Full text of "The Catholic world"

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

MONTHLY MAGAZINE

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE,

^ VOL. XLVII.
1888, TO SEPTEMBER, 1888.

NEW YORK:

THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
6 PARK

1888.

CONTENTS.

A\no. Harold Dijott, . . ' . . .
Annals of a Vendean, The. Louise Imogen
Gumey ....... 152,

AquaPura. John A. Mooney, . . .
At the Cross-Keys. Agnes Power, . 204,

Beer-Drinkers' "Trust," The.-^/ z A.
Mooney, .......

Catholic Aspect of Home Rule, A.Orby

Shipley ...... 433> ^

Catholic Universities of France, The. Right

Rev. John J. Keane, . . . .
Catholic Young Men's Societies. Rev. M. J.

La-jelle .....
Church and the Classes, The. Rev. Patrick

f. McSiueeny, ....
Clear Case of Suppressio Veri, A. Rev. Ed-

ward B. Brady, ...
Colonel's Story, The.-P. F. de Gourna'y, '.
Country Negro Mission, A. Rev. John R.

Slattery, .......

Creation and the Classics, The. W. Mar-

sham Adams.

Dogma and Symbolism. Rev. William Bar-

ry, D.D.,

Dom Muce. B. B., . . . . !

Down on the Don'ts. M. T. Elder, . \

Early Days of Notre Dame.-<4 rthur J. Stace,

Electric Motors.-j?^. Martin S. Brennan,

Evangelical Conference at Washington. The.

Rev. Walter Elliott, . . .

Heroes of Mexican Independence, The. Mary
Elizabeth Blake, .....

Heywood's Dramatic Poems, . . . '

" History of the Baptists."/^. //. H. w y .
man, ...

House Deadly, "tte.-John A'. Mooney', '.

How to obtain Congregational Singing. Rev
Alfred Young, ......

Irish Poet, An.-John J. a Becket, Ph.D., .
Is Protestant Unity Possible ?/?<?. Alfred

Young,
Is Russia Nearer the Church 'than it used to

be? Arthur F. Marshall, . . *.
Is there "No Reason for a Compromise "?

Rev. Patrick F. McS-weeny, . . .
Is there Salvation Outside the Catholic

Church tRev. John Gmeiner,
Italians in New York, ^^.-Berna'rd j.

Lynch,

John R. G. Hassard. Very Rev. I. T.
Hecker,

459

355
651
325

47O

807
601

316
444

6<(r

164
,00

John Van Alstyne's Factory. Lewis R.

Dorsay, . . .82, 246, 379, 519, 666, 819

Kaiser and Kulturkampf, The late. Rev. J.

A. Birkhaeuser, ..... 232
Key of the Position, The. Rev. William

Barry, D.D., ...... 172

Laity, The. A Layman, .... 12
Let us Study the Land and Labor Question.

Rev. John Talbot Smith, ... 51

Liquor and Labor. Rev. John Talbot Smith. 539

Mexican Journalism Charles E. Hodson, . 450

Mrs. Simpkins's Instincts. Harold Dijon, . 775

Music of Ireland, The. Rev. John M. Kiely, 74

Mystery of the Outposts, A. T. F. Galwey, 608

Open Letter from a College President, An, . 215
Open Letter to a Nun, An. Rev. Alfred

young, ....... 95

Origin of Private Property, The. James A.

Cain, ........ j 4 j

Our Drinks and our Drunkards. John. A.

Mooney, ....... 34 g

Present Standing of the Catholic University,

The .........

Priest and the Public, The.Kev. Edw. Mc-
Stveeny, .......

577

Scientific Freedom. .5. B ...... 225

Send the Whole Boy to School. A ugustus D.

Small, ........ 589

Shrine of St. Martin, The.-- William Price, . 495

Siena and her Saints, ..... 33J

Star of Bethlehem, The. Rev. George M,

Searle, ....... 5J

St. Patrick and the Serpents- C. M. O 1 Kceffe, ' 4C

Talk about New Books, A, . I20 , 261, 408, 554,

693, 844

Tempered with Mercy. Florence E. Weld, 499
The Things that make for Unity. Very Rev

I. T. Hecker ...... \ n02

Two Prophets of this Age. Very Rev. I. T.

H '^er, ...... ' .' 684

Wage-Earner and His Recreation, The. Ed-

ward Priestley, ..... 5IO

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Katharine Tynan, . 370
Winter in the Latin Quarter, A. E. J. Far-
. r r ' ........ 799

With Readers and Correspondents, 128, 271, 418,

562, 703, 853
Workmen should not only Act but Think.

Rev. J. Talbot Smith, . . . .838

iv CONTENTS

POETRY.

,6g Motherhood.- George Rothsay,

Alone with God,

At the Church Gate. Louise Imogen Guiney, 75 2 priest and the Blessed Eucharist, The, . .518

Divine Lodestone, The. A. F., . . '5 1 Revelations of Divine Love,

Ecce Homo! Henry C. U'a/sA, . , . 81 Snow-Storm, 1 he. H. A, />'., 2I 4

Faith.-GW*r, 588 Sphinx, ^.-Rtv. Alfred Young,

Hymn to the Saviour of Men, A.-W. C. Df*, 28 Thank-Offering, A.-^.^W, Dru,n,,,c n <i, ^

In the Reign of Domitian. diaries Henry To jn a f rai a Daughter. To Mafra, a Bride.

Lilders 773 Thomas Wm. Allies l8z

Jesus Hides H i-nself.-^. E,in f , . . 806 Two Singers.-^^,, H. Lau,,

Little Children.-*f^rrf //.-/,,. . 443 Via Crucis.-/^, ^ "'V"' ' 7 < 2

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Andiatorocte 567 Letters of Frederick Ozanam, The,

At Home and In War, 1855-1881, . . .858 Life of St. Patrick. 1 he, . . . . .a

Literary and Biographical History, A, . _. 426

Bad Christian The, 139 Lives.of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic

Bible Doctrine of Inspiration, The, . . 858 Church in the United States, . . .281

Biography of Lieut -Col Julius P. Garesche,

A. Adj. -Gen. U. S. A 426 Manual of Christian Kvidences, . . . 713

Blessed will Know Each Other in Heaven, Meditations for Kvery Day in the Year, . 858

The, 139 Mirror of the Virtues of Mother Mary of St.

Euphrasia Pelletier, >3Q

Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and (Ecu- Modern Novels and Novelists, . . . 8

menical Council of Trent, . . . .281 Mores Catholici, or Ages of Faith, . . 5 6 7
Christianity in the United States from the

First Settlement down to the Present Nannette's Marriage 713

Time, 567 New bunday-school Companion, . . 858

Cloud Rifts at Twilight, 567

Commentary on the Holy Gospels, A, . . 567 Our Thirst for Drink, 7'3

Consoling Thoughts of St. Francis de Sales, . 713

Palestine in the Tima of Christ, . . 4 2 *>

Daughter of St Dominic, A, .... 567 Percy's Revenge, 4 2 ^

Discours du Comte Albert de Mun, Depute Practical Question Book. The, . . . 713

du Morbihan 713 Prairie Boy, The, 567

Drops of Honey 713

Requiescant, 139

Early Days of Mormonism, .... 713 Robert Emmet, 426

Essays on the Development of Theism, . . 567

Sacred History from the Creation to the Giv-

First Book of Samuel, The, .... 567 ing of the Law 858

Sermons from the Flemish, .... 713

Gabrielle : A Story 139 Sermons on Devotion to the Sacred Heart, . 426

Geological History of Plants, The, . . . 426 Seven of Us 713

Grammar of Volapiik, A, 858 Solitary Island, 713

Spiritual Retreats, 281

Handbook of the Lick Observatory of the St. George and the Dragon 426

University of California, . . . .713 St. Peter, Bishop of Rome, . . . .281

Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, . 281 Study of Religion, A ijg

Historical Sketch of the Catholic Church in

New Mexico, 281 Thomas a Kempis 139

Thoughts from St. Vincent de Paul,

Irish Music and Song, 2 g t Types of Ethical Theory 426

Irish Wonders, 567

Is One Religion as Good as Another? . . 858 Under the Southern Cross, . . . .281

Kensington Junior, 426 Vade Mecum Hymnal. The 858

rr-u IT L.M Verses on Doctnnal and Devotional Subjects, 713

Letters of Charles Lamb, The, . . .713 Visit to Europe and the Holy Land, A, . . 426

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XLVII. APRIL, 1888. No. 277.

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 III.
THE SIXTH CHAPTER.

IN this shewing was given a lesson to my understanding,
That our soule should wiselie learne to cleave to God's good-

nes;
And at the same time the custome we have of our praier was

minded :
How that to make many meanes* we are usedf for unknowing

of loving.

Then sawe I venlie, that unto God it is far more of worshippe
And true delight that we faithfullie pray to Himself of His

goodnes,

Cleaving thereunto with stedfast belief and with true under-
standing
His grace preventing, than if we made all the meanes that heart

thinketh.
For all these meanes in themselves are too little, and not right

full worshippe ;
But in His goodnes is all the whole, and right nought there

faileth.

Thus, if we pray to God because of His Body all holy,
Or as well for His all precious Blood, His sweet holy Passion ;

* Meane medium. + Used accustomed.

2 REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE. [April,

For His most worshippfull bleeding Woundes and His dear

worthy Dying ;

With all the blessed kindnes filled unto life everlasting
That we may have fro* all these meanes it is of God's goodnes.
And if we pray Him because of His sweet Mother's love that

did bear Him ;
All the strong helpe that we have of her praier, it is of His

goodnes.

And if we pray Him because of His holy Cross that He died on,
All the vertue we have of that Cross it is of His goodnes.
Likewise, the same, all the helpe that we have of the saints and

the angels ;.

All the dear worthie love that for God we bear to the Blessed,
Our holy, endles friendship with them, it is of God's goodnes.
Thus the meanes that the goodnes of God hath ordeined for to

helpe us,

Aiding and comforting us in this life, be full faire and many.
Of which the chiefe is the blessed kindf that He took of the

Maiden.

This is the principall, with all that went before and came after
Which belongeth to our redemption and endles salvation.
Wherefore it pleaseth God that by meanes we worshippe and

seeke Him,

Understanding and knowing that He is of all thing the good-
nes.

But the praier we make to the goodnes of God is the highest ;
Coming down to us, unto the lowest part of our needing;
Quick'ning our soule, and making it live unto God in all vertue,
Nearest in kind and readiest in grace, thus making us perfect.
This is the grace that our soule be seeking, and shall till in

heaven

God be known by us verilie, in whom we all are beclos6d.
Man in his kind goeth upright ; and the soule of his body
Like to a full faire purse is sparred,^: and when he be needing,
God doth open and sparre it againe with full courteous mercie.
That it is He who doth this it is shewed above in the saying
" He cometh down to us, unto the lowest part of our needing."
For He hath trulie of all that He made of His goodnes no

hatred,

Ne no disdaine to serve us in all that belongeth to nature,
Out of His love to the soule that He made in His image and

likenes,

* Frofrom. f Kind nature, humanity. \ Sparred enriched, filltJ.

1 888.] REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE. 3

For as the body is cladd in the cloath, and the flesh in skin

likewise ;
And as the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the bulke is deep

hidden,
So are we cladd and enclosed both body and soule in God's

goodnes.
Yea, and more homelie ;* for all these things waste away and

soon vanish,
Whiles His goodnes is whole and more nere to us without a

likenes.
For that we cleave to Him with all our mightes, the Lover

desireth

That we wilfullie be evermore cleaving close to His goodnes.
For of all thing that heart thinketh, it most pleaseth God, and us

speedeth ;f

Seeing our soule is so preciouslie loved of Him that is highest ;
That it doth over-passe the knowing and wit of all creatures,
Namelie : no being created may wit how much and how sweetlie,
Ne how kindlie and tenderlie we are beloved by our Maker.
Wherefore we maie by His grace and His helpe stand in ghost-
lie beholding,

With everlasting marvailing in this high, over-passing
Love past all measure that our Lord hath to us of His goodnes.
Therefore we freelie maie aske all we will of our Lover, with

rev'rence ;

Seeing our will is to have onlie God, and His will is to have us.
Soothlie, we never maie cease of our willing, ne of our loving,
Until we have Him in the fullhead of joye that is promised.
It is His will we be busie here in knowing and loving,
Until cometh the time we shall be fullfill6d in heaven.
Then cometh ending of willing, and Love alone reigneth forever.

* Homelie intimately. \ Speedeth profits.

DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM. [April,

DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM.

SOME years ago Mr. Matthew Arnold, in addressing his
Liberal friends, made the following noteworthy prediction:'

"I persist in thinking," he said, "that the prevailing form for the
Christianity of, the future will be the form of Catholicism ; but a Catho-
licism purged, opening itself to the light and air, having the consciousness
of its own poetry, freed from its sacerdotal despotism, and freed from its
pseudo-scientific 'apparatus of superannuated dogma. Its forms will be
retained, as symbolizing with the force and charm of poetry a few cardinal
facts and ideas, simple, indeed, but indispensable and inexhaustible, and on
which our race could lay hold only by materializing them."*

These words, which deserve close attention as summing up
the views of many that do not agree with Mr. Arnold on any
other point, will furnish the text upon which I shall proceed
briefly to comment. All alike, Catholics and non-Catholics, we
have a deep interest in the question how far the teachings of
modern men of science, the alleged results of critical investiga-
tions, and the principles of the prevailing philosophies can or
ought to be allowed an influence on that living creed which has,
for nearly two thousand years, been in contact with European
civilization. Is a transformed Catholicism possible? What can
the Roman Church surrender as not essential to her truth and
authority? What must she retain if she would exist at all?
Mr. Arnold has suggested the true answer, though it is not ex-
actly what he supposes. And there are reasons at the present
.time why we should state that answer in plain terms.

There is no denying the superiority of the Catholic Church
as poetry. By this charm, and this alone, it will survive when
the confessedly unpoetical Protestant sects are dead and buried.
Mr. Arnold, who is a poet of great and austere excellence, may
be allowed to bear witness to the wealth of unconscious poetry
which is incarnate in Catholicism. On this point Catholics are
not likely to quarrel with him. But I must demur to his conclu-
sion. He wants the flower without the root, symbolism con-
sciously retained while its meaning is poured away. Why had the
middle ages such an exquisite and fruitful symbolism ? Surely
because they were the ages of faith. Why^ again, did not the
all-embracing, deeply significant symbolism of the Greeks and
Romans keep its hold on the centuries after Christ ? What was

* Mixed Essays, second edition, p. 121.

1 888.] DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM. 5

it that swept the pagan mythology out of life, while permitting
it always to be studied in the schools? Must we not answeiylts
falsehood, its ascertained discrepancy with truth and fact ? Re-
ligions, said Mr. Leslie Stephen, die of being found out. And
they are found out when their dogmatic assertions will not stand
the test of reason, experience, history, although their poetical
work, as art and literature, remains undiminished. Poetry, as
the shadowing forth of divine mysteries which are the soul's
salvation, is indeed a mighty power ; but it can never be a sub-
stitute for belief in God, or hide the nakedness of an existence
from which the hope of immortality has been taken. Is there,
in fact, a solitary instance of religion surviving among a people
when its creed, however poetical, had turned out to be a false-
hood? And who can seriously maintain that the Christian
Church will prove an exception? No; when the brains are out
the man must die. A creedless church is a phantom ; it may
exist as a state establishment: it never can continue in its own
strength. So evident does this appear to me that I have a diffi-
culty in crediting Mr. Arnold, or any one else, with maintaining
the opposite.

Nor is there the faintest sign of the dogma of the church be-
coming feeble. What syllable, having dogmatic weight, has
been retracted by the Holy See during the course of this per-
plexed century? Is there the slightest pretence for saying that
the church has yielded an inch to Agnosticism, Materialism, or
the anti-dogmatic principle in the discussions innumerable,
touching on every point that could be raised, which have sprung
out of the French Revolution and its consequences all over the
world? If we sum up the whole negative philosophy under one
head and call,it Phenomenism, where is there a point in it which
the Catholic hierarchy, or the schools of theologians, or the
clergy, or the people in any corporate capacity whatever, have
admitted? Mr. Arnold, in short, may prophesy that Catholicism
is going to be transformed into something else ; but no sign
of the process can he or we discern. Judging by facts, his
"Christianity of the future" is a distant ideal, if we must not
rather describe it as a pious aspiration, or a wish that is hardly
a hope.

So far, indeed, from the dogmatism of our creeds being a
source of weakness, it is the one distinctive character, the very
life and essence, of Catholicism, and makes of the Roman Church
a reality compared with which all other churches and schools
of thought are shadows. I fully grant, as Carlyle showed sixty

6 DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM. [April,

years ago, that the motive-power of the age is not faith but
physical science. We are living in the Mechanical Era, and the
multitudes of men think rather how they shall subdue and ac-
quire for themselves the elements of the visible than how to
build up a moral character fit for the world to come. But in
this universal decay of religion, while the spiritual is forgotten
or called in question, and God is but a name, and eternity the
realm of death, and man's earthly life reckoned the whole of his
existence, the great Christian dogmas come out, like stars in the
sky overhead, all the more vivid and solemn for the prevailing
darkness. They are the only points of light which a man intent
on keeping the path of moral rectitude, of true and noble human-
ity, can discern. But where do they steadfastly shine ? Only
in the heaven of the Catholic Church. Outside it, away from it,
religion has become for the most part clouds and mist through
which hardly a ray of meaning glimmers. The churches of
the Reformation are sinking into Pantheism, or Agnosticism, or a
" faint, possible Theism." They have, in fact, yielded to the pro-
cess of transformation which Mr. Arnold recommends. Their
creeds are understood to be convenient symbols, bodying forth
the unknown and satisfying the need we all have of meeting on
a common ground as human beings, members of the same species
and involved in a like destiny. But with the lapse from objec-
tive dogma to mere sentiment has come for Protestant commu-
nities the " beginning of the end." Their days are numbered.
Other forms of humanitarian emotion have an advantage over
them, first as being novel, and, next and chiefly, as not entail-
ing a constant strife between the dogmas expressed and the
scientific habit of mind which must be supposed to prevail in
the congregation. It would be easy, were it not superfluous, to
illustrate these statements by what has taken place during the
last fifteen or twenty years in the Reformed churches of Ger-
many, England, and America. Everywhere among Protes-
tants dogma is tending to lose its historical worth and to ad-
dress the imagination only ; and everywhere it is dying out.

But something more. It will be observed that I speak of
Theism and the Christian dogmas per modum untus, as though
they were all of a piece, and to question Christianity were to
endanger belief in a Personal, Living God. Such, in fact, we
cannot deny it, has been the case. I do not at all mean that
Theism depends for its truth on Revelation. But does it not,
m our century and under the stress of the physical-science
movement, depend on Revelation for its effective power? I ap-

1 888.] DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM. 7

peal to the experience of those who know the world and have
studied the facts of civilized life. A Theist who is not, or does
not mean to be, a Christian, will find himself approximating little
by little to the side of those who have renounced Theism also
and are Pantheists, Agnostics, or Materialists. His affinities,
so to speak, are in the wrong direction. If he remains true to
his belief he is solitary ; there hangs over his life and action
an incompleteness perpetually suggesting that he has not
reached the full term of his thought. He reasons soundly, but
his energies are every way impeded. What is it, he cannot but
ask himself, that comes between him and his fellow-man, divid-
ing them from one another? And where is the binding-prin-
ciple to be found? The answer suggested by Theism to his per-
plexities is Providence ; and when he looks for Providence in
history, he must needs come to the consideration of Christ and
his religion, with its dogmas, symbols, and institutions filling
by anticipation or by their results the canvas of human records
from end to end. While most significant it is that men like Mr.
Arnold and his Positivist friends, who- begin by resolving
Christianity into a myth, should,' as though driven onward by
force of logic, never pause till they have made of God and the
immortal spirit within us unverifiable suppositions which it is
our duty, they tell us, to put on one side. The abandonment of
dogma means, and is intended to mean, practical Atheism. And,
again, if we hold by Theism as the light of life real, undoubt-
ing, prayerful Theism are we not, in the eyes of Mr. Arnold,
assuming the main point at issue? after which we might as well
close with the Christian religion in its antiquated, and to him
impossible, form. I believe the usual Agnostic, whether Eng-
lish-speaking or German, and above all the scientific defenders
and exponents of that creed such as Lange or Professor Du
Bois Reymond would agree with him. The problem, there
fore, is simplified, and we have only to ask ourselves what the
Catholic Church would gain by making Theism an open ques-
tion, and interpreting her traditional symbolism by that rubric.
About the solution of the problem so stated I think we need
not trouble. Catholicism, be its fortunes in, the future, humanly
speaking, what they may, will not end amid " inextinguishable
laughter," as "that sorriest of farces, a pickle-herring tragedy."
When it ceases to dogmatize it will cease to be. But the point
to which I would draw attention and it may well astonish us
is that, "on the showing of scientific men themselves, nothing
whatever has been discovered, nothing proved or in the slight-

8 DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM. [April,

est degree ascertained, by physical science, on which a denial of
Theism can be legitimately grounded. So far as the Catholic
Church is bound up with that greatest of affirmations the ex-
istence of a Personal God, to whom the whole of creation is an
instrument for the carrying out of his Will it remains pre-
cisely where it was before the name of physical science had been
heard in modern times. That science, as actually taught, neither
affirms nor denies God and the supernatural. In the presence
of these truths of reason and revelation it is not Agnostic, much
less Atheistic. It is simply dumb. We do not cast out religion
because it nowhere appears in the theorems of Euclid. When
our premises and process are algebraic, we hardly expect a
metaphysical or a moral statement in the conclusion. Now, the
whole of what Mr. Arnold calls verification by experience is of
this kind and belongs to mathematics and the study of matter.
There is, indeed, an experience which brings to light the intui-
tions of morality, the first principles of reason, and the divine
aspects of the universe. But "to that experience Mr. Arnold
would refuse an objective value; he would call it emotion. The
test and proof he demands can be furnished by physical science
alone. How astonishing it is, I say then, that physical science
turns round at this point and declines to intermeddle with such
problems, as beyond her competence ! She cannot decide
whether we possess another organ of knowledge, whether
hyper-physical intuitions are given us, or what we mean by
them. Between theology and physics there is no antagonism,
if only because they have nothing in common. Or, to speak more
accurately, while physics cannot but supply data to reason, for
its arguments from design, from efficient and final causes and
from the beauty of things visible to their Divine Exemplar, it
remains true that, merely as physics, the lower science can make
no assertions in the province of the higher, and theology is to it
a sealed volume. Hence it is by no means on the ground of
experimental knowledge, nor at all in the name of " science,"
that Catholicism can be required to disown her dogmas. Their
truth or falsehood must be proved by other than physical meth-
ods. Be they merely the poetry of the unknown and unknow-
able, or a real adumbration, in time and through visible media, of
things eternal, evident it surely is that weighing and measuring,
or the employment of the " scientific imagination "in other
words, of the clear images of matter in motion will not decide
one, way or the other. It is the religious faculty within'us that
judges here; "spiritual things must be spiritually discerned" ;

1 888.] DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM. 9

and the reason which we rightly invoke as creating natural relig-
ion in the heart of man is a light that reads the world and life as
manifestations of spirit, not as products or illusions of the five
senses. It is one thing to hear the words of an epic poem,
another to grasp their meaning. And religion deals with phe-
nomena as the poet deals with words; but the meaning was
first of all in the poet's mind, and the true and everlasting sig-
nificance of the universe is in the mind of God, to which religion
has access. Does any scientific authority deny that such access
can be or has been ? He does so at his own risk ; for science,
from the nature of the case, says neither yea nor nay.

"You never," writes Professor Tyndall on a cognate question, "hear
the really philosophical defenders of the doctrine of Uniformity speaking
of impossibilities in nature. They never say, what they are constantly
charged with saying, that it is impossible for the Builder of the universe
to alter his work. Their business is not with the possible. 1 '* And again :
"As regards knowledge, physical science is polar. In one sense it knows,
or is destined to know, everything. In another sense it knows nothing.
Science understands much of this intermediate phase of things that we
call nature, of which it is the product; but science knows nothing of the
origin or destiny of nature. Who or what made the sun, and gave his
rays their alleged power? Who or what made and bestowed upon the ul-
timate particles of matter their wondrous power of varied interaction ?
Science does not know; the mystery, though pushed back, remains unal-
tered.''t

I wish our Royal Societies, and scientific associations at
home and abroad, could be persuaded to adopt these words
as their motto, " Science is polar." By all means. That is
what religious men have ever contended. There are two
poles of knowledge, the material and the spiritual, both ob-
jective, neither of them an illusion or a dream of poetry. Hu-
man life turns upon them, and the whole desire of a reasonable
man should be that, if they are kept perfectly distinct, the one is
not denied in favor of the other. But they do not make an
ordered universe if, while the less important is insisted on with
ever-growing iteration, that other, for the sake of which nature
itself is, be treated as fiction and idle seeming. After many
centuries we are at last, it appears, beginning to learn some-
thing of that "intermediate phase" of reality which we term
nature, and the ascertained exposition of which is physical
science. It is a matter for congratulation. But our moral be-
ing requires that we should know something, too, of the "origin
and destiny," as of nature, so of ourselves, who cannot find hap-

* Fragments of Science, fifth edition, p. 456. f Ibid. p. 464.

I0 DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM. [April,

piness, or exercise the highest faculties within us, or be aught
save highly-organized animals, unless in our thoughts we go be-
yond "nature," and discover why we are placed here and
what is expected of us. The fact that we can ask these ques-
tions, that they are reasonable and intelligible and not to be put
by, is surely an indication that somewhere the answer to them
has been or will be given. Life cannot fall into harmony unless
both its poles are real. " Science " is one pole, and explicates
the material. What, then, is the other pole, which explicates
the immaterial? Can it be imaginary? If so, where is the bal-
ance in things ?

We want real physics and real metaphysics, and no delusion
anywhere. A symbolism founded on fact may be sacred and
venerable ; but if it paints nothing except our fancies, let it be
kept for moments when we are not serious. The other pole of
knowledge, about which ojir religion revolves, must not be fan-
tastic. And here is physical science affirming that it knows no
reason why religion should be fantastic ; that, for all it has ever
been able to learn, there may be a miracle-working God, the
Creator of a spiritual soul in man, who has revealed himself in
Jesus Christ, and whose message may have taken the shape of
church and Bible. For with the " transcendental " it does not
concern itself ; and it has, and can have, no prejudices h priori
against religion; nor can it ever be justified in saying that his-
tory has not within it a miraculous element.* To achieve its own
high purposes physical science goes upon the " uniformity of
nature." But to the physicist, let us remember, the principle
of uniformity has only an experimental value. He does not re-
ceive it as an intuition of reason ; to him it is, in the language
of Kant, synthetic indeed, but not & priori in other words, not a
necessary truth, but a working hypothesis and the summing up
of experience so far. In like manner, he knows only sequence,
not causation ; the correlations of things as they fall under his
ken, not their causes; the results, it may be, of the action of
spiritual powers in this visible world, but never the spiritual
powers themselves. Though he uses reason incessantly, he has
no theory of it, for it is an instrument given to him by the high-
er science we call logic, and he is not a logician at all, but
a searcher into matter, space, and motion, and their conse-
quences.

Thus he has left "ample room and verge enough" for any
science of the supersensible, whether of God or man, which can
make good its footing in the region where physics does not

1 888.] DOGMA AND SYMBOLISM. n

penetrate. Certain leaders of thought believe that there is no
such region ; but so do not the greatest. When we hear the
most eminent names in science we hear the names of men who
eagerly proclaim that there are infinite aspects of reality which
their science will never reveal. On the other hand, we see the -4
Catholic Church, refusing. to physical knowledge none of the
empirical axioms for which it contends, but maintaining that to
her has been confided the revelation of the Unseen. If that mes-
sage were only sentiment, if her business were to cultivate hu-
man emotions, her symbolism would be altogether different
from what it is, and she would enforce no dogmas, or " affirma-
tions concerning the Eternal," on her children. But allow that
the Unseen is equally, though not by the same process, attain-
able as the earthly and the visible ; that God is not a chimera,
and that man is a spirit; and it will then appear that every
point of the church's symbolism is dogmatic, and that the sign
and the significance of it stand or fall together.

And so we reply to Mr. Arnold, that if 'he deems so highly
of the symbolism, it is to be presumed that its substance is
more beautiful still ; but, if he is determined to make away
with the substance, not all the kind wishes in the world will
rescue the symbolism. Here, then, I conclude, we have one
measure of the church's stability the truths of Natural Relig-
ion as implied and culminating in Theism. Science does not
even pretend to assail those truths ; and a church that surren-
dered them would be the same instant, as a church, annihilated.
Is there a future for Theism ? To that extent there is one for
the Roman Communion, founded and set up as it is in Theism.
Or, is Mr. Arnold right in Literature and Dogma, and is the
"assumption," common to all the churches, that there is "a
Great Personal First Cause, the moral and intelligent Governor
of the universe," unverifiable? Is it only an imagination, and
not a known and certain truth? In that case the mission of the
church is over, and we must find consolation where we may ;
some perhaps in poetry, but the serious-minded, surely, in the
one refuge that would then be left them the silence of despair.

WILLIAM BARRY.

THE LAITY. [April,

THE LAITY.

IF next Sunday all the men and women in New York, be-
tween eighteen and sixty, who sincerely declare themselves to
be Catholics, and sincerely believe themselves to be Catholics,
were to take it into their heads to go to Mass, does any one for
a moment suppose that the churches of the city, even with the
average of five successive Masses each, would be able to ac-
commodate more than a fraction of them? The same will hold
good of any other of our cities. This is without including the
great numbers who have fallen completely away into practical
and avowed indifference to religion. It may be answered, and
with truth, that very many of these non-attendant yet professing
Catholics are non-attendant because they are wilfully leading
more or less sinful lives, and, being unwilling to abandon evil,
abstain, therefore, first from the sacraments and then from pub-
lic worship even. But, conceding this, it will be admitted that
it would be a step at least towards reforming the lives of these
persons if they could be induced to be present at public worship.
There is an optimistic and a pessimistic way of looking at the state
of religion, as at most other things, yet one does not need to be
either an optimist or a pessimist to desire in every legitimate and
practical way to enlarge the field in which the elevating truths
and saving graces of Christ's church can be brought into play.
Some five years ago the late Father Formby published a pam-
phlet attempting to explain why it is that, as he took for granted,
there is a growth of unbelief among the educated classes in
Europe. Like Mgr. Gaume, he seemed to find the cause to be
in the ordinary curriculum of academic studies, in which most of
the literary culture is founded upon the writings of pagans.
Other writers, very many writers indeed, have affirmed that the
decay or neglect of the traditional music of the liturgy is largely
responsible.

It is beyond dispute that in modern times the Catholic laity
in general, although performing their personal duties as Chris-
tians, are, in their relation to the public interests of religion, too
often like dumb oxen. So far as the liturgy goes, no one who
is aware of its magnificent but unused possibilities can avoid a
feeling of wonder that the Catholic laity should have ceased to
take the share in the public worship of the church to which they
are clearly shown to be entitled, as well by the structure of

1 888.] THE LAITY. 13

the liturgy itself as by its language and rubrics. Recently a
New York daily paper, a propos of a Protestant theological dis-
pute and of the assembly which was convened to settle it, in-
dulged in some flippant remarks on the early CEcumenical Coun-
cils, likening them, on account of their heated debates, the parti-
san activity sometimes manifested in anticipation of these coun-
cils, and the great popular interest taken in them, to our modern
political conventions. It is certain that in the first centuries of
the church a living interest was shown in religious discussions
and in points of ecclesiastical discipline by the public at large, both
laymen and clerics. Even the most subtle of the philosophical
principles which underlie the doctrine of the Incarnation seem
to have been debated in the highways, the workshops, the marts
of trade and industry, by even the ordinary unlettered citizens of
Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria, with as much earnest-
ness as similar men of our own time and country would employ
over free-trade and protection. Indeed, until quite late in the
middle ages the laity were accustomed not only to be seen in
the churches but to have their voices heard there, and that not
merely in set portions of the divine office, but also in delibera-
tions on the policy of the church. So far as the church was
concerned, there was no profanum vulgus except the excom-
municate.

Every public function of the church supposes the laity to be
actively, not passively, present ; as participators, not simply as
spectators. A very forcible instance of this is in the ordination
of priests, where, if anywhere, one might be pardoned for imagin-
ing the laity to have no right but that of edified spectators. But
what is the fact ? In the ritual for ordination the laity are actu-
ally summoned to express their opinion as to the worthiness of
those about to receive the sacrament of order, and the words of
the summons declare this to be not merely a polite or ceremoni-
ous formula, but a genuine right of the laity, although certainly
not a legal but a moral right. The laity are plainly declared to
be most deeply concerned of all in the choice of fit subjects for
the priesthood. Here is a translation of a part of the ordination
service :

"The bishop addresses the clergy and people in the following words :
' Inasmuch, dearly beloved brethren, as both the master of a vessel and
the passengers have either a common feeling of security or a common
fear, in like manner those who have a common interest should have a
common opinion. For not uselessly, indeed, was it established by the
Fathers that in the election of those who are to be employed for the min-

i 4 THE LAITY. [April,

istry of the altar the people also should be consulted, because what many
may be ignorant of concerning the life and conduct of the candidate is
sometimes known to a few, and besides it is necessary in order that the
faithful may the more readily yield obedience to him when ordained whose
ordination they sanctioned by their consent.'

" ' Indeed, so far as appears to me, the conduct of this deacon, who with
the assistance of the Lord is about to be ordained to the priesthood, is com-
mendable and pleasing to God, and worthy, in my opinion, of an increase of
ecclesiastical honor. But, lest one or a few might be influenced by friend-
ship or prejudiced by affection, the opinion of many should be sought.
Wherefore, whatsoever you know of his conduct or morals, whatsoever
you think of his merit, freely make known ; and give him this testimony
for the priesthood as he shall deserve, and not from any motives of affec-
tion. Should any one, therefore, have anything against him, let him, for
God's sake and for the honor of God, come forward and speak ; neverthe-
less, let him be mindful of his own condition.'

" Here the bishop pauses," etc.

May not one cause of the lack of spirit among the laity, of
which there is now so much complaint, be a deeper, or, at all
events, a more intangible, cause than that of music or liturgy, al-
though both of these have undoubtedly contributed their share ?

A query is in order here. One flagrant error of Protestant-
ism is that it reduces religion to a purely personal and private
matter, independent of any organized institution, thus tending
to render religion altogether subjective in its scope, the logi-
cal end of which tendency is the denial of the objective reality
of religious truth in other words, scepticism. The query is:
Would not a tendency towards the same lamentable end natu-
rally arise from a condition of things which more and more had
the effect of separating the great body of the Catholic laity from
active participation in the institutional phases of religion ?

Under the Jewish dispensation the public work of religion
was conducted exclusively by the tribe of Levi. But the new
dispensation recognizes no such thing as a sacerdotal caste.
Balmes, in his Protestantism and Catholicity, devotes most of
a long chapter to proving; that not only has the clergy of the
Catholic Church never constituted a caste, but that Christianity
has always opposed the growth of any tendency towards the
spirit of caste in its clergy. Nevertheless, although the clergy
are not and never have been a caste, there is room for an in-
quiry. It is this : Has not the Providence of God, for temporary
ends, perhaps, so shaped things that there has developed a ten-
dency among the clergy towards a sort of professional feeling
such as instinctively, as it were, resents as an intrusion any par-
ticipation of outsiders in the sacred functions ? Is there not a

1 888.] THE LAITY. 15

certain exaggerated feeling of condescension towards the laity,
a certain feeling of exclusive possession in the church and in the
belongings of the church, displayed among a large number of
the priesthood ? Is it not worth while to inquire whether that
same Providence is not now pointing to a return to the older and
more normal state of union without confusion of the clergy and
people ? Which may most truly be called the normal state, the
present one or the one whose traces are found everywhere in
the ritual? Is not the present state of things to a great extent a
mere survival of a former adjustment of the church to abnormal
environments, most of which have disappeared with the lapse
of ages? What share in the cultivation of this exclusive, pro-
fessional feeling among the clergy is to be imputed to a con-
dition of things now rapidly passing away ?

Enter a church during the performance of some solemn
function. Around the altar, blazing with lights, are gathered
reverend men vested in rich garments of antique splendor.
They are all in motion, or, at all events, each has a part, the
voice of each is heard, and everything is conducted with decent
order and impressive dignity. Even to the unbelieving stranger
the spectacle is interesting, perhaps strikingly beautiful. That
is the clergy. But -it is all shut in by a barrier, the sanctuary-
railing. Outside that barrier, and filling the edifice, is a great
throng dressed in sombre, every-day attire, and giving out not
a sound, making scarcely a motion. The complete silence, the
almost breathless hush, of the vast assembly outside the sanc-
tuary is, in fact, one of the remarkable and impressive features
of the occasion. This is the laity, and, to all appearances at
least, they are taking no other part than that of most respectful
spectators. Do the laity understand what is being said and
done within the sanctuary ? In a general sense they do. In a
particular sense scarcely any of them do. Of course there is no
secrecy whatever in the function. But look into any one of the
prayer-books which are in the hands of the laity in that great
congregation, and in many of them you shall not find a line or a
word calculated to guide you through the function. After all
is over, look into one of the service-books which the reverend
clergy within the sanctuary-railing were using at the time, and
perhaps it will astonish you to find that the language of the
ceremonial then employed assumed that all the faithful present,
laity as well as clergy, were taking part ; the laity not merely
as dumb witnesses, but as prayerful and tuneful worshippers.
Now and then one reads in a Catholic book or periodical an

I6 THE LAITY. [April,

edifying tale relating how some distinguished layman, a great
statesman, perhaps, or a dashing soldier, was wont to experience
pious and humble satisfaction in serving a priest at Mass. Yet
the liturgy was manifestly composed 'with the supposition that
every one of the faithful present in the church would serve the
Mass, so far at least as making all the responses. To be sure,
the disappearance of Latin as the spoken tongue throughout the
lands where the Latin rite was first introduced, and the survival
of Latin 'as the language of the liturgy, to some extent accounts
for the discrepancy between theory and practice as to the part
of the laity in the church services ; but only to some extent.
There is something exceedingly suggestive in the fact of this
passive attitude of the laity seeming to be absolutely complai-
sant. Heretofore the laity have been happy in their mute, ad-
miring devotion. A change may come, however ; there are
those who think they perceive its first approaches, and who
would read in this the most hopeful presages of an increase of
spiritual vigor and manliness in the members of a hymn-singing,
many-voiced church of the near future.

If the sanctuary-railing at times seems like a barrier, it may
perhaps be well to remember that there was a period when it
was intended for the very purpose of exclusion, or, at any rate,
to be typical of exclusion. Four centuries ago, or even but one
century ago and less, the state, in Europe, not only " protect-
ed " but patronized the church. There was a time when em-
perors, kings, dukes, counts, ay, and even petty knights, were
often very much inclined to " run " the church, as we Americans
would put it. The " right " of investiture, of appointment of
bishops, parish priests, abbots, priors, and other dignitaries of
the church or of the religious orders, and other similar rights,
were constantly claimed and exercised by civil rulers without a
shadow of justice. The liberty of religion, the very administra-
tion of the sacraments, were in danger from these intruders, and
the consequent defensive attitude of the church took form in
architectural developments such as those chancels raised high
above the general level of the church-floor, shut off by rood-
screens, or surrounded by massive railings, strong enough to
serve as real physical barriers in case of an emergency. The
ponderous and sometimes forbidding sanctuary-railing still sur-
vives, centuries after .the purpose for which it was first devised,
and thus seems still to symbolize a certain exclusiveness of feel-
ing, a certain distrust which in the past was necessary and
wholesome.

1 888.] THE LAITY. 17

The appurtenances of worship and discipline referred to had
their reason ; and so will those of the future development of
Catholic religious life have their reason each reason working
in its time and place for the common good. The cause of
Catholicity is to be in the future, as it has been in the past, the
cause of true civilization. But no great idea can pass through
the civilization of a great people without being modified, and
this applies to religion. One may be permitted to ask, Ought
any mere historical survivals, which are not 'related to the
essence of faith, be allowed to prevent a close union of all those
who are faithful to the truth?

In what the writer has said above he begs not to be misun-
derstood. He makes no complain-t; there is no complaint to
make. But this is an era when the old order is undergoing
radical changes, in the social, industrial, and political world, and
one is justified in inquiring how far changes can occur in the
religious world without injury to what is necessarily unchange-
able in it, and one is justified also in inquiring how are we pre-
pared to meet these changes. There are two sides to the
church, the human and the divine. The human side will, in the
natural order of things, tend to adjust itself to its environment,
and the divine side will seek men's souls on lines laid down by
their peculiar civilization. If Catholicity in the person of its
missionaries could wear the mandarin's feather in China and
could live on a vegetable diet according to the Brahman code in
India, it can certainly adjust itself to the conditions of the free
citizen of the United States. What stamps the Catholic Church
as a divine institution, and not a mere national or race cult, is its
equal adaptability, without straining the bonds of unity and per-
petuity, to all of God's children on earth without difficulty as to
time or place, to the middle ages, to the nineteenth century, to
the United States as well as to Japan.

We do not want either national churches or " personal "
churches ; we need nothing but the One, Catholic, Apostolic, and
Roman Church, in the full sense of that majestic term the only
church in which all that is true in the national and personal can
attain an adequate realization. The subject of this paper is one
that ought to be discussed without trenching either on the
rights of the clergy or the duties of the laity ; on the contrary,
an intelligent discussion would tend rather to bring these rights
and duties more clearly into view.

Our modern and American civilization is favorable to the
development of the Catholic religion, and yet this civilization

VOL. XLVII. 2

1 8 A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERI. \\ [April,

may be perverted. The perversion of our popular tendencies
would be, in religion, the merging of priest and people into one,
enhancing the lay element at the expense of the divine rights of
the church a perversion abhorrent to every one of sound Catho-
lic faith. Equally abhorrent would be the effrontery of any man,
caste, institution, or nation which should undertake to set the
human above the divine, to set up, for instance, Americanism
vs. Catholicity.. Catholics are disciples of Christ first, last, and
all the time. When that ceases to make us better Americans
the republic is undone. In short, the qualities of American
citizenship are such as to fit good Americans in an especial man-
ner to be good Catholics. One object of this paper has been
to inquire just how the completion of this fitness can best be
worked out. A LAYMAN.

A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERI.

IN a recent number of the Century magazine there appeared
an article on " The Catacombs of Rome," by Professor Philip
Schaff, D.D. The article, though brief, was profusely illustrat-
ed, and was accorded the place of honor. The tone of the
writer is professedly candid and orthodox, and his readers are
given to understand that in this short paper they have the re-
suits of archaeological research in the Roman Catacombs fully
and fairly summarized. This certainly is the impression Profes-
sor Schaff has sought to produce on the minds of his extensive
audience, and we believe he has largely succeeded. The writer,
it is true, makes no claim to original investigation ; he simply
leaves us to infer that he visited the Catacombs in the ordinary
tourist fashion. But he does claim to be quite familiar with the
best and latest literature on the subject, and he mentions a num-
ber of works by the most noted authors, whose researches he in-
timates having mastered, and so his acquaintance with the sub-
ject must needs be accurate and profound. It is not our pur-
pose to dispute the extent of his knowledge or the sources
whence it was derived. Our cause of complaint against the
learned professor is that he tells only a very small part of what
he knows. We venture to call him to account simply because
we are convinced that he wilfully conceals facts and statements
from the general public which it ought to know facts without
the knowledge of which any sketch of the Catacombs must
necessarily be inaccurate and misleading.

1 888.] A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERI. 19

The most hopeful feature of the intellectual development of
our time is that the great majority of intelligent people nowa-
days want to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth in relation to every subject to which their attention is
called, so that one-sided views and suppression of facts are de-
precated by all honest men ; and in a magazine like the Century,
that caters to the broadest intelligence of the land, they are
strangely out of place. But unfortunately the literary bias in-
herited through generations dies slowly and much of what is
every day written is still a conspiracy against Catholic truth.
The testimony of the Catacombs is so distinctly and decidedly
Catholic that it is difficult to understand how any writer can
afford to openly ignore the fact, much less to controvert it. But
Professor Schaff not only ignores it, but, by suppression of evi-
dence and covert insinuation, tries to convey the idea that there
is nothing distinctively Catholic to be found in the Catacombs
or their contents.

The Roman archaeologist, John Baptist de' Rossi, is uni-
versally accepted as the highest authority on the Catacombs
and all that they contain. He is the chief authority to whom
the reverend professor appeals, and De' Rossi shall be our high
court of appeal also, for his works are before us.

The first statements in the article to which we take exception
are those where it is asserted that the Catacombs were used for
sepulture only, and not for places of refuge or worship. It is
no doubt true, as the writer observes, that even the Christian
burial clubs were in the beginning protected by Roman law, and
their cemeteries, though under ground, were to some extent
public. But in the year 257 an edict was issued by the Em-
peror Valerian forbidding not only " all Christian assemblies,"
but also "all visits to places called cemeteries." And Pope
Sixtus II., who in the following year, 258, was surprised by the
pagans while ministering to his flock in the cemetery of Prastex-
tatus, was hurried off before the tribunals and condemned to
death with several of his followers. This fact is well established,
both from the famous appeal of the deacon St. Lawrence at the
trial, and the well-preserved inscription of Pope Damasus dis-
covered by De' Rossi in the Papal Crypt of the Catacomb of St.
Callixtus. It is also well authenticated that on more than one
occasion when the Christians were seen to enter their cemeteries,
or were found at worship there by the pagan persecutors, the
narrow passages or galleries were closed up and the worship-
pers were thus buried alive. St. Gregory of Tours, in his work
De Gloria Martyrum, mentions an instance where a whole

A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERI. [April,

gregation was walled in in this manner, and when the chamber
was re-opened the skeletons of men, women, and children were
discovered strewn about, and even the silver cruets which had
been taken down for the celebration, of the sacred mysteries
were found there, silent witnesses to the religious character of
the assembly. When so many of the cubicula were undoubt-
edly chapels and so many of the arcosolia altars, there must
have been a good deal of worship ; and it looks rather suspicious
to question the fact. But the reverend professor is cautious. He
cannot, of course, pass over the most interesting features of the
Catacombs without some recognition. And so he tells us that
"the little oratories with altars and episcopal chairs cut in the
tufa are probably of later construction, and could accommodate
only a few persons at a time. They were suited for funeral
services and private devotion, but not for public worship."
Does De' Rossi say, or any other great authority on the Cata-
combs except Professor Schaff, that all " the little oratories with
altars are probably of later construction " ? To deny that some
of the chambers in the Catacombs were used as places of Chris-
tian worship during the early ages is, says De' Rossi, "to close
one's eyes to the light of the sun at noonday." Take, for exam-
ple, the subterranean chapel discovered in the cemetery of St.
Agnes by Marchi in 1841. This structure, 45 feet in length, 7
feet in width, and two stories in height, with chancel and a lumi-
nare, certainly afforded accommodations for something more
than "funeral services and private devotion." And this ora-
tory was constructed, according to De' Rossi, not later than the
first years of the fourth century. There is no question but that
the Roman Catacombs were in the beginning built as places of
sepulture only. In the cemeteries constructed during the first
and second centuries there was no provision made for assembly
or worship, but in the Catacombs of the third and fourth cen-
turies there was provision made for both ; and the evidence is
ample that, from the middle of the third century at least, the
Christians took refuge in the Catacombs and worshipped there
in times of persecution. History as well as archaeology wit-
nesses to this, so that there is no reasonable ground for doubt
in the matter.

Referring to St. Petronilla, whose name is so intimately asso-
ciated with the very interesting catacomb on the Via Ardeatina,
Professor Schaff ventures a remark so irrelevant and so un-
founded that his motive cannot well be mistaken. " The Roman
divines," he says, " reluctant to admit that the first pope had
any children (though his marriage is beyond a doubt from the

1 888.] A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERI. 21

record ot the Gospels which mention his mother-in-law), un-
derstand Petronilla to be a spiritual daughter, as Mark was a
spiritual son, of the apostle." Now, as a matter of fact, the
" Roman divines " never had any reluctance to admit that St.
Peter had children, and the vast majority of them have lived
and died in the belief that St. Peter had a daughter, for such
has been the common tradition in the church for ages ; but that
the St. Petronilla above referred to was his actual daughter is
so exceedingly improbable that we feel quite sure Professor
Schaff himself does not believe a word of it. He brings the
question up simply because it serves his purpose to have a fling
at the " Roman divines," that is all. The lady Aurelia Petro-
nilla, who is associated both in name and fame with one of the
noblest houses in Rome, could hardly have been born and raised
in a fisherman's hut on the distant shores of the Sea of Galilee.

Few objects found in the Catacombs excite our veneration
more than the glass vases stained with blood the blood of the
martyrs. But Professor Schaff shatters our idols with a stroke
of his pen. The blood-red stains that arouse our emotion were
not made by blood at all ; they are only the dregs of wine sac-
ramental wine possibly, but still wine. Now, there is nothing
to which the early records of the Christian faith bear such abun-
dant testimony as the care taken by the Christians in the times
of persecution to preserve the sacred remains of their martyred
brethren, and especially their blood. Sponges, cloths, and vessels
of various kinds, that were used to collect the generous blood of
the athletes of Christ, are to be found in their tombs. The ear-
liest records relating to the Catacombs frequently refer to these
touching memorials of Christian zeal and veneration. Such
writers as St. Ambrose and Prudentius speak of this pious cus-
tom and the evidences they had of it before their eyes. But we
must not forget that our court of appeal is not early history but
recent archaeology. Though quite a number of vials with un-
mistakable stains upon them have been discovered in recent
times in or near the tombs of the martyrs, it is of course most
difficult to have them subjected to a regular chemical analysis
after the lapse of so many centuries. One, however, that was
found in 1872 in the cemetery of St. Saturninus afforded oppor-
tunity for this test. This vessel contained a semi-liquid fluid
which had the appearance of blood. It was submitted to De'
Rossi for examination, and under the supervision of his brother,
Michele de' Rossi, was subjected to a most thorough chemical
and microscopic analysis, which resulted in establishing that
the fluid was originally blood beyond the possibility of even a

22 A CLEAR CASE OF SVPPRESSIO VERI. [April,

scientific doubt. We strongly suspect that when the reverend
professor throws doubt on the blood theory he aims a blow at
relics in general and at the blood of St. Januarius in particu-
lar, which liquefies every year and is a continuous Catholic

miracle.

From blood to instruments of torture is a transition natural
enough. Whatever <; the fertile imagination of credulous peo-
ple" may think to the contrary, Professor Schaff insists that the
so-called instruments of torture found in the Catacombs " are
simply instruments of handicraft." Perhaps they are both!
The iron head of a hatchet found firmly embedded in the head of
a martyr by Bosio was doubtless an "instrument of handicraft,''
but was it not also an instrument of torture and death ? De'
Rossi himself found plutnbatce in the crypt of St. Cecilia. And
speaking of this subject in general, he says: " Many times even
in our own days have we had the opportunity of seeing and
handling the material proofs of the mutilations and various tor-
tures undergone by those buried in the Roman Catacombs ;
and of the religious care of the ancient Christians in gathering
up all that they could of the mangled bodies and the mutilated
limbs, and depositing them in an honored place and wrapping
them in precious coverings."

The eschatology of the early Christians, if we accept the
statement of Professor Schaff, was as crude as that of the red
Indians or any other savages. They buried the implements
of their handicraft with the dead, because " the idea prevailed
to a large extent (amongst them) that the future life was a con-
tinuation of the occupations and amusements of the present."
This certainly is a new discovery, and the credit of it belongs
to the reverend professor. For up to the present moment the
Christian world has been laboring under the supposition that
the first converts to Christianity received the fulness of Gos-
pel light and truth from the apostles and their immediate suc-
cessors, and hence their conceptions of the future life were
spiritual and orthodox, not material and heretical, as this
statement would imply. It is needless to say that the circum-
stances which led up to this remarkable discovery are not
recorded. The anthropomorphic idea of God, and some con-
sequent errors in regard to the future life, found a foothold
in later years among some of the simple anchorites of the
Libyan deserts ; but the faithful of Rome were always free from
such gross errors. Living, as they did, at the very centre of
Christian orthodoxy, they were constantly nourished with sound
doctrine, and the belief of Rome was the standard and the test

i888.] A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERI. 23

of Christian belief throughout the world, and was frequently
appealed to by the great champions of the Christian cause in
the East as well as in the West. There is not, therefore, any real
foundation for supposing that the fervent flock which followed
the Divine Shepherd through centuries of tears and blood had
any misconceptions as to the character of the eternal reward
he would bestow upon them for their fidelity. For him they
lived, for him they died, and the possession of him was the
reward exceeding great after which they sought. The New Je-
rusalem might stand out before them with its walls and gates
and battlements, but the Lord Go'd was its glory, and the Lamb
was its light, and their vision its peace and rest and joy, and the
Occupation of the blessed within its walls.

When Professor Schaff comes to speak of the pictures found
in the Catacombs he is particularly one-sided in his treatment
of the subject. He carefully refrains from all allusion to the
many distinctively Catholic devotional scenes depicted there,
and he insinuates that the representations of the Blessed Virgin
are confined to the figures of the Orantes and are at best some-
what doubtful. Here are his words: "A woman in a pray-
ing posture frequently appears on the walls of the Catacombs.
Roman Catholic archaeologists see in that figure the earliest
representation of the Virgin Mary praying for sinners. Others
interpret it as the mother-church, or as both combined." Is
this a fair statement to make when pictures of the Blessed Vir-
gin, some with her name actually inscribed upon them, abound
in the Catacombs? Nor can these pictures be conveniently
thrust aside as of later date, for De' Rossi himself declares that
the picture of the Madonna and Child discovered in the ceme-
tery of St. Priscilla belongs to the first age of Christian art.
Indeed if we accept the judgment of archaeology in the matter,
we are justified in saying that the artist who painted this par-
ticular picture might well have received his instruction in the
Christian faith from the lips of St. Peter or St. Paul. This we
admit to be " the earliest representation of the Virgin Mary " as
yet revealed to us in the Catacombs. In this same cemetery
of St. Priscilla, too, we have paintings of the Annunciation, the
Adoration by the Magi, and the Finding of our Lord in the Tem-
ple. The Adoration by the Magi was a favorite subject in early
Christian art. De' Rossi mentions over twenty paintings and
a still greater number of sculptures in which it appears, and, as a
matter of course, the Holy Child is almost invariably represent-
ed in the arms of his Blessed Mother. This group of subjects
belongs for the most part to the latter half of the third and the

24 A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERI. [April,

beginning of the fourth centuries. The Blessed Virgin is also
found depicted alone or in company with some of the saints, as
SS. Peter and Paul. So numerous are the paintings and sculp-
tures in which she is represented that when they are passed
over by any writer pretending to give'a general account of the
Catacombs and their contents, it naturally excites suspicion.
And when we find so prominent a subject of early Christian art
slurred over in a single sentence, we cannot help thinking that
the author's prejudices have something to do with it. The
devotion of the primitive Christians to the Mother of Christ
has never been a matter of Conjecture but of historical fact.
Almost every breath of ancient tradition comes down to us
laden with the sweet incense of her praise ; and in every creed-
of primitive Christianit}', whether composed by the apostles
or depicted on the walls of the Roman Catacombs, her place
in the Christian covenant is recognized and her prerogatives set
forth.

Professor Schaff fi-nds evidences of only two sacraments
in the Roman Catacombs. Archaeologists who have spent
years in original investigation claim to have found evidences
of five. The evidences for four of these, at least, seem to us
quite satisfactory. The other three it would be somewhat
difficult to depict. This^ however, is a point that will al-
ways be in dispute, and we shall not press it here. We will
pass on at once to the closing statements of the reverend
professor in the article before us. He admits that "some
epitaphs 3 ' found in these ancient cemeteries "contain a re-
quest to the dead in heaven to pray for the living on earth."
It would, in truth, be very rash to deny it, seeing that one
of the chambers in the catacomb of St. Callixtus furnishes
us with a regular litany of the kind, beginning with the
words, "Mayest thou live in the Lord and pray for us,"
"Mayest thou live in peace- and pray for us," and ending
with the invocation, " Ask for us in thy prayers, because we
know thou art in Christ." But when he comes to speak of
prayer for the dead he adopts his usual tactics. " At a later
period," he says, " we find requests for intercession in behalf
of the departed when once, chiefly through the influence of Pope
Gregory /., purgatory became an article of general belief in the
Western Church." (The italics are ours.) '"But," he contin-
ues, "the overwhelming testimony of the oldest Christian epi-
taphs is that the pious dead are already in the enjoyment of
peace ; and this accords with our Saviour's promise to the peni-
tent thief, and with St. Paul's desire to depart and be with

i888.] A CLEAR CASE of SUPPRESSIO VERI. 25

Christ, which is better." There are several insinuations con-
veyed m these two sentences, and they are all ialse. And
really we think the reverend professor must have had some mis-
givings about them himself when he wrote them. Is it not to
be inferred from these statements, first, that the early Christians
did not hold to the doctrine of prayer for the dead or practise
it; second, that purgatory was not an article of general belief
amongst them ; third, that before the doctrine of purgatory
was foisted on the church by Pope Gregory I., but not after-
wards, the common belief was that the pious dead went straight
to heaven? Now, if the cumulative results of archaeological
research in the Roman Catacombs warrant us in making any
positive statement at all, it is that the Communion of Saints is
the doctrine of all others most fully established by the testi-
mony of the Catacombs. That there is a community of prayers
and good offices between the living and the dead is a belief
which the very earliest, as well as the very latest, monuments
sustain. Why, the whole sacred character of these cemeteries is
based on this belief. And the desire so universally manifested
by the early Christians to be buried close to the tombs of the
martyrs is a palpable demonstration of it. So that the doctrine
of the Communion of Saints is justly considered the key to the
Catacombs. And the doctrine of the Gommunion of Saints not
only supposes that the blessed dead may be invoked to pray for
the living, which the reverend professor admits to have been
practised, but moreover that the living may pray for the dead
with profit to the souls of the faithful departed. Nor are peti-
tions of this kind wanting among the early epitaphs in the Ro-
man cemeteries. Two such are found in St. Callixtus' of very an-
cient date, and prove the great antiquity of our Requiescat in pace.
Other inscriptions establish the fact that the prayers of the
martyrs generally were invoked for the dead. Now, if the early
Christians practised prayer for the dead, they must certainly
have believed in a future state when prayer might avail, and
that state was neither heaven nor hell. What was it, then ? Can
the reverend professor tell ? Pope Gregory I. was, according
to him, the man who first proclaimed the remarkable discover}',
and through his influence chiefly the Christian world was led to
accept a doctrine it had not heard of before. This is somewhat
alarming, for Pope St. Gregory the Great died in the seventh
century ; and if the doctrines of the Christian religion were not
universally known and received by that time when were they ?
We confess we are rather at a loss to account for the reverend
professor's selection of St. Gregory the Great as the Apostle of

26 A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERI. [April,

Purgatory. For Origen and St. Cyprian, who lived in the third
century, St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, who lived in the fourth,
and St. Augustine, who lived in the fifth, speak quite as defi-
nitely on the subject of prayer for the -dead, the temporal pun-
ishment due on account of sin, and purification after death,
as Pope St. Gregory the Great. Indeed, St. Augustine has far
more to say on the subject than anybody else in the early
church ; and if the development of the doctrine of purgatory
can be ascribed to any one in particular, he ought to have the
credit of it. But all such statements are so unfounded that we
can hardly believe they are ever made in good faith by those
who are at all familiar with the belief and practice of the primi-
tive church. We beg leave, moreover, to state that it is still
the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the common belief of
the faithful, that all truly pious souls who depart this life in the
perfect love of God go straight to heaven, without one mo-
ment's purgatory. It is only when the love of God is imperfect
and the debt of sin is in some way unsatisfied that " the wood
and hay and stubble " have to be consumed in purgatory. Many
of our separated brethren in these latter days are taking kindly
to the doctrine of purgatory, and we are sorry to find the Pro-
testantism of Professor Schaflfso unprogressive. But if he him-
self rejects the consoling belief, surely he ought not to conceal
its antiquity from the American public or distort it in their
eyes.

To every student of Christian archaeology the name of
Pope Damasus is clarum et venerabile nomen, for there is no other
name so closely entwined with its conquests. This pontiff, who
ruled the church in the last half of the fourth century from
366 to 384 may well be considered the first Christian archae-
ologist. For to his enlightened zeal are we indebted for the
most interesting discoveries that have recently been made in the
Roman Catacombs. He was only one generation removed from
the last general persecution under the Emperor Diocletian, so
that in his days the memories of the martyrs were still fragrant
and their graves still fresh, and he devoted himself to their pre-
servation. In nearly every one of the ancient cemeteries we
find the proofs of his pious care ; and were it not for his labors
by far the most intelligible portions of the Catacombs would
be a blank to us at the present day. Under his direction were
set up those splendidly-engraved marble tablets which have
given the clue to modern research and identification. The
more important inscriptions were his own composition, and
were engraved by his favorite artist, Furius Filocalus. He also

1 888.] A CLEAR CASE OF SUPPRESSIO VERL 27

put a stop to the destructive changes that the thoughtless zeal
of the Romans, to make themselves graves close to the tombs of
the martyrs, had wrought in so many of the cemeteries. And
he denied himself the great consolation of burial in the Cata-
combs, because, as he said, " he was afraid to disturb the holy
ashes of the saints." Yet this grand old figure, this presiding
genius of the Catacombs, receives not a word of recognition from
Professor Schaff, doubtless because it did not suit his purpose to
bring so early and so enlightened a pope into public view. We
call attention to this because it is rare to find any notice of the
Roman Catacombs in which the name of Pope Damasus does
not appear. The Goths and Vandals destroyed much of his
work ; they despoiled and desecrated the sabred shrines he had
erected around the martyrs' tombs, and scattered the monu-
ments of his zeal; but they could not deface his name or destroy
the enduring results of his labor. And whenever a fragment of
a Damasine inscription is picked up in the Roman cemeteries
to-day, it invariably leads to new and important discoveries.
Nothing else so rejoices the heart and arouses the hopes of the
modern archaeologist as the sight of a piece of marble bearing
the trace of the well-known characters engraved by the cunning
hand of Pope Damasus' artist.

It should be distinctly understood that the evidence to be
drawn from the Catacombs is corroborative rather than con-
structive. You can verify from it the general accuracy of Chris-
tian tradition and the reliability of the ancient authors whose
writings have come down to our time ; but you cannot build up
a system of religious history upon it, such as has been built up
on the great archaeological discoveries made in Egypt and
Assyria. The records of the Catacombs concern the dead.
They illustrate immortal life and hope, and convey but little
direct information about every-dav life and its affairs. The
monuments placed there were not set up by kings or priests
to proclaim their deeds or their doctrines, but by sincere
Christians to manifest their reverence for the blessed dead and
their faith in the Saviour of the world and his salvation. This
is the dominant idea that pervades these ancient cities of the
dead and that impresses itself on all who enter their sacred
precincts. The details of Christian life and practice are revealed
only in so far as they relate to the dead or were required by
the necessities of the living in times of persecution.

The Catacombs, as places of refuge or abode, were a tem-
porary expedient, and we have no right to look for more than
partial views of Christian life and conviction in them. Their

28 A HYMN TO THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. [April,

testimony, nevertheless, is invaluable and confirms beyond the
possibility of all honest doubt the general traditions of the
church, and sets the seal of antiquity on some of the most dis-
tinctly Catholic doctrines ; so that across the wide gap of
seventeen centuries we can extend the hand of Christian bro-
therhood to those who reared them, and claim to be one with
them in faith and hope and charity.

In the magnificent results of scientific attainment which go to
make the triumph of our age there is nothing more remarkable
than the great discoveries in the domain of archaeology and
the confirmation they lend to the dim traditions of the prehis-
toric past. The shadowy forms of the heroic ages have put
on flesh and blood, and the very myths themselves have been
clothed with reality. The traditions of mankind have been shown
to be more trustworthy than all the theories and speculations of
pseudo-philosophy, and the lesson is taught us that the folk-lore
of the nations, however legendary it may seem, has always some
foundation in fact.

REV. EDWARD B. BRADY, C.S.P.

A HYMN TO THE SAVIOUR OF MEN.

FROM sins of deed, of word, of, mind,

From every sin of each degree,
From sin, my Saviour dear and kind,

My Saviour God, deliver me!

My dying Saviour on the Cross,
Save me through life from sin's control,

That the dark shadow of 'thy loss
Dwell not for ever on my soul.

My living Saviour on the Throne,

When I am in my lonely grave,
O Thou who didst for sin atone,

My living Saviour, save me, save !

W. G. Dix. '

1 888.] THE COLONEL'S STORY. 29

THE COLONEL'S STORY.

WE had been discussing mesmerism and spirit-rapping.

" Where physical agencies are used," said old Colonel G ,

" there is room for deceit. I know of an instance of real, con-
tinual clairvoyance, as wonderful as any of the phenomena you
have related, though it had nothing to do with the spirit-
world."

" Let us have it ! Tell us your story ! " we all cried, prepar-
ing for a treat; for we knew that the colonel, while not at all
addicted to fiction, had an abundant fund of stories. Our senior
by many years, he had travelled much, seen much, and learned
much. He never invented, but narrated curious facts that he
could vouch for, adventures that had befallen him or to which
he had beeq an eye-witness. Withal, he was not very talkative,
and his narratives were the more prized because he was so
sparing of them.

The old man threw his cigar into the fire, took a sip of claret
punch, and told us the following remarkable story :

Juan de Villafana was the youngest son of one of the proud-
est grandees who claimed the right to remain with covered head
in the presence of the king of Spain. Passionately fond of
study, an eager inquirer into the mysteries of the most abtruse
sciences, the young nobleman was a ripe scholar and a profound
thinker, ill-fitted for the hollow gayeties of the court. His man-
ner was absent and eccentric, his speech as candid as a child's ;
but if his mind was absorbed in the pursuit of knowledge, his
heart seemed to overflow with love for suffering mankind. The
poor, the helpless, were the objects of his constant solicitude,
and, the better to serve them, he studied medicine with an
eagerness and zeal which were crowned with rare success.
Many were the cures he performed in the wretched suburbs of
Madrid. The poor people looked upon him as a saint gifted
with miraculous healing power.

The old Marquis de Villafana did not relish the idea of his
son becoming a physician or a sort of Brother of Charity ; if the
army did not suit him, there was the refuge of younger sons,
the church, where the family influence would secure him a
bishop's mitre. In obedience to the paternal wishes Juan de

30 THE COLONELS STORY. [April,

Villafana studied for the priesthood, and he was on the eve of
being ordained when an adventure befell him which was to
change his fate and make him the hero of this true story.

King Carlos was ill ; he suffered from an unknown malady
which baffled the skill of the court physician ; he pined and
wasted slowly, retaining his mental faculties, but unable to make
the least physical exertion. He still received his grandees at
the ceremonious court leve"e, and one morning he graciously
invited the Marquis de Villafafia, whom he held in great
esteem, to bring his son Juan the next day to receive the assur-
ance of the royal favor and protection.

It was no easy matter to prevail on the young man to make
his appearance at court ; but he could not decline the royal in-
vitation, and on the following day he accompanied his father to
the palace .and was admitted to the regal chamber.

Villafafia, approaching the sumptuous couch upon which his
sovereign reclined, bowed low, and, taking the hand the king
graciously held out to him, raised it to his lips. In doing so
his gaze rested dreamily on the emaciated and pallid sufferer;
suddenly the young man recoiled, exclaiming : " Good heavens !
your majesty has taken poison ! "

Horror-struck at this startling announcement, the king fell
back in a swoon. A short, awful pause ensued, followed by a
confused uproar. The court physician and certain favorite
courtiers surrounded the young man and dragged him out ot
the king's chamber, with loud denunciations of "Madman!"
"Fool!" "Traitor!" Juan de Villafafia followed them unre-
sistingly, his pale face wearing an expression of solemn awe and
tender pity, as he repeated in a prophetic tone : "His majesty
has been poisoned ! I see the working of the fatal drug in his
veins ; / know the hand that poured it ! "

The old marquis, on recovering from his stupefaction, had
hastened to follow his son. With the help of some friends he
succeeded in getting him safely out of the palace. But the
young seer had said too much ; he must not live to name the
guilty wretch whom he knew. That same evening, as Juan de
Villafafia was going to see a sick man in the suburb, he was
attacked by two hired assassins. He fought for his life and
killed one of his assailants ; the other bravo fled.

The young student was horrified. He had shed the blood
of a human being! He felt himself unworthy of the priest-
hood ; his blood-stained hands should not touch the sacred
Host. Then he detested the corrupt atmosphere of the court ;

1 888.] THE COLONEL'S STORY. 31

his place should not be there. Bidding farewell to his aged
father, he set off, a voluntary exile from his native land.

The king did not die of the poison. Juan had left in the
hands of the marquis a prescription for the royal sufferer. He
had made to him, besides, revelations so precise that the mar-
quis could not hesitate to communicate them to the king. The
court physician and a certain grandee upon whom the queen
looked with too much favor were banished.

The life of the wanderer became an eventful one. The ves-
sel on which he had taken passage for America was attacked by
pirates and fell into their hands after a bloody conflict. Villa-
fafia, unmindful of danger, was ministering to the. wounded in
the ship's cabin, which he had transformed into an ambulance.
When the pirates, maddened by the resistance of the crew and
their own losses, boarded the vessel, they commenced an indis-
criminate slaughter. The pirate chief, rushing into the cabin,
found the unconcerned physician busy with his work of mercy.
The serenity of the young man struck the hardened bandit with
admiration.

" Ah ! you are a surgeon ! " said he. " Many of my men are
wounded, and I will spare your life for their sake. Leave these
dogs to be thrown to the fishes, and you come on board of my
brig."

" Not one of your men will I touch unless these unfortunates
are permitted to live," was the quiet and decided answer.

" What ! " exclaimed the pirate, and he uttered a blasphe-
mous oath, "you resist my orders! Obey, or you shall die a
horrible death."

" You can kill me, senor, but that will not cure your com-
rades ; their lives are linked to the lives of these poor men."

" Demonio / . . . Well, let it be as you say. Cure them all ; I
will hang you afterwards for your impudence."

" As you will." And Villafana resumed his work at the bed-
side of the poor wretches, who had listened with agonizing
anxiety to this dialogue.

The pirate captain did not carry out his threat. He, as well
as his crew, soon learned to look upon Villafana with supersti-
tious awe. They treated him kindly, but they kept him a
prisoner. Where could they have found another physician like
this strange, gentle, and fearless man ? During two long years
Villafana was compelled to live in the company of these out-
laws ; but all this time his influence over them was growing
stronger every day and gradually detaching them from their

32 THE COLONEL' s STORY. [April,

life of crime. They had ceased murdering their captives; they
gave up pillaging at last, and the captain, assembling his crew
one day, announced to them that their association was at an
end ; he had resolved upon trying to lead henceforth the life of
an honest man, and he urged them to do likewise. They landed
on the coast of Mexico and parted company/

Villafafia was free. He proceeded to the city of Mexico,
where he commenced practising medicine. He soon became
famous for his wonderful cures and the eccentricity of his man-
ner, which had become abrupt and wild. He would stop a man
on the street and tell him : " You are sick, you have such a
disease; swallow this and you will be cured." If the patient,
frightened by the earnestness of his manner, took the medicine,
he was saved ; if, repulsing him as a quack or a madman, he
refused, he died.

Adventures of this sort led people to think the " mad doctor,"
as he was called by many, an adept in witchcraft; others believ-
ed that immaculate sanctity only could perform such wonders.
He was sent for by wealthy patients, who rewarded him lib-
erally ; but he sought the poor and unfortunate, and the gold
taken from the palace was not long in finding its way to the
hovel. Abstemious in his habits, always poorly clad, living in a
garret, the benevolent doctor seemed to have constituted him-
self the disbursing agent of the rich for the benefit of the
poor.

The good man, however, came very near falling a victim to
the superstitions of the times. Returning home one afternoon,
after a toils.ome day's work in the wretched jacales of the
suburbs, he met a funeral procession on its way to the ceme-
tery. In the old Spanish colonies it is customary to carry the
coffin uncovered ; the lid is put on only when the corpse is ready
to be lowered to its last resting-place. The body is usually
decked in all the finery of this world ; that of a child is crowned
with flowers. I have seen one to which little gauze wings had
been adapted ; the cheeks were rouged and the glassy eyes held
open by artificial means. A numerous escort of children,
dressed in white, walked on each side, strewing the road with
cut flowers which they carried in small baskets. The people
say that when an innocent child dies it is an angel returning to
heaven, and there is, therefore, more cause for joy than grief.

In this instance the corpse was that of a lovely young girl,
upon whose radiant countenance the hand of death had but
lightly pressed its mysterious seal. Villafafia had stopped, and

1 888.] THE COLONEL'S STORY. 33

he awaited, hat in hand, the passage of the procession. As the
coffin came abreast of him he gazed sadly at the youthful form
so soon doomed to be turned to dust. All at once he started
wildly, a cry of horror burst from his lips, and, springing into
the middle of the street, he confronted the astonished bearers.

" Stop ! " he cried " on your lives, stop ! That child is not
dead ! Do you wish to bury her alive ?"

The dishevelled hair and disordered dress of the doctor, his
thin features bronzed by long exposure to the tropical sun, his
dark eyes shining with a wild and mysterious light everything
about him gave him the appearance of a madman. The people
attempted to drive him back, but he resisted, repeating aloud :
" She is alive, I tell you ! Would you commit a crime ? "

Much confusion ensued, and Villafafia would have suffered
violence at the hands of the crowd had not the dead girl's
father interposed. Overwhelmed with grief, he was following
the dead body of his beloved child, where his attention was
roused by the tumult, and he heard the last words of the doc-
tor. Rushing forward and forcing his way through the ex-
cited crowd, he caught Villafafia by the arm.

" Man ! " cried the bereaved parent " man, what is that you
have said? My Pepita alive ? Answer! Do not trifle with a
father's heart ; do not awake insane hopes only to make my
despair more bitter. Speak! On your life, is she alive ?"

" Senor," replied Villafafia who had recovered his compo-
sure, " upon my last hopes of salvation I swear to you that your
daughter is at this moment alive. Take her back to your house,
and, God permitting, I will restore her to your love."

" Come, then," said the old man, " bring her back to life and
all my wealth shall be yours. But," he added, or rather hissed,
" deceive me, and I will tear out your heart ! "

Villafafia shrugged his shoulders, and, taking the poor
father's arm, walked back to the house, where a weeping mother
mourned the loss of her last-born. The young girl was laid
upon a bed and all the paraphernalia of death was removed by
order of the doctor, who, having despatched a messenger to the
nearest pharmacy for certain drugs, carefully prepared a mix-
ture. He forced a spoon between the clenched teeth of the girl,
and poured in, drop by drop, a spoonful of the liquid. He then
took his seat by the bedside, and, having consulted his watch,
addressed at last the unhappy father, who, silent and trembling
with anxiety, had followed eagerly his every movement.

" Senor," said he, " in fifteen minutes I shall give her another

VOL. XLVII. 3

34. THE COLONEL'S STORY. [April,

dose; in another fifteen minutes, with the grace of God, she will
revive."

And taking a breviary which he always carried with him, he
commenced reading.

A tomb-like silence reigned in the room. The eyes of those
members of the family who had been permitted to remain were
fixed on the beauteous young face, which, cold and rigid as mar-
ble, looked still paler under the raven curls that crowned it.
The monotonous ticking of a clock in the adjoining room was
the only sound heard, keeping time with the throbs of the old
Mexican's heart. The grief-stricken man was leaning against
the wall at the foot of the bed. He, too, would have seemed
dead but for the tremulous working of his lips. He was praying.

But what is it that makes his eyes dilate and flash with
mingled fear and hope? Is it a mere fancy, an optical delusion,
or has a fugitive flush colored the marble-like cheeks of his
child ? The doctor lays aside his book. Another spoonful of
the life-giving cordial is forced between the pale lips. Not a
word is spoken. How slow the ticking of that clock! Surely
another quarter is passed. Listen! that deep-drawn sigh came
from the bed ! Villafafia's forbidding gesture checks the father,
ready to rush forward. The old man falls on his knees ; big
tears course down his furrowed cheeks; his chest heaves con-
vulsively, but not a sound is heard. Again ! again! The regu-
lar, soft breathing is now audible to all. The beautiful head
moves slightly, and the cheek, now tinged with life's blood,
rests on the pillow.

" Mama ! Qnerida Mama ! "

The first word of the child awaking from her dream of
death has been the name of the dear mother, who, still plunged
alone in her darkened chamber, was not aware that her heart's
treasure was restored to her.

The old father embraced Villafafia's knees and offered him a
fortune ; every one blessed the strange doctor as the saver of
Pepita.

"Give what you please to the poor," he said meekly. "I
have been but the humble instrument of a merciful God ; they
are his children."

The story of this miraculous cure soon spread, and, as is
usually the case, was greatly magnified. It was reported that
the strange doctor had the power to raise the dead. The
authorities sent for Villafafia arid subjected him to a rigid ex-
amination.

1 888.] THE COLONEL'S STORY. 35

" You have been denounced as an impostor and a magi-
cian," he was told ; " on the other hand, the poor people look
upon you as a holy prophet. The strange power you claim
you have never used for evil, so we cannot condemn you ; but
you are giving us trouble. The age of miracles has gone by, and
so has that of witchcraft, yet the superstitious will always make
you better or worse than you are. Under the circumstances
I think the most prudent thing you can do is to leave the
country."

The hint was as good as an order. Villafana left Mexico
and sailed for the West Indies. He landed at Kingston,
Jamaica.

There his acquaintance with my grandfather began. My
aunt she was then a child often years was lying at the point
of death. The best medical talent in Kingston had been called
in consultation and the verdict of the assembled faculty left no
hope. My grandmother was almost distracted. An old color-
ed servant, seeing her despair, told her of a Spanish doctor who
lived in the sailors' quarter and was said to have made some
wonderful cures among the poor people. Old Sophy knew of
one case, an aged negress, paralyzed of all her limbs for over
live years, whom the strange doctor had made well and hearty
after a few weeks' treatment. Why not send for him? He might
cure Miss Eliza. My grandmother caught at the suggestion.
"Pshaw! it must be some quack," remarked her husband when
she broached the matter to him ; " but since you wish it, my
dear, I will see him."

Sophy was summoned and made to tell all she knew of the
whereabouts of the Spanish doctor such was the only name by
which she could designate him. My grandfather drove to the
sailors' quarter and with no little trouble succeeded in discover-
ing Villafana. The first impression was far from favorable ; the
Spanish doctor had all the appearance of an escaped patient of
a lunatic asylum. On the drive home, however, my grandfather
was greatly surprised at the depth of learning and soundness of
judgment revealed by his companion. He did not know what
to make of him.

On entering the sick-chamber, where my grandmother sat,
anxiously expecting their coming, the doctor bowed and cast a
glance towards the bed, but did not go near it. Catching the
imploring look of my grandmother,"he said to her in a tone of
sympathy :

" Poor mother ! what anguish you have suffered. But

36 THE COLONEL'S STORY. [April,

grieve no longer; you shall soon see your child in good health.
Your physician has mistaken the disease. It can be cured."

My grandmother burst into tears and exchanged a look of
despair with her husband. This man had not come near
enough to see the child's face; he had not touched her: surely
he spoke thus only to deceive her.

" You mistake, dear madam," remarked the doctor, who
seemed to read her thoughts; " there is not a shadow of a doubt
in my mind. I know your daughter's disease, and I know the
remedy for it."

To dwell on the details of the treatment would be uninte-
resting. In a few days my aunt was well. Mere gold could not
have cancelled the debt of gratitude contracted by the happy
parents. A strong feeling of friendship had sprung up between
my grandfather and the doctor during those few days. These
two men understood each other; there was congeniality of
heart and soul between them, and they became friends for life.
My grandfather urged the doctor to take up his abode with him
as a member of the family. The old man demurred : his poor
patients needed him ; it was his wont to give consultations at
his rooms; sometimes he took in some poor wretch and kept
him there until he could say to him, "Go thy ways; thou art
cured." Grandfather overruled all these objections. There
was a wing to the house, with a private entrance ; there the
doctor could establish an hospital, if he saw fit ; but he must be
one of the family, have his seat at the family board and his place
in the family circle. He yielded.

Dr. Villafafia was a singular personage. He was of middle
height, with a spare frame, and always dressed in black gar-
ments of a clerical cut. His gray hair, as fine as silk, floated
back from a lofty and intellectual forehead. He wore his white
beard very full, which gave him a patriarchal air ; but his
bronzed features and bushy black eye-brows, his large, deep-set,
dark eyes, now gazing dreamily, now beaming with tenderness,
and anon shining with a strange light, made an undefinable im-
pression on one who saw him for the first time. He was so
careless in his dress as to appear almost slovenly ; but woman's
influence soon corrected this. Surrounded with loving care,
the old wanderer felt as though he were in the midst of his own
family; his heart, so full of the love of mankind, yearned, per-
haps unconsciously, for those dear ties of home and kindred he
had renounced so many years ago.

He became the idol of the household, especially of the chil-

1 888.] , THE COLONELS STORY. 37

dren, for whom he always had some toy or cake, an inexhaustible
fund of stories, and the most amusing' inventions. He was
generally regular and abstemious in his habits. However sump-
tuous the feast spread before him, his breakfast consisted of a
single cup of chocolate and a glass of water ; his dinner of a
plate of soup and one glass of wine. This taken, he would draw
back his chair, light a cigarette a great privilege in those days,
when smoking in a lady's presence was not tolerated and con-
verse during the remainder of the meal.

Villafafia had retained from his seafaring experience a sin-
gular affection for the poor sailors, and when a ship entered the
port he never failed to visit their boarding-houses, to inquire if
any were sick or in want. On such occasions he was sometimes
induced to drink a glass of grog with the jolly tars. The effect
of this was to make him more talkative, less unwilling to speak
of himself and of his past life ; even then he never volunteered
confidences, but was more easily drawn out.

Grandfather had questioned him freely regarding the strange
power he had of recognizing a disease at the first glance, and,
simultaneously, the remedy that would infallibly cure it.

" I cannot explain this, my dear friend," the doctor would
answer ; " it is a gift of God. As I look at a patient I see him
internally, better even than if his body were cut open before me
on the dissecting-table. I see the part diseased, and, intuitively,
the medicine that will cure it. If the disease be incurable, which
is seldom the case, I see this also, and I could tell how many
days, hours, and minutes the patient will live. Sometimes the
medicines I prescribe are in accord with my knowledge of the
medical science ; but at other times they are entirely at
variance, and yet I know they are the right ones for all my
books may say to the contrary. I cannot say exactly when
this power manifested itself. It came to me gradually, I be-
lieve. The discovery of the poisoning of the king was the first
spontaneous manifestation of which I was aware. It was irre-
sistible. The whole scene rose before my eyes. I saw the
crime committed, and I could not have helped speaking out if
my head had been on the block."

If the ignorant people feared Villafafia as a sorcerer or
blessed him as a saint, polite society felt a positive dread of his
mysterious power. If he read so surely the hidden ills of the
flesh, might he not also read the secrets of the soul ? Few were
willing to stand the test ; a spotless soul is even more rare than
a perfectly sound body. The ladies, especially, feared the doc-

38 THE COLONEL'S STORY. [April,

tor's penetrating gaze; not for their mental blemishes, poor
lambs, but think of a man reading them through! a man for
whom, as he told one of them once, " the milliner's art and the
hair-dresser's cunning devices had no secrets."

I could tell you many instances of this extraordinary power
of mind and body reading, were I not afraid to tire you. I will
close with one extraordinary manifestation which, overstepping
the bounds of actual reality, went so far as to remove the veil
of futurity.

One evening, the family being assembled as usual in the
drawing-room, Villafana sat moodily in a dark corner, taking
no part in the conversation, and his gaze fastened on my grand-
father with a strange expression of sadness. My grandfather,
noticing at last his moodiness, asked him :

"What is the matter, doctor ? You look very gloomy this
evening. Is anything wrong with you ?"

" With me, no," replied the old man, with a deep sigh.
" Would to heaven that 1 could divert the blow from your head
and bring it on mine ! "

" You speak in riddles, my friend ; what danger threatens
me? "

" Alas ! you cannot see it. You are rich, rich in worldly
treasures, rich in heavenly blessings ; you are happy and make
others happy. For what inscrutable design will God strike one
of his most faithful servants? I know not, but I see the storm
coming. You are like a noble and mighty oak spreading its
branches afar; many find shelter under its protecting shade;
even I, the poor wandering dog, have found my place there ;
but the storm is coming, I tell you. The oak shall be stricken
down and the branches scattered to the winds. As for me,
poor outcast, after seeing the wreck of all I love, I shall die
alone as I have lived."

Having spoken these ominous words, the old man rose, and,
bowing silently to the awe-struck family, retired to his room.

My grandmother cast a look of alarm on her husband, who,
shaking off the involuntary gloom caused by this mysterious
prophecy, laughed pleasantly, saying: "The old gentleman is
in one of his moods to-night, and has gone too far; no man can
read the future."

A few weeks after this incident the leading commercial firm
of Kingston failed under most disastrous circumstances, the
resident partner having died suddenly and the cashier abscond-
ed, leaving everything in dire confusion. My grandfather had

i888.] THE COLONEL'S STORY. 39

endorsed the firm's paper to the amount of nearly a million of
dollars. He found himself involved in interminable law-suits.
Finally the whole matter was thrown into chancery and his
estates were sequestered. It was comparative ruin. Soon after
this my grandfather was taken sick, and in a few days he was
lying- at the point of death. Villafana remained night and day
by his friend's bedside ; anxious and gloomy, his careworn face
no longer wore that serene expression, the result of conscious
power. He doubted. He assembled the family and told them,
the big tears coursing down his face the while.

"God has withdrawn from me! . I, who have picked up
dying paupers, the victims of vice and crime, and restored them
to life I can do nothing for my best friend, for the man I love
more than brother or father. I see the disease, alas! but 1 no
longer see the remedy. I have tried all that human science can
do, but science is unavailing. The father's disease is a strange,
unknown disease of which I can find no precedent in our medi-
cal annals. I am going to call in consultation the leading mem-
bers of the faculty. God grant that they may find my diagno-
sis wrong ! "

The three most famous physicians in the town met near the
sick man's bed ; they examined him, they scrutinized the treat-
ment that had been followed their unanimous verdict was,
" All has been done that could be done. There is no hope."

My grandfather died. A few days later my grandmother
followed her husband to the grave. The household was broken
up, the family dispersed. By a strange fatality all went differ-
ent ways, some to the United States, some to Cuba, others to
Europe. My uncle remained in Kingston to look after the
chancery suit.

During the confusion caused by these deaths Villafana dis-
appeared and nothing could be learned of his whereabouts.

About six months after this a former servant of the family,
the same old nurse Sophy I mentioned before, met my uncle and
told him she had discovered the Spanish doctor, in an almost
dying condition, in a miserable hut on the edge of the town.
It was late in the evening, but uncle started at once for the place
indicated, taking Sophy along with him. He found the old
man lying on a wretched bed, feeble, fearfully emaciated, dying.

" O doctor !" .cried my uncle, grasping his old friend's
hand, " how could you be so cruel ? You, my father's dearest
friend, you in this condition ! Why did you hide from us? Do
you doubt our love and respect ? "

4O THE COLONEL' s STORY. [April,

" No, no, my son; but I could not stay there. He was gone,
gone for ever ! I could not save him. God had punished me
for not using properly, perhaps, his great gift. Since that day I
have been praying for death to relieve me of a burdensome life.
The merciful Judge has heard my prayer ; to-day I received
the last sacrament. I am ready to die."

" But you cannot stay here. You must come home with me.
I am going to have your room made ready for you, and early in
the morning I shall be here to fetch you. In the meantime you
must see Dr. B - and have a nurse to stay with you."

"It is useless," said the old man, smiling feebly; "do you
remember the prophecy ? The old dog shall die alone. . . . But
I grieve you ; pardon me, my son. I have already seen a brother
physician ; for the rest, do as you wish, but remember that the
decrees of Heaven cannot be set aside by the will of man."

Notwithstanding this protest, Dr. B was called in, who

prescribed for the patient, but gave my uncle little hope. Old
Sophy the best of nurses was installed for the night in the
sick-room, and my uncle left at a late hour, to make prepara-
tion for receiving his father's old friend next morning.

Just before dawn the doctor, who seemed quite collected
and free from pain, bade Sophy go to the kitchen and prepare
him some hot drink. When the woman returned Juan de Villa-
fafia was lying dead, his hands crossed over his breast, an in-
effable smile upon his wan features.

" And you say this story is true, colonel ?"

" Upon my honor as a soldier, every word of it."
*

P. F. DE GOURNAY.

i888.] ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. 41

TWO SINGERS.

" WOULD I could sing a song," a poet said,
" And let the tears that all earth's suffering ones have shed

Tlun trembling down my voice,
With children's glee when happy hours are sped,
And strong men's sighs at some regretted choice,
And stifled groans of all the world's oppressed,
And madmen's laughter mingled with the rest
Then would immortal fame to me belong:
All men could hear their own lives' echoes in my song ! "

" Ah ! why should men weep twice," another said,
" First o'er a wrong, then at the wrong remembered?

Oh ! let me sing instead

A glorious strain that will make men forget
Life's wounds and scourges and its black regret,
And long for Heaven with such intensity
That Heaven in their own hearts will come to be:
Time's mighty hammers might assail in vain

- They could not beat to lasting silence that refrain ! "

MARGARET H. LAWLESS.

ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS.

THE Irish officers the Blakes and O'Donnells serving in
the Spanish army, were sadly scandalized when, in 1750, Father
Feyjoo, the learned Benedictine, roundly asserted in his Teatro
Critico that serpents never existed in Hibernia, and, as a conse-
quence, St. Patrick never banished them ! Had this audacious
statement been put forth by a layman the Irish officers would
have known how to answer him ; they were as fearless as their
own swords and perfect masters of that weapon, and would have
found it the simplest thing in the world to demonstrate the thau-
maturgic powers of St. Patrick,

" And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks."

42 ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. [April,

But unfortunately the author of this intolerable assertion, which
to their minds stripped their national apostle of half his renown,
was a gownsman

" That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knew
More than a spinster."

Father Feyjoo was " the Addison of Spain " a perfect master
of the pen but miserably ignorant of carte and tierce- At the
same time it must be acknowledged that their erudition was not
equivalent to their knowledge of the sword exercise, and, as a
consequence, they were obliged to submit to the astonishing dic-
tum of Father Feyjoo in sullen silence. To demonstrate his
statement Father Feyjoo quoted a Latin author named Solinus,
who lived two hundred years before St. Patrick, and who
roundly asserts in his Poly/tistoria that Hibernia was at that
time exempt from venomous reptiles.

One thing Father Feyjoo compelled the gallant exiles to con-
fess the Irish language is wholly destitute of a true name for
the serpent ! Now, if the reptile were indigenous to the country,
he argued, the natives would have devised at a very early
period a true name for it. For a name, as Father Feyjoo main-
tained, on the authority of Aristotle, is " a sound or its sign, sig-
nificant of itself, but no part of which is significant." For in-
stance, the word " Sun " is a true name, but the term " Orb of
day " is a compound epithet or paraphrase. Each of its mem-
bers, taken separately, has a complete meaning. It is therefore
not a name. Now, the Irish epithet for the serpent resembles
this. It is At/tar nimhe," the father of poison" a most appro-
priate epithet certainly, but unquestionably not a true name.
We read in Father King's Irish version of the Bible (commonly
attributed to Bishop Bedell) a description of the serpent in the
following words: Anois do bhi an nathair nimhe ni budh ceal-
guidhe, etc. "Now the serpent was the craftiest creature," etc.
(Genesis, chapter iii.) From Genesis, as well as from a hundred
other parts of the Bible, it is perfectly evident that the Irish lexi-
con furnished no true name for the snake. The creature was at
all times a stranger to the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland.
As evidence of all this, the repeated and persevering efforts that
have been made from time to time to plant Ireland with snakes
to make them at home in the country have invariably proved
egregious failures. These efforts began so early as the time of
the Venerable Bede, and have continued down to our own day.

1 888.] Sr. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. 43

" In the ancient writings of the saints of Ireland," says Bede,
" we read that attempts were often made by way of experiment
to introduce, in brazen vessels, serpents into that country. But
when they had accomplished half the voyage they were found
lying dead in their brazen vessels." The importers were appa-
rently apprehensive that they would eat their way out if placed
in wooden vessels, so they enclosed them in brass. But it was
all in vain. " Nay, the very dust gathered in Ireland," says
Cambrensis,* who wrote in the twelfth century, "if carried to
foreign . lands and shaken on snakes, will cause them to die.
With my own eyes 1 have seen," he adds, ".a strap of Irish
leather placed in a circle round a toad. I have seen the crea-
ture crawl to one side in an effort to pass out, but the moment
it touched the leather it fell back as if it received a blow. Then,
crawling to the opposite side, it made a similar attempt, but
fell .back in the same way. Finally it attempted to dig a hole in
the centre and bury itself in the ground, so as to escape contact
with the leather. We have even heard it stated by English
merchants," continues Cambrensis, "that, having anchored in
an Irish harbor, they sometimes found a toad concealed in the
bottom of the ship. Taking the creature by the paw, they as-
cended to the deck and flung it on the shore, where, to the
astonishment of the spectator?, it turned up its belly, grovelled
on its back, burst, and died."

He the'n goes on to tell a story of a boy lying in a field in
England. A snake crawled stealthily and noiselessly to the
sleeper's side, entered his open mouth, and glided into his stom-
ach. Coiling itself up in his bowels, it gnawed his entrails and
inflicted on him the most excruciating pain. He roared aloud
with agony. But no medical skill, no purgative or emetic dose,
afforded him the least relief. He was repeatedly advised to go
to Ireland as his only resource. He finally complied with this
advice, and was no sooner landed than a draught of water from
a blessed well expelled the reptile and restored him to health.
"No reptile," says Bede, "is found in the fields of Hibernia.
No serpent can exist there. Nay, when attempts have been
made to import snakes from England they have perished on the
voyage. The winds from the west, the pure air of Ireland,
caused their immediate death, and they expired as soon as it
reached them. Almost everything belonging to that country
seems to be an antidote to poison."

In addition to these ancient authors, who cannot be accused
of undue partiality for Ireland, we have the testimony of'Dona-

* Topographia Distinctio, i. cap. 29.

44 ST. PA TRICK AND THE SERPENTS. [April,

tus, Bishop of Fiesole, who, in a beautiful Latin poem written in
the ninth century, expressly says that in his time neither ser-
pents nor frogs were known to exist in Erin. In the English
version of the Latin poem, which will be found in O'Halloran's
History of Ireland, not only the serpent but the frog is de-
scribed as a stranger to Ireland. O'Reilly in his Irish Dic-
tionary confirms this statement. He says that the frog is " an
animal not found in Ireland before the reign of William III. of
England, whose Dutch troops first introduced it amongst us."
This is corroborated by the evidence of modern scientists. " It
would appear," says Thomas Bell in his work on British Rep-
tiles, " not only that the snake is not indigenous to Ireland, but
that several attempts to introduce it have totally failed. In this
order (pphidid) there is not now, nor, I believe, ever was there,
any species indigenous to Ireland."

The last of the attempts alluded to by the learned Thomas
Bell took place, we believe, in 1835. In that year a Scottish
publication entitled the New Philosophic Journal proclaimed, with
a great flourish of trumpets, that Ireland had been success-
fully colonized with snakes, owing to the persevering industry
of certain enlightened Britons who had assiduously labored to
obtain on Irish soil a permanent habitat for those interesting
natives of England. This thriving colony of poisonous rep-
tiles had been planted in the immediate vicinity of St. Patrick's
grave, " where," continued the New Philosophic Journal, " they
are multiplying rapidly." This announcement was made with
evident satisfaction, being much of a piece with other advan-
tages which Ireland has derived from her connection with the
" sister country." Had the colony of snakes been a colony of
Scotsmen the learned editor of the New Philosophic Journal
could hardly have been better pleased. One of the readers of
that journal was struck with this remarkable exuberance of
feeling. He wrote at once to an acquaintance in Downpatnck,
asking him if the newly-planted colony were really in as pros-
perous a condition as the journalist asserted. Not one of his
correspondents (and he wrote to several) had ever heard of
the colony. Finally he addressed James Clelland, Esq., of Rath
Gael House, County Down. From this gentleman he received
a most satisfactory reply, as follows : " The report of my having
introduced snakes into 4his country is correct. Being curious
to ascertain whether the climate of Ireland is destructive to
that class of reptiles, about six years ago I purchased half a
dozen in Covent Garden, London. They had been taken some

1 888.] ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. 45

time and were quite tame and familiar. I turned them loose in
my garden. They immediately rambled away. One of them
was killed at Milecross, three miles distant, in about a week
after its liberation, and three others were shortly after killed
within that distance of the place where they were turned loose;
it is highly probable that the remaining two met with the same
fate, falling victims to a reward which, it appears, was offered
for their destruction." Commenting on this letter, in his work
on British Reptiles, Thomas Bell says : " Such is the most accu-
rate and authentic account which I have yet obtained respect-
ing this curious fact in the geographical distribution of those
animals ; and it certainly does not appear that the failure of
these attempts to introduce snakes into Ireland is to be attri-
buted to anything connected with climate or other local cir-
cumstance, but rather to the prejudices of the inhabitants,
which lead to their destruction. Nor is there reason to believe
that their absence from Ireland is other than purely accidental"
(p. 55). This is a very instructive paragraph and merits con-
sideration. A hint is apparently thrown out with the view of
consoling the friends of Ireland under their disappointment.
They should not lose heart, Mr. Bell seems to think, owing to
their past experience. Though they have hitherto failed, there
is no reason why they should not ultimately succeed ! " Ire-
land," said Grattan, " is the hundred-handed giant, presenting in
every hand a gift to England " ! What is more natural than
that England in return should enrich the native country of
Grattan with a quid pro quo in a form so perfectly consonant to
the disposition of the giver as a colony of serpents?

A negative argument on this subject may. be derived 'from
the local nomenclature of Ireland. The Irish-speaking people
have bestowed upon some part or other of their native island
the name of every animal which the country has produced.
There is the" Rock of the Seals " (Ron charraig), the " Mountain
of the Stags" (Sliabh-boc), the " Hill of the Midges " (Croag-na-
miol), the " Vale of the Badgers," and so on. But no locality is
designated as the " Haunt of the Snakes." From which the
inference is not unnatural that these reptiles never inhabited
the country.

Light is thrown on the question by what we know of the
Druids. It is perfectlv evident, from the literary remains of
Cassar, Pliny, and Cicero, that those Celtic sages, the Druids,
made a profound impression on the intellectual classes of ancient
Greece and Rome. Their name is derived by Pliny from the

46 ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. [April,

Greek word 6pvs,* which signifies an oak, because that gigantic
tree, from its lofty elevation, its venerable appearance, its silent
majesty, sublime expansion, and prodigious age, was regarded
with silent awe by the religious Druids as a natural image of the
Supreme Being. "AyaXpa de AioS Kehnxov, vtprfXt) dpv$ " A
lofty oak the statue of the Celtic Jupiter," says a Greek author.
Under its wide and umbrageous boughs those primeval seers
offered sacrifice to the invisible ruler of the world. Now, it is
a very instructive fact that, like so many hierophants of pa-
ganism, the Irish Druids were serpent- worshippers. The most
remarkable of their druidical charms was the anguineum, or
snake's egg. They wore this charm, sheathed in gold like a
talisman, on their breast. It is, says Pliny, about the size of a
small apple, and has a cartilaginous rind studded with cavities
like those on the arms of a polypus. A genuine specimen of
this egg, when thrown into the water, would, it was believed,
float against the current. This extraordinary form of idolatry
was diffused over the whole face of the earth. It is perhaps the
most surprising feature in the character of man that he should
be found in all times and all places, before the advent of Christ,
bending down in adoration of the serpent ! How an object of
abhorrence could be exalted into an object of religious venera-
tion " must be referred to the subtility of the arch-enemy him-
self." It must be confessed, however, that there is in the natu-
ral appearance of the serpent something weird and startling
that cannot fail to fill the unsophisticated mind with astonish-
ment. As Sanchoniathan, quoted by Eusebius, says : " The ser-
pent alone of all animals, without legs or arms or any of the
usual appliances for locomotion, still moves with singular ce-
lerity," and, he might have added, grace; for no one who has
watched the serpent slowly gliding over the ground, with his
head erect and his body following, apparently without exer-
tion, can fail to be struck with the peculiar beauty of his mo-
tion. Milton describes the serpent which tempted Eve as not
only beautiful but brilliant :

" His head

Crested aloft and carbuncle his eyes ;
With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling spires that on the grass
Floated redundant. Pleasing was his shape," etc.

Eusebius says that the Persians worshipped the first principle
under the form of a serpent. They dedicated temples to these

* It is hard to imagine how the Druids should come to speak Greek.

1 388.] ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. 47

animals, in which they performed sacrifices and celebrated fes-
tivals and orgies, "esteeming- them the greatest of gods and gov-
ernors .of the universe." Live serpents were kept at Babylon
as objects of adoration, or at least of veneration, as seems evi-
dent from the history of Bel and the Dragon, in which we read :
" In that same place there was a great dragon which they of
Babylon worshipped ; and the king said unto Daniel, ' Wilt
thou say this god is of brass ? Lo ! he eateth and drinketh !
Thou canst not say he is no living God ! ' 1 Serpent-worship was
intimately connected with Sabaism, for the most prevailing em-
blem of the solar god was the serpent, and wherever the Sabas-
an idolatry was - the religion the serpent was the sacred symbol.
Lucan addresses them in his Pharsalia as innoxious divinities :

Vos quoque, qui cunctts innoxia numina terra
Serpttis aurato nitidi fulgore Dracones (lib. ix. 7 2 7)

"Ye dragons, too, resplendent with radiant gold,
Harmless to all the inhabitants of earth," etc.

In Greece the great centre of serpent-worship was Epidau-
rus, where stood the famous temple of Esculapius, in which ser-
pents were kept, some thirty feet long. Live serpents were al-
ways kept in the sanctuaries of Esculapius, because at one time,
as was alleged, the god assumed the appearance of that reptile.
" Wherever the devil reigned," says the Rev. John B. Deane,*
" the serpent was held in some peculiar veneration. In Egypt
they worshipped the serpent as the emblem of good. In Hin-
dostan, Scandinavia, and Mexico they considered it, on the con-
trary, the characteristic of the evil principle."

Strange as it may appear, serpent-worship was not confined
to pagans. A sect of early heretics was famous, or rather in-
famous, for this besotted form of superstition. They are known
in church history as Ophidas: Nam serpentem magnificant in tan-
turn ut ilium etiam ipsi Christi prceferanti.e., They magnify the
serpent to such a degree that they even prefer him to Christ
himself, says a contemporary (Tertullian). To the serpent we
are indebted, according to these fanatics, for our knowledge of
the origin of good and evil. Moses, by divine command, con-
structed a serpent of brass, and whoever directed his eyes to
this image recovered his health. In the Gospel, Christ adverts,
they tell us, to the power of the serpent, and even imitates him
when he says: " As Moses exalted the serpent in the desert, so
it behooves the Son of Man to be exalted " (Descriptio H&ret.,

* The Worship of the Serpent, by the Rev. John B. Deane.

48 ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. [April,

xlvii.) We are indebted to Teftullian for our knowledge of
these heretics, whom in his eloquent pages he has " damned to
everlasting fame." Ranke informs us (p. 160, vii.) that the
Jesuits in 1603 had to combat in Lithuania the remains of the
serpent-worship which still lingered in that country (History
of the Popes).

Now, if it be true, as, from the unarfimous testimony of Greek
and Latin authors, it appears to be, that the Druids, in common
with the Persian Magi and the Egyptian priests and pagans
generally, worshipped the serpent, and if it be likewise true that
St. Patrick abolished Druidism and suppressed the worship, he
at the same time banished the reptile objects of this mistaken
adoration. The extinction of the one was the banishment of
the other.

Granted that the popular tradition on this subject in Ireland
is simply a "myth." Now, a myth, as everyone knows, is a
spontaneous growth of the popular mind which never has decep-
tion for its object. It asserts, but it also believes. It never
aims at deceiving. It is simply a mode of accounting for phe-
nomena which springs spontaneously from the mind of man, en-
tirely independent of volition. It is never a voluntary inven-
tion. The narrators are wholly unconscious of the fallacy of
what they narrate, and there is always a germ of truth at the
bottom, which, though small as a mustard-seed, gives birth to a
growth as gigantic and umbrageous as the monarch of the
forests. In the veneration of the serpent which the Irish Druids
entertained we have the minute atom of truth infinitesimally
small which has risen, expanded, and grown up to a magnitude
so great as to canopy an entire nation. In the work attributed
to Eugene O'Curry * evidences may be found of this genesis of
the tradition relative to St. Patrick.

Without the slightest design of accounting for the popular
tradition, O'Curry says : " It is a remarkable fact that the name
of the celebrated idol of the ancient pagan Gaedhil was Crom
Cruach, which would signify literally the bloody maggot; whilst
another imaginary deity was termed Crom Dnbh, or the black
maggot." The first epithet, we may remark, may be translated
" the bloody crookedness" an epithet which is perfectly appli-
cable to the serpent while the second epithet may be translated
*' the black crookedness." Now, these terms are surprisingly
appropriate. Every snake is necessarily a series of coils; crook-
edness is inseparable from the ophidia. Destitute as they are of
fins, wings, or feet, convolution is essential to their organization

* Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

1 8 88.] ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. 49

and locomotion. Physical rectitude is impossible to every
species of serpent. The epithet crom dubh " is still connected,"
says Eugene O'Curry, " with the first Sunday in August "in
the vernacular dialects of Munster and Connaught a circum-
stance which shows how deeply Druidism had struck its roots
into the national mind.

" In the field of Magh Slecht, or Plain of Adorations, stood the
Crom Cruach (called Cean Cruach in the Tripartite Life), the great
object of Milesian pagan worship, the Delphos of our Gade-
lian pagan ancestors, from the time of their first coming into
Erin until the destruction of the idol by St. Patrick." Speak-
ing of a third of these objects of superstitious veneration,
O'Curry says : " That the Crom Chonnail was a living animal,
or at least believed to be such, may be seen in the following
couplet :

'" He kills the Crom Chonnaill

Which was destroying the army.' " *

The manner in which St. Patrick disposed of these ophidian
deities is described as follows : " Patrick after that went over
the water to Magh Slecht, where stood the chief idol of Erin
the Cean Cruaich, ornamented with gold and with silver, and
twelve other idols, ornamented with brass, round him. When
Patrick saw the idol, from the water which is named Guthard
(loud voice), and when he approached the idol he raised his arm
to lay 'the staff of Jesus' on him, and it did not reach him ; for
his face was to the south, and the mark of the staff remains in his
left side still, and the earth swallowed the other twelve idols to
their heads," etc.

That the religion of the serpent should flourish in a country
where the reptile was scarcely known, and certainly not indi-
genous, is by no means so wonderful as that a superstition so
absurd should be even tolerated in countries where its character
was understood and every hamlet contained the victims of its
poisonous fangs. This is the wonder! That the British Isles
were the cradle of Druidism die Heimath des Ordens is confi-
dently affirmed by Leopold Contzen.f Here, he says, the insti-
tution flourished in its purest form, and hither came the Gallic
students who desired to drink deep at the fountains of Druidic
science. As we have already stated, on the authority of classic
writers, they had an alphabet of seventeen letters, which cor-
responds with the number of the Beth, Luis, Nion, or ancient

* Manuscript Materials, pp. 103, 631. + Wanderungen der Kelten, p. 92.

VOL. XLVII. 4

50 ST. PATRICK AND THE SERPENTS. [April,

Irish alphabet, and with no other. Their name has no connec-
tion, as has been alleged, with the Sanscrit term druwidh, sig-
nifying " poor, indigent," as if, like the mendicant orders in the
Catholic Church, poverty was rather meritorious than disgrace-
ful. Nor has it any connection with the Greek word dpv?, an
oak. It is derived, according to Eugene O'Curry, from an Irish
word signifying " learning," an epithet by no means undeserved
if, as Stukeley affirms, Stonehenge was the cathedral of the
arch-druid of Britain, and Avebury, with its avenues, " had
been originally constructed by them in the form of a circle with
a serpent attached to it." We hope that no one will be scan-
dalized if we conclude this article by exhibiting the form which
the tradition has assumed among the Irish peasants, as we find
it in the Legends of the South of Ireland, collected by Crofton
Croker:

" Sure every one has heard tell of the blessed Saint Patrick and how
he druv the sarpints and all manner of venomous things out of Ireland ;
how he bothered the varmint entirely. But, for all that, there was one
ould sarpint left who was too cunning to be talked out of the country and
made to drown himself. St. Patrick did not well know how to manage
this fellow, who was doing great havoc, till at long last he bethought
himself, and got a strong iron chest made with nine boults upon it. So
one fine morning he takes a walk to where the sarpint used to keep ; and
the sarpint, who did not like the saint in the least and small blame to him
for that began to hiss and show his teeth at him like anything. ' Oh !'
says St. Patrick, says he, ' where's the use of making such a piece of work
about a gentleman like myself coming to see you? Tis a nice house I
have got made for you agin the winter ; for I'm going to civilize the whole
country, man and beast,' says he, ' and you can come and look at it when-
ever you please, and 'tis myself will he glad to see you.' The sarpint, hear-
ing such smooth words, thought that though St. Patrick had druv all the
rest of the sarpints into the sea, he meant no harm to himself ; so the sar-
pint walks fair and easy up to see him and the house he was speaking
about, but when the sarpint saw the nine boults upon the chest he thought
he was sould (betrayed), and was for making off with himself as fast as ever
he could. ' Tis a nice, warm house, you see,' says St. Patrick, 'and 'tis a
good friend I am to you.' 'Thank you kindly for your civility,' says the
sarpint, ' but I think it is too small it is for me ' meaning it for an excuse
-and away he was going. 'Too small? ' says St. Patrick. ' Stop, if you
please,' says he; 'you're out in that, my boy, anyhow. I am sure it will fit
you completely ; and I'll tell you what,' says he, ' I'll bet you a gallon of por-
ter,' says he, ' that if you will only try and get in there'll be plenty of room
for you.' The sarpint was as thirsty as could be with his walk, and 'twas
great joy to him the thoughts of doing St. Patrick out of the gallon of
porter ; so, swelling himself up as big as he could, in he got into the chest,
all but a little bit of his tail. ' There, now,' says he, ' I've won the gallon,
for you see the house is too small for me, for I can't get in my tail.' When

1 888.] THE LAND AND LABOR QUESTION. 51

what does St. Patrick do but he comes behind the great, heavy lid of the
chest, and, putting his two hands to it, down he slaps it with a bang like
thunder. When the rogue of a sarpint saw the lid coming down, in went
his tail like a shot, for fear of being whipped off him, and St. Patrick be-
gan at once to boult the nine iron boults. ' O murder ! won't you let me
out, St. Patrick ?' says the sarpint. 'I've lost the bet fairly, an' I'll pay you
the gallon like a man.' ' Let you out, my darling ! ' says St. Patrick. ' To
be sure I will, by all manner of means ; but you see I have not time now, so
you must wait till to-morrow.' And so he took the iron chest and the sar-
pint in it, and pitches it into the lake here, where it is to this hour for
certain ; and it is the sarpint struggling down at the bottom that makes
the waves upon it. Many is the living man has heard the sarpint crying
out from within the chest under the water : ' Is to-morrow come yet? Is
to-morrow come yet ? ' which, to be sure, it never can be. And that's the
way St. Patrick settled the last of the sarpints."

C. M. O'KEEFFE.

LET US STUDY THE LAND AND LABOR QUESTION.

THE elections of last November proved unfavorable to the
hopes of the newly-formed labor parties. The workmen did not
seem to feel that their condition was in any way to be improved
by their success atthepolls. The old party lines held them well
within the limits of routine. Considering the time, money, and
eloquence expended in scraping together seventy-two thousand
votes in New York State, the result was feeble, and the leaders
of the labor parties have learned that the workmen are not yet
enough interested in labor politicians to take a strong, effective
interest in new political parties. The number of new parties in
the field at the late elections discovers our native unfortunate-
tendency to drag every social idea into politics immaturely.
Politics contains a remedy in many cases ; but we fritter away
our strength on impossibilities. We begin in the middle, and
hence must take to our primers when graduation is close at
hand.

However, the cause of the workman is not bound up with the
fate of a political movement, and no one imagines that the ill-sue*
cess of flimsy and self-seeking theorists can injure it. It has often
been said that the cause of the poor is the nation's cause a true
saying, to which the nation pays very little attention. The poor,
like the rich, must look after their own interests. If they are sav-
age in so doing, their savagery is less unholy than the unscru-

52 L THE LAND AND LABOR QUESTION. [April,

pulousness of moneyed men. They strive, not for riches, but
for decency, for fair wages, for reasonable hours of labor, and
against the seemingly irresistible approach of poverty. They
have not always striven with understanding. Their some-time
violent methods were an insult to their intelligence, but these
methods are soon to be entirely discarded. Their cause is in-
deed the care of the nation, and the care of the world besides.
It is becoming plain to all that the root of labor and kindred
troubles is fixed deep in the nature of things. These troubles
are the indicators and forerunners of changes in the social or-
der. Changes of that kind are commonly called revolutions.
We are not on the eve but in the midst of a revolution. It has
come upon us not unawares, but found us indifferent. We
thought a few laws and the freedom of our prairies would end
any difficulty that might disturb our security, but our difficulty
has been a revolution almost in its maturity. No doubt our
prairies and the flexibility of our institutions have saved us
from catastrophes, but they have also blinded us to the real na-
ture of the crisis through which the world is passing. As far
as one may judge from the periodical literature of the time the
popular leaders have only the dimmest conception of the na-
ture and extent of the struggle.

We have a land question and a labor question. These terms
merely disguise the real issues. Discussion as to the first turns
chiefly on the right of private ownership; the second seems to
embrace no more than wages and hours of labor. Whoever
imagines that simply deciding one way or the other in the mat-
ter of land-ownership, and giving large wages and short hours,
will dispose of these questions, must be very sanguine indeed.
Hitherto there has generally been but one side in all the ques-
tions affecting social order. It was the side of .the wealthy land-
holders, of the cast-iron governments, of the money-barons
against the laborer, the helpless subject, and the multitudinous
poor. Quite naturally the latter so increased in numbers and in
difficulties that the former were ever busy devising schemes to
keep them in check. Hence our poor-houses, our emigration
schemes, our innumerable theories of government. They have
all proved vain. Here in America, where land can be had for
the asking, where poor-houses and public charities spring up
like mushrooms, where national legislators and even money-
kings bow to the ground before a man with a formidable griev-
ance, where every theory of government under the sun has an
advocate and a following here the poor, the laborer, and the

1 888.] THE LAND AND LABOR QUESTION. 53

citizen clamor for a change of condition and refuse to be quiet-
ed by lands or laws. They can hardly define their needs, but
are seized with a great restlessness such as impels nations in the
path marked out for them by Providence. The land is open to
them, and every day labor is encroaching on the tyrannous
monopolies. It is more than holding its own. Yet we call our
troubles land and labor troubles, for want of a better name, and
for want of a better understanding of the position we tinker now
with wages and now with ownership.

Under cover of the land question comes up another of real
and more lasting importance. It is the status of land-cultiva-
tors and the manipulation of the entire food supply of the na-
tion, whether the government, the people, or an individual be
the landlord. Under cover of the labor question hides a similar
problem. It is the relative status of employers and employed,
without respect to ancient (because obscure) notions of the two
classes. If one is desirous of knowing the importance of these
two points and how much they overtop the so-called land and
labor questions which mask them, let him try to discover how
much the experts know about them. Certainly there can hardly
be three things nearer to the ordinary man than how or where
his food shall be bought, who shall produce it for him, and how
he and his employer stand before the law. -These three things,
however, have not been studied, and neither law nor lawyers,
nor the interested millions, know much about them. The status
of a land-cultivator is peculiar. His occupation, from its neces-
sity and antiquity, is justly esteemed the most honorable of em-
ployments. It brings him, however, no honor and very small
profit in proportion to its demands upon his time and strength.
The importance of the land and of large landed possessions is
very well understood ; but the cultivator is ignored except in
poetry and poetical politics. The law knows very little about
him and shields him from nothing save outrage of the baser
kind. His kingdom the land is stolen from him by railroads,
foreign and native syndicates, cattle-kings, noblemen ; his pro-
ductions enrich railroads, steamship companies, city specula-
tors, but not himself; he grows poorer and his customers grow
poorer with the advance of civilization, but the intermediate
syndicates, land-speculators, the railroads, the noblemen, the
agricultural-implement makers, and the government treasuries
grow fabulously rich. It is much the same with the common
laborer and mechanic. He digs the coal and iron ; he makes
the brick and erects the factory ; he spins and w.eaves ; he ham-

54 THE LAND AND LABOR QUESTION. [April,

mers and fashions ; he brings to his work not only muscle but
skill, and what is the result? His employers grow amazingly
and assuredly rich, while he grows amazingly and assuredly
poor. As the land-cultivator is the prey of one set of knaves,
so is he of another. The main fact in the whole modern scheme
is that patient, honest, and capable industry does not get its just
reward. And the reason why is, it seems to me, not because
of any system of land-ownership, but because men know too
little the real position of the farmer and the laborer in the com-
munity 'and how their rights should be studied, enunciated,
and protected ; and because men know too little of the proper
management of the nation's food supplies. Fortune-hunters use
both the workman and the food as the means of gathering im-
mense and unlawful treasures. In reckoning the sources of
possible revenue the entire community of employers have learn-
ed to count upon a percentage of workmen's wages. In schem-
ing for immense gains, business gamblers do not hesitate to rob
the farmer and his customers.

When we have given to the land-cultivator his proper posi-
tion of importance in the community, and at the same time
taken the distribution of the food supply from the hands of
gamblers and money-kings, there will no longer be aland ques-
tion. When we have determined by law and justice what part
above the mere machine a workman has in the accumulation of
his employer's fortune, then we shall have no longer a labor
question. This is easily said, but what an immense work it sug-
gests and demands ! The land laws must be so strengthened
and administered as to kill off the land-grabbers. The business
methods of the country must be put under a censorship that will
scorch the Goulds as heat scorches the apple-tree pests. The
railroads and all carrying corporations must pass into the hands
of the state, or be so controlled as to be left as innocuous as the
mummies of Egypt. The great corporations must be brought
to treat with their work-people as men with men, not as men
with machines; must, in fact, prepare themselves to accept their
help as co-operators, whose fortunes must rise as the value of
the product of their labor rises, in proportion to each man's skill
and industry. When these changes have become a fact, a revo-
lution such as has not been seen since Christianity began will
have come to pass. A revolution is a grave thing. We are now
in the midst of it, and a single false step might mean bloody dis-
asters. There is nothing to be gained by haste. Men may dash
each other's brains out against the wall of time, but time goes

1 888.] THE LAND AND LABOR QUESTION. 55

no faster, and bloodshed never solves a social problem. Point
after point must be taken up and settled in whatever order they
present themselves, until isolated principles and facts and in-
stincts harmonize, discover their common agreement, and grow
into one perfect organization. For a state of change, for a cri-
sis, nature has only one help, and that is perfect quiet. Mr.
Henry George offers another and different one for our present
condition, but it has the disadvantage of being a cure-all, and a
cure-all is rarely ev6n a cure-anything. The ramifications of the
land and labor problem are such as defy a simple solution.
Many minds, many ideas, frequent failures, and at least a few
generations must give their best and do their best towards the
settling of our great questions.

Perhaps it is a sort of consciousness of the intricacy of the
problem that has made men slow to listen to new teachers with
their brilliantly simple methods of turning earth into heaven.
As was said in the beginning of this article, few of the popular
leaders have any conception of the extent and character of the so-
cial problem. There is a strong belief that George Washington
and Thomas Jefferson settled the most troublesome points years
ago. They but made clear the way for the introduction of the
problem. Our generation will do a little towards its solution,
but not enough to make it proud of itself. What all men can do
best is to labor and to wait. What the workman can do best is
to put aside his present expectation of a complete immediate
settlement of his difficulties, and turn his mind to securing all
such points of vantage as will assist naturally the development
of the revolution. Let me enumerate and explain the most
prominent of these in order.

First there is the point of organization and self-instruction.
It is an easy thing to organize in America, but that very ease
is almost fatal to thorough and successful organization. Jo-
nah's gourd was not a greater wonder in the order of nature
than the growth of the Knights of Labor. Such growth is ab-
normal, and must of its very nature be defective somewhere.
Quick maturity means quick dissolution. To organize with the
hope of obtaining the society's aim next year means that next
year the aim must be obtained or the society dies. Most of our
labor societies are organized in that way, and most of them are
organized on a basis so thoroughly un-American that of neces-
sity they or their usefulness dies out after a brief, unhappy exis-
tence. The law of force is not recognized among us, but it
enters very largely into the spirit of the labor societies. The

56 THE LAND AND LABOR QUESTION. [April,

liberty and protection of the citizen is the high result sought by
our Constitution, and too often forgotten by the labor society.
Haste in formation and haste in seeking immediate results, with
no regard for the true American spirit of liberty, have resulted
in ephemeral bodies whose careers run through foolishness and
violence to a sudden ending. This haste can be avoided by a
proper understanding of the crisis through which we are pass-
ing. Here self-instruction comes into play. Let the workmen
inform themselves thoroughly of the work to be done, its vast
extent and true nature. Let them organize, not for a single
generation, but for an epoch. Let them make haste within the
bounds of conscience and reason and law. Let each generation
be content if in this world of slow progress it can make the
road clearer for its successor. Above all things, let them bury
the vain hope of arranging all difficulties at one coup
cTttat. That has never been done since history began, and,
it may be safely argued, never will be done even by divine
power.

The primary work to be done by labor societies is immense
and congenial. It embraces the overthrow of the gigantic cor-
porations and their influence in legislatures, the better regula-
tion of the hours of labor, the maintenance of a fair standard of
wages, the utter destruction of the tenement-house, and the
abolition of child-labor. It must not be forgotten by the work-
man that in the present struggle the employer is quite often as
blameless as any man concerned. Our complex business sys-
tem has him often at its mercy, and he cannot give decent
wages and proper hours when he would. Therefore not so
much against persons must the work be directed as against the
encroachments of those creatures of the state called corpora-
tions. The great railroads, the great mining companies, lumber
companies, and carrying companies must be shorn of all privi-
leges and made to pay their way like other business persons.
The nation is now too wealthy to pay these creatures for get-
ting rich on its privileges. Grants of land must cease. Rights
of way must be a source of everlasting tribute. Without actu-
ally taking in charge these carrying offices, the state must make
them as docile as its children ought to be. It is a stupendous
job, but it must be done before any citizen can advance one step
in the path of real progress. The workman must aid by secur-
ing the downfall of the corporation's tyranny.

In fact, very little can be done until these immense tumors
are removed from the social body. To them may be directly

i888.] THE LAND AND LABOR QUESTION. 57

traced four prominent evils of the time viz., the corruption of
the legislature and the judiciary, the long hours of labor, the
low wages, and the employment of children. It is not necessary
to point out how responsible they are for these crimes against
humanity and the state. The whole world knows the tale. But
it is necessary for good men to see the connection between each
of these ills and another. The corporations must corrupt the
people's representatives, or special legislation would seriously
cripple them. They keep down the wages and lengthen the
hours as only irresponsible bodies can do, snapping their fingers
at a public opinion which they can often manufacture for their
own ends. As a result we have that greatest shame of modern
nations the employment of little children in every department
of labor. It is the most brutal, most selfish, and most useless of
all the crimes committed by the corporations and permitted by
a Christian people. Nothing too strong can be said of the sys-
tem and the indifference which tolerates it. The system must
go and our indifference be cast aside.

Stripping the corporations of usurped power and stolen
gains, closing the legislatures to corrupting influences and the
workshops to children, regulating hours of work according
to the kind of employment, securing fair wages at all times, and
pulling down the dens called tenement-houses, is, after all, only .a
preparation for that better work which shall settle for ever in
law and practice, as well as in ethics and theory, the status of the
wealth-producer in society. But that preparation is the work
for the present moment. Everything in its time. No mere sum
of human efforts in this day can attain the grand result, howso-
ever large the sum may be. If every citizen of the country were
a member of a labor society, and eager to settle the question
once for all, it could not be done. Only time and experience can
produce the data which will finally dispose of our labor troubles.
But patience is always in order, and careful organization and
profitable self-instruction are eternal in their effects. The child-
ren can be saved in this generation, and the homes of the poor
made beautiful, and wages kept above starvation figures; and
the indecent landlord, or fraudulent operator, or land-grabber,
or child-slayer can be easily turned into a jail-bird and made rare
in the land. There is no question that it can be done. Work-
men have only to turn their efforts steadily in one direction and
avoid political quixotism to accomplish wonders. Now they
often neglect the children, they neglect the tenement question,
they dream of forming political parties; and while they are

58 MOTHERHOOD. [April,

planning and dreaming of impossibilities wages are falling and
the corporations waxing more powerful.

To sum up what has been'said in this article let me put it in
this way :

The land question is in truth the question of the land-culti-
vator's legal standing in societv and the better management of
the nation's food supply. The principle of ownership at present
has no bearing on the question ; the method of ownership may
have such a bearing.

The labor question is really how to determine the ethical and
legal standing of a workman in relation to his employer, his
work, and its profits.

Neither question can be settled on the spot, nor is there one
solution possible, such as Henry George would have us accept.

Therefore the wisest thing all parties can do is to study and
to wait for particular opportunities.

The next wisest thing is. to attack the corporations unani-
mously, put an end to child-labor and to rotten tenements, and
to have labor societies and to rightly manage them for the pur-
pose of looking after wages and hours of labor, with the advice
and assistance of all good men in the community.

JOHN TALBOT SMITH.

MOTHERHOOD.

BEHOLD thy mother, son, He said whose word
His mystic presence to our altars gave,
Whose holy feet trod Galilee's dark wave.

The gentle voice whose whispers He had heard

Where Egypt's breezes the palm branches stirred,
John, the beloved, from grief's despond to save,
The hand that oft His infant brow did lave,

Henceforth to minister to him preferred.

Oh ! be it motherhood, like Bethlehem's, sweet,

Or of Golgotha's sorrow-freighted hour,
God hath ordained it, to His mind most meet,

Made woman's heart the agent of His power.
Though other loves man's trust through life may cheat,
These will remain through all unchanged, of strength a
tower.

GEORGE ROTHSAY.

1 888.] THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 59

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

WHAT the star of Bethlehem was has always been a question
of interest. More especially has it become so of late, on account
of the prevailing- impression that its reappearance is expected by
astronomers at about this time. So strong is this impression
that the planet Venus can hardly show herself in her customary
character of morning- or evening- star without a paragraph ap-
pearing in the papers that the star of Bethlehem is now visible.
Let it, then, be understood most distinctly at the outset that as-
tronomers do not now expect the star of Bethlehem, or any
star answering- to its description. It may, however, be worth
while to state the reason why they are imagined to be expecting
such a phenomenon.

A very brilliant star, equal to Venus at its brightest, and
visible, like Venus, to good eyes .even in the daytime, did appear
in the year 1572. It was not a planet or comet, but was in the
region of the fixed stars, as was quite evident from its not shift-
ing its position among the other stars during the whole sixteen
months that it remained in sight. That it did not so shift is
pretty certain from the observations of the distinguished astro :
nomer Tycho Brahe, to whom our information regarding it is
principally due, and whose measurements of its position enable
astronomers of the present day to point their telescopes to the
precise spot in the constellation Cassiopeia where it once shone
so brilliantly, and to assure themselves, as the writer has done
years ago, that no star, even telescopic, is to be found there now.
It seems to have appeared suddenly, though it faded away
gradually ; still, it may have shone for some time with moderate
lustre before it forced attention by its extraordinary splendor.
That it did appear very suddenly is, however, probable for a
reason which will be given later.

Now, this is the star which has given rise to this whole
speculation about the reappearance of the star of Bethlehem in
our day. For a similar phenomenon was witnessed in the year
1264, also in 945 ; and though the position of these objects in
the heavens was not so accurately determined as that of the star
of 1572 was by Tycho, still they seem to have been in or near
Cassiopeia. Assuming all three to be identical, we should have
a periodical appearance of the same object once in about 314
years, which would bring it back to visibility in 1886, with an

60 THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. [April,

allowable margin, of course, of several years. The same period
would give an appearance of the star in the year 3 of our era;
and here also sufficient margin might be given to bring it to the
time at which the star of Bethlehem appeared, on any system of
chronology.

But now two questions arise. First: Is it astronomically
probable that there has been such a periodic appearance of the
same object? Second: Even if such has been the case, could
this object have been the star of Bethlehem?

The first question must be answered in the negative. The
reason for this answer is that from modern observations we
know something of the nature of these " temporary " stars, as
they are called. Several, of lesser magnitude than that of Tycho,
but seemingly of the same character, have been observed in
recent times since the application of the spectroscope to astro-
nomy ; and this instrument has shown us that the sudden out-
burst of light in these stars was due to incandescent gas,
produced apparently by something like an explosion ; the ex-
plosion being caused either by forces internal to the body itself
or by collision with some external object. These later pheno-
mena have been sudden, like that of 1572; the stars in question
have not been seen to grow gradually from a lesser magnitude,
as many so-called variable stars, well known to astronomers, do,
repeatedly waxing and waning in more or less definite periods.
Of course it is hard to prove a negative ; it is just possible that
they may have come up slowly: but the heavens are very care-
fully watched now, and it is hard for any stranger to escape
'detection.

If we grant, then, that the appearance of temporary stars,
like that of Tycho, is due to what may be called a catastrophe,
such an occurrence is not likely to be repeated, at least periodi-
cally, in the same star. As has been said, there are such things
as variable stars following a tolerably regular period ; but these,
in which a tremendous maximum is so suddenly reached, can
hardly be classed among them.

It is not, therefore, considered probable by astronomers in
general that the stars of 945 and 1264 were identical with that
of 1572 or with each other. Hence astronomers do not, as is
popularly supposed, expect the sudden appearance of a bright star
in Cassiopeia, or anywhere else, specially at the present time;
though recent experience has shown that such phenomena are,
on a small scale, not infrequent, and may occur at any moment.

To proceed now to the second question. If the star of 1572 is

1 888.] THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 61

really periodic and appeared at the time of the birth of our Lord,
could it have been the star of Bethlehem ? One simple considera-
tion is enough to settle this also in the negative. This consideration
is that Cassiopeia is a northern constellation, always appearing
somewhere between the northeast and the northwest; but the
Gospel tells us that the star "went before" the wise men on
their way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and must therefore
have appeared in the south, as Bethlehem is due south from
Jerusalem.

Let us. then, dismiss at once and entirely from our minds the
entirely groundless notion that the star of 1572 was the star of
Bethlehem, or that there is any reason for expecting either one
at present, and, if we see a bright star in the morning or evening
sky, understand that it is simply Venus or Jupiter.

The question now naturally arises, Is there any other astrono-
mical way of accounting for the star of Bethlehem, now that
this one has been disposed of? Let us see. The " conjunction "
theory comes properly first, from its having been maintained by
learned men at the expense of a good deal of time and research ;
even the illustrious Kepler inclined favorably to it, at least as a
partial explanation of the matter. This theory is that some
remarkable conjunction of two or more planets might produce
the effect of a single very bright star, or might at least be called
a star, even though the various planets were separately visible ;
that such a conjunction occurred about the time of the birth of
our Lord is of course a matter for which we have recourse to
astronomical tables, by which, in the present perfected state of
mechanical astronomy, we are able to tell precisely how the
planets stood in the heavens at any moment during the whole
history of man.

By a conjunction of two planets is understood their near
approach to each other as seen from the earth ; or, in other
words, that the two planets and the earth actually lie nearly in
the same straight line, the earth being at one end of the line.
If the earth occupies the central place the two planets are said
to be in opposition. Conjunctions of the planets, more or less
close, are of frequent occurrence. On the 2d of January of this
year a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter occurred, the two
planets being less than two degrees from each other in the sky.
But closer approaches than this are very common. For instance,
on June 28, 1886, Mars and Jupiter were less than one degree
apart; on October 22 of the same year, Venus and Jupiter about
one-third of a degree; on February 9, 1887, Mars and Venus

62 THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. [April,

were distant about half a degree from each other. On July 21.
1859, a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter occurred so closely
that the two planets could only be separated from each other by
good telescopes, appearing to the naked eye as one star. The
nearest approach was only observable on the Eastern Continent,
the planets having separated considerably at the time of their
appearing above our horizon. These conjunctions are always
pretty and interesting sights ; but unfortunately when Venus is
seen in the neighborhood of any of what are called the superior
planets, viz., Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn, the superior planet is at a
great distance from us, and is by no means a conspicuous star.
The superior planets can, however, meet each other at their
times of greatest apparent brilliancy.

In the year 747 from the building of Rome, which can be
admitted with much probability as that of the birth of our
Saviour (the year 753, which was arbitrarily assumed when the
Christian era took definite shape, being generally acknowledged
to be several years too late), a somewhat remarkable set of con-
junctions is shown by astronomical calculation to have occurred
in May, August, and December respectively. At the second of
these the planets were not much below their greatest brilliancy;
but at the first and third they were much less conspicuous,
owing to their greater distance from the earth. Jupiter would
be more affected by this circumstance than Saturn, the propor-
tional change in its distance being greater. This set of conjunc-
tions is supposed by some to have been what attracted the
attention of the Magi, and we may suppose that they did not set
out for Jerusalem till after the second indeed, the first by itself
would not be very remarkable as that would give them time to
reach that city before the end of the year. When they arrived
there the third conjunction might have been visible in the
southern heavens in the evening sky ; and it might therefore
have "gone before them," as the Gospel tells us, in a certain
sense, on their way to Bethlehem, and actually have been exactly
in the direction of the place where the Divine Child lay, as they
approached that spot.

This theory has some plausibility; but it has also its objec-
tions. In the first place, it is hardly probable that the Magi,
who were undoubtedly in the habit of watching the stars, could
have been ignorant that what they had seen was simply the
juxtaposition of two planets with whose movements they were
tolerably familiar; they would have noticed their changes of
relative position, which were not very great, between the times

1 888.] THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 63

of the conjunctions, unless the weather had been persistently
cloudy a thing almost impossible in that climate ; and on arriv-
ing- at Jerusalem they would not have said, " We have seen his
star in the east," when the star was shining there before every-
body's eyes on any clear night for, by the theory, the time of
the third conjunction was already close at hand ; moreover, with
two such slow-moving planets as Jupiter and Saturn, at conjunc-
tion near their stationary points, as would be the case with this
third one of the series, the change in their relative positions
would be very slight for a considerable time.

In the second place, there seems to be a radical objection to
the hypothesis, for it is hardly credible that a conjunction of two
planets, unless it were a very close one, like that spoken of
above as occurring in 1859, could have been called a "star." A
degree is not such a small space in the sky ; it is about twice the
apparent diameter of the sun or moon, and no eye, however
poor, could fail to see such a separation very plainly.

It is also evident that the facts, as recorded, do not convey
the idea of such a persistent phenomenon as a conjunction of two
planets. The wise men do not seem to have seen the star at all
for a considerable time before their arrival at Jerusalem, nor do
they seem to have seen it even there; but Jupiter and Saturn
would have been seen pretty near each other in the evening sky
during the whole fall and early winter of A. u. c. 747. Kepler,
indeed, is obliged to bring an additional temporary star to the
rescue to help out the conjunction theory. Such a star, almost
or quite equal to that of Tycho, he had himself seen in the con-
stellation Ophinchus; it appeared on the I7th of October, 1604,
and remained visible as late as the end of 1605. He was not
aware, as we are to-day, that such objects belong to the immense-
ly distant region of the fixed stars, and seems to have supposed
that it might be in some way produced by forces acting within
"our own planetary system, and possibly that conjunctions of the
planets might themselves evolve such a phenomenon. Such a
view would, of course, now be quite untenable; if on no other
consideration, obviously on this, that the real event which an
apparition of a temporary star records must have occurred in all
probability two or three years at least before the light which an-
nounces it to us can traverse the vast interval by which its place
of occurrence is removed from our globe. The whole conjunc-
tion theory bears pretty plainly the marks of Having been excogi-
tated in the interest, if we may say so, of chronology. Of course
we should like to be able to fix the precise year of the birth of

64 THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. [April,

Christ; and if we could only find by calculation an astronomical
phenomenon which would adequately represent the mysterious
star, it would go a great way toward solving the problem.

Another astronomical hypothesis, and perhaps as defensible
as any, is that the star of Bethlehem was a comet. Two are on
record in the years 4 and 3 B.C. respectively ; and in the year 10
A.D. it is said that a comet appeared in Aries for about a month,
and by Dion Cassius that several were visible at the same
time. The comet of Aries is stated by Dr. Sepp, in his learned dis-
cussion of the "star of the Messias," to have appeared in the very
year of our Lord's birth ; but how he arrives at this conclusion
he does not tell us. He also mentions the date given above for
it. Aries would be about the right position in the heavens,
being in the south just after sunset at the beginning of the
year; but there seems to be no record of the time of year at
which this comet was seen. Those of 4 and 3 B. c. appeared in
the spring, and may be left out of the question.

We return now to the idea of a temporary star, similar to that
of Tycho, but, as is plain if there was only one star, not identical
with it. There is no assignable astronomical reason why such a
star may not have appeared in any part of the heavens at any
time ; and there may have been two such, one, in any part what-
ever, which first attracted the attention of the Magi, and another
in the southern sky which would lead them from Jerusalem to
Bethlehem. For it must be remembered that the star was evi-
dently lost to view when they arrived at Jerusalem ; and there
is no certain evidence that they saw it on the way to that city.
There is a general impression that it led them there from their
home in the East ; but the Gospel does not tell us that it did, and
certainly it was not necessary that it should do so. They were
probably in possession of the prophecy of Balaam (Numbers
xxiv. 17), and were expecting the star at about that time ; for the
time at which the Messias was to come was quite definitely pre-*
dieted. And when they arrived at Jerusalem they did not say,
" We have seen a star," but " We have seen his star" the star of
the King of the Jews; they had known it for that as soon as they
saw it. It did not need then to appear, even at the beginning,
in the direction of Jerusalem ; no, they went to Jerusalem when
they saw it, because that was the place to get information about
it, and about the King whom it heralded. So any temporary
star, even that of Tycho, would have served for the first ap-
pearance.

But, if we are to take the Gospel literally, this theory of two

1 8 88.] THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 65

stars is inadmissible. For it tells us that "the star which thev
had seen in the east "led them from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.
We can, however, meet all the requirements of the case with
one star. If a temporary star, like that of Tycho, had appeared
in the summer, standing in the west just after sunset, as Venus
does when it is evening star, such a star would have been soon
lost to view in the sunlight as the sun advanced in its yearly
path round the ecliptic ; two or three months after its first ap-
pearance it would have been visible in the morning sky, and
some four months later it would have served to guide the Magi
to Bethlehem in the early morning, before sunrise. Of course
it would have been visible in the morning or last hours of the
night during all those four months, but it is easier to suppose it
to have escaped their notice at such a time than if it had been in
the evening sky. Or we may suppose it to have faded away
during the two months when the sun was hiding it from view
and then to have burst out again when they arrived at Jerusa-
lem. Such a supposition is by no means astronomically impossi-
ble, though it is contrary to our experience of other temporary
stars, the catastrophe which produces the great outburst of light
in them never having been observed twice in the same one, and
being apparently incapable of repetition, at least for a long time.
Their regular course is to appear suddenly with their greatest
brilliancy, and then gradually to wane.

In all this discussion it is obvious that we are speaking simply
on the basis of natural science as it is now known ; to assume
unknown and unprecedented phenomena, even though coming
within possible natural laws, is not, properly speaking, to give a
scientific explanation at all. We can, of course, assume, if we
wish, that our atmosphere might generate a brilliantly luminous
body, which would appear in the proper places to answer the
description of the star of Bethlehem ; or, if we please, we can
say that such an object might be produced in the solar system
which would be neither a planet nor a comet, and would move
without regard to the law of gravitation. But to make such an
assumption would not be to account for the matter by our pres-
ent scientific knowledge, and it is hard to see what purpose it
would serve.

One great and general difficulty against any astronomi-
cal explanation whatever is that all properly so-called astro-
nomical phenomena are observable over very large portions
of the globe ; and an object so remarkable as the star of Bethle-
hem was to the wise men would probably have been generally

VOL. XLVII. 5

66 THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. [April,

recorded in some unmistakable way in the history of the sci-
ence, for there were even at that time many learned men inter-
ested in such matters. Latitude is the only element which makes
a difference in the visibility of anything astronomical which
remains in the heavens for as much as a day ; longitude is im-
material. The star of Bethlehem, then, if properly a star,
should be distinctly in the records of both Europe and Asia,
of China especially.

Lastly, a grave objection to its being an astronomical object
is the impossibility of such an object standing over any particu-
lar spot, or leading any one to a definite and small place, such as
a stable or cave would be. Stars may furnish general sailing
directions, but cannot point out the way to a particular point,
especially in or near a town, where one would have to proceed
more or less by roads. They give us the points of the compass,
but only by accident could lead to any special location, unless
observed with extraordinary accuracy, even if nothing blocked
the way, though it is, of course, possible that a person by follow-
ing a star may reach his goal ; and assuming the star to be a
natural one, we are not bound to shut out the providence and
guidance of God.

No theory founded on any natural science, except astron-
omy, presents itself for discussion, unless we are willing to
bring this great guiding-star to the level of a mere will-o'-
the-wisp ; so it would seem that our scientific discussion of the
matter must here end.

The result of it, or, it is not too much to say, of any impartial
investigation, is not, on the whole, favorable to any explanation
of this wonderful prodigy on scientific grounds. The probability
must be, it would seem, very strong in the mind of any one who
is willing to admit the miraculous at all, or at least of any
Christian, that the star was a supernatural phenomenon, a sign
furnished directly by Almighty God for the accomplishment of
his own object, and altogether similar to the pillar of cloud
and fire which guided his chosen people through the desert of
Arabia. Further than that, on this assumption, it were vain to
inquire into its nature or cause. And it would seem that the
principal obstacle to this view of it among Christians has been
the desire, as has been remarked above, that it should serve a
chronological purpose.

GEORGE M. SEARLE.

1 888.] THE ITALIANS IN NEW YORK. 67

THE ITALIANS IN NEW YORK.

THE first question one is apt to ask about the Italians who
are now arriving among us in such large numbers is, Where do
all these dark-eyed, olive-tinted men and women come from ?
From the old Neapolitan States and southern Italy for the most
part, though there are many from the neighborhood of Genoa
and some from Lombardy. Do they come to stay ? The answer
must now be emphatically, Yes. When the immigration first
began the intention was almost invariably to go back home and
enjoy the savings of the American sojourn. But that day is
past. Our visitors have brought their knitting, and we are
going to have them as an element in the make-up of the Ame-
rican commonwealth. Many who went home in former years
have returned again. They bring their families with them,
their young folks marry here, their little ones grow up speaking
English mostly and a little very bad Italian ; and they are put-
ting their savings into real estate this last a most significant
evidence of stability.

What are their traits of character?

There is first the difference in race-traits between the north-
ern and southern Italians. The northerns, from Venice, Pied-
mont, and Lombardy, have much of the energy and vivacity of
the French, springing in great part from the same original stock,
though possessing much of the steadiness of the German. The
Neapolitans and Sicilians, being of a more southern type, are
voluble and expansive. As to general characteristics, the Italians
have one American trait in conspicuous fulness money-getting,
a trait stimulated by the change from the old to the new order
of existence. Thirty, forty, and fifty cents a day for the hard,
long-houred labor of a grown man in Italy is changed by a cheap
steerage passage into from a dollar to two dollars and a half
in America. No wonder they think that you can " pick up
gold in the streets" of America. And this is literally the case
with many of them, for they are the most skilful rag-pickers
among us. They are becoming the only rag-pickers in New
York. And, too, they are picking up gold in the streets as boot-
blacks, and their children as newsboys. The traditional Irish
apple-woman is in every direction giving place to the Italian
corner fruit-vender. Many are grocers, druggists, money-
changers, beer-sellers, sign-makers, barbers, candy-makers, and

68 THE ITALIANS IN NEW YORK. [April,

a vast army of sinewy and dark-browed men are taking the place
of the Irish laborers. In the lower part of the city there are
several labor-bureaus which send Italian laborers by the thou-
sand to all parts of the country. The result of all this eager
struggle for the " bounties of Providence " is, of course, the ac-
cumulation of money. The savings-banks know them, and they
are beginning to have some such institutions of their own.
They are beginning to be fruit-merchants and regular confec-
tioners, and no doubt soon will be boss-contractors, etc. They
are not, as a class, intemperate, nor over-expensive in dress, nor
careless of the main chance in any way. One of the parishes
which has been most largely invaded by the Italians, and where
a systematic effort is being made to give them religious care, is
the Transfiguration, whose church edifice is at the corner of
Mott and Park Streets. Here their activity in real-estate opera-
tions is most apparent. This parish is being depopulated of
the Irish by the sub-letting of tenements by Italians, and their
finally getting the fee of the property. An Italian can secure
from Italians a rental fifty per cent, in advance of what any
mortal can get from the Irish, or perhaps from any other race.
Does the reader ask why ? Because more Italian humanity can
be packed into the cubic yard than any other kind of humanity,
the Chinese, perhaps, excepted. They can sleep anywhere; if
there are no chairs they will sit contentedly on the floor and lean
against the wall ; they will pack into rooms as thick as sardines ;
they are a living demonstration that the "cold figures" of the
Board of Health area delusion, for they flourish in robust health
where hygienic science proves that they should drop into their
graves. Where no man can live, according to scientific theory,
the Italian waxes fat, according to actual reality. This trait
enables the thrifty among them to acquire, by sub-letting, first
the leasehold and then the ownership of tenements. The whole
people seems thrifty, shrewd, prodigiously saving, immensely
industrious. Nor should it be forgotten that their children are
bright, talented, fond of study.

But they lack, as yet, some other traits of American char-
acter, especially what we call spirit. They are not high-spirited.
They for the most part seem totally devoid of what may be
termed the sense of respectability not on all scores, by any
means, but certainly on the score of personal independence and
manliness. An American or an Irishman will almost starve be-
fore asking charity, and often really does starve. Not so the
lower-class Italian. He is always ready to beg. Men with

1 888.] THE ITALIANS IN NEW YORK. 69

money in the bank will commit their children to an institution
of public charity, and wait until they are very easily situated
before taking them out. The shame of being thought a pauper
is almost unknown among the Italian people of this quarter. It
is this lack of what are known as the manly qualities that makes
a profound difference between them and all the races who have
hitherto contributed to the making of the American population.
Still, they are very amenable to our civilization. The boys and
girls, as they grow up, take on all the American externals of
dress and manner of life, and will doubtless develop the other
characteristics. The primacy of Italy in art, in music, in litera-
ture, and, during previous centuries, in war, gives a solid hope
of better things among our Italians. The two or three hundred
years that the race has spent under petty tyrannies, especially
that meanest of them all, the Neapolitan Bourbons, cannot have
quite extinguished its native nobility of character. Some con-
spicuous social virtues they have, such as obedience to the laws,
absence of public prostitution, the custom of early marrying,
and the like. As to politics, the Italians of New York are now a
factor, and the political bass is represented among this nation-
ality.

And now as to the delicate question of religion. The Italians
in the jurisdiction of Transfiguration parish and in all this
question mention is made only of ascertained facts come to
America the worst off in religious equipment of, perhaps, any
foreign Catholics whatever. There are thousands of Italians in
this city who do not know the Apostles' Creed. Multitudes of
men and women of this people do not know the elementary
truths of religion, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the
Redemption. This ignorance of the most necessary doctrines
is, it must be borne in mind, not exactly common to emigrants
from all localities in Italy. From observation, and from the best
information, it would seem probable that the North Italians are
a fairly instructed people, the Genoese and Lombards in America
having a good name for intelligent knowledge of the truths of
religion. There are many, let us hope the greatest number,
from the south with at least the rudiments. But the old Nea-
politan States are daily sending to all quarters of this hemi-
sphere grown men and women who are not well enough in-
structed to receive the sacraments ; if the priest should admin-
ister them they would be invalidly administered for want of
knowledge on the part of the recipients. The evidence of this
state of things is so complete, comes from so many different

70 THE ITALIANS IN NEW YORK. [April,

sources not less from all grades of Italian priests than from
other quarters is seen to be so palpably true upon actual con-
tact with this people, that the fact is established beyond question.

What, then, has been their religious life at home ? Some
peculiar kind of spiritual condition fed on the luxuries of
religion without its substantiate. "Devotions," pilgrimages,
shrines, miraculous pictures and images, indulgences, they have
been accustomed to, together with, in all too many cases, an al-
most total ignorance of the great truths which can alone make
such aids of religion profitable.

Now, what is the matter in southern Italy? How shall we
explain this lamentable state of things? Excellent judges say
that the fault is in the civil status of the people ; the old tyranny
of the Bourbons and the new tyranny of the atheists the aim
of the latter being, as an excellent Italian priest described it,
destructio entis moralis have prevented the proper action of the
clergy. Any one who has read the life of St. Alphonsus, or who
knows the methods of the present Italian government, may
readily believe that there is much truth in this explanation.
One may really exclaim, What Catholics these people would
become if they only had the qualities fitting them to be good
Americans! For the lack of these qualities the political and
civil difficulties in Italy are much to blame.

Another reason assigned is the confusion of parochial and
conventual ministrations: the friction occasionally felt from this
cause in America, and the consequent injury to religion, lead to
the belief that indiscriminate and unregulated care of souls by
bodies of clergymen, working under different and practically in-
dependent canonical jurisdiction, in the same locality, has had
something to do with the low state of religious instruction we
are considering. What is anybody's business and everybody's
is apt to be nobody's. The poverty of the people in out-of-the-
way places and in barren rural districts, and under the Italian
system of landlordism, which is only not worse than that in
Ireland, is another cause assigned. Some say that the climate
is so enervating as to provoke a shiftless, ignorant state of
things ; but the Italians here are the most busy people in Ameri-
ica : there isn't a drone in their hive.

But, when all other causes have had due weight, the miser-
able truth is that the people have been neglected by their
priests. There are many good priests in southern Italy, and
the parish clergy of the city of Naples are well spoken of, and
that by severe critics. But somehow the duty of even rudi-

1 888.] THE ITALIANS IN NEW YORK. 71

mentary instruction and training in the principles and practices
of the Christian religion has been grossly neglected by large
numbers of parish priests ; the state of ignorance among this
people cannot otherwise be accounted for.

The apathy of the clergy in instructing the people is some-
times explained by the fact that they have fixed revenues,
independent of the people, and fixity of tenure for life. They
would be more energetic in imparting religious knowledge if
they drew their income from the people, and their positions or
promotions depended on their exertions.

And now, you may ask, what can be done for them ? First
procure good Italian priests for them, and gather them in as
annex congregations to the already established English-speaking
parishes. The difficulty of forming annex congregations is not
so great, once good Italian priests are secured. The Trans-
figuration parish has had what is considered a successful experi-
ence of it. The basement of the church is the place of worship
of over two thousand Italians regularly organized, with four
Masses, and Vespers, every Sunday and holyday of obligation,
with a good and hopeful start of a Sunday-school. They are
served by two priests of their own nation, have their own
ushers, and indeed a complete outfit, for a parochial establish-
ment except a school.

This is called an annex congregation because ;t is so; and it
must be so. This is proved, first, by the total break-down of
every autonomous Italian church in this section of the country.
It begins Italian and it ends Irish except in the personnel of the
clergy who, like the Normans in Ireland, sometimes become
Hiberniores Hiberniis. It is further proved by experience. For
with careful prudence, with every known appliance of raising
funds applicable to them, this Italian congregation, two thou-
sand strong, being a fair average of the whole population, give
a revenue every week of but about forty-five dollars. It began
with their giving pretty much nothing for revenue. Then a
few seats were set apart next the statue of the Madonna, five
cents being charged ; after a while the pay area was increased,
and now it embraces the centre rows of pews, no seat costing
more than five cents, and all the side-rows of pews being about
half the sittings entirely free ; and with the above result.

The truth is that this people will not give up sufficient
money for church purposes, though doubtless their children
will. To support, let alone to build, a church, more than Italian
generosity is needed. Here, with two excellent Italian priests

72 THE ITALIANS IN NEW YORK. [April,

as good as any in America, no matter of what nationality
popular with their people, using every expedient that experi-
ence and prudence suggest, only enough is got to pay their
salaries of five hundred a year each and their board not a cent
for repairs, cleaning, furnishing sacristy and sanctuary, starting a
school, buying a site for a church, or anything else. Of stipends
for Masses there are very few, and the revenue from baptismal
and matrimonial fees is not much. This is the top notch of a
long and labored movement, reached under the highest pressure.
There is a good set of Italian ushers who serve every Sunday
for nothing and are excellent men.

The objection has been made that if they had the whole
church, or a church of their own, six thousand instead of two
would come, etc. Besides the answer given by the notorious
failure of separate parishes noted above, it may be said that the
persons among them who object to the basement are not numer-
ous. The Italians as a body are not humiliated by humiliation.
As a body : there are numbers, chiefly Genoese and Lombards,
who object to the basement, and join the Irish-Americans up-
stairs, and do as well for religion financially and otherwise as
the best. But the bulk are not like that.

The fact is that the Catholic Church in America is to the
mass of the Italians almost like a new religion. There are no
endowed churches, no pilgrimages, and no free food at the con-
vent gates. They have got to readjust themselves to a religion
lacking many things of a kind that to half-instructed people
makes up pretty much the whole religious apparatus. It is not
likely that the old folks will ever be readjusted. They must tag
after the Irish, and little by little their children will do great
things for God in America: their forefathers have been fore-
most in the history of God's heroes.

Our hope is in the children. The Irish and the Italians do
not easily mix at school, but they can be brought together.
One reason why the Irish move away from a tenement-house is
the moving in of a family or two of Italians. They are almost
of a different civilization. And so the Irish will not send their
children readily to a school which Italian children are begin-
ning to frequent. For example, there has always been a large
class of some ninety little children in the Transfiguration
school, ranging no higher than eight years of age. Originally
all were of Irish parentage. Some Italians were admitted a
few years ago, and things were let work their own way, with the
result that the class is now almost completely Italian.

1 888.] THE ITALIANS IN NEW YORK. 73

An effort must first be made to secure good Italian priests to
work with the American clergy in duplex parishes. This has,
up to the present, been a matter of no small difficulty, but mea-
sures are now being taken which promise to furnish a supply of
the right kind of material for this work. The good Italian
parish priest stays in Italy, and the Italian missionary goes to
the heathen. The bishops of the eastern part of the United
States would be glad to get a supply of competent Italian cler-
gymen, but hitherto have not known where to look. Within a
few months a practical move has been made by Bishop Scala-
brini, of the diocese of Piacenza, for the supplying of Italian
priests for Italian emigrants to the New World. He has al-
ready established a house for these missionaries, and five priests
in the institution are now awaiting a call to America. They are
from his own and neighboring dioceses of northern Italy.
Bishop Scalabrini has had this project in mind for years, and has
collected facts concerning the condition of Italian emigrants to
South America, and published a book on the subject. With the
aid of the Bishop of Cremona and the blessing of Leo XIII.,
contained in a brief approving his new project, he has now
formed a national association for the support of the new mis-
sionary house. A considerable sum of money has already been
contributed by the Italians in Italy to the project, and a perma-
nent fountain has been opened for the supply of zealous and
well-equipped Italian priests for missions in America. Bishop
Scalabrini expects these priests to act as auxiliary or assistant
priests in parishes where Italians are to be found in numbers.
The Bishop of Cremona, in addition, intends sending a certain
number of students to complete their last year of theology in
American seminaries, and then to serve as assistants in duplex
parishes.

Finally, and above all, an effort must be made to get the chil-
dren into Catholic schools. It is a work of instant necessity.
It is the children of the Neapolitans who go to the Five Points
House of Industry and the City Mission on the opposite side of
"Paradise Park.'' These institutions, up to recent times, were
mainly occupied in making Protestants of the children of in-
temperate Irish parents. At present they are doing the same
work by wholesale with the children of Catholic Italians.

BERNARD J. LYNCH.

74 THE Music OF IRELAND. [April,

THE MUSIC OF IRELAND.

OF music in general it is only necessary to premise, what
all writers on the subject seem so happy in admitting, that God
himself is its author. It was implanted in man's nature by the
great Creator himself. It is as old as the human race.

All that Sacred Scripture has left us of the first two thousand
years of this world's history is conveyed in less than three
hundred sentences. Yet, brief as this epitome is, it contains a
distinct notice of music. For music is spoken of as practised
one thousand years before the Deluge ; that is, two thousand
years before any of the other arts or sciences were, even rudely,
developed. It is recorded of Jubal, the seventh descendant
yet the contemporary of Adam, that "he was the father of them
that play on the harp and the organs "* (the Hebrew words
Kinnor and Hugab, which are translated Jiarp and organ, are only
generic names for musical instruments stringed, or pulsatile, or
wind instruments). Now, vocal music is admittedly older than
instrumental music ; but instrumental music was in use during a
great portion of Adam's life, and therefore it is plain that vocal
music is as old as our first father himself.

Music, one would judge, is as old as language. Language is
merely conventional. It has no meaning except for those who
are party to the compact as to the significance of its sounds ;
whereas music is felt and understood by the whole human race.
It is the language of nature. It is felt by the infant and the
savage. It speaks in the breeze, in the stream, in the storm. It
whispers through the leaflets, sings through the trees, mourns
through the ivied ruin. It thrills the human heart, producing
affections of joy or of sorrow. Man may not appreciate other
arts, while music has an abiding fascination for him. The un-
cultivated rustic, who would see no beauty in the rarest Ra-
phaels, and who would turn away with indifference from the
Apollo of Belvidere, is instantly alive to the tones of music, and
loves them and is affected by them. The influence of music
begins with the cradle and ends only with the grave, and so
much do we prize it that we make it part of the enjoyment of
heaven.

With regard to the music of Ireland I would begin by stating
that, when Ireland's great apostle first entered the halls of Tara,

* Gen. iv. 21.

1 888.] THE Music OF IRELAND. ?*>

he saw around him not kings only and princes, but bards, harpers,
and minstrels. Venerable men they were, with long beards and
wearing flowing robes. They sat in the councils of the nation ;
and, when debate was over, their duty was to sound forth the
national melodies and fill the halls with the strains of national
song. The music of the Hibernian branch of the Celtic race is
coeval with their history ; and from the earliest times Ireland
has been called " The Land of Song." Of the antiquity of the
harp there is no doubt. It was the favorite instrument of David,
the royal prophet; and that the Irish harp was a fac-simile of
the Egyptian one goes very far to prove the antiquity of Irish
music. Indeed, centuries before the Christian era " the people
deemed each other's voices sweeter than the warblings of a me-
lodious harp ; such peace and concord reigned amongst them that
nothing could delight them more than the sound of their own
voices." * " Tara," continues the famous book from which we
quote, " was so called for the celebrity of its melodies." Alas!
no music is there to-day, for

" The harp that once through Tara's halls the soul of music she 1 !,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls as if that soul were fled/'

That music was highly esteemed in " the Island of Destiny "
we conclude from the honors showered upon its votaries. They
were exempted from paying public taxes. The tax levied for the
killing of a bard was next to that levied for the killing of a king.
They were educated in seminaries, where all class business was
put to music and chanted in the halls. A title " The," similar
to the knighthood of our day was conferred upon them, just
as the same title was conferred in later times, because of their
nobility and valor, oh The O'Brien of Desmond, The O'Conor
Don, and The O'Donoughue of the Gleris.

Such was Irish music before Patrick came, and then what an
inspiration it received ! If, as we are told, Patrick had but to
convert the druid-stones into altars, "and the wells, sacred in
paganism, into baptismal fonts, so he had but to change the
harper into a chorister, and to wed the nation's old melodies to
the words of the nation's new liturgy. Thus Duvach, a con-
verted bard, is recorded as displaying a higher genius in glori-
fying the true God than that which pagan muses imparted to his
strains in adulation of Baal : " Cartnina qua quondam peregit in
laudem falsornm deorum, jam in usum meliorem mutans et linguam,
poemata clariora composuit in laudem Omnipotentis " (Jocelin, Vita
Patricii) ; and Fiach, a bishop, was the composer of some

* Book of Ballymote.

76 THE Music OF IRELAND. [April,

charming chants, which still survive, and which he sang in
honor of his new master, St. Patrick.

Ambrosian chant was introduced into Ireland very soon after
its^ institution at Milan ; and two canons of a synod held by
Patrick himself relate specially to church music, and show that
chanters were, even at that early period, reckoned among the
inferior clergy. St. Bernard, in his admirable Life of St. MalacJiy,
relates that that Irish bishop had diligently learnt ecclesiastical
chant when a mere boy, and afterwards established its practice
in his primatial church at Armagh. And when the Gregorian
chant came into use it was cultivated by the Irish priesthood
and taught by them, not only at home, but in every country on
the Continent. To the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists we owe
the information that two Irishmen were the first to teach
psalmody to the nuns of St. Gertrude's convent, A.D. 650. An
Irishman, Helias, or Hely, was the first to teach the Roman
chant in the old city of Cologne. England and Scotland re-
ceived their first harpers from Ireland, as their own musicians
admit; and in an old preface to Dante's Inferno the poet states
that the only harp he had ever seen came from Ireland : " Unicam
quam vidi cytharam, ex Hibernia venit" Every bishop in the
country, according to Cambrensis, a hostile witness, was a
harper, and took his harp with him wherever he went, to soothe
him in his hours of care and to sweeten his hours of rest.
" Episcopi, abbates.et sancti in Hibernia viri, cytharas circumferre et
in eis modulando pie delectari consueverint" (Cambr. Topog. Hib.)
This accounts for the fact that so many Irish ecclesiastics are
represented in old entablatures with a harp resting on their
knees.

The same may be stated with regard to the profane music of
the land. National music was highly cultivated. The bard and
the harper were met on every road. Ancient authorities tell us
that they numbered, at one time, twelve hundred, at another
that they amounted to nearly a third of the whole population.
Hereditary estates were settled on the most skilled in the art;
and the extensive barony of Carbery, in the county of Cork, was
the pension settled by a Munster king on the bard Cairbre. And
who will say that the Irish are not a musical race in face of the
fact that they alone of all peoples have interwoven the emblem
of their nation's music with the green and gold of their nation's
flag?

Thus was Ireland not only the sanctuary of religion but the
home of minstrelsy and song. Inside, over the door of each

1 888.] THE Music OF IRELAND. 77

dwelling-, hung the harp, inviting the bard's cunning touch.
How beautifully Moore sings:

" When the light of my song is o'er,

Then take my harp to your ancient hall ;
Hang it up at that friendly door,
Where weary travellers love to call."

But it may, not unnaturally, be asked : Had the Irish people
a regular system of musical notation? They had, indeed. And
though, from the time of St. Malachy, the musical schools occa-
sionally used the common system of notation by staves and
points, yet they seem to have preferred their own old system.
This latter consisted of a peculiar description of musical charac-
ters, something similar to the musical points and accents of the
ancient Greeks. These directed both stringed instruments and
the human voice, and gave birth to a large repertory of national
song and harmony, which has come down almost unhurt to our
own times. The superiority of Irish music about the time of
the Norman invasion is reluctantly confessed by the most un-
friendly contemporaries. After a scientific analysis of Irish
popular airs one critic wrote : " We have in the dominion of
Great Britain no original music except the Irish." Gerald
Cambrensis, the reviler of everything Hibernian, wrote : " This
people, however, deserves to be praised for their successful
cultivation of instrumental music, in which their skill is, beyond
comparison, superior to that of every nation we have seen. For
their modulation is not drawling and morose (tarda et morosd)
like our instrumental music in Britaki ; but the strains, while
they are lively and rapid, are sweet and delightful. It is aston-
ishing how the proportionate time of the music is preserved,
notwithstanding such impetuous rapidity of the fingers ; and
how, without violating a single rule of the art, in running
through trills and slurs, and variously intertwined organizing,
with so sweet a rapidity, so unequal an equality (tarn dispari
paritate] of time, so apparently dissonant a concord (discordi con-
cordid) of sounds, the melody is harmonized and perfected."
Stanihurst confirms this testimony ; while Clynn's Manuscript
Annals speak of one O'Carroll as "a famous tympanist and
harper a phoenix in his art." In the same vein of praise write
such pens as Spenser, Selken, and Good. An acknowledged
authority on this matter asserts that it was from Ireland that the
harp was introduced into Wales, and that Welsh musicians were
instructed in Ireland. The Venerable Bede relates that St. Aidan,
St. Colman, St. Ffnan, all natives of Ireland and bishops in

78 THE Music OF IRELAND. [April,

England, with a multitude of other Irishmen, opened colleges
for higher studies, among which music was numbered. Add to
this that Scotch annalists have told us that Highland poetry
and music received their chief development in Irish schools.

And what of the organ in Irish musical history? Well, al-
though " the king of instruments " was not brought to anything
like perfection before the tenth century, and was not generally
used before the twelfth, there are records showing how very
soon afterward the organ became known in Ireland. About
the end of the fourteenth century mention is made of this in-
strument as of something well known and familiar in the coun-
try ; and an archbishop of Dublin, by his will dated Decem-
ber 10, 1471, bequeathed his pair of organs to a city church to
be used in the celebration of the divine offices. On a certain
joyful occasion, A.D. 1488, "the Archbishop of Dublin began the
Te Deum, and the choir with the organs sung it up solemnly." In
Moore's history of Ireland it is recorded that a pair of organs
were carried off from the Abbey of Killeigh, 1539. The Fran-
ciscan fathers in the convent of Multifernam enjoyed the pos-
session of the oldest organ in Ireland ; although the Book of
Limerick declares that that city had two organs which had
grown old before the wars of Elizabeth.

With the English invasion came the persecution of Irish
music and musicians. Wishing to subjugate the country, the
usurpers first sought to destroy its music. They knew full well
what a power for strengthening national feeling lay in national
minstrelsy and song. They recognized the force of the saying,
yet unformulated : " Give me the making of a people's ballads
and I care not who make their laws." The Normans Catholics,
of course, and some of them intensely Irish were not very hos-
tile in this regard. It was only with the Protestant Reforma-
tion that the effort was made to totally extinguish Irish music
and banish Irish harpers. One favorite of the harp-hating
queen accepted a commission not only to destroy Irish harps
but to hang the harpers. Severe legislation was framed at
once, and the harp and the minstrel were sorely tried indeed.
In the contest

" The minstrel fell ; but the foeman's chain

Could not bring his proud soul under."

Nevertheless the harpers continued and transmitted the
craft to their sons, and went through the land making every
house their home, loved and honored by the people. And

1 888.] THE Music OF IRELAND. 79

happy was it for the house where the piper or harper came to
spend the night. The reader is familiar with the touching
story, told in song, of the old blind piper who, after twenty
years, called at a house \yhere only one inma'te was left of all
the dear old family.

Yes, they lived and kept alive among the poor people the
traditions of the land, the glories and the sorrows of centuries.
In Carolan, the last of the great harpers, the glories of Irish min-
strelsy found a noble exponent. Nor was the art quite lost at
the end of the last century. At a musical contest in 1781 one
Charles Fanning took first prize for his charming performance
of" The Coolin," while a lady took third prize for her beauti-
ful rendition of another famous air. James Dungan, a native of
Granard, residing at Copenhagen, paid the expenses of several
of these contests, which gave such an impetus to Irish music in
the last century. Three others, Niel of Dublin, BurkThumoth,
and the son of the bard Tolloch. O'Carolan, did much for the
cause by collecting and publishing Irish melodies about the
middle of the last century. But to Edward Bunting the coun-
try is indebted for the most complete collection of all. He
went through the land gathering old airs from the peasantry,
and gave the result to the world of music in a volume (Dublin,
1840) which is near perfection. In later times Mr. Hardiman,
Mr. Walker, " The Citizen," and the Celtic and Ossianic socie-
ties have rescued from ruin some of the most exquisite ballads
and Jacobite romances. To these may be added the names of
Sir John Stephenson, McDonnell, Lee, Phelps, De Lacy, Car-
ter, and, last and greatest of all, Kelly Michael Kelly who
played and sung in nearly every court in Europe as well as in
St. Peter's, Rome.

A passing mention will suffice here of such 'names as John
Mooreland, Thomas Carter, Rorke, Balfe, Cooke, Ashe, Mad-
den, directors of music in the first theatres and best social co-
teries of Europe. Wallace is a man of our own day ; Patrick
Sarsfield Gilmore has linked his fortunes with "the sea-divided
Gael " of this great land ; and within this year a Celtic tenor
of great fame is heard in our operas, as if to remind his com-
patriots of the musical glories of other days.

Carolan had scarcely died when Heaven sent to Ireland a
minstrel who revived all the grandeur of her ancient national
music. In the immortal Thomas Moore we have at once a poet
and a musician. Taking hold of the grand old melodies of his
native land, he wed them to the most beautiful words, wove

8o THE Music OF IRELAND. [April,

them into exquisite poetry ; and the grand old airs which had so
long kept warm the national life-blood of the people assumed
form, popularity, and vigor. Ah ! well might he have addressed
the national instrument :

" Dear harp of my country, in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long ;
When, proudly, my own island harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song."

These " Melodies " are sung wherever music has a charm for
mortals. Yea, many of them have been stolen and wedded to
the songs of other lands; and even Haydn and Rossini have not
blushed to accept a share of the spoils. That the thefts were
committed at a time when Irish music, owing to English cruelty,
was neglected, carries only a little palliation with it. And
Flotow, too! ah! what would be his Marta without that
exquisite aria, " Tis the last rose of summer "?

That Ireland is still a " land of song " we would conclude
from the assuring fact that some of the greatest musical
geniuses of the last century lived, and composed, and died in
the Irish metropolis. Let a few be named. Dtibourg, the
world-famed violin-leader, began his residence in Dublin in 1728.
Castrucci died there in 1752; Geminiani, in 1762; Giordani,
some time later. There Handel wrote his Messiah and other
immortal compositions ; and since his day the greatest artists
have considered Dublin audiences as second, in critical acumen,
to none in the world.

And here in this Western land we must not permit ourselves
to suppose that " the sea-divided Gael" has lost his instinctive
love for sweet music. No; considering his opportunities, he is
very fairly represented in the musical life of our great common-
wealths. His voice participates very largely in the service of
our church choirs. But why do not our Celtic people here join
their voices in congregational singing as successfully as do our
neighbors of Teuton descent? Has the day of congregational
song all but passed away ? Has the so-called Renaissance ac-
complished its dire mission in this regard ? Let us hope not.
The divine offices of the Catholic Church are still as eminently
fitted for harmonious expression as they were in the best days of
monastic song, when Jerome called the Psalms the " love-songs
of the people," when Ambrose and Augustine publicly recom-
mended congregational chant, and when the divine praises arose
in song on every hill-top in Europe from Monte Casino to
Banchor, whose very name implies choral grandeur.

1 888.] ECCE HOMO / 81

It is through our children, in class-room or Sunday-school,
that success in this matter can be best attained. The old Gre-
gorian airs to which the O Salutaris, the Tantum Ergo, and the
Laudate are set are easily picked up by youthful ears. Then,
with the children scattered through the congregation who
might be furnished with slips of paper containing the words
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament could be sung and a
happy beginning effected.

Let us hope, for the sake of everything that humanity holds
dear, that the day will yet come when the poor little " Island
of Destiny " shall be again, as of old, the bright and happy land
of song. JOHN M. KIELY.

Transfiguration Church, Brooklyn.

ECCE HOMO!

FOR long the world has strained its eager eyes
In search of Truth, and yet with little gain ;

For wrapping self in cloudy mysteries,

And peering inward, makes the searching vain.

So, long ago, when Truth with patient trudge

Walked o'er the ungrateful earth until It stood
A guiltless culprit 'fore a sinful judge

While heaven wept o'er man's wild cry for blood
Pilate, the judge, looked in Truth's shining eyes,

And, troubled, bowed his head to earth, and said :
" What is truth ? " Impatient, worldly-wise,

Dared not-to wait for answer turned and fled.

O World ! Behold the Man the Truth ! not understood
By pride of mind or heart, but by the meek and good.

HENRY C. WALSH.

VOL. XLVII. 6

82 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [April,

JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY.

XVII.
"IN THE MORNING, BY THE BRIGHT LIGHT."

A LONG step toward the maturity of any passion has been
taken when once the fact of its existence in the soul has been
squarely recognized. There it is, for good or for evil, to be cut
down and destroyed if its root be noxious ; to be lopped and
pruned if the seed of eternity be in it, and made ready to yield
its ripe fruit in Paradise; to be counted with in either case and
not evaded.

The gray light which outruns the sunrise, peering through
his open window, had waked Paul M*urray that morning into a
world in which all things seemed new, even those most familiar
and long accustomed. Brought face to face and without warn-
ing the night before with a host of reinforcing, welcome
potentialities, which promised to triple his own expansive
powers, he had as suddenly found them crowded almost out of
sight by the unaided strength of a feeling to which they bore
no appreciable relation. For, whether friend or enemy, this
sprang, at all events, from within himself, and they were mere
exterior accidents. Yet it was they that seemed to be a source
of strength, while reason, when it took the upper hand, warned
him against the other as a perilous weakness.

Paul Murray was a man as unaccustomed to palter with his
reason as to trifle with his conscience. They had been very
practical and trustworthy guides so far, but then lie had always
been walking contentedly along the King's highway. At this
first fork in the road the voice of one of his counsellors had, at
least to his apprehension, an uncertain sound. While yet under
the tension of his new attitude toward the future, he had, never-
theless, made an honest effort to conciliate them both, and to
study out the more interesting of his problems by their assist-
ance. In a measure he had succeeded. True, he had begun his
puzzling over that mysterious 'psychological problem which has
baffled many more experienced heads than his, and asked him-
self how such a feeling as had risen in him spontaneously to
such a height could have done so unweighted by its counter-
part ; but he had ended by admitting that while he was certain

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 83

of himself and his own emotions, with regard to Miss Colton he
was all at sea. Girls, he had been told, were less susceptible
than men, and as a general rule he was entirely ready to believe
it. The order of nature in their regard seemed to require that
they should be laid sifege to, and should yield only after long
capitulations. He had no quarrel with the order of nature.
He could only too easily fancy himself sitting down with per-
sistent patience before that citadel, providing he were free to let
its garrison name all the stipulations of surrender. But since he
was not free? What an unmanly outrage it would be even to
try to get her to lower her flag, knowing that even if she did so
he meant to raise the siege unless she would accept conditions
so unlocked for that, could she have guessed them, she would
have died rather than show a symptom of giving in ! How
could he even set about trying to convert her, as an essential
preliminary to his wooing? His instinctive knowledge of the
girl made him certain that her pride would be up and off at the
first suspicion that he proposed to grant a reward to docility
instead of paying an involuntary tribute to sovereignty. "For
women hate a gift as men a debt," says Browning, and Paul
Murray's new-born perceptions had reached the same conclu-
sion. Even the thought shamed him, and when at last he fell
asleep he pillowed his conscience on the virtuous resolution to
keep out of a danger into which he could not go with honor.

But in the morning his memory and his desires awoke be-
fore his factitious resolution had time to pull itself together.
He had turned his back on danger the night before, and elected
for discretion. But here it was again before him, inviting him
out of the depths of what soft, serious eyes, daring him on the
curves of what archly smiling lips! Was it really danger ?
Perhaps he had merely come to a parting in the ways. The
same bourn might lie at the end of each for all he knew at pre-
sent ; and why need he choose so precipitately the ugly stretch
beside which not a flower was springing, not a tree spreading
its branches ? There was no denying the quaggy ground that
lay between him and the green fields and pleasant waters that
he saw and longed for; but what a disgraceful coward he would
be to funk at that !

He turned out as he came to this point, and began prepara-
tions for a more than ordinarily careful toilet, noting with plea-
sure as he did so the many fair-weather signs that showed
through the high mill-window. It was so late before the tu-
mult in his thoughts permitted him to go indoors that, instead

84 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE\S FACTORY. [April,

of entering the house, he had occupied a room adjoining his
office which had been fitted up when he first assumed his pre-
sent position, and used by him until the arrival of his family.
He slept there occasionally still, and his absence from the house
at night seldom caused uneasiness. A rough business suit was
hanging from a hook on the wall, and at the last moment some
renewed hesitation or some passing whim made him choose it
instead of that he had worn the night before. It was still too.
early for the mill-hands to assemble, but there was work to be
done, at his desk if he finally determined to give himself a holi-
day. At the time when he had laid it out to be accomplished
at this hour, a real reason existed for absenting himself, but that
had since been obviated by one of the items in Mr. Van Al-
styne's communication. Still, he might as well set about it.
Before train-time he might not improbably decide against his
needless trip to town, but it was safe to get his work out of the
way in any case.

He was up to his eyes in it still when Fanny summoned him
to breakfast, and he had been concentrating himself so thor-
oughly that he was more his own man then than it had lately
been given him to be. Mary Anne, who knew his face by
heart and had seen some new expressions in it lately, noted that
he seemed less preoccupied and absent, and felt her own spirits
lighten. The truth was that as he was on his way to the house
the new sense of mastery, the secret knowledge that for him the
material problems of life were settled altogether in his favor,
had come up again in great force and produced their natural
effect. He was as gay as a lark at table, and when he left it-
concluded that he had cleared his desk so nearly that he could
volunteer to read the just-arrived county newspaper to his fa-
ther and still have plenty of time on his hands. He might, per-
haps, run himself so close and be so driven at the last that,
through pure absorption in his work, luck might take the set-
tling of the question out of his hands! There was not much in
his mind, in fact, but that slight avoidance of a decision to show
that a decision was still pending, and that, at a given point on
the face of the office clock, it would infallibly come up for set-
tlement. He couldn't well take less than twelve minutes to get
to the cars behind that bay mare, unless he thrashed her more
than a merciful man would care to.

He was reading aloud while going through this under-
ground mental process; reading, too, with great deliberation
and a punctilious attention to his stops. Davie had torn the

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN& s FACTORY. 35

wrapper off the paper before his brother came in, and, after
studying with care the column of " Wit and Alleged Wit" on
its fourth page, had turned it to find the report of a murder case
just ended at the county seat. Mr. Murray may also have
wished to hear the evidence, as both the accused and the victim
hailed from no further off than Milton Corners; but, if so, he
was doomed to wait for it. Paul took up the paper just as it
lay and began at the first column, and for five minutes or more
his deep voice went steadily on, charged with items such as these :
" Miss Luella Teets, of Greenbanks, is paying a visit to Miss
Mamie Rings in North Milton."

" G. I. Gillett, a pedlar for John Pulver, came home sick with
pneumonia on Tuesday."

"John P. Roraback is satisfied that rabbits are as scarce in
the woods as hen's teeth this season."

" A. Travers and Pulaski S. Hover, of East Milton, have each
a cat that has learned to open a door by looking on and saying
nothing. The cat jumps up and holds on to the door-handle
with one paw, and with the other will keep the thumb-latch
clicking like a telegraph instrument until the latch rises and the
door opens, when the cat lets herself down and walks in."

Mr. Murray was a patient man, but as Paul, after this last
weighty piece of local news, stopped to look at his watch and
then went on again with " Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Connor are on
the sick-list at Westport," he mildly interposed a question:

" Isn't there something about the Hoysradt trial ? It was to
come on last Monday."

" That's a fact," said Paul, glancing down the sheet. " I had
forgotten it. Oh ! columns on columns of it ! I'm afraid, father,
you'll have to get through with that by yourself this time. I've
my hands full in the office and must get back."

Back he went forthwith, settled down at his desk again, and
wrote an important letter to a cotton-broking firm in New
York with flawless attention. Then he leaned back in his chair
and looked at the clock, and considered what it would be best to
do next ; and while thus considering it happened to occur to him
that the pleasure he had been taking in the thought of letting
Miss Cblton choose Fanny's piano was a miserable piece of
weakness. What did he know about her competence in matters
of that sort? She had a lovely voice, certainly, but she hardly
knew how. to use it ; and as to her playing! Paul threw back'his
head, with the jolly, upward-inflecting laugh he had when any-
thing pleased him, and started without a minute's delay for the

86 JOHN VAN ALSTYNL'S FACTORY. [April,

next room and his other coat. He hadn't a doubt about his pru-
dence left ; his errand, in fact, had just developed into one of
necessary duty. Paul's acquaintance with Wordsworth was
practically nil, but had he been the poet's most ardent admirer,
and at this moment some one had quoted to him the line which
addresses Duty as the "stern daughter of the voice of God," he
would have been ready to find it very much at fault. His own
immediate duty was as easy as an old shoe.

XVIII.
CONCERNING PETTICOAT CONVERTS.

THE up-train was twenty minutes late, and when Paul Mur-
ray, having left his trap at the hotel stable, came through the
waiting-room to the long platform next the track, he found two
of his clerical acquaintances passing and repassing each other as
they walked up and down. He bowed politely to the Reverend
Adoniram Meeker, who at that moment was still clad in rather
rusty black, being, in fact, on his way to replace it by his wed-
ding suit at a Riverside tailoring establishment. Father Seetin
he stood still and waited for, and, when he came up again, be-
gan pacing at his side.

Father Seetin was an old priest now, well on in his sixties,
white-haired, slender in figure, and with a delicate, nervous
face. For many years he had been rector of a large city parish,
but, falling into poor health, he had gone abroad, hoping to re-
cover sufficiently for heavy duty, and had been disappointed.
He seemed well enough when he got back, but somehow the
sea-breezes that swept through his parish kept his throat in a
state of aggressive rawness which no lozenges would conciliate
and no beard remedy. He gave up the struggle at last, and,
at his own request, was transferred to the poor parish of Milton
Corners, where he breathed his native, inland air and picked up
vigor enough to transform all that part of the little town which
fell under his jurisdiction. He had just inherited some private
means, and at once applied them to remedying certain deficien-
cies which had escaped the notice of his predecessor, though
Father Seetin was privately appalled by their extent when he
first came. But then his predecessor, poor man, as Father Sec-
tin occasionally reminded himself, had had several stations to
attend to, and if, toward the close of his life, he had developed
a sort of land-hunger which made him the possessor of more

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 87

farms and houses than were ultimately good for him, he had
also developed a queer, insane streak which was said to be he-
reditary. At any rate, though there was plenty to be done and
undone, Father Seetin had found ways and means to do it all,
and Milton Corners was now a model parish. He had his
hands pretty full, but his people were healthy on the whole,
and he still found leisure to read his St. Augustine and his Mo-
ther Juliana, to write verses in which the beauty of the senti-
ment surpassed sometimes the melody of the rhythm, and to
dream away a good deal of time at his organ and his violin. It
was their common love for music which had cemented a rather
familiar friendship between him and Paul Murray, almost more
than the fact that in his country seclusion he was not often in the
way of meeting men who approached his own high level of
general intelligence. The relation between them was one
which, given the other circumstances, might have existed en-
tirely apart from their professional relation as priest and par-
ishioner. Possibly it only supplied another instance of the kind
of attraction which elder men felt for Paul Murray a sort of
living over their youth in him, perhaps, with a feeling that he
had a fair chance to steer clear of rocks on which they might
once have foundered.

Father Seetin explained to Paul that he was on his way to
Roraback's, the next station beyond Milton Corners, on a sick-
call. The invalid was known to both of them, having once been
employed in John Van Alstyne's factory. She had married an
engineer on the Hudson River Road within a year or so, and
gone away to the county town to live, as she phrased it, with her
"people-in-law." She had been none too welcome in her new
home, and had now returned to her old one in a hopeless decline.

" Poor little Molly !" said the priest, "it gave me a real shock
to see her. All that fine Irish bloom she had has been washed
clean out of her cheeks, and she is going to cough herself into
her grave before Christmas. The old woman declares she has
been murdered outright, and she's not so far out of the way,
either."

" When did she get back home ?" asked Paul Murray.

" Some day last week. Her mother tells me she took advan-
tage of her husband's absence on the road, and made a descent
upon the Millers and brought Molly back by force of arms and
of tongue, I reckon. She has a powerful vocabulary on occa-
sion, has Mrs. Dempsey."

" Why, what was up ? "

88 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [April,

" Oh ! Molly was sick and had been wanting a priest and
couldn't get one. So she wrote home to her mother that she
couldn't stand it any longer."

" Couldn't get one ? Why, you baptized Jake Miller before
you married them ! "

" So I did and with misgivings. I never thought he would
hold out long it was too clear a case of female bulldozing.
That iron under-jaw and thick neck of his, to be of use on the
right side, would have had to be covered either with a hatful of
brains or a triple layer of old custom and inherited tradition.
He had plenty of the latter, but it was all of the wrong sort. I
did my best to warn Molly ; but what can be done with a girl in
love or a boy, for that matter?"

" I don't know the case," said Paul; "she left the mill some
time before she married. I heard that Jake Miller had become
a Catholic, and I supposed it was all right. Where was the dif-
ficulty?"

" Just here," said Father Seetin. " Molly Dempsey stood to
her guns like a hero, and said she'd see him further before she'd
marry a Protestant. She had the whip-hand at the time the
girl always has at the point where they stood then and as the
fellow wanted her, and had sense to see she meant it, he asked
for instruction, and apparently took it with a sufficiently good
grace. I had no option that I could see, but I didn't like it I
never like it in such cases. He went to church with her two or
three times, and then he cut the whole thing, partly through
pure indifference, I suppose, and partly, as near as I can make
out from Molly, out of deference and affection, perhaps for
his mother. She has had a bad time of it between the pair of
them, I'm afraid. She lost her baby without having a chance
to get it baptized, and that was the last straw that broke the
camel's back."

" How can a man be such an unnecessary brute as that to a
woman he has once cared enough about to marry?" said Paul
Murray, with more wonder in his voice than heat, although the
story moved him to indignation.

" It wasn't the man, as it happens. He was away at the time
of the birth, and old Mrs. Miller is a Baptist, and something of
a termagant into the bargain. She seems to have told Molly
that she would offset the offence of Jake's baptism by keeping
her grandson out of the reach of such superstition. Perhaps
her conscience was clear about it I can't say. But Molly is
really grieving herself to death over just that one thing, I do be-

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 89

lieve. She has got the mother's heart in her, and there's no con-
soling her, thus far, for the empty place she thinks she will feel
even in Paradise."

" It is a heavy penalty to pay," said Paul Murray after they
had made a turn or two in silence. "And when she had been
stanch, too, and got all the guarantee she seemed to need be-
fore setting out on that road. You never like such marriages,
you say. Why not, when conversion precedes marriage?"

" Ho ! conversion? Conversion is one thing, and a petticoat
convert of either sex is another. There are some facts of
human nature, or of man nature, of which you can't very well
convince a, woman ; and the better she is, the harder it is to con-
vince her in advance of experience. They take pinchbeck for
gold nine times in ten. And then, if there is any backbone in
them, and any genuine gold of their own, they will keep on try-
ing to pass the trash over the counter for the rest of their natu-
ral lives. Well, it will do to buy heaven with, and that's
about the best one can say about it. And yet I have no call to
be so hard on the poor petticoat converts. I was one myself."

" How was it if you don't mind the question?"

" Not a bit. I was in Montevideo, partly for health and
partly on business, and there I fell in love with my wife. She
was half-Irish, half-Spanish, and whole Catholic, For my part,
although my parents ended as Methodists, they were not so in
my infancy, and I had never been baptized at all. I had no preju-
dices one way or the other, and as the custom of the country
demanded a certificate of baptism as a preliminary to one of
marriage, I complied with it. There is no laying down hard-
and-fast rules where the grace of God is concerned. I had, I
suppose, the native wit which let me understand, in part any
way, the value of the treasure I was getting in my wife, and
when she slipped away from me within the year, I had learned
enough to follow her. I don't know that I should have done so
but for her death. It was the real thing with both of us the
kind that, whether it come late or come early, comes once only ;
perhaps because it is going to last through eternity. But while
I had her she came too near bounding the horizon for me.
Many a time I have thanked God as heartily for taking her as
for giving her."

"You say that sort of feeling never comes but once," said
Paul Murray in his most unconcerned tone. " Suppose it comes
alone when it comes what about the eternity of it then?"

" Ho ! " returned the priest with a little laugh. " Suppose it

90 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [April,

never comes at all? which is what most often happens, I take it.
What of it? This is a very short bit of eternity that we are
going through at present, and the infinite God, who is charity,
has, doubtless, better things in store for us than mere human
love. At the same time, it is well to remember that we shall
keep our humanity and our identity for ever, and so will not be
likely to lose our memory of whatever was worth saving in our-
selves or in those by our love for whom now our love for God
is made evident. And there comes the train. "

XIX.

AT THE " MUSIC EMPORIUM."

COMPARED with Pekin or say old Rome when its bounda-
ries extended furthest Riverside is not to be called a large
city. Still, there is room enough in it for several music-stores,
as well as for a manufactory of pianos, the latter at the extreme
northern limit and not very far from the general railway sta-
tion. Paul Murray, who had forgotten to inquire at which of
these establishments the instrument had been bought which
supplied the pretext for his presence in town, found sufficient
occupation and an excellent means of settling his early dinner
in visiting one after another of them and trying their wares.
He experienced a certain unforeseen difficulty in these explora-
tions. To make direct inquiries at the wrong places did not
seem specially embarrassing, at least before trying it, but one
experiment convinced him that he would have a singular disin-
clination to repeat them at the right one. Even the expedient
which he presently hit upon, of selecting the two or three best
instruments in each of the warerooms and asking their prices
a process which he thought likely to elicit information as to
whether they were still for sale, and to open the way for a fur-
ther and purely incidental question if one were needed seemed
to be lacking in point of definiteness. If the truth must be told,
he began to find something a trifle absurd in both himself and
his ostensible business. The latter was too vague, for one thing,
to set well on a young man with so pronounced a tendency to
positive views about things which concerned him. But he had
been in several places, and disposed of a very fair share of the v
afternoon in looking over and trying new music, before he
abruptly admitted to himself that he did not now and never
had cared one copper about selecting the piano ; that he was, in

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE>S FACTORY. 91

fact, rather too willing to leave the choice entirely to Miss Col-
ton ; and that the sole and only reason that had brought him to
town was the wish to go back with her in the train and drive
her over to Milton Centre afterwards. And then he remem-
bered that it was Saturday, and reflected that she would proba-
bly refuse the drive and stay at Squire Cadwallader's according
to her custom.

He was turning the corner on which stood Shirley's Music
Emporium, the largest and best equipped of the Riverside shops,
and the most likely of them all in which to meet Miss Colton,
providing any final errand took her thither to re-inspect a pur-
chase before train-time, as the extreme probability of this last
unpleasant contingency struck him. And as it did so he looked
up and beheld, himself unnoticed, Miss Colton entering the
upper one of the two doors leading into the shop, accompanied
by two young ladies and an extremely well-dressed and good-
looking young man, to the latter of whom she was talking with
much animation.

For a minute or two Paul felt rather disgusted with things
in general, and also rather puzzled concerning what it would be
well to do next. Had Miss Colton been alone, or in company
with young ladies only, he would have presented himself before
her without much further delay ; but, under existing circumr
stances, he was in no hurry. He finally concluded to go into
Shirley's, but by the lower door. He knew the place well.
The shop was large and divided nearly into halves by a thin
partition, low, yet too high for a tall man to see over, which ran
through nearly its whole length, though at the back was a plat-
form of two or three steps' elevation which extended across the
entire width of the interior. On this there was a grand piano
open, various wind instruments, and racks with music on them,
standing about in a way suggestive of a recent rehearsal. The
side on which Paul Murray had entered was the salesroom for
sheet-music and matters of that sort, while the other was oc-
cupied by musical instruments of the usual descriptions. To a
young woman who advanced to receive his orders Paul sig-
nified that he wanted to look over the music in a great portfolio
standing on an easel, and would not trouble her until he had
made his selections. There were other customers in the place,
and he sat down on a stool in front of it, and thought he would
take his bearings before making his appearance on the other side.

Across the partition came the pleasant twitter of girlish talk
and laughter, with now and then a male voice joining in, but

92 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [April,

quite indistinguishable as to any substance of conversation,
partly because everybody seemed to be chattering at once, and
partly because some one was running scales, now on one piano,
now on another. Paul had counted on the usual racket in the
place before sitting down, as music-lessons were pretty con-
stantly given there by one of its proprietors. But presently
Zip's clear voice sounded all alone and with entire distinctness.
" See here, Nat," she began, " this is the piano I finally set-
tled on, but I was half-inclined to take this other. What do
you think?"

" There's not much to choose between them as to quality of
tone, it seems to me. I would prefer the grand, for looks.
Why didn't you take it? "

" The price, for one thing," said Zip, in a tone that irresis-
tibly suggested a shrug of the shoulders.

" The price ? I thought you had a Croesus to draw on ! "
" But I've a conscience to draw with," said Zip. " Besides
well, I guess the square one would fit the place it is intended
tor better."

" Well, I should have thought you would have gone up to
Sandiman's instead of to any of these places," said the other
voice. " You would probably have got the same thing, or as .
good, cheaper by taking it at first hand. Why didn't you?"

"Goodness!" said Zip, "I never once thought of that.
What a goose I am 1"

Some one began striking octaves just at this point, and the
talk grew confused again. Then three or four bars of the " Last
Waltz" slid out on the air with its serpentine curves of sound,
and one of the girls at once cried against it as too sentimental
for broad daylight ; and then came the prelude to " 1 Would that
my Love," which Zip took up, accompanied by the male voice in
a basso as powerful and as sweet as Paul remembered hearing.
They sang it through, and then the same voice which had pro-
tested against Von Weber except by starlight said :

" It is a pity you cannot have that duet for the performance
down at your place, Zip. Of course there is no one there who
could take the second."

" She will have to import me, for that occasion only," said the
young man. " Or is there somebody ? "
" There's Dr. Sawyer," said Zip.

" Is that Bella's young man?" asked another of the girls.
" It's her present substitute for one," returned Zip.
"And can he sing? ''

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 93

Zip laughed. " I wish you could hear him in the choir on
Sundays ! His voice is like a saw ! The squire says it is a sort
of desecration to work so hard with it on the Sabbath day."

There was a general laugh.

" I see," said the young man ; "you can't get along without
me, can you ? Well, send for me, and I'll run down when the
show is ready to come off. I must go down-town now, though.
Well, good-by, little girl, and take precious good care of your-
self. You are an absurd figure of a schoolmarm, Zip ! You
must strike terror to the hearts of all the bad big boys!"

" There aren't any bad big boys," laughed Zip. "They are
all good little ones."

Paul, looking up from his portfolio at this moment, saw the
group on the other side of the partition reflected in a broad
mirror which tipped forward from the wall at the back of the
shop and reached the floor of the platform. There was no one
in the upper store except Miss Colton and her party. The
other girls were still at one of the pianos, but Zip, with her eyes
shining and her countenance all smiles, stood half-facing the
mirror and looking up at the young man. He was holding her
off at arm's length, with a hand on each of her shoulders. If he
had been objectionable on the sidewalk, he was so doubly ob-
jectionable now that Paul Murray, in his haste to get away from
the sight of him, upset the easel behind which he was sitting, and
in so doing scattered all the loose sheets from the portfolio.
He gathered them up as speedily as he was able, and shot out
on to the steps leading to the street. He came face to face
with Zip as he did so. She colored to her eyelids with the sur-
prise of meeting him, but she said with sufficient carelessness :

" Good-afternoon, Mr. Murray. Who would have thought
of your being here ? I am so sorry I did not have a chance to
make you acquainted with my brother. That is he just getting
into the horse-car."

Paul Murray turned his head squarely toward the car, con-
scious that the sudden revulsion in his sentiments toward the
departing young man might culminate in a too beatific smile.

" I didn't know you had a brother," he said when he looked
down at her again.

"Didn't you?" echoed Zip with a sort of wondering drawl.
" Why, no, of course you didn't. I had no occasion to speak of
him. Oh ! I have got brothers in assorted sizes, but that one is
the biggest. If you are coming into the shop again I will in-
troduce you to his wife and to my own sister. Wait a minute,

94- JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [April,

though," she added hastily, as he laid his hand on the door-knob
in ready acquiescence. " I've just a word I must say to them
first. You know it won't be polite to whisper afterwards, and
there's some some business," hesitating, "that I forgot."

" Who is that, Zip?" asked Mrs. Colton as the girl came up,
having left Paul Murray near the door. She spoke in the pecu-
liarly sibilant whisper which she had sometimes been advised
by irritated acquaintances to use when she wanted her voice to
carry to its farthest limit. It was a natural defect that she now
and then forgot and suffered from, but oftener remembered and
put to annoying uses.

" Sh ! " cautioned Zip. " It is a gentleman from Milton
Centre. Don't mention the piano before him, will you ? "

"Why, what has he got to do with it?" returned Mrs. Col-
ton, looking steadily in Paul's direction. " Is the new piano for
him ? Oh ! you are a case, Zip. Pretending it was for a little
girl ! He's a nice little girl, isn't he, Mat ? "

" I wish you had some sense, Fan ! " retorted Zip, with an
angry blush. " It is for a little girl, but there's no occasion for
him to know it. Now, mind, Fanny Colton ! "

What special motive she had for silence Zip was never quite
able to tell herself, though she inclined to attribute it chiefly to
her aversion to talking on any personal matter before Nat's
wife, for whom her feelings were not exactly sisterly. Yet it
would have been so easy and so natural for her, if not to take
Paul Murray at once into confidence, at least to get his opinion
on her purchase before it was sent down, that she continued to
wonder at herself all the rest of the day for having acted on the
contrary impulse. Such a confidence, too, was what he had
expected from her. He had caught Fanny's long-range whisper
and been amused by it. But he was making some rapid dis-
coveries about himself under the new lights thrown on him
within the last twenty-four hours, and when he found that Miss
Coiton really proposed keeping her own counsel he also found
in himself a well-grown purpose to tease her into a frank avowal
later on. For that reason he declined the invitation to go home
with the girls and see their mother, on the plea of some remain-
ing business, which would occupy him until he should meet her
at the cars. As for Zip, her cool exterior hid a nervousness
which permitted her to remember only when it was just too
late that his errand in town had probably been the same as her
own, and that at any cost she ought to have made sure.

LEWIS R. DORSAY.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

1 888.] ' AN OPEN LETTER TO A NUN. 95

AN OPEN LETTER TO A NUN.

I HAVE thought that my reply to the following letter of in-
quiry from a devoted religious might be perused -with interest
by others than the one to whom it is specially addressed :

DEAR REVEREND FATHER:

We are anxious to introduce a better order of music in our
little convent choir than we now use, and, knowing of your deep
interest in this subject of appropriate music in our churches, I
venture to trespass on your valuable time to ask your advice as
to what books and music it would be of most service to us to
purchase. Our choir consists of five well-trained female voices.
Any hints that you will be kind enough to give us in this direc-
tion will be most gratefully appreciated by

Yours most respectfully,

SISTER MARY .

I am not a little puzzled over your request for my advice as
to what books and music may be of service to you with a view
of introducing another and better order of music in your choir,
consisting of only five voices. I was under the impression that
your community was quite a large one, and that your choir-
nuns numbered probably thirty or forty ; and I also presumed
that your order had, as I know those with whom I am more
intimately acquainted have, a traditional chant definitely order-
ed by their holy rule, which may not be changed without per-
mission of the Holy See, as the common ritual song or chant of
the church is authorized by and subject to the same authority
for the common divine services of the people. But I see you
smiling at my misapprehension of your letter.

You must pardon the foregoing little piece of feigned stu-
pidity on my part in supposing that by "choir "you meant
your choir of cloistered nuns. I have played the ignoramus
not without purpose, as you will see. The common use of that
little word tl choir," as applied to what, in our ordinary parochi-
al churches, is not a choir at all, but an organ-gallery with some
singers in it, whose singing the organ music generally makes
wholly unintelligible, has done a deal of damage in confirming a
false tradition which has not only banished the real, true Ca-

96 AN OPEN LETTER TO A NUN. [April,

tholic choir or " chorus," but has also obliterated one of the
most essential and beautiful architectural features from our
churches, lacking which such buildings would not have been
recognized by Catholic people in ages preceding our own, nor,
indeed, happily yet in some parts of the world, as Catholic
churches at all.

In female convent chapels the only choir, of course, is the
place where the nuns assemble for the divine office, the recita-
tion of which, by God's mercy, has never been left to a few
" well-trained " voices. In the body of the chapel, where the
children under their care are assembled for holy Mass, there is
properly no "choir," though there may be a special selected
chorus of leading singers conveniently near to some musical
instrument. We often read, in the reports of concerts given
upon the stage or from a church organ-gallery, that the soloists
were Signor This, Madame That, and Miss T'other, assisted by
a chorus of one hundred or more voices. That is the world's
way of putting it. But God's way is just the reverse : it should
be the chorus of one hundred or five hundred or more voices,
according to the size of the congregation assembled, assisted in
their singing by the well-trained leading singers. The leading
singers in a convent chapel should lead the singing by the
whole assembly of children, the nuns in their choir joining too
in the common song of Praise. The practice of imitating the
modern debased parochial choir in having one or another well-
trained singer, be she scholar or what to my mind is vastly
worse a nun, trolling forth an artistic solo or singing with an-
other a sympathetic duet for the children to listen to, is as per-
nicious as it is ridiculous. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity ! And
self-love, wounded by an accidentally false note or failure to
hear afterward some flattering words of praise, will surely put
a sour face at the dinner-table. I am told that it takes not less
than two entire days and nights to get over the mortification
from an adverse criticism. All this happens because the whole
system is practically based upon the principle, though unac-
knowledged, that they are singing to their own honor and glory
and not to God's.

In the matter of church music for the liturgical services of
the church I am an out-and-out radical, which, being interpreted,
means one who believes that it is in vain to look for fruit of any
kind upon a tree if it has lost its root; that when the fruit is
seen one knows of what sort the root is ; and, conversely, that
the character of the root being ascertained, the kind of fruit to

1 888.] AN OPEN LETTER TO A NUN. 97

be gathered is not doubtful. Neither men nor women expect to
gather grapes from a thorn-root nor figs from a thistle-root. I
have that, as you know, on good authority. When I am offered
church music as a delectable and nourishing fruit which is evi-
dently the song of sensual delight, and which feeds my animal
passions and the vanity of the singers, I know I have got hold
of one of Eve's apples, and the root whence it came, though
never so hidden, is incontestably the root of pride, self-love, and
luxury. I know you agree with me that church music, as a
worthy fruit, should be of quite another sort: the humble, lov-
ing, ardent praise of God, first, last, and always. In some
respects it is not quite so pretty a fruit as the other, but its taste,
in more senses than one, is divine. The root of the tree of
Melody which bears that fruit will be found to be very clean,
chaste in form, going very far down into the ground of our
souls as roots which humility plants always do and wholly
free, as is also its fruit, from the nasty, slimy, destructive canker-
worm of sensuality. It is the root of divine love and obe-
dience.

When we wish to get at a better order of church music (and
why not the best f) we must first of all decide what fruit we are
seeking for. So, my dear sister, if you decide that the fruit of
your convent-chapel singing is to be what the limited and choice
singing of only your five well-trained voices can produce, and
will inevitably produce, I would stop right here ; for I am try-
ing hard to get rid of the piece of apple Eve gave to Adam
which yet sticks in my own vocal chords; and I won't bean
Adam to offer any of the same fruit to another Eve.

But if you want the fruit of the singing to be God's praise,
a better, ay, the best, order is very easy to find and plain to
understand. The replies to three simple questions will tell us
all we want to know ^viz., first: By whom? second: When?
and third : What?

First question : By whom ? I am going to ask the Royal
Psalmist, from whom the whole world for so many centuries has
learned man's noblest themes of divine praise, to reply for me.
Just read over his I48th Psalm. That contains a list that he made
up of the singers of the praise of God, beginning with the angels,
and then from below up, through dragons and all depths, fire,
hail, snow, ice, the spirits of the storms, mountains, hills, trees,
beasts, and birds, to kings and all people, princes and judges,
young men and virgins, old men and youths. He was evidently
bent on getting the whole creation into his list.

VOL. XLVII. 7

98 AN OPEN LETTER TO A NUN. [April,

Among them, you see, David includes virgins, and it goes
without saying that under this head all nuns and all their
scholars are included.

It is very delightful to hear a large number of persons sing-
ing together, and there is nothing in the world better calculated
to awaken in the breast profound emotion and enthusiasm,
except being one of the singers yourself. To one who stands in
the midst of a chorus of singers, especially if it be, not simply
a chorus of a select few " well-trained " voices, but a general
chorus of all assembled, the wave of emotion and enthusiasm
created is so powerful that one cannot help being drawn into it,
as floating chips are drawn into a strong eddy of waters; or, to
use a more human simile, one feels a similar irresistible excite-
ment and impulse such as is given to dancers, which every one
knows is much more hearty and joyous and, I will just add in a
whisper, more innocent and self-forgetting when it comes to the
" hands all 'round" ! While, on the contrary, dancers who dance
solo, or even in quartetto, and especially in that seductive dance,
the waltz, in duetto, it is beautiful to look at ; the beholders enjoy
the sight, and the dancers also enjoy it at their own expense ;
often, alas! at a cost far too dear. Therefore, I say, let us have
" voices all 'round," pouring forth an innocent and self-forget-
ting song of praise when we are singing before and to the Lord,
and leave the vain solo and the seductive duetto where they
belong. I think I must amend the sentence of the holy Psalmist
by the change of one word, and say : " Who shall ascend into
the mountain of the Lord, and who shall stand in his 'holy
place? The innocent and clean of heart, who have not received
their voices in vain !"

I mention no names, but once upon a time I was present in a
convent on the feast of the Sacred Heart, when there was to be
a grand procession from the chapel through the corridors and
out upon the green lawn, where stood a beautiful statue of the
Sacred Heart, before which hymns were to be sung and prayers
to be said. All the nuns and all the children were assembled,
and were to take part in the celebration. I was the clerical
celebrant on the occasion. After some preparatory services in
the chapel, at which six " well-trained " voices sang something,
the words of which I could not distinguish, the procession
started, led by the six before-mentioned " voices," followed by
all the children, a hundred or more, and all the nuns, about forty,
two by two. To my utter surprise, and I will not add what else,
no one sang in that procession but the six well-trained singers.

1 888.] AN OPEN LETTER TO A NUN. 99

All the rest of us preserved a grim silence. You can imagine
what a dismal time our end of the procession had by the time
the sextet had reached the outside corridor and was pretty well
out of hearing, and had left us all standing, waiting for our turn
to move, in dull, uneasy silence, our hearts beating at about the
rate they would in sleep, and with not a gleam of joy to be seen
or even suspected as present upon a single countenance. So we
marched out with the gayety of a funeral procession, and disposed
ourselves in a circle about the beautiful statue, led by our trusty
little band, who sang for us, by proxy, all that every heart there
should have been, if they were not, burning to sing with joy-
beaming faces and thrilling hearts, and at the top of their voices,
until the surrounding hills gave back their answering echoes to
the glad refrain. I found also, as we all fell upon our knees, that
I was to be proxy for all the praying. So we sang, and so we
prayed, in the popular style, and altogether in the fashion of our
modern worship, by proxy ; and I thought to myself that, to be
consistent, the procession ought to have been made by proxy
too!

So, my dear sister, I think we may consider that the best
order of church music is one which encourages, and takes it for
granted that the singing is to be done by all. Nuns whose
occupation of life is to teach, profess to impart to their scholars
all the accomplishments which befit a well-educated, refined, and
pious Catholic girl. Take my word for it that the accomplish-
ment of singing devoutly, intelligently, sweetly, joyously, and
lovingly to the Lord is not one of the least desirable or the least
important for them to acquire. Many of them will be mothers
one of these days, and then you can well imagine what a power
they would have at command to charm the hearts of their little
ones, and their older ones too, and thus, through the powerful
influences of song, instil loving and pious thoughts of God and
devout imitation of the saints into their minds and hearts.

All speech of the mother is as a sweet melody to the child;
and ever when she longs to woo their love or comfort their
sorrowing hearts she instinctively sings. Who will not agree
that if mothers possessed more skill in this loving and divine
art than they generally do, and used it day by day to sing of
God at the cradle-side or in the home circle, they would not
have to lament, alas ! so commonly as they do, the early loss
of their children's love, and their hankerings to escape from
the pure atmosphere and simple joys of the home fireside?
Neither would they shed so many bitter tears as they do, seeing

ioo AN OPEN LETTER TO A NUN. [April,

with alarm the cold wave of infidelity chilling their young
hearts, and all exercises of religious duty so soon becoming
wearisome and distasteful to them.

I solemnly call upon you, my dear sister, as I would call upon
all nuns, to reflect upon the grave responsibility which must lie
at your doors in this matter, since to you is committed, in God's
providence, the training of such a vast and influential number
of the future mothers in our land. And I wish I were able to
send this little adjuration to every nun in the world !

Second question: When should all sing together? I reply:
Whenever the occasion calls for singing the praises of God or of
his saints. In other words, whenever there is an assembly of
nuns or scholars, or of both together, for religious worship of
any kind. In order that they may become accustomed to sing-
ing, I would have them sing not only at Mass and Vespers and at
special devotional meetings of pious sodalities, but I strongly
recommend their singing both at morning and night prayers.
There are some beautiful, heart-uplifting hymns suitable for the
morning, and some equally charming, heart-composing hymns
which, if sung before retiring to rest, would aid greatly in calm-
ing the tired and often fretted spirit after the troubles and cares
of the day. School-girls are not without hearts to ache, and
spirits to be sorely tried and tempted (though we might smile at
the petty causes thereof), and nothing will act with such a
magical power to bring thoughts of loving-kindness, of chastity,
of good resolve and hope for the morrow, as the singing to-
gether some devout evening hymn at the night prayers. The
tones of the sweet refrain will linger in their memories and
soothe them peacefully to sleep.

Third question: What shall they sing all together? Two
subjects for a reply present themselves to my mind, and I shall
here content myself with giving some advice on the first one
only, deferring my reply upon the second until a future occasion,
both for4ack of space, and recalling to mind the example of a
celebrated court preacher who was importuned by the queen to
tell her some of her faults. " Your majesty sleeps during my
sermons/' promptly replied his reverence. " Tell me some
more," asked the queen. " It is said," answered the preacher,
" that sovereigns have short memories, and therefore 1 will not
burden your majesty's mind wkh more than one fault to correct
at a time."

Your chapel services are, I suppose, about the same as in
most convents rarely a High Mass, and Vespers only chanted by

i888.] AN OPEN LETTER TO A NUN. lot

the nuns in their private choir, the ordinary Mass being a Low
one; and besides these the devotional services at which the chil-
dren are expected to be present) consisting of morning and
evening prayers, special exercises of piety by sodalities in their
meetings, the devotions of the month of Mary, and during the
octave of Corpus Christi and in honor of the Sacred Heart.

There are many devout and instructive hymns in English
which are at your choice for all these occasions, and I am sorry
to say that there are not a few, in pretty general use too, which
in my opinion are anything but instructive, and sadly lacking in
that robust, serious expression of devotion towards the Divine
Being, our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints, which ren-
ders piety either respectable or healthy. The words being what
they are, the tunes which sing them are of an equally low grade.
Thev hop and skip, they snicker and scream, or languish with
silly sentimentality ; but there isn't a movement or a breath of
prayer in them. School-girls are proverbially quick-witted, as
you probably know. Avoid giving them hymns to sing which
lack decent literary merit, and which in melody and harmony
are musically despicable. Religion, through all its expressions
in language and tone, should bear the stamp of what is simple
without being mean ; solemn, dignified, and lofty, without being
formal and severe ; pleasing and warm in sentiment, without de-
scending to triviality and sensational passion. I have heard
hymns to the Blessed Virgin, and even to the Most Holy Sacra-
ment, which in words and music only befitted the mind, heart,
and voice of some moon-struck, love-sick swain serenading his
mistress with a guitar. Such prayer and music, addressed to
God and the court of heaven, are not only sillily incongruous,
but are downright pernicious, and nothing saves this service
from being a blasphemous insult but the ignorant good-will of
the performers.

There are hymnals containing a goodly number of hymns
instructive and devout in language, and respectable and healthy
in pious expression, adapted to tunes which neither hop, skip,
snicker, nor scream. In these you can find a good hymn for al-
most any occasion you can name; and the best way to find out
their value is to have them sung by everybody together, with
full voice and in hearty unison. Singing in harmony is pretty ;
but singing in unison is soul-stirring and devout. Moreover, you
thereby gain an end most desirable to secure in all singing to
God: you keep self in the background, and shut the doors fn the
face of the hundred-and-one little demons of pride and vanity

io2 THE THINGS THAT MAKE FOR UNITY. [April,

who are always sneaking around to steal away the merit of
every small offering, however pitiful, that we venture to make
to God.

I hope I have said enough, my dear sister, to induce you to
begin at once with courageous determination and holy zeal to
inaugurate this " better order" of music in your chapel services,
looking only to the honor and praise of God as the chief end in
view. That this common, united singing of all the nuns also
joining their voices when present will prove to be most pleasing
to everybody I have no doubt. That it will bring a special
benediction upon your convent I hold to be equally sure ; for it
will not only make your school more popular, but I can well
imagine that the news of it will go up to heaven as most wel-
come ; and that your little chapel will be a charming spot among
thousands where, if I may so speak, our Lord and his holy
Mother and all your patron saints and angels will come down to
visit with great delight, to listen to and receive this worthy and
grateful homage of your united hearts and voices.

Wishing you and envying you such a singular blessing, I am,
my dear sister,

Faithfully yours in Christ,

ALFRED YOUNG. ,

THE THINGS THAT MAKE FOR UNITY.

THE following is from a recent issue of the Christian Union :

" We are glad to record the fact that the Congregational church of
Washington, D. C., has refused the use of its edifice to Dr. Justin D. Ful-
ton for his lecture against the Roman Catholic Church. Wide and even
fundamental as are the differences between the Protestant and the Roman
Catholic faiths, their agreement is more important. Protestants have
other and more important business on hand than carrying on or encour-
aging a crusade against a church which, whatever its errors, maintains the
law of God and proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and does more to
give sanction to conscience and morality in large classes of our population
than all other churches put together. If the Roman Catholic Church
could be overthrown by any other process than the substitution of a more
liberal and intelligent faith, the country would find itself on the verge of
revolution, if not of absolute anarchy."

This is plain to be understood: as between Catholics and
Protestants it is more necessary to emphasize the terms of agree-

1 888.] THE THINGS THAT MAKE FOR UNITY. 103

ment than those of disagreement. In that we are in accord
with the Christian Union. Would that this had been the temper
of men's minds at the start! We should not now have the
enormous scandal of a divided Christendom nor the confusion
from which non-Catholics suffer. This very confusion has made
many souls turn to Catholic unity : they have given up every-
thing worldly for the possession of peace.

Why are such sentiments now uttered? Because the ten-
dency of religious minds is now to unity, as it was to disunion
centuries ago ; and this is a great blessing of Providence. The
necessity for unity is now felt on all sides ; the evils of disunion
are seen in a thousand different ways. We should be untrue to
Providence if we did not take our cue from this. Such men as
Fulton, and such movements, as his, are no longer representative
of our Protestant fellow-citizens. This age will not bear from.
Dr. Fulton what the formative age of Protestantism bore from
Dr. Luther. Luther's Table-Talk is worse than Fulton's Why
Priests Should Wed.

Taking Protestants all around, they prefer to look for terms
of agreement with us rather than to attack our peculiar doc-
trines or to insist upon their own. We must not undervalue
the advantage of having to deal with men who believe as we do
in the law of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and who have
no animosity against the Catholic Church. It is our special privi-
lege nowadays to have for our opponents many men without
guile men who, lacking various truths and having many doubts,
believe in no positive error. That they fall short of the full
truth is their misfortune ; but it is not to be compared to the
misfortune of believing in positive error. Fair men whose truth
is fragmentary, honest minds in partial obscurity, they are rather
non-Catholics than anti-Catholics.

Now, this longing for Christian unity is squarely anti-Protest-
ant. For the fault of Protestantism from the beginning was the
exaggeration of personal independence. It was self-sufficiency
consecrated. It exaggerated the rights of individual authority
at the expense of the authority of unity. Protestants have until
recently been trained up in a condemnatory frame of mind :
they could feel comfortable all alone in their dogmatic separation.
This is what they can do no longer. Heretofore the tendency
was strongest towards division, and they were powerless to resist
breaking up into sects. Their eras of religious fervor were in-
variably eras of fresh dissensions and new sects. Now they are
powerless to resist the tendency to unity.

104 THE THINGS THAT MAKE FOR UNITY. [April,

Are we to understand that dogmatic individualism is no
longer the sole basis of Christianity as Protestants under-
stand it that unity and agreement are main factors? We hope
so. There are signs of it. Surely this is a move upward. The
man who secures for the truth another test besides his own per-
sonal and inner conviction is moving upward ; and the agree-
ment of one's fellow-men is a test of truth. One need not feel
called upon to weaken the force of inner consciousness because
he has obtained the consent of his fellow-men. It is a very en-
couraging sign that Protestants were never so universally ready
to seek agreement as an additional test of being in the right
way, and to satisfy their minds, as they are to-day. Any man
who is conspicuous in accentuating disagreements is bid be
silent. Don't make confusion worse confounded ! he hears from
every side. The trend is now for unity. This is the work of
Providence. It is the divine will that men should now begin to
face the question: How can we maintain a position breeding
confusion and confusion ever increasing; how can we longer
blind ourselves to the absolute necessity of unity ? Men are be-
ginning to say everywhere: Would that there were an end to
this confusion !

Let us examine the charge implied in the words "a more
liberal and intelligent faith." And we will admit at once that
there is one kind of liberty that Catholics never will favor: the
universal liberty to doubt. The fundamental doctrines of the
law of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are not many, but
their truth is settled; and so it is with the first principles of
reason. Liberty to doubt them is not true liberty, because it is
not intelligent. And there is another kind of liberty that the
Catholic Church never will admit is good: the liberty to do
wrong. Freedom to injure one's self, one's neighbor, or the di-
vine honor is not in the gift of the Catholic Church. It may not be
able always to prevent wrong-doing, but it will never admit that
the proper state of things is where men have universal liberty to
sin. No man should desire to be free to do wrong. Every good
man would pray that God, or some godlike power, would stand
between him and his passions, his appetites, his ignorance, and
prevent them from leading him astray.

Now let us look at liberty and intelligence in religion. The
foundation of intelligent religion I affirm to be a clear know-
ledge of the means necessary for securing the soul's immortal
destiny, a knowledge possessed with unshaken certainty. For
example, to have a certain knowledge of the character and mis-

1 888.] THE THINGS THAT MAKE FOR UNITY. 105

sion of Christ, and the means he has provided for attaining to
eternal life, is the basis of intelligent Christianity. Does the
Christian Union mean to say that the divinity of Christ and his
atonement are more doubtfully held among Catholics than
among Protestants? Does that journal affirm that there is the
least doubt among Catholics as to the need of Christ's merits
for getting into the divine friendship? Can it say the same for
Protestantism? Is it not notorious that all Protestantism is in a
state of confusion as toyktf what a man can do, and what he ought
to do in order to be sure of eternal life? Can any man deny
that the first quality of intelligent knowledge is freedom from
doubt?

The conditions of salvation are more clearly known and are
more freely used by Catholics than by any others. None are so
free, none are so intelligent, as Catholics. To be sure, there
may be Catholics who are neither very free nor very intelligent;
but a knowledge, and a certain knowledge, of the essential truths
of Christianity, and a spontaneous acceptance of Christ's merits,
are absolutely required for both the public and private profession
of Catholicity in its most elementary forms. Over and above
this, whatever man brings a free and fresh spirit to Catholicity,
whatever man brings a bright and active mind to that religion,
finds for his native freedom and intelligence a fresh life. He
finds in Catholicity a response to all freedom and all intelli-
gence. And the tendency of the Catholic Church is to make
men free and impart fresh life to their minds.

How true that is, and how little known ! So much so that
one cannot help exclaiming as if the words had not become
trite'" O beauty, ever ancient and ever new ! "

Has it never occurred to those honest Protestants in Wash-
ington who refused their church-building to the obscene po-
lemics of Dr. Fulton that the lack of freedom and intelligence
they complain of is not a trait of Catholicity, but may be so
of one or other Catholic people, or of a certain era of history?
Are they perfectly sure that if they actually examined the dog-
mas and ordinances of the Catholic religion that want of intelli-
gence and liberty would be the main objection actually found ?
Has it never occurred to them that what seems extravagant au-
thority in the church is due to the measures of resistance made
necessary by that extravagant individualism which is now so
much deprecated among Protestants? However these ques-
tions may be answered, the actual fact is that the Catholic
Church is ready to enlighten and to educate and to set free

io6 THE THINGS THA T MAKE FOR UNITY. [April,

every soul of man in the world. Furthermore, we say that in
demanding liberty and intelligence in religion non-Catholics
are perfectly right and could go much further.

Let us for the moment ignore the " fundamental differences"
and advert to the fundamental agreements the elements which
make for unity and peace. Dare our non-Catholic friends
venture with us? Will they do as much for unit)' as we will?
Let us see. God, the Holy Trinity, the Divinity, .Atonement, and
Grace of Jesus Christ, the necessity of repentance and pardon,
the inspiration of Scripture so far we are one. Now, we em-
phatically affirm that out of these fundamental unities the objec-
tionable features of Catholicity, the "fundamental" differences,
necessarily flow. These objectionable features are the symbolism
of the church, i.e., the external ordinances of religion embraced
in her sacraments and public worship, and her authority.

The symbolical offices of religion, we admit, may sometimes
hinder the just perception of the doctrines. There is a way of
using the offices of religion so as to overlay the doctrines and to
conceal them : the child is smothered by his wrappings. Never-
theless religion must have a symbolical clothing. There is a
way of making religion so intellectually bare as to unfit it for
any but bodiless spirits.

Revealed religion is supernatural and is full of mysteries;
men can commonly best keep such a religion and realize its
mysteries by the symbolism of worship. Mysteries cannot ex-
press themselves otherwise than by symbols. Intelligence which
avows itself to be less than angelic is forced to have a symbolical
religion if it has a supernatural one. Hence the institution of
the sacraments by Christ outward signs of inward grace, sacred
symbols ordained by the Divine Founder of Christianity, by
which his grace is conveyed to souls worthy to receive it.

So of Christian unity. Men are not one in organism, in
society, as they are one in nature. Men are by nature organized
into separate families and nations. To unite these families into
one organism demands a more than natural bond, a supernatural
authority. Unity is only maintained by the divine discipline of
the church. Fallen human nature is too eccentric to maintain
unity without submission to a divine discipline. Divine author-
ity among men is confined in the natural order to the family
and the state. When, therefore, Jesus Christ became man and
would embrace all men in one family, it followed that he must
give us an organic life in addition* to family and state. He did
that in the church. The church is the inner and outer fellowship

i888.] THE THINGS THAT MAKE FOR UNITY. 107

of all Christians under the perpetual authority of the apostolic
office in the Papacy and the episcopate.

What we affirm, therefore, is that our symbolism is in its
essence not man-made but is of divine origin, given in response
to the utter necessity of an intelligence face to face with dogmas
beyond natural comprehension. Our church discipline is not
human but divine. It is a system of authority and polity insti-
tuted by Christ, necessary to maintain through the ages and in
the universal world the integrity of the Christian religion and
its influence on society. There are multitudes of men whose
intelligent knowledge of the truths of faith can never be more
than feeble, to say nothing of children, and who, even with every
symbol and under every possible pressure of authority, can
barely attain to the knowledge and love of the unseen and
distant and mysterious Deity. The discipline of the church and
her symbolical offices are of absolute necessity to them, to whole
races of men, if the very minimum of Christian character is
going to be imparted. There have been whole ages of the
world in which religion would have utterly perished but for
external authority plainly established by divine appointment.
There are vast masses of men to-day to whom the discipline of
Christian unity, as embodied in the Catholic Church, can alone
give a steadfast religious character, whether of belief or conduct.
There are whole races who can never know religion except by
symbolism.

Meantime the amount of symbolism exacted by the church
from the individual Christian is much less than non-Catholics
imagine; and the pressure of discipline is not felt except by
delinquents, such persons as the writer in the Christian Union
would himself be the first to condemn. This is well shown by
the conversion to Catholicity of such men as the late Frederick
Lucas, M.P. Originally a fervent member of the Society of
Friends, he became a Catholic by following the lines of Quaker-
ism to their logical conclusion. We recommend his life, written
by his brother, Edward Lucas (Catholic Publication Society,
New York), as illustrative of the topics we have been dis-
cussing.

That symbolism and authority as known in the Catholic
Church darken the mind and fetter free thought is not true.
Did they fetter the martyrs or darken the Christian Fathers ?
Are Catholic missionaries feeble-minded? Are Catholic phi-
losophers and theologians witless drivellers? Do you find their
reasoning cramped ? Can you perceive that the aspirations of

io8 THE THINGS THAT MAKE FOR UNITY. [April,

intellectual curiosity are smothered in a Catholic atmosphere ?
The very writer in the Christian Union are there no Catholic
men and women of his acquaintance who are as free and as intel-
ligent as he is himself, and yet typical Catholics? Has he not
read of many such in history ?

Whoever has got the elementary doctrines which by their
innate tendency make for agreement has the solution of the re-
ligious problem of the day. The question is : Can we empha-
size the points of agreement, ignoring for the moment the dis-
agreements? Yes, and safely. But it must be wisely done.
As a matter of fact the very seeking for points of agreement
tends to subdue the spirit of confusion, and to eliminate points
of disagreement and strengthen truth. If, for example, the
doctrine of the church on eternal punishment were fully
brought out, we believe that it would tend to union ; it would
conciliate multitudes of non-Catholics, even Universalists and
infidels. -And so with other doctrines. The work of the new
University, planted in the political centre of this free and
intelligent people, will tend to shape the expression of doctrines
in such wise as to assimilate them to American intelligence
not to minimize but to assimilate. To develop the mind there
is never need to minimize the truth ; but there, is great need of
knowing how to assimilate the truth to different minds. The work
of the Catholic University is to precede the conversion of the
country. For if we wish to attract Americans we must present
Catholicity to them as affirming in superabundance those quali-
ties of character which are distinctively American affirming
them in an aspect which reveals their universality.

What, then, can we claim of our belief in the " law of God
and the Gospel of Jesus Christ"? Just this: that we hold the
truths and live the life those words denote with intelligence
and liberty. Intensity of conviction is a trait of Catholicity
and of intelligence at the same time. And this profound realiza-
tion of divine things is due to that very symbolism to which
non-Catholics object, and to that discipline which they think so
oppressive.

This, then, is the relation between honest non-Catholics and
ourselves : they are looking for points of agreement, and we
are developing liberty and intelligence. The twofold question
is : Are Protestants willing to make sacrifices for agreement's
sake? Are Catholics willing to make sacrifices for liberty and
intelligence in religion? These questions fittingly answered
will move us all onward towards a united Christendom. Fools

1 888.] Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH ? 109

may misinterpret this. But the reconciliation of obedient faith
and intelligent liberty is the problem of the age. It is a prob-
lem for both parties to help solve.

Let us cultivate the things that make for unity.

There is no reason why a movement towards unity should
not set in, under the providence of God, in our day, just as
in the sixteenth century the perversity of men brought about
disunion and sects.

I. T. HECKER.

IS RUSSIA NEARER THE ^CHURCH THAN IT USED

TO BE?

RUSSIA is an anomaly in the world's peoples. While admit-
tedly one of the greatest Christian powers, it still remains half-
barbarous, half-civilized, in government, in social aspects, in
religion. It may be true that as to religion it would be most
unfair to deny to the Russians as much sincerity, as much piety, as
to other nations ; yet in the fact that the Autocrat of all the Rus-
sias is pontiff both in doctrine and jurisdiction there is certainly
a barbarousness which, besides being profane, is hideously ty-
rannical and persecuting. It would be a difficult study for
even a Russian to trace the relative interworkings of politics
and religion in Russia; yet we have a good deal to help us in
the whole history of the great schism, as well as in the records
of modern travellers. In .attempting to answer the question-
so interesting to Catholics "Is Russia nearer the church than
it used to be?" what we shall really have to answer is a com-
plex question of this kind : Are the Russians less bullied than
they used to be ; have religious, political, and literary liberties
more sway or less sway than they used to have ; are the official
classes more refined ; is the bureaucracy less corrupt ; is religion
less of a state weapon, less coercive? Such questions can only
be answered correlatively ; they do not admit of yes or no cate-
gorically.

Where the government, ecclesiastical and civil, is centred in
an irresponsible monarch, there will be necessarily more cor-
ruption in the bureaucracy than in governments where respon-

no Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH? [April,

sibility is divided. Russia is governed by its bureaucracy. more
than it is governed by the czar. The czar wills; but his will
has to be carried out by officials who have a score of ways of
eluding his purpose. No man can rule over one hundred ano 1
eight millions of subjects. There must be powers between him
and his obedient ones. And these powers must be always in a
state of jealousy ; always inciting yet trying to crush combina-
tions ; always in conflict with one class or another, while setting
some of the classes against each other. At the present time
there is a power called Nihilism, which burrows, and which
shakes the social edifice. This power is equally national and
sectional, in the sense that its influence on every section of the
empire is profoundly and most hatedly felt. It is impossible to
answer our question as to Catholic prospects without con-
sidering what is the national influence of this power. Let us
very briefly analyze its programme, so as to measure its direct
action on religion.

The Nihilists apologize for their existence with a plea which
has certainly some force. Their argument against the czar and
against his government may be cast, perhaps, in the following
form : " Unless there were the vilest system of oppression there
could be no need of, no excuse for, secret societies. We, the
secret societies, are called into existence by your determination
to concede to us no liberties. You refuse us all ' liberty of the
press'; you keep the telegraph for your state business, state
chicanery ; you permit the police to steal our private corre-
spondence, so that the post-offices are mere preserves for state
scrutiny; you publish nothing in the newspapers from any
country in the world, nor anything from any part of the Rus-
sian Empire, until it has been toned down or rewritten, so as
to tally with your preconcerted politics ; you cut off all commu-
nication between the different parts of Russia, so that what is
done in one part may not be known in another part, and thus
the people are kept in (national) blindness; you permit to your
officials undefined powers of examining, of accusing, of impris-
oning, of even torturing, with scarcely the judicial decency of
even formality, and thus bring us all within the compass of a
sub-autocracy irresponsible because secret in administration.
By such a policy you make us a huge nation of slaves, theoreti-
cally governed by a Christian czar, but* really governed by a
network of bureaucracy, in which each separate official is a
tyrant. Hence the secret societies, which are our only possible
remedy for your secret and malignant administration, you being

1 888.] Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH f in

responsible for the creation of our darkness by the darkness of
your own administrative machinery."

What sympathy does this pleading find " in society," that is,
among the classes and among the masses ? The answer is most
important to Catholic interests. Remember that, every official
of the czar being " Orthodox " and mightily hating Roman Ca-
tholicism as anti-czarodox, it follows necessarily that the Catho-
lic religion is (by presumption) antagonistic to all theories of all
sections of Russian society. Let us first say a word about the
Panslavists. The Panslavists, a huge section in Russia, regard
autocracy as the mainstay of the empire, and look upon the pon-
tiff-czar as a sort of centre of a circle, within which there must
be unity through czarodoxy. It may be perfectly true that
even the Panslavists want more liberty, just as the aristocracy,
the lower nobility, the wealthy merchants, intensely desire a
constitutional government ; but the question is : How does Ni-
hilism affect the attitude political, social, and therefore reli-
gious of all these social sections and of the masses? The
answer is that Nihilism is the deadliest foe of all; and the rea-
son is very simple to be explained. Nihilism makes all reform
to be impossible, because no one dares profess himself a reform-
er. To profess reform is to incur the odium of being a Nihilist.
A nervous prudence therefore keeps all classes reticent. To
demand reform, in the army or in the civil service ; to ask the
czar to grant some kind of house of peers ; to beg for a lower
chamber of representatives ; or to entreat for the complete
liberty of the press, would be to expose the nobility and the
army, the middle classes, the academical and the literary classes,
to the imputation of seeking to further Nihilist projects by the
mild, cunning suggestion of reforms. This is why the Nihilists
are so detested. For figure what is the risk run in Russia by
even alluding to the desirableness of '' liberties." In every time
of revolution it is impossible to differentiate the many types or
degrees of the revolutionists, the merest accident of inadver-
tence or of surroundings converting one type of " suspect " into
another. Remember, too, that every man is always watched
by the police. To gain safety a man leagues himself with a
clique ; and within that clique there is probably one or more
villains on the watch to entrap every imprudent member.
Thus the gentlest expression of disapproval of a regime may
compel a man to make choice of two extremes: he must either
become a secret-society man in self-defence, or acquaint the
police with the exceptional difficulties of his position. If he

ii2 Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH? [April,

does the first he is " told off" to commit a crime ; if he does the
second he is " told off " to be shot. Thus the very existence of
secret societies is fatal to real liberty ; for instead of every man
being free to speak his opinions, every man is watched by police
and plotter alike, and between the two is perfectly certain to
come to grief. Now add to this state of society the fact that
the czar's Orthodoxy is the one grand political dogma of the
Russian Empire, to deny which is to incur the czar's fiercest
wrath, and we see that the Nihilist regime is as fatal to Catho-
lic prospects as it is fatal to all reform and to all liberty.

But there are still social points to be considered which bear
intimately on this question of Catholic prospects. Let us glance
for a moment at the social aspects of the great towns, as auxil-
iary to the general answer to our question. In St. Petersburg and
in Moscow we see only two classes there are only two classes
rich and poor. In the United States, as in England, there are
many sections of the middle class; but in Russia there are aristo-
crats and there are plebeians, with no attempt at, no desire for,
intermixture. In the streets we see gorgeous equipages, and we
see also dingy, dirty drosckeys; but we do not see what we see
in London and New York every variety of class vehicle, class
"turn-out." The reason is, there are only rich and poor.
Then, again, take the military element: in St. Petersburg,
where there are only about one million inhabitants, there are
three hundred thousand soldiers in uniform ; the officers always
stamping about in military dress, and the privates looking half-
paid and half-fed. Here again we have the contrast of rich and
poor. And so, too, of the clergy : there seem to be two classes,
who are as far removed as are the English Protestant bishops
and curates. The upper and the lower clergy are different
classes. Indeed, the whole of society is two-classed in Russia,
with such invincible barriers that you might suppose that the
two classes were forbidden by the state to intermingle. This
twoness of the Russian people is a supremely important factor
in the calculation of any possible Catholic development. Great
wealth and extreme poverty ; official insolence and dull servility ;
grand churches and hungry worshippers such contrasts augur
badly for national harmony, and therefore for any " spread " of
religious movements. The grand obstruction to every kind of
social progress, to the general harmonizing of all plans for im-
proving the masses, is the iron boundary between the rich and
the poor, and the utter absence of any links between the two.
The poorer tradesmen are too poor to get out of the poor class,

i8S8.] Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH? 113

and the richer tradesmen get among the merchant princes ; so
that, by a popular acquiescence, there are only two classes in
Russia, and this is the crux for all reformers.

Now couple such facts with the general disturbance of the
empire, and with the fact that the czar is before all things in-
tent on his own personal supremacy or autocracy, and we shall
get forward in our inquiry as to the possible future of Catho-
licism in the huge, wide-spread dominions of Alexander III.
As to the first fact, the general Russian disturbance, it arises in
the main from the czar's being out of tune with the prevailing
animus in all classes of his subjects. He believes in autocracy ;
he believes that he holds the empire together; he is persuaded
that the empire would be shivered into fragments were he to
let go the tight rein of his own oneness. On the other hand, at
least three-fourths of his subjects desire to have constitutional
liberties ; but they cannot have them, both because the czar
will not grant them and because the Nihilists have made con-
cession to look like fear. Thus, politically and socially, there is
a deadlock in movement: the Nihilists making the czar to be
more resolute, and '' the country " being placed between them
in fear of both. That " the country " has a veneration for the
czar, a traditional and possibly sincere filial affection, we may
take for granted, notwithstanding the desire to see reforms in-
troduced into all departments. The czar, both as ruler and as
pontiff, is neither personally nor officially disliked. Tradition
crowns him as " the divine emperor." As to the attempts on
the czar's life, they prove nothing. In 108,000,000 of subjects
there must be black sheep. Crowned heads are accustomed to
be shot at. President Lincoln was actually killed in a theatre ;
Napoleon III. had to brave nine attacks ; the constitutional
Louis Philippe escaped eighteen attempts to deprive him of his
(certainly not tyrannical) life, and Queen Victoria (who has never
affected any despotism) has had some half-dozen experiences of
mortal attacks. We cannot infer national hatred from sectional
venom. The czar of Russia is no more unpopular with the
masses than is the king of Italy, who also opposes himself to
the Pope.

Here we reach a point where we may half-answer the ques-
tion : Is Russia nearer the church than it used to be? We have
noticed that (i) the government, ecclesiastical as well as civil, is
centred in an irresponsible autocrat ; (2) that the bureaucracy
plays the part of tyrannical spy ; (3) that Nihilism is the dead-
liest foe of liberty, because it exposes all reformers to false

VOL. XLVII. 8

ii4 Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH? [April,

charges ; (4) that the Panslavists, in theory, prefer czarodoxy to
Catholicism, because it unites, or seems to unite, Russian sub-
jects ; (5) that the gulf between the rich class and the poor class
is practically impassable and irremediable, so that there can be
no social permeation of religious ideas, as there can be in the
United States and in England; no "movements " spreading up-
ward or spreading downward ; no gradual national conversion
of classes, as there was when the " Oxford Movement " began to
spread ; (6) that the army, the aristocracy, the rich merchants,
are too czarodox to have sympathy with Catholicism, or in-
deed with anything which threatens to disturb their social
safety ; (7) that the general disturbance of the empire is too
preoccupying to admit of earnestness in the direction of any
anti-czarodox religious movement; (8) and that the czar him-
self is too firm a believer in his own oneness to allow religion or
anything else to cross his path. Let us now proceed to the ques-
tions which are directly religious, but which will be immensely
helped by the considerations which have gone before. Let us
ask : What is the attitude of the czar's priests and of the czar's
people towards the Head of the Catholic Church and towards
Catholics ; what is the state of the Russian law in regard to
Catholics ; what are the civil and religious liberties of Catho-
lics ; what is the animus of the official conduct towards born
Catholics, and towards Catholics who become converted from
Orthodoxy; and, correlatively, what hope is there of a growth
of Catholicism in a country which has been for eight centuries
schismatical ?

Alas! nothing can be more sad than the truthful answer. It
is just ten years since the English House of Commons was posi-
tively startled out of its serenity by the revelation of the czar's
crimes in forcing Catholics to become Orthodox in other words,
to apostatize or to perish. Lord Augustus Loftus, the British
Ambassador at St. Petersburg, sent an official despatch to the
British government, in which he described the Catholics of
Siedlce and Lublin as being " flogged almost to death by brutal
Cossacks, and then driven, through a half-frozen river up to their
waists, into the parish church through files of soldiers, and
there their names were entered into a petition " [forged by Rus-
sian officials as a genuine Catholic petition, entreating the czar
to " permit them to become Orthodox "] ; " after which they were
passed out at an opposite door, the peasants all the time crying
out, ' You may call us Orthodox, but we remain in the faith of
our fathers.' ' Two hundred and fifty thousand Catholics were

1 888.] Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH? 115

reported as being " converted " in the same way ! That un-
speakable wretch, M. Makoff, the Minister of the Interior (whose
only redeeming vice was his suicide), employed for years every
detestable means he could think of now wheedling and coax-
ing, now confiscating and imprisoning, now promising and
bribing, now flogging and transporting with a view to swelling
the lists of the czar's converts. All in vain. Perhaps the
grandest page in the history of Catholic martyrdom is the en-
durance by Catholics of Russian cruelty, because that endu-
rance is so prolonged, it is so without hope, it is so uncomfort-
ed by sympathy from the civilized world. Russia is so far off
that the Catholics of other countries forget to think of their
brothers who live in agony. Yes, agony is not too strong a
word. The law is gentle with Lutherans, Presbyterians, or
Anglicans, but inexorable with the obedient to the Holy See.
Even the Jews, against whom there is a terrible hostility, are
ordinarily exiled or "told to go," but are not mutilated. The
hottest wrath of the czar and his officials is kept for the con-
fessors of the old religion. Every trick that cunning malignity
can suggest, every cruelty that brutal hatred can invent, are
practised daily upon all classes of Russian subjects who have
the audacity to say that the czar is not pontiff. " That heredi-
tary lie, czarodoxy," as Gregory XVI. called it, is true to its first
principle, falsehood. To begin with, the Holy See is trifled
with in diplomacy, promises and overtures being periodically
renewed only to be negatived by the next post. Leo XIII., like
Pius IX., like Gregory XVI. (in the present century), have each
tried their hardest to conciliate the " Divine Figure " which
perpetuates the horrid schism of the North. Yet the same tale
of perfidy, of cold-blooded cruelty, fills all the chapters of Rus-
sian story.

To name a few only of the tricks of this enormity : (i) The
Russian laws are expressly framed for the purpose of preventing
the public profession, the public performance, of their religion
by Catholics all religious societies or confraternities being
forbidden by an act of 1864 so that it is at the risk of their free-
dom that the Catholics in Russia can attach themselves, even
nominally, to any order. (2) Catholic dioceses are left without
a bishop for many years, the government refusing to allow a
bishop to be appointed ; and thus the Sacrament of Confirmation
(to name one sacrament only) is impossible for any Catholic in
such dioceses, the result being that the majority of Russian
Catholics live and die without receiving Confirmation. (3) A

n6 Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH f [April,

clever trick, not uncommon with Orthodox priests, is to get
Catholic priests to hear their confession. The Orthodox priests
then inform the civil authorities that the Catholic priests have
been trying to convert them, and Siberia is the next stage for
those Catholic priests. (4) In the same way, if a Catholic priest
can be got to administer any sacrament to any member of the
Orthodox communion though believing the person in ques-
tion to be a Catholic the law makes such a mistake to be penal,
and no excuse, no apology, is listened to. (5) As illustrations
of the inimical spirit of Russian officials let two examples only
be given. A Catholic priest introduced into his church the
pictures known as Stations ol the Cross. An Orthodox priest
denounced him on the ground that many Catholics were attract-
ed by the Stations, and that, therefore, the Orthodox Russians
were scandalized. The priest was suspended on the instant, and
a little later was banished from the empire. Secondly, fifteen
priests have been sent into exile for offering prayers at the end
of the Mass in the Polish language ; such language being re-
garded as revolutionary, although it is the language of many
Catholics. (6) The Russian law makes it impossible for a man
once declared Orthodox either by a fictional conversion or by
official trick to profess himself a member of .the Catholic
Cnurch, such profession being rewarded with transportation,
without even the proffered choice of apostasy. (7) To "pro-
test " against Orthodox cruelty is " criminal," so that thousands
of peasants who have so protested under their torments have
been sent to expiate their offence in Siberia. (8) Any dodge for
the " conversion " of Catholics is justifiable. Let one example
be given of the almost incredible trickery of the late Minister of
the Interior, M. Makoff. He bribed a weak priest into becom-
ing Orthodox, or at least into professing that he had become so.
This was done secretly ; and it was kept a secret, the priest
continuing to minister in the Catholic church. Three months
afterwards the whole of the parishioners of that Catholic priest
were told solemnly that they had become Orthodox, and that they
had been officially registered as being so ; their having permitted
an Orthodox priest to officiate for them for three months being
proof sufficient that they accepted his Orthodoxy ! (9) There
are millions of Russian Catholics of the Greek rite. To satisfy
the spiritual needs of this class Latin priests defy the law and
do their duty. For this offence they are suspended for ever
from priestly functions, and their churches are sometimes per-
manently closed. " Measures have been taken to render it tin-

i888.] Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH? 117

possible" said a government decree of 1876, "for former Greek
Catholics who are still obstinate to have the sacraments ad-
ministered to them in the Roman Catholic church of," etc., etc. ;
"and the governor-general has requested the chief of the district
to keep vigilant watch on the Roman Catholic clergy, lest they
should administer to them the sacraments." (10) No foreign
clergyman can now enter Russia without the authorization of
the government, (u) On great feast-days it is imperative on
the Catholic clergy to wait upqn the Orthodox bishop or arch-
bishop, offering him their warmest sympathies and congratula-
tions ; which courtesy is so far obligatory that if by accident it
be omitted the offending priest would be persecuted evermore.
(12) Lastly, let it be noted that in every Russian district dwells
a redoubtable police officer called the Ispravnik an irresponsible
kinglet, whose vulgarity and whose insolence are in proportion
to the supreme majesty of his authority. This official treats
Catholics like swine; but he reserves his nastiest treatment for
Catholic priests. Let a priest omit to salute this vulgar func-
tionary with all becoming humility and obsequiousness, and
straightway wondrous crimes are imputed to him, and Siberia
looms in painfully close horizon.

Enough has now been said to suggest the answer which must
be given to the question with which we began this brief analysis:
" Is Russia nearer the church than it used to be?" It will be
observed that we have sought an answer as much from the civil
condition of Russia as from the prevailing animus of the power-
ful classes in regard to religion. Indeed, that civil condition is
everything. Be it remembered that Russia is the only country
in the world where an autocrat makes his assumption of the
Christian pontificate to be the foundation of the (desired) imperial
unity. The claim is both made and is accepted. But the ques-
tion is, With what heart is it accepted? Take the two classes of
Russian society, the rich and the poor, and see where, the heart
of loyalty lies. The rich class is czarodox for the reason that
temporal benefits are* best promoted by subserviency to czaro-
doxy. The poor class is czarodox for the reason (i) that it can-
not help it, and (2) that it is taught that the czar is a divine
ruler. The Russian catechisms, in all the schools, insist on the
divine appointment of the Russian emperor to the double head-
ship of- what they affirm to be " Holy Russia." Tradition,
therefore, consecrates the poor man's creed ; interest is the
primary pontiff of the rich man's creed. But the various points
we have referred to points civil, points political all come

ii8 fs RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH? -[April,

into the very difficult calculation of the values of different in-
fluences as to religion. As to the poor, they can have no
general information ; the press is astutely manipulated for their
instruction ; they are cut off from even the neighboring ideas
of other provinces ; they have no personal communication with
the more educated classes ; they live in fear of that Ispravnik,
or police officer, who would make their lives intolerable if they
were to exhibit any sympathies with Catholicism, with Western
sentiments, with liberal movements; they know that the Catholic
Church is anti czarodox, and that it is, therefore, as illegal as it is
inconvenient; their Orthodox priests are always telling them that
this is so ; their religious instructions are always balanced by
the imperial lie that the Eastern Church owes no obedience to
the Holy See, and that the Holy See is a usurper, not a mother;
they are misled, like the English Protestants, by fictitious read-
ings of history, but, unlike the English Protestants, they are
not free, are not permitted to read everything, to examine any-
thing ; so that, while all travellers are agreed that the Russian
poor are devout, they are agreed that they are forced to live
always in one groove. That isolation of class which prevents
"movements" leavening downwards, just as it prevents com-
plaints from rising upwards, is fatal to " the education of na-
tional tone," in the sense in which we may speak of it, say, in
England. The espionage of the bureaucracy, the nervous horror
of the secret societies, the habitual awe of the imperial soldiers
and of the aristocracy, together with a sort of superstitious
veneration for the White Figure who enthrones himself as su-
preme pontiff all such accidents of the social life render con-
version to Catholicism the most unlikely of (natural) changes for
the Russian heart. \Ve can speak only of what is natural or
apparent ; we cannot touch the hidden purposes of Divine
Providence. In England or in the United States there might
arise wonderful men who would play the part of apostles to
half the nation. Such a thing is impossible in Russia. The
universities are under awe of all " moverrients." Nihilism, or
free-thinking, or constitutionalism may have their votaries aca-
demically as they have socially, but a religious movement to-
wards Catholicism would appear to be equally out of temper
with the religious and the political Russian mind. Czarodoxy
is the iron grip of Russian schism. The sword and the knout
and the prison are the eloquent apostles of the czar's schism.
They are so equally for the rich and for the poor. They were
so in England under Queen Elizabeth. Englishmen have been

1 888.] Is RUSSIA NEARER THE CHURCH? 119

emancipated from religious tyranny. Russians are still in the
stage of the Elizabethans.

One hope had seemed to spring from the pontifical action
of Leo XIII. in imploring the czar to act humanely towards
Catholics. - We know how that hope has been dispelled. One
year before the assassination of Alexander II. the Pope sent him
a conciliatory letter, but no fruits came to Catholics from that
letter. On the festival, however, of St. Cyril and St. Methodius
two saints dear to the church and to the Eastern schismatics
the Pope sent an encyclical to all Slavs, exhorting them to
piety and to unity ; and in the same year he established a hier-
archy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which many popes had
desired to do but had not ventured to do. All that earnest-
ness and patient solicitude could effect during the past ten years
has been wrought to its fullest completion by Leo XIII. ; but
the old spirit of malignity and of cunning which has swayed
the counsels of all Russian officials professing czarodoxy has
frustrated the wisdom of papal counsels and resented the af-
fectionate appeals of papal sympathies. The " hereditary lie "
lives on. " Elizabethanism," in England, has died of its own
inanity, so far as material persecution is concerned ; but czaro-
doxy in Russia can never die while absolute monarchy makes
that " doxy " its first rule. Even if there should be a Catho-
lic revival throughout Russia a spontaneity of which there is
not the faintest symptom the different impediments we have
alluded to, political, social, or traditional, would crush the
first germs to extinction with an iron heel. No ; God alone can
convert the Russian Empire. From without, not from within,
the move must come ; unless, indeed, through some internal
revolution the whole mind of the Russian peoples should be-
come freed. England was first made Protestant by Henry
VI II., and of course Russia might be now made Catholic by a
Catholic czar ; but short of the unexpected in wondrous changes
there is no hope, none whatever, for czarodox Russia. Father
Tondini has recently exhorted all Catholics to pray for the
Catholic unity of all Christians. That seems to be the only
weapon worthy of sharpening. As Mr. William Palmer once
said to the present writer, " The sun only can melt the Russian
snows, and God only can melt the Russian schism."

ARTHUR F. MARSHALL.

120 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [April,

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

The Deemster : A Romance of the Isle of Man, by, Hall Caine
(New York : D. Appleton & Co.), is reprinted from an English
story which has received high and deserved praise on the other
side of the water. It comes near being a great book ; but in
matters of art, as in the matter of noses, an inch is a good deal.
The scene is laid in an isolated community, where an anomalous
jurisdiction in affairs both secular and religious has produced
the effect of making naturally insular ways of considering things
more intensely insular; the time chosen is the beginning of the
last century. Now, to mention these two deliberately-elected
preliminaries on the part of Mr. Caine is also to say, by implica-
tion, that his book is one of those in which a great part of the
strength of their writers has been expended on those minute
local studies which the " realists " in modern fiction rely upon
as aids to illusion. To our notion, it is a serious mistake on
the part of any novelist to handicap himself in this way, chief-
ly because the effort he must make to quit his native atmos-'
phere of time and place is to himself a source of weakness, and
to his readers, both critical and uncritical, a more or less con-
scious bore. The strain is too visible, and the result, however
satisfactory in an archaeological point of view, either remains a
hopeless anachronism of sentiment and feeling, or sinks quickly
into the oblivion of dead failures. That sentiment and feeling
are modern is nothing against them, for true sentiment and feel-
ing are always modern. It is the old clothes, or the foreign
ones which sit badly on them, to which one objects. What
makes an artist is his power to co-ordinate his work, to fit all
his pieces into their own places, to plant his new creation firmly
on its feet and so set it going that it shall be its own only and
sufficient excuse for being. And that is a congenital power, not
to be acquired by any known methods, least of all by the
mechanical, " realistic " one of catalogue and inventory and
laborious particularization of non-essentials. For peculiarities
are what set apart and differentiate, and which irritate and
weary in so doing. It is the common and the universal that
unites and creates sympathy, as anybody may convince himself
in literature by remembering the books that have survived ; in
his private life by reflecting on what has drawn him to those
whom he most affects, and, if he have the experience of travel,

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 121

on what has most attracted and what has most repelled him in
the peoples among whom he has lived as an observer.

As a general dictum in literature this may seem doubtful to
those who remember Ivan/we, or who have laughed and cried
and thrilled, and read once more and so renewed all those expe-
riences, over what is, take it all in all and for the widest circle
of readers, the most wholesomely entertaining, and the most
certain to remain perennially so, of English novels for at least
two generations Blackmore's Lorna Doone. But is it really
doubtful ? Who ever failed to find the preliminary chapters of
Ivanhoe otherwise than tedious? Does the charm of the Two
Gentlemen of Verona owe anything to attempted reproductions
of Veronese fashions, customs, modes of speech? Do Julius
Cassar and Coriolanus owe their kinship to you and me to any
verbal trick or any cut of toga likening them to the Roman of
two thousand years ago ? A transcendental Volapiik is the
tongue of the literature that lives, and the natural man, and not
a tailor's lay figure, is what it deals with.

Mr. Caine, to return to him, is an admirable writer, and in
The Deemster he has produced an interesting story, with power-
ful episodes of passion, most poetically described bits of sea and
sky and water-scape, and admirably-contrived situations. But,
despite the heat and high pressure of some of these scenes, one
gets an impression of perfunctoriness on the part of the author
which is fatal to illusion. He has made some telling strokes in
The Deemster himself, but they too have an air of being plas-
tered on to a construction instead of growing out of a living
thing. The bishop inevitably recalls Mgr. Le Bienvenu in Les
Mise'rables ; Dan Mylrea is a Samson who somehow fails to carry
off the gates of Gaza; and one closes the book without finding
in it one character or one scene that will take its preordained
place in that enchanted world where Othello lives with Colonel
Newcome and William Dobbin ; where great Jan Ridd and
Carver Doone struggle for ever on the verge of the fatal quick-
sand ; where Harriet Byron perpetually lifts her hoop upon her
shoulderto make room for Sir Charles to flirt solemnly with her
in the window-ledge ; where William Wallace parts with Helen
in his dungeon ; where Lorna smiles and sad Rebekah weeps.
But those are high latitudes? Yes ; but it was for high latitudes
that Mr. Hall Caine trimmed his sails. Perhaps he might
have reached them had he equipped himself more simply ?
Alas! in matters of creative art the question of equipment alone
is fundamental, and, like those vital processes art seeks to imi-
tate, it is not settled by volition.

122 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [April,

The Marquis Biddie-Cope, being, as we suppose, a Catholic,
is to be condoled with on the success of his second novel, Mad
(London: Ward &. Downey). The copy which we have just
consigned to the fire belongs to its third edition. Though it
lies for sale on Catholic counters, has Catholics for its chief
characters, and has an "edifying" end, we cannot fail to warn
the pure-minded to avoid it. There is a good deal of very fair
work in it. The marquis evidently knows his Philadelphia ; he
can draw a very life-like quadroon, and various kinds of male
and female Americans, none of them being of a specially desira-
ble kind to make acquaintance with. But he understands him-
self and his materials quite well enough to make one wonder
why a Christian gentleman should indulge an imagination so
needlessly satyr-like as he has shown himself to possess in the
drawing of Lelia Charlton. Not many French caterers to im-
morality can have been guilty of more vile suggestion than he ;
nor, professedly materialist, could they have so intensified the
offence as this " Christian " has done by asking " kind judgment "
for a woman shamelessly vicious, at the very moment of her
self-invited sin, and quoting as his authority for so doing that " un-
impeachable philosopher and lawgiver who . . . long centuries
ago, in the Levant, . . . was called once to judge one of these
same crimes of rebel love." Love ! The word is an insult to
decency applied as the Marquis Biddle-Cope here applies it.
His book is one of those which leave a bad taste in the mouth,
and which owe their run chiefly to that fact. That he plunges
his heroine into hell at the last, and " converts" his hero by show-
ing, in a page or two of very pretty rhetoric, how he never could
overcome the temptation that had mastered him until, throwing
away all his proud reliance on principle and intellect and so on,
he cast himself on the mercy of the Virgin Mother of Purity,
is but meagre atonement for the four-hundred-odd pages of evil
suggestion, defective taste, and, for the most part, very bad
manners which precede them. The pity is the greater because
the man who degraded his talent in this way is plainly capable
of better things.

An Unlaid Ghost : A Study in Metempsychosis (New York : D.
Appleton & Co.) has the distinction of a dedication to the shade
of one to whose "cultured advice and sympathetic encourage-
ment " it " owes its being "; the dignity of a prologue bristling
with classical and unclassical names; an epilogue which has no
salient points; an object, which is to group its "puppets with suf-
ficient effect to induce the inference that the transmigration of

I888.J TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 123

the soul may be, if not an irrefutable fact, at least a possibility ";
and, in spite of all these drawbacks, the merit of brevity, as it
covers less than one hundred and eighty small pages of large
print. We grieve to say that it has no other merit. It is stu<
pidly bombastic in its earlier portion, the " Story of Poppsea,"
the wife of Nero, and extremely absurd in the later one, the
."Story of Hortense," in which the transmigrating soul of
Poppasa re-fleshes itself in a French governess, an orphan prott-
ge"e of the Sozurs de Notre Dame de Compassion in Paris. Poppaea,
as our readers if their memories are good, or if they are pro-
perly provided with classical dictionaries may know, was a very
naughty person. The author of An Unlaid Ghost, who seems to
have evolved her personality from such a dictionary and a pri-
vate theory as to the fitting appearance of naughty persons of her
peculiar kind, describes her as " beautiful enough to have sum-
moned admiring Phidias from the nether world to worship." A
contemporary medal which it might have been good for her to
see we suppose the nameless author to be a woman shows
Poppaea to have had a face large and masculine in character,
firm-mouthed, and extremely Roman-nosed lineaments which
doubtless lend themselves not ill to sculpture, yet not precisely
fitted to make sculptors, whether in or out of "the nether
world," go mad about them. Poppaea, having obtained the mur-
der of Octavia, receives the present of a casket which she sup-
poses to contain that lady's jewels, but which does, as a matter
of fact, contain "not jewels, nor gory tribute of ensanguined
cloth, nor precious ashes, but the severed head of Nero's lawful
spouse ! " Neither italics nor punctuation are ours. Poppasa
naturally recoils " with a stifled shriek, knotting her hands in
the masses of her bronze-brown hair ; but ere she had shrunk
beyond the pale of those rebuking eyes, a voice, low yet distinct
as the clarion's call, pierced the sepulchral silence of the cham-
ber."

The voice, as may be guessed, is Octavia's, and what she has
to say is this :

" Wrap thee in thy pilfered purples as thou wilt, the hour is at hand
when thy naked soul, stripped of its meretricious mask, shall wander forth
into the grayness of the nether world, there to await its summons back to
earth. . . . The oblivion of ages thou shalt know."

Oblivion, even for a ghost, might, one would suppose, proper-
ly belong to things in a strict sense unknowable ; but Octavia,
being already a ghost, may have had a wrinkle on that point in-

124 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [April,

appreciable to mere mundane intelligence. At all events, after
threatening Poppaea with that, humanly speaking, most intan-
gible of apprehensions, she goes on as follows :

"Thou shalt hang suspended 'twixt heaven and earth until, in the
divine economy that rules the universe, a place is found suited to the inci-
pience of thy penance. . . . Then thou shall be born again. In the flesh
thou shalt taste the temptations to which thou hast succumbed, but with
this difference : thine eyes shall be opened, thou wilt be no stranger to
the dangers which encompass thee, and yet thou wilt be mortal ! Such
will be the penalty of thy crimes. Thou wilt yet live to learn that not only
niayst thou do evil voluntarily but unwittingly, simply by reason of the
fact that thou hast existence. It may not be thy will to injure, thy object
in life, nor even thy fault; the possible harm will reside in the fatality of
thy nature. Know that no spirit returns whence it sprang unpurified.
Should it be smirched in its original existence, it will be tried and tried
again in the fiery furnace of successive experience until it assumes the
immaculate purity of its archetype. . . . Farewell, farewell! Octavia's
spirit, too long detained, hastens to its account relieved of its last be-
hest. . . . Poppaea ! Poppaea ! Poppzea! a long farewell ! v

Now, why should these lofty and beautiful sentiments so irre-
sistibly push one to the incongruous remark that hereupon
Octavia's loquacious ghost incontinently skips?

The practised novel-reader sees at once what a wide field this
opens to a writer anxious to create sensations. To her credit
be it spoken, she has been pretty modest in the range she has
actually taken. Mademoiselle Hortense de Barthe, the re-incar-
nated Poppaea, when introduced anew, is a French girl of nine-
teen or so, who returns from her first situation as a governess to
the " House of Our Lidy of Compassion," because she has been
dismissed by her employer. Her crime is that of having been
fallen in love with by her employer's son, who has been sent to
Algiers in consequence and been killed there. With the fact of
her dismissal she acquaints Madame la Supfrieure, but conceals
the cause, which has in it nothing dishonorable to herself, al-
though she has returned with ardor the love given. Madame re-
fuses to believe that Hortense has not been guilty of some grave
misdemeanor. " Madame Rochlembert," she says, " is not an
unreasonable woman. We were intimate friends ;////// I took holy
orders, and I know her as well as I know myself." However, she
gradually cools down, and secures Hortense a new position in
the English family of Lady Constance Lockroy, where she is to
supervise the education of a " radiant boy of six years," who,
when asked by the nun whether he speaks French fluently, re-
plies: "<9A, non, Madame la Suptrieure ; mats je parle asses de

I888.J TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 125

fairc mon chemin" Hortense departs with her precocious pupil,
and " it was a very complacent lady-superior who returned to
her oratory to find the mornings mail awaiting her perusal."

And now Hortense's troubles begin. First Master Floris
gets a sunstroke and dies, and the governess wants to go back
to the "I louse of Compassion," because she feels that she is
"ill-starred," that she " brings calamity on those she loves best."
"O my lady," she cries, all-unconscious that she is Poppsea,
and serving out her term for murder and other deeds of dark-
ness, " I know not what fatality it is that possesses me, but, as
Heaven is my judge, 1 know that I am born to work involuntary
ill !" Lady Constance persists in detaining her as a friend, but
sees reason to deplore doing so when her husband presently suc-
cumbs to the charms of her companion and falls, though vainly
yet irrecoverably, in love with her. This time Hortense really
does go back to the " House of Compassion," where, as she writes
later on to Lady Constance, the superior receives her

" with almost ecstatic fervor, assuring me that for weeks she had striven to
learn my address. And when I asked in wonder whether she would have
recalled me to her fold, she answered: 'To-morrow at sunrise go into the
chapel, pray fervently to thy all-merciful Creator, and be answered !' Did my
prophetic soul speak to me in the still watches of that endless night ? Was
some hint vouchsafed me of the reparation in store for all my sufTcrings?
Ah ! I know not ; but when I saw him in the gray light of the dawn, stand-
ing in the shadow of the high altar [!], saw the man whom I had mourned as
dead, to whose memory I had vowed eternal fealty and love, I cried, ' Paul ! '
and fell upon his bosom, assured that no spectre-bridegroom hud come to
claim me in the eleventh hour of my desolation."

Now, there's a consummation "just too sweet for anything,"
and a reader who is not convinced by it that " the transmigra-
tion of the soul may be, if not an irrefutable fact, at least a pos-
sibility," must almost be a hardened sceptic.

The Man Jlehind, by T. S. Denison (Chicago : T. S. Denison),
like An Unlaid Ghost, is a novel with a preface, and also with
some concluding "Remarks on the Dialect" employed in it,
which is that of the " Paw-paw State." A note to the " Lite-
rary Editor," pasted on its fly-leaf, assures that nameless ami
widely-disseminated impassibility that " this book deals with a
most important question," to which its author " respectfully in-
vites . . . careful attention." The preface gives a further hint by
saying that " The Man AV///W deals with three master-passion?,
love, avarice, and vaulting ambition." Even with the help of
these clues, and our most " careful attention," we have failed to

126 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [April,

discover that the novel, as distinguished from other novels, deals
with any matters of supreme importance. It has a good plot,
which we will not undertake to condense ; it has some clever
dialogue in "dialect," which does not owe all its cleverness to
its dialect, wherein it differs from that of a good many other
novels of the period ; it has also a number of reflections couched
in its author's best " English undefiled " to which we owe some
pleasant minutes. Here is one of them, which occurs in the
final Remarks on Dialect:

"/ the use of words this speech can make but little better showing. In
some localities the poverty of diction is remarkable, especially among the
mountaineers and the timber-men of the early days. Such words as
chaotic, indigent, incompatible, subsequently, graphic, are Greek to all but
the better-informed, and would seldom be employed even by them. In-
stead of saying a family was in indigent circumstances, a person inhabiting
the locus of The Man Behind would be apt to say, ' They are as poor as a
church-mouse.' "

Alas! the schoolmaster, the newspaper, and the "drummer"
are on their road to that now happy " locus," and their indi-
gence of adjectives and plenitude of simile and metaphor will
presently yield to influences which may even lift them to the
verbal level of their historian. Meantime, here is one sample of
the better things they still retain, for which we can vouch as
faithful to more neighhorhoods than are included in the " Paw-
paw State." " Josh Croup," with his wife and sister, are about
to attend a revival meeting:

" Josh remarked, in a confidential mood, one day to his sister : ' I don't
s'pose Gabrel himself could convert Sol ; but, as fur me, if that preacher
hits me square between the eyes agin, as he did last night, I'm a goner.
I'll go forrid, if Mattie and Sol do sneer.'

'"That's right, Josh. It's our jooty to do what we think is right, an'
pay no attention to the sneers of others.'

"'You know the preacher said unbelievin' pardners was a snare and a
stumblin'-block.'

' ' Yes, an' I guess Sol is about the biggest stumblin'-block ever set up
in this settlement.'

" ' 'Nless it's Mattie. Nobody knows the aggravatinness of that
woman when she tries. But I've a mind o* my own, I guess, on religious
matters, an' if the preacher hits jme plum between the eyes agin I'm goin',
sure, in spite o' the Ole Boy.'

"Josh was taken square between the eyes about once in two or three
years. Then he ' went forward,' joined the church again, attended meeting
regularly for two or three months, irregularly for a while, and finally be-
came a backslider. Mattie, it must be confessed with regret, was a per-
sistent sinner. Her experiences with Christianity, as exemplified in her

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 127

husband and brothers, had not been favorable. She looked with contempt
on the confessions of Josh thus irregularly made and regularly forgotten.
She had been known to remark more than once that if the devil ever did
get her he wouldn't get a hypocrite.

"On the present evening Sol, Mahala, Josh, and Mattie were present,
and the timber set were in full force. The house was packed till there was
scarcely room to open and close hymn-books. When the invitation was
extended, Mahala Pickrell was the first to rise and confess her sins. Josh
squirmed uneasily in his seat and whispered : ' It's a-comin', Mattie; I feel it.'
" ' Keep still, can't ye ?'

" After a pause he tried to rise, but his next neighbor was sitting on his
long coat-tails, and Josh, not calculating on resistance, lost his balance,
and to his great surprise dropped back into his seat. In his excitement he
failed to discover the cause and shouted out :

" 'The Ole Boy is pullin' my coat-tails, but I'm goin' in spite of him.'
'' Mattie said in a stage-whisper : ' Josh, I wouldn't be a tormented fool.'
" ' Come forward, brother, where the devil can't reach your coat-tails,'
shouted a good brother from the amen corner, and Josh accepted the invi-
tation with alacrity. Bill Timberlin and his wife followed the example of
their brother-in-law, and soon the mourners' bench was crowded. Dick
Steele came forward, but there was no place for him at the mourners' seat,
and he kneeled beside the stove along with two or three other penitents.
Dick was a backslider. He joined church every fall, and relapsed into his
old ways before spring. When under the influence he was a shouter. The
hymns were sung with lusty voices and a ring that was most inspiring, till
the whole congregation was at white heat, and many were swaying to and
fro in unison with the rhythm. Dick Steele howled incessantly like a mad-
man. At the lines,

1 If you get there before I do,
Look out for me, I'm coming too,'

.he bounded to his feet, and exclaiming, ' I'm going, I'm going !' began with-
out more ado to climb the stove-pipe. The feat, as maybe imagined, was
impracticable, and demonstrated the futility of short cuts to heaven. Down
came the joints of stove-pipe and tin pans over the heads of the preacher
and the mourners. Women who knew what was the matter screamed,
and those who did not, owing to the intense state of excitement into
which they had worked themselves, shouted amen. Soot flew in clouds,
and all was confusion, while two or three brethren had sustained slight
cuts and bruises by the falling pipe. When the real nature of the accident
was realized some of the ungodly in the rear of the room began to laugh."

Miss Eliza Allen Starr has gathered into one well-bound and
well-printed volume of some four hundred pages, of which she is
herself the publisher (Chicago : St. Joseph's Cottage, 229 Huron
Street), her Songs of a Lifetime. They should be welcome to all
who love poetry. We went through the book, pencil in hand,
intending to make a selection here and there which should be
specially characteristic of her muse at what we thought its best.
But our pencil stopped too often. Miss Starr's excellence, con-

128 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [April,

sidering its high level, is astonishingly even. It is like an ex-
panse of waving, daisy-sown grass on a lofty table-land. Her in-
spiration is almost always fresh, her melody true, and her choice
of words felicitous. Witness the opening lines of the " Occulta-
tion of Venus " as an instance not merely of the latter merit, but
of her sense of what makes a picture to the mind :

"The virgin moon with one clear star
Poised lightly on its shining horn."

Miss Starr's poetry is laden like a honeybee with that most fra-
grant of motives, if one know how to bear it wisely, religious
sentiment and emotion. But she has other themes the house-
hold affections with their joys and sorrows, patriotism and
friendship ; she has, too, the deft touch that knows what to take
and what to leave in description, so as to reproduce in the reader
what has been felt and seen by the beholder. Poetry is the pecu-
liar gift of youth of young nations as well as of young singers.
So we shall not wrong Miss Starr if we prefer her earlier to her
later poems. We are not even sure that of them all our choice
would not permanently abide by that one of them which bears
the earliest date: " A Girl's Hymn to St. Agnes." Yet there is
" Orion " to try conclusions with it, and " Cold," which touches
a chord which George Herbert also touches. But the book is a
full one in many senses, and can hardly fail to be a household
favorite.

WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

STORY OF A CONVERSION.

I was brought up in a strict Methodist household, both parents being sincere
in their faith and devout in their practice of it. My father, however, had tastes
and inclinations wider than his creed, and, in particular, a love for literature and
a determination to give his children all the education they were capable of.
Nothing differenced him so widely from his churchly associates as this determi-
nation. He reared six of us, not one of whom has yet entered his particular
" narrow path," nor one failed to be grateful to him for letting down the bars be-
tween it and open pastures.

In my own case there were two causes which conspired to forbid any such
issue for my religious aspirations as joining the Methodist Church. I was taken
once, when a very little girl, into the presence of our Lord upon the altar. If I

1 3 88.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 129

say it was an instinct which kept that memory vivid, when most of what must
have clustered about it faded an instinct which from the first gave the word
" Catholic," heard or seen or spoken, a sacramental value, by virtue of which it
touched a chord in my soul that vibrated and made me homesick for I knew not
what I shall tell the truth, though the name I give the fact is likely enough to
be incorrect. An instinct all creatures of the same species ought to share. Per-
haps it may have been a special grace. And side by side with this experience
lay another namely, an aversion, growing with my years, for the emotional vul-
garity which forced itself on my notice in churches and prayer-meetings, and
for the gross ignorance about things, the knowledge of which should be the com-
mon property of all who essay to teach, whjch now and again irritated me in ser-
mons and Sunday-school lessons.

The mental process I went through before deliberately rejecting what I had
been taught on the subject of Christianity was short and simple. I had known
all my life, almost, that the members of different Protestant churches differed
widely among themselves on various points of doctrine. Baptists I knew, and
Presbyterians, and had heard the special tenets of the one sect ridiculed, and
those of the other rejected with horror. Episcopalians, too, came within my
circle of touch, and their exclusiveness and their claim to be " the church " were
not unseldom made merry over in my hearing. But I was past eighteen when
a school acquaintance, wishing to express strong incredulity about some alleged
fact, said to me, " Why, I believe thai, as little as I believe the Immaculate Con-
ception." "What Immaculate Conception?" I asked; "that of the Virgin
Mary ? " '' No, that of Jesus Christ." A shocked surprise ran through me, and
neither of us pursued the subject farther. But thereupon the door opened in
my mind, which I went through at once to seek what reason I had for belief in
the Christian doctrine. I found none but the fact that I had been taught it by
parents and teachers, who themselves believed because they thought the Bible
divinely inspired. Why did they think so ? Why must I hold the stories I found
in that book as true in any different sense from those in the old Rollin's Ancient
History ? which, being bound in red leather like one of the family Bibles, had
often got confused with it in my mind when I pored over both of them as a little
girl. I came, that is to say, face to face with the question of authority. At the
first step I made toward " giving myself a reason for the faith that " had been
taught me, I found none sufficient to establish facts so extraordinary, and I drop-
ped the facts. To do so cost me neither emotional pain nor mental struggle.
Rather, it was a relief to get rid of the hateful notion that, because these things
were true, it would some day be necessary to " get religion " and become one
more unit in a community which I recoiled from. My belief had been no real
part of me a mere heavy cloak instead, which I endured because I had taken
the clasp at the neck for a rivet. Since it was only a hook and eye, I undid it
and left the encumbrance lying where it fell.

I do not mean that I at once abandoned belief in God. I had for a while a
mild enthusiasm for Dr. Channing and a more pronounced one for Theodore
Parker. But the road which leads away from Christianity to the marsh in which
the personality of God is lost is not a long one, and I am a swift walker. I was
floundering in it up to my neck, and in despair of finding firm ground again, even
before I married. But my children were born before I made any serious effort
to replace by a more intelligent faith that which I had thrown aside. When
I did so it never once occurred to me to consider any form of Protestantism. I

VOL. XLVII. 9

130 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [April,

turned without hesitation toward the Catholic Church. Early in 1866 I went
with a friend to visit Father Hecker. I have but one vivid recollection of the
interview, and that is the definite impression I got that if I could ever be as sure
as he that God became incarnate and taught men what to believe and what to
do, there would be no room left in me for anything but absolute obedience to
him. I foresaw that to accept that teaching would be to change the whole
current of my life. Had I felt myself perfectly free to act I would have faced
about without a day's delay ; but the domestic obstacles, if not many, were strong,
and at that time I did nothing further.

In the summer of that year my father died. My grief for him was profound
and long continued, and thenceforward the attraction I felt toward the church
began perceptibly the weakening of the counter-forces which held me back.
We went to the Adifondacks that season, and were joined by a friend of my
husband, a Columbia College man, who, after studying for Protestant Episcopal
orders, had become a Catholic. Notwithstanding the change, he was by no
means of exemplary life ; but at this time I did not know it. One Sunday evening,
sitting with my husband and me, he administered a mild rebuke because I be-
gan work on a little sock I was knitting. "Tell me, Mr. ," I said, when the

talk had run for a while on religious topics, " are you a better man because
you are a Catholic ? " He hesitated, gave me no direct answer, and the con-
versation turned. But when we were alone, my husband, whose aversion to
Catholicity was then extreme, said to me that he was never better pleased in his
life than when he heard that question put. "" I don't know what he would have
told you had I not been present,'' he added, " but, considering the confessions he
volunteered to me this afternoon, that must have been a staggerer." I relate
the incident here only because it illustrates a certain tendency in my mind. . The
religion whose attraction for me lay in the hope that it possessed a regenerating
power had failed to amend this zealous adherent, but to know that fact did not
even suggest a cessation from my search. So far as I know, the only question
that ever arose in my mind about Catholicity was, Is it true? Could it be
shown to be so, I would have only my own acceptance of its doctrines and my
own practice of its laws to answer for.

In the winter of 1867 I made another Catholic acquaintance, one of my hus-
band's intimates, and a man of great subtlety of mind and wide cultivation. He
belonged to a Catholic family, but had married a Protestant who changed her
religion soon after their marriage. Our first greetings were hardly over when a
question bearing on what was then permanently uppermost in my thoughts came

to my lips : " Did you make a Catholic of your wife, Mr. ? " " No," he said,

with a smile, " it was just the other way. She made a Catholic of me." " What
do you mean ? " " Well, I had the religion always, but only in my head. She
got it there and in her life also, and then she transferred it to mine." He used
to bring me books occasionally, and came often with his wife. Like ourselves,
they were parents, and I remember saying once, when the children were talked
of, that I found it increasingly hard to take any real interest in the future of my
own boys. " Life is so short," I said, " and unless there is something after it, of
which I have no certainty, what better are they or we than the beasts ? If we
are cut off to-day or to-morrow, what does it matter what we do or suffer
now ? " I recall his answer also : " I'll tell you what ails you. You should be a
Catholic. For ten years I was in just such a condition of mind as that speech
indicates." " And what did you do ? You were a Catholic already." " I began
to practise what I believed."

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 131

If any one asks me to describe the logical processes by which I came to know
Catholic truth, I answer that it is hard to do so ; let the reader gather it from
what I here write of the circumstances and the mental struggles attending my
conversion. The Catholic religion got the allegiance of my intelligence by influ-
ences of mingled logical and emotional power. As the French say : " Le cceur
a ses raisons que la raison ne cornprend point." There are avenues between ob-
jective truth and the human mind not amenable to the descriptive methods of the
guide-books of logic. I was in doubt in the very despair of doubt. I am in the
quiet possession of the truth of God, and I can prove it.

In the summer of 1868 I applied for instruction to the present Bishop of Og-
densburg. I mentioned to him no doubts that I wanted to have cleared up,
but simply asked to be prepared for baptism. As is usual in such cases, he gave
me a little catechism, bade me learn the prayers, the Apostles' Creed, and as
much more as I was able before returning at a day and hour which he named.
I did as he told me, and began also to teach my little boys their first prayers.
But when I went back to Father Wadhams I found that he had been unexpect-
edly called out of town. My husband was both grieved and angry when I told
him of what I had done, and that combination was once more too much for me.
Moreover, although I had taken so decided a step, it was, after all, a step in the
dark. My one doubt, Is there a God who has revealed himself as Man to men ?
often seemed as far from being solved as ever. If that is true, as my Catholic
friends affirm, I said to myself, how can it be possible that all this bitter travail
of the soul should be necessary in order to find him ? He would write the reve-
lation of Jesus Christ in the skies if it were needful for us to believe in him.
None could help seeing it.

Once, when thoughts like these were in my mind, I was walking in the woods
and all alone. Presently I came upon a rustic oratory which some Ritualistic
campers who preceded us had fitted up. A rough cross, made of boughs, hung
on the trunk of a huge tree in a little clearing. I sat down before it and looked
at it with a great longing. I did not want a God a long way off in the heavens ;
I wanted him close at hand. Why not a God incarnate and of my nature, since
all my nature desired him ?

I think I ought to have persevered at this time, and said to myself what I did
say later that I also was an independent human being, alone, like all the rest of
us, in what concerns our deepest needs. I came into the world alone ; no one
eats or drinks for me ; I think my own thoughts, perform my own actions, and I
shall die alone. No doubt I did say it even then, but to act upon it required more
courage than I possessed. Not acting, I fell back, as I have said, into my doubts.
I wrote a good deal for the press the following winter, and, in doing so, some-
times expressed them even more forcibly than I felt them. I acted as though I
held a brief for what I took to be my mind against what I knew to be my heart.
" My eyes were holden," is all the account I can give of my state.

About this time I called on Father Hewit. In one of our talks he said to me
that my doubts were fundamental, and that until they were removed he would
advise me to take no further step toward the church. The trouble, I think, lay
in my inability to express myself clearly, or to clearly comprehend what he was
saying. For me the door of the church was obstructed to the last with obsta-
cles of all sorts, both from those within and those without, and nothing kept me
knocking there but the strong interior drawing which oppressed me. I was
floundering, but the hook was in my gillg.

By the spring of 1870 my -trouble of mind began to react so strongly on

132 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [April,

my health that three physicians, specialists all, each settled on a different
mortal disease to account for my symptoms. I had made several efforts that
winter to see a priest again, but had been thwarted once by being locked up in
my room. We went to live in New Jersey in May, my husband's office remaining
in New York. I was glad of the change, thinking that some day I could manage
to find a church and ask for baptism. I was like a starving beggar who knows
where bread is to be had and means to spend his last breath in imploring it. On
Ascension Thursday in that year I met in the street a friend, who said : " I am
going over to New York to Trinity Church. Will you come along? " Before thq
service began we walked among the graves, and, listening to the chimes, I said to
myself, still hesitating to take the step which was going to cost so much to others,
if not to me : " After all, why need I be a Roman Catholic ? Why not an Epis-
copalian ? No one would object to that, and how do I know that it would not
answer every purpose ?" My friend, who, like most of those who knew me, was
not in ignorance of the struggle I was passing through, presently put the same
suggestion into words, assuring me that her church had rll that was essential in
Catholicism and had thrown off only its most objectionable features. " All
right," I said ; "some religion I must have if I am to keep on living, and I will
take this." We entered the church, and directly afterwards a procession of
clerics issued from a side-door and went chanting down the aisles. As they did
so one old impression, familiar to me whenever I had attended service in a
church belonging to this sect, and born of my knowledge of its history and actual
inspection of it an impression of its humbug and unreality came over me with
greater force than ever. Dr. Dix preached the sermon, and a very good sermon
it was. In the midst of it I knelt down and vowed to God that if I lived to get
out of the church I would go straightway to Fifty- ninth Street and ask to be
received. So I did. I remember asking Father Hewit if he would admit me to
baptism, knowing that the opposition to it was as strong as ever on the part of,
my family, and that I meant to take no further means to overcome it but that
of secrecy. He had lent me so many books and talked to me so frequently that
he probably thought me a fully prepared catechumen which I was not, having
still only the blind desire I have endeavored to describe. He objected at first,
but finally said that I was myself the best judge of how much 1 had endured and
could still endure. He would recommend openness, but not urge it. For me, I
was pushed to the wall. I knew I could hold out no longer unless strength
greater than my own existed somewhere for me. " Come back to-morrow, then,"
Father Hewit said at last, " and you shall be received.' 1 To-morrow was long in
coming, and when it came my husband proposed to remain at home all day on
account of some slight illness. But it occurred to him to ask me to go over to
the city to transact some little business for him, and I availed myself of the
chance to fulfil my engagement. That was the 27th of May, 1870. It is the 26th
of December, 1887, when I finish this story for which you have asked me. I
have had troubles enough, of one kind and another, between those two dates. But
they have differed by the width of the heavens from those which went before
them. Those tossed me hither and thither like a shuttlecock ; these have beaten
me, but as waves beat against a rock. The others were worth enduring. I
should never, I think, have known the full value of the pearl of great price if it
had not cost me all I had to buy it yes, and to keep it.

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 133

ART NOTES THE LITTLE SALON.

The art season proper may be supposed to open with the opening of the
" Little Salon,'' the exhibition of pictures at the Cercle Artistique et Littdraire in
the Rue Volney.

This pleasant club, familiarly called by its votaries the " Crtmerie," has been
somewhat overshadowed of late by its rival, the Mirlitons, but this year the
members have pulled themselves together, and their efforts are worthy of con-
gratulation. There is, as usual, a great deal of rubbish a large proportion of
those extraordinary fantasies in green and effects in red that creep into an exhibi-
tion of this kind but, taken on the whole, the work is quite up to the usual
standard.

Henner has two pictures, the first a mere study, called "An Evening after
a Storm," a scrap of bituminous-brown landscape, with a strip of green in the
middle distance, a watery blue sky, and a misty pool, all of which we have seen
over and over again, and which yet the Alsatian master knows how to invest with
such charm th"at we never tire of looking at them ; his second picture is a portrait,
painted with a degree more care and with the same lavish use of brown brown
are the coat, the beard, and the cap of this singularly unattractive-looking per-
son, whose social position is a complete puzzle. To the last we are uncertain
whether Monsieur Henner's model was a tramp or an artist with a weakness for
the picturesque in his apparel.

"On the Banks of a Stream," by Bouguereau, shows an insipid little girl dab-
bling her feet in a brook. The flesh has the usual porcelain quality, and the
rushes and iris in the background are rather irritating in their pretty details.

Monsieur Brispot's " Abb6 Constantin " is among the most attractive pictures
in the exhibition, and has value as an illustration of one of the most charming
stories of the last few years. The episode chosen is the first scene in Bettina's
romance. She and her sister are at the gate of the presbytery, while the good
old priest steps forward to welcome his new parishioners. Behind him are his
servant and his nephew, Jean; the young lieutenant, in his smart uniform, holds
a bowl of peas in his hand and has a somewhat sheepish look on his face.

Monsieur Maignan's " St. Mark's," a corner of the incomparable church at
Venice, and his " Baptistery at Ravenna,'' are both interesting and true. The
latter is a particularly charming reminiscence of the quaint old building, with its
Roman arches, its stone altar, and its mosaics.

Benjamin Constant's " Evening Effect " is meant to be dreamy, and sue
ceeds in being dreary. There is no interest attached to the (supposed) hermit
who is watching the sunlight fade behind the rocky hills.

Frangois Flameng's " Halt of a Regiment of the Line, 1789," is in his best and
happiest manner. The white-clad soldiers rest in a meadow with a soft distance
of hill and sea. The atmosphere is perfect, as is the rendering of the gray even-
ing twilight.

The landscapes are few and unnoticeable. The best among them is perhaps
Monsieur Damoye's " Heath at St. Marguerite's." The foreground, of purple
heather and scrub, merges into a surfy sea. Monsieur Roll's " Normandy Gar-
den " is a fresh and delightful composition, though there is something distinctly
fly-away about the trunk of one of his apple-trees.

America is represented by the two Oriental painters, Bridgman and Weeks.
The former sends a " Portrait of Madame B.," daintily and effectively rendered.
The lady wears a blue cotton dress and garden hat, and holds a pale pink sun-

134 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [April,

shade in her hand. The latter shows yet one more of his brilliant Indian sou-
venirs, " In a Perfumer's Shop at Bombay." A pretty Indian girl is trifling with
a scent-bottle ; behind her is a somewhat overwhelming row of blue jars a little
too thick in their glazed solidity.

Another Eastern artist, Monsieur Arcos, treads closely on the heels of the
Americans with his two Algerian studies, " Kiffe et Kousse Kausse," 1 in which a
white-robed Arab, with an air of imperturbable solemnity, squats smoking on
the ground ; and " Distrust and Persuasion," wherein a wily old Jew bazaar-
keeper urges a pair of yellow babouches on a half-eager, half-reluctant pur-
chaser.

Mr. Stephen Hills Parker gives us a portrait of a child, " Mademoiselle N."
One wonders why such portraits should be shown beyond the model's own home
circle. They are doubtless possessed of interest in the eyes of fond parents and
friends, but their namby-pamby prettiness only calls forth unkind remarks from
the general public.

"The Portrait of Mademoiselle G.," by Jules Lefebvre, is almost as insipid;
it is white, graceful, and generally suggestive of ice-cream.

Very different is Bonnat's " Portrait of M. D." The features of this elderly
gentleman are rugged, perhaps almost vulgar, but are painted with a force and
strength that cannot fail to make the picture, to painters at least, an interesting
one ; but even its strong merits sink into insignificance beside Carolus Duran's
magnificent "Portrait of Miss A. B.," one of the finest things this painter has
given us for years. The face is most fascinating in its petulant, girlish beauty,
round-cheeked, dark-eyed, with full red lips and waving hair; the white and pur-
ple of the dress are painted as Carolus Duran alone knows how to paint white
and purple, and the whole makes one of the finest portraits the master has ever
given us. J.

Paris.

ANTHONY COMSTOCK AND DR. FULTON.
The following letter has been handed us for publication :

THE NEW YORK SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE,

150 Nassau Street, Room 9, New York, Feb. 14, 1888.
DEAR SIR: I regret that I was absent at the time you called at this office.
Permit me to say that I have not " recommended " or " endorsed " Dr. Ful-
ton's book, Why Priests should Wed. I never saw the book (with the excep-
tion of a few pages of MSS.) until a long while after it was published. Indeed,
it was the day of his meeting in the Academy of Music in Brooklyn that I first
saw the book.

About the middle of December I saw a few pages of the MSS. That was
after the publishers had refused to publish it. Under my advice portions of the
MSS. which I saw (which included about two chapters) were stricken out. I
wrote a letter at that time expressing my confidence in Dr. Fulton and the
honesty of his convictions ; but the "endorsement" of this book is an entirely
different matter.

I cannot allow my name to be dragged into this controversy. I have a cause
which, in my judgment, is of vastly more importance to defend and stand fo*r.
You are at liberty to use this statement in any manner you desire.
Very respectfully yours,

ANTHONY COMSTOCK, Secretary.

.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 135

We never have met Mr. Comstock, but we surmise from some of his connec-
tions that he is an honest Protestant of the perfervid type and perhaps deeply
deceived about the Catholic Church. It is also plain that he has known Fulton
and trusted him ; and these two circumstances are enough to account for his
being inveigled into writing a letter which the friends of obscene art and some
over-eager defenders of the church have called an " endorsement" a letter amply
explained by the one above printed. Mr. Comstock is, we think, now aware that
his confidence in Fulton was misplaced. We are firmly persuaded that if the
whole book and not only a small portion had passed under Mr. Comstock's cen-
sorship the cleansing process would have left something altogether unsuitable
for Fulton's purposes : when the poisonous sizing had all been washed out the
texture would have fallen to pieces. Meantime we accept Mr. Comstock's dis-
avowal of endorsement as unquestionably honest and entirely satisfactory. Great
as may be his dislike for our religion (if he does dislike it), his hatred of the foul
reading and filthy art that poisons the air the souls of the people breathe is
infinitely greater.

Fine points about " high art " and " the works of the best artists " are of no
avail in this matter. The friends of decency ought to be on Anthony Com-
stock's side in this quarrel. In the last number of the North American Review .
Ingersoll argues with his wonted florid rhetoric against duty, morality, or any other
ethical idea having anything to do with true art. " Art," he says, " has nothing to
do directly with morality or immorality." " In the presence of the pure, unconscious
nude, nothing can be more contemptible than those forms in which are the hints
and suggestions of drapery, the pretence of exposure, and the failure to conceal.
The undressed is vulgar, the nude is pure. Old Greek statues, frankly, proudly
nude, whose free and perfect limbs have never known the sacrilege of clothes,
were and are as free from taint, as pure, as stainless as the image of the morning
star trembling in a drop of perfumed dew." " The nude in art has rendered
holy the beauty of woman. Every Greek statue pleads for mothers and sisters."
" The Venus de Milo, that even mutilation cannot mar, tends only to the elevation
of our race. It is a miracle of majesty and beauty, the supreme idea of the su-
preme woman. It is a melody in marble. All the lines meet in a kind of volup-
tuous and glad content. The pose is rest itself. The eyes are filled with thoughts
of love. The breast seems dreaming of a child.'' " Genius is the spirit of
abandon ; it is joyous and irresponsible. It moves in the swell and curves of
billows ; it is careless of conduct and consequence," etc.

There is your genuine pagan defence of art for the sake of art alone. We
have only to say that no Christian can approve a view of art which is careless of
conduct and consequences, boasts of its un-morality, thinks the least hint and
suggestion of drapery contemptible, and says the frankly, proudly nude is pure.
The mothers and sisters of such pagan art are not Christian maidens and ma-
trons. The miracle of female majesty and beauty we Christians venerate, the
supreme ideal of womanhood we uphold, is not the mythological harlot Venus,
but the Immaculate Virgin and Mother, Mary of Nazareth.

To oppose Mr. Comstock is, in our opinion, to oppose the most effective pub-
lic corrective we have against the obscene in art and literature. There is nobody
that the makers and venders of the obscene so much dread as Mr. Comstock.
The police and the courts have shown praiseworthy co-operation with him,
and have really rejoiced that a specialist like him, embodying, too, the best and
most decent public, opinion, has taken charge of ferreting out this species of secret
crime.

136 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [April,

To oppose Mr. Comstock may not be to side with Bob Ingersoll as to the
office of art ; but it is to show one's self unaware of the harm that is wrought by
bad books, pictures, and statues. Not every one is in a position to know how
many thousands of souls are lost by their means. Not every citizen has the duty
of filtering the moral sewers of our great city.

Will the avowed enemies of the Society for the Suppression of Vice deny Mr.
Comstock's service in procuring the judicial condemnation and the hangman's
destruction of bad printed matter ? Will they say that the police who assisted
him are fanatics, the judges cranks, the juries enemies of high art the judges,
juries, and police who locked up their martyrs of high art ?

As to any peculiar personal traits of Mr. Comstock, as to his over-trustfulness
of a mountebank lecturing friend, as to occasional blunders, if any, all we have
to say is they are not to the point. Anyhow, as we can tolerate the sharp odor of
a disinfectant because it destroys the germ-cells of contagion, so we can bear
with a spice of fanaticism from Mr. Comstock. He has shown himself one of
the most powerful disinfectants of subterranean New York that at present exist.
Blessed be the " crank " whose life-work is to hunt down panders of the brothel
and the insane asylum !

THE SUPPRESSION OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

The Independent recently placed the following fair-seeming statement among
its editorial notes ; the italics are our own :

" The public schools of this city are open to all children, whether of Catholic or Protestant
parents, or of parents who do not believe in any religion, and they are supported, as they should
be, at the public expense. If any religious sect, not satisfied with these schools, chooses to es-
tablish private schools and teach its own peculiar religious tenets in the same, then it has a per-
fect right to do so. Nobody denies this right or objects to its exercise. But when any sect asks
the general public to help it in this work of religious propagandism, then a very different ques-
tion is raised. The people as citizens and property-holders have no objection to being taxed for
the support of non-sectarian public schools, in which they all have a common interest ; but
they do decidedly object to such taxation for the support, either in whole or in part, of sectarian
private schools. Let those who want such schools have them to their hearts' content, provided
always that they are content to pay the bills."

Now, was the Independent unaware that about a month previous to printing
the above words, " Let those who want such schools have them to their hearts'
content," a bill had been introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature by the
Joint Special Committee on the Employment and Schooling of Children only a
single member of the committee dissenting which provides for placing all pri-
vate schools in that State practically in charge of the Common-School Boards,
and that without offering a penny to support them ? If it becomes a law it will
require private schools having children between the ages of eight and fourteen to
make a monthly return to the town school-committee of the names, age, and ad-
dresses of their pupils in the form prescribed by the State Board of Education ;
that at the opening of each school year the school committee of every town
shall visit and examine every private school, and pass a vote approving or refusing
to approve it ; that thereafter once in each month every such private school shall
be visited and examined in like manner, and the school committee may at any time
rescind a former vote of approval of such school ; that for the foregoing purposes
any member of the school committee, the Superintendent of Schools, and, in cities,

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 137

any authorized agent of the school committee, shall have authority to enter any
building or room where any such private school is in session ; that the school com-
mittee shall approve a private school only when it is satisfied that its teaching in-
cludes all studies required by law to be taught in the public schools, and equals in
thoroughness and efficiency the teaching in the public schools, and that equal
progress is made by its pupils, only that approval shall not be refused on account
of religious teaching ; that the teachers in private schools must hold certificates
of the school committee ; and that violation of these provisions shall be punished
by fine against the teachers of private schools, to be used for the benefit of the
public schools, and public-school committees violating shall forfeit their share of
the school taxes.

Such are the terms of House Bill No. 19 of the present session of the General
Court of Massachusetts. Well, the Independent may not have known of this bill,
but the building in which it is sought to make it law is the cradle of the com-
mon-school system. On one side of the long flight of steps leading up to the
Boston State-House is the statue of Daniel Webster, and on the other that of
Horace Mann, the founder of the present system of unreligious schools. Massa-
chusetts made that system what it is ; did more than any other State, perhaps, to
engraft on it the offensive features of high school and normal college, which,
having driven out of existence the old-time private academy, once the boast of
every New England village, have reared up a pedagogic caste of stateling school-
teachers whose wooden adhesion to artificial traditions has bred a race of New
England men and women as little to be compared in real intelligence with their
fathers and mothers as they are in sincere religion. The dominant^ party in that
State has now started to destroy all private education whatever, except that of
richly-endowed high-grade colleges ; for the law proposed to be passed means
nothing else but the suppression of all the private and religious primary and
grammar schools in Massachusetts. The following words from a distinguished
evangelical minister indicate that the co-religionists of the Independent may be
relied on to spread this movement into other States, since it is the logical supple-
ment of the unsectarian common-school movement of a generation ago.
Rev. C. H. Parkhurst writes in the Forum for March, p. 56 :

"Not only would I fight to the last against granting one dollar of school funds to Catholic
schools, but I wish it were feasible to require every boy and girl, Catholic and Protestant, to at-
tend only such common schools as are under purely government administration."

How soon may we expect the Independent to be advocating the suppression
of all private schools as necessary to the great American system of educating the
people ?

PROFESSOR E. J. V. HUIGINN, ALIAS O'HIGGINS.

In a single paragraph of this person's article in the Forum for March,
" From Rome to Protestantism," and a short paragraph too, are huddled to-
gether objections to canonization of saints, stipends for Masses, general greed of
the clergy, perversions and corruptions of doctrine, and room enough left at the
end for a doleful wail over the weary and sad and disappointed heart he carried
in his bosom before he became a Protestant. Another paragraph, which assails

138 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [April,

the doctrine that a single child of Eve, Mary the Mother of Jesus, was conceived
and born free from original sin, is like a clipping from the appendix of some anti-
Catholic work. Take it altogether, the " Professor " might just as well have
arranged his adieu to us (or perhaps his au revoir) alphabetically by "first
lines '' of his sentences, so little does the sequence of logical reasoning have to
do with it.

But any man who could not find " a word in favor of papal claims " in Scrip-
ture or in history, may well fall back on something else besides his attainments
in historical and biblical criticism to account for his change of religion. Yet he
assigned no reason for his change when he suddenly vanished away from his
place in Watertown, in the diocese of Ogdensburg ; nor had he exhibited there
the least trace of those doubts and misgivings he professes to have been haunted
with. Surely no fair mind can discover sufficient reasons for either leaving Rome
or taking up with Canterbury rather than with Methodism, or Presbyterianism,
or Mormonism in his article in the Forum. He need not expect to escape the
fate of an ordinary ex-priest by styling himself a professor, or by changing his
name from honest O'Higgins to outlandish Huiginn. The ex-priest is generally
subject to many changes, and usually ends in changing his single-blessedness and
taking a partner.

It is a little curious that among all his reasons for hesitating before joining
Anglicanism he does not mention that of love of country. Mind you, gentle
reader, this ex-priest is a Celt named O'Higgins, with a thick Irish brogue ; and
of all forms of religion on the face of the earth he joined that one which put a
drop of poisonous religious bigotry into every stroke of the scourge which has
lashed his unhappy country for over three centuries. But Anglicanism and that
name rather than Protestant Episcopal is the name he prefers for his new obe-
dience will do as well as any other to break his fall. For, as a rule, men who
fall from the Catholic priesthood fall very deep. What started him may be, as
his article seems to show, a naturally sceptical frame of mind, which he will find
can be cured only by truth plain, living, and Catholic ; or it may have been
money or a wife, or if you wish to make him out a very stupid professor
the claims of Episcopalianism. But when he was confronted by his former asso-
ciate on the stairway of Bishop Huntington's Seminary, he could give none of
these reasons or any reasons whatever ; he paled and reddened, and promised to
come back.

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 139

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE BAD CHRISTIAN; or, Sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Dif-
ferent Sins against God and our Neighbor which flow therefrom. In
Seventy-six Sermons. Adapted to all the Sundays and Holydays of
the year. By Rev. Francis Hunolt, SJ. Translated from the original
German by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago :
Benziger Bros.

Messrs. Benziger Bros, are deserving of all praise for the efforts they
are making to put in the hands of priests, and indeed of others whose tastes
incline them that way, a choice series of good practical sermons. Already
have they published two volumes of Hunolt's sermons on the Christian
life. Then not very long ago they put on the market eight volumes of
sermons from the Flemish. These latter have all the characteristics of
the Flemish people, to whom they were originally addressed plain and
straightforward, full of common sense. Now come these two other vol-
umes of Hunolt on The Bad Christian.

These volumes take up the seven deadly sins and other kindred sub-
jects, and include as many as seventy-six sermons. They are rendered of
much more service to one preparing sermons on particular topics by
copious marginal notes and a very complete alphabetical index, by help of
which one can see at a glance the subject-matter treated in the text.
Hunolt handles his topics in a masterly way that can only come from long
experience in dealing with souls. It is one thing to take a text and write
an essay on it, and quite a different thing to prepare what really is worthy
to be called a sermon on that same text. To do the latter requires con-
summate tact, an intimate knowledge of the human heart, and a practical
understanding of the best ways of reaching the heart.

If there is any one characteristic of Hunolt that might be specially
mentioned, it is his profuseness of illustration. His sermons sparkle
with bright gems. His quaint comparisons, his vivid figures of speech, and
illustrations drawn from every imaginable source, show that his mind is
not only full of his subject, but that it has not been dried up by too much
concentration on the bare principles of theology. He is an orator who
makes everything serve him. Yet in his sermons there is none of that
bombastic pulpit oratory that, as Cardinal Manning has been quoted as
saying, was one of the causes of the decline of the faith in the last cen-
tury. We are glad to see these sermons in their English dress, for they
have long since established Hunolt's reputation as a master of sacred ora-
tory, and are deserving of a very high place in the literature of the pulpit.

THOMAS A KEMPIS ; Notes of a Visit to the Scenes in which his Life was
spent, with some account of the Examination of his Relics. By Fran-
cis Richard Cruise, M.D., late President of the King's and Queen's Col-
lege of Physicians in Ireland, etc. Illustrated, with maps and plates.
London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. (For sale : New York, Cincinnati,
and Chicago, Benziger Brothers.)

This very beautiful book is a labor of love by an enthusiastic admi-
rer of Thomas Haemerlein of Kempen and of the Imitation of Christ.
Among the illustrations taken from photographs by the author are two of
special interest, viz., portraits of the venerable Father Thomas.

J4Q NEW PUBLICATIONS. [April,

The Imitation of Christ is a work which is unique among spiritual
books. Six thousand editions of it have been published, and the universal,
unanimous verdict of its millions of readers has given it a place next to
the Bible.

There has been much controversy in regard to its authorship, and
hundreds of treatises on the subject have been published.

It has been ascribed to St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, Thomas Gallus of
Vercelli, Henry de Kalear, Landolph of Saxony, Ubertus de Cassalis, Inno-
cent III., Pietro Rahaluzzi, John Tambaco, John a Kempis the elder bro-
ther of Thomas, Walter Hilton, Chancellor Gerson, the Abbot Gersen,
and to some unknown author, besides Thomas a Kempis himself. All the
claimants for the honor of authorship have been set aside during the con-
troversy, except Chancellor Gerson, Abbot Gersen, the unknown man,
and the venerable Father Thomas a Kempis. Indeed, the evidence in
favor of the illustrious chancellor has been so fully refuted, the very exist-
ence of any such person as Abbot Gersen is so extremely doubtful, and
the cumulative proofs that show the origin of the wonderful book to have
been in some Flemish monastery of the fifteenth century are so conclusive,
that the question is really narrowed down to this : Was Thomas a Kempis
the author, or is the author unknown ? The writer of this notice examin-
ed the question several years ago, and was convinced that there is morally
certain evidence of the fact that Thomas a Kempis was the author of the
Imitation. This conclusion has been confirmed by the arguments of Dr.
Cruise. The proofs are positive, and if they had been from the first dis-
tinctly known and stated, a doubt could not have arisen. The uncertainty
which gave rise to the controversy was purely accidental. An autograph
MS. of the Imitation in the handwriting of Thomas a Kempis is extant,
and three credible witnesses who knew him personally declared that he
was the author, before any controversy had arisen ; all the collateral evi-
dence and all the internal, critical evidence goes the same way, and there
is really no evidence of any weight in favor of any one else or against
the positive evidence in his favor.

Such a book could only have been produced by a saint. He has not,
however, received the meed of honor due to him, because of the disputes
which have been waged with such pertinacity respecting his title to be re-
garded as the author of the precious volume into which he exhaled all the
perfume of his own hidden spiritual life. It is to be hoped that henceforth
he will be more honored, and that Dr. Cruise's pious labors will contribute
largely to this result. He has here furnished us with a biography of the
holy Father Thomas a Kempis, a full account of the religious institute of
which he was a member, and a description of all the localities connected
with the history, which he personally visited and examined in the spirit of
a pious pilgrim, taking photographs which are represented in the illustra-
tions that adorn and add interest to the volume.

We are very glad to have a thorough and satisfactory work in English
to supersede the one prepared and published by Mr. Kettlewell, a Protes-
tant writer, whose outrecuidance in comparing Thomas a Kempis to the
heretic Wiclef, and representing him as a sort of crypto-Protestant precur-
sor of Luther, is insupportable.

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 141

REQUIESCANT. A little book of anniversaries, arranged for the daily use
of those who love to remember the faithful departed. By Mary E. S.
Leathley. With an introduction by the Very Rev. Canon Murnane,
V.G. New York : The Catholic Publication Society Co. ; London :
Burns & Gates.

An exceedingly ingenious method of remembering the faithful departed.
This book, which, by the way, is simply a perfect specimen of the art of book-
making, is a Kalendar of the entire year. Each day has a page, at the top of
which is printed-the date and the feast, as well as the two chief saints com-
memorated by the church ; and then a blank space ruled with six lines. In
this space are to be written the names of the family, society, parish, or dio-
cese for whose convenience this remembrance of the dead is kept, and who
died on this date. After this are several devout ejaculations for a happy
death and for the repose of the souls of the departed. At the foot of each
page is a brief extract from some of the Fathers of the church or other
spiritual writers a feature particularly commendable.

It seems to us that every parish should have this book. It would serve
the purpose of the register of funerals and in time become a record of
much value to friends and relatives of the deceased. For devout societies
it seems to us to be of especial use for each of the members, as it would in
the course of a few years be a most valuable aid to the devotion of the
survivors to the faithful sou-Is who are gone before.

GABRIELLE : A Story of the Rhineland (selected). Hearth and Home Li-
brary. Boston : Thomas B. Noonan & Co. 1887.

Here are two pretty little stories, full of interest, especially to young
folks. But who wrote them ? The publishers deserve great credit for the
printing and binding of this book. A few illustrations would add very
much to the volume in the estimation of the young people to whom it will
be given as a premium. When shall we have an original story about
Catholic life on the Rhine of America ?

MIRROR OF THE VIRTUES OF MOTHER MARY OF ST. EUPHRASIA PELLE-
TIER, FOUNDRESS OF THE CONGREGATION OF OUR LADY OF CHARITY
OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD OF ANGERS. With a Short Account of Her
Work in the United Kingdom. New York : The Catholic Publication
Society Co.; London : Burns & Gates.

In this pamphlet of one hundred and twenty well-printed pages is
contained a most interesting record of the supernatural virtues of an ex-
ceptionally holy and courageous soul. It is in no sense a life of the
foundress of the Good Shepherd nuns, but it appears to have been drawn
up in anticipation of, and a partial preparation for, the introduction of the
Cause of her beatification. Its chief peculiarity is, perhaps, that the evi-
dence for her faith, hope, charity, and other virtues is supplied from her
own words, addressed to her religious in general instructions. They
are very solid, betraying an intimate knowledge of Holy Scripture, a well-
balanced mind, and a heart full of charitable zeal for souls. The work
to which this holy religious was devoted was the conversion of fallen
women, as most of our readers doubtless know houses of the Good
Shepherd having multiplied throughout the United States. A brief ac-
count of the foundations made by her religious in England, Ireland, and
Scotland is appended. She herself established one hundred and ten con-

142 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [April,

vents during her lifetime, the sphere of her labors including not alone
Europe, Great Britain, and the United States, but Asia, Africa, South
America, and Australia. Unfortunately, the need of such labors is con-
terminous, not with civilization, but with humanity. The work is one
dear to God, and visibly blessed by him.

THE BLESSED WILL KNOW EACH OTHER IN HEAVEN. By M. I'Abbe' EH6
Meric, D.D. Translated from the French by Mrs. J. Ringer. New
York : The Catholic Publication Society Co.; London : Burns &
Gates.

The Abbe Meric is a professor of moral theology at the Sorbonne, in
Paris, and the present translation of his brief but solid and learned dis-
cussion of a most interesting theme bears the imprimatur of Cardinal Man-
ning. We hope it may have a wide circulation, for there still exists, even
among otherwise well-instructed Catholics, traces of what the Abb M6ric
calls the "unjust and gloomy rigorism of the Jansenists,'' which causes
too many Christians to regard Paradise as a place where human affections
will be, if not wholly sublimated out of existence, yet so nearly so as to
form no appreciable part of its rewards. But such is not the teaching of
the church, through her Fathers, her Doctors, and her Saints. The cry
of the heart is recognized by them, and its legitimate satisfaction prom-
ised. On this point the Abbe Meric is very explicit in his direct teaching
and full in the testimony by which he supports it. There is another con-
sideration in his little book, however, very briefly touched on, but capa-
ble in its infinite suggestiveness of completely meeting another difficulty
which sometimes arises in the minds of those imperfectly instructed
Christians for whose use, we take it, his work was written and has been
translated. If our souls are to see God face to face, and know him as he
is. how shall we, remaining essentially what we are now, escape weariness
even in heaven ? "We shall never see God in all his immensity," an-
swers the abbe, resting on St. Thomas ; " never shall we have an adequate
vision of God." The minds of the blessed "are still active, for immobility
is death, but it is activity without effort and without pain. God, whose
nature is infinite, continually manifests to the blessed new aspects of
his essence. . . . There is then real progress, continual movement, in
the intellectual and moral life of the elect.' 1 Put these two considerations
together, and then it becomes easy not merely to believe but to under-
stand what makes Paradise worth all it costs.

A STUDY OF RELIGION : Its Sources and Contents. By James Martineau,
D.D. 2 vols. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press; New York : Macmil-
lan & Co. 1888.

Dr. Martineau has already contributed to the defence of natural re-
ligion, its foundations and conditions, services of such immense value that
any work of his demands as of right the serious attention of all religious
thinkers.

There are two ways in which we might approach the works of those
who do not hold the full and complete cycle of Catholic truth. We might
either point out and dwell upon their inevitable defects and perchance
their dangerous outcome ; or we might contrast them with those who are
still further removed from the truth, and consider in what respect the work

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 143

in question is likely to bring these latter nearer to the truth. We think
it better by far to follow the latter course in these our times at all events.
Writers of pleasing style and vaunted scientific knowledge have gained
the ear of the public to such an extent that we are glad to welcome the
services of all in the great work of rescuing souls from the darkness of in-
fidelity, agnosticism, and materialism. There is no one to whom we would
extend a heartier welcome than to Dr. Martineau. His profound insight
into all the bearings and relations of the questions which he discusses ; the
beauty of his style, which impresses his abstruse reasonings upon the im-
agination and the memory, make him a powerful ally, and, in our judgment,
render a knowledge of his writings imperative upon any one who aspires
to help and guide those whose minds are tormented by the questionings
of the day. "'

We have not had time to form a judgment on these two volumes,
which are the sequel of the work published in 1885: Types of Ethical
Theory. We hope to be able to give a fuller analysis and a better-weighed
opinion hereafter. Meanwhile, as a specimen of the spirit in which he ap-
proaches his subject, we give the following comparison between the re-
ligious effect of the Catholic and of the Positivist calendar. Criticising
the definition of religion as "habitual and permanent admiration,'' he pro-
ceeds :

'' It would be necessary to stipulate that the object of religion should be
something other than ourselves. This condition is, no doubt, fulfilled by
the Positivists' calendar, which gathers into one view the nobles and mar-
tyrs of history, and leaves no day in the year without its tribute of celebra-
tion ; and I shall not challenge the right of this commemorative discipline
to call itself a ' religion of humanity.' It does rest essentially upon reve-
rent affection, not, on the whole, unwisely and unworthily directed ; and
if it were possible for human souls to illuminate and uphold each other,
without any centre orb to give them their reflected light and determine
their dependent paths, this ritual might be something more than a melan-
choly mimicry of a higher conception. But place it beside the Catholic
constellation of the saints, and, though its component stars are often of
greater magnitude, you see at once that, as a whole, it is a minor worship
made grotesque by being thrust into the place of the Supreme. Its atti-
tude is retrospective, gazing into the night of ages gone ; the other has its
face to the east and anticipates the dawn : it is a requiem for the dead ; the
other is a communion with the ever-living, an anthem in tune with a choir
invisible: it anxiously seeks and puts together the doubtful traits and
broken features of figures irrecoverably lost ; the other only waits a little
while for the venerated teacher or the dear saint to be the companion that
shall die no more. The secret dependence of all satellite forms of piety
upon the grander, and at last upon the solar attraction, cannot be slighted
without the fatal collapse of every problem we attempt. Guard your can-
onizations as you may, take only the fairest specimens of character where
it seems to blossom into all the virtues, cull and combine them with blame-
less skill, yet they are memorials of what was and is not, and make but a
funeral wreath borrowed from one grave to be cast upon another." The
work abounds in passages equally beautiful.

144 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [April, 1888.

BOOKS RECEIVED.. ; :-
The mention of books in this place does not preclude extended 'notice in subsequent numbers,

IRISH Music AND SONG: A collection of Songs in the Irish Language, set to music. Edited

for the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language. By P. W. Joyce, LL.D., etc.

Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son.
THE NATIONAL SIN OF LITERARY PIRACY. By Henry Van Dyke, D.D. New York : Charles

Scribner's Sons.
THE SPIRITUAL RETREAT OF FATHER BOURDALOUE, S.J., adapted to the use of Pastors of

Souls. New York: Benziger Bros.
FACTS OF FAITH ; or, First Lessons in Christianity. Compiled by Rev. A. Bromley Crane, of

St. Wilfrid's College, Cotton, Cheadle. London : Burns & Oates ; New York : Catholic

Publication Society Co.
ALLOCUTIONS; or, Short Addresses on Liturgical Observances and Ritual Functions. With

Appendices on Christian Doctrine Confraternities, Lending Libraries, etc. By the

Author of Programmes of Sermons, etc. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger

Bros.
PAX VOBIS : Being a Popular Exposition of the Seven Sacraments, furnishing ready matter for

public instruction and for family reading. By the author of Programmes o/ Sermons, etc.

Dublin: Browne & Nolan ; New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago: Benziger Bros.
THE CHARITY OF THE CHURCH A PROOF OF HER DIVINITY. From the Italian of His

Eminence Cardinal Baluffi. With an introduction by Denis Gargan, D.D. New York,

Cincinnati, and Chicago: Benziger Bros.
REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION FOR THE YEAR 1885-86. Washington :

Government Printing-Office.

THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY REGISTER, 1887-88. Ithaca, N.Y. : Published by the University.
REMINISCENCES AND DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE CIVIL WAR DURING THE YEAR 1865.

By John A. Campbell. Baltimore : Murphy & Co.
THE CHAIR OF PETER ; or, The Papacy considered in its institution, development, and

organization, and in the benefits which for over eighteen centuries it has conferred on

mankind. By John Nicholas Murphy, Roman Count. Third edition, with events and

statistics brought down to the present time. London : Burns & Oates ; New York:

Catholic Publication Society Co.
A VISIT TO EUROPE AND THE HOLY LAND. By Rev. H. F. Fairbanks. New York: Catholic

Publication Society Co.; London: Burns & Oates.
VICTORIES OF THE MARTYRS : The Lives of the most celebrated Martyrs oi the Church. By

St. Alphonsusde Liguori, Doctor of the Church. Edited by Rev. Eugene Grimm, C.SS.R.

New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.
SYSTEM OF ECONOMICAL CONTRADICTIONS; or, The Philosophy of Misery. By P. J. Proud-

hon. Vol. I. Translated from the French by Benj. R. Tucker. Boston : Benj. R. Tucker.

FOR FAITH AND FATHERLAND : Father Dominic of the Rosary; Sir John Bourkeof Brittas,
Martyr. By Mrs. Morgan John O'Connell and James G. Barry. Dublin: M. H. Gill &
Son.

QUARTERLY SELECTIONS : Readings, Recitations, Declamations, and Dialogues, for Catholic
Schools and Literary Societies. Compiled and Edited by Katherine A. O'Keeffe. Sep-
tember, 1887. Subscription, $i per year ; single copies 30 cents. New York : Catholic
Publication Society Co.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION : Lectures on the Reasonableness of Christianity and the Shallowness
of Unbelief. Delivered by the Most Rev. Roger Bede Vaughan, Archbishop of Sydney.
Baltimore : The Baltimore Publishing Co.

THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. By Sir J. William Dawson, C.M.G., etc. With
illustrations. New York : D. Appleton & Co.

THE CANONS AND DECREES OF THE SACRED AND OECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF TRENT.
Translated by the Rev. J. Waterworth. To which are prefixed Essays on the External and
Internal History of the Council. London : Burns & Oates; New York : Catholic Publica-
tion Society Co.

LKTTERS OF FREDERIC OZANAM, PROFESSOR OF FOREIGN LITERATURE IN THE SORBONNE.
Translated from the French, with a connecting sketch of his life, by Ainslie Coates. New
York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XLVII. MAY, 1888. No. 278.

IS THERE SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC

CHURCH ?

WE know by divine revelation that all men have lost the
right to heaven by original sin ; that the Son of God has assum-
ed human nature to redeem mankind, and that he has institut-
ed but one church on earth, in and by which men are to come
to eternal salvation. Hence this church is often compared to the
one ark of Noe. saving men from the flood of sin ; and hence
also the time-honored saying, Extra Ecclesiam nulla est salus
" There is no salvation outside the church."

But what is to become, many will naturally ask, of the im-
mense majority of men who have never heard of this church, or
who at least are not aware that it is the only visible ark of sal-
vation given by God to mankind? What is to become of the
many millions of Protestants and other heretics or schismatics
that are outside the visible communion of the church ? And
where is God's justice and mercy in dealing with those count-
less millions of Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, and other
heathens or pagans who still " sit in darkness and in the sha-
dow of death " ?

Since such questions are. nowadays often asked, it may not
be amiss to state what we Catholics are to hold as to the salva-
tion of such as are outside the visible communion of God's one
true church. The magnitude of the question is seen by the
following figures : The present population of the globe is esti-
mated at about 1,437,150,000. Of these about 217,000,000 are
Catholics; 124,000,000 Protestants; 84,000,000 Schismatics;
7,000,000 Jews; 169,000,000 Mohammedans; 169,000,000 Brah-
mins ; 7,000,000 pure Buddhists ; 390,000,000 Confucianists ; 36,-
000,000 Buddhists and Shintoes ; and 233,000,000 other heathens
or pagans.

146 Is THERE SALVATION [May,

In the first place, we know that the Incarnate Son of God
has founded but the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,
of which the Roman Pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, is the
visible and infallible head. Moreover, we know that it is the
duty of every man to enter the visible communion of this one
church. Consequently such as fully know this and wilfully re-
fuse to do so act contrary to the will of God and commit there-
by a mortal sin, which ipso facto excludes them from heaven if
they persevere in this state. Hence Christ emphatically de-
clared,* speaking to his apostles : " Go ye into the whole world,
and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be
condemned."

After the Eternal Truth has spoken thus it would be unpar-
donable presumption for any man to declare that it is not nec-
essary for salvation to join the one true church of God, for those
who know it to be such and can join it.

Moreover, as the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore ob-
serves,! Christ has " never promised salvation to those living
outside the church." Now, are we to hold that in consequence
of these truths all living and dying outside the visible pale of
the Catholic Church are to be eternally lost?

II.

As stated before, but one church has indeed been establish-
ed by Christ, by which men are to come to salvation ; yet there-
by the hand of God has not been shortened to save such as,
without any fault on their part, may not be professed members
of this church. God may give to such the graces necessary for
their salvation in various extraordinary ways unknown and im-
perceptible to man. He may enlighten their intellect and move
their wills to detest sin, to love him, the Source of all good, and
to desire to fulfil in all things his holy will. For God, as St.
Paul expressly teaches,:}: " will have all men to be saved, and to
come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and
one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave
himself a redemption for all."

Therefore Catholic theologians teach that God gives also to
unbelievers, heathens, or pagans, who never heard of Christ,

* Mafk rvi. 15, 16. + Decretum 5. J i Timothy ii. 4-6.

1 888.] OUTSIDE THE* CATHOLIC CHURCH ? ' 147

the graces necessary for their salvation. Thus the theologian
J. Perrone, S.J. and in this he utters a very common opinion
says : *

" The graces of which we treat, and which we have shown to be given
to unbelievers, are medicinal graces by the aid of which unbelievers can
fulfil the natural law and overcome the difficulties that are in the way of
its observance ; but the works performed by means of these aids remain
within the order of moral uprightness. Nevertheless if unbelievers co-
operate with these graces greater aids are given them until God, out of
his gratuitous mercy, calls them to the supernatural end by a beginning of
faith, either by means of men sent to this purpose, or by an angel, or inte-
riorly by himself, or in any other manner,.as it may seem good to him."

Hence it is a theological saying: Facienti quod in se est, Deus
non dene gat gratiam " To him that does what he can God will
not deny grace."

Hence, too, Pius IX., in his allocution of December 9, 1854,
declared :

" God forbid, venerable brethren, that we should dare to set limits to
divine mercy, which is infinite ; God forbid that we should wish to
scrutinize his hidden counsels and judgments, that are a great abyss and
cannot be penetrated by human thought. ... It is to be ... held as cer-
tain that those who labor under ignorance of the true religion, if that ig-
norance be invincible, are implicated in no sin [culpa] for this before the
eyes of the Lord. But now who would arrogate to himself that he could
designate the limits of this ignorance, according to the nature and diver-
sity of peoples, countries, natural talents, and so many other things ? But
when, freed from these bodily bonds, we shall see God as he is, we shall
indeed perceive by what intimate and beautiful alliance divine mercy and
justice are united."

Hence also the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore declar-
ed f of such as are outside the Catholic Church :

" If they err invincibly, and it be not their fault that they did not come
to a knowledge of the true church, God, indeed, who punishes or con-
demns no one without his own fault, although they are kept by this incul-
pable ignorance outside the body of the church, nevertheless, if with the
aid of divine grace they have obeyed the divine commandments and those
truths of Christian faith which they know, will have mercy on them, so
that they will not be eternally lost."

III.

After laying down these genera/ principles and citing these
high authorities as to the possibility of salvation for such as are

* Prcelectiones Theologicce, Ratisbonse, 1854, vol. vii. p. 151. f Decretum 5.

148 Is THERE SALVATION [May,

outside the Catholic Church, we may quote the following 1 beau-
tiful words of Cardinal Manning,* which, no doubt, will aid to
illustrate these principles:

"It is to me a consolation and joy I say it again and again, and more
strongly as I grow older to know that in the last three hundred years
multitudes of our own countrymen, who have been born out of the unity
of the faith, nevertheless believe in good faith with all their hearts that
God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, and that what they have been
taught from their childhood is his revelation, and that he has founded
upon earth a church, and that the church, which in their baptismal creed
they call the Holy Catholic Church, is the church in which they them-
selves have been baptized, reared, and instructed. It is my consolation to
believe that multitudes of such persons are in good faith, and that God in
his mercy will make allowance for them, knowing what are the prejudices
of childhood, of an education studiously erroneous, what is the power and
influence of parents and of teachers, of public authority, and of public
opinion, and of public law : how all these things create in their minds a
conviction that they are in the right, that they believe the one faith and
are in the one church, in which alone is salvation. We rejoice to com-
mend them to the love of our Heavenly Father, believing that though they
may be materially in error, and in many things materially in opposition to
his truth and to his will, yet they do not know, and, morally speaking,
many cannot know it, and that therefore he will not require it at their
hands."

What Cardinal Manning says of Protestants ma}', & fortiori,
be applied to the countless millions of schismatics who, like the
Russians, though separated from the centre of Christian unity, still
retain all the holy sacraments, and profess to believe the same
doctrines which the church held as articles of faith during the
first six or eight centuries. As to Jews and Mohammedans, we
know that they worship the one true God, the God of Abraham ;
and who would dare to decide but that there are countless mul-
titudes of them who are doing so in good faith? Among the
Mohammedans, for instance, numerous examples of earnest
piety or striving to come nearer to God by a moral life, by sep-
aration from the world, by meditation and prayer, can be daily
witnessed. f Why should not their prayers be heard and their
alms and other good works be remembered in the sight of the
merciful God, as were those of the Roman centurion Cornelius,:}:
though we may perceive no external evidence thereof?

But what are we to say of the millions of Buddhists and
other heathens or pagans who seem to have lost even the know-
ledge of the one true God how can they be saved?

* Sin and its Consegufnces, i.

t See W. S Lilly, Ancient Religion and Modern Thought, London, 1885, pp. 165-187.

t Acts x. 1-31.

1 888.] OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? 149

Let us remember that these also have been created accord-
ing to the image and likeness of God ; that they too are, for this
reason, in a certain sense children of the Heavenly Father, for
whose redemption Christ has offered himself. Now, God, who
has given to plants the necessary means for attaining their end,
and to animals the necessary instincts to fulfil the object of their
creation, has also endowed these his forlorn children with the
necessary capacities for receiving the graces which may lead
them to the higher and eternal life for which all men have been
created. It was a remark full of deep meaning when Tertullian
exclaimed, in his Apology* to the heathen Romans, " O testimo-
nium aninuz naturaliter Christiana!'*' Every human soul is, in-
deed, "naturally Christian" that is, fitted for, and inclined by
nature to, Christianity. For, as Catholic philosophers teach, f
God has deeply implanted in every human soul such convictions
as that there exists a God ; that man must do right and avoid
wrong; and that man will once have to render an account for
his actions. So deeply are these convictions imprinted in the
human soul that neither scoffing sophistry nor slothful ignor-
ance are able to efface them. Thus we find also in heathens or
pagans the necessary natural capacities for receiving God's
graces by which they may be gradually led on to salvation.:}:
And from God's goodness and mercy we may expect that he
will give also such heathens or pagans as are bona fide and do
their part the necessary graces.

Cardinal Newman, in his History of the Arians, makes some
remarks! which will, no doubt, aid to make this truth clearer.
He observes:

" We are expressly told in the New Testament that at no time he [God]
left himself without witness in the world, and that in every nation he ac-
cepts those who fear and obey him. It would seem, then, that there is
something true and divinely revealed in every religion, all over the earth,
overloaded as it may be, and at times even stifled, by the impieties which
the corrupt will and understanding of man have incorporated with it; so
that revelation, properly speaking, is a universal, not local gift. . . . The
word and the sacraments are the characteristics of the elect people
of God ; but all men have had more or less the guidance of tradition, in
addition to those internal notions of right and wrong which the Spirit has
put into the heart of each individual."

And, it may be added, God, who is both merciful and just,
will once judge such heathens or pagans as, without any fault of

* Chap. 17.

t See Cardinal ZigJiara, Sunttna Philosophica, editio sexta, Parisiis, 1887, pp. 288-291.

\ See A. Fischer, De Salute Infidelium, Essendiae, 1886, passim.

See J. Perrone, S.J., 1. c. | Quoted by W. S. Lilly, 1. c. pp. 189-190.

150 Is THERE SALVATION -[May,

theirs, have never heard of their Saviour, according to the light
they have received, as St. Paul teaches, saying:*

"When the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things
that are of the law, these, having not the law, are a law to themselves:
who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
bearing witness to them, and their thoughts within themselves accusing
them, or else defending them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets
of men, by Jesus Christ."

The author of the interesting and learned pamphlet, De Salute
Infidelium, advances the opinion that God may often give to
heathens or pagans at the hour of their death the supernatural
graces by which they may come to faith and justification. He
observes :

"We all, indeed, do not know what happens at the moment of death,
because no one of us has as yet experienced it. But it is very credible what
many psychologists hold, and what seems to be confirmed by indubitable
facts, that the human soul, on being freed from the bonds of the depress-
ing body.t will become, as it were, full)' conscious of itself and finally
capable of exhibiting a by far greater vigor. Now, will not this seem to be
the most appropriate time (though it may be considered as happening in
an instant, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye) in which God would
speak again and for the last time to his creature which is about to be
judged, in which the divine voice would be heard and the supernatural
grace operate by enlightening and assisting, but not by compelling?"

As the author adds, we have, of course, no certainty on this
point; yet there is room for possibility, and perhaps even for
probability.

IV.

From all this we see how we may, in the light of Catholic
doctrine, vindicate God's justice and mercy, as far as the possi-
bility is concerned that even heathens or pagans may be saved.
On the one hand, we indeed know that all men are strictly ob-
liged to enter God's one visible kingdom on earth, the church
established by Christ; and that, consequently, all who know-
ingly and wilfully refuse to do so commit a mortal sin which
excludes them from heaven, if they will persevere in that state.
But, on the other hand, we also know that God is all-powerful
and wise, and can therefore, in various ways, bring to salvation
such as, without any fault of theirs, may be outside of the visible
communion of the church. And from his goodness and mercy
we may confidently expect that he will give such as do their

* Romans ii. 14-16.

t What the writer here quoted seems to mean is not the moment after death, but the
moment before the soul's final departure from the body. Editor.

1 888.] OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? 151

part his helping hand. They are of the church, though incul-
pably separated from her visible communion. Though the ways
of God in dealing with mankind may often seem incomprehensi-
ble to us in this mortal life, we may rest assured, as Pius IX.
remarked, that, when we shall once be freed from our present
bodily bonds and behold God as he is, we shall then also see
how intimately and beautifully mercy and justice are united in
him. JOHN GMEINER.

St. Thomas' Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.

THE DIVINE LODESTONE.

" Jesus said: Some one has torched Me, for I know that virtue is gone out from Me. rt -
St. Luke viii. 46.

THE DISCIPLE.

DEAR Lord ! unto my longing heart reveal

The mystic virtue which with joyous thrills
Springs forth in life-renewing force to heal

Whoso shall touch Thee. Lo ! the many ills
Of human souls! Their misery and sin
I fain would heal. If possible, this grace
All gifts above
Grant to be mine !

THE MASTER.

As from the lodestone unseen pow'r departs,

Infusing a like virtue in the eager steel
That toucheth it, so unto loving hearts

Which touch mine own the might divine to heal
The world's sad wounds is giv'n, and sweetly win
Sin-angered souls to Me. Draw nigh. Embrace.
Go forth and love !
All power is thine !

A. Y.

152 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [May,

THE ANNALS OF A VEND&AN.
i.

BEFORE a crowd of undisciplined rebels a young French-
man, blonde, enthusiastic, delicately nurtured, once made this
singular oration : 4< My friends ! if my father were here you
would have confidence. As for me, I am only a boy, but I will
prove that I deserve to lead you. When 1 advance, do you
follow me; when I flinch, cut me down; when I fall, avenge
me ! " Amid the cheers and tears of the peasants he sat by
the gates of Aubier and ate of their coarse brown loaves. It
was the first slight sign of his consecration to a cause. He had
made his one famous speech words which have travelled far
and wide, and proclaimed his spirit where his name is utterly
unknown. Yesterday he was a carpet-knight ; now, like " gal-
lant Murray " in the fine old Scots song,

" His gude sword he hath drawn it,
And hath flung the sheath awa'."

There was no retrogression. Henri du Verger, Comte de La
Rochejaquelein, twenty years old, a little indolent hitherto, a
courtier, a lover of horses and hounds, was suddenly shaken out
of his velvet privacy into the rude lap of the French Revolu-
tion.

He was born in the parish of St. Aubin de Baubigne", near
Chantillon-sur-Sevre, in the now ruinous Chateau de la Durbel-
liere, on the 3oth of August, 1772. He came of fighting stock.
Among the ancestors of his name were a Crusader, two war-
riors killed under Francis I. at Pavia, and a dear brother-in-
arms of Henry IV. slain on the battle-field of Arques. The
child was destined for the military profession ; when the su-
preme political storm of history burst he was completing his
studies at Soreze. Gentle as he was, he had no disrelish for
the barbarous aspect of war. Courage he had in full, the splen-
did animal nonchalance in face of danger ; and later, in a mea-
sure almost as ample, the fortitude of soul that " endures and
is patient." He had always looked forward, from his early boy-
hood, to a campaign, to spurs and sabres, to some powerful
Jericho to assail. His first commission was in the royal Polish
regiment of cavalry. In 1791 he was one of the constitutional

1 888.] THE ANNALS OF A V EN DEAN. 153

guard, which had replaced the household body-guard of Louis
XVI., and when this was disbanded he still stayed by the king.
On the memorable loth of August he was in the Tuileries, and
narrowly escaped with his life ; his noble young companion,
Charles d'Autichamp, escaping with him, killed two men in his
own defence. Thanks to Thomassin, the commissary of police,
and his adroit strategy, they and the Lescures, cousins and com-
patriots of Henri de La Rochejaquelein, reached Tours safely
from Paris, along a road marshalled with forty thousand hostile
troops. Haggard, wearied, wrought to the pitch of excitement,
they came into the heart of revolt and disturbance at home. La
Durbelliere was deserted ; the family of La Rochejaquelein had
emigrated ; the parish had gone over to the will of the republic.
M. de Lescure, sheltered in his chateau of Clisson, in Boism6, in
Poitou, sent for his young kinsman. He went, stepping in among
that strange, huddled group of royalists men of resources like
Marigny, with his large joyousness of nature ; men like the

cowardly, whimpering old Chevalier de , whose name, in

the records, is sheltered in a blank ; aristocrats, abbesses, nota-
ries, old tutors, friends, distant relatives, and little proscribed
children, who kept vigil over the dying hopes of conservative
France. Few rumors reached them of the fighting in Anjou ;
they ventured out but seldom, as the house was jealousy watch-
ed. But they were of one anxious heart and mind, undergoing
agonies of suspicion and suspense, and anon cheering one an-
other with fireside tales, with indoor games and music. Henri
was the centre of interest ; all relied upon him, quiet and re-
served as he was ; from first to last he somehow made a bright-
ness in the sombre lapses of those days. " He had lived," says
the woman then Lescure's young bride, " but little in the
world." Here, through her, we have the first glimpse of his
tall, comely person, of his wheaten-yellow hair, his healthful
color, his quick, animated eye, and his " contour, English rather
than French."

Suddenly, like a thunder-clap, came the news of the king's
death. It had been provided that word should be sent to Clis-
son of any impending rescue. Not a hand had been raised at
Paris to save him. Lescure and La Rochejaquelein looked at
one another in profound grief and dismay ; and among the
twenty-five men in the chateau capable of bearing arms, the
little flicker of desperate merriment died down to ashes. So
they remained for months, in the midst of rumors and threats
growing from day to day. Henri was moody and preoccupied,

154 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [May,

saying little. He traversed the country alone, often facing and
surmounting danger with his astonishing skill, sometimes hiding
or galloping madly to the woods. On one occasion gendarmes
made a descent on Clisson and carried off his favorite horse.
They told Lescure that the son of M. de La Rochejaquelein was
much more sharply suspected than he was. " I do not see
why ! " Lescure replied, with habitual directness ; " we are
cousins and dear friends ; our opinions are quite the same."

Citizens were summoned to the defence of Bressuire.
Young Lescure had been for four years back commandant of
his parish of Boism6. There seemed no way out of it ; hourly
he expected his summons to march against his insurgent neigh-
bors. The men were holding a council of debate, determined
to make at least a passive resistance, when the name of La
Rochejaquelein was called to be drawn for the militia. On the
heels of the announcement followed a secret message, brought
by a young peasant from Henri's aunt, living in retirement some
miles away. Ch&tillon had been taken ; the people had arisen ;
there were wild hopes that the royalist faction might get the
upper hand. The young peasant, eager and breathless, fixed
his bright glance upon Henri. He spoke persuasively, with a
fervor that seemed to thrill his whole body. "Sir! will you
draw to-morrow for the militia, when your farmers are about
to fight rather than be drafted? Come with us! The whole
country-side looks to you; it will obey you." Dieu le veut !
said Peter the Hermit. He willed that God should will it,
at any rate, and all Christendom took him at his word. The
peasant boy had some eloquence, for Henri's thinking was over.
" Tell them that I will come," he answered. That night, accom-
panied by the tremulous Chevalier who was afraid to stand his
chances at Clisson by one servant and a guide, armed with a
brace of pistols and carrying a stick, Henri mounted his horse
and waved farewell. There were wild protestations, arguments,
kinswomen's prayers and tears, but he silently tightened his
hold upon his pistols, and threw himself, at parting, into Les-
cure's arms. " Then first came the eagle-look into his eyes" (says
the gentle historian of La Vendee), " which never left them
after." Scarcely had Henri left when Lescure and all his family
were seized as suspects and conducted to Bressuire. Liberated
by chance, he and Marigny rode forth immediately, in their turn,
to gather recruits.

Machecould, Herbiers, and Chantonnay, as well as Chatillon,
had already been taken by the insurgents when Henri, racing

1 888.] THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. 155

nine leagues across country to avoid the Blues, reached the
little army on the morrow of a great victory, whose fruits had to
be abandoned for lack of ammunition. He turned about and
made another painful and perilous journey to the house of
Mile, de La Rochejaquelein ; thence, with a few young men, to
the rebels' quarters at Tiffauges, whither they had withdrawn.
They had achieved a nearly fatal victory at Chemille ; Stofflet,
De Bonchamp, D'Elbee, even Cathelineau, were disheartened ;
they had but two pounds of powder ; the shabby regiments were
disbanding. Henri went back, brooding and restive, to St.
Aubin. It seemed as if opportunity, after all, had failed him.
But it was reserved for him to organize the general rising, in
the very centre of La Bocage. The peasants found him, calling
upon him to inspirit them and to lend them his name, and
promising that in the course of a day a force of ten thousand
men should join him. He urged them to gather at once by
night, armed, alas ! with their clubs, pitchforks, scythes, and
spades. They came in droves from Neuil, St. Aubin, Echau-
broignes, Cergueux d'Izernay. Guetineau's trained division,
three thousand strong, was before them. They had but two
hundred muskets and sixty pounds of blasting-powder, which
Henri had discovered in a mason's cellar. At dawn he took
command, with the alarum on his lips. His gayety had come
back; he had found his post. What he had to say fired itself in
epigrams, from lifelong habit. He was a little pale, but very
earnest, and his beautiful presence was as a thousand men. He
was only a boy, he said ; but if he flinched, they might, at least,
cut him down ; if he fell in battle, they would, at best, avenge
him ! And they stormed up together against Aubier on the
1 3th of April, 1793, as if in the first bustling act of a bright
drama.

II.

This side-show of the great Revolution was a magnificent
spectacle, and unique in the world's history. Its mise-en-sc^ne, the
Bocage (itself a portion of the great La Vend6e, an area of eight
hundred square leagues south of the Loire, and called since the
civil war by its name), comprised parts of Poitou, Anjou, and
Nantes. It was settled by a hale, single-hearted, honorable peo-
ple. It was a country glossy with woods of golden furze and
pollard oaks, sprinkled everywhere with little hollows and little
streams. It was a country rough and wild ; it had few roads,

156 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [May,

and these clayey and difficult ; it was full of rocky pastures,
hedge-rows, canals, and trenches ; dull of color, crabbed in out-
line, niggardly of distances: and the race which mastered it had
great agility and nerve. Caesar had called them invincible.
They were not of a volatile humor, as were their kindred in
northern France ; and yet no evidence bespeaks them as other-
wise than habitually moving in the very gravity and temperance
of cheerfulness. The patriarchal life survived among them.
The noble divided the proceeds of the land with his farmers;
the ladies' carriages were drawn by bullocks ; on fete-days the
wives and daughters of the lords danced with the peasants.
After the Sunday services, among his devout and earnest flock,
the good cur6 read out the place of meeting for the week's hunts.
There were no feuds; a lawsuit was a twenty-years' wonder.
The keys of the jail had taken to chronic rust. The Bocage had
seen the rise of the Revolution with but faint concern. Its own
clergy were poor, its own gentry magnanimous ; its liberties
were entire; it had no great public abuses calling aloud for re-
form. The quiet, loyal folk Jived their innocent lives, and were
happier than they knew, not being forced to think ; and there-
fore had no history till the insurrection. It broke out in March
of 1793 ; it was over in July of 1795 a thing never to be spoken
of in La Vendee without a throb of passion and Man.

It had been urged too often that the nobles and priests, ac-
tive here as elsewhere for the losing cause, had roused the
masses to revolt. M. Berthre de Bourniseaux, of Thouars, him-
self no friend to the Vend6ans, records it with strict emphasis
that that war was produced by three causes, with none of
which the influence of churchmen and kingsmen, as such, had
anything to do. First, by the execrable tyranny of the Jacobins
and by their oppressions of a people intensely conservative and
reverential, who, in the proper Jacobinical cant, were not ripe for
the Revolution ; second, by the foolish and persistent persecu-
tion of their old religion in behalf of the goddess Reason a
thing long borne in silence and bewilderment until the smol-
dering opposition burst into the full stature of a blaze ; third, the
forced levy of three hundred thousand men.

Let it be remembered that the nobles and the clergy were
too well informed, whatever may have been their desires, to pit
this forlorn corner of France against the united realm. The
campaign was a spontaneous rising of the free peasants against
what they believed to be the spirit of rapine and injustice ; it
had no intrigue, no pushing ; it had absolute purity of intention,

i888.J THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. 157

and takes all its glory from this sole fact. The titled gentry
were compelled to join, in nearly every case, by the vehemence
of the insurgents. D'Elbee, Bonchamps, Lescure, La Roche-
jaquelem, Charette, were drawn from their very firesides and
urged into service. The priests also, ejected from their parishes
for refusing the oaths proposed by the Assembly, long held
aloof from sanctioning the redress of arms. Nowhere, at any
time, did they march or combat with the troops. When their
bodies were found upon the field it was manifest that they had
been shot while ministering to the dying. Such, on this point,
was the sensitiveness, the austere regard for the proprieties,
among the Vende"ans, that a young sub-deacon, discovered in
the ranks, was angrily and summarily dismissed. Not until the
army was at Dol did these pastors ever attempt, in the Repub-
lican phrase, to " fanaticize " the soldiery by working on their
religious feeling as a means of Reviving courage. Never did the
insurgents waive what Turreau is pleased to call their blind and
incurable attachment to their chiefs and their pastors. At a sign
from the latter they actually disbanded during Holy Week of
1793. The Republican squadron sent to quell the revolt found
the villages in dead quiet, and so returned north ; but on Easter
Monday the roads were alive again.

Well was La Bocage called by a writer in Blackwood's " the
last land of romance in Europe." Nothing can measure the
childlike disinterestedness of the men and their cause. Some-
thing of what these rebels for conscience' sake endured we shall
hear; the rewards they meant to ask for their success were
these: that religion should be re-established, free of state inter-
ference; that La Bocage should be known henceforth as La
Vendee, with a distinct administration; that the king should
make it a visit, and retain a corps of Vendeans in his guard ; and
that the white flag should float for ever from every steeple in
memory of the war! They failed, we say ; yet what they fought
for they won : the liberty of the church and the restoration
(temporary, as things are in France) of the government of their
allegiance. Louis XVI 1 1. was unspeakably unworthy, as the
Stuarts in a parallel case had been, of such whole-souled devo-
tion ; he was foolish and crabbed enough afterwards to reduce
the pension of Mme. de Bonchamps, to suspect the thrice-proven
loyalty of Mme. de Lescure, and to refuse admission to the
portraits of Stofflet and Cathelineau when opening his gallery
of Vendean generals at Saint-Cloud, because, forsooth, they were
but plebeians. Yet the praise the southern liegemen hoped for

158 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [May,

from the little Dauphin of 1793 they won later from this man.
" I owe my crown to the Vend6ans," he said, with the one fine
family characteristic of gracious speech.

The peasants, therefore, driven to the wall, rebelled without
forethought or plan, a desperate handful against the forces of
France. At remote points, with no concert whatever, hostilities
began March 10 in Anjou, two days later in^Bas-Poitou ; and
months passed ere one knot of insurrectionists heard tidings of
the other. With the Maulevrier peasants rose Stofflet, the
game-keeper, harsh and hard, though with a streak of kindness
in him a keenly intelligent and masterful disciplinarian ; and
Jacques Cathelineau, waggoner and vender of woollens, foremost
of the band of patnot leaders. There had been a disturbance at
St. Florent over the drafting. Cathelineau, a discreet, serious-
minded Christian, eloquent, upright, and lovable, whose name
was to be all but adored by His troops, was kneading bread
when he heard it. " We must begin the war," he murmured.
His startled wife echoed his words, wailing: " Begin what war?
Who will help you begin the war?" "God!" he said reve-
rently and quietly. Putting his wife gently aside, he wiped his
arms, drew on his coat, and went out instantly to the market-
place. That afternoon he attacked two Republican detach-
ments and seized their ammunition, his little force augmenting
on the march ; in three days it was one thousand strong, and
Cathelineau carried Chollet. His three brothers followed him,
to fall gloriously in battle ; his sixteen cousins and his four
brothers-in-law. He was called " le saint d'Anjou," and he
deserved it a man of truth, dignity, and sweetness, about whom
the wounded crept to die.

III.

Those born in the purple were of the self-same mould. They
had all the "tenderness with great spirit" of Plato's golden
race. They were gentlemen, and they had the delicacy and
h'igh-mindedness of gentlemen. A pleasant instance of this odd
and beautiful retention of amenities in the cannon's mouth oc-
curred before Nantes, where Stofflet found occasion to challenge
Bonchamp. "No, sir," said Bonchamp, with stateliness and
tact ; " God and the king only have the disposal of my life, and
our cause would suffer too grievously were it to be deprived of
yours."

Friendships throve among them. Lescure, La Rochejaque-

1 888.] THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. 159

lein, and Beauvolliers were closely attached to one another, as
were Marigny and Perault. Preferments went wholly by natu-
ral nerve, intelligence, and a vote of deserts. There was no
scheme of promotion to benefit those of gentle blood ; the army
was a genuine democracy. Perfect courtesy and confidence
were accorded to every officer. After the retaking of Chatillon,
the young Duperat, in company with three others, had the im-
prudence to break open the strong-box in Westermann's car-
riage ; there was good presumptive evidence that they had taken
money from it. A council of war ensued, and Duperat, ques-
tioned by Lescure, simply affirmed that they had not done so.
His high character was known, and, though the mystery was not
to be cleared up, the proceedings were closed with an apology
to the young officer. Here at Chatillon, pierced with twelve
sabre-wounds, fell Beaurepaire, who had joined the "brigands"
at. eighteen. The Chevalier de Mondyon was a pretty boy of
fourteen, a truant from his school. At the battle of Chantonnay
the little fellow was placed next to a tall lieutenant, who, under
pretence of being wounded, wished to withdraw. " I do not see
that you are hurt, sir!" said the child; "and as your departure
would discourage the men, I will shoot you through the head if
you stir." And as he was quite capable of that Roman justice,
the tall lieutenant stayed. De Langerie, two years Mondyon's
junior, had his pony killed under him in his first engagement.
Put at a safe and remote post, but without orders, he reap-
peared, inside an hour, galloping back on a fresh horse to fight
for the king. Such were the boys of La Vendee.

Of the elder officers, Frangois-Athenase Charette was
first to lead the rebels in Lower Poitou. He had been a ship's
lieutenant. His morals were not above grave censure, but in
sense and courage he was the equal of his extraordinary fel-
lows. He was twenty-eight years old when he took command at
Machecould. The levying had been resisted ; the government
troops fired ; the young Vende"ans immediately charged on their
assailants and routed them, pillaging the municipality and burn-
ing the papers. At St. Florent, then, on the loth of March,
1793, the royal standard was raised and Louis XVII. proclaimed,
Charette himself sternly vowing to die or to avenge him.
Stofflet was best obeyed of the officers. Bonchamp, mildest and
easiest in temper, was one of the most popular, but singularly
unfortunate, being wounded in nearly every engagement in
which he appeared, and therefore seen but seldom with his men.
Bauge, enrolled by force among the Blues, abandoned them and

160 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [May,

joined the insurgents at Thouars. He was a youth of singular
steadiness and patience, and dear to Lescure and to Henri.
D'Elbee, late lieutenant of the Dauphin cavalry, was forty years
of age. of small and compact build. Estimable as he was, with
his unusual reserve and calm, he was vain, narrow, and a poseur.
It was he who read sermons to his men, who carried with him
the images of his patron saints, and who, above all, talked so
much and so well on the field of the power which directs us,
that the roguish congregation in camp fastened on him the nick-
name of " La Providence." For Lescure, as for Cathelineau, the
peasants had a veneration almost religious. Unselfish, contained
and cool, versed admirably in the science of war, Lescure at
twenty-six had an aspect somewhat lofty and austere, and habits
of absolute self-control. Born in 1766, in 1791 he had made his
first cousin, Victorine, daughter of the chivalrous and mettlesome
Marquis de Donnissan, his wife. To this timid girl, who hero-
ically followed the fortunes of her husband through the heart-
rending war (and who herself, many years after, was to bear a
second illustrious Vendan name by her marriage with Louis de
La Rochejaquelein), we are beholden for the MSwoires, naive and
precious, which supply nearly every known detail of the heroic
struggle, which persuaded out of life the ignorance and preju-
dice of its traducers, and which serve as the most noble monu-
ment ever raised to the worth of the loving army, Catholic and
Royal.

IV.

The Vend6an " brigands," as they were called, had a verb,
s'tgailler, and they lived up to it. It meant sharp-shooting,
every man for himself, in what we Americans might call the his-
toric Lexington style. They crept behind walls and hedges, not
firing, as did the troops of the line, at the height of a man, but
aiming individually, and rarely missing, so that throughout the
war their loss was but as one to five ; they leaped garden terra-
ces, and peered from the angles of the strange Vende"an roads,
making sudden volleys and unforeseen attacks, the chief usually
foremost, the men eager and undrilled; or they ran forward" by
scores, fronting the hostile cannon, flinging themselves down at
every explosion, and so creeping nearer and nearer until they
might grapple the stupefied cannoneers hand to hand. This
was their favorite strategy. Clubs, pitchforks, and scythes fixed
on handles adorned the marching no-pay volunteers. They
lacked wagons, reserves, baggage ; each carried his own rations.

1 388.] THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. 161

The cavalry bestrode horses of divers eccentricities, but at the
tails of one and all figured the enemy's tri-color cockade. Ropes
were stirrups to these gallant Paladins,' and their sabres hung by
pack-threads. They had no time for the conventions of the toilet :
their hair and beards looked like Orson's. The officers wore
woollen blouses and gaiters, with the little red, consecrated
hearts sewed on their coats ; no uniform, no insignia, and at first
they lacked a distinguishing dress. Neither they nor the privates
received a sou for services; if any were in want he asked for a
disbursement and got it. The main army averaged twenty
thousand men ; at a pinch it could be doubled in numbers.

Sobriety reigned in the camps. Considering the prohibition
against the presence of women, it is rather surprising to find
here and there some spotless Amazon, like Jeanne Robin or the
never-to-be-forgotten Ren6e Bordereau (V Angevin] fighting in
the van. The fantastic soldiery, meeting a wayside crucifix
half-way to the battery, would doff hats and kneel an instant,
then charge like fiends on the foe. The parishes sent carts to
the roadside laden with provisions for the passing cohorts; the
women, children, and old men knelt in the cornfields, while the
firing went on afar off, to beseech the Lord of Hosts. Piety of
the sane, honest, unexaggerated sort was universal. Henri de
La Rochejaquelein, least apt, perhaps, of all the generals to give
his religiousness public vent, voiced it for once at Saumur. He
stood at a window, after the five-days' victory, gazing towards
the church. To a comrade who laughingly asked what were
his thoughts he said gravely : "I was wondering over our suc-
cess. Is it not the hand of God that has done it? "

The army was innocent of discipline. Every movement was
a farce in tactics. " Such and such a general goes such and
such a way," the adjutant would call ; " who follows ? " And
the tenants of his own estate, the guerrilla vassals, would charge
with a shout after him, forming their lines by his horse. Never
were men more dependent on the nerve and sagacity of their
leaders. A wounded officer dared not flinch, or the crazy col-
umns would give way. Lescure, wounded at Saumur, dis-
sembled, and kept the troops ignorant of his hurt ; Charette
being wounded long after at Dufour, his regiments dispersed
like sheep ; when Cathelineau fell, in sight of his army, there
was instant rout. At the recapture of Chatillon, many a leader,
sick and weak, rode his horse in affected vigor, and so forced
the glorious issue of the day.

The Vendeans, admirable fighters at a spurt, knew nothing
VOL. XLVII. ii

1 62 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [May,

of prudence or calculation. After the first hint that the victory
was theirs they hastened to ring the church-bells and to make
bonfires of the papers of the administration a proceeding
which, according to Mme. de Lescure, afforded them unfailing
amusement. Never were they all under arms for more than a
few consecutive days. The troops were repeatedly dispersing
and rallying, giving their chiefs endless worry and chagrin.
They fought like Spenser's angels, " all for love and nothing for
reward " ; but they left the ranks when they chose ; after a suc-
cess, rather than after a defeat, they would scatter to their
homes like so much thistledown in the air, and it was hopeless
to try to follow up an advantage won. No one was baffled and
maddened oftener by this freak than Henri. Yet sometimes, as
at Angers and Saumur, it was they who clamored to fight, and
he who, against his own judgment, yielded to them. Frequent-
ly, when ammunition was in abundance, this unaccountable army
was overcome; and as often, without a musket among six, it
gained a signal advantage. " Yet these, by bravery and enthu-
siasm, and by wisdom developed of short experience, conquered
a part of France, obtained an honorable peace, and defended
their cause with more glory and success than did the leagued
allies."

The paradoxical fact remains that the Vend6ans had great
ardor and fellow-feeling, and that their valor (exquisite enough
in tone, to borrow a musical simile, and yet easily swerv-
ing from pitch) was prodigious. The truth is, they were but
intelligent childrn at a pleasant task. They had no adult
comprehension of their momentous concerns, to which they
gave themselves, by fits and starts, with perfect disinterested-
ness, joyfulness, and zeal. But they relapsed for ever into the
absent-mindedness, the. truancy, and the game. They went into
action with roundelays or litanies on their lips, and with the un-
abated battle-cry, " Vive le rot, quand m^nte." They frolicked
about the famous cannon Marie-Jeanne, namesake of a young
Marie-Jeanne from Chanzeau who knelt once in the smoke be-
side it and prayed ; they kissed its ornate inscriptions of Riche-
lieu's day ; they buried it in flowers and ribbons. Their songs
and stories were of dear brazen Marie-Jeanne ; they lost her
with dirges and recaptured her with salvos of joy.

Whenever the Vend6ans wavered it was not, at least, through
dread of any personal hardship. They were often hungry, often
ragged, but there were no mutinies for that. Indeed, they un-
derwent horrible poverty and distress, and lacked both money

1 888.] \ THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. 163

and clothes. The picked men of a company long marched in
grotesque dominos out of sacked playhouses, in lawyers' gowns,
even in furniture stuffs and draperies. The chivalric De Ver-
teuil was found dead on the field, equipped in two petticoats,
one about his neck, the other about his waist the noblest
armor, perhaps, that officer ever wore.

As we get away from the grim ethics of history the aesthe-
tics of it take shape and color, and give us an abstract pleasure
from the centres of thought and pain. There is an unspeakable
verve and attractiveness, to the sense, in these years of the Ven-
dean insurrection, as if the story of them could never be taken
as other than an idyl dark and bright. The course of events
was like a romantic drama, full of " points," of poses, of electric
surprises ; where the dialogue flows in alexandrines, and the
crises are settled in the nick of time. The talk is the rhetoric
of hearts sincere, but French. The devoted Marquis de Don-
nissan breaks in upon two clashing swords : " ' What ! the Lord
Christ pardons his executioners, and a soldier of the Christian
army tries to slay his comrade ! ' At these words they drop
their swords and embrace each other ! " Or, after the terrible
battle of Mans, and not long before her little daughter's birth,
Mme. de Lescure, hemmed in the choked streets of the city,
catches in despair at the hand of a gentle-faced young trooper
pushing by : " Sir ! have pity on a poor woman who cannot go
on. Help me!" Whereupon the young trooper weeps some
feverish tears: "What can I do? I am a woman also!" Or
that interesting impostor, the pseudo-bishop of Agra, stands up
before the lined troops and sheds such prose upon them as
Matthew Arnold should praise for ever: " Race antique et fidele
des serviteurs de nos rots, pieux ze"lateurs -du trdne et de I'autel^ en-
fants de la Vendee ! marchez, combattez, triomphez ! C'est Dieu qui
vous Fordonne"

LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.

1 64 AN IRISH POET. [May,

AN IRISH POET.

IT would be a strange fact if Ireland had produced no poets.
The heat and strength of the emotional Gaelic nature demand
precisely the outlet which poetry affords. Poesy is the first
aesthetic development in a nation, as a refined architecture is the
final expression of its advanced civilization. Ireland in its early
history, with its barbaric heroes and legendary mists, and the
powerful, rugged Goidelic dialect, the distinctive Gaelic tongue
of the young islanders, was a field in which the muse of poetry
wandered as in her own domain. Calliope abode in the infant
Erin as naturally as she did in the strong, primal dawn of
Hellenic times, when the blind old bard of Chios was her high-
priest. True, the Western Isle has produced no Homer. But
she has had her singers, who have pitched their lays in some
distinctly national key. Tom Moore, in his rollicking songs and
sensuous, erotic verse, was simply the effervescence of the strong
gayety of the Celt. When he struck a minor chord the tears
were not wrung from bloodshot eyes, but glittered brightly
'like dewdrops which a placid summer night scatters upon a
lawn. His sombre touches, like the darker spots in mother-of-
pearl, are shot with brilliant iridescence. James Clarence Man-
gan was a singer of precisely opposite strain. The strings of
his lyre were soaked in tears, and his melancholy song was like
the wailing of the night winds. His ghastly humor is only the
gibing of his soul in defiance of its pains. Although he trans-
lated many of the early poems of Ireland, he knew not a word
of Irish, though an Irishman and a good linguist. He drew for
his metrical versions on literal translations in prose by O'Daly
Curran and O'Donovan.

But there is a modern Gaelic bard who devoted years of
study to all that concerned the great Gaelic stem which spread
out branches in Irish soil. Strange to say, he was not a Celt
himself, unless from some remote Scottish strain. Nor was he
of that religion which one is so apt to feel as congenital with the
true Irishman. Sir Samuel Ferguson was Teutonic in origin
and Protestant in religion. But his sympathies were deeply
enlisted in the Emerald Isle and her sorrow-stricken race. The
old legendary history of Ireland has drawn the poet into quasi-
Homeric chants of deeds of war and high emprise of love. His

1 8 88.] AN IRISH POET. 165

poetic conception of the land he loved well may be gathered
from these verses of one of his ballads :

"A plenteous land is Ireland for hospitable cheer,

Uileachan dubh O !
Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow barley-ear ;

Uileachan dubh O!

There is honey in the trees where her misty veils expand,
And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fanned ;
There is dew at high noontide there, and springs i' the yellow sand,
On the fair hills of holy Ireland."

Sir Samuel Ferguson has published several volumes of Irish
poetry. They are entitled Lays of the Western Gael, Poems, The*
Forging of the Anchor, and Congal. The last-named poem is pro-
bably the most ambitious effort of his muse. It was published
in 1872, both in Dublin and London. It is an epic in five books.
The Irish bardic romance of Cath Muighe Rath " The Battle of
Moyra" was brought out by the Irish Archaeological Society
in 1842. As Sir Samuel says in the preface to Congal: "It
made a strong and lasting impression on my imagination. It
seemed to possess in a remarkable degree that largeness of pur-
pose, unity, and continuity of action which are the principal ele-
ments of epic poetry, and solicited me irresistibly to the endeavor
to render them into some compatible form of English verse." He
confesses that the attempt to do this was too difficult, and he
abandoned it. But the general tenor of the piece had taken too
strong a hold upon his mind to be rejected, and the ultimate
outcome was this epic poem of Congal. Growing though it
did from the Irish original, the outline and. structure of Sir
Samuel's poem were too independent of those of its prototype
to justify the title of the battle of .Moyra, though this contest is
the principal incident in both. The battle of Moyra took place
in A.D. 637. Sir Samuel Ferguson adopts the view of it which
many entertain, that it was the expiring effort of the pagan and
bardic party in Ireland against the newly-consolidated power of
church and crown, and regards the obligations which Domnal,
the reigning monarch, had incurred to Congal, the disappointed
sub-king of Ulster, as the casus belli. He called the poem after
the chief actor, Congal of Ulster. Many of the personages and
events are worthily deemed historical, but there is an avowed-
ly preponderating element of romance, and the supernatural
machinery which inevitably figured in the classic epic finds
place here and is drawn from the supernatural machinery of
mediaeval Irish fiction. The theme is the Cath Muighe Rath the

166 AN IRISH POET. [May,

battle of Moyra in which the forces of the Ulster king are
routed by Domnal, and

"The long-corroded link of life's mysterious chain
Snapped softly, and his mortal change passed upon Congal Claen."

Unfortunately, perhaps, the hero is listed in the host of heathen,
while Domnal fought the barbarian invaders for Christianity
and the rites of Patrick and Brigid. A love-affair runs through
the epic woof. Congal becomes enamored of the Princess
Lafinda, daughter of his tributary, Sweeny, King of Down.
She was a maiden gentle, beautiful, and pious. It seems, at one
*tage of the poem, as if her influence would divert Congal from
his vengeful ambition. The sweet piety of this royal maid can
be best gathered from her remarks to Congal when he comes to
tell her of the war he is about to engage in, and the necessary
postponement of their nuptials:

" Oh me ! what hearts ye own,

Proud men, for trivialest contempt in thoughtless moment shown,
For rash word from unguarded lip, for fancied scornful eye, -
That put your lives and hopes of them you love in jeopardy.
Yet deem not I, a princess, sprung myself from warrior sires,
Repine at aught in thy behoof that Honor's law requires.
Nor ask I what affront, or how offended, neither where
Blame first may lie. Judge thou of these : these are a warrior's care
Yet, oh ! bethink thee, Congal, ere war kindles, of the ties
Of nurture, friendship, fosterage ; think of the woful sighs
Of widows, of poor orphans' cries ; of all the pains and griefs
That plague a people in the path of battle-wagering chiefs.
See, holy men are 'mongst us come with message sweet of peace
From God himself, and promise sure that sin and strife shall cease.
Else wherefore, if with fear and force mankind must ever dwell,
Raise we the pardon-spreading cross and peace-proclaiming cell ? "

Congal is not moved from his warlike purpose and makes
light of his betrothed's expostulations. The tragedy of Congal's
end is heightened by the manner in which it is accomplished.
An idiot, Cuanna, taunted by his stepmother with remaining idly
at home while his father and brave men were fighting for Dom-
nal, clutched a bill-hook as a weapon and a caldron's lid for a
shield, and rushed to the fray on the plains of Moyra. Congal
laughed the idiot warrior to scorn as he pressed pantingly for-
ward till he faced the fierce young Ulster king. " Battle is no
concern of thine," Congal tells him contemptuously, and passed
on. But the idiot drove his hook-bill with savage force through
Congal's coat of mail, and laid him low with mortal wound. He

1 888.] AN IRISH POET. 167

was borne close to a cell of a nun of St. Brigid, and as the reli-
gious approached to care for the wounded knight, Congal
recognized the imperial grace of Lafinda. She did not know
him at first, and he asked, reproachfully, if he is so altered that
she knew him not, " that shouldst have been his bride."

" Bride now of Christ/' she answered low, " I know thee but as one
For whom my heavenly Spouse has died."

"And other nuptials none

Desire I for thee now," he said ; "for nothing now is mine,
Save the fast-fleeting breath of life I hasten to resign."

Lafinda bound his wounds, tenderly cared for him, and urged
him to repentance.

"Oh ! grant/' she cried, with tender joy, "Thou who alone canst save,
That this awaking be to light and life beyond the grave !"

This is the gist of the argument. Episodes of the usual con-
ventional epic character diversify the conduct of the plot. The
metre which the poet has employed is the heptameter iambic in
rhyming couplets. This is equivalent, of course, to alternate
tetrameters and trimeters with the latter only rhyming. It has
a vigorous swing and is handled well. But Sir Samuel Fergu-
son's technique is not as skilful as could be wished* There is a
certain almost homely quality in his style which crops out even
in his lyrical effusions.

Sir Samuel Ferguson's other Gaelic legendary themes deal
principally with the heathen period. Several of them have been
also handled by Aubrey de Vere, whose polished elegance is far
in advance of our author's, but whose cold dignity would gain
by an infusion of Sir Samuel's Celtic heat and rugged force.
Among some of the poems of this character are the " Tain Bo
Cuailgne," or " Cattle Spoil of Cooley "; the invasion of Ulster
by Queen Meav of Connaught, and the repulse which she suffered
at the hands of the Celtic Achilles, Cuchullin. The " Tain " was
an object of desire to the Celtic bards, as the Holy Grail was to
the chaste knights of King Arthur's Table Round. It was an
ancient poem, supposed to be the composition of King Fergus
himself, who was the chief captain of the Connaught queen.
The legend said that the only remaining copy of the "Tain " had
been cut in pieces, which were carried to Rome in the days of
St. Patrick. Its discovery was essayed by Murge-n, son of the
chief bard of the sixth century, Sanchan Torpest. It was

1 68 AN IRISH POET. [May,

revealed to him by the spirit of Fergus, who taught the poem
to his father.

" Vision chasing splendid vision, Sanchan rolled the rhythmic scene;
They that mocked in lewd derision, now, at gaze, with wondering mien,
Sat, and, as the glorying master swayed the tightening reins of song,
Felt emotion's pulses faster, fancies faster bound along."

But after he had sung the mystic song the ghost of Fergus
passed through the banquet-hall, and young Murhen paid the
price of his recourse to the realm of spirits. When the spectre
vanished he sat stiffly in his chair, a bit of lifeless clay. The
fate of Deirdre" and of the Sons of Usnach also figure in Sir
Samuel's Celtic poems. While his chief claim to distinction
must rest on this class of his works, he has treated other themes
of a perfectly different order. " The Forging of the Anchor"
is a half-lyrical, half-ballad composition. It gives a very just
idea of his poetic ability. In the old Celtic legends the heart of
his readers is quickened by national proprietorship in those old
tales. But in this poem Sir Samuel takes the very modern pro-
cess of forging a ship's anchor as the subject of his verse. There
is something essentially virile both in his thought and his expres-
sion of it. It is of a genre quality. The dainty grace which
diffuses itself over triolets or quatrains, the super-sensuous enjoy-
ment of form even in preference to anything substantial in con-
ception, are quite foreign to his poetic power. It is written in
his favorite metre, the rhyming heptameter couplets. The
spirited, breezy way in which he starts on the lay is maintained
throughout :

" Come, see the Dolphin s anchor forged 'tis at a white heat now ;
The bellows ceased, the flames decreased, though on the forge's brow
The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound,
And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round,
All clad in leathern panoply, their broad arms only bare ;
Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.'"

In this manner, with the minute fidelity of a Dutch painter,
he develops his theme, following the molten mass till it is forged
into the anchor, and then picturing the Dolphin trembling
through a terrific sea, but fast held by the sturdy flukes.

" Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time ;
Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime;
But, while you swing your sledges, sing, and let your burden be :
' The anchor is the anvil-king, and royal craftsmen we ! ' "

i888.] AN IRISH POET. 169

He follows the massive thing to its " oozy couch of clay," and
by bold personification indulges in a forecast of the pleasant
sights which await it "beneath the deep, green sea." He paints
in strong strokes of his pen the monsters of the deep, with a
force suggestive of Schiller in " The Diver":

" O deep-sea diver, who might then behold such sights as thou ?
The hoary monsters' palaces ! Methinks what joy 'twere now
To go plumb plunging down amid the assembly of the whales,
And feel the churn'd sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails !
Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn,
And send him foiled and bellowing back for all his ivory horn ;
To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bonyblade forlorn ;
And for the ghastly grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn ;
To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles
He lies, a lubber anchorage, for sudden, shallow'd miles :
Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls ;
Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonished shoals
Of his black browsing ocean-calves ; or, haply, in a cove,
Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love,
To find the long-hair'd mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands,
To wrestle with the sea-serpent upon cerulean sands."

The poet warms to a human interest as he pictures the stout
anchor sinking among the ocean-buried bones of trusty mari-
ners, which could it recognize it would thrill with pride. He
pays warm homage to the faithful tars who have left the seduc-
tive joys of home to weather the storm for their country's good :

"Oh ! though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung,
Honor him for their memory whose bones he goes among !''

is a sample of Sir Samuel Ferguson's lapse into a simplicity
which has hardly poetry enough to vitalize it. He is given to
these crude lapses, not so much in his strictly Celtic strains as
in those whose value is in their ethical quality. He is always
strong rather than delicate, and the delicacy that is discoverable
is in the thought rather than the verse which clothes it. Too
frequently this is rugged to discomfort, and his style is marred
by crude passages and harsh epithets. But feeling may be justly
considered as more than half of the poetic quality. His reve-
rence for worthy things is strong and frank. He could hardly
be a nineteenth-century poet, with his sturdy honesty and frank
humanity, and not have heeded the great questions of the mass
of thinkers, the Why and the Whither which tease those who
have not the plumb-line of faith. Catholic he was not, but his
poetry has passages that reveal a stanch Christian integrity

170 AN IRISH POET. [May,

and confidence. In the poem called " The Morning's Hinges,"
after deprecating the physical and moral evil which infects the
world, and declaring that he would hinder, if he could,

" Wrath, and pain, and spilling blood,''

he asks himself if he be part and parcel of the wickedness and
imperfection which are so strong in leaven in the mass of man-
kind. To this he answers :

" No ; a something cries within,
No ; I am not of your kin ;
Broods of evil ! all the forces
Of my nature answer, No !
Though the world be overspread
With the riddle still unread
Of your being, of your sources,
This with sense supreme I know :
That behooves me, and I can,
Work within the inner man
Such a weeding and a cleansing
Of this moss-grown home-plot there
As shall make its herbage meet
For the souls of angels' feet,
And its blooms for eye's dispensing
Light of Heaven's own atmosphere."

There are two or three translations from the classics. The
Invocation to Lucretius' poem, " De Rerum Natura," has mod-
erately caught something of that poet's spirit, and has some-
what reproduced the archaic masterly touches of the great
heathen's style. But the impetuous force of Lucretius is not
attained in any measure. The translation of " Archytas and the
Sailor" from Horace's Odes is the very one a reader of Sir
Samuel Ferguson would have fancied he would select, because
of the ethical quality. But he deals with it weakly, and the
rather pedantic and rigid rendering is not only far from Ho-
ratian, but alien to the author's more distinctive and happier
manner. Sir Samuel has poems to his brother-poet, Thomas
Davis, whom he addresses in affectionate eulogy ; and also to
Sir William Wilde, whose instrumentality in collecting Celtic
antiquities naturally awakened a sympathetic interest in a char-
acter as fond of national Irish research as our poet. He also
addresses a sonnet to Mr. Isaac Butt, elicited by that gentle-
man's rejection by the Royal Irish Academy as a member on
the 1 3th of November, 1876.

Sir Samuel Ferguson is the latest though by no means the

i888.] AN IRISH POET. 171

least of Irish bards. It is hard to conceive that any cultivated
native of Ireland should not take an interest in his Celtic poetry,
and should not feel indebted to him for his scholarly investiga-
tions in this field of national research. How thoroughly patriotic
he was may be gathered from these stanzas from a poem com-
posed by him in his thirty-fifth year. Oddly enough, as will
seem to many, it is composed in the style and language of Rob-
ert Burns. But it must be recalled that this Scottish dialect is
as familiar to many Ulstermen as to the inhabitants of Ayrshire
itself:

: .

",Lord, for ae day o" service done her,
Lord, for ane hour's sunlight upon her,
Here, fortune, take warld's wealth and honor

You're no my debtor ;
Let me but rive ae link asunder

O' Erin's fetter.

" Let me but help to shape the sentence
Will put the pith o' independence,
O' self-respect in self-acquaintance,

And manly pride,

Intil auld Eber Scot's descendants
Take a' beside.

" Let me but help to get the truth
Set fast in ilka brother's mouth,
Whatever accent, north or south,

His tongue may use ;
And then ambition, riches, youth

Take which you choose."

Quite independently of his genius as a poet, his singular suc-
cess in giving to Irish legends and traditions, and to the man-
ners, feelings, and distinctive characteristics of the Irish race, fit-
ting expression in English, must be gratifying. Irish hearts
which cherish a warm national feeling cannot but welcome
every effort which tends to give a distinctive force to Ireland's
literature. Ferguson was an early laborer in this field, and he
worked there till his life came to its close. Lady Ferguson was
an enthusiastic adjutant of her husband here. She has published
a delightful work on early Irish history, and has republished her
husband's poetry, as well as his prose writings, in a cheap form,
which makes them easily accessible to all.

This short sketch of Sir Samuel Ferguson's poetic work may
be sufficient to call attention to a poet but little known in
America, but whose merit is certainly such as to demand re-

172 THE KEY OF THE POSITION. [May,

spect and interest from Irish hearts wherever they may beat.
Mr. Justice O'Hagan published two or three essays on Sir
Samuel Ferguson in the Irish Monthly some few years since. In
one of these he says :

"Thus traversing all ages, from the shadowy, gigantic forms and mystic
lays of the earliest epoch down to our own times, from Cuchullin and
Fergus Mac Roy to Thomas Davis, may we not say that Sir Samuel Fergu-
son has achieved a great work for his country? Be it no disparagement
toother laborers in the same field, whom we honor and admire, to say that
he is in the front of them all. It has been urged upon us that it is a pity
that we did not devote ourselves to make his great gifts as a poet better
known through the pages of some English periodical. We do not adopt
this view. In the present condition of English taste our words would be
addressed to cold, reluctant, and unsympathetic ears. Here and there a
man of genius, like Matthew Arnold, may appreciate the treasures that lie
in Celtic poetry and legend, but to the ordinary English mind they are ex-
traneous and repulsive. However that may be, the first thing is to make
our poet more known and more prized by his own countrymen. If a dis-
tinctive national Irish literature in the English tongue is, as we hope and
believe, an achievement of which the foundations have been already laid,
and which one day, in fair and stately proportions, will body forth all that
is best and noblest in the character and aspirations of the Gael, and not
of the Gael alone but of the Gael as interfused and blended with the Dane,
the Saxon, and the Nofman, according to the noble language of Davis
himself, then to Sir Samuel Ferguson may the greater praise belong. Be
this the pillar of his fame."

It would seem as if these sentiments should find an echo
among the Irish of America.

JOHN J. A BECKET, PH.D.

THE KEY OF THE POSITION.

IN my former article *. I pointed out that physical science, or
an experimental knowledge of what Mr. Arnold describes as
"nature and the course of things," has in no way whatever
diminished the reasonableness or called in question the possi-
bility of natural religion. So far, I said, as the origin and, des-
tiny of the universe are concerned, scientific men, keeping with-
in their province, cannot so much as profess to have an opinion.
And thus we might as well be living in the sixteenth as in the
nineteenth century, for all the help " science " can afford to-

*See THE CATHOLIC WORLD for April, " Dogma and Symbolism."

1 888.] THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 173

wards solving the great speculative and practical problem, What
is the spirit of man, and how is he to order his life ? In
illustration of these principles, which determine the limits of
scientific thought, I referred to some of the most eminent au-
thorities and representative men in modern physics. I might
have filled my paper with quotations and famous names. But
there was no need. It is notorious that the very ground on
which a host of scientific men are turning away from revealed
religion is their inability to affirm or deny the " transcenden-
tal " in plainer terms, whatever goes beyond physical experience
and a psychology founded on physics. "Science" confessedly
deals with the finite and the contingent, nay, with the material
as distinct from, or opposed to, the immaterial. Take the old
problem, then, and ask, Is there spiritual being at the base of our
" states of consciousness " ? What is it that really happens when
We die? Is the idea of Right different from the idea of Expedi-
ency ? Is there such a thing as sin ? Are we justified in speaking
of " the High and Holy One that inhabitates eternity," or is eter-
nity blank and lifeless, save for the feeble spark of human existence
on this planet of ours, which seems lost amid the starry mazes
and the illimitable ether? To these questions we might as soon
expect an answer from the Sphinx that lies silent and half-
buried in the sands of the wilderness, as from "science" with
all its instruments. In the laboratory, the dissecting-room, the
astronomer's observatory, they are questions without a mean-
ing. But not so in " the deep heart of man." There they touch
upon those secrets of " things in themselves " \yhich lie hidden
behind the shows of sense and their fainter shadows in the ima-
gination. For they hold true, as he does, of eternity. And the
practical reason which throws light on them, and guides us in
the path we should follow as human beings, made for truth and
virtue, is not " science" but religion.

I say religion is the practical reason of mankind. I am quite
willing to insist with Schopenhauer that it is the one philosophy
which "the people" can understand. I will even go a step be-
yond the prophet of pessimism, and affirm that the educated
few or the solitary thinker whom he contrasts with the rest of
men cannot dispense with religion, if their light is not to be
darkness and their speculations on the origin of things mere
fanciful dreaming. It is not given to any of us to escape from
these problems or to dispense with an answer to them. Some
kind of solution, positive or negative, they must receive. For
eternity is within us and around us; the purpose of life cannot

174 THE KEY OF THE POSITION. [May,

be determined as though we were merely creatures of time ;
and it is that purpose which gives their value to our daily ac-
tions and shapes us into men or something lower than men, ac-
cording to our choice. Will not the acceptance of a creed like
agnosticism bring about the widest of revolutions as in thought,
so in the life of the individual and of the city ? And must we
not, therefore, in any event add a philosophy to our science,
whether we will or no? If man could cut himself adrift from
such thoughts he might sail careless and happy over the seas
of time, looking neither before nor after, but going as the winds
should take him. Divorced from his instinct for the " transcen-
dental," he would still, perhaps, be " more subtle than any beast
of the field." But he cannot get away from himself, and all the
mysteries on which his hopes and fears revolve are within him.
Now, I wish to make it clear that agnosticism, or even athe
ism, does not succeed in shuffling off the religious burden, but
shifts it from one shoulder to the other. These systems profess
to relieve us either by ceasing to inquire into the unseen, or by
bluntly declaring that it is of the same stuff and pattern as the
things we handle with our fingers and tear with our machines
every day. So far as I can see, this is not ridding life of its
troubles, but forbidding us to look onward. It is taking the sky
out of our view, not making the earth fruitful. Let us endeavor
to realize the consequences. Richter, in a celebrated " Dream "
of his, has drawn a picture of "the dead Christ proclaiming
from the height of the universe that there is no God." It is a
terrible and lurid vision, in which the poet forces upon us the
conviction that the entire worth of our existence, here and now,
depends on that faith in our Heavenly Father which atheism
would have us renounce and agnosticism puts away as disown-
ed by knowledge. Standing aloft on the altar, about which the
shades have gathered from their tombs, Christ is made to utter
the great negation. " Children," he says to them, " you have no
God." That is atheism, doubtless. Would the message have
sounded less despairing had he wrapped it in the agnostic cloud
and proclaimed, " No God that you can ever know or that can
know himself, for the only absolute is the Unconscious and the
Unknowable " ? And if we receive this announcement as the
word of science, can we go back to our business and our poli-
tics, to hearth and home, the men that we were ? A dead Christ
and an unthinkable God ; virtue, self-denial, heroism, mere cun-
ning calculations ; love, the delirium of youth ; knowledge itself
the amusement of a race of unfeathered bipeds who in a few

1 888.] THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 175

years will have disappeared into the abyss which is the womb
and grave of a phantom universe; and, to make the irony com-
plete, religion a symbolism indicating all this to the initiated !
such, stripped of its disguises, I take to be the doctrine preach-
ed with enthusiastic conviction, on both sides of the Atlantic, by
agnostics. A poor human creature bounded by his senses and
the phenomena they attain, yet full of an infinite longing ; in-
satiable, unappeasable ; crying out in vain for knowledge that
shall endure, and seeking everywhere the fatherly love he is
destined never to meet; with the consciousness that whatever
he does or leaves undone the end will be the same, and no good
come of it surely this, a hundred years ago, would have been
thought a description of the sufferings of the damned. Yet it is
the world fashioned by unbelieving science, with agnosticism
for a background. And were it the truth as, thank God ! it is
the most incredible of fictions what a hollow mockery would
our progress and civilization have come to be ! The wretched-
est of criminals has at least one possession of which, so long as
there is a God in heaven, he cannot be deprived. He has al-
ways hope, though, it may be, nothing else. But on the scheme
of scientific unbelief neither the worst nor the best of men
could look beyond the grave. This world of the senses would
alone be left to make up for the loss of God, the soul, and im-
mortality, all alike swallowed up in the infinite darkness.

And thus we are beginning to hear of a struggle for the pos-
session of it. On the one hand, men who cannot be sure of a
heaven after death are resolved to make one below, and to get
in this miserable prison of theirs as much enjoyment as they
can. Science is to be the instrument of universal luxury, and
the multitudes are to live happy without religion in an earthly
paradise. On the other hand, those who already have the world
at their command, and might be supposed to know what an
earthly paradise can offer, do not cease crying out by the
mouths of their prophets, in prose and verse, that life is an utter
delusion and is not worth living. The restlessness of the time
is something portentous. Ambition was never so intense, nor
the lust of enjoyment in Christian times so shamelessly ac-
knowledged, nor cynical self-interest so universally assumed as
the mainspring of human activity. All this, and the practice of
vices that still keep from the light of day, though by no means
so much as they did even twenty years ago, make up what is
called " life at high pressure." But I cannot think it a proof
that agnosticism has solved or abolished the religious problem.

176 THE KEY OF THE POSITION. [May,

It seems to me rather a plain indication of the chaos into which
the thought of civilized man is falling. The prodigal would
fain content himself with the husks of swine. He remembers
that he once had a father and a father's house, but he is not
minded to return thither as yet. Meanwhile he staggers from
superstition to superstition ; now professing to hold that an
earthly heaven is worth ten thousand eternities, and, after a lit-
tle, turning from his husks. to declare that man has no comfort
save in death. The phenomena of socialism and pessimism
should be carefully studied by those who, not satisfied with the
plausibilities of the agnostic negation, desire to see it at work.
They will hardly otherwise believe how deadly is the poison
with which it has inoculated the whole of modern society-
making too many of the poor more wretched than ever and
ready for the most violent revolutions, while under its influence
the governing classes are "paralyzed and [the wisest of their
leaders are losing heart and hope.

My conclusion is, therefore, that agnosticism does nothing
but embroil the problems of this world as of the next. 'I am not
urging the imbecile and irreligious contention of those men who
would have Christianity do the work of the police, and keep the
social order, by which they mean the moneyed interest, intact.
Religion is first, not second ; if it has a claim on our allegiance,
the reason is not because it will serve instead of a strong govern-
ment, but because without religion we cannot be men, and be-
cause in default of it we sink below the brute. A time has come
when we must look forward and consider what will happen if
atheism, in one of its many forms, should get the upper hand
generally in Europe and America, as it already is supreme in
France. Modern thought moves fast. The life of a single man
now traverses three or four generations of opinion ; and what was
a logical consequence yesterday will be a series of accomplished
facts to-morrow. Agnosticism, beginning with neutrality, nei-
ther does nor can end there. By an inevitable law it becomes
in the second generation indifferentism, and casts out the reli-
gious element altogether. A generation onward, and it develops
from irreligion into anti-religion. That destructive force is now
dominating France, is able to hold its own to a great extent in
Belgium, is restrained only by political considerations in Italy,
and is not without powerful adherents in England and the
United States, as the conduct of the education controversy bears
witness. The last enemy is, therefore, secularism, of which it
was long ago predicted that it would lift itself up against all that

1 888.] THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 177

is called God or is worshipped. The gentle agnostic and the
militant, lawless secularist differ one from the other only as, among
Catholics, the contemplative from the missionary orders. It is
the same spirit that rays out darkness in Mr. Herbert SpenCer's
First Principles, and arms the right hand of the Paris municipality
against the dying Christian in the hospital, and the nun that
holds the crucifix before his failing eyes. If there is any truth
in the philosophical dictum which personifies thought in a think-
er, it is not easy to believe that the creed of agnosticism has
grown of itself in the modern mind, or that the spirit which is
now so busy propagating it all the world over comes from
heaven.

Mankind, I have said above with Schopenhauer, cannot be
governed by abstract ideas. A great personality will fascinate
and subdue them where reason, though the profoundest, leaves
them unmoved. Nothing, again, has so sacred a right in their
eyes as custom followed for centuries, or institutions dating
from the immemorial past. And, therefore, when we take
these things into consideration, we may rest assured that the
future belongs not to a system of philosophy, but to that organ-
ism which has embodied in itself the reigning principles and can
cast a spell over the imagination of the multitude. What will
that organism be? Surely some mighty incarnation of the anti-
religious spirit, or else Christianity in its most dogmatic form.
Day by day, political and, yet more, social difficulties are resolv-
ing themselves into the all-embracing question, Shall civilization
hfe religious, as it ever has been in the history of the Western na-
tions, or shall it become secular under the guidance of empirical
science? Shall it be a theocracy or a Darwinian struggle for
existence without God? Between these alternatives the near
future will have to choose.

But secularism has begun to frame its institutions. It aims
at possessing itself of the state, and wherever it has succeeded
the next step is to laicize (significant word !) every department of
human activity connected with it. Especially malignant is its
hatred of Christian schools, which are now the chief object of its
attack. From the elementary schools to the universities, it as-
sails them all. We may watch the progress it is making, and
thereby measure its demands, not in Protestant countries alone,
or in the so-called Catholic alone, but throughout modern society
everywhere. The Protestant clergy of England, Germany, and
America are themselves succumbing to its influence and under-
going a process of laicization. Great numbers of them have

VOL. XLVII. 12

178 THE KEY OF THE POSITION. [May,

given up the Christian dogmas ; not a few have ceased to believe
in theism ; others are openly coalescing with the worshippers
of matter and brute force. No marvel that their power as a
teaching body is seriously and steadily diminishing, or that pro-
phets have arisen to foretell the approaching downfall of Re-
formed Christianity. May we not affirm, in fact, that it is al-
ready fallen ? At any rate, thoughtful observers believe that in
no long time the multitude of intermediate Christian sects will
be absorbed into the great apostasy of secularism, or will gravi-
tate towards the Catholic Church and finally yield themselves
to her authority.

Such is the outlook. Without hazarding a prediction, we
may, and it will be well if we do, convince ourselves that in this
warfare not much depends on paper theories, but everything at
last on the living forces, whether for good or for ill, that make
up humanity. Let us, then, clear from our sight the haze of
rhetoric, and judge of the future by the past. Belief and unbe-
lief alike have their phrase-makers ; nor is it incredible that on
both sides a great deal of argument may be wasted upon matters
which in the issue will not count. Iliacos intra muros peccatur et
extra. I am persuaded that the controversy does not turn on
particular questions of dogma, nor on the criticism of the Old
Testament, nor on this or that incident, however striking or
embarrassing, in the church's history. It turns, beyond all
doubt, on what scientific men have called the Supernatural. I
do not say their use of the term is accurate. Far from it. But
with a very little care we can avoid ambiguities in discussing
the problem which they raise. By the Supernatural they mean,
in the first place, whatever cannot be submitted to their investi-
gations, and therefore all that transcends phenomena. I ought,
in passing, to remark that even as regards phenomena the lan-
guage of modern science is wanting in precision. It is not true
that any experiment can be made on phenomena alone. Every
phenomenon is a mode of being ; apart from being it is nothing.
And being is real, objective, persistent, is something more than
a mode, for it is that whereby and wherein all modes exist. The
scientific man does not, I say, escape out of the domain of real
being; and therefore he ought not to speak of bare phenomena,
as though he had contrived some miraculous way of detaching
the picture from the canvas on which it is painted. He truly
deals with the hidden substance let him call it, if he pleases,
with Kant, the unknown x but his treatment is under the ideas
of space, time, and motion. And the fallacy which has got hold

1 888.] THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 179

of him is this, that, except the combinations of time, space, and
motion, we can know nothing whatever. Hence he is led to
deny our knowledge of our own existence, of the world's reality,
and of the living- God who is in nature as he is above it. He
calls these three, which are the surest of realities, subjective
ideas, and puts them aside as the Supernatural. It follows that
he must reject equally the ideas of revelation, miracles, and an
infallible church, for these are dependent on those and suppose
them. While, again, if a man has brought himself clearly to
perceive that the existence of Objective Reason is involved in
the very fact of his own existence and his individual thought,
the question whether God has spoken in history as well as in
nature becomes not only possible but inevitable, and the super-
natural, in the received Catholic sense, has a scope and meaning.

To this crucial test we must therefore bring unbelief. It is
Our duty to be constantly pressing on the attention of scientific
men this pronouncement of reason and of experience, that there
is thought in the universe distinct from the thought of man. If
there is thought, there is a Thinker. Thought which does not
imply a mind that thinks would be a mode of existence which
did not exist as something. But if thought is not something it
is nothing, and therefore is not. We must grant, then, that Ob-
jective Thought does exist, or else that the affirmations of our
intellect are wholly, from first to last, a delusion. The same
argument applies to scientific knowledge founded on experience.
If that experience is real, and that knowledge corresponds to it,
in whatever degree it corresponds there is thought, distinct
from man's, embodied in the physical universe. If the book we
call Nature can be read intelligibly, the reason is that it has been
written intelligibly, by a mind which our own resembles. But
a mind involves a Person. Hence we do know that which
agnosticism declares not to be an object of knowledge. We
know, and can recognize, the Living God.

But, this being so, it is reasonable in the Catholic philosopher,
critic, and politician, as it is incumbent on him, never to grant
a position, either as principle or fact, of which agnosticism
would be the logical outcome. A truism, the reader will say.
No, not a truism, but an axiom, and of the widest application.
For example, we can in no case grant a doctrine of evolution
which would educe the soul of man from dead matter, or would
imply that intellect is transformed sensation. We cannot re-
ceive as an adequate account of the history of the Jewish people
those expositions in which a natural hypothesis takes the place

i8o THE KEY OF THE POSITION. [May,

of the miraculous on the ground that miracles do not occur, or
in which prophecy is resolved into shrewd political guess-work
because we know not of a Power that can reveal the future.
Once more, when theories of the social order come before us,
recommended on the plea that they are the best adapted for this
world, we must needs ask, if we believe in God, whether they
are equally well adapted to guide us to the next. Everywhere
we shall find, if we choose to look, that the idea of theism has a
bearing on man's life and welfare here below. It is, if I may
venture to say so, a philosophical, social, economic, and literary
no less than a theological idea. It must be human, because it
is divine. And human we shall perceive it to be, in a most won-
derful and inspiring manner, if we have only the courage to fol-
low whither its light leads.

I notice that our well-trained scholastics speak occasionally
as if the treatment of theology were exhausted, and nothing
remained but to lay to heart what the middle ages and the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries have bequeathed to us. Surely
that is a superficial, not to say a dangerous, view. Let us enlarge
the basis of our demonstration, and each for himself, under the
eye of holy church, go as deeply as he may into the divine
aspects of matter and spirit. He will not be long in gaining
evidence that God, though not the unknowable, was to him in a
thousand ways unknown. Perhaps the cause of our present per-
plexities may disclose itself here. We have allowed ourselves to
live so much in the abstract idea of God, so little in his actual
presence. How many examples might I not give, and most
striking, of the discoveries made by poets, philosophers, and
men of science during the last three centuries, of the divine foot-
steps in creation, and of Providence in history, which our trea-
tises do not record ! Let us confess it, we have been much to
blame. God is in all the worlds of matter, of sense, of spirit,
of nature, of grace, of glory. He has told us expressly that
his eternal power and majesty are evident in the things that are
made. But this we have too often construed into a mere im-
primatur on certain abstract metaphysical arguments, instead of
filling our daily experience with divine light and turning the
sciences of the visible, as we might have done, to a transparent
veil disclosing, while it subdued to our gaze, the awful beauty of
the face of God. It has even been thought by pious souls a
neglect of religious contemplation, or a falling off in fervor,
when others have studied astronomy, or mathematics, or the
history of mankind, or the laws of political economy. As though

1 888.] THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 181

it were treason in a Catholic to preserve the domain of his lower
knowledge from the supremacy of unbelief, or God had not re-
newed all things in Christ Jesus ! Evidently there is a great
work to be done and grievous* mistakes to be retrieved. From
the things that are made we must demonstrate a present Deity,
and before the least as before the greatest of them awaken in
ourselves the consciousness that they are symbols of a hidden
power, not which was once in them and has now forsaken its
dwelling-place, but which still abides there as in a sacrament.
Science needs to be transfigured by religion ; and all history, as
we should long ago have learnt, is a book inscribed by the finger
of Providence, and in this sense a Bible. God has never left
himself without a witness in every people, time, and place.
There is no such thing as nature apart from God; it cannot exist,
any more than the human spirit can, outside the sphere of his
omnipresence, or his wisdom, or his strength ; it therefore ex-
ists in and through God, and not to recognize him under its
multitudinous forms, though infinitely distinct from them, is
blindness which deserves to be healed by disaster. Revelation
itself is founded on the analogies of nature ; it supposes that we
have learned to know God where reason can and ought to find
him. But here, again, it must be sadly admitted that " the light
shineth in darkness, and the darkness doth not comprehend it."
While I grant, therefore, that it is the task of physical science
to begin the interpretation of nature, I say it is imperative on
the metaphysician and the theologian to make it perfect by de-
monstrating that beneath phenomena there is substance, in all
states of consciousness a persistent spirit, and, interpenetrating
and upholding spirit and matter, the Eternal Self-Existing, who
is none of the things he has made, but is ever making himself
known in all of them. This work, I repeat, has yet to be accom-
plished in its fulness, and this is the key of the position.

WILLIAM BARRY.

1 82 To MAFRA, A DAUGHTER. [May,

TO MAFRA,* A DAUGHTER.

MAFRA, Mavourneen, little Fly,
For which name shall 1 call you by?
Which has your image most expressed,
Or which the name that likes you best?
Mavourneen that in Celtic phrase

Means darling, and 'tis surely true ;
You glance and flit about our ways

I ne'er saw darling, if not you.
And, little Fly, I pray you, tell

The colors of your insect wing.
Who call you so, they love you well;

It is not, then, because you sting.
But they in you a gem descry,
A radiant, beaming butterfly,
Such as were once in Paradise
And sailed about in joyous skies,
Not of the race of common flies.

Yet these are fond imaginings,
Fancy which from affection springs ;
Not this the best or chiefest part
Traced for you by the father's heart.
That in your third name lies, the truth

Of serious thought, of promise high ;
It does not tell of fleeting youth,

But life in all its mystery,

All its unending majesty.
For Mafra marks earth's noblest line,
A name half-human, half-divine.
One part bespeaks that Roman saint
To whom was given, not pale and faint.
But life-like by her side to trace
Her guardian angel's watchful face,
His loving eye and heavenly grace.
And one that name, of all in heaven,
The sweetest e'er to woman given,
The blissful Lady's glorious name,
In whom a parent's love we claim,
Greatest and gentlest of all powers,
The Mother of our Lord and ours.

* A pet name for Mary Frances.

i888.] To MAFRA, A BRIDE. 183

So when I call you little Fly

The school-girl dances on my sight:
I see fun, frolic, wild yet shy ;

I love you then I love you quite.
And when Mavourneen is your name

You are the darling of our home ;
To light within our breasts the flame

Of a child's lovingness you come.
But, Mafra! when I call you so
Your highest place, your glory know,
Since earthly school and earthly home
For trial and for nurture come ;
Trial can change the nature wild,
And nurture mould the full-grown child.
But when the trial and the growth
In school and home are ended both,

Then must you seek the place above
Where those two Patrons live and love.
There your true home and welcome gain
Where Frances shines in Mary's train,
And of the Saint and Mother there
The glory and the beauty share.

TO MAFRA, A BRIDE.

The days of girlhood may not last;

The days of bloom and ripeness come ;

Go forth into another home
And draw the future from the past.
The woman springs up from the child ;

The daughter changes into wife ;

The strong, sweet band of human life
Clasps with its girdle undefiled
The promise of the coming years,
A mingled dower of smiles and tears.
For joy and grief dwell not aloof,
But weave life's tissue, warp and woof.

Mary and Frances still to thee
The Mother and the Patron be.
And Mary's Son, the gracious Lord,
Who sat at Cana's bridal board,

1 84 THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. [May,

Without a word, by will divine,
Changing the water into wine,
By power of unseen presence bless

Each common day of human life
With touch of higher loveliness,

Infusing peace and barring strife,
Each meagre element of earth
Transmuting by a second birth,
Informing clay with spirit's power,
Bestowing heaven for time's brief hour,
And making heart with heart to blend
In willing union without end.

The Daughter's part is past and gone;
The Father's prayer still worketh on ;
Parental conquers filial love ;
This dies below, that soars above.

THOMAS WILLIAM ALLIES.

THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE.

THE history of a nation usually receives two interpreta-
tions: that of the enlightened observer removed by race and
time from the entanglements of prejudice, and aided in deduc-
tion by the observation of universal principles ; and that of the
son of the soil, permeated with the traditions of his country, and
moved by passionate sympathy with her hopes and fears. The
first is likely to be of most importance as an impartial record.
The judicial presentation of facts is less liable to distortion, and
the distance which lies between narration and narrator brings in-
dividual events into a more proper focus. The clouds which
are so apt to arise in the conflict between warm feeling and cool
judgment are dissipated in the higher atmosphere of thought
which surrounds equitable investigation ; and a certain evenness
and clearness results, of the highest importance as a medium from
which to draw conclusions. The rationale of cause and effect is
better understood, and its importance as a contribution to mun-
dane philosophy.

It is, however, possible that the farroff study of the landscape
of history through this colder and more equal air may fail to
catch those lesser points of peculiarity and motive which are of

i888.] THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. 185

almost equal weight in the truthfulness of the picture. Tor-
mented as the nearer vision may be by passing mist of popular
emotion or more substantial barrier of inherited belief, it is yet
in a position to discern oftentimes more clearly the bearings of
circumstance, and the sowing of the seed which bears harvest of
wheat or tares thereafter. It is able to reach within the outer
envelope of form to the inner core of being, and explain the
hidden methods which have led a certain theory to express it-
self in apparently contradictory action. The traditions of a na-
tion are sometimes as valuable as its archives, in enabling one to
understand the consecutive steps which make inexplicable posi-
tions not only reasonable but inescapable, as the culmination of
long periods of transition ; and this knowledge can often be ac-
quired only through blood-relationship. It is the children alone
who are fully able to judge the conduct of the mother, for only
to them has the veil been lifted. Propinquity and birthright
offer more helps to the understanding than jealousy or par-
tiality can oppose by way of hindrance ; as the eye and voice of
the story-teller lend a reality to his tale with which no intel-
lectual skill can compete.

For this reason it has seemed that a record by a Mexican
author of the revolutionary movement of 1810, which culminated
in his country's declaration of independence, may be of especial
interest to a people who have known the vicissitudes of a some-
what similar revolt against foreign authority. We know so lit-
tle, as yet, of the actual condition of this neighboring republic
that the account will have at least the charm of novelty for the
majority of readers. It is taken mainly from a little, volume
prepared for use in the public schools of Mexico, and bearing
the endorsement of the Committee of Public Instruction as well
as that of the highest literary and historic authority in that
country the Compania Lancasteriana. The author, Manuel
Payno, is widely known as a poet and miscellaneous writer, and
it is but fair to suppose that his work embodies the relation
which his people consider most correct of men and events con-
nected with this great struggle. It bears a special significance
for Catholics in the fact that not alone the inception but the
most important part in the conduct of the revolution was among
devoted priests, whose names are to this day enshrined in the
hearts of their people, in spite of all the changes of policy and
the rigors of anti-religious warfare. To-day the great Hall of
Audience in the National Palace is adorned with full-length por-
traits of these beloved men, and there is scarce a large city which
does not commemorate in its public places, with monuments of

1 86 THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. [May,

marble or bronze, the same endearing memory. The popular
heart has never wavered from the warmth of affection which
it bestowed once and for ever upon these its heroes, and it still
holds their names sacred with all the tenacity of love and grati-
tude. Out of twenty-seven States forming the present Mexican
Republic, eighteen have given the names of its martyrs to from
two to six cities or towns within their borders. In the lexicon
of the land there is evidently no such word as ingratitude.

The story of the government of the Spanish viceroys in
Mexico is like that of all nations holding in subjection a strange
people. To accumulate wealth and power for personal ends,
without regard to the happiness or prosperity of the popula-
tion, and to have recourse for this end to every means which
the almost absolute power vested in them made possible, were
the usual habits of the governors appointed. The brilliant ex-
ceptions in the reigns of such men as Payo de Rivera, the two
Mendozas, the Velascos, the Galvez, and, above all, the Count of
Revillagigedo, only serve to throw the practices of the rest into
a darker shadow of persecution and tyranny. The wonder is
not that in the end the sense of injury overcame the popular
characteristics of timidity and resignation, but that the accumu-
lation of mismanagement and wrong did not force the people a
century or two before to reprisal. It was not, however, until
1810, nearly three hundred years from the arrival of the first
viceroy, that the indignation of the Mexicans culminated in a
project of revolt, and leaders were found ready to assume the
responsibility of action.

The -first of these pioneers in the cause of liberty bears the
proud distinction of being known as "the Washington of Mex-
ico," although there is little to remind one of the great Ameri-
can in his short and tragic public career. Don Miguel Hi-
dalgo was a country cure of great piety and more than usual
learning. He was largely humanitarian in his views of life, and
had introduced among his parishioners new methods of agri-
culture, the manufacture of pottery, and the cultivation of the
mulberry plant. His mild and benignant character had gained
for him respect as well as love ; and his endeavors for their tem-
poral as well as spiritual advancement were added bonds of
union between himself and his people. It is fair to suppose that
his strong but silent antagonism to Spanish misrule was en-
hanced by the difficulties he found in the way of ameliorating
the condition of his little flock; and that from this nearer view
his philosophic mind turned to the contemplation of the future
of his unhappy country, gradually being stamped out of exis-

1 888.] THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. 187

tence by the exactions of the viceroys. All the strength and
justice of his nature forced him toward the idea of revolt, and
he had already inoculated with his own fervor a small band of
enthusiasts, when the cowardice of a traitor revealed the secret
to the government and precipitated their immature plans into
action. Most of his fellow-conspirators escaped to the moun-
tains, but Hidalgo was made of sterner stuff. Awakened
toward dawn of the i$th September, 1810, by a flying comrade
with news of their betrayal, he called about him a few compan-
ions, and with ten men, proceeding in the darkness to the cita-
del, surrounded it, took from it a few prisoners and arms, and
succeeded in overcoming the resistance of the Spanish inhabi-
tants and authorities. Next morning, after an early Mass in the
little parish church, reinforced by farmers and peasants from the
country round about, having assured the Spaniards left in the
town of protection and safetv, he set out from Dolores toward
San Miguel el Grande, and the war of the revolution had been
declared, as the uprising of the men of Concord and Lexington,
thirty-five years before, had struck the keynote of revolt that
resounded through the North American colonies. A motley
gathering of poor and 'untrained men, armed only with spades,
lances, and sticks, without money, food, or friends, and with
only that wild, furious passion for liberty as yet scarce recog-
nized under the name of justice throbbing in their pulses, they
passed like phantoms through the gray dawning to dash them-
selves against the power and pride of that mighty empire whose
shadow had darkened their land for centuries; and, for the first
time since Cortez had subjugated the golden throne of the Incas,
the cry of independence rang out across the hills and valleys
of Mexico ! Could there be a more forlorn hope led for free-
dom ?

And yet these phantoms, born of ideas, are stubborn things
to kill. They have more vital force than men, for defeat and
death, which annihilate human life, are powerless to destroy con-
victions. From the baptism of blood they rise renewed and
eternal. The little force went on, a banner taken from a vil-
lage church, with the face of the Virgin upon it, for their stand-
ard, their war-cry blending purity of motive with patriotic fer-
vor: "America! Religion! Our Lady of Guadalupe ! and death
to oppression ! " With such watchwords and such dispositions,
insignificant in strength, ludicrous in appointments, commonplace
in element, but made heroic by the fiery fervor of a noble pur-
pose, they passed on their way, reinforced from every hamlet
of the plains and village on the hillside, as the mountain rivulet

1 88 THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. [May,

gathers tributaries to swell its tiny stream ; until in ten days
they reached the walls of Guanajuato, seventy thousand strong,
and drunk with the wine of triumph. To the demand for sur-
render the Spanish authorities replied by entrenching them-
selves and their treasures in the citadel. Admitted into the
town by the people, the insurgents were thrice driven from be-
fore this almost impregnable position, and it was only when a
brave boy, Pipila, binding a flat paving-stone over his shoulders
and creeping upon hands and knees, had succeeded in setting
fire to the door of the fortress with a torch, that an entrance
was effected. Hidalgo succeeded in checking the massacre that
followed, as well as the frenzy of the marauding bands that in-
stantly poured through the streets of the rich city. His wise
and firm control made itself felt in stringent laws against rapine
and violence, in the establishment of a foundry for the manu-
facture of arms and ordnance, and in the opening of a banking
house as a basis of financial security. A fortnight later, leaving
one of his officers in charge, he set out for Valladolid, which he
entered without resistance, and where he induced the archbish-
op, Abad y Queypo, to retract the excommunication fulminated
against him some days before. His force was here augmented
by a regiment of dragoons and one of infantry from the regular
army. He founded various offices ; provided a depot of sup-
plies ; imprisoned part of the authorities and pardoned others ;
and, placing the municipal power in the hands of a compatriot,
proceeded on his victorious campaign.

With upwards of one hundred thousand men he now turned
toward the capital itself, passing triumphantly through Acam-
baro, Maravatio, Tepetongo, Ixtlahuaca, and Tolucas. Mean-
time the reigning viceroy had gathered together three thou-
sand soldiers under Torcuato Trujillo, and sent them to meet
the advancing forces of the revolutionists. Learning, upon
nearer approach, of the overpowering numbers of his adversary,
Trujillo fell back from point to point before the advancing Inde-
pendents, without risking a meeting, until, on the 3Oth of Octo-
ber, having entrenched himself upon the hill of Las Cruces, he
engaged in a terrible battle. The very number of the enemy,
unmanageable from size, undisciplined, and scarcely armed, was
at first a point in his favor. They were swept away broadcast
by his artillery, until the masses of slain hindered the approach
of those behind ; but soon the indomitable courage of Hidalgo's
troops carried all before it. Every man of Trujillo's force was
killed, the commander himself escaping only by the fleetness of
his horse; and a single cornet, with the wounded mayor of the

I888.J THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. 189

township in which the engagement took place, alone lived
to tell the tale. Instead of following up this great victory by
an instant advance toward Mexico, now demoralized and with-
out available defence, Hidalgo remained encamped upon the
mountain until the 2d of December, apparently abandoning his
earlier plan, and finally falling back upon Queretaro. Part of
his people returned home ; part followed him as far as Aculco,
where they were surprised by the Spanish troops gathered
from the interior. In the battle which followed the Indepen-
dents were for the first time defeated. Accustomed to triumph,
they could not bear reverse, and a general scattering ensued,
leaving Hidalgo, with but a handful of followers, to retreat
toward Valladolid. Here he succeeded in gathering together
seven thousand men, and proceeded again toward Queretaro,
whence one of his chiefs had already driven the Spaniards.
Another Independent leader, Allende, who had found it im-
possible to continue the occupation of Guanajuato, had also
retreated toward the same city, which became, for the time be-
ing, the headquarters of revolutionary movement. A govern-
ment was organized, Hidalgo receiving the title of Generalis-
simo, and two ministers being named, one of "Grace and Jus-
tice," the other of "State and Affairs." A commissioner was
sent to the United States (who was made prisoner on the way
by the Spaniards) ; a decree was promulgated abolishing sla-
very, taxes, and stamp acts, and an order passed for the pur-
chase of arms to place the army upon a solid footing. The
people began again to rally, and by the time the Spanish
authorities had gathered together ten thousand disciplined
troops, Hidalgo was able to meet them, at a point chosen by his
own leaders, with one hundred thousand men and ninety-five
pieces of artillery. The battle of Calderon which followed was
a bloody and frightful one. The untrained masses of the Inde-
pendents, although fighting with fury, were repulsed in three
desperate charges, and finally dispersed with great slaughter.
This was on the i/th of January, 1811. Hidalgo retreated
toward Aguas Calientes, and thence to Zacatecas, where he
was shortly joined by the other chiefs. Gathering together
a thousand men and whatever treasure remained to them, they
resolved to turn their steps toward the United States, there to
settle, and discipline a new army which should return later to
renew the strife for freedom. On the 2ist of March, just before
reaching the frontier, the entire party was captured by the
Spaniards. The chiefs were imprisoned in Coahuila until July,
when they were sent to Chihuahua, and, after a semblance of

190 THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. [May,

trial, sentenced to death. Hidalgo was shot at seven in the
morning of July 31, and his three companions, Allende, Al-
dama, and Jimenez, on the following day. Their heads were
sent in iron cages to be exposed upon the four corners of the
Citadel of Guanajuato, which was the scene of their first great
triumph ; the other leaders of rebellion, wherever found, were
executed ; and so, in darkness and despair, closed what may be
known as the first period of the struggle for Mexican inde-
pendence.

But the mouths of dead heroes are eloquent, and those ghast-
ly faces became like relics of the saints to the land for whose
love they perished. Never had the inspiration of voice or
glance been as powerful as those pallid lips and closed eyes.
Without countenance from abroad, with division and treachery
at home, outcast and proscribed, the remnant of the heroic
band, hiding in caves and mountain fastnesses, bore the agonies
of hunger, fatigue, and despair without losing courage. As
soon as rest or hope strengthened their weakness, under one
commander or another, each little group took its turn in
harassing whatever adversary was nearest, and keeping the
government in a constant state of apprehension. No one knew
where the next swift stroke of vengeance would fall. But it
was not until the close of 1811, ten months after the capture of
Hidalgo, that a successor worthy the name and fame of the be-
loved chieftain began to gather these separate groups again
into a united body. For the second time it was a priest who
uplifted the standard of liberty. Beginning his theological
studies at the age of thirty, after a youth spent in manual labor,
Jos6 Maria Morelos had won confidence and esteem among his
people no less by his learning than by his unusual sense of
honor and rectitude. Something of the nobility and strength
of character of the man may be gathered from the perseverance
and purpose which must have dominated his life in order to
rise in those illiterate days from the station of a muleteer to
that of a cleric. The opening of the revolution, fifteen years
later, found him pastor of two small parishes, universally be-
loved and respected, and in the prime of vigorous manhood.
His was not the temperament to hesitate between security and
danger when the sweet hope of liberty once presented itself.
He obtained early the confidence of Hidalgo, and was appointed
by him to a command. Endowed by nature with the true
spirit of the soldier, at once valiant and prudent, he stepped as
if by right into the leadership left vacant by the death of his
chief, and in a series of brilliant victories, snatched from the

i888.] THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. 191

regular troops by the almost superhuman audacity and skill of
his movements, he placed the rebellion once more upon a se-
cure basis of action. His resistance of the united Spanish
troops for sixty-two days at Cuautla is one of the most glorious
episodes in Mexican history. He took by assault Orizaba,
Acapulco, and Oaxaca, captured lacge amounts of treasure in
money and munitions of war, called the first Mexican Congress
at Chilpant-zingo, and received from them on the I5th of Sep-
tember, 1813, the title of Captain-General of the Independent
army, three years from the day upon which Hidalgo had
first declared the revolutionary movement. A Declaration of
Independence was drawn up at the same time, announcing for-
mally their secession from the authority of Spain, and declaring
before God that they hereby assumed the rights and duties of
self-government.*

The Viceroy Venegas had just been replaced by the fero-
cious and bloodthirsty Calleja. This signal for new oppression,
together with the continued victories of Morelos, began to
make the rebellion, which up to this time had been mainly con-
fined to the poorest and weakest of the people, more general.
Men of learning and fortune hastened to take their place,
some in the deliberations of Congress, some upon the battle-
field, and a ray of hope somewhat dissipated the darkness. The
brave priest Matamoras, cur6 of Jantetelco, joined the cause
of his countrymen, and, with a little group of patriots who had
gathered about him, performed prodigies of valor. In a sort
of guerrilla warfare he traversed the districts between Cuau-
tla and Guatemala, routing the Spanish forces stationed upon
the way, and obtaining signal successes in every action. Sur-
rounded at last by the combined troops of two of the bravest
commanders iri the royalist army, he was defeated, and, being
able neither to advance nor to retreat to the hills, was made

* We append the literal translation of the first Declaration of Independence, the work of
the first Mexican Congress, which may be of interest for purposes of comparison with similar
documents evolved under similar circumstances elsewhere. The deep religious feeling which
seemed to march hand-in-hand with patriotism through this entire struggle finds expression
here as forcibly as in the terse ultimatum of our ancestors, " In the name of the Great Jeho-
vah and the Continental Congress ! " At home and abroad the spirit of reverence kept pace
with the spirit of liberty, in those times, in a manner unknown to these latter days of license
and unbelief.

"The Congress of Andhuac, legally assembled in the City of Chilpantzingo of North Ame-
rica, declares solemnly for its Provinces, in the presence of the Lord God, Absolute Ruler of
empires and Author of society, who gives and takes according to the inscrutable designs of
his Providence, that, through the present state of affairs in Europe, it has recovered the exer-
cise of its long-usurped sovereignty ; and that it hereby declares its dependence upon the Span-
ish throne to be broken and dissolved for ever."

After this slavery, or peonage, was abolished, with imprisonment for debt ; and all men
were declared equal before the law.

192 THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. [May,

prisoner and shot as a rebel at Valladolid. One cannot help
remembering, in connection with this sad record of trial and
sacrifice, the epigram of Arnold which defines the difference be-
tween honor and shame as the portion of a revolutionist:

" Rebel or patriot ? Well, heads or tails ;

Toss up the penny and see how it reads ;
A rebel is a patriot who fails,
A patriot is a rebel who succeeds."

At the same time Nicolas Bravo was fighting on the coast of
Alvarado ; Juan Alvarez was struggling with the enemy in the
south ; Guadalupe Victoria occupied the country about Vera
Cruz; Osorno invested the neighborhood of Zacatldn ; Manuel
Terdn guarded the highways toward San Andr6s and Tehuacdn,
while the brothers Ramon and Francisco Rayon followed the
fortunes of war wherever necessity or valor called. All fought
with magnificent perseverance in the face of constant poverty
and frequent disaster.

The defeat and death of Matamoras was the first notable
check to the movement under Morelos. Other reverses were
not long in following. That fatal perversity of misfortune
which seems often to remain dormant under every invitation
of opportunity, only to surge finally into a torrent of disaster, as
if suddenly awakened to resentment, was not long in declaring
itself. In furtherance of an attempt to place the government
permanently at Valladolid, the general had called Bravo and
Galeana to join him, and the united forces advanced toward that
city. In the battle which ensued at its gates the Independents
were thrown into such confusion that they cut down one an-
other, mistaking thejr own men for enemies. From this time
22d December, 1813 until November 5, 1815, the remnants of
the Independent army led a checkered career: now fortified for
a time at Acapulco, whence the Congress framed a constitution;
now hiding in the hills and defiles, and again being defeated by
some superior force. At this date, while escorting the Congress
to a place of supposed safety at Tehuacdn, they were met by the
Spanish chief, De la Concha. The revolutionists were complete-
ly routed ; Morelos, through the treachery of one of his own
soldiers named Carranco, was taken prisoner, conducted first to
Mexico and afterwards to San Cristobal Ecatepec, and shot at
the latter place at four o'clock on the evening of December 21,
1815. On the same day his friend and fellow-patriot, Don Fran-
cisco Rayon, was executed at Ixtlahuaca, and the second scene
of the drama of Mexican independence reached its tragic end-
ing. The vigilance and activity of the royalists was redoubled ;

1 888.] THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. 193

even sex was not spared in the rigorous measures employed to
enforce subjection. Some of the most illustrious women of the
country, accused of complicity in the designs of husbands or
friends, were imprisoned as hostages for the relatives who could
not be otherwise reached. The efforts which still were made
spasmodically in one or the other portion of territory had all
the weakness and hopelessness of death-struggles. Manuel
Teran was overpowered in Chalchicomula; Ramon Rayon ca-
pitulated at Coporo; Bravo abandoned the entrenchments of
Mistecas. Many chiefs accepted the pardon offered for surren-
der ; a few among then? the afterward celebrated Guerrero
fled to the mountains " to keep alive the sacred fire of liberty";
and the desperate strife seemed upon the point of being aban-
doned when a new incident raised at once the hearts and hopes
of the Mexicans. This was the expedition of Mina.

One of the most celebrated guerrillas of Spain, where he had
achieved distinction during the wars of Napoleon, the name of
Mina had become known widely as a brilliant although some-
what erratic soldier. Disgusted with the tyranny of Ferdinand
VII., he had begun to plot a conspiracy at home; but, his plans
being discovered and frustrated, he had escaped to France and
thence to England. Meeting in London the celebrated Padre
Mier and other American patriots, he imbibed from them an en-
thusiasm for the Mexican idea and was led to promise his assist-
ance. It is easy to conceive that such a cause would awaken the
deepest sympathy in his ardent and fearless nature. The result
was an episode which combined all the elements of romantic ad-
venture. Gathering about him a group of men as daring and en-
thusiastic as himself, "resolute and valiant as the Greeks of old,"
he sailed for America, and disembarked in April, 1817, in the bay
of Soto la Marina, whence he marched immediately toward the
interior. Many of his companions, appalled, no doubt, by a near-
er view of the hopelessness of the effort to which they were
pledged, took their departure for the United States; but the in-
domitable Mina, gathering others around his standard, was able
to begin his march toward the capital with three hundred men.
Starting on the first of June, the Spanish chief, Villasenor, met
him, but was destroyed almost without breaking up his line of
march. At the Hacienda of Peotillos the commander, Armignan,
with an overpowering force, tried to check his progress, but the
intrepid chief broke through their line of battle and entirely de-
feated the enemy in one of the most glorious of the lesser battles
of the war. Continuing on, he seized the fortress of Sombrero;

VOL. XLVII. 13

194- THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. [May,

routed at San Felipe the Spanish general, Ordonez ; defeated
the Marquis de Moncada at Jaral, and took $140,000 which had
been buried at the same place. "All this campaign was swift
and terrible as a thunderbolt." At one place, with only thirty-
seven men behind an impromptu barricade, he kept the royalist
colonel, Arredonda, with a force of trained soldiers much supe-
rior in number, at bay for several days, and only yielded after
his adversary had received reinforcements. The terms he was
able to demand made capitulation almost as honorable as victo-
ry, and the proud Spaniards were overwhelmed with mortifica-
tion on discovering that such a heroic resistance had been made
by less than twoscore men. At length, terrified by the almost
miraculous success of this wonderful leader, the viceroy gath-
ered troops together from every quarter, placing them under
command of Marshal Lifian, and giving him as aids Negrete,
Orantia, and Garcia Rebollo, who at once prepared to surround
their common enemy. Mina fell back amid the hills of Comanja,
was attacked simultaneously at three different points, but suc-
ceeded finally in driving the royalists back within their own lines,
where they were compelled to abandon active measures and
enter upon a siege. From the ist to the igih of August
the intrepid band defied all the horrors of hunger, fatigue, and
exposure to the fire of the regulars ; but the agony of thirst
became at last unbearable, and a desperate sally from their
hiding-place, on the evening of the latter date, resulted in their
complete overthrow. Mina escaped with a hundred men, cut
his way through the opposing lines, and forced a passage to the
neighboring fortress of San Gregorio, which he captured and
occupied before the arrival of his pursuers. Attacked immedi-
ately by the united troops, he resisted for some days, and at last,
with characteristic hardihood, broke again through the enemy's
ranks, and, following his old plan of swift marches and sudden
assaults, succeeded at length, with varying fortunes, in reaching
^Guanajuato. Here he was met by an uprising of the people
against him and forced to take refuge, with a small escort, in the
neighboring ranch of Venadito. On the 27th of October, Oran-
tia, with five hundred men, invaded the ranch, overcoming the
insurgents after a sharp struggle and taking Mina prisoner. He
was led within sight of the walls of San Gregorio, which he had
defended so brilliantly a few days before, and there shot, "dying
with the same intrepidity and bravery which he had shown on
the battle-field." His short but brilliant career covered alto-
gether a space of but six months, yet about it hangs such a

1 888.] THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. 195

glamour of audacity, valor, and success that it remains for ever
memorable in the annals of Mexican history.

But this death closed no epoch in the story of resistance.
The moral effect produced by the successes of their champion
overpowered the depression caused by his death ; and although
a short period of comparative quiet among the people followed
this event, it was only the preparatory lull which preceded an-
other outburst of storm. Here and there the patriots were
feeling their way and discovering the hidden paths of victory
by the lurid fires of defeat. In the mountains of the south one
of the bravest and wisest of all the Mexican leaders was biding
his time and holding in trust the hopes of his country. Vicente
Guerrero, who has been mentioned before as having repelled
all overtures of pardon or conciliation from the Spanish autho-
rities, came forward now to lift the banner of his race and lead
the- way to freedom. A muleteer in his youth, like his friend
and chief, Morelos, the first tocsin of independence had called
him at once into the ranks of the revolutionists, and in 1812 he
was already celebrated for great courage, mercy toward the
vanquished, and the dauntless activity evinced in prosecuting
his campaigns. Conquered as often as conqueror, no blow of
fortune was capable of shaking his indomitable perseverance.
Time and again grievously wounded, he waited but for the first
respite from suffering to return to the field, overcoming weak-
ness of body by strength of purpose. During the lifetime of the
elder chiefs his youth and modesty kept him in subordinate
commands ; but after the death of Morelos the eyes of the
people turned instinctively in his direction. When many lead-
ers, of undoubted valor, yielding to the hopelessness of struggle
and the humane offers of clemency presented by the new vice-
roy, had accepted amnesty and favor, this remarkable man re-
fused all advances toward reconciliation, and, entrenching him-
selt with a few fearless companions in the defiles of the southern
hills, had waged incessant guerrilla warfare against the royalists.
Possessed of prudence to match his bravery, he waited for the
proper opportunity before entering on any wider demonstra-
tion; and it was only when, in March, 1818, the Spaniards took
the fortress of Jaujilla and dispersed the Mexican Congress
there assembled, that Guerrero came down from his mountains,
forced his way to the scene of action, winning victories at all
the intermediate points, and installed anew the national govern-
ment. This happy and unlooked-for success seemed to mark
the turning-point in the rebellion ; from this time out fickle
Fortune smiled upon the war of independence.

196 THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. [May,

During the year 1819 the patriots triumphed in twenty con-
secutive actions. In 1820 a liberal constitution was declared in
Spain, and the idea of complete separation began to awake in
Mexico in the minds of many who had heretofore looked either
with indiiTerence or aversion upon the scheme of the Indepen-
dents. Among others, Don Augustin de Iturbide joined the
fortunes of his countrymen. His accession was of the highest
importance. An officer in the regular army, of great courage
and strong convictions, he had set himself resolutely against the
plan of revolution, and opposed it with all his energy and influ-
ence. Many of the most disastrous defeats of the long and
cruel struggle were due to his personal bravery thrown in favor
of the Spaniards; and he had been raised to the position of
colonel, and received commands of importance at Guanajuato
and Valladolid in recognition of his great usefulness to the royal-
ist cause. With the new thought of the feasibility and pro-
priety of separation came an entire change in his feeling ; and
with all the ardor which had been unfortunately so long direct-
ed against his people he now allied himself with their fortunes.
By an artifice which can hardly be excused even in the intrigues
of war, but which he probably made plausible to himself by its
helpfulness to his country, he obtained command of twenty-five
hundred men, ostensibly to carry on the campaign against Guer-
rero, and on the i6th of November left Mexico to establish his
headquarters at Teloloapan. From this place he opened a cor-
respondence with the patriot chief, which resulted in an inter-
view between the two at the intermediate point of Acatempan.
As a result of this conference, Guerrero, with characteristic
nobleness, resigned his position as commander-in-chief to Itur-
bide, aware of the effect which such generous concession would
have upon the country at large; and there ensued almost imme-
diately a happy solution of difficulties. A new and broader
Declaration of .Independence was drawn up and signed; the
pedple became inflamed with hope and ardor ; and the Spanish
authorities for the first time realized that the power of the
mother-country was on the eve of actual destruction.

The reigning viceroy offered Iturbide every bribe known to
diplomacy ; wealth, power, and higher rank in the army were
refused by him with decision. To the united standards of the
two generals flocked recruits and assistants from all parts of the
land. The old leaders from their places of retirement or hiding
came again into the field to arouse followers and excite public
opinion. Santa Anna in Vera Cruz, Negrete in Guadalajara,
.Cortazar in the interior, Filisola in Toluca, Bravo in another

1 888.] THE HEROES OF MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE. 197

direction in a word, not only the former insurgents, but the
larger part of the Mexican commanders who had remained
faithful to the king, as well as many of the Spaniards themselves,
joined the movement. Iturbide made a short and brilliant cam-
paign of a few months, in which everything yielded to the new
coalition. Finally the last of the sixty-four Spanish viceroys,
the recently appointed governor, Don Juan O'Donoju whose
good Irish name probably carried some good Irish common
sense with it to the discussion of the subject of revolt against
oppression met the victorious general at Cordoba, and entered
there into a treaty with him. By this Mexico was declared
" free and .independent," and a government was organized, of
which O'Donoju became a member. Although this agreement
was immediately repudiated by Spain, and opposed by whoever
in Mexico still clung to the traditions of the royalists, the tide
of public opinion was overwhelming, and Iturbide, with the
other chiefs, was swept on toward the capital. This time there
was no need of struggle ; the city was prepared to welcome
rather than resist its conquerors. There were conferences and
negotiations ; there were letters and messages, and long coun-
sels over the terms of pacification ; but at last, on the 2/th of
September, 1821, "the Army of the Three Guarantees " (Reli-
gion, Union, and Independence) entered the city in triumph,
the tricolor flag of their adoption floating above them, thunders
of artillery shaking the air with salvos of victory, and the peace-
ful dawn of a new day shining with happy light over the old
night of sorrow and conflict. So amid the sincere and universal
jubilation of the people, the hope of future glory and progress,
and the delight that comes of heroic effort crowned at last with
success, Mexico welcomed the consummation of that greatest
and most important work in the history of a nation inde-
pendence.

.-..I.?...' :' ; -'i. .v '; 'i 4 :

Thus ends the record in the little history of those bloody
but glorious years, in which peace was undermined and life sac-
rificed in pursuit of beloved liberty ; happier, perhaps, than
many that came after in the purity of the ideal which dominated
their pains* and griefs, and in the beauty of the hope which
spanned their tempestuous passage. When one considers what
must have been at that time the condition of the lower classes
from which both men and leaders were taken; when one re-
alizes the inertia of poverty, of ignorance, and of oppression
which required to be vivified and set in motion before this timid
and patient race could be roused to the thought of resistance,

198 THE HOUSE DEADLY. [May,

one can scarce help being moved by wonder. They were con-
fronted by a power still rich, comparatively powerful, and per-
fectly equipped in the arts and sinews of war ; and the story of
the struggle which, in spite of such odds, made victory possible,
is as touching as any inscribed in the annals of humanity or
patriotism. Whatever may have been the mistakes and errors
of more recent times, the saving grace of this higher inspiration
should moderate judgment and arouse sympathy in any people
capable of such persevering and heroic self-abnegation. Espe-
cially to us, bound by ties of neighborhood and the sympathy of
similar experience, who have known in our own history the bit-
terness and sweetness of successful revolt against oppressive
and undesired authority, there should be warm and kindly in-
terest in the present of a nation which can point to such a past,
and a better understanding of the virtues of a race capable of
such magnificent self-assertion. It is one point more to incite to
mutual forbearance and lovingness ; one stone less in the barri-
cades of ignorance which falsehood and misrepresentation have
piled up between us. MARY ELIZABETH BLAKE.

THE HOUSE DEADLY.

"THE architects are killing us!" exclaimed Dr. Brown-Se"-
quard at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences held
in the month of December last. If it may be allowed to differ
with so considerable an authority, raising our weak lay voice,
we shall cry out : The aesthetes and the pseudo-architects are
killing us !

After Pugin and the Modern-Gothic craze, which was good
in its way ; and the Neo-Greek craze, which was not bad in
its way ; and the Eastlake craze, which was decidedly good
in every way, we were struck by the plague of the Queen- Anne-
Japanese-House-Beautiful craze, which, gathering force as time
speeds onward, threatens extermination to a once happy if ill-
housed people. Count backward just one short decade, and try
to measure our suffering and our loss.

The ideal "House Beautiful " is an enclosed structure, whose
distorted exterior hides the fact that the still more distorted in-
terior combines, under a single roof, ill-conceived exemplars of
the " Furniture Wareroom," the " Art Gallery," the " Curiosity-

1 888.] THE HOUSE DEADLY. 199

shop," the " Music Hall," the " South Kensington Museum," the
" Tribuna," and " Les Gobelins," complicated with an occasional
disjected, aesthetic bed-room, a tiled, marbled, and frescoed bath-
room, a system of electric lighting, and not mentioning the
annunciator, or the district telegraph signal, or the telephone,
or the mosque lamp, or pagoda bell that highest expression of
modern engineering and hygienic science, Board of Health
plumbing.

Inspired by this ideal, the New York business man who has
honestly earned, or scraped together, or stolen a " plum " sets
about building an elongated home, whose narrow twenty-five feet
front dimension is theoretically compensated by its ninety feet
of depth. Here, in dreary darkness, are a loving wife and cul-
tured children, perfect schemes of aesthetic decoration, which
attain their highest intensity in the draped wall, the portiered
door, the embroidered screen, the double-curtained, opal-glassed
window. And here the professional decorator composes sym-
phonies of color whose harmonies are modulated to the soft
andante of the blue and white Hizen or the lively scherzo of
the Yeiraku Kinrande, which, with other rare examples of
"twelfth-century" Japanese porcelain, our curieux has been
allowed to select from the privately exhibited collection of a
noble French amateur. The polygonized boudoir and library
permit charmingly malerisch effects in bambooed oak and renais-
sance brass quite visible by artificial light ; and beyond the
tvvistings and the turnings of the convoluted little stairway you
guess at light and air as you trace the geometric pattern in the
dim aesthetic skylight. Is this the conception of an architect,
think you? Banish the thought! It is the compound of the
aesthetic quack, of the pupil of the school of " Art in Every
Household," of the pitiful gleaner from the pages of the Archi-
tectural Dictionary and the trade advertisements in the sup-
posititious "Art Notes" of the Amateurs Weekly Guide. The
architect plans houses that men may live therein ; the structure
we have just left is an upholstered mausoleum.

Had the evil-doing ended here we might thank the gods and
pray for better things. But the nouveau-riche who housed him-
self in the latest fashion was but one in a hundred of the will-
ing though unconscious martyrs to the fateful demon of the
House Beautiful. Along the highways and the by-ways, in the
suburbs, in the villages, the comfortable middle-class man was
forced into the whirl of the nonsense-mongers. His open parlor
was cut in two, and from the ringed brass or wooden bar de-

200 THE HOUSE DEADLY. E Ma y>

pended the "ancient" Karaman portiere. In his narrow win-
dows appeared the bull's-eyed, colored glass, whose glaring tints
were concealed from him by the twice-repeated curtain. As he
moped in the gloom and stifled in the thick air, he was com-
pelled to seek requital, if not gratification, in the dull gildings
and the uncomprehended saints and heroes of the real Satsuma
of Awata and the clamorous colorations of the Japanese fan.
The contracted and obstructed spaces of the combination French
flat were still further contracted and obstructed by the tall,
hand-painted screen ; and the dusky nooks of sleeping-rooms,
curtained and hung with befringed and applique plush, devel-
oped into lovely little air-tight compartments. That terrible
pioneer of civilization, that ruthless enemy of all the ages, the
speculative builder, who fixes in time the otherwise ephemeral
misdoings of the unpastoral man, now appeared upon the scene.
Gathering together in one Pandora-box all the evils and the
madness of the House Beautiful, he lavishly flung them east and
west from out his calculating hand. Along the Park, down in
" The Flats," upon the " Heights " he raised temples to the fell,
destroyer. The deeply-recessed, four-story bay, terra-cottaed,
medallioned, topped with ruddy copper, or the brick-red tile, or
the colder galvanized iron, adds noble dignity to the colabarg
or marble exterior, and triples the curtained capacity of the
interior. Low and narrow windowlets, disposed at random,
add to the imagined picturesqueness of the facade, and more
effectually limit the admission of light and air. Depressed ceil-
ings, rambling partitions, and senseless crannies and recesses
are ready-made contrivances, designed to lead to lower depths
the novice in the paths of true aesthetic crime.

Only the good is beautiful ; but all this is bad indeed. The
race is born that it may live, and, living, produce and maintain
a brood no less vigorous than the parent. All "art" that hin-
ders this great aim of Nature's self is false, deceiving, cruel art-
art of unthinking barbarian or of reckless savage. To live, to
acquire, retain and transmit vitality, we must have light and air ;
above all, air, PURE AIR. Not hangings, or screens, or portieres,
not plush, or embroidery, or hand-painting, not cabinets or
6tageres, make a beautiful house. The beautiful house is the
healthful house ; and the healthful house is one of free spaces,
whose openings, not forced from their true purpose in the
name of decorative art, admit the life-giving sun and the
vital oxygen ; whose rooms are so planned that a fresh supply
of air may be readily conveyed into each one of them, and the

1 8 88.] THE HOUSE DEADLY. 201

diseased air as readily withdrawn from them. Confined air is
diseased air. It envelops and evolves seeds of death ; and hence
the so-called House Beautiful is in fact the House Deadly.

We know that the purest air, on entering our lungs, not only
effects material changes in our blood and tissues, but is itself
materially changed, and issues from the lungs charged with a
fatal gas, the product of decomposition. Every child is taught
this fact in the schools. When we meet indoors, then, at meals,
in social converse, to dance, to sing, to play, to pray, we emit,
minute after minute, a mephitic compound whose poisonous
virulence is aggravated by numbers. and confinement. Though
the limit which is immediately fatal may never be reached, yet
the daily absorption of the impure, carbonated air is hurtful to
the strong and pernicious to the weak. While we know little of
our bodies or of disease, a long course of experiments has de-
termined the connection existing between certain diseases and
certain low forms of life which fill the atmosphere. We know,
too, that there are certain bacilli, certain microbes, which trans-
mit diseases. The becurtained, draped, beportiered room is
the fruitful nest of these silent, patient enemies of man. In the
half-poisoned air of confinement they breed with magic rapidity,
adding poison to poison.

That confined air is poisoned air is proved by indisputable
facts. The more living men and women you bring into that air,
the more fatal it becomes. The ordinary death-rate from con-
sumption is three in a thousand ; but in barracks, prisons, work-
shops, and houses containing a number of people, the death-rate
from consumption rises till we meet with such terrifying fig-
ures as forty-three per cent. Can we ask for stronger proof
that to the weak-lunged confined air is certain death, however
slow ? Shall we not fear for the anaemic, and shall we vouch
for the strong? From the later researches physicians are as
nearly agreed as it is permitted physicians to be that pneu-
monia, which yearly sweeps away so many from among us, is a
bacillic disease. Its action is at times so seeming sudden, its
vagaries so many and so inexplicable, its malignancy so shock-
ing, that theorists fail, with all their theories, to satisfy us or
themselves as to the inciting cause of the disease. May we not
seek it in the poisoned air of the parlor and sleeping-room
rather than in the open air of the park or street? Has not the
bacillus bred and nourished and multiplied in the confined air
of the House Beautiful, done his work before the numbing chill
has warned us of clogged bronchiae and hepatized tissues?

202 THE HOUSE DEADLY. [May,

And may we not thus account for the apparent contagiousness
of the disease at times? Our typhoids, malarias, and the still
more cruel diphtheria are attributed to sewer-gas and imperfect
plumbing. Would even these affect us if our rooms were so
planned and furnished that we could, if we would, drive out the
polluted air, and breathe, day and night, in a clearer, purer
medium ?

Free, unconfined, continuously renewed air is not only a
preventive of disease, but a therapeutic whose efficacy has not
been as yet rightly estimated or fairly tested. There are more
who fear it than use it intelligently. Ancl yet without it the
consumptive is doomed, as with it he can be cured. Brown-
Sequard's experiments with rabbits are convincing. Taking a
number of these animals, he inoculated them with tuberculous
matter. Of one hundred and eight thus inoculated and then
kept in the outer air under a pavilion, not one contracted phthisis ;
while of those shut up in the laboratory every one 'died of that
painful disease. If there be some one who is not convinced
by these remarkable experiences with lower animals, he can
hardly resist the force of the testimony of the reputable physi-
cians who have successfully tried the out-door treatment in their
ordinary practice. Dr. Stoker, of Dublin, radically cured a
consumptive patient whose lungs were perforated by deep
cavities by keeping him in the open air day and night. The
body, of course, was covered sufficiently to protect it from cold.
Dr. MacCormac, who was among the first to suggest this sim-
ple and logical treatment, as well as Dr. James Blake, of Cali-
fornia, have effected cures in the same manner. Fear a draught,
indeed ; but fear no less the confined air of what are too often
misnamed "living-rooms"! And again, under proper condi-
tions, do not fear the open air!

If fresh air be so necessary to health and life, and so potent a
remedy in disease, why construct and furnish houses after a
fashion that surely bars fresh air out from us ? On the other
hand, if confined air be noxious, why deliberately plot and plan
and spend that we may breathe no other? The law compels the
builder of a tenement to provide for the ventilation of. the work-
ingman's apartments. Shall not our intelligence, the interest of
self-preservation, the sense of duty to our families and society,
stand us in stead of statute law ? Is life of less value to the well-
to-do than to the poor? Or is there a higher principle involved
than we wot of in the cherry shutter with the fixed slat, in the
close-armored grate, in the tufted wall, in the oft-repeated cur-

1 888.] THE HOUSE DEADLY. 203

tain or the too-too frequent portiere ? In this wintry weather
there is more certain evidence of high and thoughtful intelligence
in an open grate with a glowing fire than in bushels of bibelots
and yard after yard of tapestry. For, lacking other means,
there is no more effective way of ventilating a room than through
a heated chimney-flue. The foul air we expel from the lungs is
surely and rapidly carried out through the flue, the previously-
confined air is drawn off by the same friendly vent, and the air
we breathe is constantly renewed. When the weather grows
too warm for a grate-fire, the flue is still at our service as a ven-
tilator. Leave an opening in the fire-place, so that there may be
a free current from room to flue ; run a gas-pipe into the flue,
and keep the burner lighted. That particular room will be
sweet and clean and healthful, however it may be with the rest
of the house. If the new gas-pipe seems too troublesome or ex-
pensive, why then hang a little lamp in the flue. Taking the
place of the gas-burner, the lamp will do quite as good work.
The most vulgar little lamp thus utilized adds more to the beauty
of the house than a pair of majolica umbrella-pots in the hall, or
a Dutch marquetrv clock, or even a vernis-martin table, or im-
possible nymph by Henner.

Oh ! for some newer, chaster, not quite so wordy, and some-
what more connected Walt Whitman, juvenile some psalmist,
vates, bard, singer, poet to awaken the people with loud, reso-
nant, echoing notes of warning, uttered through no reedy Pan
pipe but through Wagnerian horn, trumpet, trombone; calling
on the American patriot and lover of his kind to pull down the
impeding shutter, curtain, portiere, and to transship the screen*
barricade to the more reasonable Japanese, who knows how to
use it rightly ; to the habitant of the draped chamber, intoning
the telling lesson of the bare hospital wall, which accumulates
the mortal bacteria even on its uncovered, well-cleansed surface;
to the millionaire as to the bourgeois, chanting the praises and
the laws of Hygeia, and of her hand-maidens Light and Air ;
chanting the glories of the beautiful house, the sun-lighted, ven-
tilated house, the house planned by the true architect ; and, in
terrible tones of the tuba, sounding far and wide the deceitful
perils of the assthetic house, House Beautiful the veritable
Deadly House.

JOHN A. MOONEY.

204 AT THE CROSS-KEYS. [May,

AT THE CROSS-KEYS.

PART I.

As a girl I had decided Bohemian inclinations, and my mar-
riage gave me opportunities for indulging them. My husband
found my love of roaming equal to his own, and we have egged
one another on until we have become a pair of professional
nomads ; my poor mother says I might as well have married
the Wandering Jew.

When I said "professional nomads" I used the adjective ad-
visedly ; for Dick is an artist, and his particular line being land-
scape, it obliges him to ramble round in search of subjects. We
make a point of avoiding the regulation haunts of the brethren
of the brush, preferring to find places for ourselves which have
not been overpainted, and where, as Dick says, the cows have not
been brought up to pose from earliest calfdom. One summer,
however, we went, on the recommendation of a friend, to a vil-
lage which had been "discovered" a few years back, and which,
we were told, possessed all sorts of scenic attractions. It was
called Chittingdean, and was seventy miles from London, and
nine from the coast as the crow flies.

It might as well have been seven hundred miles from town,
so un-get-at-able and out of the way it was, and so old fashioned
when reached.

There was no direct railway. We left the main, line at a cer-
tain junction, and went on to a wayside station called Bigton. a
most timberous construction ; the platforms, offices, and waiting-
rooms were all wood, and the station-master's house and the
signal-boxes were merely sheds of the same material. An in-
scription on a large board, " Alight here for Ammering, Start-
ington, Pegworth, and Chittingdean," warned us that this was
where we were to get out.

We were still seven miles from our destination, and there was
no visible method of attaining it save a cart with an aesthetically
tinted, " greenery-yallery " tilt ; this vehicle was drawn by an
aged white horse, and bore the legend, " Tobias Scutt, carrier,
'Chittingdean."

Mr. Scutt was deep in conversation with a velveteen game-
keeper when the porter who had charge of our boxes asked him
if he would convey them and us. After some reflective head-
scratching he decided he could take the lady and the luggage
the gentleman must walk.

1 888.] AT THE CROSS-KEYS. 205

So I was hoisted up to a place beside the driver, and off we
jogged.

Never did cart contain a more miscellaneous collection of
articles. Immediately behind me was a coop, and I soon knew
with uncomfortable certainty that it held more than mere hens. I
noticed prominent above other surroundings a crateful of china,
a keg of kerosene, a side of bacon, and a bonnet-box, also many
bundles tied in cloths and spotted handkerchiefs ; while " vis-
ible on the air," if not to the eye, there was fish, dried haddocks
or herrings.

The first house we stopped at, our seat, which was formed by
the lid of a coffin-like receptacle for perishable goods, was raised,
and three pounds of sausages handed out; Scutt receiving in ex-
change a dead duck, which he cast contemptuously in at the
back to take its luck among the " clutter," as he called it. From
where I sat I could see it lying helplessly across a mjlk-can,
with its legs, like the duck's in the song, " hanging dangling
down, O !"

I made several attempts to talk with my companion, but,
after a brief response to my well-meant efforts, he would relapse
into gloomy silence; though he evidently had a tender con-
science, and if he found the height of prolonged conversation
too much for him he would not shirk the duty of showing me
the objects of interest along the road. From time to time he
would rouse himself, point with the butt end of his whip, and
make some such remark as this :

" That be Marster Lear's him -as had his ricks burnt last
year " ; or, " See thatten tower? That be Drinkwater's folly."

I longed for further particulars, to ask how Marster Lear
had his ricks burnt, or why Drinkwater built him a tower; but
I dared not, for I felt that Mr. Scutt's contempt for my ignor-
ance would be of a Swinburnean " intolerable scorn not to be
borne" kind.

By and by, as we left the straggling village of Bigton behind,
the houses became fewer and farther between, only one here
and there, and that, as a rule, standing far back among fields.

The way was a winding one ; sometimes it took us between
trees whose branches met above our heads, and whose thickly
growing leaves let the light through only in wavering, checkered
spots on the dusty road ; sometimes across a tract of shadeless
common where the sun drew a rank sweet odor from the gorse
which was blazing in all its golden glory. At one spot I remem-
ber the fields came down to the high way's edge, so that we drove
through a sea of rustling rye which shivered and silvered jn the

206 AT THE CROSS-KEYS. [May,

faint breeze. Soon after this we passed a small round hut built
of wood and plaster; there was no window in it, only a low
door, and in the roof one little chimney stuck up ; this hut Scutt
told me, with a flickering smile, was " Number one Chitting-
dean."

"Number two" was a general shop, where we stayed and
gave the herrings over to a stout lady in black, who, I was after-
wards told, had buried four husbands. As she was healthy and
comely, besides being sole owner of a flourishing business, there
seemed no reason why she should not add to the number.

The general shop was really the beginning of the village, for
just beyond it was the green, with a pond at one side, into which
a great lumbering cart-horse was being steered by a scrap of a
boy who, perched on its back, smote lustily its unresisting flank
and cried: "Git over 'er!" without producing the slightest
effect. ( The huge animal planted its shaggy feet deliberately and
with stolid delight in the mud, sucking up big draughts of water,
its sides contracting and expanding in a manner fortunately
peculiar to horses ; it would be most embarrassing in human
beings.

All around the green were cottages, quaint, irregular, mis-
shapen, and looking, many of them, as if collapsing beneath their
heavy thatches. They all had gardens, in front, behind, or at the
sides, full of flowers, prim rows of vegetables, or rank weeds,
according to the owner's taste.

On the farther side of the green was the river, crossed by
an old stone bridge of many arches, and to the right of the
bridge, standing somewhat at an angle, was the inn where we
had engaged rooms.

The Cross-Keys its name a relic of Catholic England was a
long, low, buff-washed building, with a sign-board swinging
above the porch, on one post of which was painted a red hand
whose tapering index-finger and elaborately pointed filbert nail
tried in vain to point round the corner " To the tap."

In the doorway stood Dick. He had made a short cut and
arrived first. By his side was the landlady, to whom I was pre-
sented. She took me at once to our parlor, where she insisted
on my swallowing two cupfuls of boiling tea before she would
allow me to explore further, declaring that I was in the last
stage of exhaustion, and that my boxes would be quite safe and
all right without my worrying over them.

I saw at a glance that she was not a woman to be trifled with,
and I meekly obeyed, listening the while to my trunks as they
were carried up-stairs, bumping against all the corners, and

1 888.] AT THE CROSS-KEYS. 207

finally deposited with a thud (wrong side up I was sure) imme-
diately over my head.

Jane Hawkins, of the Cross-Keys, was simply terrific. She
was very tall, with a face whose features must once have been
largely handsome, but whose outlines were now blurred and
indistinct on account of the excessive size of her cheeks. I have
never seen so portly a woman, or one whose figure, so to speak,
so boldly overleaped all boundary lines.

She was used to artists and their ways, she told me ; always
had two or three there in the summer, but this was the first time
one had brought his good lady, and she hoped I should be com-
fortable.

"There was nuthin' fine or finikin about the Keys, but, thank
God ! a body could lay her head on her pillow at night and know
it was clean."

Our parlor was a low-pitched, square room, with window-
seats, chintz-covered chairs, an ancient piano of the shape known
as "semi-grand," and the most appallingly hideous wall-paper
the heart of man could conceive. For decoration there were
quantities of flowers in feathers, wool, wax, and shells, all under
glass shades; there was an "ornament for your fire-stove" in
green and purple paper, with hangings of the same over the
chimney glass, and a fly-catcher suspended from the middle of
the ceiling.

Opening from the parlor was a dear little room where Dick
could work on wet days, and up-stairs we had a bed-room with
an enormous bed that made one think of the lying-in-state of
Queen Anne, or King George, or some other eighteenth-century
monarch. It was not one of your trivial, every-day, modern
affairs, into whose midst one can lightly leap, but a stately, im-
posing couch that had to be solemnly climbed upon by the aid
of a flight of steps. We used to wonder if the dead-and-gone
worthies who had slept in it were wont to close the dismal
moreen curtains that hung at each corner, before composing
themselves to slumber, and, if so, what manner of dreams they
indulged in. However, as Mrs. Hawkins said, everything was
the pink of cleanliness, and when we had persuaded her to
remove some of her objectionable "trimmings," and had ar-
ranged the few things we brought with us, we -were very well
satisfied with our summer quarters, and not at all surprised at
other artists having returned again and again to them. It was a
lovely spot; the river was big enough to bathe in or boat on,
and just behind the inn it went tumbling and brawling over a
weir, keeping the air full of the cool, fresh smell of falling water.

208 AT THE CROSS-KEYS. [May,

Our predecessors had left their marks on the place ; in the
bar-parlor were many sketches and studies they had presented
as souvenirs to their landlady. In one corner of the ceiling
a large, damp stain had been cleverly converted into a grotesque
head, and when I leaned from the window and commented on
the stylishness of the sign-board already mentioned

" Ah !" answered Mrs. Hawkins, " that was done for me by
young Andr6. He called me into his room to look at it.
' There, Mrs. 'Awkins,' says he, 'how do you like it?' ' What's
that there sugar-loaf and them tarsels in the corner for ?' says I.
' Why, them's the papal arms,' says he, as peart as could be.
* Then you just take your brush and paint 'em out,' says I.
' Such things may be all very well for you with your Frenchified
name,' says I, ' but we want no papal arms, nor legs neither, at
the Keys,' says I."

When one is turned loose in a country village with no par-
ticular object of interest, such as a ruined abbey or a show seat,
one generally makes for the church ; and the afternoon of our
second day at Chittingdean I turned my steps toward the gray
tower whose square top I saw standing above the trees. To
reach it I had to go down a narrow lane, which, in spite of pro-
longed hot weather, was very muddy, water lurking in little
puddles at the bottom of the deep ruts. I remember wondering
why a lane which led apparently only to the church should
have so many ruts ; why, indeed, it should be necessary for
wagons to go that way at all, as the heaviest of farmers could
hardly require wheels of such dimensions to carry him to his
devotions. Soon, however, I discovered that the lane ran at the
back of the vicarage, and that agricultural operations of some
magnitude were carried on there.

The house was large, with a porch overgrown by Gloire de
Dijon roses, but there was an air of desolation about it. The
shutters were up, the steps green with moss, and the door
looked as if it had not been opened for a century. The grass
on the lawns was as long and flowery as that in the adjacent
paddocks, and the drives were full of weeds. At the side of the
house was a well-filled stack-yard, with a threshing-machine
bundled up in tarpaulin garments; a thin wreath of smoke curl-
ing from what was presumably the kitchen chimney showed that
part of the house was inhabited.

The church-yard was in no better order than the vicarage
garden, from which it was separated by a wire fence. On the
graves the hemlock and giant parsley grew riotously ; the tomb-
stones were dilapidated, and had settled crookedly into the

1 888.] AT THE CROSS-KEYS. 209

ground. There were many of those long boards, supported by.
pointed posts, which were so much in favor with the poor of a
past generation, the inscriptions such, at least, as were legible
mostly of the " Afflictions sore long time I bore " type.

The main entrance to the church was locked, but, nothing
daunted, I pursued my way round the building till I came to a
little door in a corner formed by the tower wall and a projecting
buttress. I seized the iron ring which did duty as a handle ; it
turned, and I stepped over the threshold into a passage with a
screen across one end.

As I was blinking with the sudden change from the outside
glare to the obscurity within, an old man darted on me from
behind the partition an old man in strangely shabby clothes,
bepatched and of a marvellous cut. Half his face was hidden
by a shaggy beard; what could be seen of it was very dirty;
long locks of grizzled hair fell on to his shoulders and brows,
beneath which gleamed a pair of fierce, dark eyes.

In answer to his terrifically-toned inquiry as to what I
wanted, I said, in the firmest voice I could muster, that I wanted
to see the church, whereat he took a bunch of keys from a nail
and bade me follow him. We went through a murky vestry
where a yellow surplice dangled dismally over an oak chest
own brother, apparently, to the one in which the heroine of " The
Mistletoe Bough" met her fate and under an archway into the
chancel.

The church had been a fine specimen of early Norman, cruci-
form in shape, but it seemed 'to me that everything which " the
craft or subtlety of the devil or man " could suggest towards
ruining it had been done; the nave was blocked with hideous
pews, the rood-loft had been destroyed, and over the chancel
the royal arms ramped ; while, triumph of vandalism, at the west
end a gallery for the singers had been erected, spoiling the tower
by cutting its proportions in half. On a mural tablet letters
of gold told to admiring future generations how " Humphrey
Neale and William Sayers, churchwardens, had beautified and
restored the building, adding this gallery to the glory of God,
during the reign of His Majesty George III., in the year of
grace 1811."

An old church, however mutilated, is always interesting, and
I should have liked to stay some time in this ; but I did not
altogether enjoy the company of my cicerone, and I trembled
somewhat for his patience, so I asked him if it would be possible
for me to get the keys and come again at my leisure.

VOL. XLVII. 14

2io AT THE CROSS-KEYS. [May,

" What for?" he asked, so snappishly that 1, seeking in my mind
fora suitable excuse, weakly said, "To rub some of the brasses."

"Rub the brasses!" he snorted contemptuously. "A lot
you know about rubbing brasses! Let's hear haw you would
set about it."

I was confounded. I knew it was done with something black,
and that the something's name began with an "h,'' but whether
it was henbane or hellebore I could not remember. I ventured
the former, and the result was a burst of derisive chuckling
from the horrid old man. I offered him a shilling, which, to my
surprise, he refused, and I beat the most dignified retreat possi-
ble under the circumstances.

Mrs. Hawkins made a point of coming to see me every morn-
ing as soon as Dick was out of the way. I enjoyed her visits
immensely, she was so full of information. I think, on the
whole, I have never met a person more full of information or
more fond of imparting it. Dick used to say she was garrulous
and a gossip; but as I have heard him attribute the same de-
fects to his wife, his opinion is comparatively valueless.

The day after my adventure in the church was a Friday, the
morning on which Scutt. the carrier, came, and he had brought
me some ice (an unknown luxury in Chittingdean). I was busy
snipping it up into bits to put in some lemonade when there
came the usual tap at the door, and in walked Mrs. Hawkins.

In answer to my request to her to be seated, she sank with a
sigh of relief into the largest chair in the room, filling it to over-
flowing, and watched my proceedings for some seconds in silence.

" Ah ! " she said at last, " I wonder at you drinking that
nasty, cold stuff; I wonder your 'usband lets you I do, indeed :
a little scrap of a slim thing like you. A drop of good beer is
what you want."

" But, Mrs. Hawkins, I don't like beer."

" Well, stout, then. Mr. Craven, the brewer over to Ander-
ton, he brews a capital stout; this is a free house,* thank the
Lord, but I always has Craven's stout."

" I am afraid I don't like stout, either, Mrs. Hawkins."

" Ah ! my dear, that's because you don't know what's good for
you! No more didn't I till I was so bad in my legs five years
ago this very summer. I was that weak you might ha' blown
me away, as the saying is. Doctor Maynard, he says to me :
' Mrs. 'Awkins,' says 'e, ' you aren't a poor body. You aren't got
no call to stint your innards, and two pints of stout is what you
must take every blessed day,' says 'e.

* An inn not bound to supply the beer of one firm only.

1 888.] AT THE CROSS-KEYS. 211

" ' Doctor,' says I, ' I couldn't do it I could not do it' ; and
no more I didn't, not for weeks, till the doctor he goes down on
his bended knees, as it were, and begs and prays of me, 'A
pint and a 'arf, Mrs. 'Awkins,' says 'e, and a pint and a 'arf I
made it ; and since then I've took it reg'lar, and, bless you, I'm
twice the woman I was ! "

I thought with a shudder of Dick's horror if I should ever
become " twice the woman I was," and I also thought that the
temperance agitators would have done well to buy Mrs. Haw-
kins and take her round on platforms as an awful example of
alcoholism; and I wondered, regarding her proportions as the
effects of stout, how she had escaped the wrath of the brewers,
how it was they had not conspired to murder her long ere she
had reached her present pass. Then I remembered my strange
old man of the day before, and, giving her a brief description of
him, I asked her who he was.

" Why, that must have been Mr. Drane, the rector," she said.

I had not had much experience of country rectors, and I al-
ways imagined them to be long-coated, gray-whiskered men, liv-
ing impersonations of " the gentleman in every parish " which
the English Church by State established is supposed to provide ;
and I must have betrayed my astonishment in my face, for Mrs.
Hawkins repeated :

"Yes, that be our rector for sure." Then, seeing that I was
interested, she settled herself more comfortably in her chair
and prepared for enjoyment ; she did not often get hold of
some one to whom her tales wore the charm of novelty.

"The Reverend Drane (which his Christian name is Roger)
has been at the rectory a matter of forty years and more."

"Indeed? He he is very singular-looking !" This I said
with some hesitation, not knowing how far a residence of forty
years might have endeared him to the hearts of his people.

" Ah ! " she answered, with a gurgling laugh, " he's a rum 'un,
he is ; but he was a fine-looking gentleman when he married
'Awkins and me about ten years after he come to the place.
' Come to the place,' says I ! He was born here ; man and boy,
he's lived here most part of his life, and he saw his seventy-five
last April. The Dranes are a wonderful old family. I've heard
Dixon, the clerk, say that they were here in the time of them old
ancient Saxons you've heard of, p'r'aps ; and there's a bit of
a rhyme says:

" 'Thornton, Lyndfield, Drane, and Hurst
Saw Norman William do his worst.'

Norman William, mum, as you may have heard tell, was a

AT THR CROSS KEYS. [May,

Frenchman ns come over heir interfering and doin 1 a mort of
mischief, which it seems is in the nature of them foreigners
always to do.

" Well, as I was savin', the Drnncs have been squires of Chit-
tingdean for hundreds of years, and the church, so to speak,
belongs to them, as well as the Great House. Mr. Piane's I. it IK t
he were a artful old gentleman, he were; he had only one son.
and he sent him to college to be made a parson of, so that he
could hold the living while his father was alive ; and when the old
squire died, why, the young 'un, as we used to call him, was lord
of the manor and rector as well, so he 'ad it all in 'is own 'ands."

" I suppose, now that he is so old, he has a curate to do the
church work for him?"

" Not he. He had one years ago when I was a gell. I remem-
ber him well: a nice, quiet gentleman with one eye. Baker his
name was, and 'Awkins* brother's wife's own niece lived to him
as general servant in the white house oppojr/'/f the Lion. Mr.
Drane used to be away a good part of the year then ; when he
was at 'ome he kcp' a deal ol company and was open-handed and
free with his money ; and he spent a deal, too, in London lived
like a prince up there, I've heard tell, with madam and the
young ladies goin' to court in dimonds and plumes. Then all of
a sudden he came down here to live. They r/i</say he had done
somethin 1 up there which made 'cm have to leave and be glad to
be quiet-like in the country ; all I know is, half the servants
were sent away, and only two or three horses kcp' in the stables.
They had to economize, and I suppose that was the beginning
of his bad tempers.

" Then he and his wife fell out, some said about this, and some
about that; anyhow, the daughters sided with their ma, and
there was terrible scenes. I don't wonder at madam! If I'd
'a' been his wife, 7'd ha' given him what for!

"Ah, dear! I could tell you a mort of queer stories about
him and his goings-on! Rut the upshot of it all was. madam went
off one day and the young ladies with her, leaving Master Pen-
stone and his pa here; and Mr. Prane. horn being SO free with
his cash, took savin' like, and one by one the servants were
turned otV. Then they left the manor and moved into the rectory,
and Mr. Pranc \\.vkvd right haul on the land, and grew that
cantankerous and graspin' there was no goin' nigh him. He
starved himself pretty near, but he kep' Master IVnstone in
lu\u:\. When that boy was at home which \v;is most ot the
time, tor he hated books and schoolin' he was the pest of the
village. His sisters was a deal older than he was middle-aged

1 888.] 4r THE CROSS-KEYS. 213

women they are now and they've been here once or twice for a
few days and tried to put things a bit to rights; but, bless you !
they can't put up with Mr. Diane's ways. He isn't, so to speak,
a /V//Y//' man, isn't our rector, and he's got queer notions with
livin' so lonely ; lor none of the gentry go anigh him.

" I Ic wasn't tpiiir BO l>ad while his son was at home, but now
he's gone the rector and Kidgell, the bailift", and Mrs. Kidgell,
they all live together in a hugger-mugger way, and there isn't a
round-frock farmer in the place but what keeps his home better."

" Where is the son now ? " I asked.

11 In London, I suppose. Up to no good, wherever he be, for
a bigger scamp than Penstone Drane never drew the breath of
life ; though 1 say, and I always shall say, he's what his father
made him."

"You don't care very much for Mr. Drane?" I hazarded.

" No, mum, 1 don't. We began to get across while 'Awkins
was alive, and after he was carried out feet foremost, as the say-
ing is, we liked each other less, till we had words, in this very
parlor, nine blessed years ago. It was after the audit dinner
which he used to give at the Keys then, but is 'eld at the Lion
now on account of our falling out and it all came through his
raising the rent on Timothy Woolven, which it was a crying
shame. The men were all talking about it, but none of 'em
dared to speak. ' If you're afraid,' says 1, 'Jane 'Awkins isn't.'
And 1 ups and comes into this room, where he was a-setting at
that, table, with his papers spread out before him. 4 You're not
a-goin' to do it, Mr. Drane, sir,' says I, as civil as could be-
4 you're not a-goin' to do it on a old man as has held under your
lather, and has hard work to pay his way now out of that dirty
bit of land ' Mrs. 'Awkins,' says he, ' I've got to make my liv-
ing as well as you yours; you fake your beer in peace,' says he,
'and leave me to screw my tenants the same.' Well, that made
me as mad as mad, for he knew that every drop of beer that's
drunk at the Keys is as pure as what he's got in his cellar; so,
'Livin'?' says I. 'We all know how you get your livin',' says I,
'but where the money goes is a different thing; pretty sure
Chittingdcan don't see the color of it ! Perhaps, though,' says 1,
'it goes to keep Master Penstone in his wine-bibbing and riot-
ous ways, which an't what they should be in a minister's son,
if all folks tells me is true. You've made a idol of yourself long
enough, Mr. Drane,' says I, 'and, now you are past worshipping,
you've set up Master Penstone; but you mark my words, you'll
regret it,' says I, 'as sure as God made little apples.' ' I'll let
you know when I do,' says he, and walked out of the place, and

214 THE SNOW-STORM. [May,

puts it upon old Woolven and makes him pay special tithes for
the trifle of 'ops he was growing. Well, the rector he didn't
come near the Keys for weeks, and then one day in he walks for
a glass of bitter. ' Beg pardon, but it's a shillin',' says I when he
tendered his tuppence ; ' it's a beer I keeps for the clergy, made
from very dear 'ops. It's not the "faking" it that costs,' says I,
1 it's the special tithes gives it a flavor, to be paid for accordin'.'
Well, he looked me straight in the face a minute, then he throws
down a shillin' and out he goes, and has never been in since.
There's no love lost between us, I can tell you ; if he could play
me a nasty turn he would. He'd like to take my license away,
but I'm too well known for that I'd like to see the West Sus-
sex magistrate as would interfere with Jane 'Awkins! let alone
that he daren't show his nose on the bench. But though he
don't come here, I always goes to church, for I hope I'm too
good a Christian to keep away because the rector and I don't
frequent, as the sayin' is, besides it's bein' the only chance a body
has of wearing her bit of best."

AGNES POWER.

(TO BE CONCLUDED.)

THE SNOW-STORM.

(Written while looking out at the Blizzard, March 12, 1888.)

THICK fall the flakes upon the frozen soil,

White rise the mounds above the buried grain

That sleeps entombed by the farmer's toil,
In hope to grow to glorious life again.

The deeper sink the snows into its tomb
The better promise of a harvest good ;

They turn, by sinking into cheerless gloom,
Dull death to life, corruption into food.

Thus falls of grace unto the barren soul

Of vice though shrouded in the wintr'y night

By hand divine dispensed with generous dole,
Bring strength and beauty with reviving light,

Awake the intellect and deadened will,
Arouse the dormant faculties within,
Till life celestial all their forces feel,

And white-robed innocence replaces sin.
Fort Washington, March 12, 1888. H. A. B.

1 888.] AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. 215

AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT.

THE Rev. Dr. Stalkinghorse, from whom I received the fol-
lowing highly interesting letter on a subject to which I have
lately endeavored to call the attention of the readers of THE
CATHOLIC WORLD, requests me in a subsequent note to be as-
sured that, while he thinks he has written just about what every
Catholic college president in the United States would write if
he confided his honest thoughts to paper " mutato nomine, de eis
fabula narraretur," as he puts it he is to be understood as speak-
ing officially only for himself, and is far from presuming to
be spokesman for any one else. ALFRED YOUNG.

Extract from a letter from the Rev. Alfred Young, C.S.P., to the
Rev. Dr. Pestalozzi Stalkinghorse, A. B.C., etc., etc.

. . . And it seems to me that the principles I have adduced
in my several essays upon congregational singing, and especially
their application in " An Open Letter to a Nun," deserve serious
consideration at the hands of superiors and directors of colleges,
like yourself and your reverend associate professors. What is
sauce for the goose (begging pardon of her and hers and of you
and yours for the simile) is sauce for the gander. Why cannot
you have all the students sing together all that ought to be
sung at High Mass and Vespers and on other occasions ? Won't
you think about it? . . .

PARNASSUS COLLEGE,
ACADEMOPOLIS, April the first, 1888.

MY DEAR FATHER YOUNG: Your proposition that all the
young gentlemen of our colleges should unite to form a com- '
mon chorus, and sing together all that a choir should sing at the
divine services of the church, at daily prayers, etc., strikes me as
a novelty to the introduction of which there are serious objec-
tions.

First of all, it would be looked upon as a grave innovation
upon college traditions, and regarded by the young gentlemen
themselves as an unwarrantable restriction of their time-honored
and prescriptive privileges, which in their eyes is tantamount to a
defeasance of " inalienable rights." The maxim, State super an-
tiquas mas, if not inscribed over the portals of our colleges, is
one whose force all are soon made to feel who enter them either

2 1 6 AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRE si DEN T. [May,

as pupils or as professors. The singing in our college is per-
formed by a choir (sic) composed of members from three
musical societies formed among the students the Mendelssohn
Glee Club, the Wagner Philharmonic Choral Union, and a select
quartet called the Gamma Sigma Beta Tau, whose members
constitute the "Chorus" when we produce a Greek play. The
members of these societies spend a good deal of time in private
rehearsals under the tuition of the well-known professor, Signor
Solfamire, the expenditures for whose services, although very
costly, I feel justly warranted in making for the honor of the
college.

Naturally, these singers would object to straining their
finely-cultivated voices to such a pitch as to be heard above the
singing of two hundred boys, who, of course, if once permitted
to do so, would sing at the top of their voices ; and if the choir-
singers could not make themselves distinctly heard above the
rest, all motive, as you will perceive, would be taken away for
them to sing at all,* to say nothing of the positive injury which
their voices would sustain from singing together with unculti-
vated and harsh voices, as Signor Solfamire assures me would
certainly be the case.

Again, the common singing of hymns or other chants which
are within the capacity of a large number of persons, many of
whom, as is the case in a body of college students, are but im-
perfectly educated in the art of singing, is, as you are doubtless
aware, generally voted as vulgar and fit only for people of the
lower classes. Our own college, of which I have the honor to
be the president, counts among its students a large number of
the sons of distinguished families, the very 61ite of society, or,
what comes to the same thing, of those whose wealth or political
influence enables them to take rank among, and assume the title
and privileges of, gentlemen. To introduce such a practice as
congregational singing would, I think, be regarded as beneath
the notice and unworthy of the interest of these young gentle-
men. I know you would say that what is considered as good
enough, and as even preferable in the judgment of the church-
as is plainly the expression of the late Council of Baltimore, and
of other councils abroad whose decisions you have cited in your
essays ought to be good enough even for young gentlemen, be

* Although he writes " all motive," I presume the Rev. Dr. Stalkinghorse means, doubt-
less, that motive which is regrettably uppermost and often the only one in the minds of the select
few who sing in our church choirs, which is, to be heard and praised by the audience ; and not
the true and only worthy motive which should animate singers at divine service, viz., that of
singing to be heard by and to praise God. A. Y.

1 888.] AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. 217

their manners and tastes never so refined. Your arguments ap-
pear to be irrefutable, and theoretically I cannot but agree with
you ; but to inaugurate a practice which might result in a large
falling off in our matriculation list would be a grave question
' for a college president to meet. Probably the students might
be won over to it by instruction and encouragement; but, be-
tween ourselves, many of their purse-proud and over-refined
parents would not be so easily dealt with. This argumentum ad
crumenam will probably evoke a smile upon the lips of your rev-
erence, but my desire to be frank with you has induced me not
to withhold it.

Once more: Except the members of the before-mentioned
musical societies who employ their free time chiefly in the
culture of their voices and in practising instrumental music in
order to exhibit their powers in these arts on various public occa-
sions (I may say just here that their singing in the choir at Mass
and Vespers is quite a secondary purpose of their choral organi-
zations, and whose performances at these divine services are, of
course, not comparable in style and finish to their admirable ren-
ditions from Robert le Diable, Lohengrin, Tannhduser, La Grande
Duchesse, Pinafore, and the Medea of Euripides, with their capital
impersonations of negro character and songs with banjo and
bones) except these, as I was saying, most of the college stu-
dents employ all the time at their command in athletic exercises,
whose triumphs in the ball-field and at the boat-races you have
probably read with great interest in the newspapers.

These students, who are by far the great majority, have, as
you perceive, no leisure time, over and above that devoted to
these diversions, which might be employed in the study and
practice of singing. What was said of the people in general
and of the lack of this accomplishment among them by one of
the reverend pastors of the ancient and conservative city of Al-
bany, just past the celebration of its bi-centennial anniversary
of existence, may well be applied to the students of our own
and, I presume, to the students of most of the colleges in this
country. He said, as reported in a late number of the Albany
Sunday Press: "The principal difficulty in the introduction of
congregational singing would arise from the fact that, leading a
more active life than European people, and having less time for
the cultivation of music, we have not the advantage of that ear-
lier training which is part of the curriculum of Old-World
schools." And, as he remarked, it would not in his opinion
"take" in Albany, so I am also of opinion that it would not take

218 AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. [May,

among the students of our colleges, who are so deeply interested
in and much occupied, despite its serious interference with in-
tellectual pursuits, with the cultivation of their muscular activity.

Your arguments for congregational singing, especially those
adduced in the article entitled " Let all the People Praise the '
Lord," which appeared in the March number of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD are very iorc\b\Gmactevirtute! and by those who have
been wejl grounded in practices of devotion, and who love the
church's services of divine praise and seek its highest and pur-
est expression, cannot be lightly passed by without serious con-
sideration. But, my dear Father Young, you know what college
boys are, and how tiresome, as a rule, church services of any
kind are to them, not being trained, as you know, to love and
esteem pious exercises.*

They are, I observe, very glad when we have no High Mass
or Vespers on Sundays and festivals, and no sermon, as it leaves
them more free time to use in training for the coming contest
against the ball and boat clubs of College.f

I fully agree with you that our youths in this country sadly
lack religious training ; and I am sure that learning the replies
to a few questions in the catechism, and the ordinary prayers, is
not enough to make them good, practical Catholics, or decently
intelligent ones either. What they possess as a rule when they
come to us to receive instruction in the higher branches of edu-
cation, to the attainment of exceptional excellence in which our
colleges are especially devoted and expected to achieve for their
pupils, is, I regret to say, extremely meagre in a religious point
of view. In fact, it has been reported to me that even some of
our own students who have been with us a year or more do not
know how to follow the Mass intelligently. You will see, how-
ever, by reference to our annual catalogue, that we havte, as all
our Catholic colleges have, a department of " Christian Doc-
trine," for proficiency in which we bestow medals and other
rewards of merit; and some of the boys, I am happy to say, do
remarkably well, considering the relatively small amount of time
and attention we can afford to devote to that department.
Then we are not without special religious associations of
students, who hold their pious meetings once a fortnight or
monthly, at which they display their society banner, put on

* My good friend, the President of Parnassus, might be judged from this to think that it
is not a duty incumbent upon college teachers to train their scholars to love and esteem exer-
cises of piety, but I am quite sure he would indignantly repel any such imputation. A. Y.

t They play ball behind the college on Sundays, so as not to scandalize the neighbors. I am
very careful, as I think all college presidents should be, on that point.

1 888. ] AN OPEN LE TTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. 2 1 9

their badges, and recite their little devotions. Parnassus College
has two such societies, the "Sodality of St. Aloysius"and the
"Confraternity of St. Christopher flumen pertransiens" the
latter my own foundation both recruited chiefly, as you can
well understand, from among the boys of more tender age and
delicate constitutions who are not able to take part in the trying
physical exercises of the more robust and healthy ones. The
Confraternity of St. Christopher flumen pertransiens I so named
in the hope to induce members of the boat-club to join it, but as
yet only one of them has given in .his name. These religious
societies have a tolerably good esprit de corps among themselves,
as it has given me pleasure to observe, and which I think it very
advisable to encourage, as it cultivates a laudable spirit of emu-
lation most requisite for the attainment of excellence in any
undertaking, and in their case is a kind of set-off against the
very remarkable, though at times somewhat troublesome, esprit
de corps which certainly distinguishes our singing societies and
the ball and boat clubs.

These sodalists sing at their meetings, not very melodiously
I must allow, yet with a good deal of fervor ; but then, you see,
the poor fellows have not had any training, and cannot be ex-
pected to charm the ears of any who may happen to be within
earshot of them. They take it out, I suppose, as you say, in
the pleasure of singing to and before God. If they could have a
little training from Signer Solfamire they would do much better,
but then I would hardly feel justified in expending money upon the
singing of a society for merely pious purposes.

Nevertheless I remember that on some occasions, when in-
vited by their prefect to attend their meetings (and I think it
wise to encourage such associations by the presence and smile
of authority, although my time is constantly engaged with 'mat-
ters of more urgent importance than these little societies), "I
have been, I may say, more deeply moved by the rather un-
couth and uncultivated singing of these sodality boys (albeit
that I am by nature rather cold and dispassionate, as it behooves
those in authority to be, or to assume to be) than I ever have been
by the finest renditions of our Mendelssohn Glee Club or the
Wagner Philharmonic Choral Union ; and I have not unfre-
quently been obliged to hide my emotions by overcoming with
a violent cough a fanciful obstruction in my throat purely ner-
vous, I suppose or vigorously blowing my nose ; and, finding
occasion to wipe my spectacles, deftly wipe my accidentally
suffused eyes also at the same time before reassuming them.

220 AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. [May,

There is something about a common, hearty singing by a num-
ber of persons together which I acknowledge is not without a
peculiar charm and spiritual power of its own else why should
it so deeply affect me? and more than once while singing their
devout sodality hymns with might and main I have seen the
faces of these dear boys light up with a singular brightness of
expression (or was it only my fancy ?) that was, I am free to say,
lovely I cannot find a better term to describe it quite lovely
to behold ; and it has led me to go among them more frequently
and to stay there very much longer than I would otherwise do,
and perhaps more often and longer than is becoming in visits
from one in authority, who, I take it, should always limit his ap-
pearance and the time of his presence to quite this side of what
might indicate or invite familiarity.

To be quite honest 'with you, dear Father Young, I dare say
that if you should demand from me a categorical expression of
opinion I would not deny that I like the singing of these good
youths, musically poor as it is, much better than I like their si-
lence at Mass and Vespers ; and I am led to believe that if the
whole two hundred and more students were busily occupied in
singing together, even if the result were not, in refined expres-
sion, equal to the choice vocal efforts by our few select voices in
the choir, many of the boys would be thinking more about God
and divine things during those seasons of prayer and praise than
I fear they in fact are. The juvenile mind of a youth, like
his body, is acutely sensitive and irrepressibly active, and,/r0//<T
lapsum natura, has a perverse disposition to wander in forbidden
paths, pluck forbidden fruit, and scale forbidden bounds nitimur
in vefttum, you know which perversity of nature induced that
shrewd observer of man and womankind, the Lady Mary Wort-
ley Montagu, to say that she thought she could make men bet-
ter and, & fortiori, it would be true of boys if she could get
Parliament to revise the Ten Commandments and abolish the
word "not" from them.

I read your late article, " An Open Letter to a Nun," on the
present subject, and while heartily enjoying the criticism you so
cleverly managed to make of the methods employed in nuns'
convents, here and there I felt that your letter might be perused
with equal profit by those having charge of schools for boys also,
saving only the change in gender. I am a little surprised, how-
ever, at your attributing proverbial quick-wittedness to school-
girls, unless you had included them among scholars generally.
1 have not much acquaintance with little girls in or out of. school,
but I always imagined them to be quite lacking in that acies

1 888.] AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. 221

ingenii, acuteness of intellectual perception, when compared with
boys. Of them I can speak both from experience and ex animo.
The very remarkable power possessed by boys of reading one's
thoughts from one's countenance, and sometimes, as it were,
even of seeing out of the backs of their heads and divining what
passes behind them, surpasses all understanding and defies all
philosophical solution, as we whose occupation is to develop
and train the intellectual faculties of youths can fully testify to.
Wherefore I heartily agree with you that one should be ex-
tremely careful not to give them songs or hymns to sing which
they would regard as silly stuff or of dubious moral sentiment if
given them to read. Sentiments of piety so expressed as to in-
spire those boys inclined to irreverence to style them " fal-lal-
lal" and "mush" can only tend to make all religious thought
and practices of piety contemptible.* I am rather disposed to
think that Signer Solfamire is not quite particular enough on
that score when he selects new pieces of music to be sung by
the members of the musical societies. Hearing something of
this sort taken from operas of more than doubtful moral charac-
ter, and taking occasion, as was my imperative duty as president
of the college, to remonstrate with him, assuring him that the
lamentable pruriency of some youthful imaginations 'should be
most carefully guarded against being furnished with material
and means for descent into turpitude of thought, he only laughed
and said, "Oh! the words are nothing, Dr. Stalkinghorse ; they
are only pegs to hang the delicious music upon." But he has not
studied philosophy (a pitiable lack in the education of musicians
generally), which would have told him that the tune, or music, is
th body of which the w r ords are the soul, and both you and I
know, Pather Young, that the body is too often the dangerous
beauty which attracts, enslaves, and leads one headlong to in-
famy and self-destruction. And, of course, he is not expected
to know the fact simply as a musician though as a church musi-
cian he ought to know it ; but the pronouncement of the Council
of Baltimore was perfectly and logically consistent with the
philosophical truth I have just cited when it laid down as a

* It is said to be unwise (unlucky is the popular term) to criticise the saints, but I wish that
the saintly Father Faber, the author of so many good hymns, had never written that hymn of
his entitled " The True Shepherd," in which occur the lines :

" He took me on his shoulder,
And tenderly he kissed me;
He bade my love be bolder,

And said how he had missed me.
He coaxed me so to love him," etc.

Now, why do the sodality boys like that hymn, and why do they all smile aad look at one
another when singing it ?

222 AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. [May,

criterion of fitting music to be sung in churches the maxim,
" The music for the words, and not the words for the music." The
Spanish proverb thereon is very apt : La letra es la reyna, y su
esclava la muska " The word is queen, the music is servant."

Although I am president of the college, I regret to say that I
am forced sometimes to feel keenly, and greatly against my sense
of self-respect to endure, the autocratic sway of the Signer in
these matters; much about the same as our pastors of churches
do from the all-powerful person who sits at the organ and obliges
the priest to wait his pleasure and accept his choice of music for
divine service. If your proposed reformation of church music
si diis placet -Father Young, would end in reforming our church
organists and music-teachers, and liberate college presidents and
church pastors from a slavery in which I, for one, am sometimes
led to despise my bonds and resolve at all costs to be free and
I suppose you would at once assure the certainty of such a
desirable result you would confer a lasting blessing upon the
clergy at large and be hailed as a benefactor beyond reward.

There is one other consideration not unworthy of note. I
once heard an anecdote of a celebrated organist who, at the close
of a brilliant performance upon his instrument, was accosted by
the bellows-blower with : " We did unusually well to-day, pro-
fessor?" "We?" exclaimed the professor interrogatively, and
with a marked tinge of scorn in the tone of his voice. " I think
it is we" replied he of the bellows-handle. " I think not, sir,"
curtly and severely said the organist ; " it is only /." The anec-
dote further related that on the next occasion, as the organist was
about to begin and pulled the bellows signal, it failed to start the
blower to his work. The audience was waiting. "I think we
will play well to-night" was the surly remark of the king of the
bellows when appealed to for instant action. The professor
wisely comprehended the situation, and his response, " I think
^ve will," was at once followed by a full bellows. But the autocrat
of the bellows-handle very soon learned that he was not the only
man who possessed the art of pumping wind for an organ.

Our chapel choir has not unfrequently expected from me a
smiling assurance that " we sang the High Mass to-day very
well"; and I have wisely, though with no little contempt for
myself, felt obliged to reply, " Yes, I think we did."

I have always been deeply impressed with the conviction that
our Catholic youth should be so trained in their schools as to be
thoroughly conversant with and accustomed to attend the com-
plete and rubrically celebrated divine services of the church, if
we are to hope that they will in after-years go to High Mass and

1 888.] AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. 223

Vespers, as every intelligent and reasonably devout Catholic
man who appreciates those more solemn services at their proper
worth and purpose should by preference do. Hence, when I
was appointed president of Parnassus it grieved me to find that
the rule of the college was to have only a Low Mass and the
beads in place of Vespers. The slang expression, "short shrift,"
I was shocked to hear was a by-word among the students for
both Low Mass and the Holy Rosary. I will not give their by-
word now used to designate High Mass and Vespers, both of
which I have succeeded in establishing as the rule, because, as I
said before, some quick-witted lad might read in my countenance
what I had written to you, and it would never do to have it
supposed that I am aware of the use of any such expression
amongst them. Some evils, you know, dear father, as well as
some good things, fade by sheer neglect.

But now I come to the application of my anecdote. Time
and again I find myself obliged to give them "short shrift."
The choir say in effect: " We cannot sing High Mass or Ves-
pers to-day. Our tenor has a cold, or our bass is laid up from
the effects of a ' foul' on the ball-field ; or we have had no time
to practise a ' Mass,' because the solos and trios and choruses
from Robert le Diable, or the ' iiigger jamboree,' had to be
rehearsed." The holy church and God's praises are relegated
to a second place, or rather to no rightful place even as second,
but are benignly patronized by these "choir" singers, and put
in the position of beggars to pick up the scraps and leavings
which these gentlemen loftily offer if perchance they feel in the
humor of giving.

If I were as confident as you, dear Father Young, of the
feasibility of the project in so far as to secure a pretty general
singing by all the students, even if our " prima donna tenor"
and " bull bass," as they are dubbed by the Bothers, should spite-
fully keep silent, I would be sorely tempted to assert that /sing
High Mass, and show these choir artists that there are many
other hands besides their own quite competent to take a turn at
the bellows-handle (if I may be permitted the use of that
musical me'taphor derived from the before-cited anecdote), and,
boldly deploying my banner,' Vera pro gratis " True things in-
stead of agreeable things " upon the outward walls, invite the
whole body of students to join with me in singing High Mass,
thus celebrating that Divine Sacrifice according to the very
spirit and letter of the church's ritual cum omnibus circumstanti-
bus, as is plainly indicated by the invitation which the priest
makes to all present when, at the Orates fratres, he designates

224 AN OPEN LETTER FROM A COLLEGE PRESIDENT. [May,

the Mass as " meum ac vestrum sacrificium." It might be
rather a feeble attempt at first, but I am not unmindful of the
forcible maxim, " vires acquirit eundo" and these autocrats of
the choir gallery would then learn that the regular celebration
of the divine services of the holy church and the singing of
the praises of God in a Christian Catholic college were not to
be made truculently subordinate to and dependent upon the
exactions of an operatic or negro chorus, and still less upon the
demand for " practice time " in the base-ball field.

I have heard that somewhere out West, situated either in the
wild woods or upon one of the sceneless prairies of that imma-
ture region, there is a sort of collegiate institution, which our
young gentlemen would call a "one-horse" college, whose cur-
riculum of studies is probably suited in its intellectual standard
to the needs of those homely Western provincials, in which
bucolic gymnasium High Mass and Vespers, and indeed even
the special services of particular festivals, are sung by all the
students precisely as you would wish, and that that institution
makes a point not only of securing the accomplishment of that
design, but of boasting not a little as well of their success.
However, I have all this only from hearsay.

Your reflections, in " An Open Letter to a Nun," upon the
grave responsibility laid upon teachers of youth in reference to
this matter, have, I acknowledge, made me feel quite uneasy. To.
tell you the truth, the thought quite spoiled my appetite, and I
lay awake half the night thinking about it. As president of the
college homo sui juris I have large liberty in matters like this,
and just now the spectre of " responsibility" doth so haunt my
mind and rouse the twinges of my conscience that, not yet see-
ing precisely how to lay the ghost you have called up, I could
wish my liberty were less, and that I could lay the flattering
unction to my soul that, if things are not what they might and
should be, it is not my business nor my fault; saying with Mac-
beth, adjuring Banquo's ghastly shade, " Never shake thy gory
locks at me : thou canst not say I did it."

But I have tired you, I fear, with my long epistle ; yet trust-
ing that it may not prove wholly unworthy of your perusal, and
sympathizing with you in your earnest efforts towards establish-
ing congregational singing among the people at large quod
bonum felix faustumque sit I am, my dear Father Young,

Yours, in hope of better things apud -nos,

PESTALOZZI STALKINGHORSE, A.B.C., etc., etc.,
President of Parnassus College.

1 888.] SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM. [225

SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM.

THOSE who are subject to spectral illusions are often advised,
as a remedy, to walk boldly up to the unsubstantial air-vision
and clasp it in their arms, or, better still, if circumstances per-
mit, unflinchingly to sit on it ; and then invariably the terrify-
ing phantom vanishes into thin air. A similar conduct would
perhaps meet with a like success in. the case of many of the
ghosts of objections which the hierophants of infidelity are fond
of conjuring up for our edification. There is a risk lest too
much looking and listening should give them an appearance of
strength and weight not their own, and enable them to make a
sinister impression on our nervous nineteenth-century faith, or
at least tempt us to draw a sword which should be reserved for
more solid foes, and make us wound ourselves in the vain at-
tempt to cleave them.

One such phantom objection, which seems to be a scare to
many minds, is the reproach that w Catholics have no scientific
freedom. In the harangues and lucubrations of the coryphei
of physical science, the church, the mighty mother, generally
figures as'a sort of Goddess of Dulness, who lulls the aspiring
inquirer in her soft bosom, and then puts her bandage over his
eyes. The readiness with which a Catholic scientific man pro-
fesses to submit his views to an authority which teaches with-
out reference to their hypotheses seems to them a sign of worse
than Egyptian bondage, and justifies their regarding him as the
champion of a retrograde obscurantism. "You hardly deserve
the title of man of science," they taunt him ; "you are afraid of
experiment, lest it should explode your ^ priori ; you cannot
bring forth the smallest pet of a theory without living in daily
alarm lest it should be strangled by a papal definition ; you can-
not give our most brilliant hypotheses a frank acceptance, be-
cause you are ever haunted by the suspicion of an approaching
bull. Bridled by the Pope, ridden by priests, saddled with
Moses, what freedom have you in scientific investigation, and
consequently what right to be called a scientific man?"

The conclusion is certainly trying, and has put several dis-
putants on their mettle and made them look to their weapons.
Some whip out the rapier of logic and try and split the spectre
on the point of a distinction. "The church," they loudly pro-
claim, " has no right whatever to interfere in scientific matters,"

VOL. XLVII. 15 .

226 SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM. [May,

and then they add in a whisper, "as such" "The proper object
of the Pope's infallibility is faith and morals alone. History,
philosophy, science, the higher criticism " (again sotto voce, " as
such " much virtue in an as such /) " are entirely outside his
sphere." Others with the axe of theology attempt to beat down
the monstrous shape and minimize its alarming proportions.
" After all," says one, " it is not so much ; the yoke we bear is
not as galling as at first sight appears. The conditions of an
ex-cathedra pronouncement are hardly ever verified. The num-
fc^er of Scripture texts which have received authentic interpreta-
tion is delightfully small. Several of our theories of inspiration
would allow you to live in much peace, and beyond the narrow
region of the defined you would find a field for hypothesis
whose amplitude would surprise you. Look at me, now. I am
an admirable Catholic, and yet I don't believe in Adam's apple,
I don't believe in Noe's ark, I don't believe in Daniel in the
lions' den ; and as for the naive anthropomorphism of Genesis,
it excites in me a smile no less beaming than your own."

There is no intention of entering here into the many ques-
tions regarding the subject of the gift of infallibility and the
field in which it is exercised. These require the firm and deli-
cate grasp of a theologian. Still less (we hasten to quiet alarms
already, perhaps, excited) is it intended to discuss the case of
that colossal bore, Galileo. All that is wished is to indicate
what seems, for a Catholic in his private interior warfare, the
common-sense plan of meeting gibes concerning his scientific
freedom, which have lately become as persistent as poor Hor-
ace's " libertino patrt natus" For with regard to the argumen-
tation described above, however useful or necessary it may be
in dealing with "those without," it suggests a pitiful spirit in
a Catholic who chooses it as a weapon to fortify his own heart
withal. The objection, if only it is scrutinized a little closely,
1 turns out to be a very poor ghost indeed. Let us approach the
grisly horror boldly, and clasp it in our arms with a schoolman's
Concedo totum, and presently we shall find it melt and dissolve in
our grasp f leaving us surprised that so faint a thing should have
seemed so fearful. For, after all, what is this scientific freedom
0f which they are so proud, and the lack of which in us seems
to them so abject? We have here only one more instance of
'* dust which is a little gilt," of a base thing admired because it is
decked with a noble name. It often happens that a word which
in one combination signifies something high, when transferred
to another will express something mean, and yet will carry on

1 888.] SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM. 227

to the latter something- of the dignity and credit it has acquired
in its first connection just as sometimes a low man will be
esteemed because he bears a name laden with the memories of
the historic past. Freedom, liberty, independence, are spirit-
stirring words, connected as they are with what we are most
proud of in our nature and in our history. And therefore they
come to be abused ; and people try to persuade us that because
a man should gladly make any sacrifice for his own or his coun-
try's freedom, that therefore free-printing and free-thinking and
free-loving are worth dying for. Freedom is a thing to be
proud of only when it means the freedom of the will, or, secondly,
when it means the freedom to execute what reason dictates. In
the first sense it is opposed to the blind instinct of brute crea-
tion ; in the second it is the opposite of slavery. But freedom of
the intellect as distinct from freedom of the will is not a thing
to be proud of at all. Scientific freedom is only another name
for ignorance.

Liberty of choice, or free-will, is indeed an admirable gift.
It gives us the most intimate indication of the great chaos
which is fixed between man and the rest of animals. It is the
basis of praise and glory, and the root of all merit. It implies
that the being who possesses it is made for the Infinite Good.
For if we are free to turn our eyes from any created vision
however fair, if we can reject any joy however subtle or potent,
it is because the will has a capacity which can only be filled by
the boundless good of God. But because freedom is a per-
fection of the will it does not follow that it is also a perfection
of the intellect. Because a man is not perfected by all created
goods, and therefore his dignity requires the power of taking
them or leaving them, as he wills, it does not follow that the
intellect is not perfected by all truths, and that it is a privilege
to be able to reject and deny them at will. One must not forget
the essential distinction between the faculties of intellect and
will ; which is, that the will is satisfied and perfected by things,
and the intellect by ideas of things. Ideas do not interfere with
each other ; on the contrary, the more a man has the better
he can receive and appreciate new ideas. Because a man
thoroughly understands Gothic cathedrals it does not inter-
fere with his understanding Romanesque. A man's clear idea
of New York does not prevent his having a clear idea of
London also ; and musicians can preserve in their minds a great
number of melodious ideas at the same time. No freedom is
required here. But when towns or cathedrals or tunes become

228 SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM. [May,

objects of the will, then a man must have freedom to choose.
He cannot live both in London and New York ; he must make
his election. If he wishes to build a cathedral he cannot have
it in two styles; he must select Gothic or Greek or Renaissance.
And even those who are most enthusiastic for music hardly
care to hear "Rule Britannia" and " Yankee Doodle "at the
same moment.

But in our choice of opinions we have liberty only in so far
forth as we are in the dark. When we have clear knowledge of
a thing we lose this liberty ; and we may justly accuse any one
who takes the trouble to enlighten us of robbing us of our scien-
tific freedom. If I open my eyes and see a hay-stack before me,
I am not at liberty to deny its existence ; nor, if I could, would
it be any great improvement to me. And if any one tells me
that the whole is greater than the part, or that Rome is a city
of Italy, or that Napoleon was victorious at Jena, I have no
liberty in my judgment, because I have no ignorance. But we
all have freedom in assigning an author to the letters of Junius,
or in stating the functions of the spleen, or in analyzing the
fixed stars, because on these points we are much in the dark;
and for the same reason an oyster may doubt whether the scent
of a rose is sweet, or pickled salmon pleasant at breakfast. Set
a tavern sign before me and a horse-car driver, and tell us it is
a masterpiece of Raphael : he indeed will be at liberty to believe
or deny ; but I, if my suspicions are confirmed by an infallible
critic, will lose all freedom of judgment.

Let not Catholics be ashamed to admit that the Eternal Wis-
dom has restricted .their intellectual freedom by revelation.
God has taken away their liberty, or, in other words, their igno-
rance, in many questions of history, philosophy, and some even
of physical science. Not that the church has ever pronounced
in such matters for their own sake. To do so is not included in
her mission, which is only concerned with our eternal welfare.
But indirectly the light of the supernatural truths she has pro-
claimed has irradiated many departments of scientific research,
and so far deprived Catholic scientific men of liberty ; or, to say
the same thing, been to them a guiding star to light them along
the path of truth, and save them from the absurd aberrations
through which the infidel scientist has his admirable right to
wander at will. Catholics, in this matter, stand in the same re-
lation to infidels that the angels do to Catholics. Just as we
see rrnny truths in the light of the church's teaching, so do they
see many more in the light of " Essence increate." All the phy-

i888.] SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM. 229

sical causes after which we are so painfully groping stand dis-
covered in that supreme illumination, which thus robs them of
the advantages of free speculation, investigation, and experi-
ment. Therefore, if we are contemptible because the teaching
of revelation restricts our liberty, much more despicable, in the
eyes of the apostles of culture, must the angels be, whose scien-
tific liberty is so terribly hampered by the Beatific Vision. And
as for Almighty God, we are afraid our friends must have a
very low opinion of him, for he has absolutely no scientific
freedom at all. No opinion, no theory, no shadow of hypothe-
sis, ever comes near that divine immensity of mind.

In truth, does not the argumentation described in the begin-
ning of this paper, if used for any other end than to help the
objector, seem to reveal some inconsistency ? Far be it from us
to find fault with those who seem grudgingly to define the exact
limits of the church's gift, and who take pains to point out to
infidels how little she has encroached, or can encroach, on the
domain which they regard as exclusively their own. A Catholic
man of science is " a debtor to Greek and barbarian, to the wise
and the unwise." But there is a danger, in reading this kind of
apologetic, of conceiving the suspicion that there is something
to be guarded against, or ashamed of, in the teaching authority
of the church; something which exposes us to the taunt of
being slaves of unreason, and which, so far from being a subject
of exultation, should as much as possible be slurred over or held
back. If we believe that the Catholic Church is guided by the
Spirit of Truth, and supernaturally preserved from the least taint
of falsehood, why should we exult that she speaks so seldom ?

If the authority of the church weighs on a man's heart as an
uneasy yoke, or as a chain which holds him back in his intellec-
tual flight, does he not show that his conviction of her unerring
truth is not practical and strong? Or else does he not prove
that it is not scientific truth he really cares about, but only the
interest and excitement of investigation, the glory of discover)',
or the pride of independence?* If my love of truth is honest
and simple, what does it matter whether I have learnt it by ex-
periment or have been taught by an infallible voice ? Provided

* The writer, we are sure, does not mean that he would favor the church extending her
decisions directly over the domain of purely natural science ; nor would he detract from the value
which the active pursuit of truth possesses to the religious mind as enhancing the dignity of the
human intellect and revealing in a manner peculiarly effective the wonders of the divine majes-
ty and goodness in the created universe. The interest and excitement of investigation and
the glory of discovery, as well as innocent pride of independence, are providential incitements
to that deep love of the truth which in a multitude of cases is necessary to the best results of
the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul. Ed.

230 SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM. [May,

I know with certainty that the accidents of a body can subsist
apart from their substance, what odds does it make that my cer-
tainty comes from the church's authority, rather than that with
some exquisite instrument I had pierced to their division and
with my own hands torn them asunder? In either case the truth
is mine I possess it, I rejoice in it, I use it henceforth as a first
principle.

Why should it be a cause of jubilation to Catholics that the
church has not as yet pronounced on evolution, or the univer-
sality of the deluge, or the ultimate constitution of bodies, and
such like questions, on which therefore, for the present, they
have full liberty to .hold their own? Take, for instance, evolu-
tion. There are many who think that the plain words of Scrip-
ture are true in their obvious sense, and to whose imagination
that moment is still clear in which, as they believe, Adam
sprang forth into the sunshine of paradise from the radiant
hands of his Creator, and glorified him by the sudden perfection
of his intellect and beauty ; and that other moment when, wak-
ing from his deep sleep, he first saw the " mother of all the liv-
ing," new-moulded from his own substance, and welcomed her
the immaculate queen of a virgin earth. Other minds there are,
few but scientific, who prefer to think that Adam and Eve began
their careers by being independently located (so they daintily
express it) in the bodies of different female anthropoid apes, and
only then at length became " living souls " when the Almighty
breathed into their melancholy faces the breath of immortal life.
There is no use disputing about tastes, but what cannot be dis-
puted is that there is nothing to be glad or proud of in our
present liberty arid the ignorance which is its basis. A man
who to Catholic sense united common sense and a love of
scientific truth would regard it as a precious boon to be de-
prived of liberty on this and a host of other interesting questions
connected with Scripture, by an authentic interpretation of the
church. Nay, if it had been given to the church to instruct us
in all truth, even unconnected with faith and morals ; if, as soon
as any question occurred, or theory was broached, or system
was formulated in history or philosophy or physics, it might
be authoritatively and infallibly judged by the Vicar of God
rather than by the able editor of our daily paper, what a satis-
faction it would be to a truly scientific man, and what a saving
of time and trouble to the whole world ! Though indeed, if one
wishes to say the last word on the subject, it makes little dif-
ference whether we spend the first fifty or sixty years of our

i888.J SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM. 231

unending existence in partial ignorance of truth or not. In a
million years or two, when we look back on this epoch of our
present life, we shall not think of this deficiency with much re-
gret, provided we have had the knowledge which brings a man
to the Vision where all things are seen in their First Cause, and
saves him from the dread region of eternal doubt.

St. Augustine, as is well known, taught that creation was the
work of a single moment; and he explains the successive days of
creation, described in Genesis, as the successive illuminations of
angelic intelligences with regard to the various orders of be-
ings. And when the sacred text says, "And the evening and
the morning was the first day," he refers it to the twofold
knowledge which the angels have of things. For the angels see
all created things in their own natures, and this he calls their
evening knowledge. And besides this they see created things
in the vision of the Word, where they all exist eternally in their
efficient Cause and Exemplar; and this he calls their morning
knowledge. We also have a twofold knowledge : that which
we draw from the fountains of nature, the senses, the reason,
or human testimony, and, secondly, that which we derive from
the teaching of the church. But it is this latter which we
should look on as our morning knowledge. Our evening know-
ledge, our science, our philosophy, may seem to have a warmer
glow and to be more soothing to the senses ; but it is already
mingled with flight, and to many of us it is barren of hope or
fertility. Our morning knowledge is more austere, but it is
brighter and more wholesome, charged with the intoxication of
hope, and pregnant with the promise of the splendors of the
eternal day. B. B.

232 THE LATE KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF. [May,

THE LATE KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF.

THE Emperor William, who, in an evil hour, undertook what
Pope Leo XIII. called "a relentless war against the divine
authority of the church," was but a few weeks ago gathered to
his fathers. The life of the late Kaiser embraced a period of
great and surprising events. He was born in the days of the
martyr-pontiff Pius VI., when the Revolution thought it had
gained a supreme victory over the Papacy, and exultingly pro-
claimed that the end of the Catholic Church was come. As a
youth he aided in the overthrow of the first French Empire, and
paraded the streets of Paris with the allied forces that had de-
feated the great Napoleon. When king of Prussia it fell to
his lot to direct the two greatest wars which Europe has seen
since Waterloo. He conquered Austria, overthrew the second
French Empire, again marched the streets of Paris, and was
proclaimed emperor of united Germany on French soil.

The church of God, which witnessed these turmoils and
changes, and suffered much from them, continues to exist un-
changing and unchangeable as in the earliest times. Macaulay's
words are trite, but they are very true : " She saw the com-
mencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical
establishments that now exist in the world ; and we feel no assur-
ance that she is not destined to see the end of them all." And
if never before the authority of the Holy Father has been more
fiercely attacked than in our own day, never, on the other hand,
has his voice been listened to with greater respect and intelli-
gent obedience, or his sacred office been the object of more rev-
erence and love.

The year 1848 forms an era in the modern history of Europe.
The insurrectionary tumults and the subversion of government
in France, Austria, Italy, and the various states of Germany, all
occurring simultaneously, mark that year as one of the most
memorable in European history. These popular commotions,
though political in their origin, were not without their influence
upon the church. One of the effects of the Revolution of 1848
was to sweep away a whole host of vexatious and tyrannical
laws which till then oppressed the church, especially in Ger-
many, and hampered its free action.

During the political disturbances then going on the German
episcopate, at the invitation of Archbishop von Geissel, of

i888.] THE LATE KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF. 233

Cologne, met at Wiirzburg to deliberate on the affairs and needs
of the church in Germany, and lay down the principles of ec-
clesiastical liberty. In the memorial which they addressed to
the German sovereigns the bishops warned the governments
of the coming dangers, and declared that they were powerless
to stem the tide of revolution and anarchy so long as they
were denied the free exercise of their episcopal duties. They
demanded the fullest freedom in the matter of education and
instruction, and asserted the right of the church to direct its
own affairs, as well as the right of Catholics to freely communi-
cate with their spiritual superiors.

Fortunately, the voice of the German episcopate was listen-
ed to, especially in Prussia, where the rights of the Catholic
Church received a fair recognition. The new constitution of
1848 recognized the independence and confirmed the liberties
of the Catholic Church, putting her on a perfect equality with
the Evangelical Church and other religious denominations
acknowledged by the state. In no part of Europe was the
church more free and better organized, and nowhere did she
display such wonderful activity as was manifested by her in
Prussia since 1848. The clergy, stimulated by the example of
their bishops, showed the most praiseworthy zeal ; convents
and monasteries were established all over the country, scientific
associations were formed, and newspapers and reviews were
founded in which Catholic interests were ably defended. Espe-
cially deserving of mention is the open and courageous manner
in which so many laymen of the highest position bore witness
to their faith, and the great devotion which they at all times
manifested towards the common Father of Catholic Christen-
dom. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the influence
of the Catholic Church increased enormously throughout the
whole extent of the kingdom.

Infidelity and Protestantism viewed with alarm the advance-
ment and growing power of Catholicism. It began to be feared
that, should the Catholic Church continue to make the sure
though silent progress it had made during the last thirty years,
the Protestant population might eventually succumb to her influ-
ence. To stay the advancement of " Romanism " the Prussian
government, after the French war, entered into a close alliance
with the " National Liberal " party, the inveterate foe of the
church, and initiated a persecution unexampled in modern Eu-
rope, except in the penal laws of England.

The " Kulturkampf," or " battle of progress and culture," as
its chief promoter was pleased to call it, was opened under a

234 THE LATE KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF. [May,

double pretext. The first was the Vatican definition of Papal
Infallibility, which, it was claimed, was at variance with the
rights and prerogatives of the modern state as well as with the
duties of loyal citizens. The founder of the Old Catholics, Dr.
Dollinger, had declared that " thousands of clergy," like him-
self, were ready to fall away from Rome as soon as they should
be assured of the assistance of the state. And so the German
governments allowed themselves to be beguiled into the belief
that the Catholic clergy and people would, after a short con-
test, submit to the power of the state. The second pretext
for entering upon the " struggle for civilization " was the attitude
taken up on the Roman question and in matters of politics by
the Centre, or Catholic party, against Prince Bismarck, the
mighty chancellor of the resuscitated German Empire. At the
very opening of the first Reichstag, or Imperial Parliament, in
1870, the Centre party, headed by Dr. Windthonst and Herr von
Malinkrodt, brought in a motion calling upon the House to
enter its protest against the occupation of Rome by the Italian
government. The Protestant majority treated the motion with
scorn, and violent onslaughts were made upon the Centrum the
" party fighting for the temporal dominion of the priesthood,"
as it was called. Such were the ostensible grounds for the war
that was to crush Catholicism in the German Empire ; but the
real cause of the Kulturkampf, it must be confessed, was Pro-
testant bigotry and the hostility of the Liberal party, the relent-
less persecutor of the church in continental Europe.

The first step in the warfare against Rome was the suppres-
sion, in July, 1871, of the Catholic division of the Ministry of
Public Worship. All' matters and business relating to the
Catholic Church were henceforward to be transacted by the
regular officials of that department, who were all inveterate
Lutherans. To check the influence of the clergy in the schools,
a law was enacted which handed over to the Protestant state
the absolute control over all educational institutions of every
kind, whether public or private. In rapid succession Catholic
schools were placed under Protestant inspectors, and a Protes-
tant dictatorship was thus established over Catholic education.
Another law on the " Abuse of the Pulpit " (Kanzelparagrapf)
was passed curtailing even freedom of worship. Every expres-
sion of disapprobation on government measures by the clergy
was to be severely and instantly punished.

Next came the declaration of war against the religious
orders. In June, 1872, the Reichstag passed a law prohibiting
the Society of Jesus and other "affiliated orders" throughout the

1 888.] THE LATE KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF. 235

whole extent of the empire. Not only the Jesuits were ruth-
lessly driven out of the country, but also the Redemptorists,
Lazarists, Barnabites, Theatines, Christian Brothers, Sisters of
the Sacred Heart, Ursulines, and other religious orders and
congregations, whose only crime was that they devoted them-
selves to the education of Catholic youth and the instruction of
the people. The Prussian Ministry went so far as to interdict
" Associations of Prayer " and " Devotions to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus." In vain did the bishops of Germany, meeting at
Fulda in September, remonstrate against these outrages, insist-
ing upon the freedom and independence of the religious orders,
which were guaranteed in the constitution as well as by solemn
treaties with the Holy ee. Pius IX. also raised his voice in
behalf of persecuted innocence, exposing in his allocution, on
the eve of Christmas, the bad faith of Prussia and the cruelty of
it's recent acts of suppression.

But further measures of persecution followed. In the spring
of 1873 Dr. Falk, the new Minister of Public Worship, intro-
duced into the Prussian Landtag a series of bills, known after-
wards as the "May Laws," which purported to regulate the
relations of church and state, but in reality aimed at the com-
plete dissolution of the Catholic Church in the kingdom. They
provided for the training of a " liberal and national " rather
than " Ultramontane " clergy, and for an entirely new system of
appointment, removal, and deposition of ecclesiastics, and con-
tained, besides, a whole series of penal enactments for the en-
forcement of these laws. The " May Laws," in particular, en-
acted that all ecclesiastical establishments for the training of the
Catholic clergy should be placed under state control ; that can-
didates for the priesthood should be examined as to fitness for
their vocation in the usual subjects of a liberal education by
commissioners of the state; that the state should have the
right to confirm or protest against the appointment as well as
the removal of all clergymen ; that the application of ecclesias-
tical censures and penalties should be subject to the approval of
the government; lastly, that the state was to 'have the right to
punish resistance to these measures by fines and imprisonment.
With the view of compelling the Catholic clergy to bend com-
pletely to state supremacy, the " Royal Ecclesiastical Court "
was established, which was empowered to receive appeals
against the decisions of bishops, and dismiss every ecclesiastic,
be he priest or bishop, from office " whenever his presence shall
have become incompatible with public order."

The Centrum, in the name of the Catholic laity, protested

236 THE LATE KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF. [May,

vigorously against the new laws, which aimed at Protestantizing
the Catholic Church in Prussia. When they appealed to the
existing statutes of the Prussian constitution, of which these
laws formed the most glaring violation, those statutes, on mo-
tion of the Ministry, were immediately repealed. The bishops
of Prussia, in their address to the government, dated May
26, 1873, openly declared that they could not obey the laws
in question, they being "an assault upon the liberties and rights
of the church of God." In their pastoral letter, issued at
Fulda, they reduce the consequences of these laws to the follow-
ing: "Separation of the bishops from the visible Head of the
church ; alienation of the clergy and people from their lawful
pastors; severance of the faithful in Prussia from the universal
church ; and utter destruction of the divine organization of the
Catholic Church." Pope Pius IX., in August, 1873, addressed a
strong autograph letter of remonstrance to the Emperor William.
But the august Head of Christendom was rudely answered by
the autocrat of Prussia, who went so far as to accuse the Catholic
clergy of disloyal agitation and of " abusing their sacerdotal
power," and insultingly required of the Pope that he should
make use of his authority to compel them to submit to what
were universally regarded as iniquitous and unjust enactments.

The new laws, having received the royal sanction, began to
be rigidly enforced. Bishops and priests who refused obedience
to the nefarious enactments were fined, imprisoned, or exiled.
Among the first arrested and sentenced to imprisonment in the
common jail were Archbishop Melchers, of Cologne, and Arch-
bishop Ledochowski. of Posen, who, while in prison, was created
cardinal by the Pope in March, 1875. Other distinguished vic-
tims of Prussian persecution were the bishops of Paderborn,
Treves, Miinster, and Breslau. They were arbitrarily deposed
from the exercise of their episcopal office in Prussia, and, with
the exception of the last-named, who had sought refuge in the
Austrian portion of his diocese, were, after their stock of pro-
perty was exhausted by fines, arrested like malefactors and
thrown into prison. The sees of these bishops were declared
vacant by the " Court for the Regulation of Ecclesiastical Affairs,"
and the chapters were called upon to elect successors to them.
When this was refused crushing fines were inflicted on the re-
cusant canons; in some instances they were imprisoned for re-
fusing compliance with the injunction of the government. On
the other hand, the professors and clergy who had joined the
Old-Catholic movement were maintained in their office, despite
the interdict and suspension of their bishops.

i888.] THE LATE KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF. 237

Throughout all and from the commencement the Catholic
laity backed their clergy, and not a single parish had been found
wanting in obedience to the church. They cheerfully under-
took to provide for the support of their destitute priests, and
indignantly repudiated the invitation to elect new pastors in
place of those deposed by the government authorities. On
every occasion the Catholics of Prussia vigorously protested
against the interference of the state in religious affairs, and by
their admirable Bunion and activity defied the nefarious efforts
of their enemies. Under the able leadership of Dr. Windthorst,
political associations were formed over the whole empire, and
in the elections of 1874 the number of Catholic representatives
was increased in the Prussian Landtag from 52 to 89, and in the
Reichstag from 63 to 105.

. This firmness of the Catholic population startled the govern-
ment, which was forced even now to acknowledge its mistake.
But passion predominated over reason, and, rather than give up,
the Prussian Ministry for a time had recourse to still harsher
measures. The laws passed in 1873 being found inadequate to
cope with the opposition of the clergy and people, additional
penal statutes were enacted in thQ years 1874, 1875, and 1876.
The worst of these were an " Act for the Prevention of the Un-
authorized Exercise of Ecclesiastical Duties," passed by the
Reichstag in May, 1874, which empowered each separate state
to banish obnoxious priests from specified districts or from Ger-
many altogether at a moment's notice ; and the so-called " Bread-
basket Law " of April 22, 1875, by which support from the state
was denied to all ecclesiastics who refused to promise submis-
sion to the new politico-religious laws. Another law admitted
the Old Catholics to a share in the revenues of the Catholic
parishes.

The result of the obnoxious "May Laws" may be imagined.
Hundreds of faithful priests were imprisoned or made homeless,
being driven from their homes and their country merely for
having exercised the most ordinary acts of religious administra-
tion without permission from the government. In quite a num-
ber of instances Catholics were deprived of their churches,
which were turned over to a handful of Old Catholics. At
Wiesbaden, for instance, two hundred Old Catholics obtained
possession of a large parish church to which twenty thousand
Catholics belonged. It was a sore trial for the bereaved Ca-
tholics to see their places of worship profaned by innumerable
sacrileges. The next act of tyranny was the expulsion of some
nine thousand religious, about eight thousand of whom were

238 THE LATE^KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF. [Ma}',

women, in accordance with a fresh law passed May 31, 1875,
which suppressed, with few exceptions, all existing religious
orders and congregations, and interdicted all future foundations
of the same in Prussia. The base ingratitude of this cruel war
against the religious orders was seen in the fact that many of
their members had died on the battle-field ministering to the
German wounded and. dying; others still wore the decorations
which they had received at the hands of the emperor in rec-
ognition of their devoted patriotism and faithfulness to duty.

The conflict continued from 1873 to 1878 without any sign
indicating a change of policy on the part of the imperial gov-
ernment. The danger menacing the church in Prussia was in-
deed great, the rigid enforcement of the new ecclesiastical laws
working devastation and destruction in every direction. In
1878 all episcopal sees, excepting three, had become vacant by
death, or were deprived of their bishops by exile or imprison-
ment, while in almost every diocese there were hundreds of
parishes without priests. Spiritual destitution in consequence
became appalling. Hundreds of thousands were deprived of
the consolations of their religion, and many hundreds were left
to die without even the last sacraments.

On the other hand, the oppressors suffered fully as much as,
if not more than, the oppressed. The terrible evil of Socialism,
which, up to the year 1860, hardly existed in Germany, was
spreading with alarming rapidity, and its influence, especially
amongst the working-classes, was enormous. This, it would
seem, at length convinced the emperor and his government that
waging war against the church was not the way to increase
reverence for sovereign authority, but the means to spread an-
archy and revolution. Notwithstanding the violent assaults of
the government and [the various anti-Catholic parties, the Cen-
trum, under the guidance of Dr. Windthorst, had grown steadily
in strength and influence ; it finally held the balance of power in
the Prussian Landtag. Dissensions among his own followers,
and the danger threatening the state from Socialism, drove Bis-
marck to seek an alliance with the Catholics, and to turn to that
Papacy whose influence he had learned to respect.

Encouraged by the conciliating spirit of Pope Leo XIII.,
Prince Bismarck opened negotiations with the Vatican, which
became especially active in 1880, when the first Catholic Relief
Act was passed. Slowly and gradually Catholic disqualifications
were removed by the milder application and partial abrogation
of the notorious "May Laws," whose author, Dr. Falk, was
compelled to resign in 1879. The banished bishops and clergy

I
1888.] THE LATE KAISER AND THE KULTURKAMPF. 239

were gradually recalled, and finally, in May, 1886, the "May
Laws' Amendment Bill " was passed, which virtually put an end
to that long and terrible war called the " Kulturkampf." To
bring about this happy result required not only the honest
German pluck of the Centrum party, but all the prudence, saga-
city, and energy of the great Pontiff who governs God's church
in these critical and trying times. The severity of the disas-
trous conflict, as well as the happy termination to which it has
been led by Leo XIII., is described in his Allocution to the
cardinals of May 23, 1887, thus :

" We have completed, by the blessing of God, a work of long standing
and of great difficulty, to which we gave our whole mind, and disregarding
every minor consideration ; the salvation of souls was, as it ought to be,
our supreme law. You know in what condition things were during many
years. You joined us in deeply grieving over dioceses without bishops ;
over parishes without priests ; over freedom of public worship infringed;
over seminaries of the clergy interdicted ; over the number of the clergy
so reduced that very many Catholics could neither attend at divine wor-
ship nor receive the sacraments."

The Pope then refers to the gallant bearing and position of
the Centre party and the important part which they had borne
in bringing about the ultimate triumph of right and justice:

"And we felt the more the greatness of these evils because alone we
could not heal them nor lighten them, and that insomuch as our power
was in many respects interfered with. We therefore resolved to seek for
remedies where they could be found, and that with more confidence
because, besides the bishops, we were assured of loyal and powerful support
from Catholic legislators, men of unbending energy in the best cause,
from whose zeal and union the church has received no small fruit, and ex-
pects no less in the future. Our intention and our hope were greatly in-
creased because we had certain knowledge that the august emperor of Ger-
many and his ministers had equitable and peaceful views. In consequence,
a removal of the greatest evils was carefully sought after."

And then, alluding to the recently passed " Amendment
Bill" and the results achieved in the cause of religious free-
dom, the Holy Father says :

" By the law just passed, as you are aware, former laws were in part
abrogated, in part greatly mitigated ; and at last an end has been made of
that terrible conflict which, while it ground down the church, did no good'
to the state. So much we rejoice to have seen done, with great exertion
on our part, with much aid from your counsels. And, therefore, we feel
and we express a great gratitude to God, the consoler and the guardian of
his church. If there remain some things which Catholics have reason to
desire, it must be remembered that the successes attained are far more
numerous and far more important. The chief of these is that the Roman
Pontiff's authority in the government of the Catholic Church has ceased

240 HEY WOOD'S DRAMATIC POEMS. [May,

to be considered in Prussia a foreign authority, and provision is made for
its free exercise in the future. Then, venerable brethren, their liberty is
restored to the bishops in governing their dioceses. The seminaries of
the clergy are given back. Most of the religious orders are recalled. For
the rest we shall continue our efforts, and, considering the emperor's will
and the intention of his ministers, we have reason to hope that the Catho-
lics of that nation may take courage, for we do not distrust that a better
time is coming."

The old Kaiser is gone. The Kulturkampf has ended in vic-
tory for religious liberty. Jn the whole Catholic Church there
does not exist to-day a more noble body of men and women than
the German Catholics, who, without forfeiting love of country,
suffered and struggled and triumphed for the love of God and
of liberty.

J. A. BlRKHAEUSER.

HEYVVOOD'S DRAMATIC POEMS.*

IT must be twenty years since the now extinct firm of Hurd
& Houghton brought out the first member of this trilogy for
American readers under the title of Salome, now more appropri-
ately given to the third. Whether that edition preceded or
followed an English one we do not know. The poem and its
successors, Antonins and Salome, received fine and appreciative
praise from competent critics on either side of the Atlantic, but
created no great ripple in general reading circles. To say this
is to say nothing in disparagement of their poetic value and to
presage nothing unfavorable concerning the final verdict to be
passed upon their merits. The court of posterity, " if it knows
itself," will be likely to have its own say on that question.

The name Hey wood belonged already to the history of Eng-
lish drama in its most distinguished period. John Hey wood's
Muse was not too delicate of tongue, nor too keen of wit, nor
too careful of the directions in which its arrows flew, to gain
and keep the favor of the eighth Henry throughout his reign.
Yet tradition says he was also a friend of the Blessed Thomas
More, and Mary protected him until her death. He was the
author of The Foure P's, The Pardoner and the Frere, The Play of

* He rodias : A Dramatic Poem. By J. C. Heyvrood. New edition, revised. London:
Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1884. Antonius : A Dramatic Poem. By J. C. Heywood.
New edition, revised. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1885. Salome: A Dramatic
Poem. By J. C. Heywood. New edition, revised. London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1887.

1 888.] HEY WOOD'S DRAMATIC POEMS. 241

Love, and of many miracle and wonder plays. But when Eliza-
beth came to the throne, fearing that under her he would not
be able to keep both his faith and his head, he fled into Brabant
and died there in 1565, truly penitent, we hope, for a good deal
of scurrilous jesting and bad versifying.

Thomas Hey wood, a dramatist of much more consequence
than John, to whom he bore no family relation, flourished un-
der the first James and Charles. He was, perhaps, contempo-
rary with Jasper Heywood, an English Jesuit, and a poet also,
Thomas was the author of two hundred and twenty plays, of
which twenty-six only are now extant. Of him Charles Lamb
says that he " possessed not the imagination of Shakspere, but in
all those qualities which gained Shakspere the attribute of' gen-
tle ' he was not inferior." Apparently Lamb held a view differ-
ent from that of Mr. Appleton Morgan concerning the signifi-
cance which was attached to that adjective by Shakspere's con-
temporaries, for he adds, "generosity, courtesy, temperance in
the depths of passion ; sweetness, in a word, and gentleness."
Mr. Morgan, if he be well acquainted, as he doubtless is, with
A Woman Killed with Kindness, Hey wood's most successful and
most touching play, would naturally agree with Lamb's sum-
mary of his qualities, while denying that the "gentle Shakspere "
was a phrase which conveyed any such ideas to his fellow-play-
ers, who used it, according to him, as a scoff" at the poet's" weak-
ness for being considered of ' gentle ' birth." There are vital
improbabilities in the conception of Frankford and his wife
Anna, the" woman killed with kindness," but, the weakness once
granted, it is easy to overlook it for the sake of the tenderness
of the sentiment of the play, and to sympathize with the man who
says, when his kindness has produced its best effect:

" My wife, the mother to my pretty babes,
Both those lost names I do restore thee back,
And with this kiss I wed thee once again.
Though thou art wounded in thy honored name,
And with that grief upon thy death-bed liest,
Honest in heart, upon my soul, thou diest."

The author of the three poems now before us throws new
'lustre, then, upon an old name, already illumined from a like
quarter. The lustre is a higher one, moreover, for Mr. J. C.
Heywood is not only a dramatist of real power but a poet capa-
ble of unusual and exceptionally well-sustained flights. Take,
for example, the prologue to Herodias, prescinding the open-
ing chorus by " All the Heavenly Host," which is a trifle too
VOL. XLVII. 16 j

242 HEY WOOD'S DRAMATIC POEMS. [May,

prolonged, and too formal in its antitheses to be thoroughly
effective. Had Mr. Heywood divided this chant in unison
into versicles and responses, preceding it, possibly, with one
brief burst in full choir, it seems to us that he would have
done more wisely. But in all that follows, until the end of the
vision, the supernatural element, always most difficult to deal
with, is treated with singular simplicity and effect. The pas-
sage is too long to quote in full, and to do less would be to do
it an injustice. Perhaps we shall best indicate the nature of its
charm if we say that there is no "celestial machinery" to inter-
fere with one's enjoyment by forcing imagination below the
desired level. It is the inward ear rather than the inward eye
that is appealed to ; voices rise, clear and uplifting, in the far
empyrean ; angels and archangels send back to each other great
antiphonies which roll and reverberate above one's head on
shores unseen but sounding. To have produced such an effect
with words very simple and very few is to have chosen them
with singular and poetic appreciation of their values. The pro-
logue to Salome is good also, but not so good as this.

The subject of all these poems is the same Salome, the
daughter of Herodias but the time varies by so many years
that one's historic sense finds some difficulty in reconciling the
image of the girl Salome, already old enough for betrothal,
dancing before Herod on the night of the beheading of St. John
Baptist, which must have occurred about the year 30, with that
of the same Salome in the year 70, when she is described as

" Young Autumn, mourning in the faded garb
Which, dying, Summer hath left, and wearing it
In memory of hopeful loveliness."

However, the historic sense has no special business with poetry,
and Mr. Heywood, who is so careful of the unities that he has
compressed the action of each of these dramas into a single day
or night, has the poet's license to make his maiden heroine as
fair, as ardent, as loving, and as much beloved at say sixty, or
perhaps a lustrum fewer, as at sixteen. It is enough that he
shall make her appeal to the imagination, which he succeeds
throughout in doing.

Jerusalem is the scene of the first and the last of these
dramas. That of Antonius is laid in the Isle of Mona, now
Anglesey, at the time " when Aulus Plautius invaded Britain "
in the year 43, that is to say. In this second drama, which, on
the whole, we prefer to either of the others, the Wandering Jew
is introduced with great effect. Mr. Heywood, it may as well

1 888.] HEY WOOD'S DRAMATIC POEMS. 243

be said here as anywhere, is very successful in making 1 his char-
acters stand out well on his canvas and well apart from each
other. They preserve their identity throughout and make a defi-
nite impression on the reader. Among them all, however, per-
haps Antonius and Herodias are the strongest, the one to attract
and the other to repel. Salome is their daughter, born when her
mother was as young and, we were about to say, as innocent as
she on the night when she becomes the unwilling instrument of
the queen's vengeance. But Mr. Heywood has very well indi-
cated that birth-flaw which makes even the innocence of Herodi-
ases a matter of time and temptation merely. If we had space for
long quotation we should like to transfer to this page the scene
in which Antonius relates to Sextus the story of his love and its
betrayal, and follow it with that in which Herodias gives her
daughter her version of the same. There is a fault in the latter,
too, considered as character-painting. When Herodias says :

'* I know not if I loved him, for I doubt
If love be so inconstant,"

she is speaking very literal truth, but truth of a kind that would
know no road to such lips. She is more in line with herself
when she adds :

" But there was

A fever in my blood more fierce than love.

In its delirium I saw but him,

In all the noisy world I heard but him,

In dreams and thought, I thought and dreamed of him.

SALOME.

Ah, thou didst love him, love him truly, mother.
HERODIAS.

And had he never torn himself from me
He still would be my thought, my dream, my life,
{ And they all pure and noble as that self.

But I forget, and thus forgetting, loose
My hold convulsive on forgetfulness.
A twelvemonth we were wedded ; thou wert born.
Before thy little lips could speak his name
He led his loving veterans to the wars.
His couriers, slain, brought me rfo messages,
And absence cooled my fever."

There is another brief but strong scene in which Herodias is
alone in her chamber, with the head of the Baptist before her.
The motive of her revenge Mr. Heywood makes to be less his
denunciation of her incestuous marriage than her despised love
for himself. But for this, as for the story of which these poems

244 HEYWOOD 1 s DRAMATIC POEMS. [May,

are, in fact, but three acts in a single tragedy, we must refer the
reader to the books themselves. In addition to their crowning
excellence as poetry, with which nothing interferes but here and
there an unaccountable solecism in taste which gives one the
greater shock coming from a writer who ordinarily uses so
well that flexible and sonorous instrument of poetry, our English
speech, these dramas have the additional merit of being inte-
resting as mere story and delineation, and bear perfectly the
heavy test of reperusal. Mr. Hey wood is least happy in his
lyrics, and the extracts we must permit ourselves we shall
take from his stately blank verse. And first the dream of
Alpindargo, the Druid chief, the night before the triumphant
invasion of the Romans :

" I slept again, yet, as if waking, saw
Love-fostering Night, from the orient stooping, place
Within its cradle, on rocking western waves,
A young moon, swathed in swaddling silver-gray,
Which in her star-decked bosom she had borne.
And, as she bent, her loosened mantle fell,
Thick darkness, on the earth. The forest sighed ;
From far-off valleys voices low complained,
Like distant streams in autumn ; in their beds
Brooks turned themselves and moaned ; a sobbing gust
Went through the wood, and hurried on afraid.
Strong billows, crouching, came not near the shore,
And hushed their roaring. From the southern sea,
Like gliding ship on fire when fogs are low,
A misty shape moved slowly and approached :
I knew my father's ghost. . . .

His eyes appeared

Two stars seen dimly through dull evening haze ;
Their look was fixed beyond me far in space.
Fast from their circles on his drifted beard
Tears fell as showers upon a mountain's snow.
Three times he sighed and moved the spell-bound leaves ;
Three times would utter words which came not forth.
At length he spake. His voice was like the sound
Of lonesome pine lamenting to the wind.
' I seek once more my native groves to say
A last farewell." He paused. The oak-trees sobbed.
He slowly pointed southward ; spake again :
'The death-storm riseth from the middle sea;
It cometh ; red its skirts with blood ; behold !
From its dark bosom blazing brands of fire
Fall on the island ! Burning are the groves !
The smoke is black ; upon it rise the ghosts
Of Condomaro's children ! Come away ! '
He said, and, spreading, faded from my sight.''

1 888.] HEY WOOD'S DRAMATIC POEMS. 245

Admirable, too, but again too long 1 for quotation, is the de-
scription of Kaliphilus, the Wandering Jew, and the scene with
Salome in which he sues for her love and pleads the fittingness
of a union between two so overwhelmed by unpardonable guilt
as they. And here are some lines, Shaksperean in metaphor and
rhythm as well :

DEVALRIX.

" No one could say which of them loudest raged,
The sea or sky.

SEXTUS.

Yea, they did split their throats
With bellowing; and through the mists I saw
Old Neptune's helmet, with its snow-white plumes
Waving along the main, a foam-girt hill.
He egged the howling billow from beneath."

And these also :

" From polar snows.

Where, in the voiceless cold of winter nights.
Pale, phantom conflagrations sweep the skies,
To where, with feet on Afric's either shore,
Old Atlas, sighing, holdeth up the heavens."

One more, and that one of the often-recurring evidences of
the observant eye with which he has watched the sea, and we
take our leave of Mr. Heywood. It is a perfect bit of literal
yet poetic description:

" See ! the emerald corselets of white plumed waves,
Which march in serried columns to the shore.
All stained with blood by final, rushing bolts
From Phcebus' quiver."

JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [May,

VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY.
xx.

DOMESTIC AMENITIES.

POSSIBLY the reverse side of sensitiveness is not always a
proneness to irritability. Still, if any one entertains doubts that
it commonly is so, .it would be easy to try the experiment by
laying an unexpected hand at dusk on the shoulder, or saying
a sudden loud word at any time in the ear, of the mildest-
mannered, softest-spoken woman of one's acquaintance. The
chances are that she will give the nearest bystander a most
viciously ill-directed slap upon the instant, while that she will
emit a squeak is as certain as if she were a rubber doll and had
been pinched in the vicinity of the whistling attachment. Not
that it is necessary to speak of either one quality or the other as
if it were exclusively feminine or lay chiefly on the surface.
Even the hedgehog has doubtless got a reminder of some sort
from the inner end of his prickles before he rolls himself into an
impenetrable ball and presents them, sharp and thorny, to all
comers.

But, whether the rule be general or not, Zipporah Colton
was no exception to it. And even though she had been, the
course of that Saturday afternoon might have been found rather
provokingly full of small irritants by a slower-tempered young
woman. For one thing, her conscience began to trouble her
the moment Paul Murray left her and her companions, and
when she saw him re-enter Shirley's, while they stood waiting
for a car, her fear lest her silence should put him to serious incon-
venience would have taken her back there at once but for Mrs.
Nat's teasing looks and tongue.

" Seems to me, Zip," she began, almost as soon as Paul had
turned his back, " Milton Centre is pretty well supplied with
presentable people, for a howling wilderness such as you've
been trying to make it out. I didn't expect to discover so soon
what had reconciled you to teaching all of a sudden."

" I wouldn't be a goose, Fan, if I were you ! " returned Zip
shortly. " I never made it out a howling wilderness, and I'm
not reconciled to teaching ! "

" Well, I didn't really suppose you were. You bothered me

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 247

a little at dinner-time, though, with your zeal for the rising
generation. But it is good to be honest, I've been told, and I'm
glad to see you coming round to that opinion." . :

" You are insufferable, Fan ! " said Zip, an ahgrf flash in her
eyes. " Pity you don't try once in a while to^rtrciise what
you've been told about honesty and several other things. You
might get to know some of them for yourself after a good deal
of trying!" The car had stopped and Mrs. Colton was step-
ping up on the back platform. " You get in, Mattie," Zip went
on ; " I won't ride. I'd rather walk, down."

" Huffed, isn't she? " said Mrs. Colton, looking back at her
with a provoking smile.

" Well, I don't wonder," answered Mattie. " What business
had you to make such a speech as that to her?"

"Oh ! it does me good to rile Zip a little now and then. It
is pretty nearly as much fun as stirring up your mother. You
and Nat are too easy-going to be much amusement."

" I'd be a little careful how I amused myself with Nat, if I
were you," counselled his sister. " I've wanted to tell you that
more than once already. He don't flare up and get over it, like
Zip ; but you set him on fire once in good earnest, and see if he
don't burn things to ashes."

"I guess I was born to be burned," said Nat's wife, half-
closing her long eyes, and drawing her lips into the smile that
Mattie hated by instinct ; " I always did love to play with fire.
I like to see people sputter, and I like to see them flame."

" Yes, you're a good deal like a cat, I've often thought," said
downright Mattie. " You always take the warm corner, and
the easy-chairs, and the soft things generally. Isn't that Car-
rie Salter standing by Hedley's window with Johnny Mount?"

Zipporah, meanwhile, left standing alone beneath the old elm-
tree at Shirley's corner, took a few minutes to consider what
she would better do. What she ought to do was tolerably clear
to her, but it perplexed her not a little to account to herself for
her disinclination to follow Mr. Murray into the music-rooms
and explain to him the nature of the commission she had just
executed for Mr. Van Alstyne. She was quite sure, and justly
so in the opinion of her present biographer, that the insinuation
of her sister-in-law had nothing to do with her reluctance.

"She's a nasty, vulgar thing, and I don't see how Nat ever
could ! " she said to herself when her quickly-kindled wrath
had gone out as quickly. "But I do wish I had taken them
both back with me instead of stopping by myself. And suppose

248 JOHN VAN ALSTYNL'S FACTORY. [May,

he didn't come for that and wouldn't like Mr. Van Alstyne to
do it and and O dear! what will he think of me anyway for
meddling?" But this suggestion of her interior tormentor she
was prompt to repel. " I wouldn't be a ninny, if I were you,
Zip Colton ! " she remonstrated energetically. " You didnt med-
dle ! You did just exactly what you were asked to do by the
dearest and kindest old man in the world, and why you should
make such a fuss about going in and telling Mr. Murray, and
perhaps saving him some money, or at all events some annoy-
ance, is more than / know ! You'll be getting as idiotic as Fanny
Colton, if you don't mind!"

And thereupon she took her courage in her hands and faced
about toward Shirley's with her usual energetic action. But
that was all not a step forward could she yet resolve to make.
"Dear me!" she thought, "what a nuisance men are! Why
couldn't they all be girls, except your father, and your brothers,
and nice old men like Mr. Van Alstyne and the squire? I
wouldn't mind a whole regiment of them! I don't wonder there
used to be Amazons," she sighed. " I think I could get up a
company of them myself! Well here goes!"

Poor little Zip! she did not look, and perhaps she did not
feel, precisely Amazonian, with her heart in a flutter that made
her very wroth with herself, and scarlet patches coming and
going on her cheeks and throat. Still, she would probably have
found her voice, and got her explanation very fairly made, if her
doubts and hesitation had not taken just a minute too much time.
Paul Murray was passing into the other street through a side
door at the further end of Shirley's, as she entered the place in
search of him, and though she saw him, and might possibly have
reached him by making a little more haste than usual, yet to do
so was for her totally out of the question.

It is hard to say whether she was glad or sorry. Both, prob-
ably, as women usually are when a decision is snatched out of
their hands, but with a tendency to feel that though the wrong
turn had been taken, yet it was just as well and decidedly more
comfortable that it had. She went home at once, at a much
more leisurely pace than was customary with her, and on her
arrival found her mother bowing out some callers, and Nat's
wife and Mattie each standing in a separate parlor window.

"What kept you so, Zipporah?" her mother was asking as
they entered the room together. " Mary Price was at the door
inquiring for you not ten minutes ago, but I couldn't tell her
when you would be in, and she couldn't wait."

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 249

" Dear me ! " said Zip, " I'm sorry. Nothing kept me ; 1
just walked instead of riding.''

" You didn't go back into Shirley's to talk to Mr. Murray,
did you?" asked Nat's wife, with a teasing laugh. " I saw you
go up the steps again just as our car turned into High Street."

" No, I didn't go and talk to Mr. Murray," flashed Zip, with
a violent effort to tell the truth and seem to deny it in the same
breath. " I didn't say one word to him. I went back for for
something I forgot there."

" I thought you'd forgotten something when we left you,"
continued Mrs. Nat. "' Mother Colton, do you know it's no
wonder Zip likes Milton Centre, and teaching, and all that sort
of thing ? Mat has seen Mr. Van Alstyne, and says he would be
perfect without his dollars; and I've seen Mr. Murray, and
well, I won't say what I think of him, for fear of annoying Zip.
I never like to tease her, she's so inflammable."

" Who is Mr. Murray ? " asked Mrs. Colton, speaking to her
son's wife, but looking over her spectacles the next instant at
Zip, who stood rigid and in a white heat of anger near the
door.

" Mr. Murray? I don't know, I'm sure, except that he is ' a
gentleman from Milton Centre.' That's Zip's description of
him," she answered, mimicking Zip's tone very closely. " /
never heard of him before, but I supposed of course you had.
You are her mother, and I'm only a poor, unconfided-in sister-
in-law. But I thought he looked at her as if there might be
confidences in store about him for somebody or other in the
family."

"What does Fanny mean, Zipporah?" asked her mother
rather dryly. But for Mr. Meeker's previous hint she would
have dropped the subject, having small esteem for Mrs. Nat,
and a natural unwillingness to aid her in badgering her daugh-
ter. But time was flying; her husband would be at the door
presently to take Zip and her packages to the train, and the
opportunity to question her which she had wished but not
hoped for came too welcomely to be left unused. Zipporah's
lip curled and she turned on her heel.

" I'm going upstairs," she said, " to put my things together.
I haven't any time and I haven't any inclination to explain
Fanny. You'd better ask her! Perhaps she knows / don't !
Will you come, Mat? " And out she went into the hall, erect,
and with her head well up in the haughty pose it took when she
was on her dignity.

250 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [May,

" Wait a minute, Mattie," interposed her mother as the
younger girl rose to follow her. " I'm going up presently. I've
got a word or two to say to Zip before she goes. Do you know
what Fanny means? Did you see this Mr. Murray? "

"Yes, mother, I did," answered Mattie, "and no, I don't.
What do you mean, Fan, unless it is just to tease Zip? That's
what you always do when you get a chance. Mr. Murray is Mr.
Murray, mother, and that's all /know about him, or she either.
He happened to be in Shirley's when we went there with Nat, and
as Zip knew him she introduced him. Perhaps he is something
to the little girl she bought the piano for. I shouldn't wonder
if he is, for she said it was to be a surprise, and she cautioned us
not to mention it to him. And that's all there is about it, except
Fanny's nonsense."

" You'd better ask me, Mother Colton, as Zip advised," said
Mrs. Nat, from the corner of the sofa where she had thrown
herself. " Mr. Murray isn't an ordinary person at least, if
there are many like him in Milton Centre or any other country
village I should be surprised. He is built a little on the tele-
graph-pole style of architecture at present, but I guess he'll get
over it in course of time. If Zip were here I would have some
remarks to make about the color of his hair and moustache, but
there's no use wasting them in her absence; and really, they're
not red, are they, Mat ? And his eyes well, they're a sort of
combination : blue suns, or burning-glasses, or polished steel, I
don't know which they are most like, do you, Mat? He shone
on Zip, I observed, and beamed on Mattie ; I don't know what
he did to me. I don't stare back at strange men in the way some
folks do !"

"Fan, you're horrid!" ejaculated Mattie. "I'll tell you
what he did to you, if you want to know. He looked you
through and no great look, either! Mother, I wouldn't pay any
attention to her. Mr. Murray looks like a gentleman and
acted like one, and we met him by accident. There isn't an-
other thing to say. If there had been, Zip would have told me
something about him last night."

But Mrs. Colton, primed by Brother Meeker, and further
enlightened by a kindred instinct, attached a different impor-
tance to Zip's omissions than her sister seemed inclined to.

" Yes, of course she would,!' she answered, more carelessly
than she had yet spoken ; " Zip is very ready to talk about
everybody and everything that interests her. I had forgotten
your little ways for the minute, Fanny. They are not the kind-

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 251

est in the world, but I suppose you don't mean any harm by
them. People often do harm, though, whether they mean it
or not."

" Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Nat, drawing down the corners of
her mouth and looking mock-contrition from under her lashes.
"I've often suffered in that way myself. All the same, Mat,"
she added, sitting straight up as soon as Mrs. Colton was well
on her way up-stairs, " that is all nonsense about Zip's telling
everything ! She don't nobody does, unless it's you, and you
won't keep on. Do you suppose I didn't see her face when she
first met that young fellow out on Shirley's steps? She didn't
expect him that was as plain as day but Zip don't blush for
nothing, and her face was as red as a peony. She needn't have
been so huffy ! There was no harm in poking a little bit of
fun at her."

"She blushes for everything !" retorted Mattie, whose in-
dignation, slow to kindle, was now at the combustible point.
She had a tongue like a needle on occasion, and, though occa-
sions had been hitherto infrequent, much intercourse with her
brother's wife was developing them with some rapidity. " And
I don't tell all I know, even now. If Zip knew about your
performances at your own house last Thursday evening, she
might have been blushing because you were inside, and would
have to be brought forward ! But I had too much respect for
Nat, and myself too, to tell her."

" Take care," began Mrs. Nat, an ugly light in her eyes.
Then she fell back again among her cushions and laughed
quietly. " That's just like you, Mat," she ended. " On the
whole, you are better fun than Zip. She gets over it, and you
don't. Truly, Mat, it never occurred to me till just this
minute that I might have been treading on your corns by
flirting with Harry Parsons. You ought to confide in me, then.
I'm always safe just as far as I'm trusted."

" Thank you for nothing," said Mattie, more coolly. " I'll
remember that when I've any secrets to confide. Perhaps
you'll excuse me just now. I've got some of Zip's parcels in my
room to tie up."

Alone with her daughter, Mrs. Colton found it even less easy
to question her abruptly on the topic broached down-stairs
than she had anticipated. Apparently Zip was already recov-
ered from her little fume, and as she sorted out her purchases
she began dilating to her mother in her chatty way on the uses
to which some of them were to be applied as decoration or as

252 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [May,

costume in the children's tableaux. Mrs. Colton listened and
answered with due interest, awaiting, meanwhile, some chance
opening through which the wedge of her inquiry might be
driven at hazard. But as none came, and her husband was even
now drawing up before the door, she made one.

" How comes it," she said, " that they are making such a to-do
about Mr. Van Alstyne's birthday ? Do they do it every year? "

"Why, no," answered Zip ; " I thought I told you last night.
I'm sure I did. It was because he happened to say at Mr.
Murray's one day when I was there that it was so long since any
one had remembered it that he had almost forgotten it himself.
The children began it by talking of theirs."

" That is the Mr. Murray Fanny was just speaking of, I sup-
pose," suggested her mother quietly.

" No," said Zip with equal composure, " it is his father. The
gentleman Fanny was romancing about is Mr. Van Alstyne's
manager. There's father down-stairs already. I must put my
hat on."

" You wrote to Mattie last Sunday about all the rest of the
Murrays," persisted her mother; " why didn't you mention this
one?"

"Dear me!" said Zip, "how could I mention him? I
didn't know him. I never met him until he came into Mr. Van
Alstyne's on business one night this week, and I've seen him
once or twice since. Why should I, anyway? I'm not Fanny.
Did you talk about all the people you met when you were a
girl?"

Mrs. Colton smiled a little bit of a smile, and concluded to
give up her investigation for the present. " Well, no; not all of
them," she said. " I thought I heard some talk between you
and Mattie about her going down to pay you a visit when the
birthday comes off. There isn't any reason why she shouldn't,
that I know of."

" Well, I've got to see Bella and Lucy Cadwallader first, I
suppose," returned Zip, tying on her hat. " 1 couldn't very
well propose her staying with me until afterwards. I'm going
to see the girls to-night, and they'll probably write and ask her.
I haven't had the ghost of a chance yet to tell them about it, and
we shall want them to help."

"Who is 'we'?" asked Mrs. Colton, suddenly inspired.
" You and the school-children can't be doing this alone. Who
gave you the money for all this stuff?"

" ' We ' ?" said Zip, coloring a little but laughing also as she
turned from the glass and looked at her mother standing beside

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. 253

the dressing-table. "'We' is everybody that is interested, I
suppose, and that must be pretty nearly all the village at least
it will be as soon as they are taken into confidence. But at
present it is chiefly I and Mr. Paul Murray, whom we met up
street just now that is, it was he who supplied the money for
getting what I bought, and who will superintend the perform-
ances."

" Did you know he was coming to town to-day?"

" No, mother, I didn't. What makes you ask that?"

" Because, Zip, your father and I have been spoken to about
him I mean " Mrs. Colton paused, not quite knowing, per-
haps, how to go on.

" I don't understand," said Zip, looking at her with clear,
steady eyes. " Why should anybody speak to you about him?
And who could ? What did they say ? "

"Well, they said you were going to the Roman Catholic
church,every morning with Miss Murray, for one thing."

44 'Most every morning I am," admitted Zip ; "that is pretty
nearly all the exercise I get. Somebody must have had very
little to do to run with that news ! Anything else? "

" Well, only that she had a brother, and that it would be a
good plan to warn you not to be going about with him. He is
a Catholic, I suppose, like the rest of the family. There, there,
Zip! Don't get into a tantrum! There's no occasion! It is
only necessary to remind you, of course. I didn't think there
was anything in it."

" Oh! " cried Zip, flinging herself down on the lounge and
burying her face in its pillow. Then she stood up again.

" Mother ! " she said, " what a world this is, and what peo-
ple there are in it! Warning me ! about a man I've seen three
times, maybe! What do you suppose / care whether he's a
Catholic or a a Hottentot ?" sputtered Zip, at a loss, in her
wrath, for a fitting term of definition.

"Don't talk so loud," cautioned her mother ; "you'll have
Fanny out in the hall listening. I didn't suppose you cared
you don't care enough, so far as that goes. And as for seeing a
man three times, you can't see him three hundred unless you
first see him once. Come in ! " This was in answer to Mattie's
rap on the door, and Mrs. Colton presently left the sisters to-
gether. But only fora moment, their father hailing them from
the lower hall with a reminder of train-time.

" Mother been scolding ? " was all Mattie had time for.
"And, oh, I say, Zip! is Mr. Murray the 'person down at the
Centre ' ? "

254 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [May,

XXI.

ON THE ROUNDABOUT ROAD TO THE SQUIRE'S.

" WELL, you'll have your hands full," said Mr. Colton, giving
his daughter one bundle after another from under the seat of
the buggy. " There, that's as much as you can carry. I'll fetch
the rest as soon as I find some one to hold the horse/ Anybody
going^o meet you down at the other end ?"

" Yes, I guess so," answered Zip, turning to enter the wait-
ing-room. It was already nearly full, and she found a seat with
some difficulty. Mr. Colton presently followed her.

4< This is a way-train," he remarked, as he added his contribu-
tion to the heap of parcels at her feet, " and it will probably be
crowded until past your station. 1 will look around and see if
I can't find some friend going your way who will lend you a
hand."

" You needn't mind about that, father," objected Zip. " I
can manage well enough, You are going on board with me,
you know."

11 I'm not so sure about that with all this crowd. And, any-
how, it is the getting off I'm thinking about. Why didn't you
have these things sent down by express? It was absurd to bur-
den yourself like this."

" That is true, but I didn't think there were so many. They
kept piling in up to the last minute, almost. But it will be all
right. Somebody will be sure to come for me. My ticket is
the only thing you need bother about, father."

"And none too much time to spare about it, either," Mr.
Coiton answered, starting as he spoke toward the line of people
ahead of him at the ticket-office. He came back several minutes
later through a crowd that had increased during his absence,
and it was not until he was close upon her that Mr. Colton saw
that his daughter was engaged in conversation with a tall young
fellow whose back was toward him, and who, at the moment he
became visible, was recovering an erect position after picking
up a quantity of Zip's troublesome parcels. She was laden, but
lightly, and was standing also, the door of exit being now open
and the train steaming into the station.

" Father," she said, as Mr. Colton reached them, "this is Mr.
Murray from Milton Centre."

The two men shook hands and looked at each other with a
keen mutual interest, Zip meanwhile standing by in a well-dis-

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 255

guised but pretty thoroughly displeased frame of mind, the re-
sult of her recent interview with her mother. She found Mr.
Murray's advent not well timed, sure though she had been that
it was coming. Why couldn't he have waited to find her until
after the cars started ? Under any other than existing circum-
stances she would have been entirely contented to present him
to her father, but after what her mother had been saying!

" Glad to meet you, Mr. Murray," said her father. " So you
are provided already with an escort, daughter? I had just
found you one myself. Here where is he gone to ? Ah !
Brother Meeker, here she is ! "

Mr. Meeker's eyes had been sharper than those of Mr. Colton,
and he had lagged behind of set purpose, being uncertain as to
his reception. But for the second and last time Zip found his
presence not wholly inopportune. She gave him a smile such
as he had never yet received from her, and, on his offering to
take them, handed over her remaining packages in a way that
made him feel more in keeping with his character as an ap-
proaching bridegroom than he was always able to. Not, per-
haps, the actual, concrete bridegroom of the equally actual, con-
crete, middle-aged, and somewhat formidable Miss Samantha
Silvernail, but the ideal one, who indulges a hope that he is
soon to halve his cares, double his joys, and all that sort of thing
which the ewige weibliche may awaken even in the breast of a
wifeless yet indefinitely remarrying minister. He forgave her on
the spot for all previous contumelies, which was not such a hard
task, either. Zip's offences against her fellow-men were never
so serious that a smile did not suffice to obliterate the memory
of them.

" There is not a minute to be lost, Miss Colton," said Paul
Murray. " The train is going to be jammed, and if you'll follow
with your father I'll go on and try to find a seat."

Brother Meeker imitated Paul's example, and Mr. Colton took
his daughter on his arm to pilot her through the crush of people.

" By the way, Zip," he said in a low voice, in the midst of
their transit, "the dominie, there, was at dinner with us to-day.
Can't you do him a good turn with his Sunday-school, as he
wants you to? He seems pretty down-hearted over the way
things are going on in his church down yonder, and says you
might be of real service, if you only would."

" Then it was he, was it? " said Zip in a way her father found
irrelevant.

"He what?"

256 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [May,

" Oh ! nothing. I'm afraid I can't, father. I'm getting- too
tired of teaching on week days to lose my Sundays for it. I'm
not capable of being of use to Mr. Meeker, anyway. Dear me !
what a crush ! That fat woman nearly tore my sack off my
shoulders."

" Well, I think I'd try and put myself out a little in a good
cause, if 1 were you, girlie," persisted her father; ''you'll never
have cause to regret being generous in God's service, you
know."

" I don't suppose I would," said Zip, with a little lift of her
eyebrows; "it's Mr. Meeker's service I'm objecting to at pre-
sent. I haven't made up my mind that they're identical for
me, anyhow."

Brother Meeker was waiting at the car-steps, ready to assist
Zip in ascending them. He was beaming with a sort of fat
smile, the after-glow of one which had overspread his counte-
nance in return for that Zip had but just now shed upon him in
the waiting-room, and he had his hand ready to take hers when
her good-by to her father should be said and done with. She
was really an incomprehensible person to Brother Meeker, this
young woman. Her sun had gone back behind thick clouds ;
she didn't see his hand ; in fact, she ignored his presence alto-
gether. She looked past him, and, seeing Paul Murray at a
window of the car, got in without a word and walked to her
seat, the only one now left empty. Brother Meeker followed,
and Paul, who had risen to let Miss Colton take the place next
the window, found it impossible to sit down again and leave his
elder, clad, moreover, in a clerical suit of no matter what signifi-
cance, uncomfortably standing. So he offered him his place,
and Brother Meeker took it. As for Zipporah, she forthwith
turned her back upon them both, and paid the closest attention
to the landscape travelling toward her at railroad speed for the
hour it took to bring the Milton Corners station within stopping
distance. On the whole, her biographer fears that Zipporah
Colton had too much human nature of a strictly feminine type
to be an altogether model heroine. The human verb, in her
person, was usually an affair of the potential mood and of more
tenses than in strictness belong to it. She certainly did not
want Paul Murray next her, having no present inclination to
take up the question left open earlier in the da}' ; she appreciat-
ed fully his courtesy to Brother Meeker, and admired him for
it, but was vexed with herself for being conscious of either ap-
preciation or admiration ; as for Brother Meeker, she began by

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 257

being extremely vexed at him for meddling in her aftairs, and
presently ended by forgetting all about him. If the journey
had lasted much longer she would doubtless have faced about
soon and been amiable to both of her companions ; but, like all
things mundane, it was shorter than the time it takes most of us
to repent and atone for our smaller peccadilloes.

It was near sundown when the train stopped at their station,
and Paul Murray, as he assisted Miss Colton to alight, saw that
the orders he had given in the morning had been complied with,
and that his conveyance was waiting for him at the end of the
building. The evening was plainly going to be a fine one. A
great yellow glow suffused the sky, and the edges of the pale
clouds in the west glittered with a gold almost too bright to bear
looking at. Paul looked at the girl instead, and saw the re-
flection of it in her gray eyes, where it kindled twin flames.

" Isn't it lovely?" she said, forgetting herself quite, and with
herself her small vexations.

"You are going to let me drive you over to Milton Centre,
aren't you ?" he said in a gently persuasive tone by way of all
answer. Somehow it conveyed as entire an approval of the
evening to the girl's mind as if it had been more directly affirma-
tive. And action and reaction being equal and similar when
not violently interfered with, she also acquiesced without more
ado, and without once adverting to the fact that her intention
had been to go elsewhere. Nor, indeed, was that piece of for-
getfulness the only one that marked their drive. It was not
until the bridge, which crossed the mill-stream not far from Mr.
Van Alstyne's house, came into sight at a turn in the road, that
either of them reflected that they had had somewhat special to
say to the other. Very few words had passed between them
thus far, and now, when the same thought occurred simultane-
ously to each, it clothed itself in diverse shapes.

" O Mr. Murray ! " Zip said suddenly, sitting straight up in
her corner and letting her eyes drop from the clouds and turn
to meet his, " I'm not going to stay at Mr. Van Alstyne's to-
night! I must go to the squire's. I have any quantity of things
I must say to the girls. I'm sure we can never do anything of
any account without they help us. I don't see how I forgot
it. You'll turn right back, won't you?"

Paul looked at his watch. There was yet a good hour be-
fore daylight would merge into a moonless twilight.

" I'll take you back, of course," he said, smiling as he turned
the horse into the left-hand one of the two roads that crossed

VOL. XLVII. 17

258 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [May,

each other at this point, " but it isn't necessary to return by the
way we came. Suppose I drive round by Henderson's Falls?
You haven't seen them ?"

" No ; but isn't it too late ? "

" Not with this animal in front of us. I undertake to show
you the falls and deposit you at Squire Cadwallader's door be-
fore dark if you are willing, that is." He leaned forward to
take the whip out of its rest, and, while doing so, looked up into
the girl's eyes. "May I?"

" If you want to,*' said Zip, in a rather subdued little voice.

"Well, I want to very much," touching up the mare on the
instant with such vigor that she started out of her more than
leisurely pace into her briskest trot. " And, besides, I wanted to
tell you something about my errand in town to-day, and its re-
sults. You remember I spoke to you last Wednesday, wasn't
it? yes? curious! it seems as if it might be a year or more.
Well, whenever it was, I told you I thought of buying a piano
for my little sister for her birthday. I went up to the manufac-
tory Sandiman's to look at some after I left you this after-
noon."

He was looking straight ahead while getting off this piece of
news, veracious, yet manufactured for this occasion only ; but
now he turned on Zip a glance which he succeeded in making
deceptively serious and candid. She looked distressed, which
made him a trifle ashamed but not at all repentant. That some-
thing in masculine human nature which causes it to prefer
turning the screws when the material they enter is not too
yielding, made him entirely willing that she should preserve her
reticence until he had slowly forced its stronghold. He had a
second tolerably innocent little cracker ready for her, but she
did not wait for it.

"O Mr. Murray!" she said, blushing all over her face, but
looking so straight at him that he would have dropped tyis own
eyes, conscious of their guilt, if his curiosity, or something else,
had not got the upper hand of that gracious impulse, " I am so
sorry ! I I would have told you in Shirley's; only, somehow I
couldn't. And when I went back to tell you, you were going-
out of the other door; and then I couldn't."

Then she stopped, and if Paul Murray had been the abso-
lutely generous man that any right-minded novelist would most
enjoy delineating he would no doubt have forestalled the rest of
her confession. But, being simply a man, he helped her not one
jot ; it is even to be feared that he enjoyed her confusion.

"Told me? Told me what?" was all he said, biting his lip

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE* s FACTORY. 259

under his moustache to prevent too quizzical a smile. On the
whole, her way of getting out of the difficulty, having the ele-
ment of unexpectedness in it, was better than that he had de-
vised.

"/ bought Fanny a piano yesterday," blurted Zip.

" You bought Fanny a piano?" he said with extreme gravity.
" How could you do that, Miss Colton? I thought I told you I
proposed doing so myself. Besides " then he stopped and
looked out at the bushes on the right of the road. Then silence
for some minutes.

"I am awfully sorry, Mr. Murray," said Zip at last, with a
faint but still perceptible tremor in her voice, " but Mr. Van
Alstyne asked me to before ever you spoke about it. He wanted
-he wanted to give it to Fanny for a surprise, and I didn't see
how I could tell you. And now I suppose you have gone and
bought another, and you'll have some trouble about it, maybe.
I wish I had told you when we were in Shirley's."

Then she stopped and began to contemplate the bushes on
the left-hand side of the road. By this time she had put Paul
quite in the wrong, and how to get right again was not perfectly
obvious to him. Presently he heard her sigh. He stopped the
horse, which had somehow fallen back into a jog-trot again, took
the reins in his left hand, and leaned forward, his right elbow
resting on his knee.

"Miss Colton!"

"Well?" with another sigh.

"Turn your head this way, won't you?"

" What for?" this in a voice barely audible.

" I'm sure I don't know. I oughtn't to want to look anybody
in the face while I confess to being a brute. But I wish you
would look round just a minute, Miss Colton."

Zip turned her head a trifle, sighed again very gently, but did
not raise her eyelids.

" Look at me, won't you?" he persevered. "The trouble you
have put me to isn't worth sighing about."

" I didn't sigh," objected Zip.

"Oh! I beg pardon! It must have been something else I
thought I heard. Well, I see you are not going to look at me,
so I must proceed with my explanation in the dark. I didn't
buy any piano."

Zip smiled this time, and looked up in the frank way she had.
"Oh! I'm glad of that," she began, not a trace of her embarrass-
ment left. " Because you can change the one I got, if you want
to, you know. It is coming down on Monday for your approval.

260 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [May,

I wouldn't take it on any other conditions. I was only afraid I
might have been putting you to expense through sheer stupid
nonsense on my part."

Somehow the ease with which she regained her composure
was less comforting to her companion than might have been ex-
pected. He would not have been sorry to go on mitigating her
self-disapproval by degrees for some time longer. As there was
now small hope of that, he concluded to make his own avowal
of ill-doing and cast himself on her mercy.

" No," he said, " I didn't buy a piano this afternoon. But
that isn't all. I had no intention of doing so. I knew what you
went to town for Mr. Van Alstyne told me last night. Still,
I naturally thought I would like to see the instrument you se-
lected before it was sent down. You think, don't you, that it
wouldn't have been more than fair to tell me when I was standing
beside it with you?"

" I wish I had ; but I couldn't," said Zip, turning away her
head.

"There's that soft little noise again," remarked Paul Murray.
" I'm afraid there must be a breeze rising. I haven't got quite
through yet, Miss Colton. Your piano is all right. I tried it,
and couldn't have been better suited."

" Well, then, what did you make all this fuss about it for?"
inquired the girl over her shoulder, in a tone plainly intended to
be severe.

" Well, that's what I wanted to explain. I told you I must
confess to being a brute. Don't you wish me to apologize for
it? I'm afraid I must. I fear I was trying to vex you a little,
perhaps to recompense myself for your silence to-day. You must
really have thought me more formidable than I am contented to
appear, if you couldnt that is what you said, wasn't it ? couldn't
tell me such a very simple thing. Why couldn't you?"

" I never said I couldn't tell you," said Zip, with a very faint
emphasis on the latter pronoun, which Paul caught but con-
cluded to disregard.

" Didn't you ? There's plainly something the matter with
my hearing this evening. I thought you said so."

" It wasn't you ; I only didn't want to tell you just then, be-
cause of something else. I told you I went back to find you,
but you were going out."

" Well, no matter. I am plainly the only person in the least
to blame, and if I don't regret my fault more it is because it
gives me the pleasure of begging you to forgive me. You will,
won't you?"

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 261

Zip laughed, but overlooked the hand he held out to her.
" You're not sufficiently repentant," she said. "I don't believe
in sinners who sin for the pleasure of being pardoned. And
I'm afraid we won't get home before dark, at this rate.
Wouldn't you better start again ? "

41 I fear so," said Paul, laughing also. On the whole, he was
not ill-pleased to be let off so easily, and they finished their
drive with no nearer approach to sentiment. Nor, in fact, when
Paul considered things later on that night, was he quite sure that
there had been any approach to it whatever. He was, at all
events, not unwilling to tell himself so.

But Zipporah Colton, and his present and future relations
with her, paramount though the place was which that subject
occupied in his thoughts, was not the only matter with which
Paul Murray's mind was busy before he sank that night into the
forgetfulness of sleep. During his brief absence at Riverside
the population of Milton Centre had been increased by one more
soul, and somehow Paul could not help speculating on the possible
effect which that fact might yet have upon his future. Curious!
A week ago and he would have felt inclined to say that, as far as
the accidents of this life were concerned, he held that future in
his own right hand, compact and simple. And now how full it
seemed of diverse and entangled strands!

LEWIS R. DORSAY.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

THERE is a story about Anthony Trqllope, told, with some
show of disapproval as to its Banner, if we remember rightly,
by Mr. John Morley in Macmillans shortly after the novelist's
death. It refers to a conversazione at the house of George Lewes,
where the talk happened to turn on the nature and value of the
inspiration which good novel-writers are supposed to await.
There must have been some tall talk, one may imagine, with the
great "George" on the tripod, and lesser priestlings all about
the shrine, and no doubt it was not John Morley alone who felt
as if something had dropped when Trollope, getting up from
his seat with an expressive gesture, declared that the only
necessary and unfailing inspiration was a large lump of shoe-
maker's wax, laid on the novelist's chair, which would hold him
fast to his desk until his daily task was over. He was a good
novelist himself, and he knew it ; and a fertile one, moreover,

262 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May,

who never'dawdled away any time waiting for the flutter of un-
seen wings about his head, and he thought he got the familiar
scent of humbug in the atmosphere.

There is a good deal to be said for the shoemaker's-wax
theory, as Mr. Howells must know, and Mrs. Oliphant, with her
four novels a year, all of them pretty good, too, it must be said,
and some of them much more than that; and as Mr. Walter
Besant most evidently knows. Herr Paulus (New York : Har-
per & Bros.) must be the fourth or fifth of this gentleman's
fictions which have been noticed in this magazine within a
twelvemonth. It is as clever as any of his work, and as en-
tertaining. Its hero, Ziphion Trinder, is a young American
with aspirations after literary fame, which six months in New
York, spent in hanging about newspaper offices and the ante-
chambers of magazine editors, are quite enough to dash. Zi-
phion is not a poet, but he has the poetic temperament, debased
by a longing after distinction and a desire to be "talked about
wherever the English language is spoken." But he is out at
elbows and down at heels, and has no money for his board
bill. What is he going to do about it ? And while he is staring
that situation in the face with a pair of "strangely eager, pas-
sionate eyes" big with despair, a couple of men pass him in
the street, and one of them is saying he wants a pupil who
shall combine

"youth, quick intelligence, sympathy, a highly nervous and sensitive
organization, a poetic disposition, wide reading, and good education. I
want a young man who is perfectly free from the trammels of relations,
society, and ties of any kind. I want, besides, one who will give absolute
obedience, and preserve, if I require it, inviolable secrecy. Besides this,
he should be a youth unspotted not, like these young Gothamites, up to
all kinds of devilry ; and he must be prepared to postpone indefinitely the
acquisition of dollars. Tell me, my friend, where shall I find such a para-
gon, such a phoenix, for a pupil ? "

And Ziphion, hearing, feels that he can fill that bill, applies
for the situation, and obtains it. When he appears again for
all this happens in the prologue to Mr. Besant's novel he is
Herr Paulus, an adept in theosophy, who is described by a
sister-adept in St. Petersburg, before his first appearance in
fashionable English Spiritualist circles, as

"one of those rare and precious human creatures who acquire early
in life powers which the more dull can only attain to after years of work
and struggle. He proposes, if he meets with a sympathetic circle, to
preach the higher philosophy in a way which will be entirely new to you.
. . . His soul is candor itself; he is as pure as the white leaf of a lily ; he

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 263

is as incapable of deception as one of the lofty spirits with whom he holds
habitual communion ; he trusts, and expects to be trusted.''

That is the way Anna Petrovna describes him; when he
enters Lady Augusta Brudenel's drawing-room just after this
letter has been read to the expectant guests, Tom Langston
whispers to his betrothed, " I'm sure he's a New-Yorker, Dodo.
He's one of the sort they call dudes." Mr. Besant has previ-
ously remarked and far be it from any patriotic New-Yorker to
gainsay him that "it is said that there is no place in the world
where young men are so wonderfully beautiful as in New York."
Herr Paulus, therefore, to the visible eye an Apollo-like Ameri-
can of twenty-four, in reality, as the initiated know, a citizen of
no country and a sage whose years count up by centuries, is a
very great success. He has one natural gift besides his great
New York birthright of beauty, and that is the power to mes-
merize at will almost any person who chooses to let him try the
experiment. So he goes from conquering to conquer through
the various assemblages of fools who, having set aside Chris-
tianity as an idle superstition, are eating out their hearts in the
vain longing to have the fact of immortality made plain to them
in some newer and more cogent way than by the testimony of
prophets and apostles and the living church. Herr Paulus
mesmerizes one or two susceptible subjects, and talks in a de-
lightful voice about the Ancient Wisdom and the Ancient Way,
until his host, who has been dabbling in Spiritism for many
years with frequent sickness of soul and inward dubitation, at
last says to him :

"This night marks a new departure in spiritual research. Herr Paulus,
I thank you in the name of all those who, like myself, have believed,
through cruel disappointments and most unworthy deceptions, in the fu-
ture of our cause. We have been like blind men I see 'it now waiting
for a guide, or like ignorant men in a labyrinth, trying all ways but the
true way. What use to us have been our Chicks and our Medlocks ?
What power had they ? None. You have been sent by those you call
your friends to show us the way. It is no longer by the fitful light shown
by deceitful and vicious spirits that we shall try to advance, but by the
steady glow of the lantern held up to us by your friends. We thank your
friends through you. We have tried to maintain the constancy of our
faith, but there have been times, I confess it, when our feet have seemed
to be placed on the shaky and uncertain turf of a hidden quagmire. Now,
thanks to your friends, we stand at last on solid rock. At last, I say, on
solid rock ! "

Herr Paulus, however, is not a mere vulgar adventurer.
Impostor and trickster though he be, and a puppet moreover in

264 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May,

the hands of a master who wants to use him to turn the keys in
money-drawers, his own aim is still that with which he set out
from his father's "general store," which, by the way, Mr. Besant
locates in a " small town of a New England State," "not many
hundred miles from Boston," although he considers his hero
a New-Yorker! Fame is what he wants; he desires to cut a
very big swath through the ranks of the credulous, make them
believe in his supernatural powers, and then retire suddenly in
a blaze of glory just as he touches the zenith. Unfortunately
for this aspiration, he falls in love with one of his " subjects," an
extremely nice girl, herself the daughter of a " cheap and nas-
ty " medium, and hence a hater of Spiritualism as she has known
it, though a real convert to the new sort taught and practised by
Herr Paulus. Once in love, his power over her and over oth-
ers vanishes. His real weakness asserts itself, the girl and her
honesty get the upper hand, the schemes of Herr Paulus, long
successful, collapse, and that he does not utterly collapse with
them is due to the fact that, shamed at last into honesty, he
avows them all, and lets Hetty pick him up out of the dust of
humiliation and the mire of detected fraud. Altogether, a read-
able novel, with several lessons in it well worth inculcating.

What Men Live By (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York) is
a beautiful little parable by the Russian, Count Lyof N. Tolstoi.
A poor cobbler, going home almost empty-handed to his wife
after a fruitless effort to collect enough of the money due him to
buy a new winter garment which shall answer for both of them,
finds on the road a strange man, naked and perishing with cold.
At first Semy6n passes him by, reflecting that he is too poor to
shelter him under his roof, and too cold to share with him the
scanty garments which he wears. But hardly has he done so
when his conscience begins to prick him, and he returns, throws
his kaftan over the stranger's shoulders, puts on his feet a pair
of old boots he is taking home to mend, and brings him with
him to his wife. Matri6na scolds him roundly ; no money, no
new sheepskin cloak, for the want of which she is perishing
whenever she puts her nose out of doors, nothing but a husband
with the odor of his one dram yet about him, and a freezing,
starving stranger to help eat her and her children out of house
and home it is more than the poor woman can bear in silence.
No, she has no supper for them ; she won't stay in the house with
a man who uses her so vilely, nor with the drunken beggars he
fetches with him. She snatches their common jacket from her
husband and prepares to rush out of doors, when Semy6n says

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 265

his last word: " Matri6na, can it be that God is not in you?"
Whereupon Matriona's conscience also shows signs of life, and,
beginning with a grudged compassion, she soon grows to share
her husband's love and pity for their guest. He stays with them
for five years, learns to cobble, and then to make boots in a man-
ner so far superior to his master's that Semyon gets into com-
fortable circumstances. He has been "entertaining an angel
unawares" an angel who, having failed, through compassion for
her infants, to take the soul of a woman for whom God had sent
him, had been sentenced to assume the form of a man until he
should learn by experience what is in men, what is not given unto
men t and what men live by. When, through what happens to him
from the moment the cobbler meets him until that in which his
penance has ended, he knows that love is in men, that no man
knows what is needed for his body, and that the living God, and
not their own care, is what men live by, then he reveals himself
to his hosts, imparts his new knowledge to them, and returns to
heaven.

The Story of Colette (New York: D. Appleton & Co ) is also
a translation, the name of Whose author is not given. It was
called " Colette's Novena" when it originally appeared in the
Revue des Deiix Mondes, a title more appropriate but probably
less taking to the general reader than that it now bears. It is a
harmless and amusing tale, whether well translated or not we
are unable to say, but certainly put into very pleasant English.
It opens on the first day of March with the little prayer Colette
inscribes at the beginning of the journal she keeps to relieve the
weariness of life spent in a dismal chateau under the guardian-
ship of a maiden-aunt who does not love her, and one old
servant. " Keep me, O Lord," writes Colette, " from dying of
despair and ennui^ and do not forget me, buried in this snow,
which deepens every day."

Colette is an ingenue of a rather sparkling type. With the
exception of two happy years in a convent where her aunt
placed her in order at once to keep and to evade the promise
made to Colette's dying mother, by which she was obliged to
give her niece at least two years in Paris, and thus a chance to
"settle herself" she has spent all her days in this gloomy castle,
and at eighteen she is growing very tired of being " full of ideas
with no earthly being to tell them to ; to be gay alone, to be sad
alone, to be angry alone it is insupportable." She has begun
to look for her " adventure." She is sure it will come, and that
when it does it will be ''tall and dark, with black hair, straight

266 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May,

eyebrows, and severe eyes." She had hoped it might arrive in
May or June, and in those months never passed a hedge without
looking to see what it concealed ; but

"I hope even now,'' she writes, "and every morning, when I open my
curtain, I look carefully to see if its feet have not left their traces on the
snow under my window. When nothing has come I make excuses for it to
myself the weather is so bad, the paths so hard to find ! I wish it to arrive
with its arms and legs uninjured ; I even praise it for not risking a sprain
by coming a day too soon."

When " it " does come Colette flatters herself that " it" will
not be disappointed in her appearance :

" I say this without vanity or conceit, for I have never appreciated the
modesty that exclaims, What a beautiful horse ! what a wonderful rose !
but which severely forbids the same remark about a face which one cer-
tainly has not made one's self simply because it is one's own. It is allow-
able, and even considered to be in good taste, for a person to abuse his
nose or to declare that his eyes are crooked; but to say that the Creator
has made them straight the thought is horrible ! ''

Up to the 6th of March Colette's days go on in the same
old monotony, but then she coaxes the milkwoman to stay be-
side the kitchen fire, while she herself takes the donkey a,nd the
milk-pails and goes up the mountain to wait on the remaining
customers. The donkey lands her in a drift, where she is nearly
frozen before being recovered and brought home. But she
soon recovers, and by the 8th is ready to chat with the poor
old laittire, overwhelmed with remorse for her share in Colette's
mishap, who comes up to her room to visit her. Colette learns
from her that there is a " wise woman," Mother Lancien, in the
neighborhood, who can give a good advice on most topics, and
she resolves to visit her, which she does on the next day but
one. Mother Lancien is no witch, and, when Colette's troubles
have been laid open, she tells her she has no art but common
sense, and no wisdom but prayer.

" ' In this case,' she says, ' where no one on earth can help you, why
have you, my young lady, forgotten the saints in paradise ? '

"' I did not think of them,' returns Colette.

" 'Very well,' she replied; 'it is just as I supposed. . . . When you
were a child whom did you ask to give you the fruit that grew out of your
reach on the trees ? Was it not taller people than you ? But you are
grown up and large enough to help yourself to what you want on the
earth ; but for that which is still out of your reach do as you used to do,
ask some one higher still, for there will always be things which you cannot
attain.' "

So Colette begins at once her novena to " St. Joseph, ... as

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 267

it is not within the memory of man that he has rejected such a
prayer as mine." One difficulty she has in finding a statue of
the saint to put up on the altar to which she devotes a whole
corner of her room. " In despair I was going to take one of St.
John Baptist in his stead, and beg him to allow himself to be
prayed to as St. Joseph," when she discovers a beautiful little
one, in solid silver, in a corner of the chapel. She is very amus-
ing, this little Colette, with her novena, the last prayers of
which she says before her window and not before her altar, so
sure is she that the "adventure" is almost in the courtyard, and
so anxious to see how it really looks. But St. Joseph's day
wears into night and brings nobody. Still, she will give him a
day's grace, though prolong her prayers one half-hour beyond
the ninth day she will not, mindful of the punishment of Moses
when he struck the rock the second time. But when the 2Oth
of March also comes and goes and brings nobody, Colette flies
into a passion, seizes the statue and flings it through her win-
dow into the road where, of course, it hits the " adventure '' in
the head as it is climbing the garden wall to see what lies be-
yond, knocks it down, fractures its knee, makes a hole in its
forehead, and throws it thus upon the repentant Colette's good
offices as nurse. The story is old enough, as the reader sees,
but it is charmingly told.

The Dusantes (New York : The Century Co.) is in Mr. Stock-
ton's usual quaintly amusing vein, full of harmless laughs and
absurdly funny situations. Mr. Dusante, the proprietor of the
desert island on which Mrs. Leeks, Mrs. Aleshine, and Mr. Craig
were cast away, having returned to his home and found the gin-
ger-jar on the mantelpiece with the " board money " in it, finds
also that he can enjoy no peace of mind until, " with the ginger-
jar in my hand," he shall have searched "over the world, if
necessary, for the persons who in my absence had paid board to
me, and return to them the jar with its contents uncounted and
untouched." How he meets those persons in a big snowdrift
on the side of a California mountain; how he, his sister, and his
"adopted mother" exchange the courtesies of life through the
tunnel they excavate between their respective holes in the snow;
and how he will force the jar on Mrs. Leeks, and how she won't
receive it, and how they finally split the difference for all these
things we must refer the reader to the book itself. It has more
than fifty cents' worth of wholesome laughter in it.

Don Armando Palacio Valde's, the greatly praised author of
Marta y Maria, is also the writer of Maximina (New York :

268 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May,

Thomas Y. Croweli & Co.), which has been not particularly well
translated by Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole. It is a picture, very
pleasant in the main, of a pure wedded love, which opens on the
eve of marriage and ends two years later with the death of
Maximina, surely the sweetest, most innocent, and most charm-
ing of recent heroines. The supposed exigencies of novel-writ-
ing have, however, elicited from Count Vald6s a good deal of
not at all interesting padding in the shape of political discus-
sions and talks between vulgar people in newspaper offices ; and
the episode of Julia and Saavedra is a distinct blot on the book
for those who wish to be careful that the amusement they seek
in light reading shall be no impediment in the way of higher
things. It is a pity, for Maximina herself is most delightful a
lily of modest purity which could have been grown only out of
Christian soil and in a wholly Christian atmosphere. With a
firmer faith than Valds seems to possess a faith which would
have given the concluding pages of this novel a less uncertain
sound what admirable work he might do in a field which needs
conscientious hands to till it! For though these pages, which
describe the fluctuations of Miguel's mind during the years
which follow after he has lost his happiness in losing Maximina,
are true enough to certain phases of even the Christian soul un-
der great afflictioy, yet there are truths which may be so pre-
sented as to suggest a lie. That is one of the temptations of
"art for art's sake," of the realism which is unreal because it so
emphasizes parts as to ruin the whole.

The phenomenal " run " of Mr. Potter of Texas (New York :
The Home Publishing Co.), by Mr. Archibald Clavering Gun-
ter, very easily explains itself. % It is crammed with startling
incident, it is quite empty of analysis and subjectivism, its
lovers are ardent and innocent likewise when oneexcepts Lady
Sarah, whose passion leads her into the great meanness without
which Mr. Gunter's novel could not have been and its action is
quick and dramatic. It reads, indeed, as though, like the work
of several recent French novelists, it had been constructed with
an eye to the stage.

The Great Arnherst Mystery (New York: Brentano's) purports
to be "a true narrative of the supernatural." It is backed by the
affidavit of the author, one Walter Hubbell, a travelling player,
and relates circumstances, to some of which he says he was an
eye-witness, which occurred in Amherst, Nova Scotia, from 1878
to 1882 or thereabouts. If the facts are as alleged, it seems on
the face of it to have been a case of obsession by evil spirits in

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 269

fact, the invisible actors claimed to come direct from hell. The
prayers of Baptist and Methodist ministers having proved un-
availing to send them away from the afflicted young woman,
Esther Cox ; as, likewise, the expedient of sleeping with a Bible
under her pillow, which was recommended by "the Rev. R. A.
Temple," and that of copying " the third verse of the second
chapter of Habakkuk on slips of paper, as directed by Mr. Alex-
ander Hamilton," it occurred to the practical Yankee mind of
Mr. Hubbell that there might be "money in it" for a shrewd
lecturer with the gift of gab and trained powers of elocution.
So he persuaded Esther to accompany him on a tour and let her-
self be tormented on the platform while he told her remarkable
story. But the good sense of the public was somehow against
the exhibition, and in Chatham, New Brunswick, " a howling
mob " pursued the pair to their hotel from the lecture-room, and
Mr. Hubbell's scheme, which reminds one of the account in the
Acts of the Apostles of the "girl with a pythonical spirit, who
brought her masters much gain by divining," fell to the ground.
The book reads not unlike an extract from Gorres' Mystique
Diabolique. But as Mr. Hubbell says that after her marriage, in
1882, Esther's torments ended, it would probably be safe to di-
agnose her case as hysteria.

Haschisch, by Thorold King (New York : Brentano's), is the
story of a murder, and the detection of the murderer by making
him reveal his crime under the influence of the drug which
gives the book its name. Nevertheless, it is utterly common-
place and stupid, with not even a sensation between its covers.

It is hardly possible to be uninteresting and yet write of
Shakspere ; unless, indeed, one be a Baconian, or the deci-
pherer of some newly concocted and elaborate cipher. And
Mr. Appleton Morgan, though he is the friend of Mr. Donnelly,
gives no credence to his theories; as, though the friend of ex-
Governor Davis, he sees no reason to believe that Shakspere
was a lawyer. In fact, after reading Mr. Morgan's Shakspere in
Fact and in Criticism (New York: William Evarts Benjamin), al-
ways with attention and often with interest and approval, we
find ourselves at a loss to say what is his own view of Shak-
spere's personality, and doubtful that he has added anything
vital to current discussion of the same. What theory he enter-
tains is summed up, we take it, in the words: " By the study of
Shakspere should not, I think, be understood the glorification of
one man. . . . Shakspere, the man, is an ideal to each one of
us, and his biography a' pasture for poets and dreamers al-

270 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [May,

ways. . . . We have no use for dates and documents, muni-
ments and pedigrees." He seems to believe we speak under
Mr. Morgan's correction, for, after chasing his real belief through-
out his essays, we find it hard to catch that William Shakspere
was a man of " shrewd and ready wit, who made these plays
available for revenue," but who did not write them ; who did
not, at all events, write the most Shaksperean part of them.
Why ? Because his genius was " fully as practical as poetical."
Because he " elbowed his way from abject poverty to exception-
al affluence." Because the plays he mounted "contain speci-
mens of all known rustic English dialects of the periods they
cover, put into the mouths of appropriate speakers," while he
and his family " spoke Warwickshire dialect." Because the
writer of these plays " was patrician, with the scorn of a Corio-
lanus for the mob who gave him their suffrages, which William
Shakspere was not." Somehow the reasons do not strike us as
entirely reasonable, if their object be to take down the man
Shakspere, deer-stealer of Stratford, player and manager of the
Globe Theatre, " full of jokes and gallantries," dead at last in a
drunken frolic, from his unique and uncompanioned niche in the
temple of great poets. The first reason assigned for such a dis-
placement is, in fact, the best reason against it. That his "ge-
nius was fully.as practical as poetical" accounts for pretty much
all that needs accounting for. That he was the substantial
author of what goes by his name, though he appropriated what
he wanted wherever he found it, is easier to believe than that
there was one other man, still less half a dozen or so, capable of
fathering upon him such children of fancy and never reclaiming
either the honor or the money they achieved. Shakspere was a
poet by eminence, and therefore he did not use poetic figures to
embellish a prose thought, but he thought in figures. He saw
the identity of things, that is ; saw it by intuition, and clad one
in the garb of another because the whole wardrobe belonged to
one. He was a dramatist by eminence, and therefore he did not
thrust his own belittling individualities between himself and the
people he contemplated and reproduced. Sometimes he found
them made ready to his hand where any one else may find
them in Plutarch's pages sometimes he found them in the
ale-house or the play-house; but, wherever he found them, he for-
got himself and looked at them, and so caught the secret of their
reproduction. And because he had that gift of words which has
belonged to many brains, but perhaps to none in so eminent de-
gree as to his own ; and had it united with his other gift of per-

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 271

ceivirtg identities, and hence used figures as the material of his
thoughts and not their dress, he did not need to know law as a
lawyer knows it in order to employ its phraseology with fair
correctness, nor physic to talk medicine, nor a murderer's guilt
to render his emotions. We give our vote for Shakspere, and
are content to believe that the man who gave us Macbeth was
brought into the world in Stratford, on the 23d of April, in we
forget what year. Mr. Morgan's discussion of Hamlet seems to
us very good ; so also his essay on " Shakspere's Literary Ex-
ecutor." One of these papers, that on" Queen Elizabeth's Share
in the Merry Wives of Windsor" and the greater part of an-
other, " The Growth and Vicissitudes of a Shaksperean Play,"
appeared originally in this magazine.

WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

STORY OF A CONVERSION.

From my earliest recollection till nineteen years of age the subject of religion
was no part of my thoughts except for ridicule ; all my teachings on this subject
were adverse. My father, though a most exemplary and moral man and a kind
parent, was an avowed infidel. He read his Bible constantly, but only to cavil
at ks doctrines. He accepted portions of it as history; but all its teachings
wherein God manifested his omnipotence to the children of men either by pre-
cept or by miracles he rejected. When I had reached early manhood I removed
to another State. Here while attending school a series of religious meetings
were commenced under the auspices of the Methodists. Many of my companions
of both sexes were brought under the influence of these good people, and I soon
found myself, in a social sense, quite isolated. I naturally began to think there
must be something about these revival services more than a mere form, since
they interested so many. So, out of a vague curiosity, I commenced attendance
also. A personal appeal was made to me to accept Christ as my Saviour and to
give my heart to him. I was told to pray to him.

For the first time in my life, alone in my room, I bent my knee to God. I
tried to say something ; naught but a sigh or groan would escape my lips. So I
arose and retired, but sleep would not relieve my troubled heart. Though the
weather was bitterly cold, I arose and once more tried to pray. At last I cried
out, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!" Immediately light shone into my
heart, and where pain and anguish of spirit existed only a few moments before,
now praise and joy and peace reigned. From that time, forty-four years ago, till
now, never for one moment have I doubted that man is an accountable being to
God, and, being lost by the sin of Adam's transgression, he must be brought back
through the mediatorial office of Jesus Christ. All seemed joyous and peaceful
for some time. I felt as St. Peter did, i.e., if all the world should deny his Mas-
ter, yet I would not.

Feeling thus secure, as I thought, hardly a year elapsed before I passed

272 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [May,

through that phase of religious life which Methodists call "falling from grace."
So for several years I was in a despondent state, feeling all the time, however,
that even if God should call me hence in my sins, still I might hope to be saved.
I believed all the same in him, but the sense of sin well-nigh overpowered me. I
was one of the Argonauts of California, and in those pioneer times when the wild
scenes of a mining country were leading men into every sort of excess and crime,
I often used to wonder if there was even one man in all the gold-mines who
ever had a religious thought. I often tried to draw men out on the subject, but
never could find one in sympathy with me. Becoming thoroughly disgusted
with such a wild life, I returned to one of the young cities of the Pacific. There
I married a worthy Christian lady, but, like me, she knew but little about vital
Christianity. We were both perfectly willing and anxious to serve God, if we
only could see our way. A Baptist clergyman became acquainted with us and
strongly urged us to become members of his church, which we did, receiving
baptism by immersion, which we were informed was the only valid form and the
door of the church.

All went pleasantly for some years, but just about the breaking out of the
late civil war the Baptist Church became more or less involved. Sectional
prejudices were brought into their churches, and as a result the whole denomina-
tion on the Pacific coast became more like a bear-garden than a Christian
church. Believing, as I had been instructed, that the Baptist Church was the
only apostolic and evangelical church, I did not know what to do. Of one thing
I was certain : if the churches in that denomination were the apostolic church,
I had had enough of it. So, without carefully examining the tenets of Presby-
terianism, I connected myself with that denomination, believing that any retreat
was better than the scenes I was passing through. Besides, the Presbyterians
were, as I was informed, a well-behaved people, always attending to their own
affairs and letting everybody alone so long as they were not interfered with.
Sure enough, I found them all I expected. In fact all one had to do was to
appear respectable, pay his pew-rents, and contribute for charitable purposes as
ability afforded. In short, it was an easy-going body. One can go to sleep or be
absent any length of time all will go on smoothly. It is always safe. This
state of things did not seem to me to be quite up to the teaching of Christ. /
longed for a higher and holier life. I had now pretty thoroughly tried three of
the prominent denominations in this country, and still was not satisfied. It was
a turning-point in my life when I first got the idea of a divinely-founded church.
I felt sure, at last, that there is a church, existing now, the same that Jesus Christ
planted when he lived on earth, and the one that he promised to be with even
till the consummation of all things. The question that puzzled me most was,
" Where is that church ?''

1 commenced a rigid examination of the history of the different denominations.
Greatly to my surprise, I found but two that had a history dating back more than
about four hundred years, and changes and reformations characterized nearly all.
So there could be no possibility of any of these being the church to which Christ
made the promise. The remaining were the Roman Catholic and the Greek
Church. But surely, I thought, it could be neither of these, for I had it thundered
into my ears from all sides that these people were idolaters, that they prayed to
images, that they worshipped a woman, and, in short, were an ignorant people, who
could not read or judge for themselves, and left all in the hands of priests. But
all these preconceived notions did not deter me from a rigid examination as to

i8o>8.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 273

their history and doctrines; for I had set out with a full determination to learn
the truth and to follow it, no matter where it led me. The first thing that I dis-
covered was that the Greek Church was a schismatic body, and was but an
offshoot of the Church of Rome. So no church was left me to accept or reject
but that of Rome.

Having reached this very essential feature in church history, naught remained
for me to examine but in reference to the doctrines and usages of that church.
Here I found many things which seemed strange to me. Suffice to say all of the
formulated dogmas of the church were a terra incognita to me. To take seriatim
each one and analyze it was a problem that was far above the comprehension of
the ordinary layman. But just here the promises of Christ to his chosen people
solved the vexed question : " Lo, I am with you even till the consummation of all
things "; and again : " He will lead you into all truth "; " Whatsoeveryou shall bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven "; " As the Father hath sent me, so also I send
you." This settles the whole question as to dogmas. Having settled these
questions, but little remained for me to do. First to resign my position as an
officer of the Presbyterian Church, and to request them to drop my name from
their list of church-members. Which being done, it created no small amount of
pain among the worthy people with whom I had been connected. The pastor,
when I told him what led me to the radical change as to what Christ's church
really was, regarded me as being almost a candidate for the insane asylum. He
labored with me for over ten hours, taking up somewhat in detail the doctrines of
the mother-church. I remember the one that he assailed the most vigorously :
the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist. He, of course, was a theologian,
a graduate of Amherst. I was only an infant, just struggling for light and breath
in a new world to me. Just here again Christ's words were my only argument,
viz., "This is my body this is my blood." So he left me apparently with a heavy
heart.

Up to this moment I had never in my life spoken to a Catholic priest on the
subject of religion. How to take the first step in what seemed to me a solemn
duty puzzled me. So by the grace of God I mustered courage to go to a Catholic
church and ask to see a priest. I trembled like one with an ague. When he
asked me the object of my visit I stammered out something about my condition.
At a glance long experience disclosed my state far better than anything I could
say, and I well remember his first words : " Give yourself no anxiety, for I, too,
have passed through just what you are passing through, and I know just how you
feel." These words, spoken to me in tones of great kindness, did the business, and
all the terrors of what I had been led to believe about the confessional, penances,
etc., etc., vanished in a moment. : v

Very soon the good father told me what to do, and from that hour, twelve years
ago, till the present never has one doubt crossed my mind as to what constitutes
the one, holy, apostolic, universal church. Each day, every Mass, every service I
attend reveals new beauties and brings me nearer and nearer my dear Lord. Here
I find blended under one head all the teachings of Christ not a part but all. We
do not, as most Protestants do, have to invoke the Divine Presence, for He is
always present on the altar. If this is true, what man shall find fault if a Catholic
bends the knee and makes every possible demonstration of love and respect, know-
ing and feeling that he is in the very presence of the Son of God ? Each day of
my life demonstrates more clearly to me the oneness of God's people in one fold,
under one head Christ the Lord in heaven, and St. Peter's successor on earth.

VOL. XLVII. 18

274 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [May,

No other conditions, no other plan, ever can, or ever did, or ever will fulfil the
conditions which were formulated by Jesus Christ when he visited this earth, as
does the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

I have written thus briefly in the hope that some other unfortunate one who,
like me, may be groping after God's duly appointed church may read these words.
If this shall help in bringing or.e such to carefully examine the subject for him-
self, and, after having settled the question in his own mind, to act in strict accord
with his convictions, I shall feel more than repaid for having taken the trouble
very imperfectly to mark out the way by which I was brought into the Holy Catho-
lic Church. I have found in the mother-church a rich banquet, yielding to the
hungry and thirsty soul not only certitude but all the spiritual blessings that it
craves. No one can stand outside and look at the walls of the Catholic Church
and receive and understand much about it. But once inside, and by examining
every doctrine, every precept, and all the accumulated wisdom that has been
treasured up for nearly two thousand years, such a one will exclaim : " How
beautiful thy gates, O Jerusalem ! "

MY CONVERSION.

I was educated in the evangelical doctrines of the Episcopal Church as com-
monly taught in New England forty years ago. In the country town where 1
lived the most fraternal relations existed between this church and the other de-
nominations, and the resulting harmony would have been the envy of our Protes-
tant friends of to-day who are so earnestly seeking for " Christian unity.'' The
basis of this harmony was found in the entire rejection of the doctrine of sacra-
mental grace, and consequently of the necessity of apostolic succession. Even
baptismal regeneration was scouted as a vain and popish superstition. The only
distinctively Episcopal tenets impressed upon my mind were the superior beauty
and utility of a liturgical worship, and a caution against religious enthusiasm or
excitement.

Owing to peculiar circumstances my mind was very early set to work on the
great religious questions of fate and experience. As a little girl I made the
Bible a study, but took no one into my confidence. My boarding-school life
early brought me into contact with Calvinism, and my Bible studies seemed to
corroborate these doctrines. I was overwhelmed with terror and despondency
because I could find in myself no marks of election and could have no deep
convictions of sin. I must be allowed to pass over these experiences of mental
torture, long endured and kept secret from my nearest friends. To this state
succeeded gradually a partial indifference. My studies engrossed me, and I be-
gan to feel my intellectual nature awakening, with correspondingly more liberal
ideas and tastes. Associations, too, soon served to foster liberal thinking, and
I drifted rapidly and pleasantly in that direction. I read Emerson, Carlyle, and
above all Channing, and I need not say my original creed was revised. I was
quite content to remain in the Episcopal Church, and began to appreciate its
liturgical beauty and fitness ; but I had not then the faintest conception of the
nature or office of the visible church of God.

This happy religious optimism continued for some years, but was succeeded
almost insensibly by doubts which as the gloom deepened became more intoler-
able than my early Calvinism. One by one every doctrine of redemption and of
grace, even of Divine Providence itself, seemed slipping from my mental grasp.

.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 275

The darkness which Bunyan describes as the passage through " The Valley of
the Shadow of Death '' became my terrible experience. Nothing could dispel
this gloom, and I turned away heartsick from the very authors who had been as
my familiar friends. Only those, and I believe they are many, who have passed
through a similar experience can realize its utter desolation and despair.

At this time I first met with the Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robert-
son, which I almost literally devoured, as well as his sermons. They were not
satisfactory as regarded my doubts ; but they seemed to inspire a noble courage
in suffering, and a resolute will to continue to trust the God in whom one
could not even fully believe. But Robertson marked an epoch in my life, in-
asmuch as he gave me my first thoughts of the Catholic Church. It is well
known that he attempted to distinguish the truths underlying the great Catholic
dogmas of the faith from what he called the erroneous dogmas themselves. As
a matter of fact I simply disregarded the distinction, and found myself interested
in the doctrines. I began to wish it were possible to believe what seemed so
consoling and so beautiful, yet without imagining such a thing possible.

A very dear and acute-minded friend, long since dead, who knew something
of my spiritual unrest, persuaded me to talk with her rector, a High-Church
clergyman. The interview was a surprise to me and marked my first distinct
step Romeward, a fact of which I was, however, profoundly unconscious. I re-
cord my grateful remembrance of that clergyman, who is still living. He was
kind, patient, wise in counsel, and firm, and he gave me positively the first notion
I had ever had that religious belief was a real virtue, its opposite a real sin.

But just here arose the great difficulty for which I long sought a solution.
Granted there is an authority, a church of God, which can rightfully command
my assent intellectually and morally, how and where shall I find its unerring de-
cisions? Here were a High-Church rector, a Low-Church bishop mutually con-
tradicting each other on the most fundamental points of doctrine and of grace, and,
to make matters worse, my favorite Broad- Church authors denying or explaining
as only figuratively true the distinctive tenets of both High Church and Low.
Verily "a house divided against itself shall not stand."

Mine was indeed a weary search after certain truth, but never was I deceived
by any "glittering generalities " about "unity in essentials," still less by vain ap-
peals to the decisions of a remote antiquity or to the "general councils" of an
" undivided church.'' I regard with sentiments of veneration, not unmixed with
awe, our ancestors the early Britons, but they have never seemed to me to furnish
a very practicable court of appeal in pressing questions of controversy and conduct.
However, the practical thing was that this appeal to the early Britons and to the
early councils was not available to me, and, I may add, is not available to multi-
tudes of men and women the world over. Nor are these multitudes of human
beings for whom these questions have a profound significance willing to depend
upon the interpretations of any "Dr. Dryasdust" who may assume to define them
by the aid of his Greek lexicon.

The question was continually narrowing to this focus : Has God given a reve-
lation to man ? And if so, to whom has he committed its custody ? Who is au-
thorized to declare and explain it with an unerring, living voice? If the Infinite
Creator has thus deigned to reveal himself to his creatures and to command their
assent, then of necessity he must declare his will so plainly that " the wayfaring
man, though a fool, cannot err therein." No prolonged study of ancient history,
Roman or British, could be required. If the church of the first three centuries

2;6 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [May;

was empowered to speak authoritatively to the world in God's name as his unerr-
ing vicegerent, she must have the same prerogative now, for when and by whom
has her charter been abrogated ? In short, the question is one of jurisdiction and
of infallibility, and not of historical progress.

My Bible studies had distinctly impressed upon my mind one fact: that the
Scriptures were fragmentary and were not intended to teach a definite creed.
Inspired they are without doubt, free from error, full of grace, and full of truth,
but evidently addressing both Jews and Gentiles, as already believers in the law
and the Gospel, as disciples of a living teacher. Not to dwell further upon this
point, which has always seemed very strong to me, I found, to use Cardinal New-
man's words, that " the Scriptures were not intended to teach truth, but only to
prove it."

Thus far had I progressed without ever having read a Catholic book or come
into contact with a Catholic .mind, and I still fancied it would be quite impossible
ever to accept the Catholic creed. A Protestant friend chanced to put into my
hands a volume of sermon^ by the Paulist Fathers. My curiosity was arouse'd by
the fact that they were written by men who had been converted from Protestant-
ism to Catholicism. As I read my attention was aroused to such a degree that I
determined to seek an interview with some one of these priests, and question him
as to the faith a step which was not accomplished without serious misgivings.
The reverend father to whom I applied gave me Newman's Apologia, and that
book became the turning point in my mind. It was my first introduction to the
Oxford school of thought, and, strange to say, I seemed to trace there, written in-
deed by a master-hand, the history of many of my own religious opinions. Es-
pecially was this the case in regard to the doctrine of sacramental grace, of prob-
abilities in evidence of revealed truth, of the necessity of a religion of dogma as
distinguished from one of mere religious sentiment, and of the gradually enlarg-
ing conceptions of the visible church, its necessary organic unity and authority.
I think no book that I have ever read before or since has ever impressed me so
much.

From that time the magnificent figure of the church of God, the Catholic
Church of all nations and races, was ever before my mind, and attracted me as
the Bride of the Lamb, resplendent in her white and jewelled raiment.

I may say here that never at any time has the " branch theory " had any hold
upon my mind, although I understand it quite well and the plausible theories by
which it is maintained. It infinitely belittles the conception of the One, Holy,
Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and is contradicted both by sound logic and by
human experience in history.

Evidently the question is simply this : Has there always existed, and does
there still exist, a Catholic Church, one in doctrine and communion, speaking ever
with one unerring and consenting voice, founded upon that Rock of Peter against
which the gates of hell shall never prevail? A tremendous claim, indeed, but it
is the only one that needs to be considered, and in considering it the question of
Anglican orders has never seemed to me, however interesting, to be of any con-
siderable importance ; consequently I found myself brought face to face with the
claim of the Roman See to be this Rock of Peter, and I studied as best I could the
history of the Papacy, praying ever for divine light and guidance, and reading
impartially both Catholic and Protestant authors, taking counsel principally from
Episcopal clergymen. I studied, as I have said, the history of the Papacy, but not
in such a manner as to lose myself in minute details, but in a broad and general way.

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 277

People do not study imposing architectural designs with a microscope at
least if they do they are certain to become exceedingly confused as to the tout en-
semble. I found that only a miraculous grace of divine protection could have
preserved the Papacy, and, through its unifying power, the church universal, intact
in life and doctrine through all the centuries of fire and bloodshed, through all
the inundations of heathenism and sensuality, which have swept over the earth
since our Lord's Ascension. The evidence that the Rock of Peter was the Roman
See became as clear to me as the shining of the midday sun in heaven. Is the
Anglican Church to-day in living communion spiritually and doctrinally with the
Catholic Church and its centre of unity, the See of Peter?

And here my inquiries terminated. I had no longer any excuse for withhold-
ing my submission. I may add as a curious circumstance, perhaps, that I even
then found difficulty in accepting the great central dogma of the Real Presence.
I was unable to conceive of it ; but its attractive power over me was indescribable.
Truly I may say that I entered not in by the " Gate that is called Beautiful." I
was entirely ignorant of the ritual of the church as regards vestments, colors,
lights, incense, and even the " eastward position." I accepted what I there found
on these points. I recognized gladly their fitness; but for one thing only my
eye sought on entering a Catholic church the ever-burning lamp before the Tab-
ernacle, which told my beating heart of the Sacred Presence there enshrined.
" Verily, thou art a God who hidest thyself, a hidden God,'' " the Saviour." No
church is a church to me, however harmonious its decorations, however imposing
its vested priests and surpliced choirs, if there the Adorable Sacrament of the
altar has not an abiding-place. The house is tome empty, like our Lord's sepul-
chre with the linen clothes folded and lying there, while the Master has for ever
departed.

And thus wandering sorrowfully in the garden I heard the voice of the Risen
Lord, and my soul cried out, " Rabboni.''

LET THE PEOPLE SING.

Some time ago I happened, in the course of my travels, to be in the city of
Petersburg, Va., on a Sunday afternoon, and I went to Vespers. To my surprise
the church was packed. Thinking it was some festival day, I inquired the
reason of the large attendance, but was told that the church was always filled
like that at Vespers. As soon as the services began the secret of the large at-
tendance was out. The children, the boys on one side and the girls on the other,
were seated in the front seats, and, with the pastor and altar-boys, alternately
chanted the Psalms with the choir. The pastor whose name, if my memory is
correct, is Father O'Farrell has a fine tenor voice and evidently enjoyed the
singing as much as the children and their parents. The little ones also sang the
Benediction service.

Since reading Father Young's excellent articles on congregational singing, I
have often thought that the pastor of that little church away off in Southern Vir-
ginia has opened a way to introduce the congregational singing so much desired.
I have lately heard that Father O'Farrell has ceased to use the choir altogether, and
now the girls and boys alone alternately chant the Vespers. Why cannot those
same children be taught to sing, alternately, those parts of the Mass which are
commonly sung ? How easily, too, could not the children in our Catholic schools

278 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [May,

be trained to this way of singing Vespers and Mass ! In Petersburg, so I was
told, the sisters in charge of the school taught the children how to pronounce the
Latin, while a young lady of the city, an accomplished musician, went regularly to
the school and without any charge trained the little ones in the music. This can
be done in every Catholic school. Furthermore, if it be desired to introduce in
place of Vespers a public service of psalms and hymns in English, as we hear
of Bishop Vaughan doing in Manchester, England, how easily could the chil-
dren be so trained as to introduce it among their parents and grown brothers and
sisters !

Yes, let the people sing ; but begin with the children, and then, little by little,
let all the people PRAISE THE LORD.

HINTS TO FISHERS.

I once heard an earnest preacher name as the four last things to be remem-
bered, " Death, Judgment, Hell, and Eternal Damnation '' ! Of course it was
only a mistake only a slip of the tongue which made him leave out heaven al-
together and give us a double dose of the other place. But it is a fair illustration
of what some preachers really do in their fire-and-brimstone zeal. Is it likely
that sinners will come to hear such sermons ? Pshaw ! You might as well drop
down a bare hook into the water and expect the fish to swallow it so.

Our Lord said to his Apostles, " Be ye fishers of men," and he meant what
he said. He knew that sinners must be fished for. But the comparison ends
here. The poor fish are caught only to be killed ; sinners are caught only to be
given life eternal. Nevertheless, sinners are no more desirous than the poor fi?h
are to be hooked or drawn into a net, therefore they must be dealt with accord-
ingly. Do fish come crowding around the fisherman, begging to be caught ?
Not much. Do sinners come crowding around the priest, begging to be drawn
.in?

Bait, bait, sweet, pleasant bait, carefully-mended nets that will take them in
unaware these are the means which every fisher must use who would obey the
divine commission.

When St. Peter followed the craft, did he lash the waves violently, and slam
his nets into the water, and hammer away on his boat, and hurl rocks and roots
after the finny tribe ? Oh ! no ; he was wary, and watchful, and wise ; he was
patient, and silent, and slow.

When a zealous pastor sees his congregation lessening he says to himself :
" I am an unprofitable servant ; I must take myself to task. From this moment
I will begin. I will fast oftener, pray better, do more penance, and give greater
alms. I will be unsparing of myself, and then my labor will be blessed with good
results." This is all very beautiful, very sublime, but he should not stop there.
He should angle for poor human nature with human means. Observe the follow-
ing quotation from a Protestant journal :

THE CHURCH'S STRENGTH DUE TO THE ABANDONMENT OF GRIMNESS AND MOROSENESS.

<: When we ask what is the secret of the present strength of the church,! think we must find
it in this, that the church has, to a great extent, abandoned the attitude of grimness and morose-
ness, and has substituted in its place the doctrine of human happiness. Formerly people went
to church and held to religion, not because they enjoyed it, but because they thought it their
duty ; if they did not enjoy it this proved it all the more to be their duty. It is a great trans-

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 279

formation. Young people now find a pleasure in the religion that is presented to them ; things
unattractive are by general consent laid aside. Revivalists rely on love rather than on fear. No
matter how utterly inconsistent all this may be with creeds and traditions, it is done. Church
parlors are annexed to the ' sacred edifice,' and there is provision for stewed oysters and ice-
cream ; the children are provided with ' flower concerts ' in summer and with ' Christmas-trees'
in winter ; the whole flavor of the institution is altered ; it is conciliatory and not denunciatory,
and meets people half-way."

Pretty good, Mr. Protestant. Oysters and ice-cream are indeed the bulwarks
of Protestantism. They should not be despised by us, either. They are a power
there is no use denying it. The enterprising strawberry and the progressive oys-
ter ! Without them Protestantism would collapse, and with them the true bark
of Peter itself can take in many a draught of small-fry otherwise uncatchable.

Look at the *' Sabbath " school, with its rewards, its picture-papers, chromo-
cards, and endless novelties. Look at the Christmas-trees, literary guilds, high
teas, sociables, sewing-circles, dramatic clubs, summer camp-meetings, sea- shore
attractions, new preachers, new sermons all about sweetness and light, singing
societies, etc., etc.

Where would " the church " be without these side-shows ? I don't object to
them. They are very good so far as they go; only they don't go far enough.
They would leave religion all bait and no hook.

Years ago one large section of Evangelicalism (the Puritans) tried to run
religion on the plan of all hook and no bait. This failed dismally, as the above
relates, so that now, " by common consent, things unattractive " (such as belief in
hell, necessity of penance, indissolubility of marriage, and compulsory confession)
" are laid aside," and the present plan is all bait and no hook.

The true church, however, was never given to " grimness and moroseness."
Her joyous ritual is proof of this since times remote. As far as her poverty or
her riches would allow, hers has always been a service of beauty and brightness.
The twinkling altar-lights, the flowers, the changing colors, the jewelled vest-
ments, the loveliest arts of music, painting, sculpture, and poetry all are pre-
scribed in her liturgy. Moreover, the Miracle Plays, the Sacred Oratorios, the
Church Minuet in Florence, the Passion-Play at Oberammergau all go to prove
the church's tolerance of- all innocent means to render religion interesting. It
was St. Philip Neri, of the Oratory, who originated the present oratorio by having
concerts of sacred music in his Oratory. The smiling saints, the laughing cherubs,
the radiant Virgin, invite cheerfulness, not gloom, in the service of heaven and in
the house of God. The devout Catholic, upon entering the glittering edifice, finds
his heart involuntarily singing, " The beauty of thy house I have loved, O Lord,
and the place where thy glory dwelleth.''

But to the indevout a lower rung in the ladder is necessary. I see nothing
wonderful and little reprehensible in the way people rush after frivolity and neglect
religion. Take Pinafore, for example, as compared to a sermon. How is the
story of Pinafore told ? By a troupe of merrymakers, with spangles, footlights,
beautiful scenery, changing curtains, laughter, wonderful tricks, enlivening music,
gift matinees, noise, and general jollity. Now, how is the story of Bethlehem
told ? By one person, standing alone in the pulpit, in some cases one who speaks
English poorly, has never taken a lesson in elocution, knows nothing of oratory,
and has not learned the first principles of vocalization. Is it any wonder that
children go wild over Pinafore and care little for the story of Bethlehem ? And
we are all "children of a larger growth.''

280 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [May,

I claim that if God's fishermen were one-tenth as adroit in the baiting of their
hooks and the casting of their nets as are Satan's fishermen, their draught of fishes
would far outweigh those of the latter.

On one bank sits Satan with his followers, hundreds of them, all fishing
assiduously. At the end of every line hangs a " spicy " book, a new play, a game
of chance, a Mardi-Gras ball, etc. On the opposite bank is Peter with his follow-
ers. But what have they at the end of their lines? Thank Heaven ! there are some
well-written Catholic story-books, happy sermons, soul-inspiring music, and
beautiful processions ; but too often their hooks hang empty. Is it any wonder
that the poor foolish fish are drawn, in schools, to nibble at the sweet baits of
Satan, and light shy of the many baitless hooks on the other side?

A fine play, if ill-managed, poorly advertised, and badly billed, will surely fail,
and the fine troupe will play to empty benches. Now, the preacher stands a bet-
ter chance. All things being equal, the preacher has a much fairer audience than
the play. Do we not all know of many well-attended churches whose defective
acoustics, bad ventilation, uncomfortable seats, and other disadvantages would
kill any theatre, and would not be tolerated by any wide-awake manager ?

It was Divine Perfection itself which said, " Be ye wise as serpents,'' which
also commended the unjust steward " inasmuch as he had done wisely," and
rebuked the children of light for their lack of wisdom. So were it not wiser to
forego the ten- thousand-dollar organs and establish free Catholic libraries? Were
it not better to spend less on the fancy choir, and more for instructors in congre-
gational singing ?

I advance nothing new in advocating the doctrine of bait for fish ; of a low
rung in the ladder, as a first step for those who cannot reach a higher ; of using
not vinegar but honey to catch flies ; of working through people's prejudices, and
not against them ; of using human means and not trying to work by miracle
alone ; of promoting innocent amusement ; of desiring more Catholic stories, a
cheaper Catholic literature, dime-novels of the right sort, dime-dramas of the
right sort, low-priced periodicals, free schools, free libraries, free lectures, free
readings ; of a revival of miracle-plays, modernized ; of Catholic dramas, and of
all manner of lawful Catholic clubs.

Was it Carlyle or Johnson who set down the population of England at " thirty
millions, mostly fools "? Well, he was not far wrong. Is not the population of
the world thirteen hundred millions, mostly fools? Could lottery schemes, patent
medicines, humbug doctors, anti-poverty societies, drunkenness, dime museums,
high-heeled shoes, tight-lacing, poison cigarettes, and other frauds innumerable,
obtain among us as they do, if we were not " mostly fools " ? Oh ! yes, we are
simply foolish little fishes, and a little proper baiting, proper seining, proper net-
ting can take us in by shoals.

Our Lord meant what he said in saying, "Henceforth be ye fishers of men.''

Neiv Orleans, March, 1888. M. T. ELDER.

TEMPERANCE AND EDUCATION.

At a meeting in favor of high-license, held lately by the citizens of Brooklyn,
N Y., Rev. Joseph Fransioli, rector of St. Peter's Catholic Church in that city,
made an address in which he claimed that his parish school was entitled to recog-
nition for the work done there to inculcate correct principles regarding drunk-
enness.

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 281

It is not sufficient, he said, to pass a good law. ' There must be men with
minds well informed to understand their responsibilities. He felt it a sacred duty
of patriotism to teach his children that temperance takes rank, among Catholics,
as one of the chief or cardinal virtues.

In any of the schools under State control he, their pastor, would not be per-
mitted to teach lessons of sobriety, and other matters relating to the moral and
physical welfare of the children under his charge. Rather than leave the work
undone, or have it performed imperfectly, he had spent, during a period of over
twenty years, $321,000 in maintaining his parish school.

Whence came this large amount of money ? It was the free gift of the Catholic
taxpayers for the fostering of temperance and other virtues, civic as well as re-
ligious.

A CORRECTION.

The Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD :

The following appeared in the April number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, in
an article entitled " The Laity " :

" If next Sunday all the men and women in New York, between eighteen and sixty, who
sincerely declare themselves to be Catholics, and sincerely believe themselves to be Catholics,
were to take it into their heads to go to Mass, does any one for a moment suppose that the
churches of the city, even with the average of five successive Masses each, would be able to ac-
commodate more than a fraction of them ? "

Upon better information I find that there is not nearly so great a deficiency
of churches in the city as I thought there was. 1 by no means desired to reflect
on the management of the diocese or on the clergy of New York. The difficulty
of securing sites and erecting church buildings is something hard to appreciate
by those who have not been practically concerned with it. The object of my
article was to call attention to a different matter altogether namely, the question
of the people joining more generally in the public worship of God.

A LAYMAN.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ST. PETER, BISHOP OF ROME. By the Rev. T. Livius, C.SS.R., M.A., Oriel
College, Oxford. London: Burns & Oates ; New York: The Catholic
Publication Society Co. 1888.

There are many Episcopalians in this country who implicitly believe
Dr. Littledale and other leading writers of their denomination when they
flippantly assert that " it is only a guess that St. Peter was ever in Rome at
all ; it is only a guess that he was ever Bishop of Rome." To such
confiding readers we would recommend Father Livius' timely work, which
establishes the historical fact of the residence and bishopric of the Prince
of the Apostles in Rome. To Episcopalians, of all Christians, the matter is
of the utmost importance. Should they peruse St. Peter, Bishop of Rome,
without becoming convinced that their good faith has been imposed upon,
we would be unable to see how they could consistently believe other more
remote historical facts, such as the victories of Alexander the Great or the
conquest of Gaul by Caesar. We are afraid that the difference of their ver-
dict in those very similar cases would be based, not on the evidence, but

282 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [May,

on some moral motive. .Other historical facts do not bring with them any
religious obligations, whereas the fact that St. Peter was truly Bishop of
Rome would bind the inquirer to give up the church of his baptism, and
would dispel that pleasant dream of a church, Catholic without universal-
ity, Apostolic without mission, and One with a divided episcopacy. Such
a burden, we admit, should not be taken up without an overwhelming de-
monstration of its absolute necessity.

Father Livius supplies the desired fulness of proofs. In the first part
of his work he offers an imposing array of witnesses, from the fourth cen-
tury down to the first, who explicitly or implicitly testify that St. Peter,
after having exercised his episcopate at Antioch, came to Rome, and that
he there established his episcopal chair, which at his glorious death he left
to his successor as Bishop of Rome and as Shepherd of the entire flock of
Christ. The very Clementines both the Homilies and the Recognitions
apocryphal though they are, confirm the fact of the general belief to this
effect in the fourth century at the latest, just as the historical romances
about Charlemagne confirm the fact that this great emperor ruled over
the Prankish nation.

The same historical truth is made certain in the second part of the book
from the testimonies of the Roman Catacombs, those subterranean wit-
nesses of the early life of the Christian church. Whatever the learned but
biassed Dr. Schaff may say to the contrary, these Christian cemeteries were
used not only for the purposes of sepulture, but also for the purposes of
worship, ns is evident from the very shape of some of their recesses. Now,
in both ways, whether as places set apart for tombs or as chapels for reli-
gious exercises, they furnish many striking records of the presence of
Peter in Rome as Bishop of the Eternal City. See especially the chapters
on the gilded glasses and on the paintings of the Catacombs, and the in-
teresting notice on the chair: " Sedes ubt firius sedit Petrus Apostolus.'^

The author has in his first part mainly followed Dr. Jungmann's Dis-
sertations on Church History, and in the second North cote and Brownlow's
Roma Sotterranea. In the third part, which he calls his own, he discusses
at length the tradition on the subject, both in Catholic and in non-Cath-
olic communions, especially in the Greek Church ; and he explodes the
German rationalistic invention of the legendary theory of which Bauer,
Lipsius, and Zeller are the most noted exponents. He also refutes the
flimsy fabrication of Homersham Cox on the primacy of St. James, and the
often repeated and refuted fallacy of the equality of St. Paul with St. Peter.
The author's erudite dissertations close with a most interesting study of
the present state of the question among Anglican writers, who seem to
become more and more sceptical as the fact becomes clearer to others
one more example of the saying that none are so blind as those that will
not see. H. G.

St. "Joseph's Seminary, Troy, N. Y.

LETTERS OF FREDERIC OZANAM, PROFESSOR OF FOREIGN LITERATURE IN
THE SORBONNE. Translated from the French, with a connecting
sketch of his life, by Ainslie Coates. New York, Cincinnati, and Chi-
cago : Benziger Bros.

This book is really Ozanam's life told by his letters a kind of biogra-
phy the most real and most instructive possible in cases where men have

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 283

*left behind, as did Ozanam, a copious and familiar correspondence. He
had many friendships of that loving quality more common in southern
Europe than among English-speaking races, and his intercourse with
friends produced many letters which revealed him and his troubles,
perplexities, plans, joys, successes, even in great degree his interior re-
ligious experience. Arranged chronologically, linked together by the
epochs of his life, abridged of matter of mere passing interest, and also,
in consideration of the Protestant admirers of the writer of them, of such
things as he himself would doubtless have omitted if addressing them
personally, these letters are made up into a book which is a valuable
contribution to the study of a great character.

For Frederic Ozanam was really a great man. Not that he was what is
called a great gdnius, though his historical works will hold ever a high
place, and his criticism of Dante is unique in its power and beauty ; but
he was great in his perception of the relation of religion to modern society,
great in his expression of it. Catholics know him best in his character
of founder of the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, which are the prac-
tical expression of Ozanam's view of how the dominant element in so-
ciety should bear itself towards the poor. These Conferences, composed
of that social element which is in possession of the wealth and worldly
respectability of this life, are now actively at work among the homes of
the poor and the haunts of vice in every part of Christendom. They are,
perhaps, better calculated to restore to society the equilibrium of all its
orders than any other public force. The leaven of Christianity drained
out by the Reformation and its complement, the French Revolution, is
to be restored by the uncloistered charity of the laity of all orders,
especially the better-to-do classes.

The institution of the Conferences made Ozanam "the first gentleman
of the age."

In the political order Ozanam, being a Catholic Republican and
primarily a man of letters, was greater than his opportunities. What he
could have done had he lived longer or had he continued at the bar and
gone into political life, may be seen from his defence of the elder Lenormant
in the Sorbonne for his return to Catholicity, evidencing as it did his
courage and ability on critical occasions.

Not every man is best known by his letters ; but Ozanam is. He was
French : effusive, rhetorical, gay, emotional, always eloquent, and also
frank and interiorly true. The study of this aoble and generous disciple
of Christ and friend of humanity is all-important to fit one to deal with the
errors and aspirations of these times.

THE CANONS AND DECREES OF THE SACRED AND OECUMENICAL COUNCIL
OF TRENT. Translated by the Rev. J. Waterworth. To which are pre-
fixed Essays on the External and Internal History of the Council.
London : Burns & Gates ; New York : The Catholic Publication So-
ciety Co.

The impetus given to theological study by the legislation of the last
Plenary Council of Baltimore will necessarily increase the demand for
standard works of theology, and will, we hope, lead the clergy to push their
studies beyond the elementary text-books with which they began their
course in the seminary, inducing them to have recourse to the sources and

284 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [May,

springs of theological science. Of these sources a most important place *
is undoubtedly held by the great Council of Trent, by which the church
broke the attack of the so-called Reformation, and began that true re-
formation which has been accomplished and maintained ever since that
time within the church by the faithful and energetic carrying-out of the
legislation then made. We have always felt the somewhat jejune knowledge
of that legislation afforded by the text-books (sufficient though it be for
all purposes of mere necessity) does not enable the student to possess
himself of the mind of that great council and to enter fully into its spirit.
We therefore welcome this reissue of the translation of the Decrees of
the Council of Trent made some forty years ago by the Rev. John Water-
worth. We do so all the more heartily because it is a translation into
English. The vast number of theological works possessed by the French,
and by the Germans also, in their own language has always been a subject
of envy to us. Not merely have they large and detailed histories of the
church, lives of the saints, and translations of the Fathers, but they even
possess in the vernacular such works as the Summa of St. Thomas and
such text-books as Sanseverino and Zigliara. We fear that it will be a long
time before we can hope to have so extensive a literature, but in the mean-
while we ought to encourage every attempt made to realize so desirable an
object. It is an encouraging circumstance that Waterworth's Council of
Trent has now been reissued in response to numerous inquiries, the
previous edition having been long since exhausted.

It is not necessary to say much about this new edition, except that it is
fully equal, and perhaps in quality of paper superior, to the former edition ;
and this, for those who are acquainted with that edition, is saying every-
thing in its praise. For those who are not acquainted with the former
edition we may say that this volume comprises not merely the canons
and decrees of the council, but a history of the events which led up
to its calling and of the proceedings which eventuated in the decrees.
This history takes up 250 pages and will be of great interest for those to
whom Pallavacini's large work is inaccessible. There is also a very full
and reliable index.

UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS; or, Travels in Australia, Tasmania, New
Zealand, Samoa, and other Pacific Islands. By Maturin M. Ballou.
Boston : Ticknor & Co.

Mr. Ballou is an entertaining traveller amusing, that is to say, but not
especially suggestive, nor in any deep sense observant. What is on the
surface he sees and records in a style always readable ; and there is a good
deal on the surface in the countries through which this book takas one.
Like a good many of his fellow-citizens, Mr. Ballou appears to go about the
world so nearly unembarrassed by convictions on any points, except those
which relate to the material well-being of themselves and their fellows, that
one gives up, after a chapter or two, all expectation of anything better
from him. Thus in Samoa the sight of the divers and swimmers of both
sexes, who come alongside in great numbers, moves him to the sage re-
flection that when he " paused to think of the matter, it was they who were
naturally covered, and we who were artificially clothed." After which one
is not surprised to learn that a " convent of Samoan nuns," which has been

1 88 8.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 285

established near Apia by the Catholic priests on the island, struck Mr.
Ballou, when he "paused to think," as "the height of absurdity." What
interested us most in his book was its record of the ubiquitous Chinaman,
present everywhere, everywhere depraved and filthy as a rule, to which the
exceptions are as honorable as they are few, and everywhere the double of
the Anglo-Saxon in the work of supplanting the native races. What is to
be done for the Chinaman among us? A constant factor in Western civili-
zation, he cannot be escaped and must be reckoned with. Mr. Ballou has
no suggestions to offer, but he chronicles the fact that John is everywhere
esteemed an undesirable guest by both civilized and uncivilized peoples.

HENRY VIII. AND THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES : An Attempt to Illus-
trate the History of their Suppression. By Francis Aidan Gasquet,
O.S.B. London : John Hodges. 1888. Vol. I. ' [For sale in New York
by the Catholic Publication Society Co.]

We cannot do better than place at the head of our notice of this most
important work the words of Mr. James Gairdner in his review of it in a
recent number of the Academy, coming as they do from one who, having
distinguished himself by his works on this period of English history, and
being at the same time a Protestant, is at once both competent to form a
judgment and without bias in favor of the church. He says at the con-
clusion of his article:

"Such is the real story of the famous visitation of the monasteries, as
it appears in Father Gasquet's book. It is a new story, which it was im-
possible to tell even a few years ago with anything like accuracy, simply
because the original evidences had not been made sufficiently accessible
or comprehensively catalogued in true chronological order. But, although
the author is avowedly himself a monk, and dedicates his work to Pope
Leo XIII., by whom, it appears, he was induced to undertake it, he need
fear no contradiction hereafter on the main point here revealed. The old
scandals, universally discredited at the time, and believed in by a later
generation only through prejudice and ignorance, are now dispelled for
ever, and no candid Protestant will ever think of reviving them."

In the short notice which is all we can at present give it will be suffi-
cient to indicate the general scope and the place which it is intended to
fill. The first and only attempt which had hitherto been made to give a
connected and particular account of the suppression of the English mon-
asteries was that of Canon Dixon in his History of the Church of Eng-
land, and he only treated it as an episode of a greater subject. Father
Gasquet's is the first attempt to make the suppression the object of a
special inquiry, and for this purpose he has had recourse to a large mass
of material hitherto unpublished and unconsulted. In order to make his
researches he has travelled through the length and breadth of England.
The bishops of the Established Church have given him access to the
archives of their sees. Of their courtesy and kindness Father Gasquet
makes the warmest acknowledgment, admitting that if they had not ac-
corded him this privilege it would have been vain'for him to write at all.
We may, perhaps, in passing, say how much we wish that some writers in
our Catholic papers would follow Father Gasquet's example and speak of
those from whom they differ with at least common civility.

The ultimate authority as to the state of the monasteries has hitherto

286 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [May,

been certain reports made by Cromwell's visitors. The great result
achieved by Father Gasquet is to show the untrustworthiness of these re-
ports by reference to contemporary testimony. He traces in brief the
position of the monks in England in the period antecedent to Henry, and
then gives in detail the proceedings in Henry's reign. This first volume
embraces the suppression of th'e lesser monasteries; the proceedings with
reference to the larger monasteries will be the subject of the second
volume, which is to appear in the autumn. On a future occasion we intend
to return to this important work and to give it a more extended treat-
ment.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW MEXICO. By the
Very Rev. James H. Defouri, Pastor of the Church of Our Lady of
Guadalupe, Santa Fe.

In this little book Father Defouri has given us a summary of the his-
tory of the diocese of which he is vicar-general, and in which he has spent
many years in missionary labors. Much that is highly interesting is about
the early Spanish missionaries, men of heroic mould, mostly of the Fran-
ciscan Order, many of them martyrs. The singular spectacle, presented in
many parts of Spanish-America, of a devoted clergy and rapacious and
cruel civil and military rulers, was presented in the early days of New
Mexico. The famous revolt of the partly Christianized natives, two hun-
dred years ago, provoked by the tyranny of the government, but falling most
.disastrously on the missions, is an event worthy of much study.

Father Defouri's account of affairs when the saintly Archbishop Lamy,
not long since passed to his reward, came with the United States authori-
ties to assume ecclesiastical control, is like a romance. What noble souls
the French missionaries are, indeed ! How it stirs the blood to read of
their dauntless courage, their patience and self-denial, their tender affec-
tion for their spiritual children, often the most worthless beings under the
sun !

Let us hope that this tribute of a true-hearted missionary to the zeal
and sanctity of his brethren may obtain the wide circulation it deserves.

LIVES OF THE DECEASED BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE
UNITED STATES. With an analytical index. By Richard H. Clarke,
LL.D. Vol. III. New York : Richard H. Clarke.

The lives of forty-three bishops are given in this volume, which brings
the whole work of Dr. Clarke pretty nearly down to date, making three
volumes in all. The object of the author is to give a summary of the chief
events in the lives of deceased American prelates, and some statement
of their most prominent traits. of character. Hence condensation has been
necessary. As he writes more to convey general information than to make
an historical study of times so recent and of men so lately actively con-
cerned in public life, his tone is not critical; indeed, now and then he
seems to pass the bounds of formal praise and to be too laudatory. How-
ever, in some cases, and those requiring rather delicate handling, he has
expressed his own convictions with commendable frankness.

A work of this kind, it seems to us, is indispensably necessary for all
who write for the press, and for all libraries, both private and public. It

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 287

is, besides, of much interest for the ordinary reader. Such men as Arch-
bishops Spalding, Bayley, Purcell, McCloskey, Blanchet, have left among
us much that is of absorbing interest to every intelligent American.
Other prelates were beset with such misfortunes and subject to such vicis-
situdes, as Bishop Lynch of Charleston, that there is really something
of absorbing and' touching interest in even a brief summary of their noble
Jives.

The author is his own publisher, and has got out a well-printed book,
bound in first-rate style and every way creditable in its manufacture.

SPIRITUAL RETREATS. Notes of Meditations and Considerations given in
the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton. By the Most Rev.
George Porter, S.J., Archbishop of Bombay. London : Burns & Gates
(Limited); New York : The Catholic Publication Society Co.

Archbishop Porter, as is well known, filled for several years the office
of master of novices of the English Province of the Society of Jesus.
Previously he had been professor of dogmatic theology at St. Benno's and
rector of a large parish. To him was entrusted the defence of the society
in the differences which arose between the religious orders and the Eng-
lish bishops. A short time ago he was raised by the Holy See to his pre-
sent exalted position.

This volume contains the notes of the Meditations and Considerations
given by him in retreats made in the convent of the Sacred Heart in the
years 1881, 1885, and 1886. On each day there were three Meditations and one
Consideration. Two of the retreats were for eight days, the other for six.
The Meditations are modelled on those of St. Ignatius, and are faithful to
his precepts, not being so long as to exhaust the subject but suggestive
of thought and leaving much for the one who meditates to do for himself.
This little work, coming as it does from one who is at once so profound a
theologian, so well versed in spiritual and ascetical literature, and of such
wide experience in the every-day life of the world, will be welcomed by
all who either have to guide and assist others in the spiritual life or who
are trying to lead a spiritual life themselves.

IRISH Music AND SONG : A Collection of Songs in the Irish Language set
to music. Edited for the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Lan-
guage, by P. W. Joyce, LL.D. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son.

Dr. Joyce's Collection of Songs in the Irish Language presents us with
a number of quaint and beautiful melodies to which the simple poetic
language is admirably adapted. Many of these songs are unfamiliar to the
majority of those who admire Irish music, but need only an introduction
to become as great favorites as the best-known Irish melodies.

THE LIFE OF SAINT PATRICK, Apostle of Ireland. With a preliminary
account of the Sources of the Saint's History. By William Bullen
Morris, Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Third Edition. New
York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.; London : Burns & Gates.

The first edition of Father Morris' Life of St. Patrick appeared ten years
ago. The present is not a mere reprint of the former editions, but large
alterations have been made. The Introduction has been rewritten, an in-
quiry into the state of Ireland at the period of St. Patrick's advent has been

288 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [May, 1888.

introduced into the life, and there are considerable additions as well as omis-
sions in the body of the work. Father Morris is not a collector of legends,
and has, though with reluctance, rejected all stories, however beautiful
in themselves, which have not sufficient evidence for their truth. The
author has thrown his whole soul into this work, and has spared no labor
and no research^to make it complete and trustworthy. We need not say
that he has the fullest sympathy with St. Patrick's work and the greatest
veneration for the saint. In our judgment this life will be found to be the
best which has yet been written, combining as it does the results of ac-
curate and painstaking research and long and patient study with the
reverence due to the saint and to the great work he accomplished.

BOOKS RECEIVED.
The mention of books in this place does not preclude extended notice in subsequent numbers.

A LITERARY AND BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY: or, Bibliographical Dictionary of the English

Catholics from the Breach with Rome in 1534 to the present time. By Joseph Gillow.

Vol. III. London : Burns & Oates ; New York: Catholic Publication Society Co. [Want

of space compels the withholding of our notice of this important work until next month.]
PALESTINE IN THE TIME OF CHRIST. By Edmond Stapfer, D.D. Translated by Annie

Harwood Holmden. Third Edition, with Map and Plans. New York: A. C. Armstrong

&Son.

TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY. By James Martineau, D.D., LL.D., late Principal of Man-
chester New College, London. Second edition, revised. Two volumes. New York:

Macmillan & Co.
ESSAYS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. By the late Wm. G. Ward, Ph.D., sometime

Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, etc. Reprinted from the Dublin Review. Edited with

an introduction by Wilfrid Ward. Two volumes. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.;

New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago: Benziger Bros.
CHRISTIANITY IN THE UNITED STATES from the first settlement down to the present time.

By Daniel Dorchester, D.D. New York: Phillips & Hunt; Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe.
THE PROVIDENTIAL MISSION OF LEO XIII. A Lecture by John J. Keane, Bishop of Rich-
mond. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co.
OLD THEOLOGY HEALING AS TAUGHT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SCIENCE OF SPIRIT.

By E. J. Arens. Boston: A. S. Arthur.
THE CRIME AGAINST IRELAND. By J. Ellen Foster. With a Preface by John Boyle

O'Reilly. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co.
WHAT AMERICAN AUTHORS THINK ABOUT INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. New York:

American Copyright League.
STORIES OF FIRST-COMMUNICANTS. Drawn from the best authors by Rev. Dr. Joseph A.

Keller. Translated, with permission of the author, by Francis M. Kemp. New York,

Cincinnati, and Chicago: Benriger Bros.
IRISH WONDERS. The Ghosts. Giants, Pookas, Demons, Lepreechawns, Banshees, Fairies,

Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other marvels of the Emerald Isle. Popular tales as

told by the people. By D. R. McAnally, Jr. Illustrated by H. R. Heaton. Boston and

New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
THE PERFECT RELIGIOUS ACCORDING TO THE RULE OF ST. AUGUSTINE ; or, Instructions

for all religious, referring principally to the constitutions of religious Ursulines. By

Francis Xavier Weniger, S.J. Translated from the German by a member of the Ursu-

line Community, St. Mary's, Waterford. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son.
THE FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE INDIAN RIGHTS

ASSOCIATION, 1887. Philadelphia : Indian Rights Association.
I AM THE SHEPHERD TRUE. Sacred Song. Words by F. W. Faber, D.D. Music by John

A. MacMeikan. New York: Stanley Lucas, Weber & Co.
MONTH OF ST. JOSEPH. By the Abbe Berlioux. Being practical meditations for every day of

the month of March. Translated from the French by Eleanor Cholmely. Dublin : M. H.

Gill & Son.
CEREMONIAL OF THE ALTAR. A Guide to Low Mass, according to the ancient customs of

the Church of England. Compiled by a priest. London : Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.

This is a Protestant book.
DK SPIRITU SOCIETATIS JESU. Auctore Julio Costa Rossetti, S.J. Friburgi Brisgoviae :

Herder. 1888.
PKRCY'S REVENGE : A Story for Boys. By Clara Mulholland. Boston : Thomas B. Noonan

& Co. 1887. Hearth and Home Library.
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON : A Story of Boy Life ; and KENSINGTON, JUNIOR. By

Margaret Sidney. Boston : D. Lothrop & Co.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XLV1I. JUNE, 1888.. No. 279.

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE.

FROM the German universities our literary pilgrimage now
turns towards France. It is with a feeling of sadness in our
hearts that we approach her. 'Tis not as in the days of yore,
when from every corner of the earth the tens of thousands of
eager students flocked to her, as the undisputed queen of the
intellectual world. Other powers have since arisen in a night
which they then knew not of ; and she herself is not what she
used to be. German accuracy has beaten her in the schools as
well as on the battle-fields, and voices now speak of her with
something of contempt that once were eloquent in admiration
and homage.

And yet she is still a queen. The blush of shame is indeed
upon her cheek, not only for the triumphs of the stranger, but
still more for the want of loyalty to the truth by which so many of
her unworthy sons have dishonored her intellectual fame. But it
is a blush of fair and noble majesty that must yet vindicate itself.
Method and accuracy are unquestionably essential to success
either in research or in instruction, and France has been suffering
sadly for her comparative deficiency in them ; but they are far
from being the noblest elements in intellectual greatness. Enthu-
siasm cannot take the place of plodding exactness ; but there is
in it far more of inspiration, of elevation, of soul power, of the
human.

The most exact machine is no substitute for man.

There is much in the German system that is machine-like, hard
and dry and unamiable, more calculated to astonish than to move
to genuine admiration and to a desire to imitate it. For the
truest expression of the human, yes, and of the Divine, we still
must look to France. She has only to learn accuracy from her
neighbor, beyond the Rhine and she is fast learning it and the

290 THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE. [June,

present ascendency of Germany's educational renown will surely
not last. So it is with hope in our hearts, as well as sadness, that
we turn to the once proud Mistress of the Schools.

Arriving in Paris, we lose no time in finding the Institut
Catholique, now the only representative of the Christian glories
of the far-famed University of Paris. The rector, Mgr. d'Hulst,
we had previously met in Rome, under circumstances which en-
abled us soon to discover how well founded is the esteem in
which he is universally held for deep and varied learning, for ad-
ministrative ability, and for grandeur of character. Under his
courteous guidance we examine the whole institution, and then
spend a charming evening with him and his professors. It is well
that he and they are the men they are, men filled -with the spirit
of faith and of martyrdom, or their noble effort would have ere
this been given up in despair. It is a spirit that well becomes the
hallowed ground on which they stand ; for the old College of the
Carmelites, which they now occupy, beheld the martyrdom of a
legion of the soldiers of the cross in the bitter days which in-
augurated France's temporary unfaithfulness to her Lord. They
are standing their ground, holding up the banner of higher
Christian education, in the lace of the bitterest hostility from the
enemies of religion, and of too scanty encouragement from its
friends, strong in the sense of duty to God and to France, and in
the hope of better days to come. Mgr. d'Hulst is a splendid
pilot through the darkness and the storm. His unanimous selec-
tion to be president of the International Catholic Congress of
Scientists, which is in session while I write, sufficiently shows
how high is his position and how wide his influence among the
Catholic scholars of Europe.

A doleful story is that oft-told tale which he recounts to us of
the vicissitudes of higher education in France. Up to the great
Revolution, France professed Christianity, and her universities,
more than twenty in number, grouped around the unrivalled
University of Paris, led the van of the world's intellectual pro-
gress. In a day they were swept down and cast into the red
flood. When Napoleon snatched the country from the vortex of
threatened barbarism, he reconstructed the educational system in
accordance with his own notions of centralized and absolute
Caesarism. The University of France took the place of all the
educational institutions that had preceded it, comprising the
whole course of instruction throughout the country from the
elementary schools upward, and shaped and moved in all its de-
tails by the central authority at Paris that is, by the all-absorbing
will of Napoleon himself. In education as in all else the domi-

i888.] THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE. 291

nant idea was, not truth, nor morality, nor the popular welfare,
but the casting of the whole mind and life of the nation in the
mould of his own lofty ambition, so that he might say even more
truly than did Louis XIV., " La France, cest moi" Under all
succeeding governmental changes the form and the spirit of
the educational system have remained the same. It has seen the
empire yield to the monarchy, and the monarchy to the republic,
and the republic to the empire, and the empire to the republic
once more; but the same absolutism has been the dominating spirit
of them all. It has been the rule of one set of ideas or of another;
but each set has ruled with the same intolerant absolutism.

Higher education has had most to suffer from this system.
When the dominant spirit of the state system was contrary to the
convictions and the conscience of the people, they were free to
have volunteer schools where their children could be educated as
they wished. But higher education is at the mercy of those who
conduct examinations and confer degrees, and these prerogatives
the state refused to all but its own officials. Only in 1875 was the
National Assembly shamed by the burning eloquence of Bishop
Dupanloup and his Catholic colleagues into granting liberty of
higher education. Instantly, with an enthusiasm worthy of the
sacred cause, the Catholics of France sprang to the noble work be-
fore them, and five Catholic universities were at once established,
at Paris, Lyons, Toulouse, Angers, and Lille. At Paris, the Ecole
des Hautes Etudes, which for thirty years had struggled to keep
alive some lingering embers of higher Christian education, blos-
somed forth almost immediately with all the faculties of a univer-
sity. With marvellous rapidity the same was done at the other
points above-named. The old Christian glories were about to
gleam out again. Irreligion sounded the alarm and set all its
machinery to work. The law was abolished, the right of con-
ferring degrees cancelled, and the very name of university for-
bidden to them. Shorn of the rights and prestige which they
had scarcely begun to enjoy, and permitted to exist only as train-
ing-schools for the government examinations, the Catholic Insti-
tutes, as they are now called, have thus far stood their ground,
waiting for better days, but not knowing when nor whence to
expect them. Bravely these devoted men uphold the banner of
the cross, which was the labarum of their country in the days
when history recorded the " gesta Dei per Francos" To-day they
are sneered at for it, and are regarded almost as aliens in their
own country, whose administration is so shamefully and disas-
trously swayed by hostility to religion. But Frenchmen know
how to be heroes, and, impetuous as they are, they know how to

292 THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE. [June,

be patient and to wait. According to the signs of the times, they
can hardly have to wait long. Popular weariness of the present
condition of things is being plainly manifested on all sides. Just
what to put in its place the people seem at present not to know ;
but the events with which our century opened show that an ex-
treme of impiety and violence, such as we have of late been wit-
nessing, is sure to bring a salutary reaction in some shape. And
so the truest friends of France wait and hope.

Closely akin to the difficulty arising from government oppo-
sition is another arising from popular inertness. A so-called
paternal government is naturally apt to produce a nation of
children. The French have so long been used to having the
initiative in all things taken by the government, that it is no
wonder that, as the dean of the Faculty of Sciences in the Catho-
!lic Institute of Lyons lately wrote to me, " it has become a habit
with the people to do nothing without the concurrence of the
state." Sad illustration of the truth that inordinate govern-
mental interference and control not only leads to state tyranny
but also to popular paralysis. Cesare Cantu was right in saying
that the aim of wise governments must be not to supersede or
fetter but to encourage and aid individual enterprise. The re-
sults of the contrary policy are now sorely felt by the Catholic
universities of France for we must give them their true name, in
spite of the petty tyranny which forbids it. The people do not
rally to their support as they ought. The pitiful spectacle of a
great nation wringing its hands and leaving itself to be misgov-
erned by an aggressive faction which it could easily strangle, is
reproduced in the condition of its Catholic universities, which
represent but too well not the apathy but the discouragement
and lack of energy in which the people sit brooding.

A magnificent exception to this is found in the Catholic Univer-
sity of Lille. There the people have still a large measure of the
bold, free spirit and energy of their Flemish ancestors, united
with the generosity of the French character, and the result is seen
in their splendidly equipped university. Not only are its faculties
thoroughly organized, but its stately university structures, its
spacious grounds, its lovely gardens, its admirably arranged and
well-stocked library and laboratories, its beautiful and comfortable
residences for professors and students, are a joy to behold. They
reflect endless honor not only on the admirable management of
the rector, Mgr. Hautcceur, but also on the noble zeal and gene-
rosity of the people of 'Lille. The university has published its
monthly Bulletin ever since its establishment in 1875, and it is de-
lightful to see how, month after month, it tells of the munificence

1 888.] THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE. 293

with which one professorial chair after another was endowed,
and one structure after another erected or furnished, to complete
the symmetry of the great plan. Some considerable portions of
the general design remain still unfinished, but there is every indi-
cation that they will not be so long. There was nothing on
which the late lamented Cardinal Czacki for whose friendly inte-
rest in our Catholic University we will be for ever grateful used
to dwell with more delight in his conversations with us than the
active part which he had in aiding and fostering the establishment
of the University of Lille. May his prayers assist us now in our
great undertaking, and may the splendid generosity of the people
of Lille be emulated by the Catholics of America !

Still another difficulty weighs down the Catholic universities
of France from which, above all, it behooves us to take warning.
As stated above, immediately on the passage of the law granting
freedom of higher education, five universities were established
by the Catholics of France, in the centre and in the four corners
of the country. That so many were required by the necessities
of the immense Catholic population was beyond question. But
that so many could be established and supported and brought to
perfection all at the same time was quite a different matter,
which ordinary prudence might well pause to consider. But the
enthusiasm of the hour brooked no delay. Moreover, speedy
action seemed necessary, that the needed number of universities
might be established while the fickle sun of governmental favor
was shining. The dread which urged their action was speedily
realized ; but its realization left on the hands of the disheartened
people a burden that seems beyond their strength. One or two
universities could have been safely carried through and per-
fected by united endeavor; but to build up five simultaneously
is proving impracticable. One of them is languishing to death,
and those of Paris and Lyons are kept up only by heroic efforts.

Again and again the moral of this lesson was urged upon us,
both in France and in Rome. The observant eyes of Cardinal
Czacki, of the Propaganda, and especially of the Holy Father,
took in the situation fully, and repeatedly they impressed upon us
that, while the immense extent of our country will assuredly call
for several Catholic universities eventually, we must so advance
as to make certain the success of one before starting another.
Unite, they said, all the energies of your country in perfectly or-
ganizing first your central and national university, and then you
can safely follow the expansion of the church by the establishment
of others. And they were glad to learn that such is precisely
the determination of the Hierarchy of our country.

294 THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE. [June,

Being requested by Mgr. d'Hulst to address the Divinity
students of his university, I spoke to them for an hour on the
condition and progress of the church in the United States, on the
character of our Catholic people, on the relations between
church and state which have thus far proved so advantageous
to religion in our country, as contrasted with the religious con-
dition in other lands, and then on the Catholic University whose
establishment is to crown the church's first century in this grand
new field. Their eyes sparkled as they listened, and one could
easily see in their faces not only how intense is the interest with
which they watch our great enterprise, but also how they almost
envy us our atmosphere of genuine freedom, so well calculated
to develop all that is noblest in human energies. " One thing,"
said Mgr. d'Hulst to me, "is very evident in your discourse, and
that is your love for your country." " And how could it be
otherwise?" 1 answered; "even were one so dull as not to ap-
preciate our national blessings as he ought, he has only to visit
poor France, and see how she languishes under the despotism of
what has not yet learned to be a republic, and his heart is filled
with gratitude for our free atmosphere, in which all that is good
may expand to its utmost, and he becomes, if he were not such
before, an enthusiastic American." One needs the spectacle of
the contrast in order to appreciate rightly the happiness of our
condition. It would, indeed, be silly to play the optimist, and to
see nothing but excellence in our country's organization. Un-
mixed perfection is not to be found in any earthly association of
human beings. But a glance back at history, or a glance around
at the world, is quite sufficient to convince a fair mind that the
true and the good have here a freer field than they have ever had
before, or now have elsewhere, and that should they fall short of
the glorious and salutary results that may reasonably be expected
of them, it could be owing only to a lack of appreciation and of
zeal on the part of their own adherents.

The number of Divinity students in the Catholic University
of Paris is not large, has probably never exceeded fifty. The
reason of this is obvious : it gives only a superior course of
Divinity, to which no student is admitted who has not already
gone through the ordinary course in some approved seminary.
In this it imitates the example of Louvain, but it differs from the
other French universities, which, with perhaps one other excep-
tion, imitate the ecclesiastical schools of Rome, and give a course
of Divinity which, while of a superior order, does not presup-
pose any theological course previously made. It might at first
sight seem that this latter system would be detrimental to the

1 888.] THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE. 295

already existing seminaries; but they assured us at Lille that
such is not the case. Only students of very remarkable talents,
they say, are sent to the university ; and therefore, though the
number is naturally larger than if an exclusively second course
were given, still the great body of students are sent, as a matter
of course, to pursue their studies in the ordinary seminaries ; and
thus, while students of exceptional ability are given the opportu-
nity to which their talents entitle them of making as perfect
studies as possible, no appreciable disadvantage has been inflicted
on the previously existing institutions. These considerations,
however, though strongly urged, could not avail to change the
resolution of the founders of the University of Paris that it should
give only a second course of Divinity. Nor are they shaken in
their purpose by the comparative fewness of their ecclesiastical
students which is the natural consequence. Non numerandi, sed
ponderandi is their motto. Not to do much work, but to do the
very best sort of work, is their aim a noble one surely.

Inquiring into the object had in view by the several students,
we learned that the greater number of them are preparing to be
professors in the seminaries and colleges which abound in the
various dioceses. Others are destined by their bishops for some
diocesan office calling for more than ordinary proficiency in
liturgy, canon-law, or some other special branch of ecclesiastical
knowledge. Others, in fine, have been sent by their bishops, or
have themselves asked and obtained the permission to continue
their studies, because of their special desire and fitness for pro-
found scholarship in sacred science.

Glancing now to our own country, we see how all these pos-
sibilities of honorable usefulness exist to an almost equal degree,
appealing to the laudable ambition of our young ecclesiastics,
while our peculiar circumstances present other inducements be-
sides, which in France have but limited existence. Our semi-
naries and colleges, already numerous and excellent, must be still
more multiplied and perfected in order to meet the demands of
our rapidly increasing and steadily progressing Catholic popula-
tion. The religious orders and congregations established for
that special work stand already in sore need of helpers in so wide
a field, and these must be prepared for their important task, not
only by specially wide and profound studies but also by the
normal training that will fit them to impart knowledge success-
fully. In proportion, too, as the ecclesiastical organization of our
country comes more into accord with the norma of canon-law,
our bishops will need men specially trained in this important
branch of practical learning.

296 THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE. [June,

But the chief incentive will be found in the unparalleled field
which our country presents for the direct action of solid learning
on the people through the pen and the spoken word. This is not
found in an equal degree in France, nor, we might say, in any
other country, because nowhere else are the relations between
clergy arid people so close, so intimate, so cordial, so trustful, as
they are among us. In the old countries the political and social
events of centuries have conspired to make the clergy and the
people classes apart, to lessen mutual sympathy and confidence.
The utterances of the priest too often sound like a voice from
another sphere, and therefore have not the practical weight which
they ought to have with the denizens of this sublunary world.
With us, the priest has only to show himself the learned and holy
and high-minded and broad-hearted man that he ought to be, and
he finds that his sacred character only adds power to his influ-
ence. Without those qualities his usefulness is apt to be con-
fined within the limits of his sacramental ministrations ; but with
such attributes of character and scholarship, he has a field be-
fore him here such as the world has never elsewhere beheld.
To form such men and such scholars is to be the aim of the
Catholic University of America. Who can doubt that the spirit
of our people and the Providence of God will assure its realiza-
tion? Who can doubt that, among the young ecclesiastics of the
United States, many will be found in whose hearts love of God
and love of country will awaken and foster the desire to fit them-
selves for such noble usefulness?

With them will shortly, please God, be associated in our Uni-
versity, as in Paris, numbers of young laymen who feel in their
souls the ambition to be something more than mere money-mak-
ing machines. Such souls there must be, and such there will be
in constantly greater numbers. It would be an injustice to human
nature to doubt it. They need but the right touch upon them to
rouse them to self-consciousness and make them leap forward to
proffered opportunities. To supply those opportunities, and to
rouse the latent manhood in the breasts of the rising generation,
is the work now before us. It is a work which God and church
and country must unite in blessing.

While I write, news reaches us that on Wednesday, the 2ist
of March, our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII., granted Jubilee
audience to the representatives of all the colleges and seminaries
in Rome. As is usual with him on all such occasions, the Cath-
olic University of America was the subject uppermost in his
thoughts. Never before did he manifest such earnestness in re-
gard to it. Addressing his remarks to the Right Rev. Rector

1 888.] Is PROTESTANT UNITY POSSIBLE f 297

of the American College, he said with evident emotion : " About
the University at Washington, it is my desire that all the bishops
should work together with unity and with energy. I have con-
fided the care of the University to them, and it would greatly
grieve me md I suppose that there could possibly be among them
any want of agreement and of earnestness in regard to it. Let
them at once push this work to completion, and they will win for
the University the support of public opinion in the United States.
The honor of the American episcopate demands it, yea, the honor
of the church in the United States, and the dignity of the Holy
See, which has so solemnly given this University its approval."

These are rousing words from the Vicar of Christ. They
must thrill through every Catholic heart, scattering any lurking
remnants of hesitation or doubt, and spurring all to determined
resolution and to noblest endeavor. Leo XIII. shall not be
disappointed. JOHN J. KEANE.

IS PROTESTANT UNITY POSSIBLE?

WE are not surprised to find this question asked and dis-
cussed in the official organ of our good friends the champions
of " Progressive Orthodoxy" at Andover. It comes in as a
very appropriate and very serious topic for examination, as fol-
lowing the leading article of the March number of their Review,
which, we are informed in a foot-note, is the first of a series in
which they propose to discuss the principle of the" Universality
of Christianity" in the light of recent criticism. The hoped-for
"coming event" of an universal Christianity certainly might
be expected by all reasonable minds to "cast some shadow" of
its advent before; and it is instinctively felt by these earnest-
minded, would-be heralds of such a desirable boon that, if it
does not foreshadow unity, or what can be interpreted as such,
every sensible man will conclude that their proposed universal
Christianity has no real body, but will be regarded in the same
light as the legend tells us of the " man without a shadow" a
weird, uncanny creature whom every one will avoid or treat
as the baseless fabric of a disordered vision. Hence the appear-
ance of the article we are considering, the matter of which cer-
tainly furnishes food for friendly criticism.

It may be that they think they have yet in reserve a more
powerful battery to bring into line than this present piece of
rather small calibre and of feeble though genial report, and that
they intend this to be taken only as a signal-gun, whose dis-

298 Is PROTESTANT UNITY POSSIBLE? [June,

charge is not meant to do any serious damage to the enemies of
unity, but only to arouse them from their state of sleepy indif-
ference, and politely warn them to prepare for an attack to be
made with heavier and more destructive artillery.

Yet we think not. Indeed, we are sure that thjf one little
gun constitutes their whole armament in the division which is
to be deployed against that particular adversary. They may
point it higher or point it lower; they may have it loaded,
primed, and fired under different supervision (and care must
be taken not to load it with too heavy shot lest it prove self-
destructive), but it will be still the same gun. The army of
Disunion may slumber in peace ; it is for the most part too far
out of their range and too scattered for any one to be hit, to
say nothing of the random aim with which it is directed.

Yet with all our heart we commend the sincerity which un-
questionably underlies this manifestation of extraordinary and
hopeful courage in so promptly and frankly acknowledging that
Disunion is an enemy, and, as they should all along have known,
an uncompromising and logical enemy, to any universality what-
soever. If their aim is in fact taken at random, it is in spirit
and intention most sincere. A few words from their own lips
will prove that : " Evidently the time has come when we
should seriously consider the possibility of reuniting Protestant-
ism. Christianity is to-day menaced by hostile forces, which
can only be overcome, if at all, by its united strength. The
materialism of the age, with its long train of influences opposed
to any kind of spirituality, the attention paid to the arts and
sciences which minister to the comfort and luxury of life, the
ominous weakening of the idea of duty, the growing strength
of the lawless and anti-religious elements of society, and gene-
rally the existence of so many tendencies in modern life which
are inimical to the healthy existence and orderly growth of
religious faith all these are to-day standing in united array
against Christianity in any form. In view of these opposing
forces, are the Protestant churches still determined to go on
with their family feuds and guerrilla warfare, or are they con-
vinced of the folly and wickedness of this course, and are they
ready for the future to dwell together in that unity (?) which
should characterize the church of God?"

Here is good proof of the courage we have accredited to
them. They frankly own to both the folly and the wickedness
of disunion. But we are tempted to ask just here: Was dis-
union not always foolish and wicked? Is it only so now because
a united array of hostile forces are threatening what they are

1 888.] Is PROTESTANT UNITY POSSIBLE? 299

pleased to call the church of God? It would almost seem to be
their thought when we read on a preceding page: "There was
much that was picturesque, much even that was commendable,
in the old heroic age of denominationalism," the -heroism dis-
played in "those days of internecine strife almost making one
forget that civil war is always deplorable, though the com-
batants on each side are heroes." Deplorable ! Gentlemen, it
was foolish and wicked, as you have yourselves said, and no
glamour of picturesqueness can ever cover over its wretched
folly and its unpardonable wickedness.

It will not fail to be observed that, in the beginning of the
quotation we have made, the writer instantly makes a dis-
tinction between Protestantism and Christianity, and, in the lat-
ter part, between the "Protestant churches" and "the church
of God." This distinction is no lapsus calami. He knows too
much to make " Christianity " and " Protestantism," and the
" Protestant churches" and "the church of God," interchange-
able terms. Christianity, he tells us further on, is a something
which "is in the very air we breathe, which would still e^ist, nay,
more, would grow, and would soon take on to itself a new out-
ward form and organization suitable to the circumstances which
surrounded it, though some great cataclysm of thought .swept
every ecclesiastical organization on the earth to-day out of ex-
istence." And he immediately adds: " The Church of the future
will not be th'e exact pattern of any one church of to-day." This
new, outward form and organization of a Christianity which is
thus coolly taken for granted as without any legitimate form
and organization now, but which will be embodied in a church
of God, which again is supposed not to be in existence (although
he speaks of it as if it did exist somehow or somewhere), is, we
presume, the "Universal Christianity" which our Andover es-
sayists are seeking for, and have so sincerely and courageously
set themselves to the work of finding, or, at least, of defining its
most probable nature and characteristics. We have heard of
this " Church of the Future " before the church our Lord al-
ways will found but never does and we are very sorry to meet
the same old acquaintance again in this place.

But why is this writer, speaking, we presume, for the unit-
ed corps of our valiant champions of " Progressive Orthodoxy,"
so much concerned about the possible reunion of Protestant
churches? Will Protestant unity be the shadow cast by the
hoped-for universal Christianity? Will the then united Pro-
testant Church be "the church of God"? Will this united
church enjoying Protestant unity be, or will it even dare to claim

3CO IS PROTESTANT UNITY POSSIBLE? [June,

to be, Christ's " One Fold under one Shepherd " ? Undoubtedly
not. Then the unity of Christianity and the oneness of the church
will not yet be realized. The Christianity which they could
then affirm would be at best a something, and the church of God
a something-, which still lacks unity, a house still divided against
itself, a disordered system to the direction of whose disunited
elements no one central, organic, personal power can be applied.

"Oh!" but says our worthy essayist, "Christianity cannot
be monopolized by any one division of the Christian church.
It has been and is yet the dream of certain Christian bodies that
some day or other all the Christian world will be reunited by
acknowledging their claims to be the true and only representa-
tive of Christianity. Such a dream will never be realized!"
We have never heard ourselves of but one body that ever
dreamed such a dream, or ever pretended to have had such a
vision. But let that pass.

The writer evidently has no conception of a Christianity or
of a Christian church without divisions. Reunion of Protest-
antism, >r rather hoped-for union for it never had any unity to
be re established cannot therefore give unity to Christianity
nor make one Christian church. There must still remain divi-
sions, more or less, neither of which must dream of monopolizing
Christianity.

So, for the life of us, we cannot see of what particular use the
union of all the Protestant "churches" proposed by them will
prove. "But have you not heard me say," asks our essayist,
" that Christianity is to-day menaced by hostile forces which
can only be overcome, if at all, by its united strength?" Yes,
we heard you say as much, and we are sorry to see you fearful
of the result of the conflict between Christianity and these hos-
tile forces. We think you ought to have more confidence in
the strength of Truth, and more faith in our Lord's promise
that the gates of hell shall never prevail against his church.
But will the strength of Christianity be united when Protestant-
ism shall be able to declare itself in unity? According to your
own clearly-expressed views, there never was, is not, nor will
be one monopoly of Christianity. Cannot you even allow that
there might be one board of directors, chosen from all the
divisions of Christianity, or what might be rather, as you inti-
mate, a number of "divided unities," of which Protestantism
is to be one when it gets united? These might vote, accord-
ing as they would be directed by their constituents, on what
is or is not divine truth, and what is or is not necessary to be
done in order to be saved !

1 888.] IS PROTESTANT UNITY POSSIBLE? 301

There must be, you say in effect, no one monopoly of the
way and the law of salvation. Every one ought to see, should
he not, that neither our Lord nor his apostles ever dreamed of
bringing the world to the unity of any such a monopoly of truth
as that? The Christian motto, "One Lord, one faith, one bap-
tism," must not be supposed to indicate the existence of any
system or organization in religion that smacks of monopoly.
The apostle's language, "There is one God and one Mediator,"
" There is no other name [but one] given under heaven whereby
we must be saved," cannot mean that our Lord intended to
monopolize the work of salvation. Is there not a banner of sal-
vation on which one may inscribe the name of " Legion " ?

But a truce to the further discussion of this part of the sub-
ject, which, by the way, the writer very properly enters upon,
viz., Whether Protestant unity is desirable ; although the title
of his article offers to us only the question whether it \>z possible.

We confess to having looked with no little eagerness and
curiosity for his reply, feeling so little satisfied as we were,
and as we think most people would be, from his arguments for
its desirability. We have been told to always preach and write
as if we were addressing people with vigorous understandings,
no matter of what class of persons our audience may be com-
posed. We do not think we are unfairly underrating the real
value of our essayist's plea for Protestant unity if we say that
one need possess but little vigor of understanding to perceive
that Christian unity would not be much the gainer by the reali-
zation of Protestant unity if there be no better reasons assigned
than are presented in the article before us. Certainly, disun-
ion among professed followers and believers in the one Lord is,
as he told us, both foolish and wicked, despite its picturesque-
ness ; but he did not tell us the reason why it was foolish and
wicked. We Catholics are not disunited among ourselves, and,
in so far as that fact stands unchallenged before the world for so
man)' centuries, we may have failed to exhibit the beauties of
picturesque disunion ; but we have at least none of its folly or
sin to answer for. But then he may consider us, as doubtless he
honestly does, as disunited from Protestants, and therefore in-
cluded under the same judgment. If so, we think he ought to
have brought us to book, and enlightened us as to the reason of
the blame for by far the greater share of that which, on account
of our superior numbers, we should be justly held accountable.
Has he ever heard it said that we have sought or enjoyed divi-
sion and disunion, or that we have ever been suspected of need-
ing to be convinced not only of the desirability but no less of

302 Is PROTESTANT UNITY POSSIBLE? [June,

the necessity of unity at the price of our immortal salvation? If
the charge of disunion can be laid at our door, in the name of
God and of his Christ, who prayed that all his might be one,
even as he and the Father were one, let us hear the truth !

But to return to the question, Is Protestant unity possible?
Our essayist " thinks " it is. Alas ! here the piece of artillery be-
fore alluded to shows how small is its calibre and feeble its
report. We looked for no unhesitating reply. We expected to
read, not "I think so," but, " I am certain," or, "Unquestionably."
But having, at least, thought it possible, one immediately looks
for a statement of reasons upon which he founds his favorable
opinion. This, of course, would mean the proposal or discussion
of some method whereby union may be realized. Two ways
only present themselves to his mind : the one already mentioned,
and scouted as an unpractical dream viz., that ot one division
monopolizing all of Christianity, the others coming under its rule
of faith and virtually allowing themselves to be "swallowed
up" by that one organization. The other way is by "a gradual
assimilation of each church to all the others, finding the least
common multiple of their dogmatic creeds"; and the writer
thinks that " almost unconsciously to themselves the divided
churches of Protestantism are finding and exhibiting this com-
mon multiple as the highest outlook of modern Christianity."
He adds: "There is a movement downwards on the part of
those denominations which shot above the normal line of essen-
tial Christianity, and a movement upwards on the part of those
denominations that fell below that normal line. And when they
all meet, as meet they will, on a common line, the question of
the reunion [sic] of Protestantism will solve itself without the
help of any formal schemes of unity.''

The perusal of that method for uniting Protestants brought
forth from us a long, deep breath. A friend at hand wondered
what might be the cause of so profound a sigh. As well he
might. For if, by means of a least common multiple among
all the Protestant churches, one is to find the normal line of
essential Christianity, our essayist must think we possess no
more vigor of understanding than a cow if he imagines we are
going to believe there will be any Christianity in this curious
arithmetico-geometrico-moral result of which essential qualities
can be predicated at all. Does he not hear the clamor of his
justly impatient readers: What is the common multiple?
Where is the normal line? What is essential to Christianity?
Which is up and which is down ? Upward would seem to
imply a movement towards what is higher and more perfect ;

i888.] Is PROTESTANT UNITY POSSIBLE? 303

and who shall say that those who are higher are not also the
more perfect, and why should they come down? Is the church
of God to be built upon a compromise? In media stat virtus!
he may say. But we reply that that is damnable doctrine where
truth and spiritual life are concerned the only two things with
which Christianity has to do. And when we are asked to im-
agine this church as higher and that other one as lower as com-
pared with one another among Protestants, we venture to say
that if Catholics were allowed to enter the arena and requested
to assign them their due rank in view of a divine criterion,
some might find themselves placed very far below many others
above whom they have long plumed themselves as holding a
higher position. This faith which is proposed as the result of
an application of the principle of the least common multiple
appears to us to be very like what is described in Scripture
as the faith that is neither cold nor hot, nauseating to God,
and known by experience to be no less so to man.

Will our sincere seeker after unity venture to assure us that
the problem for solution of the question of such vital import-
ance, equally, as he holds it is, to ourselves and to Protestants,
may be thus stated? To find the normal lines which define true
universal Christianity i.e., the Christian religion Christ gave to
and intended all men to receive find the least common multiple
of all the creeds of Protestantism, et voilh ! Does he really mean
what he says when he tells us that such a result is " the highest
outlook of modern Christianity "? Is he so blind that he cannot
see that such a lame and impotent conclusion is one that the in-
fidel will laugh to scorn ? And when such an outlook shall have
been attained, and Protestants shall dwell together in unity in
their new City of God built by them and " set on the hill " to be
seen of all, can they hope that it will prove to be one which by its
eminence will command the admiration of the nations, and by the
impregnability of its walls of truth and the elevation of its
towers of heavenly doctrine will unite an erring, defenceless, and,
shelterless humanity to seek within its enclosure protection and
safety against the dire assaults of the hostile powers of the
"gates of hell"? Well may we deeply sigh, seeing wise men
and good deliberately proposing to those who might justly be
supposed to be hanging with painful, and to us pitiable, expect-
ancy upon the words of wisdom that fall from their lips, such
weak and utterly hopeless expedients as these.

Men and brethren, the charity of Christ constraineth us to
say that ye are acting the part of blind leaders to the blind ;
and shall ye not both fall into the ditch ? ALFRED YOUNG.

304 THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. [June,

THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS.

To pass from the myths of modern science to those of an-
cient poetry is like coming into the tropics after rounding the
Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. The weather is calmer, the
sea smoother, the air more pleasant; and if we lose something of
the intense earnestness which characterized the rougher portion
of the passage, it is agreeably replaced by a serene atmosphere
and an unclouded prospect. Nevertheless even in these sunny
seas a pretty brisk breeze is sometimes found to be blowing; and
the classical hurly-burly aroused by that -^Eolus, Mr. Gladstone,
is not one whit less animated than the scientific cyclone which
accompanied it. At first, however, there is an appearance as if
this particular contest were about to hang fire. Dr. Reville, it
seems, has founded his criticisms upon Mr. Gladstone's earliest
publications in regard to Homeric subjects ; while the latter, im-
porting into literary matters the amazing versatility distinctive
of his political genius, has so completely altered his original con-
clusions as virtually to repudiate them altogether. He does
not, he tells us, maintain that there was any systematic or wilful
corruption of a primitive religion, or that all the mythologies
are due to such a corruption, wilful or otherwise, or that the
ideas conveyed in Genesis were developed in the form of dog-
ma; but merely that there is a historic connection between
certain of the Greek and Hebrew traditions.

But this polite explanation or retractation whichever it may
be is merely a preliminary flourish, a sort of handshaking with
the gloves on before the actual encounter ; and the two are very
soon engaged in a regular hand-to-hand combat. With deep ex-
pression of respect for the erudition of his adversary in those
literatures with which he himself is not acquainted, he gives very
plainly his opinion as to the value of M. Reville's scholarship in
such subjects as he is personally competent to test, and draws
first blood by expressing a hope that his opponent does not ex-
hibit "in his treatment ot other systems the slightness of texture
and facility and rapidity of conclusion which mark his perfor-
mances in the Olympian field."

As an example of this tenuity of treatment an example un-
expectedly confirmed by Dr. R6ville's reception of the criticism
Mr. Gladstone takes the author's statement that the Greek
Heracles and the Tyrian and Carthaginian Melkart " is in fact
the same god." He shows the extreme improbability of a foreign
origin for Heracles, and the numerous points which render such

1 8 88.] THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. 305

an identity inconceivable, though he oddly omits to call atten-
tion either to the fact that Heracles was not a god at all, but
only a demi-god a very material point in considering the ori-
gin of his worship and, secondly, to the full-length portrait of
the hero drawn by Euripides in the Alcestis, a study of character
remarkable in more ways than one, but chiefly as impersonating
in a possible individual all those conflicting traits which Mr.
Gladstone finds so hard to reconcile in Homer's description.
And what says M. Reville to Mr. Gladstone's refutation of his
perfectly unfounded and indefensible statement? He replies,
with really enviable coolness, not to say audacity, that his dis-
tinguished opponent will be glad to hear that he does " not
consider Heracles and Melkart to be the same god " ; he con-
siders them both to be " solar myths." But if he does not con-
sider them to be the same god, why did he say that they were
the same god ?

But meanwhile a greater presence than that of M. Reville
had risen upon the horizon. Professor Max Miiller had seen
the gauntlet flung down by Mr. Gladstone in The Dawn of Crea-
tion and Worship, and felt that such a challenge ought not to go
unnoticed. And here, too, it would seem as if the contest were
declined, for the professor declares that he has only attempted
to prove that "certain portions of the ancient mythologies have
a directly solar origin" a most unimpeachable statement,
which would call for no comment whatever were it not that on
the very same page he maintains that " we may now boldly say
that behind the clouds of ancient mythology the sun is seldom
entirely absent." In fact, his whole article on ''Solar Myths"
is an exposition of that solar theory which Mr. Gladstone in
great measure derides ; and the professor renders the weight
of his name still more weighty by confessing that he has been
converted to solarism with much reluctance.

What, then, are we to say of this wide-spread theory, wherein
not Heracles alone, nor Here (or Hera, as, for some inscrutable
reason, German-worshipping scholars insist on calling her), nor
Zeus, nor Hermes, but Achilles and Barbarossa and William
Tell are in all seriousness resolved into personifications of the
action of the sun, a kind of human embodiment of an idealized
radiometer? We reply that to our simple mind the proof of the
pudding lies in the eating; and no theory can be considered as
satisfactorily tested until it has been shown to solve some diffi-
culty which it was not especially devised to meet. If the ex-
planation suggested for any myth in its shorter form, such as

VOL. XL VI I. 20

306 THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. [June,

is given by Lempriere or Smith, throws a.light upon the other
details when reference is made to original sources, then no
doubt a strong probability arises in its favor ; and the solar
origin of the legend of Circe, we may remark, or at least its
close connection with solar worship, is strongly favored by the
remarks of Tertullian upon the Circus, introduced, he says, by
that enchantress and called after her name. But the strange
thing is and very strange it is in the case of so distinguished a
scholar as Professor Max Miiller that in the cases he quotes, or
at least in a considerable number of them, the result is the very
opposite ; and so far are the original accounts from affording
any confirmation of the learned professor's conjectures that, for
the most part, the more intimately we become acquainted with
the classic writers the greater does the difficulty become of
applying to their traditions the solution of a solar origin. Take
the case of the Zodiac with its twelve houses or stations. Here,
if anywhere, solar influence is surely to be expected ; and there
is no great stretch of imagination required in order to suppose
that the Ram, the Goat, and other signs betokened the sun's
influence at various periods of fecundity. Yet what says Man-
etho in the Apotelesmatica attributed to him? He tells us that
the Zodiac is the fairest circle in heaven, and that it is adorned
with twelve " eidola," or signs, but says not a word as to any
connection with the solar light.

Hephestion's description is still further removed from such
a conception, for he connects the different parts of the Zodiac
closely with the earth. Babylon, he says, is beneath Aries,
Media and Egypt under Taurus, Gemini rules Cappadocia,
Leo Greece, Virgo Rhodes and the Levant, Scorpio Carthage
a description absolutely unintelligible, unless we suppose
the Zodiac to have been conceived not as a celestial but as a
terrestrial circle or wheel, situated doubtless in the sky, but
indissolubly fixed in its relation to the earth, both in its general
outline and its particular portions. Or consider another legend
one of Professor Max Miiller's particular favorites the myth
of Daphne. " If it were not for the method of comparative
mythology," he observes, " we should never have known that
Daphne was the same as Ahana, the Dawn " ; and, again, that
" nothing is more certain than the equation, Daphne = Ahana."
That such a discovery would never have been made except in
the way of comparative mythology may be easily admitted,
considering that the statement itself is a comparison of myth-
ologies ; and he would be a rash man indeed who would ques-

1 888.] THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. 307

tion the professor's knowledge of the Sanksrit language, though
otherwise we should like to inquire, under our breath, whether
he is prepared to maintain that the Sanskrit ha is always equi-
valent to the Greek phi, and from whence he contrives to import
that big, big D. But the real puzzle begins when we turn to
classic sources and see what the author of the Metamorphoses
has to say about Daphne. Who was this famous girl ? She
was, says Ovid, the daughter of Peneus, a river-god of Thes-
saly. The daughter of a river-god ! And what has a river-
god to do with the dawn ? unless perhaps we are to under-
stand that Apollo was in the habit of taking a cold bath in the
river every morning. But let that pass. What happened?
Apollo, one day seeing Cupid amusing himself with his bow,
cried out : " What are you doing, you naughty boy ? " (las-
cive puer). Whereunto the celestial urchin replied : " Apollo,
mind your own business ; you hit everything with your darts,
and I'll hit you with mine, and then my glory will be as much
greater than yours as you are greater than other things."
Then the young rascal fitted two darts: one light, to excite love,
the other heavy, to destroy all passionate thought. The former
he aimed at Apollo, who straightway fell headlong in love with
Daphne. With the latter he transfixed Daphne herself, who
received Apollo's addresses with aversion. In vain Apollo
pleaded ; Daphne fairly took to her heels and scudded over the
plain. Her celestial lover toiled breathlessly after her, entreat-
ing her to stop, and gasping out that he was a god, the son of
Jupiter, and would do all kinds of fine things for her. Daphne
paid no more attention than a Democratic President to a Repub-
lican office-seeker the image is our own, not Ovid's and at
last coming within view of the river and catching sight of her
father, Peneus, she begged his aid to deliver her. Her father
heard her prayer and changed her into a laurel, while Apollo
arrived just in time to put his hand upon the bark and feel her
heart beating beneath it. A very curious and edifying story, no
doubt; but what it can have to do with the dawn is quite be-
yond our limited imagination. The dawn does precede the ris-
ing sun, it is true, and may, without any very violent effort, be
supposed to be flying from him, although the phenomena would
hardly seem to suggest it. But what about Cupid, and the two
darts, and the chase, and the invocation, and the transformation,
and the interference of Peneus, and what has the laurel particu-
larly to do with the early morning? Once beyond the bounds
of Lempriere, there really is not a single feature which accords,

308 THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. [June,

except by the most painstaking perversion, with the theory of
solar action. At this rate it is clear that not Daphne only,
nor Achilles, nor Barbarossa, nor William Tell, as the solarists
maintain, nor Napoleon I., as Dr. Whately set forth, but that
President Lincoln as well, who is fabled to have been a back-
woodsman and the emancipator of the negroes, was in reality a
" solar personage," personifying the brilliance of the atmosphere
of the prairies and the deliverance of day from the black night ;
that Dr. Franklin, of whom the legend runs that he discovered
the principle of electricity, is, when properly understood, a
revival of the solar myth of Prometheus; and that the renowned
Professor Wiggins is nothing else than an embodiment of the
uncertainty attending the condition of American weather. Nay,
we cannot, upon reflection, doubt that the very controversy we
have been considering is a mere collection of solar phenomena.
There is Mr. Gladstone (the resemblance of whose name to
Ahana, or the Dawn, is as striking as that of Daphne) scatter-
ing his blows like light upon every side; there is Professor Max
Miiller, the illuminator of the entire East; there is Professor
Huxley serenely looking down from the heights above and giv-
ing nothing but bewilderment to those who look at him too
closely ; and there is M. R6ville himself struggling earnestly,
though with singularly ill success, to shine in the midst of a
fog. In the language of the Prolegomena, " Here are all the
elements of a dramatic myth!"

In truth, if allegory must be impressed into service,
there is another and very different direction where we may go
a-prospecting with much better hope of reasonable return. Bril-
liant as the external universe appeared to the Greek, he was far
more occupied with the internal conflict of the mind in its ini-
tial struggle with its physical environment. To the Greeks
each infant art was a device at once divine and impious, a gift
from Heaven and a revolt against the heavenly will. To plough
the earth was to tear the breast of the universal mother; to sail
the sea was to set at defiance the restraining ocean ; and
Horace's complaints are but the echoes, perhaps only the copies,
of those of Aratus. Beyond all other nations there were ever
present to that remarkable people the thoughts and aspirations,
the habitual failures and empty successes, the mocking hope
and the ultimate despair, the triumphs issuing from the victor's
agony and the failures leading on to some fresh effort all the
thousand paradoxes, in fact, moral, physical, and intellectual, at-
tendant upon the outbreak of original genius.

1 888.] THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. 309

They saw how the fate of a reformer was ever to incur some
fresh struggle for the sake of others, and to be regarded in re-
turn as a " very doubtful character" by those who imposed the
tasks upon him, and they embodied it in the myth of Heracles
and Eurystheus. They perceived what would be ever the
course of struggling genius, and they invented the fable of Tan-
talus with the fruits and the waters just escaping his parched
lips. They foresaw the relations which would one day exist
between author and publisher, and they placed the divine Apollo
as servant to the table of wealthy Admetus. The career of
those who should endeavor to raise the condition of their fellow-
mortals lay open to them, and they expressed it in the myth of
Prometheus with the vulture tearing at his entrails. They caught
a glimpse of the idea of national education, and they foreshad-
owed it in the daughters of Danaus pouring water into the bot-
tomless tubs. They knew the attempts which would be made
from time to time at purifying the administration of public
affairs, and they prefigured them by Sisyphus pushing with
infinite labor his stone to the top of the hill, and then watching
it with leaps and bounds rolling down once more to the bottom.
They foresaw that one day philosophers would heap absurdity
upon absurdity in striving to explain for themselves the myste-
ries of religion, and they prefigured the attempt by the imposi-
tion of Pelion upon Ossa in the Titanic struggle to scale the
heights of heaven. Fantastic as such a system of interpretation
may be, it is at least more nearly akin to the spirit of Greek
thought than the eternal reference to the state of the weather.

A much more probable method of explanation is that pro-
posed by Mr. Lang in another article arising out of this poly-
gonal discussion. The real difficulty of understanding the
classical myths, as this writer points out truly and acutely,
arises from the total meaninglessness of the freaks attributed
to the various divinities where gods devour and disgorge
their own offspring, change men and women into birds and
beasts and plants and stones, and conduct themselves generally
"more like extravagant and unprincipled clowns in a pantomime
than pure natural forces or sublime abstractions." Now, all
this, he observes, is quite foreign to any condition of the Greek
intellect with which we are historically acquainted ; but it is
quite in keeping with the ideas of races on a lower level, espe-
cially where totemism* is practised and there is no transforma-

* Prof. Max Muller makes the surprising confession that he does not know what " totemism "
may be. Possibly this statement is " rote sarkasticul," and we are much more inclined to be-
lieve ourselves too stupid to see the point of the remark than that the learned professor can

310 THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. [June,

tion of Zeus or Indra beyond the pretensions of " medicine-men "
to perform. It is, therefore, to this stage of religious belief,
whether experienced by the Greeks themselves or imported from
less cultured neighbors, that he attributes the origin of mytho-
logical legends.

In testing the value of this theory by applying it to classical
ideas of the cosmogony, or rather to the notions which prevail-
ed amongst the Greek and Latin nations in regard to all that
concerned the creation of the world and of mankind, it is neces-
sary to say a few words as to the kind of authority to be brought
in evidence. For the notions directly relating to these matters
belong naturally to the domain of philosophy, and it is amongst
the philosophers, therefore, and more particularly the early
philosophers of Greece, that one would primarily seek for such
information. Unfortunately, however, there are two objections
to this course quite insuperable at the present moment. In the
first place, the works of the early philosophers are so extremely
fragmentary that their opinion upon any given point must itself
be very largely a matter of opinion ; and, secondly, the rendering
of their ideas in the commonly received accounts are so highly
unsatisfactory that a translation rather than a summary would
be almost a necessity. Thus in the article on " Evolution " in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, written by Professor Sully, to which re-
ference has already been made, and which Professor Huxley was
so good as to recommend to Mr. Gladstone for his edification,
Parmenides is stated to have held that all his own conjec-
tures were merely opinions, having to do with the impressions
of the senses only ; whereas the words of the philosopher him-
self are directly to a contrary effect. " I would have you
know," he writes, " both the unshakable heart of reasonable
truth and the opinions of men in which there is no firm faith."
And again: " I will lay down a true law from which you may
judge of the opinions of men." And the principle laid emphati-
cally down by him is this, that "it must not be said or con-
ceived that existence can come from the non-existent." So
when Empedocles speaks of whirling strife pervading the lowest
depth, while in the eddy's centre love stands calm, it is hardly
justifiable to interpret the philosopher as having arrived at the
notions of molecular attraction and repulsion, and still less to
credit him with " taking the first step in evolution by conceiv-

really be ignorant of that not very unfamiliar term. Still, for his information, or that of who-
soever may desire it, we may state that totemism is a belief in the descent of a given tribe from
some particular animal or plant, held consequently in reverence by that tribe. It is, in fact, a
kind of Darwinism raised to the th power, and is commonly received among the American
Indians, though the Fellows of the Royal Society have not yet advanced so far.

1 888.] THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. 311

ing the varying action of those forces to be the origin of parti-
cular species." There is a certain class of writers who must
perforce see " a step " towards their favorite theory, whatever
may be uttered and whoever may have uttered it; but the only
conclusion we can fairly draw from these fragments is that the
one philosopher had firmly grasped the notion of eternal and
uncreated life, and the other of the supremacy of immutable
love two ideas familiar enough to Christian tradition, but to all
appearance apprehended rather dimly by some professors of
modern science.

When from the philosophers we turn to the poets the field
becomes a little clearer. Aratus affords a striking example of
that mingled absurdity and beauty for which the theory of Mr.
Lang would partially account ; and the proem of his work is so
sublime in tone that our effort to reproduce it here will be eas-
ily pardoned, since, though the grace of diction may be absent,
all that is necessary to preserve is the nobility of the thought :

" From God let us commence, whose name unsung
We mortals never pass: full all the streets,
Full are the ways of God, full is the sea,
And full the harbors ; yea, and everywhere
Of God we live, his offspring are we all.
Tis he who in the heavens hath firmly set
For signs the constellations, mapping out
The year by stars, that they should be the bounds
Of seasons unto man, and all harmonious move.
Hail Father, hail O Wonderful, hail Joy of man !''

And then, having completed this almost inspired prelude,
quoted by St. Paul in his address to the Athenians, he plunges
straightway into such a confusion of astronomy and myth as to
defy all hope of analysis, except upon Mr. Lang's principle that
it is the single result of two distinct and conflicting periods of
intellectual growth.

With Hesiod, as with Empedocles, Love holds a prominent
place, and here forms with Space and Earth (Chaos and Gaia) a
primeval trinity. Both the genealogical form which the tradi-
tions of this poet assume, and the nature of the legends them-
selves, quite accord with the theory of Mr. Lang, while, on the
other hand, we have another specimen of M. R6ville's "slight-
ness of texture." When Hesiod, he observes without the
smallest grounds of justification, "tells us that Uranus begot
Kronos, and Kronos begot Zeus, he means that Uranus, Kronos,
and Zeus are all one heaven." If Hesiod did mean that, he
took a very strange way of expressing his meaning ; but, what

312 THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. [June,

is more to the purpose, he must have meant that earth and
heaven are identical also, since he makes Uranus the offspring
of Gaia. Perhaps the finest portion of Hesiod's works is the
well-known (though frequently misquoted) Ages of Man ; and
it is interesting to observe how closely the various periods agree
in their principal characteristics with the great epochs men-
tioned in Holy Scripture. The golden age, wherein men lived
on fruit spontaneously produced, is exactly parallel with the
life in Eden; the silver age, by no means equal to the golden,
but yet where worship still prevailed, with the period after the
fall ; the brazen age, with the time preceding the Flood, when
the whole earth was perverse and desperately wicked ; the age
of heroes, with the times of the Jewish patriarchs and judges;
and the fifth or iron age, wherein the poet wishes that he had
not been born, with the historic times of battle, murder, and
every form of misery. Virgil, who alludes to the golden age
alone, comes still closer to the Scriptural account by assigning
the education of man through the necessity of labor as the
object for which the ground was cursed with sterility; and
this is the more noticeable as Virgil is the very last writer whom
one would expect to originate any wide or general thought.
Ovid, to whom we are indebted for the modern notion of chaos
as a " rudis indigestaque moles" instead of simple extension or
space, follows closely upon the lines of Hesiod ; but he omits
all mention of the heroes, and he introduces cave-men into the
age of silver.

So far, therefore, as this brief examination carries us and a
more general investigation would only reproduce the same re-
sult there is nothing to controvert and much to confirm the
theory of Mr. Lang that the familiar legends of classic poetry
were either survivals of a less intellectual stage of thought or
importations from neighboring races. But even then the prin-
cipal question seems to remain unanswered. Granted that we
can understand more or less how such stories came to be re-
ceived among a cultivated nation like the Greeks; that does not
tell us how they came to exist at all. Let it be admitted that
the natural repulsion may be thereby overcome to such myths as
that of Zeus devouring and disgorging his own children ; still,
at the best it was a very odd thing for any one, god or no god,
to do. Why should Kronos have devoured his children, and,
again, why should he disgorge them? Some motive there
evidently must have been to give rise to such extraordinary
performances, or rather, since no motive can render such actions
other than monstrosities, some features there must have been of

1 888.] THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. 313

the original tradition of which these mythological expressions
are the perversion and caricature. Now, the hypothesis of a
primitive revelation, subsequently obscured and materialized by
local and tribal traditions during the wandering and unlettered
period of the Aryan migration, brings us face to face with the
principal issue raised by Dr. Reville, as to whether an examina-
tion of religions historically considered would or would not lead
to a belief in such a delivery. M. Reville characteristically
commences his examination by assuming the conclusion and an-
swering this question in the negative; but we shall content our-
selves with pointing out that, in regard at least to the classic and
more particularly to the Greek mythology, the more strongly
the full light of the Catholic faith is turned upon its recesses,
the more brilliantly do the most intricate portions of that com-
plex mythology shine out with luminous and consistent signifi-
cance. A few illustrations must suffice.

Consider how easily such a doctrine as that of the eternal
generation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity may be
transformed when orally handed down by a nomadic and il-
literate people, or when guessed at from a neighboring people
whose language is but half-understood. Can we not perceive
how naturally the Eternal Son would become identified with
Kronos, or Khronos, abstract Time; and then how the mutual
relations between the divine Persons would be materialized into
the notions of absorption and reproduction, or devouring and
disgorging? So, as it is the Blessed Trinity who creates, directs,
and determines mortal life, materialize this triple exertion of
the divine Unity in Trinity, and we have Clotho, Lachesis, and
Atropos. By the same process in regard to judgment might be
easily conceived the origin of Minos, -^Eacus, and Rhadamanthus
Rhadamanthus, whom, as Pindar sings, "the Father has as a
great assessor." The myth of Bacchus, whether narrated by
Euripides or by Homer in his hymns, is replete with Christian
symbols, and even sayings to a degree positively startling; while
the myth of Prometheus, as recorded by ^Eschylus, more espe-
cially if identified with the Pramanthaof the Vedas, reads like an
almost undisguised prediction of the Crucifixion and the Resur-
rection.

It is time, however, to bring this somewhat lengthy discus-
sion to a close ; but it would not be proper to conclude our ob-
servations upon this important controversy for important it is,
if only by eliciting in their most sharply defined form the opin-
ions of so many illustrious writers without a word or two in
reference to the remarkable work out of which the whole dispu-

314 THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. [June,

tation arose. Nobody can properly object to the collection and
comparison of duly authenticated facts, and the facts relating to
the worship and belief of the various races of the world form a
class invested with a very high interest. But if such a collec-
tion is to possess any value whatsoever, whether in the eye of
the scientist, or the theologian, or the historian, or the student,
nay, if it is not to be a mere accumulated congeries of misleading
confusions, it is evident that the doctrines and facts put forward
as representing any particular religion must, in the first place,
be such as are propounded by the acknowledged authorities of
that religion, more particularly by those of the same time and
country ; and not be such as some foreigner of a different creed,
living many centuries later, has chosen to imagine that they
must have been. There could have been no more proper func-
tion for a Prolegomena to the History of Religion than to afford a
specification of the authorities from which in each case our
knowledge is derived, and a careful analysis of the amount of
weight attaching to the various works, and at the same time to
enunciate and discuss the critical principles whereby the state-
ments of these authors are sometimes to be interpreted, modi-
fied, or possibly rejected. Then at least we should know what
we are about, and should not be perpetually mistaking windmills
for knights in armor. M. R6ville, however, far from either re-
cording authority or enunciating principle, does not seem even
to trouble his head about either the one or the other, but calmly
assumes that to be most correct which is most alien to the par-
ticular country and most foreign to the ancient tradition.
Where, for instance, does he obtain his notion of the double
authorship of Genesis, or that of absence of synagogues and con-
sequently of public worship among the rural Jews until the time
of the Captivity from ancient Judaea or from modern Germany?
Suppose that any one should deal with literature as M. Reville
has dealt with holy Scripture, and, without condescending to a
word of comment or explanation, should treat the vagaries of
the New Shakspere Society as admitted facts, speaking of one
scene in some familiar play, such as Macbeth or'Timon, as
the work of Beaumont, and another as the production of that
poetaster, Cyril Tourneur what kind of value should we attach
to the result ? If we are to have the gospel according to Strauss,
and sacred history secundum Ewald, and Homer a la Wolf, and
Shakspere according to Mr. Furnival, well and good. The result
will not be without its own interest; but let us fairly put aside,
once and for all, any weak-minded hankering after facts as they
are. Then M. Reville observes that until modern times the

1 888.] THE CREATION AND THE CLASSICS. 315

Christian Church taught that all mythological traditions
amongst which he specifies in another place the Sibylline utter-
ances were the work of the devil. Now, we will not demand
any abstruse knowledge upon this difficult point, but it is not
too much to ask of any one who pretends to interpret the mind
of the Christian Church that he should be acquainted with one
of her most familiar and most widely celebrated hymns. If,
then, we turn to the " Dies Irse," that solemn strain which has
re-echoed so often in the ears of the mourners of France, we find
the well-known line, " Teste David cum Sibylla." Now, the
Catholic Church, we beg respectfully to inform M. Reville, does
not consider the devil as an authority on a par with King David.
So far is the church from an indiscriminate condemnation of
every external belief that her missionaries study carefully the
religions of those whom they hope to convert, and that one of
the familiar charges made against her by Protestant ignorance
was her supposed leniency towards heathen superstition.

All this is unsatisfactory enough ; but not only has M. Re-
ville left undone those things which he ought to have done, but
he also has emphatically done those things which he ought not
to have done. If there is one thing from which the author of
such a work should preserve himself with unbending rigor, it is
the indulgence in theories. " Our young science," observes
Professor Max Miiller with much truth, " has suffered much
from the embraces of that philosophy which tries to know how
everything ought to have been without first trying to know
something of what really has been." Now, theorizing, albeit in
a mild and platitudinizing fashion, is the element wherein the
soul of M. Reville takes inexhaustible delight. He has a little
theory about everything and everybody. He has a little theory
about the authorship of the Pentateuch, and another little the-
ory about " the royal plural." He has a little theory that " re-
ligion is civilizing only when it is in accordance with the con-
ditions of civilization," and another little theory that among the
arts architecture, music, and poetry are more adapted to re-
ligious purposes than dancing. He has a little theory that
" science has certainly a right to the most complete autonomy,"
but, on the other hand, that "it is well to recognize that defi-
nitively, and when thoroughly understood, religion in itself and
independent science never ought to be hostile." Innocent
little theories they are, some of them, innocent almost to puer-
ility, but they are none the less theories, in a position and at a
moment when there should be room for nothing whatever but
facts.

316 EARLY DAYS OF No THE DAME. [June,

In a word, " to sum up," if we may borrow a favorite ex-
pression of our author. From beginning to end of the Prole-
gomena, whether we regard its design or its execution, its
history or its philosophy, its particular details or its general
argument, there is but one epithet whereby it can be properly
described, and that epithet, we regret to say, is flimsy. That
word, indeed, may be applied to it in more senses than one. For
the whole production reads like a series of newspaper articles
dashed off by some experienced press-writer knowing thorough-
ly where to lay his hand upon encyclopaedias and dictionaries
and summaries of information, and possessing a neat and ready
turn for indiscriminate generalization. The remarkable point
about it is that it should have attracted the attention and com-
manded the interest of such a man as Professor Huxley, who
can write excellent sense when he pleases to do so, and of Pro-
fessor Max Miiller, who has really done much to increase and
diffuse a knowledge of ancient literatures and religions.

W. MARSHAM ADAMS.

EARLY DAYS OF NOTRE DAME.

As originally admitted into the Union, the north line of In-
diana was continuous with that of Ohio. Shortly after the ad-
mission of the State, however, it was suggested that if the line
were placed ten miles further north, Indiana would have the ad-
vantage of a port on Lake Michigan, to gain which advantage
what was called the ten-mile purchase was effected. Whether
the present value of the lake port, Michigan City, would justify
the price paid for it we will not now inquire. But Indiana
gained unlooked-for advantages besides. Besides the site of the
widely known and very successful college whose early history
this paper chronicles, a noble river, the St. Joseph (sometimes
called " Big St. Joseph " to distinguish it from a branch of the
Maumee named after the same saint), which would otherwise be-
long wholly to Michigan, now has its most important " Bend "
in the Hoosier State a bend which has given its name to a
municipality mentioned by Parkman in his carefully written
work, The Discovery of the Great West, as "the present village of
South Bend," although at the date of the edition before us that
village was already a city of 20,000 inhabitants, and has since
probably doubled its figure. A peculiarity of the location is
that it is on the water-shed of the continent. A shower of rain
falling here may send some of its waters to one extremity of the

1 888.] EARLY DAYS OF NOTRE DAME. 317

United States and some to the other. Drained into the St.
Joseph, it would pass into Lake Michigan and through the ro-
mantic Mackinaw Strait into Lake Huron ; by St. Clair River
and lake, and the Detroit River, into storm-lashed Erie and over
roaring Niagara ; and then by Ontario and the Thousand Isles,
by historic Montreal and Quebec, into the mist-covered North
Atlantic. But, falling on the opposite side of a roof-ridge, the
drops might be carried into the Kankakee, which rises just west
of the city limits, and thus pass into the adjacent Prairie State,
into the Illinois River, and so to swell the surging flood that
carries fertility and commerce through the great valley of the
South and West, by St. Louis and New Orleans, so into the
tropical billows of the Gulf.

. Here, then, as we might have inferred, is one of the principal
"portages" over which the aboriginal canoes were carried
when it was desired to transfer them from the waters of the
Great Lake basin to those of the Mississippi valley. The coun-
try to the north of South Bend still bears the name of Portage
Prairie a well-known rendezvous to the hardy and adventurous
conreurs des bois at a time when France claimed all the territory
necessary to connect Canada with Louisiana, and had even
established lines of trading-posts, forts, and Indian mission
churches in various directions throughout its forests and prai-
ries. The river St. Joseph well deserves its Catholic name.
More than two hundred years ago, in the autumn of 1686, a tract
of land on this river was granted to the Jesuit missions on con-
dition of their erecting a chapel and residence there within three
years. This is the earliest grant of land on record within the
limits of the present State of Indiana. The portage and the
sources of the Kankakee were deemed of sufficient interest to
afford material for a graphic description written by Charlevoix
in 1721. Within the present century it was an important cen-
tre for the fur traders, before the settlement of the country
drove the beaver from his dam and the buffalo from his range.
The buffalo, indeed, is still to be found in Indiana on the State
seal.

About three miles north of the extreme southern point of this
elbow of St. Joseph River, and on the concave side of the curve,
lies the site of Notre Dame, the subject of the present sketch.
Here two little lakes, fed by never-failing springs, discharge
their crystal waters into the river by a westerly-flowing rivulet.
These lakes were originally surveyed and mapped as one, but
the land between them, now dry, was never covered by any

3i8 EARLY DAYS OF NOTRE DAME. [June,

great depth of water, and in after-years, its marshy exhalations
causing ill-health, it was deemed advisable to introduce a sys-
tem of drainage which converted -the original single lake into
two, of which the larger covers about twenty-five acres, the
smaller seventeen. A rising ground between the lakes is still
known as the " Island." The once submerged flat lands are
planted with shade-trees or form stretches of open meadow.
The original oak groves are preserved on the north and east of
the lakes, and the scene retains much of its native wildness,
forming a delightful contrast in the immediate vicinage of the
culture and classic taste of a large institution of learning.

In 1830 the tract adjoining these lakes was conveyed by pur-
chase to Rev. Stephen Theodore Badin, the proto-priest of the
United States, being the first ordained within the limits of our
country. Sle. Marie dcs Lacs, as the locality was then called, was
the centre of an extensive range of missions. The resident
priest here attended to the spiritual wants of all settlers and so-
journers, white and red, between Coldwater, Michigan, and the
Illinois line, east and west, and from Kalamazoo to Rochester,
north and south a parish as large as an average diocese. A
little log church of the period is still preserved here as a vene-
rable relic of more unworldly days.

And now let us take a retrospective glance and dwell fora
moment on our wild predecessors occupying this place. The
Indian tribes that claimed the neighboring hunting-grounds
were Pottawatomies and Miamis, and in evangelizing them the
missionaries had to contend with the usual obstacle the incon-
gruity of observed Christian practice, as manifested in the lives
of the white settlers, with Christian principle. The Jesuits, most
successful of all who have introduced Christianity among the
Indian tribes, achieved their success mainly by banishing the
white settler from their " reductions " and treating his influence
as veritable contamination. It has often been said that the In-
dian learns nothing from the white man but his vices. May it
not also be true that the very virtues of the white man are a stum-
bling-block to the Indian? The most conspicuous virtue of the
American farmer is his industry. Rising before sunrise to begin
his labor labor only intermitted by the " bolting " of three
hasty, unwholesome, and ill-cooked meals, with perhaps a " noon-
spell " if the welfare of his horses requires it he continues these
labors until after sunset of the long summer's day ; he plies them
often in solitude and silence, uncheered even by the sight of a
fellow-laborer. How can the Indian, seeing this illustration of

1 888.] EARLY DAYS OF NOTRE DAME. 319

the Gospel ma*xims which he has lately learned the maxims that
tell him to consider the lilies of the field, which toil not, neither
do they spin how can he fail to reflect that his own previous
life, depending on Providence for what game might be brought
down by his arrows, was more in accordance with the Gospel
spirit than this slavery is? It has been customary of late years
to sneer at the sketches of Indian character found in the novels
of Fenimore Cooper as mere freaks of a poetic imagination,
having no substratum of fact as a basis. The testimony of those
missionaries who have devoted their life-work to the evan-geli-
zation of the red races will, however, go a long way to prove
the existence of estimable qualities beneath the unattractive ex-
terior. Simplicity of purpose, fidelity to promise, and even, in
spite of the harrowing tales of ferocity and cruelty related of
them, true kindness of heart, have been manifested to the Black-
Robe whose faith and charity have been sufficiently powerful
to enable him to bid farewell to the niceties of civilized life.
Beloved and venerated by his spiritual children, he has return-
ed their affection with unfeigned warmth.

The list of missionaries among the Pottawatomies and Mi-
amis in the region to which we now refer begins with the cele-
brated Marquette, who, on his return from the village of the
Kaskaskias, descended the St. Joseph on the trail by which it
is reached from the Kankakee by "portage." Whether he re-
sided here for any length of time is uncertain, but his successor,
Father Allouez, is known to have been a resident. Under the
grant of land already spoken of as made to the Jesuits in 1686,
at such point as they might select on the river, he chose a lo-
cality twenty-five leagues from its mouth, and there built a chapel
and mission-house, which was the scene of his labors until his
death in August, 1689, after a missionary career of thirty years.
He may be considered the founder of the church in Indiana,
concerning which he writes : " It is said that the first who found
churches are generally saints. This thought so touches my
heart that, although I am good for nothing, I desire to expend
myself more and more for the salvation of souls." A saint, in-
deed St. John Francis Regis had been his own preceptor.

After him Father Claude Aveneau had charge of the mission,
and for a long time perpetuated the salutary influence exercised
by his predecessor. An unwise policy on the part of those who
wielded the executive, however, drove the Miamis upon the
war-path, and the mission was suspended. It was restored
under Father James Gravier in 1706. In 1711 Father Peter F.
X. Chardon was in charge here. In 1721 Charlevoix found it

320 EARLY DAYS OF NOTRE DAME. [June,

deserted, but a new pastor, Father John de Sf. P6, was sent
here and remained until 1734. In 1738 the pastor was Father
Peter Luke Du Jaunay. Missions were now opened, at Vin-
cennes and where Fort Wayne now stands, and th'ese soon be-
came the centres of activity, so that the mission on the " Big St.
Joseph" was thenceforth obscured by their fame.

The abandonment of French claims upon Indiana, and the
Declaration of Independence on the part of the United States,
put a new face upon public affairs, and Indiana was admitted as
a State before we hear of another resident missionary on the
banks of the St. Joseph. Father Badin, whose purchase in 1830
we have already noticed, fixed his abode in Michigan, so that
Father Louis De Seille is usually regarded as the first pastor of
Ste. Marie des Lacs. His sojourn here probably began in 1832.
His house was a log cabin, divided into two apartments, one for
a chapel, the other for his dwelling. A rude bed, a table, some
books, and a few chairs were his only furniture. A little wooden
altar in his chapel had for its sole ornament a beautiful picture
of the Mater Dolorosa. Here he lived, died, and was buried. A
simple cross now marks the site. The body of the sainted dead
has been laid in a vault beneath the altar of the new church at
Notre Dame.

His death was marked by interesting and affecting incidents.
He had visited Pokagon, an Indian village, now a railway sta-
tion on the Michigan Central about seven miles from Niles, and
hence seventeen from his home. When he took leave of his
Indian congregation there he told them they would probably
never see him again. He seemed to have an intimation of ap-
proaching death, although in the prime of life and to all appear-
ance full of vigor. " I have a great journey to perform," he
said ; " pray for me, and do not forget to say your beads for
me." His hearers were afflicted at the prospect of losing their
beloved Black-Robe, and the warmth of their protestations of
attachment touched his heart. The farewell taken, he left them
on foot, making his return journey by the woodland trail. He
had a horse for distant sick-calls sixty or eighty miles some-
times but the foot-paths were more direct than such bridle-
roads as they had then.

He reached Ste. Marie des Lacs that same day, apparently in
good health, but the next morning was taken sick. Priests were
sent for, the nearest points being Logansport and Chicago.
Sickness, however, in one case, and absence from home in the
other, prevented aid from coming. Finally Bishop Brut6 sent
Rev. Louis Neyron from the southern extremity of Indiana, but

1 888.] EARLY DAYS OF NOTRE DAME. 321

he came too late to afford him those consolations with which he
had so often fortified the last hours of others. When it became
evident that death was at hand he dragged himself to the altar
of his little chapel, assisted by two of his good friends, Coquil-
lard and Bertrand early French settlers, whose names will
never disappear from this neighborhood. Arrived there, he
opened the door of the tabernacle, exerting his remaining
strength in a final effort to receive his Saviour as the guide of his
departing soul; and thus he passed away, exactly half a century
ago. His books and chalice are still treasured at Notre Dame.

His successor, Father Petit, seems to have completed the
conversion of the tribe. During the short time of his residence
at Ste. Marie des Lacs he baptized three hundred Indians, and
presented at one time two hundred for confirmation in the log
church by the side of the lake. The deportation of the Indians
under Governor Cass began in 1840. Father Petit accompanied
his beloved spiritual children to their new home if the name of
home could be given to the uncongenial climate and soil of the
new reservation. Fraudulent representations were made to in-
duce the red man to leave his native land to the encroaching
Caucasian. Many of the Indians had accepted civilization, such
as it was, were living in settled homes, and had even become at-
tached to their white neighbors. One white lady of wealth and
influence was looked upon with the reverence due to a mother
by the Indian women. She treacherously lent herself to the
deportation scheme, telling her red friends that she would ac-
company them to the new reservation, which was represented
as a land flowing with milk and honey. She did indeed accom-
pany them thither, but, having acted as a decoy, returned.

Father Petit died beyond the Mississippi, but his remains
were brought back to the scene of his missionary triumphs, and
they repose with those of Father De Seille beneath the altar at
Notre Dame.

Active as these men had been in spiritual architecture in
the building of those edifices, "not made by hands," which re-
dound beyond all others to the divine glory little, if anything,
had yet been done for material splendor or even comfort. A
ten-acre clearing supplied the bare necessaries of life. Log
walls screened the sanctuary from the wintry blast and summer
blaze. The natural beauty of the crystal lakes was the only and
sufficient charm that the landscape afforded. Dense woods lay
between the mission and the nearest white settlement. Where
the whistle of the locomotive now wakes the echoes, the occa-

VOL. XLVII. 21

322 EARLY DAYS o* NOTRE DAME. [June,

sional creaking of an emigrant wagon making its uncertain way
through the forest was the only sound indicative of land-travel.
The river was the chief highway of such commerce as existed.
By this the early settlers received their supplies in exchange for
peltries and other products of the chase and farm. Such was
the condition of affairs when Father Edward Sorin arrived here
in 1842.

The Indians, even, were here still in large numbers, for the
deportation, begun in 1840, was not completed in less than three
years. A remnant, in fact, is still among us, and Indian blood
has rarely been altogether absent from the veins of the youthful
throng that assemble to receive Catholic instruction at Notre
Dame.

Father Sorin, at that time in the prime of youth and energy,
had united himself to a community, the Congregation of Holy
Cross, whose aim was the education of boys, and, in obedience
to his superiors, had left his native France to extend the blessed
influence of religion in a new world. Making his first resting-
place in the neighborhood of Vincennes, Bishop de la Hailan-
diere, who then filled the episcopal chair at that mission, spoke
to him of the lovely spot in the northern part of the State a
spot already sanctified by the lives of so many holy men, whose
benedictions, lavished upon it, were doubtless destined to bear
noble fruit and encouraged him to go thither, giving him pos-
session of the land on condition that a college building should
be put up and maintained there.

Accordingly, in November, 1842, Father Sorin, accompanied
by seven brothers of his congregation, started for Ste. Marie des
Lacs, to encounter for the first time the rigors of a Northern
winter. Of his companions but one, Brother Francis Xavier,
now survives. A writer in the "Silver Jubilee" book, published
in 1869, describes this brother as one " who has made the coffins
of all who have died at Notre Dame, and most likely will do the
same kind office for many more yet before he drives the last nail
into his own."

The words were prophetic. The writer was laid in his grave
by the good brother in November, 1874, while Brother Francis
is still hale, vigorous, and kind as when those lines were written.

The college was begun on the 28th of August, 1843, a d
made habitable the following spring. Pupils had already been
received, however, and accommodated in a brick building now
known as the Farm House, and which is consequently honored
as the original seat of learning at Notre Dame. Three churches
and three college buildings have occupied the first sites. The

r 888.] EARLY DAYS OF NOTRE DAME. 323

first church and second college were destroyed by fire. The
first college and second church were ruthlessly pulled down to
make way for nobler structures.

The Know-Nothing excitement against Catholics was felt to
some extent here in early times, but Father Sorin's address and
exquisite tact soon made the most influential Protestants of the
neighborhood his friends. Children of all denominations were
entrusted to his care to be educated, and soon it was suggested
to him that a college charter enabling him to confer the usual
degrees and hold the buildings tax-free could be procured from
the State of Indiana. This was done in 1844, and thenceforward
the University of Notre Dame became a power in the land. A
post-office was also obtained through the instrumentality of
Henry Clay.

Every building connected with the university has its history
and vicissitudes, to present all of which would transcend the
limits of the present article. In i86o r when the writer of these
pages first arrived here, much of the original quaintness and
poetry still appeared in the surroundings features gradually
swept away in the march of " modern improvements." Few
men have witnessed such vast developments from small begin-
nings as the venerable Father Sorin, still energetic and enthusi-
astic as when he first planted the seed from which the towering
tree arose. To his spirit of prayer and constant devotion to the
Blessed Vifgin, even more than to his active exertion, these
gratifying results are undoubtedly due. In the old records
many interesting notes afford glimpses of life in those pioneer
days a healthy as well as a holy life, the life of the mens sana
in corpore sano. In the Metropolitan Catholic Almanac for 1843 we
find that a " School for Young Men " has been lately opened at
Southbend (sic), near Washington, Ind., directed by Rev. E.
Sorin. "The location is on an eminence, and is one of the most
healthy in the State, situated six miles from the town of Wash-
ington, Indiana."

The oldest inhabitants cannot remember any " town " bear-
ing the name of " Washington " within six miles of South Bend.
Could it have been one of the numerous names which the village
Mishawaka took unto itself before it finally settled upon the old
Indian appellation signifying " swift-running water," which so
well describes its location? Mishawaka, however, is named in
the same almanac, with the spelling " Mishiwakie," as one of the
places attended by Rev. E. Sorin. The terms per quarter for
board and tuition, including washing and mending, at that time
were eighteen dollars ! How could it be done? We find, also,

324 EARLY DAYS OF NOTRE DAME. [June,

that no extra charge is made, except for books and stationery,
which are furnished at store prices, and for the services of
an eminent physician who attends the institution. Before the
Crimean war opened a market for American produce the neces-
saries of life were far in excess of the demand.

Five years later we have a miniature catalogue of the uni-
versity, giving an account of a solemn distribution of premiums
on the Fourth of July, 1848, the commencement exercises being
made to coincide with the celebration of the national festival.
Here we notice premiums awarded in the English course to
Thomas Lafontaine, of Huntington, Indiana, the son of the
chief of the Miami Nation. Other names found here have since
attained local celebrity. The States furnishing most students
are Indiana and Michigan. A few scattering names appear
from Missouri, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, but none
from Illinois, the State now affording the largest contingent.
No list of teachers is given, no details of the collegiate course.
This catalogue was printed in Detroit.

In 1850 we find a catalogue printed in South Bend by " S.
Colfax," the gentleman who afterwards sat as Vice- President of
these United States during the second term of Grant. Mr. Col-
fax was always a stanch friend to the university, and invariably
met Father Sorin with the most genial of his well-known smiles.
This catalogue contains a prospectus dated January i, 1850.
Here we find mention of the Philharmonic and Debating Socie-
ties. The commencement exercises have receded to the 3d
of July, and there are the names-of nine teachers for the various
branches taught. The students' names number fifty-six, and
there is mention of thirteen students in theology not included
in the list. Of the fifty-six, Indiana sends thirty-three, Michigan
fifteen, Illinois and Ohio two each, New York and Massachusetts
one each, and of the remaining two we find no address. Vari-
ous events conspired to spread the fame of the university in
subsequent years. As Chicago grew in wealth and extent, her
.merchants sought a safe rural retreat in which their children
might be secured against the dangers and temptations of city
life. After the civil war broke out the Catholic colleges of
the Southern States were used as military hospitals, and the
students from those regions flocked to Notre Dame. The cir-
cle of friends continually widened. Spaniards from New and
Old Mexico found it a convenient place to learn English, Eu-
ropeans to learn "American," as our language is now called on
the Eastern continent ; and with each revolving year the dis-
tances from which students arrive continually increase.

1 888.] AT THE CROSS-KEYS. 325

The number attending is now tenfold what it was in 1850.
But as we walk beneath the gilded dome, through spacious halls
adorned with costly historical paintings, or kneel beneath the
loftily vaulM;d aisles of the church, where the light streams in
floods of purple, amber, crimson, and azure through the translu-
cent imagery of the panes, soothed by the melting strains of the
organ, amid the perfumes "of Ormuz and of Ind " rising in
clouds from swinging censers, the memory of the old days of
privation and struggle returns as a pleasing reverie. The sim-
ple faith of upturned Indian faces from which the savage war-
paint has been lately washed by the baptismal wave, the sun-
browned features of hardy pioneers and brave coureiirs des bois,
surrounding the phantom shapes of devoted Black-Robes, still
haunt us, and imbue us with a sense that this, in view of its past
even more than of its present, is indeed hallowed ground.

ARTHUR J. STAGE.

AT THE CROSS-KEYS.
PART II.

GRADUALLY we ceased to be astonished at the odd ways
of Mr. Drane ; his wild appearance no longer moved in us the
most languid interest ; it was a matter of course to see him ride
by on his raw-boned sorrel a horse to which the luxuries of
grooming and bedding down were unknown. When it was
wanted it was taken straight from grass, with bits of straw and
stick and clods of dirt clinging to its shaggy coat ; a sheepskin
took the place of a saddle, and a rope with a loop in each end
answered for stirrups.* Dick made a sketch of horse and
rider, and underneath wrote: "Portrait of a Bloated Pluralist"
-for besides Chittingdean Mr. Drane was incumbent of two
outlying parishes. By and by, however, we put the caricature
aside and left off laughing, for the comic was lost to us in the
distressing.

It was sad to see the villagers, without spiritual head or
guidance, appallingly ignorant, and allowed to drift as they
would into carelessness and sin ; boys and girls growing up
with little more knowledge of right and wrong than the beasts

* In case I should be accused of exaggeration, I may here remark that this was actually the
equestrian equipment of a well-known rector in a South-of-England parish.

326 AT THE CROSS-KEYS. [June,

in the fields around them. It was sad to see the fine old church
nearly empty Sunday after Sunday, the service hurried through
and a sermon mumbled out by a man at whom half his audience
was laughing in its sleeves, half trembling at the prospect of ap-
proaching rent-day ; and sad to see how every one passed by on
the other side. There was no one to put out a hand to stop
these crying evils, though the rural dean lived within an hour's
drive, and twenty miles off was the cathedral town, with its
" bishop," its " Father in God," whose charge it was to adminis-
ter His laws in that diocese. But, to me at least, saddest of all
was the old man, so terrible in his loneliness, half-starving him-
self, leading the life of a miser, and grinding the faces of the poor,
to supply the prodigal wants of a spendthrift son.

There was a cricket club at Chittingdean, and Dick, who
was an old public-school boy, had, of course, insisted on joining
it. Evening after evening did he spend tearing about between
two sets of wickets, or " fielding " for some other wielder of the
willow, in an attitude suggestive of the late Colossus of Rhodes.
He had gallantly done his best to coach the rustics into better
form, and had succeeded so well that they had triumphantly
won a series of matches over neighboring clubs, and were be-
ginning to hold their heads very high indeed.

The cricket-field, a flat meadow joining the Cross-Keys gar-
den (a great convenience for thirsty souls), was a favorite rendez-
vous in leisure moments. Non-players were fond of lounging in
its corners, and silently smoking on the railings that surrounded
it, on which railings it was also fashionable for maids and ma-
trons to lean and gossip, looking with admiration at the exertions
of their perspiring sweethearts, or anxiously alert to prevent
too venturesome Tommy or Bill from toppling over the paling
and breaking his tender neck.

One beautiful September evening, towards the close of our
stay at Chittingdean, we were all in the meadow ; the club had
been practising for a match which was to be THE event of the
season, and Dick, with his coat off, was descanting on the merits
of round-arm bowling to a knot of youths, who listened eagerly to
the words of wisdom that came from his lips, when suddenly the
talk and laughter stopped, an embarrassed silence fell, the men
dropped apart with uncomfortable looks. Unseen till then, the
rector had appeared, and, for the first time in my recollection,
was standing amongst his flock.

The English rustic is a difficult creature to deal with ; he has

1 888.] AT THE CXOSS-KEYS. 327

a shy pride which makes him hate to be seen while amusing
himself ; he never loses his self-consciousness, and is constantly
suspecting- people of laughing at him. It requires a special
knack to win one's way into his good graces, and there are peo-
ple who, with the best of intentions, spend all their lives visiting
the poor in country places, and who yet never succeed in being
more to them than mere relievers of temporary wants. With
how much more distrust, then, will they look upon a man of Mr.
Drane's description, whom even their dulled intellects can detect
as the product of a gigantically wrong system ?

The old man stood a moment ; his glittering, restless eyes,
wandering from face to face, were sharp enough to see distrust
and dislike on each.

. " I appear to have interrupted you," he said at last, and, rais-
ing his hat to me with an exaggerated old-world courtesy, he
turned away.

A great lump rose in my throat, such as I remember to have
felt when I saw Henry Irving's Shylock in the trial scene.
What sudden freak had moved Mr. Drane to come among us?
Had he passed through one of those bitter moments when the
need for human companionship and sympathy forces itself on
even the hardest and most self-contained among us?

I watched him as he moved across the ground, his long
shadow slanting up the grass before him, pointing the way to
his lonely home. The sun was sinking behind the tall old elms,
and the rooks were cawing their good-nights. Evening had
come upon us very suddenly.

It was past eleven the same night. The good folks of Chit-
tingdean kept early hours and had been asleep long ago. Dick
had already gone to bed, and I, who had been finishing an inte-
resting book, was thinking of retiring, when Mrs. Hawkins came
into the parlor, candlestick in hand. She wished to know if I
wanted anything more, and then went fidgeting round the room,
setting it to rights, putting this and that in its place, as she had
a way of doing.

" I don't believe Sam [the hostler] has fastened they shutters,"
she said.

" Why, Mrs. Hawkins, are you afraid of burglars ? "

"One never knows ; and this time of year there's many bad
characters about 'oppers and such-like." And she flung open
the window.

As she leant out to fasten the shutter some moving object

328 AT THE CROSS-KEYS. [June,

caught her eye; a man was skulking in the shadow of the house,
and at the same moment Boxer, the watch-dog, set up a short,
angry bark.

" Who's there ? " cried Jane.

The man drew near the window.

"Hush!" he said; "for God's sake stop that dog. Mrs.
Hawkins ! don't you know me ? "

" Mr. Drane! Why, sakes alive!' whatever are you doin' at
this time o' night?"

" I I am only taking a stroll."

" Oh ! come now, Mr. Drane, strolls and such-like don't do
for me ; and let me tell you, sir, rector or no rector, I don't al-
low folks to hang around the Keys at all hours without a pretty
good idea of what they're up to."

He did not know that I was there behind the curtain,
and

" Mrs. Hawkins," he said, in a kind of desperate way, " Pen-
stone is here "

" Here ! at the Keys ? That he an't ! "

" No, no. Down there in Cheeseman's barge. He is ill, he
is hiding, and O my God ! " His voice broke down and he
began to sob in a piteous manner.

" Mr. Drane," said she, " you and me have known each other
forty year. I don't say as our terms has always been pleasant,
but you married me, as you will remember, in a shot-silk and a
Leg//0r bonnet, and if you wants a friend now Jane 'Awkins is
the woman."

He caught sight of me then.

" Who's that ? " he asked.

" That's Mrs. Wardour, and as safe as the Bank of England,
I'll go bail."

" Yes, yes ! " I cried eagerly, "you may trust me, Mr. Drane.
But you had better come inside. Pollard passes here about this
time."

Pollard was the solitary constable Chittingdean possessed.

" See there, now ! She's got more sense than you and me,
standing here talking like two great babbies. Come you in at
oncst."

He scrambled in at the low window, and we had only just
pulled to the shutters when we heard the slow tramp of the po-
liceman. Not until his heavy tread had died away did we dare
to speak, and then hurriedly, in a few words, he told us.

1 888.] AT THE CROSS-KEYS. 329

I have often wondered since at his unrestraint, but I suppose
in times of great trouble.one knows instinctively whom one may
trust. A terrible blow had fallen on him. He had been struck
through his son, his idol, the only being in the world whom he
loved. For years this son had been draining him, calling in-
cessantly for money to gratify his extravagant tastes. What
Mrs. Hawkins had once said was true in Penstone Mr. Drane
lived over again his old fast life. His great joy was to read the
chronicles of the young man's doings in the so-called society
papers the accounts of his horses, of his drag, of the diamonds
given by him to Miss So-and-So of the Temple Theatre, or of
the grace with which he led the cotillion at the Duchess of Not-
tingham's ball.

In spite of his own strangely negligent habits, the rector had
a vast pride of race, and his dream was to see the family re-
established, taking, as he expressed it, its proper place in the
county ; and his idea was that Penstone would dazzle the eyes
of some heiress, and by a brilliant match rekindle the almost
extinct lamp of the Dranes.

But the years went by, and the heiress as yet existed in
imagination only, while money to carry on the campaign be-
came more and more scarce, and at last came a time when, in
reply to the son's demands, the father had to intimate that his
resources were at an end ; the property was mortgaged to the
hilt : there was no more to be raised on it.

Then the name of Penstone Drane began to appear on the
lists of city companies, on the board of directors of this scheme
and of that. More than once the bubbles burst and Mr. Drane
was called on to cover up deficits. Then came the explosion of
a gigantic fraud. All England rang with the nefarious impos-
ture. Its promoters had placed themselves within peril of the
law, and first among them was Penstone Drane.

When he was wanted to render an account of his misdoings
he was not to be found. The principal partner in his guilt
stood his ground, but Drane fled, it was thought to Spain, but
in reality to his native village. So cleverly had he arranged
matters that the keenest detectives in Scotland Yard were track-
ing him to Madrid, while he was lying perdu not three hours'
journey from London.

The news of the discovery of the fraud, and his connection
with it and disappearance, was four days old, but in Chitting-
dean it was not yet known. The rector was the only man who

33 AT THE CROSS-KEYS. [June,

read a daily paper ; we others took our information from the
weekly columns of the West Sussex Gazette.

Imagine the strain and the anxiety the old man must have
suffered during those days of uncertainty, till one night his son,
gaunt, haggard, and dirty, tapped at his study window. He had
slept out two nights, and was shivering with the chills and
fever. His father dared not take him in because of the long-
tongued bailiff and his wife, and he had hidden him in the cabin
of an old water-logged barge that lay a little below the weir,
hoping for an opportunity to get him out of the country ; but in
the forty-eight hours that he had been there his fever had
increased, and he was now too ill to remain in his place any
longer.

We woke up Dick, and "after a brief consultation it was
agreed that he and I should go and fetch the wretched man to
the Cross-Keys. If Pollard saw us he would suspect nothing,
for Dick had a whole array of eel-pots and night-lines set, be-
sides which we sometimes went on the water quite late.

Our wits were singularly sharp that night. In those few
minutes' flurried whispering in the dark little parlor (we had put
out the lamp, fearing it might betray us) everything was ar-
ranged and no necessary detail forgotten. Mrs. Hawkins was to
prepare a room, and, if we could succeed in getting Penstone to
it, he was to pass as a French artist friend of Dick's, arrived
suddenly, and equally suddenly taken ill. Of course it was very
wrong, we were deliberately doing our best to defeat the ends
of justice ; but at the time we saw only the father's agony, and
tried to help him in his efforts to save his son.

I shall never forget that walk to the river. The harvest moon
was sailing along in all her splendor, flooding the roofs and
walls of the houses, touching their points and gables with
silver. We went down through the yard, where the big dog
bounced upon his chain, and the horses in the stable moved un-
easily. One old mare with a chronic cold scared me stiff, she
coughed so like a human being, and every noise sounded so
startlingly loud in the hushed stillness.

I did not go on board the barge, and it seemed an age to me
before Dick reappeared up the cabin steps supporting a tall,
thin man. His violent trembling made it no easy task to
get him to the house. We took him into the parlor while his
room was being prepared. We had decided it would be less
suspicious to arouse the chambermaid, and that sleepy damsel

1 888.] AT THE CROSS-KEYS. 331

was helping her mistress, when, to our horror, Penstone broke
out into hysterical weeping, his cries rising- louder and louder in
spite of our efforts to hush them, till at last they reached the
ears of the landlady of the Cross-Keys, and in another moment
that terrible personage stood before him.

" Now, Master Penstone, you stop that noise! You stop it
this minute now, or I'll call in the p'leeceman I will for sure.
Do you think I want the whole house disturbed ? What ! You
wont, won't you ? "

And taking him by the shoulders, she shook him as one
shakes a naughty child, and, like a naughty child, he gave one or
two frightened gasps and was quiet.

The doctor had to be sent for, and of course it was useless to
try and keep the truth from him ; but he was almost as old an in-
habitant of Chittingdean as the rector, and his memory, leaping
back a quarter of a century, showed him Penstone Drane, a lit-
tle, fair-haired boy, playing with his own lads, and, with that
recollection, how could he betray him ? I doubt, however, if
the secret could have been kept anywhere but at the Cross-
Keys, but there the ruling spirit's word was law. If she said the
" poor French gentleman " was to be waited on by her alone, no
one dared dispute her authority or question its wisdom ; and so
it was that through his terrible illness Penstone was nursed de-
votedly night and day by rough-tongued, sound-hearted Jane
Hawkins, and to her skill and care alone he owed his recovery.

When he could be moved he left with us, an emaciated bun-
dle of wraps, carried by Dick to the fly and driven slowly over
the breezy Downs to Newhaven, and put aboard the packet for
Dieppe. From thence after a time he made his way to Spanish
South America.

I have often wondered why we all took so much trouble to
save so worthless a creature, and if it would not have been bet-
ter to have let him die in the stifling four-foot cabin of Cheese-
man's barge, where the air came only through the cracks and
the water slipped softly past the window.

I would fain tell you that from that time a change for the
better came over Mr. Drane, but a regard for truth obliges me
to say that the old man came back from Dieppe unaltered, and
dropped once more into his old ways. He still rides the raw-
boned sorrel, he still rack-rents his tenants, and still inflicts the
same old sermons on his congregation year out and in.

Dick pretends that he is thoroughly ashamed of his part in

33 2 AT THE CROSS KEYS. [June,

the matter; he says he would never have assisted in the least, if
I had not roused him out of a sound sleep and talked him into par-
ticipation in our " connivance at forgery " before he was fully
awake. And when I say that if Penstone Drane had been caught
it would have availed his creditors nothing, and he would
probably only have died in prison, my husband answers that on
these points women are invariably immoral, in support of which
theory he quotes statistics to prove that it is always ladies who
cheat the revenue by smuggling gloves and eau de cologne (on
the matter of cigars he is strangely silent), and the railway com-
panies by going first-class with second-class tickets to which
crushing facts 1 reply that only a man could be cruel enough to
suggest giving up a hunted thing which had fled to him for
refuge and protection.

Especially it makes Dick angry when he hears of Penstone's
prosperity, for he has thriven in Mexico as he never could have
thriven over here ; besides growing rich himself he has married
a fabulously wealthy Mexican belle, and his life is laid down on
most lordly lines.

" I could forgive him." says Dick, " if he were only poor and
miserable! But to think of that wretched scamp and coward
rolling in wealth over there, while a hard-working painter '
etc., etc.

Jane Hawkins is more generous. From the moment she be-
friended them she took the Dranes, father and son, into her
large heart. Old grievances were forgotten, old wounds healed,
and she and the rector have become the greatest friends. He
brings her Penstone's letters to read, and they chuckle together
over the way they "did the law." Penstone never forgets her.
Twice a year he sends her a great box, so that many strange
pickles and sauces find their way into the Cross-Keys larder.

AGNES POWER.

1 888.] SIENA AND HER SAINTS. 333

SIENA AND HER SAINTS.

OF all the towns of lower Tuscany none is more celebrated
than " the city of the winds," as Siena is poetically called. As
the tourist emerges from the tunnel of San Dalmasio he catches
sight of the city, throned upon the brown crest of her hill-
promontories, and commanding an extensive view of champaign
country, stern and gray and uninteresting-looking in winter as
an English midland county ; but in summer the masses of green
foliage and vine slopes pervaded with pale golden light seem
everywhere filled with hidden and beautiful life. Geologists
tell us that all this part of Tuscany consists of loam and sandy
deposits, forming the basin between two mountain ranges, the
Apennines and the chalk-hills of the western coast, of Central
Italy.

Its site is Etruscan, its name Roman, and its essential in-
terest and beauty belong to the artists, statesmen, and soldiers
of the middle ages. The character of the town is truly me-
diaeval: a city wall follows the outline of the hill from which
the towers spring, while the cypress-groves and olive-gardens
slope downward to the plain.

The three places to which every one goes immediately in
Siena are the cathedral, the house of St. Catherine, and the
Palazzo Publico; and they all breathe the ascendency of mediae-
val ideas, the individual life of the city, its art and its religious
tendencies, in all their fulness.

From any part of the city can be seen the straight brick
tower of the Palazzo Publico, the House of the Republic, high
above every other building. In the irregular Gothic edifice,
now changed into prisons, law-offices, and show-rooms, the old
government of Siena used to assemble. Here are the great
frescoes of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, considered the greatest of the
Sienese painters. They were executed in the early part of the
fourteenth century, and express his theory of government the
benefits of peace and order, and the evils of tyranny and lawless-
ness in magnificent allegories. The first fresco represents
Peace, and the artist has painted the twenty-four councillors
who formed the government, standing beneath the thrones of
Justice, Concord, and Wisdom. They stretch in a double line
to a gigantic figure representing the State and Majesty of
Siena, surrounded by Peace, Fortitude, Prudence, Magnanimity,

334 SIENA AND HER SAINTS. [June,

and Justice, while Faith, Hope, and Charity float like angelic
visions in the sky above.

Another is a fresco of Siena herself, girt with battlement and
moat to insure her peace, her streets crowded with busy life,
the gates open, with streams of farmers bringing in their pro-
duce, hawking and hunting parties in full view ; a schoolmaster
watching his class, and figures of Geometry and Philosophy
personified, indicate that education and science also flourish.
The third fresco is Tyranny holding full sway, with Justice
under his feet, Avarice, Fraud, and Cruelty sitting around him,
and above figures of Nero, Caracalla, and other monsters in
human form. Near by is also represented Siena, the reverse of
the other picture, the streets filled with scenes of bloodshed,
quarrel, and theft. And to those living then these were no mere
fanciful allegories, but realities too often acted out at bitter
cost within a few short years.

Over all the gates and public buildings is to be seen the
monogram I. H. S., always surrounded by a halo. And the
object of this is to perpetually recall the famous story of the
illustrious St. Bernardino, who was born near Siena in 1380.
The story of his life is too well known to need more than pass-
ing mention. He lost both his parents at an early age, and was
tenderly brought up by an aunt. The singular purity of his
character is well illustrated by the fact that if he came up to a
group of his school-fellows who were engaged in boyish talk
that partook of any irreverence, they would say : " Hush, there
comes little Bernardino!" But it was the purity of strength
that savors nothing of weakness; and when the plague scourged
Siena, Bernardino devoted himself to the sick with dauntless
heroism, while terror dried the springs of compassion in almost
every heart. He even inspired twelve other young men with
his passionate ardor, so that they shared his labors in a mea-
sure, and for four months nursed the dying and carried those
stricken in the streets to hospitals or places of shelter. At last
the overstrained body asserted itself, and for months Bernardino
lay between life and death. On his recovery he devoted him-
self to the care of an aged, blind, and palsied aunt, and, left free,
he went to live with a friend just outside the city. But once
when praying before his crucifix the nakedness of his Lord upon
the cross, without even a grave in which to rest, so reproached
him that he sought the absolute consecration of heart and life in
the Order of St. Francis. He was just twenty-nine when he
took the habit, and the power and eloquence of his sermons were

1 888.] SIENA AND HER SAINTS 335

so remarkable that he was called "The Gospel Trumpet."
When he joined the order there were but twenty convents of
the Minor Friars of his branch of the order in Italy, and at his
death there were two hundred. He was appointed vicar-gene
ral of his order by Pope Eugenius IV., and refused many bishop
rics. He died on the vigil of the Ascension, and, by a most
touching coincidence, to use no stronger word, at the hour of
Vespers, just when the friars were chanting: "I have mani-
fested Thy name unto men, which Thou gavest me," etc. We
are told that a man once went to St. Bernardino and told him
that his preaching was the cause of the artisan's utter ruin ; that
his trade was the manufacture of cards and dice, and that he
had supported his family in comfort until now, when St. Ber-
nardino had converted the whole city to such reformation in
ways of living that no one gambled, so he was reduced to beg-
gary. The saint told him to try to carve little tablets like the
one he always held in his hand when preaching, and perhaps a
sale might be found for them. They at once became the rage,
every one desiring to possess a tablet, and the man ended by
realizing a fortune.

In the very heart of Siena is the picturesque Piazza del
Campo, where the great races were held every I5th of August,
and on the upper side of it is the celebrated fountain, construct-
ed in the middle of the fourteenth century, which gave such
delight to the people of Siena and was so much admired that its
architect was ever after called Jacopo of the Fountain. And,
although suffering from the ravages of time, its novelty of de-
sign and beauty of general effect make it still one of the model
fountains of the world. The sides of the Piazza are filled by
the Palazzo Publico and other Gothic palaces containing many
art treasures. Leaving these and threading the narrow, brick-
ed streets, one catches a sudden view of the western fagade of
the cathedral on the very highest of the three hills on which
Siena is built. The fagade is of black and white marble, with an
intermixture of red and other colors ; but time has toned them
down, so that black, white, and red do not contrast so strongly
as they may have done five hundred years ago. The architec-
ture has a variety which does not produce the effect of ec-
centricity, but of an exuberant imagination flowering out in
stone. On high, in the great peak of the front, and throw-
ing a subdued glory on the nave within, is a round window
of immense size, whose painted figures can be dimly seen
from the outside. Around the summit stand the venerable

336 SIENA AND HER SAINTS. [June,

statues in clear relief against the Italian sky, the highest being
one of our Lord.

One of our most brilliant word-painters says of this cathe-
dral :

" But what I wish to express, and never can, is the multitudinous rich-
ness of the ornamentation ; the arches within arches, sculptured inch by
inch, of the rich doorways ; the statues of saints, some making a hermit-
age of a niche, others standing forth ; the scores of busts, that look like
the faces of ancient people, gazing down out of the cathedral ; the project-
ing shapes of stone lions the thousand forms of Gothic fancy which
seemed to soften the marble and express whatever it liked, and allow it to
harden again to last for ever."

And it is a graphic illustration of the character of the times
and the popular devotion to the church that people literally did
give not only their money but themselves to this very cathedral.
There is a document in existence, dated 1333, which preserves
the actual names of one couple who had given themselves, as
" oblates," with all their property, to the church, devoting
themselves and their means to the advance of the work. The
trustee in whose hands the property was placed pledged him-
self to give them support during their lives and burial after
death.

The cathedral rises on its height of one hundred and fifty
feet above the ravine-like valley below, and its rectangular bell-
tower is only matched by the more aspiring tower of the Palace
of the Republic standing on the Campo beneath. Around the
feet of these towers the restless life of Siena whirled and eddied;
and now that her life has run low and her glory become a
memory, they seem only monuments of a former proud spirit
now extinct. But when they were building these towers there
was more than enough hot blood in the veins of the Sienese,
and their pride and vanity, as well as their religion, were
goaded to the work by the splendid cathedral of Pisa, not far
off. Other less noted towns were also rebuilding their old
churches, and Siena did not mean to fall behind, and the proud
and prosperous city counted no cost too heavy for this under-
taking. Large sums were voted by the Council of the Bell, the
chief legislative assembly of the city, which was composed of
three hundred citizens and met at irregular intervals, generally
as often as once or twice a week, and was always called together
by the ringing of the bell, from which it took its name.

But the fund was also increased by the offerings made each
year at the feast of the Assumption (the 15th of August) by all

iSS8.] SIENA AND HER SAINTS. 337

the citizens of Siena and by the towns and cities subject to her
rule. On the vigil of the feast a procession of the citizens, ar-
ranged under the ensigns of their trades and banners of their
parishes, and in their distinctive costumes, headed by the nobles
in their most splendid apparel, and accompanied by the magis-
trates in full official garb, was conducted in solemn pomp to the
cathedral to take part in the services and lay their offerings on
the altar. That evening or the next the deputies of the castles
and villages under the dominion of Siena, all in gorgeous cere-
monial robes, presented themselves with their tribute, their
pride soothed by the fact that their token of submission took
the form of an offering to the Lord.

The year 1260 is the most famous in all the history of Siena.
While she was busy with her cathedral she was making prepara-
tions for a war in which her very existence as an independent
city was at stake. The long contentions between Frederick II.
and successive popes had embittered the great party strife be-
tween the Guelphs and Ghibellines throughout all Italy. And
though the ideas represented by the names were often lost sight
of in the confusion of the times, in the main the Guelphs, led by
the popes, were constant in opposition to a foreign ruler, and
sought independence and unit} 7 for Italy; and the Ghibellines
sought in supporting the emperor, who maintained, to the imagi-
nation at least, the ancient imperial tradition, to provide a strong
feudal head for the state, under whose rule existing liberties
would be safe and civil discords repressed. The death of Fred-
erick, in 1250, greatly depressed the spirit of the Ghibellines.
Free from the dread of his strong hand and his genius and good
fortune, Florence, always Guelph at heart, called back her exiles,
expelled some of the leading Ghibellines, and put herself at the
head of the Guelph interest in Tuscany.

Siena adhering to the Ghibelline cause, preparations for
war were begun with vigor on both sides, and by the summer
of 1260 the army of Guelphs was encamped five miles from
Siena, at its head the carroccio, or great car, from whose tall mast
floated the red and white banner of Florence, the signal of the
whole host. This car was a symbol of independence widely
in use among the free cities of Italy. At each corner of the car
stood a man steadying, by a rope attached to its top, the mast
from which floated the banner of the army. On the platform
from which the mast rose was hung a bell that sounded on the
march and was rung while the car was stationary in time of
battle. Upon this platform was also erected an altar, upon

VOL. XLVII. 22

SIENA AND HER SAINTS. (June,

which Mass was said previous to an engagement, and on any
distant expedition a priest attended the army for this special
service.

When a halt was made the tent of the captain of the forces
was set up by the carroccio, the signal of battle was given from
it, and in case of defeat it was the rallying-point. Never before
had so large a force set forth from the gates of Florence ; for
the contingent from other cities swelled the ranks to nearly
30,000 men.

There was no dismay in Siena, but everywhere the hurry of
preparation; the council chose a syndic, giving him full power
to govern the city ; he was Bonaguida Lucari, a man of rank
and of great goodness and purity of life. In the meantime the
bishop had summoned all the clergy and gone to the cathedral
to pray to God to defend them from the impious Florentines,
and then they made a solemn procession barefoot through the
cathedral. When the council was ended Bonaguida cried to
the people before the church : " Though we be entrusted to
King Manfred, yet now, meseems, we should give ourselves,
the city and territory, to the Virgin Mary ; and do ye all follow
me."

Then he bared his head and his feet, stripped to his shirt, put
his girdle around his neck, and, having caused the keys of all the
gates of Siena to be brought to him, he took them and led the
way for the people, who, all barefoot, followed him devoutly
with tears and lamentations up to the Duomo, and, entering it,
all the people cried aloud : " Misericordia ! Misericordia ! "

The bishop and priests came to meet them, and Bonaguida
and the people all fell on their knees. Then all embraced and
kissed each other, forgiving all wrongs, and Bonaguida uttered
a prayer of dedication to the Virgin Mary. This gift was re-
Corded by the public notary, like all acts of state, and there was
a mosaic over the main door of the Duomo representing this
whole scene. This is said to have been destroyed in the re-
modelling of the facade in the fourteenth century, and was a
great loss to all lovers of the earl}' art of Siena.

The next morning the people met in the Duomo once more
to join in solemn procession. The crucifix, carved in relief, was
taken down from over the altar and carried at the head of the
procession. After it came the image of the Blessed Virgin under
a canopy, then the bishop barefoot, and Bonaguida, with head and
feet still bare, and girdle round his neck; then clergy and peo-
ple, also barefoot, reciting psalms and prayers. And thus they
went through Siena.

1 388.] SIENA AND HER SAINTS. 339

What the Sienese lacked in numbers they made up in fury ;
and they were aided at least the Florentines say so by a
traitor who cut off the hand of the Florentine standard-bearer.
But in spite of treachery and panic at seeing the standard down,
the Florentines fought bravely ; and, as their fortune grew des-
perate, they rallied around the carroccio and defended it with
passionate valor. They kissed it with tears, thus taking a last
farewell of all they loved, and then turned to die, till a heap of
dead surrounded it like a wall. But all their efforts were in
vain the Ghibellines got possession of it and dragged the ban-
ner of Florence in the bloody dust. Before nightfall the greater
part of the Florentine host was dead or captive, the rest flying
in dismay.

That night there was great joy in Siena ; but neither she nor
Florence has ever forgotten what they called the vendetta of
Montaperte.

In the course of the next century Siena reached her highest
point of glory. She was beautifying herself within and extend-
ing her dominion without, and she had never been so strong, so
flourishing, so self-confident before. She had reached the cri-
sis of her story, for the sources of civic virtue and public spirit
were beginning to run low. Men were less honest, women
less modest, and the new generation was less hardy and more
passionate than the old. Law no longer restrained those who
had ceased to honor justice, and ferocity knew no bounds.
Homicides were common, and men taken by their enemies were
tortured to the point of death, and then revived to be killed with
every refinement of cruelty. At last the council, in despair of
amendment, ordered a truce to all feuds during the feast of the
Assumption, Christmas, and Holy Week ; the rest of the time
men carried their lives in their hands.

Siena was not alone in this; she shared the corruption of
Italy. But the day of reckoning was close at hand. In the
height of her glory the proud city was struck down by a blow
from which she never recovered. The plague broke out,
brought by some infected vessel from the East, and it was the
most fearful on record. The sultry wind, laden with fetid ex-
halations from the earth, carried the contagion with fearful
rapidity, and a restless fear and depression of spirits prepared
the body for the seeds of disease. The plague struck down its
victims at once in city and country, and spared no rank or con-
dition of life. Then all bonds of fellowship and of society were
loosened, and strange crimes and suspicions influenced the lives

340 SJENA AND HER SAINTS. [June,

and thoughts of men. Innocent persons were hunted to death
as spreaders of infection ; the terrors of the grave broke through
all forms of artificial life, and human precaution became, cruel
and merciless. Many accounts are given by eye-witnesses.
One says : "At this time the great mortality began in Siena;
greater, gloomier, more terrible than can be imagined. Men
died while they were talking. The father hardly stayed to
watch his child; one brother fled from another; the wife fled
from her husband, because it was said this disease could be
caught by looking. No one could be found to bury them, but
he to whom the dead belonged, as soon as the breath was gone,
took the body by day or by night to the church and buried it as
best he might, covering it with a little earth that dogs might not
devour it. In many places enormous trenches were dug and
bodies thrown in in layers. I myself buried five of my children
in one of these. No bells were rung, for each one expected
death ; and neither physician nor physic availed anything, but
rather it seemed that the more care one took the sooner he died.
And at this time there died in Siena more than eighty thou-
sand persons." And the curious effect of all this horror was
that those who were left fell to feasting and rejoicing, for each
one felt as if he had regained the world and could not settle
down to anything.

Siena did not recover from this blow, though, in time, men
did become familiar with the new aspect of things and life be-
gan to run in the old channels. But the spirit of the city was
broken, and this was no period for carrying on public works.
The Duomo, as it now stands, forms only part of the vast origi-
nal design, and the church, which looks so large from the beauty
of its proportions and the interlacing of its columns, is but the
transept of the old building, lengthened a little and surmount-
ed by a cupola and bell-tower.

One most remarkable decoration is the line of heads of the
popes carved all around the church above the lower arches.
And not less peculiar to Siena is the pavement of the cathedral,
inlaid with marble. Some of the designs are as old as the
cathedral, and others are the work of later artists. They repre-
sent the history of the church before the Incarnation, and a
special interest is felt in this pavement from its seeming con-
nection with the twelfth canto of the Purgatorio.

In this cathedral are the ten celebrated frescoes illustrating
the life of ^Eneas Sylvius, afterward Pius II., and a wonderful
painting of the Passion by Sodoma.

1 888.] SIENA AND HER SAINTS. 341

By going down the hill on which the Duomo stands, a valley
is reached which lies between the old part of Siena and a hill to
the west on which stands the church of San Domenico. Here
has existed from the oldest times a kind of suburb inhabited by
peasants, and here is the centre of deepest interest to all Sienese,
for here is the birthplace of St. Catherine, the very house in
which she lived, her father's workshop, and the chapel erected in
memory of her saintly life.

Over the doorway is written in letters of gold, "The House
of Catherine, the Bride of Christ." And inside they show the
room she used and the stone on which she rested her head.
They have her veil and staff and lantern, the bag in which her
alms were placed, the sackcloth she wore under her dress, and
the crucifix from which she took the Stigmata.

It is impossible, even after the lapse of centuries, that these
relics could be fictitious, for every particular of her life was re-
membered and recorded with scrupulous exactness. She was
famous throughout all Italy before her death, and her house was
beloved by all the citizens who saw her daily leave it to help
and comfort sick and plague-stricken wretches deserted by
those who should have cared for them. Even those who take
no interest merely in a canonized saint regard Catherine of
Siena as the most noteworthy woman of her time, and her
public life and its actual facts cannot be ignored by any one
attempting to study the history of her native city. There are
an indefinite number of her biographies, one a sketch by Bar-
ing-Gould in his Lives of the Saints, and one by her friend and
confessor, Father Raymond of Capua, which gives a full ac-
count in detail of the private life of Catherine, and it has all the
freshness of style and vividness of color of a Fra Angelico por-
trait. But the public life and influence of St. Catherine were so
fresh in the minds of those for whom he wrote that he simply
alludes to or wholly passes them over.

From the moment of her death St. Catherine's house became
the object of veneration to thousands. On one side of it rises
the huge brick church of St. Dominic, where the saint spent the
long hours in solitude that won her the title of the Bride of
Christ. And in the chapel attached to it she watched, fasted
and prayed, and wrestled with her spiritual temptations. There
she assumed the robe of poverty, and gave up her silver cross,
and received the crown of thorns. And now that five centuries
have passed away, her enthusiastic votaries still kiss the floor
and steps on which she trod, and say: " This was the wall on
which she leant when Christ appeared to her. This was the

342 SIENA AND HER SAINTS. [June,

corner where she clothed him, naked and shivering, like a beg-
gar-boy ; here he sustained her with angels' food."

Catherine was one of twenty-five children born to Jacopo and
Lapa Benincase, citizens of Siena. Her father was a dyer, and
in the year of her birth, 1347, Siena was in the fulness of its
pride and splendor, and then the plague began its ravages.
With so large a family, and so much trouble abroad, it may be
supposed her parents paid little attention to their children's cha-
racteristics, and for some time Catherine seems to have been
quite unnoticed. But as early as six years old she began seeing
visions, and longing for convent life, and collecting her little
playmates and preaching to them. As she grew her desires
strengthened, and she so vexed her parents by refusing to think
of offers of marriage that they gave her all the meanest and
hardest household duties, which she accepted uncomplainingly,
at the same time living her desired life so far as she could. She
scarcely slept, ate nothing but vegetables, and wore sackcloth
under her clothes. At length her firmness of character won its
way, and her parents consented to her assuming the Dominican
robe between thirteen and fourteen. From this moment we see
in her the remarkable combination of the nun, the philanthropist,
and the politician.

For three years she never left her cell except to go to
church, and kept almost unbroken silence. And when she was
again drawn out into the world, it was to preach to infuriated
mobs, to nurse men dying of the plague, to execute diplomatic
negotiations, to harangue the republic of Florence, to corre-
spond with queens, " and to interpose," as Milman says, between
princes, popes, and republics. In the midst of this extraordi-
nary career she continued all her ascetic practices, and at length
died, worn out by inward conflicts and the fatigues and excite-
ment of her political life.

Even those who do not reverence her as a canonized saint
_ o _dmit that when they look at the private life of St. Catherine it
A nc jcites the profoundest amazement to think that the intricate
inlaid \v s ^ Central Italy, the councils of licentious and ambitious
cathedral . anc * n bl es > could in any way be guided by such a
sent the his&! one w ' tn no P rest '& e except a reputation for sane-
special interest^ to te ^ tne g reatest men in Europe of their faults ;
nection with the t? rc * s * aD solute command, and they, demoralized,
In this cathedr^' or indifferent, yet never treated with scorn
the life of ^Eneas />ent ^ e S ir ^ Absolute disinterestedness, natural
painting of the Passi in her divine mission were her only power.
-;es of her life were against her. The daugh-

1 888.] SIENA AND HER SAINTS. 343

ter of a tradesman overwhelmed with an almost fabulous num-
ber of children, Catherine never had even the pretence of an
education. In the maturity of her genius she had never learned
to read or write, yet the fact remains that writing became
almost immediately a powerful and comprehensive means of ex-
pression to her, for she has left volumes of letters, besides a
treatise on mystical theology, and she had also the capacity for
dictating to three or four secretaries at once. To conquer self-
love and live wholly for others was the one thing she urged
upon all and practised rigorously herself, never resting day or
night from some sort of service, and winning the almost adoring
love of all who saw her by her loving unselfishness.

When she began her career as peacemaker in Siena her
biographer says, in his artless way: " If all the limbs of my body
were turned into tongues, they would not be enough to relate the
fruit of souls won by this virgin to their Heavenly Father. 1
have seen a thousand persons or more come at the same time,
both men and women, as if drawn by the sound of some unseen
trumpet, from the mountains and villages in the territory of
Siena. These persons, I don't say at her words, but even at the
mere sight of her, were suddenly struck with compunction for
their misdeeds and bewailed their sins with so great contrition
that no one could doubt an abundance of grace had descended
from heaven."

Whole families devoted to the vendetta were reconciled, and
civil strifes were quelled by her addresses and personal influence,
as well as her letters. St. Catherine was never beautiful, and
her features were thin and worn, but her face so shone with
transcendent love, and her eloquence was so pathetic in its ten-
derness that none could hear her or even look at her and remain
unmoved. Her translated writings may sometimes be out of
accord with our modern taste as to modes of expression, but
simple and clear thoughts, profound convictions, and sternest
moral teachings underlie her most ecstatic exclamations.
Her reiterations of the word "love" are most significant; for
it was the keynote of her theology, as well as the mainspring,
the sustaining power, of her own life. One incident exhibits the
peculiar character of her influence in a striking light. A young
man living in Perugia, one Nicola Tuldo, had been unjustly
condemned for treason, and in the agony of rebellion against his
sentence he cursed God and the day he was born, and utterly
refused to think of or listen to words of submission to his hard
fate. Priests and friends pleaded with him in vain ; he only re-
peated his bitter, despairing words at having his life torn from

344 SIENA AND HER SAINTS. [June,

him in the vigor of his manhood. At last Catherine was sent
for, and by a few tender words she touched the aching heart no
priest could soften, no threats of death or judgment terrify into
submission. She says: " He now received such comfort that he
willingly confessed, and made me promise to stand at the block
beside him on the day of execution.." After further interviews
Catherine went with Tuldo to the altar when he made his hrst
communion, and, wholly at peace, he had but one remaining
dread that he might not meet death bravely. Then he begged
Catherine: "Stay with me, my sister; do not leave me; so it
shall be well with me." She replied: "Comfort thee, my bro-
ther ; the block shall soon become thy marriage altar, the Blood
ot Christ shall bathe thy sins away, and I will stand beside
thee."

When the day came she went to the scaffold and waited
there for him in earnest meditation. She even laid her own
head on the block and tried to picture the pains and joys of
martyrdom. She became so absorbed in thought that time and
place were lost to her, and she no longer saw the gathering
crowd of spectators to witness the ghastly spectacle, while she
prayed on silently for Tuldo's soul. At length he came, walk-
ing, she says, " like a gentle lamb." She called him brother,
and herself laid his head on the block, and held his hands, and
told him of the Lamb of God. His last words were her name
and that of his Lord, and then the axe fell, and Catherine saw
him borne by angels into Paradise.

In these days of courted notoriety and passionate ambition
we may well draw a breath of inspiration from the humility of
this wonderful life. While Catherine undoubtedly possessed
certain qualities in common with all leaders of mankind enthu-
siasm, eloquence, the charm of a gracious nature, and the will
to do what she designed yet she founded no religious order.
Her work was essentially a woman s work to make peace, to
help the ill and troubled, to feed the poor, to strengthen the
church, and to be a source of purity and light wherever she
moved.

When she died, in 1380, in her thirty-second year, she left a
memory more of love than of power, the fragrance of a pure,
unselfish life, and her place was in the hearts of the poor, who
still crowd her shrine on festival days. It was not until 1461
that Catherine was canonized by her countryman, Pope Pius II.,
^Eneas Sylvias Piccolomini.

The workshop of Catherine's father is now a church, con-
taining an interesting statue of her and four pictures illustrat-

1 888.] SIENA AND HER SAINTS. 345

ing her life: one of her saving two Dominican monks who had
been attacked by brigands ; one of her visit to St. Agnes of
Montepulciano ; one of a visit to a hospital ; and one of her re-
proving a youth about to commit suicide.

The site of her garden is also a church, and a little higher up
the hill is the great church of St. Dominic, where she took the
vows of the Third Order, and where are many celebrated pic-
tures of her. Indeed, many of the most celebrated painters of
Italy have chosen subjects from her life, especially Sodoma, who
has represented her receiving the Stigmata. Her most inte-
resting portrait is by Andrea Vanni, and is at the left of the en-
trance to the church, with Sodoma's " Charities of St. Catherine "
to the right. This Andrea Vanni was among the devout admir-
ers of St. Catherine during her life, and he belonged to a family
of artists, the first of whom, his grandfather, flourished in the
beginning of the fourteenth century ; and the last of the line,
Raflfaello Vanni, died towards the end of the seventeenth. The
family was noble, and it appears that, besides being the best
painter of his time, Andrea was Capitano del Popolo, and was
sent as ambassador from the republic of Siena to the pope and
afterwards to Naples, where, during his embassy, he painted
several pictures, and he has been styled by Lanzi " the Rubens
of his age." St. Catherine seems to have regarded him with
maternal tenderness, and among her letters are three addressed
to him during his political life, containing admirable advice
with respect to the affairs committed to him, as well as his own
moral and religious conduct. She begins, " Dear Son in
Christ," and points out to him the means of obtaining an influ-
ence over the minds of those around him, and then adds: "I do
not see how we are to govern others, unless we first learn to
govern ourselves." Vanni's portrait shows us a spare, worn,
but elegant face, with small, regular features. Her black mantle
is drawn around her; she holds her spotless lily in one hand, and
the other is presented to a kneeling nun, who seems about to put
it reverentially to her lips ; this figure has been called a votary,
but some think it may represent the pardon and repentance of
her enemy, Palestrina. " The Swoon of St. Catherine in the
Arms of her Sisterhood," by Sodoma, is considered one of the
marvels of art. The traditionary type of countenance which
may be traced in all her pictures has a real foundation, besides
that of her contemporary portraits, for her head, which was em-
balmed after death, is still preserved in the church. The skin
is fair and white, and the features look more like sleep than
death. They have the breadth and squareness of outline and

346 OUR DRINKS 'AND OUR DRUNKARDS. [June,

the long, even eyebrows which gave its peculiar calm to her ex-
pression. This relic is publicly shown once a year on the 6th
of May, the Festa of St. Catherine, and a procession of priests
and people holding tapers, and children dressed in white, carry
a silver image of their patroness about the city. And then, in
all the blaze of waxlights and sunlight, far away beyond the
shrine and dim through the incense, is held up the pale, white,
worn face that spoke so much and suffered so deeply long ago.

It must be in strange contrast with all the fulness of luxuri-
ant landscape and hum of life outside, and to the faithful kneel-
ing all about, full of wonder, gazing with reverent awe at the
relics, or softly repeating to each other the stories of the mira-
cles of the saint.

OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS.

" DRINK it down ! Drink it down! " So runs the cheering,
classic refrain of the American hymn to Bacchus. Drink down
what? Oh! the "good old brandy punch"; the "good old
whiskey punch " ; the " good old claret punch " ; the " good old
Bourbon whiskey"; the "good old Burgundy wine'' ; the "good
old Rhine wine" in "deep, deep draughts." Sancta simpli-
citas !

Within the last fifty years there has been an extraordinary
increase in the consumption of alcoholic drinks. A really seri-
ous man could seriously say that " modern progress " has been
lifted to its present dizzy height on a mounting wave of rum.
Among the nations we have not been specially favored. Here
the wave has risen no higher than in Germany, Holland, Bel-
gium, Norway, or England. Probably the French do not top
the wave-crest. But how noble their striving! In 1850 the
feeble Frenchmen of the incubating Empire sipped a miserable
thirteen million gallons; in 1885 tne vigorous sons of the Repub-
lic engulfed thirty-three million gallons. Everywhere thinking
men were long since moved to action. Moral means have been
used to arrest the growth of the evil, and certainly with some
success. The law has been invoked, with even greater success.
In 1881 the Hollanders passed a law against public drunkenness.
A limit was set to the number of bar-rooms. In 1882 there were
but 1,640 bars, against the 2,003 tnat flourished before the traffic
was regulated by law. Better still, there was a decline of

1 888.] OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS. 347

nine hundred thousand gallons in the quantity consumed. Nor-
way likewise took to the law as a remedy. Not every Nor-
wegian hotel and restaurant is permitted to sell liquors. Certain
places are allowed to be open only on certain days or at certain
hours. At other places the dram-drinker must take a quart or
go dry. In the list of the reformed, Norway shows the highest
average. The Swiss did not escape the fatal epidemic. Other
means of cure failing, they too have had recourse to law, and
with advantage. Belgium has had a like experience.

Self-protection compelled these states to interfere will com-
pel other states to interfere. Look at England, where alcohol
kills its 50,000 a year! Look at France again, where the per-
centage of suicides doubled within thirty years, and where
twenty-five per cent, of the men and five per cent, of the women
who are placed in asylums are drunkards! Look at great Prus-
sia, where forty-six per cent, of those who go to jail are drunk-
ards! It is no longer a question of sentiment, of theory. It is
above all a practical question : How can we protect society
against the ravages of a terrible plague?

Men will fight for their habits. ' Pleasure deafens a man. The
argument of reason he meets by unreasoning argument. The
argument of fact is not heard. Practical men who know man-
kind and recognize the force of existing conditions will waste
no time contending for the best means of cure. They will ac-
cept any, every right means, however slightly remedial. Time
and organization are two powerful factors in correcting evil.

Will "high license," the limiting of the number of bars ac-
cording to population, the encouragement of " light-wine "
drinking, the severe punishment of the drunkard or of the un-
licensed dealer will any or all of these measures correct the
evil of modern alcoholism? Does not the real evil lie too deep
down to be reached by any of these palliatives? Let us see.

Words are more fixed than things. We keep and use the
word when the thing itself has changed or gone. Think you
that to-day the word "liquor" means what it meant fifty years
ago? or the word "alcohol," or "wine," or "drunkard." or
"sot"? Probably you have not thought much about the mat-
ter. Well, then, a few minutes given to the consideration of facts
may help to a thoughtful answer.

The alcohol of alcohols is the "spirit of wine " grape alco-
hol, to speak unscientifically. This is the alcohol of good brandy,
ethylic alcohol, the least hurtful of all alcohols. Nature has dis-
tributed alcohol generally, but sparingly. It is present in

348 OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS. [June,

spring-water, in the river, in the soil. Fortunately, alcohol can-
not be profitably distilled from springs and rivers. If it could,
what a luxury water would be ! However, alcohol can be manu
factured profitably from any substance that contains a given
quantity of starch. The starch is transformed into sugar, and
from sugar into alcohol. From corn, rye, and wheat we get the
alcohols which, in the form we drink them, are known as whis-
keys. These alcohols are not the same as the alcohol of brandy.
They are amylic alcohols. Amylic alcohols are hurtful. They
may be made less hurtful by means of successive distillations,
but even distillation will not give them the quality of the alcohol
of wine. Hurtful alcohols are also extracted from rice and
oats. Vinegar is now made from wooden logs. There is no
reason why a kind of alcohol should not be made from sawdust.
Possibly it is so made, though we have seen no report of the
fact. To modern chemistry we owe the impetus given to the
manufacture of the bad and cheap alcohols, which are chemi-
cally formed from the beet-root and the potato. Besides the
ethylic alcohol and the amylic alcohol we have in commerce the
propylic and butylic alcohol.

The alcohols made from rice, oats, indeed from grain gen-
erally, are poisonous ; those from beet-root and potato are deadly.
In France, where the chemists have studied the subject closely,
M. Henninger found that a dose of sixteen grains of amylic
alcohol sufficed to kill any ordinary dog. M. Dujardin-Beau-
metz and M. Audig6, in 1879, presented the results of a series of
careful experiments to the Academy of Medicine. These ex-
periments were made on swine, who were not educated drunk-
ards. MM. Beaumetz and Audige tried to determine the "kill-
ing point " of the various alcohols. And in order that their
experiments might have a more than ordinarily exact value,
they based them on the weight of the alcohol administered and
the weight of the animal on which they experimented. Accord-
ing to their figures, fifteen ounces of ethylic alcohol will kill an
ordinary man. Propylic alcohol is twice as effective ; eight
ounces will do the work. Butylic alcohol is more expeditious
still, four ounces sufficing. As if this were not deadly enough,
here is amylic alcohol with a " killing point " of three ounces
or, to put it another way, five times deadlier than the " spirit of
wine " !

France is the home of good brandy and of the "spirit of
wine." In 1840 her output of grape alcohol and brandy
amounted to 15,730,000 gallons. The total production of the

1 888.] OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS. 349

year 1883 was 322,916 gallons. Still there has been no lack
of good brandy! Curious fact, is it not? Let us have some
more figures. In 1875 the French manufactured 8,118,000 gal-
lons of alcohol from the beet-root and 2,200,000 gallons from
various kinds of grain. But in 1883 the production of alcohol
from beet-root amounted to 13,860,000 gallons, and from grain
the product was 12,364,000 gallons. That matter about the good
brandy is somewhat more intelligible, perhaps. It is evident
that the word ''alcohol " has a broader meaning than it had fifty
years ago. And possibly some especially keen-witted reader
has already begun to question whether the word " brandy "
means what it meant fifty years ago.

Potato alcohol, beet-root alcohol, and the other vicious alco-
hols are to-day freely manufactured in answer to the demand
of a large and growing market. We may safely say that the
brandies, whiskeys, rums, or gins which three-fourths of the peo-
ple drink are made from these poisonous alcohols. The word is
well chosen poisonous so proven, positively, virulently poi-
sonous. A year ago, in 1887, Dr. Laborde and Dr. Magnan
presented to the Paris Society of Medicine the results of a thor-
ough analysis of these alcohols. Among the chemical constitu-
ents of the still unbaptized brandy, or whiskey, or gin these pa-
tient analysts found "pyromuric aldehyde," better known as
" furfurol." This is a violent poison, a known provocative of
epilepsy. Sudden deaths among drinking-men are not uncom-
mon. In this city, within the last five years, there have been
several cases of the kind. You know the " item." " Last night a
man was arrested in the street for drunkenness. He was taken
to the station-house. The police-surgeon pronounced the man
drunk. The sergeant ordered him to be put in a cell. In the
morning, when the cell was opened, there lay the man, dead."
His relatives suspect that the police clubbed him. The news-
papers charge the surgeon and the police with criminal neglect.
The coroner declares it another case of the ever-convenient
" heart disease," and there's an end of it. These sudden and
inexplicable deaths of drinking-men have been frequent in Eu-
rope as well as in this country. Dr. Laborde and Dr. Magnan
are the first to offer a satisfactory solution of the mystery. The
action of "furfurol" is known. This terrible drug constricts
the breathing apparatus, arrests respiration suddenly, chokes
the victim. The unfortunate man who lies lifeless in the cell
was garroted from within. If the drinker of the bad alcohols
escapes the fatal "furfurol," he is, if more slowly, no less surely
poisoned. The post-mortem tells the story. The intestines and

35O OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS. [June,

the liver become more and more congested, inflamed, and the
large vessels, especially the aorta, gradually degenerate. There
is a steady consumption of the elements of muscular force.
These statements are not based on the passionate assumptions
of the theoretic total-abstainer or political prohibitionist. They
are based on scientific observation on a cold, dispassionate, un-
prejudiced study of a bald, plain record of facts.

In their original state the vicious alcohols are so nauseous
that the ordinary toper will not drink them. And yet they are
less harmful than the stuffs he willingly swallows. The alco-
hols of grain, of beet root, of potatoes are colorless, and each of
them has its own characteristic flavor and odor. The chemists
saw the problem and were equal to it. To turn these poisons
into any one of the popular liquors or "cordials" is "as easy as
winking." Here is our poisonous alcohol ; shall we give it a rum
flavor and odor, or would you prefer brandy or whiskey ? The
French chemist has provided us with various " bouquets " "&ou-
quet de Cognac" de gentivre, etc. These bouquets are poisonous.
Add poison to poison what chance has the drinker? Of what
are these " bouquets " made ? Butyric ether, acetic ether, sul-
phuric acid, cyanhydric acid, cyanure of phenol ; and of various
extracts essence of violets, castor-oil, pulverized cashew or
sassafras, Canada maiden-hair, broom-flower, iris- Color with
a preparation of oak-bark or vanilla. Or, if you prefer, you
may flavor with the German "essential oil of wine-lees."
Through the oxidation of castor-oil, butter, cocoa, etc., the
chemist obtains certain acids: caprilic acid, caproic acid, etc.
Under pressure these are etherized with ethylic, amylic, and
propylic alcohols. With these various ethers, and a good sup-
ply of villanous alcohol, you can crowd a bar or stock a cellar
with brandies and whiskeys or whatever else you please. A
few drops of the ether will flavor a large volume of the alcohol.
There are qualities in "bouquets." For common folks there
are ordinary stuffs; but if you are particular you can get a
superior article. The fine "bouquets" are compounded out of
nitro-benzine, prussic acid, essence of bitter almonds, benzoni-
tril, Jactate of methyl.

Nor has the modern trader or chemist neglected the favorite
cordials or the popular "bitters." A sugared mixture and a
few drops of the proper cordial "essence," and you have ver-
mouth, or absinthe, or noyau. Dr. Magnan and Dr. Laborde
analyzed these " essences." Their flavoring qualities depend on
the presence of salicylate of methyl, salicylic aldehyde, benzoic
aldehyde, or benzonitril. These are all frightful poisons. Sali-

1 888.] OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS. 351

cylate of methyl causes epilepsy, convulsions, hysteria. Salicy-
lic aldehyde, which is the ordinary flavoring used in vermouth
and in " bitters," induces epilepsy ; while benzoic aldehyde, the
bouquet of the noyau of the day, provokes tetanic convulsions.
Ah ! you epicure of the Neapolitan or Parisian American table
d'hdte ; you connoisseur, gourmet, of the "wine-included" Bor-
deaux, the mocking smile forsakes your dainty lips! You
are engaged suddenly with an interesting problem. Let me
divine its scope. On your contracted mental blackboard you
are figuring the probable potency of the customary pousse-caf^
at Monsieur Bonvin's or at Signor Falsificatorelli's? Of course
I was right ! And you are pleased with the result! Egad! it
is my turn to laugh. After this why not buy your own drugs
and glucose ? You doubt if the druggist would sell you the
things without a physician's prescription? And why not?
Have I forgotten the law against selling poisons? No, sir, I
have not. And now let me ask you a question: Why should
this law cover the apothecary's counter and not extend to the
restaurant bar? They have a famous astronomer in Virginia,
Brother Jasper, who maintains that "the sun do move." Do
you not think that if our gifted brother were to turn his power-
ful optics on the earth's crust he would find large sections of it
that do not move, and, more important still, that we are located
on one of them ?

The man of means, who knows good liquor from bad, and
who is willing to pay for the good, can have good brandies or
whiskeys or gins. But what of the mass of our population?
All they can have are poisonous solutions, ruinous to health
when drunk in moderation, and speedily fatal when drunk im-
moderately poisons that craze before they kill. The evil is
positive, patent, and of wide and lasting effect. It is an evil af-
fecting the welfare not only of the living citizen and the existing
state, but the welfare of the family, the growing children, the
progeny still unborn. A remedy, immediate and adequate, is
imperative in the interest of the common weal. If the law can-
not protect us from the disease, the madness, and the crime that
are necessary concomitants of the poisoned liquors of the day,
shall we not protect ourselves by means of private association?
Shall we protect the horse and the dog, and be cruel only to
ourselves? Why empty the can of watered milk in the gutter,
and pass by the cask of poisoned, poisoning liquor in the bar-
room cellar? Society should be awakened to the fact that our
alcohols are not the alcohols of the past, that liquor is not the
same liquor, and that the word " drunkard " has a terribly

352 OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS. [June,

changed meaning. Systems of sewage, of ventilation, of plumb-
ing, of rapid transit, of land tenure or taxation, are of small im-
port compared with the question of chemist's alcohol.

We cling fondly to old traditions and to old " saws." Wit-
ness the " light-wine" tradition, and the old "saw," "If you
would correct the evil of intemperance, encourage the use of
light wines." In the past there was wisdom in the saying. To-
day there is none. Where are you to get your wine, light or
heavy'? Cheap, or dear, "somethings" called wines you may
have but let us try to learn more about the wine of the period.

You know what a fatal enemy of the grape the phylloxera
proved to be. The French vines suffered severely. Among
great and small, in the Cote d'Or as well as in the Gironde, the
phylloxera blighted the grape. The crops grew less and less,
and the vintner poorer and poorer. Something had to be done.
M. Petiet did it in 1881. After the grapes had been pressed, and
all the old-fashioned wine had been extracted from them, he
gathered together the skins and treated them to a bath of sugar-
ed water. Eureka! a second vintage. The new vintage was
thin, of course, but the chemists found nothing hurtful in it. In
color, as compared with the wine of ante-phylloxera times, it
lost about a half; in alcohol it was but slightly deficient ; and as
a food it was declared to be two-thirds as good as the real thing.
This is light wine No. 2. Well, if grape-skins and a sugar-bath
will give a pretty good light wine, why not keep bathing the
skins? How bright you are! That is exactly the notion which
presented itself to some of the vintners. Forthwith they pro-
ceeded to give the same mess of skins three, four, five baths.
On the homoeopathic principle of "high potencies," it is just
possible that, intrinsically, bath No. 5 was more potent than our
No. 2. But, certainly, you would not suspect this when drink-
ing it. However, here was the raw material of a considerable
quantity of "light wine." Constructively it was the juice of
the grape. It was deficient in color, but this could be remedied
chemically. It was deficient in alcohol, but this could be
easily remedied. There was the beet-root alcohol and the potato
alcohol. Nothing could be simpler! Have a glass of "light red
wine " ? Oh ! do. // will warm you up !

Then there was the "good" wine. The supply was so
scanty, it seemed a pity not to put it all to good use. Happy
thought ! Let us draw off some of the good wine from the
cask, and replace it by good water. You find it a little weak !
Had we not better " vinify" it? How do you suppose wine is
"vinified"? Have you forgotten the bad alcohols? Good wine,

1 888.] OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS. 353

and good water, and a dose of potato alcohol you see the vin-
tage goes on bravely. Who will care for phylloxera now ? So
much for the French wines, red or white. The " light red wine "
of our fathers has gone for ever, it is to be feared. And we must
reconsider our cherished theory of "light wines" remedying
intemperance. Analyzing the Bordeaux wines some years ago,
M. Henninger found four grains of amylic alcohol to the quart
of wine. Sixteen grains, if you remember, kill a dog. In a white
Alsatian wine the same chemist found eight grains of the same
poisonous alcohol to the quart.

Oh! you meant "light German wines"! They used to be
very good indeed, even in our time. The phylloxera has not
done much harm to the Rhine vineyards, that is true. But the
demand for the Rhine wines has largely increased. Our Ameri-
can Germany would have the " good Rhine wine." The Conti-
nental demand grew apace. The crops were not always large
enough to supply everybody. There was nothing to do but to
call on the chemist. Of course everything that honest men
could do had already been done. The "good Rhine wine " had
been watered and vinified ; the California wines had been im-
ported, mixed, and vinified. But still it was impossible to make
enough of " light wine." A doctor with the pleasing name of
Gall came to the rescue. Now, when the grape has been
harvested, the must of the meanest, poorest grapes along the
river is gathered into great vats. A soapy-looking substance,
manufactured from potatoes, is mixed with the must, and the
pump is turned on. Water is not added absolutely ad lib., but it
is added in amount sufficient to assure much more than the
normal quantity of wine. When this " broth " has sufficiently
fermented it is strained off. The potato-sugar is again added,
the pump works, and so on until the lees are exhausted. Natural
fermentation being no longer possible, chemical ferments and
artificial heat are used successfully. Compared with the ordi-
nary brandy or whiskey of commerce, the first "brew" of Dr.
Gall's Rhine wine may be commended, on account of its " light-
ness." But when we get down to wash No. 4 or No. 5, would
they not be a little too " light," unless vinified and odorized ?
And, whether or no, would you recommend their use as a cure
for intemperance? True, they could send us more pure wine
from Germany. The grape is there. This new process of wine-
making has diminished the demand for the grape. Oh ! the per-
versity of man ! Our fathers were right in their day. They
knew good wine and recognized the comparative sobriety of

VOL. XLVII. 23

354 OUR DRINKS AND OUR DRUNKARDS. [June,

wine-drinking as compared with whiskey-drinking peoples. But
our fathers would not father the trash that is offered to us.
Could they speak they would warn us against the wine that is
not wine. Can we not recognize the change in the " thing " and
protect ourselves against the chemist ?

Let us hand down a proverb to our children : " Set a chemist
to catch a chemist!" If science has bargained to undo us for
pay, we must buy science to save us. There is really no other
way.

How about the " light wines " of Spain and Italy ? None are
brought here. Those that are imported are " fortified," " vini-
fied," and compounded out of all semblance to wine. In the
march of civilization the chemist keeps a little ahead of the
school-teacher.

The utilitarian scientific school has been busy eliminating
God from the list of reasonable conceptions. The practical
benefits derived, or to be derived, from the efforts of the school
in this direction are not immediately apparent. If all the shoe-
makers stuck to their lasts, possibly we would be more indebted
to the shoemakers. Will not the "Knights of Chemistry" aid
us by an " international" combination, organized to eliminate
bad alcohols, bad liquors, bad cordials, and bad wines from
commerce? The good to be effected is immeasurably greater
than all that can be hoped for from "museums of art" or of
"natural history," "manual training," or the American flag on
the school-house roof.

To come back to our opening dithyramb, does the toper of
the period still desire to " drink it down"? Shall we, quite out
of time, recklessly sing the now senseless song of our fathers?
If we can compose no sweeter air or construct no more grateful
rhythm, may we not at least accommodate ourselves to the facts?
This is essentially the time for facts, solid facts liquid facts as
we know. A real scientific version of our song should run thus :

" Here's to the bad new brandy punch ! " " Here's to the
vile new whiskey punch ! " " Here's to the doctored claret
punch ! " " Here's to the epileptic Bourbon whiskey ! "
"Here's to Gall's 'light' potato-wine!" "Drink it down!"
No, no, that won't do now! "Throw it out! Throw it out."
Certainly, that is more sensible. In time you will find this
version less strange. Truth grows on us. And the new song
will be quite as exhilarating and vastly more hygienic than the
old one. JOHN A. MOONEY.

i888.] THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. 355

THE ANNALS OF A VENDftAN.
v.

(Concluded.}

YOUNG Monsieur Henri (for so his Vende'an liegemen chose to
name La Rochejaquelein), finding himself sworn into the ranks
at Aubier, gained a good victory there, captured large supplies
of ammunition, and fired two hundred shots, being an expert
from boyhood, as earnest of his future activity. Thence he
rode by night to Bonchamp and D'Elb6e, and the weary army
of Anjou, bringing aid and arms, and, as a gift not least, the
contagious cheer that was in him. Victories, due in the main
to his restless energy, followed in swift succession. Though his
growth, in all things, went steadily towards reasonableness and
the golden mean, his chief early characteristic was hare-brained
intrepidity. He was constantly exposing himself, pursuing too
far, " combating with giants," as Burton says, " running first
upon a breach, and, as another Philippus, riding into the thick-
est of his enemies." He was wholly without fear as wholly, at
first, without foresight ; and it took many bitter denials and re-
verses to teach him the pardonableness of deliberation and sec-
ond thought in others. But, while he lived, wherever he went
he was a force. He was of the stuff of Homer's joyous men.
His decisive habit of mind mastered elder and better soldiers.
His troops were his, proudly and fondly, for risks such as no
other general besought them to run. He was for ever win-
ning over new admiration by some spurt of daring, some aston-
ishing fooling with death or failure. Many a dragoon was cut
down with his sabre ; horses were slain under him again and
again. Were a brave prisoner suffering suspense, Henri must
needs take down two swords and offer to clinch matters by
fighting him singly. This laughing audacity of his had no brag
nor cant in it. It was the metal of which he was made, that
which he lived by, the blameless outcome of himself. His com-
panions respected it, and shook their heads, without speech.
But they knew that such sowing did not promise the aftermath
of gray hairs,

" Home-keeping days and household reverences.' 1
It is interesting to know that Henri had one of those singular

356 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [June,

natural antipathies no effort of will can correct. At Pontorson,
while Madame de Lescure was sitting in a room, with her tame
black-and-gray squirrel in her lap, Henri came in and backed
against the door, pale and trembling. He said, with a laugh, that
the sight of a squirrel gave him a feeling of invincible terror. His
friend asked him to stroke the little creature; he did so, shaking
in every limb, and avowing his weakness with great simplicity
and humor. He was never much of a talker. Discussions
vexed him. If called upon in council, he would, overcoming
his extreme diffidence, speak his mind briefly, and, having done,
withdraw or fall asleep. No one of the officers was more hu-
mane at battle's end ; but nevertheless Henri's element was bat-
tle. His Paradise was like Valhalla, where he could have the
combat and the chase, and the " red right hand of Odin," and he
looked forward to a life where he should play soldier for ever.
" When the king " (Louis XVII.) " is on the throne," he said to
his cousin Lescure, whom he loved, " I shall ask a regiment of
hussars." It was his whole desire of guerdon, and it was in ac-
cord with the ungrasping temper of the south.

Lescure had also the Roman spirit of " devotement " ; any
day he was ready to outdo Curtius and Horatius. In the rout
of Moulin-aux-Chevres he drew the hostile squadrons from the
pursuit of the frantic Vend6ans by calling their attention to
himself and to La Rochejaquelein by name. At Thouars he
forced the bridge of Vrines alone amid a shower of balls. He
returned to his dispirited comrades with exhortations ; one em-
boldened peasant followed him to the second charge. But at
the instant Henri arrived, with Foret, to join Lescure and fire
the lagging troops, as the celestial armies were fabled to have
fought, at need, for the old commonwealths. Here, this same
day, mounted on the shoulder of a peasant named Texier, one of
the most valuable men in the ranks, Henri broke the coping oi
the fortress wall, and through the breach hurled stones at the fly-
ing Blues. His course henceforward is to be tracked in these
flashing incidents deeds, as it were, compacted of sense and wit.
At the siege of Saumtir, at a wavering moment of the assault, he
flung his hat into the entrenchments. " Who will fetch that for
me?" he cried, certain of his response, and, with his usual verve,
leaping towards it himself. The crowd rushed after him as one.
In the same engagement he saved the life of M. de Baug6,
struck from his saddle while loading Henri's pieces for him ; as
at Antrain, with a call for greater adroitness, he saved that of
M. de La Roche St. Andr6. The garrison at Saumur was left to

i888.] THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. 357

his charge, much to his disrelish. He chafed and fretted a time
for the inaction, and presently his discerning men, despite the
fifteen sous a day which, as the first Vend6an bribe, were offered
them to remain, discovered that there was nothing more to fear,
and slipped away to their firesides. Soon but nine were left, and
with them Henri departed gloomily, carrying his cannon, and at
Thouars burying them in the river. At La Fleche he had to
fight, half-disheartened, all but alone. At Martigne, and again
at Vihiers, his name was urged constantly to encourage the sol-
diers when he had not yet arrived on the field.

He stood in a hollow path, giving orders, during an obstinate
engagement at Erigne. A ball struck his hand, shattering his
thumb and glancing to the elbow. He did not stir nor drop
his pistol. " See if my elbow bleeds much," he said to his com-
panion officer. "No, Monsieur Henri." "Then it is only a
broken thumb," he said, and, with his eyes straight to the front,
went on directing his troops. It proved to be an ugly and dan-
gerous wound. Not long after, before Laval, his right arm
limp and swollen in a sling, he was attacked on a lonely road by
a powerful foot-soldier. He seized the fellow by the collar with
his left hand, and so managed his horse with his legs that his
struggling assailant was unable to draw upon him. A dozen
Vendeans came up, eager to kill the man who menaced their
general. Henri forbade it. " Go back to the Republicans," he
said ; "say that you, Goliath ! were alone with the chief of the
brigands, who had but one arm to use and no weapons, and that
you could not harm him ! "

In addition to his blue greatcoat and his wide, soft hat, he
wore anything which he found available, and adopted for his
distinctive mark a red handkerchief of Chollet make about his
neck, and another about his waist to hold his pistols. Among the
Blues at Fontenay it quickly became a universal order, " Fire
at the red handkerchief ! " The other leaders, unable to dissuade
Henri to doff it, adorned themselves with the same insignia and
saved him from the sharpshooters. Later he wore his famous
white sash with its little black knot.

VI.

In the autumn of 1793 occurred the memorable passage of
the Loire. It was undertaken against the urgent appeals of La
Rochejaquelein and a few others, in the hope of obtaining succor
and new strength from the Bretons, and of opening a northern
French seaport to their expected allies from England. Four

358 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [June,

thousand men were detached from the army, under Falmont, and
sent to St. Florent. This was the first of a series of fatal mis-
takes, at a time when the Vend6an forces should have held jeal-
ously together. More than eighty thousand people, their homes
burning behind them, peril hanging over their heads, the com-
ing winter bearing heavily on the very old and the very young,
the Republican hosts advancing to exterminate them ; Bon-
champ, on whose advice the move was undertaken, on whose sa-
gacity the others relied, dying ; Lescure, wounded at Chollet in
the midst of his frenzied squadrons, dying; the bewildered,
groaning multitude dropping, like the pallid passengers of the
Styx, into the river-boats what a spectacle ! The great tears
of anger and sorrow stood thick in Henri's eyes.

Cathelineau, the first and, next to Charette, the ablest com-
mander-in-chief of the Vendeans, having been mortally wounded
before the gates of Nantes, D'Elb6e, by skilful manoeuvring, had
himself appointed his successor. But after the passage of the
Loire, D'Elb6e, in the confusion, was not to be found. Lescure,
besought to take matters into his own hands, immediately
moved that the officer best beloved by all divisions of the army,
and best known to them, Henri de La Rochejaquelein, should be
nominated to the vacant generalship. "As for me, should I re-
cover," added Lescure, "you know I cannot quarrel with Hen-
ri. I shall be his aide-de-camp." A council of war was held at
Laval. Henri, never known to push himself forward, was bit-
terly averse to the measure. As advocate against his own
claims he made his longest speech. He represented that he had
neither age nor experience, that he was merely a fighter, that he
had too little practical wisdom, that he was too untenacious of
his own opinions, and that he should never know how to silence
those who opposed him. In vain. After the ensuing vote he
was found hidden in a corner, and cried like a child on Lescure's
breast for the unsought honor thrust upon him. He was to have
no further guardianship and support from that dearest of his
friends. At Fougeres, after great suffering, Lescure died. In
the room where his body lay Henri said to his widow : " Could
my life but restore him to you, oh ! I would bid you take
it."

More griefs befell. Bonchamp, too, died (" The news of
these two," said Barere in the Convention, "is worth more than
any victory ! ") ; his body, like Lescure's, carried for a brief time
under the colors, was buried at St. Florent. His orphan son,
Hermen6e, became Henri's special care, his darling and bed-
fellow. The child rode for months in the rear-guard of the

1 888.] THE ANNALS OF A VEND A AN. 359

army, beating his little drum, haranguing the soldiers with pret-
ty ardor, and remembering each lovingly by name.

Pursued always by an immense force, obliged to leave at
every stopping place the wounded and the sick, the women and
babes, to mark their trail and to perish by massacre, the wretch-
ed Vendeans hurried on feverishly, defeating the garrison at
Chateau-Gontier and winning the day at Laval. Opportuni-
ties arose to retreat and to re-establish themselves in La Bo-
cage ; but Henri exhorted in vain. At Avranches the army
became mutinous. Yet with every responsibility there came to
him a growing prudence and calm. He learned to cover a rout,
to reap the full fruit of a victory. Many of the elder sub-officers
who watched him were touched and comforted, as at Chateau-
Gontier, where he forbore his old impetuous charges, but rode
close to his column, clearing up the confusion, hindering the
bravest from advancing alone, and holding the disciplined mus-
keteers together. But his light heart at last had failed him,
for too truly the tide of disaster had set in.

When the insurgents started to return they found the coun-
try which they had just conquered reoccupied by their ene-
mies; they had to contest the way back to the Loire inch by
inch. At Pontorson they routed the Blues. Foret fell there :
no quarter was given nor taken. A bloody battle followed at
Dol, where few of the Vendeans, dying, as they were, of home-
sickness, exhaustion, and hunger, had the physical strength to
handle their muskets. While there was a single man to stand
by him Henri fought like a lion ; and then, alone and seemingly
numb with despair, he turned about and faced a battery with
folded arms. It was owing to the exhortations of the cure" of
Ste.-Marie-de-Rhe, and in part to the superb energy of the
women, that the men rallied and wrested yet another victory
from their foes. At Angers, again, Henri would fain have
lashed up the flagging spirits of his old comrades ; the batteries
having made a small breach in the town walls, he, Forestier,
Boispreau, and one other flung themselves into it: not a soul
rallied to their defence. A miserable huddled mass, the army
fell back on Baug6, and, unable to seize an advantage, ran hither
and thither, ever away from the Loire. Desertions set in ; fam-
ine and pestilence came upon them. At the bridge of La Fleche,
Henri, with a small picked body of horsemen, overcame the
garrison with an adroit move, and there was a flicker of great
hope. But at Foultourte, with the utmost bravery, in his old
fashion he charged once more, alone.

In the city of Mans were food, warmth, and rest. The exiles

360 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [June,

ate, drank, and slept ; slept, drank, and ate again. Nothing
surely would ever rouse them now. Marceaux and Wester-
mann were hemming them in. Prostrate and drunken, the
twenty-five thousand Vendeans remaining lay inert as stones.
But M. Henri's frantic energy (" he was like a madman," says
Mme. de Lescure) yet once more assembled a desperate handful
of martyrs, under himself, Marigny, Forestier, and the Breton,
Georges Cadoudal. An obstinate and awful fight it was; a
scene of din and smoke, and of horrible confusion, by moonlight.
Nearly two-thirds of the forlorn little remnant of the army laid
down their lives. In the deserted town twenty thousand old men,
women, and children were slaughtered amid jeers and fury and
the patter of grape-shot. Exhausted, and with a heart like lead
within him, the commander-in-chief spurred to the side of Mme.
de Lescure, who, seated on horseback, hung at the outskirts of
the forces. She took his hand solemnly. " I thought you were
dead, Henri !" she said and her sequence of speech was
worthy both of him and of her " for we are beaten." " I
wish I were dead," he answered quietly. He knew that La
Vend6e had had its death-blow before him.

So ended the hopes of the march into Brittany. No Bour-
bon prince appeared to lead or comfort his believers; England's
idle overtures brought no reinforcements and no cheer. The
royalists were forty leagues from home, diseased, famished,
betrayed, burdened with a host of women and children and
dying comrades ; and let it be written that in this plight they
took twelve cities, won seven battles, destroyed twenty thou-
sand Republicans, and captured one hundred cannon. It is a
wonderful record a failure such as bemeans many a conquest.

The Loire was to be recrossed at Ancenis. The Republican
troops were on the farther side and all about ; not so much as
a raft was to be bought or hired for pawns. Two pleasure-
boats were seized from adjacent ponds and carried to the river.
Henri, Stofflet, and De Baug6 in one, young De Langerie and
eighteen men in the other, succeeded in pushing off, with the
intention of capturing and towing back four hay-laden skiffs on
the opposite shore. The current was rapid and strong ; the
patrols opened fire ; a gunboat descended the river and sunk the
skiffs ; the mournful peasants, separated from their generals, lost
the chance of following, and disbanded in universal disorder
and terror. The army, Catholic and Royal, driven back on
Nort, and relying on Fieuriot as its commander, saw Henri de
La Rochejaquelein no more.

1 888.] THE ANNALS OF A VEND & AN. 361

VII.

The fugitives landed in safety, and wandered all day through
the fields. The Republic, angered at the strategies that so long
held its strength at bay from footpaths, hedges, and queer, in-
accessible bush-places of La Vendee, which had afforded shelter
to the rebels and pitfalls to its own baffled soldiery, had literally
cleaned the place out and burned east and west down to the
very grass. The houses were in ashes ; the inhabitants had
taken to the woods. Desolation yet more complete was to
fall upon them. After twenty-four hours Henri and his com-
panions found an uninhabited barn and threw themselves on the
straw. The farmer stole in from the thicket to tell them that
the Blues were coming. But they were too weary for resist-
ance. " We may perish, but we must sleep," one of them an-
swered. The Blues came promptly. They were also a small
party, apparently greatly fatigued, and they lay down, with
their guns, not two yards away, on the same heap of straw, to
depart, unsuspecting, ere dawn. The Vendeans, deeply thank-
ful for their release, awoke and roamed on for leagues. They
would have perished had they not, with the strength of despair,
attacked a relay of Blues and seized their bread and meat.
News came of the last magnificent flash of Vend6an courage at
Savenay, under Fleuriot and Marigny. Out of nearly one hun-
dred thousand souls who crossed the Loire the year before,
scarce one hundred remained.

The little party disbanded. Those who remained with
Henri reached St. Aubin and passed three days of mingled
grief and solace with Mile, de La Rochejaquelein, still concealed
in her solitude. Here Henri, chafing to be separated from his
army, and resolving to return to Poitevin and rally the men
within call, heard that while Stofflet was already bravely com-
bating in the recesses of the Bocage, Charette was advancing
towards Maulevrier. He and his comrades set out on the
28th of December, travelling on foot all night, to reach the camp.
Charette was breakfasting in his tent. He received Henri
coldly ; nor did he ask him to the table. They had some con-
versation and separated, Henri going to the house of a neigh-
bor for refreshment. Not long after the drums began to beat.
Charette crossed over to the spot where Henri was standing.
"You will follow me?" he asked. Henri made a foolish and
haughty answer, " I am accustomed to be followed !" and turned
away. This is an instance of the jealousy and disunion which
had begun among the chiefs of the insurrection.

362 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [June,

But the peasants, flocking from the environs to join Charette,
crowded about with shouts of "Monsieur Henri!" before he
had so much as spoken. He was pleased, as they were ; his old
eager spirit revived ; he left Charette to his own devices. As-
sembling the little battalion at N6vy, he marched all night and
carried a Republican post eight leagues distant. Steadily, for
a week longer, he pursued his guerrilla campaign, attacking re-
mote points to prevent surmise; dropping down on widely
scattered garrisons ; harassing pickets, capturing provisions,
convoys, and small detachments, and intercepting rear-guards
on perilous roads. He was wise in not collecting his forces as
yet and hazarding a contest. Headquarters were made in the
forest of V6sins. About them Henri went and came, a familiar
figure, with long, blonde clustering hair; still in his great hat
and peasant's blouse, the little heart decking it as of old ; his
neglected arm, causing him much suffering, still in a sling. His
forces increasing daily, he became master of the surrounding
country, and prepared, in fresh ardor and confidence, to attack
the garrisons of Mortagne and Chatillon. The men were con-
tinually under exercise. Tidings came, too, to cheer them, that
in the north the Chouans were aroused.

On Ash-Wednesday, the 4th of March, 1794, he attacked
Tr6mentine-sur-Noaill6, and gained an advantage. After the
enemy had been routed he saw two grenadiers stooping behind
a bush. His soldiers aimed at them. Monsieur Henri, with a
light gesture, bade them desist, as he wished to question them.
He walked forward alone, with the Vend6an formula, "Rendez-
vous: grdce /" But one of the Blues, recognizing him, wilh in-
conceivable celerity aimed and fired. Henri had put out his
hand, with sudden recognition of danger, to seize his assailant ;
but at the instant he fell dead.

VIII.

The Vend6ans, transported with fury, rushed forward and
cut the grenadiers down. There was in the air the noise of an
approaching hostile column. In utmost pain and distress the
detachment, to whose command Stofflet now succeeded (seizing
the late chiefs horse with something like untimely exultation),
buried Henri de La Rochejaquelein in a hasty grave with the
miscreant who had slain him. Had the Republicans but known
what this loss meant to the men who loved him they could have
crushed Upper Vendee in a day.

Something of the glory and beauty of the cause vanished

i888.] THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. 363

with him. The war did not end for more than a year. Fresh
recruits carried it on with wonderful persistence and pluck.
But towards the close, itself the disciple of a terrible experience,
it became merely "a war of ruffians, carried on by treachery,"
by carnage and wrath.

"So quick bright things come to confusion."

Of the other Vend6an leaders "the patriots," as Professor
Hill says in his admirable history, "whose patria was not of
this world " Cathelineau with his many kinsmen, Bonchamp,
and Lescure gloriously perished ; D'Elbee in his sick-chair, laden
with insults, was shot in his own garden at Noirmoutiers ;
Mondyon and other gallant youths "died into life" at Angers,
bound in couples like dogs ; Marigny was cut off in his prime
by the orders of Stofflet and Charette, to the bitter sorrow,
after, of the former; Charette himself, having made peace to
his advantage in March of 1/95, at Nantes, and renewing hos-
tilities for what he thought to be sufficient cause, though offered
a million livres and free passage to England for his good will,
kept up to the last the unequal struggle, and, closing a career
of singular splendor, was taken and put to death, lion-stanch,
with " Vive le rot/" upon his lips. The wages of the others
were exile and disinheritance. This is no mean martyrology.

It is the word of homage to be spoken of the Vend6an rebels
and their rebellion that they fought long with honor and with
pity in the face of unnamable brutality and treachery. Ma-
rigny, indeed, mild and tender towards his own men, was as a
demon towards his foes; Charette, who had put a stop to the
cruelties of Souchu at Machecould in the war's beginning, was
the first to make reprisals the order of the day. But Bonchamp,
D'Elbee, La Rochejaquelein, and Vendean pastors innumerable
stand for ever ranged on the side of Christ-like clemency and
charity. Their followers, maddened at last, mocked the very
splendid sufficing policy of their opponents, and drew down the
holy and ridiculous anathema set forth in the memoirs of Tur-
reau.

To a student of the French Revolution not much need be
said of the liberal exchange of these grim civilities. The Blues
outdid themselves. The burials alive at Clisson, the atrocities
in the wood of Blanche Couronne, Carrier's thousands drowned
at Nantes, Westermann's shot at Angers these were the things
which crazed La Vend6e, until, in certain moods, it laid its
Christian forgiveness by as a thing hollow and vile. In May of
i794Vimeux, succeeding to the command, went to lay the south

364 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [June,

country waste. The imagination of no Hugo could fitly por-
tray the results. The Convention desired report of a country
without a man, without a house, without a tree ; in due season
they had it, true to the letter. It was Westermann's boast to the
Committee of Public Safety : " I have crushed the children under
the horses' hoofs; I have massacred the women, who shall bring
forth no more brigands ; not a prisoner can be laid to my charge
I have exterminated them. The roads are heaped like pyramids
with bodies." At Rennes the little, unskilful children were
made to fire upon their fathers; it was a novel, awkward, and
prolonged proceeding, entirely to the minds of its originators.

At Savenay, Westermann lured hundreds of Vendeans under
cover with a promise of amnesty, and, as they entered, shot them
down. An adjutant was brought to La Rochejaquelein at
Vesins in whose pocket was an order to repeat this brilliant
joke. In January, 1794, at Barbastre, fifteen hundred insurgents
capitulated and were cheated in the same way. They had been
promised their lives in Haxo's name, and they knew Haxo's
honor; but Turreau was actually in command, and the tune
changed. What wonder if, outside Laval, a whole battalion of
Mayence men, laying down their arms, were shot pitilessly by
the Vendeans? But alter, marching on Angers from Antrain,
they sent to Rennes one hundred and fifty wounded Republi-
cans, with the proud message that this was the sort of vengeance
taken by choice for old injuries. It was due to the kindly cur
of Ste.-Marie-de-Rhe. For the bitter deeds at Machecould the
Vende'an army did voluntary penance. In Thouars, and in many
a town like it inhabited by Republicans and revolutionists who
trembled for their fate, no violence whatever was wreaked.

A truly humorous reprisal was made, at the suggestion of the
Marquis de Donnissan, at Fontenay. There were four thousand
prisoners, and no forts nor cells to hold them. Should they be
set free they could not be trusted on parole. To solve the dif-
ficulty their heads were shaved, so that, if during the following
weeks they again attempted to fight their liberators, they might
be caught and punished ! The Vend6ans had infinite amusement
out of this circumstance. The loyal Republican general Ma-
rigny, who bore, to his imminent misfortune, the name of an ac-
tive rebel, was once so charmed with the spirited behavior of a
peasant made captive at the seige of Angers that he sent him
back under escort to his own lines. La Rochejaquelein, never
to be outdone in a gallant service, instantly released two dra-
goons with their arms, thanking him, and offering him in the
future an exchange of any ten prisoners for his one. " This was

1 888.] THE ANNALS OF A VEND I AN. 365

the only Republican general, " Mme. de Lescure adds, "who
had been wont to show us any humanity ; he was killed that
very day."

To Lescure no less than twenty thousand of the enemy owed
their lives. At the crossing of the Loire, at a moment of unex-
ampled perplexity and excitement, five thousand Blues were
captive in the hands of the journeying army. There could be
no question of transporting them ; the proper move, said
some, was to exterminate them. Not an officer could be found
to give the ignoble order. The poor, frenzied Vendeans were
about to begin the massacre when Bonchamp, with his last
breath, commanded that they should be spared. From the
house where he lay dying the echo flew along the lines : " Grace
aux prisonniers : Bonchamp Fordonne!" They were set free.
With the genuine French sense of the fitness of things, Bon-
champ's beautiful valedictory is graven on his tomb. As to the
amnesty, the Convention growled over it. "Freemen accept
their lives from slaves ! 'Tis against the spirit of the Revolution.
. . . Consign the unfortunate affair to oblivion."

Such are the things which often the Vendeans left undone,
lovelier than the deeds they did, and such the supersensual vic-
tories of which human nature may well be proud.

IX.

The romance surrounding Henri de La Rochejaquelein did

not end with his life. Says the Count of C , an emigrant

(author of the graphic and semi-erratic little pamphlet entitled
Un Stjour de Dix Mots en France] : " It was in a prosperous
hour, and shortly after the fortunate expedition of which I have
been speaking, that I had the pleasure of joining the royalist
army. Nevertheless, on all sides I saw but tears, I heard but
sighs: Henri had lately perished on the field of honor." From
this anonymous gentleman comes fragmentary testimony on
a subject of some mystery and conjecture There had been a
rumor that a woman headed the young chief's troops the in-
stant that he fell. Le Comte de C confirms it, though, in all

probability, from general hearsay. M. Henri's sweetheart, he
said, unwilling to survive him, yet burning to avenge him, flung
herself upon the advancing Blues and so perished. This is a
tantalizing half-glimpse; but we know nothing further, unless
to gather a parting impression of tenderness and peace from a
translated passage in that cloying, impassioned eloquence which
has never the Saxon shame of speaking all it feels: " And thou

366 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [June,

O La Rochejaquelein ! thou, the Rinaldo of the new crusade ;
thou, the terror of infidels and the hope of Christians ; thou, to
whom nature had given so much worth and dowered with so
much charm, look down upon the tears of thy brethren-in-
arms ; listen to the sorrowings of the whole army; see the
glorious tomb raised to thy memory ; let thy spirit hover in the
cypresses about, to count the trophies which thy victorious
comrades hang there day by day, the garlands which thy coun-
trywomen, fair and sad, wreathe there for ever ; hear the hymns
sung for thy sake; watch the young and buoyant legion sworn
to the perpetuation of thy name and the certainty of thy ven-
geance ; read the inscriptions which passers-by grave on the
trees in memory of thee ; rejoice to know that thy sweet friend
sleeps at thy side, wept, cherished, reverenced, less because she
was lovely, good, and bright than because she was once thy heart's
happiness and of thy triumphs pulse and centre ah! behold
and consider all these things at once, and let the palm which
thou hast won in heaven be set about, and made fairer, if that
might be, with all the bays won well of old from earth ! "

The body of Henri de La Rochejaquelein was brought to
the parish cemetery of St. Aubin,

" Seated in hearing of a hundred streams,"

and within calling distance of the house where he was born. At
his left hand is buried his brother Louis, who, with another
Charette, died at his post in June of 1815, just before Waterloo,
at the head of the new Vend6an army raised to oppose Napo-
leon. " Accident," says Genonde very beautifully, " takes upon
herself the writing of their epitaphs, and sows in abundance
over their dust what is known as the Achilles-flower." " That is
more touching to me," adds the noble gentlewoman, Mme. de
Bonchamp, "than the legendary laurel which sprung from <
Virgil's grave."

It is a brief and moving story, and it is over. What com-
ment is to be made, at any time, of promise cut short, of the
burning of Apollo's laurel bough ? La Rochejaquelein of Bau-
bign6, with his heroism, genius, health, breeding, and beauty
who, in the days of his living, would have measured for him the
glory which seemed so imminent and wide? And the thing
won first by that fine heart and brain was a wild grave in the
grassy trenches, breast to breast with the slayer of his body ; no
right, no reward, no appeal beyond that piteous ending. He

1 888.] THE ANNALS OF A VEND RAN. 367

was a boy, rash and romantic, a boy so pyrotechnically French
that we smile over him. His chivalry went to the upholding of
kings ; all he did has a sole value of loyalty, and we may dis-
pute the application of it. But his spirit, disentangled from old
circumstances of action, is such as helps humanity towards free-
dom and sets oppression aside like a dream ; infinitely sugges-
tive and generative ; now, as then, a holy and durable sign of
hope.

It is difficult to account for the halo which gathers about
such heads, and stays, and makes of a sometime aimless young
man an ideal of extreme force and charm to the youth of his
own land. Surely and it is, as Steele says, " one of the finest
compliments ever paid to human nature" the type is not extinct
and not too rare. In our American civil war, fought, like this of
La Vendee, wholly on a moral principle, a thoughtful observer
finds it repeated again and again. In the fragments of each
heroic record are cheer and benediction, which "light the
world with their admonishing smile," and perish not ever. It
is as much to know, after all, that Henri de La Rochejaquelein
once lived, as to be aware that such as he shall be born to-mor-
row ; the ultimate result is the self-same. A star pales and is
cancelled from all reckoning ; but the race of astronomers below
keep the long vigil, for there is a night set when it shall arise
and shine again.

Among his peers there were those who would have been men
of weight and of mark in any career whatever. It seems as if
they should have been spared to the world's needs. But per-
haps Henri, sensitive and whimsical, had no such adaptabilities
to bear him out. We are all but sure that living and dying in
the hurly-burly, as he did, he best fulfilled himself. He shows
so in a light endlessly kind to him, endlessly soft and clear to
the looker-on. He had a danger-loving temperament, like Phae-
thon's; yet his story runs as if he, at least, had held the reins of
the ungovernable planet-horses, and driven home, glowing and
safe, to his father's bosom.

Virtually what did he amount to ? What loud testimony of
him is left? To the man of facts, who asks the questions, the
best answers are, Nothing and None. Says George Eliot laconi-
cally in the Spanish Gypsy :

" The greatest gift the hero leaves his race
Is to have been a hero ! "

Such a one makes a jest of values ; he has the freedom of
every city ; he need pay no taxes ; he can do without a charac-

368 THE ANNALS OF A VENDEAN. [June,

ter. Posterity will not exact faith and good works of him.
This Henri was himself with his whole soul. His worth to us
now, our thankfulness to him now, is that he blazed with genuine
fire and played no tricks with his individuality. He stands
among the serious, war-worn leaders of the insurrection like a
fairy prince, with a bright, absurd glamour. He was all that
children look for in a tale, and he had no moral. He was the
embodiment of " T inexplicable Venctte" Careless for the making
of a name, for the gain of experience, for the duty of prolonging
his usefulness to men, he chose hurriedly the first work which
he believed honorable and to which he could give his heart, and
so stumbled on death. He reminds one of a magnificent quibble,
to which all the philosophy of the cold schools gives no availing
answer. Because of his shortcomings, rather than in spite of
them, his arm seems laden with everlasting sheaves. May there
not be, in the economy of nature, a waste which is thrift, a
daring which is prudence, a folly which is wisdom ineffable?

At twenty-one, new to love and to fame, he had the dark,
abrupt curtain rung down upon him. Yet, for reasons beyond
his youth, it seems as if he failed to live so far as life. About
his best there is scarcely enough of flesh-and-blood solidity. He
had undergone no sharp discipline, no survival, such as make a
man. A too sharp conscience guided him, and a sort of fine
unreason. He was anxious to do the best with his strength, and
to apprentice it to the first work, taking the risk that that should
also be the finest. He had idled awhile; he had been already
shaken in the old mental strongholds by the breath of the great
Revolution ; he had begun to be over argumentative with him-
self ; but he kept a naked honesty of habit which found its doing
easy when once its seeing was made clear. The war broke out,
under his feet, about his head. It was the nearest outlet for
those sacred forces of his, which, being pent, had vexed him and
made him grave. The cause had, besides, a thousand sanctions
in his eyes. His enlisting was a matter instant but humble. If
he flashed into the most unexampled comet-like activity before
he had been long a leader, it was merely that he warmed with
the game, that he felt sure at last of himself, and so blazoned
abroad his content and comprehension of life.

Despite his white heat of energy, he was at all times modest
and sensible, with his frolicsome laugh and his unapprehensive
outlook into the ugliest possibilities of the venture to which he
was given. He was not precisely of the stuff of Cathelineau or
Lescure. He was far from being a saint or a regulation hero.

1 888.] ALONE WITH GOD. 369

None the less is he a type of young French manhood ere it had
grown wholly modern and complex; the last of a single-minded
race, soldiers by accident, helpers and servers of men by choice.
In short, he was a Vend6an, behind his century in shrewdness,
ahead of it in joy ; or a straggler from the rear of the ancestral
Crusaders, having all the thirst for justice, the simple gayety,
the remote, detached, spectatorial attitude, the boyish bel atr,
of the sworded squires of the middle ages. "God hath Dis-
deigned the Worlde of this moste noble Spirit." Let him ride
ever now in memory, a beardless knight, his white scarf around
him, the nodding cockade of his foes behind ; women watching
his face for comfort and assurance, the gallant little orphan Her-
menee prattling between his knees ; beautiful indeed, even in
the smoke of war, with his oval face, his wholesome and winning
aspect, his terse speech and candid ways " Monsieur Henri,
guerrier et bon enfant?' as his compatriots knew him, and as
Froissart, of all chroniclers, would have loved him,

LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.

ALONE WITH GOD.

ONCE, ere the night fell, Thou didst say to me,
" Henceforth the path is strait: I go before,

And follow thou in darkness till we be
Abreast in Paradise, the journey o'er."

Then I was glad, and confident, and proud,
And said, " At last the summons I have sighed

To hear ! This night is brighter for its cloud ;
Safe is the steep path up the mountain side."

But Thou art Truth. The dark is very dark !

Close-set with thorns the path where, side by side,
Two may not walk unbruised, nor any hark

To voice less near than Thine, Thou only Guide !

Me, I am weakness ; where I touch, I cling.

And Thou art kind to make thy rocks too hard,
Thy thorns too sharp, for stay in anything

Except Thyself, sole Leader, sole Reward.
VOL. XLVII. 24

3/o WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT. [June,

WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. WILFRID BLUNT, the politician, is at present so much in
men's minds that some of us might be tempted to forget Mr.
Wilfrid Blunt, the poet, if it were not that word comes to us
how Mr. Balfour's prisoner, in despite of the cruelty which de-
nied him writing materials, has not only composed a series of
sonnets in prison, but has even found the wherewithal to com-
mit them to the safe keeping of written words. Yet the one
personality need in no sense banish the other, for in no man of
our time, except, perhaps, the late Lord Beaconsfield, are the
literary and political natures so inextricably bound up in each
other. " Proteus" Mr. Blunt chose to call himself in his early
controversy with the Rev. Charles Meynell, the distinguished
divine and philosopher, who had been one of his professors at
Oscott, and he kept his nom de plume in the love-sonnets on
which his poetic fame chiefly rests, but protean he is not in the
sense of being many-sided. Not a complex nature by any means,
whether read in the light of his books, his actions, or his per-
sonality. Always a man of action first, direct, daring, uncon-
ventional, the natural man, strong in sympathy with all nature,
human and animal, as untrammelled as his own, the keynote of
his character he gives finely in one of those sonnets which, not
being love-sonnets at all, are among the finest in his volume :

" I would not, if I could, be called a poet ;

I have no natural love of the chaste muse.
If aught be worth the doing I could do it ;

And others, if they will, may tell the news.
I care not for their laurels, but would choose

On the world's held to fight, or fall, or run ;
My soul's ambition will not take excuse

To play the dial rather than the sun.
The faith I held I hold, as when a boy

I left my books for cricket, bat, and gun ;
The tales of poets are but scholar's themes.

In my hot youth I held it that a man,
With heart to dare and stomach to enjoy,

Had better work to his hand in any plan
Or any folly, so the thing were done,
Than in the noblest dreaming of mere dreams."

For many years of his life this impetuous need of action
found vent in travelling through wild and unexplored places.

1 888.] WILFRID SCA WEN BLUNT. 371

Those valuable years were the school-time of his heart and in-
tellect for a day to come when, during the infamous bombard-
ment of Alexandria and the events that followed, this English
country-gentleman stood almost alone as a conscience amid his
conscienceless fellow-countrymen ; at least he stood alone to voice
that conscience, so proving that he too was touched with the
heroic quality which now and then, as in the case of Gordon,
comes to defend the English nation from the imputation of being
a race of shopkeepers.

Mr. Wilfrid Blunt was born in 1840.* At least one most
important factor in his life was decided for him before the pain
and difficulty of decision for himself could come* when he was
ten years old his mother followed her friend, Cardinal Manning,
into the Catholic Church, and so her boy received its tenets and
was reared up within its safety. His father, who was dead
before this, had been an officer in the Grenadier Guards, and
had served with distinction under Sir John Moore in his Spanish
campaign. After his education at Stonyhurst and Oscott Mr.
Blunt entered the diplomatic service at the age of eighteen ;
a curious choice of profession, surely, for one whose after-life
was to have a passion for truth as perhaps its strongest ancf
most determining characteristic. Stationed first at Athens, his
next post was at Frankfort, where he served with such dissimilar
personages as Sir Edward Malet and Mr. Labouchere. Madrid
was his next station, and here he signalized himself by attaining
a good deal of proficiency as an amateur bull-fighter. At Lis-
bon began his friendship with Lord Lytton, which has not
grown colder, though the divergence of their paths in politics
becomes as wide asunder as the poles. This friend it was who
encouraged him by his wise and generous judgment to his first
appearance in public as a poet. At Frankfort, in 1866, during
the campaign of Sadowa, he lay very ill with inflammation of
the lungs, which narrowly missed carrying him off, and from
the results of which he was more or less an invalid for some
years; he only escaped the consumption which had killed his
brother and sister by the wild, free life of travel which began
after this his first expedition being as secretary of legation to
South America, crossing the Pampas in that pre-railroad era,
and getting a taste of the difficulties and dangers which were to
prove so fascinating to him afterwards. On his return to Eng-
land in 1869 his marriage took place, the lady being Lady Anne

* I am indebted to Mr. John Oldcastle's article in Merry England for many of the facts of
Mr. Blunt's life.

372 WILFRID SCAWS.N BLUNT. [June,

Isabella Noel, Lord Byron's granddaughter, and with that in-
herited love of freedom and passion for adventure which makes
her so fitting a wife for her husband.

Shortly after his marriage Mr. Blunt retired from the diplo-
matic service, without much regret one cannot but think ; life
must have moved too smoothly in those oiled grooves for that
eager spirit, and even in its higher walks the game of diplomacy,
exciting as it may be, would perhaps require a more wily and
wary player than he was likely ever to become. Soon after-
wards his time of travel began, the first considerable journey
being when he and Lady Anne rode on horseback through
Spain, then in even a more disturbed condition than usual ; once
they were arrested as Carlists and came near being shot. Next
they visited Turkey and explored the mountainous districts of
northwestern Asia Minor; a memorable journey. Since then
began the deep interest of husband and wife in the Orient races.
This journey was followed by one to Algeria, where they cross-
ed on camels the great Haifa plateaux, south of the Atlas, and
so on through unexplored desert country. Undeterred by dan-
ger or deprivation, they next, in the winter of 1876, after a
sojourn in Egypt, visited Mount Sinai, and followed without
guides a route beset by dangers. Twice they came near perish-
ing: once by thirst and once by an onslaught of robber Be-
douins ; arriving, however, safely at Jerusalem. Two years later
they descended the Euphrates, and crossed Mesopotamia and
the great Syrian desert, visiting the horse-breeding tribes of
the Anazeh and Shammah, from whom Mr. Blunt purchased the
twenty Arab mares which made the nucleus of the celebrated
Arab stud which now exists at his beautiful ancestral home,
Crabbet Park, in Sussex. The story of this journey Lady Anne
Blunt has told, with a graceful and accomplished pen, in her
Bedouins of the Euphrates. She is always the chronicler of these
journeyings, being an accomplished literary woman as well as
the foremost of lady travellers. Only now and then will her
husband produce a word-picture, stamped with all his own fiery
intensity, like this on the oasis of Sidkhaled :

" How the earth burns ! Each pebble under foot

Is as a living thing with power to wound.
The white sand quivers, and the footfall mute

Of the slow camels strikes but gives no sound,

As though they walked on flame, not solid ground.
Tis noon, and the beasts' shadows even have fled

Back to their feet, and there is fire around,
And fire beneath, and the sun overhead.

1 888.] WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT. 373

Pitiful heaven ! what is this we view?
Tall trees, a river, pools where swallows fly,

Thickets of oleanders where doves coo,
Shades deep as midnight, greenness for tired eye :
Hark how the light winds in the palm-tops sigh.

Oh ! this is rest. Oh ! this is Paradise."

The Bedouins of the Euphrates is a book of extraordinary, even
fascinating, interest, written about a fascinating race. We learn
many things from it: how they do not believe in the immor-
tality of the soul because they never think of death, their lives
being so full ; how they believe in God, and do not pray to him ;
how they are extraordinarily courageous, yet will not despise
the coward " God has not made me courageous," one will say ;
how they need no laws, being a virtuous race ; and how, in old
age, they have a look of fierceness from a long habit of con-
tracting the eyes and the brows because of the white glare of
the sun on the desert. Wilfrid Blunt grew to love this people,
having, indeed, by nature a brotherhood with them in many
things. In the first journey he did not come to know the Arabs;
only their country. " I knew them," he says, " as tourists know
them, and because I knew nothing of what they were saying I
distrusted them ; I thought they lied." This insular feeling,
so frankly confessed, could not last long in one little enough
insular. In his second journey he learned some of the language,
and began to get an insight into the people. " A Bedouin
youth," he says, " of the tribe of Teaha, made me the confidant
of a love-affair. He dictated to me a love-letter, in which he
declared that he would die if the father of the girl refused to
give her for the three camels he had offered. Then I began to
feel that these wild people were men with passions like our-
selves." Afterwards he entrusted to his servants the task of
taking his camels to Cairo for sale. Six months later he re-
ceived the full price; so he began to learn that some Arabs
were quite honorable and honest. His trust and sympathy
earned return ; he was no longer deceived when the Arabs be-
gan to realize that he gave truth and expected truth. On the
title-page of his wife's Bedouins of the Euphrates he records his
impressions in this sonnet :

" Children of Shem, first-born of Noah's race,
And still for ever children ; at the door

Of Eden found, unconscious of disgrace,
And loitering on while all are gone before.

Too proud to dig, too careless to be poor ;
Taking the gifts of God in thanklessness,

374 WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT. [June,

Not rendering aught or supplicating more,

Nor arguing with him when he hides his face.
Yours is the rain and sunshine, and the way

Of an old wisdom by the world forgot,
The courage of a day which knew not death.

Well may we, sons of Japhet, in dismay
Pause in our vain, mad fight for life and breath.

Beholding you, I bow and reason not."

Before the era of "the pilgrimage to Nejd," the most adven-
turous of their journeys, Mr. Blunt had published a small
volume of poems, Sonnets and Songs, of which we do not
find much record, and which is now scarcely to be had. The
Nejd journey took place in 1878-9, and had a singularly roman-
tic motive. Mohammed, son to the chief of Palmyra Solo,
mon's " Tadmor in the Wilderness "had been their guide in the
Euphrates expedition. On their return he chose as recompense
only to be made Mr. Blunt's brother, according to Bedouin
custom, refusing any other reward of money or precious gifts.
This young Bedouin was the descendant of one of three
brothers who fled during war-time, a hundred years before, from
Nejd. The story is still told in a popular Arab ballad, for the
three brothers were great men in their day. Mohammed's fore
father settled in Palmyra, and became ultimately its chief. He
then, like another Cophetua, married a woman of the towns-
people, not of noble or Bedouin blood like himself. So his
children and children's children lost caste. Bedouin fathers
would not give them their daughters in marriage ; they had
ceased to be nobles. All this was a great though hidden trouble
to the young Mohammed, and Mr. Blunt discovering it, offered
as his brother to accompany him to Nejd and find a wife for
him among his own relations, if any remained after the century,
and so redeem the race. After a long journey through places
the very name of them strange in European ears, they reached
Nejd, with its shepherd kings as in Bible days; but a rebellion
breaking out in Palmyra, the young chief hastened home only
to be thrown into prison by the Turkish authorities. Mr.
Blunt, however, procured his Arab brother's release.

It was a long and arduous journey. Starting from Damas-
cus, in almost Eastern guise, the travellers went southward
six hundred miles over the great sand-deserts to the central
plateaux of Arabia, and were received as guests at Hail by the
Wahhabite emir, Mohammed Ibn Raschid. Afterwards they
travelled for upwards of a month with the Persian pilgrimage
from Mecca, reaching so Bagdad, and passing through Suristan

1 888.] WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT. 375

to the Persian Gulf and India. On this journey they were near
being accompanied by Sir Edward Malet, who met them at
Damascus. Mr. Blunt says, speaking of this meeting with an
old friend, whose friendship was not to prove as faithful as Lord
Lytton's: "I have often thought with what a different eye he
would have viewed the subsequent struggle for liberty at Cairo
had circumstances allowed him to see Arabian liberty with us.
The sight of a free native population in the heart of the desert
might have inspired him with the thought, which has ever since
been mine, of aiding the Mussulman nations to learn self-govern-
ment and shake off the yoke of strangers, and to regenerate
their social life. Sir Edward would have been listened to, as I
have not been, and England, instead of crushing, might have
nursed this infant freedom." But this was not to be. The one
man took the safe road to the highest honors of his profession,
and to marriage with the daughter of one of England's wealthi-
est dukes ; the other set out on yet another stage of the arduous
education which was to fit him to be the one voice in the wilder-
ness crying out a protest and a prophecy.

The next notable event in this eventful life is the publication
of The Love-Sonnets of Proteus, in 1880. The book was a great
and immediate success, and at once made the literary reputation
of the writer. Its popularity received a great impetus by Lord
Lytton's article, " A New Love-Poet," on his friend's work,
which was published in the Nineteenth Century ; but the critics
and the public were as generous and as quick in their recogni-
tion of the most original and sincere poetry which had appeared
for long. It will be seen from the specimens I have quoted that
Mr. Blunt's sonnets are little enough correct in form : it is char-
acteristic of the man that he should choose a form insisting on
restraint, and then violate its laws at his will ; the feeling is
nearly always too vehement for restraint and overflows its nar-
row, fourteen-line limit, but the music and the fervor carry
one beyond criticism. Here is a fine specimen in which the
Shaksperean affinity is most noticeable :

" If I could live without the thought of death,

Forgetful of Time's waste, the soul's decay,
I would not ask for other joy than breath,

With light and sound of birds and the sun's ray.

I could sit on untroubled day by day,
Watching the grass grow and the wild flowers range

From blue to yellow and from red to grey,
In natural sequence as the seasons change.

376 WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT. [June,

I could afford to wait but for the hurt
Of this dull tick of Time which chides my ear ;

But now I dare not sit with loins ungirt
And staff unlifted, for Death stands too near.
I must be up and doing ay, each minute :
The grave gives time for rest when we are in it."

The book is one that gives the world assurance of a man. It is
the most masculine poetry possible, and one thinks the great
and abiding value of it must be its entire unreserve. All other
poets have reserve of one kind or another, if it be but artistic,
but here is a whole inner nature laid bare, striking down the
barriers which divide man from man. The book was anony-
mous for three editions, but to the fourth the author added this
outspoken preface:

" No life is perfect that has not been lived youth in feeling, manhood
in battle, old age in meditation Again, no life is perfect that is not sin-
cere. For these reasons I have decided to add my name to the title-
page/'

Happily for oppressed nations everywhere, Mr. Wilfrid
Blunt's life is still, and will be, please God, for many years to
come, a battle-field. After the Nejd journey began the famous
series of articles in the Nineteenth Century and the Fortnightly,
with their passionate outcry against the Turk and their strenu-
ous faith in the future of the Arabs. Then came the national
crime and disgrace of the Egyptian war, when Mr. Gladstone's
government made the fatal mistake, repeated again and again
in Ireland, of taking for a mere emeute of a few military adven-
turers a great national movement. It is all fresh in men's minds
how the English fleet and army stood with the khedive on one
side and the whole united people on the other all a wonderful
triumph of commercial dishonesty and intriguing over a blind
government, and alas ! a nation fighting for its rights. The
bondholders triumphed, and Arabi's life was only saved by the
lavish expenditure from Mr. Blunt's private purse of five thou-
sand pounds or more. Was it then, or later when the Mahdi's
dark star rose over the horizon, that Mr. Blunt offered to take
his life in his hands and alone go to make peace with the Arabs ?
I forget, for events are so many. But England had no use just
then for a Don Quixote, though later, when things had come
to a desperate pass, she let Gordon go to his martyrdom. In-
cessant through it all Wilfrid Blunt's protest and prophecy beat
painfully at the ears of them in high places. He with the sav-
ing of Arabi, and Gordon dying with his Master's name upon

1 888.] WILFRID SCA WEN BLUNT. 377

his lips, are the two golden spots in all that blackness. Now
Englishmen are glad to forget the shame and disaster of it, as
those cannot forget, even here, to whom a grave at Tel-el-Kebir
or Assouan is the dearest part of the world, or that larger num-
ber whose national independence was destroyed, and with the
blood of whose kindred the desert was made to blossom like the
rose. There were some in those days not ashamed to raise
against Wilfrid Blunt the parrot-cry of want of patriotism be-
cause he could not acquiesce blindly in the acts of those who
were bringing disgrace on the name of England. One sonnet,
the last of the Proteus sonnets, might almost answer for him.
There is no insincerity in this emotion :

" Seven weeks of sea and twice seven days of storm

Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more
We ride into still water, and the calm

Of a sweet evening screened by either shore

Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er,
Our labors are accomplished. Once again

We look on Europe, mistress, as of yore,
Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men.

Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules
And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door

England stands sentry. God ! to hear the shrill,
Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze,

And at the summons of the rock-gun's roar
To see her red-coats marching from the hill ! ''

When it was all over he wrote his righteous anger and his
vision of the future in a vehement poem, " The Wind and the
Whirlwind," unpleasant reading for such of the ministers of
that day as may happen to come upon this terribly serious
poetry.

In 18^4 Mr. Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt visited Arabi
and his fellow-exiles at Ceylon, where the distinguished exile
has such peace as can come to a leader of men when his cause is
in ruins and his people scattered, and he himself chained to a life
of inglorious ease. But he has his Mohammedan fatalism to
still his hot impulses. Mr. Blunt is his faithful friend ; we have
in our minds the simple and touching letter, full of Oriental
dignity and greatness of soul, which came from Arabi when his
friend was sentenced last autumn.

In 1884 appeared also in the Fortnightly his articles, " Ideas
about India," wherein he made his attempt towards righting the
crying wrongs of the British ascendency and its officialdom in
India. The peasant of the Deccan pays forty per cent, of his

378 WILFRID SCA WEN BLUNT. [June,

produce in taxes, and he estimates that at least forty per cent, of
the population go through life insufficiently fed. All this while
every English official is living in a style of almost unparalleled
luxury. Lord Ripon was here in Dublin with us a little while
ago, winning all our hearts by his gentleness and urbanity. Let
us see what Mr. Blunt has to say of the viceroyalty of the
" Statesman of Faith," as some one has called him. He writes:

" No viceroy, Lord Canning possibly excepted, ever enjoyed such
popularity as Lord Ripon. . . . Whenever I went to India I heard the
same story from the poor peasants of the south, who for the first time,
perhaps, had learned the individual name of the ruler; from the high-
cast Brahmins of Madras and Bombay; from the Calcutta students; from
the Mohammedan divines of Lucknow; from the noblemen of Delhi and
Hyderabad; everywhere his praise was in all men's mouths, and the peo-
ple were moved to surprise and gratitude, ' He is an honest man,' one
said, 'and he fears God.' "

When Mr. Gladstone went Home Rule, Mr. Blunt, who had
been consistently Tory despite the utter unconservatism of his
beliefs, said good-by to old traditions and old friends and followed
him. From the time of his return from his last expedition his
work on the Home Rule platforms of Great Britain went on
steadily, unless for a passing visit or two to Ireland. The story
of his intervention last autumn between the octopus Clanricarde
and his victims the arrest, the trial, the imprisonment need
not be repeated here ; nor how his wife was as leally his comrade
in facing infuriated policemen as in enduring the dangers and
hardships of the burning desert, or the jungle haunted by wild
beasts. The generous blood of her grandfather has spoken rich-
ly in her.

Mr. Blunt is still, unhappily, outside Parliament, which must
in the future be the arena where he will fight the battles of
wronged peoples. But he will not long be denied his battle-
ground. There is no sign of the evening of meditation in that
superb figure that bronzed countenance, those luminous eyes.
Mr. Blunt is shaken by the rigors of his imprisonment, but a
little retirement and rest will strengthen him. And the victory
is all to him, and the cause for which he has, in some degree,
spent himself. KATHARINE TYNAN.

Clondalkin, County Dublin, Ireland.

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 379

JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY.

XXII.
THE NEW-COMER.

MR. VAN ALSTYNE had been standing just inside his front
gate when Paul Murray drove up that evening. The long twi-
light was nearly over, but though it lacked a couple of hours
to moonrise the sky was clear and silvery.

" You are late," said the old man ; " was the train delayed ? "

" No ; it was a little in advance of time. But the evening
was so fine that I came around by the falls."

" There is no one about to take the mare," went on Mr. Van
Alstyne ; " Sam drove Mrs. Van Alstyne out for an airing just
after tea. I thought they would have been back by this time.
Take Nell into the barn, and let her stand there in the traces and
wait for him. And then come into the house for your supper ;
I've some news to tell you."-

Mr. Van Alstyne seemed not quite like his usual self; there
was a sort of suppressed excitement in his face which communi-
cated itself in some manner to Paul, as they walked to the house
together, and made him wonder what out-of-the-way thing could
have happened in his absence. But Mr. Van Alstyne did not
seem ready to broach the subject at once, and questions were
not in his companion's line.

" Life gets to be an oddly interesting aflair when one comes
to my age," the old man said at last. " I begin to feel as though
I were a mere spectator at a play ; not much more directly con-
cerned in the developments of every day than I should be in any
other slowly unfolding panorama. Still, T do get a sudden
shake up now and then. I had one this afternoon."

" A pleasant, one, I hope."

"I hardly know yet. Perhaps I might say yes, on the whole.
Blood is thicker than water, even when it has been considerably
diluted."

Mr. Van Alstyne stopped to laugh quietly.

" Diluted is a good word," he added, "and I will use it to
you, since it expresses my sentiments exactly. But I don't
know.what Mrs. Van Alstyne would say if she heard it, or the
owner of this bit of pasteboard, either."

The two men had entered the house, and in passing through

380 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. I June,

the wide hall to the dining-room at the back Mr. Van Alstyne
took up a visiting-card from a basket standing on the table. He
handed it to Paul, who read out the legend inscribed upon it:

Mr. F. Van Alstyne-Hadleigh.

"A relative?" he asked, putting it down again upon the
others in the basket.

" Yes; a cousin the youngest son of an uncle whom I have
not seen since I was a boy, nor heard from in fifty years and
more. I did not know whether he were dead or alive he might
have been either, for he had not much the start of me in age
nor whether he had had a family, until the advent of Mr. F. Van
Alstyne-Hadleigh by the two o'clock northern train to-day."
The old man chuckled again, as if the name he uttered amused
him. He rang the bell and ordered Paul Murray's supper, and
while awaiting it kept on walking up and down the room.

" Well," said Paul, sitting down at table and beginning to
crunch a water-cracker with the appetite of a hungry man,
"that ought to be pleasant. The son of one's mother's brother
should be a cheerful sight on any day of the week."

Mr. Van Alstyne laughed again. " Oh ! the shoe is on the
other foot," he said. " My mother had no brothers. Mr. Fred-
erick Van Alstyne-Hadleigh is my uncle Diedrich Van Alstyne's
son. Looks a little like him, too, but he has been diluted, as I say
sublimated and refined, as he thinks, doubtless and in the pro-
cess changed into a Hadleigh. That's promotion, if you know
it, Murray. There's a peerage in the Hadleigh family an Eng-
lish peerage ; think of that! And this fellow's brother stands
within one of it, with only an unmarried and sickly cousin in
the way. So he says," ended Mr. Van Alstyne, with a shrug.

" I don't understand."

"Naturally. Consider, Murray," he went on, sitting down
opposite Paul, whose beefsteak had just been served ; " I know
I shouldn't make light of such very serious matters, but 1 have
been bottling up my laugh for two or three hours less, I will
say for him, for my .cousin's sake than for Mrs. Van Alstyne's.
She has a lion precisely to her taste for once in her life. From
the time they have been absent I fancy she must have gone over
to the squire's or elsewhere to put him on exhibition without de-
lay. Perhaps I shall have time to condense his account of him-
self before they arrive. You see, he didn't spring the important
item I have just communicated on me all at once; perhaps it
mightn't have leaked out yet but for my curiosity to get at the

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 381

reason of the transformation which puts the cart before the
horse so completely in his name. He is no man's fool, Mr. F.
Van Alstyne-Hadleigh unless, perhaps, his own," the old man
added in an undertone. " He has been everywhere and seen
everything, by his own account. He says he was one of a party
of four London barristers who, as a result of a late supper and a
sudden freak, set off from Southampton a couple of years back in
an eighteen-ton yawl, and crossed the Atlantic with no better sail-
or on board than himself and a cabin-boy. He says he has been
used to handling small craft all his life, on the Thames and in the
Channel."

"A yawl?" said Paul Murray, with suddenly uplifted eye-
brows.

" That is what I said. Of course I had a vision on the in-
stant of the boat hitched up on the davits of Bill Peak's sloop,
Sally Ann, and was ready to take all the rest of his yarn with a
large pinch of salt. But it appears that is the name the Eng-
lish give to a peculiarly rigged yacht. They went up one of
the rivers, the Plata, I think, as far as it was navigable, and then
broke up the party, he and one of his friends remaining in Para-
guay, and the others returning to the coast and from there by
steamer to London."

" That is a curious story," commented Paul Murray, smiling.
" What did t\vo London barristers find to do in Paraguay ? Has
he been there ever since ?"

Mr. Van Alstyne shrugged his shoulders. " He says his
friend was writing an account of their travels, while he was
chiefly occupied in studying the fauna and flora of the country.
They doubtless present peculiar points of interest. At all events
he remained there until some family news that reached him this
summer decided him to return. '

" Via Milton Centre ? Still, that is not much of a detour after
all for a man who crosses the Atlantic in a yawl, and buries him-
self in Paraguay to study botany and natural history. He must
be interesting."

" Yes; he is. I see you can't get the idea of a row-boat out
of your mind yet. Neither can I. He says he had a curiosity
to find out what there might be left of the 'American branch,'
as he calls it, of his family, and what sort of a place his father
originally came from. Well, that is the gist of his adventures
as he communicated them this afternoon. His credentials were
all right. He brought me a letter, among others, from Whipple &
Sons, from whom he appears to have found out how to get here."

382 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [June.

"And about the name?" said Paul. "How did he account
for that ? "

" Oh ! yes ; I was forgetting. Of course I took it for granted,
at first, that he must be my uncle Diedrich's grandson. He
tells me that his father went from here to Holland, which, by
the way, 1 knew already. There he found some of our rela-
tives, got into the South Australian trade, and made a fortune.
Afterwards he represented the Dutch house in London, where
he increased his means still further to a fabulous extent, I sup-
pose," said the old man with a smile more cynical than was
usual; " sufficiently, at all events, to let him marry late in life
into a family for the sake of whose prestige and connections he
was willing to sink his own. I told Mr. Van Alstyne-Hadleigh
that it had been a habit on our side of the house to give to
women instead of taking from them, especially in the way of
names."

" What did he say to that ? "

"Only that it was a mere matter of convention, any way;
that there was no more special reason on the face of things for a
woman's taking her husband's name than for his taking hers,
and that in the case on hand, as his mother was the only child
of a nearly extinct family which had connections and traditions
which made it desirable to keep it up, the two names had been
combined in the way which on the whole seemed most desirable
to the parties chiefly interested. He is a cool hand, my young
cousin," went on Mr. Van Alstyne in the musing tone into
which he sometimes fell of late, "plainly 'lord of himself, that
heritage of woe.' ' Presently he got up and went towards a
bay-window at the end of the dining-room, which gave a
glimpse of the road across some shrubbery.

" I thought I heard the carriage," he said. " Yes, here it
comes, and with it the first creature of my own blood I have
seen since I buried my son. So far as any actual knowledge of
mine went, there was not a drop of it flowing in any other
veins." He sighed as he ended, and went out into the porch
to meet the new-comers, asking Paul Murray, whose meal was
now finished and who had likewise risen, to await them in the
parlor.

Mr. Hadleigh. as he was known during the period of his
residence in a small American village, whose inhabitants re-
mained for the most part hopelessly dull concerning the true
significance of his double-jointed appellation, presently followed
his hostess into the room, and the two young men were made

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. 383

acquainted. Mr. Hadleigh, who had some five or six years the
advantage in age, was a man to look at twice: something indi-
vidual and unconventional was as evident in his whole appeaf-
ance as in the account he had given of himself. As they clasped
hands he and Paul Murray, both above the usual height, looked
into each other's eyes from the same level. Mr. Hadleigh's
were long and of a reddish brown, with a concentrated expres-
sion which seemed partly due to the contraction of myopy, and
partly to an habitual knitting of the too narrow brows above
them. His facial lines, with the exception of this slight lack of
breadth in the forehead, most noticeable in its upper half, were
in the main extremely fine, the aquiline nose and firmly-rounded
chin, especially, being very like those of John Van Alstyne.
But his jaw was more solid, and longer before it reached the
curve of the thin cheek, and the lips that closed tight under his
pale moustache, when he was not speaking, were wide and over-
full. When he had changed his travelling suit in the afternoon
to accompany Mrs. Van Alstyne on her drive, he had explained
to her that he was deferring attention to his wardrobe until he
should reach his London tailor an explanation which she had
not failed to pass on to Mrs. Cadwallader and the girls, for Mr.
Van Alstyne had justly divined that her anxiety to exploit the
new arrival without delay would overpower every other con-
sideration in her mind. No doubt she was glad to have so ex-
cellent an apology to offer for the appearance of his frock-coat,
a long Prince Albert, a good deal creased and inclined to shini-
ness about the seams, as well as too loose for a figure plainly
built to support strong muscular development, but at present
thin to even painful lankness. Mr. Hadleigh said that he had
been suffering from rheumatism and neuralgia for some months,
which accounted for the unhealthy pallor of a skin so ferown,
either by nature or from long exposure, as to look incongruous
beneath his dry, straight hair, which, like his moustache, was of
the color the French call cendrte. Something incongruous and
odd, for that matter, was in his whole appearance. Paul Mur-
ray, who suddenly found himself more critical than usual, noted
that he was perfectly at his ease in his ill-fitting and much-too-
shabby coat and carelessly knotted necktie, but felt himself un-
able to determine whether the explanation of that fact should be
sought in his indifference to his present company or in the abso-
lute indifference belonging to a natural love and long practice of
roughing-it in yet more unconventional apparel. Mr. Hadleigh's
manner struck him as a singular combination of watchfulness and

384 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [June,

candor, of preoccupation and observant attention. He talked
extremely well during the hour that elapsed before Paul Mur-
ray took his leave, chiefly on the subject of his voyage in the
Goshawk, concerning which his host's curiosity was unappeasable,
and with a quaint drollery, and even na'ivett, which somehow
added one more to the contrarieties which his personality sug-
gested to both of his male listeners. Each of them placed an
entire and justifiable confidence in all that he was saying, and
yet each, in some remote recess of his interior, felt the need
of supplementing and piecing out the story, and wondering
whether it rounded so smoothly on the other side.

Perhaps it was natural that Mrs. Van Alstyne's acceptance
of the stranger whose antecedents, so far as made known, were
so entirely to her taste, should be more entire than that of the
remainder of his audience that evening. Yet even she was feel-
ing conscious of a grievance. The Goshawk was all very well,
and so was Paraguay, delightfully romantic, adventurous, and
all that, but what she was dying to hear more about was
the social and family life in his own country, into which Mr.
Hadleigh's straightforward yet not too-ready answers to John
Van Alstyne's questions had given her such a tempting glimpse.
She had carried her point about the drive with that end in view,
and had extracted various additional items of family history,
given too simply and with too great paucity of details to do
much but inflame her imagination, and when she had attempted,
at Squire Cadwallader's, to induce him to repeat them, or, failing
that, to let her do so, she had been repressed in a quietly well-
bred way which was most tantalizingly effectual. Though they
had seldom found just the right conditions, Mrs. Van Alstyne's
soul was full of germs capable of causing an acute form of Anglo-
mania, and suffering just now under the tension of their last in-
teguments. Think, then, of the agony implied in having a guest,
and more than that, a family connection, under one's roof whose
elder brother, besides having been already knighted in consid-
eration of his political services, had the most excellent chance
of one day being Lord Leigh of Hadleigh ; who had been Press
Commissioner in India under Lord Lytton, and who had sat six
weeks in the House of Commons only last spring, under an
ultra-Tory government which, at the end of that too-brief period,
had been thrown out by a new accession of Mr. Gladstone to
power, and yet being unable to dilate upon all that to the ex-
clusion of meaner topics! Mrs. Van Alstyne knew little and
cared less about the politics of any country, including her own,

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. 385

but she became an anti-Gladstonian at that precise spot on the
turnpike road where her guest imparted the last item of news,
with considerable warmth of expression, but, to her, an almost
complete unintelligibility of details. Mr. Hadleigh was cer-
tainly more ready to talk on purely impersonal matters like poli-
tics, or on his out-of-the-way experiences by land and sea, than
on any others. He was entirely willing to air his aversion to
Liberalism in the abstract, and to the Grand Old Man in par-
ticular, for whom he professed a disgust only excelled by that
he entertained for "Jo" Chamberlain, whose first political coat
had not then begun to burst at the seams, and whose name Mrs.
Van Alstyne heard that afternoon for the first time. Not for
the last ; her guest, who had a sense of the humorous, due to
his mixed blood perhaps, presently took to interposing some
very nonsensical political gabble as a sort of screen between
her and himself whenever her questions began, but doing so in
a way that at once charmed and bewildered her, so full was it
of delightful names with handles to them, and yet so empty,
when she came to reflect upon it, of any solid nourishment for
healthy curiosity. As for Mr. Van Alstyne-Hadleigh, he had
very soon taken the measure of his hostess, and though there
was nothing he had any desire to conceal in his family relations,
and a good deal that it would have gratified her immensely to
be told, her questions bored him. " Les Amtricains" he quoted
to himself out of the half-forgotten French reader of his nursery
days, ii sont si curieux et si questionneurs" and then proceeded to
inflate her mind in ways too speedily followed by dire collapse
and craving emptiness.

During the course of the next week, however, Mr. Hadleigh
developed some qualities and capabilities which made a number
of people in Milton Centre and its vicinity regard his advent
as one of the happiest of accidents. Zipporah Colton and
the squire's daughters drove over to the village on Sunday
afternoon, and after an interview with Mrs. Van Alstyne in her
own room, where the birthday scheme was first unfolded to that
lady, the possibility of enlisting his co-operation was brought
up by the girls and eagerly discussed. Mrs. Van Alstyne took
instant opportunity to sound him, and Mr. Hadleigh, whose
readiness to amuse himself in almost any available way had
something even boyish about it, caught at the idea with effu-
sion. It suited him to remain where he was for the present, and
yet he had been quick to foresee that time was likely to be a
great drag on his hands. The girls were all sufficiently pleasant

VOL. XLVIL 25

386 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [June,

to look at, as well as gay in a frank, American fashion, of which
he had no experience, and to assist them would be far from dis-
agreeable. Moreover, he had had plenty of practice in amateur
theatricals, and turned out to be so full of practical ideas and so
fertile in expedients for making something out of almost nothing
in the way of properties, that, after a consultation participated
in by Paul Murray, whom Mr. Hadleigh volunteered to go in
search of, he was voted master of the revels. For the rest of the
week he devoted himself to the undertaking with such unflag-
ging zeal that one would have said that, if anything more impor-
tant had ever fallen to his lot to do, at least it could not have
been done with greater seriousness and absorbed attention.
Paul Murray, watching with amused interest such of the pre-
parations as were necessarily made in the vicinity of the mill,
noted, too, the skilful evasions, the unsurprised capability to
avert or disarm suspicion, by which he guarded these innocent
secrets from John Van Alstyne. True, the old man lent himself
to being hoodwinked after the first day or two with a readiness
which suspiciously facilitated the process. He went up to town
one morning early in the week and was gone until nightfall.
Then he began to superintend the excavations for the new build-
ings to be commenced before cold weather set in, and in other
ways contrived to be absent from localities where his presence
was not desirable. He found time enough in the long forenoons
to prosecute his acquaintance with his new relative, to whom his
heart, or, perhaps, his strong instinctive feeling with regard to
family ties, was inclining him more rapidly than his judgment.

Paul Murray, too, was finding himself at once attracted and
repelled by Mr. Hadleigh, and as yet uncertain which sentiment
was the stronger. On the whole, they were thrown so much
together, and Mr. Hadleigh was companionable in so many ways,
and so free from any manner of assumption, that they fell pre-
sently into a sort of superficial comradeship new to Paul, and
far enough from being unpleasant.

On Mary Anne Murray only was the effect produced by the
new arrival unmixed and certain, and so adverse and uncompro-
mising was it that it afflicted her conscience to an extent which
made her do more than ordinary battle with her shyness in
order to overcome it. In the usual course of things she would
not have been thrown in his way at all, but as it was he had ob-
vious occasions to call on her for trifling services, and came in
with Paul once or twice before the week was over to get his tea,
of which he professed to be as fond as an old woman. The law

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 387

of contrarieties must have lain at the bottom of the fact that she
awakened in him an entirely special admiration. He liked to
look at her, much as he had liked to look at certain pictures in
Italian churches, and had, moreover, a sense not unlike that
which had sometimes pervaded him in those sanctuaries, that it
would not be a bad thing to yield to the influence which seemed
to him to ray out from her. But in Mary Anne he created an
aversion that was even physical in its strong repulsion. She ac-
cused herself of a natural shrinking from his presence, which re-
sembled in its effects that which had once involuntarily over-
come her in the room with a pestilent cadaver, and so, the cir-
cumstance being altogether unprecedented in her experience,
she tried as conscientiously to overcome it. Not as success-
fully, indeed, but in a measure that, her ordinary timidity and
silence being taken into account, produced no such marked al-
teration in her demeanor as to be specially noticeable to others.

XXIII.

WHICH IS EPISTOLARY.
Zipporah Colton to her Sister Martha.

WEDNESDAY NOON, Sept. 26, 18 .

DEAR MATTIE : Lucy's note inviting you for Friday was writ-
ten late on Sunday evening, but since then our plans have taken
such an unexpected turn that I think you'd better come down as
soon as ever you can. Bring my blue velvet peasant waist with
you when you do. Saturday is the day, you know. We have
concluded not to try to do much of anything with the children.
One or two tableaux, perhaps ; but most of them are too stupid
to learn properly in the short time we have ; besides, we have
hit upon something a good deal better in every way. A cousin
of Mr. Van Alstyne's, of whom nobody ever heard before, has
arrived from South America on his way to England. He is the
most amusing person I ever met, and knows ten times more than
any of us about getting up charades and all that sort of thing.
He says he was brought up with a houseful of sisters and cou-
sins, and learned how when he was a boy. That must have been
some time ago, I should say, for though he don't act old, he
don't look very young.

He came last Saturday while I was at home. When I reached
Lucy's he was calling there with Mrs. Van Alstyne, but I didn't
meet him that night because I felt too tired to go into the par-

388 JOHN VAN- ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [June,

lor. He is a wonderful person in Mrs. Van's eyes ; if she has
told me once that he is " own first cousin" to a lord she has told
me so a dozen times. He is rather wonderful; I think, myself,
but only because he is so full of inventions and ideas for our per-
formance. We are making them all up the charades, I mean
ourselves; that is, Mr. Hadleigh generally hits on the word and
the scenes for it, and then we all help plan out the details. Lucy
is the best about that. We have got a lovely one about Mr. Van
Alstyne's horse, Nelly. We are going to do the death of Cock
Robin, to bring in the syllables. That is what we need you for;
you are to be the fish with your little dish. And that reminds me.
You must go to Stevenson's and buy a lot of stamped gold and
silver paper to make your skin of; a dozen large sheets wouldn't
be too many, I should think. Mr. Hadleigh proposed to have
Bella take that part at first, but she is so dumpy that when she
put on the case that he cut out of brown wrapping-paper as a
pattern, she looked like no fish in the sea, unless it might be a
whale. I suspect he did it on purpose, for I happened to be
standing near a table where he and Mr. Murray were painting a
bull's head for Dr. Sawyer he is to ring the knell when Bella
came into the parlor with it on, and I overheard him say that she
would do capitally, and then we might have a tableau of Jonah
afterwards. Then they both smiled, and I imagine Bella saw
them in the pier-glass, as well as herself, for she wouldn't take
the part. You are so nice and slim that you will do it first rate.
I didn't think it very excellent taste in either of the gentlemen,
I must say. Bella is as good as gold, and as nice to them as
ever she can be, and it isn't her fault that she weighs pounds and
pounds more than any girl ever ought to. In her place, though,
I do believe I'd bant.

I'm going to be the fly a dragon-fly, if you please, with
splendid gauze wings that's what I want the blue velvet waist
for. I've taken that gold-colored farmer's satin for the skirt.
We are constructing it over a set of hoops that the girls in-
vented the biggest up near the waist, you know, and then
tapering down so as just to give room enough for me to walk
in. Then it has two little black tails at the end that we bor-
rowed from an old fur boa of Mrs. Cadwallader's. One pair of
wings is to be held out with whalebones, and the others I man-
age with my arms. I'm sure I don't know whether the gold
color is what it should be. I never can remember how " bugs,"
as Mrs. Cadwallader calls all sorts of insects, look, and we
hunted it up in Webster for the shape. But my mind was made

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN&S FACTORY. 389

up what to use for the skirt in any case, so I don't care much
whether they are blue or yellow or brown or black the flies, I
mean. Somebody remarked that I couldn't look the character
in any case, because it would be absurd for me to talk about
" my little eye." So I said I would make an effort to draw them
close together and look as if there were too much light in the
room, as Mr. Hadleigh does whenever his eyeglasses drop off
his nose. And then somebody else said I'd better not spoil the
effect by trying to be too realistic.

Little Davie Murray is to be the sparrow and Mr. Hadleigh
Cock Robin. I wish you could see him in Mrs. Cadwallader's
long sable circular, with a bib of Turkey red stuffed out in the
absurdest way but you will, of course. When he is shot he
jumps a yard in the air, more or less, and draws his long legs all
up under the fur cape in the funniest way. Then he comes flop
down on the floor and dies. I suppose things must be done
better in real theatres and by professional actors, but I don't see
how. The second scene is going to be awfully good, too lie is
the word, you know, and you and I are to be brought up as con-
flicting witnesses against the sparrow. Mr. Murray, in an owl's
head, will be judge, and Dr. Sawyer and Mr. Hadleigh, in white
wool wigs, the counsel. Bella and Lucy are the jurors. I suppose
it all sounds very much mixed as I write it down, but you'll see ;
it is going to be perfectly splendid, and too funny for anything.

I walk over to the squire's as soon as school is out every
afternoon and stay until next morning, when I go back with
Miss Murray. The gentlemen, and sometimes Mrs. Van Al-
styne, drive over every evening for consultation arid rehearsal,
and we have great fun. Mrs. Cadwallader and the squire are as
interested as anybody, and make things very pleasant. It would
be lovely if Nat could come, for the sake of the singing no-
body has such a voice as his. But that would entail Fanny, and
as I don't want her I shall not say another word about it to him.
Come by the earliest train you can to-morrow, and don't forget
the paper and my blue waist. Yours, ZIP.

P.S. Love to mother. She won't have any reason to com,
plain that I haven't mentioned every one I know down here this
time even to the very last stranger within the gates. Z.

Van Alstyne-Hadleigh to his Brother, Sir Rodney.

MILTON CENTRE, New York, Sept. 28, 18 .
DEAR BROTHER: Your cablegram, announcing my father's
death in July, found me tied hand and foot with articular rheu-

39 JOHN VAN ALSTYN&S FACTORY. [June,

matism, as I got Jardine to inform you at the time by letter.
My experiences on the GosJiawk, with those three land-lubbers,
who either could not or would not learn to do a stroke their lazi-
ness could crawl out of, has laid up a stock of pains and aches
for me that bids (air to last for the rest of my natural life. No
speed I could have made would have got me home in time for
the dear old governor's funeral in any case, so I lay still, tied up
in flannels, and with a dozen leeches sucking the blood out of
me, and thought about what I supposed to be the situation. I
reached New York a week ago yesterday, intending, then, to take
the steamer for Liverpool on the following Saturday ; but your
letter, enclosing a copy of the will, which I found awaiting me at
Whipple & Sons, combined with certain information the bankers
volunteered when they found out who I was, changed my plans.
Of course, you do not expect me to consider the situation, as
it actually is, in just the same light that you do. That father
should have changed all his dispositions about his property in
consequence of Leigh's sudden taking-off, and the temporary
succession of little Dick, must be extremely pleasant for you ;
had it been done even five years ago, when he was quite himself.
I should find it natural enough. Probably I would have done
the same thing in his place. But when I saw him last I know
he had no intention of making an eldest son of you in any such
thorough-going fashion. Son for son, I have always had reason
to believe that I had the softest spot in his affections, and what
you say of his feeling about my " mad voyage," as well as your
unnecessary hints about some of its circumstances, would carry
more weight'if I felt more certain that such a feeling was wholly
spontaneous on his part. I let him know my whereabouts with
the greatest regularity. Naturallv, you will say, since it was
chiefly to acknowledge the receipt of drafts. Well, not alto-
gether. Agnes has been his scribe for the last half-year, and on
her writing me that his mind and memory were failing, I would
have made for home without delay but for ill-health and one or
two other hindrances not now necessary to specify. That he
would make a new will never entered my calculations, and
the purport of the first, which equalized things more nearly as
between you and me, I had from his own lips. Of course, none
of us could have anticipated Leigh's death, and, as I say, I could
have understood his motive had he planned things that way
earlier. But the date of the document you send me I observe
to be considerably nearer the end than the letter of Agnes to
which I refer.

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 391

However, there is no use crying over spilled milk, and I
have no more tears to shed over my own collapsed condition
than over the tale you unfold concerning your election expenses
and the pitiful result they brought about. I wouldn't try it
again if I were you. By what you say of Dick he can't well
hold out much longer, and then you go into the Lords without
more ado. As for me, the only people likely to bemoan the situa-
tion very deeply are my creditors. As for them, I propose for
the present to " let Mr. Smith do the walking," as they say over
here. If they have been deluded, so have I. Your suggestion
about returning and taking up the practice of my profession is
well-meant but not enticing. That would simply add one more
to the pedestrians.

Now as to my present whereabouts. I had promised the
governor to look up his old homestead and see what might be
left of his family, but on getting news of his death concluded it
was not worth while. But for your letter I should be half-seas
over by this time. That put a new face on things and showed
me that there was no great hurry. I made inquiries through the
bankers, and the news they were able to give me concerning the
only remaining American representative of the family was emi-
nently reassuring to a man in my circumstances. Our cousin,
with whom I have been staying for nearly a week now, and
who is not far off the governor's age, could cap him, dollar for
dollar, and come out far ahead. I don't flatter myself that I
have got at what these Yankees call his " true inwardness "
as yet, but I can see that his family feelings are strong and that
the mere fact of my existence stirs him up after a fashion. He
is not simply a wealthy manufacturer, but a capitalist in United
States bonds and stocks to an extent that would make your
mouth water. He has been sounding me already as to whether
I would not like a partnership in his mill his mills, perhaps I
should say, for he has planned to increase his works to a much
greater extent than at present. But such a partnership, as he
has been careful to make me understand, would be very different
to ownership. He has a philanthropic bee in his bonnet.
He lives in Spartan simplicity, and would like his successor to
do the same ; the reason being that he has dreams about lifting
up " the masses " meaning his operatives so as to make them
in point of fact, as represented by emolument, perpetuity, and all
that, the real owners. Do I want such a partnership? No, I
do not. Sparta is all very well for a season, and, as you know, I
have an erratic taste for its black broth as a tonic. But I don't

392 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [June,

choose to turn my back on Capri altogether ; not to say that I
was never cut out for a benefactor of my species. Still, I
think it worth my while to stay here until I find out how the
land really lies. The old gentleman may follow the gover-
nor's example and drop out at a moment's warning, and then,
supposing no will to have been made yet, which seems likely
from some things I have heard, you and I, and the girls, would
be the heirs-at-law. What I would prefer to that would be a
will in my favor. Who knoyvs ? I have told him in what a box
my father's, which puts you in a position to keep up the title
when it falls in, has left me, and I observe that he has his con-
sidering-cap on, and wants to do me as good a turn as he can
without upsetting his own plans. So there you have the pre-
sent situation.

Best regards to your wife, and Agnes and the rest of the
girls. Sorry to hear that Edith is likely to marry such a howl-
ing Rad. as Symonds. She might as well have gone in for a
Home-Ruler while she was about it. They are at once more
respectable and more consistent. Odd that she should have
drained out all the democratic blood there was in the governor,
and got it so double-distilled.

Yours and theirs fraternally,

F. V. H.

Mrs. Van Alstyne to Mrs. Gardner Willetts.

MILTON CENTRE, Sept. 28, 18-.

DEAR ELSIE : Of course, I can only be glad about your
change of plans so far as I am concerned. I expect to go down
to New York about the holidays, and it will be pleasanter stay-
ing with you than going to a hotel. But it would be so selfish
to think first and chiefly about my own comfort, that I can't
help telling you that I consider that you are beginning in just
the wrong way. If you encourage your husband already in
whiffling about, and upsetting all the arrangements he made,
merely to gratify his own whims, you may just settle it in your
own mind that you are going to be a slave for life for your
married life, at all events, and well for you if it ends there. Mr.
Willetts promised you a year abroad, and here, after six weeks
at Trouville, you are to have a month in Paris only, and then
back to New York for the winter, merely because he thinks
there is going to be a tightness in the money market and says
he wants to look after things himself! I tell you, my dear, that
is only a pretext. What is to hinder his cabling to his agents

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 393

whenever he pleases? But men are men, I guess, even the best
of them, though probably some are more so than others. Those
I have had to deal with all my life are, I am sure ; and that is
why I did not limit myself to your married life when I spoke of
your being a slave. You are too much like me. I have always
envied the selfish, grasping kind of women. They are not so
pleasant, of course, to live with, but I notice they have a good
deal better time than soft creatures like you and me. So I am
not going to scold you for what you said to your husband.
You only showed a proper spirit. If you had held out longer
I expect you would have gained your point in the end.

What you say about his unwillingness to let you bring me
the lace unless you declare it, is simple folly. Everybody does
it. Don't you remember, when we came back last year, that
Connecticut lawyer, Mr. Cox, who used to bore us at table by
talking about the tariff, and the necessity of protecting our
manufactures, and then had to pay duty on fifty or sixty pairs
of ladies' gloves when we got in? If anybody was going to be
strict about it you would have supposed he was, but you see he
wasn't. I wouldn't pay any attention to Mr. Willetts on that
point, if I were you. It isn't he that will have to pay the duty
if you declare ; it is I, and I don't want to do it. You can fetch
it just exactly as we did a year ago this fall, and there is not the
least occasion of letting Mr. Willetts know anything about it.

When you are in London see what you can learn about
some newly-discovered relatives of Path er Van Alstyne's. One
of them has been here for several days now, and I hope will re-
main for some time longer. I don't see why he should not stay
for good and take the property. There is no one else, for, do
what /can to please the old gentleman, I begin to feel sure you
were right, and that he thinks he has discharged all his obliga-
tions to me already. What I am most afraid of is that he will
fritter it all away on his work-people, or else leave it to charities.
I thought once that I might contest the wilKin that case, but I
have consulted a lawyer and find it would be out of the ques-
tion. He says I have no rights, being only poor William's
widow, which is most unreasonable.

Besides, it would be just like Father Van Alstyne not to
make any will, but dispose of it all before his death. So I was
quite glad to see any relative appear on the carpet, and much
more so such a perfect gentleman as Mr. Frederick Van Alstyne-
Hadleigh. His brother is Sir Rodney Van Alstyne-Hadleigh.
They have a place called Hadleigh Towers, in Arundel, near

394 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. [June,

the Duke of Norfolk's. Sir Rodney was in the House of Com-
mons for six weeks this spring. His brother says that but for
that dreadful person, Mr. Gladstone, he would be there still.
He is a very peculiar man (this Mr. Van Alstyne- Hadleigh, 1
mean). I never quite know whether he is in earnest when he talks
to me. But he is a better listener, I will say for him, than most
other gentlemen I have met. I have told him all I know about
the property and my fears about it, and how glad I should be
to have him get it. Of course he would sell out at once, and
probably return to England, but it would be some satisfaction
to see it go where it would do some real good. I told him this
very morning what I have said to you time and again, that
Father Van Alstyne is so very eccentric and opinionated as he
grows older, and so disposed to fling his money into the mud,
as you might say, that there would be ample ground for any one
who had a natural claim to apply for a writ against him, as the
sons did, you remember, when old Masters married the widow
Lord a couple of years ago. I didn't tell him I had thought of
doing it myself, for since I find it would be of no manner of
use, I suppose it is just as well to say nothing.

As usual, I have written you a long letter, but it was import-
ant about the lace, especiallv : and besides, I had nothing else
to do. To-morrow Father Van Alstyne will be seventv-one,
and we are going to have a great time about it. Mr. Van Al-
styne-Hadleigh has been very kind in showing the Cadwallader
girls and the school-teacher who is here this summer, and who
has been staying at our house through some whim of the old
gentleman's, how to arrange what will be, I think, a reallv pretty
entertainment. It is to take place in the picnic ground below
the factory though, come to think of it, I don't suppose you
ever saw the place.

If the weather should turn out rainy, it will either be post-
poned or else the charades will be given in the hall where the
hands have their dances in the winter-time. There is to be a
feast, besides, for the hands, and everybody in the village is
coming to see the tableaux and hear the music. I really must
stop now, for there goes the dinner-bell.

Always your affectionate aunt,

SARAH PORTER VAN ALSTYNE.

P.S. I forgot to sav that it is rather lucky for you, after all,
that you are to be in New York this winter. If Mr. Van Al-
styne-Hadleigh stays over here, as I am pretty sure he means
to, he will, of course, want to get away from this village for

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 395

some part of the winter at any rate, and he will be an acquisi-
tion. Of course, you would naturally see a great deal of him,
being my niece, and so a sort of connection. His brother will be
a peer so soon as a. sickly little cousin dies. Those sickly peo-
ple, though, generally last a good while I have always noticed,
especially if they have money.

Mattie Colton to her Mother.

MILTON CENTRE, Sept. 30, 18 .

DEAR MOTHER: I promised you to write at the first quiet
minute I had and tell you how the affair went off, and what I
think about the people down here. But so much has happened
that I hardly know where to begin.

I am quiet enough just at present, a great deal quieter than I
wish I was, for I am sitting alone in the room with Mr. Van Al-
styne, and I suppose every one else in the house is like enough
to be asleep. They must all be pretty tired. It is three o'clock
in the afternoon, and Zip came and called me to take her place
here about half an hour ago. Mr. Van Alstyne had a stroke yes-
terday afternoon, while he was making a speech, after the last
charade was over. I had no part to take in that one, and I was
sitting close beside him when he fell. He had been telling me,
just before he got up, how pleased he was with the attention
shown him, and how sure he felt that Zip had had a great deal
to do in originating the idea. He seems to have liked her very
much, considering the little time she has been down here, and
as for her, I had no idea she could go on so about anybody's
trouble. It appears to me that she could hardly feel worse if it
were father who was lying here. But I suppose he has been
very kind to her. Even I, who know him so little, find the
tears coming up to my eyes whenever I look over at the bed.

I don't know whether he is conscious or not. His face is
rather red, and he lies very quiet, with his head on one side; and
his eyes are somehow queer they are both looking straight at
me whenever I turn round, so that I see a good deal of the white
of one of them. They do not follow me when I move, but keep
in one position, and yet it seems to me as if he knows me. He
cannot speak, though, nor move at all, except one leg and his
eyelids, and I can see that almost everybody thinks that he is
going to die. But Zip says that Dr. Cadwallader told her this
afternoon that he began to have hopes of him. He stayed with
him nearly all night, and when he came in again this afternoon he
said a rather curious thing to Zip, I think. He was just telling

39$ JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [June,

her that he began to have hopes when Mrs. Van Alstyne came in
and inquired what he thought. She spoke right out, Zip says,
in an unfeeling sort of way, as if she took it for granted Mr. Van
Alstyne must be unconscious, and the squire answered her that
the case was very grave indeed, and might probably take an un-
favorable turn at any moment. But when she left the room
again, Zip says he called her over to the bedside and repeated to
her, very slowly and distinctly, as if he thought likely Mr. Van
Alstyne might hear, just what he had told her before that he
had a good chance to recover, and that Zip would better keep
her own counsel as to what he might say to her. "You are his
friend, I know," he said, " and I am much mistaken if John Van
Alstyne ever stood in greater need of one." I don't know what
he meant, but I know it seemed to me yesterday that almost
everybody seemed broken-hearted they ,all thought he was
dead, at first, for it took a long while to bring him around
except the very two you would think would care the most.

Of course you won't expect me to tell you much about the
doings yesterday under present circumstances. That will keep
until I go home. I don't quite know when that will be. The
doctor seems anxious to have just such nurses and watchers in
the room ; he says all depends upon perfect quiet and paying
strict attention to his directions. I believe Mr. Murray stays
to-night, and the doctor, who knows Zip has to keep on at
school, told her that he would be glad if I remained until he
could get a perfectly trustworthy person whom he knows. Miss
Murray is to help also until then. She is very nice. I believe
you would like her.

As to yesterday, I will only say that it was -splendid. Even
Fanny's coming down with Nat, which Zip wanted to prevent,
turned out very well, for Bella was attacked with a dreadful
headache, and couldn't take one of her parts. So Fan dressed
up as the " fair Imogen," don't you know, in Alonzo the Brave,
and carried it off even better than Bella, who had been prac-
tising for a week. She made great eyes at the Englishman,
though. Still, that was in the part, I suppose, for he was " Al-
onzo." But I don't believe Nat liked it, nor him either Mr.
Hadleigh, I mean. So now good-by, mother dear, and write to
say what you think about my staying for a few days longer.
The nurse Squire Cadwallader wants won't be disengaged until
near the end of this week. Yours affectionately, MATTIE.

LEWIS R. DORSAY.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

i8 Q 8.] JOHN R. G. HASSARD. 397

JOHN R. G. HASSARD.

THIS name has too often appeared in THE' CATHOLIC
WORLD, and its owner was too much esteemed by us, to permit
us to pass by the news of his death without a tribute in our
pages. At less than fifty-two years of age, Mr. Hassard has been
called into eternity, to be rewarded, we trust, with that beatific
vision which, through the merits of Christ, his true faith and
ardent charity deserve.

The career of a journalist is consistent with religious prin-
ciples and conduct, but it is beset with difficulties. Mr. Has-
sard knew how to meet these difficulties and to overcome them.
The intellectual labors of that perplexing profession, that of a
literary man of the nineteenth century, he was able to perform
with fidelity to conscience, and at the same time with the ap-
plause of the public.

He was engaged in the editorial department of this maga-
zine early in its career, and at a time when not many Catholics
were connected with the press ; and although he soon passed
into the field of the daily newspaper, he was one of our con-
tributors up to a very recent date, his last article being a bril- '
liant musical critique upon the works of Liszt, sent to us shortly
after that composer's death.

He published some volumes of critical notices, both literary
and musical, and of foreign travel, very rich in all the excel-
lences of style appropriate to these departments of literature,
and his pen was ever at work upon the daily press as long as
his fading bodily strength would obey the vigorous energy of
his spirit. But we think that, politics was by no means his
dominant attrait. We knew him well, and that in the meridian
of his power, and so little did he develop his leanings in politics
in our intercourse together that he never aroused our interest
in them. We always considered that literature, pursued as a
profession and for Catholic ends, was the aim of his life.

And his greatest work was his Life of Archbishop Hughes.
This book will transmit the writer's name to coming genera-
tions in company with that of the prelate whom God raised up
among us to give tone to the Catholic American community.
In this biography Mr. Hassard did his work honestly. It took
no small amount of courage to plainly state the faults of the
archbishop, the hero of the whole church in America, within

JOHN R. G. HASSARD. [June,

two years of his decease. But he could affirm that he possess-
ed and that he expressed an adequate appreciation of his noble
qualities. Yet we think that he left incomplete his estimate oi
the archbishop's character. He did not sufficiently develop to
the public what was the peculiar tendency in his career, namely
his standpoint of American citizenship in the management of
ecclesiastical affairs. At first sight one would think that such a
study of the effect of the archbishop's career on the church had
never occurred to Mr. Hassard. But there are parts of the
life in which the author indicates his appreciation of this view,
especially his quoting at the very end of the book a striking
passage from the funeral sermon of Archbishop McCloskey.
Perhaps the biographer did not consider the time opportune ;
for as a matter of fact, this drift of Archbishop Hughes has not,
in the providence of God, been explicitly followed by the Catho-
lic community to any great degree, even by its prelates, until in
recent times Cardinal Gibbons has distinctly announced the
principles of Catholic public life in the American Republic.

Mr. Hassard tells us in the Life that Archbishop Hughes'
career " was essentially a public one, and his polemical discus-
sions were for long periods almost the whole sum of his daily
occupation." Now, it is evident enough to those who knew
him well, that whenever the archbishop appeared before the
public he wished to be an exponent not simply of an ecclesiasti-
cal organization, to uphold its rights and advance its interests;
but he furthermore wished to do so upon grounds of American
justice and political freedom ; he wished to be an exponent of
American thought. He never was so happy as when looked
upon in that light. Whether Mr. Hassard understood this or
not, his Life is not calculated to make it understood by others.
Had he written the biography the last year of his life, or re-
written it then, it might have contained another chapter, per-
haps the most important one in the book.

All the notices of Mr. Hassard which have appeared in the
press are in accord in affirming that he was a man of dignity
and culture, a good critic and a vigorous editorial writer.
When Charles A. Dana, of the Sun, uses the following words,
you may be sure that they are deserved :

"John Hassard, so long known in this town as a distinguished writer
in the Tribune upon literature, music, and a wide range of social and prac-
tical subjects, is to be buried to-morrow morning from St. Ann's Church,
in Twelfth street, and we cannot allow the occasion to pass without a
tribute of esteem and affection for his memory. Intimately and officially

1 888.] JOHN R. G. HASSARD. 399

associated with him during a considerable portion of the civil war, as we
had previously been in the preparation of the American Cyclopedia, and
as we were afterward in journalism, we knew him as a man of uncommon
ability, extensive accomplishments, manly and faithful, high-minded and
true. He has departed from this world at far too early an age, and we bid
him farewell with sincere sorrow. May his soul have peace, and may the
Divine Providence send more such laborers into the harvest field of life ! "

With regard to his private religious life, what can we say
more than Father Campbell said of him in his funeral sermon?
Our personal acquaintance with him was long enough and inti-
mate enough. We know that he was a Christian and a Catholic,
and never did anything inconsistent with that character. A man
of culture, he was ever writing what many thousands of every
creed would read. Yet he knew how to keep his delicate posi-
tion as a journalist with honor, and never be so much as charged
with violating any article of his always openly-professed religion.

Although a sincere adherent of a political party, to which
until very recent years nearly all of his co-religionists were op-
posed ; although a prominent member of the editorial staff of its
foremost political journal, yet in all religious matters he was
perfectly at one with the Catholic people, and no less at one with
his party in politics. And this is no small praise. This teaches
us a great deal. Happy is the Catholic in public life who will
learn a lesson from this. To very many of us it should be the
great significance of our departed friend's life. He found it
quite possible to be a political and critical journalist, and at the
same time be true to his Catholic conscience. He could and did
stand firmly upon the principles of Catholic morality, and win for
himself as a newspaper writer the applause of men of all shades
of religious and political opinion. The following words of the
Tribune editorial are full of deep feeling, and honestly express
the sentiment referred to :

" Mr.Hassard, whose beautiful life and untimely death are elsewhere re-
corded in touching words by one of his closest associates on the staff of the
Tribune, fully deserved all the praise Mr. Winter bestows. In the variety and
uniform excellence of his work, as a general editorial writer, and as a musi-
cal and literary critic, he has scarcely left a superior on the American press.
Trained first under the fastidious eye of Dr. Ripley, he brought to literary
criticism all that master's soundness of judgment and elegance of- taste,
with a wider and more youthful range of sympathies. In musical criticism
he came to have much the same sort of authority with the late John S.
Dwight, but his work had better literary form, and was far more attractive
to the general public. He wrote editorially on a great variety of topics
with admirable readiness, precision, and force. Though not specially
drawn to politics, he often threw himself into political discussion with zest

400 CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES. [June,

and power. The mystery of the cipher despatches haunted him till he had
unriddled it an achievement as remarkable as any in American journalism.
His personal character won him the regard of everybody that knew him,
and more affection than falls to the lot of most men ; and throughout a
nine years' illness, borne with splendid courage and without a murmur, he
ripened steadily, so that intellectually and in all ways his last years were
his best."

In conclusion, we have but to ask the prayers of all our breth-
ren for his happy repose. I. T. HECKER.

CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES.

A MAN from Maine went West some years ago and, after
prospecting for a while, purchased and settled upon a tract of
land.- He felt sure, from indications, that it contained gold, but
his hopes were doomed to disappointment. He worked with
the greatest energy ; he used every known appliance for min-
ing; but no paying quantity of the precious metal appeared.
Disgusted, he was about to abandon the place, when some one
suggested that the land might be very good for corn. He took
the suggestion; he planted the corn. In a few years he was
the owner of as much gold as though he had really found a
mine.

This story illustrates very completely the history and the
character of Catholic Young Men's Societies. Almost forty
years have elapsed since the idea was broached, in this country,
of establishing for our Catholic youth associations which would
combine social and literary with religious advantages. To
many, at the time, it seemed the discovery of a spiritual gold-
mine, of a new power for the evangelization of the world. The
bishops and the priests were still to be the leaders, but the work
was to be done by those who had hitherto aided religion but
little. An army of devoted, sturdy, educated Catholic lay-
men was to be organized by means of these associations. Then,
bravely and effectively as the Crusaders, they were to fight the
battle of the Lord. The weapons of the enemy were to be
turned against himself. The pleasures of youth, which lead
very often to corruption of heart; and learning, which so many
wrest, as they wrest even the Scriptures, to their own destruc-
tion, were to be made incentives and means for accomplishing

i888.] CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES. 401

the best results. The young men were to be offered every
legitimate form of enjoyment, and thus saved from even the
desire of what might do them harm. Once thoroughly banded
together, they could easily be educated so as to tower intellec-
tually above their fellows. They could be thoroughly ground-
ed in the principles and the proofs of their faith, and imbued
with an enthusiastic Catholic spirit. Thus would a solid pha-
lanx form, far-reaching and widespread. There would be a
sentinel at every post, a sharp-shoote.r at every redoubt, a soldier
ready to face and down the enemy at every point.

The societies were organized in various localities. With
what result? They did not, in many cases, realize the roseate
expectations that had been formed of them. Sometimes they
did not succeed at all. Again, they flourished for a while, and
then, through causes that will be alluded to later, they wilted
like flowers lacking moisture and sunshine, and died. These
failures caused a revulsion of feeling in many quarters. More
than a few of those who had carried the banner in the move-
ment lost heart. They concluded that the project was a mere
dream a beautiful dream, indeed, but, like all visions, intan-
gible and incapable of realization.

Is it a dream ? In the sense of being an easy panacea, it is a
wild, an impossible dream. But if we understand by it a means
which can accomplish very much for the glory of God, the
honor of the church, and the welfare, temporal as well as spiri-
tual, of the people, provided considerable labor and judgment
be expended upon it, then is it a great and a beautiful reality.
In a word, it is a garden, not a gold-mine. The measure of
success depends partly upon the greater or less fertility of the
soil, and partly upon the ability, the energy, and the patience of
the cultivators.

If any proof of this be required we need only look around
us. While some societies have failed, others many others
have succeeded and flourish still, justifying all reasonable ex-
pectations. We find them in every one of our large cities, in-
creasing in number and in efficiency every year. Were it not
for the danger of making invidious distinctions, and of omitting
some, perhaps, most worthy of mention, one could name by the
score associations of this kind that deserve all possible honor.
Through the good work they have done they are among the
strongest supports of the church, not only in the parish, but
also in the diocese to which they belong. And they aid mate-
rially in making Catholicity and Catholics respected throughout

VOL. XLVII. 26

402 CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES. [June,

the land. So patent, indeed, are the advantages that can accrue
from this movement, and so satisfactory, on the whole, have
been the results thus far, that the bishops of the country are
pronounced in encouraging it, and the last Plenary Council of
Baltimore has not hesitated to sanction it with most emphatic
and official approval. These are the words of the Council, ex-
pressed in its Pastoral Letter :

" We consider as worthy of particular encouragement associations for
the promotion of healthful social union among Catholics, and especially
those whose aim is to guard our Catholic young men against dangerous
influences, and to supply them with the means of innocent amusement
and mental culture. It is obvious that our young men are exposed to the
greatest dangers, and therefore need the most abundant helps. Hence, in
the spirit of our Holy Father, Leo XIII., we desire to see the number
of thoroughly Catholic and well-organized associations for their benefit
greatly increased, especially in our large cities; we exhort pastors to con-
sider the formation and the careful direction of such societies as one of
their most important duties ; and we appeal to our young men to put to
profit the best years of their lives, by banding together, under the direc-
tion of their pastors, for mutual improvement and encouragement in the
paths of faith and virtue.

"And in order to acknowledge the great amount of good that 'The
Catholic Young Men's National Union ' has already accomplished, to pro-
mote the growth of the Union, and to stimulate its members to greater
efforts in the future, we cordially bless their aims and endeavors, and we
recommend the Union to all our Catholic young men."

Approbation so emphatic from this august Council, embody-
ing, as it does, the approval of the Holy Father himself, is
enough to settle in every Catholic mind all question as to the
utility of these societies. It is sufficient, also, to make every
pastor anxious for their establishment and care ; to make parents
desirous that their sons seek membership in them ; to render
our young men ready to reap their advantages ; to impress upon
our prominent laymen the value of helping them by verbal en-
couragement, and, sometimes, even with financial aid.

Nevertheless, it is proposed to recount here some of their
advantages, to mention certain difficulties, and to suggest some
preventives and remedies.

ADVANTAGES.

ist. These young men's associations are capable of com-
pleting, and in some cases of supplying, the Catholic education
of our youth. There is no need to dilate here on the impor-
tance of Catholic education. Every one knows that the sun-

1 888.] CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES. 403

shine and the rain are not more necessary in the spring-time for
covering- the earth with verdure, than are the Christian schools
for preserving and disseminating the faith of Christ in this coun-
try. Sometimes, however, our young people are unable to en-
joy these advantages. Very often, too, our boys are obliged to
leave school at a tender age. Even those who complete the
course of studies have still much to learn. We need some
means to continue the good work. The society steps in. Its
library, stocked with only what is pure and true; its lectures,
which can so easily and so frequently be turned on the great
points of controversy and the most important facts in church
history ; its Catholic newspapers, its Catholic spirit all these
combine to supply the need and to thoroughly irnbue the minds
of the members with the principles, the beauties, and the proofs
of their holy religion.

2d. These organizations can strengthen the attachment of
our young men to the church, to their pastors, and to one
another at the period of their lives when these ties are in great
danger of being severed. One cause of this danger is the false
notion, very prevalent and hard to eradicate, that a good life
means a dull life. The consequence is that when our young
men begin to indulge even the legitimate, not to speak at all of
the unlawful tendencies of their youth, they drift away gradu-
ally from both church and priest as from those who would curb
all their natural inclinations. Besides, those outside the church
are always ready to proffer them the means for recreation. We
have the Young Men's Christian Association in every large
city, with its gymnasiums, its lectures, and its popular entertain-
ments. Now, how can we better correct false impressions, and
stop the inroads of the enemy upon our ranks, (than by placing
before our young men the means for innocent, but at the same
time real, amusement? Thus we will teach them practically
that a virtuous life precludes nothing conducive to real happi-
ness here, while it secures eternal glory hereafter.

This point is of more importance than would at first appear.
Too long has the " good boy " been a synonym for a simpleton,
and the " Sunday-school teacher " for a sentimental, milk-and-
water goody-goody, while the fact is, that when either is what
the name implies, he is the very type of true boyhood or man-
hood, as the case may be. The means proposed here will be a
great help towards making the world recognize the fact.

Social temptations also cause this danger of estrangement.
There is in this country so much of what people call " respecta-

404 CATHOLIC YOUNG ME^S SOCIETIES. [June,

bility " and " refinement" outside the church, and so much that
is termed " lack of culture " within it, that young folks often
learn to despise those of their own race and faith, and some-
times grow to be ashamed of the faith itself. This is a fruitful
source of mixed marriage, a frequent cause for neglect of reli-
gious duties, and now and then an incentive to apostasy.
Again these organizations come to the rescue. They bind the
young men together, teaching them to respect, to love, and to
aid one another. If many of our people have not yet reached
the highest scale of education or of wealth in the United States,
the reason therefor is plain. The ancestors of most of us were
ground down in poverty by iniquitous laws as a punishment for
their adherence to the truth of Christ. Education and refine-
ment they could have had, were they willing to sell their birth-
right. Moore tells the story of the persecution of the Irish
Catholic Church in words that are as true as they are beauti-
ful:

" Thy rival was honored, whilst thou wert wronged and scorned ;
Thy crown was of briars, whilst gold her brows adorned.
She wooed me to temples, whilst thou laidst hid in caves;
Her friends were all masters, whilst thine, alas ! were slaves."

But this condition of things exists not here in our glorious
country. And all we need to make us equal to any body of
people in this temporal point of view, is that the Catholic youth
of the country, without the least ill-will to any one, stand shoulder
to shoulder in well-organized bodies, imbued with mutual good-
feeling and with a firm determination to use every legitimate
means lor aiding and elevating one another.

3d. These associations cannot but be a great preserva-
tive against the temptations of large cities. We know well
what those dangers are the street-corner, the saloon, the dive.
There are formed the thieves, the roughs, the tramps, the drun-
kards. Every young man who leaves his house at night for re-
creation is exposed to their allurements. What a work it is,
then, to provide a haven where safety is assured for all, at least,
who wish it ; where those on whom depends so much of our
hope for the future can meet and converse, play their games,
read their papers and books, improve their minds, and return to
their homes without having contracted any contamination !

Such are the principal advantages of our unions. It is with-
in the range of their possibility to produce in time a body
of men thoroughly grounded in the knowledge and the love
of their faith, to multiply O'Connells, Windthorsts, Ozanams,

i888.] CATHOLIC YOUNG MEA'S SOCIETIES. 405

Brownsons, and Hassards. They are capable of making 1 the
rising generation fond and proud of the church, as well as use-
ful to their pastors and to one another. They can lessen the
number of blighted lives, and broken hearts, and souls lost for
ever. Experience has seen these capabilities realized in many
instances. Surely nothing more can be required to make us
believe in these organizations, and aid them by word and work.

.DIFFICULTIES. "

As was said in the beginning, these unions of young men are
not a gold-mine. They are a garden in which the soil must be
fertilized, the seed planted, and the trees and flowers and shrubs
guarded with exquisite care. Sometimes, it must be confessed,
despite all the care of the gardener, the soil has proven unpro-
ductive ; or else weeds have sprung up, choking the flowers
as they bloomed, and foul insects have crawled over the trees
and the shrubs, destroying all their fruit. Many a zealous la-
borer, both priest and layman, has become disheartened at diffi-
culties, and has abandoned the work in despair. But lack of
success in some instances is no reason why any one should lose
heart. Where so much good is to be accomplished, it is well
worth while to learn, by patient industry, the means which will
bring it about. If failure comes on the first attempt, we can
well afford to study the causes thereof and to prevent their re-
currence when we try again. Experience is of the greatest im-
portance in society work, not only our own but also that which
has been gleaned by others. In its light the difficulties can be
enumerated thus:

In the first place, the young men have often been found very
apathetic. Perfectly willing to take all the enjoyment that can
be offered them, they show a distaste for either intellectual im-
provement or religious exercises. It has happened, also, that
after a society had flourished for some time the older members
became engrossed with business and family cares. They gradu-
ally retired. The younger members had been unused to man-
agement. They lacked both enthusiasm and self-confidence,
and so the organization dwindled away to nothing. Again, poli-
tics and dissipation, in some instances, have obtruded themselves,
and played havoc with the good work. In other cases the spi-
rit of rebellion has asserted itself. The young men undertook
to transgress regulations which the pastor deemed it his duty to
enforce for the good of the society, or for the edification of the

406 CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES. [June,

parish. The result was rupture with the ecclesiastical authori-
ty ; and then, either the dissolution of the organization or its
diversion from the main object for which it was established.

These difficulties, no doubt, may sometimes be so grave as to
be practically insurmountable. But the same experience which
shows us where the danger lies points out to us also a number of

PREVENTIVES AND REMEDIES,

which have caused success in the past and seem to guarantee it
for the future. These can be enumerated as follows:

ist. Reception of the Sacraments. It is hard to see what
right any organization has to be called Catholic unless it possess
a fundamental rule on this subject. There should be at least
two public Communions in each year, one on the day appointed
by the National Union and another about Easter time.

2d. The authority of the Pastor. His veto of any measure
or of any individual should be final, and as such should always
be accepted with hearty good-will. Without this the society is
exposed to great danger from the impetuosity and the inexperi-
ence of youth, as well as from the machinations of schemers who
may manage to obtain an entrance.

3d. The personal influence of the Spiritual Director, whether
he be the Pastor himself or an Assistant Priest deputed for the
work. He can be among the young men at their gatherings;
study their strong and their weak points; aid them by his learn-
ing and experience ; gain their confidence ; assist them in their
difficulties ; prevent disputes ; be to them a friend in the truest
sense of the word, and, at the same time, a constant example of
Catholic virtue and Christian manhood.

4th. Great care in the Admission of Members. These Unions
are of no use as reformatories. No person should ever be re-
ceived who cannot prove his claim to respectability and to practi-
cal Catholicity. The story of Vert-Vert repeats itself every day.
" Evil communications corrupt good morals." Many a flourish-
ing society has been ruined by the admission of one or two disso-
lute members, received either with a view to their reform or be-
cause they were known to be " good fellows." Nor need any one
fear that a reasonably high standard of character for membership
will simply gather together a number of naturally virtuous peo-
ple who would be just as good without any society. On the
contrary, such a standard will serve to make vice and dissipation
disreputable. And members going astray will amend their lives

1 888.] CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES. 407

when they find it necessary to do so, in order to have the com-
panionship and the respect of their fellows.

5th. Literary Exercises. These are an almost indispensable
adjunct. Certain evenings, reasonably frequent, devoted to ori-
ginal addresses, essays, debates, and declamations, serve to de-
velop the minds of the young men, refine their taste, improve
their education, and entirely prevent the great danger of the
rooms of the association becoming a place for mere idle loung-
ing. But all the members should partake by turns in these ex-
ercises. Otherwise a few will be benefited, and the great ma-
jority will remain unimproved. It might be mentioned here, in
passing, that it is wise also for the older members to insist on the
younger men taking office sometimes. This gives the latter
more of an interest, and it prevents decay when the former are
obliged to retire.

6th. Membership in the National and the Diocesan Union.
These Unions, of which the latter is the local assembly of the for-
mer, were established some fourteen years ago. They have done
very much to aid the cause. Their object is not to legislate for
the individual societies, but to form a sort of clearing-house,
where experiences can be interchanged, dangers made known,
remedies suggested. They develop enthusiasm, report the pro-
gress made throughout the country, spur on flagging energies,
and make the young men a unit for concerted action should it
ever be required.

The last National Convention was held in New York on May
25 and 26, 1887, in the hall of the new De La Salle Institute.
It was a sight to make any Catholic proud. Seventy-seven socie-
ties were represented by the flower of our youth. The proceed-
ings were both enthusiastic and orderly. The utmost harmony
and good feeling prevailed. And when the Most Reverend
Archbishop Corrigan came to bestow his encouragement and his
benediction on the assembly, the cheer of welcome which rent
the air and made the echoes ring was ample proof that every
man there, and all he represented, were devoted, loyal Catholics in
heart and soul. The next general assembly will be held in Cin-
cinnati on the sixth and seventh of June. The West has been
chosen this year with a view to encouraging and propagating
the cause in that section. Why cannot every Catholic Young
Men's Association in the country be there represented? Some
have always held aloof, it is hard to see why. If your society is
young, and struggling with difficulties, you can there learn the
road to success. If it is well established and prosperous, others

408 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June,

want the benefit of your experience. In either case you will
help to swell the enthusiasm of the occasion, and to give the
cause the prominence it deserves before the public.

There seems to be a bright future before these associations.
As our schools increase in number and perfect their system, the
material for membership will grow every year better and more
plentiful. Enlarged experience will the better teach both mem-
bers and directors how to prevent weeds from growing in the
garden, and how to save the fruits of their labors from blight
and decay. Augmented resources will increase their efficiency
for charitable and educational purposes. They will not bring
about the millennium, but they will be a potent factor for good.
They deserve the encouragement and the good-will of every zeal-
ous Catholic heart. M. J. LAVELLE.

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

Place aux dames! They take up by far the larger share of
space on our book-table this month. And first Mrs. Oliphant,
if for no better reason, then surely because of her age and long
experience, and the pleasant debt of gratitude which two gene-
rations of novel-readers owe her. How far back they seem, the
days when one was sowing a crop of bad marks and just rebukes
in order to spend one's study hours with the too-delightful Katie
Stewart! How many novels has Mrs. Oliphant written since
then? Fifty at the least computation, one would guess, and
hazard, too, the prediction that, like Tennyson's Brook, she
might "go on for ever " in just such a gurgling, unexciting,
pleasant, sunny flow to the very brink of the ocean of eternity.
People say, who pretend to know, that novel-writing has been,
not the amusement but the serious, necessary work of her long
lifetime ; that she has been not merely the " helpmeet" of an in-
capable and indolent companion, but the wise and provident
mother of sons who owe to her charming gift for story-telling
and her unflagging industry their education and their start in
life. Both they and she, supposing the gossip well founded, must
have pleasure in remembering at how little expense to con-
science labor so incessant, so full of snares and temptations to
stray into by and forbidden paths, has been accomplished.

Perhaps it would be saying too much to affirm that Joyce

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 409

(Harper & Brothers, New York) is as good as any of its pre-
decessors. Valentine and his Brother is better, and so is Katie
Stewart, and so, on the whole, is Miss Marjoribanks. Neverthe-
less, full as it is of padding how could one turn out nearly or
quite two hundred pages of fine type so often without padding ?
it is quite good enough to recommend to confirmed novel-read-
ers of the sort its author must certainly prefer : people, that is,
who do not want to gallop through a book at a sitting ; who like
to lay their novel in the basket with their knitting or mending,
or who find the right sort of one act as a cheerful and innocuous
opiate after over-exciting and laborious days.

If we should say that the next story on our list is less harm-
less and more exciting than Joyce, it would be necessary but in-
vidious to designate the only class of readers to whom it is likely
to be more than stupid. It has become Mrs. A. L. Wister's
recognized metier to translate novels of the cheaply sentimental
and flashy type from a variety of German sources. Perhaps the
German flashiness is not over-brilliant, and its sentiment is peril-
ously near the point of sentimentality at its best. Still, one
wonders why a gentlewoman should select H. Schobert's Picked
Up in the Streets (J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia) for
translation. Of course, there is one obvious reason it will be
likely to have a sale. There is a plenty of readers who will find
it entertaining in default of something new from Ouida or
Rhoda Broughton, and the Mercantile Libraries will probably
keep copies of it standing on their counters for months before
they are finally relegated to seldom-disturbed shelves. It is not
technically immoral. The little golden-haired, green-eyed Ferra,
who is picked up in the streets of Paris by a Russian roue at the
age of eight, and sent by him to a Convent of the Sacred Heart
to be educated and then returned to him, never goes to the bad.
She is saved from that abyss in the first place by marriage with
her protector's father, who, coming on, frora Russia to prevent
his son from contracting such a mesalliance, finds that the
surest and most agreeable way of accomplishing his purpose
will be to marry her himself. Presently he leaves her a widow.
Then her troubles begin anew in a little German court, where
she is persecuted by the prince and hated by the jealous princess.
But though she is again rescued from sin and slander by an honest
marriage, yet the reader is kept from the first page to the last
in a vicious atmosphere. The precipices are always close at
hand, the bogs are always slimy and shaky, and the escapes
always by the skin of the teeth. And that is why we find the

410 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June,

translation of such tales unfit occupation for gentlewomen, and
the reading of them worse than unprofitable for anybody.

Sara Crewe ; or, What Happened at Miss Mine/tins, by Mrs.
Frances Hodgson Burnett, is a very pretty, interesting, and well-
written story. It is well illustrated, also, by Reginald B. Birch.
Sara is an imaginative child of twelve ; " there was almost more
imagination than there was Sara " in her, says her creator. She
lives in a London boarding-school, where she is petted and made
much of until the death of her only parent leaves her in poverty.
Then she is kept on as a drudge, permitted to study when she
can, because her talent is obvious, and the day will probably
come when she can work out her debt for food and shelter by
teaching languages for nothing. Meantime she becomes an ill-
used, neglected little one, with no friend but her wax doll Emily,
and no solace but a love of reading and a wonderful capacity
for " supposing things."

"Her whole forlorn, uncared-for child-life was made up of imaginings.
She imagined and pretended things until she almost believed them, and
she would scarcely have been surprised at any remarkable thing that
could have happened. So she insisted to herself that Emily understood
all about her troubles and was really her friend.

"'As to answering,' she used to say, 'I don't answer very often. I
never answer when I can help it. When people are insulting you, there
is nothing so good for them as not to say a word just to look at them
and think. Miss Minchin turns pale with rage when I do it; Miss Amelia
looks frightened, so do the girls. They know you are stronger than they
are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are
not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterwards.
There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in that's
stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies. I scarcely ever
do. Perhaps Emily is more like me than I am like myself. Perhaps she
would rather not answer her friends, even. She keeps it all in her heart.' "

But u supposing " comes very hard even for Sara now and
then. When she is wet and cold and hungry after doing long
errands through London fog and slush, for instance, and yet
must go supperless to bed. At such times even her most com-
forting resort, that of imagining herself a princess in disguise,
sure some day to arrive at sovereignty and the ability to put
her enemies to shame, gets to wear a desperately shabby and
beggarly air. Her childish mind she feeds, in default of better
food, on weekly penny papers and such other trash as she can
borrow from a sentimental housemaid who subscribes to a cir-
culating library, and whom she helps about her work in order
to get a sight of the " greasy volumes containing stories of mar-

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 41 l

quises and dukes who invariably fell in love with orange-girls
and gypsies and servant-maids, and made them the proud brides of
coronets," but her poor little body grows thin on drier sustenance.
Of course it all comes right in the end. Sara lives for a while
in what seems a fairy tale made real, finding her cold, ugly attic
transformed in some magical way into a nest of elegant comfort,
new clothes supplied by unknown hands, dainty suppers lying
ready for her when she climbs the garret stairs tired-out at
night. Then her real, flesh-and-blood benefactor comes to
light, and Sara leaves Miss Minchin's for kindness and luxury
in a home of her own.

As we have said, Mrs. Burnett's story is charmingly written.
Her little heroine, too, is a suggestive figure in many ways. To
us she is so chiefly because she emphasizes so sharply the empti-
ness of souls to which the Christian ideal seems to be wholly
lacking. In one way or another, all who succeed in making
this life more than merely endurable when its external condi-
tions are painful, must do so by conforming it to some ideal. If
we are materialists, and conclude to live in the sty with Epicurus,
at least we do our best, as Bishop Blougram puts it, to make
our sty " rustle with sufficient straw." If even straw is lacking,
or is foul and musty, life becomes impossible unless we can find
some interior refuge. Poor little Sara Crewe, finding hers in
dime novels, in "supposing" good suppers and warm clothes,
and playing at being a princess in order to harden herself
against insults, finally rewarded with hot meats, velvet gowns,
and some romantic equivalent for Mrs. Burnett's own stories,
which probably do not circulate in fairy-land, what a pitiful
little figure she is when one puts her beside the twelve-year-old
Agnes, despising comfort, wealth, and honor, and bending glad-
ly her beautiful head beneath the executioner's axe, that so she
may go the more quickly to the Master " whom, not having
seen, she loved"! How mean her desires are, how tawdry
and vulgar her imagination, how empty her final attainment,
when measured by those of the little Catherine of Siena, made
like herself into a drudge, forbidden even her one solace of long
hours of prayer, yet building within her own heart a temple
wherein the living God abode; where she offered him as incense
every meanest duty performed to others in love for him ; where
she dwelt with him in a fulness and repose which made her,
like the Apostle, "count all things but as dung" that she might
please Rim by the loving acceptance of all that was in the order
of his Providence !

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June,

When Mrs. Burnett wrote Through One Administration we
heard it remarked, by an acute and clever woman, that whenever
her heroines turned out well and " behaved themselves," she
was sure to reward them with the most becoming and well fit-
ting gowns she could imagine. She is busy still in the manu-
facture of millinery for dainty souls, impatient alike of vulgar
immorality and commonplace surroundings. And such souls
are many, sunk deep in well-washed, well-fed, carefully adorned
and perfumed flesh. What better can one honestly say for them
than that cleanliness, good food, and inoffensive adornment are,
in themselves, better than nastiness, open poison, and noisome
odors?

Love and Theology (Ticknor & Co., Boston) is a clever but
not particularly interesting novel, by Celia Parker Woolley.
We hear that it has been the subject of a good deal of more or
less admiring comment, and can readily believe it to have been
an event in those upper, brahminical circles of " cultured " peo-
ple who like to fancy themselves not utterly given up to fri-
volity, but capable of serious thought and talk on serious sub-
jects. Love, at all events, is a subject serious enough in any of
its phases. " Many waters cannot quench it, neither can the
floods drown it," else the floods of wishy-washy rhetoric poured
over it by the male and female novelists of many generations
would long since have melted it out of sight and mind. But as
it is the staple of human existence, and as human existence has
many forms, and exceeding many degrees of force and intensity,
there is "ample room and verge enough " for all manner of dis-
course about it. Speaking for ourselves, we find nothing spe-
cially elemental or suggestive in Miss or Mrs.? Woolley's
handling of this part of her theme. That there should be still
less in her presentation of theology was, of course, to be expect-
ed. Theology too, among the priesthood of culture, is con-
ceived of as having many forms, each of them native to its sub-
stance, each adapting it in varying degrees to different grades
of intelligence. People " catch it," like whooping-cough or
measles, and have it hard or easy according to their tempera-
ments ; and may even, when particularly healthy or happy in
their" environment," escape it altogether. What is of real impor-
tance about it in any case, is the effect it is likely to have upon
them in their more natural and less-easily evaded relations with
their fellows. How, to put at once the finest point upon it, is it
going to act and react when confronted with love as it exists
between the sexes ?

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 413

Now, that is a problem which has given occasion to many
novels, and to many tragedies, as well, in actual life, and will
doubtless continue to do so. In the novel it is comparatively
easy to handle, more especially by novelists to whom theology
is not the science of God, but any and every class of opinions
which may be held concerning him and his relations to his
creatures, including the opinion that he does not exist, and that,
therefore, there are no relations of the sort. But it is a still less
serious problem in real life for people burdened, to whatever
extent one pleases, with opinions, yet unsteadied by any posi-
tive conviction. Love in its mildest variety, so long as it is
real, is pretty sure to drive opinion, when it asserts itself in
opposition, off the field with lowered colors. So Celia Parker
Woolley evidently thinks, and we agree with her. There are
two pairs of lovers in her story, one of which is composed of an
orthodox, evangelical and rather prim young woman and a
professor and preacher of " Liberal Theology," of the type once
held and taught by Theodore Parker. The other pair is made
up of an Episcopalian clergyman and a girl whose " views" are
not very decided, though they lean strongly to liberalism, and
are tinctured with a propensity to assert the rights of women.
They are all "in love " after their various fashions, and after
going through struggles enough to fill a novel, the solution
comes to each couple in the most natural and commendable of
fashions. The girls give in. Virginia gets herself confirmed by
her husband's bishop, though "the service would have pleased
her better if it had been her husband's hands that thus rested in
momentary blessing on her head." Rachel, after holding out a
good deal longer, succumbs when her lover falls ill and she
thinks she is likely to lose him altogether. But she never quite
succeeds in throwing off her old shackles. " To the end of her
life her morbid and exacting conscience stood ready to impose
some new check on every new process of mental and spiritual
growth." She never, that is, was able to rid herself altogether
of a desire for a real, close and personal relation with a divine
Person, or to comfort herself entirely with the assurance that
unvarying Law, which always manages to get itself obeyed, is
just as good a thing.

" As she stood in the dim aisles of some cathedral and watched the
poor, toiling worshippers come and go, kneeling at the altar to catch a
moment's benediction and refreshment from the burden of the day, she
always felt the impulse to place herself beside them, that she might not
seem to shame their credulous faith by standing apart, and in the hope, too,
that some ray of real blessing might come down to her."

4H TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June,

There are some bright remarks and happy characterizations
scattered throughout the pages of this novel. This, for in-
stance, which indicates Judge Hunt's type of free thought :

"He was a great admirer of Confucius and similar writers, and be-
longed to that class of liberals who hold the story of the flood, as related
in Genesis, in open contempt until, finding record of the same in the
Chinese or other Scriptures, they incline to modify this opinion and think
there may be something in it."

There are many Judge Hunts in the circle of almost any
one's acquaintance. Ordinarily, though, one hardly credits
them with a first-hand knowledge of either "Chinese or other
Scriptures," including King James's version of that of the He-
brews. Their daily paper, or " the science man " as he appears
in the Fortnightly, the Forum, or even in the club-house, is gen-
erally authority enough for accepting or rejecting any theologi-
cal opinion whatever except, perhaps, the opinion that there
can be any real authority capable of formulating one which is
universally true.

Loyalty George, by Mrs. Parr (Henry Holt & Co., New York),
is much more interesting reading. Mrs. Parr has made an ad-
vance in her art since the days when she wrote Hero Cart/tew.
Loyalty is a very real, very intense figure, and so is her lover,
Roger. The book is full of vivid strokes and quick with a liv-
ing passion which takes strong hold on the imagination. If it
has a moral, it is, perhaps, that our sins are sure to find us out,
and are apt to strike us vicariously when they do so poisoning
other lives more surely than our own, and inflicting on the inno-
cent bitterer pangs than those we yet have suffered from them.

Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll stands sponsor for a story called
For Her Daily Bread, by Litere (Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago).
It has not too much merit to make one wish, for the author's
sake, that he should have declined to do so. It is a feebly writ-
ten, rather colorless story of a young woman's pitiful struggles
to earn honest bread by honest labor. The reason why " Bob "
should have endorsed it in a preface failed to become plain to us
until we had nearly reached its close. We divulge it to our
readers willingly, assuring them that the game of finding it was
not worth the candle. Norma Southstone, the heroine, is en-
gaged in trying to comfort a poor, heart-broken German Catho-
lic woman for the death of her daughter after a brief period of
shameful sin. She assures her that " whatever happiness be-
yond the grave is accorded to any one had been accorded to
Amy."

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 415

" ' There is no such place as hell ?' she whispered in a trembling voice.

"'There is no such place. . . .

"'You speak so kind and cheerful, it is so different from the priest's
words. I was afraid to go to church any longer. I had Masses said for
Amy, but it cost so much to get peace for her soul, and I had nothing to
eat for my living children, so I had to let it go. I wish you would tell me
something else that would help me to think of Amy as a bright, beautiful
angel, and not a lost, helpless soul !' "

Thus appealed to, Norma quotes the words of " a great and
good man " Colonel Ingersoll- is his other name on the sub-
ject. He says :

" I am satisfied there is no world of eternal pain. If there is a world
of joy, so much the better."

And then the poor, misguided Catholic finds a crumb of com
fort.

" How kind and good he must be!'' she exclaims. "Do you know
anything else he says ? It seems better than the prayer-books, for I can-
not open one but the word hell seems to be in a dozen places on every
page."

It is dignifying it too much to call such trash as this wicked
or profane. It is both, to be sure, but the natural man rises up
in his own place and finds it absurdly funny first of all. Our
Lord Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light by his
incarnation, death, and resurrection. He taught eternal retribu-
tion. Apostles preached it ; martyrs died and are still dying for
it ; the universal church testifies to it in every land beneath the
skies. And then comes along a fourth-rate, half-educated law-
yer, and gets up on a stump and says he "is satisfied there is no
world of eternal pain," and, as the slang of the day has it, " That
settles it!" It settles something, we are very sure, but it might
not be too polite to say just what it is.

Queen Money, by the author of The Story of Margaret Kent
(Ticknor & Co., Boston), must also, we suppose, be numbered
among the women's novels. Her previous stories we^know
nothing about, save that they have been greatly praised, and,
contrary to the usual fate of American novels, have not stopped
short with a first edition. The one before us is in its fifth. The
assumption we make as to the sex of its author is based upon a
remark made by Mr. Howells, who perhaps speaks of what he
knows, concerning the male characters in Margaret Kent. They
are, he says, " figures such as women draw." Of our own mo-
tion we doubt whether we should have attributed Queen Money
to a woman. Not that we are unaware that women dabble in

4i6 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [June,

stocks, and have learned the language of Wall Street, and can
moralize on the dangers of buying and selling on a margin. It
is not that kind of knowledge, of which this book is full enough
and to spare, which seemed to us of doubtful femininity, but the
speeches put now and then into the mouths of men, as, for exam-
ple, some of those uttered by the host at Kendal's dinner party.
However, the women writers learn to skate over thin ice by
long practice without shrieking or hysterics. The book is very
cleverly written, the conversations bright and natural, though
not specially edifying, and Lucy Florian is extremely well done.
There is a detestable girl-child in the book, who, now that we
consider it, is most probably of feminine origin. We doubt lit-
tle Ethel White's attractiveness to any creature but a " clever"
female writer.

Mrs. Amelia E. Barr is, we are very glad to say, most dis-
tinctly not " clever.'' She is something we like much better
earnest, that is ; sincere in her religious convictions, Protestant
though they be ; a careful student of human nature in the range
she knows best, and a successful delineator of it. The interior
life, its motives and its rewards, is not such a terra incognita to
her as it seems to be to most of her female co-laborers in the
field of fiction. Her latest story, Master of His Fate (Dodd,
Mead & Co., New York), is doubtless not her best, but it leaves
a pleasant memory behind it in the reader's mind. The scene is
laid in Yorkshire, and the characters often talk the broad dia-
lect of that district. It has very little plot and no incident to
speak of, its interest lying chiefly in the development of charac-
ter under the influence of purely interior motives. But it is
very well done very unpretentiously and simply done, more-
over.

The Case of MoJiammed Benani : A Story of To-day (D. Apple-
ton & Co., New York), bears no author's name. It is one of the
books which make one wonder what strings may have been
pulled to secure a publisher's favorable verdict on them. It is
not well written, although the writer evidently knows and ap-
preciates good work, has listened to and doubtless shared in bril-
liant talk, and has seen a good deal of the world. He remarks,
in a preface, that "the attempt to utilize mesmeric phenomena
in the interest of the hero, Benani, will doubtless appear espe-
cially adventurous ; but the novelty is at least justified by facts
which have come under the writer's personal observation " ;
\yhich causes one to believe that Mr. Rider Haggard's novels,
and Mr. Walter Besant's, and the " Proceedings of the London

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 417

Psychical Society " cannot be among those facts. He would
hardly think his own mild attempt a " novelty " if they had
been. His book has, however, a serious object, which is " to
attract public attention to the evil adjustment of a mechanism
which grinds, not grain, but human creatures between the
upper and nether stone of Jewish and Moorish oppression aw-
ful mills to which the placid breeze of Consular support imparts
continuous motion." With so admirable an object in view, it is
sad that the execution of the story should be so hopelessly dull.
It would have been better had its author not weighted himself
with fiction, but given his facts the straightforward setting of
names, dates, and figures. Then they might have been impres-
sive.

An Original Belle, and Found, Yet Lost (Dodd, Mead & Co., New
York), are from the untiring pen of Mr. Edward P. Roe. Mr.
Roe has such excellent intentions, his industry should be such a
tonic to the idly disposed among his brethren of the pen, his
aims are so innocent, and his gentle satisfaction with himself so
unfeigned, that it goes to one's heart not to be able to admire
him as much as such a very good man ought to be admired.
But we observe that he gives his own new novel, now running
in the Cosmopolitan, the following send-off in a letter to the edi-
tor of that magazine :

" I can truly say that I think I never wrote a story with more life, spi-
rit, originality, and dramatic interest than the one you have secured."

And when a good man can conscientiously, and without too
much confusion of face, sound his own trumpet in such a key,
he comforts the rest of us, to whom the instrument seems to
require a greater volume of breath than our weak lungs, tired
out with praise, perhaps, or else too long unused to giving it un-
stinted, can command. We sincerely hope that what Mr. Roe
says of Miss Lou may be far within the limits of allowable self-
laudation. We hope too, may we say, that as far as originality
goes, it may outstrip Found, Yet Lost, in which the note struck
by Hugh Conway in his first notable success, Called Back, and
repeated since by Miss McLelland in Oblivion, is but faintly re-
echoed ?

VOL. XLVII. 27

4i8 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [June,

WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. :

STORY OF A CONVERSION

I had just left school when a great event, to me, happened in our family.
My second brother, an officer in the United States navy, was about to marry.
His affiancfo was a young lady of Baltimore and a Roman Catholic. Great was
the distress of my mother, who had brought us up in the Protestant Episcopal
Church, and with the strictest regard to truth, honor, and morality, but with a
strong prejudice against the Catholic Church. The less she understood of its
doctrines the more she was opposed to them, and I thoroughly sympathized with
her, and with the Protestant teachings of the young ladies' school from which
I had just been graduated at fifteen. I had never come in contact with Catholics
except as servants. Believing sincerely that this poor sister-in-law could not be
saved if not converted from what I considered a cruel, superstitious, bigoted
faith, unworthy of the enlightened Christian of the nineteenth century, I thought
that a plain duty lay before me that of redeeming and saving this otherwise lost
soul who had entered our holier and better-instructed circle.

In the furtherance, however, of this duty, which at first, in the fervor of the
jnoment, seemed so easy, I found a great obstacle at the very outset. How com-
bat theories of which I was uninformed ? How contest the dogmas of a religion
of whfdr I was totally ignorant ? Evidently the first step was to inform [myself
thoroughly in regard to the beliefs and practices of this religion before I could
hope successfully to confute them.

Not having any works at hand on the subject, it occurred to me that, notwith-
standing this, I might betray at once the ignorance and blind superstition incul-
cated by the Catholic Church by questioning the Catholic servants in our house.
Filled with the importance of my mission, and with great confidence in my supe-
rior education acquired in an aristocratic Protestant school, and fresh from my
Protestant histories, I confess I felt rather as Goliath may have felt when he
attacked little David, and I feel bound to record that the result was not very dif-
ferent from the termination of that memorable battle. Seeking one of these
handmaids, therefore, I determined to attack what I considered one of the most
outrageous of Catholic practices and beliefs, so far as I understood it upon Pro-
testant authority, and diving into the midst of things, I asked her, " What is an
indulgence ?"

" An indulgence ? " said she, looking up from her work. "Why, miss, an in-
dulgence is a remission of punishment due for our sins in this world.' 1
" How much do you have to pay for one ? "

" Pay for one ? '' she queried, looking at me in astonishment. " Why, miss,
you cannot pay for an indulgence."

" Do you mean to say," I asked, " that you cannot go to a priest and pay him
to let you commit sin, and that, if you pay him enough, he will not give you per-
mission to do so?' 1

I shall never forget the expression on that poor girl's face as she turned to
look at me ; it was a mingling of pity, astonishment, and disgust. But she only
answered : " Certainly not, miss. To gain an indulgence you must first go to con-
fession and confess all the sins you have been guilty of, and then, if the priest
thinks you sincerely repentant, he absolves you ; then you have to perform the

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 419

conditions of the indulgence, which are the repeating of certain prayers or litanies
required to obtain it, and to receive holy Communion.''

I was astonished at this clear and concise answer. Where was the terrible
sin in all this ? I felt considerably abashed, but nevertheless went on question-
ing.

" Why do you worship the Virgin Mary and her pictures and statues ? "

" We never do."

" Don't worship the Virgin Mary ? Why you make her equal to the Saviour,
do you not ? "

" No j we only ask her to join her prayers to ours because, having been His
mother in this world and the holiest of all women, we believe her prayers to have
great influence.''

" And the saints ? "

" And the saints also, as they are in the presence of God and see him al-
ways."

This was all so intelligent, and so different from the confused answers I had
expected, that I turned away with far greater respect for this poor servant than
an hour before I had thought ever possible, and with a feeling of shame that she
had answered these and many other questions that I put to her far more clearly
than I could have done had she asked me some questions concerning my own
belief ; for in our single congregation I knew there were different opinions upon
some vital points, and I had even heard young men who attended the same church
declare that they had no religious belief whatever. I knew, also, that what were
called " High-Church " and " Low-Church " persuasions were widely different on
essential points, though entertained by persons sitting under the same preacher
and worshipping together in the same edifice. This was very disturbing, yet did
not convince me that Protestantism was wrong or Catholicism right. I still con-
sidered it my duty to attack the Roman Catholic faith, and for this purpose set
to work at once to read up the most celebrated works on both sides of the ques-
tion. And I read with such intensity of purpose, and remembered the arguments
on both sides so well, that I frequently amused myself by taking opposite sides of
the question according to whatever might be the views of my opponent, for later
on I became acquainted with some very learned Catholics, and on the other hand
I argued with my Protestant friends for mere argument's sake.

Notwithstanding all this, the replies I had received from the poor Catholic
servant of whom I have spoken made me chary, at first, of attacking my sister-in-
law when she arrived at our home, together with a sense of want of breeding in
such a course.

One afternoon, as I was sitting in the drawing-room playing on the piano, the
door opened and a visitor was announced. I had not heard the ring at the door,
and was a little startled at seeing an entire stranger enter the room, in the dress
of a Roman Catholic priest. His presence was explained, however, when he
asked for my sister-in-law. He was one of the most majestic and elegant of men,
certainly the handsomest man I ever saw either before or since. The expression
of his face was that of great dignity and sweetness, with a tinge of sadness that
awakened at once a sympathetic feeling, and drew one towards him with an un-
questioning confidence and assurance that they were in the presence of a noble
nature. A terrific thunder-storm coming up almost immediately after his
entrance, and no one else being at home, I enjoyed a tte-&-t$te with my distin-
guished-looking guest for nearly an hour. I asked him many questions about
his religion, and above all, why priests did not marry, which amused him very

420 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [June,

much, this being another mystery of the Catholic faith to me which I thought
highly unchristian. After his explanation, however, I regarded priests more as
martyrs than as the mysterious propagators of a mysterious religion.

The storm being ended and a brilliant sun illumining the horizon, my visitor
rose to take leave, promising to renew his visit at an early opportunity. Thus
commenced an acquaintance which soon became a strong friendship, ending only
with death.

Probably most persons would think that here was the cause of my conver-
sion, but so far is that from the truth that my very admiration of this noblest of
men prevented me from becoming a Catholic for years, lest I should be influenced
in so important a decision by the exalted friendship I could not help entertaining
for one of the purest and loveliest natures it has ever been my privilege through
a long life to meet. And again, he never endeavored to convert me to his faith,
saying that, although he would answer any question I put to him, yet that my
parents, having received him in all good faith, he would consider it a breach of
that faith should he do so without their knowledge and permission. His death
occurred while I was abroad, and so much was he beloved by our late Cardinal
that he desired that he alone should preach his funeral sermon, and a glowing
tribute it was to that most holy and admirable life. A kind hand sent the
panegyric to me in my then island home, more than six thousand miles away.

To return, however, to my sister-in-law. On her learning of the visit she
had missed, she said she should return it very shortly, and offered to take me
with her an offer which I readily accepted.

It was at the house of this admirable man that I met for the first time Mother
Jerome, very soon afterwards Superior of Mount St. Vincent. She, more than
any one, attracted me towards the Catholic faith, because a plain, simple woman
in appearance, humble in station, and doubtless of humble origin, I saw that the
gentleness of manner, the sweetness of character, the overflowing charity which
characterized and shone in her face, and lent to it at times a halo that elevated
its expression beyond all mundane beauty, could come only from the deep and
beautiful faith that animated the soul within ; and while I looked with wonder on
this marvellous effect I acknowledged that in the devotees of no other religion had
I seen the same transformation. I became sincerely attached to Sister Jerome,
and thought I should like to become a sister with her. She laughed at the idea
of my leading such a life, and told me I could never endure its privations and ex-
actions, but that persons in the world and in society could do as much good in
other ways by ac'.s of charity, leading exemplary lives, and repressing evil ten-
dencies in the thoughtless around them as they could in devoting themselves to
the life of a religieuse. I begged, however, to go with her sometimes on her er-
rands of mercy, and this she did not object to, and I accompanied her on several
occasions, to my great delight. But coming one afternoon to visit her I found
the sisters all in tears and much moved. I was astonished, and entreated to
know the cause of their commotion. Alas! their beloved Mother Jerome had
been appointed to a new field of action. She was to be the Superior of Mount St.
Vincent, and there, after the successful labor of years, having brought the insti-
tution to a standard far beyond its original scope, she died shortly before the Car-
dinal, who had for her the sincerest friendship.

After her removal to Mount St. Vincent I never saw her again. My entrance
into society drew me for a time away from all such thoughts, though at certain
moments an unsatisfied longing after the infinite would take possession of me,
which even the blandishments of society could not stifle. Questioning my

1 388.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 421

revered friend very earnestly one day in regard to the Catholic belief of transub-
stantiation, he referred me to the sixth chapter of St. John and to the eleventh
chapter of First Corinthians, verses 27, 28, and 29. It was strange, as often as
I had read and heard read these words before, their real meaning had never oc-
curred to me. I felt that seeing, I had not seen, and hearing, I had not heard.
A new light dawned upon my soul, and I said, only the church which recognizes
these words as St. John evidently understood them (and who better than the be-
loved disciple, who leaned on Jesus' breast at the last supper, could understand
them?) can be the true church, that church of which Christ said, " I will be with
you always."

Oh ! all other beliefs seemed trivial in comparison with this, and the hitherto
perplexed feeling with which I had asked myself, why the Son of God was called
upon to undergo such cruel sufferings merely to be as one of the prophets, teach-
ing and predicting only as they did, vanished. Now I understood the great and
glorious benefits of that ineffable sacrifice. Only the eternal God could institute
such a sacrifice to unite our mortality to his immortality. And should I throw
away this great boon which had at last been placed before me so clearly, with tes-
timony so indubitable ? Should I also say, " This is a hard saying, who can
hear it ? " No, never. I, too, will taste of this bread of eternal life and live !

I was determined to let doubt and the distraction of contending polemics in-
fluence me no longer.

The Rev. Dr. Forbes, who was then a convert to Catholicity, having been of
my own church, I was recommended to him as most apt to understand the diffi-
culties I might find in my way. Accordingly, I called upon him and discussed
with him many different points of belief, such as confession, penance, etc. After
a long debate he said he thought the best thing I could do would be to make a
general confession to him. This proposition surprised me very much, but I told
him I did not object, and at once knelt down and made a confession of all the
sins of my life that I could remember. His exclamation when I finished, to my
great surprise, was : " Would to God every life were so blameless !" He requested
me to call again, but I was not favorably impressed, and did not do so. I after-
wards learned that his proceeding was very irregular. I decided now to go at
once to Archbishop Hughes, then Archbishop of New York. He received me
with the utmost courtesy, and undertook the task of my instruction himself. He
made appointments to receive me, and went with me through the whole cate-
chism, stopping with gentle patience at whatever was a stumbling-block to me,
and reasoning and explaining away with his clear brain all doubts and misunder-
standing.

Those were very happy hours spent with this illustrious man, who did not
disdain a witticism on either side, or a little gaiety when the lesson was over. I
remember on one occasion he asked me if I had ever seen his pictures, and, upon
my answering in the negative, led the way into his large drawing-room. We
passed picture after picture, none, I am constrained to say (though of pretentious
size), having particularly attracted my admiration ; he at last stopped before
" The Flight into Egypt," which he informed me was said to be a Murillo. After
looking a little at the picture I turned to him with an incredulous smile. "What,"
he said, " you do not think it a Murillo ? "

" I do not think," I replied, " Murillo ever saw it."

He laughed and said : " Likely. It was given me by an officer in the navy,
however, who believed it to be by that distinguished Spaniard.''

422 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [June,

I inquired who the marble busts in the hall represented, and learned they
were those of St. Peter and the Holy Father.

He then asked me if I would like to see a bust taken lately of himself, and
took me into the rear drawing-room, where the bay-window had been draped en-
tirely in red in order better to display what the sculptor doubtless considered his
chef d'aeuvre. I did not like to say it was not a good likeness, so only remarked,
" I see your grace has left St. Peter and His Holiness in the hall, while you oc-
cupy a canopied space in the drawing-room." " Oh ! " said the quick-witted pre-
late, " I keep them there to keep out evil spirits."

' I see, however," I replied," they have been ineffectual in my case."

" That," said he, " is because all evil spirits left you when you entered."

These studies were twice interrupted, however once by the death of my
noble father, and a few months afterwards by my marriage. All doubts in my
mind having been removed, the Archbishop sent me to Father Deluynes, of St.
Francis Xavier's, for my confessor, and here I found a true comforter and adviser,
with whom I held intimate correspondence during many travels in foreign lands,
and at last, after eleven years' absence, returned in time to receive his blessing
once more before he left us for ever.

Returning from a walk one morning, I was accosted by a gentleman, shortly
after my conversion, who said : " I wish to speak to you ; here is my house close
by. You see I have moved." I looked up and beheld the Rev. Dr. Forbes. In
great amazement I went with him. Entering the house, which was a handsome
one, more comfortably furnished than the one he had left, he said : " Do you re-
member the afternoon you called upon me and our conversation ? "

" Perfectly."

" Well, do you know your arguments had a great effect upon me ? "

I felt horrified. That a man of his age, supposed solid education, and su-
perior mind could become a convert to any religion upon convictions so unstable
as afterwards to doubt them, and that I should be in any way mixed up with such
vacillation, even in the remotest degree, shocked me beyond expression. I re-
garded him with sorrow and astonishment.

" I have left the church," said he.

" And /," I replied, " have joined it. I wish you good-morning." And I im-
mediately left the house.

STATES OF PERFECTION.*

There are many minds to whom the question, How shall I serve God in
greater perfection ? is the most important in life. We do not say that Father
Rossetti in the little book here mentioned answers in detail that question for
others besides the members of his own Society ; but the knowledge of the spirit
of any order or state of Christians is of much use in studying the question of
Christian perfection in general. We are free to confess that his broadness of
view is so much in contrast with some other writers, that we are glad to give his
book a conspicuous note of commendation.

The spirit of an order is dependent on the end of that order, and on the
means by which that end is to be attained. Every order has therefore its own
spirit. To seize upon this spirit is a matter of great difficulty and involves some-
thing more than a knowledge of the letter of the rules. It can only be done by
one who is familiar and in sympathy with the institution and with its practical

* De Spiritu Societatis Jesu. Auctore Julio Costa Rossetti, S.J. Friburgi Brisgoviae :
Herder. 1888.

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 423

workings. Outsiders can only hope to attain an imperfect idea of the spirit of
the Society of Jesus. For one who has the time, the Institute of the society
(comprising the constitutions, decrees of general congregations, and letters of
generals) affords the best means. This, however, would be an arduous study.
Father Rossetti's little work of some 300 pages (i6mo), based upon the Institute
and written for the scholastics and for those making their tertianship in the
society, and for all, indeed, who wish to learn about the constitution of the
society, affords the best means with which we are acquainted. It is at once a
pious and a scholarly work, giving references to the constitutions in verification
of its statements. A very valuable part of the work is the appendix, which
shows how the Exercises of St. Ignatius and the constitutions of the society
agree, and how the one springs from the other. We have always thought that
the great success of the society was in a large degree due not only to the
wisdom of its constitutions, but also to the fact that by means of the Exercises
every member of the society has implanted in him the germs from which will
spring, so far as he makes those Exercises his own, a life of which the constitu-
tions will be the natural expression. As a consequence, the keeping of his rule
is not a bondage to an external yoke, but the natural expression _of his own inte-
rior spirit.

We notice with pleasure that Father Rossetti does not look upon the taking
of vows as essential to a man's being in a state ol religious perfection (status per -
fectionis altioris acquirendce], and that consequently the fathers of the Oratory
and other congregations which, like them, do not take vows, are in this state.
We translate the author's sentences on this topic, because they embody a doc-
trine of wide application in the spiritual life. It may be well to state that Father
Rossetti is the author of a work on natural morality and ethical philosophy.

" A state of perfection is a fixed condition of life in which a person is devoted
to perfection. The state of perfection is twofold: ist. That of Christians in
general who, by virtue of the condition of their life, endeavor to keep the precepts
of the Christian religion. 2d. The state of those who, in addition to the precepts,
make profession of their resolution to practise the counsels of Christ that is to
say, the counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience in which a greater perfec-
tion is in part contained, and by which it is in part promoted. This state of per-
fection is likewise twofold : ist. That state of greater perfection in which perfec-
tion has already been acquired and which is to be imparted to others ; this is the
state of the pastors of the church, especially of the bishops, since their office of
guiding the sheep of Christ in the perfection which they are to acquire, can only
be performed satisfactorily by those who have already attained a certain higher
degree of perfection themselves.

" 2d. The state of greater perfection which has not yet been, but which is to
be acquired ; this is that fixed condition of life which in itself does not exact that
the greater perfection should have been already acquired, but only demands a
constant and serious pursuit of greater perfection.

" The state of that greater perfection which is to be acquired is compatible
with both the solitary or eremetical life and the social life. ist. That society the
members of which devote themselves to the constant pursuit of this greater per-
fection (with either the positive or the negative approbation of the church) is
called a congregation, or a religious society, or even a religion, and this is the
case even if religious vows are not taken at all, as, <?. g., in the Oratory of St.
Philip Neri, and if they are taken only for a few years, and, also, if the vows are
perpetual but not solemn. 2d. A religious order in the strict sense is a fixed re-

424 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [June,

ligious society, positively approved by the church, the end of which is this greater
perfection, which perfection is to be acquired by means of the vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience ; these vows, too, are so to be taken that for all, or
at all events for a part, of the members of the order they must be solemn '*
(PP. i, 2).

"TROS TYRIUSQUE MIHI NULLO DISCRIMINE AGETUR."

Apropos of the article, " Why Am I a Moslem?" by Ibn Abbas, recently pub-
lished in the North American Review, we would like to know if some intelligent
Fijian cannot tell us through its pages, "Why Am I a Cannibal?" The latter
is a foreign religion, it is true, but hardly less so than Mohammedanism. " Why
Am I a Heathen ? " by Wong Chin Foo, gives the favorable side of the religion
of our American Chinese ; and perhaps " Why Am I a Voodoo? '' by some able
writer, might incline us to favor a peculiar form of religion among negro Ameri-
cans. Not to be too exclusive, Mormonism might have its claims set forth, per-
haps by some talented mind among the numerous progeny of its original light.
It occurred to me, furthermore, that some one in Sing Sing might furnish an in-
teresting answer to the question, "Why Am I a Burglar? " but, on after-thought,
I conclude that Burglary cannot be classed under the head of religion.

We admire the North American as one of the organs of the greatest writers in
America, but it should, we think, even when discussing religion, draw the line
somewhere.

THE SPRING ACADEMY.

The art critics of the daily press seem to be nearly unanimous in the verdict
that the sixty-third annual exhibition of the Academy of Design surpasses its
predecessors in point of general excellence. Perhaps it does ; and perhaps, also,
"general excellence " is not in itself so exhilarating a thing in pictures, or in art of
any sort, as the rare and special excellences which stand head and shoulders
above the crowd. There are not many works in the galleries on Twenty-third
Street this spring which do that. Two of those which have been most highly
praised, George Inness's " September Afternoon " and Winslow Homer's " Eight
Bells." are singularly unfortunate in having been placed under glass, a precaution
necessary in the case of water-colors, but incomprehensible in that of oil-paint-
ings. Mr. Inness's landscape is well composed and strongly painted, but the
blue of the sky near the horizon and the greens throughout are too deep to be
either true or wholly pleasing. A reflection from the heater opposite which the
picture hangs is caught by the glass in front of it, and kept dancing in a tanta-
lizing way through the middle of the flowers in the foreground.

Mr. Homer's picture, whenever we have tried to look at it, suffers in much
the same way from reflections. One recognizes, nevertheless, its characteristic
strength. But this painter's " Undertow," of last season, had both strength and
beauty to recommend it. And Mr. Homer's work, when it can lay claim to
beauty, owes it almost wholly to its subject, his handling being as rude as it is
strong. The two tars taking a mid-day sounding do not supply that always wel-
come element.

Edward Gay has a large and interesting landscape in the West Gallery, which
he calls "Waving Grain." The grayness of the stalks, bent by the wind, is well
rendered, and so is the silvery expanse of sky. In the same gallery hangs a very
pleasing picture by Burr H. Nicholls, " Pigeons from St. Mark's, Venice," which

.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 425

represents a young girl, with a child in her arms, leaning against a wall which
would be white if it were not transfused with a light which brings out the thou-
sand subtle touches of color which make it luminous. She is looking at some
doves.

A small landscape called " Grays afcd Yellows," by Ed. Stratton Holloway, is
in this gallery also, and worth looking at. Charles C. Curran's " Alcove at the
Student's League " hangs not far distant good, but not nearly so good as his
" Breezy Day " in the South Gallery, in which two girls are shown in the act of
spreading refractory sheets to bleach in a grassy field. Homer D. Martin also
has a gray but luminous " Study of a Breezy Day " on the same wall, but his
breeze is ruffling the sea which washes the Normandy coast, and blowing back
the smoke from the pipe of a steamer near the jetty of Honfleur. Here also is
his large picture, " Westchester Hills," which is held to divide the honors of the
exhibition with George Inness's " September Afternoon." It has a tranquil,
daylight beauty which continually grows upon the beholder.

R. D. Sawyer has a fine, large landscape, which he calls " A Souvenir of Nor-
mandy," in the South Gallery. The cattle are rather spotty and frequent, but
the picture is full of light and of good drawing, and the pool with its reflections
in the foreground is pleasant to look at. His " Still Life," which represents a
Normandy earthen jug standing on a kitchen table, with a roll and a blue china
bowl for companions, seems to us the best thing of the still-life kind on the walls.

J. Francis Murphy has, as usual, some very taking small landscapes. His
"Yellow Hour," though, is a trifle too metallic in the glow of its sky and the re-
flection thereof in the foreground water. .His " Rain," in the East Gallery, is
more agreeable. In this gallery hangs Miss Brewster's portrait of Mrs. Wheeler,
which secured one of the prizes. It is full of character and vigor. John S. Sar-
gent, whose reputation as a portrait painter is wide, also shows here the likeness
of a woman which is not pleasing. But the flesh-tints of the arms, especially
the right one, are most luminous and beautiful. We like better his two Vene-
tian sketches in the North Gallery ; colorless as they are, all blacks and creamy
whites, and ill drawn as they seem in parts the hands, for example the faces are
full of character and expression. In the North room also hangs a small land-
scape, a wood interior, by Miss a Becket, well drawn, sunny, and solid.

Wyatt Eaton has a fine portrait, " Miss Martha " ; Mr. Eakins a strong full-
length of Prof. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania ; Mr. Dewing a " Lady
in Yellow, 1 ' with a delicate face and the arms of a butcher, and Alden Weir a
speaking portrait of Mr. John Gilbert. But in portraiture we prefer Emil Re-
nouf's three-quarter length of W. H. Phillips, in the North Gallery, to anything
else. It is extremely lifelike, and seems to have met difficulties instead of evading
them. J. B. Flagg's portrait of W. J. Flagg is excellent also.

Frank M. Boggs shows two characteristic views one of the pier at Whitby,
with men leaning over the railing under a gray sky; the other, "A January
Tow," in New York Harbor, with that ugly thing, the Bartholdi Statue of Liber-
ty, pointing inanely upward in the middle background.

One of the pleasantest landscapes in the exhibition is M. De Forest Bolmer's
" Low Tide on the Marshes." Charles A. Platt shows two or three which seem
to promise him as good a repute as a painter as he has already won as an etcher.
Mr. Twachtmann's work is, as usual, graceful, poetic, and full of light and air ;
but, like that of some other excellent painters, it is hardly " loud " enough to ap-
peal to the crowd. His " View near Dieppe," in the West Gallery, is very beau-
tiful.

426 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [June,

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

BIOGRAPHY OF LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JULIUS P. GARESCHE', A. ADJ. -GEN.,
U.S.A. By his Son. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott.

Colonel Garesche graduated in the class of 1841 with high rank at
West Point, and was assigned to the Fourth Artillery. Professor Ken-
drick says of him :

" His class, that of 1841, was a distinguished one, numbering among its members Generals
Tower, Wright, Whipple, Lyon, Love, Hamilton, Reynolds, Buell, the two Joneses, and
the two Garnetts, names which, with his, are now well known in military annals. With these
I have often met since those West Point days, and with one accord they give him a central
place in their warmest remembrances, and as one whose after-life fully justified their early and
kind predictions. He was a hard student, and by the display of the highest military virtues
won an enviable military reputation."

From 1841 to 1855 Mr. Garesche served with his company at various
military posts, and at the latter date was appointed Assistant Adjutant-
General, filling this office until 1862, when he was made chief of staff to
General Rosecrans. At the battle of Murfreesboro, the only engagement
in which he ever took part, he was killed by a cannon-shot, riding by the
side of General Rosecrans, after very gallant behavior during the most
critical part of the battle.

As a warrior Colonel Garesche had the briefest possible career. He
had but one opportunity of proving himself a hero in battle. That virtue
and valor which was always ready for heroic acts, was always a permanent
quality and habit in his character, was in him and always growing as he
advanced in age from his boyhood. As an officer he always manifested it
by the perfect fulfilment of his duty, even when it involved the most
imminent risk of his life. When yellow fever or cholera broke out at
the military posts where he was stationed, the most devoted priests and
physicians could not surpass him in unremitting service of the sick and
dying, by which he was himself brought to death's door. His virtue was
founded on Christian faith and piety. Colonel Garesche was a thorough
and devout Catholic from his childhood to his death. Not only while a
boy at Georgetown College, but as a cadet at West Point, where he en-
tered when only sixteen and graduated at twenty, the only Catholic in the
whole corps, he was bold and consistent in the profession and practice of
his religion. During his subsequent life he was 'always advancing in the
fervor of piety and in Christian perfection.

Although very few Americans can claim a pedigree and connections
equal in worldly rank and distinction to his own, while he was, personally,
a most accomplished gentleman, he had none of that pride and exclusive-
ness, which are really vulgar and ignoble, that one often sees, and most
conspicuously in some whose pretensions are of the most recent origin.
His sympathies were given to the poor and humble, and especially to the
private soldiers under his command. He associated himself heartily with
the humble labors of priests among the soldiers and the more lowly classes
in civil life. On one occasion the majority of the men in his company
died of an epidemic, every one personally attended and assisted to receive

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 427

the last sacraments by himself. '" No wonder that he was idolized by the
soldiers, and that he won the admiration and love of all his superiors and
comrades in the army.

The private and domestic character and life of Colonel Garesche are
full of charms. The biographer, Mr. Louis Garesche", has fulfilled his filial
task in the most affectionate manner and with scrupulous care and truth-
fulness. A large part of the book is made up of family letters, so that it
is in a considerable measure an autobiography of Colonel Garesche and
his lovely wife, the worthy companion with whom he was so well and
happily mated. The title-page announces that the life is printed for pri-
vate circulation, and we are informed .that the edition is limited to five
hundred copies. We trust that a larger edition will be called for. We
especially recommend to all who are connected with the army above all,
to those who are Catholics this life of a man who was an ornament to his
profession and his religion. He has left a bright example of the noble vir-
tues of a soldier and a Christian.

A LITERARY AND BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY ; or, Bibliographical Dictionary
of the English Catholics from the breach with Rome in 1534 to the
present time. Vol. III. By Joseph Gillow. London : Burns & Gates ;
New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.

The long time which has elapsed since the publication of the second
volume of this valuable work makes us welcome the more heartily the
appearance of this volume, and this the more because the delay has been
due to the efforts which Mr. Gillow has been making to still further im-
prove his work. The excellence of his former volumes has led t.o more
material being placed at his disposal, and more time has been required for
analyzing and indexing this new matter. We do not wonder that Mr.
Gillow's labors should have elicited the spontaneous assistance of English
Catholics, for it is a work of which they have every reason to be proud,
both for its subject-matter and for the way in which that subject-matter
has been treated. It will foster the reverence and veneration due to those
into whose heritage they have entered, and who, during the dark period of
the last three hundred years, have with so much sacrifice maintained the
faith.

It may be well to mention the principal features of this work. That
which entitles a person to a record in it is, that he should have been an
author, however obscure his book, or he himself, may otherwise have been.
An exact transcript is given of the title-page of each work and a list of the
different editions. When it is of interest an account is given of the occa-
sion which called forth the work, and what it itself called forth. Conse-
quently we have here a Bibliographical Dictionary (complete so far as the
diligence and research of one man can make it) of all the books which
have been written by English Catholics during the last three hundred and
fifty years of those, that is, whose authors are dead. But although au-
thorship is sufficient to entitle a person to a place in this work, it is not a
necessary condition. All who have died as Catholics, and have done any-
thing worthy of remembrance, find their record here; not merely those
who have directly served the cause of the church or suffered for the faith,
but all who have been distinguished in any sphere politics, literature or
art, the bar or the stage. In this volume (which extends from Graham to

428 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [June,

Kemble) the lives which will be of most general interest are those of
Inigo Jones, Mrs. Inchbald, Habington the poet, Anne Hyde, Duchess of
York, and in our own days of Dr. Husenbeth, Mr. Hope-Scott, and Mother
Margaret Mary Hallahan. The most important article in the volume is
that on the character and policy of James II. Mr. Gillow's researches
place the last Catholic sovereign of England in a different light from that
in which he has been viewed by the current Protestant historian, and by
some excessively complacent Catholic publicists.

We may say, in conclusion, that this work will be absolutely indis-
pensable for every one who is interested in the history of the Catholic
Church in England, in the record of its long struggles with persecution,
and in the gradual appearance of its " second spring." The student of the
religious controversies of this period will find in the bibliographical notes
vast stores of information ; while the general reader will meet with much
to interest him, for the lives, far from being dry compilations, are well and
brightly written, and abound in striking incident. We must mention, too,
the great pains which have been taken with the genealogy of the subjects
of the lives. The record of the fortunes of the colleges and schools of the
past and of the present is of great interest. This work has been for Mr.
Gillow a labor of love, and as their result we hope that his labors will meet
with the grateful recognition they deserve.

PALESTINE IN THE TIME OF CHRIST. By Edmond Stapfer. D.D. Translat-
ed by Annie Harwood Holmden. Third edition. New York : A. C.
Armstrong & Son.

Although Dr. Stapfer is a Protestant and a professor in the Protestant
Theological Faculty of Paris, he is singularly free from prejudice and
manifests (so far as we have discovered) no anti-Catholic spirit. On the
question of the Holy Sites, for example, he says: "M. Bovet, in his Voyage
en Terre Sainte, affirms and demonstrates that the traditional sites of the
Holy Sepulchre and of Calvary are authentic. We have already said that
this opinion is being more and more widely received '' (p. 115). In this he
affords a favorable contrast to the flippant dogmatism of Mr. Lawrence
Oliphant in his recent work on the Holy Land. The main tendency of the
work is in every way commendable, and it will form a valuable addition to
a literature in which all Catholics should take great interest, especially
those who practice meditation on our Lord's life and words. The object
of the author is to describe accurately and in detail the social and religious
state of Palestine in the time of our Lord, the dress, the home life, the
dwellings, clothing, and habits of the people ; the religious schools, the
feasts, the Sabbath observances, and in general all that made up the social
and religious life of the time. Our author has not aimed at being bril-
liant, and has not presented his reader with a series of word-paintings.
His work is the result of diligent research and is full of information,
vouched for by the best authorities. These authorities are, in the main,
the New Testament, the writings of Josephus, and the Talmud, as well as
the classical authors, so far as they could afford assistance. The style is in
keeping with the character of the work, simple and clear, and Mrs. Holm-
den has done the work of translation exceedingly well. We think that
this work will gain a permanent place among works on this subject. We

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 429

feel obliged, however, to point out that while, as we have said, the general
tendency of the work is commendable, clear indications occur from time
to time that the author is very far from holding the true Catholic doctrine
on several, important points. For example, on page 490, and still more
clearly on page 494, he writes as if he did not believe in the divinity of
our Lord, or, at all events, as if he had a most inadequate apprehension of
what that belief involves. With these perhaps inevitable drawbacks (in-
evitable, because we cannot reasonably expect that any Protestant should
maintain the whole truth) the work is one which will delight every student
of Scripture, and be of great service to religion and to its defenders.

A VISIT TO EUROPE AND THE HOLY LAND; By Rev. H. F. Fairbanks.
New York : The Catholic Publication Society Co.; London : Burns &
Gates.

This is the itinerary of a trip to the old country made by three priests
of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Rev. Thos. Fagan, of Bay View, Rev.
Jos. Keenan, of Fond-du-Lac, and the author, Rev. H. F. Fairbanks.
Father Fairbanks gives an interesting account of what his party saw, as
he says, from the standpoint of "a Catholic American."

Father Fairbanks tells the story of his travels in a pleasing and inter-
esting way, and, what is of special moment, the book is free from the
taint of that prejudice and dishonesty which too often mars similar works
written by non-Catholics.

Many a man has made a fortune without learning how to spend" it. He
pays perhaps a couple of thousand for a fast and dangerous horse a sum
of money that would carry him to the tomb of Christ, and enable him to
refresh his faith with the spiritual pilgrimage and prolong his life with
needed rest and rational recreation, about the cradle of the human race
and the seats of the ancient peoples of the world. A book like Father
Fairbanks' serves as an admirable stimulus to such an undertaking, and
in the hands of the pilgrim could well take the place of a guide-book.

TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY. By James Martineau, D.D., LL.D. Second
Edition revised. Two vols. Oxford : at the Clarendon Press ; New
York : Macmillan & Co.

Although it is somewhat late to notice here a work which appeared
three years ago, and of which the second edition was published in 1886,
yet the influence which we believe Dr. Martineau's work is destined to
exert upon the course of thought, and the assistance which it is adapted to
give to many whose minds are perplexed by current speculations, make it
a duty for us to call attention to it. Two months ago we noticed the pub-
lication of the Study of Religion by the same author. These two works
mutually supplement each other. The "averments of the moral con-
sciousness " to use the words of Dr. Martineau which were accepted as
postulates in the former work, were in the Study of Religion subjected to
rigorous examination. In the Types of Ethical Theory the author devoted
himself to the investigation of what are the springs of moral conduct, and
what are its effects. His standpoint is indicated in the preface to the
Types of Ethical Theory. When he entered upon the study of moral and
metaphysical questions he carried into it, from previous training for the
profession of civil engineer, a store of exclusively scientific conceptions

430 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [June,

which, as he says, necessarily dictated the only"rules of judgment which
he could apply. The maxims and postulates of physical knowledge shut
him up in the habit of interpreting the human phenomena by the analogy
of external nature. He belonged, in fact, to the same school as James and
John Stuart Mill, and had for some time the absolute confidence that he
was right, which is said to be a distinctive characteristic of the Experiential
School of Philosophy. But the duties of his profession in life forced him
to a more profound examination of the problems, and made him see that '
the solutions previously accepted by him were not satisfactory.

" I seemed," he says, "to discover a hitherto unnoticed factor in all the products which I
had taken as explained ; to recognize, after resolving all knowledge into relations, the presence
of an invisible condition of relation itself ; and the more I scrutinized the physical science as-
sumptions which I had carried as axioms into philosophy, the less could I look upon them as
ultimate and valid for all thought. . . . Visiting me first as mere suspicions, these ideas in-
sensibly loosened the set attitude of my convictions. ... It was the irresistible pleading of the
moral consciousness which first drove me to rebel against the limits of the merely scientific
conception. . . . The naturalistic uniformity could no longer escape some breach in its closed
barrier to make room for the ethical alternative. The secret misgivings which I had always
felt at either discarding or perverting the terms which constitute the vocabulary of character
4 responsibility,' ' guilt,' ' merit, 1 ' duty ' came to a head and insisted upon speaking out and
being heard ; and to their reiterated question, ' Is there, then, no ought to be other than what is ? '
I found the negative answer of Diderot intolerable, and all other answer impossible. This in-
volved a surrender of determinism and a revision of the doctrine of causation ; or rather, I
should say, a recall of the outlawed causes from their banishment and degradation to the rank
of antecedents ; and constituted, therefore, a retrograde movement on the line of Comte's law,
back from physics to metaphysics. . . . During a fifteen months' furlough, . . passed through
a kind of second education in Germany, mainly under the admirable guidance of the late Pro-
fessor Trendelenberg. ... I gave myself chiefly to Greek studies, and only read more largely
authors of whom I had supposed myself to know something before. The effect I cannot de-
scribe but as a new intellectual birth ; after a temporary struggle out of the English into the
Greek moulds of conception, I seemed to pierce through what had been words before, into
contact with living thought, and the black grammatical text was aglow with living philosophy.
. . . [This] experience was the gift of fresh conceptions, the unsealing of .hidden openings of
self-consciousness, with unmeasured corridors and sacred halls behind. It was impossible to
resist or distrust this gradual widening of apprehension ; it was as much a fact as the sight of
the Alps I had never visited before. I thus came into the same plight, in respect of the cogni-
tive and aesthetic side of life, that had already befallen me in regard to the moral. The meta-
physic of the world had come home to me, and never again could I say that phenomena in their
clusters and chains were all, or find myself in a universe with no categories but the like and
unlike, the synchronous and successive."

This long extract from the preface shows that Dr. Martineau is not
the advocate of views which he has inherited, but that his work is the re-
sult of mental struggle and of personal conviction. It illustrates also the
beauty of a style which lends a charm to the dryest of discussions. This
work, together with the recently published Study of Religion, is the outcome
of more than fifty years' study of the most important of questions, and al-
though the statement that the Types of Ethical Theory is the most impor-
tant work on the subject which has appeared in the English language for
one hundred and fifty years may be somewhat premature, this, at all events,
is certain : that all students of Moral Philosophy will have to take this
work into account; the friends of religion and morals in order to derive
the most valuable assistance from it, their enemies in order, if possible, to
refute it.

1 8 88.] NE W PUBLICA TIONS. 43 1

THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. By Sir J. William Dawson,
C.M.G., LL.D., etc. New York : D. Appleton & Co.

Any scientific treatise from the pen of Sir Wm. Dawson commands
the respectful attention of all who take an interest in physical science, for
he occupies an advanced position among the leading scientists of the Eng-
lish-speaking world, and in his own special department Geology he has
no superior. His geological works are the most popular in our language
to-day, for his knowledge of the subject is not only vast and accurate, but
he has also a most agreeable method of imparting it. Hi-s Story of the
Earth and Man reads like a romance while it is most rigidly scientific, and
his History of Plants, though of course not so interesting, is a most read-
able book, and conveys the most thorough information on the plant life in
the different geological periods of the earth's history.

ROBERT EMMET: A Tragedy of Irish History. By Joseph I. C. Clarke.
New York and London : G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Irish history is nothing if not dramatic, and Robert Emmet is one of
the most dramatic characters that has appeared on its tragic stage. We
have often wondered that the stirring episode of his young life, and love,
and patriotism was not fittingly dramatized. It surely supplies all the
elements for dramatic composition. There is youth and beauty, eloquence
and heroism, love and war, in their most striking aspects. The materials
were all ready to the hand that had skill to throw them into shape.

Mr. Clarke has made excellent use of them, and has produced a classic
work. The conception is lofty ; the narrative natural; the language very
pure, and the taste faultless.

We cannot help thinking that the composition lacks power, however;
it is too smooth and flowing to be really powerful. A little more of the
abruptness of passion and the rugged eloquence of nature are needed to
make a powerful drama, and while we have nothing but praise to bestow
upon it as a piece of pure English composition, we doubt of its success as
a popular presentation of a most popular subject.

PERCY'S REVENGE: A Story for Boys. By Clara Mulholland. Boston:
Thomas B. Noonan & Co. 1887. Hearth and Home Library.

The various moods of a bright, impulsive boy are well delineated in
this story. He forms plans of his own to frighten his Aunt Lydia
and endeavors to throw the blame on others. Under wise parental direc-
tion he is prudently admonished, and compelled to acknowledge his fault
by a humble apology.

Excellent printing and attractive binding give the book a fine appear-
ance.

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON : A Story of Boy Life ; and KENSINGTON,
JUNIOR. By Margaret Sidney. Boston : D. Lothrop & Co.

Not the Catholic St. George but a boy by that name conquers the
dragon in this book. Finding his progress in life obstructed by idleness,
selfishness, and impatience, he makes war on them. He was led to this de-
termination by discovering among the articles left by his deceased mother
the well-known engraving of St. George slaying the dragon, on which was
written these words of advice: "Thus, my boy, ought you to slay your
dragons."

432 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [June, 1888.

The story is well written, and shows careful observation of boy life.
Of Kensington, Junior, the second story of the volume, the same may be
said. Illustrations adorn many of the pages.

We recommend the get-up of this book to Catholic publishers of juve-
nile literature.

Six SERMONS ON DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART. By Rev. Ewald
Bierbaum, D.D. Translated by Miss Ella McMahon. New York, Cin-
cinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.

These sermons, excellently adapted to arousing devotion to our Lord's
humanity as the divine exponent of God's mercy, have come to hand too
late to give them the notice they deserve. This word we say that the
public may know that there is a new and good book to be had, not too
large nor too expensive, for the devotions of the month of June.

BOOKS RECEIVED.
Mention of books in this place does not preclude extended notice in subsequent numbers.

THE ROMAN HYMNAL : A Complete Manual of English Hymns and Latin Chants, for the use
of Congregations, Schools, Colleges, and Choirs. Compiled and arranged by Rev. J. B.
Young, S.J., Choir-master of St. Francis Xavier's Church, New York. Fourth Edition.
$i. New York and Cincinnati : Fr. Pustet & Co.

INSTRUCTIONS ON THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD AND THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH.
Translated from the Italian of St. Alphonsus Liguori. Edited by Rev. Eugene Grimm,
C.SS.R. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago: Benziger Bros.

A DAUGHTER OF ST. DOMINIC : Amelie Lautard. By Kathleen O'Meara. American edition,
edited by Margaret E. Jordan. Introduction by Rev. J. L. O'Neill, O.P. Boston:
Thos. B. Noonan & Co.

THE ANOINTED SERAPH : " The Last made First." By G. H. Pollock. Vol. I. Washing-
ton : John F. Shiery. 1888.

THE FIELU-INGEKSOLL DISCUSSION : Faith or Agnosticism ? A Series of Articles front the
North American Review, New York : The North American Review.

THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE INSPECTORS OF THE STATE PENITENTIARY for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia : Allen, Lane & Scott.

THE BOOK OF GENESIS. By Marcus Dods, D.D. New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son.

THE ANCIENT WORLD AND CHRISTIANITY. By E. de Pressense, D.D. Translated by Annie
Harwood Holmden. New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son.

THREE KINGDOMS : A Handbook of the Agassiz Association. By Harlan P. Ballard. New
York : The Writers' Publishing Co.

SYNOPSIS CANONICO-LITURGICA EX CORPORE JURIS, Concilio Tridentino, Romanorum
Pontificum, Congregationibus, S.R.E. Congregationum Decretis, Ecclesiae Mediolanen-
sis actibus. Ab Aloysio Adone rational! tnethodo concinnata. Neapoli : apud Auctorem.
[For sale by Benziger Brothers, New York. Cincinnati, and Chicago.]

THE SYSTEM OF THEOLOGY CONTAINED IN THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM. Part
I. Belief concerning God. By Rev. A. A. Hodge, D.D. Part II. Duty required of Man.
By Rev. I. Aspinwall Hodge, D.D. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son.

A THOUGHT FROM ST. VINCENT DE PAUL for each day of the Year. Translated from the
French by Frances M. Kemp. New York : Benziger Brothers.

THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION EXPLAINED AND VINDICATED. By Basil Manly, D.D.,
LL.D. New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son. 1888.

NERVE WASTE : Practical Information concerning Nervous Impairment and Nervous Ex-
haustion in Modern Life. By H. C. Sawyer, M.D. San Francisco: The Bancroft Com-
pany. 1888.

ETHICS OF BOXING AND MANLY SPORT. By John Boyle O'Reilly. Boston : Ticknor & Co.
1888.

SACRED HISTORY, from the Creation to the Giving of the Law. By Edward P. Humphrey,
D.D., LL.D., some time professor in the Danville Theological Seminary. New York:
A. C Armstrong & Son.

MARIA MAGNIFICATA : Short Meditations for a Month on Our Lady's Life. By Richard F.
Clarke, S. J. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers.

MARY'S FIRST SHRINE IN THE WILDERNESS, By Rev. A. A. Lambing. With Memorial Ser-
mon by Rev. M. M. Sheedy. Pittsburgh : McMahon Bros. & Adams.

ANDIATOROCT& ; or, the Eve of Lady Day on Lake George, and other Poems, Hymns, and
Meditations in Verse. By Rev. Clarence A. Walworth, Rector of St. Mary's Church, Al-
bany, N. Y. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. (The review of this book will appear in
the next number.)

CHRISTIANITY IN THE UNITED STATES FROM THE FIRST SETTLEMENT DOWN TO THE PRE-
SENT TIME. By Daniel Dorchester, D.D. New York : Phillips & Hunt. 1888.

THE

VOL. XLVII. JULY, 1888. No. 280.

A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE.

I.-

A CATHOLIC aspect of Home Rule for Ireland is one which
be obtained only after other views have been proposed, dis-
cffcsed and mastered. It is by no means a simple and self-con-
ed view. Rather, it is a view which presupposes and is
base I upon others, be they historical, or political, or social, fill-
ing up the measure of their completeness, and presenting for
adopWpn an homogeneous and consistent whole. In a like man-
ner, but not to the same extent, it is comparable to the rela-
tive position of Catholic theology towards Protestant religious
opinion. The theology of the church includes all that may be
true in the various discordant systems of the sects, whether they
be contradictory with others, superfluous in themselves, or im-
perfect in regard to truth. Her faith assimilates their opposi-
tions, corrects their excesses, supplies their defects, and exhibits,
upon divine authority, a true and perfect belief. Not far other-
wise is it with the Cath'olic aspect of Irish self-government.
From the social view, many important facts may be learnt.
From the political view, a clue may be found to unravel a com-
plex and complicated tangle. From history, unanswerable
arguments may be employed in support of the claims of Ireland
for autonomy. But, the Catholic aspect includes all these views,
and supplements them. It offers to the world a systematic, har-
monious solution of the great problem of Irish nationality. And
it offers this solution under the divine influence of the Catholic
religion.

An initial difficulty awaits the English, and still more the
Catholic, inquirer on the threshold of investigation into the
rights of Irish Home Rule and the wrongs of England's alien

434 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [July,

government. This difficulty is not the one which generally has
to be faced in most inquiries of a similar nature, namely, that a
choice must be made between two main theories, distinctly and
definitely opposed to each other. But, rather, it is this : That,
in the Anglo-Irish controversy there exists many alternatives to
be weighed, with various approximations towards truth and er-
ror respectively, on most of the points which are capable of ex-
citing a hotly contentious difference of opinion. Nor does this
statement, although wide, exhaust the position. On the con-
trary, it expresses but a portion of the confusion. The differ-
ences in asserted fact and view are nearly endless. They are
those of kind, not only of degree ; they arise in principle, not
only in detail; they involve absolutely incompatible and irrecon-
cilable contradictions ; not all of these views and alleged facts,
(and possibly none of them,) can be accepted as pure unadulterat-
ed truth. And these exaggerations, inaccuracies and impossi-
bilities are usually propounded by their patrons as indisputable
verities, with an assumed air of authority wholly unwarranted by
historical facts, or with a personal assurance of knowledge which
does not stand the test of independent examination. It may be
well, then, to place on record a few of the more extravagant of
these paradoxes, on the unhappy relations which exist between
the two sister kingdoms, and on the still more unhappy results
which have ensued from the rule of the one by the other, before
such paradoxes become traditional. It may be better, to com-
pare them, or to contrast them, with soberer, calmer state-
ments, or even with extreme statements of an opposite character
which, to whatsoever extent they may be questioned, are not
less but more worthy of credit, and to conduct the inquiry
whilst the evidence for judging between both is still not yet
mythical. And this inquiry and balancing of probabilities may
conveniently be made under the threefold division of the subject
already given historical, political, social.

For instance, and to take each division in order : Is it the his-
torical aspect of England's misrule in Ireland which is in dis-
pute ? It is affirmed, on the one hand, that Catholic Ireland has
never lived in peace and tranquillity, whether actual or compara-
tive, saving under the strong arm of an iron despotism, such as
that from which she suffered under the tyrant Cromwell ; and
on the other, that at no period of her tragic story has she pro-
gressed so rapidly and over so wide an area, in material develop-
ment, as when, for a few short years at the close of the last
century, she enjoyed even a very imperfect form of self-govern-

i888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 435

ment, at the hands of a Protestant minority. Again : is the
political aspect of the case under review ? It is confidently said,
by those who have the means to ascertain the truth, that Ireland,
at the present day, really and at heart is profoundly indifferent
to the yielding of Home Rule by England ; but, that she is
passionately absorbed by a wild, immoral craving only for the
acquisition of the land. It is more confidently said, on the tes-
timony of the history of our own age, that the desire and the
almost unanimous cry for the repeal of the Act of Union has, in
one form or in another, been raised and repeated in every suc-
cessive year of the present century : O'Connell's first public
speech was made on this topic. But more than this may be
truthfully said. When, for the first time in her sad political life,
the bulk of the people of Ireland have been permitted freely to
return representatives to the British Parliament, then, upwards
of three-quarters of the Irish members were elected, and perhaps
five-sixths of the Irish votes were cast, apart from all relation to
a land bill, solidly in favor of obtaining self-government. Is it,
once more, the social question which is argued ? It is recklessly
asserted, from insufficient or fallacious data, or even from facts
not pertinent to the argument, e.gi t from the diminished popula-
tion of the country, or from the large amount of capitalized sav-
ings deposited in local banks, or from the long prices sometimes
paid for tenant-right, that the small Irish tenant-farmer has never,
practically, been so well off as in the near past, .though not, of
course, in the immediately past years. And it is replied, from a
wider field of evidence and from more trustworthy sources, that
never has he, as one of a large class of agriculturists, from the
combined effects of the act of God and the greed of man, been so
perilously near to a measurable distance from bankruptcy and
ruin. The climate and seasons, the fall of prices, and the raising
of rents, together with the unsettled condition of the country,
which is kept in a seething chronic state of discontent by the
Dublin Castle rule these causes have resulted in the destruc-
tion of almost every element of national prosperity in relation to
land in Ireland.

The same law of paradox and contradiction runs throughout
the whole length and breadth of the inquiry. For example, to
take but a few more noteworthy cases : Ireland is said to be
honeycombed with crime, agrarian, political and legal, as apart
from moral crime. She is said, also, comparatively with her
condition in former years and in relation to English criminal
statistics, and much more, to the debased and brutal character

436 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [July,

of English crime to be crimeless. The Irish people, again, are
said to desiderate imperial separation from England ; and again,
that such a measure of Home Rule as Ireland now demands, and
England may at any time accord, will never satisfy, and ought
never to satisfy the legitimate desire of the Irish people for self-
government. They are said (and more truly), also, as a nation,
to be much too keenly alive to their own interests to wish for
anything beyond the amount of autonomy which they are on the
point of acquiring ; and that without answering for the will of
posterity, which none can foresee, on the question of separation,
the Irish of the present time are at least able to judge for them-
selves how much or how little of self-government will meet their
national requirements and the popular need. Again, says the
enemy : there is not now and never has been a tangible entity
which can be, or could be, called the Irish nation and this is a
favorite fallacy with some superior people, and even with cer-
tain liberal papers of a philosophic kind in the English press.
But, that the Irish own and always have owned a history, can
trace a descent, have borne marked characteristics, speak in a
tongue, worship in a faith, and possess all the elements of a genu-
ine nationality apart and distinct from the not more and perhaps
less genuine nationality of the Anglo-Saxon race, is a common-
place in ethnology to ordinary persons. And, once more, to
condense many misstatements into one charge : that the natives
of Ireland are a dishonest, idle, irreligious, cruel, cowardly,
savage, or at any rate half-civilized peasantry, is declared by
many who consider themselves competent to form and express
an opinion worthy of publication. By many, also, who are per-
haps not less competent to formulate an opinion, the Irish people
are declared to deserve almost exactly the opposites of all these
epithets, if they be truthfully described. The natives of Ireland
are historically known to have been far earlier and far more
highly civilized than their fiercer English oppressors ; and at
this moment the Irish nation can be proved to be far more moral
than England, as it is obviously a more spiritually- minded na-
tion. Rebellious, no doubt, the Irish have been, and it may be
added, ought to have been, to both the betrayers of their coun-
try and to those who have systematically acted the part of con-
querors towards Ireland, without ever having actually conquer-
ed it. For centuries they have been noted for their love of
justice, as the great Lord Chief-Justice Coke has borne witness ;
and they would certainly be a law-abiding race if only they were
enabled to live under a rule which they believed to be just and

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 437

which they knew to be deserving of respect. As has lately been
well said : Ireland has ever been loyal to England when England
has been loyal to justice. Again : they are a brave and coura-
geous people, as evidenced on battle-fields the wide world over,
and as testified by the greatest of British and other commanders,
amongst them, by the Duke of Wellington. Those who know
them best, declare that the Irish are as tender-hearted a race as
the women of a less spiritual people. They have been confes-
sors and martyrs for their divine faith under a continuous per-
secution, which may be aptly compared with that of early Chris-
tianity under the Caesars, of upwards of three centuries of cor-
porate life, at the hands of a people who apostatized from and
have not returned to the old religion of their respective ances-
tors in the faith. Perhaps they are the most industrious and
most successful modern cultivators of the soil, if due account be
taken of their poverty, their powers, their opportunities, and
still more their many difficulties, social and legal and political
and climatic. And, as to the last characteristic of the Irishman
which is characteristically distorted by his English censor,
honesty it may be truly said that, for debts which they can
acknowledge as debts and not as legalized extortions, nor yet as
extortions which English law even has condemned as unjustifi-
able, the Irish are almost proverbially honest.

Thus rages the conflict of words, and what is worse, thus
rages the conflict of events, indicated by the contradiction of
language, of might against right. But the fight is not fairly
fought on either side. Attack is always more facile than de-
fence. A line or a sentence may contain a charge or a sophism,
which a chapter or a speech full of argument cannot disprove.
Detraction, innuendo and misrepresentation, which are not less
and perhaps are more indefensible when levelled at a whole na-
tion than at a unit of the nation, usually leave behind them their
sting. Even if inexactitude and exaggeration be exposed, the
adversary is silenced without being convinced ; and the neutral,
or the indifferent, who sees the assertion, fails to see the denial.
Under such conditions, the friends of Ireland can best serve her
sacred, but unpopular, cause by reiterating over and over and
over again to all willing listeners, and indeed to listeners against
their will, what they believe to be the broad facts, the just rea-
sons, the earnest hopes, (may it be said ?) the devout aspirations
of Ireland's claim from England of self-government. This done,
they must, of necessity, leave the arguments for her rights to the
God of nations who, in the future and in his own appointed time,

438 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [July,

will infallibly fulfil the unmistakable destiny of the Catholic
people of Ireland.

Although the statements on behalf of Ireland, and on matters
of fact which have been above made may be literally exact, it is
possible that the arguments advanced on questions touching
Ireland's claim to autonomy, historical, political and social, may
lie somewhere between the extremes assumed by partisans on
either side. It cannot, of course, be maintained, in the face of
present evidence and past records, that Ireland is not a nation,
and that her people are not now, and have not been for cen-
turies, possessed of certain well-defined characteristics, which
in their entirety cannot be predicated of any other people on
God's earth. But short of this position, after all that can be
said, for or against him, this fact is either forgotten or ignored
by English political speakers, or writers in the press, viz., that
an Irishman is a human being, and is neither angel nor devil, nor
still less the gorilla-like being of the satirical papers, nor even
the " Hottentot" of the Conservative leader. He has his good
qualities and his bad ; is a compound mixture of both bad and
good ; and, speaking generally, is very much akin to all the world
beside. If you are stronger than he, an Irishman cannot resist
you successfully, even though the possession of hearth and home
tremble in the balance of physical force. If he cannot obtain
his own way, as in the matter of rents adjudicated upon, for or
against his interests in what to him is a foreign capital, an Irish-
man must take your way. If you tyrannize over him legally
and politically, by party votes in an English parliament and by
packed juries in an Irish court of law, and if you despise and
ill-treat him socially in the press, on the platform, in places of
public resort, in the privacy of friendly intercourse, an Irish-
man will not love you. If he perceives that he gets nothing at
all, or as little as may be possible, from your sense of justice,
and not much more from your generosity, whether in making
his laws, or in administering his laws, or in obstructing all im-
provement in his laws, an Irishman will indisputably work upon
your self-interest, convenience and fears and thus acting, he
will prove himself a far cleverer man than yourself. If he
knows that he is "ground to powder," as Lord Chancellor Clare
said, by rental exactions upon his own part-inheritance or upon
his own entire creation whether of clearing, draining, fencing,
manuring, building, or what-not exactions which he has no
real moral or physical choice but to accept, though miscalled in
England "a free contract" on his side, an Irishman will en-

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 439

deavor, by all means in his power, to lighten the load from him-
self and to lessen his obligations to you. If he sees that you
are touched with a certain amount of pity, and are not unwill-
ing to restore to him some of his rights, as a human being, a
tenant, a citizen, an Irishman not unnaturally strives to gain, or
to regain, more and other rights which you unreasonably con-
tinue to withhold. If he feels that you understand his position,
enter into his struggle for existence, desire to mitigate his hard
lot, wish to sympathize with him in his sufferings, an Irishman
almost instinctively meets you more than half way, and gene-
rously forgives and forgets (so far as personal wrong is con-
cerned) the past. And, if he realizes that your sympathy extends
from wish to deed, that you are actually thinking, speaking,
writing, working on his behalf, an Irishman develops enthu-
siasm in your favor ; he is grateful beyond the power of words
to express himself ; he practically responds to his gratitude, and
becomes friendly, appreciative, more than docile, rationally
obedient. Indeed, in this aspect, there is perhaps no historical
parallel to the striking, extraordinary change which has recently
ensued in the relations between England and Ireland, and is in
course of being enacted before our eyes. No two countries, in
the respective positions of conquered and conqueror, have ever
so quickly and heartily fraternized, as the democracy of England
and the people of Ireland. They have thus fraternized only
since one of the two great political parties in the one country,
headed by its distinguished and venerable leader, though basely
deserted by able supporters and old friends, has accepted the
Irish question as a government measure, has submitted to a
party schism of serious import rather than abandon the ques-
tion, and has pledged itself unreservedly and irreformably to a
policy of right and justice towards the other country.

It may not, however, be wise to press this point, which still
looms in the distance, though, in all human probability, it will
develop in the near future. Neither does it really affect the
main issue of the right of Ireland to Home Rule, and the call of
justice to England to grant it. But, a point which does indi-
rectly affect the question of yielding autonomy to the sister king-
dom is contained in an estimate of the characteristics it may be
affirmed, of the national characteristics of the natives of that
kingdom, and of their natural leaders. The admission may be
made on either side, without prejudice to the argument, that an
average Irishman and an average Englishman may not, at the
present day, widely differ in personal essentials. Indeed, in

440 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Juty

many cases, it would be hard to distinguish, by their qualities
alone, the respective nationalities of different members of socie-
ty. Yet, there are qualities in the Celtic character which stand
much higher in the mental, moral and intellectual scale than
those which create the Anglo-Saxon character. The Irishman
may be less persevering, less practical ; more emotional, more
changeful; more eager to please at whatsoever cost ; less thor-
ough and exact in his business arrangements, manual labor,
or technical knowledge; perhaps, in matters which fall short of
positive duty, less worthy of trust than the Englishman. In
short, an Irishman is gifted with those very personal qualifica-
tions which most harshly grate upon the sensibilities of an or-
dinary, business-like, indefatigable Protestant and may it be
whispered? Philistinish John Bull. And the consequence is,
that between the two countries, through the social contact of
numberless individuals of each race, the friction is great, almost
insurmountable.

For, on the other side of the balance of character, an Irish-
man is a quicker, brighter, keener, more intelligent, more logical
being, and a being endowed with a larger measure of mother wit,
than a common Englishman. He is far more spiritual, far more
moral, far more generous, far more devout, conscientious and
practically influenced by his religion, and though he may be,
as men of all nationalities are prone to be, inconsistent, and may
fall from his high principles, yet he is never ashamed of his faith,
is never ashamed of fulfilling its duties, and even if he lives a
bad Catholic, he dies a good one. In his ordinary relations of
life, again, he is less sensual, less coarse, less animal, more re-
fined, and, in the true sense of the word, more gentlemanlike.
An Irishman, whether of the highest or lowest orders (of which
it is easy to speak, if one has put foot the other side of St.
George's Channel), is the impersonation of hospitality and kind-
ly friendliness in his own abode, even to representatives of po-
litical enmity domestic virtues which have somewhat faded out
of sight in England. Without wishing to malign the character
of Englishmen of the middle and lower classes, it must be con-
fessed that, in two relations of our many-sided life, Irishmen
have the advantage. One of the worst sides of English commer-
cial life the life which dominates the great central portion of
English existence is, to be frank, dishonesty in trade. It is be-
yond the province of this paper to particularize in what direc-
tions such dishonesty prevails ; but the directions are many.
One of the most pitiable sides, again, of English poverty which

i 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 441

cries aloud for remedy, if not for vengeance, in the wealthiest
country in the world, are the sights and the sounds which meet
both eye and ear of those who frequent the slums of our great
cities the degraded and hardly man-like or woman-like speci-
mens of humanity, the abodes in which they herd, the language
they use, the liv^s they lead. From both these classes Ireland
is comparatively free. In mercantile transactions, it may be
affirmed that the Irish tradesman, manufacturer and man of
business is fair-dealing. In the cabin of the poorest and most
wretched in Ireland with a mud floor, without a window, with
scarcely bed or chair, with bare feet and limbs, with brother-
beasts (as St. Francis would say) for companions, with these as
adjuncts to the home scene the Catholic Irish peasantry are
virtuous, chaste, generous, kind and honest.

As an emigrant, again and this view of an Irishman must
be taken ; for, under English misrule, every Irishman is a pos-
sible emigrant, and the majority of the entire nation have been
forced to become actual emigrants what are his characteris-
tics? In brief it may be said, that an Irishman's character is
metamorphosed for the better when he adopts the role of emi-
grant from his native shores. He is the same, but improved ;
himself, but an idealized Celt. As a rule, if a fair start be given
him in the country of his adoption, an Irishman is always a suc-
cessful, prosperous, saving, happy man, when once he has turned
his back at the same time upon the hated rule of England and
the idolized land in which he was born. This is a well-known
fact, too much overlooked as an item in the argument between
the two nations, which is, perhaps, one of the most conclusive
against England's misgovernment of Ireland. It mainly affects
the middle and lower classes. Of the higher class of Irish refu-
gees, on the continent of Europe, it is historically true that,
whether in the profession of arms or of diplomacy, the English-
made exile fills, or has filled, places of the highest trust and posts
of the highest honor in many foreign camps and courts of Chris-
tendom. Moreover, there is one further characteristic which
it would be unjust to ignore only because the English character
falls short of the stature of the national Celt.

An Irishman, whether at home or abroad, is possessed of a
quality which almost rises to the dignity of a virtue, and of
which an average Englishman hardly understands the meaning as
applied to himself. It is true, that in others he respects and even
applauds this civic virtue, saving only when it fulfils the breast
of a Celt in relation to a Saxon ; and the more distant is the

442 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [July,

scene of its exercise, the more attractive usually does the virtue
appear in his sight. But, for himself, and as a rule, of course
modified by exceptions, an Englishman is not patriotic, as an
Irishman understands the term. Not that an Englishman does
not think haughtily and speak boastfully and act braggardly by
his native land a common form of selfishness + but he has not,
and does not pretend to have the pure, unselfish love of country
in his heart to live for it, to die for it, and, more difficult still,
patiently and uncomplainingly to suffer for it, from birth
through life to death. No ; this is a gift not bestowed on the
English people. But it is a grace which can scarcely be up-
rooted from the heart of an Irishman. In this aspect, the disin-
terested, noble and courageous conduct of the Nationalist lead-
ers of to-day the so-called "Irish agitators" of a low-toned,
low-souled English press may safely be compared with the pa-
triot heroes of any race or age. It is true, that their modes and
methods are not the same with those of former times and other
countries. But then, the conditions on both sides are different:
and Ireland is neither Poland nor Greece, and England is neither
the Russias nor the Porte. Putting aside, however, compari-
sons which are inexact, it may be fairly said that the public lives
of men upon whom every virulent and abusive and dishonora-
ble epithet is showered by venal writers who carefully conceal
their probably unknown names, stand in marked contrast to the
party-spirited, place-hunting and highly salaried politicians of
England, who pharisaically contemn the more humbly born but
more highly bred representatives of down-trodden Ireland.

These are some national characteristics of a people whom
England has held in bondage, bitterer, more degrading and long-
er, than that of Israel in Egypt, which was but for four hundred
years. These are some characteristics of the leaders, and pro-
phets, 2d\& guides of public opinion at the present day in Ireland.
These, in the abstract, are the men whom English statesmen and
English politicians but not, it is believed, the English democ-
racy or one section of them, presume to despise, pretend to
discredit, and actually refuse to entrust with the present rule
and future destinies of their own countrymen. One line of argu-
ment alone is sufficient to brand this decision of the legislative
survivors of past injustice, incompetence and imbecility with
the contempt and ridicule to which it is obviously liable. The
argument can be concentrated into the answers given to two
plain questions, which may be framed in the following terms :
Firstly : What may be the actual and present result in Ireland

1 888.] LITTLE CHILDREN. 443

itself and to the people of Ireland of these long, sad centuries of
English misrule and maladministration ? And secondly : If the
result be in any degree commensurate to what we know of our
own personal inquiry and is testified to by intelligent foreigners
and other unprejudiced and independent witnesses, is it an alto-
gether unreasonable or unreasoning demand to make, namely,
that henceforth Ireland should be allowed by England to govern
herself?

An attempt will be made in the next article to estimate some
results of the Saxon's rule of the Celt. ORBY SHIPLEY.

LITTLE CHILDREN.

THESE little children play about my knees,.
And, with deep wonder glowing in their eyes,
They ask me questions strange and grave and wise
As were the answers of that other Child
Within the Temple, down the centuries.
Ah! help me, Lord, in what I do with these!
They to my charge were given undefiled :
Though for time's fleeting spaces here exiled,
True heirs are they of all Thine earth and skies,
Secured by Thy Beloved's promises.
If heirs be changed to outlaws 'neath my hand,
Ere Thou requir'st of me my heavy trust,
In what name, Lord, dare I Thy wrath withstand?
Oh ! ere they change may I be cold in dust !

MARGARET H. LAWLESS.

444 ELECTRIC MOTORS. [July*

ELECTRIC MOTORS.

THE electro-motor, or electric motor as it is commonly
called, is a dynamo reversed or worked backward. What is a
dynamo ?

The life of the telegraph depends on the principle that a cur-
rent of electricity passing along a wire coiled about a soft iron
bar produces magnetism in the bar during the passage of the
current. The bar becomes a temporary magnet. This tem-
porary magnet is also called an electro-magnet. When the
current ceases, the bar discharges its magnetism and is no longer
a magnet.

Faraday discovered, in 1831, that a permanent magnet can in-
duce electricity in a coil of wire. When the pole of the magnet
is inserted in the coil an electric current is induced therein at
the instant of insertion. The existence of this current is but
momentary, and as long as the magnet remains stationary in the
coil there is no more evidence of electrical excitement. But
when the magnet is withdrawn another current is induced in the
coil in a direction opposite to the first. If an electro-magnet of
the shape of a horseshoe be rapidly revolved on an axis in front
of the poles of a steel horseshoe magnet, a series of induced cur-
rents will be generated in the coil of the electro-magnet ; for,
when the poles of the electro-magnet come just opposite those
of the steel magnet, the electro-magnet will be magnetized, and
induce a current in its coil or helix. When the poles are sepa-
rated by the whirl of the electro-magnet the magnetism is dis-
charged, and a current, in a direction opposite to the previous
one, is thereby induced in the helix. Thus in every turn of the
electro-magnet there are four induced currents, two in one di-
rection and two in the opposite.

By constructing a machine in such a way that an electro-
magnet may be speedily revolved in the vicinity of the poles of
a fixed steel magnet, with the addition to the axis of the electro-
magnet of a commutator, or a break-piece composed of alternate
ribs of copper and ivory or boxwood, continuous currents of
electricity in a single direction may be obtained. An instru-
ment of this kind is called a magneto-electric, or dynamo-elec-
tric machine, or simply a dynamo. Dynamo is from the Greek
Svva^ii?, power, and is applied to electricity in motion to dis-
tinguish it from that in the static or bound condition. Electro-

1 888.] ELECTRIC MOTORS. 445

magnets are usually provided with an armature, a piece of very
soft iron laid across the poles to complete the circuit and receive
the magnetic force. The electro-magnet of a dynamo is some-
times called its armature.

Saxton, Wilde, Siemens, Wheatstone, Ferranti-Thomson, Ball,
Gramme, and other physicists have given their names to dy-
namos. There are many varieties of the dynamo, but all are
governed by the one principle of magneto-electric induction.

If two dynamos are so combined that the current from the
armature of one may pass into the armature of the other, the
current generated by the motion of one will move the other. A
combination of this kind is an electro-motor. The reversed
dynamo is then an electric motor, and as such is widely used as
a motive force.

The electric motor is now employed as the motive-power in
one hundred and twenty industries, and there are ten thousand
of the motors in operation. Electricians have recently been un-
tiring in their efforts to make the motor available for street-car
propulsion. The first experiment in electric railroading was
conducted by Werner Siemens, at the Berlin Exhibition of 1879.
His electric line was nine hundred yards long and of two feet
gauge. A dynamo placed upon the car imparted motion to the
wheels. A stationary dynamo furnished the current, which was
conveyed to the moving car through a central rail supported
upon insulating blocks of wood, the track-rails serving the pur-
pose of returning the current. The success of this experiment
led to the laying of the Lichterfelde line. Here both rails were
laid on insulating sleepers, so that one served to conduct the
current from the power-house to the car, and the other to com-
plete the circuit. This line was twenty-five hundred yards long,
and was run by two dynamos having together a force the equiv-
alent of twelve horse-power.

The electric railroad in the north of Ireland between Port-
rush and Bush Mills is six miles long. The rails are three feet
apart and are not insulated from the ground, but are joined by
copper staples and form the return circuit, the current being
conveyed to the cars through a J-iron placed upon short insu-
lated standards.

The Richmond, Va., electric line is twelve miles long, and the
current reaches the car through a conductor overheard. At
Woonsocket, R. I., the overhead system of conduction is in use,
and wires connected with the dynamos are extended eighteen
feet above ground, and joined to the cars by wires which slide

446 ELECTRIC MOTORS. [July,

on the upper wires by means of rolling trolleys. The Fulton
Street electric railroad, in New York City, has the conduit sys-
tem, by which the current is conveyed from the power-house
along- a wire conductor placed in a conduit underground. The
conduit system is also used in the Detroit electric line. There
are fifty-eight electric railways in operation or under construc-
tion in the United States. Most of these lines are operated by
the system of overhead wires.

There are two methods of furnishing the current to the motor
in the car. One is where the electricity is conveyed to the car
along a conductor from a stationary dynamo. By the other
method the electricity is carried with the car in storage or
secondary batteries. The conductor by the first method may
be hung some distance above the car, or it may be placed in a
conduit underground, or the rails themselves may be used as
conductors in conjunction with an auxiliary parallel rail.

There is one vital objection to the employment of the con-
ductor in any way. It can never be perfectly insulated, and so
there is a constant ebbing away of the current's strength. And
the longer the conductor and stronger the current, the greater
this ebb. It is like a stream of water flowing over a porous bed.
The stream is continually losing its substance until it is finally
exhausted. Moreover, each of the systems of conduction has
its individual faults. The overhead conductor cannot be used
in cities on account of thfe inconvenience it offers to general
street traffic. The conduit system, besides its enormous ex-
pense, is almost worthless in wintry weather, and the current
leakage is very great. Again, the underground as well as the
overhead system is open to the same objection as that raised
against the cable: the derangement of the generating system
means the stoppage of the entire line. In overhead and under-
ground systems a high-tension current cannot be used on ac-
count of its danger, and a low-tension current must have a con-
ductor of great size. The rails cannot be used as conductors of
the current until horses are shod with rubber. If the electric
motor ever succeeds as the propeller of the street-car, it must
be through the medium of storage, and unaided by any outside
mechanism.

By the storage of electricity is meant the accumulation of a
quantity of electric energy to be used at our convenience. The
storage of electricity is not the actual gathering-up of the fluid
itself after the manner of the prime conductor. The fluid can
never be stored in this way for the benefit of commerce. When

1 888.] ELECTRIC MOTORS. 447

the spring- of a clock is wound up, the energy required to wind
it is stored away to be afterward used in moving the hands of
the clock. So when, by the force of the electric current, we
separate substances that have a great chemical affinity, the force
being removed, these substances combine again, regenerating
the same amount of electricity that was required to part them.

In an ordinary galvanic battery zinc is eaten away and cop-
per deposited. By forcing an electric current back through the
cell the copper will be eaten away and zinc deposited. In this
deposition of zinc energy is stored ; for, when the pressure is re-
moved, the affinity of the oxygen for the zinc being free to de-
clare itself, will cause their reunion, and so will generate the
same quantity of electricity that was required for the deposi-
tion. The chemical affinity of the zinc for the oxygen is called
its polarization. The force that separates the zinc from combi-
nation is called the electro-motive force ; and the tendency of
the zinc to resist this force, or its polarization, is called its
counter-electro-motive force. Electric storage is the overcom-
ing of the polarization, or counter-electro-motive force.

Gaston Plante made the first storage -battery in 1859. ^
consisted of two sheets of lead, about three and a quarter feet
square, rolled in a cylinder with felt between the sheets, and
placed in a jar filled with dilute sulphuric acid. He prepared
his battery for use by driving strong currents of electricity
through it several times in opposite directions. He did this to
make the leaden sheets porous and capable of holding a quantity
of peroxide of lead. When the electric current is driven through
this combination it decomposes the water, sending oxygen to
one plate and hydrogen to the other. The oxygen combines
with the lead, forming peroxide of lead ; and the hydrogen,
reaching the other plate, decomposes any salt of lead it may find
there, precipitates pure lead, or escapes in the form of gas.
After the battery has been charged, if the lead plates be joined
by wire, the oxygen that had been forcibly driven from its com-
bination in the liquid, seeks to recombine, just as a stone lifted
from the ground seeks to return, and the result of this tendency
of the oxygen is to generate an electric current in a direction
opposite to the primary one. This is the current that has been
stored.

Faure improved Planters battery by the addition of a new
process that greatly reduced the time required in the charging.
He coated the lead plates with a mixture of red-lead and sul-
phuric acid. The labors of Sellon, Volckmar, Brush, Sutton,

448 ELECTRIC MOTORS. [Juty>

and others rendered the storage battery still more available for
practical purposes. We have storage batteries of many varie-
ties, but in all electricity is transformed into chemical energy
and chemical energy reconverted into electricity.

The storage system, though improving constantly, has still
many grave imperfections. The chemical charge in the battery
deteriorates quite rapidly. It is hoped, however, that this de-
fect can be remedied. The storage battery, besides, is expensive,
on account of the number of transformations required in con-
veying the energy from the coal to the car-wheels. There are
five of these transformations : the mechanical energy developed
by the steam-engine from burning coal; the conversion of
mechanical into electrical energy in the dynamo ; the conver-
sion of electrical into chemical energy in the storage battery ;
the reconversion of chemical into electrical energy ; and the
final transformation of electrical into mechanical work by the
electric motor. Omitting the loss of the production of steam
from coal, only thirty-five per cent, of the energy invested in the
steam-engine is available through storage in revolving the
wheels. It must be said, however, that invention in this regard
is making progress daily.

The weight of the batteries or accumulators is another item
that must be placed on the debtor side of storage. Cars of the
size of the usual two-horse cars are provided with 80 storage
cells weighing about forty pounds apiece. These cells are
placed under the seats, one-half on each side of the car. Each
car must also carry an additional 800 pounds for two electric
motors of five horse-power each, and 200 pounds must be allow-
ed for apparatus to regulate the current and control the car
This is a total weight of 4,200 pounds to be borne by each car.
The hardship arising from this burden may, however, in a great
measure be obviated by the use of eight wheels on two swinging
trucks, which will distribute the weight upon the track.

William Wharton, Jr., gives a table showing the relative cost
of operating a street railroad by horse traction and electric pro-
pulsion. He assumes that three electric-cars, because of the
greater speed, will perform the duty of four horse-cars.

He then makes the following comparison:

" Running expenses of four two-horse cars for one year, to wit :

Conductors, 365 days, at $3 each car, per day of 16 hours $4,380 oo

Drivers, 365 days, at $2.50 each car, per day of 16 hours 3,650 oo

Thirty-six horses, 365 days, at 50 cents each per day 6,570 oo

14,600 oo

1 888.] ELECTRIC MOTORS. 449

One year's deterioration and repair of four cars, at $200 each $800 co
One year's deterioration of thirty-six horses, at $40 each i,44

Total 16,840 oo

Running expenses of three storage-battery cars for one year, to wit :

Conductors, 365 days, at $3 each car, per day of 16 hours 3*285 oo

Drivers, 365 days, at $2.50 each car, per day of 16 hours 2,737 50

Electricity, 365 days, at $2 each car, per day of 16 hours 2,190 oo

Total , 8,212 50

One year's deterioration and repairs of three cars, including

dynamo, storage batteries, and motors, $1,600 each 4,800 oo

Total 13,012 50

This leaves a balance to the credit of the storage-battery cars

of 3,827 50."

Mr. Wharton states that the percentage of the steam-engine's
mechanical energy recovered in actual work in electric motors
is 40 with the storage battery and 50 by direct conduction. " In
cable traction," he says, " not more than 25 per cent, is recover,
ed of the invested energy."

A popular complaint against storage-battery cars still to be
mentioned is the magnetizing of the timepieces of the passen-
gers. This, doubtless, will be remedied.

With all its present faults electricians strongly hope that the
storage battery will yet furnish the motive force for the propul-
sion of the future street-car. A good system of storage would
indeed be invaluable in street railroading, and electricians every-
where are strenuously endeavoring to make the accumulator
less heavy, less costly, and less wasteful of the primary current.

MARTIN S. BRENNAN.

Church of St. Thomas of Aguin, St. Louis, Mo.

VOL. XLVII. 29

45o MEXICAN JOURNALISM. [July,

MEXICAN JOURNALISM.*

IN considering the Mexican press it will be sufficient to no-
tice the journals of the City of Mexico ; for though every town
of any importance has its paper or papers, the contents, as a rule,
have none but a local interest, the text of new laws, matters of
local import, and, to fill up their columns, selections from the
periodicals of the capital.

Perhaps the leading daily paper in Mexico is the Monitor Re-
publicano, now in its thirty-eighth year. It always has an edito-
rial, and latterly it has warmly espoused the cause of liberty of
the press. The most interesting of its columns are those given
to its foreign correspondents; in fact, an American gentleman
long resident in Mexico lately said to me : " The Monitor is the
best of the Mexican papers ; it often has a letter from Castelar.''
The whole Mexican press has of late devoted much space to
colonization in Lower California, and an interesting series of
papers on this subject appears in the Monitor. In a copy now
before me the writer combats the position of those who allege
that foreign colonization is to be deprecated as tending to seces-
sion, instancing the case of Texas. The writer of the paper un-
dertakes to show, alleging facts to support his contention, that
bona-fide, industrious emigrants proved useful, law-abiding citi-
zens there, the danger having resulted from filibusters, outlaws,

* The writer of this interesting series of articles on Mexico begs the insertion of the follow-
ing in explanation of a previous article :

" One of the handsomest buildings in Monterey is the bank of Patricio Milmo, who besides
banking has various important interests in this portion of Mexico. The coal employed on the
railway is from his mines. During the last year he successfully raised a large crop of cotton
almost a new industry hereabouts and his handsome property near Lampazos,' La Mesa de los
Cartujanos,' or The Tableland of the Carthusians, we alluded to in a former paper ; its name to
the contrary, it seems that this place never was church property. The American author of a
book on Mexico published some years ago speaks of it as formerly a possession of the Carmelites,
but neither Carmelites nor Carthusians ever held it ; so whence it obtained its monastic designa-
tion is a mystery. The connection of the Milmo family with Mexico is highly interesting, and
commenced over a hundred years ago by the arrival in the country of some of their relatives,
who were members of the glorious family of St. Ignatius Loyola. An uncle of the present Mr.
Milmo came to Mexico seventy years ago, and, after thirty years of active commercial life in the
country, died and was buried at Monterey. Mr. Patricio Milmo forty years ago joined his uncle
and elder brother, and after two years spent in the house of Davis & Co. at San Luis Potosi, to
perfect his Spanish, returned to Monterey, where, since the death of his brother in 1853, he has
been sole representative of the house. Eight other members of the family have made their
mark in Mexico as merchants ad bankers, and these highly interesting facts, for which we are
indebted to the courtesy of a member of the family, may, of course, be relied on as possessing
higher accuracy than the current gossip of the frontier by which we amongst others have been
somewhat misled."

1 888.] MEXICAN Jo URNALISM. 45 1

buccaneers, et omne hoc genus, who by far outnumbered the for-
mer class. Then follow a few telegrams from European capi-
tals, items of news from the United States and the various Cen-
tral American republics, and gleanings from Mexican provincial
towns. The subject of fibrous plants is one just now occupying
much space in Mexican papers. These magueys, lechuguillas,
and other varieties of the aloe family flourish marvellously in
the driest parts of the land, requiring little or no attention ;
no particular skill or capital either is needed in the collection
or preparation of the fibre, which is of remarkable toughness
and of excellent quality. So it would seem to be one of the
chief natural sources of wealth of the Republic.

El Sieglo Diez y Nueve the Nineteenth Century has perhaps
an importance equal to that of El Monitor Republicano ; it is ten
years older, and of the same size, a four-page sheet. We take up
a number at random ; the editorial is on the re-election of gov-
ernors, which has lately been legalized. The writer contends
that to re-elect good governors is a duty, but to refuse the
suffrage to bad ones is also a necessity. Specimens of either
class are instanced, and the country urged to do its duty. All
well enough this, but somewhat elementary teaching. A frivo-
lous story is then told of a certain Sir William Draggs. He
hired a cab, drove down to the Brighton beach, and told the
driver to wait for him there. The baronet then stepped into
his boat, which put him aboard his yacht, and went around the
world in her. The voyage of many months at length concluded,
Sir William stepped on shore, and the first person he met was
the cabman. "All right," said he; "what do I owe you?"
" ;6oo," was the reply ; on which a pocketbook was produced
and the crackling notes duly handed to the driver. " Now
drive me to the hotel," said Draggs, stepping into the fly.
Arrived at the hostelry, he was entering when the driver
stopped him. "How now?" "I want my fare." "Right!"
said Sir William, and he handed the man two shillings. So by
the aid of similar trivialities, telegrams, foreign letters, and clip-
pings from contemporaries, they manage to fill up a sheet a day.
In the next number we take up the editorial itself is borrowed
so that day the editor evidently enjoyed a holiday.

To El Correo de las Doce or the Noonday Courier, as it styles it-
self at the head of the column which it gives in English the same
remarks apply as those made on the journals already mention-
ed. It is especially vigorous in ventilating clerical scandals ;
"A Mormon Badly Defended " and "A Mussulman Catholic"

452 MEXICAN JOURNALISM. [July,

are the headings of two accounts of Puebla clergy which we
will leave unnoticed. But there is a most fabulous sketch of
Ramon Ibarra, cura of the cathedral at Puebla, who died
more than five years ago. He is described as a virtuous and
philanthropic man, a great student of re ligious history, a phre-
nologist, and probably a spiritualist; an enemy of confession,
" denying to that immoral act the title of sacrament " ; he con-
sidered the Bible "a badly-constructed set of writings"; "he
believed in the infallibility of nature, and never in the infallibility
of those idiots who oppose reason and battle with common
sense." The fable declares that Father Ibarra was a bosom friend
of his bishop, and was made inspector of the clergy at Puebla,
whom he restrained from exacting excessive dues from their
parishioners. The clergy then accused the bishop and inspector
of being "impious, heretics, Masons, and Protestants," but dis-
cipline was restored after the expulsion from the diocese of
several canons, curas, and vicars as corrupters of society. " As
cura of the cathedral he always dissuaded silly people from
seeking confessors in the temple or from calling them to the
bsdsides of dying persons. He told them to confess to God and
not to men. " He was finally attacked with a sudden illness
\yhich he recognized as mortal ; he secured himself in his room
with locks and bars, and the clergy were unable to get at him.
Then fifteen priests with two smiths broke into his room, to the
scandal of the city ; " but when they got in to devour their vic-
tim they met with a corpse, which could not confess, and which
seemed to smile sarcastically at a life embittered to him by re-
ligious mummers." The vicars and sacristans reported through
the city that Ibarra had died unshriven and impenitent, and
"was already below, dancing with devils over the flames."
Next week the old women gossipped that " the soul of Ibarra
had appeared at midnight, darting fire from the eyes and seek-
ing confession," the result being to bring several rich old men
to confession, who obtained absolution in consideration of an
eighth of their property given to the Holy Church, which had
to sustain . . ., but here we will pause. Be it known that El
Correo has perhaps as wide a circulation as any journal in the
country.

El Pabellon National the National Flag is another anti-
Catholic paper. El Diario del Hogar, on the Byron centenary
celebration, has the following : " It occurs to us that on the
night of the said 22d one of Lord Byron's plays should be
^placed on the stage at one of our largest theatres, and that our

1 888.] MEXICAN JOURNALISM. 453

poets and writers should chant the literary glories of the admir-
able author of 'Hamlet' " El Partido Liberal attacks the clergy for
opposing the laws of reform and embarrassing the government.
Several Protestant papers are published in the City of
Mexico by the various American missions there established ;
they are the only illustrated journals to be found in the country,
and, as regards type, paper, and general get-up, far surpass all
the rest. The best of them is El Abogado Christiana, or the Chris-
tian Advocate, a bi-monthly, costing six cents a number or a
dollar a year. It consists of eight pages of large size, and only
one of these is devoted to notices and advertisements. That for
the 1 5th of December last has naturally a Christmas character,
and contains two well-executed engravings, one of the Adoration
of the Shepherds, and another of the Magi on their camels, jour-
neying through a sandy waste star-guided to Bethlehem. Three
Nativity hymns, and short articles on "The Birth of a King"
and " The Adoration of the Magi," accompany and explain the
engravings, and not without cause. We were lately showing
some photographs collected during European travel to a Mexi-
can lady of good family, when we came to one of Rome.
" Ah ! " said she, " that is where Christ was born, is it not?"
Under the head of correspondence we find a letter from a Pro-
testant missionary, called William H. Gulick, written at San Se-
bastian, in Spain ; it relates to the North American Missionary
Society in the Caroline Islands. The correspondence section is
followed by a couple of columns concluding a series of papers
translated from the English and dealing with Hebrew literature ;
brief notices are given of ancient Spanish Hebrew manuscripts
of the Old Testament, and of the earliest printed editions which
appeared in Italy in the fifteenth century. After this comes the
conclusion of a tale of Mexican Protestant missions, notices of
the examination exercises at the Protestant Theological College
at Puebla, and various pious fragments. Then an account is
given of the arrival by train in the City of Mexico of twenty-
five poor, forlorn-looking Indians of Southern Mexico who, some
months ago, put to death certain Protestants at Aguacatitlan ;
the writer urges that an effort should be made to obtain the par-
don of these peons and bring to justice rather the priest who,
he alleges, excited their zeal, and the judge who took no meas-
ures to restrain it. But the magazine must not be permitted to
die of dulness ; a little spice must be introduced ; moreover Pro-
testantism in Mexico must be aggressive or nothing. So the
editor treats us to sundry gibes at Catholics and their practices,

454 MEXICAN JOURNALISM. [July,

real or supposed. Thus his indignation waxes hot on hearing
that a million dollars will be presented to the Pope at his Jubi-
lee, and he pities the poverty-stricken flock fleeced to so enor-
mous an extent. Let us see: a million dollars amongst two hun-
dred million Catholics half a cent per head ; and where would
El Abogado Christiana, its editor, and the Protestant missionaries
be if their friends in the United States were not " fleeced " ? Not
in Mexico, we imagine. El Faro, or the Beacon, the Mexican
Presbyterian bi-monthly, is similar to El Abogado, of the same
size and price, and beautifully illustrated. In the issue of De-
cember 15 there is a charming scene of country-life in winter,
with a well-written column of descriptive matter ; three pleasing
engravings illustrate a paper on the water-supply of Paris, and a
picture of the Scriptorium of a monastery forms a text for a
dissertation on ancient illuminated manuscripts. The editorial
is suggested by some remarks in October's North American
Review by Cardinal Gibbons in which he deals severely with
those who neglect the due observance of the Lord's Day, stigma-
tizing them as men who seek the complete extirpation of Chris-
tianity ; and the writer asks why the Mexican priesthood do not
express similar sentiments, and why, after three hundred years
of their domination (?), Sunday labor is the rule in the country.
By the way, in a land where Saturday is " Sabado," the Presby-
terians cannot follow their custom of calling Sunday " the Sab-
bath," so they must needs speak of it as " Domingo," or the Lord's
Day, like other people. Great part of each of these Mexican
Protestant papers is occupied with insistence on the duty of ob-
serving the day of rest, and a good thing it is that some one is
found to call attention to the matter. Bull-fighting is also a
giant that they continually assault, and in this they will find more
sympathizers abroad than in Mexico. We also see a very silly
article on the Keys of Peter. Then comes one of a series of pa-
pers on Juarez, the Mexican President ; for part of the rdle of
the Mexican Protestant papers is to pose as Mexican patriotic
organs, albeit they are purely exotics. There is a summary of
foreign news, a children's section, and notes of Protestant mis-
sions in various countries. The Methodists have a paper similar
to, but less pretentious than, El Faro and El Abogado ; it is con-
ducted on the same lines and does not call for any especial no-
tice ; it is styled El Evangelista Mexicano.

The leading anti-church organ is El Combate, a weekly of one
sheet, and the title is certainly pugnacious enough. The editing
of this journal cannot be a very arduous undertaking; in the

1 888.] MEXICAN JOURNALISM. 455

number now before me great part of the very limited space,
seven columns, is devoted to an account of a dinner given to a
certain general, and we are treated to a list of all the guests,
occupying nearly a full column, and a complete catalogue of the
viands and wines on which they regaled themselves; besides his
own account of the feast our editor gives us no less than four
other full and particular notices of the event borrowed from
other journals so part of the furniture of El Combate office must
be a huge pair of scissors and a large pot of paste. The strong
point of the general appears to be that he is a priest " off duty,"
and that liberty is his religion. Let us hope that his example
may produce results ; Mexico would survive an accession of de-
votion to duty, and of liberty also. There is a dolorous wail
over the accession to power of the clerical party in the United
States of Colombia, and a forcible criticism of the action of the
Papacy in the middle ages in respect of crusades, jubilees, and
indulgences. Beyond these we find little to notice in El
Combate.

La Cruz Templaria is the leading Masonic organ. It consists
of a huge sheet, but the simple announcement that Citizen For-
firio Diaz is this paper's candidate for the Presidency of the
Republic at the next election occupies the whole of the first
page, and the major part of the remaining space is occupied
with politics and political clubs, two whole columns being de-
voted to a list of names ; so there is little room left for anything
of interest. Some verses on charity occupy two columns. There
is a paper on the reconquest of Jerusalem by the soldiers of the
Temple. Saladin and the Moslem power, with its simple alter-
native of the prophet or death, is no longer the foe. Now the
Jerusalem of progress and liberty is defended and held. against
the Templars (/>., Freemasons) other ammunition having been
expended by bulls, encyclicals, pastorals, excommunications,
and other such, which, the editor affirms, for ages have moul-
dered in the pontifical vaults, and which, on contact with the
upper air of the present century, like Egyptian mummies, crum-
ble into dust. This paper is high-flown, unreal, "aims at nothing
and hits it." Another article defends the Templars' counter-
sign or secret pledge by quoting from the Apocalypse: "To him
that overcomes I will give a white stone with a new name on it
which no one but he who receives it can read"; and concludes
by an exhortation to hold fast the symbol of the glorious eman-
cipation which has slain tyrannies over body and soul in the per-
son of Christ.

456 MEXICAN JOURNALISM. [July,

La Defensa Catdlica is a bi-weekly of a religious character
devoted to the interests of the Latin race in America. It con-
sists of the usual single sheet, the last page being filled with
notices, leaving twelve columns for news ; of this the editor
supplies one-fourth part and exchanges the rest. What a nice
quiet post that of a Mexican editor would be that is, in a gene-
ral way; but he must exercise judgment in wielding his scissors.
Of late one of the fraternity published something from the New
Orleans Picayune held to be uncomplimentary to Mexico, and he
was forthwith provided with board and lodging at government
expense. However, La Defensa Catdlica gives us plenty of read-
able extracts from European papers, the latest telegrams, and
letters from foreign correspondents. We have read the editorial
on the old year, 1887, in the number of 2Qth December. Not
one single event of the departing year is referred to; the article
is nothing but a thoroughly spiteful invective against society, its
aspirations and its efforts. There is also a notice of the death
of a bishop and a long account of a bull-fight. When the editor
fills all his twelve disposable columns, instead of only nine, with
extracts from his contemporaries, he will perhaps succeed in
presenting us with a readable journal.

La Voz de Mexico, which appears daily, is of a different charac-
ter from the journal we have just considered. The editorials
are written by a man who, having some argument and erudition
at command, has no need for waspish invective. The leaders
on Catholicism and Authority, which appeared respectively on
the 2/th and 28th of December last, are temperate, able, and well
worthy of perusal. There is a news-letter in one of these is-
sues, from a Roman correspondent, telling of the Papal Jubilee,
pilgrimages and offerings, with other noteworthy matters at
Rome ; and one from London, on the state of religious thought
in England, in the other. A clergyman contributes a series of
papers on the apparition of the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe,
the national patroness, at Tepeyacatl to the poor Indian. The
cablegrams from foreign countries are ample ; there is plenty of
news from various parts of Mexico, also scientific and commer-
cial information and a sufficiency of instructive matter. Alto-
gether it is a creditable paper, with something to say for itself.

El Tiempo is another Catholic daily, inferior to La Voz but
possessed of good store of "zeal." These religious journals
have a grand work before them if they could only rise to the
occasion, but they seem to us Catholics of higher latitudes to
prefer to sempiternally chant the somewhat wearisome paean of

1 888.] MEXICAN JOURNALISM. 457

joy, "The people of the Lord are we." When an individual, a
nation, or a church folds its hands complacently and sits down
entirely satisfied with its present position and its past achieve-
ments, it is in a bad way. As to their opponents, Protestant.
Liberal, or Masonic, we fear that they would gladly call down fire
from heaven to consume them, as Elias did the captains and their
fifties, or draw the sword to cut off their ears, unmindful of our
Lord's admonition to the apostle. Fortunately their power for
good is much greater than their power for mischief, which is
limited to the usual resources of pugnacious journalism making
grimaces and hurling adjectives ; we have yet to learn that con-
verts are likely to be made by these means. Meantime they
leave the Protestant press to enforce the teaching of the Council
of Baltimore and of Cardinal Gibbons on the Sunday question.
The people after Mass on Sundays and festivals often enough
resort to the bull-ring to see noble animals tortured by darts
and lances, and blindfolded horses disembowelled. There is a
knightly sport called gander-pulling (known also, we believe,
in parts of the United States). A live goose is suspended head
downwards, tied by its feet, and mounted men ride by it at full
gallop, trying as they pass to tear the neck from the body.
Here are some out of many giants for an editor to tilt at, if not
in an apostolic spirit, at least in that of Charles Dickens. He
could readily fill the whole of his columns and do a work in his
generation.

The Mexican Financier and El Economist a Mexicano are
well-conducted weekly commercial publications, type, paper,
and reading matter all first-rate. The former is well supplied
with illustrated advertisements in Spanish, but the rest of the
paper gives all the articles and information in both English and
Spanish, in parallel columns. It runs to about forty pages
weekly, is very complete, and is essential to every one having
business in or with Mexico.

The Economists, though not so ambitious in some respects as
the latter, being content with the language of the country and
having no advertising columns, is an ably-managed publication.
We noticed lately a carefully written series of papers on the
mortality of Mexico, which is far higher than it would be were
sanitary laws properly observed. In the capital nearly half the
total death-rate is of children below five years of age, and the an-
nual mortality in the city is about five per cent., or more than four
times what it should be. However, after being long under dis-
cussion, it seems that the drainage of the place is soon to be com-

458 MEXICAN JOURNALISM. [July*

menced ; it will be a costly operation, but to banish such appall-
ing figures no price can be judged too great.

La Convention Radical is an extreme journal, as its name ex-
presses ; La Tribuna is a weekly recently established ; Las Noti-
cias, El Municipio Libre, La Patria de Mexico, and some others,
call for no particular remarks. Le Trait d* Union is a French
paper, and naturally is chic and readable. La Voz de Espaiia and
La Nueva Iberia represent Spain. The Two Republics, edited by a
Mr. Clarke, gives daily a list of the chief sights in the City of
Mexico and neighborhood for the benefit of visitors, for whom
it is evidently, in great part, issued. There is also a German
paper, no doubt well conducted, but which I blush to say I
have not the scholarship to peruse.

In the foregoing notice of the Mexican press I have
thought it best to follow the example of that press itself and
avail myself of the wisdom (or otherwise) of journals of every
class, so that my readers (if any one has possessed the persever-
ance to plod through this dreary desert of extract), may draw
their own conclusions. It will be observed that, with the ex-
ception of the Protestant papers, there are no illustrated peri-
odicals and no Pucks or Punches for how could so sedate a
people evolve a perennial flow of humor? that the papers are
of scant dimensions and for the most part of still scantier
interest. There are over thirty in the capital, and, by the
wholesale system of borrowing which prevails, it would be as
easy to produce three hundred, provided they could find sup-
porters ; but a dozen would surely meet every requirement.
As railway extension and the consequent development of trade
and production advance, editors will probably find more mat-
ter to record and to comment upon.

CHARLES E. HODSON.

1 888.] ALANO. 459

ALANO.

TADEO opened the door of his adobe cabin, went to the mid-
dle of the road, shaded his eyes with one hand, and looked down
the valley. At a long distance was to be seen a cluster of adobe
buildings, their whitewashed walls gleaming purely in the sun-
light ; the acequia wound, a liquid yellow line, from the hills, now
hidden by a group of pifions, now like a sheet of glass in the sun
as it followed the road to the cluster of houses called La Junta.
A burro loaded with firewood went slowly down the road, its
master, on another burro, following behind.

-. ' Tadeo looked for some moments in the direction of La Junta,
then blinked at the sky, heaved a sigh of resignation, and went
back to his cabin, closing the door tightly after him. It was a
cold day in December, and Tadeo had a heap of pine- wood crack-
ling merrily in the fire-place, as they shot up their forked flames.

The cabin had a clean-swept earthen floor, hard as a rock,
yellow earthen walls, and the unhewn beams above were of a
rich amber brown. In one corner was Tadeo's bed, scrupulously
neat and white; in another a deal table with plates, knives, and
bowls on it, two of each. There were two wooden chairs before
the fire-place, and above the table was an open cupboard. A
tawdry picture of our Lady of Sorrows hung over the bed against
the wall. At the foot of the bed was a door leading to the one
other room of the cabin.

Having filled the coffee-pot from the earthen water-jar on
the floor, Tadeo raked some hot embers to the front of the fire-
place, and set the pot on to boil. Satisfying himself that it
rested steadily on its bottom, he sat down on the floor, leaned
against the wall, and rolled himself a cigarito.

No one ever liked a smoke better than Tadeo, but somehow,
to-day, he did not enjoy his cigarito. With an extravagance he
had never before been guilty of, the cigarito, half-smoked, was
thrown into the fire. Wondering what time it could be, he went
outside to look Tadeo's time-piece being hung in the sky ; its
greatest merit, in his eyes, that it never went wrong like the
padre's clocks, or the gold watch of Don Domingo. Instead of
looking up for the time, Tadeo went, as before, to the middle of
the road to look down the valley, this time to see what he had
been expecting: A wagon, drawn by a pair of mules, emerging
from the pinon-trees just outside La Junta, in that rare atmos-

460 ALANO. [July.

phere, though far off, appeared to be near. Tadeo clapped
together his hands, and uttered a shout of joy.

Now, the road gave a sudden twist by Tadeo's house, and as
he clapped his hands and shouted, a horse turning the angle
shied, and would have thrown its rider had his seat not been
firm, his wits collected a little man with a kind, gentle face,
the setting for a pair of cheery black eyes ; his cassock, to leave
his legs free, tied up about his waist.

The look of joy on Tadeo's face left it for a sullen gloom.
Tadeo muttered a good day and moved aside to let the horse-
man pass ; but instead of going on, the rider called out cheerily,
" Buenos dies, Don"

Tadeo liked to be called Don, and this greeting brought
something like a smile to his face.

Encouraged, the horseman continued, " Hace mucho frio"
it is very cold. Not much of a speech, and not well received by
Tadeo.

" Pardon, padre" he said, pride and triumph in the tone of
his voice, " Aldno comes to-day ; see " he pointed down the road
to the approaching mules " he is near ; I go to prepare." And
his old limbs bore him strutting into his cabin.

The padre sighed, shook his horse's bridle, and ambled on
through the flickering shadows of the pinon-boughs.

For five years Tadeo had not been friends with Padre Tomas.
Even Tadeo's wife, the Senora And, said Tadeo was to blame.
The couple had a son on whom they doted. A handsome, intel-
ligent young fellow was Alano. The padre promised to send
him to the college at Las Vegas, and Tadeo was overjoyed. He
was very anxious for Aldno to be a learned man. Tadeo himself
had pretensions to be learned. Had he not by heart that aston-
ishing work of Vasquez, The Erudition of the Blue, in which a
complete knowledge of the sciences is given in a course of six
days : poetry and rhetoric poetry twenty pages, rhetoric one
on Tuesday ; ancient and modern philosophy in four pages, for
Wednesday, and so on ! A sort of high- school veneer which the
Spaniards, a behind-handed people, did not take to. Ah ! if
Vasquez had come a hundred years later, not to Spain, but to
Columbia!

" I have my ranch," said Tadeo to the padre, " and my sheep,
that bring something; I can help to pay, and I can save for
Aldno, that the people say Don to him in truth, not as to me, in
mockery."

Senora And had another wish for Aldno, a wish she told to

1 888.] ALA NO. 461

no one .but God and our Blessed Mother, not even to Padre
Tomas. She would have people call Alano padre.

About this time there came to La Junta, a-hunting, one Ro-
bert Greyson and a friend of his, who, as Ruskin puts it, had been
taught that his father was an ape and his mother a winkle; what
is more, he said he believed it, and, being a professor in a pro-
gressive college, taught his belief to others. He was a very
learned man.

They were liberal of their money rather with Greyson's
money and would have won the hearts of the hospitable people
could they have kept their tongues clean from insulting God's
Church.

Alano was hired to be their guide. Greyson soon discover-
ing the youth's intelligence, won Tadeo's heart by the praise he
gave his son. Tadeo told with pride how Alano was going to
the great college at Las Vegas. Greyson laughed at the " one-
horse affair in Vegas," and, after consulting with his friend, of-
fered to take Tadeo to the college where the professor taught.

Up to this time Las Vegas College, in Tadeo's eyes, had been
one of the seven wonders. Now, without at first consenting to
Greyson's proposition, he himself spoke contemptuously to Ana
of the place to which the padre would send Alano. Ariel lis-
tened, and then went to consult with Madrina Pabla as to
whether or not Tadeo was out of his mind.

Alano, when Greyson spoke to him of the college in the East-
ern city, was eager to see it. His father must let him go, and,
indeed, his father was nothing loath. Ana was dead against it,
almost estranging her son on that account. The padre told Ta-
deo very plainly that he was endangering his son's faith and his
own soul. " Are you mad, Tadeo ? " he exclaimed when Tadeo
persisted that Alano should go. The padre pleaded and Ana
pleaded. " Tadeo mio," she sobbed, " the others are all gone to
Paradise ; leave this our son to go as well."

" The padre's notions ; enough of them," commanded Tadeo,
angrily. Nevertheless he stipulated with the professor that
Aldno's faith was not to be meddled with, and was greatly con-
soled by the professor assuring him, truthfully, that religion was
not taught in his college. Soon after Alano went away with the
two hunters.

From that time Tadeo was the padre's bitter foe for five long
years.

Occasionally letters came from Alano, always telling of his
success. One letter came, after three years, in which he ridi-

462 ALANO. [July,

culed the padre, and spoke slightingly of holy things. Because
of this letter Tadeo was really angry. But he forgot his anger
when he heard Aldno had won a golden medal. Ana did not
forget. Seven months passed by before further news came of
Aldno a letter asking for money. It was sent fifty dollars,
about which Tadeo said nothing, though he thought much, and
he was not the happier for the thinking. More than a year after
this Aldno wrote that he was coming home. He did not write
that he had been expelled from the college. His expulsion was
unjust; he had but brought his learning to a logical conclu-
sion. If his father was an ape and his mother a winkle, he no
better than an animated molecule, without any past to speak of,
and certainly no future, why should he not be the gambler and
tippler he was? There is this to be said, however: Aldno had
no business to be found out.

The days of Aldno's coming were counted and timed, and
when word came that he was at Fort Union, And went with the
mule-team to bring the boy home in triumph. Why the father
did not go he said not. He feared before strangers his son
would be ashamed of him.

The water was boiling when Tadeo returned to the cabin,
and, having made the coffee, he cleared the table, covering it
with a piece of fine linen, which he took from the cupboard.
Then he quickly set out the dinner of And's preparing! chili
verde, cold mutton, tortillas, and dulces, with a bottle of wine. A
cup bearing the legend, " For a good child," in gilt letters,
circled by impossible roses, was placed where Aldno was to
sit.

All this done in great haste, Tadeo viewed the result with
beaming eyes. One thing alone did not please him the ugly
cup. He had bought it over at Tipton to grace Aldno's feast.
The pottery bowls and dishes were graceful and artistic in their
simple lines, the vase that held the salad even exquisite. The
cup was vile, and Tadeo's trained eye saw its ugliness.

Meditating whether he had not better remove it, he heard
the beating of hoofs on the road. He did not rush to the door,
as he had pictured to himself he would. He went haltingly. It
was only when he heard the wagon stop before the house that
he opened the door.

The first to get down from the wagon was a woman, whose
face was almost hidden in the soft folds of the black shawl she
wore Mexican-wise, as a head-covering. This was Sefiora And.
She brushed by Tadeo, entering the hut without a word, Tadeo

1 888.] ALA NO. 463

too intent on watching- the young man, now climbing down from
the wagon, to notice his wife's strange behavior.

No doubt a handsome young fellow, foppishly arrayed. Ta-
deo, standing at the door, eyed him reverently. Is this his son?
If the padre were but here to witness Tadeo's triumph !

All this time Alano had not noticed his father. The neigh-
bor, Pabla's husband, who drove the mules, handed him a little
leather satchel, and he turned about.

" Hijo mio, hijo miv," faltered Tadeo, opening wide his old
arms.

" My son " showed no inclination to be embraced, and, utter-
ing a cold greeting, held out a hand which Tadeo took. Not
knowing what to do with it, he let it fall, and with it two big
tears.

Alano entered the cabin, and, having looked on what was so
familiar to him, shuddered.

Not attributing the shudder to its right cause, Tadeo said,
apologetically, " El fuego esta malo " The fire is bad and piled
on the resinous pine.

Ana had gone to the one other room of the cabin. Perceiv-
ing her absence, Alano turned to his father and said : " The fire
is good. You look as always, father ; you have not changed."

He spoke with a heartiness he did not at all feel, but poor
Tadeo did not perceive this ; he was only too glad of any mor-
sel of comfort this vulgarly elegant young man chose to offer
him.

He laughed, and, rubbing his hands together, said: "You
have changed, my Alano ; you are grand in the highest."

Alano muttered something in English about " hog-wash,"
and asked in Spanish if there was something to eat ; he was
starved.

With much pride in his arrangement, Tadeo pointed to the
table ; then called aloud for Ana. She came from the inner
room, and now her head was undraped, the shawl fallen about
her shoulders, Tadeo saw what he had never seen before no,
not even when the little ones had been put into their beds in the
Campo Santo a dolorous look of despair gazing out of a pair
of eyes holding that look subject to another of settled, stern re-
solve.

" You are ill, Ana?" stammered Tadeo.

She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

" Our son you will not sit at table what is it, Ana ? " cried
Tadeo, angry that his wife should be so dolorous, and con-

464 ALANO. [July,

firm the misery he felt in his heart, when they should be so
glad.

Alano was eating and drinking, not minding this conflict for
it was a conflict between his parents.

And advanced towards the door, paused before Alano, saying
clearly in English, " Little sir, if to eat there be wanting, tell to
him." She pointed to her husband, drew her shawl about her
head, and left the house, unmindful of Alano, with livid face,
springing to his feet and staring at her in confusion.

" What is it, Alano? what is it?" cried Tadeo, who under-
stood not a word of what he called American.

" Where did she learn English ? " demanded Alano.

" Is that to frighten you, my Alano?" said Tadeo, with an
uneasy laugh. " For a long time she studied it, the Madrina
Pabla to instruct her, so that when you came to her, if, as might
have been, your sweet tongue were forgotten, the mother might
speak with her son. But your mother, what is it, Alano ? She
is troubled."

Alano said that he did not know perhaps she was not well ;
he would eat now. She would return and they would ask.

Whilst Alano continued with his meal Tadeo plied him with
questions about the great city he had come from ; about his
friend Greyson ; often interrupting himself to utter little excla-
mations of delight that his son was once more with him. To all
Tadeo's questions Alano gave short answers; to the one about
Greyson he muttered an oath.

Now and again Tadeo would run to the door to look for
And, always returning with a puzzled face and a muttered ex-
clamation as to what could have become of the woman.

It was late in the afternoon, and the cabin darkening, Tadeo
lit a pine-torch, sticking it in an iron socket under an opening
in the rafters made for the smoke to escape. The torch illumi-
nated the cabin with a spectral light, rising and falling, blanch-
ing and crimsoning, by fits, the faces of the two men now seated
before the fire-place.

Outside was mournful blowing among the pinon-trees, shak-
ing their plumy tops under the faint light of the stars, just ap-
pearing in the cloudless sky.

Tadeo's cabin boasted no windows, only some panes of glass
built into the adobe walls. And was at one of these panes of
glass, careless of the cold, watching the father and the son
within.

Tadeo was ill at ease. He was worried about And. Why

1 888.] ALA NO. 465

was she acting so strangely on this the day of her son's return?
He was worried because he felt that he no longer had a son.
Would it ever be possible for him again to be on familiar terms
with Alano ? He saw his castles blown every which way, falling
about him, and oh ! that he could be buried in their ruins! He
had to stifle a groan of despair that rose to his lips.

Strange to say, all the while these gloomy thoughts
were overcoming Tadeo, Aldno was freer, even to fondness,
in his behavior than he had been at any time since reaching
home.

They were talking of Alano's future. " You will want to
live in the grand city," suggested Tadeo.

" Not I," returned Aldno ; " I would be a great hacendado
(landowner), as some Americans are."

" In truth?" asked Tadeo; he had detected the false ring in
his son's voice.

"You want me to go away from here?" Aldno asserted,
rather than asked.

Tadeo did not answer this; he was thinking. " Aldno," he
said at last it was no longer Aldno mio " do you remember
how, when you went away, I showed to you that I had saved,
and the mother too " here he sighed " four hundred silver
dollars?"

Tadeo, gazing at the fire, did not see the greedy desire in
Aldno's eyes. " Yes, father," he said ; " you had them in a box
hidden under the corn-crib, and you said they were good corn
for the horse."

' Alano laughed, but his father proceeded gravely : " They are
no longer four hundred ; it is nine hundred now." He paused,
and, still dreamily gazing at the fire, thought of the toiling and
self-denial of Ana and himself to put by so much.

Alano kept a discreet silence ; but his father did not speak,
so, after awhile, he interrogated, " Well, my father?"

Tadeo started in his chair. He was nervous. Never before
had he felt his age. To-day it was as though old Time had
come to claim his own.

" Yes, yes," he repeated, " nine hundred for you, Alano,
when you repose yourself in your father's house and marry."

Poor old man! In his eyes his nine hundred dollars was a
great fortune, and he thought to buy his son with it, never
doubting that it was magnificent enough for the purpose.

" Do you keep all that money in the corn-crib ? " asked Aid-
no, almost angrily. " Are you not afraid of robbers ? "
VOL. XLVII. 30

466 ALANO. [J"ly

Tadeo looked about him and smiled sadly. " Who would
come here to rob? " he asked.

" It is a hole of a place," muttered Aldno in English.

" What is it you say, Aldno" questioned his father.

" That there are no robbers here, my father," returned Alano.

Aldno, as well as his father, was thoughtful now Tadeo star-
ing at the fire with moody eyes, his son with eyes sparkling
with excitement he would suppress. Suddenly Tadeo asked,
" Why is it, Alano, the mother is not with us?"

Aldno protested that he did not know. It was very strange ;
he did not understand.

To these protestations Tadeo made no answer. He would
not judge his son till he had spoken with Ana if she would but
return. He did not fear for her safety ; he knew she must have
gone to Pabla, she who had given her the lessons in English.
Ah, that English ! How Ana had toiled at it, and to what end
if she were always to fly her son as if he were the pest.

" My father," Aldno interrupted these musings to say, " the
mother does not return, and I am tired He stopped ; his
father was paying no attention to him.

By fits the pine-knot was blanching and crimsoning Tadeo's
face, and in the fitful light Aldno saw his father weeping.

He touched the old man gently on the arm. " Father," he
said, " 1 am tired ; where am I to sleep ? ''

" Yes, yes ! " returned Tadeo, quickly. Going to the table,
he took from its drawer a candle, lighting it from the torch's
flame. Then he led the way to the inner room, Alano follow-
ing.

Ana had expended much time in the adornment of this room
for Aldno, and it was beautiful in Tadeo's eyes. He now wait-
ed for some expression of astonishment or delight, but Aldno
said not a word. It is true he looked about him, taking in at a
glance the print of our Lady of Guadalupe ; a vase holding
paper roses hung beneath it ; the basin and ewer on the table
draped with pink calico ; the square of looking-glass framed
with a piece of the same calico. Yes, he looked at these things,
beautiful in Tadeo's eyes, and, though Tadeo's eyes were old
and the candle dim, he saw the sneer on Aldno's face.

" Good-night, my father," said Aldno.

Tadeo did not say good-night, but crept away, closing the
door after him. Crouched in his accustomed place on the floor
beside the fire, his face hidden in hjs hands, he wept bitterly
though silently.

1 888.] ALAND. 467

The cabin-door opened and Ana entered, her footstep light.
Kneeling- beside her husband, she put an arm about his neck and
rested his grey head on her bosom.

He had not looked up, but he knew it was And. " You
were right, my Ana," he whispered ; " it is as you did say we
have no son." Then after a little, " Why is it, my Ana, that
you keep yourself from him ?"

She hesitated before telling him, and when she did speak, it
was with an attempt to palliate her son's guilt. She had found
Alano on the piazza, of a tavern near Fort Union, engaged with
some men in card-playing. He had received her coldly and,
unaware of his mother's knowledge of English, had spoken of
her to his companions as a servant of the dona his mother.
" He denied me," said Ana.

Tadeo held Ana's hands tight within his own. He said no-
thing of Aldno; he did not utter one of the self-reproaches tor-
turing his heart. He only spoke of the neighbor Pabla's hus-
band, who had taken And to Fort Union and back. " I did not
as much as ask him in to feel the fire, and it is cold," he said
sadly. " I go to him now, Ana," he continued ; " I will not be
long."

"You go to speak of Alano; he will not remain with us?"
queried And.

" Yes," said Tadeo, and the two embraced ; Tadeo kissing
Ank on either of her wrinkled cheeks wrinkles that were not
ugly to him.

It was a picture of the sorrowful Mother that hung above
their bed. And Ana, kneeling by the bed, did plead for her
son's soul. Her sorrow was great, but she knew our Mother's
sorrow to have been incomparably greater ; how fit to pity hers !
She prayed with emotion all the stronger for its being subdued,
mingling with the holy names the name of Aldno her beloved,
who had so wounded her heart.

The door of the inner room slowly opened, and in the glim-
mer of the expiring torch could be seen Aldno, still dressed,
hatted, his shoes held in his hand, his satchel strapped across
his shoulder hanging at his side. He looked at his mother, then
at the cabin door, his eye measuring the distance, his brain
reckoning his chances of reaching it without attracting the
kneeling woman's attention.

He waited, not patiently, in fear of his father's return. After
what seemed to him a long while his mother became very still.
Perhaps she had fallen asleep ; at any rate he must risk it ; Tadeo

468 ALAND. [July,

might come in at any moment. His stocking feet were noise-
less on the earthen floor, and he would have gotten away un-
perceived by And had he not stumbled against a water-jar un-
accountably out of its place. The jar gave a lurch, the water
flowing over the ground, Alano standing in the puddle.

And slowly raised her head and turned about, still kneeling.
In a moment she took in the meaning of Aldno's being there.
" My son, you leave thy father thus ?" she cried ; then, swaying
to and fro, fell lengthwise on the ground. She was very old,
had worked hard for him, her son, and under how many shocks
she had borne up bravely that day !

With difficulty, and cursing his mishap, Aldno got on his
shoes. He hoped his mother would not recover from her
swoon if swoon it was, not death till he was safely away.
When once outside the hut, he looked down the road, then up
the road around the corner. No one was in sight. It was very
quiet, for the wind was stilled, the bright and frosty starlight
seen tremulous above the dark ramage of the pifions.

Aldno unhasped the gate of the corral, making his way hastily
to what served for a stable and barn. The entrance was with-
out a door, only a bar across to shut out intruding cattle, or to
keep Tad^o's mustang within. Creeping under the bar, Aldno
whispered softly, " Sook, sook, sook," addressing the mustang
as many a time in the years before he had called the cattle and
the horse. There came an answering whinny, and when his eyes
became accustomed to the gloom of the interior, Aldno went to
where the saddle and bridle were wont to be. When found,
and the mustang fitted out, Alano's next proceeding, according
to his plans, was to help himself from the box in the corn-crib.

The corn-crib was in a dark corner; so, in order the more
easily to find it, Alano took a fusee from a box he carried and
struck a light. It flashed and flared, and as it did so the corral
gate, which Alano had closed after him, was thrown open, and
some one came running towards the stable.

Grinding out an oath, Aldno threw down the fusee, believing
he crushed out the fire. Keeping perfectly still where he was
hidden in the dark, he saw a man, carrying a knotted walking-
stick, standing at the barred entrance.

It was Tadeo. Coming home he had witnessed the blaze of
light in the stable, and straightway the thought of robbers, put
there by Aldno, livened in his brain.

He peered into the darkness, his old eyes failing to distin-
guish anything. Alano scarcely breathed.

1 888.] A LA NO. 469

" Who is there? " called Tadeo.

Aldno did not speak ; all would have been well had not the
fusee, not entirely out, fired a piece of straw, and Tadeo saw the
outline of a man.

In a trice he was under the bar, swinging aloft his knotted
stick. " Ah ! " he cried, " you would rob my son ! "

" It is I, Alano ! "

Too late he had spoken. Tadeo's arm was strong, he was
striking blindly. Down crashed the stick on Alano's head,
silencing him for ever.

There was light for Tadeo to see his work, had not the cry
of Aldno informed him. The fired straw had lit another, and
that another, and now the stable was in a blaze, the frightened
mustang plunging and pulling at its halter.

"Ay! ay! ay!" moaned the wretched Tadeo, falling on his
knees beside his son, kissing the pale lips, the face lit up with
the flash of the flames.

Who is this, having let down the bar, is pulling at Tadeo, un-
mindful of the roaring fire, the blinding, suffocating smoke, the
crackling of the timbers ! An old woman, her few white locks
of hair about her face, her body shook with a palsy.

" Ana," said Tadeo, in a smothered voice, " I killed his soul, I
killed his body. Is this hell? You should not be here ; you
wanted him for Paradise."

Only God and his Mother, to whom she prayed without
ceasing, know how she got them out of the stable. They were
barely out when the stable roof fell in with a crash.

There is a poor old man in La Junta whose wits have wan-
dered far, never to return. The people say gently, "The hand
of God is on him." He is content and happy to pass his days
in counting a collection of brass buttons. " Pesos," he will tell
you, " for Aldno in the grand college in the East." Sometimes
he is troubled, and will ask : " There is no God in the grand col-
lege, and, compadre, without God, can he find the way to his
father's house?"

On fine afternoons he goes to the Campo Santo, but he does
not know that the graves a subtile instinct leads him to are
the graves of And and Aldno.

In every city and town of this great country are Tadeos
and Ands with their Aldno, whose Father's house has been
lost because Tadeo or Ana, or both, would have Aldno reared
in that place where God is not. HAROLD DIJON.

470 THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. [July,

THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES.

THE Independent of March i has an article, by Rev. Alex-
ander Jackson, which is very interesting. The writer has taken
the pains to find out the number of persons who belong to the
different denominations or profess no religion at all in the cities
of Pittsburgh and Alleghany, and in the county of Alleghany,
Pennsylvania; and as Pittsburgh is a large manufacturing town
a small New York, in fact, resembling it in many respects
we believe that the different figures given by Mr. Jackson will
apply, proportionately, equally well to the larger place. He
gives the following table of membership :

PITTSBURGH AI.LEGHANY TOTAL.

AND COUNTY.

ALLEGHANY.

Evangelical (sic) Protestants. 47,838 25,445 73,283

Non-Evangelical 199 199

Hebrews 2,863 900 3,763

Confucians 150 23 173

Catholics 65,000 22,000 87,000

Total population 300,000 170,000 470,000

The Rev. Mr. Jackson says that in the above reckoning the
number of Catholics, or, as he nicknames them (no doubt inno-
cently), Romanists, in the two cities is estimated by themselves
at 90,000, including young and old, but this he considers an ex-
aggeration, though he gives no reason for his suspicion except
the fact that they were not actually counted. The number of
Evangelical Protestants who are actual church-members is
about 48,000 ; of these, 40,500 are over 21 years old, and if this
number be multiplied by four it will give, he thinks, the total
Protestant population of Pittsburgh and Alleghany, making it
162,000 more than twice the number of Catholics.

We have our doubts about this reckoning. In the first
place, does Mr. Jackson know that it is customary in Catholic
churches to have two, three, and even five morning services, at
each of which an entirely new congregation attends? whereas
in Protestant churches there is generally only one morning
and one evening service, attended mainly by the same persons.
Moreover, Catholics attend church much more sedulously than
Protestants, and so, whereas full seats mean full churches with
the latter, with us things are not regarded as quite up to the
mark unless there is also " a standing army " of some one-third

1 888.] THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. 471

more. The Independent, in editorial comment on Mr. Jackson's
figures, considers that the Catholic estimate of 90,000 probably
includes " a large fringe of semi-attached people sliding off into
irreligion." It may indeed include some such, but is it not
notorious that " the semi-attached fringe " of our non-Catholic
friends is much wider and much less attached ? If the regular
members, whose names are on the books and who are easily kept
in memory by their pastor, are so remiss in attending church,
notwithstanding all the inducements of comfortable seats, pro-
per temperature, nice people, and nice minister, what sort of
attachment must there be between the Protestant church and the
three-fourths who are not regular members? The truth pro-
bably is that less than 48,000 can be claimed as Protestants, unless,
indeed, you take Protestant in its true negative meaning of
protesters against the Catholic Church authority.

This leads us to what we are mainly interested in, in Mr.
Jackson's article, which is the relation of the classes to Protestant-
ism and to Catholicity. Mr. Jackson, pursuing his statistical
calculations, tells us that fully sixty per cent, of the Protestant
church-membership is made up of capitalists, professional men,
lawyers, physicians, teachers, salaried men, clerks, etc., while
only forty per cent, are workers at manual labor, as mechanics
and laborers, the last being only seventeen and a half per cent.
Of the many thousands of wage-earners in Pittsburgh, but one in
ten is a Protestant church-member. On the other hand, nearly
all the members of the Catholic Church are of the manual-labor
class. So the Independent remarks : " Either the Protestant
denominations should have the credit of training their members
to be thrifty, intelligent, and influential or they attract this class
to them."

Now, the Catholic Church is broad enough to hold all classes,
and there is nothing in Protestantism of a positive character
which is not in Catholicity. Catholicity, for instance, is just as
much opposed to ignorance, prodigality, idleness, intemperance,
impurity, etc., as Protestantism can be, and much more, if we
are to judge by the fact that in the Catholic churches the ser-
mons are nearly always of a character denunciatory of vice
general or local, and it is handled without gloves, without the
least thought of what offence may be taken by worldly people.
Moreover, the preaching is but a small part of the work of the
priest ; and this will account partially for the fact that his ser-
mons are sometimes wanting in the elegance and polish of those
of the minister. He spends hours and hours weekly in the con-

472 THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES.

fessional or, to make it more intelligible to Protestants, let us
call it the inquiry room where he talks, and talks in the frankest
possible manner, to high and low equally, as they also frankly
state their real condition to him. The Catholics have also other
means, divinely instituted, of reaching and correcting vice, and
so^have the advantage of the Protestants in this matter. It is as
if each one individually had a physician to visit him, feel his
pulse, question him, and prescribe; whereas our Protestant
friends only attend the medical professor's public lectures. The
late Cardinal McCloskey used to tell a story of how a Protestant
lawyer became a Catholic, his conversion being caused by a
circumstance which, it would appear, ought to have had the pre-
cisely opposite effect. He and a friend of his happened to drop
into a Catholic church one Sunday morning, out of curiosity
merely. The pastor of the church was a rough diamond of a
school which is now fast disappearing, and he was holding forth
to a crowded congregation, mainly of working people, in no very
choice language either, on their failings in the matter of undue
familiarity between the sexes, vanity and immodesty in dress, etc.
At one time he became so positively abusive that the lawyer and
his friend, although much amused and interested, expected to
see some signs of resentment on the part of the people; but they
saw not the least. The congregation appeared to take it all as a
matter of course, and some of them seemed to hang their heads
with shame, very much as a child does when scolded for his
faults by his parent. When the Mass was over the lawyers
followed the people in the direction of their homes and over-
heard their comments on the sermon. They were all of a lauda-
tory nature. " Father N gave us a good talking to this

morning. God bless him ! More power to him !" etc., etc. It
was evident that they accepted him for their father in God
they understood that he had a mission. The quiet conviction of
the people, and their readiness to accept correction at the hands
of their pastor, thus, in principle at least, putting their vices
under their feet and condemning them a great advance toward
giving them up was a new revelation to the Protestant gentle-
men, who had been accustomed to a different relation between
people and pastor. The one of whom the cardinal spoke, being of
a thoughtful and unselfish disposition, followed the light he had
seen, and finally became a member of that very congregation.
He wanted real religion. He told afterwards another little
story about himself, acknowledging that the old leaven was not
entirely out of him, even after his baptism and reception by

1 888.] THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. 473

Father N . When on his way to church the Sunday follow-
ing his baptism, his mind was full of the thought of the honor
which he was about to confer on the congregation by his joining

it ; he half-expected that Father N would be so elated that

he would come a block or so to meet him. Not so, indeed !
When he reached the church-door, in the midst of a crowd of
laborers and servant-girls, the priest happened to be there, just
then giving orders to the ushers. When he saw the convert he
walked up to him and, giving him a warm shake of the hand, he
said : " Let me congratulate you, sir. Come in, sir ! come in, sir !"
And then he let him shift for himself, like anybody else. This
was eye-opener number two, which advanced the convert im-
mensely in his progress to real religion. The idea of Father

.N congratulating him, not the Church of the Poor! We

were once told by a priest that a neighboring Protestant clergy-
man said to him one day : " I envy you the freedom that you
enjoy to tell your people the truth." The same thing is seen in
the excitement which was lately caused at Trinity by Dr. Dix's
honest and apostolic denunciation of worldly women. From the
way he has been scolded for his frankness one would suppose
that he was in that pulpit for the purpose of tickling their ears
with well-rounded periods, or delighting their eyes with a
handsome face and imposing presence.

All this helps us to see that if two-thirds of the Protestants
of Pittsburgh and Alleghany are of the wealthier or higher
class, it is not because the Protestant Church has made them
any better than their neighbors. The possession of great
wealth does not mean that, and often means the opposite. We
must choose rather the other part of the dilemma of the Indepen-
dent, and say that Protestantism attracts the worldly and holds
others who are not worldly on account of local circumstances
of a temporary nature. The first find Protestantism decidedly
more convenient than Catholicity. As Luther's wife said :
" Protestantism is a good religion to live in, but Catholicity
is the one to die in." Our Lord said : " It is easier for a camel
to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of heaven " (Matt. xix. 24). And the king-
dom of heaven in the Gospel means also the church of Christ
on earth. The commentary which, we believe, is now in most
favor and gives a better chance to the rich, tells them that " the
needle's eye" was a name given in Jerusalem to a small gate
intended for use by pedestrians who should arrive at the city
after the great gates were closed. To get a camel through it

474 THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. [July,

was extremely difficult, and impossible without removing his
load. The load is the surplus wealth of our Protestant friends.

Whatever way it is translated, it is clear that the respectability
which is named from a plethoric purse did not count for much
with our Lord the gate is too small for the loaded camel.
How many will put off the goods ? In order to be saved one
must have his heart detached from worldly things and must
hold virtue in more honor than these. The road to heaven is
easier for him who has them not. The idle dude, the glutton,
the proud and disdainful, the uncharitable, if not born in the
Catholic Church, will not join it. Why should they ? To be
liars and hypocrites also ? The man who is too lazy to rise on
Sunday to go to church, too proud to confess his sins ; the
woman who is too cultured and refined to be told hers, who has
no feeling of sisterhood with the poorer, but, at most, a conde-
scending pity ; whose good works, if she performs any, get
their reward here in the praise of flatterers there is no reason
why she should try to become a bad Catholic ; for a good one
she could not become without a complete change of character.
The camel cannot go through this gate. On the other hand,
what is there to prevent him going through the broad gate
of Protestantism ? All that people need is to pass muster with
Mrs. Grundy ; if she pronounces them respectable, they may
go to church when they like, and there is no danger of inconve-
nience of any kind ; they will be sure to meet no one there who
is not eminently respectable in the worldly sense. In fact, it
will be a pleasure for them to go there, while for the Catholics
it is a duty often disagreeable. The mere fact of any religion
being altogether agreeable is enough to condemn it, since the
essence of religion is sacrifice.

It is, then, natural that the bulk of the Catholics should be in
the humbler walks of life ; it was so in the Lord's time, who had
nothing at all in common with the proud rich, but denounced
them that is, those whose hearts are in their money and honors.
But the day will come when these will change their religion
without changing their hearts that is, after most of the rest are
gathered in and it will be fashionable to be a Catholic. We
once in conversation with the late learned Bishop of Charleston,
in speaking of a magnificent edifice that had just been finished,
made this remark:

" That church is a sign of the progress of Catholicity, and the comple-
tion of such works means the ending of some of our difficulties, the want
of material buildings, etc. But it means also that we are approaching the

1 888.] THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. 475

time when the world will notice us and worldly people will insist on join-
ing us, and the usual result will follow ; they will want to interfere with the
liberty of the pope, of the bishops, and of the priests ; they will commence
the old-time intriguing for ecclesiastical positions, and history will repeat
itself; the rot will go on till a new upheaval will throw us back again to
begin over again in poverty." "You never said a truer word in your life,' 7
said Bishop Lynch.

Remember France at the time of St. Vincent de Paul. Let
us pray that the spirit of the world be kept out of the church.

The bark of Peter must be tossed and pitched about; it may
not sail tranquilly for any length of time indeed we may say
that it is really least prosperous when least in trouble, for then
the true test of its happy state, the number of saints and martyrs,
is less numerous. Now let us consider the case of those who
continue humble and good in Protestantism in spite of pros-
perity. There are in this country many plausible reasons why
they do not join the church. There is prejudice of race, for in-
stance. Many of the Catholics here are of Irish nationality, and
these, being a conquered people, are of course at a great disad-
vantage with the descendants of their conquerors, the Anglo-
Saxon Americans. This trouble began on the other side of the
ocean. The English became Protestant, not to improve their
spiritual condition, but to save their temporal, as everybody
knows ; and the Irish, by sacrificing the temporal, gained and
kept what every Christian must think "the better part." The
man who has a sufficiency of food and clothing, and where to lay
his head, and real religion, has no reason at all to envy his rich
neighbor who needs the last great element of happiness ; and
when, as it often happens in this country, the Irish become rich,
those who understand and love them, sometimes do not rejoice
in it, for they soon miss the frank good nature, the deep relig-
ious feeling, and the sublime philosophy that puts honor and
virtue before pelf. Far be it from us to say that there are not
descendants of English Protestants who are charitable and
brotherly to their poorer fellow-beings. These are not Protes-
tants from any choice of theirs. They were carried out of the
church by their once Catholic ancestors, and being born out-
side of her pale do not know her. Others are prevented from
recognizing her by the fact of the church appearing to them
foreign and contemptible on account of most of her members
here being of the less prosperous and newly immigrated class.
No doubt when the church first made her appearance in im-
perial Rome many well-intentioned and naturally good pagans
were hindered from learning her real character, and much more

47 6 THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. [July.

from joining her, by the same causes. Imagine St. Peter and St.
Paul and the other Hebrew converts, how much they must have
resembled poor Paddy on his arrival here from the old land !
Noble spirits among the Romans there were who overcame all
these prejudices, but they were few, as such are here now. If
any one had asked at that time why the wealthy and refined
classes of Rome were pagans and remained so, St. Peter could
have answered easily enough. But who would not have laughed
him to scorn if he had prophesied that in a short time all this
would be changed through the divinity of the church and her
divine aptitude for drawing "men of good will" to herself?

Apropos of this, we heard of an excellent Protestant gentle-
man, a real truth-seeker, who, not satisfied with reading the his-
tory of the church as given by her enemies, read also Catholic
histories and magazines. The result was that many of his opin-
ions were changed and he was often in controversy with his old
friends, so that the rumor was spread that he had become a
Catholic. One of them met him and thus accosted him : " Is it

true, Mr. L , that you have turned Irishman ? " The fact is,

they knew nothing of the church except that some of those who
belonged to her paraded the streets on some occasions with
their national and religious emblems. Indeed it may be said
that as yet the bulk of Protestants know only those Catholics
who bring discredit on their church by crime, or by some noisy
demonstration which is not likely to conciliate their respect or
even good will. The best exhibition of Catholicity that they
have witnessed has probably been from those who are in domes-
tic service, who may naturally sometimes give a false impres-
sion of it through their need of instruction in its tenets. As a
rule we believe that their honesty and morality give edification.
The following is a specimen case which really happened, with
untoward results. A servant in a family told the children many
wonderful tales of miracles worked by priests in her own country,
and finally thought she might as well erect it into a dogma " that a
priest could in virtue of his orders, independent of his personal
sanctity, work a miracle when desirable." She proclaimed this
to the family. One of the older boys, being of a sceptical and
daring character, met the Catholic pastor soon after and chal-
lenged him to transform him into a dog on the spot. When he
found that he retained human form he lost all respect for the
Catholic Church. Another told her mistress that she always
gave the priest money in payment for absolution, etc., etc. We
once heard of a town one-quarter of the inhabitants of which

1 888.] THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. 477

were Catholics, and yet it may be said that only one of them
was well known to the other three-fourths as such. He was not
a bad man by any means; he was charitable, honest, industrious,
clever, having even a good deal of book-learning ; especially
was he well versed in old-time controversies; but he had a
weakness of a kind that made him renowned in that place. So-
ber every other day of the year, at New Year's he became up-
roariously drunk. He was of a nature that never could do any-
thing except thoroughly ; so, taking off his coat, he issued into
the streets, and marched along proclaiming in a loud voice : " I
am a Roman Catholic ! " He would vociferate in this style for
half an hour in front of some Protestant clergyman's door, and
challenge him to come out and settle all religious controversy
with him on the sidewalk " by apostolic knocks and thumps."
You may imagine that he was the foremost man in the minds of
every Protestant when anything was said about Catholicity.
The other Catholics being for the most part quiet and practi-
cal Christians, although esteemed for their morality, sobriety,
honesty, and kindness of heart, were not known particularly as
" Catholics." Besides most of them were seldom or never met
socially by Protestants.

Another cause why Protestants otherwise well intentioned
are kept out of the church, and even Catholics driven out of it,
is said by themselves to be the despotic- manners and ways of
individual clergymen here and there. We hope and believe
these are not numerous, but we heard of one of them who
scarcely knew what he was bound to believe and what was
optional ; and so taking the safe side on every question, he would
tolerate no difference of opinion in his parish. All must agree
with him. The Roman Pontiff is infallible in matters of faith
and morals when teaching the universal church ; this man was
infallible at all times and in everything, and when teaching any-
body. The great deference shown to priests by the Irish peo-
ple was evidently too much for some natures among them.
They regarded what is meant for their sacred office as a tribute
to their personal worth and lorded it accordingly.

A Protestant professor passing through a certain town of

called on such a priest to say that he proposed delivering a lecture
in the town hall in defence of the first chapter of Genesis against
so-called scientific objections, and he would be happy to have him
attend. The priest took out his watch and replied in an excited
tone: "Who gave you authority to explain the Bible? I give
you five minutes to leave the town, sir! " Only one-fifth of the

THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. [July,

population of that town was Catholic. The priest was a for-
eigner, while the minister was an American of several genera-
tions. It is only fair to explain that the railway station was not
far and could be gained in five minutes without running very
fast. Behold you ! The intelligent American, and even the son
of a foreign peasant who is educated here, cannot be expected to
believe everything in a wholesale manner upon a single man's
word ; he must know the why and the wherefore of things, and
will insist upon enjoying his liberty, where the church allows
him liberty. No man should identify his own personality with
the Church of God, so that any one who differs with him in any-
thing is set down as a heretic or a rebel against authority.

How often are Protestants set down as bigots when they are
bigoted only against the vices and ignorance of those who mis-
represent the church? Good Catholics, well instructed, are
equally bigoted against such folks. When the church is well
represented, you will find very little bigotry in Americans.
There are localities in which it is no wonder that intelligent
Protestants do not come in; the wonder is rather that more in-
telligent Catholics do not go out. They do fall away in some
places, no doubt. They say nothing; but they are missed at the
church and at the confessional. Our present venerated Pontiff
has done much to advance the standard of study everywhere in
the church. Following the lead of the Holy Father, the bishops
everywhere are deeply convinced of the necessity of a learned
clergy, and it will not be long before the results of their efforts
will be seen. Meantime, it is only fair to say that, considering
the fact that the clergy of this country have hitherto been so
much occupied in the preliminary work of the building of the
material edifice, and the raising of money necessary for the ma-
terial side of religion, that they have done as well as could be
reasonably expected in their real calling the building up of the
spiritual church. They would not be human if their character
were entirely unaffected by their chief occupation. Take them
all in all they are an excellent body of men, and for hard work-
ers we believe they would take the prize in a contest of nations.

Another cause of the church not being recognized by some
intelligent, well-meaning people is, that they never see a good
Catholic newspaper. When they do happen to stumble across
one they become in some cases disgusted with the womanish twad-
dle, the gushing flattery, and pious falsehood which sometimes
disfigure its columns. The petty, prejudiced, and narrow-
minded way in which every effort of Protestants to extirpate

1 888.] THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. 479

vice or to reform abuses is often met by Catholic journalists is
certainly amazing-. If they endeavor to destroy obscene litera-
ture and punish the authors of it, they are held up to ridicule be-
cause they try to do the work of the church, which they do not
know, without consulting her. If, actuated by motives of good
neighborhood and justice, they make friendly advances to meet
the objections of Catholics on various public questions, they are
denounced as proselytizers. Liberalism is no doubt a bad thing,
but so is unchristian Illiberalism and calumny, were it even di-
rected against Satan himself. The golden mean is what is want-
ed. These drawbacks and others will, of course, be gradually
remedied, and then it will be seen that the true mother of all,
rich and poor, learned and ignorant, who want real religion is
the original church founded by Christ, " the one fold under one
Shepherd."

It is no discredit to her that she is not in favor with the
proud class, from which her Lord himself found no welcome.
There are many of these, no doubt, in the church, in countries
where obstacles like ours do not exist, having been overcome in
past ages; but they are in great part 'not of her. She, as a
loving mother, tries to humor them by yielding, where she
can, to their foibles and fancies, always with the hope that, by
keeping them at least nominally and theoretically within her
pale, they may the more easily be reconciled to her spirit, or
their children at least may be saved ; but it is clear to her that
their membership is of no benefit to any one but themselves.
Even these, when ready for repentance, must put on the spirit if
not the garb of poverty and sincerity. Madame de Pompadour
may enjoy the polished conversation of some worldly clergy-
man, whose heart is more in her drawing-room than in his
church ; but when death approaches or some visitation of God
makes her serious, she will seek some humble and pious priest,
whose usual work is among the poor and lowly, and look to him
for comfort and religion, knowing well that Christ is more likely
to be found in the tenements than in the palaces. The poor
must always be the nearest to Christ. By the poor we do not
mean those who are in a state of pauperism, but those who either
possess only what is necessary, or who, possessing more, live
modestly and put not their hearts in worldly goods. It woulgl in-
deed be well for the church if the State could lawfully diminish
pauperism. There is no danger of her entirely abolishing it as
long as men will be weak or sinful. There would still be plenty
of room for charity and patience, too.

480 THE CHURCH AND THE CLASSES. [July,

To be so poor that one has not enough to sustain life and
health is not favorable to the salvation of the soul any more than
immense riches. Of course we speak of involuntary pauperism.
There have been and will be saints who, as an evangelical coun-
sel, or to do penance for sin, chastise their bodies and feed
them on bread and water, and often on nothing at all. Saint
Benedict Joseph Labr6 was a mere beggar and Saint Louis was
king of France. A man may be a saint in any walk of life, but
as a general rule, and where a high vocation is not in question,
it is as idle to talk to a hungry man about his soul, and perhaps
more so, as to a glutton just risen from his table. We knew a
priest who had spent forty years on the Chinese mission, and he
gave us this piece of advice as the result of his experience :
" Never speak to a man about his soul till you are sure that his
stomach is not entirely empty." Holy Writ itself has it :

" Give me neither beggary, nor riches : give me only the necessaries of
life: lest perhaps being filled .1 should be tempted to deny, and say : Who
is the Lord ? or being compelled by poverty, I should steal and forswear
the name of my God '' (Proverbs xxx. 7-9).

As the Venerable Bede says (lib. iv. c. 54) :

"There is nd precept forbidding the saints to save a little money for
their own or for their neighbors' needs, since eveq the Lord himself, to
whom angels ministered, had a little treasury; it is only forbidden to serve
God [that is, to join a church] for the sake of temporal interest, and to
abandon justice for fear of want.''

With Cardinal Manning and every priest who has worked
among the humbler (the highest and best) class of Catholics,
we are not objecting to poverty but to pauperism, not to pau-
pertatem but to egestatem. He cannot properly be called poor
who has health to labor with head or hand, and work sufficient
to supply his necessities and those of his family, and lay up a lit-
tle for the future.

The great mass of people in every nation must always belong
to this class. Our Lord himself and all his apostles belonged to it.
The working class, we may say, is the nation. Even the aris-
tocracy so-called must be recruited from it continually or they
die out of enervation. The church, which these masses of
men find suitable and in which they feel at home, must be the
church of the nation sooner or later. The Catholic Church is
the one broad enough to hold them. She gains or loses ground in
proportion as her clergy keep or lose the affectionate attachment
of the people, and no favor of the rich and great will ever sup-

1 888.] THE SPHINX. 481

ply its place. God has left the progress of his church greatly
dependent on the sanctity, ability, and zeal of the clergy. This,
of course, is a variable quantity, while their authority and their
spiritual power of orders is always the same. The more they
conform to Christ in word and act, the more generally will they
be recognized as his representatives and successors by high and
low, and the sooner will his church contain all the people of this
fair land. PATRICK F. McSwEENY.

THE SPHINX.

UPON the hill of Calvary

Mine eyes beheld a mystery :

Of Life and Death the self-same Tree,

Bearing both Joy and Pain :
Death gave it Root,
Life gave it Fruit ;
And from its sap
For all mishap

Men drew their balm and bane.

Lo ! then I saw a wondrous sight :
Death fought with Life a bitter fight ;

One weapon served the twain.
At last Life found a woful death ;
But, yielding up his latest breath,

Through death found life again.

Love thus the strange enigma wrote :
" Behold, the Smiter is the Smote,

The Slayer is the Slain.
Whoso shall die upon that Tree
Finds life ; when vanquished, liberty ;

His loss transformed to gain.
Who of its Fruit of life doth eat
Shall never die. Death comes to meet

The Conqu'ror of his reign."

ALFRED YOUNG.

VOL. XLVII. 31

482 THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST." [July,

THE BEER-DRINKERS' "TRUST."

THE tyrannous " Trust," the crushing " Trust," the monopo-
listic " Trust." Away with the " Trust " ! Are you opposed
to all greedy, rapacious " Trusts"? Why, then, remain a mem-
ber of the Beer " Trust " ? , You are not a brewer ! Dear, simple
soul! well we know it. The brewer's only " trust " is a chattel-
mortgage. But, if you are not a member of that all-powerful
corporation, the " Beer-Drinkers' Trust," you are one of a
mighty small minority. And if you are a member, you show a
larger share of confiding, innocent " trust " in beer than is ordi-
narily placed in a merciful Providence.

Let us instruct ourselves with facts and figures. In the de-
based, intemperate days of 1850 the quantity of malt liquors
consumed throughout the length and breadth of our beloved
country was sadly, distressfully small. Imagine, if you can, a
nation so retrogressive that if every man, woman, and child re-
ceived an equal share of beer from the common vat there would
have been but a miserable gallon and a half to assuage each tem-
perate thirst! Ten years later, in 1860, we had lifted ourselves
well out of the Slough of Despond our allowance per head was
three gallons and a quarter. The ground was firmer now ; we
started off joyously. By 1870 we had nearly quadrupled our
beer ration ; we sobered ourselves at the rate of five and a half
gallons per head. Excelsior ! more beer ! Now made the welkin
ring. Ten years more of patient, toilsome, gratifying effort ; then
1880, and the gladdening word went round: Eight gallons and a
quarter! The present decade promises to be no laggard in the
cause of beer. Our average allowance grows seemingly pro-
portionate to the nutritious foam that fills the diminishing glass.
In 1886 it was a proud year for the sons of temperance we had
doubled our quantum of 1870. Counting even those who drink
milk, whether they will or no, we took our eleven gallons apiece,
and there was a fractional overplus for the bartender. Can the
Prohibition Party show effective results like unto these ? Shall
we halt here and now? Rather, let us not rest until every mo-
ther's son of us is filled with the temperate beer ! until we have
a land flowing with beer, a beer-pipe line distributing the bless-
ings of stimulated sobriety in every family !

The Egyptians seem to have filed the first claim to the
making of beer. Some wise men think that the great pyramids

1 888:] THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST:' 483

were built for star-gazing ; others imagine that they merely erv-
ed the purpose of a combination vault and tombstone. After
the archaeologists and astronomers and mathematicians and
Bible students have said all they have to say, why not give
the brewers a chance to solve the problem ? Where did the
Egyptians cool their beer? There maybe nothing in this sugges-
tion, but there was something good in Egyptian beer. The
Greeks called it barley wine. To the Greeks we are personally
indebted for our philosophy, our drama and art. Our fathers
owed them still another debt of gratitude. From the Greeks
Europe learned the art of brewing barley beer. The Europeans
took kindly to the beverage, especially where the vine was chary
of its juices ; and, among many of the Northern nations, beer
has long been held in high esteem as a valuable condensed food
an agreeable compound of meat and drink. In our fathers'
time the terms "Ale," " Porter," " Beer," "Stout," or " Lager"
meant neither more nor less than " Beer " fermented at varying
temperatures, and clarified naturally by a shorter or longer
after-fermentation. The terms our fathers used we still use
possibly without reason ! M. Pasteur should know what a beer
ought to be. Here is his definition, taken from that very inter-
esting book, Studies on Fermentation : " Beer is an infusion of
germinated barley and hops, which has been caused to ferment
after having been cooled, and which, by means of ' settling' and
racking, has ultimately been brought to a high state of clarifica-
tion. It is an alcoholic beverage, vegetable in its origin a bar-
ley wine, as it is sometimes rightly termed." The first requisite
of a good beer is good barley. The next requisite is that the
good barley be properly malted. The process of malting con-
sists in steeping the barley in water, and then in heating the
steeped barley to such a temperature that it will germinate.
When the barley has sufficiently germinated, it is dried at a tem-
perature determined by the color of the liquid the brewer wants.
The higher the temperature the darker the beer. Poor malt
means poor beer. Whatever good there may be in beer is due
above all to the barleyfmalt. The process of malting has effect-
ed a chemical change in the barley. Now a second change is
effected by means of hot water mashing. We have the " infu-
sion " of M. Pasteur's definition. The character of this " infu-
sion " the wort depends largely on the water. Bad water
means bad beer. At the right moment the wort is drawn oft
and hops are added. Boiled with the wort, hops give the beer
its aroma and its bitter flavor, and they help to clarify and to

484 THE BEER-DRINKER* " TRUST." [July

preserve the beer. Good malt without good hops makes a
poor beer. The wort must now be cooled rapidly. At the
proper temperature yeast is added. Surface fermentation fol-
lows ; alcohol and carbonic acid are formed. The beer is now
laid away to cool still further, and to undergo an after-fermenta-
tion, a sedimentary fermentation, which is especially important.
Good barley malt, good water, good hops, a good wort, a proper
surface-fermentation, will not give a good beer, unless the after-
fermentation be thorough. According to the methods employed
in the previous processes, the period of after-fermentation is
necessarily of longer or shorter duration. Lager-beer, as its
name implies, requires a long period of after-fermentation. Is it
clear to the reader that it is possibly quite as difficult to get a
glass of good beer as it is to get a glass of good brandy, or wine,
or whiskey? Supposing the brewer to have average honesty,
do you not see how much depends on his intelligence and
care? He must have good barley properly malted, good water,
good hops, good yeast, and at every step of every process tem-
perature is the great agent. Certainly it is easier to make bad
than good beer!

Did you catch the full import of the closing sentence of M.
Pasteur's definition ? Beer " is an alcoholic beverage, vegetable
injts origin a barley wine, as it- is sometimes called." Remem>
ber that we are still speaking of good beer, the beer our fathers
loved. " An alcoholic beverage " means an intoxicating drink.
That is plain enough. Still there are many people who assume
that beer is not intoxicating. There is a martyr band of men
and women who swell their heads and their paunches to a drop-
sical size in the vain, if honest, attempt to prove that beer will
not intoxicate. Have you, perchance, been in the neighborhood
of a city factory ? You saw the procession of men and boys and
tin cans coming, going, hour after hour? The simple working-
man devotes a great deal of time and money testing the intoxi-
cating point of beer. If you will spend a day in any middle-
class neighborhood you will have reason to be proud of the
comfortable mothers who keep the can in motion, fortifying
themselves against care and disease with the hourly quart of
" unintoxicating " been In the poorer quarters, the honest
laborer and the luxurious loafer strive in vigorous contention
to master their legs and hold up their heads for pure shame at
being vanquished by a " temperance " drink.

Our fathers knew that beer was intoxicating, and they owned
up to it like men. Everybody is acquainted with Pliny, and

1 888,] THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST" 485

thinks well of him, and quotes from him out of the Cyclo-
paedia. He was a first-century man. In his natural history,
having told about the beers of Western Europe, he tags on this
knowing remark : " So exquisite is the cunning of mankind in
gratifying their vicious appetites, that they have thus invented a
method to make water itself produce intoxication." There was
no cant about Mr. Pliny, no palaver about beer-food, or tempe-
rance beverage, or the therapeutic qualities of barley malt. He
had lived long enough to know that the ordinary man drinks
alcoholic beverages because they are alcoholic, stimulating ;
some because they are intoxicating. Read over again Pliny's
comment. Ts it not capital? "Exquisitely cunning mankind,"
" cunning in gratifying vicious appetites " P. had us down fine,
didn't he ? " They invented a method to make water itself in-
toxicating." " Cunning mankind," sure enough ! We have had
some hard-headed men in this century, and the name of at least
one of them began with P. This one, Dr. Pereira, was born and
died in London (1804-58). He was Professor of Chemistry and
Materia Medica at the College of Physicians, and Medical Di-
rector of the London Hospital. In his day he was an acknowl-
edged authority on hygiene. Pasteur gave us a scientific defini-
tion of beer, Pliny a philosophical definition, Pereira will give
us a practical definition. Here it is: " Beer is a thirst-quench-
ing, refreshing, intoxicating, slightly nutritious beverage."
Pereira does not say "a nutritious, slightly intoxicating bever-
age," but an '' intoxicating," positively " intoxicating" beverage,
"slightly nutritious." Pereira, like Pasteur, speaks of " good "
beer. The latest published analyses of English beers show that
their percentage of alcohol varies between 4 and 10. On Feb-
ruary 26, 1886, Francis E. Engelhardt, Ph.D., of Syracuse, the
well-known analytical chemist, who had been appointed by the
State Board of Health to examine the beers manufactured in the
State of New York, made a detailed "Report," which was
transmitted to the Legislature on March 19, 1886. Attached to
this " Report " is a table giving the results of an analysis of 476
samples of ale, porter, and lager. About 25 per cent, of these
samples contained five per cent, and over of alcohol. A number
contained as high as six per cent., and some seven, eight, nine
per cent. An unfortified, ordinary claret will average only from
seven to ten per cent, of alcohol. Would the twenty-glasses-of-
beer-a-day man, the five-bottle man, expect immunity from an
equal consumption of claret wine ? Why not? Chemistry shows
that it is a beverage no more intoxicating than barley wine.

486 THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST." [July,

Do we drink good beer barley wine ? Mr. Frederick Car-
man, Assistant Secretary of the State Board of Health, sum-
marizing Dr. Engelhardt's " Report " in 1886, says that " a gen-
tleman, who evidently takes a somewhat liberal view, defines
normal lager to be 'a fermented beverage, not less than six
months old, made from any starchy grain, and rendered bitter
to suit the consumer's palate.' " How does the beer-drinker like
the new definition ? Does it suit him as well as Pasteur's? The
United States Department of Agriculture has been making a
study of the manufacture and adulteration of beer. In Bulletin
No. 13, Part 3, recently issued, Mr. C. A. Crampton, Assistant
Chemist of the Department, states that "it is a well-known fact
that very few beers are made in this country without more
or less malt substitution." Our people have been growing
so beer-ishly temperate that they have taxed the brewer beyond
reason. We drank 643 millions of gallons of domestic and im-
ported malt liquors in 1886. Our brewers have been enthusi-
astic workers in the cause of beer-temperance. But we have
taken them too much at their word ; we have insisted upon
having some stuff, any stuff, called beer. You remember what
the chemists have done for the vintners and the distillers. Well,
the chemists came to the rescue of the brewer, also. Nowa-
days beers are made from rice, corn, -bran, oats, potatoes, tur-
nips, beet-root, parsnips, pea-shells, carrots. These take the
place of barley. The barley-malt is not wholly omitted, but only
a small percentage of it is used. But the brewer's chemist has
the advantage of the people's chemist. At this late day, Mr.
Crampton says: "Nothing can settle this point and enable the
analyst to decide positively whether malt substitutes have been
used until a standard is established by the analysis of a large
number of samples known to be brewed from pure malt alone."
Mr. Beer-Drinker, there is only one thing you can be sure of
when you are drinking beer, and that one thing is that you
don't know what you are drinking. Would you know " glu-
cose " beer from any other? It is well known that glucose and
cane-sugar are used as substitutes for malt. The State Board
of Health, discussing Dr. Engelhardt's Report, gives some facts
about glucose. This substance is made from the starch of corn
by boiling it with dilute sulphuric acid. The Massachusetts
Board of Health considers it a dangerous article to be taken
into the system when carelessly prepared. If the Board of
Health had not warned us, we should not have been likely to
risk much on glucose. We may not know what sulphuric acid

i888.] THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST" 487

is, but there are very few of us who would care to make of it a
steady drink. Here is what the Massachusetts Board of Health
has to say : " Should all of the acid not be removed, or should
the calcic sulphate be in any amount retained, it is evident that
the product would not be entirely harmless, since disturbances
of the digestion might follow its use." Possibly you have a
friend who is drinking " glucose beer " to cure his dyspepsia !
How would it do to turn him off on ' potato beer " ? Mr.
Crampton says : " There is no way of determining directly or
absolutely that a beer has been brewed partially from glucose."
You see what an advantage the brewer's chemist has! Labou-
laye makes the whole matter clear : Glucose is economical but
not beneficial.

Do you remember Pereira's definition of beer: " A thirst-
quenching, refreshing, intoxicating, slightly nutritious bever-
age "? Our beer does not seem to be much of a thirst-quencher,
does it ? One glass just about makes the drinker thirsty enough
for another. Dr. Engelhardt may help us to explain this little
problem. It has long been a custom to add some salt to the
beer. The brewers found many reasons for the addition. " The
salt gave taste to the beer ; it clarified the beer ; it gave the beer
a head." But Dr. Engelhardt found a good many of our State
beers oversalted ; and the learned doctor happily suggests a
reason not suggested by the brewers. To quote him textually :
" That salt creates thirst is well known, and hence we may con-
clude that it is often added for this purpose." Poor Dr. Pe-
reiraJ He died only in 1858, you recall. And here in 1888, a
short thirty years, we must remodel his practical definition of
beer. The revised version will read: Beer is a thirst-producing,
unrefreshing, intoxicating, very slightly nutritious, and at times
very harmful beverage. Poor Dr. Pereira ! Poor beer-drinker !

Speaking of the processes of beer-brewing, we said that after
the first fermentation the beer was laid away to cool and to
undergo an after-fermentation ; and that lager-beer, as its name
implies, requires a long period of after-fermentation. The libe-
ral gentleman quoted by the State Board of Health defined lager
as " a fermented beverage, not less than six months old." Now
comes Mr. Crampton to declare that lager is a thing of the past
there is no more lager ; in other words, no fermented bever-
age not less than six months old. Dr. Engelhardt states in his
" Report " : "A considerable number of beer samples were young
beers perhaps, in most instances, not over fourteen days old."
Is it any wonder that of the 476 samples tested by the learned

THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST" [July,

doctor he found 219, or about 46 per cent., inferior, 81 slightly
sour, and 58 decidedly sour. Here, again, we see the fine hand
of the modern brewer's chemist. Dr. Bartley, Chief Chemist of
the Brooklyn Board of Health, speaking of the custom brewers
have of sending out to the market beers only fourteen days old,
called attention to the fact that these beers were artificially clari-
fied, and that large doses of bicarbonate of soda were added to
them. Besides giving the beer a good head, the bicarbonate ar-
rests the souring process. He found that the habitual beer-
drinker, who drinks say thirty glasses a day think of that liv-
ing, breathing hogshead ! may take into the system from 180 to
200 grains a day of the bicarbonate, with necessarily deleterious
effect. These facts are confirmed by Otto Grothe, Ph.D., in a
paper read before the American Society of Analyists in 1885,
giving the following facts : In a keg of beer there are one hun-
dred glasses. A glass of the sophisticated beer contains as much
as three-fourths of a gramme of bicarbonate of soda; twenty
glasses give 15 grammes, equal to 252 grains. But let us come
back to Dr. Engelhardt, who devotes considerable space to this
subject : " The brewer, when the first fermentation (the main
one) is finished in the fermenting tubs, clarifies, though often in
an insufficient manner, the beer by artificial means, and fills it in
the casks intended for the retail trade. To give to the beer a
certain amount of carbonic acid, above that which is remaining
naturally in the beer, he adds a piece of compressed bicarbonate
of soda (from one to two ounces, or more, according to the ca-
pacity of the cask); and if the beer contains an insufficient
amount of lactic acid, etc., some tartaric acid, cream tartar, etc.,
is added. Thus this brewer is enabled to turn his capital over
at least twelve times a year, while the honest brewer, who allows
his beer to attain an age of from eight to twelve weeks, can do
it only four times or five times. But, apart from the money con-
sideration, beer made in the manner just described, and sent to
the consumer when only two weeks old, injures the latter s con-
stitution, not only by the presence of soda in the beer, but also
by the presence of the yeast, since, according to investigations
made under the supervision of Professor von Pettenkofer, beer
roily from yeast-cells, though respective small quantities of
such beer are taken, acts on the digestive organs in such a man-
ner as to produce catarrh of the stomach and intestines." O
health-giving beer! Good, old-fashioned, barley-malt beer,
properly handled, would stand exposure for hours without be-
coming flat or insipid. The modern mixed-malt beers have not

1 888.] THE BEER.DKINKEKS' " TRUST" 489

the same property, evidently. Beers made from corn are diffi-
cult to control, because the germination of the grain during the
course of malting is so rapid. Hence the greater risk of bad
beers, sour beers, even if the later processes were intelligently
managed. As to new beers, physicians and chemists agree that
they are injurious to health.

Good beer is a term easily misunderstood. A beer made
according to the right standard is good as a beer, but it may be
bad as a beverage. As " one man's meat is another man's
poison," so everybody's drink may be most men's poison. Not-
withstanding all the temperance lectures, few of us have any
true conception of the active part that drink plays in disease.
Sir Andrew Clark, the famous English physician, stated in 1884
that seven out of ten of his hospital patients' diseases were caus-
ed by drink, and it is worthy of special note that he had quite as
many cases of drink disease among women as among men. The
death-rate among keepers of grog-shops, or saloons, if you
please, in England is higher than that of men engaged in any
other trade. Dr. B. W. Richardson reports in the Lancet of
February 24, 1883, that from his experience the most common
form of disease among the intemperate is that terrible, terrifying
heart-disease. This statement of Dr. Richardson becomes the
more striking when considered side by side with the address of
Dr. Bollinger, at a meeting of the Medical Society of Munich,
during the year 1884. Bavaria' is the natal place of lager, and
the Bavarian would rather suffer a bread famine than a beer
famine. No Bavarian ministry that suffered the beer to deter-
iorate could last a week. The law watches the brewer closely,
and defines what materials he shall use, and in what proportions
he shall use them, and what he shall not use. Munich, the capi-
tal, is as proud of its breweries as of the Pinakothek or the
Hof-Theater, and is famed for its beer. This is a question of
"good beer," you see. Dr. Bollinger,* then, addressing the
Munich physicians, called their attention to the part played by
beer-drinking in the causation of certain forms of heart-disease.
He stated that simple enlargement of the heart was more com-
mon in Munich than elsewhere, and that a careful personal ex-
amination proved that the greater number of cases of this dis-
ease (particularly among suicides) were explicable by habitual
excesses in beer-drinking. The enlargement of the heart is due
to the direct action of alcohol upon that organ, and to the enormous
amount of fluid introduced into the body. The average weight

* See Braithwaite, vol. xc. , p. 179.

490 THE BEER-DRINKERS' "TRUST" [July,

of the normal heart is greater in Munich than elsewhere. Dr.
Bellinger stated that the disease was insidious, and that the
greater number of those who die from it are carried away sud-
denly. There's good beer ! A big head, a big paunch, and a big
diseased heart, and sudden death ! You couldn't do worse
than that on water! And how about beer being a temperance
drink ? Evidently there is alcohol enough in " good beer " to
kill a man, at the heart. Are there men so unreasonable as to
want more?

Do you see clearly what a delicate, exacting series ot pro-
cesses both malt and hops pass through in the making of good
beer ? You do. Very well ; and do you feel, from what you
know of human heads and hands, how likely it is that there is
many a brew of bad beer every day in the week? In old times
a bad brew went to waste ; and sometimes ruined the brewer.
But this happens no longer. The bad brew is barreled or bot-
tled, and the brewer allows us to ruin ourselves with it. How
does he manage the business ? You have forgotten the modern
alchemist, who turns all things into gold the brewer's chemist.
Remember the chemist, whatever liquor you drink ! Mr.
Crampton will help to enlighten us. I quote from his " Report " *
to the United States Department of Agriculture : " We come
now to what I consider to be the most important sophistication
of beer at the present day, and the most reprehensible and most
deserving of repressive legislation. The use of artificial pre-
serving agents not only introduces foreign matters into the beer
which are more or less injurious, according to the nature of the
material used, but also serve to cover up and hide the results of
unskilled brewing or unfit materials ; giving to the public for con-
sumption a liquor that, if left to itself under natural conditions,
would have become offensive to the senses and putrid with corruption
long before it is offered for sale." Mr. Crampton then goes on
to say that among the " preservative agents extensively employ-
ed at the present day are salicylic acid, bisulphite of lime, and
boracic acid." These " preservatives " are used to arrest natu-
ral fermentation in new beers, or "to cover up and hide the re-
suits of unskilled brewing or unfit materials " in beers of any age.
Salicylic acid has been used for some years not only in beers,
but in wines and foods as a " preservative." It is prepared from
carbolic acid, a virulept poison. Foreign governments have
prohibited the use of salicylic acid as being dangerous to health.

* This part of the " Report " was published by Dr. H. Lassing, in the American Analyst,
March 15, i838, p. 113.

1 888.] THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST" 491

The French government considered the question of the noxious-
ness of this " preservative " in i8Si, 1883, and 1886. In 1881
and again in 1883 its use was forbidden. A new inquiry having
been demanded, the matter was referred to a special committee
of the French Academy of Medicine, which recommended that
the addition of salicylic acid or its compounds, even in small quan-
tities, to articles of food or drink should be absolutely forbidden
by law. Carbolic acid, from which salicylic is chemically ob-
tained, is so powerful in its effects that when used medically the
dose is limited to one or two drops. Taken internally it acts as
an irritant narcotic poison. Even when applied externally its
absorption may lead to fatal results. Death has occurred from
it in two or three minutes. Dr. Bartley, chief chemist of the
Brooklyn Board of Health, in a report to the Health Commis-
sioner, in 1887, said: "The salicylic acid of the market is pre-
pared from carbolic acid, and is frequently contaminated with a
small proportion of this very poisonous agent." What are the
effects of salicylic acid on the human body ? Let us quote, with
Mr. Crampton, from the United States Dispensatory (i5th ed.,
p. 101) : " When salicylic aid is given to man in doses just suf-
ficient to manifest its presence, symptoms closely resembling
those of cinchonism result. These are fulness of the head, with
roaring and buzzing in the ears. After larger doses, to these
symptoms are added distress in the head or positive headache,
disturbances of hearing or vision (deafness, amblyopia, partial
blindness), and excessive sweating. . . . The action upon the
system of the acid and of its sodium salts * appears to be identical,
and, as several cases of poisoning with one or other of these
agents have occurred, we are able to trace the toxic manifesta-
tions. Along with an intensification of the symptoms already
mentioned there are ptosis, deafness, strabismus, mydriasis, disturb-
ance of respiration, excessive restlessness passing into delirium,
slow, laboring pulse, etc. . . . It is stated that upon drunkards the
acid acts very unfavorably, violent delirium being an early symptom
of its influence." The English physicians, who have given con-
siderable attention to the action of this drug, accuse it of causing
heart complications, prostration of the vital powers, syncope, and
even death. The French Academy of Medicine pronounced its
use especially injurious to those suffering from renal disease, in

* Salicylate of sodium is used for the same purposes as salicylic acid. It is said that there
are those who, using one of these " preservatives," readily deny that they use the other. Sali-
cylate of sodium has caused delirium, maniacal fury, disorders of vision, strabismus. (See
National Dispensatory, 1879. )

492 THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST" [July,

whom the drug quickly produces toxic symptoms. Its effect is
equally bad on the digestive organs, the liver and the kidneys.
Its elimination from the system is slow, and even when it has
gone the tissues bathed by it are injured. They say that the
tramp and the low sot regale themselves on stale beer. It sounds
disgusting, doesn't it? Are you convinced that it is any more
disgusting or noxious than salicylated beer?

Are we fighting a windmill ? How can you ask the question
after reading Professor Crampton's statement? However, here
are more facts: Dr. Cyrus W. Edson, of the New York Health
Board, read a paper before the New York Society of Medical
Jurisprudence on November 12, 1886, in which he stated' that
" salicylic acid is added to beer in from a grain to three grains
to the pint." Reporting to the Health Commissioner of Brook-
lyn, 1887, Dr. Bartley, chief chemist, says that " the brewers
add salicylic acid to preserve bottled beer." Mr. Crampton
analyzed only thirty-two samples, of which nearly one-fourth
(all bottled beers, and one an imported Kaiser beer) were
salicylated. " These included the product of some of the largest
breweries in the country, beers that are used to a very large
extent all over the United States." Mr. Crampton cannot tell
whether the acid is added in the breweries or at the bottlers'.
Whoever adds this destructive drug, there it is. According to
the United States Dispensatory^ " the dose of salicylic acid to be
employed in cases of acute rheumatism is given as one dram
(3.9 grains) in twenty-four hours." Put this prescription along-
side of the statement of Dr. Cyrus W. Edson, that "salicylic
acid is added to beer in from a grain to three grains to the
pint " ! So that in a pint you may get almost the whole quantity
prescribed in a case of violent illness. Imagine the condition
of the twenty-glass-a-day drinker, of the four or five-bottle man !
An irritant, cumulative poison, constantly supplied to the body,
with the certainty that the stomach, heart, kidneys, and liver
are being daily forced into a condition of disease. If a physi-
cian were to tell you of the effects of this drug, and to ask you
to favor him by taking it in quantities, even with beer, every day
of the week, you would either laugh in his face or discharge
him. Were we not right in glorifying the rash simplicity of the
" Beer-Drinkers' Trust " ? Let me give one more quotation from
Dr. Bartley's "Report": "In its elimination the kidneys not
rarely become acutely congested, or even inflamed, giving rise
to acute Bright's disease." Possibly you are thin, you drink
beer to gain flesh ; or you are a nursing-mother, you drink beer

1 888.] THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST." 493

for your own and the baby's sake ; or you are anaemic, and you
drink beer to strengthen you ; or you drink beer for the sake of
sociability, or because you want to drink beer ; how would it
do to engage Dr. Engelhardt, or Dr. Crampton, or Dr. Bartley,
or Dr. Edson to analyze your beer before you drink it ? You
think -your beer allowance would be much lessened, do you 3
Well, that looks certain, doesn't it? And your allowance of
years would probably be increased, but of course you don't
care about that !

Some folks are so careful about their beer that they will use
none but imported brands. Now/they say that in order to carry
imported beers across the water it is necessary to " fortify "
them, that is, to add to them an extra amount of alcohol. Po-
tato alcohol gives a fine body to wine. Could it be possible
that any of the same villanous stuff gets into the beer ? Still,
we must not be too suspicious. However, one is inclined to
doubt a little, after reading the following statement of facts :
Watchful of the health and comfort of its citizens, Germany
prohibits the use of salicylic acid in beer except when the beer is
intended for export to other countries ! There's comity for you ;
they refuse to take our mighty surplus of honest hogs, and in-
sist on refreshing us with " preserved " beer !

Mr. Crampton says- that none of his samples showed the pres>
ence of boracic acid. But the foreign chemists say that it is
used as a " preservative " of beer as well as of wines. Boracic
acid is a product of borax and sulphuric acid. As a drug the
physicians have not as yet experimented with it to any great
extent. Inasmuch as they have, the verdict is not favorable.
The Lancet of August 13, 1887, says: "What evidence there
is is decidedly against ithe drug." It has an injurious effect on
the digestive organs, and a tendency to cause diarrhoea. In
this connection it may not be useless to note that in his paper
read before the American Society of Analysts, in 1885, Dr. Otto
Grothe stated that the Brooklyn beers had a peculiar cathartic
effect. It was an old fashion here to relieve the system of its
11 humors " occasionally by taking a compound cathartic pill.
But the man who swallows a box a day in his beer pays more
than his five cents a glass for it. When the brewers' chemists
really get to work at beer, we can close up the drug-stores at
any rate.

You know all the other bad things that have, from time to
time, been put into beer. Dr. Engelhardt gives a long list of
them in a " Report " which he made to the State Board of

494 THE BEER-DRINKERS' " TRUST" [July,

Health in 1882. Here are some of them : Cocculus indicus, a
strong narcotic poison, very bitter, causing giddiness, intoxica-
tion, convulsions, even death; Picric acid, a relative of our old
friend, carbolic acid ; sulphuric acid, another convulsative ;
quassia, guinea-pepper, opium, and even tobacco. We don't
name a tenth of them. In England and on the Continent-it has
been charged again and again that all these poisons are, from
time to time, added to beer, and laws have been passed forbid-
ding their use. The authorities on adulterations of foods and
drinks uniformly charge the use of these drugs, either as hop
substitutes or as intoxicants. The poor man runs the greater
risk of imbibing them, if we judge from English testimony.
There, it is said, that if the beer is free from any of them when
it comes to the publican's hands, he sees that it is made fuddle-
proof, especially on Saturday nights.

You have met the man who is always gathering curious facts
out of the newspapers, and asking such questions as, How much
hay do you suppose we raise here in a year ? or, Can you guess
how many pounds of cheese we export in a year? or, Have you
got any fair idea of the amount of capital there is invested in
the tomato-canning business ? You do know him. Let me
play his part for a moment, and ask you if you can guess how
much we spend yearly on beer? Now guess! No, sir! you
are not anywhere near it. We spent three hundred and five
millions of dollars on beer in 1886. The President is very
much exercised about the surplus ; indeed, we are all very much
worried about it. Yet it is only about a hundred millions a
year. We spend three surpluses probably four now on a
year's beer, and no one seems to feel worried over the matter
Curious, isn't it ? Spend three hundred millions a year on a
confounded lot of slops, that has hardly got a single constituent
of the " beer of our fathers " ! And there, every day in the week,
thousands of cute men lift the glass of beer in the sunlight, to
admire the fine bicarbonate of soda " bead," and the beautiful
color of the "glucose beer," or the" rice beer." Three hundred
millions to slake our thirst with salted beer ; to " preserve "
our health with salicylated beer ; to regale ourselves, possibly,
with " a liquor that, if left to itself under natural conditions,
would have become offensive to the senses and putrid with
corruption long before it is offered for sale."

What shall we do to be saved ? Stop your beer!

JOHN A. MOONEY.

1 8 88.] THE SHRINE OF ST. MARTIN. 495

THE SHRINE OF ST. MARTIN.

IT once happened in our experience as instructor of Young
America that we put the question on an examination paper in
French history, Who was Saint Martin ?

Very few of the answers were both direct and comprehen-
sive ; but one, at least, was notable for its extreme conciseness:
" Bishop of Tours ; gave half his cloak to a beggar."

Unfortunately there are many people nowadays who know
not even the first and the more important of these two facts re-
corded of the valiant Pannonian apostle; and still worse, not
over-many people care at all to learn about the lives of early
Christian pioneers.

Yet what would France be to-day to consider the fortunes
of that country in particular what would all her great cities
have contributed to the progress of even secular civilization, had
not Hilary and Martin, the two Germains, Remigius or Saint
Remi of Reims, and Gregory of Tours, made straight the paths
for the march of justice and order in the barbarous days of old ?
We specify these individual names, but the same truth holds of
all the Christian saints and martyrs in every land ; had not the
Christian leaven spread, society had surely perished in the fall
of imperial |Rome. That society lived, however, and moved
upward and onward, was a very part of those divine decrees
whereby the grandeur of imperial Rome should culminate in the
fulness of time to subserve the still grander domination of the
church of Christ.

Such thoughts most pertinently suggest themselves in con
nection with even the briefest review of the career of Saint Mar-
tin of Tours.

Born in Pannonia of pagan parents, his father being military
tribune, Martin was forcibly enrolled in the Roman cavalry;
and not till he had fought in twenty campaigns did he secure his
release and retire to devote himself wholly to spiritual duties.
Like Jeremias the rebellious among prophets, Martin first
served the L6*rd in a manner against his personal choice ; for,
without rashly constructing historical evidence, we may rest
perfectly assured, from analogous laws which universally govern
the development of human character, that the chastening and
the discipline effected by training in that score of campaigns in
the Roman army would lay the foundation for the subsequent

496 THE SHRINE OF ST. MARTIN. [July*

strength of soul which distinguished the barbarian cavalryman
in his ecclesiastical office in Gaul. As a soldier, too, he tra-
versed the broad highways of the empire, those magnificent
military roads designed for facilitating the rapid movement of
Roman troops, but also and providentially instrumental in has-
tening the missionary triumphs of the struggling new faith.

So Martin, again, during one of his military expeditions, en-
countered the renowned eastern confessor Athanasius, exiled
from the Nile to Treves on the Moselle. How unconsciously
potent were these political measures of exiling Christian leaders,
from end to end of the imperial domain, to accomplish that
identical result which they were intended to defeat! As if
Christianity could be arrested by transporting Hilary from
Poitiers to the depths of Asia Minor ; Athanasius from Egypt
to Treves.

But Martin's professional or official activity in the church
begins with a visit to Hilary of Poitiers, of whom he received
admission to minor orders. By Hilary's counsel he returned
to Pannonia to convert his mother ; and on thence coming back
to Gaul, he founded, near Poitiers, the monastery of Ligugd.
But a " pious ruse " promptly drew him forth from the cloister,
and raised him to the dignity of metropolitan bishop of Tours,
There he vigorously suppressed surviving relics of paganisms
the Druid monuments, the statues and temples of Roman gods,
etc.; but it appears that his preference was ever for the cloister,
rather than for episcopal charges a predilection quite natural
and intelligible when we remember his turbulent early life.
Accordingly he gave expression to his desires by founding the
monastery of Marmoutier, near Tours (moutier in old French,
tnonasterium being the popular synonym of the later learned
derivation monastere} ; and of this long-famous abbey, with
which only the great monasteries like Fulda, St. Gall, Cluny,
and Monte Cassino were comparable for wealth and wide in-
fluence, the site is marked to this present day by the modern
convent of the same name, a portal only of the ancient pile
being still preserved.

Martin's contemporary biographer, to whom later historians
down to Milman and Montalembert are indebted for these few
central facts which are positively known of his life, was his en-
thusiastic disciple, the rich Aquitanian advocate, Sulpicius
Severus.

But Saint Martin's real life has lasted centuries longer than
his mortal and earthly existence comprised between the years

1 888.] THE SHRINE OF ST. MARTIN. 497

316-397 of our era. Not only was all mediaeval Europe fired by
the glory of his shrine at Tours, insomuch that the ungodly
Saracens were tempted by the fame of the riches thereof to
press northward to the plains of Touraine, but happily to be
for ever crushed in Gaul by the redoubtable Charles Martel ;
not only was Tours in mediaeval times called a second Jerusalem
on account of the pilgrimages of which remnants even yet re-
turn to honor the saint about the date of his calendar festival ;
but in the everyday worldly life of this busy modern age, living
and speaking testimonials abound of Saint Martin's vast and
widespread renown. There is much significance in the endur-
ance of names ; and when in commemoration of one and the
same man we find the French kings entitling themselves canons
Of Saint Martin ; when in the heart of the city of London we
run across the street Saint Martin's-le-Grand, where the huge
post-office building now replaces a Norman church once founded
by the Conqueror himself; or when in almost heathen Paris
we may still read among surviving ecclesiastical names, Rue, Fau-
bourg, Porte, Marcht, Canal St. Martin, we may reasonably con-
clude that the man whose name was thus variously perpetuated
must assuredly have been a force in his day and generation.

We may even dubiously wonder whether certain irreligious-
ly minded French statesmen, who bestir themselves to efface the
names of saints from public buildings and thoroughfares, will
exert even the baseless influence of mere "traditional" memor-
ies on the world of fifteen centuries hence.

We have already implied, however, that Saint Martin's living
influence, as well as his name, endures to-day. Tours, the city
of his adoption, the comely capital of la grasse Touraine, still
fondly and warmly cherishes the souvenirs of the greatest of all
her honored prelates. True, the arch-episcopal cathedral is
dedicated to another saint, Gatien or Gatianus, first apostle and
bishop of the Oppidum Turonum ; but Saint Martin's basilica,
destroyed and again restored eight times, in all, shall yet again
be rebuilt, when the offerings thereto devoted shall have reached
the required amount of means necessitated for so considerable
and so difficult a work; difficult, because France, alas! among
the nations of to-day, seems wofully apathetic towards the liv-
ing God, whose temples lie waste in her borders. Of the
ancient basilica two lonely towers remain, separated, besides,
by an intervening street. They are plain and sober of adorn-
ment, in striking divergence, in this respect, from the brilliant
florid Gothic and the rich Renaissance of the cathedral struc-
VOL. XLVIL 32

498 THE SHRINE OF ST. MARTIN. [July,

ture ; for the tour de Horloge and the tour Charlemagne date back
to the graver style of the French Romanesque.

The tour Charlemagne is open to visitors ; and by chance we
sojourned in Tours during the French " Indian summer," there
called the e"te de la Saint Martin, because Martinmas falls the
eleventh of November, when, just as in our North American
climate, a balmy season is popularly supposed to occur.

But in seeking entrance to the tower one must look sharply
about him, since its dingy rez-de-chausse"e much resembles any
other ground-floor in that ancient quarter of the city. The con-
cierge exacts an admission fee, the moderate sum of twenty cen-
times, and then we climb laboriously and almost perpendicularly
upward, en route pour le del. The stone stairway would squeeze
a corpulent figure; and it is exceeding musty withal and some-
times completely dark. An intermediate rest may be enjoyed in
a large old belfry chamber, where amid the dust of ages we
discern the worm-eaten framework of a ponderous contrivance
once used for swinging the bells. One instinctively listens for
the owl and the bittern as appropriate tenants of such haunts ;
but as for our own experience, we found only a crowd of noisy
urchins, wrestling and rolling in the dust. Another arduous
climb brought us high to the top, where it was a welcome relief
to stand free on the leaden roof and breathe a generous quaff of
daylight and pure air. The transition from choking darkness to
broad sunshine was delectably refreshing, and moreover the
city of Tours lay beaming placidly below. The streets were
unwontedly crowded, and indeed since All Saints' and All Souls'
many strangers had come to town, from Brittany, Berri, Poitou,
and other neighboring provinces, to do homage at Saint Mar-
tin's shrine, then stationed in the crypt of a temporary chapel
erected on part of the site of his former basilica.

To the north rose the line of bluffs which back the shifting
Loire; at the south were spread the Dutch-looking meadows of
the Cher. St. Gatien's towers, those beaux bijoux which excited
the impulsive admiration of Henry IV.; the donjon tour de
Guise; the solid mass of the abbey church of St. Julian ; and
immediately beneath a maze of antique gabled houses, both
roofed and mailed with narrow pointed slates all combined to
form a most original and beautiful panorama ; though the
picture would have been more inspiring and more graciously
noble had Saint Martin's restored basilica been actually a part
of the scene.

We speak unadvisedly, no doubt, for we are not within the

1 888.] TEMPERED WITH MERCY. 499

pale of the Church of Rome ; but in all faith and sincerity we
could wish to see so great a figure as Martin the soldier, monk,
and prelate honored at least in his adopted city by the pres-
ence of a monument equally worthy of his greatness and of the
glory not only of a lovely province, but of that whole great
nation which once upon a time was thankful and proud to call
Martin of Tours its patron saint. WILLIAM PRICE.

TEMPERED WITH MERCY.

WHEN I was travelling with my guardian and his daughter
I became much interested in one of our fellow-passengers on a
slow, noisy, railway train in Italy. He was an elderly gentle-
man of very attractive appearance and noble bearing. His
head and face were the finest I have ever seen, and reminded me
at once and strongly of pictures of the American poet, Longfel-
low. At length, to my delight, an opportune incident caused
him to become known to us. At a point in our journey some dif-
ficulty arose in regard to our baggage ; from my guardian's not
understanding the language of the gesticulating official, and
from his not having, at the best of times, a large amount of
patience, affairs were getting into a state of absurd confusion,
when the elderly gentleman came forward and straightened
them out most quickly and courteously. This led to an ex-
change of cards, to a presentation to Clara and myself, and,
finally, as his route lay in line with ours, to my interesting elder-
ly gentleman's joining our party.

Our acquaintance developed very pleasantly. Without
seeming to be intentionally reticent, he yet told us very little
regarding his personal history very little, considering the ex-
haustive accounts of himself and his family furnished by my
guardian, and to which our new friend listened with unfeigned
interest. Indeed, the two appeared to take a great liking to
each other, easily accounted for by the similarity of their tastes
and the dissimilarity of their dispositions ; socially, politically,
intellectually, they agreed in a marvellous manner, while the
bluff heartiness of the one and the quiet dignity of the other
showed how unlike they were in nature.

Following the knowledge of his name came the two facts that
Lennox Sayward Whiting was an American, and that he had
held the rank of colonel in the great civil war. Although it was

5oo TEMPERED WITH MERCY.

evident that he cared little for his military title, my guardian
persisted in addressing him as "Colonel" with great punctili-
ousness, and Clara and 1 fell into the habit of adding it as a
natural indication, I suppose, of our respect. We also learned
that Colonel Whiting was a widower, with one son, and that he
had spent the last twenty years with occasional short visits to
America abroad, travelling here and there as the mood seized
.him, sometimes staying a year or two in one place if it chanced
ito suit his fancy, but never settling in a home, always a wanderer.

His son, Philip, had been educated in America, having lately
been graduated from Harvard University. He was now seeing
Europe for the first time, and his father expected to meet him at
Milan, toward which point we were all tending.

I think no one could have been long in Colonel Whiting's
presence, even the least sensitive, without receiving from him a
singular impression. To me it was one of deep, restrained, re-
conciled melancholy, if I may so express it. After a day or two
Clara pronounced him "mysterious"; even my guardian con-
fessed that he could not " fully understand " him. At the same
time it was impossible to connect any idea of evil with the man
with his gentle, high-bred face, his deep, serious, gray eyes,
his sincere, courteous manner.

He was so lovely to Clara and myself, so fatherly, chivalrous,
almost deferential, that I fancied his relations with his son must
be unusually charming ideal in confidence, perfect in expres-
sion and I looked forward with pleasure to seeing them to-
gether. I also looked forward, with perfect confidence, to seeing
the younger Mr. Whiting yield himself captive to the charms of
my guardian's daughter. I had great admiration for Clara; her
independence, vivacity, good humor, her exquisite taste in dress,
and her rich beauty, all delighted me.

For myself, I was very quiet, given to observation and intro-
spection, natural tendencies which my mode of life had fostered.
I was American, too, on my father's side, but my mother was
French ; and in her native country, very dear to me, I had lived
nearly all my life. I was an orphan, and had been brought up,
with the greatest tenderness, by the dear sisters of a convent,
until, according to my father's will, I had been transferred, at
the age of eighteen, to the care of my guardian. I was now, for
the first time, "out in the world."

" If he would only give us some idea of what we may expect
his son to be ! " grumbled Clara, as we brushed our hair, one
night, at a little Italian inn, to whose shelter a slight disaster on

1 888.] TEMPERED WITH MERCY. 501

the railway had driven us. " I never saw such a singular father ;
I have been unable to get from him a single detail regarding his
son, although I have tried my best of course in the most cau-
tious and delicate manner."

" I should like to see a reproduction of your 'cautious man-
ner'" said I, laughing; "I fear it would rest upon you with a
foreign air. But remain tranquil, my dear; you will know in a
day or two whether Mr. Philip Whiting is a hunchback or an
Apollo, a fop or a savant. We are all going to the same hotel
where the meeting is to take place."

When I spoke I had no premonition that I was the one of
our party selected by late to receive the first impression of this
much-wondered-about young man.

Two days later we reached Milan. As I was passing that
afternoon, on my way to our own apartments, the open door of
his sitting-room, Colonel Whiting advanced and requested me
to enter, saying that he would like to show me a fine engraving
which he had just unpacked.

"My son has not arrived," he remarked ; and his tone had
such an odd sound of cheerfulness and relief that I thought it
must be a trick of fancy.

I stepped within, and at the same time I heard footsteps
coming along the corridor. In another moment a servant ap-
peared in the doorway, who announced, apparently in one ex-
plosive syllable, a young man, tall, dark, and handsome. One
glance was sufficient to prove that this was the expected son ; in
form and carriage, as well as in feature, he was strikingly like
the colonel, with the exception of his darker skin, and his large,
rather almond-shaped brown eyes.

Was it the shock of the surprise that turned Colonel Whit-
ing's face so pale? for I saw him white, hesitating, tremulous, as
he stepped forward to greet his son. And the latter ? He also
was deeply and strangely moved : over his face passed a curious
expression, an expression of mingled aversion and fear, so
strong that it seemed as if, had he followed his impulse, he
would have turned and fled.

It was over in an instant. It was a mere glimpse behind
well-borne masks. The colonel immediately regained his habit-
ual self-possession, and presented Philip Whiting to me, with a few
pleasant words explaining our acquaintance. When I moved to
withdraw, as I did at once, he begged that we would all meet
and dine with him that evening in his own apartments.

Clara was full of curiosity when I told her whom I had seen,

502 TEMPERED WITH MERCY. [July,

but in the prolonged cross-questioning which followed I reserved
my strange impressions to be dwelt upon, wonderingly, in the
solitude of my own thoughts.

We dined that night with Colonel Whiting and his son, and
during the following days we saw a great deal of them. My
guardian desired to stay a week in Milan, for my benefit, before
going on to Florence and Rome. This coincided with Philip
Whiting's plan, so that his arrival, instead of threatening to
break up our little party, bade fair to keep us longer together.
We all liked him: he was frank, companionable, intelligent ; he
talked in a very amusing way about his college experiences ;
showed excellent taste in literature, and was altogether very
pleasant and interesting. His manners were elegant, having the
perfect finish which comes alone from goodness of heart.

The painful suggestions of a mystery between father and son,
which their first meeting had chanced to disclose to me, were
strengthened as I continued to see them together; that is, they
assumed, by being always present to me, the force of facts,
though neither again lost a guarded self-control. The spectre of
some strange, unnatural feeling, of some sad, dark secret, per-
haps, was never absent : on the father's part were embarrass-
ment, constraint, heavy oppression, deep sorrow ; on the son's,
coldness, repugnance, dislike, which it was evident he regretted,
and with which I saw him daily struggle. I was anxious to see
if this state of affairs, that had become so plain to me, was ap-
parent also to my guardian and his daughter. The former,
the most unsuspicious of mortals, I believe saw nothing; the
latter, after a few days, said to me abruptly :

" Have you noticed anything a little a little peculiar be-
tween Colonel Whiting and his son? "

"What do you mean?" I asked, thinking rapidly what it
would be best for me to say.

" I hardly know how to express it ; they are not so familiar
and affectionate as I expected them to be."

" Perhaps the son is not all we have painted him," I said,
"and the father knows it."

" Perhaps the father is not all we have painted him, and the
son knows it," retorted Clara. Then she added, coloring :

" But that is all nonsense, Adrienne. We must not talk so. I
believe they are both honorable men, and far above suspicion."

" Oh ! I hope so ; I hope so ! " I cried, with a fervor that made
Clara laugh. And yet I could not divest myself of a gruesome
feeling.

1 888.] TEMPERED WITH MERCY. 503

We went to Florence ; then to Rome ; and we young people
were thrown much together. Philip avoided his father, and I
perceived that the stronger feeling, by far, was on his side.
Clara said nothing more. It was with a singular mixture of
pleasure and consternation that I saw the acquaintance between
them growing rapidly into an intimacy to which there could be
but one natural ending. What ought I to do ? Should I speak
plainly to Clara ? or should I go with my foolish suspicions and
fears (as he would regard" them) to my guardian ? While I was
debating which course to follow the announcement of the en-
gagement completed my dismay. Instead of adding my con-
gratulations, properly, to those of my guardian and Colonel
Whiting (who appeared much gratified), I disgraced myself be-
fore them all by bursting into tears and hurrying away. They
were naturally amazed. Clara followed, beseeching an explana-
tion ; but I could not give it. Indeed, what business was it of
mine? What right had I to be watching and prying, and sus-
pecting people of mysteries? I was disgusted with my own
miserable self. Espionne !

If a father and son chose to be indifferent to each other,
averse to each other's companionship, what was there in that?
Sotte ! And yet that strange, white look of fear on Philip's face !
his father's gloomy manner, his stern self-control !

By the morrow I think that my emotion was forgotten by all
in the high-tide of present happiness. No, I am wrong ; not by
all: Colonel Whiting remembered, and from that day held me
under his watchful guard. He marked my look, manner, and
words; nothing escaped him. In my presence he spoke more
frequently to Philip, and seemed to be noting the effect upon me.
All this was done not with angry suspicion, but deliberately,
seriously, very earnestly. I wondered what it could mean.
Could he suspect me of being myself in love with Philip? No;
there were no grounds for such a conjecture. There must, then,
be a deeper meaning; perhaps he had divined something of what
had so long been wearying my mind. The surveillance became
intolerable. An excursion was planned to a half-ruined castle
where a famous artist lived ; at the last moment I resolved not
to go. A headache not feigned was a sufficient excuse.

My friends had not been gone more than half an hour when
a servant-maid brought me a note. It was from Colonel Whit-
ing, urgently begging an interview. Trembling with excite-
ment and dread, I considered. Clara's welfare was very dear to
me, and for her sake I longed to have my doubts either con-

504 TEMPERED WITH MERCY. [July,

firmed or for ever laid at rest. Here was an opportunity which
perhaps Providence had placed in my way; here was a step for
my shrinking feet to take.

I arose from the bed, bathed my eyes, arranged my dress,
and, with flaming cheeks and hands ice-cold, went down to the
parlor where Colonel Whiting awaited me. His manner, so
gravely dignified, so gracefully courteous, calmed me at once.
He took my hand and led me to a seat, and apologized for his
intrusion, when he knew that I was indisposed, by the statement
that he was about to leave Rome, and felt that he could not do
so without saying to me what he had long designed to say.

"You are sincerely attached to your guardian's daughter?
You have her happiness close at heart?" he asked.

" Yes," I said.

" I have seen it, and I have seen, also, since she became en-
gaged to my son, much doubt and anxiety in your mind. Par-
don me for asking you directly (and entreating a sincere reply)
if you fear that her future will be clouded by this union. Do
you contemplate it, for any reason, with foreboding?"

The tears gathered in my eyes, and it was with a little strug-
gle that the answer came:

'' Yes, yes."

" I am sorry to see you weep, my dear young lady, for you
need not fear for the happiness of your friend, as far as it lies in
the hands of my son. She may rest upon his love and fidelity,
and trust him with entire confidence. He is a noble man, a son
of whom any father might be proud generous, loyal, sincere,
devoted to the highest purposes. You look surprised. You
thought I did not value him, was not fond of him, or had some
dark reason to distrust and dislike him. God knows how I love
him, how gladly at this moment I would take my boy in my
arms and cherish him with a tenderness that his mother in
heaven could not transcend. Do you believe me?"

I did, and I said so.

"Then are all your doubts now removed? Is your mind
entirely clear? "

I hesitated, desiring to again say yes, yet confronted still by
mystery ; if the father loved his son so dearly, why were they
estranged ? I hesitated.

" Ah, no ! I see, and I do not wonder. If you have strength
to listen to me, the hour has come when, for the first time, I
must tell to another human being the tfagedy of my life. I do
this because I am going away for a long time, and, in the mean-

1 888.] TEMPERED WITH MERCY. 505

while, it may become necessary, for her perfect peace of mind,
that your friend and my son's wife should know it. When to
give her the full explanation if you give it at all I leave to
your judgment; only let it be given under a promise of faithful
secrecy.

" If the feat of putting all the alcohol in the world in a cave
and rolling a planet to the door, which one of Boston's earnest,
eccentric men desired to do, could have been performed years
ago, I should not have this painful, humiliating story to tell you.

" My father was one of the merchant princes of New York.
He was what is called 'a self-made man,' rising to his enormous
wealth from the humblest beginnings, although of good lineage,
as our name indicates. I was his only child, whom he was anx-
ious to spare all knowledge of struggle and hardship, whom he
was anxious to see enjoying every advantage and luxury which he
himself had been denied, whom he wished to behold among the
first and best of the land. He supplied me with unlimited means,
and educated me in the most expensive manner. All went well
until I was sent to college ; there I acquired, among a circle of
idle and wealthy young men, the habit which wrought my ruin:
I became a slave to the greatest power for evil the world has
ever known, the relentless demon of strong drink. My father,
in spite of his desire to keep abreast with the times, was an old-
fashioned 'teetotaler.' If he had dreamed where a large part
of the money went which he gave me so generously, he would
have cut it off without a moment's hesitation.

*' My nervous organization is delicate and sensitive. Wine
had upon me the worst effect possible : it made me morose,
irritable, and awakened the latent forces of a passionate temper;
a very little wine put me into a condition to be easily enraged.
My passion knew no bounds. It became understood among my
fellow -students that, beyond a certain point, it was better to
keep out of my way. However, I succeeded in getting through
college without open disgrace. As my tastes were really intel-
lectual, I was graduated with some honor.

" My father was desirous that I should marry early, and I did
so at the age of twenty-two. My wife belonged to one of the
most aristocratic of New York families. There were advantages
in the union on each side, but they had no influence over us. It
was a love-match in the truest sense, and we would have mar-
ried if the conditions had been exactly the reverse. She was a
beautiful woman. There was a subtle quality of attraction in
her sweet nature which impressed one even more powerfully

506 TEMPERED WITH MERCY. [July,

than her unusual beauty. She was petite and delicately formed,
like yourself, and your voice and smile remind me of her.

" After our marriage we were very happy, although I did not
succeed in keeping the evil habit I had formed from my wife's
knowledge. She saw that a little wine excited me, that it was
dangerous for me to take much. Occasionally she saw me when
my temper was enraged, when I was blind with passion and
scarcely knew what I did ; but she was young and loving and
forgiving, and, thank God ! I was never violent to her.

" In the course of time four years, I think I took into my
employment a new butler, an elderly man, well-meaning and
competent, but conceited and officious. One day my appetite,
which had been gradually gaining a more dominant hold upon
me, became uncontrollable. After my wife had left me, unsus-
pectingly, at dinner, I drank glass after glass of the wine which
was maddening me. Decanters and bottles were emptied, and
I sent my butler for more. The foolish man's evil genius im-
pelled him : he dared to remonstrate. The first word was like
challenging a wild beast to spring upon its prey. I struck him,
felled him to the floor, and while he lay at my feet, begging for
mercy, I bent over him and struck him again and again until
his gray head and writhing form were covered with blood. I
don't wonder that you shrink and tremble. Bear with me a few
moments longer. My wife, alarmed by the noise, came, running
down the stairs, upon this terrible scene. The sight of her
brought me partly to my senses. I made a movement toward
her, casting from me the heavy decanter I had used as a weapon.
I had no evil intent, as God is my witness, but it seemed different
to her. Throwing out her arms to keep me off, she fell, with a
frightful shriek, to the floor in a deathlike swoon. For hours she
lay unconscious, awaking only to encounter the suffering and
danger of a premature childbirth.

"She lived, and, wonderful blessedness! she took me back to
her faithful heart, and loved and cherished me as before. The
life of the man I had almost murdered was spared, also, though
he was disabled for any active occupation. He is still living in
the comfortable independence which it was my privilege, my
small reparation, to assure him. I can feel that I did not wholly
ruin his life and that I have his full forgiveness.

"A few months passed in such love and confidence and union
as I had never before dreamed of, while my blessed wife, with
infinite tenderness, encouraged and upheld me and strengthened
me in my daily struggle upward toward better things. Then

1 888.] TEMPERED WITH MERCY. 507

she was suddenly, almost without warning, snatched from me.
I cannot dwell upon that dark time. But, child, remember:
'no one is lost to thee who dies loving thee.'

" I must hasten on. God saw that I needed a lesson of deeper
meaning than I had yet received. With her dying breath my
wife whispered: 'Our child will comfort you.' She might
have said: 'Our child will be your retribution.' As soon as
impressions of the outer world began to penetrate the night of
my sorrow, and memory began to quicken, I recalled my wife's
words, and sought my little son for comfort. Heretofore, not
attracted by very young children and being absorbed in the
companionship of my wife, I had paid him but little attention.
I knew simply that he was a large, healthy, handsome boy, and
I was glad to be his father. Now I went to him and opened my
arms, with unutterable yearning, to take him to my aching
heart, but he screamed and hid his face on his nurse's shoulder.
All attempts to pacify him were useless until I had left the
room. I was annoyed and disappointed. They told me
it was natural, that I was like a stranger to the little fellow,
that I must be patient. I was patient, yet day after day
witnessed the same result. My child seemed possessed with
an agony of fear if I approached him. If I persisted, and
touched his pink fist, or stroked his chubby cheek, or took him
in my arms, his shrieks and struggles were so violent that I was
obliged to desist in prudence. At last, wearied and mortified,
I gave up, and for some months scarcely noticed him. But
time and growth made no difference : if he saw me coming, he
would turn and run away as fast as his toddling footsteps could
carry him. I began again, and tried to entice him with all the
little pleasures and toys dear to childhood, but without avail.
The older he grew, the more pronounced, because the more
reasoning and controlled, became his aversion. It was useless
to fight longer against the dreaded truth of the conviction that
my only child, my bright and beautiful boy, was the victim of a
pre-natal impression of terror so strong that I could never hope
to see it overcome, could never hope to win his confidence and
love. You now know the tragedy of my life. When Philip
was seven years old I could bear it no longer. I placed him in
the care of a relative who had no children, a wise, good woman
whom I had always loved. I went abroad. Seven years later I
returned, on news of her death, to put Philip in school. There
was no change. His dread was still as strong, though it was
apparent that he struggled against it, conscious that it was in-

5oS TEMPERED WITH MERCY. [July,

consistent, unnatural, wrong-, from every standpoint of duty. I
perceived that our intercourse, if prolonged, would have an in-
jurious effect upon him ; he was growing pale and thin and los-
ing self-command. (This has invariably been the result of our
being together, and it is this which forces me to go away now.)
The embarrassment, constraint, vain regret, dread of curious
comment were painful enough on my own part, and I cut it
short ; went again my lonely way.

" At intervals I returned to America to see after Philip's wel-
fare, to change his school, perhaps, to direct his course in what-
ever way was needful. The best reports were given me of his
conduct, character, and ability. My observation convinced me
that it was all true. How proud his mother would have been
of such a son. And yet it was my consolation that she could
not, secure, I trust, from earthly knowledge, share our wretch-
edness. This is all. Philip is now twenty-eight. I have lived
more than half a century ; I am getting to be an old man ; yet
an inexorable fate, whose justice I acknowledge, separates me
from my only child."

" But Philip himself?" I cried eagerly. "May he not
change? He must change! Have you talked with him? ex-
plained? Does he understand? ''

" He knows nothing. You must remember that his nature
bears a birth-mark that no power of will can overcome, a preju-
dice which is stamped upon his being by the retributive hand
of God. His knowing would only complicate the matter. My
way, believe me, is the safest : to keep out of his sight and to
keep my secret."

After a few more words Colonel Whiting left me, and I
never saw him again.

Philip spoke of his father's sudden departure with surprise
and regret, but at heart he was relieved; the perplexed, care-
worn look that had been slowly creeping over his face vanished ;
his spirits became buoyant. He returned with us to America,
and in a few months the marriage took place.

After a time my guardian having purchased property in
England conjointly with Philip they settled in Dorsetshire,
while I continued to live with my guardian in America. True
to my promise to Colonel Whiting, I told Clara, when I thought
it had become necessary, his sad story. She, as well as I, had
been much attached to him, and she heard me with sincere sor-
row, grateful, at the same time, for the explanation which threw
light upon many things that had puzzled her.

1 888.] TEMPERED WITH MERCY. 509

A few months ago I received a letter from Clara, announcing
the death of Colonel Whiting. Information had been sent to
his son that he was lying very ill at a small village in Provence.
Philip hastened to him, and, after an absence of several weeks,
had just returned with his lifeless body.

" And now, dear Adrienne," wrote Clara, " I have something
very wonderful to tell you. The moment my eyes rested upon
Philip's face I saw that some great change had come to him.
As soon as he could see me alone he said :

"'O Clara! I could hardly wait to tell you. I know you
have noticed that between my father and myself an inexplicable
barrier existed. I admired my father ; I desired to be like him ;
I longed to love him, but and why I cannot tell you I could
never be happy in his presence. Without reason I feared him ;
an unaccountable feeling of repulsion seized me when he came
near. I suffered terribly from dread of him as a child, and when I
grew older and could reason with and strive against a feeling so
unnatural and horrible, I found that it was impossible to conquer
it. A month ago it was as strong with me as ever. I never dread-
ed to meet my father more than when I was called to his sick-bed.

"' At the inn where he was lying I was shown to his room
by the good cur6 of the village, who had been untiring in his
kindness. The instant my eyes met my father's as he lay in his
bed by the open lattice met those eyes filled with eager, solemn
questioning the burden of my life rolled from my soul. I ran
to the side of the bed, and, kneeling down, took him in my arms
and kissed him. I caressed his beautiful forehead, and smoothed
his long, soft, gray locks of hair. I cried :

" ' " Father, now I love you ! At last, at last I love you. Do
you love me, father?"

"'The look, almost of adoration, in his eyes answered me.
His lips moved, and he murmured :

" ' " O my beloved ! now I can meet thee in peace. The
mercy of God is limitless."

" ' I knew he meant my mother, and I thought he was dying,
but he lived some days longer wonderful, beautiful days ! a
precious heritage for me for ever.

" ' And now, with all my sorrow, I am happy ; I remember
that "Life is lord of Death," and I can love my father still. But
what a strange awakening! What can it mean? I am over-
whelmed by its solemn mystery ? '

" And then, dear Adrienne, I told him all."

FLORENCE E. WELD.

510 THE WAGE-EARNER AND His RECREATION. [July,

THE WAGE-EARNER AND HIS RECREATION.

WE must provide for the poor, whether their inability to
maintain themselves decently arise from moral, mental, or physi-
cal defect, whether they be not clever enough, or vicious, or
lazy, or crippled, or in ill health. If we do not they will spoil us
by the very corruption resulting from their disproportionate
numbers; and order will be overturned or the public health
affected unless we take care to prevent the increase of immoral
and vicious members by proper education and due restraint,
unless we see to it that those left behind in the race for bread
be not entirely deprived of it, unless we support and encourage
every necessary measure and useful institution that has for its
object the help of needy humanity.

At the present day we seem to understand all this pretty
well. Hence our police, prisons, and reformatories ; hence our
almshouses, hospitals, foundling asylums and numberless similar
foundations ; hence our church societies and mission Sunday-
schools, and the acknowledgment paid by the state to religion
in its refusing to tax churches, and its contribution toward
institutions gotten up by ecclesiastical bodies for the care of
those poor waifs of society who are worn away to too delicate
a texture to be managed by the business-like hands of civil
officials.

Yet despite all our endeavors, and these increase with the
public need ; despite the immense religiousness of our people, and
the incredible number of our churches; although there are
schools at convenient distance from every child in the land ;
although our national treasury is bursting with wealth, still the
poverty of the weaker portion of humanity is not kept down ;
our brothers and sisters still suffer from injustice and lack of
brotherly love.

Now, " we are all members of one body," not only in the mys-
tic sense intended by Saint Paul, but in a literal, real sense.
Suppose our physique as a people runs down, doesn't anybody
see that we cannot keep our place among the nations, that we
will be likely to suffer defeat in war and lose our liberties,
after losing our health and our riches ? Have we a right to
preserve the national health and vigor ? Who will deny this ?
Then we have a right to so legislate that our citizens shall be
enabled to decently feed and clothe themselves ; that our women

1 888.] THE WAGE-EARNER AND His RECREATION. 511

shall not be ill-used or our boys and girls overworked or ill-paid.
Capitalists owe the order and peace which enables them to
carry on business to the protection thrown around them by
society; hence society has a right not only to tax them, but to
command that they conduct their affairs in such manner as to do
her no injury, but rather to benefit her. She can refuse them
license, therefore, to trade or manufacture, unless they pay their
employees such wages as she thinks necessary for their decent
support; forbid their running over-hours, insist on proper ven-
tilation, cleanliness, and even morality, about their premises ; in
short, she can have the business run to suit her own best inter-
ests, which must hold precedence over those of any individual.
Society has the duty of self-preservation, and the right to rea-
sonable progress.

It follows from all this that the first charge on all property,
real or personal, is to provide for the decent support of the pro-
ducers. This is whence the money must come, and not only
landed estates but business properly so called, railways, ships,
any department that uses labor, must bear the support of the
laborer. Hence, as a writer in the Dublin Revieiv (Oct., 1886)
puts it : " Rent nor interest, profit, dividend, nor any kind of
income is fair, unless it leaves enough to the dependants from
whom it is drawn to lead a decent life according to their station " ;
a decent life, according to the grade of civilization and standard
of comfort in the community to which they belong, and accord-
ing to their station in that community. "Therefore," as the same
writer says, " the state can assess just rents and declare fair
wages; or can make the capitalist legally responsible for the
care of his employees, and tax him for their support when broken
down, etc. And in order that the capitalist should take this in-
terest in his dependants (on whose labor he also depends), he
should live amongst them, or at least visit them often."

Now, although this seems logical and just, and was the ideal,
frequently or even commonly realized, too, in times past, yet it
implies certain conditions on the part of the laborer. In Italy,
for instance, there was a custom, we know not if it were a
law, that any employee or servant, after thirty years' faithful
duty in any capacity, whether as a professor of sciences or a
cook, should be pensioned for the rest of his life on full or half
wages. But, then, see the necessary accompaniments of such an
understanding. The wages were much lower, for one, as the
necessity on the part of the employee of providing for old age
was to a certain extent cut off. In our country everything is so

512 THE WAGE-EARNER AND His RECREATION. [July,

recent, and the spirit of change so rampant, that employees and
employers can hardly be expected to be thus related to each
other.

But is there no other way of arranging matters so that the
laborer shall not be helpless in sickness or old age? Yes. There
is the one of giving him such wages as may enable him to lay by
in banks, or lands, or life insurance, or benefit societies as much
as will tide him over hard times and keep him when he is
finally disabled. Is this way as good as the other? We will
not discuss this question. The other way is not practicable in
this country, nor, indeed, perhaps anywhere in this age.

But a man has a right to a decent support according to his sta-
tion. It is absurd to say that he has a right to the same degree
or kind of support that any other man may possess. There is
no such thing as social equality except (" I speak as one foolish ")
in a few limited, straight laced, tight bound, systematically regu-
lated companies of celibates; and these sacrifice home, liberty,
and wealth for that social equality and feeling of being free from
care and want. The son of the rich man has a right to support
such as is found in his father's mansion ; the hod-carrier's son
has a right to his father's table. Neither can claim the other's
place, because each is a second edition, a reproduction, continua-
tion, and representative of his own progenitor.
1 c The decent support means a becoming support, suqh as is en-
joyed by other citizens of the republic in their various occupa-
tions. For instance, what is decent (becoming) for a hod-carrier
may not be so for a mechanic ; what suits a tradesman won't do
for a professional man, and so on. This support he must get
from his labor. Therefore he has a right to such profit from his
labor, in the shape of wages, as will provide it. The state, then*
has a right to see that he receives such wages, and may legislate
to this effect. But is it expedient that the state should do so?
This is a question that is generally answered in the negative.
Why? A sufficient reason is, perhaps, because we haven't
enough respect for the state to entrust it with the determining
what wages should be considered just. "The state," after all,
at least as a governing body, is composed almost exclusively of
self-interested politicians. Money rules where love or hate does
not. The rich can control legislation. The poor man must ap-
peal to honor, to Christian sentiment, to charity that is, to
brotherly love ; and failing in these, he must fight if he would
gain his rights; that is, he must attack the interests of his em-
ployer and alas, the necessity \-strike when and where the latter

1 888.] THE WAGE-EARNER AND His RECREATION. 513

is exposed to his blows. We deplore this manner of regulating
labor troubles, just as we deplore war between nations; but we
cannot call it morally wrong, however much we may be con-
vinced of its uselessness, and of its disastrous reaction on those
who resort to it. Can you condemn strikes because, according to
the conspiracy laws, they are combinations? You might but
for the fact that you allow combinations of capitalists. Listen
to Cardinal Gibbons's statement in .his Report on the Knights of
Labor :

"Without entering into the painful details of these wrongs, it will suf-
fice to mention the fact that monopolies, not only by individuals, but by
corporations also, have already excited complaints from the workingmen,
and opposition from public men and national legislatures as well ; that the
efforts of those monopolies, not always unsuccessful, to control legislation
for their own profit, cause a great deal of anxiety to the disinterested
friends of liberty; that their heartless avarice, which, to increase their
revenues, ruthlessly crushes not only the workingmen, representing the va-
rious trades, but even the homes and the young children in their employ
makes it plain to all who love humanity and justice that not only the
workingman has a right to organize for his own protection, but that it is
the duty of the public at large to aid in finding a remedy against the dan-
gers with which civilization and social order are menaced by avarice, op-
pression, and corruption."

The policy of our government has been to " let them fight it
out," and we are afraid of paternalism. We are not the chil-
dren of the state, but the state is our functionary ; and if there
is perfect freedom of association we think that things will settle
themselves. Will they ? Is it possible for brawn to overcome
brain? Can muscle conquer money? Many are beginning to
doubt it, and to come to the conclusion that we must, more than
we have hitherto done, make over to the state a closer over-
sight of the relations between the classes.

The object of this paper being to insist that all men have a
right to a decent living, we will say a word of the use of the
state's public domain. It is our conviction, that although pri-
vate property in land be expedient, lawful, and therefore just,
yet those features and elements which of their nature are in-
tended for common use should be kept common. Take for ex-
ample the banks of streams, large ones at least, and of rivers.
These are intended by God for highways, for refreshment, for
cleanliness. All men need them, but especially the "have-
nots." The " haves" can bring rivers, if necessary, to play as
fountains in their private parks. Now is it not absurd and in-
jurious, as well as tyrannical, that one cannot bathe in the Hud-

VOL. XLVII. 33

5 14 THE WAGE-EARNER AND His RECREATION. [July,

son River nor on the sea-shore without leave of the riparians?
Is it not unjust that a man should have to travel three, four, or
six miles along the Albany coach-road before he can get a pub-
lic way leading to the river, the music of whose waters he can
almost hear as he goes? Is it just to shut that foot-sore, hot,
and tired man from God's appointed refreshment? We think it
is not just, and that the state should take back the privileges she
granted or allowed to be taken, and restore the bank of the
Hudson and the shore of the sea to the public. Of course com-
pensation must be made, because society ratified these acquisi-
tions of property which were made in good faith under the law.
The people of New Rochelle, N. Y., furnished a striking ex-
ample in this connection about a year ago. Some wealthy par-
ties, well-deserving of their neighbors too, wished to buy a
beautiful grove and headland facing Echo Bay and the Sound,
intending to extend their already long and magnificent but pri-
vate sea-front, thus practically shutting out the villagers from a
view, or at least a visit, to the sea. They offered a splendid
equivalent as a free gift to the public for their lost pleasure-
ground, but an election was held and after a hot contest the
people decided to add to their corporate debt enough to buy
the contested park, and rejected the one that was offered them
for nothing ; for this reason also, because it had not such com-
mand of the sea that sea which everyone desires to behold,
which Xenophon and his Greeks, returning from their weary
campaign, saluted with that cry that resounds through the ages,
" Thalassee ! thalassee ! "

The same proportionately is to be said of our city river-
fronts. These are open promenades in almost all the cities of
Europe, and are of course the most valued and interesting place
of public recreation. The present monarch of England takes
more credit from the opening of Thames Embankment to the
people than from almost any other improvement of her long
reign ; and she does well, for it is such works that attach loyalty
and perpetuate dynasties. Yet there are miles of certain river-
front we know of inaccessible to the citizens except at the fer-
ries. How long will we stand such injustice ? We notice simi-
lar grasping practices connived at, nay, positively allowed by
special legislation, in various parts of the country, where rail-
road corporations are permitted not only to seize the fair banks
of the rivers, but to exclude the public under penalty of misde-
meanor, and even to build up their erections on the strand
down to low-water mark, which should be left for the people's

1 888.] THE WAGE-EARNER AND His RECREATION. 515

evening- stroll or morning walk. It is astonishing at first
thought how we permit what the Europeans generally would
not stand for a day. It is doubtless because we have or have
had so much room and so many political liberties that we have
neglected our social rights. But with pressure of population
we are beginning to find out our mistake. The Riverside and
Morningside parks in New York are indications of this, and the
passage of a bill appropriating one million dollars a year for
parks in the crowded tenement districts of the city, a measure
which is doubtless owing to the labor agitations, is a sign of
awakening wisdom. We call attention to the manner in which
the French settlers of this continent originally laid out their
holdings ; on the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence it was the
same, no matter how far back a man's farm ran, a piece of the wa-
ter-front was always given to him, and it was the attempt of the
English to change this custom in Manitoba that chiefly caused
the rebellion already twice broken out in that remote country.
For our part our sympathies lie with the habitants.

The people want the river-bank. Its form is the artist's line
of beauty endlessly repeated ; its atmosphere gives new life to
the dust-choked, oil-sodden lungs of the mason's helper, the stage-
driver or the factory-hand ; its limpid waters are replete with
refreshment, cleanliness, and enjoyment. But you will say :
" Why can't they go to Coney Island or Rockaway Beach ? "
This is more innocent than if you asked : " Why don't they go to
Central Park instead of sitting or playing on the sidewalks ?''
Don't you know that multitudes of them can't afford the car-
fare ? That if they had the means to take their families to such
resorts, they can't spare the time used in going and coming ?
And here we are talking of the hundreds of thousands, just as in
London it is the " million" that is thus straitened.

Did you ever wander along the docks of New York of a
summer evening and see the men and boys taking their vesper
bath "after sun-down"? (the legal limit). If you didn't you
needn't talk. If you did then you have come very near to the
ways of the common people, and gotten some idea of their luxu-
ries, and if your heart is natural and beats healthily in your
bosom, I am sure you will have enjoyed the experience as much
or even more than ever you did the artificial pleasure-taking of
Newport or Nahant. Let the people to the water, then, that
their thirsty souls may imbibe refreshment. But the needs of
trade ! All right. Provide for the needs of trade, but don't give
it all it craves or will try to seize. It is a Moloch or a Jugger-

516 THE WAGE-EARNER AND His RECREATION. [July,

naut that pitilessly tramples and devours the people, the sons of
God, the brethren of Christ. Men are worth more than trade !

" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay."

Still I hear some one sneeringly cry "theory," "impractica-
ble"; "let things remain as they are"; "we don't want any
reformers," etc. Dear friends, St. Vincent de Paul was a re-
former, so was Howard, so was Father Mathew but why
should I go on with a litany of the greatest men the earth has
ever seen, leading the list, if I wanted it complete, by the Name
that is above all names ? Reformers will ever rise up so long
as there remains something to reform, and God speed them !
Why ? Pride and lust and avarice would make short work of
the Lord's poor in this world were it not for those whom you
would stigmatize as reformers. Admit the proposition once,
and you must if you are a philosopher, that all of us Christians
are sons of God and brethren of Christ, and then, if you dare,
ridicule any effort, even the most foolhardy and desperate, to
help to cheer and brighten the " short and simple annals of the
poor."

While we insist on these things as matters of justice, we do
not forget that a democratic spirit, or humanitv, taste, and con-
sideration for the feelings of others, often induce the rich both
in Europe and here at home to admit the general public into a
participation in the blessings flowing from the woods and
fields and waters. And we dare to say that if the rich show
themselves generous and brotherly in this regard, they need
have little dread of Communism and Socialism. Workingmen
generally, in our opinion, have little jealousy of the wealthy
members of society when they themselves have health, decent
house-room, employment at fair wages, and recreation.

Now, two pictures arise at once in our memory, offering
strong contrasts in this connection. We recall the high and
massive walls that in some towns in Europe lined the narrow
street or road with its fifteen to thirty inches of sidewalk, and
kept all the hot, white dust whirling and driving into the
faces of the passers, who not only had to suffer this, but were
selfishly shut out from even a glance at the delightful gardens
that smiled on the other side of these insurmountable barriers.
How often did we feel the bitter uncharitableness of those who
owned these favored spots, and had such lack of consideration for
their brethren ! How delightful in comparison are those fences

1 888.] THE WAGE-EARNER AND His RECREATION. 517

one meets with in countries unoppressed by the relics of that
state of barbarism and terrorism, when the policeman of civiliza-
tion was not abroad, but every man's house was literally his
castle ! Walk along the lanes of Irvington or the lovely streets
of Poughkeepsie, Rochester, St. Paul, or almost any of our
cities, and think with satisfaction of the higher state of peace
and fraternity we in this country enjoy ; for though we are be-
hind Europe in some things we are. ahead in others.

We recall, on the other hand, the lovely gardens of the Villa
Pamfili, and the walks and fields and woods of the Villa Bor-
ghese outside the walls of Rome. What Roman student that
ever roamed at will, or played ball, or lay at his blessed ease on
.the sward, with no intimation in any direction that he was to
" keep off the grass," but thinks with kindness of those truly
noble Romans? Ye majestic pines, and shady elm-groves; ye
flowery meads and wood} 7 nooks ; ye celestial flower-beds and
cool, delightful fountains, grateful indeed are our hearts as we
think of you ! We bless their memory now, as we thanked with-
out envy then, the truly Christian men that shared these bless-
ings with us. If all rich men were such as they showed them-
selves in this there would be slight audience for the apostles of
anarchy.

A case to some extent parallel to this splendid hospitality of
Roman princes is furnished by the cliff-dwellers (not of Arizona,
reader, but) of Newport. A beautiful path runs all along the edge
of the precipitous rocks that line that romantic coast, and skirts
the green, trim sward that lies between the cottages and the sea.
A turn-stile at every fence-line marks the bounds of each one's
grounds without interfering with the liberty of the stranger who
may desire to stroll along this charming, God-given headland,
and enjoy the sight of the waves, or inhale the life-giving breezes
of old ocean, or listen to the " Voice of the great Creator, that
dwells in that mighty tone."

We are not able to say if this freedom of walk on the cliffs be
due to the generosity of the owners, or rest as a prescriptive or
original right of the people ; in practice it matters not so long
as it remains free; but while we acknowledge the humanity and
Christianity of those who grant it, if gift it be, we hold that the
public should never have parted with such rights anywhere,
should endeavor to re-acquire them as soon as practicable with
fair compensation, and with injustice to no individual, and that
in the cities of the future the government should prevent any
private party's taking possession of or holding as exclusive pro-

5i8 THE PRIEST AND THE BLESSED EUCHARIST. [July,

perty such natural features of landscape and water-front as are
evidently adapted for the general use of the people at large.
So close is the relation between innocent recreation and moral-
ity, that we maintain that in the monopolizing of these natural
objects of which we have been treating by the rich, " morality,
justice, man's dignity, and the domestic life of the workingman "
are more or less " menaced or jeopardized," and, as Leo XIII. said
on the i/th of October last to the French workingmen : " The
state, by right measure of intervention, will be working for the
common weal, for it is its duty to protect and watch over the

true interests of its subjects."

EDWARD PRIESTLEY.

THE PRIEST AND THE BLESSED EUCHARIST.

Hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam." From the Canon of the Mass.
My flesh I will give for the life of the world." St. John vi. 52.
O amoris Victima ! " Antiphon to the Blessed Sacrament.

O SACRED Body, Blood Divine !
Behold ! I live a life like Thine.
Pure, holy, stainless Host! like Thee,
Love's gift and victim, let me be.

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 519

JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY.

XXIV.
THE SQUIRE FLIES INTO A TEMPER.

JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S birthday his jubilee, as the thought of
it had been shaping itself in his mind and in that of some few other
persons since the occasion when he spoke of it in the Murray
household was an event which has probably made a permanent
mark in the history of his native village. Some eighteen
.months ago, at all events, when the present chronicler of certain
incidents that immediately preceded and followed it made a first
visit to Milton Centre, on an errand partly of friendship and
partly of business, people were still dating back to it in a half-
conscious sort of way, much as the earliest of the "true be-
lievers " may have done to the Hegira.

For there was a time, following directly upon the calamity
briefly sketched for the reader in the letter written by Martha
Colton while sitting near the old man's bedside, when it seemed
to everybody that Milton Centre was to be, if not a case of
wholly arrested development, yet of a growth altogether differ-
ent from that contemplated by him. It was not his daughter-in-
law alone who had feared that he was likely to make some un-
usual disposition of his immense fortune ; and of those who, for
entirely selfish reasons, felt that they had a stake of unknown
value contingent on his life, several were present on that occa-
sion. John Van Alstyne had seemed to be in the very act of
giving their surmises confirmation, elating a majority of his lis-
teners as much as he disappointed a very few, when he was
stricken down. How fully he might have unveiled his pur-
poses had time and strength been granted him it is now im-
possible to say. As the case actually stood, there was but one
of his audience who held any real clue to his precise intent.

He had begun talking even before the close of an entirely
impromptu charade, given in response to repeated calls for
" more," just after a picnicky sort of feast had been gotten
through with. The spectators were still sitting about in
groups or lying on the grass ; cloths were spread here and
there, covered with dishes and remnants of the entertainment,
around which the children lingered ; and pale wreaths of smoke
rose still from dying fires where the tea-kettles had been boiled.

520 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. [July*

The stage on which the performances had been given was af-
forded by a low bank that rose at one side of the road running
through the picnic ground. It was only partially cleared, and
many a wide-girthed tree and convenient thicket of hazel and
blackberry bushes afforded the necessary coulisses for the actors.
It was the appearance of the grounds from this bank which sug-
gested the word hastily chosen, and its dramatization involved
the appearance of the versatile Mr. Hadleigh, whose presence
of mind and quick wit seemed never at a loss, in the charac-
ter of Fagin, giving a lesson in pocket-picking to the Artful
Dodger and a number of his fellow-pupils. His aquiline nose,
bestrid with glasses, a black skull-cap, and a long beard of gray
lichen hastily stripped from a neighboring tree, converted him
into a sufficiently realistic Jew, and he contrived to give a like
air to an effigy of Fagin, the same beard depending from under a
white cap drawn over the face, which was found hanging from a
gibbet when the curtain was drawn aside for the last time. In
this scene Mr. Hadleigh made a final appearance in a get-up
whose purport was made evident by horns and hoofs, and an
ox-tail dragging the ground from beneath a flame-colored tunic
hastily adapted from a curtain which had done duty as a back-
ground earlier in the afternoon. He had just made a downward
plunge out of sight, the dead Fagin across his stooping shoul-
ders, and a malodorous smoke circling round them from a hid-
den saucer of burning sulphur, when Mr. Van Alstyne rose to
his feet. That he was less composed and calm than usual was
evident in his whole manner to those near him, and he hardly
waited for the applause and laughter to subside before he began
to speak.

Behind the scenes, too, the effect produced by Mr. Hadleigh in
the act of carrying off his own soul which, by an odd coincidence,
was the way in which the thing struck several of those who wit-
nessed it had not yet subsided. Nor had he begun to divest him-
self of his too suggestive costume when his attention was arrest-
ed by a word or two that Mr. Van Alstyne was saying. He came
back at once within convenient ear-shot, and, standing out of
sight behind a great oak, listened attentively to the words in
which his cousin elaborated, with considerable detail, certain
measures which he proposed carrying into immediate effect for
the benefit of his operatives. There is no present occasion to
enumerate them all, but as they included not merely a bonus
on profits, graduated on a scale determined by wages, but
also offered his hands of both sexes an opportunity to acquire

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 521

homes of their own on easy terms of purchase, and to hold
them, if not absolutely in fee-simple, yet by one limited by
the single condition that they could be resold only to those
actually engaged upon the Van Alstyne works, present and
prospective, it is not difficult to understand that the somewhat
frequent pauses in his speech should have been filled by ener-
getic applause from those whose interests he plainly had so much
at heart.

It was after the prolonged cheering which followed his ex-
planation of this latter detail of his scheme that Mr. Van Al-
styne seemed about to disclose with equal fulness the arrange-
ments he proposed for the consolidation of his efforts for the
common good.

" I have been calling you my ' hands,' you notice," were the
words in which he took up his talk again, " though I know that
to some ears the word seems to carry a contemptuous meaning.
But I have a greater reluctance to say ' my men ' to you, for the
reason that of late I^shrink from assuming any title of ownership
even to myself. Why not my ' hands'? To most of you, at all
events, and to me, with whom you have worked together for a
good while, it should be, I think, a good enough word. We
entertain, I believe, a mutual hope and intention that only physi-
cal incapacity shall make us useless to each other, and only per-
sistent moral maladies put us forcibly asunder. We are parts
of the same body, you and I, working toward the same end,
and indispensably necessary to each other. True, I have a
power of option, of substitution where the units are concerned,
which you do not share in equal measure with me. But with
every day I live it becomes more plain to me that this power
does not in any wise inhere in me. It is a gift from Him who
made us all of one blood. It is superadded to the manhood
which is equal in each one of us, and it carries with it as rigid a
condition of accountability for its use as your own powers do.
I don't like, for my own sake, to think it carries one more strin-
gent still. Perhaps it may, and that is why I have bound myself,
and desire to bind those who shall succeed me, in ways that
shall give you a guarantee that the disadvantage on your side
shall be compensated for as far as may be. For, whether or not I
shall have more to answer for than the man who has his brain and
muscle only feeble both of them, perhaps to make his way
through the world with, my load, like yours, was laid on my
shoulders, and I don't feel called to flinch under it and play the
coward. I have not always seen my way to accomplish all I

522 JOHN VAN ALSTYN&S FACTORY. [July,

had it in my heart to do, but I think I can say with a clear con-
science that I have never ultimately held back from any move
toward it which became plain and obvious. But I am an old
man now."

Then he paused again, and in the interval before he took up
the thread of his speech some of those near him noted the
swelling arteries in his throat and temples, and the unusual flush
which began to suffuse his sallow cheeks.

" Fifty years ago to-day," he resumed, " the germ of all that
has been, and will yet, I hope, be still farther developed here, was
given me to unfold. Though I had not anticipated anything so
pleasant as this occasion has been to all of us, yet I have had it
in my mind for some time to call you together to-day and tell
you on what plans I have settled as the best by which I can
hope to carry out my wishes. I had hoped that all my arrange-
ments would have been completed by this time, but, by an in-
advertence, the final step yet remains to be taken. Still, T can
tell you what it is, since, if I am spared until Monday-
Then he stopped again, and, though he tried to go on, his voice
was so curiously thickened that the words he attempted to utter
were lost. And then, as Squire Cadwallader, who had been
sitting at some distance, made a sudden move to go to his as-
sistance, John Van Alstyne fell heavily forward and spoke no
more.

Paul Murray, who was standing on the bank at the other side
of the road, sprang down at once to go to the old man, and Mr.
Hadleigh followed. They had lifted him from the grass before
the squire came up to loosen his neckwear and take other
necessary means for his relief. For some reason the doctor got
a most unpleasant impression from Mr. Hadleigh's countenance,
to which a blackened cork had imparted an exaggerated leer.
His judgment inclined to scoff at the suggestion when it per-
sisted in recurring during the vigil he kept that night beside his
friend, but, do what he would, he could not entirely shake off
the feeling that there had been a cold exultation in the young
man's eyes which matched better with the suggestion of his cos-
tume and the expression painted on his face than with the sym-
pathetic tone and words that issued from his lips.

Squire Cadwallader had been favorably impressed with Mr.
Hadleigh at first, as well as pleased, for various reasons, at what
he thought his opportune arrival; but from that moment he re-
mained unpleasantly sub-conscious of a distrust of him which,
more than anything else, had prompted the caution he instinctive-

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 523

ly resorted to himself and had recommended to Zipporah Col-
ton. He felt half-ashamed as soon as he had given her that warn-
ing, for it proceeded from one of those apparently irrational
yieldings to sudden impulse which he was sure to characterize
as womanish in other people. Occurring in himself, he straight-
way felt the need of justifying it, though to do so shifted the
chief load of blame to his own shoulders. What could be more
natural, he asked himself as he was driving back home, than that
a man so certain in the ordinary course of things to be im-
mensely benefited b'y the sudden death of an almost utter
stranger should feel relief, and be unable to hide the feeling ?
It would be absurd to suppose that any real affection could have
yet sprung up between them, and nearly impossible to dissemble
entirely a sudden joy. Once more the squire acquitted Mr.
Hadleigh at the bar of his common sense, explicitly admitted
that he had been unreasonably displeased with him, and then as
resolutely shut his eyes to the fact that instead of discharging
the culprit he had but immured him in some deeper dungeon,
where he might for the present keep him out of sight and mind.
He began to occupy himself instead with the consideration of
Mrs. Van Alstyne's offences against natural decorum. He was
sure he had simpler grounds there for his disgust. The poorly-
disguised gratification she had shown, and her eagerness to im-
part her conviction that her father-in-law's last words showed
plainly that he had made no will as yet, as well as her certainty
that he would have no further opportunity to do so, irritated
the squire not a little. It was Sunday, but he was all alone,
and his single ejaculation when she came up before his thoughts
would hardly have suited a Wednesday evening prayer-meet-
ing.

The fact was that Squire Cadwallader felt himself in sore
need of a good, solid reason on which to base an active displea-
sure against somebody or other. He wanted it that it might
serve as a screen between his own conscience and his under-
ground consciousness that the situation appealed in him also to
a double set of motives. John Van Alstyne's death, should it
occur before he could effect the realization of the schemes he
had been developing when he was stricken and certainly his
words seemed to imply that they yet lacked their necessary sanc-
tion would be advantageous to him, too, in his character as
capitalist and manufacturer. He knew that, and felt hon-
estly ashamed of adverting to the knowledge. The friend in
him, as well as the physician, came manfully to his aid against

524 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [July,

the trader, and did a battle against his meaner self none the less
sturdy for being as far as possible confined to pinning it under-
foot and resolutely trying to ignore it.

Before he reached his own place Squire Cadwallader was
obliged to pass that of one of his fellow-proprietors in the Har-
monia cotton-mill, as yet the largest of the factories on the Mil-
ton Kill, in which the doctor had been for years a sleeping part-
ner. Seth Lamson, a man in the first half of his sixties, with a
high, narrow head set on top of a long neck from the possession
of which he had derived considerable internal gratification since
witnessing John Van Alstyne's fall the day before, was sit-
ting in an arm-chair beneath one of the big elms on his lawn, as
was his habit on sunny Sunday afternoons after church-time
between June and mid-October. He was an elder of the Pres-
byterian church at the Corners a fact which was sometimes
held to color his views concerning the future welfare of his
neighbors more deeply than it affected his action in bettering
their present condition.

" Hullo!" he sung out, and then, rising, came out of his gate
and stood beside the carriage, with one foot resting on the step.
" You have been out to see Van Alstyne again, I suppose. How
is he ?"

"Hard to say," returned the squire. "Better, on the
whole, than I expected."

" Conscious?"

" To a certain degree. I don't know how far. His eyes
are sensitive to light and he can close them. Yesterday he
couldn't."

" There is no chance of his recovery, I suppose? with his
build, you know, and at his age?"

" His build has nothing on earth to do with it. That is an
exploded notion. But his age is against him."

" Well," said Mr. Lamson, shifting to the other foot, and
gazing into space with a piously meditative air, " he has had a
long life in which to consider the end he is approaching. 'All
the ways of a man are right in his own eyes, but the end there-
of is death,' the Scripture says or words to that effect," added
the elder, whose memory was untrustworthy, and who liked to
hedge on serious matters. " I don't want to say a word against
the dead or the dying, but it must be admitted that his example
has been notoriously unchristian throughout his life, and what
he was saying yesterday was rank socialism to my mind. I was
even then thinking that his allusions to Providence were, in a

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. 525

manner, blasphemous on his lips, when Providence cast him
down, as if in instant confirmation of the thought. If his de-
signs have been frustrated, which is what I am led to conclude
from his last words, the best thing we can do is to secure with-
out delay the upper site on his creek. Don't you think?"

The squire also was a member of the church, and occasion-
ally passed the plate, though he had resolutely declined all
nominations to the office of elder. But for the second time he
broke the Sunday stillness with an objurgation, not very pro-
fane indeed, but calculated to suddenly stiffen, as it did, Seth
Lamson's spine.

" Damn it, Lamson !" he said testily, "your talk about Provi-
dence sickens me! John Van Alstyne isn't dead yet, and isn't
going to die if I can put a spoke in the wheel of all the people
that would like to get him out of their way. It's Providence
you are relying on, is it? If Providence is half as wise as I am,
I wouldn't bet on your chances, or mine either, against John
Van Alstyne's when we come up for judgment before Him."

" This is very singular language for a Christian man, Cadwal-
lader," said Mr. Lamson, standing erect and turning even paler
than his wont.

" I mean every word of it," returned the squire, taking out
the whip to touch his horse's flanks. " If you'll put it in your
pipe and smoke it, I'll do the same. Good day ! I've a patient
waiting and can't stop to talk. Get along, Dandy !"

XXV.
SLIGHTLY RETROSPECTIVE.

BETWEEN four and five o'clock that Sunday afternoon it oc-
curred to Zipporah Colton that a walk might refresh her more
than the vain effort she had been making to fall asleep on the
lounge in her own room. Excepting the servants, no one was
stirring about the house. Mr. Hadleigh, who had been sitting
with his cousin all the morning, had left him when Zipporah
came to take his place, and gone at once to bed with a severe at-
tack of the congestive neuralgia to which he said he had been
liable after excitement ever since his long illness. Mattie was
still with Mr. Van Alstyne, and would not be relieved by Mary
Anne Murray until supper-time. As for Mrs. Van Alstyne, she
was taking her usual siesta undisturbed. She said her nerves

526 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [July*

would not permit her to take any nursing duty. She had even
been obliged, she told Zipporah, to leave her poor William to
strangers at the very last, because when her heart was torn by
grief in that way she became utterly incapable ; she couldn't
bear even to look at suffering, she felt it so ! She did envy those
rugged people who could steel themselves against it they es-
caped so much !

" Lucky for her, and for me too ! " ejaculated Squire Cadwal-
lader when Mrs. Van Alstyne left the sick-room at the close of
this explanation. " It saves me the trouble of forbidding her to
come near him. If her blessed nerves will only keep that purr-
ing voice of hers outside of this door altogether for the next ten
days, I'll decorate her with a leather medal for services ren-
dered. Now you go and lie down, my dear, or else take a run
in the air. I can't have you breaking down on my hands when
I am counting on you."

Zipporah had been up a good deal the night before, some-
times with the doctor in Mr. Van Alstyne's room, where there
was, perhaps, no real need of her, although the squire now and
then good-naturedly contrived to put her to apparent use, but
more often prowling softly up and down the corridor outside, or
crouched upon a hassock near the door, her heart full not only
of an unaffected sorrow on her own account, but heavy with a
compassionate yearning over the pathetic loneliness of the sick
man's condition. There Paul Murray found her, when he came,
two hours after midnight, to relieve Squire Cadwallader's vigil.
She was looking very white and tired then, and when Paul gen-
tly urged her to go away and rest, she had done so with a quiet
docility which pleased him, and pleased him all the more because
it was so distinctly unlike the attitude she had been maintaining
toward him for several days.

They had been thrown together a good deal throughout the
week, in consequence of the affair they had projected in common,
and Paul Murray, at first, had found the situation both pleas-
antly unavoidable and unavoidably pleasant. But, as has been
remarked of him before, he had a conscience. His conscience,
moreover, was of that aggressive order which does not wait to
be interrogated at set periods, but has an inveterate habit of
bringing its possessor to book at all seasons a little late some-
times, perhaps, or rather, to speak more truly, in a tone so quiet
as to be easily drowned for the moment by the tumult of ruder
voices. But it was so insistent and pervasive that Paul had
presently found himself under the necessity, of excogitating a

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 527

scheme which should satisfy his interior monitor while leaving
him free to carry out what he had begun and could not at once
escape from. It was only for a little while at most.

His scheme, about which we may have more to say hereafter,
he soon found to be a perfect success. In fact, it worked to such
a charm that the first fault he detected in it was that it effected
the end it was aimed at so easily and completely that he was
ready, after a day or two's trial, to deny its necessity and relax
its rigors. Moreover, what was the use of it in any case? Did
he not know now, through a conversation into which he had
been drawn, rather against his inclination, that Miss Colton's
ideas concerning mixed marriages or, rather, concerning any
changes in religious belief apparently, brought about with mar-
riage in view as a motive were as fixed and unalterable as his
own ?

The talk in question had taken place one evening at Squire
Cadwallader's, where it was started by a story Lucy told con-
cerning one of the maids in the house, a seamstress, who had
lived with them since her childhood and always attended the
same church as the family. She was now about to leave them in
order to marry Tom Murrough,the village blacksmith, and one
of Father Seetin's congregation. The squire's daughters knew
Father Seetin so well that Annie Pratt's account of her conver-
sion greatly amused them. The girl had just left the back-par-
lor, where the costumes for the coming entertainment were in
course of preparation, and where her needle and her taste had
both been put in requisition.

"Annie is going to be married to-morrow night," Lucy
began when she went out. "She is going to marry Tom
Murrough, after they have been courting and breaking off these
seven years. Think of that, Mr. Hadleigh ! "

" Is it that he was as constant as Jacob, or she more fickle
than Rachel?"" Mr. Hadleigh responded, without looking up
from the mask that he was painting.

" Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, I guess," said Lucy
with a laugh. " Though I never heard before that Rachel was
fickle."

" They were both pretty constant," put in Bella. " He car-
ried the day at last, and I always thought he would. He did
the breaking-off the first time, and when she tried making-up
again I told her just how it would end."

" What was it all about?" asked Dr. Sawyer.

"Religion," whispered Bella, who sat next him; " don't go

528 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [[July*

on talking about it, because of Mr. Murray. I'll tell you after-
wards."

But Zipporah had just put the same question, and Lucy,
whose tongue was more apt to run away with her than was her
sister's, and who wanted to tell the story for its own sake, was
beginning it already.

"Oh! it was just a matter of religion," she said. "Annie
was almost brought up in our house and always went to the
Presbyterian church, of course. And Tom Murrough is a shining
light in Father Seetin's, isn't he, Mr. Murray ? "

" Tom's pretty fair, I guess," answered Paul, who would
rather not have been appealed to. " It certainly wouldn't be
just to call him a ' hickory Catholic.' "

"A hickory Catholic? What is that?" asked Lucy, and
then went on without waiting for an answer. " At all events,
he wouldn't marry her unless she'd turn, and she wouldn't marry
him unless he would. And so it has gone on until now, when
she suddenly changed her mind a fortnight ago and went to
call on Father Seetin. She told me about it this afternoon, and
it is much too funny to keep. I declare, I'm half-ashamed to
own she was brought up here when what she says could really
be true."

"Why?" asked Paul Murray, on whom her eyes rested as
she stopped speaking.

" Because it sounds so ridiculously ignorant that it throws
too much discredit on us," returned Lucy. " Fancy ! This is
the idea she had, and of Father Seetin of all the men in the
world ! And as often as she has seen him come here to dinner,
too ! I said to her : ' So you've done it, Annie, after all the
times you said you wouldn't. What made you ?' ' Well, it was
this way, Miss Lucy,' says she. ' I'd got Tom round to the
point that he said he'd go with me to Mr. Parsons and get mar-
ried, and we were going to do it this very week. But the day I
went up to Riverside to get my wedding-bonnet I met in the
cars an old German Catholic woman that used to know mother
when I was little, and I told her all about it. And she says,
" Now, you mind my words : As sure as you take a Catholic
man to a minister to marry you, you'll have an unhappy home
as long as you live. You'd better give it up altogether than do
that. I've seen it time and time again, and I never knew it fail."
So I thought an' thought. / don't want an unhappy home, I
says to myself. I always thought Tom was just stubborn about
it, but maybe it was just this that ailed him all the time. I

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN&S FACTORY. 529

always heard tell that Mother Schneider was one of the wise
women my mother used to run to her at every turn. So after
a good while I just said to myself : ' Well, there's none o' your
folks to fret about you, Annie Pratt, and there's his all dead set
against it, and you know he don't like it himself. I guess you'd
better go and see his priest.' So 1 went, and, if you'll believe
me, Miss Lucy, I just managed to crawl along, as if I had a
chain and ball on. And when I got down to his house, and
stood on the stoop, I do declare I think you might have heard
my heart beating 'way out to the front gate. I was that afraid
I wonder I didn't faint. I had to stand there and quiet down
before I could ring his bell.' "

" Nonsense ! " broke in Zipporah. " What was she afraid
of?"

" That is what I wanted to know," returned Lucy. ' ' What
in the world were you afraid of?' said I. ' Did you think he'd
eat you ? ' '

" ' No'm,' said she, ' but they do tell such awful things about
priests an' sisters and all that kind o' folks. I had to wait awhile
in his parlor, because his man said he was engaged, and while I
was waiting I heard somebody beginning to sharpen a knife on
the grindstone. Lord preserve us ! thinks I, they're getting
ready to kill me an' bury me out in the backyard, and not a soul
will ever know what has become of me ! I hadn't even told
Tom what I was going to do I was that ashamed of giving in
and I hadn't told any one here. And with that I jumped up and
was going to rush out in the hall and escape when Father Seetin
opened the door and came in !' "

" Well ? " queried Zip.

" Well, that's about all. I didn't ask anything further. Of
course it was a foregone conclusion as to what she would do
after taking that step. She is converted to Father Seetin, any-
way, and laughs at her own folly, the little goose ! She says she
would have been willing at any time to go to him for the cere-
mony, but he kept egging Tom on to hold out until she would
give in altogether."

" Well, I should think she would be ashamed ! " said Zip in an
aside intended for Lucy's ear only. They were sitting with no
one between them, and quite near each other, but the girl's
voice, for which one pair of not distant ears were always on the
watch, carried the wopds too distinctly. " I'd like to see myself
marry anybody that could be 'egged on' by any one else to
make me change my mind for such a reason as that ! I don't
VOL. XLVII. 34

530 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [July*

know Father Seetin to speak to, but I must say I didn't think he
looked like a man who would act in that way."

" What does it all mean, anyway, Mr. Murray?" asked the
squire, who was lying back in an arm-chair near the table around
which the young people were busy. " In Father Downey's
time marriages of that kind between his folks and ours were
going on every now and then without any active opposition on
his part. Do you think it right to bring such a pressure to bear
in these cases?"

Paul flushed and cast a quick look at Zipporah, but she had
her eyes bent steadily on her work and did not catch it.

" Father Seetin has no option that I can see," he answered
after a brief hesitation. "He is bound to do his duty as he un-
derstands it. If the case had been reversed he would have
counselled the woman precisely as he did the man."

" Oh ! I understand his view of it tolerably well, I fancy,"
returned the squire. " He naturally regards it from the profes-
sional standpoint. I was asking for your own opinion, if you
don't object to giving it. Do you think it right for the authori-
ties of your church to prohibit or discourage such marriages be-
tween couples willing to sink their religious differences and go
each their own way in peace ? " The squire, too, had caught
Zipporah's comment, low-spoken though it was, and he went
on without waiting for Paul Murray to reply. " I confess I was
a little mad about Annie myself. If she chose to go with her
husband afterward I wouldn't have blamed her an atom. That
would be all right. ' Let women be subject to their husbands
in the Lord,' is one of the texts where I don't disagree with
Paul as often as Mrs. Cadwallader does."

" Indeed you don't," interposed his wife good-naturedly.

" But if there is any time and place where a woman should
have things all her own way mind, I don't positively affirm
that there is, Miss Zipporah" looking at her over his glasses
in a way that brought a smile to her lips, and the blood to the
roots of her hair as well " but */ there is, it is when the ques-
tion of how and when and where she is willing to be married is
concerned. What man, except the man she is good enough to
condescend to, has any right to meddle ? I am sure you must
in your heart agree with me, Murray, prejudices aside."

"If I had only prejudices to put aside," Paul Murray answer-
ed, after another slight hesitation, during which he could have
wished himself almost anywhere else in the world, "I should
agree with you, of course."

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 531

"But, as it is, you can't," returned the squire, whose tact was
sufficient to let him catch in Murray's tone the effort he was
making-. " Well, I understand that, too. Prejudice itself is
enough, for that matter. I walk softly around my own, I notice,
ready as I am to go rough-shod over anybody else's."

Then the current of conversation turned. It was after this
that Paul Murray's scheme for the conduct of his intercourse with
Miss Colton began to seem to him to have been devised with need-
less haste. There had been no day since they drove to Hender-
son's Falls together on which they had not met. Now, to dissemble
well a strong natural emotion, either a selfish heart and schem-
ing brain, or else an iron will and a sensitive conscience, both
arrayed against it, are imperatively necessary. Until now Paul
Murray had never felt the need of dissembling where his feel-
ings were concerned. Nor, to speak truly, was he at all sure
that he might not yet gain all he desired without forfeiting his in-
tegrity. So he looked the pleasure that he felt, and the tones of
his voice told it as plainly to the girl's ears as if his words had
been full of protestations, instead of being, as they were, not
much different from the commonplaces addressed her by the
others.

Zipporah was one of the girls who never develop into the sort
of woman of whom novelists, of their own sex and the other,
have so much to say the women, that is, in whom the instinct to
shelter and protect and cherish the maternal instinct, that is
is so strong that they love the men they marry all the better for
their weaknesses, shelter them under the wings of their brooding
compassion, consider them almost as their first-born, and are
glad to put their own strength of heart and will in the fore-
front of all the battles of life. There is a plenty of such women,
fortunately, for, as the late Mrs. Poyser remarked, " God
A'mighty made 'em to match the men," and in that point of
view they afford a clear bit of confirmatory evidence to the Dar-
winian theory of the survival of the fittest. But Zipporah could
not be included in that class. There was a defiant, virginal
pride in her which would not yield too readily, nor ever to a
mere internal traitor, nor completely and finally until overcome
in legitimate warfare. Such strength as she possessed would
find its only satisfactory exercise in resistance until she could
make willingly a full surrender, not to be taken back unless
love were taken with it.

And so it happened, whether well or ill for Paul Murray's
final success with her it is perhaps premature to say, that the

532 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [July,

slightly bantering tone which he fell into by pure instinct almost
from the first did not hurt him with her in the least. It " teased
her out of thought," to misquote Keats ; not, of course, into
abstract consideration of important subjects, but into recalling
his tones of voice, which, consciously to herself, took something
of their natural self-assertion out of her own, and the expression
of his eyes, which she could meet well enough but not endure
without blenching. But when, presently, something of his in-
terior trouble got into greater prominence with him, and the
consciousness of disadvantage which pursued him blent with
his increasing passion to make him less master of himself, he
ibegan also to lose his incipient mastery over her. He pleased
iher best when he seemed least anxious to do so. But that was
a fact in feminine psychology of which he had no direct know-
ledge and it was direct knowledge, or what he mistakenly
took to be its equivalent, pure reason, on which he determined
to base that scheme of his conduct toward her to which previous
reference has been made. He hoped for her conversion, but for
the life of him he could not see his way to broaching the subject
with her. His instinct spoke there, and warned him against a
pitched battle before all his forces should have been put on the
field. But, being a man, his reason was always getting the bet-
ter of his instincts. He concluded to interest Father Seetin in
her. It was evident that she had a bright mind, and no very
formidable religious convictions opposed to his own. Her
conversion ought not to be difficult through the ordinary means ;
and unless, and until, it was accomplished he must dissemble.
What she had said in response to Lucy Cadwallader's story was
so exactly what he had expected that the evidence it afforded of
his accurate knowledge of her ought, perhaps, to have given
him more pleasure than it did. But by that time he was too
deep in the consideration of his own experiences, and too bent
on not making any false steps, to be a competent judge where
she was concerned.

He went back, therefore, through what he felt to be a ra-
tional impulse, to the attitude into which he had often dropped at
first for a much simpler reason. As he mistook it in perfectly
good faith for subtlety, it ought, doubtless, to be accounted to
him as such ; certainly it served his real purpose indefinitely
better than the weakness he felt conscious of would have done
if yielded to. Everything about the girl was beginning to wear
an air of absolute perfection to him ; his critical judgment was

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN&S FACTORY. 533

in abeyance and all her words were as wisdom ; even as the
slight down that shades the lips of some of her sex is reckoned
unto them as a beauty by their purblind adorers. So, when he
took the bit resolutely between his teeth and determined to be
rational, he forced himself back into a more independent atti-
tude. When a difference of opinion came up, he took anybody's
else against hers, though it was also his. He was even a little
brusque with her now and again, besides being so inattentive
to what was going on under his eyes as to irritate Dr. Sawyer a
good deal by being rather marked in his politeness toward Bella,
who was a very good girl in her way, but so utterly unlike any-
thing that Paul Murray admired that it never occurred to him
that this special practice of heroic virtue could have unpleasant
consequences to anybody.

Still, as he could not always command either his eyes or
his voice, he occasionally betrayed himself to Zipporah, not as
fully as he might if she had understood his motive, or had been
willing to acknowledge to herself either the nature or the de-
gree of the attraction which each had for the other, but quite
enough to keep her thoughts busy with him. And, after the
talk which has been recorded, she got a certain enlightenment,
true as far as it went, upon both his difficulties, and it net-
tled her not a little. " Does he think 1 am going to like
him, and be another Annie Pratt," she said to herself wrath-
fully, "that he begins to be unmannerly to me already?"
And thereupon she began to second his efforts at detachment
with such zeal, and, being much cooler than he, with so much
better success, that, as has been observed already, he came to
the unpleasant conclusion that he might have spared himself the
trouble of making them. His own feeble efforts to cultivate
Bella, who had a counter-attraction to oppose to them, were quite
thrown away in comparison with Zipporah's amiability to Mr.
Hadleigh. If the latter had continued long, Paul Murray's con-
science might perhaps have had many a sop thrown to it to
quiet its remonstrances. But in the midst of his perplexities of
all sorts came that blow to Mr. Van Alstyne, which, to him,
would mean so much more than any one but him suspected, and,
coming, it threw him so completely back upon himself that he
became entirely natural once more, or, at all events, as nearly so
as any man can be who is as thoroughly supernaturalized in his
will as was Paul Murray.

534 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [July,

XXVI.
WHICH ALSO DOES NOT ADVANCE MATTERS.

ZIPPORAH slipped quietly down the stairs and came out on the
broad piazza which ran round three sides of the house. It was a
warm, bright, soft September day, whose Sunday stillness at
that moment was unbroken to her sense by any sight or sound
indicative of life, save the occasional note of a bird and the hum of
insects on the wing. For it was Brother Meeker's appointed sea-
son for divine worship at East Milton, and hence the shed around
the little church close by stood empty of the stamping horses,
whisking their tails in impatient chase of tormenting flies, in
front of the clumsy vehicles which brought the more distant
members of his congregation to attend his ministrations. Other-
wise the Old Hundredth would have been filling the air with its
solemn melody at about this time, or Brother Meeker's strident
nasality of tone would have made itself heard through the open
windows as he pronounced the benediction.

The girl stood still for a little to consider. If she had fol-
lowed her most interior impulse it would have led her at once in
search of Mary Anne Murray, for she was not only suffering a
very real sorrow, but one which brought with it a sense of
helplessness which was new to her. Over and over again dur-
ing the hours that had erected themselves like a wall between
the painful present and a past which for her had contained no-
thing sharper than the pin-pricks of annoyance or petty vexation,
she had been trying to pray in earnest, and, to her own appre-
hension at least, she had not succeeded. Where was He, that
Author of life and death, to whom since her babyhood she had
said her prayers at night and morning in what now seemed a
perfunctory and idle repetition ? Perhaps it was not altogether
the girl's fault that they did seem so, for it had been a part of
the teaching given her that they could be of little or no avail until
she should have undergone the mysterious conversion known to
her as a change of heart. Empty, at all events, they seemed at
present; and in that sense of isolation and weakness which the
near approach of death forces home upon the soul which beholds
it for the first time, especially in that shape in which it seemed
impending over John Van Alstyne, she felt a longing to get
nearer to the person who, of all others, had most impressed
her with a conviction of the reality of the unseen world and
of her own personal nearness to God.

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN& s FACTORY. 535

That impulse, nevertheless, was one she concluded not to fol-
low. Miss Murray would be coming up in the evening, which
would be better than going to seek her at her own house a
thing Zipporah had not done since making acquaintance with
Paul Murray. She had a broad-leafed straw hat dangling by its
ribbons from her hand, and after deciding against a promenade
around the piazza, whose longest side lay still in a broad glow of
sunshine, she tied it under her chin, let herself out at the front
gate, and strolled leisurely in the direction of the pine woods,
meeting not a soul as she went onward.

Two bridges crossed the mill-stream within half a dozen rods
from John Van Alstyne's house, one of which made a part of the
highway, and was used by teams and foot-passengers alike. The
other was got at by a scramble down a steepish bank shaded by
alders and a tangle of blackberry and wild-rose bushes. It was
only a couple of planks, with a single hand-rail, leading to a pas-
ture in which a few cows were grazing ; across it a footpath
stretched like a narrow gray-green ribbon to the woods. While
she stood hesitating for a moment which of these two to take,
Zipporah' s white frock, relieved against the blue of the eastern
sky she was just at the crest of the road before it began to
slope toward the water made her plainly visible to a pair of
keen, far-sighted eyes belonging to a person, as yet a good
stretch behind her, who was on his way to make a visit to the
sick-chamber. Seeing her, he changed his mind, quickened his
pace, and concluded to make his inquiries out of doors.

Having a long stride, as became his height, and a definite
purpose in view, which the girl in front of him had not, Paul
Murray was at the bridge by the time she was half-across the
pasture. There was but one tree left in the field, a magnificent
oak, solid and long-armed, which stood nearly in the centre. As
she stopped under it for a moment's protection against the sun
that was beating on her back, Zipporah heard his footsteps on
the plank, and turned. The sun was full in her eyes then, and
she gave no sign of recognition, but, casting a hasty glance in
every other direction, went on along the footpath at an accelerat-
ed pace. But by the time she had reached the stile and was
ready to ascend the steps if she really meant to cross the fence
which kept the cows from straying out of bounds which seem-
ed doubtful by the pause she made Paul Murray was pretty
close upon her track. When he spoke she turned rather quickly,
and, though she gave him only a faint and serious smile, her face,
under the shadow of her large hat, wore a look of relief so un-

536 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. [July*

mistakable that he involuntarily answered it instead of resorting
to the ordinary commonplaces.

" Were you afraid ? " he said. " Did you think it might be
somebody else? "

" I didn't know. Strangers are not in the habit of crossing
this field. I never saw any one in it before but myself and the
milkers."

" But you turned and looked at me when you were under the
tree ? "

" I looked toward you, but the sun shone in my eyes. You
are not the only tall man in the village, Mr. Murray."

" Except Hadleigh, I am the only one at all likely to be here,"
thought Paul. " Is she afraid of him ?" But he said nothing.

" Shall we go back?" Zipporah went on with hardly a pause.
" Everybody in the house seemed to be asleep, except my sister,
who is with Mr. Van Alstyne. I couldn't rest . indoors, so I
came out for a walk." And as she spoke she began to move in
the direction toward home.

" O no! " said Paul, coming back from his reflections ; "you
don't call this a walk, surely. Come over into the shade and tell
me about Mr. Van Alstyne. I was on my way there to inquire
when I saw you as you started down toward the bridge."

Any deep feeling shared in common creates sympathy, forms,
indeed, the most vital bond of union. In certain ways it may
be true, as one of our authorized teachers affirmed but lately,
that there is an element of illusion in all feeling, and that pas-
sion is non-rational. But no such affirmation can be absolutely
true of the rational creature man, whose Creator himself seeks
first his heart, and is honored by no faith, however firm, unless
it works by charity. Between the two who presently found
themselves pacing up and down upon the brown and soundless
carpet of pine-needles deposited by countless seasons, that pre-
liminary tie speedily became evident to each. There was a
strong personal affection, in the first place, for the kind old man
now lying so helplessly alone ; alive, but apparently responsive
to no other life ; shut away from sympathy, and made incapable
of action just when the long aspiration of his life seemed to need
only its final crown. And that affection, though of so recent
growth in the girl, yet took in her its most unselfish form. Of
all those who were that day grieving for him, she was perhaps
the only one whose sorrow was entirely unmixed with any ad-
vertence to the probable and most tangible loss of opportunity
or comfort to themselves which his death might bring. She

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. 537

was too young yet, and had had too little experience, to know
how sensitive she was to the spur of great ideas, but even the
spontaneous kindness which Mr. Van Alstyne had shown her
had attached her to him less than her equally spontaneous sym-
pathy with his unselfish aims. Until she knew him, one of the
most frequent employments of her idle moments and they were
many had been the construction of those castles in Spain in one
sort or another of which the young- are always dwelling. And,
with her, money, in practically unlimited amounts, had always
lain at their foundation, chiefly, no doubt, because her girlish
aspirations toward pleasant personal belongings, modest enough
in themselves, were yet much more extensive than her means
for gratifying them. But whenever she put on her wishing-cap
it was always her own wants which came last upon her budget*.
She wanted money, not in thousands but in millions, so that she
could pay this one's debts, and buy that one a house, and bring
up another's family in all ease and comfort, send Tom to college
and to Europe, and give every one she knew an unfailing yet
not too ample a provision for their wants. " For if they had too
much perhaps it wouldn't be good for them," she meditated
with youthful gravity, engaged, meantime, upon some shabby
task of remodelling or mending, such as had for the hundredth
time suggested these vast desires. Her dream capital was so
immense that when she had provided for all the wants of which
she personally knew, and had only her own left to consider, she
generally found them too paltry to waste much thought on.
" I would never darn another stocking, I'm sure of that ; nor
mend a glove; no, nor trim a bonnet. And I would have a horse
to ride, and buy every nice book that came out. But dear me !
how very little that would take ! And I suspect I should not
care a copper about such things if once they were easy to be
had. What could Q\\Z do with money that would be satisfactory ? "
Now, it was that question, and the solution of it toward which
John Van Alstyne had been working, which had kindled in her
the enthusiasm lacking which no other feeling of which she was
capable would ever even seem to her to touch its perihelion. Mary
Anne Murray, too, had done something toward clearing her mind
about it when she had once said to her that, although it must be
sweet to give to others, she would always rather pay them. For
her Zipporah entertained a certain reverent admiration such as
women occasionally feel for one another, and which was not the
less strong for being only half-intelligent; lacking, as she did, the
clue to its most inner secret. She understood her less well than

538 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [July,

she did John Van Alstyne, whose aims seemed to her not only
the highest possible, but also entirely feasible and easy of fulfil-
ment.

" I don't say, mind," he had remarked to her one day, find-
ing- in her a listener always ready and appreciative, " that alms
degrade a sound, healthy, free man or woman who is willing to
work. I merely feel that it degrades me to offer them. I can't
do it without blushing, inside anyway. They have their oppor-
tunities, such as they are strength and health and a good will
sum them up for the most part, lacking either a special capacity
or a special training and I have mine, which don't differ from
theirs except in the extraneous accident of money. The biggest
part of that came to me through a lucky chance. I have seen it
come to many another man in more objectionable ways. I am
responsible for no one else, but I'll be hanged excuse me, my
dear if I will combine with any man or any set of men to create
monopolies, or force down prices for labor, or take advantage of
them when they are forced down by others. As for my people
here, if I can't sell my calico at a profit when a tight time
comes, I shall set them at some other work until times are better.
Yes, I know what the squire says that is charity in another
form. I have nothing to say against that, except that charity is
the universal law of God, as I understand it, and greed the law
of the devil. There is just one thing 1 save for my hands in prac-
tising charity in that form, and as that is the one thing I desire to
save for myself, and can't save otherwise self-respect I shall
keep on using the liberty the law allows me of siding with the
under dog. I have most sympathy with him, I am bound to say."

LEWIS R. DORSAY.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

1 888.] LIQUOR AND LABOR. 539

LIQUOR AND LABOR.

IT was once the fashion, in some circles it is still the fashion,
to meet the clamorous workingman, wild from a sense of injury
and helplessness, with statistics of his saloon-spent earnings and
general thriftlessness. It was said to him, and with much truth,
too, when he demanded better wages on the ground of having
too little money for comforts and necessities : " My good man,
spend less at the saloon, be more thrifty at home, and you will
have enough money for comforts and necessities." This gospel
was preached from prominent non-Catholic pulpits, and possibly
delayed the late upheaval of labor conditions for some years. It
blinded many to the real state of affairs. Economical habits on
the part of workmen were considered the solution of the labor
question, and I believe a few schemes were set on foot to teach
Polly how to make cheap soup, and Sam how to get rich by
putting a penny in the bank every day. We look back to those
times and their innocent schemings with amazement. No doubt
the art of economy is badly understood and practised in our
country, and the saloon absorbs too much of a workman's wages.
But then these things will not prevent a smile at the simplicity
which mistook an elephant for a mouse, and thought to pacify
him with more cheese!

Students of the labor question have paid no attention to the
point of economy on the workman's part as affecting his relations
with capital. It has no immediate bearing on these relations,
and can in no way directly affect the final settlement. To those
who think otherwise, it has been pointed out that the universal
tendency towards lower wages and harder conditions for work-
men has been intensified by any economy they practised. Capi-
talists run about the world bidding for cheaper and ever cheaper
labor. And economical laborers, wherever they appear, always
bring about reductions of wages. Polly and Sam might as well
throw overboard the soup recipes and penny savings-banks and
adopt Chinese habits of saving at once. If men had said that
the workman's thrift would bring the final settlement more
quickly, they would have been nearer the truth. It is all that it
can do. Thrift benefits the workman, but how does it or can
it produce a sense of justice in the employer ?

Thriftlessness at home is not, in my opinion, a safe charge to

54O LIQUOR AND LABOR. [J u ^y

make against the work-people. The cooking might be improv-
ed and a wholesome variety of foods introduced into their
kitchens, but deliberate extravagance is not often found among
them in kitchen matters. The good quality of their clothing
and jewelry has often been commented upon unfavorably by
those who see only the holiday workman. Yet the great major-
ity of work-people never buy more than two complete suits a
year. It is a compliment to their natural quickness and good
taste that by means of this wardrobe they can make a more de-
cided impression than many would-be aristocrats.

No ; it is only in the matter of whiskey and beer that the
work-people are truly thriftless and extravagant, and there, un-
fortunately, no words are too strong to paint their prodigality,
whose evil effects are so far-reaching and take so many forms
that one is bewildered in tracing them. The evil is confined
almost entirely to workmen, the women, except in a few cities,
rarely falling under the influence of the drinking habit. If it
were otherwise, the misery, now tolerable and half-hidden, in
which so many families are plunged would become an open
shame and monstrous burden to the community.

Upon inquiry the first fact which strikes one is the univer-
sality of the drinking habit among workmen, young and old,
and of every variety of occupation. The only distinction on
this point that I could find among them was that some drank
more and others drank less ; but all were tainted with the habit
masters and apprentices, printers, weavers, moulders, clerks,
day-laborers, railroad men, tailors, shoemakers, and mechanics
generally. And the next fact which strikes one disagreeably is
that of this vast army of habitual drinkers hardly one in ten will
admit that he was ever betrayed into drunkenness, not oftener,
anyway, than about once or twice a year. All affirm themselves
moderate drinkers. The third fact, which clinches the other
two, is a financial one, and still more disagreeable than its fel-
lows. I am speaking, be it remembered, of those who are called
moderate drinkers, whose potations bring no visible distress or
disgrace upon themselves or their families. Their moderation
is altogether a sham. Let me give some results of my personal
investigation : I have known young printers, whose wages are
usually good, and whose reputations in this particular instance
were fair, who spent monthly from ten to fifteen dollars on
whiskey and beer. I have known day-laborers with a monthly
wage of $28 60, and a family to support, who found it easy to
tax that slender stipend from three to six dollars for liquor.

1 888.] LIQUOR AND LABOR. 541

Moulders and iron-workers, in some places notorious for their
beer-drinking propensities, I have known to have such a tre-
mendous thirst that it cost them monthly from ten to twenty
dollars to assuage it. Railroad-men, whose business demands
abstinence more than any other, are the slaves of the treating-
habit, and in their hours of leisure run the iron- worker very
close in the quantity of their potations. In a word, out of five
hundred workmen whose habits are well known to me, and
whose occupations are of all kinds, not one spends less than
three dollars a month on liquor ; and hardly a single one can
make it his boast that he has never been intoxicated. It inten-
sifies astonishment and regret over these discoveries to see the
number of young men with whom steady drinking has become a
matter of pride and habit both. For these young fellows the
saloon is decked with mirrors and bric-a-brac, and for them the
pool-room has been introduced as an aid to the bar. Their
money is poured out like water, and the habits thus formed
oftener cause their youth to be followed by a beggared manhood
and an early grave than by any happier condition.

Thirty-six dollars a year is a frightful tax to levy upon a
man's wages. Yet I assert once more, dealing ki no vague
figures of " bureaus " or government statistics, but speaking from
actual, personal knowledge, that it is the tax levied and collected
by the degraded appetite of many scores of thousands of work-
men upon the labor of their hands. Nor do I mean that it is that
statistical effigy called " the average. " It is the minimum tax
paid by the moderate drinker among workmen. It is a sum
four times as large as he contributes to his church, and nine
times larger than his quota towards education !

The effects of this so-called moderate drinking habit are some-
what startling. One can easily picture the happ}' condition
of one hundred workmen who have laid up in a common fund
thirty-six dollars a year for ten years. It is not so easy to pic-
ture what the same workmen have lost in ten years of spending,
because their loss is always more serious than can be represent-
ed by dollars. Generally speaking, the worst tendencies of
modern labor conditions are aided and strengthened by drinking
workmen. This is a serious statement to make when it is re-
membered that the labor organizations are made up of moderate
drinkers, but serious as it is there is no difficulty in proving it.

The worst feature of the modern industrial system is its
effort to class its human forces with the mechanical in the pro-
duction of necessities and luxuries. . This effort is visible in

54 2 LIQUOR AND LABOR. [July.

the long hours of labor insisted on by employers, in the oppor-
tunities to work overtime granted to workmen, in the disregard
of sanitary regulations in factories, and in the employment of
children. The inhumanity of these things is plain and disgust-
ing. Yet who is found readiest to earn the wages of extra la-
bor? Whose children are sent most quickly to the sacrifice?
The man who spends thirty-six dollars a year for whiskey or
beer must find some means to make it up, and to assuage with
heavier draughts a thirst which too often increases yearly. The
legislatures have passed laws against child-labor, but members
of labor-unions connive with employers to evade them. They
must do it. Their beer-bills must be paid, and the children
must pay them. So, too, laws have been passed against long
hours of labor, but the evil of extra labor is not done away
with, for the drinkers must work extra to earn the price of their
drink. And these two things, the employment of children and
the overtime system, besides ruining the health of thousands,
have much to do with reducing wages to the lowest notch.
This fact cannot be put out of sight, that the children of the
moderate (?) drinkers are the earliest workers in the vineyards
of capital.

The tenement system is another disgusting evil of our time.
And its most contemptible upholder is the man who finds its
nastiness made endurable by beer. The filthy tenement-houses
of the great cities, the unhealthy and unsightly dwellings of
small towns, and the vile sheds, called dwellings, of country
villages, places which only the lack of public spirit permits to
exist and be profitable to dishonest landlords, are largely inhab-
ited by the drinking workman. He cannot afford to pay a de-
cent rent for a fair dwelling when so much must be paid for
beer, any more than he can afford to keep his children from
hard labor, and himself from working extra hours. He is thus
a direct supporter of a great public abuse, whose only victims
are himself and his unfortunate children. Does anybody doubt
this statement? Let him visit the hovels of towns and the tene-
ments of cities, let him pick out the cleanest and most respectable
families in them, not the brutalized sots whose life is one grand
alcoholic stupor, and let him inquire of them why they choose
to live in such quarters. They may have various reasons to
offer, but for many of them the real reason is a good-sized beer-
bill.

These are two instances out of a hundred where the drink-
ing-habit reacts with tremendous force upon the workmen.

1 888.] LIQUOR AND LABOR. 543

They are enough for my purpose, and prove conclusively the
assertion in a previous paragraph that the worst tendencies of
modern labor conditions are aided and strengthened by the
drinking habits of workmen themselves. The labor-unions and
other labor organizations have not changed things for the bet-
ter on this point, Mr. Powderly's being the solitary voice which
has been officially raised in warning and entreaty against the
strongest foe of workmen. If one chose to go minutely into the
subject, the bare items of thirty-six dollars a year, child-labor,
tenement miseries, and the like would take in many unnoticed
companions. The days spent in idleness after a heavy potation,
the comforts denied the home, the neglected children whose
after-lives bear the marks of a parent's indifference to duty, the
growing brutishness of a beer-sodden nature, the great oppor-
tunities lost and good works delayed for lack of means so foolish-
ly squandered, these are items which make a tremendous sum in
the life of one man ; and they all find their source and sustenance
in the steady workman whose whiskey-bill or beer-bill is thirty-
six dollars a year. And they can be increased. But for the
present it will do to make one computation. I have known
many persons who drank at the rate of three dollars a month
for thirty years. They would be a numerous class but for the
fact that moderation of this kind so easily and frequently be-
comes excess, and consequent destruction. At fifty these per-
sons were without money or credit. Had they been abstinent
and saving, what would have been, in the ordinary course of
things, their financial, physical, and moral standing at the end
of thirty years ? Such as they ought to have been are very
scarce in our midst, and such as they are must increase with
every year.

What can be done to emancipate labor from the grasp of the
liquor demon? There are three things which can be done im-
mediately, which will find favor in every quarter, about which
there can be no debate, and whose success will gladden the
hearts of millions. First, pass around the pledge, total or par-
tial, among all the workmen of the land. Let every labor-union
and organization be a temperance body, where the cold figures
and hard facts of moderate drinking shall be taught to the mem-
bers, every influence used to make them total-abstainers or
nearly so, and every effort put forth to keep them of one mind
in the temperance cause. Let the pastors of churches, the
teachers of schools, the heads of societies, the foremen of shops,
masters and superiors in all places, parents among their chil-

541- LIQUOR AND LABOR. [July,

dren, friends among friends ; let all, in a word, who have in-
fluence, exert it to induce others to take the pledge, let them
teach them to know why they take it, and to stick to it like the
oyster to his shell. This is one-third of the good work, and can
be done easily and done well if it be persevered in year after
year until the public mind is a unit on temperance.

Next, let every vote that can be voted throw all its power
against the gilded saloon, and for ever smash an institution
which is vile. There is no other word to describe it. It has
bred many infamies, but none greater than that of destroying
the young men of the nation. For immense numbers of boys
the saloon is the post-graduate course of the ward or parish
school. It is a solemn and terrible fact that the American
youth of this period are to an alarming extent' actually bred in
the saloons. Their chief study is pool. Their chief aim is to
drink to the verge of intoxication without showing it. What-
ever form of selling drink shall in future be tolerated, it is cer-
tain that the saloon must go. High license or no license, this
institution is politically and socially damned. Whatever takes
its place, whether it be the town pump, whither few come and
where none linger', or some mode of selling drink radically dif-
ferent from the ordinary bar, the saloon must go. Last, let the
law closely watch the brewers and their breweries, distillers and
their distilleries, and straiten them in such ways as to prevent
them from tempting their victims; restricting and guiding the
manufacture and disposal of their product with firm hand and
wary eye, and, above all, seeing to the quality, which is now so
poisoned that many die from the quality rather than the quantity.

These three things will undoubtedly go far towards ridding
not only workmen but the whole country of the liquor evil.
The first work will aid the second, and both will assuredly com-
pass the third, for appetites being toned down or destroyed in
many and the saloon temptation being gone, the breweries and
distilleries will have so little to do that the law can easily regu-
late the traffic. Moreover, the three works must go together.
Any one being left out, the attempt to manage the two remain-
ing will be apt to end at best in a brief triumph and a succeed-
ing failure. Finally, the time is ripe for the temperance move-
ment. The need of it is bitter. If it cease not until the liquor
interest be left dead and rotten on the public gibbet the good
it will have accomplished will be equal to the second founding
of this American nation. JOHN TALBOT SMITH.

i888.] THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 545

THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY.

IT is a maxim of general jurisprudence that all valid individ-
ual title to land within the territory of a country is derived from
the government which represents the nation. This legal axiom
is really a principle which jurists have adopted from the meta-
physical and higher order of knowledge. They have adopted it
from this source because of its real relation to their own study,
its indubitable truth, and practical utility.

It is a true conclusion of valid metaphysical reasoning that
exclusive ownership over a limited quantity of things useful on
the earth, land included, was introduced by human law which is
sanctioned by the rules of natural justice. Material and neces-
sary things are the gift of the Creator and Ruler of nature to all
mankind for their use and subsistence.

At an early period in the history of the race mankind became
distinguished into separate civil communities. It was by the
Jus Gentium, or in pursuance of certain evident principles of ex-
pediency and fitness, that the human family was divided into
different self-ruling bodies of men. Separate nations were estab-
lished with exclusive dominion over territory. The distinction
of races among men is by physical law ; but the distinction of
mankind into diverse autonomous nations is by human and posi-
tive law; by a general unwritten law of peoples requiring no
special enactment because so easily seen to be useful and right.*

The principles of this positive and fundamental law were
well explained by the great jurisprudents of former days. By
the Jus Gentium, or the common law of nations, it is said in the
Digests of Justinian (1. i.): "Distinct civil communities were
established, kingdoms were founded, ownership of property be-
gan, and land was subjected to proprietary boundaries."

Dominion over the goods of the earth was primitively in
common by the right and the ruling of nature. But the origi-
nally common ownership was not of such a character as to give
to individuals the authority to seize any part of these goods for
their own private use, merely at their option, and as their need

*"Quiaea quae sunt Juris Gentium naturalis ratio dictat, puta ex propinquo habentia
aequitatem, inde est quod non indiget aliqua speciali institutione, sed ipsa naturalis ratio ea in-
stituit" (St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 57, a. 3). But the Jus Gentium is not the immutable natural law
of reason and justice, except under a certain respect, secundum quid. Absolutely, or by its real
nature, it is human positive law, as many valid arguments prove, and as St. Thomas also ob-
serves.

VOL. XLVII. 35

546 THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. [J"ly

prompted : unless in a particular case it became necessary for
the preservation of life. For man is brought forth to a fellow-
ship with others, and the rights of others must limit the pre-
rogatives of each.

Mere animals which have not reason can act only by instinct
and the physical rule of their nature. They seize those objects
within their reach that will satisfy their wants. And, if need
be, they struggle with others for the capture of all that their
bodily appetite craves. The lion's share falls to the strongest,
the most violent, or the most cunning, and the weaker goes to
the wall. They cannot direct their actions rationally nor by de-
liberate justice. Hence, nature has made all the objects that
serve them positively common to all and to each.

Man is not a mere animal, necessitated in action by the in-
flexible law that governs all exclusively sentient existence. He
is a human and rational person entrusted with mastery over
himself, and over his acts that are deliberately free. He is capa-
ble of knowing the true and the morally right; of suiting his
actions to the paramount rules of justice. The means of sub-
sistence and welfare are of equal concern to each individual per-
son in the mass of human society. Material things are for the
support of man, who is born to a life with his fellows. The same
necessity to live presses equally strong upon all. And the neces-
sities of all can be supplied from no other source than the un-
failing bounty of nature. It cannot, then, be admitted con-
sistently with true ethical principles that any individual person
has the right priori to set apart for himself useful material
objects at his own discretion, and in entire disregard of all the
rest of his fellows. The giving of such absolute right to each
particular person is logically absurd. Besides, human society
could neither begin its existence nor could it now continue to
exist under such a preposterous condition. If the " absolute "
rights of several " occupants " or " appropriators " should come
in conflict, which must yield? The power to decide such mat-
ters must be, according to such a theory, denied to public au-
thority. These are the principles of an absolute individualism.

Civil power, supreme over all individuals, is a firm and in-
alienable prerogative of human society. Conflict of rights and
claims necessitates regulation and award of the disputed matters
by power superior to the disputants. The equitable and valid
division of nature's common stores among the particular parts
of mankind can everywhere belong only to supreme public au-
thority.

1 888.] THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 547

" What pertains to mankind for its decision," says a distin-
guished and learned teacher of metaphysical philosophy, " does
not belong to the individual to decide for himself, indepen-
dently of the community."* To the same effect are the mem-
orable words recently pronounced by his Eminence Cardinal
Manning:

I. " By the law of nature all men have a common right to the
use of things which were created for them and for their sus-
tenance.

II. "But this common right does not exclude the possession
of anything which becomes proper to each. The common right
is by natural law, the right of property is by human and positive
law. And the positive law of property is expedient."-}*

These are the well-matured and lucid thoughts of a wise and
illustrious prelate. The general, undisputed teaching of Cath-
olic theologians and Christian jurists is here disclosed with the
Cardinal's felicitous literary excellence. These are the princi-
ples inculcated by St. Thomas Aquinas, and, as his Eminence
observes, they are " the doctrine of the Catholic Church. ":{: Pri-
vate property held by individual persons is, however, a genuine
vested right which comes immediately from human law, but fin-
ally from the ultimate law of natural justice. Thus only is it
valid and exclusive.

But perhaps it will be said : " The state does not ' create '
the right to property. The right of the individual to hold
property is prior to civil society, and is one of those rights
called the natural rights of man."

Man indeed has natural rights which are pre-existent to civil
society. He has the natural right to acquire property, but only
by methods which are legitimate and consistent with an equal
right in others. No individual man has a right from nature to
determine his own share of property independently of equal
rights in other men and against their equal rights. For nature
gives the goods of this earth to all in common. The individual,
then, has no right to be an absolute law to himself when nature

* Rev. W. H. Hill, S.J., in his Ethics or Moral Philosophy, p. 227. Also two extremely
learned and able articles in The Lyceum (first two numbers), a literary periodical of Dublin,
edited by the Irish Jesuits.

t The American Catholic Quarterly Review for April, 1888, and the London Tablet, Feb-
ruary 18, 1888.

\ We do not mean to say that no theory different from this doctrine has ever been broached
in the schools, or even taught at times in particular seats of learning ; but that the immemorial
and, until the French Revolution, the morally unanimous voice of Catholic ethics has ever
been the principle herein advocated. In witness of this we point to Cardinal Manning's state-
ment of this principle as "the doctrine of the Catholic Church."

548 THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. [July,

and reason subject him to social law. Before civil society arose
division of goods amongst individuals was regulated conven-
tionally ; to use the words of Aquinas, " secundum humanum
condictum" not by each individual's arbitrary and indepen-
dent choice. So soon as organized society originated, it became
the duty of social authority to determine, regulate, and measure
the rights of individuals to the objects owned in common,
wherever division of these objects was required. Nature im-
parts no moral power to any one man to assume to himself des-
potically the goods which she bestows on all collectively. Divi-
sion must, therefore, be awarded by just law, and not by indivi-
dual occupancy.

The term 4< create " is a misleading word as used above in
the phrase, " The state does not create the right to property."
For it serves to effect a fallacious change of the real question.
Whether human law "creates" rights or does not is not the
precise point at issue. Nor is it the exact matter in question,
whether or not man has rights from the natural law that are
" prior to civil society." The relevant and vital principle is,
that the particular person has not the inborn and indefeasible
right to usurp to himself by his own imperious choice the goods
which nature gives as the undivided patrimony of all men.
This is the real question.

In all the civilized nations of mankind the principle is recog-
nized that the title to private property descends from the gov-
ernment to the individual. Hence, it is also agreed that it is an
essential prerogative of government to determine and regulate
the exclusive ownership of property for individual citizens.

It is a sociological maxim which is unquestionably true, as
well as authentically defended by the great saints, Augustine
and Thomas Aquinas, that the division of material things
amongst particular owners was introduced by human law found-
ed on the dictates of right reason. Hence, any designated por-
tion of the necessary things of the earth originally common can
pass into the legitimate private possession of a particular part of
mankind only by some method of valid distribution made by so-
cial authority. And such authority is intrinsic and essential to
human society. Consequently, wherever division is to be made,
the state is the sole power which can determine with justice
and validity the quantity that shall become the private property
of any individual person. The power to regulate the important
accident of quantity must necessarily include the entire power
to regulate justly every one's exclusive ownership of a share.

1 888.] THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 549

Hence the right is implied to make the just award of other acci-
dents also, as, e.g., the quality of land, together with sites and
metes, etc. For all the other accidents of material substance
are included in quantity because they are radicated in the mate-
rial substance itself only through the medium of its quantity.
Title to private property as coming from the state or sovereign
authority, representing all, is not "a fiction of the law." It is a
valid principle which is necessary to the existence of civil socie-
ty. And accordingly it is well founded in the nature of things
and in the natural law. No other proximate and genuine
source of exclusive title to property can be admitted consistent-
ly with justice and the social nature of man.

A community has also the right of eminent domain an ulti-
mate power reserved to civil government by the law of nature
and reason. For this reserved right of the state is indispensa-
bly necessary to the self-defence of a community, to even its
preservation in existence. Therefore, such power is simply
necessary for the public good. The reserved right of eminent
domain is a lordship, a mastership over private property, of
such sort as to deprive all particular ownership of complete
absoluteness. For it subordinates all private proprietorship to
the more absolute right of the community. It also gives the
government authority to defend the public against the cupidity
of the few, who might craftily or forcibly acquire so much as to
impoverish the mass of the people.

Although the state does not " create " the right to property,
it nevertheless determines with finality and validity the shares
"of individual persons to the things which nature leaves to all.
" The act," says St. Thomas Aquinas, " which accomplishes and
regulates the distribution of goods owned in common by many,
appertains to the power alone that is duly authorized to pre-
side over these goods (and their distribution)" (2. 2. q. 61, a. i).
This power is public authority. The state does not define and
fix the measure of the right in individuals to acquire property
except by the justice and the authority communicated to gov-
ernment by the immutable moral law. For every genuine right,
duty, or rule of action which human government truly and justly
founds descends from the primary ethical law of reason.

The common ownership of property is prior to individual
ownership, and superior to it. Consequently, the common right
cannot be taken away unless with some concurrence of common
consent. But the common right in extremity of need cannot be
taken away by any human law. For the right of legitimate

550 THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. [July,

self-preservation is immediately dictated by the wholly irrever-
sible teaching of nature. It is a characteristic mark of all hu-
man and upright laws to be a specialization, or some determina-
tion of natural justice. Hence that law of particular ownership
is most just which makes the nearest approach to an equal divi-
sion, for an equal division is the nearest approach to nature's
common bounty. It is for the authority representing all to de-
termine particular rights. The original moral power to portion
out to himself his own particular measure and selection of pro-
perty independently of the many, does not belong to the indi-
vidual as if he were superior over the multitude in what con-
cerns all. This principle applies to all things left by nature to
be definitively settled by social authority. Just as the indi-
vidual, as opposed to the community, cannot make himself a
king merely by his own act, nor make of his fellow-man a slave,
so he cannot independently of the community choose his own
share of property against the others, or despite the equal right
to it which other persons possess.

When the division is once legitimately made then the com-
mon ownership ceases to exist. Hence, the communists falsely
claim a right to the private property of others, under the com-
mon title from nature, as if common ownership were now still
in force, and legal division had not been made.

All legitimate civil rights are derived from natural justice as
the source of the rightfulness that is in them. Only in instances
of extreme want are necessary things positively common by the
permission of nature. But to grant that each individual person
has the sovereign right from nature, and independently of just
social law, to determine his own share of the goods originally
given in common, is to concede the principles of civil confusion,
discord, and anarchy. The exclusive ownership which histori-
cally preceded civil society was valid because it sprang from
conventional agreement between competent parties. Thus,
Abraham and Lot divided the land conventionally between
themselves. Convention takes the place of civil law before the
organization of states. But the single individual person is not
and was never the totally sufficient cause which originates legiti-
mate private dominion over any part of objects belonging to all.
For there is not merely one single individual person with his
single right, but many persons, each and all of whom have
equal natural rights to the undivided things of nature. The
theory cannot be true or feasible which assumes that man is not
by birth and the inherent propensity of his being a social crea-

i888.] THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 551

ture. History bears no record of any individual so stripped of
his kinship, so emancipated from all civil rule, as to be the all-
sufficient donor of the gifts of nature to his own exclusive do-
minion.

In the theory of "absolute individualism" the particular per-
son's exclusive ownership over his private property is an abso-
lute natural right. It is a superior prerogative which the com-
munity cannot abrogate or annul in. any instance required by the
general good. The right of eminent domain is thence denied to
government agreeably with the hypothesis. To be consistent,
the advocates of the doctrine should also deny that anything is
ever common in extremis. That is, they should deny that the
.person reduced to a situation of extreme and imperative neces-
sity has a genuine natural right to avail himself of the things
indispensably required for self-preservation.

" Absolute individualism " is the opposite extreme of "abso-
lute communism." Though heard of in the last century, it be-
gan to be more generally taught about the same time that
modern ontologism had its origin. Ontologism came into vogue
some forty-five or fifty years ago, and was taught for a time
quite generally in colleges and seminaries. The text-books
which inculcated the doctrine displaced all the old and vener-
able authorities in many institutions of learning. Its advocates
maintained that man here in this life has an immediate intuition
of God. The theory was well reasoned to its ultimate conclu-
sions, which, however, were in conflict with dogmas of religion.
It was then censured as untenable in Catholic seats of learning.

The social and erroneous theory of individualism goes still
more diametrically counter to the common teaching in the great
schools of the church. For while ontologism ranked among its
defenders St. Anselm, and, as claimed, St. Bonaventure, the
theory of " absolute individualism " in relation to goods given
by nature to mankind in common can lay claim to no such ad-
vocates in the great schools of the church, nor to any supporter
in any other class of the wise teachers of yore. Its last conclu-
sions are now likewise being reasoned out. For the minds of
men will argue to their final results all theories vitally affecting
human society.

It is already shown by many arguments that the principle
underlying this theory is disastrous to human society. For it
invests each individual with prerogatives which not only ex-
clude the very same prerogatives in every other individual, but
also reduce general law and social government to a mere nul-

552 THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. [July,

lity. What quantity, for instance, of vacant land may an in-
dividual appropriate as his own by " occupancy " ? This is a
question which proposes a most perplexing and embarrassing
difficulty to the defenders of individualism, or the theory that
" occupancy " alone suffices to give exclusive ownership. If the
individual can determine the quantity for himself, then there is
no assignable reason why he cannot appropriate as his own an
entire territcfry or vast district a right in him which is clearly
inadmissible. On the other hand, if public authority or any
positive law is to determine the quantity for him, then the
theory of " occupancy " falls to pieces. Thus, those engaged in
the defence of this doctrine are entangled in a dilemma from
which no escape is possible. The only solution for the difficulty
is to admit the. right and duty in society to determine equitably
each individual's share in the property given by nature to all in
common. Then the title of the particular owner is derived im-
mediately from government or from human law. It is further-
more quite evident that the theory of occupancy is absolutely
impracticable. In fact, an attempt never was made to establish
a civil community of mankind in accordance with such a princi-
ple that is, by letting each person have exclusive ownership of
whatever he might choose to " occupy " or " appropriate."

The theory that mere " occupancy " is the original source of
title to the exclusive ownership of land, and that such ownership
did not originate by conventional or legal division, seems never
to have been proposed or upheld by any eminent jurist, philoso-
pher, or theologian prior to a very recent date. Its advocates
appear to have adopted it, or rather seized upon it, from fear of
the communists and socialists. But fear is seldom a wise coun-
sellor, especially in matters requiring calm reasoning.

One false project or theory concerning human society can
never be logically disproved and defeated by another false
theory. True principles furnish the only conclusive proof that
communism and socialism, practised in communities of any size,
are both purely Utopian, and therefore utterly impracticable as
impossible, indeed, as would be the contrivance of a millennium
by man's ingenuity. Besides, the socialists themselves have the in-
telligence to see the falsity and impossibility of this new system
precipitately advanced against their scheme ; nay, that it is
even farther removed from feasibility than is their own extrava-
gant plan of human society.

Property may become subject to a twofold jurisdiction. It is
in some cases related both to the civil and the ecclesiastical law.

1 888.] THE ORIGIN OF PRIVATE- PROPERTY. 553

It is then styled "mixed matter." Both the Jus Civile and the
Canon Law make definitive declarations concerning property.
And the teaching- of both is one in principle respecting this mat-
ter. Such a coincidence of doctrine in these two systems of
jurisprudence reveals the general and established teaching of
Catholic jurists. These jurists maintain, as a commonly admit-
ted and unquestionable maxim, that exclusive ownership of pro-
perty is derived from human law. One would be? as it were,
only a novice in this question who has failed to inform him-
self of this fact.

All the just and positive enactments of mankind are, as before
said, derived from the fundamental law of nature and reason ;
and they proceed from this primary law through the medium of
their justice. Their validity, their authority, is such as is com-
municated to them by the unalterable dictates of right reason.
Legitimate and particular dominion over any part of terrestrial
goods is deduced from the natural law of rectitude through the
wise, expedient, and just legislation of mankind. Since the sys-
tem of private property emanates from positive law which is
based on the ultimate ruling of nature, it therefore comes through
the justice which informs and invigorates authoritative human
laws. The legal and exclusive ownership, then, is mediately from
the dictates of right reason itself. The individual's title is medi-
ately from the law of nature, immediately from human law, and
not otherwise can it be exclusive.

To empower each person with the right to appropriate at
will, and without any limit determined by law or authority, what
is given to all, would be anarchy reduced to practice. For the
principle would be radicalism that makes human society, under
the rule of law and order, an impossibility. It would be an-
archy inasmuch as it takes from the government that jurisdic-
tion, or "general legal justice," as it is styled in the schools, by
virtue of which it should co-ordinate the things and persons be-
longing to the community, so as equitably to defend the welfare
of all. It is only brute animals that are intended by nature to
act in relation to things common to them without the guidance
of justice, moral law, and social equity. Individual selfishness is
brute instinct, not man's wisdom.

Some supporters of "absolute individualism," in the matter of
owning property first given in common, use the terms " nega-
tively common " to signify what the schools of erudition
universally express by the opposite phrase," positively common."
Thus arguments are advanced containing the fallacy styled by

554 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

logicians ignoratio elenchi, ignoring or evading the real point at
issue. By this means, also, the authorities using the terms are
misrepresented by a false or misleading reference to their writ-
ings. This species of sophism has received from the able Pro-
testant Archbishop Whately the very appropriate name of
" The Fallacy of Reference." That which is properly termed
" negatively common " to all in the language of the schools is not
the property of each. It is the undivided property of all collec-
tively ; and it is divisible only by an equitable rule that secures
the rights of each.

His Eminence Cardinal Manning, in the article before re-
ferred to, defines with masterly precision and truth the genuine
Catholic doctrine concerning private property, its origin, its na-
ture, and the ^imitations to which it is subjected by the equal
rights of all men.

JAMES A. CAIN.

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

A REALLY delightful book for children of all ages, including
those of us who are approaching our second childhood, is Sum-
mer Legends (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York), translated
from the German of Rudolph Baumbach by Helen B. Dole,
who, by the way, has done her part toward the making of the
book better than the proof-reader has. It is a collection of fairy
tales for the most part, which have passed through repeated
editions in Germany. They are not sentimental, like those of
Hans Andersen ; often, indeed, they have a delicate edge of
satire and a faint ironical flavor which very young readers will
be apt to miss. Still, there is plenty of material even for them
in a book which has, besides, a staying quality which will amuse
them later on. The tender humor of such tales as " The Water
of Youth," " The Four Evangelists," and " The Water of For-
getf ulness " is pleasant, also ; but for pure fun " The Ass's Spring "
easily takes the lead. Its only fault and that, perhaps, was un-
avoidable is that its real climax is reached in the middle of the
story. Every touch after that weakens it. It relates the ad-
ventures of two who stood by the famous spring one day, many
years ago, before it had become a famous health resort

" one on this side, the other on that. He was an ass, and she was a

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 555

goose, both in the first bloom of youth. They greeted each other silently,
and quenched their thirst. Then the ass drew near to the goose, and
asked bashfully : ' Young lady, may I accompany you ? ' '

Then each relates to the other their several histories. He
is descended from the sacred ass of Jerusalem ; she is of the
race of those who saved the Roman Capitol. They become in-
separable, though, alas ! the unlikeness of their natures dooms
their friendship to remain Platonic. But a wise owl, being
asked for counsel by the ass, advises him to seek the Wish-
Lady, who makes her appearance at the spring once every year,
on midsummer eve. To her, when she comes, Baldwin makes
his moan. If he could be a bird he knows very well what bird
he would be. Can she assist him ? Though the Wish-Lady
thinks his choice a singular one, she gives him a prescription
which works to a charm. A handsomer gander never stretched
its long neck.

" As fast as he could go, he hurried to the thicket where the goose had
taken up her abode. 'Alheid, my beloved Alheid ! ' he cried, ' where art
thou ? ' ' Here, my dearest,' sounded from the thicket, and a pretty little
she-ass came dancing out of the bushes. The lovers looked at each other,
dumb with amazement.

" ' Oh ! what an ass I am ! ' sighed the gander.

" ' Oh ! what a goose I am ! ' groaned the ass."

A number of the tales are Catholic in tone and incident, and
though there is here and there a blemish one would be glad to
see removed, yet on the whole the book is both sound and charm-
ing.

Another pleasant translation is made by Clara Bell, from the
French of Pierre Loti, From Lands of Exile (W. S. Gottsberger,
New York). There is a singular charm about the original of
these sketches, written on board ship by a French naval officer
m various Indian and Chinese ports, which has been well pre-
served by the translator. Occasionally, though, one feels that a
still more literal rendering would have been preferable to that
actually chosen. Why, for example, transform " Oh ! ce silence,
cette splendeur" into " Oh ! that stillness, that glory ! " The
paper entitled "Subterranean Temples," which describes the
Temple of the Marble Mountain in Annam, is the most striking
in the collection. They are very French in sentiment and hand-
ling.

His friendly critics of the newspaper press describe Mr.
Edgar Saltus as a " gifted and brilliant pessimist," " an artist in
the use of words," "an unconscious teacher, who has a mission,

556 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [July,

and who proclaims it in every word he writes." Mr. Saltus is
a New-Yorker who has published several books, among them
a Study of Balzac, a Philosophy of Disenchantment, and two
novels, the latest of which, The Truth about Tristrem Varick
(Belford, Clarke & Co., New York), he "dutifully inscribes," as
an " essay in ornamental disenchantment," to his " master,
Eduard von Hartmann." Candor, real or assumed, provoking
candor, we feel moved to tell the truth about Mr. Saltus, both
as a teacher with a mission and as an artist in words. Gifted
and brilliant he is, but rather as a poseur than a real, Simon-pure
pessimist. Nor, if the lesson he attempts to convey in Tristrem
Varick be a continuation of the previous message with which
he is believed to have been charged, do we feel inclined to credit
him with anything so naive as unconsciousness concerning it.
Suppose we condense it: It is not impossible, nor, perhaps,
wildly improbable, that good men may exist men correct, that
is to say, in their social relations. My hero is such a person.
I claim no credit for him on that score. He happened to be
made that way; moreover, after having been afflicted by an in-
eradicable and unsatisfied passion for one woman, his betrothed,
he was cut off by the hangman's noose at the age of twenty-
six or thereabouts. But as for women! Mr. Saltus shrugs his
shoulders. Well, in the last generation, perhaps. Certainly
we all had mothers. Still, you must admit that though his par-
ticular suspicion happened to be unfounded, Tristrem's father
had ample prima facie grounds for the brutality of disinheriting
his putative son, leaving him nothing but an old hat and a bun-
dle of letters from which he could hardly conclude anything
but his mother's dishonor. And then look at Tristrem himself!
When he drives a dagger to the heart of his oldest friend, not
through any low or mean motive of revenge, but solely that he
may enable his "amber-eyed" Viola to lift those golden orbs
once more unshamed to her mother's face, because her mar-
ried lover no longer lives her mother, who knows all her story
from the start what does the young woman tell him as he hints
to her that she need no longer dread exposure her infant hav-
ing been abandoned and its father assassinated ? "I loved him,"
she mutters, and afterward promises his grandfather, who im-
plores her on his knees to supply the motive which shall exon-
erate Tristrem before the outraged majesty of justice, to which
he has weakly surrendered himself, that she will "come to see
him sentenced." Admit again, then, that in this worst of all
possible worlds, Tristrem was an unlucky dog, whose high

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 557

ideals and unselfish virtues availed him less than nothing, since
by means of them he lost the only attainable pleasures that exist.
Not simply unlucky, then. A positive fool, rather.

So much for the morals and the philosophy of Mr. Saltus.
As to his style, we find it over-praised. It is what the French
call un style meticuleux, whose seeming simplicity is studied and
pver-labored ; which drops, as if by accident, into words not
merely far-fetched but ill chosen, as when he talks about toying
" with apostils of grief." Nevertheless, it is a style in which, by
that irony of the inevitable which dogs the heels of the poseur,
Mr. Saltus pays his single involuntary tribute to a true " phi-
losophy of the unconscious."

The Spell of Ashtaroth (New York : Charles Scribner's Sons)
is by Mr. Duffield Osborne, a recent graduate of Columbia Col-
lege. It is advertised as a " brilliant new novel," for which " has
been predicted a success greater than Ben Hur " (sic\ It was
doubtless a false prophet who hazarded the prediction. Mr.
Osborne's work satisfies the purely literary sense no better than
did that of General Wallace, while in human interest, as well as
in ethical and religious purport, it falls indefinitely below it.
Mr. Osborne's tale, concerning as it does various Old Testament
worthies, seemed to him to require what is called the " solemn
style "the use, that is, of the second person singular in all the
conversations. That is a mistake to begin with, for the reason
that it involves not merely an incessant, but too frequently a
fruitless, effort to keep the verbs free from colloquialisms which
suit ill with thees and thous. The Quakers solve the difficulty
by dropping thou altogether, and by making no pretence at
forcing their verbs up to either the grammatical or the rhetori-
cal standard. But Mr. Osborne does make such a pretence, and
with this result, among others :

"Girls know nothing of war. They tremble when they hear of great
deeds. Didst thou mark how she turned pale when two days ago thou
toldest how thou slewest the Moabite ? . . . I would I might have held the
sword that thou dravest under his ribs ! And now to-day, I must stay in
the camp with the women and the old men while thou fightest. . . . Ah !
well, I shall find some tall palm and watch the battle from its branches,
and tell Miriam what thou art doing. I will tell her thou art fallen and
hear her cry out "

'" If thou dost I will chastise thee soundly when the day is over,' inter-
rupted Adriel hotly.

" ' Truly I did but jest to see the,e flare up !'" .

However, his slips of this sort are the least of our objections

558 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [July,

to Mr. Osborne's novel. The action of the story begins before
the walls of Jericho on the night before they fall. Adriel, a
purely fictitious son of Achan, enters the city the next day with
his fellows, with the intent of obeying the Divine command to
root out and destroy its inhabitants. Entering alone a temple
of Ashtaroth, the Venus of the Syrian nations, he encounters
first a young man whom he slays, and then, within the inmost
shrine, a beautiful young girl. His suddenly-kindled passion
for her beauty leads him let us put it in the words of the ad-
vertisement of Mr. Osborne's novel to "chivalrously violate
the Divine command." He saves her alive and tries to flee with
her to

" other lands than this. There are cities by the great sea of which I have
heard cities the power and wealth of which it is hard to conceive and
there is, too, that Babylon of which thou hast spoken. Peradventure it
will go hard with us if there be not some refuge where the children of the
desert may not come. Thither, dearest, shall we journey and live under
the protection of thy gods, that thy Ashtaroth may bless our loves and give us
protection against the Jehovah of Israel"

Elissa does not at first regard this proposition with favor.
She advises him to obey his own God, and sees no force in the
fact that she is Adriel's prisoner which should constrain her to
yield him anything but her lifeless body. Adriel, too, at the
bottom of his heart, is afraid that Ashtaroth will not count as a
very heavy weight in opposition to " the Jehovah of Israel."
Still, his passion overmasters his fear, he conquers the love of
Elissa, and they seek to escape. But as Mr. Osborne is re-
luctantly constrained by the subject he has chosen to let " the
Jehovah of Israel " triumph, Adriel and Elissa are stoned with
Achan and the rest of his family, and, to quote once more the
felicitously worded advertisement, " all the sympathy of the
reader is with them."

"An arm, now rigid and powerless, still encircled her slender form
with all the seeming promise of protection, while smiling lips, now cold and
breathless, seemed almost to kiss the pale brow resting so near. They
smiled into each other's faces and they were beautiful, for the dying god-
dess of a dying race loved them. Ashtaroth had shed her blessing over their
sleep ; and had Jehovah cursed them to the uttermost? Who is he that
dares to say it ? "

Fortunately, no one is called upon to express any opinion con-
cerning the "uttermost curse" awaiting the creatures of Mr.
Osborne's fancy. The underlying motive of his story is an
old one, but as he is very young, and has kept the details of

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 559

his work scrupulously clean, it is possible that he is not wholly
conscious of what it is. If he is, the light which it and his treat-
ment of it throws on him is to our thinking- most unpleasant.
The only novelty he can lay claim to and it is one which
heightens his offence at the same time that it makes us doubt
both his and his publishers' full appreciation of it is that of put-
ting it into a dress. so antiquated that when it is drawn out of
the treasure-house of things gone by its very age shall make it
unfamiliar. For the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is
also the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That he is
a jealous God we know. We know, too, that to love him is
to be jealous for him and for his honor, and for that reason to
" hate also," with St. Jude, "the spotted garment, which is car-
rial." They are very old antagonists, the Divine love and the
human ; the war is ancient in which the flesh lusts against the
spirit. Mr. Osborne's novel, pure in all its details, revolts us
more by this setting of sensual love, in its most universally ac-
cepted type, in avowed though fruitless opposition to that which
is Divine, than many another book, more coarsely done yet less
maliciously conceived.

Considered as character-painting, as a study of human nature
in a New England village, or as a piece of natural, unaffected
writing, we have none but good words to give to John Ward,
Preacher, a novel by Margaret Deland (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
Boston and New York). Besides the hero and heroine there are
half a dozen or more personages who perhaps stand out as dis-
tinctly in the reader's mind as they may have done in that of the
author. Rector Howe, for instance, who when John Ward asks
him what he would do if he thought it undeniable that the Bible
actually taught some doctrine which he could not accept, an-
swers, " I I ? Oh ! I'd read some other part of the book. But
I refuse to think such a crisis possible ; you can always find some
other meaning in a text, you know." Admirable, too, in its way,
though disedifying, is the scene where the rector goes to ad-
minister the last consolations in his power to his life-long friend,
Mr. Denner. He begins to read the Visitation of the Sick, but
before he has finished the first sentence Denner interrupts him
with :

'"Archibald, you will excuse me, but this is not not necessary, as it
were. ... I have every respect for your office, but would it not be easier for
us to speak of of this, as we have been in the habit of speaking on all
subjects, quite in our ordinary way, as it were? You will pardon me,
Archibald, if I say anything else seems ah unreal?' ...

560 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [July,

" ' William,' the rector answered, ' have I made religion so worthless ?
Have I held it so weakly that you feel that it cannot help you now ? '

" ' Oh ! not at all,' responded Mr. Denner, ' not at all. I have the great-
est respect for it I fear I expressed myself awkwardly the greatest re-
spect ; I fully appreciate its value, I might say its necessity, in the commu-
nity. But but, if you please, Archibald, since you have kindly come to
tell me of this change, I should like to speak of it in our ordinary way ; to
approach the subject as men of the world. It is in this manner, if you will
be so good, I should like to ask you a question. I think we quite under-
stand each other ; it is unnecessary to be anything but natural.' "

Thus appealed to, the rector answers that, though he may not
have lived it, yet he cannot now answer in any capacity but that
of a Christian.

" ' Just so,' said Mr. Denner politely ' ah ! certainly ; but, between ourselves,
doctor, putting aside this amiable and pleasing view of the church, you under-
stand speaking just as we are in the habit of doing what do you suppose
what do you think is beyond ? . . . Where shall I be ? Knowing or perhaps
fallen on an eternal sleep ? How does it seem to you, doctor ? That was what I
wanted to ask you; do you feel sure of anything afterwards?'

" The other put his hands up to his face a moment. ' Ah ! ' he answered
sharply, 'I don't know I can't tell ; I I don't know, Denner ! '

" ' No, 1 replied Mr. Denner, with tranquil satisfaction, ' I supposed not, I
supposed not. But when a man gets where I am, it seems the one thing in the
world worth being sure of.' "

Like Miss Woolley's novel of which we spoke last month,
this one treats those twin subjects, love and theology, which
lie at the base of so much of the decent fiction of the day.
But it does so with a much firmer and more practised hand.
John Ward, a Presbyterian preacher of most absolute convic-
tions, marries the rector's niece, who has few of any sort when
she marries, save that mutual love, such as exists between herself
and him, is the one great good of this life, and that, having at-
tained it, it is idle to bother one's head about the future. As to
the Calvinistic hell, she firmly declines to believe in it at all, and
as hell seems to John the keystone of the arch on which all else
hangs his argument being that the Incarnation and Passion of
our Saviour would have been futile if a man need not repent, but
may be happy hereafter after living here in sin he finally puts
her away.

"'Don't you see, dear,' Helen says to him, 'we cannot reason about it?
You take all this from the Bible because you believe it is inspired. I do not
believe it. So how can we argue ? ' "

Although she is admirably fair true to nature, that is in

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 561

the case of all her characters, Mrs. Deland's sympathies are evi-
dently with Helen. She has painted a very noble love and per-
fect trust between her and John a love which makes Helen
justify her husband even when he turns her from his door in the
hope that the suffering- will be so great that it will bring her to
the truth as he sees it. But Helen is immovable. She has that
clearness of intellect and strength of will which women often as-
cribe to the women they imagine, and though her heart is very
near breaking, and John's actually does break he being evident-
ly the " weaker vessel," since he can believe in hell and yet love
God she never says yes through weakness of heart when her
mind says no through clearness of vision. And yet, to an un-
prejudiced observer doesn't there seem something the matter
with Helen's wits when, doubting eternity and not willing- to
affirm a personal God, she can say that, although she does
not believe in a hell of fire and brimstone, she does believe
that the consequences of sin eternally affect character f And is
there not something even exquisite in the futility of this?

" If there is a God, and he is good, he will not send me away from you in
eternity ; if he is wicked and cruel, as this theology makes him, we do not want
his heaven ! We will go out into outer darkness together."

No. wonder that John shuddered. A strong woman was
his creator and he is weak. But had it been otherwise, with
what a burst of mighty laughter he would have greeted this
piece of profundity. " Go to, my dear," he would have said
to her, " knit your stockings and don't talk theology. God
requires from none of his creatures what he has not put within
their power. I hope that he will save you, notwithstanding
your intellectual offences, for he will surely number you among
the inconceivably ignorant and the hopelessly dull, who can-
not grasp even the most elementary notion of what he is."

The Residuary Legatee (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York)
is a rather slight performance by F. J. Stimson, otherwise
known by his nom de plume, J. S. of Dale. Mr. Austin May,
who must either abstain from marriage for the eleven years
which lie between twenty-two and thirty-three or else forfeit a
fortune, first engages his Cousin May to wait for him all that
time, and then devotes himself to travel. Thrice during this
period he falls in love and engages himself to marry once a
Polish adventuress with a husband in a Siberian mine ; once an
English lady, providing her husband, " ever at her side," shall
die in convenient season ; and once an American girl who has

VOL. XLVIL 36

562 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [July,

another lover. And he gives all three of them, of course at suc-
cessive periods, rendezvous at the house of his deceased relative
on the day when his apprenticeship expires. On that day he is
on hand himself, dread in his heart and fearful expectation on
his face. For, as he has fallen successively into love, so has he
fallen hopelessly out of it. The Polish countess, whom he
dreads the most, puts in no appearance. The Englishwoman
is dead, but her husband, who has found among her effects the
letter in which Austin made his conditional offer, comes to in-
quire what it may mean, and to express his opinion thereupon.
Miss Rutherford sends a letter to say she prefers the other man.
Only his Cousin May is left, and he discovers that he has loved
her and her only all the time. He discovers, too, that they
might as well have married at once as waited, since by another
provision of the will, if Austin violated the injunction by espous-
ing his cousin without delay, he would at once have reacquired
the fortune, as May, in such event, had been named as Residuary
Legatee. The story bristles with small affectations in point of
style and diction.

WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

THE STORY OF A COLORED MAN'S CONVERSION.

I was born a slave and brought up and educated in Staunton, Va. My mother
is a pure black, my father nearly so, having some admixture of white blood. Both
were slaves up to the time of emancipation. My parents were both " Ironside "
Baptists. They taught me the total depravity of man, and that only the elect (a
few " Ironsides ") would be saved. My mother could read and write very well.
She taught me to spell when only four years of age. Also to make the script al-
phabet. She also had a limited knowledge of music.

When very young I was taught to say the Our Father and the little prayer,
" Now I lay me down to sleep."

There being at that time no Baptist church in our town, my parents sent us
four boys, of whom I was youngest, and a girl to the Methodist Sunday-school.
My teacher was a Mr. Morris, who now lives in Tyson Street, Baltimore. He
taught me the Apostles' Creed and a considerable part of the Methodist Cate-
chism, which I soon became very fond of. I afterwards entered the Bible-class
taught by Mr. Thomas Campbell, the superintendent of the Sunday-school, also
one of Staunton's most respected citizens, and at one time superintendent of its
public schools. After two years in that class I became a teacher in the Sunday-
school, though not yet a member of any church. At the age of fourteen I gradu-
ated from the public schools, and six months later I joined the church called the
Augusta Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Robert Steele, now presiding

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 563

elder of the Baltimore district, being pastor. I had a purpose to study for the
ministry, and hoped to be able to do so. I commenced my course of Biblical stu-
dies under Mr. Steele, continuing them under his successor, Rev. Benjamin Brown,
a learned Methodist divine, now stationed at John Wesley's church, Hill Street,
Baltimore. I also studied Binneys Compend of Theology as a sort of doctrinal
text-book. I was always very fond of history, and read much of it, both ancient
and modern, including The Rise of Methodism ; also a great deal about the so-
called Reformation. I also studied vocal music for four years under Dr. D. J. L.
Braun, the most noted vocalist of our section of country, and instrumental music
for the same length of time under Professor. Koerber and his son Philip. I was
soon made a class-leader and took charge of the young people, with general
charge of the Sunday afternoon prayer-meeting.

I was especially fond of the New Testament studies, and these first pointed
me towards the true church. More than once did I ask my instructor why the
ministers nowadays do not forgive sins ; why after baptism hands were not im-
posed, as had been done by the Apostles. The fifth chapter of St. James also
caused me to ask why what is there described is not now done. My teacher
would always evade these questions ; sometimes he would speak of the Catholic
Church, which claimed all these, and say her clergy were deluded, blinding the
people, etc., etc. Afterwards I attended a Methodist seminary, and, besides the
usual lessons, read much of Sts. Augustine and Jerome, and also the History of
the Benedictines, which was exceedingly interesting to me. All of this reading
gradually influenced me in the right direction.

As yet I had never been in a Catholic Church or heard a priest's voice.
Meantime Catholic matters were often discussed among us even in class. Once
we had a very lively debate on the question, Were Roman Catholics ever a holy
people ? I began about this time to have much curiosity about the church, and a
longing desire to attend Catholic worship and hear a priest preach, and this long-
ing only grew the stronger as I continually heard and read so much about the er-
rors of the old church, and of how she had fallen from Christ. Led as much by
curiosity as by other human motives, I attended the Catholic church of our town
on Christmas day, and was present at the solemn Mass. It was St. Francis*
Church, Augusta Street, Staunton. I went with no expectation of hearing the
Gospel preached, or so much as the name of Jesus mentioned. The good priest
whose words reached my heart that day is Rev. Father McVerry, still pastor there.
The sermon was, to me, very effective. The preacher spoke solidly on the sacra-
ment of penance, and how the faithful should prepare by seeking forgiveness of
their sins to receive their Lord in Holy Communion. The services seemed, of
course, very strange to me; but the sermon still more so. My mind was so full
of it that I could not help putting many questions about this strange sermon to
my professor, who soon became worried >and fretted about me. He had ever
been kind and indulgent towards me, but he told me that he feared that I would
wilfully lose my soul. He declared with much feeling that he could see that my
ideas had got into the Roman channel. I answered that I must have reached
that channel through the works of Wesley and the Protestant Bible, because I
had never till then read a Catholic book or heard a Catholic sermon till that
Christmas day.

At the opening of the next session, being without means, I could not re-enter
the seminary, and, on account of what they called nay "queer ideas," was denied
the help usually given so liberally in our colored Protestant institutions.

564 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [July,

Through the kindness of my old professor, I was appointed teacher in the col-
ored school of Chambersburg, Pa. After teaching one term, and in addition giv-
ing music lessons in vacation, I managed to save a little money. I entered a
college in Pennsylvania, studying hard and remaining till my savings were gone.

A chance advertisement was, in God's providence, the finishing stroke in my
journey to the church. It was in a Norristown, Pa., paper, and called for a
young man to teach English in a German family. I had learned German in
Staunton and had studied it further in Chambersburg. In my answer to the ad-
vertisement I stated that I was colored ; still the family accepted me. The
family consisted of a German Lutheran minister, his wife, two sons, and a daugh-
ter, all unable to speak a word of English. I proved to be useful to them, and I
also became organist in their church.

The family became very fond of me, and the boys in three months knew
enough English to enter the public schools. I had access to the minister's large
library, and became much interested in the life of Martin Luther. Nothing had
given my mind such trouble as the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Euchar-
ist. But little by little my soul became satisfied and my doubts came to an end.
I also read here Luther's Tisch-reden (Table-talk). These works, with the min-
ister's many talks on consubstantiation and other doctrines, instead of settling my
doubts led me only the more eagerly to search for truth ; which no honest, fair-
minded person ever earnestly did without finally landing in the communion of
the holy Roman Catholic Church.

It was while in this family I commenced instruction under a priest, which I
kept up steadily for six months. These first instructions I received from Father
James Manahan, assistant priest of the Catholic church at Norristown. My en-
gagement in the minister's family terminating, I then entered the " Delaware
Association for the Education of Colored People," and was appointed teacher
of the school at Smyrna. Ther I resumed my< course of instructions in the
Catholic faith, and was in about a year's time baptized in St. Polycarp's Church,
Smyrna. The Protestant people were furious at me and turned me out of the
school. Returning to Virginia, I by chance learned that my old school, in which
I had taught for four years, was vacant. My application was successful. But as
soon as it was known that I was a Catholic I experienced the same opposition,
and was forced to give up the school.

When it became known that I had actually become a Catholic, all my friends
set up a howl. I could no longer teach a whole term in any public school, for as
soon as it was discovered that I was a Catholic intrigues were started which
caused my dismissal. Consequently for a long time I suffered greatly. After
school hours somehow I felt that I must share with others what I had gained,
the gift of faith that was so precious to my soul. I do not mean that I taught
Catholic doctrine in a public-school building, but at my room or other convenient
places. Some of my dearest friends in Staunton declared that since I had gone
into idolatry they could no longer care for me as in days past. My mother
thought it awful, but said little. My sister really thought I had more sense than
to be paying a man fifty cents every week to forgive me my sins. My brother
(but one being alive at this time) declared that he would go to his grave mourn-
ing my lost condition. " Brother Lewis," a well-known class-leader, met me
about a year ago, when the following conversation took place :

"Well, brother,-! am real glad to see you ; I've been praying God a long time
to see you."

i888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 565

" Mr. Lewis, J am very glad that some Staunton friend gives me such a kind
welcome."

" But, brother, what do you mean by addressing me so Mister Lewis. You
could not expect your old friends to love you as they once did. You know,
brother, you have turned your back on Him whom you once served and gone
after strange gods, worshipping idols. You were such a promising young man,
and no doubt would have been a power in our church. What ever possessed
you to take such a course ? "

" Being concerned about the salvation of my soul caused me to do as I have
done."

" What do you mean ? "

" I mean that since there is but one faith and one baptism, there can be but
one church, and that must be none of John Wesley's making, but the work of
God. Show me the power in John Wesley or any other man to set up a church
or religion and call it Christ's."

" Now, my brother, you don't just understand. In your church it is taught
that salvation is by believing in a man. Faith alone saves us."

" What then will you do with the passage of Scripture which says, ' Faith
without works is dead ' ? "

" That's quite true, etc.''

Our conversation was quite lengthy. He became much interested in Ca-
tholic doctrine, and concluded that if the old church taught all that I said she did
she had never erred. He insisted that I should see his new pastor, which I con-
sented to do the next day at his house. He introduced me as an old class-leader
who had left good old Wesley and gone to Rome. Our meeting was pleasant.
After nearly two hours' debate on Methodism and Catholicity, he said I had the
advantage of him because I could argue pro and con. meaning that I was ac-
quainted with both sides.

Our holy mother the church being the mother and mistress of all churches,
in her alone are found the necessary means of salvation. To her was given the
command : " Go teach all nations." Ethiopia has not yet received the word,
although in America she stretches forth her hands. It is the bounden duty of
the church to grasp those outstretched hands and draw these poor people to her
bosom.

And now, if I am allowed a word about the prospects of making Catholics of
my people, I must say that in Virginia and other Southern States the conversion
of the negro cannot be very successfully carried on by white priests alone. Pre-
judice among my race against a white man (one of the curses of slavery) still
strongly exists. They have no confidence in what a white man says about re-
ligious questions, and think it perfectly ridiculous that a white man must have
charge of colored people. Many colored people being excessively suspicious, will
look upon efforts made by a white clergy alone as a device to entrap them in
some way or other. Meantime the Protestant whites will make great efforts to
hinder the Catholic Church spreading among the blacks. In this section a
school taught by a white teacher is a failure. A few colored priests, noble-
hearted men and good speakers, would in a few years make a good showing in
our State, and no doubt in all the adjoining ones.

This is a brief yet complete narrative of how I found the true church. God
grant that some Protestant who reads this may be so concerned about his soul's
welfare as to do likewise !

566 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [July,

"THE POOR YOU HAVE ALWAYS WITH YOU."

We call special attention to Dr. P. F. McSweeny's article in this number on
" The Church and the Classes." The figures there given demonstrate what
everybody knows, that the Catholic Church is the church of the poor.

We are the church of the poor. We claim this as a heritage, and there is
none to dispute our claim. The workingman is ours. What a blessing! What
a privilege !

O God ! we feel like crying O God ! thanks to thy blessed Providence that
the poor belong to us and we belong to the poor !

The greasy mechanics are ours, and the dusty car-drivers are ours, and the
rough 'longshoremen are ours, and the grimy colliers are ours ; the tired factory--
girls, and the drooping shop-girls, and the wear) 7 seamstresses all ours. The
strikers are ours, the dangerous classes are ours, and we are theirs ; the toiling
millions make up the bulk of our Catholic people those multitudes to whom the
words " give us this day our daily bread " have the significance of the direst reality
earners of the daily wage. How others may feel we cannot tell ; but for our-
selves we are proud to belong to the poor man's church. "The poor have the
Gospel preached to them " is a mark that the Christ is indeed come and that
men need not look for another.

But if it be true that they are ours, it is also true that we are theirs ; we are
more theirs than they are ours : that is to say, nearly all our people are wage-earn-
ers, and yet there are multitudes of wage-earners who are not our people. Take
away from the church in America the working class, and what is left ? How few
there are in every congregation who are to be ranked above or apart from the work-
ing classes ! On the other hand, in each of our industrial centres there are large
numbers of daily wage-earners who are not Catholics. Of the eight millions of
American Catholics all but a few hundred thousands are the men and women who
stand over against the rich as "the poorer classes," " the masses of the people."
But there are fully as many more who are not of our church, and who are not
more than one in ten of the different Protestant churches, and who are therefore
of no church at all. What religion they have is natural, or a lingering influence
of some form of Protestantism previously held by themselves or their parents.

It follows, therefore, that the solution of the social problem is in our hands.
Our non-Catholic fellow-citizens must look to the Catholic Church to effectually
leaven "the masses" with the love of order and with the virtues of good citizen-
ship to conquer the saloon and the boodle-boss. We can reach the whole body
of the common people with the influences of religion if we are alive to our provi-
dential mission ; and in doing so we shall maintain the rights of the poor man,
we shall secure the stability of the social order, and we shall gradually spread
among " the masses " the only form of Christianity which embraces all classes in
its organism.

The very test question about either a religion or a government is, What does
it do for the poor man ? The true religion must answer : I make the poor man
love and worship God and live at peace with his neighbor. The true form of gov-
ernment must answer : I give the poor man a fair share in the gifts of Provi-
dence.

The religion which sifts out of the working classes the bright, thrifty, and
successful, leaving the mass of dulness and poverty and ignorance to rot and
fester upon the body politic, is not the religion to help solve the social problem

1 88 3.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 567

now pressing upon us. It cannot unite all classes in one church. It cannot
make men of diverse social states in civil society of one and the same state be-
fore the altar. It does not make for equality before God and the law. The rich
man's church is not the religion for a democratic state.

Look at Protestantism among us. It cannot be denied that it has no hold on
"the masses ";" the wage-earners " are not found in Protestant churches. No
anti-poverty society can compare with Protestantism. The most evident facts
show that it is a religion which extravagantly develops those natural virtues
which make men prosperous. The intelligent and thrifty trader, the frugal
money-saver, are at home in a Protestant church and the poor man is not. The
real truth is that the thrifty and the successful citizens of this republic find Pro-
testantism a congenial religion, and the shiftless and unfortunate are not inclined
to it. It deals too conspicuously with present happiness as the reward of virtue.
Its war upon luxury is too feeble.

Brethren, we feel like saying to the Catholic clergy, here is your portion
of the inheritance, the common men and women of this land. Bear in mind
these many busy, thinking minds, these many throbbing, loving hearts who run
up and down the world's highways gaining a hard living they are yours and you
are theirs. Be worthy of them. Be not lovers of luxury. Be poor bishops and
priests, for you are pastors of a poor people. Beware of the parade of wealth and
the patronage of the rich and the smile of the powerful. Let your only palace be
the house of God, and let purple and gold be reserved for the sacred vestments
of your ministry in the sanctuary of the great King.

Let the enemies of your people be your enemies : infidelity and intemperance
in other words, the godless school and the saloon. Let us push forward the
building of Christian schools ; let us make them the best schools in the land,
to give the poor man's child that treasure of heavenly wisdom : how to have a
solid hope of eternal joy. Let us of the pulpit tell the truth about the loathsome
sin of drunkenness and voice the people's best thought about the saloon.

Look at the state of Europe and ask yourself which is better : To be the be-
loved clergy of the common people, as in Ireland and in America, or a clergy
with the people against you, as in many parts of the continent of Europe ?

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ANDIATOROCTE ; or, the Eve of Lady Day on Lake George, and other Poems,
Hymns, and Meditations in Verse. By the Rev. Clarence A. Wai-
worth, Rector of St. Mary's Church, Albany, N. Y. New York and
London: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Poets have an intuition of truth. This is the first quality of a poet,
and the most necessary one. Father Walworth has this quality, and gives
evidence of it in every poem of this volume. We have read these poems
with a great deal of pleasure and unusual interest. We have found a great
satisfaction in doing so, not only from personal reasons, but also because
there are so many noble sentiments and high thoughts in this book.
Every poem, even the shortest ones, has this distinguishing characteris-

5 68 NE w PUBLIC A TIONS. [ J u ly ,

tic. We confess that we wait with unusual interest to hear the reception
the public will give it.

It seems to us that the author has bestowed a great deal of time on
each one of these poems in his endeavor to clothe in fitting terms of
imagination the great thought before his mind. It is not difficult to per-
ceive that the lack of a spontaneous imaginative faculty has been the au-
thor's difficulty. But the best poets are those whose thoughts are spon-
taneously clothed with fitting imaginative expression, whatever may be
their rank as thinkers. In this sense, a man may be a good poet and a
weak thinker; but in the genuine sense of poetical excellence, deep think-
ing is an essential requisite, and this the author really possesses. We give
him this applause with all our heart. Father Walworth is a powerful
thinker, and has clothed elevating thoughts in a garb which a common-
place mind could never furnish. Why, we are tempted to ask, does such a
man write poems ? And, without doubt, his reason is, the love of God, and
of noble deeds, and noble men and women. He has not failed, in our judg-
ment, to be a truthful interpreter of the highest lessons the human soul can
learn.

Those who take an interest in the American Indian, and believe him to
be something of a type of the primitive man, will extend a specially hearty
welcome to this volume. The author has a romantic admiration of the
finer types of the red man. This has led him to spend many weeks in in-
specting the ancient sites of the Indian villages and battle-fields of New
York and neighboring States. He has gathered a store of information
such as is possessed by very few. Many of these poems are on topics con-
nected with the poetical side of the Indian character.

There are also many religious poems in this volume of a pure and
beautiful devotional character, breathing the innermost affections and
emotions of a Christian and priestly spirit.

It seems to us that there are traces in these poems of Emerson's style,
but of that writer's thoughts we are glad to find no trace whatever. Alto-
gether, both style and thought are unique, and it may be that a large pub-
lic will find in this volume an exposition of the finer sentiments of the
Christian faith, without offending sincere men of any creed.

Father Walworth's position, so well defined and so Catholic withal, on
matters of public morality, shows how far one can be a good Catholic priest
of wide public influence without giving offence to any one. The enemies
of the church and the enemies of morality dare not oppose him. His
poems also are calculated to minister to the good taste and elevated reli-
gious sentiment of his fellow-countrymen in a like degree.

CHRISTIANITY IN THE UNITED STATES FROM THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. By Daniel Dorchester, D.D. New
York : Phillips & Hunt. 1888.

The author of this book enumerates " three great competing forces in
the religious life of the nation : Protestantism, Romanism, and a variety of
Divergent Elements." He gives a separate account of each of these divi-
sions, both during the Colonial Era and during the National Era. The
latter era he sub-divides into three periods : first from 1776 to 1800, second

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 569

from 1800 to 1850, third from 1850 to 1887. In his preface he says that in
his book

" The Ro:nan Catholic Church has been freely, fully, and generously treated ; eulogies
have been expressed upon some of the earlier gifted and devoted emissaries, and a great
amount of expensive and wearisome labor put forth in efforts to adequately represent the body
in the later statistical tables."

In the face of this assertion, the Unitarian Review for May, in a notice of
this work, says : " Dr. Dorchester's bias against Roman Catholicism ... is
pronounced"; but let us see for ourselves whether he has treated us
"generously " or not. We find in his account of the Spanish and French
explorers in the New World that one is characterized by lust for slaves,
women, and gold, and an enthusiastic devotion to the Madonna; another
is a freebooter, pitilessly cruel, unscrupulous, and dissolute, and at the
same time zealous for the church ; and a third unites ferocious avarice
with religious zeal. By this sort of word-coupling he insinuates the per-
fect compatibility of the most atrocious vices with Catholic piety with the
same coolness with which Mark Twain would join the practice of immo-
rality with the office of Methodist preacher. Granted that these explorers
were as wicked as the author says, why should the church in which they
were baptized be aspersed on that account?

We give another instance of his generosity toward us. He says that
the religion which the Jesuits taught the Indians

" Consisted of a few simple ritual ceremonies, the repetition of a prayer or chant, and the
baptismal rite. Thus the doomed heathen was easily turned into a professed Christian and an
enfranchised citizen of France. Didactic, moral, and intellectual training was deemed unessen-
tial. The simplest assent of a savage to a few dogmas of the church was sufficient. Such was
their converting, Christianizing process " (p. 191).

A worse calumny is hardly conceivable. The Roman Catechism teaches
that a priest who would admit an unrepentant person to baptism would
commit a sacrilege. Is it reasonable to suppose that the devoted Jesuit
missionaries would damn their own souls by this sort of thing? The rule
of instruction by the Jesuit Father Biard, quoted by the author himself,
would require six months or a year of constant preaching and teaching
from the missionary before reception of baptism.

We now pass to the author's discussion of the Know-Nothing move-
ment :

" It arose," he tells us, " out of the spirit of the times, for which Romanists were in part
responsible. American Romanism was receiving unprecedented accessions to its numbers and
strength from the quarter of a million of emigrants yearly coming to our shores, and about a
quarter of a million of dollars annually received from the several European propagandas ; it
was clamoring for the exclusion of the Holy Bible from the common schools and the division of
the school funds ; and its attitude was felt to be increasingly insolent and defiant " (p. 554).

Now, we submit that jealousy of Catholic progress, denial of rights of con-
science, and hatred of the Catholic religion are flimsy excuses for warring
against us. Happily this frenzy of bigotry soon died out ; and it is now
too late for any one to even hope that it may be revived. Dr. Dorchester's
attempt to apologize for it shows the insincerity of his profession of
favoring liberty of conscience.

We notice another instance of his "generosity " in the use which he
makes of Dexter A. Hawkins's monstrous lie about the gifts of the city of

570 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [July,

New York to the Roman Catholic Church. The land on which the New
York Cathedral stands was not a gift from the city, but was bought in
1829 by the trustees of the Cathedral and St. Peters Church for $5,500.
Only three grants of land have ever been made for Catholic asylums in New
York, while sixteen have been made for Protestant, Jewish, and other non-
Catholic institutions under private control.*

In one place the enlightened author tells us that "indulgences" have
been " openly offered for sale " in New York. It is evident from this that
he himself has been " sold " in the matter of indulgences. It seems to us
a great pity that a man should expend so much labor in looking up our
statistics and not take the trouble to look at one of our little manuals of
instruction and find out the absurdity of such statements. We only wish
that the author could be induced to read The Sincere Christian and The
Devout Christian, by Bishop Hay. With this wish we will close our criti-
cism.

THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. By W. G. Blaikie, D.D., LL.D. The Ex-
positor's Bible. New York : Armstrong & Son.

The history of Samuel, Saul, and the earlier part of the life of David
furnishes themes of the greatest importance and interest, together with not
a few chronological and critical difficulties. Dr. Blaikie has given a state-
ment of the historical sequence of events which is ingenious and fairly
probable. The narrative and descriptive parts of his volume show accurate
scholarship, and are not deficient in the qualities of a good style of histori-
cal composition. They are, however, buried under such a mass of dull and
commonplace sermonizing that the book, as a whole, is likely to prove re-
pellent and unattractive to the generality of readers, and especially to
young people. The author embraces every opportunity which is available
to digress into polemics against Catholic doctrine and the Catholic
Church.

MORES CATHOLICI, OR AGES OF FAITH. By Kenelm H. Digby. Vol. I.
New York : P. O'Shea.

It would hardly be possible to say too much in praise of the unique and
wonderful works of Kenelm Digby. It seems hardly possible that they
should have been produced in this century, by an author who died so lately
as 1880. The flavor of antiquity is in them, and they exhale a mediaeval
fragrance. Mr. O'Shea has undertaken a noble though we trust not a haz-
ardous enterprise in beginning the publication of a new edition of Mr.
Digby 's works in stately quarto, with the first half of the Mores Catholici as
its first volume. If he is warranted and encouraged in proceeding by the
sale of this first instalment, he promises to carry on his undertaking to its
completion. We trust he will receive ample encouragement, and will
succeed in achieving the work he has begun.

Mr. Digby was the son of the Protestant Dean of Clonfert, born in 1800,
and graduated at Cambridge in 1823, soon after which he was converted to
the Catholic Church. At the age of twenty-two he published his first and

* Pamphlet, Private Charities, Public Lands, and Public Money. Catholic Publication So-
ciety Co., New York. 1879.

1 888.] . NEW PUBLICATIONS. 571

most popular work, The Broadstone of Honor, which received high com-
mendation from Wordsworth, who dedicated to him his poem " The Arme-
nian Lady's Love.'' The Mores Catholici was published in successive parts
between 1831 and 1840. We cannot do better than quote the appreciation
of this great work given in the Prefatory Notice of the American editor :

" It may be safely affirmed that this great work has made its author's
name immortal. No other work in our language we believe we may say
with perfect truth, no other work in any language presents so completely,
so felicitously from every point of view, the claims of the Catholic Church
to the veneration, love, and obedience of every existing human being. It
may be said to be a picture of the life of the Christian world so accurately
photographed that no feature is wanting that could be required to give
due expression to the whole, in which the portraiture is so faithful that the
inner life is expressed as well as the outer semblance. The humility, the
devotion, the greatness, the learning, the genius of the man are all dis-
played in this incomparable work. In producing it he evidently placed
under contribution the principal libraries of Europe and Asia, and invested
the knowledge garnered from these sources with charms peculiarly his
own ; charms which exhibit the genius of the poet, the acuteness of the
philosopher, the comprehensiveness of the statesman, and the holiness and
purity of the saint."

CLOUDRIFTS AT TWILIGHT. By William Batchelder Greene, author of Re-
flections and Modern Maxims. New York and London : G. P. Putnam's
Sons.

Mr. Greene's verses are beautifully printed on admirably thick paper.
It grieves us not to find anything more hearty to say by way of commen-
dation of his volume. Considered as a poet, we dare not recommend him
to take comfort in the thought he has embodied in his " Heart of Grace."
" Oblivious fame,'' we fear, will go on sleeping, let him raise his voice never
so high and pile up the " numbers of his songs '' until they resemble
Pelion upon Ossa. Fame is rather deaf to poets in our generation anyhow.
They multiply like rabbits in Australia under the fancied necessities of so
many monthly magazines, and though a good many of them manage
rhyme and rhythm with more facility and correctness than Mr. Greene,
and though they constitute a mutual admiration society, most of them
being " critics " as well, it is more than doubtful that fame will consent to
carry the burden they impose upon her beyond their tombstones. Mr.
Greene's will hardly go so far.

ESSAYS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF. THEISM. By the late William George
Ward, Ph.D. Reprinted from the Dublin Review. Edited, with an In-
troduction, by Wilfrid Ward. London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.
New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros., agents.

Mr. Mill has been by far the most powerful and influential writer on
philosophical subjects of our times, and although, as it seems to us, his in-
fluence is not by any means so great as it was, yet he still remains the
best representative of the philosophy which is most akin to the spirit of
our time and of the English-speaking peoples. This philosophy, too, is
of all philosophical systems that which is the most radically opposed to

57 2 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [July.

the revealed religious truth of which the church is the guardian, for from
the denial of all necessary truth the denial of the claims of revelation to
be received logically follows. Recognizing these facts, Dr. Ward under-
took the task of subjecting Mr. Mill's philosophy to a careful examination,
the result of which he published in a series of articles which appeared in
the Dublin Review from time to time between the years 1871 and 1881.
Mr. Wilfrid Ward has collected these articles and reprinted them in these
two volumes, and all who read them as they appeared will be glad to have
them made more easily accessible. In an introduction he briefly points
out the exact scope and aim of his father's work.

It is unnecessary for us to say much about these essays. Catholic
students of philosophy and theology are already more or less well ac-
quainted with Dr. Ward's writings. We fear, however, that his great
power has not met with the recognition which it deserves. It has been
pointed out by a writer in one of the literary journals that Dr. Martineau
might have strengthened his recent work if he had been familiar with
these essays. Dr. Ward cannot be considered as a brilliant, perhaps not
even an interesting, writer from a purely literary point of view. We have
heard it said that he is not clear. To this, however, we must demur. But
however wanting he may be in the adornments of style, no student of
philosophy can afford to neglect these volumes. In our opinion there is
no writer who has more completely refuted the subtle errors of the agnos-
tics than Dr. Ward. He has brought to the task a perfect familiarity with
the great and standard systems of philosophy, both heathen and Christian.
But he is to be especially commended for the peculiar skill with which he
has in these volumes subjected Mr. Mill and his school to the test of the
accepted principles of every-day morality, principles admitted by agnos-
tics as well as by Christians.

So that it is not the student alone whom Dr. Ward has benefited.
His work is of incalculable service to the professional man, to the intelli-
gent business man, even to the simplest Christian, because he makes of
the axioms of honorable conduct and of personal self-respect weapons
with which to refute the sophistries of false philosophy.

A COMMENTARY ON THE HOLY GOSPELS. By John Maldonatus. Translated
and edited from the original Latin by George J. Davie, M.A. Exeter
College, Oxford. St. Matthew's Gospel, chapters i. to xiv. London :
John Hodges ; New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.

We have not critically studied this translation in comparison of the
original, nor, we think, is it necessary to do so. Morally speaking, mis-
translation is nowadays impossible. There is nothing to be gained by
stealing away the meaning of an author when .the theft is sure to be de-
tected and amply avenged. In this case fidelity to the original text is all
the more secure because the publishers can only hope for remuneration
by winning the approval of Catholics such Catholics, too, as are quite
competent to discover faults in the book, and of standing good enough in
the community to ruin its prospects by their exposures.

It is more than three hundred years since John Maldonatus, S.J.,
in the ripe and peaceful years preceding his too early death, wrote these
commentaries; and perhaps no one author in the Scriptural course has
been more steadily in vogue in the Catholic schools. The elixir which has

1 388.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 573

gifted him with this literary immortality may be called his plain good
sense. He was, indeed, a man of extraordinary learning, possessing a
mastery of Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and other Eastern languages, together
with what seems like a perfect familiarity with the Fathers of both the
Eastern and Western Churches. But this learning was the servant of a
mind whose natural qualities were of a high order. The reader at once
perceives that Maldonatus is bent on treating the questions under discus-
sion in the controversial world with an honest purpose to get at the truth
and to impart it frankly to all comers. Hence his clear, candid, direct
style, his entire absence of literary or pedantic affectation, together with
his rare erudition, make him a very valuable author for all who are in
search of the true sense of the inspired word.

Excellence of paper, perfect type-work, perfect binding make this
book a beautiful specimen of the publisher's art.

IRISH WONDERS : The Ghosts, Giants, Pookas, Banshees, Fairies, etc., of
the Emerald Isle. By D. R. McAnally, Jr. Illustrated by H. R. Heaton.
Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Company.

The author admits that " no pen can do justice to a story told by Irish
lips aniid Irish surroundings.'' He has, however, made a laudable effort
to gather some specimens of unwritten Celtic literature. With this end
in view he traversed every county in Ireland, associating with the peas-
antry and noting down original expressions from reliable sources. His
study of folk-lore convinces him that the peasantry of England, Frarace,
Germany, and some of the Scottish Highlanders, are much addicted to
superstitious beliefs and fancies, even more so than the Irish. One of the
strangest creations in this legendary fiction is the weird-wailing Banshee,
that sings by night her mournful cry and is deeply attached to the old
families. To study the origin of this mysterious being one needs to go
back to the dark days and solemn nights when savage enemies with dia-
bolical cunning lurked on the roadsides of Ireland to capture the adher-
ents of the religion taught by St. Patrick. Moral truths, keen observa-
tions, and flashes of wit are embodied in these legends. That they served
a useful purpose is easily proved. In a measure they supplied the juvenile
craving for the wonderful at a time when no printed books were accessi-
ble.

The numerous illustrations are worthy of much praise, and the work
of the publishers is likewise of a high standard.

A DAUGHTER OF ST. DOMINIC, AMELIE LAUTARD. By Kathleen O'Meara.
American Edition. Edited by Margaret E. Jordan. Introduction by
Rev. J. L. O'Neil, O.P. Boston : Thos. B. Noonan & Co.

Amelie Lautard was a Frenchwoman, resident during nearly her whole
life at Marseilles. She had inherited a considerable income, which she
spent, over and above her most necessary personal expenses, in works of
charity. She also devoted herself with astonishing zeal and wonderful
success to the conversion of souls, especially of men and women of the
most degraded classes. Now, there are multitudes of such women in the
Christian world who live and die without permanent record being left of

574 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [July,

their lives. But the very singular thing about Amelie Lautard, and what
makes her biography of peculiar interest, is the manner of her death, which
occurred in 1866, when she was nearly sixty years old. Happening to be in
Rome and hearing of the ill-health of Pius IX., she offered up her life to
God that the Sovereign Pontiff might be spared yet longer to the church.
The very instant she made this extraordinary offering, having been in her
usual condition of health, she was seized with a mortal illness and the next
day departed this life in sentiments of most ecstatic fervor.

This pretty little book tells her story in a highly interesting manner.

A THOUGHT FROM ST. VINCENT DE PAUL FOR EACH DAY OF THE YEAR.
Translated from the French by Frances M. Kemp. New York, Cincin-
nati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.

It is a characteristic of the spirit of St. Vincent de Paul that the
maxims of human prudence are not so much rejected by him as they are
elevated to supernatural wisdom. No man ever produced greater super-
natural results by means more simple, more seemingly commonplace, than
this great saint. Without miraculous gifts, as usually understood, he was
a resistless missionary; sprung from peasant stock and of homely manners
and appearance, he dominated for the good of religion the most haughty
aristocracy in Europe. His wisdom, thus achieving the highest superna-
tural results, was more the dictate of sound common sense absolutely con-
formed to the will of Divine Providence than the brilliant light of celestial
wisdom beaming from above in miraculous splendor. This little volume
is altogether a wonderfully successful attempt to cull from St. Vincent's
writings and letters, and from the testimony of his intimates, the principles
which guided his life. It might well serve for a book of meditations.
The few sentences allotted to each day are full of wisdom, and a wisdom so
easily comprehended and yet so very rare that one's mind is subjected to a
process of stimulation altogether remarkable.

The little book, though cheap enough, and none too large for the
pocket, is admirably printed and prettily bound.

THE PRAIRIE Boy : A Story of the West. By Harry O'Brien. Illustrated.
New York : P. J. Kenedy.

Verified facts form the basis of this story of the Prairie Boy. The prin-
cipal character, James Lynch, had rare gifts which enabled him to achieve
success in spite of the most formidable obstacles.' Even as a boy he show-
ed wonderful courage, and Christian patience in a high degree. His ad-
mirable qualities are still spoken of in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he pass-
ed the early years of his life. The author, Harry O'Brien, is to be congra-
tulated for the literary skill displayed in arranging the data furnished to
him.

No attempt is made to prove that the Prairie Boy had a distinguished
line of ancestors. He is introduced at once as plain Jimmie Lynch, and is
taken in early life from New York to a country neighborhood in Wiscon-
sin. When he is sent to the district school, two miles off, his attention is
directed to the differences between city and country boys. Regardless of
danger, he attempts to ride a horse, which leads to disastrous results. On

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 575

a sick-bed he discusses plans for his career in the world, and after his re-
covery makes the very best use of his limited facilities for acquiring know-
ledge. School honors come to him later, and he is much esteemed for his
genial disposition. Though exposed to the influence of some bad com-
panions, he exerts a power for good among them.

In the description of camping-out, and the methods of settling the
question of leadership among boys, the author shows knowledge of human
nature, and perhaps draws on his own early experience. The following is
the account of his return home, after his first venture in business:

" He was glad to get home. The snow was deep on the ground when his father drove up
in the sleigh, and took in him and his baggage. It was bitter cold, but it was Christmas-time,
and who minds cold at Christmas ? The twilight gathered around them as they sped along the
lonely road, and the stars came out to shine upon them. It was the pleasantest thing in the
world, he thought, to be riding across the snow with the stars shining, and to know that one
was going home ; going home to the dear mother who never is free from thinking of her chil-
dren, and to the pretty old-fashioned spot where our childhood never knew a care, and which
seemed so big to our little eyes. It is sad that so many boys lose their love of home. If it
were a miserable home it would not matter. But to see how little the best homes are thought
of by careless sons who have tasted the rude pleasures of the city is a painful thing. It is a
bad point in a boy's character. Jimmie loved his mother's house, and was always glad to get
into its snug corners.

" His parents had reason to be proud of such a son. To those who knew him outside the
home circle he was grave in manner as an old man, and tender as a girl, and his heart was as
sound and sweet in his innocence as the heart of a young tree. Boys never know how far the
example of a truly good soul may go, and by a good soul I mean, not only one fond of long
prayers, but one who sets his faith to restrain his tongue and guide every action of his life.
Jimmie was timid in one way. He hated to make trouble for others, and when it was not ex-
actly clear that he had a right to say or do a thing he feared to say or do it. But when he was
sure of his right how he would pitch in ! He had his faults like the rest. ' He was sometimes
hard on a fellow,' Klinky said, 'about toeing the mark,' and he was but there, we are not
going to speak of all our friend's faults in public. It is well to know some of them, but God
alone should know all, who understands us and can pity us."

On behalf of the Catholic boys of the United States we hope that he
will write many more stories of the same kind. The moral tone of his
writing is healthful and vigorous, not at all goody-goody.

We wish to extend to this book a hearty welcome, for we have felt it to
be matter of regret that so few of our writers have given their attention to
Catholic boy-life in the United States. There are so many imported boys
in the books used for premiums, so much of a foreign environment intro-
duced with them, that they cannot be made attractive as heroes or as
models to be imitated by young Americans. Intelligent parents and school
managers find a difficulty in getting a variety of Catholic literature for
children. There is urgent need of writers in this field, and from the pre-
sent outlook it does not seem likely that the supply will keep pace with
the demand. Much can be done, however, by publishers who will offer
liberal encouragement to authors.

BOOKS RECEIVED.
Mention of books in this place does not preclude extended notice in subsequent numbers.

CIVILIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES. First and Last Impressions of America. By Mat-
thew Arnold. Boston : Cupples & Hurd.
EARLY DAYS OF MORMONISM. By J. H. Kennedy. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.

57 6 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [July*

THE SOCIAL QUESTION : ITS GRAVITY AND MEANING. An address by M. I'Abbe Winterer

at the Social Congress of Liege, 1887. Translated by Mary J. Onahan. Chicago : Dono-

hue & Henneberry. (For sale by the Catholic Publication Society Co.)
A FAMILIAR EXPLANATION OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. With a popular Refutation of the

principal Modern Errors. By Rev. M. Muller, C.SS.R. New York, Cincinnati, and

Chicago : Benziger Brothers.
LIFE OF BLESSED JOHN FISHER, Bishop of Rochester, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church,

and Martyr under Henry VIII. By Rev. T. E. Bridgett, C.SS.R. London: Burns &

Gates ; New York : Catholic Publication Society Co.
A COMPLETE NOVENA IN PREPARATION FOR THE FESTIVALS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.

By Dom Louis-Marie Rouvier, late Prior of the Chartreuse of Montrieux. London :

Burns & Gates ; New York : Catholic Publication Society Co.
THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF TUIREANN. Edited for the Society for the Preservation of

the Irish Language. With Notes, Translation, and a complete Vocabulary. By Richard

J. G'Duffy, Hon. Sec. Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son.
MIXED MARRIAGES. Translated from the French by a Priest of the Diocese of Dubuque.

Fourth Edition. Dubuque : Palmer, Winall & Co.
MEMOIRS OF A SERAPH. From the French of M. 1'Abbe G. Chardon, Vicar-General of Cler-

mont. Two volumes in one. Baltimore : John Murphy & Co.
THE FATE OF THE DANE. By Anna H. Dorsey. Baltimore : John Murphy & Co.
ZOE'S DAUGHTER. By Anna H. Dorsey. Baltimore : John Murphy & Co.
CONSOLING THOUGHTS OF ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. By Rev. Pere HugueC. New York, Cin-
cinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers.
ST. JOSEPH'S HELP ; or, Stories of the Power and Efficacy of St. Joseph's Intercession. From

the German of Very Rev. J. A. Keller, D.D. London : R. Washbourne ; New York, Cin-
cinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers.
How TO MAKE A SAINT. By the Prig. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. (For sale by

Benziger Bros., New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago.)
THE VENERABLE BEDE EXPURGATED, EXPOUNDED, AND EXPOSED. By the Prig. Second

Edition. London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. (For sale by Benziger Brothers, New

York, Cincinnati, and Chicago.)
THE CHURGRESS. By the Prig. London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. (For sale by Benziger

Bros., New York.)

THE LIFE OF A PRIG. By One. London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. (For sale by Benziger
Bros., New York.)

LIFE. By Count Lyof N. Tolstoi. Authorised translation by Isabel F.'Hapgood. New
York : Thomas Y. C*ovell & Co.

A THOUGHT FROM THE BENEDICTINE SAINTS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. Translated
from the French by Helen O'Donnell. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger
Brothers.

DISCOVERY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF AMERICA. By Thomas De St. Bris. New
York : American News Co.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVER-
SITY at Washington, D. C., May 24, 1888. By J. L. Spalding, Bishop of Peoria. Peoria:
B. Cremer & Bros. (An extended notice of this address and of the occasion on which it
was delivered will appear next month.)

MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. From the Christian Considerations of Father
John Crasset, S.J. Translated and edited by the Very Rev. T. B. Snow, O.S.B. 2 vols.
London : R. Washbourne. (For sale by Benziger Bros., New York, Cincinnati, and Chi-
cago.)

ENCHIRIDION SYMBOLORUM ET DEFINITIONUM, quas de rebus Fidei et Morum a Conciliis
CEcumenicis et Summis Pontificibus emanarunt. Edidit Henricus Denziger. Editio
Sexta, aucta et emendata ab Ignatio Stahl. Wirceburgr : Sumptibus et Typis Stahelianis ;
Neo-Eboraci, Cincinnati, et Chicagine : Benziger Fratres.

SOLITARY ISLAND : A Novel. By John Talbot Smith. New York : P. J. Kenedy. (School
Premium Library.) (This excellent work will be noticed next month.)

CONQUESTS OF OUR HOLY FAITH ; or, Testimonies of Distinguished Converts. By James J.
Treacy. New York and Cincinnati : Fr. Pustet & Co.

DISCOURS DU COMTE ALBERT DE MUN, DEPUTE DU MORBIHAN, accompagnes de notices par
Ch. Geoffroy de Grandmaison. Trois tomes. Paris : Librairie Poussielgue Freres.

THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB. Newly arranged, with additions. Edited, with Introduc-
tion and Notes, by Alfred Ainger. Two volumes. New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son.

THE

VOL. XLVII. AUGUST, 1888. No. 281.

THE PRESENT STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC
UNIVERSITY.

THE idea of Catholic higher studies in this country took its
first step from aspiration to visible reality in the city of Wash-
ington on the 24th day of May last. On that day Cardinal Gib-
bons blessed the first stone of the Divinity building of the Catho-
lic University of America. The rain poured down in torrents
from first to last, but the President of the United States and his
Cabinet attended the ceremonies throughout, greeting an assem-
blage of Catholic prelates and ecclesiastics and representative
Catholic laymen such as is never, save for the furtherance of
the very highest interests of religion, brought together in any
country. All who were invited and the invitations were sent
everywhere seemed to recognize that the occasion, being the
beginning of an American institution of the highest character,
was worthy of their presence, even at every possible sacrifice of
interest and convenience. The Archbishop of Boston and the
Bishops of Mobile and St. Augustine and Natchez brought the
extremes of New England and of the far South together. The
Bishops of the Atlantic coast and the missionary prelates of
Wyoming and Montana were there the last named and Arch-
bishop Salpointe of Santa Fe being among the most ardent sup-
porters of the new University, and making the long journey to
Washington solely to have the honor of being present at the
laying of the corner-stone. The Archbishop of San Francisco,
who takes the greatest interest in this work, was only hindered
from being present by the severe illness which had forced him to
sail for Europe. A conspicuous figure among the assembled
prelates was Archbishop Elder, of Cincinnati, now far down in

578 STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. [Aug.,

the decline of life, but full of practical sympathy with this under-
taking. Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia, was, of course, pre-
sent, and has been, especially very recently, of material assist-
ance in obtaining subscriptions to the endowment. Together
with the bishops came large numbers of priests, many of them
men of great merit and from all sections of the land; this, too,
in spite of the storm, which was something really dreadful.
There was also a vast concourse of laymen of every rank and
condition of life.

A peculiar feature of the occasion was the presence on the
grand stand not only of the numerous representatives of the
hierarchy, and of all grades of the secular clergy, from the Car-
dinal to assistant priests and seminarians, but a remarkably full
attendance of the representatives of the religious orders. Very
Rev. Robert Fulton, Provincial of the Jesuit Fathers, was there
with several other members of that illustrious society. Also
prominent members of the Dominican order, Franciscans,
Benedictines, Augustinians, Redemptorists, Passionists, Lazar-
ists, Paulists, Sulpitians, Christian Brothers, etc. Other institu-
tions of learning, whose usefulness cannot but be increased by
the university, were also represented. Georgetown College
was there in force. Mount St. Mary's was present by its presi-
dent and a large delegation. St. Mary's, of Baltimore, and St.
Charles's furnished a choir of two hundred seminarians. The
president of the Seminary of Our Lady of Angels, Niagara
Falls, was present. Among the most distinguished visitors
was the vice-rector of Laval University of Quebec, especi-
ally delegated for the occasion to express the sympathy of
that noble seat of learning for her new sister in the Western
World.

The following words from a leaflet printed by the Board of
Trustees summarizes the event :

" In accordance with the long-cherished desire of the Catholic clergy
and laity in the United States of North America, in pursuance of the unan-
imous decision arrived at by the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, and
under the august approval and encouragement of the Sovereign Pontiff,
Leo XIII 7 patron and promoter of every branch of learning, the erection
of this University, dedicated to the cultivation of literature and science, was
auspiciously begun on the 24th day of May, 1888, under the administration
of Grover Cleveland, President of the Umted States, by James Gibbons,
Cardinal- Archbishop of Baltimore. On this day his Eminence, attended by
an illustrious assemblage of zealous bishops and priests and distinguished
laymen, representing every position in the land, solemnly laid the corner-
stone of the new University in the presence of a vast concourse of citizens.

i888.] STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. 579

Right Rev. John L. Spalding, of Peoria, preached a sermon appropriate to
the occasion. . . .

"The end proposed by the Council of Baltimore in founding the Wash-
ington University is to establish a perpetual institution not merely to up-
hold and strengthen the law of God, the Creator and Redeemer of the hu-
man race, but also to shed lustre on religion by supplying it with proofs,
clearer and clearer every day, drawn from sacred and profane learning,
and the successive discoveries resulting from the investigations carried on
by men of genius. And, furthermore, the University is intended to furnish
young men with such a training in mind and character as will best qualify
them to contribute in the capacity of citizens to the honor and defence of
their country."

-. It was to emphatically express sympathy with the sentiment
expressed by the words last quoted that the President of the
United States and his Cabinet, and many members of both the
Senate and House of Representatives, attended the laying- of the
corner-stone. President Cleveland is a Presbyterian and makes
no disguise of it. He came from a visit to the General Assembly
of that church direct to the laying of the corner-stone of the Uni-
versity, and he did so, we venture to say, spontaneously, because
he and all men know that a religion that in a spirit of amity
places its chief seat of learning at America's capital city is worthy
of respect and deserves recognition. All felt, indeed, that the
presence of Mr. Cleveland and his Cabinet, especially in such a
storm, was a great compliment to our religion and to its chief
institution of learning. Yet there was a reason in it which took
from it the air of patronizing condescension and lent it some-
thing like that of official propriety.

To John L. Spalding, Bishop of Peoria, is due the credit of
first breaking ground, figuratively speaking, for this University.
It was done in his well-known address, delivered some five years
ago at St. Francis' Seminary, Milwaukee. He called loudly
and vehemently on that and subsequent occasions, and always
with great force of reason and eloquence, for the pursuit of the
highest scholarship by American Catholics, carried on in the en-
vironments of American life. It was his own intense conviction
that gave him earnestness, but it was the evident need of the
work and the ripeness of the times and of men's minds that
brought him the response of assent and encouragement. It was
given in unison from the throne of the Sovereign Pontiff, the
unanimous vote of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, and
the voice of every organ of enlightened Catholic opinion.

A committee of sixteen gentlemen was appointed by the
Third Plenary Council to select plans and collect means for a

580 STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. [Aug.,

suitable structure. Much interest was shown by the members of
the committee in the work, and their names are here subjoined :

JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS, Archbishop of Baltimore.
MOST REV. JOHN F. WILLIAMS, Archbishop of Boston.

" " PATRICK J. RYAN, Archbishop of Philadelphia.

" " M. A. CORRIGAN, Archbishop of New York.

" " JOHN IRELAND, Archbishop of St. Paul, Minn.
RIGHT " JOHN L. SPALDING, Bishop of Peoria, 111.

" " JOHN J. KEANE, Bishop of Richmond, and Rector of University.

" " MARTIN MARTY, Bishop of Dakota.

" " C. P. MAES, Bishop of Covington, Ky.
VERY REV. J. M. FARLEY, Domestic Prelate.
REV. J. S. FOLEY, D.D., Rector St. Martin's, Baltimore.
" T. S. LEE, Rector Cathedral, Baltimore.
" P. L. CHAPELLE, D.D., Rector St. Matthew's Church.
MR. EUGENE KELLY.
MR. MICHAEL JENKINS.
MR. THOMAS E. WAGGAMAN.

The committee decided that it would be most in keeping
with the character of the University to begin work on the
plans for the theological department. The construction of the
building was entrusted to E. Francis Baldwin, the architect
who drew the plans. The arrangements for the procession and
the display attending the laying of the corner-stone were under
the direction of General Rosecrans. The building, which faces
westward, is to be two hundred and sixty-six feet long, with an
average width of forty feet, having a northern wing. The
chapel and library will be in a large easterly transept adjoining
the centre of the main building. The material is to be stone
throughout. The style is Romanesque, the drawings showing a
tasteful and solid structure. It will be pushed through to com-
pletion without delay.

Mary Gwendolen Caldwell had laid the corner-stone of the
financial structure. She gave Bishop Spalding $300,000, more
than three years ago, in trust for the founding of the Catholic
University of America. This magnificent generosity has made
it possible for the American bishops to proceed with the work.
Her sister, Miss Lina Caldwell, has added $50,000, endowing a
chair in the divinity faculty. Mr. Eugene Kelly, of New York,
gave $50,000, likewise endowing a professorship. A gentleman
of New York City, who desires his name kept secret for the pre-
sent, gave $50,000 more. The Misses Drexel, of Philadelphia,
have endowed a divinity chair in perpetuity, to be known as the
Francis A. Drexel chair, in memory of their deceased father,

1 888.] STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. 581

$50,000. The Misses Andrews, of Baltimore, have endowed a
divinity chair by a gift of the same sum, dedicated in like man-
ner to the memory of their father, the late Dr. Andrews, of Nor-
folk, who spent the last years of his life in Baltimore. This
beautiful manner of establishing in perpetual benediction the
memory of beloved friends and relatives will attract large en-
dowments, some persons of great wealth having informed mem-
bers of the Board that when through with their present large
charitable outlays they propose to offer a like tribute to their
departed loved ones. Certainly to place an honored name in
perpetual union with a fountain of religious and scientific truth
is to erect the noblest possible monument to their memory.

Mr. Patrick Quinn, long known and highly esteemed as the
treasurer of the Beneficial Saving Fund, a Catholic banking
association of ^Philadelphia, gives $20,000 ; and Mrs. Reynolds, of
the same city, $10,000. Mr. Louis Benziger, of New York, of
the well-known Catholic publishing house of Benziger Brothers,
has given $5,000 ; and Mr. Loubat and Rev. James McMahon, of
the same city, each $5,000; Mr. Sinnot, of Philadelphia, gives
$5,000; Mr. Thomas E. Waggaman, of Washington, $5,000; Mr.
Frank Riggs, of the same city, $2,000 ; Archbishop Williams has
given $2,200. The following persons gave $1,000 each: Car-
dinal James Gibbons, of Baltimore ; Archbishop Patrick J.
Ryan, of Philadelphia ; Monsignor J. M. Farley and Very Rev.
Arthur Donnelly, V.G., of New York; Very Rev. Wm. Byrne,
V.G., of Boston; Rev. P. L. Chapelle, D.D., of Washington;
Capt. Albert Ryan, of Norfolk, Va.; Mr. Charles Hoyt, of Brook-
lyn; Mr. James D. Lynch, of New York; Colonel Bonaparte and
Mr. Charles Bonaparte, of Baltimore; Mr. William Gait, of
Washington ; Mr. John Hoover and Dr. Daniel B. Clarke, of the
same city ; Mr. Antello, Mr. Martin Malone, Mrs. Catherine A.
McGrath, Sullivan and Brother, all of Philadelphia, and Mr.
James Carroll, of Baltimore.

From the diocese of Louisville came the gift of Mr. Sylves-
ter Johnson, of New Haven, Ky., a man of venerable years and
stainless name, a cousin of Bishop S paid ing, $5,000; Mr. Daniel
E. Doherty, of Louisville, $1,000; Dr. Ouchterlony, of Louis-
ville, one of the most eminent professors of the University of
Kentucky, gives $500 and a magnificent collection of American
antiquities whose value is above money calculation. Eight or
ten gentlemen of Chicago sent to the Board $14,000, no serious
effort at collection having yet been made in that city. The
Board has lately received $5,000, bequeathed to the University

582 STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. [Aug.,

by the late Mr. John McCaffrey, of Albany, who, that he might
give just that round sum and no less, provided that if any State
tax were levied on his bequests, no part of the tax should be de-
ducted from this one. Mr. Leopold Hiiffer and his three sons,
now resident in Paris, but still considering themselves subjects
of the diocese of Richmond, sent their check for $8,000. At
the last meeting of the Board, after the laying of the corner-
stone, Bishop Spalding handed in the check of General Lawlor,
of Prairie du Chien, Wis., for $5,000, saying that the general
had listened to the Salesianum address, and at its conclusion had
come forward and said : " Bishop, the day you start that Univer-
sity I will give you five thousand dollars." Therefore the gen-
eral, whose public spirit in all worthy causes both for religion
and country is well known, may be called the pioneer in this one.
A very large sum has been realized from smaller contribu-
tions, ranging from five hundred and three hundred down, sent
in from all parts of the United States. So that the amount paid
down in cash and now in the possession of the Board is nearly
$700,000 ;* in addition to this sum nearly $100,000 more have been
subscribed by persons of unquestioned reliability. The property,
consisting of sixty-five acres, is paid for and held with a clear
title; the divinity building, estimated at $175,000, ready to be
paid for as the contracts call for payment, a really splendid
chapel and library room, attached to the main building, pro-
vided for by one of the donors, and eight divinity chairs en-
dowed in perpetuity. When the Board has secured ten en-
dowed chairs it will consider the divinity faculty complete.

* For convenience of reference we give the following table of names and figures :

Miss Mary G. Caldwell $300,000

Miss Lina Caldwell 50,000

Mr. Eugene Kelly, of New York 50,000

A gentleman of New York 50,000

The Misses Drexel, of Philadelphia 50,000

The Misses Andrews, of Baltimore. 50,000

Mr. Patrick Quinn, of Philadelphia 20,000

Mrs. Reynolds, of Philadelphia 10,000

Mr. Louis Benziger, of New York 5,ooo

Mr. Loubat, of New York 5,oco

Rev. Father McMahon 5,oo

Mr. Sinnot, of Philadelphia 5,ooo

Mr. Waggaman, of Washington 5,000

Mr. Frank Riggs, of Washington 2,000

Cardinal James Gibbons 1,000

Archbishop Patrick J. Ryan, of Philadelphia 1,000

Mgr. J. M. Farley, of New York 1,000

V. Rev. Arthur Donnelly, V.G., of New York 1,000

Rev. P. L. Chapelle, D.D., of Washington 1,000

Capt. Albert Ryan, of Norfolk, Va 1,000

1 888.] STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC' UNIVERSITY. 583

What is looked for, and will doubtless be shortly forthcoming-,
is an additional hundred thousand to stock the divinity library
and to commence the beautification of the grounds.

The Board have it in contemplation to make the University
grounds something- like the Pincian Hill in Rome, which is
adorned with the statues of the great men of Italy. So that the
grounds of the Catholic University of Washington will in time
exhibit artistic memorials of the great men of America, in church
and state, giving among the patriots in the secular order due
place to all great Americans whatever may have been their
creed. It may be said that this is a work of ages ; we answer
that the work of ages is shortly done in these quick times.

The reader will see that the divinity department is, so far as
its pecuniary and material needs are concerned, a success. The
money to do the necessary buying and building and supporting
of the institution is in hand. It may be well to say that some
of the professors are already engaged and arrangements about
to be made to stimulate a supply of students. The endowment
of a divinity scholarship in perpetuity is $5,000. We have little
doubt that the clergy of the country will shortly have secured
for their respective dioceses scholarships enough to partly if
not wholly fill the institution. However that may be, the
financial condition of the University bids fair to be such as to
enable the Board to fix the fees low enough to make it an easy
matter for any promising young ecclesiastic to pay his way.

Just as soon as the divinity faculty begins its work and its
inauguration is to be a feature of the Centennial of the Catholic

Mr. Chas. Hoyt, of Brooklyn $1,000

Mr. Jas. D. Lynch, of New York ,000

Col. Bonaparte, of Baltimore ,000

Mr. Chas. Bonaparte, of Baltimore ,000

Mr. Wm. Gait, of Washington ,000

Mr. John Hoover, of Washington ,000

Dr. Daniel B. Clarke, of Washington ooo

Mr. Antello, of Philadelphia. ,000

Mr. Martin Malone, of Philadelphia ooo

Mrs. Catherine A, McGrath, of Philadelphia ,000

Sullivan and Brother, of Philadelphia ,000

Mr. Jas. Carroll, of Baltimore ,000

Mr. Sylvester Johnson, of New Haven, Ky 5,000

Mr. Daniel E. Doherty, of Louisville, Ky 1,000

Dr. Ouchterlony, of Louisville, Ky 500

Gentlemen of Chicago 14,000

Mr. Leopold Huffer and Sons 8,000

General Lawlor, of Prairie du Chien 5,ooo

The estate of Mr. John M. McCaffrey, of Albany, N. Y. . . 5,000

Archbishop Williams 2,200

Vicar-General Byrne 1,000

584 STANDING OF* THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. [Aug.,

hierarchy in the autumn of 1889 steps will without delay be
taken to add on the chairs in the faculty of philosophy and
letters, which will open the avenues of the highest education to
the laity. It is the calculation of the rector that in four years
from the present time there will be assembled at the national
capital a large body of lay students enjoying the advantages of
the highest education which can be offered by the science of the
nineteenth century. The Catholic laymen of America will, when
all is done, enjoy the best fruits of the University. The lawyer,
the physician, the politician, the merchant, the civil engineer, the
journalist, the man of elegant leisure will here learn how to
hold their own as practical Christians and be at the same time
men among men of these critical times.

The good of university studies is that they fix the hold of the
mind permanently upon the elementary principles which have
been before it from the first beginnings of instruction. Dr.
Brownson used to say that the best compendium of philosophy
is the first page of the little catechism. It may be said as truly
that the best work the highest university course can do, aside
from forming specialists for professional teaching, is to place
those primary truths of reason and revelation in such perma-
nent and easy sovereignty over the human faculties that the
laws of thought have assimilated them to the complete nourish-
ment of the intellectual life.

That the academical departments can be established within
the time above named we have no manner of doubt. It is
mainly a question of securing funds; and by the time the reader
peruses these words the divinity department will have probably
secured a grand total of a million of dollars. The endowment of
the other departments will not be more difficult ; there are signs
that it will be less so. A distinguished gentleman of San Fran-
cisco, who lately sailed for Europe, being advanced in years
and of feeble health, has placed the University among his lega-
tees in his will to the extent of $50,000. Several other bequests
are already known to be made for the same object. Some
have followed the example of a hard-working missionary priest
in New England, who, having little money, has insured his life
for $5,000 in favor of the University. Other priests have en-
rolled themselves as life donors of $100 per annum, a splendid
idea, which ought to be taken up. One gentleman of Baltimore,
a man of large fortune, has vowed to leave the institution one-
tenth of his estate. Within a few days of the date of this pres-
ent writing a lawyer of New York called upon a member of tht>

1 888.] STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. 585

Board and obtained the legal name of the University corpora-
tion, saying that he was drawing up the will of a wealthy client,
who desired to make it his residuary legatee, securing it a con-
siderable sum of money, and in certain eventualities a very large
amount indeed.

Of course it would be absolutely impossible to have a univer-
sity or any single department of it without a generous endow-
ment ; nor is there any danger of an over-supply of means. But
the prelates and gentlemen in charge have found that the
opportunity of assisting a great, national Catholic undertaking of
the plainest utility and of the highest character has acted of
itself as a stimulant to the generosity of our wealthier people.
For example, ten days' work in the city of Philadelphia, by the
rector of the University and the archbishop of that city, secured
$96,000, and they did not go beyond the limits of two parishes.
The reader can see that the real resources of the country are un-
touched. Not a single collection has been made in any church,
nor any personal canvassing that may be called thorough made
among rich Catholics in any locality whatever.

It is late in the day either to make or answer objections to
the University. The two main difficulties have ever been the
feasibility of raising the necessary funds and the choice of the city
of Washington as the site. We think that the first objection is
amply met in this article. As to the second an opportune and
competent witness is at hand.

Andrew. D. White, late president of Cornell University, in the
Forum for June last, in an article entitled " The Next American
University," makes the following argument for Washington City
as the site of a university. In answering the question how the
best results in higher education can be secured in this country
he says :

" My answer is, that this and a multitude of other needs of the country
can be best met by the foundation of a university in the city of Wash-
ington. But let me say at the outset that what I now advocate is not a
teaching university at the national capital. That would be, indeed, of vast
value, and the day is not far off when some public-spirited millionaire will
link his name to the glory of the country by establishing it. He will
find the eight or ten millions it will require a small price to pay for the
glory which it will bring to the nation and to him ; he will see that the
number of men distinguished in science and literature who live there or go
there, the scientific collections streaming into that centre from all points
of our vast domain, the great national library and the precious special
and private libraries accumulating there, the attractiveness, accessibility,
beautiful climate, and increasing salubrity of the place, the facilities of

586 STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. [Aug.,

every sort for bringing the best thought of the world to bear upon the
political centre of the nation that all these constitute an argument than
which none can be more cogent for the establishment of a teaching
university, in the highest sense of the word, at Washington."

Again at the end of his article, which advocates the imme-
diate founding of an examining university with its offices in
Washington, he says :

"The arguments, for a teaching university in the city of. Washington,
independent of that which I have now proposed, or supplementary to it,
I may present in a future article."

In going to Washington the Catholic Church moves the
centre of her activity, which must ever be dominantly intel-
lectual, close up to juxtaposition with American institutions.
Every man's religion has and must have a human environment,
social, civil, political. That the Catholic student may have such
environment not foreign, not local, but American is a sufficient
reason for the choice of the Board.* It is well, on the other
hand, that the distinctive characteristics of our religion may be
seen in the light of American institutions, and those characteris-
tics are grouped in a university. The church is an intellectual
body, founded upon belief, conviction ; maintained by devotion
to principle ; propagated by persuasion : the supernatural assist-
ance which the church enjoys always comes down to her
through these intellectual channels. That this is not known to
non-Catholics is the greatest misfortune the church suffers from.
This intellectual side of Catholicity can only be adequately re-
vealed in a university, and in America only at that place where
the supreme activity of American life the political reaches its
culmination. There cannot but be a gradual cessation of that
distrust, that suspicion that Catholicity is inimical to free insti-
tutions, a sentiment which is the greatest obstacle in many minds
to Catholic truth. When Catholicity chooses a site for its uni-
versity which is a challenge to the inspection of its whole intellec-
tual mechanism, it will not be denied fair play. The religion
which will establish its chief seat of learning in Washington is
not afraid of the light.

The simultaneity of the study of religion and of the taking
on of that human environment which Providence points out as
the only fitting one for American Catholics, will be the peculiar
privilege of the student at the Washington University. He will

* The choice of a site for the University was first made by the Board and afterwards, by
direction of the Holy See, submitted to the vote of the Bishops. Washington was chosen by
an overwhelming majority.

1 888.] STANDING OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. 587

learn the deep secrets of the supernatural at the same time that
he assimilates all that is truest of the revelations of God's provi-
dence in the natural order, as officially discussed and interpreted
in the capital of the country. There will be nations new and
old to contest our commercial supremacy, but there are no
signs abroad that the political institutions whose focus is at
Washington will be rivalled for generations to come. And to
be truly an educated Catholic American one cannot leave out
of his course of studies an appreciative investigation of the prin-
ciples and the spirit that go to make up the American citizen.
Meantime the political life of the Union will bring the ablest
men of our land together to the capital ; and there they can feel
the very throb of the heart of Catholicity, there they can see
the light of Catholic intelligence at its brightest.

From the foregoing we see that it is the secular clergy
who will receive, as they well deserve to receive, the first bene-
fits of the University.* And this answers a minor objection,
How will you get the professors and the students ? As to
the faculty, it will not be difficult to secure 'it; the preliminary
steps of the Board in this direction have shown this. And as
to students, does any one suppose that a clergy of seventy arch-
bishops and bishops and five or six thousand priests cannot fur-
nish a good houseful of students of advanced studies ?

We have said in this article some words showing the advan-
tages of the political centre of the country for the site of the
University : to the effect that as man must have, even for the uni-
versal truth, some local surroundings, he should choose such as
his country offers of the strictly national, the Catholic American
being Roman in his doctrine and discipline and American in
local coloring. But the local and the personal, the traditional
and the racial, and the national are, after all, but accidental cir-
cumstances. It is the study itself, and the spirit of the study,
that make the University of value. That study is free, is sub-
sequent to the routine of text-books, is absorbent rather than
mechanical.

If a young man but idled through his two or three years if
he could but keep out of mischief in doing so idled about the

* After this article had been sent to press we received from the Rector of the University
the following words : " Proclaim aloud that the philosophical faculty forthe laity will be begun
without any delay at all after the opening of the divinity faculty in 1889 ; and that chairs in all
the branches of psychological, ethical, social, historical, philological, and biological studies will
be added on as rapidly as means will allow. Measures are also to be taken at once for the
opening of a first-class public hall in the heart of the city for constant courses of popular uni-
versity lectures." He also informs us that his present visit to New England has given several
other subscribers of $1,000, and will net over $50,000.

588 FAITH. [Aug.,

great buildings and through the libraries, and chatted but for a
pastime with the serious professors and the eager students ; if he
but made an object-lesson day by day for a couple of years of
how the noblest characters he ever saw or will ever see love wis-
dom and watch at the posts of her doors, he would learn very
much which is nowhere else to be learned. He would take on a
high tone for his thoughts, a tone whose notes are heard only
in great seats of learning. He would never despise principles.,
He could never think that deftness of practical skill can compare
with deep conviction. He would always respect learning. He
would, as long as he lived, distrust haste when there is still ques-
tion of finding out the truth. That ideas rule the world when
the world is not perishing would become evident to him. Such
a man will ever be a foe to crowned mediocrity in any of the
realms of human endeavor.

If such be the effect upon a mere gentleman idler, whose col-
lege diploma entitles him to university residence, and whose
meagre talents or meagre ambition induce him to be but a looker-
on, it will be something altogether' more powerful upon a soul
really athirst. The pursuit of real learning, the high prize of
finished scholarship, will then be within reach. Such men will
be either brilliant in their natural endowments, or will be gifted
with a resolute purpose, in itself a great talent. These hard-
working minds will find education in the university as they
found instruction in the college. These men will become, some
the disputants in great controversies, some the arbiters of public
opinion, and some the investigators of departments of knowl-
edge yet unsearched.

FAITH.

OH ! had we Faith, when sorrow clouds our way,
Still His hand clasping in mute confidence,
Sweet as an angel's prayer would grow suspense,

Hope would turn night into a blissful day,

A reflex of immortal peace would stray
Into our lives, and all vexations recompense.

GEORGE ROTHSAY.

1 888.] SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. 589

SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL.

To rid one's self of partisan bias and maintain a just poise in
the study of a question which deeply stirs the public mind is
neither easy to do nor likely to be deemed by others successfully
done when attempted. Such, however, must be the first step
in all philosophical search for the truth ; and it is an essential
step in the fair treatment of diverse, not to say conflicting, inte-
rests very essential in legislating for the whole republic. The
recent attempt made in the legislature of Massachusetts to place
the private and parochial schools under State supervision,
without aiding them in any way pecuniarily, is worthy of study.
Indeed, the school question to-day engages the most anxious
public attention, rivets it all the more fixedly because identified
with the religious question, the most vital, most personal, most
exigent of all human concernments ; engrosses it all the more
seriously because here meet two great forces that have met
elsewhere, neither of them confessedly conquered or conquer-
ing. The only defeat of either, as history suggests, would be
extermination; but it is our state policy to benefit and not to
destroy.

The most generous feelings and the most judicious states-
manship are therefore demanded by the occasion. The occasion
has come, the time for the calm view and deliberate action.
The featherweight of one speech more or one editorial fewer
counts for nothing in the effort to cause agitation to cease, or
to postpone it a while longer. Indeed, two movements are al-
ready initiated ; the parochial school movement and the statu-
tory school movement; the former a right patent in all our
traditions and laws, even in the very constitution of our State ;
the latter an attempt to bring all institutions of education in our
commonwealth under statutory control.

As the latter attempt is the reversal of traditional and appar-
ently of constitutional rights, it cannot in the end succeed.
Should it, then, temporarily triumph? In order that we may
well consider this inquiry, it is necessary to learn the objects
towards which the parochial and statutory movements are di-
rected, as well as the criticisms that may properly be uttered
concerning them. As some authoritative guides we may refer
to articles in the January Education and the January CATHOLIC
WORLD, magazines which hold in their respective fields a quite

590 SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. [Aug.,

representative position, and in which we should not expect to
find without note or comment the statement of party views which
they could not endorse.

Before we can fairly weigh the matter of this discussion it
is our duty to clear the scales of the makeweights that have
been thrown into them to deceive the minds of the many who
desire to judge the question on its merits and with candor.

Demagogues have imposed upon the credulity of their hear-
ers, and even guileless people have innocently repeated their
cry, that the republic is in danger, that a violent opposition
menaces the public-school system, and that the ultimate attack
will be made upon free America by command of a foreign po-
tentate. All this, like the causeless terror of a child, raight be
amusing were it not for the fact that, as in the child's case, an
actual injury is experienced by the terrified.

Calumny has no place in this discussion. There is, properly
speaking, no disloyalty among us, certainly none characteristic
of any whole party of our citizens, least of all among the ac-
cused. Even the decay of the national spirit believed by some
to be insidiously developing is not attributed to Catholics, but to
those who are assumed to be the friends of the public school.
Any one who has read our religious literature at all comprehen-
sively must know that the Catholic who is faithful to his religion
must be loyal to his country. The teachings of His Holiness
Pope Leo XIII., on the Christian Constitution of States, and the
discourse of His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons on taking posses-
sion of his titular church in Rome, give fresh confirmation of
this fact. The papal approbation of the establishment of the
Catholic University, to be located in Washington, especially
commends the motive, the "desire to promote the welfare of all
and the interests of their illustrious republic," and animates the
supporters of this great undertaking with the hope that its re-
sult will be " to give to the republic her best citizens."

But, on the other hand, our public-school system has been
the target for much abuse. 'Tis true, we have always heard its
virtues extolled on spectacular occasions as the aegis of the free,
the corner-stone of the republic, and a vital part of the state, as
important and indispensable as the legislative, judiciary, and exe-
cutive departments themselves. But then, on "off days, we
have observed the platform, pulpit, and press, the farmer, mer-
chant, and politician, profusely denouncing its inadequacy and
impotency in answering the demands of our modern life. The
schools of a quarter-century ago are held up as superior to those

i888.] SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. 591

of to-day. Going- back twenty-five years we should yet find the
panegyrist bestowing all his optimistic phrases upon the past.
No worse things have been said by the so-called " enemies of
the public schools" than by many of its friends. Hence, it is
not to be inferred that because a man criticises our school sys-
tem he is to be classed as its enemy. He may, in fact, have de-
tected its weaknesses and discovered its improvable points by
having been in closest contact with it, as pupil or teacher.
Says Education editorially :

" Yet, strange to say, no class of people in the country, save the high-
church priesthood, have shown such lack of appreciation of the real func-
tion and best work of the public schools as the majority of the American
literati. The literary and scientific magazines and reviews have been dis-
tinguished by their ignorant and shallow criticism of the public-school
system. From Lowell down to Gail Hamilton these critics, with rare ex-
ceptions, still fail to grasp the American idea of the common school the
training of a whole people into mental activity, broader intelligence, self-
control, and the industrial skill that always follows when the head and
heart get their rights."

Others besides the literati have been critics of the public
schools. It was not that they failed "to grasp the American
idea," but that they failed to discover the typical " American
idea," or that they failed to see that the American idea was
a consummation of the whole matter. Out of all the scrutiny
and stricture the public-school system has derived benefit and
strength. The only expedient proviso has been, that criticism
should be constructive rather than destructive. The American
idea has thus grown composite. If still there are thoughtful,
far-seeing men, who believe that the idea is incomplete, they
may be the very best friends of the public system, and in fact
some of them are connected with it. A sententious framing of
the most advanced idea is, " Send the whole boy to school."
Here we find the public-school idea developed into what is
after all the Catholic idea. Hence, the greater reason for har-
monious discussion and co-operation.

What is the object of a public-school s}^stem, or what is its
reason for existence ? And how is the parochial school hostile
to it? In the consideration of reasons, only imperative ones are
valuable. Arguments of expediency, refinement, fancy, utopian-
ism are of much less account. Pretences and sham theories are
not only useless, but pernicious ; since, when they are exploded,
the whole fabric trembles.

The state is the present generation, aggregate, unified, or-

592 SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. [Aug.,

ganized, and assuming, in a representative way, certain respon-
sibilities. The state has a duty towards the children of its citi-
zens. Brought into existence without the power or the wisdom
to care for themselves, they are entitled to that provision for
their welfare which will at least put it within reach of their rea-
sonable toil. They are entitled to -food, clothing, and homes
during the years of their helplessness, and to such instruction as
will enable them to enter successfully, in proportion to native
abilities, into some of the work that men have to do. The state
having to correlate human forces, in so far as they need adjust-
ment, must see that the children get what they are entitled to
receive.

The state looks in the same way after the necessities of its
adult citizens. If burdens fall too hard on commerce or manu-
factures, if the struggle for existence become too great, if avarice
grip too tightly the wage of the toiler, the state comes to the
rescue with its equalizing fiat. This is by no means a work of
charity, but the doing of justice. The lesson of Mons Sacer and
of the holy Evangel teaches that the head needs the feet and
hands, and that obligations rest mutually upon noble and peas-
ant. The children must have good care, and the state has a
way to demand it even of reluctant parents ; and yet the state
does not undertake to regulate the well-ordered home, or to
coerce the faithful parent. The children must have a good edu-
cation, and the state has the right and duty to enjoin it when
not voluntarily provided. The state has also, by way of adjust-
ment and economy of forces, established the public-school sys-
tem. The public school was not from the beginning wholly
free, and some of the most vigorous champions of its cause have
in recent years favored the payment of a limited tuition-rate.
Nor was the school always held to be the peculiar object of
veneration and eulogy that some seem to desire nowadays to
make it, declaring it to be the very palladium of our liberties,
and characterizing indifference or objection to it as an unpatriotic
spirit.

The public school was undoubtedly meant to co operate with
the family in training the child, and not as the superior agent.
The teacher was deemed to be in loco par entis, and that tempora-
rily, and his jurisdiction was esteemed to cover definite territory
as necessary to his function, not only the premises of the school,
but the way to and fro. Thus, the teacher was appointed to do
a part of the parental duty. Though the candidate who was
prepared to teach that the world is round or is flat, according to

1 888.] SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. 593

the wishes of his employers, was quite too impersonal, yet, if
the teacher be in loco par entis, he should fairly reflect the paren-
tal choice.

The support of the school out of the public treasury is his-
torically an act of the state, in its attempt to adjust burdens
according to strength ; for the poor were at first relieved of the
school expense, as until lately has been the case in the supply of
text-books. Afterwards, to avoid invidious discriminations and
to simplify the mode of administration, the schools were made
free as well as public.

Prof. George Stuart, ot the Philadelphia Central High-
School, has an article in Education on the " Raison d'Etre of the
Public High-School." He denies that the school is a work of
charity or benevolence ; but, he says, " the principal motive is
undoubtedly selfishness " ; and further explains by the use of such
terms as the " public safety," the " public welfare," " civic
duties." He affirms that the state cannot " leave to chance "
the education of its citizens for citizenship, and that private in-
stitutions "depend on chance"; and, in illustration, he analo-
gizes the school system with the prison, the penitentiary, the
lazaretto, with quarantine, sanitation, street-lighting, money-
coinage, and trade restrictions. The whole line of the argument
is based on the false premise that there is the same kind of
necessity for the public school as for these other public institu-
tions. No one is likely to send himself to prison, and we cannot
very well have the individual's fraction of quarantine, money,
coinage, or even street-lighting ; yet education is obtained by
the individual, and those whose education is most useful to the
state have, in thousands of cases, educated themselves. Fur-
ther, the private institution no more depends on chance than
does the statutory school ; it depends on the will of the parent,
so safely calculated upon that large private schools are flourish-
ing everywhere.

The intimations of " safety " and " welfare " and the compul-
sory principle shall be considered after we have learned how
far the education for citizenship is to be carried. Prof. Stuart
lays down the rule that " benefit that remains wholly with
the individual or individual interests can found no claim to
public recognition " ; and then he proceeds to banish " book-keep-
ing, type-writing, phonography, sewing, and cooking " from the
public school. Why not, on the same ground, banish drawing,
geography, mathematics, and, in fact, all branches except those
whereby one learns to discharge his " civic duties " ? If the busi-
VOL. XLVII. 38

594 SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. [Aug.,

ness of life and not abstract citizenship is of account, -then some
of these discarded branches are highly practical.

The Secretary of the .Massachusetts State Board of Educa-
tion, Mr. Dickinson, is an able and probably authoritative expo-
nent of the statutory idea. He states broadly, in the same
magazine, that " the ultimate end of public instruction " is " true
men, intelligent, loyal, and virtuous in all the relations of pri-
vate and public life." Again, he makes it " a general cultivation
of the individual as a human being." This is the idea of "the
whole boy," and is rather above the conception of the public
" safety " or " welfare " and " citizenship."

As Prof. Stuart represents a class of thinkers, it is necessary
to quote him further. Bearing in mind that he is discussing a
question of state polity, we note carefully his intent. He illus-
trates : " During the prevalence of the cholera " in Naples " an
ignorant and superstitious crowd was waiting in a Roman Cath-
olic church, awestruck, to see the image of the Virgin Mary
walk out upon the altar . . . and help them." He gives no
reference to authorities for the truth of the narrative or the
truth of the motive narrated. The application is, however, the
important point : " Such ignorance and superstition cannot exist
by the side of the free public school." There was a day in our
country when people of all faiths assembled in their several
places of worship to pray for the recovery of a stricken Presi-
dent. There are " professors " who pronounce that act " igno-
rant and superstitious," and who confidently predict the time
when " such ignorance and superstition [shall] not exist by the
side of the free public school."

The professor continues his train of thought:

" At this point we make the digressive remark that the efficiency of
the American public school in training for citizenship is likely to be
jeverely tested in the near future. Until within recent years the immi-
gration into our country was nearly homogeneous and largely sympa-
thetic, and assimilation was comparatively easy. But recently there has
appeared in our midst an element peculiarly alien in race and sympathies,
or revolutionary in tendencies, and in numbers sufficiently large to disturb
the calm posture of our social forms and the settled traditions of cen-
turies. Against the subversive influence of this element our common
school is our tower of strength, and civics as a branch of instruction as-
sumes paramount importance."

Here is darkly limned the danger and " safety " alternative.
The study of " civics " is to save the nation, assimilate the
" alien " and make him " homogeneous " and " sympathetic."
The public schools have trained millions of youths to perceive,

1 888.] SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. 595

and think, and express thought ; and many of them have there
imbibed increased love of country and of virtue. Yet the
schools have also given education to the vicious, and made them
more competent for plot and villany. The anarchist is a man
of science and letters, more dangerous for his cultivated intel-
ligence. There must be something profounder than civics to
move the moral nature and inform it. Unless the affections, and
desires, and the will are rightly directed and developed, all the
culture, and skill, and craft may be employed in the service of
evil and to the detriment of the republic. Even though the
intelligence were trained to comprehend and believe this truth,
and to know that the wages of sin is death, subjective and objec-
tive, personal, social, and national, physical, mental, and spiri-
tual, here and hereafter, yet will the choice be determined by
the stronger motive, and the strong passions will urge to a
speedy possession, and the alternative will be left to be met
when its hour may come. One need not be a pessimist to see
that the unholy ravages of avarice, pride, uncharity, calumny,
lust, and blood-thirstiness are not stopped by the power of the
public school. The recorded divorces and suicides, and the
unrecorded infanticides, taking for example only those proceed-
ing from a single baleful origin, are numerous enough to startle
the optimist. If a probable remedy for the gigantic evil be pro-
posed, none should be so much the friends of pur public schools
as to ignore the suggestion.

Such a remedy has been proposed. President Eliot, of Har-
vard, has named it. Catholic preachers have for years pro-
claimed it. The best guide, the strongest force, the safest
armor, the most victorious assault in the campaign against evil,
have always been confessedly those of religion. Hence that
education which is not allied with religion is inferior to the best.
And when the school is championed on the ground of its being
the safeguard of the state we may logically demand a prefer-
ence for the best safeguard. If it should be said in reply, " Let
religion be elsewhere taught," we may consistently answer that
the state should " not leave this to chance." Actual provision
should be made for religious instruction.

" Send the whole boy to school," says the philosopher. The
" whole boy " is not only physical and intellectual, but also
spiritual, religious ; and religion is the true basis of all the rest.
This element our public schools have always lacked ; and when
Catholic teachers have pointed out the deficiency, how have
their wishes been met ? Has there been any endeavor to meet

596 SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. [Aug.,

them half-way ? Or has the proposition been pronounced im,
practicable ? Then when those critics have more loudly raised
the alarm, have they not been called "enemies" of the public
schools, and even opponents of education and culture? The
apothegm, " Heartless, headless, godless," the most caustic de-
nouncement uttered, has merely and definitely the meaning that
religion has no recognized place in the school. The initial ar-
ticle in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for January discusses this utter-
ance.

The parochial-school movement is animated by the purpose
to supply the religious basis to education. The policy is not
destructive ; no attempt is made to undermine or injure the pub-
lic school. Even accompanied with expressions of friendliness
for the latter is the exhortation to support the former. So
blended are these two voices that some have thought they heard
a division of sentiment among the Catholic people. If those
who endured fines, seizure of property, disfranchisement, trans-
portation, and death under rigorous penal laws laws intended to
prevent them from educating their own children in their own
faith were not then crushed, is it likely that they will lack the
courage of their convictions in free America? Nor can the at-
tempt to discredit their faithful leaders in their eyes succeed.
Those who are ever at call to minister to the dying and whom
no pestilence has driven from the bedside of the plague-stricken,
those who have renounced wealth and self-seeking and given
their lives to their people, will not be thought selfish in this
movement or to have any other aim than the best education of
all their youth. So long as Catholics consider a question de-
batable they may differ among themselves; but when they
deem it definitively settled the personal equation is eliminated
and they stand loyally together. " United they stand."

That the Catholic people prize the true education as one of
the most valuable of earthly achievements ought not to be dis-
puted. To say nothing of such instances of individual activity
as those that gave us the telescope and the printing-press, or
that developed the noble sciences of astronomy and chemistry
and medicine; and nothing of the favor shown to great men of
letters and science, even to such non-Catholics as Kepler, who
fleeing from his own home found encouragement under Catho-
lic patronage ; to say nothing of the discoverers and explorers
who gave their age new worlds or enlarged the horizon of the
old, and who, while not taking possession of their rich fields
with the hand of greed or traffic, yet taught everywhere, en-

1 888.] SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. ' 597

lightened the dark mind, and bestowed the wealth of divine
knowledge ; omitting all this and vastly more to their credit,
there still stand the monuments of their intellectual activity in
the great schools and universities that they planted. Ay, though
one should forget Oxford and Cambridge and Paris and Lou-
vain, the projected Catholic University of America, already
possessed of a location and a president and the papal approba-
tion, which put its face towards the rising sun, will convince one
of the real love for the best education which burns in the hearts
of this people.

The parochial-school movement is born of this desire for a
true education, and that is one for " the whole boy," and one
based on religion. This movement is a private one as far as its
legal standing is concerned, and follows thousands of recognized
legitimate examples. The old academies of New England, alas !
for their decay. Much as I desire and work for the prosperity
of the public school, and should deplore its dissolution, being
only anxious for its increased perfection, I remember the great
good done by the old academies, a good in some respects im-
possible to a public-school system. Then there are the private
schools, that never asked a favor of the state, but which, endow-
ed by their own brains and enterprise, exist by virtue of meet-
ing a just want and to the satisfaction of the citizens who volun-
tarily patronize them. That precedent, which makes a recog-
nized law, is historic, written in distinct and ineffaceable charac-
ters. The parochial schools will but follow it. The fact that
many people act in unison does not change the aspect of the
case. All our colleges, academies, and many private schools
have been the results of concerted action. The fact that this
movement is based upon religion makes it similar to many pre-
vious movements, in which the state has recognized the right of
a people to establishments specifically controlled by their own
body or faith.

How can the state meet the issue? What objections are
made to the parochial movement, and what weight have they?

The party in the state that opposes this movement cannot
forcibly meet it with argument, unless a policy of action be pro-
posed and presented. It will be useless to argue that the safety
of the state depends upon the public schools. The reply will
come, " It is our first duty to care for the safety of our children."
And the philosopher must say in accord : " Take care of the
minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves. Care for
your children, and the state will be cared for." It will be almost

598 SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. [Aug.,

insolent to argue for " homogeneity " and " assimilation " when
the constant illustration of those terms interprets them as mean-
ing, " Be like us ; we should scorn to be like you." Moreover,
the people of this olden faith, when they consider what " assimi-
lation " has been, and that a lapse from the faith ends not at the
first stage, but results in successive evolutions, until all that they
hold necessary for attainment to blissful immortality is subtract-
ed, cannot be expected to admire the scheme which is in this
way commended to them. The commingling of different in-
terests in a harmony of effort, whether in war, in business, or in
school, tends to mutual respect ; but, so far as there is any real
commingling, it will take place in other places and times, even
without the common school.

A general exodus from the public schools, however warrant-
ed, will be detrimental to them. They are now adjusted to the
geographical distribution of pupils. The withdrawal will hap-
pen at those points where the parochial school is established and
made ready. Hence, it will not happen contemporaneously at
all points. This lessens the harm to the public school. It will in
time, however, seriously affect most of the schools in our larger
cities. In some districts it will cause the suspension of the
public school. As the supporter of the parochial school is also,
according to his means and the requirement of the law, a sup-
porter of the public schools, he will be entitled to the advan-
tages of either. Hence, the transfer of his pupils will depend
upon his time of preparation. The method pursued in the es-
tablishment of the Catholic University at Washington indicates
the probable policy in the parochial case. The president of that
University, the Right Rev. John J. Keane, is making the most
thorough and comprehensive study of university systems and
courses, both here and abroad, with the purpose of making the
youngest university the best in America. There will likewise
be an opportunity to build and organize for the parochial sys-
tem more wisely than has been done by the state. We may
anticipate such a result.

The requisite time to be consumed in organizing the new
departure gives our statesmen the season for proposing a policy
that may obviate the necessity for an independent school system.
A real desire to accomplish this result would be successful.
"'Where there's a will, there's a way." President Eliot suggest-
ed permissive religious teaching and exercises ; surely a simple
plan to have tried. This might not have met the exigency, the
radical idea of which is religion as a basic and permeating prin-

1 888.] SEND THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. 599

ciple of education. But it would have been an honest attempt
to adjust conflicting views. Such attempts are never quite vain.

Separate schools as parts of a common system seem practi-
cable. Let the course of study be general and comprehensive,
as now, specifying subjects or branches of work. Let optional
lists of text-books be adopted. Let individual schools be desig-
nated, in proportion to the census, or according to demand less
exigent, for Catholic or other patrons. The schools would
naturally, by fact of residence, be conveniently chosen. In case
that, in any district, the fixed ratio did not permit the establish-
ment of a school of the kind desired, the pupils might be sent to
any school where they would conform to the regulations, or
they might go a greater distance to a school of their own, or
the parents might undertake, with or without statutory provi-
sion, the organization of a school at their own financial risk.
Wherever the state moneys were expended the school would
be under statutory control. This control being as elastic as has
been indicated, every class of our people who insist upon a de-
finite religious mode could be satisfied. The present indication
being assumed as the rule of the future, only one division would
be required. All others but the Catholics apparently being
content with the existing regime, no modification of the public-
school system would be needed for them.

All interested parties should be represented on the board of
control and inspection. The same educational results in speci-
fied topics could be demanded of all teachers. As an illustra-
tion of the parallel working, suppose that in two schools the
programmes are: 9 A.M., Religion; 10 A.M., History. In the
one, instruction may be wholly ecclesiastic and devotional ; in
the other, the moral law, ethics, and civics answer the require-
ments. In the one, the misrepresentations concerning Galileo,
Mary Tudor, the St. Bartholomew massacre, the Gunpowder
Plot, the settlements of Maryland and California, and a thousand
other "drops in the bucket" will be revised; in the other, the
same or an opposite course will be tolerable, limited in this case
as in the former by " sweet charity " and the candor belonging
to the " brotherhood of man."

If the objection be raised that an " establishment of religion "
is here proposed, the reply is that quite the contrary is sug-
gested. We have now such an " establishment," inherited, it is
true, but persistent, resisting change. To this is made the ob-
jection that it does not allow that "free exercise of religion"
guaranteed by the Great Charter, which styles itself the " su-

600 A THANK-OFFERING. [Aug.,

f'$&fj*. .. ....,

preme law of the land." The plan to allow option would exem-
plify the spirit of tolerance ; persistence in present methods is
the reverse. The state has no right to establish a monopoly of
education, because the religious element enters into education ;
it has no right to establish a dictatorship over private institu-
tions, at least to such an extent as to constitute a real protective
tariff in favor of statutory schools ; and it would be for the wel-
fare of the republic that the state be the grand arbiter and
equalizer of privileges, encouraging all laudable movements in
the interest of increased loyalty, purer morality, and a sacred
regard for religion.

AUGUSTUS D. SMALL.

A THANK OFFERING TO , FOR THREE BEAU-
TIFUL CHALICES.

WHOM wondrous heaven and earth can ne'er contain

These little cups of silver and of gold

Thine own free gift of bounty manifold
Encompass round about. The Lamb once slain,

And ever dying mystic death again,
Within these costly metals dead and cold,
The warm Life-Blood the rood drank in of old

Deigns now 'neath seeming wine-drops to retain.
What other gift could thus the giver make

A throne to God's resplendent majesty

A blessed hostess to the Sacred Heart?
Ah ! surely, when our thirst divine we slake

In these thy loving-cups, most thankfully

Shall we in prayer give thee a royal part.

LEWIS DRUMMOND, S.J.

THE COLLEGE, ST. BONIFACE, MANITOBA,
Sunday after Pentecost, 1888.

1888.] DOWN ON THE DON 'rs.

(Duux io
DOWN ON THE DON'TS.

IT is the fashion nowadays to administer advice in broken
doses called " Don'ts.'' They are very well for their side of the
case, but we now have a longing' for some Dos.

That is a useless battery which has only a negative and no
positive pole. The plan of these negative advices is a sort of
one-legged plan, which does not run very far ahead in the race.
Reformers, teachers, and preachers ought to spend at least half
of their time in telling us what to do instead of spending the
whole of it in telling us what to don't.

The temperance lecturer says, " Don't drink whiskey " ; the
social reformer says, " Don't go to dangerous entertainments " ;
the pious teacher says, " Don't read bad books." Now, he labors
in vain who labors against whiskey, and offers no substitute.
He labors in vain who preaches against bad amusements, and
has no good amusement to recommend. He labors in vain who
decries bad books, and has no good books to offer instead. So
we are tired of the unpractical, frowning Don'ts, and long for
some smiling, practical Dos.

It is useless to inveigh against injurious amusements if you
do not at the same time point out some amusements that are
lawful. Suppose an objectionable play is coming to town, and
the pastor implores his flock to avoid it. They resolve to do
so ; but when the show comes and there is no counter-amuse-
ment for them to seek, do you think they are going to remain at
home, or on their knees? Oh! no, oh! no alas! for poor hu-
man nature the pastor's good counsels go to the winds, and
the young people go to the play. Here I recall an incident.

An austere adviser was lecturing some young people about
certain amusements. " We hope/' said they, " you don't object
to square dances. There is no harm in them, is there?"

" Yes," he answered, " they are harmful. You should not
dance them unless, at the same time, you can be meditating on
seven truths. These are death, judgment, heaven, hell, the
sufferings of the souls in purgatory, the terrors of the dying, and
the sorrows of the Passion. If you can be thinking seriously of
these seven truths, then you may dance not otherwise."

" Well, may we play games?" they asked.

" There is a great deal of harm in most games," answered he.

They felt discouraged. " But there's no harm in going to the

602 DOWN ON THE DON* TS. [Aug.,

circus, is there ?" they suggested hopefully. He was so aghast
they dropped that subject quickly. " Ah ! then, we can play
cards, can't we ?" Whereat he was worse shocked than ever ;
so that in desperation they finally asked : " Well, is there any-
thing at all that we may do to amuse ourselves ?"

He smiled radiantly and answered with all benevolence :
" Yes, of course there is " they were all-expectant " you may
play dominoes !" ^

And after all his Don'ts this was the only Do he had to
offer. Think of their ecstatic joy in being allowed the exhilar-
ating dissipation of dominoes every evening of their lives !

Here's another instance of the failure of Don'ts. A stern
guardian disapproved of square dances. His motto was : " 1
don't believe in having young people spend half the night in
square dances." Did he gain his point ? He did. His young
people do not spend half the night in square dances ; they spend
the whole night in round dances.

So, he who would successfully combat forbidden pleasures
must point out a way to lawful ones. It is the same with drink :
the antidote for bad stimulants is good stimulants.

The temperance pledge, I think, could be improved, if it ex-
acted not only a solemn promise to avoid liquor, but just as sol-
emn a promise to use a fair share of temperance drinks.

It is money which supports the liquor cause in our land, and
it is money which should support the temperance cause. This
idea of trying " moral suasion " on the barkeeper is poetical
but weak. All day long you may urge him : " Don't sell liquor
any more. Don't be coining blood-money. Don't be fattening
on the bodies and souls of helpless victims. Don't be enriching
yourselves by impoverishing others. Don't build your palace
on the hovels of your patro'ns. Don't weave your wife's silks
out of the rags of other women." When once the tiger has
tasted blood nothing else will satisfy his appetite. When once
the liquor-dealer has found how easy it is to fatten on the life-
blood of his prey by means of the bar-room no other means of
livelihood will satisfy him. The story of the pet tiger is old but
apropos.

A British officer in India owned a young pet tiger, which
was as gentle as a dog, and often sat by his side licking his hand.
One day the officer was sleeping in his bunk, and when he
awoke found the tiger now full grown at his side licking his
hand. The beast's rough tongue had abraded the skin and
drawn the blood to the surface, and this he was tasting with

1 888.] DOWN ON THE DOM'TS. 603

evident enjoyment. The officer naturally attempted to with-
draw his hand, but a low, terrible growl warned him to keep
still. Did he gently say to the tiger: "Don't lick my hand
any more, please. Don't drink my blood. It is very wrong
and cruel of you ; I have been your kind and loving master these
many years "? No. Neither did he recommend to that tiger
some anti-blood-drinking tracts, nor did he telephone for some
anti-blood-drinking lecturers. No, none of that; he doubled up
his disengaged arm, felt for the pistol beneath his pillow, drew
it forth, and the next moment the brute, shot through the heart,
rolled over harmless on the ground. That is the sort of treat-
ment I would recommend for the barkeeper: figuratively, of
course, I mean figuratively.

To make the strictly temperance saloon flourish is the only
way to make the intemperance saloon decay. Therefore I beg
the temperance lecturers to add a positive counsel to their nega-
tive demands ; to make the pledge signers say : " I promise to
avoid the liquor-selling store, and I promise to patronize the
temperance store."

In regard to reading, the Do which I oppose to the Don'ts
is this : When the young graduates are about leaving college or
convent the fond teacher says : " Now, my dear child, you will
promise me never to read so-and-so ? Don't risk your faith on
such-and-such dangerous literature. Don't take up infidel books
and forbidden novels." And the grateful graduate promises
(what is there he would not promise at that moment to his tried
and trusted tutor?) that he will not read the proscribed books.

Now why, oh ! why doesn't that earnest teacher strike while
the iron is hot ? Why not say to his pupil : " Do take up such and
such a course of reading. Do subscribe for a good Catholic
paper, Catholic magazine, and to a Catholic library. Do prom-
ise me you will do this" ?

I wish that every graduate would give his written pledge
binding himself specifically to obey this injunction, promising
faithfully to read our brightest, best, greatest Catholic authors.
I wish that all our Catholic students would emerge from their
commencement halls carrying in one hand their diplomas and
in the other the carefully worded, solemnly taken, and duly
signed reading-pledge. I wish they were taught to consider it
as important, as necessary a part of the closing exercises as the
diploma itself. Such a practical course would have a marked
and immediate effect on the Catholic press.

Concerning entertainments, the Do that I would oppose to

604 DOWN ON THE DON'TS. [Aug.,

the Don't is this: That if pure and wholesome dramas and other
pastimes were offered to the Catholic public, there would be lit-
tle need to say to them : "Don't go to bad plays or immoral ope-
ras." Why, just see, even now, how well patronized are some
miserably gotten-up church-fairs with their one lemon, three oys-
ters, and other sleight-of-hand apparatus. Isn't it pathetic to see
the good-natured crowds that patronize them ? Isn't it touch-
ing to see the dense throng which generously pays its money to
be entertained two or three hours by the burnt cork, the old
chestnut, and the doleful plaint of the amateur minstrel? All for
sweet charity, you know. Another hopeful sign of the public
taste is the immense popularity of such absurd but rather inno-
cent and really musical operas as those of Gilbert and Sullivan.
It shows how willing the public is to avail itself of harmless
pastimes.

The need of organized, innocent recreation is too little at-
tended to. It is a large, unoccupied field, where many willing
hands, witty brains, and sincere hearts could be employed to
great advantage. Truly he who, for the love of virtue, devotes
himself to the entertainment of the young is an angel of the
Lord, doing far greater service than the inert, albeit pious, ad-
monisher who simply Don'ts.

That Christian mother who provides rational amusement for
her children performs a noble and blessed duty. She sets
aside certain evenings to be entirely devoted to the entertain-
ment of her young folks. She gathers a congenial assembly of
youthful neighbors. She treats them to a pre-arranged pro-
gramme of varied diversions. She makes it her business to
teach them graceful games and merry dances. She buys the
prettiest and newest music. She arouses their interest in in-
structive as well as hilarious games. Such a mother does more,
far more, towards keeping her children out of sin than those
other mothers just as pious, perhaps, but not nearly so wise
who sit down and say to their children : " My dears, don't dance
round dances, don't go to balls and parties, don't learn to waltz,
don't go to dancing-school, etc." Their advice is disobeyed,
because they work the Don't plan only and forget the Do. But
our wise mother runs her plan of campaign on the Do style,
and wins every time. Her young people are kept so busy with
their charades and tableaux, their games and sociable square
dances, that they don't get a chance to think about round
dances. What a merry scene it is too ! Yet she does not need
to veil her picture of the Madonna, her copy of the Transfigura-

1 888.] DOWN ON THE DON'TS. 605

tion, or her bas-relief of the Good Shepherd. She does not need
to feel ashamed of the merriment going on before them. Our
Lord himself was present at the wedding- feast of Cana, and our
Lord's picture is not out of place among these innocent recrea-
tions.

As the young people skip from one end to the other of her
long parlors, as their laughter rings around her chandeliers, as
their manoeuvres and novel evolutions of new-fangled games
are reflected from her stately mirrors, as their joyous voices
make a babel of enlivening sounds throughout her rooms, as the
assemblage breaks up early with pleasant good-bys to her and
gay au-revoirs to each other, she feels that moral triumph which
the Don't mother can never feel.

I know one practical mother whose sons were rather given
to strong language. One day she said to them : " Boys, in-
stead of swearing so, just let me tell you what to do. Sub-
stitute the word consider, with an accent on the con; say, for
instance, 'Consider the luck,' or something of the sort." The
idea took, and took so well that not only her sons, but their
neighbors and playmates, followed the plan. And now, to hear
the way those chaps "^wzsider" this, and "^rwsider " that, and
"consider" everything, is funny.

Oh ! yes ; one Do is worth a dozen Don'ts. And blessings
too on the good-natured paterfamilias who " stoops to con-
quer." His creed is expression, not suppression. He believes
in not plugging up the kettle's mouth, but in leaving a safety-
valve for the surplus steam of youth. He knows the value of
interesting and wholesome merriment. One of his first dogmas
is: "Give the boys home accomplishments." He has each one
taught some musical instrument. One takes the flute, a second
the violin, another the piano, and yet another the trombone.
Hard on the neighbors ? Well yes, rather ; but neighbors are
tough, and must learn to put up with some things for the public
good. Our jolly pater does not stint in buying his boys home
amusements and material for out-door sports, and thus he more
effectually keeps them out of harm than the Don't father, who
merely says to his children, " Now, boys, don't go into bad com-
pany, into drinking-saloons or gambling-dens ; don't drink, don't
bet, and don't loaf in the streets." Our jolly Do father takes his
boys when they are young (it's the only way), and cultivates in
them a taste for cheerful home pastimes, invites the lads of the
neighborhood, has tip-top suppers now and then, birth-day
parties and rewards-of-school-success parties on occasion, en-

6c6 DOWN ON THE DON'TS. [Aug.,

courages them in music and the poetry of motion " on the
square." He has them patronize the gymnasium, the riding-
school, swimming-school, and even the shooting-gallery and the
ten-pin alley, but, above all, the Catholic clubs of his parish.
Adroitly managing so that his boys think they are having it all
their own way, he apparently leaves them to themselves and
stays in the background ; but all the while he is the controller of
their every enjoyment.

But does this wise pater exist at all ? Ay, that's the ques-
tion. That he does not exist very numerously is beyond ques-
tion. And then the masses who have neither wise and wealthy
fathers, nor pious and prudent mothers what is done for their
amusement? Oh! when I see institutions established for the
rational entertainment of the poor I could fall down and wor-
ship the originators. And I am filled with shame and envy as
I think: "Why were not Catholics the first movers in this?
Why are not Catholics its chief supporters? Why do non-
Catholics get ahead of us so often in these matters?" And I
blame it chiefly on the Don'ts those miserable, theoretical
Don'ts that expect impossibilities from frail human nature, he-
roic sacrifice from feeble sinners, and saintly endurance from
ordinary mortals.

He who would prevent dangerous pleasures must furnish
innocent ones or transform his charges into saints and angels.

Why am I so cantankerous on the subject of Don'ts? Be-
cause I've been watching for long years, watching the failure
of them. I have seen so many pious mothers and so few pious
sons; I hear such strong Don't lectures and see such weak re-
sults ; I hear such powerful denunciations of forbidden dances,
and calculate that the number of young Catholics who don't
dance them is about one in five hundred ; I have observed such
vast floods of anti- liquor eloquence, and such vaster floods of the
liquor itself ever increasing. That is why I am down on the
Don'ts ; not that I would altogether abolish them Heaven for-
bid ! but that I would show how utterly impotent they are
without the Dos.

Injudicious Don'ts, with regard to pleasure, are responsible
too for a fallacy, an actual heresy, among many Protestants.
They have come to regard pleasure as a sin in itself. Card-
playing, dancing, fiddling, even merry conversations, are con-
sidered as intrinsically sinful. This error, like all error, is based
on truth, at least partially. Pleasure is indeed the most formid-
able, most dangerous weapon of the devil. But it is only a

1 888.] DOWN ON THE DON'TS. 607

weapon, and can be wrested from him, taken in Jiand by our Do
angels, and wielded in the service of the Lord.

He who invented progressive euchre may his tribe in-
crease ! created a Do which is a better preventive of sinful
amusements than the longest string of Don'ts ever invented.
The originators of the Catholic Knights of America and the
Catholic Benevolent Legion blessings on them ! dealt a heavier
blow upon secret societies than was ever dealt by aggressive
book or sermon. The founder of a Young Men's Catholic
Lyceum is a good angel in disguise. Each promoter of Catho-
lic sociability does more to prevent mixed marriages than the
strongest denunciation of them ever does.

The Y. M. C. A. and the Seamen's Bethels go further towards
mitigating the liquor curse than do all the temperance lectures
and all the pledges ever signed.

The promoter of jolly games and frisky frolics, of good music,
innocent dramas, and all wholesome evening gayeties among
young people, does more towards preventing round dances,
opera-going, and vile theatricals than does the most vehement
preacher.

There is in this city one admirable Do which goes further
towards preventing immoral reading than a five-year course of
Don'ts a Catholic library, terms ten cents a month, one book a
week! Would there were a similar institution in every Catholic
parish in the world ! It contains, besides standard works, nearly
four hundred novels. This is as it should be. The bulk of man-
kind are people of weak intellect, and the bulk of a public library
should be selected accordingly. These novels supply with a
harmless pabulum the masses who w///read mediocre, sensation-
al stories, and never care for anything better. Thus does this
Do effectually prevent sinful, injurious reading.

Yes, Don'ts have doubtless their share in the cure of present-
day evils, but by far the greater share in this cure belongs now
to the anti-don'ts.

O ye fathers and mothers, ye teachers and preachers, ye
writers and fighters, whose counsels are all negative and none
positive, change your tactics for a while. Do! Starve us no
longer on withering Don'ts, but feed us awhile on delectable
Dos. M. T. ELDER.

NEW ORLEANS, May, 1888.

6o8 A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS,
i.

THE mountain district extending southwestwardly from the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between Harper's Ferry and Oak-
land, towards Stanton and Green Briar, was during the Civil
War the theatre of many stirring actions of which but little
account has hitherto been set down in the record of that fateful
period in American history. A few miles south of the railroad
is the once well-travelled Northwestern Turnpike, which Wash-
ington when a young man helped to lay out as a means of com-
munication between the tobacco plantations of the Old Dominion
and the country about the headwaters of the Ohio. In the
entire distance, however, between the Grafton, where, coming
down from Pittsburgh, it crosses the railroad, and Winchester,
where it finally debouches from the mountains into the lovely
valleys of the Shenandoah, this turnpike passes through but one
town, and that is Romney. Forty miles west of Winchester is
Romney, a true mountain fastness, with its court-house, and two
hundred or three hundred houses couched on a tolerably level pla-
teau. Lofty ranges shut it in on all sides, except for the two gaps,
one east and one west, by which the turnpike makes its way, and
two other defiles, one north and one south, through which flows,
winding around beneath Romney, the deep and rapid stream of
the South Branch of the Potomac. By a road following the
valley of that river Romney is connected with Moorefield to the
south, and with Green Springs Run on the railroad to the north.
The scenery is everywhere picturesque, but it is also everywhere
sombre, gloomy, and almost savage. From its natural situation
Romney early in the war became the centre of Confederate
activity for this region, and it was consequently an objective
point for the Union commanders of the Upper Potomac, who
between July and October, 1861, made at least three attempts
to capture and hold it, but only the last time with complete
success.

Six or seven miles north of the town the river makes a sud-
den bend towards the east, and at this point is crossed by the
high road from Romney to Green Springs Run. In 1861 a
graceful suspension bridge carried the road across. South of the
r iver is a rugged hill crowned by an outcropping dun mass of

1 888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 609

vertically stratified rock, which from afar bears a likeness to an
ancient and crumbling castle. On the opposite bank a lofty
ridge comes to an abrupt end, presenting an almost perpendicu-
lar face to the river, but leaving beneath a few yards of dry shale
that afford space for a rough wagon road.

The high road passes along the western base of these heights,
and at the bridge sends off two connecting roads towards the
east, one around the castellated hill, and one along the shaly
margin on the other side. A mile east of the bridge, where the
hills fall away on either hand, the unconfined channel of the
river spreads out to nearly double its width above, so as to be
fordable at all seasons of the year, furnishing an easy means of
communication between Winchester and points to the north of
the bridge.

The war had within a few months of its beginning stripped
this never thickly-settled part of Virginia of most of its able-
bodied white men. Hill-side and valley, as well as the craggy
and desolate mountain ranges, seemed to belong once more to
the wild things of nature. The scream of an eagle soaring in the
vault of the gray sky would call out in response a discordance of
harsh and jarring animal sounds. Even the few Union soldiers
who occasionally appeared in view seemed to move about with
more stealthy step than the foxes, which now and again scam-
pered from thicket to thicket and from knoll to knoll. Graceful
deer with spreading antlers would peer out from the forest
growth, and then without fear stride leisurely on through the
quiet glades.

The Wire Bridge and the ford constituted together a stra-
tegic point of considerable importance to the Union troops
occupying Romney ; were it once to fall into possession of the
Confederates, Romney would be cut off from direct communi-
cation with the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and from supplies,
except by means of a much longer and a more circuitous route.
For this reason General McClellan had, immediately on the cap-
ture of Romney by the Unionists, ordered that a picked company
of infantry should be sent at once to the bridge to become its per-
manent guard, with outposts thrown out in various directions,
but especially at the northern approach to the ford.

The company selected well deserved the confidence reposed
in it ; it was composed of young men mostly of Western birth,
and of Irish and Yankee stock chiefly. It had played a dashing
part in the attack on Romney, and was destined in many subse-
quent campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley, under Shields on

VOL. XLVII. 39

6io A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

the Peninsula, at Antietam, at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, in
the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, at Cold Harbor, and, finally, in
the wearying siege of Petersburg in more than sixty battles, to
display that combination of intelligence, endurance, high spirits,
versatility, and courage under all imaginable trials which
mark American soldiers of the very highest grade.

Just at this time " Stonewall " Jackson, scarcely yet risen to
fame, was in command of the Confederate troops at Winchester,
and information had been brought to Lander, the Union com-
mander at Romney, that Jackson was meditating a movement
towards the railroad in order to cut off the Union force from its
supplies. General Lander had long enjoyed a reputation for
boldness, but somehow the gloom of this treacherous mountain
region seemed, from first to last during the war, to have in-
spired most of the Union commanders with a feeling of caution
that closely bordered on timidity, and Lander proved no excep-
tion. At all events, it was taken for granted that should the ru-
mors of Jackson's intentions turn out to be well founded, Gene-
ral Lander would abandon Romney and, gathering up all his
force, retreat to the safe vicinity of the railroad.

The month of January, 1862, had come. During the night of
the 8th snow had been falling steadily and quietly down, and now
hills and mountain slopes, valleys and ravines alike were over-
spread by a coverlet so white, smooth, and immaculate that the
limpid, eddying water of the South Branch appeared by com-
parison dark and turgid as it wound along. The slender fabric
of the suspension bridge seemed to be spanning the stream with
nothing more substantial than a pair of long, downward-curving
r festoons of white feathers and swan's-down. The little log cabin
. t rat the northern end of the bridge, constructed by the out-post
company for the purpose of a guard-house, and the rough board
<- shanties higher up the road, and nestling in the shelter of the
> ridge which rose behind it, which were the company's quarters,
were buried nearly out of sight.

But the high road itself, coming down from the north past
the company's quarters, crossing the bridge, and turning around
the castellated hill, and then following the bank of the river on
to Romney, was plainly visible in spite of the snow ; the wide
wagon-tracks through it evidenced recent and heavy traffic.

The afternoon is fast wearing away. The air is damp, but
with scarcely a rift of wind, so that the smoke from the wattled
chimneys of the guard-house and company's quarters ascends
straight upwards and afar before it is diffused out of sight. The

1 888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 611

voices of the sentinels idly calling to one another from either end
of- the bridge sound shrill, like the voices of children at play.
Night settles rapidly down at this time of the year in the moun-
tains, and daylight has just gone out.

In a hollow spot, fifty yards, perhaps, to the north of the ford,
a group of seven men are standing or squatting around a picket
fire. The little conversation between the men is in a low tone,
and all else about is still, except for the rippling of the South
Branch over the rocky bed of the ford. A few moments ago they
had heard the flourish of bugles sounding the beautiful call known
as " Retreat "; that was the sunset signal of a Union cavalry force
in bivouac at Springfield, two miles away, in the direction of the
railroad. One of the soldiers standing at the fire has a ser-
geant's triple chevrons on his sleeve. He draws a silver watch
from his inside pocket, and, after a glance at it, says to a man
who is drinking the last draught of something from his canteen :
" Five o'clock, Tully. Go on post ! "

" All right, sergeant," the man addressed answers in a thick
voice, and having adjusted his belts, raised his musket and fum-
bled over the lock an instant, he puts the piece " aport " in front
of his body, and goes out with a decidedly unsteady step to-
wards the river.

The sergeant shook his head with a feeling of uneasiness, and,
as he looked around the group, muttered : " One is as bad as an-
other ; they are all fuddled ! " Tully's footsteps were still heard
crunching the snow when, in the direction in which he had dis-
appeared, a slight flash glimmered through the dingy air, and
there came thence the report of a musket-shot, sounding dull
and without resonance amid the snow-covered hills. The wary
men wary, in spite of the condition which the sergeant had dis-
cerned in them, from force of long-established habit trampled
out their fire and, without uttering a word, moved swiftly to the
ford.

As they came near the river, the sergeant in a loud whisper
called " Tully ! "

" Here, sergeant ! " came the answer in a like tone from Tul-
ly, who was kneeling beside a prostrate figure. " Here is Cale,
dead ! " he said to the sergeant, who by this time had reached
the river-bank at the ford with his whole party.

The cautious sergeant, much as he might be interested in
the death of one of his soldiers, did not, however, forget his duty
and responsibility to guard against surprise. " Keep down,
boys ! " he commanded, still in a loud whisper. " Maybe the

612 A MYSTEKY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

enemy is right at the other side of the ford and can see us," he
continued, and touching one of his men on the shoulder he di-
rected him to go as quickly as possible to the bridge and report
what had taken place. The man darted off as bidden. " Poor
Cale! " the sergeant murmured, as he looked at the body of the
dead sentinel. " But," he said, turning the body over and
searching as well as he could in the dark, " I don't find any
wound."

" Wait until we get him to the light," Tutly said, and the ser-
geant assented, and then he turned his gaze once more towards
the other side of the river, where the road ran along the bank.
" I don't believe there is anything across there," he said, " or we
would see more of it by this time."

" I saw some one running away from there," said Tully, point-
ing to the opposite side of the ford, " just as I came that was
the second after the shot was fired. There ! what's that?"
he exclaimed, pointing to a dark object close to the edge of the
water.

" That's only a laurel-bush," the sergeant answered.

' No," persisted Tully ; "it's a man! I've been on this post
too often not to know everything over there by sight. That's a
man! Don't you see it moving now?"

But the snow, which had been threatening for some hours,
suddenly began to fall, and it came down in soft flakes, shutting
out completely the view on every hand.

II.

There is a remark of Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy to
the effect that the English army " swore terribly in Flanders."
In that there is nothing strange, for probably all armies in cam-
paign can be charged with the same offence, and as Tristram
Shandy is a book which neither on its own account nor on ac-
count of its author is entitled to any weight, a quotation from it
here might seem far-fetched only for the following explanation.
It affords an opportunity to parody Uncle Toby's saying by an-
other, which is true at least and belongs to history, along with
much else that is good, bad, or indifferent. It is this : Our army
drank terribly in Virginia. Not that all our army drank terribly
or even at all. By no means. There were many, both offi-
cers of every rank and soldiers of no rank at all, who resisted
the strong temptation which all the circumstances conspired to

i888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 613

place in their way. And such temptation as there was ! Hard-
ship and exposure such as no tongue or pen could adequately
describe, and at all times the complete absence of those various
associations which, in ordinary life, involve the ever-present
censorship of religion, and of generally virtuous and self-respect-
ing- surroundings. There were many, it must be repeated, who
did not yield, but then it did seem at times as if those who
drank at all drank their own share and the share of the absti-
nent as well, or very much more indeed, for the number of the
abstinent, though large absolutely, was comparatively so small
that their share, supposing them to have been entitled to a share,
could not have sufficed to produce the demoralization that too
often prevailed. How many well-laid plans of campaign or bat-
tle turned out disastrous and bloody failures, wanton sacrifices
of life, time, and money, because of brains fuddled by liquor,
not even conscientious historians will ever be able to ascertain
to the full extent. From generals commanding, who made the
plans or supervised their execution, to subaltern officers, and to
plain privates upon whom the details rested, there were innu-
merable instances at all times of gross incapacity, attributable to
nothing else than the assuaging of the alcoholic thirst. For this
deep drinking anything and everything offered an excuse.

During the afternoon, but a few hours before Cale was found
dead at his post at the ford, a regiment of Indiana infantry had
passed along the road from Green Springs Run and over the
Wire Bridge on its way to Romney to reinforce Lander. For
such a body and its impedimenta to cross a fragile bridge requires
some time. It can cross in small sections only, and the move-
ment of its heavily laden wagons with their straggling six-mule
teams is even still more aggravatingly slow ; one wagon at a
time, and that at a most leisurely walk, so as not to endanger
the bridge on which so many eventualities of a campaign may
depend.

Of course the marching regiment, having just come from
Cumberland, was well provided as to its canteens, if in no other
respect, and during the fraternization which took place between
them and the outpost company, in the long halt before crossing
the bridge, a liberal supply of the liquor found its way into the
hitherto empty canteens of the outposts, and, in spite of standing
orders and of the watchfulness of some of the officers, got into
the heads and heels of some of the men on duty, not merely at
the bridge, but at the various picket-posts, including that at
the ford.

6i4 A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

Now, the commandant of the company was not austere by
any means. On the contrary, Captain Bonnom was a great fa-
vorite everywhere with officers and men. On the march, in
camp, or on picket, it was a pleasure to serve with him or under
him. In the thick of battle he was the soul of gayety and seldom
failed to impart his own high spirits to those around him. No
military martinet knew the drill or the technicalities of army
routine better than he. From " setting up " a raw recruit to
manoeuvring a battalion, or even a brigade, he was as sure and
correct as the hand-book of tactics itself, but, rigid disciplinarian
as he was, he always spared others rather than himself, and his
sunny nature rarely permitted him to keep a scowl long on his
face, even on those infrequent occasions when he might think it
proper to be.angry. He was a devout Catholic, but he did not
make his religion offensive to others, so that even a Protestant
chaplain had quietly pointed him out to officers as a model of a
Christian soldier and gentleman. Captain Bonnom was, how-
ever, strictly abstinent from liquor, and almost the only thing
that seemed able to stir his animosity deeply was a breach of dis-
cipline, or an evil action of any sort, resulting from alcohol.

The Indiana regiment had passed over the bridge and on to
Romney. The "retreat " roll-call had been attended to at the
company's quarters and the men were contentedly enjoying their
supper all but a few who had been too much affected by the
free drinking during the afternoon, and who were now stretched
out in a more or less stupid condition on the floor or the bunks
of the guard-house down at the bridge.

The "quarters" consisted of five roughly constructed board
shanties ; one small one for the captain and his two lieutenants,
and four others of larger proportions for the four sections of the
company. Next to the captain's hut came the First Section,
that is to say the fourth of the company occupying the right in
line of battle, and therefore the tallest men of the command.
The Fourth Section, composed of the left of the line of battle,
occupied the shanty at the other extreme, and between the two
sections there was evinced the mutual contempt and ill-will usu-
ally felt between tall and short men. The " little fellows," as the
Fourth Section was called, were wont to boast that they did
more work, marched better, and took a larger proportion of
their men into battle than the big fellows of the First Section,
who, they added, were only good to growl and to devour ra-
tions. Indeed, it was a common subject of remark that the First
Section would eat its whole day's supply at breakfast, and then

1 888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 615

starve and grumble for the rest of the day, unless it could man-
age to beg, borrow, or steal some of the more abstemious Fourth
Section's store. The First Section, swelling with the import-
ance of its bigness, generally contented itself by returning a dis-
dainful frown to these venomous taunts. The Second and Third
Sections, composed of medium-sized men, habitually maintained
an attitude of amused impartiality between the giants and the
dwarfs.

The First Section seemed to be taking things easy, as they
usually did when they had had enough to eat. Their shanty,
like the other three, was about fifteen feet long by twelve wide,
affording shelter to fifteen or sixteen men, about one-third of the
.entire company being constantly on duty, either at the bridge or
at the outlying posts. In the centre of the long side of the struc-
ture was a wide hearth, made in a good imitation of the Vir-
ginia style by building the chimney on the outside and cutting
an opening through the wall for the fireplace. Opposite was a
long, rough shelf about eight feet wide, extending the whole
length, furnishing a bunk for one-half the inmates, the other half
sleeping on the floor beneath. On either side of the hearth
stood seven or eight loaded muskets, each having a set of belts
and a cartridge-box suspended to it ; all ready to be grasped on
the instant of an alarm.

The First Section are taking it easy, and no wonder, for they
are finishing what looks like a very good supper: broiled juicy
venison, from a fat deer killed as it came down to the river to
drink ; stewed rabbit, trapped on the hillside above; roast chick-
en, " captured " by some of these men when on picket the day
before, and, added to all this, the invariable "hard-tack," mess-
pork, beans, and coffee. While the other shanties have each but
one sergeant, this is dignified by two, one of whom is now on
picket at the ford, and the other the Orderly Sergeant, who
never goes on duty away from the whole company, and, being
next in rank to the commissioned officers, always maintains a
certain reserve, and feeds on the best that is to be had.

Supper being finished, the Orderly naturally takes the best
place on the floor, directly in front of the cheerful blaze that is
crackling from the great back-log on the hearth. The others
distribute themselves about, some sitting down near the Order-
ly, others stretching themselves at full length in their bunks.

" Boys," said the Orderly, looking pleasantly into the blaze
before him, '' those fellows down at the ford will have a lively
time before they can be relieved. The chances are that if they

616 A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

are not snowed in to-night, some of Ashby's cavalry will try to
sneak across the river lower down and cut them off. For I heard
a little while ago that Jackson is reported this side of Winchester
moving against us."

" I hope they are all sober at the ford by this time," said a
long-legged corporal, who sat beside the Orderly with his knees
bent almost up to his chin to keep his feet out of the fire, and
who was trying to force a blade. of hay through the stem of his
laurel-root pipe. " I haven't any use for men that can't drink
without making fools of themselves."

" Say, Corporal, don't be too hard on the boys," expostulated
a man who was lying full length on his back in an upper bunk.
" It. would take a respectable distillery to fill your whole length,
and as the commissary department doesn't have much left after
the officers have taken what they want, you don't get more than
enough to wet your whistle. But them little fellows get brim
full and runnin* over on the same amount."

" Oh ! I don't know about that," the corporal rejoined.
" You're about my length yourself, and you seemed to have
more than you could hold this afternoon. The fact is, you are
all nearly sober now, which is more than could have been said
of you a couple of hours ago. But you have had a good supper
and that has done you good. I wouldn't like to trust this crowd
now, if it had had to go hungry. What do you think, Sergeant ?"

"Corporal Hanagan is right," the Orderly returned indirect-
ly. " As soon as the Captain found out that some of the men on
picket were drunk he ordered Lieutenant Roche to relieve them
with a detail of sober men from the quarters, but the lieutenant
had to report that he couldn't find enough sober men to make it
worth while! 1 hope no harm will come from to-day's spree;
that's all I've got to say about it now."

" Ra, ta, ta ra, ta, ta "

"There is ' retreat' at Springfield," said the Orderly, as all
ceased speaking for a moment to listen to the far-off bugle notes.

"Cale, of our section, and Tully, of the Fourth, had a fight
on the post this afternoon, I heard," said a tall fellow who was
standing in a corner of the shanty polishing his gun-barrel with
a greased piece of shammy. " Cale is from your State, isn't he,
Corporal?"

"Yes, he is from Indiana," was the reply of Corporal Hana-
gan, who was an Indiana-reared Irish-American, "and I reckon
that explains how the liquor flowed down to the ford from that
Indiana regiment."

i888.j A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 617

"^There are two things you can't do," said the man in the
bunk. " You can't stop a Virginia woman from smuggling
things across to the Secesh, and you can't keep whiskey from
finding its level, especially when Ohio and Indiana furnish the
level."

Midway of the wide space that separated the captain's hut
from the company's quarters was a great fire which was never
allowed to go out. It was used for cooking by those who chose,
and it was at all times the sociable centre of the company, the one
spot where all four sections could forget their difference in
height and weight. Its glare was hidden from distant observers
and sheltered from the wind on two sides by the company's and
officers' quarters respectively, at the rear by the ridge which
rose steeply up, and in front on the side of the road by screens
made of interlaced laurel-bushes and cedar-branches. The ash-
strewn ground in front of the glowing back-log was a favorite
resort in the long evenings before the orders to " turn-in " for
sleep. Of those who were wont 'to gather there many were
mere striplings, not yet out of their teens. Others there were
who could no doubt have told even stranger tales than any they
did tell, had they been so inclined; half grizzled waifs from va-
rious parts of the world ; veterans of European, Asiatic, and
African wars ; sailors who had sailed in all the known seas.
Among them were specimens of the fag-ends of humanity, en-
listed for pelf or from hatred of regular work, here associated in
daily intercourse with honest and patriotic men. As with the
Crusaders of old, some of them were fighting merely for meat
and drink and pay. The mercenaries, however, while frankly
acknowledging themselves to be such, were mostly brave, and
were loyal to the flag they had elected to follow.

The flame blazed up, bringing into view the black masses of
foliage of pine and hemlock and cedar on the hillside behind, and
lighting up the countenances of a circle of sixty men intent upon
an object on the ground in the midst. At one point the circle
opened for an instant to admit the entrance of a slender figure of
medium height an officer in a captain's uniform. It was Cap-
tain Bonnom. He stood erect for an instant, after having
glanced at the object of universal attention, and then slowly
turned around, scanning each of the anxious countenances in
turn.

" You have had a grand spree, my boys," he said, "and this is
the result. Some of you ten at least not content with making

6i8 A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

beasts of yourselves to satisfy the desire for drink, violated stand-
ing orders by passing the guards at the bridge without authority
from me by sneaking through, in fact ! and prowled around
stupidly, even after dark, when the countersign was on, from one
picket-post to another."

Then spreading out his hands and ordering half the circle to
double upon the others, so as to have all the men faced towards
him, he said in a low voice of sincere wrath and indignation that
checked the heart-beats of many there : " Drunkenness caused
this murder for murder it was. Who murdered this man ? "
And he pointed to the body stretched out at full length upon
a rubber blanket.

All were pale ; but Tully, who, in spite of himself, had been
crowded by the throng into the front rank of the circle, was a
pitiable sight to behold. His face was of the whiteness of white
tallow, his eyes were dilated, and dull, dark wreaths encircled
them quite around, while his jaw hung, and the color had
entirely disappeared from his lips. His mouth was wide open
but speechless. He would have fallen headlong across the dead
body had not those near him, on a signal from the captain, seized
him then and there.

The snow was falling fast and thick now, and preparations
were at once made to set fire to the shanties, and be ready to
fall in with their regiment as soon as the retreating force, now
almost at the bridge, should begin to pass by.

III.

Lander's retreat began amid a snow-storm, and the snow con-
tinued for some hours to fall. Far back, in the direction of Rom-
ney, a trembling glow like the aurora borealis told that the
heaps of army stores gathered during some weeks with the in-
tention of making an offensive campaign, and which there had
now been neither time nor wagons to carry off, were still
burning, while not so far away and more towards the east was
the sign of a lesser conflagration, the destruction of the late out-
post quarters at the Wire Bridge.

First of all came the train of, perhaps, two hundred heavily
laden covered wagons, each drawn by six mules ; the driver,
astride of the near wheel-mule, guiding the team with a single
check-line. How the train, two miles or more in length, strug-
gled through the snow down that road from Romney ! Behind

i888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 619

followed most of the batteries of artillery, the heavy horses trud-
ging along with a constant rattle and clatter of harness. And
then came the column itself, marching four abreast with muskets
at the right shoulder. Under and over everything lay the deep
snow ; the wheels of the wagons and the batteries toiled up to
the hubs in it ; wagon-tops, mules' and horses' backs, jolting can-
non, the hats and shoulders of the six thousand men were covered
by it.

At the head of the column marched the provost guard with
several prisoners ; one in handcuffs. This last was Tully.

Towards midnight the snow ceased, and then the warm, moist
air condensed into drops of water ; it began to rain. How it did
rain all that loth of January, 1862, upon the two armies, the
Unionists retreating from Romney, and the Confederates under
Jackson attempting to cut off the retreat ! It used to be said in
war times that rain was nowhere so wet, and mud nowhere so
muddy as in Virginia. The moisture had condensed into a driz-
zle, which had continued to grow thicker and heavier as morning
approached, and then at daylight, O misery ! what a sight the
retreating column beheld in front of it! Yesterday as far as the
eye could range was an expanse of spotless white ; now a sea of
fluid mud stretched widely out, and the rain, no longer a steady
downpour, was driving across in floods from the northeast, and
with so bitterly persistent a violence that it was only with
immense difficulty that the column could press on, the men toil-
ing, heads down, as best they could against the chilling storm of
wind and water. By noon the rivulets had swollen into raging
torrents, streams that ordinarily were mere creeks were now be-
come wide, deep, and impassable rivers.

There were no longer any roads ; nothing but a frightful
waste of mud and water. Splash ! splash ! and spatter ! spatter !
the column went on ; no longer a column in four ranks, but to
all appearance a disordered, mud-bedraggled mob, the water
draining down in steady streams from hat-brims and the skirts of
overcoats, and from the shining backs of horses and mules.

The temperature fell as dusk approached, and suddenly the
rain was turned into sleet, which, as the coldness quickly in-
creased, shot down like a shower of slender icicles upon the
rubber blankets that were now spread around the shoulders of
the wet, shivering, wretched men as they plodded on towards
the railroad. For hours the march had consisted in striding
through mire, but now it was reduced to crawling, sliding, slip-
ping over the smooth surface of a frozen glare. The way now

620 A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

led by short cuts up and down steep hills, over uneven or stony
fields, through or across deep ravines, and finally, and worst, per-
haps, of all, along the railroad track, picking irregular steps from
cross-tie to cross- tie, and all this while over a thin sheet of treach-
erous gray ice.

A few miles to the east another column was heading towards
the railroad. It was Jackson and his Confederates from Win-
chester. How greatly they failed in the endeavor of their expe-
dition, what suffering they underwent, how many a brave fellow
among them, exhausted and benumbed, dropped down and fell
asleep in the rigid arms of cold death all that is matter of
history.

Tully next day was lodged in Cumberland jail.

. IV.

The month of May, 1862, was a critical period for the military
situation in Virginia. McClellan had transported most of the
Army of the Potomac to the Peninsula, very much to the dis-
pleasure of the War Department, which insisted' on maintaining
an entire army corps, under McDowell, at Fredericksburg in
order to cover Washington from sudden attacks on that side. It
was understood, however, that this corps, strengthened by the
addition of the Union force operating in the Shenandoah Valley,
would march at the earliest practicable moment so as to join Mc-
Clellan's right in the movement against Richmond. Such a
combination the Confederates had naturally taken measures to
prevent ; " Stonewall " Jackson, playing upon the fears of the
War Department strategists, was enabled with less than twenty-
five thousand men to keep three armies, under McDowell,
Shields, and Fremont, respectively, guarding the direct ap-
proaches to the Potomac River. In a military sense the cam-
paign of May, 1862, had so far proved a prosperous one for the
Confederates in Virginia.

Lander had died in February,* and Shields, taking command
of Lander's former division, had won a brilliant victory over
Jackson near Winchester, with the result of driving that active
commander quite out of the Valley, as was then supposed ;
Shields marching then to Fredericksburg in order to take part
in McDowell's contemplated junction with the main body of the
Army of the Potomac in front of Richmond. But no sooner had
Jackson learned of Shields' withdrawal from the Valley than he

1 888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 621

began that famous manoeuvre which forced Banks to abandon
hospitals, sick, wounded, immense stores of army supplies, and
strategic positions that had taken months to secure. Therefore
it was that Shields' Division, with but three days' rest at Fred-
ericksburg after their long march, set out to return to the Val-
ley over nearly the same route by which they had just come.

During most of the week's march the weather was delightful,
and fortunately so for Shields' men ; history has described few
armies more badly dressed than they were at this time. It had
been the intention to refit them at Fredericksburg with new uni
forms and equipments, but the unforeseen necessity of this march
back to the Valley had rendered this impossible. Not a few
commissioned officers were without a whole garment. As for
the non-commissioned officers and the privates, these, though,
figuratively speaking, clothed in the dignity of being the most
enterprising and valuable, and at the same time the happiest-
minded division of Union troops in Virginia, were literally
draped in tatters. One-half the division were barefoot, many
had neither hat nor cap ; trousers hung in ribbons around their
ankles, coats and jackets had but one sleeve, or no sleeve at all.
Many were even entirely without either overcoat or blanket. A
mere mob! some one may say. Ah ! but you ought to have seen
this mob march ! You ought to have seen it fight! The cowl
does not make the monk, nor does the uniform make the soldier.
But there was one thing that was often remarked about Shields'
Division : though they scarcely ever settled down long enough
at any one place to brush and polish and primp themselves so as
to make a very spruce showing at dress-parade, their muskets
were always in good order, shining like silver, even if their
shoes were soiled with dust, and their cartridge-boxes were usu-
ally well supplied, even when their haversacks did not contain a
meal of victuals.

As this ragged but splendid force pushed on west, it was a
sight to see their pace. There was the erect yet supple swing
of the body and the long, swift stride of step that showed the
effects of fine physical condition, of severe yet practical military
training, and of much and varied experience in active campaigns.
How they did march, to be sure ! It was an uncommonly good
horse that could keep all day up with their steady, rapid gait.

In the advance, with rattling belts, clanking sabres, and clat-
tering hoofs, march the cavalry a small but choice body of
horsemen. After an interval of a quarter of a mile, perhaps,
comes the infantry column, its batteries of artillery interspersed

622 A MYSTEKY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

between the brigades. The " battery boys" are the aristocracy
of the force, for, despite the old-fashioned regulations to the con-
trary, their fat, well-filled knapsacks and haversacks are secured
to the tops of the ammunition-boxes of the caissons, instead of
being strapped to their own backs and sides, and thus they are
enabled to step along particularly light and cheery beside their
guns, cracking jokes with their jaunty drivers at the expense of
the " humpbacks," as they style the more heavily-burdened infan-
try. These last, for all that they are loaded down with a grievous
weight of arms and equipments, and brisk as is their movement,
maintain the best of humor, in spite of occasional deep growls at
the manner of the march, or at some other fancied error, and
they are constantly ready and quite able to give and return jibes
with cavalry or artillery, as the case may be, whenever those
arms of the service happen to be brought near to them. From
time to time songs of various sorts, patriotic, pathetic, or senti-
mental, rise from the ranks, and sometimes are taken up in cho-
rus by an entire regiment.

At the head of the leading brigade is Captain Bonnom's com-
pany. After a five days' tramp the division has reached Manas-
sas Gap in the Blue Ridge, through which the turnpike road
connects " Ole Virginny " with the valleys beyond. The sun
has just risen, and its beams are lighting up the crests on either
side of the pass, and are glancing into hollows here and there,
and flashing occasional sparkles over the surface of the pretty
stream that flows along beside the road, and are setting birds to
chirruping their loudest. But generally the gap is still indis-
tinct to the eye. The keen morning air has roused the half-
sleeping wits of the soldiers and has loosened their tongues.

" Say, Orderly," said a tall corporal in the first file of Captain
Bonnom's company to the sergeant who was marching just in
front of him and side by side with the captain, " I heard last
night that Tully is out of jail and is now somewhere in this col-
umn on his way to join us. Is that true?"

But before the sergeant thus addressed could answer the
question the captain himself replied : " Yes. He was released
from jail because there was nothing but the loosest sort of cir-
cumstantial evidence left to bring against him, and almost every
one who was at the ford with him that day has since been killed,
captured, or discharged. I wish his case could be cleared up
one way or the other. But the authorities have concluded to
send him back to his company because there is no prospect now
of his ever being tried. He will probably be up with us before

1 888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 623

we get to Front Royal. By the way, Corporal Hanagan, what
did you know about that man Cale?"

" Well, Captain," the corporal replied, " I didn't know very
much about him before he enlisted with us in Ohio, and most of
what I did know was merely hearsay. But I knew who his peo-
ple were very well, for I was brought up in the same town in
Indiana where he was born. His father was old Judge Cale, who
used to be a great money-lender in those parts. The judge was
reckoned the richest man there, and most of his wealth was in
real estate that he had got hold of for money lent by him. He
was a hard sort of man to look at. They used to say that he had
never been known to do any act willingly unless he supposed he
would profit by it. He was the counsel for the railroad there
and a bank director, and he kept on growing rich and fat, and I
have no doubt from all I have heard of him that he did so by
making others poor and lean. He never had but one child, and
that was our Hank Cale who was killed that night at Wire
Bridge."

" But Hank was not rich," the Orderly remarked.

" No ; he wasn't," the corporal replied. " Maybe it was luck,
maybe it was retribution. You see," he continued, taking a long
plug of navy-tobacco from his blouse pocket, cutting off a piece,
putting the piece into his mouth and then turning it over two
or three times in order to get the full taste of the first flavor,
returning the plug to his pocket, and then giving a loosening
twitch to the pressure of the leather sling by which his musket
hung from his shoulder " you see Judge Cale died when his
time came, and the whole town turned out to his funeral because
he had been a prominent citizen and all that sort of thing, you
know. But after his death Mrs. Cale, who was much younger
than the judge, married again about as quickly as custom would
allow, and the new husband and she managed between them to
waste or speculate away pretty much everything that the old
judge had been working so many years to get together. Hank
was only a little tad then, and they soon made away with Hank's
share, in spite of the old judge's will, for you know they say that
lawyers' own wills are worse than no wills at all. By the time
Hank was a grown-up boy his mother was dead, and he hadn't a
cent of all the thousands the judge had laid away for him.''

" All that looks like bad luck for Hank," said the Captain,
" but so far I don't see any retribution."

" Well, I don't believe that a man could go on for a lifetime as
Judge Cale did and not leave some misery for his own people as

624 A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

well as for others. I have heard tell of many a wrong-doing of
his. Long ago there used to be a lawyer named Venner living
in that town. He was a clever lawyer too, and he had a fine
house with handsome grounds, and a very nice family, including
three or four little girls, I believe, and one little boy; the boy
was about Hank Gale's age. Venner was a generous soul and
lived well, but he had no business ability and was always in
debt. Among others that he borrowed of was Judge Cale, and he
gave the judge a mortgage on his place. He was anxious to save
that for his family, and he paid back the full amount with interest
according to the bond, but the last payment he neglected to take
a receipt for, in his usual careless way, lawyer though he was, and
the judge either couldn't find the mortgage and the final note just
then, or he said he couldn't. Anyhow, it amounted to the same,
for that very day Venner died suddenly of heart disease, and, to
put it all in a few words, Judge Cale denied the payment, forced
a sale of the place, bought it in, and moved in hirnselt with his
own family, sending the Venners adrift. That was the house the
judge died in, and willed to Hank."

" What did you say was the name of that other lawyer, Cor-
poral?" inquired the Captain.

" Venner," the corporal answered.

" That is strange," the Captain said to the Orderly. " A man
named Venner belonged to the Indiana regiment, and deserted
just about the time they crossed the Wire Bridge on the way to
Romney." After musing awhile the Captain asked the Orderly:
" What was it Tully said when you arrested him about a man
that he saw running away from the opposite side of the ford just
after Gale's death?"

"I don't remember exactly," the Orderly replied, "but it
couldn't have been, for the sergeant told me he looked and
could see no one except Tully who could have done the deed."

The head of the column meanwhile had reached the western-
most mouth of Manassas Gap, and it halted at the steep decliv-
ity where the turnpike winds around in its descent towards the
valley in which Front Royal is situated. Beneath, stretching
out towards the brown line of the Massanutten Mountains and
reaching north and south, lay the beautiful Shenandoah Valley,
its cultivated fields undulating between the irregular masses of
broken ridges that rib the soil in various directions. At the foot
of the declivity the course of the Shenandoah River, partially en-
circling Front Royal and then bearing off towards the northwest

i888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 625

between two lines of lofty heights, was indicated by a covered
bridge and a fringe of willows and poplars, though all was still
obscure under the morning shadow of the Blue Ridge. The
sun had risen high enough, however, behind Shields' men to
burnish with its slanting rays the window-panes in the houses of
the town, which was prettily clustered with a railroad station on
a plateau a mile or more west of the covered bridge.

Beyond the town a great number of small white spots on the
dark hillside showed the Confederate camp. Hark! Ta-ra-ra!
ta-ra! ta-ra-ra! Ta-ra! ta-ra-ra ! tl-ra ! How clearly the bugle-
notes of the reveil!6 in that camp are borne across the valley and
up here! The sun has now mounted above the highest peaks of
the Blue Ridge, and the dark patches in the valley that a while
ago mottled the view have dissolved in the fresh light to reap-
pear as comfortable farm-houses, with their numerous outbuild-
ings, barns, negro quarters, and orchards, and just to the south
of the town a reddish-yellow streak along the crest of a low ridge
shows newly-constructed earthworks. The daylight has begun
to penetrate between the trees near the bridge below and is re-
flected from the sparkling surface of the river. The high road is
clearly defined between the bridge and the town, and then be-
yond the town as it goes northwardly and westwardly towards
Winchester, following for a distance the hither bank of the
river and then crossing it again by a second bridge near the
point at which the stream bends away between the heights.

Apparently neither the early risers in Front Royal nor the
Confederates in the camp suspect as yet that up here, hidden
from them by the pines and the dense laurel growth, six pieces
of Union artillery are trained on the railroad station and a whole
division of Union troops are awaiting the signal to rush down
upon them and turn the now quiet place into a wild confusion
of havoc. Just this side of the covered hedge a solitary cavalry-
man in gray sits his horse, and near him three others dismounted
are gathered about a little fire in an angle of the fence at the
roadside boiling their morning coffee, their horses meanwhile
standing contentedly in waiting. In the open field near the
Confederate camp, it is true, squadrons of cavalry are rapidly
forming, but no alarm whatever seems yet to have been given of
the Union approach. Still it is scarcely a fortnight since an out-
lying Union regiment of Banks' command was surprised on that
very spot 'by these very Confederates, and it would be strange
indeed if these were to be caught in the same way.

All this time, a few yards in front of the hidden Union force,
VOL. XLVII. 40

626 A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

a short, compactly built man is standing in the shadow of an oak-
tree, surveying with a field-glass the town, the Confederate
camp, the roads and the bridges. He wears a general's uniform,
without any ostentatious display, and his face, which is smooth-
shaven except for a stubby moustache tinged with gray, is deep-
ly furrowed by wrinkles. It is an unmistakably Irish face so
far as its lineaments, but the keen, half-humorous expression that
lights it up has a suggestion of energy that is decidedly Ameri-
can. It is Gen. Shields. While the general was observing
them, the lines of Confederate horsemen, for they were all
cavalry, were breaking into columns, and the columns then began
to descend the hill towards the road and then to disappear into
the town, the leading column reappearing again at the other
end of the town, and winding off towards the upper bridge.

A cloud of smoke bursts suddenly out from among the build-
ings of the railroad station and mounts slowly through the still
morning air in a, vertical pillar upwards towards the sky. The
station is in a blaze, and evidently has been set on fire. Gen.
Shields lowers his field-glass, and, turning to one of the staff-
officers, who are just behind him, his gray eyes light up in an-
ticipation of an exciting moment. "They are going, Major," he
says, "but I think we'll hasten their speed within a few minutes";
and he walked back with his companion to where their horses
were waiting for them just inside the edge of the wood.

The Confederate picket post at the bridge have mounted
their horses and are scurrying off along the road into the
town. From out of the smoke of the burning station a train of
freight-cars begins to move slowly off towards Winchester, but
the hoarse whistle of its locomotive has scarcely done echoing
back and forth between the hills when from the Union position
there rings out an almost deafening crash, and six shells, with
strident rush, fly away and within a few seconds are bursting in
spherical tufts of white smoke amid the columns of the retreat-
ing Confederates. Now indeed the valley is awake, and Con-
federate batteries peal out in answer to the Union guns. Squad-
rons of Federal cavalry have quietly but hastily descended to
the bridge and across to the other side, and there have formed ;
their sudden dash has prevented the Confederates from burning
the bridge. Now they are all ready. There is their bugle sig-
nal, " Forward ! " How steadily their lines are advancing. Now
the signal is " Trot! " and through the slight cloud of dust that
is rising behind the swift-pacing hoofs the regular formation is
still seen rushing on towards the mass of Confederates that has

i888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 627

not yet quit its position. " Charge ! " Reader, have you ever
seen a cavalry charge? How they go! But all of the charge
is hidden for a moment by the denser cloud of dust that rises
with the increased speed of the Union line. . Now and again a
guidon is visible fluttering above a part of the lines and the dust-
cloud is moving against the rear and flank of the Confederate
columns, some of which have halted and are forming to meet
charge with counter charge. One squad of Union horsemen has
gone off to the right like the wind, and already are nearly abreast
with the locomotive of the runaway freight train and are firing
pistol-shots into its cab.

In the little town the crack and rattle of pistol and carbine
are rivalling the thunder of cannon, which is now echoing from
hill to hill, while ever and anon the Union hurrah goes up and is
defiantly answered by the shrill hi ! hi ! of the Confederates.
Riderless horses are scampering back and over the fields, and
dismounted men, bleeding and limping, are painfully making
their way, as best they can, back from the points where the
struggle has become stubbornly engaged. Shields himself, with
his staff, is up with his cavalry, and now his infantry has defiled
across the covered bridge and is pouring at the double-quick
into the town to take part in the contest and bring it to an end.

The Confederate commander gathered his force together on
the approach of the Union infantry and withdrew in some haste.
It had been a brief but brilliant affair, and to some extent, at least,
atoned for the annoyance caused to the Union army by Jackson's
surprise of Banks shortly before. Shields' cavalry, with some
infantry, among which was Captain Bonnom's company, deployed
in skirmishing order, pressed the rear of the retreating Confede-
rates along the turnpike road and across the second bridge.

Once beyond the bridge the chase was much scattered, ac-
cording to the varying advantages of ground, or the dash, or
stubbornness, as it might be, of the contestants. Beyond the
second bridge, for a mile or more on towards Winchester, the
crests and slopes on either hand of the turnpike were dotted with
puffs of smoke from pistol, carbine, musket, and cannon. Capt.
Bonnom's extended skirmish-line had pushed forward close to
the rear of the main column of the retreating army, and a squad
of Confederate cavalry temporarily cut off were endeavoring to
break through his right in order to rejoin their comrades. That
part of Bonnom's men had therefore rallied in groups o'f four,
and in the four on the extreme right was Corporal Hanagan,
whose tall figure rose up even above the tall comrades who

628 A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. [Aug.,

stood about him in a circle, facing outwards. His features were
streaming with blood and soiled with powder, and he, as well as
the others, was loading and firing slowly and steadily, occasion-
ally emptying a saddle of its rider, an event which he did not
fail to celebrate with a wild whoop of triumph.

There were, perhaps, twenty of the horsemen, and, having
repeatedly discharged their carbines in vain, they drew their
sabres and rode with a fierce yell, at full gallop, against the skir-
mishers, separating from one another with widening intervals
as they went. But what is this? A footman, who had just
been descried running at topmost speed from the direction of
the bridge, had almost reached Corporal Hanagan's four, when
the upraised sabre of one of the Confederate horsemen fell upon
(him with a deadly stroke. The corporal fired to save him, but
.although his shot came too late for this, it brought the cavalry-
man to the earth, the horse, frightened by the din of the m616e,
cantering away first to one side and then to the other.

Along the Winchester turnpike, through and out past Front
Royal, across the second bridge, and broadcast over the hillsides
and hollows, the dead and wounded lay beneath the searching
rays of the hot noon-day sun. The stretcher-bearers were
already at their rough but kindly work. Far out beyond the
second bridge they had gathered a dozen poor wounded fellows,
gray and blue alike, just as they had oome across them, into the
inviting shade of a weather-stained haystack, and were constant-
ly bringing in more for the surgeons and hospital-stewards, who,
with coats off and sleeves rolled up, were engaged in the en-
deavor to heal these wrecked bodies. Almost side by side
among the wounded were a Federal and a Confederate, the one
an infantryman dying from a sabre-stroke,- the other having the
insignia of Ashby's famous cavalry regiment. They lay ex-
hausted, their features pale and pinched, their glazing eyes
almost without expression. The Confederate slightly turned
his head as a Union surgeon, stooping to look at him, called to
an assistant to bring a dose of brandy.

" Don't give me liquor, doctor," the man murmured weakly.
" I am bound to die with this wound and the liquor will do no
good.' 1

".I'm sorry, my boy," said the surgeon, " that I cannot save
you. But you had better take this brandy; it will help you to
die easy."

The man's blue lips quivered, but he managed to utter, " Liquor

i888.] A MYSTERY OF THE OUTPOSTS. 629

made me a murderer and a deserter." The surgeon checked his
professional haste in order to listen to the words of the dying
man, who continued : " I used to belong to an Indiana regiment.
My name is John Venner. Last winter at the Wire Bridge, near
Romney, when I was wild with liquor, I heard that Hank Cale,
the son of the man who ruined my family, was on picket post
there. I left my regiment and crept up the river-bank until I
was within aim and then I killed Cale." He paused to recover
strength, and then with a great effort added : " When I had done
that 1 felt remorse at once and I deserted to the enemy. I went
across the mountains to Jackson's column and enlisted with Ash-
by. I am sorry, doctor, and hope God will forgive me." He
closed his eyes and the pallor of death suffused his countenance,
and he was silent for ever.

The Union soldier meanwhile was pulling the surgeon's arm.
" I have just had a dream," he said. " I dreamt that Hank Cale
came and told" my regiment that I didn't kill him, though they
put me in Cumberland jail for it and almost starved me to
death." The man was evidently delirious, and the surgeon
shook his head at Captain Bonnom, who, along with Corporal
Hanagan, had come up a few moments before and had heard
Venner's self-accusation.

" Poor Tully ! " the Captain said, and he asked the surgeon
what were the hopes for the man's recovery. None, he was
told, and indeed Tully was already in the spasms that were to
draw his evil fortune to an end. The Corporal, who had recog-
nized the dead Confederate as the cavalryman whom he had shot
just after his fatal sabre-blow at Tully, knelt at one side of
Tully and the Captain at the other, each holding a hand of the
poor fellow. In a short while they rose to depart, for all was
then over. As they went away to find their company Captain
Bonnom said to his corporal : " I am more than ever convinced
that liquor-drinking is a curse. These two dead men are an
evidence. That spree at the Wire Bridge led to murder, treach-
erous desertion, to the unjust imprisonment of a harmless and in-
nocent man, and perhaps even was the remote cause of his death."

" Yes, Captain," said Corporal Hanagan, "but it seems to me
the trouble really began further back, with old Judge Gale's
money-getting meanness."

" No doubt," the Captain rejoined, sententiously. " It does
seem that no wrong can be done, whether great or trifling, that
is not followed by an endless series of evils, and the abuse of
liquor is certainly one of these evils." T. F. GALWEY.

630 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Aug.,

A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE.

THREE tests exist, by which we may estimate some results of
England's misrule and maladministration of Ireland. If any one,
or if any two, and still more if all three of these palmary tests
conclusively and cumulatively point to the folly of perpetuat-
ing the present system, and to the wisdom of adopting a fresh
system, then, the relations between England and Ireland,
with which we are unhappily familiar, stand condemned
by their own inherent badness. They stand thus condemned
from the evidence of both the past and the present, apart from
all results which may possibly occur in the future. And a for-
tiori, they are condemned apart from those results of unfulfilled
prophecy which uninspired prophets of evil perseveringly pro-
claim, and by their reiteration materially assist in producing.
These three tests may be concisely described as the historical,
the political, and the social. Even a cursory and superficial ex-
amination of them, which is all that can be attempted in this
place, will suffice to elicit a definite answer to the questions pre-
viously formulated. The questions, it may be repeated, for the
sake of clearness, were these : (i) What are the results of the
government by England of Ireland ? and the results of the exist-
ing government being what they are, (2) Ought not Ireland to
be allowed by England to govern herself?

I. The verdict of history on the government of Ireland by an
alien and distant nationality demands attention in the first place.
This verdict may be found not only in English works by histori-
ans who are yet illogically averse from granting Irish autonomy,
such as Mr. Lecky and Mr. Froude ; but also, from the lips or
pen of any foreigner of average intelligence who has studied the
question, such as M. de Beaumont, of the last generation, and a
Canadian priest of French extraction of the present, the. Rev.
Emile Pich6. It may be summarized in a single and not very
involved sentence. No civilized, not to say Christian country
has, for so long a period and in so barbarous and tyrannical a
manner, and with such selfish cynical indifference to the rights
of the dependent nation, misgoverned another country, not less
civilized and much more Christian, than England has ruled the
sister Kingdom of Ireland. This misrule is apparent in every
department of government wherein the stronger is able to domi-

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 631

nate the weaker nation. For instance : in religion, Ireland has
been cruelly, ruthlessly, and only not to the present day contin-
uously persecuted, with a minuteness and refinement of persecu-
tion which was impossible against the same divine religion under
pagan persecutors, and was rendered possible only by the exhaus-
tiveness of modern legislation. Well may the late Mr. Matthew
Arnold (quoted by Mr. J. A. Fox in " WJiy Ireland wants Home
Rule ") speak of " that penal code, of which the monstrosity is
not half known to Englishmen, and may be studied by them with
profit." And this penal code was inflicted in the interests of a
persecuting minority backed by the national prestige and mate-
rial power of England which in those days bore toward the per-
secuted majority the proportion, perhaps, of one to eight or ten.
In education, Ireland has been forcibly kept ignorant the indi-
vidual being kept in ignorance under the risk of being banned
and outlawed Ireland, where knowledge is thirsted for by all
classes and has not to be made compulsory upon an unwilling
people, as in England. By law, in the reign of Queen Anne,
Catholic teachers were banished and made liable to death in
case of return ; and forfeiture to the crown of all real and per-
sonal estate was the punishment of those who, for educational
purposes, sent their children to be reared abroad. Whilst, when
a mitigation of these infamous laws was allowed by England,
means of education still more infamous were invented, by which
knowledge was imparted to the people at the risk and cost to
children of apostasy.

In the matter, again, of disabilities, Ireland, until long after
the rights of the people were recognized in England, has been
denied equal rights of representation and freedom with the gov-
erning nation. So late as the reign of George I. an act was
passed disfranchising the Catholics of Ireland, both for Parlia-
mentary and municipal elections: and at the present day, fresh
legislation (whatsoever may be the nominal cause) is perpetually
inflicting upon Ireland a personal loss of liberty in speech and in
action to which the English democracy would not for one mo-
ment submit. In this relation, however, it is remarkable that,
by a singular Nemesis of mercy, which English Catholics ungen-
erously forget, Catholic emancipation was eventually gained by
the Celt for the Saxon. In finance, again, Ireland has been and
is taxed out of all proportion more heavily than England. This
assertion is not disproved by the fact which is rather pompously
insisted upon, viz., that certain upper-class assessed taxes are not
levied in the sister kingdom. But, if allowance be made for the

632 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Aug.,

cost of government in Ireland, which might be far less than that
of England, and the amount of the National debt of England,
which is far greater than that of Ireland, it is obvious that the
taxation of the one country should be sensibly less than the taxa-
tion of the other. The facts, however, are exactly contrary, and
are as follows : The National debt of Ireland, normally at zero,
stood at two millions a few years previously to the Union. It
then rose by the policy of the British government, by fostered
rebellion, bribery, corruption and fraud, to twenty seven mil-
lions. Sixteen years later it rose again to the enormous amount
of one hundred and twelve millions. Meantime, whilst the Irish
debt had been quadrupled the English debt was increased by
less than one-half. But herein lay the sting of the plot. The
figures which these proportions severally represent brought the
Irish debt into those relations with the English debt, that the
British Parliament was enabled (under the terms of the Act of
Union) to tax Ireland uniformly with England. Thus the poorer
country and the more heavily indebted was taxed uniformly with
the absolutely richer and the proportionately less heavily in-
debted country.

In brief, history affirms that Ireland has been given over
body, soul and spirit to the tender mercies of a small, hard, un-
scrupulous minority, half-English, half-Scotch, wholly non-na-
tional and wholly non-Catholic : and that in the few instances
quoted financially, electorally, educationally, religiously she
has been thus given over to be governed, not so much in the
interests of the minority of the Irish nation, though that were
bad enough, but in the material interests of alien and hostile
England. Readers of Irish history can testify that the minority
have loyally governed the dependent kingdom on behalf of the
more powerful nation to the very letter of their stern commis-
sion.

II. The verdict of politics on the misrule of the Celt by the
Saxon, which the evidence of our senses permits to those who
live at the present day and can watch the making of history, may
be summarized, not so much in a single sentence, as by a single
word. That one word is failure! Nothing, literally, no one
act of the legislature of England in relation to Ireland, has
proved, it need not be said a complete, but even a comparative
success. Everything of a legislative character has proved, be
ginning or middle or end, to be a failure, an abject, hopeless,
transparent, unmitigated failure. As a matter of course, every
legislative change that England volunteered to make in Irish law

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 633

for England's own advantage and profit, and not for the profit,
not for the advantage of the misgoverned dependency, was not
only foredoomed, but was rightly foredoomed to failure. But,
the noteworthy point in Ireland's political story as forcibly
traced by the iron pen of England is this: that even when Eng-
lish statesmen of a nobler mould than the average House of
Commons politician have risen to the level of desiring justice
for Ireland, have honestly endeavored, after their flickering light,
to rule Ireland for Ireland's good, the same portentous failure
has ensued. This is no figure of speech, although the present is
not the place to instance such failures otherwise than in general
terms. But, one example may be hinted at. However difficult
it may be, with the evidence supplied by present knowledge
and past experience, to credit the opinion, yet, it is more than
probable that the authors of the lamentable Encumbered Estates
Act of 1849 were influenced by benevolent motives towards Ire-
land. It is indeed described by one of many able Irish writers on
the position of their own country (in A Word for Ireland, by Mr.
Healy), as "a crude, desperate, ill-timed measure." Without to
any extent questioning the value of this criticism (or rather,
whilst accepting it fully), we may believe that the intention
which actuated ts authors was, at the least, good. Of course, it
ended in failure, and in more than failure positive injury : and
herein it followed, with unerring instinct, the course of each ef-
fort of England to govern Ireland from a foreign capital city.
Even her more or less disinterested acts of legislation for Ire-
land have been marked by characteristics which have poisoned
the issue to those whom it most concerned. Legislation either
came too late, when an earlier yielding of rights withheld would
have brought contentment, if not gratitude : or, it was yielded
in a grudging temper, when greater generosity was demanded
and would have been appreciated : or the act which sought to
convey the yielded concession to justice was imperfectly drafted
and carelessly altered, or incontinently " amended " out of all
recognition, and no sooner became law than it needed, in a strict
sense of the word, actual amendment: or worse still, was based
on principle, custom and asserted right which were thoroughly
English not Irish, Saxon not Celtic in sentiment, of a feudal ori-
gin. not derived in any way from tribal tradition, of a Protestant
and not of a Catholic character. Every one who knows any-
thing of the question can quote individual cases which will har-
monize with these broad statements if only it be admitted by
one who is not an Englishman, that England has ever legislated

634 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Aug.,

for Ireland in a spirit disinterested and pure. But, a single cri-
terion may be suggested which will test all the results of Ire-
land's non-national legislation, of what sort they may be.

For a period of at least four hundred years England has es-
sayed, more or less completely or partially, to govern Ireland.
She has employed modes and methods of government of varied
kind, from dire coercion to mild conciliation. Doubtless the
severer treatment has been more frequently applied than the
more lenient. Indeed, the leniency of the rule of England form-
ed the exception to the rule of severity which evidenced the
truth of the law. But, conciliation has proved equally unsuc-
cessful with coercion ; and the illogical, half-hearted conjunction
of both coercion and conciliation, of constitutionalism and tyranny
contemporaneously, has proved equally inefficacious. England,
throughout and consistently, has failed, in every sense of the term,
to pacificate Ireland. She has failed to reconcile her dependen-
cy to the rule of the richer, the more numerous, the more ener-
getic, the more powerful nation. She has failed to make of
Ireland either a populous country ; or a manufacturing or com-
mercial country ; or a country contented in itself and peaceful
to live in ; or a land which develops its own resources and sup-
plies its own wants ; or a nation devoted to the* higher side of
life, in art, science or literature ; or a people which endures
without obvious irritation the rule of another and a dominant
people. She has failed even to make the name of law, meaning
English law, other than hated and hateful ; and the idea of gov-
ernment, that is to say, English government, other than despic-
able and despised. And she has thus failed in almost every de-
partment of government, and in securing the results of govern-
ment, in a civilized age, both towards, those whom she has pre-
sumed to hold in subjection, in the face of these results, on her
own borders ; and also towards the far larger number of a common
nationality, that Greater Ireland across the seas, in the continents
of America and Australasia alike, whom her misgovernment has
exiled from their island homes.

These facts alone, and they might be multiplied almost inde-
finitely as a record of centuries and in the judgment of politi-
cians, are sufficient to condemn the rule of Ireland by England.

III. The verdict on the topic under discussion, from a social
point of view, can be summarized neither by a single word, nor
in a single sentence. Yet, is the verdict not the less decided than
in the other test cases of politics and of history, against the rule
by England of Ireland. In nearly every department of social

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE, 635

life, in which man has the advantage over the brute beasts which
perish, Ireland, at the present day, is exhibited before the Chris-
tian world by England as the exception to universal experience.
In no other non-barbarous land on God's earth is such a spec-
tacle to be seen, or more truly such a series of spectacles a very
panorama of ill. As a nation and this is the testimony, offered a
few years ago, of a great ecclesiastic who has visited many
nations, savage and civilized Ireland is worse housed, worse
clothed, worse fed, until lately was worse taught, and almost
until to-day (if we may admit this saving clause) was worse
governed than any other civilized country with any pretence
to constitutional rule. No other civilized state is both syste-
matically and largely and year by year continually decreasing
in population. This decrease arises not from natural causes
over which man has no control, not from the contact of a
higher civilization with a lower form, not from the coloniza-
tion of other lands enforced by the will of a superior power.
No : it arises from the voluntary, ceaseless flow of the best
blood of the country, of the sinew and bone of the masses
and of the intellect and intelligence of the classes too ready to
escape from the land apparently God-forsaken and certainly
man-struck, which yet in their various ways they idolize.

Again: no other people can be named of whom this can be
truthfully declared, that their native industries have been delibe-
rately destroyed, their home manufactures have been legisla-
tively prohibited, their shipping interests have been inten-
tionally wrecked, their national products have been legally
discouraged, and their social condition and status have been
wilfully lowered and kept in degradation by another people who
have had them in subjection without conquering them, and who
have made a pretence of governing them by constitutional laws
nominally common to both countries. And no other country
exists of which this last item can be predicated. When the Irish
people have been forced, as an alternative between starvation and
exile, to turn to a lower class of comparatively unskilled labor,
and when agriculture became practically the only source of live-
lihood, directly or indirectly, of a large portion of the population,
what was the fate which met hundreds of thousands of the
peasantry of Ireland? It was a fate which has absolutely no
counterpart in civilized and Christian history, so far as the present
writer can gather. In order still further to diminish the popu-
lation of the country, the natural increase of which, whether at
home or in her colonies, is a source of strength and wealth to a

636 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Aug.,

nation, an artificial means to this end was adopted, of a description,
barbarous in itself, which would simply have caused a revolution
in England, had the system been there attempted. A few words
suffice to indicate to what that system amounted, which every
student of Ireland knows only too well. Evictions on a large
scale were resorted to, on many pretences, true and false, honest
or dishonest. In cases where evictions by process of law were
impossible, bribery and corruption were employed. From a
patriotic point of view these efforts were none the less dis-
graceful because the price was duly paid to the victims ; and
from a humanitarian aspect they were all the more disgraceful,
by reason, in early days of emigration, of tortures inseparable
from the middle passage in sailing vessels, of disease and death
on the voyage, of desolation and destitution on the arrival of the
poorer emigrants in a strange land. The result was this : that
houses and villages were systematically destroyed ; whole dis-
tricts and tracts of country were made bare of homesteads ;
square miles of agricultural land, which supported many an
honest family, were turned into pasturage which could occupy
only a few hands for its due care ; and the rent of the land which
still remained under spade cultivation was gradually raised to
double, treble, four times and occasionally to more than quad-
ruple its former figure ; and that mainly (of course, not solely)
in consequence of the tenant's own labor, money, thought and
time.

Such, in briefest outline, are some of the reasons, from a
social aspect, of the cry of Ireland for a rule, for any rule, which
may cease to be that of England.

Limitations of space forbid the further discussion of these
three tests by results of England's misgovernment of Ireland.
Before, however, these remarks are concluded, it may be per-
mitted to the writer to draw renewed attention to two additional
topics which intimately affect the argument of these articles.
They are of a wholly different character from each other; the
one has proved to be more or less of accidental injury to the
country, the other still exercises a wide and permanent injury.
Both flow from one cause and both are due to the government
of a dependency by a foreign and often a hostile nationality.

Firstly : Irishmen view the worst features of the fearful
perennial famines, from 1845 to l %$> which have desolated their
fruitful country, as the work of man of course, under the per-
missive will of God. They have good cause for their view. In
spite of all that may be said on behalf of the English governments

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 637

of those dates for the hands of no party were clean whether
for their action or for their inaction, under the dictation or pro-
hibition of the dismal science, the truths and fallacies of political
economy, yet history records very dark facts of English mal-
administration at such crises. Perhaps the most crushing evi-
dence against English rule was supplied at the time in question
through the columns of that venal and unscrupulous newspaper,
the London Times. The facts of Irish destitution, says that
journal in a well-known passage (last quoted by Mr. Fox), " are
ridiculously simple. They are almost too commonplace to be
told. The people have not enough to eat. They are suffering
a real, though an artificial famine. Nature does her duty. The
land is fruitful enough ; nor can it be fairly said, that man is
wanting. The Irishman is disposed to work: in fact man and
nature together do produce abundantly. The island is full and
overflowing with human food. But, something ever intervenes
between the hungry mouth and the ample banquet." Of course,
the failure of the potato crop was the immediate cause of
scarcity. But, beyond the act of God, What may be the rea-
son, it may be asked, of this artificial famine? Why did the
people starve when their island overflowed with food? How was
it that something intervened? Forty-three years have elapsed
since these editorial words were written, and much has been said
by many persons of authority on the question during the inter-
val. The latest commentary that has annotated this criticism of
English administration of its sister kingdom, is supplied by the
Catholic Bishop of Nottingham (Dr. Bagshawe) speaking pub-
licly in his cathedral city on the crime committed by the present
Crimes Act "the crime of enabling the landlords of Ireland to
go on extorting unjust, exorbitant and impossible rents, and to
enable them to continue to exterminate and expel their tenant-
ry." The bishop's reference to the famine is contained in these
words, as reported in the London Catholic Press of March 31,
1888: The Irish famine, said his lordship, " was a famine made
by the English government. The years were years of plenty.
But the famine was caused by England carrying all the corn and
cattle produce out of the country, to be sold for the benefit of
absentee landlords. Instead of keeping the produce of Ireland
to feed the people there, as an Irish legislature would have done,
it was sent out of the country, for the benefit of the Englishman.
The Corn Laws, too, operated against the Irish. The relief
granted was distributed by the [Dublin] Castle in such a way,
that no profit could come of it ; and the men were withdrawn

638 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Aug.,

from the land, which remained unsown, to the relief works.
That went on for five years, and was an instance of a destructive
union." The Bishop of Nottingham's words concisely answer
the above questions, What, why and how? The "artificial fam-
ine " was caused by the system known as that of absentee land-
lordism. The " people starved " because the absentee landlords
claimed their legal rights. " Something" intervened, inasmuch
as the worth of millions of money was transferred, in the inte-
rests of the lawful owners (the law being on their side), from
the country which created the produce to the country in which
the produce was spent.

Secondly: Not only Irishmen, but Englishmen also view the
whole existing system of absentee landlordism, apart from all
questions of the otherwise just or unjust conduct of such land-
lords towards their tenants and such landlords are amongst the
most highly respected of their class as a grave and indefensible
scandal. The facts connected with the system are Notorious,
and are on all hands admitted to be beyond dispute. Taken in a
general way by English people, they are accepted as historical,
political or social facts which exist, and are therefore, presum-
ably, justifiable. They are supposed to be, on the whole, de-
fensible ; and in any individual case, specially where personal
acquaintance or friendship exists between the landlord and the
censor, are imagined to be, at least for the owner, beneficial. It
is only when some of the facts are collected into a focus and the
results are concentrated into a single page, that the average
English inquirer is staggered in his conviction, and is startled
at the unexpected Irish revelation. And some of the facts are
these for it is impossible to exhaust them in this place : That a
considerable proportion of the land of Ireland is at present in the
hands, mainly by the dispossession of former owners by confisca-
tion and legal plunder, of landlords of large or small estates, who
are non-resident ; that these non-resident land-owners, as a rule,
neither live on their properties even for a portion of the year,
nor personally visit their properties, nor are acquainted with
their properties, save through the eye, ear and hand of their
agents, nor are interested in their properties, beyond the point
that their Irish properties contribute to their English income.
Moreover, that the income which these non-resident landlords
derive from their Irish estates in many cases not in all, but in
sufficient numbers to warrant the general assertion is extorted
from their tenants, if not entirely, yet to a large extent under the
provisions of English-made law : that such law has been enforced

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 639

on the tenants without their consent, against their wishes and in
opposition to their interests : that such income, in many cases,
has not been legitimately made out of the land rented, but rather
has been paid out of other sources of livelihood, or has been
earned by husbands and fathers in England, or has been con-
tributed from the savings of emigrant sons and daughters in
America. And lastly, that the revenue which is yearly carried
away from the country in which it was nominally produced and
where it was actually paid, is subjected to no special tax, fine or
reduction, and is spent, wholly or mainly, for the advantage of
the governing nation and not for the benefit of the nation gov-
erned, which is thus defrauded of its honest labor and its right-
ful gains. This iniquitous and immoral system is one which
the comparatively uncivilized Norman conquerors of England
might have taught their degenerate descendants, the rulers of
Ireland in the nineteenth century, to eschew. Eight centuries
ago the Norman baron-made law regulated and repressed, as be-
tween Normandy and England, a system similar to, but not so far-
reaching as, that which exists to-day between Ireland and England.
Unless the report, lately published in the English papers, be er-
roneous, the evil in question, which is said to be a source of dis-
content to a limited extent in the United States of America, is in
the course of suppression by statute, in regard to the foreign
owners of American soil, above a certain amount of acreage.
But the ill is rampant in Ireland. To what extent it flourishes is
practically unknown : the acreage of the absentee landlords and
the rent-roll transported to England, cannot be, saving at inter-
vals, accurately estimated. An approximation, however, to the
truth may be gathered from the evidence of official statistics.
The following figures", it is believed, may be taken to be trust-
worthy. Since the date of the Union the amount of the absentee
rental has been calculated by different authorities at various
aggregates. ' But, as the century advanced in its earlier and even
in its later years, the amount increased in a steady ratio. Thus :
Shortly after the Union, it was calculated at three millions. A
generation later, it was calculated at from three to four millions.
Some years after it was said to reach five and even six millions
sterling. A generation later, again, the amount is said to have
diminished ; possibly, at the present date the sum does not touch
the highest point which once it reached. In any case, in the
year 1872, from a Parliamentary return laid before the British
House of Commons, these astounding facts were made public :
The ratable land in Ireland is estimated at some twenty

640 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Aug.,

millions of acres, and the total rental (which must not be con-
fused with the value for rating purposes) at sixteen millions ster-
ling. Neither the absentee owners of house property, a very
large element of national injury, nor the property belonging to
public institutions, nor to small proprietors holding less than one
hundred acres of land, need be taken into account. But, of the
residue, it appears that there are nearly three thousand absentee
landlords (as against rather more than ten thousand owners of land
who are resident) in Ireland ; and that the ratable value for tax-
ation (which must not be mistaken for the rental value) of the
property of the absentee landlords amounts to nearly two and
one-half millions sterling (as against rather more than seven mil-
lions representing the resident landlords' ratable value) per an-
num. In short, speaking roughly, somewhat less than one third
of the. total number of the great owners of the soil of Ireland are
absentees; and somewhat more than one-third of the rated value
of the soil of Ireland is in the hands of these absentees. If to these
proportional statements be added the concrete fact that the
owners of five millions of acres (or one-quarter of the acreage of
Ireland) withdraw from an already impoverished, it may be said,
from a consequently impoverished country, a yearly sum which
has been variously .estimated, in different epochs, at between two
and six millions of money, to enrich an already prosperous, and
it may be said, a consequently prosperous country then some
noteworthy figures may be produced. The Union between
England and Ireland has now existed for eighty-six full years.
During this period, supposing an average of these figures to be
taken, nat less and perhaps much more than four millions of
money have been transferred year by year to the richest country
in the world from one of the poorest. The aggregate of this
annual drain from Ireland into England since the Union amounts
to the almost incredible sum of three hundred and forty-four mil-
lions sterling. This sum would suffice to purchase the freehold
of the entire kingdom of Ireland, on the estimated rental value
of the land, at from twenty-one to twenty-two years' purchase.
To annotate this second result of absentee landlordism from the
date of the legislative union, were to spoil its pertinency.

These two further topics afford additional arguments to the
three earlier ones, against the continuance of English misrule in
Ireland, and in favor of Ireland being allowed by England the
privilege to govern herself.

ORBY SHIPLEY.

1 888.] THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. 641

THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE AT WASHING-
TON.

THE officers of the Evangelical Alliance assembled, last win-
ter, a General Christian Conference of " twelve or fifteen hun-
dred delegates " from all the Protestant bodies of this coun-
try, to study our National Perils and Opportunities. " National
Perils and Opportunities " is the first line printed on the title-
page of the report of the conference, which has now been given
to the public. The call for the meeting, signed by seventy of
the most eminent Protestants of the country, both clerical and
lay, thus summarized the perils: the alienation of the masses from
the churches, and the widening chasm between the churches
and the multitude; the multiplication of wants and the creation
of tastes by popular education which are not gratified by the
present distribution of wealth, together with the growing dis-
content among vvorkingmen ; the saloon ; a wide-spread spirit of
lawlessness; the apathy of the popular conscience; increasing
pauperism and crime.

The opportunities were agreed to be found in the resources
of religion. The call of the conference affirmed that it was
time to demonstrate that the gospel can do what the ballot has
failed to do. Co-operation of all spiritually-minded men to move
against vice in organized force was what was mainly insisted on.
A little was said of the press, and something more of the school
as resources for meeting the national perils.

These topics and others more or less cognate to them were
discussed with extreme frankness, and for the most part intelli-
gently : some of the addresses are worthy of a permanent place
in literature, and but few of them are entirely commonplace.
Dr. James McCosh spoke well on the relation of religion to
the quarrel between capital and labor, laying down principles if
not in every particular Catholic, yet Catholic in their general
tendency ; and his practical suggestions are especially instructive
and interesting. We have seldom met with anything more
simply eloquent than the address of Colonel J. L. Greene, of
Hartford, on the social vice eloquent and moving, and worthy
to be placed under the eyes of every man and woman in America.
Professor Boyesen, of Columbia College, bade the conference
look at the great stream of emigrants pouring into that flood-
gate of the world's human tides, Castle Garden, and proposed to

VOL. XLVIL 41

642 THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. [Aug.,

tax emigration down to safer proportions ; he did not seem to
meet with more than a respectful and considerate hearing. Yet
all through the report we find a foreboding about the foreign
element. One of the best addresses is that of Rev. Arthur T.
Pierson, a Presbyterian clergyman of Philadelphia. His topic is
the relation of rich and poor, and he plainly loves the poor man
and his family. He is a powerful exponent of the dignity of la-
bor, and the obligations of the rich to those who are beaten
and battered about all their lives between the need of bread and
the lack of opportunity to earn it. I venture to recommend a
careful perusal of the following extract from his address :

"And then, moreover, let me say that in my judgment the present pew
system is the most monstrous barrier that has ever been erected between
the churches and the common people. [Applause.] If a church building
is consecrated to Almighty God and is his, I would like to ask, in the
name of religion and common sense, what right any man has to a certain
topographical district in that building which he can fence off and say, ' That
is my property.' It is a monstrous notion. There is no foundation for it
in Old Testament or in New Testament. It may be equitable enough as a
business basis, but it is utterly inexpedient as the basis for reaching the
masses of the people with the word of life. A man has no more right to in-
trude into a pew that is owned or rented by another man than he has to
intrude into the house that is owned or rented by another man. And if
the principle of proprietorship in the house of God is right, then you can-
not wonder at the feeling of the workingman, that he is excluded unless he
can afford to pay for or buy a pew.''

The evil complained of which Mr. Pierson elsewhere de-
scribes as the non-conducting qualities of the kid glove is not
absent from our own churches. If the supernatural attractions of
our churches are still able to overcome the repellent influence of
the acceptation of persons in proportion to their wealth, it will not
always be so ; the financial necessity of making a portion of God's
house the rich man's paddock has, perhaps, already had much to
do with the beggarly account of empty benches at High Mass.

President Merrill E. Gates, of Rutgers College, also gave an
excellent discourse on the misuse of wealth. Dr. Robert C. Mat-
lack, still addressing the rich, beats an old-fashioned P. P. on en-
forcing the duty of giving. The address of Rev. S. W. Dike, of
Auburndale, Mass., on the perils of the family is an extremely
good one, earnest, direct, well thought out, wise, and with a cer-
tain plainness of style which is a warrant of sincerity. It seems
to me the most valuable production of the conference.

It is hard to tell how many times over the question was
asked, How can we reach the multitude? A perfectly un-Pro-

1 888.] THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. . 643

testant question it surely is, for by the Protestant theory no
man's spiritual welfare should be essentially conditioned upon
any other man's action further than giving him the Bible.
Reach the multitude the Bible, and the multitude is reached,
according to Protestant principles. Get a man to read the
Scriptures, and you have begun and ended your part. The
Bible privately interpreted by the light of the Holy Spirit is the
church. Why then does not the American multitude, that part
especially born of Christian parents, make its own church ? The
answer, though plain, is not found in these addresses. The truth
is, that the multitude has not the requisite material to do it
with. The early Protestants made their own churches, such as
they were, and they were able to do so for a very significant
reason : they had at hand a book everybody held to be inspired.
Primitive Protestantism had but to reach to the Catholic altar
and take from it a book which the old religion had made the hu-
man race believe had God for its author. By the steady in-
fluence of popes and councils, and monks and bishops, and other
organs of Catholic power, men were agreed that the Divine
Wisdom was responsible for that book and for every part of it.
If the present " multitude " believed the Catholic dogma of in-
spiration as firmly as their ancestors of the Reformation, they
would equally as weH yield to the same natural self-deceit of
private judgment, and get up the same dreary lot of discordant
sects, and tear away at the seamless robe of Christ's united peo-
ple, as was done of yore. But the Christian Bible, snatched from
the Christian altar, and Episcopate, and Papacy, has had a sad
time of it. The delusion that human reason is the all-sufficient
criterion in the use of the Scriptures has, in course of three hun-
dred years of practical working, brought reason and inspiration
into conflict. To say that God is the author of that book and of
all its parts involves in many cases, so Protestants have come to
think, a reflection on one's soundness of reasoning. What can
the multitude do for a religion? Take the Bible? Whence
and from whom? Ah! from the Protestant pulpit instead of
from the altar of the ancient Christian faith ; that is to say,
from a repository which can no longer affirm with concurrent
voice and unquestioning certainty that God is the author of
that book and of all its parts. It has been often said that the
success of religious error rested upon some fragment of Catho-
lic truth still lingering in possession ; in the case of the Protes-
tant societies it was the Catholic dogma of inspiration that made
" Gospel Christianity " possible.

644 THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. [Aug.,

A really new Protestant movement embracing multitudes of
men has almost invariably been the rise of a new and distinct
denomination. So that speakers at the conference had more
reasonably asked, Will the disinherited masses form a new de-
nomination? The answer is plainly that they will not, for the
Bible is not the book it once was, and new forms of Protestantism
are necessarily new evolutions of the fruitful religious mind
fed upon that book. It is idle to ask, Will the masses take the
present Protestant churches? Will they? But they do not, and
they will not ; so what is the use of asking? That they will not,
Rev. Alexander M. Proudfit, of Baltimore, told the conference
from experience:

"The first point I wish to refer to is that respecting the alienation the
estrangement, as it was called yesterday of our laboring classes (or the
" masses ") from the church. We have been told this afternoon that we
must make the church free to them, and that we should call on them and
welcome them among us. Dr. Morris has touched one very strong point
to-day when he said that the root of all this trouble lies in the heart that
it lies in moral depravity. I believe, with all my heart, the truth of what
Dr. McCosh has said, that if we ministers want to reach the people we
must seek them out in their homes. In the twenty-five years of my min-
istry I have pursued that course. But, although my church is wide open,
and although every one is welcome, and although I have every Sunday of
my life, in the city of Baltimore, tramps sitting in the best pews of my
church men without a linen collar and without a whole coat although
my ushers bring them in and seat them comfortably, yet I get very few Of
them, comparatively. I go through the streets and lanes of Baltimore, I
send out my pastoral Aid Society and my church missionary a reliable
man, a young man who is a candidate for the ministry in my church to go
and try to get the people to come. There is a deep alienation which
nothing but the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts will cure.

(l " Now do not let the impression go out from this great assembly that
the church is not seeking to win the masses. We are trying to reach
them. Dr. Pierson is trying to win them, and the majority of us, I sup-
pose, are doing all that we can to reach them. And yet we do not reach
them. They are alienated from the church and from the gospel. They
are wrapped up in worldliness, many of them, and in sinful pleasure. We
must have an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, convincing the people of sin,
righteousness, and judgment, and then they will hear the gospel."

There is no use hoping that a religion which is based on the
private ownership of the meaning of a b'ook can serve to hold
together social orders so profoundly moved to separation as
rich and poor. The new American multitude growing up in
unreligious schools is born of a multitude crowded out of Pro-
testant churches and made unreligious by social ostracism.
Will the poor man take up membership in a mission church ?

1 888.] THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. 645

Yes, if he is low down in the grade of manhood and is content
with the spiritual crumbs from the rich man's table. There are
men and women who are content to be pensioners of an up-town
church in a down-town chapel, but few of them are born or
reared in America. Those whose neck has been bowed to the
yoke from childhood in foreign lands will, to some extent, go to
mission chapels upon solicitation, and will send their children to
the Sunday-schools ; there these little ones are held by Christmas-
trees, picture-books, picnics, and the patronage of stylish and
kindly-mannered ladies and gentlemen. This holds them till
they are old enough to be conscious of being Americans. Then
their manliness revolts and they lapse back into the multitude.

In .a democratic state the confession of failure to reach the mul-
titude is a confession of inability to benefit the commonwealth.
The multitude rule this country, and when the representatives
of a religion say, We cannot influence the multitude, the state
has a right to say, We have no use for you. From a civil point
of view, considered as a moral police, the American religion must
be the religion of the multitude. I know not if there is so much
as a single address at this conference which does not make the
fatal avowal, that Protestantism has lost its hold on the people.
Dr. McCosh is a good witness:

" It has sometimes been charged against the church that it neglects the
poor. I am prepared to show that the accusation is unjust. . . . The
churches as a whole, with many imperfections, have been trying to do their
duty to the extremes of society, the rich and the helpless poor. There is
an intermediate class, which in America has more influence than either of
the others. It is the great middle class, including our professional men,
our bankers, merchants, storekeepers, farmers, higher artisans. This sup-
plies the great body of the members of the American churches. Upon
this class, or rather classes, the church depends for its sustenance, and the
means of extending its usefulness at home and abroad. They constitute
the bone and sinew of our churches, as they do of our country. It is well
that we have them at present. We must seek to retain them by all the
means which Christ hath put in our power, especially by maintaining a
high standard of doctrine and of duty, and of activity in benevolent and
missionary work. But we must beware of turning our churches into mere
middle-class institutions, depending and looking solely to those who can
pay pew-rents, who have good dresses for the Sabbath, who can visit with
the minister and the minister's family, and maintain among themselves a
genteel society. Perhaps there is a temptation here to our American
churches. For there is another great class, of whom I am to speak in the
remainder of this paper

"When I was a citizen of another country, I paid a visit to America,
travelled 7,000 miles in it, and often visited the churches incognito. When
I visited your congregations, I was often asked, 'What do you think of

646 THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. [Aug.,

them ? ' I answered, ' I think much o'f them ; but where are your labor-
ing classes?' I put this question sincerely, not knowing how to answer
it, for the workingman dresses so well that it is difficult to distinguish him
from other classes. Where is the laboring man in our churches? is the
question I am still putting, seeking an answer.

"One-half certainly, perhaps three-fourths, of our entire population
belong to the working class. Are they in like proportion among those
well-clothed people who sit in our pews? In a book written by Mr.
Lo'omis, with an introduction by one you can trust, Dr. Josiah Strong, it
is said: 'Go into an ordinary church on Sunday morning, and you see
lawyers, merchants, and business-men with their families; you see teachers,
salesmen, and clerks, and a certain proportion of educated mechanics; but
the workingman and his household are not there. It is doubtful if one in
twenty of the average congregation in English-speaking Protestant city
churches fairly belongs to this class; but, granting the proportion to be
so great as one in ten, or one in five, even then you would have two-thirds
of the people furnishing only one-tenth or one-fifth of the congregation.'*
Then the writer tells the story of a newspaper reporter, who visited the
congregations of the City of Churches. ' He donned the garb of a decent
laborer and presented himself for admission at each of the principal
churches in the city. At some he was treated with positive rudeness, at
others with cold politeness. Only one or two gave him a cordial and, even
then, a somewhat surprised welcome.'

" Your artisan is often a difficult man to win to the church. He is well
educated, intelligent ; he toils from morning to night; ' he owes not any
one '; he argues that he and his fellow-workmen have made the wealth of
the country, and get a very little share of it ; and he and his children have to
live sparingly, while they see abundance of possessions around them. He
becomes jealous of those who fare sumptuously every day, who have fine
clothing, live in these elegant dwellings, who roll in carriages with pranc-
ing horses, that threaten to run over him as he trudges along wearily on
foot. It is difficult to win such a man to Christ and his church. But that
man has an immortal soul. The command laid on you and me is to ' preach
the gospel to every creature.' You who sit in these cushioned pews put
money in the plate to send the gospel to Timbuctoo. Do you send it to
that man who lives next door to you and combs your horses and works
your garden ? "

After failing to unite classes it is hardly fair to ask our Pro-
testant friends to undertake to advance the cause of religious
union in the general sense of doctrine and discipline. Co opera-
tion the speakers at the conference advocated strongly, but
this was by ignoring differences rather than by healing them.
Unum corpus sumus in Chris to is their motto, but that cannot
mean more than kindliness and patience towards differing
brethren except where Catholics are concerned. Even then
the conference was, as a whole, kindly disposed. The only

* Modern Cities^ by Samuel Lane Loomis, p. 82,

1 888.] THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. 647

square attack upon the church was made by Bishop A. C. Coxe,
who made a great and loud lament over us because we are not
Gallicans. But Dr. King, a prominent Methodist divine, whose
paper on the Christian resources of the country is very well
done, neutralized the bishop's effort by some fair controversial
words against us, and further on by a paragraph full of kindly
appreciation. The following from Prof. Simeon E. Baldwin, of
the faculty of the Law School of Yale University, is noteworthy;
he is speaking of the integrity of the family, and Bishop Coxe
moved him to mention Catholicity :

"And now let me ask, Which of our Christian churches has best re-
membered this lesson of ancient history? Not, I say, any church repre-
sented here. It has been best remembered by that oldest church of all,
comprehending to-day the greatest number of Christians in the world the
Roman Catholic Church. And I rise here as a layman, sent here from the
General Conference of one of our religious denominations in my own
State, to say, with some little regret, that I am sorry that in this great con-
vention a more kindly tone has not been manifested towards that venerable
Christian church which has its centre at Rome.

"A MEMBER: I object to that. I don't believe it's a Christian church
at all.

"PROF. BALDWIN : That is precisely the sentiment that has been utter-
ed from this platform, and I rise here as a layman to say that in what I
have done (and I have done something) in social reform, I have found in
my own State, Connecticut, no truer friend in many of these very questions
that have come before this body than gentlemen of the Roman Catholic
Church. My friend Mr. Dike and I stood together in Connecticut, as or-
ganizers of the National Divorce Reform League. One of the best helpers
in the cause was a Roman Catholic. Now, I do not desire to raise any
question of antagonism to the gentleman on the floor. I simply want to
say this, and I do say it that I think one of the great friends to the cause
of social advancement in our cities is the Roman Catholic Church. We
can't afford to reject its aid. It guards the family; it looks at the children,
it looks at the home, from the standpoint of a Christian organization ; and
we ought to make friends with that church, we ought to bring them in
with us in all these causes of Christian and social reform. And unless we
do it, we reject one of the great factors that is ready to our hand to help
on the cause of Christ in America."

One service Bishop Coxe has unwittingly done us : he has
given Catholics the opportunity of repudiating the preposterous
teaching of a certain Familiar Exposition of Christian Doctrine.
He quotes from it a wholesale sentence of damnation against the
entire mass of non-Catholics put in terms chosen with grotesque
awkwardness and evident ill-feeling. This author's teaching has
been repudiated and disproved in the bishop's own city of Buffalo,
by the Catholic Union and Times. It is contrary to the princi-

648 THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. [Aug.,

pies of sound theology, and squarely against the express teach-
ing of Pius IX., in his Invitation to the Council of the Vatican.
The books of the author contain specimens of the most outra-
geous plagiarism we ever heard of, none more so than this same
Familiar Exposition; but such blundering as the above is the
product of his own original genius. I once heard an excellent
sermon tending to prove that stupidity is no bar to salvation ;
but it should be a bar to writing catechisms and other works of
popular instruction. The fact that this writer belongs to a most
respectable order of religious men who edify the whole country
by their labors for the conversion of sinners has hitherto saved
him from the castigation he so richly merits.

Of course much was said at the meetings about the schools
of the country, but more was left unsaid. The Conference was
indebted to Dr. J. M. King, of New York, for a fair enough
statement of the relation of the school to religion. He lays
down true principles affirming that Christian morality is the
basis of the American state ; he maintains that the state depends
for its existence upon the character given its citizenship by reli-
gion. " We are not a nation without religion," he says. " The
union of church and state is a different question from the union
of religion and the state. Union in both of these cases is possi-
ble, but separation of religion from the state is impossible." In
accordance with these views, the speaker, with characteristic
frankness, advocates the restoration of religious instruction to
the common schools, local difficulties and the danger of particu-
lar denominations appropriating the public funds to be cared for
by the public authorities of the particular localities. He is a
pronounced anti-Catholic, but his views on this point of educa-
tion are sound :

" Fenelon says, ' Moral education is the bulwark of the state.' The
idea of the common school is traced to an act of the colonial legislature of
Massachusetts in 1642. At first it was a strictly church school, in charge
of the minister of the township, and the children were carefully taught in
the orthodox faith. The school-master was next to the minister. The
religious requirements were incorporated in the laws. The present and
former generations of the population have been educated in schools that
were never merely secular. In fact, we have not attempted purely secular
education until recently, and that only to a very limited extent. While
there has been no national system of public schools in the past, and while
uniformity has proved itself to be, perhaps, both impracticable and unde-
sirable under our form of government, it is to be hoped that the Christian
sentiment of the people will see to it that the future develops no purely
secular system of education for our citizenship. And' while the local-

1 888.] THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. 649

option plan, leaving the whole question of the character of the instruction
to the local school boards, to be decided by them according to the compo-
sition and wants of the community, is likely to prevail, it is to be hoped
that the friends of Christian morality will come to the defence of the right
of the children and youth to a kind of instruction that recognizes their
responsibility and immortality, and reminds them of the fact that our in-
stitutions are the fruit of the Christian faith.

"The public-school system, pressed into secular uniformity, cannot
meet the moral needs of our mixed population, and cannot meet the de-
mands upon a Christian people or promote 'the interests of genuine Chris-
tian morality. Christianity must solve the question of the education of
the masses upon Christian, and not upon secular grounds.

"We are about convinced that the time has come when we must
demand that the state, assuming to teach its citizens as a preparation for
the responsibilities of citizenship, must not only recognize Christianity as
trie religion of the people, in conformity with historic and judicial pre-
cedent, but must require the teaching of Christian morality wherever edu-
cation is supported by taxation or by state grant."

Dr. King was not alone in this. Bishop Andrews declared
that the schools should be improved by elementary religious
instruction. " Gradually,'' says Mr. Nicholas Murray Butler,
President of the Industrial Education Society of New York, " all
mention of ethics and religion is being eliminated from the
schools; and it is even fashionable to make ethics an elective
study in our colleges and universities" ; and he says that this is
producing young men who " look upon fashion or social conve-
nience as the arbiter of morals, and when this stage is reached
the disease of moral illiteracy has set in." Rev. S. W. Dike,
whose splendid address on Perils to the Family has been 'before
referred to, fearlessly affirms that " unless we see to it that the
educational functions of the home are more carefully developed,
and a closer co-operation between home and school is secured for their
common work, a far more real grievance will exist, and in most
influential quarters too, than the Roman Catholics think they
now have."

So that the state of mind on the peril of godless schools re-
vealed by the conference is not one of quiescence ; the earnest
men who were gathered there are pretty plainly and nearly
unanimously in favor of religion in the common schools. But
they are just as plainly unready to act. They are afraid of us
Catholics, afraid perhaps of the politicians, and after all only par-
tially aroused to the peril, only dimly perceptive of the oppor-
tunity. Such is the inference the writer has drawn from going
through the report twice, and again going back and forth over it
several times to choose extracts. One must bear in mind that

650 THE EVANGELICAL CONFERENCE. [Aug.,

the delegates are mainly compelled to study the formation of
character in a circle apart from the multitude, in their own reli-
gious, cleanly, cultured homes ; in homes of which it may be said
" the home forms the man." The homes of the multitude are
in crowded tenement-houses, the children all cared for by the
mother and father without the aid of servants. The mother and
father often speak only a foreign tongue, are always tired, often
vicious ; and, if non-Catholics, never go to church. In such case
the home does not form the man ; the school forms the man.
That, is to say, the school forms the man if the streets do not.

All through these addresses runs the note of alarm for the
welfare of the nation as a free people enjoying the blessing of
orderly liberty, though the assemblage was primarily convened
in the interests of religion. The citizen must be made more reli-
gious or the nation will perish, is the thesis. Well, then, why
not set more actively to work upon the children ? Whatever
forms the individual character forms the state; not that the latter
is a mere pooling of all the individuals' interests, for the state is
an entity in itself ; but the characteristics of the American state
will follow those of the American individual. If the school forms
the citizen, then woe to those who make laws and enforce laws and
gather millions, for the maintenance of a godless school system.
The godless citizen is the creature of godless education. If half
that was said at the conference of the uses of the school for making
citizens be true, then it is a crime to divorce it from religion.

Look at the multitude squarely, gentlemen the swarming
multitude in and out of the factory, idling in the streets and
along the wharves, building your houses, and cleaning your horses,
and handling your merchandise. Ask yourself honestly why they
are not religious, why they never worship God, why their whole
lives proclaim " we do not need a Redeemer " ? There is but one
answer : they have not been taught religion. Whatever you
may say theoretically about private judgment, the mass of men
must be made religious by being taught by other men. The
very principles of natural morality are banished from your pal-
ladium of American liberty, the common schools, and in that
place the non-Catholic workingman has got his little all of know-
ledge of any kind. No wonder he is unreligious.

There is but one way sure to be generally effective by which
men can be made moral, and that is by training them to morality
at that age when training forms the man. Now, it was shown in
the conference that between fifty and eighty per cent, of the
population of our cities are of foreign parentage ; and it is certain

1 888.] AQUA PUR A. 651

that more than half of these people are out of the control of the
Catholic Church and of her religious schools ; they are, as a
body, simply godless. What a peril ! But they go to schools
under state control : what an opportunity to make them Chris-
tian ! Yet you rail at us Catholics for undertaking this task for
our own children and you accuse us of incivism, and mainly for
that reason you invite Bishop Coxe to throw the putrid carcase
of religious hatred into the clear fountain of your deliberations.
Why not face the facts, as the late Dr. Hodge did, and say the
peril is immorality, the opportunity is the Christian school ; the
peril is infidelity, the opportunity is the Christian school. Why
not be consistent, energetic, practical, radical if you please, and
take immediate measures to make religion the basis of the peo-
ple's schooling as God is their end and heaven their hope.

You teach temperance principles, you teach good citizenship,
you teach the rudiments of the trades in the schools ; to do all
this you struggle and argue, and pay taxes and vote taxes ; but,
to hear some of you talk, you are ready to be put to death rather
than that the people's children should be taught the knowledge
and love of Jesus Christ in the schools of this Christian land.

WALTER ELLIOTT.

AQUA PURA.

PURE WATER! A most " sweet, pretty" subject, musical,
poetical, worthy of rhythmic overture. The gentle reader will
kindly pipe, or scrape, or thrum, while we melodiously chant a
line or two of verse not flippant Vers de Societe verse, or wildly
passionate, or debasedly realistic, or Victor Hugo-ish, sonorous,
mad verse not cantankerously curt and unintelligible, not un-
virile and sentimental, nor yet cosmic, evolutionistic verse but
the collected, restrained, cooling, meteorological verse of Mr.
James Thomson (obiit if A$) (con fuoco !} \

" From brightening fields of ether fair disclos'd,
Child of the sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt thro' Nature's depth :
He comes attended by the sultry hours." . . .

Translated into very plain prose, this means that we are all
going out of town pretty soon : Marnma and baby, and the bot-
tle, and " Mah " and Amanda with the monster box of airy,
fairy, filmy, gossamery lawns and mulls and tulles and " Pah,"

652 AQUA PUR A. [Aug.,

with the pocket-book. Isn't " Pah " lovely ? Harry *Ss all ready,
with the base-ball bat and a well-groomed bicycle ; and A.
Reginald, dear boy, is "suited" for tennis, and shooting, and
billiards, and dancing, and riding and church. As for us, the
crowd of unpretending people who will not submit to the mono-
polistic extortion of the " parlor- car," we too are ready, in our
own simple way. We are off for health, and some fun, and not
for "show" of course, a little for " show," but no more than is
customary. Some of us are going to the shores of the Great
South Bay, to enjoy the sailing, and the trolling, and the free,
odorous air of the fish-composted fields ; some of us are going to
the Catskills to tramp it, and get up an appetite, and eat Texas
beef, and pickles, and canned fruit and vegetables; some of us
are going to Richfield, or Sharon, or Saratoga, to keep warm, and
to loll, meet our set, squeeze into "society," or smell the fragrant
fumes of the sulphur spring ; some of us are bound for the sea-
shore, where we can look out on the rocking, glistening, blue-
green ocean, and watch the other people bathe, and delight our
eyes with the cool expanse of never-ending sand. The rest of us
will seek the calm, homelike, " no style " retreat of the genial,
generous country farm-house or family hotel.

What a delightful time we shall have! Climbing hills and
pushing through the unpathwayed woods; rowing on the lake,
dragging up water-lilies; scrambling through ravines, geologiz-
ing, scraping off lichens, and digging up mosses ; wandering
through the green meadows, and the tall, nodding grain, and the
stubble, botanizing, gathering ferns and honey-sweet thistles, and
a stray wild-rose ; reclining by the brooklet, under the tremu-
lous willows, listening to the low, joyous song of the dancing
waters, interrupted only by the memory of dinner-time, and of
the hot and dusty homeward trudging. Then, the delightful,
quiet hours, sketching cows, and the old barn, and the unclassi-
cal apple-trees ; or painting ox-eye daisies, and convolvulus, and
pansies. They are so easy to do, when there's no teacher around,
and they "frame up" so prettily for the parlor, and (sottovoce)
one never tires of them ! Oh ! yes ; we had almost forgotten the
jolly picnic fourteen miles' ride, and no house when you get
there; bring your own victuals, scour the country for milk
enough to go around, and ride home sun-shower wet! But the
pleasures of a summer rest are not to be told in a single para-
graph. And after all, with sensible folk, pleasure is only a
secondary consideration. The main thing is Health.

Had a delightful week, Mr. Rose, haven't we? This clear

1 888.] AQUA PUR A, 653

air is quite refreshing. In the city the atmosphere is so close
and stuffy. Of course, it is warm here, in Coolville ; but dur-
ing the hot part of the day you can go up to your ten-by-seven
room, under the refrigerative roof and cool off. And the even-
ings well, you are seldom without a breeze in the evening, by
ten o'clock, or so, at any rate. Even if there be some slight dis-
comforts out of town, who would not put up with them to be
away where one can see grass and trees and sunsets and flowing
water? Are you fond of water? I am a real lover of rivers and
streamlets, of brooks and brooklets, of lakes and tarns and pools
and ponds and springs, of cascades, falls, and cataracts. What a
charm there is about a pebbled, mossy spring ! Look deep
down into this pretty pool with the brown edges. How clear
and crystalline the water is! So pure and translucent and in-
viting ! Have you tried our well? We have the choicest water
in the neighborhood ; clean and sweet. When you taste it you
will drink more than you need, just for the pleasure of drinking.
I'll take your word for it, and forego the pleasure you prom-
ise. Probably I am somewhat old-fogyish, over-careful ; but
the fact is that, while I delight in the sight of running water
and enjoy the taste of good water, I do not drink strange water
until it has been boiled. You are amused ! Let us climb this
fence, to the right, here look out for the hornets! and stretch-
ing ourselves beneath yonder spreading, noble elm, we can have
a talk about " pure water."

Don't lie on the grass ! Here's a piece of dry board for you.
I'll throw my light coat under me so. Oh! yes; I try to be
careful. You forget that I came to the country for health's sake.
1 have no desire to go home less well than when I started away.
Light this small cigar. It's not strong. You will have some-
thing to do while I am talking. I give you fair notice that I
am in for a fifteen-minute sermon. First of all let me ask you:
Have you ever had typhoid fever about here? You have, eh?
How long ago? Last August. In your house? No! Well, I
am glad you escaped it. But they had it in the village, at the
" Sanitarium Hotel " ! Thirty-two cases, and ten deaths ! Pretty
bad. The well folk ran fast, I'll wager. Was there any attempt
to find out the cause of the epidemic? They said it was due to
bad drainage, did they? Perhaps they were right. You did
not hear whether any of those who went away in good health
were taken down after their return home ? No. The physi-
cians did not follow up the matter ; and the hotel-keeper was
close-mouthed, I know. This typhoid fever is a disease common

654 AQUA PURA. [Aug.,

to every country of Europe, and to Asia, Africa, and Australia.
It has been met with in lonely islands, three to four hundred
miles from the mainland. A widely distributed disorder, as you
see ; and on that account the subject of general inquiry. Prob-
ably I should have said, the subject of general guessing; for it
is only within a few years that a really scientific attempt was
made to determine the cause of the disease. Though prevalent
in large cities during every month in the year, yet the statistics
show that typhoid becomes more active in the month of August,
and reaches a climax in the autumn months. During November
there is generally a notable decline in the number of cases. The
decline is more and more marked each succeeding month, until
July comes. Then there is an increase, growing month by
month, up to November. Such is the ordinary experience, year
after year.* The autumn activity of the disease led some physi-
cians to seek a connection between typhoid and the meteorological
conditions of the summer season. Some imagined that accord-
ing to the dryness or humidity of the summer months, typhoid
was more or less prevalent during the autumn. However, the
facts were against this theory. The Boards of Health, of course,
suggested bad drainage as a prime cause of the disease. And
many facts seemed to substantiate the correctness of this view.
Not infrequently it was found that in a house, or village, where
typhoid appeared, the drainage was bad. But there were many
instances in which the prevalence of an epidemic could not be
traced to any such cause. Occasionally a physician was led to
suspect that a particular case might be due to bad water, but
until lately this view had no greater support than the " bad-
drainage " theory. Tell you some of the facts? I will, if you
care to have them. Here's one reported by Dr. Austin Flint,
Sr., twenty years ago. In a small village, near Buffalo, a
stranger was taken down with typhoid. Within a month's time
twenty persons had the disease, and ten of them died of it. The
first victims were the inn-keeper and his family. All his im-
mediate neighbors, excepting one, were in turn attacked. The

* The periodic intensity of the disease will be apparent to the reader from the following
" official" monthly record of " Deaths from Typhoid Fever," in the city of New York, during
each of the five last years :

YEAR. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.

1883.

1884.

1885.

1886.

1 3

1887.

1 888.] t AQUA PUR A. 655

one that escaped did not use the tavern-well; all the others did.
Fortunately for the family that escaped, there had been a falling-
out between the inn-keeper and the man of the house. He
saved his life by drawing water elsewhere, but the poor fellow
lost his character. The villagers accused him of poisoning the
tavern-well !

Yes, it was a curious case. Here's another, much later.
Some time during the year 1880 a young lady, ill with typhoid,
was brought to Over Darvven, a manufacturing town of about
twenty thousand inhabitants, in Lancashire, England. When
she arrived the town was free from typhoid. Within three
weeks fifteen hundred persons had the disease. The results of
the inquiry made at Over Darwen were suggestive. It was
found that the town's water-supply pipes were leaky, and that
the soil through which they were carried was soaked at one spot
by the sewage of a particular house. Very curious ! I think so ;
but let me give you an account of still another English case.
A man, ill with typhoid, came from a distance to Nunney, a
Somerset village of a thousand souls. Before his coming there
was no typhoid in the place. Fourteen days after his coming
the fever had broken out in a number of houses. An examina-
tion showed that all these houses drew their water-supply from
a brook, into which the leakage of a cesspool of one of the
houses forced its way. Again, curious! There's a very similar
case much nearer home. A young girl, residing at a farm-house
about eight miles from Philadelphia, was taken ill with typhoid.
She died of the disease. Within three weeks four other mem-
bers of the family were attacked, as were two persons living on
the opposite side of the road. They all drank from the farm-
well. It was the custom of the family to throw the waste water
into a gutter, which ran by this well. The ground was examin-
ed, and it was discovered that rats had burrowed the soil, thus
loosening it considerably ; and that the roots of two trees, on
either side the well, had pushed themselves downward and out-
ward, pressed against the wall of the well, and dislocated the
masonry. Thus the waste water from the gutter had infiltrated
the soil and entered the well.

Is there a gutter near your well ? None, eh ! Look out for
that beautiful water ! You are not afraid. Is that a reason why
you should not be careful ? Now, I wish to call your attention
to one peculiarity of this Philadelphia case. At Over Darwen,
as at Nunney, the first fever patient brought the fever from else-
where, but no fever patient brought the fever to the Philadelphia

656 AQUA PURA. [Aug.,

farm-house. There were no other cases in the neighborhood,
and the young girl who was the first to be attacked had not
been away from home in several months. Let me tell you an-
other little story a German story. Some years ago there was
a sudden outbreak of typhoid in Gerlachsheim, a pretty Bava-
rian village not far from Wiirzburg. Fifty-two persons, resi-
dents of the same street, were put to bed with the fever, in the
space of three weeks. All these persons drank the water of the
same well, and the evidence established the fact that this well
had been contaminated by the excreta of the first patient.* Strik-
ing! you say. Please remember that these cases happened at
places widely apart, and at odd times. Told one by one, they
were not nearly as " striking " as they are when strung together.

It may be that I overestimate the value of later investiga-
tions, but if I do not, your epithet will be even more justifiable
when I have " emptied my bag." You don't like my cigar
prefer a cigarette, do you ? It's an old saying that there's no
accounting for tastes. With all due respect to yours, I would
rather risk your well-water than smoke that abominable com-
pound of poor tobacco, opium, and bad paper which now goes
under the name " cigarette." Lovely sky, isn't it ! Look at that
long line of clouds low down on the hills; and the spirals of
mist ascending in slow-moving gyres like smoke from some
hidden fire. We shall have plenty of water to-morrow. You
find that board a " leetle " hard. Change your base ! All ready
again ! Well, sir, 1 have reloaded bang !

Will you kindly accompany me on a rapid tour through
France? Thank you. There, in a ten minutes' journey, we can
gather more information about our subject than we could ac-
quire here, at home, in an hour. Why so? For this reason.
Like all big cities, Paris is a nest of typhoid. Within the last six
or eight years the Parisians have suffered from frequent epidem-
ics of this treacherous fever. The people called loudly for an
explanation. The doctors, and the chemists, and the members
of the learned societies attacked the subject vigorously and
systematically. Of the value of their scientific inquiries I shall
leave you to judge. In 1882 there were 3,352 deaths from
typhoid in the great capital with the wide boulevards, and the
wonderful sewers, and the numerous parks. From January to
July the deaths numbered 965 ; from July to the end of the fol-
lowing December the number of deaths amounted to 2,387.

* This case and the previous cases are reported in Vol. I. of A System of Practical Medi-
cine, edited by William Pepper, M.D., LL.D. Philadelphia. 1885.

1 888.] AQUA PURA. 657

The average mortality during- the autumn months was 250 per
week, against an average of 34 for the corresponding weeks of
the previous year. As everybody knows, the water-supply of
Paris has been long in bad repute. Could the water be charge-
able with the increase of typhoid ? Could it be that the air was
poisonous ? There is a meteorological observatory in the Pare
de Montsouris, at the south end of the city, away out near the
cemetery of Montparnasse you remember Soeur Rosalie's
grave ! The officials of the observatory experimented with the
air, to see whether, perchance, it would convict itself. They
found that during the summer months the air contained an aver-
age of 89 bacteria to the cubic meter, while in September the
number suddenly rose to 129, and in October to 142. With
November the figures were down to 106. Possibly the air is
at fault, said some ; but these facts, prove nothing. The years
1885, '86, '87 were no less fatal than 1882. Meantime some light
had been thrown on the question. Paris receives a large share
of its good water-supply from two distant streams, the Vanne and
the Dhuys. In summer these streams run low ; the supply is in-
sufficient. Then the waters of the Seine, the Marne, and the
Ourcq are turned into the reservoirs, and typhoid fever is turn-
ed into the houses ! Dr. Miquel took up the subject of water
and bacteria. With your permission I'll have a look at my
note- book. Beginning with rain-water, the doctor found from 4
to 1 8 bacteria to the cubic centimeter a third of a teaspoonful.
From the water of the Vannes he got 120; from the Seine at
Choisy, 300; from the Seine, at Bercy, 1,400; at St. Denis, four
and a half miles from Paris, 200,000 ! Growing, eh ! If there be
any virtue in bacteria, the Seine water at St. Denis must be
pretty near " first class/' ! Remember, these numbers are all
calculated to the cubic centimeter! Well, Dr. Miquel did not
stop at St. Denis. At Clichy, which you have passed through,
on your way to St. Germain or Versailles, the doctor sampled
a sewer. The water was rich, fat 6,000,000 bacteria to the cen-
timeter. Certainly, millions you think I am giving play to my
imagination, do you? Wait a minute give me time. Along
the Paris quays, as you have seen, the bateau-lavoir is a common
fixture a public wash-house, for the convenience of the citoyenne
blanchisseuse. Dr. Miquel invaded the wash-houses and examin-
ed the water in which the patriotic Parisian's linen is soaked,
before being washed. This water paid a high tribute to the
affection of the bacteria for the boulevardier, the gommeux, and the
rouge 26,000,000 to the centimeter. Imagine the vitality of the
VOL. XLVII. 42

658 AQUA PUR A. [Aug.,

Seine water, into which these tubs were freely emptied ! Who
is my authority ? M. Henri de Parville, an old hand at the
business.* Were the bacteria of a harmful sort? Yes and no.
Among the firmest believers in the bacterial theory of disease
there is a general agreement that many varieties of these infini-
tesimal organisms are harmless. However, Dr. Miquel pursued
his experiments, with a view to determining the proportion of
harmful to harmless bacteria in the waters he had collected.
His conclusion was that from five to ten per cent, of these bac-
teria were poisonous. Figure it out for yourself, please !

If we stopped short here your verdict might justly be not
proven. Strange coincidences, interesting facts about water, and
bacteria, and typhoid, without any proof that these facts bear on
one another. We will assume that your verdict will be the
general verdict. I am afraid my fifteen minutes are up, the
shadows are lengthening, and I begin to feel the grass a " wee
bit " damp, but if you'll risk it a few minutes longer, I'll have
said all I have to say about " pure water." Of course the physi-
cians had been looking for the typhoid bacillus, but unavailingly.
It was: " Now you see it, and now you don't." At length, in 1881,
a German physician, Dr. Klebs, claimed that he had definitely
fixed the " bacillus typhosus," as he named it. The learned doc-
tor described the bacillus, told how it entered the human body,
and how it developed during the fever; and claimed to have re-
produced the disease in other animals by introducing this par-
ticular bacillus into their bodies. According to Dr. Klebs, "the
bacillus typhosus enters the system by the respiratory passages,
and by the alimentary canal." About the same time another
German physician, Dr. Eberth, published the results of his ob-
servations, establishing, as he claimed, the existence of a specific
typhoid bacillus.

The views of Klebs and Eberth were accepted by some and
contested by others, and there the matter rested. French
physicians were ready to believe in the bacillic theory of the
disease, but they were slow to accept the " exhibit " already of-
fered in evidence. As to the connection, between drinking-
water and typhoid, there was a frequent repetition of "strange
coincidences," as you would have me say. Have you ever been
at Auxerre? Yes ; and you went thence to Chablis and Nuits,
did you ? I'll wager the water did you no harm while you were
in that part of the country. How ? You went to Nuits to see
the old Abbey of Citeaux ! A very proper pilgrimage. And I

* See Le Correspondant^ June 10, 1886.

1 888.] AQUA PUR A. 659

venture to say you went to Vougeot, to see the abbey cellars,
and to Beaune, to see the old church of Notre Dame, and at
every one of these places you failed not to do justice to your fa-
vorite Burgundies. Where was I ? Sure enough, at Auxerre.
Back in 1882 they had an epidemic of typhoid at Auxerre. No
one could tell why. The disease appeared suddenly. There
was no evidence of contagion. How about the water? For-
merly the inhabitants used river water from the Yonne. But
the town would modernize itself. A new quarter was built, and
all the well-to-do folk combined to insure a supply of " pure
water," by the aqueduct of Valand. The poorer people, as of
old, went to the river. Now, the typhoid attacked only those
who drank the "pure water." Dr. de Carrieres, a specialist
and expert, was chosen to make a study of the case, and, if pos-
sible, to determine the cause of the epidemic. The doctor pro-
ceeded to examine the Valand water at its source. Arrived
there he found a farm-house close at hand, and of course he
found that necessary and more or less charming ornament of a
farm-yard, a manure-heap. Inquiring at the house, he learned
they had a patient who had lately come from Paris ill with
typhoid. The plot thickens ! The doctor suspected the big
manure-heap. He would try. So he took a quantity of rosa-
linine, a powerful, red coloring-matter, and distributed it freely
over the mass. Next morning when the surviving " best peo-
ple " of Auxerre turned on the taps, what was their surprise to
find the beautiful Valand water as red as blood ! The mystery
was solved. . Is that " striking," Mr. Hasty-Tongue? You con-
fess that it is. I have a small batch of " striking "" coinciden-
ces," which I reserved for the end of our talk. Tell me how
my next " strikes " you 1

At Pierrefonds but you have been there ! Drove over from
Compiegne did you, after a day in the beautiful forest? You
went to see Viollet-Ie-Duc's great castle ! You did well. A
mighty mass it is ; a credit to the government which had the
public spirit to restore it, and an enduring monument to the
masterly architect who renewed a masterwork. You remember
that Pierrefonds is a little watering-place, a " health resort "
mineral springs, hot sulphur baths, vapor baths, a real " sani-
tarium." During the months of August and September, 1886,
twenty-three Parisians went to Pierrefonds in search of health.
After a time one and another of this group of health-seekers
was taken ill with typhoid fever. In all twenty of them were
attacked, and of these seven died. Three had scaped the dis-

660 AQUA PUR A. [Aug.,

ease. One of the lucky ones went away after a stay of twenty-
four hours. The two others did not like the water and drank
mineral water. The sufferers were men of standing, Academi-
cians and the like. Great interest was shown in the unhappy
affair. Professor Brouardel was selected to make a careful in-
quiry as to the cause of the epidemic. Arrived at Pierrefonds,
he learned that between 1874 and 1883 typhoid had declared
itself no less than five times in the same group of houses, where
it had just done such fatal work. No attention was paid to
these earlier epidemics. And now it came out that in July, just
previous to the coming of the unfortunate twenty-three, a Pari-
sian family had occupied one of these houses, and that one mem-
ber of this family had developed typhoid. Professor Brouardel
examined the soil at Pierrefonds. At a depth of five feet he
found water. Dig five feet lower down and you have a well.
The soil is loose, and there is a plentiful supply of subterranean
water-courses. This water bathed the walls of the " vaults,"
which were not cemented. The soil was charged with organic
matter. However, the wells were far removed from both drains
and " vaults," distant from thirty to ninety feet. To make sure,
the professor drew off samples of the water in the suspected
wells, and submitted these samples to experts. Twenty-five
thousand of the bacilli which were supposed to determine ty-
phoid fever were found in a litre a pint and three-quarters of
the water. This was almost convincing. Dr. Chautemesse and
Dr. Widal, who had charge of the bacillic experiments, deter-
mined to settle the question by an original operation. They
selected a certain number of t} r phoidal patients, and on the
tenth day of the disease they passed a trocar into the spleen
of these patients, and extracted a small quantity of blood.
Don't look horrified ! The operation was quite harmless. Yes,
it sounds unpleasantly, sure enough. But the sound is the worst
part of it. The operation is not even painful. In this blood
the two doctors found bacilli in every wise identical with
those found in the water of the doubtful wells at Pierrefonds.
The question of a specific typhoid bacillus is, at least, less
doubtful than before these experiments were made? Just a
moment, please, and then you may have your say. A chemical
analysis of the water of the well belonging to the house where
the disease had proved most fatal showed that this water was
less charged with organic matter than the water of the other
wells. Further, a chemist would have pronounced it a good
drinking water. Now ask me your question. I have just

1 888.] AQUA PUR A. 66 1

answered it, you say. Then let me add one little word. It
would look as if these bacilli are carried through the soil more
surely than decomposed organic matter. You see that? Very
well. And it would seem, or we may infer, or, judging from
the experience at Pierrefonds, one. may assume that a "pure
water " may be a cause of typhoid fever ! Have we succeeded
in wording our propositions with a proper want of positiveness,
Mr. " Thomas Coincidence " ? We have, and, with your per-
mission, we will end with a coupfle of corroborative tales.

You look the least bit bored, but, then, you would boast of that
well of yours! Is there a proverb Arabian, of course which
says : Boast not before thy brother, he being a talkative man ?
Patience ! I have almost reeled off my yarn. Were you ever
at Clermont-Ferrand? You were quaint old place, and in a
most interesting country. Ricketty old town ; narrow, winding
streets but what charming suburbs! And that most beautiful
Jardin des Plantes ! And the delightful views from the Place
d'Espagne and the Place de la Poterne ! Indeed, you are right ;
the bright and bitter Pascal should have learned a lesson in
amiability from the gentle, gladdening fields that smile upon
his native city. But, then, it's a volcanic country ! You re-
member the great Puy de Pariou, climbing skyward 7,000 feet,
and that monster crater, a thousand feet in diameter; and the
grassy-topped Puy de Dome, five thousand feet in air, and the
Petit Puy de Dome beyond, and little Mont-Rognon, and bigger
Puy de Gravenoire, just south of Royat. What a succession of in-
spiring views ! Then, the tumbled masses of lava, and the
streams, the pure, crystalline, diamond-clear streams, forcing a
way right and left through the lava beds ! And the springs and
fountains, with the pretty names ! The grottoes, enclosing cool,
transparent waters! And wondrous '''Saint Alyre" the in-
crusted fountain ; you remember Saint Alyre? No! Well, you
do remember the little river, Tiretaine, that runs by Clermont,
and so on out by Royat ; of course you do. Saint Alyre pours
its crystal waters into the Tiretaine, and, through some fanciful
freak, they have transformed themselves into stony drops, and,
adding drop to drop, have builded two marvellous arches, span-
ning the river from bank to bank. How could you forget Saint-
Alyre? Baths, baths, at Clermont and Royat ! Mineral springs,
hydropathic establishments no end of water, health-giving, beau-
tiful water. The Clermont-Ferrand people were choice about
water. Nothing in the neighborhood was good enough for
them. They would have the best that was, even if they went

662 AQUA PURA. [Aug.,

four or five miles for it. So they fixed upon Fontana. There
the water is sweet, pure, limpid, virginal. Clermont-Ferrand is
happy ! Somewhat over a year ago typhoid showed itself in
the barracks at Clermont-Ferrand. Hundreds of the soldiers
sickened, and many of the poor fellows died. There was great
excitement. The doctors tested the water. They found the
typhoid bacillus! The city officials were notified. They pro-
tested: "But this is the water of Fontana; the ' pure water '
of the pellucid springs of Foiftana ! It is simply impossible,
ridiculous ! " " But here is the true microbe, gentlemen. There
is no getting over the microbe!" The physicians started off.
The Clermont conduit ran through Royat. At Royat the physi-
cians found the typhoid. And the conduit? It had been carried
through Royat, on a level with the public wash-house lavoir
which had long been a fixture in a depression in the lava banks,
a few feet back from the river. It looks like another case of in-
filtration, you say ! Well, that is certainly not a rash way of
putting it.

Glorious sunset, isn't it? What a mass of golden fire! Have
you watched yonder cloud-mountain widen out, coalesce with
the cloud-hills that have grown upward all around to the north,
and south, and west? How resplendent they are! Capped
with reddening flame, proud, solemn, threatening! But we
shall have a full view of the grand cloud panorama as we wend
our way homeward. My tongue has been limber, but that hu-
mid grass has stiffened my aging back. Erect at last ! I'll be
with you as far as the gate.

You do see that I have good grounds for protecting myself
against strange water ! Now that you agree with me, I feel
more confidence in my own judgment. Though I'll confess I
was already pretty confident. The facts are of a kind to im-
press any thinking man or woman. You may have as many
theories as you please about the cause of typhoid fever ; you
may swear by the bacillus, or you may scoff at it ; but the facts
make it certain that water is a common purveyor of the fever.
Why do I boil the water? Because reiterated experiment has
proven that no organism survives in water which has been kept
at the boiling point for ten minutes. Do I drink the water hot?
Bless you, no! That is what the Germans call a " cure." Now-
adays hot water and raw beefsteak make the "cure." But I am
not trying to cure anything. I am trying to keep myself from
getting the diseases I haven't got. Water I drink "cold boiled."
Can you tell me why it is that we usually drink it " raw " ? You

1 888.] AQUA PURA. 663

can't ! I thought not. You will worry over the question a
long- time before you find a satisfactory answer. The boiled
water I place in a close-covered vessel, and there I allow it
to cool gradually. When it's cooled " to taste," I tap it.
That's all.

When you consider the subject carefully, you will agree with
me that we are all very reckless not to breathe a breath about
ignorance. Picture to yourself the crowd of city visitors in and
about this little village. They are very particular about their
rooms which must look north, or south, or west, toward the
road, or the mountain, or the sea. The rooms must be on
the piazza, or off the piazza, or over the piazza, or away
from the stair-head, or the elevator. There must be plenty
of closet-room, or nails, at any rate. And can we see the
dining-room? And the parlor? Whose "grand" have you?
And do you keep it tuned ? Have you good stabling ? But no
one says: Show me your out-houses, the course of your drains,
the line of your water-pipes, or your well. We drink what is
set before us, assuming that all country water is necessarily
good, " pure." At the big hotels the story is the same. Three,
four, five hundred a thousand people will crowd into a great,
wooden caravansary, because the board is high, the table no bet-
ter than it ought to be, the society so choice that every respecta-
ble woman feels obliged to wear diamonds at breakfast, and
because the " hops " with KirchofFs band are frequented by
the dite of New York sporting men and speculators. Is there a
single man or woman of the vast crowd who has the thought to in-
quire into the important details of drainage, and of water service?
These subjects are a hundred times more material than the posi-
tion of a room, or the make of a piano, or the length of the " carte
du jour." The water-supply, the position of conduits, or wells,
the relative position of drains, etc., should be as carefully con-
sidered on the farm or in the village as at the watering-place
V barracks."

We have State Boards of Health. They publish very useful
reports year after year. Were they bad or useless, everybody
would read them ; as it is, who does read them? The questions
of water and drainage were forced on the New York State
Board of Health with its organization in 1880. I remember that
in 1884 and 1886 the board was loud in its warnings. There-
port of 1886 said that " the experience of the past year had added
new proof that one of the gravest causes of preventable disease
in this State is the drinking of impure water. The protection of

664 AQUA PURA. [Aug.,

private sources of water-supply can only be accomplished by
educating- the owners of wells, springs, and their surroundings in
a knowledge of the watchfulness required to prevent the contam-
ination of the house-supply."

Until intelligent attention is given to the sanitary questions,
we need not be surprised at the autumn epidemic of typhoid
fever. I'll venture to say that many a case that develops in the
city has been brought home from the mountains, the sea-side,
or the "smiling" valleys. With pure air, seek " pure water"!
Why don't I use a filter? Because I have used filters. They
are worse than nothing. The best a filter can do is to hold back
the coarser solid matter that is suspended in the water. The fil-
ter will not, cannot stop the infinitesimally little bacilli. In-
deed, the ordinary filter is dangerous. Solid, unclean substances
are held in the filter, there to ferment and breed poison. An
old filter is a small drain ! The charcoal filter? Just as great a
nuisance, and for the very same reasons. Here we are at home !
No, -thank you ! They expect me at the house. As you know,
I like my cup of light-drawing oolong about this hour. By
the way, you are pretty sure of getting " Aqua Pura" whole-
some, delicious, refreshing, pure water in a brew of well-made,
fragrant, invigorating tea. Try it ! Au revoir \ How about
city water? A fair question.

You have seen what harm rivers and drains have done. Ci-
ties that draw their water-supply from streams which are not
carefully guarded run a great risk. It is questionable whether
there is-a city in the United States that is better off than New
York. You remember Dr. John C. Peters' charges made at the
meeting of the New York County Medical Society, on May 28
last ? He stated that Croton Lake and the thirty or more small-
er lakes in the Croton watershed are daily receptacles of the
sewage of twenty-five thousand people, and of tons upon tons ot
refuse. In expressing his belief, " that the malignant diseases of
which New York is having her full share may be traced to this
cause," Dr. Peters cannot be accused of rashness. And the bad
drains in city houses, and the imperfect water-pipes, and the ill-
jointed mains in the streets ! Percolation under the house, per-
colation under the streets and no one thinks of the drainage un-
til the damage has been done ! When a city man buys a house he
will have "hard-wood" trimmings, frescoed ceilings, an intarsia
floor in the " library," and something unique in mantels but
the drainage! However, we will talk about cities some other
day. We do not migrate en masse to the cities, once a year, in

1888.] AQUA FUR A. 665

search of health and " pure water." Thanks for your company,
and good night !

Walking homeward I recalled Reginald, and Amanda, and
"Pah," and "Mah." Will they get back to town safe and
sound ? However, they are all old enough to take care of them-
selves. But, for dear little baby's sake, I should like to tell one
more little story. It is a milk story, and will not interest grown
people. Some doctors think that typhoid is sometimes com-
municated by means of milk. This opinion may be reasonable.
Still, here's for the story ! In 1871 there was an epidemic of ty-
phoid in the parish of Islington, London. Sixty-two families re-
siding within the limits of a circle half a mile in diameter took
the fever. Fifty-four of these families got their milk from the
same dairy. The dairy-farm was visited, and lo and behold !
a member of the dairyman's family had been ill with the typhoid.
But how could that affect the milk? Dr. Ballard tried to solve
the difficulty, and found that the well-water had been contami-
nated by the excreta of the patient. Could it be possible that the
dairyman watered the milk? The question seems ridiculous
ask him ! With the natural indignation of a dairyman, he hot-
ly answered, No! Thank Heaven! Another honest dairyman.
But they had used the water to wash the milk-pans ! It is hard
to tell a milk story it's so apt to resolve itself into " pure water "
before you get through with it! Mothers, if you must have a
dairyman for the baby, how would it do to boil the milk?

Enough of prose ! It's a world of prose. Let us at least be
blithe and merry. As we began with joyous verse and gladden-
ing song, so let us end. Gentles, take up your accordant ban-
joes, and soft-toned amateur flutes, and the broadly diapasoned
zither ! Wfll Mr. James Thomson kindly wave the baton, brisk-
ly? Now giocosamente

Crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on ; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the Wintry frost
(pp) Nitrous prepared ; the various-blossomed Spring
Put in white promise forth ; and Summer suns,
Concocted strong, (forte) rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and end my glorious theme. (D. C)

JOHN A. MOONEY.

666 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Aug.,

JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY.

XXVII.
BY THE STILE.

IT came to pass, therefore, that this hour of solitude h dtux,
from which a common sorrow banished self-consciousness and
affectation, not only brought these young people closer together
than all their previous intercourse had done, but did so without
any present reference of either to the fact. The subject of their
talk was so extraneous to themselves ; their concern for the
future of the operatives, whose hopes seemed to have been raised
only to be dashed, was so impersonal, and their ways of consider-
ing things in general appeared so obvious and necessary to each,
that that most rare and penetrating pleasure, of intellectual and
moral sympathy with those who have had an attraction for us
prior to all overt reason, insinuated itself into either soul under
the guise of a mere abstract conformity of sentiment, capable of
duplicating itself under other circumstances and with other com-
panions. It was only as they finally set their faces towards
home that they drifted imperceptibly into a narrower and deeper
channel.

" Do you think it so certain, then," the girl asked at last,
when the first pause in their talk began to embarrass her by its
length, "that all Mr. Van Alstyne's plans would be put an end
to if he should die now, without recovering consciousness?"

" I think so," returned Paul Murray. " I may be wrong, but
that is my impression."

"But why? He must have been considering so long that it
seems to me unlikely that he should have left his affairs at loose
ends until so late."

" Aren't you forgetting that a new condition of things has
but just arisen which might change or modify in some way any
scheme he had previously settled on ?"

" You mean" Zip began, and then stopped.

"Mr. Hadleigh's arrival," Paul answered her unspoken
thought.

" But that could hardly make so great a difference, could it?
It was plain from what Mr. Van Alstyne said yesterday that he
had not changed his mind about the works here."

" That is true enough. What he may have changed, and

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 667

what I think it likely he desired to, is simply his mode of carry-
ing out his plans. It would be entirely natural that he should.
Hjs might, for example, have wished to substitute one name for
another in his testament, and been prevented from doing so by
some accident ; or he might merely have proposed to add a new
one, which is what I think most probable. But in either case
there would be likely to be some reversal of conditions which
would leave things at loose ends, as you say."

"Do you know, then, what his first intention was? "

" Yes; I learned it but lately from his own lips. : '

Paul Murray stopped and looked at his companion. The
usual keenness of his glance was penetrated with a certain soft
longing. The expansive impulse of the lover was strong upon
him. He wanted to tell her all he knew, and had she looked up
at him then and put another direct question he might have done
so. But they were sufficiently en rapport for her to feel his hesi-
tation without seeing it, and some instinct kept her silent.

"Dear, kind old man ! " she sighed at last ; " how horrid it
seems to be discussing him in this way ! I wonder what he
would think if he could know all that people are hoping and
fearing about him? Do you know the squire thinks he may
recover, and that he is perhaps not wholly unconscious even
now? "

" So ?" said Paul. " Squire Cadwallader told you that ? "

" This afternoon, just before he went away. But he told me
to keep my counsel about it," she added, changing color, " and I
have not done so. I even told my sister. But that is no harm.
She is as still as a church."

"And now you have told me! " said Paul, smiling.

" Yes ; but I knew I might do that."

" The squire told you so ? "

" No ; but he said he only told me because he knew I was
Mr. Van Alstyne's friend and he felt sure he needed one. I
don't quite know why, but I supposed him to mean that I must
not tell Mrs. Van Alstyne or any one else in the house."

The girl had hesitated and breathed a little quicker than
usual while getting oil this explanation of her breach of confi-
dence. It justified itself entirely to her mind, but somehow it
sounded rather lame when put into words. The quick pleasure
it gave Paul found characteristic expression in a soft but amused
laugh.

" What a ready interpreter you are ! " he said. " PO you
always stick as closely to the letter of your instructions where

668 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Aug.,

secrets are concerned? It is good to know your little ways, in
case one thought of telling you some."

" I didn't ask anybody to tell me any secrets ! " said Zip
hotly, and quickening her pace. " The squire' told me because
he felt like it, I suppose. I made no promises."

"And so broke none? Don't go so fast, Miss Colton. If
you don't trip over one of these hidden roots you'll certainly
tumble down this slippery hillside. There! I warned you,
didn't I.?"

He caught her hand just in time to save her from fulfilling
the latter prediction. She tried to draw it back again as she
recovered her balance, but they were very near the bottom of
the slope, and he seemed not to notice her attempt until they
were squarely on the level.

" There you are! " he said, relinquishing his hold so natural-
ly as to make her tingle a little over the impulse which had
made her so prompt about her withdrawal. They were facing
the west, and between the trunks of the pines burned the red
gold of the declining sun, a huge globe just above the horizon in
a hazy but cloudless sky.

"How red it is!" Paul said, stopping. The girl stood still
likewise. They watched it sinking, silent both, until only the
upper rim, a "paten of bright gold," lay throbbing on the edge
of the world. Then Paul looked down with a renewal of an
earlier impulse.

" Did I annoy you just now ?'' he asked gently.

" Annoy me ? " she echoed, bringing back her eyes also from
the distance to meet his.

" By what I said about your way of keeping secrets ? "

He had been entirely serious, but the quick, almost impercep-
tible knitting of the girl's brows and the slight nervous quiver of
her lower lip as she dropped her glance, awoke again the teas-
ing impulse, whose salty savor preserved his sentiment from
sentimentality.

" Ah ! I see I did," he went on, biting his lip to keep back a
laugh, " and I must beg pardon, for, really, I had no manner of
excuse for it. My experience of your fidelity in that respect was
only a week old yesterday. How many fibs do you think you
led me into before I was able to surprise it ? "

"Don't!" said Zip, with an impatient movement of her shoul-
ders. As she spoke she turned toward home with a resolute step
which would plainly know neither shortening nor relaxation until
it brought her to Mr. Van Alstyne's door. Paul walked on com-

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 669

posedly, not speaking again until they reached the stile. Then
he stopped her, which was not difficult, his forethought having
kept him on that side of her which was next the steps. And the
lowest of them was so far from the ground that although she
would have been glad not to take the hand he offered, yet the
awkwardness of mounting it unaided counted for almost as much
in her acceptance, as the memory of her recent experience on the
slope behind them. Moreover, though she still felt ve^ed, she
was outwardly as cool as a snowflake, and knew it.

" Wait just a minute, Miss Colton," Paul said, retaining the
hand she had laid in his, but barring her nearer approach to the
stile by turning to face her ; " there is something I would like to
tell you, if you don't mind receiving a confidence, before we go
back."

His voice was serious now, and so were his eyes when Zip
lifted her own for an instant, and as he finished speaking he re-
leased his light clasp of her hand. So freed, she could scarcely
choose but stand still and listen. But Paul Murray was appar-
ently in no hurry to begin. For a moment longer he parleyed
with himself, and then sent prudence to the right-about. He
foresaw that he was going to have great need hereafter for that
least engaging of the virtues, and why waste its strength before-
hand on small encounters ? To do him justice, he honestly be-
lieved that what he had resolved to say was no longer of actual
importance. It was not that he wanted her to know it. At that
moment he simply desired the pleasure of telling her, and bind-
ing her to respect his confidence.

" It is a real secret this time," he said at last, but without a
hint of that jesting accent which now and again had wilfully
stung the girl where she was most sensitive, and yet had done
so with a swiftness so occult that neither of them could have
assigned a reason why. One thing he knew, and that was that
the wish to tease her was often irresistible ; and one thing she
knew, that the laugh in his eyes and in his voice curled her up
like the mimosa at an alien touch, but left behind it no sting of
humiliation and no trace of real anger.

"I shared it with Mr. Van Alstyne until yesterday," Paul
Murray went on, his eyes bent on her face, which was downcast.
" Now that he is so near his end as I can't help feeling that he is,
in spite of Squire Cadwallader and that all he hoped to do must
be abandoned, it would give me a pleasure to share it with you."
He stopped, and Zip lifted once more a pair of unembarrass-
ed eyes.

6/o JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Aug.,

" Why do 3'ou despair of him so soon ? " she asked. *' What
the squire said gave me a little courage."

" I hardly know except that I am certain that Mr. Van Al-
styne himself has been looking forward to this time as likely to
be fatal to him. I have sometimes tried to persuade him that
it was a superstitious fancy. But I think the notion preyed upon
him, and so helped to accomplish itself."

" I d(fn't understand," said Zip, seeing that he paused.

" Why, all that has been going on here for the last nine or ten
days has been calculated to discompose him, more or less, and
the excitement aided the persuasion I have spoken of to-
produce its natural result. You see, there has been a rather
curious complication in his affairs, dating from the day before
his cousin's arrival, which was the day when he gave his lawyer
instructions for the drawing of his will. He had delayed it so
long, as he has since told me, because he was never quite able to
determine which of several schemes he had in mind would be
the most simple and most sure. As to the wisdom of that on
which he finally settled, I have nothing to say. He told me that
in doing so he accepted the counsel of the most honest and sensi-
ble legal adviser whom he knew. The document was drawn,
and he was to go to town last week to sign it, but before the day
came Mr. Hadleigh had arrived."

" Mr. Van Alstyne went up to Riverside last Tuesday, didn't
he?"

" Yes ; but he did not sign his will. He was considering cer-
tain alterations which might be made in some of its provisions
without changing its general tenor. I had some talk about it
with him early in the week, but don't really know on what be
settled. We were both too much occupied afterward to have
any chance. What I know is that he intended to go to town
again on Friday to affix his signature, and that he received a
telegram that morning asking him to postpone it until Monday
on account of some unforeseen delay on the part of his lawyer.
So there it stands, as null as any cipher, and here is his heir-at-
law, or one of them, ready to work his own pleasure as soon as
Mr. Van Alstyne's death shall have removed the last obstacle.
Well, ' man proposes.'' Paul lifted his hat, but did not finish
his quotation.

"And is that the secret?" said Zip at last, seeing that he
neither went on speaking nor made any motion to resume their
walk homeward.

"No," he answered smiling, "that is only preliminary to it.

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 671

The secret is purely personal to me, and is now hardly worth the
telling. Would you like to hear it? "

Zip looked her answer.

" And you will keep it?" he went on, the laugh back in his
eyes. " No sister to share it, though she may be stiller than any
church ? Nobody, in fact, but Paul Murray ever to catch one
little lisp about it ? Hope to die ? "

Zip laughed too. ''Dear me! " she said, " what a frightful
tease you are ! Hope to die ! True as I live and breathe !
Now, what is it ? I don't believe it is anything."

" Well, it isn't much, as it happens. Perhaps I'd better keep
it, after all. Oh ! I won't don't be vexed ; that wouldn't be fair
now. Well, if Mr. Hadleigh had not come I should have been
Mr. Van Alstyne's sole legatee ; in trust, of course, but still a
trust of honor only, for the carrying out of his co-operative
scheme. If the telegram from Judge Mount had not been sent,
I suppose I should have been associated in that trust with Mr.
Hadleigh. In either case I should have occupied a position so
far beyond any sane hope or expectation I ever could have
formed, that I doubtless owe my equanimity under the actual
state of affairs to the fact that it always looked too much like
magic to impress me fully. Besides, my knowledge of it was
too recent to have had time yet to take strong hold of my ima-
gination."

The girl looked at him with wide eyes.

" Really ? You can resign so great a thing, such an oppor-
tunity for good, so easily as that ? "

" Don't you see I've got to ? I am truly sorry, I grant you
that ; but I think it is because I foresee the collapse of every-
thing Mr. Van Alstyne has been working for, and not solely-
well, let me be honest for once, since I am in for it not even
mostly on my own account. You see I never even dreamed of
taking anv such share in the fulfilment of his plans as he pro-
posed to give me. I honor him, I love him, I would have been
glad to take any part whatever of his burden, and help in any
way to realize his dreams. But there it is. C*e3tfini t && Jean
Popinot says every time he comes to tell me his wife has given
him another black eye and he proposes to go back into bachelor
quarters."

" I don't see how }'ou can laugh ! " said Zip.

" Why not ? Who knows except Paul Murray, and one little
girl who has promised to keep his secret, that he was ever so
near, even in his dreams, to such a prize? Don't waste any pity

672 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Aug.,

on me. Think of Mr. Van Alstyne. I could find it in my heart
to pray that what the squire said to you may have no vestige of
truth about it. Think of lying there, bound hand and foot, eye
and tongue, and yet knowing ! "

" Let us go back to him," said Zip. " Poor old man ! I love
him too. Pray God it is true what the squire thinks ! It would
be too dreadful ! I don't believe God can permit such a thing ! "

Paul took her hand and helped her across the stile before he
spoke.

" I wouldn't say things like that if I were you," he remarked
quietly. " God can permit and does permit things much more
difficult to bear or to comprehend than this. But what of it?
Life is short, don't you know, and eternity is very long."

They walked on in silence across the field, until, as they
neared the oak, a thought suddenly recurred to Paul Murray.

" By the way," he said ; " confidence for confidence is a fair
exchange, shouldn't you say?"

" If confidences are in the market."

Paul threw back his head and laughed.

"You give yours away instead of selling them? I should
have remembered. Who did you think was behind you when
you were crossing the pasture this afternoon ? "

To his surprise the girl colored and looked so confused that
although a prick of jealous curiosity stung him through and
through, he hastened to withdraw his question.

" Don't answer me," he said hurriedly ; " I don't want to
know. And pardon the inquiry."

" No," said Zipporah after the briefest pause ; " I'll [tell you.
I must, now."

" Don't ! " he reiterated ; " not if it annoys you. I only asked
because it seemed to me that you looked relieved to find it was
nobody but me."

" So I was," she answered, a little hurry in her voice. " I
I thought it might be Mr. Hadleigh. And I I hate him!"

" So bad as that?" he said lightly, but with a question in the
keen eyes that had caught and were holding hers. Apparently
the mute answer to it reassured him, lor presently he laughed
again.

" Ah ! " he said, " it is easy for a poor sinner to offend you,
isn't it? What was his crime? Didn't he admire sufficiently
the grace with which you managed those beautiful gauze wings
yesterday ? To be sure, you tore one of them pretty badly, but
then"'

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN&S FACTORY. 673

The girl grew rose-red again, and stamped her foot.

" Oh ! you you're awful ! " she cried. " I'm going straight
home. No; that was not Mr. Hadleigh's offence! I'm not go-
ing to tell you anything more about it."

"I told you not to," said Paul; "didn't I protest that I had
not the least vestige of curiosity on the subject? Only, you
know, if any one had asked me, say yesterday morning, whether
I thought you ' hated ' Mr. Hadleigh, I suspect I couldn't have
said yes with a good conscience."

Zipporah made no answer. Her own conscience had been
easy enough on the score of her amiability toward Mr. Had-
leigh until, under the influence/perhaps, of his too frequent at-
tentions to the claret-cup with which Mrs. Van Alstyne had
provided her private table at the picnic, he had presumed upon
it in a way which wounded her pride even more deeply than it
had alarmed her modesty. It was only that he had caught her
hand as she was passing him behind the scenes, and begun some
too ardent phrase of admiration which he never got a chance to
finish. But as he took his place beside Brother Meeker in the
list of the girl's most intimate aversions, there had sprung up in
her a sense of shame on her own account which Paul Murray's
last words renewed with a keenness almost unendurable. The
hot tears of vexation rushed into her eyes, and a quick shower
rolled down her cheeks before she could turn her head. Paul
was in dismay.

" Don't cry ! " he begged, close to her ear and in a softly be-
seeching tone ; " I am a brute to tease you so. You'll forgive
me, won't you ? I had no business to say that."

" You had," she objected, drawing well away from him.
There was a catch in her voice, but though she was regaining
possession of herself, their relations were so fast approaching a
primitive sincerity that her self-accusation would come out.
" You had anybody had. I had no business to pretend I to
pretend I thought he was nice, when when he isn't."

" What made you ? " said Paul softly, a remorseful twinge in
his own conscience reminding him of Bella. " What did he say
to you ? "

" Nothing made me. He didn't say anything. What right
had he to call me Zip, and and take hold of my hand, and say
I was I won't tell you what he said ! Besides, I don't know ; I
didn't stay to listen."

" I wonder if he said you were a very nice little girl ? " sug-
gested Paul, the faintest suspicion of a twinkle lightening his
VOL. XLVII. 43

674 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Aug.,

eyes again ; " because I could understand his temptation if he
did."

" Please don't, Mr. Murray ! He didn't say anything of the
kind. And I'm not."

" I wouldn't like to doubt your word," said Paul, "but that
is the only evidence I have against you. May I help you up
this bank?"

They had crossed the bridge now.

" No, you may not," she smiled. " I don't need any assist-
ance, thank you."

XXVIII.
DR. SAWYER'S CLINIC.

DR. SAWYER came over to pay the first visit to Mr. Van
Alstyne the next morning, as the squire was pretty thoroughly
knocked-up by fatigue. He found two patients waiting for him,
Mr. Hadleigh being on the sick-list with what he dreaded as the
premonitory symptoms of a recurrence of rheumatic fever, ap-
parently brought on by a shower in which he had got a com-
plete drenching on Sunday night.

Dr. Sawyer's medical diploma, which was his only one, was
now about two years old. For the last six months it had been
hanging in the ante-room of Squire Cadwallader's office, having
previously decorated its owner's quarters in one of the public
hospitals of the city whose college of physicians and surgeons
had conferred it. The squire, whose traditions concerning the
proper intellectual basis for medical or other special sciences
were derived from a respectably antiquated source, had felt that
he was yielding a good deal to sentiment when he admitted this
son of an old friend into his office and drove about with him
among his patients, but, having made up his mind to do it, he
was too kind-hearted not to have thoroughly accepted the situa-
tion. He made himself eminently useful to his young colleague,
and tpok out of him in return whatever aid of any sort he found
him capable of giving.

Dr. Sawyer was a tall, rather ungainly young man, with a
boyishly round face, and manners whose awkwardness would be
likely to wear off in time, as it was chiefly due at present to a
mingling of self-consciousness and youthful conceit. In reality,
he did not quite deserve the epithet of chuckle-headed which

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. 675

Squire Cad wallader now and then cast upon him in the strict
privacy of marital communications. Unless Mrs. Van Alstyne
surpassed him, he was doubtless the warmest admirer that Mr.
Van Alstyne-Hadleigh had yet secured in Milton Centre and its
vicinity.

The doctor found Mr. Hadleigh in bed with a good deal of
pain in his lower joints and a marked tendency to fever, yet
willing and even anxious to talk over recent occurrences. Dr.
Sawyer felt himself bound in conscience to repress that inclina-
tion in a patient with a pulse so rapid, and as Mr. Hadleigh's
conversational impulse took, on the whole, a more or less cate-
chetical form, the doctor was presently satisfying both his pro-
fessional scruples and his friendly feelings by doing nearly all the
talking.

Mr. Hadleigh was not always a good listener. He had made
enemies more often by brusqueness than by j-eticence, but as he
had seldom suffered much at the hands of any foe, it may be
supposed that ordinarily he was able to take a sufficiently accu-
rate measure of his fellow-creatures for his own purposes. His
other village admirer, Mrs. Van Alstyne, had already recorded
her tribute to the high-bred attention which he paid to her com-
munications, though she had been bothered not a little by her
failure to profit much by those he vouchsafed in return. As for
Dr. Sawyer, his intercourse with the brilliant stranger had not
until now made any approach to conversational intimacy. He
had admired him on general principles, as having almost in ex-
cess the social qualifications which he lacked himsell, but did
not yet despair of attaining. This morning he found him more
than ever agreeable. Which of us has not felt himself flattered
by that rarity, a perfect listener, even when the subject discuss-
ed did not relate wholly to our own admirable peculiarities and
achievements? Not to imply that that topic was in the present
instance entirely excluded from Dr. Sawyer's reminiscences and
prognostications.

" Oh ! no," he was saying at the point where it concerns us to
record a nearly one-sided dialogue not much more remarkable
for wit than for accuracy, ''such seizures as this of Mr. Van
Alstyne's are not necessarily fatal, even at his age. Not imme-
diately fatal, of course, you understand. I remember when I
was in the hospital we had a case something like his. The pa-
tient had been a man. about town in his day, and had run
through piles of money, and though he couldn't be called a vic-
tim to the alcohol habit, still I don't doubt that he had be-

676 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Aug.,

fuddled his brains much oftener than was good for him. I
should say he might have been near Mr. Van Alstyne's age,
perhaps five or ten years younger. He got excited over some
political talk, tumbled over on the steps of his hotel, and \yas
brought up to Fairview. It was a case of acute softening, but
he had tremendous vitality to start with, and we brought him
round again in about a month."

"Completely?"

" Did we cure him, do you mean ? Of course not. But the
softening would probably have become chronic and might have
lasted two or three years if he hadn't got an upset which Excited
him so that it produced another apoplectic attack. That carried
him off in a day or two."

" How did it happen ? "

" A chattering nurse did it. If I had my way I would slit the
tongues of professional nurses make mutes of them in the Ori-
ental fashion. They are seldom safe. To be sure, this fellow
believed that Harrington that was the patient's name, Fitzroy
Harrington ; he belonged to a very good family, the nurse
took it for granted that he was not fully conscious. There had
been an accident outside the operating room. A patient had
been brought in to have his hand amputated. He was still under
the influence of chloroform, and the nurse, who was wheeling
him out to the shaft to go back to his ward, supposed the eleva-
tor was there when it wasn't, and down the man went to the bot-
tom and broke his neck, and waked up in kingdom-come without
ever knowing what it was all about."

"Shocking!" interjected Mr. Hadleigh, with a disgusted
look. " Are such accidents common? "

" Well, not to say common. Still, they sometimes occur. As
to Harrington, we had begun wheeling him about a little. He
was a private patient, and we gave him airings in a perambulator.
But he had heard just enough to frighten him, and the next ride
he was invited to take threw him into such a rage of terror that,
as I say, it was all up with him in a day or two. Otherwise he
might be living still. As well die at once, it seems to me, as go
on into drivelling idiocy ! "

" Is that what you anticipate for my cousin Van Alstyne ? "

" Well, it is early yet to make a decided prognosis. I re-
marked to Squire Cadwallader last night that if there were no
immediate recurrence of his stroke it would probably result in
acute softening."

" And he agreed with you ?"

i888.] . JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 677

"Oh! yes. I should say there couldn't be a doubt about it.
His temperature is pretty good this morning, and his face a better
color. And his paralysis is only complete on one side. Still,
he is old, and he has been cranky this long while. I haven't the
least doubt in my own mind as to the nature of his seizure."

" Is that a general impression? "

" Is what a general impression? "

" That he has been ' cranky,' as y9u say? "

" Oh ! this long time. He is perfectly impracticable. Full
of socialism and all that kind of rot. If he has really made a
will of the sort everybody supposes he meant to, I don't suppose
you would find the least difficulty in contesting it. I mean,"
went on the doctor, seeing an unpleasant expression flit across
his listener's face, " that any one who has a natural claim might
set it up with a fair prospect of having it admitted even in the
face of express provisions on his part. I had a little talk on that
subject this very morning with one of the squire's partners, Mr.
Lamson. And I have heard the same thing said repeatedly be-
fore."

" What is the law in this country, do you know, with regard
to the property of a man who lapses into a state of chronic im-
becility ? Who takes charge of his estate, and what is done with
regard to his business ? "

"No; I don't know. But I can find out for you, easily
enough. I've a brother in a law-office in Riverside."

"Thanks, I'm sure. But I won't trouble you. How long
am I likely to lie here, do you suppose?"

" That depends. The squire will look in on you this after-
noon or evening. By the way, he might be able to give you the
information you want."

"Very likely." Mr. Hadleigh made a grimace as he tried to
turn over in bed. " He combines manufacturing with pill-giving
and blistering, I think I've been told."

Dr. Sawyer flushed a little.

" The squire has no active concern in running things, but he
has been a heavy shareholder in the Harmonia Mill ever since it
was built. Lamson and Sprague are the active partners. I
judge that Lamson would like to have a few words with you
concerning the business as soon as it becomes evident which
way the old gentleman's case is likely to turn. In fact he
said so."

" Which way would it suit the lot of you best to have it
turn?" said Mr. Hadleigh, with a perceptible sneer.

678 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. . [Aug.,

Dr. Saw}'er felt himself uncomfortable for the second time
within five minutes. He rose and picked up his hat.

" I'd like to see him get well, for my part," he said, with a
rougher accent than had until then been audible in his voice.
" I'll tell Lamson, if you say so, that you are house-bound for the
present, and pretty certain to remain so for several days. We
shall probably want to put leeches on to reduce the inflammation
in those joints."

" I hope not, and be hanged to them !" growled the sick man.
" I've lost more blood than I can spare within the last three
months already. Building up is what I want, not dragging
down.''

" I have talked too long to you, I'm afraid," said Dr. Saw-
yer. "Your pulse is ten beats higher than when I came in. Do
you want Mr. Lamson to call ? "

" No, I don't or when I do I'll let him know. Get your old
man here as quick as possible, will you ? Good morning."

Dr. Sawyer went down-stairs with a curiously mixed impres-
sion, in which anger, a sentiment with which he was by no
means unfamiliar, was blended with a much rarer sense of humi-
liation and even self-dissatisfaction for which he was at some loss
to account.

"Confound his airs!" he said to himself. "Now, what on
earth did I do but answer his questions ? If there is a man
within ten miles who'd be gladder than that fellow to see the old
gentleman dig out without delay, I'd be pleased to know what he
looks like on the dissecting-table. The bloody snob !" he ended,
with a neat colloquialism which he had recently picked up with-
out a suspicion that he would ever want to put it to its present use.

XXIX.
ST. MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON.

"Humph!" said Squire Cadwallader reflectively as he lis-
tened to his colleague's report from Milton Centre. " Threaten-
ed Mr. Hadleigh with leeches, did you ? Rather heroic treat-
ment, isn't it ? Much fever?"

" More when I came away than when I went in. About the
leeches well, I knew he objected to them, and just at the min-
ute I felt rather savage with him. Besides, he wants to get up
as soon as possible."

" I see. Any special reason that you know of for the in-
crease of fever? Was he talking much ? "

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. 679

"No ; I didn't let him. I sat with him an hour or so, as he
complained of being left alone, but I tried to prevent his excit-
ing himself. He "is in a good deal of pain and his pulse was
thumping when I left him."

" What were you savage about ? You should never allow
yourself to lose your temper with a sick man."

"I know, I know. I should have remembered when he irri-
tated me that his condition would account for it. But he had
been as mild as a lamb ; and I was sailing along as smoothly as
possible, amusing myself and him too, as I thought, when he
suddenly came out with some slur or other, a propos of a sort of
message I carried him from Lamson. 1 got in a heat without
quite knowing why. In fact, I don't know yet."
" What does Lamson want with him? "

" Well, he stopped me this morning to inquire about Mr. Van
Alstyne, and we had a little talk about his affairs. He said he
wanted to see Hadleigh within a day or two."
" Did he ask you to tell him so ? "

"No, he didn't. But some question or other that Hadleigh
asked about the American law with regard to the property of
imbeciles brought up Lamson to my mind and I mentioned
what he said."

" Humph ! I see. And then he vexed you ? Didn't he want
to see Lamson ? "

" Apparently not. I suggested that you would be able, in all
probability, to give him all the information he required about
the legal matter."

" He assumes, then, that Mr. Van Alstyne will lapse into im-
becility ? You encouraged that supposition ? "

" Well, I may say I was the direct cause of it. Hadleigh had
evidently believed that it was a mere stroke of apoplexy, which
was like enough to carry him off within a few days. His own
father went in that way. We agreed otherwise last night, you
remember, and as he asked, I told both him and Lamson, who
made the same inquiry, that although the case was bound to ter-
minate fatally it would not be likely to do so very soon. That
was all right, wasn't it?"

" Well, there's no harm done in this special case, as I know
of," returned the squire. " Still, as a rule, it is always better
not to prophesy until you know. Did you give either of them
an opinion as to the exact nature of his seizure or its probable
duration ?"

" Oh ! softening of course, but whether acute or chronic it

680 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Aug.,

was too soon yet to determine. In one case I said it might end
in a month ; in the other that it might stretch over some years.
Our talk was pretty general, you know. He seemed lonesome,
and inquisitive, too, I thought, as was only natural. And as I had
plenty of time I sat there and tried to amuse him. Among other
things, I told him about that case of Harrington's, at Fairview,
which I spoke to you about last night. He was a good deal dis-
gusted by that, I noticed."

"Disgusted? Interested, perhaps, you mean?"
" Well, that too. But he asked me in a supercilious sort of
wayif we let such things occur often in our public hospitals."

Dr. Sawyer passed out into his own office. The squire sat
for some time in an attitude which betokened meditation, his
chin pressing heavily into the hollow of his left palm, and his
eyes bent persistently on one spot in the carpet. An hour or
two later, when he was ready to set out, he paused beside his
youthful colleague.

" By the way, Alfred," he said, laying a friendly hand on the
other's shoulder, " don't nurse your tiff against Mr. Hadleigh
more than you can help. My hands are pretty full, and after
this visit I doubt whether I shall not feel obliged to leave him
under your charge. Rheumatic fever, unless it is complicated
with heart trouble, is not serious, provided it is left judiciously
alone for the most part."

" Oh ! I'm not that kind," returned the young man. " I
never allow sentiment to get mixed up with business. Besides,
I see well enough that I was wrong in attributing to insolence
and temper what was doubtless the mere result of pain and
fever."

" Just so," said the squire dryly. " And so you thought
you'd resort to venesection to cool you both down. Well,
you're young yet."

" I forgot to ask," said Dr. Sawyer, " but as you want to
leave his case to me, I infer that you are satisfied on the whole
with what I did for him."

" Entirely," returned the squire in a non-committal sort of
tone ; " I doubt if you could have acquitted yourself more to my
satisfaction if you had tried. But as a rule, it is well not to talk
too long at a time to feverish patients. It is as well he don't
want to see Lamson until he is in better condition."

Squire Cadwallader paid his first visit to Mr. Hadleigh, hav-
ing assured himself on passing Mr. Van Alstyne's sick-chamber
that there had been no apparent change in his condition, an item

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN& s FACTORY. 68 1

of news which he communicated unasked to his new patient.
He found the latter suffering what were undoubtedly severe
pains with a fortitude which commanded his respect, but with
on the whole less fever than he had anticipated. The circum-
stance pleased him, for it would have gone against his profes-
sional conscience to break too violently the rule he had but just
laid down to Dr. Sawyer on the extent of allowable communi-
cation with feverish patients. The squire was at. first rather
effusively hearty in his manner, having made up his mind to be
interviewed, and to be communicative, after a fashion, on any or
all subjects in which Mr. Hadleigh might appear to be interest-
ed. But the sick man's curiosity appeared to be limited to the
sole inquiry as to the probable duration of his own confinement.
And on that point the squire was far from reassuring.

" I don't like to see your illness coming back so soon," he
remarked, laying his hand once more upon Mr. Hadleigh's pulse.
" I am afraid it points to cardiac trouble. Did that complication
arise in the first attack? "

" No."

" Then we may hope to guard against it this time. But I
own I don't like all I observe in your condition, and I'm afraid I
can't promise to let you outside of this room within a fortnight,
at the earliest."

Mr. Hadleigh looked relieved.

"Come," he said, with a contraction of his thin face which
began as a smile but ended as a grimace extorted by a sudden
twinge in the wrist the squire was just resigning, "that is good
news, too. Judging from my experience in Asuncion, I feared
I might be in for another siege of six or eight weeks."

" You had a Spanish doctor ? "

" And he bled me like a butcher. You don't mean, I hope,
to let Dr. Sawyer carry out his threat of leeches."

" Not a bit of it. I fear I shall have to blister you, though."

" And I must have a man as soon as he can be got. My
hostess is very kind, but you understand, I prefer not to de-
pend on kindness."

" Exactly. We'll do the best we can by you. All I insist on
is absolute quiet. Keep your mind as easy as you can. Your
body is safe to insist on those terms for itself. Is there anything
I can do, or inquire about, or arrange for you, meantime ?"

Mr. Hadleigh and the squire regarded each other full in face
for a minute.

" No, thanks," the latter said presently. " Get me on my

82 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. [Aug.,

feet and out of doors in a fortnight and I have nothing more to
ask. By the way, I have a dim notion that my confounded irri-
tability annoyed Dr. Sawyer this morning. If you could make
him believe that I didn't mean it, and that I apologize, if he is
under the impression that I did, I would be obliged to you. He
is chatty, and this bed is poor company."

" He'll be over in the morning," said the squire, getting up to
leave the room. " I shall superintend your case, but unless
more serious complications arise than threaten now, I shall be
likely to leave you chiefly in his hands. He is abundantly capa-
ble of whatever is necessary. Good- by."

Then the squire got away to John Van Alstyne, at whose
bed-side he found Mary Anne Murray and Mattie Colton. He
looked at his patient carefully, asked a number of questions,
and then dismissed the nurses, with an injunction to go down to
the piazza, and remain there until he was ready to give his in-
structions for the night. He was alone for a long time with the
sick man before he went to the window and asked Miss Murray
to come up again.

When she entered he was sitting close beside the bed. He
rose, and, bringing another chair, placed it as near as possible
to his own, and invited her to take it. She looked rather sur-
prised and was about to alter its position.

" Don't," he objected, laying his hand on the back of it ; u I
want you to sit just there. Mr. Van Alstyne is partly con-
scious, I am certain. He may be wholly so, but that is a matter
impossible to determine at this stage. I want to ask you to
consider whether you can arrange your domestic affairs so as
to be able to assume entire charge of him for the present? Miss
Colton will assist you as far as she is able, I know. One of the
complications I was afraid of in his case is happily averted, for
some time to come, at all events. It may be renewed, but we
will hope not. But another has arisen."

The squire, who had been speaking in an unusually deliber-
ate and measured way, paused here as if to await some response
from Mary Anne Murray. But as she offered none, he began
anew.

"I have sent for a male nurse, as you know, but when he
comes, I think he will have to devote most of his care to Mr.
Hadleigh, who really needs attention more than Mr. Van Alstyne.
I am persuaded that nothing is necessary in this room nothing,
that is, but what I can do for him in the visits I shall pay him
twice a day but absolute quiet and the closest attention to the

r 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 683

few directions I shall want to -give. I know of no one but you
to whom 1 am entirely willing to apply for the help I need. As
you must be aware, it is a matter which involves more than the
mere chance of life or death for one man."

Mary Anne contracted her brows and pondered. " How can
I?" she said at last. " There is papa to be considered and the
children."

" Is there no one you could leave in charge ? With Miss
Colton to assist you there would be always time for you to go
home every day. I have thought it all over rapidly, I admit,
but I feel sure exhaustively and I think there can be no clearer
call of duty for you than this one. Lying here, helpless, Mr.
Van Alstyne means something far more representative than a
mere sick man. To me he does, at least. And until now I have
nevef been in full sympathy with him. You have, or I mistake
you."

Mary Anne's face changed. There came a faint glow into
her thin, brown cheeks, and her eyes grew luminous.

" Yes," she said quietly, " I have. And I will undertake it.
I shall find some one to take my place at home. Will to-morrow
do? And will you explain to Mrs. Van Alstyne ? "

" God bless you ! " said the squire. " You lift a big load off
my mind. Yes, I'll attend to everything. I have already given
Miss Colton some intimation of what I feared and hoped, but
that was when I was more immediately apprehensive than I am
at present. But I recommended her to keep her counsel, and I
recommend as much to you. I leave you entire discretion as
to how far that caution should apply. You are the best judge
of what you need to say at home."

On the piazza. Squire Cadwallader found himself confronted
by Zipporah and her sister. The latter had a letter in her hand
which Zipporah had brought in on coming from the school-house,

"What am I to do?" she said, appealing to the squire.
" Your nurse has not come yet, and this house is getting to be a
hospital. But my mother says she cannot spare me longer than
to-morrow."

" Oh ! that's all right," he said with a smile. " I've put the
place on a hospital footing now, and if you can't be spared else-
where, we'll have to spare you here. I've a great reinforcement
for to-morrow, happily."

So John Van Alstyne's household settled itself down for
awhile, and both within it and without there grew up a strange
impression, vaguer in some minds than in others, and wholly de-

684 Two PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. [Aug.,

finite, perhaps, in not more than three or four, that a mysterious
and spiritual battle was raging there in which each of the visible
combatants lay prone and helpless. By-and-by that feeling grew
into such prominence with one of the watchers that she brought
a little picture of St. Michael that she was fond of, and hung it
at the head of John Van Alstyne's bed, and consoled herself
with the sight of the great archangel's foot upon the dragon,
against whom, as Zipporah reflected when it was explained to
her, he "dared bring no railing accusation." With what may
have been said outside, this chronicle has no necessary concern.
But between those three or four to whom, as has been said, the
situation had defined itself most clearly, there was never more
open speech concerning it than has already been recorded.

LEWIS R. DORSAY.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

TWO PROPHETS OF THIS AGE.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS in the very first article of the Summa
uses the following words :

"It is necessary to man's salvation that, besides the philosophical in-
struction which is obtained by the investigations of human reason, he
should have a doctrine divinely revealed. And firstly, because man is re-
lated to God as to an end which reason does not comprehend : ' The eye
hath not seen, O God ! besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for
them that wait for thee ' (Isaias Ixiv. 4). But since men should order their
intentions and actions with a view to their end, that end should be known
to them beforehand. Hence it was necessary for man's salvation that
certain things which exceed human reason should be made known to him
by divine revelation. And even with regard to such divine things as may
be investigated by human reason it was necessary that man should be in-
structed by divine revelation, because (when unaided reason is used) the
truth about God is arrived at by only a few men, and after long study and
with the admixture of many errors; yet upon this knowledge depends all
of man's salvation, which is in God. That men, therefore, might more
conveniently and more surely arrive at salvation, it was necessary that
they should be instructed concerning divine things by divine revelation."

This necessity of revelation, based upon the tendency of man
to the knowledge of God and need of union with him as his end,
together with reason's native inability, St. Thomas more fully
explains in his Summa Contra Gentiles, third and fourth chapters
of the first book. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Matthew Arnold

1 888.] Two PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. 685

and all their followers have denied the necessity of revelation,
rejected it as contained in the Scriptures, and affirmed the suf-
ficiency of reason to secure the destiny of man ; being by no
means clear as to what that destiny is. Further, they have even
taken reason in the lowest meaning of the term, the action of the
human senses and the products of their experience. The whole
body of Christian believers maintain, with St. Thomas, that al-
though reason has exalted powers, yet taken at its best its de-
ficiencies make Christianity or the revealed wisdom of God
necessary to secure our destiny. These deficiencies of. reason
are : you cannot know the destiny of man with satisfactory ful-
ness, you cannot know it with satisfactory certitude, and what dim
knowledge and uncertain grasp you do gain of it is got only after
long study, and that by but few gifted intellects. With the aid
of Christian revelation you know what the human destiny is and
how to attain it; you know it quickly because it is taught by
divine authority, and for the same reason you know it with cer-
titude. Whence come I, whither go I, are the first questions
put to the Christian as a child, and answered for him satisfac-
torily, briefly, and with divine authority. This all-necessary
wisdom is certain, quickly had, and is sufficient. This revelation
has satisfied humanity wherever it has been applied, and nineteen
centuries stand there to prove it.

Against this Mr. Emerson protested, set up human reason,
and a low phase of it at that, and with varying consistency assailed
revelation and exaggerated human self-sufficiency in all his writ-
ings, both verse and prose ; with occasional misgivings wrung
from him by the sorrows of human infirmity, which human rea-
son had no power to console. He failed ; we know it and the
world knows it. Mr. Arnold failed in his turn, though he veiled
his purposes with the instinct bf one nervously afraid of the logi-
cal consequences of his doctrines. Men go to these two pro-
phets in vain to learn what is their destiny, to learn it easily,
plainly, certainly. This is true of all who have not accepted and
will not accept the Christian revelation. What mature men go
to them to learn in vain, little boys and girls learn easily and
fully from the simplest teachers of Christian truth.

The object of all religion is to teach man what his destiny is
and how to attain it ; to do this with readiness, with certainty,
and with satisfactory fulness. If this is not known by revelation
it must be known by nature. Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster had
only the light of nature to give. What have they taught us ?
Let us squarely ask, What is the outcome of their whole teaching,

686 Two PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. [Aug.,

not about this or that particular point of morals ? Moses has
given us from God a revelation of the moral law supremely
above all they can offer. What can they tell us of man's end
and destiny ? Whence is man, whither is he going, and how
shall he proceed ? They have one and all failed. Here then is
a practical answer to the question, How are you going to
prove that nature is insufficient to instruct the intellect of man
as to his destiny ? Ask nature's high-priests and oracles.

Has the science of biology, or of medicine, or of human law
answered the question, " Whence come I, whither am I going,
how am I to attain an adequate end of life?" Did John Stuart
Mill allay the cravings of his soul with his social theories? Did
his father teach him happiness ? Is anything more miserable
than the man-worship of Thomas Carlyle, except his own life,
bereft of Christianity? What did he find in Goethe? What
did anybody ever find in Goethe? Coldness and heathenism.
And at bottom what more can he find in Kant, Fichte, Hegel,
and we may add, Schelling, together with the whole host of
English un-Christian philosophers?

Socrates was the most eminent philosopher of Greece, and
the Greeks were the greatest people of antiquity, and their art
and literature still hold the primacy. Yet Socrates was but the
greatest man of heathenism, and he could not answer those ter-
rible questions of the universe, the whence and the whither of
human destiny. He said to Alcibiades that he might as well
not pray ; who could tell whether his prayers were pleasing to
the gods or not ? How did he know whether his prayers would
help him to his true destiny ?

But after Christ had come the little child knew more than
Socrates, and the heathen philosopher's Christian slave was in.
finitely wiser than his proud master, more so than Socrates had
been in comparison with the common brutish heathen of his day.
Peter, the Galilean fisherman, triumphed, where Socrates, the
sage of cultured Greece, miserably failed.

Emerson and Arnold are the interpreters of nature as known
without God. But what are they face. to face with Christ?
Minimizers of Christ and maximizers of themselves ; and to that
minimizing and maximizing must their disciples sooner or later
surely come. Every one of them who is consistent undertakes to
level up to Christ : this becomes his life task ; this is necessary if he
is going to make his belief in the all-sufficiency of nature satis-
factory. The implied claim of Emerson and Arnold and their
followers is to answer the questions of the soul better than

1 888.] Two PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. 687

Christ did ; to make their answers the oracles of God ; to be for
the nineteenth century what Christ was for the first. They must
be Christ's superiors or nobody, and as far as capability to im-
part wisdom goes they become nobodies. Such teachers will
not frankly admit that Christ's answers are good enough for the
men of to-day. They will not admit that the first century is
equal to the nineteenth. Because the physical world is more
open to science and more fully under human control, they wish
to make out the same with regard to supernatural revelation.

Just so the mesmerizers and spiritists are groping after
something better than Christianity. They strive to set before
the Christian miracles the. diabolical and magical mysteries of
which they are the ministers; they are working out a futile task
in the order of nature's powers, and the disciples of Emerson and
Arnold in the order of nature's truth.

And now if I am asked what I consider the supernatural des-
tiny of man to be. I answer that it is the relation he bears to
God over and above his natural relation of creature. The ulti-
mate term of the supernatural life is a participation in the Divine
nature. This consists in sonship with God. The natural rela-
tion of man and God is creature and creator. The natural rela-
tion of sonship with God belongs only to the Eternal Son, the
second person of the Blessed Trinity, born of the Father before
all ages. Can any man legitimately claim this natural sonship
with God, strictly speaking? No, certainly not, except the man
Christ, who is the divine person of the Son of God, and has
taken up our human nature by a free act of benevolence. But
besides him neither man nor angel can claim to be Son of God
by nature. But men can be and are born again through Christ
and in no other way unto newness of life which is a divine life, a
supernatural existence ; and thus men become gifted with a
capacity for knowing and loving God with a power far above
nature's power and transcending the natural capacity of man-
kind. This is regeneration.

All this Emerson and Arnold repudiate and their followers
with them, and even pretend to ignore it. Some of them admit
that the divine life is indeed man's destiny, but affirm that this
divine life is communicated to man as the son of God in the
natural order, in different ways and in different degrees. They
pretend to have by nature Christ or no Christ all that the
Christia-n aims at obtaining by the pure benevolence of God in
supernatural religion. What the Christian craves from mercy
these men claim in justice ; they are the Sons of God because

Two PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. [Aug.,

they are men. I do not believe that they, especially the Unita-
rians among them, have ever fully realized, ever actually faced
this idea, though they have often uttered it and some loudly
proclaimed it. But only when giving up the idea of a personal
God altogether, and completely following such leaders as Emer-
son and Arnold, and others like them, will general scepticism
have fully realized its logical significance. Meantime one and all
they look upon us Christians as sickly children hanging about
the skirts of their mothers. Just as Henry Thoreau once said to
me, after my conversion, " How can you hang on to the skirts
of that old woman ?" meaning the Catholic Church. The Son
of God instituted the church to introduce us into the divine life
by the sacraments, to give us a divine symbolism of worship and
a sufficiency of it for without symbolism the worship of the un-
seen God is incomplete and to establish among men a divine
authority for expounding and propagating the doctrines of
heavenly wisdom : and all this is what Thoreau and men like-
minded call the skirts of the old woman.

It is hardly necessary to produce examples of Emerson's fu-
tile questioning of. mere nature. It has been done before in
these pages ; the following will serve as reminders:

"All my hurts

My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk,
A quest of river grapes, a mocking thrush,
A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine,
Salve my worst wounds."

Is this true of every man ? Is this true of Emerson ? When
he is touched with a hurt which comes from the invisible and
the eternal we hear a wail of despair. Listen to his Threnody :

" The south wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire ;
But over the dead he has no power :
And looking over the hills I mourn
The darling who shall not return."

So it would be with Matthew Arnold and every other human
being. The stars and the skies and the seas, the spades and the
walks and the roses there comes a time when the sound of the
grave-digger's dreary spade drowns all their singing.

Meantime it must be said of Emerson that he was more frank
than Arnold, or had deeper experience perhaps both. For

1 888.] Two PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. 689

he not seldom avows his perplexity and unrest, as in the fol-
lowing:

"What our society most needs to-day is a baptism of the Holy Ghost.
I see in the young men of this age character but scepticism. They have
insight and truthfulness, they will not mask their convictions, they hate
cant; but more than this I do not readily find. The gracious motions of
the soul piety, adoration I do not find. Scorn of hypocrisy, elegance,
boundless ambition of the intellect, willingness to make sacrifices for in-
tegrity of character, but not that religious submission and abandonment
which gives man a new element and being, and makes him sublime ''
(quoted in The Index, Aug. 24, 1882).

With reference to Arnold what we wish to do is to place him
where he belongs : an impugner of the best known of all truths,
the being of a personal God. We wish to bring him and his out
of the obscurities of fine phrases and get him into the open. We
quote from various parts of his writings :

"The proposition that this world, as we see it, necessarily implies an
intelligent designer with a will and a character ... is utterly impalpa-
ble " (Last Essays on Church and Religion, 131).

His tendency is downward : his endeavor is, indeed, to pre-
vent its becoming degrading, and one may go a great distance
on this road without getting one's feet in the mire ; but, as Emer-
son expresses it, mire is at the end of it : " He speaks to us of the
glorious gods, and leads us into the mire." That road does end
in the mire, and that very soon if one travels with a quick spi-
rit. It often ends in worse than mire ; witness Percy Bysshe
Shelley. But to quote again :

" We have really no experience whatever, not the very slightest, of
persons who think and love except in man and the inferior animals'' (God
and the Bible, 69).

"The personages of the Christian heaven and their conversations are
no more matter of fact than those of the Greek Olympus'" (God and the
Bible, xxi.)

In his Last Essays he summarizes virtue and the moral law,
conscience and charity, as " the instinct to live and be happy."

Matthew Arnold was a polished scholar, but as a heathen
might be so. He was a heathen, and he knew the heathen.
He was more at home among the heathen than in Christian
society ; and this is a trait of his class. Knowing the heathen
better than the Christian and having more affection for him, and
knowing his difficulties better than the Christian's, he could
but say in answer to the question, What is highest good? "A
stream of tendency which makes for righteousness." An easy

VOL. XLVII. 44

690 TWO PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. [Aug.,

way to let a man down, who wants to go down, by a pretty
phrase. To pass from reading the Hebrew prophets to reading
Arnold and Emerson, is to lose one's hold upon God and throw
one into general scepticism. Matthew Arnold is a guide who
lets you down by pretty phrases.

The reader will pardon my placing here the whole of Mr.
Arnold's poem entitled " Self-dependence," with some comments.
That poem expresses the doctrine which prevails throughout his
poetical and prose writings :

" Weary of myself, and sick of asking

What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forward, forward, o'er the star-lit sea."

Now, any being weary of self and sick of asking what he is
and what his end may be is sailing on the wrong course in life,
and the sooner he gets from the prow to the helm of the ship
where he ought to be and puts about, the better for him.
Meantime the lessons of life he seeks from the stars and the sea :

"And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send :
4 Ye who from my childhood up have calmed me,
Calm me, ah ! compose me to the end !

" ' Ah ! once more,' I cried, 'ye stars, ye waters,

On my heart your mighty charm renew ;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"'

But the vastness of the Christian's aspiration is the limitless
God, who made the stars and the seas, not that mankind should
call upon them with a passionate cry, but upon God the Crea-
tor and Lord of all, with a hopeful and loving voice, who has
made man their master and not their disciple. The ancient hea-
then looked yearningly into the entrails of birds and beasts for
auguries and omens ; and it is not much wiser to strain one's
eyes toward the dead stars and the dead waters or over the
mute hills for the solution of life's problems.

Now listen to the gospel of selfishness :

" From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,

Over the lit sea's unquiet way,
In the rustling night air came the answer :
' Wouldst thou be as these are ? Live as they.

" ' Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,

1 888.] TWO PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. 69!

These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

" ' And with joy the stars perform their shining,

And the sea its long, moon-silvered roll ;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

" ' Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.' "

That is to say, to be self-bounded, self-regardful is the main
object of life and is the secret of happiness. To be regardless of
the fever of the differing soul and positively exclude love, amuse-
ment, sympathy, and so all human fellowship, is the means of at-
taining to " the mighty life." Does it not read so ? Is it not
taught so by the voices he hears from sky and ocean? Is not
this the message of Buddhism ?
The last stanza is this :

" O air-born voice ! long since severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear :
4 Resolve to be thyself and know that he
, Who finds himself loses his misery.' "

A singular contradiction with the first words, " Weary of my-
seff," etc. His ship lands him back in his own weary and unre-
sponsive self at the end of his verses, after all. Meantime he
loses his misery by finding only his miserable self, as he starts by
calling himself. This is not the way the immortal soul finds
eternal wisdom. It is the way in which the soul has been baffled
from the beginning by sailing in its own ship, not at the helm
but the prow, and listening to its own stars and waves in com-
pany with such captains as Matthew Arnold and Emerson.
How different the result when we bring to the contemplation of
nature the spirit of Christianity, as Dante did.

Not very long before his death Mr. Arnold published an
essay on the poet Shelley. Shelley was an atheist from boyhood
up, and taught and propagated atheism ; and he practised im-
morality that is, if the ten commandments are a standard. He
took to atheism from love of it, as an emancipator from the re-
straints of Christian morality. This came out in many ways
both in his private life and in his poetry, but especially in his
cruel desertion of his young and devoted wife and their little
daughter. Going over to France with his concubine, he wrote

692 TWO PROPHETS OF THIS AGE. [Aug.,

a letter to his afflicted and disgraced wife which for cold-blood-
ed cruelty is hardly surpassed in the literature of crime. What
does Matthew Arnold think of it ? Of course he condemns it.
But just why? Is it because the writing of that letter and the
base and cowardly deed that preceded it violate the command-
ments of God ? Listen to Mr. Arnold in The Nineteenth Century :

" Certainly my comment on this letter shall not be his (Prof. Dowden's,
the biographer of Shelley), that it ' assures Harriet that her interests were
still dear to Shelley, though now their lives had moved apart.' But neither
will I call the letter an odious letter, a hideous letter. I prefer to call it,
using an untranslatable French word, a bete letter. And it is bete from
what is the signal, the disastrous want and weakness of Shelley, with all
his fine intellectual gifts his utter deficiency in humor."

Now, no man could thus account for Shelley's brutality, and
have in his heart the high standard of morality taught by Chris-
tianity.

" His misconduct to Harriet, his want of humor, his self-deception, are
fully brought before us for the first time by Prof. Dowden's book. Good
morals and good criticism alike forbid that when all this is laid bare to us
we should deny, or hide or extenuate it. Nevertheless I go back after all
to what I said at the beginning ; still our ideal Shelley, the angelic Shelley,
subsists. Unhappily the data for this Shelley we had and knew long ago,
while the data for the unattractive Shelley are fresh ; and what is fresh is
likely to fix our attention more than what is familiar. But Prof. Dow-
den's volumes, which give so much, which give too much, also afford data
for picturing anew the Shelley who delights, as well as for picturing for
the first time a Shelley who, to speak plainly, disgusts ; and with what may
renew and restore our impression of the delightful Shelley I shall end."

Now, the very truth is that this Shelley was a scoundrel, a
scandalous adulterer ; and what we complain of in Arnold is
that he, knowing all this, deeply regrets that he was ever found
out by the public and calls his villany misconduct, want of
humor, self-deception, and affirms that Shelley, in spite of all, is
still the ideal, the angelic Shelley. Now, it is possible for a
filthy wretch to write angelic poetry ; but angelic poetry doesn't
make a filthy wretch a decent man, much less an angel. Arnold
really seemed to value morality not for its absolute right, but for
its seemliness. Just before the above sentences, and after recit-
ing a further revelation of Shelley's lechery, he writes: "And I
conclude that an entirely human inflammability, joined to an in-
human want of humor and a superhuman power of self-deception,
are the causes which chiefly explain Shelley's abandonment of
Harriet in the first place, and then his behavior to her and his

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 693

defence of himself afterwards.'' Nowhere do you find the utter-
ly brazen depravity of this gifted criminal characterized by
Arnold as it should be by any Christian or honest man. Yet
Arnold is a teacher, a setter-up of ideals among American and
English people ! Was I not right in saying that he is a leader
who lets one down, if one is willing, by beautiful phrases? And
may not the same be said of Emerson and of all leaders of his
class? I. T. HECKER.

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

DODD, MEAD & Co. are getting out a new Library Edition of
the Besant-Rice novels, of which we have received the first six
volumes : The Golden Butterfly, My Little Girl, The Monks of
Thelema, By Celias Arbor, This Son of Vulcan, and With Harp
and Crown. They are all very amusing reading, as old novel-
readers already know. The two first named are especially full
of a quaint humor of which Mr. Besant, now that he works alone,
seems to have lost the secret. These two differ in most re-
spects, but they have one entertaining feature in common. How
is a really satisfactory girl, honest, candid, innocent, attractive,
to be produced, is the moot-point to which the authors address
themselves. Catch her young is the answer from three to five
will do keep her as much as possible out of the way of her own
sex, and let those of them who must approach her be either very
young and ignorant or very old and ignorant. Then hand her
over to the kindly charge of some good man, middle-aged or old.
Let him teach her everything she ought and nothing she ought
not to know it would be better to impart all necessary know-
ledge orally. Prayer is a good thing to recommend, but omit
church-going. The very best thing of all would be to keep her
entirely secluded, with plenty of open-air spaces to romp in, and
never teach her to read and write. We are not so sure that this
last detail has no specific virtue. With poisonous novels and
"newsy " journals hanging on every twig of the modern tree of
knowledge the alphabet becomes a perilous thing for the small
Eve. The practical trouble about the scheme seems on the
whole to be a numerical one and almost fatal to its success.
There are so many good little girls of five or thereabouts that
one dreads lest, here and there, or now and then, the proper pro-
portion of really good middle-aged or old men might fail to be
kept up. " The good die young," as Mr. Saltus insinuates.

694 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug.,

Harper & Brothers have just issued a volume, A Brother to
Dragons, containing three of the stories by which Miss Am&ie
Rives first drew the attention of the public which reads the month-
ly magazines. They are written in the colloquial English of
" Master Shakspere's " time ; or, in what Miss Rives imagines
that English to have been in the mouths of servants and other
" lewd fellows of the baser sort." Each tale is narrated by a
speaker of this class, apparently for no reason more valid than
that of providing a tolerable excuse for verbal licenses that bor-
der on indecency. There is a rude force in them ; but it is not
of the kind which suggests much promise for the future.
Rather, it awakens curiosity concerning the nature of the read-
ing on which their author's mind has been nurtured. The
dramatic literature of the Elizabethan period and those which
succeeded it down to the second James have evidently formed
a large share of it, and the use to which she has put her studies in
this direction suggests a second course, embracing the French-
iest of the French novels of to-day. A novel by the same
writer, called The Quick or the Dead? issued in Lippincott's
about the same time, furnishes still more ample occasion for the
verdict foreshadowed by what preceded it. In the interest of
young girls who write without quite understanding what they
say, and still less what they suggest, there might well be a cen-
sorship, if not of the brotherly or the paternal sort, then of the
editorial. Some day this pretty young woman who allows her
picture to precede her story, and then paints her heroine so as
to resemble it extremely who takes the veil from her sensations
as she does the fichu from her shoulders, and tears her passions
to rags and tatters to amuse the groundlings and to make her-
self the subject of talk which would doubtless cause her ears to
burn could she imagine or overhear it, will doubtless know more
than she seems to know at present. And then will come her
day of sadness and lamentation, as now has come that of her
hysteria and folly.

One of the most delightful books of the year is The Island,
or An Adventure of a Person of Quality, by Richard Whiteing
(London and New York: Longman, Green & Co.), an English-
man whose admirable letters from Paris were, some years ago,
a notable feature of the New York World. It is hard to define
its charm, because it is so composite. There is the style, to
begin with, limpid, flexible, absolutely free from affectation, and
yet with a crisp airiness of touch more French than English.
And then the humor of it is so pleasant, the sentiment so clean

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 695

and kept so well away from sentimentalism, the conception of
the heroine, Victoria, so large and fine, and the expedient of her
outworn but nobly-respected affection for poor " Curly," which
supplies the necessary material for the struggle without which
most love-stories must be tame in the telling, is kept so well
in the air! Taken by themselves, here would be reasons enough
for pronouncing a verdict of excellent on any book. But The
Island has still another excuse for being in its clever satire on the
greed, and humbug, and anti-social life .of England in the first
place, but, by implication, of all existing civilization. The story
is told by the " Person of Quality," who, finding himself " out
of focus " with London and Paris on account of the chronic
dissatisfaction which he feels to underlie it all, embarks on an
Italian trading vessel for a voyage round the world. By an ac-
cident he is cast ashore on what he believes to be a desert
island, and the ship sails away without him. But the island is
Pitcairn's. It contains about a hundred souls, descendants of
the original mutineers of the Bounty, guileless, pure, and peace-
able, living all for each, and having one great ideal, England, to
whose larger aspirations toward perfect justice and more sure
attainment of human blessedness they bend their eyes with in-
nocent longing. The " Person of Quality " is a godsend to
them. What they imperfectly know concerning that heaven on
earth over which rules Victoria the Good he will be able to
impart in all its precious fulness :

" So it was one long, bewildering inquisition. Would I tell them of the
great churches, the great wonders manifold of that far-off Isle of the Saints ?
What of the rulers and statesmen, of the bishops, those captains of cap-
tains of the thousands of God ; of the choirs of the faithful five thousand
strong, as they had heard hymning Handel under a crystal dome ? They
seemed to see human life not at all as a mere struggle, but as a great race
for a crown of virtue, in which Britain was first, and their poor island so
decidedly nowhere that she could afford to sink rivalry in unqualified ad-
miration. I winced, and winced, and winced again.

" ' We are but poor things here, and we know it,' said the schoolmaster.

" ' You will improve,' I said kindly.

'''Well, sir, we are always ready to learn; perhaps you would like to
take a service yourself next Sunday ? You are not in orders, but you
have heard the Archbishop of Canterbury, I dare say.'

" ' No, only a bishop now and then.'

"'Oh! what opportunities,' said Victoria sadly. 'We once had a navy
chaplain here, but it was four years ago. Though, of course, that is no
excuse for our not being better than we are.'

" ' They say he has fifteen thousand a year to spend on the poor,' said
the schoolmaster, returning to the Primate.

696 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug.,

'"Yes, he has fifteen thousand a year.'

"'I've heard of a lady who has made fifty thousand people happy all
by herself/ said one of the women. ' She's a baroness.'

"And that's not the highest,' said another; 'there's duchesses who
must be richer. O/i, what a country for the poor /"'

Again, Victoria, who is the daughter of the governor of
Pitcairn, appeals to the stranger to lead her and her companions
" to the higher ground." " Civilize us," she says to him.

" ' Make us like England. Give us larger things to live for. Tell us what
we must do. There must be something wanting, but I cannot tell what it
is. It all seems so beautiful here the shining sun, friends to love, peace,
the singing, the sea, the very wind in this wood ! Yet I know there must
be something. That is why the queen's ships never come again. We are
like children, perhaps.'

'" Keep so.'

" ' No, no ; we want to be like you. This is baby-land. Make us great
and good. You know the secret : you have lived there' "

Thus adjured the Person begins his task of enlightenment,
warning Victoria beforehand that "it hurts." " How else could
we expect it to do us good?" rejoins innocence. That very
night the preliminary instruction is given in this wise to her and
her father. We wish we could quote it all, but quotation from
Mr. Whiteing is too tempting too easy, moreover, for he is
guilty of no padding. He explains that what is chiefly neces-
sary to conform them to their ideal is " variety of formation "
in other words, " the division of classes":

" Look at the beautiful gradation at home an aristocracy for the fine
art of life ; a middle class for the moral qualities, which are not fine art, but
only helps to it; a lower for the mere drudgery outside of both art and
morals. The great mark of all progressive nations is that struggle of each
man to make some other do his dirty work for him, which is commonly known
as aspiration for the higher life. A few live in dignity, unhaste, affluence,
and wear the fine flower of manners ; but to sustain the costly show, and
help them so to live, the many gi-ve up all hope of these things on their own
account, sometimes forming perfect castes, who do the dirty work from
father to son, as others fill the office of earl marshal. . . . This self-deny-
ing section has many names. Sometimes it is called the slave class ; but
' working ' or ' lower ' class, or ' sons of toil " is usually preferred, as being
the politer and less descriptive term. They engage in all the malodorous
tasks, to the end that the others may smell sweet and accumulate porce-
lain. . . . Now you are in a curious, not to say an unexampled position.
You are withoutthis indispensable class ; and how you have got on even so
far without it is a mystery to me. ... A few centuries ago we were no bet-
ter off than you : every man with his bit of land for tillage, his common for
grazing, a rather demoralizing plenty in every hut no really efficient slave
qlass, in fact. But a patriotic nobility soon put a stop to that, enclosed

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 697

the commons, broke up the small farms, and made a proletariat that is, to
this day, the wonder and the envy of. the world. . . . You have to master
the principle of the movement, that is all. Teach a whole community to
unite riches with righteousness as the object of its hunger and thirst ; and the
thirst, especially, will beget a tremulous cerebral excitement which will
keep it always on the go. . . . The great principle is, not as I fear you
imagine that one man's best of service ought to count as another man's
best in respect to his right to tjie needful things of life, but that, on the con-
trary, each bit of human helpfulness should be weighed in a balance, and
more pudding given to those whose morsel weighs most.' . . .

"'But won't the others get less?' said Victoria, now beginning, I
thought, to repent of her part in the plot.

" ' Oh ! yes, but the others are stupid.'

" ' They are brothers.'

" ' Only by courtesy, I think you will find. " Brothers in Christ Jesus,"
I believe is the exact term.'

'" They get hungry three times a day all the same,' said the girl, flash-
ing revolt.

"' I am afraid you will begin to think I want to civilize you against
your will,' I returned after a pause. The rising was quelled."

Two very taking books for boys are Robert Louis Stevenson's
Black Arrow (New York : Charles Scribner's Sons) and W. L. Al-
den's New Robinson Crusoe (New York: Harper & Brothers).
Mr. Stevenson is one of the pleasantest of contemporary writers,
no matter on what subject he tries his pen, and independently,
almost, of whether one agrees with what he happens to be saying
when he speaks in his own person and not as mere story-teller.
The Black Arrow is a tale of the Two Roses, with Richard Crook-
back as one of the characters. Nevertheless it is interesting,
though hardly so much so as Treasure Island was.

Mr. Alden is, as usual, very funny. His hero is Mike Flana-
gan, who at sixteen is cast away on a desert island in company
with Mr. James Robinson Crusoe, a passenger on the ship in
which Mike sailed as ordinary seaman. The island Mr. Crusoe
recognizes as the identical one in which his " sainted grand-
father," Robinson Crusoe, of whom Mike had never heard before,
was likewise cast away. Mr. Crusoe deems it a filial duty to re-
produce, so far as may be, every incident of his grandparent's
solitary life. He is not even reconciled to Mike's presence, use-
ful and agreeable as he finds him, until he conceives the expe-
dient of blackening him with a burnt cork and rechristening him
Friday. On this thread of a scheme, capable as only Mr. Alden
could make it of being knotted in all manner of serviceably
funny ways, the story is constructed. Mr. James Robinson
Crusoe is, of course, a lunatic, whose voyage was begun in search
of sanity. How it comes to him at last, after Mike has under-

698 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug.,

gone much amusing martyrdom in honor of his companion's " old
idiot of a grandfather," is worth reading the book to learn.

Mr. Thomas Hardy, in Wessex Tales (Harper & Brothers), be-
gins to write like a man who is tired out. There is not one of
these stories, " strange, lively, and commonplace," which is not
extremely suggestive of a literary tread-mill which for some
reason or other must be kept going, irrespective of the fatigue of
the creature supplying the motive power. He has still an abun-
dance of raw material to work up, but of the zest with which he
once turned out the completed product, and which he imparted
to us who consumed it so readily in the days when he was telling
us about A Pair of Blue Eyes and Far from the Madding Crowd,
or even the Mayor of Casterbridge, no trace appears in the pres-
ent collection.

The collected Poems of Rose Terry Cooke are brought out in
a handsome volume by W. S. Gottsberger (New York). There
are some very pleasant verses in it. Mrs. Cooke's muse never
takes a very lofty flight, but it always sustains itself well above
the level of the commonplace, and in such poems as " My Cup,"
" The Man who loved the Queen," " Nonnettes," " Prayer," and
" Mary, the Mother of the Lord," she makes good her claim
to serious admiration and remembrance. And as a rule, to both
her sentiment and her technique the same epithets may be ap-
plied pure, unexciting, faultless.

The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (Boston : Roberts Brothers)
marks, we believe, by general consent of his most ardent admir-
ers, the high-water level of George Meredith's achievement.
There is no doubt that the level is a really high one, as there is
also no doubt that Mr. Meredith's most ardent admirers number
among them many of those whose admiration seems best worth
having. Thus Mr. Stevenson, who does so much good work
himself, says of him modestly that he is " easily the master of
us all." There is even a growing Meredith cult, which, like the
contemporary Browning worship, provides a narrowly exclusive
test of the critical faculty, Mr. Meredith being not infrequently
" caviare to the general. 1 ' Those who can endure it well become
acknowledged "past-masters" of appreciation. He is "the
novelist of novelists," as we were told long ago, at a time when
Evan Harrington, after being half read, proved for the second
time too much for our own powers of endurance, by reason, as
we inclined to believe, of its vulgarity of tone, and its affectations
in point of style, while Vittoria positively declined to let itself be
read at all. But Richard Feverel \s not hard reading. It comes

1 8 88.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 699

wonderfully near being a great book. It is crammed with good
things in the way of epigrams and pithy sayings. It has some
notable character-drawing. It is interesting in point of plot and
narrative. But it just barely misses the bull's-eye of completely
satisfactory achievement of such achievement as one gratefully
ascribes to Thackeray in Vanity Fair, or, for that matter, in The
Newcomes and Henry Esmond. And it misses it for a reason al-
most identical with that which brought Sir Austin Feverel's
plans for his son so painfully to naught. It is, like that gentle-
man's scheme of education, too visibly the result of a "system."
It never grew spontaneously ; it was watched, as Richard Fev-
erel was watched, by a progenitor who proposed to play the part
of Providence to his offspring. " The perfection of art is to con-
ceal art," they tell us, and we believe it. But we believe, also,
that it is a perfection unattainable by the conscious artist. Sir
Austin, desiring to make a nonpareil of his worse than mother-
less son, sets out to guard him from all temptations, to shut out
the knowledge of evil, to pull at all the springs of action from an
unseen coigne of vantage, as if Richard were a puppet, while yet
fostering every worthy seed of manhood. When he has success-
fully brought him to " the magnetic age ; the age of violent at-
tractions, when to hear mention of love is dangerous, and to see
it a communication of the disease," Sir Austin sets out in search
of a fitting wife for him. He leaves Richard behind him, with
misgivings and unwillingly, and yet he leaves him, well-persuad-
ed that to a boy of nineteen there will be small attraction in a
little bread-and-butter miss of thirteen or so for Sir Austin has
no mind that his son shall become a husband under twenty-five,
and a wife must be trained for him on the same general lines as
have been followed with himself.

But hardly has the father's back been turned, when the son's
head follows suit. He meets his fate at sunrise on a summer
morning; she is plucking dewberries on the bank of the weir
across which Richard is pulling his pleasure boat, and when they
look into each other's eyes all is over with them in the senti-
mental way. She is very charming, Mr. Meredith's little Lucy
Desborough. There is hardly anything sweeter than she, so far
as we know, in all modern fiction. Thackeray we rate far higher
than Meredith, but he has drawn no girl so innocent, so fair and
loving as this one. The story is too long and complicated to
outline all the plot. Suffice it that Richard contracts a clandes-
tine marriage while yet a minor. The father, not contented to
abandon his system, contrives the separation of the pair, not in-

700 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug.,

tending it to be final, but wishing to subject Richard to the
various trials he believes necessary to his perfection. Among
them is that of throwing him into the way of vile temptations. If
he passes them successfully at this stage, or even should he
momentarily succumb, it will be a preservative against doing so
later on, at the age when men, as Sir Austin knows them, are
more prone to fall. Richard comes very near passing this ordeal
scathless he is as pure as his own Lucy and as heartily in love.
Yet he falls, and the fall hurts him so, by reason of his excep-
tional training, that the separation from his wife which he has
hitherto borne with anguish, he now perpetuates through shame
and an unendurable sense of guilt. And when at last he is per-
suaded that he may return and find a welcome, he learns, just as
he is about to do so, that Lucy also has been subjected on prin-
ciple to a trial somewhat like his own, and though she has passed
it without even a suspicion on her own part of what had been
intended, yet the knowledge fires Richard into fury. He chal-
lenges the man whom he wrongly supposes to have made love
to his wife, is dangerously wounded, and Lucy dies of brain
fever, induced by grief, before he recovers. As the reader sees,
the scheme of the story is wholly artificial. The treatment of it
is much less so, but nevertheless, as a whole, it remains too con-
scious, too wanting in simplicity, to attain real greatness. And
yet how near it comes!

Mr. Edgar Fawcett's latest " Chronicle of Contemporary
Life" is called Olivia Delaplaine (Boston : Ticknor & Co.) It is
colorless, unexciting, and, we should incline to believe, not harm-
ful unless, indeed, to literary tyros, to whom the style would
offer an extremely undesirable model. Mr. Fawcett is not a
pessimist like his friend, Mr. Saltus. He seems to be an optimist
by choice in point of morals, which is greatly to his credit, but
we fear he is a snob, more or less unwillingly, in.some other re-
spects. He is as inveterately and successfully given to the chase
of the wild platitude as Mr. Roe, but he lacks that author's sim-
plicity and good faith about it. Mr. Fawcett brings down the
same game and bags it, but he wilfully ignores its name and
nature. He has said of himself that his " most authentic gift is
poetry," and perhaps it is. " Authentic," by the way, is a word
in high favor with Mr. Fawcett. He employs it on all occasions
and in the most bewildering combinations. Thus he says of his
hero that " the process which went on with him as often as he
bade farewell to Tom, spoke a greeting word to Dick, or shook
hands with Harry, was no less undeliberate than it was authen-

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 701

tic/' and of his heroine that "it had never authentically trans-
pired that she had married Spencer Delaplaine with the fixed
belief in his immediate death.'' Why not " validly exuded " as
an alternate and equally delightful phrase? We do not wish to
imply that Mr. Fawcett's story is devoid of merit. It shows
some skill in construction and a certain knowledge of not very
admirable human nature, and we believe it obtains contented
readers. It is only fair, therefore, to add that readers who can
be pleased with Mr. Fawcett are tolerably sure not to be morally
injured by him. Moreover, they are probably incapable of
being- deteriorated by his influence in matters of taste.

Stubble or Wheat ? A Story of More Lives than One (New
.York : A. D. F. Randolph & Co.), is by an enthusiastic son of
Princeton and disciple of Dr. McCosh, Mr. S. Bayard Dod. He
offers it as "a spray of rosemary " to his Alma Mater. They
teach sound metaphysics at Princeton, and Mr. Dod has profit-
ed by the tuition. But his English style does not speak so well
for his college as do his sentiments with regard to Schopenhauer
and the evils of pessimism. His hero, Sydney Morris, who once
blandly says to Dr. McCosh in class concerning some philosophi-
cal profundity, " I can't agree with you, sir," and is told in re-
ply, " I am very sorry that you can't, Mr. Morris," hears, while
he is searching after the " Ding an Sick,"

" the blare of the brazen trumpet with which Schopenhauer proclaim-
ed himself the prophet to whom it was given to unravel the mystery,
and to tell men the answer to the unanswerable, to the question that con-
tains in itself an argument in a circle, a contradiction in terms. It fell in
with all his vague imaginings, his unhealthy dreams, his unhappy grasp-
ing after what is not, and cannot be, and ought not to be within the com-
pass of the human mind and heart ; namely, to be happy in itself, self-
centred, self-satisfied, self-being all and in all."

And, being an honest, simple-minded youth simple in its
good sense of sincere Sydney takes pessimism seriously. He
is not

" strong enough to toy with it as a purely mental exercise, and prate,
in gloomy jeremiads, of the afflictions of life, and yet live the life of a Sy-
barite ; to pose as a grim philosopher, who saw beneath the surface the
hidden mysteries of life and could expose the hollow sham, while yet he
enjoyed life to the full ; and did not think it all the part of a philosopher,
any more than it was that of an apothecary, to swallow his own drugs ; to
make the bitter tinctures for others, while he himself drank wine. Sydney
was too earnest and too sincere a nature to play such a part. He was too
impulsive to be able to resist the impetus of such a train of thinking, or to
adopt it without 'pursuing it to its fair, legitimate termination."

7O2 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Aug.,

Suicide, that is to say, dawns upon Sydney as the only proper
and rational end of human existence. But while considering the
best means to accomplish it, the ex-Princetonian falls in love, and
as he is beloved again, and happily married, he begins to recon-
sider his position. All would have doubtless gone well with him
had not his wife developed symptoms of heart disease. They did
not necessarily point to a speedily fatal termination, said the doc-
tor, but she should avoid excitement and worry, and live a quiet
country life. And then, with this provocation, up came again,
and finally, the fatal tree of pessimism, sprouting from its deadly
germ. Sydney is once more persuaded that all life is evil
because one precious life is in danger. He dawdles about, and
having, as a rich man, no steady occupation, he sets himself to
contemplate " suicide as a fine art."

"It was not the mere extinction of life that so enthralled his mind.
That was the gross, the brutal side of the matter. He aimed at the slow
extinction, one by one, of those vital powers which, to him, were only
avenues of suffering.''

In pursuit of this aim he tries inhaling nitrous oxide, don't
like the effects and drops it, declaring as he awakes groaning from
its " anaesthetic influence " that this is " the very purgatory of the
Romish theology." Then he opens" one of the veins of the fore-
arm, and watches the great drops of the warm, fluid life fall, one
by one," until he finds himself getting very sick at the stomach,
his head in a whirl and his eyes dim, but not, apparently, too
dim to see about applying a timely tourniquet. Haschish also
he experiments with, and then opium ; likewise absinthe. And
finally, under the influence of too persistent daily doses of the
latter, he flings himself into the river. His mental process seems
to have been like this : Life, as life, is no good. Yet it would be
good to me if Gladys had not heart disease, and I were sure she
would live as long as I do. But she has heart disease, and so life
is, as a matter of fact as well as by theory, no good. I will make
sure that she shall live as long as I do by dying now. Where-
upon he incontinently makes her a widow, and, being an optimis-
tic widow, she gets over the difficulty with her mitral valve, and
when last heard from was flourishing and in great peace.

Mr. Dod's little book, his " spray of rosemary," is not very well
worth reading. As a class exercise one feels that, though
lengthy, it might have been a striking success. Or had it been
printed for private circulation, the author might have reaped
much consoling commendation from his readers. But for the
general public! That is quite another thing.

.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 703

WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

A CONVERT'S PROFESSION OF FAITH.

The following eloquent letter of a recent convert to a prominent Methodist
minister first appeared in the Nashville Democrat. Our readers will thank us
for laying it before them :

" DEAR DR. KELLEY : I see from your lecture yesterday that two or three
very important facts have impressed themselves upon your mind while comparing
Protestantism and Catholicism. As I have made, most laboriously, the journey
from the gloomy regions of doubt and denial to the serene and bright land of
promise, I must feel the keenest interest in every sincere soul driven from its
moorings and looking for safety. With a hope to direct your attention to facts
as clear as the noon-day sun, though eyes blinded by prejudice cannot see them,
I write this letter. The Church is not an organization like a political party ; she
is a sentient being ; she knows the facts of her history as you know yours ; she
has a heart ; she has a mind ; she has a will which belongs to her as yours does to
you ; all along the centuries she is the same ; ever ancient and ever new ; everyield-
ing, when to yield does not forfeit her divine commission to teach all truth ; ever
firm in the maintenance of those dogmas through the belief of which alone can
the human race be saved ; as well talk of a man without bones as of a church
without dogmas. Admit dogma, admit authority and without authority, which
means law, there is chaos everywhere in the physical, political, and moral world,
and you must ' go to Rome.' But I meant to speak of the gentleness of the
church to the sinful, the sorrowful, the poor. It is not a doled-out alms she
gives, but the warm mother-love which has no equal beneath the heavens. It
cannot be counterfeited, and, verily, her children feel its reality. You have only
to look in their faces to see the truth of this assertion, any day in the year, at any
Catholic church in this city. Protestantism (of course I speak of the system, not
of individuals) is a sham which deals in symbols the bread is a symbol ; the
wine is a symbol ; good works are a symbol. Catholicism is real and in earnest
to the smallest detail ; the bread and wine are the real Flesh and Blood of our
Lord ; all the holy Sacraments are real, and their effects as vitalizing to the soul
as the sunshine is to the world of matter ; so necessary are they that vigorous
spiritual life is ordinarily impossible without them. Ah ! more and more I
wonder that Protestants can denude themselves of their riches. How can they
give up the strong and sweet consolations of their mother and go away into the
coldness of poverty to gnaw the bone of ' intellectual freedom '? What a fallacy !
Almighty God has, in his wisdom, revealed all religious truth to one body only
the church through the apostles and their successors. No amount of intellect
could have found out religious truths. They are of revelation. Outside that
domain everything in the universe is free to man's inquiry. Surely, no sane being
can find in that law a fetter to shackle his intellect. Only by obedience to law
can man find freedom.

Our mother, who is worthy to be called the ' Bride of Christ,' and ' without
spot or wrinkle,' is a real mother : she teaches her stronger children to protect the
weaker, and love makes them all one family. Since our Lord confirmed Peter in
authority, since the church entered on her active mission of blessing and serving

704. WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [Aug.,

mankind, never has there been a moment when her faithful children were not
offering day by day, moment by moment, every pulsation of their hearts, every
energy of their being, to be consumed by her in the service of God. Our priests
and sisters, so firm in faith, so strong in intellect, so gentle in heart, so innocent
in life, are heroes and heroines whose steady courage is an example, an inspira-
tion, to us poor halting strugglers in the battle for good against evil. Protestant-
ism almost ignores God it almost asserts and really believes that to do good
to our fellow-beings is sufficient to save our own souls. The church proclaims
with the voice of authority that God rules our duty to him is first and last.
Men must be loved and served for God's sake.

And now comes the miracle which you see and have the courage to ac-
knowledge, and which in our Lord's time excited the wonder even of those who
saw sight restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, life to the dead, and, wonder
of wonders ! the Gospel is preached to the poor. Nowhere on earth can that
magnet be found which unites the rich and the poor except in the church. The
marvel is that men do not realize that the spirit of God must dwell where such
union exists that charity which passeth all understanding has always been the
property of the church. In all ages and countries men and women have stripped
themselves of everything dear to the carnal mind, and have lived and died tri-
umphant that the promise of a hundred-fold returned even in this world had been
fulfilled.

Protestants, as individuals, are often wonderfully good. The church teaches
of faith, that in a certain sense God's Holy Spirit is with every man born into
the world, but as an organization Protestantism is a curse to the world I heartily
believe. It is not for me to say that you or any other good man may not go to
heaven that is not the question just now but I do say that every breath of truth
is healthy for the soul, that the church is the pillar and ground of truth, and
that no man can possibly be as happy out of her communion as in it. As well
tell me that the shaded light, the foetid odors of a jail are as delightful as the
blossom-laden winds of the free hills. A Protestant may honestly think he has
faith ; a childless woman may press to her bosom the child of another ; she may
think that no love could possibly be stronger, but when she feels the warm
pressure of the lips of her own baby she will be ready to say, ' I know and feel
the difference.' So it is with the Christian who at last finds himself safe in the
bark of Peter ; this is safety, this is peace. This, Dr. Kelley, is not my testi-
mony alone, but the voice that rings along the corridors of time. Dr. Johnson
remarked that no man in his day could point to a single death-bed recantation
of the belief of the Catholic Church, while the apostates from Protestantism
when brought to that true and real test were numerous. The fact exists to this
day, and it is worth consideration.

"With my hearty wishes for your temporal and spiritual welfare, I am, re-
spectfully, your friend, MRS. M."

PLEASE BE MORE ACCURATE.

We notice that the article of " Our Drinks and our Drunkards " in THE CA-
THOLIC WORLD for June contains some statements which are liable to give a
false impression.

On p. 348 we read : " From corn, rye, and wheat we get the alcohols which,

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 705

in the form we drink them, are known as whiskey. These alcohols are not the
same as the alcohol of brandy. They are amylic alcohols."

Now, from this certainly it would be generally understood that the alcohol of
whiskey amounting often to above half its whole weight or volume was amylic
(or amyl) alcohol. But, in point of fact, we have only to consult any organic
chemistry to find that amyl alcohol, though undoubtedly to be found as a partial
product in the process of fermentation, is far from being the principal one. For
example, Richter says (p. 95, Smith's translation) : " The various sugars when
fermenting break up principally into ethyl alcohol and carbonic dioxide. Other
compounds, like propyl, butyl, and amyl alcohols (the fusel alcohols), glycerol
and succinic acid, are produced in small quantities at the same time."

Undoubtedly amyl alcohol is not a wholesome thing, and it may be well ad-
mitted that three ounces will kill a man. But at this rate, on what is implied in
the article, as quoted above, it would not take much whiskey to produce the same
effect. Experience, however,- shows no such difference between whiskey and
brandy. There is many a man who could take his six ounces of either and sur-
vive without difficulty.

Later on we find it stated (p. 349) that the " brandies,' 1 as well as other liquors,
" which three-fourths of the people drink are made from these poisonous alco-
hols '' ; though previously the writer made a distinction, but not a very well
founded one, for they may be formed to some extent in the fermentation of grape-
sugar as well as in that of maltose.

Loose writing of this sort should be avoided. It does as much harm as good
to the cause of temperance.

" GOD IS LOVE."

Yes. But not the God of Calvin, nor of Rev. A. H. Strong, D.D., who, in his
book on Philosophy and Religion* asserts that the holiness of God necessitates
his justice but not his love. God, he would have us believe, may or may not be
merciful, but he must be just that is to say, mercy is optional with him, but
justice not.

Oh ! what a deadly venom is couched in these words ! And the worst feature
about them is that they pass current among so many as orthodox views. By a
strange perversity (and what but Calvinism is responsible for it) the very extreme
of heterodoxy has become the palladium of orthodoxy ; error has usurped the
seat of truth. To fear God is made the chief duty of man ; what is only the be-
ginning is made the end of wisdom in direct contradiction to the words of St.
Paul, who says that " love is the fulfilment of the law." So fatal is this error, so
unworthy of a Christian this conception of God and the duty we owe him, that we
think it was no exaggeration for Tertullian to say that God would rather a man
should doubt his divinity than his mercy. The denial that God's holiness is love
is practically the denial of God himself. Take away the idea that God's holiness
is essentially love and the whole raison d'etre of religion is destroyed. It was a
misguided, God-fearing father who reared the God-hating Ingersoll.

* Philosophy and Religion : A Series of Addresses, Essays, and Sermons. Designed to
set forth Great Truths in Popular Form. By Augustus Hopkins Strong, D.D., President and
Professor of Biblical Theology in the Rochester (Baptist) Theological Seminary. New York :
A. C. Armstrong & Son.

VOL. XLVii. 45

706 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [Aug.,

Now, genuine orthodoxy holds that charity and mercy belong to the very es-
sence of holiness, that is, are inseparable from it, and finds the most perfect syno-
nym for God in the word love. Caritas might be substituted for Deus in every
Catholic prayer. It was this orthodoxy which gave us the English word God
horn good. It was the love of God which made him create, which made him be-
come man, which made him suffer and die upon the cross, and unless holiness
and love are one, these things are inconceivable. Holiness and justice are one, or
there is no such thing as sin ; holiness and love are one, or there is no such thing
as forgiveness. If love be subordinate to justice in God, sin is never really for-
given, which is something like what Calvinism teaches.

The true Christian teaching is that mercy and justice are both inherent attri-
butes of God, and that we cannot, strictly speaking, say that one of them is
greater than the other, because they are both infinite ; but, if we consider them in
their actual operation upon all men, we may truly say that God's mercy is greater
than his justice. As Holy Scripture says : " His mercy is over all his works." The
holy Psalmist says : " Thy justice is as the mountains, thy mercy is in the heav-
ens," and we interpret the passage to mean that as high as the heavens are above
the mountains, so high is God's mercy above his justice. It would have been
less an error, we take it, if Dr. Strong had asserted that the holiness of God
necessitates his love but not his justice.

Now, we maintain that there is only one possible explanation of the relation
of these two attributes, viz., that God by nature is equally (i.e., infinitely) merci-
ful and just, and the two attributes are necessarily in perfect harmony. It follows
from this that God is merciful as well as just to all men. He has shown by his
acts far more mercy to some men who are reprobates than to others who are
saints.

Dr. Strong's theory of the relation of justice and mercy to holiness is behind
the age. Happily the present trend of evangelical theology is in an opposite di-
rection. New Haven not Rochester is leading the van of progress toward
truth ! Professor George B. Stevens, of Yale University, who is a fair represen-
tative of the best thought and profoundest scholarship among the orthodox Con-
gregationalists, has in the New Englander and Yale Review for June refuted Dr.
Strong's theory of justice and mercy in a most able manner. We heartily ap-
prove of all that he says in his article, but would call special attention to the fal-
lowing point which he makes :

" If love is not at least co ordinate with justice in the Divine nature, no logical ground can
be found in the Divine Being for the work of redemption. . . . The perfection and glory of
the Divine Being consist in the eternally perfect harmony in unity of all the qualities of his life.
To us this stratification of attributes is unsatisfactory in itself and doubly so in the results to
which it leads."

Enough of this Rochester theological pessimism. H. H. WYMAN.

ZEAL FOR SOULS.

We understand that a new congregation of missionary priests, under the name
of the Congregation of St. Peter Claver, is soon to be canonically established
at 1'Abbaye de Clairefontaine, near Arlon, Belgium, to provide priests for the
European immigrants in America. " The harvest indeed is great, but the labor-
ers are few '' ; we therefore pray the Lord to send us these good men whenever

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 707

they are willing to come. Great numbers of our non-English-speaking immi-
grants, outside of French and Germans, who are reasonably well provided for,
will be lost unless good, zealous priests, who are of their nationality and who
speak their language, can be had. If only three such men were to come to New
York or Chicago, they could do a great work. If pastors in the city or country
could call upon them to preach, instruct, and hear confessions, the scattered
immigrants might be reached. Rev. Henri Degrenne, missionary apostolic at
1'Abbaye de Clairefontaine, Belgium, enumerates four objects of the institute to be
founded there: (i) To instruct boys in view of the missionary priesthood ; (2)
To give clerics a good course of theology to the same end ; (3) To form priests
for the missionary life ; (4) To receive lay brothers, whose office will be to teach
the catechism and aid the missionaries in their labors.

Our readers can obtain a fuller understanding of this work by reading the
Revue de V Emigration, which was commenced on July i of the present year.
The subscription price of this magazine is six francs per year, which should be
sent to the office of that journal, 1'Abbaye de Clairefontaine.

THE GREGORIAN MASSES AND CONGREGATIONAL SINGING.

The Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD :

DEAR SIR : I have read with great interest the articles published at different
times in THE CATHOLIC WORLD on church music and congregational singing,
and I heartily endorse the general tenor thereof. Vesper service, the whole con-
gregation uniting in singing, would be attended almost as well as the Mass of
obligation, and would, in a certain sense, be more enjoyed because more directly
co-operated in. Almost everybody can be trained to sing, if the training com-
mences at school, and the Vespers, with all the responses at Mass, being easy of
execution and rather melodious, could without much difficulty be learned by the
largest portion of the congregation.

But what about the Gregorian Masses ? They are found in the body and at
the end of the Gradual I have before me the Mechlin edition and seem to be
very poor music ; nay, the very poorest of the whole body of Gregorian chant.
The Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei form a much larger portion
of the chant at Mass than the Introit, Graduate, Offertorium, and Post-Commu-
nio ; and yet, whilst there is much variety of tone, and even much solemn and im-
pressive sweetness, in these latter parts, there is, in my humble opinion, little
variety and scarcely any musical value, considered in the light of solemnity, dig-
nity, or melody, in the greater portion of the chant at Mass. I suppose some
like these Masses, but I do not. Degustibus non est disputandum : maccaroni to
the Italian, sauerkraut to the German, baked beans to the New-Englander taste
best ; snails are relished by some nations and dog-meat by others. If Italian,
German, New-Englander were to dispute the question which dish be the best,
argument would avail nothing, but relative taste would decide the matter, and
each nation would be inclined to consider the others' taste vitiated. Do not, then,
ask me for any argument on this Gregorian question. Taste my individual taste,
I may add is my guide. The refined preparation of any kind of food whatever,
with its piquant condiments might make it fairly palatable to any palate. So
also any common ditty, in itself distasteful to the cultivated ear, but sung in
proper tempo with some expression, rightly harmonized, executed by a large

7oS WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [Aug.,

chorus of trained voices, and sustained by a powerful accompaniment, is apt to be
favorably received by everybody. Even these Gregorian Masses, if chanted by a
large and well-trained choir, harmonized for different voices, sung in good tempo,
and properly divided as to intervals and sustained by the full notes of the organ,
are apt to be impressive.

St. Gregory knew not the power of the organ, and harmonizing is a modern
innovation in his chant, though perhaps a necessity in order to make the chant
more in accordance to musical taste. Good music is beautiful without these ac-
cessories. Take the Requiem Mass of the Graduale : harmonizing spoils it ;
leave even the organ silent, and let it be sung plainly and earnestly by a few male
voices, and a congregation is moved to tears. But these Gregorian Masses seem
to have been an afterthought in the formation of the chant of the church. I have
played them for several years, and they seem to be made of such poor musical
material, devoid of harmony and melody, the time is so monotonous, that it would
scarcely appear reasonable that the church should require this chant and no more.

I have often thought that the angels, when singing the Gloria in excelsis at
the birth of our Lord, could not possibly have manifested their joy by means of
the Gregorian Gloria of these Masses. I hate all operatic and trivial music in
church, but at certain festivals, expressive of Christian joy, I am pleased to hear
music corresponding with the spirit of the festival, and I believe the Lord, too, is
pleased with these joyful emotions of the heart. David danced before the ark
with all his might, for he was greatly rejoiced in bringing the Lord into his house,
and were we simple enough as some good children in Spain, who, I am told, exe-
cute a dance before the Blessed Sacrament we too, each in his own way, might
dedicate our affections and emotions to God. These examples are alleged not
for imitation, but simply as an illustration of an idea.

These Gregorian Masses have on some a depressing effect, and are suggestive
of gloom, rather than tending to elevate, to console, and to brighten, effects
which we may justly seek in the exercises of religion ; and I wonder not that
musicians, sometimes successfully, sometimes otherwise, have sought to produce
Masses more corresponding to the cheering feelings of religious souls.

The congregation might be taught to sing also at Mass, if some easy and
melodious Masses could be substituted for the Gregorian ones,

ORGANIST.

SURPLICED CHOIRS.

In Harper's Magazine for June appeared an interesting article, beautifully il-
lustrated, telling the story of the early rise and gradual development of the sur-
pliced choirs in New York. The studied indifference of the writer to any effort
of Catholics in New York in this direction, as well as his cool assumption that the
surpliced or boy choir is an entirely Anglican institution, prompts us to say a word
on this subject.

That the surpliced choir of men and boys not, indeed, the monstrosity of
" surpliced women," which the writer in Harper's fancies would be tolerable in
an Episcopalian Church does not owe its beginnings to the English Church is
a matter of history. It is, moreover, evident from the very nature of the only mel-
ody which the Catholic Church has officially put into the mouths of her clergy,
and those who would assist them in interpreting her sacred liturgy, the Gregorian
chant. All, both men and women, may sing the chant with profit to themselves

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 709

and even edification to their hearers if they sing with a religious motive ; but
there can be no doubt that the fulness and sonorousness of a male chorus best in-
terpret its spirit. I can hardly fancy that the saintly men who arranged and sys-
tematized the chant ever pictured to themselves a bevy of the gentler sex, even
were they disguised in ample surplices, striving to interpret that sacred melody in
an organ-loft, much less in the sanctuary of a church open to the general use of
the public. Of course, where there are monasteries of religious women their
choir service is devotional and rubrical.

The cathedrals as well as all the monastic institutions of Europe have had for
centuries before the English Church existed their choir schools, where men and
boys were trained to chant with the clergy the offices of the church. Many of
these still exist, and it is to these Catholic schools, to these cradles of musical cul-
ture, that most of our celebrated musicians owe their first inspirations. The gift-
ed Gounod, with others, confesses this.

Why, then, it may be asked, have not we in this country followed up some such
useful system for training choristers as the choir schools of Europe ? The first
and most obvious reason is simply that we have been too poor. We have had to
beg and borrow too many dollars to build our churches and schools that is to say,
to provide the merest necessaries of the worship and instruction of the people.
Again, our clergy who could and would interest themselves in a work of this kind
have had to give up so much of their valuable time to this dollars-and-cents and
brick-and-mortar business that the work of training choristers was lost sight of,
or handed over to laymen who knew little and sometimes cared less for any tra-
ditions that extended beyond their own limited experience. But the time is ap-
proaching when these reasons will have ceased, and then this important church
work will be entered into with the same zeal and energy that has already accom-
plished such wonders in other directions.

Still, among Catholics throughout the country notable efforts have been made
in this direction and with no little success. Of this fact the writer in Harper's is
either ignorant or purposely forgetful. To speak only of New York. It is now
some eighteen years since the first choristers, duly vested in cassock and surplice,
began to chant the whole liturgical service in the Paulist Fathers' church. Al-
though critics may find room for improvement in that choir, still the choristers
there need not at all feel ashamed of their success. And what is far more to
their credit, they sing for the honor and glory of God, waiting for their salaries in
the next world, remembering well that God does not pay those who labor for him
every Saturday night in current money of this world. Concerning this surpliced
choir a musical critic, not a Catholic, wrote in a pamphlet lately published : " The
two finest examples of the two extremes (namely, the Catholic and Anglican ec-
clesiastical styles) are undoubtedly to be heard in New York at the Paulisf Fa-
thers' church (for the Gregorian) and at Trinity Church (for the modern Angli-
can cathedral music).''

And the work is spreading. No one can listen to St. Francis Xavier's excel-
lent and well-trained choir of men and boys, who do honor to themselves and
credit to the music they attempt, without feeling that -they have already accom-
plished a great work and are laying the foundations of a permanent tradition.
Again, at St. Stephen's the work begun eight or ten years ago continues to pros-
per, while at the Cathedral there is a fine choir of surpliced boys who chant with a
precision that impresses one with the idea that what they sing with their lips they
believe in their hearts.

7io WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [Aug.,

Now, none of these choirs are ear-babblers ; but are made up of boys and men
who receive regularly, two or three times a week, instructions from well trained
and competent musicians. All this is enough to show that here in New York the
Catholics have made a good start and a praiseworthy effort to hold their own.
The sanctuary choir of men and boys belongs properly to the Catholic Church ; she
owns it, and when others adopt it they are but wearing borrowed plumage in this
matter as they do in many others, for whatever is best and most praiseworthy in
Protestantism it has stolen from the Catholic Church and tried to make its own.

UNCONDITIONAL SUBMISSION.

The following appeared in the Christian Advocate, the organ of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church. The official editor is Rev. J. M. Bucklty, D.D.:

" Despatches announce that the Pope has issued an Encyclical of twenty-seven pages on
slavery, exhibiting the teachings oi the Bible and inculcating the abandonment of the slave-
dealing in Egypt, the Soudan, and Zanzibar, and condemns with great vigor slavery and the
slave-trade generally. In conclusion he praises Dom Pedro for abolishing slavery in Brazil.

" More than a week before the Encyclical appeared, the General Conference of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church passed resolutions commending the course of Dom Pedro. There are
more things than this in which Romanism and Protestantism are one ; but this cannot blind
us to the fact that one stands for mental freedom, subject only to the revelation of God's will
contained in the Scriptures, the same to be interpreted by the honest inquirer under the influ-
ence of the Holy Spirit, and the other for unconditional submission. Where Romanism holds
the truth, it is a powerful ally to all defenders of the truth, but its errors and especially its
great fundamental error which produces a slavery of the mind must be resisted."

Matthew Arnold, in his famous essay on Shelley, relates that poor Mrs. Shelley,
the poet's wife, receiving for advice concerning her son's training, " Oh ! send him
somewhere where they will teach him to think for himself," answered : "Teach
him to think for himself ! O my God ! teach him rather to think like other
people ! " That nasty creature Shelley thought for himself. We know that he
did it and we know what it made of him.

But how can one think for himself who is taught to think for himself ? Mr.
Buckley's little boys and girls and may God favor them with their father's man-
liness ! are taught to think for themselves as being good Protestants. That is to
say, the matters to think about and the rules of thinking rightly are given them by
Mr. and Mrs. Buckley. He is their vicar of Christ, he is the vicegerent of God ;
and their mother is vicar and vicegerent in the same way.

The only kind of teaching to think for one's self possible would be that of a
dumb handing over to the pupil of the categorical list of reasons for and against
the proposition to be taught, and then letting the pupil's mind work out its own
ends by its own methods : a process of instruction which would extinguish human
wisdom in a few generations ; which generations would have Shelleys for its
poets and Ingersolls for its orators.

We know Mr. Buckley to be an intelligent man in some things and believe
him to be an honest man ; this last because some years ago we read his words
about the Fathers of the church in a magazine article, to the effect that " the old
Fathers were a set of old fogies." Any man who writes and' prints that about
Augustine and Jerome, Chrysostom and Athanasius, may be only intelligent in
some things, but he is too courageous to be aught but honest. Now, then, Mr.
Buckley, why do you say that the Roman Church demands " unconditional sub-

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 711

mission"? Is it because you do not know any better? It must be so. Then
you do not know that the church is bound by all her previously given dogmatic
decrees, by the plain words of Scripture, by the facts of history, by the products
of science, and that therefore her demand of submission cannot be uncondi-
tional ?

The sin of private ownership of the treasure of revealed truth is that of Pro-
testantism. What is for each to know is for all to know.

Will you divorce your divinity student from the entire Christian past ? Will
you say that the consensus of the people of God is not a rational motive of
certitude? Can you fancy a mind able to resist it and maintain a peaceful con-
science? Will you literally maintain that the Holy Spirit must be confined in his
assistance to the soul to interior illumination alone.

What will you do with the illiterates ? Will you put the open Bible before
men who cannot read ? What with the vicious ? Send them to a school to be
taught to think for themselves ? That makes atheists.

KNOWLEDGE OF PUBLIC QUESTIONS.

In compliance with the request made by the editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
I shall gladly commit to paper some reflections on the convention, held June 6 and
7 at Cincinnati, by the Catholic Young Men's National Union. As yet this Union
does not fully represent the United States, though it has been in existence four-
teen years. In the Pastoral Letter of the Third Plenary Council an . em-
phatic desire for its extension was manifested. The prelates of the church ac-
knowledged the "great amount of good accomplished " by this Union of societies
working in various ways for God and our neighbor, and encouraged the members
to make greater efforts in the future.

This public recognition of young men and their work for the church has
already produced good results. According to the constitution of the Union, the
two chief officers, the president and vice-president, must be clergymen ; provision
is made also for an executive committee and representatives from every diocese.
At each convention the delegates are encouraged to study public questions relat-
ing to Catholic interests, and certainly there is much need of utilizing every
agency which can aid in fostering the growth of enlightened public opinion
among Catholic laymen.

While the Union was organized chiefly for the benefit of young men, I noticed
that many of those present at Cincinnati are no longer in their teens. The pres-
ence of the senior delegates gave mature thought to the topics discussed. Like
older brothers of the family, their influence was most beneficial in securing
recognition for sound opinions based on information not easily obtained by the
junior delegates. Of course it is hardly to be expected that in any gathering
where young men predominate every speaker will say exactly what should be
said, and in the very best way. But making due allowance for the differences in
mental power of perspective, it was gratifying to find at this convention evi-
dences of intellectual activity, and of a desire to be in conformity with the leaders
of Catholic thought, whether among the clergy or the laity.

By listening to the reports of the societies represented at the Cincinnati Con-
vention an impartial observer could gain much valuable information as to what
our young men are doing in parochial work under the guidance of their respec-

712 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [Aug.,

tive pastors. He would perceive also that in many cases they have taken the in-
itiative in providing opportunities for their own self-improvement. Very few of
the societies have had wealthy patrons to erect costly buildings for them, similar
to those provided for the Young Men's Christian Association. With such facilities
as their limited resources will permit, the societies of this Union are striving to
keep our young men under positive religious influence, a result which Protestants
have sought to accomplish by a lavish expenditure of money.

On several occasions during the convention the delegates showed enthusias-
tic demonstrations of loyalty to American principles, in which those of German
descent joined heartily. As a specimen of the mind of the convention on this
subject, we quote the following from an essay read by Mr. William C. Wolking, of
Cincinnati :

" How can we, as Catholic Americans, show our patriotism ? God grant that the day may
never again break when Americans may be mustered to fight against a foreign foe, but in the
times of peace there are constant opportunities for the exercise of exalted patriotism. First of
all, we should be loyal and honorable citizens, and the more perfect, the more zealous Catho-
lics we are the better citizens will we be. The welfare of the State depends upon the virtue of
the individuals who compose it, since the light of history shows that when a nation loses the
knowledge and fear of God its rapid decline and fall are inevitable. Therefore, by striving to
make ourselves perfect Catholics and citizens we are fulfilling our first duty to God and our
native land, and by the mysterious influence of good example upon even those who are with-
out the pale of the church we are further contributing to the stability of our institutions. We
should assist in the establishment of sound and wise laws, in the election to office of men who
are eminent by virtue of their integrity and ability, and not by virtue of their partisanship. We
should reprobate, and with might and main oppose, every scheme, every theory, every social or
political system subversive of our liberties and our laws."

One of the best of the addresses made at the convention was delivered by Mr.
Daniel A. Rudd, who was introduced by Rev. Father Mackey, of St. Peter's
Cathedral, in Cincinnati, as the editor of the American Catholic Tribune, a
journal edited and published by colored men. The reception given to him was
most fraternal, and left no room for doubt that he was among the friends and
well-wishers of his race. Some passages from Mr. Rudd's address will show the
feeling of the colored people towards the Catholic Church :

" I hardly expected when a little boy, in the State of Kentucky, that at this early day of
my life and I am a young man yet I would be standing before a Catholic convention of this
Union, to lift my voice in the interest of my race and of my church; but such is the case.

" This is the third time that it has been my pleasure to meet Catholics of this country in
national convention assembled; the first time was in Toledo, in 1886; the second, in 1887, at
Chicago ; and now, in this year of our Lord, 1888.

" It may seem strange to you, possibly, to hear me talking about colored Catholics, or any
other sort of Catholics, yet it must be so ; we have in this country a large number of our own
race, many of whom are Catholics, more, possibly, than any one of you have ever imagined; vari-
ous estimates have been given, but for our own purpose we prefer to give our own figures. I
believe that there are about two hundred thousand practical Catholics in the United States of
my race.

"That is, indeed, a grand showing, considering that we have done nothing ourselves to
promote and facilitate a knowledge Of the church among our own race, except possibly to at-
tend to our own duties, and we thought that we were doing well if we succeeded in keeping
ourselves in line individually. According to the statistics there are seven millions of negroes in
the United States. My friends, this race is increasing more rapidly than yours, and if it con-
tinues to increase in the future as it has in the past, by the middle of the next century they will
outnumber your race. This is worthy of your consideration.

" We have been led to believe that the church was inimical to the negro race, inimical to

1 888.] NE w PUBLICA TIONS. 7 1 3

the genius of our Republic. This is not true ; I feel that I owe it to myself, my God, and my
country to refute the slander.

" We are publishing a weekly newspaper ; whatever it is, it is the best we can do in this
work. A meeting of our people will be held somewhere; the time and place has not yet been
fixed, but I am here, gentlemen, to ask your assistance, to ask your kindness, and you have
shown it to me to-day.

" When that convention meets, I trust that many of you will, either by your presence or in
some other way, show your interest in this work. I believe that within ten years, if the work
goes on as it has been going on, there will be awakened a latent force in this country."

I cannot mention all the public questions brought before the Cincinnati Con-
vention of the National Union. But as one who has their best interests at heart,
I would urge the young men to stand fast by the resolution which they adopted
condemning drinking in a saloon as the principal source of intemperance. The
liquor interest now exerts an influence subversive of good government. Always
and everywhere our young men who are anxious to make known Catholic thought
should boldly defend the temperance movement.

THOMAS MCMILLAN.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. By George Park Fisher, D.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale University. New York :
Charles Scribner's Sons.

Dr. Fisher has contributed more for the advancement of the science of
Ecclesiastical History and Christian Evidences among non-Catholics than
any other man in America. However, he has not thus far (as we are aware)
brought to light anything which has caused his religious brethren alarm.
Nor have we, after a careful perusal of his History of the Christian Church,
found the slightest indication that he will ever change his base. He is a
long way off even from doubt as to his position. No suspicion is excited
when he asserts, that " the church stood forth after the middle of the second
century as a distinct body " ; that " it claimed to be/' in opposition to schis-
matical and heretical parties, the "Catholic Church "; that " membership
in this one visible church was believed to be necessary to salvation ";
that " the unity of the church was cemented by the episcopate by the
bishops as successors of the apostles " ; and that " the episcopate, like the
apostolate in which Peter was the centre of unity, was a unit " (Church
History, p. 57). The reason is plain. He has previously affirmed that " the
original basis of ecclesiastical organization was the fraternal equality of
believers " (p. 35), and that the connection of the churches was at first not
organic. Nor does his loyalty toward his co-religionists appear to be les-
sened because he holds that " Peter was the centre of unity " in the apos-
tolate ; and that after A.D. 150 "the episcopate was a unit," because
eighty-three years, to their thinking, is a sufficiently long period for Con-
gregationalism to have deVeloped into an undivided universal hierarchical
church. We do not imagine, either, that to their minds there appears to be
any serious discrepancy in holding that " to the apostles [was] given the
power of the keys and the power of binding and loosing that is, the power

7H NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Aug.,

to exercise Christian discipline and legislative or judicial function in the
planting of the Gospel " (p. 37), provided the church is also described as
Congregational and unorganic.

Professor Fisher has certainly brought out facts of history which his
confreres have never before known, and this is to us a great cause of re-
joicing. We hope that he will continue his providential mission.

His little book on Christian Evidences is a precious gem. He has not
the genius, learning, nor unequalled English of Newman, but he is superior
to all his associates in letters and theology. In a few instances his ideas
fall far below his words, as, for instance, when he says that "the church
grew up and, under varying forms of polity and modes of worship, has
perpetuated itself until the present day " (p. 30). Points of controversy
between Catholics and Protestants are hardly touched upon in this book.
When, however, he expresses an opinion on such matters he shows him-
self to be thoroughly Protestant, but his opposition to us is never bitter.

Among sincere Protestants this book will do much good.

DlSCOURS DU COMTE At BERT DE MUN, DE>UT6 DU MORBIHAN, aCCOm-
pagn6s de notices par Ch. Geoffroy de Grandmaison. Trois tomes.
Paris : Librairie Poussielgue Freres.

The first of these volumes contains discourses on social questions, the
other two are made up of political discourses, letters, etc. Comte de Mun
frankly identifies the altar and the throne as the object of Catholic politi-
cal life in France. In a letter in reference to the death of the Comte de
Chambord published in 1884, and printed on page 102 of the third of these
volumes, he thus affirms his politico-religious creed :

" From the first I have held M. le Comte de Paris as the legitimate heir of the monarchi-
cal cause in France, and I have not for a single instant ceased to believe it to be the duty of
Catholics to defend the cause which he to-day represents, at the same time with the ideas
which in the religious, political, and social order, appear to them to be the foundation of a
truly conservative government."

This seems a very narrow idea of the Catholic faith as adjustable to
public life, one plainly at variance, too, with the Pope's Encyclical Letter on
the Christian Constitution of States.

Yet, however he may puzzle us and annoy us with his queer politics,
the Comte de Mun has grasped some fundamental truths on the social side
of public life with wonderful power, and in these volumes has advocated
them in a style worthy of his earnestness and the critical importance of the
subject. Cardinal Gibbons, we think, was plainly right in his judgment
that workingmen's societies exclusively Catholic were not possible in
America. But De Mun may be right in thinking differently of Frenchmen.
In that country it seems as if what is not Catholic must be positively anti-
Catholic. At any rate, the Cercles Catholiquts d'Ouvriers have had some
success, and may help by a greater development to solve the most press-
ing problem of the times.

THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB. Newly arranged, with additions.
Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Alfred Amger. Two volumes.
New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son.

There must be some enduring quality, both personal and literary, in a

1 8 88.] NE w PUBLIC A TIONS. 7 1 5

series of friendly letters which in the course of half a century pass through
the hands of six or seven editors. Lamb was one of the men who, as
George Augustus Sala remarked of him, have been " passionately loved
by their friends" ; though the remark would doubtless be completer in its
meaning if the qualifying phrase " of their own sex " were added. He was
hardly made to be a hero to the other; perhaps because, while his weak-
nesses were manly, his many good points were not unfeminine. These
letters, by which both editor and publishers have done their best, exhibit
him in a most advantageous light, not only as the kindly yet competent cri-
tic of a dozen or so contemporaries who have left a more or less enduring
mark in English literature, but as a cheery companion, a steadfast friend,
and a loving brother. They are full of plums, too, to all who can enjoy his
gentle humor. We recommend to such readers the sixty-fifth letter in the
collection, in which Lamb describes to Coleridge a visit of condolence he
paid to Joseph Cottle after the death of his brother Amos. " O Amos
Gottle ! Phoebus, what a name !" was Byron's way of pillorying that poor
poet. Lamb's way with Joseph is more amusing, besides being utterly de-
void of malice. He describes how he found the surviving poet, "with
his knees cowering in the fireplace,'' lost to every sentiment but grief, and
how he drew him gently into forgetfulness by pretending that he had read
with pleasure his recently published epic.

"At that moment," Lamb says, "I could perceive that Cottle had forgot his brother was
so lately become a blessed spirit. In the language of mathematicians, the author was as 9,
the brother as i. I felt my cue, and strong pity working at the root, I went to work and be-
slabbered Alfred with most unqualified praise, or only qualifying my praise by the occasional
politic interposition of an exception taken against trivial faults, slips, and human imperfec-
tions, which, by removing the appearance of insincerity, did but in truth heighten the relish.
Perhaps I might have spared that refinement, for Joseph was in a humor to hope and believe
all things ... so what with my actual memory, of which I made the most, and Cottle's own
helping me out, for I really had forgotten a good deal of Alfred, I made shift to discuss the
most essential parts entirely to the satisfaction of its author, who repeatedly declared he loved
nothing better than candid criticism. Was I a candid greyhound now for all this, or did I do
right ? I believe I did. The effect was luscious to my conscience. For all the rest of the even-
ing Amos was no more heard of, until another friend who was present remarked, ' Amos was
estimable both for his head and heart, and would have made a fine poet if he had lived.' . . .
Cottle fully assented, but could not help adding that he always thought that the qualities of his
brother s heart exceeded those of his head. I believe his brother, when living, had formed pre-
cisely the same idea of him ; and I apprehend the world will assent to both judgments. I rather
guess the brothers were poetical rivals. . . . Poor Cottle ! I must leave him, after his short
dream, to muse again upon his poor brother, for whom I am sure in secret he will yet shed
many a tear."

Wt quote so fully because we doubt whether the whole collection con-
tains a letter more entirely characteristic of its author.

VERSES ON DOCTRINAL AND DEVOTIONAL SUBJECTS. Two volumes in

one.
OUR THIRST FOR DRINK : Temperance Songs and Lyrics. By the Rev.

J. Casey, P.P. Dublin : James Duffy & Sons.

We have already called the attention of our readers to a poem on in-
temperance by this writer. He is a clever Irish priest who has turned his
native wit and knack for easy rhymes to the service of the apostolic zeal
which fires his own soul, as these various books give ample evidence. If

7 1 6 NEW PUBLIC A TZONS. [ Aug. ,

superiors of schools wish to give to their scholars a book that will indeed
prove -3iprtze to the reader, one that will furnish delightful and most instruc-
tive reading, let them present the first of the above-named volumes. Every
Christian doctrine, devotion, commandment, and sacrament is described and
enforced in a most effective and charming manner. The poems and ballads
on temperance are very forcible, and often highly amusing, especially those
which are parodies of well-known popular songs as, for example, the ones
entitled "Tippler Machree " and "The Toper and his Bottle,'' the open-
ing verses of which we subjoin :

(Air" Widow Mac/tree.")

"Tippler Machree, 'tis no wonder you're sad,

Och hone ! Tippler Machree:
Your face so disfigured your clothing so bad !

Och hone ! Tippler Machree.
Your large purple nose
And your torn old clothes,
A condition disclose

Which is painful to see.
All your sorrows, alas !
Have sprung from the glass,

Och hone ! Tippler Machree !"

Philologists with keen perception will not fail to heartily enjoy the
double-syllabled tor-rn.

(Air "John Anderson, my Jo, John")

" John Jameson, mavrone, John,

I love your sight no more ;
I loved you long, but now, John,

My folly I deplore.
Your smile was sweet and bright, John,

Your breath was like the rose ;
But you have been to me, John,

The cause of all my woes."

We cannot refrain from giving our readers a few lines of a rhyming
" Letter from Miss Lizzie Vintner to Kate Publican on Sunday closing."
Had we space we would like to print the whole of it, with our compliments
to the grogsellers of our own country :

" I write, my dear Kate, though we're all in a nutter,
Our grief is so great scarce a word can I utter ;
The cause of our grief there's no need of supposing,
You know, my dear Kate, 'tis that sad Sunday closing
Which threatens on Sabbaths our traffic to stop,
And to rob the poor man of his holiday ' drop.'
The day for our business, the brightest and best,
Is surely the Sunday, the sweet day of rest :
On Sundays our tradesmen and others are free
To visit our houses and go on the spree," etc., etc.

The comparisons between the wretched, miserable home of the poor
drunkard, and the enticing appearance of the dram-shop with its soft car-
peted stairs, its bright lamps, decanters, and neat furniture, and between
the poverty of its customers and the ability of the grogseller's daughter to
buy " grand dresses," and with a carriage and pair " to take us to parks

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 717

where we breathe the fresh air,' 1 are drawn with no little dramatic power of
description.

HANDBOOK OF THE LICK OBSERVATORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOR-
NIA. By Edward S. Holden, LL.D., Director of the Observatory.
San Francisco : The Bancroft Company.

Really a very interesting and complete account of the great telescope
and all the other instruments of this the most promising observatory now in
the world. Probably most of our readers are aware that the telescope is
the largest refractor ever made, having a diameter of three feet, and un-
doubtedly giving more light, and being able to stand more magnifying
power, than even the six-foot reflector of Lord Rosse. Its location on Mt.
Hamilton, 4,000 feet above the sea, will contribute very much to its useful-
ness, and it is possible that a magnifying power of 2,000 or even more may
be often employed on it with advantage.

fit appears from the report of Mr. S. W. Burnham, than whom there is
no better authority on the subject, that the " seeing," as astronomers call it,
is even better during the summer months than might be expected from the
elevation. There seems to be no special superiority in the winter ; still the
removal of nearly a mile of the densest part of the air between the tele-
scope and the stars cannot be without its effect.

We are glad to see that visitors will not be admitted at night to the ob-
servatory, except on Saturdays between seven and ten. It must be remem-
bered that observatories are established mainly for the advancement of
astronomical science, not for its diffusion ; and it is simply impossible to do
any valuable work in the presence of mere sight-seeing visitors. The
hours assigned are amply sufficient to satisfy legitimate curiosity or desire
of knowledge.

A good deal of astronomy is taught in this little handbook, and to read it
would do most people far more good than to go to the observatory. It is
well illustrated with views and drawings of the various instruments.

EARLY DAYS OF MORMONISM PALMYRA, KIRTLAND, AND NAUVOO. By J.
H. Kennedy, Editor of the Magazine of Western History. New York :
Charles Scribner's Sons.

' One of the most interesting problems to be settled in the near future is
the relations of the Mormon Church to the United States government.
We have in the Mormon Church the spectacle of a religion permitting, and
to some extent forcing on its adherents a practice that is plainly against the
common law of the land. In the last few years Congress has declared open
war on the Mormon Church in order to stamp out the detestable crime of
polygamy ; and the whole American people are plainly convinced of the
justice of this legislation. It is, meantime, questionable whether the po-
lygamy abomination may not be overcome, and that more efficaciously, by
other means than by penal enactments.

It is hard to see how polygamous marriage can continue to exist among
a people who are cultivated and enlightened by modern civilization, or who
have any of those finer sentiments of humanity with which Christianity
has leavened society. Monogamy is in accordance with the nobler instincts
even of nature. There is something about the conjugal love between one

718 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Aug.,

man and one woman, permanently joined in wedlock, so much higher than
the polygamous relation that its elevating influence tends to establish it as
an institution of all enlightened society. Therefore, let the light of Chris-
tian ideas and opinion into the Mormon territory, open up the country to
commerce and traffic from East and West, and it may well be said that poly-
gamy as an institution will disappear. Meantime the laws against it are
good and should be enforced.

In confirmation of the above, we may say that, as a matter of fact,
polygamy prevails chiefly in the remote districts far from railroads and
other avenues of communication with the rest of the country. Another
fact is that in Salt Lake City a very strong party exists, consisting of the
younger and more intelligent members of the Mormon Church, who are
decided and open in their opposition to polygamy. The writer was told
by a Mormon elder that only two percent, of the Mormons are polygamists.
This is doubtless too favorable a statement ; but there is no doubt
that many Mormons are not polygamists because they abhor the custom ;
others because they cannot support more than one wife. Indeed it is very
singular that any man, Gentile or Mormon, who has any regard for
his peace or comfort, would think of having two or more wives in a country
in which women have become so independent that the only sure way of
living happily with one is to be very humble and obedient indeed.

There is another mode of attack against polygamy that will not savor of
religious persecution, and will prove efficacious. It is to cut off the supply
of new Mormons.

There are being imported into this country every year thousands of
Mormons who are from the lowest class of the European populations. And
it is from this class that the polygamist section of Mormondom is recruited.
These cannot become citizens unless they swear to obey the laws. If they
believe in and practise polygamy, they cannot swear to obey a law which
does not permit it. If the Chinese are excluded because, for one reason,
they do not intend to become and will not become citizens, why are not
these Mormon hordes turned back also, being equally incompetent for
citizenship? The Mormon missionaries lure them here under promises of
as much land as they can till and as many wives as they can support ; why
not pass a law forbidding the holding of property in the Territories by
aliens, except they will swear to their intention of becoming citizens ?

Mr. Kennedy's book gives a detailed history of the tfarly doings of the
Mormons at Palmyra, Kirtland, and Nauvoo. Not much has been hereto-
fore written of the beginnings of this sect. Yet this is perhaps the most
interesting portion of its history. The story Mr. Kennedy tells as plainly,
and, we believe from his own professions and the care he has taken to col-
late facts, as truthfully as it can be told. He has given us a book of a great
deal of interest.

SERMONS FROM THE FLEMISH. Third Series. Volume Hyperdulia. The
Feasts of Our Blessed Lady, with May Readings for Congregational
Use. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers.

The first and second series of these sermons have already been noticed
in these pages, and the praise then bestowed upon them must be repeated
in a notice of the volume before us. In the forty sermons appropriate to

1 3 88.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 719

the various festivals of the Blessed Virgin, which make up the volume,
there is the same simplicity and directness, the same felicitous illustration,
characteristic of the other volumes of the series. The matter is excellent,
and while the language is clear and often forcible, there is not a word used
for mere rhetorical effect. The present volume has every guarantee of a
widespread popularity.

THE CONSOLING THOUGHTS OF ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. Gathered from his
writings and arranged in order by the. Rev. Pere Huguet. Translated
from the seventh French edition. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago:
Benziger Brothers ; Dublin : M. H. Gill & Son.

Perhaps it is our state of life and long experience in the pulpit which
inclines us to believe that this book would be an excellent workshop for
sermon-making. Unction is the best word to describe one of St. Francis
de Sales' most conspicuous qualities, and unction is the most necessary of
all the qualities of manner in a preacher. Here we find all the topics of
Christian doctrine and life amply and yet briefly expounded, and very
attractively illustrated by the greatest modern instance of the sweetness
of Christ.

SEVEN OF Us. Stories for Boys and Girls. By Marion J. Brunowe. New

York : P. J. Kenedy.
DROPS OF HONEY. Stories for Young Readers. By Father Zelus Anima-

rum. The same.
NANNETTE'S MARRIAGE. Translated from the French. By Aimee Ma-

zergne. The same.

The publisher of these books is to be commended for his enterprise in
adding something new and bright to the current stock of Catholic premium
literature. The stories are good Seven of Us is specially worthy of praise
the binding attractive and tasteful, and we feel that they will be sure of
a welcome from our young folks. The only thing these books lack is a
number of good engravings to illustrate the text.

THE PRACTICAL QUESTION BOOK: Six Thousand Questions and Answers.
By Latiiont Stilwell. lamo. Boston and New York : The Educational
Publishing Company.

A series of practical questions selected from the leading text-books is
always a useful auxiliary in class-room work. To make it a vade mecum is
to substitute drill-work for genuine teaching, and the result is permanent
injury to teacher and scholar. This book is excellent for review purposes
only. It contains an outline of United States history, arithmetic, gram-
mar, orthography, reading, composition, rhetoric, phyeiology, book-keep-
ing, civil government, natural philosophy, and pedagogics. A list of works
from which quotations have been made is given.

SOLITARY ISLAND : A Novel. By John Talbot Smith. New York : P. J.
Kenedy.

This novel made its first appearance in serial form in the pages of THE
CATHOLIC WORLD, and is therefore familiar to the majority of our readers.
The author is further known as a frequent contributor to these pages of

720 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Aug., 1888.

stirring articles on topics of current interest. As a writer his chief char-
acteristic is boldness and strength, of which the novel before us is a fine
example. Within a setting of the marvellous scenery in and about the
Thousand Islands he has sketched in strong and vivid colors the picture
of a life of moral decline and resurrection. While we do not wish to be
understood as placing the author on the same literary level with George
Eliot, the story as such invites a comparison with Tito Melema in Ro~
mola, but shows a superiority in the lesson as great as eternal hope is
above eternal despair. Florian, the one central character, is another Tito,
and if he does not meet with Tito's fate it is because he is a Christian.

But in his anxiety to be true to his purpose the author gives too little
attention to details. To resume our former metaphor, he has sketched ra-
ther than painted. But this, however, cannot be said of his description of
natural scenery. We cite the following as an example of his power in this
respect :

" The day shamed his melancholy by its magnificent joy. The wind was not strong
enough to roughen the water 'into ugliness, but white-caps lay along the deep green of the
river, and, like the foam at the mouth of a wild beast, gave a fearful suspicion of the cruelty
that lurked below. Against Round Island's rocky and flat shore the waves beat with monoto-
nous murmuring, and distant Grindstone showed dimly through the mist. Across Eel Bay
Bay of Mourning it should be named the afternoon sun sent a blinding radiance. The
islands about were still in sombre green, for very few maples found a foothold in the rocky soil.
Here and there their warm colors of death relieved the dark background. He paid very little
attention to the sights about him. The swish of the water from the bow, the brightness of the
sky, the sombre shores, the green waters, the whistle of the wind, and the loveliness of the
scene passed before his senses and became inwoven with his melancholy. There was a bitter-
ness even in the cheerful day."

The book, we are sorry to say, is marred by many typographical errors.
For instance, to say that the thong of a " leather discipline " was *' tipsey
with fine iron points " is apt to provoke a smile on a grave subject.

Catholic in its tone, wholesome in its lesson, the book is worthy of a
place on the shelves of every parochial library.

BOOKS RECEIVED.
Mention of books in this place does not preclude extended notice in subsequent numbers.

THE CITY OF REFUGE; or, Mary, Help of Christians. London: Burns & Oates ; New
York : The Catholic Publication Society Co.

A COMPANION FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS. Dublin : M. H.
Gill & Son.

THREE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. By F. Max Muller.
Chicago : The Open Court Publishing Company.

PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY. A Discussion of Protective Tariffs, Taxation, and Monopolies. By
Richard T. Ely, Ph.D. New York : Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. Consisting of an Analysis of each Chapter and of a Com-
mentary, Critical, Exegetical, Doctrinal, and Moral. By His Grace the Most Rev. John
MacEvilly, D. D., Archbishop of Tuam. 2 vols. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Third edi-
tion, revised and corrected. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL AND OF THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. By
His Grace the Most Rev. John MacEvilly, Archbishop of Tuam. 2 vols. Third edition,
enlarged. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers.

THE NONCONFORMISTS : What May We Learn from Them ? By F. Daustini Cremer, M.A.,
Rector of Keighley. London : Griffith, Farran & Co.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XLVII. SEPTEMBER, 1888. No. 282.

HOW TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING.

PREFATORY.
No. i.

" GALESBURG, ILL., February 20, 1888.
" To the Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD :

". VERY REV. SIR : Allow me kindly to address you the following blunt
remarks :

" The Rev. Father Young says and repeats in THE CATHOLIC WORLD :
Let all the people sing. We do let them, but they will not sing for all that.
What I and many other priests are looking for is some practical direction
and praccicable method of teaching and training the people to sing in our
churches. No one feels worse than I do the dreariness of silence con-
gregational silence shall I call it ? during divine service. No one detests
more than I do the hollowness of the vociferations of certain choirs, espe-
cially of hired singers. But what can be done towards introducing con-
gregational singing ? We have tried for years with our school children ;
but our success is limited to the singing of a few English hymns. When
we come to Latin psalms and hymns, we find it well-nigh impossible to
teach even the regular choristers. No one will sing without organ ac-
companiment, and this cannot be obtained from the average organist.
Besides, how can any one sing from the heart words not understood,
strange-sounding, and hardly pronounceable? Indeed no hand need be
put upon the mouths of God's loving children, as Father Young seems to
think is being done; they can but too well keep still without that. Even
bidding them to sing brings out no music. It seems to me that our people
lack the power of song. That is the main difficulty. They cannot be
made to sing ; while in other countries people cannot be made to keep
still !

" I am, Very Rev. Sir, with the kindest regards,

"Yours most respectfully, L. SELVA."

722 HOW TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SlNGING. [Sept.,

NO. 2.
From the Niagara Index, published at Niagara University, New York :

" We read two pages of Rev. A. Young's would-be funny performance
in the May number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. If it be true, as is reported,
that Father Young has, like St. Francis, the power of teaching most in-
sensible creatures to praise the Lord in beautiful melodies, let him practi-
cally use this wonderful gift of which other people, though musically
trained, cannot boast. He will be welcome here. But such stuff as he
writes in the first two pages of the article referred to we have no patience
to read the rest shows his ignorance of the state of musical affairs in
American Catholic colleges, and will make enemies to the cause which he
and we advocate. There is a large field for Father Young's apostleship.
Let him go through the parochial schools and exercise his wonderful
power there. Or, if he is bent upon doing higher things, let him go to
seminaries and teach seminarians to sing the "Dominus vobiscum " and
other essential parts of the Liturgy correctly if he can. We are not able
to do so because those seminarians have not been taught the rudiments of
singing, when at the parochial school. Now, at their age, their neglected
and abused chest and throat and ear are beyond redemption.

" M. J. KIRCHER, C.M."

The reasons for prefacing the subject-matter of "this essay by
the presentation of the foregoing honest inquiries and opinions
will be apparent before its conclusion. It has been exceedingly
gratifying to learn, through many private letters and no little
public comment in the newspapers and magazines, how true and
harmonious a chord was struck in many hearts by the various
pleas made in these pages for liberty to praise God in the great
congregation. Thousands of devout souls, and quite as many, it
not more, to whom devotion, though ardently longed for, is
something inexplicable and unattainable if not embodied in some
sensible action, have felt a painful sense of restriction in their
acts of public worship, and an undefined longing to get nearer
to God by giving audible expression to their hearts' loving emo-
tions and sentiments of adoring praise; and, as it were, attract-
ing the notice of the Supreme Object of their worship as nature
prompts, by making some sensible sign of their presence before
him.

It is the most natural thing to so desire and act. Look at a
vast crowd surging around the spot where stands the beloved
and revered form of some great leader, be he pontiff, priest, or
king, president, general, orator, or poet. Are they silent and
motionless ? Far otherwise. They can hardly be restrained
from pouring forth their loud and prolonged shouts of welcome
and praise long enough to listen to the words he wishes to speak

1 888.] How TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. 723

to them. See every arm raised aloft, each one vying with
the other to reach higher in the air, all waving their hands as a
sign of their happiness and to proclaim their loyalty, reverence,
and devotion to him and to his cause. And he that is standing
on the very outside lines of the crowd, out of possible sight and
hearing of the hero of the hour, will shout as loud as any, and
make full as vigorous a demonstration as they who are standing
directly beneath the gaze of the one upon whom all eyes are
riveted and for whom all is done and said. Draw near ; watch
their faces. See how their cheeks mantle with animation, how
their eyes sparkle with unwonted brilliancy, and how their lips
tremble with emotion ! Take the hand of one and feel his pulse.
What makes his heart beat so fast and throb so strongly ? All
this is due to the free, unrestrained acts of enthusiastic voice
and fervent gesture expressing the feeling that he, the beloved
and revered one whom they have assembled to honor, sees their
waving hands and hears their glad shouts, and that the sight
and the hearing are both sweet to him.

Come into a Catholic church on the festival of Corpus Chris-
ti. There is to be a grand procession of the Blessed Sacra-
ment through the aisles. There are beautiful banners carried,
and clouds of incense float upward. There are flowers scatter-
ed in the pathway of Him who is dearest and most adorable
and worthy of all praise. One feels that as the Divine Presence
passes by in triumphal procession It should awaken" in the
breasts of that dense crowd of worshippers a longing desire to
rend the heavens with joyful accents of praise, following the
sacred language of the church in the sublime sequence of
the Lauda Sion :

"Sion, thy Redeemer praising,
Songs of joy to him upraising,

Laud thy Pastor and thy Guide :
Swell thy notes both high and daring;
For his praise is past declaring,

And thy loftiest powers beside.''

And a wave of awe-inspired, reverential movement might well
be looked for visibly stirring the surface of the mass of people as
the full-ripened ears of the thickly-standing field of wheat bend
and sway, as if lowly worshipping when the spirit of the strong-
winged wind sweeps majestically by.

But hark! there is some testimony of the voice. A few
flower-crowned children in white are singing, or there is an ope-
ratic solo being trilled forth from the organ-gallery by a lady

724 HOW TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SlNGING. [Sept.,

artist, while the other men and women singers of the quartet
stand idly leaning over the gallery curtains to look at the show.
The people down-stairs are listlessly kneeling on their haunches,
reverently though silently gazing so silent that one hears the
rattle of the beads in the hands of some one who is just then
praying to the Blessed Virgin instead of to her Sacramental God.
Oh! for one outburst of joyful, intelligent, devout, heart-stirring
strain from the throats of that multitude ! Oh ! for some sign of
quickened pulse and throbbing heart! How can they keep so
still ? How can they restrain their emotions from finding utter-
ance ? What is it that holds these faithful worshippers in thrall
and denies to the Holy Object of all love and praise the grateful
homage of their hearts, out of whose abundance their mouths
should be eloquently speaking the words He cannot but be long-
ing to hear? Lord ! is there no one to touch the lips of thy peo-
ple with a coal of fire from off thine altar and loosen their
fettered tongues, that they may break freely forth in tones of
harmonious acclaim and honor thee with a sweet hymn of
praise ?

"That would be all very fine," says Father A., " but I don't
believe they can sing."

" If they tried it," says Father B., " they would sing out of all
time and tune, and make a horrible mess of it."

" Even if they can sing," says Father C., " they won't, because
they wouldn't like it themselves."

- " I haven't any organ in my church," says Father D., " and
of course it would be out of all question with us. Nobody ever
heard of people singing without an organ."

" Oh ! there's no use in trying it with the old folks," says
Father E. " The only way is to begin with the children in
school."

'' To teach a lot of people to sing who never sang before
would cost a deal of money," says Father F.

"There is no doubt it would be a glorious thing to hear, and
be of inestimable benefit to the people themselves," says Father
G., " but one hasn't the least idea of how to go about securing
it." And so the chorus sings : They can't sing ; they won't
sing ; they wouldn't like it ; it isn't worth having ; it costs too
much ; there isn't music enough, and nobody knows what to do
to get it, etc., etc. My reverend friend of Galesburg has inton-
ed nearly all the objections in one breath. Whereon I have
something to say.

To Father A. I say : You are mistaken. The people can sing.

1 888.] How TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. 725

Ab esse ad posse valet illatio. What is, can be. That is to say,
putting aside the discussion of all comparison between the sup-
posed lack of musical taste and vocal ability among our Catholic
people and the contrary among the very same classes in Protest-
ant denominations (all of whom can, and the majority of whom
do, sing), our people, taken just as they are in cities, towns, or
villages, can be taught to sing together, and they can be easily
so taught.

A priest writes me from a small Western country town : " We
have no Catholic school. Nearly the whole congregation are
farmers, many living far into the country. Our choir of fifteen
persons sing unison Masses, and the proper to the psalm tones.
All the people except the very old and incapable sing the follow-
ing evening service: The priest recites the Apostles' Creed.
The Lord's Prayer, three Hail Marys, and the Doxology are then
sung alternately by the choir and the body of the people. The
priest reads a short meditation on the Mystery of the Rosary,
the Lord's Prayer is sung, the Aves recited, and the Doxology
sung. After the Rosary a hymn to the Blessed Sacrament is
sung. Benediction follows, the people singing the ' Uni Trino-
que,' the responses of the Litany, the ' Genitori,' and alternate
verses of the ' Laudate.' Finally, a hymn with chorus is sung.
Our success is most gratifying. Is it not possible to train this
congregation to sing High Mass ? "

Another priest writes me from a country village in the East :
" When sent here I saw at once that we could not have regular
church music unless the whole crowd sang. Three or four
women would screech in the gallery something generally far be-
yond their powers to render properly ; but if one of them fell ill,
especially if it was the organist, or if something else happened to
keep one away, we'd have no singing. I determined to reduce
the vocal music to its lowest terms, and so get the congregation
to sing." Here follows a description of simple arrangements of
the Common of the Mass set chiefly to psalm tones. He adds :
" The people learned it at once and never tire of it. I take my
verse with the sanctuary boys, and let all the rest take the other.
They can put in their stylish hymns at the Offertory and Com-
munion if they like, but we are independent of them and have
our little fun without them."

In the beginning of Lent, 1884, I announced to the people of
our own congregation of St. Paul the Apostle that I would teach
them to sing a new hymn after vespers. Copies of a pamphlet
containing a few hymns were distributed to them. The teaching

HO W TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SlNGING. [Sept.,

occupied only fifteen minutes, and out of about eight hundred peo-
ple present at least five or six hundred learned to take good part
in singing two hymns ; neither words nor tunes of which they
had ever seen or heard before. They learned them well enough
to sing them at the succeeding services in Lent, with the regular
choir on Wednesdays, and without the choir on Fridays, at the
Stations. I held two other such rehearsals, and by this time
they had learned nine new hymns; and they sang them so well
that we were not ashamed to invite his Eminence the Cardinal,
the Most Reverend Archbishop Corrigan, and many prominent
clergymen and laymen to come and hear them. The verdict of
" very good indeed " was unanimous. Ever since then our peo-
ple have sung these hymns during Lent.

On Epiphany night, this present year, I repeated the experi-
ment at the Church of St. Brigid, in this city. The people learned
two hymns in twenty minutes, and sang them well during the
following Lent. I went down in Holy Week to listen to them
and congratulate them, and by request of the pastor, on the spur
of the moment, they learned a third hymn in less than ten min-
utes.

On Quinquagesima Sunday the same result took place in the
Church of St. Paul, at Worcester, Mass., where certainly eight or
nine hundred out of the fifteen hundred persons present learned
four hymns in two lessons, and sang them all from beginning to
end with great fervor and enthusiasm on Ash- Wednesday night
with only a weak piano for accompaniment, whose sound must
have been inaudible to those who were singing.

And just here I will answer Father B. None of these
people made a " terrible mess " of it by dragging or flatting.
They kept good time and never lost the tone, although singing
for over an hour.

What man and woman has done, man and woman can do. I
am confident that there is not a congregation of Catholics in this
country so unintelligent or so unmusical as not to be able to imi-
tate their brethren of St. Paul's in New York and Worcester,
and at St. Brigid's.

"But," insists Father C., "they won't sing, because they
wouldn't like it." By which objection he means that the effort
being made, the people will care so little for it that they will
show their lack of interest, or even their dislike of it, by not
coming to the services where there is congregational singing.
Let Father C. come to the service of the Stations in the Paulist
Church in Lent when, of all services whatsoever, the vast

1 888.] How TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. 727

church is the most densely crowded, there being- no less than
twenty-five hundred people present, and often three thousand a
service when the people have all the singing to do, none of the
regular, choir being present, except some of the boys in the pro-
cession.

What does the Rev. Dr. McSweeny, the rector of St. Brigid's,
say of his congregation ? " Our congregation are pleased with
their new privilege of joining in the singing, and their attendance
at the services at which they sing is greater than usual. I have
no doubt but that it will become more and more popular. As it
is I am quite surprised at the readiness and facility with which
they have seized on the airs, and all are delighted with the gen-
eral effect. I quite agree with you in your opinion that the lay
people should take a more active part in the services than merely
looking on and listening, especially as it is sanctioned by Catholic
usage in countries where the church has had time and opportun-
ity to display her spirit and realize her ideas. The last Council
of Baltimore (No. 119) also recommends it."

Let us hear what the V. Rev. J. J. Power, V.G., the rector
of St. Paul's, Worcester, has to say : " I. My congregation still
like their singing work. 2. They have improved and are im-
proving weekly. 3. The attendance at Vespers is now three
times what it used to be. 4. I have had a rehearsal every Friday
night since you were here, and we have some rousing choruses.
5. They are learning ' O Salutaris,' ' Tantum Ergo,' and ' Lau-
date Dominum.' I could go on and make other points down to
I3thly, but the above will suffice to show you that we are not
asleep, and have not yet tired of the work ! I enjoy it as much
as they do."

But Father C. is still quite sure he is right ; and in proof that
the people do not care for singing worship, and much prefer the
silent method, he triumphantly directs our attention to the fact that
all the Low Masses are crowded, and, despite the love our peo-
ple have for sermons, the High Mass is, as a rule, poorly attended,
and Vespers are unanimously voted, so far as attendance goes,
a failure. If his objection proves anything, it proves at the most
that the people are tired of and do not like the common uncath-
olic fashion of giving all the vocal praise of public worship to a
few who are often a few with whom they have little or no sym-
pathy, and with whose singing their souls are no more in per-
sonal communion than they would be with the music of a hand-
organ hired praisers who ought long ago have gone out with
the hired mourners, with their paid-for crape and tears, of old-

728 HOW TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. [Sept.,

time funerals. And it proves, I think, one thing more: that the
Catholic sense of the people protests against the character of the
music and singing commonly furnished by the few ; their absent-
ing themselves from such services being, in the judgment of many,
a strong proof of their faith and devotion, in that they are as a
mass anxious to have the little time they spend before God in
public worship free from such distracting, confusing, unintelligi-
ble sounds. Their absence from the garbled, unmeaning Vespers,
such as one generally hears, I hold to be a tribute to the intelli-
gence of those who stay away. On which point I need not fur-
ther enlarge.

" It is all very well for you priests in the city," says Father
D., " where you have good musicians and a grand organ to carry
the thing through." This objection has already been answered
by the singing of nearly a thousand people at Worcester, where
the sound of the piano was practically inaudible. But I have
something else to say thereon. The fact is one well known to
and bitterly animadverted upon by the best artists and writers on
singing (which, if there be such a thing as divine music, it alone
is), that the worst enemies to vocal music, and whose trade has
done more to retard the progress of this divine art than all other
causes put together, are the organ-builders and the piano-makers.
People nowadays have come to think that the chief beauty of a
song is in its musical accompaniment (and no wonder, since the
melodies composed are in themselves generally so poor, expres-
sionless, and bald), and that an organ, and a big one at that, is
just as necessary in a church as an altar; as in many a church we
know the organ has cost twice and thrice what the altar did. No
wonder the organist very logically esteems the claims of his more
costly and more beautiful instrument upon the notice of the con-
gregation as of far greater moment ; giving rise to more than one
painful exhibition of subservience of the sacerdotal function to
its usurped sovereignty. I aver, and I am upheld by all whose
judgment is of worth, that it is a huge mistake to suppose that
the braying of a big organ, with trumpet, cornet, and bombarde
stops all on, is a help to the singing of either a limited chorus or
of a great one like a full congregation. On the contrary, it con-
fuses and retards the singing, and so overlays all audible vocal
articulation that not only the words are rendered unintelligible,
but one is not able to tell sometimes in what language the choir
are singing. It is the organ that would make the people drag
the time, as it does when used to "carry the thing through."
The laws of acoustics are inexorable, and prevent union of the

1 888.] How TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. 729

sounds between it and the singing of those who are at even a
moderate distance from it. The sounds of the organ-pipes must
travel from the organ to the people (a very appreciable time even
in fifty feet) before they can hear them. Then they sing. Now
the sound of their voices must take time, doubling the first, to
return to the ear of the organist before he can hear them. The
result is inevitably discordant, confusing, and dragging, one wait-
ing to hear the other. Everybody knows what unendurable ca-
cophony (truly a " horrible mess ") is often produced where the
practice prevails of accompanying the priest during the Pre-
face and the Pater Noster.

But an organ is not a necessity in a church at all, least of all
is it necessary as an accompaniment to singing. If you wish to
hear good singing, intelligent singing, where you can distinguish
the words sung (lacking which any singing is reduced to a mere
combination of harmonious sounds, a result most certainly in flat
contradiction to the divine idea of church song), singing where
one gets the effect of the emotional rhythm of the singer's melo-
dy, and is affected by the spirit of the song, go to a church
where all the singing is done without organ, as in St. Peter's in
Rome ; in the ancient cathedral of Lyons in France ; in many city
and village churches in Europe, and in the orthodox synagogues
of the Jews. My dear Father D., if you have no organ, do
not despair. Congregational singing is possible without one ;
or, if you can afford it, get a small one, and use it to give the
pitch, and as a means of rehearsal, that by playing the tune over
upon it first the people may catch the air they are to sing, there-
by saving the leader's voice, which, for the matter of that, would
be far more serviceable for that purpose, if he were able, than the
organ. Then let the people get accustomed to sing without it,
or let it follow the singing by a quiet accompaniment, sparing
their ears its deafening din, the wearing effects upon their throats
straining to overpower it and make themselves heard, and the
utter quashing of all personal feeling in their own hearts, to say
nothing of the obliteration of all intelligent understanding of
what is sung. I say again, and let him who can disprove it,
singing is the music which the Catholic Church recognizes, ap-
proves, and desires as the fulfilment of her ideal of solemn wor-
ship, and the usurping organ has been the death of it. Some
persons rate the solemnity of a celebration as some speakers
appear to grade their powers of oratory, by the amount of noise
that is made. But it is vox et pr&terea nihil. In order to prove
that I am not talking " rot" or "rant," I wish a pastor could be

730 HOW TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SlNGING. [Sept.,

induced to try an experiment, viz., to order that one-half of all
that is sung at Mass and Vespers be sung without accompani-
ment of any kind ; and continue this practice for one year. I
would then be ready to lay a heavy wager that if the question
be put to the vote of the congregation they would decide, with
no mean majority, to discontinue the use of the organ for the
other half. And now I will let my readers into the secret of my
confidence of winning the wager. In order to comply with the
orders of the pastor, and to sing anything that would be worth
either singing or hearing, the leader would be obliged to select
pieces whose melodies and harmonies would possess intrinsic
" wealth," as musicians understand that term, vocal music which,
like a perfectly handsome and charming lady, or a true gentle-
man, does not depend upon instrumental ornamentation to prove
its worth, any more than the lady or gentleman in question de-
pend upon their dress, gorgeous or ornamental finery to impress
beholders with a belief in the genuineness of their beauty or gen-
tility.

Organists will readily see that I am far from endangering the
emoluments of their profession by this plea for little organ-play-
ing, and the playing of small organs to accompany singing.
For, as educated musical artists, they would to a man far prefer
fine vocal music well accompanied, and know that it takes a
much more skilful and accomplished organist to accompany
singing in a delicate, sympathetic manner; and that he who can
thus enhance the vocal effect is in fact worthy of a much higher
salary. Besides there is plenty of opportunity for him to dis-
play his talent as a performer apart from the singing. Really
fine compositions for organ are not written to be sung to.

Again, good, devout congregational singing can be had by
those pastors who cannot afford to pay highly salaried organists,
and therefore my plea will be equally welcomed by organists of
moderate acquirements. Many such will then find engagements
where now they seek in vain for one.

" Oh ! there is no use trying to make the old folks sing : one
must begin by teaching the children in the parochial school,"
says not only Father E., but so far as all private letters I have
received, and all comments seen in the journals give evidence
say #//the fathers from A to Z. This singular method of solv-
ing the question of present starvation by giving good advice
about planting corn and wheat next spring-time has not a little
astonished me.

There is one father, however, whose name is Y., now writing

1 888.] How TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. 731

who, while he knows perfectly well and fully agrees that the
children should be thoroughly taught and constantly exercised
in singing, both in school on week-days and Sundays and at
Mass, would just as soon think of expecting congregational
singing to grow out of that alone as he would count upon see-
ing all the grown-up people who never danced in their lives
dancing at a ball which they must attend every week, but at
which not a soul has as yet ever stood up on the floor to dance,
because the little ones are sent regularly to dancing-school. We
have had our children singing in almost every Catholic school
in the land for more than one generation. Has congregational
singing ever grown out of it ? Do not the children stop singing
when they leave school? Why do they stop? Plainly because
there is no singing done by their elders. How are the children
when grown up to sing in church if there is no singing there for
them to join in, and keep up the practice? Are we never to
have congregational singing till all the children are grown up?
Must all the fathers and mothers, the young men and women of
our Catholic millions, die and never know the unspeakable joy,
comfort, elevation of spirit, and sweet consolation in that highest
and purest outward and sensible expression of heartfelt praise
which comes, and can only come, from ones own singing ? The
common agreement of so many in relegating the whole question
to the education of children forces upon my mind a most unwel-
come conclusion : that but very few seem to have any personal ex-
perience of what it is to sing, or of the effect upon one's own soul
produced by one's own singing. Are we also among the gro-
pers, the blind leaders of the blind, who are vainly looking for a
Catholic Church of the future, a " Catholic Church singing '' (un-
questionably one of its highest ideals), but one which, like the
Church of the Future dreamed of by the gropers and blind
guides aforesaid, is always to be and never is ? God forbid !
Free the church now from these bonds of silence and inaction if
it can be done now. Give the faithful a chance to lift their
voices in glad acclaim to God, and who does not see that the
most marvellous results will instantly follow in the increased in-
telligence in faith, and in the deeper edification of the spiritual
life of the people?

In all the ordinary routine of clerical duty our priests labor
like giants, and our people are no niggards in supplying the
means for every good work proposed to then*. So, Father F.,
I think I may dismiss your fears of the cost with a very few
words. It will not cost as much as you fancy. How much

732 HOW TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. [Sept.,

would you be willing to pay to have congregational singing
established on a fair footing in your church ? " Congregational
singing of what ? " you ask. I reply that it may be considered
as of three grades. First that the people will be able to sing
English hymns at Low Mass; also, if you please, before and after
High Mass and Vespers; and at all devotional services on Sun-
day nights during Lent, the month of May, etc. Second that
now being able and well accustomed to sing together, they
should sing, as they ought, at least all the Common of the Mass ;
the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Third that
they unite with or alternate antiphonally with a select chorus in
chanting the true rubrical Vespers of the day, and the Anti-
phons and Litany for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
Do you wish to know how much money all that will cost ?

I make you a proposal. You shall have the first kind of
congregational singing fairly started in your church if you will
give as many dollars as you have sittings in your church. For
this sum I will teach the people or see that they are taught, and
will supply all the hymn-books, one for every person. Time re-
quired to accomplish the object proposed, two or three weeks.
When this result is achieved and the people have been faithfully
encouraged to continue, and ample opportunities afforded them
throughout the space of about a year (though in some places it
would not need so long a time), they will be ready to take up
the second grade. This, I am convinced, can be achieved at the
same cost and in like time, the needed books being also furnish-
ed to them ; and the third grade can quickly follow at the same
expense. If you do not think this perfect congregational sing-
ing to be worth three dollars a head, all books being included,
I advise you to sit down and read over again my former essays ;
or, perhaps a little story will illustrate my meaning better. A
certain person wishing to purchase a first-class painting asked
the dealer the price of one by a celebrated artist. " Ten thou-
sand dollars," was the reply. The would-be purchaser opened
his eyes wide and drew a long breath as he said : " I want a first-
class picture, and you tell me that the one I see is genuine ; but
I cannot understand how a piece of painted canvas can be worth
all that money." " Then," said the dealer, rather bluntly, " I
must refer you to the study of art and artists until you do under-
stand it."

That the peopje would gladly contribute the requisite money,
or so much of it that the payment of the balance would draw but
lightly upon the church's bank account, is beyond dispute ; taking

i888.] How TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. 733

it for granted, of course, that the pastor is heartily in sympathy
with the project, is anxious and determined to obtain the result,
and, not to put too fine a point upon it (if the comparison may be
made), would far prefer big congregational singing to a big or-
gan costing double or triple the sum before a note of it is heard,
and a quartet of high-priced artists to do the small singing to its
loud playing.

" But," says Father G., " is the patient to be left without hope
of restoration to musical health unless your proposal is ac-
cepted ? Are you the only Doctor of Congregational Singing in
the country? Have you no recipe which can be made up by
the local musical doctor and administered secundum artem ? " I
am coming to that as the practical point of this article. I can do
no better than explain what may be called the "method " I have
adopted in teaching, a method so simple that I would despair of
getting a patent for it, and if I could I wouldn't, for I hate
quacks and all patent nostrums.

In the first place, the people must be amply supplied with
hymn-books, each person having his own. To have only one
book for two or more persons is practically to hinder one or the
other from having a clear, distinct view of the words, and thus to
prevent their intelligible pronunciation. Again : several singing
together in this way will result in their instinctively combining
to produce a tone which will lack the strength and fulness of the
sounds produced as the aggregate tone of several voices singing
apart. In order to show the simplicity of the " method," I will
give an example in calisthenics. Standing upon an elevated plat-
form in sight of all assembled, the gymnast addresses them and
says : " You all have arms and hands, and you can move them as
well as I can." Going through the motions himself first, he then
calls upon them to imitate him. Stretching out his right hand
at right angles to his body, he cries out : " Everybody stretch
out their right arm like mine. Now ! all together." It is done.
Doing the same with the left arm, they also promptly imitate the
motion. " Now lift up both your arms above your heads like
this " (suiting the action to the word), " all together ! " That ex-
ercise is successful. " Now bring both your arms down to your
sides!" It is instantly done. The lesson is over.

That is just what I have done in teaching singing. The fol-
lowing is therefore my simple recipe, easily compounded and
readily administered by the local doctor of music, and good
enough materials for it to be found anywhere. Let the pastor go
into the pulpit, and by a few plain, earnest words impress upon

734 Ho w TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. [Sept.,

the people that God has given them voices to sing his praises,
and that he is waiting to hear them : that many of them can
probably sing as well as others whose singing they admire, and
some, he has no doubt, a good deal better better at least to suit
God, who is their heavenly audience and the only one to please
in church. If the pastor be a singer, he can do the teaching
himself. If not, let him have the assistance of a singing leader,
who should stand in an elevated position so as to be seen by all.
Then he or the leader, as the case may be, reads over the first
verse of the " beautiful " hymn they are to learn. Everybody has
a book and follows the reading, but because the pastor reads it
they see more beauty in it than silently looking at it. If there is
an organ, bid the organist now play over the whole tune dis-
tinctly, requesting the people to listen very attentively. Then
say : " Now listen to me while I sing over the first line, and the
instant I finish it I will sing it over again, and every one with a
tongue in his head will sing the same with me." The strangers,
the people, and pastor too, are astonished at the result. Here is
a mixed crowd of people, of whom not a dozen, perhaps, have
ever sung with others, and certainly never in public, nearly all
singing with great unanimity and in good time and tune. There
are exceptions, however. Some over-timid ones, or a few over-
curious people will keep silent to hear " how they will do it,"
or some very old folks, who are there for devotion's sake, and,
like good Christians as they are, persevere in prayer with their
beads no matter what is going on, and are probably thinking
all these new-fangled ways to be "very queer." But the sound
is inspiring despite their devotion, and they soon forget just
where they were in the decade, and the curious ones find them-
selves moved with holy envy to rival the others in the "re-
petition."

Now smile all over your face and exclaim, encouragingly :
" That is excellent, wonderfully good ; I am delighted ! I knew
you would like it ! " And you are sure to tell the truth : for con-
sidering all things, the novelty of it, with their former ignorance
and inexperience, it is indeed excellent and wonderfully good.
Always make it a point to praise, and never to find fault. Then
go on. " Now listen while I sing the second line which you will
repeat as before with me." That second line is sure to be sung
better than the first. Your smiles and little word of praise did
that. Afterwards repeat both the first and second lines. The
third and fourth are to be treated in like manner, and the lesson
is over : for now the whole verse is readily sung. Then get them

1 888.] Ho w TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. 735

on their feet. That brings out a double volume of tone, especi-
ally as you will be wise in telling them that now, having learned
it so well, our Lord wants to hear them do their best, their very
best, and his holy benediction will fall upon every one that joins
in the singing and tries his best, even if he can only manage a
few notes at the first trial. You will find it child's play now to
teach the other verses of the hymn. Every one's face is radiant
with pleasure, and they are so well pleased with their success
that they are thinking of the congratulations they will make to
one another as they go home after the service. They have, per-
haps, learned this first hymn so quickly, and are so delighted
with their new accomplishment, experiencing such a pure and
heartfelt pleasure, as all pure-hearted singers do, that the propo-
sal to learn another hymn "on the spot " will be received with
evident satisfaction : like a marksman who has hit the bull's eye
at the first shot, he wants to do that just once more before he
lays down his gun.

There is my method in a nutshell. Seeing that it has proved
so efficient, my advice to those who may try their hand at teach-
ing a chance congregation of people to sing is to give this sim-
plest of all simple methods a fair trial. You may possibly know
another method more thorough indeed ; but just try the plan I
have indicated, if only as one uses a primer. But be sure to pre-
serve a confident tone and manner, manifesting your own assur-
ance of success. The result may lack a good deal in polish but
foundations are none the worse for being rough, and, as founda-
tions, really look better and inspire one with the feeling of their
stability and strength. Ornamentation befits the higher and
later developments of the structure.

I hope that the main point I have endeavored to enforce in
my little lesson has not been overlooked the motive which I in-
variably present in the most urgent, earnest language I can com-
mand all this is for God and to please him.

The likening of myself to St. Francis by my reverend and
friendly critic, as published in his notice inserted as prefatory
to this essay, needs no explanatory after-sentence, in the language
of the lamented Artemus Ward, to inform his readers that " this
is sarkasum " ; but I will not deny that I have taken my cue
from the "method " employed by that wonder-working saint in
his simple, charming, and effective sermons to the birds and
fishes, and especially in presenting the same motive he did in
order to draw forth their expressions of praise to their loving
Creator. If you wish to touch a Catholic's heart, make your plea

736 How TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. [Sept.,

" for God's sake," or " for the love of God." That appeals to
the confidence he has in the strength of his whole fabric of faith,
and touches every fibre in his spiritual organism. Impress that
motive deeply and you will get melody out of those who have no
more genius for singing than a cow, or, if you will, a fish. And
you have laid up the act of his singing with every word and tone
of that hymn in the inner sanctuary of his soul, where the
reigning, moving spirit is the love and adoration of God and of
all things divine.

When you get people who have never sung before to sing a
pious hymn you give them the taste of what is to them a new
spiritual food, to their great surprise and delight ; and though
they do not put their feelings into so many words, yet it is no
exaggeration to say that the language of the well-known versicle
and response at Benediction would aptly describe the sentiment
of their hearts: Panem de ccelo prsestitisti nobis ; omne delecta-
mentum in se habentem. Thou hast given us bread from heaven
to eat, in all sweet savors abounding. For he who is indeed the
" Bread of Life from heaven " is the intoned Word proceeding
from the mouth of God, and by which man lives the Word of
the Father who receives " per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso " all his
divine honor and glory, and whose spirit gives meaning to and
breathes forth the divine harmony of the universe. The supreme
impression upon the mind is, and they never will be able to shake
it off: " This is the hymn I learned to sing to God." I need
not say how necessary it is to enforce that impression on all
future occasions, nor need I add with what consoling results.
That explains how the V. Rev. Father Power's congregation at
Worcester soon swelled to thrice its ordinary number, remem-
bering as I do the words in which he addressed his people at
their rehearsals. Give the people a chance to tell God how
much and how truly they love and adore him, and let them utter
their words in those tones and accents which give unquestioned
consecration to speech, being instinctively associated with the
inspiration and elevation of the soul ; and at once the fire of
divine love, surely alive, but often yet only silently smouldering
in their hearts, will be fanned into a flame, quickly spreading and
kindling new flames in the hearts of others.

But to secure a thorough accomplishment of the design one
must not stop with teaching a chance assemblage of people in
the church. If it is to be so well done as to " go of itself," and
become an integral part of their worship and a settled tradition,
a weekly lesson must be given to the children by themselves ;

1 888.] How TO OBTAIN CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. 737

the same hymns taught to the people being rehearsed by them
in school.*

There should be at least one common congregational rehear-
sal, such as I have described, held one evening in each week to
sing over old hymns and learn new ones. A select choral
society of young men and women would be a great help. These
could meet on another evening and be taught something of
musical notation, learning also some good, healthy-toned choral
pieces other than the hymns for their vocal exercise and inno-
cent diversion. But such members should be strictly held to
the obligation of attending all the general rehearsals for the peo-
ple, as also the regular congregational services ; and in order to
avoid the wrong motive, the human motive, self-adulation, and
the cultivation of music for its own sake, they should not sit
together in church, but should scatter themselves about as they
might if no such society existed.

" FOR THE PRAISE OF GOD " must be the sole motto. It
must be the ding and the dong of both priest and teacher ; and
every attempt of the devil to sneak in another motive must be
promptly and vigorously squelched. Then there will be not
only good singing, but what is better, devout singing.

Beloved and reverend brethren in Christ, you who so gener-
ously give your lives in sacrifice for souls and for God's glory;
who, like other Atlases nutantis orbis statum sustinentes go
staggering under the burden of the world's woes, that ye may
bring the weary, wandering, and heavy laden more lovingly to
God ; and who never shrink from labor if duty calls : the word I

* Just here I cannot refrain from expressing my frank opinion on the subject of suitable
hymns for children and for adults. I am convinced from long experience that the majority of
hymns given to children to sing in services of worship are too childish. They are only fit for
the nursery, if indeed for that, lacking as so many of them do all logical musical idea. They
are strings of notes without rhythm or sense. Hence they are neither true, good, nor beautiful.
When not positively bad, as echoing the sensual ' ' motive " of an immoral operatic air, they are
often inane and silly ; utterly unworthy to be the tone-expression of divine thoughts and words.
It is high time we put away childish things and learned to esteem something better. At the
risk of being thought intrusive and self -conceited, I presume to take this occasion to reply to
some of my friendly critics, and say that herein lies precisely the merit claimed for the tunes I
composed for the Catholic Hymnal, in that they are not what is erroneously styled " simple,"
by which is often really meant what is in fact irrational and nonsensical. On the contrary,
with few exceptions, they will be found on fair trial to be truly simple, each one expressing one,
definite, musical idea which the people can easily catch, correct in phrasing and not lacking suf-
ficient beauty in form to make them reasonably true as a faithful tone-expression of the senti-
ments of the hymns, while being pleasing enough to be easily remembered. That they are not
all chef-d'ceuvres of hymnody I need not be told, but there are enough good ones in the
book to serve their purpose. I heartily recommend also the Roman Hymnal, by Rev. J . B.
Young, S.J., and especially because it contains the Common of the Masses in Gregorian chant
with full notation for Vespers. But if a pastor is already well supplied with other books, then I
say take them, if better cannot be afforded ; take anything in the shape of hymns, at least to
make a beginning with.

VOL. XLVII. 47

738 A COUNTRY NEGRO MISSION. [Sept.,

have spoken is in your hearing. If it be the word of God it will
bear much fruit ; though, following our Lord's own blessed doc-
trine proved in his own personal sacrifice and the consequent
triumphs he has won, it must first die. It must die as my word,
and passing into your hearts and minds there be buried, and from
thence rise again your own living word, a quickening spirit, before
whose vivific breath all things shall spring into fruitful, exuber-
ant life and undying strength.

ALFRED YOUNG.

A COUNTRY NEGRO MISSION.

KESWICK, a small village in Albemarle County, Va., has now
a flourishing mission among its colored inhabitants. As late as
October, 1886, there was no Catholic, white or colored, in the
place, save one namely, the teacher of the colored public school.
By birth a native of Albemarle County and a slave, he had hard-
ly been conscious of his shackles, for he was but a child at the
time of emancipation. Like thousands of the young men of his
race, he longed to drink of the Pierian spring. Like them, also,
he had to endure hardships and practise a self-denial seldom re-
cognized as within the power of the negro in order to gratify
his desire. Seeking in Pennsylvania to slake his thirst for
knowledge, our Lord gave him there to drink of the water
which should become in him a fountain springing up into eternal
life. Returning to his home, the young Catholic convert applied
for and secured the position of teacher in the public school. As
soon as he had got his school in good working order, he wrote to
me, then living in Richmond, to come up and preach to the col-
ored people.

With some misgivings, for the man was a stranger, I re-
sponded to the invitation. On my arrival at Keswick I was met
by the teacher and one of his pupils, whose father was to be
" mine host" ; they soon brought me to my journey's end. Stand-
ing there on the porch of his fine house, which is the centre of
a farm of fifty acres, my colored host, a man of splendid physique,
presented in his own person an argument of what the black race
is capable. And it was a cheering surprise to learn that in that
part of the Old Dominion were many such colored farmers. At

1 888] A COUNTRY NEGRO MISSION. 739

night I was brought down to the school-house, little better than an
enclosed wooden shed, about twenty feet by forty, built on a piece
of land which was given by mine host to the County School
Board. It was packed within and besieged without by an ex-
pectant congregation, for never before had the word of God
gone out from a priest's lips in that place. With but three ex-
ceptions the audience were negroes. I began the services by
having them sing the hymn, " Nearer, my God, to Thee " ; after-
wards I explained the " Sign of the Cross," the " Our Father,"
" Hail Mary," and " Creed." Then all standing recited the pray-
ers after me. A sermon of one hour and a half followed, and
nothing shorter would have satisfied them. This simple people
not only tolerate but actually request sermons which, in the cit-
ies of the North, would be of intolerable length. This was fol-
lowed by a second hymn and the repetition of the prayers. The
services closed with the priest's blessing, to receive which all
stood up. As a result of the visit a Sunday-school was organ-
ized, embracing young and old, married and single, the school-
teacher acting as catechist.

On my second visit I brought the requisites for Holy Mass,
which was a most extraordinary sight to this poor people. Plac-
ing the teacher at the Gospel side of the improvised altar I had
him read out in English the ordinary of the Mass. Four times I
turned around and explained the ceremonies. A most profound
impression was made by the majestic simplicity of the great Sac-
rifice of the New Law, which was enhanced by the colored
teacher receiving Communion at the hands of the white priest.
And no congregation could be more reverent than those simple
folk.

But these visits of the Catholic priest soon roused the white
Protestants of the neighborhood, who up to that time did not
seem to have so much as recognized, at least spiritually, the
negro's existence. An Episcopalian clergyman, who lives in the
next village, volunteered to teach the Sunday-school. Of course
the teacher declined the offer. True to his Episcopal instinct,
the clergyman would then like to become a scholar, and was
denied admission. Foiled in this attempt, the whites, whose
leader was an old Episcopalian lady, next attacked the teacher.
He was summoned to the county seat, there to answer before the
School Board grave charges made against him. The county
seat is eight miles from Keswick ; to it the teacher made several
journeys, going to and fro on foot, all fruitless, because one or
other member of the Board of Trustees was absent, and losing

74Q A COUNTRY NEGRO MISSION. [Sept.,

besides a day's pay by each fruitless visit. At last he stood be-
fore the assembled board, by whom he was suspended and the
school-house was closed, not only upon the school children, but
also against the priest. It was only on alighting from the train
at my next visit that the poor fellow told me of his troubles.
Several of the fiery ones among the negroes were in favor of
breaking open the school, but wiser counsels prevailed. Through
the kindness of a white gentleman living in the next county, they
secured the grist mill of the neighborhood, and all hands set to
work to fit that building for purposes of worship. It was only
at nine o'clock at night that the services were begun. It was a
weird sight. The few benches we could procure were all filled,
the idle mill-stone seated several more, the vacant spaces of the
floor were filled with squatters, and upon the rafters, straddling
them and holding on in every fashion, were scores of others.
Turn where I would, above or below, at one side or the other,
black faces were visible, while a fair sprinkling of whites were
seen around the doors or scattered among the blacks. In this
mill three adults, the first-fruits of the mission work, were bap-
tized. They had been admirably instructed by the school-teach-
er ; they made the responses, prompted by the teacher, in clear,
ringing tones. The whole service was reverently participated
in by all. The hands of the clock warned us of the hour of
eleven before the wondering crowd received the priest's blessing
and departed. At my next visit four more were baptized, this
time in the parlor of mine host, and on the following day
the three first received into church made their First Commu-
nion.

To render the work permanent it became necessary to build
a school-house, which was done last summer. And now St. Jos-
eph's Colored School, Keswick, Va., is one of the chief consola-
tions of the missionary. A rather singular result of this good
start is the little Catholic boarding-school that has grown up at
Keswick. Applications to attend the new school came from sev-
eral respectable young colored men at a distance, so that it became
necessary to provide a convenient place in which to lodge them.
The teacher, therefore, took a house, the rent of which and the
expense of their own support are paid for by himself and the six
young men who occupy it. They follow a simple rule of life,
rising at half-past five o'clock, and have fixed times for prayer,
study, recitation, meals, recreation, and retiring. Save the teach-
er and one other, all are unbaptized. At present there are about
fifteen Catholics at Keswick, and if a priest could only live there

1 888.] A COUNTRY NEGRO MISSION. 741

or go there oftener, especially on Sunday, incalculable good
would follow.

About eight miles from Keswick is a place called Union
Mills, quite an extensive property, consisting of a mill, cotton-
factory, many out- buildings, with a magnificent old style Vir-
ginia mansion, which is situated on the crest of a knoll, at the
base of which runs a small river, which can be seen for miles as
it meanders southward through a beautiful country. The family
of the present owner are Catholics, and being very much inter-
ested in the colored people invited the writer to open a mission
there. The school-teacher of Keswick accompanied me. The
old cotton-factory, a large three-story brick building, was put in
order for the visit. The old plantation bell, hung in its tower,
summoned the negroes to the service ; unfortunately it was a very
dark and cloudy night, so that not more than one hundred ne-
groes were present. The usual hymn opened the services, then
followed the explanation of the " Sign of the Cross," the " Our
Father," the " Hail Mary," and the " Creed." Any one famil-
iar with instructing children knows that in teaching them how
to bless themselves, the' readiest way is for the teacher to use the
left hand. Forgetting this, I blessed myself with the right hand,
and the poor people, imitating me too closely, all blessed them-
selves with the left. But this little awkward piece of forgetfulness
was soon corrected. The services were the same as at Keswick.
I was greatly impressed by the appearance of one of my hearers.
He was a noble specimen of the negro. Very tall, straight as an
arrow, black as ebony, but with regular features, this old colored
man sat bolt upright before me, never once taking his eyes from
my face. Upon questioning my hostess, who by her presence
and that of her family greatly strengthened the negroes' rever-
ence for the religious exercises, I learned that this noteworthy
negro, whose only name is " Uncle John," is universally looked
up to by the negroes and beloved by all, white and black alike.
Everywhere in the neighborhood is he known for his honesty
and the purity of his life. Often he goes off into the woods, pass-
ing hours there absorbed in prayer and talking, as he simply says,
to"de great Massa." He seems to be one of those chosen souls,
scattered here and there upon this earth, who, though separated
from the visible body of the church, yet belong to her soul.

A Sunday-school was opened at Union Mills, and was taken
in charge by the three Catholic ladies living there. It, too, has
been very successful. Preparations are being made .to open a
Catholic day-school there.

74 2 VIA CRUCIS. [Sept.,

Thousands of such missions and schools might be started
among the millions of blacks in the South if there were priests who
would break the bread of life to those famishing souls. And these
priests will come. The opening next autumn of our Seminary
for the Colored Missions, in the city of Baltimore, will give an op-
portunity for the zealous youth of our American Church to enter
upon the labors of this harvest, so ripe, so fruitful, and so consol-
ing.

JOHN R. SLATTERY.

VIA CRUCIS.

" SAY, toll-man, the name of the road I see stretching so cheer-
less, lone, and wild ? "
" Tis the Via Crucis that beckons thee. Amen. Then take it

boldly, child.
For the road must be trod by the sons of men in tears and in

silence, soon or late "
With a sob the little one now and then looked back as he passed

through the well-worn gate.
O Via Crucis ! thy stones are wet with the tears of travellers

young and old,

And thy land-marks are white gravestones set over smiles for-
gotten and hearts grown cold ;

But thou bringest peace when sighs are past,

And after a little thy gorse grows fair ;
Though feet bleed sorely, we learn at last
To bless thee, thou foot of heaven's stair !

LUCY AGNES HAYES.

1 888.] THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. 743

THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC.

THAT typical American ecclesiastic, Cardinal Gibbons, is said
to have lately dissuaded his clergy from using the street-cars,
not assuredly because he would have them hire a hack, but be-
cause he is a great walker himself, and knows the need and va-
lue of exercise for men of his profession. From what I know of
him, I feel assured that he hesitates no more now to use the demo-
cratic conveyance than before he was exalted to the Papal
Senate. Here suggests itself a question, however, which may be
of interest, and which is indeed one of great importance, and
the answers to which show considerable difference of opinion.
The question is: How shall the clergy present themselves before
the United States public?

Appearance goes for a great deal, as we all know. It pro-
duces those " first impressions " which " last longest." We wish,
as in duty bound, to impress the people favorably, being heralds
of the true religion. Shall we borrow titles, carriages, and dress
from the manners of courts and gentry, or shall we be content
with a name sufficient to distinguish us and our office individu-
ally, and with apparel enough for health and decency ?

Of course we all know what the Gospel inculcates in this re-
gard. It is morally certain that " Jesus of Nazareth " had only
that one seamless tunic which the soldiers cast lots for under the
cross, and which was doubtless knitted for him by the busy hands
of the Mater Admirabilis. He bade his disciples be content with
one suit likewise (Luke ix. 3), to accept no titles, to carry neither
purse nor staff, but to go about in the plainest way on foot
was evidently supposed, for they are bid shake the dust from
their feet in certain contingencies and to subsist on what the
people gave them to eat.

Nevertheless the Gospel cannot be taken too literally. Our
Lord's own company had a purse which was carried by Judas,
and St. Paul declined to eat at any man's expense, but earned his
own living ; not that he hadn't a right to " live by the Gospel,"
as he indeed teaches, but on account of " the weak" who needed
an example of still higher virtue, as they might possibly suspect
him of self-seeking if he accepted any return for his ministra-
tions.

On account of " the weak," therefore, the priest may depart
from the letter of the evangelical law, and the example of the

744 THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. [Sept.,

saints; and the practice of the church shows us this. We must
become " all things to all men in order to bring all to Christ," as
the same Apostle teaches. If for this it is necessary to wear
purple, we must wear it ; to be called " Eminence," we must
put up with it ; to use a carriage, it must be made use of ; to live
in a palace, in a palace we must live. We do not read in the ac-
count of St. Paul's life that he changed his apparel before appear-
ing in the Areopagus, but there is no doubt he got himself up as
decently as he could ; as to his attire when he made his noble
stand before Festus and Agrippa, the " prisoner of Christ" was
not able to give it much attention. In fact, I believe St. Paul
practised what he preached, and " having enough to eat and
wherewith to be clothed " was " content with these" (i. Tim. ii.
8) ; and I confess that I feel it a task to defend the usages which
later on were adopted by the members of the priesthood, of
splendid robes and vast palatial residences and pompous titles.
However, it is a difficult question, and there is much to be said
pro and con.

How majestic and beautiful and striking is simplicity of man-
ners! One of my earliest recollections of college-days in New
York is the occasional visit of the Regents of the University to
the infant institution which floated on its banner the name of the
Apostle of the Indies. The chief of them for a while was Prosper
M. Wetmore, and you can imagine how exalted a personage he
was in the eyes of an under-graduate. One day, going to school,
I met this gentleman on the corner of Union Square and Fifteenth
Street, carrying a small market-basket. He had evidently gone
out to procure some fresh fruit or vegetables for his household.
It is over thirty years since, but I love the reminiscence, and
long for the plain manliness of those days, which, far from being
incompatible with nobility, learning, and culture, seems to be a
consequence of them. Picture to yourself Socrates or Plato,
Zeno or Aristotle, and what clings to them of the " impedi-
menta " but the graceful toga? Think of tacking Mr. before or
Esq. after the name of Homer !

Another idol of my boyhood, whose memory as I grow older I
do not less revere, was Peter Cooper. How interesting and edify-
ing it was to see him, the master of great wealth and the patron
of a splendid institution of learning, drive his plain vehicle to
the post at the Seventh-street door, and himself fasten the horse
before he went in on his daily visit to the School of Design or the
Debating Society ! In appearance as in his heart he was still the
humble, sensible, man-loving mechanic, who had always cherished

1 888.] THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. 745

the wish to procure for young work-people "that education from
which he himself had been debarred." Was his influence less
because he did not ride or dress as, to use a common phrase,
"became his wealth and social position"? We boys honored
the ground he trod on. And Doctor Brownson ! Oh ! who that
has had the happiness and the high honor of conversing with this
complete man in his modest house at Elizabeth can ever forget
the impression produced ? Who ever felt anything else than
delight with his frankness, admiration for his wisdom, reverence
for his gentle, humble manners ?

Let us turn to ecclesiastics. Bishop Bayley, of Newark, was
a man of truth and piety, loving and beloved of his priests and his
people. Yet who more democratic, with all his frequent allusions
to the early expatriation of his ancestors? I noticed him one
day hailing a stage on Broadway, and as the driver did not stop
for him he ran after the conveyance like any honest citizen anx-
ious to get t.o business.

I went with a priest once to call on the former archbishop of
an American see. As we approached his house, I saw a group
of poor men and women, evidently of the needy class, standing
about on the sidewalk, and apparently awaiting their turn to
enter the hall-door, which stood wide open. " There they are !"
said my guide. " Every Monday morning he gives audience to
any poor people that want it,. and the door is left open and no
porter in sight so that they won't be timid about entering." We
went in, and for my part, to us the strong simile of a French
writer, " I felt as if I were about to call on Jesus Christ." What
the priest thought and felt I will say later on, but I never before
realized the character of the successor of the apostles so much
as on that occasion. He is the same prelate who was found
mending his cassock while stopping in Baltimore in attendance
on the Plenary Council, just as the Apostle of Alaska, Archbishop
Seghers, lately deceased, had to do and did, as we read in his
letters, far up on the banks of the Yukon.

I might recall other instances in the lives of laymen and cler-
gymen which have left an indelible and a most edifying impres-
sion on myself, precisely on account of their plain, unaffected
ways. What an appalling thought it is, indeed, this that our
every slightest act may be noted and treasured up, and produce
an everlasting effect on those who observe it! My object, how-
ever, is to inquire whether and how far the democratic simplicity

of Sts. Peter and Paul, of Archbishop N and Father D

and Bishop Bayley are expedient for the propagation of the

746 THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. [Sept.,

faith of Christ amongst the general public, and its preservation
in the children of the fold. I leave Doctor Brownson and Hor-
ace Greeley and Peter Cooper, as well as Socrates and Plato,
out of the question. It shocks one to have a person that hears of
their wisdom, patriotism, and philanthropy ask how much their
income was or how they dressed, as if suspending his verdict
on their characters till he weighed their wealth. So much for
philosophers of whom, indeed, it may be said that, unless their
singularity gives us reason to suspect their sanity, their titles,
abodes, and apparel make no difference in their acceptability as
teachers of wisdom.

But teachers of the faith : Does it make a difference whether
they are entitled eminence, grace, lordship, right reverend, and
such ? whether they ride in a carriage or in a street-car, or go
afoot carrying their own carpet-bags? whether they wear a
dress-hat or a Kossuth, a cassock or a pair of trowsers? It ap-
pears that it does to a greater or less extent, and among peo-
ples of different character and condition.

For instance, I am assured, and experience has taught me,
that in Ireland a priest is no prophet unless he wears that
strange capital integument which is the object of so much ban-
tering and to which so many contemptuous epithets are applied,
but which I believe is now technically known as a silk hat. I
know many an excellent priest of this country whose mission
would be barren in the Isle of Saints because he prefers the easy,
graceful, sensible slouch of the Western plains. What does this
show on the part of the Hibernians? We shall see later. " Lord
me no lords," our most illustrious theologian, Archbishop Ken-
rick, of Baltimore, used to say " lord me no lords ; you left your
lords in Ireland."

A graduate of the college already mentioned complained in
my hearing that Cardinal McCloskey came to a certain church
of his metropolitan city to give Confirmation, and actually came
in a street-car ! " O tempera ! O mores ! " I was expected to ex-
press a respectful amount of virtuous surprise at the forgetful-
ness of his dignity on the part of the first American cardinal. I
didn't. But I only want to show how the people, even the edu-
cated, even in the chief city of the republic, look at these things.

There was a layman's opinion. I told about my call on Arch-
bishop N . Would you believe me when I say that the priest

who accompanied me actually found fault with the bishop for re-
ceiving those poor wretches? I could not help remembering how
" He receiveth publicans and sinners," and I was astonished at

1 888.] THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. 747

the coincidence. " Couldn't he let one of the young priests give
the pledge to those fellows, and also listen to the stories of those
poor women, who only want a dollar?" So, what edified me
beyond anything I had experienced, even in my five years' resi-
dence in Rome, actually caused this ecclesiastic to find fault with
one of the pioneer bishops of our country.

I heard from other parties that the wealthy Catholics of his
diocese didn't like the same prelate either, because he accepted a
splendid carriage and horses only to send them at once to be sold
for the orphans. And these critics were men and women who
were wielding pickaxes and hammers, and bending over wash-
tubs and gridirons, along the canals and railroads or in the mines,
while the bishop was already deep in the wisdom of Aquinas and
Dominic, and was treading in the footsteps of Bertrand and Las
Casas.

Why do the Irish want their priests to wear a high hat ? I
suppose it is not only because he is their chief social and politi-
cal representative, and they feel that they will be respected ac-
cording as he is, and they know the deference paid to dress and
appearance generally, but also they feel that the mass of them-
selves are so poor and suffer so much from the ignorance which
results from poverty, that they will fail to recognize the priest as
their superior unless he assumes a head-gear similar to that of
the easy and better-informed classes. So much, too, is the imagi-
nation bound up with the reasoning faculty, that the height of
the hat by which he excels his brethren helps them to remember
the superior station he fills and to reverence him accordingly.
Thus you see there is deep philosophy and profound knowledge
of human nature even in the choice of a covering for the head.
If we were all perfect, and sin had not brought shame on us,
doubtless we would get on very well in the majestic nakedness
of Adam, who was clothed only with the royal mantle of " origi-
nal justice," and in the " beauty unadorned " of the mother and
queen of humanity. But I fear me that there would be sad dis-
orders if we attempted a sudden reversion to that beautiful
fashion of the body. We are a fallen race, and are not strong
enough to do without the otherwise absurd, ugly, and distorting
encumbrance of clothing.

Now as to the dwelling of the priest. There is no doubt that
the Irish like to have their priests live in a "decent" house, and
for the same reasons which make them insist on the tall hat.
Indeed, I was respectfully but firmly interpellated once, because
I did not buy a dwelling for myself that far outshone in appear-

748 THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. [Sept.,

ance and actually exceeded in value the adjoining church edi-
fice, in which the pioneers of a certain parish modestly offered
worship to the Hidden God. And this while I was pinching
and scraping to form the nucleus of a fund for the erection of a
new and larger church which the common voice demanded. Yet
verily those same Irish have a remarkable predilection for the
ministrations of priests who " profess poverty." The whole busi-
ness looks very much as if they would force the secular clergy,
cardinals, bishops, prelates, and all, to represent them and pro-
tect them before the world and in temporal matters, but when it
comes to settling their private affairs with God, ah ! then, "send
for Friar Thomas."

In Ireland and in Canada they call the bishop's house a pal-
ace, and truly it is amusing sometimes to see the unpretending
building to which this appellative is applied, and it is sad, too,
at least to some, to notice the appalling wretchedness of the
dwellings of those whose contributions went to erect the some-
times magnificent mansion that bears this regal title.

Is there philosophy in this too? There is. It is found here
also in the weakness of human nature.

Alzog, the German ecclesiastical historian (vol. ii. pp. 118-
132), tells us how Saint Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, "ex-
erted himself to have the bishops created spiritual peers of the
empire, in order that they should enjoy a certain political con-
sideration and prerogatives which all would recognize and re-
spect, and possess some sort of protection against the violence
of kings and the insolence of nobles." He says, moreover, that
" the possession of allodial estates on the part of bishops and
abbots, although frequently entered into from sordid motives, was
necessary in that rude people, because the clergy had to establish
themselves permanently in the country, and this could only be
effected by entering into close alliance and maintaining intimate
relations with the great and powerful, who commanded the re-
spect and obedience of the lower orders. Now, in order that
bishops and abbots might be regarded with similar feelings, it
was necessary that they should become in some sort the equals
of the nobility, and, like them, be qualified to take their places in
the diet of the empire, and the only available way of rising to
such distinction and consideration among a coarse and semi-civil-
ized people was to follow the example of the lay lords, and ac-
quire large landed possessions, held either in freehold or in fief."
But " peers of the empire " had to dwell in castles and " pal-
aces " ; this is how the bishop's house came to be so called.

1 888.] THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. 749

There are some of those prince bishops still among the nations
of Central and Eastern Europe, and the principle on which their
existence is based is one of those whereon is founded also the
temporal sovereignty of the pope.

Was St. Boniface wise in this course? There seems to be no
doubt at all about it, even though the people were not coarse and
semi- civilized, for even the most highly cultured nations have
always felt that the chief representatives of the spiritual power
should have a position, a maintenance, and a state equal to that
of the lords temporal. But what about a state of society in
which lords temporal do not exist? Of course, as Alzog says,
there was " danger of avarice," and God knows what frightful
abuses followed this policy, but yet, as human nature is, it was the
only enduring way to keep up the necessary influence of religion.
For republicanism, in all its majestic and beautiful simplicity,
is maintained in this fallen world only with difficulty ; pride,
luxury, and lust, on the part of the stronger members of society,
trampling on poverty, gentleness, and chastity, has too often been
the normal condition, and the weak must have their protectors,
the bishops and priests, recognized in public life in a secure
position. Have things come to this pass in the United States
that our priests must have their noble dwellings and "palaces,"
must attire themselves like the rich and wear titles of nobility ?
Is the Republic fallen so low that its citizens cannot recognize
the truth unless its herald is called " Your Eminence " or My
Lord " or " Your Grace," and lives in a palatial mansion and
preaches in an expensive edifice? We may, we shall, alas! come
to this in the course of time, for history repeats itself ; but are
we there already ? It is a hard question to answer.

There were those who thought and said that Cardinal Mc-
Closkey's red stockings would, like the "single hair'' of Judith's
neck, draw the plutocrats of New York and their wives (the
latter first) irresistibly to the conviction of and submission to the
truth. And yet I remember two of the most wealthy Catholics
of New York turning their backs on the Cardinal and that splen-
did Cathedral, and going off to be married in one of the neigh-
boring Protestant conventicles by a man in a black broadcloth
coat. And this just about the time of those historic events,
the creation of the first American Cardinal and the opening of
his new Cathedral.

Do we need Monsignores that is, merely titular dignitaries
so soon in the American Church? I presume some will say we
do. But there are those who think that the American people

750 THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. [Sept.,

still listen more willingly to the one that is addressed himself and
addresses them like St. Paul, as "Men, brethren" (Acts ii. 29).
" Talk to us like a man, brother! " seems to express the popular
sentiment. When we shall think more of a man because he has
a title then we shall be going down, if not to the coarse and semi-
civilized condition of the rude Gothic tribes for whom St. Boni-
face legislated, surely to the far worse attenuated refinement and
semi-satanic polish of the people of Imperial Rome. Men, like
the decaying swamp-wood, often glisten more brilliantly as their
combustion and decay advances. But, thanks be to God ! we
still contrive to maintain respect for the office and person of our
Chief Magistrate, although addressing him merely as " Mr.
President," and uphold the law even with the gallows, all the
time that we entitle simply " Governor " that fellow-citizen who
holds in his individual hand the awful power of life and death.

This is still a missionary country. We Catholics are scarce
more than one in eight, and our losses, in all probability, still
outbalance our natural increase and gain by conversions. Now
what, is the most effective manner for the missionary ? Look at
them when they come to give a " mission " even to the faithful?
They discard all titles, come in all simplicity of speech and man-
ner, do not even don the surplice ; and erect a simple, demo-
cratic platform down almost to the level of the people, instead
of speaking from the formal, aristocratic pulpit.

A canon of the diocese of Osma, in Spain (they are wealthy
and dress grandly, those canons), once accompanied his bishop
into France. On their way they passed through the country of
the Albigensian heretics, and met certain Cistercian monks whom
Innocent III. had despatched to convert those sectaries. Ob-
serving their pomp and magnificence, (!) which contrasted
strangely with the abstemious life and poverty of the heretical
leaders, the bishop, invited to the council at Montpelier, sug-
gested that if those monks would successfully accomplish their
mission they must put aside all the state and circumstances of
a triumphant church, and set about converting the heretics in the
simplicity and poverty of a'postles. The holy bishop himself
took part in the work, and, putting off his purple robes and
gaiters, went about barefoot preaching the word of God. The
canon accompanied him, and after the bishop's death continued
the work, and founded that Order which, with the one instituted
at the same time by Francis of Assisi, saved the tottering Late-
ran Basilica from ruin. The canon was known ever after as plain
Brother Dominic, but the church after his happy death placed

1 888.] THE PRIEST AND THE PUBLIC. 751

the letter S. before his venerated name. (Alzog, Ecclesiastical
History, vol. ii. p. 709.)

Is there no lesson here for us ? Are we prudent in putting
on already the blazonry of a triumphant church ? The saints have
again and again been sent by God to recall the clergy to simplic-
ity. They never objected to the divine nor to the ecclesiasti-
cal hierarchy ; on the contrary, they did all in their power to
sustain it and yielded it entire and perfect obedience. What
they opposed and attacked with all their might and the force of
their own example was the human adornment, the trappings and
the show, the unnecessary possessions, all those things, in fact,
which impede the priest in his struggle against the devil, the
world, and the flesh. "Oh ! yes; that's all very well in theory,
but practically " Far be it from me to condemn what seems to
be the practice of the rulers of the church. But this I know,
that when those princes and lords and their American counter-
parts want first-class Gospel preaching they generally call in one
of the disciples of Dominic, or Francis, or Ignatius, confident of
getting a genuine article at that store ; when they themselves
want to settle their accounts with God, they go to the same
shop ; and even His Holiness, and Their Eminences, and the
prelates generally, when on their death-beds, deal with one of
the same firm.

Well ! we're off again. Isn't there some way of explaining
these apparent anomalies and reconciling these inconsistencies ?
One was suggested to me recently which may serve to unite
things seemingly so widely disjoined.

It is this : The church is catholic that is, universal. Hence
all men must find satisfaction for their minds and peace for their
hearts in her communion. On the other hand, social classification
is inevitable. Therefore the church must have representatives
competent to introduce themselves and be made welcome in
every rank whatsoever of society, and to fit in and even to grace
and bless every social festivity. She has her cardinals for the
halls of princes and rulers generally ; her " prelates " for diplom-
acy, political arrangements, and for family gatherings of the rich;
her Jesuits for education and for intricate moral cases ; her Bene-
dictines for public worship ; her Dominicans for preaching ; her
Passionists for the death-bed of the heavily burdened con-
sciences of the powerful and wealthy ; her Franciscans for the
gentle, the simple, and the poor of Christ ; her bishops and parish
clergy for everything in general. So does she make herself all
things to all men, that she may gain all for Christ; she has

752 AT THE CHURCH GATE. [Sept.,

raised up saints in every one of those ecclesiastical grades and
families. Herein, very probably, lies the true explanation of the
great variety in the hierarchy and the regular bodies.

As to the question proposed in the beginning of this paper, I
wish to remark that it is not : Shall we have cardinals and other
ecclesiastical officials, in addition to the divinely established
hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons? There is good
reason why we should be represented in the councils of the pope,
and what privileges Catholics of other nations enjoy, the same
do we also desire to enjoy. The question is: Shall these func-
tionaries and the bishops and inferior clergy assume externals
here that are deemed becoming or even necessary in other
countries? The answer, as I said, is various; but as to the
argument taken from the example of Christ and His apostles,
just as, in the words of St. Augustine, " I would not believe the
Gospel unless induced by the authority of the Catholic Church,"
so we may and must also say : I accept no interpretation of the
Gospel contrary to " the sense which the Catholic Church has
held and does hold, whose function and right it is to declare
what is the true sense of the same" (Council of Trent, Session
4), and to adapt it to the ever-varying circumstances of times
and localities. EDW. McSwEENY.

St. Thomas' Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.

AT THE CHURCH GATE.

HOMAGE most tender to thy portals pay

My lips in passing, now the seaward breeze

Lulls thee by night, and starlight through the trees

Darts on thy triple aisle its moving ray,

Soft as a ghost that climbs by stealth to play

In the hushed choir fantastic harmonies:

Oh ! more to me thy beauty than to these,

And my still thought thy lover more than they !

Dear heirdom where no discord is, nor strife,
High presence-chamber supersensual,
Memorial of old friendship, hope unfurled,
Haven and bourne, white glory of the world,
Fortress of God ! yea, I would give my life
To stay one stone of thine about to fall.

LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 753

A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE.
III.

WHATSOEVER amount of truth may have been advanced in the
foregoing papers, on the momentous question between Ireland
and England which now awaits a solution, the argument has been
one of a cumulative character. Each fact, or collection of facts,
every argument or series of arguments, true in themselves and
alone sufficient to establish the right claimed from England by
Ireland, have, in their turns, added somewhat to the aggregate
of reasons on behalf of a complete and radical change in the ex-
isting relations between the two countries. The historical as-
pect, of which but an outline could be drawn by reason of the
dimensions of the space on which to trace it, was only not, of
and by itself, conclusive that the rule of the weaker by the more
powerful nation must in the natural order of events come to an
end. The verdict given by politics, which evidenced the utter,
hopeless and cruel failure of an alien, distant nationality to gov-
ern a dependent kingdom, supplemented all that was wanting of
moral proof to the historical aspect. Whilst the testimony sup-
plied by the social condition of Ireland at the present time, a
condition which is comparable with that of no other Christian
and civilized land, partook of the nature of a work of supereroga-
tion, beyond the proofs from history and politics, in exhibiting
before the world the misrule and maladministration of England.
If to these proofs of the position here assumed be added the two
incidental considerations advanced at the close of the last paper,
both of which flow from one of many injuries inflicted on the
Irish people by English interests, viz., the system of absentee
landlordism, then the balance may be said to kick the beam.

To this statement nothing further need be added by way of
securing conviction to an unprejudiced mind. Indeed, nothing
further could be added, saving in the way of illustration and ex-
pansion. Ireland, as she has existed in the long, bitter past ; Ire-
land, as she is treated in the miserable, ignominious present ;
Ireland, as she can be seen amongst the nations by all beholders
may not unreasonably, nor without due cause, nor inopportunely,
nor yet precipitately demand a change, some change, any
change of government. She may justly demand, in any case and
at all hazards, that the government of her people be taken from

VOL. XLVII. 48

754 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Sept.,

the palsied, insufficient and unscrupulous hands which hold the
reins of power. She may rightfully demand, at whatsoever cost
to the country which has so obviously and so selfishly ill-gov-
erned her impoverished, diminished and discontented people,
that the reins of power be placed in the hands of those in whom
she (not England) trusts at the present and hopes for the future,
and who, at the least, have not yet deceived her, but rather, have
brought her to the very brink of national emancipation. She
may legitimately demand this: and she is resolutely determined
to secure this claim at whatever risk to herself in the coming his-
tory of the Irish race, at home and abroad ; at the risk of inevita-
ble errors and possible mistakes ; at the risk of faults and failings
where perfection, or immunity from disappointment, was ex-
pected ; at the risk of the prominence of self-interested motives
and the rise of avowed or veiled ambition the claim to keep, or
to confide, or to withdraw the reins of power over herself accord-
ing to her own will, for her own advantage, for the benefit and
happiness of her own people. In a word, Ireland demands from
England, and intends to obtain from England, in accordance with
the world-wide sentiment of civilized nationality, the privilege of
making her own laws, by her own representatives, in her own
Parliament-house in Dublin.

Into the qualifications, restrictions, dangers and safeguards
which surround and interpenetrate the realization of the thought
which is expressed in the last sentence, it is impossible here and
now to enter. The purport of the present short series of papers
is not to exhaust an almost exhaustless topic. It is, rather, to in-
dicate, suggestively more than actually, what the writer con-
ceives to be a Catholic, if not the Catholic, view of the great An-
glo-Hibernian question. This, he has ventured to say consisted
in an average intelligent, if not a lofty and enlightened, opinion
on this complicated subject, which is supplemented by one which
was, moreover, Catholic. The historical, the political and the
social aspects having been considered, it only remains to the
writer to attempt to indicate, briefly, in what may consist the
opinion which is, before all things, of a Catholic character.

Now, it is a highly probable opinion to hold, and to many
minds it is an obvious remark to make seeing the actual results
which have ensued during the last three centuries, from Eng-
land's misrule of Ireland that such results would not have en-
sued, or at the least would not have been so keenly intensified,
had the alien government of Ireland been something which in
truth it was not. That alien government was a Protestant rule.

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 755

It was the rule of a Protestant ascendency enforced by England
in Ireland. It was the rule of a tiny minority of physical force,
of wealth and of station over the immense majority of the Catho-
lic population, both rural and urban. It was the rule of the
Protestant classes over the Catholic masses. Had the English
rule been Catholic in character, no reasonable doubt can be en-
tertained that Irish history had been very differently written
otherwise than in volumes of tyranny, chapters of disaster, letters
of blood. An opinion is widely accepted abroad, on the conti-
nent of Europe, that the main, if not the whole question between
England and Ireland centres around the differences of religion.
Such an opinion is, of course, only less inexact than the judg-
ment widely formed at home, on more insular grounds, that the
differences of creed enter not at all into the existing relations be-
tween the two nations. Perhaps here, as elsewhere, the truth
lies somewhere midway between these extreme opinions.

Although it may be speculative what would have been the
historical, political and social fate of Ireland had she, as a nation,
apostatized from the faith ; yet, it is morally, and almost physi-
cally certain that Ireland's career would have been far otherwise
recorded had she sold herself to the spirit of Protestantism, as
England has allowed herself to be sold. But, Ireland, the land
of St. Patrick, did not thus sell her birthright ; and hence, a very
large class of evils which Ireland has been called to suffer, and
which she has suffered, under unexampled rigor on the one side
and with unexampled fortitude on the other, was inflicted upon
her. These evils, it may be confidently affirmed, were the direct
outcome of her steadfastness in religion. But, this is only a
portion and a small portion of the case. It is true that a certain
class of ills came distinctly and directly from the antagonism in
faith between the two races. But, it is not true that religious an-
tagonism was confined to such ills. It is nearer the truth to say,
that very few of Ireland's troubles did not arise from an atmos-
phere of opposition which was originated and carried on by re-
ligion ; from the indirect and accidental irritation engendered by
breathing such an atmosphere ; or from the malignant and im-
placable hatred of England towards the Catholic faith, which
overflowed its natural bounds and colored and poisoned all, or
nearly all, other relations of life between the rulers and the
ruled.

If the position here assumed be in any degree true, it is not
difficult to see that in the future, a national government, which
should be also a Catholic one, would instinctively tend towards

756 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Sept.,

the pacification of Ireland. At once, the atmosphere of opposi-
tion between the governed and those who govern, on the wide
platform of religion, would be exchanged for an air of compara-
tive repose. This repose would indirectly affect a wider area
than that which is covered by religious considerations. Inevi-
tably, there would be no hereditary, life-long antagonisms to be
forgotten. There would be no historical memories and ancient
enmities to be appeased and lived down. At the first, under any
circumstances and probably continuously, there would be no class
jealousies to be healed, no class prejudices to be smoothed, no
class interests to be fought. Emerging from the caldron of dis
quiet and unrest in which all classes had been agitated for gene-
rations if not for centuries, by alien rule, the aim and object of all
classes would incline towards the largest amount of rest compati-
ole with the least amount of change. And such results might
be, in all likelihood would be, the issue, not of making the Catho-
lic religion the Established Religion of the state, as in England
the Protestant Creed is established on, supported by and gov-
erned in the interests of the state, but the religion of the govern-
ing body, as it is already the faith of the body which is ruled.
How this all-pervading influence of the Catholic religion would
be felt in the manifold relations of government and in the mani-
fold incidence of the laws upon the people, cannot be treated at
length. It may suffice to take a single example from each of the
three divisions of the argument which have been so often named.
Can we suppose e.g., for a moment, that the important social
question of the education of the Irish people, which has been
dealt with by fits and starts ; which has been begun on one system
and ended (so far as it is ended) on another; which has been
(from another standpoint) denied a legitimate end though permit-
ted a legitimate beginning that the question of education would
not, under the auspices of Catholic Irish autonomy, be speedily
and satisfactorily arranged, whether such education were ele-
mentary, or higher, or technical, or university in character ?
Do we imagine that the one note which hitherto has dominated
the parliamentary relations between the imperial and the depen-
dent nation, in almost every point in which an estimate be possi-
ble the note i.e. of failure would be the note which futurity
will mark against the conscientious efforts for the political wel-
fare of their native country, by a government which was at once
Irish, national and Catholic, let us say, in the matter of respect
for law and in the administration of justice ? Are we to think,
again, in the mere monetary and fiscal interests of Ireland, and in

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 757

the way of taxation, that the Catholic government to which she
looks forward with a mixed feeling of confident expectancy and
of assured hope, would be less likely to manipulate with scrupu-
lous fairness and sensitive honor the finances of the country, (
than the Anglo-Protestant ascendency to which undoubtedly Ire-
land owes her wide-spread bankruptcy and almost general ruin?
And, it must not be forgotten, in discussing the future influence
of religion on the fate of Ireland, that for the last three centuries
the English government of Ireland has been exclusively adminis-
tered in the interests of, and (as a rule) entirely by the person-
ality of a small Protestant minority in a country pre-eminently
Catholic a minority which rests for support and authority on
the large Protestant majority of a nation pre-eminently Pro-
testant. Surely, they need not be esteemed visionary enthusi-
asts who see in nearly any change in such relations, a change for
the better.

In order that the future of the sister kingdom may have even
a chance of being as prosperous as the past has proved itself dis-
astrous to the Irish people, it is essential that the government of
Catholic Ireland should itself be Catholic. This position appears
to the writer of these pages to be almost axiomatic. Whether it
be axiomatic or not, the reader must permit this assumption, on
the present occasion, and to the close of the present papers. If
it be not, this article is certainly not the place, and the writer is
perhaps not the person, to defend the position from a theoretic
and scientific standpoint. But, if the assumption be allowed, this
axiom (to borrow the word in debate) represents the principle
enunciated at the outset, viz., that the Catholic aspect of Home
Rule consisted of an average intelligent view of the question,
plus a Catholic supplement to it, which completed the estimate.
That supplement is the element which (to use a Biblical phrase
that need not be misunderstood), would transfigure the historical,
political and social aspect of Irish autonomy in the future. The
fact that Catholic Ireland should hereafter, at a date it might be
rash to predict, enjoy a Catholic government, would infuse a re-
newed life into the historical view, when its history comes to be
written. It would idealize the political view, during the period
of the making of history. It would humanize and render more
Christian the social view, which in some sort is a bond of union
between the two. In a word, under the influence of the Catholic
religion, the Irish national question would become sublimated.
And the influence of the Catholic religion can only fully and
completely be felt in the autonomy of Ireland when its govern-

758 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Sept.,

ment shall be Catholic. Into the differentia which exist between
a Catholic government and one that is Protestant, it is not neces-
sary to enter, theoretically. A practical aspect only of this great
practical question, which is also imperial, and from the wide dis-
persion of the Irish race, is almost universal in importance, is
here attempted. But a practical aspect cannot fail to be sugges-
tive, at the least, of certain truths of a theoretic character, if only
by way of antagonism. And tested by its actual results, the
Protestant rule of Ireland during the last three hundred years is
diametrically antagonistic to the results which are aimed at and
hoped for from a Catholic rule of Ireland in the future. Nor is
this a vague aim, or a rash hope. If it be a law in nature that,
under like conditions, the same or similar results follow the same
or similar causes ; it is no great exercise of political faith to be-
lieve, and it is no great tax upon political reason to affirm, that
different or opposite causes cannot fail to produce in the body
politic different or opposite results. And it is not untrue to say
that the theory and practice of Protestant government are not
so much different from, as opposite to, government which is both
based and worked on the principles of the Catholic Faith.

After what has been already repeated from well-known
records of the results of Protestant government by England, it
may suffice to apply the political law in question to the case of
Ireland. It cannot be reasonably doubted that a change in the
principles, as well as in the details of government, would produce
a corresponding change in the results of government. And the
change would be made in the direction of the divine faith of the
governing body, and the inevitable issues of such faith. It would
be Catholic in the place of being Protestant. This change,
though defined by a single word, is fundamental in idea and far-
reaching in expression. Without presuming to assume on what
principle, or want of principle, government that is essentially
Protestant in character is conducted, certain premises may be
affirmed of a Catholic government which will probably carry a
conviction of their truth to the Christian conscience. At the
least, their truth may be defended against all impugners, in the
case of Ireland, where there exists a happy concord between a
people devotedly Catholic and a people determinedly demo-
cratic. Of course, the central truth which underlies the legisla-
tion of a government which is essentially Catholic, is, to state it
simply, the doctrine of the Incarnation. The plan and office of
the Incarnation in the divine economy for man in this world, and
all that legitimately flows from this dogma in practice, as has

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 759

been thoughtfully said, is the " one unique transcendental fact
which is the well-spring of all true political ideas, the key which
opens the book of history, and the clue which safely guides
through the tangled skein of social life." Under the influence
of this divine light, the aspect of man, under every relationship
or condition of life, becomes modified or altered. His religious
belief being placed on one side as foreign to the present issue,
though not without influence upon his actions, his moral, his
social and his political relations become greatly changed. Man,
as the individual of a race, becomes something less than one of a
class, whose interests have to be carefully protected, and some-
thing more than one of a mass, whose interests may be safely dis-
regarded. Neither is the influence of the divine fact restricted
to man as an individual. It rises from the individual to the
class, or from the class to the mass of which he forms an unit ;
and from the class or the mass to the whole body politic. Hence,
a government which aspires to act the part of a Catholic ruler,
not only is not solely concerned with the individual, nor with
the class or mass, nor with the greater number, nor even with
the greatest number, but with the whole body of the governed.
It is concerned with the common-weal of all. And in this aspect,
a Catholic government would have an unusually fair field and
good prospect of success, in such a country as Ireland. The
reconciliation of the assertion of a Catholic government for Ire-
land, with its composite society, says the same accomplished
writer who is as loyally and patriotically Irish as he is devoutly
Catholic, and who was above quoted, " is not difficult, either in
theory or practice. My own view of the future of Ireland is
this : that once the Christian (that is, the Catholic) idea gets free
scope, the superabounding faith and zeal of the nation will draw
to it every element of good in the non-Catholic bodies, and will
eject or kill anything which refuses (or is unworthy) to be assim-
ilated. Heresy never had life in Ireland, when dissociated from
force ; and now that the force is about to be withdrawn, heresy
will perish not by violence, for that will not be needed but, as
it were, naturally. I do not think [adds the writer, in a private
letter which contains these words] that human history ever be-
fore presented anything so intensely interesting as the solution
of the political aspect of the great Irish problem."*

* It is a pleasure to be able to acknowledge indebtedness for many thoughts which have
found expression, and for much that has been mentally developed, in the foregoing remarks on
the Catholic government of Ireland, from the author above referred to, and who writes under
the title of " An Irish Catholic Layman." His Letters, or an Examination of the present state
of Irish Affairs in relation to the Irish Church and the Holy See, reprinted from the Dublin

760 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. [Sept.,

On one aspect of this topic, it may be permitted to venture
to offer an opinion on the question of the probable treatment of
a Protestant minority by the Catholic majority, in the future of
Home Rule. This opinion is based upon personal observation
and reflection, upon replies given to the writer by those who
are in a position to form a just judgment, and upon the evidence
supplied by contemporary' history. It has been suggested,
partly, perhaps, from a not unnatural fear of well-deserved re-
prisals, and partly from a consciousness of the inherent weakness
of a false religion, that, when a Catholic government rules Ire-
land, the non-Catholic population will be subjected to persecu-
tion, direct or indirect, moral or material. I believe that no
person who possesses a real acquaintance with Ireland or the
Irish, would hesitate to give an unqualified contradiction to the
idea underlying this suggestion. Such an anticipation can never
happen if only for this one, and somewhat mundane but sufficient
reason viz., that Protestant England, the stronger nation, which
has held Ireland in bondage for centuries, would never allow a
Catholic persecution of co-religionists. Subsidiary to this reason,
much might be added, in the way of support to the opinion here
expressed. But one good reason suffices, although much has
happened at the present day to show that whilst the cruel spirit
of Protestant bigotry has again and lately been exhibited for
instance, even unto blood, at Belfast in 1887 but little, if any,
evidence of Catholic intolerance can be quoted, even under the
influence of much provocation.

Such, then, being in outline the aspect of Home Rule which
may be termed the Catholic aspect, it will be a fitting conclusion
to these papers to witness these principles translated into the
every-day language of ordinary fife, by one who was a proficient

Nation in 1883-84, after having for some years been out of print, have been lately reprinted in a
cheaper form, " revised and enlarged," in their " seventh thousand " issue. They form a most
valuable commentary on the existing condition of Ireland, with the greater part of which the
present writer is in entire harmony. In the event of any reader of THE CATHOLIC WORLD being
unacquainted with the thoughtful and eloquent letters of this Irish Catholic Layman, it may be
permitted to earnestly commend them for perusal. Their subject-matter is thus described on
the title-page of the new edition (1888), recently published by J. J. Lalor, North Earl Street,
Dublin : "that the Home Rule, Land, and Education movements, with which the Irish people
are identified, are in perfect conformity with natural justice and Catholic principles ; and are in
essence, a struggle between a Christian and a non-Christian civilization." His dedication, also,
is worthy to be here placed on record ; and he tersely testifies to the justness of the opinion
formed independently and stated in these pages by the writer. It runs thus : " To the Irish
people, at home and abroad, ardent professors, and true defenders of the faith ; best examples
of its power in guarding purity of morals ; inspiring the spirit of sacrifice and enforcing invio-
lable fidelity to conscience ; bearing before the world for three centuries the standard of the
cross, and by it triumphing the following letters, illustrating their principles and advocating
their rights," are inscribed.

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. 761

in the subject of Ireland, of the Irish people, and of their na-
tional aspirations. The political doctrine together with the re-
sulting- practice was, not so much enforced, as taken for granted,
in the masterly Lectures on Faith and Fatherland, which were some
years ago delivered in the United States of America, by that
grand " old monk," as he calls himself, of blessed memory, the
Dominican Father Burke. Every nation, he says, in effect and
at some length, in a passage which here from necessity is much
abbreviated, every nation is made up of individual men and
women. Whatever the individual is, that the nation is found to
be in the aggregate. Whatever influences the individual is
subject to, whatever forms the individual character, the same
create the nation and the race. Amongst all the influences that
have been brought to bear upon the individual man to form his
character, the most powerful is that man's religion. Religion
fills the mind with certain knowledge, fills the soul with certain
principles, elevates a man to the acknowledgment of certain
truths, imposes upon man certain duties arid the most sacred of
all obligations that of eternal salvation. When this principle
comes in, it forms the man's character, determines what manner
of man he shall be, and gives a moral tone to his whole life.
And so is it, says Father Burke, with nations. Amongst the in-
fluences which form a nation's character, which give to a people
the stamp of their national^ and original individuality, the most
potent of all is the nation's religion. Now, the father continues,
there is not upon this earth a race whose national character has
been so thoroughly moulded and formed by the Christian reli-
gion, as the Irish race. Intellectually, and even morally, all
men are mostly born alike. The world first takes them in hand
and turns out a certain class of man, equal to its own require-
ments, and tries to make him everything that it wants him to be.
But, when the world has made a truth-telling, an honest, an in-
dustrious man, the world is satisfied. Then the church builds
upon this foundation of nature the magnificent super-edifice of
grace ; and the Christian character is founded in man by the
great theological virtues. Such a supernatural character, Father
Burke believes, and rightly believes, to be the national character
of the Irish race. As a nation, they have impressed upon them
the features of faith, hope and charity. To use the words of the
most eloquent and powerful preacher of the day whom it has
been the lot of the writer to hear, the Irish are possessed of and
are possessed by these three features of the Christian character.
As an unit of his race, an Irishman has the power of realizing

762 A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE, [Sept.,

the unseen, of knowing it, of feeling it, of substantiating it to the
soul and to the mind, until out of that substantiation of the in-
visible, comes the engrossing desire of man to make the invisible
surround him in time, that he may enjoy it in eternity. In a
word, the Irishman has faith. Next, the Irishman has hope ; and
in this gift he is confident. He may be tried with sickness, or
sorrow, or sacrifice ; but he rests with security and confidence in
the divine promise, so long as he himself fulfils the conditions of
such promise. He never despairs ; for he knows that sooner or
later he will triumph perhaps in time, certainly in eternity.
Lastly, as one of a nation, an Irishman has the virtue of love.
On this wide topic, two sentences only from Father Burke can
be quoted. Patrick (he says) sent the love of God and the Vir-
gin Mother deep into the hearts of the Irish ; and in the blood
of the nation it has remained unto this day. But, more than
this is true, the love of an Irishman, as one of his nation, for his
neighbor, is shown in three pre-eminent ways the fidelity of
the Irish husband to his wife, of the Irish son to his father and
mother, and of the Irish father to his children ; and where is the
nation, exclaims the orator, in which these three traits are more
magnificently brought out? There is no need to quote the
Dominican father on an Irishman's love for his country. It is
written at large and at length on every page of Ireland's tragic,
but hopeful story during the last seven centuries.* Whilst, if
by a figure of speech, perhaps somewhat Hibernian in character,
we may attribute to the Irishman of the past a form of charity
which a poet and a confessor for the cause of Ireland has pro-
phetically attributed to him in the present and future, we may
add to the Irishman's characteristics as drawn by Father Burke,
the love of enemies. This trait, which has been touched above,
is thus feelingly and gracefully described by Mr. Wilfrid
Scawen Blunt in the following lines, under the title of " Ireland's
Vengeance, 1886" :

" This is thy day, thy day of all the years,
Ireland ! The night of anger and mute gloom,
Where thou didst sit, has vanished with thy tears.
Thou shall no longer weep in thy lone home
The dead they slew for thee, or nurse thy doom,
Or fan the smoking flax of thy desire
Their hatred could not quench. Thy hour is come ;
And these, if they would reap, must reap in fire.

* Lectures on Faith and Fatherland. No. XIII. " The Irish People in their relation to
Catholicity." Glasgow and London : Cameron & Ferguson.

1 888.] A CATHOLIC ASPECT OF HOME RULE. . 763

" What shall thy vengeance be ? In that long night
Thou hast essayed thy wrath in many ways,
Slaughter and havoc and hell's deathless spite ;
They taught thee vengeance who thus cooled thy days,
Taught all they knew but not this one divine
Vengeance, to love them. Be that vengeance thine ! "

If this, indeed, be a true estimate of the character of a typical
Irishman, and if this be even an approximation to the characteris-
tics of the Irish nation, the great question of the future govern-
ment of Ireland, by Irishmen, for Irishmen and on the soil of
Ireland, so far as the nature of such government is concerned,
almost answers itself. On this question the present writer is
content to stand or fall with the judgment of one who was as
true to the old country and had as deep a knowledge of his
countrymen, as that great priest and holy monk, Thomas Burke.
Putting aside the sophisms of politics, the pedantries of politi-
cians, the excellent reasons and arguments of even well-disposed,
but prejudiced and ignorant persons, the writer need only ask
what was the opinion of Father Burke? After reading only the
above extracts, as indicative of the temper of his mind on this
topic, and still more, after reading the whole of the eloquent and
truthful lecture from which these extracts were taken, on the
Catholicity of the Irish people, it is impossible to believe that
Father Burke could contemplate any other than a Catholic gov-
ernment in the future for the future government of Catholic Ire-
land. In this factor consists the element which, in the judgment
of the writer, supplies to the average intelligent view of Irish
autonomy its Catholic aspect.

ORBY SHIPLEY.

764 "HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS." [Sept.,

"HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS."*

WHEN our bookseller tried to procure this book for us, the
publishers informed him that he must be a Baptist church-mem-
ber in good standing- and show a certificate to that effect from a
Baptist minister, or it would not be sold to him, or even to the
trade. Our curiosity was, we confess, considerably stimulated
by this. This book, thought we, must be a veritable Baptist
Monita Secreta. But it was only after two unsuccessful attempts
that we did secure our copy ; and now, after having carefully
read it, we are at a loss to know why the great uncertificated
public yes, even Baptist church-goers who are not church-mem-
bers, should be thus forbidden to read it. Perhaps it is but an
extension of " Hard-shell " close-communion principles into the
book-trade. How differently do we feel towards our Baptist
brethren. Not only will we sell THE CATHOLIC WORLD to all
comers willing to pay for it, but we have a particular desire that
individuals the most extremely anti-Catholic should buy it and
read it and lend it to their neighbors, especially the number con-
taining this article certificate or no certificate of membership
of any church whatsoever. Without further preamble, we pro-
ceed to our subject.

Does Dr. Armitage find difficult problems to solve in tracing
his denomination back to Christ? No. Not he. He knows
his subject too well. It is even remarkable that he always suc-
ceeds best where the obscurity is deepest. About matters con-
cerning which even Milman scruples to speculate, in the study
of which Dollinger weighs every atom of testimony, not to arbi-
trate upon which Newman reverently suspends judgment, Dr.
Armitage is most positive. Lightfoot, Harnack, Hatch, and
Fisher are still seeking for the light which he has found. No-
thing is so clear to him as that the Apostles were inspired Bap-
tists, that during their lifetime Baptist principles and practices
were firmly established -in all the churches, and that the Chris-
tianity they founded was genuine Baptist Christianity and no-
thing else. The " Apostolic Fathers," he tells us reverently,
" were a group of old Baptists."

Now, we know that our Baptist brethren of to-day are con-

* A History of the Baptists : Traced by their Vital Principles and Practices from the time
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the year 1886. By Thomas Armitage, D.D., LL.D.
New York : Bryan Taylor & Co.

1 888.] "HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS.'' 765

gregational in their ecclesiastical polity, totally rejecting the
authority of popes, bishops, and councils. And this suggests to
us a difficulty ; for one of the old apostolic Baptists, " Elder "
Clement of Rome, after having been with Sts. Peter and Paul,
filled the pulpit of the Roman (Baptist) Church acceptably ; it
seems to us that he behaved himself in a way very unbecoming
a Baptist preacher, and very much like what his successor,
"Elder" Leo XIII. would do under the same circumstances.
During Clement's pastorate, the (Baptist) Church at Corinth not
being able to quell a sedition that had arisen against two of its
ministers (and the Baptist Conference of the region perhaps
finding it difficult to give such advice as would be favorably re-
ceived), the pastor at Rome took upon himself (" unsolicited,"
says Prof. Salmon) the correction of this grievous scandal. This
good " elder," in a letter which has come down to us, says to
the rebellious Corinthians : " If any disobey the words spoken
by God through us, let them know that they will entangle them-
selves in transgression and be in no small danger; but we shall
be clear from sin.'' *

Whatever the " Baptist " brethren at Corinth may have
thought, when they were told by this distant brother that if
they disobeyed the words spoken by God through the Roman
Church (in whose name he wrote the epistle, as the form of it
shows), they would be guilty of sin, it is certain that for a cen-
tury at least this epistle was publicly read as a supplement to
the Scriptures in their church assemblies. History also tells us
that a few years later there was a Christian bishop at Antioch
named Ignatius a good Baptist pastor he must have been, ac-
cording to Dr. Armitage who became a martyr. Deputations
having been sent to him from a number of the Oriental Churches
he wrote and sent to them epistles.f In the one sent to the
Trallians, he urges them "to be subject to the bishop as to the
Lord ; without the bishop to do nothing."

In the one addressed to the Ephesians, St. Ignatius writes :
" Wherefore it becomes you to concur in the minds of your

* Dictionary of Christian Biography. By Dr. William Smith and Prof. Wace. Art.,
" Clemens Romanus." Boston : Little, Brown & Co.

t Although Dr. Armitage is positively certain that these epistles are forgeries, Bishop
Lightfoot, whom Prof. Harnack considers the most learned and careful patristic scholar in his
special department that the nineteenth century has produced, concludes from his investigations
that no writings of the second century, and very few writings of antiquity, whether Christian
or pagan, are so well authenticated as the Epistles of Ignatius. Lightfoot has spent nearly
thirty years in studying this question, and has recently published a book of 1,800 pages on The
Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp. (See the Expositor for December, 1885.) New York :
Anson D. F. Randolph & Co.

766 "HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS" [Sept.,

bishops, as ye also do. For your famous presbytery worthy of
God is knit as closely to the bishop as the strings to the harp."*
In his epistle to the Magnesians, he tells them " to do nothing
without the bishop and presbyters." f This unity of the early
" Baptists " and their reverence for authority is very striking.
Further evidence of this unity and authority, I find, is not wanting.
Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John and "elder " at Smyrna,
wrote to the Philippians and unfortunately, Mr. Armitage, the
epistle has been preserved that it is needful to abstain from all
impurities, " being subject to the presbyters and deacons as unto
God and Christ." History, unless the Baptists sort it out them-
selves in their own way, and supply an abundance of gratuitous
assertion, is a dangerous study for them ; for the primitive brethren
with inspired teachers, as Mr. Armitage shows, did not hold their
ground as firmly as the modern ones. Yet were not those the
true ages of faith ?

After the age of the Apostolic Fathers we find things no bet-
ter, but rather worse for the Baptists. Irenaeus, a disciple of
Polycarp, teaches that " We ought not still to seek among others
for truth which it is easy to receive from the church, seeing that
the apostles most fully committed unto this church as unto a
rich repository all whatsoever is of truth, that every one that
willeth may draw out of it the drink of life. For this is the gate
of life ; but all others are thieves and robbers." He speaks of
the church which, though dispersed throughout the whole world,
carefully guards the same faith, has one soul and the self-same
heart, and teaches and delivers the truth as though having but
one mouth. || He, moreover, calls the "Roman Church the
greatest, the most ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded
and established by Sts. Peter and Paul," and declares that with
this church, every church, that is the faithful from every side,
must agree on account of its pre-eminent authority. 1" Now, if
Irenaeus derived this teaching from Polycarp, and the Apostle
John instructed Polycarp in like manner, and if Clement of
Rome, having the traditions of other apostles, and they all agree,
what is one to conclude about the origin of their teaching?
Surely not that it was invented.

And the primitive Baptist teaching must have escaped Ter-
tullian altogether ; for he says : " Now, what the apostles preach-
ed, that is, what Christ revealed, must be proved in no other

* Epist. ad J2ph., c. iv. f Epist. ad Mag. , c. vii. J Epist. ad Phil., c. v.

Adv. Hcer., lib. iii. c. iv. | See Irenaeus, Adv. Hcer., lib. i. c. x.

IT Adv. Har. t lib. iii. c. iii.

1 888.] "HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS." 767

way than by the same churches which the apostles founded."*
But Origen, we might suppose, was more fortunate than Tertul-
lian. Origen's father, " like an honest and God-fearing Baptist,
thoroughly instructed his son in the Holy Scriptures," says Dr.
Armitage. Children, however, sometimes do not understand
nor follow what they are taught. Such appears to have been
the case from the Baptist standpoint with Origen, though he
was the greatest scholar of his age and for a time very ortho-
dox ; for he declares "that alone is to be believed which in
nothing differs from the ecclesiastical and apostolical traditions."f

Other authorities among the early Fathers might be cited ;
and they are so numerous and unanimous that it must be ad-
mitted that pastors and people in all parts of the world simul-
taneously, as it were, without knowing it could it be by acci-
dent? fell into the same universal error, as our author must
contend. What a melancholy retrospect for the Baptist is the
history of the church during the early centuries ! Cardinal
Newman vividly describes the effect which the study of this
period had upon him while a Protestant. He says that if such
a system as Protestantism " ever existed in early times it has
been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, silently, and
without memorial; by a deluge coming in a night, and utterly
soaking, rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of
what it found in the church, before cock-crowing; so that* when
they rose in the morning ' her true seed ' were all dead corpses '
nay, dead and buried and without grave-stone. ' The waters
went over them ' [the Cardinal does not mean baptism by im-
mersion] ; ' there was not one of them left, they sunk like lead
in the mighty waters.' Strange antitype, indeed, to the early
fortunes of Israel ! then the enemy was drowned and ' Israel
saw them dead upon the sea-shore.' But now, it would seem,
water proceeded as a flood ' out of the serpent's mouth ' and
covered all the witnesses, so that not even their dead bodies ' lay
in the streets of the great city.' "^ Let us sympathize with
Brother Armitage, for he writes a history of a sect of Christians
who had no history, because no existence, during the first twelve
centuries of the Christian Church.

We have seen thus far how " error " entered in, and later
events will show how it possessed the Promised Land. Its
hosts of enemies were one by one routed ; it finally mastered
every field aye intrenched itself on every hill, and steadily

* De Prcescrip. Contr. H<zr., c. xxi. t De Princip., Praefatio.

\ Introduction to the Essay on Development.

768 "HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS." [Sept.,

unified and multiplied its forces. Universality, unity, and sta-
bility the very attributes of divinity became error's friends
and allies ; while truth, as Mr. Armitage knows it, if it appeared
at all, could never for long- command men's allegiance and con-
stantly broke into discordant factions. Consider well, dear Mr.
Armitage, that the Roman Empire, which seemed something
like human power vested with omnipotence, waged a war of
extermination against that united body of Christian pastors and
people, whose doctrines and ordinances were anything but those
of your church. That empire invariably that church which
the best non-Catholic writers identify with the present Roman
church first sought to strike oft the heads of the Bishops of
Rome and never ceased till it had slain thirty of them. Then it
barely tolerated the church, gradually it conferred favors upon
her, and finally, to save itself from destruction, became her sup-
porter.* It was like a man worn out with vice and decrepit
with age making shift to save himself by a deathbed repentance.f
Centuries elapsed ; new races mingled with the old, and, like
the mustard-tree, the church, which is the greatest unifier of man-
kind, majestically grew ; bands of devoted missionaries were in-
cessantly journeying to the most distant regions, and baptizing
adults and infants, some by immersion and some otherwise, not
one of them any way like a modern Baptist. We know the won-
derful developments of religion and civilization, all of which -
would have been impossible without unity. Under Charle-
magne the law of the Gospel became the guiding principle of
political legislation throughout Europe. The independence of
the church, which now became firmly established, secured to all
subsequent Christian peoples a spiritual heritage which no em-
peror, king, prince, parliament, or popular vote could rob them
of. Isaias of old had prophesied : " And the children of strangers
shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister to
thee. . . . And thy gates shall be open continually ; they shall
not be shut day nor night, that the strength of the Gentiles may
be brought to thee, and their kings may be brought. For the
nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish. . . .
The glory of Libanus shall come to thee, the fir-tree and the
box-tree and the pine-tree, together to beautify the place of my
sanctuary " (Isa. Ix. 11-13). Where, meantime, were " the prin-

* It is commonly estimated that, when Constant! ne became emperor, eleven millions of
Christians had been put to death for their faith.

t A proper understanding of both church and empire in the first Christian era may be ob-
tained by reading St. Augustine's City of God ; also Mr. Allies' splendid work, The Formation
of Christendom,\

1 888.] "HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS." 769

ciples and practices of the Baptists? Between the Apostolic
Fathers, whom Mr. Armitage so preposterously calls that "group
of old Baptists," and Charlemagne the Christian faith weathered
the most terrible tempests it has ever encountered, and every-
where and continually we read of popes and bishops and sacra-
ments, and many other Catholic doctrines, offices, and ordinances
never a sign of Baptistism.

And again, from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, the age
when the church was civilizing modern Europe, Catholicity was
the life of every good work, and the Baptists, if there were any,
were surely asleep, for they are invisible and inaudible. Will they
ever appear? Lo ! in the twelfth century, among a sect calling
themselves " Cathari " (the Pure), we find two congregations
which bear some resemblance to Baptists ; but how the Bap-
tist's heart ought to be gladdened when Peter of Bruis, a
Frenchman and a genuine Baptist, appears. By his zeal and
eloquence many were brought to the truth, says our historian,
for " the Lord wrought mightily by his hand." Filled with
enthusiasm, his followers burned crucifixes and images, pulled
down churches, sacked monasteries, and chastised many monks
and priests. Once, on a Good Friday, a bonfire of crosses was
made and meat cooked by it, and eaten by that happy crowd of
primitive Baptists. At another time, when a pile of crosses was
being burned under his supervision, an infuriated mob of Catho-
lics wickedly put Peter the Baptist into those flames, and thus
perished the first Baptist martyr of whom we have authentic
record. A second Baptist preacher, named Henry, followed
up the work of Peter of Bruis. On a certain day the clergy
ventured to answer Henry, but his sympathizers flew with such
fury at the priests that they had to run for their lives. The
work went on for some time, causing worse devastation than a
cyclone ; but finally Henry was arrested and confined in a mon-
astery, where after a short time he died. The frenzy ot his follow-
ers soon subsided, and most of them were afterwards brought back
to the church through the zealous labors of St. Bernard ; some
of the most violent, who were thought to be very wicked and
dangerous, were charged upon and killed by soldiery, but, unlike
the followers of Polycarp, Irenasus, and the thirty early Roman
bishops, the Baptist disciples became fewer and fewer, and at
length well-nigh disappeared altogether. After the Petrobru-
sians Arnold of Brescia appears, and Dr. Armitage holds him up
as a Baptist apostle. Arnold incited a Roman insurrection
which compelled the pope-king to flee for his life and caused
VOL. XLVII. 49

770 " HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS" [Sept ,

Rome to be put under interdict. War ensued in consequence
and after eleven years, a period full of distress and suffering,
Arnold was defeated by the Emperor Barbarossa, and met death
upon the scaffold. " His holy apostolate," says our author,
"planted the seeds of that republicanism which controls the
Italy, France, and Switzerland of to-day." These seeds, I am
sure, must have been very deeply planted, for after the death of
Arnold there was a strong reaction in favor of the church. In
the beginning of the next century the spiritual and temporal
power of the pope was at its zenith, nor m other respects does
Arnold h'gure very creditably in history.

As there is no apostolic succession with the Baptists, their
history, as we have seen, centres around a few individuals, often
widely separated in time and ideas. The greatest among these,
in our author's estimation, was Peter Waldo of Lyons, who
late in the twelfth century received an inspiration to practice
Christian perfection, and in particular the evangelical counsel of
poverty. The church failed to appreciate the sublime spiritu-
ality of Waldo, says Dr. Armitage, because, though only a lay-
man, he insisted upon preaching when forbidden by bishops to
do so, saying that " the Lord had called him." He caused a
translation of the Scriptures to be made for his use, and from it
he learned that a pious layman, or even a woman, can administer
the sacrament of penance and consecrate the Eucharist ; that the
Roman church is the harlot of the Apocalypse ; that a soldier,
even a crusader, is a homicide ; that the use of religious images
and pictures is idolatrous; that there is no purgatory ; and it is
probable that some of his followers held that baptism unless ad-
ministered by the form of immersion is void, and that infants are
incapable of receiving it at all. Waldo won favor with some by
his contempt for wealth and by his religious enthusiasm, and
formed new congregations or societies for the spread of his pecu-
liar doctrines; but he and his followers were excommunicated.
" God raised up this noble people in the deep gloom of the
ages," says our author, " to shine as a light in the dark places of
the earth a white lily in Alpine snows to bloom amongst thorns,
thistles, and weeds."

But here a puzzling difficulty should confront our author. If
Waldo and his followers could revive " Baptist doctrines and
practices," why could not the early church, supposing it to have
been Baptist, have maintained them ? It is easier to keep
alive than to make alive. Brother Armitage and his breth-
ren hold these doctrines up and transmit them safely. What

1888.J "HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS." 771

ailed the apostolic Baptists that they failed to do so? And of
the influence of the Waldensians we may judge from what Dr.
Armitage himself says of their career : "From A. D. 1160-1500
their fortunes varied from the greatest prosperity to the depths
of misery; alternating from an ardent zeal against the Romish
Church ^to a cowering dread and wretched compromise on the
part of many with the doctrines of Rome, very similar to the
Old-Catholic movement of our times." When, however, he dis-
cusses the terrible persecutions which they suffered, his sympathy
gets the better of his judgment ; their bravery in fighting for
their doctrines wins his admiration, and he laments that they did
not " measure swords " with their adversaries earlier ; but he
forgets that their holy creed forbade war.

Wickliffand Huss played their parts to the great satisfaction
of our Baptist friend.

And now the Reformation dawns upon his enraptured soul ;
its conflicting sects are the gorgeous colors painting the firma-
ment with the glory of sunrise ; its long and bloody wars are the
white light of the risen sun. But his vision is only a dream.
He is in reality only groping in dark night and chaos. He now
gathers in the broken and scattered fragments of the sect wher-
ever and whenever he can find them, and tries to patch up a con-
tinuity in its later history.

Since the Reformation the Baptists have indeed suffered
numberless bitter persecutions from the best-intentioned of Pro-
testants, chiefly, as every one knows, because the abolition of infant
baptism has been considered by them an intolerable evil, which
if it prevailed would soon repaganize Christendom ; and because
the practice of rebaptism has been often considered sacrilegious
and at all times as disrespectful to other churches. It should
also be remembered that various ordinances of other churches
have generally been reviled, and most of their communicants
stigmatized as unregenerate and unconverted, by Baptists. This
book brings out these facts clearly. It reveals also how the
hostile sectarian spirit to-day rules the heart and directs the
hand of the Baptist to works of disunion. The English Baptists
support a missionary society for the conversion of the Luthe-
rans. " But the war of the sects is the peace of the church,"
therefore we think ourselves excused from further comments
upon the history of the Baptists among Protestants. It is not
our affair. What they can do against Catholics we know is not
much. If they push us too hard, we can remind them of the
golden opportunity which they imagine they let slip in the first

772 "HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS." [Sept.,

century, ere episcopacy and unity had been conceived. Had the
right moment for them been improved, how different Christen-
dom would be to-day ! Armitage's History would then have
been filled with bright pages. Now, as things are, in order to
trace "Baptist principles and practices" from the time of our
Lord down to 1888, he finds it necessary to start with the Baptist
interpretation of Scripture and to hold to it clean through, no
matter how many facts, and how many saints and martyrs, history
may bring to bear in favor of a different one. Where there are
no records he theorizes boldly and arrives at indubitable conclu-
sions ; if contrary testimonies come in at too early a period, he
discards them as spurious without a moment's investigation ; if
a bishop and martyr of the second century writes that he has
learned a different doctrine from authentic tradition, he makes
of him an innovator and liar ; he indicts the noble company of the
Fathers of the church as conspirators against truth ; he infers
that the persecutions of the second and third centuries were
endured mainly by knaves; he charges the united episcopate
assembled at the Council of Nice, nearly all of whose members
had suffered for the faith, many of whom had been eye-witnesses
of martyrdom, and some of whom had themselves been mutilated
by torture, with having mocked God by pronouncing authorita-
tive anathemas ; he excuses on the plea of self-defence most acts
of violence committed by schismatics and heretics; he extols as
innocent and good nearly every one that was ever put to death
for murderous attacks on holy church and war against the
Christian state. This is what Dr. Armitage sets out to do in his
History of the Baptists.

H. H. WYMAN.

1 888.] IN THE REIGN OF DOMITIAN. 773

IN THE REIGN OF DOMITIAN.

Tigerish Lust, that evermore would feed

On men's hearts, and the sullen lioness

Revenge, with License, that with hot caress
Licketh the wine-flushed cheek till it doth bleed ;
Velvety Craft, wolf Hatred, slow-foot Greed

All these a child, by innate holiness ,
Shall one day lead.

A MIGHTY maelstrom of humanity

Ringed the arena, in whose vortex vast
A human life was that day to be cast,

Only to lift in Death's far, lonely sea,

Its poor, pale face as witness to the plea
Of man to man for mercy, which the Past
Heard ceaselessly.

The games were ended, the contestants gone ;
Runners and wrestlers and the men who flung
The discus ; and the very heavens had rung
With shouts of those who watched the chariots drawn
Beyond the goals, and saw the bare sand yawn
For its new prey a Christian maiden, young,
And fair as dawn.

'Twould profit not her story here to tell
How death seemed sweeter than apostasy
It is enough to say accurst was she

In men's eyes ; yet a breathless silence fell

Over the vast assemblage when the yell
Of a wild beast thrilled upward horribly
As from mid-hell.

They thrust her in, shutting the heavy door
Behind her ; and the sudden blaze of light
Dazzled her eyes, but soon before her sight

Spread the wide sweep of faces, and the roar

Of the impatient tiger more and more

Weighed on her hearing, till a sharp affright
Pierced her heart's core.

Trembling, she sank in terror ; every eye
Drawn unto her ; and yet not every one,

774 IN THE REIGN OF DOMITIAN. [Sept.,

For, like a flower unfolding to the sun,
A sleeping child awoke, and to the sky
Looked from its mother's lap with face awry

And eyelids blinking ; then, its slumber done,
Began to cry

Just as the brazen gates were opened wide
To the destroyer ; so, to comfort it,
The mother caught it up and bade it sit

To watch the scene of horror from her side.

Out sprang the brute his gold and ebon hide
A quivering splendor and the child, no whit
Afraid, then cried

Loud with delight, clapping its tiny hands.
At sight of which the hearts of those about
Softened ; and first a murmur, then a shout
Rose, till the tiger, stealing o'er the sands,
Paused and drew backward, like to one who stands
Upon a cliff, stunned by a cataract's rout,
In new-trod lands.

By the loud tumult roused from her despair,
The captive rose ; and, lifting tearful eyes,
Prayed unto God. And whether Hope's surmise
Transfigured her, or whether the gold hair
Crowning her head and massed adown her bare
Bright shoulders, borrowing glory from the skies,
Made her most fair,

No chronicle hath told in any tongue.

Perchance the seraphs, on wide-flaming wing
Circling the Great White Throne, divinely sing
The history of that day ; how old and young,
Touched by the innocent laughter that had rung
Across the stillness, cried out 'gainst the thing
As conscience-stung.

The swelling shout became articulate :
" The gods have spoken ! Let the maiden live ! "
And not unwillingly men rushed to give
Liberty to her; crying: " It is Fate ! "
Nor knew Christ's love had conquered Satan's hate,
And driven him forth, a bitter fugitive,
From His estate.

CHARLES HENRY L^DERS.

1 888.] MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. 775

MRS. SIMPKINS'S INSTINCTS.

" I ONLY asks one thing, Claudiner," said Mrs. Simpkins, set-
tling herself in her chair preparatory to drinking her morning
cup of tea " don't say nothing no more to me about the climat';
I'm sick of it."

." Si, senora," said Claudina, as she drew up a chair to the
table, to take her coffee.

" Si ! si ! si !" Mrs. Simpkins echoed, accompanying each " si "
with a jerk of her head. Then she made that motion one makes
in trying to catch a fly, innocently supposed by some to be the
sign of the cross.

Standing, Claudina made the sacred sign. Her head thrown
back, her forehead touched by joined fingers, a broad sweep of
the arms of the cross from shoulder to shoulder, crossed fore-
finger and thumb put to her lips, and the white hand fell slowly
to her side. Claudina was as unconscious of her grace as is the
lily on its slender stalk.

" Goodness gracious ! what's that?" cried Mrs. Simpkins, as
there was a rap at the back-door, and a voice in monotonous
chant cried, " Agua, agua dulce, dulce-e-e."

" Ignacio with water," Claudina answered timidly, and with
a strong accent.

" And this is your cracked-up climat', where one [has to buy
a sup of water !" Mrs. Simpkins's disgust was sublime.

" But, 'tia, this has not before happened," ventured Claudina.

"Bosh !" Mrs. Simpkins gulped down a huge mouthful of tea,
pushed back her cap-strings, and, folding her arms, leaned on the
edge of the table, looking her niece straight in the face. " What
time do you think them Valverdes 's coming here, Claudiner ?"
she asked.

" Before the twelve oh clock, maybe," answered Claudina, al-
most in a whisper.

" What's the matter, gel ; are you scared for them ?" asked
Mrs. Simpkins ironically.

Scared was a new word to Claudina. She drew her should-
ers together and, with a puzzled smile on her face, took refuge
in, " Quien sabe ?"

Passing over this expression, a hateful one to her, Mrs. Simp-
kins asked solemnly : " Do you care for that boy of their'n ?"

Claudina became scarlet, but said not a word.

776 MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

"For, if you don't love him, there an't no more to be said
about it," pursued Mrs. Simpkins.

Her niece was more than shocked at this remark. That a girl
would give her heart before it had been formally asked was a
frightful thing, Claudina's traditions taught her ; she thought her
aunt a wicked woman for suggesting it. And yet Claudina had
given her heart : for that very reason, though she scarcely knew
it, she wished to put her aunt in good humor.

What she said in answer to the straightforward remarks of
her aunt was not much to the point, but perhaps the best that
could be said under the circumstances. " It is best for us to get
ready for the Senor and the Sefiora, maybe ?" she faltered.

Mrs. Simpkins looked at the clock, past nine, rose from her
chair as briskly as her weight of fat would let her, and com-
manded : '' You help Roser clear up this clutter,", pointing with
a pudgy forefinger to the breakfast- table, "send Filler to see if
there's any letters, and then you put on your duds don't gape
at me in that way '' Claudina cast down her eyes " make your
tokeydor, dress yourself. Understande ?"

"Si, si, tia mia" answered Claudina quickly, and raised a
pair of eyes so appealing that Mrs. Simpkins must have softened
had she seen them. But she did not, for she had turned her
back and was on her way to her bed-room. Not a hard-hearted
woman, nor a bad-tempered one either, though her abrupt way
of speaking led strangers to think so, Mrs. Simpkins was much
troubled this morning.

Two years ago she had been left a widow comfortably well-
off. She had sincerely mourned the death of her husband,
though she did not allow her mourning to interfere with a cer-
tain shrewd care in the settlement of her husband's estate. As
she said herself, barely had she got " shut " of the lawyers when
she received a letter from her brother, Joe Rusk, out in New
Mexico. " Poor Joe was never no great shakes, father," she
said to her confidant, the priest of her parish in St. Louis, " and
now after fifteen years he writes me a 'pistle" had it been a note
she would have called it a billy-doo, for she was " real refined "
" yes, father, a 'pistle, and he says he's dying, and he married a
Mexican gel years and years ago, and he's a widower, and he
wants me to do something for the little gel he's leaving behind
him."

She had many talks with the priest abouj; her plans, in the
meantime sending money to her brother. " My instincts tells
me he wants it," she said.

1 888.] MRS. SIMPKINS'S INSTINCTS. 777

Mrs. Simpkins thought herself asthmatic " wheezy," she ex-
pressed it. ''It is a good Lent you need, Mrs. Simpkins," the
priest had told her on an occasion some years before. Though
prone to seek dispensations, she had taken him at his word, and
had been benefited accordingly. But there is only one Lent in
a year, and as works of supererogation did not enter into the
good lady's views, she again became wheezy. The morning she
decided to go to New Mexico she was very wheezy. She had
waddled in on the priest, busy with his school accounts, exclaim-
ing, " Poor Joe's no more, father !" and then burst into tears.

The priest laid down his pen and said : " Control yourself,
Mrs. Simpkins. You lived for many years without hearing
from your brother."

Mrs. Simpkins considered a moment, dried her tears, and
told how Joe had died in the hospital at Santa F6, leaving his
daughter a boarder in a convent school at Las Vegas. " He's
worked at the mines and always saved enough to keep his gel
with the sisters, and then he got sick ; now what am I to do
about his gel ? She's seventeen or more, and I reckon she'll be
a burden." So Mrs. Simpkins wound up her narration.

" You have no children now ; she might replace Mary," said
the priest gently.

'" No one can't do that 'twixt this and the kingdom," returned
Mrs. Simpkins gravely, a sudden fit of coughing seizing her.
"Laws/' she gasped, " this St. Louis is killing me! I'm that
wheezy I can't scarce breathe."

The priest opened a window, returned to his seat, and
thought for awhile. " Why don't you go out to New Mexico ? "
he asked. " The climate is said to be the finest in the world ;
the trip itself would do you good."

At first Mrs. Simpkins protested that she was too old to take
journeys, but the upshot of it all was, she went out to Santa Fe,
settling herself with her niece in a furnished house she had taken
for six months, three months of which have gone by.

From the first she had been charmed by Claudina, so white,
with hair and eyes so black ! " My, but you're white ! I thought
you'd be half a nigger," was the greeting she gave her niece in
the convent parlor.

Poor Claudina was much disturbed at leaving the gentle
sisters, and not a little afraid of the fat old woman, her aunt.
" You have nothing, Claudina, dear," the sisters told her, " and
your aunt, who is rich, will take care of you. She is a Catholic,
you know.''

778 MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

" Yes, I know "; and, laughing through her tears, Claudina
made Mrs. Simpkins's funny motion of catching a fly.

After a little, Claudina got to be very fond of her aunt, so
very kind was that liberal soul to her ; and they lived in happi-
ness and harmony.

The harmony was broken by what to Mrs. Simpkins was the
most unheard-of thing under the sun. One afternoon she and
her niece were seated in the parlor. Claudina was listening to
a lengthy discourse on the glories of her aunt's dwelling in St.
Louis, when, without warning, Pilar the boy of all-work
ushered into their presence two elderly gentlemen.

Claudina gave a hasty glance at them, then, curtseying as
only one of Spanish breeding can, slipped out of the room.

Mrs. Simpkins stared aghast at the retreating form of her
niece, and then turned an awe-stricken face on the strangers
grinning and bowing before her.

The elder of the two began to express in Spanish his
happiness at beholding the excellent aunt of the Senorita
Rusk, Mrs. Simpkins interrupting him to say, confusedly :
" If you speak English take a chair, and if you don't I'll call
Claudiner."

Then the other of the two men said that he spoke English,
and that he would be felicitated if permitted to act as inter-
preter. Then he introduced his companion as Don Ireneo Val-
verde, and himself as the don's poor friend, Jorge Boca. Don
Ireneo, in behalf of his son Vincente, asked for the hand of the
worthy-of-all-ad miration sefiorita, the interpreter said, with
much more to the same effect, the don bowing and smiling at
every other word.

Almost bent double in her rocking-chair, Mrs. Simpkins
peered over her spectacles at Don Ireneo, and, pointing a fat
finger at him, asked his interpreter : " He wants his son to marry
my niece; is that it?"

The don hoped for that most honorable felicity, she was an-
swered.

" And what's to prevent the young man doing his own court-
ing? Is he a zany?" Mrs. Simpkins asked witheringly.

The interpreter did not know " that zany," but if it was any-
thing opprobrious, he supplicated to protest that Seftor Vincente
Valverde was one of the finest young men in all the world ; he
was beautiful, he was good, he was learned " a diploma from
the college" and he was rich. And then the customs of the
country, they were strange to the sefiora? The parents or

1 888.] MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. 779

guardians of the young man arranged all matters of betrothal
with the parents or guardians of the young girl.

Mrs. Simpkins did not know what to do, so, in desperation,
she said she would consult some one, and then she would see.
They might, if so disposed, come again. In a week's time, the
interpreter suggested. Mrs. Simpkins having reluctantly said
yes, the two men bowed themselves out.

Scarcely had they gone, when Claudina stole back to the
room.

" You know, gel, what them smiling and bowing idiots
want?" asked her aunt accusingly.

Claudina bent her head and the blood flowed to her face.
" Quien sabe ? " she murmured.

Mrs. Simpkins wrung her hands. " Sakes, gel ! " she cried,
" talk American. Do you know that man, that Valverde, wants
you to marry his son ? "

' It may be," said Claudina.

" It is, I tell you," snapped Mrs. Simpkins. " Was his boy a
beau of yours?"

" What is that beau, tia ? " asked Claudina, wonderingly.

Her aunt gave a snort of contempt. " Did he ever ask you
to be his wife?"

Claudina looked, and was horrified. " No ! no ! no ! " she
cried, and threw out her hands as if to repel so frightful a
thought.

" Humph ! " ejaculated her aunt. " Have you seen the young
man often ? " .

" The Senor Vincente ? " Would Claudina never stop blush-
ing?

" Yes."

" I did see him three, four times."

" What did he say to you ? "

" He said no-thing, tia."

" Laws ! " Words failed Mrs. Simpkins.

Claudina perceived that her aunt was offended, and hastened
to propitiate her. " The last time I did see the senor was at the
exhibition of the convent," she said. " The sefiora, his mother,
was kind to me, Very much. I to drop my fan and the sefior
pick him up, and I to say, Gracias, senor " Claudina stopped
abruptly.

" What 's that mean ? " questioned Mrs. Simpkins.

" Gracias, senor f I thank you, sir."

" And what did he say then? "

780 MRS. SIMPKINS'S INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

" No-thing at all, tia."

" He's a. born fool, and you're another ! "

" Si, tia" assented Claudina humbly.

Mrs. Simpkins really wished to do what was for the best. If
her niece cared for the young man, and he was unobjectionable,
a wedding would suit her in every way. Claudina would be
provided with some one to protect her, and she was anxious to
get back to St. Louis. After pondering the matter over, she
decided on hunting up the priest to whom she made her confes-
sions. It was her firm belief that a priest is to bear the burdens
of his flock, and she lived consistently up to that belief. Her
pastor was made to know to the most infinitesimal fraction her
aches and pains, bodily and spiritual.

" I'm going to the cathedral," she announced. Claudina then
helped her aunt to array herself for a walk, her heart throbbing
a little as she thought of what a visit to the cathedral might
mean in conjunction with the Valverde proposition.

Mrs. Simpkins pulled the rope of the bell hanging over the
gate of the pastoral residence, and a young man, wiping a plate
on a length of toweling, came towards her.

Mrs. Simpkins made a mighty effort. " Un Padre Ingles,"
she gasped.

" Bedad, ma'am, me no ablar Spanish ! " said the young man.
" I'll call Thaodoro."

" Consarn you, no you won't!" cried Mrs. Simpkins, fishing
for the young man with her parasol. " Why didn't you say you
spoke like a Christian?"

" Why did you try your potter on me ? " retorted the young
man. " It's Father Mark you want?"

" The priest as hears in English ? " said Mrs. Simpkins inter-
rogatively.

" That's the man. And who shall I say wants him?" asked
the young man, slapping his legs with the length of toweling.

" Here's my cyard," responded Mrs. Simpkins bridling and
producing a big piece of pasteboard. " Tell him it's the lady
from St. Louis."

"And I'm thinking he'll wish you were there this same time:
he's just in from a sick call, ten miles off," informed the young
man.

" It's a case of necessity," said Mrs. Simpkins angrily.

The young man scratched his head with his forefinger and
looked at Mrs. Simpkins thoughtfully. " If it is a berryin'," he
said, "there's no use at all in seeing Father Mark; it's Father

1 888.] MRS. SIMPKINS'S INSTINCTS. 781

Francis you want. It's in departments like: Father Mark is
after the sick from morning to night, and most times from night
till morning, and Father Francis he's old and battered up he
does the berryin's, and very sensible it is, for he can be consider-
in' his latter end "

"Are you going to give my cyard to Father Mark?" inter-
rupted Mrs. Simpkins.

The young man rubbed his nose reflectively, and said : " It's
a fine case of small-pox he's in from, and he do use carbolic acid
for the contagion "

" I've had small-pox, and been where there's yellow-fever. I'll
ring that bell again if you don't take my cyard to Father Mark
this instant." Mrs. Simpkins was in a passion, no doubt of it.

" It's in quarantine you ought to be in Castle Garden this
minute," returned the young man. " And what'll I say you
want of him ?"

"You impertinent!" Mrs. Simpkins was saying, when a tired-
looking man came out of the house towards her. If ever a man
earned the right to look tired, Father Mark had earned it.

Then the young man took his revenge for the disturbance of
Father Mark. Handing the priest Mrs. Simpkins's card, he
said : " It's an old woman with yellow-fever, father, and she says
she's over the small-pox "

" Mike! " interrupted the priest sternly.
" It's true for me ; ask her, father."

" Go about your business, sir ! " Not at all disconcerted,
Mike walked- into the house.

Mrs. Simpkins was too much in a rage to speak. Tears of
bitterness were in her eyes. They were in a paved court-yard,
with high-backed benches here and there against the house wall.
Motioning to one of these benches, Father Mark saw the tears in
Mrs. Simpkins's eyes. Consulting the card, he said, throwing as
much sympathy into his voice as he could gather from a heart
on which there was a constant drain : " Not a death, I hope,
Mrs. Simpkins?"

Mike was now forgotten, only her distress for Claudina re-
membered, and she poured forth what was uppermost in her
mind. " Who ever heard of such a way of courting, father, as
they've got out here ! The old folks doing the courting for the
young ones ! Why my John was as modest as modest, and he
wasn't afraid to say: ' Molly, won't you have me ? ' and I wasn't
the worse for the asking" here Mrs. Simpkins broke down al-
together, too much choked to proceed.

782 MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

Father Mark took advantage to beg to be told what he could
do for her ; he was pressed for time.

Mrs. Simpkins told her story in an astonishingly straightfor-
ward manner, for whenever she got off the track the priest, by
a well-chosen word, put her on again. When she had finished
he said : " I really see no cause for your worry. Vincente Val-
verde is well known to me, he is of a respectable family, rich for
the country, and, above all, he is a good young man. You can
want nothing more. In case your niece is opposed to him all
you have to do is to tell Senor Valverde when he comes again :
' Senor, I do not wish my niece to marry your son.' '

" There it is, father ; I don't know if Claudina likes him or
not, and there an't no use under the sun in asking her; she only
gets red as a beet. Why don't he come and ask her? They're
paganish customs, say what you will."

" Their customs are good for them, as I hope ours are for
us," said the priest. 4< You say your niece blushes when you
mention Valverde to her ? "

" Red paint an't nothing to her."

" You are a woman ''

" Laws, father!"

"And you cannot understand her blushes?"

Down in the depths of Mrs. Simpkins's heart, wedged some-
where in her corpulence, was a finely sensitive streak one would
not have expected to find.

" This is what I fear, father," she said. " The gel is beholden
to me for what she has, and suppose she just takes this Valverde
to make a riddance of herself thinks she's a load for me, who
am too glad to do what I can for her, for she's a good gel, if ever
there was one."

The priest became very grave on hearing this speech. " I
did not know your niece was dependent on you," he said. Then
he advised Mrs. Simpkins to tell Claudina that she was to marry
or not as she pleased, and to make her understand her welcome
in her aunt's house.

" Now I've kept you long enough, father," said Mrs. Simp-
kins, getting to her feet. " You've comforted me some, and I
do hope things will come right. But I an't troubled for nothing,
father; I have my instincts."

She had her notions, Father Mark thought, as he bade her
good-by, and told her to let him know how things went on.

Mrs. Simpkins followed Father Mark's advice. Perhaps,
when she spoke of how welcome Claudina was to her home, like

1 888.] Mxs. SIMPKINS'S INSTINCTS. 783

the puppet queen in " Hamlet," she protested too much ; for all
the girl said was that her aunt stood in place of father and
mother to her, and it was for her aunt to say what she should do.

"She's a deal the most manageable and disposable gel I've
ever come across," thought Mrs. Simpkins ; " though I an't sure
but what it's best for them to be a bit the other way ; then, at
least, you know what they want. This way, it's like looking
for something on the mantel-piece in the dark; you may get
what you want, and again you may crack your head against the
edge."

The day and hour having come for the Valverdes to keep
their appointment, Mrs. Simpkins sat in state in the little parlor,
attended by Claudina, who was there because her aunt had in-
sisted on her being present. " I'll see how she and the senorer
gets along ; maybe she'll let the cat out of the bag," Mrs. Simp-
kins slyly thought.

No cat was let out of the bag, at least none perceived by Mrs.
Simpkins's vision.

The Sefior and Sefiora Valverde were accompanied by the
interpreter, who seemed to like his office. The sefiora, a lovable
little old lady, embraced Claudina with much affection, Claudina
appearing to return it in full.

The interview was but a repetition of the one before, and no
better conclusion was arrived at. Mrs. Simpkins had promised
Claudina not to have the matter referred to her. She unblush-
ingly broke her word. "Well, Claudiner, what do you say?"
she asked.' Claudina was not to be enticed into committing
herself. " You will suit the matter in the best way, tia" she
answered.

Then Mrs. Simpkins said, and red paint was nothing to her
face as she said it : " If it's left to me, my instincts says, let
things be as they are a while longer."

With the permissionvof Sefior Valverde, the interpreter as-
sented, after which the little party took their departure. But
the sefior was very stiff and cold in his leave-taking, and the
little old lady had a disappointed look as she touched Claudina's
face in farewell.

Mrs. Simpkins was not at all slow in showing the displeasure
she now felt, warmly rating Claudina for what she called her
mulishness. But Claudina bore her scolding so patiently that,
when at last she shed tears and bewilderedly told her aunt she
did not see how she was " like the mule," she was only too will-
ing to do as her aunt wished, Mrs. Simpkins gave up her anger,

784 MRS. SIMPKINS'S INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

though what she called her instincts told her it was not all un-
just.

" No," she mused, " she an't mulish ; there's more of the ox
in her." Of course there was no thought of the ox-eyed Hera
in Mrs. Simpkins's mind when she made this comparison. Had
she known the Bard of Ilium she would have seen there was a
parity.

However pleasant the old woman had found it to have those
soft eyes gazing on her as she babbled stale gossip of her girlish
days days that seemed so far off to Claudina- now that gaze
troubled her ; her instincts seemed to tell her there was unhap-
piness in her niece's looks.

She had no one to advise her. She had been told, and be-
lieved it, that because of the wonderful climate there were but
four ways of getting out of New Mexico. Hanging, shooting,
blowing-up, and old age. And now the old people seemed to
have entered into a conspiracy to die off, and the miners to be
blown up, all for the purpose of keeping Mrs. Simpkins from
seeing Father Mark. On an occasion she had caught the
priest she attacked him about Claudina. Father Mark only told
her to let things take their course, not to allow her notions to
trouble her. Poor Mrs. Simpkins was ready to sob outright.
She was so honest in wishing to do only what was apt to make
her niece happy. And to be told by one all looked up to as a
saint, that she had notions ! The last thing in the world she was
likely to have, she thought.

Walking down the shady side of the plaza, not stopping once
to look at the display of dry-goods in the shops of the Jews, she
tried to make up her mind to bother herself no longer about the
Valverdes. " I wash my hands of 'em," she said to herself,
knowing full well that she did nothing of the kind. However,
she stopped at the druggist's, opposite the old palace of the gov-
ernor, to drink to her resolution in a glass of soda-water.

Waddling down Palace Street, she saw a saddle-horse tether-
ed to a post before her dwelling. She paused in her walk to
consider. "If it's them Valverdes, I won't see them," she 'de.
cided. " Let Claudina do her own talking ; my hands are washed
of it. I'll go in the back way and slip up to my room un-
known." Mrs. Simpkins's plural substantive signified one ; she
did not suppose the whole of the Valverde family had come to
her on the back of a saddle-horse, as is said to be the custom of
Croatian families.

So full was she of her desire to get to her room " unknown "

1 888.] MKS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. 785

that she threaded on tiptoe the way that led to the back entrance
of her dwelling, rousing the indolent curiosity of two siesta-lov-
ing smokers. One removed his cigarito from between his lips to
say : " A mad American." "Yes, Tad6o," the other assented,
contentedly rolling some tobacco in a corn-shuck, and soliciting
a light from his compadre^ which was courteously granted.
Neither of these two men had ever seen the inside of a public
school, and yet Louis XIV. in all his glory was not more cour-
teous than they. It is a consolation to know that this sort of
thing will die out before our superior civilization.

Pilar was in an out-house sorting potatoes, Rosa had gone to
buy groceries, so the road was clear for Mrs. Simpkins, if the
parlor door which had to be passed was shut. The door was
ajar, and as she was about to pass on she heard Claudina laugh,
as a voice, that of a strong man, said something in Spanish. It
was not the sefior's voice nor the interpreter's. The curiosity
of Mrs. Simpkins led her to stoop to a mean action, the conse-
quences of which, as she said afterwards, gave her a purgatory
in this life. She peeped and listened at the door.

What she saw was a young man with yellow hair and mous-.
tache and blue eyes. His sombrero of gray felt with crimson
cord and tassel lay on the floor beside him. He wore a blue
flannel shirt, and the legs of his black trowsers were stuck in a
pair of smart boots. What she heard was a closed book to her
till Claudina addressed the young man as Sefior Vincent. Then
it was clear ,to her. She despised her instincts for having mis-
led her. It was plain as a church-steeple, she thought to her-
self, that Claudina cared for this young man who had at last
found courage to present himself to her. " He has no style
about him, but he's a taking face." Then in high good-humor,
for was not the Valverde trouble as good as settled, she got her-
self up stairs and no one knew of her return home.

In her bed-room, which was over the parlor, she could hear
her niece and the young man cheerfully chatting. It may be
objected that so heavy a woman as Mrs. Simpkins, moving
about to change her out-door dress for a comfortable wrapper,
must have made herself heard to the pair underneath. She was
heavy. So is an elephant. What more noiseless ?

Scarcely was her cap on when she heard the front door open,
and, peeping through the blinds, she saw the young man mount
his horse and ride away, turning to throw a kiss to Claudina,
who stood blushing in the doorway. Mrs. Simpkins did not ap-
prove of the thrown kiss. " He had ought to treat her respect-

VOL. XLVII. 50

786 MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

ful," she thought; "and Claudiner's that innocent she won't
know no better."

When Claudina turned to enter the house she came up
against her aunt standing in the passage-way. Her blushing
face turned white, then red again.

Mrs. Simpkins felt provoked at all the useless trouble Clau-
dina had given her by not " speaking out," and she concluded to
punish her niece a little. " What did that man want, Claudina ?"
she asked sternly. " What's frighted you ?"

" I did not think in the house to find you, tia," faltered Clau-
dina.

" Well, you did find me," retorted her aunt, mockingly.
" Did that man want to marry you?"

Claudina's big eyes looked at her aunt, and she gravely
nodded her head.

" You're not going to marry no one there !" Mrs. Simpkins
turned away her face to hide the smile that would come over it.

" It is well," returned Claudina, sighing gently.

It was more than Mrs. Simpkins could bear. She caught
Claudina's little hands in a hearty grasp, crying, " There, there !
don't take on ; it's only my fun. Now I've seen that Valverde,
I'm satisfied." Then she kissed her niece, who appeared not a
little mystified.

" Now, honest, Claudiner," pleaded Mrs. Simpkins, " don't
you care for him ?"

But Claudina only shook her head and ran away to her room,
where, after a little, her aunt heard her singing. "Thank the
Lord," ejaculated Mrs. Simpkins, piously, " that wood's got
through."

Several days went by, and no one coming from the Val-
verde's, Mrs. Simpkins became a little disturbed in her mind.
"It looks like backing out, or it's their customs ; consarn their
customs !" she mused. She was inclined to the latter belief by
the fact that Claudina was as happy as the day is long. " She
an't mistrustful," she reflected, slowly scratching the back of
her hand.

Two weeks went by. Then Mrs. Simpkins asked, " Clau-
diner, why don't he come or write?''

" He will come the next week, Lunes, Monday. He told to
me so," answered Claudina.

Surely the patience of Mrs. Simpkins was tried. Claudina
showed no confidence in her, and she was too proud in her way
to ask for what she felt was hers by right. She felt that her

1 888.] MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. 787

niece was " close." This closeness was in truth the girl's timid-
ity. Had her aunt given her a word of encouragement, now
that she was as good as betrothed, she would have gladly poured
forth her confidence. As it was, she feared to speak.

Monday came, but no one with it. Mrs. Simpkins looked for
signs of distress. There were none.

Two more weeks passed, then Claudina broke down. It was
at the breakfast-table one Tuesday; Claudina looked furtively
at her aunt, cast down her eyes, and said, " Tia? "

" What is it, Claudiner ?" asked her aunt, gently. Perhaps
her instincts told her what was coming.

" He comes not to us, tia" said Claudina.

" He don't," returned Mrs. Simpkins.

" Maybe he is dead," said Claudina, how falteringly !

" That strong fellow ? Bosh !" Mrs. Simpkins meant this to .
be consolatory.

Claudina searched for a word which was not to be found.
In desperation she shot the palm of one hand across the other so
as to bring up both palms erect above her head, struck them to-
gether, making a noise somewhat like the report of a pistol.

" Oh ! blowed up,'' ejaculated Mrs. Simpkins.

" Si, blowed up," assented Claudina, undoubtingly accepting
her aunt's English.

" He will be before this day's over," said Mrs. Simpkins
grimly, as she looked at her niece's troubled face.

Without. another word she went to her room and arrayed
herself with unusual care for a walk. " Now, Claudiner," she
said as she was leaving the house, " you an't been open with me,
and I don't see as I should be either ; anyhow, you quit fretting,
I'm going to set things to rights." She kissed her niece, leaving
Claudina, much heartened, to pray for her success.

Going straight to a livery stable, Mrs. Simpkins hired a
buggy, and directed the driver to take her to Sefior Valverde's.

" I never did see such a house as the Valverdes live in," she
stated to Father Mark on an occasion after her visit. " It has a
great big gate, which lets onto a square garden with the house
on all sides of it painted yaller. A boy let me in the gate and I
asked him for the sefiorer, for I wanted to see the old lady about
her son's carryings on. The fellow looked astonished, I'm sure
I don't know why, and I was considering what to do when out
walks the sefiorer herself and invites me into the parlor. I be-
gan right off to ask her what her son meant by blowing hot and
cold. She is a quiet old woman, and sat smiling and nodding

788 MRS. SIMPKINS" s INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

her head, and then she jumps up and says ' Spirity,' or some
such word, and goes out of the room.

" After a bit she came back with the sefior, both polite as po-
lite to me. I told them both the state Claudiner was in, they
smiling and nodding ; and every time I stopped talking, she'd say
something in Spanish to the sefior, and he'd answer back, and
then they'd look at me and smile. I'd been so excited I'd forgot
they didn't understand a word of all I was saying, and now it
came on me, and I was in a stew what to do next, when lo and
behold the little man as translates English into Spanish and back
again walks in, and straight they began to talk to him.

" ' The sefior wishes me. to say he's felicitated to see you in his
house and the house is entirely yours,' and a lot of such stuff the
little man translates to me. It's their way of being polite ; it
don't mean a thing, it's consarned nonsense.

"'Tell the sefior I'm much obliged to him,' I says, and the
little man did. And then the sefior and the sefiorer got up and
cutsied and bowed, and I did the same, and then we all sat
down again. Then I told what had brought me there, the same
as 1 told the sefior, but he didn't understand how odd it looked,
their asking for my niece and then backing out as it were, and
was the Sefior Vincente sick that he hadn't been up again to see
my niece ?

" It beats all how that little man did talk ! He said it was me
as refused my niece; hadn't I said, let things be as they are?
He denied flat that young Valverde had been to see Claudiner.
It was impossible, he said.

" As cam as you please, I up and said : ' Mister, will you tell
the sefior he is a fraud, and his son an't as good ? '

" The little man said he could not do anything so insulting,
but he would call Vincente, and he would satisfy me.

" I could have crowed. Now I have him, thinks I, and says
cool : * Yes, please, call him,' and he goes to the door and did so.
I never heard such a cracked voice in my life.

" In tripped a slim fellow, right handsome, in a black velvet
jacket with white pearl buttons, nice, black, curly hair, and a
little, black moustache, the very contrary of the man I saw talk-
ing to Claudiner. Cyclones an't nothing to the swimming about
of that room for the next minute.

" ' This is Sefior Valverde's son,' said the little man. And
Vincente, he says, in as good English as any, that he is glad
to'see me, the little man meanwhile telling him my name, and
how I supposed Vincente had been visiting Claudiner.

i888.] MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. 789

" ' The senorita is sacred,' says Vincente. ' I wouldn't intrude
the senora disapproves of me.' He spoke confused like.

" I knew just as well as I knows it now that Claudiner and I
had been at contraries. I wished I was home, and felt that put
out with Claudiner for misleading me that I could have done
most anything to her. I put the best face on it I could, and
said: 'I've made a mistake; it wasn't Mr. Valverde came to see
Claudiner ; she is engaged to some one else.'

" Then Vincente puts his hand oh his heart, looks solemn and
bows, the little man and the old sefior nodding their heads and
looking interested.

" Never in all my born days did I feel so foolish as I felt then.
I just got up in a hurry, and I said my good-bys without any
ceremonies."

Claudina, watching from an upper window, saw a buggy com-
ing up Palace Street, her quick eyes recognizing her aunt seated
beside the driver. She hurried down stairs to open the front
door, greeting her aunt with a timid smile. No smile did Mrs.
Simpkins give in return, nor any word of kindness. She paid the
driver his charges, and Ciaudina knew that her aunt was much
disturbed when she paid away money without grumbling over
the exorbitant prices asked in the Territory.

"Now, Claudiner," said Mrs. Simpkins, when they were fairly
in the house and the door closed, " come right in here ! "

She pulled her niece into the parlor, forcibly sat her on a
chair, putting herself, as erect as she could, on another.

" Claudinef," she accused angrily, " you're sly and full of de-
ceit. I an't praising myself, but I have tried to do my duty to
you, and you've never showed no trust in me ; and when one
word from you would have made me know better than to go to
them Valverdes and make a jack of myself ! "

Poor Claudina felt herself most unjustly dealt with. She
had thought her aunt wished her to marry Vincente Valverde.
No one else had asked her heart and hand, and had not she been
willing to do her aunt's bidding, knowing in her heart of hearts
that she had no love to give Vincente, though she would not ac-
knowledge to herself that it had been given long before. Then
the Valverdes had been sent away and he came. Had not her
aunt let her suppose that she knew all about him, and approved?
She had been silent, but as her aunt had not broached the subject
o{ him, was it for her to do so. All these things went rapidly
through Claudina's brain as she waited patiently for Mrs. Simp-
kins to continue her objurgation.

79 MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

" Now, gel," asked Mrs. Simpkins, " what did you mean by
telling me that man with a yaller moustache was Valverde?

Claudina's eyes rounded. "I said not {hat thing," she pro-
tested amazedly.

" I could box your ears, so I could ! " exclaimed the exasperat-
ed woman. " You did say so, and said so on purpose to deceive
me. Now, who is that fellow as was here last month ?

" You said he was known to you, tia" faltered Claudina.

"I said no such a thing!" cried Mrs. Simpkins. "Who is
he ? Where's he from ? You just tell me and quit your foolish-
ness."

" Pardon, tia, pardon me; I am sad," sobbed Claudina. " You
no news did get of him ? ''

" No, and I an't going to get none ; that's settled ! Now you
tell me all about him, every word of it," Mrs. Simpkins com-
manded. She was cruel, and very unhappy in being so. But,
she asked herself, was ever woman so tried by a contrary girl as
she was tried by Claudina?

Not sad only was Claudina. She felt she had done wrong.
All her traditions cried out against her having so readily given
her heart away. And now, in punishment for her sins, the owner
of her heart held it lightly, or he was dead. In her misery Clau-
dina did not know which she would prefer to be the case. " I
am bad, tia, so bad," she moaned.

" You're driving me into a crazy-house, that's what you are !
Can't you tell me who that man was as was here last month?"
entreated her aunt.

" With my father he was in the mines, and in the convent he
did come with my father. My father, tia, did say it would be
well if he desire me for wife. This make to me my father when
he was sick to die : ' Pobrecita, he will, maybe, look to you,' my
father did say. I know not how that look to you "

" He, him ! he, him ! " interrupted Mrs. Simpkins. " What's
his name?"

" Vincent Allen"

" Is he American ? "

" Si, tia" answered Claudina.

Her aunt's anger was cooled, and now she had been com-
manded to do so, she willingly told the little all.there was to tell
of her courtship. Vincent Allen had been a miner she empha-
sized the " had been "; her instincts told her Mrs. Simpkins looked
not with favor on miners. Unlike her father, he had struck gold
and had become a rich man. Her father thought Allen a fickle

1 888.] MRS. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. 791

man, and at times would say: "Allen is one of your off-and-on
fellows. He wants you, Dina, but can't make up his mind to set-
tle down. If ever he asks you, and you are willing, you might
go farther and fare worse." " I was willing, tia" said Claudina,
so purely and innocently that her aunt felt her heart very soft
indeed.

Joe Rusk died, and Mrs. Simpkins came to take charge of his
daughter, and Allen seemed to have forgotten Claudina. She
did not complain of this, and in the telling of her story her aunt
perceived in how low degree she held herself. Then came the
Valverde proposition, and Claudina, believing herself a bur-
den, was ready to marry Vincente. How Mrs. Simpkins
triumphed in the veracity of her instincts when she heard this !
At last Vincent Allen had come to tell Claudina she " might as
well be his wife." Claudina looked on this speech as one of the
many odd ways the Americans had of saying things. He was on
his way to the mines to wind up his affairs, and that done he
would see Mrs. Simpkins, or, if detained, he would write Clau-
dina. " Tia, he does not write, he does not come," was the end
of her story.

Mrs. Simpkins sat with puckered lips, thinking deeply, Clau-
dina watching her with timid entreaty in her eyes. At last she
asked, " Would he send his letters in my care, oy how ? "

" He would put the address rightly Mees Claudina Rusk,
Santa Fe"," answered Claudina.

" Thanks be to goodness, I an't took off my duds ! " ejacu-
lated Mrs. Simpkins, precipitately getting up from her chair and
making for the front door. Claudina started after her, asking
where she was going. Her aunt waved her back, and, speaking
very gravely, told her to remain quietly in the parlor she would
soon return.

Mrs. Simpkins gave all the credit of her present journey
to her instincts. She felt sure a letter had been written to Clau-
dina. Filar had received no instructions to ask for Miss Rusk's
mail, so, if there was a letter, it still lay in the Santa F6 post-
office. ]Sk)t willing to trust Piiar, she was now on her way to get
it. Nothing better could show the tenderness of her heart than
this visit to the post-office. She was tired from her ride, and
more than once she felt her fat legs giving way as she trudged
along under the noonday sun.

" Rusk, Rusk yes, one," said the postmaster in answer to
Mrs. Simpkins's question, Were there any letters in the post-office
for Miss Claudina Rusk?

792 MRS. SIMPKINS'S INSTINCTS. [Sept.,

She stretched out her hand to take the letter. Not parting
with it, the postmaster asked : " Are you Miss Rusk?"

" Do I look like an old maid ?" Of course he could not take
her to be a young one.

Too dignified to notice this question, the postmaster said :
" My instructions are to hand letters to no one without an or-
der."

It is possible the postmaster would have had Mrs. Simpkins's
views concerning the postal service had she not caught sight of
a friend passing down the street. Shouting at the top of her
voice, " Father Mark ! Father Mark ! " she waddled to the door.
The difficulty about Claudina's letter was poured into his ear,
Mrs. Simpkins viewing the now smiling postmastenwith disdain-
ful eyes. " Oh ! I suppose it's all right," said the postmaster, and
a moment after Mrs. Simpkins was clutching Claudina's letter.
There was a bench against the wall upon which she sank ex-
hausted, gasping : " O father ! I'm in such a quand'ry ; the very
spirit's scrunched out of me! "

She did look distressed ; there was no mistaking the troubled
look of her face.

" The Valverdes still?" questioned the priest kindly.

Noontide is a dull time in Santa F6. The postmaster was
locking up his trny office to go to dinner, the post-office was
deserted, save for Mrs. Simpkins and Father Mark. Outside, in
the street, a burro stood patiently, whilst its master sat on the
sidewalk, his back against a wall, alternately smoking his cigari-
to and dozing, a suspicion of aguardiente in his manner of per-
forming these works, quiescent and active.

Seeing that they were free from listeners, Mrs. Simpkins
hastened to unburden herself. Telling how she and Claudina
had been at cross-purposes, of her visit to the Valverdes, of
Vincent Allen, and of how he had promised to return or write.
" I'm not sure yet he's written ; this may be from some one else,"
she ended by saying, ruefully eyeing the letter she held.

" I have no wish to alarm you," said Father Mark, looking
very grave, " but I wish your niece cared for Vincente Valverde,
not one of our countrymen "

Mrs. Simpkins was puzzled. "And why not, father?" she
asked ; " a American is as good, and better, than another."

" Not the generality of Americans at the mines and hanging
about the new towns. There are exceptions, but the major por-
tion are well, not to put too fine a point on it are black-
guards."

1 888.] MJ?S. SIMPKINS' s INSTINCTS. 793

" Laws, father, that's a awful word ! " exclaimed the troubled
woman.

Passing over Mrs. Simpkins's exclamation with a smile,
Father Mark said, " Now, Mrs. Simpkins, you ask for my advice ;
here it is: if this Allen has not written, or does not turn up be-
fore long, try to put him out of your niece's thoughts. Take
her for a trip to St. Louis ; you say you wish to return home."

" That I do," assented Mrs. Simpkins. " But, father, do you
think it so bad?"

" I don't know what to think," returned the priest . " Allen
may be a good fellow, but experience has shown me in how little
esteem the Mexicans are held by .the men who come out here
and fatten on the people. Look at that poor wretch over there,"
pointing to the burro's master, now fast asleep. " What did his
father know of whiskey ? I speak to the people of the evils of
intemperance, and am reminded that my people brought those
evils here."

Mrs. Simpkins had a tongue to speak and ears to hear. The
former did its work, the latter were rusty. As soon as Father
Mark paused, she got u-p from the bench, and drawing a long
breath, said: " Well, father, I'll take the letter to Claudina now ;
do say a prayer for her."

Then Father Mark went to his poor, and Mrs. Simpkins
waddled home.

" I've got a letter for you, Claudina," she announced when
she had entered the little parlor with her niece.

"Si, /zVz..?"' interrogated Claudina, pale from excitement.

Leaning against the marble-topped centre-table, she hurriedly
opened it and read slowly and laboriously.

It was in a man's hand, and as she read she became pallid.

The letter read, it slipped from her hand, fluttered about a
moment in the soft wind blowing through the open window,
then fell a white patch on the flaring red of the carpet.

Her aunt sat staring at her, awed by the woe on Claudina's
face.

. " It is from him," said Claudina. Her voice was clear but
faint.

Mrs. Simpkins needed no instincts to tell her that he had be-
haved ill. Tears were streaming down her fat cheeks as she
asked : " What is it he says, Claudiner, dear?"

" It is in the English, tia" and, stooping, she picked up the
letter, handing it to her aunt. She then secretly wiped with her
handkerchief the hand that had touched it.

794 Is THERE "No REASON FOR A COMPROMISE" ? [Sept.,

It was the letter of a gross and heartless man. Ill concealed
was the contempt the writer had for Mexicans and their reli-
gion an ignorant contempt, unhappily too common. He said
it was best that Claudina should forget him ; he didn't suppose
she cared very much, anyhow. As for himself, he could not
think of settling down yet.

" I don't know as this letter is necessary," he wrote; "lots
of fellows wouldn't bother to write under the circumstances."
And that was all.

When Mrs. Simpkins had finished reading the letter she too
was white, trembling as well.

" The blackguard ! " she said.

" Cdllese, tia" said Claudina, gently. " We will speak of him
never again. Some days will pass, and I will be glad."

They never did speak of him again, and, understanding from
what she had been saved, Claudina was glad after a time.

HAROLD DIJON.

IS THERE "NO REASON FORA COMPROMISE"?

IN the Christian Union of May 24 we saw an article headed " No
Reason for a Compromise." In this the writer holds that Amer-
ican laymen, and especially parents belonging to the Catholic
Church, are content with the public schools as now carried on
without any provision being made for Catholic religious instruc-
tion, and he considers that this is proved, first, by the statement
that very many of them continue to send their children by prefer-
ence to these secularized schools even when there is a parochial
school in the neighborhood ; secondly, by the allegation that
even those Catholics who do patronize the parochial schools do
so, not because they believe in them or want a religious system
of education, but because they are commanded by the Catholic
hierarchy to train their children in this manner. The writer ad-
mits that if the Catholic parents who are American citizens did
really object to the present management of the state schools for
which they are taxed, that notice should be taken of their com-
plaints and, even though they were in the minority, an effort
should be made by the majority to content them as far as
possible; but that if, as he believes, there is only question of

1 888.] Is THERE "No REASON FOR A COMPROMISE"? 795

pleasing a foreign potentate and a foreign hierarchy who, as he
says, do not represent these citizens, but command them as claim-
ing authority over them which is not derived from them but from
God no heed at all need be given them, unless indeed whatever
opposition is necessary to defeat their (so-called) desire to destroy
"the glorious system of education without religion, the bulwark
of our liberties,'' etc., etc.

Now, to begin with the last-mentioned accusation, neither the
Catholic people nor the hierarchy have aught to say against
education, nor even against education by the state ; the fault
they find is that there is not enough of it. The state educates
indeed, but only the head of the child, leaving out the heart ; it
gives a good secular training, -but omits the religious which, in-
deed, it is incompetent to take charge of consequently Catholics
hold that the state ought to permit the church or the churches
or any other competent organizations to come in and help her
to educate, so that the child will grow up a Christian or a relig-
iously trained being of some sort and thus become a citizen fit
to help carry on a free republic. Catholics hold that this is essen-
tially a Christian country and was founded by Christians. They
want to save the country from the destruction which will cer-
tainly be the result of secularism.

The Catholic Church in the past proved her love of education
by preserving it in the middle ages; and at this moment there is
no body of citizens in the land which is making such sacrifices for
it. It is, therefore, a question of how education should be given ;
that is the question. Many Protestants, like the late Dr. Hodge,
of Princeton, are equally dissatisfied with the how ; and he went
so far as to say that " all of us who really believe in God should
give thanks to him that he has preserved the Roman Catholic
Church in America to-day true to that theory of education upon
which our fathers founded the public schools of the nation and
which have been so madly perverted " (New Princeton Review
of January, 1887).

All that about Catholics not being represented by their hier-
archy as Protestants are by their ministers, is really a distinc-
tion without a difference. It is true that the Catholic hierarchy
claims a right and a -mission to teach and even to command
"Go and teach all nations," etc. (Matt, xxviii. 19); "He that
hears you hears me " (Luke x. 16), etc. since it asserts itself to be
the visible Church of Christ, while Protestants do not claim any
such prerogative. Nevertheless, practically, it is all the same as
far as results go, since the individual Catholic is perfectly free

796 Is THERE "No REASON FOR A COMPROMISE" f [Sept.,

to disobey the church, as far as external coercion is concerned,
and hence if he obeys her command he does so because it suits
him. In ultima analyst he does what he likes just as much as the
Protestant, even if it please him to reach his conclusions by
a shorter cut. So when the hierarchy decides some question,
and its decision becomes the freely accepted belief or doctrine
of the laity, the hierarchy does practically and really represent
the laity, although of course in a theological sense the word
representative would not be a proper term by which to name
their status, unless indeed they are said to represent Christ.

We know that some Protestants are wont to claim that they
do all their own thinking, but we believe that there is a great
deal of claptrap about this. Men may be said, as a general rule,
to be too lazy to think for themselves, even in political matters,
and much more so in religious matters. Since one man is born
with ability to teach and command, ninety-and-nine are evidently,
by their inferiority to him, intended by God to be taught, and
in some sense to obey ; and we think that any thoughtful ob-
server will perceive that in practice they do listen and obey.
While they are clamoring about their opinions and convictions,
these are often the property of a clever minister like Beecher, say,
or of a clever editor like Greeley ; often, too, their teacher or
leader is a foreigner like Gladstone, McCosh, Dean Stanley. Yet
no one thinks that they ought not to get the credit of thinking
it out for themselves. If we are " to go behind the returns," to
use a political phrase, whenever a man expresses his opinion,
and if we deny the reality and personality of it whenever we
can trace it to editor, orator, or author, there would be very
little opinion left in this world. The great Gladstone himself
lately said (in his reply to Ingersoll) that it is hard to find an
opinion formed absolutely independently of prejudice, feeling,
race tendencies, respect for others. Indeed we might say that
ninety-nine hundredths of what we believe we have taken from
others. Hence when Catholics say that they are not satis-
fied with the public schools as now carried on, it is not fair to
say that this is not their real belief, because perchance some
of them may not have thought it out themselves, but rather had
it pronounced upon by a tribunal whose decisions they freely
accept.

This we say, assuming for argument's sake the hypothesis
that the Catholics who do send their children to parochial schools
do so, not because they believe in them from their own unaided
experience and reflection, but because an authority in which they

1 888.] Is THERE "No REASON FOR A COMPROMISE" ? 797

believe lays down the law for them. Nevertheless, we do not
concede the fact alleged. The hypothesis is false. The schooling
of children is a practical matter, and Catholics do quite as much
independent thinking as Protestants in all matters. The field
which is closed to independent thought in the church is, in its
general aspect, equally forbidden to all men, as the dogmas which
are accepted simply on authority are, when traced to their fun-
damental principles, quite incomprehensible to human reason.
The Protestant will meet with no better success, for instance, in
apprehending the Divine Trinity than his Catholic neighbor, nor
will education enable a man to see into it much better. With
all the disquisitions of learned theologians on such a subject,
what after all do they know about it that is not perhaps as well
perceived by any ordinary man?

Or Protestant friends are mistaken in supposing that we
are like blind men groping in the dark and unable to see any-
thing for ourselves. It is true that, like them, we have a guide,
but we need and use her services only "in the night when no
man can work." We can see " whilst it* is day " as well as they
can to say the least. A Catholic father, as a rule, knows what
is good for himself and his child, and is able to take care of its
training ; nor is it necessary for the state to go into his family
and interfere in his domestic concerns. Where such is not the
case, of course he has himself to blame for the ignoring of his
natural rights over his child, or neglect of his primary duties ;
but this is a rare case. And even then, the right of the child itself
to receive religious instruction in the denomination to which it
belongs should not be overlooked nor violence done to its youth-
ful conscience. If it is to have religion no good is done to it by
making it insincere. Even the most bigoted Protestant will
admit that it is better to be a sincere Catholic than an insincere
Protestant.

And now a word as to the first statement of the Christian
Union, " that very many Catholics continue to send their chil-
dren by preference to secularized schools, even when there is a
parochial school in the neighborhood. "~ We have our doubts
about there being " very many." Judging by one parish with
which we are well acquainted, only about one child in five at-
tends the public schools, while the other four are at the parish
school. The fact that even the public-school pupils come to
Christian doctrine class on Sundays and such other days as it is
held, and also attend the services at the church, indicates that
they do not prefer the state school because it is secular, or non-

798 Is THERE "No REASON FOR A COMPROMISE"? [Sept.,

Catholic, but for other reasons, real or imagined. First of all,
parents are often acquainted with teachers in the public schools,
many of whom are Catholics, and they send their children to
them from motives of friendship, especially as, according to the
system, it is of importance to the teacher that she should have a
full class. Then there is the true or false belief in the special abil-
ity of a certain teacher. Then, very often the unjust judgment
is made that, in secular training, the parish school is not equal to
the state school. As a rule they are equal, sometimes superior.
There is a class of people who never seem to find their home din-
ner taste as well as the one they eat with the stranger. Again,
there is the oft-repeated reason, that the building may be more
roomy and airy, more convenient to the home, etc., etc.

We have been twenty-six years on the mission, and we can as-
sure the Christian Union that we never yet met a Catholiofather
or mother who sent their child to a state secular school because
they approved of the system of excluding religion. We have some-
times met the case of one of the parents being an agnostic, who
had this notion about education and carried it out in his family
as far as he could; but then it was always in spite of the opposi-
tion of the Catholic wife or husband.

There may be and no doubt are Catholics who for some other
reason prefer the public schools, but there are none of these who
would not be delighted and made happy to-morrow if some
" compromise " were inaugurated by which their children, while
retaining the advantages of the public school, would no longer
be deprived of the inestimable benefits which those of other Ca-
tholics enjoy in the parochial schools.

PATRICK F. MCSWEENY.

1 888.] A WINTER IN THE LATIN QUARTER. 799

A WINTER IN THE LATIN QUARTER.

WHEN we began housekeeping our friends shook their heads
in grave apprehension ; even now, when they are bound to admit
that we have managed pretty well, they feel constrained to add
that the experiment was a dangerous one, and that it is a wonder
we were not starved to death. Anywhere but in the Latin Quar-
ter of Paris I think we should have come perilously near it ; no
two people could exist in London on the sum which kept us in
tolerable comfort.

I have heard it gravely asserted that the Latin Quarter has
lost its old distinguishing characteristics, its frank self-adapta-
tion to the impecuniosity of its inhabitants; its charming Bohe-
mianism and its indifference to the social dogmas prescribed, and
acceded to, by dwellers on the other side of the Seine that it has,
in fact, been improved out of existence and I have wondered if
the people holding this belief have ever travelled away from their
squares and boulevards, away from the neat premises of the Plaine
Monceau and the warrior-named avenues of the Arc de Triomphe,
and penetrated the wilds that lie behind the Boulevard St. Ger-
main, and the narrow, dirty streets that twist and intersect
around and about the School of Medicine.

Has the " spirit in their feet " ever led them to the Boul6
Mi-che after, nightfall ? The Quartier Latin exists as distinctly as
it ever did; and is as much as ever the home of the student and his
friends, the struggling journalist, the budding author, and all the
thousand* arid-one hangers-on to literature and art, who come to
Paris as naturally as flowers turn to the sun.

In some of the streets, as, for instance, the Rue de Seine and
the Rue Jacob, almost every other house is an " hdtel meuble" "
that is, a house where one or more furnished rooms can be had
with attendance, and where there is generally twice a day a table-
d'hote of breakfast and dinner. These hotels are mostly occupied
by young men whose "pensions" from home are of noble propor-
tions ; the rank and file of students cannot afford to do more
than pay for a room, and take their dinners, as luck and their
pockets permit, at a restaurant, or fetched from the r6tisseur's.

In the grim old houses live boys who are up for a few
years only to study at one or other of the colleges ; men who find
the place so to their liking that they stay there year out and in ;
young women (foreigners mostly these) who are working in the

8oo A WINTER IN THE LATIN QUARTER. [Sept.,

studios, and any amount of neat, smart little " ouvrieres," who
earn their daily bread by their needle, or in some factory ; and
in the upper stories, in the small, pinched rooms beneath the roof,
lurk the failures, beings of both sexes, who set out manfully when
life was young to win a name and fame, and who have realized,
after years of disappointed hopes, that they must be content to
gain a miserable pittance by following others, and take their places
in the ranks of the pale, thin copyists, toiling all the daylight
hours in the public galleries, or at night playing in the orchestra
of a minor theatre ; their visions of a great painting or an im-
mortal opera gone with their lost youth.

When we established ourselves in an apartment in the Rue
Jean de Beauvais our income was not only small but precarious;
we could not count on being uniformly poor or prosperous, and
when we had bought the small amount of furniture we required,
we possessed twenty-seven francs and one ten-pound Bank of
England note which we solemnly locked away in a drawer, only
to be taken thence in case of illness.

"House-hunting" was great fun. We began with the in-
tention of taking a furnished place, but those that were decent
were too dear ; and those that were not too dear were discour-
aging, to say the least of it. Oh ! the many flights of stairs we
toiled up with joy and hope in our hearts, to descend with only
another dismal feeling of failure. At last, as we were inspecting
some rooms which looked promising from the outside and were
terribly grimy within, fate threw our good genius across our
path. He was a tall, dark young man, dressed like a Parisian
"fourcheur" with a dash of English dude. He also was after
rooms, and the fat and frowzy concierge, to save trouble, took us
over the place together. He spoke to us in English with evi-
dent pride and an execrable accent. " Why not take an un-
furnished place? " he said. " It will cost you the difference on a
month's rent to buy your things, and you will 'ave un veritable
'ome." Well, we took his advice and the rooms he recommend-
ed to us, and ere long we felt that we had indeed " un veritable
'ome."

The stairs that led to our abode were shallow and winding,
the steps made of red tiles and much worn by the feet of many
generations ; on each landing were two doors, and behind each
door a separate manage. We had three rooms, a parlor, a
kitchen, and a bedroom, and a scrap of passage ; the kitchen was
three-cornered, and there was just room to turn round in ; there
was a tiny stove with three holes in its blue delf top ; of these

1 888.] A WINTER IN THE LATIN QUARTER. 801

holes one was round and two square, and charcoal was the fuel
they consumed. The rooms, like the stairs, were tiled, and -when
these tiles were reddened and washed they made a very pretty
parquet. The house was very old and the walls panelled and
painted white ; our salon, which was a good size, had a quaint, nar-
row chimney-piece, with a square of looking-glass let in the wall
above it ; it also had an alcove with sliding doors, meant for the
reception of a bed, but its crowning. glory was the balcony. In
the summer we almost lived on it, and we had striped sun-blinds
running out to iron rods at each corner, and we also had boxes
full of plants nasturtiums and marigolds and mignonette. We
paid five hundred francs a year for the rooms, plus fourteen
francs for the water, and there was a hydrant on each landing
a great accommodation, especially when one is, as we were, on
the sixth story.

We bought six Louis XIV. chairs for seventy francs in the
Rue Buonaparte, and when we had done them up with white
enamel paint and liberty chintz cushions they looked beautiful.
We got a second-hand kitchen table and painted it white to
match the chairs and covered it with a woven grass tufia. We
picked up an old secretary for thirty francs, and an old divan
at the same price, which opened and held clothes that were out
of season, and more than once served as a bed for a friend. Al-
together our furniture cost us about fifty dollars that is, of
course, the bulk of it ; we were continually adding some little
thing, some Bargain picked up at the Hotel Druot or the bric-a-
brac shops along the quai.

The Latin Quarter is without doubt the land of economy, the
land of large appetites and small purses, where the week's
money is counted by francs and where sous are of importance ;
so naturally the shopkeepers lay themselves out to suit the pal-
ates and pockets of their customers ; and as small quantities are
the order of the day, the buyers of the said small quantities do
not have to pay an enormous percentage, as they do elsewhere,
and the things are as fresh and as cheap as they would be to
large consumers.

I do not propose to tell you how much it cost us, for I am
afraid we didn't keep our accounts with statistical exactness. We
had a Japanese tea-pot on the mantel-piece, and when we cashed
an order or drew a check we put the money in it ; when we
were extremely well-to-do, we would dine luxuriantly at one of
the many restaurants, where for one franc twenty-five cen-
times (in all twenty-five cents) one gets a remarkably good din-

VOL. XLVII. 51

802 A WINTER IN THE LATIN QUARTER. [Sept.,

ner soup, meat, vegetables, half a bottle of wine and dessert, or
cheese ; but these times did not last for ever, and a period of
frost would come round again, the money in the tea-pot would
get low and housekeeping sink to a less sublime level.

When the money was fast disappearing and there was no im-
mediate prospect of more, we would take precautions and pre-
pare for a siege by buying a large bag of beans and several
pounds of maccaroni and onions ; we knew that if the worst
came to the worst we could hold out for weeks on them.

Living was cheap, and, above all, it was easy. I could buy
so many things prepared that there was no waste and very little
trouble. Spinach, chicory, pur6e of peas, haricot-beans, lentils,
artichokes I got all ready dressed for the table ; they only want
heating. Fried potatoes could be bought at every corner, beef
and bouillon at every butcher's, and for fourteen cents I got a
bottle of good wine. The bread is proverbially delicious, and
the numerous " soft " cheeses all good and all most moderate in
cost; Brie, Camenbert, or the dainty little cream " Suisses" only
cost a few sous.

There were two rotisseurs whom we patronized, one in the
Rue des Quatre Vents and one in the Rue de Buci. They both
had their good points, and it would be hard to say which was
really the best.

Monsieur Flahaut called his establishment " The four winds
of heaven," which suggested a certain largeness of choice and
variation of menu that he perhaps honestly tried to, live up to.
Many a time when I have been in, in the morning, has he ap-
pealed to me with a harassed look and begged me to suggest a
vegetable for the evening, for his customers were clamoring for
novelties.

Madame Duphot's shop was simply called " La mere de fa-
mille," a little uncompromising in its vagueness. Her shop was
the larger of the two, the window was always full of fat fowls
and rabbits all ready to be cooked, with their insides neatly
arranged on small plates beside them ; the rabbits, I remember,
always held their skinned arms in a surprised manner over their
heads.

Flahaut was perhaps less exacting as to weight and more
liberal in the matter of gravy, but I think Mere Duphot's quality
was more generally good ; and besides, she sold " boulets " and
Flahaut did not. The precise ingredients that entered into the
composition of these " boulets " I never knew or sought to know.
Suffice it for me that they were round, brown, delicious, and

1 888.] A WINTER IN THE LATIN QUARTER. 803

costing 1 only three sous apiece. Many a time, when times were
bad, have we dined on four sous worth of soup, two boulets, and
a " cornet" of fried potatoes.

I think the interior of Mere Duphot's shop would have
made an interesting picture : the long counter with its immense
copper caldrons, all sending- forth a savory smell ; the proprietor
herself, a comely dame, in a white cap and apron ; and her cus-
tomers, who all possessed a certain picturesqueness, from the
anxious-eyed matrons, with their hair tucked away beneath check-
ed handkerchiefs, to the smart little work-girl, who would come in
laughing- and chattering to her blue-bloused companion to fetch
a litre of bouillon for their joint repast ; the active chef and his
assistants bustling about, serving this one and that, or turning
the sputtering roasts, and in the background the fire, a long,
glowing mass of charcoal, casting a lurid glow over the whole
scene. Above the charcoal hung the meats, beef, veal, turkeys,
fowls, pigeons, all turning on the same spit, and all dropping
their gravy harmoniously into the same pan.

One could buy a portion of chicken or any other fowl, a leg,
or wing, or bit of the breast, for eight, ten, or twelve sous, ac-
cording to the size.

I think the greatest trial we encountered was the difficulty of
keeping warm, fuel was so dear and the grates so badly arranged.
Many a time during the long, cold winter would my thoughts
fly longingly towards a blazing fire of English coal, and I would
contemplate- my little pinched-up grille full of coke with disgust.
Wood, of course, was out of the question. The French have a
proverb: " Qui brule du bois brule de Tor." Coal was nearly as
dear, and miserable in quality. So there was nothing for it but
coke, eked out with " briquettes " and " mottes." The former are
squares of compound coal-dust and tar. They will burn brightly
for two or three hours, and cost two sous apiece. The latter are
made of sawdust and the refuse from tanneries. They are in ap-
pearance like evenly-cut peat ; they cost thirty sous a hundred,
and give out considerable heat.

The first winter that we were in the Rue Jean de Beauvais was
a very long and severe one ; it seemed as if the spring would
never come. In March we were having hard frosts and biting
winds, and we were also having a prolonged spell of ill-luck, for
the paper my husband was on (an Anglo-American venture)
suddenly failed. He was very brave about it, and trudged all
over Paris and its environs in search of " subjects," writing and
despatching articles on all manner of topics, and suffering all the

804 A WINTER IN THE LATIN QUARTER. [Sept.,

rebuffs and disappointments of an unattached journalist. My
latest efforts in the story-telling line were unappreciated, and
had been steadily rejected by so many editors that we reckoned
that in postage alone they had cost almost their market value.
Things looked very black.

Will had gone oft one morning (after a breakfast of haricot-
soup), with a rather sickly attempt at a smile and a promise to let
me know at once if "anything turned up," and I was left to in-
terview our two creditors, the charbonnier and the laundress.

I opened the before-mentioned drawer and looked at the
bank-note ; there it lay, so aggravatingly clean and prosperous-
looking; it meant two hundred and fifty-two francs, and relief
from all present anxiety. I determined to take it down to the
American exchange that afternoon. Strong in this resolution, I
began to tidy up the room before going out, when my eye fell on
a piece of newspaper that had come wrapped around something.
The heading of one of the paragraphs attracted me, "A Hospital
Experience," and I read it eagerly from end to end. It profess-
ed to be a personal account of the sufferings and privations of a
non-paying patient in one of the large Parisian institutions, and
was, I am sure, grossly exaggerated. But it impressed me at
the time with such horror and dread lest either Will or myself
should ever be forced to enter one that I gave up all thought of
changing my ten pounds ; it would be too awful should we
either of us fall ill worse still, die, and have to be buried in the
hideous "fosse commune" of a French cemetery, with the squa-
lid details of a French pauper's funeral.

You see I had the blues and my thoughts took a gloomy turn,
but then a prolonged diet of beans and bread is not calculated
to raise one's spirits. Suddenly, as I sat there in a desponding
mood, a thought struck me : the " Mont-de-piete"," the moun-
tain of refuge, the haven of help ; in less poetic language the
pawnbroker's ! I would put my watch " sur le clou." I knew the
red-tapism prevalent in France, and that I should probably be
asked to show my certificates of birth, baptism, confirmation, and
marriage, together with my engagement of location, my pass-
port, and a few documents relating to the history of my parents ;
so, making up a respectably-sized bundle of papers, I set out.

I had no very definite idea of where I was going, as there are
no friendly trios of golden balls hung out in France to inform the
impecunious where they may obtain relief. After wandering
about for some time, I screwed up courage to ask a sergeant-de-
ville to direct me, and, following his instructions, I found myself

1 888.] A WINTER IN THE LATIN QUARTER. 805

at the bottom of the Rue Buonaparte before a gloomy-looking
building, over whose open door floated a dingy tri-color.

" Who hesitates is lost," and taking my courage in both hands
I bolted through the doorway and up the stairs. There I found
myself in a large, bare room, something like an omnibus bureau
or a registry office for servants. There was a stove in the mid-
dle, round which sundry dilapidated-looking men were gather-
ed, and from whose clothes it drew a rank, unpleasant steam.

A thin, pinched woman, with a large bundle of linen under her
arm, took compassion on my evident ignorance and gave me
hints as to the line of conduct to pursue. I presented myself at
a counter and had a square of brass marked 65 given me in ex-
change for my pretty little watch.

The goods offered as pledges were borne off into an inner
room, from whose mysterious recesses a voice would now and
again bawl out the sum to be advanced on them and the number
of the ticket held by the pledger, and scraps of dialogue of the
following nature would take place:

" Fifty-nine twenty-one francs."

" Bonte divine ! Give me twenty-five.''

"Twenty-one."

" Voyons twenty-three."

Then would come sounds of a whispered consultation.

" Twenty-two fifty."

" I accept! Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! que la vie est amere ! "

I had not pluck enough to bargain, and when the voice yell-
ed : " Sixty-five forty francs," I didn't even answer.

"Sapristi! Sixty-five, are you deaf?" repeated the voice
furiously ; in answer to which I squeaked out a meek " Oui," and
was hustled up to the wicket to get my money.

A fat man in front of me was joking with the clerk, and when
he moved on that functionary seized my papers, and worried
them, and snarled over them, and declared he couldn't read my
writing. Finally he flung two gold pieces in front of me. I
gathered them up and was turning to go when some one touched
my shoulder; it was my husband.

We neither of us spoke till we were out in the street, and
then he asked me sternly what I meant by going to such a place,
after which the ridiculousness of the encounter struck him and
he burst out laughing. I laughed too, but I think we both felt a
wee scrap guilty. We didn't speak much till we got to the
Place Saint-Sulpice, when the big clock chimed out five.

" Is that right, I wonder?" he said, and I made an involuntary

So6 JESUS HIDES HIMSELF. [Sept.,

movement of my hand to my waist, and then we looked at each
other and laughed again for our watches were both in the safe-
keeping of a paternal government.

What a dinner we had that night ! The gargon grinned when
he brought it up, as if he knew that we had been fasting some-
what rigorously. There was a fowl, and sausages, and potatoes,
and salad, and cheese, and a bottle of white wine, and well, we
were within sound of the Sorbonne clock.

That was the worst time we passed through. When Easter
came and we made our Paschal Communion in the dear old con-
vent by the Luxembourg where I was educated, we could return
thanks " for dangers past," and the Easter after that we laid the
historical bank-note, as a thank-offering, in the red velvet bag the
"queteuse " handed us "pour les pauvres."

E. J. FARRAR.

JESUS HIDES HIMSELF.

(Sr. JOHN viii. 48.)

ONE woful day His own vile creatures said
To the all-holy God : " Thou hast a devil."
And them He answered meekly : " I have not."
But when they took up stones to cast at Him,
Then, hiding Himself, He left the temple.

Oh ! woful day for us when we take up
The stones of sin to cast at our Redeemer ;
Far guiltier are we than those Jews of old.
Leaving the ruined temple of our hearts,
Jesus departs in grief and hides Himself.

A. EWING.

Lancaster^ O.

1 888.] DOM MUCE. 807

DOM MUCE.

WHEN a man joins the Cistercian Monastery of La Trappe in
Normandy his novice-master is said to encourage him with the
assurance that not only he will have to bid adieu to mutton-
chops, newspapers, tobacco, arm-chairs, white chokers, and the
other pleasures of the world, not only that he will have to en-
dure the varieties of temperature afield and the varieties of
temper at home, but also that he must make up his mind to the
sacrifice, to some extent, of his reputation. For it seems that
our lively neighbors are persuaded that to retire to La Trappe
is equivalent to a confession of serious crime. No doubt one
cause of this impression is the dramatic tendency of the French
character, which makes a theatrical mise-en-sc'ene, vivid color-
ing, rapid transitions, striking situations, thrilling catastrophes,
Emotions dechirantes of all sorts, a kind of necessity. And hence
if a man happens to end in the horreurs de La Trappe, the fitness
of things seems to require he should previously have begun as a
Sardanapalus.

However, besides this dramatic instinct another cause why a
novice at La Trappe must resign himself to pass for a notorious
sinner is the publication at the end of the seventeenth century
of several volumes entitled, Relation de la vie et de la mort de
quelques Religieux de La Trappe, among which were several strik-
ing examples of men who certainly had passed from great dis-
order to high perfection men of the stamp of character that
St. Francis of Sales approved of so much ; who when they did
will a thing willed it energetically, whether their bent happened
to be peccare fortiter or amare fortius ; for, as he says," Ces cceurs
a demi-morts a quoi sont ils bons ? " There was the young
Scotchman, Robert Graham, and the " Quatre Pale"mons de La
Trappe," and others famous in their day. Doubtless they form
only one class, and that the least numerous, of those who have
taken refuge at La Trappe. There have been many others who,
after years blamelessly spent in less strict observances, in the
evening of their lives have been urged to higher enterprise, by
the thought of the approaching night when no man can work.
Many others again who, like the child-Trappist, the son of M.
Tenier de Genestes, have been called to add to their crown of
innocence the purple flowers of penance. If it is usually in
connection with men of the former stamp, among whom the
grenadier Dom Muce is the extreme instance, that one thinks of

8o8 DOM MUCE. [Sept.,

La Trappe, it is not because they are more numerous, but be-
cause their histories, from the vivid contrast of shade and light
and the variety of incident, make a deeper impression on the
imagination and so tend to form a prejudice. But, really, it
would be as reasonable to judge of St. Bernard's Clairvaux by
one of the poor prisoners whom his charity rescued from the
gallows by covering their chains with his own white cowl as to
judge of La Trappe by Dom Muce. One should not forget that
La Trappe is no new institution. As a Cistercian monastery it
dates from the time of St. Bernard, under whose jurisdiction it
was included ; De Ranch's work was merely to recall the ob-
servance to primitive austerity. Therefore, whatever glory the
words and work of the " last of the fathers " may have shed over
the Cistercian order, whatever gratitude may be owing to it for
improved agriculture, and for dignity asserted to humble labor
in an age of serfs and bondmen, whatever poetry may pervade
the histories of its numerous saints, whatever chivalrous lustre
may be reflected to it from its subject knightly Orders of the
Temple, of Avis, of Calatrava, and Alcantara, whatever associa-
tions of beauty may have gathered round it from its matchless
homes in all these La Trappe may as justly claim to share as
romantic Melrose, or Fountains, or beautiful Tintern. We give a
sketch of the history of Dom Muce because, as an example of the
rapid action of grace in a courageous subject, it would be hard to
find a parallel in all the annals of perfection ; protesting, however,
that it would be rash to conclude from it that the famous Abbey
of La Trappe is, or ever was exclusively, a den of good thieves.

The story made some sensation at the time of its publication,
and was read even in the court of Louis XIV. One person
writing thence to the Abbot de Ranee", who was its author, says :
" Every one has read with tears and edification what you have
written on the death of Dom Muce ; even the king shed tears.
Madame de Maintenon and several other ladies wept so much
that people came up to see what was the matter; and when they
came they also wept themselves."

Dom Muce was called in the world Frangois Faure. After a
youth spent in all kinds of dissipation and disorder, he joined a
regiment of grenadiers, who are, says De Ranc6, " the most de-
termined characters (les plus determines) of all those who follow
the trade of war.* He became an officer, and was marked by all

* This sentence was seized on by the enemies of De Ranee, who got an ex-grenadier to put
his name to a pamphlet full of violent abuse which they concocted. It was known at the time
as La satire du grenadier, and contained a defence of the virtue of army men in general
and grenadiers in particular.

1 888.] DOM MUCE. 809

the evil qualities that a man of that profession can possibly have.
He was cruel, pitiless, impudent, violent, audacious, passionate,
and blasphemous." When once he had resolved on a thing no
consideration of God or man could stop him, and he made no
account of dangers when the gratification of his passions was in
question. He was often engaged in the incessant wars of Louis
XIV., and his bold temper led him into frequent peril. He re-
ceived sabre wounds in the head, bayonets through the body,
and other wounds which it seemed must be fatal, but there
always seemed to be some protection surrounding him and sav-
ing him from inevitable death.

At length he became disgusted with his manner of living ;
weary of adding crime to crime, and of the continual slaughter
of men. A streak of light seemed to creep over his soul, and he
determined to leave the army and enter the cloister, thinking he
had only to change his habit in order to change his character.
He entered the Priory of St. Marcel, belonging to the Congre-
gation of CJuny in Dauphin6, but he soon proved that it is not
the cowl that makes the monk. According to the testimony of
the bishop of the diocese, he passed some time in two monas-
teries, and in both his life was detestable ; and to fill up the mea-
sure of his iniquities, says De Ranc6, " he dared, while his hands
were still red with the blood he had spent his life in spilling,
to receive the priesthood, and, by an astounding profanation,
sacrilegiously to handle the Holy of Holies."

Poor Dom Muce after this last temerity seemed to have abso-
lutely forfeited the little light he had, and in his soul, as in Judas'
when he had taken the morsel, " it was night." He threw
aside all restraint, and, as we are told, there was no violence or
excess in which he did not indulge. Things came to such a
point that the lieutenant-general of Valence spoke to him
and advised him to fly the country, as otherwise he could not
escape the hands of Justice. This magistrate afterwards affirm-
ed that he had issued ten or twelve warrants for his arrest, all
on account of " actions horribles"

Dom Muce replied : " I see that I am ruined, and that there
is no mercy to hope for on earth ; I shall begone, and that so far
as not to be heard of again." He told De Ranc6 that it was not
dread of death or torture which had made him fly, but the fear of
disgracing his family. He was now quite desperate and resolved
on apostasy ; he left the country and wandered about full of fury
and despair, " incertus quo fata fer ant" His ambition was to be-
come a Mahometan, and be captain of a troop of Turkish soldiers.

8 io DOM MUCE. [Sept.,

It was this moment, when the devil seemed to have taken entire
possession of him, when like Cain he was flying from the face of
God, that was chosen by Providence as the moment of mercy.
Dom Muce was passing through a town on his route, when he
made the chance acquaintance of a certain ecclesiastic. In the
course of conversation this ecclesiastic began speaking to him of
La Trappe, where he had made a visit. He told him in a few
words the manner of life led there, more or less as it is describ-
ed in the Imitation ; how that " they seldom go abroad, they live
retired, their diet is exceeding poor, their clothes are coarse,
they work much, they talk little, their watchings are long, they
rise early, they are steadfast in prayer, they readyoften, and keep
themselves in discipline of all sorts." Such few plain words as
these produced an incredible effect on Dom Muce. They went
through him as so many darts winged with fire. The thought
of the hard life led in that distant monastery, contrasting with
the degraded license of his own, wrought a spell over him, and
instead of deepening his desperation, seemed to gild his soul
with a magical dawn of hope.

Why is it that Christian austerity exercises on us so strange
a fascination ? Why is it that, in listening to the legends of the
saints, the dreary and monotonous tale of fasts and disciplines
and labors moves us with a deeper emotion at every fresh re-
cital? It is not because there is any charm in pain by itself ;
quite the contrary ; the self-torture of an Arabian dervish, the
astounding macerations of the fakirs of India, not only have no
attraction for us, but fill us with repulsion and disgust. The
highest emotion suffering can claim from us by itself is pity, and
if pain be self-inflicted for no noble end it wakes in us only sen-
timents of horror. Why, then, are we so differently affected
towards Christian austerity? Is it not because we know that
behind the sable cloud of pain shines the silver lining of love?
The union of tepidity with austerity, of penance with negli-
gence, in a follower of Christ, seems too horrible to be possible.
If it is only with a half- melting admiration that we think of a
gentle maiden sitting alone in a Carmelite convent, wan with
cold and hunger, it is because we feel sure she is hidden in the
light of holy thoughts and warmed with the love of God. And
in the same way, if Dom Muce felt the depths of his nature
stirred by the picture of La Trappe, it was not the beauty of
pain which mastered him, but the beauty of love. Strange that
a man like this, who for years had been given up to deeds of
violence, should be open to such an influence. But even in the

1888.] DOM MUCE. 811

most degraded soul there lurks a reminiscence of divinity, which
asserts itself from time to time, pathetically appealing, desper-
ately expostulating, against the defilement with which the sinner
overlays it.

It spoke to Dom Muce now, suggesting and urging the hope
that in that monastic silence he might curb his unbridled tongue,
that in that austere abstinence and entire seclusion he might cast
off the chains which drink and sensuality had woven round
him. " Perhaps," it made him think, " if I also might live there,
even now I might atone and find mercy, perhaps even I might
love." These reflections were the work of a minute. Like light-
ning the resolution flashed in his mind, to renounce his desperate
plan of taking the turban, and to try by all means to obtain ad-
mission at La Trappe. Dom Muce was not in the habit of wast-
ing time when once he had resolved on a thing. He immediately
told the ecclesiastic that he was determined to go to La Trappe.
The latter, though astonished at so sudden a resolution, said that
he approved the plan ; so much so, in fact, that he resolved to
join him in it. " But," he went on, " we are going to adopt a life
of extreme penance and austerity ; the best thing we can do is to
have a few days together of good feeding and amusement, so as
to bid the world an eternal farewell." This miserable proposition
only filled Dom Muce with disgust and fear. He said nothing,
however, but .let the ecclesiastic make his plans as he pleased, and
next morning, at daybreak, he started alone without wishing him
good-by. The uncertain weather of early spring, the bad state
of the roads, the long distance of six hundred miles he had to
traverse before reaching La Trappe, did not make him hesitate a
moment. He trudged the whole way on foot, walking cease-
lessly through foul and fair, looking neither to the right hand
nor the left, carried on by the strength of his sudden purpose.
On his journey, we are told in the Relation, he met with many
adventures ; the devil taking special pains to expose him to occa-
sions calculated to inflame his passions, and to make him lose the
state of patience which is so necessary for the preservation of the
grace of conversion.

The last day of his tramp he walked forty-two miles in inces-
sant rain, having completed the whole journey in a wonderfully
short space of time. On reaching St. Maurice, he found himself
on the skirts of an immense forest, extending further than the eye
could reach. Here it was necessary to take a guide, for the way
was so exceedingly intricate that even those best acquainted
with it were in danger of losing their way. Indeed, the name La

8 12 DOM MUCE. [Sept.,

Trappe is derived from the difficulty of finding any access or
egress.

"The whole way," we are told by a traveller of the period, "is inex-
pressibly dreary. The squirrels, hares, and foxes seem to possess the
whole domain undisturbed. After traversing lone roads for some hours
the trees become thicker and tangled with underwood, through which a
track or path is pointed out by the guide, if indeed one may call by that
name a way where no vestige of any human footstep appears. Pursuing it
for about three miles through a maze of most intricate turnings and wind-
ings, and through every diversity of rise and fall, the traveller again finds
an opening in the trees. Here he discovers himself to be on the overhang-
ing brow of a hill, the descent of which is clothed with wood, and so perpen-
dicular as to appear impracticable."

It was here that Dom Muce first came in sight of that palace
of grim truth, La Trappe.

" Perhaps," says the same writer, " there is not a situation in the whole
world more calculated to inspire religious awe than the first view of this
monastery. The total solitude, the undisturbed silence, the deep solemnity
of the scene is indescribable. The only adequate comparison I can make
to the sensation it causes is that excited by death."

If this was the sensation which it caused in Dom Muce, it was
appropriate to his circumstances. For if he had been guided
thither by the angel of life, the angel of death had caught him
up. The incessant rain of that day falling on a body exhausted
by fatigue had given him a chill which he never shook off, and
which brought him to the grave only fifteen months afcer ; so
that he had now reached his journey's end in more senses than
one.

Having pierced through the mists which continually rose
from eleven ponds, which girded the monastery in a double cir-
cle, he entered the gate, undismayed by the inscription graven
in stone above it :

" C'est ici que la Mort et la Verite
Elevent leurs flambeaux terribles,
C'est de cette demeure au monde inaccessible
Que 1'on passe a 1'eternite.''

He was shown into a waiting-room, while they went to an-
nounce his arrival. Presently, in came two monks draped in
their white cowls wonderful but mystic, who advanced without
saying a word, and, much to his confusion, fell flat on their faces
before him. They were adoring Christ in their scarecrow of a
guest. Then they rose up and made him a sign to come and
pray with them in the church. This was the monastic welcome.

1 888.] DOM MUCE. 813

He followed them, and as he knelt for a moment the abbot
chanced to pass by.

"Truly," says De Ranee, " my surprise was extreme when I saw that he
had nothing in his appearance to correspond to the name of religious
which he had given himself. Those haggard eyes, those haughty eye-
brows, that rude and savage countenance, revealed his character only too
plainly.''

He gives further details of Dom Muce's appearance in a let-
ter which he wrote some time after, with regard to an imaginary
description which had been given by the author of a certain
pamphlet.

"This author," he writes, "says that Dom Muce was of middle height,
and as a fact he was tall ; that he had fine blue eyes, whereas he had terri-
ble eyes ; and as for the color, I don't believe any one could ever have dis-
tinguished it, they were so hidden by the thickness of his eyebrows. He
says his face was long, whereas it was short and square, and the cheek-
bones were so high that it was almost a deformity. As for his pleasant
snaile, quelle -vision! he had rather a lion's maw than a human mouth."

In spite, however, of this unpromising exterior, De Ranee pre-
sently went to visit him, and when he arrived Dom Muce fell
on his knees and, without disguising the horror of his life,
begged to be admitted into the community, assuring him his only
desire was to do penance. The abbot might well have shrunk
from such a postulant, and have mistrusted so sudden a conver-
sion; but it was and is the glory of La Trappe never to refuse
admission to any one, however frightful may have been his
career, provided he shows a strong will to amend, and to hide
the past in the shadow of the cross.

Moreover, there was in Dom Muce an air of such evident
sincerity, so much candor in his avowals, and so much earnest-
ness in his appeal, that he won De Ranch's heart. The latter,
however, began by trying to frighten him. " I explained to
him," he says, " all the difficulties of the life he wished to em-
brace, ' avec toute la force qui me fut possible'" i.e., very
strongly.

He put before him the utter seclusion of the monastery far
away from the sights and sounds that gladden the haunts of
men; he told him of the perpetual silence no pleasant inter-
course or encouragement from friends ; he described to him the
hardness of labor in the fields summer's heat and winter's snow ;
he did not conceal from him the weariness of the office in
choir, the discomfort of straw beds, the continual restraint im-
posed by community life, the depressing effects of abstinence, the

8 14 DOM MUCE. [Sept.,

dreariness of fasting; he pointed out to him the unhealthiness of
the situation of the monastery, and showed him death moving
like a spectre through the waving mists which shrouded the
house; in a word, he revealed to him the cross naked and bare,
without saying a word of the sweetness of Him who is found by
those who embrace it. But he did not terrify Dom Muce. On
the contrary, as he spoke, this wild and hardened nature began
to soften ; the emotion which had been excited in him when he
first heard of La Trappe was renewed, and his tears began to
flow. He again assured the abbot that it was only the desire
of penance which had brought him to his feet, and that he would
obey him like a child.

De Ranee" thought it was right to make some delay before
giving him the habit. But after three weeks it was impossible
any longer to resist his desire and fervor, which became stronger
every day. This ceremony seemed to complete the extraordi-
nary change which had been going on in him.

" He laid aside," says De Ranc6, "the ferocity of the lion and the tiger,
which was natural to him, and put on the simplicity of the lamb and the
dove, and from that moment there was hardly one of his actions which did
not reveal the strength of grace and the depth of his gratitude."

Not like many repenting sinners did Dom Muce conduct
himself after his conversion. In them, frequently, after a few
spasms of remorse and a fitful glow of fervor, the habit of cold
selfishness reasserts itself, languor creeps into all their good
actions, and gratitude gives way to a base peevishness, or to a
loathsome regret.

Dom Muce's conversion was a transfiguration. Without any
preparatory experiments, without any tentative groping, with-
out any previous skirmishing, he achieved at once all the most
arduous feats of heroic virtue. He did not begin with the first
degrees of humility and patience, and then, after years passed in
them, with difficulty move up to the second, only to fall back
periodically to, or even off, the first. He transferred to the spi-
ritual warfare the gallantry which had distinguished him in the
field ; and as he had ever been first on the scaling-ladder and in
the " imminent deadly breach," so now at an impetuous double-
quick he stormed the steep ascent of' perfection, and in one des-
perate charge carried the narrow gate.

We wish we could follow the Relation into the detail of his
virtues, but, unfortunately, space would fail ; nor would it be so
interesting to the general public as the description of vice. Com-
punction ugly word but beautiful reality was the pervading

1 888.] DOM MUCE. 815

spirit of his life. Compunction, which is the soul-piercing sor-
row of an affectionate heart for past disloyalty to Love ; which
" worketh penance steadfast unto salvation yea, defence, yea,
desire, yea, zeal, yea, revenge " revenge on the body for having
marred the most beautiful creation of God. He would often be
found prostrate on the ground in one of the chapels, as it were
drowned in tears. " How can I have offended a Being so kind ? "
he would say ; " this thought disturbs and frightens me so much
that if I were to dwell on it I should fall into despair; when it
occupies me by itself, my knees grow feeble and bend under me,
and I am obliged to support myself with my hands ; my body
fails ; I shudder ; my hair stiffens, and my soul is pierced with
grief ; I become as cold as ice ; without strength, or tears, or
voice, like a man who is about to faint. But oh ! then the Di-
vine Mercy comes to my help and raises me up ; he gives me
back my strength, my tears, and my speech, and I say to him all
that fear, love, sadness, and joy put in my mouth." He had a
horror of sin, and was in a continual fear of displeasing God,
even in the least things. And as he knew that the just man falls
seven times a day, he said he could not understand how any one
who lived by. faith could have one moment of human joy. He
often said that " if God gave me choice to finish my penance in
purgatory, or even in the depths of hell, provided he gave me
the assurance I should no more offend him, I would choose it a
thousand times rather than live longer on earth." " I fear neither
death nor hell;" he said another time, " but only the offence of
his Divine Majesty." And this man, whose phrase of sorrow
thus emulated the most exalted utterances of those who have
grown old in heroic innocence, had been only a few months be-
fore a vagabond, a would be bashi-bazouk, a criminal flying from
the hands of justice, urged on by the diabolical desire of crown-
ing his innumerable crimes by a public apostasy ! Well might
the abbot exclaim in chapter :

"What a change, brethren, in a man more hardened than a rock ! what
a resurrection ! what a creation ! God has given him a heart, which he
had not, and taken from him the stone which stood him instead. It is God
alone who works such marvels."

His thirst for revenge was not to be slaked by the ordinary
austerities of the order ; * and as the desire of the cross is not
one which goes long ungratified, it soon pleased heaven to try

* It may be a new idea to some, that the observance established at La Trappe by De
Ranee (which is generally held up as a model of extravagance) is only a mitigation of the Rule
of St. Benedict, which is usually extolled as a model of discretion.

816 DOM MUCE. [Sept.,

him with manifold affliction. The cold he had on him when he
arrived degenerated into inflammation of the lungs, giving him
a violent and ceaseless cough, which became worse at night, and
left him in the morning so exhausted that it seemed impossible
he could drag himself to the end of the day. Soon his palate be-
came raw and inflamed, and it gave him extreme pain to swallow.
The abbot, by way of indulgence, ordered him some roast ap-
ples ; he ate them for a few days, but presently he reflected that
this was too great a luxury for a sinner like him, and he begged
so earnestly to be deprived of them that, says De Ranee, " je ne
pus le lui refuser"

To all this supervened an attack of rheumatism, so sharp that
he said (and he spoke from knowledge) that he felt as if the
points of swords were being driven into him. Yet his complica-
tion of woes could not fill up his desire of suffering. He used
tearfully to complain that he had almost nothing to endure in
his new state of life, and that he often had to refrain from pray-
ing for crosses, because what he finally got instead was consola-
tion. For hardly had he had time to thank God for some new
pain, than he was filled with a secret joy which made it all seem
nothing to him.

In spite of these and other evils, he for some time followed
the ordinary exercises of the community ; he was always at the
work and the office, and allowed himself no indulgence in diet or
anything else. However, after a few months all his ills became
worse, and they were forced to put him in the infirmary. The
mitigations he here enjoyed were to him a constant pain. " It is
not just to treat me like a man," said he, " seeing that I have
lived like a beast." What grieved him especially was having to
use a soft straw paillasse instead of the paillasse pique"e of the
dormitory.

Indeed, when all chance of his recovery was gone, he en-
treated to be allowed to leave the infirmary, and to take his
place once more in choir and in the refectory, so as to carry his
penance to the bitter end. This was not permitted ; neverthe-
less, he was made happy by the restoration of sa premiere pail-
lasse.

Not that even in the infirmary he spent his last days in the
lap of an enervating luxury. He occupied a poor room, desti-
tute of everything that was not indispensable. All through his
sickness he rose at 3:30 A.M. He read nothing except the Gos-
pels, the Imitation of Christ, and a little book which spoke to
him of death. The master of novices gave him half an hour

1 888.] DOM MUCE. 817

each day, and the abbot came to see him from time to time.
These were the whole of his resources. He sat suffering all the
day long on a straw chair, without any recreation or allevia-
tion ; yet he never felt time hang heavy on his hands. His days
were quite full and passed " comme des Eclairs" Several months
were spent thus, his pains always increasing.

He had violent attacks of high fever, and almost constant
sleeplessness. He became so attenuated that his bones pierced
through his skin in many places, yet even after long nights of
heavy pain when he was asked how he was he would answer in
a transport of joy :

" How great are the mercies of God ! The night has been so long and
painful, that I hardly hoped to see the day. But I never lost the presence
of God for a single moment, and nevei did I taste it with greater sweetness
and peace."

It was in the middle of this, his mortal sickness, that he was
admitted to profession. He made it with extreme joy and extra-
ordinary fervor. He was so weak that he could not stand, but
he knelt down and pronounced his vows with so firm and strong
a voice that it astonished all who heard him. Soon after this
new baptism, in which we are told he received wonderful graces,
they had to give him the sacraments of the dying. He said he
thought no one had ever desired death as he did, and this, not in
order to end his sufferings, for suffering was his pleasure, but be-
cause he had ,a burning love to see Christ and to be united to him
inseparably, which could not be without death.

A few weeks after he felt that his last moments were come.
It was two o'clock in the morning, and he made a sign to his at-
tendant to give notice to the abbot ; he would not use words out
of respect for Benedictine silence of the night. As soon as the
abbot arrived he asked to be laid on the customary straw and
ashes. The abbot strewed ashes on the floor in the form of a
cross and blessed them with a special blessing ; then some straw
was shaken down, and the monk in his full choral habit was
stretched on this bed of penance and humiliation, there to await
the stroke of death. When Dom Muce found himself in this po-
sition he felt happier than a king on his throne. He spread out
his cowl and folded his long sleeves one over the other and took
an attitude of joyful expectation. Then they said the prayers of
the agonizing, which he listened to with the greatest attention,
and made all the responses. However, he was not so near death
as had been imagined, and he had to be lifted again on to his straw

VOL. XLVII. 52

8i8 DOM MUCE. [Sept.,

chair. The abbot came to see him again after Prime, and he
said that he was still in the same state of suffering and peace, and
so entirely in God's hands that he would be most glad to suffer
for a thousand years if such were his will; that by his favor his
sufferings were increasing every moment ; nevertheless, he still
had one consolation of which he earnestly begged to be depriv-
ed. This consolation turned out to be a straw cushion which
had been put on his chair. At length, towards one o'clock, he
again felt that his end was at hand, and he had himself replaced
on the straw. When the abbot came in, he held out his arms to
him and said, in reply to his exhortation:

"With my whole heart and soul I welcome Jesus Christ; his mercies
are infinite. How good he is ! What a marvel, father : my body is crushed
with pain, I have never felt any such, and yet I am overwhelmed with
consolation."

His joy was evident in his eyes and his whole face ; and what
one would hardly believe, in the midst of the horrors of agony
and approaching death, he laughed outright. From the moment
of his conversion he had hardly ceased weeping, and yet now, in
the bitterness of separation and the terrors of impending judg-
ment, he laughed in the face of death. Presently, however, he
became silent and motionless, and seemed to enter into the myste-
rious temptation on the Trinity, which awaits so many men at the
hour of death. He became embarrassed, and muttered more than
once, " One God in three Persons." The abbot said : " That is
your faith, brother, is it not?" "Yes, father," he slowly an-
swered ; " if it were not I should be damned." His pains became
more and more severe, and the monks who were standing around
began reciting psalms. After a time the abbot asked the agon-
izing man if he suffered much. " Not as much as I deserve," he
said ; and then, energetically striking his chest, he cried : " Souffre,
souffre, me 'chant corps ! It is just you should suffer, since you have
offended God." He then asked leave to say a few words to the
master of novices, and, embracing him close, he said : "There is
nothing weaker than man ; it is a great misfortune to seek help
from creatures, instead of from the Creator alone." Presently
he fell into violent convulsions for half an hour. Finally, how-
ever, he regained perfect tranquillity, in the midst of which he
ceased to breathe.

B. B.

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN&S FACTORY. 819

JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY.

XXX,

THE SQUIRE GROWS CONFIDENTIAL.

AT the factory, meanwhile, things were apparently taking
very much their ordinary course. There were contracts on hand
whose fulfilment would occupy all the time between October and
the holidays. But the excavations for the new mill, which had
been undertaken the week preceding Mr. Van Alstyne's seizure,
were discontinued and the laborers engaged on them paid and
.sent away.* Paul Murray acted in this on the advice of Judge
Mount, who made a flying visit to the village and spent most of
the time between two trains at the bedside of his client. That
was on the Saturday following his attack, when the sick man's
condition presented few visible signs of hopeful amendment to
the lay observer. Dr. Cadwallader was also present by appoint-
ment, and was as sanguine in the expression of his anticipations
as the nature of the case permitted.

But he remained doubtful as to his success 'in imparting
to the lawyer his conviction concerning the mental condition
of his patient. It was, indeed, not easy to meet the full,
wistful gaze of John Van Alstyne's eyes, and not entertain the
hopeful belief that an unimpaired intelligence lay behind them.
But, if so, it was a prisoner, mute and helpless, like one of those
victims of mediaeval tyranny who, between piles of solid masonry,
looked out through a single loophole across the stagnant waters
of a moat, shut away already from all comfort save the gleam of
daylight, and with the dreadful oubliette yawning close at hand
to engulf him even from that. Life and death were still at equi-
poise. That there was a chance of recovery was all the doctor
could affirm, and truth compelled him to add that it was a chance
so bare that an untoward accident might easily destroy it.

After leaving the sick-room Judge Mount went down to the
factory, and Paul Murray afterwards drove him to the railway
station at Milton Corners. If the lawyer had entertained a pur-
pose to discover what knowledge, if any, Murray might possess
concerning John Van Alstyne's frustrated intentions in his regard,
it was one which stopped short of putting a direct question, and
which remained unsatisfied. He formed a very favorable im-
pression of the young superintendent. He found him modest,

820 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Sept.,

intelligent and capable, and with a comprehensive view of the
actual state of affairs which, being untinged with the sanguine
hopes that suffused those of Squire Cadwallader, coincided the
more fully with the judge's own. He advised Paul Murray,
therefore, to go on with what he had on hand, but to await
events before contemplating further operations.

" As to the new mill," he said, " I would stop right where you
are. If Mr. Van Alstyne recovers there will be plenty of time to
go on, and if he doesn't, there are others who .will then have a
right to a say in the matter." But the step thus counselled by
John Van Alstyne's legal adviser, and acted upon by Paul Murray
without delay, was one so significant that it was accepted on all
sides as not merely an acknowledgment that the old man's days
were almost numbered, but that the consequent defeat of his
benevolent schemes had been definitely admitted by those who
were in the best position to estimate the probabilities. The news
of it helped the sick man in the guest chamber to bear with
greater patience pains which were responding more tardily than
he had hoped to treatment, and it wreathed with smiles the face
of his hostess when she paid him her daily visit. She thought it
" really providential," she said, but as that was a phase of the mat-
ter which did not seem to commend itself to Mr. Hadleigh, she
prattled and purred over it instead with Mr. Lamson, when at the
end of a fortnight he came up to offer condolences at the door of
the one chamber, closed against him as against all other visitors,
and to offer suggestions, which had now been invited, in the other.

There was, perhaps, only one spot in the entire neighborhood
where the subject was not discussed in all its various aspects, and
that one was beside John Van Alstyne's own sick-bed. Elsewhere
there was grief in many places and despondency in many, as there
was exultation in certain others. What passed in his own mind,
if indeed it was in working order, as the squire continued to in-
sist was not improbable, there were no external signs to indicate.
As the days went by, the paralysis, which had at first seized all his
members, gradually relaxed its hold, so that in a fortnight he was
able to leave his bed for an easy-chair. But his upper limbs
were still incapable of motion, and his occasional attempts at
utterance were entirely abortive. Possibly it was his evident dis-
tress over that fact which at once kept alive the squire's belief in
his possession of his mental faculties, and deepened his apprehen-
sions for him. He allowed no one to approach his patient save
the two girls and Paul Murray, and on their lips he laid an em-
bargo which prevented all allusions to whatever might be sup-

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYtftfs FACTORY. 821

posed likely to intensify the old man's sense of helplessness. So
in that room there was peace, and hopeful talk, and reading now
and then, as well as a good deal of silent prayer. Still, Squire
Cadwallader's faith in the ultimate issue of the case was one
which he never thoroughly succeeded in imparting to any one
but Mary Anne. But in her, who by nature was inclined to see
the darker side of every cloud, that faith and hope grew daily
into a strength that filled her with a secret wonder which of it-
self prevented her from seeking to share it with her fellow-
watchers. Even the squire, who felt himself supported by her
sympathy, had no idea how greatly her confidence surpassed his
own.

The squire astonished himself, in fact, by the fervor of his own
partisanship in those days. He was even disappointed by Judge
Mount's counsel about the new works, and half-irritated with
Paul Murray for accepting it so readily, in spite of the fact that
his own plain common sense, when interrogated, replied that both
of them had acted wisely. Possibly the underlying spring of his
conscious actions might well have been that " certain reasonless
impulse " which even the heathen Aristotle traced to the divine
power, rinding it to be the first requisite for the attainment of
that good which is virtuous and honest. Sure it is that it was
with a secret surprise the squire found himself not merely often
hoping against hope for his patient's restoration, but, failing that,
bent with a kind of blind tenacity on thwarting up to the very last
schemes which presently took a shape that, if successful, would
result in the overthrow of John Van Alstyne's dearest wishes,
even should he finally regain his bodily health and possession of
all his faculties.

October was fully ended when these schemes were first laid
openly before Squire Cadwallader. Both of the sick men were
by this time upon their feet, Mr. Hadleigh, indeed, going about
the house, and sunning himself on the piazza, on bright days.
But he was devoured with ennui and anxious to get away into
more cheerful quarters before cold weather set in. He was
hardly more gaunt than on his first arrival, from the sheer im-
possibility of such a thing, but his brown pallor was invaded now
and again by a quick flush from which the doctors augured more
ill than they predicted. Still, the squire encouraged his wish to
depart, at the same time recommending him to avoid excitement
and over-worry.

"You might go down to New York, as Mrs. Van Alstyne
proposes," he said to him. " Go and see Loomis. He's the

822 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Sept.,

authority for cases like yours. I'll keep you advised on the
state of matters here. As you know, I don't look for a speedy
termination of Mr. Van Alstyne's difficulty."

Both men looked up to the balcony outside of John Van
Alstyne's room, where the paralytic also was basking in the
early afternoon sun. He could walk about now, and the fetters
on his left arm had been so relaxed that he had begun to feed
himself. His tongue, too, so far as the mechanism of utterance
was concerned, had been free for several days, but it would serve
no purpose of intelligent speech.

" He is regaining his bodily powers, Dr. Sawyer tells me,"
remarked Mr. Hadleigh, as he withdrew his eyes, " but not his
intelligence. He says his attempts at talking are utterly beside
the mark, and fatuous ? "

" Yes, yes," assented the squire. " Sawyer has been in and
out of his room for the last two or three days. I wanted him to
form an opinion now. Up to the present I have thought abso-
lute quiet so essential to physical restoration that I banished
even him. Would you care to pay Mr. Van Alstyne a visit?"

" Would he know me ? "

" Well, what means do you suppose me to have for settling
that question?" responded the squire. "You might try for
yourself."

" On the whole, no," said Mr. Hadleigh after a moment's de-
liberation. " Perhaps, before I make a start. But for an imbe-
cile or a lunatic I have a sort of superstitious respect. I don't
want to go uninvited behind the curtain."

Squire Cadwallader felt his own respect for Mr. Hadleigh
go up several degrees. He blushed internally over his own
attitude, which struck him at the moment as superfluously
disingenuous. Still, through force of recent habit, he main-
tained it.

" Yes," he returned, " it is painful. Custom inures us doctors
to it, more or less, but it never ceases to be disagreeable. And
a wreck just in the harbor's mouth seems, somehow, more to be
deplored than any other. You think you will go, then ? "

" As far as New York, and within a day or two," replied Mr.
Hadleigh. " This place is not too lively under any circum-
stances, and under existing ones it is deadly dull. You say you
don't anticipate a speedy issue for my cousin's illness?"

" To tell you the honest truth," said the squire, with a feeling
of relief that he could speak it, " I'm like the Widow Bedott :
I ' can't calkilate.' I am hopeful by nature, and John Van Alstyne

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 823

was one of my oldest friends. We got looking rather askance at
one another at one time, or, to put it more fairly, that was my
attitude toward him. But at present my feelings have gone
back to their natural level, and I don't want to think of his dying,
even out of his present death-in-life. My wish is probably father
to my thought. As Sawyer has told you, he may have another
stroke at any time, and that would doubtless fetch him. But I
hope not."

" Your friend Lamson," said Mr. Hadleigh after a pause ;
" has he spoken to you about the application he advises me to
make to the Supreme Court of your State for a commission to
settle up my cousin's business ? "

The squire had been tilted back in his chair, and, like Mr.
Hadleigh, was enjoying a cigar. He threw away the latter and
brought his chair down on all fours with a thump that sent the
too-ready blood to the last speaker's sallow cheeks. But for a
moment he made no response.

" No," he said at last. " I haven't happened to see Lamson
for two or three days. What does he want you to do that for?
Isn't it rather rushing things? It would look better to wait
awhile, it seems to me."

" So I suggested," replied Mr. Hadleigh quietly.

" Why, Van Alstyne has scarcely been sick a month yet,"
went on the squire. " He may die any time, and then where
would be the object of such a proceeding ? "

" On the other hand," returned Mr. Hadleigh, " Mr. Lamson
points out that he may survive for years in a state of imbecility.
I may take it into my head to return to England, or to go else-
where, at any moment, and I believe I am the only person in the
country who is entitled to call for such a commission."

" With what end in view ? "

" You'd better consult Mr. Lamson about that, perhaps. It
was his suggestion."

" He wants to have the estate put on the market, I suppose? "

" Precisely."

The squire leaned forward, with his elbows on his knees, and
cogitated.

"Well," he asked finally, " what answer did you give him ?"

" None, so far that is, 1 have agreed to nothing definite.
The application, if made, would not depend for its success solely
upon me. Bondsmen would be required in any case. And I
have by no means decided to interfere."

"Take my advice and don't," said the squire, rising. "It

824 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Sept.,

would be of 'no particular benefit to you that I can see, un-
less-"

" Unless what?" asked Mr. Hadleigh, with the familiar con-
traction of his brows.

"Oh! nothing," replied the squire, looking down at him
frankly and putting out his hand. " I was about to observe that
my friend Lamson seems to have more of the makings of a
scoundrel about him than I find it pleasant to admit to myself,
seeing how long we have managed to hit it off together. I
ought to beg your pardon for my ' unless,' and I do. I think
you'd be wise to get in-doors now, before the sun goes any
lower. It don't answer to play with rheumatism."

" I don't quite follow your line of thought," returned Mr.
Hadleigh, making no attempt to comply with the squire's sug-
gestion. "Mr. Lamson's motive is plain enough. Of course it
is intended to secure his own advantage, and, incidentally I be-
lieve, yours also, but it appears to me that 'scoundrelly ' is too
big an adjective for it. My cousin is evidently on the mend,
physically, and that, as we all understand, points to a prolonged
period of imbecility. In the meantime, what is to be done about
his business?"

" I guess it would manage to rub along, providing everybody
else would be content to mind theirs and let his alone," said the
squire. "Why should you interfere, of all men? Suppose Mr.
Van Alstyne continues in his present state long enough to give
reasonable grounds for applying for a commission de lunatico.
He hasn't yet, I may as well tell you for a fact that you can
rely on. But suppose he should, and that your application is
granted. Of what personal benefit could that be to you ? Me
you may count out altogether. But why should you go out of
your way, through what would look like a most unsavory dung-
heap to ordinary mortals, merely to play into Lamson's hand ?
He couldn't really make that worth your while, it seems to me."

The squire was in something of a heat by this time. Mr.
Hadleigh, on the contrary, was entirely cool. He ruminated
for a little before he made an answer which apparently ignored
entirely the insinuation just repeated.

" I see your point of view," he said at last, rising as he spoke
and turning toward the hall door ; " I have already urged much
the same in reply to your friend's advances. Perhaps you'll be
kind enough, if you see him, to say that he need not trouble to
come up again about it. I shall leave for New York by to-
morrow night at latest."

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. 825

11 You will be coming back again later on, no doubt?" said
the squire in his usual hearty tone.

" Impossible to say. I am a bird of passage. I shall expect
you to keep me au courant of affairs here, as you promised. Mrs.
Van Alstyne, on whom I had expected to depend for news, tells
me that she is going to New York also, within a week or two, to
meet a relative with whom she intends to spend the winter."

"Just so," assented the squire. "If there is any decided
change for the worse, I'll let you know." Then they parted, the
squire going up to pay his visit to John Van Alstyne. The old
man was just coming in from the balcony, aided by Zipporah
Colton. The squire sat down opposite his patient, and after
putting the usual inquiries, remained for a little while in a brown
study. It was his habit to talk to the invalid, getting from him,
at first, such mute responses as his condition made possible; and,
since his tongue had been unlocked, encouraging him to use it
until he saw how much the unavailing effort to make himself
intelligible cost the old man. But, up to the present, the re-
marks which he had directed to him personally had been for the
most part merely jocular and cheery in their nature. A shrewd
observer might have inferred from them that the squire's wish
was indeed father to his hopeful thoughts about his patient, for
they had thus far taken an aim distinctly lower than that of a
free intelligence, level with his own. To-day he adopted sud-
denly another course.

Mr. Van Alstyne was in his easy-chair, his motionless right
hand lying across his lap, outside his dressing-gown, where Zip
had placed it; the other resting on the arm of the chair. Thus
far he had made no effort to respond to the squire save by means
of this hand, and the closing or opening of his eyes. Presently
the doctor leaned forward and took it in both his own.

" Well," he said, in his ordinary cheery tone, " don't you feel
like talking to me a little to-day? You must limber up your
tongue, you know. It won't do to let it stiffen. Come, isn't
there anything you can say to me? Don't you want any-
thing?"

" I want," returned John Van Alstyne, and then stopped.
His brows contracted painfully. The squire lifted his own a
little, and a gleam of pleasure came into his eyes. It was the
first attempt at speech the invalid had made which was at all
like a direct response. Fragments of verse, or entirely irrele-
vant collocations of familiar words, repeated as if by a machine,
had hitherto been all that had passed his lips.

826 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Sept.,

" You want?" echoed the squire. " Well, that 's good news,
too. What do you want ? Try again."

" I want I want a pig."

"A pig!" began the squire with a laugh. " I don't doubt it
in the least. I've got one about a month old that would just fill
the bill roasted, and with a lemon in its mouth, I suppose ?"
Then he stopped, seeing the slow tears that were forcing them-
selves through John Van Alstyne's eyes, as he once more real-
ized the futility of his efforts to express himself.

The girl leaning over the back of his chair wiped them gently
away.

" Why do you torment him ?" she asked softly.

" Pshaw ! " said the squire, pulling out his bandanna and using
it noisily, " I'm not tormenting him ; I've got something to tell
him, and you too, providing he'll keep it a secret. I can trust
you, of course. See here, Van Alstyne. You understand me, I
know ; but to make sure of it, just tip me a wink, will you, or
squeeze my hand a bit? Yes, I knew it. Now listen. I want
to tell you just what is the matter with you at present. There
is a clot here on the left side of your brain which acts as a me-
chanical obstacle a stone, as one might say, rolled against the
door of your speech and lying also in the way of motion for this
arm. Well, now, it is being gradually absorbed. If it were not
already much less than it was at first, you would not even tell
me that you ' want a pig.' All you have to do now is to possess
your soul in patience. Trust God, as they say, and keep your
powder dry, and everything will come right. You under-
stand ? "

The squire looked up at Zip and smiled.

" Come round here," he said, " and see if he doesn't."

The tense, worried, wistful look was, in fact, gone from John
Van Alstyne's eyes. It was replaced by one of such relief that
the squire was in a mood to berate himself soundly for not hav-
ing tried his experiment of confidence earlier. His own hopes
rose to an altitude they had not gained before.

" For a man of my years," said he, still retaining John Van
Alstyne's hand, " I have been a most uncommon kind of idiot.
It would have done you good to hear me say that sooner, eh ?
Well, I was acting on my best judgment about it, and that's the
only excuse that I can offer. Everything depends now on your-
self, and on these good girls that have been looking after you."

Squire Cadwallader rose and took his hat.

" Where's Miss Murray, by the way ? " he asked.

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE* s FACTORY. 827

" Gone home for the day," answered Zip. " She could, since
I was free to stay here. She is good, squire, isn't she ? What
makes her so, do you think ? " The girl gave a little, wistful
sigh as she ended.

" She was born that way, I reckon," said the squire, smiling ;
" some folks are, you know."

" I wish I had been," sighed Zip again.

" Oh ! come," said the squire, patting her on the shoulder, " I
don't think anybody here would like to spare your own particu-
lar variety of goodness. We can't all be lilies-of-the- valley."

" Lilies-of-the- valley, indeed! " protested Zip. " A great tall
calla is what you mean."

" Well, a calla then, if you like that better. I merely want
to point out to you that even callas leave room for roses and
some folks prefer roses," he ended, pinching the girl's cheek.

"Even cabbage roses!" amended Zip with self-depreciating
disdain.

XXXI.

IN THE SICK-ROOM.

SQUIRE CADWALLADER saw Mr. Hadleigh depart the next
afternoon with a feeling of mingled compunction and relief.
The compunction came uppermost and effervesced, thou'gh not
into audible speech, and it gave him real pleasure to know he
had it.

" I've been a most uncharitable ass," he said to himself after
shaking hands at the station with his departing patient, "and I
deserve condign kicking for it." Perhaps the confession did
him more good than if it had been open. He was more at peace
with himself and all mankind than he had been for the last
month. In the depth of his heart he even forgave Seth Lamson,
reflecting that his own duplicity with regard to John Van Al-
styne's real condition afforded the amplest excuse for his part-
ner's canny haste to profit by it.

" I suppose I might have tried to do the same thing if any-
body else were concerned, or even if I were not too sentimental
for pure business," he reflected. "After all, there was nothing
out of the way or irregular in what he proposed, if only he
hadn't been in such a preposterous hurry, and the case had been
really what he supposes. Lord ! what a thing it is to have such an
invaluable coadjutor as Sawyer ! " The squire chuckled over
the reminiscences that name evoked. " Poor Alfred ! And the

828 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE' s FACTORY. [Sept.,

case might have been just as he diagnosed it, and prognosed
it, and vaticinated about it to such purpose ! Who knew it
wasn't ? Did I, until yesterday ? And if Lamson found a
mare's nest, wasn't it because I've been all along fooling myself
with one ? I'd like to know just what bait he found it natural
and easy to tempt the Englishman with. He is a better fellow
than I have been supposing him lately, Lord forgive me !
Still, I own I'm not sorry to see his back."

And it was on that basis of solid fact that the travail of the
squire's soul invariably found repose. It was that which secret-
ly imparted its unique flavor of sweetness to the process of ar-
raigning himself at his own bar on the charge of uncharitable-
ness toward his neighbor. While he figuratively smote his
breast with one hand and cried peccavi, with the other he was
waving a pleased farewell and simultaneously muttering good
riddance. So, for the most part, we are doubtless made. Soc-
rates alone stands up in the midst of his accusers and testifies
to the interior voice, which has everywhere and always warned
him against what is noxious and to be avoided. But could there
have been one soul of the condemning crowd who must not have
owned to turning often a deaf ear to warnings not less imperious
and insistent?

Squire Cadwallader's hopes for his patient, however well
founded in fact, were at least not swift in their realization. After
the confirmation they had just received, he had been sanguine in
his anticipations of a speedy and entire recovery. But when
days and weeks went by, bringing, indeed, so much of renewed
physical vigor to John Van Alstyne that he could take daily
walks and drives, yet opening no avenues by which he could com-
municate his thoughts, the squire's tone, except to the sick man
himself, became insensibly less cheery. He had tried to have
him write with his free left hand, but although the old man made
shift to trace his own signature rudely, or whatever else was laid
before him as a copy, yet the efforts which he made on his own
initiative resulted as lamely as those he made at speech. Judg-
ing from his facial expression, the hopes which had been roused
in his own breast were going out again for want of fuel. His
eyes were less eager and less wistful, and his smile less frequent.
As the shadows deepened about the casement, the prisoner with-
in was growing more pathetic, because more untroubled, in his
resignation.

About the house things were taking a more settled footing
and getting into place for the winter. Mrs. Van Alstyne had

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN& s FACTORY. 829

departed for New York -toward the middle of November, and
shortly afterward Miss Murray, having prevailed on the squire
to own that her constant presence was no longer an absolute ne-
cessity, had returned home. She still passed apart of every day
with the invalid, however, and occasionally remained at the
house all night. Mrs. Lant, who had been installed at the Mur-
rays' during Mary Anne's absence, came up to Mr. Van Alstyne's
with her family, partly as a somewhat superfluous assistant to
the housekeeper and the other servants, and partly because Zip-
porah Colton had asked for her, thinking that the presence of the
children would brighten up the dulness of the great house. Her
own term at the school was now very near its expiration, but she
had determined in her own mind that so long as John Van Al-
styne remained so helpless and so lonely she would not abandon
her post beside him. It was a sort of compact she had made
with herself when Mary Anne decided that her domestic duties
ought now to take precedence of those she had assumed toward
the invalid. Under existing circumstances, her own father being
likewise in feeble health, Mary Anne's decision was natural and
inevitable. But Zipporah, in pondering over the situation, had
quietly come to the conclusion that there was nothing in her own
line of duty which need interfere with this one. As yet, how-
ever, she had shared her resolve with nobody, excepting her self-
imposed charge himself.

There was something very touching in the relation that grew
up between these two, the silent, almost helpless old man, only
his eyes fully responsive and alive, and the loyal young girl,
bound to him by a tie purely of the soul, yet grounded in sym-
pathy and natural charity only. At first Zip had seldom tried
speaking to him the process was so one-sided, and she so dis-
trustful of her own powers of consolation. Efforts at entertain-
ment had at first seemed too out of place, but after awhile, when
Squire Cadwallader's experiment had made it seem certain to her
that the whole man was there, barring only his powers of com-
munication with his kind, she began reading to him, most often,
perhaps, from the Gospels, finding him apparently more interested
and attentive than when she selected other books, but not seldom
making her own choice and pleasure the vehicle for his. Direct
speech with him, save as that was necessary, still came hard to
her. But after awhile that difficulty, too, grew less important.
She was abandoning hope of his recovery. As she stood beside
him one day, after a long silence during which she had been pon-
dering on many things, a line from Elaine floated into her mind as

830 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Sept.,

she came back from her reverie and caught the look of isolation
and withdrawal in his eyes. Almost it passed her lips, but she
refrained them from it:

" The dead,
Steered by the dumb, went upward with the flood."

And that day she began what afterwards grew into a curi-
ous, habitual confidence, but which doubtless owed its incep-
tion to her fixed belief that the old man was going silently down
into his grave. Perhaps all monologue must in the end grow
personal, however it begin. The girl was now so essential to
John Van Alstyne's comfort that almost all her leisure time was
spent near him. And, from the necessity of the case, she was
usually otherwise companionless, except now and again for one
of Mrs. Lant's little girls. So, presently, moved in the first in-
stance by the thought of amusing him, and afterwards drawn on
by that pleasure of self-outpouring which only the absence
of a dumb confidant denies to more people than would care
to confess to the fact, she fell into a way of talking out to him
nearly all that went on within her mind her girlish dreams
and fancies, her thoughts about the present and the future, her
doubts and her beliefs, her hopes and fears. It was an innocent,
and under the precise circumstances not an unnatural, thing to
do. Not a little of the great personal literature of the world the
Soliloquies, and the Confessions, and the Dialogues of saints, as
well as the Journals Intimes of men like Amiel must have sprung
out oi a need not more interior, and, in its fundamental basis, not
less natural, than hers.

It struck her one day when she came in after school that
Mr. Van Alstyne's expression was more despondent than usual.
The approaching end of the school term had now made definite
in her mind that resolution to remain at her post as nurse of
which mention has been made already. She sat down on the
footstool in front of him and laid her warm young hands on his.

"Does it please you to have me here?" she asked him with a
sudden yearning to console. His free hand closed strongly on
hers nay, it even seemed to her that there was motion in the
other. It was characteristic of a certain exaltation of mood of
which she was capable, that at the moment the fact signified
nothing to her but as a more emphatic expression of his answer.
She went on :

" Have you thought have you remembered that my time
here is almost ended ? I wanted to tell you. I am not going to

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 831

keep the school. It tires me. But I mean to stay here, with
you, and take care of you just as long as ever you need me.
You do want me, don't you ? I want to stay."

The old man's eyes brightened, and the slow, pathetic smile
that sometimes shone across his lips came there before he tried
to open them. His efforts to speak had been more rare of late.

" I want," he said, and sighed. Then he tried again. " I
want you."

" Oh ! thank God !" cried the girl. " You spoke and you
said what you tried to say. And oh ! your hand moves, your
right hand ! It did before, and I never thought what it meant.
You are going to be better and to speak ! Oh ! thank God !"

She put her face down on his hand and he felt her glad tears
.wet it. It was a good hand, a generous hand, that out of pure
human sympathy had been held out impartially to all who needed
its assistance. No doubt it was well that when life and sensation
began once more to flood its nerves and veins a purely human
sympathy should likewise be first to bid them welcome.

xxxii.

A FREE TRANSLATION.

ONE morning, shortly after the occurrence of the scene just
narrated, Zipporah went into the library, after a late breakfast,
to choose a book with which to amuse both herself and her silent
listener. She had detailed what happened to Squire Cadwal-
lader, and, like herself, he had gained renewed hope from it.
But John Van Alstyne's further efforts at speech, made in re-
sponse to the squire and to Paul Murray, distressed him so much
that they were discontinued. The sick man's mind, if the dis-
connected words that came to his lips could be taken in evidence,
was full of matters which it was thought unwise to discuss be-
fore him.

" He is improving," affirmed the squire, in a voice that was
more grave than was habitual ; " not so rapidly as I thought
might be possible a month ago, but steadily. But he must be
kept quiet and not allowed to agitate himself so. His speech,
When it returns, will not do so through any effort of his own. I
don't like at all the flus-h that comes when he tries to get at busi-
ness matters with you, Murray. I should keep away from him
for awhile, in your place. 5 '

832 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Sept.,

" You think he attaches a definite meaning- to his words now,
do you ?"

" I'm sure of it. When he says ' mill,' for instance, or when
he said ' Mount/ just now. He would like to see his lawyer, I
suppose, but at present I would rather he didn't. The girls are
the best company for him for awhile yet. They cheer him up
and .amuse him, and he don't connect them in his own mind with
disturbing matters."

It was a Sunday morning, the first Sunday of winter, cold,
and clear, and bright. The road, full of frost, but as yet un-
visited by snow, creaked loudly under the wheels of the church-
going vehicles passing John Van Alstyne's door. He had not
sat down-stairs yet since his illness began, but was expecting to
do so in the course of the week just opening. And as Zipporah
had a fancy that the library, with its southern exposure and
wide bay-window, was the pleasantest of all the lower rooms, it
had been opened and fires kept burning in it lately, so that the
invalid should find it cheery when he removed thither. As a
library it did not amount to a great deal. John Van Alstyne
himself had never been much of a reading man, and the vol-
umes which filled a couple of book-cases on either side of the
chimney-piece were partly the accumulations of hiis father and
partly those of his son. The latter, a man of desultory tastes,
an idler rather than a student, but with a quick sense of literary
values, had made a very miscellaneous Collection, in which he
aimed at nothing further than his own present gratification.
Zipporah had dipped into it now and again, and lighted on
many books which, had her time been less occupied, or her out-
side interests fewer than they soon became, might have been of
doubtful utility to her. Some of them were well-known classics,
and recalled to her mind the dictum of her late professor of
rhetoric, that culture was to be acquired by reading the best
things, and that the best things were those which the cultivated
had unanimously agreed to call so. If she had had nothing else
to do, Zipporah would probably have set seriously to work at
cultivating herself in John Van Alstyne's library that fall; as it
was, she had her hands full of what was, on the whole, more
useful employment.

This morning she was somewhat slow about making a choice.
Despite her attachment to Mr. Van Alstyne, and in despite, too,
of a sense of virtuous doing which now and again came to cheer
her when she reflected on what she was about, the girl was a
good deal alone nowadays, and she was feeling it more than

1 888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 833

usual. Miss Murray's visits had naturally been paid most often
during school hours. School was now ended, so far as Zipporah
was concerned, and that particular companionship would doubt-
less be resumed. There had been another, but for some reason
Paul Murray's visits to the sick-room had also been fewer since
his sister left it, and his manner, when he came there, more con-
strained. And since the caution Squire Cadwallader had given
him he had not entered the house at all, though his messengers
came every night and morning. And that was a long while ago,
thought Zip four days at least. She had seen him driving past
on the road to church, with the carryall full of old people behind
him, while she was standing at the breakfast-room window. And
though her affection for Mr. Van Alstyne was most sincere, and
her heroic resolves in his regard still up to concert pitch, she was,
for some reason or other, a little out of tune within herself, and
half-inclined to accuse lite of a certain lack of flavor.

She turned over book after book without linding anything to
her taste for several minutes. At last she fetched the steps, and
mounting them, began to rummage among a pile of pamphlets
and books in paper covers, which filled one of the top shelves.
One of these, an issue of the Paris Bibliotheque Bleue, at last struck
her fancy. It bore a great name on its rough blue cover, and as
she ran over the introduction with which Sainte-Beuve had pre-
faced it, she found him saying that when one had read the three
tales it contained, Rent, and Atala, and Les Aventures du Dernier
Abencerage, one had known the best that Chateaubriand had to
give. For a few minutes she sat still on the top step, and after
running quickly over the pages of the first two, decided that she
was hardly in the humor to make herself mistress of that best this
morning. But as she glanced through the history of the ill-fated
Aben-Hamet one sentence arrested her: "Je f aimer ais" re-
pondit le Maure, "plus que la gloire et mains que I'honneur" *
Zipporah descended the steps and carried the little blue pam-
phlet with her to Mr. Van Alstyne's room.

The old man seemed inclined to be drowsy, and in a quarter
of an hour or so Zip, who, being conscientious about her task of
amusing him, had begun a very free translation of the story of
the last Abencerage, noticed that his eyes were closed and he
was sleeping. She went on with the tale in silence and had fin-
ished it before noonday. It moved her very deeply, but it set
her to thinking also. In the afternoon she narrated it in her own
way to Mr. Van Alstyne.

* " I would love thee," responded the Moor, "more than glory and less than honor."

VOL. XLVII 53

834 JOHN VAN ALSTYKE'S FACTORY. [Sept.,

" They were lovers, you see," she went on after the briefest
summary of the situation. " He was a Moor and a Mussulman,
and she a Christian and a Spaniard. And her ancestor, the Cid,
had killed Aben-Hamet's grandfather in battle. He was the last
of his family, and she and her brother, Don Carlos, who refused
to marry, and proposed to give all the property to her, were the
last of theirs. He wanted her to marry his friend, De Lautrec, a
Frenchman. But Blanca loved Aben-Hamet. She did not know
he was an Abencerage and he did not know she descended from
the Cid. But what they both knew was that they loved each
other and differed in religion. Neither of them would yield, so
Aben-Hamet went back to Carthage for a year, and then re-
turned to see whether Blanca had changed her mind. They are
both very noble. Before he goes he says to her wait a minute,
until I get the book and read it ' I promise thee never to give
my heart to another woman, and to take thee for my wife as soon
as thou shalt accept the holy law of the prophet?' And she an-
swers: ' And for me, I shall await thee always; I will guard
until my last breath the faith I have sworn thee, and I will re-
ceive thee as my husband when the God of Christians, more pow-
erful than thy beloved, shall have touched thy infidel heart.'
Isn't that beautiful ? Well, Aben-Hamet comes back in just a
year, and they love each other more than ever, but are just as
firm. ' Be a Christian,' Blanca says to him, and he answers, ' Be
a Mahometan ' and they separate again without having yielded
to the passion which draws them to each other.' ' Zip was
translating again. Then she resumed her rapid condensation of
the tale.

" At the end of the next year Aben-Hamet comes once more,
and this time he meets Don Carlos and De Lautrec. He is very
jealous of the Frenchman, and he has a duel with Don Carlos,
in which he gets the best of it. I was glad of that. I like Aben-
Hamet. Don Carlos fights him to make him give up the thought
of his sister and go away. What do you think Don Carlos says
just before they fight? They are beside the tomb of one of the
old Moors. ' Imitate,' he says, ' this brave infidel and receive
both baptism and death from my Jiand ' ! And Aben-Hamet a'n-
swers: ' Death, perhaps, but live Allah and the prophet!' And
he disarms Don Carlos, but will not take his life. Then Dofia
Blanca and the Frenchman ride up, and they get reconciled
somehow, and after that Aben-Hamet makes up his mind that
as there is no hope for him unless he becomes a Christian he will
do so. He enters a church one night it had been a mosque m

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. 835

the old days and there he sees the Frenchman at prayer. He
kneels down himself, but just as he does so he sees some old
Moorish inscription, and that changes his feeling about it, and
he goes out. But at the door he meets Blanca. He asks her if
she is going there to meet the Frenchman. Then she is splen-
did. She says : ' Leave these vulgar jealousies. If I loved thee
no more I would tell thee so. I would disdain to deceive thee.
I came here to pray for thee ; thou alone art now the object of
my vows ; I forget my own soul for thine. Either cease to in-
toxicate me with the poison of thy love or consent to serve the
God whom I serve. . . . Behold this abode of death ; it is en-
chanted. Unless thou hasten to receive my faith at the foot of
its altar, I shall soon rest there. The struggles I pass through
undermine my life ; the passion thou inspires! will not always
sustain my frail existence. Remember, O Moor, to speak after
thine own fashion, the flame that illumes the torch is also the
flame that consumes it.' "

" That is fine," commented Zip. "All that is very fine. But
afterwards comes the end, and that I do not understand. Aben-
Hamet gives up his opposition ; he determines to be a Christian
and goes to see Blanca and tell her so. She is not at home
she and her brother are paying a visit to the Frenchman, and
Aben-Hamet follows them. They have a pleasant evening until
they begin singing songs, and through the songs it is discovered
that Blanca descends from the Cid and that Aben-Hamet is tbe
last Abencerage. And Aben-Hamet, who was willing to re-
nounce his religion, finds then that he cannot resolve to forget
the family feud. He tells Blanca that he will give her back her
promise, and that although he will always remember and be faith-
ful to her, yet, if ever she can forget him, she ought to marry
the Frenchman. ' You owe that to your brother,' he says. But
then the Frenchman declares he will never profit by the misr
fortune of a man so noble. He begs him to become a Christian,
and says he will then intercede with Don Carlos to give him
Blanca's hand. Even Don Carlos joins in and persuades him,
and at last Aben-Hamet says : " Ah ! must I encounter here so
many sublime souls, so many generous hearts, but to feel more
deep-ly what I lose ? Let Blanca decide. Let her say what I
shall do to be more worthy of her love ! ' And then," cried Zip,
getting up from the footstool where she had been facing John
Van Alstyne " then what do you think ? Blanca says 'Return
to the desert ! ' And then she faints away, and he goes away,
and never comes back ! Think of that ! "

836 JOHN VAN ALSTYNE'S FACTORY. [Sept.,

" What do you think of that ?" said a quiet voice at the door.
The room was over-warm, and the door leading into the corri-
dor was standing wide open. Paul Murray was leaning there
against the jamb. Zipporah flushed. But Paul's presence there
was not unusual, nor was it so that he should enter unannounced.

" Have you been here long ?" she asked presently, in a tone
very different from the animated one she had been using.

" Only long enough to catch the last of the story you were
telling," said Paul, entering, and going to salute Mr. Van Al-
styne. Then he turned to the girl again. " I did not want to
interrupt you. The story is one I know pretty well by heart.
Do you mind going on, as I fancy you would have done had I
not spoken? What do you think of the ending-? Why does
Blanca surprise you so ? "

" Only," said the girl, hesitating a little, " because I was not
prepared to find her admitting so completely that her religion
was less to her than she thought it was. I expected it in Aben-
Hamet, of course."

" I am not sure I follow you," said Paul. " That climax is
very much praised for its truth to human nature."

" And do you think it is ? "

"True to human nature? Well, if you can grant human na-
ture exalted to just that precise pitch, I am inclined to think
it is. You remember, perhaps, that Chateaubriand says that he
proposed making all four of those characters exceptionally noble,
but not beyond nature ? "

" No," said Zip, " I didn't notice that he said so. I read no-
thing but the story itself. But it does not seem in character to
me. I cannot understand Blanca at all."

"But why?" insisted Paul. "Could she not have under-
stood his struggle with himself, and perhaps dreaded lest she
should seem to him to constrain him to remain ? "

"Remain?" said Zip, with a scorniul inflection. "He
needn't have remained ! That wasn't the question. Something
new had come up, and he felt more about the quarrel between
their ancestors than he did about his religion. He had made up
his mind to give up that, and then the family feeling came in. I
understand him, I think. But I had thought up to the very last
that Blanca really did believe her religion was true."

" Ah ! '* said Paul, with an upward inflection. " And then
you changed your mind ? "

" Why, certainly. If she thought it was true, she must have
thought it necessary for him to think so too. She wouldn't have

i888.] JOHN VAN ALSTYN& s FACTORY. 837

said, ' Go back to your desert ! ' She would have brought him
over to her faith at any cost. So I should think. And if neither
of them really believed in their religion, why did they make so
much fuss about it to begin with ?"

" You think that religion is an affair of all or nothing, do
you?"

"Don't you?"

" I do, certainly."

" But you said you thought the story was true to human na-
ture."

" To a certain very exalted type of it. But when we come to
matters of religious conviction, why, then we do go beyond hu-
man nature. I think, or at least I fear, that such conviction is a
thing very much rarer than you seem to suppose. We are
talking, just now, as if Blanca and Aben-Hamet were real people.
What do you think either of them would have gained by yield-
ing, simply, as it must have been, to please the other? Would
she have been a true Mahometan, or he a true Christian ? "

" I suppose not/' said Zip. " But Blanca does seem real to
me for the moment. And what she did proves to me that her
religion was no more to her than his to him. I mean, she did
not truly believe it. She kept to it because it was hers, not be-
cause it was true."

." And you don't think that noble? What do you think she
should have said?"

" Oh ! I don't know," answered the girl, turning away. " Of
course, it is only a story. She had to speak at once and right
there, before everybody. So perhaps she did the best she could.
If you will stay awhile with Mr. Van Alstyne, Mr. Murray, I
will go and take a walk ; I have been indoors all day."

And then she went away, with a curious sense, which Paul
Murray also shared, that in some manner their attitude toward
each other had changed, or was on the point of changing. But
in what way neither of them felt inspired to determine.

^ ,. LEWIS R. DORSAY.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

838 WORKMEN SHOULD NOT ONLY ACT BUT THINK. [Sept.,

WORKMEN SHOULD NOT ONLY ACT BUT THINK.

THERE is no doubt that they do think. Whatever there is of
improvement in their condition to-day is sprung from careful
thought on their own condition, and prompt action at the right
moment. But what I wish to point out is that hitherto there
has been more acting than thinking among workmen ; more en-
thusiasm, for example, in carrying out a strike than patient
study of the best methods. It will not be difficult to prove the
truth of this statement. Mr. Powderly has already advanced it
in his latest circular to the association of which he is the head.
He finds that there is great need of instruction among his
brethren, and he suggests the establishment of a lecture bureau,
whose business it will be to wake up the thinking powers of
workmen, and show them, among many other things, that a
strike will not infallibly settle a difficulty, that patience and
obedience are necessary virtues in big and little matters, and
that many factors enter into the labor grievance which high
wages alone cannot put aside. He says plainly that many of
the members of his order do not think enough, and do not know
enough to handle intelligently the difficulties in the way. The
same can be said of workmen outside the order, and even of the
average business man, the politician, and the manufacturer.

It can easily be guessed what brought out Mr. Powderly's
circular. There is a lull in the din of conflict between labor and
capital. The boycott, the lockout, and the strike, along with
the much-vaunted arbitration, have all failed to do very much
more than waste money and temper, and seem to have been laid
aside for the moment by common consent. It is to be observed,
too, that events have shown a lack of discipline among some of
the labor organizations. Yet after fifteen years of warfare no
weapons have been found to replace the strike and the boycott.
In other words, the labor cause has not advanced as much as was
hoped, and at present there is something like an actual halt. No
one seems to know what may be done next with advantage.
Mr. Powderly with very good sense suggests that all hands call
in lecturers, and open books and study a little. Some vital
questions are yet unsettled. Is there not something more deci-
sive and yet less violent than the strike with which to get better
wages? Many wise men think there is. Mr. Powderly's lec-
turers will find themselves under the necessity of removing

1 888.] WORKMEN SHOULD NOT ONLY ACT BUT THINK. 839

some popular heresies before they can get to work at the first
principles. Workmen must be convinced that they cannot
study and think too much if they are going to secure their just
position in the social system.

Perhaps it may seem presumptuous to offer large suggestions
in connection with Mr. Powderly's letter, but in my experience
I have often found many thoughtful workmen that is, of the
class interested in improving their own condition holding
wrong principles, often ignorant of the real causes of social de-
ficiencies, and obstinately wedded to obsolete methods for sup-
plying these deficiencies. It will do no harm to let a little light
fall on these points.

Wrong principles are commonly circulating as good coin
nowadays. Often the workman swears by the axiom which his
employer uses as a pretext to reduce his wages. Here, in order,
are a few specimens of the counterfeit principles which in certain
cases guide the average citizen of this country:

The law of supply and demand fixes the prices of all com-
modities.

You can honestly sell anything that will be bought.
It is fair to sell at any price you can get, taking advantage of
a man's necessity or ignorance.

An employer may offer as low wages as a workman will
take.

The buyer alone is to blame for the bad quality of the article
bought.

Employers may make any conditions they please. If the
workmen do not like them, they can go elsewhere.

It seems needless to comment on the sort of ethics expressed
here, but their popularity provokes at least a remonstrance.
Each of these propositions is false. The contradictory in each
case is true. There is a tremendous fascination for the average
mind in the ' law of supply and demand," if there be such a
thing. Certainly, if it do exist, it does not deserve the importance
attached to it, it cannot be at the root of every business transac-
tion, while in the matter of human labor it should not have the
influence almost universally accorded it.

Yet employers claim a moral right to reduce wages on the
sole ground that laborers are too numerous, and workmen claim
exorbitant wages on the sole ground that employers must hire
them or go without. In the first case a workman's services may
be worth more, in the second less, than he receives, and the injus-
tice done no law of supply and demand can make just. It is

840 WORKMEN SHOULD NOT ONLY ACT BUT THINK. [Sept.,

perfectly true that a small demand for an article lessens its mar-
ket value. But the diminished value can never without injustice
fall below a certain mark in transactions among human beings.
Yet the popular notion is that a plentiful supply and a small de-
mand justify a buyer in dismissing all other considerations and
buying at insignificant prices. Here, then, is a principle, fondly
held and practised by workmen and employers both, which is
nothing less than a good club for beating out each other's brains.
As such they have used it, and will continue to use it until com-
mon sense and charity replace crude notions of political econo-
my.

To the other false principles it may be briefly replied : That
if one can sell anything that will be bought, then manufacturers
of adulterated articles, and owners of tenement-houses, decayed
and tottering, can justly dispose of their wares and of their
human pig-styes with calm consciences.

If a seller can take advantage of a man's ignorance or neces-
sity, and a buyer is responsible for his own failure to make a
good bargain, then the struggle for better wages is one grounded
not on justice and charity, but on the workman's superior
strength or skill in forcing or tricking the employer into paying
good wages.

If an employer has the right to offer as low wages as a work-
man will take, without regard to the value of the work done,
then a workman has a similar and counter right on his side ; and
therefore the industrial world divides into two armies, each
ready to fly at the throat of the other on the question of wages.

If employers can make any conditions, and if the workman
rejecting them can go elsewhere, and that is all there is about it,
where could they go if all employers made hard conditions ?

If the workmen make serious blunders in first principles, it
is not to be wondered at that the sources of their troubles should
be hidden from them, or false ones taken for the truth. But
after all, the highest authorities are divided as to the source of
labor troubles. The troubles themselves are well understood.
Workmen are in many cases getting too low wages to live
decently and comfortably, and cry out against the wage-payers.
There is a real tendency to lower wages visible in almost every
department of labor, and a corresponding facility for accumulat-
ing larger fortunes by capitalists. But what is the cause of this?
There is no answer agreed upon. Workmen, capitalists, econo-
mists, and statesmen are all equally unsatisfactory in their solution
of this difficulty. Henry George offers his land heresy as a reason,

1 888.] WORKMEN SHOULD NOT ONLY ACT BUT THINK. 841

and his single tax as a solution of the difficulty, but finds few to
agree with him. Political economists say that the distribution
of wealth is unequal, and cannot show how to make it equal. Is
there one cause or many for the trouble ? No one knows.
What one may know is, that in so obscure a condition workmen
should be slow to make charges, and to act upon insufficient
evidence. Here is an interesting bit of sufficient evidence : The
A. B. & C. Company, of Chicago, has built up an immense meat-
trade throughout the country, and it may be said that it alone
makes money out of it. Besides the company itself, seven parties
are concerned in this meat business: stock-raisers, railroad cor-
porations, railroad employees, the meat company's workmen,
wholesale dealers in meat, retail dealers in meat, and consumers.
Prices at retail are reasonably high, but of the seven parties to
the meat business, excluding the consumers, only three receive
satisfactory compensation for their labor and interest : whole-
sale dealers, railroad corporations, and The A. B. & C. Company.
The many stock-raisers get a bare profit, retail dealers would
not handle the company's meat if they could avoid so unprofit-
able a business, and the various employees are constantly rising
in arms against the meat company and the common carriers,
both of which classes are managed by men who are many times
millionaires.

Here, then, is a case which presents many reasons for the
poor condition of certain laborers, and the more than comfort-
able increase iri employers' fortunes.

First. The A. B. & C. Company and the railroads are desirous
of adding to their wealth, and it is their greed it is sometimes
called the business spirit which urges them to hire the cheapest
labor possible, and to keep on cheapening it.

Second. There is as yet no social principle established which
gives the laborer any greater interest in his employer's business
than can be represented by' the market price of labor, no matter
how good the quality of the labor of individual laborers may be.

Third. The Chicago Company takes advantage of the stock-
raisers, who can sell to no one else, and cheapens their labor by
cheapening its results.

Fourth. The railroads make greed the basis of their charges
and the basis of their wages.

Fifth. There is no law on the statute-book which might con-
trol the public conscience of the great meat company and the
railroad corporations, because it is a common belief that the law
of supply and demand sooner or later regulates prices like a

842 WORKMEN SHOULD NOT ONLY ACT BUT THINK. [Sept.,

charm. But in this instance The A. B. & C. Company and
the railroads regulate supply and demand so regulate prices.
Greed, ignorance, dishonesty, and defective or wanting statutes
are here the primary causes why a certain large number of
workmen get low wages and never improve their condition. If
the corporations mentioned could once be safely placed in the grip
of the law, a great advance could be made in the condition of
labor. Is it such an attempt workmen are making? No; they
are fighting their oppressors with the foolish and expensive
strike, and meanwhile the old corporations flourish and new ones
are springing up, big and little, on every side. We do not deny
the benefit gained by strikes, for they have been notable ; but not
nearly so notable as the harm done. Without saying, either,
that it were better the men had not resorted to strikes, we main-
tain that such methods are totally incompetent to achieve a radi-
cal and permanent success. The workmen pay little attention
to the defective statute, or to the preparation and passage of good
laws. Hence the need of Mr. Powderly's lecture bureau.

Mr. Powderly would have the labor organization over which
he presides throw its vast influence into new channels. He
would have it take thought now, to devise new methods, to
search for real causes, to become familiar with right principles,
and, above all, with a firm faith in the ultimate success of the
right, to suffer and wait in generous patience until persistent
effort has done away with wrongs.

Perhaps one might supplement the general tenor of Mr. Pow-
derly's circular with more precise lines of study, thought, and
action for the workman to follow. Here are a few :

If bad principles are prevalent in the social state of men, as
we have shown them to be on certain points, and if greed and
ambition are causes in part of the sufferings of the poor, the only
radical cure is religion, of which there is far too little in this
country, and among non-Catholic workmen almost none at all.
The spread and deepening of its influence among employers and
employed will do away with much injustice.

If causes are obscure, and minds are in doubt as to the real
sources of trouble, then study to discover true causes and
sources, and defer action until action is sure to be effective.
What use to waste time and ammunition shooting at a stump in
the dark? When the source of any evil is finally found, destroy
it in such a way that it will never appear more on this earth.
For example, one cause of low wages is the employment of chil-
dren where adults should be employed. End that abuse for ever.

1 888.] WORKMEN SHOULD NOT ONLY ACT BUT THINK. 843

The strike and the boycott are played out as methods to be
used on a large scale or to advance the interests of workmen gen-
erally. Put them aside. If you wish to punish a corporation
for reducing wages unjustly, go to the' legislature with an act
which will lessen its unjust gains and cripple its unlawful privi-
leges.

Organize your societies efficiently, practice strict obedience
"to the leaders, then frame laws which will root out abuses and
bring them to the legislatures. If they are not passed, the or-
ganizations can punish local members by not voting for their
return to the legislature. When they do become laws, look
after their execution. Much could be said about organizing.
I have heard from well-informed men that there is no such thing
existing as a really well-organized labor society.

One thing in connection with workmen I have never been
able to understand. For years they have spent millions of
money in a vain attempt to raise wages, not understanding why
wages fell, and therefore ignorant of true methods ; while evils
which were understood and might have been remedied, and use-
ful things which might have been obtained, were altogether neg-
lected. For example, the rotten tenements could have been
wiped out of existence, the number of public parks increased,
the liquor giant fettered, the laws of health looked after in fac-
tories, the coal and food monopolies chained, and the child-labor
abuse destroyed. These things have been attended to only im-
perfectly, or not at all often, indeed, by wealthy philanthropists
and yet they have a far stronger bearing on the labor problem
than the popular " law of supply and demand."

There is a lull in the struggle for better wages at the present
moment. Workmen do not seem to know what can next be done
with advantage. Money has been spent, old methods still pre-
vail, and wages are descending. It is a good time to think.

JOHN TALBOT SMITH.

844 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept.,

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

BENZIGER BROTHERS have on sale Kegan Paul, Trench &
Co.'s latest London edition of " The Prig " series, which now com-
prises The Life of a Prig, Prigs Bede, How to Make a Saint, and
The Churgress. They are printed in clear type on good paper,
with uncut edges, wide margins, and a substantial and taste-
ful binding which adapts them well to library purposes. It is
too late in the day to say anything new in praise of their literary
or other qualities. The first of the series still remains the most
amusing, for the reason that the quality of its raillery permits
the reader to accept the author in his unalloyed priggishness,
rapt in the contemplation of his own perfections, and not squint-
ing too obviously in the direction of any other model. In the
nature of things that attitude could not be maintained long.
The succeeding books are quite as clever in other ways, and The
Churgress, which inevitably recalls the late T. W. M. Marshall's
Comedy of Convocation, in the matter of telling and effective satire,
aimed in a given direction, is better in all ways, or, at least, in all
ways except the purely artistic one. For the priggishness of the
Prig has now become too evidently perfunctory. He has ranged
himself, which the true prig never does, and, in so doing, he has
made it impossible for all hands to exchange quiet smiles over
him alone. It is necessary now either to laugh with him or to
make wry faces in solitary corners.

One of Mr. Rider Haggard's new novels he rushes them out
so fast that it is impossible to keep track of them all is an amus-
ing skit at the publishing confraternity from the author's point
of view. It is called Mr. Meeson s Will (New York: Harper &
Brothers). Mr. Meeson is the head of a publishing house in
Birmingham, " the most remarkable institution of the kind in
Europe," which employs two thousand hands and whose build-
ings cover two and a quarter acres. Among these " hands " are
numbered " five-and-twenty tame authors," who sit, week in and
week out, in " vault-like hutches in the basement," and, " at salaries
varying from one to five hundred a year," pour out that cease-
less stream of books, " largely religious in their nature," which
has made the proprietors of the firm several times millionaires
in pounds sterling. " And to think," as Meeson says when dis-
playing the magnificence of his private palace to some poor
wretch of an author

" to think that all this comes out of the brains of chaps like you ! Why,

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 845

young man, I tell you that if all the money that has been paid to you scrib-
blers since the days of Elizabeth were added together, it would not come
up to my little pile ; but, mind you, it an't so much fiction that has done
the trick it's religion. It's piety as pays, especially when it's printed."

To Mr. Meeson comes one fine day when he is in uncommonly
bad humor, because the net dividend from the Australian branch
of his house has fallen to a beggarly seven per cent., a golden-
haired, gray-eyed beauty of an authoress, on whose successful
novel, "Jemima's Vow," the firm has just been making a clear
thousand pounds. Miss Augusta Smithers, who sold him the
manuscript for fifty pounds, signing at the same time an agree-
ment to let him have anything she may wish to publish for the
next five years for seven per cent, of the profits, has come to beg
Mr. Meeson to be a little more generous to her, in view, not
merely of the wholly unexpected success of her story, but of her
pressing needs. She has a little sister dying at home, she is
nearly at the end of her resources, and she has just been offered,
by another publisher a thousand pounds for the copyright of a
completed story now lying in her desk. If Mr. Meeson will not
give her enough to take her sister abroad, will he not release
her from the engagement and permit her to realize on her second
novel? He will do neither, whereupon Miss Smithers declares
that she will not only publish nothing at all for five years, but
will write to the papers explaining the cause of her inactivity.
At this unpleasant interview Mr. Meeson's nephew and sole
heir, a recent 'Oxford graduate, happens to be present. He falls
inlove with Miss Smithers on the spot, and on her withdrawal be-
rates his uncle so roundly that the old gentleman betakes himself
to his lawyer and revokes his will, cutting Eustace off without a
penny and dividing his two millions equally between the other
members of the firm. Then he sets out for Australia to investi-
gate the financial shrinkage in the book trade. He embarks on
the Kangaroo, on which vessel Miss Smithers also sails, as a
second-class passenger. She is on her way to a missionary
cousin in New Zealand, with whom she proposes to make her
home until the period of her engagement with Meeson shall be
ended. Her sister is dead, and she has no tie to bind her
to England save a recollection of the kind and handsome face
of Eustace Meeson, whom she has seen once since meeting
him in the publishing office. The Kangaroo is wrecked, and
Mr. Meeson, Miss Smithers, a five-year-old boy, and two sail-
ors escape in one of the two boats that are safely launched,
and make Kerguelen Land on the second day after the mishap.

846 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept.,

Mr. Meeson, smitten with death by reason of the exposure, is also
conscience-smitten on account of his nephew and several other
matters. He wants to make a new will, in the hope that a pass-
ing ship may rescue one or other of his companions, and Miss
Smithers encourages the notion. But how to do it? Not a
scrap of paper, not a pencil, not even a shred of linen exists on
the island, everybody happening to have left the ship in flannels.
Miss Smithers gets a happy thought from the tattooing on the
arm of one of the sailors, who has inscribed his own name in full
on his forearm. She thinks that if Johnnie Butt would allow his
fellow-tar to tattoo Mr. Meeson's will on his back, it could be
signed by Mr. Meeson and witnessed by herself and the novel
scrivener. But Johnnie objecting in " language more striking
than correct," Mr. Meeson proposes the child's back as an
alternative, to which Miss Smithers demurs as emphatically as
Johnnie, but in better taste.

' Well, then, there's about an end of the question," said Bill ; " and this
gentleman's money must go wherever it is he don't want it to."

" No," said Augusta with a sudden flush, ' there is not. Mr. Eustace
Meeson was once very kind to me, and rather than he should lose the
chance of getting what he ought to have, I I will be tattooed.' 1

An obliging cuttle-fish having turned up just in time, Mr.
Meeson's will, which is brief " I leave all my property to
Eustace H. Meeson " is tattooed accordingly, and duly signed
and witnessed, just across the top of Miss Smithers' shoulders,
thereby destroying once and for ever all chance of her presenta-
tion at the court of Victoria. Then Mr. Meeson dies, having
first, in an agony of remorse, unburdened his conscience to Miss
Smithers.

" ' I am going to die ! '" he groaned ; ' I am going to die, and I've been a
bad man : I've been the head of a publishing company all my life? . . . Augusta
gently pointed out to him that publishing was a very respectable business
when fairly and properly carried on, and not one that ought to weigh
heavy on a man at the last, like the record of a career of successful usury
or burgling. But Meeson shook his heavy head."

How Miss Smithers is rescued, how the will is admitted to
probate, how she marries Eustace, who immediately goes into co-
operation with the " tame authors " on a more equitable basis
for all these things we refer the reader to Mr. Haggard himself.
He writes with a "vim " shall we add, with a tireless speed?
which makes it probable that, had he ever occupied one of the
Meeson hutches he would have been counted worth at least five
hundred a year to the establishment.

i888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 847

Pictures of Hellas (New York : W. S. Gottsberger) is trans-
lated by Mary J. Safford from the Danish of Peter Manager. It
consists of five short tales illustrative of private life in Greece
from the Pelasgian period down to 367 B.C. The author ex-
plains in an interesting preface the difficulty he has found in
collecting his material, on account of the great rarity of per-
sonal and private details in Greek literature. He claims, how-
ever, to have rested step by step on the classic authors in
the delineations he has attempted. But as he has with set
purpose avoided " giving the dialogues a form so ancient that
they would not be read," and has selected as the pivot for
each of his tales that perennially modern motive, love, which he
handles, also, like the modern man he is, they are sufficiently
easy and pleasant reading. And if they suggest that the men
and women of ancient Greece must have differed mainly in point
of costume from the men and women of to-day, that may as well
be attributed to the real sameness of human nature as to the
paucity of personal details furnished by Greek literature. " Zeus
Hypsistos " seems to us the best of these stories.

Robert Elsmere (New York and London : Macmillan & Co.)
is Mrs. Humphrey Ward's second novel. The first was pub-
lished nearly three years ago, and had Miss Mary Anderson for
the heroine, under the name of Miss Bretherton, which was also
the title of the novel. Its announcement created a pleased an-
ticipation in the minds of those who had read a couple of essays
on Keats, and -one on the late Henri Amiel, which had appeared
in Macmillan s not long before, and were understood to be by
Mrs. Ward. These were beautifully written so far as mere
diction was concerned, and those on Keats, which traced the
process by which some of his most felicitous lines, which appear
to have been fixed with one happy cast of the die, were in truth
gradual emergences from cockneyisms which raise gooseflesh,
were instructive and interesting as well. The paper on Amiel
was more suggestive than satisfactory. When Mrs. Ward
talked about him the reader's expectations were raised to a very
high pitch, but when she began to justify her praise by transla-
tions, they went down far more rapidly than they had risen.
There was no verb in these soliloquies and aspirations which were
to reveal to us a new Augustine or k Kempis. They resembled
too much the worship which Crusoe's man Friday described as
having been made by tke old men of his nation to their gods.
They merely climbed up a mountain and said O ! to thejn.

Miss Bretherton also, considered as the work of Mrs. Ward,

848 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept.,

was in the nature of a shrinkage of nominal values. Everybody
identified the heroine at once, and though a denial was autho-
rized, the likeness was too striking for it to be accepted. The
young American actress, travelling with hardly presentable rela-
tives, beautiful, ignorant, unmagnetic, unable to read French, and
with a prim, puritanical notion that even translations of French
novels were to be avoided like poison, is gradually converted
into a really fine artiste, partly by the power of love for an art-
critic, but in great part, also, by overcoming her ignorant repug-
nance to French novels. The book was read and talked about
on account of its subject, but made no great hit.

Robert Elsmere, however, having passed already through seven
editions in London, and having been selected by Mr. Gladstone
as the subject of an article in the Nineteenth Century, may be fairly
called a success from the author's point of view. It has the
merits and the defects of all her previous work. Mrs. Ward,
who is a niece of the late Matthew Arnold, has the family gift of
distinction in point of style. One may admit that fully, and yet
find a certain sarcastic ring in Mr. Gladstone's remark that "the
strength of the book seems to lie," for one thing, " in an extra-
ordinary wealth of diction." There are six hundred and four
closely printed pages in her novel, and perhaps half of them
are most unnecessary padding, sometimes pleasantly descriptive,
sometimes irrelevantly psychological, but still oftener talks by
the author about talk which is supposed to have passed between
various characters of her story. Squire Wendover, an ultra-
sceptic with insanity in his blood, who in his youth " was one of
Newman's victims," is the instrument by which the conversion
of Robert Elsmere from Anglican orthodoxy to the standpoint
of Matthew Arnold's Literature and Dogma is accomplished.

The squire has written books to prove that what is called his-
torical Christianity is unhistorical, by showing that " testimony,
like every other human product, has developed." The man of the
nineteenth century, even the scientific man, vide Huxley's admis-
sion to certain Anglican bishops, is not an absolutely veracious
witness. But, compared with him of the first, he is as Huxley to
the missing link.

" Man's power of apprehending and recording what he sees and hears
has grown from less to more, from weaker to stronger, like any other of
his faculties, just as the reasoning powers of the cave-dweller have devel-
oped into the reasoning powers of a Kant.(!) What one wants is the ordered
proof of this, and it can be got from history and experience"

The method by which " it can be got " is sometimes known as

1 888.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. ?49

" the philosophy of history." Its objective point being the over-
throw of the Christian religion, it begins with the assumption,
" Miracles do not happen," and works around to it again as a
conclusion through much archaeological, historical, and literary
criticism. Those who are familiar with Mr. Matthew Arnold's
essays, addressed to the great middle class, because, as he avows,
the English upper classes are barbarians, who do not, in any true
sense, know how to read, have already got a fair idea of both the
destructive and the constructive method used by Mrs. Ward in
this novel. The task which each writer undertook was to get
rid of the idea of a personal God, and to replace it by that
of " a stream of tendency," an "eternal not-ourselves which
makes for righteousness"; to deny the Incarnation and Resur-
rection as literal, historic facts, and yet to retain in their integ-
rity those teachings of the man Jesus which have a bearing on
"conduct." And " conduct," as Mr. Arnold has told us, really
means keeping one's temper, and regulating properly the " repro-
ductive instinct." Unless men and women generally do the latter
fairly well, we shall none of us, in the long run, be able to do the
former at all, unless we abandon our dignity as human beings.
And if we are forced to that, what will become of " culture " and
the "cultivated"?

So Mrs. Ward writes a novel, as her uncle wrote essays, to
show that "sweet reasonableness" may replace Christian faith,
and "altruism " Christian charity, and not only nobody be any
worse off, but the " lower classes," who are now throwing " dog-
ma " contemptuously aside and going boldly in for beastliness
and rage against those better-off than themselves, may be made
to re-accept the only practical outcome of Christianity that was
ever worth talking about, by showing them that although the
Gospels are pretty fables and " miracles do not happen" yet that to
be " mild and lowly of heart," and chaste and self-restrained
in action, will really result in the greatest possible happiness
attainable. It is quite certain there will be fewer brawls if we
all keep out of gin-palaces and beer-saloons, and other still more
objectionable places ; if we keep our earnings for a rainy day at
the bottom of the social ladder, and keep our tenement-houses in
good repair at the top. Come, brethren, clasp hands and do it,
and meanwhile we, who are literary, will earn our living by show-
ing you how inevitably the development theory, as applied to
testimony, proves that Jesus never did and said most of the
things attributed to him by the New Testament writers, or else
that, far superior as he was to the teachers who preceded him,

VOL. XLVII. 54

850 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept ,

he made the mistakes natural to that inchoate and undeveloped
and uncultivated period in which he lived. It is humiliating, of
course, as M. Renan has already pointed out, that criticism, and
archaeology, and digging into documents, and finding symbolisms,
only ends by landing the most cultivated on the same spot that
the blaspheming street-urchin gets to at a single bound. But if
you who aspire to culture will resolutely close your ears to those
who are trying to persuade you that the urchin makes his leap
merely to get rid of the dread of retribution, and allow us to
show you that it must, instead, be his awakened reason which
rejects Christianity, the travail of the critic and the scientist
and the " writing feller," as our noble barbarians call us, will
not have been wholly in vain.

That is the real them 3 of Robert Elsmere. In its working out
it is intolerably diffuse, even though, as Mr. Gladstone says, it is
above all remarkable "in the sense of omission with which the
.writer is evidently possessed." What she omits, however, is
precisely what she would have put in had she fully grasped her
case and felt it to be a strong one; the reason, that is, for the un-
faith that is in her, and the arguments which appear to make it
reasonable. What we get instead is a lot of altruistic rubbish,
some not very vivid but greatly spread-out love-making, and
much sounding description of the damaging results wrought upon
Robert Elsmere's faith by blows of which we are allowed to get
the distant echoes only. Can it be possible that those echoes
were likewise all that reached the ears of Mrs. Ward?

A Counsel of Perfection (New York: D. Appleton & Co.) is by
Lucas Malet, the nom de plume of Mrs. Harrison, a daughter of
the late Charles Kingsley. It is very well written, in the manner
of Mr. Henry James. The heroine, Lydia Casteen, is a "child-
eyed spinster" of thirty-seven, whose life, up to the period when
the story opens, has been spent in acting as amanuensis, proof-
reader, and what-not to an unloving and exacting father, the
rector of Bishop's Marston, who is engaged on a great history of
the early church. After a good deal of petty vexation, Lydia
manages to get leave of absence, for a month, which she passes
in Switzerland with friends. There she has her first and last bit
of romance, being flirted with in a shilly-shally sort of way by
a pudgy and blase" bachelor, who begins because he has nothing
else to occupy his time, and finally ends by being shamed into
making a proposal which he is greatly relieved to find rejected.
Lydia, however, loves him. She refuses him only because she is
indispensable to her father. There is no more than that to the

i883.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 851

story proper, but it is told with many deft touches and much
good writing. Still, it leaves that sort of unpleasant memory
after it which is produced by the novels of many women, and
which one can only attribute to a lack of delicacy in their au-
thors, and fairly describe only by quotation. Thus, for ex-
ample:

"For what, after all, had she found in these last two sunny weeks that
made his loss seem to her so lamentably. great ? Lydia did not dare to ask
herself quite plainly. And even had she asked herself, she was too inno-
cent, ignorant if you will, to answer clearly. For all the unsatisfied de-
sire of her emotional nature and of her physical nature also all the latent
motherhood that lay folded in her heart, as some fair blossom within the
bud, had awoke silently, gradually, its eyelids touched at last with the
. light of a delicious dawning of unconscious love and hope. 1 '

That is the kind of thing- which " realism " in art, and the
" science-man," and the development theory for the present pro-
duce in the better class of female writers who acknowledge their
shaping influence. We were about to quote from another novel
His Way .and Her Will, by A. X. (Chicago, New York, and San
Francisco : Belford, Clarke & Co.), to show what they can do for
natures of a very much lower grade. But on second thought
we refrain, assuring the reader that the book, although intended
to point a moral, to uphold the beauties of virtuous living, and to
paint the mariners of the " best " American society, is emphati-
cally one to throw into the fire.

A Debutante in New York Society, by Rachel Buchanan, and
.A Woman's Face, by Florence Warden, both issued by D. Ap-
pleton & Co., are much better than the work of A. X. Still,
the debutante is rather too priggish and self-conceited. Old-
fashioned people incline to the belief that strictures on one's
mother are not in the best taste, and that if they must be made,
they should riot be put into the mouths of young ladies who are
intended to impress the reader with their manifold perfections.
New York society, if this debutante paints it well, cannot be
called specially enticing. Miss Warden's story is well told,
plotty and interesting, and makes it easy to understand her
vogue with the novel-reading public. And though there are,
as seems almost inevitable in the novel of the period, two ill-
assorted couples in it, for one of which the usual solution of con.
tinuity is provided, yet Miss Warden has contrived to keep boith
her sentiment and her situations out of the mire. Neither Alma
Crosmont nor Dr. Armathwaite can be accused of deliberately
peering over the barrier between them until the ordinary course

8t2 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Sept.,

of nature throws it down. And in the case of Millie Peele and
her mother the strokes which show character, though few, are
well done.

The scene of Mr. Isaac Henderson's second novel, Agatha
Page (Boston : Ticknor & Co.), like that of its predecessor, The
Prelate, is laid in Rome. The theme of it is an old one: the vir-
tuous man who marries a noble woman for love, but who enter-
tains, later on, a passing fancy for an ignoble woman who conceives
a passion for him. Both women suffer greatly, the man not very
much, and the wife comes out victorious and happy in the end.
The wife, Agatha Page, is half-American by the way, and has
been brought up at home by her uncle; her cousin and rival, a
full-blood Italian, has, on the contrary, been educated in a con-
vent, and "never taught that she actually owed consideration
to either duty or authority." That strikes one as an omission
so singular in convent-training that it suggests a grave doubt as
to Mr. Henderson's value as a witness. He might, perhaps, be
useful as an illustration of the way in which Mrs. Ward believes
testimony to have developed in these times of critical inquiry.
Mr. Henderson writes very smoothly and tells his story fairly
well, but fails to be particularly entertaining.

Mr. S. Baring-Gould, who once wrote lives of saints for the
high Anglican market, has of late years taken to novel-writing
for the general public, and does it well. If we say that there is
a faint pedagogic flavor about his work, we by no means wish to
imply that his purpose is in any sense didactic. He means sim-
ply to tell a story which shall be both wholesome and amusing,
and, so far as we know his work, he succeeds in doing so. It
is his manner and not his matter which suggests the school mas-
ter the trick of iteration, the bald, prosaic statement of matters
not at all important. And these are minor faults in a man who,
notwithstanding them, succeeds in getting readers for decent
work, done in a not irreligious spirit. His latest novel, Eve
(New York: D. Appleton & Co.), describes the fortunes of the
two daughters of Ignatius Jordan, an English Catholic gentle-
man, at a period some seventy .or eighty years ago. Why the
Jordans are made Catholics one fails to see, unless it be to cast
a stain of illegitimacy on Eve, the younger daughter. The Jor-
dans live at a place where no priest ever comes, and as Ignatius
will not go before a parson for the ceremony, his second wife
and he clasp hands before an altar in a disused abbey and swear
a fidelity which they observe. The story is plotty, is meant to
be dramatic, and succeeds in being entertaining, in spite of the

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 853

fact that Mr. Baring-Gould does not create illusions. His char-
acters are not more than agreeably constructed puppets, who
talk for the most part in a style so peculiar to their author that
one cannot, for that reason, call it unnatural. The Jew, in a
story called Court Royal if our memory does not betray us,
which Mr. Baring-Gould published some three years ago in the
Cornhill, had tricks of speech so much like those of Ezekiel
Babb in the present novel that he might be his double.

WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

MY TWO CONVERSIONS.

[It is a simple story, perhaps not worth writing, but how I would wish to make
its recital an aet of thanksgiving to the good God ! I was brought up in a
family where religion was thought but little of. My mother had at one time
professed the Episcopal faith, but for many years had neglected it and had re-
lapsed into that most deplorable condition of soul inclifferentism. When but a
tiny little girl I remember lisping the Hail Mary at my nurse's knee, for our ser-
vants were Catholics. All honor be to Catholic servants ! God only knows how
many conversions are wrought through the memory of the prayers they taught
their little charges, and the effect of their example and influence.

My mother, feeling that I needed some religious training, sent me to a Lu-
theran Sunday-school not far from our home. But many a time would I secretly
attend Mass with my Catholic nurse, instead of obeying the maternal directions.
I was a delicate child and ill-health prevented me from attending school regu-
larly. When it was possible I would leave the house unobserved and visit our
Lord in the Tabernacle. I was then scarcely eight years old. Gradually one
desire began to possess me : to become a Catholic. The desire grew daily, it
absorbed my thoughts. I become a Catholic ! But how ? I once timidly at-
tempted to broach the subject to my mother, but was frightened by her almost
violent opposition. I never endeavored to pursue the subject farther. For
months I waited, and meantime I fairly haunted the Catholic Church. I did not
have courage to speak to one of the priests. At last our Lord showed me a
way to come to him. Leaving the chapel one day a sweet-faced lady approach-
ed me and smilingly asked me if I would say a prayer for her intention. Here
at last was an opportunity to speak to a Catholic who, perhaps, might aid me.
" Oh ! yes," I answered, " but I'm not a Catholic." " No ? " " Oh ! could you
please tell me where I could get a rosary ? I have saved all my pennies. I have
a prayer-book, but I want a rosary so much." She took me around the corner
and showed me a convent, and promised if I would come there the following day
she would leave a rosary for me with the portress. To-morrow was long in
coming. I felt that I was drawing nearer to God as I stood upon the steps that

854 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [Sept.,

led to the convent door. I procured the rosary, chatted with the portress, told
her of my great desire to become a Catholic, and was most cordially invited to
call again ; an invitation I gladly availed myself of. Oh ! the many excuses I
made to leave our house. The fondness I suddenly developed for playing with
all the children I knew in the neighborhood ! Anything to get to the convent,
where I knew I would receive aid. The nuns were kind, very kind. It was re-
markable, they said, to see a child so persistent in her endeavors to become a
Catholic. I again met the kind lady who gave me the rosary. She and her
friends became much interested in me.

I insisted on being baptized. Of course they objected. They did not feel
as though they could do so without my mother's consent. And it would be use-
less to endeavor to procure that. I did not know if I had ever been baptized.
If they did not have me baptized, I said I would go some place else. I was de-
termined ; baptized I must be. Finally, after many entreaties on my part and
much earnest thought on the part of my friends, I was made a child of God ; the
lady who had given me the rosary acting as sponsor. I was but nine years and
six months old. My friends' kindness did not end here; I must make my first
Communion. After being duly prepared, a day was named. I stole from our
home before five o'clock one morning, carrying under my arm a white Swiss
dress that was to serve as the dress of the first-communicant. I found my
friends awaiting me. White shoes, veil, gloves, etc., articles that I could not
easily procure myself, were furnished by them. A prie-dieu was placed in the
centre of the convent chapel, the father who baptized me said Mass, and I re-
ceived my first Communion, the Bread of angels. Returning home I met my mo-
ther at the front door ; she fancied I had been to the Catholic Church and was
extremely annoyed. Unfortunately there dropped from my dress, where I had
concealed them, a prayer-book and catechism. I received a sound scolding for
what she supposed my misdeeds, but she never suspected how much I had ac-
complished towards my eternal salvation.

All went well for over a year. I went to school and followed my religion
faithfully. But after a while 1 became careless, and lived in continual fear of my
mother discovering what I had done. And discover it she finally did. Return-
ing from school one day I found her awaiting me with the question, if it was true
that I had been baptized in the Catholic faith? Tremblingly I confessed it.
She seemed to consider it a crime, and laid the blame on the innocent shoulders
of our Catholic help, who, fortunately for them, were no longer with us. I was
sent miles away to my aunt's home, where I was carefully watched over. When
I returned home I resumed my studies. I had forgotten the practise of my re-
ligion, or at least lost all desire to do so.

After leaving school, and growing weary of the monotonous home-life, I re-
solved to go upon the stage, and I became an actress. I travelled, of course, al-
most incessantly. Being seldom at home, and having but few friends with me,
I was often very lonely. How deeply I regret to say that the Catholic faith had
faded, seemingly, quite out of my soul 1 Yet I longed intensely for something
higher, holier than the world gave me. I began by going to church on Sunday to
Protestant churches, of course. At that time it did not make any difference. " One
religion is as good as another " had become a maxim with me. Even when it hap-
pened that I was travelling with Catholics, I never went to their church. Many
weeks passed thus. At last God gave me the grace to hear his voice more
clearly.

1 888.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 855

It was in St. Louis, Mo. Very near the hotel I was stopping at is an old
Catholic cathedral, corner of Third and Walnut Streets, I believe. I went there,
God alone knows why, but the church was empty ; there were no services that
afternoon. But the Blessed Sacrament was there; something forced me to kneel
when I passed before it. Then I remembered the time when I knew more of this
religion. Mass, confession, Communion rose confusedly before my eyes. Our
Lord was speaking to my heart, but that heart was still too worldly to listen. But
take one step towards God and he hurries forward with outstretched arms to
meet you. A week after that, my first visit to the Blessed Sacrament in many
years, my Catholic friend with whom I was travelling began to speak of religion.
Once, several months before, she had asked me to what church I belonged. I
had answered Episcopal. She laughingly told me that it was a tradition of the
church that if one said a thousand " Ave Marias " from Spy Wednesday until
Good Friday our Blessed Lady would obtain by her intercession any reasonable
request we might demand of her. I mentally resolved to say the " Aves." But
a difficulty arose. I did not have a rosary. But I could purchase one. The fol-
lowing week we were in St. Paul, Minn. There I purchased my rosary.
Then the thought came, it must be blessed. I wandered through the streets hop-
ing to find a Catholic church. I did not have the courage to inquire for one. I
passed a church, in front of which was a large sign bearing the words, " Prayer
meeting during Lent every day at one o'clock." I entered ; it was the church of
a Methodist congregation, and many were present. The almost fanatical fervor
of the people startled me. After the meeting closed, seeing that I was a stranger,
they clustered around, asking my name and cordially shaking hands with me.
At last I met the pastor and had a long talk with him. The substance of it was
that he advised me to read the New Testament and give myself up to Christ.
Accordingly I read part of the New Testament. I felt miserably. I desired
something. I wished to do something, I did not know what. God's Holy Spirit
was calling me ; I did not know how to respond.

Travelling a great deal, I had but little time to spare. But finally, I found my-
self again before the Blessed Sacrament. I began to read prayer-books left in the
pews, and to make the Way of the Cross. At last I found strength to answer God's
voice. I would return to the church. I was a Catholic. I could return through
the sacrament* of Penance. I began to prepare. And at last, on the eve of Passion
Sunday, kneeling before the vicar-general of a large Western diocese, I received
the grace of forgiveness and the precious absolution of my sins. Many kind words
were said to me ; Thomas a Kempis and a Challoner's catechism were given to me.

Then the struggle began in earnest. I feared I had taken too hasty a step.
There were so many things I could not understand. But wherever I went I met
kind priests ; one in Ohio, whom I particularly thank for the many hours of in
struction, and for the valuable books he so kindly gave me. Little by little the
mists cleared away, and there was light the wonderful light of God's truth.
When I again saw the dear friends who had done so much to aid my conversion
when I was a child they told me how they had prayed for me. Though I had
wandered their prayers had followed me. May the Sacred Heart reward them
for all their kindness ! May the good God bless the dear fathers who have
for their motto " Omnia ad majorem Dei gloriam," who first brought me into the
bosom of Holy Mother Church, and who taught me when a child to know the
Saviour, who saith " Suffer little children to come unto me " !

856 WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. [Sept.,

IS THE GOSPEL A CODE?

Mr. Gladstone, in his answer to Ingersoll, says that

" The Gospel was promulgated to teach principles and not a code ; that it included the foun-
dation of a society in which those principles were to be conserved, developed, and applied ; and
that down to this day there is not a moral question of all those which the Reply does or does not
enumerate, nor is there a question of duty arising in the course of life for any of us that is not
determinable in all its essentials by applying to it as a touchstone the principles declared in the
Gospel. . . . Where would have been the wisdom of delivering to an uninstructed popula-
tion of a particular age a codified religion which was to serve for all nations, all ages, all states
of civilization ? Why was not room to be left for human thought in finding out and in work-
ing out the adaptation of Christianity to the ever-varying movement of the world ? "

Gladstone's idea, therefore, is that the New Testament, in as far as it contains
morals and doctrine, is a syllabus of principles. The Gospels and Epistles, accord-
ing to him, are unapplied Christianity ; the application is not to be made by the
individual, but in a society. The written word supposed and included the foun-
dation of a society in which its principles are to be conserved, developed, and
applied.

According to this there is an interval between the inspired word of God and
the individual soul, which is filled not simply by the interior action of the Holy
Spirit, but by that same Spirit conserving, developing, and applying his doctrine in
the external order ; this external action having for its end the strengthening of the
interior life. It is in the nature of things that this should be so. For man is not
a pure spirit. He has no purely interior life. His constitution by the Creator is a
pointer to his regeneration by the Mediator. He lives and dies a man that is to
say, a composite of the sensible and the supersensible and it is inevitable that he
shall not be treated in life and death as if he were an angel. As the interior ob-
lation of Christ, by which we are saved, was ratified by the external outpouring of
his blood, so are we inflamed within by his love and sealed without by his blood.
This is why Christ gave to his principles the accompaniment of external ordi-
nances conveying grace to the soul.

But Gladstone's eye is fixed with disapproval upon the error of supposing the
new law to be a code. Cardinal Wiseman, in one of his controversial lectures, re-
futes this same error by the simple test of comparison between tne old and the
new law. He says in effect : If God would rule hearts and minds by a code, we
know how he would go about it, for he has actually done it. The law of Moses
was a code, and everything in the Jewish church was in little and great governed
by it ; a good thing for a single race. And, as the cardinal points out, the autho-
rity of priest or ruler was derived from and limited by the very words of the
Mosaic code. It was stiff, it was narrow, it was local, it was to pass away. But
Christ came for all men, and is of yesterday, to-day, and the same for ever ; and
hence to conserve, to develop, and to apply his mediatory office to all nations unto
the consummation of the world, a code was insufficient. A syllabus of principles
with an organic, corporate life, embracing himself and his redeemed brethren, was
the divine economy in the Christian dispensation. This society living out these
principles by the practice of virtues far above the natural manifests Christ in the
external order and enjoys him in the spiritual order.

If it be urged that a code is necessary, we grant it at least in a sense. Just as
the principles of the Declaration of Independence, which, uncodified, could, in the
moment of revolt against tyranny, fire men with sufficient zeal to achieve indepen-

1 388.] WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. 857

dence, required codification and " the foundation of a society in which those
principles were to be conserved, developed, and applied.'' The result was the Con-
stitution of the United States and an enduring commonwealth. This is all in the
natural order and under an overruling providence in that order. But the adoption
of the sons of God in Christ Jesus is in an order altogether transcendent. The
principles of the Gospel are not attainable by the reach of reason, and therefore
their codification is not man's work. What is higher than nature, nature cannot
conserve, develop, or apply. The man or society doing this must enjoy the super-
natural aid of the divine Author of the principles. That is to say, the author is a
founder. The principles of the Gospel are not left to be the private property of an
inorganic mass of men. The very nature 'of man will form a society or many
societies, and will make wreck of divine truth if it has no more than natural, or-
ganic force to apply to its conservation.

Any great world-force, if it is going to be perpetuated, developed, and applied,
must have a world-society to do it. Man is not by nature qualified beyond the scope
of race or nation, except it be in bare principles of fallen nature itself, such as hu-
manity or philanthropy, and then but weakly. The world-force that the Gospel is,
is aggressive, claims everything, moves everywhere, and must have a strictly co-
ordinate society as its propaganda ; co-ordinate in the sense of enjoying institu-
tion by the same divine authority which inspired the Gospels.

Mr. Gladstone's idea is full of truth, and of a truth which breeds a spirit of
liberty in the man and flexibility in the organism. The idea which he combats
the idea of the Gospels as a mere code breeds formalism, perpetuates Jewish
slavery to law, courts, precedents, and the dead-letter of a book.

Have not these latter been traits of Protestantism ?

A LAWFUL BOYCOTT FOR THE CLERGY.

It is learned by actual computation that there are in these United States no
less than fifty-four thousand clergymen of all denominations. Nearly or quite
eight thousand of these are priests in charge of eight millions of Catholics.

Eminently practical as THE CATHOLIC WORLD is, it can and will second the
motion already put before the clergy in a Catholic weekly or two, to endeavor to
curtail, and if possible abolish, the practice, becoming more and more shameless,
of displaying nude and immodest figures on town placard-boards, in shop-win-
dows, and on divers kinds of goods. Catholics are themselves not altogether
guiltless of this aid openly given to the devil Astaroth.

What need is there to give details of what all may see who read as they run,
read as they walk, read as they stand, read as they open their eyes? A pritst in
Minneapolis, Minn., Rev. James McGolrick, last year boldly called upon and ob-
tained the help of the police to tear down the foul show-bills pictures of nameless
females which had been posted about the city by a circus company. Represen-
tations were made to the like effect in Louisville, Ky., both as regards show-bills
and nasty pictures paraded in cigar and book stores. The complaint was made
to a brave Catholic chief of police, who undertook to do his duty, but with no
other effect than to rouse the worst passions of the vile and hasten the proximate
dismissal of the faithful officer.

The streets of cities in the South and West, on both sides of the curb -stones,

8 5 8 NE w PUB Lie A TIONS. [Sept . ,

reek perhaps with more filth and moral ordure than those of the Northeast. A
large minority of the saloons and cigar-stores and factories of the land employ
Catholics behind their bars and counters except, probably, in Minnesota, Mary-
land, and New Mexico. Why cannot pastors and curates admonish these em-
ployees to represent to their employers their conscientious objections to having
anything to do with sales or manufactures accomplished by the medium of
unclean spirits, too visibly represented by the undraped Venuses and suggestive
Cleopatras of the wall and the packing-case ? If the clergymen alone would enter
into a society of boycotters, whose first and last rule should be to refuse to buy or
recommend a box of cigars or paper of cigarettes stamped with the figures of
strumpets and lechers, that alone might bring many to their senses through their
purses. And if the priests' example could fire the other forty-six thousand
clergymen to unite with them, the Lawful Boycott would soon isolate and topple
over the stalking Goliaths. THOMAS J. JENKINS.

Knottsvtlle, Ky.

LET US UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER.

Rev. Dr. J. W. Mendenhall, the newly-installed editor of the Methodist Re-
view, thus delivers himself in his first issue the July number : " The Roman
Church may be the Babylon or the great whore of the Apocalypse."

Now, Dr. Mendenhall, let us come to an understanding with each other. If
you are prepared to maintain that the church which claims to be the spouse of
Christ is so regarded by all Catholics and has the respect of the majority
of mankind on account of her special love of purity, is so foul as to deserve the
name of harlot, it will require the greatest strain upon our charity to think that
you are inculpable in your error. Now, we do not propose to hold any contro-
versy with an insincere man ; the sooner you take off your mask the better. For
all sincere Methodists, who love truth and are striving to follow it faithfully, we
have respect. What shall we say of you ?

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION EXPLAINED AND VINDICATED. By
Basil Manly, D.D., LL.D., Professor in the Southern Baptist Theologi-
cal Seminary, Louisville, Ky. New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son.

While reading this book we have often asked ourselves, Why is it that
the Baptists, as a rule, are so tenacious of what they consider to be the
essential truths of Christianity ? In the Church of England even a clergy-
man may be a rationalist or a weak deist, and yet be in good standing, pro-
vided he holds no official communication with dissent; in the German Pro-
testant State Church the spectacle of a Pantheistic Lutheran clergyman is
unhappily not rare ; in the Free Church of Switzerland very many of the
clergy openly deride the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It is con-
soling, therefore, to find such steadfast loyalty to fundamental Christian
truths among the Baptists ; and, therefore, we ask again what is the reason

1 888.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 859

of this ? We think that the solution may be found in the fact that the
Baptists endeavor to be logical in their acceptation of whatever of truth
they have, whereas most other sects, in their efforts to preserve external
conformity, will tolerate the most glaring inconsistencies. The strength
of the Baptists is due to their consistency. A broad church crumbles to
pieces ; a strict church has within it a strong principle of conservation.
The Baptists in the South, particularly in Virginia and Alabama, if we are
to believe their own statements, have built themselves up out of the wreck
of lax Episcopalianism. The divine secret of the church of God is its
power to hold its members to one true standard. The Baptists have grown
strong especially from their firm adherence to the Bible as the inspired
word of God, and plenary inspiration at that. But let them give up this
true doctrine, or one iota of it, and they will soon be on the wane. Dr.
Manly, who so ably and conscientiously vindicates the doctrine of inspira-
tion, evidently thinks as we do about this matter.

Now, the author, when he is explaining the doctrine of the inspiration
of the Bible, knows thoroughly what he is talking about, but when he
speaks about the Catholic Church he does not. He asserts, for instance,
that we believe that "the church is inspired, as well as the Bible." He,
unwittingly no doubt, misrepresents us, but it is a pity that a man who can
treat so scientifically a subject which he does understand should venture
to speak on a subject which he clearly has not investigated. It is a pitiful
thing that so competent a Scripture scholar does not know the difference
between inspiration and infallibility. There is a world-wide difference be-
tween the inspiration of the Bible and the assistance of the Holy Spirit
which the church claims, and which Christ has promised to her. Inspira-
tion is defined by the author as "that divine influence that secures the
accurate transference of truth into human language, by a speaker or writer,
so as to be communicated to other men " (p. 37). Assistance of the Holy
Spirit does not necessarily illuminate the mind or move the will of the
church, but negatively preserves her from error in matters of faith and
morals. The church is simply the infallible custodian of the divine de-
posit of revelation which was complete before the death of the apostles.

The author's animus toward the Catholic Church is very bitter, which
we attribute to his ignorance of her teaching. He is, nevertheless, a sincere
lover of the Holy Bible, and as such we greatly respect him.

The doctrine of Inspiration of Holy Scripture, according to Catholic
theology, is that the books declared to be canonical have God for their
author in all their parts ; so that we are not required to believe that every
word in the Bible is inspired. It is even lawful for a Catholic to hold that
plenary inspiration is confined to such matters as immediately concern
faith and morals ; though the general opinion of theologians extends in-
spiration over a wider field.

On the other hand, a Catholic cannot lawfully hold the opinion preva-
lent among the more liberal Protestants viz., that the Bible is only in-
spired in the sense that it has God's sanction as a great moral and doc-
trinal guide, full of noble sentiments ; that it is inspired only inasmuch as
it is the best human expression of Divine Wisdom. This latter theory
Dr. Manly rejects and repudiates, and endeavors in an intelligent and able
manner to logically establish the inspiration of Scriptures in the Catholic

86o NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Sept.,

sense. He is honest and fair to his opponents ; he does not blink a single
objection ; one by one he deliberately takes them up and disposes of them,
and that so effectually that in the mind of the fair-minded reader his thesis,
that God is the author of the Book, is established.

The author, being an orthodox Protestant, expresses his belief in the
error that the Bible is the only rule of faith. He fails to see that the fact
that it is inspired does not prove that it contains the entire body of reveal-
ed truth. He affirms that the Bible, and the Bible only, is the inspired ex-
pression of divine revelation clearly a conclusion unwarranted by his
premises. An inspired tradition is unknown to him. But it is plainly a
logical defect to lay down as a postulate, as he does, that because the
Scriptures have God for their author, that therefore " Christianity (in the
Protestant sense) is the religion of the Book."

MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. From the Christian Con-
siderations of Father John Crasset, S.J. Translated and edited by the
Very Rev. T. B. Snow, O.S.B. 2 vols. London : R. Washbourne ; New
York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.

Father Crasset's Christian Considerations are very appropriately named.
Instead of a systematic development of the subject of each meditation,
there is a vivid presentation of several ideas belonging to the subject, each
one of which is sufficient for a meditation in itself. Only the bare idea is
presented, and the'mind is left to do its own thinking, and the will its own
resolving. This method necessitates real mental application and active
volition in prayer. As to the relative merits of the two methods we are
not prepared to say which is better. It depends wholly .upon the habit of
thought and volition of the individual.

Of Crasset's meditations we have had for many years a very high esti-
mate, based upon long use of them personally, and what we deem a com-
petent knowledge of the class of literature to which they belong. We have
said above that the bare idea was thrust into the mind by this method, but
by this we mean the idea stripped of accessories and explanations. No
book of meditation deserves the name of jejune less than Crasset's. He
has a piquant manner. His arrangement of topics and points is peculiar
to himself; we know of no other author who treats his matter in exactly
the same-way. We open the book at random for an instance :

" Will you always be a slave to men ?
Will you never contemn human respect ?
Why do you not declare yourself for God ?
Why do you not renounce these vanities ?

The world will laugh at you.

You have more reason to laugh at the world.

It is God's enemy.

It is the tyrant of faith,

The persecutor of Innocence.

You have renounced its friendship,

When you were baptized."

This gives the reader an idea of the matter and the method of its pre-
sentation. Of all the books of meditation for daily prayer we have ever
known, there is none, excepting, of course, the Bible and the Imitation,
better worthy of use than Crasset.

1 8 88.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 86 1

The translator has adopted throughout the work a form which was
given to an old English translation of a portion of these meditations pub-
lished in 1685. This feature adds much to the attractiveness of these vol-
umes.

Ax HOME AND IN WAR, 1853-1881. REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES.
By Alexander Verestchagm. Authorized translation by Elizabeth F.
Haphood. New York : Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

Certainly no novel of the school of honest detail, now so much in
vogue, could tell us the story of Russian life, high and low, more minutely
than this queer autobiography does. -The author's mind in childhood,
youth, and manhood was a phonograph storing upon the waxen tablets of
a most retentive memory the scenes, the circumstances, the forms and
words of his whole life, to be now turned into a printed book of peculiar
interest. Whoever will read this book as honestly as the author seems to
have written no mean achievement, by the way, since he particularizes to
a painful degree will know Russian domestic and military life as well as
it can be learned from a book.

The state of f he common people, prior to the abolition of serfdom, is
here portrayed with pitiless exactness. It leads one to say that an aristoc-
racy that could so long keep in veritable slavery their own race and fellow-
Christians can hardly be counted on to play a beneficial part in the further
amelioration of the evils still oppressing their countrymen. The only rea-
son why an aristocracy should exist is that their ownership of the land
and monopoly of the offices shall conduce to the well-being of the whole
people. In Russia, as this book plainly enough shows, there is no such
purpose manifest, not to say attained. The vast estates are not held in
trust for the profit of those who toil upon them, but merely for the aggran-
dizement of the nobles. We do not mean to say that there are not excep-
tions to this rule, for a trait of the Russian character, whether noble or
peasant, is good nature. We do not mean to say that there are many such
landlords in Russia as the author's grandfather, who was put to death by
his own serfs for meddling with their wives; he was a Russian Lord Lei-
trim. But the entire effect of the book on the impartial mind is to show
the utter perversion of the uses of class and government in Russia. In-
stead of the rulers of the empire holding their privileges for the common
happiness of the entire people and for the proper distribution of the gifts
of nature, the very reverse is the case. The masses of men, women, and
children live for the nobility, and the nobility for the czar, and the czar
for the maintenance of a barbaric autocracy. For the alleviation of pub-
lic burdens, for the correction of tyranny on the part of the emperor, for
the progressive development of intelligence, there are positively no means
possible, except the arbitrary pleasure of one man one man penetrated
with the traditions of hereditary selfishness or the bomb and dagger of
the Nihilist.

As to the right of public life for citizens of ability as leaders, whose
prerogative may be summed up in the Holy Father's words in his ency-
clical on Human Liberty, that " men have a right freely and prudently to
propagate throughout the state whatsoever things are true and honorable,
so that as many as possible may possess them," the very opposite is the
rule in the Russian Empire. There is no right to educate except for the

862 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Sept.,

one end of the autocrat's power. The natural right of able and enlightened
men to assemble in conference is not tolerated ; the right of virtuous men
to teach morality, of educated men to teach the people's children the rudi-
ments of knowledge, the right of the true religion to minister to man's
spiritual welfare all are, if not totally prohibited by law, circumscribed in
a way to pervert their uses to the ends of tyranny.

It is far from the purpose of this book to treat of Russia under these
aspects. The book is a chatty, gossipy description of daily life at home
and in camp, marred in one or two places by coarseness. The evils we
speak of are proved to exist by the book only when the reader bears in
mind the true bill that the grand jury of mankind has long since brought
in against the Russian autocracy.

THE VADE MECUM HYMNAL : A Catholic Singing-Book, containing an ele-
mentary theory, with exercises for the study of sight-singing, etc. By
M. D. Kelly. Baltimore : George VVillig & Co.

Judging from a glance at the first seventy pages of this book, devoted
to elementary instruction in notation and harmony, we think the author
might be able to compile a useful little manual which teachers could use
and pupils understand. But it would take much more than seventy such
pages to make a satisfactory manual of vocal instruction and of the princi-
ples of hannony. As it is, there is a little too much of everything, but not
quite enough of anything.

And of the collection of hymns our criticism will be summed up in one
question : Would the author agree to put his Catholic singing-book into the
hands of a non-Catholic or of a poorly-instructed child of the church, and
expect either one or the other to get from its use a reasonable idea of the
doctrines and practices of the Catholic religion ? We take it that a Catho-
lic hymnal professing to be a vade mecum should serve this purpose or it is
a misnomer.

SACRED HISTORY FROM THE CREATION TO THE GIVING OF THE LAW. By
Edward P. Humphrey, D.D., LL.D. New York: A. C.Armstrong &
Son. 1888.

The late Dr. Humphrey was a profound Biblical student, and his object
in writing this book was to assist believers in understanding those difficul-
ties in the Pentateuch which cavillers and unbelievers continually work
upon. He ably vindicates the doctrine of the inspiration of Holy Scrip-
ture. His explanation of the creation of Adam and Eve excludes the pos-
sibility of the evolution of their bodies from irrational animals. He also
maintains the universality of the Deluge as regards mankind. He never
attempts to eliminate the miraculous. When so much destructive criticism
is found among Protestant Biblical students, we heartily rejoice that so
able and conscientious a scholar as Dr. Humphrey has written this book.
The great defect of his work is his rigid Calvinistic explanation of original
sin, justification, and predestination.

A GRAMMAR OF VOLAPUK. An Adaptation of Prof Kerckhoff's Cours com-
plet de Volapuk. By Rev. Louis A. Lambert, Waterloo, New York.

The remarkable invention of this singularly simple and yet very com-
prehensive international language is the work of a distinguished German

1 888.] . NEW PUBLICATIONS. 863

priest, Johann Martin Schleyer. It does what the learned author of the pre-
sent volume assures us in his very interesting and instructive preface : it
gives a language capable of expressing thought with clearness and precision;
it is scientific in conception, simple in structure, eminently practical, and
easy to learn. It avoids the difficulties of pronunciation which character-
ize the English, French, and most Sclavonic languages, each letter, vowel
or consonant, having but one sound ; the words are always pronounced as
written ; it has no silent letters ; the qualifying terms have all similar
terminations; and there is but one conjugation for all verbs. It has been
already extensively studied and used, especially for foreign correspondence
in business affairs.

As an instructive and useful entertainment we know of nothing which
would please young school boys and girls better than to learn it; and we
look to see it become very popular with them, since the whole language
can easily be mastered in a month's time. Father Lambert's grammar is
the most complete one yet issued for English students, and he has added to
it a double vocabulary of over three thousand words. We have, however,
one adverse criticism to make. He gives equivalents for the Volapiik letter
a, which he says is to be sounded as a in the English words care, dare, and
then gives the sound of a in date and fate as equivalent for the Volapiik e.
We think this misleading, for a in all these words has, it seems plain to us,
the same sound ; for we suppose that the sound of a in Volapiik is intend-
ed to be that of a in can, land the sound of ah, short. We shall also be
glad when some variation is made in the use (as yet universal, we believe)
of the heavy-faced block type used for printing the new language. It is as
difficult to read as English set up in capitals, as those who have "tired"
eyes know full well. It has to us an odd and unwelcome appearance. As
the author is his own publisher, orders should be addressed directly to
him.

MODERN NOVELS AND NOVELISTS. A book of criticisms. By Maurice
Francis Egan, A.M. New York : William H. Sadlier.

Mr. Egan is one of the most capable literary critics that American liter-
ature can claim. He has an intuitive perception of the qualities of literary
work. He has considerable experience as a writer and is a man of wide
reading. Joined to this is his taking and imaginative style of writing. So
that this little volume, going over nearly the whole range of contempo-
rary fiction and poetry, is not only a valuable descriptive hand-book for the
inexperienced reader, but is full of sound judgment on the merits of the
books discussed, besides being, every page of it, very agreeable reading.
Mr. Egan has a dexterous pen ; and in many of these pages he sketches
with one powerful stroke the characteristic of an author or the trend of
his work.

It is often hard to read criticism that is to say, to read what one man
writes of another man's writing. We long to read about deeds. Hence it
is a high .order of merit which can make critical writing entertaining.
Such is Mr. Egan's merit. There is nothing tiresome about his book, much
that is piquant and stimulating to the literary appetite.

The book is printed on good paper, well bound, and contains a useful
index.

NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Sept, 1888.

Is ONE RELIGION AS GOOD AS ANOTHER? By the Rev. John MacLaugh-
lin. Tenth thousand. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger
Bros.

This book, whose first edition was commended in these pages, has by
its wide circulation justified our estimate of its usefulness. It meets a long-
felt want. There are books which deal more or less directly with this sub-
ject, but, we venture to say, none that more intelligently or more
thoroughly discuss it.

Indifferentism in religious matters bears the same relation to truth as
does Agnosticism in philosophical matters. Indifferentism makes doubt
necessary, affirms it to be inevitable. Hence it undermines the certitude,
even the possibility of certitude, concerning the most fundamental prin-
ciples and facts of revelation, being an evil more to be feared than bigotry.
A book like Father MacLaughlin's is, therefore, one calculated to do great
good. It is an arsenal for Catholics to arm themselves against the most
prevalent error of the day.

THE NEW SUNDAY-SCHOOL COMPANION. New York, Cincinnati, and Chi-
cago : Benziger Brothers.

Practical experience of the good of such a book as this in the Sunday-
school induces us to give it warm commendation. It is a vade mecum for
the child. Besides the Catechism of the Third Plenary Council, it con-
tains a number of prayers and devotions for the church, the school, and
the home; a simple unison Mass suitable for children's voices , the psalms
for Vespers, with the psalm tones in modern notation ; and a number of
excellent hymns for Low Mass and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
We are surprised, however, that the compiler has neglected to make use
of the fine English translation of the Te Deum found in nearly all compil-
ations of Catholic hymns. The book is welj printed, is neatly bound, and
is illustrated with many good engravings.

BOOKS RECEIVED.
Mention of books in this place does not preclude extended notice in subsequent numbers.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS. Consisting of an Analysis of each Chapter and of a Com-
mentary, Critical, Exegetical, Doctrinal, and Moral. By His Grace the Most Rev. John
MacEvilly, D. D. , Archbishop of Tuam. 2 vols. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Third edi-
tion, revised and corrected. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL AND OF THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. By
His Grace the Most Rev. John MacEvilly, Archbishop of Tuam. 2 vols. Third edition
enlarged. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Brothers.
An extended notice of these volumes will appear next month.

HYLOMORPHISM OF THOUGHT-BEING. By Rev. Thomas Quentin Fleming. Part I. Theory

of Thought. London : Williams & Norgate.
REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE HON. AND RT. REV. ALEXANDER MACDONELL, First Catholic

Bishop of Upper Canada. Toronto : Williamson & Co.

PEARLS OF A YEAR. Short Stories from The Xavier, 1888. New York : P. J. Kenedy.
MOTHER LOVE. A Manual for Christian Mothers. By a Priest of the Capuchin Order. New

York and Cincinnati : Fr. Pustet.
ARISTOTLE AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. An Essay by Brother Azarias. London : Kegan

Paul, Trench & Co. (For sale by Benziger Bros. )

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