
thank God none such come upon them now ; but Irishmen, wh
they scan the pages which tell of A.D. 1228, 1318, 1433, 1497, 154
1581, 1603, 1652, 1740, 1825, 1846-7, and 1880, can only pray G
that the trials before them may be no worse than those their f
thers and themselves have already undergone. No Irishman
hold the history of his native land before him and say that famin
is impossible in the future, for famine any year, aye, any mont
seems the terrible prerogative of the Celt in his native land. I
is true that some of the causes which produced some of the ea
lier Irish famines no longer exist, and it is to be hoped that,
these days of " modern civilization," some others which we shal
have to recall would not, under any possible circumstances,
allowed to be put in force or to produce their inevitable results
though we must confess that certain stories about the treatmen
of hill-villages in Afghanistan and kraals in Zululand lead us
entertain misgivings upon this point.

The first Irish famine recorded in the Annals of the Four
Masters occurred in A.D. 1228. It appears to have been confined
to the western districts, and was brought about in the manner
which the words of the annalists best describe :

"Hugh, son of Cathal Cromdearg O'Conor, King of Connaught,

* View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 328. Murray's ed.,
1872.

t Lmgard, History of England, vol. iii., $d ed.

all

:nt

1 8 So.] IRISH FAMINES. 671

treacherously slain by the English, in the court of Geoffrey Marisco, after he
had been expelled by the Conacians.

"A great war broke out in Connaught between Hugh and Turlogh,
sons of Roderick O'Conor, after the death of the aforementioned Hugh, for
the younger brother would not yield submission to the elder; so that the
entire of Connaught lying between Ballysadare and the river of Hy Fiachra,
southward, except a small part of Slieve Lugha and the territory of Air-
tagh, was laid waste by them.

" Excessive dearth prevailed in Connaught in consequence of the war
between the sons of Roderick O'Conor. Both the churches and the coun-
try were plundered ; the clergy and learned men were exiled into foreign
lands ; and many persons perished of cold and famine."

This famine was, however, trivial in comparison to what, with-
in less than a hundred years, the disastrous attempt of Edward
Bruce, in 1318, to seize Ireland produced. The annalists record

I that
"A general famine prevailed for the three years and a half he had been
in it, and the people were almost reduced to the necessity of eating each
other."

Another century had barely elapsed before famine again came
upon Ireland. Of this visitation perhaps the most thorough de-
scription lies in the designation which, in seeming satire, was
afterwards given the season in which it occurred. The hospita-
lity of the ancient Irish was proverbial, their feelings as regards
kinship or clanship sometimes mischievously and unwisely
strong, but so dire was the want in the summer of the year 1433
that old ties were broken, kith and kin were forgotten, and the
season was styled and remembered as " the summer of slight ac-
quaintance," for " no one would recognize friend or relative on
account of the greatness of the famine."

In 1497 and the following year Ireland again felt the grasp of
want, and we have recorded, in the quaint language of the old
annal-makers, that " the people ate food which is not fit to be
mentioned, such as was never served on dishes for human beings."
In 1 545 another famine laid waste the land, but appears to have
been most severely felt in the midland and western districts.
In 1552 yet another occurred, brought about by a scarcity of
grain. It is curious to note how often the poverty of Ireland
seems to have been the outcome of war. Then, as now, the peo-
ple were industrious and not over-many, their land was fertile,
and yet poverty of the cruellest kind periodically crushed them.
A state paper of the reign of Henry VIII., dealing with the con-
tinual disturbances in Ireland, declares

672 IRISH FAMINES. [Aug.,

" That if this land were put once in order as aforesayed, it would be
none other but a very Paradise, delicious of all pleasaunce, to respect and
regard of any other lande in this worlde." *

In the reign of Henry, as in that of Victoria, English writers
were ready to cast the blame for the uncertain condition of the
country on any shoulders but those of their own countrymen.
Yet none of the evils of the famines of the previous years could
be compared with those which the singularly English process of
" pacification," enforced in the reign of Elizabeth, brought about.

" The land itselfe, which before those wars was populous, well inhabited,
and rich in all the good blessings of God, being plenteous of corne, full of
cattell, well stored with fish and sundrie other good commodities, is now
become waste and barren, yielding no fruits, the pastures no cattell, the
fields no corne, the aire no birds, the seas (though full of fish) yet to them
yielding nothing. Finallie, every waie the curse of God was so great, and
the land so barren both of man and beast, that whosoever did travell from
the one end to the other of all Munster, even from Waterford to the head of
Limericke, which is about six-score miles, he would not meet anie man,
woman, or child, saving in towns and cities, nor yet see anie beast, but the
very wolves, the foxes, and other like ravening beasts. "t

Verily, the soldiers of the " Virgin Queen " " made a wilder,
ness and called it peace." Spenser tells us :

" Notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country,
full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they (the Irish)
should have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were
brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart would have rued the
same. Out of every corner of the woods and gtynns they came, creeping
forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them ; they looked like
anatomies of death ; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves." \

Mountjoy, the lord justice, writing to the lords of the council
in England, says :

"O'Hagan protested unto us that between Tullaghoge and Toome
there lay unburied a thousand dead, and since our first drawing this year to
Blackwater there were above three thousand starved in Tyrone."

The destruction of the standing crops as well as of the stored,
the plundering of their flocks, were all as much portion of the
weapons with which Englishmen crushed the disaffected Irish as
were the swords they wore and used so mercilessly. Listen to
the following list of a few of the English raids, and wonder, if you
will, why Irishmen were not loyal to the " Queenes Most Excel-
lente Majestic," and wonder, too, if you can, why famine came:

* Quoted by O'Connell in his Ireland and the Irish, p. 99, ed. of 1843.

t Hollinshed, vol. vi. p. 459. \ View of Ireland^ p. 166.

i88o.] IRISH FAMINES. 673

"In 1563 the lord deputy, Thomas Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, in the war
with Shane O'Neill, entered Tyrone and took a prey of 600 kine, and on
another occasion he seized 3,300 kine and 1,500 garrons, which he divided
amongst his soldiers. In 1567 Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam plundered O'Neill's
country and took away 2,000 cows and 500 garrons. In 1580 Lord Deputy
Pelharn carried off from Clanawliffe, in Cork, 2,000 kine and many sheep,
and also another lot from Castlemaine, in Kerry. In the same year the
queen's forces plundered from the people of Kerry 8,000 cows. In 1586
Bingham, the queen's governor of Connaught, took in Galway and Mayo
4,000 cows. In 1588 Hugh Roe MacMahon, Lord of Monaghan, had to give
the lord deputy, Fitzwilliam, a bribe of 600 cows to get possession of his
own lands, yet nevertheless was shortly afterwards hanged by the said
Fitzwilliam. About the same time Maguire, Lord of Fermanagh, had alsc/
to bribe the same deputy with 300 cows. In 1600 and 1601 Docwra, gover-
nor of Deny, repeatedly ravaged and plundered Derry and Donegal, de-
stroyed the crops, and massacred the people, carrying off in all at least
3,000 cows. In 1601 Sir Charles Wilmot ravaged Kerry and took 4,000
cows from Iveragh. In the same year Sir Samuel Bagnall took 2,000 cows,
ith horses and sheep, from Muskerry. In 1601 Sir Francis Barkley took
cows in Longford, and in the same year 2,000 cows, 200 garrons, and
many sheep in Cavan and Fermanagh. In 1600 Mountjoy plundered and
laid waste Wicklow, Kildare, Carlow, King's, and Queen's Counties, de-
stroyed more than ten thousand pounds' worth of corn, and carried off 4,000
cows and 700 garrons, with many sheep. Sir Oliver Lambert carried on
the campaign with imitative rigor, and took 1,000 cows and 500 garrons.
In 1601 Sir Francis Barkley devastated MacAuliffe's territory and carried
off 1,000 cows and 200 garrons, with many sheep ; and in 1602 Sir Charles
Wilmot sent a troop to plunder Dunkerron and other parts of Kerry, and
they drove off 2,000 cows, 4,000 sheep, and 1,000 garrons."*

1 with

, *

When it is remembered that to the terrible loss entailed upon
the unfortunate people by the lifting of their cattle is to be added
the total destruction of their crops, of their homes, and the indis-
criminate murders committed by the English troops, some faint
conception may be formed of the condition to which they and
their country were reduced. In 1581 and 1582 the failure of the
crops, brought about by an inclement season, produced starvation
and suffering even in those districts where the horrors of English
war-making had not been perpetrated ; and again in 1603 the
people had to do battle for their lives with want. The distress
caused by this latter calamity was aggravated in Munster by the
measures adopted to crush the rebellion which the death of Queen
Elizabeth had warranted. Lord Deputy Mountjoy's entrance
into Cork during his campaign against the rebels was signalized
by a practical piece of sarcasm on the part of its citizens, for they
collected a vast number of the ploughs which the sad condition

* Epitomized from a note in Connellan and MacDermott's edition of the Annals of the
Four Masters.

VOL. xxxi. 43

674 IRISH FAMINES. [Aug.,

of the country had rendered useless, and his lordship rode from
the gate whereat he entered to his lodgings through streets
lined at either side with the rusty and perforce disused instru-
ments of agriculture. Most mercilessly and thoroughly did the
myrmidons of Mountjoy and Chichester do their work. Their
swords and torches were unhesitatingly applied, and starvation
and misery were the portions of the faithful Celts. Mountjoy
could almost truly boast that the foul work had been done so well
that" not all the garrons in Ireland could draw a single cannon." 1
It comes to us almost as a grim piece of humor when we read
that the English commanders, in their anxiety to starve the Irish,
ran the risk of starving their own soldiers. Sir George Carew
wrote Cecil that the troops were " in great distress for want of
victuals. For three months there have been no victuals to main-
tain the soldiers of Leinster " ; and cried out that " the kingd
was in famine and great anxiety. "f The blood-stained warri
were reaping all they had sown. In the midst of all the trou
which covered the land, the strangest problem of all, to the E
lish leaders, was that while misery unfathomable had been deer
the Irish ; while poverty and starvation, death by the hangm
cord or in the pestiferous dungeon, by the sword on the field
battle or by hunger in the bogs and woods while wrongs
utterable had been their lot, through all, through peril and w
through all the hideous horrors which beset them, they clu
to their old faith clung to it with the love which knows
weakening, clung to it with the faith which faith begets. The
Protestant bishop of Cork had to write the lord deputy, co
plaining of the coming in of Jesuits and such folk, and that th
had " Massing in every place." \ Do their best or worst, and th
never could quite manage to stop this " Massing " ; somehow or
another it seemed to be the one thing they could not kill. That
pestilence followed the famine is not to be wondered at, but it
again affords some pleasure to read of the wild feelings of dread
it aroused in the breasts of the English. The Privy Councillors
fled from Dublin, the courts of justice (?) were closed for, in th
words of the attorney-general, Sir John Davies, " the plague pu
another thorn in the foot of the law."

The Cromwellian war, and the pursuance of that policy
" thoroughness " which has so captivated the brilliantly unreli;
ble English historian, Mr. Froude, left Ireland again prostrate ir
poverty and degradation. The driving forth of the Catholic

* Calendar of State Papers Ireland, 1603-6, p. 26.

flbid,, 1603-6, pp. 117-18. t Ibid -> 1606-8, p. 133.

'he

;

1880.] IRISH FAMINES. 675

Irish from their original dwelling-places to the barren, unculti-
vated parts of Connaught, to make room for the incoming Eng-
lish " adventurers," naturally left whole districts waste, and some
of the previously most flourishing cities and towns poverty-
stricken. As " three thousand good houses in Cork and as many
in Youghal " stood vacant and derelict, English soldiers disman-
tled and demolished them.* The inhabitants of Castleknock, a
suburb of Dublin, only separated from the capital by the noble
park which is at once its boast and privilege, were so much
irassed by the depredations of the wolves that prowled in the
roods about that on the 2Oth December, 1652, a public hunt was
dered by government. Destitution of the most appalling kind
-evailed. Out of their own mouths it is always fittest to con-
jmn those who wrong a nation and a people, and surely fittest
lode of all is it with those who do the wrong with the placidity
hypocrisy, and gloss it over with Pharisaical words :

" Upon serious consideration had of the great multitudes of poore
arming in all parts of this nacion, occasioned by the devastation of the
untry, and by the habits of licentiottsness and idleness which the generality
the people have acquired in the time of this rebellion ; insomuch that
requently some are found feeding on carrion and weeds, some starved in
the highways, and many times poore children who lost their parents, or
have been deserted by them, are found exposed to, and some of them fed
pon, by ravening wolves and other beasts and birds of prey." t

One can almost imagine the Roundhead knave who indited
this Declaration in some comfortable apartment in Dublin
Castle, smiling secretly at his own handiwork, and rolling his
eyes ceilingwards as he lamented " the habits of licentiousness
and idleness" of the Papist Irish.

"We have three beasts to destroy" (said Major Morgan, member for
wicklow in the Cromwellian Parliament at Westminster) " that lay bur-
thens upon us. The first is the wolf, on whom we lay five pounds a head.
The second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay ten pounds if he be
eminent, more. The third beast is a Tory,| on whose head, if he be a public
Tory, we lay twenty pounds ; and forty shillings on a private Tory. Your
army cannot catch them ; the Irish bring them in."

The ex-major of the " Ironsides " hardly meant that the Irish
" brought in " the wolves, for, save whatever abstract sympathy

* Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, p. 143.

t Printed Declaration of the Council, i2th of May, 1653, quoted by Prendergast.

\ Tory is a Gaelic word, and was first applied as above to the members of the semi-patri-
otic and political bands of freebooters who overran Ireland. As a rule, they were the dispos-
sessed original inhabitants, led by broken and proscribed gentlemen.
Quoted in Mr. Prendergast's valuable work.

6'/6 IRISH FAMINES. [

the fact that they were hunted like themselves may have arou*
for the quadrupeds in their breasts, they had probably as littl
real liking for these wolves as had their conquerors. He di(
however, refer to the priests ; and verily the Irish did bring tht
in, for they came knowing Ireland needed them, and they wei
sent because the grand old heart of Rome ever loved her faithfi
children. They came, young and old, sons of the soldier-saint
Manresa, children of St. Dominic and St. Augustine, Carmelit<
and Franciscans. They left the peaceful halls of Douay, th<
marble palaces of Rome, and the quiet cloisters of sanctifi<
Toledo, they looked their last upon the sunlit, vine-clad plains
Italy, and came to Ireland, to live, hunted and famished, in mis
erable sheelings, or to die on gibbets or forgotten in dungeon*
They came from the lands of culture, blessed with great talenl
and enriched with the spoils of education and learning, and the]
laid all at the feet of the despised Irish Celt, content if their coi
ing brought him comfort and consolation, and if their sacrifice fc
God was sealed in their own blood. Never were the bonds
tween Rome and her children so tried or so proved as in Irelan<
in the seventeenth century.

"The natural result of the promiscuous slaughter of the unarmed pea
antry wherever the English soldiers could lay hold on them was, as a ma
ter of course, an appalling famine. The ploughman was killed in the hal
ploughed field. The laborer met his death at the spade. The haymak
was himself mowed down. A universal famine, and its necessary concom
tant pestilence covered the land."*

Colonel Laurence, an Englishman and an eye-witness, in h
work, The Interest of Ireland, asserts that so terrible had been th
mingled effects of war, famine, and pestilence during 1652
" that a man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see
living creature, either man, beast, or bird, they being either a
dead or had to quit those desolate places."

The Williamite and Jacobite war seems to have been conduct-
ed on both sides with a general regard to the dictates of hu-
manity ; and though individual and isolated cases of suffering can
be established, yet, as war is not even yet made with mildness,
we could hardly expect tt> find hardship absent from the records
of the campaigns of the rival monarchs. War necessarily begets
evils and losses of various kinds, but these are as much the
necessary fruits of the whole as wounds and deaths in battle are
the inevitable results of a part. All that can be expected or hoped
for is that the horrors and evils of war will not be unnecessarily

*O'Connell's Ireland and the Irish, pp. 321-2.

1880.] IRISH FAMINES. 677

aggravated. They do not appear to have been wantonly increas-
ed in the great dynastic contest which was fought out in Ireland,
and the country seems therefore to have borne the inevitable dis-
turbance and hardships produced by the war without material
injury. We read nothing of famine or pestilence immediately
after the conclusion of the struggle. In truth, famines had ceased
to be caused by soldiers. Englishmen had come at last to be
ashamed of their degradation of the sword, and had learned that
arliaments could do as much as cannon to shatter the edifice of
national prosperity, and that a cunningly-devised enactment
could reach a people's life-blood as surely as the keenest blade.
The commercial restraints put upon Ireland, however, need not
be here recapitulated ; the condition to which they reduced her is
only too well known. No doubt from 1700 to the present period
the famines and times of scarcity which have come upon Ireland
are not traceable to any such open and brutal actions as those
hich we have recounted. No doubt English soldiers and lord
ieutenants have not within the last two centuries lifted cattle or
burnt standing corn, but, on the other hand, English parliaments
have done equivalent work. It is to be remembered that the case
of a country like Ireland has no parallel in that of a land such as
England now is. In the case of a prosperous and wealthy country
the prudent policy is no doubt often the " let alone" one, but in
that of a weak and impoverished land a solicitous and fostering, a
beneficent and protective,' policy is needful ; and yet one the very
reverse is that which has been adopted towards Ireland. The de-
struction of the woollen industry at the dictation of interested
Englishmen opened the way for the famine of 1740-41, and the
systematic governmental, aristocratic, and landocratic impover-
ishment of the country since has ever kept it open for others.
The system pursued towards Ireland has always tended to leave
her dependent upon one source of wealth or food, to have only
one barrier between her and starvation. In 1740, as in 1821 and
846, the fate of the whole country really depended upon the
otato crop. Now, it need hardly be said that in any other land
in the world a crop might fail, but the result would not be
famine. The result was famine in Ireland. Does not the mere
fact speak volumes for the character of the rule under which
Irishmen live ? Mark ! we say nothing as to the form of the now
almost shadowy personality of the government ; what we do com-
ment upon is the stupid policy which believes that a weak Ireland
adds to the strength of England. The great famine of 1740-41
was led up to by almost a succession of bad seasons, for in twelve

678 IRISH FAMINES. [Auj

years hardly one harvest had given the husbandman adequate
turn for his labor ; in fact, each year from 1720 had been produ<
tive of little but distress. " To find a parallel for the dreadfi
famine which commenced in 1740 we must go back to the cl<
of the w r ar with the Desmonds."* A memorable and unpre<
dented frost which occurred in November, 1739, destroyed tl
potatoes which, according to the agricultural custom of tl
period, were still undug. This frost was so intense that it kill<
the sheep and birds in prodigious numbers, blasted thorn-bu:
mountain-furze, and forest tree alike ; in fact, destroyed vegetatk
of almost every kind. The country had been poor before,
now hunger was added to impecuniosity, and the terrible resul
was famine, bringing in its train a malignant fever which further
decimated the ranks starvation had already thinned.

The next great famine which came upon Ireland was that
1821. The continuance of heavy rain in the early part of th;
year flooded the low-lying meadows, and even washed the pot
toes out of the earth. Those which passed through the nori
course of germination were not worth the trouble of diggii
and were generally allowed to lie in the ground to rot. Typhi
followed this famine, too, and " in parts of the West the livii
were unable to bury the dead, more especially in Achill, whei
in many cases, the famine-stricken people were found dead
the roadside." f To meet the terrible state of things produ<
by the twin calamities Parliament voted three hundred thoui
pounds, a London committee collected a similar sum, while
Dublin Mansion House committee received some sixty thousanc
The individual charity of the large-hearted, liberal-handed pe(
pie of England has never been wanting when called upon ; they
have never been niggards towards the distressed in any land ; and
in this lies the best hope of their yet awakening to a sense of
their duty towards Ireland.

The failure of the potato crop in 1845 an d 1846 produced
the terrible famine of 1847. The blight appeared in the first
instance in the County Wexford, and rapidly spread through-
out the country. The strangest thing about this potato disease
was the almost mysterious suddenness with which it seized
whole fields. A patch of potato-ground might appear one day
green and flowering, and within twenty-four hours present
naught but withered stems, rusty leaves, and rotten tubers. T

* History of the Irish Famine 0/1847. By the Very Rev. Canon O'Rourke, P.P., M.R.I. J
Second edition, p. 13. (A most valuable and interesting work.)
t History of the Irish Famine, p. 32.

i88o.] . IRISH FAMINES. 679

government well knew the fearful doom which this state of
things foreshadowed, but not a hand would they stir nor a pound
would they expend to save the Irish from their impending fate.
O'Connell brought the matter before the corporation of Dublin,
and they delegated a deputation to wait upon the lord lieutenant
to draw his attention to the condition of the country, and to sub-
mit a plan of O'Connell's for its amelioration. But government
had then, as in later years, a deaf ear turned towards Ireland.
Distress in 1847, as i n 1879-80, was to " come upon them with sur-
prise," because they would give no hearing to the patriotic jour-
nalists and public men who called attention to the coming evils.
We cannot here recall all the suffering or all the charity, all the
cruel and heartless deeds or all those of self-sacrifice, love, and de-
votion, of " black forty-seven." The Irish people passed through
a national purgatory, and passed through it as perhaps no other
people could. They suffered in fever-stricken and squalid hovels,
in the noisome wards of poor-house sheds, or on the bleak road-
side ; they died on miserable straw pallets, which had grown
thinner each day beneath them, for the material of which they
were composed was needed to kindle a scanty fire ; * they died in
the country ditches and on the pavements of the cities, but they
suffered and died with the prayer of faith on their lips, for never
did the awful Miserere of the starving, suffering poor of Catho-
lic Ireland ascend to heaven that the pious Gloria did not mingle
with it.

Think of a history full of incidents such as the following, and
think light, if you can, of the people who bore it almost without a.
murmur. Talk of the courage of the battle-field, of the valor of
the grand, half-wild fury of the soldiers' charge ; but never com-
pare these with the courage which lives through the time of
famine, which never forgets the watchword of faith or the coun-
tersign of prayer in the longest, gloomiest vigil.

"One day as a priest was going to attend his sick-calls and there were
no end of sick-calls in those times he met a man with a donkey and cart.
On the cart were three coffins, containing the mortal remains of his wife
and his two children. He was alone no funeral, no human creature near
him. When he arrived at the place of interment he was so weakened by
starvation himself that he was unable to put a little covering of clay upon
the coffins to protect them. When passing the same road next day the
priest found ravenous, starved dogs making a horrid meal on the carcasses
of this uninterred family. He hired a man, who dug a grave, in which what
may be literally called their remains were placed. On another occasion,

* A fact.

680 IRISH FAMINES. [Aug.,

returning through the gray morning from a night-call, he observed a darl
mass on the side of the road. Approaching, he found it to be the de<
body of a man. Near his head lay a raw turnip, with one mouthful bittei
from it.

" How many of the stacks in Irish haggards had the landlord's cros
upon them for the rent, like poor Mary Driscoll's little stack of barley at
Skibbereen ! It stood in her haggard while her father, who resided witl
her, died of starvation in a neighboring ditch !

" From Roscommon the brief but terrible tidings came that whole fami-
lies, who had retired to rest at night, were corpses in the morning, ant
were frequently left unburied for many days, for want of coffins in whicl
to inter them. And the report adds : ' The state of our poor-house is aw-
ful ; the average daily deaths in it, from fever alone, are eighteen ; there ai
upwards of eleven hundred inmates, and of these six hundred are in typhus
fever."

Think of it, ye luxurious ! six hundred sick of typhus in a co
paratively small Irish workhouse. Think of the careful nursin
they must have had ! Think of all the fevered brows and bu
ing lips and tongues, think of the terrible concentration of hum
suffering there ; and when you read, too, paragraphs such as that
which we are now about to quote, say, if you can, that the nam
of Ireland is not written high in heaven :

" Years after the famine, and when in another part of the country, I
obliged, on my way to my house, to pass the house of a poor blacksmith
and often at night, as I passed, I heard him and his family reciting the Ro-
sary. I told him one day how much edified I was at this. The poor fellow
replied with great earnestness : ' Sir, as long as I have life in me I'll say the
Rosary, and I'll tell you why. In the famine times my family and myself
were starving. One night the children were crying with the hunger, and
there was no food to give them. By way of stopping their cries they were
put to bed, but, after a short sleep, they awoke with louder cries for food.
At length I recommended that all of us, young and old, should join in say-
ing the Rosary. We did ; and before it was ended a woman came in whose
occupation was to deal in bread, and she had a basketful with her. I ex-
plained our condition to her, and asked her to give me some bread on credit.
She did so, and from that day to this we never felt hunger or starvation;
and from that day to this I continue to say the Rosary, and will, please
God, to the end of my life."*

One million and thirty-nine thousand of the population of Ire-
land are estimated to have perished of famine and disease during
this the last great scarcity which came upon the land.

Within the present year it seemed for a while as if Ireland was
to witness a renewal of those horrors at the recollection of which

* These paragraphs are from Canon O'Rourke's work ; the last-quoted one is the statement
of " a Roscommon man " to the reverend historian.

iS8o.] IRISH FAMINES. 68 1

d !

the hearts of strong men grow still and their faces white ; but,
through the mercy of God, the danger seems averted. A fair

Harvest prospect appears to open to the Irish people a vista of
ope ; yet it will not be well for them, or their rulers either, to
Drget that there is hardly a farmer, great or small, who is not in
ebt, hardly a small shopkeeper who could at present discharge
nis liabilities ; that this last season of peril revealed the ominous
fact that while food in plentitude was stored throughout the coun-
try, the failure to realize even part of one year's expected produce
left the farmers at the mercy of famine. The landlords in many
cases are men who can do little to help their tenantry, even if they
really wished to do so ; too often they are men who have bor-
rowed the money with which they purchased their property, and
whose only hope of avoiding personal ruin lies in extracting their

Ints to the uttermost farthing. How deeply the tenants are in-
>lved, how much in debt to banks, shopkeepers, and " gombeen
en," it would be impossible to calculate. The aggregate in-
:btedness of Ireland would be equally impossible of computa-
)n. The present year has shown that most of the tenant farm-
s are absolutely devoid of reserve capital or means, and no
ie can think without a shudder of what one more bad harvest
ould mean.

To those who have helped Ireland so far in her last struggle

with want to those prelates and priests ; to those who, each in

their own way and place, have helped Ireland her grateful

I people owe a deep and lasting debt ; a debt which will be paid

back sevenfold in many a convent chapel, in many a cloister, at

1 many a cathedral altar, and in many a mountain sheeling, wher-

. ever, from Cape Clear to Malin Head, from Lugnaquilla to Mul-

rea, a heartfelt prayer goes up to the good God whom Ireland

! has never forgotten and who has never forsaken her, who has

i been at once her hope and strength when misery and woe lay

darkest upon her.

682

SUNRISE.

SUNRISE,
i.

WITH lips of silver hiding heart of gold,
Upon the quiet lake the lilies lay
Waiting the coming of the king of day

To whom alone heart's secret they unfold.

Shadows were in the wood, and moist, sweet scent
Of pine and bracken with the dew still wet ;
Twittered the birds, to song not wakened yet,

And laughed the loon like soul in banishment.

Across the waters, broken by no breeze,
The wide reflection fell of mountain peak
That seemed, afar, the rosy skies to seek

Claiming earth's share in heavenly mysteries

So loving earth, while reaching unto heaven,

That half its beauty to the lake was given.

II.

Now fuller glow burned in the soft, warm west,
And heaven descended on the rugged peak
That blushed like Indian maid's sun-darkened ch<

When the quick blood hath heart's true love confe

Rippled the waters with the risen breeze ;
Upon its breast the lake bore earth no more,
Only the heavens' azure shadow wore,

And murmured shoreward mystic harmonies.

Slowly the morning flush the peak o'erspread,
Crept down the wooded slopes the soft sunshine,
As were it messenger of word divine,

Joy kindling in deep, tangled ways of shade.

Earth's prayer for light its perfect answer won

Gilding the shadows, shone the risen sun !

HI.

The murmur of the birds grew perfect song,
The shadows fled that nestled in the wood,
Hushed the loon's laugh of lost beatitude,

While, as the sun-rays sped the waves along,

i88o

1880.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 683

The lilies' lips of silver fell apart

At his first touch who could alone awake
Their gleam of light above lone mountain lake.

A sudden, silent joy in each calm heart,

A joy that knew no speech's melody

But breathed itself in perfume-laden air
A golden silence of enraptured prayer

As saw God's face the perfect purity.

O lips unstained, revealing heart of flame,

Meet ye the morn's Magnificat proclaim !

i not

i tior

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

NOTHER objection against the exclusive possession of the
note of sanctity by the Catholic Church is : that there has been
little good and too much evil in it to allow such a claim to

reasonably maintained and admitted.

The whole foundation of this objection rests upon a misconcep-
ion of the Catholic idea of the note of sanctity. We intend to
present the correct conception, before we are done with this par-
ticular topic, but at present we wish to deal directly with the
misconception.

It is but one phase or form of a general misunderstanding of
the essence and relations of that supernatural order in which God
has constituted mankind, prevalent among Protestants who be-
lieve that such an order exists, and among the offspring of Pro-
testantism who have partially or wholly abandoned this belief.
This incorrect notion may be qualified and described in brief as an
exaggerated and distorted supernaturalism. It suppresses the
natural and does away with its activity, in respect to what is
highest and best, and degrades it to the condition of a mere inert
and passive mass, which is only receptive of a divine action and
movement impelling it with mechanical and irresistible force on-
ward and upward toward the end which God has determined.
The root of this false notion is Luther's doctrine of total deprav-
ity and the slavery of the will. Its full development is found in
the theology of John Calvin, the magisterial doctor of the Re-
formation. Malebranche brought it into metaphysics by his ab-

684 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

surd and ridiculous tenet denying intrinsic self-active force in
material second causes, and the philosophy of Leibnitz, even,
that great and Catholic-minded philosopher, is defaced and lamed
by an analogous hypothesis. With such a notion underlying its
foundations, any structure of philosophy or theology which men
may strive to build, even with a considerable part of their mal
rials taken from the quarries of science and revelation, must
to be consistent, reasonable, and stable. Consequently, all Pi
testant theology is unreasonable and untenable. When it is foul
to be so, its revolting disciples go off into some different and
posite error. They have become intellectually disqualified for
right perception of the Catholic doctrine, and they are left
hopeless bewilderment and scepticism. The supernatural i<
appears to be contrary to reason and science, to the facts of
external world, of history and of the inner consciousness. Th<
who still hold to it must do so by a blind faith, with a sort of inl
lectual despondency, in a spirit akin to that of the disciples
Hopkins, of being willing to be damned as the only hope of beii
saved, or at least willing that all men, except the elect few, should
lie under a hopeless doom. Those who are resolved to use th<
reason, having no guide or compass, deviate into a course whi<
infallibly leads to a denial of the supernatural. The natui
world, severed from its connection with the supernatural ord(
unintelligible ; and hence reason, philosophy, all spiritual realit
and all truth whatsoever have to be abjured, and the intellect
comes like Milton's Satan in chaos. But we must not follow tl
line of thought any farther.

To come back to the misconception of the supernatural as
affects the view taken by Evangelical Protestants. We see this i
their old, hereditary, and common idea about the Bible and its in-
spiration, and about the whole series of facts and events, of his-
torical personages, of manifestations of divine truth and exposi-
tions of the ways of divine providence contained in that sacred
Book. The exaggerated notion of inspiration makes the sacred
writers to be mere scribes writing down words and expressing
concepts simply and purely divine, dictated to their passive minds
by the Holy Ghost, and in no sense the product of their own ac-
tivity. The world of the Bible, the scenes there exhibited, and
the actors in those scenes have a halo of mystery and ideal remote-
ness from the real world of profane history and our own experi-
ence which envelops and transforms them. Even the old-fashion-
ed words and style of King James' translators are esteemed as
an especially hallowed language.

,880.

88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 685

" All things suffer a sea-change
IntQ something rich and strange."

Now, when criticism, historical research, and all kinds of
science and learning are taken hold of, generalized, and, as it were,
brought to a focus, so as to cast light on the whole of that domain
which is filled up by the record of human thoughts and deeds ;
the religion of Jews and Christians, the sacred books, and all
matters of which they speak must of course be brought within
this comprehensive sphere of investigation and theory. The
human and natural side is considered in a purely secular and ra-
tionalistic way, ignoring if not denying what is supernatural and
divine. Those who have made the worship of the Bible a reli-
gion find their ideal shattered. They cannot combine these two
ideas, that God is the author of the Bible, revealing, teaching,
consoling, exhorting, making known his ways in the past time
and disclosing his intentions for the future through his written
word, and that men are also authors of its separate parts, pre-
serving all their individuality and exercising their intellectual
and moral activity in a free scope, which is not hindered but ele-
vated and intensified by the impulsive and directing influence of
divine inspiration. They cannot at one and the same time look
on the secular side and common historical relations of the peculiar
people of God, and keep in view what is supernatural and miracu-
lous. The persons who in the times of old stood in a special re-
lation to God are too much like other men, the facts and events
occurring under God's special providence are too much like
other events, the books of the Bible are too much like other
books, the doctrines, precepts, ceremonies of the Mosaic and Chris-
tian religion are too much like those of other religions, when
closely inspected in what is called the impartial and dispassionate
spirit, to permit the old exaggerated supernaturalism to keep its
hold on thinking and instructed minds. It cannot be let go with-
out a struggle, endeared as it is by so many associations. Yet
the extraordinary efforts to bring out new and splendid editions
of the English Bible enriched with annotations, to make a revi-
sion of the text which shall be as perfect as possible, praiseworthy
as they are, are truly the clearest indications of that revolution in
Protestant sentiment which is sweeping away their old Bible-
religion.

The same misconception is seen in the old Protestant view of
the way in which God enlightens the mind supernaturally to un-
derstand and believe his word. It is supposed that the word of
od must be brought into contact with the mind directly and im-

686 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Aug.

mediately, without active, concurrent causes either internal
external. Faith must be a direct illumination of the soul of th<
individual, produced immediately by the Holy Spirit, in which
he is passive, exercising" actively neither his intellect nor his free
will. The only external instrumentality which can be admitted
is a purely passive one, the dead letter of the Bible, read or heard
from a teacher. The sanctification which follows upon justifica-
tion by the faith thus infused into a passive subject is equally an
act in which there is no concurrence of second causes. Grace is
irresistible and inamissible. A person once justified and sancti-
fied can never fall from grace, even though he sins continually,
and may commit most grievous and scandalous sins. He cannot
miss of salvation. And at the moment of death he is suddenly,
by an act of divine power, made perfectly holy, so as to be fit for
instantaneous translation to heaven. This is the genuine Calvin-
istic doctrine, the only one which gives anything like logical
and coherent shape to the theology of Evangelical Protestai
ism.

The notion of the visible church which accords with tl
view and springs necessarily from it, is that of a society of
elect who are actually justified. The soul of the church, or,
Protestants are wont to speak, the invisible church, is the collec-
tion of justified men united by the bond of faith. These justified
men know individually their own justification by their inner con-
sciousness. They recognize one another with probable evidence
by certain signs and manifestations of inward grace, and unite in
fellowship under certain rules for their mutual profit and for pro-
moting the Gospel by organized efforts. The members of the
church are those who are ostensibly in the state of grace and
make profession of their faith in some society of similar profes-
sors. Consequently, the idea of the visible church is that of a
society of men who in profession and in outward appearance are
holy. Wherever a few true believers are gathered together, hav-
ing the pure word of God preached to them, public worship, in-
cluding the administration of the sacraments, celebrated, and
endeavoring to live according to their profession, there is the
visible church completely organized. The universal church is
the aggregate collection of all these particular churches, which
are affiliated or confederated among each other in a variety of
more or less extensive associations or denominations, without
forming, or having any principles by virtue of which they could
possibly form, one body existing in organic unity. Whatever a
tributes and powers are ascribed to any one or all of these soci

I 1880.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 687

i ties can only be considered as results from the qualities and ac-
i tions of the individuals who compose them. The visible church
| is only really and truly a holy society, inasmuch as it is composed
I of the justified and sanctified elect, who are made holy by the ir-
j resistible and inamissible grace of the Holy Spirit.

When those whose minds are pervaded with notions of this
i sort come to consider the Catholic doctrines, they are like per-
sons looking at a landscape through colored glass. Take, for in-
stance, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. If all baptized
infants are regenerated, justified, sanctified, made members of
j Christ, children of God and heirs of the kingdom of heaven, they
i think that they ought to live holily from their childhood up, and
! persevere to the end. We know, however, that many of them
I are very wicked, deny the faith, become even atheists, and die
with all the signs of reprobation. Consequently, so they argue,
\ they were not regenerated in baptism, and the sacrament is there-
fore devoid of any efficacy, ex opere operate. So, also, in respect
to the ministry. They believe that one is a true minister of the
word, by virtue of an inward call which God gives only to holy
men. True consecration and an indelible character cannot there-
fore be given by ordination, since, if it were, an irresistible and in-
! amissible grace would always be conveyed simultaneously with
the exterior rite, and all the ordained would be holy and perse-
vere in holiness to the end. It is evident that this is not the
fact, hence it is concluded that ordination has no efficacy ex opere
opcrato. These notions being extended to the universal church,
it is obvious, that if the church is one body constituted by an
external, hierarchical order under which the faithful are bound in
an external society, by an outward profession of obedience and a
participation of sacraments, inward and personal holiness ought
to be found in all its members, and manifested by outward signs
n their manner of living. Those who compose the hierarchy,
who are empowered to impart the grace of God, who are com-
missioned to teach with unerring and infallible authority, ought
:o be all endowed with supereminent sanctity, like the prophets
and apostles.

This is the way in which the Catholic Ideal church is appre-
hended, and it is precisely because of this misconception that,
while its lofty and attractive aspect is admitted, it is nevertheless
condemned and set aside as an illusion. Ecclesiastical history,
and the present actual and concrete reality which we find existing
in the church, do not present to our view this perfect ideal em-
bodied and made visible before our eyes in a perfect manner.

688 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Aug.,

The church presents a human appearance, and its history, its pre-
sent condition, all that belongs to it as a society, make it similar
to all great human institutions and organic bodies. The imperfec-
tions and vices which deface human nature are found in its mem-
bers. The same mixture of good and evil is seen in Christendom
which is seen in humanity universally, from its earliest period to
the present time. Therefore, concludes the Protestant, the Ca-
tholic Church is not divine. And, therefore, concludes the infi-
del, Christianity is not divine. The Council of Constance drew up
a long and terrible indictment against one of the claimants of th
papal throne, called by his party John XXIII., who was compe
led to resign his claims and set aside. A similar indictment i
brought against the line of successors to St. Peter, against th
episcopate, the priesthood, and the general body of Catholics, a
a reason for setting aside the whole claim of the Catholic Churc
to divine and exclusive authority. The entire mass of testimon
which can be collected from every source to sustain the accusing-
plea is assiduously arranged and kept in readiness, so that eac
one can select from it at any time what may best suit his purpos
when he makes an argument against the note of sanctity claim
by the Catholic Church. The one point which is always made
this : The Catholic Church has done those things which she ought
not to have done, and which a divine, infallible church could not
have done ; and she has left undone those things which she ought
to have done, and which a divine, infallible church must have
done ; therefore, she cannot be the One, Holy Church.

This way of reasoning subverts Christianity and all revealed
religion. If God loved all men and sent his Son to redeem and
save all men, all men ought to have been saved from sin and eternal
death. But this is not the case ; therefore there is no truth in
revelation. But you may say that God intended to save and tha
Christ redeemed only the elect. This is still worse, for it is
denial of the goodness and veracity of God.

It subverts also theism. If God created the universe for good
being infinitely wise and powerful as well as infinitely good, he
would exclude all evil from the universe. Evil exists, therefore
the universe was not created by and is not dependent upon such a
being. You may reply that God did not wish or intend the good
of all rational beings, but created the elect for good and the re-
probate for evil. Worse and worse.

The denial of free-will and the distortion of the idea of a
supernatural order run through this whole course of reasoning
whether employed by Protestants against the Catholic Church

\
t

1 88o

1880.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 689

or by unbelievers against all revealed and natural religion. Here
lies the primary fallacy of all their sophistical arguments.

The supernatural order is one in which the rational subject is
not purely passive, but also active. It does n'ot supersede but
elevates nature. Spontaneous and free activity are given their
fullest scope under the action of God. There is active force in
matter, self-activity and true causality in second causes, sponta-
neity and volition in rational beings, liberty of choice and action
in the sphere of probation. God has not intended to produce the
greatest amount of good in the universe which by his omnipotent
wisdom he can effect by his own sole activity as First Cause,
through purely creative acts which bring being out of nothing,
or acts which merely educe from the potentiality of passive sub-
jects that perfection which they are susceptible of receiving.
He has intended to produce beyond this effect of his own sole
action the highest good producible as the effect of his power
working by and with concreative and concurring causes, the
most noble of which are created intelligence and free-will. The
fault-finding of the atheist is therefore groundless, and that of
every grumbler against divine providence, because irresistible
and necessary force is not laid upon all beings to compel them to
work out the most perfect effects and to exclude all evil from the
universe. The discontent of the curious and inquisitive searcher
into the problems and mysteries with which all being and life are
replete is therefore unreasonable, because he cannot solve and
comprehend all perplexing questions concerning the ways of the
Infinite Being. The objections of the caviller against revealed
religion are futile, because revelation does not shine forth with
such lustre as to compel universal assent, and religion work
always, everywhere, and in all men, those most perfect effects
which they think ought to be made actual and visible. Objections
ainst Christianity are untenable which are derived from the
evils surrounding and permeating Christendom. Protestants are
just as much bound as we are to refute objections against the pro-
vidence of God and the divine origin of Christianity which are
derived from the existence of evils in the world at large and in
Christendom. In so far as they can do so by sound reasoning,
they furnish arguments by which all their similar objections
gainst the Catholic Church can be demolished and scattered to
he winds.

The world, the human race, the institution of the family with
its conjugal and parental relations, the social order, states, gov-
ernments, the entire secular organization, all are institutes directly
VOL. xxxi. 44

690 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Aug.

or indirectly established and appointed by God as means and i
struments by which he works out the purposes and will acco
plish the great final end of his plan. Men work under him
free but subordinate agents, according to a human mode. T
same Holy Spirit who in the beginning "was waving* an
brooding over the face of the deep " is always hovering over thi
cosmos of human activity, the Life-giving Spirit by whom i
multifarious movements are infallibly overruled and directed
the predestined end. When a particular people was selected ai
separated as a special medium of the divine action upon mankin
the divine providence was exercised in a more special mann
towards this people. Nevertheless, all proceeded in a hum
mode, without any more of the miraculous than was necessar
In the Catholic Christian Church, the supernatural society w
raised to a higher power and the action of the Holy Spirit u
his chosen medium of operation augmented. Yet, the hum
agents and created instruments were still left to act in a hum
and natural mode to the full extent of their capability of subserv-
ing in this way the divine purposes. Every created being is bot
passive and active. God works in them some things w r ith
their concurrence, and in these things his action is irresistibl
He works in them other things not without their concurren
This active concurrence is in some cases necessary though it m
be spontaneous and voluntary. But in the subject whose will i
left in an undetermined equilibrium and freedom of choice
concurrence or non-concurrence is contingent, and the possible
effects depending on it are contingent.

Men are passive in respect to the creative act which gives
them existence and determines their essence. They cannot help
being human and possessing all that belongs to the essence of
rational animal. But they can abuse and damage their bodie.
and souls, and even kill themselves, if they choose to do so
They are passive in respect to the first grace, and the very act 03
which supernatural qualities are infused into their souls. Thos<
who have not the use of reason are in every respect passive, a;
infants, who, when they are baptized, are regenerated, sanctified
receive the habits of faith, hope, love, and the germinal principl
of all moral virtues without any act of intelligence or volition
But a subject of grace who has the use of reason must freel)
concur with God so far as to dispose himself for the reception o
his gifts and to consent to receive them. After he has once re
ceived an indelible character, by baptism, confirmation, or ordina-

* This is Mr. Leaser's translation of the word merachepheth in the first chapter of Genesis.

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 691

tion, he can never efface that character, any more than a man
can rid himself of his essential rationality. But he can destroy
all those qualities and habits which spring from regenerated na-
ture, he can neglect to use the faculty and power which God has
given him, he can abuse the gifts of God, he can resist the actual
grace of God, and commit spiritual suicide. Even for those who
have received sanctifying grace, and the habits of faith, hope, and
love by infusion in their infancy, the preservation and actual ex-
ercise of these virtues, the continuance of justification, final per-
severance, and the actual possession of the heavenly inheritance,
| depend on the exercise of free-will. So far as personal justifica-
i tion, inherent holiness, and final salvation are concerned, the doc-
trine of inamissible grace and of the necessary perseverance and
i predestination of every one who is once regenerated has no
i place in Catholic theology. Baptized children may grow up
i wicked if they are neglected or corrupted in their early years,
or if they wilfully resist the influence of faithful care and in-
\ struction. Righteous men may fall into sin and even become
reprobates. In any state or condition however favorable to
i holiness, however high and responsible, however enriched with
i blessings from God, men may sin and even become apostates.
Though they do not lose faith, though they do not incur excommu-
i nication or any ecclesiastical censure, they may nevertheless lose
the grace of God and never recover it. The church, the sacra-
ments, the graces of the Holy Spirit, the privileges and promises
' which are given to the disciples of Christ, were never intended
to raise men above the responsibilities, obligations, combats, diffi-
culties, temptations, and dangers of a state of probation. Every
one must work out his own salvation with fear and trembling,
d be judged at last according to his works.
The objection against the sanctity of the Catholic Church
which is derived from an estimate of the amount of sin and evil
to be found in Christendom which she has not prevented, and of
the amount of good which she has failed to accomplish, is utterly
irrelevant and futile. One may just as well deny the sanctity of
God, because of the sin and evil in his universe, or deny the effi-
cacy of the redemption wrought by Christ upon the cross, be-
cause of the sin and misery which have prevailed and do prevail
among men throughout the world, as to impugn the sanctity of
the Catholic Church because of the evils which have existed here-
tofore or are now existing in Christendom. The cause of these
evils is to be found in the defectibility of the rational creature
whose destiny is placed in his own hands while his state of proba-

692 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

iSSo.J GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 693

principles and powers which are sufficient and efficacious for its
supernatural end complete its sanctity in the order of causality.
The possession of the Truth and the Law of God in an indefecti-
ble manner with power to proclaim them infallibly with supreme
teaching and legislative authority, is one of these attributes. An-
other is the possession of all the sacraments with the power
necessary for their administration. Finally, there is a perpetual
right to the supernatural providence and government of Christ,
the Head of the church, and to the concurrence and assistance
of the Holy Spirit, whose indwelling presence is the cause and
source of all the supernatural power which the church possesses
and exercises.

The church as such is therefore holy because Christ her head
is holy, because the Holy Spirit who gives her life is holy, be-
'cause the word of truth is holy, because the law is holy, the end
tfor which the church was created is holy and her organization
adapted to this holy end ; the sacraments holy, the standard and
rule of conduct prescribed to the members of the church holy.
The church is perfectly holy because she possesses perfectly all
these causes and means of holiness, in an indefectible and infalli-
ble manner. She alone is the holy church, because every other
society is a sect, and by its partiality is deficient as a universal
cause of sanctity, is devoid of any means of sanctity of its own,
having only what it has borrowed from the Catholic Church, is
deficient in doctrine, sacraments, rule of morals, at the very least
because it lacks jurisdiction and authority and has the stain of the
sin of schism vitiating its existence and corrupting every part of
its organization.

As a note of the true church, sanctity is in part made manifest
by its effects in producing results corresponding to its causative
energy and manifesting its existence and nature. This argument
from effects to their causes is one, however, which, by its nature,
requires to be treated in an extensive and voluminous manner.
But, however interesting, valuable, and certain to lead by the in-
ductive method to the most comprehensive and satisfactory re-
sults this argument is, it is not strictly necessary. There is a
shorter and sufficient, line by which the same end may be reached.

Evangelical and orthodox Protestants admit that the effects
produced by the Christian religion, notwithstanding the evils in
the world which it has not destroyed or fully subdued, suffi-
ciently prove its divine origin and the divine character of its
Founder. The only question between us is, therefore, what is
genuine Christianity ? This is settled as soon as it is proved that

694

THE INFANT IN THE CRADLE.

[Aug.

the unity and catholicity which are manifest and historical not*
of the Roman Church are not the product of natural and hum,
causes but of a supernatural cause. The note of sanctity is fre<
from all obscurity as soon as the supernatural and divine origii
of the organization, doctrine, law, and sacraments which bind th<
society of the faithful in catholic unity under the supreme heac
ship of the Roman Church is established. The discussion m
be therefore transferred from the note of sanctity to the note
apostolicity. The specific differentia and the distinctive attribute
of the Catholic Church are from the apostles and therefore froi
Jesus Christ, by whom the apostles were commissioned and ei
powered to found the church. This is presumptively true, ai
evident primd facie, because the Catholic Church has univei
and immemorial possession of the apostolic heritage. Those wl
deny or question it are bound to prove their cause. They
bound to prove a human origin of the differential and distinct! 1
form which makes the Catholic Church a specific being, unc
vided in itself and divided from every other soi-disant sort
Christianity claiming a generic affinity with it, and legitimate d<
scent from apostolic parentage. The gist of the contention
here. As we have frequently said, and as is patent to every 01
the contention consists chiefly in a discussion of difficulties ai
objections made by our opponents against the grand synthesis
proofs and arguments which make up the Catholic demonst]
tion. It will be our next task to examine some of the princi]
objections of this class.

THE INFANT IN THE CRADLE.

HAPPY suckling ! for thee thy cradle is boundless.

Grow to manhood, and the whole wide world is too narro 1

Schiller.

t88o.] CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. 695

CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE.

To a mind satiated with the artistic pettiness and the bric-a-
brac of modern culture which reached its climax in William Mor-
ris, and is going out with the dying taste for Swinburne and Ros-
setti, a return to the elder and more genuine poets is like the
breath of a pure night after the gas-impregnated air of a crowded
theatre. People are beginning to discover the flavor of drugs
in the new champagne which they quaffed in long draughts ; and
the time may possibly come when our generation will read Shak-
spere as well as talk about him when even those of us who
read erotic poetry will prefer the easy flow of " Venus and
donis " to " Laus Veneris," as we prefer " St. Agnes' Eve "
o " The Blessed Damosel." A taste for Rossetti and Swin-
urne may not be incompatible with a taste for Shakspere and
Keats ; it is possible for a man who delights in absinthe to
enjoy good claret, but in most cases an indulgence in absinthe
spoils a man's palate. Similarly, the man who does not outgrow
" the paroxysmal " in poetry is not likely to appreciate the sim-
ple and serene.

Poetry has suffered much from the critics, even more than
prose although Addison still clings to us, and the turgid rhe-
toric of Burke overawes us for poetry appeals more to each
man's personality. You may measure the world with the
prose of Newman, but with Tennyson you measure your-
self. Keats may have a special message to you, and Longfel-
low to another, but great prose- writers speak to all. There
are many poems, and passages in poems, which thrill all sensi-
tive minds with their great beauty, but only a few which the
world adopts as its own by acclamation. That passage in Dante

" Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria,"

has been chanted through the world in a thousand forms. Long-
fellow's " Rainy Day " and Tennyson's " Break, break " have,
like a hundred passages in Shakspere, become part of the world's

Household anthology. Chaucer's pathetic lines which he puts
ito the mouth of the dying Christian child touch every heart :

696 CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. [Aug.,

" My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone
Saide this child, and as by way of kinde
I should have deyd, yea, longe time agone ;
But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookes finde,
Will that his glory last and be in minde,
And for the worship of his mother dere
Yet may I sing O Alma loud and clere."

These passages have 'been approved and quoted by the critics
and the world has adopted them, with much of Milton and som
of Wordsworth, because they pleased the critics, and after
wards because they pleased itself. But poetical criticism ha
done much towards making us insincere. It has made us pr
tend to admire Spenser because we have not the courage t
read him ; to take Milton in allopathic doses when we real!
prefer to take him in homoeopathic pellets ; to swear by Young'
" Night Thoughts " until fortunately it has become only a name
and now we are preparing to cry " Resurrexit! " to Pope becau
certain critics are arranging to dig him up.

It is the reaction against the verdict of criticism that h
caused so many dilettanti to go into the byways of literature t
look for the singers who, if not mute, were inglorious. This r
action has spent itself, and we are coming into a saner state o
mind in regard to poetry. The spasmodic raptures and artifici
roses of Swinburne, the Gothic stucco of Morris, the bric-a-bra
mediasvalism of Rossetti, have begun to seem like a stage-settin
in daylight ; the spiced wine of Villon, the diluted whey of Well
and the wormwood of Blake have not mixed with our blood
On revient h nos premiers amours, and the dilettanti are welcome
return to their " moutons."

Chaucer's eternal freshness is a relief after the faded studio
properties of the modern school, and a ramble in his fields,

"All full of freshest flowers, white and red,"

the best remedy for the poetical scarlet-fever that has afflicted us.
A relapse can never take place with him who has wandered in the
pastures of the father of English poetry the lineal ancestor of
Shakspere and of all the English poets who have come after him.
The influence of Chaucer on English poetry is inestimable. In
his time avowed disciples and imitators gathered around him ;
his influence continues like an ever-widening stream ; those near-
est him shone with a reflected light.

Chaucer's life covered the last half of the fourteenth century
during that magnificent period illuminated by the English victory
of Crecy. Under Edward III. the poison in the blood which

I iSSc

1880.] CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. 697

finally made the English nation, or rather the heads of the nation,
delirious under Henry VIII. had already begun to work; and
the poet's quick insight into the abuses which were sapping the

piritual strength of the people have caused those superficial
critics who seem to imagine that the Reformers discovered reli-
gion, as Mine, de Stael imagined she had discovered virtue, to
set down Chaucer as a Wycliffite. An impartial examination of
the portions of his writings which induced even the amiable Miss
Mitford to applaud him for his Protestant tendencies will show
that Chaucer, like all true Catholics of his time, saw that pride
and luxury, sloth and simony, hiding under the desecrated cloak
of religion, were separating the threads of the sacred garment.
To the negligence and apathy of the clergy was due that out-
burst which divided the great intellects of the Elizabethan era
from the church and has left England in heresy. The ecclesias-
tics, both secular and regular, had grown careless. Rome seemed
farther away with each year of prosperity. As long as Caesar was
propitious God's thunder was not feared. The renown of the
great martyr, St. Thomas a Becket, lingered in the land ; but
though many made the pleasant journey to his shrine at Canter-
bury, it was more for pleasure than devotion, and it was meet
that the Archbishop of Sudbury should refuse his blessing to a
company of these pilgrims, telling them that for sinners without

ontrition there were no indulgences at the shrine of St. Thomas.
It was the Gallicanism of the French clergy that hastened the
growth of that ulcer which Voltaire aggravated with his lancet ;
and to the gradual drifting away of the majority of the English
clergy from the preservative influence of Rome may be traced
the Reformation. Like most poets, Chaucer demanded more of
the ideal from the world than he was willing to give himself.
His airy ridicule often played about abuses more for wantonness
than from any desire to mend them. Vice was picturesque, and.
while deploring it, he could not help enjoying, from an art point
of view, its colors and half-tints. He seems half disgusted, half
amused by the evils of the time, and he never rises to the height
of righteous indignation. He is always reverent towards the
church and her dogmas. His faith, as displayed in his poems,
might be called childlike to-day, but then it was simply manly.
He was very far from Wycliffism, and was entirely without sym-
pathy for the Lollards. To minds narrowed by a foregone con-
clusion that religion was discovered by Henry VIII., it is only
natural that the " poure persoun of a toun " should be regarded
as a precursor of those gentlemen who showed their zeal for re-

698

CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE.

[Aug.,

ligion by casting dice for her stolen temporalities ; but to a Ca-
tholic there is nothing startling in his picture of a good priest.
Such men were not rare in Chaucer's time, although, in his ca-
pacity of poet and reporter of his day, he finds more " material "
in other types.

No man reflects more than a phase of his century, and Chau-
cer no more reflected fully the various tendencies of his time than
the recent outcry against imperialism here, echoing in the future,
would imply that imperialism was really to be dreaded. Protes-
tants might as well claim Savonarola as Chaucer. If our poet
had always been as moral in his stories as he was firm in his faith,
Catholics might have even greater reason to be proud of him.
That his better training led him to feel ashamed of the immorality
that stains some of his pages is evident from the apology he makes
and from the contrite prayer he appends to the Canterbury Talcs.
Had the age been utterly vicious, Chaucer, not having the pn
sent moral world in view, would scarcely have thought it nec(
sary to apologize. The description of the poor parson does n<
strike us as containing anything unusual, and Chaucer to-daj
might find many like him among our priests :

"A good man was ther of religioun,
And was a poure persoun of a toun ;
But riche he was of holy thought and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche ;
His parischens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversite ful pacient ;
And such he was i-proved ofte sithes.*
Ful loth were him to curse for his tythes.
But rather wolde he yeven, out of dowte,
Unto his poure parisschens aboute,
Of his offrynge, and eek of his substaunce.
He cowde in litel thing han suffisaunce.
Wyd was his parische, and houses fer asonder,
But he ne lafte not for reyne ne thonder,
In siknesse nor in meschief to visite
The ferreste in his parissche, moche and lite,
Upon his feet, and in his hond a staf.
This noble ensample to his scheep he )^af,
That first he wroughte, and afterward he taughte,
Out of the gospel he tho wordes caughte,
And this figure he addede eek therto,
That if gold ruste, what schal yren doo ?

* Ofttimes.

i88o.] CHAUCER AND ins CIRCLE. 699

For if a prest be foul, on whom we truste,

No wonder is a lewed man to ruste ;

And schame it is, if that a prest tak keep,

A [filthy] schepherde and a clene scheep ;

Wei oughte a prest ensample for to yive,

By his clennesse, how that his scheep schulde lyve.

He sette not his benefice to hyre,

And leet his scheep encombred in the myre,

And ran to Londone, unto seynte Poules,

To seeken him a chaunterie for soules,*

Or with a bretherhede to ben withholde ;

But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde,

So that the wolf ne made it not myscarye ;

He was a schepherd and no mercenarie.

And though he holy were, and vertuous,

He was to sinful man nought despitous,

Ne of his speche daungerous t ne digne,

But in his teching discret and benigne.

To drawe folk to heven by fairnesse

By good ensample, this was his busynesse :

But it were eny persone obstinat,

What so he were, of high or lowe estat,

Him wolde he snybbe scharply for the nones.

A better preest, I trowe, ther nowher non is.

He waytede after no pompe and reverence,

Ne makede him a spiced f conscience,

But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,

He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve."

His elaborate " Orison to the Holy Virgin," beginning
"Mother of God and Virgin undefined,"

is scarcely Wycliffian ; and in his " A B C," a translation from
the French, there is an address to the Blessed Virgin in twenty-
three stanzas, each of which begins with one of the letters of the
alphabet arranged in proper succession. Savonarola did not go
outside the church, in his attempt to bring her unfaithful servants
nearer to her, and Wycliffe, had he confined himself to protesting
against the pretensions of ecclesiastics who had learned to serve
their king with more zeal than their God, and helped to revive
that faith which negligence, avarice, and luxury were gradually
weakening in the hearts of Englishmen, the best men in England
and our poet among them would have been with him. But
with heresy Chaucer had no sympathy. In the " Parsones Tale "
he exclaims against the doctrines of Wycliffe and the spoliation of
church property ; and, if there were the slightest doubt in the

* An endowment for saying Masses. t Haughty. \ Nice, fastidious.

yoo CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. [Aug.,

minds of careful readers of his works, the " Prayer of Chaucer"
at the end of the Canterbury Talcs and the genuineness of this
prayer has never been disproved shows that he died a devout
Catholic. Chaucer was not without prejudices ; and among these
was one against the inhabitants of a sister isle, to which his own
country had always shown a decided tendency to act a step-mo-
therly part. He was not so antagonistic to the Irish as Spenser
and in the case of the genial Chaucer a longer acquaintance
would probably have removed his prejudice but he goes out of
his way to introduce a character into his translation of the " Ro-
maunt of the Rose " who,

" So full of cursed rage,
It well agreed with his lineage,
For him an Irishwoman bare."

But if the susceptible poet had ventured into the Emerald Isl
to sing the praise of the " marguerite " at joust and tournament,
instead of to learn the art of war in the train of a Norman prince,
he would never have invented Irish parentage for his villain.
The violets in the Irish maidens' eyes would have killed the in-
sipid pink and white of his daisies, and a song would have come
down to our ears having another refrain than " si douce est la
marguerite." But, reading the following lines, even an Irishman
could forgive him :

Flee from the press, and dwell with soothfastness ;
Suffice thee thy good, though it be small ;
For hoard hath hate and climbing tickleness,
Press hath envey, and wealth is blinded all.
Savour no more than thee behove shall ;
Do well thyself that other folk can'st rede ;
And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread.

'That thee is sent receive in buxomness ;
The wrestling of this world asketh a fall.
Here is no home, here is but wilderness.
Forth, pilgrime, forth, beast, out of thy stall !
Look up on high, and thanke God of all.
Waive thy lust, and let thy ghost thee lead,
And truth shall thee deliver, it is no dread."

Although Chaucer, as well as Dante, shaped his languag
beat and crushed gold out of the ore yet the rich cadences of the
Florentine cause the Englishman's lines to seem weak and rug-
ged. It is a bagpipe to an organ. The English of Tennyson-
refined by five centuries has gained much, and the Italian of

i88o.] CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. 701

Dante will never gain more than ha gave it ; but, in spite of the
roughness of Chaucer's medium, there is a purity and melody in
it which has never been successfully imitated. It is liquid, trans-
lucent. There is a directness and simplicity about Chaucer to
which the higher and more serious poet never attained. Take
the lament of Troylus waiting for Criseyde as an example :

"Then seyde he thus : ' O paleys desolat !
O hous of housses, whilom best yhight !
O paleys empty and disconsolat !
O thou lanterne, of which queynt is the light !
O paleys, whilom day, that now art nyght !
Wei oughtestow to falle, and I to dye,
Syn she is went that wont was us to gye.*

" ' O paleys, whilom crowne of houses alle,
Enlumyned with sonne of alle blisse !
O rynge, fro which the ruby is out falle !
O cause of wo, that cause has ben of blisse !
Yit syn I may no bet, fayn AYolde I kysse
Thy colde dores, dorste I for this route ;
And farewel shryne, of which the seint is oute ! "

Another instance of the directness which makes his pathos so
true is the story of Ugolino, in the telling of which he yields no-
thing to that " wise bard of Florence " whom he revered. Com-
paring the version of Dante with that of Chaucer, the superiority
of the latter is apparent. Those who do not call it to mind will
thank us for quoting it.

"DE HUGOLINO COMITE PIS^E.

" Of Hugolin of Pisa the languor
There may be no tongue telle for pity.
But little out of Pisa stands a tower,
In whiche tower in prison put was he,
And with him be his little children three.
The eldest scarcely five years was of age ;
Alas ! fortune ! it was great cruelty
Such birds as these to put in such a cage.

" Condemned he was to die in that prison,
For Royer, which that bishop was of Pise,
Had on him made a false suggestion,
Through which the people gan on him arise,
And put him in prison in such a wise
As ye have heard, and meal and drink he had
So little that it hardly might suffice,
And therewithal it was full poor and bad.

' * Guide.

yo2 CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. [Aug.,

"And on a day befell, that in that hour
When that his meal was wont to be y-brought,
The gaoler shut the doores of that tower.
He heard it well, although he saw it not ;
And in his heart anon there fell a thought
That they his death by hunger did devise.
'Alas ! ' quoth he ' alas ! that I was wrought.'
Therewith the teares felle from his eyes.

" His youngest son, that three years was of age,
Unto him said : ' Father, why do you weep ?
When will the gaoler bring us our pottage ?
Is there no morsel bread that you do keep ?
I am so hungry that I can not sleep.
Now woulde God that I might sleep forever !
Then should not hunger in my belly creep.
There is no thing save bread that I would liever.'

" Thus day by day this child began to cry,
Till in his father's lap adown he lay,
And saide : ' Farewell, father, I must die ! '
And kissed his father, and died the same day.
The woeful father saw that dead he lay,
And his two arms for woe began to bite.
And said : ' Fortune, alas and well-away !
For all my woe I blame thy treacherous spite.'

" His children weened that it for hunger was
That he his arme's gnawed, and not for woe,
And saide : ' Father, do not so, alas !
But rather eat the flesh upon us two.
Our flesh thou gavest us, our flesh thou take us fro,
And eat enough.' Right thus they to him cried,
And after that, within a day or two,
They laid them in his lap adown and died."

Chaucer owed much to the Italians, especially to Boccaccio,
from whom he took the groundwork of many of his tales ; but
much more to the trouveres, whose names he scarcely seems to
have known, from whom he adapted the " Roman de la Rose."
There is a tradition that he met Petrarch in Italy, and it is plea-
sant to believe it. His life was peaceful and uneventful. Like
many other poets, he seems to have found matrimony a rather
stormy venture ; but it must be remembered that if a thorn but
prick a poet he has the delightful privilege of informing the
world of his pain, though it may have passed before the echoes
have time to iterate his moans. He owed his peace of mind to
royal patronage, for he was something of a courtier. Although
not quite so unscrupulous as Gower, who saw no harm in alter-

:88o.] CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. 703

g the panegyric on one king to suit another, he had no objec-
ion to royal patronage or the spoils of office. Most of his life
as spent in the atmosphere of courts. He was page in Prince
ionel's household, served in the army, and was taken prisoner in
ranee. Afterwards he was valet and squire to Edward III.,
and went as king's commissioner to Italy in 1372. He was comp-
troller of the customs in the port of London from 1381 to 1386,
was M. P. for Kent in 1386, and in 1389 clerk of the King's
Works at Windsor. His best work, The Canterbury Talcs, was
ritten in the comparative leisure and ease of his latter days.

Chaucer," says the editor of The English Poets,* " like Dante, had the
re good fortune of coming in upon an unformed language, and, so far as
one man could, of forming it. He grew up among the last generation in
England that used French as an official tongue. It was in 1362, when
Chaucer was just entering manhood, that the session of the House of Com-
mons was first opened in English speech. Hence it is easy to see the hol-
lowness of the charge so often brought against him, since Verstegan first
made it, that he was a great mingler of English with French. Tyrwhitt
long since refuted this charge, and if it wanted further refutation we might
point to ' Piers Plowman's Vision,' the work of a poet of the people, written
for the people in their own speech, but containing a greater proportion of
French words than Chaucer's writings contain."

His contemporaries appreciated his genius, and praised him
heartily. Gower says that all England knows his fame ; Lydgate
calls him

" The noble rethor poet of Bretagne " ;

ccleve names him " the floure of eloquence,"

" The first finder of our faire langage."

ter the Scotch poets, beginning with King James I. " the
best poet among kings, and the best king among poets " were
enthusiastic over their dear master, Chaucer.

Chaucer had adapted the " Roman de la Rose," and it was re-
served for Dryden to attempt a similar task for Chaucer. But
the modern poet was not successful. Chaucer's expression, which
is bloomlike, exquisite, evanescent, vanished in Dryden's adapta-
tion ; and this power of expression is Chaucer's chief charm. He

s not that feeling for nature which is so prominent in the work
of modern poets. He seldom paints still life ; his landscapes are
rare, yet he contrives to surround his personages with the " out-

The English Poets : Selections, with critical introductions by various writers, and a general
Production by Matthew Arnold. Edited by Thomas Humphry Ward, M. A. Two volumes,
ion and New York : Macmillan & Co.

704 CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE.

of-doors " air as effectually as Shakspere does in " As You Like
It." Chaucer's England was " merrie " ; the arriere pensc'e was not
always present. He is light-hearted, vivacious ; he Aveeps with
his creations, cordially hates his villains, and yet is ever ready to
laugh at anything pleasant on his pilgrimage, which, often sacred
and solemn, has much of the picnic element about it. He does
not imitate Homer in making inventories, and yet, with a few
touches, he quickly and vividly materializes his objects.
As an example Mr. Ward quotes :

" The gret Emetrius, the King of Inde,
Upon a stede bay trapped in stele
Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele,
Came riding like the god of armes, Mars.
His cote-armure was of a cloth of Tars
Couched with perles white and round and grete ;
His sadel was of brent gold new ybete ;
His mantelet upon his shouldre hanging
Bret-ful of rubies red as fyr sparkling ;
His crispe heer like ringes was yronne,
And that was yelwe and glitered as the sonne."

It is a pity that many of us know Chaucer best through DJ
den and Pope. Dryden's arrangements of Chaucer spoiled the
poetry of both, though they are not without vigor ; but Pope's
" Temple of Fame " is merely a parody. Chaucer in sword
periwig was about as poetic a sight as a young faun in the dn
of our decade.

When the mellow light of sunset fell on the poet his lin<
were cast in pleasant places. He was poor, and yet serene
mind. It is easy to imagine him, grave, yet with a twinkle in hii
eye, talking, rosary in hand as he is represented in a picture
with the blind poet Gower, the philosophical Dominican Strode,
the youthful Lydgate, or Occleve, who furtively sketched a por-
trait of his master on the margin of a precious book. He died in
peace with all the world ; and if he had never needed to write

" For he shall find enough, both great and small,
Of storial thing that toucheth gentleness,
Likewise morality and holiness ;
Blame ye not me if ye should choose amiss,"

there would have been no blot on his escutcheon in the Valhall
of the poets.

Langley, or Langland, who was contemporary with Chaucer,
does not seem to have felt his influence. " Piers Plowman " is the
work of a visionary brooding over the wants of the people, who-

i88o.] CHAIICER AND HIS CIRCLE. 705

turns at last from the picture of an ideal reformer to come to the
Saviour who had already come. Langland, in his earnestness,
high purpose, and seriousness, is in striking contrast to Chaucer.
" Piers Plowman " is in the unrhymed alliterative metre of the
older English period almost the only metre that can be called
English, as Mr. Skeat remarks in his sketch of Langley,* since all
others have been borrowed from French or Italian :

" Lo ! how the sun gan lock her light in her-self,
When she saw Him suffer death who sun and sea made !
Lo ! the earth, for heaviness that He would death suffer,
Quaked as [a] quick thing and al to-quashed the rocks ! "

Of him whom Chaucer and Lydgate call the moral Gower
ough his best-known work, " Confessio Amantis," would to-day
be considered anything but moral very little is known. He seems
to have been born in 1330 and to have died in 1408, having been
blind for eight or nine years before his death. He was a gentle-
man of an old family owning estates in Kent and Suffolk. The
place of his birth is unknown. He probably died in the priory of
St. Mary Overies, Southwark, in the church of which, now called
St. Saviour's, his tomb may be still seen. It is not known when
his first work, " Speculum Meditantis," written in French verse,
was composed. The second, " Vox Clamantis," in Latin elegiac
verse, was written between 1382 and 1384. The third, " Confessio
Amantis," was written, owing to the success with which Chaucer
had wielded his " langage faire," in English. The grave and moral
author mixes up Christianity and paganism in the most aston-
ishing manner in " Confessio Amantis," and, strange to say, he
seems altogether unconscious of the incompatibility of these ele-
ments. Religion and passion change places with much complai-
sance, and the impartial reader is reluctantly forced to conclude
that the " moral Gower " had an amazing faculty for mixing things
up. He possessed no spark of that genius which illuminated
everything that Chaucer touched. " Florent," a story in the
" Confessio Amantis," is not without merit. Its moral is that

" Alle women most desire "

to have their own way. After a long dialogue Florent yields his
will entirely to that of his wife.

" My lord," she said, " grand-merci,
For of this word that ye now sayn
That ye have made me sovereign,

* The English Poets, vol. i.

VOL. xxxi. 45

CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. [Aug.,

My destiny is overpass'd ;
That ne'er hereafter shall be lassed *
My beauty, which that now I have,
Till I betake unto my grave
Both night and day as I am now
I shall alway be such to you.
Thus, I am yours for evermo."

Chaucer and Gower were intimate friends, but they had
quarrel, which was, however, made up. There is evidence that
Chaucer called one of Gower's tales " corsed," which, if it means
" sensational," shows that Gower had an abnormally forgiving
and unpoetical spirit.

John Lydgate, another of Chaucer's friends, seems to have
been stimulated to write by the example of his master and by his
love for the French poets of his time. To Chaucer we owe tl
fact that he wrote in English. At his best he reflects his m<
for whom he cherished the profoundest admiration and whom
was proud of imitating. His first long poem, " The Storie
Thebes," written when he was nearly fifty, he represents as a n<
Canterbury Tale told by himself after he has joined the compz
of pilgrims at Canterbury. In it he uses the ten-syllable rhymii
couplet after the manner of Chaucer in " The Knightes Tale
Lydgate had a remarkable faculty of versification, but he lacl
the force of Chaucer. There are passages full of spirit, followed
long stretches of dreary verse-making. Another important
was the " Storie of Troy," begun about the year 1412, at the re-
quest of Prince Henry, afterwards Henry V. The prince asked
that Lydgate should do the noble story of Troy into English, as
other poets had done in other languages, and Lydgate complied.
He finished the fifth and last book in 1420. It is written in th
ten-syllable couplets, and founded on Guido di Colonna's pros
history of Troy. In the third book, where the story of Troilu
and Cressida is introduced, Lydgate seizes 'the chance to pay
ardent tribute to Chaucer. His versification, although he ha
evidently mastered his art as far as it went, is often rough,
the structure of the lines is attentively considered," says M
Thomas Arnold, who writes a notice of Lydgate in The Englis
Poets, " it will be seen that he did not regard them as consistin
of ten syllables and five feet, or at least that he did not general!
so regard them, but rather as made up of two halves or counte
balancing members, each containing two accents. Rememberin
this, the reader can get through a long passage by Lydgate o

* Lessened.

:88o.] CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. 707

Barclay with some degree of comfort ; though if he were to read

te same passage with the expectation of meeting always the due
mmber of syllables, his ear would be continually disappointed
md annoyed. This vicious method of versification was probably

legacy from the alliterative poets, whose popularity, especially
in the north of England, was so great that their peculiar rhythm
long survived after rhyme and measure had carried the day."
Lydgate, although a monk ostensibly belonging to the monas-

;ry of St. Edmund at Bury, does not seem, from his own account,
have done much credit to his calling :

" Of religioun I weryd a blak habite,
Oonly outward by apparence."

"oward the end of his life, however, his mind took a more edi-
r ing turn, and he composed a metrical " Life of St. Edmund " and
" Legend of St. Alban," which raised him much higher in the
stimation of his good brothers the monks than all his idle tales of
'hebes and Troy. Lydgate's most notable work was " The Falls
)f the Princes," founded on a French version of the Latin treatise
>y Boccaccio, " De Casibus Virorum Illustrium." The title-page
this poem, in nine books, printed in folio in 1558, sufficiently ex-
>lains the subject. It runs : " The Tragedies gathered by Jhon
>chas of all such Princes as fell from theyr Estates throughe the
[utability of Fortune since the creation of Adam until his time ;
wherin may be seen what vices bring menne to destruccion,
wyth notable warninges howe the like may be avoyded. Trans-
lated into English by John Lidgate, Monk of Burye." Lydgate
is at his best in this poem ; he uses the seven-line stanza, and
gets nearer to the ease and liquidity of versification which distin-
guish Chaucer. Of his minor poems, " London Lickpenny,"
which describes the trials of a penniless wanderer in the great me-
tropolis, gives a very vivid idea of the sights and sounds of the
London streets :

" Then unto London I dyd me hye,
Of all the land it beareth the pryse :
4 Hot pescodes,' one began to crye,
' Strabery rype, and cherryes in the ryse ' ;
One bad me come nere and by some spyce,
Peper and safforne they gan me bede,
But for lack of mony I myght not spede."

Of the poems of Thomas Occleve, who wrote " De Regimine
Principium " in 141 1, the address to Chaucer is the most beautiful.
He reflected rather than originated ; his work shows at times a

708 CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. [Aug.,

charming simplicity and lofty religious feeling ; but it is dwarfed
by comparison with that of the poet whom he calls

" O maister dere and fader reverent,

My maister Chaucer ! floure of eloquence,
Mirrour of fructuous entendement,
O universal fadir in science."

Occleve was born between 1365 and 1370; it is believed that
he lived to a great age, but the precise date of his death is un-
known.

Robert Henryson is the brightest light among the stars that
circled in the train of Chaucer. Of him little is known. It is
certain that in 1462 he was incorporated of the University ol
Glasgow, and that he was afterwards schoolmaster in Dunferm-
line, and that he worked there as a notary public. Henryson was
a true poet, and he possessed what we call to-day a feeling for hi:
art in a high degree. His narrative is gay, easy, rapid ; his toucl
light and vivid, and his dramatic power, both in dialogue and con-
struction, is not surpassed by Chaucer. His verse is musical an<
well weighed ; he liked to try his hand at new refrains, strang<
metres, and unexpected rhymes. His dialect, to the modern ey<
and ear, is almost incomprehensible, but long study and great love
will show him who cares to search that Henryson used it as th<
old composers used the harpsichord. It is an instrument of nar-
row compass, yet capable of exquisite harmonies under the ham
of a master.

" To know the use he made of it in dialogue he must be studied in ' Rob-
yne and Makyne,' the earliest English pastoral ; or at such moments as
that of the conversation between the widows of the Cock who has just been
snatched away by the Fox; or in the incomparable 'Taile of the Wolf
that got the Nek-Herring throw the Wrinkis of the Fox that Begylit the
Cadgear,' which, outside La Fontaine, I conceive to be one of the high-
water marks of the modern apologue. In such poems as ' The Three Deid
Powis,' * where he has anticipated a something of Hamlet at Yorick's
grave, as ' The Abbey. Walk,' the ' Garmond of Fair Ladies,' the 'Reason-
ing between Age and Youth,' it is employed as a vehicle for the expression
of austere thought, of quaint conceitedness, of solemn and earnest devotion
of satirical comment, with equal ease and equal success." f

There are delightful touches of fancy in all Henryson's poems,
which the dialect in which they are written prevents us from
quoting. To most of us Burns requires a glossary ; and, then
fore, Henryson's mixture of old English and Scotch would be
hopeless in an age when he who reads runs/ This bit out of

* Skulls. t The English Poets.

j :SS<

1880.] CHAUCER AND HIS CIRCLE. 709

his " Testament of Cresseid," in which he includes a tribute to
" worthie Chaucer glorious/' is exquisitely beautiful :

" Within mine orature
I stude when Titan with his bemis bricht
Withdrawin doun, and sylit* undercure,
And fair Venus, the beauty of the nicht,
Uprazs, and set unto the west full richt
Hir goldinface, in oppositioun
Of God Phoebus) direct discending doun." .

After Skelton who, by the way, resembles Rabelais more
than the centre of our circle a great change took place. Poetry
took a tinge from the new creed, and lost much of its gayety, and
that quality which is called naivete, in consequence. Stephen
Hawes, a disciple of Lydgate, wrote in 1506 " The Pastime of
Pleasure, or the Historic of Graunde Amoure and La Belle
Pucel." It is an allegory, describing how Grande Amoure makes
imself worthy of perfect love La Belle Pucel. Hawes had no
mall share of the divine fire, though his narrative and descrip-
tions are often dull. Hawes imitated Chaucer less than those
who preceded him. There is no new ring in his verse which
forebodes the new epoch at hand. He wrote at least one coup-
let that deserves to live :

" For though the daye be never so long,
At last the belle rmgeth to evensong"

James I., the author of " The King's Quair," who, with Dunbar
and Gawain Douglas, reflected the light of Chaucer, was the
first Scottish poet to lighten the fifteenth century. Dunbar, a
strong and virile poet, born somewhere in East Lothian between
1450 and 1460, hearing the mutterings of the coming storm, put
his thoughts into verse which stamps him as an earnest Catholic,
and which have been called by a competent critic "the finest
devotional fragments of their age." Gawain Douglas, Bishop of
Dunkeld, and son of the famous Earl of Angus " Bell-the-Cat "-
who boasted that none of his sons except Gawain could write,
made a translation of the ^Eneid which cannot die ; but he was
a dilettante rather than a genuine poet, and he gladly dropped the
pen for politics, which desertion ultimately caused him to be exiled

London, where he died in 1522.

When Hawes died Chaucer's daisies were left to wither until
Burns tried to revive them ; but they were never the same.
Only he who sang " si douce est la marguerite " can worthily

* Hidden.

710 NEW PUBLICA TIONS. [Aug.,

wear that symbol of freshness and simplicity which the early
poets, loving him well, lauded in those " merrie " days before
men had learned to tear aside its petals and to analyze its hues
in the hope of finding the " unknown."

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ANCIENT ROME IN ITS CONNECTION WITH THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
By the Rev. Henry Formby. London : C. Kegan Paul & Co. (For sah
by the Catholic Publication Society Co.)

Mr. Formby's theories respecting history, and emphatically Roman his
tory, in connection with religion, with Christianity, and with the Catholi(
Church, as well as the enthusiasm and persevering industry he has shown
for forty years past in advocating them, are known to all readers of Englisl
Catholic literature. We do not use the word " theories " in a disparaging
sense. The principles and leading ideas of Mr. Formby's philosophy of
history are sound and certain. All his views and opinions have a prol
bility, or at least a plausibility, entitling them to respectful consideration.
It is well known that scholars have always differed about the question of
explicit divine tradition among the heathen nations, known to poets ant
philosophers, and about the direct influence of Judaism and the Jews,
fore Christ, upon other nations and the most learned and travelled amonj
them. Mr. Formby is one of those who estimate the direct influence oi
primeval tradition and the later revelations made to the seers of Judasa at
the highest. It is his conviction that Numa Pompilius visited Judaea am
became acquainted with the Institutes of Moses. From the very nature oi
the case, it is impossible to prove or disprove with certainty many supposi-
tions of this kind, which are within the domain of probable hypothesis 01
conjecture.

In his general thesis, nevertheless, Mr. Formby maintains positions
which are inexpugnable. He stands on the same ground with Leo XIII. and
many others of the most learned and soundest historical writers. Indeed,
there is no philosophy of history worth the name which takes any other
view. We heartily approve of his estimate of the importance of historical
studies and the right teaching of history. From the earliest period of his
literary career Mr. Formby has principally devoted his pen to works of
travel in the East, and historical compositions, in which the progressive
development of the kingdom of God on earth is shown by the narration of
events and by judicious reflections on their connection with and their bear-
ing upon the great end of the human race. In these writings of his he has
from the first made an abundant use of the illustrative art, with a fine and
exquisite taste. We remember admiring the etchings in his first published
book of travels in the Holy Land, which were the product of his own pen-
cil, nearly forty years ago. In his present new and splendid work on Rome
he has given us a rare and rich collection of wood-cuts, of excellent execu-

1 880.] NE W PUBLICA TIONS. 7 1 1

tion, representing statues, busts, medals, coins, drawings, pictures from the
catacombs, and illustrations of all kinds, from classic, Christian, ancient,
mediaeval, and modern artistic works. In an artistic sense, the new and
great work of Mr. Formby is most admirable, instructive, and delightful,
from the decorated cover to the last page. The wood-cuts are skilfully ar-
ranged to illustrate and symbolize the author's philosophical and religious
view of history, especially Roman history, in connection with Christianity.
It is in this his greatest and most elaborate work that he has most fully
explained and vindicated this theory. It is not his direct purpose to write
a compendium or text-book of Roman history. The book contains a his-
tory, graphically written, and including the principal, salient events, yet
not with the minuteness and completeness of a history ex professo. The
direct scope of the author is to show the meaning, the bearing, the connec-
tion of these events, in the general plan of Divine Providence. Jerusalem
was the holy city of the Old Law, selected and predestined and placed in
the most advantageous position for its purpose, and made the royal seat of
Juda's and David's line. Rome was prepared from of old to be the holy
city of the line of royal priests descending spiritually from David's greater
Son.

Another learned and industrious writer, Father Thebaud, in his volumi-
nous works, among the most original and valuable of modern contributions
to historical literature, has amassed a great amount of materials, illustrat-
ing the connection of the whole Gentile world with the church and the Ca-
tholic religion. Father Thebaud emphasizes more the difficulties and ob-
stacles of heathen religions, philosophies, politics, as impediments in the
way of Christianity, in order to show the supernatural grace and divine
power by which they were surmounted and conquered. Mr. Formby ac-
centuates the disposition and preparation made in Rome and the Gentile
world for the congruous and efficacious working of the supreme, efficient
cause through and by means of these secondary and natural concurrents
and instruments. Truly, if we may say so, Jesus Christ appeared and sent
out his apostles just in the nick of time, and in the most suitable place.
This very fact proves his divinity. He made himself, through his apostles,
master of the situation and conqueror of the world, but by means humanly
and naturally so inadequate, in the face of an impossibility so absolute, that
the result is like the passage of the most enormous camel through the
smallest needle's eye, and the divine power which was the really efficient
cause stares us in the face with blinding evidence. Miracle initiates, provi-
dence working through ordinary and natural causes made ready by divine
foresight, for the most part, and only with exceptions relatively few and
rare, carries on, every stage and part of the general plan which is begun by
a new departure and a direct intervention of divine power. Thus Rome was
prepared to be the centre of Christendom, the Roman supremacy with the
allied temporal sovereignty of the popes became the instrument for con-
verting and civilizing the world. Yet a miracle was necessary in order to
put St. Peter in the place of Augustus.

Mr. Formby's elegant volume, which sets forth by history, argument,,
and the monuments of decorative art this connection between the Rome of
the Caesars and the Rome of the popes, should, and we hope will, find a
place in every library, and on the tables of all Catholics who make preten-

712 NEW PUB LIC A TIONS. [Aug.,

sion to cultivation and refinement of taste. Every one who wishes to make
a handsome present in the form of a book we counsel to select this one in
preference to all others, if he thinks the party capable of appreciating its
value. We make a suggestion also to the ruling powers in colleges and
schools which give prizes to pupils. Sometimes one of the highest prizes
will cost as much as $8. The price of Mr. Formby's book is $12 50, which
we think extremely reasonable. It is probably too costly for a single prize.
Yet we often see boys and girls, who receive several prizes, carrying off a
pile of books. Why not, in such cases, lump the prizes, and confer the
gift of such a book as this, or Dr. Brennan's Life of Christ, which will have
a great and permanent value ? The honor is the same, the number of prizes
won can be attested by certificates, and the actual premium accorded to
merit is much better worth receiving, while it costs no greater outlay from
the prize-fund.

The mine in which such writers as Mr. Formby and Father Thebam
are working is a rich one, and we hope to see others applying themselve
to dig out its treasures. Some one has said that we want a Catholic Mil
man. A Gibbon, a Milman, a Hallam, or a Macaulay, writing in Englis'
as Stolberg did in German and Cantu in Italian, and enriching Englis!
literature with a great history, either universal or only embracing the civi
and ecclesiastical history of the period since the birth of Christ, written ac
cording to the principles which alone can present all facts in their tru
light and relations that is, Catholic principles would be a signal benefac
tor and deserve a high place on the roll of fame. Meanwhile, every on
who writes up well any part or epoch or single chapter of history does
great service.

THE LIFE OF VENERABLE SISTER MARGARET BOURGEOIS, FOUNDRESS o
THE SISTERS OF THE CONGREGATION OF NOTRE DAME. Translate
from the French by a Religeuse, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. New York : D
& J. Sadlier & Co.

This book is a translation of a work that was published in French i
1818. It gives the history of one of the early pioneers of Christianity i
America. It is always interesting to read the lives of heroic men and
women who have sacrificed themselves for the advancement of religion and
the good of their fellow-beings. But this book commends itself particular-
ly to our notice, because it is the history of one who watched at the cradle
of the church in America, and founded a congregation of women imbued
with her own spirit to continue her good work in the service of the church
after she had gone to her rest. Margaret Bourgeois was born in France in
1620. At the age of thirty she felt inspired by the Holy Spirit to join a
colony of settlers that were going out to establish a city in honor of the
Blessed Virgin, on the site of what is now Montreal. As soon as she ar-
rived in the New World she began her work, and continued it for fifty years
till her death in 1700. Sister Bourgeois assisted the colonists in all their
needs, " being an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, consolation to the af-
flicted, a support to the weak and indigent, making herself, like the apostle,
'all to all in order to gain all to Christ.' " But her principal work was the
education of children, and the congregation she founded she devoted to
this. During her life she was a model of every Christian virtue, and after

880.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 713

her death a great many miracles were worked at her tomb. The process of
her canonization was begun in the spring of 1879. Without anticipating
the judgment of the church, we may confidently hope that before long her
name will be put alongside that of St. Rose of Lima and the sixteen other
canonized or beatified saints and servants of God who have lived and labor-
ed in America. The book is interesting, too, from another point of view, for
a great deal of the early history of Montreal is worked into the narrative.

The translation is well done, while the general appearance of the book
is creditable to the publishers.

T. ANGELA MERICI AND THE URSULINES. By Rev. Bernard O'Reilly, L.D.
(Laval), author -of Mirror of True Womanhood, Life of Pius IX,, etc.
New York : Pollard & Moss. 1880.

This is another volume from the prolific pen of Dr. O'Reilly, who as a
biographer has established a reputation for himself by his Life of Pius IX.
In the book under consideration we find him entering another and a more
difficult field, though even here he has been successful. To write a saint's
ife well is no easy task. It requires a thorough appreciation of the wonder-
ul workings of the Holy Spirit ; one might say that it takes a saint tho-
roughly to know and appreciate a saint. Father O'Reilly has not been con-
tent with a mere narration of the events of St. Angela's life, but, drawing
upon the resources of a wide and varied reading in hagiography, he has
filled his work with rich stores of spiritual thought. Fie has managed to
put forward the divine side of the saint's life, and to describe her superna-
tural relations with God with such effect that one is led to exclaim, " God is
indeed wonderful in his saints." The book is eminently fitted for spiritual
reading.

The subject also commends it to Catholics. St. Angela did a great and
lasting work for the church in our country through her daughters, the Ur-
sulines. Among the first to come here, they have ever since maintained a
high reputation as female educators. Everyone has heard of the Ursulines,
but who St. Angela was and what the characteristics of her life scarcely
any, we would venture to say, are able to tell but those who have read ex-
tensively in the lives of the saints. It is fitting that the mother of such
daughters as the Ursulines should be better known.

St. Angela was one of that bright constellation of saints which enlight-
ened the sixteenth century. So much has been said about the moral cor-
ruption of that century that one is almost led to think there were no lights
to its shadows. Not so. Perhaps there is no age, if we except the age of
martyrs, so fruitful in saints, and great saints, as the age of the so-called
Reformation. St. Ignatius, St. Francis de Sales, St. Charles Borromeo
these are but a few of them. St. Angela, like these, had her providential
mission, and her daughters to-day are still carrying on the good work she
started. There is not only put before us in the life of St. Angela a brilliant
example of the height of sanctity, but we see therein portrayed one of the
reat champions of education.

N.B. When non-Catholic publishers publish the lives of the saints
ey should not so misinterpret Catholic sentiment as to make them the
medium of advertising books which cannot be commended to Catholic
readers.

714 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Aug.,

HYMNS. By Frederick William Faber, D.D. First American edition, from
the author's last edition of 1861. Baltimore : Murphy & Co. 1880.

Father Faber's hymns have long since won their well-deserved place.
They have struck a true chord of Christian and Catholic feeling; hence
their almost universal acceptance and use. It has been thought by some
that a high order of art is, to a certain extent, an impediment to devotion,
and that the people are more affected by ruder efforts, whether in painting
or in verse. If this be true Father Faber's hymns are certainly an excep-
tion. Judged merely as poems they have a high degree of merit. They are
distinguished by a delicate and tender pathos, by a bold and vigorous ima-
gination, by a diction strong th ough the predominance of Anglo-Saxon.
It is this last characteristic to which is partly due the charm of their ex-
quisite simplicity, and this, too, has had much to do with their popularity.
Yet their success is above all owing to the earnestness and warmth of theii
devotional spirit, which has made them a great instrument of good to souls
The writer knows of one soul, at least, that was helped onward towards th(
truth by the hearty Roman ring of the hymn to St. Wilfred, and by the deej
suggestiveness of the first hymn to Our Lady. There are no doubt man]
others for whom these hymns form a part of their spiritual experiem
They are like a burst of Italian sunshine brought to dispel the mists of
English prejudice, and their glow is a wholesome antidote to the coldness
of this material age.

Other editions of these hymns have been published in this country, but
not one of them was complete, and one edition, as THE CATHOLIC WORLI
pointed out at the time, was even intentionally and dishonestly mutilatet
so as to neutralize the Catholic spirit which showed in all that Fathei
Faber wrote. The one before us is the first complete American edition, ant
it is in every way a credit to its publishers. We welcome it as a token of
the appreciation already shown these hymns, and we hope they may bring
forth still more abundant fruit in the future.

THE LIFE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST AND OF HIS BLESSEI
MOTHER. Translated and adapted from the original of Rev. L. C. Bu-
singer, by Rev. Richard Brennan, LL.D., pastor of St. Rose's Church,
New York. Benziger Brothers.

This extensive life of Christ and the Blessed Virgin as we have it in
English from Dr. Brennan we cannot compare with the German original,
and therefore do not know in what respects it may differ from this, and per-
haps be an improvement upon it. We are always sure that what Dr. Bren-
nan does will be well done, and he has in this instance done well the most
important literary work of his life, whether it be by translating literally, or
by recasting and adapting, Businger's Life of Christ. The historical part
goes back to the time of Adam, and furnishes a compendious general his-
tory of religion from the beginning of the world to the Christian era, as an
introduction to the personal history of the Redeemer of men during his so-
journ on earth. The chief point to be specially noticed and commended in
this part of the work is the judicious manner of separating what is certain-
ly the genuine sense and teaching of the Pentateuch in regard to the ear-
liest history of this world and of mankind from mere opinions which were
formerly common and are still defended by a few learned men, but are not

1 880.] NE W PUBLICA TIONS. >] \ 5

easily reconcilable with the commonly received modern conclusions of
science, and are rejected even by the most competent Catholic scholars.
The author has riot, however, departed from the simple, narrative style
suited to a popular history, or disdained to make a sober use of legends
which are more or less probable, and which are introduced in such a way as
not to be confused with authentic and certain records. A great many pious
and edifying reflections interspersed or added make the book answer for
spiritual reading and meditation as well as instruction.

It is quite extensive in bulk, embracing thirty-eight parts in quarto, in
large, beautiful type, on excellent thick paper. Thirty-two parts have been
issued up to the time of our receiving this consignment from the publishers.
The illustrations are nearly six hundred in number, including thirty-one

>lates and six chromo-lithographs. Of these only a few are decidedly poor,

lany are very good, and of the general collection we can commend its ef-
fect as enhancing the value and attractiveness of the work, which as a

rhole is a beautiful one in its class, most appropriate and useful for popu-
lar circulation. Its cost of sixteen dollars is the greatest obstacle to its

ride and extensive diffusion. Nevertheless, many persons of very mode-
rate means, who do not think of buying many books, contrive to have one

>r two which are costly, and which are of perpetual value and interest. A

irge, illustrated Bible is often seen in very humble dwellings. So this
jxcellent and most interesting and attractive work may, and we hope

ill, prove to have such a charm in the eyes of a great number of good

Christian people, that for once they will be willing to make the outlay, and
>ut it among their treasures, to be a never-failing source of instruction and
lelight in the family, and an heirloom for their posterity. As for those

rho have money to spare for buying such books as please them, they can-
lot find a better way of spending it than in the purchase of a work well

rorth the price which it costs.

'HE ELOCUTIONIST. A practical method of teaching and studying elo-
cution. Adapted for schools and colleges. By a Member of a Religious
Order. New York : The Catholic Publication Society Co. 1880.

The author of this book belongs to the best-known lay teaching order
n the Catholic Church. He has for years been entrusted by his order with
he direction of some of its chief schools in this country, and hence to the
compilation of this work he has brought the tried judgment and the ripe
experience of his many years' service as a teacher.

In his preface the author states that his chief purpose in preparing the
book was to present to Catholic educators and families a work which, while
thoroughly teaching the art of elocution, should also be unlike so many
of those now offered to the public free from vulgarity, suggestion of im-
morality, or sectarianism. And in this he has been eminently successful :
the book is one which may be safely and profitably used in the school or
family circle.

The introductory part teaches the theory and practice of elocution, and
is handsomely illustrated with figures and diagrams showing the most ap-
proved positions to be assumed in public speaking, as well as the use of the
hands, feet, etc. In this branch of his subject the author has supplemented
his own opinions by citing the methods and views of the highest authori-

[Aug.,

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ties on the art of oratory. Following the introduction are three hundred
and seventy-eight pages of selected prose and poetry for reading, graded
for all classes from the juvenile who lisps " You'd scarce expect one of my
age," etc., to the youth who aspires to render Shakspere. It is, perhaps,
not possible to make a book of selections which would be beyond criticism,
but in this case the author has given so wide a range of subjects, and from
such excellent sources, that every taste seems to have been catered to. In
addition to the selections there are some capital original dialogues, and two
admirable adaptations, from " Hamlet " and the " Merchant of Venice." In
short, the book seems well adapted to the purpose for which it was in-
tended.

LEGEND OF THE BEST BELOVED, AND OTHER POEMS IN HONOR OF THI
SACRED HEART OF JESUS. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. An offering to tl
Irish Famine Fund. New York : P. O'Shea. 1880.

It would be an ungrateful task to say anything in disparagement
poems published in aid of a charitable cause, as these are. Besides, thei
are some of these poems that could go before the world on their own
merits. All of them are pervaded by an air of mystical .piety ; all turn to
the Sacred Heart. To our mind, in spite of a few prosy lines here and-
there, " The Apostolate of the Weak " is, next after " The Golden Message,"
the best poem in the volume.

LAYS AND LEGENDS OF THOMOND, WITH HISTORICAL AND TRADITION^
NOTES. By Michael Hogan, " Bard of Thomond." Dublin: M. H. Gi
& Son. (For sale by the Catholic Publication Society Co., New York.]

We have seldom seen more variety of talent than is shown in tl
volume. Mr. Hogan's muse seems equally at home whether tuning h<
lyre to pathos or patriotism, sentiment or humor. By turns his songs ai
warlike or peaceful, joyous, sad, pathetic, rollicking, gay. "The Bard
Thomond " has learned his country's legends to good purpose, and seldoi
have her songs been more sweetly sung. Except for an almost too great prc
fusion of imagery, with now and then a faulty measure or imperfect rhyi
which arise, no doubt, from a luxuriant fancy and the impulsiveness of
soul that sings because it must, we have only words of praise for the La)
and Legends of Thomond.

UARDA : A Romance of Ancient Egypt. By Georg Ebers. From the G(
man by Clara Bell. In two volumes. New York : William S. Gotts-
berger. 1880.

Almost every impressionable person remembers the rather chilling sen-
sation of awe produced by his first view of the majestic monuments of
Egypt. Volney's famous apostrophe is no exaggerated expression of this
feeling. The silent, sculptured remains of a nation that flourished and was
highly civilized more than thirty centuries before we were born, and centuries
before even ancient Greece and Rome began to be young, may well cause us
to feel our littleness in their presence. But, apart from any really historical
interest, this awe is naturally accompanied with a curiosity to know some-
thing more of the daily life of the people who erected these monuments
than is to be learned from any written history that has been preserved,

5^1 V \^*J,

! rSRn

1 880.] NE w PUB LIC A TIONS. 7 1 7

other than that written on the stones themselves.' But, fortunately, mate-
rials to satisfy this curiosity are pretty fully supplied by these monuments.
Almost, every detail of the daily life-struggle of the Egyptians has been per-
petuated in granite or limestone. The Egyptian sculptors often displayed
remarkable skill, and occasionally showed in their grim and rigid material
almost as broad a humor as Teniers or the Van Ostades on their easier pan-
els or canvases. But the subjects of many of these sculptures remained
puzzles until the Champollions and their followers down to Renouf, Cha-
blas, and others, among them the author of the above romance, had made
the language of the hieroglyphics intelligible to our century.

Prof. Ebers, of the University of Leipsic, is an Egyptologist of some
note. Uarda is one of three novels which he has found time to write
between his more serious worlds on Egyptian antiquities. The others are
An Egyptian Princess and Homo Sum. The time and place of Uarda are
Egypt during the reign of Rameses II. (1352 B.C.) This Rarneses, known
s the Great and celebrated by the Greeks under the name of Sesos-
is, was the son of the Pharao who cut the first Suez Canal, and was the
immediate predecessor of that other Pharao who proved so hard a task-
master to the Hebrews. Uarda, the heroine of the story, is a fair-
ired, beautiful girl of foreign extraction, who had been brought up
ong assistants to the embalmers of the Necropolis of Thebes. The
her important characters are the Pharao's daughter, who divides the
terest of the story with Uarda, a poet-priest, a plotting mother-in-law,
e unscrupulous high-priest, a disappointed lout of a lover, a treacher-
s but weak regent of the kingdom, and Rameses himself. The plot is
geniously involved, and it unfolds satisfactorily enough, though it con-
cludes in rather a severely tragical style by the death of all the wicked
characters, and the marriage or other fitting reward of all the good ones
that it was not found necessary to kill off earlier in the story. But the de-
lineation of the various characters is excellent.

The work as a romance lacks artistic finish, it is true, for it could
scarcely be otherwise, since its aim is to give a familiar view of Egyptian
life rather than to present a pleasing romance ; yet it will interest novel-
readers in spite of this. There are passages, especially in the second
volume, that are well wrought out as, for instance, the description of the
battle of Kadesh (vol. ii. p. 226) and the meeting of the heroine with her
grandfather (vol. ii. p. 300). Still, the habitual novel-reader will be sure
to skip many passages here and there. Yet just the parts which will be
skipped by these young ladies in their haste to know the issue of the very
robust love-making of the Pharao's daughter, and the somewhat weaker
passion of Uarda herself, will attract the greater attention among another
class of readers.

While the vulgar religion of the Egyptians was a gross polytheism, 1 the
religion followed by the priests among themselves and taught in the Mys-
teries was pantheistic.

"The pantheistic teaching of the Mysteries is most clearly expressed in
those texts which are found in almost all the kings' tombs in Thebes, and
on the walls of the entrance-halls. They have been collected, and contain
praises to Ra [the midday sun], whose seventy-five principal manifestations
are invoked " (note to vol. i. p. 237).

7 x 8 NEW PUBLIC A TIONS. [Aug.,

We think it is proper to remark here that while reading this book ai
unpleasant suspicion frequently crossed our mind that the Leipsic prc
fessor seemed to emphasize with approval the pantheism and the rath<
vague morality he puts into the mouths of some of his characters. In this
way Alciphron, The Last Days of Pompeii, and even Theophile Gautier's
Momie are naturally recalled. With this reserve we have 'no hesitatioi
in commending Uarda, both for its readableness as a story and its reallj
large amount of interesting information concerning the ancient Egyj
tians. The translation is well done, and bears very few marks of the Ger-
man idiom.

(NOTE. Pharao, by the way, Professor Ebers explains to be a Hebrew form of the
tian word Peraa, or Phrah, literally meaning " The Great House " or " The High Gate," whu
the translator of Uarda adds, may have been the origin of the term " The Sublime Porte.")

HOMES OF HOMELESS CHILDREN. From the Ninth Annual Report of tl
Board of Charities of the State of New York. By William P. Letcl
worth, Commissioner of the Eighth Judicial District.

In this volume, containing over five hundred pages, Commissio
Letchworth has made a large extract from the report which was tra
mitted to the New York Legislature on January 14, 1876. All who are
gaged in the benevolent work of making homes for the homeless will n
doubt be deeply interested in considering the facts and figures here p
sented for inspection. It is certainly very gratifying to know that so muc
is being done, under the sanction and patronage of the State of New Yor
to better the condition of destitute children. Since the advent of Chri
tianity it has ever been considered a most imperative duty, binding
every individual and every community of individuals, to provide for t
needy and the afflicted ; and as long as men adhere, however imperfect
to- the teaching of Christ the "unselfish capabilities of our humanity"
always be shown forth in the maintenance of charitable institutions.

" These institutions," says Commissioner Letchworth, " appear like brig
centres from which the goodness of a Divine Being radiates to the home-
less and suffering. Dispense with all these benevolent agencies, and so-
ciety would quickly sink into barbarism. The hands of those engaged in
the work should be strengthened, not only with our sympathy but by our
pecuniary aid. The State is now expending millions in the erection of a
princely Capitol which, when completed, will not equal in value one human
life rescued from infamy and reared to the full stature of virtue and godli-
ness. The individuals engaged in this moral work are, with patient labor,
shaping the uncouth outlines of crude characters into forms of grace and
beauty, as certainly as are the workmen chiselling the various granite blocks
for their places in that stately edifice ; and these characters, when com-
pleted, will each have its place in the great structure of society."

One of the most prominent institutions described in the volume under
consideration is the New York Catholic Protectory, which provides for
over thirteen hundred boys and almost an equal number of girls. The
government of this immense establishment is conducted for the benefit of
the State, as well as for the personal good of those under its sway. Noth-
ing is left undone to make self-sustaining men and women out of the chil-
dren placed under its care. The aim of the instruction and discipline is to
send forth intelligent Catholics " with minds freed from the distraction of
commingled doctrines, and fortified against temptation by a well-defined
faith and abiding hope, a never-failing charity."

1 8 8o.] NE w PUB LIC A T ION'S. 7 1 9

It is to be hoped that a larger number of the Catholic gentlemen of
New York will invest some of their time and money in furthering the in-
terests of the Protectory and similar institutions. The late Dr. Anderson,
although a distinguished mathematician, a learned linguist, and an accom-
plished scholar, thought it profitable to devote a considerable part of his
time and energy to the advancement of the Protectory. There are also
many others still living, whose names need not be mentioned, who are
doing the same deeds of Christian benevolence, and thereby accumulating
imperishable treasures for the future world.

From the evidence furnished by this report one can realize to some
extent the far-reaching influence of the various institutions which are
directed and sustained by Catholic charity. Each one of them has its own
special sphere of action, and each one is striving with all the force it can
exert to make the world better and happier by uplifting fallen humanity.
One of the youngest of these institutions is the Association for Befriending
Children and Young Girls, which was organized and incorporated in 1870.
It is supported mainly by the private donations and the personal exertions
of some of the most prominent Catholic ladies in New York, and is man-
aged under their constant supervision. Persons of every grade in society
I id of every creed are here encouraged to abandon vice and to become
loroughly reformed. In most cases at least six months are required to
ring about the desired change in the unfortunate girls who have been
:scued from intempe'rance or a shameful life. After they have been led
ick to the path of virtue by means of moral suasion and moral force, they
e then supplied with employment and allowed to go forth again into the
odd. In order to secure perseverance to the end which is the only
niing that counts in the long run a sort of protective society is formed ;
and at the meetings held every month they have an opportunity to receive
further advice and instruction.

The method by which the process of reformation is applied to each in-
dividual, and the discrimination shown towards the unhappy victims who
fall from the higher ranks of society, manifest a profound knowledge of
human nature and an enlightened generosity on the part of those who pro-
jected this organization, which has already produced consoling results.

It is a very noticeable fact that in St. Joseph's Industrial School, under
the control of the Sisters of Mercy, only four of those employed if we
understand the report correctly receive salaries. Yet the number of chil-
dren cared for is about five hundred. What reward do the others get ?
What induces these servants of God to labor without receiving pay ? Do
the members of our Legislature ever think of the vast gratuitous work
which is done so cheerfully for the future citizens of the State by the gen-
erous religious of the Catholic Church ? Perhaps many of them have never
had their attention called to this phenomenon.

VOICES FROM THE HEART. Sacred Poems. By Sister Mary Alphonsus
Downing. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son. (For sale by the Catholic Publi-
cation Society Co., New York.)

Sister Mary Alphonsus Downing, now deceased, was in early life a con-
tributor to the Dublin Nation under the name of "Mary." The poems she
wrote in those days were principally patriotic and national ; but after she

NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Aug., 1880.

had turned her thoughts to higher and holier things her songs knew but
one theme. Voices from the Heart are the outpourings of a soul entirely
devoted to God. Spontaneous and unstudied as most of them are, they
contain many gems of true poetry ; indeed, their very naturalness and
spontaneity are their great merit.

ODD OR EVEN ? By Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, author .of The Gayworthys, etc.
Boston : Houghton, Osgood & Co. 1880.

" Odd or even ? " We must answer, decidedly " odd " this novel is odd
in construction, odd in character, odd in style. The author gives us too
much Yankee slang when she allows her characters to speak, and is not
very choice when she herself speaks. We do not like such words as
"unusedness," " wide-aw T akeness," " externalities," the "fenced-in-few," the
" thunderous gloom," etc. There are some good descriptions of scenery
and of character here and there through the book, and we can say, to the
author's praise, that her story is not sensational, but, on the contrary, that
it is pervaded by a good moral tone.

SCIENCE AND SCEPTICISM : A study of some Principles which influence
Modern Thought. By Stephen M. Lanigan. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son.
(For sale by the Catholic Publication Society Co., New York.) 1880.

There is much good and solid reasoning in this essay. The effort of the
author, however, to make a sound philosophy by combining certain ele-
ments of Locke's and Kant's philosophy together and rejecting others is
more ingenious than successful. The author appears to be in the main
sound in his philosophy, which he seems to have gathered for himself by
the exercise of his own good sound sense and logical faculty from such
books as the English language possesses, without any thorough study of
the best Catholic philosophers. The result of his thoughts as expressed in
his book is creditable to its author and fitted to give a considerable amount
of instruction to intelligent readers, especially such as are disposed to be
overawed by the pretentious cries of our sceptical scientists.

OUR HOMES. By Henry Hartshorne, A.M., M.D, formerly Professor of
Hygiene in the University of Pennsylvania, etc. Philadelphia : Presley
Blakiston. 1880.

This useful and cheap little manual is full of practical hints and direc-
tions for the sanitary arrangement of dwelling-houses. Its author is al-
ready well known by previous works of a more technical nature, which have
all, we believe, earned a good reputation among the medical profession gen-
erally.

ONLY A WAIF. By R. A. Braendle (" Pips "). New York : D. & J. Sadlier &

Co. 1880.

A very silly story, entirely wanting in originality or interest, and told
an ungrammatical jargon.

THE SACRED YEAR: Sermons for the Principal Sundays and Holydays,
from the Feast of St. Andrew to the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
By the Very Rev. Thomas S. Preston, V.G., Pastor of St. Ann's Church.
" Voluntaria oris mei beneplacita fac Domine : et judicia tua doce me."
Third edition, greatly enlarged. New York : Robert Coddington.
1880.

in:
th

ATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXXI. SEPTEMBER, 1880. No. 186.

>OME OF OUR PRESENT WEAPONS AGAINST SO-
CIALISM IN AMERICA*

AN earnest and practical reformer has lately published a series
f articles in the Atlantic Monthly (now republished in book-form)
earing on the disintegrating tendencies now threatening Ame-
can society. The book is valuable for the facts which the
uthor has carefully collected from many sources, for the impar-
ial spirit in which it is written, for the practical hints which it
ives concerning remedies to be used, and for the uncompromis-
ng but never violent way in which it sets forth unpleasant truths
and attacks popular prejudice, optimism, and what are called in
England " vested interests." The tone of the author is singularly
fair, and the results of his careful personal researches concerning
religious influences in this country are given with pitiless plain-
ness of speech. There is no glossing over of dangers, no blink-
ing of facts, no pious vagueness in the direction of a hope that
hings will improve and that God will take care that religion
.oes not perish. The author sees chiefly the practical side of
ligion, and apprehends clearly the duties of the men through
whom, as a rule, Providence works. " Help thyself, and God
will help thee " is a saying which would accurately express his
notion of duty. If it is true, as one newspaper has declared, that
the author is a clergyman, he has had exceptional opportunities
of testing the truth of his assertions. The decay of real religious
power, influence, and organization among the representatives of

* Certain Dangerous Tendencies in American Life. Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston.
1880.

722 SOME OF OUR PRESENT WEAPONS [Sept.,

what he himself calls " evangelical Protestantism " is a fact that
becomes daily more painfully evident; in the rural districts of
old-established States this is almost the rule, and between the
practical heathenism of many who still vaguely believe in God,
and even read the Bible, and are swayed by some remains of an
emotional influence traceable to " prayers said at one's mother's
knee," but whose doctrinal and moral beliefs are nil, and the pro-
fane, defiant, but rather uneasy atheism (perhaps one might call it
fatalism) which takes its stand on garbled and crude versions of
scientific facts, or more often on the illogical levity of some popu-
lar lecturer and the seeming carelessness of " Providence " in the
distribution of good and bad things, religion, in any rational and
vital sense of the word, is all but non-existent.

This latter childish argument about the inequality of blej
ings and trials, etc., is, of course, a direct revulsion from the ol<
Calvinist belief of predestination, which once stood in the ey<
of the majority of the country for the root principle of religioi
Upon the whole, the churches that once possessed popular infli
ence were based on the mistaken notion that God's function waj
that of an arbitrary ruler, and his government, in a political sense,
purely paternal. They left human will and the laws of nature al-
together out of account, as well as all other agencies of anything
like an independent kind, and presented religion to their mem-
bers in the light of a mechanism wholly subordinated to the ar-
bitrary freaks of its maker. Scepticism is the natural revulsion
from this confined ideal, and the form it takes among the majority
of the half-educated masses of this country is a begging of the
real question and an emphatic denial of an assumed scheme of
Providential interference. The broad issue of a general divine
action manifested through natural, historical, and moral means is
ignored ; a small part, and that in a distorted shape, is taken as
the whole, and ostentatiously demolished, while no rational and
abstract principle relating to the government of the world is
even touched. Beyond this form of unbelief lies the smaller knot
of more definite and intellectual atheists, less defiant though not
less persistent, and arguing not from a narrow and false notion
substituted for truth, but from the supposed action of natu-
ral laws and historical facts. These men take another part of the
great cosmos for the whole, and ignore the spiritual faculties of
man and his capacity for receiving and assimilating spiritual
truths. Partisanship is natural to all who insist on seeing only
one aspect of a truth, and accounts for the ignorant vehemence of
denial of the possibility of revelation which distinguishes some

iSSo.] AGAINST SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 723

disciples of the doctrine of man's exclusive animalism. " Me-
thinks they do protest too much."

All these and intermediate shades of opinion are reviewed by
the anonymous author of Certain Dangerous Tendencies in the few
pages which he devotes to considering the decay of evangelical
Protestantism as a national trait. He traces this decay back to
the conditions of fifteen years ago, and says that, at that period at
least, the vital force of those creeds was already lost, and that a
remnant of the old believers, never reinforced by hearty acces-
sions from the rising generation, still formed the real strength of
Protestantism and one of the most wholesome and conservative
though unobtrusive forces of our national life. " They are not
liberal in their views, but they are sincere. They live pure and
good lives. They speak the truth a rare virtue now and they
can be trusted with anybody's money. They will do what they
believe to be right, though all men deride and oppose, and at any
cost to themselves in business or worldly interests." But they are
scarce, and growing scarcer ; they have done their work, and
they have no successors. The very churches in which they grew
up have changed ; religion is formal, not vital ; the clergy are
anxious to keep their posts for the sake of their daily bread, and
are either dull men with uneasy consciences or polished and
brilliant speakers with next to no conscience. The old doctrines,
which, untrue and repulsive as they were, had at least the dignity
of earnestness, were " so softened and accommodated to the grow-
ing doubt that nearly all their original meaning was explained
away." Preaching, the pivot of this form of religion, became first
speculative, then humanitarian, and lastly rationalistic. It ceased
to deal plainly with morals and duty ; it shrank from being au-
thoritative and dogmatic ; it addressed the taste, and shifted with
the taste, of the public. Later on, and up to the present, it has
become nerveless through excessive " trimming," and sermons are
lectures submitted to an audience whose verdict is the final crite-
rion of truth. Honesty was the first virtue to disappear when
worldliness took its seat in the so-called churches ; the rush of
financial temptations during the war, and the paper-money craze,
found the moral bulwarks of the nation defective, and Pharisaism
in a new form installed itself the representative of the national
religion. The author says of the average class of " church-mem-
bers " : " All the barriers and distinctions between the church
and the world have been removed. Church work is ... a kind
of sacred amusement. Public worship, with its pulpit oratory and
modern church music, is an assthetic entertainment. They have

724 SOME OF OUR PRESENT WEAPONS [Sept.,

developed a religion which is not religious. . They have learned
how to be Christians, according to their meaning, without self-
denial or any abridgment of the pleasures, pursuits, or ambitions
of people who acknowledge no religious obligations. They are
the most intelligent members of the popular churches of this
country. They are decorously moral, conforming to the easy,
worldly criterion of people of like social position. They are
nearly all able to live comfortably. . . . They are not usually scru-
pulously truthful or conscientious, and do riot believe it possible
to maintain a very high standard of justice or honesty in business
life. . . . They do not believe the creeds they subscribe when they
join the church, and generally make no secret afterwards of their
doubt or disbelief respecting various fundamental doctrines of
Christianity. But they have a horror of all dissent which takes a
man out of the popular church, and show no respect for the plea
of conscience in such cases." They give a good deal to recog-
nized charities, and help in whatever ways are " approved by thei]
class " ; but they distrust personal earnestness as an eccentricity
if not a deceit ; they have no confidence in principles and truj
wholly to management and policy, while they are powerless, am
perhaps unwilling, to aid in the " moral regeneration " of the
country. Concerning the ministers of these churches the critic
is yet more severe. The exceptions are taken for granted, but
the general mass is not leavened by them. These clergy, often
intelligent and cultured, are largely sceptical, but excessively cau-
tious and reticent ; playing with fire, they think they are wisely
doling out truth that is, rationalism as far and in proportion as
their congregations can bear it. They lose the strength that be-
longs to courage and conviction, and yet gain nothing in return.
Their preaching is vague, intellectual, local, or apologetic. " Theii
teaching is often curiously remote from all the practical conceri
and conditions of life in our time and country, and is almost en
tirely destitute of moral authority and power." On the othei
hand, it deals emotionally and sensationally with fleeting, often
trivial topics, and tacks on a few "religious " generalities to de-
tailed transcripts of periodical literature. The success of their
charity organizations is their great pride, as it is the one tangible
result they can show for their existence ; but, as the author re-
marks, this " is much as if the officers of an army should boast
that all their soldiers able for duty were in the hospitals caring for
their sick comrades, and that all the able-bodied men at home
must soon be conscripted for the same service." He goes on to
describe the unbrotherly class-feeling perceptibly making its way,

i88o.] AGAINST SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 725

and jostling out of the church the less prosperous, but not there-
fore less ambitious, members who form, both in numbers and in-
tellectual possibilities, " a very important portion of our popula-
tion." The tie of church connection thus dropped, the ousted
members become a little laxer and more careless, though, in the
main, they are " still moral and wholesome in character and per-
sonal influence, chiefly from the power of habit and family tradi-
tions of rectitude." It is their children who are really injured,
and from whom the ranks of the unbelieving, the reckless, and the
dishonest are yearly recruited. There is a vast class of unat-
tached, unticketed, so-called Christians, " commonly as good, and
probably more truthful, conscientious, and just than most peo-
ple in the church, but not religious " that is, " having no ideas,
principles, or beliefs in regard to human responsibility which ex-
ercise any considerable power of restraint upon their conduct
when interest, or appetite is involved." But even this promising
and still malleable material will disappear with this generation, and,
so far as personality is concerned, the nominal issue between reli-
gion and unbelief will be considerably narrowed. These men and
women " have too little aspiration and national feeling, and are
giving themselves entirely to material interests." They are sen-
sible, practical, capable, sometimes hard and narrow, but retain
" valuable intellectual and moral qualities. They are drifting
into an indifference which will either cripple or misdirect their
energies ; they are doing little for themselves morally, and no
one else thinks it his duty to step in," though the author holds
strongly that " their future course depends much upon that of
the cultivated classes." This touches one of the points on which
he repeatedly insists the duty of the better-educated (the policy,
he mote than hints) to be beforehand with the budding socialism
of this country, and, by frank and friendly contact with the less
fortunate and less cultured classes, to reaffirm the old spirit of
brotherhood and a common patriotism.

This loosening of the church bond has also, both in city and
country, " produced a greater feebleness of community. There
is not always now, on the part of the people living near each
other, so general or vital a co-operation for the promotion of the
interests of the neighborhood as formerly existed ; and the more
definite and active opposition to Christianity in our time has al-
ready produced changes in the administration of charity and,
what is more important, in the guardianship of the young. . . .
There is often less interest on the part of society in the establish-
ment of young men in business or profitable industry." Selfish-

726 SOME OF OUR PRESENT WEAPONS [Sept.,

ness and individualism are on the increase, and the only point at
which our neighbor's affairs touch ours enough to become inte-
resting is the point of gossip. We do not care enough to help
him, even where help costs little or nothing, but we always care
enough to talk about him. This mixture of indifference and inter-
ference is said with truth to be more conspicuous in the country
than in the city. As the author observes, an accurate account of
the state of the popular religion requires to take in the condition
of the religious sense in rural districts. Unfortunately in most
places, even West, church lines are practically party lines. They
mark off cliques, exclusive and intolerant, and keep up feuds that
among avowed heathens might heal in time. As a rule, the " re-
ligious" set is the narrow set in the same sense that it is said in
England the Tory party is the " stupid " party while the sin-
ners are occasionally pleasant, often generous, and on the whole
honest. The morality of church-members is more than suspect-
ed ; the author, though he is studiously impartial, and admits that
he has made each indictment as " colorless " and impersonal as
possible, says in so many words that " multitudes of men who
are religious are not honest or trustworthy. They declare them-
selves fit for heaven, but they will not tell the truth nor deal just-
ly with their neighbors. The money of widows and orphans
jp laced under their control is not safer than in the hands of high-
waymen. There is no article of food, medicine, or traffic which
can be profitably adulterated or injuriously manipulated that is
not, in most of the great centres of trade, thus corrupted and sold
by prominent members of Christian churches." A commercial
spirit rules the choice or " call " of ministers ; the people " know
what kind of preaching they want, and they intend to have it. If
one minister does not supply it they employ another." The
supply is more than equal to the demand. A few young men
start with an earnest belief in the spiritual mission of the minis-
try, and some unsuccessful and unappreciated men keep it up to
the last ; they still think that it is their duty to disregard men's
wishes and teach unpalatable truths at the daily risk of loss to
themselves ; but for one that acts up -to this ideal through life
ten and more fail. It needs a divine sanction to make the
struggle successful, and, after all, these men have only human
means to resort to to keep up their early enthusiasm. Those
who succeed are the more to be honored.

The Catholic Church, and its influence upon certain important
classes of the community, are twice touched upon in the course
of this book, and it is worth while to note the exact words that

! -a

1880.] AGAINST SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 727

express the author's mingled feelings concerning this subject :
" The priests of the R"0man Catholic Church occupy a position of
great importance in relation to the new conditions and tendencies
of our national life. Although many of them are rather church-
men than American citizens, their influence is likely to be, on the
whole, rather helpful than otherwise. They do a vast deal of
good work upon very difficult material. Their course should be
critically observed, but they deserve far more sympathy and
recognition than they receive. Their teaching forbids consulta-
tion of the spirits of the dead and membership in secret societies.
This last requirement will keep many voters out of the movement
for the inflation and debasement of the national currency, as the
leaders of that enterprise make great use of the machinery of
secret societies."

The belief in special calls to religion, henceforth isolating the
" elect " from the " world," and emphasizing the fact that religion
is not so much a penetrating influence, to be connected with every
innocent act in life, as a badge of exclusiveness cutting a man off
from all equal and brotherly relations with his fellows as men, is
one which still exists, formally at least, and perhaps to some ex-
tent really. The broader view of brotherhood with all one's fel-
low-beings, and of the necessary connection of religion with every
blameless and natural human act, with the natural affections,
the legitimate amusements, and the social relations of each Chris-
tian, is one which the popular idea of " religion " entirely ex-
cludes. The Episcopal Church alone, outside our own (not
reckoning as churches those organizations which can hardly be
called evangelical or Protestant, and yet are based upon certain
doctrinal tests or moral obligations), holds this wise and Christian
view of universal fellowship. These artificial barriers are an-
swerable for a large part of the popular hostility to " religion."
Men of sharp wits and earnest, practical tendencies are daily
alienated by the sight of a thousand outward manifestations
claiming to represent religion, and calling themselves the sine-quo*
non of Christian profession. But for these excrescences there are
many sensible but not patient or discerning men who would be
excellent Christians. They are chiefly professional men ; some
are mechanics ; all are busy, naturally honest, serious-mind-
ed ; they are men of good intentions and straightforward action,
generally better read in the Bible than many technical church-
members men ripe for a rational and manly form of religion.
Unfortunately the forms that come most prominently under their
observation are unsatisfactory, if not repellant. They are not

728 SOME OF OUR PRESENT WEAPONS [Sept.,

anxious enough to inquire further, and yet they are too sensible
to profess the shallow atheism that satisfies Vulgar minds. These
men are chiefly in the prime of life ; very young men are apt to
simulate atheism, while old men often stumble at last into some
formal belief, or work out a system of their own, more or less
technically " religious," sometimes even ceremonial. Leisure is
itself a temptation to brood and create, and old age makes one
long for peace at any price ; and the ironical saying that women
in France become devotes as soon as common sense tells them it is
time to leave off being coquettes is one which is, in a measure, de-
scriptive of a real tendency among men and women of all nations.
The religion or irreligion of the ^mature men of any country is
the central point of the religious question. We see the education
of the young greatly insisted upon, and its importance is no doubt
great ; but it must not be forgotten that boys will probably, no
matter how strict their education, go through the trial that faces
almost every man of this generation at his entrance into life.
Hardly any man, and even any woman, whether Catholic or Pro-
testant, piously brought up and carefully instructed in his or her
religion, but has at one time had a struggle to keep on the right
side. It is true that many will not acknowledge having gone
through such a period, women especially ; notwithstanding, it is
the truth in regard to the majority of the most steadfast and ear-
nest Christians of all communions. That the struggle should end
happily is often due to the grounding in doctrine supplied by
early religious education, though in fully as many cases the end
is a hard-won victory, the soul having groped and forced its
way to a religious conviction from a wilderness of adverse cir-
cumstances and by the help of an experience purely negative,
driving it to seek out the reverse of that pessimism which instinct'
as well as reason pronounces to be a delusion. That a man thus
converted is a more stanch believer than the youth who has
never felt a doubt and never struggled with a temptation seems
self-evident.

Among ourselves, the theory that the visible church includes
all her baptized children, and the invisible many souls outwardly
divided from her, insures a practical treatment of many social
questions different from that common among evangelicals. Still,
although we have this advantage, that Pharisees are not officially
installed as the shining lights and pillars of the church, we need
some improvement in our societies, organizations, guilds, clubs,
etc. We need, beyond special church co-operation, a corre-
sponding movement among our people a secular activity in

i88o.] AGAINST SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 729

grooves where avowedly church societies would be out of place ;
a progressive tendency ready to shape itself into any legitimate
form, imbued with Catholic spirit and enthusiasm, but indepen-
dent of ecclesiastical direction or patronage. Societies for lecture-
giving, for evening classes of technical instruction, for inter-
change of books, for promoting local improvements, ought to
exist side by side and in cordial connection with the distinctly
church and charity societies ; and the more this is encouraged the
more should we advance beyond the narrow practice of the
" popular churches," as we are already beyond their theories of
exclusive election.

Not only the clergy, the author thinks, should engage in the
self-sacrificing and unremunerative work of the moral regenera-
tion of the masses ; all cultured men, better mentally equipped
than their neighbors whose necessities leave them little leisure
for education, should in various practical ways give their time
and personal sympathy to the improvement of the less fortunate.
Only men must not meet on unequal terms, as pauper and pa-
tron ; they must co-operate on genuinely republican principles,
and translate all the poetry and utopianism of brotherhood into
the reality of a national, social, patriotic bond between neighbors.
Though the author ignores all that occurs to Catholics concerning
the duties of Christian brotherhood and the sanction of a per-
petual divine law, his suggestions have all the force of practical
experience and wisdom, and each would repay a fair trial. The
apathy of the cultured classes, as compared with the crude theo-
ries but passionate enthusiasm of the uneducated, is pointed out
by him as a deplorable symptom of moral decay ; the handing
over of the national responsibility for the moral improvement of
the people to an official knot of half-starved clergy is strongly
probated ; and the duty of every man to share with others the
nefits of a superior cultivation, instead of sinking into an intel-
ectual Epicurean, is specially accented. In connection with this,
he saying at a recent English election that, after all, law and
order must learn to trust for their maintenance no longer to ar-
itrary props but to the good instincts of the people, strikes one
s being partly applicable to the moral transition now going on
ere. It is true that the good sense of the community, the ten-
dency, on the whole, to conservatism and order, which distinguish
Northern and Teutonic, or, any rate, English-speaking races, are
powerful barriers against moral revolution and social outbreaks.
In the older portions of the country full credit must be given to
the influence of inherited traditions of patriotism and domestic

730 SOME OF OUR PRESENT WEAPONS [Sept.,

.Cl

respectability. There is no use, however, in blinking the fact
that these races have a brutal instinct lying- beyond, and that ou
breaks of this instinct are not as rare as, for our national reput
tion, it is to be wished they were. Wherever the restraints
civilization are loosened, and the force of public opinion is no
controlled by long-established customs of decency and at least
outward decorum, our people, and again chiefly those of Teutonic
blood and race, are apt to behave like savages. Even with them,
however, the force of example is strong ; the love of fair play can
be used for good ; there is a latent, very rough, and very spasmo-
dical, yet a developable sense of chivalry with regard to good
women. A thoroughly honorable, consistent, and manly man,
who should be also a religious man in the true sense of the word,
would have much influence on such a class ; but, again, it is onl
in rare instances that they even come across such a represen
tive of religion. The monopoly of the epithet " religious " by
many contemptible people is excuse sufficient for the appare
and real measure of American atheism, or bitterness towa
" churches."

In the matter of the religiousness of women America stands
a different footing from most European countries. Certainly w
men in the United States are not, in nearly the same proportion
is usual in France, England, Germany, even Russia, more religio
than men. Among ourselves it is possible that women are mo
prone to outward acts of devotion, but Catholic men, as a m
are as firm believers as women, and it is creed rather than ritu
which is the correct test. In the churches to which most Ame:
cans, whether sincerely or formally, belong, the male " members
are as numerous and important as the female, and more promine
while the Protestant church which possesses the most learned a
cultivated clergy the Episcopalian is conspicuously represent
by its men, among whom but few sentimentalists or ritualists
to be found. In England this is not- so universally the case ; t
Anglican Church has an official stamp which adds a fashionable
traction to what ought to stand on its intrinsic merits alone, an
this accounts for the prominence of the female element, reinfor
from the ranks of aspiring Nonconformists ; the Ritualist cerem
nial has attained a curious development and absorbs the homage
of a good many of the weaker, well-meaning people of either sex,
while the conditions of rural life make the interference of the
women in parish affairs and festivities a time-honored tradition
which it is impolitic in some and impossible in other places to
break through. The national tone there towards religion is also

i88o.] AGAINST SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 731

answerable for the prominence of women even in Catholic churches.
Average Englishmen (unless some Dissenters) have no taste, as a
rule, for fussy display or apparent authority ; they are intensely
conservative, and cling to their religion as to a standard, looking
on belief in the spiritual field as they do on bravery in the mate-
rial a thing inseparable from a worthy character ; but their spiri-
tual instincts are not keen. Except converts, most Catholic Eng-
lishmen are of this solid, reliable, faithful, but not enthusiastic
type. It falls to the women to help the priest in most local and
practical matters ; and besides this excuse of necessity, Englishwo-
men find this pseudo-authority as pleasant as most women of other
countries. In France religion is, unfortunately, very perceptive-
ly a feminine concern ; there is a painful breach between the men
and the women of the same family ; beyond a few exceptions,
religion is at a low ebb among men of all classes, and, the
same proportion of exceptions being allowed, the same may be
said of Italy and Spain. Of other countries we are less certain,
ough there is much reason to believe in the loosening of vital
ligious influences everywhere. The German struggle has been
means of religious revival, though mainly in the sense of rally-
g men to their colors rather than of awakening purely spiritual
thusiasm. Certainly, in this country, women are less prepon-
nt in church influence than they are in Europe, and often rela-
ely less so than men in their individual churches. Touching the
ial influence of women in America, of which De Tocqueville in
s Democracy spoke so flatteringly a generation ago, the author
Certain Dangerous Tendencies gives a few facts from his own ex-
rience, especially among the various grades of working-women.
I have observed," he says, " that the women appear to be de-
ressed and injured less than the men by the hardships of their
life ; . . . they have developed such readiness of resource as yields
ly to absolute impossibilities ; . . . they are more saving and
conomical than their husbands. They have also less dislike for
small jobs, and less contempt for the trifling sums received for
them. I am compelled to say that many working-men appear un-
willing to accept transient employment, especially if of a kind to
which they are not accustomed ; but their wives are usually ready
for any kind of work, however disagreeable or poorly paid."

This applies chiefly to women in cities and the larger villages
of the old States the wives of mechanics and small storekeepers,
and factory-women. A different class came under his notice in a
farming neighborhood in one of the Northwestern States, where a
remarkable woman, though of only average education and of limited

gh-

732 SOME OF OUR PRESENT WEAPONS [Sept.,

means, had for years exercised an exceptionally good and civiliz-
ing influence. Her verdict on the needs and faults of her neigh-
bors included these observations : " They need discipline, tl
power and habit of self-restraint and self-direction in nearly evei
thing, but especially in their use of money. They are full of
and love good living love to * have things.' They might all
rich, but they are so impulsive and extravagant that most of
them are in debt. ... If we only had some good, convenient way
of taking the women's money, whenever they have saved a few
dollars, and keeping it for them, they would soon grow more eco-
nomical. . . . They have little foresight of future possible needs ;
but the worst difficulty is that they cannot keep money, and have
no place to put it where it will be safe." A working'-man's wife
in an Eastern factory-town said that when a man has a few dol-
lars he is restless and unhappy till he has spent the sum, while
most women like to go on adding to the little hoard and looking
at it now and then ; the existing machinery of savings-banks
insurance companies seemed to her, however, only a lesser
than the waste consequent on spending every dollar as it comes
She was a serious, helpful woman, and believed in' lending si
sums among her own acquaintance, as well as in a system of g<
ernment post-office banks, certificates of deposit being given,
interest accruing, and a small fee being charged for the
labor devolving on the postmaster or clerk.

This question of interest, which is also drawing much attentic
in England, appears to take a large share in the schemes of
classes chiefly affected by its decision. Arbitrary rules have
dom competed successfully with natural business principles,
why a loan of money should be treated differently from the 1<
or hire of a house or a piece of land is difficult to understai
It is chiefly the abuses of any system that hurry passionate ai
ignorant men into root-and-branch hostility to it ; and while 01
can only smile at the childishness of reformers anxious to squ<
every social relation and commercial transaction into a govei
ment mould, one cannot help acknowledging that the mania f<
running a race in brick and mortar, and sinking valuable money i
gigantic advertisements of brown-stone and gilded iron-woi
which distinguishes banking and insurance companies, is a use-
less and mischievous thing, naturally annoying to the mass of
depositors, and deterring many from becoming such. Religion,
where it seriously influences the life of women in humble circum-
stances, often takes the practical shape of cheerful patience and
helpful ingenuity. One of the women whom the author con-

j 1880.]

1880.] AGAINST SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 733

versed with acted upon the belief that " human labor, wisdom, and
'self-sacrifice " were providential instruments towards the cure of
'many evils ; and in cases where women have less well-defined con-
victions on this point they often act in this direction by intuition.
That much depends on individual effort, setting aside hopes, plans,
and theories, profitless yet interesting as topics of discussion, is a
very generally received principle ; 'the busy life of most women
keeps their instincts sound in this connection. Self-respect is a
powerful incentive to resist the lowering of social standards mere-
ly because the corresponding pecuniary means are lessened ; and
this exists in many places where, at first sight, it is not self-evident,
lit is very common among poor people in the country, and mani-
fests itself, -for instance, in the effort to send their children to
i school fairly well dressed, and to make their own weekly ap-
pearance at " meeting " in neat and occasionally new dresses.
Women in the country are very saving and ingenious in mending
clothes and making old things into new ; the author mentions,
however, that factory-women are not especially saving in this re-
jgard, and statements have been made about the startling ex-
jtravagance of working-women in the coal and mining regions of
'ennsylvania. Waste of food, chiefly through ignorance, is a
ispicuous fault of poor women, and has reached a worse
p elopment in this country than in England itself, where extra-
Bailee of diet is more or less a national trait. Women in
lerica are scarcely more gossips than men ; indeed, you often
id them more reticent, though there are many exceptions. The
;tory-girls, whose morals are often talked of as suspicious, are,
the whole, much less addicted to sensuality than is believed.
ie author of Certain Dangerous Tendencies has made a special
idy of this class, and, leaving a margin for much laxity, yet de-
ids the main body of these girls from this common imputation.
Apropos of this, he mentions the stay-at-home habits of the Catho-
lic French-Canadian girls, who make, mend, and wash their clothes
in the evenings, and never have time to go out. " The Catholic
Church," he says in reference to the special town he made his
chief researches in (it is said to have been Fall River), " is doing
more than any other, I think, for the moral guidance and improve-
ment of the operatives," and he mentions particularly the suc-
cessful work of the Catholic temperance societies. He thinks
that the women in cities are more interested in politics and
politico-social reforms than they used to be some thirty years
back ; some of the most enthusiastic propagandists of modified
forms of socialism are women. He speaks neither of free-love

734 SOME OF OUR PRESENT WEAPONS [Sepi

nor female-suffrage movements among the lower classes in city
country ; this phase of excitement belongs to a less occupied ai
hard-worked class. The independence of the ordinary Ameri<
woman, striking as it seems to Europeans, and dangerous as
may be in its exaggerated forms or when it comes, even in
normal ones, in contact with another code of etiquette, is a
safeguard in this country, public opinion, even in the wildest di
tricts of the West, being the champion of unprotected worn;
hood. But the fact of the contented acquiescence of public local
opinion in breaches of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, when
these breaches are committed with the mutual consent of the of-
fending parties, is an offset to the indignation stirred up by vio-
lent assaults on women. There are many rural districts, not un-
reasonably remote, and furnished with most of the outward signs
of civilization, where constant lapses from chastity are occurring
among married and unmarried people, without provoking more
than a passing reprobation ; the besetting sin of our age indiff*
ence to all that does not touch us nearly, and a blunted sense
collective responsibility is no doubt to blame for much of tl
unheeded immorality. Social influence, the unobtrusive, unaffe<
ed example of a person whose life is ordered on high principle
and especially on a rigid regard for truth such is at present tl
strongest weapon for good.

The rigid formalism which technical " goodness " affects
one of the causes of the present revulsion against virtue ; on
other hand, the least tampering or compromise with consciem
on real points of principle is carefully to be avoided. The sai
woman whose thoughts were so anxiously bent on helping h<
neighbors out West to economize found means within ten y<
to raise considerably the standard of daily life around her, and tl
point from which she started was one which will make many g(
people hold up their hands in horror i.e., Sunday tableaux
vants. Sunday-afternoon gatherings for roystering, gossiping, ai
dancing had become the custom in her neighborhood, and after
years of patient and perplexed thought she hit upon the idea
turning these meetings to an intellectual, then a moral use, and
gan by interesting her visitors in Shakspere's plays, from whi<
the first tableaux were drawn. What would have been the resi
had she begun instead by preaching Sabbatarianism, calling h<
guests sinners, and perhaps withdrawing herself from any parti<
pation in their social meetings on the holy day ? Her work widen-
ed gradually ; she became in a real sense a missionary ; she guided
public taste from theatricals to readings, and then on to studies

i88o.] AGAINST SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 735

and debates ; she adopted orphans and found permanent homes
and occupations for them ; her judgment became the law of her
neighbors ; she was confidant and referee in every case of love,
family dissension, and even more public matters ; and although her
character was remarkable, her aptitude and tact beyond the ordi-
nary, and her will to do good stronger than most people's, her
example is certainly not beyond the possibility of being followed
by women as earnest and well-intentioned. As she remarked her-
self, she found difficulties and discouragements abound ; she felt
herself not rightly fitted out for the work of life ; her want of
opportunity of acquiring more culture was a trial, and " the gene-
ral disposition of people to be contented with low things " was
the greatest obstacle of all.

This meets us everywhere, even in our own hearts, and is the
first difficulty to be reckoned beforehand ; officiousness and inter-
meddling will be the names our attempts at reform will provoke
at first, and it is vain to expect that the effort will be plain sailing.
In the most modest innovation tending towards improvement
shall be sure to shock some sensibilities and offend some peo-
>le. But of all dangers, that of faint-heartedness in ourselves is
lost to be feared. Opposition will wear itself out, but giving
r ay to discouragement is a deeper evil to be dreaded than any
>pposition. Again, one has to guard against over-zeal, injudi-
cious haste, and, above all, personal motives ; in fact, one must not
let the machinery work at random, or else no good results will
follow. But within these limitations there is no reason why hun-
Ireds of men, and more especially women, should not do a novel
ind independent work among their less educated fellow-citizens,
miting the means to the requirements and circumstances of each
)lace, starting chiefly with secular methods of improvement, and
mceding as much as one legitimately can to the craving for
amusement prevalent among our people not unnaturally so, as
we must acknowledge. We have, in many senses, better material
to work on than reformers in Europe ; better opportunities. Each
one should be able to find some practical means which a little co-
operation might turn to useful ends in any place, even country
places, and in the coteries of neighbors who form the " world
within a world " of the larger cities.

736 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER.AMMERGAU. [Sept.,

THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU, 1880.

(CONCLUDED.)

ACT vi. deals with the Betrayer. It is preceded by the sym-
bolical tableau of Joseph sold to the Midianites for twenty
pieces of silver. In this act for the. tableau is but a continuation
of that exhibited in the second act Judas comes before the San-
hedrim, which is composed as before, with the addition of two
who are destined to play so conspicuous a role later on namely,
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. These two speak in favor
of Christ, but are noisily shouted down. Judas enters and bar-
gains for the thirty pieces of silver, which are sent for to th
treasury of the Temple. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimath
protest and leave the meeting. A rabbi returns with the blood
money. " I am contented," says Iscariot, shaking his empt
money-bag; " and now I can make good my loss." He steps t
the table and counts the money ; then he rings it piece by piec
Lechner's acting in this scene is a highly-finished performance,
was led to expect this from what I had heard said about him, bu
it far surpassed my expectations. The man himself had said t
me : "I consider my best acting is in the Garden of Gethsemani
and I am at my best in the kiss of betrayal." The counting of th
money had a strange effect upon the audience. Some there wer
who laughed ; these were instantly " hushed " down. The reaso
for this seeming irreverence lies in the fact that in the ruder tim
Judas was, if I may use the expression, the " comic man " in t
drama. On the stage he was ever accompanied by a character
presenting the Prince of Darkness, whose antics were those of th
buffoon or circus clown ; hence the honest villagers seem to con-
sider that they possess an hereditary right to laugh at the to be
discomfited Betrayer. After he counts the money into his
Iscariot cries : " To-day he shall be in your hands." The ac
closes by the departure of the members of the Sanhedrim, shout
ing : " Let him die ! let him die ! He is the enemy of our fa-
thers ! "

The next act is a very solemn one the Garden of Gethsema-
ni. The first tableau reveals Adam, condemned to earn his bread
by the sweat of his brow ; the second, the " Rocks of Gibeon,"
" Joab's treachery to Amasa." As the sacred narrative informs us,

>.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 737

iur divine Lord, after partaking of the Last Supper, went with his
disciples over the brook of Cedron unto Gethsemani. The Old-
Testament types represent the sweat of Adam's labor as typify,
ing Christ's bloody sweat in the Garden on Olivet ; and Joab giv-
ing Amasa a kiss, whilst secretly plunging a dagger into his body,
as parallel to the kiss given by Judas to his Master. The first
f these tableaux is exceedingly artistic. In a rugged wilderness
.dam is despairingly digging in the midst of stones and thorns,
is children, bearing the fruits of his curse, tug at unyielding
rambles. Eve, disconsolate, sits upon a rock, an infant in her lap,
ide her an older child. Another hacks the ground, while yet
other toys with a lamb. Of the second tableau it is unneces-
sary to speak. Now we come to Gethsemani and to the Be-
yal. Jesus, with his disciples, enters the Garden, which ex.
nds to the back of the stage. On the right from the audience
e a rock and some shrubs, on the left a slight elevation the spot
here the Redeemer prostrates himself in supreme agony, ex-
laiming : " Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee ; remove
is chalice from me: but not what I will, but what thou wilt."
hrist then rises, and, returning to where he left Peter, John, and
mes, finds them asleep. Three times he prays, and after he
ises from the third prayer a shock vibrates through the rapt
.udience, as Maier's face was covered with the sweat of blood,
t was absolutely appalling, and one shuddered insensibly. He
ain returns to the three disciples, and says : " Sleep ye now and
ke your rest." Peter sleepily asks : " What is it, Master ?" " It is
ough," answers Christ. " The hour is come ; behold, the Son
of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up ; let
us go." And now the awful moment of betrayal approaches.
Clang ! and the clash of arms is heard. The rest of the sleeping
disciples spring to their feet and surround their Master. The
Saviour sadly exclaims : " Behold, he that will betray me is at
hand ! " Judas enters, followed by Roman soldiers, priests and
Pharisees, and traffickers, many bearing lanterns. Iscariot never
hesitates, but hurries rapidly to his Master, and, exclaiming " Hail,
Rabbi ! " gives him the kiss of doom. As Lechner bestowed it
there was a short, sharp " Ah ! " from the audience almost amount-
ing to a cry of pain. The acting of Maier was superb in its sim-
ple earnestness as he uttered : " Judas, dost thou betray the Son
of Man with a kiss ? " Then with the superiority of majesty he de-
mands of the soldiers : " Whom seek ye? " They shout : " Jesus of
Nazareth ! " "I am he." As these words come from the lips of
Christ the soldiers fall with a clang to the earth, as though some
VOL. xxxi. 47

738 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sept.

unseen hand had struck them down. Christ orders them to ris
knowing that the will of the Father must be fulfilled. Malchu;
now advances to seize Jesus, when Peter draws his sword and wit!
admirable effect cuts at the ear of the sacrilegious Malchus. Th<
come the memorable words from the Saviour : " Put up again tlr
sword into its place ; for all they that take the sword shall perisl
by the sword. . . . Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Fathei
and he will give me presently more than twelve legions of angels
But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled ? " The Master
now alone, for the disciples have left him, as Devrient of this poi
tion of the drama says : " Peter, who promised to stand by him til
death, could only draw his sword once ; and John, who laid hii
head so tenderly upon the Master's bosom, saying, ' Where thoi
art there I shall be,' has fled, too. Christ goes alone, filled wit
immeasurable love, to die for the very men who are abusing hii
His intense, solitary grandeur first gave me the true idea of tl
power of dramatic art."

As the curtain fell the burgomaster came forward to the froi
of the stage and announced a recess of one hour and a half. Tl
first division of the Passion Play had ended. It was now tweli
o'clock. We had been riveted, bewildered, fascinated, awe<
subdued for four hours! Four hours? Four seconds. The til
had flashed by us. Many who intended during the recess
repair to their lodgings in the village lingered, as though powi
less to tear themselves away. Many, availing themselves of tl
space afforded by those who had departed, fell upon their km
to pray. Not an irreverent word was heard, and, while yet withi
the precincts of the theatre, we spoke as in a church.

Long before the boom of the cannon under Kofel the
audience was reseated. There was just a murmur of conversation
nothing more. No boisterousness, no exclamations. The peo-
ple seemed to me to act as if within the sanctuary. At the third
boom low, sweet, melancholy strains of music are heard, which
prelude the approaching Passion. Act viii. brings Jesus before
Annas ; the tableau reveals Sedecias smiting the prophet Micheas
on the cheek. We have now followed the Redeemer step by
step from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem up to his betrayal
and captivity ; now we follow him along the Via Dolorosa to his
crucifixion and death, and subsequently to his glorious resurn
tion and ascension. As I have already mentioned, the house
Annas stands upon the right-hand side of the stage facing th<
spectators. Upon the house is a balcony capable of holding
about a dozen persons. Pilate's house, on the other side of

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 739

stage, is similarly furnished. Upon these two balconies much of
the action of the earlier portion of the second division of the play
takes place. The high-priest Annas comes out upon the balcony,
and impatiently awaits the arrival of the Roman soldiers with their
Captive. As Judas passes across the stage Annas cries to him :
" Thy name shall stand in our annals for all time." Iscariot en-
deavors to shirk the awful responsibility of the betrayal by ex-
claiming: " 1 will not be answerable for his blood." Now Roman
soldiers appear, brave in steel panoply and flashing breastplates,
urging forward their Captive with brutal jeers, and flouts, and
gibes. The procession stops beneath the balcony, and Jesus is
ed into the house of Annas, to reappear on the balcony beside the
igh-priest and still guarded. Annas interrogates him. When
sked why he will not speak he replies, with superb dignity :
* I have spoken openly to the world ; I have always taught in the
ynagogue and in the temple, whither all the Jews resort ; and
secret I have spoken nothing. Ask them who have heard what
have spoken unto them ; behold, they know what things I have
id." Bulbus brutally strikes the Captive in the face, crying :
Answerest thou the high-priest so ? " And now occurred a
ene which shall remain written upon my memory unto the last,
he blow from the mailed hand of the caitiff soldier had just
escended upon the cheek of the meek Saviour, when, in an
instant, the heavens became black as ink black with " a noonday
ight " and a flash of lurid lightning literally blazed around the
Icony, setting it in a frame of dazzling fire. Then came a clap
of thunder like the crack of doom, and heaven's artillery com-
menced to crash in the hollows of the overhanging Alps crash
as though the Titanic crags were being split and rent into mil-
lions of adamantine fragments. The giant mountains were now
as great grim walls of ebony united with the inky canopy ; and as
the lightning blazed and the thunder rolled, faces grew pale and
lips became compressed as the spectators gazed at the awful pic-
ture in its awful setting. Presently the rain commenced to fall in
drenching downpour, but through this w^ar of elements the great
drama proceeded as smoothly as though the weather were glori-
ous dayshine, and the greater part of the audience seated in the
open kept their places, absolutely careless of the storm, so com-
letely absorbed were they in the scene being enacted upon the
age.

In Act ix. Christ is brought before Caiphas. The two tab-
aux bear prophetic reference to the scenes that occurred at the
;clesiastical trial : " Naboth sentenced to death on false ac-

740 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sept.,

cusations " and " Job in affliction, derided by his wife an
friends."

Christ is led, bound as before, into the house of Caiphas. Th
priest Samuel and his five witnesses enter by an opposite door,
Caiphas addresses the Redeemer: " Thou hast, therefore, boaste
of possessing supernatural, Godlike power. Refute these witnesse
if thou canst ! I see. very well that thou thinkest, by remainin
silent, to free thyself of the charges. Thou darest not acknow
ledge before thy judge what thou hast taught the people. If tho
darest so, hear : ' I, the high-priest, adjure thee by the living Go
that thou tell us if thou be the Christ, the Son of God.' " He sti
is silent. Divinely beautiful, he stands before his judge. Th
noble head is erect, the eyes are cast unto the ground, as h
answers : " Thou hast said it ; nevertheless I say to you, he
after you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand o
the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Th
words set Caiphas into a blaze of anger. He tears open th
breast of his garment, and yells : " He hath blasphemed ! W
further need have we of witnesses ? Behold, now you have hea
the blasphemy. What think you? " Then the assembled pri
howl in reply : " He is guilty of death. . . . Take him. Guard hi
and at dawn bring him again to the Sanhedrim." After the so
diers, the witnesses, and Captive have gone out Caiphas exclai
to the priests : " It is arranged that a grand council be held ,earl
in the morning, and as soon as the sentence is confirmed by th
Sanhedrim we will hasten to Pilate, that he cause the sentence
be carried out at once."

At the fall of the curtain Judas comes upon the stage. D
spair is commencing to gnaw at his soul, and he gives utteran
to his conflicting emotions in admirable soliloquy. The curtai
again rises to the scene of the denial of Christ by Peter. It is i
a hall in the palace of Caiphas. The soldiers guarding Jesus lie
about in groups. It is yet early morning. Maids enter to light
the fire. Even these join the ribald soldiery in scoffing at the
Saviour. The perfectly natural manner in which these women of
the village performed their very small parts was most striking.
They did not act for the spectators ; they acted as though the
action were part and parcel of the daily routine of their lives.
Peter and John approach ; John mixes with the soldiers ; Peter
timorously remains outside until he sees that John is safe, then he
also enters. One of the maids recognizes him, and then comes
the denial and the cock-crow. The performer to whom the hum-
ble rdle of rooster w r as accorded acquitted himself & ravir. In a

1 i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER.AMMERGAU. 741

trice the roosters of the village accepted his challenge, and for a
while the air was filled with "clarion notes of chanticleer," long,
loud, and shrill. As Peter denies the Master for the third time

e recalls his words, and, overcome with a consciousness of guilt,
hastens from the place, " weeping bitterly."

After this scene we have the scourging and crowning. The
Captive is seated upon a wooden block, bound and helpless. His
fiendish captors heap insults, and even blows, upon him, while
one, more brutal than the rest, pushes him to the ground. " Great
as is the brutality with which Christ is treated, his calm car-
riage,' firm nobility, and elevated dignity in his conduct never
waver. Even the brutal blows of the soldiers are borne with

nconquerable firmness and divine meekness. No unskilfulness
and no exaggeration disharmonize his part, even when, with his
hands tied behind his back, the hirelings push him off his seat

pon the floor. During the whole scene one ever perceives that,

n spite of all the disgrace heaped upon him, it is here the King of
eaven suffers ; in all these hours of outrage Christ appears as a

fty victor, and his person wins thereby in dignity and glory.' ;

o writes Clarus. Father Daisenberger retains in this portion

f the play the old doggerel rhyme similar to that in the seven-
nth-century versions of the drama. The messenger arrives
to announce the assembling of the High Council, and the act
closes with a powerful monologue in blank-verse, spoken by
John.

Act x. deals with the despair of Judas. It is preceded by the

bleau, " Cain tortured by his conscience, a wanderer on the
th." The Sanhedrim meets, and Judas rushes into the hall,

oaded by the living hell of his conscience. He yells : " Ye have
made me a betrayer ! Release again the innocent One ! My hands
shall be clean." Iscariot, in unendurable mental torture, flings the
accursed blood-money at the feet of the council, and rushes fran-
tically from the hall. The High Council directs that the money
be picked up ; but, being blood-money, it is ordered to be allot-
ted to the purchase of a burial-place for strangers the " field of
blood," Haceldama. Three of the council repair to Pilate's house
to urge the execution of the sentence of death.

And now comes the scene that is to witness the disappearance

f the arch-traitor. It is a lonely spot outside the walls of Jeru-
salem. A mound stands in the centre of the stage, and on this
mound the tree. Judas, with a haunted, despairing look, dashes
in. Hell-fire leaps already in his scorched conscience. The last
lines which Father Daisenberger puts in the mouth of Iscariot

742 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sept.,

are masterpieces of composition. That they lose in translatioi
goes without saying :

" I am his murderer !

Thrice unhappy hour

In which my mother gave me to the world !
How long must I drag on this life of shame,
And bear these tortures in my outcast breast ?
As one pest-stricken, flee the haunts of men,
And be despised and shunned by all the world ?
Not one step further ! Here, O life accursed !
Here will I end thee. On these branches hang ,

The most disastrous fruit.

Ha ! come, thou serpent,
Entwine my neck, and strangle the betrayer."

Bounding toward the tree, he unbinds his girdle, and, flinging
noose round his neck, fastens it to an overhanging branch, an(
then

In the Passion Play avarice is the root of all evil, and avari<
leads Judas on to the betrayal. His avarice manifests itself wh<
Magdalene anoints the feet of the Master, and avarice indui
him to accept the blood-money. Avarice dooms him to etern;
perdition. Gregor Lechner, who impersonated the arch-traitoi
is an accomplished actor. His acting would win laurels for hii
on any stage. He flings himself into the rdle of Iscariot with
gruesome appreciation of the part. It may be said of him thai
he revels in it. " I am the shadow of the Passion Play, as Mai<
is the sunshine," he said to me. " Both are necessar}^. I
cast for the part, and I do my best with it." An inclination
laugh as Iscariot hangs himself manifested itself in the audience,
but it Was instantly checked.

The eleventh act brings Christ before Pilate. The Old-Testa-
ment symbol reveals " Daniel falsely accused before King Darius."
In this act Pilate is seen for the first time. The Ober-Ammergau
actors have spared no expense as regards the costume of the
Roman governor. It is absolutely splendid ; and as he came upon
the balcony the sun, which had just reappeared, illumined the
magnificence of his helmet, corslet, arm-plates, and panoply with
gilded rays. Rendl, who plays the part, looks " the noblest Roman
of them all," and his conception of the character is worthy of no
stinted praise. While Christ is being interrogated comes a mes-
sage from Pilate's wife. " She sends greeting to thee," exclaims
the servant, " and begs of thee most urgently that thou wilt have
nothing to do with that just man who standeth accused before

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER.AMMERGAU. 743

thy judgment-seat, for she hath suffered many things this day in
a dream because of him." To which Pilate replies: "Tell her
that she need have no fear on his account. I will not submit to
the Jews, but will do all in my power to rescue him." Pilate
cogitates lor a while, then suddenly asks if Christ is from Galilee,
and, upon being answered in the affirmative, exclaims in a re-
lieved tone, " If that be the case I am relieved from the office
of judge. Herod hath come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast.
Let him sit in judgment over his subject. Take him to his own
king. Let him be escorted thither by my own soldiers." Then
Pilate retires from the balcony and Christ is led from the stage,
the priests crying in violent anger : " Let us go to Herod ! We
shall find at his hands better protection for our sacred laws, for he
is still true to the faith of the fathers." Here again the acting of
these fanatical priests is admirable. They never for one instant
face the audience, nor do they cease their tumult until they have
finally disappeared up the streets of Jerusalem, thus imparting
an absolute realism to the whole scene.

Act xii. brings Christ before King Herod. The tableau re-
veals " Samson a sport to the Philistines." In this tableau Samson
is seen grasping the pillars of the temple, which are in the act of
collapsing, to the destruction of the lords of the Philistines, as told
in Judges xvi. Herod, the bloated tetrarch, surrounded by priests
and soldiers, and seated upon a high throne, demands miracles from
the Saviour, regarding him as a mountebank. " Interpret me the
dream that I dreamt last night," he exclaims, with a laugh and a
wagging of his head. " Transform the roll that contains thy death-
warrant into a serpent." And seeing that he can gain no sign
from Jesus, in order to make a laughing-stock of him he orders a
garment of ridicule to be put on him, and a reed to be placed in
his hand for a sceptre. Christ is now clad in white. Caiphas
demands sentence. " My sentence is," cries Herod, "that he is a
fool, and not capable of the crimes which ye have laid to his
charge. If he has done anything against you this must be attri-
buted to his simplicity." After Caiphas and the discontented
priests have retired with their Captive, Herod descends from his
throne, and in a tone of vexation exclaims : " Things have not
come up to my expectation. I promised myself a most choice
enjoyment, all about God knows what sort of wondrous tricks ;
and we saw simply a commonplace fellow, and did not hear a
sound from his lips. . . . This man is as dumb as a fish. . . . Let
us make up for lost time with music and song."

The thirteenth act includes the scourging and crowning, with

744 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sept.,

the tableaux, " Joseph's bloody coat brought home to Jacob " and
" The ram appointed for a sacrifice in the place of Isaac." The Cho-
ragus, assisted by the chorus, introduces the symbolical tableau,
and there we see Christ again brought before Pilate, who declares
he cannot find any crime in him. Pilate, as the clamor becomes
louder, offers them choice between Christ and Barabbas, remind-
ing them of the custom, to be observed at the coming feast of the
Passover, of giving one criminal his freedom. Now comes the
terrible cry of " Crucify him, crucify him ! " a cry that causes
many of the spectators to shrink as if from a blow. Pilate, hop-
ing to appease the people, orders the Saviour to be scourged.
Again do we shrink as the order is given ; and when the curtain
rises, to reveal the scourge-blows falling upon his sacred back as
he lies fastened to a stake, the effect is indescribable. Christ
falls senseless to the ground. When he staggers oh ! so grace-
fully- to his feet the brutal soldiers attire him in a scarlet robe,
place the reed in his hand, and seat him upon a wooden stool for
a throne. It is scarcely endurable to see him pushed to the earth,
and buffeted and gibed ; but he falls so as not to detract from his
dignity, and so that the intended degradation of maltreatment
reflects upon his abusers. A soldier, with a horrible "laugh, pro-
poses to crown the King, and instantly a crown of thorns is
plaited the soldier, so admirable is every detail, pricking his fin-
gers and then it is placed upon the brow of the Son of God. It
will not pass far enough down to suit their devilish jest, so two
sticks are brought, and, crossing them upon the crown, a soldier
seizes each end of the stick, and thus the crown is compelled to
fit, tearing his sacred flesh until the blood streams down his
forehead. The gaze directed heavenward alone testifies what
he suffers during this horrible ordeal.

This scene would have been unendurable if the heavenly sub-
mission of the Lamb come to the slaughter had not raised our
thoughts above it, so that every horror seemed only a means of
glorifying this divine composure.

In Act xiv. Jesus is condemned to death on the cross. The
Old-Testament types revealed are Joseph made ruler of Egypt,
and the two goats as sin-offerings. Joseph of Egypt, in a magnifi-
cent dress, and adorned with a great chain of gold, rides in a trium-
phal-car and is presented to the people a companion picture to
the Ecce Homo. The stage is filled with a vast concourse of peo-
ple, and the grouping is artistic in the extreme. In the second
tableau Moses appears kneeling before the altar ; on one side lies
the goat slain by Aaron for the sins of the people, while the other

1880.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 745

goat has been suffered to escape into the wilderness. The chorus
applies this picture to Jesus and Barabbas, of whom the first is
appointed as a victim for the sins of the people, while the other is
allowed to go free. The chorus is replied to from behind the
scenes, whence arises a superb antiphon, and in a most striking
manner the contrast is shown between the noisy madness of ex-
cited passion and the silent confidence of innocence.

Christ is again brought before Pilate, and for the last time.
he Roman still stands firm as a fortress, and will not sacrifice
is sense of justice. The masses of the people, excited to up-
ar, press forward to Pilate's palace. The tumult is indescri-
ble. One feels inclined to join in the horrible roaring without
well knowing why. Pilate stands unmoved, and looks down
with contemptuous eye on the raging multitude beneath. In
order to arouse the sympathy of the people for the Galilean, he
orders the thief Barabbas to be brought out and placed by the
side of Christ, hoping thereby that the people will be induced to
let Christ go and have Barabbas put to death. What a contrast
in these two figures ! Nothing can be more striking : the su-
preme majesty of the one, the villanous mien of the other.
I When the people cry out for the release of Barabbas, Pilate
j calls for water, and we see him wash his hands. Then the two
who are to suffer beside the Saviour on the cross are brought
I forth, one dogged and brutal, the other penitent and resigned,
! and the sentence is read in a loud voice by Pilate's secretary from
| a.scroll. " The victory is ours !" cries Caiphas. " To Golgotha !"
| comes from the mob. Caiphas, Annas, and the priests lead ;
! next follow the Roman soldiers escorting the Saviour to Calvary ;
I then the two thieves, who are treated with horrible roughness by
the soldiery, and lastly a multitude of people of Jerusalem. " To
| Golgotha!" rings in the ears as the awful procession disappears
j on its way to Calvary.

The end is approaching. Act xv. gives us the ghastly prelude

j of Christ bearing his cross to Golgotha, treading in unendurable

| agony the Sorrowful Way. The tableaux which precede are re-

! spectively " Young Isaac bears the altar-wood up Mount Moriah,' v

" The children of Israel bitten by fiery serpents," and " The Is-

i raelites look upon the brazen serpent and are healed." In Isaac

bearing the wood for sacrifice we have the Saviour bearing the

i cross to Calvary, the mount of sacrifice ; the brazen serpent in

! the wilderness which Moses put upon a cross typifies that Christ

Kras also lifted up on the cross ; and the brazen serpent, the sight
f which heals those who have been bitten by poisonous serpents,

746 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sepl

indicates that Christ, upon the cross, is a Saviour to all sinnei
who believe in him. Fully four hundred persons are on th<
stage in the second tableau, the grouping again being strikingb
artistic.

And now we see from the gateway by the side of Pilate'j
house a small group walking slowly toward the centre of tl
proscenium. We instantly recognize Mary, the Mater Doloros
John, Joseph of Arimathea, and Mary Magdalene. They
come out of the city in search of tidings of him. A terrible shade
of doubt, fear, grief, and anxiety is upon the faces of all. Mai
starts convulsively as a hideous outcry from the streets of Jeru;
lem makes itself heard. We, the audience, perceive the head
the procession which wends its way to Golgotha, although Ma]
does not. It comes by the street at the side of the house
Annas. A few of the mob appear, shouting, " Away with him !
" He must die ! " These fanatics keep up this cry with hideoi
persistency. The curtain rises, and we see another street in Jen
salem. Who is that man of thews and sinews ? It is Simon
Cyrene. See his carpenter's basket. Who is that low-brow<
man of villanous aspect standing at an open portal ? How
mocks and grimaces, and gleefully rubs his hands, as the terribl
cortdge approaches ! How he enjoys the tortures of the Captive
as, sick unto death, he totters beneath the weight of the en
Little knows he that the moment is at hand when, at a word froi
Him, he will be doomed to wander the earth without so much
the brief halt of one beat of time, and for ever. This man is Ah?
suerus, the Wandering Jew, the symbol of the wanderings of hi
people over the globe. The procession, increasing each momei
in size, comes down the street. We behold the many and vivid
colored robes of men, women, and children to the number of six
hundred ; we catch a glimpse of the flash of armor. A Roman
horseman in full barbaric panoply appears on a white horse, bear-
ing the standard with S.P.Q.R. (Senatus Populusque Romanus)
in golden letters ; and then, aye, and then comes the Man of Sor-
rows tottering, staggering, bending, swooning, sinking beneath
the weight of his bitter burden. Oh ! it is a piteous sight : the
supreme agony and weariness in his face, the glorious meekness
and resignation, the divine submission to the will of the Father.
At the last house before the gateway stands Ahasuerus. Jesi
staggers as he passes, and would fain pause for a breathing-while
but the Jew cries : " Away from my house ! Here is no pla<
for thee." The Saviour casts one look upon him, and he is dooi
ed for ever. I shall never forget the expression upon Maier'

sic

1 88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 747

face at this thrilling moment ; it was indescribable. Mr. Jackson
quotes a verse from a mediaeval manuscript which treats this
scene in a different manner :

"AHASUERUS. Away, thou Nazarene, away!

Here is no place for thee to stay.

" CHRIST. I'll rest me here a little while ;
But thou shalt be a grim exile,
To roam the world, struck by the curse.
And though thou never needst of purse,
Nor garments tear by storm or wind,
Salvation thou shalt never find.
And where thou art shalt find no rest,
Since thou didst not heed my request ;
Nor shall death touch thy hoary head
Until I come to judge the dead."

The Saviour drags his wearied limbs, the ponderous cross
pon his shoulder, the crown of thorns on his brow, great drops
blood on his pale and worn face. He is guarded by a com-
,ny of soldiers commanded by a centurion. Behind come his
rutal executioners, who, eager to satisfy the howling rabble, long
or their bloody work. Next come the two thieves who are to
suffer with him, bearing lighter crosses. Then we see Caiphas,
Annas, and the leaders of the Sanhedrim, surrounded by the jeer-
ing rabble. Slowly, slowly winds the mournful cortege, its very
slowness adding to our intense pain. The Redeemer, exhausted,
tters and sinks beneath the cross. A murmur from the audi-
nce betrays its terrible tension. We watch Mary. She does
not yet know that her Son is going unto his death. A shriek.
" God, my God ! " she wildly exclaims, " it is my Son. It is my
Jesus." And she falls senseless. Again Christ totters ; again do
his executioners, fearing the delay, brutally urge him onward. A
Roman centurion is less brutal, and offers him a flagon, saying
with soldierly bluntness, " Here, refresh thyself. " Jesus endeavors
to rise, but the ponderous cross nails him to the earth. The rab-
ble howl. They are eager for the sight of the supreme tortures.
Simon of Cyrene is espied by the chief rabbi. His stalwart
form suggests his being a suitable person to relieve the Condemn-
ed of the cross for a brief moment. It is removed from his
shoulder and placed upon that of Simon, who exclaims, while a
burst of the white radiance of eternity flashes on his face : " Oh !
out of love of thee will I bear it. Would that I could be of service
to thee ! " Christ turns to him, and this he says, a divine love
perfuming every word : " The blessing of God be upon thee and

748 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sept

thine ! " As Maier uttered these words the sobbing of the au<
ence became painful.

The procession moves on. The executioners still urge th<
Condemned. The centurion interferes how we love that sol
dier ! " The man rieedeth a short respite before he ascendeth th<
hill of death," he says. "What! more delay? "cries Caiphas
During the halt a number of women of Jerusalem come wee]
ing to the Saviour's feet. We behold St. Veronica. Sh<
advances to Christ and says, " O Lord ! thy countenance is
covered with sweat and blood. Wilt thou not take this?" Sh<
hands him a linen cloth. He takes it, presses it against his wai
white face, and returns it to her. She gazes at it in fearful raj
ture, as well she may, for she sees his image imprinted upon if
Now Christ turns to these women and exclaims : " Daughters
Jerusalem ! weep not over me, but weep for yourselves and foi
your children. For behold, the days shall come wherein the]
will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have n<
borne, and the paps that have not given suck. -Then shall the]
begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us ; and to the hills, Cov<
us ! For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall
done in the dry ? " The centurion orders the women aside, an(
with agonized glance and bated breath, we see the Redeemer paj
slowly, slowly, slowly to his death the death that gave life unl
the world. This scene is indescribably affecting. It cannot
told in words. The great masterpiece of Paul de la Roche is
produced, and from beginning to end it is cruelly realistic. MJ
recovers from her swoon. John says to her : " Come now, belov<
mother, let us return to Bethania. Thou wilt not be able to bear
the sight." She, the Mother, responds : " Can a mother part from
her child in the time of danger, of bitterest need ? I will suffer
with him. I will share his elevation and degradation, will di(
with him. I have prayed to God for strength. The Lord hat
heard me. We will follow."

A low murmur of awe precedes the climax of the Passion Plaj
the Crucifixion. It is like the response of a devout congregation
in some village church low, soft, subdued, reverential, yet timor-
ous. Fearful expectation is written upon every face ; the highest
condition of mental tension is exhibited in every gesture ; a gre;
shadow is upon us, enfolding us and weighing us down by il
sable gloom. Everybody gazes at the stage, the very soul in th(
eyes. Everybody seems to draw one long breath, and then t(
await the " mightiest scene " of all.

The chorus comes forward, not, as before, in bright and glitter-

JCI

1880.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 749

ing raiment, but draped in black, dire woe upon their counte-
nances. Their movements are slow, the music is a sad, despairing
ail.

I give the verses sung by the Schutzgeister, as translated from
the original by Father Franz Schoebel, pastor at Laibstadt :

"Arise, ye pious souls, and ponder
What Jesus bare for your relief !
And, while to Golgotha we wander,
Pour out your hearts in love and grief.
That path of sorrow Jesus trod
To reconcile our souls to God.

" Nothing but wounds has he to show ;
For thee upon the cross he hangs ;
And impious people come and go,
And take a pleasure in his pangs.
But he, through whom the sinner lives,
Is silent, suffers, and forgives.

" I hear his tender limbs give way
When stretched upon the fatal tree.
His anguish who can tell ? Oh ! say
Who can endure the sight to see ?
What bosom but with horror quails
When they drive in the cruel nails ?

" Come, pious souls, in faith draw near
Unto the Lamb who died to save :
See him between the murderers here.
His life for you he "freely gave ;
And if his blood for us he shed,
Shall we not give him tears instead ? "

The singing dies away. It produces the deepest feelings of
sorrow and compassionate grief in the heart, and as the dull, heavy
hammer-blows are heard behind the scenes one longs to bend the
knee in prayer as for a departing soul. O those hammer-blows !
I shudder while I recall those dull, deadly sounds and their terri-
ble significance.

The curtain ascends, and Calvary is before us. Calvary ! the
most intense portraiture of the entire drama. There are the two
malefactors. Their crosses have been already raised, and they
hang suspended within the valley of the shadow of death. We
hold the space left between them for the cross upon which
hrist is to suffer. We see his cross still on the ground, to
which his sacred hands and feet are nailed. We look for the
Divine Blood, and we see it trickling from the tortured flesh. It

750 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sepl

drips, too, from the cruel crown, the thorns of which, with hide-
ous ingenuity, are pressing into his white brow. The execution-
ers, great, brawny brutes, hurry with their preparations. One in
command perceives that the mock inscription has not been attach-
ed to the cross, and orders it to be done forthwith. The execu-
tioner searches for it, and then nails it over the divine head.
Then comes the raising of the cross. The executioner roughly
summons help, and his companions aid him in the ghastly task.
The onlookers press round, the Roman soldiers on the right, th<
priests and Pharisees on the left, the Jewish people every whei
while in the background timidly stand some of his followers.

No words of mine can describe the awful solemnity of thi
moment. It was as if the audience had become suddenly petrifie<
Eyes almost start from their sockets, features are set hard ant
rigid, hands are clenched ; for there, with blood oozing from hi
hands and feet, with blood oozing from his brow, a face pale wil
unendurable anguish there hangs the Saviour, about to yield
his spirit for our salvation.

We are outside the walls of Jerusalem. It is eighteen hui
dred years ago. This is Calvary. That central figure of surp;
ing beauty is the Redeemer. We are living through this awft
moment ; we feel it ; we are actors in the piteous drama. Thei
is the real crucifix ; there is his blood shed for the redemption
mankind ; there are the cruel nails. Hush ! he speaks. Won
come faintly from the cross like a sweet, sad strain of melody !

The inscription on the cross incenses the rabid priests. Q
phas construes it into insult, and sends a message to Pilate th<
the words, " This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," shoul
be changed to " I am King of the Jews. " Nor is Caiphas yet sat
fied, for he despatches another messenger to " request Pilate to
command that the limbs of the Crucified be broken, and that the
bodies be taken down from the crosses before the eve of the
feast." But he is baffled, for Pilate returns answer : " What I
have caused to be written remaineth written." Caiphas insists
upon having the limbs broken, and Pilate informs the messenger
that his myrmidons shall receive the necessary orders.

The executioners, having executed their imperishable deed,
squat themselves on the ground and cast lots for the Saviour's
garments. Every minute detail as set forth in the Gospel ac-
cording to St. Mark is carried out. The acting is marvellous.
The peasants who perform the unsympathetic roles of the exe-
cutioners lose not a chance of making themselves odious and
repulsive, going about the ghastly work with a sort of savagery

880.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 751

that would seem true to the life. The soldiers, too, stand as if
on parade, never for a second losing sight of the fact that they
are on duty. The mob is a veritable, bloodthirsty rabble, and it
mocks its meek and helpless Victim with all the fiendish malignity
born of ignorant and brutal passion. The priest Joshua comes for-
ward and reads, " King of the Jews." " Bah ! " he ironically cries,
if thou art King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that
e may see and believe." Caiphas is not behindhand. " He
ved others," he yells ; " himself he cannot save." Annas ex-
laims : " He trusted in God ; let him now deliver him, if he
ill have him : for he said, * I am the Son of God.' '

And the words come from the cross : " Father, forgive them,
'or they know not what they do."

And now the thief on the left wags his head and tauntingly
ries : " Yea, if thou be the Christ, save thyself and us " ; where-
upon the other malefactor humbly exclaims and we hang upon
his words in-a sort of mute ecstasy " Lord, remember me when
thou comest into thy kingdom." The Redeemer casts a look
full of tenderness upon this man, who repents even at the eleventh
hour, this great type of repentance for evermore, and says :
" Amen, I say unto thee, this day thou shalt be with me in Para-
dise." As these words were spoken a great sob rises from the
audience.

We never move our eyes from the central figure ; we share his
torture. The prolongation of his agony amounts to dumb pain, a
lawing, a yearning for the end. Our hearts leap into' flame as
soldier rudely repulses Mary, who now endeavors to advance to
he foot of the Cross. A centurion orders a space to be cleared
for Mary and her following. The soldiers press back the mur-
muring priests and the exasperated crowd. Mary Magdalene
stands near the foot of the cross. The Madonna is on the right.
Behind is John. Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus weighed
down with years, are at a little distance. Lazarus is on the left
in advance of a group of women of Jerusalem.

There are not many unmoved in that vast audience as the Re-
deemer, in a voice of exquisite tenderness, exclaims to the Virgin :
"Woman, behold thy son," and then to St. John, "Son, behold
thy mother." This is a wondrous, a soul-absorbing picture:
Mary supported by the women, her white face upturned to her
dying Son, whose face is bedewed with the sweat of death ; Mag-
dalene, her long hair hanging over her shoulders, leaning her
head against the wood of the cross ; John, the very impersonifi-
cation of " manhood's grief."

752 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sepl

" I thirst," comes from the cross. " He is athirst," says a cei
turion, " and calleth for water." A soldier fills a sponge witl
vinegar and raises it to his. mouth. Then comes the cry from the
Redeemer : " Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani My God, my God, wh]
hast thou forsaken me ? " The cry causes the audience to quive
" What doth he mean?" ask two of the Pharisees. " He callel
for Elias," is responded. " Let us see if Elias come to take hi]
down," is the taunting exclamation of Caiphas.

And now the awful moment is at hand when the Son of M<
is to yield up the ghost. Already have convulsive movement
of his body announced that the end is near. Once again he lift
up his meek yet agonized face, and crying with a loud voi<
" It is consummated ; Father, into thy hands I commend nr
spirit," the head sinks slowly upon the breast, and all is over.

Maier has been suspended fully twenty-five minutes, and th<
strain is immense. He is supported at the back by a sort of coi
set, with a loop that fits into a clasp attached to the cross, whi]
his wrists are fastened by bands invisible to the audience, and hi?
feet rest upon a ledge. Nevertheless the fatigue of remaining
one position and upon such slender support is almost unbeai
able ; yet never for one second does this wondrous actor permil
any physical torture to interfere with the sublimity of the rdle h<
is called on to perform, and his acting is as superb at the close
the scene as it is at the commencement.

Christ dies ! There is a sound as of thunder in the distant
the elements are set loose ; the sun is darkened ; the earth reels
blackness falls upon the world. Terror reigns supreme. Ind<
scribable fear seizes upon the spectators. The centurion
claims, " Indeed this was a just man ! Truly he is the Son
God "; and many are convinced with him. A man rushes in with
the tidings that the veil of the Temple is rent in twain. Cai-
phas declares it the work of Beelzebub : Jehovah has had no-
thing to say to it. " Let us go," he cries, " and see what hath
taken place. But I will immediately return, for I cannot rest
until I have seen the limbs broken and the bodies cast into the
deep grave of malefactors."

The executioners place ladders against the crosses upon which
hang the two malefactors, and with heavy clubs proceed to break
their bones. This realism is almost revolting. It is horrible to
see these brawny 'brutes raise their clubs, let them fall with a dull
thud on the limbs of the malefactors limbs that actually seem to
break under the force of the blow. It is horrible to see the heads
of these wretches sink lower and lower as the life is beaten out of

1 88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 753

them, and, as the last blow is struck over the heart, to behold the
bodies quiver.

Christ being already dead, the executioners do not touch his
body, and Caiphas is thwarted. The centurion, however, to
ascertain that the Saviour is dead, pierces his side with a
lance. A short, sharp, stifled cry of horror breaks forth from the
audience as blood and water flow from the wound. The execu-
tioners now proceed to take down the two thieves. These men
have been suspended with their arms over the arms of the cross.
i In removing the bodies the executioners act with brutal rough-

fss, and it is absolutely marvellous how well the impersonators,
the malefactors retain the semblance of death. The execu-
ners raise a ladder against the central cross, and are about to
tnmence the work of taking down the body of the Redeemer
ten Joseph of Arimathea comes forward with Pilate's written
ler authorizing him to remove the body and bury it. With a
ital jest the executioners desist, and, picking up their instru-
cts, retire with the dead bodies of the malefactors on their
mlders, hanging limp and lifeless, and with all the seeming of
I every limb being broken.

And now follows that picture of tender, compassionate love,

I the descent from the cross. The Mother, Mary Magdalene,

i a few women of Jerusalem, together with Nicodemus, Joseph of

I Arimathea, and John, remain grouped round the foot of the cross.

After a brief consultation, held in reverential whispers, two ladders

are placed against the cross, one in front, the other in the rear.

Joseph of Arimathea mounts the one in front, holding in his hand

a. roll of linen cloth rolled in from both ends. Nicodemus ascends

the ladder at the back of the cross. Joseph reaches one end of the

cloth to Nicodemus, after passing it under the left arm of the

Saviour. Nicodemus passes it over the left arm of the cross, and

i then lets it unroll to the ground. Joseph passes the other end

under the right arm, and Nicodemus allows it to unroll to the

ground over the right arm of the cross. Simon of Bethania now

holds one end, and a retainer of Joseph, who is to prevent the
body from falling, holds the other. Nicodemus then, with su-
preme tenderness and reverence, removes the crown of thorns
from the tortured head and hands it to a bystander, who places it
at the feet of his Mother, as, exhausted and wrecked by " a grief
that does not speak/' she seats herself on a rock close to the fatal
cross. The delicacy with which Nicodemus removes the nails
from the hands is admirably done the gentle touch, then the
slight shake, then the agonizing care with which he applies the
VOL. xxxi. 48

754 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sept.,

rude pincers, lest they should profane the sacred flesh, then an-
other slight shake, then the slow and tremulous removal. Then
he bends over the arm of the cross, taking the lifeless hand and
letting it droop rather than drop on the shoulder of Joseph. In
the same reverential way he releases the other hand, which is also
received by Joseph, who is now prepared to accept the precious
burden of the Saviour's body. With the releasing of the hands
the body leans forward and rests entirely upon the shoulders of
Joseph, while it is also supported by the cloth :

" Oh ! come, thou precious burden, come upon my shoulders."

:iiiu

ng:
>rm

Nicodemus descends the ladder, and now reverentially appli
himself to drawing the nails from the sacred feet, Joseph support-
ing the body. The feet being released, John takes them, and
Lazarus extends his arms upwards for the body, exclaiming
" Come, sacred body of the dearest Friend ! Let me embrace th<
Oh ! how hath the rage of w the foe maltreated thee."

Never did the real personages in the great tragedy perfoi
the harrowing office with more pious care, more delicate and
reverential handling. The scene of the descent from the
was the great painting by Rubens endowed with vitality.

Now the linen is removed and the body borne by the foi
Nicodemus, Joseph, John, and Lazarus, and tenderly laid upoi
white cloth which has been spread before the Virgin Mother, wl
almost distracted with grief, takes the Saviour's head in her trei
bling hands. Mary Magdalene kneels at the left side of the bo<
" O my Son ! " gasps the anguish-stricken Mother, as she bei
over the lifeless flesh, " how covered with wounds is thy bod;
John, ever the comforter, exclaims : " Mother, from these woui
flowed the fulness of blessing for all mankind." The body is now
anointed, wrapped in a linen cloth, and borne by the four men
to the sepulchre, the women following. The body is laid in its
resting-place, and Joseph and Nicodemus roll the stone before
the door.

The terrible tension of this act causes the interest in that
which follows to lag- a little. Not that the reverence has become
in any way lukewarm, but the strain of the Calvary had become
almost unendurable. Act xvii. deals with the Resurrection, and
is preceded by two tableaux, " Jonas is cast on dry land by
whale " and " The Israelites cross the Red Sea in safety." Passii
the tableaux, I come to the Resurrection. When the curtain rise^
we see four soldiers watching at the closed and sealed sepulchre.
They speak of the terrible darkness that came over the earth

noi
in
G
ur

i88o.] THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. 755

e Crucifixion, and the other fearful phenomena. Sleep surprises
em, and they fall into various contorted attitudes. Now all eves
fixed on the stone at the entrance to the sepulchre, and our
beat almost audibly. Suddenly the stone moves, falls, and
hrist rises majestically from the grave and disappears. When
the soldiers summon courage to examine the tomb it is tenantless.
A number of women bearing costly ointment arrive on the scene,
who utter lamentations at. the disappearance of the Master. A
light illumines the sepulchre, and an angel appears, who bids them
seek him in Galilee. The soldiers inform the Pharisees, who now
come on the scene, of what has befallen his body. The Pharisees
endeavor to bribe the soldiers to say that the body was removed
while they were asleep, but one soldier will not be bribed. " By
my honor," he angrily cries, " I will relate it just as it took
place."

Mary Magdalene comes to the sepulchre seeking the Master,
he falls wearily beside the empty tomb and gives herself to
eeping. Jesus appears, although invisible to her. " Woman,"
says, " why weepest thou ? Whom seekest thou ? " She does
t lift her eyes, imagining it is the keeper of the sepulchre who
ks. " O master ! " she replies, " if thou hast taken him away,
en tell me where thou hast laid him, that I may once more
Mary ! " That gentle voice leaps to her soul. She springs to
er feet, crying in a perfect ecstasy : " Oh ! that is his voice."
he flings herself at his feet for he has now appeared to her ex-
iming : " Rabboni " ; but Christ utters, " Touch me not, for I am
not yet ascended to my Father ; but go to my brethren, and say
unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my
God and your God." And Mary Magdalene bowing her head
until her hair sweeps the ground, cries, " Beloved Teacher ! " as
e Saviour disappears.

The lines which Father Daisenberger has here put into the
mouth of the Magdalene, as translated by Mr. Jackson, are full of
ower :

" But I have seen his face,

Have heard his voice. O moment this of bliss !
Away all sorrows and all darksome fears !
My soul is filled with joys of Paradise !
Now will I hasten, as though borne aloft,
And to the brethren as on wings will speed,
And bear the message he hath given to me :
Tell them the Lord is now among the living !
Oh ! could I cry aloud through all the world,

THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU. [Sej

So that the mountains, valleys, rocks and woods,
And heaven and earth, give back their echoes :
Alleluia ! he is risen, \Echofrom all sides.}

Alleluia ! he is risen ! "

I must say that Maria Lang's acting in this scene rose tc
high dramatic point.

What follows can hardly be called an act ; it is more of a
tableau. The chorus enter for the last time, and the Choragus
rings out " He is risen ! " in tones that vibrate with joy.

" Sing and be glad, ye heavenly hosts ! He is risen ! Sing and be glad,
ye mortals on earth ! The Scion from the house of Juda hath crushed the
head of the serpent. Our faith is firmly established. Most blissful hopes
are awakened in our hearts by the type and pledge of our own future rest
rection ! Sing in exultant tones, Alleluia ! We saw him enter Jerusale
full of meekness, alas ! to meet with the deepest humiliation. Now let
gaze, before we 'separate, upon the triumphal festival of victory. Beh<
him as he ascends to the highest glory. Full of heavenly majesty, he enl
the New Jerusalem, where he will gather together all those whom he h<
purchased with his blood."

As these joyous sounds ring forth the feelings of the v;
audience seem to ascend with them. Faces that but a mom<
ago were overshadowed with pain aye, the expression was one
pain are now bright and hopeful. The shadow of the cross
been dispelled in the glory of the coming Ascension.

The tableau is revealed in the central stage. Christ has ri<
and stands in a greup of his followers, attired in white, glittei
garments. He stands on the brow of Olivet, in his left ham
banner emblematical of victory, his right raised in blessing,
either side of him are angelic figures. Mary, the Mother, kne<
on the right, surrounded by little children, adorers of the en
John, with Peter by his side, shades his eyes with his hands, tl
" white radiance of eternity " being too dazzling for him. Here
we see all the disciples, and his friends of Bethania, Martha,
Magdalene* Simon, and Lazarus, the compassionate women of the
Via Dolorosa, Veronica, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea.
All kneel in various attitudes of supreme devotion, and as the
curtain slowly descends the chorus still rings out the glorious
Alleluia, and with its soul-elevating strains the Passion Play ends.

The performance of the play is a precious heirloom to the vil
lagers and a labor of love. Repeated offers have been made
them to perform it elsewhere, but to no purpose. t In 1870 the
were offered a hundred thousand gulden. In 1872 a larger sui

1880.] RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 757

was declined. In 1873 sixty thousand florins were guaranteed to
a certain number of them if they would consent to perform at
Vienna during the exhibition. The gains of the community are
but very modest, as a greater sum is lost by the neglect of busi-
ness than is received for the performance. A large share of the
receipts is devoted to the muncipality, a still larger share to
the relief of the poorest of the villagers. In 1871 two hundred
florins was the highest sum received by any actor save Maier,
who received two hundred and twenty. In 1870 his remuneration
was one hundred and sixty florins.

The villagers of Ober-Ammergau are a good people and a
pious people, and long may they continue to perform their cher-
ished Passion Play, which all must regard as the most marvellous
dramatic exhibition of our epoch and the perfection of the reli-
dous drama.

RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.

THE question of ritualism has of late been much before the
[English public. Several clergymen have been prosecuted for
[conducting services in a manner supposed to be illegal, and have
(received their quota of praise or blame, as the case may be, from
their supporters and opponents. Three or four suits instituted
Sunder the Public Worship Regulation Act have failed on techni-
jcal grounds, and in one case the entire proceedings have been pro-
; nounced ab initio invalid. Various reports from time to time ap-
>pear in the daily press to the effect that clergymen of distinction
jhave joined the church.

These facts naturally attract the attention of Catholics and form
jthe subject of diverse criticism. The repeated hints that have
been thrown out regarding a large secession from the Anglican
Icommunion have within the past few months received confirma-
tion from an unexpected source. The Bishop of Lichfield, in his
'primary charge, has thus referred * to the contingency : " It is more
than probable we shall see before long another exodus from with-
in our own communion of a certain number who can scarcely re-
piain in their present anomalous condition in the Anglican Church."
Words like these coming from the mouth of a dignitary of high

* Times, March 5, 1880.

758 RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. [Sepl

position are significant, although it is true he adds : " I cannot bi
believe that the influence in this country of Romanism will soon
be on the wane." That grounds exist for the first statement
an undoubted fact, and one to which the public at large are dis
posed to give credence ; but for the second we know of none
yond the natural wish of an Anglican prelate. With a view
stem the steady tide that seems to have set in Romeward,
Littledale published a work entitled Plain Reasons against joinir
the Church of Rome, but, although the sale has been large, we
not think the result will be what was anticipated. The majoril
of Englishmen still look with suspicion upon Ritualists, and di
credit the recent zeal they manifest against the church. The
Church party refuse to recognize Dr. Littledale as a fit pen
to attack Rome, and insinuate the possibility of some deep-h
plot whilst they prefer what they call popery in the flower
popery in the bud.

It is certain that the Ritualists are attacked far more violenl
in the Anglican papers than in those that are Catholic, and tl
every year seems to widen the gulf, already deemed impassal
by some, between them and the Evangelicals. Information
garding them, professedly emanating from Rome, is copied wil
avidity by the daily press, and affords evidence of the intei
with which their proceedings are watched information whi<
though it has been frequently shown to be false, is systematical
repeated under different forms.

It is not surprising that such a body should be viewed with
terest by the Catholic Church, and that the progress of the moi
ment should be the subject of careful study. That many
scientious and pious Ritualists should firmly believe that the
lish Church is Catholic, and the same church that existed in Ei
land before the Reformation, is to any one, except an Anglic
matter for wonder; but it is none the less a fact that a large ai
increasing body of intelligent men hold this opinion, and th;
they therefore necessarily regard the real Catholics as schismatic
How they get over the difficulty that they are out of communion
not only with the whole Latin church, but with the Greek and
Oriental in all their varieties, and that previous to the Reforma-
tion such was not the case, we are at a loss to conceive.

The question has lately been brought prominently forward by
the failure of a legal suit against Mr. Mackonochie, vicar of St.
Alban's, Holborn a suit which had lasted upwards of ten years.
Lord Penzance virtually admitted the difficulty, if not impossibil-
ity, of carrying out the legislation of the Public Worship Regul

ui:=

:88o.] RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 759

ion Act in a place such as St. Alban's, where clergy and people
ere agreed and determined to conduct the services in a particu-
ar fashion.

Mr. Dale, of St. Vedast's, Foster Lane, a well-known church in
he heart of the city of London, was among the first batch of
ictims condemned by the Public Worship Act. It may be re-
embered that when Mr. Mackonochie some years ago lay under
sentence of six weeks' suspension, no service was held at St.
Iban's, Holborn, and that the vicar of St. Vedast's threw open
is church to the congregation an act which brought down on
im the indignation of the Evangelicals, who at once proceeded,
hrough their favorite society, " The Church Association," to at-
ck him. The various stages were gone through, and Mr. Dale
as inhibited and suspended by Lord Penzance. On his appeal-
g to the Court of Queen's Bench the sentence of the Dean of
rches was declared null and void in law, and the reverend gen-
leman was reinstated in the full possession of his rights. The
hurch Association, however, brought a second suit against him,
f which the only result was another collapse. A third suit was
ore satisfactory for Mr. Dale's opponents. He was condemned
ith costs and inhibited, but up to the present time, like Mr.
ackonochie, he has ignored the inhibition and continued to
rry on his services exactly the same as before. The papers as-
ert that at the usual Easter vestry this year Mr. Dale declared
that he did not intend to give up possession of the keys, and
would conduct the services as he pleased notwithstanding the in-
hibition ; that, rather than submit to the bishop, he would sacrifice
everything, including the benefice and his holy orders ; that what
was called ritualism was with him and others a matter of faith,
and that they were determined to maintain the grand old historic
Church of England, which dated not from the Reformation, but
existed even before St. Augustine, the monk who was sent by the
pope to England. He proceeded to inform his hearers that he
had already been involved in five different suits, but that, at what-
ever further self-sacrifice on the part of himself and his friends,
the matter must be fought out to the bitter end, even if it led to a
disruption in the church. He was prepared to endure starvation,
prisonment, or death itself for conscience' sake. The protest
read by Mr. Dale to the curate in charge licensed by the bishop
to take care of the parish during the inhibition is remarkable.
We give it in extenso :

The charge of souls of this parish was committed to me on the 23d of

760 RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. [Sept.,

April, 1847, by Charles James, then bishop of this diocese ; therefore, as one
who has been canonically instituted to such a charge conferred by the
bishop in his office as a successor of the apostles, and according to the order
instituted in his church by our Lord Jesus Christ, I should be guilty of
grievous sin and great unfaithfulness to the church I serve were I to cease
to exercise my mission at the bidding of any authority of a less divine char-
acter than that by which I was appointed."

It is curious that Mr. Dale should not see that it is the same
power, though not actually- the power in person, that instituted
him that in this instance seeks to deprive him. To anybody but
a Ritualist such a line of argument is incomprehensible. The
public at large believe that all clergymen of the Established
Church in England are appointed and instituted by the bishop as
the legally-appointed overseer of the church in their particular
district, and that they are allowed to occupy an official position
on the express condition that they lawfully discharge their duties.
A certain number of clergy may imagine that such appointment
and institution is performed by the bishop as a successor of the
apostles, but the majority even of Anglicans would deny it. Yet
the bishop is powerless in Mr. Dale's case, for the latter rejected
the ministrations of the person sent him, and refuses to recognize
the authority of a prelate who uses his position to register the
decrees of the judge of the Court of Arches, and thus speaks not
in his spiritual capacity but as the mouthpiece of the state.

The position of such men as Mr. Tooth, Mr. Mackonochie,
and Mr. Dale clearly shows the necessity of a change in the law,
and that some form of procedure not open to criticism should be
substituted for the antiquated processes at present in vogue. The
Public Worship Act, specially passed to remedy this blot, has so
far proved worthless. It has failed in almost every instance, and
from the very outset was protested against as objectionable and
unfair. Lord Penzance himfself has been pronounced by some
of the courts of law as a nonentity and devoid of all jurisdiction
a sentence which has given some excuse for the persistent at-
tacks that have been made upon him by the whole High-Church
party. The Court of Arches, of which Lord Penzance is the
presiding judge, has, for instance, pronounced Mr. Dale guilty
for having violated his agreement, and for having failed to fulfil
the task he had solemnly pledged himself to perform. Those
who are unacquainted with the uncertainties and intricacies of
the law consider his action unwise and his protest foolish, whilst
they have every sympathy with the difficult position in which he
was placed.

i88o.] RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 761

Mr. Mackonochie and his followers have, in like manner, de-
fied the bishop and assumed a policy of passive resistance to the
jurisdiction and edicts of Lord Penzance. He has treated his sen-
tence of inhibition in much the same way that Mr. Tooth treated
one fulminated some years ago against him at St. James', Hatch-
am, the principal difference being that Mr. Tooth was only sup-
ported by a portion of his congregation, whereas Mr. Macko-
nochie appears to have a whole army at his back. Lord Pen-
zance, when ruling that a new suit should be commenced, stated
that Mr, Martin's (the prosecutor) desire was that a stop should
be put to illegal practices, and that the scandal involved in the
constant celebration in an English Protestant church of a service
which to all outward appearance differed little, if at all, from the
Roman Catholic Mass, should be restrained by law.

It is possible that the Protestant public dislike the tone of
such services as are carried on at Mr. Mackonochie's church at
St. Alban's, and that the general public regard them as different
from that which has prevailed for some centuries ; but it should
not be forgotten that one of the special desires of Queen Eliza-
beth, and presumably of some of the Reformers also, was that the
Anglican services should be conducted in such a way that Catho-
lics might be induced to attend. There can be no doubt at all that,
when conducted after the fashion of fifty or sixty years ago, no
Catholic could have taken these services to be the worship of the
Catholic Church, and it is therefore presumable that wherever
Queen Elizabeth's wishes were carried out ornate services were
prevalent and decorations similar in kind to those now objected
to were made use of. In Burnet's History of the Reformation the
following statement is made a statement that has been corrobo-
rated at various times when ecclesiastical questions have been
made the subject of Parliamentary discussions :

' The chief design of Queen Elizabeth's council was to unite the nation
in one faith ; and as the greatest part of the nation continued to believe in
the Real Presence, it was recommended to the divines to see that there
should be no express definition made against it, so that it might be a specu-
lative opinion not determined, in which every man was left to the freedom
of his own mind."

The late Mr. Plunkett, in his speech on the Catholic Relief
Bill, declared that Queen Elizabeth altered the liturgy as it had
been framed by her brother, Edward VI., for the avowed purpose

:of enabling Catholics to join her. new communion. Macaulay,
too, in his History of England, specially mentions the fact that the

762 RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. [Sept.,

policy of the government under Elizabeth was to induce the
Catholics to frequent the new service by making it as much as
possible like the old. The Ritualists have, therefore, much to say
in defence of their position from this point of view. They appear,
moreover, in contradistinction to the notions regarding the church
by the early Tractarians, to be inclined to adopt the view of the
free-thinkers, that the Anglican communion was avowedly planned
so as to embrace men of every school of thought, and they evince
a wish to live and let live. Formerly the case was different : at one
time the Low Church had the upper hand, at another the High
Church ; but during each period the predominant party invariably
tried to assert that it alone fairly represented the teaching of the
Reformers. The peculiar feature of the present movement may
be said to consist in the fact that it is strongly opposed to any
interference on the part of the state, and that acts of Parliament
that would have been regarded some years ago as natural and
desirable are now either barely tolerated or violently attacked.

The plea put forward by those against whom legal proceed-
ings have been taken is that they are unable to recognize any
secular attempt to superintend their proceedings, but that, were
the church to speak through her proper channels, they would
willingly submit. They argue that the bishops do not represent
the church but the views of the minister who appoints them
(who may be a Nonconformist or an unbeliever). For this reason
they are unable to render them obedience, even when they speak
unfettered by state decrees or findings of the Privy Council.
They occupy a peculiar position. In the Anglican Church, and
yet repudiated by the majority of its members, they oscillate be-
tween Rome and Geneva, and claim a title which is recognized
by none outside their party. They argue that the Anglican
Church has always been Catholic, though she has been out of
communion with all other churches for three hundred years and
at the present time is recognized by none. They are divided on
the question as to where the living voice of the church is to be
found, but experience no difficulty in denouncing Catholicity,
which they designate " the Italian schism."

Some of the doctrines promulgated by the Ritualists give rise
to much that is inconvenient. Confession is a case in point. The
real dislike to the confessional as practised amongst Anglicans lies
in the fact that there is no discipline, and that the clergy, as a
body, are not celibates. Men naturally regard confession in the
hands of a married clergy as objectionable, independently of the
fact that such clergy have had no special training in that direc-

i88o.] RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 763

tion, and that in nine cases out of ten they enter the ranks of the
ministry from the cricket-field and the river, with no preparation
beyond that which is given by the public universities of the
country. It is far less because confession is being introduced
though of course the conscientious Evangelical objects to this
than because it is being introduced without any shadow of secu-
rity that the majority of the British public so energetically repu-
diate it. The results that were obtained by the prosecution of
Mr. Tooth, of Hatcham, were avowedly unsatisfactory, and though,
as a matter of fact, he is no longer vicar of Hatcham, this is owing
to his having resigned the living rather than create fresh difficul-
ties and be the cause of protracted litigation. In a letter ad-
dressed to Archbishop Tait he stated that he was content to
have been the means of proving indisputably that a novel juris-
diction had been imposed upon the Anglican Church. The im-
portance of this argument cannot be overrated ; for though the
Established Church has always been more or less in bondage to
the state, and has permitted its doctrines and usages to be regu-
lated by acts of Parliament, nevertheless until the time of the
passing of the Public Worship Regulation bill it had preserved
the semblance of ecclesiastical rule in its diocesan courts and its
Court of Arches. The High-Church and Ritualistic sections can
therefore, with great plausibility, urge the plea that, were the
Anglican Church freed from state control, and were her bishops
able to speak in their ecclesiastical capacity and not as the mouth-
pieces of the government, they would be obeyed. The line taken
by Mr. Mackonochie and others makes one doubtful whether,
even under these circumstances, difficulties would be avoided.
The Bishop of London in the year 1877 complained of a picture
of Our Lady which had been erected in the church of St. Alban,
Holborn, with candles and flowers placed before it. A corre-
spondence ensued, in which the vicar distinctly' refused to remove
it in compliance with the wish of the bishop, though he had
written stating that it was not his intention to bring the matter
before the courts of law, but that he simply begged of him as
his diocesan to have it removed. The bishops have in several
instances of late appealed to their clergy in their spiritual capa-
city and discouraged legal proceedings,* which will doubtless
tend greatly to soothe the spirit of irritation that has prevailed.
In acting thus they have not only pleased their clergy, but they
have avoided the heavy expenses that are incidental to all eccle-
siastical suits.

* Times, December, 1877.

764 RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. [Sept.,

The real difficulty that those who are apparently zealous for the
purity of worship in the Church of England have to contend
with is the spirit of the age, which inclines in an aesthetic direc-
tion. The bishops, being essentially the representatives of popular
opinion, are unwilling, even if they had the power, entirely to
suppress the Ritualists or to restore the Anglican communion to
the position it occupied at the beginning of this century. Even
those prelates whose sympathies are entirely with the Evangelicals
are prevented from acceding to the behests of the Church Associa-
tion, whilst those whose sympathies incline in other directions
are content to receive deputations from the discontented and
solace them with platitudes about the beauty of the Reformed
church and its incomparable liturgy. The bishops of to-day not
only tolerate but make use of practices which thirty or forty
years ago were denounced by their predecessors as objectionable,
and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that fifty years
hence the bishops of that day (if the Anglican Church still exist as
a corporate body) will tolerate and make use of such practices as
confession and extreme unction, which at the present time they
vehemently denounce. The coldhial bishops are considerably in
advance of those in England, and attend functions that would
have astonished their forefathers. Dr. Macrorie, of Maritzburg,
the prelate who was sent out to Natal in lieu of Dr. Colenso,
openly stated in an address* to his clergy that the fundamental
principle of the Reformation was not innovation but a return to
the primitive customs of antiquity in the purest times (whatever
that may mean), and that consequently he is forced to the conclu-
sion that special vestments and the eastward position are lawful,
if not obligatory, as signifying the sacrificial character, of Holy
Communion.

When bishops differ so widely in matters of importance as the
Anglican bishops do, it is not surprising that lawyers of the
highest skill and eminence should not agree on questions of doc-
trine and ritual which are brought before them. It becomes,
therefore, a matter of extreme difficulty for an honest member of
the Anglican communion to know how to act and whom to fol-
low.

The position of an Anglican bishop is not enviable ; attacked
on the one side by the Puritans for encouraging and abetting the
ritualistic movement, and on the other by the Ritualists for
sacrificing the rights of the church in an endeavor to give no
offence, he must find it hard to give , satisfaction to his followers.

* Church Times, December 14, 1877.

i88o.] RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 765

A week never elapses without an attack on the bishops. The
abuse heaped upon them by the Low-Church press is only equalled
by that which comes from the other side. The Churcli Times
recently expressed itself to the effect that the bishops were
always foolish and generally heretical.

The Ritualists, as a body, appear to render their superiors just
as much submission and obedience as they think necessary for
their position. They are divided into sections, one section more
or less radical and bitterly anti-Catholic, which may be said to
be headed by Dr. Littledale, the other conservative in opinion
and generous in tone and sentiment to the Apostolic See. With
the former Catholics can have no sympathy. The language it
makes use of regarding the pope and the church is disreputable
and what one would expect to find in the mouths of Orangemen,
or adherents of the Protestant Reformation Society. Its mem-
bers profess to admit church authority and to condemn the in-
terference of the state ; nevertheless, rather than abandon their
private opinions, they fling defiance at their bishops and throw
overboard both church and state. They repudiate Convocation,
the episcopate, and the state? and submit to no one who
opposes their private crotchets. They admit the necessity of
some supernatural authority, but assert that this authority is in
the hands of each individual priest. Cardinal Newman, in one of
his early writings, speaks of that Anglican symbol which claims
to be the English church as a tradition, but every successive year
seems to afford indication that this tradition is passing away.
One of the peculiar characteristics of this tradition was its isola-
tion and complete abstention from all ecclesiastical affairs be-
yond England. Now we see the contrary. In a vain endeavor
to show universality the Anglican authorities strive to mix them-
selves up in every passing event. They issued protests against
the validity of the ^Ecumenical Council of the Vatican in 1869,
and against the reintroduction of the hierarchy into Scotland in
1878, whilst they have encouraged the efforts of M. Loyson to in-
troduce schism into France, of M. Herzog in Switzerland, and of
Dr. Reinkens in Germany. Their last escapade has been an at-
tempt to disturb existing arrangements and sow the seeds of dis-
order and confusion in Mexico and Armenia.

The future of the Established Church of England is in fact
every day becoming more critical, and the Public Worship Act,
which was intended by its originators to have acted as a purifier,
will probably be regarded by future historians as the starting-
point for its final disruption. In no instance as yet has any

766 RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. [Sept,

clergyman who has been attacked by the new procedure sub-
mitted to the decisions given by it, and now an organized form of
resistance has been set on foot to compel the government to allow
it to become obsolete or to have it remodelled and materially al-
tered. The Evangelicals foresee the results that must necessarily
ensue, and declare that the gradual absorption by the clergy of
the legislative and juridical functions originally belonging to the
whole community is most calamitous, and have formed various
societies for the propagation and defence of their own opinions.
The Ritualists act in a similar way. The English Church Union
is the society to which they belong, and to which they have
largely subscribed. This society has come to the front in every
instance where clergymen have been prosecuted under the Public
Worship Act, and has given them both moral and substantial
support, It includes bishops and dignitaries, several thousand
clergy, and a very large proportion of the laity of England.
Though many of its members have at various times seceded and
embraced Catholicity, it appears to make up for every loss and
to be steadily gaining ground in the country. It may be called
the advance-guard of the High-Church party, and is undoubtedly
a bod) 7 that cannot be ignored. Unlike the Church Association (the
society supported by the Evangelicals), it stands on the defensive,
and has never as yet instituted any prosecutions. The natural
love of fair-play in the English character has thus made it con-
trast favorably with the other, which is in a perpetual state of
warfare. The want of success has likewise had a tendency to
disgust the supporters of the Church Association, who declaim
against the enormous sums that have been expended for the past
eight or ten years, with no result beyond that of making the
character of the Anglican Church more undecided and complex
than before.

Clear signs exist of an increasingly ambitious and encroach-
ing movement on the part of the Ritualists. Religious orders for
women have been in vogue for many years, and some for men
have been introduced quite recently ; the saints are objects of in-
creasing veneration ; confession, absolution, and transubstantiation
are openly advocated and find a large number of adherents.
Many of the ritualistic party, in despair of advancing their ideas,
have advocated a most extensive form of radicalism which would
include the entire separation of church and state, and they imagine
that, once free from the trammels by which they are fettered as
ministers of the state, they would be completely free to indulge in
the most extravagant forms of worship. The avowed present

1 8 So.] RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 767

object is to incite the public to approve a policy of resistance
against Lord Penzance and the Court of Arches, hoping, no doubt,
that a general resistance to that authority will lead to a dilemma,
the result of which, will be either the disestablishment of Lord
Penzance or of the Church of England, in either of which cases
it is anticipated that the independence of the church may be se-
cured.

But the Church of England, as at present established, was ar-
ranged as the best means of protection against what was styled
popish corruption and priestly usurpation. Those powers are
being once more put to the test. It is hard to understand how
any statesman could deliberately propose to give up the control
of such a body as the clergymen of the Established Church, and
it is still more incomprehensible in the case of a statesman who is
a Nonconformist. Such a man would, in the event of disestablish-
ment, have no voice whatever in the control of a body some mem-
bers of which have lately exhibited so ambitious a tendency.

The Anglican Church, being essentially broad in practice and
in theory, embraces within its fold men of this stamp as well as
ultra-Protestants and free-thinkers, who are united by the one
common bond of hatred to Rome. The majority of the British
public appear to be of the opinion that, so far as religion is con-
cerned, the wisest and only practical course is to live and let
live, give and take, and they are generally content to accept the
principle that every man has a right to follow the dictates of his
conscience. They act as if they believed that, provided men are
honest and upright in their actions, faith is of small importance,
and that one religion is as good as another, though they have
a decided bias against Rome. The Ritualists are compelled by
force of public opinion to concede to these ideas, and, when
they mix with those who differ from them, seek to hinder the
possibility of a conflict by deliberately avoiding all topics like-
ly to cause disagreement. It is for this reason meetings com-
posed of Anglicans deal so largely in platitudes and generalities,
and give rise to the complaint that they accomplish nothing.
The great object seems to be to exclude everything that may lead
to discussion and strong diversity of opinion, which of itself
makes men say that the Anglican authorities regard truth as a
secondary consideration and expend all their efforts in endeavor-
ing to present a united front to the world. The divergences of
opinion between such men as Mr. Mackonochie, Mr. Tooth, and
Canon Carter on the one side, and Bishop Ryle, Bishop Bicker-
steth, and Bishop Rowley Hill on the other, are enormous, and

768 RITUALISM AND THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. [Sept.,

it is no exaggeration to assert that doctrines propagated by the
former are denounced as erroneous and poisonous by the latter.
In addition to these opposing schools of thought, with theif num-
berless and varied sections, there is the Broad-Church party, mor<
or less headed by Dean Stanley, Professor Jowett, and Canon
Farrar, whose theory of church government and discipline is very
wide. The Dean of Westminster never loses an opportunity of
protesting, in Convocation and elsewhere, against the narrow
and intolerant spirit exhibited by the different parties in the
Church of England, and would like to constitute a commu
nion that would embrace Catholics, Orientals, and Nonconform-
ists.

It is more than twenty years since the greatest of English
free-thinkers foretold that scientific infidelity and indifferentism
would be the last phase of English Protestantism, and pointed to
the elimination of mere doctrinal controversy and the opening of
scientific impiety. It is curious to note that side by side with
the notions of the average Ritualist are to be found a perpetually
increasing number of persons who repudiate all religious re-
straints and merely conform outwardly, for the sake of decency
and respectability, to the Establishment. The vast majority do
not care for doctrine or ritual, so that, practically if not theoreti-
cally, we seem to have realized the free-thinker's ideal of a church
a corporation of great propriety and respectability that includes
all teachers of religion and morality who choose to belong to it.
Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, does not hesi-
tate to inform his readers that Protestants, according to their
creed, are more credulous than Catholics, and, being himself a
philosophical free-thinker, his decision has at least the merit of
impartiality. Had he lived in the present day he would have
had still further reason for criticising Protestantism, and would
have found in the ever-increasing number of discordant sects
ample food for his comments.

The boundless liberty that is enjoyed in the Anglican com-
munion is one that contrasts strongly with the rule of Rome,
where clergy do not act, write, or speak sine permissu superiorum,
and naturally makes many persons afraid of going further and far-
ing worse. So long as this perfect freedom of doing exactly
what they wish, and therefore of holding and teaching within the
pale of a Reformed church every detail of Catholic ritual and
doctrine renounced at the Reformation, continues to exist, it is
probable that numbers of Ritualists will hold back ; but a time
must sooner or later arrive when the conflicting parties in the

l88o.]

HAMLET" s TYPE.

769

Anglican Church can hold together no longer, and then there will
>e a large secession.

It is improbable that there will be any attempt to re-establish

ic Catholic Church in England, for the majority of Englishmen,
;ven if lukewarm adherents to the Established Church and the
Carious sects of Protestantism, are undoubtedly very antagonis-
;ic to Catholicity. In the event, however, of a break-up of the
Church of England or the severance of its connection with the
state it is not unlikely that a considerable section of the ritualistic
>arty would cast in their lot with the Catholic Church. The

iling authorities in such a case would have no voice whatever

the control of the disestablished community. Another and a

eat power within the state, but independent of it, would be the
lirect result of disestablishment, and there is no reason to sup-
>ose that that power would be content with a subordinate posi-
ion.

The Ritualists will, when such an event takes place, have the

itisfaction of feeling that the measure was brought about more
>y their defiance of all authority, both secular and ecclesiastical,
than by any elaborate disquisitions or manifestations that have

ien made by those societies whose aim is the destruction of all

lurch establishments.

HAMLET'S TYPE.

IN men of his type, the imagination is so much in overplus,
that thinking a thing becomes better than doing it, and thought
r ith its easy perfection, capable of everything because it can ac-
complish everything with ideal means, is vastly more attractive
and satisfactory than deed, which must be wrought at best with
imperfect instruments, and always falls short' of the conception
that went before it. LOWELL.

VOL. xxxi. 49

7/0 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

MY RAID INTO MEXICO.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SENORA SAN COSME.

THE vehicle which conveyed me from the Iturbide was
regular " bone-setter." I have ridden in the old-fashioned cover
car I believe there is but one in all Ireland now ; I have suffe
on the road to Glasnevin in those melancholy, mouldy affairs fa
tiously termed coaches ; I have scaled a mountain-side in Con
mara on a turf-kreel ; I have done considerable penance on outsi
cars, and have come to grief in London growlers ; but anythi
to equal the musty, jangling, rattling, jolting, maddening Me
can coach it has never been my ill fortune to encounter. It
cheap, is this conveyance cheap and nasty. The mules are so
looking brutes, with ears long as the whips of the drivers, a
ribs prominently developed as those of a wrecked ship. Th
crawl along streets ill paved as those of New York, and su
is the slowness of locomotion that the bells attached to th
collars seldom or never jangle.

The residence of the Senora San Cosme astonished me by i
absolute magnificence. Entering a large open court by a por\
cochtre, the vehicle drew up at a broad stairway of white marb
the centre of which was covered by a crimson Aubusson car
The steps were very low and easy to climb so easy, in fact, t
I took them in threes and fours for the first flight, but on the
second I had to halt for breath, as the atmosphere in those ele-
vated regions is so rarefied that one canoot fill the lungs till accli-
mated. The balusters were of polished brass, the scroll-work
representing the Mexican national plant, the nopal. Both sides
of the staircase were hedged absolutely hedged with tropical
flowers of a bloom so gorgeous that my eyes fairly feasted upon
it. Such yellows, such reds, such purples ! Springing out of
the hedges at set distances were orange-trees containing both
fruit and blossoms, while orchids, seemingly fashioned out <
glistening wax, hung caressingly on the glittering brass scro
work. Light came from behind the stained glass of the dome-
came so softly as almost to create a sort of Indian-summer haz
The whole effect was simply enchanting. I thought of the ding

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 771

stairs at Dromroe, and of the hall and billiard-table at Timolin of
which Trixy was so proud. What would she think of this ?

The senora, to whom my arrival had been announced, met me
r ith outstretched arms. She was tall, thin, with very white hair,
strange setting to her young face. Her eyes were soft, lustrous,
ind very dark ; her nose a delicate aquiline ; her mouth large
ind good-natured. The expression on her face was amiability
itself. She reminded me in this respect of dear Aunt Butlsr.
>he was attired in black, and the black lace veil that hung
suspended from a high comb completely draped her shapely
shoulders.

" My dear, dear child ! " she cried, as, kissing me on both cheeks,
she burst into tears. " You are so like your dear good mother !
me take a long look at you," placing her hands on my
shoulders. " The same eyes, the same mouth, the same expres-
sion. And how is your sister ? Is she like you ? Have you
)rought me her photograph ? " Asking me a number of like
[uestions in a breath, she led me through a suite of magnificent
>oms and out upon a balcony overlooking the court, where a
tble was laid for supper a sight that gladdened my eyes ; for,
LOW that the dust was washed away, the invigorating effects of
:he bath were commencing to tell upon my appetite.

" The current of my life flows onward very lazily here," said
the senora. " I am quite a Mexican. I love this beautiful coun-
-y, and I love its people. It is miserably governed. It is the
lost delightful climate in the world up here. We never go
)elow fifty, and never above seventy. Our rainy season lasts
three months, but that means a shower at two o'clock every day.
The city is exquisitely situated between two lakes, and you have
seen the snow-capped Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl."

" What jaw-breakers ! " I laughed. " Oh ! we can do better
than that by and by. The cathedral is superb, and the sagrario,
or parish church, is a marvellous specimen of that style of archi-
tecture known as the Chiruquique. If you are an archaeologist
the Aztec Calendar-Stone will interest you immensely, as well as
the Toltec and Aztec relics at the Museum. We have a gallery of
paintings of which we are very proud, and numerous very old
churches of the time of Cortez, any one of which will repay your
visit. Then the chinampas, or floating gardens, are things to see
more than once, and the market-places. You must visit our na-
tional pawnshop. It is worked on the same principle as the
Mont-de-Pi6te at Paris, and is admirably conducted. Then you
have the national palace, with its magnificent apartments, and the

772 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

Hall of the Ambassadors, where we have portraits of the presi-
dents, including George Washington. Then we have the Ala-
meda, where you must come on Sunday morning to hear the
band play. And every evening you will drive with me on the
Paseo, where you will see all the upper-ten of Mexico. We will
make excursions to Chapultepec, the favorite residence of poor
Maximilian, and Tacubaya, our ' swell ' suburb, where I have
many friends, one of whom has a superb collection of ancient
masters, amongst which is a ' Crucifixion ' by Murillo. I will
also take you out to San Angel, a wondrous old convent. That
sacrilegious scoundrel, Lerdo de Tejada, dispersed the pure and
pious sisters, and, having plundered it, converted it into a barrack.
You can form an estimate of the size of it when a whole regiment
eleven hundred strong is quartered in one wing. There is a
splendid hacienda, or farm, farmed by two brothers, who were
both educated at Downside College in England. Both have
beautiful daughters ; and if your heart is free ah ! I see by your
blushes that it is scarcely its own master ' " I assure you, se-
fiora, that " Never mind," she laughed ; " I'll know all about
it before you think of descending the Cumbres of the Boca del
Monte. What do you think of that railway ride ?" "Magnifi-
cent ! glorious ! " " Yes, it is superb. There is nothing like it in
the world. And now tell me all about Nellie. Is she tall or small ?
Has she your eyes? for they are your dear mother's. Is si
clever ? Has she a temper like your father's ? What shall I call
you ? " " Joe." " Well, Joe, your father was one of the most
honorable men and truest gentlemen that ever lived. If poor old
Ireland would send such men to Parliament she would soon make
herself felt in the House of Commons. You are a Home-Ruler,
of course ? " " Yes, indeed I am." " You'll go into Parliament ? "
" I hope so." " Now, Joe, you must be terribly hungry after that
long ride. Where did you lunch ? " " At Esperanza."

" Ah ! that is where you clear the Cumbres. W T e have three
regular meals a day in this house : one at eight o'clock, which
consists of coffee, eggs, and bread and butter. At half-past
twelve we have almucrzo, a sort of ddjeuner a la fourchette, and
at seven o'clock we dine. Of course you can carry on a guer-
rilla warfare against the larder at your pleasure. You'll always
find it pretty full, for my housekeeper is a dear, charitable, de-
voted creature, and takes good care that my character as chate-
laine shall not suffer. We have Mass every morning at seven
o'clock. You will be absolutely charmed with Father Gonzalez,
who resides here. He might starve, for our paternal government.

i88o.] My RAID INTO MEXICO. 773

Dios ! " she added, " it would make your warm young blood run
cold, were I to tell you of the insult and ignominy heaped by the
sacrilegious wretches who are in power upon our devoted clergy
and sisters."

My supper was as extensive as it was piquant e, and a highly-
peppered bird with an unpronounceable name was washed down
by a pint of iced Clicquot. I don't care for this brand of cham-
pagne, as a rule ; it is too sweet, more of a ladies' wine ; but dur-
ing my sojourn in Mexico I met with none other.

" Is Dublin much changed? And Stephen's Green, where
your dear mother and I went to school is it altered? And Pars-
ley's house how often I think of it, and the dormitory, and the
little wooden beds, and the many nights we used to talk under the
clothes to each other ! Our beds were side by side, and we used
to stretch the quilt from one to the other, and gossip under it
sometimes till morning."

I should say that I am hot giving my replies to the senora's
numerous questions, or her many interruptions. Long ere I had
arrived at a dessert that it would have set Lance crazy to paint
she had learned all about Dromroe, Timolin and its inhabitants
how she did roast me about Trixy ! about myself, my hopes,
wishes, and prospects, about Nellie, about the Bevans how
I made her laugh over the fussiness of old Mr. B. ! about
Miss Wriothesly, about my trip across the Atlantic, about the
Flinks, and especially Conchita. In a word, the senora never
for an instant ceased asking questions, and I never met
a person so anxious to glean every possible detail, or able to
put so many searching questions within so short a space of time.
Oh ! it was delightful to be sitting on that balcony, the blue-black
sky above us throbbing with stars bright as miniature moons.
It was wondrous to think that here I was, after travelling over
six thousand miles, seated opposite my dear mother's brides-
maid. I could not realize it. Surely this was Dublin, or Lon-
don, or even Paris. Mexico ! Impossible. December ! Not
quite.

I was mentally gazing at a panorama of the events which had
happened since that memorable morning when the black-bordered
letter with its Mexican seal was handed to me, when the seno-
ra suddenly burst upon my reverie by asking : " And is Billy
Brierly alive yet?" "Alive!" "Poor fellow! I suppose he's
gone. What a character he was, to be sure ! " " Poor fellow ! "
I groaned. " And so faithful ! " " Ah ! yes indeed." " I do be-
lieve he would have gone through fire and water for the fami-

MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

ly." " So do I, senora." " Travelled to the end of the earth."
" To Mexico even."

She seemed a little surprised at my levity, but proceeded :
"Did he marry?" "Never." "Did he die in your service?"
" Not that / know of." " How do you mean ? " Here I could
contain myself no longer, but burst out into a fit of laughter.

Senora San Cosme commenced to fan herself violently, so
much so that she blew the lace of her veil from off her shoulders.
" Pardon me, senora," I cried as soon as I recovered breath,
" but Billy is not dead." " I am really glad to hear it. He is
with you, of course?" "With me?" "I mean at Dromroe."
" He's not exactly at .Dromroe. If he were like Sir Boyle Roche's
bird he might be in two places at once, senora ; but being only
Billy Brierly, he's here." "Here!" gazing at me in the utter-
most astonishment. " Here in this house ; and if I don't greatly
mistake, that's his voice." "Is this a jest, Joe?" " Not at all.
The honest fellow begged so hard to dome that I hadn't it in my
heart to refuse him." And I narrated my retainer's finesse upon
the occasion of my proposed departure.

" Hush ! " said the senora, holding up a warning finger.
There was a sound as of a scuffle in the distance below, and
then these words in Billy's voice distinctly reached us : " Av
ye worn't a Catholic I'd give ye a welt in the lug. How dar ye
offer me snails agin ! D'ye think me stomick is like an ould coat
an' wud be the betther for turnin' ? " The senora fell back on
her chair, and laughed till the tears coursed down her cheeks.
"Oh!" she palpitated, " that is delicious. I am in old Ireland
again. That is Billy Brierly. That bit of brogue acts like an
elixir. I'll send for him." And she touched a silver gong.

The retainers in a Mexican household are part and parcel of
the family. They are composed of half-breeds and Indians. In
a large household there are always two or three male upper ser-
vants, stewards, who dress in the same fashion as their betters ;
and these fellows used to puzzle me. They are very familiar
without being in the least presuming, their familiarity being the
result of an anxiety to anticipate your wishes. They will take
you by the arm or tap you on the back, but it is always to offer
you something or to do you a service. For a long time I never
could tell who was a retainer and who a guest in the houses at
which I was entertained.

Billy Brierly suddenly appeared in the court below where
we sat. " I'm wanted up-stairs," he muttered, " an' sorra a bit o'
me knows where I cud get a rinse or a Scotch lick at me face,

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 775

an' I dunno how for to ax for soap an' wather. Musha, but it's a
terrible thing for these people not for to know Irish. They're
the ignorantest people I ever come across. I'm fairly heart-
scalded wud thim already." Here the sefiora burst out laughing,
and Billy looked up. " Musha, but yer cool an' aisy up there,
Masther Joe," grinned Brierly. " An' that's the what is she at
all, at all, Masther Joe ? What am I for to call her ? What's man-
ners ? " this quite oblivious of the fact that the sefiora was his
own countrywoman. " Billy," cried our hostess, " I am delighted
to see you. You are a fine fellow, Billy, and just the same as
when I saw you at Dromroe." " Faix, I was a spalpeen thin, yer
Mexican ladyship is that right, Masther Joe, avic f an' that ould
thief Time wasn't pelting snowballs at yer lovely hair ; bedad, it's
shupayriorer this minnit nor ever it was," he gallantly added.
" Ah ! Billy, you have not left your blarney behind you," laughed
the senora. " Sorra a much good it wud be to me here, ma'am
yer Mexican ladyship, I mane." " I'm not a ladyship, Billy. Just
address me as if I was Mrs. San Cosme." " Aye, an' have yer
people saying I was an ignorant baste, ma'am ; that wud never
do." " Do as the senora bids you, Billy," I interposed. " Arrah !
can't ye tell me what's right, Masther Joe?" he energetically per-
sisted. " Well, then, senora." " Say-norah ? " " Yes." " An' is
that Mexican for missis or ma'am ? " "It is." " Faix, it's an aisy
langwidge after all, an' own cousin to Irish. Norah is as Irish as
the Rock o' Cashel, no less." " How do you like Mexico, Billy ?"
demanded our hostess. " It's a quare place, anyhow, saynora,"
evading a direct reply. " How do you mean ? Queer ? In what
way ? " " Wudn't it make a dog laugh for to see people aitin'
snails? An' isn't it quare for to be sweatin' savin' yer presince
an' it wudin a stone's throw av Christmas ? An' isn't it quare
for to see people talkin' gibberish an' understandin' wan another,
even the very childer ? An' isn't it quare for to see the populace,
every mother's son av thim, dhressed in white calico, as if they
was women ? And the divil sich hats I ever heerd tell of as the
quollity wears. An' I ax ye, saynora, yez that knows well what
horsis is, av it isn't a dhroll sight for to see saddles as big as
houses, and spurs wud rowels on thim like the blades av pin-knives ?
I cud give ye day an' date for more, saynora, but I wudn't be
onraysonable on ye, anyhow." " Don't you like the food, Billy,
barring the snails ? " she laughed. " Faix, thin, I don't, saynora.
It's too murdherin' hot ; ye'd think pepper was flyin' like dust ;
an' as for thim banes" "Banes?" "Beans," I whispered.
"Oh! the frijoles" "Free-holies, saynora? Free unholies I'd

776 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

call thim. Bedad, there's pigs below in Kilamorra that would
roar millia murdher at the very sight av thim. Ah ! " he added,
smacking his lips, " bacon an' cabbage, yer me darlints ; it's twins
yez ought for to be. But shure, saynora, I'm makin' too bowld
wud yer ladyship." " Not a bit of it, Billy ; I like you to tell the
truth." " Faix, it's not a lie I'd be havin' on me sowl up in this
sthrange counthry, wud oceans to th ravel an' no ind av dhry
land. No, saynora, av ever I tell wan it's at home, an' that's not
often, anyways. But shure it's yerself that's lukkin' illigant ; an*
why wudn't ye ? Sorra a finer billet ye cud have, av it was only
convaynient to Dunshaughlin. Yer eye is just as bright as the day
the poor misthress may the heavens be her bed this blessed an'
holy night ! was at the althar wud the masther, God rest his
sowl, amin ! " "I am greatly changed since that day, Billy," said
the senora with a sigh. " Sorra a much, barrin' the hair. Yer
eyes is like diamonds this minnit, saynora, ma'am. Arrah, but I
call to mind how ye wor coortin' young Misther Kearney, of
Sheephill, that evenin' ; an' it's lucky ye didn't get him, for he's
on the batther day an' night, an' has had the horrors twicet.
Father Tom Lynch is entirely bet up wud him ; he can't get more
nor a slippery hoult on him."

It was late when the senora conducted me to my bed-cham-
ber, a poem in white muslin and lace. The apartment was
very large, with windows opening upon a balcony overhanging a
garden, the perfume from which permeated all the surround-
ings. The floor was of inlaid wood, dotted here and there with
mats of quaint and strange design. A little altar, fitted up with
exquisite taste, occupied one corner, opposite to it a prie-dieu.
A copy in oil of Raphael's starry-eyed Madonna, the San Sisto,
hung suspended over the altar.

" This is the work of an amateur," said the senora. " She is a
very gifted child. She is with the two nuns who have been per-
mitted to remain at the convent of San Angel. You will see her
when we. go out there. She is a prottgte of mine, and is being
educated at my expense. Her story is a curious one. And now
buenas noches. You will be called in time for Mass." The starry
eyes of the Madonna came to me in my first dreams in the land
of the Montezumas.

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 777

CHAPTER VII.

I MEET A FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN.

A ROSE-COLORED light creeps into your room o' mornings in
Mexico a light that, bon grd mal gr<?, compels you to arise, fling
open your blinds, and bid it welcome. I made my best bow to
it, and performed my toilet partly on the balcony, as I was in a
fever of anxiety to ascertain what the place was like. This feel-
ing can be readily imagined. I was in a new and romantic coun-
try. I was in a city which I had yearned to visit ever since I
perused Prescott's fascinating work. In any case an ordinary
mortal who arrives in a strange city over-night is more or less
anxious to get a peep at it from his bed-room window in the
morning.

In the foreground lay the garden, one mass of gorgeous color,
clotted here and there by tufts of tropical foliage. Around me
on all sides were flat-roofed houses, painted pale primrose green,
yellow, and white, with blinds, striped in yellow or crimson,
stretching over the balconies. The morning sun was gilding
everything in dazzling sheen. In the distance, clear cut
against the keen, full blue sky, and flushed with rose-pink, were
the snow-clad crests of Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl, sublimely
silent, the former resembling a gigantic sugar-loaf, the other the
body of a woman lying upon her back, a sheet laid over her.
The word Iztaccihuatl signifies the " woman in white," and a
more perfect resemblance, from the head to the feet, it is impossi-
ble to conceive.

I found the sefiora awaiting me. She was attired in black,
wearing the mantilla, comb, and veil.

" This costume is de rigueur when attending Mass," she said,
as, taking my arm, she led me along a spacious corridor to the
private chapel. Retainers and servants were already, in their
places, and a sweet-looking boy such as Guido would have loved
to paint was lighting the candles on the altar.

The church was a charming " bit of Gothic," a bit after
Pugin's own heart. It was arched, and groined, and panelled in
cedar. Around the walls hung the Stations of the Cross, the tiny
crucifix on each ornamented by a wreath of fresh flowers. High
over the altar was a carved figure of the Redeemer, life-size and
colored, hanging suspended from the cross, the livid flesh-tints,
agonized eyes, blood-stained brow, hands, and feet, being fear-

MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

fully realistic. The altar was a very blaze of flowers, while the .
tabernacle and candlesticks were of pure gold.

The Padre Gonzalez celebrated Mass. His vestments were
magnificent, absolutely encrusted with gold, and they flashed in
the morning light, almost to dazzle.

The Holy Sacrifice over, we adjourned to the breakfast-room.
This apartment was decorated with hangings and screens formed
out of the vivid plumage of birds a description of work in fash-
ion in Mexico centuries before Hernando Cortez set his mailed
heel in the halls of the Montezumas.

As the senora and I sat chatting over the dear old home in
Ireland we were joined by Father Gonzalez. I am looking at
him as I write at his tall and graceful figure attired in a black
soutane, his stately head that sat his shoulders till it reminded
one of a great statue, his superb forehead, his tufted brows, his
soft gray eye, his full, tremulous mouth, his indefinable expres-
sion of purity and holiness. A better-bred man I never met.
He brought to my mind the types that I had heard my grand-
father so often speak of" those gentlemen of St. Omer and Sala-
manca." He spoke English with remarkable fluency. " I should
be the veriest dunce if I did not," he explained. " I was educated
at Stonyhurst College, and ever since this dear, good lady came
to reside in Mexico I have had every opportunit} 7 afforded me for
considering it the most delightful among modern languages,"
with a bow to the senora that was worthy of the court of St.
Germain. He inquired a good deal about Cardinal Cullen and
Dr. Russell, president of Maynooth College, both of whom he
reckoned amongst his friends. " I spent a month in Ireland once,
Mr. Nugent, and that memory is as green," placing his hand on
his heart, " as the sod of her beautiful valleys. Forty years ago
Eheu / fugaces I visited Killarney, went up to Dublin, took an
outside-car for three or four days, and explored the county of
Wicklow. I actually climbed up into St. Kevin's Bed, and saw
the spot .whence, according to the beautiful lines of Tom Moore,
he hurled Kathleen into the loch beneath. I returned to Dublin,
if I recollect aright, and proceeded to Galway. I crossed Loch
Corrib, and made pilgrimage to the ruined abbey. I footed it
from Cong to Westport, and from Westport I took Bianconi's
car to Galway. You see, Mr. Nugent, I have forgotten nothing."
" Many and many a time do the padre and I go over all that
ground," exclaimed the senora, " and I know all the queer char-
acters of that day, from Kate Kearney and the Gap of Dunloe to
Judy of Romdowd in Wicklow." " I have the honor of knowing

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 779

both ladies personally," I laughed. " But I speak of forty years
ago, Mr. Nugent," said the padre. " Those heroines never die.
Phoenix-like another Kate and another Judy rise from their ashes."
" I regret to say that my Kate and my Judy were not of the ac-
cepted types of female beauty," laughed the Padre. " Neither
are mine." " They resemble what Captain Absolute termed
Mrs. Malaprop in his unfortunate letter to Lydia Languish
' weather-beaten she-dragons.' "

The padre, who was a Mexican, spoke enthusiastically of his
country. " She has a great, a glorious future, Mr. Nugent," he
said. " At the present hour her sun is obscured by a cloud of in-
fidelity. This will pass away it must pass away. Already there
is light in the east. The Catholic Church has ever been the
subject of persecution. It is her metier. Look at her to-day ! Is
she not triumphing everywhere? Look at our next-door neigh-
bor, America. See the strides the church is making in that great
country ; for she is a great, a glorious country, although we are
a little afraid that she hungers to annex us."

" I will tell you what I heard a very intelligent New York mer-
chant say, padre," I observed : " Let the Mexican government lend
Mexico to the United States, say, for ten years, the States un-
dertaking to open railroads and canals, to stretch telegraph-wires,
to develop mines, to pay the army and civil service in a word,
as the Yankees say, to ' run ' the country for ten years and that at
the expiration of that period Mexico would be in the front rank of
nations." " That is all very fine, Nugent, but would the United
States give us our country back again at the end of ten years? "
" I fear not, padre. The Americans give me the idea of being a
people who would know how to ' freeze ' to a good thing, once
having got a grip of it."

" I ardently desire to see Americans settling in this country.
I long to see a railway from the Rio Grande to the capital. A
railway would kill all jealousy. It is opposed in Congress by a
few agitators who possess more rhetoric than common sense.
Our mines, which actually teem with ore, should be worked by
American capital and Mexican labor. Our coffee, if taken in
hand by Americans, would rule the market. I have heard experts
say that the Cordoba coffee is far superior to the Mocha. We
have a soil that will grow anything- aye, twice over. It would
not be to the interest of the United States to annex us, as the
phrase goes, as our people would fight to the last man against any
invasion ; but it would be to the interest of America to cultivate
us. There should be greater reciprocity. The Americans should

780 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

come and see us in our homes. How few Americans have any
idea that there are such refined and luxurious abodes as this !
The general impression is that our houses are all built of adobe
and thatched with heno. In fact, we stand towards America as
Spain does towards France. Madrid is but thirty-six hours from
Paris, and yet how very few Parisians, or travellers of any de-
scription, repair thither ! Mexico is left too much to herself.
People should come and visit her ; come and invest capital in
her."

" What about the pro I can't get round the word," I asked.

" Pronunciamientos ? Ah ! they are rapidly becoming an institu-
tion of the past. The telegraph-wire will destroy that business.
Heretofore every state was a petty monarchy, and could de-
throne its king and ' pronounce ' at will. Now any uprising and
an uprising is invariably the work of political incendiaries is tele-
graphed to the capital, and troops are forwarded from the near-
est point to stamp it out. In five or six years from now such a
thing as a. pronunciam iento will be utterly unknown, because it
will be impossible. The people are contented and happy. If
they are not prosperous it is due to an inherent procrastination
which a little of the electricity of the nineteenth century that is,
if they were brought into contact with it-^-would very soon wear
away. Manana to-morrow is the Mexican peasant's down-
drag. He will postpone everything to manana. You see, Mr.
Nugent, the climate does so much for him that he can afford to
cross his arms while the peasants of other lands are sowing,
hoeing, weeding, and slaving. Here we have only to pop a seed
into Mother Earth, and trust to Providence for the rest. Who
would not be lazy when such opportunities are afforded for be-
ing so ? "

Breakfast over, the sefiora, after a turn of the house, took me
for a drive. Her carriage, built in the city of Mexico, would
have done credit to Fifth Avenue, Rotten Row, or the Bois de
Boulogne ; the horses were to match. The coachman, too, was
gotten up English fashion ; his half-moon collar, white cravat with
its horseshoe pin, and livery that fitted him as though it were
built by Smalpage of London, were all in the most correct form.

" My poor husband always allowed me my own way in the
turn-outs," said the sefiora, to whom I had expressed my admira-
tion. " Before I came home he drove mules, and the coachman
wore the Mexican costume. Somehow or other I couldn't stand
it it didn't seem correct to me so I changed it to what you see
now/ This man is English. I had an Irish coachman, but he

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 781

would gamble in mines, and lost, to him, three fortunes. He now
owns a pulqueria that is, what we would call a public-house in
Ireland. It is called pulqueria irom pulque, the national beverage.
It is distilled from the maguey plant. You must have seen whole
acres covered with it as you came along in the train. The ma-
guey country commences at Appam, about fifty miles from here."

We turned by the Mineria into the Calle Plateros, which is
the Regent Street, the Broadway, of Mexico. Fancy a long,
straight street, lined by irregular, if not grotesque, architecture,
from the palatial mansion, blue-tiled, gilt-balconied, deep-eaved,
and scarlet-blinded, to the dingy, flat-roofed, two-storied, store ; a
deep strip of shade as cool as a bath upon one side and liquid
sunshine on the other, with shafts of gold at the intersection of
the streets, and at both ends all the glories of tropical verdure.
Some of the houses are magnificent, and approached by large,
superbly-sculptured gateways, the gilded gates being only closed
at night. As we passed we gained glimpses of deliciously cool
interiors, with galleries, and broad stone stairways, and a wealth
of gorgeously-hued flowers. As a rule half a dozen Indians hang
around each gateway in picturesque attitudes and picturesque
garments. The women all wore the rebozo, a woven scarf of
palish blue ; this is folded artistically about the head, falling over
the shoulders, and serves as a frame to blue-black hair, clear,
swarthy complexions, and deliciously soft brown or black eyes.
A skirt of white cotton or brown cloth completes the costume.

At the corners of the streets intersecting the Plateros squatted
Indians before immense bouquets of violets. These violets, as the
senora informed me, are gathered in the chinampas, or floating
gardens, on Lake Chalco, and brought up to the city in canoes.
To go out at early morn along the Viga Canal, and meet the
violet-laden canoe fleet, is a favorite excursion of the more aes-
thetic inhabitants of the city.

The carriages were very numerous, both public and ^ private.
"Everybody rides in Mexico," explained my cicerone. "Your
swell never contemplates walking more than a block or two.
His heels are too high, and the coaches are so cheap only one
shilling an hour."

Strange sights greeted my greedy eyes as we rolled along this
main artery : haciendados and rancheros, in their broad-brimmed
sombreros, and leather cKaquetas, and silver-frogged, flowing
trousers, swaggering along the sidewalk, their great gilt spurs
jingling, their silver ornaments dangling ; Indians trotting along,
the man bearing live stock or fruit in a wicker frame case at-

782 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

tached to his back by means of a flat bandage adjusted to his
forehead, the woman her child slung in the folds of her blue
rebozo, both her arms engaged in carrying the day's, or mayhap
the week's, provisions ; water-sellers aguadorcs fruit-sellers, tat-
terdemalion soldiers followed by their slatternly wives engaged
in munching the ever-present tortilla ; mules and asses driven by
half-naked men or boys, their feet baked white in the hot dust,
their legs bronzed and seemingly cast in bronze ; muchachos
bearing furniture upon their heads a piano, the senora told me,
will be carried twenty-five miles by four men in a single day ;
senoras and senoritas clad in the picturesque and piquant man-
tilla ; " swells " in short-tailed coats and high-heeled boots, hob-
bling along, smoking cigarettes held in silver cases ; clicnis with
black and green patches on their temples, cures for the head-
ache ; leperos, or half-bre'eds, hawking toys or glazed crockery-
ware ; companies of foot-soldiers attired in white, their uniforms
sadly in need of the necessary offices of needle and thread, shuf-
fling along in their guar aches, or sandals, as they seldom wear
shoes or stockings ; " civil guards " trotting on thoroughbreds,
in buff and steel, with sword and matchlock, vividly recalling
Oliver Cromwell's Ironsides ; occasionally a troop of cavalry,
small, lean, wiry, hawk-eyed, such as Bazaine loved to lead
against the dusky sons of the Afric desert ; pordios, or beggars,
on their way to crouch in cool church vestibules these and a
hundred other sights, all new, all full of color, came to me as we
rode along the Plateros and turned into the Plaza Mayor.

Occupying an entire side of the Plaza stands the cathedral,
flanked on its left by the sagrario, or parish church. All around the
chains which hang from low stone pillars, and enclose this open
space in front of the sacred edifice, were bird-sellers, venders of
toys and of miniature earthen utensils, a couple of pocketfuls of
which I invested in, and which are to be seen in the great draw-
ing-room at Dromroe at this present writing. " This is the exact
spot where Cortez found and destroyed the Aztec Teocalli
dedicated to the Mexican god Huitzilopetchli," observed the
Senora San Cosme as we alighted. " When Cortez distributed
the land of the ancient city he first gave this site to the Francis-
can friars for a church, but, changing his mind, he appointed
them the ground where their old church and convent are now
standing. A cathedral was built in 1530, but demolished almost
as soon as it was roofed, on account of its being insufficient for
the requirements of the population. This building was com-
menced in 1573 and finished in 1667. It cost more than a million

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 783

and a half of dollars, which were paid by Spain. Before we enter
the cathedral I want you to see the Calendar-Stone."

I was greatly interested in this stone. It is cemented into
the wall five feet nine inches from the pavement, on the west side
of the cathedral. It is of great antiquity, and . sculptured on a
monolith of basalt so rough, and seemingly porous, that at first
sight I mistook it for lava. The stone is twelve feet six inches
in diameter and weighs twenty-five tons. From the Calendar-
Stone the ancient system of Toltec astronomy has been preserved
to us. It proves the great degree of civilization to which the
Toltecs had attained a civilization, it is alleged, superior to that
of the Aztecs, who succeeded the Toltecs.

I was gazing at this wondrous landmark on the shoal and
bank of time when Father Gonzalez joined us.

" Here is a casket rich with the spoils of time, Mr. Nugent.
Here is teaching for thee. The year on that stone corresponds
exactly with that of the Julian Calendar, which, as you are aware,
was the standard of time in England till 1752, and is still the
standard in Holy Russia. What is this Chaucer says ?

"And out of old bookes, in good faithe,
Cometh al this new science that men lere."

Substitute ' old stones ' for old books, and we will go nearer the
mark in the present instance. If there are sermons in stones, ac-
cording to Shakspere, there is also science ; ecce signuin. This stone
was placed on its present site in 1790, and dates so far back as
1279. Let us see what the world was doing at that period." And
the padre in a few brief sentences gave us a most piquant
rtsumt of the state of affairs " all round the earth " in or about
that particular date.

" I hope, Mr. Nugent," laughed the padre, as we turned into
the cathedral, " that you cannot say with Sir John Falstaff, ' An
I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am
a peppercorn." This is our cathedral. It was once rich in trea-
sure, the offerings of the faithful. A paternal government has rob-
it and left it poor indeed. I carry in my memory an inven-

>ry of its riches. You may probably be interested to hear what
this glorious cathedral was at one time enabled to adorn its altars

ith ? " " Very much indeed, padre." " We had six chandeliers
in solid gold ; a golden cup, the body and pedestal inlaid with
precious stones ; a golden filagree cross ; six gold bouquets frost-
ed with diamonds ; twenty gorgeous chalices ; six golden wine
and water ewers with golden trays ; a pyx that weighed one

784 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

hundred and four ounces of gold, and covered with diamonds to
the number of nearly seventeen hundred; a golden chalice of
eighty-four ounces, inlaid with a hundred and twenty diamonds,
and as many emeralds and rubies ; many golden censers, and two
silver statues, life-size, of the Mother of God. Our principal cen-
ser, that stood one yard from the ground, was studded with near-
ly six thousand diamonds, three thousand emeralds, over a hun-
dred amethysts, forty rubies, and eight sapphires, and its weight
was seven hundred and four ounces. We also had eleven golden
lustres of twenty-four branches each ; four golden perfume-stands
standing three yards high, besides minor articles of considerable
value. These, Mr. Nugent, all used for the beautifying of His
house, were taken by sacrilegious wretches who have forced
themselves into high places, melted into money, and that money
has been spent in the vilest manner it is possible to conceive."

We made a tour of the splendid cathedral, its five naves, four-
teen chapels, and six grand altars. We visited the sacristy,
where we were shown the superb vestments presented by suc-
cessive monarchs of Spain. One set is so heavy with bullion that
it amounts to a physical impossibility to celebrate Mass whilst
wearing it. The panels, if I may use the term, representing
scenes in the life of our Lord, are so exquisitely worked in China
silk, the hues so delicately interwoven, that they resemble paint-
ings much more than needlework, and the colors are as vivid
as the day they left the Old World for the New."

The padre conducted us to the Parao, or council-chamber, a
noble hall, lighted by windows high up under the Gothic roof.
The walls are hung with portraits of the archbishops of Mexico
twenty-eight in all. The cedar-wood thrones of the prelates stood
beneath the portraits. A superb Murillo, a " Holy Family,"
adorned the northern wall.

The pulpits in the cathedral attracted me very much ; they are
of onyx or Puebla marble, quaintly carved, each pulpit being chis-
elled out of a single block. In the choir, which is panelled in carv-
ed oak, I opened a book of chants ; it was of vellum, illuminated,
and bore date 1690. On leaving the choir we crossed into a side
chapel, and through a secret door that swung lazily open upon
the pressing of, to us, an invisible button, entered a low-ceilinged
and somewhat gloomy apartment in which hung the portraits of
the archbishops, taken from life and in their archiepiscopal robes.
A great oaken coffer, bound with quaint brass clamps, used for
the keeping of the coin of the cathedral, occupied one corner, and
in another stood a great oaken table over three hundred years

i88o.]

My RAID INTO MEXICO.

785

Id, upon which the offerings of the faithful used to be counted,
1 There were no banks in those days," laughed the padre, " nor
achinery for counting money. It was all done in the simplest
anner. The church received its portion, the clergy theirs, and
the poor the lion's share. The portion for the use of the cathe-
dral was dropped through this hole," thrusting his hand into an
orifice in the table, "and through this spout into yon strong-
box."

On my remarking the large number of people attending the
Masses going on at the side altars, " Ah ! " exclaimed Father Gon-
zalez, " the law has despoiled the church of her property ; the law
has dried the fountain of charity at the very source ; the law
would cut off learning and piety. The faithful clergy have been
driven to seek shelter where they could. It is penal for a priest
to appear in the streets in clerical garb ; but God watches over
his church, and over his shepherds, and over his lambs, and I
tell you, Mr. Nugent and I wish it to go back to dear old Ire-
nd that, despite unparalleled persecution, despite those iniqui-
;ous laws, despite the uttermost exertions of a set of infidels to
rush out religion and the teachings of the church, never was
tholicity safer, truer, and more firm in Mexico than at this pre-
ent moment. Never was I more hopeful of her future than I am
t this moment. Let us offer up an * Ave Maria ' for the safety
d progress of our beloved mother the church."

It was a beautiful sight to behold the venerable priest kneel-
ing in front of the grand altar, a nimbus of gold and purple, shot
from a stained-glass window, encircling his classical head. Beside
him knelt the sefiora, her flowing black robes and graceful mantilla
and veil standing out in keen relief, while all around, in various
postures of devotion, were Indian men and women, the former all
in white, the latter arrayed in the blue rebozo. Then the grand
organ pealed forth, the silver gongs resounded, and the hum of
prayer ascended like incense. There are moments in all our
ives when we yearn to be holy, to be of the elect. This was
uch a moment for me.

We returned to the Calle Marascola for almuerzo, or breakfast
r call it early dinner, for it consisted of eight or ten courses,
winding up with dessert.

Awaiting our arrival was a somewhat portly gentleman, who
at once advanced towards me, and, clasping me by both hands,
exclaimed in a voice deliciously flavored with the sweet brogue
of Munster : " Mr. Nugent, when two Irishmen meet seven thou-
sand six hundred feet above the level of the sea I say, sir, when
VOL. xxxi. 50

786 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

they meet, be it on the top of a mountain or in the depths of a -
valley, be it in an adobe dwelling or a palace like this, an intro-
duction, sir, is a monstrous absurdity, an incubiis, an anachronism.
I am Van Dyck O'Shea, and I am proud to meet you. Can I say
more ? "

Let me describe Mr. O'Shea.

A florid face, ready to become purple at a second's notice ; a
sharp gray eye full of twinkle like a dissipated star ; a heavy lid
always prepared to wink ; a rather bulbous nose, with a receipt in
full from Chateau Lafitte to Chateau Margaux ; a set of white
teeth somewhat colossal ; a long upper lip and a very full under
one ; a square chin so cleanly shaven that it shines again. His
whiskers are close cut, and his short collar comes up to the exact
line where they leave off. His hair is as brown as a coffee-berry,
and worn well to the front that is, over his ears, where it
comes forward to his eyebrows, as if pasted or laid on. He is of
medium height, and has great long hands, and feet fit for a giant.

The grip he gave me almost pressed a ring which Aunt
Bertha gave, and which I always wore, into the flesh. " I a
here, my dear Nugent," observed Mr. O'Shea, after some
liminary conversation, " to endeavor to develop the mineral re-
sources of the country. The people are as jealous as Turks, and
if I turn up a spadeful of earth ye'd think it was the bones of
their ancestors I was hunting for." " Have you ' struck ile ' yet
I asked. " I have, me boy, but not enough to cause those finan
fish who form companies to rise. One fellow, a sefior wit
whole litany of names, began to nibble. I showed him some
specimens ; most of them came from the gold-mines in Luggernure,
in the sweet county of Wicklow " this with a wink of incon-
ceivable drollery. " ' I'd like to see some more/ said he. ' So
you shall,' said I ; adding to myself, ' When my friend Tom Fo-
garty sends it to me.' There's lashins of gold in the country, but
it's like a Galway girl's fortune it's so well secured there's no
getting at it." " If it's not an impertinent question, Mr. O'Shea.
how did you come to pitch your tent in Mexico ? " " Imperti-
nent ! Why, it's just the question I would like you to ask, me
boy. You've acted like a good partner at whist you've led up to
a strong hand. Well, after almuerzo, over a cigar and an et-casterr.
I will venture to give you a few leaves from the volume of
life of yours, till then, V. O'Shea." My compatriot kept the
rolling during the meal. Now he had a mot of the archbishop':-:
for the padre, now a tale of distress for the sefiora, now a bit oi
Mexican life for me. A thoroughly well-bred man, he was t

sof

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 787

gentleman "all through the piece," and the gracious and familiar
manner in which he was treated by both the chatelaine and her
almoner showed me that his genial companionship was " weigh-
ed in bountiful measure."

" Now for a brief but interesting sketch of the life of the hum-
ble individual who drinks to you," exclaimed Mr. O'Shea, when
the senora, accompanied by the padre, had quitted us. " Stay !
we will be more at our ease in yonder balcony. You take care of
the lumber. I'll take care of this bottle of Clos Vougeot; every
drop of it is worth a Jew's ransom."

Having seated ourselves in the balcony which overlooked the
garden, bathed in tropical color-glory, Mr. O'Shea resumed :

" I'll tell you how I lost ^"5,000, and 300 a year; how I
came to grief between two stools. With my early career you
have nothing to do. It doesn't interest myself, ergo it could hardly
fail to bore you. My father and mother died when I was very
young, leaving me seventy pounds a year and a widowed aunt
from whom I had expectations. This elderly lady, who rejoiced
in the name of Clancy, resided at Loughrea, and she indulged me
in anything, everything but money, although a cool five thou-
sand stood to her credit in the three per cents. For the purpose
of sporting my figure at the levees and balls at Dublin Castle I
obtained a lieutenancy in a militia regiment known as the Ringo-
wal Fusileers, and, although my aunt was very proud of her war-
like kinsman, the deuce a penny she'd let him have even to pipe-
clay his sword-belt. She sent me hampers of fowls, hams, vegeta-
tes. She made me gifts of cheap pocket-handkerchiefs, bought
in job lots at Loughrea, of scarfs, of Brummagem pins. She even
r ent so far as to present me with a suit of garments belonging to
the late Mr. Clancy the small-clothes were constructed of cor-
luroy but of coin not a halfpenny. 'Yell have it after I'm
'one, Van,' she would say, 'but not a mag till then.' When she
honored Dublin with a visit she would not entrust me with the
payment of a car-fare no, sir, not even with the halfpenny
necessary to the crossing of the Liffey by the metal bridge.

"Seeing that it was hopeless to endeavor to develop Mrs.
Clancy's mineral resources, I turned my thoughts in the direction
of matrimony, and, almost before I had chosen my line of action,
destiny flung a most charming girl across my path.

" Miss Bolgibbie was the daughter of a learned counsellor
who died of brain fever brought on^ by consuming the midnight
oil over an impossible case. Evelina, to whom I was presented
at a li'ttle evening party at Rathmines, and to which I repaired in

788 MY RAID INTO MEXICO. [Sept.,

uniform, at once took to me. The mother had three hundred
a year, which should eventually reach Evelina meaning me. I
sped in my wooing. Evelina cut two bank clerks, a gentleman in
an insurance office, and an attorney for me. Matters were in this
satisfactory condition when the recurrence of a festival always
held in high esteem in Dublin served to precipitate matters. The
1 7th of March approached, and with it St. Patrick's Day and
the ball at the 4 Castle.' The Bolgibbies were going to the ball
/ was going to the ball, and in my full uniform, which, howev<
dingy it might appear by day, shone resplendent by night.
the ball I resolved upon proposing for Miss Bolgibbie in du<
form.

" I was breakfasting in my apartment, which was in immediat
proximity to the slates, when a letter was thrust beneath nr
door. I recognized the Loughrea postmark, and pounced upoi
the missive, hoping that the ' fiver ' I had earnestly asked foi
was enclosed. I remember the wording of that note, my d<
Nugent. It ran :

" ' DEAR NEPHEW : I've taken a notion to go to Patrick's ball at the
tie. You can do as you like with the lord-lieutenant at least you say yc
can, and I. take it for gospel. I'll be up on the i6th. Meet me at th<
Broadstone, in a covered car, at five o'clock. Take the same room as I ha(
before near the chapel in Dominick Street, and let Father James Burl
know I'm coming. Have a fire in my bed-room, and see that it's light
early and the sheets spread out before the fire. Tell the girl to have
better toasting-fork ; the last one burnt my toast to a cinder.'

" This was the letter. What was I to do ? I knew that Mrs.
Clancy was not to be put off, baffled, or bamboozled. I had trie
that once before, and her solicitor was in immediate attendan
with a view to an alteration in her last will and testament,
daren't present my aunt to the aristocratic Bolgibbies. I dreade
losing the substance for the shadow, the actual 5,000 for the pos-
sible 300 per annum. I lay in bed half the day thinking out the
problem, and finally resolved to let my aunt have her way. 1
could easily escort her to the ball, drop her, lose her in the
crowd, and spend the evening with Evelina.

" How fondly I hoped that the fatigue of the journey from
Loughrea would prove too much for my aunt, or that some
friendly draught would lay her up with rheumatism ! Not a bit
of it. She arrived looking hale and hearty, and announced her
intention of going to the ball before the candles were lighted,
and of not leaving until they were ' snuffed out.'

" Well, Nugent, the eventful night came, and my aunt and I

i88o.] MY RAID INTO MEXICO. 789

drew up to the Castle yard in an inside-car. ' Ye'll be back at
four, Rafferty/ observed Mrs. Clancy to the charioteer, * and
don't let any shoneen get before ye.' ' The poliss won't let me
out av me turn/ said the carman gruffly. ' Say it's Mrs. Clancy,
of Loughrea, Rafferty.' ' The divvle a hair they'll care,' mut-
tered the charioteer, as he moved away under the stern dictum
of an energetic policeman.

" I managed to get a seat in St. Patrick's Hall for my aunt,
and then went in search of the Bolgibbies. As I passed through
the hall Mrs. Clancy exclaimed in a loud voice : ' I an't going to
stick here all night, Van Dyck O'Shea ' ; adding, ' and if you don't
like to be attentive to me there's others that will.' I managed to
get away from her by mysteriously hinting at military duties,
and found Miss Bolgibbie, whom I seized upon for the next
dance, and the next, and yet the next.

" In accordance with a time-honored custom the lord-lieu-
tenant opens the ball with the lady marquis in a country dance
to the inspiriting air of ' St. Patrick's Day in the Morning/ His
Ex,' as he is familiarly termed, is followed by a dozen or so of
' amorous palming puppies ' and their fair partners ' up and down
the middle ' ; and upon the present occasion the viceroy was foot-
ing it right merrily, and humming the music, when a shrill
female voice was heard to exclaim :

" ' Faugh ! that's no dancing. Rouse the griddle, man ! Foot
it ! Welt the floor heel and toe, my lord ! Hands across !
Faugh ! you're all botches. I'll show ye how to dance.' And Mrs.
Clancy, for 'twas she, made a determined and energetic move-
ment in the direction of the viceregal set, to the intense amuse-
ment of a few and to the evident consternation of the many,
'he excellent lady was preparing to ' cut in,' and, with a view to
an effective demonstration, was engaged in pinning up her skirts
in a manner that disclosed a very muddy pair of boots laced at
the side, of ancient pattern and formation, and a scarlet flannel
^estment which hung in graceful folds till it touched the uppers
of her mediaeval sandals. * Here ! you sir/ she exclaimed to a
gigantic warrior, * you're big enough to dance. Stand up there
before me, and I'll show ye how we dance a country dance in the
West of Ireland ! '

" I could stand it no longer, and, clutching my astonished and
indignant relative by the arm, pushed her frantically aside. ' Are
ye mad, aunt ? ' I whispered. * Hush, for mercy's sake !' * I won't
hush, Lieutenant Van Dyck O'Shea not a bit of it. I have as
much right to dance here as anybody else ; a ball's a ball/

790 OUR INTERCESSOR. [Sept.,

'Come away,' gasped Miss Bolgibbie, who had rejoined me
1 come away from that insane person. Who is she ? ' ' Who is
she ? ' echoed Mrs. Clancy derisively. * She's a lady. She has
five thousand pounds in the three per cents. Who is she ? '
And here the indignant lady addressed the tittering assemblage :
' She's Mary Anne Clancy, of Cabbage Rose Villa, Bally bicken,
Loughrea that's who she is ; and now, Lieutenant Van Dyck
O'Shea, take your aunt to some place of refreshment, and leave
that powdered doll at once.'

" Nugent, me boy," added O'Shea, with a sigh, as he took
a prolonged gulp of the Burgundy, " Miss Bolgibbie refused
me point-blank, and Mrs. Clancy's .5,000 went toward a new
wing of the Mater Misericordise Hospital."

TO BE CONTINUED.

OUR INTERCESSOR.

THE following lines were found on a pillar in a little church in Italy

O blessed feet of Jesus,

Weary with serving me !
Stand at God's bar of judgment

And intercede for me.

O knees that bent in anguish

In dark Gethsemani !
Kneel at the throne of glory

And intercede for me.

O hands that were extended

Upon the awful tree !
Hold up those precious nail-prints

And intercede for me.

O side from whence the spear-point
Brought blood and water free !

For healing and for cleansing
Still intercede for me.

O head so deeply pierced

With thorns which sharpest be !

Bend low before thy Father
And intercede for me.

i88o.] IRISH BARDIC POETRY. 791

O sacred heart ! such sorrow

The world may never see
As that which gave thee warrant

To intercede for me.

O loving risen Saviour,

From death and sorrow free,
Though throned in endless glory,

Still intercede for me.

IRISH BARDIC POETRY.

IN no country of which we have any account did the bards ex-
ist in such numbers or produce so much and so varied verse as in
Ireland. They make their appearance in the first dawn of le-
gendary history, and the succession was continued down to the
death, in 1737, of Turloch O'Carolan, who was called the last of
the Irish bards, although their lineal descendants continued in the
hedge-poets, who were in existence during the early part of the
present century, and are to be found in the street ballad-singers
of to-day. Tradition credits Amergin, the brother of Heber and
Heremon, the leaders of the Milesian invasion about 500 B.C., with
being the first bard, and as uniting in himself the offices of chief
priest and chief poet. However obscure are the annals of the
semi-historical period, it is certain that the caste of bards flourish-
ed in Ireland from a very early time and was thoroughly inter-
woven with its historic and social life. If we may credit tradi-
ion, Ollamh Fodla, the twentieth monarch in the Milesian line,
established the national conventions at Tara, which are so marked
a feature in ancient bardic history, and at a very early period
the institution had its classes, its privileges, its distinctions, and
its peculiar dress.

The bards were divided into fitis, who were more expressly
what the name bard denotes. They were in constant attendance
upon the chief, celebrated his valor, and sang his personal praise.
Surrounded by the orsidiagh, or instrumental musicians, who occu-
pied the place of a modern military band, they watched his pro-
gress in battle for the purpose of describing his feats in arms,
composed birthday odes and epithalamiums, roused the spirits of
the clansmen with war-songs, and lamented the dead in the caoines,

792 IRISH BARDIC POETRY. [Sept.,

or keens, which still exist in the wilder and more primitive por-
tions of the country. The second class of bards were the bre-
hons, who versified and recited the laws. The third class were
the senachies, who preserved the genealogies in a poetic form,
kept the record of the annals of the time, and composed stories
and related legends. The lineal descendants of the senachies have
existed in our own time in the persons of wandering story-tellers,
who were welcomed by the peasant's turf fire for the skill and
humor with which they repeated well-worn fairy or historic le-
gends.* The greater bulk of the more ancient Irish literature was
probably the composition of the senachies, the songs of the files
being more of an extemporaneous nature and less likely to be
committed to writing, and the institutes of the brehons exciting
less interest for their preservation after they had ceased to be the
actual laws of .the land. There are more or less credible tradi-
tions concerning the collegiate institutions, the course of study, and
the pay and privileges of the bards, and their dress has been de-
scribed with more particularity than certainty .f They, however,
wore woven colors, one color less than the king, which, either
four or six, were a distinguishing uniform like the Highland tar-
tan.

From the natural fondness of the race for the cultivation of
poetry, and the honors and privileges of the caste, the profession
multiplied until it became an intolerable nuisance. At about the
time of the conversion of Ireland to the Christian faith in the
fifth century they were reported to number a third of the male
population ; and in A.D. 590 a synod was held at Drumkeat by
Aedh, king of the northern portion of the island, which greatly
reduced their numbers, and, it is said, would have resulted in
their total banishment but for the intercession of St. Columbanus.
From this they several times increased to the point of restriction
and repression until they began to participate in the misfortunes
of the Celtic inhabitants from foreign enemies, which began with
the invasion of the Danes and continued until the final subjuga-
tion under William III. From a powerful caste, with laws and
privileges of its own, they became personal attendants of individ-
ual chiefs, fighting their battles and sharing their misfortunes,
and from that, in the last acknowledged representative of the
race, a wandering minstrel sharing the hospitalities not only of
reduced chiefs of ancient blood but of boisterous squireens of low

* Carleton, Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.

t The minute accounts in Walker's Memoirs of the Irish Bards have been discredited by la-
ter antiquaries.

i88o.] IRISH BARDIC POETRY. 793

degree, and singing their praises with but a spark of the ancient
spirit. The records of bardic history in that length of time would
be almost interminable, and the larger portion of them would lack
reliable authenticity. Like the poets of all time, their history is
best found in their verse.

The oldest Irish poem of any importance is the " Tain-bo-
Cuailgne," or the Cattle Spoil of Quelny, whose date of composi-
tion is set at about the latter part of the fifth century. This
exists by transcript, and with doubtless many emendations and
changes in language, in the Book of the Dun Cow, so called from
the vellum on which a part of it was written being made from
the hide of a famous dun cow, and which was written in the early
part of the twelfth century. But the tone and structure of the
language, and the manners and customs mentioned in it, indicate
its original date with considerable exactness. The great mass of
the earlier Irish poems are extant only in the transcripts of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the bardic institution
was in its best estate previous to its reduction in the interminable
conflicts with the Anglo-Norman invaders., and a large number of
books were compiled and written for the benefit of the chiefs,
who rated them at a very high price. These have been pre-
served, and in a great measure translated, by the exertions of the
Royal Irish Academy and the Irish Archaeological Society. These
are similar to the Book of the Dun Cow, and are named The Yellow
Book of Slane, The Book of Glengiven, The Book of Ballymote, and
others. The language of this period was quite different from that
of the date of the action of most of the poems, which professed to
be about the end of the third century and the beginning of the
fourth, which was the Fenian or Ossianic era, although there is a
considerable confusion of dates, many of the poems making St.
Patrick one of the interlocutors, whose time was more than a
century later. It is the opinion of the better Celtic scholars that
the earlier Irish language had a greater simplicity and force than
is to be found in the redundancies and exaggerations which mark
the later style and substance of the existing compilations. Either
the legendary poems of the Ossianic era were first committed to
writing at the period of the eleventh and twelfth centuries from
oral tradition, or the earlier books have been lost ; and in either
case great changes and some interpolations were made by the
later writers.

The heroes of these poems are in a great measure those of
McPherson's Ossian. Chief among them were Fin McCumhal
of McCuii, the original of McPherson's Fingal, Goll, Oisin son

794

IRISH BARDIC POETRY.

[Sept.,

of Fin, Conan the Bald, Osgur the son of Oisin, Cuchullen, and
others, who will at once be recognized as bearing such resem-
blance in name as to indicate merely the changes that would
result from oral transfer to another country and the same lan-
guage in a slightly different dialect. Edmund Burke records that
on the appearance of McPherson's Ossian there was a universal
outcry among the Irish that the poems were their own, and that
they had been familiar with them for centuries. On closer in-
quiry, however, he says, they were unable to come any nearer
producing the exact originals of the poems claimed as by Ossian
than were to be found in the Highlands by the zealous antiqua-
rians who were set to search by national pride or the jealous
doubt that immediately followed the success of McPherson's vol-
ume.

There is no doubt but that McPherson's Ossian was founded
on the legendary fragments that remained among the Celtic in-
habitants of Scotland, and which were in a great measure com-
mon property between them and the Celtic Irish, who, if they
did not settle the Highlands, according to the Irish tradition,
were of one family with its people. The names of the heroes and
many of the incidents are similar. We are unable to compare
the original Scottish poems with the Irish, for they either never
existed in manuscript or have been lost ; but the imitations or
fabrications of McPherson are free from the sometimes childish
exaggerations of the Celtic poems in respect to the size, strength,
and exploits of the heroes, the presence of sorcerers and malig-
nant demons who assumed the shape of human beings or animals
in order to delude, and other supernatural figures. On the other
hand, they are supplied with an extensive machinery of ghosts
and phantoms, voices of the wind and sun, and other images coi
mon to the semi-classical poetry of McPherson's time, and whicl
he would be very likely to add in a fabrication in imitation
ancient poetry. The language and sentiment of McPherson'i
Ossian is also of the stilted and artificial sort common to th(
verse of his time, and quite different from the frank simplicity OJ
early natural poetry. The truth about McPherson's Ossian, with-
out a doubt, is that he found a mass of legend without form, and
that with a real, original genius he transposed it into an appro-
priate and striking form of words, having thoroughly caught th<
original spirit of lamentation and decay, the invisible presence oi
woe, which is the emanation of the dark seas, the heavy mist!
the bare and lonely hillsides of the northern coasts of Ireland an<
Scotland, and infects every author of genius brought within il

i88o.] IRISH BARDIC POETRY. 795

spell from the days of Ossian to those of the author of The
Princess of Thule. Whatever of turgid language and stilted sen-
timent there may be in McPherson's Ossian, it cannot be denied
that its form is powerful and striking, and the whole impression,
vague and cloudy as it is, is of a grand and heroic figure and of
a poetry that is of the great originals of the world. How much
of this is due to the original genius of McPherson it is impossible
to say. He is entitled to the credit of having cast a vague
tradition into a living form of verse, and his chief error, except in
the faults of taste, was in attempting to engraft modern ideas and
sentiments upon an ancient stock. His errors in history, and mis-
taken gropings after the meanings of symbols, are of less account,
and there were as few of these as were to be expected from one
who was too impatient to be a sound antiquarian. His fame has
suffered most from the fatal error in the beginning, which per-
petuated itself to the ruin of all consistency or credit. He en-
deavored at first to pass off his creations for direct translations
from the originals ; but the immediate vigor of search and de-
mand for ocular evidence prevented him -from maintaining this
deception, and at the same time the enormous popularity of the
poems, and the admiration which they excited, roused in him a
desire to claim them as his own. Instead of acknowledging the
original deception he imagined that his honor was concerned in
repelling the charges of forgery, which were made with the very
unscrupulous violence of literary controversy of those days, and
he took refuge in a haughty silence, which was intended both as
a defence and a claim for the authorship. This course was so
utterly untenable that he lost credit on both sides, and the re-
putation of the poems has undoubtedly suffered greatly from the
impression that the author was a compound of the charlatan and
impostor. It is a great misfortune, for the faults and obscurities
of Ossian are sufficient to form a barrier to the appreciation
which a more thorough study would give, and which the evil re-
pute of imposture prevents being bestowed. It is not in this
grudging spirit that the exaggerated and extravagant poetry of
the East is approached, and a much better appreciation of Ossian
would come from a kindlier spirit of regard. Whether the ori-
ginals of the Ossianic legends were native to Ireland or Scot-
land is hardly worth dispute, but the chances are greatly in favor
of the former, so far as existing evidence remains to show.

To a confusion of dates in the present manuscript versions
of the Irish Ossianic legends is also added some incongruity of
manners and customs. As has been said, St. Patrick is made an

796 IRISH BARDIC POETRY. [Sept.,

interlocutor with Ossian, although nearly two hundred years
separated their recorded eras, and there is a confusion of Chris-
tian zeal with pagan faith which shows that the later bards
realized the necessity of a change in sentiment without being able
to make it entirely congruous. The whole spirit is, however, one
of tolerance, and goes to show that the conversion of Ireland was
effected without bitterness and maintained without persecution.
Some of the personages in these poems had a real place and
name in history, as did Arthur and some of the Knights of the
Round Table. Others, in like manner, were pure inventions, and
the greater portion of the dramatis persona and events and in-
cidents is so confused a mixture of truth and fable that, little can
be expected of reliable history. There is a probability, as the
stately phrase of Gibbon has it, " that Fingal lived and Ossian
sung," but there is little more of real fact in the exploits of the
one or the verse of the other.

The most interesting and valuable poem of this class, although
the Ossianic personages do not figure in it directly, is " The Bat-
tle of Moyrath," with its introductory pre-tale of " The Banquet
of Dunangay," which, despite a somewhat profuse fluency, glows
with a sort of barbaric splendor and nobleness of sentiment. It
relates to the last struggle of the pagan and bardic party, and its
defeat at the battle of Moyrath, which took place A.D. 639, be-
tween Congal, a sub-king of Ulster, and his English and Scotch
allies, and the native forces owning allegiance to Domnal, the
venerable monarch of the northern part of the island. Although
defeated, Congal is the real hero of the poem, and, although pro-
bably written by a Christian bard, it is remarkable for its impar-
tiality and tolerant spirit. Congal, Domnal, Sweeney who . is
depicted with real Homeric vigor as the victim of the worst mis-
fortune that could befall an Irish hero and others of the charac-
ters are historical persons, while others again are probably inven-
tions of the bard. It is considered by Irish scholars that the
language of the earlier versions of " The Battle of Moyrath " was
more forcible and direct than that of the existing copy, and that
the redundancies and exaggerations are the result of later cor-
ruptions. The style of the Ossianic epic presents great difficul-
ties to the translator, particularly in its piling up of epithets, of
which the following is an example. It is a descriptive allusion to
the cataract of Ballyshannon :

" The clear-watered, snowy-framed, ever-roaring, parti-colored, bellow-
ing, in-salmon-abounding, beautiful old torrent." " The lofty, great, cle;
landed, contentious, precipitate, loud-roaring, headstrong, rapid, salmoi

i88o.] IRISH BARDIC POETRY. 797

full, sea-monster-full, varying, in-large-fish-abounding, rapid-flooded, fu-
rious-streamed, whirling, in-seal-abounding, royal and prosperous cata-
ract."

The difficulty of rendering- this into English can be imagined
in spite of Southey's example of " The Falls of Lodore," but in
the original the tautologies are not so apparent in the rapid and
various expressiveness of the Celtic language, and those who are
familiar with the scene recognize the force and appositeness of
the phrases. This profusion of epithets is quite oriental in its
character, recalling the characteristics of Persian and Arabic po-
etry, where it is to be found even in contemporaneous litera-
ture. The Irish epics are distinguished from the Scandinavian
sagas not only by their oriental redundancy in contrast with the
simple directness and vigor of the Northern poets, but by their
nobler and gentler spirit, the absence of the grim humor, the
ferocity and the delight in dwelling upon scenes of slaughter and
torture characteristic of the race of robbers by land and sea.
Their qualities are the peculiar property of the race, and re-
present the redundant imagery, the florid splendor of rhetoric,
and the fluency of Irish eloquence in all ages.

The second era of the bardic poetry of Ireland is that which
includes the fragments of verse preserved during the intermi-
nable and deadly struggles of the native race against the Anglo-
Norman and Saxon invaders from the landing of Strongbow to
the battle of the Boyne. During that period there was no time
when there was not strife between the native race and the foreign
settlers, whether war was formally declared or not, and the
horrors of the more atrocious contests were only equalled by the
worst examples of barbaric vindictiveness and sweeping destruc-
tion in the East. The picture which Spenser draws of the con-
dition of Munste'r during the war of the Earl of Desmond with
Elizabeth when the miserable, famished inhabitants crawled out
of dens and caves to feed on the carcasses of starved cattle and
died by the thousand, until the country was left a wilderness
peopled with wolves and without a human inhabitant throughout
the fairest region of Ireland was only wider in its scope and
more accomplished in its desolation than some of the other wars
of Elizabeth and James I. And short triumphs hardly won by
untrained valor over discipline, constant forays offsetting frequent
defeats, and a gradual encroachment of the English settlement
upon the native population make up the wretched annals of the
time. Under these circumstances there was little opportunity or
inclination for the composition of long epics, and the inspiration

IRISH BARDIC POETRY.

[Sept.,

of the bards was turned to more direct appeals for war, rejoicings
for victory, and lamentations for misfortune and defeat. Their
poetry took on a more lyric form and became an ode rather than
an epic. The fragments of this species of composition are much
smaller in bulk than the early voluminous narratives, and are
also much more concise and vigorous in style. Some of them
breathe the very essence of defiant hatred, exultation, or despair
with a passion that is oriental only in its force and picturesque-
ness of epithet, for they are without the slightest trace of tauto-
logy or redundancy. Spenser, who regarded the Irish as hated
savages fit only to be exterminated, and who, by the inversion of
hatred, saw the patriotism, the courage and eloquence of the
bards in animating and keeping up the struggle as vices instead of
virtues, had yet literary impartiality enough to see and commend
their eloquence in the oft-quoted passage regarding the flowers
of wit and invention to be found in the poetry of contemporary
Irish bards. Two of the most remarkable of the bards of this
era are Fearflatha O'Guire, hereditary bard of the O'Neills of
Clanboy, whose ode on the downfall of the race is very striking
in the depth of its pathos ; and O'Hussey, the bard of the Mac-
Guires of Fermanagh, whose vigor of passion and intensity of
hatred are expressed with remarkable intensity and power. The
following is a literal version of his ode to Aedh (Hugh) MacGuire :

" Cold weather is this night for Hugh.
A grief is the rigor of its showery drops.
Alas ! insufferable is the venom
Of this night's cold.

" This night, it grieves my heart,
Is filled with the thunder-flashing, heavy storm,
Succeeded by an icy congealment
Less ruthless than the hate which pursues him.

" From the sullen breasts of the clouds
The floodgates of heaven are let loose ;
The vapors exhaled from the salt sea
The firmament pours down in torrents.

" Though he were a wild creature of the forest,
Though a salmon in an inlet of the ocean,
Or one of the winged fowls of the air,
He could not bear the rigor of this weather.

" Mournful am I for Hugh MacGuire,
This night in a strange land

Under the embers of thunderbolts amid the showers flaming,
And the keen anger of the whistling clouds.

i88o.] IRISH BARDIC POETRY. 799

" Sore misery to us and torturing to our bosoms
To think that the fine front arid sides of his comely person
Should be ground by the rough, sullen, scowling night
In cold, steely accoutrements.

" His kind-dealing hand that punished cruelty
By frost made dumb
Under some spiked and icicle-hung tree.

" Hugh marched, to my grief, with his hosts to battle,
And to-night his tresses softly curling are hung with ice.
But warmth to the hero are the remembered shouts of war
And the many lime-white mansions he hath laid in ashes"

These verses display an astonishing vigor, and the repetition of
the various images of storm and cold impress them with the
utmost vividness, while the closing burst of passion is the essence
of unquenchable hate. The following also shows a remarkably
vivid power of scenic description :

" The perilous ways of the borders of Leinster :
Borders of slow-calling sounds,
Gloomy borders of bright mountains severe.
The intricate deserts of Armclaidhe."

" Heroes polishing their glowing weapons,
Sounding triumpets loudly martial,
A frosty, foggy wind with whistling darts flying
These are the music in which you delight at early dawn."

Among the other bards of this period may be mentioned Mal-
murry Bhaird, or Ward, bard of Tyrconnel, who composed a
fine ode on the ruins of Donegal Castle, the seat of the favorite
hero, Aedh Ruadh (Hugh Roe) O'Donnell ; and Eoghain Ruadh
(Owen Roe) MacBhaird, bard of the O'Donnells, whose lament
for the chiefs of the houses of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, who died
in Rome in the early part of the seventeenth century, is full of
touching pathos.

The amatory and strictly lyric poetry of this long period is
even in smaller bulk and more fragmentary condition than the
odes. Among the earliest specimens that have survived is the
celebrated " Eileen Aroon," by which name, however, several la-
ter pieces are known. The tradition is that it was composed by
Carrol O'Daly, a brother of Donoch Mor O'Daly, lord-abbot of
Boyle, and also a poet called the Ovid of Ireland, about the mid-
dle of the thirteenth century. The author was in love with Ellen
Kavanagh, the daughter of a Leinster chief, but his suit was not
regarded favorably by the family, and during an absence the lady

8oo

IRISH BARDIC POETRY.

[Sept.,

was persuaded to favor a rival suitor. He returned on the day
before the wedding and composed the song, which he, disguised
as a harper, recited in the evening at the house of his love, who
recognized and fled with him. The exquisite sweetness of this
air, earlier known to the English world by its Scotch transcrip-
tion, " Robin Adair," has been remarked by all lovers of music,
and Handel is reported to have said that he had rather have been
the composer of it than of the finest of his oratorios. The love-
songs for the most part appear to have been composed by per-
sons a grade lower in station than the professional bards, and to
come nearer to the definition of peasant poetry. They are mark-
ed by great abruptness and an artless confusion such as would be
natural to one more intent on relieving his feelings than on con-
structing elaborate verse, and sometimes appear but a jumbled
rhapsody. The sentiment, however, is always pure and generous,
and touches of local allusion and national characteristics of scenery,
and peculiar epithets of beauty that become more effective from
frequent repetition, give them a striking originality and effect.
As in all primitive poetry, there is a sameness of epithet and repe-
tition of images about them, as gold is always " red " and ladies
" fair " in the earlier English ballads. A favorite time is the dawn
of day, with its songs of birds, and dew upon the grass ; the attrac-
tions of the maiden are always her cuileen, or abundant and long
flowing hair, her swan neck, and cheeks like apple-blossoms or
berries on the bough ; and the poet's love is more than wealth of
cattle or love of kindred. He is often in exile, almost always in
poverty, and his appeal is frequently of the hopelefss longing
which misfortune or fate prevents any hope of being realized.
The deep and abiding melancholy and the undertone of pathos
in the wildest rhapsody of passion, or even in the merriment of
joy, are as marked in the poetry as in the music of Ireland.

Some specimens of the earlier lyrics and songs, even in thi
naked baldness of a literal translation, will give a better idea ol
their characteristics than even when most successfully renderec
into the English idiom. The following is a later " Eileen Aroon,'
composed by a Munster poet of uncertain date :

" Oh ! with love for you there is not a sight in my head,

Eileen Aroon.
To be talking of you is delight to me,

Eileen Aroon.

My pride very just you are,
My pleasure of this world you are,
My joy and happiness you are,

Eileen Aroon.

i88o.] IRISH BARDIC POETRY. 80 1

My own girl indeed you are,
My dove of all in the wood you are,
And for my heart there is no cure without you
Eileen Aroon.

" I would go beyond the brine for you,

Eileen Aroon.
And for ever and for ever I would not forsake you,

Eileen Aroon ;

With tales I would pleasure you,
I would taste your mouth closely,
And I would recline gently by your waist,

Eileen Aroon.

I would give you an airing along the river-side
Under the green branches of trees,
With music of birds in melody above us,

Eileen Aroon.

little star, beautiful, modest,
Before I would have you turn from me

1 would sooner die,

Eileen Aroon."

The intensity and directness of this are very remarkable* while
it is almost Sapphic in its rhapsodic abruptness. Still more ab-
rupt and confused is the expression of the lover of Mary Chuisle,
or Molly Astore :

" O Mary Chuisle ! O blossom of fairness,
Branch of generousness, westward from the Nair,
Whose voice is sweeter than the cuckoo on the branch,
You have left me in the anguish of death.
The candle is not clear to me, the table, nor the company,,
From the drunkenness you cause me, O star of women,,
Majestic, graceful maid, who have increased my woe
Alas ! that I am without your cloak till dawn.

" I have walked Ardagh and Kinsale,
To Drogheda and back again,
To Carlow and Downpatrick ;
I have not looked upon the like of Mary.
High coaches (I have seen) with white horses,
And English cavaliers fighting for their ladies.
If you go home from me, Mary safe home to you.
Your shadow would make light without the sun"

The Jacobite poetry, that which belongs strictly to this era, is
inferior to that of Scotland, but it is to be remembered that it
antedates the most of the Scottish Jacobite poetry by nearly a
VOL. xxxi. 51

g 02 IRISH BARDIC POETRY. [Sept.,

century, and furthermore that the Stuarts were very far from ex-
citing the feeling of personal loyalty in Ireland which they did
in Scotland. They were tyrants and representatives of the alien
race in Ireland so long as they were in good fortune, and it was
only when in misfortune they represented the cause of national
independence that they were accepted as leaders. The personal
qualities of James II. were not of the sort to create the romantic
interest which surrounded the gallant figure of the young Pre-
tender, and his incapacity and cowardice created a feeling of con-
tempt which was marked by an unsavory nickname. When the
later Stuart rebellions occurred in Scotland the people of Ireland
exhibited not even the slightest token of sympathy, and they had
little past experience to induce them to take up arms in favor of
the Stuarts. There is, however, a lament for Mary d'Este, widow
of James II., by John O'Neachtan, who lived in Meath in the
-early part of the eighteenth century, of considerable pathos, and
.a dialogue between James and Erin, by an unknown bard, of a
generous and lofty spirit. Later, as may be seen in the hedge-
poets, the Stuarts were frequently alluded to, but more in an alle-
gorical vein than with any fervor of personal affection.

Turloch O'Carolan, who is considered the last individual en-
titled to the honor of being considered an Irish bard, was born at
Newtown, near Nobber, in the county Meath, in the year 1670. He
was of ancient family his father, John O'Carolan, having been driv-
en from the Pale by some confiscation and was possessed of some
landed property. Young Turloch, after the death of his father,
was educated with the children of Mrs. McDermott Roe, a lady
of noble family, of Alderford, in the county Roscommon. In his
eighteenth year he became blind from an attack of small-pox, and,
by the custom that prevails to this day among pipers and fiddlers,
was educated in music as the only possible profession. He re-
ceived instruction on the harp, and, after four years of education, "
was supplied by Mrs. McDermott Roe with a horse, and an at-
tendant to lead him, and commenced the pilgrimage that ended
only with his life. The bards had fallen from their high estate
by the decadence of the noble families. The vast establishments
like those of the O'Neills and De Burgos had passed away, and
no chieftain held semi-regal sway at Edenduffcarrick or Portumna.
No chief could maintain his bard as a part of his household in
fitting consideration, and the possibility of lofty themes in cele-
brating the power of a lord who made war on his own account
against the Saxon monarch or a worthy rival had also vanished.
The bard was reduced to the necessity of dividing his favors

i88o.] IRISH BARDIC POETRY. 803

among a considerable number, and to share the hospitality not
only of the ancient gentry but of the humbler squireens. This
O'Carolan did, and his wanderings for forty years included the
greater part of the west and centre of Ireland, his favorite places
of sojourning being almost all traceable in the titles of his poems.
At one time near the close of his life he had in his audience a little,
ungainly boy, who doubtless listened to the great harper with all
his soul in his brilliant eyes, and who grew up to be Oliver Gold-
smith and to record his wonder and admiration at the sight of
the last of the Irish bards. The subject of his verse was the per-
sonal praise of his entertainers, and it was inevitably lowered
from the high themes of the early bards by the circumstances of
their life. The spirit of the Celtic aristocracy was inevitably de-
graded in some degree by their unfortunate condition. Vulgar
drunkenness too often succeeded to high-spirited carousing, per-
sonal brawls to gallant forays, and coarse profusion and reckless-
ness to high-toned magnificence and generosity. The pictures of
manners preserved in Miss Edgeworth's novels, Sir Jonah Bar-
rington's sketches, and all the literature of half a century later
give an idea of what the condition of society must have been
in Carolan's time. His duty was to contribute to the entertain-
ment ; and although he preserved so much of his dignity as to be
beyond all pecuniary reward, it was natural that he should sink
sometimes into unworthy adulation, and confess, as in one of his

verses :

True to my host and to his cheer I prove,
And as I find them must I praise them still."

It is true that there is a difference in the quality of his strains,
and that he rises into a spirit of loftier compliment approaching
that of the earlier bards when he has a worthy subject, as may be
seen in his verses to the cup of O'Hara. He had also a sense of
dignity to resent any churlish treatment, and to brand as a nig-
gard any one who did not receive him with the consideration to
which he was entitled. But a great part of his verse was un-
fortunately employed in unworthy personal praise although it
might be said there is nothing approaching the humility of the
dedications of contemporary English poets to their patrons.

He was a poet, however, beyond this, and sufficient remains
exist of his verses addressed to female beauty to show a genuine
inspiration and a sweet fancy and tenderness. It is to be re-
membered that Carolan was first educated as a musician and
composer, and that it was only upon the challenge of a patron

8o 4 IRISH BARDIC POETRY. [Sept.,

that he composed his first piece of poetry, an account of a battle
between fairies. Throughout his life his powers as a musician
were considered of at least equal consequence to those as a poet,
if not more so. But there is a spirit of graceful compliment and
sincere feeling in his verses to Bridget Cruise, his first love, to
his wife, to Grace Nugent, Gentle Mabel Kelley, and others,
which recalls Burns, whom he also resembled in the spirit with
which he celebrated good-fellowship and whiskey. The circum-
stances of his life were unfortunate and calculated to degrade his
genius, so that it is singular that even so much remains of genu-
ine sincerity and depth of feeling.

At the age of sixty-seven his wanderings were over. Broken
in health, he made his way to Alderford, the house of his earliest
patron, Mrs. McDermott Roe, then over eighty years of age, to
receive his last welcome. When confined to his bed he composed
his last piece, " Farewell to Music," in a strain of remarkable
tenderness and pathos. His wake was the grandest of his time.
For four days open house was kept at Alderford. All the houses
in the village were crowded, and tents and huts were erected on
the green. Exhaustless barrelsof whiskey were placed in the hall,
where the corpse lay in state. The greatest kceners of the country
around raised their lamentations at the head of the coffin, and
Mrs. McDermott Roe herself thought it no derogation to join
the hired mourners in the lamentation over " her poor gentle-
man, the head of all Irish music." All the bards in Ireland came
to celebrate in, dirges the death of their master, and all the no-
bility and gentry of the region, including, it is mentioned, sixty
clergymen of various denominations, attended the funeral. On
the fifth day the corpse was taken to the vault of the McDermott
Roe family in Kilronan church with a following that extended
for miles. A portrait of Carolan was taken in his later years
by a Dutch artist of some celebrity Van der Hagen. It repre-
sents him with harp in hand and his sightless eyes raised. The
face is beardless and somewhat full, with an air of sweetness and
serenity. The flowing locks and partially bald brow give it
somewhat a resemblance to the portraits of Shakspere. With
Turloch O'Carolan closed the long and honorable line of Irish
bards.

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 805

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

VI.

WE have now brought the discussion of the Catholic Ideal of
the church to a simple and direct issue on the question of its
genuine and divine origin. In the Catholic Idea the note of
apostolicity belongs exclusively to the one society which alone
makes an exclusive claim to its possession. The specific differentia
which constitutes this society and separates it from all others was
given to it by its founders the apostles acting by the authority of
Jesus Christ, therefore its origin or genesis is divine. The objec-
tions against this thesis which we have to consider go against the
arguments and proofs which sustain it and are intended to make
way for a theory of the human origin of the distinctive and ex-
clusive form of the Catholic Church.

It is desirable to find some brief and sufficient formula which
expresses in a manner convenient for the purposes of argument
the whole specific difference of the Catholic Church by which it
is defined and distinguished from every other society. The apos-
tolic succession in the Catholic episcopate will answer this pur-
pose, if the exact sense of these terms be properly explained.

It is necessary, in the first place, to define the term apostolic,
in order to gain a distinct and adequate notion of what that is,
which is supposed by the Catholic Idea to be handed down by
the apostles to their successors.

The fundamental notion underlying the conception of the
apostolate is that Holy Order is a sacrament impressing an in-
delible character. The apostles received' this character from
Jesus Christ, the fountain of all grace and power. The intrinsic
essence of the character is true and proper priesthood, sacer-
dotal consecration and power, the possession of a complete jus
circa sacra. The one great act of priesthood is the offering of
sacrifice, which in the New Law is accomplished by the consecra-
tion of the appointed elements bread and wine in a mystical
action, in which by divine power their substance is converted
into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, who is thus
made anew an oblation to the Father, and sacramentally received
in the holy communion. The power of administering the other
sacraments which depend on the sacerdotal character is included

8o6 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Sept.,

in the power given over this greatest of sacraments. Annexed to
this sacramental power is the power of teaching and ruling the
mystical body of Christ, and of doing all which properly belongs
to the office of a delegate and vicar of Christ, a mediator and am-
bassador of reconciliation between God and men. The apostolate
is the priesthood of the New Law, which Jesus Christ personally
established by his sovereign authority.

The Catholic episcopate is the continuation of the apostolate
through the sacrament of ordination. The succession is the in-
heritance by the bishops of the gifts and powers of the apostolate
from the apostles who were the first founders and fathers of the
sacerdotal order.

Furthermore, as the apostles were a college strictly bound
together in corporate unity under their prince, so, the Catholic
episcopate is a hierarchy organized under its primate and supreme
head.

This is the Catholic doctrine of apostolic succession, and
everything else distinctively Catholic is either virtually contained
in it, or necessarily connected with it, so that it can stand as ex-
pressive of the essential and specific difference of the Catholic
Church. The episcopate is the seat of the life and perpetuity of
the Catholic Church, the nucleus of its whole body, the principal
organ of its soul, and of the Life-giving Spirit who created, pre-
serves and governs it. Hence it is, that the apostolic origin,
superiority over all the clergy and people by divine right, suc-
cession from the apostles through episcopal ordination, and ex-
clusive power of conferring the sacerdotal character and trans-
mitting the sacramental gifts in their fulness, of the Catholic
episcopate, is a vital question and a pivot upon which turns the
whole controversy respecting the true and genuine constitution
of the church and the real nature of the Christian religion. This
is especially the case, in respect to the Evangelical Protestants.
As for schismatics who maintain the lawful constitution of their
sects under real or pretended bishops who have broken off from
the unity of the hierarchy, their pretensions are easily disposed
of by reasons drawn from their own admitted principles, and a
more thorough and minute exposition of what is involved in the
apostolic succession. The papacy is the summit of the episco-
pate. Only those bishops who are in the communion of the
Roman Church possess individually and collectively real episco-
pal authority and are organized in corporate unity. All which
relates specially to the prerogatives of the Roman bishop and the
Roman Church can, therefore, be included under the general

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 807

head of the Catholic episcopate. In respect to all other doctrines
whatsoever, it is plain that just as soon as the episcopate is recog-
nized as the teaching body or ecclesia docens, all questions in regard
to which Protestants differ from Catholics are settled at once.
Even schismatical and heretical bishops, as a general rule, are, in
respect to the heresies of Protestantism, Catholic in their teaching.
Of the pseudo-episcopate existing among certain Protestant sects
we make no account.

The next step we have to take in our discussion, which will
bring us nearer to the real issue, is to prove, that the true and
genuine idea of apostolic succession in the Catholic episcopate
cannot be a legitimate human development from a preceding in-
determinate idea of the church and its essential constituents. If
not the genuine and original ideal of the apostles, and divine, it is
a profound alteration of it, illegitimate, a human invention wholly
unauthorized and worthy of unreserved condemnation as a cor-
ruption of the divine ideal of Christianity.

To those who take a merely superficial view derived from the
common Protestant conception of the church, it may reasonably
appear that questions about the form of church government, cer-
tain modes of worship, and external rites, are in their nature non-
essential and indifferent. Whether a parish with a congregation
meeting in one building, or a diocese containing a number of
parishes be the unit of agglomeration, is in itself a matter of ex-
pediency only. The same may be said of parity or diversity of
rank and power in the clergy, and of the form of government, of
appointment and ordination of ministers, and whatever belongs
to regular organization. One may very reasonably regard a
loose congregational system, an order like that of Presbyterians
or Methodists, an episcopal constitution in which all bishops are
equal, one in which there are metropolitans, primates, patriarchs,
or a universal primate, as so many lawful diversities of exterior
order, and only to be compared with each other in reference to
their fitness and sufficiency for the ends to be accomplished by
Christian association.

Simpler or more elaborate manners of public worship, with
or without ecclesiastical vestments, symbols, ceremonies, liturgi-
cal forms, concurrence of the arts ; may be regarded as matters of
taste, propriety, expediency only.' Every one of all these exter-
nals can be looked upon as subject to human development, volun-
tary determination, variety and change according to the diversi-
ties of times and places. The actual modes and ways introduced
by the apostles themselves, in this view, need not be regarded as

8o8 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Sept.,

established by them with binding and perpetual force of law. In
fact, even such ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper for in-
stance, and some kind of ministry for preaching and presiding,
as are considered to be of divine institution are not, in this view,
of essential importance. Quakers, who reject these things, can
be considered as belonging to the church and possessing the es-
sentials of Christian religion. Indeed, many Evangelical Protes-
tants have a high admiration for their society and regard them as
being some of the very best of Christian people.

If we suppose, now, for the sake of argument, that the con-
ception of the church which underlies and justifies this liberal
and wide view now so very prevalent, truly represents the
apostolic and divine idea of Christianity as a visible religion, we
must allow that the general theory of Guizot and. others, that the
apostles left the church to follow the laws of a human, natu-
ral evolution and development, becomes tenable and probable.
According to this conception, a few dogmas, a certain number of
principles and moral precepts, with a few external ordinances,
and an inspired book from which each one may learn all the
truth he can, make up the substance of the Christian religion.
This was given by the apostles and is unalterable. The develop-
ment has been left to work itself out in a human mode. Accept
the premises, and the conclusion is just. We admit, that in poi]
of fact, there is a legitimate, historical development in Ch]
tianity, in respect to many things, and even in respect to d<
trine. But we take exception to Guizot's theory of developmei
in respect to two things. First, we maintain that a uniform,
simultaneous and noiseless development in doctrine, government
and rites could not have taken place by evolution from the sup-
posed primordial germ. Such a germ must have developed by
no determinate intrinsic force, but by objective, extrinsic aug-
mentation, and under various conditions must have been multi-
form, successive, and sensibly manifest so as to make its sound
distinctly audible and its aspects visible. Second, the develop-
ment could not possibly have resulted in the system which hinges
on the apostolic succession of the Catholic episcopate. It is thi<
second point which we intend to take up at the present moment.

This doctrine of apostolic succession as we have previous!]
defined it is intrinsically wedded not only to a conception of the
church wholly different from the one just noticed, but also to a
radically different Christian theology from that of Evangelical
Protestants. This difference respects the fundamental doctrine
of justification. The root of justification is faith. But the Ca-

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 809

tholic idea of .faith is wholly different from the Lutheran notion
which has been declared to be " the article of the standing or
falling church." Faith is a firm belief of all that God has reveal-
ed, and the proximate rule of faith is the authority of the church
seated in the Catholic episcopate. Again, justification is through
the sacrament of baptism, and the command with the right to
baptize all nations was given to the apostles and their successors.
Again, the grace of baptism when lost by mortal sin must be re-
covered by the sacrament of penance, also committed to the Ca-
tholic episcopate. A Christian is justified by works and not faith
alone. He must fulfil all the righteousness of the New Law.
This Law is promulgated by the Catholic episcopate, and their
universal precepts made obligatory under pain of sin are includ-
ed in it.

One most important part of the law is to worship God by sac-
rifice, and another is to receive the body and blood of Christ.
The divine Eucharist which is both sacrifice and sacrament is
committed to the Catholic episcopate, with exclusive power to
consecrate priests who can offer the sacrifice and provide the sac-
rament for the faithful Furthermore, although some of the sac-
raments do not depend on the agency of a person possessing sa-
cerdotal character for their validity, and the sacerdotal character
itself even in its fulness as possessed by a bishop may remain and
be transmitted in a sect ; yet, there is no lawful administration or
reception of sacraments except that which is sanctioned by the
Catholic episcopate, so that deliberate and wilful violation of the
laws of this supreme authority by abusing sacraments and sacra-
mental gifts involves the guilt of sacrilege.

This is Catholic doctrine. Now, it is a contradiction in terms
to suppose this doctrine and any different one, half-Catholic or
wholly Protestant, to be at the same time genuine Christian doc-
trine. It and they are mutually exclusive. It is not mere modi-
fications, adjuncts or even integral parts of religion which are in
question, but the very essence and that which springs from the
essence to complete the specific being and nature of the true
Christian religion. The primary question of the way of salvation
is involved.

Now, let any one who calls himself an Evangelical Protestant
with any show of propriety, state as he pleases what constitutes
the essence of the Gospel of Christ, he must admit that this Gos-
pel has been clearly and distinctly revealed, was clearly taught
by the apostles, and understood and believed by their disciples.
Reduce it to the minimum, and leave as much as possible to de-

8io

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

[Sept.,

velopment, to the working of the human intellect upon the truth
revealed, to the voluntary determinations of the human will ap-
plying and putting into exercise principles and ethical precepts,
yet this essential gospel must be supposed preserved in its integ-
rity. It may be said, that it has been always and is still preserv-
ed in its integrity under all modifications of Christianity which
the objector consents to call orthodox. Still, this is not enough.
It is necessary that it should be made clearly manifest, that the
essential gospel is truly the whole gospel, that nothing else is es-
sential, and that in embracing it, one is secure that he has all
which is necessary to salvation. That which the apostles left un-
determined and subject to human development must have been
known to be undetermined. A legitimate development must
have left the essential Gospel intact and unaltered. An alteration
is not a development, it is a substantial change. The substitution
of the Catholic Idea of Christianity for the supposed primitive
idea set forth by the theory we are opposing, would have been a
most radical, essential and substantial change, the founding of a
new religion and a new church specifically different from the old
and genuine apostolic church and religion. This change must
have been devised and carried out by men who had wholly de-
parted from the teaching and intuitions of the apostles, innovators,
ambitious, criminal, possessed of extraordinary ability and craft,
during the interval between the beginning of the second and the
end of the third century.

There being no historical evidence that such a change did take
place, and the theory that it must have taken place being as-
sumed a priori, the arguments for it are necessarily those of nega-
tive and sceptical criticism. It may have taken place, it is ar-
gued, because there is no demonstrative, documentary evidence
that it did not. The burden of proof is thus thrown on us. We
are required to furnish a series of documentary proofs reach-
ing back from A.D. 300 or some date near to this, to the
apostolic age, proving an unbroken Catholic tradition of that
ideal of Christianity which is contained in the doctrine of aposto-
lic succession in the sacerdotal and episcopal hierarchy. Where
written documents are obscure or silent, it is inferred that the
Catholic idea was absent from the mind of the writers and from
the common belief of Christians at the time they were written.
The first who explicitly teaches any one point of specific Catholic
doctrine is supposed to have invented it or taken it from others
as a new doctrine. Thus, there is an apparent tracing of one
doctrine or law or usage after another to a human origin, a his-

1 88o.]

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

811

tory of the development, which to the unwary and unlearned ap-
pears specious and plausible. Then, again, every historical fact,
and every written statement is carefully searched for and sub-
jected to critical manipulation, which can be made to appear as
evidence against the Catholic tradition, so as to break its uni-
formity and continuity, and thus disconnect the earliest period of
Christianity from which we have received but few documents,
from the ages next in succession, and so favor the theory of a
general and silent change during the first two or three centuries.
This is precisely the method followed by the purely rationalistic
critics who attack the books of the New Testament, the primary
dogmas of the creeds, and all that part of the substance of the
Christian religion which Evangelical Protestants hold to be essen-
tial, all of which they make out to be a merely natural develop-
ment during the first two centuries, which was begun by the
apostles themselves, from germs in the ideas and teaching of
Jesus Christ, and other elements, Jewish, pagan, and philosophi-
cal, and from which resulted the Christianity of the third, fourth
and fifth centuries, with its dogmatic, ritual and hierarchical con-
stitution. This theory 'is more thorough and consistent than the
other. Its hiding place is in the supposed chasm between the
middle of the first century and the end of the second, unbridged
by authentic historical tradition, by which we are cut off from
certain knowledge of even the history and real teaching of Christ
himself, except that which a-priori theories and sceptical criticism
can arrive at by the rationalistic method. There is no work more
important and necessary at the present time than the one which
is employed upon the demonstration of the historical continuity
of the divine religion from the birth of Jesus Christ to the con-
version of Constantine. True history brought together from all
accessible sources, sound reasoning, and a really enlightened criti-
cism based on solid learning, all directed and co-ordinated by
sure principles and rules of rational philosophy and logic, are
the means by which the pseudo-rationalism of sceptics and unbe-
lievers must be opposed and refuted. We are not concerned,
however, at present, with anything except that theory which ac-
cepts one half of Christianity as divine and sets aside the other
half as human. This second half could not have been added to
the first half in the earliest age as a development either legitimate
or illegitimate, by an evolution and determination of indetermi-
nate elements in the apostolic church, or by an accretion from ele-
ments foreign to apostolic Christianity. The two hemispheres
have an intrinsic relation and connection with each other, a com-

812

GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

[Sept.,

mon origin, and must stand or fall together. In fact the most
obvious and simple and generally intelligible demonstration of
the divine origin of the first half depends on the historical evi-
dence that the second half is of apostolic origin. Wherefore, the
argument which proves this last point against the semi-evangeli-
cal theory really overthrows the infidel, rationalistic theory of
Gibbon and his modern successors, although this is not our direct
end in arguing with those who positively and firmly hold to the
evidences of the credibility and the actually divine origin and
truth of Christianity.

The apostolic succession of the Catholic episcopate as a plural
unity in corporate organization, radically constituted 'by un-
broken transmission within itself through ordination, of the
plenitude of the sacerdotal character, is the axis of the entire
sphere. The existence of this Catholic episcopate in the ante-
Nicene period, with the unbroken tradition of all the churches in
all parts of the world, attested by every document and monument
of Christian antiquity, that it was of apostolic and divine institu-
tion, gives irrefragable and demonstrative evidence that it suc-
ceeded to the apostolate. Gibbon says :

"The advantages of this episcopal form of government, which appears
to have been introduced before the end of the first century, were so obvious
and important for the future greatness, as well as the present peace, of
Christianity, that it was adopted without delay by all the societies which
were already scattered over the empire, had acquired in a very early period
the sanction of antiquity, (nulla ecclesia sine Episcopo, has been a fact as
well as a maxim since the time of Tertullian and Irenaeus) and is still re-
vered by the most powerful churches, both of the East and of the West, as
a primitive and even as a divine establishment." Of the prelates of the
third century he says : " They exalted the unity and power of the church, as
it was represented in the EPISCOPAL OFFICE, of which every bishop enjoyed
an equal and undivided portion. Princes and magistrates, it was often re-
peated might boast an earthly claim to a transitory dominion ; it was the
episcopal authority alone which was derived from the Deity, and extended
itself over this and another world. The bishops were the vicegerents of
Christ, the successors of the apostles, and the mystic substitutes of the
high-priests of the Mosaic law."*

In speaking of the particular topic of miracles, Gibbon makes
some remarks which are applicable in a wide and general sense
to our whole matter of discussion. He observes that to a writer
like himself, assuming the position of an impartial historian, there
exists a difficulty in the way of

" Adopting such a theory as may reconcile the interest of religion with

* Decline and Fall, ch. xv.

i88o.] GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHUXCH. 813

that of reason, of making a proper application of that theory, and of defin-
ing with precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from error and
from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift of super-
natural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of the popes, a
succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and of miracles is continued
without interruption ; and the progress of superstition was so gradual, and
almost imperceptible, that we know not in what particular link we should
break the chain of tradition. Every age bears testimony to the wonderful
events by which it was distinguished, and its testimony appears no less
weighty and respectable than that of the preceding generation, till we are
insensibly led on to accuse our own inconsistency, if in the eighth or the
twelfth century we deny to the Venerable Bede or the holy Bernard, the
same degree of confidence which, in the second century, we had so liberal-
ly granted to Justin or to Irenaeus."

Mr. Gibbon, a little later on, gives the reason why miracles
must be supposed to have ceased :

"And yet, since every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality,
and every reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous
powers, it is evident that there must have been some period in which they
were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the Christian church."

When he wrote, it was expedient to use cautious language.
His incredulity pierces through the thin veil of a decent respect
for the prevailing belief of Englishmen, and is plainly enough in-
timated in a paragraph a little further on, where he extends the
conclusion in respect to the incredibility of post-apostolic mira-
cles to the miraculous and the supernatural in general.

" In modern times, a latent and even involuntary scepticism adheres to
the most pious dispositions. Their admission of supernatural truths is
much less an active consent than a cold and passive acquiescence. Accus-
tomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable order of nature,
our reason, or at least our imagination, is not sufficiently prepared to sus-
tain the visible action of the Deity."

This explains the whole theory of that part of the great his-
torical work of Gibbon which treats of Christianity. The facts
are reduced to a minimum, and what remains is explained and
accounted for on natural principles, by natural causes. Gibbon's
successors are much more bold, outspoken, and thoroughgo-
ing, but they use his key. It seems to us, moreover, that Guizot
and Milman, the great admirers and editors of Gibbon have de-
rived their modified theory from the study of his history. The
supernatural origin and character of Catholicism must be denied.
It must have had a natural origin and development. Therefore,
difficult as it is to trace the process to its beginnings, difficult as it

8 14 GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Sept.,

is to break the links of tradition, an effort must be made to do
this by criticism. Dr. Milman, in his Preface to the History of
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in a few words describes
the middle position of the Protestant theory between pure ra-
tionalism and Catholicism :

" Christianity proclaims its divine author chiefly in its first origin and
development. When it had once received its impulse from above when it
had once been infused into the minds of its first teachers when it had
gained full possession of its first disciples when it had gained full pos-
session of the reason and affections of the favored few it might be and
to the Protestant,' the rational Christian, it is impossible to define 'when it
really was left to make its way by its native force, under the ordinary
secret agencies of all-ruling Providence."

We have already stated what the outcome and issue of this
general and somewhat vague idea, disconnecting apostolic Chris-
tianity from the Catholicity of the third and fourth centuries,
must be, when made definite, exact and tangible. That the two
are different is assumed a priori, from a preconceived conception
of Christianity which is not historical, traditional or Catholic, but
fabricated from personal and private opinions and justified by a
peculiar interpretation of the Holy Scripture together with indi-
vidual religious experience. A change might have taken place,
and, although it is impossible to show when or how it took
place, it must have taken place in order that Christianity should
have become so transformed within the first three or four centu-
ries of its existence. The very notion of such a transformation
implies an essential and substantial alteration in the idea and plan
of the apostles and of their Master. It implies a new conception
and a new foundation of a great and world- wide religion, con-
structed upon the site of apostolic Christianity, making use of
everything in it which could be made serviceable, and retaining
some resemblance to it, but as different from it as the Augustan
empire was from the primitive Roman commonwealth. Such a
transformation could not have taken place. There are no ade-
quate causes to account for it. There are many causes which
must necessarily have prevented it. There are sufficient and
conclusive proofs that it did not take place, and there are no
counter evidences which have ever been adduced which can bear
examination. Merely considered as an exterior change in or-
ganization and form of worship it could not have taken place
silently, uniformly and universally, even if there were no posi-
tive law established by the apostles to prevent such a modifica-

1 88o.]

THE PRESENT GENERATION.

815

tion. But it could not have been a purely exterior transforma-
tion. If it did occur, it involved a dogmatic and doctrinal change,
a change of fundamental laws, of sacraments, of the positive insti-
tutions of Christ, of the way and conditions of salvation, of the
rule of faith, of the essence of the Christian religion. The entire
type and idea of Christianity prevalent in the second century
could not have been transformed in the third, that which was
universal in the first could not have been transformed in the
second. It is historically certain that the Christianity of the
third and fourth centuries is one and the same. The first four
centuries, therefore, may be taken as one, like the four gospels.
The more abundant documents, with their more explicit state-
ments, and their fuller record of historical facts, which are extant
from the middle and later portions of this primitive age illustrate
and explain the scantier and more obscure testimonies of the
earliest times. The theory of Gibbon, Milman and Guizot, of a
progressive change and modification resulting in the hierarchical
organization and claim of apostolical succession prevailing in the
third century, is purely fanciful and borrowed from the various
stages and phases of alteration in the ecclesiastical order which
resulted from the schisms of the eleventh and sixteenth centuries.
First, a kind of Congregationalism is conjectured to have existed,
then a kind of presbyterianism, followed by a sort of low-church
episcopalianism, which grew into a high-church ritualistic episco-
palianism, then was developed into the form of the Greek church,
into Gallicanism, and finally into ultramontane Catholicism. The
most essential part of this theory is that which respects the transi-
tion from the presbyterian to the episcopal organization of the
church. It is here that the principal effort is made to break the
link of tradition and apostolical succession. And we shall next
proceed to examine the chief allegations from ecclesiastical his-
tory by which this theory is sustained, and to prove more fully
that this supposed transition did not take place, and from the
very nature of the case could not have been accomplished.

THE PRESENT GENERATION.

WAS it always as now ? modern folk I cannot understand.
Only the old are childish, alas ! the children are old.

SCHILLER.

8i6

CHRISTIAN ART.

[Sept.,

CHRISTIAN ART.

RAPHAEL.

RAPHAEL SANZIO, who divides with Michelangelo the palm
of the first painter the world of art has yet seen, was a native
of Urbino, a country-town in the Romagna, lying between the
eastern slope of the Apennine chain and the Adriatic, in the
direction of Fano and Sinigaglia. His father, Giovanni Santi,
was himself a painter of no mean powers, several of whose works
are even now regarded as creditable to the age he lived in. His
son Raphael was born April 6, 1483, in a house still shown
to the traveller. His predilection, for art was early manifested,
his father being his first instructor. But his mother dying when
he was four, and his father when he was twelve, years of age,
young Raphael was placed by his guardians in the studio of
Perugino at Perugia, where he studied for some eight years with
a diligence which never forsook him through life. In the few
works that have been identified as belonging to the early period
of his studies his style, of course, much resembled that of his
master. One of them, the " Sposalizio," or Espousals of the
Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, now in the Brera collection at
Milan, is a close imitation, yet with certain well-marked differ-
ences, of a picture of Perugino's now in the Mus6e at Caen in
France. Raphael's rendering of the impressive scene is familiar
to print-collectors. At the foot of a flight of steps leading up
to a polygonal temple the high-priest is uniting the holy pair.
Joseph, his miraculously flowering wand in one hand, is placing
the ring on the finger of his bride with the other. She, sur-
rounded by her maids, who are only a degree less beautiful and
graceful than herself, accepts the pledge with sweet composure
and lowly reverence. Behind St. Joseph all the disappointed
suitors are breaking the barren wands that indicate the choice of
Heaven not to have fallen upon them. The Virgin stands at the
high-priest's right hand ; but, curiously enough, in the Caen pic-
ture of the scene by Perugino she is standing at his left, as a
bride in Italy would do at the present time ; for, as many of our
readers doubtless know, in the old-fashioned churches of that
country, where the sexes are separated, the women occupy the
epistle side of the sacred edifice. Another picture, less impor-

iSSo.] CHRISTIAN ART. 817

tant, indeed, but hardly less characteristic of the painter's early
style, belongs to the same period, or is even a year earlier, and
is now in the National Collection, London. It is called " The
Young Knight's Dream." A youth in armor lies asleep on his
shield underneath a laurel-tree. Duty, in the shape of a sedate
woman, approaches his head and offers him a naked sword and a
book. Near his feet stands Pleasure, a younger and gayer wo-
man, presenting him with a flower and bidding him enjoy him-
self. The knight is a model of unsophisticated and noble youth.
The background is filled with a rocky landscape suggestive of
Italian mountain-scenery.

In the autumn of 1 504 Raphael made his first acquaintance
with Florence, carrying with him a letter of introduction from
the Duchess of Sora, sister of his patron, the reigning Duke of
Urbino, to Soderini, the gonfaloniere of the republic. Fra Bar-
tolomeo was then at the height of his fame ; Da Vinci, also, had
begun his celebrated " Battle of the Standard " in the Palazzo
Vecchio. From these great artists, as subsequently from Michel-
angelo, young Raphael learnt to improve the manner he had
acquired from Perugino ; and from that period his work enters
into its second or Florentine style. The chief portion of his time
for the next four years was passed in Florence, with an occasional
visit to Perugia, Urbino, and Bologna, in which last place he
contracted a lasting friendship with Francia. Before the close of
this period Michelangelo had finished his " Cartoon of Pisa " in
the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence a work which fascinated every
art-student for a long time after, and no doubt had a perceptible
influence on Raphael's impressionable mind. Among the works
he executed at this time may be mentioned a famous Madonna
painted for the altar of the Servites at Perugia (1505), and now at
Blenheim Palace, near Oxford. The Madonna with her Son is
enthroned under a baldacchino of state, supported on right and
left by St. John Baptist and St. Nicholas a composition full of
beauty and dignity. To the same period also belong several other
exquisite Madonnas of a more domestic character, representing
the Holy Family in homely circumstances, grouped in a meadow,
in a garden, under a palm-tree ; the little Baptist, St. Joseph,
and, less frequently, St. Elizabeth in attendance. At Munich a
great picture in the painter's Florentine style presents a group
arranged in a pyramidal form. Above and behind the Madonna
and St. Elizabeth, who are kneeling on either side of the infant
Christ and the Baptist, stands St. Joseph looking down and leaning
on his staff. This is the Canigiani Madonna ; its somewhat formal

VOL. XXXI. 52

SiS CHRISTIAN ART. [Sept.,

arrangement is redeemed by the beauty of its several portions, the
playful affection of the children, the tender solicitude of the
mothers, and the fostering care of St. Joseph. In all, Raphael
painted above thirty pictures during his residence at Florence
and before he was twenty-five years old.

In 1508 he transferred his residence to Rome at the invitation
of Julius II., to whom the architect Bramante had recommended
the rising young painter as the man best fitted to execute the
pope's large designs for the decoration of the Vatican. In the
same year, also, Michelangelo was brought to Rome to deco-
rate the Sistine Chapel in the same palace. The commencement
of Raphael's Roman residence nearly equally divides his life,
from the date of his entering Perugino's studio to his premature
death at the age of thirty-seven. In attempting to give an intelli-
gible account of the numerous works of art he achieved during
the short space of those twelve years, the selection of the most
important is of course all that our limits will permit. It was the
period of the painter's most fertile production in fresco and in
oil. Most of his works are familiar, in name at least, to a number
of persons who have never seen the originals, and who may be
naturally supposed to be desirous of knowing something about
them. With this view we shall briefly describe as many of them
as our space will allow us. Upwards of thirty years have elapsed
since the writer of these lines had the privilege of examining the
work of Raphael ; but there are occasions when the impression
made upon the memory can be effaced only with life.

We begin with the frescoes in the stanze, or chambers, for-
merly occupied by the popes, but which now bear the name of
Raphael. These are four in number, on the third floor of that
part of the palace which Nicholas V. and Sixtus IV. had rebuilt.
These stanze are approached by open corridors, or galleries, term-
ed loggie, to which we shall presently return, as they contain an
important part of Raphael's decorations. The Stanza or Camera
della Segnatura was the first submitted to Raphael's treatment,
and was finished in 1511. The ceiling is adorned with eight pic-
tures, or groups of allegorical figures, selected in harmony with
the general dedication of the hall to those lofty pursuits of mind
which in a manner dominate all others: theology, philosophy,
poetry, and jurisprudence. Each of the four sides of the hall is
covered by a picture (fifteen feet in height by twenty-five in
width) representing one of these subjects. " Theology " is an
elaborate composition, divided into two parts. In the upper, im-
mediately beneath the Eternal Father and the heavenly choirs,

i88o.] CHRISTIAN ART. 819

Christ is enthroned between his Mother and the Baptist, and in
the midst of a circle of patriarchs and prophets of the Old Law
and apostles of the New. The upper portion of the picture is
connected with the lower by the mystic Dove, symbol of the
Divine Spirit by whose agency " peace is made through the
blood of the cross, both as to the things on earth and the things
that are in heaven " (Col. i. 20). Below is an altar, on which re-
poses the Blessed Sacrament ; and on either side extends an au-
gust circle of popes, bishops, and doctors of the church in solemn
council. On the outside of the great assembly are numerous
spectators of all ages, some listening, others disputing among
themselves. To the presence of the Holy Sacrament is to be as-
cribed the common but incorrect title of the picture, the " Dis-
puta del Sacramento." The subject is not restricted to that sacred
mystery ; it includes the principal representatives of all theology
in every age. On the wall dedicated to philosophy the " School
of Athens " represents the master-minds of ancient Greece gather-
ed together in a vast hall in the Bramante style of architecture ;
Plato and Aristotle occupy the centre of the elevated dais ; near
Plato is Socrates, demonstrating with his fingers a proposition to
Alcibiades, whose easy, voluptuous figure serves as a foil to the
severer attitudes of the philosophers. Arts and sciences occupy
the lower foreground. On the spectator's left is Pythagoras, the
centre of a group of his contemporaries and disciples. On the
right Archimedes is stooping down to construct a geometrical
figure on the ground, his massive bald head a portrait of Bra-
mante. Near him Zoroaster and Ptolemy are carrying, one a ce-
lestial, the other a terrestrial globe. At their side, close to the
edge of the fresco, is the portrait of Raphael himself in atten-
dance on his master, Perugino, the representative of art. In the
midst of all, reclining on the steps, is Diogenes, the Cynic, in
character, shunning and shunned by the company about him.
The animation infused into the whole, its masterly grouping and
the absence of all formality, mark this picture as one of the high-
est efforts of Italian art.

Upon another wall, about the window and over it, poetry is
depicted as a scene on Mount Parnassus, in which Apollo is
seated under a group of laurel-trees, 'playing the violin. About
him are gathered the poets of classical antiquity and of modern
Italy. Old Homer is declaiming verses which a youth is eagerly
taking dow r n. Near him is Dante's solemn head, crowned with a
laurel-wreath, not far from Virgil's more genial countenance.
Those are the epic poets. The lyric include Sappho, Corinna ?

g 20 CHRISTIAN ART. [Sept.,

and Petrarch in one group ; Pindar, Horace, and perhaps Catul-
lus, in another. If " Theology " and " Philosophy " are distin-
guished by dignity, " Poetry " is unsurpassed in its inimitable
gracefulness. As the representative of law, or jurisprudence, a
single picture was rendered impracticable by the position of the
window. In the space above it, therefore, three of the cardinal
virtues, prudence, fortitude, and temperance, are made the sub-
ject of typical groups, and on either side of it civil and ecclesias-
tical law are represented the one by Gregory XL (a portrait of
Julius II.) delivering the Decretals to a consistorial advocate,
and the other by Justinian handing the Pandects to Tribonianus.
The stanza next taken in hand was that of Heliodorus, so nam-
ed from the principal fresco introduced into it, representing th
expulsion of the sacrilegious courtier of King Seleucus from the
Jewish temple (2 Mach. iii. 25). The messengers of divine
justice are upon him, one of them riding over him, two others
with scourges ready to apply to him, while the proceeds of his
robbery are scattered upon the pavement. By an artistic license
Pope Julius is introduced on the opposite side in his sedia gesta-
toria, surrounded by his court, and looking upon the scene of
action as on a distant vision, apart altogether from the emotion
which agitates the crowd of persons present in the temple. An-
other remarkable fresco, disposed around and above the window,
is the " Miracle of Bolsena," commemorative of the legend that
in the year 1263, while an unbelieving priest was celebrating Mass
in presence of the people in the church of Sta. Christina at
Bolsena, the consecrated Host dropped blood. The group is a
very striking one. One end of the altar is turned to the specta-
tor. On his left the tall, graceful figure of the young priest is
drawing slightly backwards on his perceiving what has occurred ;
he raises his right hand, still grasping the Host with his left, with
evident astonishment and irresolution and a shade of self-r
proach. Directly opposite him kneels the pope (again Raphael's
patron, Julius II.), perceiving the occurrence in perfect faith and
betraying no astonishment. Two cardinals behind him look on
with much the same expression ; while among the attendants on
either side some have become aware of the miraculous incident,
and some have not. An examination of their faces at once shows
to which class each of them belongs. " The whole picture," says
Leslie (Hand-Book for Young Painters), " is made up of episodes of
dignity, of grace, and of tenderness such as the mind of Raphael
could alone supply, and which render this, though the theme is
unfavorable, one of the very finest of his works." A third il-

iSSo.] CHRISTIAN ART. 821

lustrative example of the triumph of the Christian Church and its
doctrine is afforded by the fresco on another wall of the Stanza
d'Eliodoro. In it Attila is represented as turned back from the
walls of Rome by the peaceable remonstrances of St. Leo, who is
acting under the visible protection of SS. Peter and Paul. The
fourth side of the chamber represents the deliverance of St. Peter
from prison. On the ceiling- are delineated, in four simple and
grand compositions, promises made by God to Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, and Moses, also prefiguring the future glory of the
church. The whole stanza was finished in 1514. In drawing,
color, and execution it contains the finest of Raphael's frescoes.

Julius II. was by this time dead, and Leo X. sat on the ponti-
fical throne. The change made no difference as to Raphael's em-
ployment. The stanze went on, but more slowly, on account
of numerous other commissions entrusted to the busy painter.
That named Deirincendio, and finished in 1517, contains a pic-
ture of a historical conflagration in the Borgo (a suburb of Rome,
near the Vatican) said to have been miraculously extinguished
by Leo IV. A victory at Ostia over the Saracens, gained under
the same pope, and two memorable passages in the life of Leo
III., complete the wall-fresco subjects in this stanza. But a small
part of their execution is the work of Raphael, who by this time
had a large school of pupils, and set them to work out his de-
signs. The fourth stanza, di Costantino, was not finished till
after the master's death. A word must be added about the
loggie in the Vatican, which we mentioned a little while ago
as containing some of Raphael's work, or at least of his designs.
The loggie are open galleries running round three sides of the
court of St. Damasus, the oldest part of the Vatican palace, and
consisting of several stories. By the second of these access is
gained to the stanze ; and this story Raphael was commissioned
by Leo to decorate. Up the sides and round the windows on the
inner wall are arabesque ornaments, festoons of fruit and flow-
ers, various animals, grouped in forms of the most playful fancy,
though now much injured by time. A variety of stucco orna-
ments in relief represent subjects taken from classical mythology.
The vaulted ceiling and its numerous cupolas are covered with
a series of Scripture incidents on a small scale, chiefly from the
Old Testament, and known as " Raphael's Bible." The master's
hand furnished the drawings, and five of his best pupils copied
them in their places.

Raphael was now a great man in Roman society as well as in
art. He had built a house for himself near the Vatican, where he

822 CHRISTIAN ART. [Sept.,

r^eived cardinals, men of letters, and distinguished artists. He
rejoiced in visits from Da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo ; he corre-
sponded with Francia and with Albrecht Diirer. Cardinal da
Bibbiena consented to his marriage with Maria da Bibbiena, the
cardinal's niece, with a handsome dowry ; and only the. lady'
early death put an end to the project. But nothing of all this
success, which might have cooled the ardor of many men for in-
cessant work, seems ever to have interrupted the application of
the painter to his fascinating art. In order to introduce a little
variety into our narrative we shall now depart for a moment
from the strictly chronological order, and, instead of following
him with his great series of decorations for the Sistine Chapel,
shall first give a rapid sketch of some of the most celebrated
easel-pictures, by which he is probably more widely known at the
present day. We shall then return to the series of his cartoons.

We begin with a Holy Family, now in the Museum, Madrid,
painted during Raphael's residence in Rome, and reckoned his
finest representation of the subject. The group is seated in the
foreground ; behind is the cottage, with St. Joseph at the win-
dow. The infant Christ is on his Mother's knee, one foot resting
in his cradle ; the little Baptist offers him fruits in his panther's
skin. The aged Elizabeth kneels a little behind the Madonna.
This exquisite picture was once in the possession of Charles I. o
England, and after his death was purchased for $10,000 by Philip
IV. of Spain, who on seeing it exclaimed, " This is my pearl ! "
Hence the name of " The Pearl " has attached to it ever since ;
and "never was the serious gentleness of the Blessed Virgin-
Mother, her beauty of form, her -purity of soul, better portrayed,"
in the opinion of Mr. Ford. The same gallery contains a superb
example of the Madonna enthroned, in Raphael's latest style.
On her left stands St. Jerome in the act of reading in a book,
which has been apparently interrupted by the entrance of the
archangel Raphael on the other side, leading by the hand, and
presenting at the throne, young Tobias, the very impersonation
of youthful and confiding innocence. His traditional fish is in
his hand ; hence the title of the picture, " Del Pesce " " Of the
Fish." The infant Christ turns to welcome him, and at the same
time keeps his left hand on the book, as if to mark the place.

The Madonna of Foligno is one of the best-known paintings in
the world, and one of the noblest. Executed originally for the
Franciscan church of the Ara-Cceli in Rome, it now hangs in the
Vatican gallery. Its history adds to its interest. The painter
was commissioned by Sigismund Conti, of Foligno, private secre-

i88o.] CHRISTIAN ART. 823

tary to Julius II., and an author and patron of learning, to exe-
cute a votive picture as an expression of his gratitude for a nar-
row escape from a meteor or thunderbolt which had fallen near
him at Foligno. The Madonna is seated on clouds, and surround-
ed by angels in heavenly glory. Her beautiful Child rests on her
lap and in her arms. Below her feet, in the distance, is the town
of Foligno, in a landscape spanned by a rainbow, and on which a
harmless thunderbolt is falling from a storm-cloud. The spec-
tator sees on his right hand the kneeling figure of the donor,
a portrait evidently from the life ; his upraised face and joined
palms expressing the humblest and deepest gratitude. Behind
him stands his patron, St. Jerome, who lays one hand on the
donor's head, and with the other presents him to the group
above. On the other side of the picture St. John Baptist is
pointing to the Lamb of God ; and in front of him St. Francis
kneels in ecstasy and invokes blessings and graces on the audience
outside. In the central foreground stands one of the winged
cherubs Raphael had the secret of painting, holding a tablet for
an inscription, and looking upwards to his companions above
with that indefinable union of intellect and innocence which dis-
tinguish Raphael's cherubs even above Murillo's. One, but only
one, greater picture of the Incarnation was conceived and exe-
cuted by the master, as we shall presently have occasion to see.
It may perhaps be worth adding that the grateful donor died
(15 1 2) the year after making his offering; and many years after-
wards his grand-niece, Suora Anna Conti, obtained leave to
remove the picture from the Ara-Cceli to the convent at Foligno,
whence it was swept off by the French revolutionary army
along with other art-plunder, and at the general restoration of
such plunder, in 1815, was placed in the Vatican collection.

The Madonna of Foligno is surpassed in beauty of expression
only by the Madonna of " San Sisto." It was painted in one of
the last years of the master's life, for the monks of San Sisto at
Piacenza. Internal evidence shows that it was the work of Ra-
phael's own hand throughout ; no preliminary study or cartoon
was made for it ; it grew direct from the suggestion of his mind,
favored by the executive skill of hand gained by five-and-twenty
years' incessant and intense devotion to the practice of his art.
No sacred picture is more familiar in copies and engravings, yet
neither copy nor engraving gives even approximately a concep-
tion of the surpassing loveliness and majesty of the original.
There stands the Madonna, " the transfigured woman," as Mrs.
Jameson finely says, " at once completely woman and something

824

CHRISTIAN ART.

[Sept.,

more ; an abstraction of power and purity and love, poised on
the empurpled air, requiring no other support, and looking out
with her melancholy, loving mouth, her slightly-dilated, sibylline
eyes, quite through the universe to the end and consummation
of all things."

" There is a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun ;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was with its stored thunder laboring up."

Observe the far-away look, the silent sorrow, in the immortal
eyes of the Child enthroned on her heart ; he looks what he is
" the world's rejected guest." Sixtus, the martyr-pope and pa-
tron of the Benedictine monastery at Piacenza, kneels on the Ma-
donna's right, Barbara on her left, and below two of Raphael's
cherub-creations, suggestive of infantine beauty and God-like in-
telligence. In presence of this admirable work the babble of a
few incompetent critics, who tell us that Raphael, as he grew in
years, lost much of the religious feeling of his early work, falls
upon incredulous ears. No work of any period, Raphael's or an-
other's, is so instinct as this with the incommunicable power
genius to interpret things which the natural eye has not y<
seen, but which divine faith can teach the painter's imagination
to conceive and his cultivated skill to delineate. This unrivalled
picture is now the glory of the Dresden gallery. It was pur-
chased from the monks of San Sisto early in the last century, by
Augustus III., Elector of Saxony, for $32,500.

The public gallery at Bologna possesses a noble picture
Raphael's latest style, dedicated to the praise of St. Cecilia,
troness of music, by the Bentivogli family near Bologna. Th<
saint and martyr of Roman celebrity is standing in the centre
a group consisting of St. John, St. Paul, Magdalene, and St. Au-
gustine. She holds in her hands a small organ, with which she
has been accompanying her song, but lets it droop as she sus-
pends her own performance to listen with rapt attention to a
choir of angels who are singing aloft over her head. Round
about her feet lie scattered fragments of musical instruments.
When the picture was finished Raphael consigned it to his friend
Francia, requesting him to see it safely placed in the church of
its destination. Because the elder painter testified his rapturous
admiration for so masterly a work the idle report went abroad
that his death, which happened soon after (1517), was the result of

i88o.] CHRISTIAN ART. 825

envy and mortification at his own inability to equal it. The
truth of the report, however, will not bear a moment's examina-
tion.

We now retrace our steps chronologically to examine, as briefly
as we can, the great series of sacred pictures known as the Cartoons
of Raphael great (if not in its number, which amounts only to
seven) in size, and still more in artistic execution, so as to form
a unique gallery in itself. These admirable works were brought
from Hampton Court, with Queen Victoria's permission, only a
few years ago, and are now exhibited under glass, in a hall built
expressly for them, at South Kensington, near London.

A few months after the accession of Pope Leo X. he formed
the project of lining the walls of the Sistine Chapel immediately
surrounding the space occupied in sacred functions by the cardi-
nals and the papal throne with costly tapestries worked in pat-
terns of ecclesiastical history, so as to complete the general de-
sign of the decoration as we described it under the life of Mi-
chelangelo. Raphael, who was then engaged in another part of
the Vatican, was accordingly directed to prepare working-draw-
ings, as we may call them, to be sent to Arras, in French Flan-
ders, and copied in the tapestry-looms in wool, silk, and gold.
The original plan included eleven designs, only seven of which
now remain. They are drawn and colored in tempera, on paste-
board or very thick paper, called in Italian cartone, hence their
name of cartoons. The height of each is twelve feet, the length
varying from thirteen to nineteen. The figures are larger than
life-size. The first subject, in point of time, is the " Miraculous
Draught of Fishes " (St. Luke v.) Two fishing-boats are afloat
on the Sea of Galilee. The moment of success, after a night of
failure, has come ; they are filled to overflowing, and St. Peter,
yielding to a sudden impulse of gratitude, throws himself at
Christ's feet in the boat, and ejaculates, " Depart from me." His
brother, Andrew, stands behind him. Other disciples in the ad-
joining boat are dragging their netful of fish with painful effort
to the surface. The populous shore stretches far away into the
distance under the blue sky and lapped by the light-green water.
This beautiful composition is the work of Raphael's own hand,
with the exception of the fish and the cranes (or herons), of which
the minute finish attests the skill of his pupil, Da Udine. " The
Redeemer's Charge to Peter " (St. John xxi.) is delivered also on
the banks of the Sea of Galilee, in presence of eleven apostles
grouped together with admirable effect. The figure of Christ, in
a loose gray robe, is full of majesty as he stands before the kneel-

826

CHRISTIAN ART.

[Sept.,

ing Peter, to whom he is delivering the symbolic keys, while
pointing with his other hand to the representative sheep and
lambs behind him. The greater part of this cartoon was paint-
ed by Penni, a distinguished pupil. Regarding it Leslie says:
" Look at the attitude and expression of the kneeling saint; at the
earnestness and love with which St. John presses forward to his
Master ; and at the surprise and reverential awe, mingled witl
something of fear, that prevent the rest of the disciples from cms
tering round their Lord! " There is something more than that
in the faces of several something of the old jealousy which once
prompted them to inquire which of them should be the greatest.

Raphael's hand is shown in many details of the " Miracle at
the Beautiful Gate " (Acts iii.) in the cripple at the side, and sev-
eral of the heads, particularly that of the young woman with her
child, and of another carrying a basket of doves on her head.
For the splendor of its accessories no other cartoon can be
compared to this. The many and richly-decorated pillars of the
temple-portico form an architectural setting of superb design
well suited to the dignity of the two apostles who are engaged
with the lame man in the centre. If the deformity of some of the
figures is great, and even, perhaps, grotesque, the loveliness and
grace of others more than compensate for it. Thus far the
mercy and compassion of God in the history of the church has
been set forth. Place must now be found for the il terrors of the
Lord." " The Death of Ananias " (Acts v.) powerfully reveals the
fate of the hypocrite who dared to " lie unto God." The car-
toon, as a whole, is reckoned the finest of the series. Most of the
heads are the work of the master himself. The apostles stand on
an elevated platform ; St. Peter, in the centre, rigid as iron, pro-
nounces the doom of the miserable man before him, who falls in
the agonies of death, while the bystanders start aside with fear
and horror. Yet even at such a moment judgment is tempered
with mercy, as we are taught by the figure of St. John, at one
side, distributing alms to a group of the poor.

" The Sorcerer Elymas struck with Blindness " (Acts xiii.) is
another, though less appalling, representation of divine power in
punishing. Blindness, not death, has fallen on the sorcerer who
had attempted to dissuade the Roman proconsul from listening
to St. Paul. The apostle's figure is magnificent an adaptation
from one in the Brancacci chapel, Florence, long attributed to
Masaccio, and now known to be the work of the elder Lippi.
The magistrate, surrounded by his court, is the astonished spec-
tator of the instantaneous punishment fallen on Elymas, who

i88o.] CHRISTIAN ART. 827

from an attitude of proud defiance has sunk to the abject and
helpless position of one groping in the dark in the presence of
his former dupes. Even here beneficence turns evil to good : a
Latin inscription on the pedestal of the magistrate's seat an-
nounces that " Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Asia, embraces the
Christian faith at the preaching of Saul." " Paul and Barnabas
at Lystra " (Acts xiv.), in point of life-like action and decorative
enrichment, ranks very high in the series. The moment chosen is
that when the grateful multitude insist on offering divine honors
to the men whom they have seen restore health and motion to
the cripple. The ram and the ox are ready for sacrifice ; the
axe of the priest is on the point of descending ; fire is kindled on
the altar ; a boy bears a box of incense, another

" Pipes to the spirit ditties of no tone."

The mob presses around the cripple, now perfectly cured. Some
are exulting ; others, in a different mood, already give token of the
revulsion of opinion which a few hours later nearly cost the
apostles their lives. Paul rends his garment in deprecation of
the impiety about to be enacted. So many features of the event
was Raphael able to represent and bind together into one har-
monious whole in this the most dramatically conceived of all the
cartoons.

We have reached the last, " St. Paul preaching at Athens "
(Acts xvii.) As a pictorial composition nothing could be finer,
or, in point of historical learning, more fully furnished. The
apostle is standing at the top of a flight of marble steps, clothed
in more than his wonted power, and urging his plea with impas-
sioned eloquence on the circle of philosophers and others about
him. We can imagine him addressing them in their vernacular
Greek : " For Christ therefore we are ambassadors, God as it
were exhorting by us. For Christ, we beseech you, be reconciled
to God " (2 Cor. v. 20). His audience comprises representations
of four or five distinct sects of Greek philosophy. Behind the
apostle, in the order we enumerate them, is a Cynic, a Stoic,
and a disciple of Plato. The first two are utterly without sym-
pathy ; they are mentally refuting every word as it falls. The
Platonist listens with interest, as to a sublime speculation not
destitute of ideas in common with his own system. In front of
the speaker, among a promiscuous group of listeners and dis-
putants, a man is standing with his finger on his lip, a sign
of the Pythagorean noviceship of silence. On his left an Epi-
curean is enjoying the apostle's fervid eloquence, without a

828

CHRISTIAN ART.

[Sept.,

thought of its bearing upon life and conduct. Next to him is a
wicked old pagan, his emotions of terror and hatred combined
imparting a strange fixity to his scowl. The last of that group is
a remarkable figure. His head is bent, his eyes forcibly closed,
his whole figure wrapped in his cloak ; he seems to think from
head to foot, as was remarked by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Between
buildings in the background two Jewish doctors are passing in
deep debate; and in the immediate foreground the animated
faces of Dionysius and Damaris, the converts, testify their con-
viction and consequent gratitude and joy. That the whole scene
is passing in the Areopagus (or Mars Hill) we are reminded by
seeing the temple and statue of Mars behind the audience.

Such, in brief, are the world-famous cartoons. A critic, who
was himself a painter of no common order, remarks: "They
make one present at the scenes they represent more than the
works of any other painter who has treated similar subjects.
It is only in the recollection of the cartoons that I fancy I have
seen the apostles."

The tapestries they were employed in making were finished
and hung in the Sistine in 1519. The priceless cartoons mean-
while lay in the warehouse at Arras, cut up into slips, as the
weavers had used them, neglected and forgotten. Thus four of
them altogether perished. A century later Rubens heard of
them, and, on his visit to England, advised Charles I. to buy
them for the use of his tapestry manufactory. The king did so,
and they were imported into England in slips two feet wide. At
the sale of the royal art-treasures Oliver Cromwell bought them
for 300 for the nation. Louis XIV. of France took a fancy to
them, and very nearly prevailed on Charles II. to part with them.
The treasurer, Lord Danby, however, remonstrated, and the car-
toons remained in England. But nobody could make any use of
them, and it was reserved for " Dutch William " to rescue them
from a lumber-room in Whitehall, to order them to be put to-
gether again, and finally placed in a room prepared for them at
Hampton Court Palace by Sir Christopher Wren. As we men-
tioned above, they are now housed at South Kensington Museum,
London, and constantly under the eye of young art-students.

If we have appeared to dwell at somewhat undue length on a
series of works which after all are not popularly regarded as of
the highest class, we shall plead in justification two considera-
tions, either of which, it appears to us, makes a tolerably full ac-
count of the cartoons a necessary part of our sketch of Christian
art and its history, (i.) Had Raphael left behind him no other

1 88o.]

CHRISTIAN ART.

829

memorial of his powers the cartoons alone would have entitled
him to the first rank among painters. This is a point on which
there can be but one opinion among competent judges. And (2)
it is equally beyond dispute that nothing in the whole range
of art is entitled to equal rank, or even to second rank, with the
cartoons, except, it may be, other works of the same hand that
designed them, or of the hand of his great and only rival, Michel-
angelo. There is nothing like them in the history of painting.
When we remember that they were designed as patterns for the
tapestry decoration of a chapel, on sheets of paper, and lightly
washed in with water-color, rapidly planned and rapidly exe-
cuted, it excites astonishment at the genius that could make them
more precious than many times their weight in gold by the
various wealth of imaginative thought, and artistic composition,
and inimitable execution he knew how to embody with means so
slender. Raphael received $750 for his designs. The weavers of
Arras were paid, on the lowest computation, $35,000 for the
tapestries woven after their pattern. The tapestries, we "believe,
are still in the Vatican, though much faded ; but there can be
little doubt that in money value alone, not to speak of art, they
and their paper patterns have changed places.

If Raphael could have foreseen that his thirty-seventh birth-
day was to be the last day of his life, he could not have labored
more assiduously than he did to " redeem the time " and fill up
the measure of his work. In addition to all his other engage-
ments, during the last six years of his life he held the post of
architect of St. Peter's, vacant on the death of Bramante ; and
with Raphael the office was no sinecure. To a limited extent, also,
he practised sculpture. We have referred only to a few of his pic-
tures, of a sacred character, and to none of a secular or mytho-
logical, of which he executed several, to the admiration of the
Roman society, which then much affected subjects of that kind.
That society was much divided as to the comparative merits of
Raphael and Michelangelo. An opportunity of testing the matter
occurred soon after Cardinal Giulio de' Medici's appointment to
the archbishopric of Narbonne in France. Raphael was commis-
sioned to paint a picture of the " Transfiguration " for the cathe-
dral. At the same time, as his great rival would not condescend
to compete openly, the " Raising of Lazarus " was proposed to
Sebastian del Piombo, a Venetian artist and a friend of Michel-
angelo a subject in which it is understood that the great decora-
tor of the Sistine ceiling sketched with his own hand several of the
figures, and notably that of Lazarus. When this picture was

830

CHRISTIAN ART.

[Sept.,

finished it was sent to Narbonne, whence, by way of the Orleans
gallery, it found its way to England, where it is now in the Na-
tional Collection. The other was unfinished when the master
laid down his pencil for ever. Into the upper portion he lived
long enough to infuse all the witchery of his art, all the sublim-
ity of his mature imagination, leaving it to his best pupil, Giulio
Romano, to complete the lower portion of the work. A short
description of it will appropriately close our history of Christian
art ; for in truth, and without prejudging the possibilities of the
future, no painter has ever hitherto approached the elevation of
that work. Captious objections have been taken to its double
character, the only conclusive answer to which is to insist again
on the essential distinction between a historical and a devo-
tional work to which reference was made at an earlier point in
our history. The lower portion of the picture in question re-
presents the scene described in the Gospel as having occurred
the day after the transfiguration (St. Luke ix.) The epileptic boy
is brought by his parents to the nine apostles who did not accom-
pany Christ to the mountain. They can do nothing but point to-
wards the place whence they look for his return, and bid the dis-
tressed parents wait for him. Up above, on the summit of the
typical Mount Thabor, the glorious scene is passing exactly as it
is described in the Gospel. The three privileged apostles, in
various characteristic attitudes, are struck down by the " intolera-
ble day " which is falling upon them, and in the midst of which
the transfigured Redeemer is floating in virtue of his own inhe-
rent immunity from the weight of gravitation. We say " inhe-
rent/' because his transfiguration consisted not in his assuming,
but in his disclosing, the endowments of the spiritual and glori-
fied body, which belonged of right to his natural body, as pos-
sessing the Beatific Vision, although, at his pleasure, suspended
"in the intercourse of human hours." Buoyancy is suggested by
the upward direction of his garments. His countenance shines
like the sun ; those garments of his are white as snow. His
arms are extended, as if on a cross, in distinct allusion to the con-
versation about his approaching decease at Jerusalem which he
held, as we know, with Moses and Elias, who hover on either side
in attitudes of adoration. It is a disputed question, and likely al-
ways to remain so, whether this ecstatic countenance is not, on the
whole, the nearest approach ever achieved by art to a representa-
tion of the face of God made man, or whether it is not surpassed
in expressive beauty by Da Vinci in the " Last Supper," or by
Raphael himself in his great fresco of " Theology " in the Vati-

i88oj CHRISTIAN ART. 831

can Stanza delta Scgnatura. We shall not attempt to pronounce a
decision on a matter which is one of feeling rather than of artis-
tic rules. The devotional, and in this instance the vision-like,
character of the picture is further illustrated by the introduction
of SS. Lawrence and Julian as spectators of the scene. The
donor of the picture, afterwards Clement VII., requested that the
patrons of his father Lorenzo and his uncle Giuliano de' Medici
might be thus represented as an act of filial piety. This great
picture, when finished, was deemed too precious to be sent to
Narbonne ; it was placed in the cardinal's titular church of San
Pietro in Montorio. The French carried it off to Paris in 1797,
and when their art-plunder was restored to Italy the " Trans-
figuration " was placed in the Vatican in the same chamber with
Domenichino's " Last Communion of St. Jerome " the admira-
tion of all visitors, and the despair of a succession of copyists.

We have thus endeavored to follow Raphael's career as a reli-
gious painter more especially, compelled by limits of space to
leave out of sight the eighty-odd portraits of contemporary popes,
prelates, and princes who sat to him, his frescoes in several Ro-
man churches, and one or two examples of his proficiency in the
plastic arts. In the spring of 1520 he caught a violent cold, which
induced fever, and terminated fatally on April 6, the thirty-sev-
enth anniversary of his birth. He was laid out in state in his
studio, and when the Roman people who crowded to view his re-
mains saw suspended over his pale head the last unfinished work
of his " divine " pencil, " the heart of every one who looked upon
it," says a bystander, "was ready to burst with grief." They
buried him in the Pantheon (Sta. Maria ad Martyres) by his ex-
press desire, near the tomb of Maria da Bibbiena, whom he was
to have married. There is sufficient evidence to show that, had
he lived only a little longer, Leo X. or Clement VII. would have
made him a cardinal.

We have lately been told by an English statesman, in a tone of
playful sarcasm, that the reign of Madonnas, and sacred pictures
generally, is over ; that painters would do well to take historical
events, turning-points in the national fortunes, as subjects wor-
thier of their art. But as it is much easier to talk about art than
to practise it, we wait to see whether painters will take the
hint and what they will make of it. They seem, however, un-
accountably slow to move in that direction. Till they do so we
may be pardoned the serious doubt whether secular subjects will
ever animate the artist to higher reaches of expressive skill than
the old masters attained under the influence, we had almost said

832

THREE WEIGHTY AXIOMS.

[Sept.,

the inspiration, of Madonnas and sacred subjects. If art is ever
to move forward to a yet more eminent height than that to which
Michelangelo and Raphael carried it, we are persuaded it will
only be under a similar inspiration. Battles and victories by
land or sea, signings of Magna Chartas, of Bills of Right, of
Declarations of Independence, or other memorable treaties, may
produce acres of colored canvas, as in the galleries of Versailles
and Fontainebleau, but no picture to rivet the eye and move the
heart with one-tenth of the force with which the least celebrated
of Raphael's hundred and twenty Madonnas appeals to every
mother and son that looks upon her. We should even anticipate
a higher and nobler future for landscape than for political sub-
jects. The finer and the grander features of landscape, in its
largest sense, if regarded as reflections of beauty and of power
from the face of Nature, which is a creation of God, might well
attract the skilled master of painting to make himself their inter-
preter to his fellows, and bid them also admire and honor the
Creator in his work. But the highest path of all must surely be
that which leads to the contemplation, and it may be to the re-
presentation, of events and mysteries to which the race of man-
kind owes its redemption, and its hope, at some not very distant
day, of reaching the companionship of the immortals and the vis-
ion of God.

THREE WEIGHTY AXIOMS.

TRANSLATION FROM SCHILLER.

THREE axioms pregnant with import I name,
Which orally to men their fellow-men impart,
Yet from no source to man extrinsic came,
Springing spontaneous from the human heart ;
And he despoils himself of manhood's dignity
Who ceases to believe these axioms three.

Man is by nature free, and free remains,

Though loaded from his birth with heaviest chains.

Do not believe or love this axiom less

Because abused it leads to wild excess.

Dread not the slave who wins his liberty,

Grudge not to free-born men that they are free.

CA TALOGUES OF MSS. IN THE VA TICAN LlBRAR Y. 833

Virtue is not a name of empty sound ;

Its rules, by deeds, men can to life apply.

Though failures everywhere abound,

Man, none the less, has power to aim on high.

Something above the highest reason's ken

Is oft fulfilled by simple, childlike men.

There is a God, a living holy Will,
Changeless, above all wavering human minds,
Whose presence boundless time and space doth fill,
And changeful, restless things in order binds.
He is the Mind Supreme, the Sovereign Best,
Who rules all movement, in himself at rest.

These three most weighty axioms which I name,
Hold fast yourself, to other men impart,
They from no source to man extrinsic came,
But spring spontaneous in the human heart.
So long as man believes these axioms three,
He cannot be despoiled of manhood's dignity.

THE CATALOGUES OF THE MANUSCRIPTS IN THE
VATICAN LIBRARY. I .*

UPON the first announcement in the columns of the Aurora
that His Holiness Leo XIII. had instituted a commission to
supervise the publication of catalogues of the manuscripts in the
Vatican Library, the wise decree elicited applause from scholars
throughout Italy, beyond the Alps, and far over the sea. The
applause was repeated by the periodical press, and was swelled
by congratulatory letters from the most competent judges in
similar matters, addressed to His Eminence Cardinal Pitra,
librarian of the Holy Roman Church and president of the com-
mission. The illustrious Leopold Delisle, compiler of the cata-

* The London Times, in a long editorial, enthusiastically applauded the decree of His Holi-
ness relative to the publication of the catalogues of the codices in the Vatican Library. We
are happy to find these sapient projects of the Sovereign Pontiff, Leo XIII., greeted with favor
even amongst Protestants. But the editorial aforesaid speaks of the Vatican Library as a
mysterious hiding-place of unknown treasures, hitherto permitted to few to examine, forgetting
apparently that that library is frequented by the studious of every nationality, and that its
codices have long furnished and continue still to supply material for every kind of learned pub-
lication, especially in this present century. We purpose, therefore, in these pages to give ac-
curate and authentic information relative to the decreed publication of the Vatican catalogues.
VOL. XXXI. 53

834 CA TALOGUES OF MSS. IN THE VA TICAN LlBRAR Y. [Sept.,

logues of the manuscripts in the National Library of Paris,
skilled in the art of dealing with the history of codices, in the
Bibliotheque de V Ecole de Chartres qualities this undertaking of the
Sovereign Pontiff as a grand event in the republic of letters. To
fulfil this awakened expectancy the writer deems it fitting to
set forth some brief and exact information relative to the Vati-
can catalogues, and to the practical mode determined upon
by the commission to ensure their publication with all possible
promptitude and accuracy.

Probably no one of the greater libraries of Europe, however
rich in codices, possesses catalogues or indexes so copious and so
accurate as those of the Vatican. This fact, well known to the
learned of all nationalities who have made use of the Vatican
catalogues, and verified by the writer himself during his re-
searches among manuscripts in Italy, France, Germany, Austria,
and England, may appear scarcely credible to those who give
heed to vulgar prejudices that would fain conceal from the very
officials of the library the unexplored treasures of the Vatican.
Concise, positive, and precise information will suffice to banish all
false ideas.

The history of the Vatican catalogues should begin at a very
remote age, and even prior to the time of the celebrated Platina,
who described the codices of the Apostolic Library committed to
his care, and placed by Pope Sixtus IV. in a more fitting locality.
These indexes or catalogues of the fifteenth century, and the fol-
lowing of the sixteenth century, are numerous, and deserve to be
brought to light. Scholars, especially Greith, * and more recent-
ly the illustrious Baron de Reumont, f have commented them
repeatedly. But these are now merely precious documents
of literary history ; we have far more voluminous and accurate
catalogues, compiled successively during the course of nearly
three centuries from 1600 down to our own time, well adapted to
the service of the library and for daily researches.

In 1620, or thereabout, the brothers Rinaldi had already com-
pleted the first six large volumes of the catalogue of the La-
tin codices, together with the enormous folio of the alphabeti-
cal index. Volume vii. was added during the years following.
About the same time the volumes of the Greek codices, three in
number, were brought to completion. When, in 1623, the famous
Palatine Library was removed from Heidelberg to Rome, it was
catalogued in two volumes, one Latin, the other Greek. Next

* Greith, Spicilegium Vaticanum. Frauenfeld, 1838.
t Archivio Storico Italiano, new series, t. viii. p. 132.

1 8 80.] CATALOG UES OF MSS. IN THE VA TIC AN LIBRAR Y. 835

came the Urbino Library and the Alexandrina, collected by
Christina, Queen of Sweden, and Rome soon accomplished the
compilation of the requisite catalogues in four volumes, three
Latin and one Greek, for the former, one Latin and one Greek
for the latter.* The codices of Oriental tongues were all classi-
fied in a special volume. Thus at the close of the seventeenth
century the Vatican Library had already in use nineteen im-
mense tomes of her catalogues, besides those of indexes and alpha-
betical repertories. And all this was the work of experts, writers
of learned languages, attached to the library, under the direction
of the librarians, the most erudite and illustrious scholars and
paleographers of that most cultivated age Nicholas Alemanni,
Leo Allatius, Felix Contelori,' Luke Holstenius, Emanuel Schel-
stratus, and others.

No less active and fruitful was the work of the succeeding,
eighteenth, century. The library having been enriched by the
acquisition of the Ottoboniana and Capponiana collections, the
codices therein contained had their special catalogues. That of
the Ottoboni is in two volumes, Greek and Latin, compiled in
the Vatican. Ruggeri, in the history of the library of Cardinal
Ottoboni, edited by Cardinal Mai, deplores the loss of the indexes
thereof compiled by the celebrated Francis Bianchini. The writer
has happily discovered them amongst the papers of that remark-
able man now in the Capitolare Library f at Verona, the inesti-
mable cases of which were freely thrown open to him, thanks to
the well-known courtesy of the erudite librarian, Mgr. Giuliari.
But during the last century the treasures of the Vatican Library
were largely increased, especially by the purchase of codices in
Oriental languages, and by the learned studies of the Assemani,
who were a noble family, or rather dynasty of Orientalists, sum-
moned from Libanus to Rome, and for more than two-thirds of a
century entrusted with the guardianship of the greatest library
of the world by the learned pontiffs, Clement XI. and his suc-
cessors. The Assemani, under the auspices and by order of
Benedict XIV., and assisted by Cardinal Quirini, then libra-

* The ancient index or inventory of the library of the Dukes of Urbino was published by
Cavalier Guasti in the Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani, vi., vii.

t The Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona is one of the most important collections in Italy for
sacred and patristic literature, and is yet an unexplored mine for the historical, ecclesiastical,
and liturgical inquirer. It was first formed by Pacificus, Archdeacon of Verona (778-846), and
contains some very early manuscripts, even of the fourth and fifth centuries ; many of them are
palimpsests. Niebuhr, who visited this library in 1816, discovered great part of the Institutes of
Gains palimpsested beneath the Homilies of St. Jerome. Another palimpsest is a Virgil of the
third or fourth century under a commentary by St. Gregory on the Book of Job, in Lombard
characters of the eighth century. This library likewise contains inedited poems by Dante.

836 CATALOGUES OF MSS. IN THE VATICAN LIBRARY. [Sept.,

rian of the Holy Roman Church, undertook the mighty task of
printing the Vatican catalogues, and issued three volumes, in
folio, of the Oriental manuscripts. The fourth volume, which
had reached the tenth folio, was unfortunately consumed in a tire
that occurred in the private residence of the authors. This
publication, so successfully begun, and so unhappily interrupted
by the catastrophe above named, remained long neglected by
reason of the death of the compilers ; still, the design was by no
means s;iven up, and in the pontificate of Pius VI. Father Fran-
cesco Antonio Zaccaria, S.J., advised the publication of the
Greek and Latin catalogues.* Then came the political disasters
of the close of the last and of the early years of the present cen-
tury. Peace finally restored to Europe, Pius VII. invited to Rome
the celebrated Angelo Mai, later cardinal, and the enterprise was
resumed and rapidly urged forward by the manifold, unwearied
industry of that famous discoverer of the palimpsests. But the
history of the publication of the Vatican catalogues, its original
programme, and the present programme as conceived by the
provident mind of Leo XIII., will form the special theme of a
second article. Now \ve must conclude the history of the manu-
script compilation, the basis and material of the publication, and
of the printed volumes issued and to come.

Towards the end of the last and during^ the first twenty years
of the present centuries the indexes of Vatican codices increased
in proportion to the growing acquirements in similar treasures,
principally owing to the labors of one of their custodians, Gaetano
Battaglini, and to the stimulus of the celebrated Gaetano Marini.
Thus were compiled volumes viii., ix., x. of the Latin section ; one
of the Greek, containing the Basilian and other codices of recenl
acquisition ; one of the Palatine Greek codices returned to Rome
from Paris in 1814. In the pontificate of Pius IX., of holy mem-
ory, volume xi. of the Latin codices was completed, thanks
to the voluntary collaboration of the writers in Oriental lan-
guages. Volume xii. was not completed at the time of the dis-
aster of September, 18^0.

At that date the Sovereign Pontiff instituted a special commis-
sion of the principal officials of the Apostolic Library, presided
over by the cardinal librarian of the Holy Roman Church,f to ex-
amine the state of the great literary treasure, and to provide for

* See Lunadoro, Relat. of the Court of Rome, enlarged and commented by Francesantonio
Zaccaria. Rome, 1774, page 237.

t The commission was composed of His Eminence Cardinal Pitra, president ; Mgr. Asinari di
San Marzano, first custodian ; Mgr. Martinucci, second custodian ; Prof. Luigi Vincenzi, writer in
Hebrew ; Commander John Baptist De Rossi, archaeologist and writer in Latin.

i88o.] CATALOGUES OF MSS. IN THE VATICAN LIBRARY. 837

the speedy termination of the work, rendered more urgent by the
condition of the Holy See, it being desirable that nothing should
remain unclassified and undescribed. Due report having been
made to the Pope, and the requisite extraordinary staff of amanu-
enses and caligraphists provided, before five years had passed
volume xii. of the Latin series was brought to a conclusion ; vol-
ume xiii. compiled in its entirety ; volume x., which was still in
a mere crude state, wholly recompiled ; the alphabetical in-
dexes of the new Latin volumes properly drawn up, and those
of the Greek, the Basilian, and other Oriental codices revised.
These new volumes accurately describe the precious documents
and ancient codices bequeathed to the library by Cardinal Angelo
Mai, who so illustrated it in our own time, and likewise the vo-
luminous collection of essays upon the history of Italian authors
by Mazzucchelli, generously donated to the Vatican Library by
his great-grandson, Count Giovanni Mazzucchelli.*

Such is a concise, hurried, and by far too imperfect history of
the labors undertaken during the last three centuries for the pur-
pose of fully describing the contents of the manuscript books in
the Vatican Library. We know of none of the larger libraries
of Europe, possessing an ever-increasing number of manuscripts,
which can boast more constant or more successful efforts on the
part of its own people to classify properly all its literary treas-
ures. In subsequent pages we purpose treating of the publica-
tion of this grand work, and of the plans of the commission to
carry out the wise designs and purposes of the Sovereign Pontiff,
Leo XIII. , which promise such advantages to students and to in-
vestigators of documents of ancient and modern learning and of
sacred and profane history.

PUBLICATION OF CATALOGUES OF MANUSCRIPTS IN THE VATI-
CAN LIBRARY.
I.

Having in the foregoing pages briefly set forth the history of
the immense and lasting work of the catalogues of the codices
now in use in the Vatican Library, it behooves me to do the same
in regard to the history of their publication, long since begun,
carried forward, and interrupted. It would be a grave error to
view as an easy and simple task the publication of catalogues of
manuscripts, especially those of the more extensive libraries, or
to attribute delays and interruptions solely to negligence, and

* See Enrico Narducci Upon the Life of Count G. M. Mazzucchelli and ^lpon the Collection
of his Manuscripts^ now possessed by the Vatican Library. Rome, 1867.

838 CATALOGUES OF MSS. IN THE VATICAN LIBRARY. [Sept,

possibly even to malevolence. The learned and expert in similar
matters will judge far more equitably and sensibly. The many
obstacles attending a practical and facile mode of giving to such
amplified catalogues a form adapted to publication were seriously
discussed in the International Congress of Librarians, held in
London in 1877.* In the National Library of Paris, which, re-
lative to the number of codices, rivals, perhaps, more than any
other that of the Vatican, the publication of catalogues of manu-
scripts began in 1739, and, after volume iv., issued in 1744, was
up to the present time discontinued. In order practically to
take up the files, interrupted for one hundred and twenty years,
the illustrious Leopold Delisle was forced, at least for the present,
to issue a simple and rather brief summary thereof, t In like
manner the other great libraries of Europe, abandoning the pomp
and show of exhaustive and extended catalogues, have adopted
the style of laconic indexes and tables, as we see in the classical
inventories recently published in Germany, in Austria, and in
England.;): The catalogues of manuscripts and their public notice
in many libraries are as yet in so imperfect a state that the entire
subject is treated of in special and comprehensive volumes for
Belgium, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Ger-
many^ Premising this, I deem it opportune to consider and sum
up the history of the publication of 'the Vatican catalogues, not
separately, but in connection with that of the vicissitudes and the
progress of that substantial portion of bibliographic criticism. It
will be . manifest that the publication of catalogues of codices,
both in the Vatican and in the other libraries of Europe, has pro-
ceeded with the same judgment and after the same plan. Whilst

* See Mondino, Short Account of the First International Congjess of Librarians, held in Lon-
don, October, 1877, addressed to H. E. the Minister of Public Instruction, Palermo, 1878 ; and
also Mandarini (Oratorian, Prefect of the Library of the Hieronymites of Naples), The First
International Congress of Librarians, etc., Naples, 1879. (From the periodical La Carita, a. xiv.
quad, v.)

t Delisle, Inventaire des Manuscrits conserves a la BibliotJieque ImpSriale (later National)
faisant suite a la slrie dont le catalogue a dt publid en 1744. Paris, 1863, 1868, 1869, 1870,
1871. Inventaire g'tntral et mtthodique des MSS. frangais de la Bibl. Nationale ; t. i., Theolo-
gie. Paris, 1876.

JSee the Tabula Codicum MSS. in bibl. palatina Vindobon. asservatorum^ vol. i.-viii.,
Vienna?, , 1864-75. Halm, Laubmann, Meyer, Thomas, Catalogus codd. lat. bibl. regies Mona-
censis, Monac. 1868-1876. Coxe, Catal. codd. MSS. qui in collegiis Oxon. adservantur ; Catal.
codd. MSS. Grczc. bibl. Bodleiance ; Codd. Laudiani nunc in bibl. Bodleiana, Codd. Gr. et
Lat, Canoniciani bibl. Bodl., Oxonii, 1852, 1853, 1858. Hackman, Codd. T. Tanneri nunc in
bibl. Bodl., Oxonii, 1860. Kitcher, Catal. codd. MSS. in bibl. cedis Christi, Qxonii, 1867. Macray,
Codd. R. Rawlinsonis in bibl. Bodl., Oxonii, 1862-1878.

See Ulysses Robert, Etat des catalogues des MSS. des Ubliothlques de Belgique et de Hoi-
lande, Paris, 1878 ; the same, Inventaire des MSS. conserves dans les bibliotheques de France
dont catalogue riapas encore ete imprime'. I have not at hand the recent works of Petzholdt,
and of Rullmann upon the libraries of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

iSSo.] CATALOGUES OF MSS. IN THE VATICAN LIBRARY. 839

recognizing the justice of the praise actually awarded the learned
pontiff for the energetic and definitive impulse given to the in-
terrupted publication, still the true causes of said lamentable in-
termission in nowise differed for Rome from those which at the
same time hampered and retarded the compilation and long hin-
dered the publication in other greater and lesser libraries of the
most cultivated and active nations. I shall start from somewhat
remote times, in order to picture fully, although briefly, the grand
idea of bibliographic history which I have undertaken to de-
lineate, which, together with the preceding pages, will form a
sketch of the annals and of the vicissitudes of the library of the
Apostolic See in modern times.

The catalogues and indexes compiled prior to the fourteenth
century had ordinarily a character and an aim not so much lite-
rary and scientific as for the interest of the possessors and for the
preservation and completeness of the libraries themselves, since
in that era of regeneration of letters it was more requisite to re-
establish the public frequentation of and study in the libraries them-
selves than to compile catalogues of their contents. Let us glance
hurriedly at the state of libraries in the fourteenth century as com-
pared with that of the anterior period of the middle ages. The
public libraries of the imperial times having been destroyed and
dispersed during the invasions of the barbarians, there still re-
mained those of the churches.* Already in the first centuries the
Roman Church had her scrinium, her archives, and her libraries,
upon which much has been written, and more remains yet to be
said. The fourth century witnessed the institution of the still
daily increasing monastic libraries, rich in sacred codices, and by
no means poor in classical books and writers. f The arrange-
ment, the decoration, and even the lighting of the monastic libra-
ries of the sixth century would compete somewhat favorably
with the public libraries and reading-halls of our own day. By
night said libraries were lighted by mechanical laixterns, qua hu-
mano ministero cessante prolixe custodiebant uberrimi luminis clari-

* Regarding the libraries of the churches see Cancellieri, De Secret, basil. Vat., i. p. 325
et seq., and the splendid quarto volume of the Nouveanx melanges d? archeologie by the illustri-
ous Pere Cahier, entitled Bibliolheques (Paris, 1877) ; the excellent article Bibliothlques chre-
tiennes in the Dictionnaire d* archeologie chretienne, by the learned Mgr. Martigny, to which
little can be added by Prof. Kraus in his Real-encykloptzdie der Christ I. Alterthiimer now in
course of publication, Freiburg im Br., 1880.

t See (besides the classic works of Mabillon) Martigny, 1. c. art. Moz'nes, vi. ; and the pro-
legomena of the learned Abbot Tosti, O.S.B., in" the celebrated Bzbliotheca Cassinensis, t. i. p. ii.
and following.

840 CA TALOGUES OF MSS. IN THE VA TICAN LlBRAR Y. [Sept.,

tatem daily and nightly clocks measured time to the studious.*
The Roman library of San Gregorio in clivo Scauri possessed a
magnificent series of codices duly arranged in a noble hall, the
walls of which were adorned with portraits of well-known au-
thors.f So well ordered and exhaustive a collection of books
could not be wanting in catalogues ; and, in fact, we have more
than one specimen thereof dating from the tenth century. The
entire copies and the remaining fragments of ancient catalogues
of codices are of great utility to literary history ; a precious col-
lection of similar documents of the ninth century relating to
the monasteries of the region of the Rhine is contained in Vol-
ume Vat. Pal. 18774 Those antique catalogues indeed attempt-
ed a species of classification of contents, and employed alpha-
betical indexing ; their exactitude is such as to enable us actu-
ally to recognize with certainty the remaining codices described
in those primitive mventories.g We find examples of this as
early as the thirteenth century.

But in the fourteenth century the monastic libraries had fallen
into a most deplorable state ; nor were those of the basilicas and
of the cathedral churches in much better condition. In Rome,
thanks to the struggles between the Papacy and the empire, irre-
parable damage was wrought not only to the libraries but to the
very archives of the Holy Apostolic See, under guardianship of
the treasurer since the twelfth century. Most important, there-
fore, is the mention, in the time of Pope Nicholas IV. (1288-1291),
of the gazophilacia antiquorum monasteriorum Roma, containing libros
et privilegia expapyro scripta ex litteris non intelligibilibus, nam figures
nee ex toto grecce nee ex toto latincz erant \ that is, they were writ-
ten in ancient flowing Latin, as in the papyri of Ravenna, unin-

* Cassiodorus, Dzv. litt., t. cap. 30.

t See Mittarelli, Annal. Camald., t. i. p. 70; cf. Muratori, Thes. inscr., 1822, b.

% Mai in the Spicil. Rom., t. v. pp. 9 and 101, etc., has published ancient catalogues of the
codex cited (without indicating or describing it) and of other manuscripts. The desiderata in
the publication of Mai have been learnedly pointed out by Delisle, Recherches stir Fancienne
bibl. de Corbie, Paris, 1861 (Mem. de FAcad. des Inscr., t. xxiv. p. i). Of the catalogue of the
library of S. Nazarius in Laurissa, compiled by Mai (1. c.) according to the precious codex 1877,
another and different copy of the same ninth century is to be found in Codice Vat. 57. They
should be published side by side. I will not speak of the catalogues of libraries of the classic
age ; it would lead me too far from the time whereof we are treating, besides proving in itself an
arduous subject. The most ancient catalogue of a Christian library which remains to us is, I
think, that of the library of Pamphilus, compiled by Eusebius (Hist. EccL, vi. 32).

See Delisle, 1. c.

1 Simonis Sannensis, Cleris sanationis, Venetian, 1514, p. 37. This singular testimony of
the physician of Nicholas IV. regarding the Roman treasures of books and papyraceous diplo-
mas was unknown to Maurini, to Winckelmann, or to Marini, who so learnedly treated of papy-
ri. I owe the knowledge of its existence to the courtesy and research of the illustrious scholar,
Father G, Lais, of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.

1 88o.]

A PERPLEXING CASE.

841

telligible to the paleographers of that time, and even to scholars of
the fifteenth century.* With regard to the contents of the archives
of the thirteenth century, the transumpts made therefrom by order
of Innocent IV. at the time of the Council of Lyons, which are still
preserved in the monastery of Cluny f and in the contemporary Co-
dex Vat. Ottob. 2546, furnish us with quite a catalogue of privi-
leges and diplomas, mostly imperial, existing therein in 1245.
But neither indication nor vestige remains to us of the true
catalogues of the ancient libraries and scrinia of the Roman
Church nor of her archives in full during the middle ages.

A PERPLEXING CASE.

WE had been spending our vacation in a pretty Ohio town
never mind its name and started for home in the early part of
November. We walked down the hill toward the depot, ex-
changing few words. Frank's heart was full. He had offered
himself and been declined with thanks. The town in which so
undeserved an affront had been bestowed upon one of the most
deserving of men shall not receive the distinction of being
named in this chronicle ; and I warn the reader now that neither
he nor still more earnestly, madam you need anticipate that
Frank is to be recalled and a yes substituted for a no in time to
give us a marriage at the end of the chapter. No such thing oc-
curred. Marriages are such hackneyed things in fiction that I
am not going to depart from simple and most singular truth in
order to lug one in here just to keep up a conventional appear-
ance for which I have not the slightest respect. If there had
been fewer marriages in the world there would be less trouble.
Men would not be constantly throwing themselves at the feet of
silly or heartless women whose vanity is gratified by manly devo-
tion, and who, when love is sought, show that the gaudy object
of faithful attention is all vanity and cares more for fine tailoring,
graceful courtesies, and judicious gifts than for the noblest mind,
the most upright soul, the most generous spirit. The girl who
refused Frank Benson will live to rue it. I hope she will. But
let it be understood at once there was no reconsideration of the

""See Marini, Papiri diplom. , preface.

t See Martene, Script, vet. coll., ii. p. 1223 et seq. Huillard Breholles in Notices et extraits
des MSS. de la bibl. imp. , xxi. p. ii. p. 267, etc. Bethmann in Pertz. Archiv. , xii. p. 203.

842

A PERPLEXING CASE.

[Sept.,

motion. It was laid for ever on the table, and the meeting was
adjourned sine die.

We had worked very hard during the summer months while
the other fellows of the counting-room were off fishing and boat-
ing and picnicking, and our conge 1 extended over the latter fort-
night of October and the first half of November. I was not in
love ; with the help of the most practical kind of common sense, I
never will be. But Frank was, and he was terribly in earnest.'
I should think that the very infection from him would have made
her take the disease ; she must have been mailed with cold steel
selfishness to resist his worship and his warmth. I used to sit
smoking in the sunny corner of the veranda while Frank was up
at her house, as I supposed-; and many a time through the white
mist which enveloped, me I was surprised to discern the two
emerging from the skirt of the woods, his face grave, pleading,
sad in its expression, hers coy and teasing. Frank never said
much about it. He usually carried back in his hand a bunch of
scarlet and russet leaves oak and elm and sumac with clusters
of crimson berries or a few ferns, and, as he threw them into my
lap, would say gravely :

" The woods are growing more and more beautiful every
day."

" Humph ! " was my usual response, for I knew the lad's heart
was being wrung more and more every day, and I wished that
she would say something harsh and bitter to him which would
annihilate the lover, arouse the man, and wake him up to see her
as I did. I ventured once to undertake an experiment which,
had it been permitted to go on, might have contributed to this
result. Between whiffs I put both my feet up lazily on the
railing of the veranda, and said with courage :

" Frank, do you remember the remark Sheridan made when
he was accused of being in love with Mrs. Siddons ? "

" No," he answered, looking up with an air of anxious weari-
ness. He was too tired to care much about Sheridan or Mrs.
Siddons, but he was anxious to hear anything about a man who
had been suspected of being in love.

" He said he would as soon think of being enamored of the
Archbishop of Canterbury."

" Oh ! " And he coolly puffed away. " He was very witty."

" And I would as soon think of being enamored of

He was standing over me instantly with a glare. " You
might wait until your counsel is asked, sir."

He threw his cigar angrily away, and walked off briskly with

i88o.] A PERPLEXING CASE. 843

his hands in his pockets. The experiment, you see, did not go
far, and did not accomplish anything worth mention.

We had put our travelling necessaries into one satchel, run a
cane through it, and carried it ourselves to the depot. The day
was dull, chilly, gray ; there was a feeling of snow in the air ; in-
deed, it seemed like early winter. We had not to wait long. The
thundering roar, the long snort and short squeaks of the train
diminished into the petty clatter of a rural station. As we stood
waiting for the alighting passengers to step off an amusing sil-
houette inside a window caught my eye. Black curly hair soft-
ened the profile of the head ; a low forehead, a beak for a nose, a
small, piercing black eye, no moustache or beard, white, sharp
teeth gleaming in what must have been a rapid conversation, a
short, round chin, a long, thin neck, a sharp-pointed collar, a
black tie. In an instant we were in the coach. Oddly enough,
our seats were with the beaked person. One seat had been turn-
ed back, making room for four facing each other, two and two ;
there were two vacant places, and we dropped into them, Frank
taking the back, I the front, so that we faced each other. The
beaked, individual was Frank's mate, and he had been talking to a
florid and stupid youth with one eye, whom I cast a sly glance at
when I got the chance, and whose chubby red hand, resting on
the cushion, seemed so near my pocket that I reflected with a sense
of recovered safety that my wallet was on my left side, and I gave
it a grip of congratulation. On the floor, between the legs of the
silhouetted traveller, and apparently the object of much solicitude
on his part, for he watched it keenly, was what looked at first like
a brown leathern portmanteau ; but it was, I speedily discovered,
a box of some kind, veneered in imitation of rosewood, with little
bands of cedar inlaid around the edges. A pair of leathern han-
dles were securely fastened upon it. Except that it was not so
thick, its dimensions were about the same as those of our satchel.
The lock was slightly out of order, for he frequently pressed the
sides together until the clasp clicked ; but the next jolt partly
loosened it, and he said to his red-faced friend that when he reach-
ed Cincinnati he should have it properly repaired. His friend
bade him good-by at the next station, and Frank and I looked
pityingly at each other, for we knew we should soon make the
beak's acquaintance.

But we were mistaken. He turned his back upon Frank and
began a study of the landscape through which we were being
hurried at thirty miles an hour. By watching as much of his eye
as I could see I was soon convinced that his mind was elsewhere.

844

A PERPLEXING CASE.

[Sept.,

His eyes were not the " windows of his soul " ; they were senti-
nels in masquerade, watching lest the meditative tenant of the
tent within should be impertinently disturbed. Out of the win-
dow he gazed as we sped and sped ; but his gaze was sightless.
He saw nothing of the dreary fields, brown and barren or cover-
ed with stubble ; nothing of the purple and gold of the melan-
choly woods, through which excited birds flew as if conscious
that the flock was gone and they had loitered too long and been
lost ; nothing of the snow which lazily faltered between heaven
and earth, doubting whether it really wanted to come down and
establish winter before the trees were bare ; nothing of the long,
low, moaning sighs of the moist wind which made the windows
rattle fitfully ; nothing of the cattle which raised their alarmed
heads at the noise of the train, and, as we hurried past, resumed
their vain effort to find toothsome grass, and lowed after us in
quest of sympathy. What was this man's name ? Where was he
going? What was his business ? What was he thinking about ?
A sigh, unmistakably involuntary, from Frank arrested my
wondering imagination. His eyes, bent on the floor and vacancy,
were wet. He was unconscious of the whole world. So intense
was his self-occupation that, had he commenced an incoherent
soliloquy, I should not have been in the least surprised. Indeed,
I feared that he might, and it was prudent to recall him to intel-
ligent consciousness in order to protect him against a possible ex-
hibition of weakness for which he would for ever after reproach
himself. The easiest, simplest, least ostentatious way was to
tread on his foot.

What a cry ! It took my breath away. It was half yell, half
groan. Anger and pain were in his eyes, the muscles of his face
were drawn as if he were suffering excruciating torture, the tears
spurted from his eyes, and from between his clenched teeth he
hissed at me, sotto voce :

" Confound you ! I told you that corn was giving me a great
deal of trouble."

Well, well ! I had been sentimentally weeping over the mental
desolation of my friend ; I had pictured the indescribable agony
which he must be enduring because of the cruel deception a girl
had practised upon him; I had wept, metaphorically, over his
broken heart ; and it was nothing but a corn ! nothing but a cal-
lous excrescence retaining an acute nervous sensitiveness, greatly
afflicted by sudden pressure, by the unexpected impingement of
another man's boot, representing a most friendly intention. I
laughed loud enough to attract the inquiring eyes of half a dozen

iSSo.] A PERPLEXING CASE. 845

persons, whose curiosity died out as suddenly as it had been in-
spired. The beak continued to look out of the window. Frank's
characteristic good nature got the better of him. Whether his
malady was cutaneous or cardiac, he forgot it, and laughed until
he shook all over. The tears fell on his cheeks out of pure hila-
rity, and I cried in jocose derision, as he wiped them away with
his dainty silk handkerchief :

" Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depths of some divine despair."

I beg your pardon," exclaimed the beak, suddenly turning
upon us. " You are mistaken. Tears are not from the depths
of some divine despair. If you don't know what they mean it is
exceedingly easy to find out. They emerge from the lachry-
mal apparatus. They are simply the product of a gland and its
servant nerves and muscles. The gland secretes the fluid, the
nerves and muscles call 'em out and make a tiny cascade upon
each cheek. I do not deny that there is a subtle emotional con-
nection between the finest sensibilities of man and the lachrymal
gland with which physiology has nothing to do, and which no
mental scientist has yet fully explained perhaps never will ; but
I reaffirm that tears do not come from the ' depths of some divine
despair,' but from the lachrymal glands."

He looked at us through his pair of keen black eyes, and
then, as if embarrassed by his abrupt intrusion into our acquaint-
ance, produced cards from his pocket, and handed them to us,
saying with almost the suave air of a gentleman :

" I beg your pardon once again. I had no right to address
you. I hope you will forgive me." He bowed, turned his back
upon us and his beak to the window. The card read :

H. LE FEVRE,
Optician.

Frank wrote upon the back of his, and handed it silently
to me:

"He is an escaped lunatic, or a shrewd pickpocket, or what
they call out West a ' confidence-man.' '

I was convinced that Frank's corn had been cruelly hurt by
my insolent boot. I was also convinced that he was violently
prejudiced against this optician simply because the intruder had
intimated that tears were the expression of anything but a bruised
soul ; for Frank, if he had a corn, had a broken heart I was sure

A PERPLEXING CASE. [Sept.

he had. It was unmanly to condemn so wantonly the stranger
whom Tennyson had introduced to us, and whose study of physi-
ology had made him accurate, even if nature had given him an
uncomely nose, which all the resources of art would never suc-
ceed in improving. The semicircle is the line of beauty every-
where except on the nose.

I wrote back to Frank: " I am sure he is only eccentric. He
is so sorry for having intruded upon us that I sincerely pity him.
I think we ought to help him out of his predicament."

He rejoined : " He is a thief."

This was the mad fancy of a disordered brain.

I wrote back : " Come, be generous. Give him the benefit of
the doubt. I think he is honest, eccentric, and very sorry for hav-
ing impulsively intruded upon us. Let us assure him we are not
offended."

Frank looked gravely at me as he read, and said inarticulately :
"Never!"

" Then you will excuse me for a few minutes."

" As you like."

I handed Mr. Le Fevre my card. He bowed his thanks, cross-
ed his legs, poised his beak straight at mine for I really had for-
gotten that my own nose has an uncommon convexity and said :

" Eye is a wonderful organ, sir."

He had a slight foreign accent, a mixture of French and Ger-
man from Alsace, perhaps.

I could say nothing in reply except a commonplace "It is
indeed, sir."

"Wonderful organ! wonderful! Are you an evolutionist?"

" To a degree. I think it reasonable to believe that the Crea-
tor accomplished his work according to general laws, in conse-
quence of which we see a suggestive symmetry throughout the
animal kingdom."

" But you don't think a wiggle wiggled itself, then begot a
worm, and the worm begot a fish, and the fish begot a reptile, and
the reptile begot a bird, and the bird begot a monkey, and the
monkey begot man ? "

The solemn gravity with which this question was put made
even Frank laugh.

" No. I think the materialists of contemporaneous evolution
confound correspondences with effects. It is true that dogs,
horses, and men have ears, but that does not convince me that
man's exquisite organ of hearing has been modified by any in-
telligence, voluntary or involuntary, on the part of dog or horse.

iSSo.] A PERPLEXING CASE. 847

Indeed, there are certain lower animals whose ears are more
acute than ours."

" Precisely. Just so with eyes. It is a fact of optics that the
eyes of certain monkeys and of men have common peculiarities
not found in the eyes of other animals. But that proves nothing.
It proves nothing more than tails. The Darwinian theory is
that the lowest order of monkeys ought to have the longest
tails, and that the tail shortens until it disappears in man ; in
other words, that man is a monkey without a tail, or that the
monkey is a man with a tail. But it has been indisputably shown
by Mivart that all apes have not tails, but that the apes nearest,
according to Darwin, to man have the longest tails. So the
theory falls to the ground. Then, again, as to the toes. In the
development of the hallex as compared with the pollex Mivart
says that the little squirrel monkey is as nearly human as the
gorilla, while the ligamentum feres, always present in men and the
chimpanzee, is always absent in the gorilla and orang. In a word,
the highest apes are not nearly so like man as many other and
lower forms, and the theory of a symmetrical evolutionary devel-
opment is non-suited, thrown out of court, dismissed for want of
a prosecutor."

Frank looked at me significantly, as if to remind me that he
had said this man was an escaped lunatic. My interest in him
only increased.

" You enjoy the study of natural science, then ? "

" Very much, sir, very much. But I have not had leisdre
enough to devote to it. Optical science and optical art are both
so recent that he who would become thoroughly expert in them
must necessarily abandon himself to them alone. It is said, sir,
that ' law is a jealous mistress.' The same is true of every de-
partment of knowledge and skill. The Admirable Crichton was
only a hyperbole. It was said of him that he had everything but
common sense. Of what use were ten languages and half a dozen
arts to a man without common sense ? "

Frank looked dolorously at me, with a melancholy expression
of "worse and worse." Probably he anticipated that Le Fevre
would grow violent soon, and have to be put off the train by
main strength, or chained, hand and foot, in a freight-car.

"Optical science," I went on, "is indeed of strictly modern
origin."

" Assuredly. The anatomy of the eye was almost unknown
even to those physicians who professed of old to be oculists, and
who so imperfectly understood pseudoscopic effects and the dis-

8 4 8 A PERPLEXING CASE. [Sept.

eases of the organ that persons suffering from defective or im-
paired vision were sometimes condemned as possessed of evil
spirits, sometimes tortured as witches, and sometimes made in-
curable by the application of quack remedies. It remained for a
later age to invent the microscope and spectroscope. Why, sir,
there were no spectacles until a monk in Florence in the thir-
teenth century thought of a pair to help him read his devo-
tions. The eye-glasses now so generally in use and so effective
in preserving sight are the product of our own time. The good
old monk would scarcely recognize in the spectacles of to-day his
primitive idea of a magnifying-glass. The old-style goggles,
mounted in shell and horn and heavy metal, must have been a
heavy load on the nose. The spectacles and spring eye-glasses
now manufactured in Sheffield and Birmingham, mounted in al-
most invisible steel frames, weigh less than a quarter of an ounce.
Science, endeavoring to remedy the ravages of age and disease in
this noble sense, has been almost competing with the sagacity of
nature. But nature is still far ahead, my dear sir. We can't
come up to nature yet, as you Americans say."

Frank appeared to be mollifying his prejudices. He was ac-
tually listening respectfully.

" The construction of the eye of man is his most amaz-
ing part," said he, and then blushed, as if he were surprised at find-
ing himself saying something both foolish and sensible.

" Not more so than the marvellous ingenuity with which the in-
fe'rior forms of life have been equipped with this organ. Notwith-
standing that man believes that he enjoys the highest conceiv-
able pleasure through the medium of sight, it is not true that
his is the most beautiful, the most useful, the most complex eye.
The old Roman philosopher says that ' Nature ever provides for
her own exigencies.' Let us more accurately say that in the
creation of the organ of vision, from the lowest to the superior
forms of existence, God has shown his keen solicitude for the
preservation of life until each creature shall have accomplished
an assigned part in the immense utilities of the world. The eye
is almost the first sign of animal intelligence. In the nearly form-
less amoebae there are eyes ; in those jelly-like animalculas which
are i.mperceptibly born, almost imperceptibly swim about, and
unobserved die when their function in the general economy is
completed, there are eyes, but not always in the head sometimes
they are even in the tail ! Why ? So that they may protect
their feeble life from the approach of danger. They are without
even rudimentary ears ; the deficiency is made up in vision.

n :

1 8 So.] A PERPLEXING CASE. 849

Many little animals are literally ' all eyes.' They see from every
side. Faceted-eyed insects are a marvellous spectacle under the
microscope. There is a beetle which has fully twenty-five thou-
sand eyes. The large eye of most insects has a great many quad-
rangular or hexagonal double-convex lenses, which, when flying
through the air, not only guide it safely in its mazy course, but
give it electrical warning of danger from any direction. Look at
the eye of the fish and of the bird. In each case it is wonderfully
adapted for what we may call its station in life. In the fish the
lens assumes a spherical shape and is very dense ; the pupil is
very large, so as to take in as much light as possible ; the focus is
shortened and the power increased in a word, the eye of the fish
is exactly adapted to the medium in which that animal exists, and
is modified so as to serve it most efficiently in the pursuit of lib
erty and food. The eye of the bird, on the contrary, is designed
for the glare of the sun, the force of the wind, and the perception
of much longer distances than can be discerned by man. And is
it not a proof of the charity of the Creator that even the stupid
owl (the bird of wisdom, forsooth !) is especially remembered ? Its
eye is modified so as to enable it to discern all objects in a very
faint light. I have sometimes thought a mere weird fancy that
there are secret eyes in those curious plants which some natural-
ists have considered undeveloped animals because of their appa-
rent sensitiveness under certain conditions. There's * Venus's Fly-
trap.' The moment an insect touches the summit of its leaf the
plant, with the quickness of electricity, encloses the astonished
captive, and the harder it struggles to escape the more restrains
it until death settles the dispute. Is not the ambuscading vege-
table a seeing animal in disguise ? Did you ever observe an ant-
lion bury itself in the sand, and, with nothing but eyes and man-
dibles above ground, wait for the coming of its prey ? Why,
gentlemen, the artifices to which the organ of sight in insects
enables these tiny creatures to resort equal, and in many cases
surpass, the shrewdest tricks of men."

Probably Mr. Le Fevre would have continued to amuse us in
this eccentric and rambling way had we not reached the end of
that part of our journey. The shadow which had temporarily
flitted from Frank's face descended ominously upon it as we
elbowed our way through the turbulent crowd to an omnibus.
Not a word passed between us until we reached the hotel where
we proposed to rest for the night. In the morning we should
resume our journey eastward. We had lost Le Fevre, without as
much as an au revoir, and had laughingly agreed that, take him all
VOL. xxxi. 54

850 A PERPLEXING CASE. [Sept.,

in all, we should never see his like again, when, to our surprise, his
beak appeared at the hotel register, and he wrote his name in a
scrambling hand. He could not see us where we stood. Al-
though I really felt some liking for the man, 'I was too tired after
the ride, too hungry, and too sleepy to make an effort to resume
his acquaintance. We were assigned a room about the same
time that he was, and the porter started upstairs, Le Fevre's box
in one hand, our satchel in the other.

Frank had no appetite, and I could not induce him to go to
the dining-room. We loitered in the rotunda a few moments, and,
in the hope of finding some diversion to cheer him, started out
into the streets. It was dark. The street-lamps threw a narrow
circle of sickly light upon the flags, which a slight snow-fall had
covered with a thin layer of feathery flakes. We walked until I
could walk no longer, and an inviting restaurant put an end to
our aimless ramble.

The fiend of inconsistency took possession of this fellow. He
began to laugh and chatter like a parrot. He repeated Le
Fevre's remarks about the ant-lion and " Venus's Fly-trap," with
so clever an imitation of the Alsatian's mannerism that I joined
in the merriment. A horrible fear suggested that the lad was
growing hysterical, possibly was getting into a spasm or fit, or
that some serious nervous ailment was about to develop itself.
Laughing gayly, with heavy shadows flitting over his counte-
nance, he was the picture of mental disorder. He ordered raw
oysters and lobster-salad, coffee, and mince-pie. What a repast
for a sick man, sore in his heart, nervous to the highest pitch, and
physically worn out ! Could he sleep after such gormandizing ?
Sleep was just what he needed. Pointing to the indigestible
mess as it was set before him, I said :

" ' Macbeth doth murder sleep.' "

"I am going to eat what I want. You do the same, will
you?"

" Benson, I have borne your ill-humor with such patience as
will make you ashamed of it, if you don't correct it now once for
all. Your petulance and waywardness do you no credit. I tell
you I'm ashamed of you."

He brought his clenched fist down upon the table with an em-
phasis that made the dishes ring. A shocking scowl overspread
his countenance, and he was about to apply, I fear, profanity to
my too open censure. But before the words could find utter-

1 8 So.] A PERPLEXING CASE. 851

ance they were recalled. A pleasant but morbid smile suc-
ceeded.

" Sit down here and help me eat this. stuff. Come, come ! Be
a good fellow. There's trouble enough in the world without our
enlarging the amount that falls to our share. I haven't eaten
anything for three weeks. You want me to grow lean and lank,
and go about moping and miserable, because "

His fork fell. He relapsed into chagrin. In an instant it was
over. He half articulated, half hummed :

" Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
'Cause another's rosy are ?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flow'ry meads in May,

If she be not fair for me

What care I how fair she be ?

" Should my heart be grieved or pined
'Cause I see a woman kind ?
Or a well-disposed nature
Joined with a lovely feature ?
Be she meeker, kinder than
Turtle-dove or pelican,

If she be not kind to me

What care I how kind she be ?

" Shall a woman's virtues move
Me to perish for her love ?
Or her well-deservings, known,
Make me quite forget my own ?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may gain her name of best,
If she be not good to me
What care I how good she be ?

"Great or good, or kind or fair,

I will ne'er the more despair;

If she love me, this believe,

I will die ere she shall grieve ;

If she slight me when I woo

I can scorn and let her go ;
For if she be not all for me
What care I for whom she be ? "

There was much munching of crackers and crunching of
celery between the lines ; but he did not stop until he had finished
the last verse, the fish, the coffee, the pie. " Heaven help you ! "

3^2 A PERPLEXING CASE. [Sept.,

thought I, and, to be sure that heaven should help, I took the
precaution to inquire when we got back to the hotel whether
there was a doctor in the house. I plucked some comfort from
an affirmative reply.

We went to our room forthwith. A bright fire crackled and
fumed in the grate, and quickly blazed into a thousand tongues
of flame licking each other in an Eleusinian mystery. It was un-
necessary to light the gas. Our overcoats were soon disposed of.
Frank threw himself on the sofa ; I took the easy-chair. We
agreed to smoke ourselves into somnolence. There were two
neat beds in the room ; 1 should not be kicked to death by
Frank's nightmare. I secretly sympathized with his digestive
apparatus, and wondered what his stomach's opinion was of
him.

" Where's the satchel ? " he inquired.

It was not in the room. Strange ! The porter had carried it
up. I rang the bell. It must have been put into some other
room by mistake. The loud rap made Frank jump as if a mus-
ket were discharged at his head and just missed him. The ser-
vant walked off with philosophic deliberation to inquire at the
office for the missing bag.

" That fellow will never die of hurry," said Frank. In half an
hour he condescended to return. Knew nothing about it. It
was the day-porter who had carried it up. He had gone home
for the night. The night-porter knew nothing about it. The
day-porter would be back at five o'clock in the morning. The
clerk sent his compliments, and hoped that the gentlemen would
not be put to any inconvenience.

Frank was already overcome with heavy drowsiness. The
lobster had done its worst ; nor rap nor clatter, domestic hopes,
mince-pie nothing could touch him farther. I removed his
boots, helped him to the nearer bed, and he fell instantly into a
sonorous slumber. He snored loud enough to wake up the oc-
cupants of the adjoining rooms, if there were any sleepers in
them.

But no sleep for me. Nothing to read. Plenty of good
things in the satchel. What was to be done ? The pictures in
the fire and a bottle of champagne. It was brought with a
promptness which did not go unrewarded, and it was good.
Doubtless it never paid a penny to the government. Must have
been smuggled through. Removing my boots, I sat with my
feet on the fender, smoking, sipping between cigars, dreaming
about nothing and everything, and watching the myriad of fan-

i88o.] A PERPLEXING CASE, 853

Sistic shapes in the fire. What was it? Oh! yes, I'm getting
rowsy. " Nature's soft nurse " doth

"... weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness."

must go to bed, and quickly. Can it be possible this champagne
was " medicated " ? I cannot find the bed ! Halloo ! what's that?
Rap on ! I shall not open the door this time of night.

" I told you before Le Fevre was a thief. He stole the
satchel."

It was Frank. But he was profoundly asleep.

Rap RAP RAP !
' " What do you want ? " " Here's your satchel."

I unlocked the door. The wanderer had come back, then.
Le Fevre was not a thief. The porter threw it upon the floor
with an impatient thud. I shut the door with an impatient thud.
On the vacant bed I fell, and was consciously losing conscious-.,
ness. I had a sort of dim idea that as the satchel was thrown
upon the floor the lock was broken. But it was soon all over
with me. Dreamless sleep put a summary stop to speculations
and suspicions.

I was awakened under the most startling circumstances.
Hours had passed ; it was the early gray of a wintry morning.
The fire still cast a fitful light through the room, sending strange
and uneven flashes into the shadowy corners. The curtains were
drawn high, and the dim starlight was fading into the dimmer
daylight. It was neither night nor day ; it was just dark enough
to throw a ghastly glamour over every object. I should not have
been astonished to discover palpable ghosts on every side, to have
seen them crawling out from under the beds, sliding out of the
clothes-closets, pqpping up from the carpet, and tapping me
familiarly on the shoulder; oozing out of the ceiling, clammy
and horned ; walking in through the closed door, mailed and
hoofed, or flying about like bats, whispering sepulchral horrors
into each other's ears and mine. I am not given to such fancies.
It was undoubtedly Frank's repeated moans and ejaculations
which had awakened me with difficulty, and had poured into my
imagination through reluctant senses these horrible phantasma-
goria.

And he ? Great heavens, what a picture ! He was on his
knees, clutching with both hands the foot-board of his bed, his
eyes wild with terror, his nostrils dilated, his mouth wide open,
his breath quick and hard, his short hair almost erect, his whole

854 A PERPLEXING CASE. [Sept.,

body shaking as if with a mighty chill, and great beads of cold
sweat standing on his forehead. He had thrown his coat and
cravat off, and unfastened his collar, as if to get more air. He
gazed intensely into one corner of the room, as if his eyes were
riveted there.

I tried to speak. My tongue would not serve my will. I
tried to raise myself out of rny bed and go to him. I succeeded
in putting my feet on the floor, and was, fortunately, near enough
to the arm-chair to clutch it, or I should have fallen at the sight.

What sight ? Language cannot tell it. Imagination cannot
conceive it. Eyes, eyes everywhere ! Nothing but eyes ! Eyes
black, blue, gray, hazel, brown and not even ' matched or in
pairs. They glared, they sneered, they laughed ; the shapeless
beings in whose heads they were pointed bony fingers at us,
taunted us, laughed at us, hissed us, spat out venom at our
helplessness. To save my brain 1 turned my head away. But
no, no, no ! Wherever I looked, there they were ! Black,
blue, gray, brown here in demon-like groups, there in blurred
masses all run into each other, in another spot a single eye
blazing in the reflection of the fire. They studded the base
board with their gleams, they shone upon the carpet with tlie
leer of fiends. I ventured to raise my glance to the walls, to
the ceiling. Infinite relief! none were there. They were not
climbing devils, then. Hark! It was Frank's voice. He whis-
pered like one in the grave, half-covered with pelting earth,
and content to remain in the coffin:

" Are we damned ? "

I was not sure. The door was slightly ajar ; the wind whis-
tled down the long corridor, and a sudden gust blew in, almost
smothering the fire. What ! did my ears hear aright ? Have
these fiends tongues ? They gibber to each other with a clicking
accent ! They have moved about. New groups are formed ; their
heads are in consultation ; their eyes sway hither and thither
what fiendish plot are they concocting ? A low, wailing sound
broke from Frank. He was muttering something, while, with
his left hand, he brushed the perspiration off his face, and with
the other made fantastic gesture. And he quoted Dante, with a
lugubrious emphasis. It was like a man talking in his sleep. He
still thought himself among the for-ever-lost.

Was not this a dream ? I walk a few steps across the floor,
but every muscle is limp with terror ; the frightful spectacle still
stares at me wherever my glance falls. Everywhere eyes meet
mine eyes, eyes, eyes, nothing but eyes.

1 8 So.] A PERPLEXING CASE. 855

There is a tumult in the hall. Voices are disputing about
something. Yes no one of them is Le Fevre's. They approach
the door.

" I am sure it was in here I put it."

" But this is not my room." That was Le Fevre.

" Well, I suppose we can get it out." That was the porter,
the man who had brought our satchel up and thrown it into the
room some time after midnight. His brawny hand gives a thun-
dering rap. Frank leaps to the floor, strikes an attitude of self-
defence, and cries, as if expecting to see gigantic demons enter,
" Come on / "

The beak bows, smiles, begs our pardon, so sorry, so sorry to
disturb us at so unseemly an hour, but

" But what ?" roars Frank with fury.

" I brought the gentleman's case in here last night by mis-
take," said the porter. " I thought it was your satchel. Here's
yours."

" His case! What case?" I gasped.

" My case of glass eyes," politely interjected Le Fevre. " If I
were not going away on an early train I should not have pre-
sumed to disturb you. I offer my profound apologies." And
the beaked Alsatian bowed and bowed. Frank sat on the easy-
chair and industriously wiped his forehead and face. I dropped,
very gratefully to Le Fevre, on the sofa. The porter stepped to
the fire, ignited a taper, turned the gas on, and lighted it.

" Why, why, why," said Le Fevre, with a te-he-he giggle,
" just what I feared. The case fell open, and here are my glass
eyes all over the floor."

Neither of us said a word.

" I have an engagement with an oculist in ."

Frank started. , It was that town.

" What ! going back there ? You passed there yesterday.
This was faintly spoken, with the blandness of an invalid.

" Yes," said Le Fevre, as he opened the case at the table, pick-
ed up the vagrant tenants of its velvet spaces, and readjusted
them " yes, I had some important business to do in Cincinnati
first, but I go back there on the early train to assist in putting an
eye in a patient of the oculist who resides there."

I wondered why he did not go. With arms akimbo he con-
tinued :

" I am sorry for that oculist, too. Broken in spirits. Disap-
pointed man. Would have made her a first-rate husband..
Miss "

856 NE w PUBLICA TIONS. [Sept.,

It was she !

" fooled him, fooled him to the top of his bent. Now she
is going to marry his patient the man who is getting in a glass
eye so as to present a pleasing appearance at the wedding. Don't
you remember the one-eyed young man who rode part of the way
with me ? But he is rich."

I jumped over to Frank and held him firmly by the shoulders,
standing at his back.

" Yes," added Le Fevre, with a long sigh, " I often have
thought, when studying the wonderful eyes of the mosquito, that
women are like mosquitoes. You know, of course, gentlemen,
that it is only the female mosquito that stings."

And Le Fevre bade us good-morning.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

CLAIMS OF A PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL BISHOP TO APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION
AND VALID ORDERS DISPROVED, etc., etc. By S. V. Ryan, Bishop of
Buffalo. Buffalo : Catholic Publication Co. 1880.

Bishop Ryan's moderately-sized polemical volume, like the priesthood
is " bi-partite," and contains less than three hundred pages, but is thorough-
ly well charged. Seldom is so much compressed into a small compass with-
out being crowded. It is the result' of a controversy of six years' standing
with Dr. Arthur C. Coxe, who resides in Buffalo, where he has a handsome
cathedral church not far from the beautiful cathedral of Bishop Ryan, and
disputes with him his claim to be the Catholic bishop of that region, profess-
ing to be himself the only true and lawful bishop, and to preside over an
"Old Catholic " church, Bishop Ryan and his flock being, in common with
all the Presbyterians and other " non-Old Catholics," mere schismatics, in
fact the worst schismatics of all. Dr. Coxe is a man possessing many fine
natural gifts. He is a poet, an orator, a fearless champion of his own cause,
and possessing a great deal of general culture, though not remarkable for
either logic, sound judgment, candor, or courtesy at least toward Catholics
who are not " Old."

It is surprising to see what a quantity of absurdities, idle fables, and
phrases after the manner of Henry VIII. and Martin Luther, he has con-
trived to heap up and make into ecclesiastical shrapnel while he has been
waging war with his two neighboring episcopal antagonists, the bishops of
Buffalo and Rochester. But then, he is in a hard position. He is the
Bishop of Western New York. A bishop has intruded into his see, with
quite an army of priests, and is obeyed by a much greater number of sub-
jects than he can induce to pay due allegiance to himself. Besides, this bi-
shop is sustained by the great host of bishops in all parts of the world whom

i88o.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 857

mankind in general, a few " Old " Catholics only excepted, will persist in
calling the bishops of the Catholic Church. The Eastern Christians who
are so dear to Dr. Coxe will not recognize his episcopal character, all those
Protestants who are not " Protestant Episcopalians " hold it in light esteem,
and in general, the prospects of " Old Catholicism " are far from being such
as to cheer ^the mind of a member of that ancient society. Causa facit
martyrem, in a new sense.

Bishop Ryan is a true son and disciple of St. Vincent of Paul, whose
name he bears. He is quiet and gentle, but he is solidly learned, and cogent
in reasoning, always carrying on controversy fortiter in re, and generally
suaviter zn modo. Betimes, he administers some severe castigation to his
opponent, but not near so much as he has deserved and provoked. Those
who are interested in the controversy between the Catholic Church and the
portion of the Episcopalian denomination who are called the High Church,
will find in the First Part of this book a brief, but clear and thorough expo-
sition of the questions of Anglican jurisdiction and orders. The Second Part
contains supplementary matter on the same subject, and some other short
chapters in which are treated such topics as Papal Infallibility, the cases of
Liberius and Honorius, etc., in such away as to correct some common mis-
statements and refute certain false accusations. We recommend this
volume specially to the members of the " Old Catholic Church " in the dio-
cese of Western New York, and elsewhere, not doubting that they will
have a great curiosity to read it. They will find in the controversy which
it sums up some real curiosities of literature. In fact, the controversy with
the High Church and Ritualists, which was long ago finished as a seri-
ous work, has become something like a pastime, and on their side has de-
generated into the irrelevant, the reckless, the ludicrous, and as Lowell
humorously travesties the word, the grand-delinquent style. It is a great
bore to have to keep up this controversy. Mr. Lowell, in Among my Books
quotes a passage from an old letter of Henry Jacie to John Winthrop,
which we find apropos r " The last news we heard was that the Bores in
Bavaria slew about 300 of the Swedish forces and took about 200 prisoners, (
of which they put out the eyes of some & cut out the tongues of others, &
so sent them to the King of Sweden, which caused him to lament byt-
terly for an hour. Then he sent an army & destroyed those Bores, about 200
or 300 of their towns. Thus we hear." Every serious and honest Episco-
palian, and all such we respect sincerely, must join with us in the wish,
that controversy should be carried on for the purpose of clearing up the
question, What is the True Church of Christ ? and be rid of all the rubbish
which has been thrown upon the real point of importance for him, whether
as an Episcopalian he can be sure that he is in the communion of the Ca-
tholic Church. There is one Bore, which shows a reckless and suicidal
folly, the casting of slurs and suspicions upon our orders, and retailing
such* an absurd fable as that Archbishop Bedini was sent here to rectify
a flaw in them. We are credibly informed that this idle tale was invented
and set afloat by its author merely as a joke, without any expectation that
any credence would be given to it. We charitably suppose that most of
those who have given circulation to this very poor and unseemly jest are
no worse than dupes of their own credulity ; but this excuse will not avail
Dr. Coxe.

858 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Sept.,

Another Bore is the assertion that Catholic bishops are intruders on the
lawful domain of Protestant bishops in the United States. Bishop Ryan
disposes of this ineptitude quite sufficiently. We may add another argu-
mentum ad hominem. What are the Protestant bishops who invaded the
domain of the Catholic bishops in Canada, Louisiana and other French and
Spanish possessions which were afterwards annexed to England or the
United States ?

Again, there is the attempt to trace a succession to Mark Antony de
Dominis, an apostate archbishop who assisted at some consecrations in
England. This is a pis alter, intended to show, that failing a direct succes-
sion through Barlow and his three assistants, there was an indirect rehabi-
litation through which the grace of order might have slid into the An-
glican priesthood per accidens. Besides the usual refutation of such an
absurdity, it may be added, that no consecration by a true bishop could
produce any effect upon men who were not priests, and were therefore in-
capable subjects.

To condense the whole matter of Anglican succession and priesthood
into a small compass, which may help some persons to read Bishop Ryan's
excellent book more understandingly.

I. If the Protestant-Episcopalians had really true bishops and priests
this would not make them members of the Catholic Church. For, their
schism and many heresies suffice to cut them off from the church.

II. They have no bishops, and no priests except a few apostates from
the Catholic priesthood, because i. The fact of Parker's alleged consecra-
tion by Barlow is doubtful. 2. It is doubtful whether Barlow ever had true
consecration, certain that Scorey and Coverdale had not, doubtful whether
Hodgkin really assisted in the ceremony, and certain that the form of con-
secration alleged to have been used by Barlow in consecrating Parker was
invalid. Therefore, conceding that there is some probability that the
Lambeth consecration really took place, that possibly Barlow may have
been a bishop, and that Hodgkin the only one of -the four who was certain-
ly a bishop may have imposed hands and pronounced the prescribed form
over Parker, that such an act of an assisting bishop may be of itself suffi-
cient for a valid consecration in the defect of powers in the other prelates
who participate, there is only a slender probability and no certainty what-
ever, that some external rite was accomplished in the case of Parker by a
real bishop, before he was made by the queen the head of the English
Protestant hierarchy. Yet, though Anglicans may satisfy themselves with
this dubious sort of succession, according to the doctrine of Catholic
canonists, there was, in any case, no valid consecration, through a defect
in the necessary form and intention. The Holy See, which is the supreme
judge in all such matters, has practically determined the case, by setting
aside altogether Anglican Orders as null and invalid. The only wise and
safe course for all Anglicans is to study the subject of the Pope's Supremacy ;
and thus cut the perplexed knot of interminable controversies. The Pro-
testant-Episcopal Church is simply one among the Protestant denomina-
tions, with an episcopal polity for the sake of order, certain decorous
liturgical forms for the sake of propriety, and a very flexible doctrine for
the sake of comfort. The attempt to make it into a small fac-simile of the
Greek Church and rechristen it " Old Catholic " is simply ridiculous. As

1 8 80.] NE w PUBLIC A TIONS. 859

Dr. Storrs has facetiously and with evident relish put the case of our senti-
ment on the subject : " The occasional attempts of High-Churchmen to
emulate that which the blending genius of many centuries and lands has
produced are to him simply ludicrous ; like building another equal St.
Peter's of scantling and boards, or reproducing Warwick Castle in cake
and sugar " (Ev. AIL, 1873, p. 457).

HOMO SUM : A novel. By Georg Ebers, author of Uarda, etc. From the
German by Clara Bell. Authorized edition. New York : William S.
Gottsberger. 1880.

THE SISTERS : A Novel. By Georg Ebers. From the German by Clara Bell.
New York : W. S. Gottsberger, 11 Murray St. 1880.

Homo Sum is a novel with a purpose. Taking a part of Terence's oft-
quoted line for the title, though giving to it a broader meaning, Prof. Ebers
undertakes to show the working of human passions in a place and under
circumstances as far as possible removed from what is usually considered the
theatre of their action. The time of the story is the beginning of the fourth
century, and the scene is laid on Mt. Serbal in the Sinaitic peninsula which
; he author thinks is the true Mt. Sinai of Scripture and in the oasis at the
foot of the mountain. The caves and crevices of the mountain are de-
scribed as peopled by Christian anchorites, each anchorite a law unto him-
self, and each striving according to his own notions to bring himself nearer
to God and farther from the world. But the oasis, which represents the
world, is a source of temptation to the mountain. Paulus, the anchorite
who is the central figure, in the hands of a mere rationalist would have
turned out a caricature. But Prof. Ebers, though viewing the struggle with
the world, the flesh, and the devil from the lofty position of modern philo-
sophical criticism so-called, has artistic insight; this insight has come to the
", Zlrescue of Paulus, who appears, however, like a Stoic dressed in the garb of a
V! [Christian hermit. Yet this Paulus, whom the author evidently intended to
picture as a Christian of the heroic type, is described as having a brow
, r well formed, though somewhat narrow." If even heroic Christians have
narrow brows, how cramped must be the intellect of the average Christians
"Who have declined to accept the philosophy of negation ! The purpose of
* jthe story, it seems to us, is to prove that the requirements of the Christian
: Ethics are simply ideal ; that they are incapable of realization; that there
jls no ascetic virtue which may not be and will not, except for accident, be
, overcome by some form of temptation. Of course the philosophical author
.Ignores God's supernatural providence and God's grace: for two reasons,
, t |ve suppose first, that he does not believe in them, and, next, that they
kould be foreign to his story. But they exist, whether he believes in them
Ir not, and they cannot be ignored without injury to the truth of such a
' ^jtory as this.

The scene of The Sisters is laid in the time of Ptolemy Euergetes and

is brother Ptolemy Philometor. Philometor and his wife Cleopatra, Eu-

" l n . Irgetes or Physcon, and Scipio Nasica are the principal historical charac-

fers portrayed. The chief imaginary persons of the drama are an anchorite

/a the Serapeum and two young sisters who are temple-servants. As a

Jovel The Sisters is worthy to be classed with its predecessors. As an his-

-prical picture, it is chiefly valuable as a graphic sketch of the corrupt and

ood

nests

(con-

86o 'NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Sept., 1880.

criminal court of the Ptolemies. The characters are admirably drawn.
The elder of the two sisters, the old anchorite, and Scipio are of that noble
t) r pe which is the favorite one with the author. The plot of the story is in-
tensely interesting and well worked out.

We have not noticed among Mr. Gottsberger's advertisements any of
the Egyptian Princess. An edition under the title of A Daughter of an
Egyptian King has been published by a Philadelphia firm, but all the
valuable historical notes of the original which are contained in the Tauch-
nitz English edition are omitted, to the great detriment of this most
valuable in a historical sense of all Ebers' novels. Mr. Gottsberger would
confer a great favor on the literary public by reprinting the Tauchnitz edi-
tion with all the notes in a style uniform with Uarda and Homo Sum.

HAND-BOOK OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE. By the Rev. O. L.
Jenkins, of the Society of St. Sulpice. Edited by a Member of the same
Society. Second edition. Baltimore : Murphy & Co. 1880.
This new edition is much enlarged and improved. F. Jenkins was
a man of most excellent literary taste and culture, and all that part of the
Hand-Book which he lived to finish has been most judiciously left unal-
tered. The account of the most recent British and of American authors in
the first edition was prepared by the Editor with a great deal of care and
judgment. Since that time he has been engaged in preparing additional
matter which was needed in order to make the Manual more complete. At
least a dozen of the larger sketches in this second edition are new, and among
these are the sketches of Faber, Marshall, Manning, Allies, and Brown-
son. About seventy other shorter sketches have been added. It is not easy
to classify authors exactly according to their grade of literary merit, especial-
ly when they are our own contemporaries. Neither is it easy to draw the
line of demarcation between authors who are literary and those who are not.
As soon as a critic steps among the crowd of good writers who are not
placed by the verdict of Time among the immortals, it is hard for him to
find a criterion of selection and exclusion. The editor has certainly spared
no pains and labor to make F. Jenkins' Hand-Book a good and useful
manual for students in Catholic colleges. It must be judged by this stand-
ard, as an elementary book, a class-book, an Introduction to the study of
English Literature for young pupils. The opinion of intelligent young per-
sons who have used a class-book on its merits is one which we consider
the best test of its value. We have heard several of such students at a
later period express their sense of the great utility and pleasure they had
received from studying this Hand-Book in its first edition, and we have ob-
served in them the good results of their studies in this as well as in other
branches of study pursued under the thorough tuition of the Sulpitian
Fathers at St. Charles' College. We cordially recommend it as a text-book
for all Catholic colleges and schools, and as well for young ladies' semina-
ries as for others.

MARIE ANTOINETTE : An Historical Drama. By the authoress of The Life of
Catharine McAuley, Life of St. Alphonsus, etc. New York : The Catholic
Publication Society Co. 1880.
In this little play, intended for young ladies' schools, many moral leS'j

sons are inculcated by the good characters, who are mostly queens an<j

princesses.

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The Catholic world

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