Full text of "The Catholic world"

CATHOLIC WORLD.

NTHLY MAGAZINE

(i)ritarlo

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

VOL. LVI.
OCTOBER, 1892, TO MARCH, 1893.

NEW YORK :

THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD,

120-122 WEST SIXTIETH STREET.

1893.

THE COLUMBUS PRESS 120-122 WEST 60iH ST., NEW YORK.

CONTENTS.

Alonso X. and the Birth of Spanish Lit-
erature. Mary Elizabeth Blake, 518

America's Workmen. Rev. John Con-
way, 490

Ancient Polar Regions, The William

Seton, 485

Another Word on Other Worlds. Very

Rev. Augustine F. Hewit, . . 18

Archbishop Darboy, the Martyr of La

Roquette. E. W. Latimer, . . 755

Archbishop Satolli, Apostolic Delegate.

(frontispiece. )

" Civilta Cattolica" on a Recent Work
by Dr. Muller-Simonis and Dr. Hy-
vernat, The, 256

Columbian Reading Union, The, 145, 284,
43 6 . 587. 734, 878

Columbus. Right Rev. J. 'L. Spald-

ing, D.D., i

Cynthia's Rosary. (A Christmas Story.)

Helen M. Sweeney, . . . 339

Editorial Notes, . 293, 442, 584, 733, 883

Educational Bureau and Journal, An.

F. M. Edselas, .... 467

Elocution of the Pulpit, The. Rev. Jo-
seph V. O'Connor, . . . .175

Evolution and Darwinism. Rev. G. M.

Searle 223

Famous Convent-School of the South-
West, A, 466

Frederic Frobel's Christian Kindergar-
ten. Emma W. White, . . . 507

Frederic Ozanam of Cork, The. Tho-
mas H. Atteridge 560

Future of the Summer-School, The.

Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, . . 165

Home-Rule Bill, The New. John T.

O'S/tea, 622

How Shall the Negro be Educated?

Rev. J. R. Slattery, ... 28

How to Solve a Great Problem./ 71 . M.

Edselas, 353

Indian of the Future, The. Rev. Tho-
mas McMillan, . . . .116

Jesuit "Ratio Studiorum " in Popular
Literature, The. Rev. Thomas
Hughes, S.J., 80

Joan of Arc, the Martyr of Rouen.

Rev. Thomas O Gorman, D.D., 193

Land of the Sun, The. (Illustrated.}

Christian Reid, 64, 205, 297, 531, 631, 770

Lavigerie, the New St. Paul. (Por-
trait.} Rev. J. R. Slattery, . . 593

Las Casas' Narrative of the Voyage of

Discovery. Rev. L. A. Dutto, . 40
Louis Pasteur and his Life-Work. Rev.

J. A. Zahm, C.S.C., . . .445
Magdalen at the Feet of the Lord. Von

Hoffman, 788

Maine. Gen. E. Parker-Scammon, 181, 365,

549
Maryville : A Well-Known Convent of

the Sacred Heart. (Illustrated.') 673
Meeting of the Women of Jerusalem.

Von Hoffman. (Frontispiece.}

Minority in Ireland under Home Rule,

The. George McDermot, . . 845
Mountain Village of the Southland, A.

(Illustrated.} Dorothy Gresham. 159
Mourning Ireland The Caoine. E.

M. Lynch, 789

My Conversion, ..... 376
My Night in the Black Forest. Rev. T.

A. Metcalf, 814

Neumann, John N., a Saintly Bishop.

Rev. Joseph Wiist, C.SS.R., . 322
New London Note-Book, A. Helen M.

Sweeney, 95

Old World Seen from the New, The, 124,
261, 417, 565, 713, 861
Overberg : A Pioneer in Modern Peda-
gogics. Joseph Alexander, . . 659
People's Ransom, A. Henry Charles

Kent, . . . ... 690

Reminiscences of Edgar P. Wadhams,

First Bishop of Ogdensburg. Rev.

C. A. Walworth, . . 104, 241, 407
Scripture Inspiration and Modern Bib-
lical Criticism. Very Rev. H. I. D.

Ryder, 742

Sisters in Alaska, The. (Illustrated.}

Rev. Peter C. Yorke, . . . 799
Study of Geology and the Summer-
School, The William Seton, . 761
Talk about New Books, 133, 270, 426, 573,

7 2 3, 87 1
Taxation of Ulster under a Home-Rule

Parliament. George McDermot, 393
Tennyson, Of. Maurice Francis

Egan, 149

Tournesal, At the, .... 497

Two Little Roman Beggars. Mary

Agnes Tincker, .... 609
Visitandines at Mount de Chantal, The.

(Illustrated.} Eleanor S. Houston, 821
Way I Became a Catholic, The, . 706

CONTENTS.

POETRY.

Children's Land, The. John Jerome

Rooney, 646

Choice, The. Rose Hawthorne Lath-

rop, I 7

Columbus the Christ-Bearer Speaks.

George Parsons Lathrop, . . 350

Cry of Humanity, The. James Buck-
ham, 39

Dead Laureate Liveth, The. John Je-
rome Rooney, 260

Enduring Fame. Rev. A. B, O'Neill,

C.S.C., . . . . . .406

In Retreat. Margret Holmes, . . 27

Isabella Regnant. Mary A. Tincker, 92

Jesu, Redemptor ! Peace and Love.

Charlotte Mcllvain Moore, . . 320

Legends of the Cid. Aubrey de Vere,

232, 384
Love's Quietude. Edward A. Uffing-

ton Valentine, 174

Magi's Gifts, The. Laurens Maynard, 516

My Saint. P. /. Coleman, . . . 191

Peccavi. Adam de Brun, . . . 787
Philosophy of Strife, The. Daniel Spil-

lane, 672

Song, A. Helen M. Sweeney, . . 164

Via Dolorosa. James Buckham, . . 741

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Afloat and Ashore on the Mediterranean, 431

Aristotelische Auffassung, Die, . . 277

Aunt Anne, 574

Barbara Dering, 579

Beggars All 575

Blessed Louis-Marie Grignon de Mont-
fort, 434

Book of Famous Verse, A, . . . 577

Catholic Doctrine of Faith and Morals, 583

Chatelaine of La Trinite, The, . . 276

Chim : His Washington Winter, . . 576
Child of the Ball, The, . . . .134

Christianity and Infallibility, . . 138
Christopher Columbus and His Monu-
ment, ....... 583

Church in Relation to Sceptics, The, 729

Church in England, The, . . . 731

Criminology, 729

Cynthia Wakeham's Money, . . . 137

De 1'esprit et de 1'esprit Philosophique, 141

Dreams of the Dead, .... 271
Duchess of Berry and the Court of

Louis XVIII., The, . . . .138
Duchess of Berry and the Court of

Charles X., The, . . . .431
East and West, a Story of New-born

Ohio, 273

Essays in Miniature, .... 428

Eve of the French Revolution, The, 270

Famous Answers to Colonel Ingersoll, 582

Field-Farings, 429

French Art, 573

General's Daughter, The, . . . 136

Green Tea, 432

Hail Mary, The, 139

Harry Dee ; or, Making it Out, . . 725
Hierurgia ; or, The Holy Sacrifice of the

Mass, 871

How they Worked their Way, and

Other Tales, 579

In the Suntime of her Youth, . . 724

In Old St. Stephen's, .... 270

Jesus, the All-Beautiful, . . . 433

Joshua Wray, 279

Layman's Day, The, .... 727

Leona, 135

Letters of Archbishop Ullathorne, . 144
Life and Letters of Washington All-

ston, The, 872

Literary, Scientific, and Political Views

of Orestes A. Brownson, . . . 876
Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

The, 140

Little Compliments of the Season, . 579

Marriage Process in the United States,

The, 435

Medicine Lady, The 274

Miss Madam, and other Sketches, . 727
Monica, the Mesa Maiden, . . . 432
Moral Instruction of Children, The, . 581
Most Rev. John Hughes, First Arch-
bishop of New York, .... 270
Mr. Fortner's Marital Claims, and other

Stories, 270

Mr. Witt's Widow, .... 277

Nature and Elements of Poetry, The, . 426

Naulahka, The, 137

New England Cactus, A, ... 431

Nicholas Ferrar, ..... 727

Nimrod and Co., ..... 432

CEuvres de Saint Francois de Sales, . 874

Ordo Divini Officii Recitandi, . . 434

Passing the Love of Women, . . 276

Poetry of the Gathered Years, . . 577

Primer for Converts, A, ... 433
Quasstiones Selectae ex Theologia Dog-

matica, 276

Rhythmical Gymnastics, Vocal and Phy-
sical, 273

Sacramentals of the Holy Catholic

Church, The, 145

Saint Paul ses Missions, . . . 875
Saint Peter and the First Years of

Christianity, 282

Sermons from the Flemish, . . . 582

Silent Sea, The, 725

Slavery and Serfdom in Europe, . . 139

Snare of the Fowler, The, . . . 274

Songs about Life, Love, and Death, . 578

Songs, Sonnets, and other Poems, . 578

South Sea Idyls, 133

Spirit of St. Ignatius, The, . . . 140

Splendid Cousin, A, .... 580

Squire, The, 135

Story of a Parish, 1847 to 1892, The, . 142

Strange Tales of a Nihilist, . . . 278

Stumble on the Threshold, A, . . 725

Thoughts from Lacordaire, . . . 731
Three-Cornered Hat, The, . . .134

'Tween Snow and Fire, . . . 271

Under Pressure, 723

War under Water, .... 273
Wee Widow's Cruise in Quiet Waters,

The 273

Wild Flowers from the Mountain-Side, 730

Winterborough, 430

Woman who Dares, The, . . . 580

Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, . 430

THE

VOL. LVI. OCTOBER, 1892. No. 331.

COLUMBUS.

Christ-bearer, world-revealer, hail ! all hail !
All noble minds salute thy venturous sail.

FORTUNATE is he who along all the ways of life is guided
and upheld by a great thought, a divine aim, a steadfast pur-
pose. It is well with him, for by his own spirit he is exalted
and made to know and feel that this is God's world, in which
he is God's workman. Whatever his visible environment, his
home is in the unseen infinite, which for him is not only real,
but the only absolutely real ; and though he be neglected or
scorned, yet, in the general heart of men, he shall live. An in-
ner light makes his pathway plain, and it he will follow, whether
praise of him shall abide on earth to give birth to noble deeds,
or he shall sleep without his fame. Dante is driven from his
native city into exile, but he bears his world with him, and gives
to it such body and consistency that it remains a deathless
thing, while the Republic of Florence is become but a name.
Shakspere holds horses, but his home is in realms where kings
may enter and beauty keep its charm for ever fresh only by his
leave. King Charles and his court may drive Milton, old and
blind, into an obscure corner, but they may not forbid those
thoughts which wander through eternity, those visits where the
Muses haunt " clear spring or shady grove or sunny hill." Gali-
leo's prison is a futile thing. He feels the earth sweep down
the ringing grooves of change into ever-widening spheres, until
all men see that truth and love alone, like God, are immutable.
What, indeed, is the history of the inspired men of courage, of
insight, and of faith, who have uplifted the race and led it into

2 COLUMBUS. [Oct.,

larger and more human ways, but the history of men who lived
apart with their own thoughts, nourishing a hope sublime, in a
world which knew them not, which doubtless, for the most part,
was altogether incapable of knowing them ? They were born to
be the helpers of all noble souls through all the ages, and the
crowd of money-getters, place-hunters, and pleasure-seekers can
take no delight in them, can have even no proper conception of
the life that is in them.

How lonely Columbus stands at the gate of the monastery of
La Rabida, asking for bread and a drink of water for the weary
child whom he holds by the hand. He who is about to give
another world to mankind is himself a beggar; and when he
shall have made his gift, he shall be a prisoner, and shall turn
his last feeble gaze, in the midst of want and neglect, to the
manacles he has worn sad memorials of human gratitude. In
the wholesome air of poverty, living from boyhood upon the
ever-moving wave, in rude conflicts with the elements, buffeted
by storms and with frequent noise of battle around him, his soul
has waxed strong and heroic. His cradle was rocked by the
side of the blue waters of the Mediterranean. From the hills of
Genoa, with their Alpine background of eternal snow, his young
eyes looked out upon the white sails and saw them fade away
southward, while his heart followed after them. And later, in the
silent watches of the night, clinging to the mast or leaning over
the dark, mysterious waters, what dreams have come to solace
him, what vague forebodings of the task which God had set him !
His father may comb wool ; he will seek the golden fleece far-
ther, than Colchis and the Pillars of Hercules, farther than the
Hesperides, and he will find a New World, deep hidden through
the ages and guarded by dragons of more horrid shape than
those which affrighted the imaginations of the heroes who sailed
with Jason, in the good ship Argo.

The greatest men stand out from their fellows, and the
character of their age and other environment throw but a par-
tial and uncertain light upon the causes which make them what
they are. However favorable to the appearance of a great poet
the England of Elizabeth's day may -have been, we are left in
the dark when we come to ask ourselves why an untutored
country boy, growing up in an obscure corner, remote from the
busy haunts of men, should among millions be the only mind
capable of endowing with immortal life the Middle Ages, when
they were about to dissolve and disappear before the breath of
the modern world. Genius, like sanctity and heroism, remains

1 892 .] COL UMB us. 3-

for ever marvellous and inexplicable. Its vesture, woven on the
looms of time, we may behold ; but the eternal Infinite, whence
it draws its inspiration and its power, throws about it deep clouds
of mystery, which we can penetrate only by the fitful gleam of
its lightning flashes. It moves in curves whose sweep is too vast
for our comprehension ; it rises to heights where common men
can only gasp for breath. We see the parts ; the genius looks
on the whole ; we see what is done ; he beholds the boundless
possible, which whispers from infinity, asking to be done ; we
tread the beaten path of dull routine ; he leads to fresh thoughts
and loves, or sails away to discover new worlds.

We may not, however, regard him as unrelated to his time.
He is the embodiment of aspirations and tendencies of which
the multitude are as yet but vaguely conscious ; and he belongs
all the more to his age because he sees in it little else than the
promise of better things : for a noble contempt for whatever is
now quite accomplished, a sort -of divine discontent with the
whole world of mere facts, as being but the shadowy symbol of
the eternally real, is the mark of genius.

When Columbus comes before us, the great historic move-
ment among the Christian peoples which we call the Renais-
sance, the New Birth, had reached its culminating point. The
residence of the popes at Avignon and the Schism of the West
had weakened the central authority of the church, while the de-
velopment of clearly marked nationalities had undermined feu-
dalism and prepared the way for the substitution of independent
monarchies in the place of the Holy Roman Empire. New
forces, such as the printing-press, gunpowder, paper, and the man-
ner's compass, helped to hasten the transformation. With the fall
of Constantinople, which was captured by the Turks in 1453, the
Eastern Empire passed away. The Greek scholars who fled from
their fanatical and barbarous conquerors gave a fresh impulse to
the mind of Western Europe, and awakened new enthusiasm for
classic arts and letters. The year in which America was discov-
ered Copernicus was at the University of Cracow, busy with
those studies which were to produce a revolution in the accepted
theories of the constitution of the physical universe. Everything
pointed to a transition from the old to a new order.

The centre of this activity was Italy. Her language was the
first of the modern tongues to acquire form, consistency, and
polish, and hundreds of her sons were eager lovers of the new
learning, when its spirit was as yet scarcely recognized in France
and England, Germany and Spain.

4 COLUMBUS. [Oct.,

Even before the fall of Constantinople Italian enthusiasts had
begun to make pilgrimages thither, to hold intercourse with men
of learning, and to seek for precious relics of the past.

An Italian renaissance, in fact, in which the literature of the
language sprang into fulness of life in the Divina Commedia of
Dante, preceded that of the fifteenth century. Petrarch created
a new method in scholarship and became the author of human-
ism, while Boccaccio addressed himself to the study and com-
mendation of Greek literature. The church encouraged the pre-
vailing enthusiasm, and among the great names whose influence
was especially felt in the classical revival is that of Pope Nicho-
las V., the founder of the Vatican Library.

Before the end of the fifteenth century a knowledge of the
writings of Greece and Rome had become wide-spread, and the
mediaeval world-view had, to a large extent, been superseded by
the modern. In the cultivation of the fine arts Italy also led the
way. Giotto holds the relation to painting which Dante holds to
poetry. In architecture Brunelleschi, and in sculpture Donatel-
lo, rivalled, in genius and skill, the artists of the age of Peri-
cles, and we are on the eve of the appearance of Raphael,
Titian and Correggio, Bramante and Michael Angelo, who will
wed the grace, the strength, and the loveliness of ancient art
to the purity and sweetness, the humanity and tenderness of
Christian faith.

In scientific research, too, at this epoch the place of honor
belongs to Italy. Leonardo da Vinci, born in 1452, is not only
one of the great artists of the world, but he was also an anato-
mist, a physiologist, a botanist, an astronomer, a geographer,.
an explorer, who anticipated in many directions the results of
modern scientific investigation. There is probably no other man
who so well deserves to be called a universal genius. Paolo
Toscanelli, with whom Columbus corresponded, is also worthy of
mention as one of the pioneers who helped to enlarge the boun-
daries of natural knowledge.

The Italian republics, which were still in the fifteenth cen-
tury the chief centres of the commercial activity of Christendom,
were also the homes of the spirit of adventure and discovery.
They had sent Marco Polo, in the latter half of the thirteenth
century, by the overland route to the court of the great Kublai
Khan, in far-off Cathay. In 1291 the Vivaldis and ^Tedisio
Doria freighted two ships, and weighing anchor at Genoa, and
sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar, turned boldly south to
see whether it was possible to live under the equator, and

1892.] COL UMB us. 5;

whether or not there was a southern passage around Africa.
They disappeared beyond the horizon and no tidings were ever
brought back to tell their fate. It was Italy who gave Peres-
trello, Usodimare, and Cadamosto to Prince Henry of Portugal,
the Cabots to England, Verrazzani to France, Columbus to Spain
and to all mankind. The intellectual outburst of the fifteenth cen-
tury was not, however, confined to Italy. A fresh mental vigor,
a new delight in the things of the mind, was discernible in every
part of Europe. The fifteenth century is an age of inventions,
of discoveries, of voyages to unknown regions, as well as an age
of art and literature. Goethe's faith in culture and his knowledge
of what had been done in the fifteenth century led him to
affirm that the world would be farther advanced had Luther
never been born ; for the Reformation, for two hundred years,
diverted the best minds of Europe from the pursuit of truth
and beauty to bitter theological controversies, which, while
they threw no light upon any subject, aroused everywhere
the spirit of fanaticism. Whether there was moral gain seems
doubtful. The fierce zeal of Calvinism and Puritanism has doubt-
less made itself felt as a mighty force, but it is not in harmony
with the gentle spirit of Christ, and cannot remain as a perma-
nent influence upon the conduct of men. Hatred and intoler-
ance, contention and war, are surely not the best means to bring
about moral and religious improvement ; and the light which in
the fifteenth century was spreading everywhere, unforbidden and
hailed with salutations of glad welcome, would have fallen in the
dark places where alone abuse and corruption thrive.

Of this fifteenth century Italy, with its aspirations, its yearn-
ings, its forebodings of wider, freer, nobler life, Columbus is a
child. In him, united with a deep and genuine love of know-
ledge, we find also a sincere religious faith and piety which
urged him to heroic enterprise. In the middle ages zeal for the
conversion of the heathen was the most potent impulse to geo-
graphical discovery. During the thirteenth century Franciscan
and Dominican monks traversed Mongolia and Tartary and wrote
accounts of their travels, and later on Catholic missionaries brought
to Europe the first authentic accounts of China and India. As
religious enthusiasm united the barbarous and contentious popu-
lations of Europe in the eleventh century and hurled them against
Asia, until finally the progress of Islam was arrested and Chris-
tendom saved from the yoke of Mahometanism, so religious faith
impelled and guided the immortal sailor of Genoa to the New
World. Columbus, of course, was not the first or the only man

6 COL UMB us. [Oct.,

who believed that Asia could be reached by sailing westward
across the Atlantic. This opinion was held by several, and among
others by Paolo Toscanelli, whose reputation as a man of science
gave weight to his arguments, and enabled him to confirm
Columbus in his persuasion of the feasibility of the enterprise in
which he was absorbed.

The awakening mind of Europe, in fact, was turning itself in
every direction ; and, as a result of this activity, the spirit of
enterprise and discovery was aroused. As scholars went back to
classical literature for knowledge and inspiration, so the vigorous,
practical minds of the age felt themselves straitened in the world,
and yearned for new regions into which to carry the commerce
and the civilization of the Christian people. The returning cru-
saders had brought back from the East marvellous stories of its
splendor and wealth, and in the latter part of the thirteenth
century Marco Polo astonished Europe with accounts of the
wonderful countries he had visited. His book of travels, which
many looked upon as a romance, was the chief source of Toscanel-
li's information concerning the countries where the spices grow, and
through him it helped to stimulate the ardor of Columbus, to
whom Polo's writings were probably unknown. In the fourteenth
century Catholic missions were founded in the chief cities of
China, and an overland traffic between that country and Italy
was established. It is to these early voyages that Europe was
indebted for its knowledge of printing, and, possibly also, for
that of the mariner's compass. The secret of making gunpow-
der was probably learned from the Saracens of Spain. By these
instruments and forces the awakening western mind was roused
to an intenser consciousness of the power which impels to ac-
tion.

The Genoese were the first to seek to make the Atlantic a
highway for their traffic.

In 1291, as we have already said, Ugolino and Guido Vival-
di freighted two ships, sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar,
turned southward to discover a passage around Africa to India,
and never returned. A few years later a fleet set sail from
Genoa and discovered the Canary Islands ; but strife and other
misfortunes soon led to the abandonment of the new-found
lands.

Portugal next took the lead in maritime enterprise. The
Genoese, however, were still the boldest and the most expert
sailors, and to them generally the command of the Portuguese
ships was entrusted. The Canaries were revisited, and in 1346

8 COLUMBUS. [Oct.,

a vessel set sail for the Rio d'Oro, on the African coast ; but
it never came back. In spite of repeated efforts to make new
discoveries, carried on for half a century, little was accom-
plished. The Portuguese crept cautiously along the shore, not
daring to trust themselves to the open sea, because they be-
lieved that once land was lost sight of return would be impossi-
ble.

The most powerful impulse to Portuguese maritime enter-
prise was given by Prince Henry, called the Navigator, who,
like Queen Isabella, had in his veins the blood of the House
of Lancaster. He devoted his time and fortune to systematic
attempts to find new lands, but his sailors, after twelve years of
effort, had nothing to report save the unimportant discovery of
Porto Santo and Madeira. At sight of Cape Bojador the stout-
est hearts quailed and turned back. Prince Henry, however, did
not lose heart, but continued to lavish his wealth in fitting out
new fleets, and at length one of his captains overcame the ter-
rors of Cape Bojador, and in 1442 reached Rio d'Oro, just fifty
years before Columbus led the way to the New World. As
rumors of these voyages spread through Europe, adventurers and
sailors flocked to Portugal to offer their services to Prince
Henry.

The most distinguished and the most successful of these were
Usodimare and Cadamosto. both Italians. In 1455 the latter,
having command of a caravel, passed the Senegal and cast an-
chor twelve leagues beyond that river. When about to set sail
again he caught sight of another Portuguese ship, under the
command of Usodimare, and together they continued the voyage
as far as the river Gambia, whence they returned to Portugal.
This is all Prince Henry succeeded in accomplishing during the
forty-four years in which he labored, with patient courage and
noble generosity, to reach India by sailing around Africa. It
was doubtless a "knowledge of these voyages that drew Colum-
bus to Portugal ; and thus the name of Prince Henry, who, had
he been able to find a man of genius and heroic will, to pro-
pose and execute the project of sailing westward across the At-
lantic, would have needed no urging to fit out the fleet, becomes
indissolubly associated with the discovery of America. But he,
when Columbus arrived in Lisbon, in 1470, was no longer among
the living. Columbus at that time was about thirty-five years
old. He was tall, strong, and symmetrical. His complexion was
ruddy, his hair reddish, his eyes light, and his nose aquiline.
His bearing was dignified, and his apparel and diet were plain and

1892.] COL UMB us. 9

moderate. Though by nature irascible, he struggled manfully to
control his temper, and, except on rare occasions, he was mild
and affable. He fasted often, and heard Mass and recited the
office every day. In Lisbon he married and gained a mainte-
nance by making geographical charts. His wife, the daughter of
a navigator of renown, brought him into contact with men who
were familiar with the voyages of Prince Henry's captains, and
as he himself had already sailed to nearly every known part of
the world, their conversation ran much upon adventure and the
wonderful lands which lay hidden beyond the ocean. That
Columbus had even then acquired a certain fame we infer from
the fact that he was summoned to a conference with King Al-
fonso V., in which the possibility of reaching the East by sail-
ing westward was discussed.

Of the feasibility of this scheme Columbus was persuaded.
He felt confident that it was as easy to sail westward as to
sail southward, as the Portuguese had done ; and since he had
no doubt of the sphericity of the earth, he was convinced one
might travel round the globe. He was in error as to the
distance between Western Europe and Eastern Asia ; but this
error, in leading him to believe the distance much less than it
is, helped to confirm his confidence in the success of the enter-
prise, with which his mind was busy as early as 1474. In that
year he received a letter from Toscanelli in reply to one in
which he had proposed his project to the consideration of his
learned fellow-countryman. " I have received your letter," Tos-
canelli wrote, " with the things you sent me, which I regard as
a special favor. I appreciate your high and noble desire to sail
from the east to the west, according to the chart I sent you. I
am glad you understand it, and that the voyage is not only pos-
sible but certain. The honor and profit will be beyond calcula-
tion, and the fame of it great among all Christians." The letter
of Columbus, to which this is a reply, has been lost, but Tosca-
nelli's words make it plain that he was then, eighteen years be-
fore he was finally able to set sail, resolved to follow his plans
of discovery with the courage and strength of will which no ob-
stacles or difficulties could affright or enfeeble. The undertaking
was too great for even the mightiest and wealthiest private in-
dividual ; for, besides men and money and ships, it was neces-
sary to find some sovereign power to claim, hold, and defend the
countries he might discover. Nothing at that time was to be
expected from Portugal, which was engaged in an expensive con-
test for the succession to the throne of Castile ; nor from Genoa,

io COLUMBUS. [Oct.,

which had suffered cruel reverses and was torn by factions ;
nor was there any other country to which he might have looked
for help with any hope of success.

In 1481 John II. ascended tthe throne of Portugal and gave
a new impulse to maritime discovery. He assembled the ablest
astronomers and cosmographers of his kingdom for the purpose
of devising some means to guide ships in unknown waters, under
whatever part of the heavens ; and as a result of their confer-
ences the astrolabe was transferred to the use of navigators. A
ship losing its course need now no longer grope its way back by
the uncertain guidance of the stars. The fear lest, having sailed
^ar into unknown seas, it would be impossible to find the way
home again, need not henceforth trouble those to whom Co-
lumbus might appeal for aid. He therefore proposed his
scheme to King John, and so far impressed him with his ideas
that the matter was referred to a board in charge of maritime
discovery. The board, of course, declared the project to be ex-
travagant and visionary. The king then inquired of his privy
council whether the way pointed out by Columbus was a better
passage to India than the old one along the coast of Africa.
The council decided in favor of the old way ; and a year or
two later, in 1486, Bartholomew Diaz, a Portuguese captain, was
driven by a gale beyond the Cape of Good Hope, which Da
Gama succeeded in passing again in 1497, five years after the
discovery of America.

Columbus left Lisbon in 1484 to visit his aged father, for
whose wants, though poor himself, he piously provided. A little
later we get sight of him begging his way to the court of Spain,
to bring his project to the attention of its rulers.

Isabella does not appear to have been present at his first in-
terview with Ferdinand, in which, having explained his project
to the king, he declared his belief that God had chosen him to
carry it to a successful issue. Ferdinand, who seems to have taken
a not unfavorable view of the matter, declared that before com-
ing to a decision in a scheme of such importance it would be
necessary to consult the men of learning. While waiting for the
council of learned men to assemble, Columbus, as a means of
support, resumed the business of making charts and globes, in
which he had such poor success that at times he was in
want of the necessaries of life, and had it not been for the
kindness of Alonzo de Quintanilla he might have perished of
hunger. This kind friend succeeded in bringing him to the
notice of Cardinal Mendoza, who, next to the king, was the

1892.] COLUMBUS. 11

most powerful man in Spain. The conference called by Ferdi-
nand to consider the proposal of Columbus met at Salaman-
ca, in the convent of St. Stephen, in 1486-87. The greater
number of those who participated in the discussions had, before
any meetings were held, decided in their own minds that the
whole scheme was wild and visionary. Some of them disbe-
lieved in the sphericity of the earth, as being opposed to the
teaching of the Bible ; others ridiculed the notion of the exist-
ence of antipodes, appealing to the authority of St. Augustine ;
and others advanced cosmographical arguments to show that
three years' sailing would not suffice to carry Columbus to the
regions which he hoped to reach. Then the heat of the torrid
zone, it was said, was so excessive that it would be found im-
possible to live in it. If this danger should be escaped and
the ships should reach the nether parts of the earth, what power
would be great enough to bring them up again over the watery
walls of the ocean ?

All this, indeed, was foolish enough, but in an age when the
knowledge of nature was extremely imperfect fanciful considera-
tions carried weight.

" Before Columbus," says Las Casas, " could make them un-
derstand his theory and arguments, he had to remove from their
minds the erroneous principles on which their objections were
founded a more difficult task than teaching truth."

Among these rrken of learning there was, however, at least
one, the Dominican monk Diego Deza, who understood the
man of genius whom others scorned as a dreamer, and whose
courage and intelligence weakened the strength of the arguments
advanced by those whom ignorance and prejudice made certain
they were right.

No decision had been reached when, in the spring of 1487,
Ferdinand and Isabella entered upon another campaign against
the Moors, and laid siege to Malaga, whither Columbus followed
them. Two years passed, while he waited and hoped, wander-
ing from city to city, striving to awaken interest in his cher-
ished enterprise.

In May, 1489, he was summoned to a conference with the
king and queen at Cordova ; but before anything could be done
war was again declared, and Columbus followed the court and
army to the siege of Baza, in which, as Zuniga testifies, he took
part, giving proof of valor and wisdom. Baza was captured, and
Ferdinand and Isabella entered Seville in triumph to celebrate

i2 COLUMBUS. [Oct. r

the victory. During all this time Columbus, though he received
occasional allowances from court, was often in want.

" The Duke of Medina-Celi/' says Las Casas, " knowing that
Columbus was in want of food, commanded that what was
necessary should be given him. To such distress had he come."
From Father Deza also, and Quintanilla, he received assistance.
It was in these years that he was forced to bear the mockeries
and insults of which he complained in the sickness and poverty
of his old age, when he had been abandoned by the people
upon whom he had conferred a glory and a power that kings
cannot give.

The frivolous and thoughtless crowd treated him as a mad-
man, and the children, putting into act the prejudices of their
elders, were accustomed when he passed by to point to their
foreheads as a sign that he was demented.

The capture of Baza was the beginning of the end of the
wars which the Spaniards for centuries had carried on against
the Moorish invaders. The final struggle was at hand, and
whose the victory was to be was not doubtful.

It was not to be expected that, in the midst of the exalta-
tion of spirit which preceded the great national triumph, a pro-
ject like that of Columbus should receive calm and attentive con-
sideration. He, however, fearing lest these wars should still be pro-
longed for years, while he had but a brief space of life in which
to accomplish his God-given task, set his friends to work to ob-
tain from the court a decisive answer before another campaign
should open.

Again the board was called together, and the conclusion
reached was that the project of Columbus was visionary, and
that the weak arguments of such a man should have no force to
persuade great princes to engage in costly and hazardous enter-
prises. Father Deza, however, persuaded the king and queen to
soften the blow by making a report to Columbus in which the
cares and expenses of the war were alleged as a reason for not
taking up his scheme just then, though they hoped in future for
a favorable opportunity to examine thoroughly his project.
When Columbus, little pleased with this report, went to Seville,
to learn from the sovereigns themselves what their decision was,
he was treated with consideration and gentleness, but was told
that what he had heard was true. When, after five years of
hope deferred, he was asked still to wait for an indefinite time,
he grew impatient, and his thoughts turned to the kings of

1892.] COL UMB us. 1 3

France, England, and Portugal, from all of whom he had received
invitations to lay his projects before them.

With this view he set out for Huelva to leave his son Diego,
a boy of twelve years, with his brother-in-law. On his way he
stopped at the convent of Santa Maria de La Rabida, to ask
for bread and water for the child whom he led by the hand.

Whether this was his first or his second visit to La Rabida is
matter of dispute. At all events, he found there in the prior,
Juan Perez de Marchena, a friend who ever after remained stead-
fast in his devotion to himself and his great enterprise.

When the story of the sorrows and disappointments of his
guest had been told the monk bade him take heart, assuring
him that his high dream should yet become a fact.

He sent for Garcia Fernandez, the most learned man in the
neighboring town of Palos, and for Martin Alonzo Pinzon, its
greatest sea-captain, and having with their help and that of Co-
lumbus examined the scheme with all the thoroughness of which
he was capable, he became an enthusiastic believer in its feasibil-
ity. As he had been the queen's confessor, he took the liberty
to write to her to beg her to reconsider her decision. The
letter was entrusted to Sebastian Rodriguez, a shrewd pilot of
Lepi, who delivered it to Isabella, in her camp of Santa Fe,
near Granada.

She was touched by the earnest faith and zeal of the monk,
and bade him come to her without delay. The royal message
was received at sunset, and before midnight Marchena was
astride his borrowed mule on his way to Santa Fe, leaving Co-
lumbus in the convent to await the outcome of his mission.

Admitted to audience, he presented his case with such per-
suasive eloquence that the queen gave orders that Columbus
should return to her, and that he should be provided with what-
ever was necessary to enable him to travel with becoming dig-
nity.

He was as quick to start as Marchena had been, and when
he reached the camp he was commended to the charge of his
old friend, Alonzo de Quintanilla. He arrived just in time to
see the Moorish power, which for eight hundred years had filled
Spain with blood and battle, go down for ever before the war-
riors of Ferdinand and Isabella, who, having received the keys
of Granada from King Boabdil, on the second of January, 1492,
entered the city in triumph four days later, on the Feast of the
Epiphany. Thus Columbus was witness of one of the most im-

o
U

1892.] COLUMBUS. 15

portant and dramatic events of history, and what he then saw
helped to fire his naturally fervid imagination.

When the rejoicings and festivities were at an end, his pro-
ject was again taken up by a royal commission appointed for
this purpose.

Columbus, who for years had been a beggar, a figure for
scorn to point its finger at, now made demands which would
give him rank with princes, and which only kings could grant.
He asked for the title of Admiral of the Ocean, with all the
powers and privileges enjoyed by the admirals of Castile in
their respective districts ; he asked also to be made viceroy and
governor of all the islands and continents he should discover ;
and, in addition to the pay and emoluments of these offices, he
demanded a tenth of the net income of whatever should be
found or exchanged in the new lands ; and finally, he required
that these titles and privileges should be made hereditary in his
family.

As these demands excited both surprise and indignation,
Isabella sought to effect a compromise by offering conditions
which, if less extravagant, were still honorable and profitable.
But Columbus refused to yield, and negotiations were broken off.
The attitude he here assumed need not seem strange, if we bear
in mind the fact that he believed himself called by Heaven to
undertake this work, the accomplishment of which would lead
him to other divinely appointed tasks, not less important, in his
own estimation at least. Not a moment, therefore, did he hesi-
tate, but bestrode his mule and took the road to Cordova, whence
he intended to journey to Paris to lay his plans before the King
of France.

His friends, Alonzo de Quintanilla and Louis de Santangel^
deeply chagrined and disappointed at the turn things had taken r
besought Isabella to consider again the loss of honor and glory
to Spain, if another country should be permitted to reap the
fruits of the discoveries which they all were now persuaded Co-
lumbus would undoubtedly make. His demands, they admitted^
were extravagant, his spirit imperious ; but a wise and mighty
sovereign, when the right moment to engage in an enterprise of
world-wide import had come, need not consider such trifles. If
he succeeded in accomplishing what he promised his reward
could hardly be too great ; but if he failed the loss would be in-
considerable. The appeal to the magnanimity of Isabella pro-
duced its effect. A messenger was despatched to ask Columbus

!6 COLUMBUS. [Oct.,

to return. He overtook him two leagues from Granada, at the
bridge of Finos, on the road to Cordova.

As the thought of all he had suffered, of the delusive pro-
mises by which he had so often been beguiled, flashed across his
mind, he betrayed a momentary hesitancy; then turning his
mule, he rode back to the city. His ascendency was now com-
plete. Isabella succeeded in gaining at least the formal assent
of Ferdinand, and at Santa Fe, on the i/th of April, 1492, they
both signed articles of agreement with Columbus, in which all
his demands were granted. When it was asked whence the
money to fit out the expedition was to be obtained, since the
treasury was empty, Isabella replied : " The enterprise is mine
for the crown of Castile. I pledge my jewels for the funds."

The money was borrowed from the ecclesiastical revenues of
Aragon, and the loan was repaid with the first gold brought
from the New World. On the I2th of May Columbus took
leave of the king and queen and set out for Palos, which had
been selected as the port from which he should sail. In a little
while he found himself again in La Rabida, overlooking the sea-
port, henceforth the most famous, and here with the monks, who
loved him as one of their own, whose habit he was accustomed
to wear in token of his love of them and St. Francis, we, for
the present, leave him.

" There are few," says Landor, " whom God has promoted to
serve the truly great. They are never to be superseded, nor
are their names to be obliterated in earth or heaven." In the
list of these let us here place Queen Isabella, Juan Perez de
Marchena, Diego Deza, Alonzo de Quintanilla, and Louis de
Santangel. There was enough of the heroic and godlike in them
to recognize the heroic and godlike in Columbus. They knew
the man, they knew the right moment, and their names are im-
perishable.

J. L. SPALDING.

Peoria, III.

1892.] THE CHOICE. 17

THE CHOICE.

O LOVER ! filled with glorious joy

Of heart's success,
If in your loving be the base alloy

Of selfishness ;
If for the adored you would not bravely pay

Service of tears,
And prove your stalwart fealty day by day

Turn not this way! '

Lover of life ! if you would never know

Life's meaning deep ;
Or how the maimed and fevered thousands go,

As funerals creep,
Across the hospital's sad threshold borne ;

If too much pain
Comes with the life lived round us day by day

Turn not this way ! .

Image of God ! if you would serve Christ's love

But as you will,
And like the worm with aimless longings move

In darkness still ;
If too much heart's-blood flows when you would pray

Before the Cross,
Where saints their daily tribute duly lay

Turn you away !

ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP.

VOL. LVI. 2

ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. [Oct.,

ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS.

I AGREE in general with what Father Searle has written in
his recent article. This article has suggested, however, the pres-
ent supplement, in which I wish to present some thoughts on
the same topic, but in a different line of reasoning.

After all has been said, there remains in almost every mind
the idea or sentiment, which cannot be driven out, that the ulti-
mate purpose of the universe must be to serve as the habitation
of rational beings. The only question is : whether it is intended
to be the habitation of angels, and men exclusively, or of other
species of rational creatures also ?

The former hypothesis is sufficient for the absolute exigency
of reason, which demands that the material universe should stand
in a due relation to the world of spirits and subserve their util-
ity and happiness.

There is, nevertheless, a probability in favor of the second
hypothesis, and what I wish to do is to show what are the con-
ditions under which we can suppose, in conformity with sound
philosophy and theology, that orders of rational beings other
than angels and men may hereafter people the worlds which fill
actual space.

There have been many speculations on this topic which will
not bear a critical examination. Some fanciful and even silly
attempts have been made to draw a picture of supermundane
states of existence, which are nothing more or less than projec-
tions of earthly conditions into other spheres. More serious, and
Christian speculators, without contradicting any of the doctrines
of faith, have imagined a repetition and multiplication of worlds
and species like our own, with similar conditions of probation
and the same final destiny.

This view is unphilosophical, untheological, and unscriptural.
Whatever detracts from the unity of the universe, in a physical,
intellectual, and moral sense, is unphilosophical. Whatever takes
from the Incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ its
unique pre-eminence as the apex of the creative act, and from
the triumphant church of angels and men its supreme and soli-
tary grandeur as the central and highest kingdom in the univer-
sal empire of Christ, is untheological and unscriptural. The uni-
verse is for the glory of Jesus Christ and his saints, first and

1892.] ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. 19

above all things, and through this glorification of the church,
chiefly, the final cause of creation, the glory of God, is accom-
plished.

The universe, as the dwelling-place of rational beings, is,
therefore, principally the habitation of the glorified angels and
saints. If there are other species of rational creatures who will
hereafter dwell in the countless spheres which revolve in the ce-
lestial spaces, these are subordinated to the glorified princes of
the kingdom of heaven, they are on lower planes of life, and go
to fill up and complete the intellectual and moral empire of
Christ.

Taken in this way, the hypothesis of rational inhabitants of
other worlds, who are of different species from angels and men, is
in harmony with theology, is possible, and even probable. And
it is my present purpose to develop this idea, in order to show
its probability. It will be observed that I speak of the exis-
tence of these orders of rational creatures only as future. For,
not only the absence of all evidence of the habitability of other
worlds, but the positive evidence of the unfitness of those spheres
with which we are acquainted for any kind of life like ours, re-
duces the notion of other inhabited worlds to a mere possibility
and a pure conjecture. But, when we propose the hypothesis
that the celestial orbs are now in the process of evolution and
preparation, to become in future ages the abodes of countless
myriads of intelligent creatures, the whole aspect of the case is
changed. And, as will presently be seen, our ideas of the pro-
bable conditions of life in these worlds undergo very essential
modifications.

Those who speculate about the present and past existence of
intellectual creatures inhabiting other worlds, and who seek to
make their theories conform to Christian doctrine, usually imagine
that the state of things in these worlds is analogous to the con-
dition of the earth, as a probationary sphere. These rational
species are supposed to move on lines parallel to ours, but separ-
ate and independent. They are supposed to be under a similar
dispensation of law and grace, undergoing a moral probation,
and working out their salvation, with a liability to sin, and ex-
posed to all the risks as well as enjoying all the advantages
which have attended the probation of the human race. They
are not subordinated to the end and place of the beatified an-
gels and men in the universal empire of Christ, but are, so to
speak, separate and independent kingdoms.

Now, this is an untheological and unscriptural view. We

20 ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. [Oct.,

must take our departure from the postulate, that the whole uni-
verse has been created for the glory of Jesus Christ, and of those
who are associated with him, i.e., beatified men and angels. All
other intellectual creatures must be ranged in order beneath this
hierarchy and dependent on it.

Moreover, if the worlds are peopled only in the future age,
after the Last Judgment and the general restitution of all things
in Christ, there can be no corruption, decay, death, moral evil,
and therefore no state of probation in them. Their inhabitants
must be perfect, immortal, happy, exempt from all liability to
sin and suffering, by their very nature and the laws of their
being. They cannot, however, have a supernatural destiny, or
be capable of attaining to the beatified vision of God, which is
the exclusive heritage of the adopted sons of God, the glorified
angels and men.

All theologians teach, and all Catholics believe, that God
created the angels and constituted them in grace, that they
might merit supernatural beatitude by fidelity under some trial
of their obedience to which they were subjected. Those who
were faithful were immediately confirmed in grace and exalted
to glory. We believe, also, that men were created and constitut-
ed in grace, that they might through obedience and merit ob-
tain a place among the angels in the glory of heaven, and that,
after the fall of Adam, the way to heaven is open to mankind
through Christ the Redeemer.

All theologians teach, also, that through the Incarnation of
the Son of God in Jesus the Son of Mary, the elect angels and
men have been exalted to a higher state of glory than that
which could have been created if there had been no fall, but
also no Incarnation and no Redemption. All theologians teach
that Jesus Christ is head over angels as well as over men, that
he is the sovereign of the universe, and that Mary, his blessed
Mother, is Queen of Angels, Saints, and the whole universe.
Not only are angels and men glorified in the Incarnation, but
the whole universe is irradiated with a new lustre, all creatures
are exalted and brought nearer to God. In the Incarnation the
creative act of God is brought to its acme, the master-piece of
divine wisdom is accomplished, and the creation attains its Final
Cause in the most sublime possible manner.

The Incarnation of the Eternal Word in Jesus Christ, which
took place on our earth, when he was conceived by the Holy
Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary, is a solitary and unique act,
never to be repeated.

1892.] ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. 21

St. Paul says of Jesus Christ the Son of Mary, our Saviour,
that " God the Father hath translated us into the kingdom of
his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood,
the remission of sins ; who is the image of the invisible God,
the first-born of every creature ; for in him were all things creat-
ed in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones
or dominations, or principalities, or powers ; all things were
created by him and in him : and he is before all ; and by him
all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church ;
who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead ; that in all
things he may hold the primacy. Because in him it hath
well pleased that all fulness should dwell : and through him
to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the
blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth,
and the things that are in heaven" (Coloss. i. 12-20).

All these things are said of Jesus the Son of Mary, who
died on the cross and rose again. It is he who has the primo-
geniture, who is the Father's first and only-begotten Son and
Heir, the Sovereign of the universe, and having no compeer to
divide with him the power.

In Jesus Christ the human race is exalted to the highest
place in the kingdom of God, together with the holy angels who
are ministers of Christ, and the associates of the saints, and
over whom Mary is Queen.

All other orders of intelligent beings, however numerous their
species and great their number, are inferior to the saints, and
subordinated to them. Beatified angels and saints are, in a su-
pernatural order, by adoption sharers with Jesus Christ in his
divine sonship, co-heirs with him. By grace and the light of
glory they have been deified and made partakers of the life and
beatitude of God, in an ineffable union with the Blessed Trinity.

This is the exclusive privilege of angels and men ; and there
is not the slightest probability that any other intelligent beings
will ever be elevated to the plane of supernatural grace and
glory.

The merit and grace of Christ suffice, indeed, being infinite,
to extend the privileges of the supernatural order to countless
worlds ; if such were the will of God. But we have no right to
suppose anything of the kind. First, because there is no proof
of it in revelation. Second, because there is negative proof to
the contrary.

In rational nature there is no inherent right and no exigency
for supernatural grace and glory. Grace is a purely gratuitous

22 ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. [Oct.,

gift. It is so great that one could not imagine it, much less
believe that it has been granted, unless we were 'taught of God
by a divine revelation. As, therefore, the hypostatic union of
the uncreated and created natures in the Person of Jesus Christ,
and the exaltation of Mary to be the Mother of God, are unique
facts, so also the formation of a society of intelligent beings in
the order of supernatural grace is, a priori, a fact which must
be regarded as unique. The reason of being for such an order,
the exemplar idea in the mind of God of a universe raised to
the apex of metaphysical possibility, the purpose of glorifying
himself in the highest and best act of creative wisdom and good-
ness, are fully satisfied and accomplished, by the formation of
one society of glorified beings composed of angels and men.

Moreover, the Catholic Church is the Body of Christ, and the
Bride of Christ. This is so continually affirmed in the apostolic
writings that it is needless to quote texts. Now, Christ has
only one body and one bride. The church militant on earth be-
comes the church triumphant in heaven. The angels of heaven
belong to it already, but there are no embodied spirits belonging
to this society, except those who have been prepared for it by
receiving the grace of regeneration in the church militant on earth.

St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, repeating the statement
which has been quoted above from another epistle, that Jesus
Christ has the absolute pre-eminence and sovereign dominion in
the whole creation ; adding to it, that the extension and com-
plement of his Incarnation is found in the Catholic Church.

" That you may know what is the exceeding greatness of his
power towards us, who believe according to the operation of the
might of his power, which he wrought in Christ, raising him up
from the dead, and setting him at his right hand in the heavenly
places ; above all principality and power, and virtue and do-
minion, and every name that is named, not only in this world,
but also in that which is to come. And hath put all things
under his feet ; and hath made him head over all the church,
which is his body, and the fulness of him who filleth all in all"
(Eph. ii. 14-23).

This language is decisive and exclusive. The Incarnation has
its entire and full complement in the church composed of hu-
man beings, inhabitants of the earth which was his birth-place,
and his blood-relations by a common descent from Adam. There
is no room left vacant for the denizens of other worlds, and no
addition can be made to absolute plenitude.

The only plane of being which can be occupied by rational

1892.] ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. 23

creatures, the inhabitants of other worlds, is the plane of pure
nature, in which their destiny is fulfilled by the possession of
natural beatitude.

There is no reason to suppose that such beings, if they ex-
ist, are in a state of probation, liable to sin, or subject to suffering
of any kind.

The existence of evil, especially moral evil, in the world is
the greatest and most perplexing of all the problems which
philosophers and theologians have been always trying to solve.
It is not reasonable to suppose this anomaly to have any great-
er extension than we know it to have. It is congruous to a
true idea of the goodness of God to suppose that he will per-
mit only the minimum of evil, which will suffice for the fulfil-
ment of the purpose he has in view in permitting rational crea-
tures to abuse their free-will. It is a very common and grievous
error, that free-will necessarily involves liability to sin. On the
contrary, this liability is a defect of liberty. The blessed in
heaven have free-will and are impeccable. Jesus and Mary have
always from the beginning of their existence had free-will, and
they were impeccable. God has free-will, but it is impossible
for him to sin.

As a consequence of the error just noted, it is commonly
concluded that rational beings can attain moral perfection and
felicity only through probation, in which by struggle and effort
they acquire habits of virtue. This is not so. There are multi-
tudes of infants who die before they are capable of moral re-
sponsibility, and who never have any probation. All these hu-
man beings pass into a state of perpetual felicity, either natural
or supernatural, without ever having run any risk of committing
actual sin.

Liability to sin arises from a defect of intelligence, and a con-
sequent variability of will in the choice between the true good,
and evil under the guise of apparent good. If intelligence is
perfect it cannot mistake apparent for real good, and therefore
the will can only choose those things which are in harmony
with its chief object of desire, viz., the supreme good. Give a
rational creature an unerring knowledge of good, with rec-
titude of will, and it cannot sin. Give it a complete possession
of all the good it naturally desires, and it cannot suffer.

It is perfectly easy for God to create rational beings in this
perfection, and to give them perfect felicity, by an act of gra-
tuitous goodness, without requiring of them to do anything to
deserve or acquire this state of perfection.

2 4 ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. [Oct.,

He has not taken this course with angels and men. He has
chosen to create them in an imperfect state, a state of equilibri-
um between good and evil, and to require them to determine
themselves to good, in order to acquire a state of everlasting
felicity by their own, personal merit. To adapt the language of
a German writer, used in respect to another subject, to the
present case : " He gave into the hand of human liberty a
mighty two-edged sword ; a sword equally sharp for good and
evil: for the battle in behalf of virtue and truth, and the war-
fare of sin and error."

The only possible motive which could have determined the
Divine Will to place this dangerous weapon in the hands of his
creatures was a greater good to be obtained by the victory of
good over evil, than that which would be gained by keeping
evil entirely aloof from the rational creation. This good is am-
ply secured by the warfare of good with evil jn the angelic and
human spheres. There is no reason, therefore, for supposing any
permission of sin and the evils consequent upon it in any other
worlds inhabited by rational beings.

If we assume that the worlds will be peopled only after the
Last Judgment, it is certain that they are not the theatre of
probation, a conflict between good and evil.

Holy Scripture teaches that a day is coming of the restora-
tion, the restitution of all things.

" Jesus Christ, whom heaven indeed must receive until the
times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by
the mouth of his holy prophets, from the beginning of the
world" (St. Peter in Acts iii. 20, 21).

St. Paul writes : " Afterwards the end, when he shall have
delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, when he shall
have abolished all principality, and authority, and power. For
he must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet.
And the enemy death shall be destroyed last ; for he hath put
all things under his feet. And whereas he saith, all things are
put under him ; undoubtedly, he is excepted, who put all things
under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him,
then the Son also himself shall be subject to him who subjected
all things to himself, that God may be all in all " (i Cor. xv. 24-28).

Here a temporary administration of the world by Jesus
Christ, whose purpose is to carry on to a final victory the war-
fare between the powers of good and the powers of evil, is ex-
plicitly declared. After the victory the warfare ceases, the ad-
ministration of the church militant is closed, the army is dis-

1892.] ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. 25

banded. The kingdom of the elect is consummated in the
beatific union with God, the work of the Redeemer is finished
and God is all in all.

Evidently, when this takes place, all rebellion is quelled for
ever, all creatures are subject to the law of God, and his sov-
ereign will reigns supreme throughout the universe. This is ex-
plicitly declared by St. Paul in another place.

" Christ Jesus being in the form of God, thought it no rob-
bery himself to be equal to God ; but debased himself, taking
the form of a servant, being made to the likeness of men, and
in shape found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obe-
dient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God
also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above
every name : that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow
of those that are in heaven, on earth, and in hell ; and that
every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the
glory of God the Father (Philipp. ii. 5-11).

As God, Jesus Christ reigns over the world equally with the
Father and the Holy Spirit. As man, he is the head of the
creation, and next to him are his saints.

But the whole inferior creation shares with them in the " re-
stitution of all things."

" The Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are
the sons of God. And if sons, heirs also ; heirs indeed of God,
and joint heirs with Christ. ... For I reckon, that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be com-
pared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us.
For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation
of the sons of God. For the creature (i.e., the creation) was
made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him
that made it subject in hope : because the creature also itself
shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, unto the
liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know
that every creature groaneth, and is in labor even until now "
(Rom. viii. 16-22).

A regeneration awaits the universe. " I saw a new heaven
and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth was
passed away " (Apoc. xxi. i).

The co-heirs with Christ are, under him, the lords of this re-
novated universe. If its spheres have their own proper inhabi-
tants, they are doubtless physically, intellectually, and morally
perfect, enjoying a perfect and perpetual felicity. And the
beatified sons of God rule over them.

26 ANOTHER WORD ON OTHER WORLDS. [Oct.,

The saints reign with Christ. In a parable, the Lord repre-
sents the king's faithful servants as receiving power to rule over
five or ten cities. In the Apocalypse, he promises to the one
who shall overcome and keep his works unto the end : " I will
give him the morning-star" (Apoc. ii. 28).

It is difficult to imagine how dominion over empty stars,
whether suns or planets, can afford enjoyment and occupation
to the saints in heaven. What is a kingdom or a city without
inhabitants? If these worlds are going to be peopled with in-
telligent inhabitants after the " restitution of all things," they
will find their supreme felicity in the natural knowledge and
natural love of God. Since they will not have the immediate,
intuitive vision of the divine essence, they can only enjoy an
abstractive contemplation of the divine perfections, as manifested
in the creation. The angels and saints of heaven are the best
works of God, and in them his perfections are more splendidly
reflected than in all inferior creatures. What is more reasonable
than the hypothesis that the glorious saints rule over smaller or
larger worlds, over systems of worlds, and systems of systems, in
a regular gradation and hierarchy. They are kings, priests, and
mediators for the countless multitudes of intelligent and happy
beings who fill up the boundless universe of God, and people
the outlying provinces of the kingdom of Christ.

This hypothesis removes a difficulty which besets our imagi-
nation, when we try to conceive of the life, activity, and occu-
pation of the blessed. Assuredly, their essential beatitude con-
sists in the contemplation of God. But besides the light of glory
and the faculty of the intuitive vision of God, they have all
their natural faculties, and all natural and supernatural virtues.
What scope is there, besides the beatific contemplation of God,
for their activity ?

The theory I have set forth answers this question in a cer-
tain way, and more intelligibly than any other hypothesis.

It cannot be demonstrated scientifically or philosophically,
neither can we pretend that it is explicitly revealed. It is a
theory, and only a theory. But it will be difficult to show that
it is improbable, and to very many it will appear to be extreme-
ly probable, as well as beautiful and fascinating.

AUGUSTINE F. HEWIT.

Catholic University, Washington, D.C.

1892.] IN RETREAT. 27

IN RETREAT.

WITHIN the gate I stand, and wait
Although full well I know the way ;

I love to feel the quiet steal
Upon me, as it did that day

When first my feet sought this retreat,
And when my soul first learned to' pray.

I greet each saint that sweet and faint
Smiles down upon me from the walls ;

Within their eyes I recognize
The spirit that my spirit calls ;

I leave all pain, and thoughts of gain,
Out where the burning sunlight falls.

In prayer and praise the precious days,
Relieved from every sordid care,

So quietly go slipping by

That each one seems a vision fair

Of cloister dim, and vesper hymn,
And sweet nun faces bent in prayer.

Ah, me ! full soon, at morn or noon,
I must repass these kindly doors ;

And grieve to feel that I shall kneel
No more upon these dear old floors ;

Nor breathe the air, all sweet with prayer,
Within these long, dim corridors.

But the dear Christ, whose grace sufficed
The martyrs and the saints to bless,

Will watch my way, though far I stray,
And though my erring feet shall press

The downward road that leads from God,
And far into the wilderness.

MARGRET HOLMES.

Indianapolis, Ind.

28 How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? [Oct.,

HOW SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED?

MR. W. T. HARRIS is the United States Commissioner of
Education. Naturally he should be looked upon as a compe-
tent authority in this field in all its aspects. Hence there need
be no surprise that he should write on the education of the
Negro. This he has done in the June number of the Atlantic,
But his article is more than the embodiment of one man's views,
however competent, for in a foot-note the reader is told that it
had been sent " in advance of publication to several gentlemen
whose position and experience especially qualify them to com-
ment on the assertions made and the suggestions offered."
Among them were the Hon. R. L. Gibson, senator from Louisi-
ana ; the Hon. J. L. M. Curry, chairman of the educational
committee of the John F. Slater Fund, which is for the indus-
trial education of the negroes ; Philip A. Bruce, Esq., editor of
the Richmond (Va.) Times and author of The Plantation Negro
as a Freeman; and Lewis H. Blair, Esq., of Richmond, Va., a
well-known friend of the colored race. This article, then, is
worthy of a careful study.

The first principle laid down by Mr. Harris might be written
in letters of gold : " The religious idea at the bottom of our
civilization is the missionary idea " which he also calls a spirit
of divine charity. " For," he writes, " the Eternal Word tasted
of death and descended into Hades, the very nadir of the
Divine, to make it possible for finite beings to ascend into par-
ticipation with him and to grow for ever into his image " (p.
721). It is in the light of this religious principle, he contends,
that any problem relating to the negroes or other down-trodden
race must be discussed. And Mr. Harris is careful to strengthen
his position by a strong quotation from Robert C. Winthrop,
president of the board of trustees of the Peabody Fund, who
is most emphatic that in all common schools for colored chil-
dren, notwithstanding that they may have industrial, agricultural,
and mechanical departments, the only needful thing is religious
and moral influence.

If, indeed, Darwin, Comte, and Herbert Spencer, whom the
United States Commissioner of Education professes to follow,
teach the divine altruism, they do so more from the influence
of the Christian atmosphere that surrounds them than from any

1892.] How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? 29

principle of their own. Long before them, the Eternal Word
made Flesh, of whom Mr. Harris writes so reverently, had said
that a cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple should
not go unrewarded, and who, moreover, had made this altruism
the standard of judgment, so much insisted upon in our days, as
if it were anything new. " Come, ye blessed of my Father,
possess ye the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat ; I was
thirsty, and you gave me to drink ; I was a stranger, and you
took me in ; naked, and you covered me ; sick, and you visited
me. . . . Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one
of these my least brethren, you did it to me" (Matt. xxv. 35).

And religion, the protector of the deepest principle of our
civilization, is confirmed, so Mr. Harris affirms, by the scientific,
political, and social movements of our age, inasmuch as all agree
in the noble teaching that the lowest must be uplifted by the
highest lifted up into self-activity and full development of indi-
viduality (p. 722).

This, too, has ever been the aim of the Catholic missionary.
It was to raise up the pagan Irish that Patrick left the studious
cloisters of sea-girt Lerins ; it was to elevate the hardy Ger-
manic races that Boniface toiled and died along the banks of
the Rhine ; it was this spirit that drove Xavier from the ros-
trum of the University of Paris to be tossed about in a frail
boat by the simoons of the Japanese seas. Again, this same love
of his fellow-man, created in the image and likeness of his Ma-
ker, led Peter Claver to turn his back on sunny Spain in order
to strike off the shackles of Satan from the souls of forty thou-
sand negro slaves who landed at Carthagena, South America.

Let us, Catholics, thank the official head of education in our
land for recognizing religion as the sure foundation of the su-
perstructure erf citizenship and civilization.

Well, too, may St. Joseph's Seminary for the colored missions
be grateful. For by this standard its work is surely of the
right stamp. In fact, after the love of souls, few better argu-
ments for its existence can be found than that "the religious
idea at the bottom of our civilization is the missionary idea."
St. Joseph's Seminary is both religious and missionary. Its
work is to form the priests who, as missionaries, will plant reli-
gion in the hearts of the colored people. Every Catholic recog-
nizes the need of the seminary ; for Holy Mother Church in the
long run will impart the efficacious energy which will quicken
and elevate the negro race. Hence the little mustard-seed of

30 How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? [Oct.,

the seminary should receive every encouragement in men and
means. All of us should share in this missionary effort to evan-
gelize the unhappy progeny of Ham. Youths who have an in-
clination for this neglected portion of the Master's vineyard
should be encouraged. To send a few men from a diocese to
the colored missions will tend rather to multiply the home force
than to weaken it. And the faithful to whom our Lord has
given other duties and calls should be missionaries by their
alms, either in having a representative in this apostolate or by
helping towards it in some other way.

It is unnecessary to follow the Commissioner of Education in
his brief history of the American negroes and their progress
from the introduction of slavery up to emancipation. No doubt
contact with their masters tended to inoculate them in a mea-
sure with Christian principles ; but hardly to the degree that
Mr. Harris admits when he writes " that the negro of the
South is not an African in his inner consciousness, but an
American who has acquired our Anglo-Saxon consciousness in
its American type through seven generations of domestic servi-
tude in the family of a white master " (p. 723).

In a foot-note Senator Gibson- doubts this statement, while
Mr. Bruce denies it emphatically. The last-named gentleman
says : " The negro is essentially an African in the controlling
tendencies of his character. The unfortunate misconception that
the Southern negro of to-day is simply an ignorant white man
with a black skin is," etc. (p. 723, note 3).

Undoubtedly the colored race have their peculiarities,
which time, education, and religion may soften, but can hardly
efface. Every people among us play their part in moulding the
type of character known as American, as Mr. Bruce notes in
the passage already quoted. " The grandsons of Americans,
Germans, and Englishmen differ but little, if at all, in the basis
of their character " (Ibid.)

This, however, is the outcome of the natural, happy way in
which all races of whites blend together in our land. If the
negroes lived familiarly with the whites they would no doubt
leave their impress on the general type, and be themselves in
turn greatly modified. But as long as they are set apart and
hindered from intermingling with other races no great change
in their racial characteristics may be looked for, nor can any
marked influence on the American character be expected from
them. It is not the agglomeration of peoples which produces a
national character. It is very much more. It is the national

1892.] Ho w SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? 31

life which permeates all the inhabitants, provoking the same as-
pirations and uniting the children and the children's children of
divers races in common interests, domestic, social, and public.

For weal or woe, the negroes, by local laws and general
antipathy, by our apathy and our prejudice, are shut out from
exerting much influence on the American character, while in
consequence they perpetuate their own type with but impercepti-
ble changes. And what those changes are to be few whites can
tell.

" No longer here the crude
And unformed features of a savage face ;
But in those pleading eyes a kindred race
Asks for the highway out of servitude.

" Like as the Amazon

With mighty currents marks the ocean's hue
Until her leagues of tide blend with the blue,
So do these patient millions still press on.

" Two hundred weary years
Of burden-bearing in a shadowed path,
And yet no hand is raised in cruel wrath,
And all their wrongs evoke as yet but tears."

And Mr. Harris fears that if the colored people are left to
themselves they will fall back to fetichism, which he claims is
the " elemental or first form of religion that arises among con-
scious beings." This is an unfortunate slip, for it contradicts
sound historical research and the dictates of healthy philosophy,
both of which lead up to monotheism as the primitive religion.
Does Mr. Harris mean openly to profess Agnosticism ?

According to the United States Commissioner of Education,
the chief problem of the Southern negroes " is to retain the ele-
vation acquired through the long generations of domestic sla-
very, and to superimpose on it the sense of personal responsi-
bility, moral dignity, and self-respect which belongs to the con-
scious ideal of the white race. Those acquainted with the free
negro of the South, especially with the specimens at school and
college, know that he is as capable of this higher civilization as
in slavery he was capable of faithful attachment to the interests
of his master " (p. 724). All this we should express differently.
The chief problem is to bring out what is good in the negro ;
as also to add to and build upon whatever benefit he may have

32 How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? [Oct.,

derived from contact with the whites. Among his natural traits,
however, must be reckoned the sense of personal responsibility,
which he has because his nature is essentially good and rational,
and his conscience an inborn faculty. But there is a higher
problem. It is the fitting of the negro for his future destiny
the eternal possession of God. This is his true calling, as it is
that of the white man. The same final end awaits us all, white
and black ; the same Judge, the same standards of judgment,
the same sentence of weal or woe. In this eternal call is em-
braced the reason why of the perfection of all the negro's fac-
ulties, in accord with the dictates of reason and revelation, while
at the same time his advance towards his heavenly country is
his best progress in his earthly career. The more the colored
race is elevated in grace and virtue the better citizens they
will prove themselves to be.

It must be remembered that the soul, as a spiritual substance,
is simple and one. As it receives the light of truth it is called
understanding, and as it is an active power it is called the will.
Now, the human will is the subject of virtue, both natural and
Christian ; nor, again, is the force of the will more than the foun-
dation of virtue. Let its strength be directed rightly and virtue
is the outcome, but if wrongly it generates vice. While, then,
virtues are not born with us, but have to be acquired, yet man
has the foundation for them in the image of God, which he is,
in his soul's powers, and in the light of reason. Such is the
groundwork of virtues in the natural man ; although they go not
beyond the bounds of nature, they yet grow into habits by ex-
ercise the strengthener of all good inclinations. Man naturally
is capable of knowing God as the Creator and Ruler of this world,
and as the Judge who will reward the good and punish the
wicked ; yet his natural virtues can never bring his soul into
beatific union with God. This is the work of Christian virtue,
born of the grace of Christ. How vast the difference between
the natural man and the Christian ! So enormous is it, that no
natural power can possibly raise the soul to God. To effect this
union a divine energy must come dpwn from God and quicken
the soul, purifying and sanctifying man's nature, strengthening
and attracting him to rise above himself in mind and heart by
the pouring into his soul of divine strength, which by the con-
sent and co-operation of his own will he makes his own. This
is the mystery of grace.*

Now, the negroes will never learn this need of divine grace in

* Ullathorne's Groundwork of Christian Virtues, Lect. II., passim.

1892.] How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? 33

the ordinary curriculum of school-work. The most to be hoped
for is the betterment of their natural powers ; but that is not
enough. It is true that the two orders, nature and grace, like
the double movement of the engine, act and react upon each
other. Grace is always at work on every son of Adam, but men
must be taught to value its need. And it is not too much to
add that the education of the negroes in regard to their eternal
destiny is all too much neglected. They hardly enjoy those
Christian traditions and influences which hover over every white
child, and hence they require fuller and clearer instruction with
regard to their souls' interests.

The next question is the educational means for the negro's
progress. Mr. Harris assigns three steps, up which the colored
race must go in order to land on that higher stage which will
make them good citizens : religious, intellectual, and industrial
education. Mr. Bruce, in his comment upon this portion of Mr.
Harris's article, puts industrial education in the second place, and
thus continues : " An ideal public-school system for the Southern
negroes for many generations to come would be a system under
the operation of which each school-house would be devoted to
the religious instruction of the colored pupils, with a sufficient
amount of industrial training to impart habits of industry, and a
sufficient amount of intellectual training to facilitate the inculca-
tion of the religious teachings. As far as possible the public-
school system should be made supervisory of the moral life of the
pupils " (note 5, p. 724).

Strike out the word " public " in these remarks, and there
is a fair description of what Catholic schools for colored chil-
dren should be. But no school system, Catholic or otherwise,
conducted as the schools now are, can do what Mr. Bruce de-
mands when he insists that the school should take the place of
parental authority. For the school has the child under its con-
trol five hours daily during five days ; in round numbers, one day
out of seven. And should the child attend church and Sunday-
school, which is the exception among the negroes, then at most
it is but two days under the teacher's influence, while the other
five are spent in the unhappy surroundings that make the
" quarters " in the country and the alleys and slums in the
city.

Granted that the teachers are all that is desirable, entering

into the true spirit of their noble vocation and laboring for the

inoculation and adoption of home life, so that what to eat, what

to wear, how to cook, how to provide and preserve home con-

VOL. LVI. 3

34 How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? [Oct.,

veniences and comforts, how to lay by for a rainy day, are in-
doctrinated, ingrained, and made habitual (Mr. J. L. M. Curry,
No. 7, p. 724), still they will fall far short of what is needed
for the entire formation of character. At most, teachers give
two days to the task ; both parents, as a rule, are out to work ;
meanwhile four, five, six, or even more children are left, day by
day, to manage as best they can their own dressing, washing,
and housework. And when at nightfall the father and mother
return, they are too utterly worn out to attempt to teach or
train their little ones, supposing indeed they are capable of it.
For this training* we Catholics are looking forward to the work
of sisterhoods. Sisters who now make the rounds of the alleys
of Baltimore are astonished at the eagerness displayed in the
wretched hovels of the blacks for instruction in household duties,
as also in religion. Teaching sisters will plant the germ of the
domestic virtues in the school-room, which will germinate in the
homes, while other sisters will ably second their work by day-
nurseries, mother's meetings, house-to-house visits, etc.

Very little can be done without the co-operation of the ne-
groes themselves. The men should receive wages enough to al-
low the wives and mothers to remain at home ; but even more
important still, the earnings of the family should go into a com-
mon fund. By their unhappy custom of every wage-earner keep-
ing his or her money, a bone of contention divides almost
every colored family. The common purse is a valuable ele-
ment of unity and peace in the family. It helps very much
to foster the home spirit. To perpetuate this wretched heir-
loom of slavery, no more efficient means could be devised
than the innumerable beneficial and insurance societies that
prey upon these simple people. The talisman of a gorgeous
funeral, so dear to the Ethiopian breast, is the successful bait
held out by their agents, nearly all white men. The upshot of
this avaricious spirit is the neglect of thrifty habits, and we are
of accord with Mr. Blair (p. 725) when he declares that no mat-
ter what the negro's education may be, he never will be a man
until he learns thrift, which both Mr. Harris and Mr. Blair hope
to see fostered by means of postal savings-banks, while the for-
mer thinks industrial education will tend to create the thirst of
saving.

While these gentlemen agree in regard to the need of thrift,
they differ on another matter, and one of importance. Mr. Harris
believes in the growth and spread of manufacturing industries in
the South ; Mr. Blair, on the other hand, denies this growth,

1892.] How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? 35

alleging what seems a strange reason, viz., that manufactures
flourish only in a cool climate. Be that as it may, in fact the
South is agricultural and the vast bulk of the negro race live in
the country. Fully six out of the seven millions of them in the
South dwell beyond the confines of cities. Of all industrial train-
ing, perhaps agriculture would best serve the colored people.
We have been told that in the schools of Canada and Ireland
the pupils have to study elementary works on agriculture. The
same might be done with advantage in all, negro schools. Great
agricultural colleges, even, modelled after the well-known schools
of France, would serve to develop the negroes in harmony with
their environment. It seems quite natural that the proportion of
negroes learning trades or professions, and otherwise fitting them-
selves for city life, should bear some ratio to their urban popu-
lation. Unhappily few of them are being trained for farming and
planting. They have a monopoly of Southern plantation work,
and it is a pity that they are not taught to make the most of
it. Nor should their training in agricultural pursuits be with a
view of keeping up the old-time methods of Southern farming :
" Run the plough over it, throw in a little corn, and that'll do
till next year," as the saying is in many parts of the South.
Farming must be made attractive and money-making. If negro
youths find out that they can get along as well on the farm as
in the city, they will not drift to the latter, to their ruin for time
and eternity.

Notwithstanding the lack of agricultural training, the efforts
made for the industrial training of colored youths of both sexes
cannot be too highly commended. And it is a subject of deep
pain that in this matter no Catholic effort, worthy the name,
has as yet been attempted. Although race prejudice meets these
youths in regard even to trades, still time and union on their
part will surely work the desired change of feeling. In all this
discussion, however, the underlying principle should be^the deca-
logue. Give the negroes as much of industrial training as you
please, the ground is sapped beneath their feet unless it is built
upon the eternal tablets of Sinai. Mr. Harris writes well and
truthfully of how science is the seed-corn and artisan skill the
baked bread, but he should have added that the decalogue is the
barm. He shows how the directive power of man, his skill in
organizing and combining, raise up ideals, whence he may con-
struct better conditions of life ; but all this without morality
would be worse than useless ; yea, positively mischievous.

Turning now to the intellectual education of the negro, the

36 How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? [Oct.,

United States Commissioner of Education insists on the necessity
of a well-educated colored clergy, who should ward off the dan-
gers of a relapse of their people into fetichism and all manner of
degrading superstitions, and who should be abreast of the times.
On this subject the following is Mr. Bruce's comment : " The im-
provement of the education of the negro preachers is even more
important than the improvement of the character of negro teach-
ers ; but it is an end more difficult to reach, because the preach-
ers cannot be selected, like the teachers. As a rule, the pres-
ent spiritual guides of the Southern negroes are self-appointed.
The most feasible plan for promoting this improvement of char-
acter seems to be the establishment of a large number of semi-
naries, to be controlled absolutely by the white religious denomi-
nations. A second Peabody or Slater, instead of leaving a large
fund for the advancement of the normal schools for the Southern
negroes, should set aside the same amount for establishing new
seminaries for the education of negro preachers or enlarging the
scope and improving the methods of those already in existence"

(P- 732).

The strength of this passage may be understood from a
statement made in the Independent by a negro preacher, that
two-thirds of his cloth are immoral. Remember, moreover, that
the Southern negroes who are Baptists and Methodists, the sects
most numerous among them, are separated from the whites of
the same denominations : bishops and preachers, elders and dea-
cons, the brethren and sisters, each and all being colored.

All of Mr. Harris's ideas on the need of an educated clergy
have ever been recognized by the Catholic Church, even in re-
gard to the colored race. For she consecrates the swarthy hands
of the sable sons of Ham, and even finds them fit for the au-
reole of the saint, placing them on her altars for her children's
reverence and intercession. Nor should we overlook the enco-
mium paid by Mr. Harris, our official head of education, on the
study of Latin and Greek (p. 733). Latin is the language of
the Catholic Church, which has carried the stentorian sounds of
imperial Rome's tongue farther by whole continents than her
conquering eagles ever were borne. With that language have
also come down to us, by means of the untiring labors of the
mediaeval cloister, the classic literature of the world's mistress,
and, what seems of more importance, her Jaws and jurisprudence,
which we in part follow in these United States. The negro
priests of the Catholic Church must be masters of Latin, like
their white sacerdotal brethren, and able to handle Greek surfi-

1892.] How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? 37

ciently to read at least the inspired pages, which were written
in that language.

Mr. Harris concludes his valuable study on the negro's edu-
cation with a table of statistics which deserves our very serious
perusal. It gives the number of scholars in the various schools,
public and private, in which intellectual and religious training is
imparted, together with the valuation of their properties :

TABLE OF STATISTICS.

Grades, No. of Scholars. Value of Property.

Secondary schools, 11,480 $549,865

Normal schools, 7462 1,224,130

Universities and colleges, .... 5,040 1,816,550

Theological seminaries, 1,008 252,500

Law schools, 42 40,000

Medical schools, 241 80,000

Institutions for deaf, blind, . . . 287

Total, 25,530 $4,024,545

We must bear well in mind that neither industrial, nor gram-
mar, nor primary common schools are included in the above list.
Moreover, at the Lake Mohonk conference of 1890 or 1891 it
was publicly announced that since the war the various Protestant
denominations have spent on the negroes $35,000,000. To this
sum add the $50,000,000 spent by the Southern States, accord-
ing to Mr. Harris (p. 734), and the figures are stupendous.

Now, in connection with these startling figures four points
deserve special notice :

First. Of those 25,530 pupils in negro schools it is safe to
say that not two hundred are Catholics.

Second. Of all the institutions given in the list not one is
Catholic, save one or two of the secondary schools. Not one of
the normal schools, not one university or college or seminary or
law school or medical school, none of the deaf and blind insti-
tutions, can claim to be the offspring of Holy Mother Church.

Third. The Southern States, excepting Louisiana, must be
put down as non-Catholic both in their white and black popula-
tions. It cannot be too much insisted upon that beyond the
Potomac and Ohio the country is more Protestant than Saxony,
Luther's home, or Geneva, the worshipper of Calvin. In fact,
there are more Catholics in Baltimore City alone than in all the
country east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio and Poto-
mac, leaving out Kentucky and Louisiana almost one-fourth of

38 How SHALL THE NEGRO BE EDUCATED? [Oct.,

our country. Alas! the Catholic Church of the South is an in-
significant factor.

Fourth. There is no Catholic fund like those which Protes-
tants draw upon to spend on the negroes. In fact, most of the
support given to the missionaries and sisters laboring among the
negroes is raised by themselves ; and that, indeed, " in much pa-
tience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses, in labors, in
watchings, in fastings, in long-suffering, through honor and dis-
honor, through good report and ill-report." True, an annual
collection of $80,000 hardly one cent from every American
Catholic is made yearly. But this sum is halved with the In-
dians, while for the share belonging to the negroes there are
some twenty-odd claimants, who have to subdivide their portion
into very small sums in order to reach all interested. Such a
paltry sum and $80,000 from 8,000,000 Catholics is a paltry
sum should find its way yearly from every one of the ten lead-
ing cities of the North to the episcopal commission in charge
of the negroes and Indians. A million a year could well be
spent on the evangelization of the negroes alone.

Usguequo, Domine, usquequo f How is it that we find no pub-
lic spirit among us like that which animates our non-Catholic
countrymen ? Where are our Catholic Slaters, and Hands, and
Peabodys ? Surely we love our holy religion and appreciate its
blessings ; surely God has been good to us in these United
States, that we should be grateful and evince our gratitude in do-
ing something for his forgotten ones.

Millions of souls are at our door crying out to us for the
Bread of Life. Those unhappy blacks are our Lazarus, but let
us not be their Dives.

J. R. SLATTERY.

St. Joseph's Seminary for the Negro Missions,
Baltimore, Md.

1892.] THE CRY OF HUMANITY.

THE CRY OF HUMANITY.
I.

" HARK ! heard you wailing of voices,
Yonder, far off, in the night ? "

" Nay ; 'twas the wind hoarsely shouting,
Tossing the pines on the height.''

" Stay ! I hear treble of children,
Tremulous, piercing with pain ! "

" Peace ! ' tis the tribe of the marshes
Pleading with heaven for rain."

" Hark that way ! women are sobbing,
Beating their breasts as they moan."

" Hush ! ' tis the lake in the valley,
Pulsing on shingle and stone,"

II.

Yet in the soul of the list'ner
Voices are murmuring still

Neither the waves, nor the marshes,
Nor the wild winds on the hill.

Deeper his spirit is harking :
Under the symbol and sign

Hears he the meaning that shapes it
Thy yearning, brother, and mine !

Up from the world, blindly whirling,

Rises humanity's cry,
Nature's vast voices its echo ;

Hear it, O Father, on high !

JAMES BUCKHAM.

40 LAS CASAS' NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

LAS CASAS' NARRATIVE OF THE VOYAGE OF
DISCOVERY.

IN January, 1492, Isabella the Catholic entered into an agree-
ment with Columbus to furnish him with three caravels, with
which he might travel westward to discover the Indies. As the
royal treasury was empty, she offered to pawn the jewels of her
wardrobe to obtain the necessary funds. It was not, however,
found necessary to do so, as Lewis Santangel, the treasurer of
the Kingdom .of Aragon, offered to advance, as a loan, one
million maravedis to get the expedition ready. It was not,
however, until the i/th- of April that the necessary royal de-
crees were formally drawn. That i/th of April should be
(observes a modern Spanish writer) a memorable date in history.
It ends and seals the Middle Ages, and begins the modern era.
The royal decrees were five in number.

By the first, Christopher Columbus was created, ipso facto,
admiral of the ocean and of all the lands he might discover.

By the second, he was made viceroy and , perpetual governor
of the same.

By the third, one-tenth of all the profits accruing from fu-
ture discoveries was granted in perpetuity to the discoverer.

By the fourth, exclusive jurisdiction was given to his own
admiralty court in all lawsuits that might arise concerning the
foregoing privileges.

By the fifth, the right was granted him of having an eighth
interest in all future expeditions of a commercial nature if he
chose to pay a corresponding share of the necessary expenses.

'To facilitate the armament, provisioning, and manning of the
fleet it was also ordered that the city of Palos should furnish
two of the three ships free of charge, " as a punishment for
certain deeds " against the crown, of which it had been ad-
judged guilty ; that all goods necessary be furnished free of
taxes and at reasonable prices, and that all criminal prosecutions
of persons who would accompany Columbus on his voyage be
suspended until two months after their return.

All these royal mandates notwithstanding, when Columbus
arrived in Palos, on the 23d of May, he found it extremely
difficult to make any headway in the necessary preparations ;
first, because very few, if any, offered to become companions in

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 41

the perilous undertaking ; and second, because the sum of one
million maravedis (about fifty-eight thousand dollars) supplied
by Santangel was found insufficient. The Pinzon brothers, pro-
minent merchant sailors of Palos, came to his assistance with
their influence, their own personal services, and by taking a
share in the undertaking. Columbus's money (advanced him,
very probably, by his Genoese merchant friends of the city of Se-
ville, or possibly by the Duke of Medina-Celi, who, having faith
.in his project, had befriended him on his first coming into Spain)
paid one-eighth of all necessary expenses, which together with
what the Pinzon brothers may have contributed, as some claim,
to the enterprise made up the deficit. The jails of Palos and
the neighboring towns supplied a number of men ; and the influ-
ence and example of the Pinzons, of Father Juan Perez, and of
Garcia Fernandez supplied nearly all the skilled mariners neces-
sary. The three ships were named Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria,
or Galleda, or Marigalante, which, however, being the captain-
general's ship, is known in Columbus's diary as La Capitana.
The Nina was commanded by Vincente Yafiez Pinzon, youngest
brother of Martin Alonzo, who commanded the Pinta. The en-
tire expedition was composed, some say of ninety men, others
of one hundred and twenty. Very probably of ninety, seamen
and thirty landsmen, such as the notary, the physician, cooks,
servants, etc. By the 2d of August every man, having re-
ceived the sacrament of penance and Holy Communion, was
found on board one of the three famous caravels. The capacity
of these can only be guessed at ; that of La Nina at fifty, of
the Pinta at seventy, and that of the Capitana at one hundred
tons. With these toy-ships, made exclusively of tarred wood,
the Argonauts of the fifteenth century discovered a continent, at
an expense not exceeding two hundred thousand dollars, in the
name of the Holy Trinity and for the Queen of Castile.

The most satisfactory part of Christopher Columbus's biogra-
phy is his first voyage to America. It has the interest of a
drama, of a novel, and of an epic poem ; while its minutest in-
cidents have generally been accepted by historians as true.
The iconoclastic critic found in this field little opportunity for
his labors.

The only record or description of the voyage was written
down, day by day, by the principal actor himself. And hence
the only source of original information the biographer of Colum-
bus has to draw from is Columbus's own diary, the original of
which is lost. However, his son Ferdinand in the Life of his

42 LAS CASAS' NARRATIVE OF [Oct. r

father, and Las Casas in his Historia de las . Indias, has pre-
served for us a substantial compendium of it, the latter frequently
giving the very words of Columbus himself. While several biog-
raphers have, each according to his own taste, embellished (in a
literary sense) the quaint and unpretentious narrative of Las
Casas, as far as I know the description of Columbus's first voy-
age, as found in his Historia, has never yet appeared in English.
Instead, therefore, of attempting to give it to the reader at
second hand, I thought it better to lead him to the original
source itself by translating for him the narrative of Las Casas.
Here it is.*

L. A. DUTTO.

Having finished the necessary preparations, the 2d o'f August,
1492, Christopher Columbus embarked all his people, and on the
following Wednesday, the 3d 01 August, half an hour . before
sunset he set sail and left the port -and mouth of Saltes, as that
river of Palos is called. And, inasmuch as he there begun a
mariner's diary, with a prologue, in order to tell something
about the fall of Granada, and to make mention of the expul-
sion of the Jews from these kingdoms, and in order to make
known the intentions of the queen and his own, as well as on
account of the antiquity and simplicity of his words, it did not
appear alien to my history to insert it here. Christopher Co-
lumbus begins it thus, addressing the king :

In nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi. Most Christian,
Most Eminent, Most Excellent, and Most Powerful Princes,
King and Queen of Spain, and of the islands of the ocean, my
lords : Your Highnesses this present year 1492 put an end to
the war with the Moors, who reigned in Europe in the great
city of Granada, where, on the 2d of January of the present
year, I saw your royal flag planted by force of arms on the
Alhambra, the fortress of that city, and witnessed the coming
forth through the portals of that city of the Moorish king, and
his kissing the hands of your highnesses and of the prince, my
lord. During that same month, on account of the information
which your highnesses had received from me about the country
of India, and of a prince called Gran Khan, which in our ver-
nacular means King of Kings (he and his predecessors many
times have sent to Rome for teachers to teach them our holy

* Feeling that the highest merit of a translation of such a document is minute fidelity to
the original, the translator has reproduced the author's peculiarities and eccentricities of
style and even of grammar.

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 43

faith, and the Holy Father has never provided them with any,
and thus so many people were lost by falling into idolatry and
following damnable sects) ; and inasmuch as your highnesses,
Catholic Christians as you are, and lovers of the holy Christian
faith, its promoters, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet and of
all idolatries and heresies, thought proper to send me, Christo-
pher Columbus, to those regions of India to see the aforemen-
tioned princes, their people and their country, how it lies, and
everything else, and to see what could be done to convert them
to our holy faith ; and as your highnesses commanded that I
should not travel east by land, as has been heretofore the cus-
tom, but that I should take a western route (the certain proof
of its ever having been travelled before does not exist); inas-
much as after having expelled all the Jews from your kingdom
and possessions ; during the same month of January, your high-
nesses commanded me that with a sufficient army I should start
for India, and, as a reward, granted me privileges and declared
me a nobleman, so that henceforth I should be addressed as
Don, and be the great admiral of the ocean-sea, and viceroy and
perpetual governor of all the islands and mainland which I
should discover and acquire, or that might hereafter be discov-
ered and acquired in the ocean-sea, my eldest son to be my
successor, and so on from generation to generation for all time
to come ; and as I started from the said city of Granada the
1 2th of May of the same year in 1492, on a Saturday, and came
to the city of Palos, which is a seaport, where I armed three
vessels very good for such an enterprise, and I started from said
port well provided with great abundance of provisions and plenty
of seamen the 3d day of August of the same year, on a Wed-
nesday, about half an hour before sunrise, and sailed in the di-
rection of the Canary Islands, belonging to your majesty in the
ocean-sea, in order hence to navigate until I reached the Indies
to deliver your majesties' message to those princes, thus comply-
ing with your mandate ; I thought of writing down during the
whole of my voyage, very punctually from day to day, every-
thing I would do or see or that would happen, as will be seen
hereafter. Besides writing, my lord princes, during the night
what will happen during the day, and setting down during the
day the distances travelled during the night, I intend drawing a
new mariners' chart on which I will trace all seas and lands of
the ocean in their proper places, and the direction of the winds,
and I will furthermore write a book describing all similar things
by pictures giving the latitudes and longitudes, to do which it is

LAS CASAS" NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

very necessary that I forget sleep and carefully attend to naviga-
tion, the which will cost me much toil, etc.

All the foregoing is from the said prologue to the book of
navigation of Christopher Columbus to our Indies.

And here I must say that, whereas Christopher Columbus
was a very prudent man, and whereas it is one of the offices of
prudence to foresee and to provide for things that may happen
in the future, and for their accompanying difficulties, Christopher
Columbus presuming that, in undertaking such a voyage, so new
and so doubtful, and held by many impossible, in case it should
last very long he would have to contend with the anxieties and
fears of his people, decided, in order to avoid these and other
inconveniences, to keep two records of the number of leagues
travelled each day and each night ; a truthful one, approximat-
ing according to his best judgment to the truth, in which he
reckons the leagues and miles travelled by the number of days
(and this he kept a secret with himself) ; the other was public,
and intended for his crew and the guidance of the pilots of the
three ships ; in which he always wrote eight or ten leagues less
than he reckoned he had travelled, in order that the journey
should not appear to them so long, and that he was leaving
Spain so far behind, and that thus their fears should not become
so great, as it indeed happened at the end of the voyage ; and
in order that they should not lose all hope of finding land.
In fact, to tell the truth, up to that time it had never been
read or heard of in the world of any people having sailed or
engulfed themselves so far from land and out of sight of it in
the ocean ; and so it appears that Christopher Columbus was
the first to make the attempt, together with those who helped
him in this voyage. I intend to insert here briefly the distances
travelled each day and night, as I extracted them from the
aforementioned diary of Columbus's first voyage, which he
showed to the king on his return from the discovery of the
Indies. I will also insert the happenings of each day, the signs
of land which they saw, his doings, his sufferings, and his con-
stancy, because I think the reader will not find it disagreeable.
While, then, he was continuing his voyage to the Canaries, on
the 6th of August, the helm of the caravel Pinta, commanded by
Alonzo Pinzon, got loose or unfastened. This was purposely
brought about by certain mariners, Gomez Rascon and Christo-
pher Quintero, to whom that caravel belonged, and was because
they disliked the voyage and had undertaken it against their
will. It pained Columbus to find himself unable to help the

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 45

caravel Pinta without endangering himself ; which pain, however,
was somewhat lightened by his knowledge that Martin Pinzon
was a brave man and one of ability. They mended the helm as
best they could, though it failed them a second time. In about
seven days they came in sight of the Gran Canada, on the
coast of which he commanded that the Pinta should cast an-
chor, because it was making much water, and hence it was
found very necessary to put into port for repairs. Christopher
Columbus, with another caravel, went to Gomera ; and after
much sailing about and many trials returned to Canaria, in the
port of Gaudo (which is a good one), for repairs. Having care-
fully and laboriously, by day and by night, attended to her re-
pairs, he went back to Gomera on the 2d of September. Here,
Christopher Columbus says that during one of those nights which
he sailed about Teneriffe, so much fire went up from the peak
of the mountain, which is one of the highest known in the
world, that it created much wonder. These many trials and
inconveniences caused the men to murmur, and to continue the
voyage reluctantly, and hence his difficulties began to increase.
During these days it came to the ear of Columbus that three
armed caravels belonging to the King of Portugal were cruising
about those islands ; in fact, as that king came to know that
Columbus had come to an agreement with the Kings of Castile,
it grieved him painfully, and he began to understand and fear
that God had withdrawn the opportunity he had placed in his
hands ; and for these reasons it must have been that he gave
orders in the Island of Madeira, in that of Puerto Santo, and
at the Azores, and in whatever port or place the Portuguese were
found, that either on his outward voyage, or on his return,
Columbus should be captured ; as the trick played at the Azores
on him on his return voyage seems to prove. However, the
three Portuguese caravels failed to- meet him on this occasion.
Having then, while at Gomera, provided himself with water,
wood, meat, and provisions, and everything he deemed necessary
for the voyage, he ordered the three vessels to set sail on
Thursday, the 6th of September, and in the morning of that
day sailed from the port of La Gomera. But it was only on
Saturday morning at three o'clock that a gentle north-west wind
arose, and that he sailed directly west. For during the three
previous days there was calm, and he could make no headway.
He always travelled due west, until a few days before the dis-
covery of land, when he changed his direction to the left, that
is, west-south-west, as will be seen further on. From the morn-

46 LAS CASAS' NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

ing of Saturday to that of Sunday, thirty-six miles, allowing four
miles to the league, were travelled.

From Sunday morning to Sunday evening at sunset he
travelled sixty miles, i.e., fifteen leagues, and during the follow-
ing night he covered ten miles an hour that is, one hundred and
twenty miles in twelve hours, which amount to thirty leagues.
Here the pilots had not their ships well in hand, and had de-
flected their course two points to the west-north-west, on ac-
count of which Christopher Columbus had to quarrel much with
them. On Monday, the loth of September, counting the night
and the day, he travelled sixty leagues, being at the rate of
ten miles, equivalent to two and a half leagues per hour ; but
he put down only forty-eight leagues on the public reckoning,
which was to be in the hands of the mariners. On Tuesday,
the nth of September, he travelled due west over twenty
leagues ; but for the same reason counted but fifteen. On that
day a piece of mast, belonging to a one hundred and twenty
ton ship, was seen, which, however, they were unable to reach.
During the following night he travelled about twenty leagues
more, which for the public were marked as sixteen. During the
twenty-four hours of Wednesday, September 12, thirty-three
leagues in the same direction were travelled, but a few less
counted in the public record. On Thursday, September 13, he
travelled other thirty-three leagues ; the currents were against
him. At the beginning of the night of that day the needle of
the compass began to deflect toward the north-west, and that
means that the fleur-de-lis [the needle], which is intended to point
out the north, did not do so exactly, but had deflected to the
left of the north, while in the morning the deflection had been
a little to the north-east. That is to say, the fleur-de-lis had been
pointing a little to the right of the north, toward the rising of
the sun. On Friday, September 14, he travelled, always due
west, night and day together, twenty leagues ; but a few less were
entered in the public register.

The sailors of the Nina, on which was Vincente Yaflez, said
that during that day they had seen a tern and a wagtail birds
which are said not to travel further from land than fifteen or
twenty leagues ; although the fact is this had never yet been
ascertained by much actual experience. Saturday, the i$th of
September, between night and day he travelled twenty-seven
leagues and a little over. During the night they saw a marvel-
lous flash of fire fall from the skies at a distance of four or five
leagues from them, and all these things disturbed and saddened

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 47

the crews, who began to interpret them as indications of their
having taken a wrong direction. During Sunday, the i6th of
September, he travelled thirty-eight leagues, and entered a few
less on the public records. Some clouds appeared in the sky
during the day, and it drizzled a little rain. Here Christopher
Columbus says that on that day and every day thereafter they
experienced so mild a temperature, and the mornings were so
agreeable and enjoyable, that nothing was lacking except the
songs of the nightingale to make an Andalusian April. He was
right ; for the suavity of temperature experienced when half-way
to the Indies is marvellous : and the nearer the vessels get to
those lands the balmier and sweeter the air, and the clearer the
skies become ; the odoriferous exhalations from the forest and
their flora are certainly much more sensible than in April in
Andalusia. Here great floating fields of green, or rather yellow-
ish grass, began to be seen, and as the journey grew longer,
and the shores were left farther and farther behind, complaints
began to be heard about the voyage, and against him who had
embarked them in it ; and when the vast extent covered by
these fields became apparent, they began to fear that they might
hide rocky shallows of sunken land ; and hence the men became
more impatient and murmured more loudly against Columbus,
their leader. When, however, they saw that the vessels were
making their way through them they banished fear (although
not altogether), at least for the time being. Everybody thought
that an island must be somewhere near. Christopher Columbus
himself asserted that there might be an island, but no continent,
which according to him was much further west ; and he was not
mistaken. It seems that these are the regions in the ocean
where the ships of Caliz (of which, as I have already said
above, Aristotle makes mention in his book De Admirandis in
Natura Auditis) were cast in the olden time, driven by a tem-
pest, and where they found shoals of weeds and grass.

On Monday, counting night and day, he continued to sail
west and travelled over fifty leagues, of which he suppressed a
few in the public reckoning. The currents were in their favor.
They passed through much grass, which they examined carefully,
and which they thought came from rocky shores in the west.
Everybody thought that there must be land not far off, and
hence they recovered from some of their fear and moderated
their complaints. They had then travelled three hundred and
seventy leagues from the Ferro Island, which is the farthest
west of all the Canaries. On that Monday, while the pilots were

4 8 LAS CASAS' NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

steering north, they noticed that the needle deflected to the
west fully two points, and all the manners were seized with
great fear and sadness, and began to murmur, though not quite
openly, against Christopher Columbus ; and at seeing so great a
novelty, which nobody had ever seen or experienced, they feared
that they had travelled to another world. Christopher Columbus
hearing of it, gave orders that at dawn they should once more
steer north ; and it was found that the needles were all right.
The reason assigned by Christopher Columbus for this variation
was, that the star, which here appears to point out the north,
moves, whereas the needles do not. In the morning of that
Monday, at dawn, they saw many river weeds, among which they
found a live crab, which was examined by Christopher Colum-
bus, who said that this was a sure sign that land was not far
distant, as crabs are seldom found farther than eighty leagues
from shore. The sea-water had become less salty since they had
left the Canary Islands behind, and was becoming every day
more beautiful. He said that this was a good sign that the
atmosphere also was becoming purer and sweeter. They also saw
many tunny fishes, and killed many of them, and these were of
the kind seen by the ships of Caliz, spoken of by Aristotle.
Everybody was in high spirits, and the vessels were racing, be-
cause everybody wished to be the first to see land. For two
reasons : first, if it be natural to men for each one to desire to
be first, and to have the advantage over every one else, though
it be his own father, even in small things and of little impor-
tance (as can be seen in chess and other games), much more so
is it the case when memorable and great deeds are to be accom-
plished ; and second, because the queen, at the request of Chris-
topher Columbus, had commanded that ten thousand maravedis
should be given and assigned for life to whomsoever would first
see land. Christopher Columbus says here that, as those signs
were from the west, he hoped that the Most High God, in whose
hand are all victories, would soon grant him the favor to dis-
cover land. He saw that morning a white bird called a wagtail,
which is not accustomed, they say, to sleep at sea. During the
night and day of Tuesday, the i8th of September, he made over
fifty-five leagues, which he reckoned at forty-eight in the public
records.

During all these days the sea was as level as the river that
flows by Seville. Martin Alonzo, who was captain of the Pinta,
a very fast vessel, told the Captain-General, Christopher Colum-
bus, that he had seen a great many birds flying westward, and

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 49

that during that night he would like to sail ahead of the other
vessels, because he hoped thus to discover land, giving as another
reason a large mass of dark and thick clouds to be seen north
of them, the like of which are -often settled on land while they
appear to be ten or fifteen or twenty leagues distant from it.
Christopher Columbus did not agree to this proposal, either be-
cause it appeared to him that the time for it had not yet come,
or because he thought that they had not yet reached the place
where he hoped to discover land. On Wednesday, the I9th, there
was somewhat of a calm, and during the twenty-four hours
twenty-five leagues were made, which in the public reckoning
were counted as twenty-two. At ten o'clock of that day a peli-
can approached the admiral's ship and in the afternoon another
was sighted. These seldom travel over twenty leagues from
land. Slight showers of rain fell unaccompanied by wind, which
is another sure sign of land.

He did not care to change direction hither or thither in or-
der to ascertain if there was land, but he had no doubt that he
was sailing between islands (as in truth there are many), his in-
tention being, while the wind was favorable, to sail further west
where the Indies were to be found. He said that, God willing,
everything could be ascertained on their return voyage. Here
the pilots compared their reckonings. The caravel Nina reck-
oned its distance from the Canaries at four hundred and forty
leagues, the Pinta at four hundred and twenty, and the Capi-
tana, on which Columbus sailed, at even four hundred. He con-
sidered the reckoning and adjusted it for all, holding always to
the lowest figure in order to give his men no cause for losing
heart, for they were becoming more and more uneasy and
disturbed the farther they were getting from Spain. Their com-
plaints increased every hour, and in everything seen signs of land
were looked for, and though that of the bird gave them hopes
for a time, still, as no land appeared, they became incredulous
of everything, and as those signs had proved deceptive, they be-
gan to suspect that they were travelling in another world whence
they should never return.

On the 2Oth of September the wind changed a little, and he
changed his direction about three points ; and because calm pre-
vailed they travelled only seven or eight leagues. Early in the
day two pelicans flew to the Capitana, and then a third one ;
and they caught a bird with their hands having feet similar to
those of a" gull, which lives on rivers and not on the sea, Two
or three small birds also hovered about the ship at day-break
VOL. LVI. 4

50 LAS CASAS" NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

singing. They disappeared before sunrise. Later on another
pelican put in an appearance from the west, and flew away to
the south-west. This was a sure sign that there was land on
the north-west, because these birds sleep on shore, fly out to sea
in the mornings in search of food, travelling no further than
twenty leagues. These birds re-established confidence to some
extent. On Wednesday, September 21, there was more calm,
and they travelled, counting the tacking, thirteen leagues. They
encountered such immense quantities of seaweed that the ocean
appeared full of it. These weeds caused them now to rejoice in
the hope of soon seeing land, and again almost to despair for
fear of getting into hidden shoals ; and this fear caused some
attempt to be made by the pilots to shun them. The weeds
were so thick that they seemed to lessen the speed of the ves-
sels. They saw a whale, which, too, is no small sign of land
being near. The sea was very smooth, like a river, and the
climate most agreeable.

The wisdom and power of God has ordered that great deeds
to which he attaches much importance (like those which are in-
tended for his honor and glory and the general good of his
church, and for the good and the completion of the number of
his elect) shall hardly be accomplished, as we have said before,
without innumerable difficulties, contradictions, trials, and dangers,
this being one of the unchangeable laws by which God governs
the world in all things that are essentially and naturally good,
if they be temporal, and much more so if they be intended to
direct man to his true life and eternal welfare. Great feasts
are preceded by great vigils. This is clear from what the Son
of God himself says in the last chapter of St. Luke : " Ought
not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into
his own glory." Hence, what should we not suffer to enter into
a glory which is not our own? And the apostle (Acts xiv.)
says " that through many tribulations we must enter the king-
dom of God." Hence God permits that the devil, following his
natural inclinations, shall contradict man, either in order that
he (God) the better may shine forth and be praised in his
providence, according to which he is wont the more marvel-
lously to favor our undertakings and bring them to a happy con-
clusion, the more hopeless these appear and the stronger are
the efforts made by the enemy to thwart them; or in order
that the weakness and presumption of man may be made known,
and, being known, be corrected, experience very clearly and re-
peatedly teaching him that he, left to himself without the assis-

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 51

tance of God's powerful hand, can do nothing ; and also in or-
der that the exercise of patience in waiting for the. desired ob-
ject, and in disappointments and afflictions, may increase the
merits of his elect ; and in order also that the gifts of the Su-
preme Giver may be the more highly thought of and esteemed,
as they should .be, the more they have been desired, and the
more obstacles have been surmounted and afflictions suffered in
obtaining them. For these reasons God prepared for Christopher
Columbus, in order to try him, incomparable difficulties and af-
flictions, caused not by the sea or the wind (although from these
sources other trials were reserved for him) but by his compan-
ions, who ought to have assisted him ; such trials being ordina-
rily more intolerable than others.

Thus the seamen, who had never been on such an extensive
voyage, and who had been accustomed to see land every day or
almost every day (owing to the fact that, as I have said before, the
longest journey undertaken in those days by our people on the high
seas did not extend further than the Canary Islands, the Azores,
Madeira, or the Cape Verde Islands, journeys during which they
never found themselves further from land than two hundred
leagues), reckoned among the many causes of their discourage-
ment and of their complaints about the length of the voyage
and scanty prospects of success, the good and favorable winds
that God gave them. These winds constantly impelled them for-
ward, and the waters were so smooth as to have more the ap-
pearance of a shallow lake than of a sea, while they tasted less
salty than those they had left behind. They concluded that as
the winds blew always in the same direction (in those seas during
the greater part of the year north-westerly winds prevailed), and
the sea was so level that they thought they must have sailed in
another world, and in regions different from their own, and that
consequently no wind would ever blow favorable to their return.
Thus putting everything erroneously together, misinterpreting
and looking on the dark side of everything, they began in their
captain's hearing to repeat against him, and against those who
had sent them, the complaints and curses which they had already
uttered privately among themselves. They began impudently
to tell him to his face that he had deceived them and that he
was leading them to death ; and they swore, by this and by
that, that unless he would turn back he would be the first to
be thrown into the sea. When the other vessels came to
speak to him he heard expressions from them which no less
pierced his heart than those he heard around him on his own.

52 LAS CASAS* NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

Christopher Columbus, oppressed by so much bitterness, his
heart wounded perhaps more than if he had been swallowed up
by the waves' of the ocean, a foreigner amidst an ill-disciplined
class of people, who, quick to speak, are more than any others
most insolent in their conduct as sailors generally are ad-
dressed them with sweet and love-inspiring words and with an
open countenance, as his naturally was. But, blending cheerful-
ness with authority, he very patiently and prudently concealed
his feelings, and endeavored to strengthen their hope and en-
courage them. He begged them to consider what they had al-
ready overcome ; that most of the undertaking was already ac-
complished, and that for the little to be yet done they should
not abandon what had already been gained. He represented to
them that great deeds were not to be accomplished without
great trials and difficulties ; how much they gained who suffered
in such a cause, and what a shame it would be to return to
Spain without having found what they started out to discover,
and empty-handed; and that he hoped God would cheer them
and console them with success sooner than they thought ; and
that they would then know that he had told the truth to the
kings who had sent them and to themselves, who were his
companions. With these and similar discourses he did what
he could, but did not greatly succeed in pacifying them.
They rather became more excited, as if their minds had become
unbalanced and almost in despair. As God wished to confound
their inconstancy and reward the humility of Christopher Colum-
bus, and as if he wished to prove that Columbus had spoken
the truth, on Saturday, the 22d of September, unfavorable winds
arose. They travelled in this and that direction, without follow-
ing their straight course, thirty leagues. On Sunday, September
23, the sea became so rough that those who had feared of not
being able to return, because the breezes and the winds blew al-
ways in the same direction, and because the sea was always
smooth, began to tremble on account of so much contrary wind
and on account of the fury of the seas. The admiral says here,
that these unfavorable winds and rough seas did him good ser-
vice in persuading the crew to abandon their erroneous opinion
that both sea and wind would fail them on their return. Opposi-
tion, however, did not cease at 9nce. They said at first that such
winds would not last. But when on Sunday the sea became
angry they had nothing more to say. Hence Christopher Co-
lumbus remarked that God had dealt with them and him as he
had with the Jews and with Moses, when he brought them out

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 53

of Egypt, giving them signs to confound them, and to favor and
help him. During that Sunday they found a turtle-dove on the
ship, and in the evening they caught a pelican and a little river
bird, and others that were white ; and among the weeds, which
were very thick, some live crabs were found. They travelled that
day twenty-two leagues, though not in a straight line. The follow-
ing Monday, the 24th of September, they advanced fourteen leagues
and a half. Another pelican flew on board, and they saw many
land-birds coming from the west, and fishes, some of which they
killed with certain iron instruments shaped like a large hand
with long fingers. The more manifest were the signs that God
gave them that land could not be far off the more their impa-
tience increased, and their fickleness and their anger against Co-
lumbus. Day and night those who were on watch constantly
gathered into groups, consulting with each other and discussing
how they could turn back. It was a great folly, they said, and
self-murder to risk their lives in order to follow a crazy foreign-
er who, that he might become a great seflor, ran into the jaws
of death, placed himself and them in their present plight, de-
ceiving so many people ; especially if they considered that his
scheme or dream had been contradicted by so many great
and learned men, and held as vain and foolish. They could give
as a sufficient excuse for whatever step they might take, their
having travelled to where no man had ever travelled or dared
to navigate before, and that they had not bound themselves to
sail to the end of the world ; taking at the same time into con-
sideration that, if they should wait longer, no ship would be
left them in which to return. Some of them went further, and
said that the best thing to be done was to cast him some night
into the sea if he persisted in going further, giving it out that he
had accidentally fallen overboard ; then take charge themselves of
the compass, the quadrant, and the astrolabe. As he was a
foreigner, few, if any, would care much about it, but that rather
multitudes would say that on account of his rashness God had
served him right.

In these and similar occupations they wasted their time by-
day and by night. Among the principal instigators were the
Pinzons, who were the captains and the leading men of the whole
expedition, and, as all the other mariners were also from the
neighborhood of Palos and Muguer, everybody thought and
acted like them. Of these Pinzons Christopher Columbus com-
plained much, and of the anxiety they had caused him. The
reader will easily form an idea of the fear and dread of Chris-

54 LAS CASAS" NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

topher Columbus lest such men should go to extremes. How
bitter must have been his heart-aches and his anguish! He
never ceased recommending himself to God, prepared to meet
whatever calamity or death might befall him. He dissembled
with them, cheered them up, paying honor to the lowest of them
as much as he could. He laughed with them while his heart
was weeping, and sometimes represented to them with what
severity the kings might deal with them for abandoning the en-
terprise at a time when so many well-ascertained signs were
visible of its soon proving successful. Nobody would doubt the
meaning of these signs when told of them, and therefore if they
refused to proceed everybody would blame them. To escape
these and many other misfortunes, he implored them to act like
virtuous and brave men, and to go on for some days longer,
promising them, with confidence in the Holy Trinity, that in a
very short time they would see land, the sight of which would
put an end to all their troubles.

Another general rule which God our Lord applies to all of
us sinners while we are in this world, is that, considering our
helplessness and his own goodness, when the time has not yet
arrived for the fulfilment of some good desire of ours (which he
never fulfils either before or after the time by him decreed),
he does not give us pure gall to drink, but mixes with it some
drops of consolation, in order to enable us to bear the refusals
we must meet with and not succumb to the blow. In this wise
he dealt with them. While he was shortly to cheer them
with the sight of land, and while he allowed them to suffer
much bitterness from the great fear of being lost, he mingled
with it from time to time some pleasure. Thus it happened
that on Tuesday, the 2$th of September, after a long calm, a
brisk westerly wind having arisen in the afternoon, Martin Alonzo
Pinzon, on his caravel the Pinta, came to speak with Christopher
Columbus about the mariner's chart which three days before
the latter had sent him, or thrown over to him by means of a
rope, on which were painted, it appears, some islands ; and
Martin Alonzo said that he was surprised at their not appearing,
for they had reached the place fixed for them on the chart.
Christopher Columbus answered that he, too, was of the same
opinion.

The chart was the one which Paulo Fisico, the Florentine,
had sent him, and which I have in my possession, together with
several other things belonging to that same admiral who discov-
ered the Indies. I have also writings written with his own

1892.] THE VOYAGE OP DISCOVERY. 55

hand, which fell into my possession. On this chart Paulo Fisico
had drawn for him several islands and much of the main-land
which formed the beginning of India, placing thereabouts the
kingdoms of the Gran Khan, about whose riches, abundance of
gold, pearls, and precious stones he had written him. Their
reckoning, applied to the location of said islands on the map,
told them that by this time they should have reached them. It
was because Christopher Columbus had believed Paulo Fisico
that he had made the offer to the kings of discovering the king-
doms of the Gran Khan, with their riches, gold, precious stones,
and spices. Paulo Fisico was, however, mistaken, not knowing
that much land would be found before reaching the Indies, and
he was also mistaken when he said that, travelling due west,
those kingdoms would be met with. They must be beyond and
west of our Indies or to the south of them. He had, however,
hit upon the truth when he said that the traveller would reach
the beginning of the Indies, as we believe those our lands to be.
This discovery was, however, made by chance, as will be seen
hereafter. Christopher Columbus caused the chart to be re-
turned or thrown back to him. He then held a consultation
with the pilot of his ship and the mariners. This happened
after sunset. Suddenly Martin Alonzo ascended the stern of
his caravel and, wild with joy, called out to Columbus that he
had seen land, claiming the reward. He affirmed so positively
that it was land, and everybody on the Pinta reaffirmed it with
such demonstrations of joy,, that Christopher Columbus, pros-
trating himself, began on his knees to give thanks to our Lord ;
and Martin Alonzo, with his entire crew, intoned Gloria in ex-
celsis Deo !

They were soon joined by the men on the Capitana and on
the Nina. The masts and the cordage of the ships soon swarmed
with men, who unanimously asserted that it was land. Christo-
pher Columbus himself believed it. It was twenty-five leagues
distant, towards the south-west, to the left of them, they at the
time travelling west.

They stopped for the night, everybody being convinced that
it was land. I assuredly think that- it was, because according to
the direction they followed all the islands which the admiral
discovered afterwards, during his second voyage, were in that
direction, i.e., towards the south-west. He gave orders to change
the course from west to south-west, in which direction appeared
what they thought to be land. They travelled between night
and day twenty-one leagues, but to the public he gave them out

56 LAS CASAS* NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

as only thirteen. This greatly cheered the mariners, who had
before been crushed down by fear. The sea was perfectly
smooth, and many jumped into it and enjoyed themselves
swimming. Many fishes, very good to eat and resembling
salmon (not colored, however, but white), swarmed around the
ships. Several other kinds were seen also. Wednesday, the
26th of September, they went far enough south-west to find out
that what had appeared to them land were colored clouds, the
like of which frequently produce optical illusions of land. The
bows were turned west again, and during the twenty-four hours
thirty-one leagues were made, which in the public register ap-
peared as twenty-four. There was a tide [current ?] in the sea as
on rivers, and the atmosphere was as sweet and balmy as could be
desired. The men were once more seized with 'fright and again
lost confidence. A pelican and two wagtails were seen that day.
The following Thursday, September 27, they travelled west,
between night and day, twenty-four leagues, which were counted
as twenty for the men. They continued carefully to observe
every sign of land that might appear. Many fishes resembling
salmon were seen, of which one was killed ; one wagtail and a
pelican were also seen, but very few weeds. On Friday they
travelled fourteen leagues and killed, of the same kind of fishes,
two from La Capitana and others from the other ships. During
the twenty-four hours of Saturday, September 29, they travelled
twenty-nine leagues, of which twenty-four were set down in the
public register. Three pelicans an4 one fork-tail, a bird so-called
because it .had its tail parted in two, and which follows the
pelicans until they drop their excrements, which it eats and on
which it lives. The admiral said on that day that these were
very good signs of land, and that the climate was balmy and
enjoyable, and that nothing was lacking except the warbling of
the nightingale. On Sunday, September 30, there was some-
thing of a calm, and they travelled fourteen leagues ; four wag-
tails flew on board, and twice they saw two pelicans. Christo-
pher Columbus says that the appearance of so many birds of
the same kind was a very good indication that land was not
far off. Had a lone one beejn seen, it might be supposed that
it had strayed and was lost. Christopher Columbus says, also,
that he and all the seamen were astonished at seeing so many
birds and no land ; for their experience was that they were not
found farther from shore than twenty leagues, especially the
fork-tail, which never sleeps at sea. The ocean was very
smooth and the air sweet and pleasant.

1892] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 57

The pilots of the three ships were much frightened by a
certain phenomenon, portending, they thought, some danger.
It was this : at dark the needles of the compasses deflected
towards the north-west fully two points, while at daybreak they
pointed exactly to the north star. Christopher Columbus as-
signed a reason for the phenomenon, telling them that while
the north star moves, like other stars, in a circle from east to
west around the pole, the needles remain stationary, pointing
always to the true north, or pole. The explanation satisfied the
mariners to some extent. On Monday they travelled, between
night and day, twenty-five leagues, and in the common register
twenty were marked. On this day the pilots conferred together
to ascertain how far from the Ferro Island, the last of the Ca-
naries, they had travelled according to each one's reckoning.
The pilot of the Capitana, on which Christopher Columbus sailed,
found himself five hundred and seventy-eight leagues west of
that island, and he decided, of course, that the other two ves-
sels must be at the same distance. This was according to the
public register, which Columbus had caused to be carefully kept,
although, according to the secret one, which was in his best judg-
ment true, they had travelled seven hundred and seven leagues.
The difference was, therefore, one hundred and twenty-nine
leagues. The other two pilots had really travelled much more
than they thought ; for on the following Wednesday the pilot
of the Nina had on his register six hundred and fifty leagues,
and that of the Pinta six hundred and thirty-four. Columbus
rejoiced within himself at their error in reckoning less distance
than they had covered ; for if everybody had felt himself seven
hundred and odd leagues from the Canaries, they would have
been more frightened, and it would have been much more diffi-
cult to make them proceed farther. On Tuesday, the 2d of
October, they left behind on their way west, during the twenty-
four hours, other thirty-nine leagues, which went on the public
record as twenty. Thanks be to God ! (this was a common ex-
pression of Columbus) the sea always remained smooth and fa-
vorable. Much grass was travelling from east to west, i.e., in
the opposite direction they had seen it travel earlier in the voyage.
Many fishes were visible, and they killed a small tunny, and saw
also a white bird. On Wednesday, the 3d of October, forty-
seven leagues were made between night and day, which were
set down as forty. They saw many weeds in a decaying state,
and others fresh, with something like their natural seeds on
them, and inasmuch as few birds were now to be seen, and dur-

58 LAS CASAS' NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

ing the week before so many signs of land had been visible,
Columbus suspected that they had left behind, on either side of
them, the islands painted on the chart mentioned above. Never-
theless he did not think it well to travel to hither or thither,
to the right or to the left, looking for islands because he had
good weather, and his main object was to find the Indies trav-
elling west, which was the offer he had made to the king and
the object for which he had been sent.

On account of his refusal to turn to right or left in search
of the islands, which they thought (especially Martin Alonzo,
who had seen them on the chart sent him by Columbus) must
be somewhere around, and because they thought he should
change his course, all of them began to mutiny, and the disor-
der would have gone further if God, as is his wont to do, had
not interfered, promptly showing them new signs of land.
Christopher Columbus's sweet words, his remonstrances, his wise
way of reasoning, were no longer sufficient to quiet them and to
persuade them to persevere. It happened that on the 4th of
October more than forty birds together boarded the caravel,
with two pelicans, one of which was wounded by one of the
crew on the ship. A wagtail and a white bird also came on
board. During the twenty-four hours of that day sixty-four
leagues were travelled, which were put down as forty-six. The
following day, Wednesday, many birds appeared, and swallows,
who fly something like a good stone-throw above the water,
and often fall on board of ships. Many of them fell during that
day on board the caravel. Fifty-seven leagues were travelled,
which were counted as forty-five. The sea was beautiful.
Thanks be to God ! said Columbus here. Saturday, the 6th of
October, they travelled forty leagues, which for the crews counted
as thirty-three. During the night Martin Alonzo remarked that
they should turn two points to the west in order to make the
Island of Cipango, as laid down on the map which Christopher
Columbus had shown him. The latter was not of that opinion,
because if they should mistake the route they would spend
more time in finding land, and it was safer, he thought, to dis-
cover first the main-land and look for islands after; the whole
of which was not agreeable to them. And because Columbus re-
fused to do as they wanted, they murmured. A wagtail and
a pelican boarded the ship, which, however, were of small com-
fort to the men because they were travelling against their will.

Inasmuch as our Lord had decreed to shorten the time for
showing that Christopher Columbus was right, and that he had

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 59

selected him for this enterprise, and as he wished also to with-
draw him from the danger in which he was, and from those
restless and incredulous men, and as he wanted to free them all
from their painful suspense and console them ; therefore on the
7th of October, at sunrise, the caravel Nina, which, being faster,
was leading the others (everybody was doing his best to travel
as fast as possible and be the first to see land, and thus get the
pension of ten thousand maravedis. which the queen had prom-
ised, as has already been said), hoisted the flag at its main-mast
and fired a salvo as a signal that land had been sighted, in com-
pliance with an order given by the Captain-General, Christopher
Columbus. He had likewise commanded that at sunrise
and at sunset all the vessels should come together, be-
cause these are the hours best suited for seeing the farthest
either on land or at sea, there being then a minimum of evapo-
ration to impede the view.

Evening came and the land announced by the Nina did not
appear. The clouds had once more deceived them. Hence
more despondency and more fear on the part of these men, who-
always mistrusted. Columbus, seeing that flocks of birds flew
from the north toward the south-west (a sure indication that they
were going to sleep on land, or that they were fleeing from the
winter, which in the country from whence they came would per-
haps soon begin), and remembering that most of the islands now-
owned by the Portuguese had been by them discovered by fol-
lowing the flight of passing birds, especially when seen in the
afternoon, agreed to change -his course two points from west to
south-west, and determined to follow that direction for two days r
considering that by so doing he was not getting far from his
original route. Had he continued to the end to follow the lat-
ter, and had the impatience of the Castilians not prevented him,
there is no doubt that he would have landed on the main-land
in Florida, and hence on New Spain. Incomparable would then
have been the difficulties, and insufferable the pains to be borne,
and it would have been a miracle if he had ever returned to
Castile. But God who, knowing all, was governing and guiding
him, did and executed everything much better than he or any
one else could ask or wish, as will appear hereafter. They
travelled during this day before changing their course, which
was done one hour before sunset, twenty-three leagues, and dur-
ing the night something like five leagues. Monday, October 8,
they sailed west-south-west. God wished to free them from the
fear that had seized on them again the previous day, and hence

60 LAS CASAS' NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

many different kinds of birds appeared, jackdaws, ducks, a peli-
can, and many field birds, of which they caught one on board,
and about which everybody rejoiced as of a great thing. And
as all these birds were flying south-west, and to all appearances
could not go very far, cheerfully and with good-will they followed
in that direction. They were at the same time encouraged by
the calmness of the sea, which was as smooth as the river at
Seville. The air was very sweet, as it is in April at Seville,
fragrant and very agreeable. Blades of fresh grass floated around
them. Christopher Columbus for all of these good signs gave
many thanks to God. They did not travel during the twenty-
four hours more than twelve leagues because there was not much
wind. Tuesday, the gth of October, they travelled south-west
five leagues ; and then because the wind was changing travelled
four leagues to north-north-west. Altogether they made dur-
ing the day eleven leagues, and during the night twenty leagues
and a half, which were given out to the crew as seventeen.
During the whole of the night birds were heard flying by. The
following day, Wednesday, the loth, as the wind had increased,
they travelled west-south-west ten miles, or two- and a half
leagues an hour, except during a short time when they went at
the rate of only seven miles ; and so between day and night
they ran fifty-nine leagues, which were given to the public as
forty-four. When the men saw themselves travelling so far, and
that the signs of the small birds and of the several other kinds
of birds were all continuing to prove fallacious, they again
began to repeat their complaints with importunity, and were full
of despondency ; and they began to insist and to clamor for
their return, thereby altogether renouncing the pleasure and joy
which God had in store for them and which was to be granted
within thirty hours. It all happened thus in order that nobody
could rightfully claim having deserved the joy prepared for them
or the merits of what was shortly to happen, but that, on the
contrary, all the glory should be attributed to the good God,
the Most High, who governed them, and whose will in reference
to that voyage was of necessity to be fulfilled. Columbus, how-
ever, the minister selected by God for the accomplishment of
this work, did not yield to their despicable cowardice ; on the
contrary, with more heart and liberty of spirit, more hopeful-
ness, more gracious and sweet addresses, exhortations, and
promises, he strengthened and encouraged them to persevere and
to continue to go forward ; at the same time intimating that
complaints were useless ; for his and the king's intention had
been and was to discover the Indies through that western sea,

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 61

that they of their own free will had consented to accompany
him, and that, with the help of God, he intended to continue
his journey until he would find them. They might at the same
time rest assured that they were nearer to them than they
thought. On Thursday, the nth of October, God's mercy was
pleased to make them all feel that assuredly their voyage had not
been in vain. They now saw signs of land more certain and
better verified than all the others .they had seen before, and they
breathed more freely. They travelled west-south-west, with
better winds and seas than they had had during the whole voy-
age ; they saw many white birds, and, what was much more im-
portant, sticking to the ship, a green rush as if it had just been
pulled up by the roots. From the Pinta a stick and a reed
were seen ; also a small stick which had been apparently worked
on with some iron tools, a small piece of board, and another
kind of weed that grows on land. The mariners on the Nina
noticed other signs of land, among them a branch loaded with
berries, at the sight of which all the crews were overjoyed. Dur-
ing that day and up to sunset they travelled twenty-seven
leagues. Columbus, on account of the many signs observed, and
also on account of the distance which he had travelled since
leaving the Canaries, knew that he was not far from land. By
whatever means or conjecture he may have come to form this
opinion, he always had it in his heart that, when he would have
travelled west from the Ferro Island seven hundred and fifty
leagues, more or less, on this ocean he would find land. There-
fore after dark, and when it was time to say the Salve Regina,
according to the seamen's custom, he made a graceful and feel-
ing address to all his companions and mariners, calling to their
attention the many favors God had so far granted to all of them
during their voyage a smooth sea, mild and favorable winds,
tranquillity of the elements, without tempests or hurricanes such
as are so frequently met with by those who travel on the sea ;
and inasmuch as he hoped that the goodness of God would
allow them in a few hours to see land, he beseechingly begged
them to keep during that night a very good watch on the fore-
castle ; to be observant and watchful, and to be on the lookout
for land more than they had ever been before. In the written
instructions given by Columbus to the captains of each ship was
found the following in the first chapter : that, after having trav-
elled seven hundred leagues west, without discovering land, they
should not sail later than midnight, which rule had not been
heretofore observed, and which Columbus had not enforced in
order not to make its observance more painful on account of

62 LAS CASAS' NARRATIVE OF [Oct.,

their anxiety to see land. For he was very confident that God's
goodness would that night bring them very near to land, and
perhaps even to see it ; he therefore begged them to be diligent
in their watch in order to be the first to see it, .because, besides
the reward of ten thousand maravedis promised by the queen
to him who would first see land, he promised also, there and
then, a silk jacket in addition. During that night, after set of
sun he travelled west, the course he had always followed since
he had left the Canaries, twelve miles an hour, and at two o'clock
after midnight he had travelled ninety miles; that is, twenty-two
leagues and a half.

As Christopher Columbus was standing on the forecastle, with
his eyes fixed forward, more intently than any one else, as he
was more deeply concerned and his responsibility was greater,
he saw a light, although so slightly and so faintly shining that
he did not care to affirm that "it was land, and secretly called to
Pedro Gutierrez, a gentleman of the royal household, and told
him that it looked like a light, and to see what he thought ; he
too saw it, and he too thought it was a light. Rodrigo Sanchez
of Segovia, who had been appointed by the king purveyor-gen-
eral of the fleet, was also called ; but he could not see it. It
was seen once or twice again, and it looked, he says, like a little
candle that went up and down. Columbus had no doubt that it
truly was a light, and that consequently he was near land, and
such in fact was the case. This is what I think of it myself.
The Indians living on those islands, which are very temperate
and not at all cold, are accustomed to go out at night from
their straw huts, called by. them bohios, to attend to their natural
necessities, and when very dark they carry in their hands a piece
of candle-wood, or a torch of burning pine, or other well-sea-
soned and resinous wood, burning as readily as candle-wood.
They go out and come in again, and thus the light could have
been seen by Columbus and the others three or four times.

Christopher Columbus had ordered that the watches on the
forecastle should not relax in their vigilance, and he was very
carefully watching for land himself. At two o'clock in the morn-
ing the Pinta, on which sailed Alonzo Pinzon, was in advance of
the others, as she was the fastest of the caravels ; and she was
the first to see land, which was sighted at two leagues distance.
At once a salvo was fired, as the signal agreed upon of the dis-
covery of land, and the standard was raised. A mariner, by the
name of Rodrigo de Priana, was the first to see the land ; but the
ten thousand maravedis were assigned to Christopher Colum-

1892.] THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 63

bus by the king, on the plea that his seeing the light first must
be accounted as his being the first to see land.*

When the day anxiously desired by all came at last the three
vessels made for the land, and, having cast anchor, they saw so
many naked people on shore that the sand and the land appeared
covered with them. It was an island fifteen leagues long, more
or less, level, without mountains, like an orchard of green and
very fresh-looking trees (the islands of these lucayos, which are
numerous around Hispaniola, and extend far along the coast of
Cuba, all have a green and fresh appearance), which was called
in the language of Hispaniola and of the other islands (for they
all have about the same language) Guanahani, the accent falling
on the last syllable, which is long. It had an inland lake of
sweet water, which the inhabitants used for drinking purposes.

It was thickly peopled, because, as will be said, all the coun-
tries have a very pleasant climate, especially all the islands of
the Lucayos. The inhabitants of these small islands are called by
this name, which means " dweller on cayos " that is, islands.
The admiral and all his men longed to leap onto the land and
to see those people, as these, on their part, astonished at seeing
the vessels, which they must have thought were living animals
coming over or out of the sea, were no less anxious to see
them land. On Friday, therefore', the I2th day of October, ar-
mored, and sword in hand, Columbus jumped into his ship's
yawl, with as many of his men as it could carry, and ordered
the two captains, Martin Alonzo and Vincente Yaflez, to come
from their caravels in a like manner. The admiral carried the
royal standard, and the two captains two twin banners, with a
green Cross, which Columbus carried in each vessel as the dis-
tinctive flag of the expedition. At one end of the beam of the
Cross was an " F " and at the other a " J." The letters, each
surmounted by a crown, stood for Ferdinand and Isabella. The
admiral and his companions, having landed on shore, fell on
their knees, and all gave a thousand thanks to their Almighty
God and Lord, tears flowing down the cheeks of many, who had
led them in safety, and had already given them to taste a little
of the fruit they had so longed and sighed for during so ex-
tended, so unheard-of, so laborious, and so trying a pilgrimage.

* Here the author makes a long digression to give room for a moral reflection, and to set
at rest some false rumors that Columbus's heart, towards the end of the voyage, had failed
him, and that it was the Pinzons who had induced him to persevere. Oviedo is here tartly
criticised for countenancing these rumors in his history, thereby placing in doubt the full merit
of Columbus's achievement. I have thought it best to omit the digression in order to give the
reader the uninterrupted story of the discovery. L. A. D.

64 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Oct.,

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

CHAPTER I.
A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

" HERE is another letter from Philip urging us to spend a
few months in Mexico this winter," said General Meynell, enter-
ing his domestic circle with an open epistle in his hand.

The domestic circle, which consisted of two ladies one a
graceful young woman in widow's mourning, the other a pretty,
fair-haired girl received this announcement with interest.

" Poor Phil ! " said the first, holding out a slim white hand
for the letter. " He is very lonely, I am sure. I think you had
better decide to go, papa. We all want to see him as much as
he wishes to see us."

" I am not sure about Phil being lonely," said the girl. " He
is so social that he would fraternize with an Apache Indian if
there was nobody else available for the purpose. But I should
certainly like to see the dear boy, and I should also like exceed-
ingly to see Mexico. So^ my vote is for going. And last week,
papa, you said that you thought you would go."

" Well," said her father, smiling into the bright, upturned
face, " I am still somewhat of that opinion ; and I have come in
to talk it over. Let .us hear what Margaret says."

But Margaret, otherwise Mrs. Langdon, was absorbed in the
letter which she held. " What a boy ! " she said presently as
she laid it down. " I really think we must go and look after
him, or else he may fall into mischief. He is just at the im-
pressionable age, and I don't like this talk about Mexican beau-
ties."

" Why, a moment ago I thought you were sure he was lone-
ly," said Dorothea mischievously. " I told you Phil would never
be that. Now, I don't believe there is any more danger from
Mexican beauties than from loneliness. It is your shy, reserved
man who falls in love not a gay, pleasure-loving fellow like
Phil."

"We bow to your superior knowledge," said her sister smil-
ing; "but still I think that even to Phil, if he is too much cut
off from his family, danger may come. And I distinctly should
not like him to marry a Mexican."

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 65

" Nor should I," said the general who had a high opinion of
his elder daughter's judgment, and was also full of old-fashioned
prejudices. " If there is any danger of that kind, we had better
start at once. But it did not strike me that anything he says in
the letter points that way."

" Not exactly," said Mrs. Langdon. " He only speaks of
these pleasant acquaintances he has made, and declares that one
young lady what is her name ? " (consulting the letter) " Ah !
Dofla Mercedes is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.
Now, I agree with Dorothea that he is not specially susceptible ;
but there might be danger for any young man in contact with
the most beautiful woman he has ever seen."

" I will not go so far as to assert that he is positively dan-
ger-proof," observed Dorothea. " In fact I am prepared to ad-
mit that he is desperately in love, and on the point of mar-
riage, if it will induce you and papa to decide that we are to go
to Mexico."

" I have already decided that I should like very much to
go," said Mrs. Langdon. " The matter rests with papa. If he
cares for the journey "

But the general would have undertaken a journey into Thibet
for the sake of his favorite son. " Yes," he said, " I think I
shall like it very much or if not like it exactly, you know, at
least not find it disagreeable. Besides seeing Phil, which is of
course the chief inducement, we will see a country new to all of
us, and we will discover if there is any danger for the boy."

" I have an idea ! " cried Dorothea quickly. " Listen ! Dis-
covering if Phil is in danger will do no good, unless we provide
a remedy in case the danger exists. Now, Margaret and myself
are very charming, no one is more thoroughly aware of the fact
than I am ; but I fear that, since we are unfortunately his sisters,
our charms would not suffice to draw him from those of Dofia
Mercedes. So, in order to be provided for any emergency, we
must take with us an attraction sufficient for the purpose."

" What do you possibly mean ? " asked her sister, as she
paused.

"I mean," she answered impressively, "Violet Gresham. Phil
was in love with her before he went away, but she provoked
him by her coquetry and he confided to me that he would
never think of her again. But that is all nonsense, you- know.
Of course he will think of her again as soon as he sees her ;
for she certainly is wonderfully pretty. And so we must take
her along."

VOL. LVI. 5

66 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Oct.,

"Your schemes are as madcap as yourself," observed Mrs.
Langdon, "and yet perhaps I cannot say that I like Violet
Gresham very much," she concluded, rather irrelevantly.

" Neither do I," said Dorothea frankly. " But what does
that matter, provided she serves the purpose of saving Phil?
She will not marry him, because he is not rich enough ; and
lie will not break his heart about her, because he knows her
too well. But I am sure there is no Mexican girl living who
can hold her own against Violet Gresham, and if you want to
make an end of the Dona Mercedes affair, you had better
take her along."

" But is it likely that she will wish to be taken ? " asked
Mrs. Langdon while the general listened to these rapid plans
with an air of partial stupefaction.

"She told me only yesterday that she is bored to death,
that society is very dull this winter, and that she is much in
need of a change, so my opinion is that she will eagerly em-
brace the idea," responded Dorothea.

" It strikes me as rather a dangerous remedy for a disease
which after all may only exist in our fancies," said Mrs.
Langdon meditatively. She took up the letter again, and read
aloud the following passage :

" ' I do not think I have told you before of my good
luck in making the acquaintance of one of the most aristo-
cratic families of this part of Mexico. They are of Spanish
descent going straight back to one of the Conquistadores
and all that sort of thing have immense estates and are gen-
erally of the exclusive class that foreigners seldom reach, es-
pecially a poor devil of a civil engineer like myself. But it was
necessary to run the survey for our proposed line through the
hacienda of Sefior Don Rafael de Vargas. Considering that it
is about thirty miles square, he would probably never have
known of our presence on it ; but I judged it best to set mat-
ters straight with the lord of^the soil. So, being in charge of
the party, I called at the casa grande and fortunately found Don
Rafael himself in occupation, for it is only a certain number of
weeks in the year that these grand seigneurs live on their great
estates. He received me with a courtesy altogether Mexican,
and a hospitality more than Arabian. He is a splendid old fel-
low in' every way, and I was only too happy to accept his invi-
tation to be presented to his family. Such a family! Their
number is legion ; for besides his wife and children, all his sis-
ters, his cousins and his aunts, not to speak of many of his

1892.] - THE LAND OF THE SUN. 67

friends, appear to live under his roof. Altogether the household,
when I was presented to it in assembled force, consisted of
more than twenty persons ; and I was informed that several of
its members were absent notably two sons of my host, whom
I have since met, and who are fine fellows and quite men of
the world, having had all possible advantages of education and
travel. But one person was not absent on my first introduction
and that was the youngest daughter of the house, the most
beautiful creature that it has ever been my good fortune to see.
I wish that I could describe her to you but that is impossible.
Fancy everything most entrancing in Spanish beauty, and you
have Dofla Mercedes, for that is her charming name. I have
been frequently to the hacienda since that occasion, and I now
count the De Vargas family among my best friends, which is rare
good luck I assure you for a ' gringo ' like myself."

" Now that is all," said Mrs. Langdon, looking up from the
letter, " and probably there is nothing in it that ought to excite
our apprehensions. Still, a young man is made of inflammable
material, and his admiration for everything most entrancing in
Spanish beauty may lead to results that none of us desire."

"It will be safer to take Violet with us," said Dorothea.
^She can do no harm, and she may be of use. By the time
we reach Phil he may be bound hand and foot by the charms
of this Mexican beauty ; and we may need a counter-attraction
without delay. And where are we to find it if we do not, like
wise people, provide it beforehand ? "

Mrs. Langdon looked at her father with a smile. " Does all
this seem absurd to you, papa ? " she asked. " Are you pre-
pared to burden yourself with another young woman because
Dorothea thinks that she may be useful in drawing Phil away
from Mexican snares ? "

The general pulled his gray moustaches meditatively for a
moment before he answered. " Well, my dear," he said, " I do
not suppose another young woman will add much to my trouble ;
and if you and Dorothea think she might be of use in the man-
ner indicated, let us by all means take her along."

" If she will consent to go, which I very much doubt," re-
marked Mrs. Langdon. " And really I cannot say that I enjoy
the idea of adding a girl like Violet Gresham, with not an idea
beyond social amusement, to our party. If we go to Mexico, I,
for one, want to see the country in a satisfactory manner ; and
she will be bored to death and bore us to death in the pro-
cess "

v>\~oo*

68 THE LAND OF THE SUN. . [Oct.,

" There is a way to avoid that," said Dorothea. " Take a
man or two along."

" Dorothea ! " cried her sister indignantly. " If your sugges-
tions are heeded we shall soon be of the size and compatibility
of a party of Cook's tourists."

" Oh, no ! " answered Dorothea, quite undismayed. " One or
two men will be enough, and will not make the party of an un-
manageable size. The trouble is to find the right kind of men
good travellers, and also cultivated, sympathetic, and agreeable
people."

"A modest list of requirements. Do you know any such
people who are likely to be ready to start at a moment's notice
for Mexico ? "

" I cannot just now think of any one who exactly answers
to the description ; but I have no doubt I shall after a little
reflection."

The general at this juncture began to look grave. The pro-
ject which had opened with such modest dimensions the journey
of a family party to Mexico, to visit the son and brother, with
a little sight-seeing thrown in now, under Dorothea's manipula-
tion, enlarged rapidly and alarmingly into a possible excursion of
a magnitude calculated to dismay ; and the more so because the
general knew well that the thing upon which his youngest
daughter set her pretty, wilful head was almost invariably the
thing which came to pass. The addition of the young lady de-
scribed by Mrs. Langdon as not' possessing an idea beyond so-
cial amusement had not troubled him because, in the first place,
all girls seemed to him much alike, and, in the second place, he
knew that her presence would not greatly concern him. But if
men were to be added to the party, they did concern him. How
many hours he should have to spend with them, and how neces-
sary it was that for such an expedition they should be irre-
proachable in character, conduct, and temper especially temper !
The general shook his head as he endeavored to gaze severely
at his volatile daughter.

" My dear," he observed, " you must remember that I have
a word to say in this matter. I really do not see the necessity
of adding any more members to our party, but if ahem ! you
think one or two men might make things pleasanter, I must at
least know who they are before they are invited to join us. I
should be very sorry to be obliged to pass a month or so in
the constant society of some of the very shallow young men
whom one meets in these days."

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 69

"Papa," said Dorothea severely, "what have you ever seen
in me to lead you to imagine that I should dream of wanting
any man of the class to which you allude? Ask Margaret if I
like them, or if they like me. I thought you knew me better,
and had a higher opinion of my taste and judgment."

The general looked as one thus rebuked should look ; but
he managed to say : " It strikes me, that I have on a few occa-
sions seen such young men not only in your drawing-room, but
at my own dinner-table and I am very sure that / did not in-
vite them there."

" One must take society as one finds it," replied Dorothea
loftily ; " and if one shuts one's doors on all people who are not
cultivated and charming, one would have a very small circle.
One must ask stupid people to dinner sometimes but not to go
to Mexico with one. When I do that, papa, you may put me
in a strait-jacket, for I should be a fit subject for it. The
trouble is, as I have said, to find anybody worthy of such an
invitation."

"You may be quite sure, papa," said Mrs. Langdon, "that
no one will be added to the party without your knowledge and
consent."

" After all," said the general thoughtfully, " it is not, perhaps,
a bad idea to enlarge the masculine element a little. I should
not object to a man if he were of suitable age and tastes, for
my companionship. I am going down to the club, and perhaps
I may meet "

" Papa," cried Dorothea, springing up and seizing him by the
button-hole, " don't you dare to do such a thing as to ask any
of the old fo gentlemen who hobnob with you at the club, to
join us ! If you do, I shall stay at home. A bore fastened to
one for such a length of time would be simply intolerable."

" Softly, softly, Dorothea," said her sister's quiet tones. " Papa
is not nearly as likely as you are to do anything rash ; but per-
haps " looking at him with a beguiling smile "he would not
mind promising not to invite any one without consulting us ? "

" I should not think of such a thing," responded the general
a little gruffly. " I am far too much under petticoat rule to
venture on such an independent action. Now, Dorothea, if you
will be kind enough to let me go "

'" Not until you pardon my impetuosity, papa," said Dorothea,
who saw that he was for once displeased. " The danger was so
great it upset me for a moment. Come nobody at all shall be
asked, and we will go as a strictly family party if you prefer it."

70 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Oct.,

" I prefer what will give you most pleasure, my dear," said
her father kindly. "You and Margaret can talk it over and de-
cide who you would like to ask. I only request a reasonable
privilege of veto which probably I shall have no need to ex-
ercise. Now you must really let me go. I have an appoint-
ment to meet a man at the club at four o'clock."

CHAPTER II.

GATHERING RECRUITS.

Dorothea always afterwards said that it was a positive proof
to her of the direct interposition of a kindly Providence in even
the small affairs of human life, that when her father entered his
club that afternoon the first person whom he met was Herbert
Russell.

An old friend in former days of the Meynell family, this
gentleman in later times had become somewhat lost to them
but very well known to the world at large as traveller, scholar,
and man of letters. A wanderer in many lands, he had in
great measure ceased to belong to one, at least as far as the
subtle chords of association and friendship were concerned ; and,
as there is no gain without some loss, he sometimes felt that
the man who takes the whole world for his country, must of
necessity miss some things which belong to a narrower mode of
existence. His knowledge may be much greater, his human
sympathies far more wide, but he can never know the long-en-
during ties, the deeply-rooted friendships, the tender if half-un-
conscious affection for familiar paths and skies, which form so
much of life for the man whose ways have lain within closer
bounds. Russell was a man whose perceptions were too fine not
to feel this ; and it sometimes came upon him with saddening
force when he found himself treading as a stranger the streets of
his native city. He had friends there who never forgot him, or
who at least remembered him with a cordial welcome whenever
he presented himself to them. But to how many interests of
their lives had his long absences made him alien ; while at
every recurring visit he found their number less. He was think-
ing of these things as he sat a spare, sunburnt man, with
nothing remarkable about his appearance except an air of refine-
ment and a pair of very keen and kindly dark eyes in the
reading-room of the club with a newspaper in his hand. Of the
half-dozen men present not one was known to him ; and al-

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 71

though nobody was ever more absolutely without that social
craving which makes their own society so oppressive to many
people, the fact added to that consciousness of strangeness which
always saddened him a little. His eyes were on the sheet be-
fore him, but he was paying not much heed to its words, rather
wandering back in fancy to half-forgotten days and scenes, when
a hand suddenly fell on his shoulder, and looking up he saw
a tall, erect, elderly gentleman with something of a military
air, a white moustache and gray, closely-curling hair, who was
smiling with eager cordiality.

" Why, Russell, my dear fellow," cried this striking-looking
personage, " where do you come from ? and how long have you
been in New Orleans ?"

" My dear General Meynell, I am delighted to meet you !"
said Russell, rising quickly and grasping the other's outstretched
hand. " I come well, let us say, for the sake of brevity, from
the Antipodes, and I have only been in New Orleans a day or
two. I should have given myself the pleasure of calling on you
at once, had I known you were in the city."

" Oh ! I am always here now," answered the general cheerily.
" Come, let us find a quiet corner where we can talk and smoke
a sociable cigar. What was I saying ?" he went on when they
were settled in the smoking-room. " Ah, yes ! that I live here
now. I have given up the management of the plantation to
George since he has married. Life on a plantation is no bed of
roses in these days ; and I much prefer taking my ease in New
Orleans, where I can meet my old friends, and enjoy a few rub-
bers and dinners occasionally."

" Your friends have reason to congratulate themselves, as well
as you, on the change," said Russell. " But I shall never forget
the delightful days I have spent at Beau-Sejour. And how are
my old friends, who were very young friends in those days, Miss
Meynell Mrs. Langdon, I mean and Mademoiselle Dorothea ?"

" They are both very well. Margaret, you know, is a widow.
Her husband, poor fellow ! died before they had been married a
year. Dorothea, who was a school-girl when you saw her last,
is now a full-fledged young lady but as much of a madcap as
ever."

" A charming madcap, I am sure, or else the promise of her
youth has been belied. How well I remember her the quaint,
wise, merry little hoiden ! And Phil what is he doing?"

" Phil insisted on becoming a civil engineer chiefly, I think,
because the boy has a passion for roving ; and he thought that

72 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Oct.,

profession a good means of gratifying his taste. He has gone
to Mexico. By-the-bye, we are thinking of going down there
to see him this winter. I wonder if you know anything about
that country you are what they call in these days a ' globe-
trotter,' eh?"

" I must plead guilty to having done a little globe-trotting,"
answered Russell modestly, " and as for Mexico, I know it well
and like it so much that I am on my way there to spend my
third winter."

" What !" cried the general with a radiant face. " You are
on your way to Mexico ? Why, this is capital news ! How
pleased Margaret and Dorothea will be ! You are just the man
to tell them all about the country, for we know what kind of a
traveller you are. It was only the other day Dorothea was talk-
ing of some of your articles about Persia, I believe. If you
can throw as much light for us on Mexico now "

" I ought to be able to throw a good deal more," said Rus-
sell, " for I have seen little of Persia, compared to what I have
seen of Mexico. I wandered down there, as it were, by accident
two years ago, and was so pleased with all I found that I have
returned every winter since. I have been studying the country,
especially its history, art, and antiquities, with the intention of
writing something which I hope may have a scholarly value. I
am going back now for a few final notes, and I shall be very
glad if I can be of service in giving you any information."

" You can tell us everything !" said the general. " What a
stroke of good luck that I should meet you ! Phil is very much
pleased with the country ; but Phil is of an age and disposition
to be pleased with anything so I have not attached much im-
portance to his opinion. But if you like it and you really do,
eh?"

" I like it so much," Russell answered, " that I am half afraid
to talk of it, for fear of seeming enthusiastic a fault not readily
pardoned in these days. But the land, with its story, its art and
its people, is one of the most interesting to be found in the
world to-day. It is Spain, the East, and the New World blend-
ed in a whole of incomparable picturesqueness."

" Is it possible ?" said the general. " I have read a good
many books of travel professing to describe the country but
the impression they left of it on my mind was by no means of
that kind."

Russell smiled. " The American traveller of a generation
ago," he said, " found nothing to admire and everything to con-

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 73

demn in Mexico, because everything was moulded in a form of
civilization entirely different from his own which he conceived
to be the standard of excellence for the world. It cannot be
said that this race of travellers is extinct at the present time
but another class has lately risen among us, whom more cosmo-
politan culture has educated into broader sympathy and a love
of things foreign and picturesque. To these people Mexico offers
a field for delightful wandering which is simply unsurpassed."

" When Dorothea hears you," said the general, " there will
be no restraining her. She will want to start at once. But I
am really very glad that you can promise us an interesting ex-
cursion."

" More than that," said Russell, " I advise you not to defer
it, for it is well to see Mexico before the change which is called
* progress ' goes farther. With railroads piercing the country in
very direction, the tide of travel constantly increasing, and
money-making Americans and Englishmen flooding it, the assimi-
lating process which is making the whole world so drearily alike
will soon have done its work there as elsewhere. Go, then, and
see it while its peculiar and picturesque charm remains."

" Well, you know I don't agree with you about practical im-
provements and so on," answered the general, who thought it
his duty to enter a protest now and then in favor of the nine-
teenth century, as represented by railroads, street-cars, steam-
ploughs, and other things which his friend regarded as industrial
atrocities. " But no doubt we shall find Mexico interesting all
the more because we can enter it in a Pullman car. Now, you
must really come and see Margaret and Dorothea, and tell them
all that you have been telling me. They will be delighted to
see you again. Have you any engagement ? Can't you come
at once ?"

Russell had no engagement, and there seemed no reason why
he should not oblige his old friend in the manner asked. So he
cheerfully assented to the general's proposal, and accompanied
him from the club and into a St. Charles Avenue car. A little
later they alighted on the handsome street of that name before
a large house, encircled by wide galleries, which occupied a cor-
ner situation, and was surrounded by fine old trees and beauti-
ful lawns and shrubbery.

" I hope we shall find my daughters at home," said the gen-
eral, as he admitted his companion and himself. The hope was
speedily realized ; for crossing the veranda and entering a spa-
cious hall, the sound of voices from the open drawing-room door

74 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Oct.,

told them that the ladies were within. The next moment they
stood in the doorway and looked on a pretty picture.

A fire which was a mass of glowing coal burned in a brass-
girt, tile-lined grate, and threw its rosy radiance over a room
full of the soft hangings and graceful forms which gratify the
artistic sense in these aesthetic days, and also over a group
gathered in easy chairs about the hearth, while the short winter
afternoon deepened into dusk outside the windows. The lady clad
in black draperies, with a transparent complexion, rich chestnut
hair waving back from a beautiful brow, radiant gray eyes and
a smile of singular sweetness, was, of course, Mrs. Langdon.
There was no mistaking her, though Russell had seen her last
just as she had bloomed into girlhood and was on the eve of
the marriage which had ended so soon. Neither could he mistake
pretty Dorothea, with her fair hair, and soft brown eyes set in
a Greuze-like face. But it was not until he had advanced into
the room, been presented to and cordially welcomed by the two
ladies, that he recognized the slender, well-dressed man who
formed the third person of the group. Yet he, too, proved to
be an old acquaintance. Le"on Travers was, as his name implied,
a product of the two strains of nationality that meet in Louisi-
ana, and that do not very often mingle. The marriages of two
successive generations had made him in blood more English
than French. Yet so strong is the impress of race, especially of
a race so marked in its characteristics as that of the Creole of
Louisiana, that he looked as if no one of his ancestors had ever
sought an alliance outside of the French quarter of New Orleans.
His graceful figure and dark, thin, handsome face were as
strikingly French as his manner and speech were English. And
in his mental constitution the same subtle mingling and predomi-
nance of the Gallic type appeared. In his processes of thought
he was altogether French, keen, logical, brilliant, with an intel-
lectual facility which had made his friends early prophesy much
distinction for him. But the distinction had not been achieved,
except in a limited social sense; for, with all his brilliancy,
the critical faculty overpowered every other with him, and did
not spare himself more than others. Consequently, what he
might do remained yet in the order of potentialities, while the
fact that he had never done anything to justify his reputation
for cleverness, together with his attitude of unfailing criticism,
made some people who disliked him declare that he was not
only overrated, but full of objectionable conceit and affectation.
But those who knew him best were sure that this was not the

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 75

case ; and among those who knew him best were the Meynells.
It was true that Dorothea was among the number of his most
unsparing critics ; but this probably was because she resented a
slight tinge of patronage in his manner toward herself the pa-
tronage which many men of the world display to young girls,
and which is peculiarly irritating to a girl who feels or fancies
herself clever enough to meet the same man of the world on
equal terms.

The first greetings and inquiries of this group of old friends
over, and the situation as it related to Mexico fully explained,
Dorothea's enthusiasm fully justified her father's prediction.

" You are on your way to Mexico for your third winter ! "
she said to Russell. " How fortunate that papa should have met
you just at this time ; for I suppose he has told you that we
have decided to go there ourselves ? " ,

" He has told me," Russell answered, "and I was delighted to
hear it, for I am sure that you will be charmed with Mexico.
Any one of taste and culture must be charmed with it. And
then, you see, a little selfishness comes in for since I am going
there myself, what is to prevent our paths from crossing now
and then ?"

" Oh ! I hope they will do more than cross," returned the
young lady quickly. She clasped her hands and leaned forward
in a pretty attitude of entreaty. " Mr. Russell," she said quite
solemnly, " we cannot have the presumption to ask you to join
us, but I am sure papa and Margaret will agree with me in
begging that we may be allowed the privilege of joining you.
Just think" addressing her father and sister "what a guide and
interpreter of the country fate has throw in our way ! "

" But you forget," said Mrs. Langdon, " that however admir-
able such an arrangement might be for us, Mr. Russell has pro-
bably other things to do besides interpreting the country for our
benefit."

"I have nothing to do which is 'incompatible with renderiiig
you any service in my power," said Russell who really meant
what he said. For although esteemed an unsocial man generally,
he was by no means averse to society when it suited him. " My
only claim to know a little more of Mexico than most travellers,"
he went on, "is that I like the country and the people and
there is no comprehension equal to that which is founded on
sympathy. I think, therefore, that I may be of use to you ; and
if so, I assure you that I shall be very happy."

" And you are willing to take charge of us, and tell us where

76 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Oct.,

to go, and what to see, and how to see it ? you will not be
bored to death by having to go over ground that you know so
well ? " asked Dorothea eagerly.

He shook his head smiling. " I shall not be bored," he said ;
" but I cannot answer for what you may be, for remember that a
man with a hobby is likely to ride it hard. And Mexico is my
hobby just now."

" That makes it the more delightful," she said with shining
eyes. " If you did not take an interest in the country, how
could you interpret it ? And I must tell you, Mr. Russell, that
you are my ideal traveller. I have never read any of your arti-
cles about foreign places without saying to myself that I should
like to look at a country through your eyes for you see so
much that seems to be hidden from other people. And now I
am t<& have the opportunity ! . It seems almost too fortunate to
be true."

" I hope," said Russell, " that you may not change your
mind with regard to my ideal travelling qualities, and decide
that hereafter you prefer to receive my impressions through the
medium of type. But " and now he included the others in his
speech " if you are leaving soon, I shall be glad to join you
and give you the benefit of my experience in every way pos-
sible."

" My dear fellow," said the general cordially, " Dorothea has
spoken the sentiments of all of us. We shall be very grateful
if you will allow us to attach ourselves to you ; for, apart from
your personal qualities, your knowledge of the country will be
of the greatest advantage."

" And, as Dorothea has also said, it is wonderful good for-
tune for us to have met you just on the eve of our journey,"
added Mrs. Langdon with her charming smile.

Then Travers, who up to this time had been listening silently,
suddenly spoke.

" I wonder," he said in his slightly languid voice, " if your
party has room for another recruit. I, too, am smitten by a
desire to see Mexico, and to enjoy the benefit of Russell's inter-
pretation thereof. Perhaps I am exposing myself to be ignomini-
ously snubbed ; but I think I should like to have a part in any-
thing so pleasant as this expedition promises to be."

It is probable that the speaker was not flattered by the pause
which followed this speech a pause in which the members of
the Meynell family looked at each other and, mindful of the
agreement entered into between them, tried to read in each

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 77

other's eyes the sentiments of each regarding the proposed addition
to their party. Before any one felt certain enough to break the
rather awkward silence Travers himself spoke again with a
smile.

" I see," he said, " that I have been indiscreet. Pray con-
sider the suggestion withdrawn or perhaps it is I who should
withdraw and allow my name to be balloted upon ? "

" No, no ! " said the general quickly, " I have no doubt we
shall all be glad for you to join us. You see," he added frankly,
" we made an arrangement that no one should be asked to go
without the consent of all concerned ; and so "

" And so nobody wished to take the responsibility of speak-
ing for all," said Mrs. Langdon. " But, like papa, / shall be
very glad if you will join us."

"There only remains, then, for me to gain the votes of Miss
Meynell and Russell," said he, turning to the persons indicated.

" Mine you have with hearty good will," said Russell, who
had always liked the young man, -and knew him to possess capa-
bilities of comradeship which were not common.

But Dorothea held her peace for a minute longer, regarding
him the while with something slightly defiant in her bright,
steadfast glance. They were always sparring, these two, but no
one believed that there was any real dislike between them ; so
Dorothea's present silence rather surprised her father and sister.
When she spoke it was with a judicial air.

" It is not possible always to consult one's own tastes and
wishes," she said. " In forming a party like this one should
consider, in the first place, if its different elements will agree har-
moniously. Frankly, Mr. Travers, I have my doubts concerning
the harmony between yourself and some other members."

" Meaning, I presume, yourself," observed he calmly. " But
as far as I am concerned, I am willing to enter into an engage-
ment to keep the peace under all circumstances. If you on your
part can promise to be amiable "

" I was not alluding to myself at all," interrupted Miss Mey-
nell. " I was thinking of an altogether different person. You
have not heard that our party will include Miss Gresham."

" What ! " he cried, startled out of his usual languor. " Vio-
let Gresham ? " Dorothea nodded " Why on earth have you
ask'ed her?"

" Because I have a liking for her society," responded Doro-
thea unblushingly. " I am aware that you do not share this lik-
ing, but you see "

78 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Oct.,

" I was not taken into consideration," he said as she paused.
" That is very true. So, the question now is " he pulled his
moustaches meditatively for a moment " is Miss Gresham
enough of a drawback to spoil Mexico and what promises to be
otherwise an exceptionally agreeable party ? There must always
be a drawback to everything human. Bearing this in mind, I
still propose myself as a recruit. After all, if the rest of you
can stand the fair Violet, I can. But I really think Russell ought
to be warned."

"There is nothing at all for you to be warned about, Mr.
Russell," said Dorothea with a spark of indignation in her glance.
" Miss Gresharn, who has agreed to accompany us to Mexico, is
a very beautiful, and most people think very charming, girl, who,
however, has been unfortunate enough to incur Mr. Travers's dis-
like why, I am really unable to say."

"Then allow me to say," remarked Mr. Travers with great
urbanity. " I dislike, or rather I disapprove, of Miss Gresham
because she is a heartless flirt, without distinction either of man-
ners or of mind, although she certainly possesses an exceedingly
pretty face. I thought Russell should be warned, because she
will certainly attempt his capture at once."

Russell smiled. " If such an attempt will amuse her," he
said, " by all means let her have the gratification. Nothing is
less likely than her success."

"Yes, there is one thing less likely, Mr. Russell and that is
her making the attempt," cried Dorothea, growing more angry.
" Mr. Travers forgets himself when he says such things."

Travers deliberately drew from his pocket a note-book and
pencil. "Are you willing," he inquired, "to make a bet any
stake you please that the event predicted does not occur be-
fore your Mexican journey is half over? I will give heavy odds,
for I know Miss Gresham."

" I should never think of making a bet on such a subject,"
replied Dorothea with dignity. " I am only quite certain, as I
remarked a moment ago, that no party which is not entirely
harmonious in its different elements can prove a success. Mr.
Russell, I believe you have not seen Phil in a long while. Come
and I will show you his likeness."

As Russell rose and followed the young lady across the roo^m,
Travers turned to Mrs. Langdon with an air of appeal.

" What am I to do ? " he asked. " Am I to give up the hope
of making one of your party, or can I venture to go in spite
of Miss Gresham's presence and Miss Dorothea's disapproval ? "

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 79

" I don't think Dorothea will prove implacable," answered her
sister. " But why do you take so much pleasure in provoking
her, and why do you dislike Violet Gresham so much ? "

" I dislike Miss Gresham because she rasps me in every way,"
he replied, ignoring the first question. " Believe me, it is really
a mistake to make her one of your party."

" I am inclined to think so too," Mrs. Langdon admitted
candidly. " But Dorothea has a plan and there is no escape
now, for Violet came in half an hour ago, was asked to go, and
has agreed to do so. So, under the circumstances, perhaps you
had better not go. I fear you would not find it pleasant."

" If I had a proper sense of my own dignity I should re-
tire at once," he said. " But I suppose it is owing to the con-
trariety inherent in human nature that because nobody seems to
want me, I want very much to go. I'll risk Miss Gresham and
all her arts, not to speak of the disapproval of Miss Meynell, if
you will allow me to join your party."

She looked at him, smiling kindly. Those who knew her
well, said that Margaret Langdon had a singular faculty of not
only divining the best in people, but of drawing it out. Cer-
tainly Travers was a different man when he talked to her to
what he was in general society, or what he was when he was
provoking Dorothea. His affectations, of which he certainly
had a few, fell away from him ; his criticisms had not so
sharp an edge, and he spoke out his inner thoughts with
a sincerity and a certainty of comprehension which he hard-
ly displayed with any other person. In this, as in many
another case, " Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner" and Mrs.
Langdon, reading him thoroughly, not only pardoned his foibles
but liked him cordially, as her next words proved.

" Come, by all means," she said. " Never mind Dorothea ;
and as for Violet Gresham, I am sure you don't really mind
her. Now that we have Mr. Russell, I think our expedition will
be worth joining."

"I am certain of it," said Travers; "and since you kindly
permit me, I shall brave all consequences and go."

CHRISTIAN REID.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

8o THE JESUIT u RATIO STUDIORUM" [Oct.,

THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" IN POPULAR

LITERATURE.

So conspicuous and wide-reaching an educational subject as
the Jesuit system or method of studies might well demand
for its treatment some of the generous latitude known to
writers of a former age. The amplitude of proportions which
characterized their gigantic tomes, oftentimes with a thousand
folio pages devoted to a single topic, suggests a disparaging re-
flection on the modest limits with which the fecundity of writers
nowadays, or perhaps the patience of readers, seems to be satis-
fied. A few hours' reading on the part of a busy multitude
this is the extent and scope of what is set before the writer of
a book by his editor or publisher, who aims at meeting the
popular tastes. It may be added though, for the credit of our
day, that these conditions of paying homage to the popular
tastes were, no doubt, always the same. Be that as it may, I
have no other explanation to offer for having attempted recently
to give a rational account of the Educational System of the
Jesuits in a small book of three hundred pages.

Fortunately, under the constraint of their pent-up feelings,
relief comes to authors from the side of other editors, who ask
for explanations, and present difficulties which, they say, the
readers of their reviews would be happy to see answered. Al-
together, the correct discharge of their editorial functions seems
a true exercise of Christian benignity, when they invite authors
to disburden themselves in flowing print on the transient page
of their periodicals. It is owing to this Christian curiosity on
the part of the editors of THE CATHOLIC WORLD that I under-
take to say a few words on the Jesuit system of education. But
the few words confine themselves to so limited a space that I
think their import likewise must be confined to one thing.
Hence, I will just point out what kind of place it is that has
been allotted in popular literature to the Jesuit system, known
as the Ratio Studiorum.

Any subject that is very grave and deep, just like one that
is too plain and homely, is for the generality of men much im-
proved by being reflected through other men's minds. For the
deeper subjects busy and distracted men have neither time nor
thought sufficient ; just as, in homely trivialities, honest and

1892.] THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" 8r

candid minds cannot, for the life of them, see any colors to
show such subjects off. Hence the charm of the literary pro-
fession in the eyes of all the world, from the effort of the daily
news-sheet, which endeavors to dress up the vulgar doings of a
city in a guise unknown to mortal sight, up to the exhaustive
summary of a political situation, or the analysis of a great lit-
erary work, which a reviewer will project into an article, as upon
a screen, with a distinctness and comprehensiveness not to be
found if one travelled round the world for it. Such being the
interest attaching to reflected lights, we may look at the Jesuit
Ratio Studiorum, as it stands projected in the current literature
of what is called pedagogics.

Happily for the relish of the popular appetite, some literary
productions which would not be at all interesting are not to be
found in the market. I refer to those views of the subject
which are true though it is quite possible that, for the present
stage of information prevailing about Jesuit affairs, even what is
true might not be wanting in the charm of novelty. Just now
the learned world is handling with some amazement the genuine
article itself, as far as an educational system can be rendered
into print, in the Monumenta Germanice Padagogica, a monumental
work published by a pedagogical society in Berlin, and
thus far devoting one volume out of every three to the Ratio
Studiorum of the Society of Jesus, with the prospect of observ-
ing the same proportions for a good while to come.

Other views exhibit the right admixture to pique the popular
taste. They are partly true and partly false. Much of what is
current in English has hit this happy mean in the art of compo-
sition, though the authors or translators seem innocent of all
discernment as to what is true and what is false, or indeed what
it is they are talking about. Still, let them rejoice, inasmuch
as not all that they have said is wrong. It is only when a
scribe, degenerating to a taste for unmitigated foreignism,
translates in all their purity and simplicity certain French or
German productions that he offers to the normal scholars of
these truth-loving countries of ours, and to pedagogical inquirers
generally, a dish which I must characterize as not merely savor-
ing of the native mendacity of the originals, but as consisting of
that spice alone. Yet even these specimens of the book-maker's
art are sometimes set off by the honesty of the normal scholars
themselves ; who, learning their daily lessons in these worthy trans-
lations, and having repeated them duly, go a little farther and turn
to ask some Jesuit : " Why don't the Jesuits teach pupils to think
VOL. LVI. 6

82 THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" [Oct.,

profoundly? Why, don't they prepare students for original in-
quiry? How is it your system does not require the study of
history, geography, mathematics, English? Why do you prac-
tise espionage, and keep young men in close conventual bond-
age? etc." Questions like these show a bent for original in-
quiry ; they are an augury that some day, in spite of their
present education, the questioners may come to think profoundly ;
and that they discern already, in the spring-time of their life,
the possibility of some kernel of truth having once been encased
in the husks which text-books, and scribes, and translators, and
pedagogists have been serving up as food.

Thus much, at the very outset, appears to the most casual
observer, that no theory of education which pretends to survey
the evolution and condition of modern pedagogics is at liberty
to ignore the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum. In the development of its
subject, and in the actual form which education bears to-day,
pedagogy recognizes that the system of liberal education repre-
sented by the schools of the Jesuits, both lower and higher,
has been an integral and indispensable element. A great science
pedagogy has become ; a trifle bigger, I am inclined to believe,
than its brief gives it warrant to be ; and in given conditions,
which may or may not be verified, there is reason to fear a sud-
den collapse or a slow decline. But as far as it means some-
thing substantial and satisfactory, something distinct from the
hazy theories of would-be psychologists and half-developed social
economists even phrenologists and sanitary house-building com-
missioners seem to come under the hospitable roof of what is
styled modern pedagogics it is a science that traces the sub-
ject of education onwards from the revival of studies at the
Renaissance. At that period education received more than one
check, particularly in Germany, from the disorganizing spirit of
the Reformation. Then it followed a line of evolution for a
couple of centuries, .when there was little to represent liberal
culture in the greater part of Europe except the Jesuit system,
or such programmes as were professedly or silently derivations of
the Ratio; when Protestant England and Holland, no less than
the Catholic countries, translated and used Jesuit text-books,
whether the authorship was acknowledged or not ; and for this
reason it may be that many modern pedagogical histories slip
over those centuries, as if no education existed till the present
century dawned. Finally, in the present age, after many a politi-
cal manoeuvre and convulsion, education is found to be a matter of
concern to politicians, chambers, platforms, and committees ; and

1892.] THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" 83

no less so than the levying of an army. It is precisely this as-
pect of the question which has placed the fortunate science of
pedagogics on its highest level of prestige and influence. For
education means now the levying and commanding of a social
army, brought under control in childhood, and snatched from
every other grasp, be it that of domestic reverence and control,
or religious teaching and formation. It means, too, the working
of a vast machinery of dependency, which was never at hand
ready for the statesman's touch until he commanded the patron-
age of well-paid posts, and plenty of them, an army of pedagog-
ical positions, the name and numbering whereof, not to men-
tion the reckoning of taxes and moneys which must go to the
account of that budget, have made the ministry of public instruc-
tion one of the great bureaus of the day. This last point is
the very key of the actual situation. No one who desires to
form a correct estimate of the value, dignity, meaning of so
many scientific excrescences, theories, experiments, and what
not, which figure in the world of what is called education or
pedagogics, will ever view them under the right light unless he
projects this cash value properly let him disembarrass himself
of all notions of philanthropy, and take the cash value. With-
out it nearly all the rest would lose their lustre, their light, and,
alas ! their life ; and the science of pedagogy would come down
to its just and proper dimensions. Now, it is within these just
limits that the Jesuit system stands conspicuous. After being
seen to have inaugurated the new era at the time of the Refor-
mation, and to have given the direction to liberal education
during two and a half centuries, it is commonly recognized in
this the latest age of the Revolution to be exhibiting still a
type of liberal culture, which the Society of Jesus itself has
never belied, and which other institutions, though opposed in
religious beliefs, find it necessary to maintain or to recover, if
they are to uphold the purposes of their existence.

There is no difficulty in apprehending what is meant by a
liberal education as distinguished from that other kind with
which it is contrasted the utilitarian. Utility, in the matter of
pedagogics, keeps its eye upon the immediate practical use to
which information can be put ; it regards, not personal and
mental formation as its immediate scope, but information which
it acquires and accumulates. The object and aim, therefore, of
utilitarianism in education is not the power of knowing, the
power of understanding, the power of grouping facts and rea-
soning from them, wherein alone the saying is true that " know-

84 THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" [Oct.,

ledge is power," but it is the knowledge of facts, as far as such
knowledge may be of proximate service. Mechanical training is
utilitarian ; language courses that look to the immediate employ-
ment of the tongues acquired are utilitarian ; any direct appren-
ticeship, whether the material treated be manual or mental, is
utilitarian, for in such case the object which shapes the course
and determines its measure is the immediate attainment of a
livelihood. On the contrary, a liberal system of education re-
gards first and foremost the training of the mind, the drawing
out of the faculties, the cultivation of the imagination, the im-
provement of the memory in many and diverse fields of thought,
correctness and consistency in continued processes of reasoning
and judgment all this with the persistent leavening of the mor-
al character by so many means, which this varied and general
culture places in the hands of the vigilant and diligent educator,
is included in the idea of a liberal education, which distributes
its influences throughout the whole mind, memory, and will of
the subject under formation. This is culture. Utilitarian train-
ing is not culture ; for it merely takes the living subject and
shapes him to fill a place, an occupation, an office, as one would
shape a joint for a machine. So paramount is the dignity of
this liberal culture, which takes the living subject first and de-
velops him for what is in htm, until, once formed with a mind
well balanced all round, he will take his capacities with him
wherever he goes, and will make his worth felt whatever place
he fills, that utilitarians, to pass off their own systems, find it
necessary to make them pose as liberal, or, failing in that, to
confound all ideas of a liberal education. Some of them, more
candid, admit their principles broadly, and state plainly : What
we want nowadays is just the machine, neither more nor less;
that is, the man who can do one thing, and do that excellently
well turn a rivet, round a pin-head, work a lever, for ten mor-
tal hours every day of his all too mortal life.

The utilitarian system does not concern us here.. Every one
acknowledges that the Ratio Studiorum has stood before the
world as a method of higher liberal culture, not as a theory
but as a working plan in practical, extensive, nay, universal ope-
ration. A theory underlies it ; but it does not put forward the
theory. Men intensely practical, whom people generally credit
with knowing what they are about, and who have known per-
fectly well the principles they worked upon, have cared as little
from the first as perhaps they do to-day for drawing out theo-
retic views, and devising conceits on psychology or human evo-

1892.] THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" 85

lution, when it is a question, not of philosophy but of the grav-
est interests of business. They have not been adventurers in
fields unknown, when, numbering themselves thousands of pro-
fessors, they have been cultivating hundreds of thousands of
Christian youths. Nor have they ever seen much need of com-
mitting their principles to print for the general world, when no
one else could apply those principles in their own way, and
when their way was that of men themselves the living embodi-
ment in cast of thought, character, and life of the very theory
they put in practice. Hence that written code of practical bear-
ings called the Ratio Studiorum is to be regarded as a commen-
tary on something vital behind it ; on principles of life, on cus-
toms, on the animated action and the corporate formation of
the men whose method is but indicated by it. If there are many
more things consigned to print than the directive code just re-
ferred to, such documents, for instance, as the Monumenta Ger-
manicB Pcedagogica so amply reproduces from Germany alone,
they, too, are only memorials and commentaries, bearing on an
actual pedagogical life behind and outside of them. To the eye
of a stranger, who sees the literature and does not discern the
life, they will convey as little intelligence as would the chart of
a city which consisted, like some Western towns on the prairies,
not of houses, streets, and commerce, but of names posted up,
of a designation assigned to a city yet to be if indeed ever to
be ; which indeed is an exact description of so many plans, pro-
grammes, and conceits now burdening pedagogical literature.

Is this a novel idea, that of a code which is but an active
working commentary on a vigorous life behind, that is to apply
the code? The idea is not new in the Institute of the Society
of Jesus, and I doubt whether it is novel elsewhere. There is
a little book called The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius not
any of those works in circulation going by that name, but the
genuine little book itself. There would be no use in anybody's
thumbing that ; it would be simply unintelligible, except in the
hands for which it is meant. It lays down no theory. It is a
note-book, commenting on a process which is supposed to be
going on. The text of that commentary is the process ; it is
personal " exercise " ; and the book annotates that personal
practice nothing more. This idea of a process going on, of a
system which is first alive and only then finds some expression
in legislation, is quite familiar to the members of every teaching
order in the church, and indeed, to borrow a higher illustration,
is familiar to the church itself. The Christian life and organiza-

86 THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" [Oct.,

tion were complete in substance before inspired documents were
written. In every teaching order, likewise, there is first a family
identity and working energy, which, in proportion as it is intrin-
sic and congenital, is unmistakable and incommunicable. We
may discern the same to a limited extent in other great educa-
tional corporations, like the old universities ; one has been able
to give what another could not, a cast of thought, a manner of
life, quite distinct from any catalogued number of courses which
respectively they might profess. But, owing to their loose per-
sonal formation, the individuals of such faculties having been
imperfectly influenced, and certainly not at all formed, by any
one type of pedagogical character, the results in the education
imparted have been proportionately indistinct and unpronounced.
With regard to a very recent conception of educational institu-
tions, as being the mere outcome of money foundations, mul-
tiple courses, manifold edifices covering a campus, without any
means whatever of cultivating a special yield of professorial pro-
duct, such a plan excludes the very possibility of an individual-
ity in the institution, and leaves only an emporium of assorted
information, which you can buy in one place or another indif-
ferently.

Let me carry out the idea farther, by inquiring whether the
want of an individuality is much of a loss ? Well, in the first
place, if it leaves, as I have just said, only what you can buy
anywhere else in the market, so far it reduces, or leaves the in-
stitution condemned to the common vulgar level of being no-
body in particular just one of a general crowd. But, secondly,
in the history of eminent institutions, it is quite evident that
the special individual character has been the making of them,
such as they were. Even in the material world of commerce
and industry this holds as a rule. The stamp impressed on
work executed has been, not unfrequently, the whole secret of
success and renown. One might think that, in building ships for
an identical work with splendid models before them, it ought to
be difficult for first-class firms to diverge from the splendid
type which has proved successful ; whereas it appears that the
docks of London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Belfast, turning out the
Atlantic liner for the very same work, cannot take off another's
characteristics. In short, all this means nothing else than a par-
ticular accumulation of judicious information, special traditions,
competent experience, and that body of conditions indefinable,
which makes a business no less than a profession.

How much more is all this true of the multitude of indefina-

1892.] THE JESUIT u RATIO STUDIORUM" 87

ble mental and moral influences that go to form, not a single
teacher merely but a school an order of teachers, operating in
the natural and supernatural spheres together, and that upon the
most capacious and impressionable of subjects the youthful
mind and heart ! And, if this is possible, as it is, nothing could
testify more fully to its actuality, and to the intense vitality of
its working energy, than that one system, first resident in the
teachers themselves, then finding expression in a written code,
should be found good in varied conditions of life, consistent in
changing circumstances, and practicable all the world over. This
bears witness, not only to a marked individuality of the live
system in operation, but to the correctness of the essential prin-
ciples adopted, which alone can be applicable in diverse places,
times, and nations.

In the Jesuit system, the liberal development contemplated
may be viewed either in its full and entire conception, or in that
degree of execution which is the very least expression of its
idea. Taken in its full import, the system begins with the ulti-
mate object in view, those professions which terminate the
courses. They are Theology, Law, Medicine. It locates them,
legislating fully and minutely for theology, since the faculty in
this department is to be made up exclusively of Jesuit profes-
sors. Then it descends to the general formation, prior to these
professional departments, and it legislates for all the philosophi-
cal and natural sciences, with dialectics opening the door thereto.
Finally, it comes down to the curriculum preparing the young
minds for the main and manly sciences ; this curriculum is that
of Rhetoric, Belles-Lettres, and the grammatical studies so well
known in the literary colleges.

If a commercial life rather than a professional one is to be
prepared for, it is supposed, nevertheless, that such a life will
not be without a sufficiency of prospective opportunities to ad-
mit of turning to account the intellectual capital stored up. The
system not only does not anticipate the sinking of intellectual
acquirements in a total want of opportunities, but the General,
Aquaviva, expressly stated that he considered the Society de-
frauded of the end it had in view if ecclesiastics did not go
forth to their ministry, and lay students into their own walks
of life, qualified with a sufficiency of literary culture.*

This statement brings us to the other idea, that which I have
called the least practical expression of what the system under-

* Loyola, and the Educational System of the Jesuits. Chapter iii., "The Intellectual
Scope and Method proposed," page 83.

88 THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" [Oct.,

takes to do ; that is, the humanities, rhetoric, and, if possible, a
tincture of sound philosophical principles. As to this literary
curriculum, I have discussed elsewhere the merits of a classical
education as the vehicle of higher culture, and I have no space
to review that matter now.* It will be observed here that, un-
der the pressure of modern life, what the Ratio contemplates as
the smallest measure of its liberal development is, in the large
majority of local cases, the utmost it has room to effect. It
has, in a lesser degree, been so always. Comparatively few out
of many reach the higher courses set before them ; and so the
largest amount of the pedagogical activity of the order has been
devoted to the preparatory curriculum of polite letters and rhe-
toric, with a brief training in logic and philosophy besides.

In the literature which the outside world has expended on
the Jesuit system of studies there is to be noticed what Bacon
would call a " deficiency," or, with more piquancy, a " peccant
humor." Indeed, there is more than one such. In the first
place, learned folks ignore the entire main body of the system,
the philosophical and natural sciences, and the sacred and learned
professions. Yet these take up three-fifths of the document
called the Ratio Studiorum. In the second place, critics profess
to go by this printed document, ignoring completely the whole
vital system of traditions, customs, manner of administration
which, of course, no one of this class of pedagogical authorities
knows anything about, for there is no reason to believe that
they ever saw the inside of a Jesuit college in their life, if in-
deed they ever made the acquaintance of a Jesuit. In the third
place, they do not find in the said document what is expressly
written there, as, for instance, the legislation about the vernacu-
lar, mathematics, history, geography, etc. In the last place, they
have never read the document they quote.

If there is anything a live system challenges it is contact
with itself, and inspection of its working. Active people, even if
not aggressive, do not care to be read of as if they were pre-Re-
formation in date, or even pre-Revolution ; still less, when the
very existence of the Society of Jesus is a triumph over the
Revolution, which in its first throes doomed the order to extinc-
tion, as the primary condition of its own evolution ; least of all
do they expect to be run away from by a school of " original
investigation " and " profound thought." Mr. Henry Barnard,
as far back as June, 1858, expostulated with the readers of the
American Journal of Education, in connection with Von Rau-

* Loyola, chapter xvi.

1892.] THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" 89

mer, whom he was translating for an article on " The Jesuits
.and their Schools." He spoke in this wise : " The past as well
as the present organization of the Jesuits the course of instruc-
tion, methods of teaching and discipline, are worthy of profound
study by teachers and educators who would profit by the expe-
rience of wise and learned men." And again : " The schools of
the Jesuits are not merely an institution of the past. They are
now in successful operation in this, as well as in nearly every
country in Europe." Then, animadverting on his own authority,
Von Raumer, he continues: "The only way in our country and
in this age to ' put down ' such schools, which have their roots
in the past and which have been matured, after profound study,
by men who have made teaching the profession of their life
from a sense of religious duty, is to multiply institutions of a
better quality, and bring them within the reach of poor but talented
children."* This bit ^of American common sense does not pre-
vent them all, and himself among them, from flying to a docu-
ment, instead of living facts ; nor do they even so much as that,
which is to their credit, for no one of them could understand
the document if he read it, but they hurry off for the thread-
bare materials supplied by a fanatic like Von Raumer, or by K.
A. Schmid's Encyclopcedie ; and, in a foot-note, they jot down the
Ratio Studiorum as a "source." In latter years the chancel-
lor of a university has plied his pedagogic profession by a strik-
ing piece of originality he has found a new field, even our Gal-
lic neighbors, and has translated Gabriel Compayre ! Imagine
the profundity of educational thought which a German investi-
gator has not satisfied ! There remain other " sources " of this
kind for new investigators to draw on. Meanwhile, there is no
pedagogical book-maker in the English language who may be
excepted from this literary category, of being a servile parasite
at the tables of encyclopaedias, or sources more exceptionable
still. They all repeat, like scholars learning the same lesson ;
and no wonder they agree. And their normal scholars who
learn their daily pedagogic lesson have to repeat the same thing.
I notice it is a charge [made against the Jesuit method that
scholars, not being taught " to think profoundly," had nothing
to do but to " repeat what was taught them."

There is Mr. Quick, a well-meaning Englishman. The Ap-
pleton International Education Series republished in 1890 an old
book of his, called Educational Reformers, The first of the ele-
ven essays which that somewhat slight book contains is on the

* Pp. 285, 228.

90 THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIOKUM" [Oct. r

schools of the Jesuits. The list of his authorities are the same
as usual, the Ratio, of course, included ; but his real authorities
are apparently Schmid's Encyclopcedie and Henry Barnard's Ger-
man Teachers, with some pleasant quotations which probably he
took himself from Father Sacchini. Now, Mr. Quick, who was
still alive in 1890, tells the story of his old book when recom-
mitting it to a new edition ; and he does not think he can bet-
ter the performance by recasting it. It appears that not this
first essay alone, but all the other ten, describing as many sys-
tems, were the outcome of a twelve-month's investigation by a
busy man ! He says candidly that the feat he had then per-
formed was like a perilous descent he made once down the
Gemmi Pass : " I did a risky thing without knowing it. My
path came into view little by little as I went on. All else was
hid from me by a thick mist of ignorance. ... I turned out
the essays within a year. ... I have not attempted a com-
plete account of anybody or anything," etc. With this confession
in the author's preface, we have the following appreciation in
the introduction by the editor of the series, Mr. W. T. Harris :
" I have called this book of Mr. Quick the most valuable history
of education in our mother-tongue, fit only to be compared with
Karl Von Raumer's Geschichte der Pcedagogik for its presentation
of essentials and for the sanity of its verdicts." I have nothing
to say against the sanity of Mr. Harris's verdict. There is no
other production in English a whit better than Mr. Quick's, and
the allusion to Von Raumer is felicitous.

That is a brisk little skirmish which Dr. Fernand Butel in-
dulges in, by way of preface to a recent book on the old Jesuit
college of St. Yves, in Brittany. The author touches on that
" universal prejudice which has made the name of Jesuit synony-
mous with ambitious knavery." He says he has investigated the
origin of this notion so circulated, and he expresses the results
of his examination in the words of the Comte de Maistre.
" Error," observes the count, " is like counterfeit money : knaves
coin it and honest folks circulate it." Butel goes on : " Interest
creates the calumny, and ignorance propagates it. Ask, for in-
stance, the first enemy of the Jesuits you meet, Have they done
you any harm? None. Do you know them ? Guess not ; never
met one of them ! Then what do you find fault with ? Why,
what do you mean, sir? Every one is against them, don't 'you
see? There must be something in it !" To . appreciate this strik-
ing attitude of the liberal French voter for a century back, one
need not go to France. Independent investigators of this type

1892.] THE JESUIT "RATIO STUDIORUM" 91

and original thinkers of this stamp may be met with elsewhere.
Still, I think the French infidel deserves the palm. Here is a
Jansenist, or a scion of Jansenist stock, who has written lately
M. Drevon. In the history 'of a municipal college at Bayonne
he devotes nearly a hundred pages to certain issues between the
Jesuits and the people of that town, the cradle of Jansenism.
The vilification and vituperation which, from a literary point of
view, make a sheer waste of whatever history might be in the
question, reminds one of nothing so much as a shallow surf
splashing endlessly in a dreary wash on the wet sands. Some
people like the occupation ; but it is a little dreary. Well, his
literary genius does rise now and then to the lofty critical
thought that his readers may possibly not take vilification from
Jansenistic archives to be necessarily true, and that even denun-
ciations of the Jesuits may require a little verification. Accord-
ingly, he refers in various foot-notes to " Pieces justificatives " at
the end of the bulky volume. Turning over to these critical
justifications, what does one find? The identical Jansenistic ar-
chives of which the text was a translation repetitions of his
text, his text repetitions of them ! This is a sublime conception
of history. The book bids for a translation from some peda-
gogic scribe. And so the comedy goes round.

To conclude : Philosophy is no more in the universities. It
does not pretend to be. The faculties called philosophical begin
by telling stories of what philosophers have said, and they end
by telling stories. There is a thing here alongside of philosophy,
or instead of it, which pretends to be a science of pedagogy.
Whatever science is meant by that term has been elsewhere for a
very long while. But, under its name, a comedy holds the
magisterial platform, and makes exhibition of conceits or igno-
rance, of indolence or incompetence. And a blooming normal
scholarship sits below I do not know whether it is admiring ;
maybe, it is thinking profoundly ; perhaps it is investigating with
originality; but all that appears to the profane eye is that it re-
peats by rote. And the repetition circulates, till it must be
true.

THOMAS HUGHES, SJ.

St. Lout's University, St. Louis, Mo.

ISABELLA REGNANT.

OLUMBUS gone! Haste! Bring him back to me!
Rather I fling my crown into the sea
Than he, rejected, pleading all in vain,
Shake from his pilgrim feet the dust of Spain !

Ah, Ferdinand ! the warrior's art you know,

And state-craft, and the subtle tender show

Of watchfulness that steals a woman's heart !

But there's a nobler science, finer art

Than gallantry, or state-craft : there are fields

Of battle fought with neither sword nor shield,

Where souls heroic bleed invisibly,

And falter not ; for down the watchful sky

A whisper bids them onward to the end,

And their own echoes answer, ' To the end ! '

To such, though to the glory round us shed
Of right divine to rule they bow the head,
Our lives must seem, with all that they have won,
Like some small planet's transit o'er the sun.
They seek a prize greater than that we see
Where red Alhama lifts the Hand and Key,
And loftier walls to scale, or batter down,
Than those that o'er the rushing Darro frown.

A visionary, is he ? Marked you how

Straight line on line ruled all that studious brow ?

Guessed you no sovereign text engraven there

'Twixt the wide-swelling temples' silvered hair?

A visionary ! No great plan on earth

To which foreseeing minds have given birth

Was e'er accomplished, but some heart of stone

Found it impossible till it was done !

1892.] ISABELLA REGNANT. 93.

Bring me my jewels necklace, clasp and ring,
Bracelets and brooches, every shining thing !
Let not a single pearl roll out of sight
Of all my Orient strings of milky light ;
Miss not the heads of onyx finely wrought,
Withhold no sun-bright diamond. There's naught
Of cunning gold-work, nor of radiant stone,
Too precious to help pave the path whereon,
Beyond the unknown waters, vast and dun,
The Cross shall travel with the westering sun !
Bring my Castilian gems whose wedded shine
Two kingdoms joined their hands to place in mine.
Ah, my strong Castile and my brave Leon !
I brought no lamb in fold to Aragon !

What makes a queen ? Not jewels, though they glow

Like sunset on the high Sierra's snow ;

Nor broidered robe, though its fine artist thought

Excel Our Lady's velvet train, gold-wrought,

That sparkles in her wake seven metres long

When out they bear her through the praying throng. , .

To queenship these are trivial things, and low.

Through her the nation's better self should show

In larger welcome of brave thoughts and men,

In sympathies that reach beyond the ken

Of humbler lots, drawing from far and near

All that of virtue is most high and clear,

In sole ambition to endow the state

With every virtue of the truly great.

That she a model of fair virtue serve,

Mindful no step of hers from order swerve,

To God a little lowlier bowing down

In that her brow has dared to wear a crown !

Behold my thought of what a queen should be !
God and his saints make such a queen of me !

Something I see in omens : this man's name

The saint from whom his fair baptismal came

(A giant who had served the great arch-foe),

Had for his penance that, whoe'er would go

Across a certain ford both deep and wide,

On his strong shoulders raised should pass the tide*

94 ISABELLA REGNANT. [Oct.,

Once a fair child besought him : ' Take me o'er ! '

But as the giant on his shoulders bore

The little one, ever it heavier grew,

Till scarce his strength sufficed to bear it through.

And when, all trembling, he had passed the ford,

Lo ! the fair infant was the Blessed Lord !

And (still the name !) when storm-clouds black unfurled

And bursting fountains had submerged the world,

O'er the dread wave no rower could withstand,

It was a dove they loosed to find the land !

This Christopher Columbus, then, may claim

Something of warrant by his very name !

He waits without ? Invite him here to me ;
And mark you show no dubious courtesy !

Seflor, my jewels ! All that's mine to give,
Save my most fervent prayers that you may live
To come again for such a coronet
As never yet on human brow was set,
And a queen's promise that, howe'er it end,
You shall find firm protectress and true friend
In Isabella, sovereign of Castile !

Should your great task grow heavier, till you feel
Your strength, and hope, and courage almost faint,
Remember Christopher, your guardian saint,
Struggling, half fallen in the swollen ford,
And think, like him, you bear the Blessed Lord !

MARY AGNES TINCKER.

1892.] A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. 95

A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK.

THE Catholic Summer Assembly at New London more than
fulfilled its promise of interest to us who put aside our plans for
summer vacation to attend its meetings.

For those who had not the good fortune to listen to the able
lecturers who interested and charmed us during the hot August
days I have endeavored to arrange and reset some of the bril-
liant thoughts and sayings which I find in my note-book.

In looking over the syllabus before school began, nearly every
one determined to avoid Ethics and Anthropology and take the
course in Literature and History instead. By the usual law of
contraries the two former subjects proved the most absorbing,
presented as they were in such a luminous way to eyes accus-
tomed to the semi-darkness of irreligious training. What have I
in my note-book from Father Halpin? These little white flow-
ers of truth :

All human or free acts tend toward the same end, happiness.
Stand beside the busy street ; catch the echo of the footfalls as
they rush and hurry by ; all carry the burden of the same cease-
less song, happiness, happiness ! We reach out eager hands to-
ward money, fame, success. We grasp them, only to find they
have turned to dust and ashes at our touch. All this life is but
a constant struggle. What is virtue but a continual balancing
between good and evil ? What is pleasure but pursuit, a strug-
gle for that which palls on our taste and ever incites us to new
action? What is knowledge but a constant desire to know
more ? Is this happiness, this ceaseless toil ? And yet perfect
happiness must be somewhere. Why did God make us? For
himself. Not as mere playthings to be tossed about by the rest-
less sea of life. His aim could be worthy only of himself ; then
in God alone we can find perfect happiness. Let us live lives
worthy of our high destiny.

Many more good words the teacher spoke, but my notes
must not be made too lengthy, or I would dwell on his admir-
able discourse on conscience, on rights and duties, on marriage
and divorce. A few words I must say on the latter : Man is a
social being. God wishes us to be such. The family is the
foundation of society ; take away the family and you destroy
society. The family is sacred. What is society? Two or more

96 A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. [Oct. r

individuals tending by common means to a common end. The
man has the authority. He is the head of the family; but in
this present day he has to some extent lost his vocation. He is
the head, the one every one should look to for regeneration of
mankind ; but to his shame be it said he has left the improving
and spiritualizing to the woman. Were it not for woman, her
tenderness and virtue, her patience and fortitude, her submission
and piety, the world to-day would be plunged in degradation.
How is the family constituted ? By the marriage contract, which
by the very essence of things is indissoluble. When once the
wedding-ring is placed upon the finger there is only one hand
that can take it off, and that is the hand of Death. The Catho-
lic Church has never approved of divorce. Follow divorce in
all its consequences and we find that its evil effects on the hu-
man race cannot be estimated. Religion does not approve, rea-
son does not approve, therefore do we repeat with our church,
" Non possumus"

We learn from history that the ancient cities were more
beautiful than any in our modern times, and still they came to
ruin. Their immorality was such as to destroy society, law, and
all the institutions of man. Ridiculous seems the picture of a
New-Zealander sitting upon a broken arch of London Bridge
gazing upon the ruins of that mighty city ; and yet the future
may see a so-called savage sitting upon Brooklyn Bridge viewing
the remains of our St. Paul's, if the immorality and free-think-
ing of the day be not checked.

Father Hughes's lectures on Anthropology began August 15.
" It is interesting to think," he said, " that we have begun the
study of man on the day consecrated to her who was the most
perfect specimen of God's handiwork the Blessed Virgin."

In his lectures the pernicious theories of godless scientists
had the strong light of revealed religion thrown upon them, so
that we were enabled to see through many of the darker falla-
cies. Why turn to monumental history, the most unreliable of
all evidence, when we have documentary history, in the Holy
Scriptures, approved and tested. We have in that wonderful
book the record of the time, place, and origin of man, and
science has done nothing to disprove it. To be totally blind is
a very sad thing ; but to be blind only to the light is sadder
still. The study of truth is wonderful enough in itself ; why step
outside into fantastic error to find new wonders?

Father Hughes's manner was so gently sarcastic in handling

1892.] A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. 97

these men and their suppositions as to prove most interesting.
He was of the opinion that we need not go beyond the Bible
for reliable knowledge concerning the antiquity, origin, and
starting point of man. Scientists bring forward as proof of the
indefinite antiquity of the human race, for one thing, the extinc-
tion of certain species of animals. They have died out. Whence
the argument is derived, how long a time since the man who
used them lived ! Grant that one hundred such species have
disappeared. Did each wait for the other, and so in graceful
procession pass off the prehistoric stage ? Allowing fifty years
for each species to become extinct, the sum total would not be
more than five thousand years, and that scarcely goes beyond
the date of Noe. No prehistoric antiquity there !

Now for the " prehistoric man." The force of the argument
lies in the vagueness and dimness of the term " prehistoric." Its
outlines are unknown, and so it seems magnificent. What, then,
are the facts of the case ? Whatever is antecedent to docu-
mentary history anywhere is prehistoric there. We cross the
line in America four centuries back. The Goths, the Huns, the
Vandals emerge from neglected places and unrecorded times two
thousand years ago. Rome and Greece come out into the full
blaze of history a little further back, the latter on learning the
letters that Cadmus gave ; and Cadmus came from Egypt. Where
did Egypt come in from the " prehistoric " ? Nowhere. Moab,
Persia, Palestine, Phoenicia have no prehistoric age. These are
the 'cradle-lands of our race. Archaeology comes in here only as
a feeble commentary on the well-written records, the Babylonian
bricks, Vedantic books, and, clearest of all, the history written
by Moses, where we find Noe, Assur, Nimrod, Misraim, and
Adam, and then what ? Nothing. For we have come back to
the first man, and with him history and anthropology began.

Is it not a little sad that we should laugh at these life-long
efforts of misdirected research ? But laugh we must. For in-
stance : in the tertiary period, which preceded the glacial, relics
have been found flints have been chipped in shell-like fractures ;
therefore there must have been a " tertiary man " to chip them.
Flints have been found burnt ; bones of the animals of that pe-
riod have been found bearing irregular incisions apparently made
by the teeth of the tertiary man ; he must have been an ape-
man because he chipped a flint and did not do more. Now, M.
Arcelin has shown that these shell-like fractures can be made by
natural agents, as flints so marked have been found on shingly
beaches and on an ordinary roadway ; the burning of the flint
VOL. LVI. 7

98 A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. [Oct.,

could have been done by forest fires, for it is to be presumed
these disastrous fires occurred then as now ; all these assumptions
have been picked to pieces by science for there is nothing more
clever than a scientific man when he is on the track of another
scientist. Again, the irregular incisions does it take a man's
tooth to make an incision on a bone, and that an irregular one ?
Were there no wild beasts then preying on one another? and
did these beasts spare man and not scrape his bones for him ?
Now where is your tertiary man ? Nowhere.

The fifth and last lecture of Father Hughes treated of the
manner in which the human family became differentiated into
many races. Supposing a central home of all humanity in the
beginning, as all documentary evidences tell us there was, the
natural propagation of the human species made men migrate into
different countries with their various conditions of life. Then
followed an adjustment of human nature to the conditions of
the environment. This adjustment produced different races.
With the further multiplication of mankind, and the settling of
the whole world, a new phase of social and national existence
began. It was that of the fusion of the races, which to-day is
blending all in a general reunion after a long dispersion. This
was the work of the Redemption. Some day we shall be re-
united in one church, one creed, one baptism. So ended An-
thropology.

I must hasten and twine into my bouquet a few of the beau-
ful flowers of literature gathered during these sunny August days.
Look at this exquisite blossom from Mr. Maurice Egan : " A
sonnet is a little lyre with fourteen strings."

With Mr. Egan, Mr. Lagarde, and Mr. Johnston in their
lectures on- Shakspere we gained a clearer conception of this
ever-interesting subject by the masterly manner in which they
dealt with it. In Mr. Lagarde's last lecture he said that it has
been the habit of critics to judge Shakspere by their own stand-
ard of taste, and all fail in understanding him ; because they are
men of one idea, while he was myriad-minded. Dryden's criti-
cism was just ; he says concerning him : " Of all poets he had
the largest and most comprehensive soul. When he describes
anything one more than sees it ; one feels it."

With Mr. Johnston we looked into the drama, ancient and
modern, and followed step by step its evolution from the reli-
gious drama, with which it always began, to the modern " play,"
which has lost the power to instruct, and now only seeks to

1892.] A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. 99

amuse. Then he took up Shakspere's comedies, and these were
followed by his tragedies. He was of the opinion that Shak-
spere's charm for us lies in the mingling of the grave and the
gay, broad jests and delicate humor ; this country-taught lad
gave to the world beautiful words set to beautiful music, and im-
pressed his love of nature on all his works ; he ever kept in
mind that " the spring of laughter is hard by the fountain of
tears."

Mr. Johnston gave two lectures not mentioned in the sylla-
bus ; one on John Milton and one on George Eliot's married
life and her married lovers. With a touch infinitely tender and
delicate he drew for us the sad inner life of Marian Evans. She
was a peculiar child from her very birth. With no firm convic-
tion of any religious truths she went out into the world to earn
her own livelihood, and was led among men of agnostic views
and learned to think like them. When placed in a position
which even ordinary worldly society condemns, she led us to
think by her writings and teachings that she had a great respect
for the sacred tie she had ignored in her own life. It is really
pathetic to consider that at the age of sixty she married a man
many years her junior, in order, it would seem, to leave behind
her an honorable name. In spite of her unhappy life, which lent
coloring to all her works, while we can pity we can also bless
the memory of George Eliot.

Mr. Johnston's closing lecture, on John Milton, was an exqui-
site poem in itself. I can give only a few of its most striking
thoughts : Of all themes on which artists love to dwell, the
most universal is that of love : the love of man for woman.
The love of the first man for the first woman is the oldest ro-
mance known. It began in the Garden of Eden, and since that
time history has gone on repeating itself in an endless succession
of lovers and romances. Holy Writ contains the chronicle of
the first love-story, and John Milton has woven round the tale
the beautiful flowers of his own poetic fancy and given to the
world the Paradise Lost. Throughout the poem the beauty and
strength of love is demonstrated ; the affection which was strong
and sweet in prosperity did not fail in sickness, nor. in sorrow,
nor in age.

" Human hearts remain unchanged ; the sorrow and the sin,
The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin ;
And if in tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung,
Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always young."

ioo A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. [Oct.,

Now let us turn to the field of history. From Dr. O'Leary
we had a masterly paper on the philosophy of history as applied
to the Christian Church. He said : " The only true history of
philosophy is that which perceives a motive and design in hu-
man actions, influenced by a higher source than man's interven-
tion. We must discern the power of Providence as an active
and interested factor in the affairs of men." Dr. O'Leary's lec-
ture was primarily philosophical and was a very learned pro-
duction.

With Rev. Dr. Loughlin we reviewed the early days of the
Papacy. As a sort of text for his discourse he took the follow-
ing passage from Macaulay's celebrated essay on Ranke's History
of the Popes : " The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday
when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That
line we trace back in an unbroken series from the pope who crown-
ed Napoleon, in the nineteenth century, to the pope who crown-
ed Pepin, in the eighth ; and far beyond the time of Pepin the au-
gust dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable."

Dr. Loughlin, while paying tribute to Macaulay for his lau-
dation of the Catholic Church, demonstrated that there is no
warrant for the nine concluding words of the quotation, and
proved that the early days of the Papacy are not " lost in the
twilight of fable." The first attempt to narrate the history of
the early days of the Christian Church was made by Eusebius
of Caesarea, three centuries after the coming of Christ. The en-
tire narrative is contained in a book about the size of a child's
History of the United States, and from that information con-
cerning these golden days of the Church has been obtained.
These and like misconceptions are very trying to the truth-loving
mind. One of these false impressions has arisen concerning a
man whom the whole world will honor this current month. It
is most strange to consider our inability to look back from the
threshold of the twentieth century and pierce the twilight of the
past. Men and events assume new and strange shapes ; doubt r
disbelief, and error arise like the mists that float above the plains
at the setting of the sun. It is through such a misty veil we
have been looking at Columbus. Among the countless calumnies'
unearthed is the denial of his marriage with Beatrix Enriquez,
the mother of his second son and biographer, Fernando. This
calumny had its origin in the merest conjecture and carelessness
of a blundering librarian, who from the obscurity of the lan-
guage used in the will of Columbus in regard to her drew the
conclusion and wrote down the fact that Columbus's son was

1892.] A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. 101

illegitimate. Incredible as it may seem, this error has found its
way into the pages of Humboldt, Irving, and others. " Had
Fernando that stain on his birth," said our lecturer, Mr.
Clark, " would the righteous Queen Isabella have received him
into her palace as page to her son ? "

Columbus has done much for the world, and we Catholics are
proud to honor his stainless name.

Dr. Marc F. Vallette's account of the early days of our coun-
try shows how active a part the Jesuits took in all its affairs,
religious and civil. He told us of their long journeying amidst
many hardships, in perils often, with hunger and thirst, braving
death many a time all to push forward the outposts of civiliza-
tion and to bring the gospel -of Christ to the savage. These
Christian missionaries did more, perchance, to open up the great
West than any other agency. They are to-day receiving slight
but tardy justice.

Mrs. Mary E. Blake was very happy in her interesting lecture
on " Mexico." The prevailing beliefs concerning Mexico, she
thought, unite in disparaging it. Up to the last ten years voy-
ages into Mexico have been largely in the interest of unscrupu-
lous speculation, or of proselytizing sects whose profit it has been
to degrade the country. We have fallen into the habit of accept-
ing false premises about Mexico and its inhabitants, and then
attempting to draw a true conclusion. When we shall have
learned to look for beauty and truth instead of evil in the lives
of our brothers, however widely differing from our own ; when
we shall have opened our eyes to the justice of their claim for
consideration ; then, and not till then, shall we begin to under-
stand the truth concerning Mexico. Another case of injustice,
you see.

This little note I find among those taken from Father Walsh's
lectures on Egyptology. When, in 1807, Pinkerton published his
geography he laughed at the Egyptian craze. It has to-day a
singular fascination for certain minds. Its most ardent explorers
are Christian believers in the Bible. Their faith in its truthful-
ness spurs them to seek evidences. The unbeliever is always
the flippant, the superficial student, at home and abroad. Father
Walsh proved that all the ancient and modern points of contact
were identical, allowing for the physical changes that have taken
place since the events recorded in the Bible. It is worth re-
membering that the name Red Sea is derived from the reddish
color of the surrounding rocks and shores. Anciently it was
Yam Suph, or Sea of Weeds.

102 A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. [Oct.,

One glance at Science and my note-book will have served its
purpose. These living words shine from Mr. Cond Fallen's pa-
per on the Catholic Church and Socialism. Men left to them-
selves find no solution of the problems they themselves are con-
stantly raising. The only clue to this solution is to be found
in that science which is at the root of all science the science of
God. He who knows the laws that govern society knows social
science. He who knows God knows these laws. As men con-
ceive of God, so do they conceive of themselves in all their
social and political relations. Socialism would regenerate society ;
but it begins in the wrong way by reforming with political or
social measures. But, regenerate the individual and you have
regenerated society. Individual regeneration is religion, hence
to the church belongs the task of regenerating society. She res-
cues individuals, when weak, helpless, and even vicious ; society
would cast them out.

These few thoughts are from Father Searle's lecture on As-
tronomy : The world in general is apt to side with science in
any controversy based on the supposed diversities between science
and religion. Catholics, if their faith be strong, are inclined to
take the other side and sneer at science, and doubt its conclu-
sions. This is unwise. Let us not take this course, but see if
there is any real divergence between these conclusions and the
dogmas of our faith. We need have no fear truth cannot con-
tradict truth. One of the apparent contradictions is the com-
parative insignificance of this earth. We find it hard to believe
that it should be so specially favored by God as to be alone the
dwelling-place of man. To this we would reply that size is a
matter of small importance. On the theory of material size or
importance, the Incarnation -should have been at Rome, not Beth-
lehem. God does not look with our eyes. He stoops to the
humble. This star-like flower breathes a sweet perfume that
steals into the weary, aching heart, and lifts it to the God who
so loved this world that he gave to it his only begotten Son.

Here is another lovely blossom from Mr. Snell's lecture on
Comparative Religions : A proper classification 1 of all religions
would bring out the immense superiority of the one religion
which alone can bear the name " universal." The study of com-
parative religions will show to the Protestant, the Pagan, the
Jew that in going back to the Universal Church he is but going
back to the religion of his forefathers ; that church, and that
alone, is broad enough to unite all people in one blessed family
of God. How the colors of these flowers blend, the one into

1892.] A NEW LONDON NOTE-BOOK. 103

the other. Here we have again " one church, one creed, one
baptism."

I have lingered long and lovingly over my task. While tying
these flowers together I seem to live again in that beautiful lit-
tle city by the sea ; seem to hear again the soft murmur of the
trees ; again catch a glimpse of sapphire sky through the open
door of the lecture-room, and note the inquisitive clematis reach-
ing in, showing darkly green against the square of blue behind
it. A great work began in New London under that summer
sky a work that will make itself felt as each member of that
school acts to the world as an apostle. " Go, therefore, and teach
ye all nations ; and behold, I am with you all days, even to the
consummation of the world."

HELEN M. SWEENEY.

New York.

104 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Oct.,

REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, FIRST
BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG.

1850-1872.

I PROPOSE to treat the period of my friend Wadhams' priest-
hood not according to any regular biographical method, but by
means of miscellaneous recollections. In this way I shall be able
to illustrate more fully than I have yet done not only the spir-
itual character of the man, but to portray him in the discharge
of his official duties and in his more familiar intercourse with
others. This I can well afford to do because his career in the
priesthood is not so much marked by striking events as by acts
and circumstances which reveal his strong personality and the
beauty and holiness of his character.

Wadhams was eminently an unconventional man unconven-
tional in his thoughts, unconventional in his language, unconven-
tional in all his ways. There was an openness and directness
in his speech which made many of his sayings peculiar and mem-
orable.

Once when we were passing out from the front door of an
inn he looked up at the sky and, stopping, said : " Perhaps it
may rain ; what do you think ? " "I don't know," I replied ;
" let's consider a moment." " Well," said he, " while you are
considering, I'll get the umbrella."

Another time when walking up State Street, in Albany, in
company with Father Kennedy, then an assistant at St. Mary's
and now Vicar-General at Syracuse, who is pretty rapid in his
movements, Father Wadhams felt disposed to move more slowly.
" Young man," said he, " how long did you tell me you had
been in this city ?" " About three years," replied Kennedy.
" Three years in Albany ! and don't know how to walk up-hill
yet?" Strangers who have visited Albany will appreciate the
force of the question.

Wadhams 'had a fine musical ear and a great fondness for
good ecclesiastical music. Amongst his manuscripts is an article
on Gregorian chant written for the New York Churchman, which,

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG, 105

perhaps, was never published. He was quite efficient in teaching
plain singing and chanting. While officiating in the Anglican
church at Ticonderoga, he had a class of boys who assembled at
the village inn and learned of him to read music and sing by
help of a black-board. He it was who first introduced in Albany
the custom, now universal in all the Catholic churches there,
of using the altar-boys to sing the responses at High Mass and
to act as chanters in the sanctuary. He loved to attend the re-
hearsals of these boys at the cathedral. They were always ani-
mated by his presence to do their best. "Come now, boys,"
he would say, " hold up your heads and open your mouths. I
don't want any dummies here." And then when their voices
rang out clear and loud he would praise them heartily, and they
were eager to please him. The regular choir in the Albany
Cathedral acquired a high reputation in his time, and they
owed it not merely to the great abilities of Mr. Carmody, the
organist, but to the great zeal and strong patronage which Wad-
hams lent to that department of the service.

The popular Christmas carol, " The Snow lay on the
Ground," is well known throughout the United States. It is
not, however, so well known that we are indebted lor it to
Bishop Wadhams. He found the verses in some stray news-
paper which fell into his hands, and was so pleased with their
simple beauty that he was anxious to fit them to some appro-
priate melody. Father Noethen, of the Holy Cross Church, Al-
bany, to whom he showed the lines, bethought himself of a fa-
vorite air of the Pifferari, who come in from the Campagna at
Christmas time to sing and play in the streets of Rome. His
memory of the air was, however, indistinct, and Mr. Carmody
was requested to remodel it and adapt it to the words. This he
did and the form he gave to it is the one now universally used.
The original air was afterwards procured from Rome, but Mr.
Carmody's variation is adhered to as far more beautiful.

Father Wadhams was an intelligent man, but in our Ameri-
can Church, full of intelligent clergy, that cannot be set down as
a distinctive personal peculiarity. The same thing may be said
of many other mental qualities of his, most important to prelate
or priest, but which cannot be justly alleged as peculiar to him.
His great characteristics all lay in the moral order. He was no
common man, he was no ordinary priest. All those who knew
him well will acknowledge that there was something in him
which marked him as eminent. It was a nobility of soul. It
was a moral beauty of character. It was a conscience full of

io6 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Oct. r

power, which would yield to no evil, and before which all
evil quailed. Intellect, talent, rank, dignity, all sophistry and
all subterfuges, lost their force before him when there was a
call upon his conscience to assert itself. There was something
magnetic about him, and in this moral energy all the magnet-
ism lay. In ordinary times, however, when conscience was not
put in question, he was one of the humblest, simplest, most
unpretending and least self-asserting, most yielding, most easily
persuaded, of mortals. He was not at all disposed to stand up-
on his own dignity or to urge his own opinion upon others,
On the contrary he was much given to admiration of other
men in whom he saw, or thought he saw, remarkable qualities
of mind or attractive characteristics. He was, moreover, ex-
tremely reticent in expressing disapprobation of the conduct or
character of other men where he had no special call to speak or
to interfere. My impression of him is that he was not a very
quick and close judge of human nature ; that he might easily
be deceived by those who undertook to do it warily, and was
disposed to attribute good motives to all. When, however,
aroused to action by some palpable attempt at wrong-doing he
was a lion and feared no consequences. I give one instance.

A seminary student had carried his irregularities so far that
he was dismissed from the institution. He had friends, however,
who were anxious to have him take orders. Great influence to
this end was brought to bear upon the bishop. Several persons,
on the contrary, ranged themselves stoutly in opposition. Wad-
hams in particular was so shocked by the very danger of such
a thing that he declared his determination, if necessary, to pro-
test publicly against it in the church should the candidate pre-
sent himself. No measure so strong as this was eventually called
for. The bishop being convinced of the young man's unfitness,
refused to admit him to orders. Examples could easily be given
where high authority was made to bend in presence of that
same lofty and determined conscience.

There was sometimes a' certain appearance of antagonism in
Wadhams in which his outward ways and language did not al- 1
ways correspond with the qualities of his heart. He had a direct-
ness and even bluntness of speech which coming from some
persons might easily be taken for rudeness. His friends, how-
ever, knew well that it came from the truthfulness and simplicity
of his nature, which made it impossible for him to adopt the
ways of a courtier by the least evasion of truth. At the same
time his heart was full of a kindly charity which, even in little

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 107

things, made him fearful of giving offence. I will give one or
two instances.

On one occasion while he occupied the position of rector of
the Albany Cathedral a small party of friends, mostly laymen,
were lingering at his room one night after bedtime. He was
not fond of late hours, and on this occasion was evidently
drowsy. I saw him pacing up and down the room uneasily, and I
knew that he was endeavoring to formulate some hint to his friends
of his anxiety to retire, and without hurting their feelings. I
knew very well what was coming and watched for the result.
" Gentlemen," he said at last, as if a happy expedient had just
struck him, " I don't know what you are going to do, but I ami
going to bed." All who were present knew him well, and no>
one felt in the least hurt.

The world will never remember Wadhams as an eminent
preacher. I am confident, however, that in the record of heaven-
his name will stand in the list of true evangelists. The people
who listened to him heard from his lips the true word of God r
delivered in simple language, sometimes blunt, sometimes quaint,
always unconventional, and oftentimes made powerful and im-
pressive by the very simplicity of the speaker's style, which lent
strength to the matter. His was an eloquence which, if it
gained nothing from rhetoric, never lost anything through being
commonplace. Not knowing of any published sermons of his r
I can, unfortunately, give my readers no example to illustrate the
spiritual power of his preaching. I fear it will seem something
like caricature to confine myself, as I needs must, to its simplicity
and originality. He never wasted words in the endeavor to in-
troduce his subject gracefully or conventionally. If the gospel
of the day did not suit his purpose, he either took his text
elsewhere or, starting from the gospel of the Sunday, he soon-
landed himself in the field where he proposed to work. One
Sunday morning, the fifth after Pentecost, he read the gospel for
that day, and then began his sermon as follows :

" It is not unusual to make use of this gospel by preaching
on the evil of venial sin. I don't intend to preach this morn-
ing on venial sin. I wish to have you all understand that there
is a sin which, whether venial or not, is something very ugly
and very mischievous. It's a sin to come late to Mass and
walk down the broad aisle in fine feathers and fluttering ribbons,,
as if it were something highly respectable to disturb public wor-
ship by coming late. I do not wish to be understood as ob-
jecting to putting on good clothes to come to church with, but I

io8 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Oct.,

do object to coming late to Mass, to disturbing others who are
praying, and to your making a parade of yourselves." This is
not the form usually prescribed for an exordium, but it certainly
led up to the subject in hand and helped to make the sermon
impressive.

We wish in these reminiscences to make some mention of
Father Wadhams to connect him with the War of the Rebellion,
in which he took a most lively and serious interest. In April,
1861, when Fort Sumter was attacked, Colonel Michael K.
Bryan was in command of the Twenty-fifth Regiment, which
left Albany immediately for Washington. On the night of
April 21, 1861, came the order from Governor Morgan to leave.
The men, mostly workmen, gathered suddenly at the armory at
the tolling of the bells, a signal already agreed upon, and at
eight o'clock were all in line. Their wives and children only
had time to bid them " good-by " at the armory, the hurry
not allowing all of them to go from their work-shops to their
homes. Most of the soldiers of this regiment, as well as the
colonel and lieutenant-colonel, were Catholics. John M. Kim-
ball, Esq., a prominent lawyer of Albany, volunteered to go
with them, and received a temporary appointment as chaplain. In
any case a departure so sudden must needs be attended with
much confusion, but in this case there existed great excitement
throughout the city and an apprehension of imminent danger. The
news of the savage assault on a Massachusetts Regiment in Balti-
more as it marched across the city from station to station, and
telegrams on April 19 and 20, stating that Davis was " within one
day's march of Washington with an army," and that troops must
hurry on at once or that city would be lost, created a desire in
the minds both of Catholic soldiers and their families to prepare
for the worst by a due reception of the Sacraments. Father Wad-
hams accordingly offered to accompany the troops, so far as
might be necessary to aid in this preparation.

They started that afternoon, crossing the river by the ferry
and taking the cars on the eastern side. Father Wadhams com-
menced immediately hearing confessions in a corner of one of
the cars, a continual silence being maintained on that car until
he had finished. Late that night the train, a special and slow
one, reached Poughkeepsie, and the good priest, having finished
his work, was able to return to Albany. He had found an op-
portunity in the meantime to receive into the church Counselor
Kimball, baptizing him on the train with such water as the
drinking-tank contained. Survivors of the regiment assure me

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 109

that the counselor never officiated as chaplain, though often
urged by his gay companions to do so. He did, however, do
most serviceable duty as adjutant of the regiment, to which rank
he was soon thereafter assigned.

The death of the gallant Colonel Bryan, at Port Hudson, La.,
was communicated to Father Wadhams in a letter from Dr.
O'Leary, surgeon of Bryan's regiment, dated at New Orleans
June 18, 1863. What the good priest's sorrow was at this intelli-
gence may be in some degree gathered from the following passage
of the letter : " He lived about an hour after receiving his wounds.
He seemed to feel conscious of his approaching end and died like
one going to sleep. I have just arrived in this city with his re-
mains and shall send them home at the earliest opportunity."
He then adds : " A nobler man never lived. A braver soldier
never wielded a sword. A truer Christian never knelt before his
Maker."

Although a strong Unionist of the most devoted type, Father
Wadhams was always gentle in dealing with soldiers and parti-
sans of the States in rebellion. He could not reconcile himself
to their reasonings, but he comprehended very well how much of
excusable human nature there was in their sentiments. He was
often, however, much shocked even when his gentle nature urged
him to keep silence. An Albanian was living in one of the
South-western States before the war, and was a captain there of
a well-drilled company of infantry. When the war broke out
this company was summoned to arms. It seemed to him a point
of honor, and a duty to the company and to the State in which
he for the time being resided, to turn out with the rest in the
service of the Confederacy. After the war he returned to the
North and resided in Albany. Wadhams was surprised one day
at hearing it mentioned that this gentleman had been a rebel,
" You don't mean to say," he asked, " that you actually fought
against us in battle?" "Well, yes," was the reply, "in several
battles." " But you didn't kill any of our brave soldiers, did .
you ? " "I can't say, father, that I did, not exactly ; but I will
tell you the nearest thing to it that I remember. One day when
I was senior captain in command of a regiment, and had my
men picketed behind a fence, a troop of Federal cavalry passed
by on the road. I gave the order to fire. The consequence was
that thirteen saddles in that troop were left empty."

The good father asked no more questions. He was simply
shocked and remained silent, fearing to say too much if he spoke
at all. He felt that cruel war bitterly. I often heard him allude

1 10 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Oct.,

to empty chairs at farm-houses in the neighborhood of his own
homestead amid the Adirondacks. His nephew Pitt, son of his
brother Abraham E. Wadhams, was killed in the war at Chan-
cellorsville.

In 1865 Father Wadhams and his friend, the Rev. William
Everett, who, as we have seen, had been his fellow-student at
the Twentieth Street Seminary, planned out a journey to be
taken together through Europe and to the Holy Land. They
met in London and travelled through Paris, Venice, Milan,
Rome, and Naples to Egypt and Syria. In Rome they were
presented together to His Holiness Pius IX.

A more earnest man than Bishop Wadhams can scarcely be
imagined. To his mind duty always rose up above every other
consideration. " Faithful and true " were written upon his fore-
head, where all. men could read the inscription ; but yet he was
light-hearted, joyous, and easily amused, while his laughter was
always hearty and perfectly contagious. Father William Everett,
on the contrary, his warm and intimate friend, was always as
grave and serious in his manner as he was earnest in his soul.
This made them sometimes seem strangely mated, the one tak-
ing hearty delight in things which the other regarded as trifling.
In the course of their journey through Europe Wadhams was
interested in almost everything new or strange which presented
itself to his eye, while Everett, who had a great taste for Chris-
tian archaeology, was interested in little else than sacred or his-
torical things. When passing along one of the streets of Turin
the former was attracted by an exhibition of Punchinello, and
stopped to enjoy it. This mortified Father Everett, who thought
it an unseemly thing for clergymen to take interest in a diver-
sion of such a nature. " Do come on," said he ; " this is scandal-
ous." " Why, no," said Wadhams, " it's capital ! " And he could
not be induced to move on. In this he was unexpectedly sus-
tained by two passers-by, old friends of his from Albany, Chan-
cellor Pruyn and his lady, who also stopped to see the show.
And thus Everett was compelled to become an unwilling specta-
tor. The two friends prosecuted their journey in company until
they reached the Holy Land, which to Everett had always been
the main attraction and the chief object of his trip. An ac-
count of this visit and of a special pilgrimage to Bethlehem, con-
tributed by Everett himself to THE CATHOLIC WORLD for 1868,
can be found in the January number for that year.

They arrived at Jerusalem in the evening of January 30,
1866, and were conducted through the darkness, dusty and weary,

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. in

to the Franciscan hospice. On entering the sitting-room their
first surprise was a Troy stove, not calculated certainly to nurse
sacred or archaeological sentiment in the mind of a student like
Everett. There was something else in the apartment quite as
American as the Troy heater. It was the figure of a tall, lank
man with his hat on his head, his feet projecting above the
stove, and smoking a cigar. Removing his cigar, but not either
hat or boots, the gentleman turned his head to gaze at the new-
comers. They were unmistakably countrymen of his own.
" Halloo ! " said he, " when did you arrive in Jerusalem ? l '
"We've just come," they replied. "Oh! have you?" said he.
" Well then, let me tell you, you've come to one of the most in-
fernal dirty holes that ever yoii saw ! " The incongruity of such
a welcome to the Holy Land struck Wadhams' sense of the
ridiculous, but to the more solemn enthusiasm of his companion
such words and the whole scene were a profanation from the
shock of which it was not easy to recover.

Their devotion was less disturbed on a visit to Bethlehem,
which they made on foot, a distance of about six miles. Here
was no Troy stove, nor irreverent Yankee, nor stove-pipe hat,
nor profane cigar. They stood under an olive-tree in front of
the holy grotto which had served as a shelter to the shepherds
when watching their flocks by night. Uncovering their heads
devoutly, they chanted the " Gloria in Excelsis " with a recol-
lection more tranquil and a joy that could scarcely have been
surpassed by that of the shepherds themselves. Wadhams' stay
in Jerusalem was short, only a fortnight ; but this was not enough
to satisfy an archaeological pilgrim like Everett, who remained
much longer. When returning to the United States the latter
brought back many choice reminiscences of the Holy Land,
ibooks, maps, illustrations, charts, and plans in relief, rarely to
be met with. These were for a long time a source of interest
.and pleasure to friends of a like taste when, in New York,
they visited the rectory of Nativity Church.

Father Wadhams' large heart, less interested in sacred scho-
larship, was nevertheless equally full of devotion, and full also of
the thought of friends. Every beautiful object that met his eye
,struck him as an appropriate present for some friend at home.
He brought back with him a large extra trunk filled with these
souvenirs, collected from various places. If it were possible for
me to remember the names of all the parties whom he had thus
specially borne in mind when abroad, and to whom he brought
.back some appropriate gift, it would seem almost incredible.

ii2 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Oct.,

His brethren of the clergy, members of the cathedral congrega-
tion and of St. Mary's, singers in the choir, sacristan, altar-boys,
and all the domestics of the house, a very multitude, had some-
thing in that trunk to show that they had been remembered.
How he managed without the help of saddle-bags to carry so
many objects of devotion, rosaries, crucifixes, medals, images,
etc., into the presence of the Holy Father to be specially
blessed and indulgenced by him, is a wonder which I cannot
explain.

There are some men who will never allow that they have
changed their opinions. Father Wadhams was not one of this
kind. It cost him very little to say : " I used to think so, but
I was mistaken." He was always equally ready to acknowledge
any moral wrong or defect in what he himself had done. . On one
occasion, when rector of the Albany Cathedral, the house was 'dis-
turbed at night by an intoxicated man who would not leave when
ordered away, but continued to ring the bell and pound at the
door. He claimed that his wife was sick and that the priest
must come immediately, but his answers to inquiries showed
that his senses were very much confused. Being compelled to
rise and dress himself in order to quiet the disturbance, Father
Wadhams descended to the hall with hat, overcoat, and cane.
Opening the front door, he seized the fellow by his collar,
dragged him down the steps and along, the pavement as far as
the first corner, thrashing him in the meantime with his cane.
The man cried out lustily. A policeman coming up and seeing
what was the matter said, " Can I help you any, father ? " " No,"
was the answer, " I can dispose of this job myself." Leaving
his prisoner, however, at the corner, Father Wadhams did not
venture to return to the house without first making sure of the
condition of the woman reported as sick. He found her, as he
had supposed, in no need of a priest, and full of regret at the
trouble which her husband had caused. " I am glad to know,"
she said, " that you gave him a good beating. He deserved it
well. The longer the marks of your cane stay on his back the
better. It may bring the grace of God down on his foolish
head to remember the holy hands that did it." Father Wad-
hams always regretted this night's adventure. When some of
his household sought to justify what had been done, saying that
the fellow had deserved it richly, he said : " No, that will not
answer. I have done wrong. It was far more important for me
to control my own temper than to chastise a turbulent drun-
kard."

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 113

Our reminiscences would be like Italy with Rome left out
if we were to say nothing of that charity which was the ruling
spirit of Father Wadhams. He maintained it with a singular
forgetfulness of himself. As a man he lived for others. As a
friend he never forgot the claims of friendship. As a Christian
he always saw Christ in the pleading faces of the poor. As a
minister of Christ he never forgot that great ruling principle,
which he always taught and always followed himself, that " the
priest is for the people, not the people for the priest." His char-
ity was always toned and colored by that guilelessness which so
peculiarly characterized him. His own simplicity and singleness
of heart made him unsuspicious of others. As a natural conse-
quence he was easily imposed upon by strangers, taking for
granted that others were as sincere as himself. What we mean,
then, will be easily understood when we say that he carried
charity to a fault. If the honest poor could count upon his
generosity, others less honest could often play upon his simplicity.
During his absence in Europe in 1865 I occupied his place
temporarily as rector at the Albany Cathedral. I found that by
his arrangement the money received in the poor-boxes was di-
vided every week by the sacristan amongst a number of poor
persons. Having some suspicion in regard to the wise applica-
tion of this money, I got a list of these people, which I sub-
mitted to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, asking them to report
what they knew or could learn of the character of these pen-
sioners. The report was unfavorable to the whole list. Either
they were quite capable of taking care of themselves, or could
not safely be trusted with money. They were, therefore, all
dropped from the list. Only one, an old man, appealed from
the sacristan to me. Father Wadhams, he said, had always al-
lowed him his weekly dole of twenty-five cents, and why should
it be kept from him now? I answered that it was known to
me that he had enough to live upon without it. " Well," he re-
plied, " that's partly true. It's not a necessity, but it was a con-
venience. It was just enough to supply me with tobacco." It
would be needless to enlarge upon the great number of worthier
objects of charity to whom living was made easier and happier
by the same bountiful hand.

What Shakspere makes Othello say of himself may, neverthe-
less, be well applied to the open-hearted and guileless subject of
these memoirs. He was

" One not easily jealous, but being wrought,

Perplexed in the extreme."
VOL. LVI. 8

1 14 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Oct.,

Duplicity, fraud, treachery, once detected in one to whom he
had given his confidence, there came a shock from which he
could not easily recover and give a second confidence. He
and I had both formed a very favorable opinion of a priest of
the diocese, chiefly derived from a certain appearance of modesty
and ecclesiastical dignity which we saw in him. Father Wadhams,
from holding the administration of the diocese for awhile dur-
ing the bishop's absence, was brought to know of many things
in the conduct of this man, some of which showed moral weak-
ness only, but other things hypocrisy, treachery, and a fraudu-
lent avarice. Wadhams brought him to bay and hunted him
out of the diocese with an inflexibility and rapidity of action
which astonished me.

He was once visited by a newspaper reporter, who did not
announce himself as such, but came to the house in the charac-
ter of a fellow-citizen who was anxious to make his acquaint-
ance. He talked so pleasantly and cheerfully that Wadhams
was highly entertained, and talked very freely in return. He was
much disconcerted shortly after on finding the conversation re-
ported in a daily newspaper, containing many things not well
adapted for publication. Before his indignation had time to
cool the visitor most unwisely called again. A rapid retreat
through the front door became necessary, and terminated the
intercourse. I do not remember the precise words which my
friend used on this occasion, but they were perfectly intelligible
and brief. In substance they were like those of Lady Macbeth
when dismissing her guests from the banquet table : " Stand not
upon the order of your going, but go at once ! "

The purity of Father Wadhams' character amounted to a
degree of delicacy which is rare even among the virtuous. I re-
call the modesty which pervaded his manners and language as
something truly angelic. In all my reminiscences of him, which
reach through so many years of intimacy, embracing often circles
where the most free and joyous conversation abounded, I never
heard a word from his lips suggestive even of that stultiloquium
so strongly condemned by the Apostle Paul, and so especially
unworthy of the lips of a priest. It was so before he became a
Catholic, it was so before my acquaintance with him began. It
was so from his boyhood up. No one that ever knew him well
can doubt that his very soul was virginal. An old friend and
school-companion of his gives his testimony to this feature of
his character in the following words :

" During his whole college life, I, who knew him better than

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 115

any other human being all that time could know him, know
that he never spoke one impure word or said anything that a
man would be ashamed to repeat in the presence of his mother,
sister, or niece. I am to-day a better man than I should have
been had I not been intimate with Wadhams."

I might easily suppose this trait to be due to a certain ex-
cellence of nature. Perhaps it was. The friend just cited, how-
ever, seems to regard it as a gift of grace, for he says : " He
was truly a devout man even from youth up."

If in these reminiscences my main purpose has been success-
ful, I have shown that Wadhams was in no sense an ordinary
man. I do not mean to assert that all his talents and qualities of
heart were above mediocrity. I mean only that he was in no way
commonplace, neither in thought nor manner nor language. I
attribute this to the fact that he was too truthful and simple-
hearted to borrow nonsense from any source, however conven-
tional or popular the nonsense might be.

Lacordaire was accustomed to say : " Je n'aime pas les lieux
communs." I don't remember ever to have heard Father Wad-
hams say this. It was true of him all the same. His ways,
thoughts, and feelings were all his own, all unborrowed. He
was, therefore, in no sense a commonplace man.

C. A. WALWORT-H.

St. Mary's, Albany.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

n6 THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE. [Oct.,

THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE.

THE Catholic Sioux Indians who recently held a congress at
Cheyenne River Agency, South Dakota, under the supervision
of Bishop Marty, made a picturesque gathering, and gave a
splendid proof of the moral power in the Church which can
control the wild propensities of a race not easily subdued.
From places widely separated the most daring chiefs and war-
riors in great numbers, renowned in days past for ferocity in
making a dismal trail of blood, together with a large delegatiort
of the Cherry Creek Indians attired in their native costume, as-
sembled to witness the dedication of the beautiful new church
erected by Miss Frances Drexel. Her generosity was rewarded
by a most significant expression of gratitude. After the devo-
tional exercises on Sunday, July 3, arrangements were made for
the meeting of the congress on the following day. The flag of
the nation was conspicuously honored. It is reported that fully
six thousand Indians were there to do honor to the starry banner
as the ensign of a free people. With stately gravity the Indians
formed in circles, and seated on the ground, like the multitude
which followed our Lord into the desert, they received with pro-
found attention every utterance from the orators of their tribe.
The central point of the meeting-place was covered by an awn-
ing, where Bishop Marty and his priests listened patiently to the
discussions. The chief known as Iron Feather of Devil's Lake,,
made an effective speech in introducing the resolutions. He ap-
pealed to the white brothers to make their laws so as to deal
justly with his people, and to aid in establishing Christian
schools which would enable them to become intelligent and use-
ful citizens. He paid a grateful tribute to Columbus, as having
brought to the Indians of these distant lands the knowledge of
Christ. To the sons of the forest in all the Americas, dwelling
in an area which represents about one-half of the habitable globe,
Columbus was a Christ-bearer, and thus won a crown of glory
that no carping critic can take from him. This tribute of the
Indian orator conveys a thought which should become dominant
among Christians. While not entirely exempt from the frailties of
human nature, Columbus deserves all honor from the inhabitants
of this Christian land as an intrepid explorer, resolutely facing

1892.] THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE. 117

i
the dangers of an unknown sea, bearing aloft on his banner the

standard of Christ.

These Catholic Sioux Indians, whose conduct at Cheyenne
River Agency was so exemplary, would have been aroused by
fierce emotions could they have heard in their own native lan-
guage a translation of the speech delivered by Mr. Morgan in
the State Normal College at Albany, N. Y., on the evening of
February 15, 1892. He should know the way to reach the mind
and heart of the red man, for he was appointed by President
Harrison to take charge of the Department of Indian Affairs, and
to administer justly the laws passed by the Congress of the
United States. He was not commissioned to do the bidding
of a small coterie of sixteenth amendment bigots, or to retard
the progress of Christian civilization among the Indians by put-
ting into practice unsafe theories of his own invention. The
President of the State Normal College, William J. Milne, and
ex-State Superintendent of Public Instruction Andrew S. Draper,
devoted considerable personal attention to the work of distribut-
ing invitations for Mr. Morgan's lecture. The lecturer spoke
from manuscript. His subject was " A Plea for the Papoose."
From the Albany Daily Press and Knickerbocker the following
report of his speech is taken :

" We are all interested in babies, for the obvious reason that
we have been babies ourselves. Babies in general are well cared
for in America. The one exception to this happy state of
things is found in the condition of the papoose ; for the Indian
baby, although an American, is not born into the same environ-
ment that so happily surrounds his little white fellow-countryman.
The children of all other nationalities (save the Chinese) are born
free and equal on American soil, but, inconsistently enough, the
children of the Indians are excluded from this inheritance al-
though they belong to the first families of America, including
the original ' four hundred.'

" The term ' savage ' is often applied to them as carrying with
it a condemnation of inhuman beings ; bloodthirsty, gloating in
war, rejoicing in revenge, and irreconcilable to all that is noble,
good, and true. Under proper conditions the Indian baby grows
into the cultivated, refined Christian gentleman or lovely woman,
and the plea for the papoose is that humanity shall be recog-
nized.

" If the papooses grow upon Indian reservations, removed
from civilization, without advantages of any kind, surrounded by
barbarians trained from childhood to love the unlovely and re-
joice in the unclean ; associating all their highest ideals of man-
hood and womanhood with fathers who are degraded and
mothers who are debauched, their ideas of human life will of

ii8 THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE. [Oct.,

necessity be deformed, their characters warped, and their lives
distorted. The only possible way in which they can be saved
from the awful doom that hangs over them is for the strong
arm of the nation to reach out, take them in their infancy, and
place them in its fostering schools.

" The appeal of the Indian children for an education seems
to be entirely defensible on any one of a number of considera-
tions ; finally, they are wards of the nation. To whom, then,
shall these little ones look if not to this great nation ? It is es-
pecially incumbent upon the government, as the guardian of the
Indians, to make adequate preparation for the rising generation
in order that they may acquire that training that shall fit them
for citizenship.

" The present condition of the government Indian school sys-
tem is, considering all circumstances, admirable. The schools
have been organized with great care. A carefully graded course
of study, extending through eight years, is in use. The schools
have been put under the rules of the civil service. The country
has been divided into districts, each having its supervisor. A
compulsory law is now in operation. There is a regular plan of
promotion from lower to higher schools, and the health and
morals of the pupils receive careful attention. Systematic train-
ing is given to girls in domestic industries, and the boys in
farming."

The splendid work accomplished for the Indians by various
Christian denominations was completely ignored by the speaker
for reasons not known to the general public. At the conclusion
of Mr. Morgan's lecture a clarion voice was heard coming from
the audience asking permission to put a few questions bearing
on the subject under consideration. The unexpected speaker
was the Rev. Clarence A. Walworth, of St. Mary's Church, Al-
bany, N. Y., recognized by the late John Gilmary Shea as an
eminent specialist on all matters relating to the Indian problem.
Some may be inclined to think, with the present writer, that it
was a providential opportunity to bring forth a scathing rebuke
of the heartless policy proposed and defended by Mr. Morgan.
The Times Union published the report of Father Walworth's
vigorous address which is here given :

"We have listened to 'A Plea for the Papoose.' We must
not forget that the papoose has a father and a mother. It is
necessary to ask what plea is to be put in for them? It is a
strange thing to deprive a father of the custody of his child and
of the privilege of training him, according to a parent's idea of
what his child should be. A plea is also necessary for the
mother, who may weep tears of anguish to have her child torn
from her bosom to be educated by strangers. There was a time

1892.] THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE. 119

when we Americans were all wards of a foreign power. We
felt our rights so keenly that because of a little tax on tea we
entered into an eight years' war, suffered many hardships, and
lost many lives for our liberty to tax ourselves. What would
these ancestors of our own have said, had the British king or
parliament claimed the right to take their children away from
them to be educated in schools of foreign making on the ground
that our civilization did not agree with that of the government
to which we belonged ? That being wards of the British Empire,
it was their business to educate the children of the colonies to
suit their ideas of civilization and government ? Would they have
endured it ? Would they have thought it good policy and
necessary to make good citizens ? Would not our forefathers
have considered that they had some right of their own, some
ideas on such a subject ? Would they have approved it as a
sign of progress to be shot down in case they resisted the en-
forcement of such laws ? "

" Father Walworth claimed to know something of Indians,
both Iroquois and Pequot, Chippewas and Sioux. He was par-
ticularly familiar with the Iroquois, had visited them in their
homes, attended parties given by them with every look of civil-
ization, and received visits from them. He failed to find that
they were totally uncivilized, and what they had they did not
gain in government schools, or compulsory schools of any kind.

"The lecturer had forgotten to state that Indian schools had
been broken up by government power and teachers dispersed.
Dakota chiefs had represented to their great father at Washing-
ton time and again that they wanted their schools back again,
that they wanted their teachers retained. Representations against
Indian interests had been made not by chiefs of the nation, but
by drunken Indians of no good influence among the people, and
having no right to speak for the nation. Father Walworth
claimed that these important considerations had been left out,
and that the subject cannot be understood where such facts as
these were left unexplained.

" Commissioner Morgan replied that sufficient time did not
remain for a discussion, which he had not expected and for
which he was not prepared. He would, however, give one case
and let the matter rest there.

" ' What,' said Father Walworth, ' will you prove your argu-
ment by one case ? Is that logic ? '

" Mr. Morgan went on to state his case. He had to deal not
simply with Dakotas, but with Apaches; and had brought their
little papooses into schools which succeeded well and promised
far more.

" Father Walworth inquired : ' What became of the fathers
and mothers of these papooses? I have heard of them. They
were removed thousands of miles from their homes to be im-
prisoned in fortresses and dungeons. These ought not to be for-
gotten when such strange measures are taken to educate the
children of others.' "

120 THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE, [Oct.,

As Father Walworth resumed his seat the young men in
the rear of the hall gave him a rousing cheer. They were
evidently delighted with the liveliness of the proceedings, but
that cheer signalized a triumph of truth and justice.

One who was present at the lecture has kindly jotted down
for publication in this article some of the incidents of the occa-
sion :

A select gathering of cultivated people, as well as a large
number of students, were present to hear Mr. Morgan's lecture
at the Normal College. Complimentary tickets had been issued,
more especially to people interested in education, and to those
in Albany who take the greatest interest in the condition of the
Indians, and who sustain a little paper called The Indian Advo-
cate. Ex-Superintendent Draper was on the platform, and as
Mr. Morgan was unexpectedly delayed (?) he occupied the time
till the lecturer's appearance with remarks on compulsory educa-
tion from his own stand-point, in New York State, and particu-
larly in connection with our Iroquois Reservations.

Father Walworth was seated at one end of the fourth row
of seats from the platform, with his black velvet skull-cap on
his head and his fur cap balanced on his cane in front of him
to shield his eyes from the light. Mr. Morgan had but just ut-
tered his concluding remarks when the priest rose from his seat
like a roused lion, drew himself to hfe full height, and in a
voice of suppressed emotion expressed a wish to put a few
questions to the lecturer. Mr. Morgan, somewhat startled by
this unexpected apparition and request, hesitatingly assented.
Every eye was riveted on the new speaker as he proceeded, turn-
ing now to the platform and then again appealing to his fellow-
citizens of Albany, holding their closest attention by his words
and his tone of voice, full of the deepest indignation.

The Catholics present among the teachers and students, when
the gathering dispersed, expressed themselves as proud and de-
lighted with their representative ; and one of the Indian enthu-
siasts remarked as she passed out, "Wasn't it interesting!"
Another said : " You see it all depends on whose schools they
are! That makes all the difference." And yet another: "I am
glad he put in a word for the mothers. I was thinking of them
myself."

When the president of the Normal College had declared the
discussion closed, ex-Superintendent Draper came promptly for-
ward and shook Father Walworth cordially by the hand, recall-
ing some point upon which their ideas of education were in har-

1892.] THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE. 121

mony. Mr. Morgan followed at his heels and asked for an in-
troduction to the reverend gentleman whose questioning had so
taken him by surprise.

The State of New York has maintained the treaties made with
the remnants of the Indian tribes within its limits. Appeals have
been made frequently to the Legislature in the interests of land-
grabbers to rescind the treaties, but the committee in charge of
the matter has steadily refused to banish the Indians from their
reservations. Ex-Superintendent Draper, in the last days of his
term of office, utilized the occasion of Mr. Morgan's lecture to
express his nebulous views in favor of rigid legislation to force
the children of the Iroquois to accept a new but dangerous plan
for the evolution of the Indian of the future without the aid of
church or parents, In the year 1889 Mr. Draper endeavored to
indicate, in his own tortuous way, " the wisdom of abandoning
the reservation plan." Some members of the Presbyterian Church
engaged in mission work on the Cattaraugus and Allegany re-
servations had indignantly repudiated his previous statements
concerning the degradation of the Indians under their super-
vision. To justify himself Mr. Draper asked and obtained per-
mission to appear before the presbytery of Buffalo at its meet-
ing in the North Presbyterian Church of that city. In his ad-
dress, delivered September 10, 1889, he admits that "the general
policy of the State has been very frequently and generously sup-
plemented by the moneyed contributions and the philanthropic ef-
fort of people who believe in the common brotherhood of man,
and who would promote the weal of all the race. Philanthropic
effort is commonly aroused and directed by the church organi-
zations, and, as was to have been expected, many of the differ-
ent evangelical bodies have been for years represented by mis-
sion stations upon our Indian reservations. In some cases the
State and the church have acted in close co-operation, materially
aiding each other in prosecuting the work. Upon all occasions
the general purpose of the State has been to favor and encour-
age the work of the churches, and whenever, as an incident of
its general policy, it could materially assist a missionary of one
of the religious denominations, it has done so up to the point
of arousing the jealous antagonism of some other denomina-
tion."

This quotation is a fair specimen of Mr. Draper's wonderful
vocabulary. He has at times a good idea overloaded with verbi-
age. After the above remarks he proceeds to say that he found
the subject fascinating, and was led to investigate it extensively,

122 THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE. [Oct.,

to inquire about " the years gone by," and to study the Indian
character. Further on he reminds the presbytery of Buffalo-
that "my fathers for many generations have been affiliated with
the Presbyterian Church "; that " the right of criticism against
any public officer is, of course, conceded " ; but " time employed
by a public officer in answering criticisms upon his official acts
is seldom employed profitably." When a public officer defends
a just policy he is always profitably employed ; when, like Mr.
Draper, he is struggling to sustain a false theory, he is wasting,
time.

Mr. Philip C. Garrett made a tour of inspection of the New
York reservations, except those of the Shinnecock and St. Re-
gis tribes, in April, 1891, and sent a lengthy report to the Hon.
Merrill E. Gates, president of the United States Board of In-
dian Commissioners. He came to establish in his own mind
" what was the truth between the conflicting allegations of the past
three years regarding these Indians." Strange to say he found
it difficult to get any information as to the precise location of
these reservations, and even after Mr. Draper had courteously
accorded him a long interview, he was unable to get a map for
his guidance in the office of the State superintendent of those
reservations. Did Mr. Draper study the Indian problem without
a map ? By consulting some old maps in the State Department
at Albany, Mr. Garrett was able to decide on the location of
the Indian homesteads of New York State. During his journey
he met the missionary of the Buffalo presbytery, Rev. F. M.
Trippe, and found him a man of hopeful views, charitable in his
estimate of the Indians. Evidently this missionary had chal-
lenged Mr. Draper's competency to decide on the fate of the
Indian reservations without a map, for in the same paragraph
which contains the brief allusion to him, Mr. Garrett pronounces
a judgment which needs the aid of italics to bring out its full
meaning here. He says : " There is not, perhaps, one of the
statements of Judge Draper, so vehemently attacked by the Buf-
falo presbytery, that has not much of truth in it. If he also
gave credit for the good points in the Indian character, it [Mr..
Draper's report] would present a picture substantially correct of
the present condition of these Indians." Why did Mr. Garrett
say so little about the Rev. F. M. Trippe ? An experienced
missionary is generally able to substantiate his " hopeful views ""
by incontrovertible facts.

The writer of this article gladly admits the many good points
in Mr. Draper's character, which won for him the esteem of a

1892.] THE INDIAN OF THE FUTURE. 123

large circle of friends. In his recent report to the Legislature he
made a kindly allusion to the schools established by the " great
Catholic Church," though it was far from his purpose to give to
these schools any official recognition or to suggest financial aid.
As a matter of public record, however, it must be admitted that
during several years Mr. Draper deliberately urged for the In-
dians of New York State the same general policy which his
friend, Mr. Morgan, most offensively endeavored to put into
operation throughout the Western reservations. It would seem
that they belong to a class who are infatuated with an ideal In-
dian of the future. The Indian as he is has for them no attrac-
tions. In the name of progress they demand a complete change
of environment, without regard to the law of heredity, and with-
out consultation with the Indians or their devoted missionaries.
A short course in history should teach professional educators-
that the Christian home is one of the strongest supports of civil-
ization, for which no government bureau can be substituted.
Abundant testimony can easily be found showing that the Chris-
tian home is the nursery of the virtues which are most necessary
for the citizens of a great nation. It has the sanction of divine
law for its work in the domestic circle, and has ever been pro-
tected and guided by the Catholic Church. School officials who-
earnestly seek the true welfare of the Indian, or, for that mat-
ter, his white brother, can claim no endorsement of just law
when they antagonize the authority of Christian parents in their
own homes. Compulsory legislation will not avail to destroy the
bond of affection between parent and child. The papoose will
cling to its mother in spite of all orders from the Indian Bureau
at Washington, and the mother will fondly cherish her papoose.
While she is willing and able to perform that maternal duty,
her sacred privileges, founded on the law of nature, must be re-
spected.

In the present crisis the Black Robe has the duty of defend-
ing bravely the threatened invasion of the wigwams which rep-
resent Christian homes. The Indians recognize his influence for
good ; they have learned to love him as a champion of justice,
as the soldier of Christ, the representative of the Prince of
Peace. The devoted teachers working under the direction of the
Black Robe are leading in the sure way to the civilization and
advancement of the Indians.

THOMAS MCMILLAN.

St. Paufs, New York.

THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW.

THE movement in favor of securing by legislation the limita-
tion of the hours of labor has within the last few months be-
come the leading political question in Great Britain. It has been
the cause of one of the most remarkable electoral contests of re-
cent years. Mr. John Morley, in a spirit of frankness and of in-
dependence, which is every day becoming rarer, openly declared
that he could not see his way to vote in favor of the proposal.
In consequence of this declaration he was opposed, when it be-
came necessary for him to seek re-election on his appointment
as Secretary for Ireland, by the newly-formed Independent La-
bor Party. This party hopes to secure the Eight Hours' Law
and the other measures desired by working-men by holding it-
self aloof from both the great parties. It gives its support to
Liberal or Conservative candidates indifferently according to the
attitude adopted by them towards labor questions. The success
of their tactics so far has not been such as to warrant any very
sanguine hopes of great results in the future, and in particular
the opposition to Mr. Morley met with a signal reverse.

It is true, however, to say that it was upon other grounds
that Mr. Morley was returned, and that his opposition to the
Eight Hours' Bill was the cause of the contest. The strength
of the movement is shown by the very fact that the seat of so
popular and powerful a member was placed in serious jeopardy.
The clearest indication, however, of the strong current of opinion
which has set in in favor of the movement is given by the surpris-
ing conversion of the Textile Operatives of Lancashire to a statu-
tory Eight Hours' Day. Up to a very recent period these
operatives have offered a strenuous opposition to the proposal.
This they did because they looked upon it as impossible, should
their hours be limited, for Lancashire to compete with the Con-
tinent, where the operatives work twelve hours a day. But within
the last few weeks a large majority of the Lancashire men have
voted in favor of the eight hours' day. What is the cause of this

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 125

sudden change ? It seems to be due to the unpleasant fact that
Great Britain is on the eve of another trade depression, and
that consequently a reduction of wages must be made if the
price of cotton fabrics is not maintained. The operatives think
that this can be secured by limiting production. This limitation
will be accomplished in some degree by a restriction of the
hours of labor. But that is not sufficient ; the proposals of the
operatives include the prohibition of double shifts of eight hours.
The machinery of the mills is not to be run for more than eight
hours a day. In fact, at a meeting in one of the manufacturing
centres it was proposed that a measure should be passed prohibit-
ing the building of any new mill unless on similar conditions to
those on which public works are sanctioned that is to say, af-
ter a Board of Trade or Parliamentary inquiry into the wants
of the locality. Into a discussion of the wisdom of these propo-
sals we do not intend to enter : these sudden changes, however,
of opinion among working-men render it somewhat difficult to
place that confidence in their judgment which we should wish
to do.

* :

The Lancashire textile operatives are not the only class of
working-men who look upon the limitation of production as a
suitable means of keeping up wages. Some of the miners in
South Wales are considering the advisability of limiting the pro-
duce of coal by each person in every seam, and a committee has
been appointed to draw up a scheme for carrying the plan into
effect. The " play-time " taken last year by nearly one hundred
thousand miners was due to a belief in the efficacy of this
method ; but the ill-success of that attempt was considered to

be a conclusive argument against it.

While not more than a dozen passengers lost their lives in

Great Britain last year through railway accidents, no less than
628 railway servants were killed and 9,601 injured in the perform-
ance of their duties. In other words, out of every 160 shunters
one was killed, and one man in 15 sustained injury; of the
brakesmen and goods guards one out of every 19 was injured,
and one in 179 killed. Of the firemen one in every 36 was* in-
jured, and one in every 48 of the passenger guards. And yet in
only two cases was any inquiry instituted by the authorities dur-
ing the whole year. No wonder that the Parliamentary Com-
mittee on the Hours of Railway Servants, although it was made
up to a large extent of railway directors, felt that this was a
state of things which could not be defended, the more so that
long hours of work were in many cases the cause of the fatali-

126 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Oct.,

ties. The committee accordingly recommended that on receiv-
ing the report of an accident " which seems to demand further
inquiry, the Board of Trade should require the company to state
the hours of work of every railway servant concerned in the
matter; and that when the Board of Trade has reason to sup-
pose . . . that the hours of labor of any class of such ser-
vants are habitually excessive, a regular inquiry shall be made
by an inspector of the Board of Trade into the general hours
of the servants concerned, and that such inquiry shall be followed
up ... until the Board of Trade was satisfied that the hours
of the servants had been reduced to a reasonable basis." Should
effect be given to this recommendation by legislation, the fact
that the Political Secretary to the Board of Trade in Mr. Glad-
stone's government is a man who spent many years of his life
as a working-miner will facilitate the proper execution of the law.
The loss of life undoubtedly finds its origin, to a large extent
at all events, in the natural desire of shareholders for large divi-
dends, the companies refusing on account of the expense to adopt
the automatic couplings which would obviate one of the chief
causes of accidents. One result of the return of a larger number
of labor members to Parliament will undoubtedly be to enforce
upon railroad direction the adoption of every possible appliance

for the saving of life.

One of the most interesting questions at the present time with
reference to the lot of the working-man is the attitude of the
new government toward labor problems, and the tactics which it
will adopt in order to secure legislative solution of them. There
is a section, as we have already mentioned, who have no confi-
dence at all in the present ministry, and which is doing every-
thing in its power to put it to inconvenience and to give it
trouble. This section desired an autumnal session in order to
deal with these matters. The present depression of trade and
the prospect of a still deeper depression render the position of
the unemployed a matter of urgency. It is anticipated that
eighty thousand men will be out of work in London alone, and
even now thousands are seeking employment in vain. The gov-
ernment, however, did not assent to the demand for an autum-
nal session, and now an appeal is being made to the head of the
Local Government Board to make work for these men by em-
ploying them in mending roads, lime-washing alleys, cultivating
land now lying idle, and similar occupations. What response to
this appeal will be given is not yet known. Mr. Frederic Har-
rison maintains that through the last election England at last

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 127

has got down to a genuine democratic republic, and has said
good-by to (among other things) middle-class economics. The
reply to this demand for the state employment of those who are
out of work will test the truth of Mr. Harrison's assertion.

The first annual meeting of the Federation of Labor Unions
was held recently, and the address of its president, Mr. J. H.
Wilson, M.P. a man who has probably been engaged in more
labor disputes during the past four years than any living per-
son may be taken as giving the opinion of one worth listening
to on several important points. With reference to strikes, he
said that there was no trade-unionist, rank or file, who believed
in them. He had indulged in as many strikes as most men, and
he had never found them to be beneficial to the strikers or
to their employers. Any means that could be adopted to put
an end to them would be a blessing to workmen and employers
alike. In the Federation of Trade-unions Mr. Wilson hopes to
find such a means. But, and this is a point particularly worthy
of attention, the success of this effort will be materially assisted
by the employers having a strong federation as well. For this
Mr. Wilson is anxious, as it would prevent the insane competi-
tion which is going on, and which is cutting down prices and
wages to the lowest level. Moreover, if the Trade Union Feder-
ation were to be without a rival, it might get a bit selfish, and
make demands which the trade of the country would not stand.
Should employers and employed throughout the country be or-
ganized in their respective federations, national boards would be
able to settle wages and hours throughout the kingdom, Fairly
good progress has already been made in the federation of the
labor unions. Dockers, sailors, and firemen, coal porters, engine-
men, chemical and copper workers, millers, and other trades too
numerous to mention, are enrolled. Desirable as this federation
undoubtedly is, in the way of its complete realization there are
great difficulties, the chief of which is the sectional jealousy which
so often frustrates the most promising projects.

At this year's meeting of the British Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science one of the questions which excited the
greatest interest was that of " Pensions for Old Age." The presi-
dent of the Economic Section, Sir Charles Fremantle, who is
practically the master of the Mint, devoted his address to the
subject, and gave an account of the measures either already
adopted by the various European legislatures or under the con-
sideration of those bodies. The proposals of the last French

128 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Oct.,

government, of which we have given an account in preceding
notes, have not been taken up by the present ministers, and
France has so far, therefore, done nothing. In Italy a bill is
before the Chamber giving facilities to the working classes for
securing pensions not exceeding one hundred dollars a year for
old age. No one, however, would be eligible until he had sub-
scribed twenty years. In Denmark, by a law passed in April,
1891, every deserving Dane is entitled to a pension at the age
of sixty. Persons convicted of crime, or extravagance, or beg-
ging, or who have been in receipt of relief from the Poor Law
during the preceding ten years, are not considered deserving, and
are, therefore, disqualified. It is, however, in Germany that the
experiment has been tried on the largest scale, and for a time
long enough to enable us to form, not a definitive judgment in-
deed but some idea of its working. Here in February last there
were 132,917 persons receiving pensions averaging about thirty
dollars. The plan, however, is said not to be popular, and there
is in Bavaria a strong movement for its repeal. One bad effect
of the law is that it has led to the extinction of a large num-
ber of self-help societies and to the serious crippling of the rest.
The conclusion at which Sir Charles Fremantle arrives is, that
it would be unwise for England to encumber herself with any
scheme of this kind.

He did not, however, succeed in gaining the assent even of
his auditors. The hardships wrought by the present system are
too great and too manifest to permit longer acquiescence in its-
continuance. The great difficulty is that industrious people nat-
urally object to be taxed for the well-being of the idle, drunken,,
and careless, and it is thought by many that the schemes now
before the public involve this evil. In a paper read before the
section, the Rev. W. Moore Ede proposes a plan which, while
it leaves this class of persons to the tender mercies of the Poor
Law authorities, will render it possible for people who can show
that the sum of half a crown a week is secured to them by
means either of a friendly society, or of a savings-bank, or
through a small shop, or by the earnings of children, to receive
the balance from the state. This plan would, its author main-
tains, make thrift a title to a pension. It would not interfere
with the friendly societies or with private assistance. In fact, it
would give every encouragement to both. It would consequently
diminish the expense to which the state would be put an ex-
pense which, under Mr. Charles Booth's scheme, would amount
to sixteen million pounds a year.

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 129

The progress of democracy in France has been the occasion
of labor troubles which, so far as we are aware, are without a
parallel. At Carmaux a workman has been elected the mayor
of the town, and therefore felt himself at liberty to absent him-
self from his work from time to time in order that he might
attend to his municipal duties. His honor's employers did
not approve of this, and accordingly dismissed from their ser-
vice the chief official of the town. His constituents were very
indignant, and the feeling extended throughout the district. The
government has been called upon to interfere, and to deal with
the action of the employers as an insult to universal suffrage.
As the government has declined to take action, a general strike
has been ordered and the conflict is still going on.

Now that after the recent election there is every prospect of
the passing into law of the local-option proposals of the United
Kingdom Alliance, advocates of temperance reform who were not
so prominent are coming forward with suggestions for attaining
the end by other and less drastic means. These suggestions are
well worth attention, for there can be no reasonable hope that
the people of Great Britain, as a whole, will for any length of
time submit to the entire suppression of the liquor-traffic, and
if a method of carrying on this trade is found by which the
evils which at present exist can be eliminated, the prospects of
the permanent triumph of temperance will be far greater.
Moreover, were all public houses to be abolished at once, what
would there be to take their place ? It is, therefore, contended
by the Protestant Bishop of Chester, in a letter which has ex-
cited much attention, that the legislation for the suppression of
the existing bad system should not merely be destructive, but
also constructive, and should not go to the length of a complete
suppression of the traffic, but should place it under such restric-
tions and in such bounds that the evils now attendant upon it
might ultimately disappear. The bishop will introduce a bill to
this effect at the beginning of the next session of Parliament.

- * -

The bishop proposes that the traffic should be taken entirely
out of the hands of private enterprise, and that the local au-
thorities, town and county councils, should undertake the pro-
vision of spacious and well-ventilated houses of refreshment for
the people. In these houses, while alcoholic beverages would be
sold, they should not hold their present place of supremacy. In
fact, the pecuniary rewards of the managers should be made de-
VOL. LVI. 9

130 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Oct.,

pendent entirely (by way of a bonus) on the sale of eatables and
non-alcoholic beverages ; and the latter should be invested with
all the prestige and honor the establishment could give, and
supplied in the most convenient, attractive, and inexpensive way.
Newspapers, in-door games, and, where practicable, out-door games
and music should be provided. The mere drink-shop, gin-palace,
and bar should be utterly suppressed. In several important re-
spects these proposals resemble the system which has been
adopted, and which has had a large measure of success, in Gothen-
burg and in Norway. They go farther, however, in completely
substituting state management for private enterprise. This will
involve, it is true, another step on the road to state socialism,
but to many nowadays that will be an argument in its favor.
The bishop's letter has led to the development of a wide-spread
feeling that mere negative measures are not sufficient, and will
probably do more harm than good. Sir Wilfrid Lawson, how-
ever, gives no countenance to these more moderate proposals.

The League of the Cross, founded by Cardinal Manning, not
only continues its work since his death, but is increasing in num-
bers more rapidly than ever. At the annual festival recently
held in the Crystal Palace the attendance was the largest ever
recorded. Archbishop Vaughan was present, and was supported
by many of the clergy and the laity of the diocese. Fifteen
thousand delegates of the London branches of the League were
in the grounds, and excursion trains brought large numbers from
all parts of the United Kingdom. At the convention which
was held on the following day Canon Murnane read a paper on
the social condition of Catholics at the present day, which he
declared to be at the lowest mark ; the cause of this, he said,
was in a great measure the use of intoxicating liquors. Catho-
lics were poorly represented among the city bodies, and there
were comparatively few Catholic merchants and traders ; Jews
and Non-conformists there were in large numbers. Among the
aldermen of the city there was but one Catholic, and there had
not been since Queen Mary's days a Catholic lord mayor. On
the Boards of Guardians in the south of London there were
about a dozen Catholics. In Covent Garden there were Catho-
lic laborers in profusion, but very few Catholic owners and mas-
ters To sum up the social condition of the Catholics, a num-
ber of drapers, stationers, iron-mongers, stall-keepers, and flower
girls in the streets composed their social strength in the com-
mercial world of London. The League of the Cross, the canon
maintained, placed the means of reform, adequate, full, safe, and

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 131

prompt, before the people, nor would the present condition of
things be altered until the League went down into the hearts
of the people.

The Archbishop of Westminster took in one sense a brighter
view of things, and in another sense a darker view. He thought
that the League had already done a great work for the improve-
ment of the position of the mass of Catholics. And, on the
other hand, he did not think that social reform would be accom-
plished merely by abstaining from drink. All the drink of the
country might be turned into the Thames and it would not
make the people industrious, or successful in rearing their fami-
lies, or give them that position in England which they ought to
have. The future depended on the brain-power of the country
upon the cultivation of the mind and of the will. They must
concentrate their attention on the young children ; these must
be kept at school for a longer period, and kept until they passed
the sixth standard. They needed not merely day-schools, but
they must have technical schools in the evening, and centres
should be established which Catholic young men and women
could attend. The archbishop then proceeded to make a sug-
gestion which shows how much attention he has given to the
social needs of the people, and how far he is prepared to go in
order to remove them. " Why should not the two hundred
thousand Catholics north and south of the Thames band them-
selves together for the purpose of supporting and aiding those
in sickness and distress? Years ago the church founded a
mont de pitte, which was practically a pawnshop shorn of the ex-
orbitant charges which pawnbrokers were allowed by law to
make, and strictly under the aegis of the clergy. There was
no reason why aid in this way should not be renewed." By
giving to the temporal needs of their people needs which are
growing every year a fair amount of attention, the strength of
the church, morally, socially, and politically, will be better in-
creased than by any other method.

The students of the Oxford University Extension held their
summer meeting at Oxford, and this meeting was by far the
most successful yet held. So many students came not only from
all parts of Great Britain, but also from the colonies and from
the United States, that more than half the applications for
tickets had to be refused. Lectures were given by some of the
most capable men to be found, and while a large number were
of a popular character, for the greater part serious study and

1 32 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Oct.,

application were necessary in order to render them of interest.
For the aim of the promoters of this movement is not merely to
amuse and interest an audience for an hour or two ; its object
is to carry to the people in general the accurate methods of
Oxford scholarship, and to open the way to cultivation to per-
sons of every class. For example, the course of instruction in
practical geology consisted of twenty lectures, each followed by
a long excursion into the country. The whole neighborhood
around was scoured, and at the end of the course some geologi-
cal mapping was done, the amount of work entailed being from
six to seven hours daily. A somewhat remarkable feature of
the meeting was the interest taken in theological lectures, and
we hope that the other branches of knowledge were character-
ized by greater unity of teaching than can have been possible
in the theological course ; for of the seven lecturers two were
High Churchmen, two Congregationalists, and three Unitarians.
Such a plan must result either in the presentation of a very at-
tenuated form of Christianity or in a chaotic impression on the
minds of the auditors. But perhaps, evn if the lecturers had
been all of them ministers of the Establishment, the same results
would have ensued. It has lately been found necessary to dis-
continue the sermons in St. John's College Chapel, Cambridge,
where all the clerical graduates were accustomed to preach in
rotation, until the variation, and even opposition, in doctrine of
the successive preachers became so evident that it became a
scandal, and the only practical remedy was the abolition of the
sermon.

The heat and the cholera absorb attention to such an extent
that politics and other incidents of life awake no interest. Conse-
quently there is almost nothing to record in the sphere of general
European politics. The visit of Prince Ferdinand's prime minis-
ter, M. Stambouloff, to Constantinople, and the warm reception
accorded to him by the Sultan, is thought to betoken the long-
deferred recognition of the Prince of Bulgaria by his suzerain,
and the renewal of Russia's activity in the Pamirs, synchroniz-
ing as it does with Mr. Gladstone's accession to office, is looked
upon by many as a renewal of the conflict between England
and Russia which has been so long suspended. But all this be-
longs to the region of conjecture, as also does the reduction of
the period of service in the German army. In the presence of
the visitation of the Almighty, even politicians have stopped
their machinations.

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

MR. STODDARD'S South Sea Idyls* in their new dress, must come
as a delightful surprise to readers who, like ourselves, make their
acquaintance now for the first time. For charm of diction, pow-
er of picturesque suggestion, and other purely literary qualities,
one would be at a loss to recall an English equivalent for them.
One goes abroad for that, and names Pierre Loti's Lands of
Exile, and The Marriage of Loti. Mr. Stoddard's sketches, how-
ever, antedate by many years the Frenchman's marvellous pictures
of lands and people akin to those here made immortal. They
outrank them, too, on more intrinsic grounds, for Loti is like a
snake, and repels as well as fascinates. Perhaps a rigid censor
might find even Mr. Stoddard a trifle too hospitable in his selec-
tion of some of the lights and shades caught permanently
on a page here and there throughout this volume ; but the
whole spirit of the book is as pure as it is poetic. It was writ-
ten, as the author says, in the " first flush of youth " and con-
tains the chronicles of his " emotional adolescence." Elsewhere
he explains his invincible attraction towards Polynesia and Poly-
nesians, and the ardor with which the latter seem to have recip-
rocated it, by saying that although he is " white, or has passed
as such," yet he knows and has always known that inwardly he
is " purple-blooded and supple-limbed, and invisibly tattooed after
the manner of his lost tribe."

One may open the book almost at random and light on ex-
quisite word-pictures. Take, for example, the dozen lines de-
voted, in the grotesquely pathetic sketch called " Taboo A Fete-
day in Tahiti," to a wondrous cascade which had no existence
in broad day, but was born at night in due season from the con-
junction of the full moon and a mist rising from a

" crystal pool in the heart of a wonderful garden ; and to it, si-
lently, from heaven itself descended that mysterious waterfall
whose actual existence I had seriously begun to question. It
lay close against the breast of the mountain, strangely pale in *
the full glow of the moon, while, like a vein of fire, it seemed

* South Sea Idyls. By Charles Warren Stoddard. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.

134 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,

to throb from end to end ; or, like a shining thread with great
pearls slipping slowly down its full length, taking the faint hues
of the rainbow as they fell, playing at prisms, until my eyes,
weary of watching, closed of their own accord."

Of all the papers that make up the volume, our own memory
will be likely to retain longest the two called " Chumming with
a Savage," and another pair entitled " The House of the Sun "
and " The Chapel of the Palms." From the latter, a sympathetic
record of a day or two spent with two young French priests at
Wailua, we quote the final paragraph :

" In the proem to this idyl I seem to see two shadowy fig-
ures passing up and down over a lonesome land. Fever and
famine do not stay them ; the elements alone have power to
check their pilgrimage. Their advent is hailed with joyful bells ;
tears fall when they depart. Their paths are peace. Fearlessly
they battle with contagion, and are at hand to close the pesti-
lential lips of unclean death. They have lifted my soul above
things earthly, and held it secure for a moment. From beyond
the waters my heart returns to them. Again at twilight, over
the still sea, floats the sweet Angelus ; again I approach the
chapel, falling to slow decay ; there are fresh mounds in the
churchyard, and the voice of wailing is heard for a passing soul.
By and by, if there is work to do, it shall be done, and the
hands shall be folded, for the young apostles will have followed
the silent footsteps of their flock. Here endeth the lesson of
the Chapel of the Palms."

Two novels* translated from the Spanish of Pedro Antonio
de Alarcon show qualities that make him the peer at any rate,
and to our notion the superior, of any of his compatriots whose
fame has recently extended beyond Spanish limits. These are
The Three Cornered Hat and The Child of the Ball. Their
compact simplicity of construction, their freedom from the weari-
some local details and long-winded monologues which disfigure
the pages of Valera, Valdez, and Seflora Bazan, mark a writer
who has shaken off provincialisms and escaped into the cosmo-
politan region of art. The first tale is slight enough, but it is
full of good sense and wit, and is a very good example of how
a subject that in most hands would be certain to degenerate in-
to absolute coarseness, may be kept well on the hither side of
that abyss. The Child of the Ball is more serious work, and
it leaves an almost terrible effect on the imagination. The sub-

* The Three Cornered Hat, translated by Mary Springer ; The Child of the Ball, trans-
lated by Mary J. Serrano. By Pedro Antonio de Alarcon. New York : Cassell Publishing
Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 135

ordinate characters are not many, but they are etched in with
wonderful sharpness. But the good priest, Don Trinidad, and
Manuel, the Child of the Ball, so-called from his early devotion
to an image of the Infant Jesus holding a globe in one hand,
are drawn at full length, and in a way not soon to be forgot-
ten. The chapters in which Don Trinidad does battle with the
fiends that are contending for Manuel's soul, and wins a tardy
triumph, turned later to defeat, are singularly powerful. They
point a moral too, and one eminently worth pointing : that chan-
ty without faith is as unreliable a staff to lean on as faith is
without charity.

Mrs. Molesworth's Leona* is a pleasantly told English love-
story of a sort which the novel-readers of a generation since were
more familiar with than their successors of to-day. This life is
treated in it as a discipline for another life, and love as a touch-
stone whereby souls are tried and tested. It teaches the lesson
of self-renunciation, and points out, in a dainty, somewhat old-
fashioned way, the worse than folly of outside interference with
the deep things of the heart. There are no. bad characters in
it. Geraldine's meddling is done with the best intentions,
and the author's cleverness is shown in making her faults merely
the accent of her good qualities. The reader's sympathy with
Sir Christopher and Leona, genuine enough to keep him steadily
on their track, is never painful at any point. They are sure
to come together, as they ought, and one quarrels with nothing
but the rather too well-worn expedient of dragging them off to
Bavaria by different routes so as to make them do so on a lone-
some height at sundown. But the book is a good one, and may
be put safely into any hands. Though its spirit is that of evan-
gelical Protestantism, no attempt at direct religious teaching of
any sort is made. " If people really believed what we are all sup-
posed to believe," hints one of the characters, would not such
and such practical consequences follow ? This seems to be the
nearest approach which those of our separated brothers and
sisters who take to novel-writing as a profession, feel it safe to
venture on what is plainly debatable ground with their prospec-
tive readers. It is because such conclusions as she indicates
would really flow from a practical recognition of the fundamen-
tal Christian truths ; and because she presents them in an unaf-
fected and pleasing manner, that we praise her work.

Mrs. Parr's new story f is a much more complicated and am-

* Leona. By Mrs. Molesworth. New York : Cassell Publishing Co.
t The Squire. By Mrs. Parr. New York : Cassell Publishing Co.

136 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,

bitious performance than that just mentioned. It is equally in-
nocuous, however, and decidedly more interesting. Granny Croft
is a wonderfully good piece of characterization, consistent with
herself all through, and as real as anything in the pages of George
Eliot. Her sharp tongue, her intense love for and pride in the
least worthy of her sons ; her sharpness toward David, which
results from the verdict rendered by her mind and her wound-
ed vanity, but is always criticised by the truer voice of her
heart ; the squire with his long constancy, soft heart and
rough exterior ; and David himself, the humble martyr of unre-
quited love and complete unselfishness, are achievements of
which any novelist might be proud. But the story is good as a
whole as well as in parts, and is very well worth reading.

The author of A Russian Priest has written another novel *
which has been put into English by the translator of the first
one. It delineates Russian life in an insignificant village ; and,
truth to tell, it does so in a manner neither suggestive nor in-
viting. The heroine who, by the way, does not give the story
its title is the young daughter of an official who had lived be-
yond his means, embezzled public funds, wasted his daughter's
private fortune, and then shot himself on the eve of exposure.
The girl has been much courted, but her suitors abandon her
when fortune does, and she retires with her mother to a village
where an appointment as teacher has been secured for her. She
has no resources in herself. She has inherited bad traits from
both parents, and despises her vain and foolish mother as much
as she hates the father whose selfishness has ruined her pros-
pects in life. She finds her work detestable, and her scholars
fill her with aversion. At last, when she seems on the verge of
despair, she comes upon a diary left by her predecessor in the
school, whose death had preceded her own arrival. This prede-
cessor is " The General's Daughter," so-called in the neighbor-
hood not only because such was her rank, but because she had
voluntarily abandoned it to undertake the task that Maria Pe-
trovna finds so hateful. She had been the idol of the village
and venerated almost as a saint. Her diary hardly justifies such
enthusiasm, though there are good things in it. But in the main
it is a brief, sentimental record of its author's childish vanity
and self-love, the evils they resulted in, and the escape she
made from them by abandoning home and parents in order to
devote herself to the good of her more remote neighbor. Maria

* The Generafs Daughter. By N. E. Potapeeko. Translated by W. Gaussen, B.A.
New York : Cassell Publishing Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 137

is represented as profoundly moved by the little tale, and as im-
pelled by it toward some saving self-sacrifice on her own ac-
count. But her disgusts are too strong for her. She cannot
win the love of her pupils because she cannot give them any ;
neither can she fight down her scorn of her mother's vanity and
wretched flirtations. Hence suicide, and a novel which is mor-
bid to a degree.

We hardly know any popular novels which it would be more
unfair to outline than those of Anna Katharine Green. But
people who have been scared at midnight over Hand and Ring?
and felt unable to lay down the Leavenworth Case until they
had plucked out the heart of its mystery, will be like enough
to go on buying her stories as they come, without waiting for
other counsel than her publisher's advertisements. The present
tale,* though it has sensational incidents enough, gets a curiously
domesticated air, as far as New York readers are concerned,
from the locality of its earlier scenes, an old house in Flatbush.
No murder is done in it, though one is planned, with arson as
an accompaniment. The secret when discovered not the secret of
the attempted murder, for that is patent, but that which shrouds in
portentous mystery the seclusion of the two fair sisters does
not turn out a very costly one ; unless in the sense that it makes
a tolerably heavy draft on the reader's credulity. Still, when
one recalls the true story of Emily Dickinson's self-imposed soli-
tude, shall one undertake to say of what cranks the youthful fe-
male of our species may not be capable now and again, under
what seems small provocation to the rest of us?

How shall one do other than praise Mr. Kipling, whether he
labors free and untrammeled, or helps to draw a coach and pair,
as in the instance of The Naulahka ?f The feat has been accom-
plished, as we know, but perhaps mostly by people whose pa-
triotism clings as closely as their skins, and will not be shuffled
off, even for a journey into that not yet fully-discovered country
where all artists are brethren and all art contemporary. The
laulahka has, as usual, given the present writer much joy.
Kate is Mr. Kipling's best woman, thus far. There was always
that core of earnestness in everything he did that gave promise
of a genuine woman, her soul fixed on " something above but-
tons," when he came to settle down to the task of showing one

*Cynthia Wakeham's Money. By Anna Katharine Green. New York : G. P. Putnam's
sons.

t The Naulahka: A Story of West and East. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott Balestier.
lew York : Macmillan & Co.

138 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,

forth. The "tiny little bit of a" Western woman is extraordina-
rily characteristic of one of our best American types and that Mr.
Kipling should have found her out so soon is rather reassuring.
There had seemed danger of her dying out under the pressure
of new-fangled ideas ; but as she is contemporary with her latest
discoverer, she has evidently plenty of space and time before
her still. The latter half of the book must doubtless be credited
wholly to Mr. Kipling, and we are bound to say we found it
the most entertaining. But extremes meet and dovetail with ex-
cellent precision throughout ; Kate's young Western energy and
aspiring hope are matched with something as real as themselves
in the bitter wisdom of the Eastern Queen and the sad loyalty
of the woman of the desert. As for Nick Tarvin we fear he is
characteristic too, and that there are more of him, so to say,
than there are Kates to match him. Unfortunately, he seems as
a rule to have no surer balance-wheel to regulate the escape
of his energies than such as she are capable of providing. Nor
has that fact escaped Mr. Kipling's penetrating vision.

The Scribners have just issued another volume of the " Fa-
mous Women of the French Court " series.* It is the first of
the three devoted to the portrayal of the picturesque figure of
Marie Caroline, Duchess of Berry, the mother of the Count of
Chambord. It is a charming personality that is pictured in this vol-
ume, and one which the portrait prefixed seems to hint at with
more definiteness than usually accompanies such presentations. Her
story is carried only as far as the death of Louis XVIII. , when
she was not quite twenty-eight years old. She had already buried
two children, and held in her arms, as he was dying from the
thrust of an assassin, the husband whom she had so tenderly
loved. And yet the drama of her life had hardly as yet be-
gun. The most singular chapter in the volume is that which
describes the strange struggle with death carried on by Louis
XVIII., so desirous to go down into the grave with dignity that
he debated the ground inch by inch, always contemplating de-
feat, but looking it squarely in the face and holding it at bay
without an apparent tremor.

The Rev. Daniel Lyons' excellent volume on Christianity and
Infallibility \ has already gone into a second edition, although
published hardly more than half a year ago. It eminently de-

* The Duchess of Berry, and the Court of Louis XVIII. By Imbert de St. Amand. New
York : Charles Scribner's Sons.

t Christianity and Infallibility Both or Neither. By the Rev. Daniel Lyons. New
York : Longmans, Green & Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 139

serves its popularity, for. it is at once clear and cogent ; while
to readers who take their souls in earnest, and truly desire to
know the Christian verities and rule their lives in accordance
with them, it can hardly fail to be convincing. The text has
been revised somewhat for the present edition, but a little more
careful proof-reading would still be necessary for the third which
we hope may soon follow it.

Canon Brownlow's scholarly and particularly interesting lec-
tures on Slavery and Serfdom in Europe* have been collected
into a handsome volume. They invite and will repay careful
study. They are written, moreover, in a style both lucid and
pleasing. They carry the story from slavery as it existed in the
Roman Empire down to the abolition of serfdom in Russia, in
1858. Canon Browrilow is painstaking in his investigations, and
so undogmatic in his conclusions that he hesitates about the
true answer to the question whether the " serfs are any the
better for their emancipation." It is, he says, " a question which
those best acquainted with the subject are not so positive about."
Beginning his volume with a translation of Leo XIII. 's letter to
the Brazilian bishops, congratulating with them upon the aboli-
tion of slavery in their country, and intending it throughout as
a study of the action of Christianity in first softening slavery
into serfdom, and then aiding to sweep the latter entirely away,
he closes it with the subjoined reflections :

" It is impossible to put back the hands of the clock of time ;
and it would be nothing less than criminal to attempt to bring
back either slavery or even serfdom into any country from
which it has been abolished. But it is a conviction that has
impressed itself strongly upon my mind, since I have been fol-
lowing out these studies, that we ought to be very slow in pass-
ing condemnation upon those by whose influence slavery was
abolished, because they did not, in the interests of the poor,
think that it was advisable to hurry on the complete emancipa-
tion of the serfs. Christianity prepared the way for, and accom-
plished the deliverance of the slave ; she prepared the way
for, but a variety of other causes actually effected the emanci-
pation of the serf. One thing is certain : the abolition of serf-
dom in Europe has by no means solved 'those great social pro-
blems upon the solution of which depends the happiness of the

human race."

Doctor Val D'Eremao has furnished in his new volumef a set

* Slavery and Serfdom in Europe. By W. R. Brownlow, M.A. Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, Canon of Plymouth. London : Burns & Gates; New York : Catholic Publication
Society Co.

t The Hail Mary. By J. P. Val D'Eremao, D.D. London : Burns & Gates ; New York:
Catholic Publication Society Co.

140 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,.

of instructions and commentaries on the Hail Mary which are
eminently well adapted to popular comprehension, and which can
hardly fail to be exceedingly useful. Each phrase in the prayer
is taken up, explained, illustrated, and practical conclusions drawn,,
but without the introduction of other matters, " pious in them-
selves no doubt, and interesting, but not directly connected with-
the prayer itself." The author says he has found no such de-
tailed explanations as he desires to give in any English dress.
In a note to the section on the phrase, " The Lord is with
thee," he remarks on a common abuse by which it is given in
some books as : " Our Lord is with thee." He says that there-
is not merely no authority for this, but that, since it has been con-
demned by a Bull of Pius V., it "cannot be used now." This-
is interesting at a moment when there has been laid on our ta-
ble a copy* of the Little Office, done into English for the use
of a long-established community of religious women, and in
which the following singularly indefensible translation is given of
the first verse of Psalm 109: " Our Lord said to my Lord, sit
thou on my right hand." There is such a wonderful amount of
misconception crowded into the phrase we have underlined that
we should feel prepared and delighted to hear that the edition,
in which it appears is likely to be cancelled.

No one who loves and venerates the great St. Ignatius and
who does not ? can be otherwise than delighted with the very full-
collection^ of his maxims which has been made by the Rev. Xavier
de Franciosi of his Society, and translated into English by some
unnamed but ready hand. The contents are spread over something
like four hundred and forty pages, closely printed, but in a clear
and beautiful type. They give the spirit of the great soldier-
saint, not altogether as they purport to give it, indeed, yet at
least as fully as that can be done by means of detached thoughts
and sayings. But just as our mortal capacity for knowing the
spirits of men demands that they shall be enclosed in flesh, so
any adequate knowledge of a departed saint must be gained from
a study of his life itself, and not merely so much of it as ever
escapes into speech. The new edition of Stewart Rose's life of
the saint, or some of the fascinating older ones which occupy
less space, might fitly be studied in connection with these maxims.
They are in the nature of a commentary and a commentary al-

* The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Office of 'the Dead ; and other Prayers.
Used by the Sisters of Mercy. New York : Catholic Publication Society Co.
, f The Spirit of St. Ignatius. Translated from the French of Father Xavier de Franciosi,
S.J. New York : Benziger Brothers.

11892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 141

ways presupposes a text. No one, we take it, who should get
"his notion of St. Ignatius entirely from this volume, would get
.an altogether just one.

Curiously enough, as we turn from the book just mentioned
to a recently published French work * on " The" Spirit and the
Philosophic Spirit," we light upon a sentiment very like the one
we have just expressed. We give it in a rough translation :

" Warn those who read the Spirit of an illustrious man, that
they have only a portion of his spirit before their eyes, for the
relations, the harmonies, the proprieties, the soul, in a word, are
not there. They should not close the book on that account, but
after having read it over they should go to the author himself.
So it is, too, with the thought of philosophers : skilful and
learned critics may well prepare us to understand it, but it is
necessary to read it afterwards in its authentic text. For the
-understanding of Plato, all the volumes that have been written
concerning him are worth less than one of Plato's dialogues."

The parallel is imperfect, of course, for the maxims of which
we were speaking are doubtless in the shape St. Ignatius gave
them. But as he was essentially a man of thought and action,
not what one calls a thinker or philosopher, his speech, even when
most significant, gets its best interpretation from his environ-
ment ; and, first of all, the environment of his total personality.

This volume by M. Charaux is the second of his that has
reached us within two years. On the whole, we prefer it to his
Cittf Chretienne, although the latter had more variety, both in
matter and form. The chapter entitled Pense'es sur f Esprit is
wholly composed of detached thoughts, often profound, some-
times witty, almost always suggestive. Here are some more of
them :

" One may be an idealist to the point of believing in his
mind alone, and not at all in his body ; still less in the body
and mind of others. Naturally, in this profound solitude one
thinks extraordinary things. What surprises me is, that one af-
terwards dreams of communicating these thoughts to other minds,
when there are none and of using matter for that purpose, when
it does not exist."

" A hundred pages of wit are not worth as much as ten lines
of truth ; but it is not forbidden to bring a little wit to the ser-
vice of truth."

" The knowledge of ourselves generally begins by the know-

*De r Esprit et de P Esprit Philosophique, par Claude-Charles Charaux, Professeur de
philosophic a la FacultS des Lettres de Grenoble, Paris : Pedone-Lauriel.

142 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,

ledge of our neighbor, and it often ends there. That keen pene-
tration which discovers innumerable shades of difference, and even
the slightest defects in others, is subject to incurable languors
when it is a question of analyzing ourselves. One never has
strength enough to go down into himself, but he always has
plenty to fathom other people. The science of the soul would
be still in its infancy if it were nothing but the science of our
soul."

" Wit is the flower of intelligence, and sound judgment is its
fruit. Is it too much to say that on the same tree there are
twenty flowers for one fruit?"

The body of the volume, which is divided into three parts r
treating of the Philosophic Spirit under many aspects, is consecu-
tive and dignified ; still, it is seldom uncharacterized by the
light touch so conspicuous in the chapter from which we have
been quoting.

I. THE STORY OF A PARISH.*

The uses of a work like this extend far beyond the parish
of which it treats. The history of one portion of a nation or a
church, if honest and if in detail, is a guide to the intelligent
inquirer who seeks to learn the actual results of laws and of
movements concerning which a more general history is written.
It is not enough to say that this parish, an ideal one in many re-
spects, is a miniature of the American Church in its most pros-
perous development, and that therefore its Story is of general
historical value. It is more than that, for it is a record of the
methods and appliances by means of which religion can alone
succeed anywhere when confronted with modern difficulties and
modern aspirations.

As a history of a now great and flourishing church ; of its
humble beginnings half a century back ; of its laborious and of-
ten painful, yet always sure and steady, progress in spite of scan-
ty resources, of few and overworked priests, of the widely-scattered
congregation ; in spite of inherited and bitter prejudice and per-
secution of all that bore the name Catholic this Story of a Par-
ish has all the interest and more that belongs to romance. The
author's patient research ; the labor and time necessary for the
consultation of original documents going far back into the Colo-

*The Story of a Parish, 1847-1892. The First Church in Morristown, N. J.: its foun-
dation and development. By Very Rev. Joseph M. Flynn, R.D.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 143

nial and Revolutionary periods ; the direct and straightforward
style, often eloquent and full of charm and always clear and ac-
curate ; the prudent and discriminating use of anecdote ; these
are the elements that go to make this work valuable and trust-
worthy as a history, while as a contribution to a general history of
the church in this part of the world its value is far above the
value the author modestly puts upon it.

But this Story, as is said above, serves other ends as well as
those of history. Father Flynn's book shows how the " volun-
tary principle" pays the expenses of a complete church establish-
ment ; nay, how it builds it up and endows it with the peren-
nial riches of spontaneous Catholic generosity.

We have used the word " ideal " in connection with the
Catholic parish of Morristown, N. J., because it is a complete
one. . Mainly by the efforts of its present pastor, it is provided
with a beautiful church, a fine modern school, a convent for the
religious, a beautiful commodious building for the amusement and
instruction of the young people, a hospital, an orphanage and
home for the aged poor, and, finally, a beautiful cemetery all
this secured and the parish enjoying an easy financial condition.
The people for whose spiritual interests it is all intended are
virtuous and edifying Catholics. Their pastor is not only their
servant for every religious need, but he is deeply concerned for their
temporal welfare. He is identified with every good work of the
city, and is the strongest moral force in Morristown. No move-
ment for the public good but seeks his aid, and never in vain.
He knows that it is a fault for a parish priest to avoid publici-
ty, since his vocation calls him to be a leader of his people in
religion and morality elements seldom absent from the common
interests of men. Hence, to cite an instance, he was one of the
chief arbitrators in settling a dangerous strike in Morristown.

Every attack on the Catholic faith finds Father Flynn ready
in defence ; every opportunity for the advancement of truth finds
him prepared. He is the courageous foe of venal politics and
of saloons, the friend of clean living and honest government.

We should also mention that now, when the size of the par-
ish indicates the need of a division at some future time, this un-
selfish pastor has already provided for that event by the' pur-
chase of property, and the building of a church and school.

We are proud of such parishes and of such parish priests.
This delightful story traces everything to its beginning, and tells
of a religious institution perhaps a good span over the average ;
yet there are very many others in this country which approxi-

144 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,

mate to it in success, and not a few whose career is equally
worthy of commendation.

In press-work, paper, and binding the author has aimed to
secure the best product of the book-maker's art, and his ideas
have been realized in a manner that leaves no place for fault.
The illustrations, many of which are the work of the author him-
self, are numerous and beautiful, and add special value to a work
valuable in many ways, and beautiful enough in every detail of
workmanship to merit the highest praise, and to illustrate the
possibilities of artistic book-making.

Father Flynn has done his work well. There are few priests
upon whose time so many and incessant demands are made, not
only as the head and director of a great parish in all its avenues
of activity, but as one who is identified with the public welfare
of a large town. And yet he has found time and patience for
a most valuable contribution to our Catholic literature. We trust
it will prove the pioneer of many a similar work. .

2. ARCHBISHOP ULLATHORNE'S LETTERS.*

There is no manner of doubt but that the inner life of any
great man is best known through his letters. They reveal his
innermost thoughts, and we see him not simply with that reserve,
either of demeanor or of thought, which any one would throw
about himself when he stands before the gaze of the public eye,
but as he is known to his most intimate friends.

Archbishop Ullathorne's letters are of great value for many
reasons. Primarily, perchance, because they are the outpourings
of a great and holy soul. Man's greatest study is of man him-
self, and particularly does this study become interesting when
we find human nature portrayed among those men who have
been standing head and shoulders over many of their contempo-
raries. Ullathorne's letters are important also because they con-
stitute a history of one of the most intensely interesting epochs
of religious thought.

For forty-three years Ullathorne was a bishop in England, and
he took an active part in all the important affairs of the church.
The revival of Catholicism, the re-establishment of the hierarchy,
the Tractarian movement with its after-effects coming down to
the present time all these are of the greatest interest to us.

* Letters of Archbishop Ullathorne. London : Burns & Gates, limited ; New York,
Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benzjger Bros.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 145

Archbishop Ullathorne's long and useful life reached across them
all, and his letters constitute one of the very best of contempo-
rary histories.

3. THE SACRAMENTALS OF THE CHURCH.*

It is well to have a thorough knowledge of the meaning and
signification of the various sacramentals of the Church, and to
ever keep before our mind the very important distinction be-
tween a Sacrament and a sacramental. Of the sacraments there
are seven, and they are all divinely instituted ; of the sacra-
mentals their number is legion, and they are of human institu-
tion. The former confer grace of themselves, the latter depend
on the dispositions of the user.

Yet in the external religious conduct of Catholics as it ap-
pears to others, and particularly to those who are not of the
household, it is the sacramentals which in most cases manifest
themselves. The wearing of the scapular, the use of the sign
of the cross, the use of medals, small statues, Agnus Deis, etc.,
these things are oftener seen and as often misunderstood by non-
Catholics, and sometimes it is difficult to find those who can give
an intelligent idea of the origin, or who can explain the proper use,
of these sacramentals. Father Lambing has 'Conferred a very
great favor on us by grouping in a concise, handy volume clear
and intelligent explanations of most of these customs that ob-
tain among Catholics. His book is of great value for this
reason.

* The Sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church. By Rev, A, A, Lambing, LL,D. New
York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Benziger Bros, 1892.

VOL. LVI. 10

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

ALL COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO READING CIRCLES, LISTS OF BOOKS,
ETC., SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION, NO.
415 WEST FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

THE energetic members of the Alumnae Association of
the Holy Angels' Academy, Buffalo, N. Y., are first in the field
with an outline of reading on the " Columbian Era." It will
serve to suggest the topics to be considered, and some of the
sources of information. Every Catholic Reading Circle should
formulate at once, if it has not already been done, a plan for a
Columbus meeting. The outline of work which is here given,
from Le Couteulx Leader, indicates that the ladies of the Alumnae
Association are preparing for profitable study during the period
from October, 1892, to May, 1893:

" Columbus in Italy : Italy, religious and political, between
1436-1492 ; art and artists of the time in particular Delia Rob-
bia, Finiguerra, Verrocchio, Da Vinci.

" Columbus in Portugal : science of navigation in the fifteenth
century ; Portuguese navigators ; biographers of Columbus.

" Columbus in Spain : Isabella the Catholic ; Ferdinand ; the
convent and monks of La Rabida ; the Moors in Spain ; Moor-
ish art ; the Inquisition ; Cardinal Ximenes ; Gutenberg and the
invention of printing ; Popes Nicholas V. and Calixtus III.

" Columbus in America : earlier discoveries ; the reigning
Pontiff in 1492 ; myths concerning the Borgia family.

" Bartolome Las Casas ; death of Columbus ; Spain and Por-
tugal in 1506.

"England, France, and Germany from 1491 to 1506; the
Jews in Europe in the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries ; religion of the tribes discovered by Columbus and by
navigators immediately following him."

Among the books to be consulted
phies of Columbus, especially the
and translated by Henry F. Brownson

are the numerous biogra-
one written by Tarducci,

Hefele's Cardinal

1892.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 147

Ximenes ; Fiske's Discovery of America; Prescott's Conquest of
Mexico ; Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature.

In recent magazine literature there is a great abundance of
material bearing on Columbus. Rev. L. A. Dutto has profoundly
investigated all available documents in writing his series of arti-
cles on Columbus prepared for this magazine. Nearly every
one of the fifty-five published volumes of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD will be found to contain many pages of historical in-
formation relating to Columbus and the explorers of America.
The American Catholic Quarterly Review should also be consulted
by students seeking for Columbian literature. In its pages the
late John Gilmary Shea published his latest researches in regard
to Columbus. Readers of the Ave Maria will easily recall the
many notable articles which have appeared in its pages showing
forth the faith and devotion of the great navigator, who sailed
in the Santa Maria from Palos, August 3, 1492, on his voyage
of discovery. The Catholic Family Annual for 1892, published
by the Catholic Publication Society Co., contained a beautiful
tribute to " Columbus, the Christ-bearer," written by John A.
Mooney, illustrated with original drawings by James Kelly. The
Benziger Brothers have published a drama in five acts on the
great discoverer of America, composed by an Ursuline, and dedi-
cated to the Right Rev. J. F. Horstmann, D.D.

M. C. M.

148 BOOKS RECEIVED. [Oct., 1892.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

DICTIONNAIRE DE LA BIBLE, contenant tous les noms de personnes, de lieux, de
plantes, d'animaux mentionne's dans les Saintes Ecritures, les questions th6o-
logiques, arch^ologiques, scientifiques, critiques relatives a 1'Ancien et au
Nouveau Testament, et des notices sur les commentateurs anciens et modernes,
avec de nombreux renseignements bibliographiques, publi6 par F. Vigouroux,
prtre de Saint-Sulpice, avec le concours d'un grand nombre de collabora-
teurs. Letouzey et Ane, Editeurs, Paris, 17 rue du Vieux-Colombier. 1892.

KRISTOPHERUS, THE " CHRIST-BEARER." By Henry B. Carrington. A Colum-
bian Ode for School-Tablet and Declaration Use. Boston : New England
Publishing Co.

THE HOLY YEAR OF THE GUARDS OF HONOR AND FRIENDS OF THE SACRED
HEART OF JESUS. Translated from the French. Revised by the Sisters of the
Visitation. Monastery of the Visitation, 209 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn.

LETTERS OF ARCHBISHOP ULLATHORNE. London : Burns & Gates, limited ;
New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.

THE POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND AND WALES DUR-
ING THE LAST Two CENTURIES. Retrospect and Forecast. Edited for
the XV Club ; with a Preface by the Lord Braye, President of the Club.
London : Burns & Gates, limited ; New York : Benziger Bros. 1892.

THE CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONIC RACE; or, The First Apostles of Europe.
By Mrs. Hope ; with a Preface by the Rev. J. B. Dalgairns. Revised edi-
tion. London : Burns & Gates, limited ; New York, Cincinnati, and Chi-
cago : Benziger Bros.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND, from the beginning of the Chris-
tian Era to the Accession of Henry VIII. By Mary H. Allies. London :
Burns & Gates, limited ; New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger
Bros.

SPIRIT OF THE SACRED HEART. A Manual of Prayers compiled from vari-
ous approved sources. London : Burns & Gates, limited ; New York :
Benziger Bros.

THE CHURCH ; or, The Society of Divine Praise. A Manual for the use of
the Oblates of St. Benedict. From the French of Dom GueYanger.
Edited, with Introductions, by a Secular Priest. London: Burns & Gates,
limited ; New York : Benziger Bros.

A FRENCH GRAMMAR. By the Rev. Alphonse Dufour, S.J., Professor of the
French Language and Literature at Georgetown University. Boston :
Ginn & Co. 1892.

PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY OF THE HOLY SEE. By Rev. John Ming, S.J.
New York and Cincinnati : Fr. Pustet & Co. 1892.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. LVI.

NOVEMBER, 1892.

No. 332.

OF TENNYSON.

NE of Thackeray's daughters, in a sketch of Ten-
nyson, tells us that when Byron died the younger
poet felt that the whole world was at an end
that nothing else mattered. " I remember," he
said, "I walked out alone, and carved 'Byron is
dead' on the sandstone." No second-rate sensitive mind could
have felt in this way, and no mind not sensitive could have suf-
fered as Tennyson suffered when the meteoric personality of By-
ron passed out of sight. The passing away of Tennyson could
not affect us as the shock of Byron's touched him. Newman
had gone, Sir Henry Taylor had gone, and Tennyson himself
seemed to be waiting for the change when he put at the end
of Demeter and Other Poems (1889)

" Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark !
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark ;

"For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar."

After all, no matter what he may have written since, that is
his last message a message of resignation, of hope. But, com-
paring it with the famous lyric of the great English cardinal a
lyric which is mistakenly called a hymn one feels a pang that
the hope is not more definite, and one misses that -humility

150 OF TENNYSON. [Nov. T

which is the leading note of " Lead, Kindly Light." The poet
of "In Memoriam " is ready to obey just as he is, " without one
plea"; the poet of "The Dream of Gerontius" prays that he
may be led to grow worthier of the light of God.

The death of Tennyson has not shocked his admirers as the
death of Byron shocked the young Tennyson ; but it has fallen
like a clod on our hearts, for all that. If he did not die in the
blaze of his glory, like Byron, he died while he was still glorious.
It is sometimes happy for a poet to die young. It was happy
for Keats ; it was happy for Maurice de Guerin ; and " Endy-
mion " and the " Centaure " have a double value for us because
they 'seem to reflect the golden noontime of a day that never
came. It was not happy for Chatterton, whose fulfilment would
have made his promise pale, for it had genius and industry ; it
would have been a terrible loss to the world if Tennyson had
died after he had written " Maud." No English poet has been so
equal, no English poet has been so correct, no English poet has
done more to hold up for admiration the Christian ideal of love
and marriage ; and, if English and American literature is pure,
we owe it more to the influence of Lord Tennyson than to any
other writer. We who have read his poems, or had them read
to us ever since we can remember, cannot realize how subtly
his inspiration has gone into our blood.

As a lyricist he was delicate and musical as Theocritus.
Shelley comes close to him ; but there is, in all the nineteenth
century, only one set of lyrics that surpass his, and these are the
choruses in Swinburne's " Atalanta in Calydon." Tennyson's songs
are melodies in themselves ; he is the only Englishman whose
lyrics may be compared with Shakspere's without suffering. But
his music is modern and touched with sadness. His " Sing low,
my Lute," in " Queen Mary," is lovelier than Queen Katharine's
song in " Henry VIII." He, so thoroughly imbued with the
modern spirit of sadness, could never attain the jollity of the
" merrie " time that produced Puck's song at the end of " Mid-
summer-night's Dream."

Of the great poetical dramas of our century Tennyson' creat-
ed none. But he did a greater thing : he made an epic an epic
of almost feminine grace and beauty a Corinthian shaft, if you
will, but on a solid base, masculine in its strength. A time will
come when the critics and the people will agree that the three
great dramas of the nineteenth century are : Shelley's " Cenci,"
Sir Henry Taylor's " Philip Van Artevelde," and Aubrey de
Vere's "Alexander the Great." To these may be added the

1892.] OF TENNYSON. 151

elder Aubrey de Vere's " Mary Tudor." Tennyson's " Harold "
or " Queen Mary" will not be of them. And one of the reasons
is that Tennyson seems deliberatively to have misunderstood the
time and the people. Let us imagine, if we can, what Reginald
Pole would have become in the hands of the man that painted
Wolsey. See what he has become in those of a genius who in-
sisted on looking at English history from the point of view of
an English bourgeois. No delicacy and art of treatment, no
touches of natural speech, no beauty of expression in a tragedy
can atone for lack of elevation in the characters. The people
in "Harold " and "Queen Mary" lack both elevation and dis-
tinction. And yet there are some indiscriminating admirers of
Tennyson who compare "Queen Mary" with "Henry VIII." to
the disadvantage of the latter. The last act of " Henry VIII."
is a misfortune not due to Shakspere. But there is the same
difference between them as there would be between a Madonna
by Murillo and one, inspired of the Protestant idea of the
Mother of God, by Sir John Millais. Judged by the highest
standard, Tennyson's tragedies are failures, and not even "splen-
did failures" a phrase which "Maud" and "The Princess" de-
serve, and which the Rev. Mr. Van Dyke applies to them in his
very sympathetic study of the poetry of Tennyson.

The reason of the failure of " Maud " is apparent. It is a
reflection of the worst qualities of Byron ; it has his hysteria
without his passion. When he wrote " Maud " Tennyson had
not found out how strong he could be himself. The lyrics in
" Maud " alone give it value ; and lyrical beauty is at its ut-
most in the line, " There has fallen a splendid tear." But
what could be more commonplace than the many stanzas that
resemble this?

"A grand, political dinner
To the men of many acres,
A gathering of the Tory ;
A dinner and then a dance,
For the maids and marriage-makers,
And every eye but mine will glance
At Maud in all her glory."

" The Princess " is a failure for a different reason ; it is
neither humorous nor serious, but the lyrics redeem it ; besides,
it is only a failure by comparison. What finish, what art, what
Corinthian grace in all the lines of blank-verse that compose it !
It seems crude to call the exquisite medium of " The Princess "
blank-verse. The form of this poem is as much the creation of

152 OF TENNYSON. [Nov.,

Tennyson as the form of Horace's Non ebur neque aureum was
the creation of Hipponax of Ephesus. In " The Princess " we
find Shakspere and Wordsworth's absolute fidelity to nature a
quality in Tennyson which was cultivated early through his fond-
ness for Thomson's " Seasons." " The Princess " is only a fail-
ure by comparison with the poet's great achievements. Who can
analyze the charm and perfection of the lyrics in "The Princess "?
They seem as pellucid and simple as a drop of dew rand they
would be just as easily created by any other poet than Ten-
nyson.

Aubrey de Vere, in his admirable Essays, chiefly on Poetry, tells
us why Tennyson's dramas are failures. He gives this reason
for the lack of great dramas in an age whose chief dramatist
seems to be Sardou ! " It," Aubrey de Vere says, writing of our
time, " is deficient in simplicity, in earnestness, in robustness in
that intrepid and impassioned adventurousness which desires to
watch and join the great battle of passions on the broad plat-
form of common life ; and in that elasticity of scene which
makes renewed vigor the natural recoil from suffering, and a
deeper self-knowledge the chief permanent results of calamity.
We may descend into the depths of meditative pathos, or ascend
into the regions of the mystic and the spiritual ; but dramatic
poetry we shall aim at in vain unless we appreciate those
manly qualities which are the firm foundation of real life, and
therefore of imitative art."

Shelley's "Cenci" is almost closed to us because of the re-
pulsiveness of its fable ; but it has the attributes of robustness,
of breadth, of manliness. And these attributes save Sir Henry
Taylor's " Philip," and help to make perfect the greatest of all
modern tragedies, Aubrey de Vere's "Alexander the Great." If
Shakspere's principal fault was according to Wordsworth that
his characters did not act sufficiently from religious motives,
this is not one of De Vere's faults. God, the creator and arbiter,
is never absent in the minds of even his Greeks.

Tennyson's " Harold " and " Queen Mary " lack the quality
of manliness ; they are narrow ; they are powerless to grasp en-
during fame. And this narrowness is evident in the manner in
which Tennyson, in these dramas, permitted himself to in-
jure his art by following political pamphleteers special pleaders
rather than those seeking the original sources of history. But,
while " Harold " and " Queen Mary " are not great as dramas,
they contain passages of the highest poetry. It may be said
truthfully of Tennyson, what cannot be said of Milton, Words-

1892.] OF TENNYSON. 153

worth, Browning, or any other great poet : there are no dead
wastes in his poems ; he always has interest not because he had
a greater message to deliver to the world, but because he is
such a thorough artist. He was impatient of obscurity ; he has,
it may be said, spent a life-time in perfecting the clearness and
correctness of poems already clear and correct enough.

Tennyson's devotion to art is shown by his readiness to profit
by Lockhart's criticisms on the poems printed at the end of the
year 1832 his second volume. Sir Walter Scott's son-in-law
stung deep, but he was right ; and Tennyson, who seems to have
been always sane, turned Lockhart's arrows into additional sup-
ports for his art. The improvements made in other editions of
" The Palace of Art " and " The Miller's Daughter " show the
fine sense of the poet, who, unlike most men of genius, could
not be blinded by the manner of a criticism to the justice of
it. Tennyson went on refining details to the end of his life.
Some of these details, such as changes in " Mariana in the Moated
Grange," seem to be merely capricious, for what difference does
it make whether it is the peach or the pear that is strapped to
the garden wall ? Still, the hand of the artist has the daintier
touch, and in no poem has ever color and silence been so well
suggested as in this. It has all the details of the Pre-Raphaelite
metier without the Pre-Raphaelite affectation ; for, after all,
Tennyson was in his " picture-poems " a greater pupil of Cole-
ridge's than Rossetti or William Morris.

Tennyson's " In Memoriam " may have given consolation to
some hearts, but it has probably given pleasure to more intel-
lects. It is the exquisite, modulated, elegant lament of one mind
for another. It ought to be studied with the elegy of Moschus
on Bion, of Theocritus on Adonis, of " Lycidas " with Shelley's
" Adonais " ; and there will be found more spontaneity in each of
these. As an exposition done with the most artistic scrupulous-
ness of the effects of death on a mind affected by the conser-
vative doubt of a modern man it is perfect. Every tone in
that harp is brought out ; no string is untouched ; and even in
this dirge of the intellect the poet is best as a lyricist. What
can surpass the dignity and what equal the music of the lines :

" When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
And home to Mary's house returned,
Was this demanded if he yearned
To hear her weeping by his grave ?

OF TENNYSON. [Nov.,

" Behold a man raised up by Christ !
The rest remaineth unrevealed ;
He told it not ; or something sealed
The lips of that Evangelist."

There is doubt in the " In Memoriam," but then it is a poem
of moods. There is hope too, but no triumph no ecstasy of
triumph such as should come from the Christian poet when he
remembers and anticipates the Resurrection :

" Behold, we know not anything :

I can but trust that good shall fall,
At last, far off, at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

" So runs my dream : but what am I ?

An infant crying in the night :

An infant crying for the light :

And with no language but a cry."

The love of a St. Teresa, the desire of a St. Francis d'Assisi,
the certitude of a Dante are not here. The poem is splendid,
but never warm ; if it had even a touch of the ecstasy of faith
which we find in the " Canticle of the Sun," it would be a con-
solation for all hearts for all time.

There were, however, some who found it not without fervor,
but this was perhaps because they knew no better things. We
Catholics, the heirs of the ages, are hard to please.

Sir Henry Taylor, in his Autobiography, says:

" It is a wonderful little volume. Few very few words of
such power have come out of the depths of this country's poetic
heart. I met in the train yesterday a meagre, sickly, peevish-
looking, elderly man, not affecting to be quite a gentleman, and
bearing a strong likeness to Nettleton the ironmonger, and on
showing him the portrait of Lionel Tennyson which I carried in
my hand, he spoke of " In Memoriam," and said he had made
a sort of churchyard of it, and had appropriated some passage
of it to each of his departed friends ; and he read it every Sun-
day, and never came to the bottom of the depths of it. More
to be prized, I thought, than the criticism of critics, however
plauditory."

Let us be thankful that the genius of the poet and his in-
stinct for the true gave us the only English epic since Dryden
wrote epic fragments. The Idyls of the King, taken as a whole
and we now have it complete is an epic. It has all the requi-

1892.] OF TENNYSON. 155

sites to fulfil even the narrow rhetorical description of what an
epic poem should be. If it be more feminine, more delicate
than the epic is expected to be, it is an epic of the nineteenth
century; and Tennyson reflects the best ideals of his century.
It is Christian. It would have been difficult for any poet, found-
ing his poems on Sir Thomas Malory's King Arthur, to have
been less than Christian ; but yet some modern poets, of coarser
fibre and lesser genius, might have distorted the legends, as
Spenser distorted them, or have missed the meaning of "The
Holy Grail," as nearly all Tennyson's commentators have missed
it. And yet how plain Sir Thomas Malory is ! Sir Galahad,
whose

" strength is as the strength of ten
Because his heart is pure,"

has found the sacred chalice covered with samite of the symbol-
ical color red. " Now," says good old Sir Thomas Malory
may his soul rest in peace ! " now, at the year's end, and the
same day after that Sir Galahad had borne the crown of gold,
he rose up early, and his followers, and came unto the palace,
and saw before them the holy vessel, and a man kneeling upon
his knees in the" likeness of the Bishop, which had about him a
great fellowship of angels, as it had been Jesu Christ Himself ;
and then he arose and began a Mass of Our Lady. And when
he came to the consecrating of the Mass, and had done, anon
he called Sir Galahad and said unto him, ' Come forth, the ser-
vant of Jesu Christ, and thou shalt see that which thou hast
most desired to see !" And then Sir Galahad began to tremble
right sore when the deadly flesh began to behold the spiritual
things ! Then he held up both his hands towards heaven and
said : ' Lord, I thank thee, for now I see that which hath been
my desire many a day ; now, blessed Lord, would I no longer
desire to live, if it please thee, good Lord ! ' And therewith
the good man (Joseph of Arimathea) took our Lord's body be-
tween his hands and proffered it to Sir Galahad ; and he received
it right gladly and meekly."

Every line of Sir Thomas Malory's bearing on the Holy
Grail is fraught with love and reverence for the Blessed Eucha-
rist. Tennyson would have been utterly untrue to his fine in-
stincts if he had attempted to corrupt the meaning of the
search of Sir Galahad by the injection of diluted Positivism into
the poem. Many of his critics have misread the Holy Grail,
but that is because they are ignorant of Catholic teaching and

156 OF TENNYSON. [Nov.,

of Sir Thomas Malory. Looking around us and seeing who might
have treated the Holy Grail, we cannot be too thankful that this
idyllium of the desire of a chaste heart for entire union with its
Saviour was written by so pure and strong a genius as that of
Alfred Tennyson.

One catches in the Autobiography of Sir Henry Taylor some
glimpses of Tennyson's personality. We all know that he was a
recluse that his pupil and he were inseparable companions,
withdrawn from the world. He appears to have been a man of
" shattered nerves " and " uneasy gloom," full of tenderness and
simplicity a great grumbler, but never malicious or uncharit-
able. His best moods were in the evening ; he delighted in
long walks along the coast in the stormiest weather. He admired
Jane Austen intensely, and put her one of his scandalized
friends wrote next to Shakspere. He raved against the custom
of seeking for facts and the most trifling anecdotes about men
and women of letters. " It was treating them like pigs to be
ripped open for the public ; that he knew that he himself should
be ripped open like a pig ; that he thanked God Almighty with
his whole heart and soul that he knew nothing, and that the
world knew nothing, of Shakspere but his writings." We find
in the Aiitobiography a hint of his method of work : " He v was full
of poetry, but he could not find a story to put it into." But
how many stories he found and made his own ! He has made all
he touched his own, as Shakspere did. The plaint of " CEnone"
is his, not any other's that ever lived. It is fragrant, as Ed-
mund Clarence Stedman points out, with the fragrance of The-
ocritus :

" O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,

Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

For now the noonday quiet holds the hill :

The grasshopper is silent in the grass ;

The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,

Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.

The purple flowers droop : the golden bee

Is lily-cradled. I alone awake."

It is a delightful echo of the Syracusan, whose best moods
Tennyson has crystallized for us.

There is a double meaning in the Idyls of the King ; but it
was probably an after-thought of Tennyson. Dr. Fallen, in a
number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, worked it out very ingen-
iously.* One may, perhaps, be permitted to differ from this read-

* April, 1885.

1892.] OF TENNYSON. 157

ing here and there notably where Merlin, in this allegory of
the origin of the soul, represents Free Thought rather than
Wisdom,

" And truth is this to me and that to thee."

It is not out of place to say a few words here against those
critics who, because Tennyson never ceased until the end to cut
his gems and to offer new gems to the world, have affected to
find the new gems less brilliant and exquisite than the old. If
the fire of the ruby seems less glowing after we have looked
at it many times, it is not that the ruby is less precious. The
fault is in ourselves. The second part of " Locksley Hall," be-
sides being unique in literature, is a great poem. It perhaps
.has no lines that surpass the famous paraphrase of Dante's Nessun
maggior dolor e, or

" Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords

with might ;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out

of sight."

But there are lines that equal them. The second part of
" Locksley Hall " has not the impetuous music of the first, nor
has it any touch of Byronic hysterics. It is a greater poem.
A part of the myth of " Demeter and Persephone " is gilded by
the sunset of the poet, and splendid with the same light shines
" Vastness." No poet ever wrote fewer weak verses, though he
wrote a few ; no English poet was at once so much of an artist
and so correct. He had the best of Keats and the best of Cole-
ridge ; the best of Shelley, and the simplicity without the simple-
ness of Wordsworth ; he was as clear as Shakspere and some-
times as strong as Milton ; he was the true Pre-Raphaelite, and
with him legitimate Pre-Raphaelitism stopped. To Newman and
to him we owe the preservation of the purest traditions of Eng-
lish expression. If a poet, like a creed, may be judged by its
exaltation of true womanhood, Tennyson may pass unchallenged
into that rank in which stands first the poet of the most Im-
maculate Virgin and of Beatrice.

MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN.

Notre Dame, Ind. }

-J

1892.] A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE OF THE SOUTHLAND. 159

A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE OF THE SOUTHLAND.

HOT, close afternoon last June ; a fashionable New,
York avenue ; dust and noise outside ; a hand-
some room, subdued and restful, within ; a group
of ladies in animated discussion as to their where-
abouts for the summer one is enthusiastic about the
charms of the White Mountains and the Berkshire Hills, another
holds forth on Bar Harbor and Newport, and all the other fa-
miliar places along the coast dear to the feminine soul. In the
midst of it all I drop in, and, refreshed by a cup of tea, add
my quota to the conversation. I pine for fresh air, freedom,
and solitude, and know not where to find them. I fall in with
none of their plans, for I am weary of all the old rounds. We
take our departure one by one without my coming to any de-
cision as to my summer destination. The days drag their slow,
simmering hours along, and yet I cannot find a congenial spot
for my tired soul. At last, in sheer despair, I fling myself in a
chair one late afternoon and take up a magazine. Lazily skim-
ming its pages, a picture of a mountain inn in North Carolina
catches my eye. I am attracted read the article describing
the beauties of the Blue Ridge. It is a revelation. Here
is the very thing I want, and before I sleep I have made up
my mind that the Blue Ridge and I shall make each other's ac-
quaintance before another week has passed !

My friends hear my resolution with scorn. " Go South in
summer, to catch yellow fever, and roast ! " is the greeting I
receive on all sides ; but I pay no attention.

I take an evening train from New York, and in twenty-six
hours, via Baltimore and Washington, reach beautiful Asheville.
It is magnificent. Peak upon peak, gorge, forest, and water are
enchanting to my tired city eyes ; but oh ! it is too worldly, too
much fashion and frivolity, too much dress and display. Not
this do I seek. I look again, and find all, nay, more than all,
my soul and body pine for. An hour by rail from Asheville
across the mountains, buried among the hills I drop on Hender-
sonville the name as long as itself almost hidden in the forests.
A long, wide, old-fashioned village street, framed by three rows
.of spreading trees; some handsome, pretentious shops; some an-
cient ones, where a draper, grocer, and jeweller display their wares

160 A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE OF THE SOUTHLAND. [Nov.,

under one roof. Quaint, vine-covered residences of the natives ;
new Queen-Annesque villas, cottages, and mansions higher up, of
the visitors, principally from Charleston and New Orleans, whose

advent in July is hailed
with joy, for then the har-
vest ; and last and certain-
ly the greatest a street-
car ! the pride and glory of
every honest Henderson-
villite. You cannot pass
Hendersonville without
being introduced to the
street-car ; it proclaims its
existence from the house-
tops ; twice a day, as the
train comes in, a clamorous
bell brings it to your no-

ROAD TO MT. HEBRON. , T , .

tice. Its name is mention-
ed with bated breath, and you are solicited to,enter within its pre-
cincts as to the palace of kings. It is drawn by a pair of mules,
sober, steady, respectable, and the rules laid down by the com-
pany are conducive to the decorum and well-being of the citi-
zens. They are numerous ; all I can remember, though I read
them over several times during the stately progress of the
mules, were : " This car is for passengers only" for whom
else ? I queried to myself and " You are forbidden to hang
your feet through the win-
dows or over the dash-
board !" This is too much
for me ; how the feat is
to be accomplished de-
ponent saith not. After
alighting, the conductor
bids you an an revoir
never farewell ; no more
genial man in the world
than he. If you are not
very busy and want to
talk, he is ready, and on
Hendersonville and its ad-

. -11 i .1 A RIVER GORGE FROM C/ESAR HEAD ROAD.

vantages he will eloquently

hold forth. Its water-works, delightful air, mountain views, and

and always back to "our street-car!" adding, "We are the

1892.] A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE OF THE SOUTHLAND.

161

A HOMESTEAD.

smallest town in America with a street-car. All we want here
is a start ! " Speak of Asheville, and his scorn is too deep for
words " A nest of fogs, and roads the vilest in the world." He
would not mention Hen-
dersonville with it in the
same breath. Two days
later I am happy as a
queen. Here are my sur-
roundings : a pretty chalet
on the hills beyond the
village street ; long French
windows flung back, open-
ing on wide piazzas ; a
great stretch of sloping
lawn ; a steep, rugged
avenue ; great oak doors
leading to a long, wide, cool
corridor running the length
of the house ; the whole shut in by the Blue Ridge, crowned to the
summit in thick, luxuriant pine forests. From my corner on the
piazza. I look down on the winding road, quiet, lovely, romantic ;
a stray colored woman and little darky children, passing into the
village, find their way up to my perch. I know them already,
and love them. Candies for the young ones, which the old
ones favor no less, have made many a little captive, and their
plaintive negro songs have won me.

Saturday is the great
day in the village down
the mountains, and up
from the valleys the farm-
ers gather in their strange
white-capped wagons. Up
the road slowly comes a
long line of seemingly
moving tents, boat-shaped,
drawn by mules or oxen,
something the style of the
prairie schooner one meets
on the plains of Wyoming.
Whole, families sometimes
peep out from beneath
the canvas, or great white heads of cabbage oftener still. All
through the morning the throng of wayfarers trundle towards

THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE WAY.

1 62 A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE OF THE SOUTHLAND. [Nov.,

the market, and the scene is delightfully original to a Northern
eye. At sunset the return is full of life and mirth ; the venders
are taking home some well-earned dollars a rare commodity in
North Carolina and are joyous accordingly. Oxen and mules
set off down the steep, rough road as for a race, to the great
amusement of the owners. I have never seen such fast oxen ; it
is so laughable to see how they gallop, and often they leave the
mules far behind. The farmers seem to enjoy the fun as much
as I ; for jokes fly back and forth from the wagons, and their
quaint mountain dialect comes clear and merry to the high
piazzas far above the road. Sunday morning is ushered in by
the ringing of bells from all the churches ; sweet, holy, and sol-
emn, they chime across the mountains, bringing with every peal
the thought of God, nowhere so near as in those lonely mountain
solitudes.

The summer is dying nay dead and oh ! I have never spent
one so delightful. Not once have I suffered from the heat ! But
for the glorious mountains and pine forests one might be in Eng-
land, the mercury is so low; even when the fiery wave frizzled
and scorched poor suffering humanity throughout our country,
Hendersonville and I were quite comfortable. The papers might
groan over the stifling atmosphere ; we knew naught of it !

My last evening has come, and I tramp up the hills leading
from the village and admire its rural picturesque effect. Three
spires show to great advantage through the trees. I am coming
down a wild road, bordered by oaks and ferns, when through
the woods, her face wreathed in smiles, comes dear old Aunt
Mattie, and we meet with great delight. Her blue gown with
its large white flowers has a very festive look ; her cap is her
own confection, wonderfully, if not artistically, made. It is worn
to hide the loss of her woolly locks, which were sacrificed to the
grippe. Intense headache styled by Mattie " the misery " fol-
lowed, and so the now historic cap. Poor Mattie ! she fully an-
swers Uncle Ned's description :

-' -">> ' :
" He had no hair on the top of his head,

In the place .where the wool ought to grow ;
And he had no teeth for to eat the corn-cakes,
So he had to let the corn-cakes go ! "

Nevertheless Mattie's face is fair to see ; for it is a good face,
honest and bright, and to my eyes beautiful, for it tells its own
tale of a hard-working, cheerful, cleanly life. She is very mourn-

1892.] A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE OF THE SOUTHLAND.

163

ful now at my departure, and wanders off on the beauties of the
village; the air, "much better nor Asheville "; she takes care to
add with scorn : " I had to move up here from it for my health
myself ; of course the misery came from the grippe, and was not
that all over the world ? they tell me." Mattie talks of the
street-car with awe, and, like all the other officials, sighs for a

THE MAIN STREET OF THE VILLAGE.

" start." With a lingering good-by and many curtsies she goes,
and I wend my way homewards to the music of the bells. Every
cow has a bell, and every bell rings, so from morning till night
the chimes peal across the mountains. At milking-time you have
not only one octave, but every chord on the piano. The effect
is beautiful, reminding one of pictures one sees of the Alps or
the Pyrenees. To me the sound is always new, always poetic.
I follow in their train now back through the village, where I
leave the tinkling kine. On the other side, beyond the woods, I
stand and look back, taking my farewell view at the spires with
the setting sun. It is a picture, ruddy and gold, thrown out by
the dark pines and the mountains. What a sturdy, enterprising
little place it is ! and more, how brave, noble, courageous ! for
this is the Hendersonville, so talked of some years ago, that
opened its sheltering doors to the victims of the yellow fever
that decimated the South. When every town and city quarantined
itself against the stricken who had fled from home, without food
or raiment, this Spartan mountain-village welcomed all to its

164

A SONG.

[Nov.,

hospitality, giving them of its best. Wonderful are the stories
you hear of those sad days deeds and sacrifices worthy of a St.
Vincent de Paul and yet I have never heard one allusion to it
by a villager ! They speak of the air, the mountains, the street-
car ; but not once did I catch the faintest breath of all their
heroic conduct towards the refugees ! This great charity must
bring down blessings on those good people, and will surely meet
them one day when they make that last great " start " that will
bring them to Eternal Prosperity !

DOROTHY GRESHAM.

HE milky-way is the footpath

Of the martyrs gone to God ;
Its stars the flaming jewels
To show us the way they trod.

II.

The flowers are stars dropped lower,

Our daily path to light,
In daylight to lead us upward,

As those jewels do at night.

HELEN M. SWEENEY.

1892.]

THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL.

165

THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL.

ITH the successful close of the first session of the
Catholic Summer-School, held during the month of
August last in the quaint and historic town of New
London, a new epoch opened in the history of the
church in the United States. Even in the search-
ing light of the sober after-thought that notable event grows
upon us. It was, indeed, a remarkable and distinguished gather-
ing of earnest men and women committed to an enterprise of
the very highest value and importance. The projectors of the
movement, although encouraged and supported by many mem-
bers of the hierarchy and influential Catholic laymen, felt that
the idea was in the nature of an experiment. In certain quar-
ters, no doubt, there might have been heard whispers of " pre-
mature," " move slowly," and the like ; but the outcome of the
first session of the Catholic Summer Assembly more than justi-
fied the wisdom and ability of those who had undertaken the
work. What was begun as an experiment ended a pronounced
success. Nothing was wanting either in the attendance, the
character and variety of the course of lectures, the brilliancy and
thoroughness of the teachers, the earnestness and deep interest of
the five or six hundred students, or in the cordial welcome extend-
ed to the school by the descendants of the Puritans, through
their representative, Mayor Wheeler, that could add to its success.
The Catholic Summer-School, therefore, wherever its local
habitation, is the name of a permanent institution destined, with
the blessing of God, to exercise henceforth a powerful influence
especially on the Catholic intellectual life of America. Nor will
that beneficial influence be restricted to the church alone ; no, it
must reach far beyond such limits. It cannot but affect the
mind and thought of the local non-Catholic community, where
the school is held ; scholars of all shades of religious opinion, as
well as those of sceptical and infidel tendencies, will follow with
interest the discourses of Catholic men and women of intellec-
tual eminence and great erudition on science, literature, philosophy,
art, history, metaphysics, socialism, morality, and government.
It is for these reasons we say that this new movement is his-
toric, and marks an era in the magnificent developments of the
church that we have in our own days the happiness to witness.
VOL. LVI. 1 1

i66 THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. [Nov.,

In this article we propose to discuss the work and methods
of the Catholic Summer-School ; its intellectual and moral influ-
ences both within and without the church ; and its future de-
velopment and possibilities on the lines of university extension.
Thus our readers will be able to get a clear mental grasp of
the whole scheme.

No recent phase of American progress and development has
been more noteworthy than the growth of our facilities for the
higher education both of men and women. Within the last ten
or fifteen years not only have our colleges, academies, and uni-
versities widened their doors and made the way smooth and in-
viting for students of limited means and opportunities, but great
educational centres like the Summer-School, the Columbian Read-
ing Union, and the Catholic Reading Circle organization have
been founded to popularize and carry forward the work of higher
education. Never, we believe, has the world seen such a gene-
ral reawakening of educational zeal as is to be witnessed on all
sides to-day. The number of college students in the United
States this year is about ten times as great as it was twenty
years ago. The works of the great scientists from Aristotle to
Darwin and Mivart, of the philosophers from Plato to St. Thomas
and Spencer, and of the poets from Homer to Dante and Shaks-
pere, have far more readers in our time than they ever had be-
fore. Never was there so general a desire for knowledge ; to
have views and opinions, if not always to be informed, on a
great variety of subjects both good and bad. And never were
the means and opportunities of satisfying this mental craving
better and more abundant than at the present moment. The
daily and periodical press, the magazines and reviews, the cheap
editions of the classics and of scientific works have brought with-
in the reach of almost every one who can read the fruit, both
good and bad, of the tree of knowledge.

But this intellectual renaissance has its dangers and possibili-
ties of evil. The original temptation to taste forbidden fruit,
even when it is produced on what is called the tree of know-
ledge, is always strong upon us. In slaking one's laudable thirst
for learning there is ever present the possibility of drinking from
poisoned sources. All that is set down in history is not fact ;
all that, is taught in the name of philosophy is not truth ; reli-
gion has its false systems ; science its unwarranted conclusions as
well as its untenable theories ; whilst art is made to suffer often-

1892.] THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. 167

times for the horribly crude and impure conceptions that are
attempted to be palmed off in its name.

This, then, is the situation as we find it to-day, and as we
know it to be in our own country. On the whole we are rather
pleased with it. The outlook is bright and promising. What is
needed to reap an abundant harvest is an active, intelligent cul-
tivation of the field that invites our labors ; concerted action ;
skilful, persevering effort.

The Catholic Summer-School has entered upon its work,
which is to be found in the present condition of the American
mind and its attitude to truth, with a clear idea of what it ex-
pects to do, and how the work is to be done. The aim of the
Summer-School is to foster intellectual culture in harmony with
true Christian faith, by means of lectures, and special courses on
university extension lines, in literature, science, and art ; while
at the same time providing means of social intercourse among
persons of refined, literary tastes, healthful recreation and profit-
able entertainment.

The late Cardinal Newman in writing of the relation of the
church to literature and science put the matter clearly when he
said: "The church fears no knowledge, but she purifies all; she
represses no elements of our nature, but cultivates the whole."
On this line of principle and thought the Summer-School pro-
poses to offer to its students the very best instruction in the
various departments of knowledge ; on a broad basis of informa-
tion ; by competent teachers and lecturers who would do honor
to any university in the world ; men who being sure of their
ground are able to throw upon their subjects the stronger and
broader light of Catholic principles, of spiritual truth, and of a
coherent faith.

How well the work mapped out in the admirable syllabus
of lectures for its first session was performed everybody who
was in anywise interested understands. A chorus of approval
and praise of the work done, and of the methods in doing it,
has come from every quarter. Catholics, as always happens when
representatives of the faith are brought together for high and
noble purposes, were once more proud of their title. They glo-
ried in the great success of the Catholic Summer-School. Those
who were not present almost envied those who were, because of
the undoubted benefits derived from attendance.

The success of a school, even a Summer-School, involves two
things as essential : teachers and students ; the teachers must
be learned, fully equipped in all that appertains to their teach-

i68 THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. [Nov.,

ing ; and the students must be attentive and studious. That
these conditions were realized in magnificent proportions at New
London during the three first weeks of August last there is but
one opinion. We venture to say it would be impossible to
bring together anywhere else, or from any other body, such a
galaxy of talent as was comprised in the staff of teachers, lay
and cleric, men and women. We who had the privilege of be-
ing present know how faithfully and disinterestedly this large
staff of professors labored in the school's service ; with what
clearness and brilliancy they expounded the well-chosen themes
of study ; with what ease and precision they answered all quer-
ies and removed every difficulty. The highest tribute that
could be paid those lecturers was forthcoming in the general ap-
proval and satisfaction of the large body of students ; as also in
the popular desire, so often expressed since the close of the
school, that the various courses of lectures be published in book-
form. What choice chapters in such a volume would not the
course on ethics, Shakspere, anthropology, history, the science
of comparative religion, socialism, Egyptology and the Bible, and
other lectures on miscellaneous topics, make ?

And if the teachers did their full share in making the Sum-
mer-School a success, what shall we say of the large number of
students who assembled in the old Yankee town to profit by
the instructions? By a reference to the programme it will be
seen at once that the subjects were all of a serious nature.
Notwithstanding the extreme heat of the early days of August,
the attractive distractions of the sea-beach, the naval station,
the visit of the White Squadron of United States war vessels,
the New York Yacht Club, or the many points of historical in-
terest in and around New London, the attendance at the four
daily lectures was uninterruptedly large. From day to day the
crowd of students kept on growing larger, and never did we
witness a more eager and intensely interested class of students.
Some one said that the quaint old Connecticut city during those
days of the Catholic Summer-School recalled one of the univer-
sity towns of the middle ages. The very atmosphere and sur-
roundings provoked discussion and conduced to thought and
study. There was an intellectual spirit abroad, roaming along
the well-kept streets, round the fine old elms, on the ferry-boats,
on the piazzas of the hotels, away off on White-Haven beach ;
its presence was sensibly felt in these places by the subject and
tone of students' conversation as well as more strongly in the
vicinity of the beautiful Church of the " Star of the Sea " and

1892.] THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. 169

the comfortable Lyceum Theatre. Those were, indeed, days of
delightful memories for all who were present, because they were
so profitably spent in what we might call the true modern
" Academy " the Catholic Summer-School.

II.

What will be the effect and influence of this new intellectual
movement ? To what extent will it be felt within and without
the church ? How will it affect the non-Catholic mind of Ameri-
ca ? These are a few of the practical questions that naturally
suggest themselves to thoughtful persons who are interested in
the Summer-School. We shall try and furnish an answer.

It is obvious that an institution conducted on the lines of the
Catholic Summer-School must exercise a powerful influence on
the intellectual life of America. It must quicken and infuse a
new and better spirit in the world of letters. It must help in a
great measure to elevate and refine the tone of our current liter-
ature ; whilst at the same time it cannot fail to develop a sound
literary taste in an ever-increasing circle of readers. By its
teaching it will help to solve many of the perplexing problems
of our day ; it will remove doubts and difficulties that are tor-
turing the minds of many ; it will proclaim to a large body
of non-Catholic fellow-citizens that could hardly be reached in
any other manner a knowledge of Catholic principles and doc-
trine. It will cast the clear, strong light of true philosophy on
the great social questions of the times ; it will instruct all
who may come within the limits of its influence on their rights
and duties as members of society, as citizens, in the discharge
of their respective callings in life. This Catholic Summer-School
will become a centre of intellectual light from which will radi-
ate in ever-widening circles over this fair land purifying, life-
giving waves of truth. It will be, in short, a great popular
university, not only in session during a month or two in sum-
mer, but working on well-defined lines, as we shall explain later
on, 'the whole year round.

And what a stimulus it will give to Catholic literature !
What encouragement and hope it holds out to our Catholic
writers and publishers! How ready will the students of this
Summer-School be to recognize in a practical way our obliga-
tions to Catholic authors, the great sacrifices these men and
women are constantly making for the sake of truth ! Nor can
we pass by the hope that is properly entertained that from this

170 THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. [Nov.,

school will spring a generation of writers who will deal with the
heroic period of American history, and " embellish with a mod-
ern literary finish " the story of the great explorers and pio-
neers the advance guard of our Christian civilization mostly
all of whom adhered to the old faith. Here there is an invit-
ing field, abundant material for a literature which now exists
only in a fragmentary form. And we may reasonably expect
that our Catholic Summer-School will bring forth an army of
laborers who will cultivate it with diligence and success.

We have said that the Catholic Summer-School must influ-
ence the mind and thought of those outside the church. It
has shown, at short notice, to the world how rich we Catholics
are in men and women of the highest education and culture. It
has helped to set us right before the world on the attitude of
the church to science, literature, and art. It has surely contri-
buted something to remove from the popular mind the impres-
sion that it is the business of the church to put restraints upon
man's intellect ; that Catholicism means illiteracy ; that it is a
religion suited to dark ages and servile peoples, but wholly un-
suited to an enlightened period like our own ; incapable of satis-
fying the needs and desires of a generation that boasts of its in-
tellectual progress and conquests. Now, if the Catholic Summer-
School has done anything and who will say that it has not ? to
get rid of this galling notion galling to sensitive Catholics it
has done a great work. If it has impressed anew on certain
minds that the church encourages the fullest development of
the human intellect, the highest culture of the mind, the most
scientific systems of education ; that, as Newman observed, she
" fears no knowledge ; represses no elements of nature, but culti-
vates the whole" ; a lasting service has been rendered to the
cause of truth. All this, we believe, and more has been accom-
plished by the very first session of the Catholic Summer-School.
What, then, is not to be looked for when the school is perma-
nently and securely established, working successfully not for a
few weeks, but throughout the entire year ?

The annual assembly of illustrious Catholic scholars, leaders
in literature and science, ardent and devoted to their faith, will
be an object-lesson to the unreasoning and unreasonable ; and
will constitute the strongest argument in refutation of the empty
charge that we are considering. And at the feet of masters will
be gathered students from all over the land, aflame with the
true student's thirst for learning; desirous to be informed on all
subjects of useful knowledge ; prepared to study and examine

1892.] THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. 171

the foundations upon which revelation and faith rest ; and to
scrutinize for this purpose the ancient languages, the monuments
of the remotest times, the documents of history, the discoveries
of science, the results of the highest criticism. Every depart-
ment of human knowledge will be examined, and forced to un-
lock its secrets, with no limitation or restriction save that which
truth itself assigns.

From a school such as this what intellectual strength and
virtue will go forth, year after year, to grapple with the scep-
ticism, materialism, and unbelief of the age? It will supply an
active, intelligent, and efficient lay apostolate to the American
Church. Our bright young men and women will find in such a
school new ideals, stronger and nobler impulses to good, and an
outlet for great talents hitherto unused. Thus shall the moral
and intellectual force of this new movement be felt in our
modern civilization. Its influence will reach into the workshop,
the counting-room, the professional man's study, the legislative
halls, the marts of trade, the schools and homes of the land.
That influence will aid in popularizing truth, especially religious
truth, as the spirit of evil has popularized error in latter days.
Thoughtful people see this. " You are doing a great work," said
ex-Governor Waller, of Connecticut, to the writer, " in this
Catholic Summer-School ; you are doing much for your own
people, and very much for us Protestants; you are giving us not
only a knowledge of important truths, but presenting to the
prejudiced mind a phase of Catholicism that it did not dream
of. Now let me make this suggestion," he continued; "you must
not go away off into the woods and build a fence round your
Summer-School, because if you do that fence will keep most of
us out, and we want to be in we want to be with you"

And Mayor Wheeler in his address of welcome, in referring
to the advantages certain to follow from such an institution,
used these words: "The utterances and action of Leo XIII.
relative to the church in the United States have attracted the
attention, and won the confidence and respect, and the reverence
of all thoughtful men. The influence of a Summer-School under
the guidance of teachers inspired with like sentiments may do
much to unite and mould the elements entering into our Amer-
ican citizenship."

172 THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. [Nov.,

III.

It remains for us to notice the future of the Catholic Sum-
mer-School. The General Council, which is the name of the
governing body of the school, has provided for the continuance of
the work the year round. A carefully prepared course of studies
has been arranged for the winter months, beginning with Octo-
ber of each year. As far as possible the University Extension
idea will be carried out.* This winter's course will embrace
natural and moral philosophy, general history, literature, evi-
dences of religion, art, and a special course in pedagogy. At
the head of each of these departments of study will be men emi-
nent in their special branches, who will discharge all the duties
of the teacher or professor to his class. The head of each de-
partment of study will indicate the text and reference books to
be used ; he will lecture at stated times in our large centres of
population. The various courses will be published regularly as a
supplement to the monthly organ of the Catholic Summer-
School, The Reading Circle Review. It has been so arranged that
a student can follow an elective course. All questions and diffi-
culties arising out of the subject-matter of the course will be
promptly answered through the secretary's office by the heads of
the different departments. At the end of each year examination
papers will be prepared, and certificates awarded to all students
who may reach the prescribed standard. The answering, of
course, will be at the option of the students. On the completion
of the course diplomas will be given ; and the nominal sum of
five dollars is the fee for the whole course.

Such are the lines on which the Catholic Summer-School pro-
poses to work. It is, indeed, a magnificent undertaking, admir-
ably and clearly outlined, and gives every promise of working
successfully from the start. Already, we. understand, there is a
large enrollment of students for the University Extension course
this winter. There can be no doubt ''ojf -...th^ success of the move-
ment. The needs of our day dem'and- it ; and we have men
and women of intelligence and .zeal who are ready to labor
and make sacrifices to push forward the work. There can be no
doubt of the popularity of this movement. The New London
session of the Summer-School established the fact. Nor can we
over-estimate its value and importance, its beneficial and far-

* By University Extension is understood a scheme, originating in England, for extend-
ing the advantages of university instruction by means of lectures and classes at important
centres.

1892.]

THE FUTURE OF THE SUMMER-SCHOOL.

173

reaching effects upon the intellectual and moral life of America.
Here we have the clergy, secular and regular, teachers from the
parochial and public schools, men and women eminent in litera-
ture and journalism, representatives of the different professions,
united for a common object ; we have the highest members of
the hierarchy warmly commending the new movement, and by
their presence aiding its work. Surely, when we take account
of these very favorable conditions under which the Catholic
Summer-School has entered upon its career there can be no
thought of failure.

A long stride toward that ideal about which sanguine per-
sons have been talking and writing has been made in the estab-
lishment of this school. Virtue and intellectual force are the
only means by which the church can hold its own, or advance
its position among American non-Catholics. And what a reserve
fund of both these elements and what possibilities of good
does not the Catholic Summer-School contain ! It will formulate
no new creeds, but will strengthen belief in the truths of the
old ; it will not waste any time in useless discussion of matters
of little or no importance, but will be always sober-minded and
choice in the selection of grave and practical subjects ; as one
of our keen-witted editors put it: "There will be no fads in
this school ; nor will there be any danger of mistaking the
religion of its teachers."

At present one can only dimly foresee the advantages
likely to flow from this Catholic Summer-School ; nor can we
fully realize the powerful influence it is sure to exert upon the
intellectual and moral life of the Republic. " Let there be light "
that is its key-note and watch-word.

MORGAN M. SHEEDY.

Pittsburgh, Pa.

LOVE'S QUIETUDE.

ALL falsities and evil passions fall

Before the potent gaze of Love's true star ;

Across the glooms your swift arm slips to bar

Sin's ornate gates, till all desires pall ;

My ears grow sealed to sirens' songs that call

To men on life's strong waters. Where you are

My soul abides in chastened calm, afar

Removed from sense's feverish carnival.

Existence is with you a green retreat,
Full of pure fragrance, birds' songs and repose,
Where never pierce the arrows of life's heat,
Where the world's cynic minion never goes.
Content art thou, O heart ! once fain to range,
Nor would'st thou for the world thy love exchange !

EDWARD A. UFFINGTON VALENTINE.

1892.] THE ELOCUTION OF THE PULPIT. 175

THE ELOCUTION OF THE PULPIT.

accustomed have hearers become to the solemn
cadences of what has been called the " preaching
voice," that they are startled at hearing a preacher
talking from the pulpit in an easy, conversational
tone. Macaulay pokes a good bit of fun at the
dignity of history, which formerly carefully ignored all the little
but important details of the national life, and busied itself only
with the doings of great personages. Under a similar misappre-
hension of the true aim of preaching, and of the dignity of the
pulpit, good and effective preachers have been deluded into
adopting a style of elocution the furthest removed from the
natural. Pretentious professors of elocution catch an unfortu-
nate clergyman, and drill him in hollow, dismal tones, varied
now and then with a spurt of " explosive orotund " which, the
good man is assured, will thrill the most apathetic congregation.
We are acquainted with a worthy priest who, in an evil hour,
fell into the hands of one of these phonetic fiends. The fiend
was a little man, and we wondered where all his voice came
from ; for, at the request of our reverend friend, we were privi-
leged to assist at a lesson.

Father James was first taught how to breathe, having been
assured by the elocutionist that he did not know how to do
what he had been doing all his life. Moliere's M. Jourdain'was
not more surprised at the knowledge of his ability to speak
prose than were we to learn that we did not know how to
breathe. Heavy inhalations ab into pectore were kept up for ten
minutes, leaving us in a state vulgarly known as " blown." The lit-
tle Roscius then put us through several Delsarte positions and con-
tortions, which would have furnished sufficient evidence to any re-
putable physician to give our friends a certificate of our insanity.
" The tone of the pulpit," said the elocutionist, with a Web-
sterian wave of the hand, and a manner which intimated how
much the church had lost in not having him in the pulpit "the
tone of the pulpit is the ' effusive orotund,' solemn, grave, the
vowels long-drawn out, and varied at times with a tremor in the
voice. This I will guarantee to give you in ten lessons, with
but a trifling additional charge. Alas ! " he continued (heavy
bass voice, with above-mentioned tremor), " alas 1 preachers neg-

176 THE ELOCUTION OF THE PULPIT. [Nov.,

lect the ' diatonic scale,' and actually laugh at the ' median stress.'
The consequence is that the solemnity of the Bible vanishes
away. Let me read for you this passage from Paul : ' Oh o h
gra a ve, where is thy victory ? Oh o h death, where is
thy sting?' When old Doctor Hornblower used to read these
words of the burial-service, the mourners were quite overcome.
Depend upon it, reverend sirs, the pulpit is going down going
down, sirs, unless the clergy give more attention to my great
system, which I impart at more reasonable rates than any other
elocutionist in the city."

After this oratorical burst he made our poor friend attack a
sort of musical scale, only the notes appeared to have more
twists and tails than the regular notes. Words were strung on
it in a most bewildering manner. Father James heroically start-
ed this lesson in modulation, and produced sounds marvellously
similar to the popular tune of " Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay."

Another series of inhalations followed, and the reverend pu-
pil began to declaim the lesson assigned (just think of it !) the
balcony scene from " Romeo and Juliet ;" the very last piece
in all oratory that would be appropriate for instruction in the
elocution of the pulpit ! The elocutionist insisted upon giving it
to us himself, with all the languishing grace of the love-sick
hero.

" But," said we, " this dramatic style is not becoming to the
pulpit. What we need is not to strike attitudes or roll our eyes.
Elocution is a science, and you claim to teach it. What are
its great general laws, with their special application to the
pulpit ?"

" Ah ! you (emphatic) must take my first course. Your friend
is far advanced. He can read Shakspere that gr e at, immortal
bard (hand on breast) whom panting Time toils after in vain. I
would recommend you, sir (more emphatic), to begin with easy
exercises in breathing. I observe you are rather corpulent. Ten
lessons in breathing (one dollar a lesson) will give you command
of the larynx and the di a phragm. These two organs, ter-
minating in the e soph a gus, give us, according to Dr.
Rush's gr e at work on the voice, the basis of the o ro
tund, the voice which you will observe I possess, and in per feet
ion, sir. Good-day, gentlemen" (here Father James produced
his pocket-book) " Good-fay."

When we had descended the steps of this Temple of Mercury,
who, we believe, was the god of eloquence among the ancients,
Father James asked :

1892.] THE ELOCUTION OF THE PULPIT. 177

" What do you think of him ? "
" Vox, et pr&terea nihil"

The elocution of the pulpit is entirely different from that of
the stage ; and it is to guard our younger ecclesiastical friends
against confounding them that the following suggestions are re-
spectfully submitted. Instead of spending money and wasting what
is more valuable, time and study, upon fantastical systems of elo-
cution, let them reflect upon these simple rules, verified by the
experience of all successful preachers, and commendatory of
themselves to common sense.

' The first requisite of all public speaking is that the words
should be easily understood by the audience. As clearness, or
perspicuity of expression, is the primum rketoricum, so the in-
telligibility of the speaker is the primum oratoricum. A man
may as well remain silent if he cannot make the audience un-
derstand what he is saying. They hear him well enough. The
lightest tone of a violin is heard throughout a vast cathedral.
All the graces of oratory are valueless unless first of all the
words reach the hearers plainly and distinctly. This essential
condition of public speaking rests on two simple laws, the law
of articulation, and the law of slowness, or of measured speech.
In articulation pay attention to the consonants only. They are
the backbone, the articuli, of the word. The vowels take care
of themselves. False elocution dwells upon the vowel, and re-
sults in what Shakspere calls " mouthing." No rule of so-called
elocution is so fallacious as the one that counsels the speaker to
" swell " upon the vowels. This may be right in singing, but it
is wrong in speaking. That false and disagreeable tone which is
proverbially associated with the pulpit comes from drawling the
vowel and neglecting the consonant. Strike the consonant clear-
ly and sharply. The word will go like a pistol-shot, and invaria-
bly reach its aim, the understanding of your hearers. Given a
fair voice and vocal organs of average health, and there is not
the slightest difficulty in attaining the prime requisite of all
speaking, a clear and distinct enunciation. Without this the most
eloquent and impassioned soul will literally only beat the air, not
into articulate sounds, but into confused and confusing noise.

It seems strange to say that you cannot be too slow. The
reason is that the natural impetuosity of the speaker, together
with the habit of gliding over many syllables in ordinary con-
versation, will hurry him at a rate of speed incompatible with
perfect intelligibility. The master of the art restrains his ardor

i/8 THE ELOCUTION OF THE PULPIT. [Nov.,

in the very tempest and whirlwind of passion. Speak for a while
as though you saw a comma after every word ; and even then
the probabilities are that you speak too fast. Remember that it
takes time for sound to travel, and what seems to you to be a
drawl, or a dragging of words, is just the very condition which
your distant hearer needs to understand you perfectly. Remem-
ber the golden maxim, " You cannot speak too slowly."

Let two priests put this principle to a test by going into
the church. One will mount the altar or the pulpit, the other
stand at the door. Let them begin an easy, natural reading, or
discourse with each other, not raising the voice, not shouting,
but articulating slowly, and they will be surprised to perceive
how far the voice carries without strain or effort. Sometimes, it
is true, the architectural style of the church is not favorable to
public speaking. But in the majority of cases our reverend
friends will find that the fault does not lie in acoustic deficien-
cies, but in defective articulation, too rapid delivery, and inatten-
tion to the natural modulation of the voice. As soon as some
men begin to preach they cease to be natural. If they carried
into the pulpit the agreeable modulations of their ordinary voice ;
if they laid aside the false idea that preaching demands a pon-
derous, melancholy, monotonous, and, above all, thundering tone,
they would charm as well as instruct and edify their congrega-
tions. Dare to be yourself. A man's speech is part of his char-
acter and personality. Your manner of utterance is the result
of your mental and bodily organization. Correct any faults re-
sultant from carelessness in delivery, and be yourself at your best.
Do not imitate the greatest orator. Cultivate no weeping tones,
nor the majestic orotund, which has been done to death.
" Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trip-
pingly (i.e., articulately) on the tongue."

We cannot all be orators, but we all may become good
speakers. No time is better employed than in practising aloud
the proper pronunciation of words. They are our weapons, and
must be kept keen and bright, like the two-edged sword, to
which St. Paul compares the word of God. Our language
abounds in difficult combinations of sibilant letters ; and we
would suggest to the young preacher to learn how to pick out
the words that he will find it easy to utter, for the words that
issue freely and fully from the lips are pleasantest to the ear.

The law of emphasis, about which such a pother is made in
" readers " and by elocutionists, is simplicity itself. We never
make a false emphasis in our daily talk, because we [never em-

1892.] THE ELOCUTION OF THE PULPIT. 179

phasize what is obvious, well-known, and self-evident. It is only
in the pulpit that we declare with tremendous force that the
wind blows, and the rain falls, and that the servants should place
a ring on the prodigal's hands and shoes on his feet.

The close of the sentence is the hardest to manage, from a
tendency to drop the voice a tone too low. You can keep the
voice up at the end of a sentence (which is often the key-word)
by stressing a little the words that immediately precede the
last.

Gesture cannot be taught. The most you can do is to have
a judicious friend point out any awkwardness, and have the good
sense to follow his advice.

The style and manner of speaking most agreeable to the
American is the simple, direct, and conversational. The great
political leaders instinctively adopt this style in addressing mass-
meetings. Happy the priest of whom his people say : He may
not be a grand orator, but we understand all that he says to
us, and we like to hear him. Better this tribute than the fame
of a Boanerges, whose loud-resounding tones thunder impressively
though unintelligibly through the vaulted roof, filling altar-boys
with awe, and leaving on the mind of the congregation an in-
tangible impression that the sermon was the grandest ever
preached in the church. " Man ! O man !" will the admiring
people say, " did you ever hear the like ? " Still, like the battle
of Blenheim, though a great victory, nobody could tell exactly
what it was all about.

The young preacher should be encouraged to give attention to
delivery from the simple reflection that the pulpit, for the Amer-
ican, is practically his sole means of learning his religious duties.
As a nation we do not read books, but journals and magazines.
Above all, we seldom read religious books, as the Germans and
the Irish are in the habit of doing. The American goes to
church to hear Mass first,' and the sermon next. If you do not
instruct him from the pulpit, he will not likely read pious books.
The sight of this intelligent and honest soul, delighted to hear
the word of God, should move us to present it to him with the
direct simplicity of speech which he loves, and with that charm
of natural earnestness by which the elocution of the pulpit pro-
duces its great and enduring effects.

JOSEPH V. O'CONNOR.

1892.] EARLY HISTORY OF MAINE. 181

AN INTERESTING CHAPTER OF THE EARLY HIS-
TORY OF MAINE.

" Maine ! Maine ! Her adamantine hills,

Beacons to pilot ships along her shores,
Give back to ocean, through ten thousand rills,

What erst they borrowed from his ample stores.
So are their rounded summits always green

As the fresh verdure of some grass-grown field,
And high above the main from far are seen :

Well may she write Dirigo on her shield."

NE need not apologize for the love of home;
nor ask indulgence for a rehearsal of local le-
gends that lend a ray of light to the obscurities
of history, or a spark of interest to its dry sta-
tistics. History, always imperfect, is sometimes
falsified by the omission of incidents that cluster around impor-
tant facts, and give the stamp of character to truth. We tire
of generalizations that omit, confuse, or falsify such records of
the past as do not accord with the writer's pre-established opin-
ions, until we are tempted to commit a like offence in declaring
that history is a lie. We study the annals of Celts, Saxons, and
Normans in our fatherland ; and find that their specific differ-
ences were chiefly accidents of time, and a confusion of tongues ;
that names are doubtful indexes of race ; and that races are so
changed by time that the generations of to-day repudiate what
their progenitors gave their lives to establish and defend.

Such considerations suggest a sufficient reason for gleaning,
from our early records, some of those local facts and legends
that, interwoven with the threads of history, are treated rather
as accidents than essentials of its story. They tell us more of the
mind and motive of the founders of our nation than can be
learned by reasoning from effects to apparent causes alone ;
as if there were no overruling providence no God.

History is often written to promote the doubtful claims of
states ; as apocryphal pedigrees are sometimes invented to fur-
ther fraud or gratify pretentiousness. Then, a common tradi-
tion or an authentic date, or some incident so interwoven with
facts of history as to exclude all doubt of truth, is like the touch,
stone which detects base metals that would pass for gold. Nearly
two centuries ago a certain Scottish writer said : " If a man were
permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care
VOL. LVI. 13

1 82 AN INTERESTING CHAPTER OF [Nov.,

who should make the laws." With equal truth it may be said
that legends of historic incidents, that serve to gloss or illustrate
the story of a nation's birth and growth in power, should be as
widely known as its more formal history. For history is too
often an exponent of polemical partisanship, while traditional
legends express the sensus commimis of a people.

Historical sketches of our early colonies must needs be dis-
cursive. The colonial period was rife with contentions of politi-
cal and religious factions at Jiome, and the elements of strife
came with our fathers to the new world. In Maine there were
also the national rivalries of English and French colonists to
embarrass and retard the settlements of the country and compli-
cate their relations with the Indian tribes. Catholic Frenchmen
in the east, Protestant and Puritan Englishmen in the west, and
Indians everywhere, made amicable relations impossible.

We may well say that the historic incidents excerpts from
our annals collated in this discursive essay, are factors as well
as facts of history. They were only incidents of their time ;
but their influences, their effects, are yet living factors of our
social life. Truth has no dead issues. Perhaps they may tend
to dissipate what is false in the halo with which sectional par-
tisans and poets have surrounded the hard intolerance with the
virtues of some New England colonists. They were a brave
people whose nobler qualities were marred, but not effaced, by
an inheritance of false prejudice and narrow religious polity.
Their acceptance of exile from home and its endearments ; their
perilous voyage across the ocean, and landing on the bleak shore
of New England in mid-winter, was heroic ; but who, except a
poet enthused by sympathy, would dare to say of them :

" They left unstained what there they found :

Freedom to worship God " ? (Mrs. Hemans).

To prove their intolerance of other sects would be a waste
of words ; and their statutes against Catholics and Catholic teach-
ers have been too recently enforced among them to permit,
even to poetic license, the ascription of " Freedom to worship
God." The little State of Rhode Island stands a monument of
their religious intolerance ; and the blood of the " Friends "
whom, in 1656, they branded with hot irons, mutilated, and
hanged cries out against the assertion that

" They left unstained . . .
Freedom to worship God."

Theirs was an age of persecution of all dissenters from the
religion of the ruling powers, when the ruling powers professed

1892.] THE EARLY HISTORY OF MAINE. 183

some form of religious belief ; as this is an age of positive in-
difference because the ruling powers have no religion, or its ex-
ercise is forbidden. Whether we have attained the end proposed
by that First Amendment of our Constitution, which declares
that " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," may well be
questioned. Happily for the character of that Constitution, and
for the security of our religious liberty, " the powers not dele-
gated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro-
hibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respec-
tively, or to the people." But in the colonial period there was
no such restriction, nor was there any recognition of personal
or communal liberty in matters of religion. Freedom to wor-
ship God was freedom for ourselves, and for others to do as we
direct. In fact, the annexation of Maine to " the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts," was chiefly due to religious intolerance,
and was accomplished when ultra-Protestantism was dominant
at home as well as in New England. Governor Winthrop's jour-
nal exposes the reason for extending the jurisdiction of Massa-
chusetts Bay over the territory of Maine. And the records of
the time tell us how the work was accomplished. We read from
the journal : " In years past the Province of Maine has pursued
a course disagreeable to Massachusetts, both in their ministry
and civil administration."

In 1639 Charles I. gave to Sir Ferdinando Gorges a charter
of " the territory between the rivers Piscataqua and Kennebeck,
extending one hundred and twenty miles inland, and including
all islands within five leagues of the main." This territory was
incorporated under the name of " The Province or County of
Maine." The Church of England was established in the province,
and the patronage of the churches was vested in the " lord
proprietor," who was made in effect its feudal sovereign. This
was the reason of the Massachusetts claim. The right was based
on the words of her charter, and is, in its way, a curiosity
among territorial claims.

The charter of Massachusetts Bay embraced all " the territory
within the space of three English miles to the northward of the
river Merrimack, and to the northward of any part thereof."
When this charter was granted, in 1628, the Merrimack was
known for only a few miles from its mouth. In that extent its
course was nearly northeast. The northern boundary of Massa-
chusetts was to commence at a point on the sea-shore three
miles north of the Merrimack, and run thence westerly, three
miles from the river and any part thereof, to the western limit

1 84 AN INTERESTING CHAPTER OF [Nov.,

of the province. No one even dreamed that the charter extend-
ed eastward of the point of coast-line three miles north of the
river's mouth, until the ministry and civil administration in Maine
aroused in the rulers of Massachusetts Bay a desire for their
suppression. Then the terms of her charter were revised in the
light of extended knowledge of the country. The course of the
Merrimack was found to be nearly south from its source to a
point southwest, and thirty miles distant from its mouth. A
commission was appointed to determine the latitude of the
source of the Merrimack ; and Massachusetts claimed that her
northern boundary, under the charter, was an east and west line
through a point three miles north of the source of the river,
and extending from her western limit to the sea. This would
have given to Massachusetts nearly one-half of Vermont, more
than half of New Hampshire, and all the English settlements in
Maine ; with a sea-coast stretching from the mouth of the Mer-
rimack to a point on the west shore of Penobscot Bay, and
more than three hundred instead of three miles in extent.

The time chosen for preferring this novel claim to territories
included in other royal grants was propitious for the claimant,
and disastrous for the province whose counter claims of vested
rights were assailed. " The Commonwealth of England " ruled
at home instead of the king, and was, of course, in sympathy
with " the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." What hope of
successful resistance remained to the " malignant " supporters of
prelacy? For some years prior to 1651 Puritans from Massa-
chusetts and New Hampshire had drifted into the western set-
tlements in Maine, until they outnumbered such of the original
settlers as had the courage of their convictions before the dominant
party " at home." And when the question of submission to Mas-
sachusetts was proposed for the suffrages of the people, the few
loyalists who ventured to the polls were a powerless minority.
So Maine was annexed, much as Texas, a hundred and eighty
years later, was annexed to the United States. The Church of Eng-
land parson was reshipped to some foreign port, and the outcome of
Puritanism Congregationalism became the " standing order " in
the " District of Maine, Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

Perhaps it was well that Maine was annexed to Massachu-
setts ; for, in the half-century between her first attempted settle-
ment and the annexation, so many ill-defined grants had been
made by the crown, and so many conflicting patents had been
ssued under them, that other and higher tribunals than the local
courts of the sparsely settled " district " afforded were required
for their final adjustment. But, though union with " the com-

1892.] THE EARLY HISTORY OF MAINE. 185

monwealth " might produce uniformity in the land tenures of the
district and the State, it could not so readily beget uniformity
of social conditions, or of the characteristics of their peoples.
Steamboats and railways are more efficient agents in the unifica-
tion of States whose traditions are not in harmony. For, when
a contested political union has been accomplished, whether by
election of the people, legislative enactment, or force, there al-
ways remains a trace of antagonism between the victorious and
vanquished parties a spice of annoyance in the one, and of re-
sentment in the other which only time and the commingling of
their people can efface.

It is the purpose of this essay to present a cursory review of
some local historic incidents suggested by memoranda made many
years ago, and which, it is hoped, may be found of some inter-
est to the reader.

In the summer of 1837 I visited my old home in Maine. I
had just graduated at West Point. Relief from the routine and
restraints of military discipline seemed, at first, a real happiness ;
though idleness became positively irksome before a three months'
" leave " expired. I had visited kindred and old friends, and
told stories ad nauseam of cadet life at " The Academy," when
an invitation to join a fishing-party on the sea-coast offered some
alleviation of the ennui engendered by vacation of study hours
and drills. The party included Captain Howard, U. S. Revenue
Marine ; Lieutenant the late Admiral Craven, and passed
Midshipman Wingate, of the navy ; Mr. George Jones, of Geor-
gia ; Mr. Robert Hallowell Gardiner, of Gardiner ; a Mr. Smith-
wick an elderly Irish gentleman and myself. I may, without
scruple, write the names of my companions ; for they, like the
incidents of which I write, are all of the long past ; and I can
say of them nil nisi bonum.

It was proposed to make a ten days' cruise along the coast
between the mouth of the Kennebeck and the island of Monhe-
gan. Our craft was a large sloop-rigged sail-boat, which had a
half-deck to protect stores and luggage from rain and spray.

Embarking at Gardiner, some thirty miles from the sea, the
first day's run was little more than twenty miles to Bath. There
we completed our outfit of fishing tackle arid stores, and lodged
at an inn near the shore. After breakfast next morning we put
out to sea. The fishing proved excellent. A few hours sufficed
to fill the well of our boat with codfish and haddock. Landing on a
point of the coast where a few small trees gave delusive promise
of shade, the experts of our party concocted a chowder. There
was the usual discussion among the amateur chefs as to its com-

1 86 AN INTERESTING CHAPTER OF [Nov.,

position : the slices of lard and cutlets of haddock ; the hard-
tack, the potatoes, and the various condiments to be used ;
whether port wine or claret should flavor the mess ; and other
questions contradicting the aphorism, De gustibus non est dispu-
tandum. But it all ended in chowder ; and the chowder ended
with the dinner, eaten sub tegmine veli, because the few stunted
trees that gave some relief to the eye afforded no shade. Re-
freshed by our repast, we took advantage of a light land-breeze
to run over to the Damariscove islands for the evening fishing.

This group of islands is some twelve miles east of the Ken-
nebeck, and ten south of Boothbay. How far from the coast-
line it were hard to tell, where deep bays, between headlands
and islands, make it difficult to distinguish the island shores from
the main. Damariscove proper is a low island about two miles
long, and less than a mile in width. It was inhabited by four
or five families of fishermen. There was no appearance of agri-
culture, except a potato field and a small kitchen garden. The
flakes, or stages for drying fish, were of larger area than the cul-
tivated land. A curious feature of this low island is a small pond
of fresh water near its eastern extremity and midway between
its north and south shores. The water is fresh as it bubbles up
from the bottom, but becomes more or less salt brackish from
the dash and spray of the waves in violent storms. These phe-
nomenal springs on small islands are doubtless fed through natu-
ral channels, like inverted siphons, by which water from some
inland lake is conveyed through miles of hidden arteries to give
a cool fountain to some arid mountain top, or a pond of fresh
water to a little island of the sea. An example of the former is
seen on the flinty summit of Mount Kineo, a promontory on the
eastern border of Moosehead Lake.

In August, 1835, in company with two friends, I visited this
lake and climbed to the top of the little mountain. The day
was warm, and the labor of climbing the steep ascent made us
painfully thirsty. But we had left flasks and drinking-cups in
our boat at the shore. To gaze upon the blue water of the lake
was only tantalizing : " Water, water everywhere, nor any drop
to drink !" The stunted growth of pines on the almost bald
mountain top gave no shade, but we found some relief from
the direct rays of the burning sun in the shadow of a huge
boulder. While resting there we noticed a narrow strip of thin
grass extending from the boulder to the edge of the cliff, a few
yards distant. Its fresh green gave relief to the eye, and it was
refreshingly cool to the touch. The fine gravel, or coarse sand,

1892.] THE EARLY HISTORY OF MAINE. 187

that filled the crevice in which the grass was growing was icy
cold, and so loose that a little basin was easily scooped out
with the hand alone. In less time than it takes to tell of the
discovery we had a small pool of clean, cold water on the sum-
mit of Mount Kineo, where the flinty rock was hot from the
burning sun of August.

The top of Kineo is about seven hundred feet above the
surface of the lake. It is a mass of flint connected with the high
lands eastward by miles of swamp. There is no lake or pond
of water nearer than thirty miles on Mount Katahdin that
could be the source of the thread of icy water percolating
through a crevice in this mass of rock. WJiitecap mountain is
twenty-five miles distant toward the southeast ; Spencer moun-
tain twelve miles east, and Squaw mountain ten or twelve miles
southwest. On neither of these, it was said by those who had
explored them, is there any body of water that might ooze through
a crevice of Mount Kineo. Doubtless the little pond of fresh water
on Damariscove came from some of the fifteen hundred lakes
of Maine through a vein of . the rock underlying the ten miles
of ocean between the island and the mainland.

Fishing along the coast of Maine was not like catching bass
and bluefish just outside the harbors of our Atlantic cities.
Fifty years ago there were no seaside resorts on the coast,
where a day of fishing was followed by a champagne supper
and a luxurious bed. It was just fishing among fishermen and
nothing else. No outward or inward bound steamships reminded
one of the great world on this or the other side of the ocean.
Vessels going eastward were bound for " the bay " or " the
banks." And those going westward were carrying their fares to
Portland, Boston, or Gloucester. The smaller craft dotting the
sea around us were all fishermen, this for halibut, that for cod
and haddock. Wherever we landed, on a cape or island, the
few inhabitants were busy in turning fish upon the flakes, or pack-
ing them for shipment. While inland farmers " off-islanders "
were turning hay and gathering it into barns, these farmers of
the ocean ploughed the sea and gathered their harvest from its
deeps. Sometimes women were seen in open boats miles from
the shore, engaged in the one great industry of these denizens
of the sea. The islands were their homesteads, the sea was
their country, and the millions peopling the mainland were only
millions of " off-islanders."

One evening we were becalmed when seven or eight miles
from the land. There was not a breath of wind, though plenty

1 88 AN INTERESTING CHAPTER OF [Nov.,

of motion from the ground-swell of the glassy sea. Our three
sailors awaked to the fact that we were a long way from port,
with no possibility of reaching it without recourse to the large
oars, or sweeps, with which our little vessel was provided. It
was near sunset would soon be dark and there was question
of our course, to the nearest harbor. Captain Howard had
commanded the revenue cutter on this coast for several years,
and no one questioned his knowledge of its sinuous shores. He
directed the vessel to what he said was the entrance to Booth-
bay. To the surprise of the party, our Irishman declared that
we were not on the right course. Howard laughed at the " for-
eigner's" doubting his knowledge of landmarks on the coast of
Maine, and challenged a bet on the issue. The challenge ac-
cepted, a few words sufficed to demonstrate that the " foreigner "
was right. " Ah ! " said he, " you should have asked how I
knew the coast before offering to bet against my knowledge of
it. Why, man, I was a lieutenant of the Royal Marine Artil-
lery in the British squadron on this coast when you were a
baby. We looked into all the harbors and noted all the head-
lands of the coast between Portland and Eastport. We had
little else to do in the two years that we spent here, between
1812 and 1815. I was young then, and I remember these
islands, headlands, and harbors very distinctly. What a blessed
thing is memory ! Mine has just now won a dozen of cham-
pagne." We were amused as well as surprised at the discom-
fiture of our American pilot. But he bore it with good humor.
I wondered then that our Irish companion should remember the
features of the coast after the long interval of more than twenty
years. But I am writing of occurrences of fifty-four years ago,
and do not wonder that I remember them more distinctly than
I do those of the year just ended.

During the ten days of our fishing and sailing around the capes
and islands of this iron-bound coast the weather was most fa-
vorable to our enjoyment. We encountered no storms of wind
or rain, and tired of the sport only when sated by success.

On the return voyage we sailed through the somewhat tor-
tuous passage called Cross River, which connects the Sheepscot
and Boothbay with the Sagadahock or lower Kennebeck, at a
point two or three miles below Bath ; where, as one of the sail-
ors remarked, " They build ships by the mile, and saw them off
to order." This inside passage makes the southern boundaries
of Woolwich and Westport, and the northern shores of Arrow-
sick and Parker islands. It is only a few miles in length ; but

1892.] THE EARLY HISTORY OF MAINE. 189

so variable in width and the direction of its channel, its-
shores are so bold and irregular, that the navigation offered a
succession of charming surprises. Now a narrow strait between
bold promontories ; then a broad bay seeming to have no egress,,
until, on rounding a point of the shore, another wide bay
opened before us. Here the steep cliffs of granite were crowned
with sturdy oaks ; there the sombre green of firs and hemlocks
was interspersed with the lighter tints of birch and aspen pop-
lar. Now a bird was seen flitting among the tree-tops, and
the discordant cawing of carrion-crows broke the stillness of the
silent waters. There were no other signs of life along these
rugged shores, save when a sleeping seal, roused by our ap-
proach, scuttled into the water from an isolated rock ; telling
that there was good fishing in the romantic strait misnamed
Cross River.

The township of Woolwich, on the north side of Cross River r
is bounded on the east by Monsweag Bay. On its southeast
corner is the birthplace of Sir William Phipps, the first royal
governor of New England. He was born in 1651, being one
of twenty-six children of the same father and mother. Maine
has produced some notable men, but perhaps none more re-
markable than Sir William Phipps. Until his twenty-third year
he had not learned to read, and he died at the age of forty-
four. But in the last twenty years of his life, by intelligent and
daring enterprise, he achieved what was then a large fortune ;
captured Port Royal now Annapolis, Nova Scotia from the
French ; was made a baronet and captain-general and gover-
nor of New England. He married in Maine, but had no
children. His nephew, Constantine Phipps, his son by adoption,
married an English lady of birth without fortune, and revived
in her descendants the dormant honors of her family. A de-
scendant of Constantine Phipps is, in the peerage of Great
Britain, Earl of Mulgrave and Marquis of Normanby.

We arrived at Bath early in the afternoon. Landing near
the residence of General and ex-Governor King, we met a wel-
come invitation to dine with him. For more than a week we
had been coasting along the shores and around the islands of
this ancient dominion of Maine of New England. We had
visited the birthplace of its first royal governor when Maine was
a " district " an adjunct of Massachusetts Bay and had not
been unmindful of the historic interest pertaining to the shores
and islands of this eastern region of our country. It seemed
apropos to the sentiment awakened by our excursion that it

1 90 EARLY HISTORY OF MAINE. [Nov.,

should conclude at the hospitable board of the venerable first
governor of the State of Maine.

This excursion along the coast of what was once called Saga-
dahock, or the colonial territory of North Virginia, aroused
something of the interest which " men from Maine " have always
shown in regard to the geographical features and early history
of their native land. Doctor Johnson in the Tour to the
Hebrides says : " That man is little to be envied whose patri-
otism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or
whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona."
Five of our party were " native here, and to the manner born " ;
and the lives of the two others were affiliated to our people by
ties of kindred or the adventures and associations of early years.
Historic legends of the country were more or less familiar to us
all. The Kennebeck, the Sheepscot, the St. George, and the
Penobscot ; the bays and harbors, capes and islands of the coast,
had each some legend of historic times which, if not history,
were perhaps more truthful, because their traditions had no
motive of selfish interest to distort and falsify their story.

One might assume any point in space and make it- a centre,
not of the universe, but of the little world of his own percep-
tions. But this sea-coast of Maine, and the land it borders, have
more than this factitious claim to historic interest. Here is
neither a Marathon nor an lona ; but a sinuous coast, embrac-
ing tour degrees of longitude between New Brunswick and New
Hampshire, whose bays, islands, and headlands have more than
two thousand miles of shore. Some of these islands and pro-
montories were noted landmarks to early navigators between
western Europe and America ; and all are monuments of the
long struggle between savage barbarism and the barbarities of
civilization ! The history of this region of Maine is essential to
the story of French and English colonization in America. The
annals of the province, the district, and the State are inter-
woven with those of all the provinces and States from Nova
Scotia to the Carolinas ; of the war for independence, and its
sequel in 1812-15 5 an d with those international disputes about
boundaries which once threatened war between Great and
"Greater Britain."

E. PARKER-SCAMMON.
New York.

NOTE. General Scammon will contribute two other interesting articles on
the early history of Maine. These articles will be illustrated with views of
scenery along the coast.

MY SAINT.

OD'S masterpiece is she, my saint,

Whom feeble words are fain to paint
In colors true ; God's subtle art
Hath wrought her fair of face and heart ;
White thoughts and gentle deeds of love

Have made the beauty bright thereof.

And for a golden halo she

Wears records rare of charity.

II.

My saint hath darkly-dreaming eyes,
In whose sweet depths of Paradise
Arise the stars of hope, that lure
My life to heights of manhood pure.
The benediction glad of God
I feel where'er her feet have trod ;
And music of the brooks and birds,
And joy and peace are in her words.

III.

Rich locks of lustre hath my saint,
A brow that Raphael might paint
For some Madonna, and a face
That mirrors all her spirit's grace
So pure and mild and meek, it seems
The vision of a poet's dreams.
And God, I know, hath lent her smile
To bless our blighted world a while.

192 MY SAINT. [Nov.,

IV.

And gracious little ways she hath

To sweeten duty's daily path ;

You'd know the way she went, for sweet

The rough earth blossoms at her feet.

And many gentle courtesies

She hath and young and old to please,

And sympathy to cheer the sad,

And smiles to make the children glad.

Within my heart's dim sanctuary
Look close, if you my saint would see ;
There love hath builded white her niche,
With jewel-thoughts of beauty rich.
And honor, truth, and chivalry,
Like loyal knights, on bended knee,
In fealty before her bowed,
Their homage to my saint have vowed.

P. J. COLEMAN.

1892.] JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. 193

JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN.

'O advance nothing that is false, to hold back no-
thing that is true, is the fundamental law of his-
tory, as Leo XIII. lays it down in his encyclical on
historical studies. I have much to say in this pa-
per which needs this premising. Quicherat, who
has published from the original the report of the trial of Joan of
Arc in Rouen, says in his Aperqus nouveaux sur Jeanne d' Arc, pp.
96, 101 : "The idea of bringing Joan for trial before the church
was born, not in the councils of the English government, but in
the councils of the University of Paris. . . . Nothing is more
striking in the trial than the care of the lay functionaries to
efface themselves ; even where their presence would have been
legitimate, only churchmen appear." Surely the English hated
deeply the Maid who, in Heaven's name, wrung from them a con-
quest purchased by a century of war. But they found in France
a corporation that had for her a hatred still deeper the hatred
of renegades and traitors to their country ; I mean the Univer-
sity of Paris.

Odious as was the role of England, more odious was the part
played by those Parisian theologians, traitors to the Papacy and
their fatherland. I say, traitors to the Papacy ; for, while putting
to death the saviour of France, they strive at Constance, at Pisa,
and at Bale to do to death that power which is the saviour of
religion and civilization, the Holy Apostolic See. And I say
traitors to fatherland : in the French politics of the day the
university was anti-patriotic ; took sides with England and the
Duke of Burgundy, whose murder of the Duke of Orleans it
defended ; approved the excesses of the butcher Caboche and his
followers, named after him Cabochiens excesses equalled in his-
tory only by those of the Terror four centuries later ; was party
to the treaty of Troyes by which the King of England was made
Regent of France and heir to its crown. This was the body
that tried and sentenced Joan, whose mission from God was its
condemnation.

The Caiphas of the process against Joan had been the rector
of that university, and was at the time Bishop-of Beauvais. The
prostitution to political vengeance of his holy position, intended
for the protection of the lowly and simple, the sacrilegious

194 JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. [Nov.,

hypocrisy of a procedure that pretended to be canonical, but was
in reality barbarous and iniquitous, have rendered the name of
Peter Cauchon one of the most hideous in the annals of man-
kind. He sold himself to the English and the Duke of Burgundy
for the bishopric of Beauvais. When the Maid marched up from
Orleans towards Rheims, Beauvais proclaimed itself French, went
over to Charles VII. and drove out the unpatriotic bishop. He
went to the court of his friends dreaming vengeance. His oppor-
tunity came. Joan has been captured in his diocese. He has a
right to put her in judgment if the process be made in matters
of religion.

The assistants of Cauchon in this infamous trial were all of a
like spirit, worthy of their master. The right hand of Cauchon
in the trial was Thomas Courcelles, doctor of the University of
Paris. He was the man who wanted Joan tortured on the rack
for the good of her soul and body. He was the great shining
light of Bale ; of him it was said he kissed the pope before
striking him. Another doctor of the university and leader of
the Council of Bale was Erard, who preached in the cemetery of
St. Ouen the sermon that preceded the pretended abjuration
of Bale of which more anon. Another Parisian doctor was
Nicolas Midi, who administered to Joan in prison the monitions
called caritative. His charity was much that of the soldier who
gave the Saviour vinegar and gall to drink. Another worthy was
Jean Beaupere. This was the man whom the Council of Bale
sent to Rome to make report to Eugenius IV. of the condition
of affairs in that assembly. He lied, and was the original occa-
sion of the dissensions between the pope and the council. Jean
d'Estivel, a canon of Beauvais and doctor of the university, was
the promoter, or as we should say, the state attorney in the
trial. This man cast at the poor girl expressions and epithets
that drew tears from her eyes. This man forbade the constables
to allow the prisoner to go into the church to pay a visit to the
Blessed Sacrament on her journeys between the prison and the
court, and took his stand at the church door to see that his
order was obeyed. Nicolas Loyseleur was a doctor of the Uni-
versity of Paris and a canon of Rouen. This man was the
Judas Iscariot of the case ; disguised himself first as a cobbler
and pretended to be a countryman of Joan, in order to gain
her confidence and worm out her secrets, while Cauchon was lis-
tening on the other side of the partition. Later he presented
himself to the prisoner as a priest, gave her advice calculated
to mislead her ; as, for instance, to refuse submission to the

1892.] TOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. 195

church. I name only the leading actors in the drama of Rouen,
enough to give an idea what justice she may expect.

For six months Joan was in the possession of her captor.
They were months of bargaining. John of Luxemburg was a
knight, and honor forbade him to traffic in his prisoner. He could
let her go out of his hands only by free release, ransom, or ex-
change. To sell her was bringing back paganism into the age of
chivalry. His aunt, worthy sister of Blessed Peter of Luxem-
burg, pleaded the cause of Joan and of her own sex. But Eng-
land was influencing the jailer through his suzerain, the Duke of
Burgundy, and through Cauchon, who during these months
tramped to and fro with his thirty pieces of silver in his hand.
For a time the knight refused the shameful offers made to him.
The University of Paris neglected nothing to set aside his scru-
ples, and to give him scruples in a contrary direction. A letter
from the university to the knight is in existence ; here is the
pith of it : " Small thing is the capture, unless there follow a
reparation of the offence perpetrated by this woman against God
and Holy Faith, without speaking of her numberless other crimes.
Hand her over either to the Inquisitor of the Faith, so that God
may be pleased with you and the people be edified in good and
holy doctrine, or to our reverend father in God, the most hon-
ored Lord Bishop of Beauvais, in whose jurisdiction she was
taken." This letter to John of Luxemburg does not stand alone ;
there is another one of like import addressed by the university
to the Duke of Burgundy. These two letters were carried to
their respective addresses by the Bishop of Beauvais in person,
with an official summons from himself as the bishop within whose
jurisdiction Joan had been captured, " that the woman called Joan
be sent to the king (the English one, of course) in order that she
be delivered over to the church for trial, inasmuch as she is sus-
pected and defamed of many crimes, notably witchcraft, idolatry,
invocation of demons, and other offences concerning faith." At
the same time, in the name of England, he offered, first six thou-
sand, then ten thousand livres tournois about fifteen thousand
dollars of our money the ransom of a royal captive. At this
latter sum the Maid was knocked down. Was it the highest bid ?
His fairest province would have been a small sum for Charles
VII. to give for the liberation of her who had given him a king-
dom. From the day John of Luxemburg fingered the gold Joan
of Arc was doomed. At that very time a woman in Paris, who
publicly affirmed her belief in Joan's divine mission, was burned
at short notice by order of the university, a sure sign of what

196 JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. [Nov.,

awaited the heroine herself. The news that Joan was finally in
the power of the English gave infinite joy to that learned body.
We have two letters testifying this one to Cauchon, the other
to the King of England both urging quick work, and, to secure
quickness, begging that the Maid be sent to Paris for trial.
But there was some French sympathy left in the capital ; a re-
bellion shortly before gave evidence that the English domination
was not well assured. Moreover a dash into the city by the
French troops was a possibility. It was thought safer to send
her for trial into the very heart of the territory held by the
English for many generations, and she was hurried on to Rouen.
On the 3d of January, 1431, came a letter from the King of
England handing over the prisoner to the church for trial that
is to say, to Cauchon at the request of the University of Paris,
says the letter. It is explicitly specified in the letter that in
case she should not be found guilty by the church, she is to re-
main a political captive in the hands of the English government,
and be dealt with as such by the secular arm. This meant that
if the church did not burn her, the English would put an end to
her in their own fashion. If the University of Paris did not
succeed in getting the prisoner into its own precincts, it stretched
out its arm to Rouen to help destroy her ; sent on its doctors to
examine her, acted as the jury that gave the verdict, and ren-
dered the sentence through its former rector, Cauchon.

To present in detail the drama of Rouen is to recite one of
the sublimest and most moving pages in all history. The process
itself should be read, as published in full by Quicherat. Cau-
chon pretended to represent the church ; to justify the preten-
sion he called in the services of the Grand Inquisitor, which were
grudgingly given. In spite of all appearances of conforming to
the prescriptions of canonical procedure, the process is an abso-
lute illegality injustice from beginning to end, as the process of
rehabilitation twenty-five years later proved and declared. A
prisoner of the church ought to be confined in the prison of the
church, and Joan claimed the privilege. She was kept in an
English dungeon ; first in an iron cage expressly made for her,
later in a cell with an iron chain about her waist, another about
her ankles, both riveted to the wall ; three guards were con-
stantly inside the cell and two outside. A prisoner of the church
during the trial, she was in the keeping of the state. That was
illegal.

A process in matter of faith can begin only after strong pre-
sumptions amounting to a semi-probatio, a half-proof, or, as we

1892.] JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. 197

should say, a very strong probability of guilt. To obtain this the
former life of the accused must be investigated. Cauchon sent
inquirers to Domremy to investigate. Their report was that
they wished their own sisters were as well reputed as Joan. The
bishop suppressed the report, and out of anger refused to allow
the inquirers their expenses. The Duchess of Bedford, deputed
for the purpose, certified as to Joan's perfect virtue. Her re-
port was suppressed. Where, then, were the presumptions re-
quired by law ? Cauchon simply passed them by, and went on
with his hellish work. These points are but a few of those in
which the procedure was illegal, and it were too long to detail
them all.

The interrogatory, or examination, of Joan began on February
21, and lasted to March 25, 1431. Every morning, and some-
times in the afternoon, the poor girl she was not yet twenty
years old exhausted by prison life, was subjected to moral tor-
ture. She stood alone, unaided, unsupported by counsel, to
which she was entitled even by the law of the Inquisition on the
ground of her being a minor, against a pack of keen-scented,
ravening legal wolves. Since nothing in her past life had been
discovered whereon to found an accusation, in her own words
must it be found. She must be made, if Paris learning can do it,
to speak that which shall damn her. To me it is the greatest
miracle in her life, so full of marvels, that she was able to hold
her ground. Her answers fill the reader with wonder. One who
was present, and afterwards gave testimony in the process of
rehabilitation, says : " The questions put to her were too difficult,
subtle, and captious ; so much so that the high ecclesiastical
and well-lettered men who were there present would with great
difficulty themselves have known how to answer them." Only a
few specimens of her answers can be given.

Asked to swear that she will tell the truth on everything
asked of her " I know not what you may ask. Maybe you
will ask me things on which I will not answer. As to the reve-
lations I had from God, I have never said anything of them to
any one except to King Charles. I will not reveal those, even if
I should have to lose my head, because my saints have forbid-
den it."

" Do you think it is displeasing to God to tell the truth ? "
" My voices have commanded me to tell some things to the
king, not to you."

Another time this question was put to her : " Are you in
the state of grace? " One of the assessors told Joan she was
VOL. LVI. 14

198 JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. [Nov.,

not bound to answer. " By heavens !" cried out the angry
Bishop of Beauvais, "keep your tongue or it will be worse for
you." Was his prey to escape him ? If she answered no, what
an important confession ; if she answered yes, what infernal
pride !

"Answer; do you know you are in the state of grace ?"

" If I am not, may God put me in it ; if I am, may God
keep me in it."

On another day: "Since when have you eaten or drank?"
It was Lent ; if she had eaten more frequently than allowed by
law, she was guilty of despising the church. " I have neither
eaten nor drank since yesterday noon."

Poor girl ! it was in that state she had to stand the terrible
ordeal. Let us hope her examiners were as scrupulous about
the law of fasting and abstinence, and did not excuse them-
selves for the reason that they were engaged in arduous labor.

" Do your voices still speak to you ?" " They do."

" What have they said to you last ? " " To answer you
boldly."

" Do they speak English ? " " Why should they speak Eng-
lish, when they are not on the side of the English ? "

Saints who don't talk English ! Capital offence ! It will be
made one of the heads of accusation against her.

Asked about St. Michael when he appeared : " Did he wear
any garments ? " " Do you think God has not wherewith to
clothe his angels ?"

The judge, ashamed of himself, floundered on : " Was his
hair long?" "Who should cut it?"

" Do you know by revelation that you are ging to escape
us ? " " That has nothing to do with this trial. Do you want
me to incriminate myself ? "

Well, yes, that is just what they did want her to do, and
her indignant answer condemns their system of examination.
Urged again to tell the whole truth :

" As to the trial I will tell you the whole truth, as if I were
before the Pope of Rome."

" Which is the true pope ? " " Why, are there many ? " A
crushing reply to those proud doctors who had fostered the
great schism, and were about to set up an anti-pope at
Bale.

"Why were you singled out by God for your work?" "Be-
cause it pleased God to use a poor peasant girl to defeat the
king's enemies."

1892.] JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. 199

" Do not St. Catherine and St. Margaret hate the English ? "
" Of God's hate or love for the English I know nothing, but I
do know that they will be driven out of France."

" Well, when the English were prosperous, was God on the
side of the English ? " "I know not if God hated the French,
but I believe he permitted them to be defeated on account of
their sins, if they were guilty of any."

" Was not the hope of victory placed by you in your ban-
ner ? " " It was placed in our Lord and nowhere else."

" Was not your banner waved over the head of the king in
the ceremony of consecration ? " " No, as far as I know."

" Why was it borne to the consecration ? " " It had been in
the strife ; it had a right to be in the honor."

One day they laid a trap from which they thought she could
not possibly escape. They knew well that she questioned their
authority. As she continually appealed to God and his saints,
they introduced the question of submission to the church. They
put before her the distinction between the church triumphant
and the church militant, and demanded of her whether she sub-
mitted to the church militant. Had she assented to the ques-
tion, they would at once have replied : We are the church mili-
tant as far as you are now concerned, therefore you have sub-
mitted to us. She declined to answer that day. A few days
later they asked whether she would speak the truth more fully
before the pope. " I request to be taken before our Holy
Father the Pope himself, and then I will answer before him
everything I should answer." The subject was dropped. They
had trodden on dangerous ground. She had submitted to the
church militant, but not as they wanted her to do.

All these examinations and interrogatories were only pre-
paratory. Out of her answers was constructed an indictment in
twelve articles which was forwarded to the University of Paris
for its legal opinion. Its answer was her condemnation.

When we think of the physical and moral sufferings to which
Joan was subjected, when we remember that she was refused
the solace of Communion, of hearing Mass, of a simple visit to
the Blessed Sacrament, we are not surprised that she fell sick
and came near dying in the first days of April. The English,
afraid she might pass off by a natural death, wanted at once to
throw her to the flames, sick as she was. She recovered, how-
ever, and on the 9th of May was brought to the hall of the
castle, where were displayed the instruments of torture .with the
torturer ready to use them on her delicate, wasted body, unless

200 JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. [Nov.,

she immediately abjured and retracted. She courageously refused
"to retract, saying she notified them beforehand that whatever
avowal the torture should force from her should not be held
for truth. They were cowed by so much courage and sent her
back to her cell.

What was to be done ? Some of the assistant judges were in
favor of immediate abandonment to the secular arm. But the
milder suggestion prevailed that Joan should have another hear-
ing in which the twelve articles should be read to her with the
decision of the university, and that the final verdict should de-
pend on what she should then say. Accordingly on May 23
she was brought before the tribunal. After the reading of the
twelve articles an admonition was given her : " If you persevere
in maintaining your assertions of innocence, know that your soul
will be swallowed up in damnation, and your body, I fear, will
be destroyed." " Even if I should be in the judgment," she an-
swered " if I should see the fire lighted, the fagots prepared,
the executioner ready ; if I should be in the fire, I would main-
tain what I have said even in death." Nothing remained but
to cite her for the next day for the reading of the final sen-
tence.

The next day, 24th of May, 1431, it being the Thursday
after Pentecost, a vast concourse of people were gathered in the
cemetery of St. Ouen around two platforms, the larger for the
judges, the smaller for the prisoner. Cauchon carried with him
two sentences : one declaring Joan a heretic and giving her over
to the secular arm, which meant the stake ; the other inflicting
as canonical penance perpetual imprisonment on bread and water.
Which one of these he should read depended on the issue of
the scene about to be enacted. If she persevered in her affirma-
tions and refused to abjure, the former sentence ; if she abjured,
the latter. Abjuration he desired above all things ; not that he
cared for her conversion and penance, as he should if really he
believed her to be deceived by the devil, but that he wanted
first to dishonor her and her mission by her own confession, and
then burn her. As long as the Maid persevered in asserting that
she was sent by God, death would only add brilliancy to her
life. But if she should acknowledge that she had been deceived
by her saints, or that she had played the impostor, the cause of
England and the cause of the university would have been
saved from the brand of divine reprobation which her mission
put on them. Let her abjure, and all was well he will give
her the usual mercy of the church ; he knew how afterwards

1892.] JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. 201

she could be brought to the stake. There was such a thing as
relapsing ; for the relapsed there was no mercy.

From a pulpit between the platforms a doctor of the univer-
sity, Erard, preached on the text " The branch cannot bear fruit
unless it abide in the vine." The vine is the church, the branch
is Joan. " O France !" cried he, " elder daughter of the Church,
thy so-called King Charles has become a heretic and schismatic
for having allied his cause to a dishonored woman. It is to thee,
Joan, I speak. I tell thee thy king is a heretic and a schis-
matic."

" By my faith," cried Joan, " I tell you and swear on my
life that of all Christians he is the noblest, and holds dearly to
faith and Holy Mother Church !"

" Behold," said Erard in conclusion, " the kind judges who
have often summoned thee to submit to Holy Mother Church,
and have showed thee that in thy sayings and doings there is
much to retract."

" As to submission to the church," she replied, " I have al-
ready spoken my resolve. Let my sayings and doings be sent to
Rome to our Holy Father the Pope. To him next to God I
make my appeal."

This answer cuts short the jurisdiction of the Rouen tribunal
and annuls its sentence of death. It is the Civis Romanus of
St. Paul. Felix was juster than Cauchon. " The Holy Father !
replies the bishop ; " he is too far to get at."

Shame on the traitorous prelate ! The brave girl he is hound-
ing to death is witness to the sacred rights of the Papacy as well
as martyr to the cause of France.

Then Cauchon began the reading of the first sentence he had
prepared, abandoning her to the secular arm ; already the exe-
cutioner had come forward with all that was necessary for the
execution of the sentence. Then arose a great tumult among
the bystanders. All cried out to Joan to confess and retract.
Some told her that if she submitted she should be set at liber-
ty ; others, that if she did not, she should be burned. A formu-
la of abjuration was presented to her. She objected that she
could not read. "Let the clergy see it ; if they say I ought to
sign it, I will." Cauchon had interrupted his reading.

Overwhelmed by the tumult, Joan put her name, guided by
some one near by, to a paper held out to her. What did she
sign ? a denial of her revelations ? an admission that she was
an impostor? She afterwards emphatically denied that she had
done any such thing. The paper that had been read to her

202 JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. [Nov.,

and that she thought she was signing another had been substi-
tuted for her signature contained nothing about her apparitions
and revelations, but restricted itself to the minor points of her
dress and hair. The process of rehabilitation, which went thor-
oughly into this pretended abjuration, proved conclusively that
Joan had been duped.

Now was Cauchon satisfied. Folding up the first sentence
he had begun to 'read, he drew forth the second, condemning her
to perpetual imprisonment on bread and water. Thereupon furi-
ous cries broke out from among the English against the bishop
and his assessors ; swords were drawn, lances brandished, and it
was with difficulty bishop and assessors escaped and made their
way home. " Fools !*' said one of Cauchon's men to Warwick,
"we shall have her up again." In virtue of the sentence pro-
nounced, Joan had a right to be lodged in the prison of the In-
quisition ; she demanded the privilege and many others demand-
ed it for her. But the English were not going to let her out of
their hands, and the Bishop of Beauvais knew that well. " Back
with her to the prison whence she came !" was his order.

That same afternoon woman's garments were brought to her,
and she put them on according to her promise. In the English
dungeon she was still kept chained by day and by night. Five
soldiers still guarded her, three always in her cell and two out-
side at the door. There is explicit evidence of the gravest na-
ture in the sworn depositions produced in the process of rehabil-
itation that she was now subjected to deadly attempts upon her
chastity. I cannot give the details. We must go back to the
days of the early persecutions, to the lives of the martyr virgins
of early Christianity, for scenes to match those of that prison
cell. God's holy angels protected and saved her. It is to be
hoped for the sake of humanity, let alone the holy ministry, that
Cauchon knew nothing of these outrageous attempts. He was
not, however, a stranger to what follows.

On the Sunday morning following Joan's female attire was
taken away before she could dress herself, and in its place male
attire was handed her, and she was commanded to put it on.
" Sirs," said Joan with tears in her eyes, " you know that this
is forbidden me ; without blame I cannot put it on again." In
spite of all her entreaties they refused to give her any other
garments ; finally she had to dress again as a man. She is a
relapsed ! she had promised in her abjuration not to clothe her-
self as a man. It was true what Cauchon had said : " We shall
have her up again "!

1892.] JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. 203

On the Monday following Cauchon and others came to the
prison to verify the report. Joan affirmed that she was willing
to take a woman's dress, if they would put her in a suitable
prison under the protection of an honest woman ; not a point
further will she concede. She denied that she had understood
herself to have abjured anything beyond the wearing of man's
garments and the wearing of her hair after man's fashion. She
rose to her fullest dignity and grandeur as she solemnly affirmed :
" If I were to say that God had not sent me, I should damn my-
self, for verily God has sent me." The next day the crowd as-
sembled. Cauchon gave an account of what had passed since
Thursday, stating that at the instigation of the devil Joan had
taken again her man's dress and reasserted the truth of her reve-
lations. It was unanimously decided that she was relapsed that
nothing remained but to abandon her to secular justice for exe-
cution.

Early in the morning, Wednesday, the 3Oth of May, 1431,
Cauchon went to the prison to exhort Joan to patience in death.
" O Bishop ! " said Joan, " I die through you. Alas ! if you had
put me in the prison of the church and placed me in the hands
of suitable keepers, this would not have come to pass ; for which
reason I appeal from you to God." He sent a Dominican
father to prepare her for the end. It is not for me to explain
how this Caiphas could permit the Sacraments to be given to
one he was about to condemn to die as a relapsed, unrepenting
heretic.

At first nature had its movement of terror and weeping.
Did not the Saviour himself grow sorrowful in the Garden of
Agony? After this brief cloud the heroic soul of Joan came
out in all the splendor of faith and hope and love. The Domini-
can has deposed that words fail him to describe the scene he
witnessed when he laid the King of Martyrs on the lips of the
Maid who was about to die a witness to France's king and
Rome's pope. " O Father ! where shall I be this evening ?" said
she, her thanksgiving over. " Have you not confidence in God,
daughter?" "Aye, surely, by God's grace I will be in Paradise."
The tumbrel was at the door. Joan, wearing the cap of execu-
tion with the inscription " Idolatrous and heretic," slowly rode
>etween two friars from the prison to the market-place. O
[aid of Orleans ! where are the thousands thy banner led to bat-
tle and victory ? Or art thou dreaming of the days of Domremy
md thy vanished girlhood ? Twenty thousand spectators, lovers
)f France and Rome, were on the square with pity in their

204 JOAN OF ARC, THE MARTYR OF ROUEN. [Nov.,

hearts and tears in their eyes. There was a sermon. Nicolas
Midi, a Parisian doctor, gave her the gall and vinegar to drink.
Cauchon read the sentence that dooms him to everlasting infa-
my. He had the audacity to read, " You have also categorically
and at various times refused to submit yourself to our Holy
Father the Pope and to the Holy General Council." Joan knelt,
humbly begged the prayers of the people, and the charity of a
Mass from each priest present. Abandoned by her king and
country, abandoned by the church as represented in Rouen, she
turned to Him who never abandons Christ crucified. She begged
a cross. An English trooper made one of two sticks from the
pile of fagots on which she was to mount. She kissed it, laid
it on her heart ; then asked one of the friars to go for the pro-
cessional cross of the neighboring church, and to hold it high so
that from the smoke and fire she might see it until her eyes
closed in death. As the match was set she spoke out from her
throne of fire, asserting that her mission was from God, and
steadily gazing on the cross, she ceased not to repeat the name
of her crucified Master. At last, with a cry that was heard at
the furthermost limits of the crowd, she uttered the word JESUS,
bowed her head, and gave up her soul to her Creator.

" We are lost," cried one of the English secretaries ; " we
have burned a saint !" " I believe her soul to be in the hands
of God," said another, " and all those damned who have con-
sented to her condemnation." And they rushed from the mar-
ket-place, the English awe-stricken as if the doom of Good Fri-
day were on them ; the good folk of Rouen sorrowing as if with
the maiden-saviour of their country its sun had sunk in darkness.

Cauchon proceeded immediately to bury deep her memory
by calumniating her to every court in Europe, the Papal includ-
ed, and by sending out falsified reports of the trial. The Bur-
gundians and English seconded him. But her vindication came
twenty-five years later in the process of rehabilitation.

THOMAS O'GORMAN.

Catholic University of America.

I8 9 2.]

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

205

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

CHAPTER III.

BY THE SUNSET ROUTE.

F Miss Gresham embodied the consequences which
Mr. Travers so valiantly made up his mind to
brave, they were certainly, Russell decided when
he saw the young lady, of a very agreeable order,
to the outward view at least. She was indeed pos-
sessed of beauty in uncommon degree, and when to a face of
radiant fairness, with wonderful violet eyes under lashes and
brows of midnight darkness, is added a tall, graceful figure dressed
in that perfection of style which it requires all of a woman's mind
and a very long purse besides to compass, it will be perceived
that report was not likely to do Miss Gresham injustice when it
credited her with a remarkable destructive capacity where the
hearts and peace of the masculine half of humanity were concerned.
Indeed, as Margaret Langdon began to reflect, it seemed rather
hard that poor Philip Meynell, after having once escaped from
the net of such a charmer, should have it cast over him again.
But the thought of a Mexican sister-in-law steeled her heart,
and she decided that the possible cruelty was justified by neces-
sity, and that after all many worse things might befall a young
man than a hopeless passion for Violet Gresham.

What caprice possessed this young lady to forsake her field
of social conquest for a tour in Mexico, no one was able to de-
clare with certainty ; but Dorothea suspected that an engagement
of which she had tired, and which she had ended abruptly, was
one reason for her desiring a change of scene, coupled with the
fact that an irate father had for a time refused supplies for new
toilettes. To these important reasons might be added the lesser
one of wishing to reclaim and fitly punish Philip Meynell, who
had precipitately and somewhat indignantly renounced his alle-
giance. When she heard, moreover, that Travers was to form
one of the party, Miss Gresham smiled in a peculiar manner a
smile which might be translated to mean, " Now has mine ene-
my been delivered into my hand" and when Russell, of whose
reputation she was not ignorant, was presented to her, she felt

206 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Nov.,

that the possible hardships and boredom of the expedition had
been provided with compensations.

It was, therefore, a party sufficiently well satisfied with
themselves and with each other for practical purposes of har-
mony which assembled one day in the station of the Southern
Pacific, bound for the land of sunshine. And very desirable
such a land seemed on this special day, for the sky was over-
cast, and a cold, raw air from the great river made them shiver
under their wrappings. There are times when this mighty water
seems to bring the very breath of the icy North upon its flood,
and when the climate of the most delightful city of America
suffers in consequence.

" I am glad that it is a disagreeable day," said Dorothea.
" When one is going in search of climate, one wishes the con-
trast with what one has left to be as effective as possible. I
think I have understood you to say, Mr. Russell, that there is
always fine weather in Mexico ? "

" I shall make no more promises or prophecies about Mexi-
co," answered Russell, smiling, " You will soon be able to judge
of it for yourself. But I am safe in saying that you will not
feel such an air as this soon again. Mexico has no Mississippi
to bring the air of the arctics into the tropics."

" I have but one complaint to make against you as leader
of this expedition, Mr. Russell," observed Miss Gresham, when
they were seated in the cabin of the ferry-boat. " Why have
we not taken the Montezuma Special ? Some of my friends
went to Mexico in it last winter, and they were delighted with
the ease and comfort of the journey."

"Your friends, no doubt, travelled direct to the City of Mex-
ico," Russell answered, "and therefore the train of which you
speak answered admirably for them. But for us it would not
do, because our plan of travel would require us to leave it
very soon. We intend, you know, to proceed leisurely south-
ward, stopping at all points of interest on the way."

" Oh ! " said Miss Gresham. Her face fell perceptibly. Evi-
dently this plan of travel did not commend itself very much to
her. " I thought," she said after a moment, " that we were go-
ing immediately to the City of Mexico, and that afterwards,
perhaps, we would do a little sight-seeing in other places al-
though Elise Delemaine told me that there was really little
else worth seeing."

Perhaps it was Travers's smile which made Dorothea's voice
a trifle sharp as she said quickly : " I am sure, Violet, I told

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 207

you distinctly that we were going to see Mexico as completely
as possible ; and by Mexico I meant the country, not merely
the capital."

" Did you, dear ? " responded Miss Gresham, in a tone of re-
signation. " I suppose I was stupid and did not understand.
And then I really did not imagine there was anything to see
in the country."

" It is a pity you did not explain a little more fully to Miss
Gresham what she was committing herself to," Travers observed
to Dorothea. " If she had been aware of the exhaustive, and
probably also exhausting, nature of your itinerary, she might
have preferred to remain at home."

Miss Gresham lifted her dark lashes and looked at the
speaker with her expressive eyes for a moment before reply-
ing. Then she said sweetly : " Oh, no ! I should not have re-
mained at home, because I should have thought that nothing
could prove very disagreeable with such a party as we have ;
and, after all, though things are very well, people are the chief
consideration don't you think so ? "

What Mr. Travers thought was inaudible, for at this moment
the ferry-boat touched the western shore of the river, and
there was an instantaneous movement of the throng of passen-
gers forward.

If the train which awaited them was not the special and
luxurious one to which Miss Gresham had alluded, it was
of sufficient comfort to satisfy all except the most spoiled trav-
ellers of a generation spoiled by the unlimited luxury born of
unlimited wealth. Their sections in the Pullman were taken,
and they had nothing to do but settle themselves for the first
stretch of their long journey.

But now that this journey had absolutely commenced, and
they were irrevocably committed to each other's society for an
indefinite length of time, the gravity of the situation seemed to
make itself felt to two persons at least. One was Dorothea,
who moving away with a slight air of impatience from the sec-
tion in which Miss Gresham established herself with her multi-
tude of wraps and bags, sat down alone in another, and turned
her face resolutely toward the window. Her sister smiled at the ex-
pression of the back of her head if the back of a head can pro-
perly be said to have expression. She knew perfectly well what
the young lady was thinking, what doubts of her own wisdom
were assailing her, what sincere regret for the weight with which
she had encumbered the party. But Dorothea's moods of con-

2o8 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Nov.,

trition, though keen, were generally short. Mrs. Langdon knew
that her spirits would quickly rebound from their fit of dejection,
and her high opinion of her own judgment reassert itself with
its accustomed buoyancy. She made no attempt at consolation,
therefore, but occupied herself directing the disposition of the
various impedimenta of the party while General Meynell found
an acquaintance with whom he opened brisk conversation ; and
Travers, taking out a cigar-case, lifted his eyebrows to Russell,
who followed him to the smoking compartment.

Then it became apparent that another person beside Doro-
thea was oppressed with a sense of the irrevocable. There was
no one beside themselves in the compartment, and, after blowing
out a fragrant cloud of smoke, Travers proceeded to unburden
his mind.

" I don't know how it strikes you," he observed in a confi-
dential tone to his companion, " but I begin to feel that we
have embarked upon a risky undertaking. I have always had
a distinct horror of the close association of travel with uncon-
genial persons, and therefore I have always declined to join
any party formed for such a purpose. Yet behold me at last,
not only one of a party bound together for weeks to come, but
a party which comprises two people who dislike me sincerely,
and one of whom irritates my nerves beyond measure."

" Don't you think it is rather a mistake to allow' your nerves
to be irritated ? " Russell asked. " I grant that, as a rule, travel-
ing-parties are undesirable I have always avoided them my-
self but I have a strong hope that our present party may
prove an exception to the general rule. Moreover, we have not
entered into articles of partnership, and should association prove
disagreeable, nothing is easier than to separate."

" One would dislike to take that step, on account of the old
general and .Mrs. Langdon," said Travers. "I have the sin-
cerest regard for both of them. No " as he caught a slight
smile on Russell's lip " don't start out with any mistaken ideas
in your head. I am not in love with Mrs. Langdon. I think
her the most charming, sympathetic, and high-minded woman I
know ; but I have not the presumption to do more than admire
her from afar."

" Yet in the old days at Beau-Sejour I sometimes thought "
Russell suggested.

" What was quite correct," assented the other. " In those days
I was tremendously in love with her. But she never gave me a
thought ; and I had sense enough to see it. She married Lang-

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 209

don, and then well, I did not see her for some time, and
when I did I found that she was another woman and I another
man. We are the best of friends, and I admire her, as I have
said, more than any one I know. But that is all. So don't im-
agine that any promptings of the tender passion have made me
embark on a journey which I fear will prove a mistake as far
as I am concerned."

" Nonsense ! " said Russell, who saw that these first symptoms
of dissatisfaction must be promptly quelled. " Do you think
we are the kind of people to be on non-speaking terms by
the end of the week, in the fashion of some parties I have
encountered ? Are we not a trifle too well-bred and too
much of philosophers also, for that? If Miss Gresham jars on
you, can you not ignore her, or, better yet, amuse yourself
studying her as a typical product of certain social influences?"

" The type has not sufficient novelty to prove amusing,"
Travers answered, shrugging his shoulders. " She is a vain,
frivolous creature, with malice enough, however, to be dangerous,
whom Miss Meynell is dragging along for some inscrutable rea-
son of her own."

" And Mademoiselle Dorothea has no power to amuse you
either ? " asked Russell. " I confess she amuses me greatly. She
is piquant to a degree, and her follies are all the follies of clev-
erness."

" If by that you mean that her opinion of her own clever-
ness is stupendous, you are not far wrong," said Mr. Travers
with some acrimony. " A more self-conceited young person it
would be difficult to find. Heavens ! how different the older
sister was at her age. But this one is only a spoiled child."

" So much the more reason for not trying her temper,"
said Russell. " I think you hardly know how exasperating your
manner is sometimes. Come, come, instead of forebodings, let
us determine to make this expedition a success and a model
for all who shall come after us."

"A success!" cried the general, who appeared in time to
hear the last words. " Why, of course it will be a success what
should prevent it? And now what do you both say to a game
of whist ? My friend, Judge Hildreth, will join us in a moment,
and there are worse ways of passing time, eh ? "

Meanwhile, as the train, flying westward, left the great river
behind, the air soon grew soft and mild, and sunshine broke
through the clouds, filling with beautiful effects the swamps
through which the railroad presently passed a tropical-looking

210 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Nov.,

region of moss-draped trees and sword-like palmettoes, of luxu-
riant climbing vines, and dark, shining water, weird, mysterious,
fascinating to eye and fancy, as the glance strove to pierce its
dim, green recesses ; but speaking of an enemy more deadly
than the tiger of Eastern jungles in the fever that lurked be-
neath its beauty. The afternoon was far advanced when they
finally emerged from these scenes into a fair and fertile land,
level as a sea and green as summer the lovely country of wes-
tern- Louisiana, the refuge of the banished Acadians, the home
of those emigre's from France who brought with them to the
New World many of the fairest traditions and customs of that
old order, over which in their native land the bloody scythe of
the Revolution swept. Here one charming picture after another
passed before the gaze. Sugar plantations followed each other
in close succession, the luxuriant cane partly cut in the fields,
the tall chimneys of the sugar-mills belching forth smoke, for it
was the height of the sugar-making season ; the homes of the
planters great, old, spacious Southern houses, embowered in giant
live-oaks standing on the banks of the Teche, loveliest and most
famous of Louisiana waters. Travers, who knew the region well,
pointed out many familiar landmarks to General Meynell, who
had not seen it for years.

" What a charming country it was ! " said the general with
a sigh. " And what an ideal life they lived here in ante-bellum
days ! There was wealth without the feverish rush and covetous
struggle which is the curse of our day, there was the leisure for
mental and social culture, the inheritance of good blood and
fine manners, and the exercise of a hospitality as boundless as
it was perfect. There is nothing like it now."

"The conditions of life have so changed that a revital of it
is impossible," said Travers. "Yet much of the aroma of the
past still lingers among these old homes on the Tche. There
are few things I enjoy more than a visit down here."

" Some of the aspects of the country are wonderfully pictur-
esque," said Russell. " I know of nothing more fascinating than
the scenery along these bayous, while as one approaches the
Gulf the vast, wind-swept plains and marshes, with their herds
of cattle, their wide waters and marvellous skies, are full of the
most delightful suggestions of poetry. Among these French
Acadians another Mistral should arise to give us a Mirieo of the
New World, with its scenes laid in that region."

" It might be a perfect idyl," said Dorothea. " I know the
country of which you speak, and it possesses a haunting spell.

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 211

One can never forget its singular charm so beautiful and so
poetical. What sunsets I have seen on those immense green
expanses, where land and water and sky seem to have their
meeting-place ! "

" There is something of a sunset preparing for us now," ob-
served Travers. " And in the way of landscape, I think the
scenes we are passing through at present are not to be de-
spised."

It was indeed a land of pastoral loveliness which spread be-
fore them in the long, golden light of the sinking sun. Wide
fields rich with tropical cane, broad meadows across which
groups of cattle were slowly moving, clear streams shining with
sunset reflections, noble trees bending to the water's edge or
forming picturesque masses of foliage against the sky, the col-
umns of smoke from the sugar-mills were turning to glorified va-
por in the last rays of the sunlight, and the great old dwellings
under their spreading shade looked the very abodes of peace.
Green, fair, steeped in repose the smiling country lay, as the
sun finally sank beneath the horizon, leaving behind a sunset
pomp which filled heaven and earth with its fleeting splendor.

" ' They who dwell there have named it the
Eden of Louisiana,' "

murmured Margaret Langdon softly, as in the wonderful
glow the outspread land was more than ever like a dream of
Arcadia, while the train sped through its green levels toward
the glorious gates of color that seemed opening beyond into an
even fairer and more celestial country. It was an enchanting
picture. The radiant sky flung over everything its magical
light and color over broad fields and shadowy woods, over
gleaming waters and distant figures of men and cattle. Even
the prosaic car was transformed into a palace of light, and Dor-
othea's fair hair shone like the aureole of a saint. And when
the splendor presently faded, it was with the softest and most
exquisite changes from dazzling radiance to tints that might
have been borrowed from an angel's wing, ethereal aquama-
rine, delicate rose, dashes of carmine and shining gold, passing
into the tender hues of twilight which fell at last like a veil over
the face of earth, while the silver crescent of a new moon gleamed
out of the still tinted west.

" I must say," remarked Travers, when they finally turned
from the darkening landscape to the well-lighted car and the

212 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Nov.,

well-spread tables which had meanwhile been arranged for them,
"that it is not often a railroad, or anything else for that mat-
ter, proves its right to a poetical name as undeniably as this
line, which calls itself the Sunset Route, has this evening estab-
lished its claim to the title. Do you furnish such sunsets every
day?" he inquired, turning to the porter who stood near, ready
to render any service to a party whose appearance so unmis-
takably bespoke the probability of liberal tips.

" Never fails, sah," responded the official promptly. " Always
has 'em on hand regular business, sah."

" But that is not what the name really means, Mr. Travers,"
said Miss Gresham in a tone of mild correction. " It is called
the Sunset Route because it goes west to the Pacific Ocean, you
know."

" Why not to the Evening Star ! " asked the gentleman thus
enlightened. " Pray allow even railroads to import a little poetry
into their very prosaic affairs, my dear Miss Gresham. Who
would not be glad to take a ticket to the sunset if he could ?
And hope to find no stupid beauties when he reached there ! "
added the speaker in a lower tone, as he seated himself at table
with Mrs. Langdon and the general, leaving Russell to share
that of the two younger ladies.

Mrs. Langdon shook her head, smiling. " Whatever else she
may be, Violet Gresham is not stupid," she said. " But it may
serve her purpose occasionally to affect stupidity especially
where your remarks are concerned."

" I know that she detests me," he replied, " but really any
affectation of stupidity on her part is unnecessary and does
great injustice to nature, which has endowed her so liberally in
that respect."

CHAPTER IV.

THE PASS OF THE EAGLE.

The vague, soft darkness of a moonless, windless night for
it was close upon midnight and the slender young moon had
long since vanished below the western horizon a wide, over-
arching sky thickset with shining stars, masses of hills faintly
outlined around the old Pass of the Eagle, and a sense of vast,
far-stretching distance in the dimly-seen expanse of country to-
ward which the train moved slowly across the Rio Grande,
hardly visible through the obscurity as it flowed in its shrunken,

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 213

winter current far below. Russell uttered something like a
sigh of content as he turned his face to meet the caress of
the air that came from the wide, dark plains beyond the
river.

" No one," he remarked to Travers, who was standing with
him on the platform of the car, " can understand the fascination
of this country until he returns to it after an absence. One's
heart expands as one says to one's self, ' Yonder lies Mexico ! '
the land of wonders and of mystery, the land as full of romance
as other lands are full of commonplace, the land that for the
artist, the poet, and the scholar possesses a spell second to
none that I know, in its beauty, its interest, its wonderful and
varied charm. Think of it as it lies before us under this mantle
of darkness ! Let your fancy wander over its trackless sierras,
its wide plains, its walled cities, its ruins whose story no man
can read, its ancient and strangely gifted people, its history.
But really I beg your pardon ! " he broke off with a laugh.
" One has no right to bore one's friends with one's enthusiasms,
however great they may be ! "

" I envy the man who has a subject upon which he finds it
possible to become enthusiastic," said Travers. " If you can only
help us to see Mexico with your eyes, my dear fellow, you
will confer a benefit that cannot be overrated. And " as the
train passed from the bridge to solid earth again " here we
are ! This is the soil of Mexico."

"You may congratulate yourself, as far as the ordeal of the
custom-house is concerned, that it is the soil of Mexico," said
Russell. "The officials on this side treat travellers and their
lugg a g e with the utmost courtesy."

" That is good news, at all events," observed a feminine voice
in the door behind them. " Of course I have nothing contra-
band in my possession," pursued Miss Meynell, stepping out on
the platform, " but, none the less, one dislikes to have one's
trunks tumbled and disarranged by rude men."

" There are no rude men in Mexico," said Russell. " I pro-
mise that you will not find a fold of lace disarranged when you
open your trunk after the custom-house examination. Give your
keys to your father and go to bed in peace. We shall be here
for an hour or two."

"Where are we?"

" In the town of Piedras Negras, otherwise Ciudad Porfirio
Diaz, Americanized and uninteresting, as most border towns are.
Don't think of it, but think of the country into which you have
VOL. LVI. 1 5

214 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Nov.,

entered, and which lies before you like an unread page, glowing
with color, romance, and interest."

" Really," said Travers, " if Russell is allowed to go on like
this as soon as we have set foot on Mexican ground, I should
like to know what we may expect when we come to something a
little more definite than an unknown country wrapped in darkness."

" I understand exactly what Mr. Russell means," cried Doro-
thea eagerly. " It is because we are just on the threshold of the
country, and it lies before us under the shadow of night, un-
read and unknown, that his imagination takes in everything its
beauty and poetry, its mystery and charm, its past and present. ""

" You are a hopeless pair," Travers observed, throwing away
his cigar, " and I shall leave you to inflame each other's imag-
inations while I go and refresh myself with a little prose in the
person of I beg pardon, Miss Gresham ! I did not see that
you were coming out."

There had been a momentary danger of collision in the door,
where now appeared the tall, graceful figure of the young lady
to whom he spoke.

" I am looking for General Meynell or Mr. Russell," she
said, in her musical voice, that always had a plaintive ring in it,
" for somebody who can tell me about the custom-house examin-
ation. I am wretched to think of those officials tearing out my
carefully packed things ! I have not brought many toilettes on
a journey of this kind, but still "

" Still there are enough to contain possibilities of laceration
for your feelings," said Travers. " I quite comprehend. But
Russell engages that both your feelings and your toilettes shall
be spared. Russell, come and reassure Miss Gresham with re-
gard to the examination of her trunks."

Thus invoked, Russell, who had taken refuge on the lowest
step of the platform, was forced to reappear and soothe Miss
Gresham's anxiety concerning her cherished gowns.

" Pooh, pooh ! " said the general, suddenly emerging from
the car. " Come and see the examination yourself, if you are so-
uneasy. But Russell says there is no trouble to apprehend, and
we have implicit faith in Russell, you know. The best thing to
do is to give me your keys and not worry at all."

Miss Gresham hesitated for a moment, but evidently she
could not bring herself to trust anything so precious as those
keys to the easy-going general. She finally said, with an air of
resolution, " I should prefer to go myself. Sometimes the pres-
ence of a lady has an effect."

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 215

" I think you are wise," said Travers gravely. " A smile ju-
diciously bestowed has been known to work even greater won-
ders than the softening of a custom-house official."

" Well, Dorothea," said her father, " are you coming too ? "

Dorothea could not in courtesy allow her friend to go alone,
so the party strolled down to the custom-house, where they
found their luggage ready for inspection, and where the inspec-
tion, when it took place, justified all that Russell had said of
the courtesy of the officials. Miss Gresham was inclined to
attribute the extreme consideration shown in the perfunctory
examination of her mountain of chiffons to the effect of the
smiles she liberally bestowed upon the examiner, but when she
saw the next trunk in order, that of a pale, careworn woman,
whose fascinating qualities, if she possessed any, were certainly
not apparent to outward view, treated with equal consideration,
she was forced to abandon the flattering theory, and only ac-
cept the result with relief and gratitude.

" What a lovely thing courtesy is ! " said Dorothea medita-
tively, as they presently retraced their steps toward the waiting
train. " And what a mistake the Anglo-Saxon makes when he
considers it incompatible .with what he calls business or official
duty."

"Oh ! the Anglo-Saxon, taken in the mass, is generally more
or less of a brute," remarked Travers carelessly. " The grace of
fine manners has always been unknown to the race, except when
carefully cultivated in the higher classes."

" Every race, as well as every individual, has les ctifauts de
ses qualitts," said Russell. " A race strong in physical force is
likely to be somewhat brutal and obtuse. But courtesy is the
birthright of a Mexican. It pervades the country like a perfume,
and is as likely to be found in an adobe hut as in a palace."

" How glad I am that we are in Mexico," said Dorothea,
with a soft little sigh of content, "and still more glad that we
have Mr. Russell to interpret it for us."

" Yes," said her father dryly, " I am inclined to think that
without Russell we might possibly exhibit some Anglo-Saxon
obtuseness ourselves."

It was the sun himself who waked Dorothea the next morn-
ing, as if to tell her that she had entered the land where he reigns
supreme, and where it is little wonder that he had his priests
and worshippers of old. Even through the thick window-shade
his rays pierced so insistently to touch her sleeping lids, that

216 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Nov.,

they were constrained to unclose ; and extending her hand she
lifted cautiously a little of the curtain, lest too much splendor
should overwhelm her vision, and looked out. What she saw
was a wide plain bounded by distant mountains and flooded
with such an excess of light, such clear and dazzling radiance,
as she had never beheld before. The great god of day had
just risen in his majesty above the crest of the eastern sier-
ras, and his level rays filled all the wide scene with gold, save
the sides of the mountains, where soft, purple shadows yet
hung. It was a desert over which that resplendent mantle of
glory was spread ; but to Dorothea's dazzled eyes it looked too
radiant for mere earthly land. The wide, sun-kissed expanse,
extending to the foot of those divine heights with their mo-
mently changing robes of color, the translucent atmosphere, the
vast marvellous sky, the all-pervading blaze of light, the indefin-
able sense of breathing a new and rarefied air, all gave the im-
pression of a veritable land of the sun, where the earth had
yearned upward as it were to meet his ardent kiss, and where
he had poured his rays upon her with the passion of a lover
through unnumbered ages.

But the eye brings its own power of seeing, and it was not
remarkable that such an impression was not shared by all the
party. " An inspiriting kind of landscape this ! " said the gen-
eral, taking a comprehensive survey of the wide waste, covered
with low-growing sage bushes and yucca palms, as he sat down
to breakfast. On one side very near at hand, apparently were
a range of dark, volcanic-looking hills, and on the other, bound-
ing the far-stretching expanse of the level plain, a line of more
distant mountains, wrapped in a veil of softest azure. " It is
neither more nor less than a desert !" he added, cracking the
shell of his egg with a sharp stroke.

" Exactly that," answered Russell. " I warned you not to
expect anything of interest to-day. Our route lies altogether over
this desert, until we reach Torreon this evening."

" But I find a great deal of beauty here," said Margaret Lang-
don, also looking out over the scene with her gray eyes shining
in the clear morning light. " There is such a sense of unlimited
expansion in this plain, such breadth of sky, such floods of sun-
shine, and such wonderful tints on the mountains. See how that
nearer range is purple almost to blackness, while what tender
aerial shades of blue are on those distant heights ! "

Miss Gresham turned and made a little movement of repul-
sion as she looked out of the window beside her. They were

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 217

now running so close to the nearer hills, that it almost seemed
as if a stone thrown from the train might strike them, and they
stood fully revealed in all their rugged harshness, their abrupt
sides covered only with cacti and scattered masses of black vol-
canic rock. It is impossible to imagine anything more forbid-
ding than they thus appeared. They seemed to have been fash-
ioned by nature in her most savage mood.

" Do you really find anything to admire in those ? " asked
the young lady with excusable surprise. " I had no idea before
that hills could be so hideous."

"They are so young," said Travers in a tone of apology.
" Russell has just been explaining that that is what is the mat-
ter with them. They are full of the crudity of youth, to which,
you know, many things must be excused. And hills are unlike
people in one respect they grow better-looking as they grow
older. We may hope much for the softening effect of time on
these. A few thousand years hence they will no doubt have
improved much in appearance."

" The conductor has been telling me a gruesome story," said
the general, " about some place among them where, when the
survey for the road was made, the party discovered a cave full
of human bones."

" They are certainly savage and desolate enough for any-
thing, " said Dorothea. "A very fitting place to find a cave
full of human bones. How did the discoverers account for them?
Was an ogre supposed to have made his home there in times
past ? "

" The theory seemed to be that it was a place where brigands
disposed of their victims," answered the general ; " but of course
no one could tell."

" The brigand theory is plausible," observed Travers, " only I
was under the impression that those gentlemen usually selected
high-roads rather than deserts for their operations."

" That fact is what makes the theory plausible," said Russell.
" The high-road from Monterey to Parras crosses this desert and
enters between these hills near the spot where the discovery was
said to have been made."

" And unless all reports err," said the general, " brigandage
was for many years, if it is not still, the curse of the country."

" An undeniable fact," said Russell, " and not to be wondered
at when one remembers that, from the time of the first rising
for independence, the country hardly knew a day of peace for
more than half a century. Guerrilla bands infested it, and, under

218 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Nov.,

cover of the constant warfare, robbery and slaughter abounded.
No one who knows anything of the effect of war, especially civil
war, can be surprised at such a result. It is only surprising that,
after seventy years of almost constant revolution, lawlessness and
anarchy could so soon have been subdued, and the people have
settled into the condition of law-abiding order we now find."

" And is brigandage extinct ? " asked Travers.

" Practically so. In wild, remote parts of the country it may
yet linger a little ; but the government is untiring in efforts to
suppress it, and these efforts are severe enough to be effectual.
I may remark in passing, that one never hears of train robbers
in Mexico. They are a feature peculiar to our high civilization
across the border."

" That is a comfort at any rate," said Dorothea, " for this
road would offer an excellent opportunity for them. We might
all be murdered and thrown into a cave without any possible
chance of rescue."

With such light talk they managed to dispose of an hour or
so of the long day, in which they were assured there would be
nothing to see. And yet to one or two, at least, there was so
much to see that even the books with which they had provided
themselves in liberal quantity failed to attract their attention.
There was no change, and yet an infinite variety in the great
desert over which they sped steadily southward. Dorothea pres-
ently induced the porter to place a camp-stool for her on the
rear platform of the car, where under the shade of a large white
parasol she sat, delighting her eyes with the atmospheric effects
that converted the waste into a wonderland. Steeped in sunshine,
the great plain, with its palms and cacti and white, dazzling
alkali soil, assumed an ocean-like variety of tint as it stretched
away into remote distance, blending at last into what seemed to
be sparkling, tree-fringed lakes, lying at the base of the distant
heights but which in reality was only a mirage that changed
and shifted constantly. The mountains that bounded these wide
leagues of space on each hand were full of inexhaustible charm
and ever-changing beauty, as they threw their spurs out upon
the plain, broken into fantastic forms, wildly desolate and darkly
purple or brown, or lay against the remote horizon in robes of
celestial hue and dreamy softness, while fleecy masses of white
clouds were piled above their crests or tossed with feathery
lightness into their violet gorges. Marvellous was the variety of
transformations which they underwent, marvellous the fascination
of the changes wrought by every mile of distance, and most

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 219

marvellous the impression which the whole scene in its mingled
beauty and desolation produced upon the imagination. On the
vast expanse there was no human habitation, no movement of
man or beast. Nature had taken this realm for her own, by
withholding the saving water that would have made it blossom
like the rose ; but in compensation she had flung over it her
most royal colors, arched above it her most brilliant sky, fanned
it with the freedom of her purest airs, and, desert though it
was, given it a strange and penetrating charm which many of
the garden spots of the earth lack.

" But one would need to be a poet to express it," said Doro-
thea softly to herself yet, softly as she spoke, the words were
heard by one of whose presence near her she had been unconscious.

" What is it that we are told ? " observed a voice above her
head. " ' To have the deep poetic heart is more than all poetic
speech ? ' Be satisfied with possessing the heart, and never mind
the speech."

She turned and, glancing up, found Travers standing in the
open door behind her.

" I should be quite satisfied if I thought that I possessed it,"
said she, " but that is nonsense, you know."

" I am not sure that it is nonsense," he answered. " An ar-
tistic eye and a poetic perception are both required to perceive
any beauty in this scene. To most people it would be only a
sun-parched waste, made up of desolate plain and savage moun-
tains."

" But the color, the changing aspects and contrasts, the breadth
of horizon, the loveliness of outline and purity of tint, the sense
of infinite expansion surely any one able to feel at all must
recognize the beauty of all this ! "

" Doubtful. It requires a peculiar faculty of appreciation.
At all events, let us imagine so. It is a very solid comfort to
be able to feel one's self superior to the majority of mankind, on
whom all fine and subtle effects in nature or in art are wasted."

" What an immense amount of comfort you must have, then ! "
said Dorothea. " I never knew any one likely to derive more
from that particular consideration."

He laughed. " I must acknowledge that I do," he said. "And
why not ? One does not have so many sources of comfort in
this best of all possible worlds, that one should neglect any of a
satisfactory nature. Honestly, now, don't you plume yourself a
little on seeing and feeling things that the commonplace herd
never see or feel ? "

220 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Nov.,

" I never allow myself to think of my fellow-creatures as a
commonplace herd," she replied promptly. "And I never en-
courage sentiments of vanity never ! Pray understand that, Mr.
Travers."

" I bow before your superior virtue, then. For my part I
encourage everything that tends to make life more agreeable ;
and a comfortable belief in one's own superiority certainly does
so. I confess, also, that I do not believe in modest merit. No
one ever had powers above those of his fellows without being
fully aware of it."

" But it does not follow that he was vain of it," cried the
girl quickly. " It is a bad rule to judge everybody by yourself.
Here is Mr. Russell. He certainly is not vain, or arrogant, or
anything else disagreeable, and yet he must know he has powers
very much above those of most people."

" Oh ! Russell is rather a remarkable person," replied Mr.
Travers carelessly. " He must know, as you say, that he is not
exactly ordinary, but he is a master in the art of concealing the
fact aware, probably, that what people resent is not so much a
man's superiority as his knowledge of it. But here he comes, to
speak for himself! Russell, Miss Meynell has just been remark-
ing how successfully you conceal the vanity with which it is use-
less to suppose you are not burdened as heavily as the rest
of us."

" Mr. Russell," interposed Dorothea indignantly, " I used
your name, on the contrary, to point a moral against vanity,
concealed or otherwise. Although, in fact, I do not believe
that vanity can be concealed, and if Mr. Travers imagines "

" I don't imagine," said that gentleman ; " I am sure that I
don't conceal mine. But I hope to learn a little humility by the
time we finish this journey. With Russell on one side to in-
struct, and you on the other to snub me not to speak of Miss
Gresham's praiseworthy efforts in the same direction I shall
probably find my self-conceit materially reduced when we cross
the Rio Grande again. By the by, Russell, is there no other
route by which we could have entered the country except
through such a desert as this ? "

" Oh, yes ! " Russell replied, " there are other routes, and that
of Laredo is notably more attractive in scenery ; but we have
chosen this line because it brings us at once into the heart of
the land you have come to see, the ancient land of the Aztec
and the Spaniard, with its brilliant, picturesque cities, absolutely
unlike any others on the soil of the New World. You will

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 221

see one of them to-morrow," he said, smiling at Dorothea,
" and you will feel as if an ocean must surely roll between it
and the country you have left."

"So much the better!" she cried. "And its name?"

" Zacatcas."

She knitted her brows in an effort of remembrance. " I re-
call the name, but not what is said of the place. I must read it
up in Mr. Janvier's Guide. I could never, by the way, have
imagined until I read it how excellent would be the result of
inducing a literary artist to write a guide-book. Of course one
expects only fine work from the author of the Stories of Old
New Spain, but this book seems to me a model of its kind. It
is not only full of information, but it is told in the most delight-
ful manner."

" And, better yet, all the information is accurate," said Rus-
sell. " Unlike some other literary artists, Mr. Janvier never dis-
torts or embroiders facts for effect. When I first entered Mexico
his guide-book was my constant companion in all my wanderings,
and I never yet found it at fault. He is always as accurate in
fact as he is charming in style, and his knowledge of the coun-
try is to be specially relied upon because it is founded on the
sympathy without which true comprehension is impossible. He
knows Mexico thoroughly because he loves it, as all who really
know it must."

" But why bother with guide-books, however accurate and
charming, when here is Russell to tell you all you want to
know?" queried Travers. "Follow my example, and apply
boldly to him for any desired information. Now, about this
place with the remarkable name. What is it noted for, as the
geographies of my youth were wont to ask ? "

" A geographer," answered Russell, " would probably reply
that it is noted for its mines, which have produced vast quanti-
ties of silver ; for its picturesqueness or do geographers notice
that ? and for its great altitude. It lies about eight thousand
feet above the sea."

" Higher than any mountain on our Atlantic coast ! " said
Dorothea in an awed tone. " What a wonderful region the
plateau of Mexico must be ! "

" We do not seem to be ascending very much at present,"
said Travers, glancing around the wide, level expanse.

" We have, however, been ascending ever since we left the
Rio Grande," Russell replied, " and to-night we shall climb several
thousand feet more. Then our way will lie along that great vol-

222 THE LAND OF THE SUN' [Nov.,

canic ridge, the table-land between two oceans, which fanned by
the airs of both, with its varied elevations giving every variety
of climate and product, its beautiful lakes, its vast plains and
mountains, is, in its natural features alone, one of the most in-
teresting regions of the world. Humboldt says but I must
really have compassion on you ! Never mind what Humboldt
says, at present."

" But / mind," cried Dorothea. " If you think that I will con-
sent to be cheated out of information so interesting in that man-
ner, you are mistaken. I insist On hearing what Humboldt
says of the plateau of Mexico."

" That is rather a large demand to fill," said Russell, smiling ;
" but a desire so laudable should be encouraged. Meanwhile,
are you aware that the glare of this alkali soil is very great ?
Have you no fear of the feminine bete noir sunburn ? I really
think you will find it pleasanter within."

" If I come will you tell me what Humboldt says ?" she
asked, holding on to her point with pertinacity.

" I will do better than that," Russell answered. "You shall
read it for yourself. I will show you what he has written of
the wonderful region in which you will be to-morrow."

" With that inducement I shall go in," said she rising. " I
will pull down the blinds so that the sky and the hills and the
mirage shall not tempt me ; and devote myself to acquiring in-
formation about the country. Mr. Travers, is it worth while to
advise you to do likewise ?"

"I am constrained to make the humiliating confession that I
have at present imbibed as much information as I feel myself
able to digest," replied Mr. Travers with an air befitting the con-
fession. " I think that I shall relax my mind over a novel and
a cigar, and admire your and Russell's industry from afar. The
spring of my enthusiasm is extremely likely to become dry if I
pump it too persistently. One must humor one's self in these
things."

" As far as I can perceive," responded Dorothea unkindly,
"you humor yourself in all things. We will leave you, then, to
your novel and your cigar, and hope that the spring of your
enthusiasm will have sufficiently filled for you to appreciate Za-
catecas when we reach it. Come, Mr. Russell. Let us go in and
read Humboldt."

CHRISTIAN REID.

1892.] EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 223

EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM.*

'HE importance and the prominence of the doctrine

of evolution in the biology of the present day
cannot be denied and can hardly be overestimat-
ed. It has obtained the assent of almost all those
who are actively occupied in the investigations
of that science, and one cannot deny it, ignore it, or in any way
dismiss it without putting one's self outside what are recognized
as scientific circles. Though it is not claimed that an actually
conclusive demonstration of it has been furnished, the induction
is considered sufficiently perfect to leave no reasonable doubt of
it in the minds of those who have studied the matter. To
quote the words of Dr. Romanes in the work before us : "I
confess," he says, " it does appear to me remarkable that there
should still be a doubt in any educated mind touching the gen-
eral fact of evolution ; while it becomes to me unaccountable
that such should be the case with a few still living men of science,
who cannot be accused of being ignorant of the evidences which
have now been accumulated." And though Dr. Romanes is very
advanced in his support not only of evolution, but also of the
Darwinian explanation of it by natural selection, it can hardly
be said that these words would be considered extreme by any
but a very few biologists. The fact is that evolution in the or-
ganic world is, practically speaking, as much taken for granted
by scientific workers in the departments which it concerns as
the Newtonian doctrine of gravitation is by astronomers.

Nearly as much may be said of Darwinism, commonly so
called, which is often confounded by the non-professional with
evolution itself. People often suppose, on hearing that there are
some scientific men and there are some such, and eminent
ones who do not altogether accept the Darwinian theory, that
these authorities are disbelievers in evolution in any way ; that
is, that they believe that no species, properly so called, has
been formed by means of it, but that all were created substan-
tially just as we see them now. But this is far from being the
case. Darwinism, or the Darwinian theory, is not the theory
that species have been formed by evolution, for this idea was

* Darwin and after Darwin. An Exposition of the Darwinian Theory and a Discussion
of post-Darwinian Questions. By George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. i. The
Darwinian Theory.

224 EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. [Nov.,

broached and widely accepted long before Darwin ; but it is a
theory as to the way or method by which the evolution was ac-
complished, or is now going on ; that is, by what Darwin
and his followers have called natural selection. It may be as
well to state briefly what is meant by this, though no doubt
most readers of this present article have understood it before.
By natural selection it is not meant that the being accustoms
itself to its environment, and develops the parts that the envi-
ronment calls for (as, for instance, a short-necked animal, which
found its favorite food in the leaves of trees might gradually
lengthen its neck in reaching for them, and thus develop into a
giraffe), or suppresses and practically loses those organs which
the environment does not need. This, if not carried too far, is
a reasonable supposition enough ; but this change of form by
voluntary exercise or disuse, even though transmitted, as it
naturally would be, to the progeny, is not the idea of Darwin-
ism properly so called. It is indeed plain that but few varia-
tions could be thus produced, and these only among animals
capable 01 being influenced by motives, and making efforts ac-
cordingly ; while the 'Darwinian theory undertakes to account
for variation in all parts of the animal and vegetable kingdoms,
and for transmutation of species everywhere.

This theory is simply that accidental variations, such as will
constantly arise in all kinds and grades of vegetable and animal
life, will be preserved if they are of advantage to the subject in
the conditions in which it is placed, whereas if they are not of
advantage they will disappear. And why ? First, because by
far more animals and vegetables are produced than can be sus-
tained, especially in the lower grades of life. The seeds or eggs
are always immensely in excess of the possibility of support ;
and this is true even of the young actually produced and living
for a time. Darwin calculates that actually for the elephant,
the slowest breeder of all known animals, fifteen million would
be alive, descended from a single pair after five centuries, if
none perished prematurely. Dr. Romanes computes nineteen
million only for seven and a half centuries ; but this is quite
enough. For animals in general, and for plants, the case is
much stronger. Linnaeus shows to quote Darwin that if an
annual plant produced only two seeds an almost absurdly small
number and their seedlings next year produced two, and so on,
in twenty years we should have a million plants. As life is not
and cannot be sustained at this rate of increase, the doctrine of
the " struggle for life " necessarily follows.

1892.] EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 225

And what then ? Who are to be the victors in this struggle ?
Who will survive it ? Will the victors or survivors be deter-
mined by their physical strength or powers for mutual combat ?
Hardly as a rule, for the struggle is not one of this kind. It is
rather with the powers of nature than with each other ; a strug-
gle with the surroundings or environment. Will it be merely
accidental which will live and which will die ? To some extent it
will be so ; and also the environment will be somewhat different
for each individual, especially for plants, as in the parable of
the sower. But where it is approximately the same, as it often
is for large numbers of individuals, external accidents cannot
bring about the whole result ; the variable suitability of the indi-
vidual to its fairly uniform surroundings must have a considera-
ble effect ; those will survive the others which are most suitable
to their surroundings. Here we have the doctrine of the sur-
vival of the fittest ; or the natural selection of those which are
fittest to live and to continue the species. On the average, the
progeny of these will inherit their advantageous characteristics ;
some in a greater degree, others in a less ; those who have them
in a greater degree will have the best chance to live ; and thus
the advantageous variation, in the first place accidental, will be
constantly developed, increased, or emphasized.

That this is not all theoretical, that progressive changes can
actually be produced in this way, is plain from the fact that by
artificial selection types can be thus brought in and developed
which are suitable, not indeed to the environment in a general
way, but to the fancy of man. If then we concede, as it would
seem that we must, that the environment can have any real
effect in killing off those least suitable to it and preserving the
rest, we must admit that this natural selection which it causes
is at least an unavoidable cause of some progressive change.

It is plain that this theory has the advantage, if we grant
evolution as a fact, of accounting for it in all orders of life, we
may say equally well.

Such, then, is briefly the Darwinian theory of natural selec-
tion ; it is supplemented also among the more intelligent animals
by what has been called sexual selection, by which variations
tending to beauty or attractiveness are obviously likely to be
preserved in pairing; and also to some extent, no doubt, by
the Lamarckian theory before mentioned, according to which
animals are developed in various ways, not by the survival of
those fittest to their environment, but by the straining or en-
deavor of all to accommodate themselves to their environment,

226 EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. [Nov.,

as in the supposed case of the giraffe stretching his neck to
reach the leaves.

As Dr. Romanes remarks, the theory is not by any means a
mere theory ; that is, it is not merely a way of accounting for
observed facts, like that of gravitation. It is, to a great extent,
a simple statement of fact itself. That all seeds do not and
cannot come to maturity is an unquestionable fact ; that those
best adapted to their surroundings will survive, is as certain as
that when the individuals are alike those will fare best which
have surroundings best suited to them. That there will be to
some extent a natural selection, as claimed by Darwin, seems,
therefore, to be unquestionable. The introduction of the idea
by Darwin is certainly a thing extremely creditable to him, none
the less so on account of its simplicity. It always seems, when
great and fruitful ideas are suggested, that they ought to have
occurred to some one long before ; but as they did not, the
one who actually suggests them retains his pre-eminence. It
seems hardly probable, however, that even among Darwinians
many will be found to go with Dr. Romanes to the length of
saying that " if we may estimate the importance of an idea by
the change of thought which it effects, this idea of natural se-
lection is unquestionably the most important idea that has ever
been conceived by the mind of man." This is what may be
called scientific fanaticism.

To resume, however. Natural selection, to some extent, is, it
would seem, infallibly necessary and certain ; but the double
question arises : first, is it competent, even with its supplements
of sexual selection and Lamarckism, to account for all the evolu-
tion which has actually occurred ; and, secondly, has evolution
been the cause of all the varieties of species which actually
exist ?

The first question really seems, though no doubt possessing
great scientific interest, to be of minor importance. It is of
much less importance to know whether the Darwinian theory en-
tirely accounts for all actual evolution here is where it passes
from the domain of fact to that of theory than to know whether
all the variety of species comes from evolution.

The Darwinian theory has an importance, however, more
than would at first appear, from the confirmation it has actually
given to the scientific mind in its belief in the universal scope
of evolution ; that is, in the origin of all species by that process.
It has shown a possible way of evolution in all parts of the
kingdom of life, from the highest to the lowest. And therefore,

1892.] EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 227

on the Newtonian principle of not adducing more causes than
are required to produce the effects, scientific men have generally
concluded that evolution by natural selection has actually given
rise to all species.

This is just the main question. Evolution to a great extent,
and going far enough to form what we have been accustomed
to consider as different species, must be admitted, it would seem,
if we look simply at the evidence of fact. Whether it has been
made by natural selection or otherwise is not so much matter;
whether we believe it to have been so made may, however, have
a potent influence on our views on the main question as to the
origin of all species by evolution. Scientific men can hardly be
blamed for holding the view that they do ; there is great en-
couragement to it, for they have a cause seemingly adequate to
produce all the effects, just as gravitation seems adequate to
regulate all the mechanical movements of the stars, and is com-
monly believed to do so, though we are far from certain of its
universal or sole application. And we need not wonder that they
are inclined to stretch evolution as far as possible, even to the
developing of man, soul as well as body, from the inferior ani-
mals. We know that this is going too far ; but let us be pa-
tient with them, and remember that they are reasoning simply
on the data before them, and according to processes with which,
as a general rule, we should not find fault.

Let us then get the state of the question fairly before us.
Really the important matter at issue is, whether all species in the
organic kingdom have actually been developed by evolution, or
not. There is no reason why we should object to some, even a
great many, of what may at least be called species, being pro-
duced in this way. We know that most astonishing variations
can be thus produced ; this is simply a matter of fact and ex-
perience. And there seems to be no reason why these varia-
tions cannot be carried far enough to have all the marks and
stand all the tests which have been used by natural science
to distinguish one species from another ; we set, of course, the
human species out of this statement.

But if it comes to the matter of fact, whether all the species
existing have actually been produced in this way, of course this
is a matter simply of history. Naturally, evolutionists try to
collect its testimony as far as possible, not with the hope of
making it perfect, for a very long time, if indeed ever, but to
strengthen their induction as far as possible. But we must re-
member that on the principles of natural science induction does

228 EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. [Nov.,

not need, is not expected, and cannot be expected, to be com-
plete. When a new comet comes into our system, we take for
granted that it is going to be governed by the law of gravitation ;
and in tracing its past history, we do not look for facts to show
what its movements have been, but assume that it has been
governed by gravitation all the while. Scientific men will not
deny that it may have been under the influence of some other
force, or that it may even have been directed in its course by
some powerful and intelligent being according to his own will ;
but they believe, reasonably enough from the induction which
has been made, that such a supposition is entirely uncalled for.
And in the same way with regard to astronomical evolution, or
the taking of shape and order by our system, for instance, out of
chaos, that if it can be accounted for by the operation of causes
now shown by induction to exist, that we do not need to bring
in any others ; and indeed that, scientifically speaking, we cannot
rightly do so, unless some other induction goes to show their
existence.

How, then, can we find fault with biologists if, having got so
good an induction as that of evolution, and so plausible a way
as that furnished by Darwin of making evolution universal in the
kingdom of life, they consider it sufficient to account for all the
phenomena which it seems to be capable of producing, and its
Darwinian explanation to be the true one ? What wonder if they
consider that all species have been formed by it, or if they even
go so far as to carry out the law of continuity which it seems to
indicate, even to the bridging over of the gap between the organic
and inorganic that is, to the evolving of life itself or of that
between the merely animal world and the human, which some
evolutionists confess to be the greater of the two? Generaliza-
tion has been successful in the past ; why should it not be now ?

If we have positive reasons for thinking or believing to the
contrary, derived from other sources than those they are using,
they will not quarrel with us, and probably will candidly confess
that it will take them a long time to absolutely prove their
view to be the right one, and perhaps admit that such absolute
proof can never be given at all. To prove that no species had
ever been created would certainly be very hard for ' them. But
they will still claim that on scientific principles that is, on the
methods which are followed generally, and must be followed to
obtain success in the physical sciences their view is the right
one to hold, or at least the only one which can at present be
taken as a working hypothesis.

1892.] EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 229

Scientific men, then, in being evolutionists as they now are
almost universally, are merely going on the lines which, simply
as such, it is almost necessary that they should follow. But
let us not imagine that in so doing they must be actuated by
a desire to injure religion or weaken man's faith in it. Some
may have that spirit ; but so far as they have it, they de-
part from the scientific frame of mind. All that we can com-
plain of is, that they are not guided positively by it ; but can
we expect, especially when the great majority of them do not
even know what the teachings of the true religion are, and
when many at least of them think that it denies facts which
they cannot but accept, that they would be so guided ? In
point of fact, there does not appear to be any real conflict be-
tween evolution, so far as it can be said even by scientists them-
selves to be established, and the Catholic faith. It is only in
their expectations that the conflict lies, and we cannot blame
them for these.

Their writings the writings, that is, of the real investigators
in these departments of science are generally fair, and' without
indication of passion or prejudice, which, therefore, we have no
right to attribute to them. The present volume of Dr. Romanes
is divided into two parts, in the first of which he gives the evi-
dences for evolution generally, and in the second the reasons
why the Darwinian theory of natural selection should be ac-
cepted as the true explanation of it. As an illustration of the
impartial frame of mind which he wishes to preserve, it may be
mentioned that he frankly confesses that the electric organ of
the skate is unexplainable on the Darwinian theory ; but he
holds that the weight of evidence is so strong in favor of the
theory that this exception is too slight to count for much
against it. He seems, under the influence of the desire for sim-
plicity which every scientific man must understand and feel, to
take for granted that the theory must be universally true, if
true at all ; to be reluctant to take it as a partial explanation
of nature, especially as it seems so wide in its scope.

As an illustration of the ignorance or misapprehension with
regard to religious truth or theology mentioned above, and
which is now so prevalent, but which is rather unfortunate than
culpable, it may be well to quote a few words in which, speak-
ing of the matter of beauty as an evidence of design, the au-
thor remarks : " Moreover, beauty of inanimate nature must be
an affair of the percipient mind itself, unless there be a creating
intelligence with organs of sense and ideals of beauty similar to
VOL. LVI. 16

230 EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. [Nov.,

our own." On this it is only necessary to remark that the
second italics are ours. But he often evinces a desire to pro-
tect and preserve religion as far as possible. For example, he
says : " While the sphere of science is necessarily restricted to
that of natural causation, which it is her office to explore, the
question touching the nature of this natural causation is one
which as necessarily lies without the whole sphere of such causa-
tion itself; therefore it lies beyond any possible intrusion by
science." And again, without denying that design may superin-
tend the processes of evolution, he merely gives these words in
his concluding paragraph, which he seems to think will be very
shocking to the religious mind : " Upon the whole, then, it seems
to me that such evidence as we have is against rather than in
favor of the inference, that if design be operative in animate
nature it has reference to animal enjoyment or well-being, as
distinguished from animal improvement or evolution. And if
this result should be found distasteful to the religious mind
if it be felt that there is no desire to save the evidences of de-
sign unless they serve at the same time to testify to the nature
of that design as beneficent I must once more observe that
the difficulty thus presented to theism is not a difficulty of
modern creation. On the contrary, it has always constituted the
fundamental difficulty with which natural theologians have had
to contend. The external world appears, in this respect, to be
at variance with our moral sense ; and when the antagonism is
brought home to the religious mind, it must ever be. with a
shock of terrified surprise. It has been newly brought home to
us by the generalizations of Darwin ; and therefore, as I said at
the beginning, the religious thought of our generation has been
more than ever staggered by the question where is now thy
God ? But I have endeavored to show that the logical standing
of the case has not been materially changed ; and when this cry of
Reason pierces the heart of Faith, it remains for Faith to answer
now, as she has always answered before and answered with that
trust which is at once her beauty [where, by the way, are the
" organs of sense " now ?] and her life verily thou art a God
that hidest thyself."

These are not the words of an infidel, or of one who wants
to make trouble. The fact is that the objection, so far as it
exists, among scientific men to religion is largely, if not princi-
pally, due to their not knowing enough about it.

And the same may be said with regard to ourselves. It is
to be feared that much of our opposition to scientists in some

1892.] EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM, 231

departments comes from a false or exaggerated idea of their
opposition to us, and an imperfect acquaintance with what they
actually hold. Let us try to put ourselves a little more in their
place, and see a little more with their eyes ; and perhaps we
shall find that they are not so far out of the way of truth as
we had supposed. This, of course, is said of scientific men who
are really such, who are proceeding strictly on their own lines,
as the majority of those who are actually contributing to science
really do. There is, however, a proportion even among them,
and probably a much larger one among those who may be
called readers of scientific literature, not specialists, as real scien-
tific men must be nowadays, unless possessed of very extraordi-
nary powers, but rather smatterers, who are animated by a posi-
tive prejudice against religion, who seem to make it the end of
their labors to destroy rather than to build up, who wish and
endeavor to remove the idea of God from the mind of man.
Such are those who are constantly clamoring about the warfare
of science and religion ; their only real interest in physical science
seems to be in its possible application as a means to extinguish,
or at least to obscure, the knowledge of God which comes to us
either by nature or revelation. There is no need for us to be
charitable with such. But with the real investigators, those who
confine themselves to observation and experiment, and reason-
ings founded on them, we may and should be very patient, and
should show respect to the desire for truth and knowledge
which actuates them, and to the ability and zeal with which
they pursue their studies, and never fear that mere ignorance of
religion, or simply negative opposition to it, will vitiate the ulti-
mate results of the legitimate course of scientific induction on
which they are proceeding.

G. M. SEARLE.

Catholic University, Washington.

232 LEGENDS OF THE CID. [Nov.,

LEGENDS OF THE CID.
III.

THE. Cm AT VALENCIA.

'NCE more the warriors watched : the first to speak
A knight of splenetic lips though roughly kind,
Don Jose de Maria, thus began :
" Sirs, some have boasted deeds if quaint yet
brave

And some have lectured long of lesser triumphs :

The Cid's half jesting feats. Such chroniclers

Because they shared those battles give them praise,

Praising therein themselves. Valencia ! there

Flamed forth the man's true greatness like the sun !

The Moors' chief city, where their noblest dwelt

In garden-girdled palaces 'mid palms.

Seaward it looks t'ward every coast where waves

Their prophet's flag accurst. Thus spake the Cid :

' Valencia's king sent kinglings on a day

When I, now wedded, hunted on his grounds,

To visit me. We grappled ; and they fled :

Decorum needs that we. return that visit.'

Pass we the lesser triumphs on his march.

He took Valencia's suburb chief. Huge walls

Manned by an army barred our farther progress ;

Our scaling ladders near them seemed like toys.

The Cid encamped before them ; missives sent :

' Sirs, have your choice ! or fight or die of hunger ! '

But they had seen him in the field too oft

To fight as once they fought. The Cid flung back

With scorn their petulant sallies. Day by day

Their stores were minished. Sorer week by week

The anguish of their hunger. Many a Moor

Rushed to our serried ranks loud clamoring, ' Bread ! "

' Make us your slaves, but feed our babes !'

At last

An unexpected promise dawned upon them ;

The mightiest of the Moorish hosts drew near,

The Almoravides ; and Valencia's sons,

Fools of a credulous hope, exultant cried :

1892.] LEGENDS OF THE CID. 233

' To Allah praise ! Yon Christian foe is doomed ;

Ere long their bones shall whiten vale and plain ! '

So sang they, clustered on the city walls

As twilight deeper grew, and plainer shone

The Moorish camp-fires far. Meantime my Cid

Had given command to rive the dams and bridges

And- open fling the sluices to the sea,

For prescient was the man and knew his foe

Must cross a lowland wide. The sea rushed in ;

Twilight to blackness changed. The moon was drowned

In plunging storm of hail and rain and snow:

Emerging thence it stared on wandering floods

From sea and river, and the mountain walls

Whose torrents, glimpsed but when the lightning flared,

Thundered far off. Vain were the Moslem vows,

For countless prayers of Christians in all lands

From Breton coasts to the utmost German forest

And all that empire old of Charlemagne

Meeting them, drove them past the heavenly gates

Abortive shapes and frustrate. All night long

The Moors down crouched upon their city walls

Clinging to tower and coign. At dawn came news !

That Moorish force had fled ; Valencia's sons

When spread those tidings deemed themselves dead men ;

Yea, as the blind they groped about their streets,

Or staggered on like drunkards ; neither knew

Each man the face of neighbor or of friend,

But gazed at him and passed : at other times

Old enemies clasped hands but spake no word ;

And some flung forth their arms like swimmer spent

That sinks in black seas lost. Ten days went by ;

And Moorish chiefs in castles near approached

Crying : ' Thy vassals we ! '

Four weeks had passed ;

Then rose a white-haired elder, prophet deemed,
And famed for justice long, a silent man ;
For three whole years he had not spoken word
Save thrice. He scaled Valencia's topmost tower,
And while around its base the people thronged
Made thus the lamentation of the city:
Nine times he made it ere the sun went down.

' Valencia, my Valencia ! Trouble and grief

234 LEGENDS OF THE CID, [Nov.,

Have come upon thee, and the hour decreed ;
If ever God on any place shewed mercy
Now let Him shew it. For thy name was joy :
All Moors that live their boasting made of thee.

If God this day should utterly consume thee
Thy doom is doom of pride. If those four stones
The corner-stones that bind thy walls in one
Could leave their dread foundations, and draw nigh
And speak with stony mouth to stony ear,
The burden of their dirge would be thy sin.

Thy towers far-gazing see but woe. Thy river,

Old Guadalever, from its course is bent,

And all those watery ministers of thine

Far-sluiced behold their channels choked with mud ;

Dried are the gardens green that sucked their freshness i

The wolf and wild boar root thy plantains down ;

Thy fields are baked like clay.

Thy harbor vast,

The mirror of thy greatness, and the marvel
Of merchant princes, guests from every land,
Rots thick with corpses ; and above it far
Drifts the red smoke from burning tower and town
Along thy coasts.

Valencia, my Valencia I

This is the death-cry from a breaking heart.
Repent thee of thy sins ! '

While sank the sun

. Thaburthen ceased. Then round that pillar's base
r Rang forth a mighty and a piercing cry ;
And headlong from it through the city rushed
and men. Then first that saying rose,
my right hand breaks the sea to drown me,
The- lion on my left to crush my bones :
Behind me is the fire : before my face
And all around, the hunger.'

From that hour

Whoso had bread or grain in earth interred it
Like wild beast that inters its remnant spoil,
And gnawed it stealthily an ounce a day
With keen eyes glancing round. At last a beggar
Groped his blind way into the market place

1892.] LEGENDS OF THE CID. 235

And cried, 'Give up the city!' Straight that cry

Ran through Valencia ; and its elders rose

And paced barefoot, and found the Cid, and knelt,

And laid the city's keys before his feet :

Right courteously and sadly he received them ;

Helmless he rode through silent streets, his horse

With muffled feet in reverence for their woe ;

The Cross first raised he on the Alcazar's tower,

Then freed the Christian slaves. Proclaim he made

' Let all who will depart the city, free : '

Two days sufficed not for those throngs forth-streaming :

Thousands remained, so well they loved that place \

O'er these he set, alcalde of their race,

That elder Alfaraxi was his name

Who mounting to Valencia's top-most tower

Had sung that city's dirge.

Through that just man

The Moors their tribute paid. Thenceforth his fame
Drew thousands to the Cid. From that far East
Whence came the Magi following still the star
To Bethlehem's crib, drew near a wondrous man
Close shorn and shaven, Don Hieronymo,
On foot a monk, a warrior when on horse ;
Hating the Moors, he came to waste and slay them.
My Cid received that priest full honorably,
And gave him armor and a horse. Withal
Bishop he made him of Valencia's city,
With instant charge that every mosque should change
Thenceforth to Christian church.

, The Cid next day

Sent to San Pedro's Convent golden store
And mystic . gems ; for well he loved that haurtpFv
Within whose balmy bosom dwelt once more
His wife and infants twain not infants now
But virgins in the lap of womanhood. ''

He sent command to speed them to Valencia :
His missive read, they knelt and. raised their hands
Much weeping for great joy. The abbot old
Wept also, not for gladness but for grief,
Since much he loved them. Brief was his reply :
'I send them, Cid: our convent year by year
Will pray for thine and thee.'

A week went by ;

236 LEGENDS OF THE CID. [Nov.,

And now Ximena with her daughters twain
Nighed to Valencia, and my Cid rode forth
To meet her, helmed and mailed. Hieronymo,
Who, clad in mystic raiment white and black,
Followed Perfection, sent his clergy forth :
That great procession met them, golden-robed,
Three crosses at their head. Behind them trooped
The knights, a glittering company. The Cid
Rode at its head. The mother and those maids
Leaped down and rushed to him with arms extended.
Silent he clasped them each. At last he spake,
Laughing like one who jests that he may weep not :
' Enter Valencia ! ' Tis your heritage !
I hold it but in fief.' Entrance they made
Through streets with countless windows tapestry-hung
And arches vine-entwined. Wondering, they marked
Its gilded minarets, and high palace fronts
Mosaic-wrought. At last they reached that tower,
The same which heard so late the prophet's dirge.
They clomb its marble steps. To the West they saw
The city's myriad gardens fountain-lit ;
Eastward the sea. They knelt and sang ' Te Deum ; '
And from the vast and marveling mass beneath
The great ' Amen ' ascended.

Sirs, a tale

For children made might here find happy end ;
But life, a teacher rough, when all looks well
Genders its tempest worst. Winter went by
With feast and tournay rich. Spring-tide returned :
A sudden flame of flowers o'er-ran the earth ;
To see that sight, they clomb again that tower :
What met their eyes ? A spectacle unlocked for !
The horizon line was white with countless sails.
The Cid but smiled : ' I told you not of this,
Seasoning scarce welcome for your winter banquets,
But knew it well. In far Morocco sits
The Emperor of the Afric. Moors. Yon fleet
Wafts here his son, with thirty kings all vowed
Their steeds to water in our Holy Wells,
Then stable them in every Christian Church :
What sayst thou, lady mine ? ' Ximena next :
' How many come they ? ' And the Cid replied,
' Full fifty thousand; and five thousand ours!'

1892.] LEGENDS OF THE CID. 237

Death-pale his daughters grew, and silent stood :
Ximena made reply, her large black eyes
Dilating at each word, ' What God inflicts
Man can endure.' That moment strange eclipse
Darkened the sun ; and from that fleet storm-hid
The Arab tambours rolled their thunders forth :
The Cid but stroked his beard, and smiling said :
'* Daughters, take heart ! The larger yonder host
The shamefuller their defeat ; our spoil the greater !
I promised you long since good mates in time :
This day I promise you fair marriage portions ! '
He turned ; not once again he sought that tower :
Not once he sallied from Valencia's wall
Till the last Moor had landed.

Sirs, to the end !

There where we fought we triumphed ; but at last
Our springs of water failed us : then it was
Our Cid put forth his greatness. Earliest dawn
Was glimmering sadly under clouds low-hung
When, in San Jose's, Don Hieronymo
Sang Mass. He gave the absolution thus:
* This day whoever, Christ's true penitent,
His heart with God, his face to God's chief foe,
Dies for his country, that man's sins shall fly
Backward in cloud ; his Soul ascend to heaven ! '
The Rite complete, that Perfect One exclaimed :
'A boon, my Cid! Your vanguard's foremost place!
God's priest should strike the earliest blow for God.'
The Cid made answer : ' Be it in His name ! '
Then Alvar Fanez thus : ' Concede me, Cid,
Three hundred knights that we may bide our time
Within that bosky dell of Albuhera :
The battle at its fiercest, we will on them ! '
The Cid replied : ' In God's name be it so ! '
Ere day with knights five thousand forth he rode,
And, curving round through by-ways in the woods
Dashed on the Moorish rear. New risen and 'mazed,
They deemed some second host was in among them.
That second host was Don Hieronymo
With all his vanguard. ' Smite them,' still he cried,
' For love of charity ! ' The battle flame
Upsoared and onward ran like fire o'er woods :
Great deeds were done that day ; and many a horse

238 LEGENDS OF THE CID. [Nov.,

Without a rider spurned the blood-red plain

That flashed with broken breast-plates and with helms ;

And now the Moor, the Christian now prevailed,

And all the battle reeled, as when two storms

Through side-way valleys met in one black gorge

Wrestle and writhe commixed. That day the Cid

Seemed omnipresent, so the Moors averred ;

They swore that on his crest a fire there sat

And shone in all the circlings of his sword ;

His stature more than man's. Not less in mass

Their dusk battalions hour by hour advanced :

Numbers at last prevailed ; and here and there

The Christian host fell back. At once my Cid

Cried to his standard-bearer, ' Scale yon rock,

And wave around thy head my standard thrice ! r

Forward the standard-bearer rushed. That hour

The monks in far San Pedro's Church entoned

Their customed matin song and promised prayer

For him, the man they loved. The standard-bearer

Waved thrice his standard from that craggy height,

And, as he waved it, shouted thrice ' My Cid '

With sound as when the Fontarabian cliffs

Re-echoed Roland's horn. Swifter than moon

Fleeting 'mid stormy hill-peaks forest-girt,

That host by Alvar Fanez hid forth dashed

And flung themselves upon the Moorish flank,

Three hundred spears. The Moors were panic-stricken ;

Ere long, nigh blinded by the westering sun,

They broke, and headlong toward the harbor fled :

Then jesting cried my Cid, ' The day declines ;

The sun must not go down upon our wrath.

For that cause, Christians, smite, and smite your best !

Your battle-axe be on them till yon orb

Shows but one star-like point !' That point evanished

The fugitives reached the sea. Three times that hour

My Cid closed up upon the flying king,

Yucef, and three times smote his shoulders lithe ;

Half dead he reached his ship; but as he leaped

My Cid flung after him the sword Colada ;

It left its mark upon him till his death,

Then sank in sea ; next day a diver raised it.

Twelve thousand perished there in ship or wave.

That evening through Valencia's stateliest street,

1892.] LEGENDS OF THE CID. 239*

That Perfect One, Hieronymo, beside him,
Bare-headed rode the Cid. Like creatures winged
Ximena and his daughters rushed to meet him,
And kissed his hands, and kissed Bavieca's neck ;
Great feast was in the palace held that night,
And in the churches great were the thanksgivings,
And great the alms bestowed upon the poor,
Christian and Moor alike.
Ere long within Valencia was fulfilled
That vow the Cid had vowed : ' Though exiled now,
This hand will give .these babes to worthy mates,'
For thither, drawn by rumors of their charms,
Great princes flocked. In after times these maids
Were queens : The elder throned in Aragon,
The second in Navarre."

Don Jos ceased.

Then shouted loud Don Ivor of Morena
With hands high holden and with eyes upraised,
" O Cid, my Cid, how glorious were thy days !
How many a minstrel sang thee in far lands !
What greetings came from kings ! The French king thus r
' Hail, Cid, no king, yet prop of all our kings !
In vain Charles Martel with his Paladins
Had trod the Crescent down on Poitiers' plain
Thy later aid withheld ! "

Then rose once more

That youngest knight, and slender as a maid,
Who on the earliest of those knightly vigils
Had said, " Our earthly life is but betrothal."
Again he spake : " The Cid's most happy day
Was one that neither brought him gift nor triumph :
The day when came to him that silent man
Whom from the first his heart had loved and honored,
The Alcalde Alfaraxi he of whom
Hieronymo had said, 'Watch well yon man,
For when he speaks he'll teach us lore worth knowing.'
That day he sought the Cid and thus addressed :
' Sir, I give thanks to God who sent you here.
Here dwelt my forefathers: I loved this spot;
The Christians took me captive yet a child,
And taught me their religion : but my kin
Ransomed me later ; with their seers I bode
And won from them all learning of the Moors ;

240 LEGENDS OF THE CID. [Nov.,

Yea, zealous for their Prophet's law was I.

Now, sir, a man of silence, musing long,

And measuring Christian Faith with Moslem Law,

Albeit on many loosely hangs that Faith,

Else I had been a Christian many a year,

My sentence is with Christ and not Mahomet ;

I will to be baptized.' Then laughed for joy

My Cid : he kissed that Moor, and caught his hand

And led him straight to where Ximena sat

Crying, ' Rejoice ! The Alcalde is our brother ! '

Gladly Ximena heard, and rose, and, like her husband,

That Christian kissed, and largess sent to shrines,

And decked the palace gates because God's Church

Is Gate, as all men know, 'twixt earth and heaven ;

And on the morn of Holy Saturday

The font new-blessed, when leaped therein once more

* God's creature, water, holy and innocent,'

His god-mother was she. From that day forth

Gill Dias was his name. That eve my Cid

Whispered a priest, * I often mused why God

Had sent me hither, not some worthier knight :

Perchance 'twas but to serve one silent soul ! '

In three months more Gill Dias was a saint.

He taught the Cid to rule the Moors with kindness

Judged by their proper law. They loved that Cid

For gracious ways in peace, though fierce in war,

And ofttimes when he passed the gates cried loud,

' Great Cid, our prayers attend thee ! ' '

The young knight ceased. Then glittering from afar,
Again before the altar shone the lights :
Again Ximena 'mid their radiance knelt ;
Again arose that saintly " Miserere ";
Again those warriors joined the Rite august.

AUBREY DE VERB.

1892.] REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS. 241

REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, FIRST
BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG.

VI.

1872-1891.
I

: EAR the close of the year 1871 it had become
evident that a division of the diocese of Albany
was called for. The Right Rev. John J. Conroy
assembled the councillors of the diocese, and rep-
resented to them that such was the fact. He
asked them to advise with him as to the character and qualities
of the man who should be recommended to the Holy See for
the new diocese, and also as to what place should be selected'
as the proper seat or see for the residence of the new bishop..
The diocese itself was to consist of the Adirondack region, in-
eluding the plains which border this region on the north and
west. Only two towns sufficiently populous for this purpose
could be considered as sufficiently central. The one was Platts-
burgh, on Lake Champlain, and the other Ogdensburg, in the
northwest at the point where the Oswegatchie River connects-
with the Saint Lawrence. The sentiments of the council were
very nearly equally divided as to the location of the see.

A bishop's council had no claim at that time to make a nom-
ination, nor was any name suggested. The principal point on-
which the opinion of the council was desired was the following,,
namely : What should be the nationality of the man to be re-
commended ? This was a point of no little importance, for the
English language was by no means universal in Northern New
York, especially among Catholics. Many Canadians had settled
there, and their number was constantly increasing. The opinion
nearly, if not quite unanimous, was that the new bishop should,
understand French, but that his native and most familiar tongue
should be English.

Ogdensburg was designated by the authorities at Rome as
the seat of the new see, and the name of the new bishop was.
communicated to Father Wadhams by Archbishop McCloskey
in the following note :

" NEW YORK, February 25, 1872.
" RIGHT REV. DEAR SIR : I am instructed by the Cardinal

.242 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Nov.,

Prefect of the Propaganda to make known to you the fact that
you have been appointed by the Holy Father to the new see of
Ogdensburg. The apostolic letters and other documents were
in course of preparation, and will be expedited with as little
delay as possible. My secretary, Dr. McNeirny, who will pre-
sent you this, has been appointed coadjutor bishop of Dr. Con-
roy. Permit me to present you my most sincere congratulations
as well as my best wishes and regards. Commending myself to
your prayers,

" I remain, monsignor,

" Very truly your friend and brother in Christ,

" JOHN, Abp. of New York''

The bulls arrived in due course of time, and the bishop-elect
prepared for his consecration.

The Rev. Edgar P. Wadhams was consecrated bishop by
Archbishop McCloskey (the assistant consecrators being Bishops
De Goesbriand, of Burlington, and Williams, of Boston) on the
fifth day of May, 1872, at the Albany Cathedral, amidst a throng
-of spectators. Many of these were old friends bishops, priests,
and laymen who had come from a distance to witness this cere-
mony. The great multitude, however, were citizens of Albany,
who knew and loved him well.

Amongst these was an old friend and comrade who had been
selected by the bishop-elect to preach at his consecration. He
struck a key-note on that occasion when, before concluding his
sermon, he said :

" A friend is about to say FAREWELL. Thirty years ago,
when my eyes were brighter and my footsteps lighter, I entered
the halls of a well-known seminary in the city of New York.
Coming there as a perfect stranger, I found myself in a new world
and surrounded by strange faces. With one face, however, I soon
became familiar ; and ever since, through a checkered and event-
ful life, at almost every winding of my pathway that same kind
face has met me, cheered me, and helped to lighten up the
road before me. From that day until this morning, when you
have seen him kneeling to receive the consecrating oils, thirty
changeful winters have passed over his head, but in him I see
no shadow of change. It must be that great development has
taken place in many respects ; it must be that secret graces have
been accumulating ; but I see no change in character. Such as
he was, so is he now ; so, doubtless, will he always be. ...

" I have been familiar with Edgar Wadhams in youth and in
riper manhood. I have seen him in the pursuits of his vocation,
busy in the affairs of life, and mingling among men. I have
seen him at home among his native Adirondacks, surrounded by
the same faces that beamed upon his childhood. And here as
well as there, and everywhere, the testimony of all that ever

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 243

knew him is the same, ' Faithful and True' I have seen him
in every occupation and mood of mind in labor, in study, in
prayer, in the hour of light-hearted gaiety, in sorrow and in joy,
groping in the midst of doubt and perplexity, or walking free
again in the light of a clear path. These are the natural vicis-
situdes of life. They come and go ; they are themselves subject
to change, but they bring no change to a steadfast soul like his.
They pass over and leave it, as the clouds float over the face
of the constant moon, and leave her as before, still travelling on
her heavenly track ' Faithful and True' So has he always been
in all the relations of life as son, brother, friend, Christian, pas-
tor ; at his own fireside, at the sick-bed, at the altar ; and who
doubts that in the episcopate, to which God has now called
him, he will not be found the same ( Faithful and True ' to
the end. . . .

"Go forth, then, man of God, where God and duty call thee !
Be thou the Apostle of the American Highlands, and of that
broad and noble plain whose borders are a majestic lake, a
mighty river, an inland ocean, and the primeval mountains. Go
plant the cross of Christ among thy native hills ; unfurl the
Catholic banner on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and on the
shores of Ontario and Lake Champlain ; and there where early
missionaries, sighing out their holy lives and writing their names
in blood, could only save a few scattered souls, do thou in
happier times found churches, and convents, and schools? Go,
and God's richest blessings go with thee ! But be sure of this :
wherever then goest and whatever new friends may gather around
thee, in the broad field of thy new mission thou wilt find none
to love thee better, none truer, than those thou leavest now in
tears and sadness behind thee !"

Some of Bishop Wadhams' familiar friends in Albany were
anxious to retain a photograph of him before he left for his
new scene of labor ; and wished that this picture should repre-
sent him in his character of bishop. He very readily consented,
and I was delegated to go with him to the photographer. Pre-
vious photographs had proved to be more realistic than artistic,
presenting him in a dress somewhat awry ; wearing, for example,
a biretta with a vicious inclination towards one or the other
eye. His friends wished me, therefore, to accompany him and
keep him in good artistic shape. This was really a necessary
precaution. He was very fond of solemnities and religious cere-
monies of the highest order. He loved to see rich vestments.
All this, however, was for the honor of God and to make divine
worship impressive. Outside of the church and moving in the
world he concerned himself very little about his personal appear-
ance. .He possessed a native dignity peculiarly his own; but he
was not at all aware of it and let it take care of itself. When

244 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Nov. r

arrived at the photographer's gallery he allowed me to place
him and pose him at discretion. His humility and simplicity of
heart were proof against all temptations, and whatever his other
friends may have thought of the result, he himself was, as usual r
perfectly satisfied with the photograph. It would have been
hard, indeed, for us all if we could have retained nothing of him
in Albany except what a photographer's art can supply, but the city
is still full of more truthful reminiscences which cannot easily
be obliterated.

We must now follow the new bishop to his see. " It was
my pleasure," said Bishop McQuaid in his funeral sermon on
Bishop Wadhams, "and my honor to come with him to this
infant church of Ogdensburg, just born into the rank of an
episcopal city. I remember well that day the joy of priests
and people, and the welcome every one gave him."

The first care of a bishop in taking possession of a newly
established see is to arrange a domicile for himself and a cathe-
dral church. But here Bishop Wadhams encountered at once
an embarrassment which only a gentleness of heart and a Chris-
tian charity like his would have disposed of as he did.

At the time of his appointment to the See of Ogdensburg
the charge of the church and the congregation there was in the
hands of an old and excellent priest, who had devoted himself
to it and had done the best he could to bring it to a flourish-
ing condition. The old priest occupied, of course, the parish
house adjoining, and it never occurred to his mind that it would
be necessary to hand over either church or rectory to the new
bishop, or to take any subordinate place under him; The good
father announced the bishop's arrival to his people as follows
(of course I can only give the substance of his words) : " You
all know, my dear brethren," he said, "that for many long years
I have desired and asked for and prayed for a coadjutor. God
knows I needed help, but could not get it. At last a, coadjutor
has arrived and now things will go on better." The new bishop
scrupled to dislodge the good old man, and preferred for the
moment to take another house for himself, although no other
could be found convenient to the church. He said Mass on
week-days at a private oratory in the new house, officiating at
the church only on Sundays and holydays. He satisfied himself
for the time with the supervision of the general affairs of the
diocese, trusting that local matters at Ogdensburg would soon
arrange themselves little by little and naturally. They did not,
however, so arrange themselves. The former incumbent showed

i8c

v.,

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 245

no inclination to yield up any part of his responsibilities or
allow the bishop to do anything but " coadjute." Things went on
in this way for a long while, causing the bishop great uneasiness
and inconvenience. On his visiting me one day at St. Mary's,
Albany, I expressed my wonder that he should allow things to
go on in this way, when it would be so easy for him to set
them right and at once. "Yes," he replied, "so it would be,
and if he were a different sort of man I would not hesitate for
a moment ; but just look at the thing as it is. He is a good
man, he is a faithful priest ; the building up of that congrega-
tion has been the work of his life ; it would break the poor old
man's heart to dislodge him ; and even if he were to stay there
and work in the parish under me, it would be a constant and
bitter grief to him to see me make the changes which I should
think necessary in the church and in the house, and to be
obliged to help me in making those changes. Walworth, I
can't do it with a good conscience. I cannot trample out that
good man's life. I must let things go on as they are until God
opens for me a good opportunity to interfere." And he kept
steadfastly to this resolution.

" I remember well," said Bishop McQuaid in the funeral
sermon already quoted, " I remember well the poverty in which
he found his diocese, and the poverty of the city of Ogdens-
burg. I remember then and other occasions when he unbur-
dened his soul to me and told me of his difficulties, and spoke
of his diocese and his people, and their poverty. He spoke of
their being scattered over this vast territory, and I listened with
feeling and attention to him. With the kindness of a child, he
said how he would lead the way, how he was going to change
the character of his city and church; and when I looked at the
old church, I wondered how the ingenuity of man could turn it
into anything that would make it presentable as a cathedral.
I listened to him as he spoke of those woods and the
people who were scattered through them, whom he said should
belong to God's church, and with the utmost joy- told me that
they were opening up the North Woods ; they were opening rail-
roads into them, etc. Civilization was making rapid strides into
the wilderness. . . ."

The separate house he selected for his own residence at the
time of his arrival, the only one he could find, was located at a
distance from the church. It was a corner house, sufficiently
ample, but he could only obtain possession of a part of it. He
was soon obliged to remove to a plain frame house near by.
Later on he found means to return to his first location, pur-
chasing the whole lot and enlarging the building. Here he re-
VOL. LVI. 17

246 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Nov.,

mained until his death. This residence is a fine, well-built and
solid edifice, but its furniture was very plain and simple, and
cost the bishop very little. The two-ply ingrain carpet which he
-put down on his first -arrival was still there when he died nine-
teen years later. To his own mind, however, everything was
perfectly elegant. Although actually poor, he always seemed
to feel himself quite rich, and no one could be more hospitable.
The priests who came to him from different parts of his dio-
cese always found a plate at his table, and a room to lodge in.
Although to a man who objected to all luxury, and required
so little for his own comfort, the sense of personal poverty was
something unknown, yet he had a clear perception of the pov-
erty of his diocese, and was often made to feel it keenly. Once
after his appointment and before his consecration, while walk-
ing with Professor Carmody on the Kenwood road, he opened
his mind to his friend after this manner :

" I know, Carmody, the task I have before me. I know that
country well. The population is poor and scattered. It is a
land of small settlements and long distances. The people can-
not be reached by railways or stage-coaches. Even good wagon-
roads are few. But I'll tell you what I mean to do. I shall
get a good pony that will carry me anywhere ; and you take
my word for it, it will not be long before I visit every family ;
and every man and woman, bare-footed boy and yellow-headed
girl in my diocese will know me. Yes, sir-ee ! "

I have heard it said, and it may be true, that Bishop Wad-
hams was not originally designated tor Ogdensburg, but for an-
other diocese ; and that the appointment which he actually re-
ceived was owing to the mistake of a clerk at Rome, who filled
up a blank with his name where another name should have been
entered. However this may be, it is certain that he had some
characteristics which fitted him peculiarly for a bishopric among
the Adirondacks. He was strong, healthy, and inured to physi-
cal fatigue. He was by nature and by training a child of the
woods and mountains, the snows and floods. This made him
well pleased with the location of his new field of labor. A fa-
miliar associate and co-laborer of Wadhams at the Albany Cathe-
dral brings out this thought very happily when preaching at his
" month's mind ":

" At the time of his appointment to Ogdensburg," said Bish-
op Ludden, of Syracuse, " I was present when some person
asked him whether he would accept or not. ' How can you,' they
said to him, ' leave this great centre of life and go away to that

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 247

barren and trackless region ? ' His answer was : ' My dear friends,
that is my native air ; I love those Adirondacks I love those
mountains, those rivers and streams ; I love all there is in that
territory. I love to hear the saw-mills : they are music to .my
ears. Why, I was brought up on saw-logs ! '

And so he was. I myself have seen him walking over a fleet
of logs that lay moored in a mill-dam. But although they dipped
and turned under his feet, he trod among them as fearless and
secure as if he were making his way along a sidewalk. It was
his own impression that he knew every tree in the North Woods
and could tell its name. When in the forest he walked like a
master in his own house, and nature seemed to recognize him
as such.

" He was the heart of all the scene ;

On him the sun looked more serene ;

To hill and cloud his face was known,

It seemed the likeness of their own ;

They knew by secret sympathy,

The public child of earth and sky."

If Wadhams was a true child of nature, nature had not given
to this child a realistic head or 'a realistic heart. No one can
say of him,

"A primrose by the river's brim
A simple primrose was to him,
And nothing more."

Nature talked to him like a mother, and he responded to
her like an eager child. If the Angelus bell is now heard in
so many parts of the North Woods it is due to him. I
have already spoken of him as a musician. I don't remember
that I have mentioned how fond he was of bell-music. To
this predilection of his is due the beautiful chime of bells
in the cathedral tower at Albany. It was at one time a
fond hope of his to introduce a true system of chiming, some-
thing quite different from the prevailing practice of banging out
hymn-tunes on reluctant bells. He purchased rare books on bell-
music, and loved to talk about peals, bobs, triple-bobs, a'nd bob-
majors. To this same fondness for bells is due also the fact
that the region of the North Woods, and the level belt of land
which so nearly surrounds them, has been made vocal thrice in
the day with the sound of the Angelus.

He was on a visit one day to a parish among the mountains
where the prospect was very fine but the grazing very poor.
The worthy incumbent found it very hard to keep the church

248 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Nov.,

in repair, and to keep either church or house warm during the
long and cold winters. He did it indeed, but he had to work
hard for it. The bishop said to him : " My dear father, you
have a bell on your church, but I don't hear the Angelus ring."
" No, bishop," the priest replied, " that's so ; but in truth we are
too poor." " What ! " said the bishop, " too poor to ring the
Angelus?" "Yes; I can't do it myself with any regularity, and
there is no one here who can afford to do it without being
paid. You see I am obliged to be my own sacristan, and when
I am absent my cook takes charge of the church ; but she has
already all the work she wants to do." " Call her here," said
the bishop. The woman soon presented herself. " Margaret,"
said the bishop, " have you got so much to do that you could
not ring the Angelus three times every day?" "I could, my
lord, and will, if you wish it." " You are the right sort of girl
for me ! Do it then, and keep it up, and you shall have two
dollars a month extra."

Some time afterwards this priest came to Ogdensburg on
parochial business, and said to the bishop in course of conver-
sation : " I suppose you remember my cook, Margaret ? She
prays for you every day since your last visit to us." " Good !"
said the bishop, "and does she get the two dollars extra?" "In-
deed she does," was the reply ; " she don't forget that." " And
does she keep the bell going every day?" " Indeed she does;
that's something I don't forget." " Good for both of you ! "
said the bishop, slapping his broad hand on the table. "Now I'm
satisfied." " Yes," said the priest, " but Margaret is not entirely
satisfied. She wants a photograph of yourself, with your auto-
graph on the back of it, and she asked me to tell you that she
don't want one of the little things that get mislaid, but she
wants a large-sized cabinet." " Glory ! Alleluia ! " said the bishop,
starting to his feet and clapping his hands together. " She
shall have one as big as the side of a house, if she wants it I
But let her keep that bell going."

It may easily be imagined, even by those who do not know
the fact statistically, that the diocese of Ogdensburg made pro-
gress during the nineteen years of Bishop Wadhams' episcopate.
New parishes were formed, new churches built, schools were es-
tablished, priests were added to the clergy list, convents were
founded, and the number of Catholic population increased. In
a country like ours all these things take place naturally, no
matter who the bishop may be. Catholics and Catholic institu-
tions augment necessarily with the growth of the country. All

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 249

this increase cannot be set down as a development of organic
life. Much of it is only concretionary. Much of it even remains
a mere drift or detritus. To turn all this swelling tide of life to
good account, to the glory of God and the salvation of men,
requires hard and constant missionary labor, the tribute of faith-
ful and earnest hearts. Bishop Wadhams looked with joy upon
the growth and improvement in his diocese, but he was too truth-
ful and too humble to take all the credit of it to himself, and re-
main unmindful that the largest part of this was the work of his
clergy, and he was always careful to give the principal credit of
it to them and others who labored with them.

In July, 1890, when on a visitation to Port Henry, he was
greeted with a complimentary address by the sodalities of St.
Patrick's parish. In this address much was said of the growth
of the diocese under his administration, which was attributed
simply to his personal zeal and labor. The growth of the diocese
was a thought in which the good bishop took great delight.
The tribute to himself did not please him so well. After
complimenting the address as something very beautiful and very
grateful to his feelings, he said :

"You speak of the diocese. No doubt you know a great
many things about the diocese. There may be some things,
however, that you do not know. I can give you some statistics.
I found the diocese with forty priests, and now there are seventy-
six. I found fifteen, perhaps twenty no more religious women
in the diocese. Now there are considerably over a hundred
teaching, some seven or eight employed in our orphan asylum
and hospital in Ogdensburg as a beginning but all the rest, you
may say, teaching. What you attribute to me, however, must
be passed over to the credit of the priests of the diocese, of each
one of them. It reflects to the credit of the religious orders
the religious men, the sisters. It reflects to the credit of the
laity; of young women like you, the Children of Mary, members
of the Rosary Society and other Sodalists ; married women also,
and married men, all full of devotion, all working together for
the poor, for the church, in union and charity with each other
and in unity with the Vicar of Christ. That's what makes things
grow ! "

That same open, unmasked, guileless character which had
endeared Bishop Wadhams to the people of Albany drew also
all hearts to him in Ogdensburg. A movement was set on foot
there by his fellow-citizens to celebrate the eighteenth anniversary
of his consecration by a public ovation. It was well known that
the humble prelate was as little fond of ovations as he was of
presents, and they would gladly have made it " a surprise party,"
but it was not easy in such a town to take him by surprise. It

250 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Nov.,

was necessary to secure his consent. A committee was therefore
appointed to wait on him and tender him a public dinner. The
bishop was embarrassed. His heart was as genial as it was
humble. And then, again, there is never more danger of giving
offence than when kindness is not met cordially. He got out of
the embarrassment in this way. " I see, I see," he said. " What
you propose is an anniversary dinner. Thank you ; thank you.
That would be glorious. You shall have it. You will come to
my house on the fifth, all of you the more the merrier and we
will have a big dinner. I will provide the entertainment. Leave
that to me." And so it was done, the bishop taking all the ex-
pense on himself. One of the Protestant gentlemen present
caused much merriment by reporting to the bishop the remark
of a beggar whom he had found perched on the steps at the
entrance. " Isn't it a fine thing to be a bishop, sir ! " said he.
The bishop enjoyed this as a capital joke, and it is needless to
say that the beggar lost nothing by it.

This is nearly the old familiar story of the Irishman who
said, as he leaned upon his spade : " Laboring work is not that
bad after all ; but for a nate, dacent, aisy job give me a
bishop ! "

A bishopric in the hands of a man who devotes himself earn-
estly and conscientiously to his high office is never ." an easy
job." It is a life of constant labor, and that a labor attended
by many and constant embarrassments. Bishop Wadhams was
not a man to shrink from labor. He was a hardy man, both in
body and mind, and found happiness in his work. The greatest
trouble which his diocese gave him was not from the tax it
necessarily made upon his physical powers or mental faculties.
It was a pain, and the pain lay at his heart. The pain came
when he saw manifested in the flock committed to him anything
like discordant feeling or bitterness of contention.

Whatever mischiefs may have hitherto existed in our Ameri-
can Church, its past records will show very little of the spirit of
disunion. The clergy have been loyal to their bishops, the con-
gregations have been loyal to their pastors, and the people have
dwelt together in a brotherhood of true Christian love. It is
manifest, however, that latterly with a change in sources of im-
migration, which, instead of flowing in one or two large streams,
is now fed by a great variety of springs from all parts of Europe,
extending even into western Asia, a new condition of things has
been engendered. A jarring of nationalities shows itself, all
claiming the privilege of engrafting into this country, into its
social life, and into the very worship and government of our

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 251

church, their several peculiarities. These alien elements are not
only calculated to disturb and displace what they find here, but
they jostle with each other, and they constitute a great practi-
cal problem to be solved by our church in our day.

The diocese of Ogdensburg has had its own share in these
difficulties, and the heart which most keenly felt the strain has
been the great, loving heart of the late Bishop of Ogdensburg.
Toward the close of his life his increasing infirmities caused him
to apply to the Holy See for a coadjutor. This excited a con-
tention, and the nationality of the proposed coadjutor was the
subject of the contention. The trouble assumed such propor-
tions that the wearied bishop finally decided that the wisest
course was to withdraw the application and endeavor to bear
his burden alone, It is not my purpose to enlarge any further
upon this matter. I have only introduced it as a matter too real
and too important to be entirely suppressed, and because it will
throw light upon the closing scene of the good bishop's life, now
soon to be recorded.

Some twelve years after his elevation to the episcopate Bish-
op Wadhams was attacked by a complication of physical disor-
ders which were not only extremely painful, but interfered with
the prosecution of his duties, and even threatened his life. Feel-
ing that a serious crisis was at hand, he came quietly and un-
announced to Albany, and, taking a room at St. Peter's Hospi-
tal, he placed himself under the care of Dr. Keegan, a visiting
physician of that institution!, in the hope that a period of quiet
rest and skilful treatment might fit him again for active labor.

The sufferings of Bishop Wadhams at this hospital before ob-
taining relief were, according to Dr. Keegan, as dreadful as hu-
man nature can experience. He found him at one time sitting
doubled up on his bed in a perfect agony of pain, covered with
perspiration, shaking from head to foot and sobbing like a child.
"Don't think hard of me, doctor," he said, "to see me cry in
this way. I can't help it. I am only a man. Nothing either
more or less." During all the time of his illness, however, he
never uttered a word of impatience or complaint. Only the body
was shaken. The soul was steadfast. "I recognized at once,"
said the doctor, <l that I had under my hands no common man.
He was a man of heroic mould."

The relief obtained from the skilful treatment received in
Albany at St. Peter's Hospital, although most serviceable and
for the time effectual, did not amount to a permanent cure.
The effectual and permanent cure came on the eighth of De-
cember, 1886, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. At half-

252 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Nov.,

past six o'clock on the morning of that day he celebrated Mass
in his private chapel. This Mass was the concluding exercise of
a novena which he had instituted to obtain a cure from heaven.
The sisters of the Sacred Heart Academy (" Grey Nuns," so
called) had at his request taken part in the novena, and were
present at the Mass. The disease left him suddenly at the con-
secration of the Sacred Host, and never returned again. He
became overpowered and burst into tears, which flowed abun-
dantly during the remainder of his Mass, but at the end he
could not control his feelings and gave full vent to them.
He continued at prayer in the chapel until half-past nine.
Two of the sisters remained with him there. Several times
he said to Sister Stanislaus : " O my child ! if I could only
tell you what the Immaculate Queen has done for. me ! I,
so unworthy!" This he repeated over and over.

The central figure of the sanctuary dome in his cathedral,
representing the coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the
Eternal Father, was painted there by his orders in memory of
the cure thus obtained through her intercession.

We owe these details to Sister Stanislaus, to whom he made
a full revelation of the whole occurrence a few days before his
death. As he said Mass frequently at the Sacred Heart Acade-
my this sister became well acquainted with his method of mak-
ing thanksgiving after Mass, and with his habits of devotion.
His close and familiar conversations with our Lord in the Bless-
ed Eucharist, with the Blessed Virgin, and with St. Joseph
were something remarkable. She tells us that " after his usual
morning Mass he would sit down and actually talk to the
Blessed Virgin, telling her what she should give him, commend-
ing such and such an interest to her care."

In February, 1891, old age and over-taxed energies brought
him down again and near to death's door. A circular letter of
the vicar-general, sent through the diocese and to friends out-
side, announced what was believed to be the approach of death,
and fervent prayers were sent up for him from many altars
which he had helped to build, and where his face was familiar
and beloved. To the surprise of all, however, he rallied so as to
afford strong hope of his restoration once more to active duty.
His physical condition at this time, as well as something of his
warm-heartedness and the Christian tranquillity of his soul in sick-
ness, may be seen in the following letter, dated August 31, 1891 :

"REV. DEAR FRIEND WALWORTH : I cannot tell you how
grateful I feel for your most excellent and affectionate letter,
through the hands of your devoted niece.

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 253

" I was brought to death's door, and received all the Sacra-
ments of Holy Church by sickness that took me to my bed on
February 12 last. Since the first of July I have been strong
enough to fast and receive Holy Communion occasionally. I
went down very slowly, and very lowly, and very far ; up to
the present I have not been able to celebrate Mass, but am in
hopes to be able to do so before many days, once in a while.

"As you well say, my working days are nearly ended as far
as taking the road again. I am able to ride out every day,
read a very little, write none.

" Your allusions to past years and our Catholic lives touch
me most sensibly, but it is a matter of which I cannot write at
present. Who can be more happy than we ?

" With kindest and most affectionate regards and blessings
for yourself and Miss Nellie,

" I am, very sincerely in Christ,

" E. P. WADHAMS, Bishop of Ogdensburg"

The above -letter is in the bishop's own handwriting. It be-
gins with a certain show of firmness and good penmanship, but
grows gradually more straggling, until at the close a failure
of strength is very evident, and the signature is little better
than a scratch.

" See what a letter I have written to you with my own
hand," wrote St. Paul to the Galatians. Other of his inspired
epistles were written in bonds and from Rome. They contain
the same careful reminder that he used his own hand to write.
His room in the Roman prison still remains. It was a very
dark one, unless he was allowed the light of a lamp. He must
have taken his scroll to the little window and written there upon
the sill, on which a flush of daylight fell and still falls. It cost
him something, this work of love. How affectionately he re-
minds his brethren of the prison which held him, and of his
anxiety that they should read his heart in his own handwriting.
Tears fall from my eyes when I gaze on this last letter of my
old friend, and feel that it must have cost him something to
trace the straggling characters with his own hand. I am not in
the habit of preserving private letters, but I could not bring
myself to part with this one.

Although my friend endeavored to write cheerfully, and may
perhaps have entertained the prospect of resuming his active
duties for a little while, yet this was not to be. There came,
indeed, from time to time short periods of returning activity, as
flames are seen to flicker and gleam above the dying embers of
a hearth-fire; but the end soon came. He died December 5, 1891.

The close of his last illness is thus characterized by his

254 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Nov. r

niece, Harriet Wadhams, wife of Dr. Stevens in New York, a
most estimable Episcopalian lady, who was in constant attend-
ance upon him during the last two weeks of his life. Her tes-
timony is as follows : " It was my great privilege during this
time," she says in a letter to the author, " to listen to the
saintly utterances which continually fell from his lips. His end
was most peaceful, as he had so long prayed that it might be."

We will not dwell upon the occurrences of that final day, nor
of other days leading directly up to it, except to recall one
scene remarkably characteristic, in which he signalized his de-
parture from the world in a manner that was deliberate, solemn,,
and impressive.

The following account is gathered from the columns of the
Ogdensburg Courier of December 5, 1891 :

When the symptoms of a speedy end became apparent, the
bishop decided to make a final preparation for death. He was
anointed and received the Holy Viaticum. His thanksgiving
being ended, the bishop declared his desire to make his solemn
ante-mortem declaration of faith. There were present in the
sick-chamber the Very Rev. Thomas E. Walsh, Vicar-general,
and Fathers Larose, Burns, Conroy, and Murphy, priests of the
diocese ; his niece, Mrs. Dr. Stevens, and two members of the
community of Grey Nuns, Sisters Stanislaus and Matthew.

The profession of faith according to the formula of Pius IV.
was read to him in Latin. During the reading the bishop ac-
centuated his acceptance of the church's teachings by frequently
repeating, with evident satisfaction and emphasis, the words as
read by Father Walsh. Now a smile of approval lit up the
pallid face, now an earnest " Credo " fell from the prelate's lips.
When the last words were reached a bright smile overspread
the bishop's face, and he said joyously, " Deo gratias !"

This done, the dying man bethought himself of his responsi-
bilities as a bishop. He announced that he had a last utterance
to make. " You all know of my life," he said ; " educated in the
Protestant Episcopal belief, I left it for the One, Holy, Catho-
lic and Apostolic Roman- Church."

" It won't do to say that one church is as good as another
there is only one true church. There must be unity; there must
be a head, and that is the pope. I want to insist upon unity.
There may be some difference of ideas amongst us we are of
many different births but for God's sake let there be unity
amongst us. To the devoted clergy of the diocese oh ! what
shall I say to them ? they have done so much for me, holding

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 255

up my hands and authority and oh !" (turning to Father Walsh)
" let them hold up your hands respect and hold up your au-
thority ! Struggle for the old faith. Be faithful in giving the
Sacraments. The priests are for the people, not the people for
the priests" The anxious heart of the dying convert then re-
verted to that crowd of souls outside of the faith with which
he had once been united. " If one thing has, during the past
year, contributed more than another to break my health and my
heart, it has been the thought that one thousand seven hundred
more souls annually come into the world in this diocese than
receive the sacrament of baptism. There are seven sacraments,
not two only and the saddest of it all is that even these two, once
accepted, are being rejected by those who formerly accepted them."
After a few more affectionate words and expressions of thanks
to the clergy and religious of the diocese, and also to all the
laity, he repeated once more those golden words which had
been the great rule of his own' life in the ministry: " THE
PRIESTS ARE FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT THE PEOPLE FOR THE
PRIESTS."

" I want all my priests and people to know," he concluded,
" how the first Bishop of Ogdensburg died." Then after a still
more emphatic and closely defined declaration of his adherence
to the entire faith of the church, and begging prayers to be
said for him by all his people, he requested the priests present
to approach, and giving his blessing, he embraced each one in
turn. All were moved to tears, and retired with sad hearts from
the painful and impressive scene.

These imperfect Reminiscences of the life of Bishop Wadhams
are now concluded. We trust that his wish so earnestly ex-
pressed may be fulfilled, and that the Catholic people of the Adi-
rondacks will remember how the first Bishop of Ogdensburg died.
God grant, also, that all the Catholic clergy of this whole nation
will treasure up the golden rule which he has bequeathed to us,
that " The priests are for the people, not the people for the
priests."

C. A. WALWORTH.

St. Mary's, Albany.

N. B. The next number of this magazine will contain an APPENDIX to the above Remi-
niscences. Certain important materials came too late to find their proper place. These re-
gard the family of Bishop Wadhams, his earlier life, and especially his college course at
Middlebury, where he became an Episcopalian. A fuller account, also, will be given of his
career as a student at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and of his friends and associates there.
This appendix will thus supply some manifest deficiencies, and make the Reminiscences more
complete. C. A. W.

256 THE " CIVILTA CA TTOLICA " ON A RECENT WORK [Nov.,

THE "CIVILTA CATTOLICA " ON A RECENT WORK
BY DR. MULLER-SIMONIS AND DR. HYVERNAT.*

AST year a magnificent volume in French, con-
taining a record of travels in the East, together
with historical and geographical notices, was pub-
lished in Paris. A part of the small edition of
five hundred copies has been placed on sale in
the United States. Hitherto this scholarly work has not re-
ceived the notice and gained the appreciation which it deserves.
The chief reason of this is doubtless the fact, that this costly
and splendid volume was published entirely at the expense of
the authors, so that no publishers have had any interest in mak-
ing it known.

The Civilta Cattolica for August 20, 1892, is the first periodi-
cal, so far as we know, to give an adequate review of the book,
an example which we hope and believe will be followed by all
Catholic magazines of the first class. The notice in the Civilta,
evidently written by an expert, is so very laudatory, and coming
from such a source carries with it so much weight, that we
cannot do anything better fitted to awaken attention to a work
of extraordinary merit than to reproduce in English the article
referred to. In doing this, we presume the permission of the
editors, which we have not time to ask for formally.

" Books of travel are always read with pleasure and profit.
The reason is, that the adventures, the dangers, the anxieties, like-
wise the enjoyments and surprises, the encounters, and everything
which is met with of a novel and unexpected interest in nature, in
the customs and usages of divers peoples, are not a creation of
the fancy of a romance-writer, but relations of historical facts
and descriptions of objects really seen and understood with the
eyes and the mind of the traveller. Hence, the reader has a
double advantage the utility of history, and the delight of ro-
mance and poetry.

" Not all travels, however, are equally enjoyable ; nor are all
those who describe them equally endowed with knowledge and
other literary qualifications. Only those possess them, and excel

* Du Caucase au Golfe Persigue a Travers P Armtnie le Kurdistan et la Mesopotamie.
Par P. Muller-Simonis. Suivie de notices sur la gtographie et fhistoire Ancienne de rArtni-
nie et les inscriptions cuneiformes du Basin de Van. Par H. Hyvernat. Washington, D. C.:
Universite Catholique de 1'Amerique, 1892. New York : Benziger ; Baltimore : Murphy.

1892.] BY DR. MULLER-SlMONIS AND DR. HYVERNAT.

in this kind of writing, who know how to unite and combine in
due proportion the useful with the agreeable, so as not to im-
part information merely, without giving pleasure, or to furnish
only pleasant but not instructive reading. We are glad to be
able to say that the narrative of travels contained in the splen-
did volume under present notice answers fully the twofold pur-
pose of which we have spoken. In the first part, where the
Tourney from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, across Armenia,
-Kurdistan, and Mesopotamia, is narrated, we find in Dr. Miiller-
Simonis a type of the perfect traveller, and the ideal of a per-
fect describer of travels. Dr. Hyvernat, the author of the sec-
ond part, containing Notices concerning the geography and ancient
history of Armenia, and the cuneiform inscriptions of the Basin
of Van, is a learned Orientalist already well known by his incom-
parable work on Coptic Palaeography, and as a learned professor
of the Assyrian language and history. With these two agree-
able, experienced, and learned guides, the pleasure which the
reader feels in accompanying them on their long, variegated, and
interesting journey is so great, and of such an elevated nature,
that when he has once taken the volume in hand he is loath to
quit its perusal and lay it down. Besides the charm of the nar-
rative, always lively, rapid, and sparkling with humor, there is
an added enjoyment for the reader in the numerous phototypes
and engravings representing all kinds of scenes and objects of
interest. There are also two geographical charts, one of them
very large, in four colors, and both worthy of praise on account
of their singular exactness, which indeed was demanded by the
nature and importance of a scientific journey like that which was
undertaken by our travellers. For, Dr. Hyvernat was sent on a
scientific mission by the French government, and Dr. Miiller by
that of Alsace-Lorraine.

" It is obvious that a scientific journey exacts from those who
undertake it a long and careful preparation, by the reading of
previous accounts of travellers in the countries they intend to
visit, the study of the history, the literature, and everything else
relating to these countries, in their geological, physical, orographic,
and hydrographic features, not omitting what regards their
natural products and their commerce. Wherefore, our travellers,
proposing to verify and rectify the observations and descriptions
of others, especially in geography and the measurement of dis-
tances, found that a year was well employed in the aforesaid
preparation ; and the necessity and great utility of the studies
preceding their long and arduous journey are made manifest by
the new information, and by several rectifications contained in

THE " CIVILTA CATTOLICA" ON A RECENT WORK [Nov.,

the volume under notice. These protracted studies would be of
little avail, however, in the lack of that prompt intelligence and
energetic resolution which are necessary for confronting and over-
coming the serious and unforeseen difficulties which hinder the
successful accomplishment of a design like that which our travel-
lers undertook. Fortunately, they had already acquired experience
in previous journeys through distant regions, and possessed a daunt-
less courage which impressed even brigands with respect and fear.

" All the fine natural qualities which fitted our two travellers
so well for their arduous and important enterprise were ennobled
by an ardent love of science and religion, which discloses itself
in all their words and actions. The reader cannot avoid an im-
pression of respect and affection for these two brave men, so
full of faith and science, and animated with a noble, apostolic
spirit, and he will be grateful to them for having instructed, de-
lighted, and made him better.

" The common scope of the two travellers was the exploration
of ancient monuments ; the special object of Dr. Hyvernat was
to reproduce exactly the cuneiform inscriptions ; and both had
in view the study of the topographical and economical conditions
of the countries which they visited. The task was great and
laborious, leading them through vast regions of lofty mountains
and desolate plains ; where in some places there was no water,
and in others pools evaporating miasma ; here snow, ice and
intense cold, there insupportable heat and sultriness. The paths
would be to-day narrow and along frightful precipices ; to-mor-
row, wide and either muddy or dusty ; while the vehicles of
conveyance were so clumsy and uneasy that your life would be
shaken out of you and your limbs bruised. To the inconveni-
ences of the road must be added the annoyances, scruples, ex-
actions, threats, interferences, tricks, and faithlessness of guides,
postilions, hosts, civil and military governors, officials and their
compeers in what is the principal occupation of the whole crowd,
viz., the extortion of the utmost possible gain from miserable
foreign travellers. Moreover, the distrustful and suspicious poli-
cy and diplomacy of the Russians, their despotic methods and
infinite bureaucratic exactions, gave them constant reason to
practice patience in all the regions, and there were many, over
which was extended the dominion or the influence of the czar. In
view of all these circumstances, we can estimate the difference be-
tween the condition of men who make scientific journeys, and those
who read about them at their leisure, reclining in an easy-chair.

" The countries and cities visited were Transcaucasia, Kut-
hais, Tiflis, from the Caucasus to Wladikavkaz ; the Lake of

.1892.] BY DR. MULLER-SlMONIS AND DR. HYVERATAT. 259

Sevanga, one of the three in the high Armenian plain, Erivan.
In Persia, Djulfa, Khoi, Khosrava, Urmiah, with its sea or
lake, the other valley of Gran Zab, Bachekaleh, the Basin of
Van, where the travellers were arrested as spies by the Turks,
and after six weeks of all sorts of vexations and annoyances
regained their liberty through the intervention of the Russian
consul. But this long time of involuntary rest proved to be
exceedingly profitable as furnishing an occasion for the accurate
study of everything relating to Van, its lake and city, its gardens,
the manners of the people, the neighboring places and the cli-
mate. After this followed the journey in Kurdistan, where
they visited Bitlis, which is its principal city, and by Saird en-
tered the valley of the Tigris, along whose banks they ad-
vanced, amid great inconveniences and continual rains, as far
as the island where Djezireh rises. Finally, after four days of
navigation, they arrived at Mossul. In Mesopotamia, they vis-
ited Khorsabad, Nimrud, Kalaat-Scerkat, Baghdad, the ruins of
Babylon, and Bassorah, where they embarked for India. The
description of travel in this volume terminates, however, at the
Persian Gulf.

" The part which follows after the narrative of the journey, and
is historico-archaeological, is of high importance. In this part
the learned Professor Hyvernat furnishes a brief and accurate sum-
mary of the ancient history of Armenia, such as can be gathered
from the cuneiform inscriptions, and a catalogue of those found
at Van, containing rectifications of those which were badly copied
by his predecessors, and new ones discovered by himself. Al-
though the generality of readers may not find great satisfaction
in these notices collected by Dr. Hyvernat, scholars, especially
Assyriologists, will certainly owe him their warmest thanks.

" The Appendices also deserve praise for the matter contained
in them and the method of their arrangement ; and most of all
the Alphabetical Index, which adds much to the value of a work
in all respects worthy of encomium.

" This is only a brief sketch and outline of the fine and varied
pictures, the gracious idyllic scenes, and the descriptions of mag-
nificent, sublime spectacles in nature, which the reader must look
for in the book itself."

Thus far the Civilta, whose language is very eulogistic, but
will not be thought excessive by any one who will examine the
work reviewed.

The Rev. Drs. Hyvernat and Miiller are still young men, and
we may look for other services to science and literature from
their future efforts. Dr. Hyvernat was a professor at the Ro-

260

THE DEAD LAUREATE LIVETH.

[Nov.,

man Propaganda, and Dr. Miiller a recent graduate of the Semi-
nary, when they undertook their Asiatic journey. It was very
rapidly accomplished, considering the distances travelled and the
amount of work done. Leaving Constantinople August 18, 1888,
they arrived again in Europe May I, 1889. In November of
that year Dr. Hyvernat, instead of riding with a caravan, rifle
on shoulder and revolver in hand, was sitting quietly in his lec-
ture-room at the Catholic University teaching his classes in He-
brew and the Oriental languages. It is to be hoped that he
will find here a group of students equally capable of profiting
by his learning with those choice pupils whom he left in Rome.
And, no doubt, the splendid work of Drs. Miiller and Hyvernat,
as soon as it becomes known, will find a place in every public
library of importance, as well as in some private libraries of
highly-educated persons who are able to appreciate its worth.

DEAD LAUREATE
LIVETH.

WE cannot speak of thee as of the dead,

Nor bid the tear of idle sorrow flow ;
The blight of the old curse weak mortals know
Touches no hair of thy gray poet head !
The inmost soul of thee has outward sped
And hovers sun-kissed where the lilies grow,
Or laughs in music where the waters flow:
Thy spirit is to deathless nature's wed.
Yet this is, not the measure of the height,
Nor the full breadth of thy vast bridge of thought
That all the ocean of our epoch spans :
Whether in lowly shades or kingly light,
Through the art palaces thy muses wrought,
Thy heart was brother to thy fellow-man's !

JOHN JEROME ROONEY.

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 261

THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW.

HE Trade Union Congress, which may be regard-
ed as Great Britain's Parliament of Labor, has
been holding its annual meeting at Glasgow.
This is the twenty-fifth of the series ; and clear
proof of the advance of the workman's cause in
influence and popularity may be found in the fact that while
twenty-five years ago trade-unions were illegal conspiracies for
whose property and funds the law afforded no protection, to the
congress held this year the corporation of the city of Glasgow
gave an official welcome and held a conversazione in its honor.
Peers, members of Parliament and even of the cabinet, and
other eminent men, listened to the debates, and all the papers
devoted many columns to reports of their proceedings. The
present congress was the largest ever held, and was also distin-
guished by the fact that it dealt with all the business on its
agenda paper. This success, however, was achieved at the ex-
pense of some little suppression of discussion, towards the end
of the congress even the shortest speech being received with im-
patience, and no toleration being given to any amendment.

This applies, however, only to matters of minor importance.
To the chief question before the congress the obtaining of a
legal eight hours' day for all trades full consideration was
given. With reference to this there appear to be three par-
ties. A number of working-men, chiefly consisting of the
Durham and Northumbrian miners and the Newcastle engineers,
oppose all interference by law with the hours of labor, and
wish to leave the matter to private arrangement between the
employers and the employed. These are now called Anti-legalists,
and proved to be a very small body. Those who are in favor
of legislation are divided into two parties. One of these, of
which the recently converted textile operatives form the bulk,
wish to have a law passed fixing the day at eight hours for
every trade which by the majority of its organized workers adopts
this limit. This would throw the burden of winning over the
trade to an eight hours' limit upon those who desire its adoption
The advocates of this are called Trade Optionists. The other
party wishes the law to be of such a character as to make
eight hours obligatory upon all trades, rendering it possible,
VOL. L.VI. 1 8

262 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. . [Nov.,

however, for the organized members of any trade or occupation
to secure exemption from the requirements of the law. Exemp-
tionists, accordingly, is the appropriate name of this party, and they
were strong enough to carry the congress with them by a majority
of fifty. They passed a resolution instructing the Parliamentary
Committee to prepare and to promote a bill of this character.
As at the congress held at Newcastle last year the majority for
the same resolutions was twice as great, and as even the warm-
est friends of the workman outside of his own class are not
prepared to go so far, it is very doubtful whether there will be
any practical outcome. For the Legal Eight Hours' day for
miners only, there was almost complete unanimity, there being
only ten dissentients to the resolution in its favor.

Among the subjects discussed by the president of the con-
gress was one to which we have more than once called the at-
tention of our readers. It is all very well to blame the em-
ployer of labor for paying the smallest possible wages and mak-
ing his employees work the longest possible hours. " Such em-
ployers undoubtedly deserve condemnation, and are sure to meet
with fitting retribution, if not in this world, at least in the next.
But the real "sweater" is the public which is anxious to buy at
a price below the lowest just price. Listen to the president's
words on this point : " Much is said as regards sweating. Do
we individually when purchasing an article make any endeavor
to find out the conditions under which the article is produced?
As a matter of fact we have bargain-hunters with us ; yet a
very little consideration or reflection would invariably lead them
to the conclusion that such bargain-hunting meant misery, star-
vation, or degradation of some hapless worker. Let each one of
us educate our wives or our husbands, as the case may be, our
sisters or our friends, to the fact that to purchase an article at a
cost which we know does not give fair value for labor and ma-
terial is a dishonest transaction, and totally belies our Christian
characters and professions. Let us refuse to purchase from
those who pay unfair wages to their workers, and to some ex-
tent we will be enabled to make ' fair wages and no' sweating ' a
popular cry." Although these words were spoken by a layman
and a Protestant, they are in complete accordance with Catholic
Moral Theology, which teaches that it is as sinful and unjust
an act to buy below the lowest just price as it is to sell above
the highest just price. To give practical effect to these words
of the president, the congress passed a resolution in favor of

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 263

stamping or otherwise marking trade-union-made goods in order
that the public might learn the conditions under which the com-
modities purchased by them are produced.

Many of the subjects discussed at the congress were of a
technical character, and while it is upon these points that the
delegates are best qualified to speak, and to speak with a deci-
sive voice, it is about them the general public cares the least.
Among the matters of wider interest may be noted the fact
that resolutions were passed in favor of the nationalization of
royalties, way-leaves, etc., pending the nationalization of the lanti ;
the adoption of the decimal system of weights, measures, and
coinage ; joint action between trade-unionists and co-opera-
tors ; for an international congress on the eight hours' question,
and for the holding of demonstrations in favor of the same ob-
ject on the first of May ; for the establishment in Great Britain
of labor exchanges on the model of the Paris Bourse du
Travail ; for the amendment of the poor law in order that pro-
ductive employment may be provided for unemployed citizens ;
against the importation of foreign labor, and in favor of a large
number of legislative changes calculated to increase the power
of the working-classes in parliamentary and municipal elections.
The whole proceedings of the congress show that while Social-
ism pure and theoretic was not advocated, a strong desire exists
among working-men for measures tending in the direction of
what is called State Socialism, and that the New Unionism has

gained a decisive advantage over the old.

As a contrast to the numerous conflicts between working-men
and their employers which have taken place recently, it is grati-
fying to be able to record an incident of a directly opposite
character. In July, 1888, Alfred Krupp, the founder of the great
steel-works at Essen, died. Although the town council erected
a statue to his memory, his workmen felt that this was not suf-
ficient. They looked upon their employer as their father and their
friend on account of his many acts of benevolence, and of the
warm interest he had always manifested for their welfare. They
accordingly proceeded to raise subscriptions, and in August last
another statue was unveiled, which is strictly the workmen's
monument. Seventeen thousand men employed in the Essen
works, together with deputations from the other establishments
of the firm, marched past in procession. In return, Mr. F. A.
Krupp, the son of the founder, to show veneration for his fath-
er's memory, announced his intention of devoting one hundred

264 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Nov.,

and twenty-five thousand dollars to the erection of a sufficient
number of cottages, with gardens, for the infirm and the invalided
of his men, and for the widows of the men who had died in his
employ. This gives us a proof that even in our times it is pos-
sible for employers and employed to live and work together on
terms of amity and good feeling, and this not merely in small
businesses but in one of the largest establishments in the

world.

A recent strike in England affords at once a parallel and a
contrast to the troubles at Homestead. In both the employment
of non-union men led to violence on the part of the unionists,
and in both this violence necessitated the calling out of the
military. So far for the parallel : the contrast is found' in the
fact that no life was lost in England, and that after the military
arrived the force of public opinion was so strong that the em-
ployers were compelled to accept the solution of the difficulties
proposed by outsiders. A great obstacle to settlement arose
from the fact that employers had made promises to the non-
union men who had assisted them during the strike that they
would continue to employ them. This was removed, however, by
the buying out of these non-union men, the employers and their
men contributing equal shares. The thing most to be desired
in this country is the formation of an enlightened public opinion
strong enough to make the wrong-doers bow down before it.

. :

The discussion which the Bishop of Chester's letter has origi-
nated, and the probability that an attempt will be made to legis-
late upon the lines marked out therein, renders interesting a fuller
account than we have already given of the Gothenburg and Nor-
wegian systems. The Norwegian system prevails in most of the
towns and country districts. In some there is absolute prohibi-
tion. By an act passed seventeen years ago the voters of any
district can decide to have a limited number of places for the
retail sale of alcohol, or none at all. The town of Bergen may
be taken as an example of the working of the non-prohibitive
method. Here the local authorities are composed of a town
council consisting of councillors elected by the people from among
themselves, and of three magistrates appointed by the king for
life. These magistrates have an absolute veto over every scheme
approved by the council. This is a provision which it would
seem must nullify the votes of the electors, and it will doubtless
be set aside in any attempt to introduce the measure into Eng-
land. To these authorities certain gentlemen applied in 1876 for

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 265

a monopoly for the sale of spirits in the town, and offered to-
form a company for the purpose. The authorities were to decide
how many spirit-shops should be in the town, and where they
should be situated. To them, too, it was left to appoint a public
analyst to see that the spirits sold were good, and an absolute
veto was given to them on the appointment of the company's
servants. After the payment of five per cent, per annum divi-
dend to their share-holders, the company offered to give all the
surplus profits to objects having for their aim "the regeneration
of the masses." It is in this feature that the essential difference
between the Norwegian and the Gothenburg system is found.
In the latter the profits go to the reduction of the local rates,
making therefore, it is thought, a large sale of spirits advanta-
geous to the rate-payers.

To return to the town of Bergen, and the Norwegian system
as there carried out. The authorities accepted the terms proposed,
and a company was formed. It commenced operations under
its monopoly on the ist of January, 1877. The number of spirit-
shops was reduced from twenty-one to twelve, and although the
population has increased from thirty-nine thousand to fifty thous-
and, the number remains the same. These shops are difficult to
find, are not attractive in appearance, have no seats, and each
person can have only one glass of spirits at a time, so that there
is no treating in return. No person apparently under seventeen
years of age can be served, nor any one under the influence of
liquor. To secure the strict execution 'of these rules large sala-
ries are paid to the salesmen.

And what have been the results of this plan ? During the
years in which it has been in operation the consumption of spirits
has fallen off nearly one-fourth, and the apprehensions for drun-
kenness nearly one-half. And yet the profits have been consider-
able, for, after paying the five per cent, dividend to their share-
holders, the amount distributed to objects for the regeneration
of the masses has averaged sixty-eight cents per head of the
population per annum, the amount of the capital of the company
being equal to fifty-four cents per head. These objects have
been workmen's halls ; workmen's dwellings, built and sold to
workmen at cost price ; reformatories, a public park, a road over-
looking the town, a home for criminally disposed boys, grants to
the museum, to total abstinence societies, the sending of poor
children to farm-houses for summer holidays, libraries, and for
sending certain representative workmen to the exhibition recently

266 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Nov.,

held at Copenhagen. Each of these workmen undertook within
six months to write an essay describing certain improvements in
his own trade which he had noticed at the exhibition, and these
essays were printed and published at the cost of the company.
It need only be added, to show the success of the experiment
for all concerned, that the shares are at one hundred per cent,
premium and can only be purchased .when they come into the
market on the death of a shareholder. It should, however, be
pointed out that the scheme does not affect the sale of beer,
although there are hopes of its being shortly extended to this

branch of the trade.

The Bishop of Chester has for many years taken a deep in-
terest in the question of the entertainment of the people. In
fact, popular rumor has credited him with the desire of himself
becoming a manager of a public-house in order to show the
way to carry on the business properly. This, as such rumors
generally are, was an exaggeration ; the truth being that his
plan was to place a skilled manager in charge. Circumstances
prevented even this being carried out. And in the meantime the
bishop has become convinced that all experiments must be
made on a large scale. Experience has amply demonstrated to
him that a strictly managed public-house, standing in the midst
of public-houses managed on a laxer system, is conducted at
an almost fatal disadvantage. Therefore, while recognizing the
fact that it is impossible to make men sober by legislative en-
actments, he looks to it as the necessary means of securing
wholesome environments for the community, in order that the
moral sentiments may have something like fair play in the con-
test with greed and depravity.

Many people think that the ravages of intemperance are
confined to the British and Irish races. It has recently been
brought home, however, by the projected legislative measures in
Prussia, that the Teutons are in great danger of being afflicted
by the same plague. Nor are there wanting signs that the
French are treading in the same path. At all events, in the city
of Marseilles the increase in the consumption of liquor has
been so great as to cause alarm to those interested in the well-
being of the city. In 1875 400,000 gallons of spirits were
drunk, in 1891 1,320,000 gallons. This is at the rate of three and
three-tenths gallons per head, while the consumption per head in
1875 was only one and a half gallons. The number of places
where liquor is sold has increased from 2,400 to 4,309, or one

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 267

for each 93 of the population. In some streets there are three
or four liquor-stores next door to each other, in others there are
fourteen such places in thirty successive houses, and one enter-
prising dealer has put up an automatic bar, where all kinds of
drink can be had by dropping a two-sou piece in a slot.

More than six years ago the public attention was directed to
the necessity of doing something to stem the rising tide of in-
temperance, and the remedy which has been found may afford
instruction to those who live in places where, as in Marseilles,
the constituted authorities are rather fautors and abettors of
iniquity than its punishers and repressers. The only thing the
city authorities could be prevailed upon to do was to increase
the octroi tax, and this resulted not in a diminution of the con-
sumption, but in an increase of the revenue. It was left to
private persons to put into execution a plan which has, at all
events, prevented the evil spreading at its former rate, for
while the increase was 80,000 gallons in 1890 compared with 1889,
the increase in 1891 compared with 1890 was only 400 gallons.
This good result is due to the action of the savings-banks.
The money which is spent in drink by the working classes is,
of course, taken from savings, and, on the other hand, the
habit of saving may be cultivated as an antidote to the drink
habit. The Marseilles Savings-Bank accordingly set to work to
encourage and to facilitate the habit of saving. It began its
ameliorative measures by employing 160,000 francs in building
model dwelling-houses with gardens for working-men, on the
theory that if a man's home is made pleasant for him he will
not spend his earnings and his evenings in a cabaret. It
set on foot a system of loans on mortgage to working-men
who wished to build their own homes. School savings-banks
were established, and are worked in connection with church,
municipal and private schools, in somewhat the same way in
which the post-office savings-banks are brought into co-operation
with schools in England. In order to stimulate the saving of
small sums and to get them away from the liquor-dealer stamps
are sold of the value of two cents each, and when ten of them
are pasted on a card they can be deposited. The delivery of
lectures and the distribution of pamphlets on the evils of drink
have also been promoted by the same agency. The conclusion
must not be drawn from this that the French promoters of tem-
perance are against state interference ; on the contrary, they are
doing all they can to stimulate the courts to a more rigorous
execution of existing laws, and to promote the enactment of such

268 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Nov.,

additional restrictive laws as may be required. They do not,
however, confine their efforts to enforcing and making laws, nor
do they include, as yet, among their legislative projects any
measure of total prohibition or local option.

In Germany a further increase of the army and correspond-
ing addition to the taxes form the most important subjects of
discussion. While it may cause pity it can hardly cause wonder
that such an increase should be necessary. If we look at the map
and see the position of Germany between France and Russia, it
will be plain that, unless her military strength approximates that
of at least one of these nations, she runs the risk of being crushed
when it may please her enemies to make the attempt. Now, as
a matter of fact, so strong has France become that her army
has a numerical superiority of 25,000 on a peace footing over
that of Germany, and of more than 300,000 on mobilization ; and
twenty-five years hence France will have three-quarters of a mil-
lion more trained men in the field than Germany. The French
military laws actually utilize the whole of the population for de-
fensive purposes ; whereas, although theoretically this is true also
of Germany, as a matter of fact, owing chiefly to want of money,
of the whole number of men who annually become liable to mili-
tary service rather less than one-third is now drafted into the
ranks. The object of the new bills is to remedy these defects.
While this will increase the amount spent on the army by twen-
ty per cent., the reduction of the term of service from three
years, to two will afford some compensation. It is, however, very
doubtful whether the power of the government in the Reichstag
is sufficient to secure the passing of these measures ; the with-
drawal of the Education Bill alienated its chief supporters, and the
Radicals and Social Democrats are on principle even opponents
of the present military system. It is very doubtful, too, whether
a dissolution would be of service. Recent elections have shown
that the strength of the Social Democrats is growing, and seems
to render probable that Herr Liebknecht's prophecy, that in the
next Reichstag there will be more than fifty deputies belonging
to his party, will be verified. It seems certain that Germany is
on the eve of stirring events.

The French Republic having recently celebrated its twenty-
first anniversary has reason to congratulate itself upon the fact
that it has now lasted longer than any of the many forms of
government which have come and gone in France since the revo-
lution. What its prospects are in the future it is hard to say.

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW, 269

It would seem that many who have hitherto supported the Mon-
archists or the Bonapartists are listening to the counsels of Leo
XIII., and are giving in their adhesion to the established form
of -government. Their way is not made smoother by the pres-
ent office-holders, who seem to take a special delight in harassing,
insulting, and even persecuting in a small way the church. A
number of Royalists still refuse to give up their hopes and their
labors for the realization of those hopes. Count d'Haussonville r
the representative of the Comte de Paris, in a speech recently
delivered at Montauban declared that they must offer to those
"counsels a, firm, although respectful and filial, resistance. The
President, M. Carnot, has been making one of his progresses
through the country, and in reply to an address of congratulation
gave a clear indication that at the expiration of his term next
year he will be a candidate for a second term. The understand-
ing between France and Russia remains unimpaired ; there have, in
fact, been rumors of a formal alliance having been recently con-
cluded, but of this there is no certainty.

The chronic state of disquietude and unrest which character-
izes the Balkan States has been somewhat accentuated lately
by the fall of the Servian ministry, and the approaching gener-
al election. Some accounts represent Servia as within a measur-
able distance of civil war, and although this may be exaggerated,
the situation there is without doubt exceedingly precarious.
Like the rest of these states, Servia is too weak to maintain it-
self alone, and on this account is exposed to the intrigues of its
powerful neighbors, Austria and Russia, and at one time the
friends of the one power, at another the friends of the other, are
in the ascendant, neither of them having the real interests of the
country so much at heart as their own. There is, therefore, no
reason to wonder at the perpetual unsettlement of these countries,
especially when there is added to it the insane distrust and
hatred which Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece have of one another.
At the present moment Greece is entering upon a diplomatic
campaign against Bulgaria on account of the closing of certain
Greek schools in Eastern Roumelia, an act which seems to be a
clear violation of the organic statutes of that country, but which
is prompted by the same hatred which is the motive of so many
other proceedings among these Christian powers. The other
states of Europe are pursuing the even tenor of their way, their
chief endeavors being directed to the praiseworthy, if not very
exalted, object of trying to pay at least the interest on their
debts.

270 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,

TALJC ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

NE of the signs of the times, indicative, as we
like to believe, of a growing appreciation on the
part of the reading public and their purveyors
of what constitutes true Americanism, is to be
found in some of the educational manuals now
brought out by well-known Protestant publishing houses. The
Scribner series of " Great Educators," with its monograph on
Loyola, and the Educational System of the Jesuits, from the pen
of Father Thomas Hughes, S.J., furnishes one example of the kind;
perhaps the yet more recent issue, by Dodd, Mead & Co., in a
series called the " Makers of America," of a life* of Archbishop
Hughes, by the Rev. Dr. Brann, supplies a still more striking
one. The inclusion, in the same series, of volumes on Father
Juniper Serra and the two Calverts who founded the Maryland
colony, seems to us far less in contradiction with the previous
traditions of this publishing firm than the hospitality it has ex-
tended to the present sympathetic study of the great archbishop.
A small book of less than two hundred pages, it cannot, of
course, do much more than outline his long career. It does
this, however, with a firm hand, leaving out of view no salient
points, and even contriving to devote a chapter to his poetical
and literary gifts. Dr. Brann has performed his labor of love
with great care. It is a pity that his proof-reader has not been
equally painstaking.

An excellent book, concise and yet sufficiently full in
its statements of fact, judicial and impartial in its spirit,
and eminently lucid in point of style, is Mr. Edward
J. Lowell's Eve of the French Revolution, f The author takes
up in turn such topics as the King and the Administra-
tion, the Court, the Clergy, the Church and her Adversaries, the
Church and Voltaire, the Nobility, the Army, the Courts of
Law, Taxation, Finance, and " The Encyclopaedia," devoting a
chapter to each. He lingers in detail over writers like Montes-
quieu, Helvetius, Holbach, ChasteHux, and Rousseau. Speaking
of the " Philosophers," he makes a remark which gives as good

* Most Reverend John Hughes, first Archbishop of New York. By Rev. Henry A.
Brann, D.D. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.

t The Eve of the French Revolution. By Edward J. Lowell. Boston and New York:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 271

a hint as any of the attitude of his mind and the temper in which
he has approached a subject which offers so many and such
tempting byways to explorers of widely differing prepossessions :

" The Philosophers in Voltaire's lifetime formed a sect,
although it could hardly be called a religious one. . . . The
doctrines were materialism, fatalism, and hedonism. The sect
still exists. It has adhered, from the time of its formation, to a
curious notion, its favorite superstition, which may be expressed
somewhat as follows : ' Human reason and good sense were first
invented from thirty to fifty years ago.' ' When we consider,'
says Voltaire, ' that Newton, Locke, Clarke, and Leibnitz would
have been persecuted in France, imprisoned at Rome, burnt at
Lisbon, what must we think of human reason? It was born in
England within this century ' (The date usually set by Vol-
taire's modern followers is that of the publication of the Origin
#f Species ; although no error is more opposed than this one to
the great theory of evolution). And similar expressions are fre-
quent in his writings. The sectaries, from that day to this, have
never been wanting in the most glowing enthusiasm. In this
respect they generally surpass the Catholics ; in fanaticism (or
the quality of being cocksure) the Protestants. They hold toler-
ation as one of their chief tenets, but never undertake to conceal
their contempt for any one who disagrees with them. The sect
has always contained many useful and excellent persons, and
some of the most dogmatic of mankind."

Colonel Johnston has never done better or more amusing
work than the opening story of his new collection of short
tales.* It is pathetic too, as well as funny. Mrs. Fortner's
speech before " Brer Moderator " at the " Baptis' meetin'," con-
cerning the " 'Postle Paul " and the bearings of certain of his
teachings on the mutual relations existing between herself and
" Jaymiah Fortner," strikes the high-water mark of tears as well
as of honest laughter. In its own serio-comic vein there is noth-
ing cleverer that we know of in American literature than this
story. The others are none of them quite equal to this, though
they are all exceedingly diverting.

A gruesome tale, vainly purporting to be a record of person-
al experiences, is called Dreams of the Dead.^ It has received
high praise in certain quarters whence one would not have expect-
ed it to come. We have seen its author's pretended revelations
compared, and 'to his advantage, with Dante's " Purgatory," and
the materialistic visions of Emmanuel Swedenborg. Let no one
who knows either of these take such delusory laudations as well

* Mr. Partner 's Marital Claims, and other Stories. By Richard Malcolm Johnston. New
York : D. Appleton & Co.

t Dreams of the Dead. By Edward Stanton. Boston : Lee & Shepard.

272 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,.

founded. He will neither be strengthened in his hopes of immor-
tality, should he possess such independent of Christian faith, as
many people nowadays claim to do, nor find any food for a devout
imagination in the opposite case. Mr. Stanton, though expressing
a final belief that the teaching he has derived from " astral vis-
ions " is not " opposed to Christianity as it came from the lips
of its Founder that is, to Christianity uncontaminated by dog-
ma," is a believer in Madame Blavatsky, puts full faith in
"Mahatmas," pretends to have seen in the flesh an existing
survivor of the "submerged continent of Atlantis," as well as a
vast architectural hall saved from that " wreck of worlds," and
is, in short, full of those cheap marvels by which people who-
have rejected Christian faith, or not yet been endowed with
it, seek to satisfy the endless cravings which it alone has ever
known how to treat with dignity, and to appease with hopes not
puerile and fantastic.

Miss Jeanie Drake, some of whose earlier work in this maga-
zine readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD will recall with pleas-
ure, has written a charmingly quaint and old-fashioned tale of
Southern life * before the war. She has caught a local tone and
coloring, and preserved it unbroken, with a skill that is sugges-
tive of so great a word-master as Thackeray. Miss Drake has-
evidently a future in literature. So far as we know, this is
her first sustained effort, but it is abundantly promising.

Bertram Mitford's South African story f of the last Kafir
war is strong and ably told, and will be likely to leave a mark
in the memory of its readers. Certain scenes in it, like that in
the Home of the Serpents, are weirdly imaginative painfully so,,
it may be added. More dreadful still, and hardly to be endured
save by those who like to " sup their fill of horrors," or those
who feel that what their fellow-men have been made innocently
to suffer they may themselves find courage enough to read about,,
is the story of a wretched native given over as a living prey to-
the inhabitants of an ant-hill. As to the hero and heroine, they
follow a too prevalent fashion in their loves, and though they
overcome their temptations after a fashion, and Eustace honestly
risks his own life to save that of Eanswyth's husband, the au-
thor's presentation of his heroism and stubborn self-mastery only
adds to the incredible pity that so much cleverness and skill
should not have steered wholly aside from the byways whose
natural, and almost inevitable, end is sin.

* In Old St. Stephen's. By Jeanie Drake. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
t 'Tiveen Snow and fire. New York : Cassell Publishing Co.

4892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 273

In her booklet on Rhythmical Gymnastics* Miss Thompson
presents some of the most advanced theories of vocal develop-
ment, and illustrates them by a set of exercises devised for the
purpose, and already put successfuly into use in the class-room.
They comprise exercises of all the muscles, including those of
the face, breathing to music, a detailed rule of daily life " for
.an artist," and various similar matters which, although they more
intimately concern professional singers, actors, and musicians
than they do other people, might be found eminently useful
in the Reading Circles where the charming art of reading
well aloud is sought to be revived among our young people.

The Idle Exile has written a pleasanter novelette than usual
in her Wee Widow's Cruise.^ It is a bright and altogether
pleasant sketch of a yachting trip up and down the English
coast, made in a teacup of a vessel, by the widow and her
young friend Miss Dickie, with a solitary sailor-man as crew.
The widow acts as guide-book, and throws in an assorted lot of
more or less reliable historical information concerning the places
where they occasionally land for fresh bread and milk. Some
clever talk goes on between the women, and just at the end a
successful wooer turns up for each of the yachtswomen.

Mr. Hale's reputation is made, fortunately. It has hollowed
its own channel, and even so slender a stream as that of East
and West \ must needs contribute its quota to the general flow.
Perhaps its exceedingly gentle trickle would otherwise produce
no effect whatever. It narrates the adventures of pretty and
self-respecting Sarah Parris, paints at some length the portrait of
one Silas Ransom, sailor, waiter, adventurer, and whatnot, who
undertakes to follow and look after her welfare, and gives, more
briefly, some account of the ways taken by Sarah's lover, Harry
Curwen, to make himself worthy of her. The style is simple and
unpretentious, but the tale itself is one of very moderate interest.

War under Water, by some unnamed French author, is a
harmless scientific novel, something in the Jules Verne style. A
seemingly rabid hatred of Germany animates it, but this is pos-
sibly quite as much of an affectation as the science by which it
is pervaded. Though it is melodramatic to a degree, yet it will

* Rhythmical Gymnastics, Vocal and Physical. By Mary S. Thompson. New York :
Edgar S. Werner.

t The Wee Widow's Cruise in Quiet Waters. By an Idle Exile. New York : Cassell Pub-
lishing Company.

t East and West : a Story of New-born Ohio. By Edward E. Hale. New York : Cassell
Publishing Company.

S War under Water. New York : Cassell Publishing Company.

274 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,

enlighten, instruct, and amuse its readers in about the same
languid measure.

Mrs. Alexander's hand has lost something of its cunning
since the days when she wrote The Wooing O't. Still, though
her work is more hackneyed, less delicate than of old, she has
skill enough left to make a novel which many readers will find
entertaining, and take a not unhealthy pleasure in. Such an one
is The Snare of the Fowler* which is devoted to the many mis-
haps and more or less sad early adventures of Myra Pallas, in
the days when she was supposed to be nameless as well as home-
less, and partially dependent on the grudging charities of an
aunt by marriage. Later on, when her true position and her
heiress-ship are discovered by the aunt in question, the latter
develops into a " fowler," though one whose snares are laid
pretty skilfully out of sight of the bird. Myra escapes them, of
course, marries her "own true love," paints her pictures in peace,,
and wholly discomfits both her scheming aunt and the most
objectionable cousin who has been pursuing her through en-
tirely selfish though not mercenary motives.

L. T. Meade's Medicine Lady f is a better novel than the pre-
ceding one. Its purpose is peculiar, and its heroine, her hus-
band, and their little child Nance, are characters quite out of
the common. It is the story of a London physician, practising
in one of the East End hospitals where the action of the plot
begins, and of the young, sensitive, nervous, and over-impulsive
lady nurse, whose sympathy with a patient makes an operation
miscarry, and nearly costs a life. The nurse loses her situation,
but is married shortly after to the doctor, an upright, conscien-
tious man of science who thinks he has discovered a cure for
consumption, in the form of a poison fatal to the germs which
cause tuberculous conditions. Dr. Digby has once experimented
on himself with it, but as he had no consumptive tendencies he
does not regard his experiment as justifying him in employing
it on others. He is satisfied that his discovery is important; but
having no time to perfect it, he has, as he supposes, confined all
knowledge of it to himself. An unscrupulous student, however,
who had accidentally obtained a sight of his note-book while at-
tending his clinic^ hopes to further his own ends by pushing
Digby into a prominence he eminently deserves on his merits
as a general practitioner, and also by dropping a veiled hint,

* The Snare of the Fowler. By Mrs. Alexander. New York : Cassell Publishing:
Company.

t The Medicine Lady. By L. T. Meade. New York : Cassell Publishing Company.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 275

now and then, that Digby is in possession of an infallible remedy
for tuberculous diseases. Digby steadily denies the alleged fact,
and when he traces the rumor to its source he forbids Phillips
to repeat it. Digby's own wife and only child have consump-
tive tendencies, but his conscientious scruples prevent him from
repeating even with them the experiment that had been success-
ful in his own case. He dies suddenly from an accident when
the novel is more than half done, and it is not until then that
the title .of the book begins to explain itself. Cecilia Digby has
been charged by her dying husband either to burn all his pri-
vate notes,- or to transfer them to a doctor of unblemished repu-
tation whom he names. She is above all things to prevent their
falling into the hands of the unscrupulous Phillips. Cecilia has
ardently sympathized with her husband, and been admitted to
his confidence in a rare degree, though even she has never been
allowed to penetrate the secret of his discovery. When, spurred
on by Phillips, her relative by marriage, she has ventured to ask
questions of the dying man, he has admitted the fact, but
warned her that to use his remedy in its present form on a
human being would be highly dangerous so dangerous that of
the two alternatives he leaves her, he would prefer the burning
of his notes. Cecilia, however, excited by her knowledge of the
physical tendencies of herself and her child, not only reads them,
and discovers some preparations of lymph already made, but
concludes to keep the secret in her own hands, and finally
makes a successful trial of it on herself after her lungs have
been pronounced seriously affected. Though a constant remorse-
ful scruple attends her, even after a second successful trial has
saved a life despaired of by the doctors, she ends by practising
secretly and gratuitously among the East-End London poor.
Retribution awaits her at last when she makes a fatal use of the
lymph on Nance, and is stabbed in a brawl occasioned by the
survivors of other victims with whom she has tampered without
sufficient knowledge. Altogether, the book is extremely readable
throughout.

Mr. Henry B. Fuller's first novel, the Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani,
made its appearance some two years ago, and was then favora-
bly mentioned in this magazine. It had the good fortune to
win its author abundant praise in other quarters, and to secure,
in especial, the praise of the late James Russell Lowell and
Prof. Charles Eliot Norton. The delicate yet strong-fibred satire
by which the little romance was penetrated it no more deserved
to be classed as a novel in the ordinary sense than does its

276 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,

successor * warranted all the commendations it received. Mr.
Fuller's second book, we are bound to say, is a trifle disappoint-
ing. There was a motive in the tale of the Iron Pot which he
that runs might read, and it was one which both provoked and
justified satire. Mr. Fuller's style is as pleasant as ever, and his
sketches of Alpine scenery are charming. But the elaborate and
now somewhat worn machinery of suggestive names, whereby,
though not alone whereby, his first story reminded the reader of
Carlyle, inevitably suggests a motive lying underneath the art.
It is doubtless there, but we have ignominiously failed to find it.
Unless, indeed, it might be cast into the form of a suggestion
that young America, personified in Miss Aurelia West, late of
Rochester, New York, with her perfectly innocent but extremely
modern notions of what befits womanhood, is capable of produc-
ing such modifications for the worse in her simpler and more
ideal European sister, personified in the Chatelaine, that the
latter must lose much of her present charm for her European
brethren, Zeitgeist, Fin-de-Siecle, and Tempo-Rubato. Possibly.
A gain of a loss, wouldn't it be ? Not that Mr. Fuller's Aurelia
West is an attractive type. She distinctly is not. But as a
means to the desirable end foreshadowed in the abrupt cessation
of these young gentlemen's attentions to the Chatelaine, she
answers as well as another. This may not have been the clue
Mr. Fuller intended his audience to look for ; but if he has
another, the majority of them will probably end by concluding
that the game is hardly worth the candle, especially in regions
where wax is dear.

Mrs. Needeli's new novel f is an interesting and well-written
story of a much-forbearing, long-enduring friendship between the
two heroes of her story. As they both love, and both may be
said to win the affections of Margery Denison, though only one
of them marries her, they seem fairly to divide the honors of
hero-ship. John Cartwright, the young Methodist minister,- who
renounces marriage with the woman he has adored from child-
hood, even when she plumply offers herself, reaches a point of
heroism most infrequently attained, we incline to believe, by
Methodist preachers. For it is not altogether, nor even chiefly,
because he knows that Gilbert Yorke loves her, and would esteem
his own marriage with her a treachery, that he puts away what
seems to be Margery's happiness as well as his. He does so,
Mrs. Needell would have us believe, because he feels that his love

* The Chatelaineof La Trinite. By Henry B. Fuller. New York : The Century Co.
t Passing the Love of Women. By Mrs. J. H. Needell. New York : D. Appleton & Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 277

for her is so great that it would divert him from the higher
love of God and souls. The story does not suffer on this ac-
count, however. It is long, rather plotty and complicated, and
has some good character sketches, among the best of which is
John Cartwright's mother.

Mr. Witt's Widow* by Anthony Hope, the very clever au-
thor of Father Stafford, eminently deserves its secondary title.
It is frivolous enough, in all senses of the word ; a fact that
does not prevent its being amusing, and which does not im-
ply immorality. It is more like a comedy than a novel.
That Mr. Hope had an extremely light touch, was evident
enough to the reader of Father Stafford ; but in that book
there was something remotely approaching a didactic purpose.
In this one he skips about like a harlequin, disporting himself
for the sake of diversion merely. He does it well, we own
but there are many readers to whom something less like a cir-
cus would be more profitable, and we advise such to eschew all
acquaintance with the relict of the late Mr. Witt.

Mr. Beattie, though he had something of a storyf in mind
when he began, and something resembling a philosophy to ex-
pound in connection "with it, seems to have no direct vocation
either to novel writing or to philosophic teaching. In point of
construction his tale is inartistic to a degree. The reader, enter-
ing upon it, speedily begins to feel like a traveller in an un-
known wood, the trees of which have not been blazed, and whose
doubtful paths seem likely to lead nowhere. He escapes from
the thicket in the end, it is true, after having made a number
of acquaintances none of whom can fairly be called agreeable.
He brings with him an impression that Joshua Wray, whose creed
was once briefly summed up in the composite word, Manisa-
failure, and who drove around his neighborhood in a wagon
bearing on its tail-board the image of an " All-seeing Eye," and
the inscription in large letters : God is Humanity ! Humanity is
God / has come in the end, as a sequel to his troubles, to' a more
or less distinctly defined conclusion that "Humanity" is chiefly a
failure when one attempts to substitute it in the place of God,
and that the " Rectifier of wrongs, if there be any," can only be
found " in the plenitude of a Perfect Personality." Mr. Beattie's
conclusion is just, but his methods of arriving at it cannot be

* Mr. Witt's Widow : A Frivolous Tale. By Anthony Hope. New York: United
States Book Co.

t Joshua Wray. By Hans Stevenson Beattie. New York : United States Book Com-
pany.

VOL. LVI. 19

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.

conscientiously described as either entertaining or in themselves
conclusive.

Mr. Le Queux's Tales of a NUiilist* have not the accent of
unadorned truth, though Russian misgovernment doubtless sup-
plies more than sufficient grounds for histories which would strike
the denizens of civilized countries at first sight as incredible.
The collection of sketches brought out under the pseudonym of
E. Lanin, and Mr. George Kennan's papers on real atrocities,
coldly described, are far more convincing than these alleged ad-
ventures of an escaped political convict, the Jew Vladimir Mik-
halovitch. That seems a curious slip by which the Jew, narrating
a hideous moment in which he had to elect between recapture
and death, says : " I crossed myself and chose the latter." There
is a superabundance in these pages of what is called " love " be-
tween female spies of the government and male spies of the
Nihilistic brotherhoods a superfluity of slashed faces and direful
deaths at private hands. The indictment against Russia is not
strengthened by it, and we can hardly imagine its profiting any
one to read it, even on its alleged ground of utility as a warning
or a revelation.

i. DR. SCHMID'S SELECT QUESTIONS.!

Dr. Schmid shows himself in this volume to be possessed of
a very subtle and acute metaphysical and theological faculty of
mind. He has taken up some very difficult and abstruse, but
for that very reason, as well as on account of their intrinsic im-
portance, extremely interesting topics. He very justly remarks
in his Preface : " Ex eo, quod res difficilio res disceptandas sus-
cepimus, penes viros prudentiores justam reprehensionem non time-
mus." Assuredly, we are not going to risk our title to a place
among the " viros prudentiores " by censuring the praiseworthy
undertaking of the learned doctor ; but, on the contrary, if our
feeble voice can reach him in his charming seclusion under the
shadow of the Tyrolese Alps, we would urge him to continue
his work, and, leaving aside all trite and easy questions, to ex-r
plore the loftiest heights of the theological mountains.

There are two of the questions discussed in this volume

* Strange Tales of a Nihilist. By William Le Queux. New York: Cassell Publish-
ing Co.

t Quastiones Selectee ex Theologia Dogmatics auctore Doctore Francisco Schmid, Sacrae
Theologiae Professore in Seminario Brixinensi. Paderb.: Ferd. Schoeningh, 1891; Roma:
Tipogr. della S. C. de Prop. Fid.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 279

which have interested us in a special manner, viz., the second,
" De Relatione Spiritus Angelici ad locum et spatium " : and
the fifth, " De Esse Physico Unionis Hypostaticse."

We will not attempt an abstract or analysis of these chapters.
Our readers in general would not understand it, even if one oc-
cupied the twenty pages which would be the least possible space
sufficient for this purpose. As for our beloved confreres the pro-
fessors, we are not disposed to save them the trouble of buying
and reading the book for themselves.

In regard to one point we are not able to agree with the
learned doctor, or to think that he has thrown any light upon
it. He defends the opinion, which we had hoped had become
obsolete, that those who die in original sin only, suffer eternal
pain as the penalty due to it.

This is a corollary from certain views respecting original sin
which he shares with some other respectable German theologians,
and which, we are convinced, cannot be sustained by any sound
and conclusive arguments. These theologians, and our author
among them, seem to confuse original with actual sin, the sin
of nature with personal sin, the passive state of sin which re-
ceives its denomination from the voluntary transgression of one
man, Adam, which was completed by one individual act on his
part, with the persevering imputability which adheres to its sub-
ject, after the transient act has passed. When a man has com-
mitted a crime, no matter whether a day, a month, a year, or
ten years may have passed, the minister of justice says, every
one who knows the fact says: You did it ; you are still the man
to whom this act, and the blameworthiness of it, is imputable,
and whatever punishment is due by law, even life-long imprison-
ment or death, you have deserved it, and are yourself the author
of your own misery. In this sense, the criminality, the blame-
worthiness, the demerit and ill-desert of the transgression of
Adam, by which we all become subject to the reatus culpce ajid
reatus poen(Z of original sin, is totally imputable to him as an
individual, and to him alone. Original sin in us receives the
predicate of voluntary, only in its relation to the criminal act of
disobedience which Adam committed, and not in respect to us,
who were non-existent when Adam ate the forbidden fruit, and
were not capable of any voluntary act, at the instant of our con-
ception, 'when we contracted original sin. When a theologian
undertakes to explain how we all sinned in Adam, as the Apos-
tle says we did : " Omnes peccaverunt in eo " ; he is bound to
give a reasonable account of the mode in which the posterity of

28o TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,

Adam are in solidarity with him in the matter of his disastrous
fall from grace through his transgression.

This our respected friends fail to do. They repeat emphati-
cally the terms peccatum, reatus, Schuld, as if this settled the
question. They distinctly assert that God holds the infant guilty
of a sin for which he is to blame, which is a demerit, and for
which he deserves to suffer pain for all eternity. This statement
is simply incredible. According to all sound philosophy, the
subject of imputability is the subject from whom the act pro-
ceeds. In a moral case, the imputability of moral blame, in the
strict sense of the word, has no other meaning than this : that
an abuse of reason and free-will is to be referred to a free moral
agent, who has chosen to commit an immoral act. It is impos-
sible, therefore, that God should pronounce a judgment of blame
on an infant for an act in which Adam was the complete and
sole voluntary agent. It is impossible that he should hold the
infant blameworthy for having been conceived in original sin.

The 47th proposition of Baius : Peccatum originis vere habet
rationem peccati sine ulla ratione ac respectu ad voluntatem, a qua
origincm habuit, has been condemned.

St. Thomas says : " Dicendum quod defectus illius originalis
justitiae quae homini in sua creatione collata est, ... in quo-
libet homine rationem culpae habet ex hoc, quod per vohintatem
principii natures, id est primi hominis inductus est talis defectus"
(II. Sent., dist. xxx. qu. i. art. 2.)

Perrone, whose explanation of the dogma of original sin has
not been surpassed by any theologian, so far as we know, says :
" In praesenti conditione nomina peccati et pcen<z sunt relativa ad
statum elevationis et integritatis, et ideo sunt peccatum et pcena,
non in se, sed quia relationem habent ad peccatum Adami."
(De Pecc. Orig., prop. iii. 468.)

The condition of the infant is, therefore, a state of original
sin, because by sin he has been despoiled of the grace due to
his nature in virtue of the original, gratuitous grant of God to
the Adamic race, conditioned on Adam's fidelity, forfeited by
his disobedience. But, as this grace is not due to nature as
such, to quote again Perrone : " Homo per peccatum," (id est,
humanum genus in suo principio Adamo) " ad cum* se redegit
statum, in quo absolute creatus fuisset, si Deus cetera dona
mihime addidisset, turn pro hac, turn pro altera vita." (Idem.,

4670

There is nothing, therefore, in the soul which departs into
Hades in original sin which makes it liable to any privation of

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 281

good, except that of supernatural beatitude. St. Thomas fur-
nishes the principles and premises from which Cajetan, Sfon-
drati, Lessius, and many other excellent Catholic writers have
inferred that most reasonable and consoling conclusion, that all
infants and others who die in original sin, without having in-
curred the guilt of actual sin, are made morally perfect, and
perfectly happy in the future life.

The opposite view is, in our judgment, a retrogression to be
much deplored. It does not place a sufficient barrier against
the exaggerations and perversions of Lutherans, Calvinists, and
Jansenists. Moreover, it lays open the Catholic doctrine to most
serious objections from rationalists, to which it can -oppose no
solutions which satisfy the just demands of reason. This is the
cause of the strictures which we have felt bound to make on a
part of the work of Dr. Schmid which does not by any means
come up to the high mark of other portions of his learned and
able volume.

2. WHAT ARISTOTLE TAUGHT CONCERNING GOD.*
A treatise on the Aristotelian conception of the relation of
God to the world and man, by its very title promises to be interest-
ing to all who are engaged in philosophical studies. There is great
intellectual activity among Catholic scholars in Germany, the
fruits of which are to be found in numerous works of value in
all branches of sacred science, and in those departments of
knowledge which have some relation to theology. Many of
these works are something more than a mere pouring of old
wine from old vessels into new ones. And in this present in-
stance, Dr. Rolfes, not content with giving us a variation of an
old tune, such as one finds in ordinary text-books, has produced
a new and original study on the most important part of Aris-
totle's philosophy, viz., on his Theodicy.

All admit that Aristotle has written much that is true
and beautiful about "God. Nevertheless, it is commonly asserted
that, although recognizing the relation of God to the world as
its Final Cause, he denied to him the relation of efficient cause
and providence. Moreover, although the psychology of Aris-
totle is highly praised, and to a great extent followed by Cath-
olic philosophers, it is commonly denied, or at least questioned,
that he taught the immortality of the soul.

Dr. Rolfes maintains that Aristotle taught the derivation of

* Die aristotelische Auffassung vom Verhaltnisse Gottes zur Welt und sum Menschen.
Von Dr. Eugen Rolfes. Berlin : Mayer und Muller. 1892.

282 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,

the world from God as the intelligent, efficient cause, not only
of its order but also of its total being, and, moreover, its en-
tire dependence on his providence. He argues, also, that he
taught the immediate origin of the soul from God, and its im-
mortality. His thesis is reasoned out with great learning and
ability. We recommend the careful perusal of his treatise to
all students and professors of philosophy who are able to read
German. It is a pity that there are so many who are not mas-
ters of this noble language, the knowledge of which is now,
more than it has been heretofore, almost necessary to highly
educated ecclesiastics. It is to be hoped that this treatise of
Dr. Rolfes will be translated at least into French, if not into
English, before very long.

3. THE FIRST YEARS OF CHRISTIANITY.*

Next to the period of our Lord's life on earth the apos-
tolic age is the most interesting and instructive epoch in the
history of Christianity. Almost the only source of information
is the Acts of the Apostles, but this work of Abb Fouard
shows how much may be obtained from the inspired narrative
by the diligent and truth-seeking student.

The truest historian is the simple, clear, and consecutive nar-
rator, not the speculative, hypercritical, and destructive commen-
tator. Our author is an example of the former, while Ernest
Renan may be cited as one of the latter. Fouard certainly tells
us what we knew before, but never so distinctly and in such
fulness as now. Peter and the other Apostles seem to stand be-
fore us as living men. With him we follow them as they de-
scend the Mount of Olives to re-enter the Supper-Room, where
with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and his relatives, they perse-
vered in prayer until the Holy Spirit came. Afterwards we see
how he to whom Jesus had said, " Feed my lambs, feed my
sheep," took the position of leader, the Holy Ghost first speak-
ing by his mouth. The words spoken and the acts done are
told as they have been transmitted to us without any digression
into controversy, as if they must be understood by the reader
as plainly as they were by the hearers and witnesses of them.
Perverters of the Scriptural narrative are ignored as if they never
had been. Our author does not have to stop to prove that
there was a church, because his readers hear the Church speaking.

*Saint Peter and the First Years of Christianity. By the Abbe Constant Fouard.
Translated by George F. X. Griffith. With an Introduction by Cardinal Gibbons. New
York and London : Longmans, Green & Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

How unlike he is to the sectarian authors who write of this
period ! Lightfoot, Harnack, and Farrar crowd their pages with
speculations. Armitage cannot be read unless one puts on
Baptist spectacles.

We wish that more church historians knew how to bring out
our religion as a living thing. The church is organic but does
not need to be dissected for us to see her organism. We must
see her living, praying, and working to understand her and ap-
preciate her beauty. Then^ she attracts us with a force that is
well-nigh irresistible ; and, if we yield to her gracious influences,
enlightens and vivifies our souls. Those who sit in the seats of
the Apostles are the ones to carry us back to them. The same
Pater noster, Credo, and Psalter which they prayed, we pray ;
their sacraments are ours ; their unity makes us one body. An
American feels towards Washington as no alien can feel. Just
so one who possesses the apostolic faith feels towards the Apos-
tles as no one with another creed can feel.

We invite a comparison of Abb6 Fouard's history of the
apostolic age with that of any writer of a different faith on the
score of fidelity in representation. When he tells us what the
inspired record reveals about the Apostles, and how their know-
ledge of divine truth shaped the beginnings of the Christian com-
munity, we see how the truth has remained in the world up to
the present day, we cease to wonder at its changelessness, expect
to find it aggressive when the world is sleeping in indifference,
and never imagine fora moment but 'that it will last to the end.
Perpetuity is stamped upon it like immortality on the human soul.

Men are perishing because the truth is being wilfully ignored,
Christianity is being rejected because erroneous confessions of
faith can be picked to pieces. Conviction is being overthrown
to give place to doubt, and the remedy is knowledge of religion
as God gave it to man through the channels which he appointed
for its extension, and in the form of sound words which none
need to misunderstand.

Abbe Fouard's book will help to make the truth known.

We cannot but acknowledge our great indebtedness to Mr.
Griffith for putting this great work within the reach of English
readers.

His former translation of Fouard's Life of Christ has al-
ready been noticed at considerable length in these pages, and
we are pleased to record its hearty reception by the reading
public. We sincerely hope that this companion volume will
meet with an even warmer welcome.

284 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov.,

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

ALL COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO READING CIRCLES, LISTS OF BOOKS,
ETC., SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION, NO.
415 WEST FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

HE Vicar of Christ, Pope Leo XIII., rendered
the greatest tribute of praise to Christopher Co-
lumbus in his encyclical letter when he appointed
a day for Catholics on two continents to honor
his memory at holy Mass, and to give thanks to
the Blessed Trinity for the discovery of the New World. It is
declared on good authority that no city of the world has at the
present time a larger Catholic population than New York, esti-
mated to be probably eight hundred thousand. From the great
cathedral pulpit and from the preachers in all the parish churches
the Catholics of New York heard the message of the Sovereign
Pontiff, extolling the heroic deeds of Columbus the Christ-bearer.
With commendable public spirit the committee of one hundred
citizens, representing the municipality of New York, requested
the synagogues and the churches of all denominations to
join in the religious celebrations and to co-operate in the
plan for a mammoth cosmopolitan parade. The Catholic schools
and colleges furnished over five thousand marchers in uni-
form. Their bright faces and soldierly appearance evoked con-
tinued applause from the assembled multitudes all along the
line. Two thousand Catholic girls dressed in red, white, and
blue capes and hats, arranged in groups so as to form immense
flags, sang patriotic songs with splendid effect as the imposing
school parade passed. The Catholic societies gathered together
in honor of Columbus fully thirty thousand men. No celebration
ever held in New York could boast of such a large assemblage
of intelligent young men devoted to the cause of religion.

From an intellectual point of view nothing surpassed the
choice programme in honor of Columbus prepared under the
auspices of the New York Catholic Club and the United States
Catholic Historical Society. With oratory and song the praises
of the great discoverer were sounded in Music Hall, which is one

1892.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 285

of the finest buildings in New York City. His Grace Archbishop
Corrigan presided, and delivered an address that was received
with great applause. Some passages are here quoted bearing on
points of history still under investigation, which will be welcomed
by students generally. Archbishop Corrigan said :

" There are certain coincidences which make this celebration
in New York very appropriate. I need not say to you that at
this time, through the dispensation of the Holy See, the diocese
of New York comprises the very spot of ground on which Colum-
bus set his foot four hundred years ago. The islands that form
the Bahama group, San Salvador and the others, are all at pres-
ent under the jurisdiction of New York. After making four
voyages to this country, Columbus died in Spain, but desired
that his mortal remains should be carried to the land that he
himself had discovered. There they remained for a number of
years until, at the close of the last century, they were supposed
to have been brought to the city of Havana when the Island of
Hayti had been ceded by Spain to France. However, a few
years ago the most important discovery was announced by the
Delegate Apostolic at San Domingo that he had found the true
remains of the discoverer. This question the historical societies
will have to settle. Certain powerful arguments are adduced pro
and con.

" Be that as it may, I merely mention it to say that you are
honored by the presence of the Delegate Apostolic, who goes
in a few days to San Domingo. So New York happens in a
double sense to come near to Columbus's landing-place and the
place where his remains so long rested. In this connection may
I not urge upon you all devotion and interest in this Historical
Society. You know how many controversies have been waged
for years and years over the history of the discovery of this
country; how many points in the life of Columbus are still
disputed.

" It is certainly to the great glory of this State that the first
impartial history of Columbus that the world has seen was writ-
ten by one of its sons, the distinguished Washington Irving.

" But there were not so many historical societies in his time
as there are to-day. Had the true facts of his voyages been
committed to writing and the other events of his life been cared
for in like manner, how many controversies and disputes would
have been saved to the students of later ages !

" In many ways historical societies are a very great advantage
to the church and to the state and to students at large, and I
trust that this historical society, which has to do with the history
of our own country, with interesting facts particularly connected
with the establishment of religion and its progress therein, may
be fostered and developed in the years which we may not be
spared to see.

" I congratulate the members of the Historical Society and

286 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov.,

the Catholic Club in their happy choice of the speakers to-night.
They deserve the credit of first originating here in our midst, so
far as I know, the idea of celebrating this anniversary with any-
thing like the pomp since given to it. To the Catholic Historical
Society in this diocese at least belongs the credit of the first
speeches towards securing the celebration.

"You may remember the first impulse was given by one
whose lips, so full of eloquence, have since been stilled in death,
Daniel Dougherty. He is well represented this evening, and the
representation brings in the entire country, North, South, East,
and West. From the South comes the honored ex-governor of
Maryland ; from the North Mr. Coudert, from the East Mr.
Lathrop, and from the West comes the ode of Miss Starr, which
will be rendered to you in sweet music."

The members of our Reading Circles will find the thrilling
poetical tribute by Miss Eliza Allen Starr a most appropriate
selection to be read aloud at their meetings.

One of the most notable events connected with the Colum-
bian celebration in New York was the unveiling of Russo's
magnificent statue of Columbus, which was blessed with impos-
ing ceremonies by Archbishop Corrigan. It occupies a com-
manding position in the grand circle, Fifty-ninth Street and
Broadway, adjoining Central Park, and was erected by the gen-
erosity of Italian citizens as a symbol of love and fraternity be-
tween them and their adopted country. Mr. Carlo Barsotti made
an eloquent speech containing these words : " In the name of all
the Italians living in the hospitable land of the American Union,
I have the honor to present to the worthy representatives of
the greatest metropolis of the New World this monument dedi-
cated to the sacred memory of that great Italian who gave to
America the light of civilization." In the closing speech Gen.
Di Cesnola not only praised Columbus as a most distinguished
benefactor of the world, but also insisted that Queen Isabella
should get proper recognition. He said :

" In the Metropolitan Museum of Art there is a great and
noble painting setting forth the moment when the agreement
between Columbus and Queen Isabella was signed and sealed by
Ferdinand April 17, 1492. No painting in the museum is more
popular, or more deservedly so, for it tells its own vivid story
and portrays this crisis in the world's history in a manner that
is grasped on the instant by every one. Vivid indeed and pow-
erful is the scene, but the popular heart leaps beyond a mere
estimate of art, and continually testifies its love before that can-

1892.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 287

vas for Columbus and the exalted, self-sacrificing Isabella. But
when in time of need, or effort, or self-sacrifice have women
been found wanting ? Upon women rest the laborious, patient,
long-suffering part in the world's struggles no less than the pri-
vate ones which bring little renown, but which guide and con-
trol the world as surely and efficiently as the wise matron raises
her cradle charge to strength and virtue. Never in human his-
tory has a woman held a place comparable with that of Isabella.
We know of no other woman who is mother of a new world.

" I thank Heaven that Isabella is not alone in the world of
women conspicuous for services to the race and for exemplary
life. Women like Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale have
glorified or mitigated the aspect of war, but our joy and boast
to-day is the best of women of our own land, who, in walks of
life both humble and conspicuous, have ever lent, and who do still
ever lend inestimable aid to every good work religious, charita-
ble, and domestic in every grade of life. It is the woman in
Isabella, not her throne or her opportunity, that we all must
cherish and exalt. All honor to the maids and matrons of the
New World, who have never failed to emulate her example or
to manifest their native queenliness."

# * #

The women of America have a right to demand that no nar-
row spirit of bigotry be permitted to exclude Queen Isabella
from a place of honor at the World's Fair. We hope to be able
to report very soon some decided action in this matter from the
women's auxiliary committee of the Columbian Exposition at
Chicago. For several years the Queen Isabella Association has
been publishing circulars to awaken public interest. To the la-
dies of this association, who, by a two-fold inspiration of patriotic
and womanly honor, have championed the claims of Isabella of
Castile, Miss Eliza Allen Starr dedicated her volume on the no-
ble queen, the co-discoverer of the New World.
* # *

Want of space last month compelled us to hold over the
following account of the Red-Letter Day at the Summer-School
written by Emma W. White, one of the most active workers of
the New London local committee of arrangements :

In the beautiful city of New London by the sea, through
its shady streets, lined with grand old elms on either side, whose
branches lovingly embraced above our heads, we hurried on our
way to the Lyceum Theatre on the morning of the eighteenth
of August, 1892, that glorious day, that will always be remem-
bered by the students of the Catholic Summer-School as our Red-
Letter Day! Great treats were in store for us on this bright
summer morning. First of all, his Grace the Most Rev. Arch-
bishop of New York was in town and was expected.

288 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov.,

The session opened with a lecture on Anthropology, the
last but one in this series. No comment is necessary now up-
on these lectures : the story has been told of how we felt ap-
palled, at first, at the prospect of more than fifty lectures in
succession, on hot August days ; of how we consoled ourselves
with the thought that some of them those on Ethics and
Anthropology especially were too dry, and too deep for our
understanding. They could be left to the professors, to the
great scholars and we weary teachers would take some rest and
recreation. And so we did. It was our rest, and our recreation,
and our delight to hear these very lectures that we had so fully
determined to avoid on ethics and anthropology.

The second morning lecture was on the Early Catholic
Missions, setting forth our obligations to the Jesuit fathers who
had followed in the wake of Christopher Columbus, and who
had suffered such horrible tortures at the hands of the Indian,
whose soul they had come to save ; our indebtedness to these
the first martyrs of the New World. Before this had come to
a close we were all well aware that His Grace had arrived.
There was a rustle of excitement a stir of eager expectation.
All were on the qui vive to see the Archbishop and to catch his
words as he addressed the school. It made our hearts glad to
hear his kindly words of encouragement and approval. He told
us of his sympathy with and participation in the work of
the Summer-School ; how he had longed to be with us, that,
as St. Paul had said, he might take comfort in his faith and ours.
He had read of our doings in New London, and was glad of an
opportunity of assisting at one of the meetings, and to see the
representatives from the East and the West, the North and the
South, who had come together that they might receive comfort
from their faith. He congratulated us upon the success of the
school, which was now an established fact ; referred to the
lectures of Father Halpin those wonderful lessons in moral phil-
osophy that we had intended to avoid which had been so
delightful. ' I certainly,' said Archbishop Corrigan, ' have great
reason to congratulate you ; to give you my best wishes, and al-
so my promise to labor with you, that the church may become
better appreciated, better known, and better interpreted.'

The Archbishop was with us again when we met in the
afternoon to listen to Dr. Lathrop's paper on ' The Pole Star of
American Literature.' Though a recent convert to our faith,
Dr. Lathrop's pen is ever ready to espouse the cause of truth
and to defend our Holy Mother Church. It has been asserted
that in this lecture he claimed for the Catholic Church all
the American writers of modern times. Dr. Lathrop claimed
no writers for the Catholic Church that did not belong to her ;
but he rightly insisted that some of the Catholic authors had
special gifts in explaining controverted questions. Among these
he mentioned Father Isaac T. Hecker and Orestes A. Brownson.
What he did claim, however, and prove by copious quotations
from American authors, was, that where those authors are stirred

1892.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 289

by true religious feeling, and wherever that feeling is expressed
in their works, the inspiration had come from Catholic sources
the writers had drunk deeply at the fountains of the true
faith. The lecture must be heard to be appreciated ; it covers
the whole literary history of our country from the early colonial
days.

The evening of this eventful day had been assigned to the
Rev. Thomas McMillan for his lecture on ' Our Obligations to
Catholic Authors,' and in addition to setting before us their
claims upon our consideration and our loyalty as Catholics, he
had urged many of them to be present and to read to us some
selections from their writings.

In reviewing the many good results of this first session of
the Summer-School to Catholic workers all over the country, this
beautiful tribute to the ' Light-bearers,' as Father McMillan calls
them, takes, perhaps, the first place of all. Much has been said
and written about ' that neglected body, the Catholic teachers ';
but here is another body of workers that deserves much and
receives but little from the Catholic public. The teacher who
has secured a position in a public or parochial school is at
least sure of a salary, be it large or small. He has a chance to
show his ability, to assert his own individuality, and to make a
place for himself among the educators of his time. The Cath-
olic writer, on the contrary, is sure of nothing. There is neither
fame nor fortune in store for him. His work has only to be
Catholic to render it ' unavailable ' for secular journals, and the
Catholic papers and magazines which are able and willing to
pay for contributions are not numerous ; consequently, there
can be but one motive actuating the author who devotes time
and talent to purely Catholic literature : viz., the desire to do
one's best work for God.

Our Catholic -authors have made many sacrifices for the
cause of truth. They are not controlled by the desire for money,
nor the ambition of gaining power by their literary gifts. By
their devotion to the interests of the church they have been
made to feel the burdens of the day, when they might have ob-
tained more lucrative employment for their talents. As light-
bearers in the world of thought they have had to contend with
the defenders of bigotry and intolerance.

The Catholic reading "public has many obligations to fulfil
towards our authors. Inasmuch as they belong to the household
of the faith they have a claim on our attention which should be
cheerfully recognized. They are the exponents of the highest
culture of mind and heart. Consequently we should study their
writings, and manifest our appreciation of their efforts. The
Reading Circles can perform this duty on behalf of Catholic authors
in a public manner by the diffusion of their works and by secur-
ing for them suitable recognition in public libraries. Many of the
choice specimens of Catholic literature have been published in
mutilated editions for circulation among non-Catholics. The au-
thors who have fought the good fight and gone to their reward can-

290 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov.,

not protest against the vandalism of modern editors. The Cath-
olic readers of the present day, however, can and ought to make
a vigorous appeal for common honesty, and endeavor to supply
the great works of our Catholic authors just as they were written.

In order to establish a protectorate for Catholic literature,
and to study ways and means of diffusing it throughout the
United States, the Columbian Reading Union has been estab-
lished under the management of the Paulist Fathers. It is in-
tended to voice the convictions of the Catholic reading public,
and to co-operate with those in charge of parochial and public
libraries, and the managers of Reading Circles. In each locality
the members of the Reading Circle can do valuable service as a
standing committee to advance the interests of Catholic authors.
By individual effort the same good work may be assisted. In
various ways representative Catholics can render volunteer ser-
vice for the diffusion of good literature.

During the four hundred years from the landing of Colum-
bus to the present time, a work of great magnitude for the tem-
poral and spiritual welfare of this western continent has been ac-
complished by Catholics. This epoch is to be regarded as the
heroic age of American literature. The events which mark the
development of the providential design in directing the nation-
builders to establish a new home for Christian civilization fur-
nish abundant material for the historian, the poet, and the novel-
ist. It remains for the Catholics of America to reverently study
the heroic lives of their ancestors, and preserve the golden words
which they committed to writing. There is reason to hope that
a new generation of writers will be generously encouraged to
embellish with modern literary skill the chronicles of the valiant
pioneers of the Catholic Church in the United States.

It caused much regret among the students that such authors
as Eliza Allen Starr, Maurice Francis Egan,--Richard Malcolm
Johnston, Margaret F. Sullivan, Mary Elizabeth Blake, Louise
Imogen Guiney, Agnes Repplier, Charles Warren Stoddard, Molly
Elliot Seawell, Marion J. Brunowe, Ellen H. Walworth, and others
had been unable to accept the invitation extended by the general
council of the Summer-School. In spite of these disappointments,
however, the evening was most enjoyable. Brother Azarias, who
needs no introduction to Catholic readers, was with us. He read
from his "Phases of Thought and Criticism" his personal ex-
perience with Cardinal Newman, and the audience showed by
their close attention and generous applause how much they en-
joyed his reading.

Miss Katherine E. Conway, of Boston, who had previously
read that delightful paper on " The Literature of Moral Love-
liness," and who had many warm friends among the students of
the Summer-School, favored us with two of her poems : " Ire-
land " and " Possession."

The Rev. Dr. Conaty, of Worcester, who presided at this re-
ception most informal, then called upon Dr. George Parsons
Lathrop. He responded by- reading " Bride Brook," from his

1892.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 291

latest collection of poems, first relating the little incident of the
poem, which had occurred not far from New London town. He
read also one of his best-known poems, " Kenan's Charge."

Mrs. E. G. Martin was next introduced, and read a chapter
from her story " John Van Alstyne's Factory," which attracted
widespread notice when it appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

We had also the pleasure of hearing from James Jeffrey
Roche, the poet, whose " Life of John Boyle O'Reilly " has
made his name a household word. At the earnest request of
many friends he read some selections from that book, and his
famous poem entitled " The Fight of the Armstrong Privateer."

After this Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop read two poems.
One " So it is True, " and the other " Choice," a very beautiful
little poem written for the occasion.

These readings, with the addition of some exquisite musical
selections by Miss Angela Gallagher, completed the evening's
entertainment. And our Red-Letter Day did it begin this
morning? Ah, no! it began more than two weeks ago in St.
Mary's Church at the High Mass, which was the real opening
of the Summer-School. It began with the first words of the
preacher, taken from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis :
" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And
a great darkness was upon the face of the earth. And God
said : Let there be light. And light was " the " pure white
light " of God's truth. It was in the heart of the lecturer who
taught us so simply yet so grandly the great moral science of
life the right and the wrong. It tipped the arrows of his earn-
est thought, which carried conviction to the hearts and minds
of his pupils. It flashed across the page of history, and showed
us the grand old Catholic Church in the true position which is
hers to-day, and which has been hers for eighteen centuries. It
pierced the veil of the dim past, and we saw her as she always
had been the true friend of enlightenment and progress ; the
treasure-house of learning ; the guide and the comfort of erring,
weary souls. It penetrated the inmost recesses of the earth, and
drew for us the dividing line between scientific fact and mere
speculation, and it discovered to our ken the connecting lines
the links that couple science and revealed religion.

"And light was!" It poured forth its fulness upon us; it
opened our eyes to its own splendor ; it forged the chains of
silk and gold that held us spell-bound through the long, heated
term, when rustling elms and cooling breezes were wooing us to
rest in shady grove or by the summer sea.

And where did our Red-Letter Day end ? At the Lyceum
Theatre, when the president had made the last announcement,
and when the chairman of the Board of Studies had laid before
us the plan of work for the coming winter; when he paid his
most eloquent and enthusiastic tribute to the projector of the
Catholic Summer-School ; and had said to all the students, Au
revoir.

292 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov.,

It may be claimed that THE CATHOLIC WORLD has spent a
large amount of money for over twenty-five years in paying for
the productions of Catholic authors. According to the plans
of Father Hecker when the magazine was started, this was to
be a most important part of its work, to provide a medium for
the development of native talent, to secure a fair hearing and
fair compensation for Catholic writers. Among intelligent read-
ers there is a laudable curiosity to know something of the per-
sonal history of the men and women who write works conspicuous
for literary merit. Such books are welcomed at the fireside as
members of the family circle, and the names of their authors are
held in affectionate remembrance. The treasures of the intel-
lectual world are communicated to studious minds by reading
chiefly.

Pope Leo XIII. has shown during his pontificate his sympathy
with workers in the world of thought. On the occasion of his
golden jubilee he kindly accepted from the Catholics of Great
Britain a collection of books published in England from 1837
to 1887. In this collection four hundred and twelve authors
were represented by over fourteen hundred volumes, including
bound copies of the leading magazines. The money expended
in this undertaking was generously subscribed by prominent
Catholics of the clergy and laity. It was a most significant
tribute of honor to the great minds that have produced the
Catholic literature of the English language, and a fitting gift to
the illustrious Pontiff who has achieved glorious victories for the
church by the power of his pen.

1892.] EDITORIAL NOTES. 293

EDITORIAL NOTES.

WE present this month an interesting series of articles upon
the important issues of the day. Maurice Francis Egan
has attained a first rank as a literary critic. His estimate of
Tennyson's poetical worth will be read with considerable interest
by many who know Mr. Egan's ability, and wish to know what
he thinks of Tennyson's place among the masters of English
poetry.

The Summer-School in the able paper by Father Sheedy,
who has had considerable to do in outlining its policy, is shown to
be not merely a gathering of inquiring students during the hot
days of summer listening to lectures on some desultory topics,
but a far-reaching and maturely considered plan of educational
work with university aspirations. Apropos of the future of the
Summer-School, we have seen a letter from Mr. Melvil Dewey,
the Secretary of the Board of Regents of the University of
New York, extending extraordinary inducements to the promo-
ters of the school to locate within the borders of the Empire
State. If a home is selected in New York State, says Mr.
Dewey, the school can be incorporated under the laws of the
State into the University. It will be exempted from taxation
as an educational institute. It will be endowed with powers to
grant degrees. It can have also the use of the University li-
braries and scientific apparatus.

These inducements are so generous as to incline us to believe
in the advisability of locating, if not in a permanent place, at least
within the borders of New York State. There are many reasons
why it would be better to go to different places, but if the
school must have a local habitation in order to participate in
these preferred educational favors, we think that it would be
more advantageous to forego the benefits arising from going
from place to place in order to secure these much more mate-
rial benefits by locating in New York State.

It may not be considered invidious if we call particular atten-
tion to the able and masterly review of Dr. Romanes' exposition
VOL. LVI. 20

294 EDITORIAL NOTES. [Nov.,

of the Darwinian theory by Father Searle, of the Catholic Univer-
sity. He takes the advanced scientific ground that evolution in
the organic world is, practically speaking, as much taken for
granted by scientific workers in the departments which it con-
cerns as the Newtonian doctrine of gravitation is by astrono-
mers. He says, " Nearly as much may be said of Darwinism."

We have been pleased with the many warm words of encour-
agement we have received from different quarters at the efforts
we have made to improve the appearance of our magazine. We
have long felt that sooner or later we must introduce the fea-
ture of illustrations, and we have begun jn a modest way, and
we hope, with the approbation of our many patrons, to go on
month by month until we make THE CATHOLIC WORLD first-
class in its illustrations as it has always been in its articles.

Father Walworth in his installment of Bishop Wadhams' life
gives the story of his episcopal life in Ogdensburg. Rev.
Joseph O'Connor makes some very practical suggestions relative
to the training of the young clergy for the pulpit. General
Scammon tells us how Maine became annexed to the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts through a queer political technicality.
Father O'Gorman in his graphic style relates the machinations of
Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, who, through the instigations
of the English and the University of Paris, planned and carried
into execution the burning at the stake of the Martyr of Rouen.

Our next number will be the Christmas number, and we
shall endeavor to make it particularly attractive, not only through
a goodly number of interesting articles and Christmas stories,
but we are able to promise some very fine illustrations. Chris-
tian Reid will take us in her "Land of the Sun " into the ancient
country of the Aztecs, and will describe, with many beautiful
illustrations, the famous old town of Zacatecas. This old Mexi-
can civilization is interesting because it is unique, and though
Mexicans are our neighbors, yet so different are their characteris-
tics that it would almost appear as if an ocean should roll be-

tween them and us.

- * -

The appearance of a new Catholic paper in Philadelphia
is announced, to be called The Catholic Times. Its editorial
columns will be conducted by Father Lambert, of Scottsville,
N. Y., assisted by a corps of able newspaper men. It promises
us each week cable news from London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin,

1892.] BOOKS RECEIVED. 295

and Rome. It will adhere to the policy of giving the news of
importance from the old world as well as being a current record
of events in our own country. We wish it every success.

We are pleased to make note of in, and publish from these
pages to our many readers the submission to the true faith of
Mr. W. H. Thorne, the editor and owner of The Globe, a quar-
terly review of literature and religion, published in Philadelphia.

He seems to be somewhat of a Brownson in his way, having
initiated and built up through his own strong, vigorous pen a
quarterly magazine that has a large circulation. The announce-
ment of his conversion in the October number is couched in
such terms as to convince one of his thorough sincerity and deep
earnestness. We gladly welcome such a staunch defender of the
truth on our side of the line, and we hope that a pen that has
been so busy in the past will find a new energy imparted to it
when it is wielded in defence of the true faith.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

BOSSUET HISTORIEN DU PROTEST ANTISME. Etude sur 1'Histoire de Variation
et sur la Controverse entre les Protestants et les Catholiques au Dix-Septieme
Siecle. Par Alfred Rebelliau. Paris : Libraire Hachette et Cie. ; New
York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.

RECOLLECTIONES PRECATORLE DESUMPT^EEX XIV. LIBRIS DEPERFECTIONI-
BUS MORIBUSQUE DiviNls. R. P. Leonardi Lessii, S.J. St. Louis, Mo.:
B. Herder.

A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR CATHOLICS. By a Missionary Priest of the Diocese
of St. Joseph, Mo. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder.

INSTRUCTIO SPONSORUM. LINGUA ANGLICA CONSCRIPTA AD USUM PARO-
CHORUM AUCTORE SACERDOTE MissiONARio. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder.
1892.

A TREATISE ON MORTGAGE INVESTMENTS. By Edward N. Darrow. Minne-
apolis: L. Kimball Printing Co. 1892.

SOCIALISM EXPOSED AND REFUTED. By Rev. Victor Cathrein, S.J. A Chap-
ter from the Author's Moral Philosophy. From the German, by Rev. James
Conway, S.J. New York : Benziger Bros. .

ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPELS. From the Italian of Angelo Cagnola. By Rev. L.
A. Lambert, LL.D. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.

A PRIMER FOR CONVERTS ; or, The Reasonable Service of Catholics. By Rev.
J. T. Durward. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Benziger Bros.

296 BOOKS RECEIVED. [Nov., 1892

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OR DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS? Pastoral Letter on the
Separation of the School from the Church. By the Rt. Rev. W. E. von Ket-
teler, Bishop of Mentz. From the German by a Catholic Priest. New York,
Cincinnati, Chicago : Benziger Bros.

How THEY WORKED THEIR WAY, and other Tales. (Stories of Duty). By M.
F. Egan, LL.D. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Benziger Bros.

CATHOLIC HOME ALMANAC FOR 1893 (Tenth Year). New York: Benziger

Bros. ,

MEDITATIONS FOR ADVENT. By Rev. R. F. Clarke, S.J. New York, Cincin-
nati, Chicago : Benziger Bros.

BLESSED LOUIS-MARIE GRIGNON DE MONTFORT, Missionary Apostolic,
Founder of the Company of Mary and the Daughters of Wisdom, and His
WISDOM. By a Secular Priest. (2 vols.) London : Art Book Co. ; New
York : Benziger Bros.

A DAY IN THE TEMPLE. By Rev. A. J. Maas, S.J., Professor of Oriental Lan-
guages in Woodstock College, Md. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder.

ECHOES OF THE SUNSET CLUB. Compiled by W. W. Catlin. Howard Bar-
tels & Co., 28 Sherman Street, Chicago.

PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

THE TARIFF. Its Bearing upon the Industries and Politics of the United States.
By Henry V. Poor.

THE POETS OF IRELAND. A Biographical Dictionary in three parts. By David
J. O'Donoghue. Part II. (F to M). 1892.

THE VAGRANT OF LOVER'S LEAP. By John T. Broderick. CATHOLIC CHRIST-
MAS BOOKLETS. Troy, N. Y. : William J. Woods.

WHAT is THE USE OF IT? By Wm. Jefferson Guernsey, M.D., Frankford, Phil-
adelphia. St. Paul, Minn.: The Catholic Truth Society of America.

INDULGENCES. Rt. Rev. John J. Kain, D.D. St. Paul, Minn. : The Catholic
Truth Society of America.

REPORTS OF THE VERY REV. CHANCELLOR OF THE COMMISSION FOR THE
EXAMINATION OF TEACHERS AND OF THE BOARD OF EXAMINERS or
PARISH SCHOOLS IN THE DIOCESE OF NEW YORK. Press of the Mission
of the Immaculate Virgin, Mt. Loretto, Staten Island, N. Y.

TEMPERANCE SHOT AND SHELL. Compiled by J. N. Stearns. The National
Temperance Society and Publication House, New York.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Address by F. R. Coudert before the Catholic Club-
and the U. S. Catholic Historical Society.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. LVI.

DECEMBER, 1892.

No. 333.

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

A CITY OF THE SKY.

ROWN, bare, savage in their wildness and
grandeur, the mountains that enclose Za-
catecas stand. As the train climbs their
steep grades and winds in curve after
curve around their great shoulders, there
is a shifting panorama of deep gorges and
towering heights, vast red-brown hillsides
without a spear of vegetation, crossed
only by the lines of white boundary
stones that mark the extent of the dif-
ferent mining claims ; and, as the city
mine in close succession, each sur-
walls, each marked by the curious,
drum-like malacatas, the chimneys of its furnaces, and the square
in which numbers of mules are working ore by the patio pro-
cess. For this is the centre of one of the great silver districts of
Mexico, and from these heights, of aspect so desolate and for-
bidding, a kingdom's ransom in the precious metal has been
drawn.

" This is really very interesting," said the general, for, as the
train winds around the mountain-side, it would be possible to
drop a stone into many of the reduction works which line the
gorges, where men and mules look Lilliputian from the high
altitude of the track. Broad, smooth roads lead by easy gra-
dients around the hillsides toward these mines, and along them
pass constantly strings of laden burros, men in wide, white trou

is approached, mine after
rounded by massive stone

298 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

sers and gaily-striped blankets, horsemen with picturesque and
fantastic accoutrements shining in the sunlight. There is a stir
of life and activity everywhere, all things indicate the centre of
a great industry and the neighborhood of a populous city, while
in the crystalline clearness of the rarefied atmosphere, with the
dazzling sunshine, intensely blue sky, and massive red-brown
heights, the whole picture is vivid and impressive in the extreme,
full of color and absolutely foreign in every feature to the eyes
that gaze with fascinated interest upon it.

"And is it possible that all those are mines?" asked Doro-
thea somewhat incredulously " those fortress-like masses of build-
ings, and those curious enclosures where strings of mules are
walking about in black mud ? "

" That black mud," said Russell, " is the precious silver ore,
reduced to a pulp and united with quicksilver an amalgamating
process invented in Mexico soon after the Conquest. But see !
there is the first glimpse of Zacatecas ! "

They all looked eagerly. Higher and higher the engine had
been climbing, panting like some over-burdened monster the
while, until suddenly there was a swiftly-passing picture of a
city that seemed transported from the Orient, with its mass of
flat-roofed houses, its shining domes and slender towers, set in
a deep, narrow valley and forming an indescribable mass of soft
color, framed by the brown, rugged heights. Then the hills
closed again, the beautiful picture was lost, and, with a final
curve, the train stopped at the station of Zacatecas, although
the city itself remained hidden from sight.

"How charming!" cried Dorothea as she sprang to her feet.
" The whole thing has a savor of magic. Great bare, savage
heights, studded with fortresses for mines, and suddenly a
glimpse of Bagdad, is it? or Damascus? or Granada? lying in
the deep brown valley, glistening with a thousand tints, and
disappearing like a phantom of the imagination."

The first thing of which the party were conscious, when
they stepped out upon the platform of the station, was the
presence of a very chill and penetrating air, which made it
necessary to button cloaks and overcoats closely. Miss Gresham
glanced reproachfully at Russell. " I thought," she observed,
" that we should find warm weather in Mexico."

" In Mexico, as elsewhere, it is likely to be cold on a moun-
tain," Russell replied ; " and you must remember that we are at
the very respectable elevation of about a mile and a half above
the sea."

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 299

" The temperature strikes me as quite pleasant," said the
general. " Chilly, it is true, but bracing."

" Whenever a temperature is cold enough to be disagreeable,
it is supposed to be bracing," said Dorothea. " For my part, I
object exceedingly to being braced. The very term implies un-
pleasantness."

" What a picturesque throng of people ! " said Mrs. Langdon.
" We have come into a new world indeed."

Whether new or old and surely most old in its aspects and
suggestions, alike of Europe and the ancient East a wonderful
world certainly to eyes fresh from the commonplace life of
modern America ! The dark, graceful people, with their gentle
manners and sweet-toned speech, their costumes varied for every
class and every occupation, seem separated by the distance of
half the globe, rather than by a few hours of travel, from the
world left behind. No wonder that the party paused and gazed,
forgetful of all else for a moment, at the scene before them. It
was such a scene as may be witnessed on the arrival of the
train at the station of any important Mexican town, one which
a moderate sojourn in the country renders very familiar, but
which is full of striking novelty and interest to the new-comer.
Women with softly-tinted faces and melting dark eyes, draped in
the long blue scarfs or rebozos of the lower orders ; men of the
same class, with their slender, sinewy figures dressed in white
cotton cloth with bright-colored zarapes tossed over their shoul-
ders ; cargadores, or porters, wearing the broad leather band by
which they carry hundreds of pounds weight upon their backs ;
venders of fruits and dulces offering their commodities with in-
sinuating grace ; gentlemen in closely-fitting trousers of cloth or
buckskin ornamented down the sides with rows of silver buttons,
short, richly-embroidered jacket and sombrero, also lavishly
trimmed with silver; ladies with the black mantilla over their
heads, or the abundant coils of their dark hair left uncovered
while the drapery slips to their shoulders all form an assem-
blage so full of the color and grace in which modern life is for
the most part conspicuously lacking, that no after impression
can deepen or efface the first strong sense of absolute strange-
ness, and a picturesque quality altogether charming.

But the general was meanwhile looking around for Zacatcas.
"Where has the city hidden itself?" he asked. "And how are
we to reach it?"

"By tramway apparently," said Travers. "Carriages appear
to be an unknown luxury here."

300 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

" They would prove rather an useless luxury, as you will
soon perceive," said Russell.

And indeed, as they were borne down the steep slope of the
hill on which the station stands, by a tramcar that sped along
as fast as its small and lively mules could gallop, they perceived
that there was scant room for wheeled vehicles in the narrow,
precipitous streets they entered.

The valley in which the city lies is a ravine between steeply as-
cending heights, up the sides of which the buildings have climbed
in successive terraces, with a result very delightful to the eye,
though probably not so admirable from a sanitary point of
view. But notwithstanding the difficulties of the situation, the
place has all the air of cleanliness that distinguishes Mexican
cities. The prevailing tone of color is a soft terra-cotta, derived
from the reddish-brown stone of which it is chiefly built, that
harmonizes well with the deeper brown of the enclosing hills,
the dazzling sapphire of the over-arching sky, the richness of
abounding sculpture, the jewel-like flash of highly-glazed tiles,
and the brilliant touches of color in the garb of the people who
fill the streets that run up and down between houses built with
Old World solidity, on that ancient model brought by the
Moors into the Iberian peninsula so long ago, and thence borne
across the western seas to the land of New Spain.

The tramway carried the strangers rapidly into the heart of
this quaint and charming city. After a brief visit to a hotel,
where rooms were engaged, and where the cloistral arches sur-
rounding its court seemed full of the memory of the banished
nuns whose home was here for long years of peace and useful-
ness, they set forth to wander at will through the streets and
market-places, where every new vista opened a new combination
of novel forms and glowing tints. All the sights and sounds
they encountered were familiar to Russell, but it seemed to in-
tensify his pleasure in returning to the land that had long before
fascinated him, to witness the pleasure of these friends of his in
its abounding picturesqueness. The whole effect was to them
novel, brilliant, semi-Oriental in the extreme the thick-walled,
flat-roofed houses, with their grated windows, their portals giv-
ing glimpses now and then of sunny courts within, gay with
flowers and green with trees ; the narrow streets, where on raised
pavements, before small, dark shops, cobblers and tailors sat at
work and gossiped the while with their neighbors and friends,
who lounged around in attitudes of unstudied grace, suggestive
of unlimited leisure ; the richly-carved faades of great churches,

I8 9 2.]

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

301

standing on platforms cut from the mountain-side, with noble
towers rising against the sky, and sunlight shining on the tiled
surface of their domes. Amid all these scenes, recalling a hun-
dred memories of other lands, yet possessing a distinct and pe-
culiar character of their own, the party passed with fresh de-
light at every step. Everywhere was the stately architecture in
which the grace of the Orient mingles with the massive strength
of the Gothic, as if the Crusader had clasped hands with the
Arabian ; everywhere the bright, delicate frescoes which Mexican
painters produce with their pure, indestructible pigments, and

THE FOUNTAIN, WITH THE CHAPEL OF THE BUFA IN THE DISTANCE.

everywhere the graceful forms and gentle faces of the people,
filling streets, shops, and markets.

It was in the central plaza, from whence radiates and to
which converges all the life of a Spanish city, that the most
striking aspects of this life met and mingled. Throngs of peo-
ple were here passing to and fro, the dashes of scarlet, dusky
purples, and soft blues, that formed parts of their attire bright-
ened by the flash of silver as some gentleman in full Mexican
costume strode by, or cavaliers on small fiery horses, their bri-
dles and saddles lavishly decorated with the precious metal, rode
through the crowd. Ladies shrouded in black, with prayer-books
and pearly rosaries in their hands, passed on their way to or
from church ; while around a fountain with a low encircling wall
numbers of women were filling great red earthen water-jars,
coming and going in frieze-like procession, their rebozos draped

302 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

in perfect folds about their heads and shoulders, while one bare,
uplifted arm held the urn-like vessel in its place with the poise
of a Greek statue. Strings of patient donkeys went by laden
with sacks of ore or charcoal, displaying a nonchalant disregard
for everything and everybody in their way, and venders of fruit
sat on squares of matting upon the sidewalk, surrounded by all
the products of the tropics.

The whole scene formed a picture full of animated move-
ment and human interest, with rich architectural vistas opening
on every side, massive buildings with great stone pillars and
cool arcades, a glimpse of the spacious, brightly frescoed court
of the governor's palace, and the superb mass of the cathedral
towers thrust against a heaven that burned with the blue inten-
sity of a jewel.

"You are right, Mr. Russell," said Dorothea. " It does
seem incredible that we are on the same side of the ocean as
our pasteboard houses, our cities with so little trace or monu-
ment of the past, our country where everything looks as if it had
come yesterday, would be gone to-morrow. Compare those
scenes with these buildings formed to endure for centuries, this
wealth of sculpture, this artistic grace of form and color ! Why
has nobody ever told us that while we were crossing sea and
land and compassing the earth in search of the picturesque, it
lay here in such perfection at our doors ! "

"A few persons have told us so, I think," remarked Travers,
"and it is our own fault, no doubt, if we have paid no atten-
tion to them."

" The immense predominance of the native type surprises
me," said the general. " From the books that I have read on
Mexico I have been led to believe that although the natives
of the country certainly remained, it was entirely in a subject
position as peons or virtual serfs but I see little difference
between the laboring and ruling classes, as far as type goes.
They evidently belong to the same race."

"They do, with comparatively few exceptions," said Russell.
" The proportion of pure Spanish blood in Mexico is very small.
Spain civilized and ruled the countries she discovered she did
not repopulate them. Hence, when the rulers withdrew, the
natives remained in possession. There would not be one of
these dark faces to be seen had the conquerors of Mexico be-
longed to the same race as the settlers of North America. Yet
the descendants of those who robbed utterly and exterminated
entirely our native races hold up their hands in pious horror at

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 303

the conduct of the Spaniards, who have left Mexico possessed
by Mexicans."

" I find," said the general, " that I had very little idea of the
work which Spain did here. If she filled her treasury with the
riches of Mexico, she certainly spent a vast amount of those
riches in the country. And her work is so well done so
splendid and so enduring that it shames the work of other
civilizers and settlers."

" The material side of the work is indeed magnificent," said
Russell. "The public buildings, churches, aqueducts, roads, and
bridges all of these, as you remark, shame our work of the
present day ; but that is trifling compared to the greater work
of civilizing and Christianizing this people. Think of it for a
moment ! Here is one part of North America possessed by a
native race lifted to a higher plane of civilization than was ever be-
fore attained by any race of men in the same length of time. Put-
ting aside the romantic fictions of Aztec civilization, we know that
in reality Spain found these people savages, practising the very
worst and most cruel idolatry ; and she has left them civilized,
intelligent, and Christian to the core, let their calumniators and
detractors say what they will to the contrary."

Here Miss Gresham yawned in a manner expressive of a
mental weariness calculated to touch the hardest heart. Stand-
ing a tall, graceful figure in her perfectly-fitting tailor-made
gown, she had beguiled the interval of the above conversation
in observing with a critical eye the black-clad, mantilla-draped
ladies passing by, and she now communicated the result of her
observations to Dorothea. " One thing at least is certain,"
she said; "style has not yet penetrated into Mexico."

Russell, hearing the remark, laughed. " Suspend judgment
on that point, Miss Gresham, until we reach the City of Mexico,"
he said. "You will fancy yourself among the modes of Paris
then."

" Let us thank Heaven," said Dorothea impatiently, " that
there are a few corners of the world left where the modes of
Paris and the cult of Redfern have not penetrated. My dear
Violet, I know that I am blaspheming all your gods but really,
to talk of style in the face of such scenes as these is too
much !"

Miss Gresham, looking slightly offended, replied that she had
not been aware that style was a subject which could be out of
place in any scene. " I shall get one or two of these mantillas
of Spanish lace before I leave the country," she added medi-

304 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

tatively. " They will come in well for drapery, or for fancy
balls."

" You have not yet seen the west front of the cathedral,"
said Russell, addressing the party a little hastily for he feared
that the smile on Travers* lip would irritate Dorothea into retort ;
and for the same reason, probably, he went on talking as they
turned away in the direction indicated. " These great Mexican
churches," he said, "all belong architecturally to the order of
the Spanish Renaissance, which, with its noble harmony of out-
line and florid magnificence of detail, has always seemed to me
specially appropriate to this wonderful land of New Spain in the
days of its fabulous wealth."

" That is certainly a magnificent facade ! " said the general
as they paused before the vast front of the cathedral with its
rich mass of elaborate sculpture, its statues set in niches be-
tween columns, the ornate yet harmonious splendor of the whole
broken by cornices into three stately stories, and the exquisite
group of towers, one slender, graceful, airy as a dream, one
square, massive, richly ornamented, and the low, round, tile-en-
crusted Byzantine dome.

" Tell us something of the history of this church," said Dor-
othea. " It is too old and too splendid not to have a history."

" Every church in Mexico has a history," said Russell, " so
interwoven with all the past of the country, so rich in poetry
and picturesqueness, that it is like an idyl rather than a history."

"And this church?" she persisted, looking up into his face
with her eyes shining.

He smiled down at her. " Let your fancy, then, go back to
a day close upon three hundred and fifty years ago, when into
this valley came the noble Spaniard Juan de Tolosa, bringing with
him certain Franciscan fathers bent upon their work of convert-
ing the natives to Christianity. Juan de Tolosa encamped, we
are told, at the foot of the Bufa that great hill yonder which
closes and dominates the valley and the holy fathers, planting
their cross, gathered the natives around them and began the
preaching which never failed of success. The Indians, who must
have been as gentle and friendly as they are to-day, showed
Tolosa the silver lodes from whence resulted the foundation of
the city; and on the consecrated spot where the cross had been
first set up, the parish church was built. This being presently
rebuilt with great splendor, became the cathedral when Zacate-
cas was erected into a see. That is all I can tell you of it
the bare outline of its history. All that it has witnessed, all

306 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec. r

the life of which it has been the centre for these three cen-
turies, you must imagine for yourself."

" It is not difficult to imagine," said the girl musingly. " And
it has had its vicissitudes, has it not? It has suffered from
spoliation ?"

" Few Mexican churches have suffered more. Before the
confiscation of church property its interior adornments were
as rich as wealth and pious generosity could make them. When
men were drawing millions from the silver lodes beneath our
feet, it seemed to them a proper and natural thing to bestow a
small proportion of these riches on the sanctuary of God. But
other men with other ideas have since arisen, who have not
hesitated to despoil the church of these gifts in -order to pay
the cost of revolutions and fill the coffers of their leaders.
History repeats itself, as we know ; and the cupidity which
covets such riches, as well as the might which takes with a strong
hand what it covets, is an old story in the world. Now shall
we go in ? "

As they passed from the dazzling sunshine of the outer
world into the soft gloom of the church, they were met by a
fragrance of incense which, lingering still in the peaceful interior r
indicated that a High Mass had lately been concluded. The
spacious open nave spread before them in fine perspective, its
floor inlaid in Moorish pattern with the beautiful hard woods of
Mexico, and polished by the knees of many generations of wor-
shippers, the richly decorated roof sprang upward in splendid
arch, and the frescoed dome soared above the high altar throned
on its steps of rare, colored marble. Altars rich with gold
lined the walls on each side ; through the high windows rays of
misty sunlight fell on statues in robes stiff with ancient embroid-
ery, on dim old paintings, and candlesticks which looked as if
they might have been brought from the temple of Jerusalem, as
they stood holding tapers of wax as thick as a man's arm. It
was all, in its faded sumptuousness, its noble space and solemn
calm, like a poem full of pathos, yet of triumph too. For,
though despoiled of so much of its magnificence, with the prince-
ly gifts that once adorned it taken away by the robbers in high
places with whom Mexico has been so abundantly cursed, the charm
of the old sanctuary still remains, and must ever remain, as long
as its sculptured facade uplifts the symbol of redemption over
the spot where the holy Franciscans planted it three hundred
and fifty years ago.

Perhaps only in Spain can any other churches be found so

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 307

absolutely delightful to the artistic sense as those of Mexico.
Constructed with the massive solidity, the enduring strength of
ages when men built not pretentious shams to last for a day,
but temples in which generations might worship God for centu-
ries, they are in every detail marvels of picturesqueness. Great
gates of ancient metal-work guard chapels where the glance can
scarcely pierce the twilight obscurity to distinguish the details
of time-touched splendors within ; pictures with the rich tones
of the old Spanish painters look down from dusky corners ; deli-
cate arabesque carving delights the eye ; wrought silver and
carved onyx abound. And the people ah, the people ! Through
the great open doorways they come and go, as little children to
their mother's side to offer a caress or whisper a petition. At
no hour can one enter the humblest chapel or the stateliest
cathedral without witnessing a piety so unobtrusive, so uncon-
scious, and so sincere that it cannot fail to touch and edify
any one capable of receiving edification. Female figures, with
their drapery drawn in graceful folds over their heads and
around their shoulders, kneel before the different shrines ab-
sorbed in silent prayer ; or a group may be seen together, re-
citing the rosary or a litany in audible tones ; children clasp
their slender brown hands in devotional entreaty, or sit on the
floor beside their mothers and gaze with dark, solemn eyes at
scenes familiar as those of their own home. Men of all ages and
classes come in, kneel on the pavement, pray with fervor, some-
times with arms extended in the attitude of crucifixion, then cross
themselves in the devout Spanish fashion and pass out again
to the world of business or pleasure. From the stately hidal-
go to the sandalled peasant, who puts his basket down beside
him as he kneels, all show the same devotion, the same rever-
ence for the sacred place and the sacred Presence it enshrines.
All of this the strangers found in the old cathedral of Zaca-
tecas. Its Rembrandt-like shadows, its lofty domes and incense-
laden atmosphere, seemed fit surroundings for the dark, gentle
people who came and went, gliding noiselessly over the marquetry
floor or kneeling motionless as statues around some carved con-
fessional, within which sat a priest, tonsured head bent, and deli-
cate ascetic face outlined, like a pictured saint of the Spanish
or Italian school. They found a courteous sacristan who led
them into the spacious sacristies, the chapter-room, and other
parts of that mass of buildings, of vast vaulted chambers, long
stone passages, courts and corridors, which are comprised within
the walls of a Mexican cathedral. In the dusky spaces of the

308 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

great rooms were objects to set an antiquarian wild with covet-
ous desire. Dark old chests revealed treasures of ecclesiastical
embroidery, pictures of dead and gone prelates looked down
from the walls, crucifixes gleamed with ivory whiteness out of
dim recesses ; in the baptistery they saw where the splendid font
of silver valued at a hundred thousand dollars had once stood,
and everywhere the picturesque delighted their eyes. It was like
a dream when, emerging from these precincts, as full of the spell
of the Middle Ages as if their massive walls, their cloisters
and archways, had stood for ten instead of three centuries, they
found themselves again in the midst of the vivid life of the plaza,
its shifting colors and moving throngs.

But, beside its cathedral, Zacatcas, like every other Mexican
city, is rich in churches, despite the spoliation of all and the con-
fiscation of many in the days of so-called reform. The church
of San Jos, a Jesuit foundation standing on its platform cut
from the mountain-side, is rich in carvings and fine old paintings.
The ancient church of San Francisco well is the gentle saint of
Assisi honored in Mexico dating from 1567, is full of interest,
as are also the beautiful churches of Santo Domingo and the
Merced. A similarity of architecture is in all, but a similarity
that never wearies, so admirably adapted is it to the splendid
ritual it enshrines, so nobly Catholic in its great, open naves,
free as God's air and sunshine to all the people without distinc-
tion of place for any, and so varied in its lesser features of
adornment.

But presently it was necessary to pause and rest, even from
rich old churches, quaint markets full of color, and the varied life
of the picturesque foreign streets. Very foreign, too, was their first
Mexican meal at the Hotel Zacetano. They were all pleased by
the strange, savory dishes which were set before them in well-
ordered succession, accompanied by some very good wine of the
country, for which Russell called.

" I should have been very much disappointed if we had failed
to find any savor of novelty in the food," Travers remarked to-
ward the close of the meal, when each of its courses had re-
ceived unqualified commendation. " The greatest pleasure in go-
ing away from home is to vary one's mode of living, to find a
foreign flavor in everything, and certainly not least in the cuisine.
But the whole world is growing so hideously commonplace and
alike that this is not always easy to attain."

"Yes, I too like a foreign flavor in all things when I go
abroad," said Mrs. Langdon, "and I am agreeably surprised by

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 309

Mexican cookery. I had an idea that it was barbarously full of
red pepper."

"Chili?" said Russell smiling. "It is much used in their
cookery that excellent curried rice which you liked derived its
chief flavor from it but only the lower classes use it in excess.
There is no more varied cuisine, rich in all manner of carefully
prepared and generally highly spiced dishes, than the Mexican.
People who fancy that they live on frijoles, tortillas, and chili con
came are only acquainted with the habits of the peasants."

" Quiere los frijolitos, senor ? " inquired the musical voice of a
dark-eyed waiter at his elbow at the moment.

" He wants to know if we will take the national dish of beans
which in Mexico closes every repast?" Russell inquired of the
company.

" Tell him to bring them, by all means," replied Dorothea.
" We propose to be as thoroughly Mexican as possible while we
are in the country."

After the frijoles had been tasted and pronounced " not bad,"
the dessert served, and strong, black coffee placed before them,
a discussion how the afternoon should be spent was naturally in
order. The general suggested a visit to the silver mines, which
as the leading industry of Zacatcas should, he conceived, be de-
serving of the attention of intelligent travellers. But this idea
was not encouraged by Russell.

" If you will allow me to advise," he said, " I think that it
will be well to defer that particular line of sight-seeing until
we reach Guanajuato. The mines there are more accessible and
of greater interest than these."

" Oh, yes, papa ! " said Dorothea. " Mr. Russell proposes some-
thing better than silver mines for this afternoon. He says there
is a charming town near here called Guadalupe, to which one
is conveyed by a tramway that slides down-hill by the force of
gravity."

" The tramway ? "

" The cars, of course and are dragged back by mules.
There seems a little novelty in that."

" There might be too much, perhaps. And what is to be
seen in the place after we have reached it by means of this to-
boggan on wheels ? "

" A beautiful old church, and what else, Mr. Russell ? "

"An exquisite chapel, a picturesque market full of native
color, and an Orfanatorio "

" Speak English, please," murmured Travers.

310 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

" Well, an orphan asylum, where the children are trained in
letters and trades an admirable institution calculated to inter-
est philanthropic persons."

" I am not sure that we are philanthropic enough to care for
the orphan asylum," said Dorothea a little doubtfully, " but I
am certain that we are all artistic enough to care for the chapel.
So I think we had better go to Guadalupe."

" Please except me," said Miss Gresham languidly. " I am
neither philanthropic nor artistic, and I have seen churches enough
for one day. Do you suppose " appealing plaintively to the
company in general " that I can possibly sleep on the bed in my
room ? It is positively as hard as this," tapping the tiled floor
with her foot.

" It will be a bad prospect if you cannot manage to do so,"
replied Russell, " since you will find few beds of any other kind
in Mexico."

" What a country !" said the young lady, lifting her shoulders.
" How can you all be so enthusiastic over it ? Well," after an
expressive pause, " if I can sleep on that bed, I shall go to sleep
while you make your excursion this afternoon. I confess I am
very tired."

" Perhaps you will be rested sufficiently to climb the Bufa
with us when we return ?" suggested Mrs. Langdon. " We are
going there for the view at sunset."

" That terrible hill ? I don't know. It will be a dreadful
climb. But when you come back I will tell you whether or not
I feel able to attempt it."

With this understanding the party separated ; Miss Gresham
betaking herself to her hard couch, to seek repose after the ex-
hausting sight-seeing and still more exhausting enthusiasm of
the morning, and the others sallying forth again to seek the
tramway for Guadalupe.

It is at a rate of speed rather trying to weak nerves that the
cars slide down hill, by the force of gravity alone, to the valley
in which the pretty town lies beside its shining lake. But the
lover of the picturesque is well repaid for any jars endured in
the rapid transit by the beauty of the charming spot. As Ori-
ental in aspect as the city left behind, its long, straight streets
of flat-roofed houses radiate from the noble mass of buildings
known as the sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadalupe, from which
the town derives its name, and has its reason of being. The
grand old church, with its rhapel and cloisters, its quaint garden
behind and park of roses in front, is in itself worthy to be the

1892.]

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

objective point of a far longer journey, as it stands with its irides-
cent domes and graceful minarets outlined against the turquoise
sky.

" What a picture !" said Margaret Langdon under her breath
as she first caught sight of it. And then to Travers, who walked
beside her, she added with a smile : " How like a parrot one feels
in saying the same thing over so often ! I fear we shall be to-
tally bankrupt in expressions of admiration long before we reach
the end of our travels."

"We shall soon grow more accustomed to the aspect of

SANCTUARY OF GUADAF.UPE, NEAR ZACATECAS.

things," responded her philosophical companion, " and they will
cease to affect us so strongly. Russell should have let us down
more gradually. To step from the most modern and most un-
picturesque of countries into the midst of one where the features
of the oldest and most picturesque are mingled the architecture
of Spain, with the mountains of Switzerland and the sky of
Egypt is likely to upset one slightly."

She laughed and confessed that it was, then bade him look
at the sculptured front of the church as it rose before them.
" There is not an inharmonious line or tint," she declared.

" It is all charming beyond expression," he replied. " And
that is the reason I do not try to express what I feel, but ab-
sorb all impressions with the stoicism suggested by the Oriental
character of our surroundings."

312 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

The next moment they passed through the great doors into
the quiet dimness, the restful silence of the sanctuary. Nearly
two centuries have passed since Fray Antonio Margil de Jesus
founded this great church in honor of Nuestra Seftora de Gua-
dalupe, but the greater part of its original magnificence remains
unimpaired by time or revolutions. Cruciform in shape, the in-
terior is superb in size and proportion ; the high altar, the four-
teen minor altars, and the choir are rich in ornament, and the
whole forms a splendid and impressive edifice. But loveliest of
all details is the capella a modern addition, the gift of a lady
of great wealth and devotion. Nothing can be conceived more
exquisite than this little gem of art. Full of the most delicate
and beautiful arabesque carving, colored and gilded, the floor in-
laid with hard polished woods, the magnificent altar rich with
gold, the altar-rail of silver and onyx, it is, with its frescoes and
silken hangings, an offering such as the generosity of an empress
could hardly surpass, or the finest taste of an artist desire to
improve.

It was here that the strangers saw for the first time an ad-
mirable copy of the famous, miraculous picture of Guadalupe,
henceforth in all their wanderings to be encountered everywhere,
until nothing could be more familiar than the graceful form, the
gentle bending head, the splendid robe, and the star-gemmed
mantle of this Lady of Mexico, with the Aztec tint upon her
lovely face.

" In all religious tradition there is no more beautiful and
poetic legend than that of the origin of this picture," said Rus-
.sell as they paused before it.

" Tell it to us," whispered Dorothea.

But he smiled and shook his head. " Wait until you see the
original on its own hill of Tepeyac. Come, you must now look
at the cloisters and garden."

So they passed to the shadowy cloisters, lined with curious
old paintings representing the martyrdoms of the saints, am
thence into the golden sunshine that lay over the garden, where
dark green cedars and feathery acacias lifted their tapering crests
into the lucid amber of the upper air, and where beds of lilies
and hedges of rose and geranium bloomed, while above this
of verdure rose the glistening domes and ornate towers of th<
church.

" What a superb architectural mass it is ! " said Dorothea,
throwing her head back to catch the effect of the lovely Moor-
ish minarets of the capella against the deep azure of the sky.

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 313

" My respect for the people who erected such buildings, while
our ancestors were, generally speaking, living in log houses, in-
creases hourly. There does not seem to have ever been any pe-
riod of crude beginnings in Mexico. The conquistador es, and the
missionaries who came with them, appear to have planted at
once every element of the civilization they left behind."

" There is no doubt of it," said Russell. " These brilliant
cities, with their magnificent churches and public buildings, exist-
ed as we see them to-day when New York and New Orleans
were primitive villages. The wonder is, how long we have been
in recognizing the unique charm and beauty of the country ly-
ing here at our door."

" What is it that somebody in one of the many books we
have brought with us calls it ? " said Margaret. " ' A tropical
Venice, a semi-barbarous Spain, a new Holy Land.' It is all of
that."

" I should only take exception to the ' semi-barbarous,' " said
Russell. " It is an epithet wholly undeserved."

" No, by Jove !" said the general with energy. " The people
who did such work as we have been seeing to-day were as far
removed from barbarism as the Greeks."

" Perhaps we are inclined to give them too much credit for
their architecture," suggested Travers. " Remember they had
never seen anything bad in structural art. Only think of it !
Never to have seen a nineteenth century building ! Wouldn't
that be worth going back to the seventeenth century for ?"

" A great many things would be worth going back to the
seventeenth century for, if one could manage it," remarked Dor-
othea. " And in Mexico one may be able to manage it better
than in most places. Here, for example, in this old monastic
garden with that noble pile, which seems transported from Europe
before our eyes, it is not difficult to go back two or three
centuries. It would not surprise me in the least if Fray
what was his name, Mr. Russell?"

" Fray Antonio Margil de Jesus."

" Came walking down one of these paths in his Franciscan
habit."

" Well I am so far material and of the nineteenth century,"
said Travers, " that I confess it would surprise me very much,
and not altogether agreeably. When people are dead it is, as a
general rule, in better taste for them to remain dead. I wonder,
by the by, if he was the same Fray Antonio Margil who founded
the missions around San Antonio ?"
VOL. LVI. 22

314 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

" I do not know," replied Russell, " but it seems probable.
He was at least a sufficiently interesting person to make his ap-
pearance very desirable, and if there were any hope of his com-
ing I should be in favor of remaining for any length of time,
in order to catch one glimpse of his face the fine Spanish face,
so full of mental and moral force, which one sees in all the por-
traits of that era. But since we are two centuries too late to
hope for such a meeting, I must reluctantly state that it is time
for our return to Zacatcas, if you wish to see the sunset from
the Bufa."

And indeed when they reached the plaza-, with its primitive
booths full of gay, bright color from fluttering rebozos and za-
rapes, its piles of fruit, vegetables, and pottery which make every
such scene in Mexico a study for a painter, they found the tram-
car on the point of departure, with six mules, harnessed three
abreast, to drag it up the steep, winding way down which it had
rolled so gaily. The driver, his lithe, slender form clad in the
white garments of his class and girded with a crimson sash, his
clear-cut face showing like an antique bronze under his wide
sombrero, mounted the platform and sounded his horn in signal
of departure. The spirited little mules started forward, and up
the broad, well-graded road, past the silver mines and the fortress-
like reduction works, the party were borne back to Zacatcas
while the sunshine was still lying like a mantle of gold on the
giant hills.

Miss Gresham was found, equipped for walking and an evi-
dent victim of ennui, on the corridor overlooking the court of
the hotel.

"What a time you have been!" she said, addressing the
group in a tone of injury as they approached. " The churches
and the orphan asylum must have proved very interesting. I
have been waiting for hours ! And now you are all probably
too tired to go out again."

" Oh, dear, no ! " replied Dorothea. " We are going at once
to the Bufa, and have only stopped for you. Come, we must
start quickly, or we shall miss the sunset. And it looks very for-
midable, that hill."

It is certainly very formidable, this great hill known as the
Bufa (Buffalo), from its peculiar form, which so impressively rise
above Zacatcas. Its height from the plaza is said to be not
more than five or six hundred feet ; but it is so massive am
abrupt that its altitude appears much greater to the eye am
also to the tired limbs of ascending pedestrians, although there

1892.]

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

is a well-built road leading upward by wide and easy gradients.
The view of the town from the different curves of this road is
well worth the labor of ascent. Over its narrow streets and
emerald plazas, over the Oriental roofs of its houses with their
courts full of verdure and bloom, over the sculptured towers and
pearly domes of its churches, the glance wanders enchanted with
the mass of soft and varied color, the picturesque effect of the
city pent in its mountain ravine. With these views, varying at
every turn, to repay them, and animated by the exhortations of

THE CHAPEL OF THE BUFA.

Dorothea, the party slowly toiled upward and were at last re-
warded by finding themselves on the summit, where the little
chapel of Los Remedies stands.

A famous place of pilgrimage, this church has heard innu-
merable prayers, and witnessed many strange and terrible scenes
of war, bloodshed, and pillage, since it was placed upon this
towering height close upon two hundred years ago. It is not
without architectural grace, but the group who paused upon the
platform where it stands had for many minutes eyes only for
the prospect spread before them. The city lay directly at their
feet, clasped in the close embrace of its massive brown hills, but
from the crest of the Bufa the gaze swept over these hills to take

316 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

in a view so wide and glorious that for a time silence was the
only tribute possible to pay to it. They stood in the centre of
a vast uplifted region, covered with the ridges and crests of
mountain ranges, heights like Titanic storm-tossed billows, deep
cafions and gorges, high valleys full of golden light, or lying in
the purple shadow of the peaks surrounding them. Near at hand
these giant ranges and deep, lonely ravines seemed indeed " like
a solemn and tempestuous ocean, suddenly petrified with awe at
the whisper of God," but as they receded into distance they
wrapped themselves in veils of the most enchanting color, while
beyond Guadalupe there spread, far as the eye could reach, a
wide, beautiful plain, shaded with every varied tint of brown and
green, set with lakes shining like sapphires and melting afar off
into mountains of divinely blue and tender purple hues. No
more perfect pastoral picture could be conceived than this vast,
lovely expanse, with its careful cultivation, presenting so many
different yet softly-blended shades of color to the eye, its dis-
tance dotted with great haciendas and clustered towns, and with
the towers of distant cities set against the amethystine beauty of
the far heights.

" Oh, what a scene ! " cried Dorothea, when she found speech
at last. " What a memory to carry away with one ! Never have
I seen anything so beautiful never ! "

" Never have I seen anything so rich in contrasting effects,"
said Mrs. Langdon. " Look at these wild, rugged, almost terri-
ble mountains in the midst of which we stand, then at the city
like a dream of the Orient lying at out feet, and at that heavenly
plain, spreading into measureless distance one is almost tempted
to doubt if such a scene can be reality ! "

" It is something like a mirage of the imagination," said Tra-
vers. " But I suppose it is all solid eh, Russell ? "

" Do you want some facts to establish it ? " asked Russell :
" for example, that seven cities can be seen from the Bufa, be-
sides villages, haciendas, mountains, lakes "

" I wonder," interrupted Dorothea, " if it is this marvellous
atmosphere that makes one feel how high, how very high, all this
region is? I have a vision of the sea breaking far below us
while we stand here, in a true Land of the Sky."

" Of course it is the atmosphere," said her father. " I wz
very conscious of it as I climbed the hill. It is exceedingly
light, and makes exertion difficult. But this is indeed a magnifi-
cent view. And I am surprised to see what a vast extent of
agricultural country lies beyond these barren hills."

1892.] THE LAND OF THE SUN.

" You will believe now what you heard with incredulity as
we approached the city," said Russell, " that the name Zacatecas
is derived from a word in the Indian tongue signifying ' place
where grows the grass.' In these great valleys, which we overlook,
grass of a most succulent quality grows, sheep and cattle flourish,
and cereals are cultivated on an immense scale, as you may
judge from the fact that one great hacienda alone produces an-
nually between three and four hundred thousand dollars from its
varied crops."

" Don't give us such prosaic details, please ! " said Dorothea,
dismissing the agricultural question with a wave of her hand.
" Tell us something picturesque and poetical, some bit of vivid
history that we may always associate with this spot."

" My dear Dorothea ! " remonstrated Miss Gresham in a feel-
ing tone. " Have you not had enough history yet ? It seems to
me that Mr. Russell has done nothing but talk history since we
left New Orleans."

" You are quite right, Miss Gresham," said Russell good-hu-
moredly. " I have certainly talked a great deal, and no doubt
proved an immense bore to you."

But Dorothea turned her back impatiently upon the fair Vio-
let, and taking his arm, shook it gently. " Tell me ! " she re-
peated. " No one need listen who does not wish to do so. Tell
me the history of this place ! "

" It is like almost every other spot in Mexico," he answered.
" Within the last seventy years war and tumult have raged
around it. Do not ask for details. It is best not to remember
what terrible scenes it has witnessed."

" But earlier in the days of Spanish conquest and rule ? "

" Ah ! of those days there are pictures enough and to spare
for whoever has imagination enough to see them. You must
know, then, that the first white man who entered the valley be-
low us was Captain Pedro Almindez de Chirinos, one of the
companions of Cortes. Can you not fancy him planting the stan-
dard of Spain, and entering into friendly negotiations with the
Indians ? But, being on his way northward to the country of
the Chicemacs, he remained only three days and then passed on,
escorted, however, by the natives as far as they dared venture
toward the territory of the hostile tribe. Sixteen years later the
gleaming armor of Juan de Tolosa comes down the valley, and
the Franciscan fathers plant their cross where the cathedral tow-
ers rise yonder. What a picture the Bufa looked down upon

3i8 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Dec.,

that day! Can you not fancy the group of mail-clad Spaniards
and brown-robed friars, surrounded by the gentle and friendly
natives? Like some great, couchant monster, guarding the treas-
ure beneath it, this mighty hill had stood untouched for ages,
but a time was now come when men were to tear the treasure
out of its heart. The Indians showed the silver lodes to Tolosa,
and he forthwith sent the news to three other noble Spaniards
Baltazar Tremifto de Banuelos, Crist6bal de Oflate, and Diego de
Ibarra who share with him the honor of being the founders of
Zacatcas. They opened the mines, built the city, lent every aid
in their power to Christianizing the natives, and their portraits,
by royal order of Philip Second, are incorporated in the arms of
the city."

" Thank you," said Dorothea graciously. " It is pleasant to
have history epitomized for one on the spot where it has taken
place. But I do not think that those noble gentlemen, in spite
of their charming names, displayed much judgment in selecting
a site for their city unless, indeed, they wanted to delight the
eyes of all future generations by its picturesqueness alone."

" What seems to me best worth remembering of those old
Spaniards," said Margaret Langdon, " was their ardent faith.
They not only saw God in all his works, but they consecrated
those works to him. What a beautiful idea it was to place a
church here to dedicate this dominating height to the one in-
fluence that has power to lift men's minds and hearts above the
pursuit of riches, the clash of war, the selfishness and the suffer-
ing of human life ! "

As her soft voice ceased, one of those moments of silence
which poetic nations call the passing of an angel, fell over the
group. No one spoke and then suddenly through the thin,
clear air came the stroke of a deep bell, rising from the valley.
It was the great bell of the cathedral sounding the Angelus.
An instant's pause, and every bell in the city clashed out in
jubilant peal until the whole air was filled with the resonant
sound, softened and silvered as it rose to the height where,
catching the last beams of the vanishing day, the shrine of Her
whose great joy was thus told to earth and heaven answered
back.

It was an exquisite moment. With serene majesty the sun
had given his parting kiss to the mountain crests and gone to
his golden couch where the peaks of the great Sierras lay cloud-
like in the west. Color faded out of the wide landscape, a ten-

1892.]

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

der, purple softness fell over valleys and hills, but the sky sud-
denly brightened into a glow so radiant that the little group
upon the summit of the Bufa looked upward with astonished eyes.
Airy, plume-like clouds of deepest rose seemed tossed upon the
deep-blue heayen, and the far, faint mountains lay in dream-like
masses against a sea of luminous gold. But these dazzling
splendors were brief, the color faded as quickly as it had come,
the rose clouds turned to filmy vapors of palest gray, the golden
glory lessened, until Venus flashed out of its midst like a great
diamond, while higher in the violet heaven hung the moon that
a little later would shed over the scene a radiance as silvery and
fairy-like as herself.

The air freshened perceptibly. The general buttoned his
coat and said, " It is time to go." So, with a lingering glance
around the wide horizon, they turned their steps downward,
where, wrapped in the shadow of its deep gorge, the terra-cotta
city began to gleam with lights.

CHRISTIAN REID.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

eoe

JESU! REDEMPTOR! Holy Dove,
Come on the wings of Peace and

Love

To ev'ry home wherein to-day
The Infant Saviour finds His way.
Jesu ! Redemptor! Peace and Love!

Jesu ! Redemptor ! Heav'nly Light
Drive from all hearts the shades of

night,

And like the Magi's wondrous star
Lead them to Jesus from afar.

Jesu! Redemptor! Peace and Love I

Jesu ! Redemptor ! Fount of grace,
Whose living waters know not space,
Come to these world-parched souls of

ours
j| With gentle dews and cooling showers.

Jesu ! Redemptor ! Peace and Love !

E'en as the prophet smote the rock

And streams gushed forth beneath the

shock,

Make them with love to overflow
As through life's arid wastes we go.

Jesu ! Redemptor ! Peace and Love !

With two-fold Love ! that shall enfold
In one fair shining band of gold
God and our neighbor, and shall make
The Child dear for the Father's sake.

Jesu ! Redemptor ! Peace and Love !

Love meek and lowly, undefiled,
Gave adoration to the Child,
As kings with royal diadem
Bowed at the crib of Bethlehem.

Jesu ! Redemptor ! Peace and Love !

Christ's Peace and Love shall henceforth fall

In benediction over all :

Claiming his brethren with the plea,

" Jesus was born for you and me ! "

Jesu ! Redemptor ! Peace and Love !

Jesu ! Redemptor ! then, oh come !
Spread over ev'ry love-crowned home
Thy snowy wings ; bid passion cease,
And fill us with thy holy peace.

Jesu ! Redemptor ! Peace and Love !

CHARLOTTE MC!LVAIN MOORE.

322 JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec.,

JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP.

foNSIDERABLE interest has of late been awak-
ened by the mention in the press of the name of
an American Bishop, John N. Neumann, as can-
didate for canonization. Advances have, indeed,
been made 'in that direction, the diocesan investi-
gation, or Process of Information, as it is called, having taken
place some years ago in Philadelphia. The acts of this process
were duly forwarded to Rome, and, in compliance with an order
from the authorities there, the Archbishop of Philadelphia lately
requested that all writings of the servant of God be delivered
to the archiepiscopal chancery.

It is indeed gratifying to all true lovers of our country that
a member of the American hierarchy, a citizen of this our Re-
public, should be considered worthy of so exalted a distinction
on the part of the Church of God. This very fact shows that
America is not an ungenerous soil for the cultivation of true
Christian virtue and for the production of heroes of sanctity.
And truly the American hierarchy has within a century exhibit-
ed more than one example of such real greatness. The history
of our deceased bishops records numerous instances which prove
the truth of this assertion.

Now let us ask, What is the character of Bishop Neumann ?
In what does his greatness consist, that he should be considered
deserving of so extraordinary a distinction ? Any one that reads
the life of this saintly prelate is impressed with his lively faith.
Faith was the soul of all his actions, its principles guided his
judgment, and were the maxims which directed him in his pri-
vate and public life. This lively faith filled him with a divine
confidence that strengthened him amid all his trials. Naturally
timid and void of anything like self-sufficiency, he cast himself
unreservedly into the arms of his heavenly Father, and shrank
from no undertaking, however great and difficult. This lively
faith made him forget himself, his comforts, his natural desires
and predilections. From it sprang his disinterested charity, his
zeal for God's glory and the welfare of his neighbor, his child-
like obedience to the voice of his superiors, in whom he saw the
representative of God himself. This lively faith made him in
reality what he always appeared to be, a quiet, humble, unas-

1892.] JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. 323

suming person, one who seemed to be little impressed by those
things which so easily move other mortals. Thus his appearance
suggested the idea that he was a man of little or no superiority.
Only the few that became more intimately acquainted with him
were able to esteem him at his true value. It need not, there-
fore, astonish us if we see this saintly man little appreci-
ated by the general public, or if we hear the opinion ex-
pressed that his appointment to the see of Philadelphia was a
serious mistake. Such, however, was not the opinion of the pre-
late who was mainly instrumental in bringing about the appoint-
ment, the saintly Bishop Francis Patrick Kenrick, who knew
Father Neumann thoroughly, and was also fully acquainted with
the difficulties connected with that see.

To enable the reader to form his own opinion of a character
so variously estimated, we will present in the following pages a
few facts from the life of the saintly prelate in which that char-
acter reveals itself.

John Nepomucene Neumann was born at Prachatitz, in Bohe-
mia, on Good Friday, March 28, 1811. His father was a Ger-
man and his mother a Bohemian ; both were true Christians
in the fullest sense of the word. By his many virtues, both in
public and in private life, the father of the future bishop won
the love and esteem of all. His mother, too, was distinguished
for that unaffected piety which is the soul of the Catholic home.

It was while pursuing his theological studies that Neumann
first became interested in the American missions. He was ac-
customed to read the annals of the St. Leopold Society, a
charitable association which did much for the cause of religion
in this country. The letters of Rev. Father Baraga and other
German missionaries in North America charmed him. A desire
sprang up within his soul to devote himself to these same mis-
sions, where so much good could be effected, so many thousands
of souls rescued from eternal ruin. This desire gradually ripened
into the resolution to set out for America as soon after his or-
dination as he should have obtained some practical knowledge
of his priestly duties.

It must be remembered what America was in 1833. The life
of a missionary was then a kind of martyrdom a life of every
species of suffering and privation, and not unfrequently of per-
secution. Those early missionaries had to be ready at any time
to sacrifice health, and even life, for the glory of God and the
salvation of souls. Hence, we may justly consider the resolution
of young Neumann a heroic sacrifice, especially if we bear in

324 fOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec.,

mind that his great talents and excellent qualities of mind and
heart would have opened to him the road to honor and distinc-
tion in Europe. Such, however, was not Neumann's ambition \
for, absolutely forgetful of self, his only aim was to promote the
glory of God and to obey his will. Characteristic of the man,,
therefore, was the answer which he gave to one of those impor-
tunate friends who sought by such reasons to dissuade him from
his heroic design. " Why," he asked, " do merchants ship their
goods to foreign markets ?" " Because," replied the friend, " in-
foreign markets they command higher prices." " For the same
reason I intend to go to America," rejoined Neumann.

At length the separation from relatives, country, and friends
drew near. Divine Providence was pleased not to second the
plan of young Neumann concerning his ordination before bidding
adieu to his native land. He had to leave home before being
raised to the holy priesthood. After countless disappointments-
and difficulties, he embarked for the field of his future labors
and sufferings, April 20, 1836, on the Europe, a vessel sailing
from Havre.

The voyage lasted forty long days, and it was only on the
feast of Corpus Christi that he could set foot on the shores of
the New World. He landed at New York on June 2, and re-
paired to the venerable Bishop Dubois, with whom arrangements
for his reception had been made previous to his departure from
Europe. The welcome was most fatherly, the more so as the
good bishop was only too anxious to obtain some worthy priests
capable of attending to the many German Catholics that lived
scattered throughout the vast diocese, without the aids of reli-
gion and exposed to the imminent danger of losing their faith.

A SECULAR PRIEST.

The bishop told Neumann to prepare himself at once for or-
dination, and on the ipth of the same month he raised him ta
the subdeaconship. After receiving this holy order Neumann
felt himself wonderfully strengthened by the reflection that now
he no more belonged to the world.

On June 24 he was ordained deacon, and on the following
day he was raised to the dignity of the priesthood.

Immediately after his ordination and the celebration of his
first Mass, Father Neumann left New York for the scene of his
labors, which had been assigned, to him by the bishop before his
arrival. He travelled by steamboat to Albany, where he said
Mass, and thence went on to Rochester, where he was to tarry

1892.] IOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. 325

a few days to administer the consolations of religion to the Ger-
man Catholics. The zealous pastor of St. Patrick's Church, Rev.
Bernard O'Reilly, welcomed Father Neumann most heartily and
remained ever afterwards his sincere friend.

While here he made the acquaintance of Rev. Joseph Frost,
a Redemptorist father, who some time before had collected the
German Catholics of Rochester, and just then happened to re-
turn.

On the evening of the I2th of July Father Neumann arrived
in Buffalo and found Rev. Alexander Pax, to whom the bishop
had directed him. The next day this priest brought him to
Williamsville, about ten miles distant, where Father Neumann
was to take up his abode with a private family. Everything was
poor and humble, entirely to the taste of the young priest, who
expresses his happiness thus : " Father Pax is just the man for
me. O God ! my desires are now accomplished. I am in Amer-
ica ; I am a priest, a missionary ; and I have a flock ! My Jesus,
thou must have strengthened me by thy grace, since thou dost
entrust to me so dangerous a post."

At length Father Neumann has reached the goal of his de-
sires. He is a missionary laboring with apostolic ardor among
the poor German Catholics in Western New York. At that
time the Catholics were for the most part despised and even
persecuted by the lawless and bigoted populace, and the Catho-
lic priest was looked upon by the uneducated and prejudiced
country-folk with disdain and sometimes with hatred.

One portion of his flock, the children, was particularly dear
to him. Whenever he came to a place on his missionary jour-
neys, he would not leave until he had given an instruction to
his dear little ones. The children, as we have seen, were the
first that experienced his apostolic zeal in America. Catechising
these innocent souls was to him a refreshment after his more
arduous labors. His method was such that these young souls
felt themselves at once drawn to him, and listened with eager
delight to his words as he expounded to them the great mys-
teries of our holy faith.

Knowing the necessity of a Christian education, it was one of
his first efforts to establish a regular parochial school at Williams-
ville. Unable to provide it with a suitable teacher, he took this
duty upon himself as long as that condition of things lasted.

We cannot dwell on all the good Father Neumann effected
in his humble position of a country priest. His life was one
continual exercise of self-denial and mortification, of zeal for

326 JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec. r

souls, and the sincerest and most disinterested love of God and
his neighbor. Gradually, however, his constitution began to-
sink under the weight of those manifold privations, and though
he endeavored to keep up, and to dispel the fears of others, by
alleging his strength and endurance, being, as he used to say,.
" a Bohemian mountain boy," he was at last compelled to con-
fess that he needed rest. Accordingly he invited his younger
brother, Wenceslaus, to come to America. For some time they
lived together and supported each other, Wenceslaus taking
charge of the domestic affairs and school, whilst his brother at-
tended to his missionary duties. But even with this help Fa-
ther Neumann could not bear up against the tide, and at length
his health broke down. At this juncture he remembered the
words which Father Prost used to repeat to him: " V& soli"
(Woe to him that is alone). Father Neumann saw the results of
the labors of this father at Rochester ; he witnessed the fervor of
the faithful, the flourishing confraternities and schools, and the
great number of communicants. These and other reflections
finally gave rise to the desire of embracing the religious life, and
of joining the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.

A REDEMPTORIST.

Having obtained the permission of the bishop, he repaired to
Pittsburgh, where he arrived October 18, 1840. The very first act
on entering his new home was one of obedience and mortifica-
tion. Though tired and exhausted from a tedious journey of
several days, he was ordered by the superior, Rev. Father
Tschenhens, to sing High Mass., it being Sunday. On the feast
of St. Andrew, the Apostle, Rev. Father Prost clothed him with
the habit of the congregation. The novitiate of Father Neu-
mann was quite an extraordinary one. As the number of Re-
demptorist fathers was very small, he had to take part in all
the work of the sacred ministry. He was engaged on the
missions, and was frequently obliged to change his abode from
one house to another, as needs required ; even to assist his old
friend, Father Pax, for some time. Not only was he deprived
of the spiritual direction of a regular novice-master, but occasion-
ally, being alone, he had to perform the duties of superior..
Still, the fervent young priest not merely conceived the idea
of a true Redemptorist, but became a genuine son of St. Al-
phonsus. The spirit of self-denial and mortification, of child-
like simplicity and humility, of prayer and recollection, of frater-
nal charity, was strengthened more and more in his soul the

1892.] JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. 327

longer he lived in the congregation. How firmly his heart was
attached to the congregation was shown on one occasion when,,
as a novice, he was sent on a mission in Ohio. On the plea
that the congregation in America was going to be dissolved,
some prominent priests pressed him to re-enter the ranks of the
secular clergy. No persuasion, no entreaties could move him.
This steadfastness is the more remarkable as the congregation
in America was then far from being securely established.

Finally, on January 16, 1842, Father Neumann made his
religious profession into the hands of Father Alexander
Czvitkovicz. This was the first profession of a Redemptorist
in America. He was first stationed in Baltimore. There he en-
deared himself to all : at home, as a confrere ever ready for any
work which the superiors might impose on him ; among the
people, by the zeal he displayed in the pulpit, in the confes-
sional, at the sick-bed, and in the school. How highly his supe-
riors appreciated the wisdom and practical experience of Father
Neumann, is evident from the important offices with which he
was soon entrusted. Two years after his profession he was ap-
pointed superior of the house at Pittsburgh. A difficult task was
there awaiting him. A new church had been begun, and a
heavy debt had been contracted. But Father Neumann was not
discouraged. He placed all his trust in Divine Providence, with-
out, however, neglecting at the -same time to employ every law-
ful means to urge the faithful to contribute liberally towards the
work. At all times his confidence was put to a severe test, but
our Lord never failed to help him. After three years the beau-
tiful church was ready for service. The next undertaking of
Father Neumann was the erection of a convent for the commu-
nity, and he succeeded in building one which was both commo-
dious and entirely in conformity with the rule.

As superior Father Neumann displayed a truly paternal ten-
derness towards his subjects ; he was their servant rather than
their master, teaching more by example than by word.
Under his direction the house of Pittsburgh soon became a verit-
able sanctuary of religious virtue.

Here as elsewhere the parochial school was the special ob-
ject of his devoted zeal. As there existed in America at that
time no catechism adapted to the needs of the German Catho-
lic children, Father Neumann compiled not only two such works,
a larger and a smaller one, but also a short Bible history. His
nights were devoted to this labor. These books were highly
valued, and were approved and recommended by the fathers of

328 JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec.,

the First Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1852. Moreover, he
prepared various small manuals whereby the spirit of piety
among the people was regulated and promoted.

The wisdom, firmness, prudence, and piety which Father
Neumann displayed at Pittsburgh won for him the fullest con-
fidence of his superiors. Although he had been only five years
a member of the congregation, they considered him qualified
to fill the position of vice-provincial of the American houses.
This office, which he held for two years from February, 1847,
was for him a source of unspeakable care and humiliation. At
that time the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer had
ten foundations in this country, all of which had to contend
with innumerable difficulties both spiritual and temporal. One
great object of the first superiors in America was to adapt the
requirements of the rule, and its spirit, to the circumstances of
the country and the necessities of the people. Although Father
Neumann had never seen nor lived in a regular Redemptorist
convent in Europe, he had, nevertheless, fully imbibed the spirit
of the congregation and of its holy founder, and knew admira-
bly well how to unite the spirit of a Carthusian with the multi-
farious occupations of the fathers in America. He had learned
the secrets of the inner life even before he began his missionary
career. The lively faith which animated him from his very in-
fancy, and the many interior trials which he had had to undergo,
gave his character that unshaken firmness and disinterested self-
denial which every one who really knew him admired. Those
virtues which other religious must learn in the novitiate, and
during the first years of their religious life, Father Neumann
had acquired and practised even before he thought of joining
the congregation.

How well Father Neumann understood the spirit of the true
Redemptorist was manifested by the zeal with which he labored
in the parishes and country stations, and on the missions. That
he entered into the apostolic spirit described in the rule of his
order may be seen from an illustrative example which is related
by his companion, the saintly Father Seelos. He writes :
" Father Neumann and I were to give a mission at St. Vincent's,
where stands at present the great Benedictine abbey. We ar-
rived in the evening at Youngstown, a little village in the neigh-
borhood. Unable to continue our journey as far as St. Vincent's,
we were obliged to pass the night in a tavern, so-called. Our
reception was ungracious enough, and not without difficulty did
we succeed in procuring something to eat. After supper we

1892.] JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. 329

thought surely a bedroom would be assigned to us, but we were
disappointed. We sat unnoticed on a bench which was eventu-
ally to serve the purpose of a bed. The door was locked, and
no alternative left us but to make the best of our situation.
' We shall have to content ourselves with a bed like that of the
fathers of the desert,' said Father Neumann good-humoredly ; and
spreading his cloak on the bench along with my own, he bade
me lie down. I did so in obedience, whilst he sat up all night
in prayer, to which fact may doubtless be ascribed the rich
fruits of our mission." Father Seelos adds : " I could relate
many other similar incidents."

As vice-provincial his aim was to promote the welfare of the
congregation in every possible way. He had regular observance
greatly at heart, and even scrupled to dispense the fathers from
the recitation of the office in choir, although they were over-
burdened with work. He took the most lively interest in the
development of the congregation by accepting new foundations,
provided they promised a rich spiritual harvest. Houses at New
Orleans, La., and at Cumberland, Md., were accepted under his
administration. The latter place, which he himself had often visit-
ed, appeared to him very suited for establishing a house of studies.

Although Father Neumann was a true son of St. Alphonsus,
he had nevertheless adversaries even among his own religious
brethren. There were some that despised him, and looked upon
him as a man ignorant of every tradition of the congregation,
and without the least experience. For this and other reasons
his authority was even questioned, and by some zealots he was
denounced to the higher superiors in Europe. But his humility
and meekness were imperturbable. He remained quiet and cheer-
ful as a child. In this more than in any other way he proved
himself worthy of the high esteem in which the superiors held
him, and of their unbounded confidence, which he always enjoyed.
An amusing anecdote will give us an idea of Father Neumann's
humility. One morning, at an unusually early hour, he arrived
in New York and sought admittance at the Redemptorist con-
vent. The porter, a postulant lately come to the house, an-
swered the bell. When he saw a little man in the garb of a
priest, and rather shabby withal, standing at the door, his first
thought was : " This must be the sacristan from Bloomingdale.
He has come early to borrow our dalmatics." Then addressing
the stranger, he said : " Well, what do you want ? "

" I should like to see the superior, Father Rumpler. Is he
at home ? "

VOL. LVI. 23

330 JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec.,

" Yes," answered the brother ; " he is at home."

" What is your name, brother ? " asked the stranger with a
smile.

" I am Brother N ," answered the postulant, as he turned

into the house to call the superior. Father Neumann made a
move as if to follow him, when the brother stopped short, ex-
claiming : " Stay here, if you please. Take a seat on that bench
whilst I go call the superior." And as he went he muttered to
himself, quite loud enough for the stranger's ears : " This sacris-
tan is inquisitive. He asks my name, and even wants to enter
the cloister."

Father Neumann smiled and seated himself where he had been

directed. After the lapse of a few minutes Brother N again

appeared, this time with the inquiry : " Who are you ? What is
your name?"

" I am Father Neumann," was the gentle answer.

" Father Neumann ! " repeated the astonished porter. " Oh !
if you are one of the fathers, pray come in."

Father Neumann entered and followed Brother N to the

superior's room, where, to his amazement, he beheld Father
Rumpler fall on his knees before the stranger and ask a bless-
ing. The poor brother was quite bewildered. Ashamed of the
reception he had given the Father Provincial, and a little in
dread of the result to himself, he avoided meeting him. But
Father Neumann sent for him and spoke to him kindly, and
set him at his ease by telling him that he had faithfully per-
formed his duty as porter. " However," added he with a signi-
ficant smile, " do not get into the habit of thinking aloud."

When relieved of the responsible charge of vice-provincial,
he was made rector of St. Alphonsus' Church, Baltimore, and
also one of the consultors of the first provincial, Rev. Father
Bernard Hafkenscheid. At Baltimore he exhibited that same
ardor and devotedness to duty that characterized him at Pitts-
burgh. The pulpit, the confessional, the schools, the sick, all
were special objects of Father Neumann's zeal. Austere toward
himself, condescending toward others, affable and obliging to-
ward those with whom he came in contact, he won his way to
the hearts of all. The most difficult and trying duties, and those
attended by the least Jclat, were his choice. It was a touching
and edifying spectacle to see old and young flock to the in-
structions which he gave on Sunday afternoon. No one under-
stood better than he how to speak to both mind and heart in a
clear and practical way.

1892.] JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. 331

A Sister of Notre Dame, who taught school in Baltimore,
bears witness to the great interest Father Neumann took in
everything that concerned the school. She describes him as an
accomplished catechist and a great lover of children. His gen-
tleness, meekness, and perseverance in communicating religious
instruction to the children often called forth her astonishment,
and indeed the salutary impression he made even upon the most
faulty and troublesome of these .little ones was quite remarka-
ble. He would also notice every fault in the teacher, and ad-
monish her so gently that it was impossible to bear him the
least ill-will.

At Baltimore he promoted another good work. The Sisters
of Providence, a community of colored religious, had been es-
tablished there for the benefit of colored orphans. Race-preju-
dice exposed these pious women to contempt, and, in consequence,
they were in want, not only of spiritual but even of temporal
assistance. In 1847 Father Neumann had taken charge of them,
and it was owing to his zeal and charity that thenceforth this
institution began to flourish.

As confessor of the Carmelite nuns at Baltimore Father
Neumann also effected much good by contributing largely toward
the perfection of those sisters, who by their prayers draw down
the blessings of Heaven on the whole diocese. In appreciat-
ing the work of Mount Carmel Father Neumann proved himself
in a special manner a truly spiritual man.

The Sisters of Notre Dame were particularly indebted to Fa-
ther Neumann. It was he that endeavored to secure for them a
foothold in America, and ever afterwards he was considered, and
indeed was, their father and protector. The late Mother Mary
Caroline, who for so many years held the office of commissary-
general in the United States, knew many most interesting anec-
dotes of Father Neumann. Speaking of a journey which she
made in his company, she says : " He was one of the most pa-
tient of men, contented with anything and with everything. I
often saw him buy some biscuits for a few cents and make them
serve as his meal. He would sit apart quietly eating them. I
also noticed that, even during the greatest heat of the day, he
never took a glass of water."

Though superior, and possessed of vast erudition and great
experience, he was ever distrustful of his own judgment and
opinions. Prayer and counsel of others guided him in his de-
cisions whenever matters of importance were submitted to his
consideration.

332 JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec.,

Sorely tried as his humility had been by the responsible posi-
tions which he had held in the Congregation of the Most Holy
Redeemer, it received a much severer shock when Archbishop
Kenrick, who had chosen him for his confessor, one day informed
him of his impending elevation to the see of Philadelphia. How
far his heart was from aspiring to anything like dignity and
preferment, and how sincere his conviction was of the improba-
bility of such an event, may be seen from an incident which
happened about that time. In the fall of 1851 Brother Athanasius,
a pious lay-brother living in the Redemptorist convent of Pitts-
burgh, asserted that he had a vision in which he saw Father Neu-
mann habited in the episcopal robes and environed with splen-
dor. Father Seelos, then rector at Pittsburgh, writing to Father
Neumann about the same time, jokingly mentioned the matter
in his letter. In his answer to Father Seelos, Father Neu-
mann says : " Tell that good brother, if he is not already crazed,
to pray that he may not become so."

Only a formal command of the Holy Father could overcome the
reluctance of the servant of God to accept the proffered honor. In
all obedience he bowed his head, saying : " Fiat -voluntas Dei."
After a week's retreat, he was consecrated in Baltimore, on March
28, 1852, and the very next day he tore himself away from his re-
ligious brethren and his beloved cell to repair to his new charge.
Entirely in accordance with the sentiments of the new bishop,
the entrance into his diocese was celebrated not by external,
worldly pomp and splendor, but by the establishment of a new
school.

BISHOP OF PHILADELPHIA.

As bishop, John N. Neumann remained what he had been as
Redemptorist, and as a simple missionary priest in Western New
York : an humble, self-sacrificing, disinterested steward in the
vineyard of the Lord. The fulfilment of the holy will of God
was the only object of his thoughts, desires, and aspirations. God
had called him to be a bishop, and therefore he strove to be
one according to the example of other saintly prelates. His
models were a St. Charles Borromeo, a St. Francis de Sales, a
St. Alphonsus. Let us see how he accomplished so sublime a
purpose.

The diocese of Philadelphia was, at the time of the acces-
sion of Bishop Neumann, much larger than at present, the
dioceses of Scranton, of Harrisburg, and a portion of the
diocese of Wilmington forming parts of it. So vast a territory
must necessarily engage the whole energy of a pastor so scrupu-

1892.] JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. 333

lously conscientious in the performance of his duties as Bishop
Neumann. In order to proceed with regularity and according
to a carefully prepared plan, he himself made a map of his
diocese on which every parish was properly located. The larger
places were to be visited, if possible, every year ; the smaller ones
every second year. His first pastoral visit might be called a con-
tinued mission ; for in every parish he remained several days,
inquiring into all particulars in order to obtain a perfect know-
ledge of the wants of his people. On these visitations the daily
exercises were strictly marked out. From morning till night he
was accessible to all. He spent much time in the confessional.
As he knew so many languages, numbers came to him who for
years had been unable to find a priest that could hear them.
After he became bishop he learned the Irish language, and was
enabled to afford great consolation to many a poor soul. A
good old Irishwoman had sought in vain for one to hear her
confession in her own tongue. At length she came to Bishop
Neumann, who with his usual kindness received her and heard
her confession in Irish. " Glory be to God ! " she cried when go-
ing home, " we now have an Irish bishop."

Whenever on these journeyings he found the faithful, and es-
pecially the children, wanting in knowledge of the fundamental
truths of our holy religion, he was wont to give several instruc-
tions before administering the sacrament of confirmation. If he
met with a scandal .of any kind, he knew no rest until he reme-
died it. Although meek and humble, he did not shrink from
using firmness when it became necessary. But his firmness was
tempered with mildness and prudence, so that in most cases
his efforts were successful. Thus he terminated a long-standing
scandal existing in Trinity Church, where an unruly party for
years had defied the ecclesiastical authorities.

One of the greatest achievements of Bishop Neumann was
the establishment of parochial schools throughout his extensive
diocese. His sentiments on this important subject are clearly
expressed in his first pastoral letter : " Our Catholic youth
can be saved only by Catholic schools." It was the bishop's
greatest consolation to see the clergy and laity co-operate
most heartily with his pious intention, and in the last
months of his life he was able to say : " Almighty God
has so wonderfully blessed the work of Catholic educa-
tion that nearly every church of my diocese has now its school."
The bishop visited the schools frequently, and thus stimulated
the emulation of teachers and pupils.

334 JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec.,

Not only the parochial schools, but other educational institu-
tions as well, were liberally patronized by Bishop Neumann and
were objects of his tenderest care and solicitude. A great num-
ber of academies, colleges, industrial schools, orphanages, both
for boys and for girls, were established during his administration.

Among the orphans and at the bedside of the sick in the
hospitals the good bishop found his greatest delight. It was
indeed a pleasing sight to behold him surrounded by the little
orphans, who listened attentively whilst he spoke to them of the
goodness of God, or related an interesting little story, or ex-
plained the different parts of a flower or some other wonder of na-
ture, and all in a manner suited to their young minds. In the hos-
pital he visited the sick, going from bed to bed, lingering a while
at each to say soothing words of comfort and encouragement.

Another most important object of the bishop's care and anx-
iety was the welfare of his clergy. His first attention was di-
rected to the seminary. By his earnest appeal he obtained some
students from Austria who afterwards became zealous pastors.
German priests were at that time much needed in the diocese
of Philadelphia on account of the large German-speaking popu-
lation.

Under Bishop Neumann's administration the seminary at-
tained a reputation such as it never had before. It need
scarcely be mentioned that the bishop took also the most
lively interest in everything that concerned the seminarists. He
himself frequently gave them discourses on pastoral theology, in-
to which he knew how to weave excellent remarks on moral
theology, canon law, and church history. He inculcated most
earnestly on his clergy the necessity of devoting special attention
to young lads who manifested a vocation for the priesthood,
saying that they should watch over the conduct of such boys
and train them to a pious life. The establishment of a prepara-
tory seminary was, for this reason, also one of his most cherished
plans. In a special pastoral letter he gives expression to the
desire of his heart, exhorting the faithful to contribute liberally
towards this holy object. In 1859 he had the pleasure of see-
ing his desire realized.

Every priest in the diocese found in Bishop Neumann a sin-
cere friend and a tender father. His residence, and even his
private apartments, were ever open to his priests. Nevertheless
he watched most scrupulously over their conduct, and with the
greatest firmness and zeal insisted on the observance of the
canonical statutes concerning the conduct of the clergy.

1892.] JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP.* 335

The lively faith and the great piety of Bishop Neumann
made him take to heart in a special manner the promotion
of true Catholic piety among all classes of the faithful. To
this end he introduced into his diocese the devotion of the
Forty Hours. Although objections were raised by some, that
the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament might be
dishonored, his loving heart was slow to yield to such reason-
ing. He .was encouraged by a kind of miracle in the execu-
tion of his long-cherished design. His biographer relates the
event as follows : " Late one evening Bishop Neumann sat in
his room busy in answering innumerable letters that lay before
him. Midnight sounded and found him still at work. The can-
dle that he used in sealing his letters had well-nigh burned out,
and he vainly tried to steady the only remaining piece at hand
in the candlestick. Not being able to succeed, and preoccupied
with the thought that had so long pursued him, that of the For-
ty Hours, he rather carelessly stood the piece of lighted candle
on the table, placing around it as a support some letters and
writing-paper. Wearied by so many hours of close application,
he fell into a light sleep, from which he suddenly awoke in alarm
to find the candle consumed and the table covered with smoulder-
ing paper. He gazed in astonishment at the glowing sheets,
many of them burnt and charred, though the writing they con-
tained remained untouched and legible. Overcome by what he
saw, and heedless of quenching the glowing sparks, the servant
of God sank on his knees. As he knelt in silent gratitude for
this apparently miraculous interposition of Divine Providence, it
seemed to him that he heard an interior voice saying : ' As the
flames here are burning without consuming or even injuring the
writing, so shall I pour out my grace in the Blessed Sacrament
without prejudice to my honor. Fear not profanation ; therefore
hesitate no longer to carry out your design for my glory.' '

The result proved the soundness of Bishop Neumann's view.
For, not only did the introduction of the Forty Hours not
lessen the honor due to our Divine Lord present in the Sacra-
ment of the altar, but love and devotion of the faithful were
thereby much increased. During those days of prayer many a
one was brought back to God and Holy Church who had been
led astray or had neglected his religious duties. The happy re-
sults of this devotion in the diocese of Philadelphia were, so to
say, the signal that induced other prelates to follow the example
of Bishop Neumann. Thus, at the present day, we find the de-
votion of the Forty Hours introduced into almost all the dio-

336 JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec.,

ceses of the United States. It need hardly be mentioned that
Bishop Neumann endeavored personally to render this devotion
as impressive as possible. He had a pamphlet published for this
purpose and often opened the devotion by a Pontifical High
Mass.

The same spirit of piety inspired the bishop to introduce
various devotional exercises and religious confraternities.

Knowing the value of religious orders in which discipline and
fervor are maintained, Bishop Neumann was eager to establish
them in his diocese. We have already mentioned the interest
which he took in the Sisters of Notre Dame before his elevation
to the episcopate. For these sisters he afterwards continued to
manifest the same interest and high esteem, especially on account
of the great good they effected as teachers.

He was happy in introducing communities of the Sisters of
the Holy Cross from France, of the Sisters of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary from the diocese of Detroit, where they had ori-
ginated, and especially of the Sisters of the Third Order of St.
Francis. The last-mentioned owed their existence in this coun-
try to the zeal of Bishop Neumann. When in Rome, in 1854,
the Holy Father himself recommended to him the humble
daughters of St. Francis. For this very reason the bishop took
great pains in training, in person, the first sisters of this order
in monastic discipline. The special blessing of God rested on
the self-sacrificing life of these sisters ; they not only effected
much good, but increased rapidly in number.

Not less interest did Bishop Neumann show in the advance-
ment and work of the male religious of his diocese. The Jesuits,
the Christian Brothers, and his own brethren, the Redemptorists,
were special objects of his love. It was at his advice that his
Vicar-General, Rev. Father Edward Sourin, joined the Society
of Jesus, where he died so holy a death.

The bishop, besides providing suitable instructors for his
people, zealously promoted the erection of churches and schools.
Everywhere he encouraged priests and people to prosecute this
good work. The cathedral, begun under his predecessor, needed
an energetic hand to bring it to completion. Bishop O'Con-
nor of Pittsburgh, who knew Father Neumann and how he
had succeeded under the most discouraging circumstances in
building the beautiful church of St. Philomena in that city,
said that he would be the best candidate for the see of
Philadelphia, as he could build the cathedral. The event
proved the truth of the assertion. The bishop organized a

1892.] JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. 337

regular system of contributions in all the parishes of the dio-
cese whereby the work was continued without incurring debt.
At the same time it was the . bishop's express intention not
to tax. the faithful too heavily, as each parish had to support
its own church and school besides. In the erection of the
beautiful cathedral the bishop saw a lasting monument to the
self-sacrificing piety of the faithful of the diocese. He had
the consolation of seeing the exterior of the cathedral finished.

Thus it was that this humble, unassuming prelate in less
than eight years effected lasting good in his large diocese. His
private life remained the same as it had been when a simple
priest. From four o'clock in the morning till midnight, and even
later, every hour was spent in the fulfilment of his duties. The
day was begun with prayer ; meditation, Mass, and office were
the first duties, which the saintly bishop never omitted. Then he
partook of his frugal breakfast. The whole day after this was
given up to the business of his diocese, and to visits from both
clergy and laity. There was no relaxation, every moment of
time was devoted to duty. It is needless to remark that, in the
fulfilment of his manifold duties as bishop, he found numberless
occasions for mortification and self-denial. Yet he bore every-
thing with the same resignation with which he had bowed to the
voice of Christ's Vicar when he was called to this exalted posi-
tion.

Humility and condescending charity being the most striking
features of Bishop Neumann, it is not amiss to insert one or the
other anecdote which may illustrate this part of his character.
After his elevation he changed nothing in his conduct or his dress,
nor could he become accustomed to his new title. Toward the
close of his life he remarked, jestingly, to one of his friends :
" Whenever I hear myself addressed ' Right Reverend Sir ' or
4 Right Reverend Bishop,' I imagine behind me some distinguished
prelate to whom the title belongs." His plain, even shabby, ap-
pearance often gave rise to amusing blunders. One day he was
visiting his brethren at St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia. It was
after dinner, when the community was gathered in the recreation-
room. He was chatting pleasantly with the lay-brothers when a
certain father that had recently arrived from Europe, who had
not yet been presented to the bishop, entered. Seeing the shab-
by stranger freely mixing up with the brothers, he thought it
strange that such individuals would be allowed to enter the clois-
ter and communicate so familiarly with the community. But
how surprised was he when presently he was introduced to his

338 JOHN N. NEUMANN, A SAINTLY BISHOP. [Dec. r

Lordship the Bishop of Philadelphia, Bishop Neumann, of whom
he had heard so much !

Another example of Bishop Neumann's condescension is the
following : Three lads of St. Peter's school one day conceived
the idea of paying their compliments to the bishop. After school,
therefore, with the school-bags on their shoulders, they marched
to the episcopal residence. On the way they cast lots who
should ring the bell, who ask for the bishop, and who be the
spokesman. The bishop was at home, and received his young
visitors with the greatest kindness, and entertained them for two
hours in the most fatherly manner. He showed them books with
pictures and other things of interest to juvenile minds, especially
wonders seen through the microscope, adding suitable explana-
tions which were both amusing and instructive, without appear-
ing in the least annoyed by the inopportune visit.

Such was Bishop Neumann in his private life : meek and
humble of heart like his Divine Master, forgetful of self, seeking
in everything only the perfect fulfilment of the will of God. In
the meantime he felt the weight of his responsibilities more and
more. His knowledge of the requirements of his office on the
one hand, and the voice of his tender conscience on the other,
gave him no rest, and accordingly he petitioned the Holy See to-
grant him a coadjutor. The Holy Father graciously acceded to
his request. But the relief came too late ; the good bishop's
health seemed completely shattered. The final summons found
him in the midst of his work. In the afternoon of January 5,
1860, although he had a very strange feeling for which he could
not account, he went out to attend to some business, and whilst
on the street was struck down by apoplexy. In a few moments
Bishop Neumann had yielded his pure soul to his Creator.

Jos. WiisT, C.SS.R.

Ilchester, Md.

1892.]

CYNTHIA'S ROSARY.

339

CYNTHIA'S ROSARY.

A CHRISTMAS STORY.

T was just dusk when Basil Minford came in out of
the bleak December night. Outside were wind-
swept streets, wet with sleet, cold, dark, deserted ;
but here in Cynthia's lovely home were warmth,
beauty, color. A fire was burning in the wide,
deep-set fire-place ; its bright flames flashed on the tiled hearth,,
the dark, polished floor, and the silken-shaded lamps.

They had been engaged for three months, but he had been
away all that time. While waiting for her he glanced around
the room that so perfectly satisfied his artistic sense. The hang-
ings were heavy and soft, of a beautiful dull olive ; the thick, rich
rugs were subdued in color ; nothing attracted particular atten-
tion save where the lamplight fell upon his own photograph
framed in scarlet and silver, the one bit of vivid color in the
room. Books lay everywhere in generous profusion.

The flowers he had carried in, and still held in their tissue
covering, were beginning to answer the heat and send out their
subtle perfume on the warm air.

He threw himself into the low chair before the fire a long,
lithe figure, his quiet, dark face aglow with the smile that
touched his lips and lit up his deep eyes. One hand rested on
the polished arm of the chair, white and strong an artist's hand ;
the other, still holding the flowers, hung limp beside him nearly
on the floor.

A pleasant sense of drowsiness was stealing over him, when
he heard the soft clink of the portiere cord, a hurried step, and
his betrothed took his head between her soft palms. He smiling-
ly drew her around in front to look into the " dearest face in all
the world."

A strong face, yet with all womanly curves and lines. The
straight, dark brows shadowed lovely, earnest eyes, eyes that at
times were powerful, passionate, strong, and sweet ; but to-night
were warmly loving.

" Cynthia ! "

" My Basil ! I thought you would never come ; it has been
the longest three months that ever were ! "

CYNTHIA 1 s ROSARY. [Dec.,

" It has been long to me too."

" But you have been busy."

" Yes, and very successful."

" I am glad of that. Did you bring home many sketches ? "

"Yes; and two finished studies. You will come down to
the studio to-morrow ? "

" Yes. Oh, look at these flowers ! "

Then, as their fresh loveliness was revealed " Why what is
this ? " And she pulled from its sweet hiding-place a glistening
silver chain strung with amethyst beads beautifully cut. She
held it up to the light and saw that on the end hung a crucifix,
an exquisite piece of silver carving.

" Why, it is a rosary ! "

"Yes."

" How odd ! Mrs. Borro has a collection of them, and has
them hung all about. She says they are so good for making
conversation. You are always getting me unique presents, Basil,
but this really exceeds all."

" You are displeased," said he.

" Displeased with this lovely thing ? Oh, no ! I will wear it."
And she doubled it and slipped it over her hand.

He half resented this use of it; it jarred as much as the
story of Mrs. Borro's " collection " ; but he could not help ad-
miring the gleam of purple on the white, velvety skin.

" My Christmas gifts have begun early."

" Do not call that a Christmas gift ; it is just a little reminder
that three months ago to-night you made me the happiest of men."

"Did I?"

She knelt beside him and laid her pretty head on his
shoulder.

" I too am very happy. Little did dear father know how
soon after his death I would meet my twin soul for you are
that, my Basil, my king ; we are perfectly suited to each other,
are we not ? " looking directly into the dark eyes on a level
with her own. " We agree most admirably."

" Save on one question, Cynthia."

" And what is that ? " incredulously.

"The Christ."

He said it so tenderly, so solemnly, she straightened up and
looked intently at him. He felt his own face change. All the
smiling lines were smoothed out ; his mouth was set, with the
half-dogged look men assume 'on the verge of a serious conver-
sation with a woman.

1892.] CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. 341

" No, Basil," she said, with a deprecating upward glance.

" Cynthia, you know that I love you better than life itself ;
but " and he laid his hand caressingly on hers " I love my
faith more."

She flung up her head.

"Does love of me preclude love of your faith?" she said.

He answered the note of aggressiveness in her voice by at-
tempting to draw her toward him.

" No ! " she said, getting up and taking a chair directly op-
posite him. " I could see by the tone of your letters lately that
something was wrong. Oh, yes ! " answering his movement, " love
was there, but you were not. If it is this, out with it. I never
really imagined for a moment that your religion was of vital
importance to you."

The words in that cutting voice stung like a lash.

He sprang to his feet.

" Your words hurt all the more," he said, " because they
contain a grain of truth."

He walked to the window, drew aside the curtain and looked
out. The park lay in gloomy shadow before him ; the electric
light swung just below. It was still raining, and as he looked
a Belt-line car passed crowded to the steps, the horses steaming
in the cold, pushing westward with bent heads against the driv-
ing rain.

In his present mood he longed to be out fighting the storm.
Instead, he was here contending for a question of honor with a
woman. He came and leaned one shoulder against the mantel,
and looked down on her gravely as he said : " Cynthia, when I be-
came engaged to you, and went to Paris three months ago, I was
what is called a lukewarm Catholic. You were right when you said
that you did not know my faith was of vital importance to me.
It was not. Would you care to but no ; you must hear." He
shook himself slightly, glanced at her downcast face and sighed.
She assumed a look of almost insolent indifference. With a
sinking heart he went on, manlike accepting the outer seeming
of the woman and allowing it to hurt him. "At the pension
where I was stopping there was an old lady, somewhat obtru-
sive, but kind and cordial in the extreme. Her penchant for
me, .an apparently lonely American, went so far one day as
to ask me to join her church Episcopalian, I believe. I smil-
ingly declined. At the table that night she alluded to the sub-
ject again with the pertinacity of a narrow, tactless old woman.
I tried to ward it off, but she persisted. My answer silenced

342 CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. [Dec.,

her. I said : ' Madame, if I go to any church on Sunday, it
will be to my own. I was born a Catholic.'

" Why I said it I do not know. I never had denied my re-
ligion I never had proclaimed it before. A few seats further
down a young lady was sitting, quiet, demure. At my profession
of faith she raised her head and looked directly at me. After
dinner, as I was going to my room, she said to me :

" ' Monsieur, you are a Catholic, is it not so ? '

" ' I was born one, mademoiselle.'

" ' And you have slipped back ? '

" I laughed, rather uncomfortably, disliking the personal dis-
cussion.

" She smiled, and said : ' The grace of God, monsieur, can do
much.'

" She came to me two days later, when I had forgotten the
incident, and said : 'Monsieur Minford, you will do me a favor?'

" ' If I can, mademoiselle.'

" ' It is to take this note.'

" She handed it to me, and instantly I knew what she had
done, when I saw to my I had almost said horror that it was
directed to a Catholic priest. I could scarcely refuse, it was
such a small civility. I took it.

" Cynthia, if you could but no, you cannot. Well, I set out
and found the church where Father Fidelis, a Passionist, was then
giving a mission. I cannot describe my feelings.

" For twelve years I had not been inside a Catholic church.
I hated myself for going now. I mentally protested every step
I took. I dreaded, above all things, the questionings, the per-
sonal catechism, the uprooting of that life of ease I had been
leading in my art-world. I think I may safely say that mine
had not been an immoral life, in the world's acceptance of the
term ; but I had left Christ out. It has occurred to me since
how very easy it would have been for me to run away that
night ; but then I did not think of it.

" I went in, handed my note to the porter, and waited. For
the first time in my life I was nervous. I grew cold, then hot.
I listened, straining every nerve, for the approaching footsteps.
I think I could tell you every crack in that cold, bare little room.
Presently the door opened and I braced myself.

" Father Fidelis entered. A tall man, with large frame, large
head and features, eyes that were keen and kind, the whole as-
pect of the man expressing rugged strength.

"'You are mademoiselle's friend,' he said.

1892.] CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. 343

"Instead of shaking hands, he put his palms on my shoulders
and looked me in the eyes down into my very heart. A few
straightforward questions, a sudden uplifting of the darkness that
lay on my soul, and, Cynthia, before I knew it I was on my
knees sobbing out my load of sin. He was a man, and he un-
derstood men. He cut to the very quick, but the knife was in
the hand of a surgeon heaven-born.

" Three more such meetings, and I had the happiness of re-
ceiving Holy Communion on the Feast of the Holy Rosary. My
Cynthia, I did not forget you on that day. My whole heart "

" Thanks, very much "; with angry sarcasm, " where was mad-
emoiselle all this time ? "

The moment the question was out she regretted it. He fixed
his quiet eyes upon her, and, to her inner agonized sense, weighed
and found her wanting. She was dimly conscious of waiting for
this judgment. She felt that he who, only three months before,
had, on an equal plane, asked her to marry him, had now gone
infinitely beyond her. In the agnostic atmosphere in which she
lived and moved the " finding " of a religion did not necessarily
imply an upward step, rather the reverse. From an intellectual
point of view she condemned what he had done. But what she
suffered 1 Never had she loved him as at that moment, when in
conscious power he had commanded her attention. The story
thrilled her, coming from his heart to hers ; but she was deter-
mined to close her heart, and listen only to that sense that in
every other crisis of her life had supported and sustained her
a sense of absolute security in herself and her intellectual power.

" My dear Basil, do you not think you are a little enthusias-
tic over this well, this new phase of emotion ? Take time ; I
really do not think Oh well, if you are going to take it that
way ! Don't walk around like that, looking as if I had desecrat-
ed the Holy of Holies ! "

" You have. You have seen to-night a human heart laid
bare. Have you no conception of what that means? I have
found the deeper, holier meaning of life and you ? Oh, do not
let me go ! " And he looked at her imploringly.

" I do not seem to have the option in the matter," she said
coldly.

" I will have to go. Do you remember you said once that
marriage was an absolute unity. If there is not unity there,
can we in reason look for it in other less vital matters? I am
a Catholic, while you ?"

344 CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. [Dec.,

She raised her head defiantly.

" I am what my father was. He was a good man ; he lived
and died without any religion ; surely I can be a good woman
and do the same."

He stood up, took her face between his hands, and looked
long and silently into her eyes, that now were defiantly bright.
One word of love and tenderness, and the flood-gates would have
opened ; but no word came, only that long, steady look.

" Good-by," he said, and went out. In the doorway he stood
holding back the portiere. His fine, serious face looked nearly
black against the golden light behind his. head. His mouth un-
der the soft brown moustache was like iron, his eyes had an in-
expressibly sad look. Those compelling eyes forced her to turn
and meet them.

" Cynthia ! " a world of love, longing, entreaty was in that
word.

" Good-night," she said coolly and quietly.

" Since you care to know," he said cuttingly, " mademoiselle
left Paris before I did "; then he dropped the portiere and went
out.

In the wild storm the walls of the Valencia towered above
him like the steep side of a precipice. He turned toward the
west. On his right the trees inside the park were bending and
swaying in the wind. At the corner he was whirled about by
the fierce blast that swept up Seventh Avenue. At Fifty-eighth
Street he stood irresolute. He went back, crossed the street,
and stood opposite her window. As he looked the light went
out.

Suddenly, like a cool hand on his fevered sense, came the
thought of the rosary still on her wrist. A silent uplifting of
his heart to our Lady of the Rosary, a fervent prayer that in
the approaching Christmas-tide that Mother would bring his loved
one to her Son, and Basil turned homeward, his brain on fire with
the zealous desire to win her soul or lose her heart in the at-
tempt.

As for Cynthia, she was bewildered. Never had she faced a
problem like this before. She could not believe that it was to
herself this dreadful thing had happened. For days she denied
herself to callers, in the hope that he would come and find her
unapproachable. But he did not come.

She went everywhere that she was likely to meet him ; then
left before there was a possibility of his coming. 'The streets,

1892.] CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. 345

the stores, every one she met were full of joyful anticipations of
the approaching holidays. She alone had none.

She doubted if he ever had really loved her. She petulantly
supposed " those priests " had complete charge of him now.
" That French girl " assumed gigantic importance in her eyes.

Often she had unhappy dreams, and waked to find the reality
more unhappy. It seemed to her that never was a case quite
as sad as hers. She passed all her friends in mental review and
could find no analogy to her own pitiful story, forgetting that
she never really knew the inner heart of any of them.

The short, dark days dragged themselves along, until at
length Christmas Eve came dull and cold.

All morning she had lain upon the broad, low divan in her
room looking out over the park.

After luncheon she dressed for the street. In reaching for
the silver arrow for her hair her eye caught the glint of ame-
thyst. She had not seen the rosary since that night when she
had flung it into a cabinet near. She picked it up now and
put it on, quite as she would any other beautiful adornment.

She went out, not caring where. She looked toward the
park, but a group of noisy nurse-maids passing in with their
cold, unwilling little charges deterred her.

The day and she were in accord. A pall of cloud hung over
the earth, unbroken save at its western edge, where it appeared
to be fleece-lined and rolled upward to show the greenish
yellow light beyond. The smoke from the elevated trains was
flying in great, plumy masses of feathery whiteness, gleaming
ghost-like against the gloom of the sky.

She walked rapidly westward, thinking, thinking, always her
thoughts in the same unhappy groove, fighting against herself.
Her love was on one side, her training on the other.

She longed exceedingly to know, yet did not know what she
wanted to discover. She unconsciously stood on the cross-roads
where faith and reason meet. Her soul, ploughed by trouble,
was ready for the seed, and unknowingly God's hand was lead-
ing her toward himself. She woke out of her reverie to find her-
self under the Ninth Avenue Elevated. Before her loomed a
great stone church, stern and forbidding-looking in the chill
air. Many people were passing in and out, and she followed.
She found herself one of a crowd, mostly women. As she step-
ped inside the door, an odd-looking, as she thought, piece of
furniture stood near, with three curtained entrances. She sat
VOL. LVI. 24

346 CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. [Dec.,

down and looked curiously around. She saw that the same lit-
tle well, " alcoves " was the best name she could find for thiem,
were on either side of the long aisles. She had never imagined
a church of that size before. It first appalled, then soothed her.
The silence wrapped her round. The first moment of peace she
had known in three long weeks came to her there.

A woman knelt beside her smelling unpleasantly of soap-suds.
Her hard, rough hands were clasped, her lips were moving
rapidly, her eyes fixed on the radiant central window above the
sanctuary, which represented the Blessed Virgin, Queen of the
Angels. It seemed to have caught and held the low brightness
of the western sky. A hard-featured man knelt just beyond,
horribly unkempt and dreadfully in earnest over his devotions.
A sad-faced woman sat in front, praying unceasingly; but the
sadness never left her face. A girl, apparently her own age, drew
aside the curtain and stepped out ; she stumbled as she entered
the pew, blinded by her tears. She knelt down just in front, and
sobbed uncontrollably.

Cynthia was becoming conscious that there were other trou
bles beside her own.

Suddenly her glance fell upon the rosary half hidden by the
sable at her wrist. She took it off and twisted it over her fin-
gers. She glanced at the woman beside her, and watched the
brown beads slip through the rough fingers. She looked at her
own, and said, in half-conscious whispers, " I wish Basil would
come back, I wish Basil would come back, I wish Basil would
come back," on each bead. The futility of the act struck her.
A sense of absolute loneliness overcame her, and she then raised
her eyes to the queenly figure in that large central window,
standing with outstretched, waiting hands in that blaze of flame-
color, and said instinctively, "Mother!"

A gush of tears came with the word as she thought of her
own young mother, whose life went out upon her coming.
Never before in her happy, sheltered life had she felt absolute
need of that mother until now. She too bowed her head upon
her hands, and her overcharged heart found relief in tears.

At that moment the grace of God entered her soul. She saw
the truth, and seeing believed. It was an instantaneous conver-
sion. She did not stop to ask, to weigh, to reason. She knew.
It was as if she had been seeking something all her aimless life,
and now had found it. Her soul was luminous with the light.
Through her earthly love and pain she had been led miracu-

1892.] CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. 347

lously to the feet of Him who is all love. A hundred contro-
versies might fix her belief, but could not strengthen it. Her
woman's instinct had outrun reason.

She never knew how long she knelt there. Time was an-
nihilated. A priest passing by was attracted by her evident dis-
tress.

" There is no one in the confessional just now," he said, sup-
posing she was awaiting an opportunity to make her confession.
She started up alarmed, and saw him draw aside the middle
curtain of that box-like structure near the door.

The dreadful word " confessional " forced itself upon her
mind. She sprang to her feet and fairly ran out of the church.

She walked up Ninth Avenue unconscious of her surround-
ings. Around her all the Christmas signs and tokens, but she
she felt as though the very earth was slipping from her. All
her old life unrolled itself before her ; her sybarite enjoyment of
her elegant surroundings, her ease and self-indulgence. She
knew instinctively that . this other life, this new, strange breath
that had swept away her old self, held the direct opposite of
this. She saw her dainty self one of that crowd, her companions
those " great unwashed," the soapy, shiny woman, the sobbing
girl, the dirty old man. But with it all came that delicious
sense of newness, of tranquillity, of exalted peace that had filled
her soul at the utterance of that word " Mother," and she de-
liberately turned her face toward the new, ignoring the old for
ever.

She had gone but a little way when she remembered her
rosary. She felt for it at her wrist. It was not there. She hur-
ried back to the church, fearful of losing the tangible link be-
tween herself and Basil.

The church was dark now. One starlike lamp hung in the
sanctuary. Here and there were quiet figures kneeling in the
darkness. No Christmas noise and jollity had entered here
only the pungent odor of the fir wreathing the columns. She
had to grope her way toward the pew where she had been sit-
ting. Spiritually, too, she thought she was groping her way into
that church.

A quiet little figure knelt in the pew, and Cynthia saw to
her amazement that she was using the beautiful rosary. She sat
behind her and waited, wondering what she would do with the
beads. Some one came out and lit a few gas-jets in the aisles.
Their beams did not reach across the wide space, and Cynthia

348 CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. [Dec.,

and the girl were still in shadow. At length, her devotions
ended, the stranger rose, genuflected, and went out. As she
passed the poor-box she laid the rosary upon it. Cynthia step-
ped up and took it off.

Their eyes met.

" They are mine," said Cynthia, half-expecting an apology for
using them. The sweet, innocent face lit up with a smile.

" I found them in the pew," she said, " and I said them for
the owner. They were blessed for you, and "

" But I am not a Catholic."

" Ah, mademoiselle ! the good Mother will take care of you.
I will pray for you every day."

Cynthia's exclusiveness half resented this, but the other was
so child-like, so evidently sincere, she could not take offence.

" I would lifce to know your name," she said, hesitatingly.

" To-day, mademoiselle, I am Clotilde Brussard. To-morrow,
grdce ci. Dieu, I enter the novitiate of the Precious Blood. What
name will fall to my lot, I know not ; but I will always pray
for you " 'looking up with childish admiration at the grave,
sweet face above her, now so sorely troubled. " Good-by," she
said ; " I wish you a happy Christmas."

Tears rushed to Cynthia's eyes. To make this a happy Christ-
mas, she must write to Basil ; but first she felt instinctively that
she must see some one who would confirm this strange new feel-
ing within her soul. She followed mademoiselle and asked if
she could not see a priest. Mademoiselle Brussard went with her
to the priest's house. She went slowly up the steps, Basil's story
vividly before her. " Oh ! if this is faith," she breathed, " then I
am a Catholic like Basil." Clotilde left her a moment in the
hall, and saw the priest alone. She told him of the meeting in
the church, the incident of the rosary, and Cynthia's desire to
see a priest. He went to meet her took her, into the parlor, and
in the kindest, most fatherly way drew her story from her.

" My child," he said, " as far as I can see, you have been
singularly distinguished by God in receiving the gift of faith in
a wonderful way." He put a book into her hands^

" Read this book attentively, come back to me when you have
finished it, and I will instruct you further. Good-night. God
bless you."

Upon reaching home she wrote one word to Basil, " Credo."
When he came, and the pleasure of their reunion had swept
away all memory of the pain of parting, she told him everything :

1892.] CYNTHIA'S ROSARY. 349

her doubts, fears, hopes, and struggles ; but above all, the joy
that now filled her heart. Their talk lasted long, and at the
end she told him of the girl who said her rosary for her.

" Cynthia !" he said, starting back from her, " it was Made-
moiselle Brussard of whom I spoke." For one instant they
looked into each other's eyes, moved and speechless.

" There are such things as guardian angels," said Cynthia,
solemnly. " Ah !" said Basil, " God's ways are mysterious. Reason
takes the soul to a certain point ; beyond it the human will unaided
cannot go. Then, if we have not faith, we fall back into outer
darkness. God's grace has come to you through your rosary.
The blessing asked for by Clotilde's pure young heart has
fallen upon you. Truly the Christ-Child has come to us in-
deed."

" Listen, the bells are ringing," said Cynthia ; " it is Christmas
day !" She went to the window, and looked out on the silent,
snow-clad park.

" Good-by to the outer darkness," she said ; " we are in the
light and warmth of faith. O my beloved !" turning to him,
" we are there together''

HELEN M. SWEENEY.

New York.

COLUMBUS THE
CHRIST-BEARER SPEAKS.

O CLOUDS ! far clouds like languages that

rise,

Blown breath made visible from lips all-wise ;
Tracing dim characters of mystic form,

And signs of wonder in the distant heaven ;
What speak ye to me ? Not of rolling storm,
Unrest or tremulous calm, to this life given :
Nay ! But a message from the farthest skies,

God's living air,
That strangely calls : " Arise,
Go forth, and bear ! "

So spoke the heaven. And I, Columbus, heard ;
Columbus the gray Admiral, known to you.
I, from the twilight hollows of the past
That then were thrilled with dawn, the Word recall.

Wind-buffeted and worn, and steeped in grief ;
Salt spray and bitter tears upon my face ;
So now you see me. But I, then, was young ;
And there at Genoa on the quay I dreamed
And saw the future. Yea : " Arise, go forth,
And bear ! " By day the moving shapes of cloud,
Solemn or bright, that message mutely spelled ;
As though the speech of nations age-long dead
Were writ in shadowy lines upon the sky,
Bidding me do God's will ! At night, in fire
That high command blazed out through all the stars,
Whence gleamed the gaze of wise men in the past,
But, over all, God's light that led me on.

A boy ! Yet through the awful stress of years,
Of storm and conflagration, wreck and war,
Of men's wild strife and murder, I kept the faith,
A child's faith, pure.

1892.] COLUMBUS THE CHRIST-BEARER SPEAKS. 351

Not mine the race to change,
Or make new men who better should disclose
God's likeness ; but to take the men I found,
And mould them, rude, to servants of His word.
I, rude myself, a sailor, full of faults,
Yet bending still to Him my thoughts, my will,
My learning and my act, what could I hope
More than to win them that they, too, should bear
The sacred burden, and help carry Christ
Unto the far new land o'er seas unknown ?

High was that mission, to me unworthy given.
But hardship trained my hands. Firm hope made whole
My weakness ; lending to my spirit wings
Across the deep to fly. When hope grew frail,
Sad poverty came, and with her slow calm smile
Gave me the kiss of peace, and made me strong.
So dowered with patience, hope, faith, charity
A beggar at the gates of that New World
I stood, whose key I held, and I alone.

O key of gold, unlocking wealth of dreams !
/ dreamed of wealth ; yet chiefly to unlock
The Holy Sepulchre from heathen hold.
More have I suffered from the lies of men,
Than all the gain to me my service brought ;
Save gain in heaven. Oh ! gladly I went forth,
Toil-worn and tried, yet joyous even then
To bear to realms unfound the name of Christ,
And set his cross there, sign of life in death.
So where the first mark of the New World shone,
A twinkling light upon a shore unseen,
We raised the cross there on San Salvador.
And all along Cipango and Cathay
And fertile Ornofay we showed the cross ;
Then later by that three-hilled isle that rose
From out the waves, type of the Trinity ;
And on Paria, called the coast of pearls,
Where the sweet stream from Eden's Tree of Life
Flowed down and mingled with the bitter gulf.

What matter if ye now by other names
Have called these lands ; or if my name be swept
Far from their verge, and drowned in rumor false ?
The cross I planted there : the cross remains !

352 COLUMBUS THE CHRIST-BEARER SPEAKS. [Dec.,

I, for my part, disdain at last received ;
Sent home in chains, dishonored, outcast, poor.
Sweet poverty then, who first to this great work
Had consecrated me, gave me her crown
Of lowly blessing at the hour of death.
Yet, lost in grief, " O Heaven, pity me !"
I cried. " I, who have wept for others long,
Weep, earth, for me ! All ye who justice love
And truth for me, Columbus, weep and pray ! "

But on my sorrow sudden radiance burst.
The broken chain, hung on my death-room's wall r
Was token of earth's bondman now set free.
And lo ! I saw that I who bore the Christ
Unto the New World's border I, the same,
God in his mercy granted me to bear
His Holy Cross of grief through all my life.

Ye who inherit the New World I found,
With riches yet untold to touch or sight,
Beware lest poverty of soul should blast
Your earthly splendor. This New World is yours ;
Yet dream not it is all. Still speak the clouds,
Though dumbly, of the future and the past.
Still shine the stars, with unforgetting gleam ;
And God remembers. Yours is this New World ;
But the great world of faith all still must seek
With trustful sail borne by a dauntless mast
Like mine. Nor wreck nor shoal, nor hate nor fear,
Nor foul ingratitude shall stay your course ;
Nor chains unjust. Sail bravely forth, and find
The New World here of Christ's truth realized !

So I, Columbus, the gray Admiral, speak
From out the furrows of unmeasured seas
That spread a seeming waste 'twixt you and God.
For still I voyage on, with perfect hope,
To that pure world of heaven, for ever new,
Where Time reigns not, but God for ever reigns.

GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP.

New London.

NOTE. Read at the Columbian Celebration in New York.

1892.] Ho w TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. 353

HOW TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM.

jCIENCE tells us that earthquakes, volcanic erup-
tions, and similar convulsions are only so many
vents for the pent-up forces of nature needed
elsewhere. If this be true in the world of mat-
ter, is it not even more so in the higher realm of
mental activity ? Such, indeed, is the verdict of history.

The needs of every age give birth to a marked impetus in
some special lines of progress. Ours is, indeed, one of these
marked periods. At such times leaders, booted and spurred, ride
rough-shod over difficulties inseparable from every new departure.
Methods count for little where great interests are at stake ; the
end in view brooks neither parley nor delay. Education, temper-
ance, capital and labor, each and all come in for a share of the
world's attention. The first of these gives the keynote to the
others, is the dominant factor in every scheme for a higher,
better civilization.

As a matter bristling with suggestions, the theories and
opinions vary as the ever-changing figures of the kaleidoscope.

Miss Katharine Tynan, in an admirable contribution to THE
CATHOLIC WORLD for August, 1890, on the Higher Education of
Catholic Girls, gives striking views of the lights and shades, the
merits and defects, of the system as viewed through English
spectacles.

Naturally less conservative than our British cousins, by shift-
ing our eye-glasses to the western side of the Atlantic other
scenes are presented. With Miss Tynan, most emphatically do
we urge broader and more practical methods in our convent
schools. Mental culture, the grandest work to which one's life
can be consecrated, whether as giver or receiver, was there kept
in too narrow and shallow channels.

Already much has been done to atone for these defects ;
enough yet remains undone to awaken all the active forces of
our American sisterhood. The very atmosphere seems favorable
to this new departure.

Our out-and-out American inhales not only liberty, but
progress and improvement with every breath. Even nuns, as
teachers, couldn't if they would, and wouldn't if they could, es-
cape the infection. They are not, as many imagine, fossils dug

354 How TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. [Dec.,

from a forced entombment far from it but, shaking the dust of
centuries from their feet, they are on the alert, up and ready for
the Master's work, which oftener finds them in the class-room,
library, and laboratory than in the chapel ; in fact, their chapel is
wherever duty calls. And so in one and another of these mon-
asteries, whose dawn may be traced to the remote past, a
kindly welcome is given the good fairy so busy in this blessed
work of improvement.

Religion, morals, and culture strike out new paths in the
wilderness, making it bud and blossom anew.

Seeing what has been and will surely be accomplished in
this great work, will it be too much to say that Archimedes has
at last found a fulcrum for his lever and can move the world ?

Strange that we should have lingered so long in the twilight
of this fair and beautiful day. Like mariners of old, without
Columbus and a compass, we feared drifting away from the
landmarks of knowledge held sacred by our ancestors. Prejudice
and a blind devotion to traditions of the past were the hills of
difficulty that must first be leveled and tunneled. Thus has it
been, thus must it be, was their dictum. But evermore riding
other peoples' hobbies doesn't pay. To-day is not yesterday,
nor was it ever meant to be.

However, let us in charity admit that institutions of by-gone
years met the needs of the hour, adding a fervent Deo gratias
that the great Master says: Fiat lux; and light there is.

With the objections urged against convent schools, it must
be admitted that they still fill a place peculiarly their own.
Aside from the course of study and the protecting care be-
stowed, so necessary to our free-hearted American girls, there is
an indescribable, impalpable something which imparts a culture
and womanly grace seldom found elsewhere. Is this influence in
the atmosphere ? Possibly. Is it in a secret, magic power ?
Positively, No. Yet still it is there. And as this unconscious
tuition goes on what do we see ?

A young maiden enters full of plots and plans that seem to
her the very essence of life and happiness, perhaps to say that
she's " been away to school," or to gain honors, medals, etc.

But soon the gentle nuns, in their motherly way, lead these
gay butterflies to see something more desirable than flitting
from flower to flower to sip its nectar. Their own nature, with
its fair promise, is revealed in a new light, higher aims awakened
lead to nobler, better work, and in after years these same maid-
ens turn to their convent home as to a veritable Mecca, gladly

1892.] Ho w TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. 355

making a pilgrimage thither. One of them, shortly before her
wedding-day, was asked by her betrothed where they should
make the bridal tour.

" To St. Mary's," was the prompt reply.

"Nonsense, dear; I'm in earnest."

" In earnest ? So am I."

" Why, you must be crazy ; who ever heard of a bridal trip
to a convent?"

" Never mind ; let this be the first time then, for there I'm
bound to go."

" But what will I do?"

"Come along, too."

"Worse and worse. Why the nuns would shut the door in
my face."

" Nothing of the kind ; just try them and see."

After some further exchange of shots the gentleman yielded,
went, and was won, being kindly entertained in the guests' quar-
ters. His wife says that he is now more ready even than she
to renew the pleasant acquaintance at St. Mary's.

Do we advocate a higher education for our Catholic girls?
Emphatically, Yes. Higher and still higher, reaching not only
heaven's gate, but passing its blessed portals ; only broaden and
deepen the base proportionally. Liberal doses of the classics,
with mathematics, the arts and sciences, aid materially, if the ca-
pacity and need are there, thus giving a mental discipline at-
tained in no other way. But beware of cramming, cramming!
the great mistake of our day. We want to do more than
others to rise above senior wranglers. This "-beating the
record " in mental work never pays. How often the poor, over-
taxed brain refuses to act. Not how much, but how and for
what purpose. Solid, practical work is always in demand. Re-
member the great English actor, who thought his time well spent
if after listening to the exhortations of Whitfield "he could pro-
nounce the letter O with the force and unction of the famous
preacher.

Do you say " By a little crowding we finish the sooner " ?
so limiting education to a certain programme, like that of a
concert so many numbers and then finale !

Ah ! can the infinite thus be compassed ? For what else is
knowledge ? No, this Gordian knot cannot be cut by one stroke
of the sword. Each new truth gained or idea mastered is but
the ancestor of myriads awaiting the patient student. Not satis-
fied with knowledge received second-hand, she herself unlocks

356 Ho iv TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. [Dec. r

nature's cabinet and revels in its treasures ever new and won-
drous strange.

" There is not a property in nature but a mind is born to-
seek and find it." Not the new material do we so much need
as the ability to apply the old.

Ways and means are never wanting to solve life's constantly
recurring problems, born of man's two-fold nature, matter and
spirit, but the genius and power to turn these factors to their
destined end. And just here is revealed the true purpose of
education. From a higher source must our Catholic teachers
and all others as well draw this needed wisdom. Faith gives
confidence, and confidence readily makes others' stumbling-blocks
our stepping-stones. Let such as these be leaders among lead-
ers ; rising above creed, party, and personal interest. See what
the public welfare demands, and stand for it and by it.

If a man has that true grandeur of soul which makes him
anything but a copying-machine, he will " take the dare " of
his own party, if need be yea, of the whole world acting purely
from his honest convictions of right, hisses and insults to the
contrary notwithstanding. There are such men of capacity and
integrity, eager for their country's service, ready for every
sacrifice but that of their honor ; which alone holds them back.

This is principle, true and unswerving, and anything involving
a principle worth being involved will find its way clear and sure,
spite of obstacles high as the heavens and deep as the lowest
abyss. But never forget that the source of all true principles
must be higher than their output.

They tell us "history repeats itself"; alas! for the repeti-
tion sometimes. Yet, need it be thus in the future ? Is there
not need enough and room enough for genius right here and
now of a new and better sort than has marked the common run
of events and the enterprises upon which they hinged ? It is
originality, individualism that we want ; men and women head
and shoulders above other men and women. Oh ! what genius
and its gifts are wasted at the gaming-table, the club, and the
races, which if thrown into our country's grist-mill would have
come out with the brand of virtue, patriotism, and their train of
blessings, for the world.

These are the people most needed ; purely American too, not
copies of Europe even at its best estate. Our habitudes and
environments cannot assimilate with theirs. Elasticity of thought
and action, that absolute freedom which realizes its absolute re-
sponsibility, and fears not to face the consequences this we must

1892.] How TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. 357

have. How many such types can we show? Too often one side
of our nature is sacrificed to the other self-respect to human
respect. Thus is our personality, which might well be called di-
vine in view of its origin, merged in the common mould of what-
ever is the fad of the day.

Every true American must surcharge himself with principles
based on eternal truth, on that religion, " pure and undefiled
before God the Father, which is to visit the fatherless and wi-
dows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the
world." Then may he defy the whole world to dislodge him.
As Jefferson says : " Error is dangerless when truth is left free
to combat it."

This genuine courage, supreme in its unselfishness, makes
heroes immortals. Failures become their spur. Was there ever
one deserving the name who had not laughed in the face of a
dozen or more defeats? For the child of pluck and daring ob-
stacles only bring out that latent energy which would else have
left many a Xenophon, Bruce, Washington, Watt, Stephenson,
Edison, and hosts of kindred spirits buried from birth to
death.

Nor from the dead past shall we seek them even as models.
Heroes in their generation they were, and worthy of all honor,
but for us to-day, with a forward glance, we mount still higher.

Cosmic power gives cosmic results. Ages yet to be shall
trace their weal or woe to our action upon the vital questions of
this nineteenth century, questions involving religion, education,
and whatever bears upon civilization. This is " the bill of human
duties " presented for our sanction or veto.

From nature we learn the great lesson of progress so typical
of our age. Lower orders of animal and vegetable life prepare
for the higher, and give place to them. The world's advance-
ment has followed the same divine law. Rude and barbarous
nations yield to the master-minds that wield their power of
thought and culture. The two, as teachers and taught, con-
stantly develop forces material and spiritual, thus aiding, feebly
though it may be,, in this God-given work.

Justly proud of our government, let us remember that while
"liberty is the grandest of privileges, it is also the greatest of
responsibilities." Nothing educates individuals more than a sense
of this responsibility. This truth impressed upon children will
be the make-up of half their education. Let them feel that at
their work, study, play, or whatever forms the wondrous pano-
rama of their lives, how largely success and happiness for them-

358 How TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. [Dec.,

selves and others is in their hands, engrafting at the same time
every noblest principle and aim.

Broad views, high motives, and a dominant love for what is
best and purest will prevail over every unworthy aim. Nature
and truth are but names for the divine Master himself, always and
everywhere working for the welfare of humanity through justice
and mercy, governed by those eternal laws that know not the
shadow of change. Some call this destiny, chance, good-fortune,
but we know too well it is God, and God alone, leading creation
to its destined end.

This higher civilization, permeated through and through by a
religion firm in faith and practice, will thus become the testa-
ment and heritage of every true American ; that strange anom-
aly will then cease virtually forbidding religious instruction in
our schools. The Constitution guaranteeing civil and religious
rights to our citizens being no longer a dead-letter, will assert
and maintain its integrity.

We use the term religion in its broadest sense, without refer-
ence to any special creed other than that of Christianity as em-
bodied in the life and teachings of its holy Founder. Can any-
thing but good result from inculcating such principles? We
must fight the unworldly and the unworthy, but with the peace-
ful weapons of conciliation and good-will.

" To worship God, to repress what is evil, and to be of ser-
vice to our neighbor, this is religion. And faith without works
is dead." It is the religion urged as indispensable in educational
work. Without it we will have but poltroons and knaves, pup-
pets and dummies, to be led by a string, or wound up to pipe
and dance the hours away. Strange as is the anomaly referred
to, the practical common-sense of our countrymen asserting itself
will bring good out of this apparent evil.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
That taken at its flood leads on to fortune."

Such a tide we face to-day, big with consequences beyond
the ken of human wisdom. If rightly met, what a glorious fu-
ture awaits us. Patience, constant, willing drudgery, and a de-
termination that knows not the meaning of the word fail, must
win the day at last.

That term drudgery seems a hard word to use, having some-
how an unpleasant sound to many ears ; yet it is the only thing
that really tells in life ; a persistent grinding at apparently
trivial things that alone make perfection, which itself is no trifle.
Goethe tells us : " Genius is nothing but the ability for hard

1892.] How TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. 359

work." Bringing this drudgery, this painstaking work, to bear
upon every duty will make success of almost inevitable failures,
whether that duty be the guiding of awkward little fingers to
round their first " O," the statesman's task sitting as the arbiter of
nations, or that of the astronomer trying to prove the peopling
of fiery, flaming Mars. Never was this persistent drudgery, this
dogged determination more needed than now, with great men
and women as well, to serve the needs of the hour.

Few spring into greatness at a bound ; it rather springs
from within, is that germ in one's life which can no more be
repressed than can the budding plant in springtime withhold its
marvel of beauty. The circumstances developing it are often
as remote from the goal as the antipodes. For this much hard
discipline, seasoning and scorching, are needed, that only the fire-
proof and bullet-proof could pass through unscathed. Yet what
grand, magnificent characters ! worthy of the nation's eulogy, of
Heaven's benedictions still more worthy. For characters such as
these our world is not one of bubbles, fancies, and chimeras,
but of plain, substantial facts. Butterflies do well enough for
idle pastime on a summer's morning ; but not for life real and
earnest as theirs. They think, speak, and act with their own
powers rather than their neighbor's. Principles form their coat-of-
mail, proof against red-tape and wire-pulling, above double dealing;
the wealth of the Indies, a thousand times told, could not touch
their honor ; they scorn everything that does not tally with the
highest, purest aims. Such is the mould in which educators
should cast all the little men and women of to-day, nay, in
which they must be cast, body, mind, and soul " Sans peur, sans re-
proche." Here, teachers, is your God-given mission. Scan it
well, for it is indeed one passing in grandeur all others.

As a motive and means of success we should view existence as
God himself views it in its completeness. " In our planning the
true meaning of life should be understood. Life in its entirety
must be reckoned with as including the eternal future not less
than the possible three-score-years-and-ten of earth. No plan
is worthy the dignity of a human soul which limits itself to
this life."

Seeing then that no act is in itself a finality, but, by the
great law and chain of association, reaching from eternity to
eternity, becomes inevitably the cause and sequence for good or
ill to countless others, we begin to catch a faint glimpse of life's
real meaning. The end sought gives its significance to every
important act.

The highest, broadest scholarship should not alone be the

360 Ho w TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. [Dec.,

goal of student life, but to get the most and best out of one's self,
thereby to render the more and better service to others. " Freely
ye have received, freely give."

Any life without a purpose, grand and full of inspiration car-
ried into the least details, is no life at all. " There can be no-
thing small that honest purpose does to make home sweeter and
purer, and society better, or the souls of men holy." With any
motive less than this education misses its sacred vocation. But
urged on by such aims a glorious future awaits our country.
Will it then become a Utopia as pictured by Sir Thomas More?
Far better than that, with one united effort, those in power will
work for the common welfare. Sweat-shops, strikes, riots, the
rule of Judge Lynch, and those terrible scenes at Homestead,
Coeur d'Alene, and in Tennessee, will be wholly of the past ;
otherwise this tidal wave must have its ebb and flow, " darkening
our country's banner with the crimson hue of shame." We may
not be able at once to stem its mad fury and calm the troubled
waters. Human strength is but weakness against almighty power
and divine retribution, but turning the forces producing these
calamities into broader, deeper channels, peace shall be once
more within our borders.

Let us emphasize the fact that every bullet and bit of dyna-
mite used by either party was the exponent of a principle of eter-
nal justice which can find expression in no other way so effective.

It may be wrought out only through bruised and bleeding
bodies, crushed hearts, and the sacrifice of many noble lives ; yea,
even though the end may not sanctify the means, or the means
the end, yet none the less will that end become an accomplished
fact. As it has been so will it be again and again until a higher
civilization is attained through a broader Christian education.

That glaring defect of omitting religious instruction in our
schools leaves out the very back-bone in the system, relegating
it, like the invertebrates, to a lower order of creation. Is it not
virtually saying to God, We can do without you ? Beware, lest
in turn he say, I can do better without you Depart / Morality,
or natural religion, is not to be contemned by no means. But
unless grounded on the supernatural, on that revealed by God
through Jesus Christ, we shall have little more than educated
animals. One-sided views give one-sided results. In the natur-
al world these deformities are anything but pleasing. Will they
be less so in the moral and spiritual ? Half one's nature, and
that the lesser half, developed at the expense of the other !

When through our country's flood-gates shall pour in the
thousands and tens of thousands from earth's remotest bounds,

1892.] How TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. 361

then and there will be our opportunity to show what devoted,
consecrated labor can accomplish, and thus remove the stigma
so long resting upon us. Our methods and their results will
speak for themselves, and prove that, besides dealing with the
mental and physical forces of existence, we have penetrated
into the life and soul of our pupils, teaching them the end and
sacred meaning of their creation. Thus when each one asks him-
self, as does every sentient creature, What am I? Why am If
he can give a reason defying the criticism of carpers and de-
famers. Then will he realize that without this stamina life be-
comes only a mad rush after power, place, and pleasure, or at best
a sunny, fanciful dream, to end when life's drama is played out,
and "the curtain rung down upon its mimic stage."

We often hear it said, " The world owes us a living." Do we
not also in turn owe the world one, too, by creating a new and
better life for others ? The children, hungering and thirsting, ask
for bread, and shall we give them a stone ? Their very immor-
tality cries out for something better than husks. Do you say
the family and Sunday-school can supply the needed religious
instruction ? The former might if it could and would ; but it
can't and won't, as should be. As to the latter, even if all our
children attended the services there why, think of it ! food for
the soul once a week, while the body must have its three meals
per diem. Consistency, thou art indeed a jewel !

We must be in dead earnest in this matter, for it is no child's
play. Here is our opportunity. In the name of every true Ameri-
can we step forth upon the platform of our own religious principles,
throw down the gauntlet to the agnostic, infidel, and free-thinker,
daring them to prove the advantage of non-religious schools.
The burden of the argument is in its proof. Facts reply, deeds
tell. Is there more honesty and purity in domestic, commercial,
and political life ? Pardon the comparison, but is not this
" thumbs up, thumbs down, wiggle, waggle," about all any sensi-
ble person can make out of our political manoeuvring, at best
a sad comment upon our boasted patriotism ?

What the record of our court-rooms, jails, reformatories?
What the character of our public officials? Are the scales of
justice equally balanced ? If the retrospect credits us with so few
gains and so many losses, how will it be in another decade or
two, when those without religious teaching become foremen and
forewomen in the world's great workshop? If the leaders are
not worthy, most worthy, what of the rank and file? These are
individual, national questions, weighted with our country's destiny.
VOL. LVI. 25

362 How TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. [Dec.,

Let this Rubicon, so long a dividing line, become a connecting
link. Let the church, college, and country run in parallel lines,
each aiding the other freely and with a will ; then will love for
the one, sacred and pure, only intensify love for the others.

Remember well that the maxims given by the great Founder
of Christianity form the basis of all law, national and interna-
tional, by which the rights of mankind are protected, and of
which the highest and best civilization is the outcome. Imbue
our youth with these same maxims, then we need not make this
nation bur boast ; it will become its own certificate and voucher.

Our legislators take their cue from the people. If they de-
mand purity and straightforward dealing at the ballot-box and in
the nation's councils, these factors must be there, simply because
the people will take nothing less, nothing else.

Our familiar phrases, level-headed, well-balanced, fully-equipped,
best express the brand with which the world's educators must
be stamped. The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man are the essential ideas of all true civilization, developing a
charity limited only by opportunity for its expression.

Mutual help, the law of reciprocity, so beneficent in family
and social life, is not less so in the broader circles of trade, and in-
tercourse with the world at large. In loosening our country's latch-
strings to the nations of the earth, let the welcome be so free
and hearty that our country shall become the world's benefactor
" greater than history has yet recorded." Let not this commemo-
ration prove so much a chance for material gain as for the pro-
motion of that peace and good-will which shall bind together
all nations as one family. Opportunity is ours such as will never
be for us again ; we must not fail to meet it.

Women are fast coming to the front in works of zeal and
humanity, more than four thousand occupations being now
open to them. Gifted with a peculiar tactile sense or faculty,
they manifest a shrewdness and penetration in solving many of
life's riddles that have puzzled bigger brains, perhaps, but not
more practical wisdom. Destined to guide others as man never
could, what a power is theirs for good or ill.

Watching the ebb and flow of life's tide, they may make
humanity's pulse beat responsive to their own. By them, too, the
great temperance question can perhaps be more wisely treated,
since efforts thus far remain efforts still. Meetings are held,
societies formed, pledges given and taken, while orators pour
forth their eloquence in the good cause ; the powers that be are
invoked to carry out this scheme and that by prohibition, high
license, etc. All these means are, indeed, most worthy, yet in-

1892.] Ho w TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. 363

temperance and its train of evils prevail, and will still prevail, be-
cause we deal with the effect rather than the cause. In only
one way can this deadly curse be lifted out of our land, and that
is by creating a better sentiment among the people, so elevating
their natural instincts that they will find something more desira-
ble than a frolic around the corner or a week's spree with kin-
dred spirits whom they would never admit into the home-circle.
Better even than treatment with bichloride of gold will be les-
sons of virtue and morality, developing the real manhood of
man, his honor and integrity, making him a law unto himself.
It is not by total abstinence under any and every circum-
stance that a man becomes temperate, but by being so much
his own master that he can truly say, Thus far but no far-
ther. And here it is that the grand power of an education
thoroughly Christian asserts itself, teaching that self-control
which is the only means under God's heaven for making ours
a temperance country, not because no liquor is sold here,
but that it will be only of necessity and with moderation ; then
would a drunkard be regarded as an anomaly, a monster. The
same is equally true of our other vices, which, in fact, must of
necessity diminish since their parent is beheaded. This elevated
sentiment becoming a part of the nation's character, any excess
or abuse will at once be cried down.

Public opinion is a mighty wedge, an irresistible torrent ;
educate that, and the work is done.

Our other defects, though less dangerous, must not be over-
looked. Let us hold in check that over-confidence, vanity, and
impulsiveness born of our marvellous growth and prosperity.
We too eagerly anticipate events, cannot bide our time and
wait the slow but surer outcome of nature's decrees, thus making
us count more failures than victories. The patience of God, as
we know, is one proof of his eternity. Our life will be eternal
too, but overlooking that, we go on in a mad rush as if this
earthly span were our only all.

Is the material for our civilization so quickly disappearing,
like the ornamental woods of our forests, that we can afford only
a thin veneering ? No, no ; let it be of solid oak and mahogany
through and through.

Life with us becomes so material that too often we can hardly
lift ourselves above the dead level of our grain-fields, railway
ties, bank stock, and fashion plates. Still, thank God ! there are
heroes bravely fighting this materiality, grand and noble ideas,
clothed in flesh and blood, that as God's instruments will work
out his designs and lead humanity to its glorious destiny. For

364 How TO SOLVE A GREAT PROBLEM. [Dec.,

this end we must seek not only to become one of many nations, but
the one above them all, their guide and legislator through the
humanity of our laws and the purity of our political code. The
needs of the hour and its resources too, never greater than now,
can make our nation the compass and barometer for all others.
Having noted our tides and currents, shoals and quicksands, by
these they will take their reckoning, rate their progress, and guide
themselves accordingly. Year by year becoming more sturdy,
strong, and self-reliant, what has been an experiment in self-gov-
ernment will become an established fact. Grandeur is the brand
of our country's resources, hence of its possibilities, which in turn
must typify its attainments, admitting nothing narrow, selfish, or
unworthy. Until our laws are so made and executed as to prove
that crime doesn't pay ; that freedom for you and for me is only
admissible when all other men are equally free ; that the unpro-
tected poor shall become objects of special care, then only will
religion and common-sense as twin sisters work out the great
plan of creation. Let each man and woman say in all sincerity,
I am bound in conscience to aid in this work here is my oath
of knighthood ! In return I receive the benefit of security, peace,
and prosperity. Then the simple fact of being an American will
give us a title of nobility higher even than that of Rome in her
zenith, when "to be a Roman was greater than to be a king."
Liberty, our boast and pride, cannot then be used for the suc-
cess of one party at the expense of another's defeat, but as only
a great means to a greater end. Let America set the example by
at once crushing out a measure that seems destined to make of
her public-school system, so justly the pride of the nation, a
mere machine to be used chiefly for political profit and religious
intolerance. If not nipped in the bud, this hot-headed fanaticism
will be its own executioner. In this lies our hope.

Emerson sounds the note of warning ; let us hear and heed :
" If our mechanic arts are unsurpassed in usefulness, if we
have taught the rivers to make our shoes and nails and carpets,
and the bolt of heaven to write our letters like a Gillott pen,
let these wonders work for honest humanity, for the poor, for
justice, genius, and the public good.

" Let us realize that this country, the last found, is the great
charity of God to the human race. If only men are employed
in conspiring with the designs of the spirit who led us thither,
and is leading us still, we shall quickly enough advance out of
all hearing of others' censures, out of all regrets of our own, in-
to a new and more excellent state than history has yet re-
corded." F. M. EDSELAS.

1892.]

THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE,

365

THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE.

HE history of a country is that of its people in
successive periods of time ; of their origin and
migrations to the land which their children call
" our country " ; of their increase in numbers, in-
telligence, and material wealth ; of the vicissitudes
of their struggle to subdue the earth to the purposes of life, and
to secure to themselves its peaceful enjoyment. In this view
the nation is a family ; and the love of country is one with the
love of home and kindred. But, in this sense, we have perhaps
no history. We have a country, but are not yet one people.
Nor does such a unity seem a possibility of the future. It never
has obtained in any country of the gentile world, and least
of all is it possible in ours. The attempt to construct it is like
building another Tower of Babel, only to reproduce its confusion
of tongues. There is, for society, no unity apart from unity in
God; and, on earth, his church alone is one one in him.

Old England, which the Virginia and New England colonists
were wont to call their home, was peopled by the aggregation
and partial fusion of Celts, Saxons, and Normans with the Latin
race, consequent on successive conquests of Celtic Britain by
Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans. In Maine small colonies
of this English people contended with those of France, during
the greater part of the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth
century, for possession of the country which, by force and fraud,
both were wresting from the native tribes.

On this sea-coast of Maine we find not only monuments of
early voyages, explorations, and settlements, but the scenes of
savage warfare, of brutal outrage and persistent wrongs to the
native Indians ; of contests between rival plunderers of their
lands ; of minor incidents of what we call " The Revolution " ;
and of its sequel in what, sixty years ago, our people called
"the last war with England." This whole sea-coast seems a
panorama of American history from 1602 to the present day
a period of nearly three centuries.

Unless we accept the uncertain records of discovery by the
Northmen, in the tenth century, we have no evidence of ex-
plorations on or along the New England coast prior to 1602.
In that year Bartholomew Gosnold sailed from Falmouth, Eng-

366

THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE,

[Dec.,

land, " as nearly west as the winds would allow," instead of taking
the usual route by the Canaries and the West Indies. " Leaving
Falmouth March 26, 1602, he made land May 4, near the forty-
third degree of north latitude." The land seen may have been
Mount Desert, or Agamenticus, near York.* He sailed as far
south as Cape Cod, and thence returned to England.

By letters-patent dated November 8, 1603, Henry IV. of
France appointed the Sieur de Monts " lieutenant-general to
represent our person in the country, territory, coasts, and con-

IN LAWRENCE BAY, ME.

fines of Acadia, from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of
north latitude ; and within this extent as far inland as may be
practicable, to establish, extend, and make known our name,
power, and authority, . . . -and by virtue hereof, and by all
other lawful means, to call, instruct, move, and stir them up to the
knowledge of God and the light of the Christian faith and reli-
gion."

In this same year, -1603, Martin Pring visited the Fox Is-
lands in Penobscot Bay. He explored the coast as far west as
the mouth of the Saco River.

In 1605 the Sieur de Monts, after wintering on a small isl-
and at the mouth of the St. Croix, in Passamaquoddy Bay, where

* Or, perhaps, the high lands near Camden Mts. Batty, Pleasant, Hosmer, and Megun-
ticook.

1892.] THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE. 367

he lost nearly one-half thirty-six out of eighty of his men by
disease, sailed westerly along the coast. He entered Penobscot
Bay and the mouth of the Kennebeck " where he set up a cross
on the shore and took formal possession of the country in the
name of his sovereign."

In this year, also, the Earl of Southampton and others sent
George Weymouth across the Atlantic " on a voyage of discov-
ery." They hoped, or pretended to hope, that a northwest pas-
sage to India might be found. On the nth of May, 1605, Wey-
mouth came in sight of Cape Cod : " Thence sailing northwest-
erly fifty leagues, he anchored on the north side of a prominent
island, in forty fathoms of water." He called the island " Saint
George " ; but it proved to be Monhegan.

The search for a northwest passage to India is supposed to
have been a pretence to avoid the jealous suspicions of the
French, while securing the advantages of prior possession and
continual claim of the coast between Cape Cod and the Bay
of Fundy. Weymouth visited the St. George, between the Pen-
obscot and Sheepscot rivers ; and on an island opposite its
mouth " planted peas, barley, and garden seeds, which in six-
teen days grew to the height of eight inches." These were the
first-fruits of civilized agriculture on these coasts. Both the isl-
and and the river were named St. George ; and the roadstead
between them was called Pentecost Harbor. Weymouth's voyage
and exploration of the coast of Maine was two years prior to
the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, and fifteen years before
the landing of the Puritans at Plymouth.

The explorers and first colonists of Maine were not Puritans.
They who set up crosses, " according to the custom of all Chris-
tian travellers," to mark the termini of their explorations, and
named their first settlement St. George, were not in sympathy
with the Puritan Governor Endicott at Mt. Wollaston, who mu-
tilated the flag of his country by cutting out the cross of St.
George, to " rid it of that sign of popery and idolatry. 1 '

The English frequently, the French more rarely, gave to their
American settlements the names of towns in the counties from
which they came, or with which they were in some way associ-
ated. Thus we have on the western part of our seaboard, York
and Scarborough ; Biddeford and Falmouth ; Portland, Bath, and
Bristol. Later, as towns sprang up in the interior of the coun-
try, they took the names of their proprietors. Thus Hallowell,
whose Indian name was Cushnock ; Gardiner, the Indian Cobbassee,
and many others, were named. Vassalborough was named for

368 THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE. [Dec.,

the Vassall family, who were co-proprietors of the territory ex-
tending some fifty miles along the Kennebeck, between Bath and
Norridgewock, and fifteen miles from the river, east and west.
This territory of nearly fifteen hundred square miles includes
Augusta, the capital of the State ; Waterville, the site of Colby
University ; Hallowell, Gardiner, and other considerable towns
and villages.

One-twenty-fourth part of this immense domain more than
sixty square miles was entailed on the children of Elizabeth

WATER-FALL NEAR CASTINE.

Vassall, wife of Sir Godfrey Webster, subject to a life interest
in favor of their mother. But in 1797 Lady Webster was di-
vorced from her husband, and was afterward married to the
third Lord Holland, nephew of the celebrated Charles James
Fox. Rather than join his mother in perfecting the claim,
which was not questioned, and in the sale of their lands, her
son, Sir Henry Vassall Webster, allowed the title to lapse, and
thus be lost to his heirs. The names and titles of descendants
of Elizabeth Vassall are enrolled in the British peerage ; but the
town of Vassalborough, midway between Augusta and Water-
ville, on the Kennebeck, is the only titular memorial of the
family in Maine. The old Vassall mansion in Cambridge, one
of the many " Washington's Headquarters" in the Revolution,
was lately the home of Longfellow.

1892.] THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE. 369

The larger rivers and bays, and some of the islands along
the coast, have retained their Indian names. The Saco, Kennebunk,
Androscoggin, Kennebeck, Sheepscot (Ojibscot), Damariscotta, and
Penobscot rivers, and some of the fifteen hundred lakes of Maine,
have escaped the vulgar nomenclature that has dotted our maps
with the names of great capitals and ancient cities affixed to
small towns and insignificant villages ; ports far from the sea,
and fords where there are no rivers. The island of Monhegan,
so often noted by early navigators, is Monhegan still. The
deep bay north of this island is yet known as Muscongus ; and
the peninsula where the " Great Barhaba " dwelt when Euro-
peans first landed on our shores, is still called Pemaquid.

Twenty miles north of Pemaquid were the Sheepscot planta-
tions* now Newcastle and Nobleborough where, in 1630,
there were upward of fifty resident families. The date gener-
ally assigned to this settlement is 1623 ; but there were white
residents in the district prior to 1620. In 1625 the lands of
this region were conveyed to one John Brown by two Indian
sagamores ; and the deed was acknowledged, in the next year,
before Abraham Shurte, agent of the Plymouth Company. In
1620 this agent had purchased the island of Monhegan, which,
since that date, has been continuously occupied. But as early
as 1609 there was a Catholic mission on Monhegan.

The first English colonial settlement in New England was
made at the mouth of the Kennebeck or Sagadahock in Au-
gust, 1607. This was the North Virginia or Sagadahock colony,
of which George Popham was president. They built Fort St.
George on the southeast shore of the Peninsula of Phippsburg.
Having suffered much from the severity of winter, and wantonly
provoked the hostility of the friendly natives, they abandoned
their settlement when, in the following year, their president was
recalled to England by the death of his brother, Lord Chief-
Justice Popham. Seven years later, in 1614, the place was visit-
ed by the famous Captain John Smith, whose name is associated
with the early history of the Jamestown or South Virginia
colony, and the story of Pocahontas.

In 1619 Thomas Dermer attempted to revive the settlement
at Fort St. George. Though this effort proved abortive, there
were English settlers on the coast, and permanent settlements
in and eastward of the Damariscotta and the Pemaquid districts,
coeval with, and anterior to, the Puritan settlements in Massa-
chusetts and New Hampshire.

* In after years the home of the Kavanaghs, Cottrels, Madigans, and other distinguished
Irish Catholic families.

370 THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE. [Dec.,

In 1622 "as many as thirty ships, from the west of England,
visited the Damariscove islands to take fish in those northern
waters ; and emigrants came to dwell in the country"

" In 1623 Richard Vines, who, with John Oldham and others,
had undertaken to advance the general plantation of the coun-
try, and secure the strength and safety thereof against the na-
tives and other invaders," was living at Saco. The New Ply-
mouth patent of 1629 mentioned that " John Oldham, a New
England gentleman planter, and his servants, have, for six years

CASTINE BEACH.

past, lived in New England, and he has at his own expense
transported divers persons there."

In 1670 the French were in possession of all the territories
east of the Penobscot ; and they claimed as far west as the
Kennebeck. The English held Sagadahock between the rivers
Kennebeck and St. George including the early settlements of
Fort St. George, Pemaquid, the Sheepscot plantations, and Mon-
hegan, as well as the coast from the Kennebeck to the Piscata-
qua, whose chief towns were York, Saco, Biddeford, and Fal-
mouth now Portland.

There are countries whose historic interest is due to interna-
tional relations. Some, like Belgium, have been the battle-fields
where greater powers have contended for pre-eminence. Others
are border-lands between rival peoples, each jealous of the other's

1892.] THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE. 371

claims. Their histories, of little intrinsic importance to the
world at large, sometimes serve as chronological records of the
vicissitudes of greater states.

Such is Maine in American history. The French of Acadia
and the English colonists were rival claimants of her territory.
And the relations of both to the Indian tribes complicated their
territorial claims, and gave to subsequent hostilities the entangle-
ments of tripartite wars.

To early navigators between Europe and America the islands
and headlands of her coast were but landmarks, and her deep
bays were only harbors of refuge. Her cold climate and rugged
shores were not inviting to adventurers who relied on the pro-
ducts of the soil for subsistence. In after years, when commerce
with neighboring States and distant countries was developed, her
pine forests and granite hills became sources of wealth. The
abundance of oak and larch fringing her deep bays and rivers
near the sea afforded convenient material for building large
ships for foreign commerce, and fleets of the smaller vessels em-
ployed in fisheries along the coast, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and on the banks of Newfoundland.

Her early history, like that of all the States on our Atlantic
coast, is the history of voyages of adventure and discovery, of
occupation and exploration ; of grants from sovereigns who, of
right, had nothing to bestow ; of disputed boundaries which be-
came subjects of wrangling and litigation where successive con-
cessions were, found to overlap ; of wars with savage tribes
whose rights, always denied in foro conscientice, were sometimes
fraudulently purchased from motives of economy, but oftener
repudiated or denied.

The North Virginia, or Sagadahock, colony of 1607 was given
a friendly welcome by the " Great Barhaba," who dwelt at or
near Pemaquid, and who held a ^^-sovereignty over all the
native tribes between the Penobscot and Massachusetts bays.
But in a single year the colonists changed this friendly disposi-
tion to implacable hostility. Thenceforward for a hundred and
fifty years, here as elsewhere in America, the war of races was
almost incessant. Treaties of peace were only truces, depen-
dent on the convenience of civilization. American history is re-
plete with tales of Indian treachery and cruelty, generally with
little or no reference to the frauds and other wrongs by which
they were provoked. Despite the treaties which presume sover-
eign rights in the contracting parties, neither our laws nor our
people have ever regarded the Indians as owners of Indian

372

THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE.

[Dec.,

lands ; or as having any title to the soil which government or
people were morally bound to respect.

They have been accorded the privilege not the right of
occupancy during the good pleasure of our government, but irre-
spective of their own. And to resist encroachments upon stip-
ulated privileges, by opposing savage force to the unlicensed ap-
proach of civilization, has always been called an " Indian outrage."
The doctrine of our Supreme Court is that " the Indians have
only a right of occupancy, and the United States possesses the

VIEW OF BELFAST FROM ACROSS THE RIVER.

legal title, subject to that occupancy, and with an absolute and ex-
clusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy either
by conquest or purchase " (vide Kent's Commentaries, " Right of
domain as to Indian lands "). This legal dictum clearly expresses
the recognized relations between Indians and the people whom
they welcomed to their shores ; whom they rescued when, with-
out their aid, the invaders must have perished of starvation. It
embraces all causes, whatever may have been the occasion of
our Indian wars.

No one acquainted with the history of Maine can look at
the map of her sea-coast and rivers without recalling the more
notable events of her first settlements ; the friendliness of the
Indians, and the frauds and cruelties of English colonists. Why
need our histories be untruthful in treating of the Indian tribes?
We do not palliate our crimes by accusing them. Their de-

1892.] THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE. 373

structive vices have been, in great measure, learned from us, and
our accusations recoil upon ourselves. We made them drun-
kards. We taught them that our promises, were only measures of
expediency, to be modified or abrogated to suit our own con-
venience or to gratify our cupidity. Our " Indian treaties "
have always been fraudulent. As accepted by the Indians, " re-
servations" were never to be infringed. As intended by us, the
Indian's right of occupation was to be respected until he should
be again removed.

The United States alone can extinguish the Indian title of
occupancy, either by conquest or purchase ! If by purchase, a
part of the consideration paid for Indian lands has sometimes
been an annuity to be paid in kind. The kind has generally
been what profited the white man and defrauded the Indian ;
notoriously a cheat. If by conquest, war was invariably initiated
by the frauds and encroachments of white men. The Indians
resisted ; blood was shed, and the Indians were " on the war-
path." Then the powers of government were evoked to protect
the " pioneers of civilization " from " Indian outrage."

As the Indians in the eastern parts of New England were
generally friends of the French, whose missionary priests for
many years were devoted to their instruction living in their
villages and sharing the hardships of their savage life without
ever seeking reward at their hands it is not surprising that they
were suspicious of advances made by the English colonists, in
whom they saw the jealous rivals of their friends and the ene-
mies of their religion.

In 1717, long after Massachusetts had obtained control of
the " District of Maine," Governor Shute, with several members
of his council, met " a great number of Indians, with the chiefs
of their tribes, and conferred with them at Arrowsick. The
governor offered them an English and Indian Bible, and told
them that it contained the true religion, and that Mr. Baxter"
a Protestant minister in his suite "would explain its principles
to them." One of the chiefs said in reply: "All people love
their own ministers (sic). Your Bibles we do not care to keep.
God has given us teaching ; and if we should go from that we
should offend God " (Williamson's History of Maine).

The successors of Mr. Baxter in New England have given
many contradictory explanations, and not a few contradictions
of the Bible, since the meeting at Arrowsick. But the Indians
have persisted in that teaching which " God has given." When,

374 THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE. [Dec.,

a hundred years later, they were visited by a missionary priest
from Boston, many faults were found to require correction ; but
they were firm in the " teaching " which God gave to their
fathers more than a century before. They had not been visited
by a priest for years. But they had made annual pilgrimages
to some of the churches in Lower Canada, where the seniors
performed their Easter duties, the baptisms of children were
administered or certified, and marriages blessed by the priest.

But it was not through the influence of religion alone that
the Indians preferred their French friends to the English colo-
nists. Captain John Smith says, in his history of New England,
" the French bartered their commodities on better terms." And
the Indians did not consider a treaty of peace with the English
as a promise to desert their older friends, or to sacrifice their
own interests in trade. The Puritan historian, however, gives a
different gloss to these tripartite relations. " The Jesuits," he
says, " had strongly infected their (Indian) superstitions and
prejudices with Papal fanaticism." ..." Dupes of the French,
they lost all regard for the sanctity (sic) of treaty obligations ;
and Indian faith became as proverbially bad, among the English,
as Punic faith among the ancient Romans."

Were it not that we have his book before us, it would be
almost incredible that a historian who describes the treacherous
cruelties of English colonists at Dover (Cocheco), Pemaquid, and
Norridgewock, and their approval by the government and people
of Massachusetts Bay, could venture to accuse the Indians of
treachery. The accusation of the Jesuits, however baseless and
uncharitable, excites no surprise ; for " out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh." But. of the treacherous Indians.
We read : " In September, 1670, about four hundred Indians came
to Cocheco " Dover, New Hampshire. " As this assembly was,
probably, not invited, it was unexpected. Major Waldron, who
had authority to seize all Indian murderers and traitors, was in a
dilemma." ..." He, therefore, suggested to the other
officers an expedient which, though of uncommon character,
was adopted. He proposed a sham-fight, in which the Indians
were to manoeuvre on one side and the English on the other.
The amusement was continued a short time, when Waldron in-
duced them to fire a grand round ; and the moment their guns
were discharged his troops surrounded the unwary Indians,
seized and disarmed them without the loss of a man on either
side. To divide them into classes according to their guilt or in-

1892.]

THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE.

375

nocence was a far more difficult part of the undertaking. Won-
nolancet and his tribe, all adherents to the English and all neu-
trals in the war, were discharged. The ' strange Indians ' from
the westward, and every one who had been guilty of bloodshed
or outrage since the treaty, about two hundred in all, were con-
fined and conveyed to Boston. The governor and assistants con-
stituted, at that time, the supreme court of the colony ; and all
the prisoners who were convicted of having taken life (being
seven or eight) suffered death ; and others, receiving sentence of
banishment, were transported, and sold in foreign parts for slaves."
The Indians sometimes sold their English captives ; but not
to slavery. Their purchase was rescue from death or prolonged
captivity. There are to-day Canadian families, that "speak no
English," whose New England surnames recall the story of their
origin ; and others whose French names hide their descent from
New England mothers rescued from the Indians two centuries
ago.

E. PARKER-SCAMMON.
New York.

MY CONVERSION. [Dec.,

MY CONVERSION.

'HE myself of nearly twenty-five years ago has
become a being so distinct from my present
self that I think that I can write of it without
feeling that I am dissecting a living heart in
public.

That myself was a girl very near her twenties who had, not

long since, finished a course of study at Academy a place

ever venerable in my memory as one where I learned anew that
self-sacrifice and earnestness in a righteous cause are the only
elements which constitute true life ; and where, too, I realized,
as I had never done before, that consecration to the living Christ
was my very first and most essential duty. I might also grate-
fully dwell upon the boon conferred by our excellent teachers
in insisting upon so high a standard of recitation in our classes
that our whole energies had to be concentrated upon our daily
work. Moreover, nearly every one of the many young men and
women assembled there had in view some special avocation or
profession, so they were like knights tempering their own swords
for a campaign near at hand.

My body, it was said, was over-worked by my brain, among
these ambitious students, and consequently you find me first in
an invalid's chamber, with little hope of ever using the know-
ledge I had acquired.

The taste for study, however, had not diminished with my
physical strength, and I delighted as much as ever in revolving
great questions in my own mind and debating them with my
most intelligent visitors, the physician and the pastor of the
Congregationalist church of which I had been for some years a
member.

Like a multitude of others, even as a child I had been forced
to enter the arena of conflicting beliefs, unarmed with any defi-
nite creed. In those days, happily, few questioned that the Bible
is the Word of God, but in almost every household there were
heated contests as to what it really teaches. The first opinion
that I espoused, through the influence of my father and the re-
ligious teachers to whom he confided me, was that no one would
be eternally lost. Finally, through my study of the Sacred Scrip-
tures, I became convinced that they did not support my one

1892.] MY CONVERSION. 377

dear dogma, and also that there must be some radical change"
in the human heart before it could enter heaven. This change
I believed came to me, when about eighteen, as the result of
my accepting Christ as my personal Saviour. I was then bap-
tized, not because I thought that any grace accompanied the
pouring of the water and the use of the Christ-appointed words,
but because baptism was an ordained sign of inward belief which
I gladly received in obedience to him.

It was under these circumstances that I read for the first
time a full statement of the distinctive tenets of the Catholic
faith. What repelled me as most improbable of all was the doc-
trine of the Sacrifice of the Mass. I said aloud to myself, as I
laid the book down : " I could not believe these." The reply of
some inner voice was almost as distinct as my own had been :
" What right have you to reject them without knowing the
grounds on which they are believed ? " I have ever felt that
this was the special moment of grace, and that, had I refused to
enter upon the study of Catholicity then, I should never have
done so.

But how could I study the Catholic faith in the midst of a
small New Hampshire village without church or priest ? The
Protestant clergyman, already referred to, had no book which
explained or even attempted to refute Catholic dogmas. I did
not even think of asking whther or not any information could
be procured through the few Catholics in my neighborhood, so I
was obliged to ask light from a long distance.

I must now tell you that immediately after my graduation
I went West, to be ready to commence my work as a teacher,
with the chosen friend of my last years, in - - Academy. We
secured the positions we coveted ; she was principal of a newly
founded school for young ladies in , Missouri, and I was

her assistant. The wife of Hon. , member of Congress

for many years, was the foundress. It was she who looked after
all the material wants of the young ladies, who exhibited her
New Hampshire teachers from time to time in her carriage, and
who faithfully paid our salaries.

Her greatest service to me she rendered in perfect unconscious-
ness. We needed a music teacher. Neither my friend nor I felt
that she could, in conscience, assume that office ; so Mrs. ven-
tured to ask Mrs. Judge G - what she should do. I am
sure that she must have been surprised when that lady volun-
teered to be herself our music teacher, saying : " The judge is so
much away that I am often lonely." I learned subsequently that
VOL. LVI. 26

378 MY CONVERSION. [Dec.,

she was much drawn to my attractive friend, the principal. Cer-
tainly Mrs. - - was most happy to accept the offer of the
judge's wife, for she was a thoroughly trained musician, besides
being a woman of culture and worth. On our part, we were
much pleased with her as a daily companion.

I do not remember when or how we learned that she was a
Catholic, but I know that we were both astounded by the fact.
I ventured once to intimate that she could not believe in the
Real Presence. Her reply came firm and strong : " I believe it
as firmly as I believe in my own existence." This was the only
time that I made any allusion to her religion.

I saw THE CATHOLIC WORLD which since then has become
so valuable to me on her table, but think I did not read a
line in it. I did read a page or two in Father Faber's The
Creator and the Creature, and wonder now that his glowing
style did not make me continue ; but my prejudices were strong-
er than my appreciation of its beauty. Mrs. took us into

town to church, and once we were invited to go to Mass with
our Catholic friend ; but we refused, I fear, somewhat abruptly.

I was really ill when I went West to teach with my friend,
but it seemed to me that I had determination enough to execute
my plan notwithstanding ; but others saw that I ought not to go
on with my duties, and wrote to my mother to meet me in St.
Louis, for my father at the time was with his regiment in New
Mexico. At last my mother succeeded in bringing me back to
my New Hampshire home.

Now you understand that, very naturally, it was to Mrs.

Judge G that I turned for answers to my questions about

the Catholic faith.

I wrote my queries, and asked my friend, the principal, to

request a reply. Dear A ! had she foreseen the result, she

would have been most reluctant to do so. I do not recall now all
that I asked Mrs. G , but she answered that it would be impos-
sible for her to respond in writing, but that she would send me a
book which would give me all I sought. The book do you
know it ? was Dr. Challoner's Catholic Christian Instructed. It
was as intensely interesting to me, to use a degrading compari-
son, as the report of the rise and fall of stocks to the specula-
tor ; and, too, it gave me matter for conversation with all who
took pleasure in such subjects.

Since it was the doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass which
most repelled me when I first read it in Hayward's Book of all
Religions, I was most impressed by the proofs that Dr. Challoner

1892.] MY CONVERSION. 379

brought that the Adorable Sacrifice in the Catholic Church ful-
filled the types of the old law and the wonderful prophecy of
Malachias : " For, from the rising of the sun even to the going
down, my name is great among the Gentiles ; and in every place
there is a sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean ob-
lation " (Mai. i. 10-11).

I marvelled then, and I marvel still, that I had not myself
learned the truth of the Real Presence from the last verses of the
sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and from the description of
the institution of the Blessed Eucharist by the different evan-
gelists.

Indeed, I am quite sure that many would reach Catholic
truth through the aid of the Bible alone, did they go to it with-
out preconceived notions. One of the truth-seekers in a class
of young ladies in a Congregationalist Sunday-school, of which I
was a member, remarked at one of our lessons : " It seems to me
that Christ, in the third chapter of St. John's Gospel, asserts
that water and the Holy Ghost come simultaneously in baptism."
Our teacher, the pastor's wife, brushed the statement aside with^
" Oh ! it does not mean that " ; and, I fear, the young lady sub-
mitted henceforth to what she imagined Mrs. C 's superior wis-
dom. This is but one illustration of many.

To return to myself. I soon saw that the Protestant minis-
ter could make no satisfactory objection to Dr. Challoner's state-
ments. I am also confident that he must have reported my dan-
ger to Rev. Mr. - , some fourteen miles away, for whom I
had particular respect ; for he visited me, and sent me a work in
which Archbishop Whately tried to " explain away " such texts
as, " Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth," etc.

At last my dear parents became alarmed ; for though there
was, as I have already said, an atmosphere of religious contro-
versy in my home, all agreed that it would be a calamity to
have a Catholic in the family.

I had frankly admitted from the outset the surprise that I
felt that there was so much to show that Catholicity is not a
web of superstition woven by the ignorance or the duplicity of
ages, or by both combined ; but I little dreamed, so slight were
my own attainments, upon what a vast subject I had entered
when I commenced the study of the Catholic Church ; and valu-
able as I found Dr. Challoner's little manual, it soon ceased to

be enough. Mrs. G was about to send me other works

when she was forbidden by my mother to do so.

Then I bethought me of our Encyclopedia Americana, It

380 MY CONFESSION. [Dec.,

helped me considerably, in spite of the antagonistic stand-point
from which many of its articles were written.

Weeks and months passed by, and I began myself to think
how terrible it would be should my convictions actually force
me to become a Catholic terrible because of the pain and dis-
appointment it would cause all who were dear to me, and terri-
ble, too, because it would place me in complete .mental isola-
tion.

Strange to say, at this time I received an invitation to teach
English and continue my French at the Swiss Mission near
Grande Ligne, P. Q. It was now possible, because of returning
strength, for me to accept the position. I was delighted, for I
said in my own mind : " Now I shall find good reasons for not
being a Catholic among those who are devoting their lives to
their conversion."

I used my eyes and ears most diligently at " La Mission
Suisse," but, although I sat opposite an apostate priest a school
year at table, I heard nothing to banish my fear that, if true
to my convictions, I must go back to the church my ancestors
long since had abandoned.

In truth Monsieur N said very little by way of an attack

upon Catholicity. I remember now but two remarks at table,
and his sermons, for now he was a Baptist minister, were not
controversial. Once, when some relics were brought to Montreal,
whose I have never known, he said : " Peut-etre qu'ils sont les
restes d'un ane !" And again, when we heard that " Pere " Chini-
quy was lecturing in the vicinity against the church, he ex-
claimed : " II en dit trop ! il en dit trop !"

As for poor Monsieur R , one of the founders of the

mission, I doubt whether he really knew what the Catholic
Church actually teaches. I am sure that he had been told from
boyhood, in Switzerland, that she is the " mother of all iniquity,"
and he believed it as unquestioningly at fifty as at fifteen. Mon-
sieur P , my instructor, was solely occupied in teaching me

French, and Madame N - in making us all happy.

Then, I thought that I should not say much to them of my
interest in Catholicity, lest I should make an unnecessary dis-
cord in the house, since I could not tell but what I might yet

remain a Protestant. Madame N gave me Fattier Clement

to read. It did not have the effect I desired, so that when, at
the close of the school year, I went to Montreal I was as full
of the desire to study Catholicity in the concrete as I had ever
been in the abstract.

1892.] MY CONVERSION. 381

The friend whom I visited at Longueil, just across the St.
Lawrence from the city, was the noblest and the dearest of the
women who had taught me. I spoke to her at once of the quest
in which I was engaged, and she, in her truth-loving zeal, became
my companion in my researches. Those researches were, no
doubt, less thorough than they would have been had we had a
single Catholic friend or acquaintance to aid us.

We began by visiting the churches, which certainly are open
treatises upon the beauty of the Catholic faith. We went to the
parish priest of Longueil with some of our questions. Among
other things, we asked him if Catholics are obliged to ask the
intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the saints. The concise
reply of the old priest was : " The journey to heaven is so great
an undertaking that we need in it our small as well as our large
coin."

We were very careful to note the presence or absence of
devotion in Catholics as we saw them in the churches. One Sun-
day we were at High Mass in the Jesuits' Church. I listened
most attentively to the sermon upon " Ite ad Joseph," and then,
since I could not follow the ceremonies which were being car-
ried out in the sanctuary, I took to observing two young ladies near
me. The whole bearing of one showed me that she felt that she
was in the presence of awful mysteries. The restlessness and the
vacant countenance of the other proved that she realized noth-
ing but what the eye revealed. I learned then that charity to
our neighbor requires that we should carefully keep the appear-
ance of reverence as well as nourish its soul.

Afterwards we visited the College of the Jesuits. There
Father Merrick was sent to us, and he gave us good reason for
ceasing to style the deutero-canonical books apocryphal. I re-
member that he remarked to us, " I see that you are cut adrift
from your old moorings." Perhaps he recalled us afterwards at
the altar, and that thus one was brought to a safe harbor. The
other, far the worthier of the two, still drifts, and is known to
her circle in Washington as the wife of a Protestant clergyman.

Finally, Catholicity in the concrete completed what Catho-
licity in the abstract had begun, and at the end of my visit I
knew that there was no help for it that unless I was a despicable
traitor to my conscience I must become a Catholic, at whatever
cost to others and myself.

How could I accomplish it? The only Catholic friend I had
was beyond the Mississippi, and with her I had held no commu-
nication for more than a year. I must teach, and where could

382 MY CONVERSION. [Dec.,

I when my Catholic convictions became known ? Should I con-
tinue to identify myself, until I took the final step, with Con-
gregationalists and other sects as a Sunday-school teacher? I
wrote asking the old priest at Longueil to decide for me. He
answered : " You may do so during a certain time, provided that
you reject with all your force what is contrary to the faith."

My first catechism was given me by a nun in Longueil to
whom this kind priest had spoken of me. I had procured for
myself the little Imitation which lies just at hand this mo-
ment, with its appended " Priere " and " Pratique." I had also
heard of the Devout Life of St. Francis de Sales, and this
I purchased also. I did not know, at the time, that I could not
have secured two more helpful books had I been familiar with
the whole range of the soul's literature.

May no one of those who read this sketch ever experience
the misery of concealing his or her deepest convictions, even for
a time ! After all these years I look back with a shudder upon
the hours I sat in the services of the Congregationalist church
in , Massachusetts, where I taught in the Peter's High-
School after my return from Canada ; but yet I could not bear
to withhold my influence for religion in some form.

I was yet thirsting for more Catholic books, and so I ordered
Cardinal Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua, and also the whole
series of excellent tracts which the Catholic Publication Society
was then issuing.* The Apologia was invaluable to me, and,
like thousands, I found in the great cardinal a guide that I fol-
lowed with entire confidence, not so much on account of his
masterly intellect as because of his perfect candor in calmly
weighing all that his opponents could object.

I take up the Apologia now as I write, and turn to the
" General Answer to Mr. Kingsley." Passage after passage is
marked, and thus instructed, I do not wonder that the claim of
the church to be infallible became to me at once her greatest
attraction, and one of the' strongest proofs that she was from
God and that God abides with her, " a pre-eminent, prodigious
power, sent upon the earth to encounter and master a giant
evil," a provision " for retaining in the world a knowledge of
himself so definite and distinct as to be proof against the energy
of human scepticism," and, I would add, the obvious corollary of
his love.

I have now passed over a space of between three and four

* Some inquiries have been made lately concerning these tracts. We wish to say that
they are now being published by the Columbus Press, No. 120 West 6oth St., New York.
ED. C. W.

1892.] MY CONVERSION. 383

years. In the summer of 1871 I wrote to my Catholic friend in
Missouri of my determination to enter the Catholic Church as
soon as I could find any way of doing so. Happily she had
met M. M. G , from Mt. St. Mary's Convent of Mercy, Man-
chester, N. H., and wrote to her of my desire. You who know
the zeal and generosity of Reverend Mother Frances Xavier
Warde, will not be surprised that in the middle of her August
retreat she bade me come to the convent for my immediate
preparations for baptism.

I was consigned at once to the guardianship of a religious
who had embraced the faith with none of my delays and reluc-
tance, and who has ever since been heat to my ice and light to
my darkness.

On the 3d of September, in the sanctuary of the dearest of
chapels, the late venerable Father William Macdonald gave me
conditional baptism. Besides personal kindnesses, he did me the
great service of placing me under the guidance of one of the
clearest and purest of minds which it has been my delight and
benediction to know. The study of the Very Rev. - - became
my Catholic university during seven years. Subsequent benefac-
tors, in books and out of them, have increased my knowledge of
and thankfulness for the Catholic faith, and I shall soon, with
fresh gratitude, keep the twenty-first anniversary of my coming
home to the soul's one true mother the Roman Apostolic
Church.

It would have been too wearisome had I recounted to you
the whole course of reasoning which led me to the spot where
Divine Faith took my hand. Suffice it to say that I took the
circuitous path of finding out the grounds of each distinctive ar-
ticle of our Creed, instead of satisfying myself first that the
Church is the Living Messenger of the Incarnate God whom he
left to " teach, govern, sanctify, and save " his world.

384

LEGENDS OF THE CID.

[Dec.,

LEGENDS OF THE CID.

IV.
THE DEATH OF THE CID.

HE latest of those watchful days had come:
The Knights still held discourse of ancient times
And wonders of the Cid. At last arose
A man silent till then though restless oft,
A silver-haired Castilian flushed of brow :

He spake like one that hides his grief no more.

" Sirs, ye converse of things long past as present,

For still ye laud the Cid who rests with God

And, angel-praised, regards not praise of man,

Yet near things see through mist. Sirs, look around !

Morocco's Soldan knocks against your gates ;

His navies close your ports ; his hosts this hour

Thrice number those our Great One chased whilome.

To business, sirs ! A week, and of those present

Few will survive, I ween."

To him replied

That youngest knight who at their earliest watch

Had said : " Man's earthly life is but betrothal."

" Sirs, it had ill become us, warriors vowed,

Had we discoursed of danger ere our dirge

O'er greatness dead had reached an honest end.

That done, devise we how to save the city."

Then laughing cried, with hands together rubbed,

That mirthful knight, Don Leon de Toledo :

" Devise we counsel, sirs ! but wot ye well

Counsel is bootless if the counsellors

Be men of rueful face. Such face, moreover,

Insults our Cid, to whom all wars were jest

And jest at times was sermon in disguise :

Glad man was he our Cid !"

Don Sanchez then :

" Supreme of jests were this : to place our Cid,

Though dead, upon his horse with face to foe !

Santiago ! but to hear his laugh in heaven !

The rogues would fly ! "

1892.] LEGENDS OF THE CID. 385

To him Don Aguilar :

" Brother, your jest was to our Cid no jest,
But serious thought. In sickness twice he cried :
* For this alone is Death a thing unwelcome,
It stays us from the Moors ! Should ill confront us
When dead I lie, set me upon my horse ;
This arm shall smite them still !' " Don Ramon next :
" Know ye no more ? Ximena told me all.
The Cid, Morocco's navy full in sight,
Confessed to her that peril till then unknown
Compassed the Christian cause. ' Bucar,' he said,
' Nursing five years his rage, stirs up this day
The total hosts of Barbary against us.
What if our pride of late, or sins beside,
Invoke God's chastening hand?' That fleet arrived,
He, sickness-stricken, cried aloud, ' Ah me,
That I should be unprofitable this day !
Raise up, great God, some nobler ! Let him walk
Thy knight elect !'

Distressed he lay that night,

Tranquil at morn. He spake : ' Fear naught, Ximena !
There came to me last night trial unknown
Pray God it come no more ! A trance fell on me
That was not sleep. Before me sat a man
At sunset in an ancient castle's hall :
Low-bent his forehead rested on his hands :
At last he raised his head : it was my sire,
The man I ever loved the best on earth :
Sad image seemed he of that speechless woe
His when his race and house had suffered shame.
An age methought that dreadful trance endured.
Sudden, like breeze from Pyrenean snows,
Some Breath Divine transpierced my heart : that Breath
Hath cheered me oft at danger's worst. I heard
" Be strong ! When night is darkest day is nigh !"
Then all my palace filled with wondrous light
And from that splendor issued forth a man
Hoary but strong two keys his girdle bore.
He spake : " Regard no more yon host, for God
In thirty days will call thee to His peace
Because thou serv'dst Him with true heart though frail,
And lov'dst beside my convent of Cardenna.
Thy God will not forsake thee ! Like a mist

386 LEGENDS OF THE CID. [Dec. r

The Moor shall vanish ; and thyself, though dead,

When Spain's high Patron rights that final fight,

Shalt share his victory for thy body's honor.

Likewise that day thou diest the Power accurst

Shall fall in Holy Land ; the Faith be free :

The Cross of Christ shine forth from Salem's towers :

And Bullogne's Godfrey live God's knight elect,

Fulfilling thus thy prayer."

Thus spake the Cid, and ceased. Ximena fixed

Her eyes upon him. Then the Cid resumed :

' The body's weakness is the spirit's strength.

I saw these things, and more : he came to me,

That boy all beautiful we lost in youth.

You too shall see him soon.'

Again he mused, and sudden ended thus :

' Would God that when that final battle joins,

The strength of men might place me on my horse

Facing the Moor ; for God, methinks, that hour

Will work some great deliverance for mankind ;

Also the greater then will be His praise

When all men cry, " Twas God, and not our Cid,

Conquered of old : now through the Dead He conquers."

But let these things be done as they deem best

Hieronymo, that perfect one, and they

My cousin Alvar Fannez, and Bermudez.

Gill Diaz I ordain for charge of thee."

Then spake that slender knight and meek as maid :
" Sirs, rest assured that wish was not pride-born,
Since what could be more humble than his death ?
He bade them bear him to St. Peter's Church ;
There entering, spake : ' I suffer none to mourn ;
Sirs, all that live must die ; but know ye this :
Christian who goes reluctantly to God
Is like a soldier who hath ta'en a city,
Yet fears to enter it and see his lord
Therein enthroned and crowned.' Full reverently
Then at the Bishop's feet he knelt, and there
Humblest confession made, and was assoiled.
They that stood nigh in circle heard his words :
Great scorn had still our Cid of all concealment :
They heard the words he spake."

Don Sanchez last :
" Sirs, in this matter God hath shewn His will

1892.] LEGENDS OF THE CID. 387

By manifest signs. Regard our Cid ! He sits

Beside yon altar changeless. Sirs, attend !

What time Valencia fell, for months, for years

Far nations sent him gifts ; Persia's arrived

The last, with camel train and long procession.

' Can Moslem love a Christian ? ' was our cry !

Sirs, of her gifts the chief, ye know, was this,

A golden Vial, and around it graved

Inscription strange which no man could decipher,

Knight, clerk, or stranger. Don Hieronymo

At last confession made : ' God sent that Gift,

Not man: and God .its import will divulge

When most our need.' This likewise, sirs, ye know,

That when that Moor who sang Valencia's dirge,

The Alcalde Alforexi, Christian made,

Was shown that Vial sealed from Moslem eye,

He, sage in Persian lore, the inscription read :

" The body of the just man, ere his death

Washed in this balsam, shall not see corruption : '

Sirs, in that balsam was our Great One washed

Ere yet he died, and hath not seen corruption :

Therefore 'twas God, we know, who sent that Gift !

He sent it that our Cid, the Elect of God,

Should triumph in his death. The battle-field,

Sirs, shall attest my words ! "

Then rose the cry,

" Place we our Cid upon his horse, Bavieca,
Full armed, and with his countenance to the Moor,
Leaving the rest to God."

That Perfect One,

Hieronymo, next day approved their word,
And Alvar and Bermudez ; and, God-taught,
Devised how that high thought should stand fulfilled.
Throughout that day the Christians knelt in prayer
Prayer great and strong. When pealed the midnight chime
The twelve side altars of St. Peter's Church
Glittered with lights ; and, hour by hour, at each
In swift succession Mass on Mass was said
Low-toned by priests that came like shades, then passed
With chalice veiled adwn the darkling aisles.
At earliest day-break Don Hieronymo,
Before the great high altar standing sole,
Offered the all-wondrous Sacrifice Eterne

388 LEGENDS OF THE CID. [Dec.,

With absolution given : and all the knights,
Four thousand men, kneeling received their Lord,
Then bent long time their foreheads on the ground :
At last they rose with sound as when sea-winds
Blow loud on piny hills, and by that gate
Named " of the Snake " forth from the city rode
Full slowly and in silence. At their head,
Upon his horse Bavieca, rode the Cid
With awful, open eyes, and in his hand
His sword, Tirzona, pointing to the skies,
Upon his right hand Don Hieronymo,
His left, Gill Diaz, holding each a rein.

Here follows in that sacred legend old
The greatest battle ever fought in Spain,
Though brief, " God's Battle " named. The Chronicler,
Writing for men who inwardly believed
God made the world, and rules it, fearless wrote,
And this his record. Morn by morn, twelve morns,
Morocco's host had stood before that gate
Shouting defiance and their prophet's name,
And, no man answering, mused, ' The Cid is dead ';
But when that morn they saw the Cid advance
Slowly, his knights four thousand in the rear,
Fear fell upon them whispering each to each,
" He died not ! Traitors lied to lure us hither,
Then slay us like one man ! " Others averred,
41 He died ; but God hath raised him from the dead ! "
Nearer he drew : distincter grew his face :
Panic divine fell on them. Mists of death
Cumbered their eyes: each heart was changed to ice:
The knights four thousand shooited " Santiago ! "
They fled. King Bucar launched on them fresh hosts
In fratricidal war. The Cid and his
Meantime on-moving, reached that fountain cold,
Akbar by name, begirt by palm-trees seven
An Arab saint, men said, had rested there
Therein, his wont, Bavieca quenched his thirst :
That done, Gill Diaz turned him towards Valencia :
At last no farther would he move, but stood
With forward-planted feet, and head forth held,
Eyeing the battle plain.

Again he saith,
That Chronicler, the Moors, their panic spent,

1892.] LEGENDS OF THE CID. 389

Surceased from that their fratricidal war
While prophet bald, old seer, and fakir gray,
Nursed on mad visions 'mid Arabian peaks,
Rushed through the red ranks with uplifted hands
Exhorting and denouncing. Bucar, well pleased,
Watched from his height the lulling of that storm,
And hurrying up with all his great reserves
Missioned long since from every Afric coast,
Tremessian, Zianidian, or Tunisian,
Whate'er vexed Syrtes kens o'er raging waves
Or Atlas through gray cloud with these begirt,
Their dazzling chivalry and standards green,
Himself in midst of those late-warring hosts,
With crown imperial and with sceptre gemmed,
Sudden appeared, nor stayed, but vanward passed
Assuming sole command. Back rushed the Moors,
Now formed anew, tp where the Christian Knights
Waited unmoved, though destined as might seem
To certain death and swift ; and waiting, raised
Once more Spain's shout of onset, " Santiago ! "
' Twas heard in heaven ! The eyes of either host
Were opened, and they saw the Hills of God
Round them thick-set with knights innumerable
On snow-white steeds and armed in mail snow-white ;
Their Chief a wondrous One with helm cross-crowned
Who bore upon his breast a bleeding cross
And raised a sword all fire. The Moslems fled ;
Their emperor first. Later they sware the earth,
Upheaved like waves, had hurled them t'ward the sea.
That flight was murderous more than battle's worst :
Whole squadrons perished, trampled under foot ;
Not once they turned on those four thousand knights
Loud thundering in their rear. The harbor reached,
Thousands lay smothered 'mid the ships or waves
By their own armor cumbered to the death
Among them kings eighteen. The rest made sail
With Bucar to Morocco. Never again
That emperor looked on Spain.

The rising sun

Shone fair next morning on Valencia's walls
As from them moved a solemn pilgrimage
Spain's greatest son upon his horse world-famed,
Borne slowly t'ward San Pietro di Cardenna.

390 LEGENDS OF THE CID. [Dec.,

Upright he sat : upon his right hand walked

His Wife, and on his left Hieronymo,

Behind them priests intoning gladsome psalms.

Each evening as they neared their place of rest

Its bishop and his priests approached cross-led,

With anthem and with dirge. The second day

The Donna Sol, his daughter eldest-born,

Beside her Aragonian lord, drew near ;

And knights a hundred mailed, with shields reversed

Hung from their saddle-bows. Wondering they gazed,

So awful looked that dead man, yet so sweet,

His household standard o'er him and his knights,

Not funeral-garbed but splendid as beseems

High tournament or coronation feast.

Not thus the Donna Sol. Her glittering tiar

She cast on the earth, and wailed. Ximena then :

" Daughter, you sin against your Father's charge ;

Lamentings he forbade." Then Donna Sol

Kissed first her father's hand and next her mother's,

And answered low, " In ignorance I sinned."

Elvira, youngest daughter of the Cid,

Next morning joined them with Navarre, her husband :

Silent she wept, knowing her father's will.

Day after day great companies drew nigh

With kings among them regnant in far lands,

Blackening both vale and plain. At last the Cid

Faithful in death, reached that majestic pile

So loved by him, San Pietro di Cardenna :

The abbot, aged now a hundred years,

And all his monks before the portals ranged

Received him silent.

King Alphonso dwelt

That season at Toledo. Swiftly and sadly
He hastened to those obsequies of one
By him so long revered, so scantly loved
And yet to him so helpful at his need ;
Long time he stood a-gazing on the dead :
At last he spake : " Spain ne'er had man like that man ;
Saw never knight so loyal and so true,
So gladsome, simple, holy, and brave, and sage.
'Twas well fdr me he never knew his worth !
In heaven they'll rise to meet him ! " Six whole days
He graced the Cid with vigils and with rites

1892.] LEGENDS OF THE CID. 391

Befitting Christians dead. He willed besides

To lay him in a golden coffin gemmed

Beyond the funeral pomps of Spanish kings.

Ximena would not. Once again the wife

Stood up as stately as the maid that stood

Before Ferrando, making then demand

" Let him who crushed my father's house restore it ! "

As calm she answered now that monarch's son :

" It shall not be ! There let him sit enthroned ;

For many a throne throughout his stormy life

My husband spurned, thus answering, ' Of my sires

No man was king.' Look there ! There sits, not lies,

The man, not king, who propp'd the thrones of kings

There in that house which roofed his exiled babes :

There let him rest." Alphonso at her word

Sent to Toledo for that ivory chair

Raised on a dais where the Cortes met

Yearly, whereon till then had no man sat,

The kingly symbol of an absent king,

And reared it at the right of Peter's altar

And spread thereon a cloth of gold impearled,

And o'er it raised a wondrous tabernacle

Azure, gold-starred, and flushed with arms of kings

The blazonries of Leon and Castile,

Navarre and Aragon, and, with these, the Cid's :

And on Saint Peter's day the King Alphonso,

The Infantes of Navarre and Aragon,

And Don Hieronymo, in sacred state

Throned on that chair the Cid, and round him spread

That purple robe, the Persian Soldan's gift,

And reared within his grasp his sword Tirzona,

Whereof the meaning is the " Brand of Fire"

Not bare but sheathed since now its work was done ;

Upon its hilt was graved " Ave Maria " :

Likewise before his feet that earlier sword

They laid, Colada, graved with " Yea " and " Nay "

At either side its blade ; since plain of speech

The Cid had ever been.

Thenceforth till death
In that magnific pile Ximena dwelt,
Watched by her husband's latest friend, Gill Diaz,
His latest yet most honored, most beloved
Serving the poor of God. Long nights she knelt

392 LEGENDS OF THE CID. [Dec. r

In prayer beside her lord, lest aught ill-done

Or left undone might bar him from God's Vision,

Though restful with those saints who wait God's time

In that high paradise of Purgatory

Sung by the Tuscan, where Ennoe flows

And Lethe ; and Matilda gathers flowers :

Four years fulfilled, in peace and joy she died.

Three days before hr death she spake these words

'Twixt sleep and waking to her maidens near :

" I go to be at last in heaven his bride

With whom I lived in troth not spousal here."

Gill Diaz yet remained. Daily he led

His master's charger no man rode him now

To where beside a cross a spring uprose

Fresher than Akbar's 'mid those palm-trees seven :

O'er it the old charger bent. Full many a time

There standing, though with thirst unsatisfied,

Troubled he lifted up his ears and listened,

And when he heard his master's voice no more,

Sighed and moved on deject. Two years he lived,

Then died. Before that monastery's gate

Gill Diaz buried him, above his grave

Planting two elms ; and dying, gave command,

" Beside Bavieca's grave in turn be mine,

Because both knew to serve."

Here maketh end

That book world-famous, the " Cid's Chronicle,"
Writ by a king, Alphonso, named the Wise,
Sage in all science and a Troubadour.
Two centuries and a half the Cid was dead :
Then sent Alphonso faithful men and true
Through all the cities and the vales of Spain
To garner up all relics old that song,
History or tale had treasured of that man
Who was the manliest man that e'er shed tear,
The tenderest man who ever fought in war :
All these that king into a garland wove.
With England's Arthur and with Charlemagne
The Cid hath place ; and since he left this earth
He rests and reigns among the Blest in heaven.

AUBREY DE VERE.

1892.] TAXATION OF ULSTER. 393

TAXATION OF ULSTER UNDER A HOME-RULE
PARLIAMENT.

iNE of the objections to Home Rule brought for-
ward by those who oppose it on the pretence of
Irish as distinguished from imperial interests is,
that it will injuriously affect the province of Ul-
ster. They say that this province must be un-
duly taxed to support an Irish government ; because the poverty
of the other provinces is so great that they could not bear the
burden of taxation in a manner commensurate with their extent
and population ; that practically, therefore, the whole load would
fall upon Ulster, which in a short time would be reduced to
the miserable condition of the other provinces.

This objection, which would carry little weight in Ireland,
has been used with considerable effect in Great Britain during
the election campaign. It is quite possible that there are many
in this country who accept it. Yet it seems plain enough that
Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues would not have embarked up-
on their present policy if its necessary result should be such mon-
strous injustice. To think otherwise would be to accuse them
of unexampled wickedness and folly.

We hear of the stagnation or decay of the other provinces,
and the improvidence and lawlessness of their inhabitants ; we
hear, on the other hand, of the prosperity and progress of Ul-
ster, and the regard for law which prevails among its people.
It is conveniently forgotten that the police and military are
drawn from the other provinces in every year as July approaches
and are massed in Ulster in overwhelming force to insure the ob-
servance of the law and the preservation of the public peace.
It is just possible that the boasted prosperity of Ulster in com-
parison with the rest of Ireland is as purely ideal as the excep-
tional peacefulness of Ulstermen.

It is a remarkable thing that Irishmen from the South are
as successful as those from Ulster in America, in England, Aus-
tralia, Canada, India, South Africa in a word, wherever the
English language is spoken, and this despite prejudices against
their race and religion to which the latter are not exposed. The
strength of such prejudices is well known in this country ; and
what it must be in England and her colonies can, therefore, be
VOL. LVI. 27

394 TAXATION OF ULSTER UNDER [Dec.,

easily estimated. Yet the influence of Celtic and Catholic Irish-
men in all the countries mentioned is recognized in every phase
of social and political life. It would hardly be an exaggeration
to say that most of such influence, when enjoyed by Ulster Pro-
testants, is derived from their accord, or their supposed accord,
with the sentiments of the majority of their countrymen. If
"this be correct with regard to these two sections of the Irish
people abroad, it remains to be seen how far, if at all, it can be said
that there is such an essential difference between them at home
in the qualities that conduce to the advancement of individuals
and nations.

Is it the fact, then, that Ulster is really so much more pros-
perous than the other provinces ? In the three southern provin-
ces there are twenty-three counties ; in Ulster there are nine.
The valuation of the entire of Ireland for purposes of taxation
is something over 13,000,000 a year. Of this, Ulster's part is
over 4,000,000 a year a sum that does not seem to be much
above the due proportion when we consider the number of coun-
ties in the province. The proportion will be seen to be more
strictly equal from a further examination applied to the counties
in the northern province and those in the rest of Ireland re-
spectively.

There is no county in Ulster within any degree of being so
small in area as the following counties in Leinster : Louth, Dub-
lin, Wicklow, Longford ; there is no county in Leinster except
Meath as large as the smallest county in Ulster. Dublin, the
metropolitan county of the South, is valued at "741,506 a year.
The valuation of Antrim, the metropolitan county of the North,
is ,634,353 a year; or, in other words, the valuation of the com-
paratively small county of Dublin is one-seventh above the coun-
ty which is the seat of the linen manufacture, the model county
of Ireland, the centre in which the imperial race has proved its
superior qualities ; and so on through all the forms of impudent
braggadocio.

Belfast, the capital of Ulster and the Ath'ens of Ireland, the
new Tyre and Sidon, the Irish Liverpool and London, Glasgow
and Manchester rolled up in one, figures at the respectable year-
ly valuation of 519,032 ; while the city of Dublin, with its pop-
ish corporation and reckless expenditure, its dead industries and
shipless quays, presents for imperial assessment a property valued
at 639,854 a year. The reader may wipe his glasses and stare,
but these are the government statistics. Or to put it in an-
other way : Antrim county, with its chief town, Belfast, gives an an-

1892.] A HOME-RULE PARLIAMENT. 395

nual valuation of 1,153,558 a year, as contrasted with Dublin
county and city, estimated at 1,381,360 a year.*

It must be distinctly understood that this valuation, called in-
differently the tenement or government valuation of Ireland, is
the basis of all local and imperial assessment, and the only re-
liable test of the wealth of the country or any part of it. In-
come tax is no exception to the principle because it depends
mainly on the valuation. It affords no objection to my argu-
ment because the gross income tax returns from Leinster are
greatly in excess of the returns from Ulster, and those from
Munster approach the Ulster returns so very closely as to make
the difference not worth noticing, f

Again, if we exclude the counties of Antrim and Dublin,
which may be supposed to owe their high valuation to the im-
portant cities mentioned above, we find the following results from
a wider comparison of counties. There are four counties in Ul-
ster valued above 300,000 a year each, and there are eleven of
the twenty-two outside Ulster valued above that amount. If we
take counties exceeding 500,000 a year, we find three, exclusive
of Dublin, in the South, and one, exclusive of Antrim, in the North.

Of course it may be said that every county in Ulster exceeds
200,000 a year valuation, while there are three counties in the
southern provinces below that figure. To this objection I think
it is a sufficient answer to say that the two smallest counties of
Ulster united would have a far wider area than these three
counties taken together ; while the poorest county outside of
Ulster, Mayo, is over 300,000 a year valuation. In plainer
terms it appears that the amount of the valuation depends to a
very large extent upon the area ; and that there is no appre-
ciable difference between the wealth of Ulster so tested and that
of the rest of the country. Certainly there is no greater differ-
ence in this respect between the North and South of Ireland than
between parts of England or Scotland ; and yet no one ever
dreams of instituting invidious comparisons between the more
or less wealthy districts of these countries.

* This arrangement of the figures provides against the factitious increase in the valuation
of Belfast since 1885 due to its extension by the gerrymandering Boundary Commissioners to
give it increased Parliamentary representation.

fThe income tax per head of the population is in Ulster ^"5 14^. 3^. or $28.56. In Mun-
ster it is 6 os. 7rf.or$3o.i4. In Leinster it is .10 6s, gd. or $5 1.34 per head of the population.
As to local valuations that is to say, the valuation of houses and lands for assessment we
find that Ulster is something less than Munster per head of the population, and about a third
less than Leinster per head of the population. The exact figures would suppose every man,
woman, and child in Ulster to have lands and tenements worth $12.36 for taxation. In Mun-
ster each man, woman, or child would have lands and tenements, on the same principle, worth
$12.60 ; and in Leinster each would have $18.31. These figure* have been given by Mr.
Gladstone, and, of course, are unquestionable.

396 TAXATION OF ULSTER UNDER [Dec.,

Nor would such comparisons be made with regard to parts
of Ireland only that they are deemed to justify the application
of those political doctrines by which the many -might in any
country be oppressed for the benefit of the few.

At the general election Ulster, by sending to Parliament a
majority in favor of Home Rule, must have thought that the
majority of the Irish people should rule and not the few, even
though that majority was Catholic. She continued of that opin-
ion until the division in the national party disturbed men's minds
and caused what looks like a slight reaction. It is perfectly clear
that no part of Ireland would gain so much from a resident leg-
islature as the city and county of Dublin. Yet the late wretched
quarrel cost the city and county a representative each. It is
not wonderful then that the same evil influence should have pro-
duced some effect in Ulster. The wonder is that the Unionists
did not sweep the province, instead of gaining only a few seats.
It would be hard to find a stronger proof of the solidity of the
national sentiment than this when we consider the circumstances
of Ulster.

The Home-Rule and the Unionist parties are far more equal-
ly balanced there than anywhere else in Ireland. But there is a
special danger to harmony in the national ranks of Ulster from
the criminal or foolish importation of the religious phase of Irish
politics. When Catholic candidates, like those men who are now
the objects of the plaudits of the Times, tell Protestant Home-
Rulers that they are fighting the battle of liberty and reason
against the church and the priest-ridden masses that are the ene-
mies of both, it is hard for them to refuse credence to state-
ments so much in accordance with old prejudices and associations,
and hard to deny the support that would verify such credence.
They might be justified in thinking themselves far worse Protes-
tants than such fearless and enlightened Catholics if they were
to take any other course. It speaks well for the sense and the
loyalty to principle of so many Ulster Protestants that they
were not drawn away from the national party by the vicious
rhetoric of those masquerading Catholics.

It has been said that the growth of the Home-Rule cause
continued in Ulster until the Parnellite revolt that is to say,
that among the people of that province confidence in the rest
of their countrymen was increasing. This is proved by the steady
advance of the national electorate of Ulster, year by year, fror
the fall of Mr. Gladstone's ministry. It was calculated in
by persons capable of gauging the forces of all kinds at worl
in Ulster politics, that five seats would be captured from the

1892.] A HOME-RULE PARLIAMENT. 397

Unionists. This seems to have been the opinion of Mr. Parnell
himself at that time ; for he reckoned upon obtaining ninety
Home-Rulers from Ireland at the ensuing general election. But
he could not have got the additional five from any part of Ire-
land except Ulster ; and in those days his statements were
weighty and guarded.

It is worth recollecting, in connection with this very matter,
that the barristers to revise the register of electors are appoint-
ed annually by the government of the day. It was the custom
to appoint men in equal numbers from the two great parties, so
as to secure impartiality in the work of revision. This respect-
able rule was disregarded by Sir Peter O'Brien when he became
attorney-general. He appointed only three Gladstonians out of
the whole number of revising barristers, and not one of the three
was sent to Ulster. Notwithstanding this the Home-Rule major-
ity increased upon the register of the province a very clear
proof that the growth of opinion must have asserted itself under
circumstances more or less unfavorable. Without at all impeach-
ing the honor of the revising barristers appointed by the Tories
from year to year since 1886, one may fairly call attention to
the fact that they were not selected to injure the party that
appointed them. Sir Peter O'Brien seems to have imposed a
very considerable trial on the virtue of those gentlemen whom
he put in temporary offices where they could serve their party
and thereby earn greater rewards. When he disqualified Glad-
stonians for reappointment, he very plainly intimated what the
government expected from the revising barristers. If it were a
dishonor to be selected by him as a juror for the assizes at
Maryborough, because such selection showed that he thought
the juror's oath equal to his honor, one fails to see how the re-
vising barristers appointed by him should be above suspicion.
And their successful manipulation of the register, by which in
doubtful constituencies an Unionist majority could be obtained,
would be reckoned such good service that it would be impossi-
ble for the most place-creating government of the century to
overlook it. Place-creating I call it : for positively it seems no
exaggeration to say that the late government, on account of the
multitude of offices it privileged and connived at, as well as dis-
tinctly created, has provided for future census enumerators a
simple and ready classification of the inhabitants of Ireland into
place-men and taxpayers.

However, what is important at present is, that despite the
political antipathies of revising barristers, Ulster advanced on the
road to Home-Rule, and only for Mr. Redmond and Mr. Har-

398 TAXATION OF ULSTER UNDER [Dec,,

rington and the rest of that faction she would, at the general
election, have been practically in line with the rest of Ireland,
and we should have none of the stupid talk of a Papist majority
elected by the paupers of three provinces, robbing and tramp-
ling on the prosperous Protestants of the fourth.

It is absurd, indeed. In Ulster five counties are almost Cath-
olic. In the other four counties the Catholics are more numer-
ous than any single Protestant sect. Consequently they must
possess a considerable share of the wealth of that province. It
is, therefore, impossible that taxation under a Home-Rule legis-
lature should fall exclusively on Ulster. Even if the Dublin
parliament should not possess ample security in the property and
wealth of the South for such assessments as might be necessary,
and that the North were as rich and prosperous as the most ar-
dent of its admirers might desire ; yet there would be no sense,
no consistency, in loading it with exceptional burdens on the
score of religion. The majority or nearly the majority of its
people, as pointed out, are Catholics ; and surely that would be
a curious specimen of religious zeal which would grind them to
the dust.

No doubt they might be exempted from taxation, as the
Unionists say the Catholics of the South are certain to be. The
possibility of this has not been suggested by the Unionists
they prefer to regard Ulster as exclusively Protestant ; but sup-
pose such an exemption, and that the whole weight of imposts
would fall upon the Protestants of Ulster ? Why the Protes-
tants of Ulster would not be able to pay the one single tax
called grand jury cess for all Ireland, much less to sustain the
whole burden of Irish local, parliamentary, and imperial taxation.
One feels while dealing with this subject as if he were breaking
a fly upon the wheel, but it has become absolutely necessary
to discuss it at some length, in consequence of the matchless
effrontery of those who maintain the contrary position.

Moreover, the greater part of Episcopal Protestants live in
the southern provinces ; they are the wealthiest class of Protes-
tants by a long degree, and yet there is no account taken of
their interests in this controversy. Are they to be abandoned
by Protestant Ulster to the fury and fanaticism of " Archbishop
Walsh and his political associates," as Lord Salisbury would say
with such exquisite taste ? It is true that these southern Episcopa-
lians express no fear of a Catholic majority. They have beei
born and brought up among them, and they may be supposed
to know what should be expected at. their hands. If they regarc
the advent of Home Rule with equanimity they must be Papists

1892.] A HOME-RULE PARLIAMENT. 399

in disguise, or else they must believe that their Catholic country-
men, whom they know, are utterly incapable of supporting any
policy directed against their religion. It may be suggested that
Ulster Protestants, inspired by such political lights as Mr. Cham-
berlain, the converted anarchist, the Tory socialist, the regal re-
bel ; or by that peddling, shifty mountebank Lord Randolph
Churchill, who would be regarded as a traitor by his party only
that they know he can be trusted to betray their opponents if he
should join them, or by Mr. Balfour, whose contempt for Irish-
men, Catholic and Protestant alike, is his essential characteristic
it may be suggested that, taught by such lights of statesman-
ship, the Ulster Protestants look upon the Protestants of the
South as rebels and assassins like the Catholics around them,
and, like them, have been carrying on a system of outrage and
murder in pursuance of a policy directed towards the dismem-
berment of the empire.

Of course it would not be politic to accuse the Episcopa-
lians of the South in express terms with being murderers and
traitors such a course would be incompatible with the theory
of a popish parliament waiting for the hour when it can attempt,
with the aid of the forces of the crown, to turn Ulster into an
Irish Cevennes, and celebrate its first fifteenth of August by a
new St. Bartholomew in Belfast but the whole policy pursued
by the Protestants of Ulster in their opposition to Home Rule
means that the wealthy Protestants of the South are traitors to
Protestantism, because they are content to live on terms of
brotherhood with their Catholic neighbors ; it means this or it
means nothing.

The figures representing the numbers of the different Protes-
tant sects throughout Ireland are instructive in connection with
what has just been said. There are three distinct classes of
Protestants under the respective headings of Episcopalians or
" Irish Church," Presbyterians, and Methodists. To these a
fourth is added under the title "other denominations"; so that
a Jew, a Mohammedan, a person of no religion, a Quaker, an
Unitarian, or anything but a Catholic, becomes an Irish Protes-
tant of the fourth class. The point here is that the Unionist
argument runs somewhat as follows : All who are not Catholics
are Protestants, and all Protestants should be opposed to Home
Rule, because not only is it the duty of Catholics to oppress
Protestants, but in the existing condition of Ireland they must
rob them in order to raise the expenses for government. All
the wealth of Ireland is confined to Ulster, and as the Protes-
tants alone have wealth, the Protestants are confined to Ulster.

TAXATION OF ULSTER UNDER [Dec.,

If any Protestants should be found in the other provinces they
have no business there ; they are deserters, and should receive
the punishment of deserters. But at the same time we may
honestly, for the purpose of beguiling the British voter, who on
Irish questions is not a rational animal, transfer on paper the
number of Protestants from the other provinces, and place them
in this promised land where an open Bible, the Boyne water,
yellow banners, drums, and annual holidays employed in the
shooting of Papists have been the immemorial privileges of the
inhabitants.

However, we are disposed to take a more commonplace view
of the statistics of the different creeds. It is hard to say a
priori to what political party the class entitled " other denomi-
nations " would unite itself, if it should be regarded as a solid,
coherent body. But if the multitude of minute creeds contained
under that heading be regarded as distinct atoms, there is no
reason in the universe for not supposing that each atom will
seek a billet for itself. As a matter of fact, we know that the
Jews of Dublin always vote with the national party, and that
the Quakers and Unitarians vibrate between that party and the
Whigs. Therefore, even so far we find that the two camps of
Catholic and non-Catholic cannot be relied upon as defining the
political opinions of the Irish people.

It is admitted upon all hands that Ulster has been favored
beyond, and frequently even at the expense of, the other pro-
vinces. Even when Ulster Nonconformists were fleeing from the
country at the rate of four thousand a year, as they were from
1717 until 1787, they had, at least, the benefit of the Ulster
Custom, which conferred upon every tenant a sort of joint own-
ership with his landlord. In the early part of the same century
an effort to extend the linen manufacture to the other provinces
was successfully opposed in the interest of the English woollen
merchants. Such a policy favoring one part of the nation to
keep all down produced the result that should follow upon in-
justice. In the war of American independence the Protes-
tants of the North repeated the blow which the Catholics of the
South had given England at Fontenoy, and many another Euro-
pean battle-field.

But how barren has all these favors been to Ulster ! The
decay which one sees in the other provinces is to be seen al-
most everywhere one goes through this province, the progress
and prosperity of which has been shouted from a thousand plat-
forms of Great Britain during the last election ; and which are
dwelt upon with as much confidence as ignorance by a certain

1892.] A HOME-RULE PARLIAMENT. 401

class of writers in this country. How can men be convinced
when facts clear as sunlight and as irresistible as death will not
satisfy them ? One can only conclude that on this question such
persons are insane.

But the fact is that Ulster is losing population with every
decade at the same rate as the rest of the country. The only
-county in Ulster which is not at present losing ground is Antrim,
and this may be matched by the county of Dublin for the
South, which -has also slightly increased during the last decade.
But except in Antrim and Down the mills and factories are
everywhere in ruin, the linen manufacture has disappeared from
all the other counties, and even as to Down itself it has to be
said that many mills are already idle, and the number is in-
creasing. It can be no compensation to Ulster to point in re-
tort to the silent flour and meal mills of the South. The cheap-
ness and excellence of American flour can explain a good deal
of this ; but what can explain the rapidly dying linen trade of
Ulster ?

I present another instance to test this same boasted pros-
perity as contrasted with the condition of the people elsewhere.
If Ulster is the most prosperous province of the four, fewer ten-
ants from Ulster should have been able to obtain the benefit of
the Arrears' Act of 1882 than from any one of the other pro-
vinces. If Ulster is alone prosperous, there should have been
no tenants able to prove insolvency so as to obtain remission
of arrears at the expense of the state. Yet Ulster had the great-
est number of insolvent tenants a greater number than Con-
naught even, always described as so impoverished.

It remains, then, to consider how the Protestants in the
South will be circumstanced if the native legislature is certain to
tax the Protestants of the North in order to raise the neces-
sary income for administrative purposes.

Such special taxation of the Ulster Protestants must arise
either from the bigotry of the Catholic majority, or from the
circumstance that the Protestants of Ulster only could bear the
burdens of the state. But the latter alternative has no founda-
tion in fact, and the other alone remains. If the Ulster Protes-
tants believe that excessive taxation shall be imposed upon them
on account of their religion, what ground have they for sup-
posing that the Protestants in the southern provinces will escape
a similar injustice ? A little consideration must show how idle,
nay more, how dishonest, is the pretence put forward on behalf
of the Protestants of Ulster.

The whole number of non-Catholics in Ulster amounts to

402 TAXATION OF ULSTER UNDER [Dec.,

less than 737,000.* Of these about 430,000 are Presbyterians,
22,000 are Methodists, 56,000 of " other denominations," and
about 219,000 are Episcopalians. At present the Episcopa-
lians of Ulster seem to take the leadership of the anti-national
crusade in that province. How long they shall enjoy it remains
to be seen. But it may be suggested that the Presbyterians, who
have long chafed under a sense of social as well as civil inferi-
ority, will demand the place to which their numbers, and the
ability, energy, and ambition of the educated among them, are
entitled. To a large extent they led the Catholics of that pro-
vince when both were attacking the entrenchments of the state
religion, and to all intents and purposes monopolized all favor
and patronage whenever the Whigs came into power. It was
only wher^the Catholics began to insist upon a share of the spoils
of office, and that there should be some recognition of their
principles in education, that the Presbyterians discovered that
the mark of the beast was upon them. It seemed, in the opin-
ion of these worthy men, who had not the excuse for their in-
solence and presumption which members of the Established
Church might offer, that the Catholics were quite good enough
to follow them at elections, but not good enough to stand upon
terms of equality when offices were to be divided after the vic-
tory. It is most probable that they will again join the Catho-
lics when it suits their purpose, and again desert them for the
Episcopalians, according as they find alliance with either calcu-
lated to advance their interests.

The question of the creeds may be broadly stated in these
terms : No one honestly believes that injustice and oppression
on the part of a Catholic majority will follow the establishment
of Home Rule. There are about 420,000 non-Catholics in the
southern provinces, and of these about 400,000 are Episcopalians.
Man for man they are persons of better social position than the
Presbyterians of Ulster. Exclusive of owners of over 10,000
acres, there are about 50,000 owners of property in the south-
ern provinces ranging from 100 acres to 10,000. f Of these

* The figures are proximately accurate to the present time, but are rather above what
the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists can justly claim.

t This classification is likely to mislead persons not acquainted with Ireland. There is
so wide a difference between 100 acres and 10,000 a stranger would hardly suppose that
the respective proprietors of two such estates could belong to the same social rank. The
small proprietors and their sons, however, are provided for by county and government
offices, and the feeling of caste is thereby kept up. Relationship, too, is a factor.

Another peculiarity to be noted is that the same lands are frequently included in the acre-
age of two proprietors, sometimes in that of three, and even of a greater number ; I don't speak
here of trustees but of beneficial owners, holding the same parcel of lands by different tenures.
E. g., A holds the same tract, as representing the original gran tee, which B holds in fee farm under
A ; which C holds under a lease of lives renewable for ever (which can be converted into a fee

1892.] A HOME-RULE PARLIAMENT. 403

nearly 30,000 are Episcopalians. The Presbyterians in these pro-
vinces, if they are at all above the lowest class, are engaged in
trade. On the assumption of five persons to a family, there
would be 150,000 Episcopalians of the rank of the gentry. The
remaining 250,000 would be the families of persons engaged in
positions of trust about the large estates, of persons in long es-
tablished places of business, and a proportion of small tenant-
farmers, servants, and tradesmen.

Now surely these 400,000 Episcopalians are as well qualified
to speak in the name of Protestantism as the Protestants of
Ulster. There are about 219,000 Episcopalians in the latter pro-
vince, and doubtless, for the most part, they consist of the same
class as their co-religionists in the other provinces. Naturally
enough the expectation of favors induced their Presbyterian
tenants to unite with them in the present crisis. Nor have they
been altogether disappointed ; for three land-purchase acts
which may be called Ulster-purchase acts obtained from the
Tory government, attest the reality and the price of this alli-
ance. But the Ulster Presbyterians have a canny knack of turn-
ing on allies or benefactors when their purpose is served, and
seeking the aids to a new purpose elsewhere. So that he who-
supposes that under a Home-Rule Parliament Ireland will be
divided into two hostile forces, consisting of the Catholics on
one side and a solid and dangerous fusion of the different
forms of Protestantism upon the other, fired by a settled pur-
pose to make government by the former impossible, knows noth-
ing of the present characteristics or the past history of Irish
Protestant sects.

Differences there will be, no doubt ; but southern Episcopa-
lians are more likely to ally themselves with the higher ranks of
the Catholics than with Presbyterians whose democratic ten-
dencies have been the danger of their church and of their own
)olitical power. Catholics of the lower middle class, both in
Ulster and outside it, will be probably drawn to the side of the
enterprising Presbyterians whose republican religion seems in-
compatible with the existence of a social hierarchy. There will
be other shiftings and variations of alliance among the elements
of the population as new questions and interests rise to the sur-

farm grant) from B, and which D holds under a long term of years from C. It is quite possi-
ble, therefore, that the same one hundred acres would figure up as the estate of four different
proprietors. It may happen that a grazier who pays ,10,000 a year rent and takes his place
among the considerable people of a county will not be "a proprietor"; while some shoneen
or half-mounted gentleman, as they say in Ireland is "a proprietor" in right of a fee farm
of one hundred acres which his great-grandfather or great-grandmother had received for some
questionable service.

404 TAXATION OF ULSTER UNDER [Dec.,

face ; but we venture to predict with confidence that nothing like
a Catholic majority qua Catholic, or a Protestant minority qua
Protestant, shall ever be again seen in Ireland.

England by withdrawing her hand has killed the policy of
division. It was not for the interest of Irish Protestants that
she maintained them either in Ulster or elsewhere through the
country ; but for the subjection of Ireland. The North was
planted with Presbyterians in order to confirm and perpetuate
the subjection which followed the great war against the north-
ern earls. The following century saw their descendants fleeing,
as has been already said, at the rate of four thousand a year,
and, it may be added, for several years at the rate of twelve
thousand a year.* This was only a repetition of the old policy,
to treat Irishmen, whether of English or ancient Irish descent, as
the enemies of England's greatness. It was for this that the
woollen trade was destroyed, and all possible development of
agricultural industry prevented, if it were likely to compete with
that of England. It was to safeguard English interests that
laws were enacted in 1665 and 1680 absolutely prohibiting the
importation into England of all cattle, sheep, and swine, of beef,
pork, bacon, mutton, butter, and cheese.f

The very remarkable thing in connection with these enact-
ments is that the persons most affected by them were English-
men living in Ireland, or the sons of Englishmen born in that
country. At that time the majority of Irish proprietors were
the recently planted Cromwellian grantees ; but already one part
of the curse of Swift was upon them "they were Irishmen " that
is to say that their interests were in Ireland, and of these in
their hands England was as intolerant as if they had come in
with the Milesians three thousand years before.

In 1663 the very same interests were struck at by the Navi-
gation Act, and Ireland was deprived of the whole colonial trade.
In the grant of Derry to the London companies a grant con-
ferring the most extensive powers with the object of creating a
great commercial centre which would rival old London:}: the
leading idea, after the establishment of an English colony in
place of the dispossessed Irish, was that it should carry on an
unrestricted trade with the American settlements. The act of
1663 was confirmed by the act of 1670, and further strengthened

* Writing about the year 1773, Arthur Young mentions that in that year four thousand
emigrants sailed from Belfast alone.

1 18 Charles II., c. 2, 32 ; Charles II., c. 2.

JThis was actually contemplated by James I., as the papers issued by his orders show.

1892.] A HOME-RULE PARLIAMENT. 405

by the act of 1696, and so effectually that whatever shipping
trade there had been was annihilated.

We are aware that the Orangemen of Ulster have a profound
reverence for the memory of the great and good King Wil-
liam III., and we therefore have very great pleasure in giving
them the exact title of the last mentioned statute viz., the /th
and 8th of William III., c. 22. Very material in connection with
the Navigation Acts is the address of the English House of
Lords to the same sovereign with respect to the Irish woollen
trade, which had begun to revive, notwithstanding the efforts of
Strafford in 1636 and an act of Charles II. in 1660 to crush it.
Even at the risk of being tiresome I cannot avoid quoting some
of this precious address. " The growing manufactures of cloth in
Ireland," it says, " both by the cheapness of all sorts of neces-
saries of life, and goodness of materials* for making all manner
of cloth, doth invite your subjects of England, with their fami-
lies and servants, to leave their habitations to settle there, to the
increase of the woollen manufacture in Ireland, which makes your
loyal subjects in this kingdom very apprehensive that the further
growth of it may greatly prejudice the said manufacture here."
The English House of Commons urged his Majesty of Orange
in the same terms, with the perfectly satisfactory result that
never again was there danger to English woollen manufacturers
from the trade in Ireland. The enactment finally destroying the
Irish woollen trade was passed at a time when the only persons
to be ruined by it were Irish Protestants, for the war which
had only been concluded a few years before had sufficiently dis-
posed of the Irish Catholics so far as industrial activity and en-
terprise were concerned.

It would seem, therefore, that English interests have never
spared Irish Protestant interests when these were in competition
with them ; that the favors bestowed upon Irish Protestants were
not because they were loved more, but because the Irish Catho-
lics were loved less ; and that the very favors themselves have
been a disaster to the Irish Protestants in as great a degree as
to their fellow-countrymen: We hope to hear no more of the wild
and wicked pretence that Protestant Ulster shall have to pay for
the incapacity and extravagance of Catholic Ireland under a
Home-Rule legislature.

GEORGE MCDERMOT.

* The same objection is now offered to the new Irish tweeds ; they last too long it is said,
and therefore cheap Manchester is the proper wear.

ENDURING FAME.

THE truest glory ever comes unsought:
Fame scorns the slave who bows him at her

shrine

And quaffs the world's applause like spark-
ling wine ;

But dowers him, the man whose single thought
Is duty to be done, whose deeds are wrought
In harmony with God's own plan divine,
Who works His will, still hewing to the line
For others' praise or censure caring naught.

Most famed of men is still the humble saint

Who recked in life nor Fortune's smile or

frown,
Alike to him were plaudits loud or faint :

Now rings throughout the world his fair re-
nown,

The Church approving tells his praises o'er,
And shrines him on her altars evermore.

A. B. O'NEILL, C.S.C.

1892.] REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS. 407

ADDENDA TO THE REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P.
WADHAMS, FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG.

BIRTH, BOYHOOD, AND COLLEGE LIFE OF BISHOP WADHAMS.*

DGAR P. WADHAMS was born May 21, 1817,
in the town of Lewis, Essex County, New York.
He was the sixth and youngest child of Gene-
ral Luman Wadhams, and his wife Lucy. His
father, Luman, a native of Goshen, Connecticut,
settled early in life at Charlotte, Vermont, and afterwards moved
to Lewis, in Essex County, New York. He finally fixed his resi-
dence in the adjoining town of Westport, giving name to the vil-
lage of Wadhams Mills, where he died April 19, 1832, in the
fiftieth year of his age. He was an officer at the battle of
Plattsburgh, and rose to the rank of general in the militia ser-
vice. His wife, Lucy Prindle (nte Bostwick), the mother of Ed-
gar, was a woman of great piety as well as remarkable for
sagacity, and a wondrous wisdom born of both these qualities.
To her thoughtful care, pious moral training, and the example
she gave by her conscientious discharge of every duty, is no
doubt due in great part that life of manly principle and nobility
of soul which always characterized the subject of these reminis-
cences. I knew her well, resided in the same house with her
for several months, conversing with her daily, and have never
lost the impression made upon me by a certain simple but mar-
velous tact she possessed which amounted to true wisdom. She
survived her husband, General Wadhams, many years, living to
see her son a priest, and died at the advanced age of eighty-
four. Her body, as well as that of her husband, lies buried at
Wadhams Mills.

We are not able to give much detail in regard to Edgar's
childhood. There is, perhaps, no necessity for it. Let it suffice
to say that there is testimony to the fact that from his earliest
years Edgar was looked upon as a boy of great promise. He
was sent to an academy at Shoreham, Vermont, where he pre-
pared for college. He entered Middlebury College in 1834, en-
rolling himself in the freshman class of that year. Some account
of his course at this college is important, not only to show what
manner of man he was at that time, but because it was there

* A chapter which should have been introductory.

408 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Dec.,

that, although reared a Presbyterian, he became attracted to-
wards Anglicanism, which he mistook for something Catholic,
and was led to unite himself to the Protestant Episcopal Church.

We are indebted to the Rev. J. Avery Shepherd, now an
Episcopalian clergyman living in California, for nearly all we know
of Wadhams' college career. There was a family connection be-
tween the two. Wadhams' sister, Mrs. Weeks, was the wife of
Shepherd's uncle. It was at her house, six miles distant from
Middlebury, that the two friends first met when about to enter
that college. They were classmates, and roomed together during
the ensuing four years. Shepherd was a Baptist, but up to this
time Wadhams, although born of Presbyterian parents, had
never enrolled himself as a professed member of any Christian
denomination. It was at Middlebury that Wadhams, to use his
friend's expression, " became serious." He was observed to take
off his hat when passing the Episcopal Church. He soon ob-
tained permission from the college authorities to attend service
there. We are told also that on rising in the morning, which he
did at four o'clock, he was accustomed to read aloud for one
hour from Chapman's Sermons on Episcopacy. His friend when
awaking would listen to this, although pretending to sleep.
He had urged Wadhams to become a Baptist, but either Chap-
man's sermons or Wadhams himself proved more persuasive,
and after about three months both were churchmen, and both
active church members. In fact, these two students ran the
whole thing at Middlebury. There b.eing no settled minister,
they officiated alternately, Wadhams playing the organ when
the other read the service, and vice versa.

Wadhams graduated with honors from Middlebury College in
1838. From this same college he received the degree of LL.D,
a short time previous to his death.

MATTER SUPPLEMENTARY TO HIS LIFE AT ST. MARY'S SEMI-
NARY, BALTIMORE.

Although separated from my friend Wadhams by the broad
Atlantic for a period of five years, including the whole of his
course at the Sulpician Seminary of St. Mary's, Baltimore, two
sources of information have just been opened which supply me
with some very definite and valuable information concerning his
seminary career. Father Griffin, a venerable priest still living at
St. Charles's College, Ellicott City, Md., was a companion and
intimate friend of Bishop Wadhams while at the seminary.
Though now advanced in years and unable to write, he remem-

1892.] .FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 409

bers very well the young convert from the Northern Woods,
and the olden times when they were together in Baltimore. His
reminiscences have been communicated to me, in answer to my
written inquiries. I have also letters from the Rev. H. F. Parke.
Although, to borrow his own description of himself, " well worn
with forty years of mission labors of all sorts from the Ken-
tucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina to the Mason and Dixon
lines " and now obliged in his old age to lay by as chaplain to
the Visitation Convent in Wheeling, West Virginia, Father Parke
remembers Wadhams well. He also was his companion at St.
Mary's, and " warms up at his name and memory " to send me
valuable contributions.

Father Griffin tells us that Wadhams entered the Baltimore
Seminary impressed with a feeling that he had come to the
source, the centre, the cradle of Catholicity in the United States.
He put himself absolutely in the hands of the superior of the
seminary, then the Very Rev. Louis Regis Deluol, S.S. I saw
Father Deluol at Saint Sulpice, in Paris, early in the winter of
1850. Four Sisters of Charity from the United States dropped
in upon us at the same time, and a very lively and delighted
American party we made. The picture of the genial and superb
old man is strongly impressed upon my memory. In Father
Deluol the young neophyte found a pronounced admirer and warm
friend. The seminary also numbered amongst its faculty Messrs.
Verot, afterwards Bishop of Savannah, and still later transferred
to the see of St. Augustine ; Lhomme, who afterwards became
president of the seminary; Fredet, then registrar of the semi-
nary, and Dubreuil. Socially and spiritually, therefore, the
ex-Anglican deacon could say, as I am told he often did say,
Funes ceciderunt mihi in prceclaris. " He was happy, thor-
oughly happy," writes Father Parke, " without a doubt or mis-
giving left to ruffle his peace of mind." The superior placed
Wadhams under the instruction of the Rev. Father P. Fre-
det, D.D., or rather, as they used to say at the seminary, of
Mr. Fredet. It was evident to him that Wadhams had been al-
ready well instructed in the faith before his arrival, and he was,
therefore, soon received into the church, and baptized solemnly
in St. Mary's Chapel. His kneeling for three years to so austere
an ascetic as Fredet in confession the same priest who recon-
ciled him to the church gives us an inkling, says Parke, of how
bravely he was then travelling in the pathway of the Crucified.

St. Mary's Seminary in Wadhams' time could only accom-
modate nineteen students. Of these the average attendance in
VOL. LVI. 28

4io REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Dec.,

the divinity classes was about twelve; the rest were collegians
of the petit seminaire, or philosophers.

Among his companions were the late Father Bernard Mc-
Manus, of St. John's, Baltimore, and the Reverend Francis
Boyle, of Washington City. With these for many years Wad-
hams maintained a long and loving intimacy, frequently visiting
and receiving visits from them. To them must be added, be-
sides those already mentioned, John McNally, afterwards pastor
of St. Stephen's Church, Washington City ; John Henry Walters,,
of the Wheeling diocese; Francis Xavier Leray, afterwards Arch-
bishop of New Orleans ; Jacob Walter, of St. Patrick's Church,
Washington City; John Larkin, of New York City; Henry
Hennis, of . Philadelphia, and William Lambert, of Pittsburgh,
brother of Father Lambert, of Waterloo, N. Y. Right Rev.
Thomas P. Foley, of Chicago, was ordained in 1846, and must,
therefore, have graduated just before Wadhams' arrival.

As, however, Mr. Foley continued for some years to reside at Bal-
timore, becoming vicar-general of the archdiocese, he must be num-
bered in the group of friends in which Wadhams now mingled, and
which helped to develop a character so open to all good influences.

The period of our friend's introduction to this new and val-
uable circle of friends was a very lively one for the American
church, as Father Parke reminds us. " It was the era of Brown-
son's submission to the church, and of hunger to get hold of
his essays. Even the stolid Dr. Fredet enthused over them,
and compared their writer to Suarez in breadth and depth of
treating his subjects; McMasters from his tripod was making-
things lively and interesting ; while such writers as Martin JL
Spalding and Dr. Verot were handling, with gloves off, the
Southern Quarterly Review, for its defective reviewing of
D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation ; others were canvassing;
Dr. Jarvis's reply to Milner's End of Controversy ; while the
United States Catholic Magazine, edited by the Rev. Charles I.
White and M. J. Spalding, later our Archbishop of Baltimore,
was then at the height of its usefulness."

Wadhams now found himself in a new world of manly relig-
ious thought and sound theology. He had escaped from the
sentimental baby-house in which so many Anglicans were amus-
ing themselves. The Catholic thought which now attracted him,
and with which his mind was fed, was no longer a diluted water-
gruel. His teachers dared to say what they meant, and were
not obliged to present the truth in some form of language
which left open a safe door of retreat. He was at last free, and
felt his emancipation.

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 411

I am anxious that Mr. Wadhams should be presented to the
reader at this day in the same shape and light in which he ap-
peared so long ago to his new friends at the Catholic Seminary.
We will let Father Parke take the stand first. This is his testimony:

" His subdued, manly, dignified bearing, and frank manners,
were in his favor from his entrance. Before being a month in
the house, the impression made on the superiors and his fellow-
students was deep, favorable, and lasting. All were of the be-
lief that Wadhams would stick and prove an acquisition. His
profound piety and scrupulous exactitude in observance of rule
and addiction to the practices of the interior life, his light-
heartedness and capacity to enjoy a joke, and take part in the
recreations and sports, soon made him a general favorite."

Father Griffin's memory sees him in the same light. He
speaks of him thus: ,.

" Wadhams was a man in every way sincere, who knew no
wish but what the world might hear. There was nothing stern
about him, but he was always earnest in everything that he
undertook. He was remarkable for his regularity in the observ-
ance of the rules and every duty. He was a marked man, but
without any show of eccentricity. This, however, can be said,
that the earnestness and common sense which characterized him
were made emphatic by a simplicity of heart and manner that
never forsook him.

" In Lent he was a strict observer of the fast, though the
observance cost considerably to his nature. In the morning he,
as everybody else, took a cup of coffee with a water-cracker
the size of a silver dollar. Dinner was at 1:20 o'clock. One
day," says Father Griffin, " meeting Wadhams after the teach-
ing of his morning class (about 12:40 o'clock), I asked him :
'How are you, Mr. Wadhams?' With his usual earnest tone,
' Don't talk to me,' said he ; 'I feel as if I could eat brickbats'

" He lived in the seminary, but had to teach in the college.
With the other seminarians he joined in all the games. He
seemed to take much interest in the game of wooden balls.
When he made a good play, he would lift his hands vigorously
into the air, with an oft-repeated cry of ' Sam Hill ! didn't I
give a good hit ? '

" From the beginning he gained the respect, the esteem, and
the good will of the inmates. His name came to be held in
benediction among all his friends in the seminary."

In regard to his theological studies, and to his abilities as a
teacher in the college, the testimony of Father Griffin is that
his success was fair. That his success in study was not rated

412 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS, [Dec.,

at more than fair, is not to be attributed to any want of supe-
rior intelligence. It came from a defective memory for names
and words. This defect attended him through his whole life.
It made recitation in class less easy. In particular it made
him a poor scholar in languages. Although often obliged to
speak in French, especially when travelling abroad or when
making visitations in his diocese, he never could master that
tongue, or indeed any other. This same defect often embar-
rassed him when meeting with familiar friends. He could not
readily recall their proper names and addresses, and was not
unfrequently obliged to ask for these, to his own confusion.
Any one, however, who might be tempted to mistake the want
of this particular gift for a lack of keen intelligence, was soon
forced to change his mind on better acquaintance. The dis-
tinction which I have just endeavored to make is forcibly
brought out by Saintine, in his story of Picciola. In speaking
of a certain learned man who at the age of twenty-five years
had a complete knowledge of seven languages, and was more
notable for a love of discussion and quotation than any power
of wise observation or reflection, the author remarks : " One can
be a fool in several languages." Montalembert had in his mind
a similar distinction when, standing in the tribune of the French
assembly and seeing around him a voluble crowd of red repub-
lican orators, he made them furious by calling them "little
rhetoricians" (petits rhdteurs).

One thing I deeply regret. I cannot give to the reader not
personally and intimately acquainted with Wadhams any just
conception of that interior piety which made his life a true
walk with God, and which certainly characterized him at St.
Mary's Seminary. True, I have quoted the language of wit-
nesses who state this strongly, and I myself might enlarge upon
their statements. Statements and enlargements, however, of this
kind make little impression upon most readers. The language
of eulogy is something so customary, and so freely and largely
used, that they give little heed to it, and retain little of it in
their memories, except when presented in facts which leave it
pictured and framed into a distinct portrait of the man. The
witnesses of Wadhams' life at St. Mary's are too few and they
are too far away.. Even if they were more numerous and nearer,
still Wadhams was not a man to talk much about himself, and
least of all to talk much of his own emotions or any of that
secret intercourse which he held with his Maker. Familiar
friends get to know something of this interior life of a good
man, but only little by little, and this mostly by inferences^

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 413

drawn from outward actions. Wadhams does not seem to have
kept any diary or preserved copies of letters or papers of his
own writing. The most sacred and best part of his life is,
therefore, the least known to us. This is the great defect of the
present " Reminiscences." I feel the defect deeply. It seems
to me that I am presenting to the public a caricature of my
friend rather than a real likeness. I am forced to dwell upon
traits which, although really characteristic, yet belong only to
the surface of the man, leaving the deeper and higher soul in
shadow. I fear to have dwelt too much upon what is only
peculiar, strange, striking, or amusing, rather than what is edify-
ing. I have no excuse but this, that I do my best. To represent
a holy soul like Wadhams' truly and adequately would require a
spirit like his own. Here, then, I must close this account of his
life at Baltimore. It is the best that I can furnish.

I give the following incident to show certain traits in the
character of Bishop Wadhams which, if not of the highest con-
sequence, were very noticeable and will remain imprinted in the
memory of those who knew him. It shows especially the warmth
of his natural affections, with a self-forgetfulness and a simplicity
of action which readily threw off the restraints of conventional
and artificial life.

He was engaged one afternoon in giving confirmation to a
class of children, with some adults, at a settlement in the Adi-
rondacks once called Rogerville, and now Lyon Mountain. Just
as he was about to begin the ceremony he saw, to his great
surprise, sitting on one of the benches before him a sister of
his whom he had not seen for many years. " Why," he said,
"is that you?" Overjoyed at the sight, and quite forgetful of
all other surroundings, he stepped forth from the sanctuary into
the aisle all vested as he was, and with his mitre on, and throw-
ing his arms about her, saluted her with a hearty kiss. It then
broke upon his mind that he had done something unusual.
" Don't be scandalized," he said to the congregation, " it's my
sister ! My own dear old sister ! She has come all the way
from California ! I haven't seen her for years." And the con-
gregation were not at all scandalized. Simple-hearted as they
were and all unartificial, they were more edified by this sudden
display of natural affection than they would have been if they
had seen the good bishop giving the " Pax " to his assistant
priest at the altar in the midst of a pontifical High Mass, and
with all the solemn dignity intended by the rubric.

414 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P, WADHAMS, [Dec.,

Bishop Wadhams was never a society man, and it was not at
all in his nature to become very conventional in his ways and
manner. He was, however, a thorough gentleman in all that
such a term implies of true courtesy and consideration for others.
I give one instance.

Near the close of his life, but before his last illness, old age
and increasing infirmity made it difficult for him to dress with-
out assistance. This office was commonly performed by a labor-
ing man in his service named John, whose duty it also was to
attend to the fires. One morning when this man came into his
room the bishop felt it necessary to take John to task for mal-
feasance in office.

"You neglect the fires, John," he said. "The house is too
cold ; I feel it and the whole household suffers from it." John
took the reproof humbly and quietly, only taking advantage of
a short pause to say, " Did you have a good sleep last night,
bishop ? " Being determined to make an impression on the mind
of his attendant, the bishop continued to enlarge upon the mat-
ter. When this was over John only replied, " Is there any other
matter, sir, you'd like to mention ?" "No," was the reply, "you
may go now. Yes, wait a moment ! " Then, after a short pause,
the bishop continued: "John, when you came into my room a
little while ago you wished me good morning ; I forgot to re-
turn the salute. Afterwards you asked me if I had had a good
sleep ; I forgot to answer that also. I found fault with you in-
stead, and you never said a word or looked sullen. John, I can't
afford to let you be more of a gentleman than I am. Good-
morning to you, John. Did I have a good sleep ? No, I had a
very bad night of it. No fault of yours, though. And now you
may go, John, and God bless you."

What the bishop was in his household such he was in his
whole diocese and in all his intercourse with the world. He
was as much of a gentleman with the least of his inferiors as he
was with any of those who ranked above him.

APPENDIX.

THE WADHAMS FAMILY IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

[For the following details the author is indebted to the kindness and intelligent care of
Mrs. Dr. Stevens, of New. York City, daughter of William L. Wadhams.]

The word Wadham signifies " A home by the ford." Prince,
in his history entitled Worthies of Devon, 1701, says:

" This ancient and renowned family of Wadham had its origi-
nal seat in the county of Devon and derived its name from the

1892.] FIRST BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG. 415

place of its habitation, Wadham, which is in the parish of Know-
stone, near the incorporate town of South Molton. William de
Wadham was a freeholder of this land in the days of King Ed-
ward I., 1272 to 1307, and both East and West Wadham de-
scended in this name to Nicholas Wadham, founder of Wadham
College, Oxford, 1609, who left them to his heirs general.

" This honorable family possessed the seat called Edge through
about eight descents in a direct line, five of whom were knights,
who matched with divers daughters and heirs and became
allied to many great and noble houses, as Plantagenet, Worthes-
by, Bridges, Popham, Strangways, Tregarthian, etc., etc., as may
appear from this pedigree thereof" (See Princes Worthies, p.
588, folio edition, 1701).

About the year 1499 Merrifield, an estate in Somersetshire,
came into possession of Sir John Wadham by marriage, and at
that time the principal seat of the family was removed to the
county of Somerset. The ancient, moated seat of Merrifield is
in the parish of Ilton, about five miles from Ilminster to the
north. St. Mary's, the parish church, was the burial place of
the family for many years, and the north aisle of the church is
called the Wadham aisle because of the monuments, both mural
and otherwise, there erected to the family. Nicholas Wadham
and Dorothy, his wife, co-founders of Wadham College, are
buried in St. Mary's Church, Ilminster. (The seal of Wadham
College bears, marshalled together, the arms of Nicholas Wad-
ham and the coat of the Petre family, his wife Dorothy having
been sister of John, Lord Petre. Wadhams, on becoming bishop,
adopted from the college seal, for his own official use, the three
roses divided by a chevron which constitutes the armorial bear-
ing of the Wadham family, with additions which have already
been mentioned in the " Reminiscences.")

The first of the name to come to America was one John
Wadham, who came from Somersetshire, England, and settled
in Wethersfield, Conn., in the year 1650. The line of succes-
sion from John, the first emigrant, to Bishop Wadhams is as fol-
lows :

1st. John (son of the emigrant), born at Wethersfield, July
8, 1655.

2d. Noah, of Wethersfield, born 1695.

3d. Jonathan, of 4< " 1730.

4th. Abraham, of Goshen, " 1757.

5th. Luman, " " " 1782.

6th. Edgar P., of Wadhams Mills, born 1817. j

416 REMINISCENCES OF EDGAR P. WADHAMS. [Dec.,

It is not known who of the American family added the letter
" s " to the English name of Wadham. In the early records of
Connecticut it is spelled without the "s."

Nicholas, the founder of Wadham College, left no children.
His father was John Wadham, Esq., of Edge, Devonshire. He
had estates in both Devon and Somerset, but lived mostly in
Somerset.

It is not definitely known how near the relation was between
Nicholas, the founder of the college, and the John who was the
first of the Wadham family to come to America. There is great
probability that they were nearly related, as the same Christian
names are handed down in this country as were used by the
family of Nicholas in England. They were both residents of the
same county.

General Luman Wadhams, father of Bishop Wadhams, was
born in Goshen, Conn. He was the sixth in direct descent from
John of England. About the year 1800 he went to Charlotte,
Vt., and there married the widow Lucy Prindle, born Bostwick.
The first of her family to come to this country was Ebenezer
Bostwick, who came from Cheshire, England, in the year 1668.
About the year 1809 Luman Wadhams left Vermont and became
one of the pioneer settlers of Essex County, New York, locating
first in the town of Lewis, but subsequently erecting mills on the
Bouquet River in the town of Westport, and laying the founda-
tion for what has ever since been the thriving little business
centre of Wadhams Mills. General Wadhams took a prominent
and honorable part in the early development and the defence of
Essex County. Holding the rank of general of the militia, he
commanded the forces which repulsed the British when they as-
cended the Bouquet River in the summer of 1813, for the pur-
pose of seizing or destroying supplies at Willsborough Falls.
The fire of the militia killed or wounded nearly all that were in
the rear galley on their retreat, and it floated into the lake a
disabled wreck. He participated in the battle of Plattsburgh,
where for three months he was on duty.

The children of General Luman Wadhams and Lucy, his wife,
are as follows : Lucy Alvira, who married Dr. D. S. Wright, of
Whitehall, N. Y.; Jane Ann, who married Mr. Benjamin Wells,
of Upper Jay, N. Y.; William Luman, who married Emeline L.
Cole, of Westport, and resided at Wadhams Mills ; Abraham E.,
who married Sophia Southard, of Essex, N. Y., and resided at
Wadhams Mills ; and Edgar Prindle, the first Bishop of Ogdens-
burg.

THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW.

AT the recent Congress of the Established Church of Eng-
land, held at Folkestone, one of the subjects discussed was the
result of the neglect of religious education (i) at home ; (2) in
the colonies ; and (3) in other countries. Papers were read by
men of large experience who had arrived at their conclusions
more Anglico from the practical outcome of the system. Many
of the facts mentioned are too important not to be noticed.
These facts form a striking justification of the attitude taken by
the church throughout the world an attitude which has elicited
from many outsiders who have at heart the moral and religious
welfare of their fellow-citizens the warmest tributes of admira-
tion and respect. The writer of the paper which dealt with
Great Britain quoted the testimony of Mr. Justice Mathew, who
said at Leeds that the cases brought before him disclosed a
lamentable want of moral and religious training. Notwithstand-
ing the attendance at school the children in most cases are
totally unconscious of any difference between right and wrong.
A Sunday-school teacher of thirty-six years' experience in Bir-
mingham, and a member of the School Board for fifteen years,
wrote that the present generation seemed to be hopelessly igno-
rant of the fundamental truths of religion and the morals arising
therefrom, and that the result of secular education is expressed
in the one word " disaster." Moreover, workers in the great
towns and in the East End of London declare that in the ab-
sence of definite religious instruction they can make no progress
whatever towards civilization.

The state of things is much worse when we turn from Eng-
land, with its long-standing religious traditions, to new coun-
'tries like the colonies. In four out of the seven Australian
colonies the system of education is purely secular ; in two gene-
ral religious teaching, as distinguished from dogmatic or polemi-
cal theology, may be given ; in only one do voluntary schools
receive public aid. In all the colonies the school buildings may
be used out of school hours for the purpose of religious instruc-
tion ; while in two ministers of various religious denominations

4i 8 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Dec.,

are allowed to give instruction to the children of their adherents
during school hours, at a time set apart for that purpose. The
result of thus relegating religious instruction to a place outside
of the regular course has not proved satisfactory. The ministers
who attempted to make use of this concession found that they
could not even keep the children quiet, and that they had not
the smallest influence over the general conduct of the school ; in
fact, they were treated very much in the same way as the teacher
of French is too often treated in our schools. The trial was too
great for their zeal, and in most cases the effort to give reli-
gious instruction under these conditions has been abandoned.
The children are growing up in an astonishing ignorance, even
of the small amount of religious knowledge which is included in
a Protestant course, nor do the Sunday-schools succeed in sup-
plying the deficiency. In fact, one of the things brought home
by the experience which has been had of the practical working
of the secular system in the colonies is that a very large part
of the good which results from Sunday-schools in England is
due to the influence which religious day-schools exert.

Consequently unbelief and free thinking are so common and
prevalent in the colonies as to astonish and even to dismay visi-
tors from the old country. This, however, would scarcely be
deplored by the supporters of purely secular education ; other
results, however, which even these supporters would doubtless
lament have ensued. The Bishop of Manchester, who was for
many years a bishop in Victoria, applied to that colony a test
the legitimacy of which even the most advanced advocate of
secular education cannot dispute. In fact, it is their chief argu-
ment for a purely secular education, so far as the state is con-
cerned, that it will be sufficient to make good citizens and that
that is all the state need care for. Now, purely secular education
has been adopted, and has been almost universal for twenty
years, and therefore a fair judgment of it from its fruits may be
formed. Here are some specimens of those fruits. While the
population has increased in the last decade by less than one-
third, the male criminals summarily convicted have increased by
more than one-half, the number of persons convicted of murder
and manslaughter by nearly two-thirds, and the persons convict-
ed of robbery with violence are twice as many in 1890 as they
were in 1880. The number of criminals has, therefore, increased
out of all proportion to the increase of the population. More-
over, the most serious crimes are committed by the best edu-
cated criminals; in fact, while in 1880 only 74 out of 100 of the

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 419

criminals were able to read and write, in 1890 89 out of 100
were able. And this notwithstanding the fact that the managers
of the government schools have introduced, as a substitute for
the Gospel, the Moral Education Book of Mr. Hackwood a book
which consists of a great number of undoubted moral truths,
but which its author has not been able to present to the minds
of the children with power and efficacy sufficient to influence
and control their conduct. The bishop unites with the tribute
paid by the Duke of Argyle to the action of the church in the
colony. He says : " If we except a small number of schools
which, with noble fidelity, the Roman Catholics have maintained,
there are very few schools of a denominational character which
have been established to counteract the influence of the secular

system."

Let us now turn to France, where since 1882 secular educa-
tion has been established, and where laicization of the schools
was decreed in 1886, although this latter measure has scarcely
come into complete operation yet. In all public schools religious
instruction is prohibited, but instruction in moral and civic du-
ties is enjoined. It is even unlawful to use the school buildings
for the purpose of giving religious instruction, although the
schools are closed one day in the week in order that parents
may get their children instructed elsewhere. And what have
been the practical results of this system ? So bad that even the
Protestant ministers of France, who at first were overjoyed at
the passing of an act which involved so great an abatement of
the priests' influence, are all now agreed that these results are
deplorable. An official report addressed in 1888 to the Prefect
of the Seine by inspectors of work-shops and factories in Paris,
where the schools have been longest and most thoroughly secu-
larized, and where they have reached the highest intellectual
standard, contains the following observations : " We have noticed
with pain the lack of moral instruction in these children (viz.,
the juvenile employees). Although they have attended fours de
morale in the schools they have just left, they show little trace
of it. It proves that this instruction is given in a most imper-
fect manner. It is an unpleasant duty to report, M. Prefect,
that for want of moral education the children are losing all no-
tions of respect and duty, and becoming addicted to bad lan-
guage and obscene expressions. Their misconduct in the public
street is often scandalous. Every one is complaining, and many
employers will no longer engage apprentices on account of the
trouble they cause. It is high time to put an end to these moral

420 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Dec.,

disasters." There has been, residents in France testify, a rapid
multiplication of juvenile crimes in France. The houses of
correction are gorged with boys and girls. There is a proposal
for pulling down the Paris jail for young criminals in order to
erect a larger establishment in its place. One of the best-known
French judges called public attention in 1889 to the fact that
the increase of juvenile crime was beyond doubt coincident with
the changes introduced into public instruction.

One result of the discussions upon this subject at the Church
Congress has been to lead the London Times to condemn in
unequivocal terms the system of education which exists in Great
Britain a system which is, however, far from being purely secu-
lar. In fact the Times claims that all sects agree in deploring the
imperfections of the means now in use for equipping children with
moral and religious knowledge. We wish we could see evidence
for this statement. There may be serious Nonconformists who
are opponents of the secularization of education ; their voice, how-
ever, is so feeble that it is drowned by the great mass of political
Nonconformists who are the chief promoters of the bad system.
The battle for religious education has been fought by the Cath-
olic Church and by the Establishment, with a certain amount of
support from the Methodists, a support, however, which has re-
cently been withdrawn. The Times, however, maintains that a
majority of British parents, whatever may be their sectarian pre-
judices, agree in desiring some more positive and effective moral
and religious education for their children, and if this is true the
majority ought to be able to find the way of making its wishes
prevail. The hope that they may do so is strengthened by the
fact that the system of education advocated at the present time
by the mass of Nonconformists is totally opposed to the ideal
system of one at least of the teachers whom they have most
venerated in the past. The following is the outline of a child's
education as given by the author of the Serious Call: "The
youths which attended upon Socrates, Plato, and Epictetus were
thus educated. Their every-day lessons and instructions were

. . upon the nature of man, his true end, and the right use
of his faculties ; upon the immortality of the soul, its relation
to God, the beauty of virtue, and its agreeableness to the Divine
Nature ; upon the dignity of reason, the necessity of temperance,
fortitude, and generosity, and the shame and folly of indulging
the passions. Now, as Christianity has, as it were, new created
the moral and religious world, and set everything that is reason-
able, wise, holy, and desirable in its true point of light, one

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 421

might naturally suppose that every Christian country abounded
with schools for the forming, training, and practising youth in
such outward course of life as the highest precepts, the strictest
rules, and the sublimest doctrines of Christianity require." In-
stead of this all that the modern system does is to occupy the
minds without forming the character, to give information with-
out teaching how to use it.

It would, perhaps, be unfair to attribute the bad state of
things in Italy exclusively to the adoption there of the same sys-
tem of purely secular education, for other causes, such as the
long existent foreign domination and the unsettlement involved
in political agitation and revolution, have doubtless contributed
to this result. However, it may be said with truth that secular
education has not been able to avert the existing evils. Not-
withstanding the numerous arrests which have recently been
made in one haul 160 persons connected with a society founded
for the purposes of robbery and blackmailing having been caught
there still remain at large in Sicily the bulk of two large bands
of brigands, while near Viterbo there have lived, safe and unmo-
lested for many years, two notorious bandits who have been kept
supplied with food and ammunition by the isolated farmers, who
dare not refuse them or reveal their whereabouts to the police. In
fact, things are so bad that the friends of the Italian revolution
are beginning to despair. Throughout Italy varieties of crime
flourish which are generally to be found in only primitive, rude,
and unsettled communities. This is not the testimony of foreign
critics merely. The vice-president of the Tribunal at Naples
points out that in Italy homicidal crimes were five times as
many for the population as in France, and nine times as many
as in Belgium. "Those condemned for voluntary homicide are
six times more than in Prussia, ten times more than in Ireland,
eleven times more than in Holland, fourteen times more than
in England, twenty times more than in Switzerland. ... In
1882-6 21,649 persons were murdered beneath the beautiful
sky of Italy." We do not wish to fall into the fallacy post hoc
ergo propter hoc, but we cannot help noting that this state of
things is associated with revolution and irreligion, and the spoli-
ation of the Church.

+ ;_

The report of the chairman of the London School Board gives
information as to the effect of the Free Education Act upon
the average attendance at school. The act has now been in
force about one year, and the whole of the Board Schools
entirely abolished fees. The average attendance, however, has

422 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Dec.*

not been sensibly improved, except at the infant schools, where
instead of the 57,000 children between the ages of three and
five, which were at those schools in March, 1891, there were 76,000
in March, 1892. More important, however, than the effect of
the act upon attendance is its effect upon the Voluntary Schools,
The chairman of the London School Board, although at the
head of the rival system, is a warm friend of these Voluntary
Schools, and when he says that, in his opinion, they are in
a stationary if not a decaying condition, it is not the judgment
of an adversary. He attributes this to the lack of organization
and to the lack of money. The 500 non-Board Schools of Lon-
don are almost wholly under separate and distinct management.
They have no connection with each other, there is no cohesion
among them, and each is apparently content to do the best
it can for itself. The lack of money has prevented 294 non-
Board Schools from giving completely free education, and
here it is that there is danger of the act causing serious injury
to them. Under this act every parent in London has become
possessed of the right of demanding the supply of school accom-
modation for his children without the payment of a school fee.
If the Voluntary School does not supply 'this demand it will
be treated as non-existent, and a Board School will be erected
giving perfectly free education. Even a school board friendly to
the Voluntary Schools would in this case be forced to act ; and
where the school boards are unfriendly, as they so often are, they
would be only too glad to step in.

Moderation and good sense, shown by a clear apprehension
of what is practicable and attainable under present circumstances,
characterized the proceedings of the Congress of the Amalga-
mated Society of Railway Servants which met recently in Lon-
don. And by the way it is worthy of notice that, although
there are some 400,000 railway men in Great Britain, this society,
which is by far the largest and most important, although not
the only organized body of railway workers, has no more than
29,820 members. The practical nature of the . discussions was
shown by the rejection by thirty-nine votes to twelve of a motion
in favor of an eight-hours day, or a week of forty-eight hours for
all kinds of railway labor. " It is no use," said a delegate, " for
men to go in for what they know they cannot get." On the other
hand resolutions were passed urging the adoption in view of
the large number of fatal accidents, and of serious injuries sus-
tained by railway servants of improved couplings, automatic
fog-signaling, automatic continuous brakes, a rigid observance of

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 423

the block system. With reference to the main cause of these
accidents, which is without doubt the long hours which the
men are compelled to work, the congress adopted the bill which
is to be introduced into Parliament next session by Mr. Chan-
ning an American, by the way, and a nephew of the cele-
brated Dr. Channing. This bill empowers the Board of Trade,
on being satisfied that the hours of work of any class of ser-
vants are excessive, to call upon the company to reduce the
hours ; if the company fails to do so, the Railway Commission-
ers will have jurisdiction to consider the case, and to inflict
penalties not exceeding twenty pounds per day while the default
continues. Provision is also made for the compulsory adoption
of proper coupling apparatus, and other measures for the safety
of railway servants. It is thought to be certain that the bill
will pass. It is to the unsuccessful strike on the Scotch railways
in 1890 that this and other good results are due. The light
was thrown by these occurrences upon the dark ways of railway
managers, and the public, frightened for its own safety, has ex-
erted a potent influence to bring about a change. For example,
the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company used to keep
certain of its engine-drivers at work for an average of sixteen and
a half hours ; now this average has been reduced to twelve.

If only the wrongs of the working-classes can be brought
home to the mind of the public, as a whole, the wide-spread
love of justice and fair-play which is a characteristic of our
times will insure every possible redress; the difficulty is to con-
vince the public of the reality of these grievances. It is all the
more, therefore, to be lamented that of late the course adopted
by workmen has tended to turn sympathies in a contrary
direction. Round the whole globe the most violent means have
been made use of to secure ends which in most cases were just.
In France, in England, in Australia, in our own country, work-
men have endeavored by assaults upon men of their own class
to hinder them in the exercise of their liberty. Now, nothing
but the manifest justice of the laborers' cause can or ought to
make it prevail, and the first business of unionists should be to
bring this home to the minds of their own class by reason, ar-
gument, persuasion, and any other moral means. If they can-
not succeed in this, to take violent means is only to defer the
day of their triumph indefinitely, for no country will submit to
the rule of a mob, however just its objects.

In this connection it is worthy of note that the successful,

424 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Dec.,

accomplishment of many of the political reforms which have
placed political power in the hands of the mass of the people
has been largely due, not to the efforts, of men of the classes most
directly benefited, but to men who themselves have belonged to
the hitherto privileged classes. Nor in the sphere of economical
and social progress are there wanting similar examples. This
fact is illustrated by the career of a man who has recently died,
and to whom the co-operative movement, which is without
doubt one of the most hopeful movements of our times, owes
no small measure of its success. We refer to Mr. Edward Van-
sittart Neale, an aristocrat by birth and associations, and we
hope we will not thoroughly disgust our readers by adding a
Tory in politics. Years ago, when the men of to-day were un-
born, he came to the conclusion that social salvation was to be
found in the co-operative idea, and in order to realize it he sac-
rificed his fortune, and deliberately carved out for himself a ca-
reer of drudgery, working from morning to night in dingy offices
in Manchester, when he was not engaged in conferences, commit-
tee-meetings, and propagandist efforts elsewhere. He lived to see
the present gigantic development of his ideas, and to be vener-
ated by some five million of co-operators as their best benefac-
tor. It may be that the labor problems of our day may find
in some such disinterested worker the means of their solution,
and therefore it is that everything which alienates and destroys
sympathy should be avoided.

The general election which has just taken place in Italy, and
which has resulted in the triumph of the present ministry,
turned upon the question of the making of certain econo-
mies, by which it is hoped to keep the political machine from
complete collapse. The year ended with a deficit as usual, not-
withsta.nding the promises of a surplus which had been made ;
and notwithstanding the proved untrustworthiness of promises
hitherto made, the present ministry pledges itself to the bring-
ing about of financial equilibrium. The problem before Italy
is how to secure the means of maintaining its position in the
Triple Alliance, for which it is necessary to maintain a large
army, and to be ready to mobilize that army within ten days ;
this has to be done in a country where with continual deficits
no addition to taxation, by the admission of every one, is possi-
ble, and where the supreme object of the members of the legis-
lature is to secure for themselves and their relatives and sup-
porters lucrative offices, and for their constituencies state subsi-
dies for local works ; and where, so far from its being looked

1892.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 425

upon as immoral to defraud the revenue, a government is con-
sidered to be unworthy of support which is strict in enforcing
the payment of taxes. When we add to this the fact that Ital-
ian politicians have not yet risen to that modicum of virtue in-
volved in even that party spirit which we look upon as forming
one of the least attractive features of our own political life, and
that no one has the least scruple in betraying his chief or incurs
the least disgrace in acting merely and avowedly for his own
advantage, something like a true idea may be formed of the diffi-
culties which surround the so-called regeneration of Italy.

: *

In Germany, at the time we write, the military bill awaits
the decision of the Reichstag. Its fate depends upon the Catho-
lic members of which the Centre is made up. Whether this
party will accept the proposals of the government is very doubt-
ful ; for it is itself divided into Aristocratic Catholics and Demo-
cratic Catholics. It was the hard task of Herr Windthorst to
bring about the harmonious working of these two sections, and
in his success his great skill was shown. Now that he has gone
it is very doubtful whether the Democratic Catholics can be
brought to accept a bill which will impose still further burdens
on the mass of the people. It is somewhat of a satire upon the
boasted civilization of this century that its closing decade sees
the reign of militarism throughout the greater part of the conti-
nent of Europe, the different nations having almost returned to
the primitive state when the whole male population carried on
the wars that were waged. In a short time the trained soldiers
of France and Russia alone will number eight and a half mil-
lions. In France the chief point of interest has been the Car-

maux strike. This strike has formed the point d'appui for Social-
ists who wish to overturn the present order, and how to deal
with it and at the same time maintain their own positions has
very greatly puzzled the present office-holders. The adhesion to
the Republic counselled by the Holy Father makes every day
further progress. M. de Mackau, who was the president of the
united Royalists and Bonapartists from 1885 to 1889, has fol-
lowed M. de Breteuil in accepting the Republic, on the ground

that the great majority of the country desires its maintenance.

In Hungary the ministry has resigned on grounds which are some-
what obscure at present, but upon which time will throw further

light. Two of the small kingdoms in the south-east of Europe

Greece and Roumania have quarrelled and severed diplomatic re-
lations, one with the other, on a trivial matter the will of a Greek
who resided in Roumania and left his property to Greek institutions.
VOL. LVI. 29

426

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[Dec. r

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

its own or kindred
ways as Mr.

O book that we know of on

topics is quite so good in many ways as
Stedman's recent volume* on the nature and
elements of poetry. Himself a poet, Mr. Stedman
is also a critic of the first order ; competent in
knowledge, broadly sympathetic in appreciation, sane in philoso-
phy, and both reverent and tolerant in temper and attitude of
mind. Though it is possible to differ with him in particulars,
it would be difficult to do so where essentials are concerned, or
to quarrel with the general spirit, conception, and handling of his
theme. His book, originally delivered in the form of lectures to
students of the Johns Hopkins University, eminently deserves
study, and that not merely by lovers of poetry and aspiring
poets. His chapter on " Beauty " should be a most efficient
corrective of that tendency, common among young students in
every branch of art, to imitate the mannerisms of contem-
porary masters, which in them are apt to be genuine efforts
to express nature from their own point of view, and to con-
found these mannerisms with the ends thus sought after. This
chapter is notable, likewise, for its lucid statement of Mr. Sted-
man's belief in the reality of beauty, its actuality as a quality of
substances independent of the impression produced by them on
the eye of the beholder. He finds the law of beauty in the
perfection of the universe, the sense of the fitness of things
which all men share though in differing degrees; "so that there
are some objects so perfect that we all, if of the same breed and
condition, assent to their beauty." That beauty is allied to use,
is plain from its creation by necessity. " The vessel that is most
beautiful, that differs most from the lines of a junk or scow,
the one best fitted safely and swiftly to ride the waves." Foi
an excellent brief summary of sound philosophy applied to at
take the following extract from this chapter :

" For the perception of the beautiful there must be a soul
in conjunction ; that statement is irrefutable. Yet I think that
the quality of beauty exists in substances, even if there be

* The Nature and Elements of Poetry. By Edmund Clarence Stedman.
and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Bostc

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 427

no intelligence at hand to receive an impression of it ; that if a
cataract has been falling and thundering and prismatically spark-
ling in the heart of a green forest, from time immemorial, and
with no human being to wonder at it, it has no less the attri-
bute of beauty; it is waiting, as Kepler said of its Creator, "six
thousand years for an interpreter." Suppose that an exquisite
ode by Sappho or Catullus has been buried for twenty centuries
in some urn or crypt ; its beauty is there, and may come to
light. Grant that our sense of material beauty is the impression
caused by vibrations ; then the quality regulating those vibrations
is what I mean by the ' beauty ' of the substance whence they
emanate. Grant what we term the extension of that substance ;
the characteristics of that extension are what affect us. There
is no escape, you see, unless, with Berkeley, you say there is
no matter. . . .

" Much of this discussion belongs to metaphysical aesthetics,
and some persons may think these notions antiquated. We know
little of these things absolutely. We know not the esoteric
truth in matters of art or nature otherwise -the schools at once
would cease their controversies. As it happens, certain of the
latest physicists claim that ' deduced facts ' that is, the objects
inferred from our sensations are the true substantialities ; that
only our perception of them is transient ; that the world of sub-
jective feelings is the chimera, not the objective matters which
excite perception.

"One question you very properly may ask: 'Why not take
all this for granted, and go on ? Join either side, and the re-
sult is the same. Eclipses were calculated readily enough upon
the Ptolemaic method.' Not so. The theory that beauty is a
chimera leads to an arrogant contempt for it on the part of
many artists and poets, who substitute that which is bizarre and
audacious for that which has enduring charm. It begins with
irreverence, and leads to discordant taste ; to something far be-
neath the excellence of noble literatures and of great plastic
and poetic eras."

Excellent, too, is Mr. Stedman's definition of poetry, as

41 rhythmical, imaginative language, expressing the invention,
taste, thought, passion, and insight of the human soul."

We find interesting in many ways his discussions of the two
great streams of poesy, its personal and its impersonal aspects,
poetry as directly objective and creative, the result, as he says, of
" unconditioned vision " a phrase that admits of no absolute jus-
tification, by the way and the subjective poetry which arises
directly from the need of self-expression on the poet's part.
Sophocles and Shakspere, he says, have taught us, by example,
that greatness must be impersonal in the noblest of poetic
structures. Yet the test of poetry is not its degree of objec-

428 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,

tivity. As a matter of fact, where that can be ascertained, the
greatest of objective poets have begun with a period of sub-
jectivity Shakspere in the sonnets, for example as if, one
might say, though Mr. Stedman does not say it, man's vision at
its highest needs to be trained to grasp, appreciate, and repro-
duce his fellow by groping first in the recesses of his own soul,
knowing its storm and stress, and beholding its tumults settle
into at least comparative serenity and calm. He does note that,
except in the drama and at distinctly imaginative periods, the
poets of the Christian era have never been quite objective.
But Mr. Stedman's book should be read as a whole. It is not
a criticism of poets, but an examination of the elements that
underlie poetry, and all other art as well, made by a thoroughly
conscientious and competent observer, from a point of view not
merely lofty but solidly sustained.

Miss Repplier's Essays in Miniature* have all that dainty
charm and perfection of finish, that dislike of stress, that fon
ness for expression as an end in itself where the literature of
delight is concerned, which have made her previous work so ac-
ceptable in many quarters. Some of the brief papers compos-
ing her present volume are quite exquisite in their way. In
fact, with this qualification kept in view, one might describe them
all by that adjective. Miss Repplier would, doubtless, be at a loss
to express a single one of her impressions in other than a de-
lightful fashion. Concerning her impressions themselves, perhaps
one would hardly care to say as much. Certainly, few of us
are so free from impedimenta of various sorts as to be able to
trip along so far as she goes in fond pursuit of the Chevalier
of Pensieri Vani, or to heartily share that predilection for Miss
Austen which, nevertheless, one seems thoroughly to understand
in her. What a library of fiction that would be which should hold
only novels built upon Miss Austen's model ! what a world that
would be in which we heard only such conversations as Miss
Austen chronicles ! what a society that would be in which such
social standards as were set up for Marianne Dashwood, say,
were really the only tests of personal conduct ! Miss Repplier
avows her persuasion that if Lanoe Falconer

" would consent, for a few short years, to abandon social and
spiritual problems, to concern herself as little with Nihilism,
as with eternal punishment, to be content, as Jane Austen was
content, with telling a story, perhaps that story might be no
unworthy successor of those matchless tales which are our re-

* Essays in Miniature. By Agnes Repplier. New York : Charles L. Webster & Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 429

fuge and solace in these dark days of ethical and unorthodox
fiction."

But is it so certain that if Miss Austen's lot had been cast
anywhere but in the deadly dulness of her special place in life
and history, even her predestinedly maiden soul might not have
been stirred from its composure, might not have sympathized
with the great thoughts and great struggles that convulse our
epoch ? She certainly made acquaintance with many of those
fools among her compatriots whose number has been called infi-
nite by one of them ; she heard overmuch, and reproduced a great
deal, of that colorless chatter by which commonplace English
men and women, then as now, reveal the shallows of that com-
monplaceness, and, incidentally, enough of their lives to furnish
all that is necessary for an observer with the story-telling fac-
ulty to construct tales like hers matchless indeed, in their own
way, and likely to remain so. The author of Mademoiselle
Ixe and Cecilia de Noel, though she too knows how to draw
lightly those English men and women, like Lady Atherley,
who are so heavy in real life, has not merely what Miss Rep-
plier calls " splendid possibilities " in that line, but other qualities
which give far greater promise and have already shown admirable
fruition. But each one to his taste. Miss Repplier's seems to
lead her chiefly among her books ; she doubtless finds the quiet
of a library, and the gentle impulse of those friends whom one
never wearies of, because one can always lay them aside and yet
escape reproaches, most conducive to her employment of the
very special and charming talent with which she has been en-
trusted.

The trouble with writers like Miss Williams, who send a whole
volume-full,* so to say, of cards of invitation to accompany them
abroad into field and marsh and woodland, to look with them
at rain and mist, at sunlight and moonlight, to shiver at their
side in frost, or melt with them under the rays of a noonday
August sun, is not altogether that the feast they spread is too
profuse, tempts to gluttony, and so ends in satiety. Yet that
criticism on them may be made also. Nature is very fair, but
he who should in reality find her altogether satisfactory would
doubtless spend his days, not in a hermitage like Thoreau's on
Walden Pond, beguiling his leisure by chronicling his impressions
for the benefit of the public from whom he made a pretence of
flight from which the veil is torn by the very existence of such

* Field-Farings : A Vagrant Chronicle of Earth and Sky. By Martha McCulloch Wil-
liams. New York : Harper & Brothers.

430 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,

chronicles, but in a solitude resembling that of the early anchor-
ites and hermits in everything but its motive.

Miss Williams, like Mr. John Burroughs, and like the late
Walt Whitman, both of whom are irresistibly suggested by her
pretty essays, would doubtless reject the heresy that nature is
sufficient, would affirm that she demands the mirror of a neigh-
borly soul to cast her reflection in at first or second hand, that
she stimulates to artistic expression rather than affords true so-
lace or complete enjoyment. This being evidently true, there is
a further criticism to be made of her own efforts at expression.
It is beyond all gainsaying that she knows the outdoor world
and loves it. But she does not make her reader see what she
saw. He is blinded by her adjectives, bewildered by her epithets,
his memory gives him a jog that recalls not a landscape, not a
bird note, not a blossoming hedgerow, but other books than that
he holds. He looks, not at nature, but at Miss Williams. He
sees, not through her eyes but her eyes themselves, and specu-
lates upon all else they have looked upon within doors. Mr.
Stedman's book, just noticed, should be useful reading to Miss
Williams ; if study of it should correct her tendency to manner-
isms, to pretty forms of speech, to almost poetic prose, she but
perhaps she would then write no more picturesque essays. But
should that catastrophe be averted, she would doubtless write
better, simpler, and more suggestive ones.

Houghton & Mifflin have just brought out a new and most
attractive edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Wonder-Book* illus-
trated with sixty colored designs by Walter Crane. Its appear-
ance, its excellent type, thick paper, wide margins, and fine pic-
tures, adapt it admirably to the holiday season, while its con-
tents, being perennial in their charm, adapt it equally to all
seasons.

From the same house comes a novel of New England life, called
Winter borough,\ to read which will demand less effort from the
well-disposed than to remember it after it is read. There is
some clever character sketching in it, too. The sad fate of that
bright girl, Persis Hastings, condemned by her ruthless creator
not only to marry that painful prig, Harold Strong, but to be
glad to be thus offered up in a sort of Yankee suttee, antedat-
ing, not following, wedlock, as a sacrifice to certain antiquated

* A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston and New York :
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

t Winterborough. By Eliza Orne Wright. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin
&Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 431

notions of what is proper to masculinity and femininity, has a
fine, old-fashioned flavor about it which is like a survival from
the Wide, Wide World and Say and Seal. There is not a grain
of harm in the book from end to end, and it is capable of
beguiling several otherwise idle hours from omnivorous novel-
readers.

The volume devoted to the Duchess of Berry and the Court of
Charles X* is less interesting than some of its predecessors.
There was too little incident to spread over so many pages, and
padding, when done too often by lists of court names, and de-
scriptions of court ceremonies, ends by palling curiosity. The book
has a number of good chapters, though, and among them we
note particularly the one devoted to that exemplary Christian,
the Duke of Doudeauville, and the two called, respectively, " The
Jubilee of 1826" and "The Duchess of Gontaut."

Mr. Meriwether's new book of travels f is entertaining on the
whole, although to people with a less engrossing interest in pri-
sons and prisoners it will seem to lack much that might natural-
ly have increased its interest and variety. The author's absorp-
tion in this special subject is explained by the fact of his hav-
ing been appointed by the Missouri House of Representatives
to investigate the subject of convict labor while he was acting
as Commissioner of Labor Statistics for that State. The inter-
est aroused by these investigations led him, when opportunity
offered, to examine the systems of prison labor in Europe. He
draws some dismal pictures of the solitary system as practised
in Portugal, where it reaches its climax of misery. Comparing
the American treatment of convicts with that of any other na-
tion, he finds ours the least expensive to the State and by far
the most humane to the prisoner. Mr. Meriwether's travels led
him all around the Mediterranean. He has enriched his descrip-
tion of them with engravings made from the kodak pictures
which led him into so many adventures. They are interesting
pictures for the most part, but perhaps their chief merit is not
that of illustrating the text to which they are adjoined.

A little volume % of tales by Frank Pope Humphrey will be
apt to please readers who have been attracted by the very simi-
lar work of Mary E. Wilkins. Mrs. Humphrey's stories have a

*The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X. By Imbert de Saint-Amand. New
York : Charles Scribner's Sons.

t Afloat and Ashore on the Mediterranean. By Lee Meriwether. New York : Charles
Scribner's Sons.

\ A New England Cactus. By Frank Pope Humphrey. New York : Cassell Publishing
Co.

432 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,

more sentimental turn, and lack that element of surprise by
which Miss Wilkins usually contrives to give a sharp fillip to
the reader's sense of mirth or unexpectedness as her stories near
their close. Possibly that is why they stand a second reading
only moderately well. In most other respects the half-dozen or
so sketches embodied in the present volume are not inferior to
them.

Green Tea: A Love Story,* is what the latest issue of Cas-
sell's handy "Unknown" Library is called. How it deserves
either half of its title, its present reader confesses inability to
discover. Its scene is laid in California. Its heroine, Susy Car-
ter, is a very good sort of girl, and drawn with considerable
dash and vigor. Its hero but we do not know its hero, not hav-
ing settled in our own mind whether he is Bill Burton the " road-
agent," Will O'Halloran the sheep-rancher, or a composite being,
made up of both. Why "Green Tea," when the essential property
of the tale certainly is not that of keeping the reader awake when
bed-time has come, is one of the mysteries of nomenclature
which it would be a waste of time to try to fathom.

Georges Ohnet has written a sporting novel which he calls
Nimrod and Co.,^ and which is full to the brim of direful slaugh-
ters wrought among partridges, ducks, and other small game. It
contains, moreover, a murder ; a sort of judicial duel in which
the murderer escapes the law yet forfeits his life ; a conversion
from Judaism to jCatholicity ; a religious profession almost made
but intercepted by the timely arrival of the " right man " the
day before the final vows were to be taken, and divers other
matters, some of them not of the most moral sort. Take him
by and large, Ohnet 's natural tendency seems to be toward de-
cency, morality, and religion. But this natural tendency is too
frequently diverted from its course by the exigencies of the nov-
elist's trade when plied in France.

A really charming little story, admirably well-fitted for our
parochial libraries, although issued from a secular publishing
house and possibly not written by a Catholic, is Mrs. Evelyn
Raymond's Monica, the Mesa Maiden.* The scene is laid in
California, and the characters in whom the reader is expected
to take most interest are young girls and boys who not only
never pass into the sentimental stage, but never give a glimpse

* Green Tea. By V. Schallenberger. New York : Cassell Publishing Co.

t Nimrod and Co. By Georges Ohnet. Translated by Mary J. Serrano. New York:
Cassell Publishing Co.

J Monica, the Mesa Maiden. By Mrs. Evelyn Raymond. New York : Thomas Y. Crow-
ell & Co.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 433

toward it. It is full of quite unusual incidents, nevertheless, and
creates its own atmosphere of cleanliness, serenity, and peace.
The portraiture of Monica is very spirited, and on unhackneyed
lines. Her sisterly love, her courage, pluck, and daring, her pride
of race and self-respect are natural virtues out of which her re-
ligion blossoms like a flower on a deep-rooted stem. Very good,
too, is the presentment of Padre Geronimo, and the brief but
suggestive sketch of the doctor who undertakes to cure Pedro's
stutter and cultivate his moral nature simultaneously. The book
is so bright and pleasant that no young reader will need coax-
ing to take it up, nor be likely to lay it down without having
profited by its gently-insinuated lessons. It is very well illustrat-
ed by Winthrop Pierce.

An admirably suggestive treatise on the character and teach-
ing of our Saviour, called Jesus, the All-Beautiful* by the
anonymous author of The Voice of the Sacred Heart, has just
been brought out as the eighty-second issue of the English
Jesuit " Quarterly Series." It is arranged in the form of medi-
tations on the different virtues and characteristics of the Sacred
Humanity, beginning with chapters on the ideal of Beauty as the
object of the craving of the human heart, never realized in this
life, and, until after the Incarnation, never perfectly conceived.
Following these introductory chapters come special considera-
tions on every theme suggested by a reverent and thorough
study of the Gospels. The book is very long and closely print-
ed, but its matter is clear and well-arranged, and will doubtless
secure for it that popularity which has attended previous devo-
tional works from the same pen.

The Rev. John T. Durward has written a very plain, practi-
cal, and satisfactory little Primer f for the use of those desirous
of investigating the claims of the church upon human reason.
It is both brief and comprehensive. Now and again it touches
upon subjects which are, perhaps, above the comprehension of the
ordinary reader, but its handling even of these is simple and
perspicuous. Moreover, it is for the most part adapted to the
needs and capacities of all who are inquiring in good faith, with
a settled purpose to follow enlightened reason wherever it may
lead them. There is great need of and plenty of room for
such expositions, and we hope that this one, so compact and
handy in form, may have the success that it deserves.

* Jesus, the All-Beautiful : A Devotional Treatise on the Character and Actions of our
Lord. Edited by the Rev. J. G. Macleod, S.J. London : Burns & Gates.

t A Primer for Converts. By Rev. John T. Durward. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago :
Benziger Brothers.

434 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,

I. THE ORDO FOR 1893.*

This Ordo has the imprimatur of the Archbishops of New
York and Philadelphia and of the Bishop of Brooklyn. The
present issue maintains its now well-established reputation for ex-
cellence of printing and general get-up, and for a number of
mechanical contrivances by which attention is called to the feasts
and fasts of which notice should be given. A few inaccuracies
which were found in the first year's edition have now been cor-
rected, the present issue, so far as we have been able to discover,
being free from error. No option is allowed as to the saying of
the offices of the Blessed Sacrament and of the Immaculate
Conception except in Lent and Advent, and this, in our opinion,
is the true interpretation of the rubrics and decrees which bear
upon this question. The Ordo is published in two forms, one
with both the Ordinary and the Roman Ordo, and the other
with only the Ordinary Ordo.

2. THE LIFE OF GRIGNON DE MONTFORT, AND HIS DEVOTION TO
THE BLESSED VIRGIN.f

The subject of this biography, Blessed Louis-Marie Grignort
de Montfort, is no doubt already known to our readers through
his book on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin translated
by Father Faber. Those who have read that possess the key-
note of his life, the spirit which guided him in all his ways.
We might sum up this present biography by saying that it is
simply a manifestation of how in all things he suffered and acted
that God's kingdom on earth might be spread through devotion
to the Blessed Virgin.

But in that manifestation what wonderful things do we not
meet with in the trials that were his portion from the beginning,
in the attacks of enemies, in the coldness and misunderstandings
of friends in all these that came to him more than they ordi-
narily fall to the lot of God's chosen souls, there is much that
is wonderful. But especially was his life wonderful in the way
whereby he was enabled to bear all these things and to over-
come. And that was in his devotion, his love, to the Blessed

* Ordo Divini Officii Recitandi Missceque Celebrandi pro Anno Domini MDCCCVIIC.
New York and Cincinnati : Fr. Pustet & Co.

^Blessed Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort (Missionary Apostolic, Founder of the Com-
pany of Mary and the Daughters of Wisdom) , and His Devotion. By a Secular Priest.
2 vols. London : Art and Book Company ; New York : Benziger Bros.

1892.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 435

Virgin. Nothing could shake him in that. When men were
against him, when he was alone and apparently battling against
hope, he turned to her and through her from her Divine Son
he gained that wonderful fire of love . that ever urged him on,
and that sweetness of charity that made even his enemies re-
spect him at times, though they would not understand him.

Few only of his time saw in him what he really was, but to
us is it given to know that God raised him to spread devotion
to the Blessed Virgin for a special purpose.

Surely in his work and spirit there is much that we need to-
day. Setting aside some few things that suited the people of his
day, but may sound strange to us, there still remains that won-
derful spirit of devotion, that ardent love to the Blessed Virgin,
to show us how in these days God would have souls won to his
kingdom. No one can read the life without feeling in some
measure the quickening fire of that love. The author has done
his work in a spirit of love love for his subject, love for the
Blessed Virgin, that carries one on with sustained interest to the
end. The introduction to the life is at times just a trifle involved
in its sentences. But the body of the work runs in smooth, vig-
orous English, and this, coupled with the beauty, the activity, the
intensity of the life itself, goes to make it a treasure for those
into whose hands it will fall and a store-house from which great
riches may be drawn.

3. THE MARRIAGE PROCESS IN THE UNITED STATES.
In this work, the only one of its kind in English, Dr. Smith
explains the origin, nature, duties, and rights of marriage ; its
colossal importance in society, and its religious aspect ; the juris-
diction of church and state in all matters pertaining to mar-
riage ; the power and competence of ordinaries ; the origin, aim,
and nature of the various diriment impediments or causes
which annul a marriage ; the personnel and organization of the
marriage court ; the rights and duties of the judge, of the par-
ties and their advocates ; the various kinds of proofs, such as
admissions, witnesses, instruments, presumptions, notoriety, etc.;
the various stages in the trial, namely, the petition for the an-
nulment of the marriage ; the citation of the parties, the proving
or disproving of the invalidity of the marraige ; the summing up;
the sentence, appeals, costs, etc. It is a book of no ordinary
interest to both clergy and laity.

* The Marriage Process in the United States. Rev. S. B. Smith, D.D. New York :
Benziger Bros.

436

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

[Dec.,

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

ALL COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO READING CIRCLES, LISTS OF BOOKS,
ETC., SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION, NO.
415 WEST FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

COLUMBUS has been magnificent-
ly honored in the United States by splendid tributes
from a free people. His fellow-Catholics have rea-
son to rejoice that the best side of the Ameri-
can character was made conspicuous by the nu-
merous Columbian parades, especially at Chicago and New York.
In some few places, notably at Boston, the bigots endeavored to
restrain popular enthusiasm for the Catholic discoverer of Ameri-
ca. The Columbian oration of Mr. Chauncey M. Depew was
disfigured by a passage evidently dictated by a spirit of intense
hatred for the church. Naturally the question is suggested :
Where did Mr. Depew learn the history of the fifteenth cen-
tury ? We are inclined to think that he must have read the
Chautauqua course in history, mapped out by the chancellor,
better known as the Methodist Bishop Vincent. He assumes
the responsible task of guiding the reading of the one hundred
thousand students, who are taught to expect that no historical false-
hoods can obtain endorsement from the leading mind at Chau-
tauqua. That they are the victims of misplaced confidence may
be easily shown by the following letter published in the Buffalo
Express :

" Opposed by the church, ridiculed by jealous rivals, upheld by
the secular and scientific spirit of his age, aided by individuals
who had themselves received impulse from the new civilization,
led by Divine Wisdom and grace which antagonized the prevail-
ing religion of the age, Columbus represented more than human
wisdom, which, through human energy, asserted itself. He was
the unwitting instrument of the Divine foreknowledge. He was
under a constant leading from on high. He saw a light, but did
not know all it represented. He saw islands, beyond which lay
a great continent. And while we exalt him exalt the Infinite
Wisdom which guided and upheld him.

"JOHN H. VINCENT."
* * #

A communication has been sent to us from the headquartei
of the board of women managers of the exhibit of the State oi

1892.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 437

New York at the World's Columbian Exposition. The members
of this board are : President, Mrs. Erastus Corning ; First Vice-
President, Mrs. E. V. R. Waddington ; Second Vice-President,
Mrs. J. S. T. Stranahan ; Secretary, Mrs. Leslie Pell-Clarke ;
Treasurer, Miss Frances Todd Patterson ; Mrs. William J. Aver-
ell, Mrs. Frederick P. Bellamy, Miss Caroline E. Dennis, Mrs.
Arthur M. Dodge, Miss Anna Roosevelt, Mrs. Fred. R. Halsey,
Miss Annie Hemstrought, Miss Imogene Howard, Miss Maria M.
Love, Miss Elizabeth T. Minturn, Miss Frances Todd Patterson,
Mrs. Dean Sage, Mrs. Oscar S. Straus, Mrs. Charles F. Wadsworth,
Mrs. H. Walter Webb, Mrs. Andrew D. White, Mrs. Howard
G. White. Executive Committee : Mrs. Dean Sage, Chairman ;
Mrs. Frederick P. Bellamy, Miss Anna Roosevelt, Miss Caroline
E. Dennis, Mrs. Howard G. White, Mrs. H. Walter Webb.

We feel warranted in giving assurance that our readers will
cheerfully assist in supplying the information requested in this
letter :

" Will you kindly send me the names of any Catholic wo-
men writers of New York State, either of books or magazine ar-
ticles, that you may know of ? The Committee on Literature
is making a list and a collection of the books of women writers
of the State of New York, native or resident, and Mrs. Lillie
was the only Catholic in the list sent out for suggestions. Even
Mrs. E. G. Martin was omitted. I would like the maiden and
married' names, names of books and year of publication, names
of magazine articles, and name and number of magazine which
contains them. E. V. R. WADDINGTON.

"39 EAST NINTH ST., NEW YORK CITY, November 27, 1892."

# * *

The Pupils of the Holy See held a meeting November 12
which marks a red-letter day in the annals of their Reading
Circle. This organization, though not a year in existence, is al-
ready in a flourishing condition, numbering about one hundred
and twenty-five members on its roll-books, of whom at least
one hundred are active workers. Consisting mainly, though not
exclusively, of graduates of Mt. St. Vincent-on-the-Hudson, it
claims its members from various States in the Union. The P.
H. S. of New York City, including members from New York,
Brooklyn, Yonkers, and Mount Vernon, is the parent stem
from which have sprung several branches, notably Branch A,
P. H. S. of Newburgh, nineteen members ; Branch B, P. H.
S. of Lancaster, Pa., twenty-five members ; and Branch C, P.
H. S. of Savannah, Ga., forty members ; besides individual cor-
responding members in Easton, Pa.; Middletown, N. Y. ; New-
ark, N. J., and Patchogue, L. I.

438 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Dec.,

An esteemed friend informs us that at the November meet-
ing hardly a member failed to respond by name to the roll-call,
for it had been announced that the Rev. Thomas McMillan, in
response to an invitation from the P. H. S., had agreed to speak
before the Circle upon the " Progress of the Church in the
Nineteenth Century." The guest of the occasion was accompa-
nied by the Very Rev. Vicar-General Mooney, to whose kind-
ness the P. H. S. owe their present spacious and commodious
quarters in West Fifty-first Street ; by the Rev. John Talbot
Smith, the author of Solitary Island, A Woman of Culture,
His Honor the Mayor, and also by the Rev. John Ryan, of the
Church of the Sacred Heart.

A reception committee, consisting of the President, Miss
Agnes Sadlier, and the Vice-President, Miss Browne, received
the visitors. An address of welcome was read by Miss Fleming,
after which Father McMillan briefly outlined the magnificent work
accomplished by the church since the beginning of the century.
The reverend lecturer intimated that the vastness of his subject
would permit of many divisions, so that for the present he
would be obliged to confine his remarks to a brief account of the
history of the church in America, or even to narrow down to a
discussion of the progress of that church in our own city of
New York. He recalled name after name already high on the
roll of fame to whose Catholic learning, piety, and zeal in her
behalf our church owes the honored position she to-day main-
tains in the great metropolis of the New World. He spoke of
the most practical methods of pursuing such study, and suggest-
ed, besides books, pamphlets, and newspaper reports, that the
young ladies should consult their grandmothers, whose minds are
filled with memories of the past, of the first churches built in
New York, and of the heroic sacrifices of priests and people for
the faith. Father McMillan concluded his remarks with sugges-
tions on the organization and conduct of Reading Circles in
general, and some most valuable hints to the P. H. S. in par-
ticular. He then introduced the Rev. John Talbot Smith, who
for ten minutes kept his audience in a constant ripple of laugh-
ter. We have long known this author to wield a clever pen,
but the drollery of his short speech was a delightful surprise.
We think that a volume written in just this vein would make a
unique reputation for its writer. Any attempt to reproduce the
speech would be wasted, for not only did he say things spark-
ling with humor, but he also said them in a Talbot-Smith way
impossible to imitate. We may add, however, that his remarks

1892.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION, 439

were chiefly confined to the subject of Catholic authors, and his
delight in his own recent discoveries among the catalogues
which might aptly have been termed catacombs, in as far as
many of the authors were concerned. We believe he claims to
have unearthed some two hundred Catholic writers of fiction. In
closing the speaker paid his compliments to the publishers in a
happy manner, at least the audience thought it happy ; we can-
not speak for the publishers.

The vicar-general then arose, and as host expressed his great
pleasure in the present gathering. He spoke all too briefly of
the numerous advantages accruing from organizations of the sort,
and expressed his peculiar delight in welcoming the graduates of
Mt. St. Vincent. In every way he desired to aid and encourage
the young ladies who, true to the principles of their convent
education, had loyally banded together to continue the work
which they had but just begun on quitting school. Father
Mooney dwelt with special force upon the responsibilities which
unexceptionable educational advantages entailed upon the recipi-
ents, and with still greater earnestness upon the many opportu-
nities of doing good opened up to the fortunate possessors of
such advantages. Among other matters, why could they not in-
terest themselves in the wants of the working-girls, that noble
army of women who strive so valiantly to keep their faith amid
all the temptations of the .great world. Non-Catholics often
taunt us with our want of zeal in this matter. What nobler or
more beautiful thing than to see young women of education
and culture associated with their less fortunate sisters in a spirit
of love and desire for all that is highest in life? Before ending
the speaker made a modest allusion to his own recently estab-
lished club for self-supporting women, which we hear is already
doing a vast amount of good.

The visitors then proceeded to the parlor, where a short and
impromptu musical programme was rendered. Miss Mary Rose
Rogers and Miss Martha Bolton contributed to this portion of
the entertainment. Another feature of the occasion was a
clever paper by Miss Hughes, prefaced by a pleasant surprise
in the shape of an introductory sketch of the subject by the
president. The meeting then adjourned, and an informal recep-
tion and presentation of members to the visitors took place.
Among those present from out of town we may mention Miss
E. W. White, of New London, Conn.; Miss Bannon, President
of Newburgh P. H. S., and Miss Lant, President- of Lancaster,
Pa., P. H. S.

Among the Catholic authors in fiction mentioned by Rev.

440 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Dec. r

John Talbot Smith in his talk to the P. H. S. was Mrs. May
Agnes Fleming. She was born at St. John, N. B., in the year
1841, and was the only daughter of Mr. B. W. Early, of that
city. Her education was completed at the Academy of the Sa-
cred Heart in her native city. Whilst still attending school she
began to write stories for the entertainment of her classmates.
A Catholic clergyman was the first one to discover merit in her
productions. On his recommendation one of her short stories
was sent for publication in the Philadelphia Saturday Night.
The editor accepted it, and sent her a twenty-dollar gold-piece
with a request for more short stories. Many of her later produc-
tions were published in book-form by Messrs. G. W. Carleton &
Co. After her marriage she made her home in Brooklyn, N. Y.
At the time of her death, in 1880, she had nineteen published
volumes. Her novels are remarkable for delineation of character,
life-like conversations, flashes of wit, constantly varying scenes,,
and deeply interesting plots. The present publisher, Mr. G. W,
Dillingham, successor to Carleton & Co., finds a constant demand
for the books of Mrs. May Agnes Fleming.

# * #

The second meeting of the Rochester, N. Y., Catholic Read-
ing Circle for this, the fourth season, was held recently. In
recognition of the quadricentennial each member wore the Span-
ish colors, and, as an emblem of loyalty to religion and country,
carried a tiny American flag, attached to which were ribbons of
the church colors, white and gold. The room was simply and
effectively draped with the stars and stripes and decorated with
vases of tricolored flowers indigenous to America. Owing to the
number of business details, the programme arranged was a brief
though excellent one. Four papers, of ten minutes each, on the
Summer-School were read by Misses Rigney, Redmond, O'Con-
nor, and Flynn. The musical numbers were a charming solo by
Mrs. Charles Cunningham, and a full chorus, America. This Cir-
cle, the first founded in Rochester, on March 10, 1889, beginning
with a membership of sixty women, now reckons on its list the
names of one hundred and ten. Most satisfactory results were
accomplished. Among the interesting programmes of last season
the Columbian one, with a delightful paper by Miss Purcell on
the discoverer of America, deserves mention.

* * #

We again urge on the attention of parents and friends of
children the duty of providing gifts at Christmas which will sup-
ply the intellectual as well as the bodily needs of the young.
The graded and annotated list of five hundred books prepared

1892.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 441

by Mr. George E. Hardy published by Scribners, price 50 cts.
will be found an invaluable guide in making selections. It is
the best collection of juvenile literature prepared in the United
States. Selections are made without fear or favor from all the
publishers having good books in the market. Mr. George Par-
sons Lathrop voices the unanimous verdict of competent judges
in these words :

" It is not too much to say that Mr. Hardy's book is alto-
gether charming. Professing to be merely a graded and anno-
tated list, it yet opens with an introduction which is a surprise
and a pleasure, because it is so full of humor, wisdom, and prac-
tical advice, and presents a masterpiece of simple and engaging
literary style. Let no one make the mistake of fancying that
Mr. Hardy's ideal library, because it has been arranged with a
view to the various needs of different classes of children in
schools, is in any manner dry or tediously instructive. It is, in
fact, so rife with pleasantness and divers entertainments as to
make one almost wish one were a child again, with liberty to re-
vel in its wealth of interest and enjoy those fresh and vivid im-
pressions from it that only children can receive in full measure."

* * *

A meeting of the General Council of the Catholic Summer-
School was held November 19, at the Catholic Club, New York
City. The president, Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, and the secretary
and treasurer were detained by a wreck on the Pennsylvania
Railroad. The morning session lasted four hours, Rev. P. A.
Halpin, S.J., in the chair. Among those present were Messrs.
George Parsons Lathrop, John A. Mooney, W. R. Claxton,
George E. Hardy, Brother Azarias, Revs. James F. Loughlin,
D.D., Joseph H. McMahon, Thomas McMillan. Telegrams were
received from Rev. John F. Mullaney and Rev. Thomas J. Con-
aty, D.D. The report of the board of studies was discussed at
considerable length. It was decided that the winter course of
study will be definitely arranged to begin in January, 1893, if
the requisite number of students can be secured. At the evening
session of the Council, held in the house of the Paulist Fathers,
Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy presided; Dr. Conaty and Prof. John
P. Brophy were also present. The financial report, presented by
Mr. Warren E. Mosher, showed that all bills connected with the
Summer-School, expenses of lectures, etc., had been paid without
exhausting the funds. Mr. George Parsons Lathrop was appoint-
ed chairman of a committee to draft a plan of financial organ-
ization. No action was taken on the question of a place to hold
the session of 1893.
VOL. LVI. 30

442 EDITORIAL NOTES. [Dec.,

EDITORIAL NOTES.

question of opening the World's Fair on Sunday is still
1 in the region of disputed things. It was presumably settled
by the act of Congress giving the World's Columbian Commis-
sion its life. But, as is always the case, an " act of Congress "
may endow a thing with a legal existence, but unless such a
thing finds its strength in the moral support of the people it
will die of inanition. A vigorous effort is now being made to
repeal the Sunday clause of the "act."

There is no manner of doubt but that there is an educational
side to the Exposition apart from its industrial and materialistic
side. It will be a noble school to the millions who will visit it,
teaching them the higher truths in art, in science, in the advances
of civilization, and in a secondary sense in morality and religion.

To rigorously shut every door on Sunday and put out every
light, extinguish every fire, as the act of Congress implies, will be
to deny the people possibly three-fourths of the good the Fair
is destined to accomplish. We know it is necessary to contend
strongly for the preservation of the Sunday as a day of rest as
well as a religious institution. And in the former sense Congress
can legislate concerning it, in spite of denials from some quarters.

But still in the latter sense a partial opening of the Exposi-
tion after the hours of religious observances in the churches, and
then only the portion which does not entail necessary manual
labor, and particularly the opening of halls and lecture-rooms
where the educational features can have fullest liberty in the
way of addresses, lectures, sacred concerts, a partial opening in
this manner will be conducive to the cultivation of the spiritual
sense and, to our thinking, highly commendable.

As the act of Congress prohibits this, just in so much we
think it ought to be repealed.

An effort is being made to secure a betterment of the roads
of the country. It is a move in the right direction. Good
roads are good civilizers because they facilitate the interming-
ling of the people, and the consequent interchange of ideas.

1892.] EDITORIAL NOTES. 443

Moreover, good roads are an aid to religious advancement, en-
abling people to attend religious services with greater facility.

Our roads are notoriously bad, and if there were some pub-
lic officer to look after them, to suggest the best ways of scien-
tific road-making, and to encourage improvements in localities,
in a few years the standard of good roads would be sensibly im-
proved throughout the country.

In this current number we present some exceedingly valuable
articles.

The sketch of Bishop Neumann's life from the pen of a
brother Redemptorist is an important contribution to the bio-
graphical knowledge of one the process of whose canonization
has already been started. In this connection Father Hewit
writes :

" I have known Bishop Neumann intimately for several years,
and I have no doubt whatever of his eminent sanctity."

In the light of the many vexed and perplexing controversies
over the " school question," the article " How to Solve a Great
Problem " will be read with a great deal of interest. We com-
mend it to the leading spirits among the sisterhoods of the coun-
try as well as to prominent educators.

Christian Reid's description of the beautiful city of Zacatcas
is a marvel of word-painting. With the aid of the beautiful
illustrations one seems to be transported into the midst of the
quaint civilization of Mexico.

Our new departure in the way of illustrations is meriting
flattering comments from many sources. Among the many to
quote but one, from a wide-awake paper in the far West the
Colorado Catholic. It says editorially: "THE CATHOLIC WORLD
for November shows a decided improvement in its mechanical
features. What is more gratifying still, the management of the
WORLD shows a determination to push it where it belongs, into
the front rank of periodicals."

Another contemporary remarks that the articles in THE
CATHOLIC WORLD on the political situation and the Home-
Rule question in Ireland are the best that appear in any peri-
odical. We present another one of these articles from the legal
pen of George McDermot.

444 BOOKS RECEIVED. [Dec., 1892,

BOOKS RECEIVED.

Benziger Bros., New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago :

Harry Dee ; or, Making it Out. By Francis J. Finn, SJ.

Catholic Priesthood. By Rev. M. Miiller, C.SS.R. A new
edition.

The Secret of Sanctity, according to St. Francis de Sales and
Father Crasset, S.J. From the French by Ella McMahon.

Spiritual Crumbs for Hungry Little Souls. By Mary E.
Richardson.

Zeal in the Work of the Ministry By 1'Abbe Dubois. Sec-
ond, editipn.

Sermons from the Flemish. Fifth Series. Mission Sermons
or Courses for Advent and Lent. Translated by a Catho-
lic Priest. 2 vols.

Manna of the Soul. Meditations for every day in the year^
By Father Paul Segneri. Second Edition. 2 vols.

They have in Press :

Literary, Scientific, and Political Views of Orestes A. Brown-
son. Selected from his works by Henry F. Brownson.

The Marriage Process in the United States. By Rev. S. B-
Smith, D.D.

Words of Wisdom from the Scriptures. A concordance to
the Sapiential Books. From the French. Edited by a
Priest of the Diocese of Springfield, Mass.

Fr. Pustet & Co., New York and Cincinnati :

Ordo Divini Orricii Recitandi Missaeque Celebrandae juxta
Rubricas Emendatas Breviarii Missalisque Romani pro
Anno Domini MDCCCVIIC.

Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago and New York:

Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia: being a
Concordance of Choice Tributes to the Great Genoese, his
Grand Discovery, and his Greatness of Mind and Purpose..
Compiled by J. M. Dickey.

Calmann Levy, Paris :

Aux Montagnes UAuvergne. Mes Conclusions Sociologiques
Par le Comte de Chambrun.

G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York:

Scenes from the Life of Christ, pictured in the Holy Word
and Sacred Art. Edited by Jessica Cone.

CD nta rlo.

Louis PASTEUR.

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. LVI. JANUARY, 1893. No. 334.

LOUIS PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK.

MONG the men of science whom it has been my
good fortune to meet, no one more nearly ap-
proaches my ideal of the true savant than the
eminent chemist and biologist, Louis Pasteur.
And among the various institutions that I have
visited, which are specially devoted to the prosecution of science,
or are the outgrowth of scientific research, no one has ever
possessed for me a greater interest than the famous Institut
Pasteur, in Paris. This noble foundation, a monument to the
genius of Pasteur, and a witness to the liberality, and the intel-
ligent and humane spirit of the French government, is the best
illustration, if any were now needed, of the value of experi-
mental science, and of the practical results that accrue from the
quiet and patient investigations that are being carried on in so
many of our modern laboratories.

For the past forty years the name of Pasteur has been a
household word throughout the civilized world. For ages to
come his memory will be held in benediction, and France will
point to him with pride as one of the most illustrious of her
sons.

To give even a rtsumt of Pasteur's life-work would fill a large
volume. The record of his achievements is the history of a
great and important branch of science. He has opened up new
avenues of knowledge, and has given an explanation of many
facts and phenomena that had before been involved in obscurity
and mystery. He has enlarged the domain of chemistry and
biology, and has raised medicine from an empirical art to a
veritable science. Columbus-like, he has discovered a new world

446 Louis PASTE UK AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan.,

" The world of the infinitely little," as Pouchet was wont to
call it and demonstrated that it is this world that is the chief
agent of all the changes that we witness in organized matter,
and that it is the prime, if not the sole, cause of all forms of
disease.

Now that the eyes of the world are turned towards Pasteur
as the one whose researches have promised a cure for that
dread visitant of Asia, the cholera, I am sure the readers of
THE CATHOLIC WORLD will be pleased to learn something of
the one who has been officially designated "the glory of France,
the benefactor of agriculture and of French industries "; of one,
too, who is no less distinguished as a devoted Catholic than as
an eminent scientist ; of one who, while an ornament to science
as well as an honor to religion, glories more in being known as
a son of the Church of Rome than in being recognized as one
of the immortals of the Institute of France.

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.

Louis Pasteur was born December 27, 1822, and hence will
soon have reached the allotted term of " three-score and ten
years." He was an only child, and from his earliest years he
exhibited the germs of those talents that in after-life were to
render him so famous. His good and devoted parents, although
of humble means, determined to give him a good education,
and to attain this end they spared no efforts and considered no
sacrifices too great. " We will," they proudly declared, " make
him an educated man " ; and how well the youth seconded their
wishes is attested by his subsequent career.

At an early age he manifested a marked taste for chemistry
and physics, the pursuit of which soon became his controlling
passion. He loved to converse with those who could add to
his information on these subjects, and never felt happier than
when in the company of those who had already won distinction
in some of the departments of chemical or physical science.
Scientific experiments always had a special charm for him, and
he eagerly embraced every opportunity by which he could ex-
^end his knowledge of Nature by laboratory work. While yet a
young man he evinced a talent for the art of experimentation
that commanded the admiration of all who saw him, and which
eventually made him an adept without a peer.

joined to his taste and talent for experimental work, and to
his dexterity and skill in the manipulation and designing of in-
struments, he seemed to be imbued in an eminent degree with

1893-] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 447

the spirit of the inductive philosophy. No one, indeed, has ever
employed the inductive method of research more generally of
more successfully than he. And the facility with which he
could make inductions, even in the most puzzling cases, was
marvellous even to those who knew best the genius of the man.
But with all this he never lost sight of the natural limitations
of the method that served his purposes so well. Unlike many
scientists of our day, he never permits himself to use the method
of induction where deduction alone should be paramount. When
dealing with questions of philosophy or religion he employs
the principles of Catholic theology and metaphysics, and not
those of a system that is available only for sciences which are
based on observation and experiment. Like his distinguished
countrymen, Mersenne and Ampere, he seems to possess an in-
tuitive knowledge of the best methods of questioning Nature
and of drawing from her those secrets which she discloses only
to the favored few. Like Faraday and Koenig, he is endowed
with a mind fertile in resources, and a genius that is quick to
devise apparatus and methods for proving or disproving a theory.
No one can interpret more readily than he the language of ex-
periment, or recognize more surely the principles which underlie
the phenomena observed, or discover more readily the laws to
which experiment leads.

HIS THEORY OF FERMENTATION.

Pasteur's first honors were won in the domain of molecular
physics. In this branch of science, which he pursued in the cele-
brated Ecole Normale at Paris, he was fortunate enough to
offer a solution of some questions that had long baffled the
ablest chemists and physicists of Europe. But scarcely was he
fairly started in this line of work, for which he had a special
inclination, when an incident occurred which changed completely
the nature of his investigations. This was his appointment, at
the early age of thirty-two years, as Dean of the Faculty of
Science at Lille. Here he soon found himself engaged in the
study of the then obscure subject of fermentation. Some ex-
periments which he had made while at the Ecole Normale led
him to suspect that fermentation was in some, if not in all
cases, due to the action of certain microscopic organisms. He
was not long in proving the truth of his assumption, and in
opening up that new world of "the infinitely little" whose dis-
covery has made Pasteur so famous and rendered him such a
benefactor of his race. One experiment suggested another, and

448 Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan. r

a number of the most brilliant and far-reaching discoveries fol-
lowed in rapid succession. According to the old theory, which
the great German chemist, Justus von Liebig, revived, fermenta-
tion was only a form of oxidation, and. could take place only
an contact with air. The illustrious chemists, Berzelius and Mit-
scherlich, gave a different explanation of the phenomenon. Ac-
cording to their view, a ferment was endowed with a very mys-
terious force, to which they gave the name catalytic, which
brought about the decomposition of fermentable matter by its
mere presence, or by simple contact.

Pasteur was not slow in demolishing Liebig's theory, by de-
monstrating that fermentable matter never ferments when in con-
tact with perfectly pure air or oxygen. More than this, he
proved, in the most conclusive manner, that in many cases air
and oxygen not only impede but are absolutely fatal to fer-
mentation. He demonstrated the falsity of the theory of Ber-
zelius and Mitscherlich by showing that fermentation, far from
being the result of some mysterious catalytic force, was in reality
only a phenomenon of nutrition. He showed that what had
previously been regarded as a ferment, was only matter capable
of being fermented ; that the real ferment was, in every case,
a minute microscopic organism that had hitherto eluded detec-
tion.

Observations made by Leuwenhoek, Cagniard-Latour, and
Schwann on the nature and action of yeast seemed to point to
a possible connection between the phenomena of fermentation
and living organisms, but these observations, important as they
were, remained barren of results until the subject was taken
up anew by Pasteur. Touched by his magic wand, one ferment
shed light on the nature and habits of another. Indeed the first
successful experiment made by the eminent biologist regarding
the cause of fermentation was to him an open sesame which
disclosed a new order of life whose existence until then had not
even been suspected.

He not only discovered that fermentation was due in all
cases to microscopic organisms, but that different fermentable
bodies are acted upon by different ferments. Thus, the ferment
of milk is different from that of butter, while that of beer is
different from that of wine. Milk curdles, butter becomes rancid,
beer deteriorates, wine sours, not because of oxidation by the
air, as Liebig and others imagined, and still less because of
some mysterious catalytic force as others conjectured, but be
cause they are acted upon by countless microscopic organisms

1 893.] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 449

which find in these various substances their proper aliment.
What serves as good for one ferment will not afford nourish-
ment to another. In this respect these lowest forms of life are
as different from one another probably more so than are forms
of life which are much higher in the scale of animated nature.

From the phenomena of fermentation to those of putrefaction
and slow combustion was but a step. The clear vision of Pas-
teur saw at a glance that the difference between these various
phenomena was nominal rather than real. The putrefaction of
flesh and blood, the rotting of wood and leaves, the decay of
all forms of animal and vegetable matter were only modifications
of the same process that obtains in fermentation. Owing to the
presence of sulphur and phosphorus in animal matter elements
that are not found in vegetable tissues the fermentation of ani-
mal compounds is attended with the evolution of certain foul-
smelling gases that are never found among the products of
vegetable decomposition.

In all these cases the agents of change and destruction are
microscopic animalculae of various species and forms, sometimes
little round cells, at others minute rods of varying length, in one
case straight and in another curved or spiral-shaped. They at-
tack dead matter internally and externally, and multiply at a
rate that the imagination fails to grasp.

These little cells and rods vary in diameter from the one-
twenty-fifth to the one-fifty-thousandth of an inch in diameter.
But if thus infinitesimal in size, they, under suitable conditions,
soon become almost infinite in number. One of these microbes,
it has been computed, will in a single day give rise to no less
than twenty millions of similar organisms, each of which is capa-
ble of producing other microbes at a similar prodigious rate.

Early in the course of his investigations Pasteur discovered
that the micro-organisms which are the causes of fermentation,
putrefaction, and slow combustion might be divided into two
distinct classes. Some required a supply of air or oxygen in
order to live. These he called aerobia. Others, he found, could
exist without oxygen. To some, even, air is fatal. These he
named anaerobia. In some cases of fermentation only aerobic
microbes occur, while in others anaerobic organisms alone are
present. In still other cases both aerobia and anaerobia are at
work, the former on the surface of the decaying body, the latter
in the interior away from contact with the atmosphere. These
investigations and discoveries threw a flood of light on a num-
ber of phenomena which many men of science had essayed to

4So Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan.,

explain, but in vain. Their first announcement in the French
Academy, of which Pasteur at an early age had been elected a
member, came as a revelation, and opened up a vista the extent
of which even now, after so much has been accomplished, can-
not be fully realized. To Pasteur himself each new discovery
served as a powerful search-light that illumined the broad but
unknown field before him a field which he had determined to
explore ; with what success the whole world now knows.

HIS STUDIES IN MICROBIAN LIFE.

Forms of life that were unknown before Pasteur began
his researches were now found to exist everywhere and in
countless numbers. The atmosphere is so filled with them
that only by special precautions can air be obtained that is
absolutely free from them. Every object that meets our
gaze swarms with them. Smaller even than the invisible motes
in the sunbeam, they can be seen only under the higher powers
of the microscope, and then frequently only as simple, structure-
less cells. And yet they are endowed with a vitality and a ca-
pacity of changing and destroying the higher forms of organic
matter that excites our astonishment more in proportion as we
study them more closely. They are the veritable masters of the
world. They preside over the work of death, and return to the
atmosphere all that which has been endowed with life, whether
animal or vegetable.

After having demonstrated the ubiquitous character of these
micro-organisms, and shown what powerful agents they are in
the decomposition of animal and vegetable matter, Pasteur found
himself the possessor of the key to the solution of a number of
problems of the highest practical importance. Among these were
problems regarding the manufacture of vinegar, wine, and beer.

From time immemorial manufacturers of these staple articles
of commerce had experienced numberless difficulties not only in
their manufacture, but still more in their preservation. All sorts
of theories were advanced to explain the difficulties encountered.
Some thought that the real cause of the trouble was to be sought
in the oxygen of the air. Others imagined that the various
constituents of these liquids have a tendency to react on each
other, and that the character of the product is determined by
the nature of this molecular agitation. Pasteur, however, de-
monstrated, by a series of experiments that were as brilliant as
they were decisive, that all these views were radically wrong.
All the changes observed, he showed, were due to certain living

1893-] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 451

ferments which filled the air, and swarmed on the surfaces of
the casks in which the liquids were contained, or existed in myri-
ads in the liquids themselves. In this wise he explained the
turbidity and impoverishment of vinegar, the acidity and bitter-
ness of wine, and the sourness and putridity of beer.

Pasteur, however, was not content with directing attention to
the causes of the change, but continued his researches until he
was able to indicate how such deleterious alterations might be
prevented. Naturally, the first thing to do was to destroy the
active agents of fermentation, the little microscopic organisms
that cause the deterioration of wine and beer. And this he did
by a method that was as simple as it was scientific. He soon
found that a temperature of about 140 F. was fatal to the life
of the microbes that infested beer and wine. Nothing then was
easier than to raise these fluids to this temperature and thus de-
stroy all the organisms and germs of organisms that might exist
therein. By this short and simple process both wine and beer
are rendered proof against fermentation, and can be transported
from place to place, and in any climate, without danger of de-
terioration. This process of preserving wine and beer is exten-
sively employed in both Europe and America, and has already
been the means of enabling the manufacturers of these articles
to guard against the very heavy losses which they formerly sus-
tained. As applied to beer, the process, in honor of its dis-
coverer, is known as Pasteurization, and the beer itself is called
Pasteurized beer.

HE REFUTES THE THEORY OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.

While engaged in his investigations of the nature of fermen-
tation Pasteur was suddenly confronted with a problem that had
occupied the mind of philosophers since the time of Aristotle,
viz., that of spontaneous generation. For centuries it had been
taught that many, if not all, of the lower forms of life es-
pecially animal parasites come into the world spontaneously ;
that is, that they do not proceed from pre-existing germs, and
have not parents like themselves. The distinguished Italian sci-
entist and ecclesiastic, Abbate Spallanzani, the naturalist Redi,
and Malpighi, physician to Pope Innocent XII., were the first to
show that the alleged cases of spontaneous generation have no
foundation in fact. It was, however, reserved for Pasteur to
give the death-blow to a theory that had obtained for nearly
three thousand years, and to demonstrate, by the most rigorous
and precise experiments, that in the lowest and simplest of mi-

452 Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan.,

croscopic organisms, as well as in the higher forms of life, every
living thing springs from some pre-existing germ and has, and
must have, a parent like itself.

At the termination of his researches, which were characterized
throughout by logical acumen and consummate skill, Pasteur an-
nounced in the Sorbonne, with all the positiveness of one who is
certain of what he declares, that "there is not one circumstance
known at the present day which justifies the assertion that mi-
croscopic organisms come into the world without germs, or par-
ents like themselves. Those who maintain the contrary have
been the dupes of illusions and of ill-conducted experiments,
tainted with errors which they know not how either to perceive
or avoid. Spontaneous generation is a chimera."

The controversy about spontaneous generation consequent on
Pasteur's experiments excited the keenest interest throughout the
scientific world. The atheistic school of science ranged them-
selves against Pasteur in a solid phalanx, because they foresaw in
the disproof of spontaneous generation a scientific demonstra-
tion of the falsity of their theories regarding the nature and ori-
gin of life.

Atheists and materialists, like Haeckel, Vogt, and Biichner, had
boldly denied the existence of a Creator on the ground that
such a belief was unscientific. Starting with the assumption that
matter and force are eternal, they proclaimed that all the phe-
nomena of the universe could be explained by the interaction of
known physical forces, and by the action of these forces on mat-
ter. Under the influence of magnetism or electricity, or both,
brute matter, they contended, would give rise to the lower forms
of animal and vegetable life. These primitive organisms once
formed would, in virtue of inherent forces, and under the influ-
ence of a proper environment, in time develop into higher forms
of life. The conclusion they drew from such reasoning was that
God is unnecessary, and that, therefore, he does not* exist. To
such scientists Pasteur's demonstration that spontaneous genera-
tion is a chimera was an argumentum ad hominem, that, on their
own principles, was simply unanswerable. So much is this the
case that no scientist deserving the name ever speaks of sponta-
neous generation except as an exploded theory, a theory that
was long lived, it is true, but which is now dead and beyond
any possibility of resuscitation.

1893-] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 453,

HE FINDS A REMEDY FOR THE SILK-WORM EPIDEMIC.

While engaged in his researches on fermentation and sponta-
neous generation, Pasteur was urged by his friend J. B. Dumas
to examine into the nature and cause of the silk-worm epidemic
that was then rife in the south of France, and which threatened
soon to destroy one of the most important industries of southern
Europe unless a means could speedily be found for staying the
plague and preventing further ravages.

Until this time Pasteur had never handled a silk-worm. He
could not, however, resist the appeal made to come to the relief
of his suffering countrymen, and although the work he was called
upon to do threatened to withdraw him indefinitely from the
researches in which he had met with such signal success and
which promised him still greater triumphs, he determined thor-
oughly to investigate the silk-worm disease and not relinquish the
self-imposed task until he should bring it to a successful issue.
His researches on fermentation and spontaneous generation had
prepared him for the work, and he was better qualified for such
an undertaking than any man living. From the outset he was
led to believe that the real cause of the trouble would be found
in certain micro-organisms similar to those which occasioned the
maladies of vinegar, beer, and wine. Nor was he long in demon-
strating the truth of his assumption. Pursuing the same methods
that had led to such happy results on former occasions, he was
soon able to show that the plague was due to certain corpuscles
and microbes with which the silk-worms were infected.

Having discovered the cause of the evil, the next step wa,s to
provide a remedy. This also he was able to do, but only after
countless experiments and the most arduous and protracted la-
bor. So incessant, indeed, was the toil, and so numerous were
the difficulties that beset his path, not to speak of the criticisms
and opposition which his investigations provoked, that his system
yielded to the pressure and for a time his life was despaired of.
In 1868, three years after he had entered upon the study of the
epidemic, he was stricken with paralysis of one side, from which
he still suffers. Two years subsequently, however, he brought
his researches to a close, and had the gratification of seeing his
method of preventing the plague in successful operation in all
the great centres of silk-husbandry, and of feeling that he had
rescued from what seemed to be certain destruction one of the
favorite and most profitable industries of his native country. His
discoveries saved thousands of people from penury and starva-

454 Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan.,

tion, and secured to the treasury of the nation an annual revenue
of millions of dollars that would otherwise have been dissipated,
perhaps for ever. As a mark of appreciation of his work Napo-
leon nominated Pasteur a senator, and learned societies of dif-
ferent nations hastened to show him that honor which his
admirable achievements had won for him. But Pasteur's great-
est reward was the general outburst of gratitude of the thou-
sands of the laboring poor whom the pest was on the verge of
depriving of employment, and, with it, of home and the means
of subsistence.

Having so completely triumphed over the silk-worm epidemic,
Pasteur next directed his attention to the study of infectious
diseases in man and the higher animals. From the time he be-
gan the study of microbian life, each of his researches seemed
to be the stepping-stone to that which followed, and to corrobo-
rate the theory that he was the first to promulgate regarding
the nature of fermentation and virulent disease. He beheld
everywhere those " infinitely little " forms of life which to him
were infinitely great. He knew, too, that these were in all
cases the offspring of antecedent life, and hence he was able to
conduct his experiments and guide his researches with a clear-
ness of vision and with a certainty of induction that otherwise
would have been quite impossible. He took nothing for granted.
He proved or disproved every proposition as it was presented to
him, and always cleared the way of all obstacles before attempt-
ing an advance. His logical, perspicacious mind would not per-
mit him to pursue a different course. Past experience had shown
him that this was essential to success, and the rigid inductive
method by which he had achieved such marvellous results had
become so engrained in his mind that working in strict accor-
dance with it had become to him a second nature.

HE FINDS A REMEDY FOR SPLENIC FEVER.

Previous to the investigations of Pasteur a theory had ob-
tained among certain naturalists and physicians that contagious
diseases might be due to animalculae and microscopic parasites,
but no definite information had been obtained on the subject.
And then, too, doctors and chemists were slow to accept a theory
that was so diametrically opposed to that sanctioned by the nam<
and fame of Liebig. According to the illustrious German chem-
ist and his school, vital action had nothing to do with the gene-
sis of disease. The contagia of disease were not, according to
them, living things, as we now know them to be, but were rather

1893-] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 455

the results of certain molecular changes, entirely chemical in
their nature, which communicated themselves to different por-
tions of the living subject. According to this view diseases, es-
pecially those of a communicable character, were engendered by
certain viruses, morbific influences, pandemic waves, atmospheric
invasions, pythogenic media, and other equally mysterious agen-
cies, all of which were entirely independent of any definite living
organisms.

The first of the infectious diseases to engage the attention of
Pasteur was the terrible malady known as splenic fever. From
time immemorial this devastating plague has created greater hav-
oc among domestic animals than any other cause. In France
alone, in certain years, the losses amounted to from fifteen to
twenty millions of francs. In other parts of both the Old and
the New Worlds equally formidable losses are occasioned by the
pest. Man, too, as well as his flocks and herds, was subject to the
disease, and large was the tribute of human victims annually
demanded by the fell disorder.

Not long after commencing his researches, Pasteur was able
to show that the cause, and the sole cause, of the malady in
question was a peculiar form of microbe known as a bacillus or
bacterium. Having discovered the cause of the disorder, he set
about with characteristic determination to find a counteractive.
The work was long and difficult, and not without danger. But
great as were the difficulties encountered they succumbed per-
force to the genius and perseverance of the experimenter.

Pasteur was successful in finding not only the object of his
quest, but had at the same time the good fortune to make a
discovery which was as important and as far-reaching for pathol-
ogy as was that of gravitation for astronomy. It was no less
than an extension of Jenner's great discovery of vaccination.

After long and toilsome vigils, and a series of experiments
whose number and ingenuity fill one with admiration and awe,
Pasteur found that he could attenuate the virus of splenic fe-
ver to any degree of potency, and that such virus could be em-
ployed to inoculate against the disease itself. When he first an-
nounced his great discovery in the Academy of Sciences it was
received with loud applause, but so extraordinary was it deemed
that there were few who did not consider it too good to be
true. Every one saw that the discovery, if real, meant a com-
plete revolution in the theory and practice of medicine and
surgery. If the virus of splenic fever could be attenuated and
the disease could be prevented by inoculation, was it not reason-

456 Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan.,

able to suppose that the same processes would yield similar re-
sults in the case of all infectious diseases ? As for Pasteur him-
self, so thoroughly had he studied the nature and habits of micro-
scopic parasites, and so thoroughly had he mastered the aetiol-
ogy of contagious diseases, that he was convinced that his dis-
coveries in connection with splenic fever would eventually admit
of universal application. Subsequent experiments and investiga-
tions by himself and others have fully realized his most sanguine
expectations and furnished to the world another and striking in-
stance of the remarkable clearness and compass of his view as
an interpreter of Nature and Nature's laws.

GERM THEORY OF DISEASE.

Since Pasteur commenced his researches on fermentation and
putrefaction, the trend and goal of medical and surgical science
have been in the direction indicated by the germ theory of dis-
ease, as contradistinguished from the misleading and unfruitful
theory of Liebig and his followers. As a consequence the results
obtained have been as marvellous as the germ theory is compre-
hensive.

No sooner was Pasteur's great discovery made public than he
was called upon to give a demonstration on a large scale of the
efficacy of his method of treatment. And so successful were his
experiments, that all doubts as to the truth of his predictions
were at once dispelled. Even those who had been most scepti-
cal united in admitting the conclusiveness of the demonstration
which had been given, and in proclaiming that Pasteur's dis-
covery marked the beginning of a new era in the annals of vet-
erinary science, as well as a grand step forward in economic
stock-raising. The vaccination of sheep, horses, and cattle soon
became general, and was everywhere resorted to as a sure pre-
ventive against the malady that for centuries had so decimated
the flocks and herds of Europe and the Orient, not to speak
of the ravages it had caused in the New World, especially in
parts of South America.

But Pasteur's researches, important as they were in conserving
and promoting some of the most important of the world's indus-
tries, were of still more value when applied to the treatment of hu-
man diseases, which annually claim so many thousands of victims.
Not to speak of splenic fever, to which allusion has already
been made, of septicemia and other equally grave maladies, it
will suffice here to instance the antiseptic method of surgery,
introduced by the celebrated Lister, which is almost universally

l8 93-] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 457

employed and which has been productive of such beneficial re-
sults.

Previous to the introduction of the system of this famous
surgeon the mortality in hospitals consequent on wounds and
surgical operations was frightful. Acting in accordance with
principles based on Pasteur's discoveries, Lister was able to re-
duce the percentage of deaths to a small fraction of what it
had previously been. In a letter addressed to Pasteur the emi-
nent English surgeon writes : " Allow me to take this opportu-
nity of sending you my most cordial thanks for having, by your
brilliant researches, demonstrated to me the truth of the germ
theory of putrefaction, thus giving me the only principle which
could lead to a happy end the antiseptic system."

In Listerism, as in Pasteurism, the practitioner or operator
is not left in the dark as to the agencies he is combating. He
is not fighting against some problematic virus, or some myste-
rious influence, but against a visible, tangible entity. The prob-
lem before him is to remove or destroy certain parasitic organ-
isms, whose habits and life-history have been carefully studied
and are thoroughly understood. Knowledge takes the place of
theory, and certainty supersedes speculation and processes which
were at best only tentative.

Pasteur's researches on splenic fever, septicemia, fowl and
swine cholera, and his discovery of vaccines, together with a
method of attenuating the most virulent viruses for combating
these maladies, paved the way for still greater undertakings and
for more brilliant conquests.

HYDROPHOBIA.

Encouraged by the results he had already realized, and con-
fident of the general applicability of his discoveries, he next
proceeded to investigate that formidable malady which had
hitherto baffled all attempts to arrest it by therapeutical agents.
For generations rabies, or hydrophobia, had claimed annually a
large number of victims, especially in France and Russia. When
fully developed it was regarded as being as incurable as the
leprosy, while the intense sufferings which characterized the dis-
order were such as to make it the most dreaded of bodily
afflictions.

For several long years Pasteur, with a corps of devoted and
enthusiastic assistants, labored at the problem with all the zeal
and energy so characteristic of his nature. Thousands of experi-
ments were made and recorded, tens of thousands of observa-

458 Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan. r

tions were compared and classified, and all with the most scru-
pulous care and exactitude. Finally he was rewarded by finding
himself able successfully to inoculate dogs against the most vir-
ulent forms of the disease. Just at this stage of his investiga-
tions he was visited, July 6, 1886, by two persons from Alsace
who had been bitten by mad dogs. One of these was Joseph
Meister, a lad nine years of age, who had received no fewer than
fourteen wounds, and whose death seemed inevitable. After
consulting with some of his associates, and not without great
anxiety as to the outcome, Pasteur determined to try on the
hapless young victim the method of inoculation that had yielded
such promising results in the laboratory. He awaited the effect
of his treatment with the greatest solicitude, until after the lapse
of some weeks he was assured that the patient was out of dan-
ger, and that he himself had achieved a glorious victory over
the most terrible malady with which humanity can be afflicted.

It may interest my readers to know that young Meister, a
bright youth of sixteen, is now connected with the Institut
Pasteur. He accompanied me through the laboratories and the
out-buildings in which are kept the scores of dogs, rabbits,
guinea-pigs, pigeons, etc., which after inoculation supply the
virus used in the operating-room, or which are required for the
experiments that are here being conducted by physicians and bi-
ologists from all parts of Europe and America. The highest ambi-
tion of young Joseph is to become a doctor, and to spend his
life in the Institut Pasteur. It is needless to say that he has an
unbounded admiration for the one who snatched him from the
jaws of the most frightful of deaths. " I think," said the boy to
me, " that Pasteur is the greatest man that has ever lived."

In a short time a magnificent structure, the Institut Pasteur,
was erected to serve the double purpose of laboratory and hos-
pital, and here for a time might be seen patients from all parts
of Europe. But so pronounced was the success of the new
treatment that similar institutions were called for and established
elsewhere. Now there are upwards of twenty of them in differ-
ent parts of the Old and New Worlds.

From the very great mortality which formerly characterized
the malady, the percentage of deaths has been reduced to a small
fraction of one per cent. Hence it will be seen that the method
is well-nigh perfect, and success in any given case, if taken in
time, is almost certain.

1893 ] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 459

THE CHOLERA.

For some years past " the great savant of France," as his
countrymen love to call him, has been devoting special attention
to that dread scourge of Asia the cholera. Will he be as suc-
cessful this time as he has been in his previous undertakings?
As to myself, I have no doubt about the result. Armed with
the accumulated knowledge and experience of nearly half a
century, endowed with a genius for experimentation such as no
other man probably ever possessed in such an eminent degree,
and provided with all the appliances that ingenuity can devise
or that the most liberal institution can supply, we need enter-
tain no doubts as to the outcome of the experiments that are
now being conducted at the Institut Pasteur. Even at this writ-
ing there is reason to believe that Pasteur has arrived at a so-
lution of the problem on which he has been so long laboring.
But he is so cautious and conservative that he never makes an
announcement until he has studied every phase of the case, and
made allowance for all contingencies. When he does finally
announce a cure for cholera, we may have the same confi-
dence in its efficacy as every one now has in his treatment
of the other virulent diseases over which he has so signally
triumphed.

In the researches with which he is now occupied Pasteur is
not groping in the dark, or dealing with some occult power that
eludes his observation. On the contrary, the enemy he has to
combat is as real and tangible as a corps of Prussian soldiers.
He is fully acquainted with its nature and strength, and with its
methods of advance and attack. The problem now before him
is not the location of the foe for he has it always under his
eyes but to devise some means of staying the progress of the
invader, or, if possible, of destroying it by turning it against
itself, by the same system of inoculation that has worked so ad-
mirably in the case of splenic fever and hydrophobia.

Until, by observation and experiment, he has made himself
sure of the ground on which he stands, Pasteur is the most
diffident of men. But once he has experiment to back him up,
he fights with a boldness and an impetuosity that to an on-
looker savors of rashness. But he is not rash. He is the most
prudent and conservative of scientists. He is bold because he is
certain that he is right. Woe betide the unfortunate adversary
that falls into his terrible hands! for, as a member of the Acad-
emy of Science once said to a member of the Academy of

460 Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan.,

Medicine, who spoke of scientifically strangling the illustrious
biologist, " Pasteur is never mistaken."

To few men has it been vouchsafed, as to Pasteur, to witness
the beneficent results of their labors and discoveries. No man
has encountered more opposition than he ; no man has fought
more and fiercer battles ; no man has won so many victories.
He has now the satisfaction of seeing his theories almost uni-
versally accepted ; of knowing that his principles are every-
where triumphant, and that his discoveries have been instru-
mental in effecting untold good for the amelioration of the con-
dition of suffering humanity.

Honors have been showered upon him by his own and by
foreign countries, and throughout the civilized world he is rever-
ently spoken of as one of the greatest benefactors of his race.

In 1862 he was elected a member of the French Academy, of
which he has ever since been one of the most indefatigable and
successful workers, as well as the most distinguished representa-
tive. The French government has granted him a pension of
20,000 francs " in consideration of his services to science and
industry " a form of recognition that has but few if any pre-
cedents in France, but something that was more than merited.
In 1 868 he was awarded a prize of 10,000 florins by the Agri-
cultural Minister of Austria for his researches on the disease of
silk-worms. Five years later the Socie'te d 'Encouragement awarded
him a prize of 12,000 francs for his studies on fermentation, and
for the remedy discovered by him for the silk-worm disease.

A recent writer, in referring to Pasteur, speaks of him as one
" whose researches have yielded so much material profit that one
thinks of him as of the orange-tree standing in all the glory of
blossom and fruit at the same time." With truth, therefore, has
Professor Huxley declared that " Pasteur's discoveries suffice, of
themselves, to cover the war indemnity of five milliards of francs
paid by France to Germany."

This is a great deal to say of the work of one man, but to
any one acquainted with the marvellous achievements of the dis-
tinguished Frenchman it will not appear as an exaggeration.
But extraordinary as is the work that has already been accom-
plished much yet remains for future observers and experiment-
ers. Pasteur himself acknowledges that his discoveries are but
the beginning of the grand triumphs which the future shall wit-
ness. " You will see," he frequently remarks, " how it will all
grow by and by. Would that my time were longer!"

1893-] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 461

HIS WRITINGS.

For the past third of a century Pasteur has been a prolific
writer. Besides his communications to the French Academy
and numerous contributions to scientific journals, he has written
several works on fermentation and on the maladies of wine, beer,
vinegar, and the silk-worm, which since their publication have
been the acknowledged standards on the subjects of which they
treat. He has a clear, trenchant style, and in all his productions
shows himself a consummate master of the art of exposition.
Some of the addresses he has delivered before the Academy are
models of chaste and polished diction, and exhibit a verve that
betokens a highly cultivated imagination as well as true poetic
instinct. They are especially remarkable for the manner in
which he champions the cause of revealed truth, of which he
has on all occasions shown himself an ardent and intrepid de-
fender.

In his discourse pronounced on the occasion of his reception
into the French Academy he referred to the teachings of faith
as an instrument of progress and as a safeguard for the man of
science, and declared that if we were deprived of the concep-
tions due to these teachings " science would lose that grandeur
which it possesses in virtue of its secret relations with the di-
vine verities." On another occasion, two decades later, when
delivering the eulogy on M. Littre, one of his confreres in the
Academy, the old man eloquent tells his associates of the In-
stitut that " the conception of the infinite in creation is every-
where irresistibly manifest. It places the supernatural in every
human heart. The idea of God is a form of the idea of the in-
finite."

HIS RELIGION.

Not only has Pasteur on all occasions the courage of his
convictions, but he puts in practice the faith he so openly and
courageously professes. I have said that he is prouder of being
a Catholic than of being an Academician. This is characteristic
of the man. Worldly honors are to him but ineffective baubles
and hollow gewgaws, except in so far as they are an evidence
of what he has achieved for the betterment of the condition of
his fellow-men.

Of a charitable and generous nature, he is ever ready to ex-
tend a helping hand to the poor and the afflicted. Shortly be-
fore my last visit to the Institut Pasteur one of our brothers
brought to him a boy that had just been bitten by a rabid dog.
VOL. LVI. 32

462 Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. [Jan.,.

The brother explained to M. Pasteur that the parents of the lad
were in very straitened circumstances, and would not be able
to pay much for the treatment of their son, or for his mainte-
nance at the hospital. "Leave that to me, please, mon frere. I
shall provide for the boy myself and see that he receives every
attention. Call for him ten days hence, and he will be well and
out of danger." Ten days later the lad was returned to his over-
joyed parents and without a centime of expense to them
sound and whole. It was difficult to tell to whom this kind
action brought the greater happiness : the parents, whose son
had been rescued from an imminent and frightful death, or Pas-
teur, who had given the patient a new lease of life when but
for his skill there was little or no hope for its conservation.
But this is only one of the many instances of his liberality and
kindly disposition. He is always in a quiet and unobserved way
performing just such noble actions, and there is not, I venture
to assert, a single person in the whole of Paris to whom the
poor and unfortunate can appeal with greater assurance of com-
fort and relief.

Notwithstanding his long experience in the laboratory and
his familiarity with every phase of brute and human suffering,.
Pasteur still retains a nature as gentle and a heart as tender as
a woman's. While talking with him one day in the Institut Pas-
teur, in a hallway adjoining the operating room, we presently
heard the smothered cry of a child who was being inoculated
against rabies. Pasteur started with an expression of deep an-
guish. " Come away," he said, " where we cannot hear these
cries of pain. I am neither a physician nor a surgeon, and I
cannot bear such sounds of distress."

Contrary to what is generally supposed, Pasteur does not
operate on any of the thousands of patients who annually flock
to his laboratory. He delegates the work of inoculation to a
staff of trained surgeons, who prepare and administer the prophy-
lactic virus under his immediate supervision. I have never seen
him in the operating room, and he studiously avoids it unless-
called there by stern duty, which he never shirks. He cannot
endure any exhibition of human suffering, and he is as little in*
ured to it to-day as he was when he began his researches on
the aetiology of virulent disease.

THE RESULTS OF HIS LIFE-WORK.

It is difficult to appreciate the magnitude and importance of
Pasteur's life-work, or to over-estimate the extent to which man-

1893-] Louis PASTEUR AND HIS LIFE-WORK. 463

kind is his debtor. Like Copernicus and Galileo, Kepler and
Newton, he has cleared away difficulties that before him were
insuperable barriers to progress, and has demonstrated the exist-
ence of law and order where previously all was thought to be
chance and chaos.

Alexander is called great because he worsted in battle the
barbarous hordes of the East. Caesar is awarded the laurel
crown of victory for his conquests in Germany and Gaul. Na-
poleon is honored with triumphal arches, and saluted as the
world's greatest chieftain, because he was able to vanquish the
combined armies of Europe. In Pasteur we have one who,
in the seclusion of his laboratory without noise and without
bloodshed has proved himself a greater conqueror than either
Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon. In him we honor the hero
who has triumphed over the plague that for centuries had de-
manded such formidable tributes from all the nations of the
earth. To him suffering humanity is indebted for illumining
with the search-light of his genius a world the world of the
infinitely little, the world of microscopic parasites that, prior
to his time, had been shrouded in more than Cimmerian dark-
ness. Chemists and biologists, physicians and surgeons, have to
thank him for transporting them across a gulf seemingly more
impassable than Serbonian Bog, and putting them in a position
to cope with an enemy which had hitherto occupied a coign
of vantage from which it could not be dislodged. Hence, so long
as disease shall continue to claim its victims, and so long as
suffering may be assuaged ; so long as men shall esteem worth
and merit, and so long as gratitude shall find a place in their
hearts, so long also will the world applaud the achievements
and be moved by the example of that illustrious votary of
science, and that loyal son of the church, Louis Pasteur.

J. A. ZAHM, C.S.C.

Notre Dame University, Indiana.

BISHOP FLAGET, FOUNDER OF NAZARETH.

A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-
WEST.

NAZARETH, KENTUCKY.

ERY often, to the contemplative, subjective soul,
there comes a pause in the whirl of life when we
ask ourselves why this toil, this strife, this effort
so often fruitless ? Our puny blows leave such
little impress on this great world about us ; in a
year, a decade, a century, our very names will have disappeared.
Such is the annihilation when we work for earthly ends with
earthly means.

But when we " build the more stately mansions, O my soul !
as the swift seasons roll " ; when we build not of bricks, but of
character ; not of matter, but of mind, the obliterating wave is
stayed in its progress, and the work endures.

Thus, when we consider the work accomplished by these
grand educational institutions throughout our land, that build

1893-] A FAMOUS CONVENT SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 465

MOTHER FRANCES
GARDINER.

MOTHER SPALDING.

MOTHER COLUMBA.

not for time but for eternity, we cease to ask the listless ques-
tion, " Cui bono ? " and by a higher transposition render it, " There
is good here." This work has not been ineffectual. Not unto

NAZARETH AS IT WAS IN 1822.

466 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,

the present generation alone, but through the white channel of
souls far out beyond to lives yet unborn, the pure, strong influ-
ence of a good Christian education finds its way. It is of one
of these strongholds of our faith of which I write. As the eyes
of many fall on these pages memory flies back along the nar-
rowing lane of years, and sees again the crowned height just be-
yond Bardstown, Kentucky, where stands the old, well-founded

EAST VIEW OF THE CONVENT.

school, the house bearing with its name the aroma of sanctity
Nazareth.

Long, long ago, while yet this world was young, a scoffer
said : " Can any good come out of Nazareth ? " Yet from that
despised hamlet came the Light of the World. " He came unto
his own, and his own received him not. But as many as re-
ceived him, to them he gave power to be made the sons of
God."

It was one of these sons of God, the saintly Bishop Flaget,
who founded the organization known as " The Sisters of Charity
of Nazareth." This holy man, of whom Henry Clay said, " He
is the best representative of royalty off the throne," from his

1 893.]

boyhood loved Jesus in the
Blessed Sacrament, and grew
up in the shadow of the
tabernacle. He was raised to
the Episcopal See of Bards-
town in 1808 and was the first
bishop of the West, when there
were only six priests for an
area of over forty-two thou-
sand square miles. The Ca-
tholic Church in Kentucky has
been blessed with many edify-
ing sons, but none among them
is enshrined more deeply in
the hearts of the people than
this truly pious servant of
God. At this time this part
of Kentucky was a wild, beau-
tiful region, sparsely settled,
mainly by Catholic families.
When the bishop entered into
office his first thought was for
the education of the young.
Not being able to import a
teaching order from his be-
loved birth-place, France, he
had no resource but that which
he happily adopted, and es-
tablished the order whose fame
has grown with the growth of
the State.

Bishop Flaget, himself a
tireless worker in the vineyard
of his Master, chose as the
director of this new commu-
nity his friend and companion,
Rev. John B. David, superior
of the newly-created theologi-
cal seminary at Bardstown.
From out the shadows of the
past Father David's character
glows with a most beautiful
light. He was a man who had

468 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,

received the benediction of hard work. He was incessantly
busy, the only hours of recreation he allowed himself outside the
necessary amount of sleep were spent at the organ improvising.

THE CHAPEL.

The gentle musician, whose life was in itself a perfect harmony,
awakening sweet melodies, is a very sweet remembrance for those
who knew and loved him. He had cheerfully offered to accom-
pany Bishop Flaget into his new field of labor, and was at once
appointed superior of the new seminary. Here he worked with
tireless zeal among the young Levites who had cast their lot in
this fertile though uncultivated portion of the vineyard of the
Lord.

In December, 1812, it was these young seminarians who built
the little log-cabin, about seven miles from the present magnifi-
cent structure, that sheltered the five earnest souls who formed
there in that rude, poverty-stricken home the nucleus of what
is now a noble organization, the fame of which as an educational
and benevolent institution has spread throughout our land.

But in these early days only God, who saw the pioneers of
this great work working, sewing, reading, spinning, and at the

1 893.] A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 469.

same time receiving instruction, could have had any idea of the
wonderful growth and extension with which the small beginnings-
were to be blessed. We, who at the close of this century en-
joy all the privileges that civilization can give to make the road

BISHOP McCLOSKEY.

to learning a royal one, cannot conceive of the hardships and
trials these pioneers of eighty years ago had to suffer.

The success of Nazareth in the beginning was largely due to-
the very superior mothers they had. There were three in the

4/o A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,

arly history who stand out prominently, a trinity of strength,
beauty, and devotion. Catherine Spalding, a member of the
talented Kentucky family of that name, joined the community in

THE STUDIO.

the first month of its existence ; and shortly after was elected
superioress for a term of three years, a position she held for
eight successive terms. She was the pivot on which the affairs
of the growing sisterhood turned for many years. She was a truly
remarkable woman. Among the saintly religious of the West
Mother Catherine's name stands pre-eminent. She had the at-
tributes of mind that peculiarly fitted her for leadership purity
of intention and indomitable will. Straightforward in purpose,
never vacillating, she had a clear understanding of duty and per-
formed it most faithfully. It is related that when once called
to testify in a court over which Henry Clay presided, her testi-
mony was given with such perfect grace, candor, and intelligence
as to elicit from the great statesman the highest compliments ;
a proceeding, as we may well suppose, not at all in keeping with
her delicacy and modesty, but nevertheless a spontaneous tribute
from one great mind to another. At her death, in March, 1858,

1893-] A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 471

she was attended by her friend and distant relative, one of Ken-
tucky's glorious sons, Right Rev. Martin J. Spalding. Surely

FATHER RUSSELL.

when her white soul entered heaven its greeting was, "Well
done, thou good and faithful servant."

Mother Frances Gardiner, the second of this wonderful trio,
had a talent for administration ; but it was not on that account
that the hearts of her spiritual children went out to her in love
and reverence. It was rather because there was seen in her every
word and act an extraordinary love of God. The firmness of her

472 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,.

faith and piety, her absolute devotion to our Lord in the Blessed
Sacrament, are the traits most remembered and admired. She
passed sixty years of her life in the community, for thirty-five of
which she was superioress. She was succeeded in office by the
gifted and beautiful Mother Columba, of whom too much cannot
be said.

After Mother Catherine Spalding's there is no name so well
known to the Catholics of Kentucky as that of Mother Columba
Carroll. It was Sister Ellen O'Connell, a most accomplished
woman, for many years directress of studies, who trained her in-
tellectual gifts, and Sister Columba Tarleton, a saint of the com-
munity, who directed her spiritual growth ; and to these two is
ascribed the greater part of the development of this rare and
pure young soul in the religious life. Their influence was ex-
erted not by words alone, but by the silent force of the example
of most saintly lives. Margaret Carroll was a pupil of Nazareth ;
graduating at sixteen, she immediately entered the novitiate, and
upon Sister Columba's death took her name, and with it came
the spirit of sanctity for which Sister Columba Tarleton is re-
membered to this day. United to exquisite beauty of soul was
an unusual beauty of face and figure, the embodiment of grace
and dignity. For thirty-five years she was directress of studies
and teacher of the first and second classes. It is impossible to
estimate the good this beautiful woman accomplished as a teach-
er, because a teacher's influence is never ending. In 1862 she
was elected superioress, and for more than ten years ruled with
extraordinary tact and zeal. One of the red-letter days of the
community was her golden jubilee, on February 22, 1877. A
drama, written by Sister Marie, entitled " Religion's Tribute to
our Mother on her Golden Jubilee," was rendered by the pupils,
and was the most pleasing feature on the programme. Addresses,
musical and poetical tributes, gifts and congratulations poured in
upon her ; but perhaps the most touching evidence of the great
love borne for her was the accompanying lines, written by old
Sister Martha, one of the original five who started at " Old Naz-
areth."

TO MOTHER COLUMBA

THERE are many to-day, dear Mother,

Who are crowning your head with gold,
And writing fine things of the record

Your fifty long years have told.
And I too should come, with the others,

My offering before you to cast ;
But I am old, and my thoughts, dear Mother,

Somehow will fain run on the past.

On the days when our Naz'reth, dear Naz'reth,

Was not like what Naz'reth is now ;
When we lived like the ravens and sparrows,

Our dear Lord only knew how.
Then we spun, and we wove, and we labored

Like men in the fields ; and our fare
Was scanty enough, and our garments

Were coarse, and our feet often bare.

We had then no fine, stately convent :

No church-towers reaching the skies ;
Our home was a low-roofed log-cabin,

Which a servant now'days would despise ;
But we had, in that humblest of shelter,

What the cosiest palace might grace,
And fill it with glory and honor

Mother Cath'rine's angelic face.

She told how the path we had chosen

Christ honored by choosing the same,
And taught us how we should be sisters

In heart and in deed as in name.
And there was our dear Mother Frances;

God has blessed her and spared her to see
The mustard-seed sown in the forest

Grow up to the wide-spreading tree.

And you were one of our first pupils ;

'Tis true God has wonderful ways :
How little we thought what the future

Would bring in those first early days !
I remember how gladly we hailed you

(God's wise plans always fit in and suit),
And 'tis fitting that He should have placed you

To gather the blossoms and fruit !

Forgive if too long I have prated

Of bygones on this your own day ;
But we're going so fast, we old sisters,
And with us are passing away

So many traditions and memories

That precious and sacred we hold,
I feel that their beauty and radiance
Would make all the brighter gold..

474 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan. r

In 1878 her career was closed, but not for ever; in the hearts
of those she loved she reigns a mother still, with all the charm
that clung to her in life. It was meet that such perfection-
should have been preserved in entire devotion to God, the All-
wise, who placed her in this convent school where her holy in-
fluence could have the widest scope.

To these three, Mothers Catherine, Frances, and Columba,
the community owes much of the sanctification of its members.
All three were deeply imbued with the religious spirit, all emi-
nently fitted by nature and grace to adorn their high position.
They built the bridge over which the community passed to its
present prosperity.

In Kentucky the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth are to be
met wherever the needs of suffering humanity call them. From
their mother-house at Nazareth have sprung forty-seven branch
houses in various parts of the country, schools, orphan asylums,

VIEW FROM THE BARDSTOWN PlKE.

and hospitals. The best known of the latter is the " Mary and
Elizabeth " Hospital in Louisville, founded by William Shake-
speare Caldwell as a memorial of his wife, and a tribute from
this good man to the sisters who educated her.

1 893-] A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 475

The mother-house, a few miles from Bardstown and about
forty miles south of Louisville, is well worth a visit. After pass-
ing through the rather unattractive country, Nazareth seems "an
oasis in the desert." As we left the train at the convent station

MR. AND MRS. W. S. CALDWELL.

on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and looked about as
far as one can see, on either side extended a beautiful park of
fine old trees, magnificent survivors of the " forest primeval."

But we soon came in sight of the convent itself. Whatever
impressions had been formed from the first glimpses of Nazareth
caught through the trees bordering its fine avenue, in a full view its
magnitude is surprising. One is not prepared to find buildings so
extensive and imposing in the backwoods of Kentucky. A turn
to the right and we reached the presbytery, where a warm wel-
come greeted us from the reverend chaplain, Father Russell, who
has ably filled the place of spiritual director to the community for
twenty years ; a man whose character is laid in broad and sim-
ple lines ; a kind and devoted friend ; a wise and tender father
to the flock, who fully appreciate his unobtrusive goodness.
Father Bouchet, the vicar-general of the diocese, is the ecclesias-
tical superior, without whose good advice there is nothing of
large or small importance undertaken in the community.

The sisters hold in loving memory the name of the late Fa-
ther Haseltine, for many years their director.

.476 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,

From the presbytery we went to the Convent and Academy,
the latter having a frontage of one thousand feet. They are
united by a cross-hall, and there is a covered corridor from the
rear of the convent into the church. To the left of the Aca-
demy is the Commencement Hall, having a seating capacity for
fifteen hundred persons.

The main entrance to this historic school is through the old
convent. A short flight of steps leads up to the front door, which
opens into an old-fashioned hall twenty feet square. On the walls
.are full-length portraits of Bishops Flaget and David and Father
Chambige, founders of the order. Like all convent homes, the
most exquisite neatness and order prevail, and everywhere was
noticeable that spirit of peace and cheerfulness so apparent in
the faces of good sisters. The reception-room on the left is an
ordinary square room, furnished simply in the usual convent
style. The oratory, a sweet and silent retreat where many a
igirlish trouble is told to that loving mother so ready to help,

COMMENCEMENT HALL.

is within easy access of the study-hall. The library, containing
five thousand volumes, is on the second floor. In the corner is
.an excellent bust of the late Archbishop Spalding. In the studio,

1893] A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 477

where the girls were hard at work, is a painted portrait of the
archbishop, and another of Right Rev. William George McClos-
key, the present Bishop of Louisville a most striking, elegant-

YOUNG LADIES' ORATORY.

looking gentleman, who for the twenty-five years of his episco-
pacy has been a true friend of this noble institution.

The laboratory is fitted up with the very latest appliances
for the study of the natural sciences. Here the theories of
chemistry and physics are put into actual use by practical exper-
iments. After a little stay in the dormitories and the class-
rooms, we descended to the region dear to the feminine heart
the kitchen. Here, again, were the latest improvements in cook-
ing utensils, and the pupils are regularly instructed in the practi-
cal art of housekeeping.

In a hurried visit to the Museum with Mother Cleophas, one
of . the leading spirits of the community to-day, who in the
term of office recently finished followed closely the traditions
of the past, we found a large room well filled with botanical,
mineralogical, and physiological specimens, and then once more
we stood at the door and bade adieu to her and Mother Hel-
ena, the present superior. The kind and gentle faces of these
VOL. LVI. 33

478 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,

good nuns, framed in their snowy caps, are the last sweet remem-
brances we carried away with us from this interesting place. It
is owing to their able administration, energy, and ceaseless labors
that Nazareth keeps the place it has won in the educational
world.

Among the many cherished remembrances the sisters have is
one of a visit from Orestes Brownson, a celebrity dear to all
Catholic hearts. He was perfectly delighted with his visit, re-
marking that Nazareth was the most homelike of any institution
he had ever visited.

Leaving the convent, we visited the beautiful Gothic chapel r
the gem of the place, every niche and corner of which, it may
truthfully be said, represents a great sacrifice. " My children,""

THE MUSEUM.

said Father David, "build first a house for God, and he will
help you build one for yourselves." His pious and prophetic in-
junction was happily realized.

A group of girls were coming from the chapel as we en-
tered ; young, innocent, careless of the future, unmindful of the
past, do they realize the immense importance of the present ?
In after years, when trouble and care have laid their heavy

1893-] A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 479

hands upon her who was "the sweet girl graduate," with what
intense pleasure she looks back to the days she spent in the
peaceful haven of those convent walls ! A woman never forgets
her school-days ; the memory is like a strain of sweet music with
all the discords forgotten, and only the harmonies remembered.

As for the sisters, their delicate personality meets with a
ready and sympathetic response in the young hearts placed under
their care. The obligations laid upon them they discharge with
the utmost fidelity. They are above everything teachers, and
realize to perfection the deep significance of their office, " to
mould intellect, to develop character, to influence the whole fu-
ture of a soul after the priesthood there is no more sacred call-
ing." Well are they prepared for their life-work.

Perhaps the most important educational department at Naza-
reth is the training-
school for young
sisters. Here they
are prepared for
their future work ;
they are perfected
in music, art-work,
pharmacy, nurs-
ing, and class-
work, from the
kindergarten to
the higher branch-
es taught in the
most finished
schools and acade-
mies, according to
the best approv-
ed and newest
methods.

There is no
more conservative
body in existence
than the Catholic
Church. In her

wonderful system

,1 . , , MARY ANDERSON.

there is a well-or-
ganized supervision of every detail of work from the preparation
of a Vatican encyclical to the establishment of a kindergarten in a
parochial school, and she takes cognizance of every step onward

480 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,

in all branches of progress, and adopts for her own only those
things in the educational world that by trial and experience have
been found good. It is, then, perhaps unnecessary to say, in the
face of the above statement, that Nazareth, one of the best-known
institutions in the country, is abreast with the times in all mat-
ters relating to education. If it had not been foremost in the
ranks it could not have secured the prestige it now enjoys,
could not have numbered among its patrons some of the most
distinguished men of our country Henry Clay, who sent his
daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter there ; Judge

THE LABORATORY.

Benjamin Winchester, John J. Crittenden, Judge John Rowan,
Zachary Taylor, Jefferson Davis, James Guthrie, George D. Pren-
tice, Governor Charles Wickliffe, and a host of others identified
more or less with the growth of our country.

Among the hundreds of pupils it is difficult to discriminate,
but it seems appropriate to mention a few who have attained
distinction in special lines, and such as are well known to have
entertained a particular attachment for Nazareth, of whom it
may be said no vicissitude of time or fortune, neither absence
nor distance, had power to diminish the ardor of their youthful

1893-] A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 481

affection. Many creditable representatives of Nazareth are found
in all ranks of society, among the wives and daughters of dis-
tinguished men as well as those of lesser note. Far back in its
records there appears the name of Ann Lancaster Smith, one

GENEVIEVE MORGAN; NOW MRS. JUDGE MULLIGAN.

worthy of special distinction for her disinterested devotion to
Nazareth, and her life-long active interest in all that concerned
its prosperity, as well as for her generous benefactions to the
church, the seminary, and the orphan asylum. She was the path-
finder for a long generation of the Lancaster name who were
pupils of Nazareth, and became distinguished representatives of
the institution, among them Madame Catherine Lancaster, of the
Sacred Heart Convent, Clifton, Cincinnati.

The Spalding as well as the Lancaster family, famous in
religious and literary circles, has sent many clever pupils to Naz-
areth, prominent among them Madame Henrietta Spalding,
present superior of the Sacred Heart Convent in Chicago, and
formerly of the old city convent in St. Louis, whose adminis-
tration in both cities has been able, progressive, and popular.
Few families can show as noble a record of religious vocations
as these two well-known families.

Among the pupils of high social position was the first wife of
Jefferson Davis, Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of President Zach-
ary Taylor. A later period records the name of Mary Eliza,
daughter of James Breckenbridge, of Kentucky, who became the
wife of William Shakespeare Caldwell,* of New York, father of

*It is related that once when Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell were travelling in Europe they
took French lessons from an eminent master in Paris. The teacher, remarking on its per-
fection, asked Mrs. Caldwell where she learned her French grammar. " At Nazareth, in the
backwoods of Kentucky," Mr. C. laughingly interposed. " It is a pity you did not learn it
there too," was the reply.

482 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,

Mary Gwendoline Caldwell, chief benefactress of the Washington
University, and Lina, Baroness Hedwitz. Another prominent
graduate was Florence Steele, who as wife of Senator Vance,
of North Carolina, graces Washington society ; also Mrs. Vincent,
another member of the Capital's bright circle, who was beautiful
Laura Lancaster, and Mrs. James Maroney, of Dallas, Texas, who
gives a yearly medal. The annals of Nazareth record no more
lovely women, none more devoted to their Alma Mater, than the
four nieces of Jefferson Davis, Mary, Lucy, Anna, and Elizabeth
Bradford, all converts, graduated at a little later date. Mrs.
Ansolem McGill, Mrs. James Meline, Mrs. Banks, Mrs. Mcllvain,
Mrs. Charlotte Mcllvain Moore, Mrs. J. L. Spalding, Mrs. Captain
Marr, all graceful writers, were graduates of this famous school of
the South-west. Another pupil of Nazareth was Genevieve Mor-
gan, whose father was prominent in Nashville affairs, and is
buried in its State capitol in recognition of his many public-
spirited acts. She married Judge James Mulligan, an eloquent

THE LIBRARY.

member of the Lexington bar, and representative in the State
senate. She is a fluent writer for the Lexington Transcript, of
which her husband is editor.

1893-] A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 483

Mrs. Sarah Irwin Mattingly and Miss Mary Irwin, both pu-

. pils of Nazareth who have written for various magazines with

creditable success, have just entered upon an educational career

in opening at Washington, D. C., " The Washington College,"

for the higher education of girls after the plan of the European

THE ROAD TO THE DEPOT.

colleges where oral instruction is the important feature of the
curriculum.

Mary Anderson was another distinguished pupil taught by
the good nuns of Nazareth. Who does not hold in affectionate
remembrance " our Mary " ? who in all the years she was before
the public kept her name unspotted from the world, a living
proof of the invincible armor given by a good Christian educa-
tion, which keeps the girl safe even in the glare of the footlights,
the most trying position a woman can assume. Miss Taney, the
author of the State poem, " The Pioneer Women of Kentucky,"
which was written for the World's Fair, was a pupil of these
nuns.

Such is the record this old Kentucky school bears before the
world ; an unblemished testimony to the Divine care bestowed
upon these faithful souls from their early lowly days to their

484 A FAMOUS CONVENT-SCHOOL OF THE SOUTH-WEST. [Jan.,

present prosperity. The history of the church is full of contrasts
no less wonderful than here presented in the account of Naza-
reth. The parable of the mustard-seed has gone on repeating
itself from its first utterance.

And now comes the " last scene of all in this strange event-
ful history," the quiet resting-place where lie those whose crossed
hands rest above hearts that are still, unmindful of the clods
above them, unheeding the passing of those in whose hearts they
live for ever. The dust of years is gathered on the graves of
saintly Bishop Flaget with Mother Catherine lying at his feet,
Bishop David, Mothers Frances and Columba. But there is
something left, a sweetness that lives, that will live across a
wider space of years than lies between " New Nazareth " in its
stately beauty and " Old Nazareth " in its lowly poverty, almost
as humble a place for the Son of God as that shrine afar off,
over which the Star of the East shone in glorious splendor
eighteen centuries ago.

" Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."

1893-] THE ANCIENT POLAR REGIONS. 485

THE ANCIENT POLAR REGIONS.

TTT -,, T j t , . . , 11

HEN day after day we look upon the same land-
scape with the same sun lighting it up, when we
observe the same seasons with monotonous regu-
larity following one another year after year, it is
not easy to rid ourselves of the idea of fixity :
we imagine that our earth and the sky above it have always
been as we see them to-day, and that cold and heat have from
the beginning divided the year as they divide it now. When
we speak of time we unconsciously limit our mind's eye to the
narrow horizon bounded by history and tradition, and further
back than sixty centuries our thoughts do not wander. But in
reality everything around us and above us has changed and is
changing.

The distinguished French scientist De Lapparent says, in his
Traite de Gtologie : " To maintain that since the beginning of
its history the earth has always had before it the same sky
as to-day, would be to misunderstand the general law of the
universe, in which the phenomena of periodicity serve as a rule
only to mask a slow but certain advance towards an end inces-
santly pursued." As a matter of fact this earth of ours has long
passed its youth ; it is now verging on old age, and with its
poles covered by everlasting ice, it may be likened to a body
whose extremities are bleached and paralyzed with years. Even
in the geological period which immediately preceded our own,
and which is known as the Post Pliocene or Quaternary, great
changes took place, and man has been a witness to them. The
rivers of to-day are mere brooks compared to what they were
then, and in North America we can trace the shore-lines of
immense quaternary lakes which no longer exist.

But while this fact may interest and perhaps surprise us a little,
it does not tax our credulity so much as when we are told that
once, instead of snow and ice, a luxuriant vegetation flourished
not far from the poles. Indeed, the French naturalist Buffon
believed that on our planet, which was slowly cooled and con-
solidated, life began at the poles ; and that from thence it spread
in the direction of the tropics, where at first the heat was too
intense to admit of any kind of life. But it is only within re-

486 THE ANCIENT POLAR REGIONS. [Jan.,

cent years that we have been able to get a glimpse of the
ancient Arctic zone, which is much more accessible than the Ant-
arctic, and what has thus far been brought to light makes Buf-
fon's daring conjecture appear not so very improbable.

In Spitzbergen and Greenland, in Alaska, along the banks of
the Mackenzie River, even in Grinnell Land between eighty
and eighty-three degrees north latitude the farthest point yet
reached fossil plants have been found belonging to the Carbon-
iferous, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary periods, and these plants
have been described by Professor Oswald Heer, of Zurich, in
his admirable work Flora fossilis arctica. The fossil sequoias
of Grinnell Land bear an unmistakable resemblance to the liv-
ing sequoias of California, while the fossil laurel Laurus primi-
genia of ancient Greenland is said to be the direct ancestor of
our present laurel.

Among the ferns of Spitzbergen belonging to the Jurassic age
we meet with the first fir-tree. And it is interesting to observe
this primitive fir in company with the same shrubs and trees
which at that far-off epoch it may be millions of years ago
flourished in more southerly climes. During the middle of the
succeeding age, the Cretaceous, the fossil plants found between
seventy and eighty degrees north latitude bear witness to the
fact that already a season of cold, very slight it is true, had be-
gun to manifest itself. The flora of this age is richly repre-
sented both in Spitzbergen and Greenland. In the latter region
the largest number of plants have been discovered at a point
seventy degrees north, and among them are many magnolias,
poplars, and tulip-trees.

At the opening of the Tertiary period (which comes after the
cretaceous, and which is divided into three epochs, viz., Eocene,
Miocene, and Pliocene) the tree-ferns of Greenland had become
quite scarce, and its principal forest-trees were oaks, elms, and
hawthorns, while its climate at this time was similar to that of
Japan. The palm-tree, too, had now almost disappeared in this
latitude seventy degrees north ; but we find it becoming more
plentiful in Europe.

Indeed, up to the middle of the Tertiary age, the vegetation
of central Europe did not essentially differ from that of the
tropics. But within the Arctic Circle the cold which had set in
went on increasing, a season of snow became more definitely
marked, and slowly but surely the flora adapted itself to changed
conditions, until at length it turned into a purely Arctic flora.

1893-] THE ANCIENT POLAR REGIONS. 487

It was now that the forests of the polar regions disappeared
never to return, while the small plants, which continued to live
and to bloom in the brief and briefer Arctic summers, were
plants which had come down from the highlands into the val-
leys. But some of these plants migrated southward and found a
.congenial clime on the mountains of Europe, Asia, and Ameri-
ca ; and when to-day we meet with Alpine plants bearing a
strong resemblance to polar plants, may we not find in the his-
tory of the ancient polar regions a key to this resemblance ?

But while recent discoveries have proved that Greenland
(which in a former age might have been called a continent, for
it touched Spitzbergen on the east and south, took in Iceland,
perhaps even included Scotland, while to the north it stretched
beyond the eighty-second degree) was once the original native
home of an abundant vegetation, scientists are not agreed as to
what brought about so vast a change of climate. Some would
explain the high temperature which once prevailed from the poles
to the tropics by the greater central heat of our globe. But in
answer to this it has been said that the caloric contained within
the central nucleus must soon have ceased to exert any marked
influence over the earth's surface : we know that the surface of
a lava flood, even several yards thick, soon cools and solidifies.

Professor Heer, in the introduction to his work on fossil
plants which we have mentioned, puts forward the hypothesis
that our earth is carried by the sun around a central star buried
in the depths of space, and that in accomplishing this inconceiv-
ably immense cycle of a year whose seasons must be measured
by myriads of centuries the Miocene epoch representing one
summer and the Glacial period one winter we pass through al-
ternate regions of great heat and great cold. But he gives no
valid reason for supposing that there are different temperatures
in different parts of stellar space, and his theory has not found
many supporters.

Another hypothesis which refers variations of climate to the
combined effects of the precession of the equinoxes and changes
in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, is held by some high au-
thorities. Others, again, explain climatic variations by geograph-
ical causes by a different distribution of land and water. We
know, for example, that the Gulf Stream has a marked influence
on the temperature of Western Europe. But if the narrow strip
of land called the Isthmus of Panama were to disappear (and
there was a time when it did sink below the sea-level) this great

488 THE ANCIENT POLAR REGIONS. [Jan. r

fan-shaped current of warm water, equal to a river fifty miles
wide and a thousand feet deep, might perhaps flow westward
into the Pacific Ocean. Yet if this were to happen it would
mainly affect the temperature of one continent only.

What would seem to weaken these several theories of climatic
variation is the fact that, when viewed from the broad stand-point
of geologic time, we perceive nothing oscillating, nothing intermit-
tent in the change. Heer, by ten years of patient study, has been
able to reconstruct the temperature of nearly the whole series of
latitudes from the fortieth to the eightieth degree, and the result
shows that the climates of our globe grow steadily milder and
more summer-like as we go backward in time. Thus we find
the palm-tree growing further north in the Miocene epoch than
in the Pliocene, and in the Eocene further north than in the
Miocene ; while in the Cretaceous age a warmth like that of the
tropics prevailed everywhere.

Perhaps the best explanation of the moist, mild climates of
the Paleozoic era is that given by the French scientist, Dr.
Blandet, and which has been accepted by the geologist, De Lap-
parent. It is founded on the gradual condensation of the solar
mass.

In the beginning the solar mass, which was very diffused,,
must have projected on the horizon of the earth a disc measur-
ing an angle sufficiently great to nullify at first and then to at-
tenuate the effects of latitude, as well as to prolong beyond
limits the winter twilight at the poles. Add to this a triple r
perhaps a quadruple, density, of the atmosphere, which was thus
rendered more capable of storing up heat as well as of holding
equivalent quantities of watery vapor and of giving it out in the
form of abundant rains, and we have what certainly seems a
reasonable way to account for the primeval climates. The light
which then reached the earth passed through a nebulous atmos-
phere, and Professor Heer makes the interesting remark that the
plants which are analogous to those of the earliest age of plant
life, such as the ferns, as well as the most ancient families of
insects, evince, as if influenced by a dim tradition, a marked
preference for shady, obscure spots.

Let us say in conclusion that the cooling of the polar regions,
and the lowering of the temperature of the continents south of
the Arctic zone, was complicated by great watery precipitations
and an excessive humidity, which became, under certain favor-
able topographical conditions and with slight geographical changes,

1893-] THE ANCIENT POLAR REGIONS, 489

an active cause of glacier extension during the Quaternary pe-
riod and gave rise to what is known as the Glacial epoch. Of
this De Lapparent says : " . . . The epoch characterized by
the Quaternary glaciers is unique in the history of our planet
and was preceded by nothing analogous."* But these abundant
rains have now passed south of the temperate zone and are con-
fined to the tropics. At the same time the cold which over-
whelmed the ancient polar regions is not arrested in its pro-
gress ; the cause which first brought it on is still at work. Our
sun is v becoming more and more condensed, and by and by it
will no longer find in the contraction of its diameter a source
sufficient to keep up its energy, and with the extinction of the
sun our earth must perish.

The approach of this deadly world-chill is infinitely slow so
slow that history takes no note of it ; but in time the now
crowded, busy portions of the earth must meet the fate of
Greenland and Spitzbergen. This day is still buried in the dis-
tant future ; but far off as it is, the lesson of the past tells us
that it is coming.

WILLIAM SETON.

*Tratte Geologie, p. 1281.

490 AMERICA'S WORKMEN. [Jan.

AMERICA'S WORKMEN.

'HERE is no question in the United States more
lasting or more far-reaching than the welfare of
America's workmen. I do not restrict the name
to those who work with their hands ; I include
also those who work with their brains. Indeed
all kinds of labor, even the most manual and the most menial,
are getting to be so changed that a certain amount of skill and
of brain-power is used in them. The success of the nation de-
pends upon the prosperity of the toiler. His interests must be
looked after, but the role of the demagogue must not be played.
The lockouts, the strikes, the destruction of property, the vio-
lence, the bloodshed, and the murders of recent years recall
the most lurid chapter of Ccesar's Column, and show clearly that
labor is still far from its millennium. The magnificent millions of
the few and the perceptible poverty of the many, even in
America, the El Dorado of the workman, are too striking not to
call forth uneasiness in these days when the people are said to
rule.

An economist as well as a philanthropist, the late Cardinal
Manning, writing to a Catholic Congress held at Liege, a few
years ago, said : " For a hundred years capitalists have deliber-
ately concealed their enormous profits, and at the same time
bought labor at the lowest price."

The distribution of wealth is frightful in its very inequalities.
Still I do not believe that the social system is radically and
hopelessly wrong. I do believe that American workmen can
right their wrongs by the machinery at their disposal and with-
out violating any law human or divine. The laborers have a
majority of votes and the greater amount of physical strength,
even if the word workmen be taken in its restricted sense.
What they need, therefore, for success is a sufficiency of intelli-
gence and a proper direction of the same.

In a land where Lincoln the ploughboy, and Johnson
the tailor, and Grant the tanner rose to the highest posi-
tion in the gift of this or of any people, it should not
be necessary to dwell upon the dignity of labor. Christ,
the highest type of manhood, devoted himself to manual labor.

1893-] AMERICA'S WORKMEN. 491

There should be no such thing as starvation in this land.
The political economy of Paul of Tarsus is worth recording.
The saint writes : " For also when we were with you, this we
declared to you : that if any man will not work, neither let him
eat."

Nature never blunders ; man does. God never creates a wrong ;
man does. The eyes, the mouth, the lungs, the feet of a new-
born babe are nature's own evidence of the child's right to
light, food, air, and earth to walk upon. Whoso is willing to
work has a right to eat. Every man has a natural right to the
necessaries of life. This is so universally acknowledged that
our theologians are unanimous in teaching that extreme necessity
justifies one in taking what would otherwise be the property of
another. Such a case would arise if one's life were in danger,
for example. The same is true of quasi-extreme necessity.
That which in other circumstances would be theft, ceases to be
so in presence of such necessity. The reason is to be found in
the law of nature. Any division of property cannot run counter
to the natural law of self-preservation. For this law is higher
than any by which property can be regulated or divided. Catho-
lic theologians sum up the aspect of the question I am treating
of by the theological formula or axiom. In extreme necessity
all things become common. I give the words of Thomas Aqui-
nas, the prince of theologians. He writes : " When there is a
manifest and urgent necessity and no other resource is at hand,
a man may lawfully relieve his necessity out of the goods of
another a case in which there can be no question of theft or
robbery. For in virtue of his necessity those things become
his property which he takes to sustain his life."

The Teacher of the parable of Dives and Lazarus would not
hold a starving man responsible for taking enough to relieve his
pressing want. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that there
is no life beyond the grave, to what a hopeless, and useless,
and joyless existence the unjust man condemns the over-worked,
and under-fed, and under-paid multitude of his fellow-men !

And suppose there is another life, if the teachings of Chris-
tianity be correct, the fate of the gravely unjust rich man will
be that of Dives in the parable. St. James writes : " Go to
now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries which
shall come upon you. You have stored up to yourselves wrath
against the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who
have reaped your fields, of which you have defrauded them, crieth

492 AMERICA'S WORKMEN. [Jan.,

out ; and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord
of sabaoth."

God did not send poverty ; man created it. Man is not poor
because of a curse from heaven. If he were, what a splendid
argument it would give Atheists and scoffers against the bounti-
ful God of the Christians !

Just as every man, born into this world, has an equal claim
to the means of eternal salvation, so has each one an equal
claim to the means of decent subsistence. This is nature's own
legislation, and no human law can abrogate it. The army of
tramps is said to be increasing in the United States every year.
Tramps are a foreign manufacture. They were not contemplated
by the founders of the American republic, and were partially
unknown in the United States for a long time. There should
be no tramps either from choice or from necessity. To become
a tramp from choice shows a depth of personal dishonor entirely
out of harmony with American modes of thought. To be a
tramp through necessity is an evidence that our law-makers neg-
lect a grave duty. The state is bound to see that no man
starves who is willing to work. To it belongs the solemn and
sacred duty of promoting the welfare of the many and thus
bring a ray of sunlight into their lives. There is abundance for
all in this God-favored land, and if some are in need it is gen-
erally because of an unequal and unjust distribution of its trea-
sures, and rarely through their own fault.

Poverty is a source of vice. It drives people to the despair
of atheism. The people want justice rather than charity. It is
not in accordance with the laws of divine or of human honesty
to rob men of their wages and dole it out in charity. Godliness
and greed do not go well together. Piety and penuriousness,
even when the latter does not reach the aggravated form of
being unjust, are looked upon as a contemptible combination.
Establishing art galleries, founding public libraries, building col-,
leges or even churches, cannot be accepted as compensation for
injustice done to our workmen.

Wealth must be made to recognize its obligations. Its own-
ers are stewards in a certain sense and not irresponsible masters.
No matter how wealthy men may be, they have no right to
claim a monopoly of the earth so as to frustrate the divine in-
tention, which is that the earth is for all men. If they own the
possessions of the human family, they must look to its needs,
just as a father is bound to provide for the members of his

1893-] AMERICA'S WORKMEN. 493

household. I quote again from Thomas Aquinas : " Human law
cannot abrogate the divine or natural law. And according to
the natural order instituted by God's providence, material things
are destined to meet the needs of men. Hence no partition or
appropriation of these things can avail to prevent their being
employed to meet men's needs."

It is a very false doctrine to teach that the world's wealth
was created for the use and pleasure of the few, without any
obligation on these of supplying the wants of the many. Take
the large factories of the country. They have somewhat of a
public as well as a private value. By reason of the former they
owe certain obligations to the men who work in them. A man
cannot do as he pleases with his own as long as he forms a
part of the social organism. It were quite another thing if he
could withdraw from the society of his fellows and live after
the fashion of the primeval desert-hermits, Paul and Anthony.

In his sounder days the manifold millionnaire of Pittsburgh,.
Mr. Andrew Carnegie, used to disapprove of the idea of leaving
vast wealth to one's heirs, and used to teach that to die rich is
to die disgraced.

It would be much better for humanity in general to give
workmen their full share of wages, than to curtail them and try
to make up for this by generous donations for public purposes.

Writers on political economy are at one in saying that there
are few economic subjects so difficult as the actual amount of
wages which workmen should receive. The abstruse nature of
the subject itself and the cleverness of capitalists in concealing
their earnings, combine in making the subject very hard to solve.
Several elements have to be considered. Men may have employ-
ment at certain works all the year round. In case they have
not, then on the days they work it is necessary for them to
earn at least as much as will support themselves and their fami-
lies for the whole year. The average length of the working life
must also be taken into account. The life of a worker in lead,
for instance, is much shorter than the life of one who works in tin.
Hence his wages should be proportionately greater. Then there
may be technical or trade expenses to be borne by the work-
men. In spite of the vague and shadowy rules for the regula-
tion of wages it is clear that the minimum of a just wage should
be enough to maintain a home. Otherwise family life becomes
impossible and the commonwealth cannot prosper. It is a vio-
lation of the virtue of distributive justice to take advantage of
VOL. LVI. 34

494 AMERICA'S WORKMEN. [Jan.,

a man's necessity in order not to pay him full wages. Hence
the iron law of wages known as competition is not a just stand-
.ard of measurement. There should be an honest proportion be-
tween the receipts of the workmen and those of their employ,
ers ; in other words, wages should have a fixed relation to the
value of the work done.

It is not necessary that there should be a war between pam-
pered capital and persecuted labor, for the pampering of one
and the persecution of the other can be stopped by reasonable
brain-work. Men and masters have many interests in common.
They should think of these rather than try to keep in full view
their few opposing interests.

Oscar Wilde writes, that some years ago people went about
the country saying that property has its duties. They repeated
it so often, continues the elegant Oscar, that now the pulpit has
begun to say it. One almost feels ashamed to write the thread,
bare statement, that workmen have a right to organize. And yet
there is a necessity for repeating this teaching, because such a
right is still denied by employers. No man of God ever lectures
capitalists on the immoralities of their unions, and no man has
a right to question the lawfulness of labor unions. If anything,
they are laudable, for they help to preserve equity inasmuch
as they are offsets against the combinations of capitalists.

The chief question for the American laborer regards the
means by which he will enforce his rights. There are certain
things which he must shun if he will succeed. Howsoever just his
claims may be, he has no right to enforce them by violence.
Such a means of redress is against the law of God, against the
state, and against the workman's own interests. There are in
the world two supreme organizations : the church and the state.
Each of these may permit or even encourage subordinate societies,
but they cannot tolerate unions in open warfare against them.
When workmen beat non-union men, attack the national guard,
or, mayhap, the regular army, they put themselves in direct an-
tagonism to the state, and it must either crush them or abdicate
its functions. They may use moral force upon the non-union
men ; they must not use barbarous methods to enforce claims
howsoever just. Violence as a solution of the labor problem is
unintellectual and un-American, as well as immoral. It is an ap-
peal to the tribunal of brute force rather than to the forum of
intelligence. It obstructs the prosperity of the country at home,
and it injures its reputation abroad. It does more: it retards

1893-] AMERICA'S WORKMEN. 495

the cause of humanity, for it tries to show that republican form
of government the best yet known is not the success which its
advocates maintain. It injures the cause of labor in two ways.
First, it prevents the prosperity of the country; and if the coun-
try as a whole be not prosperous, labor cannot flourish.
Secondly, it alienates sympathy from the workman. Without
the good will of the greater and sounder portion of the commu-
nity, the workman cannot hope to make much progress. The
lesson must be learned that, as peace is superior to war, so is
the intellectual method of settling a difficulty superior to the
violent one. The sooner workmen realize that violence can-
not be recognized in the labor movement the better for their
cause. When an attempt was made to assassinate Frick, of the
Homestead troubles, the American people, howsoever much they
hated Carnegie's representative and his methods, at once declared
the murderous act to be a profanation of the sanctuary of our
republican form of government, and they stamped assassination
as the weapon of the slave rather than of the freeman.

The question of strikes is altogether different. A strike may
or may not be lawful according to the circumstances of the case.
To strike without cause may be unlawful, for it may occasion
public disorder, promote enmities, inflict hardship on innocent
third parties, and is clearly antagonistic to national prosperity.
But when a strike will probably obtain a benefit for the work-
men which the employer unjustly refuses, and when this benefit
cannot be obtained by less vigorous measures, then by all means
a strike is lawful. It is a question among moralists whether men
engaged in transportation service and such similar semi-public
work have a right to strike or not. The chief reason assigned
by those who deny them such a right, is because their actipn is
directly injurious to whole communities of innocent people. If
we assume that such men are not justified in striking, they cer-
tainly have a right to insist upon some equally efficacious means
of settling differences with their employers. But the best author-
ities on labor do not favor strikes. They are a last resort, an
appeal to the purse rather than to the intellect.

Moral force is the chief reliance of the workmen of to-day.
The anarchists and murderers fresh from the dynasties and
tyrannies of Europe will never receive a firm foothold among
the intelligent workmen of the United States. A sense of uni-
versal justice must be taught and is sadly needed. The many
must not be ruined for the benefit of the few. The wealthy

496 AMERICA'S WORKMEN. [Jan.,

have to learn simple living, less ostentation, the vanity of mere
display, and the foolishness of extravagance. They are quite
right in providing for their dependents ; they are quite wrong
in supposing that beyond this point they have no duties to their
fellow-men and to their poorer brethren above all others. No
matter how perfect the world may become some will always ap-
pear at a disadvantage. For legislation, howsoever just, cannot
abolish in individuals the inequalities of strength, foresight, in-
dustry, etc. A more specific remedy is needed for workmen's
grievances than to say that we must go back to Christ, his ex-
ample and his teaching. Probably the heartless individual who
scrimps the seamstress of her scanty wages, or mulcts the miner
of what is his due, thinks he is going back to the simplicity of
the Gospel, and living up to the Sermon on the Mount, pro-
vided he builds a church or endows a library.

Labor and capital should encourage co-operation and not con-
flict. There should be conferences between the representatives
of each, and if these fail then the best-known remedy for griev-
ances is arbitration. This must come, not after relations are
strained, or laws are broken, or property is destroyed ; it must
come as a matter of course, and as soon as a grievance demands
it. Deeper than this is the workman's remedy of the ballot-box.
And deeper and more fundamental still is the question of edu-
cation. He is and must necessarily be in the majority. And if
he were only educated up to the point where vast organization
were practicable, and up to the point of realizing his enormous
power at the polling booth, there is not a single grievance which
he could not remedy.

JOHN CONWAY.

St. Paul, Minn.

1893-] AT THE TOURNESAL. 497

AT THE TOURNESAL.

HE Chalamette shell-road in New Orleans begins
beyond the Rue St. Ferdinand ; and, white and
shining in the sunlight, meanders for miles
along the side of the green grassy embankment
of the levee, shaded by cypress-trees that cast
their shadows on the sparkling mass of amber waters called
the Mississippi. On the land side of the road grow thick to-
gether myrtle-trees of the silver-veil and pink-crape kind, and
not unseldom orange-trees that I have often wondered remained
unrobbed, exposed as they are to every passer-by.

Facing the white road, far past the Ursulines and Friendly
Sisters' street, and on the other side the Rue La Manche, is an
old white mansion of one story, long and broad, and surmounted
by a cupola. The mansion has an overhanging tiled roof, sup-
ported by the white fluted pillars of a gallery that is on its four
sides, and it is set in a garden of orange, nectarine, and blazing
pomegranate trees. The foliage, of every hue of brilliant green,
spreads shadows of a vivid violet on the iridescent pebble paths ;
the carmine nectarines gleam among their leaves of tender green ;
the yellow orange glistens in nests of waxy leaves ; the blood-red
pomegranates glow on their black and gnarled branches, and the
white, golden-hearted clamber-rose runs riot to the topmost
boughs of the trees, swinging itself from limb to limb till it
forms a canopy of flowers and perfume over the paths, almost
shutting out the blue sky and the rays of the intense sun.

More than a quarter of a century ago this place and a square
mile of land about it belonged to the De la Manches, a family who
had died off, or who had been killed off, till no one of them was left
save the daughter of the house, Flore de la Manche, and in 1865
.she disappeared, no one knew whither. Fourteen years after, in
1879, tne house and garden had got into dilapidated condition,
when they were bought at a public sale by an enterprising Gal-
vestonian, who fitted them up for a winter resort, and time
showed that he had been sagacious in his venture.

Adjoining the garden and immediately on the road is the
Tournesal, a small yellow house possessed of a yellow tiled roof,
black Venetian blinds, and a pair of folding doors, also painted
iblack. Tradition says that this house, long ago, was the studio

498 AT THE TOURNESAL. [Jan.,

of a De la Manche who had been given to painting, and there is
a legend to the effect that he became very famous. This last
is somewhat borne out by the fact that in the catalogue of
the Paris Salon for 1820 there appears the name of a picture
of a Loufsianian named Edouard de la Manche. There is, as well,
in the New Orleans Museum, a small painting of a Louisiana deer
hunt the animals very life-like signed " Manche." The picture
of the hunt, however, may have been painted by a progenitor of the
numerous Manche family who live across the river in Algiers, and
who are by no means to be confounded with the De la Manches,
another family altogether.

Whatever the house called the Tournesal had been, in 1880
it presented a worse appearance even than had been that of the
mansion when bought by the Galvestonian. In this year carpen-
ters and painters set to work to repair and paint it. Shortly
after it had been made habitable an elderly lady and an aged
negress took possession, and in a few days the neighbors learned
that Mile. Flore de la Manche was the name of the lady, Mam-
my Suzon that of the negress. They also learned that Mile, de
la Manche had bought the house.

No one expressed surprise, or was surprised, at the return of
the last of the De la Manches. The older neighbors had witnessed
so many wonderful changes that nothing less than a general con-
vulsion of nature would have caused them to be astonished ; and
to the younger ones, with the solitary exception of the Galvesto-
nian, the De la Manches were much as are other folks. The
proprietor of the mansion treated his neighbor with much con-
sideration, and respected her privacy, when he sent her word
that he would take it as a favor if, during the months between
April and October, she would look upon the garden as her own
and make use of it accordingly. Besides, he made genteel capi-
tal of the fallen gentlewoman. Very few of the boarders who
came to the pleasant mansion to escape the cold winter of the
North failed to hear the story of the woman they saw returning
day by day from Mass at St. Martin's, attended by the aged ne-
.gress. And very much amazed would mademoiselle have been
had she known that it was considered that she gave a certain
tone to the mansion.

Seeing her so well clad, that a woman came daily to cook
and clean, and that an abundant store of good provisions passed
through the black folding doors into the Tournesal, many of the
boarders began to believe that mademoiselle was rich, and that
she was waiting her opportunity to buy back the mansion.

1893-] AT THE TOURNESAL. 499

Mile. Flore was not rich ; neither was she poor. It is true
that the comfortably furnished Tournesal was hers, that she was
well clad, that she had her black coffee regularly, her well-ap-
pointed dinner served by Mammy Suzon. But all this was done
out of a carefully guarded income of five hundred dollars a year,
with sometimes an addition from what she called her talent.

Not even to mammy did mademoiselle ever speak of the
dreary year in which they had fled from ruin and desolation to
destitution in New York, nor of what had seemed to be the
vainest of vain searches, her search for work. Sometimes she
spoke of the school in the pretty suburb that, after much labor,
she succeeded in getting herself appointed to teach. But what
she and mammy often spoke of was the check the mail brought
to her one day in payment for a little tale she had written for
one of the journals, and of like payments for like matter that
came afterwards. This was before the deluge of Southern litera-
ture, and though she lived to see it, mademoiselle still found
room for herself, when it came, -on the lowest round of the lad-
der of fame. Editors had discovered that she was painstaking,
that what she wrote pleased a certain class, and that she could
always be trusted to fill a gap. This was the high-water mark
of her literary fame she could be safely counted on to fill a gap.
Neither she nor mammy knew this.

Her tales and sketches were signed Tournesal, and on rare
occasions faint praise had been vouchsafed them in her presence.
Once she read one of her little stories to her pupils, they not
knowing their teacher to be the author, and the children were
pleased. After that she read them others, and the boys said
they were "tip-top" and the girls said they were "lovely."
Though for praise that would have been fulsome had it not been
so honest mammy was the one to give it, for mammy was con-
vinced that outside the gospels there was no such fine writing
as that which was written by her " Mamzelle Flow."

She was still a young girl when she began to write, but she
was an old maid before she had gained what she felt was the
only earthly thing left for her to gain. As much money as could
be pinched from her meagre wages as school-teacher, and all the
money that was paid her for her writings, was laid aside to buy
back, not the mansion that she knew could never be but the
Tournesal. To gain this object, mammy, if possible, was more
eager than was mademoiselle, her foster-child and mistress. And
of the two, when at last, after fifteen years of self-denial of every
sort, there was a little capital in bank and the Tournesal was

500 AT THE TOURNESAL. [Jan.,

bought, it would be hard to say which one was the most thank-
ful to Heaven. There is this to be said, however: whilst Made-
moiselle Flore, who had always been accessible to every one, re-
mained so, Mammy Suzon became almost offensively overbearing
in her deportment to all the world outside the Tournesal, con-
vinced that all the world was but as dirt under her " mam-
zelle's " feet.

As has been said, Mammy Suzon served the dinner to Made-
moiselle Flore, and this was almost the sole service she was per-
mitted to render. It was her "priv'ludge," she insisted stoutly,
when her mistress would have forbidden her old age even this
light task. So every day, as on this evening of the twenty-sec-
ond of August, 1888, mammy, her horn-rimmed spectacles set
firmly on her nose, her much-starched and gaily-colored turban
worn with dignity, stood beside the dinner-table waving slowly
to and fro an enormous palm-leaf, not so much in token of vic-
tory as to keep away the flies.

The apartment that did a triple duty, for it was indifferent-
ly a salon, a sitting-room, and a dining-room, had about it a
quaint air of refinement and of gentle repose. Its only distin-
guishing feature, aside from its occupants, was a low and curi-
ously-wrought bookcase, which faced the window looking out on
the garden. A pair of black bronze urns with handles of gilded
wreaths stood on the top of the bookcase, one on either side.
The delicate odor that pervaded the room proceeded from the
rose-leaves and orange-leaves preserved in these urns. Between
the receptacles for sweet odors, and resting on a rosewood stand,
was the miniature on ivory of an exceedingly handsome youth
of fair complexion, dark eyes, and curly hair of a pale, yellowish
brown. Paradoxical as it may seem, though the eyes of the
youth were languorously soft and gentle, his face was strong and
masculine.

To those of her few friends who put questions to her about
the miniature of the handsome youth, Mademoiselle Flore would
say : " It is the miniature of Lieutenant Frank Berkely. He was
killed at the battle of Fair Oaks, in the spring of 1862. His
mother was a Benoit, and the Benoits were old friends of my
parents. Yes, he was very young when he entered the army
only nineteen. My mother was very much attached to him."
Then she would remark something, foreign to the miniature, in
order to divert the friend's attention from it and Lieutenant
Berkely.

Mademoiselle Flore looked tolerably young for a woman in

1893-] AT THE TOURNESAL. 5OI

her forty-first year. It is true her hair was white ; but then it
was thick and was worn in puffs that gave it the appearance of
being powdered ; her complexion was fresh with a tinge of rose,
and her soft merino gown and the frill round her neck were
quite youthful. She often fell into long silences and fits of ab-
straction, out of which she would emerge with a little sigh, if
left to herself ; but if spoken to, with a vivid blush that almost
transformed her face into that of a young girl.

There was a particular reason to-day for the unusual liveli-
ness of her manner, a liveliness that did not ill become her.
The editor of The Avenue had written her a letter requesting a
story. He did not say that he wanted to fill a gap. On the
contrary he wrote an exceedingly polite letter that asked for
" one of your nice, quiet, and well-bred stories of about three
thousand words." Arid then went on to state the price he was
willing to pay, which, it so happened, was more per thousand
words than mademoiselle had ever before received.

"I think I shall have to begin my story immediately after
dinner," she said as Mammy Suzon removed a bowl of iced
shrimps to make room for a tiny plate of soup. " It was so
good in the editor to write such a pleasant letter," she added
dreamily.

" Them kin* doan' git er Deller Manche ter write foah 'em
ev'ry day," said mammy, her chin high in the air.

" I wish they did," returned mademoiselle", with a touch of
humor altogether lost on mammy.

After that mademoiselle made no further remark till the
dessert of white figs and a nectarine had been placed before her.
" What shall I write about, mammy ? I cannot think of any-
thing," she then said, admiring the contrast of colors presented
by the white figs and pink nectarine on a bed of fig-leaves.

" Lawd bless you, Mamzelle Flow ! " cried mammy, highly
flattered. " Wha' foah you ax me that ah ! Ter th' bes' of my
knowledge, 'pears ter me you ought ter write 'bout ouah own-
liest fam'ly."

Mademoiselle gave mammy a startled look, and said under
her breath : " Why, mammy ! I have thought of that, and
thought of it. My own story ! They would not know it was of
myself I wrote."

" Jes' so, Mamzelle Flow, jes' so ! " exclaimed mammy, chuck-
ling with delight. " An' you ain' foah'getten ter say I'se borned
in er fam'ly, is you?" she asked concernedly.

Mademoiselle raised her downcast eyes and looked at mam-

502 AT THE TOURNESAL. [Jan.,

my thoughtfully. " Mammy," she asked, her face breaking into
a smile, " what does the salt do for the dinner."

"Wha* does er salt do foah er dinner? whoo ! whoo ! "
laughed mammy. " I reckon, mamzelle, you knows wha' it doan
do when Lanthy done lef er out."

" Well, mammy," said mademoiselle, " you are as necessary
to my story as salt is to the dinner."

" Look at that foah a fac' ! " ejaculated mammy solemnly,
crossing her hands on her broad bosom and nodding her head.
"An", mamzelle," she continued, in a burst of excitement; "you
ain' foah'getten my ole man, Ignace ? He b'long ter ou'ah fam'ly
an' he burried in er vaulk, he is ; * he ain' no trash."

" I won't forget Uncle Ignace," she replied as she rose from
her chair and walked to the window looking out on the garden,,
leaving mammy to call in Lanthy to clear the table and to
oversee the work, much to the discomposure of that rather
shiftless young woman.

When the table was cleared and the lamp lit and placed on
it, mademoiselle took from a drawer in a cabinet a parcel of pa-
per, whilst, with awful reverence, Mammy Suzon set an inkstand
and tray of pens before the lamp. " Mammy," said mademoi-
selle, untying the parcel of paper, " call in Lanthy before she
goes home, and we will have night prayers and, mammy, I
' shall be up late to-night ; perhaps you had better go to bed
after Lanthy locks up."

Mammy made an old-fashioned courtesy that she had learned
from mademoiselle's mother. Their long residence North had
almost destroyed their custom of speaking in French, but it was-
in that tongue that mammy said : " If mamzelle pleases, I would
rather remain here while she writes." And mademoiselle re-
sponded very seriously : " I shall be charmed to have you here."

This little ceremony had been enacted many, many times be-
fore ; but on each occasion of its being repeated mademoiselle
and mammy treated it as if it were something entirely new.
To mammy grandiose etiquette was a species of .holy ritual
that tickled her inmost soul ; and because it pleased mammy,
mademoiselle was pleased.

From a book of prayers that she put on her eye-glasses to-
read mademoiselle prayed for herself, for her little household,
for her dear dead. And the two black women, kneeling on either
side the table, recited their responses with a hearty reverence,

* Only paupers and Jews are buried underground in New Orleans ; the latter from
choice, the former for want of choice.

1893-] AT THE TOURNESAL. 503

and the earnest devotion of the trio was sweet as the odor of
rose-leaves and orange-leaves that pervaded the room.

Mademoiselle's pen did run back and forth over the narrow
tinted paper till late into the night ; mammy nodding mean-
while in a great cushioned arm-chair, her hands clasping a ro-
sary she alternately recited and dozed over. Once mademoiselle
laid down her pen, and, her hands folded on her paper, gazed
before her, her eyes moist.

" Was you thinkin' of Marse Frank, mamzelle ? " asked Mam-
my Suzon with tender respect.

" A little, mammy," she answered vaguely, and taking up her
pen, continued to write.

" Wahn't it up in Virginni on er Chickenhom'ny that ar bat-
tle war fought, mamzelle ? You done tole me so," persisted
mammy.

" Yes, mammy, the Chickahominy," replied mademoiselle
gently.

" I thought it war th' Chickenhom'ny," murmured mammy as
she dozed away into what soon became a profound sleep.

Mademoiselle attributed, rightly, her own and Mammy Suzon's
vigorous health to the beneficent influence of exercise in the
early morning air and sunshine. And morning exercise was so
strong a point with her that, late as it had been when she laid
aside her pen the night before, she was up betimes with mam-
my to walk to St. Martin's for Mass. For the daily hearing of
Mass was a work of supererogation mademoiselle never failed to
perform.

Mademoiselle looked tired and worn this morning, as she and
mammy walked homewards under the shade of the cypress-trees
and out of the glare of the flashing river so worn as to call
forth a remark from mammy that " mamzelle war jest done
out."

" No, I am not tired, Mammy Suzon," she said ; " I am think-
ing of my story. After breakfast I will go over it quietly
while you are overseeing Lanthy. I have many corrections to
make."

Mammy's' reverence for the literary moods of her mistress
was great enough to cause her to preserve silence for the remain-
der of the walk, and to induce her when they reached home to
hurry Lanthy with the breakfast, in order that mademoiselle
might be left alone with her manuscripts as soon as possible.
She need not have been so peremptory with Lanthy in regard to

504 AT THE TOURNESAL. [Jan.,

the quality of the breakfast, for mademoiselle showed herself
very indifferent to it when it was set before her, and herself
helped Lanthy remove the dishes from the table, so anxious was
she to go to the pile of neatly written tinted paper awaiting her
on the sill of the garden window.

Nevertheless, when at last the room door had closed on Mam-
my Suzon and Lanthy, and she was seated by the window, her
adjustable table before her, mademoiselle did not immediately
set to work at her manuscript. Her head resting on her hand,
she gazed out on the garden where, between two orange-trees
and among tall white lilies that grew wild, stood a moss-grown
bench hewn out of stone. She sat so motionless that a little
blue lizard, watching a fly struggling to get through the wire
window-screen into the room, was emboldened to spring at its
prey, and succeeded in capturing it without disturbing her.
Even the myriad ruby humming-birds hovering over and darting
their long bills into the crystal cups of the lilies failed to. attract
her attention. It was only when her hand fell idly on the pile
of manuscript, and her fingers rustled its pages, that she was
recalled with a start and a blush from the past to the present.
" I was forgetting !" she exclaimed half-aloud, and took up a leaf
of the manuscript to read over her story.

There is no author who has written much hack writers not
being taken into consideration who has not written at least one
meritorious thing worthy of preservation. And mademoiselle
had at last written her one thing out of her heart. Never had
she achieved anything so good, and she rightly felt that never
again would she write as well. The story, simply told, was of a
man's faithful love for one dead ; and what gave to it a particu-
lar charm was, that in it there was an utter absence of anything
like a striving after effect. The chief characters of the story
were a youth of nineteen and a girl a year younger, who loved
and who were to have married, but the girl died. The man,
through long years, remained faithful to the girl, whom he
looked upon as his dead wife, as he felt she would have been
faithful to his memory had he been the one to die. Not a spe-
cially new story, it might have been made by an unsympathetic
hand a piece of veriest sentimentality. But what 'mademoiselle
made of it was an idyl of loyalty that had the merit of singular
pathos and of truth ; for it was her own story, all but the details,
transferred to the personality of Lieutenant Berkely. The details
she had altered, even to situating the scene of the story in a
foreign country.

1893-] AT THE TOURNESAL. 5OJ

Slowly she read page after page of the manuscript, often
stopping humbly to correct a word or alter a sentence, and had
reached the last paragraph, which summed up, with a truly ex-
quisite reticence of words, the story of the man's chivalrous loy-
alty to his dead, when the sudden pause of carriage wheels on
the drive through the garden caused her to look up.

The foliage was so thick between her and the drive that she
could barely perceive a man and woman seated in an open car-
riage. Presently she heard the man call to a negro boy lolling
on the grass, to know if the mansion was occupied ; and the boy
replied that it was shut up for the summer, but that a lady
lived in the Tournesal. Then, after some words had passed be-
tween them, the man and woman got down from the carriage,
and walked, laughing and talking, through the swaying lilies to
the stone bench, where they seated themselves.

Mademoiselle drew her hands quickly across her eyes, and,
holding her face between them, peered through the wire screen.
" Has my story driven me mad ? " she cried to herself.

Whatever the age of the man seated on the bench might be,
he was apparently not more than thirty-five, and in the sunlight
his light curly hair might have made his strikingly handsome
face appear even younger. And it was evident that he was
exceedingly proud of the young and pretty girl she was more
of a girl than a woman beside him. All this mademoiselle could
see through the wire screen that prevented her being seen. The
gently blowing wind came from the direction of the stone bench
to the Tournesal, and carried to her the words the man was
now saying to his companion : " Yes, Gertrude, this is the
place where I was reared. You know I told you M. de la
Manche was my guardian. I am glad we have taken in the old
place on our way home."

Mademoiselle's answer to this was something like a sob.

" How sad that they are all dead," said the girl, and the
wind ceasing for a moment, mademoiselle lost the rest of the
speech.

When it again arose, the man was saying, " After the war,
when I was at last released to go into a hospital, I found out
from the few friends left that I was thought to be dead "

Again the wind failed to carry her what was said, and again
it arose. " I wrote and wrote," said the man, " and received no
answers to my letters, but I learned that they were all dead,
though some believed Flore to be living. I did all I could to
find her, in spite of the assurance I felt that she was dead ; for

506 AT THE TOURNESAL. [Jan.,

had she been alive, my letters would have found her, and she
would have written me."

The girl laid her hand on his and, looking him in the face
earnestly, asked: "You loved her very much, Frank?"

He took her hands in his and said : " You are my wife, Ger-
trude, remember that ; you must not be jealous."

" I am not jealous, Frank, " expostulated the girl ; " how
could I be ? She is dead, poor thing, and if she were alive she
would be dreadfully old. But did you love her very much,
Frank ? ".

" She was as good and pure as an angel," he replied ; " and I
did love her very much, Gertrude."

Mademoiselle sank to her knees and, hiding her face in her
hands, sobbed bitterly. When she raised her head to dry her
eyes she heard the roll of the carriage wheels, and listened
intently till the sound of their part of the work of grinding
the shells on the road to powder had died away.

She rose to her feet painfully, and having gathered together
the leaves of her manuscript, forty-one in all, she placed them
loosely and with great care in the small brazier that stood in
the fire-place. There was a box of vestas on the mantel-piece,
and when she had struck one of them, she applied the fire to
the under leaf of the untrue story.

While the leaves of the manuscript burned merrily and sent
out a thin cloud of smoke, Mammy Suzon burst into the room in
great excitement. "I knowed I smell' fiah ! " she exclaimed.
"Wha" you doin', Mamzelle Flow?"

She had been gazing at the merry flames, and now turned
her eyes on mammy.

" I have burned my story," she said gently, " and I shall never
write again. And," she continued, as she moved to leave the
room, " I. am going out for a walk in the garden. Come out
when I call you, Mammy Suzon, and I will tell you a story."

1 893.] FREDERIC FRO BEL'S CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. 507

FREDERIC FROBEL'S CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN.

GREAT wave of kindergarten enthusiasm has
been passing over the whole country during the
past two or three years, sweeping before it much
of doubt and distrust, and of the prejudice that
has existed against Frobel and his kindergarten
system. College professors, teachers, educators everywhere, even
those whose work does not bring them into contact with very
young children, are now thoroughly alive to the necessity of be-
ginning aright and at the very beginning, if we are to be suc-
cessful in the all-important work of education.

We are told, and truly, that the end and aim of education is
the formation of character ; therefore, if we would achieve that
end, we must have education that is development not merely
instruction we must begin our work while yet character is form-
ing, and as an aid to the best and most harmonious develop-
ment of the human heart and mind and body the kindergarten
claims our special consideration.

To those who do not understand what the kindergarten is,
a brief account of Frobel's childhood may be the simplest intro-
duction, for the events of his own life are closely connected with
his opinions and give the. key to his educational theory.

He was born in a small village in Prussia in 1782. His father
was a clergyman, austere and cold, to whom, he says, he re-
mained a stranger all his life. His mother died before he was a
year old, and, although he never knew her, he believed that from
her he inherited his imaginative and artistic nature. His father
married again in two or three years, and while at first this new
mother seemed to encourage the love and confidence of the
lonely child, as soon as she rejoiced in a son of her own she
became to him a step-mother indeed, and treated him with ne-
glect, unkindness, and even injustice, which is ever the hardest
trial for a sensitive nature to bear. In his autobiography Frobel
dwells upon this change in his step-mother's manner towards
him, because, he says, " I recognize herein the first cause of my
early introspection, my desire for self-knowledge, and my youth-
ful separation from other human ties."

508 FREDERIC FROBEL'S CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. [Jan.,

At the age of ten his mother's brother took him to his own
home for a while. This uncle was a widower, of a more genial,
kindly nature than Frobel's father, and, as he had lost an only
son, he gladly took to his heart this child of his dead sister. In
this congenial home, where peace and plenty reigned, the boy's
whole nature expanded, he improved in health of body as well
as of mind, and spent there five happy years. It was during;
this period of his life that he became what he remained to the
end, a close observer and lover of nature. He delighted in the
free, out-of-doors country life, where he could watch the devel-
opment of plants and of animals. Perhaps it was then, too, or
during the following three years while apprenticed to a forester,
that his mind received such strong impressions of the analogy of
the human being to the other organisms existing in the world,
and the consequent belief that man should grow and develop as
they do harmoniously and completely.

He was always very religious, and early resolved " to be truly
noble and good "; and noble and good he surely was. " The
blessed thought came to me," says Frobel, " human nature, in
itself, does not make it impossible for man to live and represent
again the life of Jesus in its purity ; man can attain to the purity
of the life of Jesus if he only finds the right way to it."

In this rapid sketch it would be impossible to follow him
through his varied experiences as forester, then as student at the
University of Jena ; as land-surveyor and as architect. The first
impulse toward his true vocation was given when he accepted a
position as teacher in a model school. Here, for the first time
in his life, he felt himself in his true element. Having heard and
read much of Pestalozzi, whose name was just then the watch-
word in education, he soon became his pupil, and from that time
he was always_both teacher and pupil.

His lonely, neglected childhood and his efforts at self-instruc-
tion led him to study the children in the streets, to help them
with their plays, and to direct them in such a manner as to
make them helpful and instructive. Thus gradually, from the
study of nature, of philosophy, and of his fellow-being, was evolved
the kindergarten idea that the child must be developed and
trained by natural methods ; that is, according to the laws of
nature.

Frobel's theory is : /. The process of spiritual development
goes on according to fixed laws. 2. These laws correspond to the
general laws which reign throughout the universe, but are at the
same time higher, because suited to a higher stage of development.

1893-] FREDERIC FROBEL' s CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. 509

j. This system of laws must be traced back to a fundamental law.
This he calls " The law of opposites and their reconciliation "
or " The law of balance," and he applies it to education. He
argued that if the unconscious development of the child is gov-
erned by this law, educators must apply it to his later develop-
ment if they would assist nature and not hinder it, and they
must carefully lead children to use it themselves in all their work
in the kindergarten.

The word kindergarten means child-culture ; so a kindergarten
is a child-culturing institution. Its aim must be development
the formation of character, not instruction, or the pouring in of
knowledge, but a drawing out of all the latent faculties of the
whole human being.

The object of the kindergarten, as Frobel puts it, is : " To
take the oversight of children before they are ready for school
life, to exert an influence over their whole being in correspon-
dence with its nature ; to strengthen their bodily powers ; to em-
ploy the awakening mind; to make them thoughtfully acquainted
with the world of nature and of man ; to guide heart and soul
in a right direction, and lead them to the Origin of all life, and
to union with him."

It was a simple, child-like man who originated the kindergar-
ten method, and devoted his life to teaching it and endeavoring
to impress the truth of his views upon others. Unfortunately
for him, just when he had most reason to hope for success in
Germany, his nephew, Carl Frobel, chose to publish a pamphlet
entitled High Schools and Kindergartens, which the Prussian min-
istry denounced as socialistic and atheistic. The author's name
and the title of his pamphlet caused him to be mistaken for his
uncle, and immediately the Frobel kindergartens were closed by
order of the Prussian ministry.

I would emphasize these facts, because I have recently learned
that some of these Carl Frobel views have found their way
across the ocean, and even now the same old mistake is made
here, which may account for the foolish charge we sometimes
hear brought against the kindergarten : that its originator was
an infidel. And even supposing for one moment that this were
true; if his methods were the most logical, the most scientific,
and the best, shall we be satisfied with anything less than the
best?

But he was indeed a thoroughly religious man. He regarded
the nature of the child as three-fold in its relation to nature, to
VOL. LVI. 35

510 FREDERIC FROBEL' s CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. [Jan.,

man, and to God ; he aims at the harmonious development of
this three-fold being, and declares that " all education that is not
founded upon the Christian religion is one-sided and fruitless.'*
Is not this the principle for which Catholics have long been con-
tending? Is it not for this that they bear the burden of double
taxation, and multiply parish schools all over the country ?

It was a sad blow to this earnest man of single purpose to
be thus publicly accused of atheism ; it seriously affected his
health and was really the cause of his death.

Three years after his kindergartens were prohibited he was
invited to be present at the German Teachers' National Assem-
bly at Gotha, and as he entered the hall, in the midst of a dis-
course, the whole assembly rose as one man, and at the close
of the speech three rousing cheers went up for Frederic Frobel.
At last he had the joy of a " universal recognition of his efforts,"
says the Baroness Marenholz-Bulow. This was in May, 1852,
and in June, a month later, Frederic Frobel died peacefully at
Liebenstein. Future generations shall prove the full value of
his legacy to mankind. It has come to us like anything else
worth having, through suffering and self-sacrifice.

To Frobel everything in nature was God's gift to man,
through which he should learn to know him ; therefore the ma-
terial which he . prepared in the kindergarten to serve for the
development of the child he divides into " gifts " and " occupa-
tions."

The first gift consists of six worsted balls in the six spec-
trum colors. The ball, or sphere, is the simplest of all forms
and is the type of all organic things in their beginnings. In the
second gift we have the ball again of wood this time its op-
posite the cube, which is the simplest type of the mineral king-
dom, and the cylinder, which reconciles these opposites, bearing
a close resemblance to both, and representing the form common
to animal and vegetable life. This gift is the basis of the kin-
dergarten system ; from it are derived all the other gifts, and it is
the embodied law of " contrasts and their reconciliation," the
universal law of equipoise. It is this cube, sphere, and cylinder
reproduced in stone that constitute the monument marking his
resting-place in the little village of Schweina ; a fitting monu-
ment, perhaps, for the inventor, but hardly complete as marking
the grave of the Christian who would attain to the purity of
the life of Jesus Christ.

In America the kindergarten system has been making its

1893-] FREDERIC FR'OBEL'S CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. 511

way slowly but surely, and to-day it is recognized as the true
beginning for all education. It is the preparing of the soil, as
it were, and the planting of 'the seeds of truth, beauty, form,
color, sound ; and of order, which is heaven's first law. It has
already done much toward modifying the old methods of teach-
ing. I find traces of its influence in every primary school; but
it is in the charity kindergartens that the greatest good has so
far been accomplished.

It has been truly said that kindergartening is not a trade
but a mission, and it is essentially woman's mission. Every one
admits the truth of that old proverb about " the hand that rocks
the cradle," and that idea breathes through all of Frobel's work
for the education of little children. He says that woman is the
educator of mankind, and believes that the child should begin to
be educated as soon as he is born ; therefore he has a great
deal to say to mothers about the early education of their chil-
dren, and has given us his wonderful book of Mother-Play
which illustrates so admirably the kindergarten theory.

Every child needs the kindergarten. It is the natural bridge
between the nursery and the school. It is needed by the chil-
dren of the rich who are too often left to the care of servants
who may or may not be honorable, but who surely are not the
best qualified to take in hand the three-fold development of the
future capitalist. It is needed by the children of every Ameri-
can citizen whether rich or poor, for the child of to-day will be
the citizen of a few years hence, and he cannot begin too early
to learn his lesson of self-control and self-reliance ; respect for
his neighbor and his neighbor's rights ; and the giving up of
small personal good for the great and general good of all.

But what shall be said of the crying need of the kindergar-
ten for such children as have no homes the children of the
slums, whose characters are forming in schools of vice ? Their
story has been so well told, their cause presented with such force
and eloquence during the past year, that no word of mine is
needed now to show that something must be done to save these
children.

" The problem of the children is the problem of the state,"
says the children's friend. " As we mould the toiling masses in
our cities, so we shape the destiny of the state which they will
rule in their turn, taking the reins from our hands."

That the kindergarten is to be the solution of this " problem
of the children " is the firm conviction of the deepest thinkers and

512 FREDERIC FROBEL' s CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. [Jan.,

most active workers among the "children of the poor." It takes
the little toddlers out of the gutters, and places them for sev-
eral hours each day under the care of gentle women trained for
such work. From close alleys and reeking slums they are trans-
planted into bright, clean, sunny rooms ; from the companion-
ship of older children already depraved, or of over-worked and
often drunken and brutal guardians, to the supervision of con-
scientious teachers who probe for the germ of good to be found
in every human heart ; developing, helping ; encouraging right
doing for right's sake ; making the little ones happy in their
play which is their work and through this work forming ha-
bits of obedience, neatness, order, and industry. The child is
surrounded by gentle, loving influences ; useful and instructive
work is supplied for his natural activity. There are bright,
pretty pictures on the walls ; there are music and songs for the
march and the games, in all of which the teachers join, making
the children feel their interest in all that concerns them. They
win their confidence and affection, and govern them by methods
that are reasonable, and that appeal to the children's sense of
justice, and they direct all the work, observing ever the under-
lying laws and principles which govern and animate the whole
system. " Learn by doing " is the kindergarten motto, and the
golden rule is practised, not merely taught.

Although all our work and play is strictly regulated by law,
ample time is given for free invention, and room is allowed for
individual activity. Then, too, we spend much time in " make-
believe " land, so dear to the hearts of children ; and in our
games we are " make-believe " soldiers, farmers, carpenters, mil-
lers, bakers, weavers, shop-keepers what you will ; and here is
born and fostered a thorough respect for work and for all
workers.

The number of kindergartens in New York City must be
nearly a hundred and fifty, not counting those attached to pri-
vate schools. The New York Kindergarten Association, of which
Mr. Richard Watson Gilder is president, and Mrs. Grover
Cleveland, vice-president, had in October, 1892, nine kindergar-
tens well organized and well filled with children ; and many
others waiting for a chance to enter. Churches of all denomina-
tions have adopted the kindergarten.

In the Catholic Church it has been steadily gaining ground
since 1878, when three of the Sisters of Charity entered the normal
class of Mada-me Kraus-Boelte and made a thorough study of the

1893-] FREDERIC FROBEL'S CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. 513

system. Other sisters in turn studied with these, and it would
be a surprise and a pleasure to many Catholics to visit their in-
stitutions, and to see the happy children under their care. Per-
haps the best place to begin would be the New York Foundling
Asylum or the Catholic Protectory. In each of these institu-
tions there is a very extensive kindergarten conducted by the
sisters; but the work of these noble women is not shouted from
the house-tops, and one must make an effort to find it out.

There is a large kindergarten in the Cathedral parish, under

CHILDREN OF ST. PAUL'S KINDERGARTEN.

the care of Rev. M. J. Lavelle ; one on Fifty-first Street, in the
Sacred Heart parish, established by the Very Rev. Vicar-General
Mooney, and one connected with the large school of the Paulist
Fathers, in West Sixtieth Street ; another belonging to the
Church of the Blessed Sacrament, managed by the Rev. M. A.
Taylor. St. Mary's parish, Grand Street, has a flourishing kin-
dergarten under the supervision of the Rev. N. J. Hughes.
There is one also at St. Joseph's parish school, West I2$th
Street, recently started by Rev. A. Kesseler. No definite esti-
mate can be made at the present time of the kindergartens

514 FREDERIC FROBEL' s CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. [Jan.,

established in the various homes and asylums for Catholic
children.

In parishes where lack of funds is the only barrier to the
formation of a kindergarten it might be suggested that an eco-
nomical plan be adopted similar to that which proved so suc-
cessful at St. Louis under the management of Miss Susan E.
Blow and the Hon. William T. Harris, now Commissioner of
Education at Washington. There was but one paid teacher in
each kindergarten, but that one was thoroughly trained and ex-
perienced, competent not only to conduct the class but to
train others for the work, and the assistants received their
tuition for their services. The kindergarten has been a part of
the public-school system there since 1873, owing chiefly to Miss
Blow's enthusiastic and untiring energy.

In Boston, too, it was a woman who taught the city the
need and the usefulness of the kindergarten, Mrs. Quincy A.
Shaw, a daughter of Professor Agassiz. At one time she sup-
ported at least thirty kindergartens in Boston, and a number
of day nurseries, from her own private purse. The city finally
adopted the kindergartens, but Mrs. Shaw's money still supports
the nurseries.

Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody, whose name is dear to the heart
of every kindergartner, referred to this in a talk to the Normal
Class then studying with Misses Garland and Weston at dear old
" 52." She told us also that the^ Sisters of Charity were study-
ing with Madame Kraus-Boelte, and added : " It is a great tri-
umph for the kindergarten that the oldest and most conservative
church in the world should open its arms to receive it, and goes
far towards proving its truth." She wrote this account of a visit
to the New York Foundling Asylum :

" Several years ago I visited, with my friend F. L. M., this
Foundling Hospital of magnificent dimensions (though I under-
stand it holds but one-third of the children that are under Sister
Irene's care). We were then struck with the great opportunity
as well as great need for the art and science of Frobel, as an
instrumentality in the hands of the devoted women who had
consecrated themselves to the duty of being earthly Providence
to these poor waifs of the human race."

The New York Kindergarten Association has been working
hard for three years keeping the Frobel theory and practice
before the eyes of the public, and now the Board of Education

1893-] FREDERIC FROBEL'S CHRISTIAN KINDERGARTEN. 515

has decided to adopt it and make it a part of the public-school
system, to the gratification of many teachers who have long
been clamoring for this great aid in their school-work. This
means that the city has stamped its seal of authority upon the
kindergarten, and nothing could go further toward removing pre-
judice and promoting the good work.

But the kindergarten is needed not only in every public
school, but in every parish school in the city, for the children
for whom it is to do the greatest good are the children of the
working-people. I heard a venerable priest say recently : " We
Catholics are responsible to God for the souls of these children."
Many are constantly moving from one tenement to another
from one parish to another ; and the only way to reach them
all is to have the kindergarten hospitably open to them, and
wherever they go we can reach them.

Here is another truth from Frobel's Education of Man : "A
religious spirit, a fervid life in God and with God, in all condi-
tions and circumstances of life, will hardly in later years rise to
full, vigorous life if it has not grown up with the child from his
infancy."

Let us begin, then, with the children in their infancy at the
very beginning this three-fold development which is true edu-
cation. Let this education be founded upon the Christian re-
ligion ; and one day we, too, shall build a monument in honor-
able remembrance of Frederic Frobel. We, too, shall take his
own Second Gift, the cube, sphere, and cylinder, for our model,
but it shall be a completed monument surmounted by the em-
blem of our faith the Cross of Jesus Christ.

EMMA W. WHITE.

THE MAGI'S GIFTS.

NAY, Lord, not thus, not thus ! It is not

meet

To bring rich offerings to Thy holy shrine :
Who, having all things mundane and divine
Created, carest not for incense sweet !
These arches towering splendid to the skies,
These gilded altars and these vestments rich,
These costly statues carven in each niche,

Are but the world's display in holy guise.

Nay, when we offer Thee earth's richest store

We but present Thee that Thou hadst before ;

But when our hearts we to Thy service lend,

We offer Thee a gift that ne'er shall end.

And Thou hast said, "A broken, contrite heart

In sacrifice is mine accepted part ! "

LAURENS MAYNARD.

THE MAGI.

518 THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. [Jan.,

ALONSO X. AND THE BIRTH OF SPANISH
LITERATURE.

'HE historian who would fain restore any of those
mediaeval characters which stand or crumble in
the niches of the Temple of Fame finds himself
between the two horns of a dilemma, which toss
him alternately so high and so low that it is only
by chance he lands at last in the happy medium of truth. Es-
pecially is this the case where the glamour of royalty is wrapped
about the figure, distorting all proper proportions of vice and
virtue. The human creature beneath is so disguised by his
trappings ; so much superstitious awe hedges his divine right of
power, or such rebellious discontent smoulders under the breath
of envy or ambition, that we are shown a race of gods or de-
mons rather than of mortal men ; and the sober judgment of
later centuries which attempts the task of reducing to normal
proportions finds a well-nigh insoluble riddle before it. Time
and the man are sometimes of such heroic greatness, and some-
times of such infinite littleness, that the unit of opinion formed
in the first place rests for ever unchanged ; but the vast majority
are still enigmas to puzzle over.

The life of Alonso X. of Castile and Leon is no exception
to the general rule. In many respects it is a typical example.
The circumstances of his accession and reign were so discordant
that both partiality and hatred found brave fuel to keep their
fires alight. His record is a series of contradictions. Inheriting
the fairest and broadest territory which had yet belonged to his
race, he lessens rather than adds to it. A lover of peace, he is
forced into constant warfare. Devoted to his kingdom and ten-
derly affectionate to his family, he comes to the verge of de-
thronement in the one and suffers estrangement and dislike
from the other. Accorded the title of " El Sabio," which was
assuredly at first intended to mean "The Wise" as well as " The
Learned," his vacillating foolishness and erratic conduct made
the title as much an insult as an honor in the mouths of his con-
temporaries. Leader of the Christians against the Moors, and
by heredity their stoutest opponent, he is obliged to appeal for
aid and protection against his own subjects to his infidel enemy;
and swayed by the most earnest desire to be generous and use-

1893-] THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. 519

ful to his country, he becomes hated as an oppressor and de-
spised as a ruler.

No Spanish king before him had such apparent cause for con-
gratulation, or fairer prospects than those which opened before
him, on his accession to the throne. With the united crowns
of Castile and Leon, he held sway over all the northern provin-
ces by right of descent or conquest. The kingdom of Murcia,
the important fortified cities of Granada, and a large portion of
Andalusia, formed part of his patrimony in the South. The
possession of Medina-Sidonia and other places on the Mediter-
ranean coast had resulted in the construction of a respectable
.fleet, with which the country was prepared, if need be, to carry
on war with Africa. The banner of a single royal house floated
from the Bay of Biscay to beyond the Guadalquivir, and from
Portugal to Aragon. The courage of the people had been great-
ly animated by the successful outcome of the later campaigns
against the Moors, and an apparent enthusiasm of sentiment,
rare for such troublous times, was bringing together for a com-
mon purpose of complete expulsion the hearts and the swords
of Spain. For the first time in five centuries the Saracen pow-
er had been seriously impaired ; people and rulers could at last
look forward to the near hope of entire redemption. Fixed
codes of law for settlement of difficulty and security of society
had been introduced to some extent, and the atmosphere was
vibrant with projects for future prosperity and conquest. In spite
of drains which constant warfare had made upon the treasury,
a system of partial taxation and the tribute paid by vanquished
Moorish provinces still left a comparatively good supply of funds.
And like fair visions of additional glory for the future, the dreams
of succession to the German Empire, and the permanent right
to the Province of Gascogne, wavered on the horizon.

Yet with all this Alonso was already heir to three misfor-
tunes, either one of which was menace of disaster. He was son
and grandson of mighty warriors, and the descendant of reigns
filled with splendid heroism, which required equal or greater valor
to continue their prestige of victory. How was this man whom
nature and choice both pushed toward study and thoughtfulness,
whose vocation was that of the student rather than the chieftain,
and of whom circumstances alone made the soldier, to sustain
the burden laid upon him ? Leon and Castile were yet in the
infancy of union, with the thousand possibilities of discord and
conflict between two powerful and rival states, unsoftened by
companionship and common interests. And there was upon him

520 THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. [Jan.,

the incubus of a forlorn hope, the haunting desire which with
fair show of reason pushed him in thought ever toward the
crown of Suabia, and so poisoned content. If one adds to
this the daily struggle of a nature strongly borne toward
studious quest against compelling forces, an unstable will in
temporal affairs, a narrow judgment, a sluggish temperament,
and a conscience keenly alive to praise or blame, one can un-
derstand the possibilities of unhappiness which might naturally
cloud the horoscope of the heir of St. Ferdinand when he
came into the government of his father's realm in 1252.

The chronological record of his reign is simply told. Born
in 1221, his childhood was passed in Toledo under the influence
of his mother, Beatrix of Suabia, and of Berengaria, his grand-
mother. He won his spurs at the age of sixteen, under his
father's eye in battle against the Moors, and afterwards led in
the reconquest of Seville and of other important cities and pro-
vinces. He came to the throne at his father's death in I252 r
being thirty-one years of age. With strong natural inclinations
and tastes for study, his diplomatic and military undertakings
reflect little credit on his name. What with a futile and obsti-
nately maintained claim to the princedom of Suabia, disputes
with his nobility, foolish meddling with the currency of his king-
dom, alliance with the Moors against his own rebellious sub-
jects, and, worst of all, a quarrel with his son Sancho about the
succession to the throne, Alonso X. had an unhappy reign, in
both a civil and military point of view.

The trouble with his son hastened his end. The Prince San-
cho fell ill in the very beginning of pacific negotiations, and
was carried to Salamanca. The forlorn king, tormented in his
affection and wounded in his dignity, forgot at once just indig-
nation and fancied wrong. Grief over the condition of his son,
which day by day grew more serious, was too much for a con-
stitution already enfeebled by failure, by trials, and by bitter
disappointment. He too fell ill, and mortally. Day by day his
attendants found him with face turned to the wall, weeping si-
lently over the danger of his son, while his own life was ebbing
rapidly away. In place of estrangement only loving kindness
remained for the child who had so deliberately plotted his ruin.
And it was thus he died, broken in heart and ambition, on the
fifth of May, 1284, just as Sancho was finally declared conva-
lescent.

There are few sadder comments upon the mutability of hu-
man affairs than the difference between the opening scenes of

1 893.] THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. 521

this life and the closing ; and there are no more touching words
in history than those in which he lays bare the condition in
which he has been placed. Tortured in spirit by the insurrec-
tion of his son, poor in purse, and spent in health, he has ap-
plied to a relative, Don Perez de Guzman, at that time high in
favor at the court of Morocco, to negotiate for the sale of his
crown to the sultan of that country and to beg his assistance.
He asks him to commend himself and his cause to the Saracen
monarch. " For since in mine own country there are none to
care for me or aid me, I must seek among strangers for those
who will pity. And as Castile has failed me, none will complain
if I ask help from the Moor. When my children have become
mine enemies, who can find fault if I strive to make mine ene-
mies my children ?" . . . " Written in my sole loyal city of
Sevilla, in this thirtieth year of my reign, and first of my tribu-
lations." Could more plaintive cry be wrung from the heart of
the father and the king. One sees in it a hurt deeper than that
of wounded pride in the unconscious majesty of outraged affec-
tion. Nor was his remonstrance without avail, although the help
came to him too late.

Little as there is to admire in this sketch of a political career,
one cannot but be moved to pity. Recognizing the real nature
of the man, and the harsh alternatives forced upon him by cir-
cumstance, there is more reason for compassion than contempt.
Impractical and contemplative, yet ever pushed forward with
hand on sword to avenge or avert injury ; hesitating and diffi-
dent where boldness was required to armor swift justice ; tender
and generous, yet constantly being wounded by a moral short-
sightedness which stumbled against the sharp angles of existing
conditions if his work had stopped here there would have been
small space for the name of Alonso X. in annals of Castile or of
the world.

Yet this stone which the builder of history would have re-
fused was really a noble part of the foundation of the lasting
grandeur of Spain. Three generations of heredity in the desire
to encourage letters had made of him what his ancestors would
fain have been the patron of learning, the founder of an imper-
ishable literary inheritance. " But little prudent and of wonder-
ful irresolution in his manner of action," as Mondejar quaintly
says of him regarding statecraft, he shows amazing perspicacity,
promptness, and fidelity in his plans for literary work. The first
to see the possibilities of the vulgar tongue, he does in some
degree for Spain what Dante so gloriously accomplished later

522 THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. [Jan.,

for Italy. The attempt at a written language, which his prede-
cessors had fruitlessly encouraged, he makes a permanent and
accomplished fact. By offer of honor and fortune, he gathers
about him kindred spirits whom the renaissance of letters had
called into prominence ; and with their aid not only plans but
executes works which would be important in any age, but which
are marvellous in that pale dawn of intellectual activity. The
fragment of law which his father, St. Ferdinand, had attempted
to transcribe for the partial guidance of affairs, he amplifies with
infinite research into a code, which embodies most of the rules
of legal utterance in all the centuries since, and portions of
which are in actual use to-day. He forms astronomic tables
which are even now valuable and availed of in the calculations
of modern scientists. He writes, or causes to be written, the
annals of history at home and abroad, and the narration of the
great Spanish conquests over sea. He embodies the legend and
tradition of his country in Las Cantigas, strange wild narrations
of blended fable and fact woven into poems ; tales of miracles
and visions and mighty deeds, in the same inextricable confusion
with which the old Greeks sang their gods and heroes. He has
the Bible translated from the Latin ; and many other books
heretofore reserved for the private use of the student, brought
within reach of the people. What work is this for the time in
which it was accomplished ; and what an enthusiasm of energy
and perseverance does it show ! Our pigmy has grown to be a
giant. We can read between the lines now when Mariani says: "A
man of fine mind but little judgment ; intolerant of counsel ;
slow of speech ; more fit for study than for the government of
his people ; contemplating the heavens and knowing the stars,,
but meanwhile forgetting the earth and his people." It is of
such forgetfulness that immortality is made.

We come now to a particular analysis of the works them-
selves. They comprise in prose: El Historia Universel ; La
Cronica General de Espana ; La Historia de todo el Suceso de Ultra~
mar ; Las Siete Partidas ; El Especulo de todos los Dereckos ; El
Fuero Real ; and others in Opuscales Legalis del Rey Alonso el
Sabio ; and the translation of the Bible. And in verse : Las
Cantigas ; El Libro del Tesoro ; another Tesoro, and Las Quer-
elles.

It is impossible to know in what chronologic order these
should be placed ; but probably Las Cantigas came first in time*
as they assuredly do in literary merit. These canticles, songs,
or poems, as one chooses to call them, four hundred and one in

1 893.] THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. 9 ' 523

number, separate easily into two general divisions. Those of
most value form a series of descriptive narratives in verse.
They are irregular in form and comprise nearly nine-tenths of
the whole collection. The themes are drawn largely, and with
more or less directness from earlier writers in Provence or Italy,
and from traditions handed down among the people from far
remote ages. Written in the Gallegan dialect, which appears to
have been the polite language of the Spanish courts, they dis-
cover the germ of the present Portuguese, as the poem of the
Cid was foster song of modern Castilian. It is impossible to
trace exactly where and when these two languages began defi-
nitely to separate from the parent stock, but the final changes
were not completed before the fifteenth century. Often author,
but sometimes collector, Alonso appears to have given to this
work his best talent, and love. He so far esteemed it as to
carry the volume with him in his journeyings, and ascribed to
it miraculous power to preserve from danger and heal from
ill. In several places mention is made of circumstances un-
der which it was said to have restored him to health. In vary-
ing styles and metres, they are largely the outcome of Alonso's
great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, whose servant he ever
called himself, and in whose honor he founded at least one or-
der of religious knighthood. They were written at what might
be called the culminating point where the close of one epoch of
civilization meets the dawn of another. All Europe was in a
state of scholastic ferment. In Germany the Minnesingers were
lifting into renown the poetic compositions of their native land.
The brilliant philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bona-
ventura in one quarter was being complemented by that of Al-
bert Magnus and Roger Bacon in others. St. Francis of Assisi
was making beautiful and pliable the soft bastard Tuscan so
that it should be possible for Dante to weave from it his sub-
lime Commedia an occurrence to mark in itself an era for hu-
manity. Throughout the borders of civilized Europe were al-
ready laid the corner-stones of those splendid cathedrals which
make the wonder and despair of modern architecture, while from
Cambridge and Oxford to Salamanca the great universities were
being founded by wise and loving hands. Something of all this
intellectual movement is reflected in Alonso's Cantigas, mingled
with strong devotion and eager belief in miraculous interposi-
tion. Apart from supernatural phenomena related in some,'
others exalt, in the form of parable, the virtues of chastity, tem-
perance, patience, truthfulness, or heroism. One of the loveliest

524 THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. [Jan.,

in spiritual significance is that of the Monk Felix and the little
bird, which Longfellow has adapted in his " Golden Legend."
Some describe visions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, which
may not have been wholly outside the line of Dante's inspira-
tion ; some, again, stories of souls led to make pact with the
devil through greed of wealth or ambition, and saved afterward
by renunciation and repentance, or by the interposition of the
Blessed Virgin. Others yet, record personal experience of mi-
raculous interposition. The parables are mainly very transparent
homilies, in which gambling, profanity, and irreverence are lashed
in the persons of their victims, while the opposite virtues are
exalted with an amazing fervor.

The lyrics are much less remarkable, although their simplic-
ity and naive candor make them interesting as types of the in-
tellectual processes of the times. They are not of the school of
Browning or Owen Meredith ; they need no interpreter. But as
Juan Valera says, in an exhaustive study read before the Royal
Academy of Madrid in 1882 :

" Despite rudeness of idiom, and difficulty of expression with
which the poet struggles, the vivid color with which he illumines
his verse, and the ardor of faith which shines through it, make
them of more distinct value than more pretentious work offered
under other conditions. The most celebrated artist of our own
day would utterly fail in producing equal results ; so vital is
the power of belief in the immortal and divine which permeates
them."

As an example of Las Cantigas de Santa Maria to give the
whole title one might quote the LXXIX. It is a little story
of Musa, a foolish and vain young girl who sees in a dream
the beautiful vision of the Blessed Mother, and is so ravished
by its loveliness that she desires to go with her. The Virgin
tells her the conditions upon which alone she may follow:

" Y en su santo anhelo la Virgen gloriosa
le aparece en suefio por extreme hermosa,
con muchas doncellas de maravillosa

beldad, y tambien

Musa quiere al verlas ir con ellas luego,
mas Santa Maria la dia, Te ruego
si quieres seguirme, dejes risa y juego,
orgullo y desden.

Ay ! Santa Maria !
Quien por te quia
Signe cuerda y pia
la senda del brin."

1893-] THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. 525

Which may be translated, with an effort to keep some traces of
the original rhythm :

Then in her dreams the glorious Virgin nearing
Shone on her eager sight with smile endearing,
And many maids most wondrous fair appearing

Her grace beside,

Whom Musa fain would join ; but Mary staying
Her eager feet held back her footsteps, saying :
' Who follows me must laughter leave, and playing.

Disdain and pride.'
O Mary the Sainted !
Who would be acquainted
With thy bliss, untainted
Must follow thy way.

A more patriotic sentiment is expressed in another :

" Por este razon te ruego,
Santa Virgen coronada !
que, pues eres de Dios hija,
y madre, y nuestra abogada,
por tu celestial influjo
Dios me concede esta gracia,
que de Mahoma la secta
logro yo arrojar de Espafia."

By this reason I implore thce,
Virgin crowned, prostrate before thee,
That, since thou art child and mother

Of the Lord, thou wilt obtain
By thy heavenly grace the power
Which shall haste the welcome hour
That will see me drive the cursed

Race of Mahomet from Spain.

" From this day forth," he exclaims, " thou art the only woman
to whom I sing ; thou art the sacred object of my vows.
Rose of roses art thou, and flower of flowers, queen of queens,
and loftiest amid the lofty. Thy knight alone am I and thy
troubadour ; if I but possess thy love what are all others to me ?"
El Libra del Tesoro, or the Treasure Book, is a rhymed
treatise on the general principles of philosophy, interspersed
with reflections of most amusing inconsequence, and vague refer-
ences to magic and astrology. It was doubtless largely copied
from the Italian of Dante's master, Brunetti, and Los Flores de
Filosofia, which was known to have been compiled earlier by the
king's command. The presumably original portions are of slight
value, beyond showing a certain ease in writing and graceful ex-
VOL. LVI. 36

526 THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. [Jan.,

pression of thought. A stanza or two may be quoted from
Longfellow's translation of the introduction :

" Fame brought this strange intelligence to me,
That in Egyptian lands there lived a sage
Who read the secrets of the coming age

And could anticipate futurity ;

He judged the stars and all their aspects ; he
The darksome veil of hidden things withdrew ;
Of unborn days the mysteries he knew,

And saw the future as the past we see.

" An eager thirst for knowledge moved me then ;
My pen, my tongue, were humbled ; in that hour
I laid my crown in dust, so great the power

Of passionate desire o'er mortal men.

I sent my earnest prayers, with a proud train
Of messengers, who bore him generous measure
Of lands, and honors, and of golden treasure,

And all in holy meekness ; but in vain."

This old philosopher, won at last to Spajn, becomes the ora-
cle of information of which the Treasure Book is supposed to
be record.

Among the prose works, Las Siete Partidas, or Seven Divisions,
is most noticeable. It is thus called from the seven general
headings under which the legal code is arranged. Its topics are
so clearly defined that it remains even at this late day an au-
thority ; some of the laws of European countries, and of those
southern states settled under Spanish auspices, being transcribed
directly from it. It embraces an enormous list of subjects, rang-
ing from most abstruse questions of government and knotty
points of legal intricacy, to the smallest details touching upon
national prosperity and danger. Up to this time the provinces
of Spain had depended upon a fragmentary jumble of Roman
and Moorish law, interspersed with traditions. Such was the
accuracy and judgment shown in the preparation of this great
work, that it is said if all other laws were even now wiped out
of existence, there would still remain within its pages an ade-
quate summary of jurisprudence. A large portion is most care-
fully transcribed from old Roman sources ; the remainder reflects
the wisdom of the king and ,his counsellors. It embraces a
series of essays on legislation, morals, religion, principles ; em-
bodying opinions and giving a digest of reading upon every
subject pertaining to the relative duties of ruler and people.
" What meaneth a Tyrant ?"; " Why a King must be noble and

1893-] THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. 527

honest "; " On the Establishment and Conduct of Public Schools "
which it is to be hoped was no such vexed question in those
days as in ours " Upon Loyalty "; " Concerning Knighthood " ;
" On the Rearing of Children " ; '' Why the state of Marriage is
called Matrimony instead of Patrimony " are some of the chap-
ters. From one entitled " On the duties of Governesses of
King's Daughters " a paragraph may be quoted as an example of
quaintness : " They are to endeavor as much as may be, that the
king's daughters shall be moderate and seemly in eating and
drinking, and also in their carriage and dress; and of good man-
ner in all things ; and especially that they be not given to anger,
for beside the wickedness that is in it, it is the thing in the
world which most easily leadeth women to do ill. And they shall
teach them to be handy in those works which belong to noble
ladies ; for this is a matter that becometh them much, since they
obtain by it cheerfulness and a quiet spirit ; and besides it tak-
eth away bad thoughts which it is not convenient that they should
have." So far as it goes, there is nothing here which might not
be incorporated in the next woman's rights platform.*

The Crdnica de Espana and Historia Universel are both with-
out doubt compilations made under the supervision of the learn-
ed king by the most competent men of his time, whom he in-
duced to make his capital their home by substantial offers of
reward and honor. The prologue and fugitive passages show
evidence of having been written by himself. An immense amount

* The Seven Divisions are literally as follows :

I. Devoted to canon law and the liturgy of the Catholic Church.

II. Ancient usages and customs of Spain, with rules for government and political admin-
istration.

III., V., VI. Roman law in all its divisions, with decisions on many doubtful points.

IV. The legal aspect of social relations relating to betrothals, marriages, slavery,
freedom, etc.

VII. Civil crimes, offences, and punishments, as well as offences against the state.

The logic of this work is so clear, its statements so concise, and its diction so elegant, that,
according to a celebrated modern French critic : " It gave to the monarch under whose aus-
pices it was executed title more just to the epithet of ' The Wise ' than his astronomic research
or his literary ability, remarkable as both these must be deemed in an age when all such stud-
ies were disregarded. The spirit of reverence and piety is perhaps what would make it most
noticeable to us ; the divisions beginning : ' God is the beginning, the middle, and the end of
all things ; without him can nothing exist ; through him alone is it given to have knowledge, to
hold power, or to maintain good." The first law is really only a declaration of the purpose
and scope for which all were written. " These laws in all this book are established so that men
may know how to believe and guard the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ just as it is ; and also
how to live with each other well and orderly according to the pleasure of God, and as it is
proper by the laws of this world. So shall they live in right and justice as these laws show in
all ways ; those things which particularly belong to the faith and teachings of Holy Church
being placed in the first part of the book, and the others in the six parts following." Some
idea of the number and minuteness of points into which the work is divided may be gleaned
from the fact that the first Partida alone contains five hundred and seventy-five articles.

528 THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. [Jan.,

of care and research is evident in both these works, which also
mark the first definite effort to collect authentic annals of Spain.
The entire range of authorities from the first to the thirteenth
century appear to have been made use of. Unfortunately the
poets and romances of the period were also consulted, and the
myths or traditions they represent given equal place with the narra-
tive of historians, with an utter disregard of proportion of value
between fact and fancy. The Greek and Roman authors, from
Homer, Pliny, and Herodotus to Cicero and Virgil, saints, popes,
bishops, philosophers, Jews, Pagans, Moors, Christians, Italians,
Spaniards, Germans, French, and Saxons all were made use of.
Small wonder if, under the circumstances, chaff became mixed
with the wheat, and adventures of Hercules and of Ulysses were
as gravely propounded for admiration as campaigns of Caesar
or triumphs of the last reign. The two works were evidently
intended as parts of a whole ; the general history occupying it-
self with the story of Asia and Africa, while the chronicle in-
cluded ancient and modern Spain. It subtracts little from the
glory of Alonso that he is not, as was at first believed, sole au-
thor of this valuable compendium. His was the enthusiasm which
inspired ; his the energy, the generosity, and the unflagging de-
termination which brought it to successful issue. It was the first
great attempt to popularize knowledge, and to spread before the
people treasures which had heretofore rested in the locked li-
braries of the scholar. This is the real and firm foundation of
Alonso's enduring 'fame. With infinite care to gather material
from all quarters, with infinite patience and courage to demand
its readjustment so as to bring it within the focus of common
understanding ; to change the records of a dead language to
vital meaning in a living tongue, was to begin the great revolu-
tion which should end in a democracy of knowledge. He re-
minds one of the English Alfred. Dante was not yet for seventy
years to make his immortal contribution to the public cause.
The Troubadours of Provence and the Minnesingers of Germany
were singing love songs instead of enforcing lessons. The wise
and learned of all countries were looking with suspicion or con-
tempt upon the meagre and impure dialects, which were begin-
ning to rise above mere means of communication among the com-
mon people ; and they opposed a solid front of indifference
or antagonism to any attempt toward popularizing the wealth
of which they had been heretofore sole possessors. Nowhere,
except in the vaguely expressed desire of his father, was
there encouragement for the task the king had set himself

1 893.] THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. 529

to perform. That he succeeded, that he in so far smoothed the
way toward popular education ; that the inspiration of his pa-
tronage ennobled the lowly cause, and led to widespread changes
in the thought of his age, is honor enough for a single reign.
Brilliant minds no longer considered translation into the vulgar
tongue to be an indignity, and the language received its first
impulse toward purity and permanence. That this was effected
during a reign of phenomenal unquiet and discontent ; during
the outbursts of hostile uprising at home and intrigues
of jealous rivalry abroad, between intervals of serious domestic
trouble and political disappointment, and that it was imbued
with a purpose strong enough to overpower the inertia of natu-
ral defects of character, makes it much more remarkable. If in-
tellectual force outweighs material greatness, the man who ac-
complished it sinks not so far below the martial glory of his
sire, or even of the Cid Campeador himself.

The translation of the Bible was a work pushed forward at
the same time and for the same purpose. Almost every chroni-
cler agrees that he desired with exceeding earnestness, accom-
panied with unlimited prodigality of time and money, to
induce the familiar presentation of great truths in the language
of the people ; and the archives of the Royal Historic So-
ciety of Madrid contain numberless receipts signed by the
royal hand for valuable manuscripts borrowed from the va-
rious libraries of the world in pursuance of this object. There
was also translated the history of the Spanish conquests in
Africa, to inflame the national pride of the people and rouse
them to deeper feeling against the Moors.

The Astronomic Tables which bear the name of King Alonso,
Tabulas Alfonsinas, have even yet a value for accuracy, and
must have been an enormous advance on whatever genuine sci-
entific research belonged to the time. In the compilation and
preparation there is no doubt that he made use of the well-
known talent of the Moorish astrologers in this direction, since
they were accounted among the most famous then existing. It
is in connection with these studies that he is reported to have
uttered the blasphemy so severely berated by subsequent writers :
" If I had the creating, I could have made a better world
than this myself!" The remark, if it ever was made, was much
more probably intended as a rebuke upon prevalent notions con-
cerning the construction of the universe, than upon the methods
of the Creator. It was a stricture upon the theories of Ptolemy
rather than the work of the Almighty.

53Q THE BIRTH OF SPANISH LITERATURE. [Jan.,

The only engraving of Alonso represents him among his
royal kindred in a guise not unlike that imagination would frame
for him. Of medium height and slightly built, the expression
of the thin, oval face is more of thoughtfulness and sweetness
than of majesty. There is trace of suffering in the grave ap-
pealing eyes, as of one who had gone through the endless men-
tal struggle of a false position, and the untowardness of a for-
tune which demanded what he had not to give, and despised
what he could offer. Yet the figure possesses a dignity of its
own. There is something greatly moving in the personality of
this blundering, impractical, devout, learned dreamer, by turns
hot-headed and wavering, foolish in spite of his wisdom, but
wise, too, in spite of his foolishness, and in ways of which his
scoffing day and generation little dreamed. Anxious to amass,
only to be spendthrift in giving again ; sensitive to blame, yet
unable to achieve praise ; over-weighted ever by the exigencies
of a position for which he was not fitted, and tormented by
longing for a peace which was never vouchsafed him, does he
not appeal at last more to love and sympathy than to the half-
scornful estimate which clouds his memory ? That amid this tur-
bulent sea of antitheses, and the strangely contrary winds of cir-
cumstance which tossed him about, he should have been able to
accomplish so much of real greatness is claim enough upon jus-
tice. May we not, without sneer or scoff, and with as much
divine right as usually enters into the sobriquets of kings, leave
the enjoyment of his title, in its full significance, to

ALONSO . EL SABIO ?

MARY ELIZABETH BLAKE.

Boston, Mass.

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 531

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

THE VALLEY OF WARM WATERS.

WIDE, beautiful plain, bounded by far blue hills,
cultivated fields where the young grain is spring-
ing in fresh, delicious green, vineyards, meadows,
and gardens forming a paradise of verdure, white
level roads shaded by rows of superb trees, a
dream-like glimpse of domes and spires above masses of semi-
tropical foliage, a canal which contains the warm waters that
give their name to the State and the city, a luminous sky and
floods of sunshine this is Aguas Calientes, distant half a day's
(railroad) journey from Zacatcas, and two thousand feet lower.

" It is impossible to imagine a more striking contrast than
the scene of yesterday and the scene of to-day !" said Dorothea
as she looked around her. " Think of those rugged mountains,
and look at this smiling plain ! Are there many such contrasts
to be obtained in Mexico, within a few hours of each other, Mr.
Russell ?"

" The tableland along which, Humboldt said, a wagon could
be driven from the City of Mexico to Santa Fe, seems to be of
a very up-and-down nature," said Travers. " This is like com-
ing down from the Alps to the plains of Lombardy."

" Aguas Calientes may seem to us low after the heights of
Zacatcas," said Russell ; " but it has a modest elevation of over
six thousand feet."

" It has evidently a delightful climate," said the general.
" This balmy air is delicious after the keen wind which we felt
at Zacatecas."

" It is the Valley of Warm Waters, of healing and delight,"
said Russell. " It might be one of the great health resorts of
the world ; but it is only one of the most charming and typical
of Mexican cities."

" And this, I suppose, is a typical Mexican scene," said Mrs.
Langdon, smiling as she stood still to watch the picture along
the banks of the canal which contains the warm water flowing
from the baths.

" It is even more typical than this," replied Russell, " when
the whole population are bathing. Just now they are only
washing their linen and that of every one else, apparently."

532

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

[Jan.,

It was indeed a thoroughly Mexican scene. The groups of
women in scanty attire for a white chemise, a colored skirt,
and the rebozo, which is bonnet and drapery in one, may be
said to constitute the dress of the lower class were gathered on
the edge of the canal, washing the linen which lay beside them
in piles, in the soft, warm water their bare arms and necks
gleaming in the sunshine like bronze, their long black hair stream-
ing down their backs. Without any aid of soap, they rubbed
their garments energetically on a flat, smooth stone, and the re-

BATHING AT AGUAS CALIENTES.

suit was a whiteness which could not be surpassed by any laun-
dering process in the world.

" There was never a greater mistake than to suppose that
these people are indifferent to personal cleanliness," said Rus-
sell. " Every town of any size has fine public baths ; and when-
ever there is a stream of water available, the populace fairly
revel in it. At a certain time of day all along this canal men,
women, and children may be seen taking their baths in public
with a composure equal to that of surf-bathers on fashionable
ocean beaches."

"You are sure that this water has come from the baths?" in-
quired Dorothea suspiciously.

" There is no doubt of it, I assure you. And the baths are
delightful. Would you like to inspect them ?"

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 533

" Just at present," said the general, " I think we had better
find our hotel. Afterwards sight-seeing will be in order."

Aguas Calientes revealed itself on nearer view as a city of
exceeding beauty and picturesqueness, although the picturesque-
ness was altogether different in kind from that of Zacat6cas.
Lying on its verdant plain, embowered in foliage, with lovely
plazas full of plants and flowers, everywhere relieving what might
lse have been the monotony of its level thoroughfares, charm-
ing to the eye as these are in their miraculous cleanliness, and
the vistas of softly-tinted, brightly-frescoed houses which line
them, it is a place where everything seems to smile in harmony
with the smiling sky, and where life is overflowing with color
and light.

" It is an enchanting place," said Margaret Langdon ; " the
kind of place where one could linger for an unlimited length
of time. Nature seems to have given it every charm a perfect
climate, the most bountiful production of the fruits of the earth,
healing waters, and this lovely city set in the midst of orange-
groves. What are the invalids and pleasure-seekers of the world
about that they have not found such an ideal spot and flocked
to it in multitudes ?"

" Heaven grant that it may be long before they find it !" said
Russell fervently. " When they do its chiefest charm will van-
ish, its color and flavor will depart. After it has become a ' re-
sort ' I shall never enter it again. But that day has not yet
dawned. It is still Mexican throughout and altogether delight-
ful."

" At the risk of exciting Miss Meynell's indignation," re-
marked Travers, " I must be truthful enough to say that I like
this place better than Zacatcas, over which you were all so en-
thusiastic yesterday. Highly picturesque as Zacatecas was, we
must confess that it was slightly chilly. Now, dolce far niente
for which I have a great weakness is possible here. This is no
place to call for energetic sight-seeing, but rather for leisurely
idling, and pleasantly sunning one's self in the charming gardens
that seem to abound."

" Pray be kind enough to speak for yourself," said Dorothea.
" I assure you that there are some of us still equal to what you
call energetic sight-seeing. I, for one "

"Oh! that is understood, of' course," interposed Mr. Travers
with great suavity. " I should never think of including you in
the same category with my indolent self. Your energy, your
ceaseless thirst for information, are an example to us all. But

534 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Jan.,

perhaps Mrs. Langdon will condescend to idle a little with me
when she has nothing better to do."

" I fancy we shall all do a good deal of idling here," answered
Mrs. Langdon smiling. " The place seems made for it, as you
say."

And indeed it followed that, despite Dorothea's intentions,
there was not much sight-seeing done that day. Perhaps they
were all a little tired by the amount of energy expended in Za-
catecas, or perhaps the greater warmth of the atmosphere made
itself felt in a sensible relaxation of spirit and muscle. It is at
least certain that after dinner, at the Hotel de la Plaza, there
followed a siesta so prolonged on the part of every one that
the afternoon was well advanced when sharp raps from the gene-
ral's cane on their several doors brought the party together
again.

Miss Gresham was the last to make her appearance. " Where
are we going ?" she asked, with an air that seemed to imply
that the slumber from which she had been torn was more attrac-
tive than any of the sights Aguas Calientes could offer.

" Well," said the general, " the most notable feature of the
place must be its warm waters, since the name of the whole
State is derived from them ; so I think we should first visit the
baths."

No one objecting, they therefore took their way to the famous
waters which from remotest antiquity have gushed in steaming
flood from that secret laboratory of Nature where her hidden
forces are ever at work, and from whence have proceeded the
many marvels of this land, which seems more than other lands
a product of such forces. The finest baths are in the suburbs,
and it was a pleasant journey thither by tramway ; but none of
the party, save Russell, were prepared for the grace and charm
of the spot they found. Through a richly carved archway of
soft-red stone they passed into a spacious, quadrangular court
filled with blooming plants and singing birds, around which ran
a broad gallery or cocridor supported by sculptured pillars and
arches of the same delicately-tinted stone, with doors opening
upon it, and carved stone benches placed at intervals. An atten-
dant came forward to receive them with the dignified courtesy
of a grandee, and throwing wide one of the doors showed with-
in a deep, marble-lined pool full of clear, warm water.

" What a delicious place !" said Dorothea, glancing from the
limpid pool to the wealth of greenery set in the midst of the
softly-toned, sculptured walls.

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 535,

" It is like a dream of Pompeii, or of one of Alma Tadema's
pictures ! Does it strike any one what a delightful thing it must
be to live in a country where the most prosaic buildings are full
of picturesque beauty and romantic suggestions ?"

" It is only because we are strangers that the romantic sug-
gestions occur to us," said Travers. " That is the compensation
for coming from an unpicturesque and unromantic country. We
should take it all as a matter of course if we lived here. I doubt
if it occurred to the people of Granada that there was anything
specially remarkable about the Alhambra. But there is some-
thing classic in the appearance of this place. I wonder if the
people come here to lounge and gossip, like the ancient Ro-
mans."

" I think," said Margaret Langdon, " that when I grow old
and rheumatic I shall come to Aguas Calientes to live. No in-
firmities could resist the combined effect of this sunshine and
these baths."

" If you are sure of that," said the general, " I shall elect to-
remain here at present, and try the effect of the climate and
waters on my rheumatic leg, while the rest of you may wander
over Mexico as long as you like."

" There is no need to remain here for the sake of hot baths,"
said Russell. " They abound all over the country. Near Silao"
there are some where the water gushes out of the side of the
mountain with prodigious force, sending up a cloud of steam r
and almost parboiling the unlucky bather who drew the torrent
on himself without knowing its force and temperature."

" The temperature of these baths," said the general, who had
meanwhile been testing it, " seems delightful. 1 really think I
shall give myself the benefit of one of them at once."

"And shall we, like the ancient Romans, lounge and gossip
here, meanwhile ?" inquired Miss Gresham.

'* That is not necessary," said Russell. " Let us leave the
general to his plunge, and go ourselves to the garden of San
Marcos. When he is ready he will find us there."

" Find you" said the general. " Yes, that will be easy enough ;
but how am I to find the garden ? "

"That is easy enough, also," replied Russell. And explicit
directions having been given to that effect, the general vanished
behind a closed door, while the others, deferring this practical
test of the waters to another time, set forth for the pleasure-
ground of which Russell had spoken.

It is a beautiful place, this Jardin de San Marcos, and beau-

536 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [J an

tifully kept, as all public gardens are in Mexico. Unceasing is
the labor, the attention, and the watering lavished on these spots.
During the hours when the hose are sending crystal showers over
banks of flowers, stretches of turf, trees and shrubs, the whole
air is laden with moisture ; and it is not wonderful that the
growth and luxuriance of everything is magical, since water is
the one thing necessary in Mexico to make a desert blossom in-
to a garden. Seated around a fountain embowered in roses, the
strangers looked on such a scene as they had not yet witnessed
a picture of tropical verdure. Wherever the glance fell it
rested on masses of Nile lilies, geraniums, azaleas, and oleanders.
The air was filled with the fragrance of orange-blossoms, and
the sweet, pervading odor of violets blooming in myriads every-
where ; yet soft, warm, perfumed as it was, it contained no re-
laxing quality, but was full of stimulating freshness. And the
charm of the visible atmosphere how can words describe that ?
Painting alone can give the exquisite tints and tones of Mexican
atmospheric effects, of the skies that bend over this lovely land
elevated so high toward heaven, of the celestial robes that its
mountains wear, of the exquisite distances of its wide plains set
with cities that lift their slender campaniles above walls of pale
pink and soft amber, half-buried in masses of feathery foliage.

"I should really think," said Dorothea, "that the abounding
natural beauty of this country might almost set an artist wild !
And yet how few can have visited it, for I do not think I ever
saw a Mexican scene in any gallery or exhibition of art."

" Artistically it has yet to be revealed to the world," said
Russell. " But it is now so accessible, and offers such induce-
ments to the health and pleasure-seeker, that I fear it will soon
be flooded with tourists and its peculiar charm in great measure
thus be lost."

"I am glad that we have come with the advance guard,"
said Travers, leaning back and regarding the soft mass of domes
and towers against the luminous sky, where the warm rose-flush
of evening became visible, as the sun sank toward the distant
line of mountains, and the wide plain seemed swimming in am-
ber light. " But, after all, no flood of tourists can take away this,
you know," he added in a reflective and somewhat consoling
tone. "They can't well darken the sky or turn these beautiful
minarets and towers into conventional spires and pressed-brick
fronts. So, let us be philosophical especially as there are none
of them here at present and delve a little into the history of
Aguas Calientes. Who founded it, Russell ? "

THE PARISH CHURCH.

538 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Jan.,

" Our friend of Zacatecas Crist6bal de Ofiate, immediately
after the conquest," replied Russell. " He went to Zacatecas
when the great silver lodes were discovered ; but I am sure he
must have needed all the inducement of the silver to exchange
this delightful plain for those bare, brown heights. I have no
doubt he returned here often in the intervals of amassing his
fortune."

" Good Heavens," said Travers with an energy so unex-
pected that it startled his companions, " what opportunities those
old conquist adores had ! There is nothing like it in the history of
the world ; no fabled Eldorado ever equalled the reality of Mexi-
co. New Spain ! What pictures the very name conjures up to
the imagination, of marvellous adventure, of wealth surpassing
that of the Indies, of a land abounding in wonders, of pictur-
esque beauty and untold possibilities ! How poor the world has
grown since we have explored every nook and corner of it, and
there is never another Mexico to be discovered, look where we
will."

" But there is much yet to be discovered at least by our
race in this old land," said Russell. " It is a country which
needs and will repay long and patient study. But in order to
discover its interest several things are necessary. First a knowl-
edge of the history of this people, so underrated, so little under-
stood by the world at large ; a comprehension of the forces
which have combined to make them what they are, a sympathe-
tic appreciation of their standards and ideas, and a freedom from
narrow prejudice."

"In short," said Mrs. Langdon, "you want the ideal traveller,
who possesses comprehensive knowledge, wide culture, and, above
all, quick, poetic sympathy. But you must remember that such
travellers do not abound anywhere."

" I think they have been fewer in Mexico than elsewhere,"
said Russell. " Otherwise, would so many misconceptions of this
country be abroad ?"

"We have agreed," said Margaret, "that it is very hard for
people of alien traditions, habits, manners, and customs to under-
stand each other. By much culture we are only slowly approach-
ing that point ; but we are approaching it. Your ideal travellers
will arrive after awhile, Mr. Russell."

" It strikes me," observed Travers, " that one or two have al-
ready arrived. Modesty forbids me to be more particular in
designation."

" I wonder," said Miss Gresham, suddenly and irrelevantly,

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 539

" if one would be allowed to gather some of these violets ? There
are so many, and they are so deliciously fragrant."

" I will find out," said Russell. He rose and walked to where
a man was at work in the flower-beds. A few words were ex-
changed, they saw the ready courtesy with which the request was
acceded to, and then down on his knees went the Mexican and
began gathering violets among the thick green leaves.

" Oh, let me gather some ! " cried Miss Gresham, rising with
a rush and going to the place. The Mexican lifted his dark-
lashed eyes and smiled at the pretty face that suddenly appeared
opposite him bending over the border. He held out a fragrant
cluster of the delicate purple flowers, and then went on gather-
ing more, his slender brown hands pushing aside the leaves with
a rapidity that made assistance unnecessary, although Russell also
stooped down and lent his aid.

" Shall we likewise go and assist ?" asked Travers of his com-
panions. " Or do you agree with me that it is preferable to pur-
chase violets that somebody else has had the trouble of gathering?"

" I think the supply of violets yonder will soon exceed the
demand," replied Mrs. Langdon.

The gardener was apparently of the same opinion. He rose
to his feet, walked over to the other ladies and offered his vio-
lets, with a grace as charming as the smile that accompanied it,
while he declined by a gesture the coin which Travers made haste
to offer him.

"What did I tell you?" said that gentleman. '"All things
come to him who knows how to wait ' although in this instance
no violets have yet come to me"

" Miss Gresham, perhaps, will gather some for you," said Mrs.
Langdon laughing. " With the gardener's eye upon me, I can-
not think of giving you any of these."

" If Miss Gresham has any violets to spare they will be given
to Russell. I can fancy her telling him that they are her ' own,
particular flower,' and therefore she never gives them except as
a special mark of her favor. There was a time when they were
given to me but that time is no longer. If Miss Dorothea will
not take compassion on me, I clearly foresee that I shall have to
go and gather some violets for myself."

" A little exertion will be very good for you, I am sure," said
Dorothea, as she fastened her violets in her girdle. " But, since
you are so averse to anything of the kind, Violet will probably
give you some of her own particular flowers in return for the
covert sneers you are constantly levelling at her."

540 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Jan.,

" Now I call heaven and earth no, I call Mrs. Langdon to-
witness if I have ever been guilty of levelling covert sneers at
Miss Gresham ! " Travers cried. " In the first place I should de-
spair of their being comprehended, and in the second place I
should have before my eyes the fear of being summarily requested
by yourself to retrace my steps to New Orleans."

" A request to which you would probably pay as much heed
as to my suggestion that you might not form an altogether har-
monious member of the party," said Dorothea with asperity.

" I flatter myself," he replied, with the unruffled calmness
which always irritated her, "that my judgment has in that re-
spect proved more correct than your own. Let us ask Mrs.
Langdon to say frankly if I have, up to this time, proved an in-
harmonious element."

" Margaret's opinion is of no value at all," said Dorothea.
" She would fear to hurt the feelings of a fly by saying that it
annoyed her."

"And do I represent the fly? How flattering to my self-love!
Was I not right in saying that there would not be very much
of that left by the time we recrossed the Rio Grande?"

"When are you not right?" inquired Dorothea, with unkind
sarcasm. " I am sure that no proof of your own infallibility of
judgment can strike you as remarkable."

" If so I should be struck by the fact that yonder is one
slight proof of it, to which I beg to call your attention," he said,
and with a glance he indicated a scene taking place at that mo-
ment. Miss Gresham, her hands full of violets, had risen from
the border, and was fastening a portion of her fragrant spoils
on Russell's coat, the while lifting her eyes to his face in the
swift glances that were accustomed to do much execution, or
dropping them so that the long lashes lay on her clear, white
cheeks.

" I perceive nothing," said Dorothea coldly, " except that
Violet is very naturally giving Mr. Russell some of the flowers
he helped to gather."

" You don't remember a scouted prophecy of mine in New
Orleans, and you don't see the signs of any fulfilment of it ? Eh
bien! He who waits will see what he shall see. The fair Vio-
let has been under a cloud since our departure, overwhelmed by
too much artistic and historical enthusiasm. But she is begin-
ning to recover herself. I perceive encouraging signs that our
siren of the Mississippi will soon be herself again. Ah, here
comes the general ! He has found both the garden and us."

i893-l THE LAND OF THE SUN. 541

" Beautiful place this !" said the general, coming up full of
enthusiasm. " I never saw lovelier What, violets ? " This to
Miss Gresham, who approached him at the moment. " Certain-
ly, my dear; certainly. I shall be delighted to have some, es-
pecially when gathered by such fair hands."

" They are my own particular flowers, you know," said the
young lady with a bewitching smile, "and I like all my friends
to wear my colors."

So it came to pass that Mr. Travers was the only undecor-
ated member of the party when they finally left the garden, say-
ing that they would return to. the charming spot the next day
and enjoy it afresh.

But the next day there was much else to see and to do.
Beautiful old churches, with richly sculptured doorways, tempted
to long lingering in their picturesque interiors, filled with the
mellow harmonies of faded frescoes and the gilded carving of
ancient altars. In several they found fine old paintings, notably
two by Ibarra in San Marcos a " St. Mark " and an " Adora-
tion of the Kings " which were not only worthy of attention,
but which they might easily have failed to see. For, hidden
away in dark chapels and sacristies all over Mexico are
treasures of art which no eager sacristan, as in Italy, brings to
the notice of the stranger. They must be carefully sought for if
they would be seen, and in many cases the art-loving visitor will
be astonished to find the unmistakable traces of a master's brush
on pictures to which no one has thought of directing his atten-
tion. Many are the works of the great school of Spanish paint-
ers which flourished soon after the conquest of Mexico that
found their way to the churches, monasteries, and convents of
this opulent country. Bought for devotional purposes solely,
they still serve those purposes, save when the government has
confiscated and transferred them to its schools of art. The
number so transferred, however, is small compared to the num-
ber that still remain in the rich, dim old churches, where they
were placed centuries ago.

Coming out of one of the most quaint and interesting of
these ancient edifices, the lofty arch of its elaborately carved
doorway almost hidden by tall, graceful palms, while a wealth
of roses rioted below, they found themselves close upon the mar-
ket-place, where columned arcades enclose on four sides an
open square in which all the color of a tropical land seems to
VOL. LVI. 37

542 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Jan.,

meet and overflow. Shaded from the sun by squares of mat-
ting supported on slender poles, the venders of fruit and vege-
tables sit, surrounded by their luscious wares. Oranges, cheri-
moyas, aguacates, the purple fruit of the cactus, the melon-sepota,
granaditas and limes, with many others, of which even Russell
hardly knew the names, made masses as attractive to the eye as
to the palate, while the mounds of vegetables were hardly less
brilliant in their hues, and of variety too great for enumeration.
In the midst of this wealth of product moved, sat, talked,
chaffered the graceful, picturesque people, forming on all sides
groups for a painter, the shadowy coolness of the arcaded por-
tales affording an effective background, and the splendor of the
sky above accentuating every tint of color below.

" Oh, to be an artist ! " sighed Dorothea. " No one else
should come here. It makes^one long for a color-box, a canvas,
and an easel. There is no other way to represent such a scene
as this."

" A camera, perhaps," suggested the general.

" A camera, no. How can that give the wealth of color, the
golden-bronze of the people's skins, the exquisite tints of the old
stone buildings, the luminous shadows like a Velasquez picture ? "

" It was certainly an oversight not to have added an artist to
our party," said Travers.

" But then, you see, the party itself is an entirely fortuitous
concourse of atoms."

" Here is some of the pottery of this place," said Russell,
walking over to a pile of the ware in question displayed under
one of the arches. " These vessels," he went on, " are in uni-
versal use throughout Mexico for almost all household purposes
the poorer classes use nothing else. But there is a great dif-
ference in the quality of the ware manufactured in different
places. Every district has its own variety, some of which is of
much higher excellence than others."

" That which we saw in Zacatecas was different from this,"
said Mrs. Langdon. " It seemed more durable though coarser,
and had a very hard and brilliant glaze."

" The Aguas Calientes ware is of a better grade," said Rus-
sell. " Some of it is really beautiful, with a classic grace of form,
and genuine artistic feeling displayed in the decoration."

" It is really remarkable," said the general. " Is there a manu-
factory of this pottery ?"

" No," answered Russell. " There is no such thing in Mexico.

544 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Jan.,

It is all made by the Indians without any direction of educated
talent. They have their own peculiar art of making it, an art
handed down from father to son. Think of the artistic genius
it evinces ! "

"They have true artistic hands," said Margaret Langdon,
looking at the slim, brown fingers of the man who was showing
his wares to them. " Of course you know how much character
there is in the hand. There is no part of the human body more
expressive, and the hands of these people have struck me from
the first. I do not wonder that they can mould clay into such
forms, and decorate it with so true a sense of color and har-
mony. It is all written there in those slender, tapering, flexible
fingers."

So, through all the picturesque sights and ways of the lovely,
sunshine-flooded, color-adorned city they wandered, drinking
deeper at every step the fascinations of this land, where the
charms of all those other lands which the world has agreed to
be most enchanting seem to meet and blend. But it was in
the evening, while they were still lingering over that nondescript
meal which in Mexican hotels may be called either dinner or
supper, that a burst of music from the plaza near by called
them forth to the most typical of all Mexican scenes.

It was a scene which to their unaccustomed eyes appeared
gay and brilliant in the extreme. A military band was playing
in a pavilion lighted by hanging lamps and embowered in foli-
age, while a throng of people, belonging evidently to the higher
classes, promenaded in two adverse processions (one composed of
men, the other of ladies) around the broad paved walk that en-
circled the plaza. On benches under the glossy boughs of
orange-trees, shining in the lamp-light and laden with golden
fruit and odorous blossoms, numbers of persons were sitting,
talking in low, well-bred tones, children were playing and laugh-
ing along the wide walks that passed through the garden which
formed the centre of the square, and the whole picture was so
bright, animated, joyous, yet full of decorum and in a manner
of stately grace, that it seemed to the strangers less like reality
than like a page from an old romance.

" But what a pity," cried Dorothea, " that the crowning touch
of picturesqueness is gone, that these Spanish-looking women
have abandoned their mantillas to wear hats ! If I were one of
them how glad I should be to cling to anything so artistic and
becoming as the lovely drapery of Spain ! "

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 545

" They have not abandoned the mantilla by any means," said
Russell, " but they reserve it for occasions of which a prome-
nade like this is not one."

" The scene would, of course, be much more characteristic if
they wore the Spanish mantilla, which I take to be a drapery
of black lace," said Travers. " But I must say I think the hats
are preferable to the black shawl in which we have seen them
going in and out of the churches all day, and which makes
every woman look like a nun."

" Well," said the general, who meanwhile had been carefully
scanning the passing throng especially the maidens with their
delicate features, their dark, liquid eyes, their dusky masses of
rippling hair, their lithe, rounded forms, proud carriage, and
springing step " you may criticise the head-covering as much
as you like, but there is little to criticise in the faces."

" And less in the manners," said Mrs. Langdon. " This is, of
course, an indiscriminate gathering, for all these people cannot
be drawn from one order of society, yet how striking is the
absence of anything like vulgarity of manner loud speech, bois-
terous laughter, or unrestrained gesture."

"You might wander through every plaza in Mexico without
finding a trace of those things," said Russell. " Remark the
dignity of those girls and their entire lack of self-consciousness.
If they ever exchange the coquettish, alluring glances of which
one reads in certain romances of travel with the men passing
them, I can only say that during my long residence in the coun-
try I have never yet detected one such glance."

" Oh ! from the days of Marco Polo to our own travellers
have found it necessary to embroider facts with fictions," said
Travers. " I confess that I have so far looked in vain for some
of the romantic episodes which have immediately rewarded the
observation of other tourists. In the churches I have seen no
lady talking with her fan to the cavalier behind the pillar. They
all appear to be prosaically and devoutly engaged in saying their
prayers ; and I am beginning to be afraid that these picturesque
bits of comedy only occur in novels and books of travels."

" No Mexican lady ever carries a fan to church," said Rus-
sell. " Etiquette prescribes precisely the use of that article. It
is part of her costume for a ball, theatre, or opera, but is never
taken to church ; so spare yourself the trouble of looking any
more for such episodes."

" None of you have yet mentioned what strikes me most of

546 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Jan

all here," said Dorothea " that perfect as the manners of these
people are, they are in no respect better than those of the peas-
ants we saw to-day in the market-place ; which proves what does
it prove, Mr. Russell?"

" That the Mexican possesses by nature what it costs some
other races a great deal of trouble to acquire that is, a fine
appreciation of the best in that admirable thing which we call
manners," answered Russell.

" What strikes me" said Miss Gresham, " is that here is
something very different from market-places filled with peasants.
These are the best people one sees it at a glance. This is so-
ciety."

"Evidently," replied Travers with gravity. "The beau-monde
of Aguas Calientes is here in force. Shall we not, by the bye,
join in their dress-parade?"

" Oh ! I think so," replied Miss Gresham eagerly, who had
no mind to conceal her beautiful face and faultless toilette in
the corner of a shaded bench. " It is certainly the thing to do
doci't you think so?" appealing to Mrs. Langdon.

" Yes, Margaret," said the general. " Let us take a turn. I
observe that men are allowed in the feminine ranks when they
accompany ladies."

Margaret, always compliant to the wishes of others, smiled
assent, and rising moved forward to fall into the ranks of the
promenaders. Miss Gresham rose also and, after one appealing
but unheeded glance at Russell, Travers took his place by her
side. " Shall we follow them ? " Russell then inquired of Doro-
thea.

" No," she answered, " let us remain here. I like better to
watch the people than to join them."

" In that case, and since we are in Mexico, will you allow
me to light a cigar ? If I change my seat to your other side
the breeze will carry the smoke from you."

" Do not disturb yourself," she answered. " I never object
to the smoke of a cigar in the open air. And just now I shall
like it particularly, because it will put you in a good humor to
answer all my questions."

He laughed as he struck a match and lighted his cigar.
" The bribe is unnecessary," he said, " for I am always glad to
tell you anything that you wish to know."

" What a delightful person you are ! " she said, with naive
frankness. " I never expected to find a travelling companion so

1 893.]

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

547

entirely after my own heart. I know I am very troublesome in
what Mr. Travers calls my insatiate thirst for information ; but
it is not only the things you tell that I enjoy, it is your way of
telling them, your readiness, your "

He lifted his hand in protest. " Take care ! " he said smil-
ing. "You talk of your heart have you no thought that mine,

POTTERY MARKET.

however time-hardened and battered, might prove vulnerable to
such flattery?"

" But it is not flattery," she answered earnestly. " It is sober
truth. As I was saying to Margaret last night, it is simply
wonderful that you can take so much interest in guiding and
making things pleasant for us."

" And do you not suppose that I am also making them
pleasant for myself?" he asked. "Don't credit me with too
much unselfishness. In point of fact, I am as selfish as most

548 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Jan.,

men, for I assure you that nothing would induce me to unite
my travelling fortunes with those of people whose society was
not agreeable to me. But I am really the person most obliged.
You see I have led such a wandering life for many years that I
am a very lonely man, as far as the intimate ties of life are
concerned. I have hosts of acquaintances all over the world,
but very few friends. And no later friendships can take the
place of those associated with the memories of one's youth. So
I enjoy the companionship of your father, your sister, and your-
self and I must include Travers, who is a very good fellow,
though I am afraid you don't believe it more than I could
possibly enjoy that of people equally agreeable who had not the
charm of old association. And this being so, pray let me hear
no more of any obligation to me for the little service I am able
to render you."

She gave him a smile that said more than words, and then
they fell to talking of the scene before them, while the band
made the air resonant with throbbing, joyous music, so marked
in its time that it was no wonder the small, daintily-shod feet
passing by kept step to the cadences with soldierly precision ;
the great stars looked down out of a violet sky, the air was like
a sensible caress, and a light passing breeze came laden with
all the blossoming fragrance of the night, as night is in this de-
lightful Valley of Warm Waters.

CHRISTIAN REID.

1 893-]

MAINE OF A LA TER DA Y.

549

MAINE OF A LATER DAY.

MONG the local histories of Maine none have at-
tracted more attention than that of the Indians
of Norridgewock and their martyred missionary
priest, Father Sebastien Rasles, SJ. Remote from
^ civilization and its amenities, he lived among
these Indians for thirty years. He devoted his life to their
conversion and instruction, and his labors were crowned with
martyrdom ; for he was literally hunted to death by the ene-
mies of his faith and nation.

One might suppose the treacherous cruelties practised on the
Indians at Pemaquid and Dover, and the crowning act of trans-
porting and selling captured Indians for slaves, were sufficient
incentives to hostility. But, forgetful of these atrocities, the
government and many of the people of Massachusetts Bay and
the District of Maine persisted in ascribing the enmity of the
Indians to the influence of " the wily Jesuit," and " there was
a universal desire to have him arrested and brought to Boston
alive." At the same time a price was offered for his head.

To seize or slay Father Rasles, a military force, under a Cap-
tain Moulton, was despatched to Norridgewock in the winter of
1723. " But the cautious Jesuit and his tribe had made a safe
retreat ; so that the only trophies (sic) of the enterprise were
a few books and papers* found in the priest's dwelling-house ;
among which was a letter from the governor of Canada, exhort-
ing him to push on the Indians with all imaginable zeal against
the English."

A second and more effective attack upon " the Jesuit " was
made in the following August, 1724, when a force of more than
two hundred men, under Captains Harmon, Moulton, Bane, and
Bourn, left their rendezvous at Fort Richmond on the Kenne-
beck, a few miles below Gardiner, and ascended the river in
whale-boats to a point near the site of Waterville. "Proceeding
thence by land, they succeeded in surprising the Indians ; among
whom, besides old men, women, and children, there were about
sixty warriors. These, after firing two volleys, fled to the
woods pursued by the victors. The pursuers returned to the

*At one time preserved in the library of Harvard College.

550 MAINE OF A LATER DAY. [Jan. r

village and found the Jesuit, in one of the wigwams, firing upon
a few of our men who had not followed the wretched fugitives.
He had with him an English boy about fourteen years of age,
whom he had shot through the thigh, and afterward stabbed in
the body, though he ultimately recovered. Moulton had given
orders to spare the life of Rasles ; but Jacques, a lieutenant,
finding him firing from the wigwam, and that he had wounded
one of our men, stove in the door and shot him through the
head. As an excuse, Jacques alleged that when he entered the
wigwam Rasles was loading his gun, and declared that he
would neither give nor take quarter."

Imagine a solitary old man, surrounded by his enemies, de-
claring, while loading his gun, that he will neither give nor take
quarter ! " Moulton," it is added, " disapproved the act of his
lieutenant ; allowing, however, that the priest had said something
to provoke Jacques ; yet doubting whether the statements made
by him were literally correct." It is safe to say that no one
believed the excuse given for the murder of Father Rasles, and
few of the Puritans thought it necessary to condemn or excuse
the successful result of an expedition whose avowed purpose was
to capture or kill the " wily Jesuit."

Our historian, Williamson, says : " On the 2/th of August
the brave detachment arrived at Fort Richmond without the loss
of a man. It was an exploit exceedingly gratifying to the com-
munity, and considered as brilliant as any other in either of the
Indian wars since the fall of King Philip. Harmon, who was the
senior in command, proceeded to Boston with the scalps, and re-
ceived in reward for the achievement the commission of lieuten-
ant-colonel an achievement in which Moulton had the principal
agency, though he received no distinguishing recompense except
the universal applause of his country. Superior merit has often
been overshadowed by superior rank in much more important
services" (Williamson, Hist. Maine, vii. p. 132). But Harmon
was bearer of the scalps, and Moulton had disapproved the act
of his lieutenant in the murder of Father Rasles, which they
who distributed rewards did not.

It seems a strange perversion of language to call the sur-
prise, killing, and scalping of a few Indians, and the murder of
a defenceless old priest, a brilliant exploit for a force of two
hundred men ; but then it was not quite thirty years since, " in
1695-6, a bounty of ^50 was offered for every Indian woman
or child under fourteen years taken prisoner, or for an older

1893-] MAINE OF A LATER DAY. 551

Indian s scalp produced at the Board of War" (vid. 5 Mass. Rec.,
p. 437 ; 2 Holmes' A. Ann., p. 10, as quoted by Williamson).
The bounty was afterward increased to ;ioo. Hunting Indians
for their scalps promised to become an industry more lucrative
than hunting wild animals for their furs.

One finds these statements very shocking. But we cannot
read the annals of our colonial period without admitting that
the laws of war had no place in the conquest of Indian lands.
The early colonists, adventurers and " pilgrims " alike, readily
adopted the cruel usages of savage warfare, even to taking
scalps. Failing to civilize the savage, they became, in some re-
spects, savages themselves.

Fas est ab hoste doceri is an approved maxim in war. But
in our wars with the Indians we learned from them only new
forms of cruelty and deceit ; and they from us little else than
the frauds and destructive vices that deform our civilization.
What else have they learned from civilization in the three cen-
turies of contact with it ? How many have been civilized ?
How many have gained any considerable knowledge of industrial
arts? How many have been converted from heathen diabolism
to Christianity? How many have been, in any way, made bet-
ter or happier by the instructions and examples of civilization ?
Not many. But enough to give the lie to the assertion that
"the Indians could not be civilized." If it were true that liv-
ing Indians cannot be made better we should accept the heartless
saying, " The good Indians are the dead," and rejoice that
civilization has almost done its work of conversion.

We find in Williamson's History of Maine a few paragraphs,
given as unimportant annals, which seem so like an epitome of
our early history its enterprises and their motives ; the greed of
gain and lawless deeds of explorers ; the cruelties of early colonists
and the revenge of savage natives that they form a fitting con-
clusion to these excerpts from the early history of the " District
of Maine."

" In April, 1614, Captain John Smith " of South Virginia
" arrived at Monhegan, intending to revive the colony of Fort
St. George, at the mouth of the Kennebeck (Sagadahock). He
explored the coast as far east as Penobscot Bay. But his men
were chiefly employed in taking whales and trading with the In-
dians for furs. Within twenty miles of Monhegan they got
from the natives, for trifles, eleven thousand beavers, a hundred
martens, and many otters. Eastward, about the Penobscot, our

552 MAINE OF A LATER DAY. [Jan.,

commodities were not so much esteemed : the French traders
bartered their articles on better terms" (Smith's History of New
England, page 213).

Smith sailed for England July 8, leaving his companion,
Thomas Hunt, master of the second vessel of the expedition,
who was bound for Spain. Smith says : " Hunt purposely tar-
ried behind to prevent me from making a plantation, to monopo-
lize the trade, and to steal savages. He carried off twenty-five,
whom he sold at Malaga."

It is stated in Prince's Annals that "the Friars took those
that were unsold, to Christianize them." In a conference with
some Indian sagamores, the governor of Massachusetts Bay pro-
mised to restore the enslaved Indians, if they could be recovered"

In February, 1696, three Indian chiefs, Egermet, Toxus, and
Abenquid, with other Indians, came to Fort William Henry, on
the peninsula of Pemaquid, to effect an exchange of prisoners.
The fort was commanded by a Captain Chubb. " In the midst
of a parley, Chubb's men fell upon the Indians, killing Egermet,
Abenquid, and two others, and making prisoners of nearly all
the rest. Only Toxus and a few of his men escaped."

In the following July Pemaquid was attacked by the French
under Iberville, aided by some two hundred Indians led by the
half-breed Baron de Castine. When the place was summoned
Chubb promptly replied : " I will not surrender the fort, though
the sea should be covered with French vessels and the land with
wild Indians." But after a few bombs had been thrown into
the fort he concluded to surrender, on condition that the garri-
son should be spared, and conveyed to Boston in exchange for
an equal number of French and Indians.

" When the gates were thrown open the Indians discovered
some of their people in irons; and the French commander
could hardly restrain the active resentment of his savage allies.
Indeed, a few of the soldiers were killed. To protect the rest,
they were taken to a small island and guarded by French sol-
diers until they could be sent to Boston."

But the Indians did not forgive nor forget the treachery of
Chubb. Two years after the capture of Pemaquid a small war
party made its way to Andover, Massachusetts, and killed him
in his own home. This was, of course, an Indian outrage.

And the " outrages " of to-day in the far West are so like
those of two centuries ago on our eastern coast, their provoca-
tions so evidently due to the same denial of the rights of man-

1893-] MAINE OF A LATER DAY. 553

hood to the Indian race, and the cupidities of civilization, that
the statement of an old friend, whose name should be accepted
almost as a synonyme for truthfulness, makes a proper sequence
to the legends of Indian wars in Maine, as waged by " English
colonists " and " Pilgrim fathers."

The late General Crook, of the United States army, who was
so energetic and successful in his campaigns against the " hos-
tiles " in New Mexico and Arizona, who defeated and captured
their principal chiefs Geronimo and others endeavored to in-
augurate a policy that promised peace to the Indian country,
and the ultimate civilization of the Indian tribes. In a "talk"
with the captured chiefs he urged them to consider that war
with the United States meant the certain destruction of the
Indian people. " We know that," was the reply, " but as the
white men will not let us live anywhere in our own . country,
we wish to die like brave men." The general asked why, since the
buffalo and other wild animals would soon be extinct, the In-
dians would not try to live like the white men raise cattle and
cultivate the land ? They answered : " We would like to do
so, but the white men will not let us. They want all the good
land, and when they find it in our country, they will either
seize upon it directly, or do something to provoke our young
men to shed blood, or to steal cattle herded on our land; and
then your soldiers come to kill us."

The general promised that the white men should not en-
croach upon their lands, as long as they were peaceful ; and the
Indians promised to maintain peace and good order on their
" reservations." In fact, they organized a species of police for
this purpose ; and with such effect that the Apache country
was, for the time, peaceful and safe. Thieves and other offen-
ders were promptly apprehended, tried, and punished. Life and
property were in less jeopardy in the mountains of Arizona and
New Mexico than in the streets and purlieus of our cities.
Supplied with agricultural implements and seeds, the Indians
produced cereals, potatoes, and other culinary vegetables, enough
for their own consumption and to supply the troops in their
vicinity. The quartermasters bought forage from the Apaches
instead of hauling it, at great expense, through hundreds of
miles over rough roads from Texas and Missouri.

These. Indians, the most numerous and warlike of the Western
tribes, had really commenced the work of civilization. Unfortu-
nately, the general over-estimated his ability to improve their

554 MAINE OF A LATER DAY. [Jan.,

social condition. His benevolent and wise policy displeased the
Indian agents in New Mexico and Arizona, and the Indian Bu-
reau in Washington. It suggested a possible transfer of "the
bureau " to the War Department ; and the abolition of the civil
"agencies" which, sometimes honest but oftener corrupt, had
paid Indian annuities in shoddy blankets and merchandise that
would be accounted damaged or worthless in ordinary commerce.
His policy was doubly displeasing to the host of illicit traders
swindlers land speculators and plunderers, whose opportunities
would cease with the cessation of " Indian outrages " and threats
of " another Indian war." And in the army of officials and dis-
appointed adventurers there were votes!

General Crook's convention with the Indians was not ap-
proved ; and because of this undue interference with the admin-
istration of his department, and an unwillingness to face the In-
dians whom he had innocently misled, he asked to be relieved
from command in the Indian country. So he was transferred to
the Department of Missouri, with headquarters at Chicago ;
where, three years ago, he died. A brave soldier, an able com-
mander, and a noble man ; but wholly unfit to carry out any
policy of fraud and cruelty even against Indians !

I write these paragraphs, of more modern history, in connec-
tion with legends of our Indian wars in New England two hun-
dred years ago, to show that neither in the present nor the past
have the Indians been regarded as men, or possessors of the
rights of men. For, " we hold these truths to be self-evident
that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But the Indians have none
of these endowments. They live by our sufferance, and they
must be happy or miserable as we direct. And their liberty
is that of the wild beast of the forest.

It would be as unnatural as unjust to rehearse the cruelties
of our forefathers, as if they were the willing oppressors of an
innocent people who gave no just cause of offence. While there
were instances of generous and noble characters, the Indians
were a race of savages and the methods of savage warfare are
always horrible. But our forefathers government and people
adopted some of them, even to the taking of scalps. And
they added a new horror to their savage warfare by transport-
ing their Indian captives and selling them into slavery !

Government efforts if efforts they may be called to civilize

1893-] MAINE OF A LATER DAY. 555

the Indians have been failures. The few small communities of
semi-civilized Christians generally owe their conversion to the
perseverant labors of Franciscan, Jesuit, and Oblate missionary
priests, whose efforts have been sometimes thwarted and always
embarrassed by sectarian influences on the part of government
officials. As in 1717 the governor of Massachusetts Bay offered
Protestant Bibles and a Protestant teacher to the Catholic In-
dians of Maine, so his successors in government, a hundred and
seventy years later, send Protestant teachers to the Catholic
Pueblos in New Mexico. The conditions are not quite parallel ;
for then, in the realm of Great Britain, the Catholic religion
was prohibited by her laws ; while here and now government
is forbidden either to teach religion or to prohibit religious
teaching.

In New England, prior to " the Revolution," there was reli-
gion, but no religious freedom. As in old England king and
Parliament usurped the authority of popes and councils, in New
England all were subjects of the civil powers in matters of faith
and church discipline, as well as in secular affairs. Acts of the
General Court of Massachusetts assumed to define heresies as
well as to enforce the precepts of their religion.

In 1646 it was made penal to "withhold children from the
ordinance (sic] of baptism." " One Painter was publicly whipped
for this offence. And in the course of twenty years about
thirty were either fined, whipped, or banished ; and a few executed"
(Williamson).

As we read these passages from our colonial history, the re-
frain of Mrs. Hemans's laudatory ode to the New England Pil-
grims seems like the expression of a sneer : " Freedom to wor-
ship God " !

The authentic legends of Maine, its coasts and islands, bays
and rivers, might well serve as links in the chain of historic
events, from the visits of European adventurers in 1602 to the
present day. Something of this is presented in the brief refer-
ences to the first English and French navigators and explorers
of her coast, and the tripartite contests between the English,
French, and Indians, for final possession of the country from
the Piscataqua to the St. John.

Though remote from the great battle-fields of " the Revo-
lution," Maine claims a place in its history, from its beginning
to its close. It was up the Kennebeck to its head-waters, and
thence through miles of wilderness, that the expedition against

556 MAINE OF A LATER DAY. [Jan.,

Quebec made its way in the autumn and early winter of 1775.
Perhaps our history affords no examples of heroic endurance of
privation and toil surpassing those of Arnold's march to Quebec
through the forests of Maine. Nor, perhaps, a more striking ex-
ample of disaster, by the failure of a subordinate, than is pre-
sented in the shameful abandonment of the expedition by the
commander of one division of his forces. Arnold reached
Quebec with but six hundred and fifty of the eleven hundred
men of his command. There he was joined by the gallant
Montgomery, who led the attack, and was killed almost at the
first fire of the British artillery. A monument to his memory is
seen in front of St. Paul's, on Broadway. A mural tablet, in
honor of " The brave American General Montgomery," once
existed in the foundation wall of a house on the street of
Quebec near where he fell. It is said to have disappeared ; but
I saw it and copied its inscription in 1849.

That the invasion of Canada proved a failure was, in great
part, due to other causes than inadequate force. The memory
of Father Rasles was yet fresh in the minds of Canadians. They
knew, also, that in some of the insurgent colonies their co-
religionists were not free. And though a Catholic priest after-
ward the first Archbishop of Baltimore was associated with Dr.
Franklin to solicit their co-operation in the struggle for inde-
pendence, the statutes of New England, Virginia, and New
York promised less favor to their religious liberty than the
treaty obligations of old England. And so, to-day, instead of
being component parts of one great American state, Canada and
the United States are wrangling about railways and canals, and
reciprocity in trade!

One of the historic points around which are clustered me-
morials of French colonization, our own colonial period, and the
war for independence, is Castine, on the north-eastern shore of
Penobscot Bay. Its name is that of a French adventurer who r
for thirty years, was identified with the Indians of the country
in opposing English colonization and English marauders. The
Baron de Castine resided here from 1667 to 1697. The penin-
sula on which the town is built once bore the name of an earlier
resident Frenchman, and was known as " Major Biguyduce."
The Plymouth Company had a trading-house here in 1626, but
it was soon abandoned.

In the war of "the Revolution " 1775 to 1783 Biguyduce was
a British military post. In the fifth year of the war, 1781, Gen-

r'893-J MAINE OF A LA TER DAY. 557

eral Wadsworth commanded the American forces on the coast
east of Falmouth (Portland). The troops of his command were
chiefly militia, drafted for eight months' service. The four
'months of winter in that cold climate compelled a suspension
of active hostilities, and when in December the greater part of
his men had gone to their homes, the general was left with a
small force at Camden, on the west shore of the bay, and
twenty to thirty miles south-west from the British post. By
land the distance was about fifty miles. The general's residence
during the period of hibernation was near the village of
Thomaston, and three or four miles from the shore, where he
was guarded by only six soldiers. But as the post at Camden was
between his residence and the enemy, there seems to have been
little apprehension of danger. Advised of Wadsworth's slender
protection, the British commander at Biguyduce sent a party of
twenty-five men, under Lieutenant Stockton, to capture him. The
party crossed the bay in a privateer vessel, and at night landed
a few miles from the general's house. The weather was intensely
cold, and the ground was covered with snow. The guard was
not alert when, near midnight, the British party made their at-
tack. It was a complete surprise. The general and his little
party made a stout resistance, and surrendered only when he
and all but one of the guard were disabled by wounds. He
was hurried to the vessel and conveyed to Biguyduce. On
his arrival the British commander, General Campbell, called
upon him, complimented him on his brave resistance which
he thought hardly justifiable where success was hopeless
and invited him to share his table while a prisoner at the
post,

. In the following April Major Burton, who had served under
General Wadsworth, was captured on the passage from Boston
to his home on the St. George. He was brought to Biguyduce,
and lodged in the same room with his general.- Both were
treated with courtesy by the British commander and his officers,
fhile awaiting orders from their commander-in-chief at New
York. Some suspension of friendly courtesies, and occasional
lints, confirmed the suspicion that the prisoners were not to be
exchanged ; but were to be sent to England, either to be tried
for treason or, at best, to be imprisoned until the close of the
rar. Mrs. Wadsworth and a friend, Miss Fenno, had been per-
litted to visit them, and on taking leave Miss Fenno had ven-
red to say : " General Wadsworth, take care of yourself ! " This
VOL. LVI. 38

558 MAINE OF A LATER DAY. [Jin.,

was understood as a hint, and the prisoners determined to es-
cape or perish in the attempt.

The room in which they were confined was in the officers'
barrack, within the fort. The scarp wall was over twenty feet
high, and a strong cheveaux-de-frise ran along its foot, in the
ditch. Sentinels were posted at short intervals along the walls,
and at the doors of the barracks; and there were two in the
gallery on which the prisoners' room opened. The upper half
of their door was a glazed window, which enabled the sentinel
to view the interior of the room, and which he opened at pleas-
ure. The outside windows were strongly grated.

By a small bribe to the soldier who served as their barber
they procured a gimlet, with which Burton was able to bore two
lines of holes across a wide board of the ceiling. The interstices
between the gimlet-holes were cut with a penknife, leaving only
those at the corners, to keep the ceiling apparently intact. For,
as soon as a hole was made or a bit of wood removed, the
cavity was filled with bread moistened in the mouth, and made
so nearly of the same tint as the wood that in a casual inspec-
tion it would not be noticed. As only a few turns of the gim-
let could be made between the sentinel's successive passages of
the door, it required care as well as patience to prosecute the
work to completion ; but at the end of three weeks it was ac-
complished.

The prisoners prepared for their journey by laying aside por-
tions of food for subsistence by the 'way, and waited for weath-
er to favor their attempt. At last it came. On the i8th of
June a dark night and heavy rain aided to conceal their move-
ments from the eyes and ears of sentinels. The hole through
the ceiling was opened, and with some difficulty the prisoners
crawled through it, and along the joists above to an entry open
to the roof. Using their blankets as cords, they descended to
the floor below. Thence, groping their way to an outer door
and across the parade, they reached a bastion and made the de-
scent of the ditch undiscovered. To ascend the counter-scarp
was comparatively easy. But only the intense darkness and the
howling storm made escape possible, for it was necessary to
pass two lines of sentinels, and the guard was relieved while the
fugitives were crossing the parapet and ditch. Here they be-
came separated, and the general groped his way alone to the
cove behind the fort. Fortunately, the tide was out and the
cove, a mile in width, was fordable. After the crossing, it was

I 893.]

MAJN$ of A LATER DA Y.

S59

necessary to traverse another mile over rough ground and wind-
falls to the shore of the bay. There he was rejoined by Major
Burton. A boat was found on the beach, in which they crossed
the bay to the western shore. Thence, guided by a pocket com-
pass, they made their way through the woods to the head-waters
of the St. George. On the third day after leaving the fort they
reached the house of a " settler," and procured horses for the
rest of the journey to Thomaston.

In rehearsing the hazardous adventure of General Wadsworth
little more than a century ago, his narrow escape from an un-
willing voyage to England no longer home to be tried for
treason, or else to languish in unhonored captivity, one cannot
help contrasting the different minor conditions of now and then.
Then the general endured privations and encountered dangers
to escape the possibility of long captivity perhaps trial for trea-
son-felony in " our old home." Now a monument to the pa-
triot general's grandson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, holds
place in Westminster Abbey.

I have rehearsed some incidents in the history of Maine and
New England just as they were suggested by recollections of
her lakes and rivers, and that wonderful sea-coast whose many
points of interest are little known to "off-islanders" to few save
those who in childhood have gazed upon the ocean from her
beetling cliffs, and been hushed to sleep in the sound of breakers
on her granite shores. Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Orchard
Beach, and other points of the coast affected by summer tourists
are familiar names ; but they embrace but small parts of a sea-
coast of more than two thousand miles.

E. PARKER-SCAMMON.

New York.

THE FREDERIC OZANAM OF CORK. [Jan.,

THE FREDERIC OZANAM OF CORK.

i
I

N All-Saints' Day, 1892, the Young Men's Society
of Cork celebrated its fortieth anniversary. Great
joy was felt by all on account of the society's
marvellous vitality, its present roll numbering 830
members albeit it had in 1859 '^oo members
and a well-grounded hope was expressed for its future progress
under the guidance of its ever-zealous officers.

Yet with all this chorus of gladness and hope, and through
all this harmony, was felt and heard a minor chord of sorrow
for the loss of one whom death had taken from amongst us
scarcely two months before John George MacCarthy, our foun-
der and president for over a quarter of a century. To none at
that meeting, however, was that sad memory so real, so touch-
ingly present, as to the four who were associated with Mr. Mac-
Carthy in the foundation of the society, and who, to mark our
length of membership, were placed that night amongst the hon-
ored guests. Nor did we grieve without added reason, for at
this gathering we had all hoped to have once more heard his
pleasant voice, to have beheld his graceful figure, and to have felt
his genial presence. But such was not to be.

Looking at my Irish Birth-day Book I find his autograph,
"John George MacCarthy, born at Cork, June 22, 1829." For that
day Miss E. Skeffington Thompson, the compiler, has aptly quoted,
but all unconscious of its aptness, these fine lines of Mangan :

" The noble-hearted sees in earth

A paradise before his eyes ;
The dreams to which his soul gives birth

He fondly hopes to realize ;
He dedicates his burning youth
To glorify the majesty of Truth ! "

Surely no verse could be better chosen as an epitome of the
life of John George MacCarthy, " the Frederic Ozanam of Cork,"
as a writer lately called him. His " burning youth" did, indeed,
" glorify the majesty of Truth ! " as his manhood exemplified its
practice, fully, fearlessly, heroically.

Looking back to boyhood, the first memory of my dear
friend I find midway in the " forties " I a boy of twelve, he
a youth of sixteen, reading an essay as a pupil at the " Mansion
House" School St. Vincent's at the summer vacation exhibi-
tion, to which my good mother took me.

1 893.] THE FREDERIC OZANAM OF CORK. 561

My feelings, I well remember, were of wonder and sympathy
for the graceful young essayist. Wonder at his courage, and
sympathy, for he was a stammerer. So then was I, and long
years after did we both do battle against the common foe, read-
ing poetry aloud together. Longfellow, because it was his fa-
vorite, was chosen. " Longfellow " his aunts, with whom he then
resided on Charlotte Quay, playfully called him, to mark, no
doubt, his stature as well as his love for the poet.

Returning home from vacation in 1852 I found George
Roche, a mutual friend of school-days, and who died since as
Dr. Roche in Australia, and others gathering recruits for a new
society they were about to form. It was to be modelled on an-
other society of a similar nature, founded by Dean O'Brien,
among the young men of Limerick.

The Dominican Prior, Very Rev. John Pius Leahy, O.P., St.
Mary's, Pope's Quay, who died a few years ago Bishop of Dro-
more, fostered the society, and with great discernment chose for
its president the young law student, John George MacCarthy,
then in his twenty-third year.

Bishop Leahy, replying to our address on his elevation to the
episcopate, says, October 8, 1854:

" It is not to me our city is indebted for the numerous
blessings derived from your society. That merit is due to your
late indefatigable secretary, Mr. George Roche, and to your
highly gifted and virtuous president, Mr. John George Mac-
Carthy."

In seven years from the inauguration of the society our
president married. His reply to our congratulatory address is a
good specimen of his fine style, as well as an indication of the
high tone of his mind :

" MY DEAR BROTHERS : Slight favors are easily acknowl-
edged. Ordinary language answers for common occasions. But
when one receives such a proof of affection as you have given

le to-night affection so thoughtful and generous, so delicate
md so vehement it is simply true that words fail, and tearful
;yes must tell one's gratitude.

" During our seven years' work, your kindness to me has
>een of a nature that only the force of God's blessing on our
:ause, and the warmth and firmness of your own characters,
:ould account for it. It was quite unlike almost all that one

leets in the world. It never failed in the minutest detail of
compliment. It never shrank from the largest bestowal of trust:
It was not checkered by a change or varied by a word. But

562 THE FREDERIC OZANAM OF CORK. [Jan.,

this last act of kindness is the greatest and most grateful of all.
Wholly unexpected quite undeserved coming at an era in my
life including one far dearer to me than my life it is a favor
which, as it can never be repeated, can never be forgotten.

" Your beautiful address and your munificent gift shall al-
ways be amongst the proudest and pleasantest ornaments of my
home. Nor shall they be ornaments merely. They will be in-
centives, too. They will remind me that I won the affection of
eighteen hundred of my fellow-citizens, including some of the
best men I know or have ever known, and they will make me
strive to be less unworthy of such regard from such men.

" I need scarcely recall to your recollection that the marvel-
lous success of our undertaking has not been my work. After
God and our Lady, after our bishop and clergy, it has been
yours. The office you gave me was indeed the most prominent
and honorable, but it was far from being the most laborious
and important. Mine were the public acknowledgments, yours
the secret, continuous, indefatigable work, done only for God,
known only to him.

" The Institute has benefited many, but none so much as me.
It gave me some of the pleasantest hours of the last seven
years. It gratified the literary tastes which were almost my
only relaxation from an ever-increasingly laborious and respon-
sible profession. Its rules were my guard in temptation, its
principles my guide in action. It afforded me some of the fast-
est and dearest friends I have. And it insured me the example
of men whose purity of motive and sustained elevation of
thought, word, act, and life are better than any argument, more
encouraging than any exhortation.

" Brothers, on my own part, and on that of the lady who has
honored me with her hand, I heartily thank you. I trust that
you and I shall labor together many years in the good work
which has made us friends. Years only increase my enthusiasm
for it, and my desire to be permitted to promote it. The
county and the city are rising now. To whom should they look
if not to their young men? In what should young men trust if
not in intelligence and virtue in knowledge and religion ?

" For myself, I shall only say, in conclusion, that though I
can Ho little, that little shall be done ' with a will.' Amidst
many defects, despite many shortcomings, I shall endeavor t<
keep my eye the eye of head, and heart, and mind on what
is True and Good, and strive straight on to that through all
fortunes

l8 93-] TIJE FREDERIC OZANAM OF CORK. 563

" ' The future hides in it
Gladness and sorrow.
We press still through,
Naught that abides in it daunting us,
Onward ! '

" I am, dear brothers,

" Yours gratefully and affectionately,
"JOHN GEORGE MACCARTHY.

" 70 South Afail) December 5, 1859."

Of Mr. MacCarthy's quarter of a century's noble work for
the Brotherhood, done "with a will " that always found a "way,"
I can find but little record now. The disastrous fire of 1882
destroyed our building and all it contained ; books, minutes,
guild-rolls, records of all kinds. I am now begging for copies
of our old Annual Reports all from Mr. MacCarthy's pen
down to 1 88 1 (I have but eleven out of twenty-eight), as well
as other pamphlets or addresses by him, concerned with our
work.

Memory recalls, while I write, how on his return from the
Catholic Congress at Malines in 1864, of which he was chosen
vice-president, he refused the banquet proposed by our society
in his honor ; how for many years he supplied, out of his pri-
vate purse, a ,[O case of new books to our reading-room from
Morrow's Library in Dublin ; how after returning from his well-
earned vacations he gave his fellow-members the benefit of what
he saw and heard, in charming lectures at our Tuesday evening
meetings, which were very rarely without his presence in the
chair.

Of Mr. MacCarthy's work for the society the Cork Exami-
ner s able obituary says :

. " Never has such a mark been made in the history of any
body of a religious nature as that created by Mr. MacCarthy in
the history of the Cork Young Men's Society. His portrait now
occupies a prominent position in the large hall in Castle Street,
and his name is inseparably associated with the boundless good
effected by the society. . . . Through troublous times he
lent all the enthusiasm of his nature to the society, and with
the best results." After mentioning the educational work pro-
moted by the society winter after winter, under the ablest pro-
fessors, and most celebrated lecturers, divines and eminent uni-
versity scholars whose services were sought by the president
and secured names like Dr. (since Cardinal) Manning, his
nephew Dr. Anderdon, Archbishop Croke, Monsignor Capel,
Dr. Cahill, Dean O'Brien, Monsignor Woodlock, Father Burke,

564 THE FREDERIC. OZANAM OF CORK. {Ja.

O.P., Father Pelcherine ; and amongst laymen, Lord O'Hagan,
Monsell (Lord Emly), Allies, Ornsby, Pollen, Rhodes, Magee
(D'Arcy), Maguire, Denny Lane, Dr. Dunne, Count Murphy, and
many others, the writer proceeds :

" The Annual Report, prepared by Mr. MacCarthy, came to
be regarded by the citizens at large as a literary treat. The re-
citals of the dry workings of the society . . never failed to
open new ground with effect, and the reading of the report was
looked forward to with the liveliest interest." In this connec-
tion Mr. MacCarthy 's great elocutionary powers may be illustrat-
ed from the same article. " In Parliament," the writer con-
tinues, " Mr. MacCarthy was destined to add lustre to the repu-
tation which had gone before him. In his early days an impedu
ment sadly retarded the flow of impressive speech which char-
acterized all his utterances. With the indomitable energy and
perseverance which formed so marked a trait in his nature, he
fought against the defect, and was rewarded. Eloquence and
fluency distinguished an oratory which was always a model of
directness and conciseness, and which never failed to hold the
attention of the listener. These qualities were not unnoticed in
the House of Commons. His speeches on all matters relating
to land attracted especial attention, and doubtless operated
largely in securing him the appointment of Land Commissioner.
. . . Naturally his love of justice laid him open to a charge
of partiality from the Tories, and it will be remembered that
about two years ago Mr. T. W. Russell, M.P., addressed the
House of Commons on this point. Mr. MacCarthy met the in-
sinuation with his usual spirit, and forwarded a memorandum to
the Speaker of the House in which he proved that Mr. Russell's
statements were based on an entire misconception of the facts.
Mir. MacCarthy added that he wholly objected to being attacked
in the House of Commons for the manner in which he dis-
charged his judicial functions. The merits of the case were evi-
dently not in favor of Mr. Russell's contention, for no more was
heard of these charges, and Mr. MacCarthy continued to fill his
office to the satisfaction of all."

In summing up this most interesting and signally meritorious
man's life another writer says that " the friendship of John
George MacCarthy has been to me for forty years amongst the
very choicest of temporal blessings. Of men whom I have met
he came nearest to perfection as a Catholic, as a citizen, as a
statesman, as a judge, as a friend, as a man"

THOMAS H. ATTERIDGE.

Cork, Irfland.

THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW.
THE LABOR PROBLEM.

The Unemployed. The labor problem of the hour in Eng-
land, and especially in London, is to find employment for the
large number of men who are out of work. The number is
variously estimated. On the one hand, Mr. Keir Hardie main-
tains that it amounts for the whole kingdom including presum-
ably the families of the men to 1,200,000 persons. On the
other, the London Times and many of the well-to-do whom it
represents a class which does not like to have its peace dis-
turbed by the knowledge even that others are in distress affect
to believe that the unemployed are made up almost entirely of
the idle and the incapable. The truth doubtless lies between
these extremes. There are, of eourse, a large number of loafers
and inefficient men persons who either do not want to work, or
who are incapable of doing anything useful. It cannot be denied,
however, that there has been for the past eighteen months great
depression of trade. In fact, so long has this depression lasted
that fears are beginning to be entertained that a permanent
alienation of trade has taken place. It is admitted, even by the
friends of the working-men, that London has suffered in this
way through the celebrated dockers' strike of 1889. The har-
vest, too, has been exceptionally poor, and the price of grain is
now lower than ever before. The McKinley tariff, too, has
proved disastrous to workers in Yorkshire and South Wales.
And so even the most unwilling are forced to admit that there
are reasons for grave anxiety.

Agitating for Work. Meetings are being held every day on
Tower Hill, followed by processions through the streets. The
vestries are being called upon to find work ; some have consent-
ed, others have declared that it was no affair of theirs. The
Social Democratic Federation has employed orators, and

566 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Jan.,

them salaries to address the meetings and to organize the pro-
cessions. This has excited the opposition of others of the un-
employed, and as a consequence rival meetings are held. Promi-
nent preachers like Archdeacon Farrar and Dr. Joseph Parker
have been interviewed by the leaders, and called upon much
to their embarrassment and dismay to find not relief but work.
The London School Board is asked to feed the children as well
as to instruct them. It seems, indeed, to be somewhat of an
anomaly that the state should compel a large number of chil-
dren to go to school who have had no breakfast ; as according
to all sound philosophical principles food for the body is at
least as necessary as instruction for the mind. The state which
takes upon itself the duty of giving the latter cannot complain
if called upon to give the former. In fact, we believe that this
is actually done in Paris. But to return to the unemployed
their efforts to call forth the sympathy of the public culminated
in a great meeting, held in Trafalgar Square, at which resolu-
tions were passed demanding that the government and all repre-
sentative public bodies should at once set on foot the many
public improvements that are needed throughout the kingdom,
and thus provide work. It is worthy of note that not the least
violence of any kind has been used ; the most extreme measure
proposed being a barefoot procession through the street at mid-
night, and even this, we believe, has been abandoned.

Results and Remedies. This agitation has not been without
beneficial results, although the evils to be removed are so great
that it seems almost hopeless to expect to find anything better
than some kind of palliative. Expedients formerly adopted are
now discarded as resulting in an aggravation of the existing
bad state of things. In 1886 a fund for the relief of the dis-
tressed was raised by the lord mayor, and thereupon multitudes
flocked from all parts of the kingdom to get a share of it, and
the last state of the poor in London became worse than the
first. The same thing would take place if public works were
instituted on a large scale in London, unless similar works were
also undertaken throughout the country. This is admitted, and
in fact maintained by the advocates of the cause of the unem-
plpyed. The secretary of the Local Government Board has ac-
cordingly issued a circular to the local authorities of the United
Kingdom, not requiring for this he has no power to do but
urging them to set on foot at once such works as may be re-
quired by the public needs in their respective districts. The

1 893.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 567

governing body of London the county council has given in-
structions for the immediate execution of projected improve-
ments, and many of the vestries have adopted a similar course.
The first commissioner of public works has undertaken to pro-
ceed at once with the demolition of Millbank prison, and this
will afford employment for between three and four hundred
men for a period of three months. But what is this among so
many ? The unemployed and many of their most prominent,
or at least loud-voiced, friends demand among other things the
establishment of workshops, the organization . of state and muni-
cipal corporation farms, the opening of public bakeries where
pure bread is to be sold at cost, the setting on foot of labor
bureaus and labor exchanges, and the provision of free meals
and free clothes in the board schools. Such being the nature
and extent of their demands it is not likely that they will be
content with the efforts made to find work for a fractional part
of their number. It is worthy of notice that no appeal for
charity has been made by those out of work. Work is what is
asked for, and indeed claimed as a right, and it is hard to look
upon a society as rightly organized in which such a demand
cannot be complied with.

" A Clearing-House for the Unemployed." One of the meth-
ods adopted for coping with the present difficulty, which should
have been mentioned above, is the establishment by one or two
vestries of a register of persons out of work and of employers
who are in need of workmen, and of giving information one to
the other. This method has contributed to the diminution of
existing evils. A somewhat similar scheme, dealing, however^
with the distribution of charity, has been set on foot by private
persons to which the name of " A Clearing-House for the Unem-
ployed " has been given. It is proposed to appoint a central
committee in London and other large towns, and to this com-
mittee any person who is willing to help a family whose bread-
winner is out of work through no fault of his own to tide over
the winter, can send in his name, simply stating what charitable
body, if any, is to vouch for the requirements of the family*
and to distribute weekly the help when necessary. The com-
mittee will then communicate the name of the willing giver to
the clergyman, pastor, priest, rabbi, guru, moulvie, Salvationist,
Charity Organization Society Committee, or other agency chosen
by the giver, or if no agency is chosen, to some reputable so-
ciety for giving relief: It is hoped by this means to bring the

THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Jan.,

many rich persons who are willing to help into direct contact
with cases of real distress, for the scheme does not propose
that the committee shall itself undertake the distribution of the
help afforded, its functions being merely those of a clearing-
house. To us it seems somewhat of a round-about way of at-
taining the end in view. Those, however, who are better able
to judge, and among them the Archbishop of Westminster, are
taking very great interest in it, looking upon it as a good
means of bridging the enormous chasm which exists in England
between the wealthy and the poor.

Registration Offices. In fact, it is upon lines similar to these
that remedies for irregular employment are being proposed.
Mr. Charles Booth has elaborated a plan of this kind for deal-
ing with the dock laborers in order to keep them in constant
work. In its details it is very elaborate, and into them we can-
not enter ; we may mention, however, that its main feature is
to establish a central office, whose duty would be to ascertain
where there was a deficiency of men and where there was a
surplus, and to effect a transfer from the one place to the
other. The Shipping Federation also has devised a method of
extending to other trades and occupations the plan which was
set on foot by ship-owners to counteract the efforts of the
" New Unionism," and which has proved successful in this re-
spect. It is proposed to open in London a central office, or
labor exchange, and to establish branches throughout the king-
dom. One of the principal duties undertaken would be to col-
lect information from all parts of the country as to the condi-
tions of labor, and to post up notices showing what men wanted
work, where and what kind of men were wanted by the masters,
and in what particular districts there was already a glut of la-
bor. Employers in want of men would thus be enabled to
secure them easily, while the men would know where to go with
the best prospect of obtaining employment, and thus be spared
fruitless journeys to places where they would have no chance of
getting any. This proposal, however, being made by capitalists
and employers, and in opposition to the demands of the trade-
unions, is not likely to be favorably entertained by the mass of
working-men, among whom the appointment of a labor minister
whose duty would embrace functions of this kind seems to be
obtaining a greater amount of support the more it is discussed.
That measures of this kind should not have advanced far-
ther than the stage of discussion shows that Great Britain in

1893-] THE- OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 569

this respect is behind several countries on the Continent, where
labor exchanges have been established for some years.

Legislative Proposals. Passing from the efforts and pro-
jects of private persons to the legislative proposals made by
statesmen and politicians, the tendency to an increase of the
interference of the law with both employers and employed be-
comes more and more marked. This appears clearly in the
utterances of politicians of all parties, such as Sir John Gorst,
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and Mr. Labouchere. Mr. Chamber-
lain, in an article in the Nineteenth Century, enumerates the
measures which he looks upon as desirable, and the passing of
which into law he judges to be practicable. These measures
consist of the legislative enforcement of the proposals for the
shortening of the hours of work for miners, and others en-
gaged in dangerous occupations ; the local enforcement of trade
regulations for the earlier closing of shops ; the establishment of
tribunals of arbitration in trade disputes ; compensation for in-
juries received in the course of employment, and to widows and
children in case of death, whenever such injuries are not caused
by the fault of the person killed or injured ; old-age pensions
for the deserving poor ; increased powers and facilities to local
authorities to make town improvements, and prepare for the bet-
ter housing of the working poor ; and power to local authorities
to advance money, and afford facilities to the working-classes to
become owners of their own dwellings. Almost all these pro-
posals constitute a departure from the hitherto received doctrines
of individualism, and, although they do not, especially in the
matter of the regulation of the hours of labor by the state,
go far enough to satisfy the demands of what seems to be a
majority of working-men, they possess this advantage, in the
judgment of Mr. Chamberlain, that no great opposition would be
offered by any party in Parliament.

Evidence of Mr. Mann. A still more striking evidence, per-
haps, of the progress of public opinion in favor of state-regula-
tion of the relations between capital and labor is the fact that
the Royal Commission on Labor has thought it worth while to
devote three full days to the examination of the theories of Mr.
Tom Mann one of the founders of the " New Unionism "
which has caused so much trouble in recent times. And since
we have mentioned the Royal Commission we may, perhaps, be
allowed to inform our readers that its proceedings have not yet

S/o THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Jan.,

corrie to a conclusion, and that up to the month of August
last it had asked some eighty thousand questions, and received
a corresponding number of answers from picked representatives
of nearly every trade and occupation in Great Britain. Students
of the labor question will find in the evidence, published in the
form of government blue books, a mine of information theoret-
ical and practical. To return, however, to Mr. Mann. He is an
opponent of the present competitive system, and in favor of the
ultimate municipalization both of capital and industry. Although
he does not believe that at the present time the people collec-
tively are at once sensible and unselfish enough to be trusted
with the management and control of all the affairs and business
now carried on by private individuals, he has hopes of their
moral condition being greatly improved, and postpones until
that time the full realization of his schemes. The scheme, as out-
lined by Mr. Mann before the commission, proposes that the
taxpayers of London should tax themselves in order to get pos-
session of all the trades employing much labor ; the municipality
itself should then work these huge businesses, and competition
with it should be prohibited as is done in the case of the post-
office ; a beginning should be made with the provision of gas
and water, the means of locomotion, wharfage, the erection of
buildings, the making of clothes for all public servants, and the
supply of cheap literature. Every one of the things here men-
tioned, except the erection of buildings and the making of
clothes, is done already by a large number of towns, in whole
or in part, and within the last few weeks the London County
Council has decided to abolish contractors, and to carry out
many of its own public works without the intervention of any
middleman. So that Mr. Mann's proposals are in process of
realization a process developing, too, every day more and more.
It is only a question of where to stop. Mr. Mann goes farther
than the majority approve at present, and would have every in-
dustry carried on by a public body which should have the con-
trol of the general wealth for the purpose of securing the
greater comfort of labor. Especially he believes that the muni
cipalities would be able so to " dovetail " the work that nobody
would be idle, and accordingly favors " trusts " and " syndicates "
as steps in the right direction. That these theories and projects
should have been deemed worthy of attention by the practical
men forming the commission is only one sign among many that
there exists a wide-spread suspicion that the present distribution
of wealth is unfavorable to the highest well-being of the country,

1893.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 571

and as perilous to the moral excellence of those who possess an
excess as to that of those who have not what they need.

The Cotton Trade Strike. The strike of the cotton-spinners
in Lancashire has not attained the magnitude which was ex-
pected. It is causing, however, a great deal of distress among
those especially who are only indirectly responsible. It seems to
be due, we are sorry to say, to unreasonable conduct on the part
of the men, and is consequently a disappointment to the hopes
of those who were beginning to think an era of conciliation had
arrived. This, at least, is the impression which we derive from
the reply made by Mr. Maudsley, the secretary of the work-
men's union, to the proposal to arbitrate made by the mayor of
Manchester. In this reply Mr. Maudsley says that the mayor, by
the very fact of his offering to arbitrate, implied " that we and
our employers are not able to manage our own business, and
that you and others could do it better." He proceeds to call
those who made the offer " meddlers in other people's busi-
ness," and to read the would-be peacemakers the following lec-
ture : " There seems at present to be a tendency amongst
the upper classes to try and make a name for themselves on
the shoulders of working-men, and then to get them to submit to
reductions of wages under the guise of arbitration. It will not
happen in our case, and if the letter correspondence between us
has convinced one of the advisability of reserving his meddling
propensities until he is asked to exercise them by those con-
cerned, it will not have been wasted." Should feelings of this
kind be general among working-men, the hopes of conciliation
and industrial peace cannot be very confident.

THE CRISIS IN FRANCE.

For the seven-and-twentieth time since the downfall of the
Second Empire, two-and-twenty years ago, the French cabinet
has been overthrown. Although the ministers who have just
been driven from office were in power for only nine months, the
period allotted to them was longer than that of some half-dozen
previous ministries. In fact, it is beginning to be taken for granted
that one of these crises must take place at least once a year, so
many are the aspirants to office, and so little capable are those
who succeed of retaining possession of power. The special
causes of the fall of the Loubet ministry are not far to seek.
It tried to please both parties in the Carmaux strike the mode-

572 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Jan.,

rate party, which wished for the preservation of order, and the
Radicals and Socialists, who sought by means of the strike to
promote their theories, and, as often happens, they failed to
secure the confidence of either of the combatants. It has, more-
over, repelled the advances which, following the counsels of the
Holy Father, the members of the monarchical parties have made to
the Republic, almost treating with contempt and derision their
offer of allegiance. The recent dynamite outrage in Paris
showed the inability of its police, and the press law, although
it passed the Chambers, added to the dislike felt for the govern-
ment by both extremes in the house. Having yielded to a de-
mand for a committee of inquiry into the Panama Canal, it re-
fused, and ' rightly, to allow certain illegal proceedings to be
taken by this committee, and so brought to a somewhat digni-
fied end a career which had been characterized by numberless
makeshifts and sacrifices of principle for power. Although fre-
quent practice should by this time have made cabinet-making
easy for the President, the difficulty found on this occasion
was greater than ever ; in fact, there exists a wide-spread feeling
of alarm and uncertainty as to the future, some even thinking
that there exists in an unknown quarter a conspiracy to render
all government impossible by discrediting in the eyes of the
electors the members of the Chambers : this, it is said, was the
real reason for the Panama Canal investigation. The general
election will take place next year, and this, together with the
growth and strengthening of the Socialist movement, makes it
to be feared that troublous times are in store for the Republic.

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

573

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

R. BROWN ELL'S French Art is receiving general
encomiums, both here and abroad, for the remark-
able delicacy of its appreciation of qualities that
are most difficult to define. Such of Mr. Brown-
ell's readers as know the subjects which he usually
treats and in which he seems most interested, have long been
aware of his special faculty in this respect, but his present work*
displays another faculty which we have not met before : that of
translating the expression of plastic art into that of litera-
ture.

Artists themselves are constantly preferring the charge of be-
ing " literary " against writers on art, and often with great jus-
tice. We suspect, however, that a loose use of the term on the
part of artists must be assumed in order to grant that justice.
The real trouble seems to be that the literature of the art-critics
against whom the charge can be maintained is not as good as
it might be. One finds, at all events, that Mr. Brownell can so
use the spell of words as to conjure up qualities of appearance,
and so order the generalizing terms employed by artists when
trying to impart what they see in the art of others or wish to
express in their own, as to convey by means of them a clear and
definite meaning. It is a service for which every thoughtful
artist must be grateful. In no way has he rendered a more
distinct service, nor one more difficult, than in his analysis of the
qualities of that supreme school of French painters known as
the " Fontainebleau Group," including Millet, Corot, Rousseau,
Daubigny, Diaz," etc. We extract from it the admirable page
in which he defines the charm of the greatest of landscape
painters :

" But Corot's true distinction what gives him his unique posi-
tion at the very head of landscape art, is neither his color, deli-
cate and interesting as his color is, nor his classic serenity, har-
monizing with, instead of depending upon, the chance associa-
tions of architecture and mythology with which now and then he
decorates his landscapes ; it is the blithe, the airy, the truly spir-
itual way in which he gets farther away than any one from both
the actual pigment that is his .instrument, and from the phenom-

* French Art : Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture. By W. C. Brownell.
New York : Chas. Scribner's Sons.
VOL. LVI. 39 .

57*4- TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,

ena that are the objects of his expression his ethereality, in a
word. He has communicated his sentiment almost without ma-
terial, one may say, so ethereally independent of their actual an-
alogues is the interest of his trees and sky and stretch of sward.
This sentiment, thus mysteriously triumphant over color or form,
or other sensuous charm, which nevertheless are only subtly sub-
ordinated, and by no manner of means treated lightly or inade-
quately, is as exalted as any that has in our day been expressed
in any manner. Indeed, where, outside of the very highest poetry
of the century, can one get the same sense of elation, of aspir-
ing delight, of joy unmixed with regret since the ' splendor of
truth,' which Plato defined beauty to be, is more animating and
consoling than ' the weary weight of all this unintelligible world '
is depressing to a spirit of lofty seriousness and sanity?"

If Mr. Brownell has shown an extremely rare if not altogether
unique power in his perception and setting forth of the qual-
ities of painting, his analysis of sculpture recalls the fact that
this is the least cared for and least understood of any of the
fine arts; a fact so painfully true that nothing could better il-
lustrate, nor by implication criticise more damagingly, the preva-
lent sense of what sculpture is, as shown in the works of our
native sculptors with but few exceptions, than the paragraph we
are about to cite from his appreciation of David d'A,ngers :

" Whether the subject be intractable or not seems to have
made no difference to David. He invariably produced a work of
art at the same time that he expressed the character of its mo-
tive with uncompromising fidelity. His portraits, moreover, are
pure sculpture. There is nothing of the cameo-cutter's art
about them. They are modelled, not carved. The outline is no
more important than it is in nature, so far as it is employed to
the end of identification. It is used decoratively. There are
surprising effects of foreshortening, exhibiting superb, and, as it
were, unconscious ease in handling relief that most difficult of
illusions in respect of having no law (at least no law that it is
worth the sculptor's while to try to discover) of correspondence
to reality. Forms and masses have a definition and firmness
wholly remarkable in their independence of the usual low relief's
reliance on pictorial and purely linear design. They do not blend
picturesquely with the background, and do not depend on their
suggestiveness for their character. They are always realized, ex-
ecuted sculpture, in a word, whose suggestiveness, quite as po-
tent as that of feebler executants, begins only when actual rep-
resentation has been triumphantly achieved instead of impotently
and skilfully avoided."

Mrs. Clifford's new novel* is clever and well written as a mat-
ter of course, but its cleverness falls appreciably short of that

* Aunt Anne. By Mrs. W. K. Clifford. New York : Harper & Brothers.

1893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 575

displayed in her last year's book, the Love Letters of .a Worldly
Woman. In a foreign letter lying at our hand, written by. a
not indiscriminating though partial friend of Mrs. Clifford, it is
hit off as " wonderfully good as a character sketch, but some of
the auxiliary matter is maudlin to a degree." Exception woul'd
be taken by many readers, we fancy, to its excellence as a char-
acter sketch where its heroine is concerned. Inconsistency is, in-
deed, the consistence of some persons one meets in books and
outside of them, but one feels sure. that when such persons attract
permanent affection their intrinsically amiable qualities have sup-
plied a solid and invariable basis for surface inconsistencies. Mrs.
Clifford does not succeed in making one believe in the irresistible at-
tractiveness of this Harold Skimpole in petticoats, with her ghastly
wink, her lack, of sympathy for those beneath her in station, her
lavish generosity with other people's goods, and that too calculat-
ing imprudence which suddenly becomes prudence when no money
and no credit but her own is on hand, and those in fast-dwindling
measure. These traits all hang together it is true, but they never
depend from the peg of genuine lovableness. Aunt Anne's death-
bed conversion to charity for fallen women, based on the catas-
trophe of her own latest venture on the sea of matrimony, is char-
acteristic, and so is her final refusal of forgiveness to Alfred Wim-
ple, for both of these spring from the same inherent self-love and
unamiable pride which can mask themselves under as many dis-
guises as Proteus, among them that of self-abnegation on oc-
casion. Mrs. Clifford has produced a clever and amusing novel,
notwithstanding. She shows much ingenuity in providing a veil
of mysticism whereby to cover Aunt Anne's share of the Wim-
ple business which supplies the motive of her plot. It certainly
needed a veil of some description. If Wimple were not the
wholly objectionable and unpleasant creature that he is from
first to last, Mrs. Clifford having been almost too careful not to
give him even one redeeming feature, he would certainly attract
more sympathy than Aunt Anne in their relations as here out-
lined.

Miss Dougall's Beggars All* eminently deserves the praise that
has been bestowed upon it by the critics, and the success it has
met with at the hands of the reading public. It is, in the first
place, wholly and most agreeably unusual in its scheme, its handling,
and its presentation of character. Its simplicity in point of style is
also relieved by the same quality of unusualness. What its au-
thor sees, that is to say, whether in man and woman or in a

* Beggars All. By L. Dougall. New York : Longmans, Green & Co.

576 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [J an ->

landscape, strikes her reader as obvious and quite true, but gives
at the same time an impression of a new point of view, and a
vision which if clear is so first of all because it is both sym-
pathetic and intelligent. Just such characters as Hubert Kent
and Star Thompson one has pretty certainly never met before
on any stage, whether of life or fiction, but they take their place
at once as living entities, not soon to be forgotten. Mrs. Thomp-
son, too, the saintly American invalid ; Richarda, the oddly hu-
morous cripple ; Marian Gower's almost pathetic spinsterhood, and
the hover of both her own and Star's fancies about young Dr.
Bramwell, are all personages and situations that assert their right
to be by virtue of their obvious reality, and yet defy the insin-
uation of portraiture or photographic representation. Their
truth is essential, not accidental. Miss Dougall's patriotism
probably counts for something in her selection of an American
girl of Star Thompson's antecedents for the place filled by that
wholly unique and charming young person in her novel. Given
so much innocence, integrity, high feeling, and self-devotion as
hers, backed by such refinement and habituation to wealth and
its opportunities, and Miss Dougall implies plainly enough that
an English girl so equipped would not or could not have acted
in the same way. Patriotism is, however, as legitimate an artis-
tic property as any. The same sense of fitness ruled her choice
of an English setting for her hero, Hubert Kent. A burglar
has surely never been drawn before on lines so large -lines large
enough both in what they enclose and what they exclude to fit
a Montana "water-baron " or an Eastern "railway king," and to
admit as many if not more pleas in extenuation in one case as in
the other. Yet there is not in the book the least excuse or en-
couragement given to a lax morality on any point. Star's
needed lesson of respect for her womanhood so high as to bear
any strain laid upon it, is taught her uncompromisingly and
directly by those vital experiences which Miss Dougall depicts
with so sure a hand. If filial charity leads her to throw her
self-respect into the gulf, she goes there likewise with her whole
identity, and rescues from it not only all that she has risked, but
another soul besides. Altogether, the book is unique in our ex-
perience of novels, and will doubtless have a long life in
literature.

Mrs. Dahlgren's Chijn* is a bright and amusing skit at certaii
fads and phases of Washington society. Her skye-terrier makes

* C/rim : His Washington W'inter. By Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren. New York : C,
Webster & Co.

i893-J TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

a very successful hero, and her little plot revolves about him
without a jar or creak in the machinery. Her story, in fact, is
quite complete as a story, and is written with grace and anima-
tion. Her hits at theosophy, and her sketch of the chief adept,
Professor Wissy-Wassy, who

" was essentially an orientalist in thought and modes of non-
action, but so strong are the binding ties of our surroundings,
that when he did act, his habits were those of a Californian,"

are not merely acute and discriminating, but laid on with a not
too heavy hand. She has avoided stress and kept well on the
artistic side of good-natured satire where this phase of her story
is concerned. One wonders, however, if the La Fayette de Noos
are not punctuated a trifle too heavily, if not for truth, at all
events for good taste.

A book to keep by one is Miss Repplier's selections of Fa-
mous Verse* for if one does not find in it all one's favorites,
one is sure to find nothing that is either not already well-beloved,
or eminently certain to become so on acquaintance. No book,
though twice the size of this one, could contain all that one
loves or has loved in English verse. Miss Repplier has been
handicapped, moreover, for any such achievement, by the neces-
sity here laid on her of selecting chiefly with an eye to the
needs and capacities of young readers. But she judges wisely
that the imagination of children outstrips their understanding,
and that poetry appeals to something that lies deeper than in-
telligence, and so has produced a book whose range is wide and
from which the commonplace alone has been rigidly excluded.

Another volume of poetical selections, f admirably adapted to
readers on the declining scale of life, comes from the Chicago
publishing house of A. C. McClurg. The unnamed compiler has
done the work assigned extremely well and with rare good taste.
The poems are ranged under four heads : September Thirty-five ;
October Two Score and Ten ; November Three Score ; and
December Seven Times Eleven. The tone of the whole is up-
lifting, heart-cheering, and we can hardly think of a more ap-
propriate present than this pretty little volume for a friend in
advancing years.

It is not the poetry of young hope and aspiration, nor yet
that of resignation, peace, and the forward look of serene old
.age, which finds a voice in the dainty posthumous collection of

* A Book of Famous Verse. Selected by Agnes Repplier. Boston and New York :
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

'(Poetry of the Gathered Years. Compiled by M. H. Chicago : A. C. McClurg & Co.

578 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,

Miss Aldrich's verses.* Their author died last summer at the
age of twenty-six, as one learns from Mr. Brownell's brief but
exquisite prefatory notice. A year or two ago she published a
novel in whose prose most of the notes here struck in a softer,
more musical key, were anticipated. Her execution then was
crude and her motive unpleasant, but her work showed power
at least, if not much salutary promise. One sees now by what
storms her soul was lashed, and feels relieved that the tempest is
at last ended. There are verses in this volume which take strong
hold on one's imagination, but for the most part their appeal
is to one's pity and compassion. As a matter of technique they
are often of extreme beauty. For a specimen of their quality
at its best we refer the reader to the concluding poem, on the
Eternal Justice.

The whole book is tense with personal expression the ex-
pression of a soul that had suffered both spiritual and bodily ills,
and whose true and exquisite poetic gift had as yet never found
any but a purely subjective putlet. Hence it is morbid to a
degree, and its total impression is painful, even where its music
is most sweet and strange.

From the pretty volume of Mr. Egan's newly-collected songs
and sonnets f we select for quotation his sonnet, "The Heart."
Our readers are too well acquainted with the merits, peculiari-
ties, and value of Mr. Egan's poetical achievement to need or
desire a critical appreciation of it which might seem presump-
tuous :

" How red it burns within yon crimson rose !
Deeper than fire in rubies is its hue
Of brightest blood, which, shed for me and you,

From that dear Heart has flowed, for ever flows.

In waving sprays of buds, carved mountain snows,
I see her heart, for ever pure and true,
The Virgin's Heart ! and in the morning dew

The tears of joy she shed when her great woes

Were lost in Heaven : and all June things speak,
From ambient perfume in the sunlit air
To trembling stalklets tipped by clover bloom,

Of Christ, His Mother, and the Heart we seek

Through tangled roads and by-ways foul or fair,

The Heart that cheers us in the deepest gloom."

From another publishing house comes another book by Mr.

* Songs about Life, Love, and Death. By Anne Reeves Aldrich. New York : Charles
Scribner's Sons.

^ Songs and Sonnets, and Other Pjems. By Maurice Francis Egan. Chicago: A.'C.
McCIurg; & Co.

1893-] TALK A-BOUT NEW BOOKS. 579

Egan, a collection of stories* for children which will be found cheer-
ful reading by boys and girls alike. They are all entertaining, and,
as befits their audience, not too imaginative, not too remote from
the ordinary surroundings of child-life in city and country to
run any risk of failing to hit their intended mark. Mr. Egan
has a flow and felicity of expression, and a happy knack in the
selection of points to illustrate, and ways whereby to illustrate
them, which justify and explain his popularity as a writer of
tales and sketches.

Miss Donnelly's original and selected rhymesf for very young
readers, though they do not show her at her best, which could
hardly be expected under the given circumstances, are yet ex-
tremely well adapted to their special purpose, and ought to be
found very useful in the nursery perhaps also in the kinder-
gartens.

Mrs. Chanler resumes her maiden name on the title-page of
her sequel^: to The Quick or the Dead, and prefaces it with a
quotation from the Phcedrus of Plato, from which the reader
gathers that, finding her previous story " misunderstood and un-
justly attacked," she comes now in a parental capacity to its
aid ; " for, unaided, it can neither retaliate nor defend itself."
He further gathers that " Barbara," after enduring two years of
loneliness consequent on " Jock Bering's" departure, without
perceptible consolation arising from her fidelity to the deceased
"Val," concludes to marry Jock on his return, and does so
amidst much rapturous love-making which both precedes and
follows the nuptial ceremony. And then the troubles of the
pair begin. Barbara in her present phase, and especially under
the light reflected on her by the Platonic quotation which
ushers her once more into public notice, seems intended to
correct certain misappreciations concerning both herself and her
creator. She is, in reality, a very spiritual young woman,
burning with clear, pure fires, and her new troubles arise from
Jock's failure to appreciate the refined and beautiful sentiment
she gives him. One would not like to animadvert on the posi-
tion taken by the author, to cast blame on, or to poke fun at
it. Perhaps, though, one might suggest that the object lesson
would be more effective were it given in less glowing colors.

* How they Worked their Way, and Other Tales (Stories of Duty). By Maurice Francis
Egan, LL.D. New York : Benziger Bros. '

t Little Compliments of the Season and Other Tiny Rhymes for Tiny Readers. By Elea-
nor C. Donnelly. New York : Benziger Bros.

\ Barbara Dering. A Sequel to The Quick or the Dead. By Amelie Rives. Philadel-
phia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

580 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. I Jan.,

Such homely drabs and puritan browns, for example, as have
been donned for a somewhat similar purpose by a woman whom
we take to be as wide apart as the poles from Amelie Rives
in general mental make-up, Mrs. Gestefeld. The Woman Who
Dares* is a serious book on a serious subject, and its unadorned
simplicity has the effect of art, whether or not it were so in-
tended. We take it to be unpremeditated and necessary. The
author has somewhat to say which is worth saying, worth hear-
ing, and worthy of serious reflection, and she has cast it into
story form, perhaps thinking to win a wider audience by so do-
ing. There is no blinking the fact that the women of our day
and generation, and presumably of that which is to follow, are
taking a more decided stand on questions relating to their own
personalities and personal accountability than they have done in
any previous period. They are at least plainly bound to show
that there are two sides to a shield which for ages has been
held to have but one.

Still another clever study of the wrong-headedness of one of
the many sides of the modern woman's struggle for absolute in-
dependence and individuality is to be found in Mrs. Andrew
Dean's novelette, A Splendid Cousin^ the latest issue of Cas-
sell's " Unknown " Library. It is wonderfully well done as a
matter of artistic presentation of absolutely unconscious selfish-
ness. Not a stroke too much mars, nor is one lacking to the
completeness of the portrait of Theodora's self-absorption in an
art in which she can never rise above amateurship, but to which
everything else in life is not so much sacrificed without a pang,
as accepted in sacrifice with the unresponsive unconcern of a
fetich before its worshippers. Mrs. Dean's own art is so good
that she has no need to preach or moralize. She is wisely con-
tent to set her people in evidence and in motion, and let them
produce their own effect. She is plainly familiar with the moral
and intellectual atmosphere which she indicates so well. Her
style is as redolent of it as that of Vernon Lee, but she brings
into it a waft of healthier air, a breath of common sense which
blows away its mists and allows a glimpse of true local color to
be caught.

* The Woman Who Dares. By Ursula N. Gestefeld. New York : Lovell, Gestefeld &
Company.

\A Splendid Counn. By Mrs. Andrew Dsan. New York : Cassell Publishing Company.

1 893.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 581

I. FELIX ADLER'S METHOD OF TEACHING RELIGION IN THE

SCHOOLS.*

This is the twenty-fourth volume of the International Educa-
tion Series, edited by William T. Harris, A.M., LL.D., United
States Commissioner of Education. In his preface Mr. Harris
ventures to hope that this timely book is full of helpful sugges-
tions, and " may open for many teachers a new road to theoretic
instruction in morality, and at the same time reinforce the study
of literature in our schools." We can find in the volume before
us no sure and safe foundation for this new road.

Mr. Adler informs us page 15 that "the conscience can be
enlightened, strengthened, guided . . . without once raising
the question why it is wrong to do what is forbidden. The
ultimate grounds of moral obligation need never be discussed in
school. It is the business of religion and philosophy to propose
theories, or to formulate articles of belief with respect to the
ultimate sources and sanctions of duty." He thinks the moral
teacher is to be a supreme judge of metaphysical and theologi-
cal asseverations. He is not to explain or show reasons why we
should do right, but to make young people see what is right
more clearly, and instil into them " his own love of and respect
for the right." Moreover he holds that there is a body of moral
truth upon which all good men are agreed, and that " it is the
business of the public schools to deliver to their pupils this common
fund of moral truth" After making this statement Mr. Adler
goes on to the end of his volume without informing the expec-
tant reader where the authority is to be found which can deter-
mine the extent of this " common fund of moral truth."

Some time ago we heard that as a practical application of his
theories Mr. Adler requested a teacher in his kindergarten to
impress upon the minds of her scholars the maxims of ethical
culture without mentioning the name of God. The teacher re-
plied that the success of kindergarten teaching depended largely
on object lessons fully explained in simple language, and that
God as the father of the world, the protector of the good, is a
most attractive object of thought for little children. Uncon-
sciously this teacher followed the same line of reasoning which
St. Thomas Aquinas adopted long ago, when he proved the
necessity of an objective reality for rational thought. Needless
to say that Mr. Adler's new volume of speculative moral instruc-
tion cannot change the laws of the human mind, even though it
is endorsed by modern agnostics.

= The Moral Instruction of Children, By Felix Adler. New York : D. Appleton & Co.

582 TALK ABOUT NEW- BOOKS. [Jin,

2. LAMBERT'S FAMOUS ANSWERS TO INGERSOLL.*
Bishop Spalding's introduction to Famous Answers is one
knows not whether to term it powerful, philosophical, or charm-
ing, for it is all these and more. It charms by its beautiful
rhetoric ; its power is in the very truth of its every sentence ;
its philosophy is evidenced in the terse and logical reasoning ;
it is a careful and deeply thought essay on religion ; it is very
earnest and sincere, and adds great value to the book. We
wonder if Colonel Ingersoll is capable of appreciating any part
of it other than the beautiful and poetic English in which it is
written. It is in strange and favorable contrast to Father Lam-
bert's brilliant sword-thrusts at the colonel. His style of writ-
ing is in keeping with that flourish and flash of the agnostic
antagonist. If Colonel Ingersoll reads this introduction he must
wince at the thrusts he gets from the bishop's lance, when he is
placed in contrast with his fellow-agnostics, if I may so call
them, Fichte and Richter. There are passages in this essay that
have the ring of inspired poetry notably the one which begins :
" I have reasons to believe that Colonel Ingersoll is a generous
and kind-hearted man. Let him turn from." etc., at page 25.
Father Lambert's book is in the same scintillating style as his
widely-known and much-read Notes on Ingersoll, and, indeed, is
even more drastic and cutting. Colonel Ingersoll's ignorance,
shallowness, unfairness, blunderings, and misstatements, his lack
of the reasoning faculty, and his want of logical mind-training,
his utter " bubbleness," so to speak, are shown up in a merciless
way, with a touch of humor that is inimitable. Max O'Rell says
of Ingersoll that he is the greatest American philosopher. In
the light of Father Lambert's Famous Answers, we pity those
other American philosophers who are only greater or great.
But then Max O'Rell is a literary persifleur, and his remarks
anent the distinguished colonel may be an intended witticism.
The Colorado Catholic has done a good work in placing the book
before the public. The work is already in the fifth edition.
We predict for it a very extensive sale.

3. MISSION SERMONS FROM THE FLEMISH.f

These two handy volumes contain some fifty sermons on the
topics that are preached the more frequently from the Catholic

* famous Answers to Colonel Ingersoll. By Rev. L. A. Lambert, LL.D. Introduction
by Right Rev. J. L. Spalding, D.D. Published by the Colorado Catholic, Denver, Colorado.

t Sermons from the Flemish. Fifth series. Mission sermons, or courses for Advent and
Lent. Translated by a Catholic Priest. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Benziger Bros.

I893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 583

pulpit. They embrace the whole line of subjects that are touched
on during a mission, and should be preached in every congrega-
tion during Advent and Lent. The treatment of the great
truths, as well as the moral subjects, is straightforward and prac-
tical.

It is just such hard-headed, matter-of-fact discourses, going
straight to the heart, which are far more potent to change a
man from his evil ways, to make him hate vice and love virtue,
that should be used as models of sermonizing, rather than
beautiful rhetorical essays sometimes published under the name
of sermons. We commend these Flemish sermons particularly.

4. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND HIS MONUMENT.*

The book is a curious and entertaining compilation. The
author says in his preface : " This volume of tributes essays to
be but a concordance of some of the most choice and interesting
extracts artistically illustrated with statues, scenes, and inscrip-
tions." These words fairly describe the book. The illustrations
are good and the extracts curious and many, ranging from old
Spanish state papers to the recent literature of the Columbus
celebration ; from poet and historian, from old mural inscriptions,
from inscriptions of the oldest statues to that of the New York
monument. A book for the train, for idle moments, to fill up
the time when one must wait for instance in the reception
office of a busy doctor not without its value, interest, and in-
struction.

5. THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF FAITH AND MORALS.f
One of the best books of instruction on religious matters that
has ever come to our hands, invaluable to the teacher and ad-
vanced students of Christian doctrine. Cardinal Gibbons's letter
of commendation, in which he says, "though unpretentious in
size, is comprehensive in scope, embracing as it does the creeds
and Sacraments of the church, and the moral law," well describes
the work. The table of contents is excellently arranged and
complete. There is also a copious index at the end of the vol-
ume, and, what will prove useful, a few pages of definition of
terms. We congratulate the publishers on the typographical ex-
cellence of the book.

* Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia. By J. M. Dickey. Chicago:
Rand, McNally & Co.

t The Catholic Doctrine of Faith and Morals. By Very Rev. William Byrne, D.D.,
Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Boston. Boston : Cashman, Keating & Co. 1892.

584 EDITORIAL NOTES. [Jan.,

EDITORIAL NOTES.

THE Briggs heresy trial is developing some new and interest-
ing features. Already are the lines being sharply drawn
between the seminary which fathers Dr. Briggs, on the one hand,
and the gentlemen of the prosecution, on the other. If Dr.
Briggs is condemned of differing from Dr. Birch no very great
crime after all, for on strictly Protestant theory one man has
just as much a right to his interpretation of Scripture as the
other the matter will be just as far from being settled as it
ever was. The outcome of the trial probably will be the rend-
ing in twain of the unity of the Presbyterian Church. Then as
to which portion will last is a question of the " survival of the
fittest."

In the meantime the publicity the trial has attained, and the
questions so thoroughly discussed in it as to the authenticity of
the Bible, are unsettling the faith of thousands who look to the
Sacred Book for all the religion they have.

It is in reality the great principle of Protestantism the suf-
ficiency of the Bible and the Bible alone as both a dogmatic and
a moral teacher that is on trial. Doubts in the minds of all
who read and think are being thrown on the origin, authority,
and genuineness of every book in the Bible. The props on
which the whole fabric of Protestantism rests are being knocked
away, one after the other. If Dr. Briggs only had the courage
of his convictions, and would act as logically as he reasons, to-
morrow he would apply at the study of some Catholic priest
and ask for admission into the church. He reasons in this
way: Some court of last appeal is necessary to settle infallibly
disputes on vital points of belief. The Bible is so uncertain,
even interpreted by higher criticism or enlightened conscience,
that we cannot unerringly depend on it. There is only left,
then, the church inspired by the Holy Spirit, which is estab-
lished to teach all things whatsoever 'revealed and for all time.
Thus he reasons ; the next step is to do what so many great
men, like Newman and Brownson and Hecker, have done before
him to submit to the guidance of the infallible church.

1893-] EDITORIAL NOTES. 585

Apropos of this Scripture controversy, we wish to announce
that in the February number there will be published a very able
article on Scriptural inspiration from the pen of Father Ryder
of the Oratory, the successor of Cardinal Newman, and one of
the ablest churchmen in England to-day.

A remarkable article has just been published by Mivart in
the Nineteenth Century on a topic of intense interest in our
modern controversy, and although we do not wish to be under-
stood as approving every one of his conclusions, yet we think
that we do a service to the cause of Catholic truth by calling
attention to it.

Under the striking paradox of Happiness in Hell Mivart de-
liberately, in the first place, closes the gates of hell (that is, the
hell of the damned) as far as may be, and narrows the way
thereto by insisting on the teaching of Catholic theologians in
regard to the destiny of unbaptized children and of those in-
fants of larger growth, the untutored savages, and by a very
liberal interpretation of the " baptism of desire " he keeps still
others out from the exterior darkness. Then he proceeds to
strictly interpret the conditions necessary for a hell-deserving
mortal sin the full knowledge, the free deliberation, and the
plenary consent. In this way, leaning on Catholic theology, he
succeeds in closing the door against a very large portion of the
human race. Then, with a strong plea for mercy, he amelio-
rates the condition of the portion who are condemned. He con-
tends that heredity and environment, and the necessities of life
to some extent, diminish the malice of grievous sins and there-
fore their punishment, and that what poena sensus there may be
inflicted will mitigate until existence will be in a sense tolerable
and certainly be more desirable than annihilation.

However, in so short a space we cannot give anything like
a full synopsis of the article. But the point is, it is an ade-
quate answer to all those, and they are not a few, who find
what they think is the teaching of the church on the doctrine
of hell a stumbling-block to their faith.

The Convention of the Apostolate of the Press, held this
time last year, is not called again because the Catholic Summer-
School affords a better opportunity, considering time and place,
for the proper discussion of its aims and methods. The Sum-
mer-School offers a larger field for the development of the
ideas generated before and in the last Convention, and is in

586 EDITORIAL NOTES. [Jan.,

many respects the ideal place for the next session of the Con-
vention.

We present a very taking list of articles this month. Father
Zahm's paper on Pasteur will be read with intense interest by
many who will be made aware that Pasteur, who has accom-
plished as much for science as any man living, is a sincerely
earnest and devout Catholic. The paper is an exhaustive survey
of his life's work, and gives in detail the various conquests he
has made in the world of the infinitely little.

The Nazareth article appeals to a large clientelle in the
South-west and elsewhere who have known or have come under
the influence of the Sisters of Nazareth.

Next month we shall have a beautifully illustrated article on
Maryville, one of the noted convents of the Ladies of the Sa-
cred Heart.

The article on Frobel will serve to increase the enthusiasm
already manifesting itself in so many quarters for the kinder-
garten system. This series of articles on educators and their
methods next month will include a paper on Overberg, the great

Normal educator.

The Archbishops have sent out a strong letter urging interest
in the Educational Exhibit at the World's Fair, saying that as
long as the work has been undertaken it ought to be carried to
perfection, that to the thousands who will attend the Fair the
exhibit of the Catholic schools will not only be a measure of the
zeal and interest Catholics have shown for this work, but it will
be evidence of the wonderful success that has attended their ef-
forts. In order to fitly carry out the work planned donations
may be sent to Right Rev. J. L. Spalding, Thirty-fifth Street and
Wabash Avenue, Chicago, 111.

1 89.3.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 587.

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

ALL COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO READING CIRCLES, LISTS OF BOOKS,
ETC., SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION, NO.
415 WEST FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

ISABELLA, the generous patroness of Columbus, has claims on the women of
America not yet discovered by the National Board of Lady Managers in
charge of the Woman's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition. Very
reluctantly we make this statement, which is based on information communicated
to us in letters from Chicago and elsewhere. For five days these managers dis-
cussed many topics, yet the official report of this long session contains no men-
tion of the name of Isabella. Mrs. Potter Palmer, in her official address at the
dedication, declared that no organization comparable to this Board of Lady-
Managers of which she is president "has ever before existed among women.
It is official, acting under government authority and sustained by government
funds. It is so far-reaching that it encircles the globe. Without touching upon
politics, suffrage, or other irrelevant issues, this unique organization of women
for women will devote itself to the promotion of their industrial interests. It will
address itself to the formation of a public sentiment which will favor woman's
industrial equality and her receiving just compensation for services rendered."
No plan was made known in this address by a woman and for women especially
by which to render " just compensation for services " to the glorious Queen of
Spain. We are informed that a remonstrance sent to the Board of Lady Mana-
gers from New York has elicited a most unsatisfactory reply. The women of
America cannot accept the responsibility of denying public honor to Isabella.

* * *

On behalf of the intelligent women members of numerous Catholic Reading
Circles, we had hoped to be able to get a definite assurance that Isabella would
be allowed at the World's Exposition to share with Columbus the honors of his
great discovery. We are unwilling to think that a " unique organization of women
for women " can be tainted with feminine ingratitude or historical ignorance of a
most persistent type. No reasonable objection can be found for excluding Isa-
bella from public and prominent recognition at an exposition intended to honor all
the great personages associated with the discovery of America. If any defence
is needed of the claims of Isabella, the loyal friends of her own sex in the United
States should not remain silent. Nothing less than national honor is due to the
co-discoverer jof America. The official board which alone can secure this na-
tional honor to one of the noblest of their sex, cannot escape just censure if the
power delegated for a useful purpose be displayed in gratifying any unlovely-
traits of human nature.

* * *

The secretary of the Committee of One Hundred, Commissioner Wahle, was
applauded to the echo by distinguished representatives of all creeds in New York
when he said :

588 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Jan.,

" Let us pause for a moment to gaze upon that noble woman through whose
generosity and faith this country was discovered. The Genoese dreamer would
never have found ears to listen to his appeals save through the mystic ties of his
church, save through the brotherhood in God which prompted men to deeds of
martyrdom, which made crusaders, and which urged this woman to rob herself
of the riches which were hers that Columbus might sail to find treasures to bring
to her Redeemer's feet. Deeply reverent do we stand before that wonderful
faith, humbly do we bow before the discipline and wonderful fraternity of that
church which brought queen and pauper together, and gave to civilization a new
world. Such is the story of the sailing of Columbus. No sordid gains, no sel-
fish motive dwelt within the heart of that great queen. Deeply thankful for the
victory of the Spaniards over the Moors, she hoped to find a fitting tribute to
her God. Her mission was to civilize, her object was to dispel the gloom of
heathenism. Among all bright pages of woman's history that upon which the
name of the great Queen Isabella is inscribed is the brightest, because of her no-
ble devotion to her faith, because of the sacrifices she made to accomplish the end
she believed could be, because of the nobility which prompted the powerful
Queen of Castile to sit with the beggar, the enthusiast, Columbus, to bid him
adieu at Palos wharf."

In presence of the vast multitude assembled at the Columbian celebration
in Brooklyn Rev. E. W. McCarthy delivered this beautiful tribute to Isabella :

" While thanking God and praising Columbus, we must not be unmindful of
Isabella. It is one of the pathetic and pleasing features of this great event that it
had as its patroness this illustrious queen. She is described as being one of the
purest and most beautiful characters in all history. Majestic in her bearing,
affable in her manner, she combined many of the stronger characteristics of man
with the qualities of woman. Isabella, it would seem, had been inclined from the
beginning to favor Columbus, against the advice of her councillors. Her brave
spirit was attracted by the enterprise and her good heart longed for the spread of
Christianity. When we think of the almost fabulous character of the promises of
Columbus, the state of the scientific mind at the time, the pronounced opposition
of the great majority of the learned men around her, and the impoverished con-
dition of her treasury, we appreciate Isabella's great mental grasp and nobleness
of soul, as she rises above all these influences and gives her name, her enthusiasm,
and her wealth to the unpopular project. Undaunted by the coldness, if not un-
friendliness, of Ferdinand towards it, she boldly stood out alone and said, ' I un-
dertake it for my own crown of Castile.' Like the daughter of Pharao, who lifted
the helpless infant from the river's bank, and protected it and supported it until
it grew to be the great leader of the down-trodden Israelites who conducted them
across the desert to the promised land, so Isabella took from the brink of despair,
in utter helplessness, this other Moses, and by her royal generosity enabled him
to lead the way across the waste of waters for the poor and the oppressed and
the liberty-loving people of every country and all time to this larger land of brigh-
ter promise. Womanhood has done much for humanity. The history of the hu-
man race is a story of woman's noble self-sacrifice and unappreciated work.
Womanhood has rocked the cradle of the world and has taught its teachers,
trained its heroes, and soothed its sorrows; has wept over its miseries, has been
the sunshine of life ; but look along the line of human effort to the beginning and
you will fail to find of her sex one who has done more for the human family than
the immortal Isabella of Castile. Her name will be in benediction as long as the
imperishable glory of America.

" I cannot help rejoicing not only because Isabella the Catholic stands spon-
sor for the infant America, but also because Catholic France held in her friendly
arms our own infant Republic when it was baptized on the battle-fields of the
Revolution.

" First, then, we should sing a Te Deum in praise of him who in the begin-
ning said, ' Let the dry land appear.' Then, looking back to the event over which
we rejoice, we see Columbus and Isabella standing hand-in-hand, and above them
God, his hands extended over both. Columbus, clad in the richness of nature's

1 893.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 589

royal gifts; Isabella, robed in the splendors of the best type of monarchy. Co-
lumbus risen from the common people a nobleman of nature ; Isabella, a beau-
tiful outgrowth of the purest aristocracy. Columbus representing the royalty of
the New World, Isabella the royalty of the Old, with hands joined in enduring
friendship, while God blesses them both."

Members of Reading Circles devoted to the study of history will read with
interest the following letter, written evidently with a desire to arouse enthusiasm
for our Catholic pioneers in America :

" The universal history of the church, her world-wide work, is so vast a field
that Catholic Reading Circles can do no more than hastily travel over it. Then
it is remote covering a past of far-reaching antiquity. Our Catholic history,
the wonderful growth of the faith, the transplanting of an old faith to new fields,
is so near us in time, so close in location, that we cannot but be interested. Yet,
while American Catholic history is limited in time and place, it is cosmopolitan in
the elements that compose it. The wonderful commingling of nations, the culture
and experience of the missionaries who founded the church, furnish abundant ma-
terial for study. So, I should say to all Catholic Reading Circles : study your own
history of America. Bring the enthusiasm of youth to the investigation of the
works of men and women who trod the same land we now inhabit, and looked on
the same mountains and rivers. We enjoy our comfortable churches they wor-
shipped in the wild forests. It is the very romance of history, the founding of our
faith in this new world, whether you take the States of the North, with their phleg-
matic Dutch settlers ; Canada and the West, with their fiery-hearted French ; the
southern Colonies and California, with their courtly Spanish conquerors, it is all a
wonderful, fascinating story, and full of those elements of adventure, danger, and
final triumph that work the magic of fiction. No writers of romance conceived
greater perils for their heroes than these same men real men suffered. It is a
wonderful story, one to fascinate the mind, uplift the purpose, strengthen the faith
of a comfort-loving age, and renew our gratitude for the great inheritance won
for us by our fearless Catholic ancestors.

" In New York State the martyrdom of Father Jogues and his companions ;
in Virginia the slaying of Father Segura's little band. Here the tomahawk flour-
ishes with as grand a gleam as in any novel ; but its red stains are the blessed
blood-drops of martyrs. Even the scalping, that cruel act of every Indian trage-
dy, is not wanting. Mark the distinction between these real tragedies and the
mock-heroic pictures of savage life in fiction. These men of our faith, who suf-
fered unto death, were not impelled by the vulgar greed of the trader and the In-
dian-fighter to go into the red man's territory. They were not rough pioneers
building up fortune in the new land. They represented exquisite refinement,
high intellect, and nobility of purpose. Generations of culture in the old-world
civilization alone could produce such types. Read the letters they wrote quaint
as they seem to us now in the flowing French, the courteous Spanish, the cordial
English of Celt or Saxon, and contrast their natural dignity with the bombast of
Indian or pioneer fiction.

" These men, cavaliers of France, hidalgos of Spain, noblemen of England
and Ireland, priests and laymen, came from colleges and centres of culture to
live simple, rough lives among the savages. With the grand gifts of faith they
left, too, the impress of that gentler, fuller life they had forsaken.

" Forgive me if I have too long detained you dwelling on the picture revealed
to us through the doors of our own native Catholic history. The beauty of the
opening, ever-widening panorama must be my excuse ; and the ideal it suggests
will atone for the weakness of my description. To enjoy it at its best one must
open wide the door. Having furnished some faint outline of the pleasure and
profit in store for the Catholic clubs who follow invigorating excursions into our
own past, it may not be amiss to add a few practical hints. Intellectual pursuits,
whether begun in the solitude of one's own study or with pleasant, sympathetic
stimulus of fellow-workers, are enjoyable in proportion to their earnestness and
thoroughness. No half-hearted mental exertion brings any compensation ; it is a
VOL. LVI. 40

590 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Jan.,

weariness of spirit. So begin by being thoroughly interested in whatever sub-
ject is taken up for the season's work ; study it in all its details. Bring to bear
all that touches on that line of thought. You will be surprised to find how much
matter in the way of reference you can command when once your attention is
fixed on a given subject. Books, newspaper and magazine articles will all seem
to spring up everywhere with information to your hand. You will wonder at all
lhat has been written on a subject that perhaps you have hardly ever before con-
sidered.

" If you have taken up the study of American Catholic history you can make
4t more local by studying the progress of the church in the State of New York.
There is the settlement by the Dutch, the coming of the first missionaries, some
account of the early dwellings, the topography of Manhattan Island, the manners
and customs of the early settlers, the social enjoyments music, dancing, meet-
ings the language spoken, wherein it differs from any spoken to-day, the laws that
governed the people, the prevailing religion, the popular opinion, the forces that
fostered or fettered the founding of Catholicity all these could be studied, writ-
ten about, or taught by extracts from the writers of those days. 'Should the his-
tory of your own State seem so local and familiar as to be wanting in interest,
there are the chronicles of the Southern States and California teeming with ro-
mance and adventure, narratives of the early Florida and Mexican missions re-
flecting the old world grace and chivalry.

" For a general text-book there can be nothing better than Dr. Gilmary
Shea's invaluable work. Besides, there are numerous histories of the different
States. Once launched on this subject we find no lack of charts to guide us into
varied streams. We come back from the study, having looked into the dauntless
faces of the storm-tossed pioneers of early American Catholicity, and we follow
our own smooth way with stronger faith, greater gratitude, and higher resolu-
tion.

"M. E. HENRY-RUFFIN;
"^Mobile, Ala."

* * *

The John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle of Boston, of which Miss Katherine
E. Conway is president, has organized a course of lectures in aid of its library and
reading-room fund. It is a most hopeful sign of growing strength and influence
when a Reading Circle can undertake to secure an audience for these distinguished
lecturers :

Rev. James A. Doonan, S.J., Boston College : " Garcia Moreno, the Martyred
President of Ecuador."

George Parsons Lathrop, LL.D.: " The Pole Star of American Literature."

Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D., of Worcester, Mass.: " The Irish Element in
Modern English Literature."

All the lectures will be given in the new hall of the Knights of St. Rose,
Worcester Street, Boston. The John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle was organ-
ized in October, 1889, and is the oldest of the Boston Reading Circles. It has had
three seasons of earnest work, during which the members have strengthened
themselves not only in things intellectual, but in Catholic feeling and stead-
fast enthusiasm for the present Catholic literary movement. The Circle has
already the beginning of a-goo'd library, and its present enterprise is to add to this,
and provide for itself a permanent 'reading-room.

* . V * *

' . ' ' * ."'
We owe an apology to many of our correspondents for delay in answering

their communications, as there is no salaried official to attend to such matters.
Some of the questions asked require much time and research, and we are entirely
dependent on volunteer service in our work for the diffusion of Catholic litera-
ture. Here is a letter which shows the work is appreciated :

1893-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 591

" I approve most heartily, as every Christian must, of the design of the Colum-
bian Reading Union. To-day we need to spread our faith in printed form more
than ever before. There are many who can be reached in this way earnest,
truth-seeking people who have never had an opportunity to read a Catholic book.
Catholics, as a rule, are close-mouthed before non-Catholics, for fear of ridicule
or of being misunderstood. In many cases the non-Catholic child is early taught
that Catholics are ignorant idolaters, blind, led by the priests. If you have not
already written Catholic tracts and distributed them, I would suggest that the ex-
periment be tried.

"Lucv AGNES HAYES.

"JVew Bedford, Mass."

Four of the Catholic Reading Circles of Brooklyn the St. James, the Lough-
lin, the Perboyre, and the Fransioli formed a diocesan union Nov. 14, 1892, un-
der the direction of Rev. W. E. Farrell. The members of the different Circles
were well represented in the musical and literary programme prepared for the
evening of Nov. 22. St. Peter's orchestra rendered some choice selections, under
the personal direction of Rev. John Canmer. The paper on Columbus by Mr. R.
T. Rea was a noble tribute to the heroism and faith of the great discoverer.
From the early history of America he gathered many proofs that long before a
Puritan set foot on Plymouth Rock civilization had been established on this conti-
nent by heroic Catholic pioneers and missionaries.

The St. Scholastica Reading Circle of Albany held a meeting entirely devoted
to Golumbus. Many selections were read from the articles that have appeared in
THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Besides the regular work appointed for the meetings
this Circle has a home study for members. New features that have proved inter-
esting are a summary of the news of the week and a review of the contents of
some of the leading magazines.

There is a demand for handy volumes bearing on the history of the middle
ages. Here is a suggestion for publishers from one of our correspondents : " There
are four essays by Archbishop Spalding that I wish might be published in one
small volume : Literature and the Arts in the Middle Ages ; Literature and the
Catholic Clergy; Schools and Universities in the Dark Ages ; The Origin of
Libraries in Ancient and Modern Times, Such a volume would be a treasure to
Catholic teachers, and would also be a good antidote to some works that I could
mention on the history of education."

The Notre Dame Reading Circle of Dayton, Ohio, is composed of young ladies
formerly pupils of the Notre Dame Academy. Meetings are held twice a month.
Rev. Father Neville attends one meeting each month, and gives the members a
share in the benefits of his extensive reading. The Columbian programme sent to
us from this Circle indicates a wide range of talent among the members.

M. C. M.

592 NEW BOOKS. [Jan., 1893,

NEW BOOKS.

Benziger Bros., New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago :

How They Worked Their Way, and other Tales. By Maurice Francis

Egan, LL.D.
Spiritual Crumbs for Hungry Little Souls; or, Simple Instructions on the

Virtues, for the Children of the Catholic Church. By Mary E. Richardson.
Little Compliments of the Season, and other Tiny Rhymes for Tiny Readers.

By Eleanor C. Donnelly.

Pustet, Ratisbon, New York, and Cincinnati :

Magister Choralis. A theoretical and practical Manual of Gregorian
Chant, for the use of Clergy, Seminarists, Organists, Choir-masters. By
Dr. F. X. Haberl. From the German by Right Rev. Dr. Donnelly.

Side-Switches of the Short Line. Jointly by Rev. J. W. Dean Book, Can-
nelton, Ind., and Rev. Thos. Jefferson Jenkins, St. Lawrence, Ky.

H. L. Kilner & Co., Philadelphia :

The Lost Lode. By Christian Reid. Stella's Discipline. By F. X. L.
Brentano's, New York:

Magnificat. Illustrated by Frank M. Gregory.

Life of Chopin. (Petite Library.) By Edward Francis.
Chas. A. Rogers, Louisville, Ky. :

The Columbian Celebration at St. Louis Bertrand.
John A. Heilmann, Kansas City, Mo. :

On the Mission in Missouri, 1857-1868. By Right Rev. John Joseph Hogan.
J. W. Dore, London :

Best Dressed Man. A Gossip on Manners and Modes.
Cashman, Keating & Co., Boston :

The Catholic Doctrine of Faith and Morals, gathered from Sacred Scripture,
Decrees of Councils, and approved Catechisms. By Very Rev. William
Byrne, D.D.

Ginn & Co., Boston :

A French Reader. By Rev. Alphonse Dufour, S.J.
Geo. H. Ellis, Boston and New York :

The Evolution of Christianity. By M. J. Savage.

The Insight of Faith. By Henry Wilder Foote, Minister of King's Chapel.

Afterglow. By Frederic A. Hincley.

" Members of One Body." Six Sermons. By Samuel McChord Crothers.
Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York :

The Church in Relation to Sceptics. A Conversational Guide to Eviden-
tial Work. By Rev. Alex. J. Harrison, B.D.

McMillan & Co., New York and London :

Don Orsino. By F. Marion Crawford.
Franz Kirchheim, Mainz :

General- Register des " Katholik" vom jahre 1821 bis 1889. Von Johannes
Stillbauer.

Chas. L. Webster & Co., New York :

A Perplexed Philosopher. By Henry George.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. LVI.

FEBRUARY, 1893.

No. 335.

LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL.*

INVESTIGATE the ruins which everywhere strew
the ground, you will discover in them, lying one
above the other, the traces of great historic races ;
the remains of the highest and most varied civili-
zation ; the graves, the monuments, and the me-
morials of the most illustrious men ; the scattered stones of the
world-famed cities. What names are those of Carthage, Hippo,
and Utica ; of Scipio, Hannibal, Marius, Cato, Jugurtha, and
Caesar !

"But for us Christians there exist memories of a far more
hallowed nature, sacred memories of the heroes of our faith, of
their courage, their genius, and their sanctity. Grand indeed
was the Church of Africa with her seven hundred bishops, her
innumerable churches, her monasteries, her doctors. The soil
was saturated with the blood of martyrs ; the whole church re-
joiced to listen while a Cyprian and an Augustine unfolded
dogmas and doctrines ; and in the hour of persecution the cour-
age of her delicate maidens surpassed that of hardy and intrepid
men ; the grottoes of her mountains and the oases of her deserts
were perfumed by the virtues of her solitaries.

" Why hast thou fallen, great and illustrious church ? Why
have the stones of thy sanctuaries been scattered ? "

Such was the way in which Charles Martial-Allemand Lavi-
gerie expressed himself on taking possession of the Archiepisco-
pal See of Algiers in 1867.

* Cardinal Lavigerie and African Slavery. By Father Clarke, S. J. ; Blackwootfs Maga-
zine (Sept., 1892), " Europe and Africa" ; Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race. By Bly-
den.

594 LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. [Feb.,

Within a year after this he had been to Rome, experienced
a narrow escape from shipwreck, and in his own diocese went
through the ordeal of two plagues cholera and famine which
culminated in typhus. According to the official report, half a
million died either from starvation or pestilence. This famine
furnished the occasion for Lavigerie to speak to Christians
throughout the world, calling on them to come to the rescue
of their famishing fellow-creatures. And Catholic charity, true
to its divine instinct, offered abundant help. Money came, but
better still, volunteers flocked to Afric's sunny clime ; priests
and laymen, religious of many orders, ladies of rank, physicians
and soldiers, all lent their energies to the work.

The archbishop's special labor seems to have been among the
orphans. Starting with one, he soon had two thousand on his
hands. His interview with the first, as narrated by himself, is
touching :

" It was November, 1867, that the first one presented himself
a boy about ten years old. He was worn to a skeleton.

" ' Where do you come from, my child ? ' I asked.

" ' From the mountains, a long, long way off.'

" ' What has become of your parents ? '

" ' My father is dead. My mother is in her gourbi ' (a kind
of hut formed of branches).

" ' Why did you leave her ? '

" ' She told me there was no more bread for me there, that
I must go away to the Christian villages ; so I came here.'

" ' What did you do on the way ? '

" ' In the day-time I ate the grass in the fields, and at night
I hid in some hole lest the Arabs should see me; for people
said that they would kill and eat me.'

" ' And now where are you going ? '

" ' I do not know.'

" ' Would you like to go to an Arab marabout ? '

" ' Oh, no, no ! When I went to them they drove me away,
and if I did not go off fast enough they set their dogs at me.'

" ' Would you like to stay here with me ? '

" ' Oh, yes ! I should like that.'

" ' Well, then, come with me and I will take you into the
house where my children are; you shall be one of them, and
you shall be called by my name, Charles.'

"That same day I took him to the Lesser Seminary. He
proved to be a charming child, docile and intelligent. The an-

1893-] LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. 595

svver he made me when, after the famine was over, I one day
asked him whether he would not like to go and look for his
mother, was worthy of the tact and warm-heartedness that are
so strongly blended in the Arab character. He negatived my
proposal most decidedly, and I inquired the reason.

" ' Because,' he replied, ' I have found a father here who is
both father and mother to me.' '

This child's story is a fair sample of all the rest. All who
came were equally homeless, equally friendless ; and some of
them told tales so terrible as to make the missionaries shudder.

ARAB CHRISTIAN VILLAGES.

The outgrowth of these orphanages were the Arab Christian
villages, which were first started in 1873. Writing about them
the illustrious archbishop says :

" The villages are the salvation of our children. There,
gathered together under the eye of the missioner, encouraging
and helping one another by mutual example, they are sheltered
from the dangers to which they would be exposed in any other
part of the colony. The Christian village is an oasis in the
desert ; all around is sadly desolate and parched up by human
passions. Here grow up not only my children but my grand-
children, for I have been for some years a grandfather, the
greater part of the cottages being now enlivened with the pre-
sence of one or two, or even more, little ones. I wish you
could come with me to visit the village of St. Cyprian, and see
me surrounded by a crowd of little folk, who call me ' Grandpapa
Bishop,' pull me by my cassock, and climb upon my knees to see if
I have any goodies to distribute. I submit to all with joy and
thank God, who has made use of the charity of the faithful to give
life to so many innocent creatures destined to be some day the
instruments of his wise designs. It is only in the church that
these little ones sometimes give a small amount of trouble ; for
one cannot induce the mothers to leave them behind, nor can
we coax the children, when there, to cease from their spontane-
ous cries of joy and wonder. But no matter ; they give to God
their unconscious homage, like the birds that chirp around us,
and celebrate in their own way the infinite providence of their
Creator."

But come now and visit the village. The houses stand apart,
and are arranged in regular streets. They are humble, it is

596 LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. [Feb. r

true, but they are bright with cleanliness one of the most at-
tractive signs of civilization. Young plants of the eucalyptus
display their verdure. A church, poor indeed but clean and
spotless, like the other buildings which it overlooks, is surmount-
ed by that sign of peaceful conquest, the cross, which is
destined to give spiritual life to Africa, so long bent under the
yoke of death. In front of the village there stretches a long
garden divided into lots apportioned to the different families,
and watered by two wells sunk in the soil ; in the back there
is a field, surrounded by a double mound of earth, within which
are enclosed at night-time the oxen employed in tillage.

LAVIGERIE AS A MISSIONARY.

But the missionary side of the life of this great apostle is
the most attractive. According to an estimate recently made, it
is calculated that the vast area of the continent of Africa, con-
sisting of 11,900,000 square miles, is now almost entirely under
the proclaimed authority and sway of the European powers.
Only 2,500,000 square miles are still to be accounted for. This
partition of Africa has not been preceded by the clash of arms,
nor is it the result of any great war. For weal or woe the
whole of the Dark Continent is now within the European sys-
tem, and forms, to all intents and purposes, an extension of the
various European states over the broad spaces reaching from
the Cape to Cairo. Since 1876 France has increased her Afri-
can lands eightfold, Great Britain sevenfold, the Congo Free
States of 1,000,000 square miles is a perfectly new creation, and
both Germany and Italy have for the first time in their history
taken up serious African responsibilities. Besides these, our own
Liberia plays no mean part. Such a collocation of interests
could hardly have been foreseen even a few years ago, and is
scarcely yet realized in its full significance.

" Africa herself is forgotten, remaining in the mysterious
background as the witch-power of history, attracting and re-
pelling, puzzling and fascinating alternately. Carthage lies in
ruins, with a curse upon the hand that would rebuild her ; Zama
is forgotten ; and, age after age, the immovable Sphinx gazes
over the desert sands with fixed eyes beneath the solemn cano-
py of cerulean night, a symbol of Africa herself, whose for-
tunes no man has told, whose thoughts no one has measured.
Now and then, as ' the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,'
the eye lights upon an abiding spot in her annals, and a green
fertilizing oasis in the midst of oblivion, rescued from ' the

1893-] LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. 597

boundless contiguity ' of the shadowless desert. Still there is no
continuous thread in the labyrinth of her annals, no leading
motives in her fortunes, no method in her policies. At one
time it is a country fit only to breed lions for the amphitheatre,
at another to breed slaves for Europe. Sitting, as it were, in a
dark room, with dissolving views before us, we seem to look
upon the incidents of history rather than upon history itself in
the past annals of the African continent " (Blackwood's Maga-
zine).

" The evangelization of this Africa Monsignor Lavigerie had
chiefly at heart. From the moment he set foot on that coast he
felt the need of a body of men specially devoted to the preach-
ing of the faith of Christ to the natives. His diocesan clergy
barely sufficed for the needs of the colony, and we are assured
that they were impressed from their youth up with the idea
that to hold any intercourse or establish any relations, even
those of simple charity, with the natives would draw down upon
them the displeasure of the authorities ; hence they never at-
tempted to acquire such mastery of the native tongue as would
render intercourse possible " (Clarke's Lavigerie, page 90).

While the archbishop was full of these reflections, he was
agreeably surprised to find that the rector of his seminary, who
had passed forty years in Algeria, was of the same mind. "The
Ancient Father," as this venerable priest was familiarly called,
brought one day to the archbishop three of the seminarians,
who offered themselves for the African missions. Monsignor La-
vigerie accepted them, imparting his blessing to the kneeling
four. Providence sent him guides for the new work in the per-
sons of two priests, a Jesuit and a Sulpician, who had come to
Algiers for their health and had asked to be given some work
compatible with their weak state. A house was built, in which
were installed these two fathers one a type of St. Ignatius's
faith and military spirit, and the other of the Venerable Olier's
sacerdotal sanctity. It was the first novitiate of the Society of
African Missions, which was formally approved by the Holy
.See in 1873. Although the mother-house of this new society
was in his own diocese, Monsignor Lavigerie, in organizing a
definite form of government, exempted it from the authority of
the ordinary, viz., the Archbishop of Algiers. At the consecra-
tion of the chapel of the seminary Archbishop Lavigerie poured
out his heart and wishes as follows :

" But now," he said, addressing his spiritual sons, " my con-

598 LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. [Feb.,

science will be at rest. My works will not perish, for I have
placed them in your hands ; you will continue them ; nay, more,
they will grow and multiply, for they no longer depend for
support on the frail force of one whom a few steps may
carry to the grave, but on the stalwart shoulders of a young
and flourishing community. I can depart in peace, certain that
the children we have received will not again become outcasts,
that the poor we have befriended will not be forsaken, that the
souls who cried to me for help will not cry to you in vain.

"... Ever keep in view the spirit and distinctive char-
acter of our society ; lose sight of that, and the peculiar object
of its creation disappears. This special end must be accom-
plished by special means. We must assume as much as possible
the manners of the natives ; we must speak their language, wear
their garments, eat their food, in conformity to the example of the
Apostle : ' become all things to all men, that we may save all.'

" But mission work in Algeria is far from being the chief
object of our arrjbition. The aim and end of our apostolate is
the evangelization of Africa of that almost impenetrable inte-
rior whose dark depths are the last hiding-places of a brutal
barbarism, where cannibalism still prevails, and slavery in its
most degrading forms. To this work you have pledged your-
selves by a solemn vow and promise, and I see you now wait-
ing with impatience to enter the field of battle ; your weapons
deeds of charity, your shields gentleness and patience, your
teaching that of example, your triumph the heroic sacrifice of
your life " (Clarke's Life, page 95).

THE WORK BEGINS IN THE SAHARA DESERT.

It was in the Sahara that the missioners first established a
footing; but, by the advice of Monsignor Lavigerie, they did
not preach openly because of the intense opposition. " Our
school and our drug-shop are our great strongholds," wrote one
of the missionaries. Gratis they administered remedies for the
physical ills of the poor Moslems, while they educated the rising
generation. And soon the Arabs learned to love these fathers,
whose French government they abhorred. The following de-
scription of Monsignor Lavigerie's first official visit to the Ber-
bers is very entertaining :

" We went through several villages, passing sometimes below,,
sometimes above the houses, as our zigzag path led us. Ever
and anon the women's faces would peep out from behind the

1893-] LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. 599

walls of their dwellings, regarding us half with alarm, half with
curiosity. Some of the boldest children ventured a little way
towards us ; but if we took a single step in their direction, they
instantly took to their heels, screaming at the top of their voices.
We held out some sous to them from afar, as an incitement.
This was a sore temptation. I remember one little fellow, about
four or five years old, less timid than the rest, a very bundle
of rags, one eye already gone, the other soon to disappear in
its turn beneath the crust of dirt and the repulsive sores that
covered his face ; he longed for our sous, hut still kept at a re-
spectful distance.

" ' Come along, then,' one of our party said to him ; ' if you
want them, come and get them.'

"The boy, whose single eye had in it all the cunning of the
savage, stretched out his tiny hand and, pointing with his fin-
ger, said :

"'Ah! I know why you want me to come for the sous; you
want to catch me and carry me off ; throw them down on the
road, and then I will pick them up.'

" We burst out laughing, as may be imagined, and threw him
the coins, which he gathered up in a moment, and then sped
away like an arrow from a bow, scaling with marvellous agility
the precipitous rocks overhanging the village. The reason of
the terror excited was afterwards explained to us. In order to
prevent the boys and girls of the villages from holding any in-
tercourse with the French, the Kabyles give them the most
alarming accounts of the way in which we treat children. Ac-
cording to them, the French are a race of ogres who live on
raw flesh, and greedily devour all children on whom they can lay
hands. Our overtures of friendship, in the eyes of my little
urchins, were a diabolical trap, laid for the purpose of providing
a fresh dish for breakfast. We could not help laughing at the
fright the poor little fellow had been in ; but it was sad to think
that the child, who had been taught to consider Christians as
objects of terror, was himself a descendant of Christians who
had loved the faith and suffered for it."

One of those who accompanied Monsignor Lavigerie on this
journey thus describes his reception in a village :

" We went thither on foot, for the steep mountain paths are,
as may well be imagined, quite impassable for carriages. After
interminable windings among rocks, valleys, and trees, we came

6oo LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. [Feb.,

in sight of the village whither we were bound, standing on a
slight eminence. The archbishop had announced his visit be-
forehand, and at the entrance of the village all the men, head-
ed by its venerable patriarch, were assembled to receive him in
a house entirely open on the side which looked onto the road.
The women and children were perched in all imaginable places
the ledges of the rocks, the roofs of the houses every spot
which afforded standing-room, where human feet could climb or
human limbs could rest.

" Monsignor Lavigerie was in full canonicals, and was sur-
rounded by the priests belonging to his suite. When he arrived
within a short distance of the village, the men advanced in a
body solemnly to meet him and bid him welcome. The aged
patriarch who preceded them was the amin or major, the others
were his council ; for the Kabyles have retained a municipal
form of government, after the model of the Roman, with pub-
lic assemblies and popular elections. The building mentioned
above was the forum, or, as they call it there, the djemmaa a
kind of town-hall, the meeting-place of all the male inhabi-
tants of an age to carry arms. There affairs of local or gene-
ral interest are discussed, transfer of land is effected, and all
business of a civic or political nature transacted.

" The amin approached the archbishop, and with a stately
and dignified gesture laid his hand lightly on the vestment, and
then raised it respectfully to his lips.

" 'May the blessing of God be with you all!' the archbishop
said. And with one voice they all responded : ' May it be also
with thee !'

" We then proceeded to the djemmaa the first house, as we
had said, at the entrance of the village ; being completely open
on two sides, it looked more like a shed than anything else.
Against the two walls on the right and on the left were rows
of stone seats rising above one another like the tiers of an am-
phitheatre. The place of honor was assigned to Monsignor La-
vigerie ; then each one took a seat where he pleased.

" ' I have come to see you,' the archbishop began, addressing
the amin, ' to show my affection for you. (Here all present sim-
ultaneously laid their hands, first on their heart, then on their
forehead.) I have reason to love you, for we French are related
to you ; the same blood runs in our veins. Our forefathers were
Romans, in part at least, as were yours ; we are Christians, as you
too once were. Look at me. I am a Christian bishop. Well,
in days gone by, there were more than five hundred bishops

1 893-1 LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. 60 1

like me in Africa, all Kabyles, many of them illustrious men
distinguished for their learning. All of your race were originally,
Christians ; but the Arabs came and ruthlessly slaughtered your
bishops and priests, and compelled your ancestors to adopt their
creed. Do you know all this ? '

" A very voluble consultation took place among the audience,
then the amin replied :

"'Yes, we know it; but you speak of a time long past. Our
grandfathers have told us these things ; but as for ourselves, we
have seen nothing of them.' "

WOMEN BECOME MISSIONARIES.

In connection with the seminary the archbishop established
the Sisters of Our Lady of African Missions. In heathen and
Mohammedan countries women are secluded, and in consequence
can be reached by women only. The wives and daughters of the
men and boys whom Monsignor Lavigerie's missionaries were
converting needed the sisters to take care of them. It took the
prudent archbishop ten years to form this community of sisters,
whose growth, however, was very great, while of their work Mon-
signor Lavigerie thus speaks :

" I have seen them in the midst of their work ; I have seen
them surrounded by a motley crowd of men and children, both
Christians and Mohammedans, all clamoring for succor, begging
them to cure their ailments, to relieve their poverty, kissing with
the utmost veneration the habit they wear. I remember hearing
one of our sisters say that once, while passing through the streets
of a populous Eastern city, she was accosted by an old man, a
Turk, who asked her, with a mixture of curiosity and respect :
* Tell me, sister, when you came down from heaven did you wear
the same dress in which we see you now?'" (Clarke's Lavigerie,
p. 1 08).

HE EDUCATES PRIESTS FOR THE ORIENTAL COMMUNIONS.

With the brief mention of his opening an hospital outside of
Algiers for the Arabs, let us go on to the establishment of St.
Ann's Apostolic School and Seminary, Jerusalem. The great
primate had this work started for the purpose of training natives
for the priesthood in the Melchite and Oriental communions.
The following extracts are from a letter addressed by its rector,
Rev. L. Federlin, to the director of the work of Eastern schools
(LOuvre d" Ecoles de F Orient) :

602 LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. [Feb. r

"... Last year I had the honor of conversing with you
concerning the dangers of Catholics in the East from the influ-
ence of Russians and Protestants. I sketched in part the work
which a native seminary could take in this battle against heresy
and infidelity this combat between truth and error. Then I ex-
pressed the hope that it might be our good fortune to furnish
the first contingent to this army of the Lord. It is a great con-
solation to us now to know that God has granted this wish.
Blessed be his name ! . . . You will not be astonished to-
know that the beginning of this work has been of the humblest
kind, whatever it may have already accomplished. It is always-
so with the works of God, but especially, it seems to me, with
seminaries. It is a truth too often misunderstood in our days.
Nowhere, but especially not in mission countries, should apos-
tolic vocations be hurried. Besides the direct call from God,
they need a long and thorough formation. It is only this year,
then, that St. Ann has had its first ordination. Five of our
seminarians having finished their theological studies, were thought
worthy to receive Holy Orders. ... In the meanwhile God
had in store for us a bitter trial. In his inscrutable designs, he
had resolved to call to himself one of the young Levites before
he had ascended the holy altar. . . . On the 28th, at the ear-
liest dawn of day, a great crowd filled the venerable basilica
erected over the tomb of the Blessed Virgin, amongst them the
faithful of all the different rites and of every religious commu-
nity in and around Jerusalem, all being anxious to witness the
touching ceremony and become partakers in our great joy. . . .
After the chanting of the Gospel in Greek and Arabic, I took
my place near the throne of Cardinal Lavigerie, our illustrious
father, who at the command of Leo XIII. had established the
Seminary of St. Ann. Although he could not be present in the
flesh, yet he was with us in spirit, as is testified by the letter
which I will enclose for your perusal :

" ' MY BELOVED CHILDREN : Permit me to call you thus
though you do not yet know me personally, and thus far I have
not had the pleasure of coming in immediate contact with you.
But the charity of the Lord and that which it has inspired me
to do for you through your masters, who are my beloved sons,
has implanted in my heart a truly paternal love for each and
every one, and my soul goes out in gratitude to Him who calls
you now to enter into the sanctuary and ascend to the holy al-
tar, the first-fruits of the Seminary of St. Ann.

" ' How dearly would I love to assist at the ceremony, for I
have always cherished a tender affection for your church and for

1893-] LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. 603

the Oriental Christians, and greatly desire to see you so increase
in knowledge and virtue as to bring back the glory of past cen-
turies. Indeed, the tears of joy flow freely from my eyes at the
thought that this little seed planted by me will, by the grace of
God, become a great tree, under whose thick and shady branches
future generations shall come to find repose, guided by you r
who will be their pastors. But though these tears may not be
shed in your venerable sanctuary, so replete with memories of
former greatness, yet far from you will they flow, mingled with
fervent prayers to the Heart of Jesus and of his Immaculate
Mother, under whose protection you have passed the most pre-
cious years of your lives.

" ' With these sentiments do I extend in spirit my hands
above your heads, in union with that venerable pontiff who will
confer upon you the sacred rite of ordination, and at the same
time will offer to God, if he thinks best, the few remaining
years of my life to obtain for you the grace of becoming true
apostles to your nation, and worthy laborers in the vineyard of
the Lord.

" ' The day of your ordination, my dear children, will be the
happiest gift you could offer to the old cardinal who rejoices in*
the title of " your father."

" ' To my paternal benediction I have the consolation of join-
ing that of the Father of all the faithful, for I have obtained'
from the Holy Father the Pope, through his Eminence the Car-
dinal Prefect of the Propaganda, a special blessing for you, be-
cause Leo XIII. tenderly loves the Eastern, and particularly our
Melchite Church, and unites his wishes with mine that you may
receive at your ordination all the plenitude of the gifts of God.
With these prayers and wishes, my very dear children, I am only
too happy to sign myself once more

" ' Your father in Christ,

" ' CHARLES CARDINAL LAVIGERIE.
"'Algiers, jd Sept., 1890.

" ' To the Greek Catholic students of St. Anns Seminary, but es~
pecially to those who, having finished their course of studies,,
are about to receive Holy Orders'

"... This touching letter of the great Apostle of Afri-
ca was accompanied by the pontifical brief, in which His Holi-
ness deigned to bless our work and urge it on with his precious
encouragement. ... Of one thing, though, I must speak,
and that is of the outburst of joy on the part of all the Greek
Catholics at the news of these ordinations, and the venerable
patriarch expressed aloud the gratitude which filled his own
heart and those of the people towards the seminary and to the
beloved Cardinal Lavigerie. At Jerusalem also was the feeling
most profound, and in that holy city were assembled in sepa-

604 LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. [Feb.,

rate groups the children of the church and representatives of
its cut-off branches.

" To the first, these ordinations were an unmixed joy ; for
they were a new proof of Catholic union, and also of the jeal-
ous care with which our Holy Mother guards the ancient rites
of the Oriental Church ; but to our separated brethren, they were
as the sound of the death-knell ; for their Seminary of the Holy
Cross, once so prosperous, is closed for lack of candidates, while
St. Ann's goes on increasing in vigor and training native Levites
in large numbers for the work before them. Oh ! may our poor
misguided brethren soon open their eyes and their hearts to the
truth, and, returning to the faith of their fathers, take once more
in the great Catholic family the brilliant place they once occu-
pied. . . . After their ordination our pupils entered at once
upon their new career, and now they are spreading abroad
amongst their brethren the truths imbibed by them in the semi-
-nary. By this teaching they make our faith known. ... It
will not be long ere they are reinforced by the younger pupils
who are now being trained for the Catholic Apostolate."

THE MISSIONS IN CENTRAL AFRICA.

The greatest of all the illustrious Primate of Africa's labors
was in Central Africa, which brought him face to face with the
slave-trade.

" My spiritual sons have already gone forth to plant the
standard of the Cross in distant regions. They are to be found
in Tunis, amid the ruins of Carthage, on the spot where St.
Louis of France breathed his last. They have established them-
selves at the Leptis of the ancients, and thence they have ad-
vanced by the old route into the desert that desert which the
resources and discoveries of civilization render no longer impass-
able, and the sands of which are dyed with the blood of their
young and generous hearts. They are in Palestine, at Jerusalem,
where they are constituted the guardians of a sanctuary dear to
the Christian world on account of its historical associations and
traditional interests. And lastly, what is most important of all,
they have penetrated into the interior of Africa, and reached
the barbarous lands surrounding the great lakes discovered by
Livingstone and Stanley ; there they form the nucleus of a
great army, an army of peace, whose mission is to deliver the
unhappy negro race from the thraldom under which they
groan. It is my task to direct the tactics of these warriors and
strengthen their hands in the distant lands where they are en-
camped ; to provide them with their daily bread, the necessaries

1893-] LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. 605

of life. For this I must toil in the sweat of my brow ; do not,,
therefore, begrudge me my leisure a leisure which brings no
lessening of labor. To you I can address the self-same words that
were spoken to the faithful at Hippo : ' Nemo ergo invideat otio
meo, quia otium meum magnum habet negotium' Let no one
begrudge me my rest from labor, for with me rest from labor
means plenty of fresh work " (Clarke's Life).

The scramble for Africa is almost now a byword. The na-
tions of Europe have deliberately divided the Dark Continent
among themselves without as much as saying "By your leave"
to the natives ; the soldiers, too, of the Cross, in the peaceful
way of Christ, have divided the country into spiritual kingdoms.
Along the shores of the Mediterranean are the Franciscans ;.
in Abyssinia, the Lazarists ; in Senegambia and Senegal, the
Fathers of the Holy Ghost ; the African missionaries of Lyons
are in Guinea, at the Cape, and in Dahomey ; the missioners of
Verona are in the country south of Egypt, lately overrun by the
Mahdi ; the Jesuits are on the island of Madagascar and neigh-
boring islets; the Oblates of Mary at Natal. All along the
shores of Africa there is no spot untrodden by the messengers of
peace, whose errand is to bring that peace which surpasses all
understanding to the unhappy progeny of Ham.

Pius IX., as he stood on the brink of the grave, gave the im-
petus to this outpouring of the Spirit. His eyes were weary in
beholding the rising tide of irreligion in Europe, but they lit up
with ardor and enthusiasm at the prospect of the great con-
quests to the Cross to be made among the one hundred million
souls in Africa.

Among the obstacles enumerated by Lavigerie to the success
of the evangelization of Africa pre-eminent mention is given to-
Mohammedanism, for in its train follow the evils of polygamy
and slavery. With the efforts made to stamp out the latter the
name of the great primate will ever be identified. His crusade
throughout Europe was crowned with wonderful blessing. It is
a matter of deep regret that his journeyings did not extend to
America, for the abolition of slavery here furnished the key-note
of what could be done with the infamous traffic on the Dark

Continent.

THE WHITE FATHERS.

Cardinal Lavigerie believed that an armed force was necessary
to accomplish his end; hence his military order the Brothers
of the Sahara was started. France's generous heart is shown
by the fact that over two thousand of her noble sons volun-
teered, although but fifty were accepted. Not long ago the first

606 LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. [Feb.,

novices were professed and the nascent knights of the desert
sands are now in a fair way to second the arduous labors of the
missionaries.

The headquarters of the Brothers of the Sahara are at Biskra,
on the Algerian borders of the great desert. Impressive was
the ceremony of profession made by the first batch of those
warrior mpnks. Twelve in number, they were one and all of
the French aristocracy and officers in the French army, two
being lieutenant-colonels, while the best-known is Vicomte Guy
de Brissac, once a well-known club-man in Parisian circles. A
dramatic feature in the ceremony occurred when Cardinal Lavi-
gerie led to the altar a little negro girl, barely nine years old,
who had succeeded in escaping from a slave caravan which was
crossing the desert a few miles distant. By accident the child
standing at the altar dropped something. The aged cardinal,
-stooping over, picked it up. It was the child's hand. In sheer
wantonness her captors had thus mutilated the poor little thing.
Holding it aloft and pointing it southward with one hand, the
Primate of Africa raised with the other the mangled stump of
the child, so that all could see both. " / would to God," he
cried out, " that all Europe could see this little hand. May it
point out your line of march. En avant for God and humanity /"

Notwithstanding its foulness, slavery has been the conse-
crated channel of Afric's touch on Christendom. Strange con-
secration ! Had not the slave-trade arisen, the cordon round
that unhappy country might have been drawn tight and fast
even now. But the infamous traffic in human flesh was the
commerce that brought Africa and Christendom together,
making the slave-trade a prominent figure in national poli-
cies. To-day Africa may be termed civilization writ large
upon the earth's face, not as a separate power, but as furnishing
integral parts of the European governments, with the huge
Congo Free State as a neutral ground, while Liberia represents
our own country. And Africa is written, we may add, in letters
of fire across the hills and vales of these United States. Our
Negro question will tax the best energies of our statesmen
and politicians to solve, while it will test to the utmost the
strength of our Constitution. A weird spell negro slavery
wields ! A mysterious policy-shaping influence upon the desti-
nies of nations is wafted from the hidden lakes of the Dark
Continent's primeval forests. By the amendments, thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth, to the Constitution, the United States
seemed anxious to smooth away the wrinkles from a criminal
brow and to lead the slave to look forward in renewed

1893-] LAVIGERIE, THE NEW ST. PAUL. 607

hope. It should prove a study of warm interest, had we the
time, to search into the manifold effects of slavery on the
moral and spiritual life of the North and South, Catholic and
Protestant alike. But one after-effect stares us in the face :
the former objects of our charity and the proteges of our
philanthropists have multiplied and increased until they now
constitute an imperium in imperio. A strange revenge slavery
has brought us!

THE LATTER YEARS OF HIS LIFE.

Within the last ten years of his life came to Monsignor La-
vigerie his two greatest honors the Cardinalate and the Primacy
of Africa. He received news of the former elevation in March,
1882, while at Carthage. The formalities incident thereto ob-
liged him to go to Paris, and afterwards to Rome. En route
homewards he stopped at Malta, where he baptized twelve negro
youths, whom he had ransomed from slavery and had sent
thither to study medicine, in view of joining them later on with
his missionaries in the Apostolate of Central Africa. Shortly
after this he offered the famous toast to the officers of the French
Mediterranean squadron, which proved the forerunner of Leo
XIII. 's stand so favorable to the Republic of France. About it
Cardinal Lavigerie made the remark that no one read his pasto-
rals, but a few words after dinner set the French world aglow.

The Primacy of Africa soon followed. The cardinal himself
petitioned for the restoration of the See of Carthage. The
name of Carthage reminds us how very nearly Rome had been
conquered, and the course of history reversed. At the battle of
Metaurus, when Hasdrubal was defeated, Hannibal seized his
head, flung it into the trenches, exclaiming, in the words of

Horace :

" Carthagini jam non ego nuntios
Mittam superbos : occidit, occidit
Spes omnis et fortuna nostri
Nominis, Hasdrubale interempto."

But Carthage dead speaks to us through the living voice of
Pope Leo XIII., who graciously acceded to this proposal. In
the bull of restoration he speaks of the regret with which the
church ever views the relapse of a people once enlightened with
the light of faith into the darkness of superstition and error, as
has been the case with the inhabitants of Northern Africa.
The African Church, so great and glorious in the early ages of
Christianity, had long since ceased to be an example to the na-
tions. Carthage, too, which had been amongst the first to re-
ceive the faith of Christ, had become a heap of ruins ; Carthage,

6c>8 LAVIGERIE, THE NEW >r. PAUL. [Feb. r

whose name recalled the memories of so many saints and mar-
tyrs, so many bishops and doctors; of Perpetua and Felicitas,
of Augustine, Tertullian, and Cyprian. Carthage had been the
scene of much heroism and courage under the persecutions of
proconsuls, the violence of Vandals, the merciless onslaught of
Moslems ; she had, moreover, until her final destruction, held
unrivalled sway over the Church of Northern Africa, for hers
was the metropolitan see, and to her authority seven hundred
and fifty churches were subject.

From the day that the Arab sheik, waving his scimetar over
his head, rode into the cathedral of Carthage shouting, " There
is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet," twelve
centuries had come and gone. And in its resurrected fane the
undying strength of Catholicism is effectively proved. No longer
will Cato's wail, " Carthago delenda est," resound ; but Lavi-
gerie's watchword, " Carthago vivificanda est," will lead on to-
greater victories.

No doubt the unhappy disasters at Uganda told on the al-
ready impaired health of the Cardinal of Africa. Although of so-
robust a build and so herculean a stature that he was likened to the
famous Moses of the artist, yet a quarter of a century passed
in the heats of that arid clime, and culminating in the ruin
which overtook his missions in Central Africa, must have has-
tened his death. He was buried in his own cathedral of Car-
thage, in the tomb long ago prepared by himself, with an epi-
taph which has charmed the world by its simplicity.

The governor of Algeria recalled in his funeral discourse a
saying of Cardinal Lavigerie which gives the key to the dead
Primate's life : " I am the servant of a Master they could never
shut up in a tomb." It was this energy the expression of his
love for souls which led him on to undertake his numerous
works. They will continue, for they are well founded. The
African race owe him a lasting debt of gratitude which they
will ever remember, for they are a grateful people. Far too-
few and too widely separated are their friends, that the unhap-
py people should forget any of them. Would to God that the
negroes of America had in the Catholic Church of our land as
devoted a champion and as successful a pleader! Then indeed
the story of the church's relations to them might be well sung
in a joyous key. To-day her note may but re-echo the wail of
the Jews, who refused to sing by the waters of Babylon the
songs of Sion :

" Quomodo cantabimus in terra aliena?"

Baltimore. J. R. SLATTERY. '.

CARDINAL LAVIGERIE,
AND HIS NATIVE MISSIONARIES.

1893-] Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. 609

TWO LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS.

the banks of the Tiber, not far from Rome, there
is a mineral spring called Acqua Cetosa ; and a
little way beyond is, or was, a donkey-shed, in
the loft of which, on a sack of corn-husks, slept
the twin brothers, Tito and Cesare. They were
allowed to sleep there by the man who owned the place because
he had been a comrade of their father's, and because the boys
were now homeless orphans, both father and mother gone.

During the first few months of their orphanhood they had
earned their living by begging, which is not so easy a life as
many imagine. It may not tire the muscles, but it makes "the
heart weary. When a scornful refusal is given, the heart be-
comes bitter as well as weary, and instead of a sad humility, is
filled with revengeful hate.

Tito and Cesare were scarcely old enough to know what such
hate is ; but they were sometimes desperate. It was always for-
eigners, and particularly Americans, who spoke brutally to them,
though some Americans were kind. Italians are always kind to
the poor, even in refusing charity. " Figlio mio, I have no change
to-day," they will say. In Spain also, when they cannot give,
they refuse with courtesy and kindness. " Excuse me to-day,
brother."

Such people have been taught charity and good manners.
To them the poor are "God's poor."

After a time the twins found employment. They got per-
mission to sell matches in the streets of Rome ; and in the
spring they sold violets. The matches were those dear little
waxen ones put up in brightly-pictured boxes ; and for some
mysterious reason they do not there all stick together in a lump,
as they do here. Perhaps it is because in those European coun-
tries they keep so many bees that they can afford to make their
wax matches of wax.

While selling these the boys slept in Rome, in an old stage-
coach in an old stable in a street so old that its pavements
must have been pressed by the sandals of Julius Caesar. There
is some evidence also that it is the same street where that fa-
mous bore button-holed Horatius Flaccus, and got his portrait
sketched for our delectation.
VOL. LVI. 42

6io Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. [Feb.,

The hostler in this stable was another old comrade of the
boys' father.

When they sold violets they slept in the donkey-shed up the
Tiber. There they would rise as soon as day, eat a piece of
bread, and run away to certain grassy banks and nooks they
knew, where, from February to May, the ground was every morn-
ing all a blue mist with fragrant, long-stemmed violets.

One June day, the violet season being over, and the match-
business dull, as they wandered disconsolately about the streets
and squares of Rome, a foreign artist whom they knew met
them, and gave them a fine commission. He wanted for the
next day as many as they could bring him of a certain fragrant
yellow flower that grows all about the Tiber. A princess of
royal blood, passing through Rome on her way to Naples, was
to visit his studio, and he was adorning it for her reception.

'"Come and see how I want to use the flowers," he said
pleasantly ; and the twins followed him, full of curiosity. They
had seen the studios of painters, had even served as models
once; but they knew nothing of sculptor's work; and this man
was a sculptor.

They entered from the street through wide double doors,
like stable-doors, a very large room on the ground-floor. Here
two men in white linen blouses and paper caps were at work
with chisel and mallet on two tall blocks of milk-white Carrara
marble. Other blocks, large and small, lay or stood about.

One of the men touched lightly, taking off only a white dust
from an arm and hand of the half-shaped figure he worked
upon.

" There's a man inside the stone trying to get out," Cesare
whispered to his brother. " Oh ! I wish I could make a hand
like that ! "

The other workman chiseled off large pieces, his block being
almost whole.

" It sounds like music," Tito said to Cesare.

" It does ring," the sculptor said, overhearing him. " I re-
member," he added, addressing his workman, " Giovanni Dupr6
saying that when he gave the last touches to one of his monu-
ments before it was unveiled, the marble rang back like a bell
when he struck it. Giovanni was a realist. His St. Francis, in
Assisi, has got a little patch chiseled into his robe. Come,
boys ! "

As they went, Tito looked back and sang softly, in a sweet,
clear voice, the very note the marble struck out.

1893-] Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. 611

" What a true voice you've got ! " the sculptor exclaimed,
stopping to look at the boy. "A bird's voice, too. You must
sing to me some time."

Tito hung his head, and said nothing. He had forgotten that
he was not in some grove by the Tiber mimicking a bird.

They went up a few steps and past the gray curtain over a
wide door into the artist's work-room, where he stopped a mo-
ment to dismiss a model who was waiting for him, and wet the
cloths on a clay figure that stood in the full light of a single
broad window there.

" Oh ! " said Cesare, " if I could only make them !"

From this room a stair led up to a lofty hall with an arched
roof supported by pillars, where, scattered about, singly or in
groups, was a company of snow-white figures. If Medusa had
come suddenly upon an assembly of beautiful men, women, and
children, and changed them all into stone with her first glance,
they could not have looked at once more lifelike and more
deathlike. The smile, the frown, the gesture, the position all
were petrified on the instant. There were roguish cupids, noble
forms draped to their feet, praying forms, wrestlers religion,
intellect, strength, and gracefulness, all shaped in purest marble.
Mingled with these, and setting them off, were colored draperies,
plants, laurel-boughs, some high-backed chairs of carven oak,
and a few pictures.

" Now see what I want," the sculptor said, and preceded the
boys to a niche where a slender female shape stood on a pedes-
tal. She had a beautiful smiling face ; but there was something
cruel and deceitful in her smile.

The name carved on her pedestal was ClCUTA.

Now, the yellow-flowering branches that the sculptor wanted
were of a shrub called cicuta, or hemlock, said to be the same
plant with which Socrates was poisoned.

"I want to line the niche and half cover the pedestal with
those flowers," the sculptor said. " Can you bring . me enough
for that ? "

" Oh, yes ! " Tito said.

Cesare could not hear the question. His eyes were flashing
from object to object of the beautiful place, and his ears were
ringing. " Oh, if I could make them ! If I could make them ! "
he thought, and his eyes filled with tears.

" Perhaps," the artist said, " I may let you stay and see the
princess. Who knows but she would give you something. Peo-
ple always take notice of twins. You would look well cheek to

612 Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. [Feb.,

cheek beside the pedestal, and half covered up with flowers.
Now you may go."

Tito went directly, Cesare as though his feet stuck to the
floor.

" If the princess should ask me to sing, I will," said Tito
when they were outside.

" Oh, if I could make them ! If I could make them ! " mur-
mured his brother.

That night they slept in the donkey-shed, and the next
morning they were out at sunrise searching for and cutting
long, flexible branches of the sweet-smelling flowers of the cicuta..
Their plan was to tie these branches about them in a way they
knew, to their legs, arms, neck, and waist, till they should be all
covered but their feet, and look like two great gold-colored
bouquets. Sometimes you may see in Italy a child dressed in
this way, walking off like a plant that has left its roots for a
ramble ; or you may see a woman coming up into town from
the fields with her whole person covered with long grass and
poppies, only a pair of prettily-stepping feet visible.

The boys piled a great heap of flowers on a piece of smooth
turf that crumbled down into the river. The Tiber is a danger-
ous river, and this was a very dangerous spot, for the current
makes here a deep curve into the bank, whirling swiftly out again
lower down. But the piece of clean turf was just what the boys
wanted to lay their flowers on, and make their toilet on. They
were getting the strings out of their pockets, thinking that they
had flowers enough, when Cesare espied at a little distance some
branches of cicuta so richly blooming as to seem carven in pure
gold. He bade Tito go and get them.

" Go yourself ! " said Tito.

He often complained that Cesare ordered him about too
much. They had some sharp words about it now, but it ended
in Tito going for the cicuta.

When at a little distance he turned and called back, " I
don't have to cover my ears ! " then ran.

Cesare looked at him angrily, but did not move nor speak,
though the taunt was a cruel one ; for half of one of his ears
had been bitten off by a dog years before, and he was at some
pains to conceal the mutilation with his curly hair.

Tito came back presently with his arms full of the finest
blossoms they had found that morning, and seeing how angry
his brother looked, stood holding them before him as a shield.

" Why don't you throw them down ? " asked Cesare roughly.

1893-] Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. 613

"You're not my master!" Tito replied in the same tone.

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Cesare sprang
upon him. Tito was between him and the river, and at that
sudden onset he staggered backward, stumbled over the crum-
bling bank, and fell, he and his load of blossoms, with a splash,
into the Tiber.

There was a momentary pause ; then the swift current drag-
ged him away, leaving Cesare almost paralyzed with horror. He
had forgotten in his anger that the river was there.

The flowers spread themselves out on the water surrounding
a white little face and disordered chestnut-colored hair, and two
arms stretched wildly upward.

" Oh, put your arms down ! Try to swim ! " cried his brother,
finding voice. " Swim across ! Try hard ! O Tito ! Tito ! "

A vine-covered branch that hung out over the water inter-
cepted his gaze for a moment ; then the golden mat of flowers
came into sight again lower down. But the face and arms had
disappeared.

Cesare's eyes, still staring, saw all the world grow' dark, his
heart seemed to turn over heavily and sink downward, and some-
thing struck him on the head. It was the ground as he fell.
Then he lost consciousness. .

Opening his eyes again, he first wondered where he was and
how he came there. Then he thought, " Where's Tito ? " And
then, remembering all, he started up and began to search along
the river-bank, staggering as he went, and calling his brother
desperately. Tito must have escaped ! He would not believe
otherwise.

It was a day of full sunshine. The branches of the trees
waved softly now and then, and in a thick grove a nightingale
sang, though it was almost nine o'clock. All nature seemed to
be at peace with a lovely harmony and brightness, and quite
unconscious of the wretched child who, with wild eyes and tear-
stained face, went running from place to place, searching, scarce-
ly knowing what he was about, moaning with every breath,
"Tito! O Tito!"

There was no answer. He ran half a mile down the bank,
then came back to the place he had started from, and sat down
by his heap of cicuta. Hope died out of his heart. It was vain,
he knew, to search for one who had fallen into that strong
writhing current, except to find a lifeless body far below. Noth-
ing remained for him but to conceal what had happened, and try
to keep out of jail. The day dragged itself away like a wounded

6 14 Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. [Feb. r

creature. Cesare passed it in wandering through the woods,
and staring up and down the road. If he saw any one coming
he hid himself. But he could not escape the birds which
every moment looked at him with their sharp eyes, and said
interrogatively, "Tito? Tito?"

At twilight Cesare started for the donkey-shed. As he
climbed the ladder to the loft a sudden hope woke in his heart
so sharply that it hurt. What if he should find Tito there
asleep !

No ! The sack of corn-husks was all his to sleep on, if he
could sleep. They would never quarrel any more about the
old gray blanket that was their sole covering. Sometimes they
had disputed over it for sport, ending with a kiss. The twins
always kissed each other good-night.

Cesare, weeping drearily, kissed his brother's end of the bol-
ster, and put all the blanket at Tito's side of the bed, though
he was himself shivering with a chill of fear and grief. For
hours he lay and suffered, but at length sleep overcame him.
He was just losing consciousness, when something cold and
damp touched his forehead, as if a hand had been drawn across it.

He started up in affright. " Its Tito's ghost ! " he thought
and his heart thumped loudly against his side.

All was dark and still. Only the trees rustled outside, and
from far away came the dull murmur of the Tiber. Cesare sat
there till daylight, staring into the dark, and listening. Then
he wrapped himself in the blanket and, utterly exhausted, went
to sleep.

It was late when he got up and started for Rome. He
begged a piece of bread by the way, and pulled some wild
salad-leaves to eat with it. He was half-starved. Reaching the
city, he was careful to avoid the places where he might have
been recognized. Going from bridge to bridge, he clung to the
railing, and stared down into the Tiber. He did not dare to-
ask a question, but whenever he saw several men talking to-
gether, he passed slowly close to them, looking another way,,
and listened to hear if they were talking of a little drowned
boy that had been taken out of the Tiber, with a cicuta blossom,
clenched in his hand and another tangled in his hair.

When night came, he went to sleep in the old stage-coach.
Bernardo, the hostler, would ask him no questions. The twins
had always come and gone as unquestioned as two cats.

When the thoughts have dwelt long and constantly on a
grief it becomes dull to them, as a stone loses its sharp edges

1893-] Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. 615

when running water has washed it about for a long time. The
stone remains smooth, but when the weary mind has rested
awhile, it wakes to find its grief as sharp as ever.

Cesare, having thought of nothing but his brother for so long
a time, had become so dull and weary that he had scarcely
curled himself up on the back seat of the old diligenza when
he was sound asleep.

Deep in the night he was wakened by something like a cold
hand drawn across his forehead. He started up, screaming.

All was dark and still.

Presently the door of a little room beside the stable opened
and the hostler called out roughly, asking what the matter
was.

" I I had a bad dream," the boy stammered, comforted by
the sound of a human voice.

" If you wake me again with your bad dreams I'll turn you
into the street," said Bernardo, and shut his door with a slam.

Cesare sat up all the rest of the night on the back seat of
the couch and stared through darkness at the front seat where
his brother had always slept. When the day dawned he
went out, begged something to eat, and got some matches to
sell. The man he bought them of trusted him for a few boxes.

" But where is your brother ? " the man asked.

" I don't know," said Cesare. " He's round somewhere."

Almost a week went past in this way. Every day the boy
went about the city selling matches, and every night he spent in
misery with the visitor who never failed to come.

At length, one night, instead of cowering in silence after that
cold touch had waked him from his first sleep, he sat up and
spoke. "I didn't mean to do it, Tito," he said. "And I'm
sorry. Oh ! I'm sorry. I never thought of the river being
there. And, Tito, you didn't know how bad I feel about my
ear. It spoils me. I'm like one of those old crumbly statues in
a garden. I miss you so, Tito! If you were here you might
have all my money. I don't care about it now."

And he sobbed bitterly.

Cesare did not know it, for he never looked into a mirror;
but he was wasting away, consumed by a fever of grief, fear,
and sleeplessness. He could scarcely swallow food, and some-
times such a faintness would come over him that he could -not
stand.

Otherwise, his affairs prospered, and now that he cared so little
for money he earned more than ever before. People had begun to

616 Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. [Feb.,

make collections of such pictured match-boxes as he sold,
especially such as carried out a series illustrating some story ; and
the very day after he spoke to his brother at night he filled
two orders that gave what to him was a large profit. A lady
had employed him to get her a whole set of the boxes having
tiny photographs of Dora's illustrations of Dante's Inferno ; and
a gentleman who was making a humorous collection gave him
twenty cents for a single box. The picture was of a man sitting
on the floor, with a wine-flask on a bench beside him, and a
tumbler half-full of wine tipping over in his hand. He was say-
ing : " Aveva ragione Galileo: la terra gira" (Galileo was right:
the earth goes round).

When night came, it seemed to him that he could not go
back to the stage-coach. Perhaps if he should go to some place
where he and his brother had never slept, Tito's hand would
not find him out, he thought.

After wandering about for a while, he came to the Roman
Forum. The great dark mass of the Colosseum loomed before
him. He watched his opportunity when no one was near, and
slipped into its shadow. The moon shone in from the south,
and showed him a piece of smooth turf under one of the arches.
She seemed to say : " Lie down there, little boy, and I will
watch over you ! "

She seemed to do more. She shadowed out a great cross
above the dark excavations in the central space, and called up
all round the ghosts of vanished Stations of the Cross where he
had seen them stand, where he and Tito had gone one Good
Friday with their mother to say the prayers. The boy recol-
lected his neglected religion as he recollected his mother, and
kneeling there in the moonlight, he said an Our Father and
Hail Mary. Then, comforted, he lay down, put his cap under
his head, and was asleep in a minute, in a deep, sweet sleep.

He woke but once in the night, and that was because a
large walnut in his pocket hurt him. As he turned from it, he
heard a sound of breathing not far away. It was a soft, regular
breathing of one who slept.

Glad to have company, he slept again, and did not wake till
dawn. The hand had not found him that night.

Cesare sighed, shook the dust from his cap, put it on, and
was about going away, when he recollected the breathing he
had heard, and looked about to see who his companion was.
They might watch their chance to get out together.

The sleeper was dimly visible under an inner arch, and Ce-

1893-] Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS, 617

-sare made out the figure of a boy who lay with his face turned
away, and one arm bent for a pillow under his head.

Cesare went softly nearer, then stopped, his heart giving a
leap. He half turned back with an impulse of flight. But the
.air was all clear and bright about him, and the sky blue and
full of sunshine above the dark Colosseum ring. He blessed
himself, and went a step nearer. Yet another step, and he saw
-chestnut-colored ringlets like his own, and a fair profile showing
pale against the dark sleeve it rested on. Then, with a gasp,
lie ran, he fell on his knees beside the sleeper.

It was Tito ! He touched the hair, and it was real hair.
He looked at the clothes. They were the real clothes of a
poor little boy, such as Tito had worn. He bent and felt the
soft breath fan his cheek, and whispered close to the sleeper's
ear, " Tito ! "

The boy stirred, and murmured drowsily, " Yes, Ces !"

Even in his sleep he knew that in all the world there was
no one to kiss him but his brother.

At that word Cesare wept aloud for joy ; and in a moment
the twins were clasped in each other's arms.

" Did Bernardo know ? " asked Cesare after a while.

" He only knew that I didn't want you to see me. I slept
in the stage-box. I'm sorry I frightened you, Ces. I cried when
you spoke the other night. I would have answered, but I
thought it would frighten you more. I told Bern to tell you
yesterday that I was coming, and I waited hidden to see how
you would take it. I tried to find you. I went twice to the
stable. The last time the door was shut. Then I came here.
I'm sorry I frightened you, Ces! "

Cesare drew a handful of copper coins from his pocket
" You may have 'em all," he said ; " and now tell me how you
got out of the water."

Tito gazed with delight at the money. He had never had
so much all his own.

" You remember the branch that hung out over the water just
where we were ? " he said. " I caught a twig of that, and drew
myself out. I just barely got it. Then I ran for the shed, hung
my clothes to dry in the sun, and went to bed while they dried.
I slept almost all day. Then I got up and waited for you. I
was behind the bunch of corn-stalks. I'm sorry I frightened
you, Ces ! "

Cesare took a large walnut from his pocket. It was the one
that had waked him in the night.

618 Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. [Feb.j.

"Take it!" he said. "And 'don't you want to swap knives
with me, Tito ? Mine is the best. And we'll go and get some
breakfast. You shall have coffee with milk and sugar in it, and
a white roll, and a little two-cent pat of butter with the wolf
and twins stamped on it. You shall have everything that you
want, Tito."

Tito had cracked the walnut between his little teeth that
were like polished alabaster, and put half the kernel in his
brother's mouth. He sprang up at the offer of this magnificent
breakfast, the like of which he had never eaten in all his life r
and the two, watching their chance, crept out into the street.

The bell of the Church of San Clemente close by was ring-
ing for an early Mass. They went in, and, kneeling side by side
on the ancient pavement, sent a glad Ave Maria upward, like
two uniting wreaths of incense, from their happy hearts. Then r
still on their knees, one said, " I'm sorry I pushed Tito ! " and
the other added, " I'm sorry I frightened Cesare." After which
they blessed themselves, made a hurried genuflection to the altar,
and went out.

The sun was just rising, and it threw their long shadows
before them as they went toward the Capitol.

" Ces," said Tito, " let's catch our shadows."

They laughed, and started off hand-in-hand after the shadows
that leaped before them up the steep way to the Campidoglio,
their chase a swiftly passing figure of many a life-long pursuit
these ancient walls had seen begin and disappear since first the
morning light shone on their sombre stones.

But at the piazza a loud voice arrested their course.

" What ! Castor and Pollux, just in time, even as at the bat-
tle of Lake Regillus, and careering like two young colts," said
the voice ; and their friend, the sculptor, stopped before them.

For a moment they looked at each other in silence, the boys
somewhat embarrassed.

" Why did you break your promise to me ? " asked the sculp-
tor, assuming an air of severity.

" I fell into the Tiber," said Tito.

" How fortunate ! " exclaimed the artist. " It saved me forty
cents. The princess couldn't come, after all. But she is coming;
back, and the visit will be made to-morrow. Can I trust you
this time ? or will you fall into the Tiber again ? "

"Oh! we will bring the flowers," said Cesare fervently. "You
may be sure."

And they did bring them, and were half covered up in them

1893-] Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. 619

at the side of Cicuta's pedestal the next afternoon when the
sculptor stood in the door to receive his royal visitor.

She was not a very young lady ; but she was a very noble
and gracious one ; and she had been all her life so accus-
tomed to seeing the finest works of art that her praise was of
value.

"It is such a pleasure to be among so many beautiful objects,"
she said. " It must be quite an ideal life, Signore, that which
you live."

A younger lady and a gentleman accompanied the princess,
and walked quietly behind her while she went about with the
artist, looking at everything. The lady was her companion, and
the gentleman a Roman nobleman, a cousin of the princess.

They looked at the Cicuta last. The sculptor was half-afraid
that if he took his visitors there first, his other marbles might
not be found so interesting : for not only was the statue ex-
quisite on its golden background, but the twins made the loveliest
picture possible.

In fact, the princess had but given a glance at the Cicuta
and pronounced her beautiful, when she saw the two dusky little
masks framed in gold and leaning cheek to cheek against her
pedestal.

" Why ! what is that ? " she exclaimed.

The twins had been told to lie quite still and keep their
eyes closed ; but Tito, at sound of that musical voice, could not
help smiling very faintly.

" It's alive ! " cried the princess, and bending, touched the
cheek with a finger-tip.

It sank and dimpled under the light pressure, and two rows
of small white teeth appeared. Lastly the eye-lashes trembled,
and a pair of brilliant dark eyes were disclosed.

A very pretty scene was then enacted. The twins were taken
out of their flowery bed, and made to talk, and tell their story.
The lady leaned back in an arm-chair and grew serious as she
listened to it all ; for it was all told, even to the fall into the
Tiber, and the finding in the Colosseum. Nor was the mode of
telling less touching than the story itself. For it was a sort of
duetto, where, one of the boys beginning to blame himself, the
other took the word and excused him, going on with the story
till interrupted in his turn ; and as they talked they got nearer
and nearer to each other, and ended with their arms around
each other's shoulders.

. But when Tito struck an attitude and sang for them, the

620 Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGARS. [Feb.,

lady could but smile. The smile, however, soon lost its amuse-
ment, and became one of pleasant surprise.
He sang :

"Vedi che luna bianca !
Vedi che notte azzura !
Un' aura non sussura,

Non tremola uno stel."

Ending, they all applauded.

" Why, Enrico, the child ought to be a choir-singer !" the
princess exclaimed to her cousin.

" So I was thinking," he said. " Leave it to me. There is
always room for a voice like that."

" And what would you like to do ?" the princess asked of
Osare.

His eyes filled with tears, and he trembled. " I want to stay
with Tito," he almost sobbed.

" Don't fear ! you shall not be separated," she said soothing-
ly. " But what would you like to do while your brother is
singing or learning to sing?"

"Listen to him!" said Cesare, still trembling.

" Dear child, no human being shall separate you from him !"
the lady exclaimed. "A home shall be found where you
can live together. But surely you would not wish to be idle
while he is working. Is there nothing that you would like to
be ?"

His fears at rest, Cesare's thought detached itself from his
brother. His bright eyes swept a glance around the sculptured
forms of beauty that seemed to listen to their talk, and you
would have said that the child grew taller.

'' I want to be a sculptor !" he said briefly, and with a cer-
tain decision.

There was a moment of silence. The visitors had not,
apparently, expected so ambitious a choice. Then the artist

" He has had that idea ever since he first came here. Who
knows ! If a home is provided for him, I will give him a chance
to begin. I'd like to have the boy about the studio."

" Would you like that, my child ? " asked the princess smil-
ing. " You shall come here, be useful to this gentleman, see
how he works, try to model with your own little hands, and
have a fair chance to see if you can be a sculptor."

You have seen the sun come out after the rain, and strike

I893-]

Two LITTLE ROMAN BEGGAKS.

621

across some tremulous drop till it hung on stone or leaf like a.
diamond brilliant.

It might be said that this boy's soul was like such a drop
at that moment. He stood erect in a trance of rapture,
looking straight before him, the eyes a little uplifted, all glow-
ing as if they saw some wondrous vision in the air.

He stood so for a moment, then, becoming conscious of his
surroundings, he smiled, and blessed himself. It seemed to him
that he had been praying. He had indeed entertained that di-
vine spouse of prayer, the consenting response of God !

The princess stretched out her hand and drew the boy to-
her side, and her eyes sparkled as she turned to the sculptor.

" Put that into marble for me !" she exclaimed.

MARY AGNES TINCKER.

622 THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL. [Feb.,

THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL.

UlRELAND is once more in an attitude of expect-
ancy. Her fate trembles again in the scales of
time ; yet a wonderful calmness pervades her peo-
ple. The bitter conflict of the past two years
appears to have produced a chastening effect.
The petty ebullitions of rancor which manifest themselves in
isolated places furnish no true indication of the general mind.

If we take into account the circumstances of the fiery ordeal
through which the country has passed, the wide-spread raking up
of political passions, and the unscrupulous appeals to that senti-
ment of personal devotion which under different conditions
would be an amiable weakness in the Irish character, it must
be acknowledged that the country has emerged from the de-
plorable internecine conflict with credit and dignity.

Looking through Mr. John Morley's recent speeches, one is
struck with the fact that an undercurrent of apprehension has
been running in his mind regarding the reception which Mr.
Gladstone's new proposals were likely to meet with from the
small remnant of what may be termed the Irreconcilable party.
It is not unlikely that Mr. Morley may be deceived into exag-
gerating the influence of this element. If a reasonable and
honest offer to settle the long-standing quarrel with England be
made by his government, this little knot of beaten politicians
will not dare to stand in the way. They know the country
would not brook such an attitude. They know in their souls
that if, by any machinations of theirs, in conjunction with hos-
tile English party combinations, they could succeed in wrecking
a fair Home-Rule Bill, they would be regarded by the mass of
their fellow-countrymen as traitors, and their names be, handed
down to posterity with an indelible stigma of infamy. No soph-
istry, however subtle, could excuse them. The will of the ma-
jority must be the ruling power in Ireland as well as elsewhere ;
and the will of the majority there now has declared for peace
with honor. Ireland will not suffer any man or any clique to
play the part of Erostratus in the new-reared fabric of her free-
dom.

All speculations regarding the outlines of the new constitu-
tion for Ireland upon which Mr. Gladstone's cabinet is engaged
jnay be simply appraised as efforts .of the imagination. The

1 893-1 -THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL. 623

time for the oracle to pronounce has not yet come ; and states-
men engaged in such delicate work know how to screen it from
prying eyes until the time is ripe for disclosure.

There is, however, no audacity in the assumption that the
coming bill will be marked by no retrocession in point of gen-
erosity from the former proposed measure. Assurances on that
score have been publicly made in terms as specific as regard
for the oaths of cabinet ministers could allow. Mr. John Mor-
ley is certainly a minister who has earned a title for honesty,
not only in opinion but in action. His words at Newcastle
on the 8th of December last, when, at the peroration of his
speech, he referred to the prevailing curiosity over the details of
the new constitution, were clear and unequivocal. " I see every
reason to hope," he declared, "that when the government faces
the House of Commons in February, it will be with a scheme
which Ireland ought to accept, and which Great Britain ought
not and will not refuse." Nay, more ; it will be such a scheme,
he went on to opine, as must even silence the clamor of Irish
malcontents. " There is every reason to hope " (these are his
words) " that our policy will command the assent of all the
English Liberal party, and of all those who are entitled to
whatever section they belong to speak for the people of Ire-
land."

This is distinct enough. Mr. Morley is speaking from an
informed mind. He knows the lines upon which the new bill is
cast; he is aware of the radical defects of the former scheme;
he is cognizant of the points upon which the Parnellites have
been insisting as indispensable in any acceptable scheme of
Home Rule ; and he can pin them to their declarations, for they
stand on record.

But there is more than this. The followers of Mr. Parnell
cannot surely go beyond Mr. Parnell's own delimitations. The
dead leader whom they are constantly invoking gave, in the
name of his colleagues and the Irish people, his adhesion to the
constitution which Mr. Gladstone proposed in 1886. Speaking
on the second reading of the Home-Rule Bill, on June 7, 1886,
Mr. Parnell said :

" I now repeat what I have already said, on the first reading
of the measure, immediately after I heard the statement of the
prime minister : that we look upon the provisions of the bill as
a final settlement of this question, and that I believe that the
Irish people have accepted it as such a settlement. Of course
you may not believe me, but I can say no more. I .think my
words upon that occasion have been singularly justified by the

624 THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL. [Feb.,.

result. We have had this measure accepted in the sense I in-
dicated by the leaders of every section of National opinion both
in Ireland and outside Ireland. It has been so accepted in the
United States of America, and by the Irish population in that
country, with whose vengeance some honorable members are so-
fond of threatening us. Not a single dissentient voice has been
raised against this bill by any Irishman not by any Irishman
holding National opinions and I need scarcely remind the
House that there are sections amongst Irish Nationalists just as-
much as there are even among the great Conservative party. I
say that as far as it is possible for a nation to accept a mea-
sure cheerfully, freely, gladly, and without reservation as a final
settlement I say that the Irish people have shown that they
have accepted this measure in that sense."

Such were Mr. Parnell's ipsissima verba on that momentous
measure ; the official organ of the Irish National party, United
Ireland, in effect echoed his words. Objections were started re-
garding certain provisions of the bill, such as that establishing a
national tribute for imperial purposes, and some minor features,,
but taking the bill as a whole, the entire National and Liberal
press of Ireland welcomed it with one voice as a much larger
and more sweeping readjustment than the most sanguine had.
expected.

The only whisper of dissent that was heard came from a few
extreme members of the Physical Force party ; but these found
no public expression. The men who uttered them were extrem-
ists, whom nothing but total separation from Great Britain would
satisfy. They never gave their support to Mr. Parnell while he-
was in accord with his colleagues of the Irish Parliamentary
party. It was only when an issue disastrous to the cause of
Home Rule was raised by him that they threw in their lot with
his enterprise. Their support or their antagonism, under pres-
ent conditions, cannot count for much. It is only a matter of
political exigency. They represent no substantial body of public
opinion in Ireland just now.

Another shibboleth of posthumous Parnellism is " indepen-
dence of all English political parties." This principle has at
times expanded itself into rejection of any Home-Rule measure
save such a one as Ireland herself may dictate, and even rejec-
tion of any measure proposed by Mr. Gladstone, who had come
to be regarded as the arch-enemy of the late Mr. Parnell. But
the enunciation of such doctrines, tentatively put forward, never
found any popular favor ; hence it became necessary to modify
them, and the formula now is simply independence and an open-

1 893.] THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL. 625

mind to treat with any party which will grant Home Rule on
the terms the Parnellites demand. This was Mr. Parnell's own
position, subsequent to the divorce court decree ; antecedently
to that he was of a different mind.

So lately as June, 1889, speaking at the Westminster Palace
Hotel, after his interview with Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden, the
then Irish leader used these words : " We are happy, and Ireland
is happy, that the time has come when we can shake hands with
Englishmen with the consciousness that in doing so we make no
sacrifice of principle, of hope for the future of our country, and
with the belief that Ireland, as she has trusted us in the past,
both in Ireland and wherever the Irish race exists, will be justi-
fied by the results of the future in that trust which she has hon-
ored us by extending to us. They will entrust to that great
statesman who will then be called to power the only man of
distinguished genius before the public as his great final and
crowning work, the task of finding some method in which might
be entrusted to Ireland her own destinies while she also is privi-
leged to take a share in the greater interests of the Empire. I
am confident that Mr. Gladstone's genius will be equal to the
task ; that he will be powerful enough to reconcile and assuage
the prejudices which still unhappily prevail to some extent ; that
he will be able to show his countrymen how the true interests
of the nation and of imperial safety may be reconciled to the
self-government of Ireland by her people, and that a great mea-
sure of Home Rule for our country will be the result a mea-
sure which will be practically accepted by the great majority of
the English people as a settlement of the Irish question a mea-
sure which will be accepted by our own people as a sufficient
solution."

This was the picture which Mr. Parnell painted barely a year
and a half before the great cleavage, and what in the meanwhile
had Mr. Gladstone done to change its roseate hues into the
sombre tints which pervaded all Mr. Parnell's speeches after he
had sought to wreck the movement ? Nothing more than to de-
clare his opinion that were Mr. Parnell to retain his leadership
the chances of carrying a Home-Rule measure would be endan-
gered. This was the head and front of his offending. It was
not until then that Mr. Parnell discovered that Mr. Gladstone's
assurances about the Irish constabulary, the judiciary, the reten-
tion of the Irish members in the imperial parliament, and the
settlement of the land question in Ireland, were unsatisfactory.
What passed between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell at Hawar-
VOL. LVI. 43

626 THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL. [Feb.

den with reference to these important points does not much
matter now ; it is sufficient to know that they also formed vital
elements in the construction of the first Home-Rule Bill, and
that Mr. Parnell's acceptance of them, on behalf of his party and
the Irish nation at large, is on record in the words quoted above,
and it cannot be supposed for one moment that the new propo-
sals of Mr. Gladstone differed, save in the one important parti-
cular of the settlement of the land question, from those embraced
in the original bill.

It is well to bear these facts in mind in any endeavor to
forecast the nature of the coming measure and the possibility of
factious objections to some of its chief provisions. In one im-
portant respect it must necessarily differ from the Home-Rule
Bill of 1886. This is in regard to the settlement of the land
difficulty.

There is very strong reason to suppose that Mr. Gladstone
would have been able to carry this bill had he not adopted the
disastrous course of pinning the land bill to it as a concurrent
and correlative measure. It was the outcry against sinking Brit-
ish capital in the risky security of Irish land, rather than any
bogus fears about dismemberment of the empire, which brought
about the fall of his government. Mr. Gladstone will be wiser
now. He will not hazard the success of his second attempt by
any such Mezentius-like experiment as linking a live measure to
a moribund one. It needs no ghost from the grave to come
and tell us that. The settlement of the knotty problem in-
volved in the agrarian condition of Ireland will, in all proba-
bility, be left to the hands most fit to solve it those of the
Irish Parliament.

The task has been rendered somewhat easier now than it
would have been then, by reason of the fact that the late Tory
government, the members of which were at that time so vir-
tuously indignant over the proposal to pledge British credit on
the security of Irish land, were not very long in office ere they
proceeded to so pledge it. Under the acts of Parliament known
as the Ashbourne Act and the subsequent Purchase of Land
Act, they devoted British credit to the extent of forty million
pounds sterling to the purpose which they had previously de-
nounced as risky. Mr. Gladstone did not ask for much more
than this total. Under his land bill the cost of buying out the
Irish landlords was estimated at only ten millions more. The
sales effected under the two Tory Acts since then have been
very large, and are taking place without intermission. Hence
the difficulty of dealing with this branch of the Irish problem

1893-] THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL, 627

has been vastly diminished since 1886. The evidence collected
before the Evicted Tenants' Commission during the past couple
of months must also help in facilitating a settlement of the ques-
tion. Inexorable economic laws have already pronounced the
doom of the present agrarian system in Ireland. Its existence
is incompatible with the ability of the working population to
live on their own soil. Hence an Irish Parliament will be for-
tified by the full sanction of existing facts and the moral sense
of civilization in buying the anomaly out at its lowest market
value.

Hence there is no gift of prophecy needed to anticipate
that the scope of the new bill may be so enlarged as to en-
able the Irish Parliament and the Irish executive to deal with
this great question of the agrarian difficulty on principles of
equity and common sense. It is an Irish question pure and sim-
ple, and therefore properly within the purview of an Irish
Home-Rule Bill.

About the preceding Home-Rule Bill itself, that portion of
it which seemed most open to practical objection was the pro-
vision for what Mr. Gladstone styled " The Tribute " from Ire-
land. This tribute was Ireland's contribution to the imperial
expenditure. This arrangement contemplated the payment by
Ireland of a sum amounting to one-fifteenth of the gross
amount paid by the imperial government for the maintenance of
the army and navy, the interest on the national debt, and
the civil service. This proportion, in addition to the cost of
the Irish constabulary, would bring Ireland's annual liability
for these charges up to a total of four millions six hundred
and two thousand pounds. Against this there would be a
set-off of one million three hundred thousand pounds excess
of customs and excise dues over outlay. It is to be observed
that under the Act of Union Ireland was decreed to pay
only a proportion of two in fifteen of the whole imperial
bill annually, that she was exempted from the payment of
income-tax (which she is paying at present), and from liabil-
ity for any national debt save her own (at that date only
twenty-six millions, and it had been only four millions before
the Rebellion in 1798). The proportion of Ireland's liability set-
tled by the Act of Union was denounced by all the patriots as
based upon a fraudulent account ; and that unjust apportion-
ment has been immensely aggravated from that day to this,
when we compare the enormous advance of England in material
wealth, and the no less enormous decay of Ireland's trade and
resources and population. A committee was appointed during

628 THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL.

the last Parliament to investigate the financial relations of Ire-
land to Great Britain ; and it is earnestly to be hoped that Mr.
Gladstone's sense of justice may induce him to so modify this
branch of the settlement as to give the Irish government and the
Irish people fair play in the handling of their own resources.

Under the provisions of the same bill the appointment of
the judges in Ireland was vested in the Irish government. This
was one of the most important concessions in the bill, as under
the existing system no abuse could be more flagrant than the
present system of manning the Irish judicial bench. It has
been almost invariably the rule that the soiled gown of the par-
tisan advocate was exchanged for the ermine of the judge ; and
the partisan advocate became necessarily the partisan judge.
The promotion of Mr. Peter O'Brien, the manipulator of the
Gweedore prosecutions, is a living evidence of the system. For
his successful prosecutions of the Donegal peasantry he was
raised per saltern from the attorney-generalship to the post of
lord chief-justice, with the addition of a baronetcy. The case
of the infamous Keogh may also be pointed to as a fitting illus-
tration of this scandalous system. It may be assumed that
under the new regime all this would be attended to.

That hugh instrument of landlord tyranny conceived in the
Machiavellian brain of Sir Robert Peel, known as the Royal Irish
Constabulary, was, according to the previous Home-Rule Bill,
to be suffered to undergo a gradual metamorphosis from a mili-
tary espionage into a civil force, obedient to the home govern-
ment, and not controlled, as heretofore, by an alien power. There
would, be no place for it in the new order; consequently it
would, under the new constitution, be suffered to lapse by a
slow process, and its place be taken by a peace force, the mili-
tary establishment of the kingdom being held in undiminished
strength as the guarantee of imperial supremacy.

The main essential of the former bill was the establishment
of an Irish executive in Ireland, subject to parliamentary con-
trol, and responsible to the majority in Parliament. It was the
absence of such a ministry which formed the canker in Grat-
tan's Parliament, and left it at the mercy of the English minis-
ter and his satellites in Dublin Castle. Without such a minis-
try any home rule must prove only so much waste paper. The
principle of parliamentary control will be fully recognized in
the new measure, unless the English Liberal party intend to
stultify themselves. Such a principle is of the very essence of
free government ; and the Irish Bill must be identical with the
English constitution in this respect.

1893-] THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL. 629

The prerogative of the crown in summoning and dissolving
Parliament, as in the case of England, goes without question.
In the Irish bill, however, the duration of each Parliament was
limited to five years. This was a confession that the principle
of septennial parliaments was an obsolete one. Possibly the new
bill may mark a further step in advance by setting up the trien-
nial system, or adopting the American plan of quadrennial par-
liaments as a golden mean.

Only one house of parliament was contemplated in the old
'bill ; but this was composed of two "orders." The first "order"
was to be made up of the Irish representative peers, who sit at
.present in the English House of Lords, together with a number
of other representatives who were to be elected on a fancy
franchise. The second "order" was to be made up of the Irish
members of the House of Commons then sitting, together with
as many more, who should be elected by the constituencies, the
representation of each constituency to be doubled for that pur-
pose. Both "orders" were to sit and vote in the one house.

The principle of hereditary legislators thus recognized was
confessedly a vicious one, as the bill further provided that it was
to cease after a certain time, and all members of the first
" order " should be subject to the elective system. The Ireland
of the future will essentially be a democratic Ireland, and it is
to be hoped that the hereditary principle will find no recogni-
tion whatever in the coming bill. The lord-lieutenant was to
continue to represent the crown in Ireland, but the character
of his office was to be altered, inasmuch as it was not to be
dependent on the fate of a ministry, as at present. Further-
more, there was to be no religious disqualification attaching to
the holder of it, as there is now.

An objectionable feature in the old bill was the arming of
the Irish Privy Council with power to decide upon all questions
which might arise between the Irish Parliament and the crown
touching the scope of the powers of Parliament. The Privy
Council in Ireland has from time immemorial been a body entirely
devoted to English interests, and there is no likelihood of its
ever being able to cast its skin. A tribunal of three experienced
jurisconsults from Ireland, England, and Scotland would be a
far more satisfactory and equitable one as a court of high con-
stitutional appeal.

The endowment of any form of religion was forbidden in
the scheme. With Mr. Gladstone's record as a disestablisher of
religious establishments no other decision could have been ex-
pected on such a point as this, The Catholic Church in Ire-

630 THE NEW HOME-RULE BILL. [Feb.,

land will not quarrel with it. The bonds between its ministers
and the laity would not be strengthened if the church were a
state-aided one. There is a sacredness of affection between
priests and people, fellow-sufferers through ages of persecution,
which exists perhaps in no other country in the world. This
bond of sympathy grew up under the voluntary system, and
this very venerableness of the link ought to be enough to pre-
vent all desire for a change.

On the question of education the conditions are different.
Hitherto the Catholic population have been grievously handi-
capped in that most vital function. The previous bill very wise-
ly provided that the hands of the Irish Parliament should be
entirely unfettered in dealing with the future of education.
Nothing has since occurred to suggest any reason for a change
of policy on this head.

It is no easy task to revolutionize a country grown old and
soul-sick in the ways of prescriptive tyranny, and this is what
must be done, and done thoroughly, if the nation is to be pre-
served from crumbling to pieces. It is fast approaching that
condition. After ninety years of government by the imperial
Parliament it presents a spectacle of decay and beggary and de-
population which has no parallel in Christendom. Yet in the
hour of its dissolution the country might be more dangerous far
to its oppressor than it ever was in the days of its greatest
vigor, and it is as much for the safety as for the credit of Eng-
land that her statesmen see that such systems of rule as that
which brought about the decadence of a brilliant and generous
nation are not abreast of the times and ideas amid which we
are moving.

The moment is most auspicious for making the essay. There
is no difference of opinion amongst the bulk of the population
on the subject of the acceptance of the bill. One mind charac-
terizes priesthood and people. Not all the Keoghs or (Judge)
O'Briens who ever trafficked with conscience for judges' wigs
can ever persuade the world that in this unity there is any feel-
ing of the kind which exists between a horse and its rider.
That is an old-time calumny, and one of the greatest blessings
which Home Rule will bring to Ireland will be the cessation of
the system of making vitriolic partisan judges and disappointed
" patriots " of the Keogh and O'Brien stamp the censors of men
whose lives are as spotless as those of their judicial critics are
besmirched.

JOHN J. O'SHEA.

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 631

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

THE CITY OF THE ARGENTINE HILLS.

ORNING, which is ever in Mexico like a new crea-
tion of the earth, broke in resplendent beauty
over the wide plain that surrounds Silao. The
sun leaped from a couch of dazzling glory and
spread his mantle of gold over the far-stretching
expanse of the plateau, over the purple heights draped in soft
mists of morning, over the lovely towers and shining domes of
the town, and over the party that wended their way, followed
by two porters laden with the impedimenta of travel, across
the broad open space that lies between the hotel where they
spent the night and the railway station whither they were
bound.

Around the station were the booths of the venders of all
manner of eatables, the usual throng of peddlers and beggars
and squads of soldiers, for the military arm, which is strongly in
evidence everywhere in Mexico, is nowhere more so than in
Silao, which had once an unenviable reputation as a haunt of
outlaws and bandits, and between which and Guanajuato, the
rich mining city of the mountains beyond, runs a train that,
carrying much bullion, is always guarded by a strong military
escort.

It was seated in this train, half an hour later, that the trav-
ellers turned their faces toward the city, which Russell assured
them was the most picturesque in Mexico and one of the most
picturesque in the world, as it sits high on its great hill, the
name of which in the Tarascan tongue signifies the Hill of the
Frog, because here in ancient times the Tarascan Indians found
a stone in the shape of a frog which they worshipped. Other
men in later times have found here other stones which they wor-
ship with a no less ardent devotion for famous among all the
mines of Mexico stand the mines of Guanajuato.

As they moved off, passing in a great curve around Silao,
they had a charming view of the town as it lay in the sunshine
of early morning, its long, white walls encircling masses of feath-
ery foliage, above which the slender, graceful minarets of its
churches rose in the sparkling air. Then, in the golden light

632 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Feb.,

that was making all the wide scene glorious, they sped across
the level plain, green with its springing harvests, toward the
massive heights that seemed as if they must bar all progress to
the city that lay beyond. Their car was well filled with passen-
gers of many and varied types. Grave, stately Mexican gentle-
men ; eager, restless, talkative Americans, discussing mines, intent
upon speculations and investments ; tourists of different nationali-
ties, and groups of dark-eyed sefioritas. The general, glancing
around, remarked that the train for a local one seemed to be
well filled.

" It always is," said Russell. " Guanajuato is a very rich and
important place the greatest mining centre in Mexico."

" And like Zacatcas, I suppose, it owes its existence to the
mines," said Mrs. Langdon, looking at the mountains which be-
gan to reveal themselves in their ruggedness as the train ap-
proached.

"Undoubtedly," replied Travers. "Our guide-book says:
' The site of this city, with much surrounding land in what was
a very barren place, was given by the Viceroy Don Antonio de
Mendoza to Don Rodrigo Vazquez, one of the conquistador es, in
recompense for his services in helping to win for his royal mas-
ter the rich country of New Spain." If silver was not discovered
at that time," said the reader, interrupting himself, "Don Rod-
rigo could not have felt that his services were very well recom-
pensed. But when silver was discovered, of course the aspect of
things materially changed which contains a moral that I need
not elaborate. Silver was found, we are told, in 1548. It would
be interesting to know how much the mines have produced from
that time to this."

" An immense total," said Russell. " One mine alone the
Valenciana according to Humboldt, produced in one year more
than all the mines of Peru. Its yield up to the present time is
estimated to have been eight hundred millions."

" Can one see that mine ? " asked the general.

"You not only can but must it will interest you in every
way. And I think the ladies will also be interested in seeing
it."

"We must take your word for that," said Dorothea a little
sceptically. " Meanwhile, here we are among the mountains.
Has any one observed what a fine highway runs parallel with
our track, and what picturesque groups of people and burros we
are passing ? "

" The highway ought to be fine," remarked Travers. " We

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 633

.are told that it was nearly a hundred years in building. As for
the burros, they plainly indicate that all the freight of the coun-
try does not go by rail."

Troops of these small, patient animals were indeed passing
.along the road, laden with produce of all kinds ; herdsmen came
riding by with coiled lassoes at their pommels ; the brown hills
closed nearer ; on their sides sheep and goats were nibbling
scanty herbage ; the highway swept over an arched stone bridge,
where graceful trees drooped along the verge of the little stream
that fretted over the rocks below, while from their slackened
speed it was evident that the train was mounting a heavy grade.
Higher and higher they climbed, rounding the abrupt and mas-
-sive heights that seemed pressing forward to guard the way,
-and presently paused in a small valley at the mouth of a nar-
row, rocky pass.

" This is Marfil," said Russell, as every one rose with a simul-
taneous movement. " We go from here to Guanajuato about
three miles by tramway. The Canada into which we enter is
too narrow to admit of a railroad track."

Tram-cars, drawn by lively, able-bodied mules, awaited the
passengers, who filled them speedily. They were soon in mo-
tion, and what Dorothea saw from the platform where she in-
sisted upon standing, very much to the surprise and concern of
various courteous Mexicans, was a narrow, winding defile be-
tween great precipitous heights, containing barely room enough
for the highway (along one side of which the tramway was laid),
.and a very small stream carefully walled in its rocky bed. As
for the town of Marfil, it clung, perched, hung, sometimes it
seemed by grappling-hooks, to the almost perpendicular moun-
tain sides the heavy, Moorish houses, built with a solidity equal
to that of the rocks on which they rested, looking as if nothing
short of a convulsion of nature could detach them from their
positions. In a nook of the closely enfolding heights the parish
church stood, a Byzantine-like chapel of pink stone crowned a
brown hill, and along the stream a succession of reduction works,
enclosed in strong, bastioned walls, rose like forts.

" They look as if they were built to stand a siege ! " said
Dorothea.

" So they were," answered Russell. " Many has been the
siege these mines have stood in times past. They have been
sacked again and again. No city in Mexico has a more thrilling
and bloody history than Guanajuato. Its riches have tempted
the cupidity of armies as well as of banditti, and it has been

634

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

[Feb.,.

plundered until its recuperation proves more conclusively than
anything else the immense resources of its mines."

" I am afraid you do not pay much attention to the in-
formation which I take pains to draw from Mr. Janvier's
pages and give you," said Travers. " It has not been long since

THE STREETS CLIMB UPWARD.

I told you that the first settlement here was a fort at the place
now called Marfil, erected by some Spanish adventurers to se-
cure the silver they obtained from the mines. A little later the
existing city was founded under the truly formidable name of
the Villa y Real de Minas de Santa F de Guanajuato."

" The situation of the city must be as formidable as its

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 63 5.

name," said Dorothea, observing that although the town of Mar-
fil had now been left behind, they were still mounting upward
and upward along the narrow pass, winding sharply around the
rocky escarpments that appeared at times almost to close the
way, with the great mountains frowning over them, and the
little river, which in the rainy season is a roaring flood, flowing
within its walled bed beside them. " One might be approaching
a citadel, but a city "

" It is citadel and city in one," said Russell. " This defile
is its only outlet. It leads like a gateway to Guanajuato, which
lies in a high, irregular basin, completely encircled by mountains.
Ah ! " as they dashed around another sharp curve " here we are
at the gates ! "

A short pause, and then the tram-car began to wind its way
into a city which seemed a dream of mediaeval Europe and the
Orient mingled, as it lay like a brilliant jewel in the midst of
its rugged fastnesses, the amphitheatre of brown mountains which
surround it framing the mass of glowing and varied color that
its houses, castles, and churches present. A sea-shell-pink is per-
haps the pervading tone of color, with many soft tints of amber
and a malachite green, which is the hue of the beautifully varie-
gated stone largely used for building. The deep, cup-shaped
valley in which the town lies, affords hardly any level space ;
and the streets, therefore, climb upward sometimes by stairways
in all directions, run along the terraced mountain sides, where
the massive dwellings stand tier above tier and turn zigzag in a
multiplicity of irregular ways. Advancing farther into the heart of
this unique city, what pictures reveal themselves on all sides !
Softly-tinted houses with balconies of sculptured stone and
glimpses through open archways of courts, like a vision of Gran-
ada, with their slender pillars and graceful springing arches,
their flowers and fountains and delicately frescoed walls ; tiled
domes iridescent as a peacock's neck ; towers rich with carv-
ing that looked like a lacework of stone against the dazzling
azure of the sky ; and everywhere a throng of brightly-dressed
people, of laden burros, of picturesque artisans working in the
doors of their small, dark shops, of splendidly mounted cava-
liers in short, all the varied life and activity of a busy and
prosperous city.

Passing through these glowing scenes, the car at length
gained the Plaza de Mejia Mora a small square set like an
emerald in the midst of the many-tinted surroundings and
paused to allow its passengers to descend.

636 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Feb.,

The greenness and beauty of this lovely spot was an unex-
pected pleasure to the eye, and after engaging rooms in the
hotel that looked down upon its trees and shaded walks, the
party set forth to enjoy the most enchanting sight-seeing they
had yet known.

How can one hope to describe the scenes through which
they wandered ? Save in the hands of a consummate artist, words
are poor instruments with which to paint such combinations of
form and color as meet the gaze on every side as the feet pass
through the winding ways of Guanajuato. The wealth drawn
from the bosom of its great silver-bearing heights has found ex-
pression in the Moresque houses, rich with sculpture ; in their
exquisite courts and gardens, and in the splendid churches
and public edifices ; but there is not a foot of its twisting,
irregular streets that is not richer still in lovely artistic
effect, in vistas so full of vivid picturesqueness, as they climb
upward toward the sky or lead downward to lower levels, that
one can only pause to paint the scenes upon one's memory, and
.ask one's self by what spell this perfect mediaeval city has been
preserved untouched and unspoiled, to gladden one's eyes with
its delightful beauty in the midst of the ugliness of the nine-
teenth century.

Up and down, among the bewildering network of streets,
loitering under great archways, pausing for some vision of arcad-
ed coolness wandering through the market-places where color
seemed running riot, or climbing the platforms that lead to the
great churches, the little group found everywhere fresh food for
their enthusiasm and delight. It was Dorothea who stopped once
and pointed over the intervening balustraded roofs to a superb
tower of sculptured stone, thrown out against the deep-blue sky.
" Let us find that church," she said. " It must be worth seeing."

"That is the Compafiia," said Russell. "As the name in-
dicates, it is a Jesuit foundation. Confiscated, of course but
the church has been spared for religious use, although the great
community house is occupied as a barracks or something of the
kind."

" Confiscation is a very economical business for the govern-
ment," said the general in a sarcastic tone. " It saves the ex-
pense of erecting any buildings for public purposes. I have yet
to see the first that has not been stolen from some religious
order. What an infernal set of robbers "

"Papa!"

" I use the term advisedly, my dear. I repeat, what an in-

I893-]

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

637

fernal set of robbers this country seems to have been cursed
with ever since it set up a government of its own ! "

THE OLD JESUIT CHURCH.

" Such robbers," said Russell, "that it is wonderful any rights
of property remain untouched, and that the people as a whole
have been so little demoralized."

638 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Feb.,

No less than eighty thousand dollars were spent in blasting
out the level space upon which the splendid mass of the Com-
pafiia stands a fact which will give some idea of the difficul-
ties which have attended building in Guanajuato. Looking up
at the great church proudly seated on its elevated platform, as
one mounts the street leading to it, one has a sight as beauti-
ful as it is imposing. Built of a pink stone which stands in ex-
quisite contrast against brown mountain and sapphire sky, its
richly decorated front is covered with elaborate sculpture. Over
the central doorway stands the figure of the founder of the " all-
conquering Company," other Jesuit saints fill the other niches,
Faith, Hope, and Charity look down, the noble tower, rich
in carving, rises above, and so far back that it looks as if it
belonged to another building, the sunlight catches the gleaming
tiles of the great dome.

Within something of disappointment awaited them. There
can be no finer space and proportion than that which meets
the eye on entering, but the interior was undergoing repairs
which, from the nature of the work in progress, could not but
be of long duration. In the apse of the sanctuary they found
great blocks of stone on which the sculptors were at work in
a faithful, artistic fashion beyond praise. There was nothing
of pretence here. Every stroke of the chisel was guided by
an eye trained to artistic perception, every wrought column
was solid and firm, every arch as perfect in workmanship as
in symmetry. They lingered long interested in the work, ad-
miring the result, questioning the men who were so courte-
ously ready to answer, and whose delicate faces, lithe forms,
and slender brown hands were so attractive to the eye.

Here also they found some fine old paintings, and when
they presently emerged from the vast church founded indeed
on a rock, and rock-like in its splendid durability into the nar-
row, picturesque street winding by, their attention was at once
arrested by the great mass of another noble sanctuary.

" That is la parrdquia the parish church," said Russell. " It
is generally taken by strangers for a cathedral, but Guanajuato
is not the seat of a bishop."

La parrdquia is a very beautiful old church, as it, too, stands
on its lonja, or high platform, above the streets that run up and
down around it. This platform is surrounded by a twisted iron
railing with stone pillars surmounted by curious urns and crosses,
and approached by a sweeping flight of semicircular stone steps.
On these steps a beggar sits and holds out a withered brown

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 639

hand for the alms which he asks por amor de Dios ; a vender of
pottery has established herself with all her wares around her,
the graceful vessels with their glazed surface and decoration in
brilliant tints making a mass of lovely color against the gray
background of stone. The great doors of the church stand
open. And here as elsewhere the interior is so simply and no-
bly conceived, the wide nave has such space, the arched roof
such splendid height and upward sweep, that one loses sight of
.any unsatisfactory details in the beautiful effect of the whole,
which is rich in carving and a gilding that has faded with time
only enough to be harmonious, in soft lights and deep pictur-
esque shadows, and above all in the sense of a peace so exalted
that it falls like a touch of balm on the spirit. As through the
ever-open portals figures come and go, gliding noiselessly across
the floor, kneeling before shrines where beautiful old lamps of
rare design have burned for ages, one feels how truly this church,
.and all like it throughout the land, has proved a sanctuary
in the old mediaeval sense a spot where, through the terrible
stress of war, the horror of revolution, the rough oppression and
misrule, the spoliation, poverty and suffering, the people have
come to lay down their burdens of anguish for a little while, to
find a place of refuge from the racking torture of life, and to
gather courage to endure with calm and steadfast patience unto
the end. Such calmness, such pathetic patience one reads on
many of these faces now, as they are seen for an instant in the
shade of the great doorways before passing out to the dazzling
world of light and color beyond.

It was a very dazzling world to the eyes of the group who
presently left the cool, shadowy church, its dusky chapels and
the richly decorated shrine where Nuestra Sefiora de Guana-
juato stands, surrounded [by lamps that have never ceased to
burn in her honor since that distant day when Philip Second
sent the little statue over sea and land as his gift to Guana-
juato, and emerged into the outer sunlight. A charming little
plaza, also elevated above the street and reached by flights of
steps, is opposite the church. Here they went, to rest a little,
to watch the throng of people passing constantly along the busy
.thoroughfares, and to decide what they should see and do next.

It was several hours later that they found themselves in what
they unanimously declared to be the most charming spot they
had yet seen. And indeed no one who has beheld the Presa
de la Olla of Guanajuato will be likely to deny that it is one

640

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

[Feb.,.

of the most charming spots to be possibly seen anywhere. The
valley in which the city lies widens a little at this its upper
end, and here a stream of considerable size descending from
the mountains has been confined in a succession of reservoirs-
built one below the other in a series of basins limpid, rock-

THE ALHdNDiGA, FAMOUS IN THE BLOOD-STAINED ANNALS OF THE CITY.

lined, overhung on one side by beautiful gardens and pictur-
esque residences, bordered on the other by the road that winds
up the gorge, which is also lined by handsome homes, while the
great mountains rise abruptly into towering heights on each
hand and enhance by contrast the fairy-like aspect of the scene.
Broad paths lead over the massive dams that confine the waters,

1 893.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 641

to the verdure-embowered houses that occupy the narrow space
between the reservoirs and the precipitous cliffs rising behind
them, their graceful arcades, frescoed in soft, lovely colors,
reflected with almost startling distinctness in the mirror-like
surface of the lakelets, together with the abundant deep-
green foliage and gorgeously flowering shrubs that fringe their
verges.

" Could anything be more exquisite ! " cried Dorothea, paus-
ing to contemplate one of these pictures a vision of delicately
painted arches almost hidden by overhanging vines and trees,
birds singing in gilded cages, a tree laden with scarlet blossoms
bending over the glassy surface of the water, a peacock display-
ing his magnificent tail on a low rock wall.

" They are pretty places," said the general, " but they give
me an uncomfortable idea of dampness. Standing immediately
on the water, with that mountain-like wall behind them, they
are exceedingly suggestive of rheumatism."

" Oh, papa, how dreadfully prosaic !" said Dorothea with a
laugh. " They seem to me enchanting casas de recreo in the
fullest sense, suggestive of all manner of fancies as charming as
themselves."

" They do not suggest much of the serious business of life,"
observed Travers. " One can hardly imagine one's self doing
anything in such a habitation except listening to a lady playing
on a lute and perhaps making love to her between whiles."

" How very tiresome to the lady that would be," said Miss
Gresham with an air of innocent malice.

" They are certainly charming," said Mrs. Langdon. " But
like papa, I wonder if there are not some possibilities of damp-
ness about them."

" You must remember," said Russell, " that we are in a land
of perpetual sunshine and nearly seven thousand feet above the
sea. Dampness is almost an impossibility here."

So talking, they walked slowly up the winding roadway until
they reached the end of the ascending gorge, where a plaza haS
been laid out in a garden full of flowers and all manner of
tropical plants. Beyond and above it the great' brown heights
close like a wall, below the necklace of crystal lakes drops down
in the midst of greenery, to the city glowing with sea-shell
color, that lies in the heart of its deep valley and on the steep
acclivities of its encircling hills.

" It is an entrancing place altogether," said Dorothea with a
soft sigh of pleasure. " One could spend a long time here
VOL. LVI. 44

642 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Feb.,

without wearying. And now, Mr. Russell, where shall we go
next ? "

" Tell us, Russell," said Mr. Travers with an air of resigna-
tion. " Don't keep us in suspense. Miss Gresham looks pale
with anxiety to know what exertion will next be required of
her."

"Well," said Russell tentatively, " yonder is the Cerro de San
Miguel. How would you like to climb up there, inspect the
fort, and take in a fine view of Guanajuato ? "

"Admirable!" exclaimed Dorothea but it was evident that
the rest of the party were not inclined to attempt the ascent of
the great hill upon which they could see the frowning bastioned
walls of the Fort of the Archangel. There was a moment's
silence and then Mrs. Langdon said :

" I suppose Dorothea will regard us very contemptuously,,
but I think I express the sentiments of the majority when I
ask, can you not suggest something a little more accessi-
ble?"

" Oh, yes ! " replied Russell. " There is the Alhrindiga de
Granaditas, so famous in the blood-stained annals of the place,
which you have not yet seen. It is very accessible, being in the
heart of the city."

" The Alhdndiga ! we must on no account overlook that,"
said the general. " It seems to be the most interesting histori-
cal object in Guanajuato. I was reading last night a description
of the siege it stood when the city was captured by the revolu-
tionists under Hidalgo, and again when retaken by the Span-
iards. There is nothing in history to surpass the horrors of
either siege but especially of the first."

" I, too, was reading that description the other day," said
Mrs. Langdon, " and the wholesale slaughter that followed the
capture of the citadel by Hidalgo's forces was so horrible that
I do not wonder the Spaniards sent his head to ornament a
spike on the building, when they captured him. Remembering
all the excesses he committed, I can feel no interest in his ca-
reer, nor pity for his fate."

" In extenuation, one should recollect that his army was only
an undisciplined mob of half-civilized Indians, very difficult to
restrain," said Russell. "Only success, with its accompaniments
of bloodshed and plunder, kept the mass of them with him.
You know, after his final defeat near Guadalajara, they melted
away like the mists of morning."

" He had the power, or at least he might have manifested

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 643

the will, to show some mercy to the Spanish garrison who had
held the Alhondiga with so much courage," said the general ;
" but they were butchered to the last man."

"The vengeance which the Spaniards took on Guanajuato
was terrific," said Russell. " We are told that its streets literally
ran with blood. But these are gruesome memories for such
bright scenes. Shall we go and see the Alhondiga ? It is the
city prison now, you know."

" I observe in the guide-book," said Travers, " a very sensi-
ble remark to the effect that ' in a Mexican prison are many
creeping and hopping things which creep and hop from the un-
just prisoners to the just visitors with most undesirable celerity.'
So I think that I shall be satisfied with viewing the exterior
of this famous building."

"I am sorry for any one," remarked Dorothea, "who in the
midst of great historical associations, in a place where human
endurance and human heroism have been displayed to their ut-
most limit, can think of anything so small as "

" Creeping and hopping things ? " asked her sister with a
smile. "But although small, they are more to be dreaded than
many much larger things ; so I am inclined to decide also for
the outside of the building. What do you say, Violet ? "

" There is really little to be seen inside," said Russell. " The
historical associations can be appreciated as well without as
within, and the building is only worth entering for the view
from the roof. That is very fine."

" Then," said Dorothea with decision, " I, for one, shall cer-
tainly see it, be the consequences what they may."

Travers looked at Mrs. Langdon with a laugh. "What is to
be done?" he asked. "Shall we leave Russell and Miss Doro-
thea to risk the creeping and hopping things alone?"

" Pooh, pooh ! " said the general. " Not see a most interest-
ing historical building because of such considerations what non-
sense ! "

"Come," said Russell, also looking at Mrs. Langdon. "It is
late enough for a good view from the roof, and I will warrant
you against unpleasant consequences."

"Oh! in that case of course we will go," said she promptly,
while Travers shrugged his shoulders slightly, as he fell back
with Miss Gresham.

" I am really afraid of the result of this excursion on Rus-
sell's character," he confided to her. "The effect is not percep-
tible yet, but a man must become intolerable who is constantly

644 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Feb.,

telling people what they should do, and being deferred to and
obeyed."

" It is more Dorothea's fault than Mr. Russell's," said Miss
Gresham. " If she would have some moderation we should not
be dragged into so many impossible places ! Now, this prison I
really don't think that I care for it at all."

<l Then why trouble yourself to see it ? " her companion in-
quired. " We shall pass the hotel on our way, and you can
stop there."

" Shall you ? " she asked.

" I ? Oh, no ! " he answered. " I am weak-minded enough to
generally go with the majority."

" I suppose it is best," she said with a sigh, for the ways
that lead to the Alhondiga are steep, and the solitude of her
chamber at the hotel was not inviting.

It is certainly the most impressive object in Guanajuato, this
great Alhondiga de Granaditas, as it stands on the higher
ground of the city, looking far more like the citadel of war,
into which fate transformed it, than the peaceful commercial
exchange for which it was erected. Few forts have ever stood
more terrible sieges, and the shot-marks with which its walls are
covered testify to the fury of the cannonading which it has suf-
fered. Scarred with these signs of battle, bathed in memories
of blood, each corner bearing still the grisly spike on which the
head of a revolutionary leader was affixed, it is a picture never
to be forgotten as it dominates the beautiful city like a stern
reminder of the terrible scenes which changed it into a very In-
ferno of horror.

Fresh from the pages of history, where these scenes are
written, the little group stood for some time gazing at the walls
which are the memorial of so much endurance on the one side
and daring on the other, of courage and heroism, of dauntless
defiance and passions unloosed to do the work of fiends.

" God forgive the man who, without gravest cause, brings
the unspeakable horrors of war upon a country ! " said the gen-
eral very solemnly at length. " Only those who have seen war
know 'what it is. And if, under its influence, men who have in-
herited the civilization of ages become savages, what can be ex-
pected of those who have close behind them an absolutely
savage past ? What these walls have witnessed may answer."

" They witnessed the worst scenes of all the revolution," said
Russell. "As savagery always provokes savagery, one side ri-
valled the other in excesses of cruelty. As for Hidalgo I have

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. ' 645

not much admiration for his character, and scant sympathy for a
priest who put himself at the head of anything certain to be so
long and terrible as a war of revolution but he must be grant-
ed patriotic intention and heroic courage."

" With him certainly the words were strikingly verified, that
' they who take the sword shall perish by the sword/ " said
Margaret Langdon.

All eyes followed her own to the spike where that head once
rested, the lips of which had uttered the Cry of Dolores
that stirring, heart-piercing cry which never died in the hearts
of the people until Mexico had won the freedom that as yet
has hardly proved a blessing to her. A plate let into the wall
below the spike bears the simple name " Hidalgo," as at the
other corners similar tablets bear the names of the other leaders
whose heads were also displayed here Allende, Jimenez, and
Aldama.

But when they entered, and led by a courteous official found
themselves on the roof of the building, it was easy to forget all
memories of warfare and bloodshed in the contemplation of the
scene spread before them. The encircling hills, on which the
watchfires of Hidalgo's forces once burned, were now bathed in
sunshine that wrapped like a mantle their great brown shoulders,
which were dotted with mines surrounded by gray, bastioned,
loop-holed walls, and mining villages out of which graceful
church spires rose. At their feet the city lay in a mass of soft-
ly-mingled color, narrow streets winding through mediaeval
houses, plazas forming lovely bits of greenness, splendid towers
thrown out against the sky, the noble sculptured facade of the
Campania standing proudly on its mountain platform, and the
sea-green arches of the unfinished theatre catching the eye, while
over all was spread a charm as subtle but as distinct as the sun-
set radiance which presently fell upon and glorified it, making
the beautiful semi-Oriental picture of many-tinted buildings, of
fretted spires and shining domes swim, as it were, in a sea of
golden light for a few enchanted minutes before the purple twi-
light fell.

CHRISTIAN REID.

THE CHILDREN'S LAND.

I KNOW a land, a beautiful land,

Fairer than isles of the East,
Where the farthest hills are rainbow-spanned,

And mirth holds an endless feast ;
Where tears are dried like the morning dew,
And joys are many, and griefs are few ;
Where the old each day grows glad and new,

And life rings clear as a bell :

Oh ! the land where the chimes speak sweet and true
Is the land where the children dwell !

There are beautiful lands where the rivers flow

Through valleys of ripened grain;
There are lands where armies of worshippers know

No God but the God of Gain.
The chink of gold is the song they sing,
And all their life-time harvesting
Are the glittering joys that gold may bring,

In measures they buy and sell ;
But the land where love is the coin and king

Is the land where the children dwell !

They romp in troops through this beautiful land

From morning till set of sun,
And the Drowsy Fairies have sweet dreams planned

When the little tasks are done.
Here are no strivings for power and place,
The last are first in the mimic race,
All hearts are trusted, all life is grace,

And Peace sings "All goes well"
For God walks daily with unveiled face

In the land where the children dwell !

JOHN JEROME ROONEY.

1 893.] AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. 647

AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL.

'HAT strange paradox we call Life is ever bristling
with serious problems. It is like the charged bat-
tery when negative and positive influences are
brought to bear upon it. As by these very oppos-
ing forces the most magnificent effects are pro-
duced, so from the contending energies of man's brain and heart
are developed some of the greatest results.

As we grope in a dim, uncertain way, after the lessons these
problems teach we catch a glimpse of life's meaning, which, to
many, is the greatest of all mysteries.

There is revealed the wondrous plan of creation, hoary with
age, yet ever and again renewing its youth. True the creative
act ceased when the Almighty beholding his work pronounced
it good, yet the process of reproduction, of renovation still con-
tinues. From old ideas, principles, and symbols are wrought the
new. This is true evolution as distinguished from its primitive
meaning, which somewhat doubtfully credits Darwin with the
brilliant idea that an immortal man can be evolved from a
mortal monkey, or, as more recently suggested, that animated
matter may be directly produced from the inanimate ! Poverty-
stricken Nature ! Are her resources thus limited or exhausted,
that man must come to the rescue ? Such might be the infer-
ence from the views and theories of some of our latter-day sages.

Puzzling and baffling as seem many of these mysteries, the
solution will come sooner or later through divine lights and in-
spirations given to man, as instruments, thus guiding all things
to their destined end.

The heart of humanity, by its very longing, ever makes pro-
phetic the great events of time. Long in travail and with much
groaning have ignorance and oppression awaited their deliver-
ance.

But oh ! these birth-hours of history, what a glorious dawn
do they ever foreshadow ! The downfall of Constantinople, the
uncrowning of its last Christian ruler, Constantine Palaeologus,
and the consequent extinction of the great Eastern Empire after
a duration of eleven hundred and twenty-five years, followed
by the dispersion of the Greeks through Europe all this seemed
certain disaster and ruin to civilization, yet proved quite other-

648 AN EDUCATIONAL BUXEAU AND JOUKNAL. [Feb.,

wise. Those very exiled Greeks became the true light-bearers,
scattering broadcast their priceless treasures of science and art,
literature and philosophy, waking to new life and vigor man's
dormant faculties.

THE WORLD AWAKENS TO A NEW LIFE.

That same fifteenth century gave a new world to the old,
and with it freedom true liberty in a broader sense than had
ever been dreamed of. The spirit of discovery and invention
ran riot, inaugurated by the mariner's compass, which, with the
printing-press and steam, opened unknown regions in the world
of mind and matter.

Later on, by girdling our globe with the magic electric cur-
rent, the prophecy of Puck was more than fulfilled. Philanthro-
py brooded over this new order of things ; prejudices were
softened, arbitration hushed the cannon's roar, put the sword in
its scabbard, and spiked our guns on the battle-field. Brain
proved more effective than brawn. Those triumvirs, printing,
steam, and electricity, with their progeny of inventions, have done
more in one decade for the world's progress than in three mil-
lenniums before, as Europe's greatest statesman declares. Re-
ligion, under varied forms and names, has found its true mission,
that of united effort for the public good.

This was well illustrated in 1884, when the representatives
of fourteen countries, including Catholics, Protestants, and a
Mohammedan, met at Berlin to frame a constitution for the
Congo Free State. What a comment upon previous methods !
To-day Christian civilization no longer recognizes serfdom or
slavery. A wider charity prevails, making of the human race
one family, with God as Father, and Christ as Brother. Our
own lives, too, become parcels of this great drama, ever renewing
its marvels of seeming contradictions. Through all, how clearly
do we see in the retrospect each event as the essential complement
of all the others. The whole becomes a lucid, living argument,
" with nature for the premises, and his creatures for the con-
clusions," this same nature being but " another name for an
effect whose cause is God."

The seed-corn of future history is still in the great Master's
hand, to be scattered in the fulness of time, when the earth is
ready to receive it. Under what varied forms does this Divinity
reveal itself " Shaping our ends, rough-hew them how we
may ! " With that wondrous power of ubiquity it pervades
our government, giving us liberty, as another tells us. Appear-

1893-] AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL.

ing as the idealist in our literature, as the inventor in our more
material life, as the friend of humanity in works of zeal and
charity, ever the same Prince of Peace, His beneficent reign
showers blessings manifold and universal.

A LARGER SPHERE OF ACTIVITY OPENS TO WOMEN.

Woman and her position, not the least among the world's
problems to-day, must be met fairly and openly. In no better,
surer way can she assert her claim to recognition by the wise
and good than through an education enabling her to cope with
man in efforts for a higher civilization. The few chances
already given are fruitful in promise.

If, as we are told, " the object of teaching is to make men
think, and the object of thinking to make men live," certainly
a little more teaching and thinking would not come amiss for
those making pedagogics a profession.

Teaching is character-building, the symmetrical development
of manhood and womanhood. Knowledge thus imparted, or
rather evolved, becomes the blessed germ of untold possibilities.
Almost infinite wisdom seems necessary for such a mission.
Given a marked fitness, special training, and unselfish devotion,
supplemented by a healthy mind in a healthy body, behold a
model teacher; then what results! Hew many can claim such
a prestige ?

WHAT TRUE EDUCATION MEANS.

Now we begin to see that instruction is not education, but
requiring far more than " the give-and-take " method of question
and answer, with the averaging accounts of monthly examina-
tions, etc., needed, perhaps, as a stimulus, but " only that and
nothing more." So both teacher and pupil should regard it,
while they constantly aim farther and higher. It is the study
of character in its many phases that will serve as the key-note
in playing upon that " harp of a thousand strings " child-life.
Manners, habits, inclinations, and all the peccadilloes of human
frailty must have their special restraint and culture. Here is
the substantial part the real pith of education.

Viewing this work in its true light, we see it not confined to
youth, but beginning then, and ending never ; always and every-
where going on, well or ill, as influences may direct. A school-
room is but the entrance-hall opening into those broader realms
where, later on, the tools of knowledge, well sharpened and their
uses understood, can be wielded with an effect that shall tell.
The more fully this is realized, the more carefully will teachers

650 AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. [Feb.,

forecast the destiny of their pupils, directing the training as ca-
pacity and inclination may suggest ; and this, too, from the very
beginning when their first timid glance seems to ask, " Why am
I here ? What is to be done with me ?" Give these young im-
mortals an aim for the duty required ; awaken an interest ; rouse
enthusiasm ; thus keeping their little faculties ever on the alert ;
the end in view will prove worthy their best efforts, however
simple. Daily, hourly hold this up to them as in a mirror, ani-
mating, encouraging every step taken as bringing them nearer
and nearer to their ideals and to the success awaiting them.

It is united, systematic effort on the part of our Catholic
teachers, whether secular or religious, that will give us an edu-
cation not for one parish, religious order, or diocese, but, like a
grand, free government, be " of the people, by the people, and
for the people." Teachers' associations, normal and summer-
schools are indispensable to success. The Catholic Educational
Union, Columbian Reading Union, and the Summer-School have
struck the right chord. Through channels such as these will
flow a more definite purpose and give a charm to what must be
a labor of love if success is won. That too-isolated work of the
past will disappear, and with it those personal, perennial hob-
bies often used at the expense of the veriest principles of com-
mon sense. Exposed in the full light of other and brighter
minds, such defects will be noted and corrected.

That word Union in the preceding titles is an almost certain
guarantee of success. Combination, organization, so typical of
the age, must be the method adopted. Working hand in hand,
heart to heart, for one common end, success must follow. In-
dividual work will tell thereby none the less nay, rather the
more. Receiving much, we should give of our very best, that
failure may not be laid at our door.

The grand event of America's discovery, made possible by
the patronage of Catholic sovereigns, encouraged and blessed
by the great Cardinal Ximenes, aided by the dauntless faith of
Juan Perez, and the generous aid of the Pinzons, all consum-
mated by the indomitable courage and unwavering confidence of
Columbus the Catholic, should arouse every son and daughter
of the church, firing them with pride, patriotism, and gratitude.
True to the traditions of their ancestors, they cannot, must not
prove unworthy of so wondrous a heritage.

Probably never before, certainly never as now, by such a
favorable combination of circumstances can Catholic women
compete with other leaders in the field of human progress. The

1 893-] AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. 651

various departments of the Columbian Exposition offer these
advantages, making it the grandest school of human progress
ever opened to eager, earnest students. The scholar, scientist,
and inventor will there be typified in the marvels that his
genius, skill, and research have embodied for the instruction and
pleasure of the world. Tolle et lege the lessons there given. In
grateful acknowledgment should the recipients contribute from
their own resources to this the most worthy memorial ever of-
fered as the united homage of the whole world to God for the
gift of the Old to the New.

Our Holy Father, with his special benediction, gives every
encouragement for the children of the church to prove their
loyalty to their God, their faith, their country a trinity one,
eternal, inseparable, and universal. Here and now can we prove
the integrity of our faith ; there is and can be no middle ground for
us. Concession is truly desirable for the promotion of peace
and good-will ; but let it never be at the expense of the very
least principle of our holy faith. Nor need it. Each planet keeps
its appointed orbit, moving therein peacefully and in perfect
harmony with all the rest.

Thus shall it be with varying creeds and nationalities ; each
moving in its own circle, until a gradual yielding and blending
of sentiments will give us facts and truths for opinions and theo-
ries. Then shall there be " one Lord, one faith, one baptism."
The tide drifts towards this blessed haven, and sooner, perhaps,
than we think will these favoring winds bring us safely to port.

ESTABLISH A TEACHERS' BUREAU.

As a means to this end, in connection with the Catholic
Educational Exhibit at Chicago, under the able management of
Brother Maurelian, could not a Teachers' Bureau be permanent-
ly established there ? Let it be placed in the hands of the most
zealous leaders of the profession, and fully equipped to do a
great and beneficent work. Those pledged heart and soul to
this enterprise, working for mutual good, aided by wise sugges-
tions born of personal experience, will do much to smooth diffi-
culties that retard the teacher's work. Active members of the
profession can best settle that vexed question of religious and
secular instruction in schools. Purest water comes directly from
the fountain-head.

Suggestions will be gladly received, shaping course of study,
discipline, requirements for teachers, etc., they being ex-officio
members of the bureau. These observations duly reported at

652 AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. [Feb.;

headquarters, shall be open for discussion through a first-class
Educational Journal, so indispensable for the work in hand ;
the latter proposal having already been anticipated by that prince
of the church and of educators, Right Rev. Bishop Spalding, of
Peoria.

While distinctly Catholic, let both the bureau and its journal
be distinctly American. Love for church and country must be
mutual, each intensifying the other. This work, indeed, is a na-
tional affair ; we realize it daily more and more. Our education
gauges our civilization, and our civilization our education.
Guided by such sentiments we will re-form our Republic on the
basis of the old. Eliminating defects, a stronger, nobler char-
acter will mark its dealings at home and abroad.

In anticipation of such a boon, and emphasizing the idea
that " prevention is better than cure," that civilization can do
more to check crime than the hangman's rope, a sort of educa-
tional quarantine might not come amiss, making school atten-
dance compulsory, thus eradicating from the body politic ignor-
ance and vice, with its train of contagious evils.

Ohio and Colorado have taken hold of the matter in earnest,
accepting no excuse for non-attendance on the score of indigence,
since they furnish not only books but clothing for those unable
to procure them. As much, perhaps, might be done for needy
pupils in Catholic schools through the bureau. Its advantages
will soon appear, both in morals and economics. But primarily
this bureau will become a channel for the broader culture of
Catholic teachers, through united effort, giving access to what-
ever is an advantage in their profession, evolving the best
methods, and consequently the best results. The want of this
unity has been the chief obstacle to success.

With the journal it will prove a combination in its best sense,
teachers of both sexes being admitted to its privileges. Former-
ly such organizations, limited to man, left woman isolated, a
prey to her whims, fancies, and what-nots. She could not in-
trude on man's domain and still preserve her prestige. Such
was the verdict.

VVhat, then, is woman's sphere? Its limits are boundless as
the horizon, and as the vaulted arch of heaven. Wherever her
ability and its needs can find a footing, there let her advance.
True to the instincts of Christian womanhood, no barrier need
check her progress. An innate sense of the fitness of things
will be her safeguard. Such helpers as these are needed every-
where, and, thank God ! not found wanting.

1893-] AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. 653

WHAT AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU MIGHT DO.

Through the proposed bureau views and plans will harmo-
nize, placing the teacher's work on a solid basis. Jealousies and
rivalries must then cease. If your school is better than mine,
gladly will I avail myself of its advantages ; if I, too, have
scored some good points, as readily will I return the favor.
One heart and soul then animates the work.

Parochial schools will share in these benefits. Many of them
in the larger cities do excellent work, hardly to be surpassed,
but in some of the smaller parishes there is special need of
just such light and aid as the bureau and journal can give. Did
you know that 14,215,571 children are now under the instruc-
tion of 425,000 teachers in the public, private, and parochial
schools of the United States ? Many of these fall under the in-
fluence of Catholic teachers. In a decade or two they become
the citizens of our Republic.

What a power, then, to-day in the hands of every educator !
Our purpose and its fulfilment in this work seals the judgment
of the Almighty for them and for us.

With even more emphasis might Frances Anne Kemble say
to the teachers of to-day than to some young college graduates
years ago :

" A sacred burden is the life ye bear ;
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly;
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win."

The proposed bureau will be a sort of Signal Service Corps,
a beacon-light. Thrice blessed will be the aid and knowledge
thereby gained. Much good wheat can be found when the chaff
is thus well winnowed. To facilitate this work it could be under
the control of a board of directors, composed of one from each
diocese, the teachers thus conferring with their respective heads
or delegates. A director-in-chief should have charge of the
council thus formed, elected by its members, and in perfect
sympathy with their views and plans.

One occupying such a position should be a representative
Catholic citizen, with both elbows free, not hampered or guided
by mere personal theories or self-interest, in no sense a crank,
but, while open to conviction, yet working steadily and solely
for the best interests of the organization.

654 AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. [Feb.,

With such a leader, just think what a world of good might
be accomplished ! Old fads and fancies would yield to better
judgment and wisdom. Suggestions might, no doubt, conflict
at times ; but if the shoes pinch, we need another pair. This
/ think, I believe, " big I and little you" might do well enough
for the old woman who lived in a nut-shell, but we've rented a
broader domain. Your knowledge, my friend, may be above the
average, but hardly sufficient to eclipse the united wisdom of
the hundreds and thousands to be enrolled in the bureau.

Our right reverend bishops and clergy will certainly give their
sanction to and support most cordially an enterprise that must
so directly promote the welfare of each diocese, at the same
time relieving them of much care and responsibility. No impor-
tant step will, of course, be taken without their hearty approval
and co-operation.

Many schools in one diocese often defeat success, being too-
heavy a tax upon people who, as a class, have all they can do
to keep their own pots boiling, without helping to feed their
neighbors' fires.

To relieve such a burden, let college and academy be estab-
lished pro rata the inhabitants and their bank accounts. Compe-
tition has had too much of the say-so in this matter. Entering;
a field already occupied, perhaps in a " booming " town, the
party soon found itself pushing or pushed to the wall, even at
the expense of the beautiful law of Christian charity. Rivalry
may be admissible, within limits, in business transactions, but
hardly in the matters we are discussing. Let Christian courtesy
prevail. Not the survival of the strongest, but of the fittest.
Do we not, through a mistaken zeal, or from self-interest, too
often lose sight of this spirit of charity ?

IS THIS PROPOSAL TOO IDEAL?

Justly proud that in numbers we lead other Christian organi-
zations ; that the great and good are continually added to our
list of converts ; that cathedrals, churches, and schools adorn our
cities and crown the hillsides of our towns and villages ; well
that it should be so ; but what of the spirit animating these
works of zeal and piety? And yet the great law of sympathetic
union must prevail as the only type of Christian fellowship. Its
effects are patent ethically in social and political matters ; still
more should they appear in higher, holier fields of labor. Some
may urge there is too much idealism about our enterprise. Ad-
mitted with a qualification, however. Ideals of man seldom be-

1893-] Atr EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. 655

come much more than half a reality ; yet for all this should we
discard them in toto ? They do a great, a blessed work ; still
greater, far more blessed, when the impulse, or, better still, the
inspiration, which gave them being, by a hundred and a hun-
dred times repeated effort, gives fuller shape and clearness to
that ideal, making it a practical, vivid reality. Do we think less
to-day of the ideals of famous inventors while reaping the bene-
fits of their magic genius?

St. Vincent de Paul gave broad hints of this truth when he
told his religious, the saintly Sisters of Charity, that their chapel
would be the street, their communions acts of self-sacrifice by the
bedside of some wretched victim of a loathsome contagious dis-
ease, their rest and recreations new labors. Here, then, in duty
do we find the true essence and ideal of life, the most sacred
offering of the creature to his Creator, a prayer reaching far-
ther into heaven than any ever uttered by human lips, if at the
expense of that duty.

This practical view of the teacher's work must prevail every-
where, in convent and secular schools. It is that which tells
most effectively in the long run. Skilful grafting and pruning
work wonders, fitting the pupils to deal with life as an affair
above all others.

Unfortunately, many imagine a convent life to be purely ideal,
a sentimental, up-in-the-clouds sort of existence. But the fact of
the matter is, whether in or out of a convent, in this world of
ours there is no genuine living on mere ideals, on moonshine,
the odor of violets, etc. Nectar and ambrosia might answer for
fabled gods and goddesses, but for brainy, great-hearted men
and women, such as our age demands, something more substan-
tial must be taken.

WE MUST HAVE IDEALS.

Rightly understood, ideals make us what we are. Let them
be true, perfect, and holy, such in a measure must we become.
Hence our standard of right and wrong varies with the domi-
nant motif ; therefore, the stronger, more abiding our faith in a
Supreme Being, the higher will be that standard ; like the guid-
ing needle of the compass, it never varies from the wondrous
magnet towards which it is so powerfully drawn.

A person with all the concentrated wisdom of Aristotle and
his successors in philosophic science would count for no more,
as far as a sense of obligation tells, than a South Sea Islander,
each of whom seeks nothing higher than self-gratification. Re-
member still, the fountain rises no higher than its source.

656 AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. [Feb.,

We know many things are right and just, and may do them
for that reason alone ; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred,
unless actuated by a higher ideal, we won't, when interest calls
us elsewhere.

A teacher's work demands the holiest of all such motives.
If thus actuated, she wields a magic, irresistible power ; always
infectious, it must be transmitted to her pupils ; such as she is,
such will they become ; in a measure her living photographs
not exteriorly alone, but her very heart, character, and life will
be reproduced with unerring fidelity.

Is there a calling nobler, grander than this ? Realizing
it fully, our educators must be inspired, animated, electrified, if
you will, by the purest aims and broadest views. They must
throw zeal and fire into their work. Humdrum, routine method,
year after year, won't do. As well might the pupils be put
into a machine, which, by so many revolutions in a minute,
produces a figure the exact counterpart of those it always has
and always will evolve. No ; none of this. The excellent work
of others must not satisfy progressive teachers : still more, still
better, will be the aim. Even their own work of to-day will
not entirely meet the needs of to-morrow, which is ever advanc-
ing.

God alone can satisfy the highest of all ideals. Without him
we are at sea minus sails, compass, and rudder. With him
there is a spur to duty, a check to sin, strength and courage in
temptation, light and comfort in the darkest hour. This being
the animus of a teacher's life, her pupils cannot fail to be mould-
ed into a higher type of manhood and womanhood. More cor-
rect views of good and ill, a delicate sense of honor, a tender
regard for others' rights and the claims of justice will mark a
character thus imbued with thoughts of God. This is true reli-
gion, which as its derivative meaning tells us, is a binding again
of the soul to its divine Source. By those ignoring reli-
gion as the needed leaven of education, a certain kind of morality
is urged and held up as all-sufficient for man's needs. But any
morality that leaves out God as its basis, substance, and cap-
stone, is no morality at all, but rather the " loose ends " of its
shadow. The very thought of this Supreme Being as the pro-
pelling force of life, gives to it a grandeur and sublimity that
shame all other lives, lowering them to the dead-level of self,
their only aim.

1 893-1 AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. 657

RELIGION IS A STRIVING TO ATTAIN THE GREAT IDEAL.

This truth is revealed more clearly in individuals than in the
mass, each one standing out a distinct type of his ideals. In
the hurry and pressure of life's duties, entailing a somewhat me-
chanical routine, we are apt to fall into a sort of religious rut,
unless roused by some shock or challenge from those not of our
faith. Then we begin to look around and say, What do we
believe anyway ? We are sure of our creed ; is it not our sheet-
anchor, buckler, " helmet of salvation " ? Certainly the church's
doctrines are infallible. Do you ask for more ? Yes, yes ; a
living, intelligent faith, enabling you " to give a reason for the
hope that is in you," to meet at every point any objections
hurled against that creed as old as its Founder.

For this close study is needed, with careful examination of
the pros and cons, since there are many nice points and shades
of meaning in Catholic doctrine that the faithful may readily
take for granted, but not so easily admitted by our opponents,
might become to them a stumbling-block " a lion in the way."
We are often supposed to believe things which we do not,
and to ignore much that is common to every creed of Christen-
dom, and which we, too, cordially accept. Familiarity with
such points will be of special service to teachers. Their pupils,
if non-Catholics, can then plainly see that the church is not so
dogmatic as some imagine ; obliging her children to swallow its
doctrines in one dose, to take everything in a lump because it
is her dictum.

Hence, the more intelligence in your faith, the more charity
there is towards all of whatsoever creed, and the more good ac-
complished. The beautiful law of reciprocity thus ever works out
it own blessed results ; in fact, must be them, or it is no creed,
no Christianity. " Faith without works is dead " ; and a dead
faith, like a dead body, is worse than none at all.

To attain this the more readily, catechism instruction should
not be a conning and recitation of dry dogmas and facts, but
rather an interesting study of the beautiful life of the Christ-
Child through every scene, from the " Gloria in Excelsis," as
hymned by the angels on that first Christmas at Bethlehem, to
the closing scenes of Calvary and the Ascension. Each of them
will then become a living, breathing poem, replete with lessons
of love and holiness for life, death, and eternity.

All these and other truths of our holy faith can be illustrated
by incidents from daily life, making the impression still more
VOL. LVI. 45

658 AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAU AND JOURNAL. [Feb.,

vivid. Its doctrines thus revealed as vital, practical truths must
lead to lives of virtue.

The very stir and unrest in religious matters to-day is a good
sign ; it betokens an awakening to a truer sense of our position
as Catholic Christians ; that we are not such because of our an-
cestry, but from actual conviction of the truth ; and if not the
better Christians for this God-given faith, it is high time we
were /

Catholic women, your ability and the needed opportunity for
its outlet are not wanting ; therefore do we the more earnestly
herald and defend your cause, simply because by the very pres-
sure laid upon us we cannot hold our peace.

Seeing wrong that must be righted, suffering pleading for
relief, perhaps affecting your own flesh and blood, you, too, will
be no longer silent. With others of your sex throughout the
world, inflamed by the one desire of woman's advancement, you
will seek and find this boon, through an education giving full
scope to the powers of mind, to the better impulses of heart
and soul. To effect this, an all-pervading spirit full of zeal and
confidence must animate the work. Using another's metaphor,
" Your cannon must be charged with ideas worthy of such a
purpose."

So grand in their aim, so full of vim and fire must they be r
that all obstacles shall be as if they were not. Triumphs, we
know, are achieved only through struggles ; the greatness of the
one measures the glory of the other. It is not so much in the
final achievement, as in the slow but certain step-by-step pro-
cess, that at last crowns the work, and wreaths the victor with
laurel.

These suggestions will serve as pegs, if you choose, upon
which others may hang much valuable information. The bureau
and its annex, the journal, being admirable channels for the
same, we must have them cannot do without them. Who says
/first?

F. M. EDSELAS.

1893-] OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. 659

OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS.

N Councillor Schlosser's recollections of Goethe the
great pantheistic poet is quoted as saying : " I
feel myself ever anew, as though by some myste-
rious power, drawn toward those genuine Catholic
natures which, having once acquired peace them-
selves in unswerving hope and faith, live at peace with others,
doing good from no consideration other than that it comes na-
tural to them, and that God so wills it. For such natures I
cherish abiding reverence."

As known to every student of Goethe's life, it was in the
house of the Princess Amalie Gallitzin that he had the oppor-
tunity of getting face to face with Catholics, and no one doubts
that when speaking as quoted he had in mind, besides the prin-
cess herself, such men as the brilliant Fuerstenberg, vicar-general
of Muenster, and the humble and retiring but none the less re-
markable Bernhard Overberg. Of these two Overberg appears
to me by far the more interesting.

He was born on May I, 1754, in a village in the diocese of
Osnabrueck, his father being a poor peddler. The parents were
pious, and from earliest years imbued their son's mind with that
filial trust in Providence which was never to leave him, not
even in days of bitter trial. From the start the child did not
appear a promising one. Not till in his fifth year did he learn
to walk, and he had worn out eight ABC books before he
was able to read. However, the boy early conceived a wish to
become a priest, and accordingly read and prayed with double
zeal, that he might be able to carry out this intention. He
soon progressed in intellectual achievements, and at sixteen was
sent to make his classical course at a Franciscan gymnasium.
From there in 1774 he went to the episcopal seminary at Muen-
ster. A characteristic incident, suggestive of his future career,
dates from this time. His vacations he spent with his mother,
who had been for some years a widow. Among the children in
the neighborhood were some that had not been allowed to make
their first Communion owing to the insufficiency of their knowl-
edge. Their parents asked Overberg to instruct them, and so he
did. At first he tried the customary method, giving the children

66o OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. [Feb.,

questions and answers from the catechism to learn by heart, and
examining them the day following. But the children, poor of
memory as they were, could not retain the answers, and for a
while the young teacher thought this his first attempt destined
to be a complete failure. Suddenly, however, it came to his
mind to try another way, and having dropped the dry catechism
he began to tell his pupils stories from the Bible. His peculiar
talent for setting forth in words living pictures of biblical events
and characters was here tested for the first time, and with a
result than which none could have been more gratifying. The
children brightened up, they listened attentively, and gave proofs
of having caught both at the events related and the moral
teachings these were to convey. Next fall the children were
readily admitted to Holy Communion.

HE IS ORDAINED PRIEST.

Overberg was ordained in 1780. Fuerstenberg offered him
the advantageous situation of tutor in a family of high rank,
but the young priest had other aims in view, and declined.
Shortly after he was appointed curate at Everswinkel, a little
country place, where, besides his board, he received a salary of
thirty dollars a year.

To the zeal with which he worked in the ministry both
Protestants as, for example, Professor Schuberth of Munich,
who wrote Overberg's life and Catholics have borne ample tes-
timony. Particularly characteristic of the man were his constant
efforts to make his sermons at once plain and impressive. Elo-
quence in the usual sense they had none, but occasionally he
delivered them with a kind of dramatic effect. An old village
smith, at whose shop the curate often called on his long walks,
related the following : " Once he preached on the wedding gar-
ment. The wedding garment, said he, signifies a Christian's dig-
nity, conferred upon us in baptism, which we are bound to pre-
serve in order to render account of it before God on the day
of judgment. Let us imagine ourselves standing before the
throne of God, summoned to render that account ! Now followed
question upon question. What shall we answer ? asked Over-
berg, and for a while remained silent. Then came, in a voice
almost choked with tears, the sentence of the parable : ' And he
answered not a word ! ' With that he took his biretta and left
the pulpit. The congregation remained motionless in their pews
for some time, and then went out one by one, without the
usual chatting."

l8 93-l O VERB ERG : A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. 66 1

HE BEGINS HIS LIFE'S WORK.

As was to be expected, Overberg turned his attention partic-
ularly to the instruction of the young, which at his request was
made over to him entirely by the pastor. The old method, con-
sisting merely in lessons learned by heart and then repeated,
had never satisfied him and was now done away with. In three
years he acquired such a reputation as a catechist as to induce
Monsignor Fuerstenberg to come unexpectedly on a Sunday
afternoon in order to convince himself by personal observation
as to the merits of Curate Overberg's method. The result was
that he offered the young priest the place of teacher at the Nor-
mal School, and, moreover, compelled him to accept it.

Consequently, in March, 1783, Dean Overberg, as he was to
be called henceforth, moved to Muenster, and took up his resi-
dence at the episcopal seminary.

Whatever may be said against the so-called enlightened pe-
riod (Aufklaerungs-Periode) at the close of the last century and
the beginning of this, we cannot refuse to sundry of its repre-
sentatives the credit of having entertained a sincere belief in
the efficacy of education, and of having made correspondingly
strong efforts to bring it within the reach of all classes of soci-
ety. Unfortunately, the educational questions were too often to
these men so many mathematical problems, to be solved every-
where according to precisely the same rules, and with infallibly
the same results. But where men like Fuerstenberg and the
former curate of Everswinkel took the lead these less pleasant
aspects of the educational movement were not perceptible, and
results of enduring value were obtained. Needless to remark,
that the rapid development of the natural sciences and the al-
together altered situation of the masses have necessitated such
changes in matters educational since the days of Bernhard
Overberg, that we should be sadly at sea were we at the
present day to be guided exclusively by such works as his
Guide or Manual justly famous at the time of their publica-
tion and long after. For us now to study those books would
be simply waste of time, but we shall never regret having spent
a while in the company of the man that wrote them, thus get-
ting acquainted with what is far more interesting and elevating
than a standard book a standard character.

The task imposed upon Overberg was, so to speak, to teach
school-masters the science of teaching in a two or three months'

662 OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. [Feb.,

course, which was to be gone through during autumn vacation.
To this office was soon joined the school-inspectorship for the
diocese.

HE IS MADE SCHOOL INSPECTOR.

When Overberg entered upon his duties there was no want
of schools in Muenster ; the country was rather crowded with
them. But they were schools often by name only. The school-
masters in the towns and large villages were generally persons
who had gone through their course of studies at the gymnasium
with a view to become priests, but had been obliged to give up
either for want of ability, vocation, or for some other cause In
the little villages the school was kept in winter by a day-laborer,
who in summer worked in the fields. Instruction was limited to
learning the catechism by rote and to reading, and it goes with-
out saying that even in these branches the children were often
sadly deficient. Writing was taught in a few schools only, arith-
metic hardly in any. Even the better schools were mostly with-
out writing-desks and often without a stove. In most of the
small villages the school was in some out-building.

Here was work indeed for a conscientious man. Fortunately
Overberg was equal to the task. And fortunately Fuerstenberg
approved of every reform he proposed. School-houses were
erected and the improvement of the school-masters was attended
to in a very practical way. An increase of salary was assured
to such as proved fit for their office by an examination, this ex-
amination being held every three years. Those who turned out
deficient were required to attend the normal instruction until
sufficiently advanced.

What sort of men Overberg had thus to make school-masters
of within the compass of a few months may be easily gathered
from what has been already said. Only too many of them had
chosen their present occupation as a refuge from povert)'. In
the beginning Overberg gave all the instruction himself : in the
forenoon from nine to twelve, and from two to five in the after-
noon. The branches were general pedagogics, religion, reading,
writing, and arithmetic. In the spare time he took into his own
room those who were exceedingly dull and ignorant, to help
them on by private instruction.

Overberg would first put before his pupils the great dignity
of a teacher's office, its influence, which extends even through
eternity, and its corresponding importance. Terrifying he
could be when drawing a picture of the havoc made* by a

l8 93-] O VERB ERG : A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. 663

bad school-master, and the maledictions thereby heaped upon
his head, but with greater length and evident satisfaction he
would dwell upon the blessings a good teacher may earn, and
the reward prepared for him here below as well as above. Once,
while he was thus expounding the consequences of particular
vices and virtues, and of certain mistakes in the management
of children, an old country school-master, struck with the fidelity
of the picture, burst out in his quaint Low-German dialect :
" Mr. Overberg, that is exactly the way they do where I come
from."

Dean Overberg was fond of a good joke, and laughter often
followed his utterances. His delivery savored nothing of the
pulpit, nor of the ordinary professor's chair ; it was a good deal
like ordinary conversation one friend talking to another, or tell-
ing him a story.

HE TEACHES THE TEACHERS.

In the teaching of catechism he strongly advocated coming
down to the level of ideas possessed by children. For example,
a child should have its attention drawn first to the numerous
benefits it receives from its parents, and to the superior power
and knowledge that are theirs. Then it should be told to repre-
sent to itself God under the image of a father who, with infi-
nite goodness, wisdom, and power, gives to men what all of
them combined could not procure for themselves. The won-
ders of creation had always been to Overberg a mirror of
the Divinity ; his love of flowers and animals was prover-
bial among his friends. Mice became tame and domesticated
in his room ; he called the spiders his companions, and could but
with sorrow see their ingenious webs being swept away. In this,
as in some other points, Overberg's character was pleasantly akin
to that of St. Francis of Assisi. He earnestly recommended to
his pupils to make a study of God's creatures. He was of opin-
ion that a school-master, particularly in the country, should fre-
quently instruct his scholars in the open air and make them
familiar with the manifold lessons of nature.

The method, high in favor with some educators, of imparting
every kind of knowledge in the form of catechism, was not ap-
proved of by Overberg ; this way of teaching too often, in his
opinion, tending to elicit from the children answers on matters
about which they cannot possibly possess any knowledge. Such
cramming leaves the heart and the imagination altogether idle
and neglected.

664 OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. [Feb.,

In teaching arithmetic the good dean particularly insisted
that the children be made not only to understand the reason of
what they were doing, but, if possible, to invent rules for them-
selves.

His pedagogical work was not limited to the school-masters
only. As early as in the seventeenth century separate schools
for girls, under the care of mistresses, were established in the
towns and villages of the diocese of Muenster, but no provision
had ever been made for the education of these mistresses. It
was reserved for Overberg to open at the Normal School a course
for school-mistresses, and to achieve as their educator a success
considered by many even more signal than what he had at-
tained with the men. In one of the official reports contained in
Beckdorf's Annual Register of the State of Education in Prussia
the following may be read : " In regard to the efficiency of the
school-mistresses and their fulfilment of their duties, it is found
by experience that, generally speaking, the girls' schools which
are under the care of mistresses are in better condition than the
masters' schools. More activity, more evidence of healthy life,
greater attachment on the part of the children, are observable in
the girls' schools.

In almost all the larger villages the school-children were di-
vided according to sex ; but this was not always the case in the
hamlets. It then happened that in some of these, where means
could not be raised to pay a master, female teachers, satisfied
with a smaller stipend, were placed over schools to which boys
and girls resorted together. The result was in every way a sat-
isfactory one.

There was at Muenster a convent, commonly called the
French convent, established during the Thirty Years' War by three
French nuns who had been driven out of Lorraine. Having
been appointed chaplain to the nuns, Overberg naturally came
to take part in the instruction of the children in their school, al-
though he was not under any obligation to do so. His rule was
to visit the place thrice a week ; the first time he taught arith-
metic ; the second, Bible history ; the third, Christian doctrine.
Sometimes he brought with him the school-masters from the Nor-
mal School that they might study his methods.

He used to have the children form a half-circle around him ;
then, after having greeted them with cheerful familiarity, he
would bring forward some of the very little ones from behind
the taller ones, place them in the first rank, and begin a talk
with them on something quite familiar to them, and seemingly

l8 93 ; ] OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. 665

with no connection with the subject-matter of the day. In a
short time, however, he tied on, in a way surprising though natu-
ral, some point of the lesson, which thus appeared in a new
light and in surroundings which must needs make it easily acces-
sible for the children's intellect.

In Overberg's journal I find the following characteristic entry
for July 6, 1790: "I know not when I have been able to speak
with more warmth to the children of the French school than to-
day. The majestic thunder, occurring at the very time of my
instruction, and as if ordered by God's goodness, gloriously aid-
ed my description of the day of judgment. The doctrine of the
last things must have in it something universally easy to com-
prehend and to interest, since the attention of the children can
be kept riveted upon it with singular facility ; and it appears to
me to have an effect of peculiar force upon their will."

Of course the children loved their gentle instructor. On his
arrival he was greeted with a shout of joy: " Mr. Overberg ! "
When he had been made Dean of Ueberwasser the school-mis-
tresses told their pupils they must now say "Very Reverend Mr.
Dean." This somehow unsettled the confidence of the little souls,
and one of them who, heretofore, had been particularly forward
in running to him, now stayed timidly behind. Noticing this he
asked : " What is the matter ? Have you forgotten me ?" There
was a moment's silence, and then probably the good man's smile
was too enticing, for all of a sudden she shouted : " No, Mr.
Overberg !" and rushed into his arms. Of course he told them
to go on calling him Mr. Overberg.

HE FORMS THE CHARACTER OF PRINCE GALLITZIN.

As already hinted, the form of Overberg's books is now anti-
quated, but in the course of this article enough has been said to
show that the main trend of his educational efforts was modern
in the best sense of the word. As a matter of fact, sundry re-
forms that are considered the boast of modern pedagogics were
foreseen and prepared for by the Dean of Ueberwasser. Even
among his contemporaries many acknowledged his great gifts,
and soon his influence received an opportunity to make itself
felt in wide circles. The name of Princess Amalie Gallitzin,
the mother of the sainted apostle of West Pennsylvania, is a
household word with American Catholics. They may some of
them have read the characteristic anecdote how, when her son,
just at the moment of his departure for America, suffering from
one of his old attacks of indecision, turned back from the yawl

666 OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. [Feb.,

that was to carry him on board the ship, she seized his arm and
with the words, " Dimitri, I blush for you !" urged him on with
such a good will that he fell into the water and had to be
fished up by the sailors. But probably only a few are aware
that to Overberg's influence must chiefly be ascribed the high
degree of Christian perfection attained by the princess, and that
it was to him she afterward looked for consolation and succor
when she and her absent son were overwhelmed with reproaches
and troubles on account of the latter's decision of entering the
priesthood. It is true that it was not until he had arrived in
America that the young prince embraced the Catholic religion,
and sought admittance into a seminary ; yet no one doubted that
the seed had been sown by his mother and her confessor. And
it is easy to conceive the mingled feelings of anger and con-
tempt with which the news was received by his European rela-
tives and acquaintances, and most of all by his Voltairean father,
thinking, as they did, that he Jiad voluntarily abandoned all that
was attractive and enviable in life.

HE INFLUENCES A LARGER CIRCLE.

It was Fuerstenberg that had recommended the princess to
choose Overberg for her confessor, and for a while she was con-
tented with his occasional visits ; but soon she wished to enter
on the same relations with him as existed between St. Vincent
de Paul and Madame de Gondi ; St. John of the Cross and St.
Teresa ; St. Francis de Sales and Jane Frances de Chantal. She
longed for uninterrupted spiritual intercourse with this humble
priest, at once so childlike and so wise. She was desirous of
being perpetually under his direction. In one way only could
this be effected by Overberg's becoming a member of her house-
hold. For some time she refrained from submitting this project
to him for decision, lest he might reject it altogether ; but finally
she took courage, and to her great joy she was not disappointed.

In 1789 "the dean" took up his residence in her palace at
Muenster, and remained there for about seventeen years as her
chaplain ; and after her death, in 1806, for still three years more
as the chaplain and confessor of her daughter.

In this princely home he soon saw gather a circle of men
famous throughout Europe for learning and genius. High eccle-
siastics ; philosophers such as "the Sage of the North" Hamann,
Hemsterhuis, and Jacobi ; poets also, foremost among whom was
Goethe, not to speak of sundry stars of lesser magnitude, bril-
liant in their day, but long since extinguished. All these sought

l8 93-] O VERB ERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. 667

introduction into that Catholic household, and were often fair
enough afterwards to confess that nowhere had they enjoyed such
soothing comfort, such serene rest. There is no doubt that Over-
berg's daily intercourse with these eminent persons proved to him
in several ways a boon. He in turn influenced the princess's
friends, at least through her, whose soul he was day by day de-
veloping in the spiritual life. He and she had imposed it on
themselves as a duty to warn each other of their respective
-faults and imperfections ; they kept up a constant communion of
prayer, and laid their affairs of conscience united before God.

A sentence which was found among the writings of the prin-
cess doubtless expressed her relations to Overberg : " The greatest
and most indubitable evidence of true friendship is when two
persons, in their most intimate prayer to God, can, without hesi-
tation or doubt, without reflection or limitation, venture to say
WE."

As stated above, Overberg still remained in the princely resi-
dence after the edifying death of the princess. This occurred in
1806, after many years' illness, replete with excruciating suffer-
ings. In 1809 he was appointed president of the Episcopal Semi-
nary, and consequently had to take up his domicile there. By
this time he was, it is true, only fifty-five years old, but inde-
fatigable labor had already weakened his bodily vigor and bent
his frame. The thin locks around the bald crown of his head
had become white, and his genial face had assumed a look of
seriousness.

AS PRESIDENT OF THE BISHOP'S SEMINARY.

The seminarians attended lectures of theology at the Academy,
while to the superiors of the Seminary was reserved their practi-
cal, ascetical, and liturgical training. To Overberg fell chiefly
the ascetical part, and nowhere could he have been more truly
in his element. His own striving for perfection had furnished
him with a rich store of experience. From his close and untiring
observation of himself, the record of which has been preserved in
his diary, he knew the most hidden folds of the human heart.
But he effected more by example than by word. Once a Protes-
tant periodical, reviewing one of Overberg's pedagogical works,
made use of the following words : " This book is the production
of a man who, so we are informed, thinks and acts as he speaks
and writes." In these words is revealed the secret of his as-
tonishing success as teacher and as priest, as chaplain to the
great of this world and as instructor of humble levites.

668 OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. [Feb.,

None was ever more careful than he to turn his every hour
to account. Besides the duties imposed on him by the Semi-
nary, he labored for many years as a counsellor on educational
matters to the consistory, conducted the Normal School, preached,
catechised, heard confessions, and visited the sick. He wrote an
incredible number of letters to people applying for advice and
on the most varied matters. Seminarians, school-masters, priests,
children, penitents, persons of all sorts and conditions, from the
town and from the country, came to him whenever they happened
to want assistance or consolation. There were incessant knocks at
his door, and he allowed all to enter ; he laid aside his book or
his pen, and spoke with each visitor in the kindest way.

His study contained a considerable collection of books, which
he procured for the purpose of giving away as we'll as of lending,
and odd pieces of furniture in so many shapes and colors as to
make it evident to everybody that the furnishing of his apart-
ment had been left entirely to chance. His meals he took with
the students, seldom accepting invitations to dine out.

He strictly insisted on the observance of the rules of the
Seminary. No wilful transgression of them, albeit in the slight-
est matter, was suffered to pass unreproved. He spoke on this
subject quietly indeed, but with equal seriousness. Once, it is
related, his zeal got the better of his usual temperate manner.
Some of the older seminarians, soon to receive holy orders, had
repeatedly broken the rules. In an address to the seminarians
Overberg expressed himself severely about this, saying that they
would have to make thorough satisfaction for their bad behavior
before he could give them the testimonial of good conduct re-
quired for their ordination. "You know, gentlemen," he con-
cluded, with unusual vehemence, " that I do everything to please
you, but never will I tell a lie for that purpose ! " However,
this was an exceptional incident. In general order and disci-
pline prevailed without any admonition being needed. Overberg's
words were mostly consoling, encouraging, full of love. The
seminarians could go to him for advice at all hours, and they
were always sure of a kind reception. But probably it was when
giving, after night prayers, the points for next morning's medita-
tion that the power of his words and individuality impressed
most deeply the minds of his young hearers. Many seminarians,
who for years had heard him every evening, declared that they
never went away unmoved. With his eyes turned downward,
his hand on the desk, the venerable old man spoke a few senten-
ces as simple as their tone was touching.

1 893-] OVER BERG : A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. 669

Of his life in the seminary anecdotes are told that to devo-
tees of French literature recall such figures as Hugo's Bishop
Myriel and the Benedictine Father in Paul Bourget's " A Saint,"
in Pastels of Men a picture to my mind more beautiful than
Hugo's, because more truly Catholic. Many things were stolen
from him. One of the hangings in his antechamber was found
cut off in the middle. He supposed that some woman in great
distress to get a suit of clothes for her baby had done it, and
so without further investigation he had what was left of the cur-
tain removed, and paper pasted over the lower part of the win-
dow. Fully aware that nothing was safe in this room, he took
pains that others should lose nothing there, and if he saw any
of his visitors about leaving their hats there, he would remind
them to bring them inside.

Once, in a very cold winter, a seminarian was with Overberg
in his room when he caught sight of a beggar just passing out
at the seminary gate with Overberg's coat. He pointed out the
tramp to the president, and offered to run after him. " No, no !"
said Overberg hastily, " let him go. I don't want the coat, and
see how much he needs it."

HIS INNER LIFE.

This man, whom many would call too lenient towards others,
treated himself with unrelenting severity. His diary abounds
with self-reproach, directed especially against what he calls his
vanity and lack of charity. He fancied that he took too keen
a delight in his literary successes, and at times he was sorry for
having indulged in impatience and harshness. For instance: "I
sinned yesterday against the love of my neighbor, by speaking
somewhat harshly with no good reason, and I sinned from im-
patience with the woman who complained that her child had
been sent away from school. I should not have refused to lis-
ten to her." I need scarcely remark that, without being morbid or
over-scrupulous, Overberg censured in himself as serious faults
what to others seemed hardly, if at all, noticeable. In this there
was no hypocrisy : doubtless he had his particular weaknesses and
temptations like everybody else, only he became by constant
and assiduous watching more and more able to perceive their
slightest movements, and to check them at once. So it was with
a tendency to melancholy of which he, like Frederick Ozanam,
never wholly got rid, and which often gave rise to painful inte-
rior conflicts. Somewhere in his diary he says : " It has become
manifest to me that it. is a duty, not only to take care that we

6/0 OVERBERG: A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. [Feb.,

do not distress others and disturb their pleasure and happiness
by a disagreeable, peevish temper, but also to strive as much as
possible, by showing a contented spirit, by kindness and cheer-
fulness, to cheer up others." To his success in this effort no-
end of witnesses have given testimony.

Still, he had been a great worker, and he was for more than
half his life a great sufferer. Rheumatism of a very painful kind
often kept him confined to his room ; for a whole year he was
unable to visit the schools. By his sedentary habits he brought
upon himself a long-enduring internal disease, so that nobody
need wonder that now and then he would feel tired and give
vent to his feelings in exclamations like the following (from his
diary) : " O happy necessity of dying ! what would the world be
without thee?"

HIS LATTER YEARS.

Howbeit it was not until many years after this had been,
penned that the " happy necessity " was to approach him, rapid-
ly and, as it were, visibly. From about the year 1824 it is man-
ifest, from utterances in his letters and other facts, that he
thought his death near at hand. The increasing infirmities of
age were not his only reasons for this belief. It appeared to-
him that his personal work had ceased to be pressingly needed.
Long had he been aware how imperfect the training of the
school-masters must needs continue to be, by reason of the short
time allotted to their normal instruction. From the very begin-
ning of his labors in the cause of education the establishment of
a seminary for teachers had been the object of his most longing
desires. But many things combined to cause delay; most of all,,
of course, the Napoleonic wars, and it was not until in 1825 that
the seminary was opened at Bueren. In the fall of 1826 Over-
berg gave his last normal course, with his accustomed zeal ; only
his increasing ill-health had obliged him to leave the instruction.
in pedagogics to the vice-president, and to reserve for himself
nothing but the religious lectures. During the course itself he
was making the last preparations for his departure from this
world. It was afterwards discovered that within this time he
had either written out again or altered his will. On the /th of
November he concluded the course with the words, " Now let
us put all things into the hands of our good God ! " and in the
evening he as usual gave out the points for next day's medita-
tion. By a strange coincidence he found occasion that night to-
dwell once more on the subject which throughout his whole life

1893-] O VERB ERG : A PIONEER IN MODERN PEDAGOGICS. 671

had been nearest to his heart namely, the duty of a pastor
often to visit the schools of his parish. He spoke with even
more than usual feeling, and, contrary to his habit, sat down
after having given the points, for some minutes enlarging fur-
ther on his favorite idea.

The next morning his servant found him lying on the sofa,
half-dressed, and in a fainting fit. Two doctors were sent for,
but they did not consider the case serious. However, when
toward evening he tried to get up he again fainted, and hence-
forth he remained in bed. The same evening he made his con-
fession and received the last sacraments, evidently with deep
emotion. Friends came to see him the day following. One of
them had shortly before sent him some grapes. Mindful, as ever,
of others more than of himself, Overberg pressed his hand and
said in a low voice : " Don't worry ; it was not your grapes that
did it."

He expired in the afternoon. The last utterance ever heard
from his lips was, in a whisper, some words from a well-known
German hymn :

" Jesus, for Thee I live !
Jesus, for Thee I die ! "

The funeral took place on Sunday, November 12. A pro-
cession composed of all ranks, conditions, and ages, from the
highest ecclesiastical and civil authorities down to babies just
able to walk, filed silently along the road from the seminary to-
the cemetery. Thirty-six seminarians, with lighted torches, sur-
rounded the hearse.

Soon after Overberg's death a monument to his memory was
set up in the seminary yard. It is still there : an obelisk with
his name, Bernhard Overberg, and brief inscriptions commemo-
rating his work. More eloquent than the obelisk itself is
the fact that it was raised by contributions from an unusually
large number of people, among whom were all the school-teach-
ers and many poor people. At the death of this man, as through-
out his life, heart spoke to hearts.

JOSEPH ALEXANDER.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF STRIFE.

FRIEND, " higher up " that is a motto true ;
Yes higher up, and higher yet : aye more,
Attune life's actions to these phrases few

And struggling ; some time you will sight a

shore

Which skirts a mystic land that lies us near,
A land of harvest days and harvest cheer.

Yes, " higher up " ; and never cease to strive,

Though ways be weary and the landscape dim,
Though faltering hearts may somewhile fail to drive

The engine of the muscle, nerve, and limb ;
The passion's impulses grow strong within
To cast the spirit down yet strive ; you'll win.

Up, higher yet ; each triumph of the will
From time to time exalts the abstract soul,

If what we seek within life's weary mill

Is born of God's own Truth, and if the goal

And purpose of our reason's fight be pure

And consecrate to things that must endure.

Aim higher still ! Although the ways beyond
Seem not now pregnant with a recompense,

God pays his debts in gen'rous drafts in hand,
And years are as but moments in his sense ;

For with each triumph gained fresh strength is grown

That is God's spirit law, the debt he'll own.

DANIEL SPILLANE.

THE ROADWAY PASSES BETWEEN Two GRACEFUL PILLARS.

MARYVILLE: A WELL-KNOWN CONVENT OF THE

SACRED HEART.

LL who have meditated on the art of governing
mankind have been convinced that the fate of em-
pires depends on the education of the youth."
Centuries ago Aristotle uttered the above senti-
ment. It is none the less true to-day. We must
educate our youth toward the God that the spirit of the times
is trying to argue out of existence.

In a recent number of Harper's Magazine Julian Ralph has
a paper on " The New Growth of St. Louis." He treats ex-
haustively the wonderful enterprise, growth, and energy of that
city ; makes special mention of her enormous output of beer
and tobacco, " catering to human weakness "; speaks of the parks
that are the crowning glory of the city, and devotes one line to
her schools and old, cultivated society.
VOL. LVI. 46

6/4

MAR YVILLE.

[Feb.,

To visit St. Louis, to write of her, and then to have no
mention of her true "crowning glory," her educational institu-
tions, is to all loyal hearts the play of " Hamlet " with Hamlet
left out.

Overlooking the bluffs of the Mississippi, conspicuously visible
beyond the dense city atmosphere, rises the dome of one of these
famous institutions Maryville, a well-known Sacred Heart Con-
vent. At night it is most picturesque. As the river-steamers
pass up and down its hundreds of lights twinkle in the dark-
ness, its glowing cross flashes out a triumphant message to the
sky. Situated on a bend of the river south of the fair city of
St. Louis, the broad, majestic Father of Waters sweeps by on
either side. To the west, as far as eye can see, roll the vast
reaches of the prairie, until the dim brown line of earth melts
into the gray of the overhanging sky.

The name of Mother Barat is indissolubly linked with the
Order of the Sacred Heart as its foundress, and although in her
day there were some foundations of her community in this coun-

VIEW OF THE CHAPEL FROM THE DOOR.

try, yet she never came to our shores. We owe to the heroic
Madame Duchesne, one of her noblest daughters, the extension
and cultivation of what is to-day one of the most efficient edu-
cational orders in the United States. In 1818, shortly after our
second war with England, when the new nation was beginning
to feel her power, when she was just turning her attention to

1 893.]

MARYVILLE,

675

the settlement of the great broad lands that lay between the
Appalachian and the Rocky Mountains, Madame Duchesne ob-
tained the dearest wish of her heart, and was sent on the Amer-
ican mission. The first years spent in America by this noble

THROUGH THE EXTENSIVE LAWNS TO THE CONVENT.

soul and her devoted daughters were full of the utmost hard-
ships, crosses, trials, and disappointments. The growth and
formation of the order in solitary regions, amidst primeval for-
ests, amongst hostile or indifferent populations; the gradual ad-
vance of the work which was destined to take such deep root
and extend far and wide in the New World, furnishes to us of
the present luxurious era an example of what love of God can
do when shining from the pure depths of a woman's zealous
heart.

On the Feast of the Sacred Heart, as if conducted specially
under that loving patronage, the little band of intrepid souls
landed on the shores of the New World. The first settlement
was at St. Charles, Mo. In 1827 was established in St. Louis
what is now spoken of as the " old house." As the needs of

6;6

MAR YVILLE.

[Feb.,

the community grew with the growth of the city, the boarding-
school was transferred to the present site.

The drive out to Maryville is delightful. The roadway passes
between two graceful white pillars which form the gateway,
and winds toward the house, which is most imposing. It is of
Milwaukee brick, has an extension of three hundred and fifty
feet, with three wings running back about the same distance.
Its many surrounding acres insure its dignified rural quietude
for years to come, defying the encroachments of city sounds
and influences, and with its wide lawns and overshadowing trees
affords a most welcome and fitting retreat for the community
and their charges.

Maryville had for its first superior Madame Galway. The pre-
sent magnificent structure was erected under the supervision of
Madame Gauthreux, who died in 1872. In the following Septem-
ber Madame Tucker was made first vicar, and in 1876 was re-
moved to Chicago, where she founded the North Side Convent.
Mother Boudreaux was in authority at Maryville from 1876 to
1879, wnen sne was sen t to New Zealand, where she died. In
1884 Mother O'Meara, who had been directress of studies, be-
came superioress, and filled that office until she was sent to

THE PARLORS.

take charge of the new house at San Francisco. Mother Maho-
ney replaced her, but in 1891, failing in health, was compelled
to resign, and was succeeded by Mother Goncie, who now pre-
sides over the Western vicariate.

I893-]

MARYVILLE.

677

The convent was not completed for some years ; the build-
ings extended as they were needed. The first chapel was in the
basement of the north wing, and would remind one of the cata-
combs. In 1882 the south wing was built, and contains the re-

FROM THE ORGAN GALLERY.

fectory, dormitory, and the present beautiful chapel, by many
thought to be the handsomest convent-chapel in the United
States. As one enters the front door, directly opposite across
the hall is the entrance to the chapel. As the double door of
heavy oak, with panels of clear glass, swings open a vision of

6;8

MARYVILLE.

[Feb.,

beauty is revealed. Architectural and artistic talent seem to vie
with each other in making this chapel in some way a fit place
for the Holy of Holies. The tiny, perpetual star-like lamp in
the sanctuary leads us, as did that other star, directly to the
feet of Him who lived and died for love of us. A few moments'
silent adoration, and we turn to contemplate the beauties about
us. The sunlight streams through the richly-colored windows
and floods the entire chapel with radiance. The whole effect is
a symphony of rich, harmonious color, blending with the ivory-

THE NUNS' CHOIR.

white tints of the Stations, and the cool gray tones of the fres-
coes which in deeper recesses furnish a darker background for
the delicate Italian marbles. The gates opening into the sanc-
tuary are of stripped brass, a wreath of delicate workmanship
surrounding the sacred emblem of the order. The three altars

1 893.] MARYVILLE. 679

are of Italian marble of purely Gothic design. Above the high
altar, on Mexican onyx pitlars, stands a life-size statue of the
Sacred Heart, one finger resting on that tender Heart, pointing
to the way by which we all go to God the Father. Beneath is
the tabernacle ; the door is of hammered brass, lined with jew-
elled gold. The dome above the sanctuary shows a number of

ST. JOSEPH'S ALTAR.

angelic figures keeping ceaseless watch. The window above the
altar is of the Immaculate Conception. The side altars are of
the same beautiful design as the main altar. On the altar at the
right stands a life-size statue of St. Joseph; at the left one of
our Blessed Mother. All these altars and statues are gifts to
Maryville from grateful friends. A most noticeable piece of
lovely workmanship is the altar-rail of white marble, so delicately
carved as to resemble exquisite lace-work. It is upheld by pil-
lars of brown marble and onyx, and is a worthy guard to the

680 MARYVILLE. [Feb.,

holy sanctuary within. Three marble steps lead up from the
rail to the inlaid floor of the sanctua'ry.

The pews are of solid oak, plain but rich. The stalls for
the community are ranged close to the wall and are of the same
design as the altars. The two confessionals are on either side
of the door, and near by is a beautiful marble holy-water font.
Two organ-galleries are above the entrance, the lower one for
the organ and choir ; the upper, communicating with the infirm-
ary, is for the exclusive use of invalids.

The windows, from Mayer Brothers, Munich, are perfect ex-
amples of the pictorial art in stained glass. The first window re-
presents the Annunciation ; then come the other windows in
regular order surrounding that lovely interior, filling it with
" dim religious light " dyed with the prismatic colors of their
own deep glowing tints. The apparition of the Sacred Heart to
Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque ; the Nativity, a subject that
appeals to every human heart, foreshadowing the Divine Tragedy,
the close of which is shown in the window opposite ; the Pieta,
revealing that same Mother, thirty-three years older, with the
dead Christ on her lap. At the end of the chapel is Christ
Blessing Little Children, a beautiful window apt to be overlooked
in one hurried visit, remarkable for the benign expression on
our Lord's face as he looks with love at the little ones about
his feet. The other windows contain single figures, two in each.

These windows, irrespective of their religious import, are
works of art in the highest sense ; they are made entirely of
the finest English antique glass, and the cartoons were drawn
by the artists of the Munich Academy. The color is rich and
glowing, deep and bright without approaching gaudiness ; the
impression made is one of deep devotion. Here art is in its
highest sense a handmaid to religion.

The Stations of the Cross are exceedingly beautiful ; the fig-
ures, very near life-size, stand out in bold relief, and are entirely
free from color, being of a creamy whiteness most refreshing to
the eye. The entire chapel is a monument of sacred art, and
was built under Mother O'Meara's supervision, was dedicated on
May 2, 1889, and consecrated by Bishop Hennessy, of Dubuque.

At the door we turned and looked back. A few black-robed
figures knelt in silent communion with our Lord ; the light was
dying out of the stained windows, but in the fast gathering dark-
ness the sanctuary lamp shone brighter than before. Such, I
thought, is the light of faith, shining ever clearer in the darken-
ing world of infidelity.

I893-]

MAR YVILLE.

68 *

Before continuing our tour through the house and grounds,,
a few words as to the educational methods pursued at Mary-
ville.

As in all Catholic educational systems, the aim is not only to-
cultivate the intellect, but a special study is made of that which
must characterize all Christian education, the training of the

A MOST BEAUTIFUL ALTAR AND SANCTUARY.

heart. The child's three-fold nature is developed, not ignored.
The ladies are continually supervising, in study hours and in
recreation, and thus are constantly moulding the plastic child-
nature with firm and gentle touches. The utmost simplicity is
cultivated. Even non-Catholics testify that a pupil of the Sacred
Heart is always recognizable by the quiet elegance of her man-
ner.

Though English is the language of the institution, special
attention is paid to foreign tongues. The Society of the Sacred
Heart being cosmopolitan, has always a corps of teachers thor-
oughly versed in all the modern languages. In the departments
of music, art, and science the ablest instructors are secured.

682

MARYVILLE.

[Feb.,

St. Luke's Academy, an adjunct of the Art Studio, forms one of
the most interesting features of Maryville. Its members are
recruited from the advanced students of the art class, who in
the weekly lectures on the theory and history of art are made
acquainted with the masterpieces of every age, by means of il-
lustrations and reproductions of various kinds. The recent art
exhibition given by the pupils would have done credit to any
studio. The teacher in charge of the studio for many years was
a German lady who studied in the art schools of Germany, and
the one at present in charge is a grandniece of Gustave Dore".

The library contains over five thousand volumes, to which
the pupils have access at all times under the wise supervision
of their mistresses. Literature is taught with special care ; from

THE STUDIO.

the fifth class up the pupils follow a systematic course of read-
ing which includes American, ancient, modern, and mediaeval his-
tory. Foreign literature is carefully and exhaustively treated.
Translations are made from Schiller, Racine, and all the best
poets, and critical and analytical essays are part of class-work.
Philosophical lectures are delivered to the higher classes by
the Rev. C. P. Smith and other learned professors. The best
essay on these subjects as a digest of the lectures for the year
takes the philosophy medal at the end of the term.

It has been said by those who do not approve of the ad-
vanced spirit of the times in regard to the education of woman,

1893-] MARYVILLE. 683

that when a woman is educated beyond her sphere she is un-
qualified for her^ duties at the fireside or to lead a private home-
life. We do not always realize that the education of woman
means the education of the race. There is no knowledge of
history or geography, no acquaintance with public affairs, no
range of scientific study, that may not come into play in a
mother's education of her children. The -strong, subtle influence
goes on in ever-widening circles that do not die away until
their force is spent on the shores of eternity.

The system of education pursued by the Ladies of the Sacred
Heart is one that, following as it does the plan of the Catholic
Church, takes most careful account of the individual develop-
ment of its subjects. Perhaps to the student herself is the full
scope of this system best portrayed, and then not while within
the class-room walls, but when she stands alone on the threshold
of life, her school-days behind her for ever.

Were I asked to define the specific object of the training
given in a convent of the Sacred Heart, I should answer : first,
to give an exalted view of life to the women destined to live
in the world ; secondly, to foster in them a keen sense of per-
sonal responsibility. It has been said that this " exalted view
of life " is not the best armor with which to equip the young
soldier just starting out on life's low battle-ground. To my
mind it is the recognition of the highest and best that God has
given to the pure young soul. Give her ideals, and by her strife
in living up to them she will raise herself and the weary, earth-
bound souls around her.

Scarcely has the young girl entered upon the routine of
daily studies in one of these convents when gradually, almost
unconsciously, she realizes that a new dignity has come to her,
a privilege that will ever be to her a seal of distinction that
of being a pupil of the Sacred Heart.

" Noblesse oblige " is now her standard and actuates every
performance of her life. In later years, when the conflict comes
concerning the things that are Caesar's and the things that are
His, when the world claims its own and the line of demarcation
is not definitely drawn between meum and tuum, let the con-
vent-bred woman but look to her standard. Therein is found
the solution of all her difficulties. Within those convent walls
she has laid a foundation for an education as broad as the
world, she has acquired a power of discrimination by which she
can assimilate all that is good in the life that lies around her,
rejecting that which is hurtful to the purity of her soul.

684

MARYVILLE.

[Feb.,

If the Catholic woman of to-day would remain in the path
suggested to her by her convent training, would continue her
education along the lines laid out for her by that training, and
mentally and morally finish the good work begun by her in-
structors, her supremacy would be vast enough to satisfy even
those who seek so eagerly the advancement of her sex. By
" right divine " she is the worthy sovereign of men's hearts and
homes, and with her strong, well-trained hand rocking the cradle
she can move the world.

As we stood on the porch with our gentle guide, it was dif-

A GROUP AT THE GROTTO.

ficult to realize that only eighteen years have passed since this
was Withnell's Grove. What was then a natural wild has been
cultivated to the fullest extent, making the surroundings of
Maryville a noticeable part of its famous beauty. North of the
building lies a magnificent grass-plot shaded by native oaks
which thrive in the very shadow of town steeples. To the
south lies the children's playground, from which comes the
sound of happy voices making music in the still, cool air as
their enthusiasm mounts high over an exciting game of tennis
played by the best two sets in the school. These grounds ex-
tend to the " near woods." Close by is the shrine of Our Lady

1 893.] MARYVILLE. 685

of Lourdes, where very often may be seen nuns and pupils ask-
ing a blessing on their various occupations. Crossing a frail,
narrow wooden bridge, we are in the " far woods," which are
dark with the shade of the evergreen ; to the right lie the pas-
ture-land, garden, and orchard. Surrounding the grounds is a
handsome gray stone wall, and directly in front of the main
building is a beautiful terrace of the same material.

The main object of the madames is to make their charges
happy, and, judging by the bright countenances of the pupils,
they have not failed. Good manners are with them founded
on true charity. Each individual character is studied and de-
veloped accordingly. Body, soul, and mind are trained in com-
plete harmony. Such is the strong, sweet influence of these
noble women on the minds and hearts of the girls who are
to become the leaders of the social, literary, and home life
of our Republic. Founded in France during the Reign of
Terror, when the flame of religion in that unhappy country
was all but stamped out by the iron heel of revolution, the
order was established for the purpose of educating young
womanhood, thus stemming the tide of infidelity sweeping over
Catholic France. Here in our own independent America these
spiritual daughters of saintly Mother Barat, by their own labor
and example, create a royalty that recognizes among its members
those only of mental and moral worth, and the solid education
of whose children's children in the years to come will form a
bulwark against the encroachments of all evil.

The old Sacred Heart Convent in St. Louis has a most
interesting history. In its long register of names may be
found representatives of the most distinguished families of St.
Louis and the West. Among its former patrons are the Pratts,
Mulanphys, Chouteaus, Maffitts, Benoists, Withnells, Haydels,
Papins, Slevins, Sturgises, Ewings, Christies, and hundreds of
others since 1827, thoroughly identified with the business and
social interests of the city. The traditions of the school have
not been broken ; from the old house to the new another gen-
eration carries the familiar names and emulates the virtues of
the mothers and grandmothers who, under the Sacred Heart's
judicious training, have been instructed and fortified for the du-
ties of .life.

At the close of the scholastic year the students receive the
rewards for close application and successful work. The highest
prize awarded by the institution is the " Premium Excellence."
It is bestowed on the young lady who obtains the prizes of sue-

686

MAR YVILLE.

[Feb.,

cess and diligence in English studies, Christian Doctrine in the
First Division, exemplary conduct, First Medallion, and First
Ribbon of Merit, any one of these prizes being considered a
great achievement in itself and sufficient for the ordinary school-
girl. The prize of Excellence, therefore, is a proof of distin-
guished intellectual and moral qualities combined. The happy
winner of its crown of gold laurel is allowed to give a holiday
to her companions during the next year. During the twenty

Miss FLORIDA S HALOING.

years of Maryville's existence this premium has been awarded
five times, the wearers of the golden laurel being Misses Laura
Haydel, Josephine Erd, Mary Sturgis, Louise Keber, and in
1892 Clara Rosenfeld.

Miss Haydel is the niece of Dr. J. L. Haydel, of St. Louis,
an old resident and distinguished physician. She married Dr.
Le Beau, who has won prominence as an oculist.

Miss Erd, now Mrs. Joseph Schneider, resides in Monterey.

Miss Sturgis is the daughter of the late General S. D. Stur-

I893-]

MARYVILLE.

687

gis, one of the heroes of the Civil War ; her brother, a gallant
young soldier, was one of the victims in General Custer's ill-
fated band. Miss Sturgis is a young woman of remarkable and
brilliant talent as well as a noted society belle.

Miss Keber, daughter of Mr. M. Keber, of St. Louis, entered

the Society of the Sacred Heart the day she was graduated, June,
1882. She was gifted in many ways and combined rare qualities
not often found in one so young: a mature judgment, high or-
der of intelligence, and saintly virtue. Her German parentage
showed itself in a wonderful talent for music, and she was a dis-
tinguished performer on the organ, piano, and harp. After ten

688 MARYVILLE. [Feb.,

years of religious life her career of usefulness was arrested by
consumption, and after lingering for many months she died at
Maryville, October 27, 1892.

Miss Clara Rosenfeld, of Pueblo, Colorado, is another winner
of the Excellence prize whose strong character will leave its mark
for good on the world around her. Her father was a physician
of great promise, but being stricken with blindness while his

Miss CLARA ROSENFELD.

large family was still dependent, the care and training fell en-
tirely into the hands of her noble, true-hearted mother, whose
decease during her daughter's school-term threw a gloom over
the girl's happiest period. Notwithstanding this great grief the
term was finished most creditably to her instructors and herself,
she taking the Excellence prize that for nine years had remained
unwon. Her education was begun in the public schools of New
York, but was completed and rounded into perfect harmony at
Maryville.

Miss Louise Boisliniere is another of those noble women who
seem to understand that life is given to us as a trust, by means

1893-] MARYVILLE. 689

of which we are to work for God's own children. Her father,
Dr. Louis Boisliniere, has been for years at the head of the
medical faculty in St. Louis. Miss Boisliniere, after graduating
with high honors, coveted to be more than a mere society wo-
man, though for that role her brilliant talents eminently fitted
her. She has been the soul of every good work inaugurated in
St. Louis for God's glory and the benefit of the poor; all the
rich energies of her nature have been devoted to the promotion
of his interests.

Miss Onahan, daughter of William Onahan, a prominent
Chicago Catholic, distinguished speaker and writer, and secretary
of the Catholic Congress in Baltimore, was a sometime pupil
of this famous convent. Miss Onahan has inherited the strong
intellectual tastes of her father's family, and has contributed
many articles to magazines and reviews, and has a graceful,
pretty style.

A graduate of Maryville in '91, Mary Florida Spalding, whose
taste for literature is a birthright, coming as she does from the
distinguished family of that name, has attracted considerable pub-
lic attention by a successful competition opened to student au-
thors of all schools, including public and classical colleges. The
winning of first prize over the hundreds entered in the contest
by this young girl of eighteen for a philosophical essay, entitled
" Proofs of Creation," was a triumphant demonstration of con-
vent education. In her letter of acknowledgment to the St.
Louis Post Dispatch, the journal awarding the prize, she gen-
erously gives the credit of success to her Alma Mater as " a
logical result of a thorough system of mental training." Miss
Spalding's future gave promise of a most successful literary ca-
reer, but since that day of triumph this bright young life has
been dedicated to the service of God. She entered the novitiate
at St. Michael's, Louisiana, being the second of her family who
has joined the Order of the Sacred Heart.

Such is the record of Maryville Convent, which " crowns " St.
Louis and is honored all over the Christian educational world;
such the record of one of the ideal sides of the great city that
will do more for its real welfare than all of its material re-
sources put together. The Sacred Heart religious are here car-
rying on the good work, blessed with the blessing of Christ.

" O hearts of love ! O souls that turn,
Like sunflowers, to the pure and best,
To you the truth is manifest ! "
VOL. LVI. 47

690 A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. [Feb. r

A PEOPLE'S RANSOM.

'HE existence of an association for the ransom of
captives in England, of all places in the world,
and in this latter part of the nineteenth cen-
tury, of all conceivable periods of time, will no
doubt appear to many persons to be a glaring
and unaccountable anachronism.

But, after all, physical captivity is not the only form of
slavery to which mankind is subjected, though it is unquestion-
ably the one which appeals most forcibly to the sympathetic in-
stincts of our nature. There is an intellectual and spiritual as
well as a bodily yoke, and it is in respecf of this mental species
of serfdom that the British people notwithstanding their proud
boast that they " never will be slaves," in the ordinary accepta-
tion of the word offer a peculiarly appropriate field for the
labors of the ransomer.

A SPIRITUAL CAPTIVITY.

The assertion may possibly shock the susceptibilities of the
modern school of writers and thinkers ; but to our mind there is
a distinct analogy between the physical slavery which prevailed
in the past, and which unhappily exists even at the present day
among some of the more barbarous nations of the earth, and
the mental condition, so far as religious doctrine is concerned,
of the great mass of the civilized and enlightened peoples who
are born without the faith. Like the hereditary captive, they
are not personally responsible for their condition. They are
born in the bondage into which their ancestors were bartered or
driven many centuries ago ; and it has never occurred to them
to do otherwise than submit passively to the circumstances in
which they have been brought up. In a word, they are the vic-
tims of that " invincible ignorance " which, paradoxical though
it may appear, is at once the chief source of their evils and, in
the eyes of theologians, their only hope of ultimate salvation.
So far the analogy of the captive is complete.

But it is just at the very point where the similarity breaks
off that the great difficulty in the way of emancipation is to be
found. If the parallel were consistent throughout the work of

1893.] A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. 691

freeing these spiritual captives would be easy enough ; but the
great difficulty referred to lies principally in the fact that the
captivity against which it is sought to contend has about it, in
the eyes of the world, all the elements of apparent freedom.
True it is the freedom of the sheep straying on the mountains,
a prey to all the pitfalls and dangers that surround it, as com-
pared with the gentle restraint imposed on the sheep that is
tended within the fold ; but in these days the shibboleth of
liberty is always a sufficient recommendation in itself, and but
rarely receives a really critical examination. All men do not
discriminate between real and apparent liberty with the same
clearness of perception as does Professor Ruskin. " I know
not," says the great prose-poet, " if a day is ever to come when
the nature of right freedom will be understood, and when men
will see that to obey another man, to labor for him, yield rev-
erence to him or to his place, is not slavery. It is often the
best kind of liberty liberty from care. . . . To yield rever-
ence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal,
is not slavery ; often it is the noblest state in which a man can
live in this world."

THE GUILD OF OUR LADY OF RANSOM.

We have dwelt thus on the simile of the captive because it
is on this figurative basis that an organization of English Catho-
lics has sprung up within the past six years, and has already
done a large amount of spiritual and practical work.

The task of redeeming our fellow-creatures from slavery of
the physical order has always held a foremost place among acts
of Christian philanthropy, and from the days of St. Gregory the
Great to those of Leo XIII. the church has invariably set the
seal of her approval upon such efforts ; but, though the duty of
breaking the bodily chains has thus been almost universally rec-
ognized, the far more imperative duty of destroying the fetters
which keep men in the bondage of spiritual error has never, till
now, formed the avowed object of concerted and systematic
operation on the part of any large body of Catholics in Eng-
land. Much, it is true, has been done by individuals, or by
groups of individuals, towards attaining this desirable object.
Father Ignatius Spencer, as Catholics need scarcely to be re-
minded, labored zealously during the greater part of his life to
induce his co-religionists to pray for England's conversion.
Others, too, have devoted themselves earnestly to the cause of
the church ; but their labors have been, for the most part, of a

692 A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. [Feb.,

sporadic character, and there has been but little approach to
combined and continuous action.

Remembering the signal triumph of the Catholic Association
in its great work of emancipating the Catholics of England, it
is not surprising that the Catholic body, in the full enjoyment
of their present freedom from persecution, should betake them-
selves to some similar combination of strength in the interests
of their Protestant fellow-countrymen. The Catholic Associa-
tion, in agitating for Catholic emancipation, strove for and ac-
complished that which many, even among Catholics themselves,
regarded as a practical impossibility.

The Guild of Our Lady of Ransom has now sprung into
existence, bent upon accomplishing the more ambitious, the
more important, and the far more herculean work of Protestant
emancipation ; and we can only hope that their labors also will
be crowned with success. In some respects the one organization
may be regarded as the necessary outcome and corollary of the
other, for Catholic emancipation was an obvious preliminary to
the return of England to her old fidelity to the church. It was
the first great step in the desired direction, and it was confident-
ly hoped by Catholics that if once the church were allowed the
free exercise of her sacred functions, and if her children were
no longer under the ban of exclusion from the ordinary rights
of citizenship, she would gradually but steadily win her way
back to her old place in the hearts and conscisnces of the peo-
ple. This was the hope of her friends, as it was the fear of her
enemies, and the three-score years that have elapsed since the
great act of liberation was passed have done something, at least, to
confirm this anticipation. During the whole of that period the
work of reconciliation has made visible progress; and it is but
natural that Catholics, encouraged by the confidence which is
the inevitable result of their success, should seek now, by means
of some comprehensive and active organization, to hasten a
work which is of such paramount and vital importance. Twenty
years ago such an organization would have been impracticable,
and if started would have had but little prospect of bearing
fruit. To-day it is not only possible, but has been accepted
without a murmur from the English community, save, indeed,
from those scattered and diminishing sects who form, as it were,
the smouldering embers of past persecutions, and who fear lest
the operations of the guild may rob them of their last stray
remnants of influence and authority.

1893-] A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. 693

FATHER PHILIP FLETCHER ORGANIZES THE GUILD.

The organization to which we are now about to refer in
more detail owes both its first inception and its subsequent de-
velopment mainly to the energy of Father Philip Fletcher, a
priest and a convert, who has thrown himself into the work
with a self-devotion that would do much even for an indifferent
cause, and which, when given to so good and laudable an object,
cannot well fail to be successful. Father Fletcher was formerly
an Anglican curate at one of the "highest" of the Ritualistic
churches of Brighton ; and his conversion to Catholicism, occur-
ring as it did almost simultaneously with that of his two col-
leagues in the Protestant ministry now Fathers J. J. Greene,
O.S.C., and H. M. Parker, S.J. and over one hundred members
of their flock, caused quite a sensation in the church circles of
England's most fashionable watering-place. The story even runs
that the remaining members of the congregation were so scared
at this wholesale desertion by their brethren that they organized
special services at which they offered up prayers that they, too,
might not be converted to Rome.

Father Fletcher, from the moment when he realized the
errors of Anglicanism and entered the one true church, set him-
self zealously to work to extend to others the blessings which
he himself enjoyed. His feelings and aspirations in this matter
are perhaps best expressed in his own words, addressed last
year to a gathering of Belgian Catholics at Malines. " Thou-
sands of my fellow-countrymen," he said, " have for three hun-
dred years been victims of that terrible evil, the Reformation
and I was one of those victims ; but through the mercy of God
thirteen years ago I was led to the true church, and now I de-
sire nothing better than to spend my life in doing all I can,
with God's help, to bring others to the same happiness which I
have found myself." This simple yet earnest declaration forms
the key and secret of the movement out of which the Guild of
Our Lady of Ransom has grown.

THE GROWTH OF THE GUILD.

But the organization of the guild was not all thought of at
once. Like most other important works it has grown up from
a very small and imperfect beginning, and, though it is still in
little more than its infancy, it has already assumed a symmetry
of form and largeness of dimensions that were not dreamt of at
the time of its modest inauguration. Its operations at the out-

694 A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. [Feb.,

set were of an exclusively spiritual and of a wholly passive de-
scription, and its more vigorous and combative characteristics
were altogether an after-thought, and were suggested instinc-
tively by the remarkable and spontaneous development of the
early design.

The first beginning was in the year 1886, when Father
Fletcher, then working as a missionary priest at Uckfield, in
Sussex, started an unpretentious little periodical devoted to the
work of England's conversion, and especially to the commemora-
tion of the fact that the Catholic Church was the .ancient
Church of the English people. For this pious little journal he
adopted the appropriate name of " Faith of Our Fathers," hav-
ing previously obtained the sanction of Cardinal Gibbons, who,
like Father Faber before him, had already made use of the
title for one of his works. Through the medium of this paper
a confraternity was started called " The Union of Intercession,"
the members of which just one hundred in number undertook
to offer daily prayers for the return of England to the faith.
In 1887 Mr. Lister Drummond, a Catholic layman who from
the first has entered heart and soul into the project, sug-
gested to Father Fletcher that the Union of Intercession might
be profitably and successfully expanded into an organization
having a larger scope and undertaking work of a practical as
well as of a spiritual nature. With this proposal Father Fletcher
readily complied, and the result was the constitution of a guild
upon lines that were at once poetic in their design and essen-
tially business-like in their method of operation. The original
idea remained the same, prayer for England's conversion being
the first and most essential obligation of membership ; but this
no longer stood alone.

WHERE THE IDEA OF THE RANSOMER CAME FROM.

The guild, as we have already indicated, is based upon the
analogy of the captive, and, with this thought in mind, its or-
ganizers, with a happy inspiration, adopted many of the forms
and titles employed by the two great orders which devoted
themselves in the thirteenth century to the special work of
ransoming those in physical captivity. Thus the title of the
guild is derived from the Order of Our Lady of Ransom (Sancta
Maria de Mercede) for the redemption of captives, founded by
St. Peter Nolasco in 1225, while most of its insignia are taken
from the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption
of Captives, founded about 1198 by St. John of Matha.

1893-] A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. 695

The supernatural incidents in the lives of these two saints
were peculiarly suggestive to any one engaged in the formation
of an association of this character. In the Breviary Legends
we are told that St. John of Matha, when saying his first Mass,
saw the vision of an angel dressed in a white robe, with a red
and a blue cross on either ^ side of the breast, while his hands,
which were crossed before him, rested upon the heads of two
captives, one a Christian and the other a Moor. From this the
saint learned that he was destined for the redemption of cap-
tives, and at once began, in conjunction with St. Felix of Valois,
to organize the Order of the Most Holy Trinity. The approval
of Innocent III. was accorded to the work after a vision similar
to that which had been seen by St. John had appeared to the
Holy Father, and on the advice of the pope the white robe with
the red and blue crosses was adopted as the habit of the new
order. From this incident Father Fletcher has taken the badges
for the three classes of Ransomers, the white cross, the red
cross, and the blue cross.

The legend of St. Peter Nolasco was equally suggestive.
Born in 1189, the heir to a large property, St. Peter, we are
told, devoted himself early in life to the service of God, and
when, at the age of twenty-five, he was sent to the court of
Barcelona as tutor to the young Prince James, he was so moved
with compassion by the condition of Spain under the Moors that
he expended his entire fortune in ransoming slaves from cap-
tivity. Having in this way exhausted his own resources, he
sought to fire others with a like enthusiasm, and to start an
order for the redemption of slaves. Obstacles, however, pre-
sented themselves, and for some time threatened to defeat his
project, when one day our Blessed Lady appeared in separate
visions to St. Peter, to his confessor St. Raymund of Pennafort,
and to the King of Aragon, and gave assurances of her power-
ful protection. From that moment the way became clear. The
order was founded on August 10, 1223, and was confirmed by
Pope Gregory IX. in 1225. It consisted of two sections the
friars, who followed the conventual rule, and the knights, who
defended the coast and joined the choir when not on duty.

From this order Father Fletcher has not only taken the
name of his guild, as well as the happy generic title of " Ran-
somer" which was given by St. Peter to those of his brethren
who were appointed to go amongst the infidels for the purpose
of ransoming Christian slaves, but he has also adopted much the
same division in the character of the members, by having one

696 A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. [Feb.,

class whose duty is purely of a contemplative or spiritual char-
acter, and another who are both contemplative and active.

IT IS GIVEN AN ENGLISH COLORING.

But, though he has appropriated thus freely and judiciously
some of the leading features of the two orders referred to, he
has not by any means allowed all his ideas to be derived from
a foreign source. The great aim of his work from the outset
as was sufficiently indicated by the title " Faith of our Fathers "
was to emphasize and popularize the old English Catholic tra-
dition, and with this object still steadfastly in view, he has con-
trived ingeniously to blend with his relics of continental mediae-
valism more than one appropriate reminder of the firm faith
that characterized our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. While naming
his association after the order of St. Peter Nolasco, he gave it
at the same time the essentially English title of Guild a title
which is inseparably associated with the philanthropic move-
ments of the early English Church.

In the same way, in selecting a badge for the society he
took the sacred device of the Five Wounds, which formed the
banner of the zealous northern Catholics in their Pilgrimage of
Grace, when, in the early part of the sixteenth century, they
marched heroically into the field in defence of the ancient reli-
gion of their land. Thus, too, in prescribing the prayer for
the daily use of Ransomers, he chose the simple and appropri-
ate ejaculation of the Franciscan martyr, the V. Henry Heath,,
on the scaffold of Tyburn (1643): "Jesus, convert England.
Jesus, have mercy on this country." This, with the Hail Mary
and the aspirations, " Our Lady of Ransom, pray for us ; St.
Gregory, pray for us ; Blessed English martyrs, pray for us," forms
the daily office of the society. In placing the guild under the
heavenly patronage of our Blessed Lady, St. Gregory, and the
English martyrs, Father Fletcher was again mindful of the na-
tional as well as the Catholic character of his work. He did
not forget that Britain was once styled " The Dowry of Mary,"
and he rightly recognized, also, that the names of St. Gregory
" the Apostle of England " and the English martyrs should
always command an especial veneration at the hands of the
Catholics of Great Britain ; for while the former was the cause
of the peaceful invasion of the country in the sixth century by
the apostles of the church, the latter resisted, even at the
cost of their lives, the internal rebellion in the sixteenth cen-
tury against her divine authority.

1893-] A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. 697

FATHER FLETCHER SHOWS THE SPIRIT OF THE MOVEMENT.

In writing, at the time when the guild was formed, of the
general spirit of the movement and of its especial association
with St. Gregory, Father Fletcher said :

"We would be Ransomers by prayer and by work, by charity
and by sympathy, obtaining for those whom we would help the
grace which alone can redeem them. Whither would we lead
the captives when released ? They are Christians ; how, then, in
captivity ? There are other bonds besides those riveted by the
Moors. There are the bonds of heresy, in which some are cap-
tives willingly, some unknowingly, some with yearnings for re-
lease. With these chains of heresy are interwoven others, of
position, society, family, and the like, which render the escape
even of the most anxious very difficult. Whither should they
escape ? There were English slaves once in the Roman market-
place, who found in the successor of St. Peter their deliverer
not so much from the chains which bound their bodies as from
the iron which entered their souls ; not for themselves only, but
for their countrymen also. True it was from paganism that St.
Gregory delivered our Saxon forefathers then ; now it is from
an imperfect Christianity that the missionaries of the Vicar of
Christ would release their fellow-countrymen, winning them back
to that happy allegiance to the Holy See which brings with it
true liberty, because peace of conscience resulting from definite
teaching and means of grace. ' He loveth our nation and hath
built us a synagogue ' was the centurion's recommendation in
the Gospel; how much more deeply is this true of St. Gregory,
who indeed loved our Anglo-Saxon nation and built up the
church fof it. Let us take the words of St. Gregory, when
he saw the English boys in the market-place, and apply them
to our work. These boys, he was told, were Angles. ' 'Tis well,'
said he, ' for they have an angel-like appearance, and such as
they should be co-heirs of the angels in heaven.' We, too, know
how good, how pious, how exemplary are numbers and numbers
of those for whose conversion we pray ; we feel how fit they
are (more fit, we often feel, than we ourselves, apart from our
faith) to be companions of the angels. Let this move us all
the more to pray earnestly for them that they may gain admis-
sion to the full privileges of the communion of saints and
angels. 'Where were they dwelling?' ' Deira,' was the reply.
' Well again/ said the saint. ' From wrath (de ird) delivered and
called to the mercy of Christ.' There is no state so sadly
exposed to the wrath of God as the state of wilful apostasy.
That those in danger of falling into that state, that those who
are already sitting in its deadly shadow may be delivered de ira
Dei, from the wrath of God, must be one of the most earnest
prayers of Ransomers. Finally, 'Who was their king?' 'Aelle.'
Then he, alluding to the name, said, ' Alleluia ! The praise of
God their Creator must be sung in those parts.' '

698 A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. [Feb.,

AN OUTLINE OF THE CONSTITUTION.

The above passage sums up tersely and effectively the spirit
which animates the members of the guild. But, to turn now
from first principles to details, it will be as well to give a rough
outline of the constitution of the society. The members are
divided into three separate grades, their classification being as
follows :

(1) White Cross Ransomers (patron, St. Gregory), consisting
of priests who offer the Holy Sacrifice, at least once a year,
for the conversion of England and the other intentions of the guild.

(2) Red Cross Ransomers (patrons, the Blessed English mar-
tyrs), consisting of members who both work and pray for the
objects of the guild. These are the officers or promoters, and
have power to enroll others.

(3) Blue Cross Ransomers (patron, our Blessed Lady), con-
sisting of members who pray for the objects of the guild. These
undertake simply to say the prayer of the guild every day.

The general object of the work is set forth in one compre-
hensive sentence : " To ransom souls from the captivity of error
in this world, and of Purgatory in the next "; and the means by
which these great ends are to be attained are thus simply enu-
merated: (i) Holy Mass on the part of White Cross Ransomers;
(2) Work on ' the part of Red Cross Ransomers ; (3) Prayer on
the part of all Ransomers. The special intentions for which
prayers are to be offered are three in number, namely :

i) The conversion of our country in general, and of Individ-
uals in particular.

(2) The rescue of apostates and those in danger of apostasy.

(3) The forgotten dead, who, owing to the Reformation, or
to being isolated converts, or other causes, are without special
Masses and prayers.

Two books are kept by the guild in which are entered the
names of " captives " to be ransomed, or of those whose emanci-
pation has been secured. The former is entitled the " Interces-
sion Book," and contains the names of those individuals for
whose conversion special prayers are asked ; the latter is styled
the " Deo Gratias Book," and in it are placed the names of those
who have come over to the church. The two volumes form, as
it were, the spiritual ledger of the guild, and it not infrequent-
ly becomes the pleasing duty of its officers to transfer names
from the debit to the credit account. Before turning to the
more active operations of the movement, it is important to men-

1893-] A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. 699

tion that already more than one thousand priests have been en-
rolled as White Cross Ransomers the late Cardinal Manning
having headed the list and thus over three thousand Masses are
offered up annually for the conversion of England and kindred
intentions. Regular Masses are also said for the working Ran-
somers, and every month the Holy Sacrifice is offered up for
deceased members of the guild. The work of the society has
been approved and blessed by Pope Leo XIII. (May 18, 1889)
and by the English hierarchy, and the Holy Father has granted
plenary indulgences (by brief dated June 18, 1889) on the fol-
lowing days : (i) Feast of the Holy Name (second Sunday after
Epiphany) ; (2) Feast of our Lady of Ransom (September 24) ;
1(3) Feast of St. Gregory (March 12); (4) Day of admission; (5)
To priests, for one Mass in the year said for the intentions of the

guild.

A RANSOMER NOT ONLY PRAYS BUT WORKS.

Regarding it from its spiritual aspect alone, Catholics must
readily admit that the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom is an ex-
cellent and useful institution. If it attempted nothing more than
thus to storm Heaven with prayers, it might still claim that it
was doing much to bring about the realization of its desires.
But the guild is not content merely with this. Remembering
St. Paul's description of faith without works, it has entered up-
on an active as well as a spiritual crusade. The hands of the
prophet, it is true, are always upraised on the hill-top, but still
at the same time a vigorous little army in the valley is inces-
santly waging battle with the modern Amalekites. From this it
must not for a moment be imagined that the guild is in any sense
a proselytizing agency. It does not seek to ransom captives
against their will, or to use force in bringing about their con-
versions.

HE RECALLS THE MEMORIES OF CATHOLIC ENGLAND.

The influence which it exercises is mainly of an indirect
character, and it only steps into the active arena of theological
or historical controversy when forced to stand on the defensive
and champion the church's cause against the attacks and false-
hoods of her enemies. The indirect influence of the guild is
exercised in a variety of ways, but chiefly by its persistent and
praiseworthy efforts to cherish the old Catholic traditions of the
English people. And in this work it has assuredly plenty of
opportunities at hand. The old Catholic landmarks abound in
every part of the country, in spite of three centuries of Protes-

7oo A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. [Fe'\,

tantism, and form imperishable records of England's former fidel-
ity. The faith, it is true, of which they bear witness may have
died out as a national sentiment, but the memories of it re-
main. For three hundred years they have stood before the
English people like the sepulchres of a buried but never-to-be-
forgotten past, and the circumstance that they should now be
used as instruments and centres in the work of Catholic revival
is pleasantly suggestive of the Resurrection. The old abbeys
and shrines to which pilgrimages were formerly made, but which
for many years have been the scenes only of picnics and excur-
sion parties, are once again being put to their ancient uses.
Under the auspices of the guild and kindred bodies many of
these places have already been visited, and the practice is evi-
dently growing in popularity. It can well be imagined that to
the Catholic mind these historic spots afford opportunities for
something more than mere antiquarian research. They are sur-
rounded by memories which are indelibly recorded in the tradi-
tions of each locality, but which time and custom have been
allowed to dull and obliterate, and it is well, therefore, that
they should be periodically and publicly revived, for nothing but
good can result from such a process. Among the more impor-
tant pilgrimages instituted by the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom
are those to the two ancient Catholic centres of York and Canter-
bury, as well as one to the tomb of St. Edward the Confessor
in Westminster Abbey, while the shrine of Our Lady of Wal-
singham and the venerable city of St. Albans have also attract-
ed the attention of the society.

But it is not only the memorials of pre-Reformation Catholi-
cism that are made objects of veneration by members of the
guild ; there are other and not less hallowed monuments which
are the actual creation of the Reformation itself. The persecu-
tion carried on by the reformers, so far from destroying, served
rather to multiply these centres of Catholic devotion ; for, while,
in perverting the monasteries and other religious institutions to-
secular uses, they failed to stamp out the memories associated
with them, they at the same time converted Tyburn and other
scenes of ignominy into places of hpnor and reverence, so that, lik<
the cross of old, the gallows was once more transformed into a-
rostrum. These places, too, are duly commemorated by the
'guild, as was sufficiently evidenced by the recent pilgrimage to
York, when the one thousand pilgrims who attended, after rever-
ently visiting the tomb of St. William in the Minster, marched
in procession to York Tyburn, the scene of the deaths of fifty-

1893-] A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. 701

one of the English martyrs, and afterwards to the Old Bar Con*
vent, where is preserved the hand of the Venerable Margaret
Qitheroe.

ENGLAND'S TOLERANT SPIRIT.

It is significant of the change which has come over the
spirit of English Protestantism that these demonstrations in the
open streets, and even in buildings which are now devoted to
the services of the state church, are not only regarded with an
absence of hostility, but with evident sympathy and respect.
The Protestant authorities of Canterbury Cathedral, York Min-
ster, and Westminster Abbey, so far from evincing any objection
to these exhibitions of Catholic piety within the historic build-
ings entrusted to their keeping, have, on the contrary, courte-
ously granted every facility for the convenience of the visitors.
Among the places of interest commemorated by the modern
Canterbury Pilgrims we may mention the Dane John, where the
Blessed John Stone was martyred ; the ruins of St. Augustine's
Monastery, within the grounds of the Anglican Missionary Col-
lege ; St. Martin's Church (the oldest in England), with the font
where St. Augustine baptized King Ethelbert ; St. Dunstan's
Church, where, in the family vault of the Ropers, is preserved
the head of Blessed Thomas More ; and the ancient inns and
hostelries used by the pilgrims of the early church. These dem-
onstrations, which are now of annual recurrence, are inspired by
the same spirit of simple devotion which characterized the pil-
grimages of happier days, and it is something for the guild to
boast of, that under its auspices the banners which bear witness
to the ancient faith are now, for the first time since the Refor-
mation, borne unmolested through the streets of Canterbury and
York at the head of a procession of Catholic pilgrims, all wear-
ing the badges of the society and singing the hymns of the
church. And in this movement the guild has shown no mere
insular spirit. It has given evidence of its true Catholicity by
carrying its operations still farther afield, and inaugurating Eng-
lish pilgrimages to the grotto at Lourdes and to the shrine of
Our Lady at Boulogne.

THE COMBATIVE PART OF THE MOVEMENT.

This systematic revival of pilgrimages forms, perhaps, the most
agreeable, as it is certainly the most picturesque and effective,
phase in the varied work of the guild. But there is another
department which, if less pleasing in its immediate surroundings,
is even more necessary, and this we have already described as

7c 2 A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. [Feb.,

the combative part of the movement. In spite of the gratifying
change which is to be noticed on almost every hand in the
attitude of non-Catholic Englishmen towards their Catholic fel-
low-subjects, it would be idle to deny that there is still a con-
siderable amount of bigotry and ignorance lying half-concealed
beneath the surface, which is now and again fanned into a feeble
flicker by some chance passing event. The foolish outburst of
intolerance excited by the election of the present Catholic Lord
Mayor of London is the most recent instance of this kind, and
though it was unpleasant enough in itself, it may serve to attract
the more general attention of the Catholic body to the insidious
efforts which are still being made by various obscure sects to
perpetuate the old calumnies against the church calumnies
which were once very widely credited by Protestants at a time
when their knowledge of the Catholic faith depended almost
solely upon hearsay, but which have been disdainfully rejected
by a generation that has enjoyed the privilege of seeing and
knowing the church in her true character.

With the spirit of bigotry in itself the guild is not directly
concerned, for prejudice is not to be removed by controversy,,
neither are individuals to be convinced against their will. But
what the guild does aim at (and what it does actually accom-
plish to a very considerable extent) is to counteract with the
most homely and forcible weapons at its command the bitter anti-
Catholic propaganda that is now being carried on. In this work
it acts in cordial co-operation with the Catholic Truth Society..
The church, like her Divine Founder, is ever the victim of false
testimony from without and of treachery and apostasy from her
own disciples, and so long as her enemies exhibit their old pre-
judiced credulity there will be no lack of persons able and will-
ing to cultivate so promising and lucrative a field. With bigotry
of the ordinary kind, as we have already intimated, the guild
has no actual concern ; for honest bigotry, no matter to what
creed it may belong, and no matter how mistaken it may be in it-
self, is but an earnest and proof of sincerity, and must always
command respect. But with the bigotry which is prompted before
all things and above all things by malice, which makes unscrupu-
lous use of notoriously discredited and discreditable instruments,,
which does not stop short even of suborning evidence which
bears the stamp of falsehood upon its face with such bigotry
as this the guild undertakes to cope by means of a very simple
and summary method. Its active members, derived largely from
the artisan and middle classes, devote themselves to this work
with a zeal and enthusiasm which is delightful to behold. They

1 893.] A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. 703

shadow the footsteps of the various " escaped nuns," apostate
priests, and other anti-Catholic lecturers, and circulate leaflets
setting forth their true character and antecedents, and this in
language so unmistakable that, if the statements were false, it
could not fail to command heavy damages in a court of law.
In most cases, too, pertinent questions are put to the lecturer
by authorized members of the guild, with the object of eliciting;
the true teaching of the church on the subjects under treatment.
Ransom lecturers, moreover, follow in the wake of their oppo-
nents with unerring regularity, so that the truth is propagated
on the very heels of the falsehood, and thus the bane is imme-
diately succeeded by the antidote. The importance of this mode
of operations cannot well be exaggerated.

THE APOSTOLATE OF THE PRESS.

Another useful part of the active work of the society is that
which is called the " Watch Tower " or the " Apostolate of the
Press." As Catholics in most countries are no doubt aware,
false and often malicious statements with regard to Catholic
teaching are constantly gaining currency through the correspon-
dence columns of the newspapers, and are calculated to do an
amount of harm which it is impossible to estimate and difficult
to counteract. To meet this evil in the only possible and effec-
tual way an ingenious system has been devised, in which all
members of the guild, even those least learned in theology and
history, can take an active part. All that the members of the
Apostolate of the Press have to do is to undertake to occupy,.
for a stipulated period, the " watch tower " in their own particu-
lar district that is to say, to make a close inspection during
the period named of the various newspapers, and to forward
any statements dealing with Catholic doctrine to the headquar-
ters of the guild, from whence answers written by duly qualified
persons are despatched. Occasionally, of course, the papers are
not liberal-minded enough to insert the replies ; but in the ma-
jority of cases the plan has been found to work exceedingly
well.

Into the other and less important phases of the ransom work
it is not necessary here to enter. Enough has been said to indi-
cate the general nature of the movement and the varied charac-
ter of its operations. Already, within the brief space of six years,
it has placed over thirty-five thousand members upon its muster-
roll, and has established more than one hundred and forty cen-
tres in different parts of Great Britain, besides opening branches
in several other countries. The flourishing state of the society

704 A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. [Feb.,

may be gathered from the fact that it is able to support an ex-
cellent monthly organ devoted to the propagation of its princi-
ples, and that it has started a fund for the erection of a thanks-
giving church in one of the most populous districts of London,
the cost of the undertaking to be defrayed by the thank-offer-
ings of converts.

THE GUILD WILL INTEREST US IN THE UNITED STATES.

In the United States, where we believe the guild has already
obtained some slight foothold, this general exposition of its
aims and methods may not, perhaps, be considered altogether
inappropriate at the present time, when a proposal has been made
for the establishment of a somewhat similar society having for its
object the conversion of America. The position of the church
in the two countries is, of course, widely different, as was very
forcibly pointed out by Cardinal Manning not long before his
death. The United States, the cardinal remarked, had, by the im-
migration of all the nations of Europe, received millions of
Catholics into the unity of its church, whereas England could
show nothing of the kind. In America, too, there were no tra-
ditionary obstacles, such as existed in England, and there was
nothing to hinder the expansion of the church, save, indeed, a
want of zeal and zeal, his eminence added, had never been
wanting. Yet, in spite of this undoubted difference, there is, we
cannot help thinking, a sufficiently broad, general analogy be-
tween the cases of the two countries to justify something in the
nature of united action. The vigorous methods of defence which
are deemed expedient in England may not, of course, be need-
ed on the opposite side of the Atlantic ; but there is no reason
why the Catholic peoples of the two worlds should not combine
in the important work of spiritual intercession. They are both aim-
ing at a common object, and in this first and most essential means
of attaining it they will find themselves upon common and con-
genial ground. It is true they may approach the task with dif-
ferent sentiments and with somewhat conflicting emotions.

AMERICAN CATHOLICS SHOULD INAUGURATE THE SAME WORK.

American Catholics may well enter upon such a work as part
and the most noble part of their general national progress ;
for each day they are encouraged by the reflection that their
Church occupies a position which it has never occupied before ;
each day they see the spiritual horizon of their country expand-
ing and brightening before them. With them there is no thought
of harking back, no remembrance of past retrogression ; their

1893-] A PEOPLE'S RANSOM. 705

course is one steady, unbroken advance. They have a distinct
and remarkable improvement in their position to point to in the
present, and this may well inspire them with an unbounded con-
fidence in the future. With English Catholics, though their hope
in the future is no less great, very different thoughts to these
are likely to force themselves uppermost. True, as a national
church they have a glorious past and noble traditions to look
back upon, to which America can lay no claim ; but the pride
which such a record might very naturally excite is, unhappily,
accompanied and overshadowed by the sense of humiliation which
.springs from the remembrance of their great national apostasy.
They are not engaged in cultivating a rich and virgin soil such
as that which is opening up before the missionaries of the West ;
they are seeking rather to reclaim from desolation a once fertile
pasturage, which has been trampled into arid unproductiveness
beneath the hoofs of a devastating army ; and to do this they
must first clear from the soil the stubborn tangle of bigotry,
prejudice, and intolerance which has fastened upon it with the
tenacity of evil weeds. It is no easy labor, and though they
may not enter upon it with quite the light-heartedness of the
Western pioneers, they at least bring to the task an earnest and
inflexible determination, and already they have achieved a very
considerable success. The position of the Catholic Church in
England is to-day as unlike the position it occupied half a cen-
tury back as the dawn is to night, or as springtime is to winter ;
and if this simile is to hold good to the end, if the church is to
once more emerge into all the fulness of the summer's day,
much indeed will depend upon the energy, the fervor, and the
perseverance of the Catholic body itself. In recent times these
qualities have never been wanting, though they may not always
have had a convenient and suitable channel in which to exert
themselves ; it is gratifying, therefore, to find them now united
in so practical and vigorous a movement as that which is being
carried on by Father Fletcher and his zealous band of Ran-
somers. The principles of that movement have here been set
forth in some little detail, but perhaps they are best summed up
in the simple language of Father Faber:

" Faith of our Fathers ! Mary's prayers
Shall win our country back to thee ;
And through the truth that comes from God,
England shall then indeed be free."

HENRY CHARLES KENT.

Kensington, London, England.
VOL. LVI. 48

706

THE WA Y I BECAME A CA THOLIC.

[Feb.,

THE WAY I BECAME A CATHOLIC.

:'D rather be a Jew than a Catholic!"

I said it most vehemently, and most sincerely
and seriously I meant it. For Jews I had con-
siderable respect ; I had nothing but abhorrence
for Catholics. It was a religion for the igno-
rant and idiotic of mankind ; no one with the slightest natural
good sense, let alone culture and education, could possibly be-
lieve in the idolatrous usages of the Catholic Church. It was
preposterous to try and make people believe that any one could
adhere to the Church of Rome and be anything save an utterly
despicable being.

Did I not have some Catholics among rny friends? Of
course not. Did I ever read any of their books ? Oh ! I knew
plenty about them in fact, all that was necessary ; of course I
had not read Catholic books ! No, most decidedly ; but I knew
what very clever men had said concerning them. The Catholic
faith was a religion in which a lot of unprincipled men, with
an arch-villain called the pope at the head of them, experiment-
ed as to how far they could impose upon a set of unsuspecting
imbeciles.

To-day the great majority of my friends are Protestants,
some of whom, while politely repressing their opinions in my
presence, hold exactly the views once held by me relative to the
Catholic Church the Roman Church they call it, rather begrudg-
ing us the title of " Catholic," since it has become fashionable
for Episcopalians to style themselves " Catholics, but not Roman
Catholics." I know others too tolerant or too indifferent about
religion in general to be bigoted ; but they all agree upon one
question, " How could you turn Catholic ?" One very frank in-
dividual put it thus : " How can you be a Catholic when you
were once a Christian ?"

Perhaps my conversion was slightly singular, for I began to
study the Catholic faith merely to prove I should never accept
it. I was a great admirer of Dr. , a prominent Presbyte-
rian minister, and wished to " join " his church. My Presbyte-
rianism was of the bluest sort, and I had no patience for peo-
ple who were not Presbyterians. As for Episcopalians, I con-

1893-] THE WAY I BECAME A CATHOLIC.

demned them unhesitatingly. They were entirely too near the
Catholics to be any good.

It was when my " joining the church " was close at hand
that a relative of mine who was a Catholic I had often fumed
at the thought calmly informed me that he would greatly like
me to be one also, saying that I should certainly be convinced
in the right direction if I examined into the teaching and gave
the Catholic faith a fair chance, with my much-prized know-
ledge of the various Protestant denominations. I hotly resent-
ed the suggestion ; at that time to tell me there was a possi-
bility of my becoming a Catholic seemed an insult to my intel-
ligence. Why, the very word Catholic, or any word pertaining
to it, such as Mass or Confession, made me uneasy. My hatred
was simply indescribable ; that is why I feel a throb of sympa-
thy for the most bigoted non-Catholic now. I know what it is
like to have that bitter, incensed feeling about anything Catholic.

My stormy raving was met by the quiet assurance that I
knew nothing of what I thought I knew a great deal. I was well
up in all that the enemies of the church said. What did I know
of her actual doctrines? For instance, I loudly ridiculed bob-
bing up and down as I called genuflecting before the altar.
Did I know why the " bobbing up and down " was done ? Cer-
tainly I did ; in adoration of the statues and things. " As a
matter of fact," said my relative, " that is not so ; and the rest
of your knowledge is about as accurate."

In the midst of my anger an idea flashed upon me. Yes, I
would do it study this complicated mechanism called a reli-
gion, and then meet my relative well armed and fairly matched.
The idea was fascinating. Vengeance was near at hand ; what
joy it would be to defeat him !

Accordingly I started, through the kindness of Sister ,

entering an advanced class in the Sunday-school, where for a
time to outward appearances things went smoothly enough, my
mental attitude being unknown to the teacher. Perhaps it was
a little bit odd that she never noticed I did not genuflect or
make the sign of the Cross. However, I had been in the
class about five months when the trouble came.

The teacher gave me the question, " What is the Blessed
Eucharist ?" I looked at her an instant, and then said : " I'm
not going to say what is in that book, because I don't believe
a word of it."

Miss was much amazed ; as for my companions well,

I think they were shocked.

7o8 THE WAY I BECAME A CATHOLIC. [Feb.,

The next Sunday afternoon Sister asked me to walk in

the convent-garden with her, and as gently as possible told me
I could no longer attend the Sunday-school. She said a great
many beautiful, noble things to me, and while I pitied her be-
cause she was a Papist, I had to admire her sincerely, and was
utterly astounded at her liberal ideas, for I had always believed
all Protestants were in the way to eternal perdition in the
minds of Catholics. This dignified, clever, and undeniably pious
woman told me to remain a Protestant always if I could be one
in good faith, and that as Catholic or Protestant she would
think just as much of me.

Of course I went no more to the Sunday-school ; but neither
could I resume attendance at the Presbyterian church, because
from the afternoon I had walked in the convent-garden with

Sister a horrible thought haunted me. What if I were

wrong in my Presbyterian convictions ? The possibility of such a
state of affairs persistently presented itself. I had not the
slightest belief in Catholic doctrines I mean in those peculiarly
Catholic but I admitted that whoever was right, I was not quite
positive it was myself. Perhaps the Episcopalians had the idea
perhaps the Baptists. Maybe, and this was alarming, it was Inger-
soll who was right after all. Who claimed to be sure of anything ?
Ingersoll made positive assertions, and the Catholic Church to
be sure, this was one reason why I used to hate it claimed
there could not be more than one church founded by Christ,
and, with marvellous audacity, claimed the honor of being the
only true church.

Protestants, with an inconsistency which I felt to be only
equalled by the daring impertinence of Rome, accepted varia-
tions of belief, while common-sense knew that if the Baptists
were right, the Episcopalians were wrong ; and where would the
Quakers come in ? A conviction slowly forced itself upon me :
I should end either a believer in Ingersoll's views or what I had
most despised in all the world a Catholic.

A great deal of reading, a great deal of arguing, a very
great deal of trouble, and I became absolutely certain, once and
for ever, that I believed in the Blessed Trinity.

More struggle, more difficulty, and constantly a fiery contro-
versy with a learned Catholic clergyman. I protested and ob-
jected, and made the most of the little that remained of my
Presbyterianism. I was arguing against myself as well as against
him, for in my own mental struggles the tumultuous crowd of
thoughts always finished up with this : " There is a true church,

THE WAY I BECAME A CATHOLIC. 709

because Truth could not contradict itself. Which church has
always claimed to be the true one ? "

Gradually I gave in on some points ; I accepted purgatory
and confession. A few more stormy weeks and I only refused
to believe two things: prayers to Mary and the saints, and the
doctrine of the Real Presence.

I first prayed to Mary in this wise : " If you can hear me,
obtain such and such for me." It was a sort of challenge to
the Mother of Christ. The first thing I asked of her seemed
well-nigh impossible ; my health was in danger when I obtained
a very evident answer to my prayers.

The Real Presence was the last stumbling-block. No, no,
no, I could not believe that ! Verily, it was a " hard saying."
And yet that sixth chapter of St. John troubled me. I read it
over and over, and I read explanations of it. I could not let
it alone. The reiterated words of Christ, so obviously expres-
sive : " Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink
his blood " " Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood "
" My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."
The hardness of the Jews going away ; then the treachery of some
of the disciples in following their example ; the pathos of Jesus
saying to the rest, " Will you also go away ? " The generosity
of faith in St. Peter when he answered, " Lord, to whom shall
we go ? Thou art Christ, the Son of God."

I could no longer put off my answer to that question, " Will
you also go away?" The final conviction swept over me I "be-
lieved " and was sure that I had found the truth. I made my
First Communion just a year and two days from the date upon
which I first entered the Sunday-school, a most obstinate and
zealous little Protestant. That First Communion was six years
ago. My Protestant friends varied a little in the time they pro-
phesied I should remain a Catholic ; some said six months, others
a year, but I believe they now regard me as gone past recall.
My change of belief called forth arguments, discussions, even
reproaches ; those who knew me during the time of the struggle
simply let me alone. Later friendships are the ones which
bring surprise and questions. Not without regret let me assert,
that most people are in the state in which I used to be, know-
ing little of that which they wish to discuss, and bringing for-
ward the most untrue and ridiculous statements. It is more
strange to find that a great many do not know even their own side,
being Episcopalians or Presbyterians merely because they were
born so. Outside of a few ministers, I have not met any one

THE WAY I BECAME A CATHOLIC. [Feb.,

who really believes Calvin's teachings. Several have said to me,
f< Oh ! I didn't know I was supposed to believe that, 11 when I
have spoken of some Presbyterian doctrine ; and I have never
found the Episcopalian who could reconcile himself to all the
degrees of High, Broad, and Low Church without considering
the dangerous developments of the Ritualistic body. For de-
fence they can, as a rule, only make unfounded accusations.
Fancy a clever, well-educated Protestant saying this: "You go
to confession, and believe that paying for your sins makes every-
thing all right." That neither I nor any other Catholics " pay "
for sins was an astounding revelation. When I added that a
real repentance was absolutely necessary for the validity of the
sacrament, with an additional resolution of never falling again
into the sins confessed, my friend looked very serious, and ad-
mitted that when thus explained confession seemed quite a
solemn and good thing.

The idea of the pope is, of course, a great bugbear to my
friends ; some seem to be willing to yield almost all points ex-
cept papal infallibility and authority. To be sure, nine-tenths of
Protestants do not know what the infallibility of the pope
means ; but that goes for nothing ; they think they do, and that
settles the matter. Press them, and one finds that the most
distinct of many confused and indistinct ideas is, that we be-
lieve all our popes are incapable of sin or human mistake. Tell
them flatly a pope might be a sinner, and see them stare. Add
that in private and personal matters the popes are liable to
make mistakes just as we are all apt to make them, for it is
most decidedly true that any one may fall, as many a one in
the world has fallen. Rather more meekly they may then ask,
" Well, what does infallibility mean ?" Concisely it means this :
Infallibility is an assistance of the Holy Ghost which secures
the pope from error when, as Visible Head of the church
Christ being the Invisible Head he defines a doctrine belong-
ing to faith or morals. Protestants may dissect this, and twist
it, and fuss over it ; if they are really in earnest the more they
exercise themselves with it the better; they are likely to ulti-
mately acknowledge, even though scornfully, as many have done
to me : " Yes, I see now ; and it is really quite necessary to
have a supreme and unquestioned authority to preserve unity
of belief." This, however, only amounts to admiring the govern-
ment of the church as a human scheme ; its divine institution
St. Peter's commission received directly from Christ they ignore
completely. I wonder if some or many Protestants have a sort

1893-] THE WAY I BECAME A CATHOLIC. 711

of undefined but desperate aversion towards St. Peter ? I used
to have. " The gates of hell shall not prevail "; " Thou art
Peter and upon this rock I shall build my church" ; " I will
give to thee the keys of heaven "; " Feed my lambs " as a
devout Presbyterian I certainly reverenced the Bible as much as
I now do as a Catholic ; but I used to hurry over these words ; I
did not like them nor St. Peter.

Not long ago I read in a daily paper that some one said in
many Ritualistic churches all that remained to be done in order
to cross the line to the Roman Church was to kiss the pope's
sandal. What if some day Episcopalians grow weary of their
shades of difference, their constant varying among themselves,
and elect to have an Episcopalian pope possibly called by
some other title ? Such a thing is possible, and not entirely
improbable. I wonder where the contested point would then
lie ? Perhaps, merely in the fashionableness of believing in an
English or an American chief bishop, instead of the one in
Rome. For fashion has much to do in this case.

A charming girl once said : " I don't care if the Catholics
are right ; if they are to be in heaven, I don't want to go there.
I am not in the habit of associating with such common, rough
people." There are many poor, rough Catholics, truly ; there
are also many of the poor who are certainly not Catholics.
Where are they ? Positively not in the churches where they are
supposed to belong. No ; as a minister said quite recently,
Protestants build palace-churches for people who live in pal-
aces. Who said, " The poor ye have always with you " ? To
remember those words of Christ is enough to make us quarrel
over who shall have most of the poor. It is dangerous to
scorn the poor who stream in and out of the Catholic churches.
They are a rather startling proof that in the church Christ's
words are amply fulfilled.

There is one accusation brought against me very frequently
and very animatedly that I call my friends "heretics" in my
heart, and believe that only Catholics will ever get to heaven. I
do neither the one nor the other. There was a learned doctor
of the church we call him " St." Augustine, and ask his inter-
cession before God who lived several centuries ago, and who
wrote in those far-off days when persecution and frequent mar-
tyrdom might have embittered the Christians, that any one who
firmly believed what he professed to believe, and was not a
Christian merely because he had never had an opportunity of
becoming convinced, really had the spirit of the Church, in that

712 THE WAY I BECAME A CATHOLIC. [Feb.

his own convictions were sincere, and was no heretic. I am per-
fectly sure that a great many Protestants are in good faith, and
that a great many Catholics are a disgrace to the name. And
yet I believe that a fair study into Catholic doctrines and insti-
tutions should convince every one of their truth and beauty. If
Protestants are not afraid of such a result why do they shun
the experiment ? Why do they accuse and malign, and never
investigate ? They take up the study of Buddhism, of Spiritual-
ism, of Theosophy; they say that some of Mohammed's words
are charming, and marvel at the wisdom of Confucius. Catholic
teaching they utterly despise and leave scornfully alone. Is
it just? Do they forget that Christ came unto his own and his
own received him not? and now they will not receive his-
church; they will not give it a hearing, one small chance
with all they know about the sects. Let them look into the
matter a little, even though only for amusement as they take
up Buddhism and the rest ; the amusement may change to-
grave interest, and later they may say with truth "to be loved
needs only to be seen." They need not start at once at the
deepest and hardest of theological books ; let them read a lit-
tle book called The Faith of Our Fathers ; it is direct, simple,,
and it wastes no words. I read the preface first, commencing it
dubiously ; it appealed irresistibly, and I rapidly read on until
I had finished. Later I studied and pondered a great many
more books, but I suggest only this one, because to read it is
no great undertaking for any one, and having read it, it will very
likely create a most excellent curiosity to read further and seek
for more information concerning the church which exercises a
world-wide influence.

I shall close with these words of St. Augustine : " Too late
have I known thee, Beauty ever ancient and ever new." They
express a great deal of what I feel ; but there are older and
grander words : " I believe in God, the Father Almighty, . . ,
and in Jesus Christ, his Son. ... I believe in the Holy Ghost r
the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgive-
ness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlast-
ing."

THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW.

Outcry against Free Trade in England It is somewhat re-
markable that just as the United States have taken so decided
a step in the direction of Free Trade as was involved in the
election of Mr. Cleveland, Great Britain should show signs of
wavering in what to many is almost a sacred cause. Such r
however, is the case, for although it is the custom of leading
politicians to declare protection to be completely outside of
the region of practical politics, and for the press in its most
magisterial manner to pronounce it an economic heresy, the to-
kens of a revulsion of feeling in its favor are too clear for
any one not prepossessed by foregone conclusions to ignore.
From one end of the kingdom to the other large numbers
of farmers have declared it to be the only remedy for the
long-continued depression under which agriculture has been suf-
fering for many years, and which has culminated this year in an
almost unparalleled catastrophe, due to the fact that while the
crops were destroyed the amount of foreign grain imported
made prices lower than ever before. In December a conference
was held in London to direct public attention to this grave
condition of agricultural affairs, at which representatives of every
interest connected with the cultivation of land land-owners,
tenant-farmers, and agricultural laborers were present, and which
formed, in the judgment of those even who disapproved of its
outcome, the largest and most representative gathering that has
ever been assembled in Great Britain. Many remedies for ex-
isting evils were discussed, but the only one which called forth
almost enthusiastic approbation was the proposal that competing
imports should pay a duty not less than the rates and taxes
levied on home productions.

Protection and Bread. Protection, therefore, is advocated
by a large majority of those engaged in what is even now the
largest and most important of British industries ; nor are its

714 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Feb.,

supporters confined to those who are dependent upon agricul-
ture. The Sheffield operatives have sent to Parliament for many
years one of the most ardent advocates of protection, and with-
in the last few weeks the representative assembly of active Con-
servative politicians has passed a resolution in favor of that modi-
fied form of protection advocated by the Imperial Federation
Trade League. The argument on the other side urged by prac-
tical politicians an argument which they look upon as demon-
strative and conclusive is that the working-classes will not tol-
erate an increase of the price of food. But from certain facts
which are being brought to light in the public prints there
seems to be grave reason for doubting whether the public bene-
fits at all by the reduced price of wheat, and for thinking that
all the advantages derived from this low price go into the
pockets of middlemen bakers and millers. What the profits of
private traders amount to it is difficult to say, but within the
last few weeks a company for making bread which is obliged to
publish its accounts declared a dividend of 37^ per cent. At
the present time wheat is 27^. a quarter, and the price of the quar-
tern loaf is ^^d. In 1852, while wheat was 6os. a quarter, the
price of the quartern loaf was no more; in fact, was just the same.
Where has the difference gone ? It may not be generally known,
but it is the fact, that from 1267 to 1836 the price of bread was
regulated by statute according to the varying price of wheat.
At the latter date the price was thrown open to competition,
with the result that at the present time, and at the existing
cost of wheat, bread under free competition costs $%d.
which under the assize of bread would have cost 2,y 2 d. The
average Briton must be very much more self-sacrificing than
is generally thought if he continues to allow his principal indus-
try to be brought to the verge of ruin when he does not him-
self derive any advantage thereby, nor is it to be wondered at,
considering the ways of bakers, that among the first steps t(
ward state socialism which has been heretofore taken by the
cities of Paris, Brussels, and Ghent has been the opening of
municipal bakeries for the supply of cheap and unadulterated

bread.

State-assisted Industries in Australia. If attention is given
to what is being done in Australia to enable its farmers and
dairymen to compete with the British farmers in the home
market, no one can wonder that the patience of the latter should
be almost exhausted. In his eyes it is hard enough that he

1 893.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 715

should have to compete with the private enterprise of the whole
world, but when his competitors are endowed by the state and
receive from it all possible assistance in order to enable them
to underbid him at home it passes endurance. The action taken
by the Australian colonies is of interest, also, to the student of
political economy, inasmuch as it shows how far modern states,
untrammelled by long-established traditions, have departed from
the old ideas of orthodox economists. A few years ago the trade
in dairy products of Australia with England was practically non-
existent ; in 1891-92 it amounted to nearly five millions of pounds
from a single colony. This result is entirely due to the govern-
ments of various colonies having actively taken in hand the or-
ganization of the trade. The colony of Victoria devoted more
than a million dollars to the giving of bonuses to agricultural
industries, and especially to the exporters of butter. Before its
exportation its own officials tested the quality, and stopped all
that was not sufficiently good. In order to educate the people
in the art of butter-making it established a travelling dairy, and
sent it round from place to place with expert teachers to give
instruction to all who would take the trouble to acquire it.
Dairy-schools too were established in every province with nomi-
nal fees. The factory system of creameries, which has done so
much for Denmark and which is now working well in Ireland,
was introduced. All railway charges for transporting the cream
from the country to the seaport are also defrayed by the state.
The ship-owners co-operate by reducing freight to the lowest pos-
sible amount. Under these circumstances it is not to be won-
dered at that the British farmer grumbles and that he is willing
to banish to the stars the political economy of the day. Whether
he and the aggrieved in other trades will succeed in their efforts
is very doubtful, for although England is the only country in
the world which remains loyal to free-trade principles, the de-
fenders of these principles regard them as almost as sacred as
religious truths perhaps, if the truth were told, as even more
sacred and certain. In any case the struggle cannot but be in-
teresting for many reasons.

Bimetallism advocated by Archbishop Walsh. After protec-
tion, a remedy which met with a large amount of support from
the distressed agriculturists assembled in conference was Bimetal-
lism. And here it is worthy of notice how in the political ar-
rangements of the present time this abstruse and difficult ques-
tion a question so abstruse and difficult as to render it doubt-

716 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Feb.,

ful whether one man in ten thousand is able to form a reliable
judgment upon the matter on its own merits and in view of the
interests of the state as a whole must practically be decided by
the majority of votes. It is to be hoped that this majority will,
at least, have the sense to recognize that it cannot always judge
for itself, and to choose wise and skilful guides. A remarkable
point in this connection is, that along with Mr. Balfour and. Mr.
Chaplin, the minister for agriculture of the former Unionist govern-
ment, there are found as supporters of the bimetallic proposals
Archbishop Walsh, the champion par excellence of the tenant-far-
mers of Ireland, whose exposition, according to Mr. Chaplin, con-
stituted one of the ablest and clearest and most convincing state-
ments which have been made public on the subject, and a member
of the opposed class in Ireland in the person of one of the re-
presentatives of the Indian government at the Brussels Con-
ference, Sir Guilford Molesworth, an Irish landlord. The lat-
ter's explanation of the relation between bimetallism and the
agrarian question in Ireland we subjoin on account of its lucid
explanation not only of this particular question but of the
whole subject. " Archbishop Walsh," said Sir G. Molesworth,
" is quite right. I have myself held for many years that the
Irish difficulty is due in a very great measure to the apprecia-
tion of gold. In my own case I have suffered far more from
this cause than from agitation or disaffection among the tenant-
ry. During the last twenty years the population of the world
demanding gold for monetary purposes has quadrupled, while
international trade demanding gold has trebled, with the result
that since 1871 it has gone up nearly fifty per cent. Now look
what this means for an agricultural country like Ireland. A
farmer has contracted to pay a certain rent that is, so many sov-
ereigns per annum but the purchasing power of sovereigns has-
enormously increased ; consequently, he has to raise so much
more produce to earn his rent. The landlord suffers also, since
mortgages and all other contracts have similarly to be satisfied
in an appreciated standard. The expenditure upon the land has
been reduced all round, till it becomes foul and poor, while the
poorer lands go out of cultivation altogether. The substantial
reductions in rents made during the last ten years are inadequate
because, though involving enormous sacrifices on the part of the
landlords in many instances, they have not kept pace with the
appreciation of gold." Large as is the support which the bi-
metallic proposals are thus receiving, the opponents, we think r
are the more powerful, consisting as they do of the capitalist

l8 93-] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 717

merchants and bankers who carry on the commerce of the world ;
but as in the former case so in this, the contest will be not
merely interesting but of great importance.

The London County Council and Fair Wages. The proceed-
ings of the London County Council ought to be carefully stu-
died by all who are interested in current social and economi-
cal questions ; not so much on account of the size and impor-
tance of the place of which it is the ruling authority although
London has a larger population than that of several European
kingdoms but because of the ardor with which the predomi-
nant party is entering upon what would generally be styled
Socialistic schemes. Fiant experimenta in corpore, we will not
say vili but alieno, and by watching we shall be able to profit
by the results, good or bad. As we have already mentioned,
in consequence of its having required a fair-wages clause to be
inserted in all contracts, very few tenders were made for the
works to be executed ; thereupon the council decided itself to
carry out the works (at least some of them) without any in-
tervention ; and it has appointed a committee for the purpose
of supervising, securing plant, and the requisite material for this
purpose. A large number of workmen will, therefore, be in the
immediate control and pay of the council ; and, in fact, the
council, if all its projects succeed, will soon be the largest em-
ployer of labor in the world ; and the question has arisen, Who
is to settle the amount of wages ? Hitherto employers have
had at least a right to be heard on this point ; but the council
has resolved that in its own case it is to be left to the em-
ployed to settle their own wages and hours ; for a resolution
has been passed that the minimum rate of pay in each depart-
ment shall be the rate decreed by the trades-unions and in prac
tice obtained, and there is nothing to prevent the formation of
one great trades-union of the employees of the council. This
trades-union would, under this resolution, be able to exact as
high wages as it pleased, or at least as the rate-payers would
be likely to suffer. This proposal was adopted by the council
notwithstanding the opposition of a part even of the Progres-
sive party, headed by the well-known political economist, Sir
Thomas Farrer. Another point which lends interest to the pro-
ceedings of the London County Council is the composition of
the body itself. Mr. Frederick Harrison pronounces it the
most composite elective body of which English history can show
an example. Not even party rage has ever ventured to hint a

7i 8 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Feb. r

suspicion of jobbery, and thus its experiments are to be looked
upon as disinterested, even if mistaken, efforts to form an ideal
London. According to Mr. Harrison, "about one-eighth of the
council are members of the legislature ; about a tenth have her-
editary titles, or are immediately connected with historic fami-
lies ; three ducal houses are represented ; it counts two Knights
of the Garter ; the foreign secretary, and several other members
of the government ; peers, baronets, land-owners, bankers, brokers,
merchants, lawyers, manufacturers, dealers of all kinds, and a
dozen workmen in different trades." We may add that there
are two Catholics among the members ; but as one, the Duke of
Norfolk, is a Moderate, and the other, Mr. Costelloe, is a Pro-
gressive, they neutralize one the other.

The Attitude of Protestantism towards the Poor One of

the questions which is exciting a good deal of interest and dis-
cussion at the present time is the attitude, past and present, of
the various Protestant religious bodies towards the poor. To
our mind one of the most conclusive tokens that the Establish-
ment is not the Church of our Lord, but a highly respectable
human institution, is the degraded state into which, notwith-
standing its vast revenues, the poor have been allowed to fall
both in the country and in the towns. But while it has been
generally recognized that the Church of England is the church
of the well-to-do, it has been equally generally believed that
the Dissenters had won the hearts of the lower classes. At
the meeting, however, recently held in Bradford of the Congre-
gational Union one of the most prominent leaders of the labor
party, Mr. Keir Hardie, was allowed to address the assembled
ministers, and he frankly and without reserve revealed to them
the opinions which working-men have formed of these churches.
He said that they looked upon the Christianity of the schools
as dead. The labor party had turned its back upon the Church
because the Church had turned its back on Christ. In their
meetings, he said, they pandered to the respectability of their
congregations. The ministers who heard Mr. Hardie were sc
exasperated that they would not allow him to proceed, and
cried him down, although the American delegates to the Pan-
Presbyterian synod held two years ago in London explicitly de-
clared, and almost gloried in the fact, that their mission was to
the rich and cultured, and that they left the poor to the care of
the Catholic Church. The Rev. H. P. Hughes made a remarka-
ble statement to the same effect at the conference held at Grin-

1 893.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 719

delwald this autumn. He declared that he believed that neither
the highest nor the lowest classes had ever been truly converted
to Protestantism, the only class of which it had laid real hold
being the middle class. However both the Establishment and
the Dissenters are bestirring themselves now in emulation of the
true Church of Christ.

Practically Protestants do not favor Religious Education.
In our notes on the effects of secular education published last
December we spoke in condemnatory terms of the action of
Nonconformists in this matter. What was then said requires,
we are glad to say, a little, although but a little, modification.
This consists in the fact that the Mr. Hughes whom we have
just mentioned (who is a leading Methodist minister) has pub-
licly declared that he does not hesitate to say that the most
awful mistake that the Nonconformists of England made was
when they accepted a secular platform for national education.
The same authority tells us that, " as a matter of fact to-day, all
the great Nonconformist bodies of England have now, by ex-
press vote of their assemblies, repudiated the secular position
altogether." Had these utterances resulted in practical action on
the part of the Nonconformist bodies we should have had to
make a considerable retractation. Unfortunately there are no evi-
dences of such a change. The religious dissenters are dominated
by the political dissenters, and the practical influence of the
various bodies is still used to promote and to extend purely
secular education. And when we turn to Ireland the same thing
must be said of what was formerly the Establishment there, and
which is supposed to be, we presume, -a "branch" of the Church^
along with the Establishment in England. This is shown by the
action recently taken by this body with reference to the proposed
change in the rules of the Board of National Education. The
moment the majority of the commissioners voted in favor of al-
lowing complete freedom of religious instruction, and of the re-
tention of sacred emblems in. the schools, the disestablished
church, along with Protestants of every denomination, rose up in
arms as one man and, true to their name, protested. Deputa-
tions went to the lord-lieutenant and implored him not to allow
such a change to be made, and, we are sorry to say, gained their
point. It almost seems as if, while many Protestants are willing
to say true things about the necessity of religious instruction,
the real practical work is left to the Catholic Church alone.

720 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Feb.,

Secular Education Disastrous in India. Among the countries
which are experiencing the evil effects of purely secular educa-
tion, India, in the opinion of competent judges, must be included.
In this case it is not elementary education which is affected, but
the higher studies. The universities which were opened by the
government were established on a purely secular basis. No at-
tempt at religious teaching, or even at moral teaching on the basis
of religion, is permitted. The utmost that has been proposed has
been " a moral text-book," and even this has not been found
capable of general adoption by the keenly-opposed creeds and re-
ligious sects represented in every lecture-room of an Indian Gov-
ernment College. Several years ago the results were recognized
as disastrous by a government commission appointed to inquire
into the education afforded by the colleges. The young men edu-
cated in them were losing faith in their native religious systems,
and were not receiving any definite instruction to take their place ;
were, in fact, becoming sceptics in religion and suffering the neces-
sary consequences in morals. Quite recently, in view of these
evils, the lieutenant-governor of Bengal has issued an appeal to
the professors in the colleges to use their utmost efforts to secure
by their personal influence and example what cannot be at-
tempted in the colleges under the sanction of religion. He wishes
the professors to bear in mind that their relations with their
students do not begin and end in the lecture-room, and that
they should strive to gain an influence over them which shall be
potent for good during all their lives.

No Irreligious Education in Natal. The experience thus gath-
ered of the unsatisfactory results of a purely secular education
has, we are glad to see, not been thrown away upon those who
have the direction of affairs in another part of the British Empire.
A committee appointed by the governor of Natal has reported
to the Council of Education of that colony, and the report has
been adopted by that body, that after receiving and considering
a quantity of evidence it had finally decided against the pro-
posed appointment of public or secular schools for the natives.
This they did because they were convinced by the evidence that
the work was better done by the schools of the missionaries,
and also more economically. The testimony against secular edu-
cation pure and simple was almost unanimous, and therefore,
with a real liberalism which is wanting among many so-called
Liberals in other parts of the world, the committee recognized

1893-] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 721

that it was not desirable for the government unduly to control
or direct the religion of the people.

The State of Politics in Various European Countries It
may, perhaps, be interesting to take a rapid glance at the poli-
tical position of the chief European countries at the beginning
of the new year, and to indicate the principal questions which
have to be solved. In England the Liberal party is in power,
with Mr. Gladstone as premier. His majority, however, is only
forty, and is made up of a number of somewhat independent
groups, consisting of Radicals who sympathize more or less
warmly with Mr. Labouchere, Parnellites, anti-Parnellites, Welsh
members and labor members, to say nothing of a. very small
number who have hitherto been Gladstonians pure and simple,
but who are now threatening a " cave." Home Rule, of course,
is the great question of the day, but a large amount of social

legislation will be attempted. It seems hardly worth while to

say anything about France, for the situation there changes so
frequently that anything written one week may not be true the
next. However, at the moment of writing a ministry is in
power which is drawn, like all the ministries for the past two
years, from the Opportunist Republicans. This is one of eight
parties in which the French legislature rejoices. Monarchists,
Bonapartists, Boulangists, and Independents make up the Right.
The Left, which has the majority, consists of Opportunists,
Moderates, Radicals, and Social Radicals. The question which
not merely the present ministry, but the Republic itself, has to
settle is the exceedingly elementary one, " to be or not to be " ;
and this naturally puts into the background proposed ameliora-
tions of the social order. In Germany the ministry does not

depend for its existence upon the will of the legislature, but
it naturally wishes to receive the support of one or more of the
political parties. At the present time, however, all parties are,
for different reasons, disinclined to vote for government meas-
ures. As in France so in Germany, there are some eight or
nine groups, of which the Centre, or Catholic party, is the strong-
est. Conservatives, -Imperialists, National Liberals, German
Liberals, Social Democrats, People's-Party men, Alsace-Lorrain-
ers, Poles, and finally seven " Wild-men," form the happy fami-
ly which the German government must manage if it wishes to
pass its proposals into law. Of these proposals the increase
of the army is the most urgent. Its fate depends upon the votes
of the Catholic party, the leaders of which have clearly indi-
VOL. LVI. 49

722 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Feb.,

cated their intention to refuse to add to the burdens of their
already over-taxed fellow-countrymen. In Austria the Conser-
vative cabinet of Count Taaffe retains the power which it has
held for thirteen years. The Reichsrath, which it leads and in a
measure controls, is divided into sixteen parties, the names of
which we spare our readers. In Hungary the number of parties
is more reasonable. Liberals, Independents, the Croatian dele-
gates, and the Nationalists complete the list. A new ministry
has lately come into power of a more liberal and anti-Catholic
spirit than its predecessor. It is said to be pledged to the in-
troduction of compulsory civil marriage, while the dual mon-
archy, as a whole, is on the point of adopting gold coinage in

place of the current paper. While Russia is not troublecj by

open political parties, yet, like all autocrats, the czar has now
one, now another set of self-chosen counsellors, and at the
present time the peace party is said to be the one to which he
is most inclined to listen. Spain has recently exchanged a Con-
servative for a Liberal government, Sefior Canovas having made
way yet once more for Sefior Sagasta. Like Portugal, Spain
finds all its energies and efforts barely sufficient to secure the pay-
ment of its debts. The task of Italy, on account of its vain

efforts to pose as one of the great powers, and to keep up the
preposterous army necessary for maintaining its position in
the Triple Alliance, is identical with that of Spain and Portugal.
As for its political parties, seeing that place and emolument
for themselves are the predominating and controlling objects of
the thoughts and aspirations of existing Italian legislators, it is
not worth while to give even their names. And, to conclude,
the work of revising her constitution upon which Belgium has
entered has not yet been accomplished, nor, so elaborate and
intricate are the proceedings, is it easy to indicate at what stage
it has arrived. We believe, however, that the Conservative min-
istry, which still holds its place against the attacks of the Lib-
erals, will soon bring the work to a happy conclusion.

I893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 723

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

HE field of Roman patrician life, so long and so
worthily occupied, almost monopolized, in fact,
by Mr. Marion Crawford, has been very success-
fully entered of late by the Marchesa Theodoli,
who very gracefully dedicates her novel to her
American co-laborer and predecessor. Though she occupies a
different portion of that field, the friends of the Saracinescas and
Sant' Ilarios will have no difficulty in recognizing the Astallis
and Casales as fruits of the same soil, cultivated by an equally
painstaking and accustomed hand. In the present novel,* the
author has given a vivid and very timely picture of the struggle
between old and new in the Rome of our day that old which
has so blended its own prejudices and preconceptions with a
truth which is eternal that it knows not how to distinguish them,
but sees in every blow at its ancient prerogatives an attack on
all that in itself is venerable and holy and that new which
recognizes that only essentials can be clung to successfully in a
world which God continually vivifies and renews. The picture
of life in the Astalli palace is a very interesting one, drawn
faithfully, one feels persuaded, and by a hand both kindly and
impartial. Of the two girls, Lavinia is wonderfully like some of
Mr. Crawford's own heroines in the sincerity, simplicity, and depth
of her passion, but she passes through a growth and educational
development by means of it which distinguish her from any of
them that we recall. The story of Bianca, Lavinia's twin, is
hardly less interesting, certainly not less well managed. Hers is
a struggle to follow her own religious vocation to the active
life of a Sister of Charity, against the determination of her pa-
rents to force her into a Carmelite convent. The study of the
Princess Astalli, devout, unbending, so truly charitable that no
human misery, physical suffering, or sinfulness came within her
reach " without receiving consolation, help, and material assist-
ance," and yet so incapable of understanding that anything can
justly conflict with her supposed parental rights, even the church
itself of which she deems herself the most devoted adherent, is
especially suggestive. Some of her talks with Don Antonio,
surely the best priest one has met in a novel for many a day,

* Under Pressure. By the Marchesa Theodoli. New York : Macmillan & Co.

724 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,

are especially worth reading. It would be unfair to outline the
story, which is one any novel-reader will find entertaining, and
which to many who would not care for the love-story, will be
interesting for the sake of the questions it brings up and the
glimpses it gives of a type of mind and a social and semi-re-
ligious attitude now fast passing away, to give place, as one be-
lieves and hopes, to one more in accordance with those signs of
the times which are the indications of God's will for our own
days. The spirit of the author, as this book displays it, is both
intelligent and religious.

An excellent novel from every point of view is Miss Whit-
by's In the Suntime of Her Youth* Amusing, well-written, and
entertaining, it is also wholesome in all its lessons, direct and
indirect. The author, though anything rather than didactic, has
a moral to enforce by illustration a moral which one would
hardly exaggerate by describing as the final cause of the exist-
ence of good women novelists. What better, what more needed
lesson can an upright woman of intelligence and experience im-
part to those of her own sex who are still able to profit by it,
than that marriage without love, through whatever motives con-
tracted, is a mistake so deadly, even when merely a mistake,
that no temptation can fully excuse, and no plea of seeming
duty actually justify it ? The first lesson should not end here,
however, unless it be followed by a second, inculcating the truth,
too often forgotten nowadays, both in life and fiction, that a
duty springs from what was in itself an error ; that a loveless
marriage is not a wholly irremediable evil, and that its yoke
may and must be borne with unflinching patience. Miss Whitby
has steered her bark very cleverly through the shoals and reefs
on which so many otherwise skilful story-tellers have wrecked
all their chances of real usefulness. Though there is a point in
her tale where the hackneyed novel-reader begins to suspect dan-
ger ahead, that risk is quickly passed shown, rather, to have
existed in his fancy only. The tale is an English one, and told
with a freshness, a gay, pleasant humor, and a sustained power
which are unusual and refreshing. The characters are all dis-
tinctly drawn, and some of them, little " Precautia " for instance,
with her quick tongue, sharp enough to entertain, not sharp
enough to wound, and Elspeth with her straightforward candor,
her single-hearted love, her hot temper, her inability to be " unsel-
fish " enough to marry for the sake of other people, are wonder-
fully lifelike, as well as attractive, from first to last. Altogether,

* In the Suntime of Her Youth. By Beatrice Whitby. New York : Appleton & Co.

1893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 725

the book will add much to Miss Whitby's already well-established
reputation.

Another very readable novel is Mrs. Alick Macleod's Aus-
tralian story, 77?^ Silent Sea* In this the reader will find al-
most everything except a moral, although he will be far enough
from finding it either immoral or unmoral on that account.
The charm of the story lies chiefly in the exquisite portrayal of
Doris, and the surroundings of her childhood and quickly, yet
not too quickly, terminated youth. The book is full of incident,
however, and the business of the gold mine, the study of Tre-
vaskis the engineer, and the queer story of Victor and his
elderly, persistent, and finally victorious admirer, are told in a
way whose interest can never be said to flag, although it can
hardly be called absorbing. It is very well written in point of
style.

Christian Reid's fine story of The Lost Lode, and another by
F. X. L., called Stella s Discipline, have been bound up togeth-
er, and form one of the attractive-looking volumes of H. L.
Kilner's "Catholic Library." They differ much in point of style,
but will both prove entertaining, and both point useful lessons.
But they will hardly appeal with equal force to the same class
of readers. There is something in the delicate remoteness of
Christian Reid's style, when she is at her best, as we think her
in this story, which must make her work rather trying as a
companion-piece to that of other writers.

Tom Playfair and Percy Wynn have a very successful
follower in Harry Dee,\ wherein their author shows again his
comprehension of and sympathy with the school-boy mind and
aspirations. He has hit off very happily the characteristics of
his young heroes ; his book would really have the air of being
written by a boy and for boys, were it not for an occasional
bit of word-painting which looks suspicious. Still it cannot fail
to be read by them with hearty interest. The chapter concern-
ing the baseball game will by itself command all their suffrages.
The book has better things in it, though.

A story so well-constructed and at the same time so innocu-
ous as Mr. Payn's Stumble on the Threshold \ always gives pleas-
ure a pleasure comparable to that afforded by the inspection
of a well-built modern house with its plumbing and heating ar-
rangements just what they should be, its materials solid, its

* The Silent Sea. By Mrs. Alick Macleod. New York : Harper & Brothers.

t Harry Dee ; or. Making it Out. By Francis J. Finn, S.J. New York : Benziger Bros.

\AStumbleonthe Threshold. By James Payn. New York : Q. Appleton & Co.

726 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,

closets ample and in just the right places. Such a house pleases
irrespective of its outlook. One can dispense with a view at a
pinch, but he wants his floors substantial and his doors and
windows warranted not to creak. It is always safe to entrust
to Mr. Payn the contract both as architect and builder for such
a house of the mind, wherein a not extravagant fancy may be
snug and comfortable. He has taken the measure of his public ;
he knows they object almost equally to the turrets and cupolas
and flying buttresses of one school of imaginative fiction and
the dungeons, pest-houses, and dissecting-rooms of another. He
is himself the best illustration of his famous thesis that novel-
writing is a profession like any other, to which any one possess-
ing the sound intelligence and good judgment necessary for
average success in law or medicine may be trained. His origi-
nal equipment has not changed perceptibly, but his technique
has improved greatly since he won his first recognition from the
public he has ever since retained.

His present story relates the adventures of three students of
Cambridge University, who are close friends, although one of
them in whom the reader is expected to take most interest is
much beneath the others in social position. All three are seriously
in love with the same young girl, and she is engaged to one of
them when the quartette come before the curtain. There is no
lack of life-likeness in Mr. Payn's presentation of his characters.
These students affect one like real men ; their talk and their ac-
tions have the same persuasive quality of genuineness, and al-
though one of them is the victim at first sight of a hopeless,
pure, and life-long passion which never feeds itself after the first
moment on the fancy of fruition. Mr. Payn has succeeded in
imposing even so rare a phenomenon as this upon his reader's
credulity. Ella Martin, too, though she is only silhouetted on
his pages, has the same quality of genuine substance. One feels
that she is all- there, and is grateful that she is used for effect
only, since what Mr. Payn wants of her is merely to supply the
raison-d'ctre of his study of Blythe and Needham. She is a
good girl and honestly in love with her betrothed, whom she
finally marries ; nevertheless she works dire havoc with his friends,
exposes the true inner stuff of each, and becomes the central
figure of what narrowly escapes being a tragedy, and does afford
occasion for a murder trial conducted according to the estab-
lished precedents of fiction. There is plenty of honest enter-
tainment to be found in this novel and not an ounce of harm.

There is a good deal of human nature of the rougher sort in

1893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 727

the collection of sketches * wherein we make a first acquaintance
of Mr. Opie Read. They are rich in scraps of dialogue that
might have been taken down by a phonograph, so natural and
life-like that, standing alone, they would persuade to a belief
that we have here a new writer of native force in process of
evolution. Unfortunately, they lead with surprising uniformity
to flat disappointment or to crudities that shock but do not
promise.

Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, who has done so much good in a mod-
est way with his untiring pen, has produced in his Layman's
Day f a thoroughly practical and most insinuatingly suggestive
little book which cannot but be useful. He is a sort of lay
Faber, a good guide to those " Easy Ways of Divine Love "
which are not after all so easy that the best of us, who have
daily cares and business to attend to, do not need constant re-
minders to walk in them without faltering. There is great wis-
dom packed with equal skill and brevity into this handy and at-
tractive itinerary of the daily journey from morning to evening
on the road that leads to life eternal.

Another life has appeared (there were already five) of
Nicholas Ferrar, a deacon of the Established Church of England
in the reign of Charles I., when he founded a sort of Protes-
tant religious house, composed entirely of members of his own
family. The latter fact is probably a unique one in the history
of such foundations. The establishment, moreover, did not out-
live his family ; but an interest has long attached to it, chiefly,
perhaps, in the minds of the. Ritualistic section of the Anglican
Church on account of its apparent foreshadowing of somewhat
similar ones in these later times. Nicholas Ferrar himself seems
not to have been a specially interesting person, save on the de-
votional side of his character. He was deeply religious, but he
was not wide-minded nor clear-sighted. He thought it possible
to leap the chasm between the sixteenth and the sixth centuries,
and establish a private causeway of his own across them by
which he might return in safety, carrying back whatever seemed
useful or desirable, while ignoring all the rest. When what the
Puritans of his day called his "Arminian Nunnery" was at-
tacked, he thought to avert danger from it by avowing his con-

* Miss Madam, and Other Sketches. By Opie Read. Chicago and New York: F. T.
Neely & Co.

t The Layman's Day ; or, Jewels of Practical Piety. By Percy Fitzgerald. New York :
Benziger Brothers.

t Nicholas Ferrar, His Household and His Friends. Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter
M.A. London and New York : Longmans, Green & Co.

728 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,

victions that the Pope was Antichrist. His biographer says
that his acquaintance with foreign devotional writings appears
to have been extensive, and proves it by showing that he trans-
lated a treatise by the Jesuit Lessius, on The Temperate Man.
He was fonder, however, of some less orthodox writers, and
valued Lessius as he did the famous centenarian Cornaro, that
is to say as an ascetic rather than a spiritual guide. His biog-
rapher remarks of him :

" He hated popery with the solid hatred which was nour-
ished by Foxe's Book of Martyrs. He believed that the Pope
was Antichrist ; when asked what he would do if by any chance
the Mass was celebrated in his house, he is said to have replied
that he would pull down that room and build another."

Such declarations were not sufficient to save a house in
which it was known that there were not only two women who
had vowed to God a perpetual virginity, but also that great
enormity, an organ. Nine years after its founder's death the
establishment at Little Gidding was sacked by Cromwell's sol-
diers, its inmates having fled in time from outrage or murder.
Peckard thus describes the conduct of the soldiery :

" These military zealots, in the rage of what they called re-
formation, ransacked both the church and the house. In doing
which they expressed a particular spite against the organ. This
they broke in pieces, of which they made a large fire, and
thereat roasted several of Mr. Ferrar's sheep, which they had
killed in his grounds. This done, they seized all the plate, fur-
niture, and provision which they could conveniently carry away.
And in this general devastation perished those works of Mr.
Nicholas Ferrar which merited a better fate."

There were, indeed, works accomplished at Little Gidding
in the way of Concordances and Harmonies of the Gospels and
other parts of Holy Scripture which were eminently well worth
the doing. One of the most interesting chapters of the present
life is devoted to these Concordances, of which a noteworthy
specimen is given. The family at Little Gidding themselves
bound these volumes, of which the text was part in script, part
in type, and sold them when that was possible, using the pur-
chase money to continue their costly work. Charles I. had two
of them, a Harmony of the Gospels and a Harmony of the
Bopks of Kings and Chronicles, the latter prepared by the mon-
arch's express desire. Both of these are now in the British
Museum. Ferrar himself was a thorough Englishman of a nar-
row type, practical not speculative, and neither capable of origi-

1893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 729

nal thought nor of apprehending the true points in controversy
between Rome and the so-called Reform. He accepted as true
all that he had been taught by parents who had not improbably
relinquished the ancient faith through fear of persecution, and
having been told that the changes wrought by Henry and
his immediate successors had merely restored the church of his
own island to primitive purity, his devout and ascetic tempera-
ment inclined him to those austerities practised in primitive
times. Though he was clearly capable of domineering somewhat
harshly on occasion, his personal charm must have been great
and his sincerity undoubted, since he prevailed not merely on
his aged mother but on a household of married brothers and
sisters to abide with him for life in almost monastic discipline
and privation, for the sole end of serving God in greater purity
and perfection. His work was not lasting, nor is this record of
it particularly interesting, save as a monument of narrow but
well-meaning and sincere lives in a time and a country which
had much need but small appreciation of their peculiar virtues.
Mr. MacDonald's work on Criminology,* with an introduc-
tion by Professor Lombroso, the Italian " founder " of the so-
called science, relates to a subject interesting not merely to
scholars, but to ordinary thoughtful men. A somewhat careful
perusal of his bulky volume has not, however, resulted in induc-
ing a persuasion that his treatment of the subject is either fun-
damental or truly suggestive. It is a medley of detached facts,
thrown together without apparent system, and with no thread of
philosophy to bind them together save the hint that Lombroso
considers crime to be " a return to the primitive and barbarous
state of our ancestors, the criminal being a savage born into
modern civilization." The author's preparation for the work is
said to have consisted in a course of studies in various univer-
sities in the United States and abroad a condition of things
which, so far as his use of his vernacular is concerned, can
hardly be said to reflect great honor on those institutions. His
work is completed by an extensive and exhaustive bibliography
of the best books and articles on crime in several languages.

I. THE CHURCH IN RELATION TO SCEPTICS.f

For twenty years the author of this work has been engaged
in giving what are called " Evidential " missions throughout

* Criminology. By Arthur MacDonald. New York : Funk & Wagnalls Company.
t The Church in Relation to Sceptics : a Conversational Guide to Evidential Work. By
the Rev. Alex. I. Harrison, B.D. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co.

730 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,

Great Britain, of which the object is to answer the objections
to the truth of Christianity which have for the time being the
most influence ; and to do so in a manner suitable to the aver-
age hearer, rather than for the professed student. Mr. Harrison
is, therefore, a practical and experienced man. His present
work is more immediately addressed to the clergy. It is not
meant to be a formal treatise on Christian evidences ; its object
is rather to help the clergy to use the knowledge which they
have or are supposed to have already attained. For to use
the author's words " It is not enough to have a well-furnished
armory. One must know how to handle the weapons, and also
what weapons to handle. It is just here that my experience
may be of service to others." Unbelievers are not treated as
opponents who are to be pulverized, but as men who are to be
won to the truth by the solution of their difficulties. On the
other hand, the common habit of setting up modern sceptics as
types of moral goodness does not meet with the author's ap-
probation ; for he asks, How can a man who, whether in good
or in bad faith does not as a matter of fact fulfil his duties to
God be considered a perfectly good man? Duties remain, al-
though they may not be recognized ; and the man who does
not perceive his duty, even inculpably, should not be put upon
a level with those who both perceive and strive to fulfil. Un-
belief is a wrong done to God and to Christ, and as such it
should be dealt with in the spirit of love for the wrong-doer.

We commend this book to our readers as the work of a
man thoroughly in earnest and zealous for the truth, well ac-
quainted with modern forms of unbelief, and fully equipped by
his learning, logical powers, and sympathy for opponents to win
over to the truth those who have fallen into error. Should
any one wish for proof of this, let him read the presentation of
the arguments against atheistic-agnostic secularism, as given in
pages 87 to 97. For ourselves, it is only fair to say that we
have never met with a more cogent and masterly statement of
the case.

2. WILD FLOWERS FROM THE MOUNTAIN SIDE.*

The charm of these graceful outpourings of the mind and
heart of one who has chosen " the better part " consists chiefly
in their happy, appropriate expression of the lessons of the Chris-

*Wild Flowers from the Mountain Side. Poems and Dramas. By "Mercedes." Third
edition. St. Xavier's Academy, Beatty, Pa.

1893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 731

tian virtues they are intended to convey. In these days, when
poets and other artists for the most part labor for excellence
alone in depicting nature and human life with photographic
fidelity, and that too seldom revealing anything higher and no-
bler than their sensuous forms, it is refreshing to find one who
presents us with their spiritual, divine sense. All these flowers
glow with a delicate color and exhale that singularly pure fra-
grance which betray their culture in a consecrated atmosphere.
Our copy is one in bridal dress, and as a gift-book nothing
would be more suitable.

3. A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND.*

The volume which we are perusing contains a keen and subtle
criticism of the history of events in England before the eccle-
siastical revolution under Henry VIII., and by gathering up and
arranging the threads the author weaves into a beautiful tapes-
try picture the designs of God's providence among the Anglo
Saxons. The causes of the rebellion of the sixteenth century
are clearly shown to be the native-born independence of the
Anglo-Saxons, their devotion to their rulers from a religious
stand-point, the weakening of the faith consequent on the de-
cimation of the clergy by the plague, and the numerous abuses
in the ecclesiastical polity of the two centuries preceding. The
points are well and fearlessly made, and sustained with not a
little vigor and strength.

4. THE WORK OF THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY.f

These are the latest issues of the Catholic Truth Society.
They are both good practical pamphlets. With these comes, the
Corresponding Secretary's Eleventh Quarterly Report, which
shows that the energy with which the members of the society
entered on their missionary work is unabated. During the past
quarter there were printed twenty-four thousand pamphlets. The
amount of good done through the wide distribution of these nu-
merous pamphlets is simply unmeasurable.

*The Church in England, A.D. 30-1509. Mary H. Allies. Benziger Bros,
t Thoughts from Lacordaire. The Mass: The Proper Form of Christian Worship.
The Catholic Truth Society of America, St. Paul, Minn.

732 EDITORIAL NOTES. [Feb.,

EDITORIAL NOTES.

WE send out our special Golden Jubilee number this month
in a new dress, to do more than ordinary honor to our
Holy Father on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his
consecration to the episcopal office, and we would be unworthy
sons of the greatest and best of fathers if we did not join our
voice in the vast chorus of praise and congratulation that is
going up from all parts of Christendom, and join in a striking,
prominent way, for we in this country have more than ordinary
reason to praise the divine Life-giver that he has permitted Leo
to live through so many years of benefit to the Church and to
humanity.

In the fifty years of his episcopate Leo has done many great
things, but his latest and kindest act is to the Church in the
United States in the appointment of Monsignor Satolli as his
own personal and permanent representative. The special favor
is shown not only in the establishment of a permanent Aposto-
lic Delegate here, which office rounds out and completes the
organization of the Church in the United States, but, and more
especially, this favor is manifested in the selection of one who
has been a life-long friend, who has the Holy Father's confidence
in the fullest way, and who, besides his eminent qualities as a
learned theologian and profound canonist, more nearly represents
the mind and policy of Rome than any other living personage.

The mission of Leo in these latter years is the infusing of a
Christian element into the movement of the nations of the
world toward more democratic institutions. With the clear
and practised eye of a great statesman he has seen that there
has been a change in the basis of power ; that it is no longer
dynasties or ruling families that mould the destinies of nations,
but the power is from below, from among the common people.
The state of unrest, the now and then harsh breathings of revo-
lution, the ferment of the socialistic movement, the reaching out
of the masses of the people for their God-given rights all these

1 893.] EDITORIAL NOTES. 733

are indications of the awakening unto a new life of a being of
wonderful energy and of tremendous vitality. It is the mission
of Leo to baptize and Christianize this new energy, to bring the
Church on her natural side in touch with the legitimate aspira-
tions of the masses towards greater knowledge and a broader
liberty, and thus, by ingratiating herself into the convictions
and entwining herself into the affections of the people, to pur-
sue her divine mission of saving mankind.

We are obliged to apologize for the non-appearance of Fa-
ther Ryder's article on the much-mooted question of the extent
of the inspiration of Scripture. Unavoidable delays have made
it too late for this number, but we can promise it definitely for
March. The articles are thoroughly exhaustive, and will form a
valuable contribution to the discussion of a question which is
now exciting so much attention. They will be remarkable
not only for the ability and learning of the writer, but particu-
larly for that special quality of fairness which recalls the char-
acteristic excellence of Cardinal Newman and which was one
great source of his wonderful influence.

It may not be out of place in these " Notes " to call atten-
tion to the article on the " Educational Bureau." It is from the
pen of one of our brightest educators, and may be suggestive of
some practical organization either in connection with the World's
Fair or the Summer-School.

As many inquiries have been made concerning the proper
method of introducing Congregational singing, Father Young has
prepared a tract entitled, Congregational Singing: How to es-
tablish it. What to do, and -what not to do. This tract, together
with a specimen copy of the Order of Divine Praise and Prayer,
will be sent by the Columbus Publishing Co. on receipt of ten
cents.

734 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Feb.,

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

ALL COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO READING CIRCLES, LISTS OF BOOKS,
ETC., SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION, NO.
415 WEST FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

"QROTHER MAURELIAN and Commissioner Harris are justly entitled to the
X3 credit of having convinced the World's Fair directors that the needs of the
educational exhibit required a new building, for which the appropriation of $120,-
ooo was delayed till December 7, 1892.

As the lady managers of the woman's building have announced no plan of
doing honor to the royal patroness of Columbus, we venture to suggest that the
department of the education building which will contain the exhibit of our schools
and academies of Catholic girls should in some way be designed to perpetuate
the glorious memory of Isabella.

An important feature of the Catholic educational exhibit will be the Colum-
bian library of Catholic authors whose works are now published in the English
language. This is a significant recognition of the work undertaken by the Colum-
bian Reading Union which will be gladly welcomed by our members, who for
over three years have been gathering data for a complete list of Catholic authors.
Our researches have proved that no private library or institution of learning in
the United States has a complete collection of books by Catholic authors published
in the United States. The librarian of Congress at Washington no doubt re-
ceived a copy of every book, but as yet no one has succeeded in making a com-
plete list, or in getting funds to meet the expenses involved in its publication. The
catalogues of publishers are most unreliable. It is considered a safe estimate to
say that the Catholic authors whose works are published in English number not
less than two thousand ; their books including translations would make a
library of at least ten thousand volumes.

We sincerely hope that the Columbian library will be worthy of the World's
Fair. Brother Maurelian appeals to living authors, publishers, relatives and friends
of deceased authors to send specimens of their books to the Manager of Catholic
Educational Exhibit, Wabash Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, Chicago, 111.
* * *

The American Book Co. has issued a new edition, with most attractive pic-
tures and autographs of famous authors, of Cathcart's Literary Reader. It con-
tains typical selections of English literature, from Shakspere to the present time,
chronologically arranged, with biographical sketches, and numerous critical notes.
The book was first issued in 1874, and was designed to provide a way of acquir-
ing a fair knowledge for those unable to pursue a special course in literature.
Among the writers of the nineteenth century we find no mention of our celebrated
Catholic representatives, who are second to none in literary excellence. Cardinal
Newman's name is not even mentioned. We hope that these glaring omissions
will be supplied in the next edition, so that the book, which has many merits,
may be acceptable to Catholic readers.

Mr. Cathcart's statement that Shakspere was one of the proprietors of the

l8 93-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 735

Blackfriars Theatre in 1589 is inaccurate. It is based upon the substance of a
document intruded into the Public Record Office in London, in some unexplained
way, and upon which the keeper of the records some years ago affixed an endorse-
ment calling attention to its ungenuine character. The careful researches made
by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps show clearly that none of the Lord Chamberlain's com-
pany of players, to which Shakspere belonged, were occupants of the Blackfriars
until the surrender of the lease made to Evans, who was the manager of a company
of boys in 1596, by James Burbage, who bought the property for a theatre in that
year. Of course this statement does not include Underwood and Field, who were
members of Evans's company as boys, but growing up to be men, were subsequent-
ly taken into the King's Players. Until Evans's lease was taken up by the sons of
James Burbage, certainly after the year 1603, Shakspere and his fellows played
only at " The Theatre," in Shoreditch, and at " The Globe," in Maiden Lane,
Southwark, which was the same theatre torn down on the night of the 26th of
December, 1598, and carried across the Thames to be re-erected and renamed.
It is positively shown by genuine documents discovered and published by Mr.
Halliwell-Phillipps that Shakspere had no ownership or share in the profits of the
theatrical business until the Burbages admitted him to an interest in the Globe

in 1598-9.

* * *

Miss Eliza Allen Starr has been honored by a letter from Pope Leo approving
the object of the Queen Isabella Association. The letter has been engraved on
paper resembling the original, and may be purchased as a souvenir:

POPE LEO XIII.

TO THE QUEEN ISABELLA ASSOCIATION.

Most Illustrious Lady:

It gratifies me to announce to you that the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII. has
received with great satisfaction the information conveyed to him through your
ladyship's missive of October 12, that a numerous association of ladies has been
formed which has taken the name of " The Queen Isabella Association," and it
has in view to honor that illustrious patron of Columbus by erecting a statue of
bronze in Chicago, near the place of the Exposition. The Holy Father, justly ap-
preciating the noble mind and piety of that exalted woman, and the merits she ac-
quired toward religion and the entire human race by seconding the great discov-
erer in his designs, cannot but approve the purpose of the association over which
you preside, and it is therefore, in rendering to you (whom he paternally blesses)
and to all the associates the merited praise, that he wishes, with all his great
heart, that their enterprise may have a splendid and happy success.

In conveying to your ladyship the above sentiments of the Holy Father I re-
joice to express the sentiments of my own distinguished esteem, with which I am

your ladyship's most devotedly,

M. CARDINAL RAMPOLLA.
Rome, November i, 1892.

Miss ELIZA ALLEN STARR, Chicago.

* * *

The Queen Isabella Association has now been endorsed by commendatory
letters from the Pope, Cardinal Gibbons and ten archbishops, and over fifty bish-
ops, abbots, and superiors of religious communities. Such a general expression
of approval all along the line should be sufficient indication of the universal de-

736 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Feb.,

sire among Catholics to secure public honors in America for Queen Isabella. The
members of the association which has taken her name are to be congratulated on
the many signs of public interest exhibited since the formation of their organiza-
tion, August 17, 1889. By their efforts a statue fund of $25,000 was established
in shares of $5 each. The Queen Isabella statue by the renowned sculptor, Miss
Harriet Hosmer, will belong to the owners of these shares at the close of the
World's Fair, subject absolutely to their control and disposal. The permanent lo-
cation of the statue will be determined by the vote of the shareholders, who rep-
resent various religious denominations. Any one desiring to get more particu-
lars relating to the Queen Isabella Association may apply to the secretary, Mrs.
Clare Hanson Mohun, 70 State Street, Chicago, 111.

* * *

Sorosis has a committee appointed to assist the board of women managers of
the State of New York in preparing an account of work done by women in lite-
rary clubs and classes. This classification is intended to include Reading Circles.
Reports are to be type-written upon paper nine inches square, and sent to Mr-s.
Phoebe A. Hanaford, 47 West Twelfth Street, New York City. At a cost of three
dollars each leather covers will be provided, bearing the seal and motto of the Em-
pire State, in artistic design approved by Mrs. Candace Wheeler of the Associated
Artists. Under three sections the desired information may be arranged, viz.:

1. Account of origin ; scheme and purpose of work; any interesting particu-
lars as to development and success.

2. Noted occasions, with programmes.

3. Four representative papers which have been already presented to the
club.

Our best wishes are extended to the members of Sorosis having this matter
in charge. We hope that Reading Circles will be well represented, though some
of them are managed solely for the members. No accounts of their meetings can
be got for publication to aid the public advancement of the cause.

* * *

The Fenelon Reading Circle of Brooklyn provided a rare literary treat for
members and guests at the Pouch Gallery, January 4. Much interest was awak-
ened by the Rev. John M. Kiely's talk on Tennyson. He reminded his 'audience
that when Tennyson's first volume of poems appeared, sixty years ago, it was so
roughly handled by the critics that nothing from the young poet was again pub-
lished until ten years afterward. Then the literary public of England admitted
his genius, and " Locksley Hall," " Morte d'Arthur," " The May Queen," and
" The Two Voices," which followed in quick succession, completed Tennyson's
triumph over the professional critics. His fame rests mainly on " The Idylls of
the King," which with " Enoch Arden,""The Lover's Tale," and "Locksley Hall
Sixty Years After," comprise the laureate's great works. He was not a very vo-
luminous writer, but what he did was well done. No poet ever wrote less twad-
dle, less " sweet things," so few verses that you tire of. Tennyson, however, was
recognized as somewhat of a crank. He abhorred interviewers, loved seclusion,
loathed obtruders, despised newsmongers, was not uneasy if he insulted the in-
quisitive, and generally wished to be let alone. He was a kind of harmless mis-
anthrope, cooping himself in when he was at home, and preferring lonely haunts,
wild coasts, and sandy solitudes when he went out for his daily walks. Father
Kiely reviewed "In Memoriam," which he said could not be treated briefly,
whether viewed as a poem, a sermon, a romance, a dirge, or a reverie. Tenny-

1893-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 737

son was no visionary, no pantheistic speculator. A man of modern science, he
saw in every phase of progress bright promise for the future of humanity. In his
theory perfection and bliss were to be secured by gradual stages in the law of
progress and natural development, until at last shall dawn the millennium of
human existence. Thus, whatever he has written tends to lift man up and make

him nobler.

* * *

Mr. Michael Hennessy, who died recently at his home in Brooklyn, N. Y.,
was a man of varied attainments. From 1851 to 1892 he occupied the position of
commercial editor of the New York Times, The leading merchants regarded his
reports as most reliable, owing to his high standard of personal integrity and
his ability in the special line to which he was devoted. Over the signature of
" Laffan " he contributed to many of the Catholic papers selections from his vast
knowledge of Irish history. He collected one of the finest libraries on Irish and
Catholic matters to be found in the United States. Many of his rare volumes
were consulted by the great Dominican orator, Father Burke, when preparing his
reply to the slanderous attacks on the Irish people put forth by Mr. Froude. In
recent years Mr. Hennessy watched with growing interest the growth of Catholic

Reading Circles.

* * *

Mr. Lorenzo J. Markoe is the editor and proprietor of the Monthly Bulletin
of Current Literature, published at St. Paul, Minn. It aims to make known the
merits of our existing literature, whether Catholic or non-Catholic. The editor
has our best wishes for the success of his undertaking. We believe with him
" that the great extent to which vitiating books and papers are read is due, not
to bad hearts prepared to receive the poison but simply to the general thirst for
reading so common in our country." We are thankful for this kind notice of
our work :

" The Columbian Reading Union keeps its members informed of its progress
through the pages of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. It will be aided and advertised
in our columns to the utmost ; for it is a most deserving association, and is al-
ready doing a wonderful work in helping on the rapidly awakening interest in
real literature which is now making itself manifest amongst the Catholics of our
country. Its reference lists of writers and their works are of great value, and
should be in the hands of all reading Catholics."

* * *

The Pilot of a recent date informs its readers that the reception tendered
by the Catholic Union of Boston to the distinguished novelist F. Marion Craw-
ford was a most brilliant social event. In his own characteristic way the Rev.
Robert Fulton, S.J., thus expressed in a letter his impressions of the novelist, who
has been absent from America for over ten years :

" When I was living (for now I am vegetating), among my many faults was
thafof literary curiosity, and I kept a vigilant outlook for all that was very new in
the literary world. I came across Mr. Crawford's Hindoo books. Thenceforth
I read all his books, and learned all I could of his personality. Of the former
there is no reason why I should speak, because the world speaks. Of the latter
I learned that he was an American and a Catholic. I learned that he did not
pose as a Catholic, but that there was in his works no word at variance with
Catholic feeling or morality.
VOL. LVI. 50

738 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Feb.,

" Now our theology teaches us to love and to honor all men ; but there are
degrees in dilection, and we are to honor more those who reflect more perfectly
the divine attributes. And we are to honor and love more those who are nearer
to us by reason of religion and nationality. I confess that I relish Milton even
the less because of the smack of Puritanism in his greatest production.

" Ye men of Boston, of whom I never made a request that did not meet with
ready compliance, honor Mr. Crawford, the great American Catholic novelist ! It
will be to your own profit."

Some of our readers will be delighted to know, on the very reliable authority
of the Pilot's literary editor, that " Mr. Crawford is one of that group of brilliant
American literary men who have come into the Catholic Church within the past
few decades, as Charles Warren Stoddard, Richard Malcolm Johnson, George
Parsons Lathrop, Richard Storrs Willis. But Marion Crawford holds easily
first rank among the present-day novelists in the English tongue. A competent
critic describes Saracinesca as the best novel ever written by an American.
Though with The Scarlet Letter in our memories we might dissent a little from
this, it is simple truth to say that it is the best novel written by an American in
the present generation. Mr. Crawford's reputation, like his genius, is cosmopoli-
tan ; and he can project himself as easily, and with as fascinating results to his
readers, into the Persia of Zoroaster as he can write against a background of
present-day New York, or Rome, or Paris, or London."

Mr. Crawford's address was delivered in a charming manner. On being
introduced by the president of the Catholic Union, Mr. J. W. McDonald, he
thanked his audience heartily for the spirit of their greeting. Then, he said, as
he was expected to relate some of his life's experiences, he would begin at the
beginning.

He told of his boyhood in Rome, where his father had domiciled himself for
the study of sculpture, and of his first meeting with the late Pontiff, Pius IX.,
whom he later saw frequently on some of the most memorable occasions of his
Pontificate. He referred to the changes that have taken place since the old
Rome of the popes has become absorbed into the later Rome of the king. He
was present at the magnificent celebration in St. Peter's on the occasion of the
present Pope's silver jubilee, when fifty thousand people assembled in the great
basilica, and described the effect upon Leo XIII. when, as with a single voice,
the vast throng burst forth into the exclamation, " Viva il Papa Re " Long live
the Pope and King. " It was a long day since that cry had been heard in Rome,"
added Mr. Crawford, " and His Holiness received it with the beautiful placid
smile characteristic of him."

Mr. Crawford described other memorable scenes he had witnessed in Rome,
and spoke of the great Cardinal Antonelli, Pius IX. 's Secretary of State, whom he
knew well, and " whose genius," he said, " had held every court in Europe at
bay." He told of the cardinal's death, and of his visit to the death chamber on
the following morning as correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph. He
then related how he took up journalism on account of reverses in fortune, and of
his meeting with the Hindoo gentleman who induced him to go to India, where
he met the hero described in his first story, Mr. Isaacs. He gave his hearers the
evolution of Mr. Isaacs and Paul Patoff, and in the course of his remarks on the
former book told some very entertaining things about Mme. Blavatsky and her
theosophy, which he called " Arab trash and tricks." His life in India was

1893-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 739

briefly touched upon. He worked in a newspaper office fifteen hours a day with
the thermometer at 115, and that with fans going all day and wet grass screens
on the windows.

He concluded by relating some incidents in his life in lower Italy, ending
with a fervent tribute to the Catholic Church, and proclaiming his gratitude to
God for the grace of membership in the One True Fold. The members of the
Catholic Union, their relatives and guests, were then presented to Mr. Crawford
by the reception committee.

It is announced that during Lent Mr. Crawford and Sir Edwin Arnold will
alternate in a series of morning readings in New York.

* * *

The concluding lecture in the course of the John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Cir-
cle of Boston, by Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D., was a masterly exposition of the
Irish element in modern English literature. He showed how the cruel and oppres-
sive English government of Ireland, which for so long denied education to the Irish
people except at the cost of their faith, and which worked also systematically
against the industrial prosperity of the country, checked the growth of literature
in Ireland, though it could not quench the people's thirst for knowledge, nor ab-
solutely hinder the gravitation of many Irishmen to literary pursuits.

Dr. Conaty paid a just and feeling tribute to the hedge schoolmaster, who
kept alive the taste for letters in Ireland in her darkest days. He traced the be-
ginnings of an Irish literature in the English tongue back to the street-ballads
which, however deficient in literary technique, were not seldom full of true poetry.
" Note, for example, the ' Wearing of the Green,' " he said, " how its pathos and
poetry stir the heart, when interpreted by the voice of a Ludwig." He indicated
the distinct Irish influence on English letters at its highest and widest, through
the oratory of Burke, Curran, O'Connell ; the prose of Swift and Steele and Gold-
smith ; the poetry of Moore, Mangan, and Goldsmith again, and later of Aubrey
de Vere. In a passage of great force and beauty he especially praised the weird
and wonderful genius of Mangan, and touched tenderly on the sorrows of his
life. To these poets may be added some of the brightest names of those popular-
ly assumed to be entirely English. Keats had a liberal infusion of Irish blood,
and the Barrett, as Bernard Carpenter used to claim, certified similarly for Eliza-
beth Barrett Browning. The Young Ireland campaign, in which brilliant jour-
nalism and national poetry were so effective weapons, was also considered, and
Dr. Conaty spoke eloquently of the poets of the nation, particularly of Thomas
Davis and " Speranza," Lady Wilde. Another service of the Irish element to
literature is that it is making known through the English speech a world of ro-
'mantic history, legend, and fairy lore, from the copious and beautiful literature of
the ancient Irish tongue.

M. C. M.

740 NEW BOOKS. [Feb., 1893.

NEW BOOKS.

John Murphy & Co., Baltimore :

Memories of the Professional and Social Life of John E. Owens. By his

Wife.
The Outing Company, limited, New York:

Saddle and Sentiment. By Wenona Gilman.
Benziger Brothers, New York :

Hierurgia ; or, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. With notes and disserta-
tions elucidating its doctrines and ceremonies, and numerous illustrations.
By Daniel Rock, D.D. Third edition. Revised by W. H. James Weale.
2 vols.

The Creed Explained ; or, An Exposition of Catholic Doctrine according to
the Creeds of Faith and the Constitutions and Definitions of the Church.
By Rev. Arthur Devine, Passionist.

The Catholic Priesthood. Rev. M. Miiller, C.SS.R. 2 vols.

Literary, Scientific, and Political Views of Orestes A. Brownson. Selected
from his Works by Henry F. Brownson.

Moments before the Tabernacle. By the Rev. Matthew Russell, S.J.

Words of Wisdom from the Scriptures. A Concordance to the Sapiential
Books. Prepared from the French (Migne's Collection). Edited by Rev.
John J. Bell. With a Preface by Very Rev. A. Magnien, S.S., D.D.

OZuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Edition complete. Published by the
Sisters of Annecy, with the assistance of competent ecclesiastics, under the
immediate supervision of Monsignor Isoard, Bishop of Annecy. Vol. I.:
Containing " Les Controverses " from the autographs at Rome and Annecy,
with an " Introduction Generate," historical, bibliographical, and literary,
to the QLuvres de St. Francois de Sales.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York :

The Life and Letters of Washington Alhton. By Jared B. Flagg, N.A.,

S.T.D.
Roberts Brothers, Boston :

Guide to the Knowledge of God: A Study of the Chief Theodices. By A.
Gratry, Professor of Moral Theology at the Sorbonne. Translated by
Abby Langdon Alger. With introduction by William Rounseville Alger.
Victor Lecoff re, Paris :

Saint Paul. Ses Missions. Par l'Abb6 C. Fouard.

PAMPHLETS.

The Catholic Truth Society, St. Paul, Minn.:
Thoughts from Lacordaire.

The Mass. The Proper Form of Christian Worship. Rev. J. M. Lucey.
Proceedings of the Catholic Young Men's National Union in Albany, 1892.

"Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over Me ; but weep for yourselves, and
for your children." ST. LUKE xxiii. 28.

From von Hoffman in Munich Gallery.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. LVI.

MARCH, 1893.

No. 336.

VIA DOLOROSA.

AH ! yes, dear friend, 'tis hard for one who knew
A~JL. No crown but roses, to be crowned with rue ;
To weep, who always smiled ; to bear a cross,
Who never felt a burden or a loss.

'Tis hard but when the bitter sprays oppress,
And when the cross smites down with heaviness,
O think of Him who erst this valley trod,
And blest the narrow path which leads to God !

JAMES BUCKHAM.

VOL. LVI. 51

74 2 SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION AND [Mar.,

SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION AND MODERN BIBLICAL

CRITICISM.

I. WHAT THE CHURCH SAYS.

HE idea of Scripture inspiration as understood
by Catholic theologians involves not only a " di-
vinitas secundum materiam " the Divine or
supernatural character of certain truths con-
tained therein, or revelation but also " Divinitas
secundum auctorem " or the divinity of the principal Author.
In other words, the collection of writings called Holy Scripture
is not merely sacred because it contains imbedded in it, like
gold in a hill-side, truths concerning God and man to which rea-
son is either absolutely or morally incapable of attaining, but
also because, for the form in which Scripture conveys these
truths, and their entire context, the God of truth has made him-
self to some real extent responsible. He is the prompter of the
undertaking, the suggester of the subject-matter, the supervisor
of the execution, and the editor, so to speak, who affixes his
name and imprimatur to the work.

IN WHAT INSPIRATION CONSISTS.

It is precisely in this manifold relation between God and the
sacred writers that inspiration consists. Its variety for there is
a difference of degree in the inspiration of different parts of
Holy Scripture is to be found mainly in the differing degrees in
which the subject-matter, whether in detail or expression, is
Divinely suggested or left to the resources of the human author.
Inspiration is the measure of the Divine authorship. Man, not
God, is the author in the popular sense of the term, the imme-
diate intellectual maker and composer of the sacred writings.
It was a human mind with all its native limitations that com-
piled and digested what it afterwards expressed in various liter-
ary forms. Only here and there are there evidences of anything
approaching a Divine dictation ; but throughout a Divine pre-
vention manifests itself. But as it is precisely this Divine con-
tribution of suggestion and assistance that gives its priceless dis-
tinction to the sacred writings, God comes to be spoken of by
theologians as the " auctor principalis" The following illustra-

1893-] MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 743

tion may serve to bring out the force of the Latin word. Eras-
mus (Ep. ad von Hutten), speaking of Blessed Thomas More,
says : " Quin et mihi ut Moriae encomium scriberem, hoc est ut
camelus saltarem, fuit auctor." More was the inspirer of this
work of Erasmus. Had he stood over him and seen that his
own idea was sufficiently carried out, and in no respect gainsaid,
he would, so far as we may compare things human with things
Divine, an external with an internal action, have stood to him
in the same relation as God stood to the sacred writers.

WHAT IS THE EXTENT OF DIVINE RESPONSIBILITY?

The great question that lies before us, that clamors for solu
tion, is : What may be the extent of the Divine responsibility
in the word of Scripture, what does it imply, what preclude,
what permit ? Can we regard any of the statements of fact or
theory or sentiment in the Bible as in any sense misstatements ?
and if so, in what sense ?

When we are first introduced to the Scriptures as the word
of God we look around us with admiration and awe, impressed
by the surpassing beauty and grandeur of the literary habitation,
with which no other literary dwelling-place made with hands can
compare, and we are fain to cry out, " Verily this is the house
of God, this is the gate of heaven !" But when we begin to
examine in detail, we are startled and puzzled to find such an
infinite variety of material, of tone, of temper, of strain of sen-
timent, of moral pitch, of intellectual level. Instead of stately
uniformity of white robes with which our imagination is apt to
clothe a heavenly visitant, a garb as varied as Joseph's coat of
many colors meets our eye. We are thus brought across the
immediate, though subordinate, authors of the books of Scrip-
ture the human authors, known or unknown, of every variety
of character and attainment, saints and sinners, learned and un-
learned, the highest genius and the lowliest capacity. We are
made familiar, on the one hand, with the loftiest utterances of
the sublimest morality, the most exalted enthusiasm, the words
of men who have verily conversed with God words to which
the fitting prelude may well be, " Thus saith the Lord "; on the
other hand, we are introduced to a quaintly childlike narrative
suggesting in various directions imperfect knowledge, and strong-
ly characterized by national limitations, and imperfect moral
and intellectual development.

The Old Testament embraces tones as various as the solemn
denunciations of Isaias ; the lyric drama of the Psalms, in which

744

SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION AND

[Mar.,

every sentiment of humanity finds its voice and claims its por-
tion ; the military chronicle of the Machabees, with its conscious
struggling after an accuracy which it feels to be hardly attain-
able ; and the musings of the world-weary Ecclesiastes, whereof the
ground-tone is that the game of sin is not worth the playing, but
with here and there high words of aspiration and intercession, like
the mysterious flying voices in Dante's Purgatorio. And now we
repeat, the question is, How far may all these various instruments,
which to so large an extent have been allowed to do their own
work after their own fashion in various degrees of perfection or
imperfection, be considered, in minor matters unconnected with
faith and morals, to be subject to the " humanum aliquid" of
misapprehension and misstatement ?

THE CHURCH TEACHES.

As Catholics we are bound to ask ourselves : I. What, if any-
thing, has the church decided in the matter, in the way of de-
finitive declaration ? 2. What, in default of such definitive
teaching, are we to gather as to her belief from the "consensus
doctorum" and what obligation as to our belief does such " con-
sensus" supposing it to exist, carry with it ?

THE TRIDENTINE AND VATICAN COUNCILS.

The only definitive teaching on the question of inspiration
with which we need concern ourselves is the teaching of the
Tridentine and Vatican Councils. The Council of Trent (Sess.
IV., de Can. Script.), after asserting that God is the author of
both Testaments and enumerating the books of Scripture, anathe-
matizes every one " who receives not as sacred and canonical
the aforesaid books in their integrity, with all their parts as
they are wont to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they
are contained in the ancient Vulgate edition." And again, in
the ensuing decree (de edit, et usu Sacror. Libror.), enacts and
declares that "this ancient Vulgate edition, which has been ap-
proved by its use for so many centuries in the church, be held
as authentic " (i.e., as adequately representing the originals) " in
public lectures, disputations, sermons, and expositions, and that
no one on any pretext whatsoever venture or presume to reject
it." It does this, it says, in order that people may know what
the council is aiming at, and "what evidence and authorities it
will mainly employ for the confirmation of dogmas and for the
restoration of morals in the church." To this the Vatican
Council adds two points bearing on our inquiry : I. It explains

1 893.] MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 745

the Divine authorship " utriusquc Testamenti" to mean the
authorship of the several books contained therein ; 2. That the
sacred character of these books consists not merely in their con-
taining the revelation in its purity, but in this that being written
under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for
their author, and thus their sacred character is not derived from
any subsequent approval of the church.

THE VULGATE IS HELD AS AUTHENTIC.

From a careful analysis of this conciliar teaching, it will appear
that the church says nothing whatever of the sacred originals
except indirectly, so far as they are represented by the Vul-
gate. She teaches that the Vulgate adequately represents them
so that it must be held as authentic ; that it is in substance
identical with them throughout, and its teaching absolutely
identical in every point of faith and morals, forasmuch as it is
to furnish authoritative texts for the confirmation of faith and
the restoration of morals : a fortiori, then, an analogous corre-
spondence with truth is vindicated for the original texts. So
far, then, our question is answered ; the original texts of Scrip-
ture can, for any one who accepts the conciliar teaching of the
church, contain no misstatement affecting the substance of the
work, or involving an error in faith or morals, for even as repre-
sented in the Vulgate they are declared not to do so.

A FULLER ANSWER TO OUR QUESTION.

But cannot we deduce a fuller answer to our question than
this? Can we not interpret these decrees, with certain theolo-
gians, as precluding any, the least, misstatement " quoad res et.
sententias "? Now, I am not considering what the Fathers of
Trent or of the Vatican Council, in common with other Fathers
and theologians, may be supposed to have held on the subject,
or what the Divine authorship may be reasonably thought to im-
ply points which naturally find their places later on ; but sim-
ply what the decrees define. Here I unhesitatingly answer that
no such point is defined. The Fathers of Trent are simply
dealing with Scripture in its larger features, its substance, those
integrating parts which sundry of the heresies of the day were
repudiating, and its cogency in faith and morals. The decree,
as it is in fact formulated, could only be supposed to define this
point in so far as it can be supposed to define as much regarding
the Vulgate, for it deals with nothing in the original texts except
what they have in common with the Vulgate ; but we know that

746

SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION AND

[Mar.,

the Fathers did not regard the latter as free from all misstate-
ments in minutiae not involving a point of faith or morals ; on
the contrary they were contemplating very considerable emenda-
tions.

DISCUSSION BETWEEN FRANZELIN AND VERCELLONE.

In the important discussion between Cardinal Franzelin and
Vercellone the learned editor of the Varies lectiones Vulg.
Bib. on the question whether every text in the Vulgate deal-
ing with faith and morals must needs be genuine Scripture, both
disputants assume that other undogmatic texts stand on quite a
different footing. No doubt neither party contemplates any
other condition for possible misstatement except ungenuineness ;
I am not pretending that either Franzelin or Vercellone con-
templated the slightest misstatement in the original texts. I
appeal to them as evidence that neither the original Vulgate nor
its textus receptus was accounted necessarily free from the possi-
bility of misstatement in points not affecting faith and morals.
But if the Vulgate gives the measure of what the council de-
fined as to the truth of Scripture, it follows that the council de-
fined nothing as to the accuracy of all the " res et sententice " in
the original texts, as such, abstracting from faith and morals.

CONSENSUS OF THE FATHERS.

In default of a definition of the church, we must inquire
whether there is a consensus of Fathers and theologians on the
matter, and of the weight of such consensus in determining our
assent. By "consensus" I mean the absolute unanimity of such
Fathers and theologians as refer to the subject at all. It will
be convenient to take the latter part of the question the doc-
trinal first.

The principle has ever held good in the church, that a con-
sensus Patrum has the cogency of a rule of faith, provided, I,
that it concerns a point belonging to the materia fidei velmorum;
that is to say, when it is essentially concerned with the relations
between God and man, whether natural or revealed, and with
the obligations, whether of assent or conduct, springing there-
from ; 2, that the consensus is to the effect not merely that
such has been the common sentiment of Catholics, but that such
has been ever held by them as de fide.

The weight of such a consensus does not depend upon the
authoritative position of the Fathers as bishops and teachers in
the church, but precisely upon this : that they are recognized as
unexceptionable witnesses to the contents of the church's faith. In

1 893.] MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM, 747

other words, we have in a practical form the famous maxim of
St. Vincent of Lerins, " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omni-
bus" for this maxim is not to be regarded as a negative test, a
sine qua non of orthodoxy, as though nothing could be accounted
de fide which should lack such explicit recommendation, but pre-
cisely and exclusively as a positive pledge that the doctrine so
recommended is de fide to the exclusion of all that may contra-
dict it. The application of this principle by the Council of
Trent to the interpretation of Scripture might seem at first sight
to involve some contraction of its subject-matter, but we must
recollect that Scripture was habitually regarded as the seminarium
containing directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly, all arti-
cles of faith and morals. The conciliar decree concerning the
interpretation is, indeed, thrown into a disciplinary form, but the
dogmatic principle we have indicated indubitably underlies it. It
comes to the same thing whether we regard the subjoined catena
of Fathers and theologians as interpreters of the Scripture texts
claiming a Divine authorship and inspiration, or as witnesses to
the oral tradition of the church concerning the authority of
Scripture.

WHAT THEY THINK.

It is not anywhere disputed that an overwhelming preponder-
ance of Fathers and theologians, from the earliest times to the
present century, have taught that the inspiration of Scripture or
its Divine authorship implies that the literal sense, whether pro-
per or metaphorical, of every categorical statement found in Holy
Scripture is true, that every such statement contains a truth as
the necessary and adequate object of the intention of the Divine
Author.

We shall now proceed to give a few specimens of their lan-
guage : St. Hilary (in Ps. xviii.) : " In the Scriptures there is noth-
ing superfluous, nothing not worthy of its author, nothing imper-
fect "; St. Basil (in Gen., Horn, vi.) : "No otiose syllable"; St.
John Chrysostom (in Joan., Horn. 1.) : " Nothing insignificant is
contained in them "; St. Jerome (Ep. 46) : " And first we would
have thee to know that throughout Scripture there can be no
self-contradiction."

St. Augustine (de Consens. Evang., i. 11-12): " It is certain
that all untruth is absent from the Evangelists, both that which
comes of lying and that which comes of forgetting "; again (Ep.
28 ad S. Hieron.) : " No error, not even in matters of small mo-
ment, must be admitted in Scripture"; and again (de Consens.
Evang., i. 54): "There, if anything absurd disturbs us, we must

748

SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION AND

[Mar.,

not say that the author has not the truth, but either that the
manuscript is faulty, or the translator has erred, or thou thyself
understandest not."

THE OPINION OF ST. THOMAS.

St. Thomas (quodlib. xii. art. 26) : " This must be held, that
whatsoever is contained in Holy Scripture is true, and that he
who should hold the contrary thereof would be a heretic "; (de
Potent., qu. iv. art. i) : " What Holy Scripture says once was we
must not say was not, for, as Augustinus saith (lib. v. de Trin.),
no Christian holds what contradicts Holy Scripture ; but the
Divine Scripture saith, the earth was once ' inanis et vacua,' there-
fore we must not say that it was not ' inanis et vacua ' "; (in Titum,
cap. iii. test. 2) : " In Holy Scripture there is nothing in reality
contradictory, but if aught appeareth so, it is either because it is
not understood, or because the passage is corrupt through the
fault of the transcriber"; (ra. qu. xxxii. art. iv.) : "A thing may
appertain to the faith in two ways. In one way, directly, as those
points which are primarily Divinely delivered to us, as that God
is Triune, or the only Begotten Son of God incarnate, or the
like, and thereon to hold falsely ipso facto involves heresy. Indi-
rect ly t however, those positions concern the faith from which fol-
lows aught contrary to the faith ; as, for instance, if any one
were to say that Samuel was not the son of Helcana; for from
this it would follow that the Divine Scripture was untrue."

Clement VI., in the Interrogatory proposed to the Arminians,
art. 14 (ap. Rainald, an. 1351), puts the question: "Hast thou
believed, and dost thou now fcelieve, that the New and Old
Testaments, in all the books which the authority of the Roman
Church commends, contain the undoubted truth in every particu-
lar ? (per omnia)" This has special reference to an unimportant
matter of fact, the manner of Cain's death. (See Ben. XII. cont.
Armin., art. 114 ibid. an. 1341.)

Driado (de Sac. Script., lib. i. cap. i.) speaks thus : Scripture
is "without admixture of untruth, ... in regard to which
it is altogether unlawful to doubt as to the truth and correct-
ness of anything asserted therein. There is, indeed, a certain
pious variance and discussion amongst the Fathers of the church,
but it does not turn on this, whether what is asserted in the
Scnpture be true and correct ; but upon this, that one expounds
and interprets the words of the same passage thus, another
thus."

Of this writer R. Simon (Bib. Critic) says : " II semble que

1893-] MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 749

les eveques assembles dans le Concile de Trente 1'aient suive
dans tout ce qu'ils ont decide" sur rautorite" de la Vulgate."

These passages are sufficiently clear and sufficiently represen-
tative, and establish that, according to the common teaching of
Fathers and theologians, all the " res et sententia " of Holy Scrip-
ture are to be regarded as true.

THE HISTORY OF THE OPPOSITE OPINION.

When we turn to the history of the opposite opinion, viz.,
that the Divine authorship does not preclude a certain admix-
ture of falsity in matters external to the sphere of faith and
morals, we find that the pedigree assigned to it by its oppo-
nents will not bear examination. When they pretend to trace
its parentage to the Gnostics opposed by St. Epiphanius and
St. Jerome, who contended that the sacred writers occasionally
" sicut homines locuti sunt," and in consequence now and again,
like men, fell into error ; or again to certain members of the
old Antiochene school, such as Theodore of Mopsuestia, con-
demned by the Fifth Council (see Scheeben, Cath. Dogm., vol. i.
p. 112), they forget that it was precisely within the sphere of
faith and morals that these heretics made their attack and the
Fathers their defence. Indeed there is no trace, so far as I
know, of the particular view I am considering till the sixteenth
century. Then indeed, as we learn from Melchior Canus (de loc.
lib. ii. c. xviii.), Cardinal Cajetan and Steuch, a bishop of Candia
sometime Vatican librarian and present at one or more of the
early sessions of Trent understood St. Jerome to admit that
the Evangelists had been led into certain minor errors by the Sep-
tuagint, and were themselves of this opinion. Canus informs us
that Cajetan did not persist in his view ; but it is pretty clear
that no retractation was producible. After this, and the doubt-
ful exception of Erasmus, it was not, I believe, till the middle
of the present century that the view found expression in the
work of a Catholic author, the German Professor Schegg, who
in his commentary on St. Matthew suggests as an escape from
a difficulty that the Evangelist may have erred through defect
of memory. It has subsequently been from time to time advo-
cated by Catholic writers as a tenable hypothesis calculated to
be of advantage in meeting the objections of modern criticism.
It has been quite recently put forward by the late Cardinal New-
man in England, and by Canon Bartolo in Turin. The general
current of teaching in the church, however, has as yet remained
almost unmodified by these isolated attempts. Witness such

750 SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION AND [Mar.,

writers as Patrizzi, Ubaldi, Lamy, Vigoroux, as representing the
great centres of ecclesiastical education, Rome, Paris, and Lou-
vain.

HOW FAR THE CONSENSUS IMPOSES AN OBLIGATION OF BELIEF.

We must now proceed to consider how far the cloud of wit-
nesses for the common opinion really fulfils the requirements of
a full and precise consensus on the point in question, and so
imposes upon us an obligation of belief ; or whether any doubt
can be thrown on the unanimity or precision of the testimony,
and so the point remain, however nearly closed, an open ques-
tion. It will here be to the purpose to submit to a somewhat
detailed examination the various utterances of one whom the
church entitles " in exponendis Sacris Scripturis Doctor Maximus"
The following catena of passages will, I believe, with the one
already quoted, embrace in substance all that St. Jerome has
said at all bearing on the point.

In Amos, lib. ii. c. 5 (op. ed. Vallarsi, torn. vi. p. 306) :
" This is to be noted throughout Holy Scripture, that the Apos-
tles and Apostolic men in producing their testimonies from the
Old Testament did not consider the words but the sense ; nor
cared to set their feet in the same foot-prints of language, if
only they did not depart from the meaning (a sententiis)" As
an instance of what he has in view he continues : " Neither is
the first martyr to be thought to have erred because for what
the prophet (Amos) had written, ' trans Damascum,' he quoted
* trans Babylonem! For he gave the meaning rather than the
word, inasmuch as they were carried through Damascus into
Babylon, or through Babylon " Babylon being the slave-mart.

In Michseam, lib. ii. c. 5, after appealing to what he calls
the contrarius sensus of the quotation, " nequaquam minima es "
of Matth. ii. as contrasted with the " modicus es" both in the
Hebrew and Septuagint of the prophet quoted, as an instance
of sacerdotal slovenliness, but which St. Matthew did not care
to correct, he continues : " There are some who assert that in
almost all the testimonies which are cited from the Old Testa-
ment this sort of excess occurs, that either the order is changed
or the words, and sometimes the meaning also is different ; the
Apostles or Evangelists not taking their citations from the book,
but trusting to their memory, which sometimes failed them."
In Matth., lib. iv. in c. 27 (torn. vi. p. 228) : " Then was ful-
filled what was spoken by Jeremias the prophet " (concerning

1 893.] MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 751

the thirty pieces and the potter's field) : " This citation is not
found in Jeremias. In Zacharias, however, who is almost the last
of the twelve prophets, there is a certain resemblance, and al-
though the sense is not very different (non multum discrepii),
yet the order and words are different. I read the other day, in
a Hebrew volume brought me by a Jew of the Nazarene sect,
an apocryphal Jeremias in which I found the passage word for
word. Nevertheless the citation seems to me rather to have
been taken from Zacharias, after the ordinary fashion of Evan-
gelists and Apostles, who, foregoing the verbal order, produce
the sense only of the Old Testament for their purpose."

Qusest. Hebraic., in Gen. (torn. iii. p. 369) : According to the
Septuagint, " all the souls that entered with Jacob into Egypt
were seventy-five," whereas according to the Hebrew original
there were only seventy; "and the self-same Septuagint inter-
preters who here (Gen. 46), by prolepsis with Joseph and his
posterity, say that seventy-five souls entered Egypt,* in Deute-
ronomy record that seventy only entered. But if it be urged
against us that in the Acts of the Apostles, in Stephen's dis-
course, the people are told that seventy-five souls entered
Egypt, an excuse is easily found (facilis excusatio). For it would
have been wrong for St. Luke, the author of that history, when
issuing his volume of the Acts of the Apostles to the Gentiles,
to have written aught contrary to that Scripture which was in
vogue amongst the Gentiles. And indeed at that time the au-
thority of the Septuagint interpreters was held in higher repute
than that of St. Luke, who was accounted an obscure, common-
place author and of no great credit among the Gentiles. Some,
however, are of opinion that Luke as a proselyte was unac-
quainted with the Hebrew tongue.f

Of this treatment of the question we find the following echo
in St. Bede (in Act., op. torn. v. p. 640) : " Blessed Stephen, as
speaking to the people, the rather accommodated himself to the
popular opinion."

I would remark here that a quotation from the Old Testa-
ment in the New in which there should be a real diversity of
sense from the original, even if the two senses were not con-
trary or mutually destructive, would fall under the category
of errors contemplated by the theory of " obiter dicta" inas-
much as it would involve the statement that a sacred writer had

*They added five grandsons of Joseph then unborn.

t This was not St. Jerome's opinion. (See de Script. Eccles.)

752 SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION AND [Mar.,

said what in fact he had not said. At the same time we may
conceive that the form of quotation might sufficiently distin-
guish the direct object of the quotation from its environment,
and would thus indicate an " obiter dictum secundum formam" of
which we shall have something to say later.

THE OPINION OF ST. JEROME.

When we ask ourselves what precisely was St. Jerome's view
as to the possibility of the sacred writer making quotations
inaccurate " quoad sensum " i.e., making statements of what a
prophet said which was not even " quoad sensum " precisely
what he did say we must confess that it is not easy to recon-
cile his various expressions. Unfortunately we do not possess
any commentary of his upon the Acts, in which he would have
had to deal fully with the various difficulties contained in St.
Stephen's speech, a solution of which he promises us (Ep. 57).

Let us try and sum up for ourselves the various points of
St. Jerome's position. He protests against attributing self-
contradiction to the sacred writers ; he dwells upon the Evan-
gelists' way of exclusively directing their attention to the mean-
ing whilst neglecting the language and order of their citations,
at the same time that he mentions, without any token of repro-
bation, the view of those who attribute to these citations a
diversity of sense from the originals due to lapse of memory,
and himself admits in one case (Matth. 27) a discrepancy of
meaning, though a slight one. Moreover, he seems to contem-
plate as a possible alternative to his own attribution of the text
to Zacharias, its attribution to a pseudo-Jeremias. He implies
that St. Stephen did not err, and refuses to distinguish him, as
an inferior authority, from St. Luke a course to which Canus
thinks himself obliged.* He recognizes the Septuagint's reckon-
ing of the seventy-five souls as an instance of prolepsis which
St. Stephen quotes, but thinks it well to excuse him in that he
must quote as his hearers read.

A DISCREPANCY " QUOD SENSUM."

It seems to me that the mind of St. Jerome is this : The
slight discrepancy " quoad sensum " (Matth. 27) which he grants
involves no contradiction or even substantial diversity of mean-
ing, but merely a variation in the degree of expansion of the
idea. In the quotation from Zacharias the discrepancy lies,

* Canus (de loc. 1. c. in fin.) considers that the recitation in the Acts of St. Stephen's
statement does not put it on the level of direct Scriptural authority.

1893-] MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 753

ist, in the compression by the Evangelist of the dramatic
" cast, etc., and I cast, etc.," into " they gave, etc., as the Lord
laid it down for me "; 2d, in the expansion of " for the pot-
ter " into " for the potter for his field." As to the substitution
of the name of Jeremias for that of Zacharias, we do not
know how St. Jerome would have accounted for it, had he cared
to do so. The ordinary explanation is that the name of Jere-
mias heading the prophetic roll used in the synagogue, common
usage accepted it as a title for the whole.

The excusatio was for no error properly so called, but for an
inappropriate expression belonging to poetry rather than to a
prose narration. We have a familiar illustration in Keats's " The
brothers and the murdered man rode past fair Florence." The
opinion cited by St. Jerome, that the Evangelists sometimes
failed even of the sense of their citations from lapse of memory,
is not his own, and anyhow does not preclude a Divine action
preventing such lapse extending beyond the limits of such varia-
tion as we have been considering. But although I consider this
analysis of St. Jerome's mind sufficiently reasonable, I cannot
deny that the language of the Doctor Maximus makes it suffi-
ciently clear that he did not encourage the position that there
may be errors of one sort or another in the sacred writers as
contra fidem. And so far suggests grave doubt as to the com-
pleteness and precision of the consensus doctorum against that
theory.

ST. AUGUSTINE'S OPINION.

With regard to St. Augustine, Vallarsi, the editor of St.
Jerome (in Matt., c. 27, note e), says : " St. Augustine (de Con-
sens. Evang., lib. iii. in loco) seems to refer to a lapse of
memory on the part of the sacred writer which I should be loath
to admit." This is hardly accurate. In the passage referred to,
treating of the substitution of Jeremias for Zacharias, St. Au-
gustine suggests not a lapse of memory but a mentis excessus, in
which the literal tenor is broken in order to emphasize a mysti-
cal meaning, viz., the identity of the Spirit speaking " idem spiri-
tus" Still this implies an admission on the part of St. Augus-
tine of a literal inaccuracy in the sacred text ; whether compen-
sated or not by an accession of mystical emphasis, modern criti-
cism is not concerned. St. Augustine's view of a mystical sense
not grounded upon a literal truth is commonly repudiated by
subsequent writers. Thus, when brought to the test of particu-

754 SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION. [Mar.,

lar difficulties, the authority of St. Augustine's testimony fluctu-
ates.

St. Thomas's testimony, no doubt, is unequivocal and persis-
tent, but it must be remembered that, with all their unrivalled
intellectual acumen, the scholastics were wholly out of touch with
even that measure of literary and critical sense possessed by the
Fathers.

I should conclude, then, that though we may maintain the
common opinion, on the authority of a large preponderance of
doctors, as extfinsically the more probable, we cannot preclude
an author who has undertaken to lay down precisely what we
are bound as Catholics to believe, and no more, from insisting
that neither the definitive teaching of the church nor a sufficient
consensus doctorum has made the hypothesis of the existence of
minute errors in the purlieus, so to speak, of the sacred writers
an impossible one.*

H. I. D. RYDER.

Oratory, Edgbaston.

*In the next article Father Ryder will state the arguments in favor of the existence of the
"obiter dicta " in Scripture and the counter arguments of its opponents. ED. C. W.

1893-] ARCHBISHOP DARBOY. 755

ARCHBISHOP DARBOY, THE MARTYR OF LA
ROQUETTE.*

;EORGES DARBOY was born at Tayl-Billot, in the
department of the Haute Marne, in the ancient
province of Champagne, January 16, 1813. His
parents, who kept a modest country store, were
honored and esteemed in their own community.
Georges in his boyhood was quick-tempered, ardent, mischievous,
and troublesome qualities which when chastened, tempered, and
directed by that wisdom of which the fear of the Lord is the
foundation developed into decision, intrepidity, and independence
of character.

Having been sent to the seminary at Langres with a view to
his being educated for the priesthood, he began his career in
life by running away ; and returning to his parents, assured them
that he had no vocation whatever for the priestly calling. "A/i/
mon Dieu," cried an elderly neighbor to her gossips, " so now
that great devil has come again to trouble us ! " He was sent
back, however, to the seminary, and reconciling himself to the
course of life marked out for him, soon became one of its most
distinguished scholars.

Not lotig after he was ordained a priest his resolute charac-
ter displayed itself. He was not inclined to surrender his inde-
pendence or his convictions. One day, after some difference be-
tween himself and the cure his superior, he said firmly but good-
temperedly : "You see, M. le Cure, that my mother has often told
me never to let myself be eaten up alive with the wool on my
back." "Oh! very well." replied the cur6, laughing; "when I
see your mother I shall tell her how well you follow her instruc-
tions." Afterwards in 1850, when he was editor of the Moniteur
Catholique, founded by Monseigneur Sibour, he severed his con-
nection with that journal because he did not approve of a cer-
tain indecision apparent in its course on political questions.
Monseigneur Sibour attempted to reason with him. " If you re-
tire," he said, "you will not only injure the paper, but still more
injure yourself." " Monseigneur," replied the Abbe Darboy, " if
what you say is a prophecy, I will try to make it false ; . . .

* France in the Nineteenth Century. E. W. Latimer. Histoire de la Vie, et des (Euvres de
Mgr. Dardoy, Archeveque de Paris. Mgr. Foulon.

756 ARCHBISHOP DARBOY. [Mar.,

but if it is a threat, I cannot but be surprised at receiving it
from the lips of your highness." " How you take things, my
dear abb ! " replied the archbishop, with a smile. " But no
matter. I like people of your sort."

AS A PRIEST.

Young Darboy soon after his ordination was appointed to a
curacy at Saint Diziers, but he had not been there long before
he was called to Paris by Monseigneur Affre, afterwards arch-
bishop, who in the course of a visit paid to Langres had been
struck by his talent, his zeal for work, and his erudition. The
young priest on leaving his native province wrote a characteris-
tic letter to a friend. " I will endeavor," he said, " never to dis-
honor myself in the sight of God, and by his grace I feel ready
to confess my faith even upon the scaffold." He often recurred
to this idea, saying : " I should indeed esteem myself happy to
die for my convictions."

The Abbe Darboy was a skilful and ready writer ; very early
he had been a contributor to the Correspondent, and he wrote
several books which are not destined to be forgotten.

Monseigneur Affre, impressed by his great value as an instruc-
tive preacher, made him assistant chaplain to the great public
school for boys in Paris, the College de Henri IV. He had first,
however, offered him the higher post of the chaplaincy itself.
" Monseigneur," said the abbe, " I am told that that post is like
a barren land which starves its owners. Let me first be the
assistant chaplain. I shall then see how my superior deals with
it." " Truly," said Monseigneur Affre, " this is the first time
such a request was ever made to me."

The Revolution of 1848 found the Abbe" Darboy at the
college, and the insurgents in June of that year came very near
forestalling the Commune, and depriving it of its most illustri-
ous victim.

THE DAYS OF THE REVOLUTION.

On the morning of June 23, while terrible street-fighting was
going on between Cavaignac as dictator and the insurgents, the
school was begirt by barricades, and surrounded by armed bands
of revolutionists whom the Abbe" Darboy was attempting to har-
angue in the interests of peace.

After a parley which lasted three-quarters of an hour, and
which proved useless, the abbe gave up his attempt to make
the men of the barricades hear reason, and was about to retire,
when one of them assailed him with mockery and curses. The

1893.] ARCHBISHOP DARBOY. 757

abbe turned back and, pointing to the windows of his chambers,
cried with a loud voice : " There is where I live, and I am go-
ing up there "; adding in a tone which showed his readiness to
suffer martyrdom : " There is where you will find me." As he
entered his room a ball crashed through the window, and buried
itself among the books of his little library.

But though the Abb6 Darboy escaped death in June, 1848,
the insurgents of that date were not balked of another priestly
victim. Monseigneur Affre the archbishop fell the next day,
after mounting a barricade from whence he was displaying a
flag of truce, after having obtained permission from General
Cavaignac to offer terms to the insurgents and stop the effusion
of blood if possible. No wonder that the Abbe" Darboy 's mother
exclaimed, when fourteen years later she heard that her son
was nominated to the primacy : " It is a great honor, but arch-
bishops of Paris never last long."

HE IS MADE VICAR-GENERAL.

Monseigneur Sibour, who succeeded Archbishop Affre, and
was the fast friend of the Abbe Darboy, offered him the impor-
tant post of his vicar-general.

" I have no wish for any high position," said the abbe, " but
if called to it I will not fear. I should ascend without objec-
tion ; I could descend without regret. But think well over it,
monseigneur ; for if you are in earnest in your offer I think I
am the man to take you at your word." " All right. I always
liked your frankness," said the archbishop with a laugh. " It is
all settled, then ; you are my man."

In 1857 Archbishop Sibour was killed by the Abb6 Louis
Verger, in a fit of insanity, in the church of Saint Etienne
du Mont. He fell back into the arms of the Abbe Surat,
one of his grand vicars. The Abbe Surat was himself murdered
by Communists in 1871, while attempting to escape in citizen's
dress from La Roquette. In 1830 he had stood beside Arch-
bishop Quellen, who was murdered in his presence, and now, in
1857, another murdered archbishop died in his arms.

Cardinal Morlot, who succeeded Monseigneur Sibour, con-
tinued the Abbe Darboy in his office of vicar-general. They
had known each other at Langres, and in 1859 ne appointed his
old school-fellow to preach a course of Lenten sermons before
the emperor and empress at the Tuileries.

The task was still delicate, though the time had gone by
when a court orator, having rashly begun his sermon before
VOL. LVI. 52

758 ARCHBISHOP DARBOY. [Man,

the king with the words, " Sire, we are all mortal," and per-
ceiving by a frown upon the royal face that he had gone too far,
hastened to qualify his statement by the words, " or, rather I
should say, we are nearly all of us so."

The Abbe Darboy was not a man to keep before his eyes
the rank and consequence of those who heard him. Ardent and
impulsive, full of the zeal which magnified his office, he felt
that truth is the same to whomsoever it may be spoken, and
he preached to the great as he would have done to the poor ;
courteously as to speech, uncompromisingly as to his teaching.
His sermons produced a great effect. Marshal Vaillant was par-
ticularly struck with them. He went about among his friends
asking all of them if they had heard the Abbe Darboy, and
saying, "What a pity he keeps himself so much in the back-
ground!"

The emperor speaking of him said once : " When he addresses
me in public he generally says what is courteous and agreeable,
but in private when we are alone together well, it is another
matter." And from his pulpit in the chapel of the Tuileries the
abbe spoke as he would have done en tete-a-tete with his
sovereign.

Some years later when a discussion had taken place in the
Privy Council, during the course of which Monseigneur Darboy
(then Archbishop of Paris) had ardently opposed the views of
the emperor, Napoleon III. said afterwards: "I can bear any
opposition from him, because I know he is a man who never

flatters."

HE IS MADE BISHOP OF NANCY.

After his course of Lenten sermons at the Tuileries the
Abbe Darboy became better known to the public. He was soon
afterwards made Bishop of Nancy, on which occasion M. Roul-
land, then minister of worship, said : " I have always found him
a man of rich experience, without any desire for advancement,
nor any unwillingness to accept its responsibilities if it came."

At Nancy the new bishop made a great impression on his
people. " His health is not good, but energy supplies the place
of strength," was said of him. But he did not long remain in
his diocese. Short as his story was there his memory has left a
track of light behind it, not dimmed even by the virtues and
fame of his successors, Monseigneur Lavigerie and Monseigneur
Foulon, the bishop who has written his biography.

On Sunday morning, January u, 1862, the bishop at Nancy
had retired to rest, wearied by a journey he had made to Paris

1 893.] ARCHBISHOP DARBOY. 759

to attend the funeral of the Archbishop Cardinal Morlot. He
was roused before dawn by the arrival of a courier who brought
him an official letter. " Lay it down," said the bishop to his
servant, and quietly resumed his slumber. It was the announce-
ment of his appointment to the archbishopric of Paris.

Historically the reign of the Commune began on March 18,
1871, but actually all government was in abeyance in Paris after
the Republic had been proclaimed and a provisional government
determined on in Bordeaux. By the first week in April the
Commune had imprisoned all the priests in Paris, and was pur-
suing its course in blood.

ARRESTED BY THE COMMUNISTS.

The archbishop had been urged by the government of M.
Thiers, and by his friends on all sides, to retire to Versailles
as the ambassadors and other high officials had done, but he
firmly declined, quoting a passage from Tacitus which that his-
torian applied to the Caesars. " A bishop," he said, " should
know how to die, and to die standing."

On Palm Sunday, a beautiful mild, clear day, three days before
his arrest, he was walking with his sister, who was tenderly de-
voted to him, in the garden of his palace. He paused before a
statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. " She still smiles on us,"
he said softly, " but she will not smile on us long." On April
4, after holding a council with his vicars-general, he said at part-
ing, " We will meet again next week, if we are here, should it
please God." Five minutes afterwards his palace was invaded
and he was arrested by order of the Commune. He endeavored
to comfort and restrain the zeal of his sister, who implored
leave to go with him to prison, and at last, accompanied by
one of his vicars-general, he was led off and arraigned before the
infamous Raoul Rigault, in virtue of an order drawn up in the
language of the old Revolution : " Order to arrest Citizen Dar-
boy, styling himself Archbishop of Paris."

His palace that night was stripped of all its furniture. He
himself was first imprisoned at the Prefecture of Police, and
afterwards in the great prison of Mazas. There Mr. Washburn,
American minister in Paris, the only representative of any
foreign power who, during the reign of the Commune, stayed in
the city, was permitted to visit him, and carried him two bottles
of choice old wine to strengthen him, for his life was gliding
from him rapidly, and the prison doctor announced that he
could not live more than a fortnight without care and nursing.

760 ARCHBISHOP DARBOY. [Mar.,

HIS MARTYRDOM.

Several persons made plans by which they hoped he might
escape, but he declined to sanction them. " Fighting is going
on in the streets," he said. " Ah ! would that I could mount a
barricade like Monseigneur Affre, and die in an attempt to stop
further bloodshed."

On May 21 the archbishop and other so-called hostages were
transferred to condemned cells in the prison of La Roquette.
On May 24, when the troops of Versailles had already gained a
footing in Paris, the archbishop, together with five other "hos-
tages," were shot by a squad of Communist soldiers in a little
interior court-yard of the prison. The names of those who suf-
fered with their ecclesiastical superior were the venerable
Abbe Deguerrey, pastor of the Madeleine ; the Abbe Allard,
head chaplain to the hospitals ; Clerc and Ducoudray, Jesuit
fathers, and M. Bonjean, judge of the Court of Appeals. A
tablet has been let into the wall against which they stood to
meet their fate, and on it is inscribed : " Respect this place
which witnessed the death of noble men and martyrs."

The murderers despoiled the bodies of their victims of all
that was valuable. From that of the archbishop they took the
pastoral ring of Archbishop Sibour, and a gold cross once be-
longing to Archbishop Affre, which he always carried about
him. Their vacant cells were also searched, and everything
worth appropriating was taken. The next day an imprisoned
priest was visited by a man, one of the squad of executioners r
who thrust into his hand the archbishop's breviary, saying : " I
took it from his cell. I knew you would like to have it. Pray
for me." He turned and fled, without having been willing ta
tell his name.

Archbishop Darboy was all his life one of the most indus-
trious of men. Being short-sighted, he found it necessary to-
stoop closely over his paper when writing ; this affected his diges-
tion, and for some years before his death he wrote always on his
knees. He was animated in conversation, and had a beautiful
voice both for preaching and speaking. He was fond of poetry,
and from time to time wrote verses of no small merit. He was
always cordial, affable, and accessible, simple in his manners,,
obedient to his ecclesiastical superiors, and an earnest French-
man ; his pastoral letters sounded like trumpet-calls during the
year of the invasion, that year that the French will never cease
to call the Annc'e Terrible,

E. W. LATIMER.

1893-] THE STUDY OF GEOLOGY. 761

THE STUDY OF GEOLOGY AND THE SUMMER-

SCHOOL.

OW that Catholics have established a Summer-
School where they may come together in the
summer-time to converse on intellectual subjects,
and to listen to lectures on philosophy and his-
tory, we venture to suggest that this wise move-
ment should be as much as possible turned to the profit of the
natural sciences. In our day as never before men are exploring
the Wonderland of Nature, and it is to be regretted that so
few of these men are of our faith. Nor are we alone in this
regret. An able French writer Monsignor de Harlez in La
Science Catholique for July 15 of last year, says: "... In
reality we have since the commencement of this century too
often deserted the scene of scientific debates, of researches, and
of the discoveries which have helped to create or to develop
most of the sciences. It is useless to hide it from ourselves,
when we want to drill young men in the broad and accurate
methods we are very often obliged to send them to masters who
have other religious convictions than our own." *

GEOLOGY AND THE SUMMER-SCHOOL.

Let us hope that a few years hence this reproach may not
apply to us, and it is to the Catholic Summer-School that we
mainly look for our hope to become a reality. This new move-
ment for Catholic advancement has, we predict, a bright future
before it, and those who first projected it are worthy of all
praise ; they have not been afraid to take a new departure.
And when we find ourselves not between the four walls of a
class-room, but under the blue sky, with a broad landscape of
field and rock on which to rest our eyes, it seems to us that
of all the natural sciences the one which treats of Mother
Earth, which reveals the order according to which the materials
of our globe have been arranged in time and in space, is the
most interesting. And when we bring into view this idea of

* ". . . En realite nous avons depuis le commencement de ce siecle trop souvent de-
serte la scene des luttes scientifiques, des recherches, des decouvertes qui ont servi d creer, on
d developper la plupart des sciences. II est inutile de se le dissimuler, quand nous voulons
former un jeune homme aux grandes et strides methodes nous sommes tres souvent obliges
de les envoyer d des maitres qui ont d'autres convictions religieuses que nous."

762 THE STUDY OF GEOLOGY [Mar.,

order the unity and simplicity of the Creator's plan we show
the high and philosophic character of geology. It is, moreover,
a study very conducive to health ; we use our brains and take
bodily exercise at the same time, while it especially quickens
our observing powers ; and with some knowledge of mineralogy
and paleontology so as to arrange and classify the fossils we
gather together we shall find more real pleasure in it than in
any other branch of natural science.

HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE.

And now to begin at the beginning and accepting as true
the hypothesis of Laplace there was a time when from the par-
ent sun a tiny nebulous mass shot forth, which for a brief space
shone by its own light a miniature sun and this little sun was
our earth. Then, losing its heat by radiation into space, it
gradually cooled, a crust formed on its surface, the aqueous
vapor in the atmosphere condensed and formed seas, and by
and by in the water and on the land organic life appeared.
Almighty God directly created these first organisms, just
as he had created the original solar mass from which our
earth proceeded ; and if we only hold fast to this fundamental
truth, the church gives us full liberty to speculate on the mode
in which the life-system grew and developed into what we see
it to-day. For many ages men have been interested in the mys-
terious shells and bones which have now and again been dis-
covered in the earth, and our ancestors made many rash guesses
about them. Aristotle, wise as he was, imagined that fossils
were sports of nature ; and leaning with too much reverence on
his authority, the scholastics of the Middle Ages held the same
opinion. It is not until we reach the sixteenth century to Le-
onardo da Vinci that we find anything worthy of note in
geology. This many-sided genius, who, as an engineer, had
occasion to make cuttings through the Pliocene deposits of Italy,
was the first to recognize the true nature of fossils ; and he
maintained against all the doctors of the Sorbonne that they
were not sports of nature, but had once been living creatures,
whose remains had been saved from putrefaction by having
been encrusted in a protecting material which had shielded them
from atmospheric influences. But in the two centuries which
followed Leonardo da Vinci we meet with only two names
worthy to be mentioned for having thrown a little light on this
science, viz., the German Werner, and the Dane Nicholas
Stenon.

1 893.] AND THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. 763

ITS DEVELOPMENT IN THIS CENTURY.

But with the opening of the nineteenth century came a great
change. In England many new highways and canals were con-
structed, and among those who were employed on these works
was an engineer named William Smith. Nobody before him
had observed that each stratum of earth was characterized by
different fossils, and these different fossils served as nothing
else could to distinguish the different periods of the earth's
history. This discovery of William Smith's gave geology an im-
petus which nothing else could have given it, and he may be
called the father of the science as we know it to-day.

ITS ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES.

Geological time may be divided into four grand eras, namely,
the Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary ; and rocks are
the leaves on which is written the history of these eras. Rocks
may be broadly divided into two classes, namely, stratified and
unstratified. The former are sediments which have become con-
solidated under water, while unstratified rocks such as granite
have been fused, and are of igneous or eruptive origin ; and in
these we need not look for fossils. The sediments of sand,
clay, mud, and lime found in ancient water-spaces, and which
in time have been cemented together and formed into stratified
rocks, are so called from their being separated into beds or
layers called strata ; but from their mode of formation they may
also be termed sedimentary rocks ; and such rocks are still in
process of formation to-day. But while in speaking of them we
may say that the lowest are the oldest, yet the strata has been
so many times crushed and folded, and parts of it swept away
by rain and floods, that it is not always easy to build up an
ideal section of stratified or sedimentary rock in any one place.
It is, as we know, in this class of rocks that fossils are discov-
ered the faunas and floras of past geological epochs. And
as we pass up the series, from the lowest and the oldest to the
highest and the newest of them, we find that the life-system
has changed over and over again. It is, therefore, possible to
tell to what age a rock of this kind belongs by the fossils it
contains. Moreover, the study of these fossils assisted by the
light which botany and zoology throw on the normal habitat of
similar living animals and plants allows us to reconstruct the
physical conditions under which these rocks were formed. If,
for instance, we meet with deep-water fossils overlying fossils

764 THE STUDY OF GEOLOGY [Mar.,

belonging to shallow sea or to lake water, it indicates that the
land here has sunk ; while if, on the contrary, we discover fresh
or brackish water fossils covering a deep-sea sediment, it indi-
cates that the sea-bottom has been uplifted. And let us say,
that the only geological formation which indicates deep sea is
chalk ; and that it is almost entirely on land animals, and on
animals inhabiting fresh or very shallow sea water, that geologi-
cal chronology rests. And we may add that fossils reveal the
fact that the ocean, which now covers almost three-quarters of
the globe, covered in a past geological age an even larger por-
tion. Fossils likewise indicate that the present variety of cli-
mates was at one time replaced by a uniform tropical climate
from the equator to the poles.

Since sediment is only deposited at the bottom of water,
when the bottom has been uplifted above the surface there
will, of course, be no sediment formed, and consequently there
will be no strata to mark the time when it was a land surface :
and now there is what is termed a gap a lost leaf in the
record.

Strata which are parallel, continuous, and therefore formed
under similar conditions, are said to be conformable ; while un-
conformable strata are strata which are not continuous and
which have been laid down under different conditions. In strata
which are conformable the change from one species of fauna
and flora to another species is very gradual, and the time here
represented makes what is called a geological period ; whereas
between two strata which are not conformable the change of
species is marked ; the old flora and fauna would seem to have
abruptly departed and new ones come to take their place. But
this abrupt disappearance is only apparent, nor do we believe
that a miracle has taken place when an entirely new fauna and
flora come upon the scene. We are merely ignorant of the in-
termediate, changing forms which lived during the period unrep-
resented. For unconformity denotes emergence of the land
above water, and while it was above water there could be no
deposit of sediment ; no sedimentary, fossiliferous rocks could
be formed.

THE PRIMARY ERA OF THE EARTH'S HISTORY.

As we know, the history of the earth may be divided into
four eras. In the Primary era there was not much dry land, .and
therefore fishes (we pass over the invertebrates) may be said to
have ruled. They were for a long time the only representatives

1893-] AND THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. 765

of the vertebrates ; and most of these primeval fishes, as the fossils
in the rocks tell us, were covered with bony, enamelled scales,
which served as armor, and they all had cartilaginous skeletons.
Of these ancient inhabitants of the sea the nearest living allies
are the sturgeon, the Port Jackson shark (Australia), the Lepido-
siren, and the Ceratodus. The last-named fish was discovered not
many years ago in a river of South Australia, and a specimen
of one is to be seen in the museum of Columbia College, New
York. The Ceratodus is a true fish, but it has one lung as well
as gills, so that it can breathe air as well as water, like many
amphibians, and at night it comes out of the water and feeds
on leaves near the river-bank, for its fins are so constructed that
it is able to move about with a wabbling gait, somewhat like a
tortoise. Here let us say that the fishes of the Primary era were
generalized types, and along with distinctive fish characters they
possessed other characters which linked them to higher verte-
brates ; they were, in a word, the parent stem from which in the
course of time there diverged two branches, namely, the typical
fishes as we know them to-day and the amphibians.

Towards the close of the Primary era the land surface in-
creased, and now the first amphibians are discovered (animals
between fish and true reptiles, and having lungs as well as gills) ;
and these primitive amphibians were remarkable for their long,
snakelike forms ; and all, with one exception, were noted for the
odd, labyrinthine structure of their teeth, and hence the name
Labyrinthodonts, which was given to them by Professor Owen.
Not long after they appeared we come upon the fossil remains
of true reptiles creatures breathing air by lungs and never by
gills. But, as we might expect, these earliest reptiles were very
generalized ; they have sprung from amphibians, and form the
connecting link with the lowest mammals, namely, the egg-laying
monotremes. At this period of the Primary era the land had
sufficiently risen above the sea to allow a luxuriant vegetation to
spring up ; but it was low, swampy land, and a very common
tree was the tree-fern, which in our day is reduced to an hum-
ble plant, dwelling in moist, shady spots. Thanks to these early
forests becoming buried under sedimentary accumulations, coal
was stored in the earth for man's use in after ages ; thanks, too,
to these carboniferous forests absorbing the carbonic acid of the
air, the air became fit to be breathed by higher forms of life ;
it was essentially an air-purifying age. Yet it was at the same
time a mournful age. Although the forest trees were large, they
were not graceful, branching trees like our trees ; no flowers had

766 THE STUDY OF GEOLOGY [Mar.,

yet appeared to beautify the landscape ; the verdure was deep
and solemn. Nor were there any birds to sing ; and the better
opinion is that the sun was less bright, for it shone through a
thick, nebulous atmosphere.

THE FOSSILS OF THE SECONDARY ERA.

We now come to the Secondary era. This was much shorter
than the Primary. The vegetation was no longer so rank, and
it is represented more by trees growing on higher and dryer
ground. In this era we find a new type of fishes ; not cartilagin-
ous but bony fishes ; and birds and mammals make their first
appearance. Nevertheless, reptiles were still so plentiful and
reached so high a scale of organization that it is sometimes
called the age of reptiles. The Atlantosaurus, a portion of whose
fossil remains has been discovered by Professor Marsh in Colo-
rado, was probably the largest land animal that ever existed ;
the thigh bone of this reptile was eight feet long and two feet
thick, while the creature's whole length is believed to have
measured about one hundred feet. But the highest in the scale
of reptiles were the Dinosaurs, some of whom were of gigantic
size, while others were not bigger than a cat ; and it is com-
monly held by scientists that it is from these reptiles that mam-
mals and birds branched off. Dinosaurs did not crawl like
other reptiles ; and to judge by their fossil remains, some of
them walked on their hind legs alone.

It is toward the middle of this, the Secondary era, that we
discover in the limestone of Germany the earliest bird : a real
feathered bird, yet in several ways very unlike modern birds.
Its tail-fin was vertebrated and had twenty-one joints, while in
its jaws were teeth like the teeth of a reptile. It is to about the
same period that belong the wonderful birds found by Professor
Marsh in the chalk-beds of Kansas. These also had jaws armed
with sharp, conical teeth, and in some of them the teeth were
set in grooves instead of in sockets. Needless to say that these
intermediate, transition forms lend vast weight to the hypothe-
sis of evolution ; and if more transition forms have not come
to light, we must bear in mind that the geological record is by
no means perfect ; we are studying a book many of whose
pages have been lost in the millions of years since it first began
to be written, and, moreover, there is a great deal of the earth
yet to be explored by geologists.* The primitive, reptilian birds

* For intermediate forms see Prof. Gaudry's Ancttres de nos animaux dans les temps geo-
logiques.

1893-] AND THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. 767

we have mentioned would seem to be not far removed from
the point where they branched off although they had not yet
completely separated from the reptile stem. Here we quote
from Professor Mivart's interesting article on " Evolution and
Christianity " in The Cosmopolitan magazine for June of last year :
" The doctrine of evolution has . . . come to be an accept-
able and accepted doctrine to the general bulk of the men of
science of either hemisphere. For my own part I continue, as
I have done for so many years, cordially to accept it, and for
the following reason : if we assume that new species of animals
have been evolved by natural generation from individuals of
other kinds, all the various indications of affinity . . . there-
by simultaneously acquire one natural and satisfactory explana-
tion : while we can think of no other possible explanation of
the enigma." Nor is Professor Mivart the only Catholic scien-
tist who holds this view. He is strongly supported by the
learned Dominican, Pere Leroy, in a work entitled L Evolution
restreinte aux especes organiques ; while the Abbe de Broglie, in
Le present et Favenir du Catholicism? en France, says, p. 113:
" Neither the successive appearance of types nor their relation-
ship are in opposition to the teaching of the church. . . .
It suffices for evolutionists in order to remain Catholic to re-
spect two essential dogmas : the original creation of the uni-
verse and a fresh intervention of the Creator to give to man a
soul gifted with reason and called to immortality." *

To about the same horizon as these earliest birds belong the
earliest mammals. They were, as their fossil remains prove, of a
low, generalized type oviparous or semi-oviparous animals with
marked reptilian characters ; and this class of mammals (mar-
supials and monotremes) is at present confined to what has been
aptly termed the fossil continent of Australia, with the single

exception of the American opossum.

THE ERAS PRIOR TO MAN'S APPEARANCE.

We now arrive at a new era, the Tertiary. The sea, which
toward the close of the last era had risen over many parts of
the earth which it had long abandoned, now withdrew to its
present limits, leaving behind it in many places thick beds of
chalk (the remains of very minute organisms), and the conti-

*"Ni 1'apparition successivedes types ni leur enchainement ne sont en opposition avec
1'enseignement de 1'eglise. ... II suffit aux evolutionistes pour rester Catholiques de re-
specter deux dogmas essentiels : la creation primitive de 1'univers et une nouvelle interven-
tion du Createur pour donner a l'homme une ame douee de raison et appelee d rimmortalite."

768 THE STUDY OF GEOLOGY [Mar.,

nents assumed the dimensions they now possess. This increase
in the land area brought with it more varied conditions and
gave a great impetus to mammals. The climate, too, during a
good part of this era must have been exceedingly favorable to
the life-system. The polar cold had as yet made little progress ;
magnolia-trees still flourished as far north as seventy degrees,
while poplars grew at eighty-two degrees north latitude. The
further we advance into the Tertiary the more do herbivorous
mammals become developed. They were now lords of the land,
while birds similar to those of to-day were rulers of the air. In
North America as fossil remains indicate there were many
camels, and with them were other animals, long extinct, of ele-
phantine size. Of these perhaps the most singular belonged to
the order Dinocerata ; they were armed with three pairs of horns
and had tusks eight inches long, while the most specialized of
the order had a head four feet long. It was during this era
that the grand caflon of the Colorado was formed. Nowhere
else on earth do we see so mighty an example of the power of
erosion. Here is a river that for almost three hundred miles
has carved its way down through the rock to a depth in some
places of six thousand feet !

WHEN THE HISTORY OF MAN BEGINS.

With the close of the Tertiary the Quaternary or modern
era begins : and this part of earth's history is made ever note-
worthy by the appearance of Man. With him God's glorious
work culminated. How many thousand yaars ago this great
event took place we cannot tell ; the church imposes no chrono-
logical limit. But there is good reason to believe that our first
parents were contemporaries of the mammoth. Geologists tell us
that since the opening of the modern era the geography of the
earth has undergone few changes. The first portion of it was
remarkable for a temporary variation of climate, which inaugu-
rated what is called the glacial epoch. This was a unique event
in the history of our globe, and though much has been written
about it, it still remains very mysterious. There is reason to
believe, however, that the phenomenon of the Ice Age was
merely an exaggeration of the conditions which in our day de-
termine glacier formation. And here we refer the reader to
Professor de Lapparent's articles on this subject which appeared
in "the French magazine Le Correspondent for July, August, and
September of last year.

The numberless little lakes in Minnesota were doubtless

1 893.] AND THE SUMMER-SCHOOL. 769

made by the ice of this period scooping out the rock, for south
of the ice-track these lakes cease. The great lakes, too, of
North America were largely formed by glaciers deepening the
original depression which had existed in this part of the con-
tinent.

As we have said at the beginning of our article, the newly
established Summer-School may, and no doubt will, do much
to foster among Catholics a love for the natural sciences ; and
we claim a high place for geology. In the study of the rocks,
from the lowest and the oldest to the highest and the newest,
the Summer-School will recognize on every page of the record
the wisdom of the Creator. It will see the life-system change
many times ; but new forms appear only when the proper time
arrives, when the earth is fitted to receive them. When one
epoch is drawing to a close, in the slowly changing organisms
will be perceived anticipations of the epoch that is coming.
And it was surely necessary for organisms to change as the
surrounding conditions changed, or else for all life to become
utterly extinct. But thanks to the God-given power of transfor-
mation, the life-system was able to continue itself, although
under a different aspect ; and the more the Summer-School will
scrutinize the geological record, the more it will be convinced
that evolution is a fact, and that a real genetic affinity links to-
gether the myriads of creatures that have one after another ap-
peared on earth. We have no doubt, too, that the Summer-
School will, year after year, extend its rambles in the pursuit
of knowledge. Let it visit the far West, as do the ardent stu-
dents at whose head is Professor Marsh. Who knows what
marvellous fossils are still concealed in the Atlantosaurus beds
of the Rocky Mountains ? Some missing link may yet be dis-
covered more wonderful than Ichthyornis and Hesperornis Rega-
lis t in which are blended the characters of bird, fish, and reptile.
And if the Summer-School should be able to fill in even one
missing page of the earth's history, it would show that Catho-
lics are no longer in the rear, but in the advance guard of the
grand army of science. Excelsior !

WILLIAM SETON.

770

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

[Mar.,

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

THE VALENCIANA MINE.

N the early freshness of the next morning a group
of horses ready saddled, with a pair of mozos in
attendance, stood before the door of the hotel,
and were presently inspected by Dorothea, who
came out from the cafe accompanied by Russell.

" They will do," she said, running her eye comprehensively
over them, " if you are sure their backs are sound. I never ride
a strange horse without satisfying myself on that point. There
is no greater cruelty than to put a saddle on a galled back, and
I would rather walk any distance than ride a horse under such
circumstances."

" Make your mind easy," replied Russell. " I have examined
the animals and their backs are sound. I secured them through
the kindness of an acquaintance in Guanajuato, who promised
to send me only good horses. Shall I put you up ? "

He extended his hand, the^next moment she was in the sad-
dle arranging herself with practised ease, the others came out,
there was a general mounting, and they rode away with a clat-
tering of horses' hoofs on the stony streets, and that pleasant
sense of exhilaration which always accompanies an expedition
on horseback in the freshness of the early day. The two mozos
on foot easily kept pace with the horses, and Mrs. Langdon
observed that the one who walked abreast with her was so pic-
turesque a figure that she longed to sketch him. He was a
slender, graceful young fellow, whose slight frame revealed to a
practised eye only the muscular power which it possessed, and
whose face, delicate in features, with large dark eyes and shaded
by a mass of black curls under the straw sombrero, had the gen-
tle, half-melancholy charm of his people. The other was an
older Indian, lean and sinewy as a deer-hound. Both men wore
striped zarapes folded closely around them for the morning air
was chill wide cotton trousers, and sandals on their feet.

Russell had explained to his friends the evening before that,
although it was quite within the limit of the possible for them
to reach the Valenciana Mine in a carriage, he was sure they
would find the ascent more agreeable if made on horseback ;

1 893.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 771

and they were unanimous in endorsing this opinion when they
found how steep was their upward way from the moment of
leaving the central region of the city. The narrow, winding
streets through which their guides led them climbing steadily
up hill, sometimes at an angle of hardly less than forty-five de-
grees, and were so thronged with people, with strings of burros
bearing all manner of produce, and with great wooden carts
drawn by oxen, that progress through them was slow and diffi-
cult. At length, however, they emerged from the town, and
found an agreeable change in the broad, well-made road which,
although it still wound upward, had the advantage of easy gra-
dients and of relief from paving-stones. Curbed on one side, it
mounted with wide sweeps around the hills, affording a succes-
sion of views of their broken, serrated expanse, and of the dif-
ferent mines, surrounded by villages, that came in sight perched
on their precipitous slopes.

The sun has risen high in the heavens, and his rays were as
warm as they ever become at this altitude, when, after several
miles of steady ascent, they entered a village of considerable
size, its well-built adobe houses ranged closely in streets that
centred upon a small plaza green with verdure and bright with
flowers. Russell halted in this pretty place, and, turning in his
saddle, addressed the cavalcade that gathered around him.

" I have brought you here," he said, " to see an excellent
example of a Mexican mining town. All the people who live in
this place depend for their support on the Valenciana Mine, the
galleries of which run under our feet, and the great works of
which are over yonder. Could a brighter, cleaner, more orderly
and attractive village be found anywhere ? Presently I will show
you a school sustained by the proprietors for the children of
their employees ; but first I must call your attention to the chief
feature of the place."

"Which is this beautiful church before us, I suppose," said
Mrs. Langdon. " What a remarkable thing to find such a build-
ing perched on this mountain-side, in the midst of a mining
village !"

" It is not considered remarkable here," said Russell. " No
one calls your attention to it, no guide-book mentions it, but
when I accidently stumbled upon it, and, struck by its beauty
and splendid details, asked what it cost, I was told that there
had been spent upon it the sum of one and a half million dol-
lars."

" Spent by whom ? " asked the general.

772 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Mar.,

" By the owners of the mine quietly and unostentatiously,
with a simple desire to return to God a small share of the
wealth he had bestowed on them. The mine was in full bonan-
za when they built this, and it is said that for every dollar
which they put into their great shaft the finest shaft probably
in the world they put a dollar in the church. I don't know
how it seems to you, but to me there is something in this more
poetical than I can express."

He looked at Margaret Langdon as he spoke, whose eyes
met his with that quick radiance dimmed in moisture which is
the outward sign of a heart deeply touched. " It was more than
poetical," she said. " It was a thought so exquisite that it could
only have been born of profound and fervent faith that with
every step downward toward those riches which are so alluring
to the hearts of men, there should be a corresponding step taken
upward, in the sunlight of God, toward the heaven where our
true treasure must be. Yet surely they were poets, without
knowing it, those men."

" And what strikes me as quite as beautiful," said Dorothea,
" is, that instead of spending that money to build a great church
down in Guanajuato, where all men could see and praise it, they
built it here, so that few of the rich and great ones of the
earth worship God in a temple as splendid as these poor Mexi-
can miners do."

"Well," said the general, dismounting, "let us go and see it
now."

It is not very large, this church of the Valenciana, but it is
most majestic from its position, as well as from its architectural
proportions. Built of cut and polished stone, every block fin-
ished and fitted with a skill which knew nothing of haste or
carelessness, it stands on a platform graded from the mountain,
and is approached by an immense flight of magnificent stone
steps that would adorn a cathedral. Entering by the great
carved doorway, it is at once evident that the same loving care
which polished every outward stone presided with jealous vigi-
lance over every interior detail. The high altar, and the two
which stand at the ends of the transepts that form a Latin
cross, are perfect examples of that superbly ornate style known
as the Churrigueresque a mass of rich and elaborate carving,
covered with gold and rising in burnished splendor to the roof.
No unfortunate detail or misplaced ornament mars the effect of
these rarely beautiful altars. They are indeed so gorgeous in
themselves that there is no space for farther ornament, and

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 773

whatever is upon them, in the form of necessary articles, is al-
together worthy of them. Polished tiles form the floor, frescoes
adorn the domes, and paintings cover the walls ; while some-
what strange innovation in a Mexican church the nave is filled
with finely carved stationary benches. Nothing can exceed the
effect of sumptuous richness and exquisite care which the whole
presents.

" It gives one the impression," said Dorothea, " that the
building of it was a delight, that the most careful thought was
bestowed upon the elaboration of every detail, and that money
was emphatically ' no object ' at all in its construction."

" There can be no doubt of the last," said Russell. " The
only question was how to spend enough of the precious metal.
The splendor of these altars carinot be surpassed. And every-
thing is on the same scale. If you go into the sacristy, the
sacristan will show you vestments and altar vessels that will
make you fancy yourself in a metropolitan cathedral ; and there
is a charming little baptistery where the babies are brought to
be baptized in a golden font."

" It has a superb organ too, this wonderful church that
seems like a creation of Aladdin's lamp," said Travers, looking
up at the choir-loft, where the forest of pipes rose toward the
roof.

Presently they stepped out of a side door upon the great plat-
form on which the church stands, and Russell pointed out some
immense, fortress-like walls enclosing a large area on one side
of the village. " There," he said, " are the offices and works of
the mine and its famous shaft."

" We must certainly see that," said the general.

"We must certainly see the mine," said Dorothea. "Are we
not going down into it ? "

Russell smiled. "You can if you like," he answered. "There
is an excellent stone stairway by means of which one can de-
scend to any level ; but I do not think you will care to go far.
It is very dark and very warm underground, you know."

" I do not think I care to make such a descent," said Mrs.
Langdon. " Dorothea, you had better not insist on doing so."

" Insist no," said Dorothea. " But is it possible that no-
body else cares to see anything of the mine itself ! and how
can one see a mine above ground ? "

" The question is, can one see much of it below ? " said the
general. " But I will go down with you as far as you are likely
to care to venture, my dear. How and where do we enter?"
VOL. LVI. 53

774 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Mar.,

"We can only enter by obtaining a permit," replied Russell r
"and that must be sought over yonder" he indicated the en-
closure " where we will now go."

It was a novel scene upon which they entered when they
found themselves within the great gates which gave admittance
to the fort-like interior, the massive stone walls of which were
flanked at each corner by towers loop-holed for musketry. Pass-
ing the offices just within the entrance, where two or three
gentlemen and a handsome dog received the party with true
Mexican courtesy, they were conducted into a large courtyard
where a number of men and women were at work sorting ores,
the process consisting of breaking with a hammer the large
masses brought up from the mine and rapidly classing the frag-
ments. Around each worker were half a dozen piles of ore of
different grades, and the busy activity of the scene, together with
the quickness with which each fragment was scrutinized and
classed, interested the strangers exceedingly.

" The women seem to know as much about it as the men,'^
remarked Dorothea wonderingly.

" The superintendent says that they make better judges of
ore than men," said Russell. " The perceptions of women are
quicker, you see."

Travers observed that he had not needed to come to the
Valenciana Mine to learn that ; but just then they reached the
side of the great shaft, and paused to regard with wonder and
something of awe this splendid and durable piece of work.

Octagonal in form, at least fifteen feet in diameter, and lined
with carefully cut and fitted stone, one can readily believe al-
most anything of its cost, remembering that its depth is over
two thousand feet, and that its workmanship is unsurpassed and
probably unequalled in the world. Out of it is drawn by ma-
chinery the vast volume of water that keeps the lower levels
dry ; and it is altogether worthy of the mine which Humboldt
estimated as producing at the time of his visit one-fifth of alL
the silver of the world, and which for forty years was in full
bonanza, pouring out its wealth in an almost fabulous stream.

Gathered around the great opening, they listened while their
courteous guide discoursed of the wonders of the famous mine,,
told the romantic story of its first days, described its miles
of underground work, its chambers, drifts and tunnels, the army
of men upon its pay-roll, and the length of time necessary to-
descend and ascend by means of its stairways.

" Why, in the name of common sense, don't they send the

776 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Mar.,.

miners up and down by means of this" said the general, indi-
cating the shaft, " and save time ? "

Russell laughed. " We are in a happy land where time is
not of importance," he replied. " But I scarcely think Miss
Dorothea will care to descend to the lowest levels when she
hears that more than two hours are required to reach them."

" I think," said Dorothea in a somewhat subdued tone, " that
I shall be satisfied with going down to the first level just to
see what it is like, you know."

Hearing her desire, the superintendent said that he would
himself accompany them ; so they were led back through the
village to a point beyond the church, where a locked door gave
admittance to the steps descending into the mine. Only Doro-
thea and her father, Russell and their guide, went down. Mrs.
Langdon, Miss Gresham, and Travers looked, drew back, and
returning to the church, seated themselves in the shade near its
sacristy door, where the pure, fresh air of the mountains came
to them like a breath from Paradise, and a far-spreading view
lay before them one of those glorious Mexican views which
language is too poor to describe, so infinite is the beauty of
tint and atmosphere, so wonderful the combination of rugged
mountain forms and wide stretches of smiling plain, of cities
shining with hues that seem borrowed from the peacock's neck,
of mines frowning like mediaeval strongholds, of slender cam-
paniles rising everywhere toward the ineffable radiance of the
vast blue heaven.

" What a country it is! " said Margaret Langdon, as her gaze
wandered over the picture. " I do not wonder that Mr. Russell
feels such enthusiasm for it one could not stop short of loving
it if one stayed long enough."

" It would be hard to find anything to equal it in beauty
and interest," said Travers. " There is so much combined here.
The deep and lasting impress of Spain most fascinating of
modern nations the striking semi-Oriental aspect of the country,
the personal beauty of the people, their picturesque life, and the
romanticism that seems a part of all they do. Look at this
church, for instance is it not almost like a fairy-tale to our
nineteenth century ears ? "

" It is far more than that," Margaret answered. " It is such a
sermon in stone as I have never met before in all my wander-
ings. And these are the people whom we some of us, that
is have ventured to think an inferior race !"

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 777

" Don't class yourself with the ignorant multitude mostly
fools, as Carlyle justly observes who instead of intelligent
opinions have only a few inherited prejudices," said Travers.
" But Miss Gresham looks sadly bored ! I am afraid that our
rhapsodies over the country have a tendency to fatigue her."

" Oh ! I assure you I find it all very interesting," said Miss
Gresham, "though I don't perhaps express as much enthusiasm
as Dorothea. As for this church, it is simply splendid but
really now dorit you think it would be more appropriate down in
Guanajuato than up here on a mountain in a mining village ?"

Travers glanced at Mrs. Langdon and smiled. " That de-
pends," he answered, " upon what object the builders had in
view. If the admiration of men, Guanajuato was the place. If
the glory of God, I venture to think the present situation could
not be improved upon. But here come our friends back from
the mine already ! Mademoiselle Dorothea's exploring spirit has
been speedily satisfied on this occasion."

" Oh ! it was excessively warm ; that was why I did not care
to go very far," Dorothea said, in answer to their questions.
" But you need not smile, Mr. Travers. It was exceedingly in-
teresting, and I am glad I went."

" What did you see ? Tell us about it," said Miss Gresham,
yawning slightly, as if in remembrance of past or anticipation of
coming boredom.

" Yes," said Mrs. Langdon, " let us have the satisfaction of
knowing what is to be seen in the depths of a mine, without the
fatigue of descending into it ourselves."

" Well," responded Dorothea, looking the while around the
wide prospect with a radiant glance, as if the sweet, fresh purity
of the air and the glorious brightness of the day appealed to
her senses with a double charm since she had been into the
dark bowels of the earth, " let me tell you that there is simply
a world down there a new, strange, wonderful world to me
and as for its inhabitants, they appear, to use an Oriental form
of expression, to be in numbers as the sands of the sea-shore.
How did I see them ? Why, an army, an absolute army, was
going down into the mine as we came up."

" The men at work are changed three times in every twenty-
four hours," said the general, " and we chanced to meet one of
the ' shifts,' as miners call it. Yu see the building which covers
the mouth of the mine contains various apartments chiefly used
for storing material but especially one large room at the head

778 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Mar.,

of the stairs, where several clerks are at their desks day and
night to keep the time of the men at work in the mine. As
each ' shift ' enters the building, marched in squads like soldiers,
the names are called out and registered by the clerks as the
men descend the stairs into the mine."

" And such stairs!" said Dorothea. "Built of great blocks of
hewn stone, beautifully laid, and as wide how wide, Mr. Rus-
sell ?"

" They are square-cut blocks of porphyry about ten feet
wide," said Russell, " and the walls on each side are plastered
and whitewashed. It is indeed a magnificent piece of work, this
stairway, for it descends to the lowest level of the mine, a dis-
tance of more than two thousand feet, turning to right or left
in a zigzag manner at a depth of every hundred feet."

" One is fatigued even in thinking of ascending or descend-
ing it," remarked Miss Gresham feelingly.

"We were told," said the general, "that the time required
for descending to the lowest level was two hours, and for ascend-
ing two hours and forty minutes. But it seems almost in-
credible."

" Nothing is incredible here," said Travers. " We are in a
land of marvels, and prepared for anything. What other sights
saw ye in the underground world ?"

" We saw one sight which touched me inexpressibly," said
Dorothea. " At each angle of this great stairway, this work of
Titans, is a niche excavated out of the solid rock, forming a
shrine and containing a religious image, a picture or statue,
adorned with flowers, and with a light burning before it. I can
give you no idea," turning to her sister, as if surest of sym-
pathy there, with the bright moisture of feeling springing again
into her eyes, " how the sight of these shrines, with their tapers
gleaming like stars, affects one, when one comes upon them
suddenly in the darkness and silence of the depths of the earth.
We were told that farther down there is a chapel where Mass
is often said for the miners. How lovely the faith of these
people is ! and how it pervades their lives ! It seems to put a
strain of elevated feeling, a comprehension of divine beauty, into
their existence which our poor, materialized people of the same
class totally lack."

" One might certainly travel far through any mining region
of our favored land before finding a mine provided with such an
accessory as a shrine, not to speak of a chapel, underground

1 893.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 779

and a basilica above," observed Travers reflectively. " But then
we have been repeatedly informed that Mexicans are very super-
stitious !"

"One wonders," said Dorothea caustically, " if those who
make the charge are very good judges of what superstition is
or of what faith is, either, for that matter ! Instead of scoffing
at what they are unable to understand or appreciate, they would
do better to go home and pray for a little of the faith and
piety which touch and edify one here, and which are so wholly
wanting in their hard, material lives."

" It almost sounds as if she were advising you to go home,
Mr. Travers," said Miss Gresham with quiet malice. " But did
you not see any silver taken out ?" she asked, addressing Doro-
thea with a return to practical considerations for which she
could always be relied upon.

" Oh, no !" answered Dorothea. " The place where they are
now taking out silver is miles away from where we were. Have
you forgotten that they told us there are twenty-eight miles of
underground workings in this mine ?"

" Dorothea was right in saying that it is simply a world
down there," remarked the general " a world of vast extent
and wonderful work. There are miles of tramways laid in all
directions for the transportation of the ore in the different ore-
beds to the main perpendicular shaft that splendid affair over
yonder through which it is hoisted to the surface."

"You seem to have taken in and remembered everything,"
said Miss Gresham, "so, now that we have heard everything, I
suppose we may return to Guanajuato."

But at this moment Russell, who had been speaking apart to
the courteous Mexican who accompanied them into the mine,
turned towards the group. " This gentleman," he said, "sug-
gests that you would perhaps like to see the method by which
the ore is reduced. If you have never seen the Mexican reduc-
tion process, it is possible that it might interest you."

" It would interest me very much," said the general. " Where
do we go over there ? " And he nodded toward the massive
walls encircling the buildings that cluster around the great
shaft, known far and wide as " El Tiro de la Mina Valenciana."

" No," Russell answered, " we must go to what is called the
hacienda de beneficio. That is situated in the Canada between
Marfil and Guanajuato."

" Why do they carry the ore so far, instead of having their

780 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Mar.,

reduction works near at hand ? " asked Mrs. Langdon with sur-
prise.

" Because water is necessary for the process of reduction,"
Russell replied, " and there is no water here."

" Oh ! let us go by all means," cried Dorothea. " I want to
see everything"

" A commendable but rather exhausting ambition," remarked
Travers with a sigh. " If, however, it is so written in the book
of fate, let us go."

Miss Gresham rose and shook out the folds of her habit
with an air of resignation which mutely echoed his words ; so
they descended the great flight of stone steps to the sunny
plaza lying in green beauty below, on the farther side of which,
in the shade of some portales, the horses and mozos awaited
them. They speedily mounted, and accompanied by a graceful
young Mexican, whom the superintendent called from the office
of the mine and sent with them, set forth for the reduction
works.

But, instead of following the broad, well-graded road by
which they had ascended, their guide led them around the walls
of the mine, and took a narrow trail across the brown, rugged
hills, gashed with great ravines by the torrents of every rainy
season. It was the trail by which the ore was conveyed from
the mine to the reduction works, and along it came and went
in ceaseless stream the pack-trains of burros that carried upon
their backs the leather sacks filled with metal. To avoid these
trains on the narrow way was very difficult, for to give place in
the least degree to any one is an idea which never enters into
the head of a burro. It was necessary for the men who fol-
lowed each train to rush forward and energetically belabor and
push the small, stubborn animals, to induce them to allow the
party of equestrians to pass at various points. " The Valen-
ciana Mine must have thousands of these donkeys!" Dorothea
exclaimed at last, when such a block had occurred for the
twentieth time, and looking across the escarped and riven hill-
sides they could trace the winding trail by the animals that
darkened it. The young Mexican, who had a fair knowledge
of English, laughed and assured her that she was right, that the
burros of the Valenciana Mine were indeed many, while Travers
observed that if she chanced to be pushed over into the dry
bed of a torrent by one of the burros in question (an accident
which had several times only been prevented by the prompt in-

782 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Mar.,

terposition of the mozos) she could hardly object to suffering in
the cause of that adherence to ancient custom which she so
highly commended.

" The spirit of modern improvement might dictate a tram-
way to convey the ore from the mine to the reduction works,"
he added, " but far be it from me to suggest that such a mode
would be an improvement on the present picturesque method
though what the burros might think of it is another matter."

" The burros would have to do other work if they did not
do this, I suppose," Dorothea answered. " The pack-trains are
picturesque, as one sees them winding in the distance; and it
would surely be a very remarkable tramway that could go up
and down hill like this trail."

There was a general laugh, but the exigencies of the trail
were such that no one demonstrated the feasibility of the tram-
way, especially since another train of laden animals at this
moment came by, pushing the party to right and left with their
great sacks of ore, and when the interruption was fairly over
they found themselves at the entrance of the hacienda de bene-
ficio.

This proved to be one of the immense, fortress-like erections
which had struck them on their ascent from Marfil to Guana-
juato. Situated immediately on the banks of the stream which
ilows down from the beautiful Presas, and surrounded by a stone
wall at least ten feet high and of corresponding thickness, it
was an enclosure about twelve hundred feet long by two hun-
dred wide, containing various open courts, or patios, and build-
ings with red-tiled roofs and arcaded fronts. Leaving their
horses in charge of the attendants, the party followed their
obliging guide, who was eager to show them everything.

First in order came the arrastras, for crushing the ore. On
an elevated portion of the enclosure, covered by a tiled roof,
were three rows of these, each row containing twenty arrastras
great, circular basins of cut stone, not less than eight feet in
diameter, in the centre of each of which a horizontal wooden
sweep was mortised through an upright post. To one end of
this sweep the large millstone that ground the ore to powder
against the stone floor of the basin was attached, while to the
other were fastened the mules, wearing leather hoods over their
eyes to prevent dizziness, who walking around in an unending
circle supplied the motive-power to drag the huge mass of gran-
ite over the ore.

1893-] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 783

" An effectual way of doing the work," said the general,
" but very crude when one thinks of a modern stamp-mill. I
am surprised that such a great mine as the Valenciana has not
erected machinery for crushing its ore."

" The erection of a stamp-mill is, of course, only a question
of time," said Russell. " Many of them have already been in-
troduced into the country, especially by Americans and English-
men, who find crushing ore in arrastras too slow work. But
come ! our guide wishes to show us the next step in the pro-
cess."

The young Mexican had explained, with many gestures of
his slender, brown hands, that when the ore was crushed to an
impalpable powder a sluice-head of water was introduced into
the arrastras, which carried the deposit to a lower level, and to
this lower level he now led them. It was an enclosure, contain-
ing about an acre of ground, covered with a carefully laid floor
of flagstones forming the patio from which the process takes
its name. The crushed ore carried from the arrastras is depos-
ited on this floor to the depth of about eighteen inches, the
surplus water is then drawn off, leaving the pulverized mass in
a plastic condition, and quicksilver, in the proportion of five
pounds to every ton of ore, is added, by means of forcing it
through buckskin sacks, so that, when shaken over the bed of
ore, it is distributed equally in small globules, thus bringing it
immediately in contact with the silver, which is principally in a
sulphide form. Five per cent, of common salt is then added
for the purpose of assisting oxidization, and about twenty mules
are turned loose and driven to and fro through this bed of mor-
tar for three hours each day for thirty days.

" You recognize your black mud, do you not ? " asked Rus-
sell, turning to Dorothea. " This is the amalgamating process
which we looked down upon as we entered Zacate"cas, and which
struck you as so remarkable."

"And this is the famous patio process!" said the general.
" I have heard men of great experience in mining say that for
satisfactory results in extracting silver from the ore it has not
been improved upon, even in this age of improvement."

" Is it of Mexican invention ?" asked Dorothea.

"Yes," Russell replied. "It was invented in 1557 by Bar-
tolom de Medina, to work the rich ores of the Pachuca
mines."

" I have very little respect for him," said the young lady

784

THE LAND OF THE SUN.

[Mar.,

with decision, " for he certainly did not take the mules into
consideration at all. Is it possible that no machinery has been
invented to do this work better than these poor animals can ? "
" I must confess," said Russell, " that one blot on the other-
wise excellent character of Mexicans is that they do not take

the feelings of mules, burros, and beasts of burden in general,
much into consideration. Of course other means of doing the
work of amalgamation have been invented, and are in use in
American mines. But Mexicans are slow to accept innovations,
and, as your father has just remarked, it is doubtful if any
better process for a certain class of ore has ever been invented."

1 893.] THE LAND OF THE SUN. 785

"You must be satisfied to take people with the defects of
their qualities," said Travers in an admonishing tone. " If the
Mexicans were ready to accept innovations with regard to work-
ing their ores, they would, no doubt, be equally ready to accept
them in respect to other things, and then what would become
of the picturesqueness of this incomparably picturesque country,
for which we are all so grateful ? It would become, like Chili,
the prey of that destroyer which is known under the name of
progress, and perhaps, like that country, would abandon the
beautiful art and architecture which Spain planted here for a
tasteless imitation of the poorest and most alien modern models.
No, let the mules suffer, say I, rather than that such things
should come to pass."

Dorothea gave the speaker a glance in which approval and
disapproval were mingled. " You are right so far," she said,
" that it is a matter for gratitude that Mexicans are slow to
change their ancient ways. But," with great emphasis upon this
potent word, " I entirely disagree with you in your readiness to
let the mules suffer. The mules should not suffer another day
if I could bring in machinery to relieve them."

"And that machinery would be the entering wedge to de-
stroy all that delights you in the country," returned Travers.

" If so, the wedge has entered," said Russell, " for large
amounts of machinery for all purposes are constantly intro-
duced into the country. I am afraid we cannot hope that the
march of that material progress, the effects of which we agree
in disliking, can be stayed here any more than elsewhere. We
can only be thankful for what it has so far spared, and hope
that Mexicans will have too much sense to allow their coun-
try to be ruined and deteriorated by it, as some others that
we know have been."

" And meanwhile," said Mrs. Langdon, looking at the mass
of amalgam, which indeed resembled nothing except black
mud, "we do not seem to have got very much nearer to the
silver."

"Ah, yes!" said the young Mexican, smiling. "The seftora
is mistaken we are very much nearer to the silver. Be pleased,"
addressing the group, " to come now, and see the amalgam re-
torted."

They followed him to the next step in the process of wrest-
ing from Nature the treasure which she holds so jealously. But
after they had inspected the kettle-shaped retorts in which the

786 THE LAND OF THE SUN. [Mar.,

amalgam is placed, and had seen the silver which comes forth
from them, to be then smelted and run into bars great, shin-
ing masses of virgin metal, beautiful to the sight and heavy
to the touch with the value stamped on each, there remained
nothing more except to see the same bars loaded into the
car for bullion, which, with a guard of soldiers on its top, is a
daily feature of the Guanajuato train.

As it chanced, they did see this a few hours later, as they
were, with much reluctance, taking their departure from the
magical city, glittering in color, beauty, and opulence behind
the sombre, argentine hills. After they had left Marfil, with its
heavy Moorish houses clinging to the frowning precipices that
overshadow it, and had crossed the mountain divide to the smil-
ing plain that spreads level and verdant toward Siloa, they
looked backward for a last glance at a spot which had so
charmed them. Guanajuato had vanished as completely as if it
were indeed the enchanted city which it seems, but lo ! high
above the rugged, red-brown crests shone on its elevated moun-
tain platform the church of the Valenciana, lifting its fair towers
toward heaven and looking in the rich sunset light like a dream
of beauty, as it is, in truth, such an expression of faith and
love, and generosity surpassing that of princes, as would be hard
to match in any other land.

CHRISTIAN REID.

PECCAVi.

WHEN I am dead, I would not have you-

mine
The quarry of my life, for aught to-

praise,

And finding some poor deed, to make it blaze
Like perfect diamond beneath the rays
Of your bright charity ; cut glass will shine.
I only ask of you the sinner's dole,
" I pray the Lord, have mercy on his soul ! "

When I am dead, I would not have you take
Some words of basest metal, dull and cold,
Which Death the Alchemist, will turn to gold,
And Love will clothe with value manifold,

And hold them precious for the speaker's sake ;

I only ask of you the sinner's dole,

" I pray the Lord, have mercy on his soul " !

ADAM DE BRUN,

* -. i. ( *4

V </

^frfyy-S

Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much." ST. LUKE vii. 47.

Prom von Hoffman.

1 893.] MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE. 789

MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE.

. . . " E con si dolce note,
che fece me a me uscir di mente." Dante.

ONG years ago a train drew up at a bleak way-
side railway station in the West of Ireland, and
silence fell on a party of travellers, most of
them young, most of them Irish, but several from
the Pale, or least native portion of the island.
This silence fell because the travellers were trying to catch
the import of an indescribable stifled roar ; indescribable, yet I
must attempt some sort of account of it. It rose from soft to
loud. It was like the voice of the wild wind at night in great
woods. It grew to be like many powerful yEolean harps. What
was it ? Whence came it ? These were, for the moment, mys-
teries. There was something eerie about these wild waves of
sound which surged around about us, now and then falling lower
for a moment, yet constantly gaining force and volume like a rising
tide. We could not divine the meaning of it. It seemed to
envelop us in some strange way. In a great poem there is a
hint about the fear that underlies all courage. For one of us
this flood of sound seemed to stir that fear and how many
other deep-lying emotions besides!

Great music sometimes wraps the listener to the seventh
heaven. Wagner's music does so. It carries one away on
broad wings of the spirit to the homes of the winds, to " wield
the flail of the lashing hail," " to the sanguine sunrise, with its
meteor eyes,"

" And its golden plumes outspread " ;

to cloudland, to moon-lit seas, to Abt Vogler's sound-palace,
to primitive emotions, to all things elemental; and the man-made
town is forgotten, with its poor, thin city life, in the God-made
sky-spaces to which we are borne ; and self, too, is forgotten,
for we lose the very sense that we are feeling, coming back to
this nether world at last with more than a startled sleeper's re-
gretful surprise, and "trailing clouds of glory" from the musi-
cian's heavenly country.

" Those fine-drawn stringed notes so inly smite,
It is as if the bows of sprites could strain
The sensitive nerve-fibres of the brain,
VOL. LVI. 54

MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE. [Mar.>

And tune them to an all too keen delight.

And still as they resound they gather might,
Seeming a new-born pulse of life to gain
With each new bar, until the beating rain,

The deluge of quick sound is at its height.

" Then all our soul is drowned as in a sea
Of glad sensation, and we faintly seek
Some continent for boundless ecstasy

In vain, we are but carried down the wake
Of time, to throb awhile primevally

With the young world in passion's wild outbreak."

(On hearing the introduction to " Lohengrin " MRS. PFEIFFER.)

Not to heaven, however, did that grand Galway Roar-in-the-
Minor take us. Surely, rather was Purgatory our bourne ! There
were heart-breaking sobs in it ; there was the extreme of tender-
ness, and, above all, there was a passionate yearning.

" What is it ? What is it ? " was the smothered cry that we
of North-east Ireland sent forth a cry, yet half a whisper.
Was it, after all, music ? It was certainly the first sound, for
one of us, creating an over-mastering flood of thrilling emotion.
It swept hearts before it as the autumn wind sweeps the dry leaves.

The wail went ever on, increasing momentarily in volume.
Words in a tongue we scarcely knew now became distinguish-
able. We could see that there was a large crowd, far away, at
the other end of the long train. But the wailing seemed to
come from all quarters; the air was ringing with it. One of
the travellers, belonging by birth and race to Southern Ireland,
stood up, and, with quivering lip and a voice of deep emotion,
he answered the ignorant question : " It is the ' Keen ' (Caoine).
Do you not know the Irish Lament for the Dead ? "

We learnt by degrees the meaning of this "keening." I
think that the fact that here there was no funeral procession
added impressiveness to the whole- scene. There was an enor-
mous wailing crowd. The whole country-side had come down
to the railway, escorting a party of emigrants who were on their
way to America. It was, doubtless, for most of those who
parted that day a farewell for ever. And emigration, from
numberless points besides this one, is inexpressibly sad. Hence
the appropriateness of the death chant.

Had I had the musical training necessary for setting down
in written notes what I then heard sung which was not the
case I was far too much shaken by the excitement by the
" joy, three parts pain " caused by the soul-stirring plaint to

1 893.]

MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE.

79*

be able to transcribe, at the time, or even to analyze the chant
in the roughest way. But the memory of those magical sounds
stayed with me vaguely through many a year, and I made
attempts to procure, from musicians in Munster and Connaught,
the notes of this wonderful " Caoine." In some quarters my
inquiries called forth little but laughter. I was assured that
u keening " and a " pack of hounds baying the moon " came to
much the same thing. On another occasion my request for
"the music of the 'Caoine'" was described as an irresistible
pleasantry the death- wail being pronounced "of all sounds the
least musical." But at last a good monk befriended me, send-
ing me the Connaught keen the very chant that had thrilled
and terrified and fascinated us all, in the long-ago, in Galway.
He sent me, too, the Munster version.

IK*. Co tin. u. -Hl CCITU-

Of this form of the Caoine a young German composer of
merit says : " I find it simply grand. It is of rare and noble
originality. But I wonder to find piano and diminuendo oftenest
marked. It ought to have an extraordinarily fine effect when
played fortissimo by an orchestra."

At the monastery, whence the notes were sent, the opinion

792

MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE.

[Mar.,

prevailed that the simple score was as nothing "the Caoine
should be heard to be appreciated." Many powerful voices
blended together, and, above all, the traditional expression, lend
a soul to the mere notes. The transcriber added these words
of explanation to the Munster Caoine: "This melody may be
considered a characteristic specimen of the keen as sung in
South Munster. The notes marked with pauses (o) may be
sustained any length of time, according to the power of the
voice, or the inclination of the singer. The numbers placed
over the pauses denote, in quavers, the usual length of the pro-
longed sound." The monks greatly preferred the Munster
Caoine to that of Connaught ; but possibly this was due to the
fact that those who expressed an opinion belonged to the first-
named province. It is, perhaps, a more ancient form. On this
point it would be difficult to speak with absolute certainty.

flcif Cc&- -^-~~aZZ~^oe d** <***- en* is
- ** at ^^

jf/H-
jjbtt

J JU

, , ,; ii

Sir Robert Stewart, Mus. Doc., very kindly permits me to
use some singularly interesting notes of his, musical and historical,
on the Irish cry over the dead. He recounts his first introduction
to the solemn chant, when a little boy, about half a century ago,
near Trim, in the County Meath a part of Ireland within the
Pale. " I had been for two years trained in music," he says,
" and had, therefore, the power of noting down the cry. The
melody was chiefly this :

nuii.iifift.rj

" It was harsh when heard near, but became finer in texture
by distance. There were many persons in the crowd whom I
heard and saw to be joining in the cry, who did not seem at

1893-] MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE. 793

all in grief, but went through the performance in the most
business-like way. These were, perhaps, the professional criers,
commonly called ' keeners,' and very often old women for
there were such persons always engaged, as I am informed.
The above fragment of melody was mixed up with various wail-
ing passages which I cannot at this period of time quite recall.
Most of it was (like the Eastern howling of the Hindoos, and
Arabs, and Turks) too wild to be expressed by our diatonic
scale, with its well-defined tones and semi-tones ; but, neverthe-
less, this one little phrase ran through all of it, and I easily
wrote it down, being used to copying. It is a great pity that of
all those modern national writers who profess to write down Irish
airs (men like old George Petrie, Mr. Joyce, John Pigot, and one
or two more) not one, save Edward Bunting, was able to do what
they all so glibly professed to do (write down at hearing).
All Moore's Melodies (hundreds of English people believe
Thomas Moore composed these!) were filched from the collec-
tions of Bunting (1797 and 1809), greatly to Bunting's chagrin.
He publicly declared his anger in serials of the day. The keen
pronounced very deeply in the throat as if it were spelt
' chkougheen ' is probably now heard no longer even in remote
districts like Connemara. It certainly has been lost in Meath.
. . . Words of a Lament of the Lost I here add from the
Dublin Penny Journal (vol. i. page 243). These sentences,
adapted to the tune I gave just now, are as follows, fitting the
air twice over :

Se&,

,~.mi*,./<> <"& *' &"'" "* ""***'9 " ''""'

7eL o

men I

" Then would come a wild howl the " ullulatus "* of the
Romans, as it were called in Ireland " ullaloo," hence the cor-
ruption Hullabaloo ! One verse always asked the dead why he
or she died ? Had they not enough to eat, and wear, and of
love, too ? (Here we may trace the grotesque expression, " Och,
an' Phyllaloo, Hubbaboo, why did ye die, Barney?") That
thoughtful people always recognized in the Irish cry a world-
wide custom, is true ; but until lately everything Irish was a
subject of jeering among the self-sufficient. . . . The Irish
cry was ridiculed as barbarous yelling, unknown and unprac-

* Halleluja (Allelulia) in the East. The Arabs to this day sing a monotonous, unbroken
ullaloo a melancholy, booming; sound to the foreign ear at weddings.

794 MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE. [Mar.,

tised save by the Irish a population sunk in hopeless barbar-
ism ! It was, however, practised by the Jews also, and we find
our Lord saluted by this howling on one memorable occasion.
The Arabs, the Phoenicians, the people of Minorca, all practised
this custom. In Shakspere's " Cymbeline " (the scene of the
whole play is laid in Wales) there is a song over the dead re-
sponsive in structure, addressed to the dead ; and, so far, corre-
sponding exactly with the ' responses ' of one wailing crowd
among the keeners to the 'versicles' of the other."

Guiderius sings :

" Fear no more the heat o' the sun,

Nor the furious winter's rages ;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages :
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust."

Arviragus answers :

" Fear no more the frown o' the great ;

Thou art past the tyrant's stroke ;
Care no more to clothe and eat ;

To thee the reed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust."

Gui. " Fear no more the lightning-flash ";
Arv. "Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone";
Gui. " Fear not slander, censure rash ";
Arv. " Thou hast finish'd joy and moan."
Both. " All lovers young, all lovers must

Consign to thee, and come to dust."

Gui. " No exerciser harm thee !"
Arv. " Nor no witchcraft charm thee !"
Gui. " Ghost unlaid forbear thee !"
Arv. " Nothing ill come near thee !"
Both. " Quiet consummation have ;

And renowned be thy grave !"

The notes Sir R, Stewart so kindly placed at my disposal
point out that Scott's " Coronach " among the Scottish popula-
tion will not be forgotten, as an analogue to the Caoine. The
fact of professional Jewish " keeners," with pipes, being engaged
may be seen from Jeremias ix. 17: "Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel : Consider ye, and call for the
mourning women, and let them come ; and send to them that
are wise women, and let them make haste." 19 : " For a voice
of wailing is heard out of Sion. . . ." 18: "Let them hasten

1 893.] MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE. 795

and take up a lamentation for us. . . ." 20 : " Hear, there-
fore, ye women, the word of the Lord, . . . and teach your
daughters wailing ; and every one her neighbor mourning.
. . ." 21 : "For death is come up." The Jews, like the Irish
at "wakes," drank freely. In Ireland the funeral cry was some-
times destitute of words, and a mere " ullulation."

There is an Ulster Caoine which is more elaborate than any
I have given. Its double choirs are arranged to question and
to respond. Its wild floods of sounds might well burst forth
towards the close of Shelley's tragic fragment " Ginevra " after

the line :

" And then the mourning women came,"

carrying with magnificent effect the savage-strong plaint of the

dirge :

" Old Winter has gone
In his weakness back to the mountains hoar.

And the Spring came down
From the planet that hovers upon the shore
Where the sea of sunlight encroaches
On the limits of wintry night.
If the land, and the air, and the sea
Rejoice not when Spring approaches,
vVe did not rejoice in thee,
Ginevra !

" She is still, she is cold,
On the bridal couch !
One step to the white death-bed,
And one to the bier,
And one to the charnel, and one oh where ?

The dark arrow fled
In the noon.

" Ere the sun through the heaven once more has rolled
The rats in her heart
Will have made their nest,
And the worms be alive in her golden hair.
While the Spirit that guides the sun
Sits throned in his flaming chair,
She shall sleep."

Had I been once told that day, long ago, in Connemara
that what we were listening to was the Caoine, I might have
listened (if the expression be permitted) more with my memory
and my imagination than with my ear. But this was- not so.
The magnificent wail had struck home to the hearts of most of
us before we learned the meaning of the sounds ; before even
a suspicion had crossed our minds that we were listening to

MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE.

[Mar.,

keening. Under the great shock of emotion caused by it I
could have echoed the lines :

" The oracular thunder penetrating shook
The listening soul in my suspended blood :
I felt the earth out of her deep heart spoke
/ felt, but heard not."

Was this first experience of thrilling musical ecstasy due to
the sublimity of the sounds we all heard then ? or was it owing
to some stirring of " hereditary memories "' ? Better, a thousand
times, that the grandeur of the Caoine caused all that over-
mastering agitation ; for then this potent source of musical emo-
tion would be the birthright of the many; whereas, if "heredi-
tary memory," or race-legacies, or any of those obscure matters
belonging to a new province of inquiry, have anything to do
with its appreciation, the Irish death chant will only appeal to
the few. One of the directors of the Berlin Philharmonic So-
ciety, however, pronounces the Connaught Caoine " magnificent "
and this after a mere reading of a manuscript page, apart
from the extraneous heightening influences given by local color,
or a powerful or poetic rendering of the music. Here is purely
foreign testimony in favor of the Caoine. And, on the other
hand, there is much native testimony against it. A Galway lover
of music blackened several pages with the expression of his con-
tempt for the " howls," as of " dogs baying the moon," yclept
the Caoine ; and they were Munster people of some musical
training who made merry over my request for the keeners' music !
So, clearly, Keltic music can touch the Teuton to the quick;
and can also leave some of the children of the soil cold and un-
moved.

That taste differs is proverbial. The truth of the proverb
is in nothing better illustrated than in music. One has

" No ear save for the tickling lute
Set to small measures deaf to all the beats
Of that large music rolling o'er the world " ;

while another cries :

" Thy trivial harp will never please

Or fill my craving ear ;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,

Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art

Nor tinkling of piano-strings
Can make the wild blood start

In its mystic springs :

1893-] MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE. 797

The kingly bard

Must smite the chords rudely and hard,

As with hammer or with mace,

That they may render back

Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,

Sparks of the super-solar blaze."

The wild, Eastern wail, which Sir R. Stewart says imports
difficulty into the Caoine, making part of it impossible to trans-
late into modern musical notation, is to be found in many popu-
lar chants in various parts of Europe. It is not " far-fetched " to
claim an Arab origin for the " dying fall " the descent of a third
at the end by the musical "phrase," each tone and semi-tone be-
ing anticipated, to use the phraseology of the music-lesson of
the South-Italian folk-songs, called Stornelli. In comparatively
Northern Liguria may be heard, hour after hour, and day after
day, in early summer, a plaintive wail, difficult to imitate, and
impossible to write down. It has points of resemblance with
the Neapolitan chant for which the authors of "Naples in 1888"
have scant sympathy. They say : " Virgil speaks of the song
of the pruner in affectionate terms, and we were wondering
whether the song of his day was the same as the discordant
noise which passes for song with the Neapolitan pruner." Mes-
sieurs Rolfe and Ingleby add a note to this : " The pruners'
chant is said to be of Arab origin, and is certainly very ancient.
Hideous as it sounds to the ordinary listener, it has a distinguish-
ing feature. It is most difficult to imitate, and . . . descends
in quarter-tones, which are perfectly and accurately rendered by
the untrained husbandmen. This chant is especially used by
men set to watch the vineyards in the autumn when the fruit
is ripe. They answer one another from hill to hill, and when
they are far enough off the sound is not unpleasant."

One of the strangest, saddest occasions in Northern Ireland
on which the Caoine has been chanted in modern times occurred
during the execution of what is known as the " Tragedy of
Glenveigh," when the music took the place of the " highest
light" in a lurid picture. By readers of A. M. Sullivan's New
Ireland the following passages will be remembered. By those
if any there be who do not know that book a somewhat
lengthy quotation will be forgiven. Such a quotation is, in no
true sense, a digression, for a sketch of the attendant circum-
stances is necessary to place that particular " keening " in its
proper perspective :

798 MOURNING IRELAND. THE CAOINE. [Mar.,

" An Irish eviction ... is a scene to try the sternest
nature . . . where, as in the case of these ' clearances,'
houses have to be levelled. ... In hail or thunder, rain or
snow, out the inmates must go, . . . though of other roof or
home the world has naught for them, and the stormy sky must
be their canopy during the night that is at hand. Mr. Adair,
as he gazed on the corpse of his servant murdered, as he verily
believed, for stern discharge of his duties revolved in his mind
a terrible determination. . . . Two of his dogs had been
poisoned ; . . . the Presentment Session refused to admit the
act was malicious. An out-house at Gartan Glebe was found to
be on fire while he was the guest of the Rev. Mr. Mathurin.
Two hundred of his sheep had been killed on the mountains,
[but] the magistrates would insist it was by accident or tempest.
And now his manager had been slain. He would show these
people that he would conquer. In short, he resolved to sweep
away the whole population of Derry Veigh. He applied for, and
received, a special force of police. . . . The government
authorities, the local magistrates, the clergy, Protestant and
Catholic, the police inspectors, all manifested clearly their sor-
row, alarm, or resentment at the monstrous proceedings he con-
templated nothing less than the expulsion of hundreds of in-
nocent people ... in vengeance for the crime of some un-
discovered individual. . . . Few of [the tenants] would be-
lieve that such a menace would, or could, be carried out. . . .
They owed no rent. They had done no man wrong. Never-
theless, the blow fell. They were driven out by force the old
with the young, the strong with the weak. A widow was the
first to be turned adrift. The Derry Sentinel, a Presbyterian
paper, which could not be suspected of partisanship, gave a
touching account of the whole bad day's work. ' An old man,'
this journal said, ' of nearly ninety, on leaving his home for the
last time, reverently kissed the door-posts. Another man, who
was actually ninety, was given a week's grace, being in bed ;
but, for the most part, the cottiers were summarily driven off,
like startled cattle. They had nowhere but the bare ground on
which to lay their heads, while a collection was being made
for them at a distance in order to buy them passages to Aus-
tralia. Many sank beneath their sufferings on the bleak hill-
sides, in sight of the blackened ruins of the homes that had
been burnt lest the peasants who built them should creep
back to their shelter. A tenant named Bradley went mad
from the surprise, grief, and hardship."

When at length they trooped away from their native hills, making
on foot the first stage of their long journey to the Antipodes, they
raised the funeral wail, the grand and immemorial Caoine, and the
strong, sad music rolled, perhaps for the last time, over that
bare and treeless " North Countrie " that they so passionately
loved.

E. M. LYNCH.

I893-]

THE SISTERS IN ALASKA.

799

THE SISTERS IN ALASKA.

T the time of writing
the first notice of
the Alaskan mis-
sions, some two
years ago now, the
whole subject was
to me, as to so
many others, a reve-
lation. I had no ac-
quaintance with the
sisters who were
stationed there, and,
writing at the other
edge of the conti-
nent, I had not
the faintest idea of
the ways and means of reaching them. Since then, however, I
have had the privilege of meeting the Alaskan missionaries.
Last May a band of the Sisters of St. Ann passed through
San Francisco on their way to th-e Yukon.

The return of the steamer which brought these sisters to the
Yukon also gave me the coveted opportunity of speaking with
one of the missionaries who had been on the spot. The readers
of THE CATHOLIC WORLD will remember that it was by a sis-
ter and two novices that the work at Kossariffsky was begun.
Both of these novices pronounced their vows in their new home,
but the hard physical labor which they were compelled and are
still compelled to undergo so undermined the health of one of
them, that it became an absolute necessity that she should re-
turn to San Francisco for medical treatment. It was only after
a year of suffering, when the Mother Superior saw that the
only chance of recovery lay in the best surgical attendance, that
she came away. Since July she has been at St. Mary's Hospi-
tal in this city. Of course there, under the care of the Sisters
of Mercy, she has everything conducive to her comfort ; still, it
is easy to see that her heart is in Alaska. As yet no decisive
opinion has been given on her case. Whether her desire to go

8oo THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. [Mar.,

back and labor where her vows were made will be granted, no
one can say. But her prayer, and the only prayer she asks from
those who sympathize with her, is that which has always been
in the mouths of the children of the saints : Thy will be done.

Indeed this is one of the saddest sides of the missionary
life. Those who are on the field, who are engaged in the fight,
are encouraged by their very work, and even opposition adds
a certain vigor and human consolation. But the wounded who
must drop out of the line of march, who must lie helpless as
the tide of battle sweeps on and the tumult of the fighting
dies away in the distance the wounded who are alone with
their pain and with God ah ! he alone can compass the depths
of suffering and the heights of sacrifice in that divine word :
Thy will be done.

With this much introduction I will give a few extracts from
the Journal of the sisters for the year 1891-92. What was
true of the Journal of 1889 is true also of this:

THE JOURNAL OF THE SISTERS.

" It is more in the nature of a simple letter addressed to
the sisters in the mother-house than a journal properly so called.
It is no long, boasting, statistical account of ' doors opened,'
and ' souls reached,' and ' Bibles distributed ' ; neither is it a
record of morbid introspection ; but it is a simple, common-sense
letter which will appeal to simple, common-sense people. It
flows on from day to day with the story of their uneventful
life, their little pleasures, and now and again a hint of their
privations. Their preparations for the great festivals, the pro-
gress of the children, the little visits paid them at long intervals
this is the sum of it all ; but those who have eyes to see may
read between the lines the story of heroic lives that I had al-
most thought were lived no more upon this earth."

The Journal opens with July, 1891. This is the month when
the hermits of the snow and ice receive the first tidings from
the outer world. From San Francisco the steamer St. Paul
leaves in June. July sees her at St. Michael's, a town situated
on Norton Sound, an inlet of Behring Sea. From this port the
Arctic, a river boat, conveys passengers and freight about seventy
miles along the coast southwards to the north mouth of the
Yukon, and up the stream to the fort which takes its name
from the river. Both these steamers belong to the Alaska Com-
mercial Company. Captain Erskine, of the St. Paul; Captain

1 893-]

THE SISTERS IN ALASKA.

80 1

Peterson, of the Arctic ; Mr. R. Neumann, the company's head
agent, and his brother, Mr. H. Neumann, local agent at St.
Michael's, deserve the best thanks of all interested in the mis-
sion work. Ever since the sisters set foot in Alaska these gen-
tlemen have been remarkable for their help and kindness. All
through the Journal we find them designated as " real friends,"
and every one who knows how much power a captain or an
agent has in his hands for comfort or discomfort will feel grate-

ful to these gentlemen for in such a large way lightening the
heavy burden of the Sisters of St. Ann.

From the Journal we learn that new sisters are expected.
The three pioneers have sown the seed ; they are looking for
help to reap the harvest. A year ago almost a promise was re-
ceived that new workers would be forthcoming. But that was a
year ago. The long winter months have rolled by without a
word or a chance of a word. Even in the midst of men silence
nips the bloom of promise, and we are not surprised that the
sisters at Kossariffsky were troubled with misgivings. How
many things might have happened ? Perhaps after all the vol-
unteers could not be spared ; perhaps the superiors had changed
their minds about sending their tender young charges to this

802 THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. [Mar.,

desolate spot. The Rev. Mother had gone down to St. Mi-
chael's to meet the steamer from San Francisco, and the two
sisters kept house at Holy Cross, hoping fearing for her return.

THE FIRST BOAT ARRIVES.

"July 19. At two o'clock in the morning the Arctic an-
nounced her approach to Kossariffsky. Judging from the sound
of the whistle, she was still at some distance and we had time
to put things in good order. The children had been told be-
forehand, and so in a few minutes we were all at the river-side.
When the boat passed we had the pleasure of saluting our dear
sisters from afar, and then we hurried to the landing-place.
We flew, so to speak, and in less than fifteen minutes we were
in the arms of our dear Sister Superior and our new sisters. At
last we were sure. They were before us ! What our feelings
were words, cannot express. We laughed and cried all in a
breath. Soon we started for the house followed by our little
troop of children, who were as excited as ourselves at seeing the
new arrivals. Sister Superior led us all to the little chapel, and
this was the sweet moment of their entry to the convent of
Kossariffsky."

But the two who had spent three winters in the arctics had laid
certain dark and deep plans. The new sisters must be properly
impressed with the pleasant side of their new home. The Jour-
nal continues :

" It was six o'clock before all were ready for breakfast. To
surprise the newcomers we had set the table in Indian style.
We had dried salmon, raw salmon, salmon fried in seal-oil all
served up in unbreakable stoneware. Poor sisters ! The very
sight completely took away their appetite. But before they sat
down Sister Superior said to them : ' Come and , look at this
room,' and there they found a breakfast prepared after a more
civilized fashion. We had great fun. It is three years since we
planned this surprise."

" It is three years since we planned this surprise." Mor
than anything else do these words give us an idea of the utte
isolation of these sisters' lives. They are surrounded by men
and women. The men are brutes ; the women we shall read
of them later on. None of their own kind have they to speak
to, to converse with. Three years ! So might a prisoner in the
Bastile have laid plans for the surprise of his successor.

1893-] THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. 803

Kossariffsky is situated where the Yukon begins to turn west
towards Behring Sea. Above the mission its trend is nearly
north and south for over two hundred miles. Near where the
river deflects from the westerly course it has followed from the
Rocky Mountains is situated the mission of Nulato.

THE SISTERS VISIT NULATO.

" The Monday following (the arrival) the St. Michael had to
go to Nulato to bring the fathers their provisions for the winter.
As Sister Mary Pauline and myself had a vacation, I said to
Sister Superior that this was a good opportunity to visit Nulato.
She thought so too, and went over to see Father Tosi, who was
glad to give us this little pleasure. He sent us word to be
ready by nine o'clock. So we prepared our baskets for a ten
days' journey. Anna and Paula, two of the children whose con-
duct during the whole year had been excellent, came with us ;
this was to be their reward. Likewise Father Tosi took with
him five of the best boys. So at the hour fixed we were all
ready, and were conducted to the river-side with great pomp and
ceremony. Sister Superior, the other sisters, and all the children
made up the procession. Soon the boat was on the way to Nu-
lato. We were not on the St. Michael, but on a barge towed
after it ; so we had a little house all to ourselves. After a pleas-
ant journey of four days we arrived at Nulato on Friday, at
four in the morning. Father Robaut, who was on board the
St. Michael, conducted us to the priests' house, where we found
Father Rogaru all alone. Soon we went to the little chapel,
where we had the happiness of hearing three Masses and of re-
ceiving Holy Communion. The chapel was full of Indians, who,
like our children, chant the Rosary in their own language. We
were very much edified. After breakfast we spent the greater
part of the day in visiting the parents of our children in their
camps. These Indians are much smarter than those of Kossa-
riffsky. They keep themselves cleaner, and have a little bit of
civilization. After supper we retired to our barge for the night.-
Next morning we again had the happiness of hearing three
Masses.

THE RETURN VOYAGE.

At nine o'clock we left Nulato, very much pleased with
our visit. We should have liked to have seen the place where
Archbishop Seghers was murdered, but it is more than thirty-four
miles from here. Father Rogaru, who has been waiting for the
sisters for the last two years, wanted to keep us to teach class.

804

THE SISTERS IN ALASKA.

[Mar.,

Indeed last spring, when Father Tosi visited the mission, he had
to speak very sharply to these Indians, for they were a hard lot.
He told them if they would not pay more attention to the
fathers he would not send them any sisters. Since then there
has been much improvement. The good is being done but
slowly they are so attached to their superstitions. Still they
are much more tractable than the Indians of our mission.

" Sunday morning we had Mass on board. Father Judge
had sent for the Indians, for all around Nulato belong to Father
Robaut's mission. The boat was full, and we sang while the
children said the Rosary in Indian. We also received Holy
Communion. From this village we got a boy and a girl.

" Wherever there were any houses we made a stop in order
to buy dried fish for the year. Tuesday we had Mass, again on
the boat, and the same day we arrived at Kossariffsky, where
we found the new sisters already perfectly at home."

Of course there is no disputing about tastes. Doubtless the
sisters found the Rosary in Indian very edifying. I wonder if
our readers would think so. This is how the Lord's Prayer
reads in the Tanana or Shagaluk language. The vowels are pro-
nounced as in Italian except a followed by h, which has no par-
allel outside of the Semitic tongues. G is a guttural, and y is
always a consonant. An interlinear translation shows the diffi-
culty of expressing the original ideas of the prayer in this
dialect :

Tenagoto nen yoyit teinta nuusah kadeguta t'tlektsen
Our-Father thou heaven art thy-name be-loved all

t'natsaia' : nen gonontla ketoyonah inlan : nogoyo
our-hearts thou above-all chief art. Thy-will

konenkoka yoyit goka t'tan : makadezeitaye tenatlonelaish
on-earth heaven as in what-we-wish us-give

tsogoyian : tsogutlakazen tenarokatlganetlniah ; tsogutlakazen
always sin us-forgive sin

t'natse tagatanna gaborokatlgaztltniah tsogoku : tenatseinyi
we-and done forgive the same us-help

tsogutlakazen tsotoltlekelat'gogon : tsogutlakazen gokogtsen
sin not-to-commit evil from

tenalilo Amen,
us-deliver.

1893-] THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. 805

THE SCHOOL ACCOMMODATIONS.

On the first of September the school year opened. There
were seventy-six pupils present. The house is anything but com-
modious, and the following notice shows how they are compelled
to economize space :

" During the summer we did our washing in a shed, but now
that the cold has begun it must be done within doors, in the
children's refectory. Sure enough this is a place to acquire pa-
tience in a short time seventy-six children, and such little ones !
Half of them have to take their meals standing."

And we read that after Christmas the domitories are found
too small. There are no spare rooms, and additions to their es-
tablishment cannot be thought of. Accordingly they build bunks
one above the other, and the children sleep like sailors on board
ship. The boys, being more agile, have three rows ; but the girls
have only two.

When we remember that these children under the sisters'
care are savages of the first generation, we are surprised that
the Journal hardly ever makes mention of the difficulties encoun-
tered in bringing them under the rule of civilized habits. Still
there must be difficulties and great difficulties, but the sisters are
evidently confirmed optimists and will look only at the bright
side of things :

" The whole month of December was passed well both in
spirituals and temporals. We are preparing for Christmas. Every
moment of Sister Superior's time is devoted to the children.
They are so good and strive so hard to gain the esteem of
Santa Claus. They are encouraging, these children for savages.
It is true that compared with white children there is much to
be desired, but then we cannot expect from them what we would
from whites. Those who have made their First Communion re-
ceive every two weeks, and also on the feasts of our Blessed
Mother. All who have been baptized go to confession every
month. It is consoling to see them. True they apparently re-
tain much of the old Adam, but the good is being done, and
we have many reasons for being thankful to Almighty God. We
also remark that the newcomers now fall more readily into civil-
ized ways. The example of the old pupils gives them great
VOL. LVI. 55

8c6 THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. [Mar.,

courage, and puts them more easily in touch with civilization.
This lessens our trouble very much."

To teach these children the mechanical ways of civilization is
not the hardest task. They are utterly unacquainted with those
supersensuous ideas which lie at the base of Christianity.

" Sister Superior was trying to put into their heads that they
had a soul, and that this soul was created for heaven, and the
first question which they asked her was : ' Will we have good
things to eat up there?"

Still, perhaps this is not so surprising. I once knew a white
boy whose idea of heaven was the unlimited consumption of
jam-tarts.

A continual source of annoyance to the teachers arises from
the actions of the parents. Here are a few incidents which form
a valuable commentary on the doctrine of parents' rights and
children's wrongs :

OPPOSITION FROM PARENTS.

" Yesterday (April 2) two women, accompanied by two large
boys, came from one of the villages near Nulato. One of the
women was starving, and she wanted to take away her daugh-
ters. The eldest she was especially anxious to get in order to
marry her off. The husband was already secured, and after the
marriage the mother would have plenty to eat. The child was
only thirteen years old.

" The woman told Sister Superior that she would have a fight
with her to get her daughter and would not go away without
her. But in vain. She scolded, wept, entreated, but neither the
prospective bride nor the three others would consent to leave at
any price. All Monday morning was a regular battle. Before
the Indians of our village, and in the presence of Father Judge
and Sister Superior, they declared that they would not leave.
Sister Superior told them plainly they were perfectly free to do
as they wished. The old woman was exceedingly angry, but
could do nothing.

" The other woman came for her only daughter. Last sum-
mer when we were coming down from Nulato she was glad
to let the daughter come with us, for she had another one who
was sick, and she told me that the reason she let this one come
was that she feared both of them might be sick on her hands ;

1 893.]

THE SISTERS IN ALASKA.

and besides, she was afraid of the miners carrying her off. Now
at her arrival the woman would not even shake hands, for she
said that I had enticed the spirit of her child into the woods
and that was why she had died during the winter. At first the
daughter did not want to go, but the mother threatened : ' If

you do not come I will kill myself.' And in fact she came round
next morning armed with a big knife. The child knew her
mother's disposition and decided to leave. Still it was much
against her will, and, weeping bitterly, she told us that she
would return as soon as ever she could."

8o8 THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. [Mar.,

" On Ascension day we witnessed a sad sight. You remem-
ber I have spoken in the course of this Journal of the Indians
who came to take away their children. Well, to-day they came
again. During dinner ' a good number of Indians entered our
house. They remained quiet, but were evidently on the watch.
When leaving the dining-room two of the girls were recognized
and seized a boy also ; but he got off and hid where no one
could find him. Two other girls were not recognized, and they
retreated to the cellar. The poor victims did not want to leave
at any cost. They begged and cried, but it was of no avail they
could not escape. Father Tosi and Sister Superior tried in vain
to have their parents let them stay. The only effect of their
words was to provoke all kinds of insulting terms. At last the
girls' father, raging like a madman, took them and dragged
them through the brush over the fence to the bank of the river
and threw them into the canoe ; I am afraid the poor things
must have had some bones broken. Here they made one last
effort to escape, but their parents tied them hands and feet to
the boat, and then rowed rapidly away."

OPPOSITION FROM OTHER SOURCES.

Besides opposition from the parents, there is opposition from
those whose interest it is to hamper the works of the mission. The
state of affairs described in the Naulahka, where Kate contem-
plates the departure of all her patients, is not characteristic of
Rhatore alone. Indeed one of the great difficulties in dealing
with the savages all the way from Oregon to Alaska is that at
certain times they are liable to stampede the school. Especially
if a child dies no matter from what cause the parents will of-
ten sweep down in a body and the teachers are left to keep
school alone. On March 9 Andrew died. Andrew was the
Santa Claus of '89, as our readers will remember. He was the
first child baptized by Archbishop Seghers in Alaska, and for a
long time had been suffering from consumption.

" March p. Our poor Andrew has left the earth. He died
very quietly at 4 P.M., after an agony of twenty hours. Sur-
rounded by the care of the good Jesuit Fathers, he was well
prepared. Monsignor Seghers has gained the first-fruits of Alas-
ka, for Andrew was the first he baptized. His burial takes place
to-morrow and the children go to Communion for the repose of
his soul."

1893-] THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. 809

" March jo. Andrew's death has given rise to many reports
among the Indians far and near. A white man who has a child
here came from Kuskokwim to make sure of the true state of
affairs, for he had heard that the children were dying of hunger
and cold. On his arrival he was astonished to see how things
really were, and was delighted to mark the improvement in his
daughter. He had brought with him two other children, intend-
ing to leave them with us if he found everything to his satisfac-
tion ; but unfortunately he had, stayed at the Russian mission,
and the priest had hidden them and would not give them up.
As this priest has great influence with the Indians, the father
did not insist on his rights."

This Russian priest is a full-blooded Indian, and perhaps this
explains his mode of action. But not from such treatment do
the most serious difficulties of the sisters spring. Everywhere
throughout the world arises the cry that the multiplicity of sec-
tarian preachers is
making Christianity
a byword among
the heathen. " We
would believe your
religion if there
were not so many
of them " is the
natural retort, and THEY LIVE UNDERGROUND .

Alaska is no excep-
tion to the rule. For years a large number of sects have con-
ducted their operations along the coast. They are well supplied
with money by the phenomenal generosity of the members of
their churches in the States, and their schools want for nothing.
Naturally outward show has a great influence on barbarians.
There is no school in San Francisco that has better furniture
than the school in Unalashka, where the children even can wear
silk dresses ; but in Kossariffsky the washing is done in the re-
fectory, and the children sleep three in a row.

CATHOLICS WOULD SUPPORT THE MISSIONS IF URGED.

It may seem out of place in the pages of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD, which has always proved itself such a good friend of
the missions, to complain. But what can we do ? Here in the
United States we are over ten millions of people. We are

8 io THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. [Mar.,

larger, wealthier than any other denomination. We give the no-
blest of our daughters to the service of the poor and the out-
cast. We send them into the waste places of the earth to toil
in hunger and cold and nakedness for the souls of their breth-
ren, and then we stand by with folded arms and do nothing.
And yet we know we have the truth. If we are convinced of
anything we are sure of this : that only by Catholic faith and
Catholic discipline can these poor races be saved. We feel we
are bound to save them, and yet we do nothing. And the while
our separated brethren are sending millions to the cause. We
must not think that this money is got by merely voting it. It
is collected by enthusiasm and hard work. Neither have they
a large constituency to draw on. Their people have proportion-
ately more calls on them than ours have. Their congregations
are small in comparison to the multitudes who from early dawn
till late at night wear the thresholds of our churches. And yet
these people send millions to the foreign missions. Why do
not ours the same ? Simply because they are not educated up
to it. A man might attend many of our churches from New
Year to Christmas and never know there was such a thing as a
foreign mission. Of course, the reason is we have been ab-
sorbed in building up our home missions.

No wonder our people do not give. There are no more
generous souls in the world if an object of generosity is brought
before them, and generosity to those who are abroad never
hurts generosity at home. The man that will give to spread the
knowledge of Christ in foreign lands will never be stingy when
parish work is concerned ; and it is our earnest conviction that
if one week in the year were devoted in every church and in
every mission to explaining, instructing, and exhorting our con-
gregations on the work of the soldiers of God in pagan coun-
tries, and the glories which the church has won in the mission
field, there would be a revival of faith and practice which no
mere preaching could produce, and an outpouring of the Holy
Ghost that would bring back the time when every Christian was
a missioner, and every day saw the departure of new workers
to spread the name of Christ. " And the multitude of men and
women who believed in the Lord was more increased."

But to return to the Journal. Some one has defined Eng-
lish conversation as a series of meteorological questions and an-
swers. In Alaska the weather is always a serious subject.

1 893-]

THE SISTERS IN ALASKA.

811

THE COLD OF AN ALASKAN WINTER.

" Up to this I have not had occasion to speak of the
weather. Before Christmas the cold was intense. The ther-
mometer ranged from twenty-five to fifty degrees below zero.
In January the weather was mild, but during the last few days
of the month and at the beginning of February the cold was
so great that, even clothed in our furs and with a large fire
burning, we were almost frozen. The thermometer was forty-
five degrees below zero and there was a strong wind blowing.
Sister M. Pauline wore her parky all day even when cooking,
and professed herself moderately warm."

The parky is a garment of the common gender made of furs.
It covers the body from head to foot, obliterating all distinc-
tion of sex and beauty of outline. Still, with the mercury below
forty-five degrees one prefers comfort to aesthetics.

THIS IS HOW THEY SPENT CHRISTMAS.

" Christmas and all its charms. The evening before all the
children went to confession, and at midnight Mass, which we had
in the parish chapel,
the Infant Jesus was
born again in many
hearts. This was the
first time we had a
High Mass that is,
with three priests. Fa-
ther Judge, who has
quite a taste for orna-
mentation, succeeded in
making a beautiful crib.
The grotto, the Infant,
and all the persons at
Bethlehem were won-
derful. From a distance they looked like statues, but they were
simply made of cardboard. What made the illusion perfect
was the disposition of the lamps. They were so covered with
moss as to cast their light only on the one side.

" After Benediction we had a visit from Santa Claus. He
arrived on a sled, with two trunks filled with presents. The
boys sang a welcome, and all the children received something

TOTEM POLES.

8 12 THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. [Mar.,

according to their merit. This time Sister Superior had some-
thing to draw on, for we had received several things from some

good ladies in San Francisco Miss M in particular and

also from the good Sisters of Mercy. Mother Russell wrote us
a very touching letter last year. She told us that many of
their children came to them after the Christmas-tree was stripped
with their pretty playthings for the little savages of Alaska.
You should see the joy of the children ; Santa Claus forgot no
one. Sister Superior received a carpet for her room, made by
the children under the direction of Sister Prudence."

The good example set by Mother Russell is worthy of imi-
tation. Out of their poverty the sisters cannot afford to give
many presents. A rag carpet for a bed-room is not exactly a
luxury in a climate where the thermometer has the habit of fall-
ing to fifty below zero ; especially, too, when we remember that
Sister Superior is racked with rheumatism, and the greater part
of the winter had to bring her class of children into her room
and teach them in bed. American children have a surplusage
of toys, and it would be an education in generosity and self-
sacrifice if mothers took the opportunity of telling their little
ones of the children who dwell by the Yukon, hemmed in by
snow and ice, and leave it to their naturally generous hearts to
put by something that next Christmas may bring joy and plea-
sure to some one in that desolate land.

In January nearly all the fathers and sisters got sick. Father
Tosi especially was at death's door; and, as I mentioned above,
Sister Superior was compelled to turn her bed into a teacher's
desk. The children were well, but the Journal notes that con-
tinual care is necessary to combat the scrofula which taints their
blood.

On Palm Sunday the Stations of the Cross were erected in
the parish church. The Journal adds this significant comment :
" It does one's heart good to see them again after four years.
When shall we have them in our own little chapel ? " It is
for your kind readers to answer this question.

And now I must draw these extracts to a close. There are
a hundred other things worth copying, but time is short and
space is limited. What is set forth above I have chosen in
order that our Catholic people may form some faint ideas of
the work done and of the work to be done. After all, Kossar-

1 893.] THE SISTERS IN ALASKA. 813

iffsky is only one mission in the vast territory of Alaska, and
even in Kossariffsky the means are so limited that the work is
hampered. The sisters do not want sentimental sympathy.
They appear to be the happiest, jolliest, brightest crowd imag-
inable ; but they do want help. Prayer and almsgiving are the
weapons by which their fight must be fought, their life-work ac-
complished. I am sure that in neither will our people disap-
point their hopes.

PETER C. YORKE.

San Francisco.

The generous offerings and the substantial contributions made during the past two
years, through THE CATHOLIC WORLD, have been forwarded to the Alaskan missionaries by
Father Yorke. In reply acknowledging the same the sisters have sent the following letter :

" SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., May 30, 1892.
" To Rev. W. D. Hughes, Manager Catholic World.

" REVEREND AND DEAR SIR : The donations for the Alaska missions which you entrusted
to the kind keeping of Rev. Father Yorke, of San Francisco, were duly received. We grate-
fully acknowledge the same, as well as the generous gift of Mr. Joseph A. Donnely, of No.
30 South Indiana Avenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey. You asked Father Yorke in your letter
of September 4, 1891, for definite information as to the manner in which donations may be
received. In reply we are happy to inform you that Rev. Father Yorke is willing to continue
his charitable office of receiving the donations of our friends and well-wishers. And we
leave to you, kind Father, that of extending to them, through your excellent periodical, the
heartfelt gratitude and the assurance of a participation in the prayers and sacrifices of

"THE ALASKAN MISSIONARIES,

" SISTERS OF ST. ANN."

To OUR FRIENDS : If God has blessed you with some of the goods of this world, do not
in your generosity forget these good sisters who have forsaken all that women hold dear, have
exiled themselves from home and civilization, have voluntarily endured the rigors of Alaskan
winters to save the souls of the savage. Any offering sent to us we shall be pleased to forward

as before. .

" CATHOLIC WORLD."

8 14 MY NIGHT IN THE BLACK FOREST. [Mar.,

MY NIGHT IN THE BLACK FOREST.

; T is a strange story; but I give my word of honor
that it is true in every detail, although I cannot
decide where to draw the line between the natu-
ral and the marvellous contained in it.

C and I left Freyburg, in Brisgau^ early on

the morning of the 6th of September, 1804, for a ride through
the Black Forest. We had good horses and hoped to reach St.
Blasien before nightfall, and Waldshut on the following day at
noon. The air was fresh and the roads passable. The scenery,
dull at first, became interesting when we entered the valleys of
that wild, dark region. We rode all day and did not encounter
a soul upon the way. Towards evening thin clouds of mist be-
gan to float across the heavens, leaving only occasional patches
of sky, where we caught a glimpse of the early risen moon. A
drop or two of rain now and then warned us of the chances
of a wetting later on ; so we spurred our animals forward to
avoid it. It grew dark earlier than we anticipated, and we were
also grumbling at the barbarous length of German miles, when
we came to a spot where our road divided. It branched out
like a letter V, and both ways were evidently good and equally
traversed. Which led to St. Blasien ? Such a contingency had
not occurred to us, -and we were nonplussed what to do. Time
pressed, however, night was fast coming on, and if we would
avoid passing it in the open air we must decide quickly; so we
resolved to separate and ride on for an hour more. Whichever
one of us failed to reach a habitation at the end of that time
was to turn back and follow the other over the road he had

left. So we parted ; C taking one way and I the other.

I did not much fancy being alone in the dark among the
time-honored hobgoblins and sprites of that strange land ; but I
was well armed, and had more reason to anticipate an encounter
with human flesh and blood than with beings of another world,
so I plucked up courage and put my horse to the gallop.

For nearly an hour I got along very well, but by that time
the darkness had increased very considerably, and I was com-
pelled to slacken my pace and amble on at a more cautious gait.
Not a being, not a dwelling, was in sight all that time. Finally,
as I hesitated in my resolve to turn back and try to overtake

1893-] MY NIGHT IN THE BLACK FOREST. 815

my companion, a feeble light twinkled in the distance, fully a
mile down the road, straight before me, and with it my hope
revived. A house at last, perhaps a village, ah ! / was the lucky
one ; St. Blasien would soon give me a shelter and, what was
more to the purpose, a good substantial supper, for I was sim-
ply famished ; I could have eaten out a whole market-place
without unbuttoning my vest.

In another fifteen minutes I was at the door of a small house.
I rapped, but got no reply. I rapped again louder, and a gruff
voice from within said, in very gruff German, " Who are you and
what do you want ? " I could never fully master the language
of our Teutonic brothers, but I managed to make it clear to the
invisible being within that I was tired and hungry, and wanted
shelter. The door slowly opened and there stood before me a
tall, gaunt, masculine-looking female, with very yellow skin and
very small gray eyes, who gazed searchingly at me with anything
but a hospitable look ; there seemed even something of malevo-
lence in her nasty little eyes. I cannot forget those eyes : they
almost seem to be looking at me now out of the dim past, as
I speak of them, after a lapse of fifty years, and still have the
same penetrating, forbidding, treacherous look.

However (peace to the old hag's intentions !) she let me in,
and had the good breeding to offer me a wooden stool, close to
a great open fireplace, where huge logs were blazing away in de-
licious contrast with the chilly gloom and drizzle of the outside air.

In a few minutes there was spread before me, on a plain
deal table, the food I so anxiously awaited. A loaf of dark,
coarse bread ; a slice of perforated cheese, resembling a honey-
comb, which was far more inviting to the eyes than to the nos-
trils ; a great blue bowl filled with fresh milk, and an odd-shaped
earthen mug, with a pewter lion's head for a cover, from which
oozed a thick, white foam the silent but eloquent witness to
the nectar-like beer that lay hidden within. It was a royal sup-
per for a hungry wayfarer, and my heart began to soften to-
wards the old woman despite the unfavorable greeting she had
given me at first.

When I had satisfied my stomach and I did strict justice to
the demands it made my next thoughts and inquiries were,
" How and where am I to sleep ? " "I have only an attic room
to offer you," she said, " for I am not used to entertaining trav-
ellers." "Give me what you have," I replied ; " a tired man is
content with almost any place to lie down."

My hostess lighted a tallow candle and led the way up a

8i6 MY NIGHT IN THE BLACK FOREST.

rough, barn-like, half-ladder stairway to a chamber under the
roof, and placing the tin candlestick on a small table in the cen-
tre of the room, she immediately turned, bade me good-night
and " May you sleep well " in the usual form, and left me to
myself. After she had closed the door I heard her descend the
stairs, and fancied also that a sound, like the drawing of a bolt,
followed the shutting of a kind of trap-door, which stood open
on the landing when we came up. " Well," said I to myself,
" she means to make sure that I shall make no unbecoming in-
trusions on her maidenly privacy." The thought made me smile
as I took out my pouch and pipe, preparatory to a quiet smoke
before retiring.

While I sat there puffing the white fumes into the rafters of
the attic a strange feeling of loneliness came over me. I was
half vexed at the misadventure which obliged me to separate
from my companion, but could not account for the dreariness
that his absence produced. Then again, in the midst of my
musing and as I looked around the room where I was to pass
the night away from my friend, for the first time since we left
home there came over me another feeling, one of unaccounta-
ble familiarity with all that I saw about me. I had never been
in that country before, and certainly never in that room, yet I
seemed to know every bit of the furniture there as well as I did
the fittings of my own study at home. What could it mean?
The more I thought of it the more confident I became that I
was not in a strange place, that I had seen it all before, and
that there was something connected with it which had an im-
portant bearing on my welfare. In vain I puzzled and puzzled ;
my brain to account for the notion.

All at once, as though a veil were lifted from my eyes, the
whole matter flashed upon me : " Yes, I remember now, that
dream of mine last winter. Here it is ! Let me see what
was that dream about ? " I could not recall the circumstances of
it ; there was a certain indefinite remembrance of danger and
fear, but nothing would come back to me except the vivid f;
miliarity with the appearance of the room and its furniture.
I set to work very calmly and deliberately to see how far my
present position resembled that of my dream. For the time
being curiosity drove away all my previous misgivings, and I
began to dive into the past, into the dreamland I had visited a
year agone. " Yes, there was a window, an attic window, rising
from the floor half way up into the roof. There stood the bed
a large, cumbersome article, like a stage-coach with head and

i 893.] MY NIGHT IN THE BLACK FOREST. 817

foot-boards high enough for the walls of a small house ; even the
same great coverlet of feathers, puffed up like a balloon, which
we should lie upon in any other country, but in Germany it lies
upon us yes, that is the very same. There is the old oak
chest of drawers, with its broken looking-glass, that odd, trian-
gular bit of mirror, frameless and leaning back against the slant-
ing roof, with its sharp point holding it in position. How
natural that glass looks ! It was in the very same place when I
saw it in my dream. And there, too, is the little three-legged
table with its yellow wash-bowl and jug. O mercy! and there
is that hideous colored print in its black frame, with its glaring
young lady, whose very blue eyes, very red lips, very pink
cheeks, and very yellow hair are in strong contrast with her
very blue dress and green scarf ; a veritable rainbow of artistic
horror. I remember the face well, though nothing more expres-
sionless ever dared pass for a jungfrau.

" And that high-backed chair ! yes, the very same, with its
double-headed eagle, carrying the golden fleece, carved upon its
panel. I cannot forget it, because the head of one of the eagles
had lost its crown, and the crooked, rusty nail that stands in the
place of it nearly tore my best coat, in my dream.

" But that wardrobe, that queer old Gothic clothes-press ! I
cannot recall that ; was that in my dream too ? No ; let me
see was it ? No no ; there was a door on that side of the
room ; yes, there ought to be a door where that wardrobe
stands." Here my musings ceased and feelings of regret, min-
gled with a shade of superstitious fear, crept over me. " Why
do not all these things tally with my dream ? Is there anything
in this intended as a warning ? Am I in danger ? " Instinctively
I put away my pipe and took out my pistol. I looked to the
priming and the lock, and assured myself that it was ready for
use in case of need. I laid it on the table before me and sat
watching it, with a queer sensation, which must have been near
akin to cowardice, slowly creeping up my back. I was unnerved.
How I did wish that C was only with me !

Presently it occurred to me that a door might perhaps be
concealed behind that unfamiliar wardrobe. It was not a very
brilliant idea ; any man in his sober senses ought to have thought
of it at once. I did not wait to reconsider my tardy thought,
but rose to my feet and essayed to move this wardrobe. Inch
by inch I pulled it forward, in dread every moment that some
creak or grating noise would attract the attention of my grim
hostess below stairs.

8i8 MY NIGHT IN THE BLACK FOREST. [Mar.,

As fortune would have it, the floor was smooth and it movec
easily. When it was about eighteen inches from the wall
looked behind it. There was the door, just as I had seen it ii
my dream. Now everything coincided : the room was complete.
I was just about to push back the wardrobe when well,
stopped ; I didn't push it back, but I said to myself, " What
fool not to see what that door leads to : it cannot go out
the house, so must be a closet ; why not examine it ?" I tool
the candle and peeped into the dark recess. It was filled witl
clothing of all kinds ; some quite costly coats and waistcoats
and a few cloaks, with several sword-belts and a number of
rusty swords also, hanging on the nails within. I drew one of
the coats forward to 'the light, that I might examine the gok
embroidery on it, when I noticed large blood-stains just under
a deep rent in the left side. The candle almost fell from
hand. Here was a tell-tale coat indeed ! I lifted up and turne<
about also the other garments in the closet : all had red marks
some large, some all spattered with little spots of blood, driec
on like mud. One coat and waistcoat were still damp with th<
crimson stains, and, to my horror, some of the blood remainec
on my hand when I pushed them back in their place agaii
Blood ! Why, there was only one conclusion possible : I w
in a den of some kind ; I was in danger, and my dream w
the warning ; knowing that room was to put me on my guard.
I closed the closet door, put the wardrobe very silently am
softly in its former position, and then sat down to calm myself
and think what to do. " Escape ?" Where could I go in the
middle of the night ? If I aroused the old hag below, she
might give an alarm which would lead to my certain destruc-
tion. If I jumped from the window and took to my horse
(which impatiently stamped the ground and pulled on his fas-
tening, as I thought of him, poor beast !) I might only ride into
the very face of the danger I wished to avoid. I resolved to
remain and make the best of my chances. I would lie down
and pretend to sleep ; I would do some admirable amateur snor-
ing, so that the old woman should not know that I had any
suspicions, but like a cat I would have one eye open and both
hands shut on my pistols. Thereupon I again looked to my
pistol, and also gave its mate a thorough overhauling. Then I
turned down the great feather coverlet, and, blowing out the light,
I crawled into or onto the bed, just as I was, with all my clothes
on; I pulled the cover over me, close up to my chin, and with
a pistol in each hand I lav awaiting events.

1 893.] MY NIGHT IN THE BLACK FOREST. 819

For more than an hour I remained in that condition, grow-
ing gradually more composed and calm ; but it is useless to
add that I felt no inclination to sleep.

It was probably close upon midnight when I thought I
could distinguish the sound of distant riders. Horses seemed to
be approaching a number of them from the direction opposite
to that by which I had come. Presently my own horse, fas-
tened below, gave a loud neigh ; and then I was sure of my
first impression. It was no fancy ; it was a fact not a pleasant
one altogether, but a fact. It might mean that my companion
was returning to search for me, with an escort of royal dra-
goons, to snatch me from my bed of terror, or it might also
be that they whom I now heard would hang my clothes with
the others in that hidden closet. Just then I heard the door
of the house open softly, and a " H-u-s-h !" went out into
the night air. The cavalcade drew nearer, but evidently at a
walk, and with an effort to make no noise. The riders then dis-
mounted and entered the house. There seemed to be at least
a dozen of them. Soon the sound of voices talking low and
in whispers came up to me through the thin floor. A cold
sweat came out all over me, notwithstanding my almost fur-
nace-like covering of clothes and feather-bed.

Surely I had fallen into evil hands, and God only knew what
would become of me. Fortunately my agony was not to last
long ; the conference down-stairs was to be followed by a tour
of inspection up-stairs. The horrid old woman was on the lad-
der ; I knew she was coming, though I could scarcely see my
hands if I held them before me, and only a faint outline on the
other side of the room showed where the window was.

I listened with all my ears; I held my breath to catch
every sound. Nearer and nearer, but very softly, came the foot-
steps. Then a little gleam of light struck the floor from under, the
doorway, and I knew the candle was coming up the trap-door ;
creeping through the crack and slowly moving across the room
went the light, then it was dark again. I heard the latch give a
little click, and then I resolutely shut my eyes ; I felt the rest.
The door opened ; the woman entered, shading with one hand
the candle which she carried in the other ; she came forward
and peered into my face. I could feel her hard gray eyes
almost cutting me in two. A little low grunt of satisfaction, as
though she would say, " He sleeps like an innocent babe," and
she had turned to go down again. I opened my eyes ; her
back was towards me and her hand on the door-latch. Now

820

MY NIGHT IN THE BLACK FOREST.

[Mar.,

was my moment ; now for my deliverance ! With one bound I
reached the floor and laid the woman prostrate with a blow
from the butt of my pistol. I bolted the door to delay the
men below from entering the room ; for the fall of the woman's
body had already caused a commotion and the ladder was being
mounted. Then I leaped from the window it was not over
ten feet to the soft turf below mounted the first horse I found r
and, driving my heels into his sides, galloped for my life. It
made no difference to me where I went, so long as I put dis-
tance between myself and that ill-omened house. How long I
rode I do not know ; but it was just in the gray of the morn-
ing when my horse, covered with foam and dripping with sweat,
stood still before the inn of a small village, which proved to be
St. Blasien. I was safe.

My arrival aroused the village ; C rushed into my arms as

I entered the inn ; the burgomaster was soon called, and a
troop of mounted and armed villagers was dispatched at once
to the house which I described. It turned out to be the ren-
dezvous of a band of robbers, long sought and never caught.

That very house had often been visited by the upholders of
the law, but the most minute search failed to discover any one
except "the gray-eyed monster who would have sucked my
blood." No one dreamed of moving the wardrobe until / did
it. That the robbers were all taken and given over to their

merited punishment ; that C and I were once more united,

and that I got safely home to the bosom of my family, will
always, in my opinion, be due to the merciful Providence which
let me see that room in a dream.

The above tale was related to me nearly forty years ago by
a dear old gentleman who had travelled much in Europe, and
whose fund of anecdote was the delight of my boyhood.

It is told in sorry style now, compared with the elegant
manner of the charming old friend who gave me the details ;
and though I have retained the main features of the story, yet
must I crave the indulgence of those who read it for having
put it in a dress so ill-suited to the one from whom I obtained it,

T. A. METCALF.

VOL. LVI. 56

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES, FOUNDER OF THE VISITATION.

THE VISITANDINES AT MOUNT DE CHANTAL.

MARKED characteristic of the human mind is the
facility with which it is impressed with certain
ideas by the mere process of repetition. What is
repeated frequently and authoritatively, however
repugnant to feeling and inclination, finally as-
sumes the aspect of truth, and is often so accepted without
further investigation.

Of this character are the slanders against the church of the
middle ages. Thrown out in the beginning by those who had
rebelled against the stringency of her rule, they are, even at this
date, meekly accepted by her votaries, or repelled with but half-
hearted zeal, because these accusations have been repeated so of-
ten, and thundered forth so vociferously, that we are deafened
by the clamor and more than half convinced by the persistence.

824 THE VISITANDINES A r Mr. DE CHANTAL. [Mar.,

Human nature ordinarily cannot be divested of its passions
and follies, and while the church retains this human element
there will be among her children sad instances of treachery and
rebellion. Naturally, those who have deserted from her ranks

RT. REV. R. V. WHELAN, D.D., FOUNDER OF THE SCHOOL.

are her most bitter enemies, and seek by traducing her to find
excuse for their dereliction. Prominent among these were the
leaders of the so-called Reformation.

The burden of their accusation was that the church was sunk
in superstition and idolatry, that she was opposed to progress,

1 893.]

THE VlSITANDINES A T MT. DE CHANTAL.

825

and that she pandered to ignorance and vice. They and some-
times their successors, in the face of refutation, repeat these al-
legations, proclaiming them from the rostrum and the pulpit, till
they have fully convinced themselves, and in great part their
hearers, " that they speak whereof they know," when in fact the
wisdom and authority of the! church formed the only bulwark
during all those ages against the barbarism of the North, the
crafty sophistries of the East, the obscenity of the " unspeakable
Turk," and the arrogance of imperial Rome. She held them at
bay in their onsets made singly, and she alone, by the strong
arm of authority, controlled the heterogeneous peoples born of
their combinations.

The ways of God, however mysterious to man, work always
to his own ends, and the machinations of the wicked serve but
to manifest his
power ; thus the
ages of persecu-
tion are marked
by a greater af-
fluence of grace
upon the church,
and heroes of
the spiritual life
rise up to defend
her. The storm
of wrath and
rebellion that
swept over Eu-
rope in the six-
teenth century
brought in its
train the most
powerful reac-
tion of grace that
has ever come to
the church, and
at a time when
the world re-
sounded with de-
clarations of her

irremediable corruption, with prophecies of her imminent destruc-
tion, were raised up those marvels of zeal, piety, and learning, St.
Ignatius of Loyola, St. Vincent de Paul, and St. Francis de Sales.

BLESSED MARGARET MARY AL'ACOQUE, THE APOSTLE OF THE
SACRED HEART.

826

THE VlSITANDINES AT MT. DE CHANTAL.

[Mar.,

These three were in themselves brilliant exemplars of the
very characteristics of the church which heresy had chosen to
deride or to deny : abnegation, charity, and profound erudition.

They also were founders of religious orders whose members
were to spend their lives for the poor, to instruct the ignorant,
and to reclaim for the church, from .; the horrors of paganism,

1 893.]

THE VlSITANDINES AT MT. DE CHANT AL.

827

more children than the Reformation had swept from her arms.
These are the orders which to-day stand as monuments to her
purity, sanctity, and truth. The members of the Society of Je-
sus are her bravest soldiers, who live but to defend her ; the

BISHOP KAIN.

world with one accord gives testimony to the self-sacrifice, devo-
tion, and sublime courage of the Sisters of Charity ; while the
Sisters of the Visitation are no less renowned as the guides and
instructors of youth. The one order ministers to the ills of the

828

THE VlSITANDINES AT MT. DE CHANTAL.

[Mar..

body, while the other trains to virtue and develops into wisdom

and grace the minds of those who will ultimately mould the

characters of men.

Of all the religious orders existing at the beginning of the

seventeenth century there was none^whose spirit and rule per-
fectly responded to the
exigencies of the church,
and at the same time
offered a regime suited
to those calm and gentle
souls who have no at-
traction for the austeri-
ties of asceticism, or
whose strength would
not justify its practice.
To supply this deficiency
was the design of St.
Francis de Sales in the
establishment of the Or-
der of the Visitation..
His connection with it
was twofold : he origi-
nated the idea of such
an institute, and he-
moulded and directed
another mind to carry
out the plans which he

LILIAN TAYLOR. THE POETESS OF THE SCHOOL. , , ,

had conceived.

St. Francis de Sales was the son of a noble house, born at
Annecy, near Geneva, in 1567. His early studies were prosecuted
at the Jesuit College of the Paris University, and he afterwards
took his degree of LL.D. at Padua. As was remarked by Hen-
ri IV., at whose court he was filling a diplomatic mission, " the
Bishop of Geneva unites in the highest degree illustrious birth,
rare learning, and eminent piety"; he was also distinguished by
a dignity, gentleness, and suavity of manner that won all hearts.
He was appointed in 1599 coadjutor, cum jure, to the Bishop
of Geneva, and consecrated soon after.

In 1603 the bishop, on a visit to Dijon, met Madame de
Chantal, a woman whose clearness of intellect, strength of will,,
and greatness of soul marked her as the fitting instrument of
great designs.

It was hardly to be supposed that a woman of such strength

830

THE VISITANDINES AT Mr. DE CHANTAL.

[Mar.,

and resolution would have been the founder of an order whose
characteristics are pre-eminently mildness and gentleness, nor was
such her original intention. Her first attraction was to Carmel

she loved the perfect seclusion, the austere rule, and the per-
petual contemplation ; but such was not the life to which she was
-called.

I 893.]

THE VlSlTANDINES AT MT. DE CHANTAL.

831

Brought in contact
with a mind the true
complement of her own,
her force and energy
were controlled by the
sweetness and mildness
of the most amiable of
men. Together they in-
stituted the new order,
and together they drew
around them hosts of
devout souls, amiable yet
strong, magnanimous yet
humble, simple and se-
rene : scarcely bound to
earth, yet already of
heaven in the ardor of
their aspirations. They
had formed a new type
of religious life hitherto
unknown calm, simple,
frugal ; a life like a
placid stream

LOUISE GUBERT, AFTERWARDS SlSTER
MARY AGNES.

BARONESS VON OVERBECK, NEE ROMAINE VINTON
GODDARD.

" Deep yet clear, gentle yet

not dull,

Strong without rage, with-
out o'erflowing, full,"

and withal uniting poverty
with exquisite neatness.

The first house of the order
was established at Annecy in
1609 ; but it was not until
1618 that it was erected into
a monastery, with strict en-
closure and solemn vows.
Within a hundred years there
were as many houses of the
Visitation in France, and, keep-
ing pace with this wonderful
expansion, there was the diffu-
sion abroad, as of a delicious
perfume, of the most holy and

832 THE VISITANDINES AT Mr. DE CHANTAL. [Mar. r

benign influences ; thus proving how opportune had been the
appearance of the order, and attesting its marvellous adaptation
to the requirements of the age.

The oldest cloisters in the United States are at Georgetown,
D. C, where is the actual mother house, in the sense that it is
the oldest institution of the order in the country, and that from
this prolific root have sprung the numerous branches which now
exist.

The earliest foundation was at Baltimore, and from it was in
turn established the subject of this article Mount de Chantal^
near Wheeling, West Virginia.

This monastery was established by the Right Rev. R. V.
Whelan, then Bishop of Richmond. In those days all the coun-
try comprising Western Virginia and Pennsylvania was sparsely
settled, and Catholics were " few and far between." The tide of
immigration seemed to circle around instead of coming into it.
The first lines of colonists followed the path of the Jesuit mis-
sionaries along the river and great lakes, from the Gulf of St.
Lawrence to the upper springs of the Mississippi, and down
that river. Some settlements were made along the Ohio, and
Wheeling was for a time a trading-post. She even boasted of
a fort, whose site in the centre of the city was still to be
recognized a few years since, and around whose memory lingered

many tales of thrilling incident and
blood-curdling adventure. Since
those early days Wheeling had
L grown to be quite a city ; and along

the banks of the river other cities
had sprung up, dotting the shore
from Pittsburgh to Cairo ; but from
Cumberland to the Ohio the im-
penetrable forests of the Allegha-
nies, and the steeps and valleys
of the Cheat River, slumbered in
almost unbroken solitude.

Bishop Whelan found his diocese
an aggregation of magnificent dis-
tances ; and after spending a few
MADAME BIGOT, NEE MARY HEALY. , ._, . , .

years in the East, he removed his

residence to its western limit, and finally the State was divided.
The pioneer bishops of this country usually find it neces-
sary to devote their energies, in great part, to erecting churches
and schools ; and this see was not an exception. As soon as

1 893-1

THE VlSITANDINES A T MT. DE CHANT AL,

833

possible after his removal, Bishop Whelan applied for and ob-
tained from Baltimore a foundation of Visitation nuns, who were

at first domiciled in the city, but after some years removed to
their present location, about two miles distant.

Twenty-eight years ago the house and grounds presented a
very different aspect from the Mount de Chantal of to-day.

834

THE VlSITANDINES A T MT. DE CHANTAL. [Mar.

Perched high above the surrounding valley, it was a bare, unfin-
ished, red brick building, without trees or vines. It was
approached by an ungraded road, guarded by rough board
fences, the grounds cut up with gullies, and strewn with lumber,.

bricks, and sand.
But now what a
transformation f
The glaring red
is toned to soft-
est umber ; trees r
shrubbery, and
vines cluster and
climb over sward
and lintel ; the
valley is superb,,
and the moun-
tains close round
it like a guard
of honor.

The changes
within are not
less marked, and
year by year the
improvements go
on. The monas-
tery was soon
completed ; the
beautiful chapel
erected ; the sci-
ence-room sup-
plied with need-
ful apparatus ;
the library, once a poor little class-room with a few meagre
shelves, is now a noble apartment, comfortably furnished, and
filled with handsome cases of valuable books ; the studio is a
fine atelier with a goodly corps of students. All the appliances
of modern science are brought into play for comfort and con-
venience ; and from the distant turnpike on a moonless night
the noble building, brilliantly illuminated along its whole facade,
glitters like a fairy palace.

" Travellers in that happy valley

Through the red-lighted windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-timed law."

FATHER PARKE.

BISHOP KAIN.

MGR. O'SuLLivAN.

.836

THE VlSITANDINES AT MT. DE CHANTAL.

[Mar.,

It is needless to say that the advance in methods and scope
of teaching has been quite as great as in material things. It is
not too much to claim that Mount de Chantal has kept even
pace with the foremost ranks of modern innovation ; and that
in rule and discipline, in breadth of view and liberality of treat-
ment, she stands well ahead in the progressive host.

Convent-schools have been made the subject of much un-

Miss EUGENIA SCHMIDT, IN THE OPERETTA " CULPRIT FAY."

favorable criticism, and, for the benefit of those who are igno-
rant of the methods of such schools, it may be well to give a
brief outline of the course pursued at this institution.

The curriculum offers the usual course in mathematics, phy-

I893-]

THE VISITANDINES A T Mr. DE CHANTAL.

837

sics, and astronomy, for which are provided the necessary instru-
ments and apparatus. Mental philosophy, rhetoric, composition,
literature, history, languages, and art criticism form the senior
course of three years or more. These have been led up to by regu-
lar gradations, through the middle and junior grades, of three
classes each, giving for the thorough course nine to ten years.

The course of literature will give a fair example of the
method of teaching. It
covers four scholastic
years, and consists of an
earnest and critical read-
ing of English authors,
from the earliest to those
of our day ; a discussion
of their merits and faults,
a criticism of their style,
and finally a written esti-
mate of each author given
from the stand-point of
the pupil. In the same
manner, when a century
of history has been fin-
ished, a treatise on the
subject is expected of the
class, giving its principal
characters, their exploits,
and the synchronisms of
the different nations.

The lectures on art
criticism are accompanied
by magic-lantern exhibi-
tions, illustrating the principal types of architecture and other
branches of art.

The library contains the works of the best writers in poetry,
history, biography, and fiction. Bound volumes of the periodicals
of the day fill whole bookcases, and encyclopaedias, American
and British, occupy the shelves of another. In the Reading
Room are current numbers of the best magazines, and topics of
the day are not excluded. In the classes of calisthenics exercise
is given with dumb-bells, wands, and various drills.

It is almost a work of supererogation .to allude to the music
school of Mount de Chantal. The founder of this school was
Miss Gubert (in religion Sister Mary Agnes), a proficient in
VOL. LVI. 57

A GROUP AT THE BRIDGE.

1893-] THE VlSITANDINES AT MT. DE CHANTAL. 839

vocal and instrumental music, whose wonderful talent, developed
by thorough and judicious culture, elicited the admiration of the
most critical masters. The marvellous power, sweetness, and
flexibility of her
voice ravished
her hearers as
with a spell
of enchantment.
These extraordi-
nary gifts, how-
ever, though they
won for her the
enthusiastic ap-
plause of such
artists as Thai-
berg and Patti,
and, for the time,
shed upon the
house of her
choice the lustre
of her reputa-
tion, would have
resulted in no
permanent ad-
vantage to the
school had she
not possessed in
an eminent de- SAINT JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL.

gree the gift of transmitting her information and her perfec-
tion of technique to those who were to succeed her. The
first essential of a teacher is the power to impart the know-
ledge that is in him ; without this power, his learning is a
talent "hid in a napkin." The qualities of a good singing-
master are, a thorough acquaintance with the mechanism of the
vocal organs, familiarity with musical literature, a poetic tern
perament, facility in accompaniment, a knowledge of music,
vocal and instrumental. The difficulty of meeting all these
accomplishments, combined with the patience indispensable to
that vocation, shows how rare a thing must be a competent
vocal teacher ; and yet this rarity Mount de Chantal possessed
in Sister Mary Agnes and still claims to possess in her suc-
cessors, who have established and maintained a school of
music second to none in this country.

840

THE VISITANDINES AT Mr. DE CHANTAL.

[Mar.,

It has been remarked that in all these years, and with these
unusual advantages, Mount de Chantal has on her catalogue so
few graduates in music ; but this fact serves only to show the
high grade of excellence necessary to attain such honors.

Prominent as is the school in all the branches of a polite
education, in none is there shown more liberal and enlightened
principles than in the plan of government. While many philip-
pics have been written against the great laxity of discipline pre-
valent in our day, the regime of this institution is emphatically
that of reason. The spirit of the age is one of independence,

and the young
American of to-
day scouts the re-
strictions which
held in thrall the
youth of earlier
times. The an-
cient rigid disci-
pline must be re-
laxed, but care
be taken that its
place is filled by a
true sense of dig-
nity and honor,
based on proper
self-respect. Au-
tocratic command
and constant su-
pervision are here
substituted by a
mutual confidence
and a high regard
for integrity and
truth. The brave
and honorable will
far more readily

AGNES KEANE, NOW MRS. JUDGE MCNALLY. respond to this

liberality, and others are shamed into compliance. This elevated
code prevailing, has shown its benign influence in the moral
atmosphere of the school, which is marked by a candor and
simplicity charming as it is rare ; and who shall limit the bene-
ficial results to society in the dissemination of principles so ad-
mirable?

I893-]

THE VISITANDINES AT Mr. DE CHANTAL.

841

In the early days of the Visitation Order the most brilliant
and spirituelle of the women of society had been inmates of those
convents, and in our own country how much of intelligence and
refinement has been found among the pupils of the same order.

Among the many admirable women who have gone out from
these walls to become ornaments of society our space will per-
mit us to name but few : Miss Mary Healy, the daughter of
the eminent artist whose portraits and original works have been

842

THE VlSITANDINES AT MT. DE CHANTAL.

[Mar.

held in high esteem. As Madame Bigot she has made quite
a name for herself and secured a prize for literary work from
the French Academy. Miss Romaine Goddard, who graduated
here in music on both harp and piano, is the daughter of Mrs.
Madeleine Dahlgren, whose literary work is well known, and is
living in Germany as Baroness Von Overbeck. Miss Anna
Benninghaus, one of the "sweet singers" of the school and of
society. Flattered and admired in an unusual degree, she never
lost the sweet simplicity of her early youth, and as the wife

of Senator Kenna, of
West Virginia, whose
death we now deplore,
she has been one of the
most popular and bril-
liant members of Wash-
ington society. Miss
Agnes Keane, a young
lady distinguished for
great personal beauty
and grace of manner,
having a delicious voice
of unusual compass.
She is now the wife
of Judge Clifford Mc-
Nally, of Utah, a rising
lawyer of Salt Lake
City ; and Miss Eugenia
Schmidt, the first grad-
uate of the institution
in vocal music, whose
laurels, won at the
closing exercises of

not yet faded on her brow, and whose success
has been enthusiastically extolled by the journals

ANNA BENNINGHAUS, NOW MRS. JOHN E. KENNA.

1892, have
in concert

of her native city. The photographs given in this article
are excellent presentments of the Right Rev. R. V. Whelan,
the venerable founder of this institution, whose memory is yet
green in the hearts of many of his people ; of the present
superior of the school and bishop of the diocese, the Right Rev.
J. J. Kain, who has been ever ready in word and work to
advance the interests of the Academy, and who seems to believe
Mount de Chantal one of the brightest jewels in his crown ; and
of the Very Rev. H. F. Parke, the chaplain of the house, who,

844 THE VISITANDINES A r Mr. DE CHANTAL. [Mar.,

notwithstanding the fragility of the body in which his brave
soul is enclosed, is unwearied in his attendance through the
severity of the winter and summer's heat. Not content with
administering to the young band committed to his care, he is
always willing to extend his labors among the Catholics of the
neighborhood.

It would leave this article incomplete to close without allu-
sion to the religious training of the institution which, under the
guidance of these venerated superiors, has not been less zealous
for the spiritual than for the merely intellectual welfare of the
pupils. The study of Christian doctrine and of church history
forms, for the members of her communion, a regular division of
the classical course, and her Sodalities, her Rosary Bands, and her
Guard of Honor combine to foster the spirit of devotion. First
among the influences that mould the religious sentiment of the
school is the devotion to the Sacred Heart, which here holds
every spirit captive and is so universally established in the Catho-
lic Church.

The name of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque is a house-
hold word in the community, and, while acknowledging that
this manifestation of the Divine Heart was addressed to the
whole world, the sisters rejoice in claiming this greatest devotion
of modern times as the crowning glory of the Visitation.

ELEANOR S. HOUSTON.

1893-] THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. 845

THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE.

principal objection offered to Mr. Gladstone's
Home-Rule policy is, that it will put the Pro-
testants of Ireland in the power of a hostile
Catholic majority. The other objection, that the
establishment of a native legislature would
lead to the dismemberment of the empire, I dismiss. If
there be any force in it, it makes the granting of autonomy to
Canada and Australia a danger to the empire. It means that
Ireland must be kept in her present condition at all cost and
against every principle of justice.

Mr. G. W. Smalley, in the New York Tribune, gives voice to
the same objection, but only in a more bigoted way, when he
says : " The phrase which Lord Randolph Churchill applied to
the whole policy of disruption applies to this part of it most
forcibly of all the great betrayal. Nor has there been since
Monday from any quarter any hint of help for Ulster or for
the Protestant minority scattered all over Ireland. They are to
be ruled by the Catholic majority, and the Catholic majority
means the priests."

In what way will the Protestants of Ireland be at the mercy
of the Catholic majority? Are the Catholics of Ireland so
bigoted that they will deny justice to their Protestant country-
men ? The opponents of Home Rule are bound to answer these
questions. Since the beginning of the controversy nothing has
been advanced except rhetorical flourishes about the persecuting
character of the Catholic Church, and the ingrained and essen-
tial Romanism of Irish Catholics.

THE ACCUSATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF HOME RULE.

We hear it said that the Catholics are " the ancient and
irreconcilable enemies " of the Irish Protestants ; that they are
the party of disorder, robbery, and treason ; that when they
get power into their hands they will reduce Ulster to the law-
less and poverty-stricken condition of the southern provinces ;
that they will destroy its industries by taxation ; and, finally,
that they will establish the Catholic Church.

All these rhapsodies are proclaimed in one form or another
by statesmen, publicists, and Orange orators. A sort of frenzy

846 THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. [Mar.,

seems to possess all alike. It is impossible to find anything in
the harangues of Lord Salisbury and the appeals of Lord Ran-
dolph Churchill substantially different from the madness of the
Rev. Mr. Kane, of Belfast, and of Mr. Johnstone, of Bally-
kilbeg. A contagious folly seems to possess the Orangemen and
their allies. Whoever lends himself to the party speaks as if
he had been smitten with moral and intellectual blindness.
Even the late Lord Iddesleigh could not escape it. In Eng-
land no one could be more moderate and sensible than this
man, better known as Sir Stafford Northcote. He went to Bel-
fast, and the epidemic seized him ; he outranted Colonel Saun-
derson, and suggested assassination with as much calmness and
obliquity of moral sense as the firebrand Kenna himself.
With such men argument is wasted. Indeed it is idle to argue
with alarmists. The course is, not to heed them.

We are informed that the minority possess all the wealth
and intelligence of the country, and that they are two millions
in a population of five millions. Without accepting these figures
or believing in the monopoly of intelligence and wealth, we
may confidently appeal to any man outside an Orange lodge
or a lunatic asylum, whether a minority circumstanced like that
in Ireland could be safely oppressed. They do not believe it
themselves. If they did, the threats of civil war, of non-pay-
ment of taxes, and all the other wild utterances of the election
campaign would never have been heard.

THE CHARACTER OF THE MINORITY.

To judge fairly of Mr. Gladstone's policy in the face of this
clamor, one must have regard to the antecedents and character
of this minority, and the purpose it served in the economy of
English rule in Ireland.

Sir John Davis and earlier historians called this part of the
inhabitants of Ireland the " English." In the seventeenth cen-
tury there began to be a distinction between the old English
and the new. In the eighteenth century the old English, hav-
ing for the most part shared the fate of the Celtic Irish, the
Cromwellians and Williamites came to be called the " English
interest," or at times the " Protestant interest." In this century
began to be used the phrase the " English garrison," and we
have now the "loyal minority" as the latest formula. In
addition brilliant writers like Lord Macaulay introduced the
term " imperial race." Mr. Froude adopted it with the occasional
variation of the "ruling class." The result of all this wild talk

1893-] THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. 847

is that every petty landlord who plundered his tenants, and
every emergency man who made life unsafe in the name of
law, believed that he exercised the right of a superior over a
subject race.

HOME RULE MEANS EQUAL FREEDOM TO ALL.

Mr. Gladstone's policy, then, means only that there shall be
no favored section among the people of Ireland that all the
subjects of the queen shall stand equal before the law ; that the
principle of government which made Ireland so often the weak-
ness, so often the danger, and always the disgrace of England
shall be no longer tolerated.

Even if there were a danger to the rights of the minority
one would be justified in maintaining that the rights of the nation
at large are of more importance. The interests of classes, how-
ever considerable, must give way to the interests of the whole
community. Every revolution which has enlarged liberty in this
and the last century consecrates the principle. But the rights
and interests of the minority are compatible with the powers
proposed to be given to the Irish people by Mr. Gladstone. He
has pointed out over and over again that on the three occa-
sions since the connection of the two countries when the Cath-
olics obtained power in Ireland, they acted with absolute fair-
ness to the Protestants. Their sense of justice can be better
apprehended from their history than from the pretended alarms
of an oligarchy desirous to retain the power which it has so
long abused.

THE GENEROSITY OF CATHOLICS WHEN IN POWER.

Under Queen Mary the Irish Catholics had supreme power
in Ireland. Vet they gave an asylum to the Protestants who
fled from the persecution in England. This is a fact that can-
not be argued away by theories. It is idle to suggest that this
was a factitious liberality founded on opposition to English
policy a perverse spirit of charity based on treason. They
saw in the preceding reigns the great religious foundations
founded by the piety and munificence of their ancestors for the
church and the poor granted to grasping courtiers and nobles.
In their persons and property they had experienced what perse-
cution meant. They could have had no prophetic insight to in-
form them that in a short time there would be a Protestant
reaction, and that it would be wise in time to make friends of
the mammon of unrighteousness.

848 THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. [Mar.,

Again, the Council of the Confederate Catholics in 1642 pro-
claimed religious liberty as one of the canons of their political
creed. This principle is not to be explained away by calling
them rebels, and charging that it sprang from the exigencies of
their position. Those who argue in this manner reason from an
unconscious premise that Irish Catholics have no right to reli-
gious liberty at all. It means that in making themselves the
equal of Protestants by such a declaration they advance an in-
solent claim to which they are not entitled. But surely it must
be admitted that when men with arms in their hands, and almost
the entire of a country in their possession, assert a right to
equality, it does not mean that they claim a right to oppress
others. Their offence was in asserting liberty of conscience for
themselves. It meant that if Catholics could profess their faith
with the same freedom as Protestants there would be no more
fines for recusancy, no more confiscations of estates, no more
compositions of arrears of fines, no more pretences to exact
fines, no more inquisitions to be bought off, no more bribes for
connivance at worship, no more bribes for informers, jailers,
judges, and lords-justices. In this way the Protestant religion
might be injured in its members, or the " loyal minority " reduced
to the sad necessity of respecting the rights of the majority.

ON A THIRD OCCASION CATHOLICS RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF

THE MINORITY.

I now come to the third occasion on which the Catholic ma-
jority exercised power, namely, when they refused to accept the
Revolution of 1688, and declared in favor of James II. Around
this period the bitterness of religious and party hatred has raged
for two centuries. Upon the actors on the Irish side in that
drama Macaulay has poured out his most brilliant and passion-
ate invective. The description he gives of the flight of the
Protestants of the North until they found a refuge behind the
walls of Derry is, perhaps, the most effective piece of word-
painting in the History of England. We see families from every
town and hamlet and farm-house hurrying in to escape the sav-
age Irishry ; men, women, and children leaving their happy
homes in the fairest part of Ireland, their well-fenced fields and
all that their orderly and industrious habits had accomplished in
making a wilderness bloom like a garden we see them flying
from the skeans of the ferocious foot-soldiers or the sabres of
Richard Hamilton's reckless horse. We are made to see thou-
sands fainting on the way, and abandoned to their pursuers ;

1893-] THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. 849

we see thousands die of sheer exhaustion ; and, finally, we
accompany the remnant of the imperial race to Derry, " where
it turns desperately to bay."

This is a pathetic picture, but it is solely a work of fancy.
There is not a word of truth in it from beginning to end not
even that alloy of truth which gives vraisemblance to fiction.
We have the clearest evidence that the Protestant freeholders
in the district around Derry lived during the siege in perfect
security. Archbishop King, who is Macaulay's authority for the
events of this time, does not give warrant for this highly-colored
picture except by the rather vague statement that it was the
intention of the followers of King James " to rob one-half of
the Protestants and hang the other half."

No doubt, in the war then raging between the Irish and the
Councils of Union which acted as a provisional government
for the Williamites many families left their homes and sought
protection in the strong towns. Numbers fled to Dublin, for
instance, and found perfect safety among the Catholic majority
and under the Catholic government. Such panics are incidents
of every war. But the fact that the Protestants were able to
reach whatever places they chose to fly to sufficiently disproves
the idea of pursuit. As late as the year 1867 the very partial
rising of the Fenians caused the Protestants in many districts
to fly to the towns near them in order to enjoy the protection
of the military and police. With as much justice it might be said
these persons had been hunted by the Fenians from their homes.
We all know that the Fenians showed the greatest courtesy and
consideration to all classes in fact, on the trials of those men
in 1867 this was proved by the witnesses for the crown but if
the interest of any faction would be served by defaming them,
some scribe as unscrupulous as King in 1689, or Pigott in 1889,
could be found for the purpose.

THE CLASS WAR OF 1879.

I perfectly well remember the pictures published by the
English illustrated journals, during 1879 an( ^ the succeeding
years, of incidents in the class war then going on in Ireland.
Families drove out to dinner escorted by servants armed to the
teeth. A running footman or outrider ran or rode in advance,
keeping a vigilant lookout. Yet there was nothing like these
pictures to be witnessed in Ireland, although they were received
in England with unbounded trust. Every landlord or agent and
his family went about their affairs as usual. The only differ-

850 THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. [Mar. r

ence observable was what a witness before the Times Commission
deposed to as evidence of revolution and throat-cutting that the
tenants and lower orders no longer took off their hats to their
betters, as they had been accustomed to do. Misrepresentation
was useful to a political party, and it was supplied in every
form, by picture, letter-press, and column, more abundantly than
the future historian of the time will relish. Irish people regaled
their friends in England with narratives of what was going on
before they left Ireland, or read letters from their agents or
relatives tending to show the evils of the unhappy country and
the perils to which loyal persons were exposed.

When this could be done now it certainly could have been
done two centuries ago. I have no doubt but that accounts far
more false than any of the later years were circulated in 1689.
I am strongly of the opinion that numbers of those who were
permitted to take away all their effects from the houses, and sell
the cattle from off the lands which by right belonged to others,
told in England that their lives were endangered, their houses
plundered, and their lands laid waste by the ferocious mobs
of Irishry who were again massacring the Protestants as in
1641.

THE PRACTICAL RESULT OF KING'S WORK.

Undoubtedly Mr. Lecky has come to the conclusion that
King's narrative is utterly untrustworthy ; but he is the sole
authority for statements handed down concerning the govern-
ment and Parliament of 1689. Every writer on the anti-Irish
side down to Macaulay accepts him. All the legislation which
began in 1692, and which we have in its latest development
of contempt and ferocity in the Crimes Act and County Councils
Act of Mr. Balfour, is the practical result of King's work, the
State of the Irish Protestants under King James s Government,
At least from the pages of King a new stimulus was given
to the doom v& victis decreed by the Protestant Parliament of
1692 against the Irish nation.

When his right reverend brother, t)obbs, Bishop of Meath,.
preached the court sermon before the lords-justices in 1691,
the object of which was to rouse the government to a due
sense of the enormity of keeping faith with Papists, it would be
an injustice not to give King credit for the remote suggestion
of that pious doctrine. At all events, the treaty of Limerick
was violated with a haste, an indecency, a fanatical cruelty
which cast eternal infamy upon the victorious party in Ireland
and the English government.

1893-] THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. 851

How easy it was to accept the libels of any ruffian when
they would advance the interest of this faction and the policy
of England ! King was the son of a person of the humblest
origin among the debauched and fanatical Presbyterians who
settled in Ireland under the Plantation of Ulster. The influence
of a man of position in the part of Antrim where King was
born secured him a sizarship in Trinity College, Dublin. Young
King, with true Irish-Scotch regard for his advancement, aban-
doned " the errors of Presbyterianism for those of Episcopacy."
He wrote a work defending arbitrary power and denouncing
the impiety of resistance when James succeeded to the throne.
His principles were rewarded by lucrative appointments in the
church. The revolution broke out, when, forgetting his doctrine
of passive obedience, he favored the rebels against James. He
was imprisoned on suspicion. On his release he showed his grati-
tude to the government that did not hang him for treason by
writing his libel entitled the State of the Protestants. For this he
was rewarded by William of Orange, who made him Bishop of
Derry the third richest see in Ireland and shortly after he
was translated to the archiepiscopal see of Dublin.

THE CATHOLICS IN THE TIME OF KING JAMES.

We think, therefore, that the interested misrepresentations of
Archbishop King may be set aside, and a judgment formed of
the liberality of the Catholics from the enactments passed by
them in their Parliament and from a review of the circumstances
of the time presented by Charles Leslie, a Protestant gentle-
man who had himself with great courage opposed what he
regarded as an illegal act of King James's government.*

James landed in Ireland on March 12, 1689. He issued one
proclamation summoning all Irish absentees, on their allegiance, to
assist him in the war with William, and another proclamation
summoning a Parliament in Dublin for May 7. " In the Lower
House," says Mr. Lecky,f " there are said to have been only
six Protestant members. In the Upper House the Protestant
interest was represented by from four to six bishops, and by
four or five temporal peers." He observes with perfect fairness
that the Catholic bishops were not summoned ; yet the king had
a perfect right to summon them if he thought proper.

The importance of this in estimating the desire of his gov-

* Leslie was son of the Bishop of Clogher. He was exceedingly prejudiced against the
Catholics and opposed to a relaxation of the laws passed against them in preceding reigns.
t Hist., vol. ii. 198.

852 THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. [Mar.,

ernment to conciliate Protestant prejudice cannot be too much
insisted upon. Not only had he a perfectly constitutional right
to summon the Catholic bishops, but he had an equally consti-
tutional right not to summon the Protestant bishops. Moreover
the Protestant peers could have been as legally excluded from
the House of Lords and the Protestant members from the
Commons as the Catholic peers and commoners had been from
the first Parliament of James I., by resolutions of the House
requiring members to take an obnoxious oath. But the vicious
precedent was not followed. Of course resolutions of the kind
would have been unconstitutional ; but the Protestants had set
the example, and therefore they could not complain if the
weapon of injustice should be turned against themselves. Mr.
Lecky says that " the corporations appear to have been tampered
with by Tyrconnell." He doubtless means by this to account
in some way for the small number of Protestants in the Lower
House. The implication from the remark is that their charters
were violated in order that Catholics should be returned for
these places. But the fact is, that there were very few towns
in Ireland which had not forfeited their charters by abuse of
privilege.* The charters had been violated in the preceding

WITH EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO OPPRESS THEY LISTENED ONLY

TO HONOR.

reigns for the purpose of disfranchising the Catholic citizens and
burgesses. A privilege granted on condition and such a pri-
vilege was the franchise becomes forfeited by violation of the
condition. It was open to James II. to withdraw the privileges
conferred on towns and manors by his predecessors. What Tyr-
connell, as his viceroy, seems to have done was to have restored the
disfranchised Catholics without at all interfering with the rights
of the Protestant electors. The small number of Protestants elect-
ed was clearly owing to the fact that the persons of rank and
station belonging to that religion had either gone over to the
Prince of Orange, or fled to England, or at least had resolved
to withdraw themselves from public affairs till the result of the
stru ggle was determined.f Undoubtedly the members in the
House were sufficiently numerous to represent the loyal Protes-
tants. Everywhere over the country the Protestants had risen
in rebellion against the king. They had disarmed the Catholics

* Leslie's answer to King's State of the Protestants.

t Lecky, ib. In the two first alternatives they were clearly incapacitated by treason from
sitting in Parliament. In the last they did not want to compromise themselves with William.

1893-] THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. 853

and expelled them from their homes. At the very time the
Parliament was sitting, though driven from the other provinces
after severe fighting, they had a force in Ulster able to contend
on equal terms with the royal forces and were hourly expecting
an army from England under Schomberg.

ESTABLISHED PERFECT RELIGIOUS EQUALITY.

Under such circumstances one fails to see how there could
be a large Protestant representation in the House of Commons.
Yet the Parliament established perfect religious equality in the
face of that Protestant rebellion, and while the memory was still
fresh of the wrongs inflicted upon them during the reign of
Charles II.; with the transplantation to Connaught and the
massacres of Cromwell still fresh in their minds ; with the
memory of the shocking tribunals instituted under Charles I.
and James I. to defraud their fathers out of their estates ; with
the loth of Charles I., by which their fathers could be
shipped to the West Indies at the will of the men who
robbed them ; with the warnings before them of the terrible
suppressions of the wars of Shane O'Neil, and Desmond, and
Tyrone, when over large districts not one man, nor woman, nor
child was left living, nor a beast could be seen " but the wolves
and foxes and other ravening beasts of prey "* with all these
calls for vengeance pressing loudly on them they listened only
to the voice of honor.

A MONUMENT OF UNEXAMPLED PUBLIC SPIRIT.

In the records of that Parliament its members have left be-
hind a monument of unexampled public spirit, a work of patriot-
ism, of foresight and humanity so far in advance of anything
ever done before, so high above the passion and the rage of
party, that even enemies should regret the briefness of their day
of power. It was some such feeling that caused Grattan a cen-
tury later to break into a cry of sympathy and admiration :
" They were Papists, but they were not slaves !" It was a recog-
nition of what they tried to accomplish which caused the best
and brightest part of the Irish press in the era of 1782 to con-
trast their courage, dignity, and justice with the bigotry, corrup-
tion, and cruelty of the Parliaments that succeeded them. And
their descendants, wherever their lot is cast whether at home, or
in Atlantic cities, or the mines and railways of the American
continent, or by the long wash of Australasian seas can point

* Holinshed, cited by Mr. Lecky, Hist., ii. 106.
VOL. LVI. 58

854 THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. [Mar. r

to them with pride in proof of the high qualities of the Celtic
race.

By an act anticipating the policy of Grattan and Mr. Glad-
stone they declared themselves independent of the Privy Coun-
cil and Parliament of England, enacting that there was no
power competent to bind Ireland " only the King, Lords, and
Commons of Ireland "; and by the same act emancipated the
Irish courts of justice from the corrupt and tyrannical inter-
ference of the courts in England.

Just thirty years after, in the ejectment case of Sherlock v.
Annesley, the same question of English jurisdiction over the Irish
courts came up. The acts of the Parliament of 1689 had been
blotted from the journals of the Houses ; the other official records
of their proceedings were, I believe, burned by the common hang-
man. Therefore the usurpation of the English courts was a title
sustained by unquestioned precedent. In the case mentioned the
Irish House of Lords asserted the finality of its judgments in
appeals in answer to a decree of the English House of Lords
reversing its judgment. The English House of Lords retorted by
a resolution declaring its authority over the Irish courts, and
denying that the Irish House of Lords had any authority what-
ever ; and, what was more material, in getting the declaratory act
of 1721 passed by which the English Parliament asserted the
right to bind Ireland by its enactments. I cannot help thinking
that this bigoted and cowardly body was justly made to feel,
and with it the whole " loyal minority " of the day, that it might
efface the enactments of its Catholic predecessors with the full
approval of England, but that it should not dare to imitate their
patriotism and public spirit.

Of course this was really the policy afterwards carried by
Grattan to a triumphant issue. I am very far from pretending
that many Protestants of the last century were not as ardent pa-
triots as the Catholics of the preceding one. Their names shine
across the darkness and degradation of the last ninety years as
a light and inspiration to those men now engaged in the task
of restoring some of the powers of self-government torn from
their country by the Union. But what amazes me is, that so
many Protestants, the descendants of the patriots of 1782, refuse
to receive the inspiration under which their fathers echoed Grat-
tan when he declared that the spirit of Molyneux, of Swift, of
Lucas had prevailed. If their attitude were that the men of to-
day are bartering the national inheritance for a compromise, I
could sympathize, though I could not follow them. I could re-

1 893.] THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. 855

spect them if they consistently maintained that an enlarged
parish vestry, under the name of a statutory parliament, was
not a restoration of what the country lost in 1800. But they
are not ; consistent. Their pretence, their subterfuge, is that
Mr. Gladstone's board for Irish affairs is the first step to the
dismemberment of the Empire.

HIGH PRAISE FROM MR. LECKY.

I return to the Parliament of 1689. Mr. Lecky says con-
cerning all their acts, except the act adjusting tithes, that re-
pealing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, and the Act of
Attainder, that " if these had been the only measures of the
Irish Parliament, it would have left an eminently honorable re-
putation." This is high praise from one of the ," loyal minority."

It seems plain that Mr. Lecky's own account of the legisla-
tion of 1689, which he condemns, amounts practically to a vin-
dication. With all his candor, there is the influence of early
prejudice in his treatment of those enactments of the Irish Par-
liament which appear even accidentally to carry a religious bias.
If the pressure of this part of the legislation seemed to affect
Protestants more injuriously than Catholics, it is because there
were a greater number of Protestant than of Catholic rebels,
He indeed explicitly states this aspect of the controversy, which
is undoubtedly the true one, but loses sight of it in the course
of his examination.

For instance, he condemns the act requiring the members of
the different creeds to pay the tithes to their own pastors, in-
stead of to the Episcopalian clergy. His objection is not that
Catholics should, in the abstract, be compelled to pay tithes to
the clergy of the Established Church, but that the new direc-
tion of the tithes was a special loss to the Protestant clergy be-
cause it affected them unequally. That is to say, because the
Catholic tithe-payers were in the majority their clergy would
necessarily have the larger share. The only excuse he can offer
in favor of the Irish Parliament is that the doctrine of compen-
sation for vested interests was not then understood. I propose
to offer another excuse in the circumstances of the time.

THE QUESTION OF TITHES.

Were the Protestant clergy entitled to compensation at all?
Take the contemporary history of the Episcopal and Presbyte-
rian Churches in Scotland as a parallel. In the interest of the
Church of England and of the monarchy, the Stuarts endeavored

856 THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. [Mar.,

for a long time, by means of a savage persecution, to impose an
Episcopal form of Protestantism on a Presbyterian people. The
stubborn resistance of the Scotch forced the government to the
compromise called the Indulgence which meant the toleration
of those who were called the " indulged clergy " and the per-
sons who accepted their ministrations, on certain conditions. The
latitudinarians, by entering into "confederacies and base compli-
ances with the enemy," necessarily deprived the Episcopalian
clergy of a portion of their stipends. Surely no one would say
that these last, whom a foreign interest endeavored to force up-
on the people, were entitled to compensation for the loss caused
by the compromise. If the Scottish government of the time
had maintained their first intention and compelled all Presbyte-
rians to bow to Episcopacy, they would have to deal with the
whole people instead of the Cameronians. When these stern
and wild enthusiasts gave the government so much trouble in
putting down the insurrection of 1679, it is not difficult to judge
what would have been the result of a rising of all Scotland,
backed by those English Whigs who saw in Charles the pen-
sioner of France and the enemy of civil and religious liberty.
Still less when Presbyterianism was established at the Revolu-
tion as the religion of the state can it be contended that the
Episcopalian clergy were unjustly ejected from the parishes.
They had no business there and were in no way entitled to
compensation.

'DOES CROSSING THE CHANNEL MAKE RIGHT WRONG?

What is the difference between the position of this alien
Episcopacy in Scotland and Ireland ? Is there to be one meas-
ure for Irish and another for British rights,? Or is it because
the Irish are Catholics they are to be judged by a different
standard from English or Scotchmen? The Irish Catholics, with
the power in their hands, did not establish their own religion.
They declared absolute religious equality for all creeds, and
simply enacted as to tithes that the tithes payable by Catholic
or Protestant should thenceforth be paid by each to his own
pastor.

The Scotch Covenanters demanded absolute religious supre-
macy. They would be satisfied with nothing else. Even when
they asserted the right of every freeman to worship God accord-
ing to his own conscience, they charged the guilt and misery
of the people on the awful negligence of their rulers, who not
only had not established Presbyterianism but had tolerated other

1893-] THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. 857

sects. The Puritans had only a short time before driven the
English clergy from their churches and livings ; at the Restora-
tion the clergy returned and expelled the unsurpliced divines
from the pulpits.* There was no talk of compensation in either
case. For great points of form or criticism, such as whether the
church ritual was an English mass, or long hair and a surplice
symbols of orthodoxy, the two sections of English Protestantism
despoiled each other in turn ; and it seems the very madness of
cant to impeach the Irish Catholics because they did not aban-
don to their enemies everything for which they had taken up
arms.

THE ATTITUDE OF THE MINORITY TO-DAY.

This really is the attitude of the insolent faction to-day which
calls itself the loyal minority in Ireland. Advantages won for
all the people of that country by the sufferings and courage of
the majority must be conceded to the minority alone. Not a
single measure for the last two centuries that has in any way
advanced the interests of Ireland has been obtained by the
minority. They were too much engaged in upholding their
power over the great body of the people to seek reforms calcu-
lated to increase public liberty and the prosperity of the coun-
try. Whenever their own interests were attacked by trade
jealousy from England, they appealed to the masses of the peo-
ple for assistance. When that assistance had safe-guarded the
threatened interest the people were rewarded with new chains
and new insults. In fact the minority were maintained by Eng-
land as a garrison with the privileges of garrison soldiers over
the enemy. They were allowed free quarters as long as they
were content with robbing, outraging, and oppressing the sub-
ject people, but as soon as they were suspected of any inten-
tion to establish a common interest with them, they were made
to feel that their rights and liberties were only those of jailers
over prisoners, slave-drivers over niggers. f

In fact Chesterfield, who was lord lieutenant in the critical

*It should be mentioned that the lands belonging to the chapters were sold at the full
price to private purchasers by the Commonwealth. At the Restoration the chapters got
back the lands without one farthing compensation to the purchasers. The canons of the
cathedrals could only have a life-interest in the chapter-lands, and it seems hard that the re-
mainders expectant thereon should not have been left to the purchasers.

t Arthur Young speaks of an "aristocracy of 500,000 Protestants crushing the industry of
two millions of poor Catholics " ( Tour in Ireland, cited by Lecky, Hist., vol. ii. 310). In
1739 a petition to George II. stated that the Catholics were "daily oppressed by the number
of idle and wicked vagrants of this nation by informing against their little leases and tene-
ments if the law gets any hold thereof." The petition asserted that two-thirds of the business,
of the Four Courts in Dublin consisted of Popish discoveries.

858 THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. [Mar.,

period of 1745, and by his humanity kept Ireland quiet when
both England and Scotland were convulsed by the rising in fa-
vor of Charles Edward, uses almost these words to describe the
condition of the Irish Catholics. It made no difference what the
rank of a Catholic was, he belonged to an inferior race and
should be made to feel the difference between him and his mas-
ters. Lecky truly states in the following words the effects of
this atrocious policy: "A Protestant gentry grew up, generation
after generation, regarding ascendency as their birthright ; osten-
tatiously and arrogantly indifferent to the interests of the great
masses of their nation, resenting every attempt at equality as an
infringement of the laws of nature."

CATHOLICS A DOWN-TRODDEN CLASS.

A Catholic could not carry the arms that were formerly the
indispensable sign of the position of a gentleman unless he had
a license, which it was often very difficult to obtain. It was
necessary to petition the government and Privy Council in order
to get such a license ; and there is a case mentioned in the
departmental correspondence of the Irish State Paper Office
where a field officer in the imperial service was refused one. In
these and other particulars we perceive the politic creation of a
class prejudice even more than of a religious one. It seems
monstrous that the policy which accomplished this should be
perpetuated, and the persons who have enjoyed the sinister ad-
vantage arising from it should be allowed to say that their ene-
mies have been always the enemies of the empire, and should be
kept in a condition of social and political inferiority in conse-
.quence.

THE MALIGNITY OF TRADITIONAL POLICY.

The malignity of this class prejudice has been pointed out in
all its cynical significancy by Archbishop Synge and by Ed-
mund Burke. Synge wrote : " There are too many amongst us
who had rather keep the Papists as they are, in an almost slav-
ish subjection, than have them made Protestants, and thereby
entitled to the same liberties and privileges with the rest of their
fellow-subjects." Burke, whose study of Irish affairs was pro-
found, expressed the same opmion. Every event of the last two
centuries proves its correctness. It seems to me idle to attempt
reasoning with those Irishmen or their backers. The prejudices
of the first are too deeply rooted to be amenable to argument,
the views of their supporters are too well fortified by interest to
be surrendered as long as they can be asserted with any ap-

1 893.] THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. 859

pearance of advantage. The classes of England, by fixing the
attention of the masses upon Ireland, hope to keep their own
privileges intact. It is, therefore, in the last degree important
that the party of justice should have the moral support of
American opinion.

What could be hoped for from a country the condition of
whose people is correctly described by the following sentences
which Lecky has extracted from writers in the last century. It
was " not unusual in Ireland for great landed proprietors to
have regular prisons in their houses for the summary punish-
ment of the lower orders";* that "indictments against gentle-
men for similar exercise of power beyond law are always
thrown out by the grand jurors," that " to horsewhip or beat a
servant or laborer is a frequent mode of correction."

RELATION OF LANDLORD TO TENANT.

The fact is, that the condition of the great mass of the Irish
people has been described over and over again by Protestant
bishops and dignitaries as in the last degree degrading. The
landlords ruled their tenants with despotic authority. Arthur
Young tells us, in 1776, that if a landlord sent a message to
any tenant on his estate whose wife or daughter had found
favor in his sight the tenant was only too happy at the honor
done him. This ascendency became so ingrained in the social
life of Ireland that it survives the many rude checks it has re-
ceived from the legislation of the last fifty or sixty years, and
-has been the most potent influence in the election which has
just been concluded. No one outside Ireland can conceive its
power. I merely suggest, as some mode of estimating it, that
although the Earl of Fingall is the premier earl of Ireland, and
The O'Conor Don the first commoner in the United Kingdom,
both of these gentlemen have less influence with the class to
which they belong, and whose policy in the present conflict they
have espoused, than the lowest of the ignorant and worthless
squireens whose brogue and Protestantism are the most con-
spicuous of their properties.

Somehow or other this subtle spirit of ascendency seems to
escape all analysis. That it is not a matter of race or of reli-
gion, In the true acceptation of the words, is to me clear
enough.

* Contrast with this the spirit which animated the Parliament of 1689 in passing an act
to enable servants to recover their wages more cheaply and expeditiously. These Irish aris-
tocrats were the greatest democrats that ever lived.

86o THE MINORITY IN IRELAND UNDER HOME RULE. [Mar.

The explanation may be found in the natural antagonism of
landlord and tenant, which became intensified when the landlords
found in the Land League an organization that would give no
quarter. The ownership of the land was the great object sought
by English adventurers from the first. Every war of invasion
proceeded from land-hunger. Younger sons, or desperate men
who had no hope of fortune in England, turned their eyes to
Ireland, where there were tens of thousands of acres waiting the
first mailed hand that should seize them. What did it matter
that the natives were in occupation ? A policy embodied in the
statute book declared that the mere Irish had no rights ; and r
naturally, the adventurers did not permit the principle to lapse
by non-use.

" It was manifest," says Sir J. Waris, attorney-general for
James I., " that such as had the government of Ireland under
the crown of England did intend to make a perpetual separa-
tion and enmity between the English and Irish, pretending that
the English should in the end rout out the Irish." Mr. Lecky,
citing from Richey's Lectures on Irish History, informs us that
the monks of the English Pale did not think the killing of an
Irishman a reason to refrain from saying Mass.

THIS IS THE POLICY OF THE MINORITY.

Their power is as great an anachronism as that of the Bul-
garian pashas before the war. They cling to the mismanage-
ment and neglect of Irish interests under the existing system be-
cause it in some degree preserves their power. For this they
are prepared, despite their boast of loyalty, to perpetuate the
disaffection which has so often broken forth against the rule
that upholds them. They see with indifference the tax-payers
and earners of one year becoming the paupers of the next, and
look on like idiots at their own approaching extinction : for the
emigration that is taking away the life and energy and promise
of the country bids fair to realize Swift's suggestion, that the
population henceforth should be confined to a few thousand
graziers and their herds, with a guard of twenty thousand
English soldiers and their trulls to collect the taxes for their
own support and the government of Ireland.

GEORGE MCDERMOT.

THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW.

The Voluntary Schools of Great Britain. In the current
number of the Dublin Review there appears an article written
by one of the government inspectors of schools, and therefore
by a man of wide experience and knowledge, which deserves
the attention of those who are interested in the school question
in this country ; and as the Dublin Review is under the person-
al supervision, if not the editorship, of Cardinal Vaughan, the
suggestions made by the writer may be regarded as having
deserved the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. At
the present time, according to the article, the voluntary system
is responsible for the education of the great bulk of the children
of the nation ; while the revenue is, to the extent of nearly
three-fourths, derived from the general taxation of the country.
Yet the management of the schools is largely individual, and if
representative at all, is only very partially so. Furthermore the
management is to a large extent practically irresponsible ; it ap-
points and dismisses teachers ad nutum ; it regulates to a great
extent the course of instruction ; it disburses vast sums of money
with- comparatively slight control. The school buildings are its
own, and can be dealt with almost as the managers choose.
All this freedom as a matter of fact exists, although the state
contributes so large a proportion of the cost.

Proposals for more Effective Organization. Many will con-
sider this an almost ideally perfect state of things, and perhaps
it might really be so were it not for the existence of a strong-
ly aggressive movement for rendering all the schools purely
secular. It therefore is important, not merely that the educa-
tion given in the voluntary schools should in every respect be
efficient, but that it should be recognized to be such by the
popular sentiment. The writer of this article, therefore, thinks
that the management of the schools should be placed under
some form of public control ; that some way should be found
of removing the stigma of hole-and-corner, one-man manage-
ment ; that the despotic method which at present weakens their
position, and forms a permanent menace to their continuance,
should be superseded by the adoption of the representative

862 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Mar.,

principle in the governing bodies of the schools. He proceeds
to outline a plan by means of which each Catholic school should
be controlled in the first place by a local body ; this local body,
or parochial committee, should itself be brought into contact
with a wider popular jurisdiction the diocesan ; and the latter,
in its turn, would be in contact with a central and supreme
body representing the entire Catholic community. On all these
bodies a strong lay element would be engrafted. The germ of
this new organization already exists in the Catholic school com-
mittee, which has done so good a work for many years on be-
half of the Catholic schools of Great Britain. By conceding in
some such way as this the less essential privileges the writer of the
article hopes to retain for the voluntary system the more valu-
able rights which it now possesses, and in this way to ward off
the attacks of the enemies of religious education.

New Labor Department for Great Britain. Mr. Gladstone's
government has taken a very important step in order to give to
the demands of labor a fuller recognition, and to afford to
working-men greater assistance on the part of the state. For
some time it has been desired by many workmen that a distinct
labor-minister should be appointed. The government has not
seen its way to gratify these desires in their fulness. It has,
however, constituted a separate department of the Board of
Trade, under the supervision of a new official to be called the
Commissioner of Labor. The first commissioner is an Oxford
man of distinction, who has out of sympathy with the difficul-
ties of the laboring class been living for five years in the East
End of London, and has made a thorough study of all labor
problems. Another official will be the former labor correspon-
dent of the Board of Trade, who for many years was the secre-
tary of a trades-union ; and Mr. Robert Giffin, who is looked
upon as a statistician almost without a rival in Europe, will
have the general supervision of the whole department. By or-
ganizing this department Great Britain is only doing what has
been done already in other countries. In Switzerland, in France,
and in no less than twenty-seven of the United States, official
departments or bureaus have been established, headed in our own
country by the Department of Labor at Washington. English
writers claim, however, that although they have as yet had no
distinct and special Department of Labor, the statistical depart-
ment of the Board of Trade has done valuable and useful work
in the way of publishing statistics of strikes, reports on wages
and on the state of various industries. And now that they are

1 893.] .THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 863

going to have a department of their own, they claim that it
will be far more efficient and reliable than any hitherto estab-
lished ; they say that the statistics published by the American
Labor Bureaus are of surprisingly little value, being thrown to-
gether in so confused a way as to render it very difficult,
and sometimes even impossible, to get at the elementary
facts about American industry. This is due to inexperienced
men being appointed to conduct the work, and to the haste
with which the volumes are published. These English writers
go the length of affirming that the productions of these bureaus
are sometimes influenced by the desire of their authors to
afford support to the party to which their authors owe their
appointments. The English labor department, therefore, hopes,
though later in the field, to excel its predecessors in accuracy
and usefulness, and we are sure that no sympathizer with the
hard lot of the British workman will grudge him the acquisi-
tion if such should be his good fortune of the best labor de-
partment in the world.

The Labor Gazette. No small share of the troubles of the
working-man is due to the want of information as to the state of
trade and of the labor market in different parts of the country.
The first thing proposed, therefore, by the new department is to
publish a paper, to be called the Labor Gazette, to give not
merely reliable information on these subjects, but also upon all
things relating to the condition of labor. An account will be
given each month of the trade disputes begun, closed, or in
progress, and of important industrial negotiations, such as arbi-
trations, changes of sliding scales, apportionment of work be-
tween different trades. Monthly digests will be published of the
reports of factory and mine inspectors on the state of labor in
their districts, and on accidents. Accounts will be given of the
action taken by local authorities under the acts bearing on the
housing of the poor. Important meetings and conferences
such, for example, as those of the Trade-Union and Co-operative
Congresses, of the Miners', Federation, of international congresses
on labor questions will be noticed. The working of the acts
providing allotments and small holdings will be recorded. The
lady labor commissioner, who .has been appointed under the
new arrangements, will report on matters connected with wo-
men's work. It is also intended to give the retail price level of
the chief articles of ordinary consumption as well as compara-
tive tables of wholesale prices of leading articles in the

864 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Mar.,

chief markets of the world, thus enabling the workman to see
whether or not he is being cheated. Notices will be inserted of
the more important events affecting labor in various foreign coun-
tries, as well as short popular abstracts of the contents of the more
important government publications treating on labor. As all this
work will be done by skilled and impartial officials, it will easily
be seen that, should mistakes be made hereafter, it will not be
for lack of information, and as the Labor Gazette is to be sold for
one penny, and large numbers are to be distributed gratuitously
to free libraries, trade-unions, mechanics' institutes, and other
institutions, there will be nothing to prevent a wide dissemi-
nation of all attainable knowledge on the labor question.

Arbitration of Trade Disputes in France. While the work
of the new department in England is, so far as at present laid
out, limited to the collection and dissemination of information
on labor questions, and no attempt is to be made by the gov-
ernment to interfere in trade disputes, either by way of arbitra-
tion or of conciliation, France has found time in the rnidst of her
Panama agitation to pass a law establishing courts for the arbi-
tration of labor disputes. Under this law the government does
not take the initiative, for reference to the courts is not com-
pulsory, although the Comte de Mun, the great Catholic So-
cialist of France, made a speech in the Chamber in favor of its
being so. The law as passed is so framed, according to the
circular recently issued by the Minister of Commerce to the
prefects, that it can readily be put into operation at the very
beginning of a conflict before mutual recriminations have r
as is usual, embittered the minds of both parties. The minister,
accordingly, urges employers not to be afraid of compromising
their authority by giving their workmen, as required by the law,
the reasons for their decisions and by admitting the interven-
tion of outsiders, and warns workmen that now strikes will
meet with less sympathy, and that coercion of fellow-workmen
will be without excuse. The law just made affords an oppor-
tunity for bringing their disputes to an honorable and satisfac-
tory conclusion, but presupposes and requires the willingness of
both to make use of the means provided. So far as we are
aware, compulsory arbitration, although often proposed, has not
in any country become law ; the difficulty of carrying it into
effect being well-nigh insurmountable.

The Agricultural Union. The Agricultural Conference to

1893-] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 865

which we referred last month, and which was so enthusiastic in
favor of Protection, and in a less degree of Bimetallism two
proposals which are at the present time looked upon as out-
side the range of practical politics is likely to have at
least one important result. This consists in the formation of
an Agricultural Union, of which all the parties interested in
agriculture landlords, tenant-farmers, and laborers are to be
members. The principle on which it is to work is that all these
three classes are equally interested in the prosperity of agricul-
ture, and that what makes for the good of any one will be
for the good of the rest, all three being recognized to be, as
they really are, partners in one business. Hitherto associations
have been formed by the farmers against the landlords, by the
laborers against the other two.; the parties who should have been
the closest allies being the most opposed one to the other.
Now, however, " an aristocratic agitator in a black coat," the
Earl of Winchilsea, is delivering addresses from one end of the
kingdom to the other in order to promote the success of this
scheme. The main point being to bring every one interested in
agriculture into the union, its programme does not embrace any
subject on which there is little hope of obtaining general agree-
ment, and as the laborers have not been converted to the sup-
port of protection, this forms no part of the objects avowed.
The more modest, and therefore, perhaps, the more easily at-
tainable aims, consist in transference from the land of certain
burd ens in the way of taxation, the abolition of the middleman,
and the protection from disease of flocks and herds. Success
seems to be attending upon'the efforts made to form this union,
and should this be the case, it will afford a valuable means of
proving to other trades and occupations that it is not by con-
flict, but by mutual consideration, that the interests of both the
employer and the employed are best secured.

Brief Notes on the Labor Movement. In this paragraph we
propose to give a few brief notes on the progress and develop-
ment of the labor movement which may be of interest. The dif-
ferences between the Old Unionism and the New Unionism have
almost disappeared of late. This has been brought about by the
gradual approximation of the respective views of the two par-
ties, the New Unionists having practically abandoned the more
obnoxious of their proceedings, such as sympathetic strikes, and
the Old Unionists having adopted, to a large extent, the aims
of the New, such as the eight-hours day. Mr. John Burns, who

866 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Mar.,

in 1887 was looked upon as about the worst specimen of the
revolutionary agitator, is now a member of Parliament and of
the London County Council, and is considered to be a respecta-
ble and a responsible leader. It has not fared so well, however,
with one of the other New Unionist leaders, Mr. Ben Tillett ; for
he, although an alderman of the London County Council, has
fallen into the hands of the law for having, as it is said, encour-
aged the strikers at Bristol to treat with violence those who had
taken their places. - A new labor party has been formed called
the Independent Labor Party, of which the president is Mr.
Keir Hardie. The sphere of its action is chiefly political, and
among the objects which it seeks to secure are the nationaliza-
tion of the land and the acquisition by the community of all the
means of production and distribution. As its name signifies, it
will be free from alliance with all the existing political parties,
-- The results of the memorable strike of 1889 are much in
dispute. One thing seems certain, however, and that is that while
it has proved to be advantageous to a certain number of men,
it has injured others. The efforts of the dock-owners have been
directed to give permanent work to the men whom they em-
ploy, and to abolish casual labor. Consequently a large number
of men, who formerly had a chance to get employment for a
few hours a week, are now completely without work. This is
bringing to the front in Great Britain the question of the right
to labor, that is to say, whether it is not one of the duties of
the state or of the municipality to find employment of some
kind for all the citizens. This right was recognized by Prince
Bismarck in 1884, and forms the principle of many of the meas-
ures which under his leadership have been adopted by the Ger-
man Reichstag ; and many who would scout the name of So-
cialist seem to be adopting similar views in Great Britain.

Committee of Inquiry into the " Darkest England " Scheme.
Our readers will not have forgotten the " Darkest England "
scheme of the General of the Salvation Army, and the publica-
tion of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into its working
forms a convenient opportunity for giving a brief account of the
progress and success of this endeavor to ameliorate the condi-
tion of the outcast of those, that is, who are abandoned by such
bodies as the Charity Organization Society as unhelpable. This
committee of inquiry was appointed by General Booth's desire
to investigate three questions: i. Whether the moneys collected
by means of the appeal made to the public in "Darkest

1893-] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW, 867

land and the Way Out " have been devoted to the objects and
expended in the methods set out in that appeal, and to and in
no others. 2. Whether the methods employed in the expendi-
ture of such moneys have been and are of a business-like,
economical, and prudent character, and whether the accounts of
such expenditure have been kept in a proper and clear manner.
3. Whether the property, both real and personal, and the moneys
resulting from such appeal are now so vested that they cannot
be applied to any purposes other than those set out in " Dark-
est England," and what safeguards exist to prevent the misappli-
cation of such property and moneys either now or after the
death of Mr. Booth. The committee consisted of five well-
known men, the chairman being Mr. Henry James, who is
looked upon as one of the shrewdest of investigators, and more-
over as in no way biassed in favor of the army ; the Earl of
Onslow, who has recently filled the office of governor of one
of the British colonies ; the president of the Institute of Char-
tered Accountants ; a member of the former government, and a
member of the present, formed a body at once competent to
form a reliable judgment and influential enough to entitle such
judgment to respect. The necessity for inquiry arose from the
fact that statements impugning the good faith, honesty, and
competency of the managers of the fund, and especially of Gen-
eral Booth, had been so widely circulated as to hinder the work
and to stop the inflow of subscriptions ; and it is characteristic
of the spirit of too large a class of people, who neither do good
themselves nor wish others to do good, that as soon as the op-
portunity was given for making a full investigation the man who
had been most prominent in making these accusations, although
specially invited to give evidence, found an excuse for not ap-
pearing.

Results of the Inquiry. The committee held eighteen meet-
ings and examined twenty-nine witnesses ; the " Farm Colony "
was visited as well as many of the institutions of the " City
Colony "; the president of the Institute of Chartered Accoun-
tants, with the assistance of his office staff, made a careful inves-
tigation of the books and vouchers, and full opportunity was af-
forded to those who had preferred charges against, or who had
adversely criticised, the administration of the " Darkest Eng-
land " funds and institutions to appear and give evidence before
the committee. The conclusions at which the committee ar-
rived were that, with one exception, the funds collected by means

868 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Mar.,

of the appeal had been devoted to the proper objects and ex-
pended in the way set forth in the appeal. The one exception
consisted in the building on the "Farm Colony" used as the
barracks of the Salvation Army, and as rent was paid for its
use this exception was more apparent than real. With reference
to the management and employment of the moneys collected,
the members of the committee were of opinion that so far it
had been of a business-like, prudent, and economical character,
and that the accounts had been kept in a clear and proper man-
ner. Moreover they declared that should the general apply any
of the property to other purposes he would be liable to pro-
ceedings of both a civil and criminal character for breach of
trust. In one point they found fault. A general who should
misapply the moneys could be punished af^er the deed was done,
but there was no way of preventing such wrong-doing before-
hand. Accordingly the committee suggested that trustees should
be appointed with carefully limited powers, and that in their
names the real property should be vested. This suggestion,
however, conflicts with the fundamental principle of government
of the army, which places unfettered power in the hands of one
man. The general, therefore, has felt himself unable to comply
with the proposed arrangement.

Proposals for the Future. Having been thus triumphantly
vindicated, the general is pushing forward his work with re-
newed zeal. As things are now, he is in debt to the large
amount of three hundred thousand dollars. In his book he had
asked for half a million to start with, and ninety thousand dol-
lars per year for ten years. The half million he received, but only
a small part of the annual income was subscribed. The works
were, however, proceeded with, and money was raised by bor-
rowing from the other wing of the army. Since the publication
of the report confidence shows signs of reviving, and subscrip-
tions are again coming in. The general is determined to allow
nothing to stand in his way. Should the richer classes of the
community withdraw their support he will appeal to its poorer
members. He has founded for this purpose a Social League
which is to consist of three orders, the first of which is to con-
tribute five guineas per annum, the second one guinea, while
the third is to consist of those who promise to give or to col-
lect the latter amount. Membership may also be secured by
any one who engages to place at least one half-penny per week
in a box to be provided for that purpose, and which will be

1 893.] THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. 869

collected regularly by agents. General Booth asks his friends to
allow these boxes to stand upon their dinner-tables, so that
when they sit down to their meals they may be reminded of
those who are in want, and may be led to avail themselves of an
opportunity of assisting their distressed fellow-creatures. He re-
calls to their remembrance (without, however, giving due credit
for the fact) the customs of their Catholic forefathers, who
more or less fed the hungry at their gates or in their halls at
the same time as they fed themselves, appealing thus from these
days in which the greed of wealth has made England a " para-
dise for the rich and a hell to the poor" to the times when
through faith and charity she deserved to be called " merry."

Operations of the " City Colony." We have space only for
a brief account of the work already accomplished through this
the largest effort that has yet been made to modify the existing
evils arising from chronic poverty and lack of employment.
There are, as our readers are aware, three branches of the work :
the City Colony, the Farm Colony, and the Over-Sea Colony.
Of these the latter has not yet been commenced, although funds
have been set aside and land secured for the purpose. In the
London City Colony twelve Men's Shelters and one Women's
Shelter have been established where accommodations for the
night may be obtained at the cost of from one penny to six-
pence, and food at equally low prices. A large number of facto-
ries, called " Elevators," have been opened where work is given
to all applicants, and a large number of industries are followed.
A Labor Registry free of cost has been established, with a cen-
tral bureau and twelve branches, of which three are in provin-
cial towns. A Prison Gate Home has been opened. Prisoners
are met at the gates on their discharge, and housed at the
Home for a time, and then either sent to the Elevators or to
situations found for them. Attached to the City Colony, but
not forming part of it, are a bakery and a match-factory. Be-
sides the Shelter for Women, there are fourteen homes divided
into three classes, one for the better class of girls, one for
mothers and children, one as a Maternity Home, and the rest
for the rougher class of inmates. There is also a Labor Bureau
for women, and a kind of missionary enterprise on behalf of the
social scheme has been undertaken by what is called the " Slum
Brigade." Its members live among the poorest and most de-
graded, act for them as nurses, doctors, relieving officers ; they
strive to lead them to improve their position by making use of
VOL. ivi. 59

870 THE OLD WORLD SEEN FROM THE NEW. [Mar.,

the agency of other branches of the social scheme. Seventy-
four women are engaged in this work, which is divided into

thirty-nine districts.

Operations of the " Farm Colony." Passing now to the
Farm Colony, which is the second step in the development of
the scheme, we find that since its opening 1,002 men have been
received there ; of whom 462 have been sent to situations ; 140
have left on their own account, some of them having run away;
88 were dismissed, and 31*2 are now on the farm. There are in
all 1,629 acres, and the estate is situated at a convenient mar-
keting distance from London. Money has been spent in build-
ing piggeries, a granary, a dairy, and a covered yard. Good
brick-earth having been found, a railway is being constructed in
order to facilitate the transport of the bricks to be manufactured.
The work on the farm is divided into nine departments : the
farm, market garden, brick-making, chair-making, the home,
the stores, butchery, poultry, and general works. It is proposed
to start a steam joinery works and a chair-making factory, to
provide work during the wet winter weather for the colonists
who cannot be employed on the land. The cost of feeding the
colonists is now 5^. "$d. a week. The working at the present
time exhibits a loss ; but this is not to be wondered at consid-
ering that a return on the expenditure cannot be looked for for
one, two, or three years to come. What we have said is
sufficient to show that a business-like effort is being made to
realize the promises given two years ago. To ourselves and to
our readers the chief interest of this movement lies in the fact
that religious motives are the source of the undertaking. A
sadly imperfect religion, as we know, but a vast step upward
from mere philanthropy ; and therefore we cannot but hope that
it may prove so successful as to show that even an imperfect
religion is more potent than merely human motives in con-
tributing to the temporal well-being of man.

1893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 871

TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.

I. HIERURGIA ; OR, THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.*

This is a very beautiful edition of an exceedingly valuable
book. The Hierurgia of Dr. Rock is one of the works selected
by John Hodges, of Charing Cross, London, for publication as
a part of the Catholic Standard Library which he is bringing
out, and is the twelfth of the series. The excellence of the
paper, the very great accuracy of the print, the profusion and
beauty of the engravings and wood-cuts there are thirty-seven
of them in the two volumes render these volumes what Mr.
Hodges desires the books of the Catholic Standard Library to
be specimens of typographical art. The selection of Mr. W.
H. James Weale as editor is fortunate, both because Mr. Weale
is a Catholic Catholic works to be of value to Catholic readers
should be edited by Catholics and because of his well-known repu-
tation as an antiquarian, especially in matters ecclesiastical. He
is one of the keepers of the South Kensington Museum. We have
compared this edition with the one published in 1851 by C.
Dolman, London, and find evidence of the careful editing of
Mr. Weale. The first edition of the work, the one of 1833, we
have never seen. Mr. Hodges is to be complimented on his
discernment in selecting Dr. Rock's Hierurgia to be a part of
the Catholic Standard Library. The work has been long out of
print, and yet we know of no work more valuable or accurate
or readable. Father O'Brien's History of the Mass, published
some years ago, is the only work in English published in this
country, as far as we know, that at all approaches to Hiemrgia.
Protestant scholars who desire an intellectual conception, com-
prehensive in its scope, of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will
do well to procure these volumes ; while every Catholic scholar
cannot well afford to be without them. Anent the projected
missions to non-Catholics, rumors of which have come to us, we
would suggest these volumes as invaluable sources of informa-
tion to the preachers engaged in this work. Dr. Rock's Hierur-

* Hierurgia ; or, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. By Daniel Rock, D.D. Third Edition.
Revised by W. H. James Weale. Two volumes. John Hodges, Agar Street, Charing
Cross, London ; New York : Benziger Bros. 1892.

872 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,

gia is too well known to need further comment, nor would it

be within the scope of a book notice to review the book in
detail.'

2. WASHINGTON ALLSTON.*

It may seem strange, and at first thought would argue that
we are an unappreciative nation, that no complete biography of
the great historical painter, Washington Allston, should appear
until nearly fifty years after his death. But happily the delay
of such a fitting memorial is not to be ascribed to the indiffer-
ence of the host of his friends and admirers, but to their desire
that a book worthy of such an artist should make him more
known and loved by his countrymen.

All agree that Richard H. Dana, Sr., was the one who could
have done this work better than any other, and it was his lov-
ing purpose to have made such a biography his crowning life's
work ; but death intervened.

Dunlap, Irving, Mrs. Jameson, Richard H. Dana, Jr., and a
few others have contributed short sketches of his life.

The author of this biography has had before him the notes
and plan of the unfinished work of the elder Dana, and has been
assisted by Miss R. Charlotte Dana, Mr. George W. Flagg, and
other relatives and friends of Allston. His method is that of
Newman in writing the Lives of the Fathers, the pen-picture of
his subject, not the measurement of him according to the ab-
stract principles of art. On this account we have found the
book interesting throughout. The general reader is content
with knowing the artist in his life and works without learning
the lessons which he studied, just as the average visitor of art
galleries looks on pictures with pleasure, but would not submit
with patience to hear lectures on their style of composition.

The subject of this narrative was born in the State of South
Carolina during the time of the Revolutionary War. His boy-
hood was spent at school in Newport, R. I., where his talent
and love for painting were wonderfully displayed. At this time
he was fortunate in receiving encouragement from the principal
men in this centre of culture, among whom were Bishop Berke-
ley ; King, who was himself a fair artist, and Malbone, who was
a celebrated miniature painter. Afterwards he entered Har-

* The Life and Letters of Washington Allston. By Jared B. Flagg, N.A., S.T.D. New
York : Charles Scribner's Sons.

1 893.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 873

vard College, and during his academical course of study found
much leisure for his favorite art ; and when he graduated in
1800 had decided to follow the profession of art. Not finding
in this country a chance to acquire the cultivation which he
desired for his life's work, one year after leaving college he
went to London, where he became a student of the Royal
Academy, then presided over by Benjamin West, an American,
who had already become famous as an artist. Here his progress
was rapid ; at the end of three years he had acquired the
power ,of conception and facility of execution which afterwards
enabled him to rise to the first rank of modern painters. In
1804 he went to Paris, which then contained the greatest collec-
tion of masterpieces in Europe, and thus became acquainted
with the chief excellences of the various schools, which broad-
ened his taste. A year of hard work in Florence and four
years in Rome put the finishing touches to his education.

His most famous productions are, " The Dead Man Re-
vived," for which he received a prize of two hundred guineas,
which was purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts ; " St. Peter Liberated by an Angel," purchased by Sir
George Beaumont ; " Uriel in the Sun "; " Jacob's Dream "; " Por-
trait of S. T. Coleridge "; " The Sisters "; and the unfinished
" Belshazzar's Feast," all of which are now considered among
the choicest works of art.

From 1818 until the time of his death, in 1843, he lived
quietly in Boston and Cambridgeport, Mass., devoting nearly
his whole time to his profession. He was remarkable for liter-
ary taste, which he occasionally displayed in verses ; his letters
to his friends are beautiful compositions.

He had a deep religious spirit and high moral sensibility, as
the following incident will show. Once when suffering from
pecuniary embarrassment in London, having sold a picture for a
considerable sum, it occurred to him that to a prurient imagi-
nation it might have an immoral effect ; he returned the money
and destroyed the picture.

His personal qualities attracted a most select coterie of
friends.

The Life and Letters before us is published in a most attrac-
tive form, and is illustrated by eighteen representations of All-
ston's productions in the best style of printing.

874 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,

3. THE WORKS OF SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES.*

We think it well to reproduce here the title-page of the
volume before us, as it gives the clue to the projected publica-
tion of a complete edition of the works of St. Francis : (Euvres
de Saint Francois de Sales, Eveque de Geneve et Docteur de
FEglise. Edition complete, dapres les autographes, et les Edi-
tions originates, enrichie de nombreuses pieces ine'dites. De'die'e a
N. S. P. le Pape Leon XIII. , et honor t^e dun Bref de sa Saint ete.
Publiee sur I" invitation de Mgr. hoard, Eveque d' Annecy, par les
soins des Religieuses de la Visitation du ler Monastere d'An-
necy.

The present volume is the first to appear of this important
publication. It is not within the scope of a book notice to do
more than indicate the importance of the work and its contents.
The dedication of the work is to Leo XIII., Pape de Saint
Rosaire, Docteur de la societe moderne, indefatigable Zelateur de
la Priere et des Etudes.

The first volume contains the letter of the Holy Father, with
an admirable French translation, granting permission to dedi-
cate the work to himself. It also contains the decree urbis et
orbis, " Quanta Ecclesia," of Pius IX. declaring Saint Francis
a Doctor of the Church, and the solemn brief of the same illus-
trious pope, " Dives in Misericordia Deus" to the same purpose.

These documents are followed by a letter of commendation
from Louis Isoard, Bishop of Annecy, addressed to the readers
of the present volume. The general introduction by the learned
Dom B. Mackey, O.S.B., is a most interesting essay on the
life, work, and character of the saint, and constitutes not the
least valuable portion of the present volume. Dom Mackey
writes under the following captions : I. Intellectual growth of
St. Francis, viewed from the history of his works; II. Charac-
ter of the works of St. Francis; III. Former editions of the
works of St. Francis; IV. The present edition of the saint's
works. The general introduction comprises some seventy-five
pages.

In passing, we may refer to the admirable preface written
by Dom Mackey to the English translation of The Catholic

* (Euvres de Saint Francois de Sales, Eveque de Geneve et Docteur de FEglise. Edition
compKte. Dfdiee a sa Saintete Leon XIII. Publiee sur Finvitation de Mgr. Isoard, Eveque
a" 1 Annecy, par les soins des Religieuses de la Visitation du ler Monastere d 1 Annecy. Lon-
don : Burns & Gates.

1893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 875

Controversy of St. Francis de Sales, and to the many contribu-
tions to Catholic literature from that group of learned Bene-
dictines : Dom F. Cuthbert Doyle, Dom Francis Gasquet, D.D.,
and Dom H. Benedict Mackey.

After the general introduction there follows a scholarly pre-
face to this first volume, which is also written by Dom Mackey.
There is also a list of authors, Catholic and non-Catholic, quoted
or named by St. Francis, and of works referred to. The list
serves to show the great erudition of the saint. It is curious to
note how thoroughly he was acquainted with the writings of
Luther, there being no less than twenty-four of Luther's
works mentioned in the list.

The main part of the volume, comprising some 387 pages, is
devoted to Les Controverses. At the end are Attestations d'au-
thenticite" jointes a Fautographe conservt a Rome dans la Biblio-
thtque Chigi.

Finally the volume concludes with a Glossaire des locutions
et mots suranne's employe's par Saint Francois de Sales dans les
Controverses, and a table showing the new order followed in
this edition as compared with the older ones.

The great importance of the works of the great modern
Doctor of the Church is the warrant for sending out this mag-
nificent edition of his works, and the care and attention shown
in the publishing of this first volume is a pledge of the
thoroughness with which the other volumes will be prepared.

4. FOUARD'S SAINT PAUL.*

We have received from the hand of the author the history
which he has just published of the three great missions of St.
Paul the Apostle.

Such a work comes to our hands at this moment like a wel-
come visitor in a lonely hour. While we are preparing to fol-
low in the footsteps of our great patron in evangelizing the
non-Catholics of our land, we are often tired and weary. We
take up such a work as this of the Abb Fouard and read in
the eloquent language, terse and vigorous, in which he writes,
of the life and apostolic labors and journeys of the saint, and
our hearts take fire and are filled with zeal to do great things

* Saint Paul ses Missions. Par 1' Abbe C. Fouard. Paris : Librairie Victor Lecoffre.

876 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,

for God. To those, and there are many, who are interested in
the conversion of the people of our country to the faith, this
book will be a guide and a help. There are many points which
the men of this age and this generation have in common with
the age and generation of St. Paul the Apostle. It will need
men, therefore, with the spirit omnia in omnibus like him to
meet the difficulties and needs of our people. The book shows
how St. Paul met his audiences ; shows who and what they
were, and how the great apostle adapted himself to them. We
commend it, therefore, to the serious and earnest study of our
fellow-workmen in the priesthood. We are glad, also, to be able
to say that there will be for sale very soon an English transla-
tion. We hope to give a more extended notice at that time.

We hope also, at some day in the not far distant future, to
have another volume on St. Paul's conversion and preparation
for his apostolate, and his last visit to and death at Rome.

5. BROWNSON'S VIEWS.*

"Believing that many persons are deterred by the cost and
the size of the complete edition of ' Brownson's Works,' in
twenty volumes, from owning and reading them, it has been
thought likely that a small book of extracts containing that
writer's views on questions of great interest would be accepta-
ble. In this busy age, also, men have not, or fancy they have
not, time to read anything larger than a small duodecimo ; and
although it is impossible to make extracts from any author of
the first order of genius that will not suffer by being torn from
their connections, and consequently the author is placed at a
disadvantage before the public, yet the spread of sound princi-
ples on the subjects embraced in this volume seems important
enough to warrant the undertaking." These words are from the
preface of the volume before us. They are true and wise. For
the very reasons stated by Major Brownson his present work will
prove most acceptable. During the past eighteen months the
writer of this notice has entered the libraries of some twenty or
more of his friends, in various parts of the country, chiefly those
of clergymen, and in many of them he has seen the complete
works of Brownson. A natural question has been, Do you read

* Literary, Scientific, and Political Views of Orestes A. Srownson. Selected from his
works by Henry F. Brownson. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Benziger Brothers.

1893-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 877

Brownson ? And the answer has invariably been, Yes, and with
profit always. Sometimes the question was put in these words :
Have you read all of Brownson ? An expression was at once
visible on the face of the party addressed which showed that a
foolish question had been asked. Indicating that your question
was fair and earnest, you were answered by being asked, How and
when could I, busy as I am with the cares of a parish, have
had time to read twenty volumes, and read anything else ? Major
Brownson is right. Men have not, or fancy they have not, time
to read anything larger than a duodecimo. In nine cases out of
ten it is more fact than fancy. But Dr. Brownson is much read
nevertheless. His works to those who have the means to pos-
sess them are reference books of great value, and his authority
on most subjects of which he treats is of great weight. One
clergyman to whom the question, " Have you read all of Brown-
son," was put, answered, " No, and do not expect to. But I often
read him. In the evening, when I feel that I will not be inter-
rupted, I take down a volume at random, and read with very
great delight whatever I happen on." This may be a very inex-
act method, but it is the way of busy people. So this volume
of extracts will prove valuable. It will serve as a sort of index
to the complete works, for from the extracts one will be induced
to go to the original for thorough information on the subject in
hand. The book is sure to go into a second edition. When it
does we suggest that not only the volume from which the ex-
tract is taken be indicated, but also the title of the work, essay,
or review. The extracts are ample and to the point, and are ar-
ranged under the following captions : " Literature, Education,
The Sciences, The United States, Political Economy, Civil and
Religious Liberty, Philosophy, Philosophy of the Supernatural,"
making in all a volume of some four hundred pages of closely
printed matter.

878 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Mar.,

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.

ALL COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO READING CIRCLES, LISTS OF BOOKS,
ETC., SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION, NO.
415 WEST FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

IN the cozy parlor of a most successful Catholic writer a party of friends met
about a year ago to talk over the prospects of the Catholic Reading Circle
movement. The conversation was turned into a sort of guessing bee when the
question was asked : " How many Catholics have written books of fiction ?" Every
one agreed, after mentioning many names, that the total number would hardly
exceed one hundred. The Columbian Reading Union is now prepared to furnish
a list of over two hundred Catholic writers of fiction.'whose complete works
would make a collection of about one thousand volumes. After many plans of
arrangement had been tried and discarded, it was finally decided to limit the list
to those story-writers and novelists whose names could be found on the title-page
of a book ; hence the names of many who have written exquisite stories for THE
CATHOLIC WORLD and other publications could not be included. By the meth-
ods of co-operation which we have encouraged, this list can be fully completed if
each one who perceives any omission will promptly send the information to the
Columbian Reading Union.

* # *

For the tedious work involved in the preparation of the list of fiction-writers
we are indebted to the Rev. John Talbot Smith. To him it was a labor of love
for the sadly-neglected makers of our Catholic literature. He makes no attempt
to disguise his indignation in pointing out some of the errors of catalogue-makers
and publishers, who send forth books which are not as the authors wrote them ;
change titles, and make translations appear as original works, in many cases omit-
ting even to mention the name of the author. Many stories have appeared whose
authors are unknown. The Catholic Publication Society Co. deserves honorable
mention for unrewarded efforts to classify accurately the works produced for the
Catholic book-trade in the United States. Next in merit are the catalogues issued
by Messrs. Benziger Brothers.

* * *

For the present we cannot undertake, for want of funds, to send this new list
of Catholic writers of fiction free of cost to educational institutions. Only those
who have paid one dollar for the year 1893 are entitled to the lists published by
the Columbian Reading Union. No generous benefactor has yet appeared this
year to pay the expense of sending our documents gratuitously to public libra-
ries. Our efforts for the diffusion of good literature are limited by the funds at
our disposal. We hope the friends of the movement in the past will promptly
send a substantial proof of their continued interest in our work for Catholic liter-
ature.

* * *

The experiment of a Catholic Summer-School proved very successful at New
London, Conn., where the first session was held in August, 1892. Since that

1893-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 879

time the question of a permanent location has been much discussed, and several
places where inducements were offered were visited by members of the General
Council. Every proposal was maturely considered before the site near Platts-
burgh was finally accepted. The future home of the Summer-School, known at
present as the Armstrong Farm, is beautifully located on Lake Champlain three
miles south of Plattsburgh, and contains four hundred and fifty acres of land.
There is about one mile of lake-front, and a large section of wooded land which
can easily be transformed into a classic grove. The property includes the Bluff
Point quarry, from which the United States government took stone to build the
breakwater on Lake Champlain. There is a military post near by which the gov-
ernment is improving at a cost of $250,000. The Delaware and Hudson Railroad
has a station near the property. There are several buildings on the estate which
can be utilized. The estate was purchased by the citizens of Plattsburgh and the
Delaware and Hudson Railroad Company for $36,000, and given in fee simple to
the Catholic Summer-School. For the purposes of next summer's school the free
use is offered of the Plattsburgh Opera House, the High School building, and the
Normal School.

The Catholic Summer-School is now organized under a charter granted by
the Regents of the University of the State of New York, so that its property will
be exempt from taxation, and it will have authority to award diplomas. The
General Council of the trustees is limited to twenty-five, of whom five must be
business men. The remainder is made up of clergymen and professional men.
At a recent meeting the Hon. John D. Crimmins, of New York; Major John
Byrne, of New York ; J. M. Mertens, of Syracuse ; the Hon. John B. Riley, of
Plattsburgh, and Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, of Boston, were elected to membership.

The officers of the association are : President, the Rev. James F. Loughlin,
D.D., of Philadelphia ; First Vice-President, Rev. P. A. Halpin, S.J., of New York ;
Second Vice-President, George Parsons Lathrop, of New London ; Treasurer, the
Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D., of Worcester, Mass. ; Secretary, Warren E.
Mosher, of Youngstown, O. ; Chairman of Board of Studies, the Rev. Thomas
McMillan, C.S.P. ; Chairman of the Committee on Audits, George E. Hardy, of
New York.

The Committee on Finance, which has charge of the property, consists of
George Parsons Lathrop, of New London ; the Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D., of
Worcester, Mass. ; Major John Byrne, of New York ; Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, of
Boston, and W. R. Claxton, of Philadelphia.

The Executive Committee, which has supreme control of the work of the
school, consists of seven members appointed by the Council.
* * *

Those who attended the school last summer have been anxiously awaiting
the announcement of the programme for the second session. This programme has
not yet been fully completed, but in deference to the many urgent requests the
Board of Studies have consented to make a statement through their chairman,
Rev. Thomas McMillan, of the plans thus far considered.

Six regular courses, to include at least thirty lectures, have been outlined on
the following subjects : Educational epochs, philosophy of history, science and
religion, literature, ethical problems, and mental philosophy. Final arrangements
for these lectures cannot be completed until the next regular meeting of the Gen-
eral Council. Negotiations are under way, however, to secure Rev. P. A. Halpin,
S.J., Vice-President of St. Francis Xavier's College, New York City, for the course

88o THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Mar.,

on ethical problems ; Brother Azarias, of the De La Salle Institute, New York
City, for the course on educational epochs ; Charles Warren Stoddard, of the Cath-
olic University, Washington, D.C., for the course on literature ; Rev. J. A. Zahm,
C.S.C., of the Notre Dame University, Indiana, for the course on science and reli-
gion ; Rev. J. A. Doonan, S.J.. of Boston College, for the course on mental philos-
ophy, and Rev. R. F. Clarke, S.J., of London, editor of The Month, for the course
on the philosophy of history.

An invitation has been sent also to Brother Potamian, of the Christian
Brothers' College at Tooting, England, who is recognized as one of the highest
living authorities on electrical subjects. In union with the editor of Engineering,
he prepared a standard work on the recent developments of electrical science. He
received the degree of doctor of science from the London University, and was the
first Catholic thus honored by an English university since the Reformation.

In addition to these distinguished names for the regular courses many promi-
nent specialists are expected for the lectures on miscellaneous topics. Among
them are Agnes Repplier ; Agnes L. Sadlier ; Judge Robinson, of Yale University ;
George Parsons Lathrop, of New London, Conn. ; Revs. A. P. Doyle, C.S.P.,
editor of The Catholic World; J. L. O'Neil, O.P., former editor of the Rosary
Magazine ; T. J. Conaty, D.D., editor of the Home and School Magazine ; J. H.
McMahon, of the New York Cathedral ; D. J. O'Sullivan, of St. Albans, Vt., and
William Livingston, of St. Joseph's Seminary, Troy, N. Y. Arrangements are
also in progress for a series of illustrated lectures by Messrs. Thomas H. Cum-
mings and Donald Downie.

* # *

The General Council decided unanimously to adopt the report presented at
the recent meeting of that body, providing for the appointment of a women's
committee of five members, to act in conjunction with the Board of Studies. This
auxiliary committee is intended to prepare plans for securing the active co-opera-
tion of Reading Circles and other organizations, especially devoted to the inter-
ests of women. Except during the time of the session, this work will be carried
on by letter. The secretary of the committee will prepare a detailed report for
the Board of Studies on all matters calculated to protect women's interests at the
Summer-School.

For 1893 the following ladies have been invited to act on this committee :
Miss K. G. Broderick and Miss A. T. Horgan, of New York City ; Miss E. C.
Cronyn, of Buffalo, N. Y. ; Miss E. Gaffney, of Rochester, N. Y., and Miss E. A.
McMahon, Secretary, of Boston, Mass.

At the New London session women teachers and members of Reading
Circles attended in large numbers, representing New York, Maryland, Kentucky,
Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ohio, Minne-
sota, Georgia, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Louisiana, California,
Missouri, the District of Columbia, and Nova Scotia. This list shows the wide-
spread interest that was taken in the Summer-School.

The object of the Catholic Summer-School is to foster intellectual culture in
harmony with Christian faith by means of lectures and special courses on univer-
sity extension lines, conducted by competent instructors, while at the same time
combining healthful recreation and profitable entertainment. On this line of
principle and of thought the Catholic Summer-School proposes to offer to its
students, young and old, abundant instruction in the various departments of
knowledge. The spontaneous demand which arose for something of this kind

1 893.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 88 1

met with hearty approval from high dignitaries of the Church in the United States
and aroused much interest among laymen and clerics.

The plan adopted for the Summer-School does not conflict with existing edu-
cational institutions. It does not aim, nor does it advertise, to fill the wants pro-
vided for by colleges and universities, but, on the contrary, is intended to be a
helpful auxiliary to them, besides doing a special work exclusively its own. In
conjunction with the Reading-Circle movement, it will fill the wants of those who
have completed the college course, and of those who never had nor expect to
have an opportunity for a college course. It is for persons in professional and
private life, graduates and under-graduates, for those who are ambitious in every
walk of life to teach and to learn.

* * *

Miss Katharine E. Conway, of the Boston Pilot, had a large audience at
Cathedral Hall, Rochester, N. Y., to hear her admirable paper on "The Christian
Gentlewoman and the Social Apostolate." Rev. T. A. Hendricks presided. The
members of the Catholic Reading Circles were present in large numbers to testify
their appreciation of one whose work at Boston has strengthened the Reading-
Circle movement throughout the United States. We never felt in sympathy with
the theory which would restrain women of acknowledged ability from expressing
their thoughts on public questions in the home circle and in social gatherings.
Under competent management there is also a work to be done by women, and for
the advancement of women's interests, from the public platform, whether their
utterances be called readings or lectures. After reading carefully the reports of
Miss Conway's paper in the Rochester papers, kindly sent to us by a vigilant cor-
respondent, we feel our convictions on this matter very much strengthened. In
many places Catholic women are deprived of some of the best thoughts from
thinkers of their own sex, on account of fanciful objections to women appearing
to speak on public occasions.

The Rochester Union and Advertiser states that, although making no pre-
tension to oratory, Miss Conway has a pleasing and expressive voice easily heard,
so distinct is her enunciation. She dwelt on the influence of women in various
spheres. In her opinion public life is not generally for woman, and she manifested
no sympathy for female suffragists. Numerous instances of the influence of wo-
men on affairs of state, society, and religion were given in which she showed that
these influences were exerted primarily in the domestic circle, where there was no
loss of womanly character. On the question of a college education for girls Miss
Conway's opinion was that it is all right for girls with college heads. There are
a few women, she believed, fitted perhaps for professional life ; but for most women
the home is their proper place. Where one woman, by years of study and prepara-
tion, has attained a position of public influence, a hundred others, untried and un-
prepared, are rewarded with indifferent success at the expense of a life of useful-
ness in domestic circles. The biographies of such women, which appear in pa-
pers that thrive on human vanity, give an idea of the cheap and spectacular noto-
riety which has, in some minds, taken away dignity and comfort.

The regeneration of society will not come from club life, but from quiet,
painstaking domesticity. When girls get out of college they should not forget
home and its duties. Their standard should be the perfection of womanhood
which is better than to be greatest in music, literature, or art. A happy home of
virtue and blessedness surpasses the highest worldly fame ever won by women.
The women who have wielded the greatest influence in the world were the women

882 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Mar.,

of the salons. Their power lay in the natural charm of highly developed woman-
hood. While there are men who quote Byron and Moore on women, there were
never so many men who stood ready to encourage women as there are to-day.
She is the dispenser of material and spiritual encouragement. In the morning
call, the reception, and the dinner party her influence for good lies in generous
and cultured hospitality.

* * *

How to Study is the title of a small pamphlet by a professor at Niagara Uni-
versity, New York. Bishop Spalding, in a letter to Father Downing, C.M., says
it will be " a great help to students." Bishop Ryan approves it in these words :
" The application of this method of study will assist the memory, and help to de-
velop all the powers of the mind." So many patent remedies, which will not be
given out for public investigation, are now in vogue, that we are disposed to wel-
come a learned professor who insists that undivided attention is the best aid to
memory, and that the mind can be trained to habitual attention by reason and
common sense. His method is plain and simple by question and answer. Having
stated that a good memory is absolutely necessary to attain success in study, he
proceeds as follows :

" Memory is the recalling of a past mental impression ; but there can be
no mental impression without attention ; hence, when no attention has been
paid, there is nothing to be remembered. You cannot take money out of your
pocket if there is no money in it. You cannot recall a mental impression when no
impression has been made on the mind.

" Q. But do I not remember some things to which I paid but little attention ?

" A. You remember them just in proportion as you paid attention. If you
were only half-attentive, you can only half-remember. Many people injure their
memories by paying only partial attention ; they expect memory to recall distinct-
ly an impression which was indistinctly made.

'\Q. Can you more clearly explain the meaning of the mental impression ?

" A. Yes ; after having steadfastly gazed upon Niagara Falls you easily re-
member this wonderful scene, because, while you were looking at the Falls your
undivided attention imprinted upon your mind a -vivid picture, a photograph, a
' mental impression.' You do not remember the people you met at the Falls, be-
cause, although you saw them, your slight attention to them left on your mind
only a weak impression which soor\ faded out.

" Q. Can you give some illustrations of the effects of undivided attention ?

" A. Yes. The]sun's rays are so powerful when brought to a point by the sun-
glass, they will kindle a fire ; so when the powers of the mind are brought together
by undivided attention, they make a more vivid and lasting impression. The
flume collects the wayward waters of a river and puts them to good use. Undi-
vided attention utilizes the powers of the mind by directing them into one channel.
Undivided attention may be illustrated by the funnel which controls and unites
streams of fluid which would otherwise be scattered and wasted."

A copy of this excellent pamphlet may be obtained for five cents ; 100 copies,
$3 ; 200 copies, $5. Send remittance with order to the Treasurer of Niagara
University, Niagara County, N. Y.

M. C. M.

1893-] EDITORIAL NOTES. 883

EDITORIAL NOTES.

''THE CATHOLIC WORLD has earnestly contended for the princi-
J- pie of Home Rule in Ireland. Its many and vigorous arti-
cles during the past decade have done not a little to mould
public opinion in favor of a large and generous effort to read-
just the differences between the two countries. With considera-
ble pleasure it joins in the general congratulations expressed at
the universally accepted measure of Home Rule offered by Mr.
Gladstone. The bill is a wonderful monument to the genius,
perseverance, and historical insight of the great statesman who
has played the chief part in its construction.

It may have a stormy time before it, but it is certain to
triumph in the end. There is no section of Irish Nationalists,
call themselves what they will, who will be bold enough or
unpatriotic enough to attack it. Subject to amendments in
some detail, it is frankly accepted by all. This is in itself a
splendid augury, not only for the prospects of the bill, but for
the no less serious problem of the future peace and progress of
a long vexed and unhappy country.

In the able paper of George McDermot the only real objec-
tion as yet offered to the bill is effectually answered.

Father Ryder's article on " Modern Biblical Criticism " will
be read with a great deal of interest in view of the many dis-
cussions among scholars as to the limits of " Inspiration."
Among the sects higher criticism has almost demolished the last
stronghold of their faith, and in the contention as to how far
the divine responsibility extends many have entirely thrown
aside the Sacred Book.

Father Ryder, with all his deep learning and theological acu-
men, gives us a luminous exposition of the Catholic position.
The present article will be followed by another dealing with the

vexed question of the " Obiter dicta."

Christian Reid's vivid description of the wonderful "Valen-
ciana Mine," with its enormous output of silver, with its mag-
nificent stairway leading for two thousand feet into the bowels
of the earth, with its twenty-eight miles of underground pas-
sages, reads like a tale of the Arabian Nights. The patio process

NEW BOOKS, [Mar., 1893.

of reducing the ore seems quaint in comparison with our modern
stamp-mill, but it is doubtful if any better process for a certain

class of ore has ever been invented.

The interesting narrative taken from the Journal of the
Sisters living at the Arctic Circle will induce many a gener-
ous one to bestow on them a little of what we enjoy so much
living within the pale of civilization. They are now enduring
as best they can the dreadful colds of an Alaskan winter. It
will be July before they get the first news from the civilized
world. The boat that leaves San Francisco in June should
carry some generous donation from THE CATHOLIC WORLD

readers.

CORRIGENDA.

For Arminians, on page 748, line 25, read Armenians.

For Driado, page 748, line 32, read Driedo.

For test., page 748, line 12, read lect.

For quod, page 752, line 32, read quoad.

For encourage, page 753, line 21, read envisage.

NEW BOOKS.

Benziger Brothers, New York :

Words of Wisdom from the Scriptures. A Concordance to the Sapiential
Books. Prepared from the French (Migne's collection). Edited by Rev.
John J. Bell. With a Preface by Very Rev. A. Magnien, S.S., D.D.
George T. Dixon, Toronto :

The Archdiocese of Toronto and Archbishop Walsh, with an Introduction

by His Grace the Archbishop (Jubilee volume). Illustrated.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York :

Froebel and Education by Self -Activity. By H. Courthope Bowen, M.A.

(The Great Educators.)
Burns & Gates, London :

(Euvres de St. Francois de Sales. Tome I,, Les Controverses.
Macmillan & Co., New York and London :

Don Orsino. By F. Marion Crawford.
Longmans, Green & Co., New York :

A Moral Dilemma. By Annie Thompson.
Catholic Truth Society of England :

A Mother's Sacrifice, and Other Tales. By A. M. Clarke.
Charles H. Kerr & Co., Chicago:

First Steps in Philosophy (Physical and Ethical). By William Mackintire
Salter.

PAMPHLETS.

The Tenth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Indian
Rights Association, 1892. Philadelphia : Arch Street.

The Theocracy and the Law of National Caducity. A Reply to recent dis r
sertations on the Temporal Power. By the Author of "Civil Principali-
ty." London : Burns & Oates.

AP The Catholic world

v.56

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