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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
OCTOBER, 1894, TO MARCH, 1895.
NEW YORK :
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
120 WEST 6oth STREET.
1895.
Copyright, 1895, by
VERY REV. A. F. HKWIT.
THE COLUMBUS PRESS, 120 WEST 60iH ST., NEW YORK.
CONTENTS.
Adirondack Winter Scene, hn. (Frontispiece.)
Advantages attending the Investigation
of Catholic Truth, Of the. Wil-
liam C. Robinson, LL.D., . . 468
Ancient Mammals and their Descen-
dants. William Seton, LL.D., . 401
Bonaparte and the Moral Law. John
/. O'SAea, . . . . . 698
Brief of Leo XIII., . . .', ., 577
Catholic Charities under the Microscope, 116
Catholicism in Scandinavia. {Illustrat-
ed.) Most Rev. Francis fanssens,
D.D., 586
Christmas in Cloudland, A.. (Illustrat-
ed. ) By John /. O'Sfiea, assisted by
the following contributors : Mari-
annt Kent, " Pepita Casada," Doro-
thy Monckton, and Marie Louise
Sandrock, . . . . . 354
Church of St. Olaf, Stockholm.
{Frontispiece. )
Church in Armenia, The. (Illustrated.)
Right Rev. Paul Terzian, D.D., 212
Church vs. The State in the Concerns
of the Poor, The. Rev. M. O'Rior-
dan, Ph.D., D.D., D.C.L., . . 145
Columbian Reading Union, The, 140, 286,
43Q| 573i 7 l6 > 8 56
Consecrated Mission of the Printed
Word, The. Margaret E.Jordan, 489
Count de Mun : Leader of the Catholic
Republican Deputies. (Illustrat-
ed.) Eugene Davis, . . . 345
Critics Criticised, The. Rev. R. M.
Ryan, ....... 690
Death of St. Bruno. {Frontispiece.)
Disestablishment of the Church of Vir-
ginia, The. William F. Carne, . 108
Doctor Charcot and his Work. (Illus-
trated.) William Seton, LL.D., . 798
Dual Ownership of Land in Ireland a
Myth, The. Rev. George McDer-
mot, . . . . . . . 251
Editorial Notes, . . . 139, 428, 572
Encyclical of Leo XIII. to the Bishops
of the United States. Very Rev. A.
F. Hewit, D.D., . . . .721
Fra Angelico. {Illustrated.) Sarah C.
Flint, 454
Glimpses of Life in an Anglican Semi-
nary. (Illustrated.) Rev. Clarence
,A. Walworth, 88, 199, 321, 477, 599, 783
Glimpses of Lourdes. {Illustrated.)
Alba, 237
Greater Gladness, As by a. Kathryn
Prindiville, ' . . . . . 209
Gregory the Great and the Barbarian
World. (Illustrated.) Rev. T. /.
Shahan, D.D., .... 507
Here and There in Catholicism. Henry
A. Adams, . . 232, 433, 621, 739
Hillwood Christmas Ball, The. Mrs.
M. E. Henry-Ruffin, . . . 291
History of Marriage, The, . . . 682
Hoffmann's Studio, In. (Illustrated.)
Mary Catherine Crowley, . . 653
Humanism of Peter, The. K. F. Mul-
laney, ...... 439
Immoral Use and Sale of Intoxicants.
Very Rev. A. F. Hewit, D.D., . i
Infanticide practised in China ? Is. {Il-
lustrated.) A. M. Clarke, . . 769
Irishwoman's Rosary, An. Magdalen
Rock 83
Italian Harvest Scenes. Henrietta D.
Skinner, ...... 227
Lesson of "The White City," The.
Very Rev. A. F. Hewit, D.D., . 73
Men of Letters and Early Training. W.
R. C tax ton, ..... 259
Missionary Experiences on the Cleve-
land Plan. Rev. Walter Elliott, .
409, 546, 666
Modern Iconoclast, A. Mary Angela
Spellissy, 744
Neglected Mission, A. {Illustrated.)
Dorothea Lummis, .... 175
New Publications 714
New Hedonism, The. S. M. Miller,
M.D., 13
Noble Arab Martyr, A. M. /. L., . 415
Normandy, From. (Illustrated.) V.
A. C. I., . . ' . . . .100
Pastoral Letter of the Bishops of the
Protestant Episcopal Church.
Very Rev. A. F. Hewit, D.D., . 830
Pharaohs of British Rule, The./0An
/. O'SAea, 51
Pictures of the Galway Coast. (Illus-
trated.) Marguerite Moore, . .727
Pierre Loti. Mary Josephine Onahan, 191
Poet's Romance, A. Walter Lecky, . 673
Prince of India; or, "Why Constanti-
nople Fell," The. (Illustrated.)
Rev. Charles Warren Currier, . 306
Prince of Scribblers, A. Vincent D.
Rossman, 806
Professor Huxley's Admissions. Rev.
William Barry, D.D., . . 181,333
Proposed Agnostic Amendment to our
State Constitution, The. Rev.
Thomas McMillan, .... 267
Pullman Strike Commission, The.
Rev. George McDermot, C.S.P., . 627
Question of Reconciliation between
Church and State in Italy, The.
William /. D. Croke, . . . 579
CONTENTS.
Ready to Strike But When and
Where ? (Illustrated.} S. Mil-
lington Miller, M.D., . . -535
Review of Father Tanquerey's Special
Dogmatic Theology. Very Rev. A.
F. Hewit, D.D., . . . .611
Road to Lourdes, On ttyj. (Frontispiece.}
Rome via England. Marion Ames
Taggart, 636
Scope of Public-School Education, The.
Right Rev. J. L. Spalding, D.D., 758
Sir John Thompson. (Illustrated.)
J. A. /. McKenna, . . . .816
Talk about New Books, 124, 276, 419, 562.
704, 842
Tennyson and Holmes: A Parallel.
(Illustrated.} Helen M. Sweeney, 521
Three Lives Lease, The. Jane Smiley, 445
Tubingen and its Catholic Scholars.
(Illustrated^ Rev. George F. X.
Griffith, 23
Unhappy Armenia. (Illustrated.)
John J. O'Shea, . . . -553
Unrecognized Genius, An. Marion A.
Taggart, 3 8
Virgin of Lourdes, The. (Frontispiece.}
Visit to the Monastery of La Grande
Chartreuse, A. (Illustrated.} Ch.
Chailtt-Long, 59
Vocation of Ida, The. L. W. Reilly, . 158
POETRY.
Alma Mater, To my. Rev. f. B. Tabb, 226
Alone. Charlotte Grace O'Brien, . 107
Birth of Friendship, The. James
Buckham n'5
Catharine Seyton. Alba, . ' . -37
Christ's Masterpiece. Bar net Told-
ridge, 768
Coliseum, The. Right Rev. J. L.
Spalding, 72
Contrasts. Rev. William P. Treacy, 841
Convent Garden, In the. S. Alice
Raulett, 665
Daybreak. Charleson Shane, . . 344
Dulce in Utile. Paul O'Connor, . . 625
Durham Candles. Leuise Imogen
Guiney, 332
For Thee the Joys that cross the Tide.
Edward Doyle, .... 598
" Gloria in Excelsis Deo." S. M.
Oovey, 320
Gobhan Saer, The. Rev. George Mc-
Dermot, 121
"I Will Gather Me Sticks." (Illus-
trated.) P. J. MacCorry, . . 475
Joy in Heaven. Magdalen Rock, . 198
Leo 'X.lll.Jtalph Adams Cram, . . 805
Lights of Home, The./eanor C.
Donnelly, 12
March. Walter Lecky, .... 782
Mendicant, The. P. /. MacCorry, . 180
New Year, The. Albert Reynaud, . 672
Ode to St. Thomas Aquinas. Mary T.
Waggaman, 795
Rev. Father Maurice, C.P. Helen
Grace Smith, 503
Sceptic, The. Mary T. Waggaman, . 453
Songs Unsung, Two. M. E. Henry-
Ruffin, 266
Suffering Souls, The. W. /. O'Reilly, 258
Venerable Bede, The.mma Playter
Seabury, 444
Venite Adoremus. John J. O'Sfiea, . 289
W. S. Lilly, Esq., To. Walter Lecky, 87
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Annals of the Georgetown Convent of
the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, 7 io
Belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, . 130
Bible. Science, and Faith, . . . 135
Brehon Laws, The, .... 568
Catholic and Protestant Countries com-
pared in Civilization, Popular Happi-
ness, General Intelligence, and Mo-
rality, 562
Children of Charles I., The, . . 133
Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth
Century, I2 6
Final Report on the Catholic Educa-
tional Exhibit, World's Columbian
Exposition, Chicago, 1893, . . 128
Flowers of Mary, 134
Fourteen of Meaux, The, . . .565
Happy, Hours of Childhood By the
Seaside, j-j^
Herald Sermons, 7 I2
Hints on Preaching, .... 284
Humor of Ireland, The, . . . 853
La Stigmatisation, 1'Extase Divine et les
Miracles de Lourdes: reponse aux
libres-penseurs, 569
Lectures on Biology, .... 281
Life of St. Philip Neri, Apostle of Rome, 131
Life's Decision, A, . . . . 277
Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, D.D., 847
Life of Mary Monholland, . . . 709
Meditations for all the Days of the Year, 426
Melodies in Mood and Tense, . . 566
My Lady Rotha, 276
Napoleon Romances, The, . . -133
New Light on the Bible and the Holy
Land, 282
Odes of Horace, The, .... 421
Orchids 124
Quatre Portraits de Femmes, Episodes
des Persecutions d'Angleterre, . . 564
Selections from the Poems of Aubrey de
Vere, 704
St. Paul and his Missions, . . . 423
St. Thomas's Priory, . _ . . . 137
Stories of Old Greece, .... 854
Things of the Mind, .... 421
Trilby, 279
Truth and Reality of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice, The, 842
Watches of the Sacred Passion, with
Before and After 852
Wedding Garment, The, . . . 135
Wilson's Cyclopedic Photography, . 128
DEATH OF ST. BRUNO. (See page di.}
THE
VOL. LX. OCTOBER, 1894. No. 355.
IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS.
BY VERY REV. A. F. HEWIT, D.D. %
HAVE a hereditary interest in the Cause of
Temperance. Intemperance prevailed alarm-
ingly, and was increasing in New England and
the Middle States, at the beginning of this
century. The habitual use of intoxicating
liquors as a beverage w,as common among the
most respectable and religious classes, includ-
ing the clergy. All at once, about the year 1830, a panic
seized on a large number of the more zealous and devoted
members of the churches in view of the strides which the vice
of intemperance was making, and there was a crusade preached
against liquor which was very successful in bringing about a
great reformation. Moderate drinking was vehemently attacked,
as the principal cause of the excesses of intemperance, and
total abstinence from spirituous liquors was the remedy pro-
claimed as the only one efficacious, and as not only advisable
but necessary, as an ordinary rule. The intoxicating drinks
which were in common use at that time were strong, distilled
liquors, particularly New England and Jamaica Rum. Imported
wines were found only on the tables of the rich. The only
other drink made use of extensively, especially by farmers, was
cider. No kind of drink was denounced at the beginning of
the Temperance Reformation, as dangerous when taken in
moderation, except " ardent spirits " ; and the sale of such
liquors in retail for use as an ordinary beverage was the partic-
ular kind of traffic condemned as morally unlawful, and not to
be tolerated in a Christian professor.
VOL. LX i
Copyright. VBRY RBV. A. F. HBWIT. 1894.
2 IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. [Oct.,
My father was the principal preacher of this Temperance
Crusade in America and England, and was honored with the
title of "Apostle of Temperance" before Father Mathew ap-
peared on the scene, and merited this glorious title.
I am happy to remember that during my missionary career of
fifteen years I waged an incessant war against intemperance, and it
is known to all that the Paulists have ever been foremost in the
crusade against this base, venomous, and deadly dragon, whose
breath poisons the air which so many unhappy creatures inhale.
No longer able to contend as formerly against this monster
by preaching, I wish, nevertheless, to cast one more javelin at
him. I am happy to see that a host of valiant combatants
have arisen to carry on this holy crusade. And it is matter for
congratulation that the representative of the Holy Father has
animated their courage and strengthened their arms, as well as
stricken terror into the hearts of their opponents, by his appro-
bation of the opportune legislation of the Bishop of Columbus.
I have no intention of treating at large or at length of such
an extensive and complex subject as the morality of the liquor-
traffic and the use of intoxicants as a beverage.
I shall restrict myself for the most part to the narrow
limits of that den of the dragon which I venture to call by the
vulgar name of " whiskey-shop " ; and to those who are therein
engaged in getting money or wasting it, by the sale and con-
sumption of ardent spirits. The more genteel and general
terms by which all the business of manufacturing and trading
in liquors can be designated are too ambiguous to be service-
able for my purpose, without a great deal of definition and
circumlocution. In London there are " gin-palaces." Similar
places in New York are called " saloons " ; but as there are
many most respectable and genteel apartments of a quite differ-
ent sort, not devoted to drinking purposes, called by the same
name, and the resorts I have in view are in general more or
less wanting in respectability, I prefer to call them by a
name which tells exactly what they are, viz., " whiskey-shops."
In New England the name of these places used to be " grog-
shops," or " rum-shops." If those who keep " saloons " find
these terms opprobrious, why is it ? " Shop " is certainly a re-
spectable word; why should "grog-shop," " rum-shop," "whiskey-
shop," have a worse sound than " barber-shop," " candy-shop," or
" carpenter-shop " ? Evidently, because rum and whiskey have
caused a vast amount of degradation and misery, when abused
by excessive drinking, and because so many of the shops where
1894-] IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. 3
these liquors are sold and drank are centres of drunkenness.
Those who profess that they carry on the traffic in liquor in a
respectable way, consistent with the precepts of morality and
religion, if their plea is reasonable and just, have no cause for
taking offence at the opprobrium which is cast upon those who
are the refuse and scum of their trade. If they are sincere in
their professions, if they really have the cause of religion,
morality, and social order at heart, let them join in the
crusade against intemperance and whiskey-shops, and .do their
best to clear the skirts of their trade from the disgrace which
has stuck to it, by being dragged through the mud.
Most assuredly, I will not propose any doctrine which can
be called extreme or fanatical. I do not condemn the drink-
ing, sale, and manufacture of spirituous liquors, much less of the
fermented and malt liquors, as in their nature immoral and sin-
ful. There is nothing immoral in the mere act of drinking a
glass of brandy or whiskey, or in the habit of using such
drinks regularly, with due moderation, unless there is some cir-
cumstance therewith connected which attaches to it an immoral
character. There is nothing essentially and intrinsically im-
moral in the wholesale and retail traffic in spirituous liquors.
To make it immoral, there must be something in the manner
or circumstances of the traffic which attaches to it a vicious
quality ; it must be infected by some deadly or noxious ingredi-
ent, like a river polluted from a cess-pool.
There is nothing immoral in selling revolvers and cartridges.
But if, in certain circumstances, this traffic were chiefly with
men who were bent on homicide or resistance to the law, or if
it were carried on in violation of laws made to regulate and
restrict the use and sale of firearms, for the preservation of the
public peace, it would become criminal.
There is nothing immoral in playing cards or billiards, even
for money, yet, as every one knows, gambling is, in point of
fact, one of the most dangerous and ruinous of habits, and the
places where it is carried on have been very appropriately
called " hells." The lottery is not in itself immoral. Neverthe-
less, it has become practically such an evil, that it has been
thought necessary to make it illegal.
The whole question of traffic, especially retail traffic in
intoxicating liquors, must therefore be considered, not merely
in the abstract, but in the concrete ; not merely in its con-
stant and universal aspects, but also in those which are vari-
able in different times and places, and which are particular.
4 IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. [Oct.,
It is a great mistake to make the practical standard and
rule for the application of moral principles 1 which are alway
and everywhere the same, identical, in respect to the liquor-
traffic, in this country and in all other countries.
The condition of a country where pure native wines and
pure beer are abundant and in common use, and gross intern-
perance is not a prevalent vice, is different from that of our
own country. I will not digress, however, from my chief and
indeed only point, viz., that the whiskey-shops which exist and
thrive in such great numbers in our own country are a nuisance,
and that they ought to be the chief objective point of attack
in the crusade against intemperance. The city of New York,
from the days of its Dutch founders, has held a bad eminence
in the number of its retail stores for the sale of liquor. At
present, we are told that there are some seven or eight thousand
of what in polite language are called " saloons," and above forty
thousand in the State. No matter what plea the apologists of
the saloons may put in, in behalf of those which they claim to
be conducted in a way which does not offend against religion,
morality, or the social order ; no one can deny that many of
them belong to the class of low, disreputable whiskey-shops.
They are the resort of habitual and occasional drunkards, and
hard drinkers. Drinking to excess is mostly carried on in these
places by the majority of the men, especially of the laboring
class, who are addicted to this vice. In most cases, it is there
that sober young men begin to go the downward road which
leads to destruction. The worst of these dens are vile beyond
description. Every policeman, and every priest, whose duty has
ever required him to look into these haunts of iniquity of a
Saturday evening, knows by his own observation what most
decent people can only know through hearing or reading ; un-
less, unhappily, they see in the degradation and ruin of their
own relatives and friends the effects of resorting to " saloons."
The same condition of things exists all over the country.
Parish priests everywhere find the evil influences which tend to
demoralize their people, to resist and thwart their own pastoral
labors, centred in the whiskey-shops. Missionaries find the
great obstacle to the success of missions in these same strong-
holds of vice and sin. Great numbers of the victims of intem-
perance are brought to conversion and reformation. Many whis-
key-shops are broken up. It is to be feared that a considerable
number of those who have been reformed relapse after a time.
Some who have shut up their shops reopen them after their
1894-] IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. 5
virtuous resolutions have evaporated, and new wolves are always
prowling around and breaking into the sheepfold. In the war-
fare of parish priests and missionaries against sin, of course,
they must wage it against all sins and all vices. But one of
the chief objects of assault is intemperance, which is not only
in itself a gross and destructive vice, but the parent of many
other sins, and the cause of many miseries, not only to those
who indulge in it, but to others also, and is a loathsome ulcer
on the social body.
It is evident that some kind of control and restriction in
the liquor-traffic by the law is not only right and proper, but
necessary. For instance, the law requiring saloons to be closed
on Sunday, is one which must be approved by all who have
any moral sense. All good citizens ought to observe and to
support it. It is scandalous for those who make a profession
of being Catholics to violate or evade it. Besides this, the
whole moral authority of the church concurs with the civil au-
thority in forbidding this gross abuse and disorder.
The reformation of abuses in connection with the traffic in
liquor by legislation and by all kinds of moral influence must
be admitted by all to be most desirable, whatever differences
of opinion there may be about particular methods and measures.
A " Public-House Reform Association " has been lately formed
in England, which a writer in the London Spectator of July 21
says " all reasonable men will hail with enthusiasm."
In regard to the whiskey-shops, which I have attacked in
this article, it is my opinion that their very existence is an
abuse ; that they are incapable of any reformation, and that
the temperance reformation which is so very necessary among
the most degenerate class of our Catholic people requires that
they should be abolished. I mean by this, that all Catholics
who keep such places should be persuaded to abandon the busi-
ness. The church has no power to compel them to do so. The
law may use coercion, but there is reason to fear that it only
drives the disreputable traffic to hide in holes and corners, and
that those who wish to do so, will get drunk, and run the risk
of arrest. Prohibitory and coercive legislation, where there is a
large class of the population given to habitual and even intem-
perate drinking ; and a great number of persons, with small re-
gard for either law or morality, bent on making an easy living
by selling liquor to them ; is a difficult matter, and the execu-
tion of laws after they are made is still more difficult. Only the
moral influence over those who are in the habit of drinking and
6 IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. [Oct.,
those who are engaged in selling liquor, which is strong enough
to keep them from violating the moral law, is powerful enough
to effect a real reformation. A general and strong public opin-
ion which makes the immoral abuse of liquor, and the' immoral
traffic in it, odious and disgraceful, is much more efficacious
than legislation. And it is this public opinion which alone can
give adequate support to legislative measures, however wise and
prudent they may be.
It is a lamentable fact that a great number of Catholics, by
external profession, are engaged in the liquor-trade. This is a
great evil, and a great scandal. But, such being the case, it is
specially incumbent on the bishops and clergy to bring to bear
all the moral power of the church against the baleful and im-
moral power of the party which is devoted to the interests of
the liquor-traffic. It is impossible to draw a line of sharp de-
marcation separating the class of retail liquor-dealers whose
manner of carrying on their business deserves condemnation as
immoral, from the more respectable members of the trade who
can be exempted from this censure. The trade thrives chiefly
on intemperance. Its customers are chiefly those who are given
to immoderate drinking. Besides, there is a great traffic in
spurious, adulterated, and deleterious drinks. If the general use
of intoxicants were confined to the consumption of pure and
genuine distilled, fermented, and malt liquors by moderate
drinkers, the retail traffic would be reduced to a relatively small
compass, and the wholesale trade and manufacture would be
diminished in proportion. The business can be carried on with-
out sin, but its dangers and temptations are great. The trade
is in ill odor on account of the great scandals and moral evils
in which it is implicated, especially in this country. The Third
Plenary Council of Baltimore has counselled all Catholics to
keep out of it, or to abandon it ; if they would obey this ad-
vice, a great incubus would be removed from the shoulders of
the Catholic pastors, a great obstacle in the way of the Tem-
perance Reformation would be shoved aside ; and the moral
welfare of the whole community would be essentially promoted.
The leaders and advocates of the liquor-trade can take an
attitude of defiance toward ecclesiastical authority if they choose,
but they will only bring disgrace upon themselves and stir up
the valiant warriors against the venomous dragon of intemper-
ance to more zealous and persistent combats. It is of no use
for these gentlemen to try to assume a haughty port, and as-
sert their consequence as a numerous and wealthy body of Cath-
1894-] IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. 7
olics ; having in the circle of their upper ten social and politi-
cal influence, and the power to aid or to damage the Catholic
cause. They will not extort any greater degree of toleration
than they deserve. Such a plea is utterly vulgar and base. It
puts the Catholic Church and religion on the level of a politi-
cal party, or a merely secular society, like one of the kingdoms
or republics of this world. All history shows to what an ex-
tent the members of the Catholic Church, both ecclesiastics and
laymen, have degraded her sacred character, and left, to future
ages a legacy of scandal, by trafficking in holy things, and defil-
ing the sanctuary with their worldly merchandise.
The external splendor and prosperity of the Catholic Church,
the human and worldly outside, in its best and most honorable
aspect, is only an inferior environment, a shell, within which her
vital force, her soul, sanctified by the Divine Spirit, has been
active and working for the spiritual and moral good of mankind.
Her true mission is to make men virtuous and holy, and thus
to fit them for heaven. If she tolerates a multitude of sinners
mixed up with the just in her communion, it is only in the
hope of converting and reclaiming them. It is not in splendid
ceremonies, celebrations and processions, in noble institutions,
grand churches, crowds of the great and rich thronging her tem-
ples, that her true glory consists. It is in the number of her
children who are living virtuous and holy lives, and the crowds
of penitent sinners who surround her confessionals. All outside
means and measures are valuable only as contributing to the
fulfilment of the one purpose which alone has true worth, the
interior work of the salvation of souls. '
In carrying on this work, since one most essential part of it is
to wage war upon all sin and vice, one chief duty of the priest-
hood, in which all good Christians are bound to aid them, is
to labor zealously for the suppression of intemperance and of
that kind of traffic in liquor which is its principal proximate oc-
casion.
I come now to the consideration of the Total Abstinence
movement as a means of reformation and a remedy for the vice
of excessive drinking.
No instructed Catholic can maintain the proposition that
total abstinence is a rule of universal moral obligation. Never-
theless, it may be a moral obligation for certain persons, a rule
to be earnestly counselled for many others, and as a voluntary
practice of self-denial it is praiseworthy in all except those to
whom it would be injurious. At certain times and in certain
8 IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. [Oct.,
countries, it is the most efficacious remedy for the prevalent
vice of intemperance. That celebrated and truly apostolic priest,
Father Mathew, accomplished a wonderful reformation in Ire-
land, for which he received the warm encomiums of the most
eminent men in Ireland and England. He did this great work
by means of the total-abstinence pledge, and it is hard to see
how any less drastic remedy could have been efficacious.
The other great temperance reformation accomplished in
this country was also brought about by preaching and adopting
the rule of total-abstinence from the use of ardent spirits as a
beverage. Later on, all intoxicating drinks were included by a
certain portion of the reformers, who have carried their principles
to a great extreme, and whose positions I have no time to dis-
cuss. The effect of this temperance reformation was deep, ex-
tensive, and lasting. The habitual use of ardent spirits has
been to a great extent abolished among the more reputable
classes of the American people. The use of wine, on private
tables and in social banquets, has been much diminished, es-
pecially among the professed members of the churches. Intem-
perance in the higher walks of life, among those who have a
social reputation to keep or lose, has been forced to hide itself
behind private doors. It would be a great mistake to suppose
that the ravages of this vice have been confined to the laboring
and poorer classes, or to those who resort to the haunts where
inebriates are gathered together to indulge in drinking to excess.
Men and even women moving in the upper circles, even the
highest, have been tainted by it, often to the serious injury,
sometimes to the ruin, of their prospects in life and their do-
mestic happiness. Intemperance has made victims of statesmen,
professional men, literary men, sad to say, clergymen, both
Catholic and Protestant. Frequently it has been the highly in-
tellectual, the gifted, the cultivated, the promising, the amiable,
the choice specimens of humanity, who have slid down the slip-
pery hill of dissipation and have finally come to grief at the
bottom. Some have become sots ; some have literally drank
themselves to death ; some have been killed in drunken brawls ;
and others have committed suicide. The temperance reforma-
tion has not put an end to this miserable chapter in the sad
history of human misery. The demon of intemperance is still
luring victims from all ranks in society to their ruin.
The practical question we have in hand is : What means and
remedies are potent and efficacious enough to be employed suc-
cessfully in counteracting this deadly moral epidemic ?
1894-] IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. 9
For a considerable number, that is, for all who have become
enslaved to a habit of intemperance, total abstinence, at least
for a long time, is morally necessary, and the only means of
effecting a permanent reformation. For a much larger class,
who are exposed to many temptations, total abstinence is the
most perfect safeguard and therefore to be most earnestly re-
commended. For boys and youths, the same reasons which are
such a strong motive for recommending total abstinence as a
safeguard have a double force. And as for all others, who have
no special need of taking any pledge for their own safety, their
enrollment in the ranks of the great Total Abstinence Union,
or some similar society, is most praiseworthy, and a great en-
couragement to those who need the powerful influence of ex-
ample and association to keep them sober and steady. The
principal society has sixty thousand members. Those who are
enrolled in separate local societies, or in those confraternities
whose rule is less strict, may amount to forty thousand more.
Besides these, great numbers are continually taking the pledge
singly from priests in all the parishes where Irish Catholics
abound. The English army in India, whose infantry regiments
are largely composed of Irishmen, has a Total Abstinence So.-
ciety embracing twenty-two thousand members, very few of
whom are ever brought before a court-martial. This noble ad-
vanced guard of the army of the sober and temperate deserves
our praise, our thanks, and our encouragement. Its moral influ-
ence cannot well be measured, and the high ground which it has
taken and fortified is the strongest of all the barriers which
resist the encroachments of our deadly enemy intemperance.
Abstinence from the use of ardent spirits as an habitual bev-
erage is to be most strongly urged upon all, even those who
have no special need of guarding themselves from the tempta-
tion of drinking to excess. The quantity of these strong drinks
which can be taken without injury is so small, that they are
unfit for social purposes. It requires so much self-control to
keep within the strict bounds of moderation, the allurement of
the habit is so subtle and strong, leading gradually to excess,
that total abstinence from their use, except in a quasi-medicinal
way, is the only safe general rule, especially in the conditions
of social intercourse actually existing among a large portion of
our people.
Again, it must be most emphatically urged upon all, espe-
cially young men, to keep away from saloons and to shun the
company of the dissipated and reckless, as much as possible.
io IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. [Oct.,
The dissipated and reckless are capable of reformation, if they
will cease to frequent the scenes and the company where their
principal temptation lies. For the men who make their living
chiefly from the custom of the intemperate, there is very little
hope that any kind of religious and moral influence will have
any great effect upon the majority of them. They have a seared
conscience, and whatever outside show of religion they may
keep up from their traditional habits and from human respect,
is practically worth as little as the devotions of Italian brigands.
They may still have a vital spark of faith under the ashes in
which their souls are buried, and fear may drive them to seek
reconciliation with God at the end of life ; but during life they
are not and cannot be good Christians. I am speaking now of
those who carry on the liquor-trade in such a way that it is a
proximate occasion of mortal sin to themselves and others.
Even if they receive the Last Sacraments and Christian burial,
that gives no assurance of their salvation.
As for those who profess to carry on the business of selling
liquor in strict accordance with the principles and rules of mo-
rality and religion, I waive the question of the justice of their
glea, and take them on the ground of their own professions.
They claim to be respectable and value highly their own
social standing, and that of their families. They demand consid-
eration as good citizens and good Catholics, liberal and gener-
ous toward the church and toward religious and philanthropic
undertakings.
I wish to propose a few questions to this upper class of
liquor-sellers, including all saloon-keepers who claim the right
to belong to it. These questions are for them to answer "frank-
ly to their own consciences, and to the Lord who will judge
them at death and on the Last Day.
Is it not true that there are many such " whiskey-shops " as
I have described, deserving the denunciation I have pronounced
against them, with the support of the best public opinion of
the country?
Would these respectable gentlemen wish that their sons, and
.the young men who are to marry their daughters, should fre-
quent or avoid saloons and the company which is to be found
in them ?
Do they, or do they not, lend their influence, singly or in
association, to sustain an obnoxious liquor-trade, and resist the
crusade of the clergy and of the best citizens of the republic
against intemperance?
1894-] IMMORAL USE AND SALE OF INTOXICANTS. n
Can they, without any qualm of conscience, ask of God,
when they assist at Mass and offer their morning prayers, to
bless and prosper their daily business and traffic ? Can they
hope that they are serving God, gaining merit, and preparing
their souls for heaven, as well as making money, by the trans-
action of their worldly affairs ?
Those who resent exclusion from office or membership in the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul and other religious confraterni-
ties, are they free from all complicity in the causes which pro-
duce the poverty, degradation, and misery which the above-
mentioned society is laboring to relieve ?
Can they make the intention, every morning, to offer up all
the actions of the day in union with the intentions of the Sa-
cred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and the Apostleship of Prayer?
I repeat here what I have said already, that the primary
and only essential object of the church is to make men virtu-
ous and religious, and that the real strength and glory of the
church is in her virtuous members, who are good and practical
Christians. The sanctifying work which the church is capable
of accomplishing has always been hindered and is now hindered
by the negligence and the misdeeds of unworthy and bad
Christians. At the present time, in this country, one great ob-
stacle to the religious and moral influence of the church on
the American people is the immoral use and sale of liquor by
those who belong externally to her communion. It is of vital
importance that we should contend with all our might against
this evil.
I will close this article with the grave admonition addressed
by the Fathers of the Third Council of Baltimore to all who
are engaged in the sale of liquor :
" WE ADMONISH, FINALLY, ALL THOSE OF OUR LAITY ENGAGED
IN THE TRAFFIC IN INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO REFLECT SERI-
OUSLY WITH HOW MANY AND GREAT DANGERS AND OCCASIONS
OF SIN THEIR BUSINESS^ ALTHOUGH NOT IN ITSELF UNLAWFUL, IS
SURROUNDED. LET THEM CHOOSE SOME MORE HONORABLE WAY
OF GAINING A LIVING IF THEY CAN. BUT, AT LEAST, LET THEM
ENDEAVOR WITH ALL THEIR MIGHT TO REMOVE THE OCCASIONS
OF SIN FROM THEMSELVES AND OTHERS. . . . IF, HOWEVER,
THROUGH THEIR GUILTY CAUSE OR CO-OPERATION RELIGION IS
DISGRACED AND MEN ARE LED ON TO RUIN, LET THEM KNOW
THAT THERE IS AN AVENGER IN HEAVEN WHO WILL CERTAINLY
INFLICT ON THEM MOST GRIEVOUS PUNISHMENT."
12
THE LIGHTS OF HOME.
[Oct.,
THE LIGHTS OF HOME.
FROM stranger scenes, at eve returning,
I trod the paths belov'd of yore ;
And, in the cottage-windows burning,
The welcome tapers hailed once more.
With fiery tongues they seemed to say :
" Dear wanderer from far away !
Though long and late thy feet may roam,
We bid thee cheer !
Joy, peace are here,
Where shine the friendly lights of home ! "
Ah ! then I raised mine eyes (o'er-flowing
With happy tears) to heaven's blue;
And, in God's palace-windows glowing,
I saw his tapers shining too ;
His stars, that sang with rapture strong :
" Dear exile, who hast wandered long,
We greet thee from this glittering dome !
Joy, peace divine
Are here, where shine
The lights of Love's eternal Home ! "
ELEANOR C. DONNELLY.
1894-] THE NEW HEDONISM. 13
THE NEW HEDONISM.
BY S. MILLINGTON MILLER, M.D.
*
" When I am nothing but a drift of white
Dust in a cruse of gold, and nothing know
But darkness and immeasurable night."
ARTHLY pleasure is naturally the only paradise
of the disbeliever in immortality. " Let us eat,
drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die ! "
The doctrine of " conditional immortality," which
is preached to-day, in more or less detail, from
some able pulpits, teaches that those who are unsuccessful in
the struggle ; those who have " sown to the flesh," shall reap
first corruption, and then Nirvana. None of the eloquent ad-
vocates of this exclusive Aidenn which the soul may realize by
its own intelligent development, or lose by its own deliberate
delinquencies have illustrated their doctrine by examples. They
have not stated whether immortality is open to heathen who
have " outsoared the shadow of their night," or limited to
those only who have enjoyed the teachings of Christianity. They
have not discriminated for or aga'inst the illustrious disbelievers
of Christian ages.
Comparing those who preceded with those who have en-
joyed Christian education, shall we take it for granted that it is
the same " vital spark " which is condemned in the case of this
obscure priest to a life spent in alleviating the sufferings and
cheering the horrible depression of a colony of lepers in some
island of the Pacific, and exalted in the case of that " searcher
of the skies " into a cloudless span of days spent in intimate
communion with
"The splendors of the firmament of Time"?
That Hipparchus consumed his immortality in watching stars
and milky ways, and has now, for ever, sunk into an eventless
rest, with all his yearnings unsatisfied ; while Father Damien as-
cended at once into that august company of "angels and arch-
angels"? Was the spirit of David Livingstone in dim eclipse
during his allotted earthly term of years, which were spent in
unselfish alleviation of the sorrows and misfortunes of his fel-
low-creatures, and has it now risen upon an eternal morning ?
i 4 THE NEW HEDONISM. [Oct.,
Did the inspiration of Alexander the Great bask for thirty-three
years in the matchless glory of unbroken conquest, and then
disappear in the night of time never to rise again? Are these
distinctions happily chosen, or are all these bright spirits now
without blot, and are their thrones all
" . . . built beyond mortal thought,
Far in the unapparent " ?
The doctrine of " The Development of Immortality " is a
satisfactory and reasonable attempt to illumine our ignorance
just in so far as it is Catholic in its application, and crowns the
lives of all the great with immortal days; rewards with an un-
alloyed existence hereafter all those illustrious dead who have,
according to their lights, fulfilled with untiring energy the con-
stant promptings of their noblest thoughts. But it will be a
hopeless " Slough of Despond " if it is intended to consign the
pure genius of Socrates to everlasting darkness, while it properly
raises the sweet spirit of Phillips Brooks to the highest heaven.
The present " Vanity Fair " of the social, intellectual, and
religious world is aptly illustrated in a material way by Lord
Macaulay's verbal etching of the condition of affairs in England
after the Great Rebellion : " Boys smashing the beautiful win-
dows of cathedrals ; Quakers .riding naked through the market
place ; Fifth Monarchy men shouting for King Jesus ; agitators
lecturing on the tops of tubs on the fate of Agag."
Verily there is nothing new under the sun. The old dis-
coveries, and the time-honored theories, are unexpectedly shaken
into view in the mental kaleidoscope. The longer they have
been hidden away out of sight, the more attractive they naturally
at once become as intellectual playthings.
The Reformer, or Iconoclast, swollen and puffed up with the
importance of his divine mission, and relying upon the ability
of his genius to recreate something better and more permanent
out of the ashes of what he has burned down, addresses the
Hermes of his message in much the same grandiose terms that
Fletcher puts into the mouth of Arbaces:
" He shall have chariots easier than air,
Which I shall have invented ; and thyself
Thou art the messenger shall ride before him
On a horse cut out of an entire diamond,
That shall be made to go with golden wheels,
I know not how yet."
1894-] THE NEW HEDONISM. 15
The Evangelist of Hedonism (Greek edont, pleasure) died
just twenty-two hundred and fifty years ago Aristippus of Cy-
rene, in Africa. He was, very naturally, a cosmopolite. Wan-
dering about from place to place, he reached Athens, and found
at once a magnet in Socrates, whose school he joined, and re-
mained in attendance on the lectures until its founder's death in
399 B.C. His teachings differed in many respects from those of
his famous master. He had also brought with him from his na-
tive city habits of luxury and ostentation which contrasted
strangely with the homely and temperate career of Socrates.
The life of Aristippus is the best exemplification of his prin-
ciples. True temperance, according to him, consists not in ab-
staining from pleasure, but in being able to enjoy it with moder-
ation. He therefore indulged freely in good living, rich clothing,
splendid dwellings, and the society of the accomplished hetcera.
But, while enjoying all these pleasures, he was thoroughly his
own master, and never allowed them to destroy his equanimity
or overleap his self-control. As he had attained to the condition
of happiness under all circumstances he could relinquish pleas-
ure at any moment. His principal efforts were directed towards
enjoying the present moment, and driving dull care away. The
object of life, according to Aristippus, is the attainment of
pleasure, which must be positive and real ; not merely the ab-
sence of pain. By pleasure, Aristippus meant immediate grati-
fication the pleasure of the moment real happiness consisting
in a succession of moments of intense pleasure. An action
which gave rise to pleasure he regarded as good, irrespective of
law of any kind. He was yet compelled to admit that some
actions, which give immediate pleasure, entail more than their
equivalent of pain. This ground he regarded as the conventional
distinction between right and wrong. Man must not, however,
give himself up to pleasure as a slave ; he must be superior to
it. True happiness can, therefore, only be attained by rational
insight, prudence, or wisdom. Only through this prudence, which
is in truth virtue, can man make a proper use of the good
things in his power, and free himself from those superstitions
and violent passions that stand in the way of happiness. Through
this wisdom we are enabled to preserve the mastery of pleasure,
to rise superior to past, future, or even present happiness, and
make ourselves independent of circumstances. True freedom of
soul, real self-sufficiency, is reached by the exercise of wisdom,
and by mental cultivation.
The attainment of happiness by a wise choice of pleasures
!6 THE NEW HEDONISM. [Oct.,
and by moderation is not at all a bad rule of life, though far
from comprehensive.
Although the new Hedonists are not "clothed in purple,
and crowned with flowers, and fond of drink, and of female lute-
players," they propose to have just as good a time intellectually.
Mr. Grant Allen Fortnightly Review, March, 1894 appears to
be the Great High-Priest of the order, and one scarcely knows
whether to be charmed and fascinated with the wealth of his
illustrations and their amazing beauty, or surprised at the slim
logical basis which they afford for his conclusions. In describ-
ing his theories I shall largely use Mr. Allen's own words.
According to this expounder, the new motto is not " Be
virtuous and you will be happy," but " Be happy and you will
be virtuous." The "pig-philosophy" of the ascete, and the
" devil-philosophy " of Carlyle and his followers, are alike dis-
tasteful to him. He recognizes only two theories of human
action that pleasure or pain are the sole guides of all volun-
tary acts ; or that one or more superior beings who hate
pleasure and love pain created the world, and desire that all of
their creatures shall suffer more or less abundantly.
Swinging to and fro by hooks drawn through the muscles of
one's back at some East Indian festival, or casting one's self be-
neath the wheels of Juggernaut, or walking with sharp flints in
one's shoes, or wearing a hair-shirt of penance in some Spanish
monastery, are alike rejected by Mr. Allen as proper or neces-
sary conditions for entering into glory hereafter, though Mr.
Allen and Omar Khayyam seem to be one in the belief that
there is no such thing as glory, or anything else for that mat-
ter, in the hereafter. The omnipotent being who "sends yin
to heaven and ten to hell a' for his glory " comes in, of course,
for small praise.
This new Hedonist, indeed, considering the calm and
emotionless way in which he sneers at the existence of a God,
and misstates his attributes, resembles much the sang froid of
that precocious child who is said to have amused the leisure
hours of Sir Walter Scott :
" She was more than usual calm,
She did not give a single damn."
The possibility of the doctrines of this new Utopia being in
any way "less pure, less noble, less ideal, and less beautiful
than Christian ethics," is dismissed as hardly worth consideration.
1894-] THE NEW HEDONISM. 17
Mrs. Sarah Grand, one of the "Shrieking Sisters" of the
sect of modern social Revoltees, proposes to raze the entire
earthly mansion of man, whose moral corruption is so hopeless-
ly pronounced as to have nothing in it worth saving palaces
and hovels, sanctuaries and dens of vice, are to be alike clean
swept away. They were raised according to " Man's Idea,"
which has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
The new social fabric is to be after " Woman's Idea " par
excellence, and neither the " cow kind " nor the " scum kind "
of woman is to have a hand in the work.
In the same way Mr. Allen seems ready to demolish our
childhood's Heaven, and all that therein is. He intends to
manipulate this new Hedonistic broom and, a la Mrs. Partington,
sweep out every bit of the glory, all the angels, and the King
himself, without a snivel.
M. de Puimorin, who could not read and was taunted by
M. Chapelain with the fact, retorted : " Qu'il n'avoit que trop
su lire, depuis que Chapelain s'toit avis de faire imprimer."
In much the same spirit we may exclaim that we have, with
much difficulty, been able to see now that these new-fangled
ideas have demolished all obstructions.
These are samples of the preachers " who will set forth the
new Hedonism in all its beauty and purity, and will contrast it
with the ugly and soul-starving features of existing morality."
Like the Red Cross Knight, they think they are doing
battle for Fidessa and her injured beauty, instead of righting
for the false and loathsome sorceress, Duessa.
A " woman's right woman " suggested to Mr. Allen " Self-
development is greater than self-sacrifice " as a proper motto
for the new religion, and he is so much pleased with the
oracle that he proceeds to do some very entertaining " sleight
of hand " with it. " The ascetic greed implies a diabolical
origin for the cosmos." " God so made us 'and put such in-
stincts in us that to gratify them is wrong, and to crush them
is right ; to be happy is wicked, while to be miserable is right-
eousness." " If others could be happy without the need for
our sacrificing ourselves, we should all be gainers."
In reading the tales of Jules Verne one never knows where
science ends and romance begins, and vice versa. It has been
found, I believe, that this shaking together of truth and false-
hood produces a general appearance of truth. If any of my
readers ever cross in a train a closed bridge over a river in
which twenty feet of solid wood-work alternate with one foot
VOL. LX. 2
1 8 THE NEW HEDONISM. [Oct.,
of opening, they will be surprised, if the train's speed is con-
siderable, to find that the constant view of the river afforded
to the eye is not appreciably interfered with, although the
ratio of blank wall to really unobscured view be twenty to one.
In much the same way it has been discovered by dialecticians,
and Mr. Allen is scarcely less gifted than Plato in this respect,
though far less candid, that a mixture of twenty parts of non-
sense with one part of truth is a fair solution for the average
individual. This solution is to be labelled " Truth : to be well
shaken before taken"
" Self-development " Mr. Allen believes to be an aim for all,
and I think we fully agree with him that we should be con-
stantly watching out how we may make ourselves stronger,
saner, wiser, and better. That our limbs and wind be sound,
that we create a mens sana in corpore sano. That we be well
educated, and free, and beautiful. That each man be as tall,
and supple, and well knit, and robust as possible, so that he
may transmit the same very desirable physical perfections, un-
tainted, to his descendants. That every woman be as thorough-
ly developed in physique, and as universally fitted as possible
for the bearing of children. That it is good for the typical
man to find and marry such a woman, and for the typical
woman to find and marry such a man. That the best possible
auspices under which a child can be born into the world is as
the child of such parents. That each man and each woman
hold their virility and femininity in trust for humanity, and that
to play fast and loose with such a trust is fraught with danger
for the state and for future generations.
Furthermore, there is just the same need for spiritual, intel-
lectual, and aesthetic development. The highest possible point
of human achievement should be reached in every direction.
This includes getting rid of superstitions, dogmas, fears, vague
terrors (shibboleths, in fact, of all descriptions). It includes a
thorough knowledge of animal, plant, and human life; of the
heavens, the earth, and the things that are under the earth ; of
institutions and laws. We should each arrive at a consistent
theory of the universe for ourselves.
That we should struggle to diffuse a wider taste for poetry,
music, art, and household decoration. That literature, poetry,
painting, sculpture, and the beautifying of life by sound and
form and word and color are among the most important tasks
of civilization. So far so good. We should be in thorough ac-
cord with Mr. Allen in nearly all he says.
1894-] THE NEW HEDONISM. 19
But now he substitutes the twenty feet of blank wall, through
which he expects our eyes, filled with the great bright light of
all the high and noble thoughts with which he has been filling
us, to penetrate without any break carrying along with them
the same happy view.
Religion is the shadow of which Culture is the substance. The
one pretends- to be what the other is in reality.
I am not going to mark the lintel and door-posts of this
statement with blood, for I am sure that Time, that Abaddon,
or Destroying Angel, will not pass it by without destruction.
Mr. Allen does not believe that Christianity is the sole bar
which prevents us from wallowing in the filth like swine, and
that to be rid of Christianity would be fraught with some serious
moral peril for the race. If we consent to do without 'religion
he thinks that the new Hedonism will supply its place, and that
we will be no more badly off than the Fijian without his can-
nibalism. The emancipated man is in need of naught to take
the place of superstition.
And now Mr. Allen proceeds to show " how the germs of every
thing which is best in humanity took their rise from the sexual
instinct." And he supports this proposition by a wealth and
beauty of illustration which is truly bewitching. The subject is
considered from the different stand-points of the plumage of
birds, the colors of flowers, the songs of birds, their lyric, poetic,
and dramatic faculties, their sympathies and domestic affections,
and finally he comes to love itself, and shows how man and wo-
man are both most beautiful in the season of the plenitude of
their powers of reproduction. How all social pleasures, sprightly
conversation, gay wit, the conscious blush of youth, dancing and
dining are all ministers of love.
How love animates all our poetry and literature and art
Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Heloise and Abe-
lard, Faust and Marguerite. How the beauty of the female
form divine has given us half our painting and three-quarters
of our statuary.
" Filch away from external nature," Mr. Allen says, " what
it owes to the sex instinct, and you will have lost every bright
flower, every gay fruit, every song-bird, every butterfly, every
wearer of brilliant plumage ; filch away from human art what it
owes to the sex-instinct, and you will have lost the best part
of our poetry, the best part of our romance, the best part of
our painting, and all but the whole of our sculpture."
Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown that music derives its origin
20
THE NEW HEDONISM. [Oct.,
from the emotional tones of ordinary speech in moments of
the profoundest sexual excitement. Darwin believes song to
have been acquired by man for the purpose of charming and
alluring his mate. The period of song decays with the period
of reproductive power. Take away sex from a play and all the
interest is gone.
The most of the " lowest " passions, so-called, has been made
by the Dantes, Petrarchs, Shelleys, Keatses, Rosettis, De Mus-
sets, George Eliots, Goethes, Rousseaus, Liszts, Brownings, Mere-
diths, Hardys, Swinburnes. Milton wrote, " Whatever hypocrites
austerely talk of purity, and place and innocence "; Walt Whit-
man proclaimed "the equal honor and dignity of all our mem-
bers and all our functions."
"Our Maker bids increase; who bids abstain
But our destroyer, foe to God and man."
Asceticism surrounds sex with gross and vulgar images; He-
donism with all graceful and elevating associations.
This opens the way to Mr. Allen's final and main point,
" The Marriage Question." Alas, alas ! so this sacred rite is one
of the good customs which is corrupting the world. We had
hoped that, like the " Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," it had
grown so old and well-established as to be able to exist in spite of
abuses. Like Pierre de Rousard, we shall have nothing left but
" wine, a soft bed, and a bright fire." They have not only
changed the Hymnal in the Episcopal Church, and substituted
new tunes for " Rock of Ages," " Guide me, O Thou great Je-
hovah ! " in place of those old airs " for ever echoing in the
heart and present in the memory," but marriage too is to be
changed, and some substitution made more suitable to the de-
mands of the age !
Aristippus spent his leisure in the pleasing society of the
prominent hetcera of Cyrene, and Mr. Allen does not propose to
sell himself for a night or for a lifetime into a loveless union.
He proposes as the very ultimate and supreme tenet of his creed,
" The moral obligation to fatherhood and motherhood on the part of
the Noblest, the Purest, the Sanest, the Healthiest, the Most Able
among us"
Saint Felix writes : " Esprit humain, que tes ailes sont vives
et audacieuses ! Comme tu sais fendre les brouillards et les
aquilons de la terre ! il te faut la region sans borne. Quel aigle
te suivrait dans ta course capricieuse. II te plait de toucher le
1894-] THE NEW HEDONISM. 21
sommet du Caucase, et tu poses a 1'instant sur la plus haute
aiguille de ses glaces ternelles . . . mais, plus souVent, avide
d'avenir, tu visites les temps qui ne sont pas encore, et, dans ce
loitain, tu fais 1'univers a ta fantasie. . . . Esprit de Thomme
6 malade en delire, telles sont ta puissance et ta faiblesse ! tout
embrasser, d'un dsir et ne rein etreindre cependant ! Voir 1'im-
possible et ne toucher qu'a la miserable r6alit ! Ah, mieux
vaudait mille fois la mort que cette vie d'impuissance, s'il ne te
restait, pour refuge, la region haute et sereine ; la region de la
sagesse."
What will be the general verdict upon the new Hedonism
as outlined by Grant Allen ? Religious and moral considera-
tions aside, it will be regarded as amazingly attractive, but as
not practical for humanity in its present miscellaneous condi-
tion. Perhaps some of those who reach these generally inac-
cessible heights of thought have wondered that the beneficent
Creator, whom Mr. Allen does not include in his cosmogony
(possibly for this very reason among others equally as good),
should have tolerated so many stupid, ugly, unromantic, and
utterly cloddish and soulless inhabitants of his universe, if not
as a fly-wheel to the marvellous machinery of the collective
social mind and heart. How fortunate it is that we are not
all set on fire by the possibilities of some magnificent painting
whose essential thought sweeps through our blood like wind-
swept flame, stirs the highest minds to their profoundest depths!
How wise it is that there are some of us who do not demand
the richest and rarest mental and emotional food as a sine qua
non of conscious existence! How more than accidental it is
that all men are not Raphaels, or Shaksperes, or Irvings, or
Tennysons, or Cabanels, or Burkes, or Napoleons, or Aristotles !
There can be no one great without its thousand littles ; no one
soarer in the infinities of the azure without his thousand grovel-
lers in the dust and dirt and slime of more than hopeless medi-
ocrity.
Mr. Allen has produced a masterpiece of dialectics, but his
theories, if introduced into every-day life, would turn the whole
herd of swine, whom he despises, but who form the bulk of
humanity all the same, down some steep place into the sea.
Nor is his own personal achievement substantial :
"The highest mounted mind," he said,
" Still sees the sacred morning spread
The silent summit overhead.
22 THE NEW HEDONISM. [Oct.,
" Will thirty seasons render plain
Those lonely lights that still remain,
Just breaking over land and main?
"Or make that morn, from his cold crown
And crystal silence creeping down,
Flood with full daylight glebe and town ?
" Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let
Thy feet millenniums hence be set
In midst of knowledge dreamed not yet,
" Thou hast not gained a real height,
Nor art thou nearer to the light,
Because the scale is infinite."
A little child, whose parents and relatives had gone on
Christmas day to attend a meeting and help along some charity
or other, was heard to pray " that God would raise up a society
to take care of 'philanthropists" families." Have these formu-
lators and evangelists of the new Hedonism in its fullest blood-
red flower taken any steps to establish a society for the care
of the children and households of the " Sisters and Brothers of
Marriage Reform " ?
Mr. Andrew Lang (referring to the English) says that " a
hundred years ago we were a cruel but also a humorous
people." Will a hundred years hence find us "despising all
things, making use of all things, and in all things following
pleasure only " ?
In the midst of all this turmoil and destruction, this throw-
ing down and undermining of dear old institutions without
even granting the barest detail of what is to take their place,
one yearns for the intellectual calm of Horace and the pastoral
beatitudes of Virgil, who "numbers the glories of his land as
a lover might count the perfections of his mistress."
" Me nee tarn patiens Lacedaemon,
Nee tarn Larissae percussit Campus opimae,
Quam domus Albaneae resonantis
Et praeceps Anio, ac Tiburni lucus, et Uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis."
1894] TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS. 23
TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS.
BY GEORGE F. X. GRIFFITH.
'O many readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD the
title of this article may be in the nature of a
surprise. For have we not been wont to asso-
ciate the name of this little " nest " amid the
Swabian Alps with a scholarship anything but
Catholic ? " The Tubingen School " has been a familiar acquain-
tance to every reader of Scriptural works, big or little, for the
past fifty years; nevertheless the writer confesses to a lurking
suspicion that many scholars who can talk learnedly of its " ten-
dency-theories " and the rest have but little idea of the actual
surroundings whence these have emanated for good or ill. There
is a very general impression abroad that by the " Tubingen
School " one means some sort of institution where scholars re-
sort for the exclusive study of exegesis something similar to
our Johns-Hopkins or a university annex for specialists.
The mistake is most pardonable from any one not familiar
with German universities and their conditions, differing as they
do in so many points from anything we are acquainted with.
But in this exclusive arrogation of the title " Tubingen " by the
Protestant faculty of this ancient university there is an implied
injustice to the older faculties of law, and medicine, and natural
sciences, not to speak of the faculty of Catholic theology, one
and all its fellows and peers at least, both before and since the
period of the Evangelical faculty's rise to fame.
The university, whereof these various learned bodies are
component and, it may well be added, harmonious parts, was
founded a little more than ten years before Columbus made
that record voyage -of his. The thin pamphlet, which contains
the names and residences of the present generation of dwellers
in this quiet town, is prefaced by a chronological summary of
" notable " happenings since the founding of their historic Stadt.
Let me imitate the chronographer of our city directory, and
make a big leap over a period of some three hundred years.
LIBERALITY IN GERMAN EDUCATION.
Every German university is state-supported ; its general pol-
icy is dictated by a royal commission, while the professors re-
24 TUBINGEN AND ITS CA THOLIC SCHOLARS. [Oct.,
ceive their final appointment from the crown. It is, therefore,
all the more to the credit of those concerned that the Protes-
tant ruler of Protestant Wiirtemberg should have been one of
the first to reinstate a faculty of Catholic theology within the
THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITAETS STADT, TUBINGEN.
university walls, and in such near neighborhood to what was
even then the most famous of Protestant faculties, for Baur was
already a power in the land at this date, and had had, of
course, his predecessors, whose teachings had paved the way for
the far-trumpeted achievements of the " Tubingen School."
Our long leap has landed us at the threshold of the nineteenth
century, a critical period for Catholic learning in Germany.
Napoleon and revolution had been playing havoc with princi-
palities and kingdoms all over Europe, and nowhere more than
in Southern Germany. One result of these many changes in
the olden maps had been King Frederick's acquisition of certain
Catholic territories, thus extending the boundaries of little
Wiirtemberg. (The reader is begged never to make the mistake
which came under my notice the other day in a religious re-
view; the writer and editor alluded to Wiirtemberg instead of
Wittenberg University as Luther's Alma Mater. The kingdom
has enough to answer for without this responsibility being added
to her sins in those bad Reformation times, which we have
1 894.]
TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS.
gladly skipped over.) In his zeal for the welfare of his new
Catholic subjects and their fellow-believers among the old ones,
good King Frederick had seen fit to found a brand-new " Catho-
lic University" in Ellwangen. But these same changes of
boundary lines had necessitated a reassignment of dioceses ; an
emissary had been despatched to Rome for this purpose, but
before his arrival there Pope Pius VII. was a prisoner, and the
necessary formalities had to be ordered by the nuntius in Stutt-
gart, who called upon the primate to act " by virtue of his
plenipotentiary powers, Sede pontificia impedita " * This new or-
der of things ecclesiastical left the infant " university," with its
handful of scholars, too far from the centre. These were hard
times, too, for the monarch and his people ; and books were
dear, hence the library suffered.
Even in these good old times your conservative grumbler
did not fail to put himself in evidence. Rather let our priests
perish in ignorance than fraternize with the foes of our faith !
THE CASTLE'S OUTER GATE.
And when they were assured that their bishop with his council
had the entire regulation of studies, discipline, everything save
the finances, in their hands, the answer came that all this was
but a deep-laid scheme of the minister of state (who chanced to
* Funk : Die katholische Landesuniversitaet in Ellwangen, p. 6.
26 TUBINGEN AND ITS CA THOLIC SCHOLARS. [Oct.,
be a man of an agnostic turn of mind), his end being "to
smooth away all confessional differences and bring about a sort
of religio-political amalgama." * Happily neither the wishes nor
the apprehensions of this party were attended to, and the new
faculty of Catholic theology was a success from the very out-
set in its. new quarters.
A DISHEARTENING OUTLOOK.
I have spoken of the opening of our century as marking a
crisis in German ecclesiastical circles. The Rev. Dr. Schanz in
his contribution to the work on German universities compiled
for the World's Fair,f has described the low state of theological
learning at that date ; while a certain young student, then liv-
ing and destined to become himself one of the founders of the
new Catholic learning, has left us an even sadder picture of the
several institutions he frequented in his travels in pursuit of
solid Catholic wisdom. " Superficiality in the matter and methods
of teaching, dogma a poor farce, church history devoid of solid
foundations and made interesting only as a histoire scandaleuse,
while the whole study and literary activity of the clergy was
confined to the flimsiest liturgical, pastoral, and moral casuistry,
without a thought for the defence of the fundamental truths of
Christian faith and life.":}: Yes, it was among such surroundings
that the gentle and revered author of the Catholic Symbolik laid
the foundations of his own great knowledge ; but all were not
made of that sturdy stuff which enabled Moehler to rise supe-
rior to his intellectual environments. The philosophical idol of
the times was Professor Hermes, of Miinster, and " the great
majority of Catholic teachers in Prussia were his disciples :"
his semi-rationalistic principle intelligo, ut credam, with all that
was peculiar to his teachings, met their fate at the hands of
Gregory XVI. in 1835, but it was many a day before his ad-
herents desisted from inculcating his errors. In this historic
combat our Tubingen scholars proved stout soldiers in the ser-
vice of the Holy See.
But this is not the darkest side of the picture. In the church,
as well as in the world, when education is on the decline, the
moral standing falls with the ebbing tide. " In Catholic Frei-
burg, the professor of moral theology, in his public lectures,
contended against virginity and celibacy. Father Kuenzer, rec-
tor of Konstanz, in conjunction with Professor Fischer of Lu-
* Ibid., p. 29. f Die deutschen Universitaeten, Asher & Co., Berlin, p. 256 et seq.
| Moehler' s gesammelte Schriften, Doellmger, p. 178. Schanz, loco citato, p. 258.
1894-] TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS. 27
cerne, founded an ' Anti-celibacy Society.' . . . When, in
1819, the candidates for the priesthood in Rottenburg received
the news that a bill had been brought before Baden's Chamber
of Deputies to prohibit celibacy in the church, the report was
greeted with ringing cheers." *
GREAT PIONEERS IN THE NEW MOVEMENT.
Remembering all this, what does Professor Schanz mean by
telling us that the first thirty years of this century were a
season of seed-sowing, destined by God's grace, to grow to a
great harvest, and preparing us for the brave victories which
stirred the Catholic world from '30 to '60? A cursory glance
at the array of names, now each with a niche in Catholic
literature, will be enough to satisfy us that his figure but
barely states the truth. " Ah, those names ! " I seem to hear
the English reader sigh ; " without a nearer knowledge of what
they really stand for, how can one ever remember those
foreign-sounding names." -Well, let us at least make the effort,
seeing that a trifling difficulty like this should not hinder us
from knowing something of those who have done yeoman's
duty for the cause of Christ. In a never-to-be-forgotten talk it
was my privilege to have with Cardinal Manning, that practical
and far-seeing saint urged that it was the Catholic student's
bounden duty to avail himself of the stupendous labors of these
giants of Catholic letters. "They stand for us as road-breakers,"
said his eminence; "if we fail to profit by their achievements,
we shall deserve to fall."
BEGINNING OF "THE HIGHER CRITICISM."
The scouts and pathfinders were up and doing in those
early days and Tubingen was training its own contingent. To
Professor Drey, who came with his few students from Ellwan-
gen, must be given the credit of endowing the new Catholic
Faculty with that impulse which has made all its afterwork
bear a peculiar individual stamp. His preference for the
apologetic method has been justified in the event and, to my
thinking, furnishes the reason for all future developments, as
following naturally along the line. The Evangelicals and Radi-
cals, then and there, were no more disposed to listen to scho-
lastic theses and syllogisms than are our countrymen just now ;
they belonged to a " philological-historical " or what is now
* Hergenroether's Handbuch der allg. Kirchengeschichte, ii. 849. Woerner bei Gams, p.
it, and Moehler, /. c. p. 177.
28 TUBINGEN AND ITS CA THOLIC SCHOLARS. [Oct.,
called the "higher" School of Criticism, and they demanded
mostly facts. " It is our shame, sons and priests of the
church," says the Abb6 Le Camus, "if we do not, in the name
of Science and in every field, confound and crush these bluster-
ing braggarts. But to do this we must needs modify the pro-
grammes of our ecclesiastical studies, just as at certain intervals
the military tactics of our armies are modified."* Just so, it
was not the hope of finding the old arquebuses and flint-locks
of their revered ancestors which prompted Dr. Drey and his
colleagues to ransack the old castle (now become the University
Library), but rather to polish and sharpen their more modern
weapons in the armory of philological and patristic lore. That
mental restlessness, which was one heritage of the French Revo-
lution, was now showing itself in an eager desire on the part
of Protestant scholars to reconstruct their edifice of beliefs ;
but the restoration of any earthly building necessitates a tear-
ing down of certain parts, and when once your thorough-going
German iconoclast starts in on this- process he rarely knows
when or where to stop. Thus it came about that before the
rising light of his generation in Protestant Germany, Professor
F. C. Baur of Tubingen, had gotten ready to rehabilitate, he
had pretty well obliterated the very foundations of our docu-
mentary evidence for Christianity. Not alone the New Testa-
ment canon, but all patristic writings of the first centuries, were
being examined by his "School," under the search-light of his-
torical and philological criticism ; the genuine was to be ac-
knowledged, the doubtful rejected, and the position of all to.be
defined anew. The Protestant Professor Holtzmann, in his
Introduction to the study of the New Testament,f the most
popular work of its kind to-day in Germany, and, owing to its
impartial spirit and admirable order, an invaluable hand-book
for any student of Protestant "variations" in this field of criti-
cismthis high authority tells us that inspiration and revelation
are not so much as mentioned in the writings of these
"pioneers" of Protestant Bible study. Baur's ground-principle
of criticism for the Gospels and Epistles is " the presence or
absence of any decided literary 'tendency' on the part of their
respective authors." All writings displaying any such tendency
must be regarded with suspicion by the impartial historian ; and
with this canon of criticism established to his satisfaction, Pro-
fessor Baur proceeded to prove that St. Mark's alone of all the
* La Vie deN.-S. /.-C., pref. to 2d ed. p. xiv.
t H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung, 3d ed. p. 186.
1 894-]
TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS.
29
Gospels could lay claim to be an unprejudiced narrative, while
of the Epistles only four (Romans, the Corinthians, Galatians)
could stand his fearsome test.* What, then, was this unfortu-
nate "tendency" whose damaging presence bore so heavily
against the integrity of Holy Scripture? Baur termed his sys-
tem "The Positive Criticism," since it professed to "handle its
subject-matter objectively, examining it with the sole idea of
discovering what
the author meant,
not what his fol-
lowers in after
days have held to
be his meaning."
The "tendency"
which he brought
to light was " a
party-spirit ani-
mating the ad-
herents of Peter
and Paul," and
one is fain to
smile now when
recalling the sen-
sation which his
positive discovery
created in its
day ; for this Co-
lumbus of early
church history
lived to see his
positive results
flouted by friends
and foes alike,
till in the race for
fresh novelties
Gottingen Uni-
versity won the day and the fame of the " Tubingen School " was
a thing of the past. One of his best-known disciples (Volkmar of
Zurich) pained the master by carrying his good work of " recon-
struction " several steps further in the direction of infidelity, leav-
ing us without even the incomparable Mark ; since the Swiss pro-
fessor felt assured that all four Gospels were "purely Tendenz-
* Iloltzmann, loco citato, p. 163.
FAIR AS THE FLOW OF NECKAR BENEATH THE CASTLED HEIGHTS.
30 TUBINGEN AND ITS CA THOLIC SCHOLARS. [Oct.,
schriften," containing not a Life of our Lord, but rather four
contradictory histories fabricated to suit the tastes of certain
unfriendly communities, embodying merely an apology for the
party-strifes and dogmatic developments of the various "sec-
tions " of the one Holy Catholic Church ! The four above-
mentioned Epistles of St. Paul, together with three letters of
St. Justin, are, he held, the sole Christian documents which
antedate the year 150 A.D.* Hilgenfeld, another of Baur's
pupils, started out with the rebellious legend " Tendency no
longer the one and only test ! " and with his " literary-historical
method " managed to replace three of the Epistles thrown out
by his teacher (First Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon).f
But it would be impossible here to barely enumerate the
divagations of these learned men. One after another their
theories appeared, only to be overturned by the latest new-
comer. The leaders of Evangelicalism of to-day, like Ewald
and Harnack, would be considered conservatives by the early
Tubingen School of Theology. The first-named contended for
the authenticity of the four Gospels, while the latter, probably
the most popular Protestant professor of our day, declares that
Baur's supposititious tendency "Jewish Christianity versus Pa-
gan Christianity" is misleading and historically false.;}:
CHRIST CRITICISED OUT OF EXISTENCE.
We all know what use Strauss and R6nan have made of all
these " positive " results. Bruno Bauer (a very different man
from F. C. Baur) created an even more startling sensation than
had his homonym by his radical utterances, which caused him
to be dubbed the critical Herostratus of our day. Both the
humanity and divinity of our Blessed Lord are left in doubt
by this critic of the very " highest " class, and thus the impulse
of the Tubingen School continues to work out its legitimate re-
sults in Protestant Germany.
CATHOLIC DEFENDERS AT TUBINGEN.
And yet, as has been stated, the general tendency to de-
structiveness and iconoclasm has been checked ; and for this it
must be owned by all sides that Catholic scholarship, however
often overlooked and slighted, should be awarded the lion's share
of praise, while the Catholic professors of Tubingen, past all doubt,
* Volkmar: Religion /esu (1857) and Geschichtstreue Theologie (1858).
t Hilgenfeld : Einleitung in das neue Testament.
I Harnack: Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, i. 250, 2d ed. Holtzmann, p. 183.
1894-] TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS. 31
deserve to be ranked among the foremost and first of these
defenders of our Faith. The Tubingen Quartalsckrift, a quar-
terly theological review founded in 1819, was the earliest to
take advantage of the Apostolate of the Press, and its seventy-
five volumes furnish a conclusive proof of its contributors' right
to the position I have claimed for them. The lamented Moehler
was one of the first writers for its pages, and in his s genius we
recognize the prototype and ideal of all his successors. In the
field of speculative apologetics he brought forth every treasure
from the storehouse of the church, and proved himself an oppo-
nent with whom the critics of the " Tubingen School " were forced
to reckon. There is no more fascinating personality in the
history of modern theology than that of this young man alas !
too early taken from us so saintly, so deeply learned in
widely different branches. Small wonder that his lectures were
attended by students of all creeds, and that his ever-growing
popularity awoke a storm of opposition from the intolerant.
Nor is it to the credit of the mighty Baur that he should have
lost his temper and his cause in the controversy which the
publication of Moehler's Symbolik aroused. Scholars from all
lands were proud to call the latter master ; a mere list of their
works in very various departments of learning would be enough
to prove the catholicity of this ideal teacher's mind. Hefele,
the church historian ; Kuhn, the celebrated professor of dogma
in* Tubingen, with his fellow-laborer Staudenmaier 'of Freiburg
University, all received their inspiration from Moehler's lectures ;
while in the field of exegesis we find such names as Haneberg,
Reithmayr, Reischl, and Schegg in the list of his avowed dis-
ciples.*
VITAL IMPORTANCE OF LINGUISTIC STUDIES.
But what about the weapons Professors Drey and Welte, the
famous Hebraist, and their successors were forging for this mod-
ern warfare ? They are all implicitly contained in the definition
Professor Schanz has given us of apologetics : " As dogmatic
theology is the science of Dogma, so apologetics is the science
of Apology ; that is to say, it is the scientific vindication of
divine Truth, and of the Rule of life that has been given for
all ages and all nations." f Now, to vindicate the position of
the Church and Bible in the twofold realms of reason and
history, the theologian must needs dispute the grounds with
* Werner : Gesch. der kath. Theologie seit dem Trienter Koncil^ passim.
t A Christian Apology, i. 10. Eng. ed.
32 TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS. [Oct.,
these new foes foot by foot, fighting them with their own
arms. Hence since the new school of critics had begun to
weave their airy fortresses on philological bases, our champions
were forced to look to their linguistic resources. Thus it came
about that Tubingen students have always held such high
place as authorities in Hebrew and Greek ; none but the
original texts have ever been used in the classes of Scripture
or patrology, a practice which would be impossible were it not
for the four years' thorough training in both languages which
the ecclesiastical candidates receive in their preparatory course.
In philosophy the student is made familiar, not only with Plato
and Aristotle, but what is more important for his future use-
fulness as a controversialist with Kant and Hegel and their
modern compeers. In moral theology either Linsenmann's or
Hirscher's admirable work is typical of the Tubingen Catholic
school from which they emanated; in dogma Professor Kuhn
managed to preserve some of the same charm which had made
his master, Moehler, famous, while at the same time displaying,
in his lectures and printed works, a more orderly method and
closer reasoning than any writer of his day. But, above all,
their students were urged to look to the history of God's king
dom on earth, to begin at the beginning and study the first
years of the Holy Catholic Church in the New Testament and
the works of the first Fathers ; then indeed they would have
something tangible whereby to test the " tendency-theories " of
their foes. In this field what prodigies of erudition have been
accomplished by Monsignor Hefele and his sons in the Faith.
The breadth of that beloved bishop's learning is fairly astonish-
ing ; not only in patrology did he extort praise from all parties
by works dealing with the whole range of patristic subjects,
from the Epistle of Barnabas to the sermons of Chrysostom, his
activity covered the entire territory of ecclesiastical develop-
ment, and in his masterpiece, A History of the Councils* he
accomplished a herculean task. Well may his successor assert
that " hardly any work of recent times has left so deep an
impress on the literature of its own class "f as did this monu-
ment to the memory of the departed scholar. Hefele's name is
quoted in non-Catholic works with a respect which is tendered
only to men of the very first rank. In his life the University
* The German edition of Hefele's Konziliengeschichte is in seven volumes, the French
translation in twelve. Clark's English edition, unfortunately, was not continued beyond the
second volume.
tVon Funk, Theol. Quartalsch. i. 1894, p. u.
THE REV. PROFESSOR PAUL SCHANZ, D.D.
AUTHOR OF "A CHRISTIAN APOLOGY."
THE REV. PROFESSOR VON FUNK, CHURCH
HISTORIAN.
THE REV. PAUL KEPPLER, D.D., PROFESSOR OF
MORAL THEOLOGY AND SACRED ELOQUENCE.
VOL. LX. 3
THE REV. PROFESSOR VON KOBER, D.D.,
DEAN OF THE FACULTY.
34 TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS. [Oct.,
of Edinburgh made him one of the few foreigners to be hon-
ored by a degree from this Scotch Presbyterian school.
PROFESSOR SCHANZ'S POSITION.
Doubtless it will have occurred to the reader that in all this
these Catholic professors had but anticipated the recommenda-
tions contained in the Holy Father's late Encyclical on Bible
Study. But in one direction circumstances had obliged them
to adopt a system the opposite of that recommended in Leo
XIII. 's noble utterance. Instead of making dogma the founda-
tion of their intellectual edifice, they were forced to regard it
as the apex of a pyramid resting on the terra firma of natural
science and philology and history. The career of one of
Tubingen's most famous teachers will illustrate how this came
to be the case. Dr. Paul Schanz began his professorial work in
the Gymnasium (as the fitting schools are here called), where he
speedily made a name for himself in botany and astronomy.
His original work in these branches earned him a call to the
national university, where he at once became prominent among
the pupils of Dr. Aberle, the famous professor of exegesis, who
entrusted him with the publication of his manuscript notes ; *
and hence the chair left vacant by the master's death reverted,
naturally enough, to his most promising disciple. During those
years of activity in his new work, Professor Schanz published
his four-volume Commentary on the Gospels, which won for him
high rank among German exegetical scholars, as well as the
appointment to the chair of dogmatic theology and apologetics,
a position which he now holds. He needs no introduction to the
English reading public, since his greatest work, A Christian
Apology, has been gladly welcomed in all quarters in its English
dress. I have summarized the steps in his earlier career merely
to demonstrate that whether or not the system here be the
best, it has at least borne fine fruit. For without just that
thorough grounding in the natural sciences our author could
scarcely have produced this triumph of his riper years.
PROFESSOR FUNK AND HIS WORK.
Of the other scholars of the church, now living and actively
working in Tubingen, Professor von Funk is perhaps the best
known to readers in foreign lands, but before speaking of him
and his work a prefatory word of caution seems to be in
place; for there is something so striking and commanding in
* Aberle-Schanz, Einleitung in d. neue Test.
1 894.] TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS. 35
this scholar's individuality, that people seem prone to lose
their cool-headedness in speaking for or against him. In this
peculiarity he reminds me not a little of Matthew Arnold, a
very different man truly, but in so far like our Professor of
Ecclesiastical History and Patrology that he often excited very
deep admiration or bitter opposition, even while himself plead-
ing for a dispassionate consideration of his subject in hand.
Some one has said that there is no writer so aggravating to his
adversaries as the man who confines himself to hard facts, if
only he know how to handle them. Indeed I am tempted
to assert that all such as regard the Apostle of Sweetness and
Light as " a prig and a dogmatizer," will in like manner mis-
conceive Professor von Funk. This much is granted by all,
that in his branch he has proved himself a worthy successor of
his master, Hefele.* His edition of the Apostolic Fathers is
now oftener quoted than those of older men. His vindication
of the Ignatian Epistles, and kindred works, may fairly be
termed epoch-making, while the hand of a typical German
scholar is visible in his revision of the text of the " Apostolical
Constitutions," a labor of love which has forced him to make
many visits to the Vatican, Constantinople, and other libraries
of the world, for the purpose of comparing ancient codices.
This and his text of the Teaching of the XII. Apostles has re-
ceived well-merited recognition from such men as Bishop
Lightfoot, while the orders he has received from European
sovereigns as well as Rome are a tangible proof of his position
in the world of letters. Finally Dr. von Funk has been elected
once President or Rektor and again as Prorektor of this uni-
versity, a proof that a Catholic scholar is sometimes honored in
his own country, even though that country be largely of an-
other creed.
'A BRACE OF WORTHIES.
It will be sad news to all Catholic alumni of Tubingen, of
whatever faculty, when the report reaches them that Professor
Keppler is to leave Wiirtemberg in obedience to a higher and
most flattering summons from the national University of Baden.
In all circles, from the royal court, where he has ever been a
persona grata as confessor to the heir presumptive, down to the
citizens' social club of Tubingen, his presence has always been
felt as an honor to* his hosts. As preacher and professor he
* His Hand-book of Church History, now in its second edition, is a work no German read-
ing Catholic can afford to be without. For practical arrangement, as well as absolute
reliability, I know of no short history comparable to it.
36 TUBINGEN AND ITS CATHOLIC SCHOLARS. [Oct.,
has the faculty of winning hearts, a characteristic which will be
apparent to any reader of his works, notably his treatise on our
Lord's last Prayer in St. John's Gospel * for, like Dr. Schanz,
this professor of moral theology is a many-sided man, and in
Scripture studies, as well as in ecclesiastical art, has done
work which I can only describe as sui generis. His latest book
of travels in the East will be eagerly read by his admirers in
America, as well as in Germany.f
Last but by no means least, in public estimation and private
worth, comes the tall form and noble, white-crowned head of
the Dean, the senior of Tubingen's Catholic faculty. Professor
von Kober is a type of the robust and doughty Wurtembergers
who have done such great service for the church. He carries
his seventy-three years so well that we may hope to keep him
long with us before he receives that highest summons to the
celestial court, where he has laid up unfading treasures, not alone
by his profound work in the realms of canon law, but by the prac-
tical example of a Christian life.
Space will not permit of even a cursory notice of the work
now being done by the younger generation of scholars, who,
like Professors Belser and Vetter and Saegmueller, have already
won their spurs in the literary arena, or, like Doctors Riech
and Merkle and Koch, whose time is all absorbed in prepara-
tion for the responsible positions their talents have destined
them for. But lest it appear that this short and uncritical re-
cord of men and books gives evidence, on the writer's part, of
a too damaging "tendency" to superlative praise thus robbing
it of all right to credibility, according to the theories of the
Tubingen School let me point out certain existing weaknesses,
not of the men but of the ecclesiastical system of education
here in vogue.
DRAWBACKS AT TUBINGEN.
I, at least, find here daily cause for thanksgiving to God that
we American Catholics have no dealings with government that
the line of demarcation between church and state is likely to
be ever more sharply drawn. This is not the place to enlarge
upon the evils which here beset the path of the bishop and
his aids in the administration, and especially in the ordering
of the pecuniary affairs of the students for the priesthood. The
resulting complications are truly distressing, -and, from one point
of view in particular, work the greatest harm to the whole
* Keppler : Unseres Herrn Trosf, 1887.
t Wanderfahrten und Wallfahrten im Orient, Freiburg, 1894.
1894-] CATHARINE SEYTON. 37
clergy. No wonder that kindly Bishop Hefele complained most
bitterly of this, the worst hindrance in the way of procuring
suitable, and only suitable, subjects for the priesthood.
Another desideratum, according to many I am not sure my-
self whether the evil is so great, if indeed it exists at all is a
more coherent and complete philosophical training. Long be-
fore the Encyclical of 1879 we find Tubingen scholars who are
past-masters in Thomistic methods. That the Wurtemberger
student of this day does not get the " simon-pure " article may
perhaps be granted, for the admixture of a working knowledge
of what modern thinkers are teaching cannot fail to be of use to
him in his after-life. By their own candid and unpartisan ex-
position of whatever they touch upon, these Catholic philoso-
phers of Tubingen have at least proven themselves in touch
with what is best in the modern spirit that love of honesty
and that impatience of whatever bears the stamp of prejudice
and unfair play which is, I repeat, the most encouraging symp-
tom of our times.
CATHARINE SEYTON.
BY ALBA.
{
"True," replied Catharine; " there is, indeed, no bar across the door. ; fjut tlie'fe ai
t"he staples in which the bar should run ; and into these I have thrust mine arm,' ifke^fc tirte-
tress of your own, when, better employed than the Douglasses of our day, she defended the
bed-chamber of her sovereign." Vide " The Abbot."
|ADY, away! 'Tis in vain you declare
That the proud blood of Douglass will brook no
denial.
If Black Archie himself, with his riders, stood there
And demanded admittance, I'd venture the trial.
Ye have robb'd our sweet Queen of her realms and her power,
And shut her up here in your desolate tower ;
Yet her word to obey ev'ry Seyton is bound,
Though her prison-walls only may echo their sound.
When she sat in her glory in Holyrood gray,
They were traitors who guarded, and rebels who knelt ;
And what save misfortune could wait on her way
While she trusted in hearts where no truth ever dwelt?
But now, though of kingdom and crown ye've bereft her,
One heart full of honor and faith ye have left her ;
And while that heart beats, be she captive or free,
Obeyed and defended Queen Mary shall be.
AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS.
[Oct.,
AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS.
BY MARION AMES TAGGART-.
LOW, broad hill, rising gently against a sky golden
and shimmering in the splendor of the sun, which
had sunk just to the hill-top. Waving shadows
of trees, lengthening south-easterly down the hill-
side, etched darkly on the billowy grass, flecked
with the pink heads of the clover. This is what we saw as the
train came to a standstill, and we looked out of the windows
on the west, gathering up our belongings, preparatory to leaving
the car. On the east the station, a two-story frame building
painted brown, bearing a sign upon its front upon which the
name " Silsby " shone in black letters on a white ground. The
platform ran along the width of the station ; upon it sat a long
baggage truck, upon which again were seated long men, in
various attitudes expressive of languid interest in arrivals.
As we descended upon the platform one of the longest of
th men, he who had adorned the nearer handle of the truck,
arose and came toward us. His features partook of his elongat-
ing tendency, and his hair was drab and sleek, hanging in little
clumps, which looked as if they had both inherited and been
environed by pomatum. A straw hat was firmly placed on the
back of his head, showing no more idea of moving in our honor
than its owner had of requesting it to rise.
"Boarders for Mis Ellis's?" he inquired, standing directly
across our path.
We acknowledged our identity, feeling the acknowledgment
rather superfluous, since we were the only persons quitting the
train at Silsby.
" Thought so," he said, turning on his heel. " Follow me ;
the hosses is over here. The boy will bring up your trunks."
We walked across the platform around the corner of the
station, followed by the gaze of all the loungers. " Pen," whis-
pered Nan to me, "at last I know what it is to be before the
public."
We found " the hosses " attached to a venerable vehicle, and
our guide bade us " git in," as he walked to the animals' heads
to unfasten them. Depositing our bags and umbrellas under
1894-] AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. 39
the seats, we obeyed, and, turning westward across the track, a
few feet below the station, began slowly ascending the hill which
had been our first glimpse of Silsby.
As we rose and looked down on either hand an exclamation
of delight escaped us both. "Like it?" inquired our driver,
gazing toward us over his left shoulder. " Most folks does.
From New York, ain't ye?"
We did not deny our birthplace.
" I ain't never been to New York," continued the loquacious
driver. " Been to Boston and Springfield, an' when I was a
boy uster visit down to Bangor. Pretty hustlin' kinder place, I
expect. Ain't much uster country, I s'pose ? "
We explained that we spent our summers in the country.
"Yes?" he said; "queer how some folks does keep a-goin' !
Well, most folks likes Silsby. I s'pose 'tis real pretty; but I
kinder git uster it. There was a Universalist here one time ;
didn't b'lieve there was 'n hell, everybody went to heaven ;
now, he said he thought anybody 'd git uster anything. Said
he guessed in a few thousand years he'd be uster hell ; but I'd
know. I think there's some things nobody gits uster. Now
there's Mis Ellis, her you're goin' ter board with ; she no need
to keep boarders ! "
He made an admiring pause for comment. "No?" we asked.
" No-o-o," he said, shaking the negative out in the long
shake of his head. " She's got one of the nicest farms in
Silsby. Tain't Silsby, though; it's North Silsby." Another
pause.
" North Silsby ? " we repeated interrogatively.
" Yes," our driver said. " That's Silsby where the deepo is,
and Silsby Centre's back o' that. Our place's over to North
Silsby. We don't generally say nothin' 'bout it to summer
boarders when they write, 'cause it mixes 'em up ; and Silsby's
the post-office, so it's really all one thing. Silsby Four Corners,
that's over on the other road, five miles from here ; that's an-
other place.
"Yes, Mis Ellis, she's got a mighty nice farm, an' she's en-
terprisin' that's what Mis Ellis is, enterprisin'. She no need to
take boarders, but she gits dreadful lonesome. Mr. Ellis he
died ; an' her daughter she died, but she wa'n't never very strong ;
an' then Sam, her only boy, he was a big, strong feller, an' he
fell an' was killed jest fell outer a cherry-tree an' broke his
neck. Pickin' cherries he was. Jest called down, ' Ma, d'ye
want a big branch ? ' when down he come. Mis Ellis she's
40 AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. [Oct.,
lonesome. She says that Universalist didn't know what he wus
talkin' 'bout. Says she don't care so much 'bout brimstone;
but lovin' somethin' and losin' it, an' wantin' it eternally, that's
hell ; an' she says she guesses we wouldn't git uster that. An'
she's right ! "
" Here we be," added the driver, as we turned into the yard
of a spotlessly clean white house, the whole place eloquent of
some one who was indeed " enterprisin'."
A tall, thin woman in black calico received us. Her face
was heavily lined, and the grief of which we had heard was
written there ; but her aspect was kindly, and she showed us
into a large room on the ground-floor, so shining in its painted
set, yellow floor, and braided rugs that we exclaimed delight-
edly.
Mrs. Ellis had been watching us narrowly, and her face
lighted up as she saw our pleasure. "Like it?" she asked, just
as the driver had done. "If you're one mite lonesome or timid,
an' would rather be upstairs, you can have the room above's
well as not, but I like this better, an' I sleep right back of this
myself; but, land sakes! there ain't a thing to be afraid of in
Silsby. Here comes the boy with your trunks."
We assured her that we could not ask for anything bet-
ter than the room she had selected, and turned to see "the
boy," who, to our great amazement, proved to be nearly sev-
enty years old, and was helped in his task by our whilom
driver.
" Set them right down here, Lemuel," Mrs. Ellis said to the
latter, who by telegraphy conveyed the order to the perfectly
deaf " boy." " I presume you're surprised I should call him a
boy," Mrs. Ellis remarked as they departed, " an' I guess it
does sound ridic'lous ; Miss Miranda she laughs about it, but
he was a boy when my father took him, an' we got in the way
or rather they did ; I wasn't born. Now you lay off your
things, an' supper's ready when you are. I wonder if Mary
Frances filled your pitcher?"
She crossed the room and looked to see. " Yes, she did ;
but, good land ! there's a spider fell in. I'll get you fresh."
We stopped her, saying we did not in the least mind the
spider's temporary misfortune. Mrs. Ellis fished him out on the
leaf which she tore from the almanac, and deposited him, with
his legs sadly drawn up, outside the window.
" Well, I'm glad you're not nervous," she said, turning ap-
provingly toward us. " Of course he ain't hurt the water a
1894-] AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. 41
mite; now, spiders are clean, but flies! Well, 'f there's one
thing I abominate it's flies." Her face flushed as she mentioned
the offenders, and she walked toward the door rigidly. Here
she turned and faced us. "You both Catholics?" she asked.
Nan gave me a stealthy glance ; we had felt before the penalty
of this disclosure. It is not pleasant to shock people, nor to
be regarded as abnormal, if not monstrous, even by one's land-
lady, and though the mistake be hers. ^
" Yes," we said together.
"Wanter know!" exclaimed Mrs. Ellis. "As I wrote you,
you'll have to drive over to Silsby Four Corners to church ; that's
the nearest. Miss Miranda she's the only Catholic round here,
but there's some in Silsby Centre and the Corners. Miss Miran-
da she turned Catholic twenty years ago, when she wasn't much
above twenty years old. I often asked her how she come to
think of it, but she never exactly told me. She said a book
set her on.
" If you'd applied for board to Mis Biscombe, an' asked
'bout the Catholic church, as you did me, I guess she'd a told
you she hadn't any room. But, land o' mercy ! Mis Biscombe's
first husband was a minister, an' she kinder feels the welfare of
the whole community on her shoulders ; that's to say, the moral
welfare she ain't over an' above generous. But I don't feel to
Catholics as she does, an' I don't see how any one can who
knows Miss Miranda, for she's well, I hardly know what Miss
Miranda is in one way, nor what she isn't in another. I'll take
you over to-morrow, 'f you're not too tired ; she'll be delighted
to see any of her persuasion, an' she don't have any too much
pleasure, the blessed little soul. I told her I'd bring you.
Well, come out when you're ready; I'll put supper on."
She closed the door, and Nan and I were left alone. Nan's
eyes were big and her cheeks glowing. I always find a new
reason for my love for Nan, and when she looks like that I am
sure what I admire in her is her enthusiasm.
" Pen," she said, " it is all too good to be true."
" Wait for supper," I remarked, my role being that of
balance-wheel. "If she cooks as she cleans we are fortunate in-
deed. But who is Miss Miranda?"
" Oh, I don't know ! " sighed Nan from the depth of the
great wooden rocking-chair, " but she is evidently another treas-
ure, and only think of the stories and poems you will write
here in this beauty, and with such human material, and of the
sketches I shall make ! Who wants supper ? "
42 AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. , [Oct.,
But we were both hungry none the less, and soon found our
way into the big dining-room, looking onto the sunset, and re-
dolent with such a supper as left nothing to'be desired; and
we sank to sleep that night grateful to the good angel that led
our feet to Silsby.
It was late in the forenoon of the next day that Mrs. Ellis
asked us if we felt like driving over with her in the afternoon
to see Miss Miranda.
"Mrs. Ellis," I cried, "do tell us who is Miss Miranda?"
Mrs. Ellis settled herself comfortably, rocking to and fro, and
stroking her gingham apron. " Well," she began, " there's lots
to know of her, but there's not much to tell. Mr. Maitland,
her father, he was a minister here, an' her mother she was from
Boston ; real good family there, they say ; he met her there,
an' married her. Mr. Maitland he was an awful nice man, an'
a great scholar, but he never could do much more'n get along ;
he had a real nice little place, but, dear me, I guess Mis Mait-
land she bought it with her money. Folks thought Mis Mait-
land was shiftless, but I guess she never knew what 'twas to
feel well, an' she wa'n't brought up to work the way she had to.
They had two children, Ferdinand an' Miranda."
" Oh ! " we cried, as a light broke in on us.
"Yes, Shakspere, ain't they? I know folks was kinder
scandalized at a minister naming his children out 'f a play, but
he set everything by Shakspere, an' his books was more to him
than the real world. Well, Ferdinand, they thought he was
just wonderful, an' he did seem real bright and likely, but I
never could see that his sister wa'n't full as bright. But Mr.
Maitland he thought Ferdinand was a genius, an' he raised him
according. He never did anything round, but his father kep'
him at his books, an' taught him all kind 'f languages, an' Fer-
dinand began writin' poetry. Well, sometimes I think children
do do that ! I know my Sam he wrote a piece about the colt
gettin' out 'f the pasture. How one day, the colt ran away, an'
he ketched holt, an' somethin' 'bout the colt. I can't repeat 'em,
but I've got 'em, an' they're real nice.
"Well, Ferdinand, he was a genius, so folks said, an' while
he was bein' educated for that part, why his mother died, an'
when the children were twenty an' sixteen Mr. Maitland he
died too.
" Well, it took 'bout all the money they had to get Ferdinand
through college. He couldn't get a scholarship for all he was
so smart. I never could jest see why, but Miss Miranda says
1894-] AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. 43
it was because to get one you have to grind, an' geniuses can't
grind. Well, that may be, but geniuses' sisters can. Miranda,
she applied for the district school, an' got it, an' she supported
herself while Ferdinand was at college, an' left their father's
money for him. When he graduated he wrote the poem,
an' you never see a girl so proud as Miranda. She was
twenty then, an' a prettier girl you couldn't find in a day's
journey.
" Well, Ferdinand came home an' settled down here,
because he said he could write poetry here's well's anywhere,
an' he was goin' to be a poet. So Miranda she taught school,
an' he wrote poetry, an' someway or 'nother 'twant any of it
published. Miss Miranda says it's because it's too fine for this
coarse world, an' some day, when Ferdinand's dead, they'll wake
up to recognize his genius, but it'll be too late ; she says that's
always the way. Be that's it may, she began writin' too,
little stories an' verses, an' things for children, an' she sent 'em
to the papers, an' they took 'em paid for 'em too. I asked
her once why she- wasn't a genius jest's much's her brother,
but I never see her so vexed. ' It's very different,' she says,
' Mis Ellis,' says she. ' Mine are jest nothin' 's mere rhymes ;
his 're poetry.' Then she read me some of his, an' I s'pose
they were grand, ' cause I couldn't understand a word, but hers
are real simple, an' some 'f 'em make me cry. Well, she
wrote, an' she kep' school, an' then she gave up the school an'
jest wrote, an' she's supported 'em both, an' kep' their little
home over their heads. Ferdinand's her idol, an' he's got all
he can do to be it, an* a genius. I guess he's even given up
writin' now ; says he's done enough for fame, an' an ungrateful
world deserves no more. So that's all there is to tell 'bout
Miss Miranda ; you'll see more'n I can tell you.
" Sometimes her story makes me think of the stories my
father used to tell. He was a sea captain, an' used to tell us
children 'bout the mirage. Sometimes I think that's the way
with Miss Miranda. Sailin' along down below's her real
brother, lazy an' selfish, though I kinder hate to say it because
I know how 'twould hurt her 'f she could hear. An' up in the
clouds she sees the other brother, the one she think's she's got,
a great poet, an' one she's glad to slave for. Well, I s'pose
she's jest one 'f the lovin' kind that's got to cling to somethin',
an' she's never had the time to think of the best kind 'f love,
nor children, though how she does love 'em !
" Well, that's Miranda's story, an' 'tain't much to tell, but it
44
AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. [Oct.,
always seemed like a good deal to me. I'll take you over to
see her to-day 'f so he's you're ready to go."
Nan's big gray eyes were luminous. " Oh," she said, " how
we shall love her ! "
"Yes," said Mrs. Ellis turning back, stiffened by her excess
of emotion " yes, I guess you're her kind." And Nan and I
felt breveted.
We drove that afternoon to see Miss Miranda. The road
was beautiful, shaded all the way by big elms, oaks, and chest-
nuts, and bordered by blackberries and elderberries in full
blossom, and little shimmering, applauding birches. The dis-
tance was not great; we found that driving there was unneces-
sary, the ceremonial only of a first call, and we many times
walked over the same shady road through the varying tints of
the happy summer in which we learned to know and love Miss
Miranda. The house was pointed out to us before we reached
it, a cozy little white nest, overhung by entirely dispropor-
tioned trees.
A slight, girlish figure in a white muslin, with moss-rose
buds thrown over the ground-work, came out of the door, and
ran with a peculiar lightness down the steps. "There's Miss
Miranda," said Mrs. Ellis, turning to nod to her, and at once
continuing to tie her horses.
We thought that she must be mistaken, for this little woman
looked hardly twenty-five. She was not more than two inches
over five feet in height ; her abundant hair was a warm brown,
shining in the sunlight, and was brushed softly back from a
delicate, pale face, lighted by big eyes, and smiling, .sensitive
lips. But as she came down the path we saw the lines around
the eyes and lips that showed that her girlhood had only been
preserved by the innocence and sweetness of heart that made
her father's choice of name rather prophetic and appropriate
than droll, as it had struck us before we had seen her.
" Miss Miranda, I'll make you acquainted with Miss Pene-
lope (she pronounced it Penny-lope) Huntington and Miss
Anne Hovey," said Mrs. Ellis, doing the honors.
Miss Miranda took a hand of each in one of hers. " I am
so glad you have come," she said, turning up the box-bordered
path, still holding us like a floral link, such as we made when
children. " I hoped you would be here this afternoon, but I
told myself you would surely not come so soon." Her voice
was soft, yet had a thrill in it to which one's pulse responded
indeed it was love at first sight for Nan and me.
1894-] AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. 45
" I hope you like Silsby," she went on, as we were seated
on the big porch. After we had assented, she continued : " I
am very glad. I think it lovely, but then I have almost never
seen anything else. Sometimes I feel that I need not regret
my humdrum life, for the soul of all beauty is in any beauty,
and when I read of Italy and pictures and music, it is to our
hills and sunsets and the birds I have to come for their
interpretation ; and if the meaning lies here, the beauty must
too. Don't you think one only finds one's self repeated every-
where ? "
"Yes," I said, of whom she had asked the question. "But
the sibyl who can read the revelation of a leaf could surely be
ravished if the scroll were unrolled."
Miss Miranda turned to me eyes that were wistful. " I am
not always so contented," she said. " I only said sometimes
I felt so. I am not satisfied always."
" No one is always," broke in Mrs. Ellis, who had been
listening in a stiff silence that I learned afterward meant con-
tent with the trend of talk. " There's nothin' satisfied on
earth, I b'lieve, but a cow, an' she's got all she needs. But 'f
anybody wants somethin* more'n a cud it's more'n likely to be
out of reach."
Miss Miranda laughed a little sadly. " We are all reaching
out, Mrs. Ellis," she said, " except your cow. I sometimes
think ' the touch of nature ' that makes us kin is the touch of
pain. Here is Caliban," she added, as a big brindle, thorough-
bred dog came swinging up onto the porch. " If you know
me you must know Caliban. I hope you don't mind dogs?"
" I am very fond of them, and so is Pen," said Nan. " But
Miss Maitland Caliban f "
" Yes," said Miss Miranda blushing. " I named him to com-
plete our trio my brother is Ferdinand. It was the ugliest
puppy eyes ever rested on, worse even than now, and so feel-
ing it appropriate all round, I called him Caliban. But I have
regretted it ever since, for my monster has developed into a
monster with every noble quality ; his only defects are physi-
cal, and calling him Caliban has forced me to live in an apolo-
getic attitude toward him, and it is very trying to feel apolo-
getic toward one's dog."
We made arrangements for driving to church together on
the following Sunday, and left Miss Miranda standing under
her big trees, the petals of syringas fallen on her dress, look-
ing as young and lovely as the first Miranda decked with
46 AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. [Oct.,
shells. Big, kindly Caliban wagged his tail as we drove away
from the first chapter of our summer idyl.
" Why, Mrs. Ellis, she is the loveliest thing I ever saw," I
broke out as soon as we were beyond hearing.
" H'm ! " ejaculated Mrs. Ellis, jerking the reins in stern
satisfaction. " Don't talk yit."
It was late in July, and our acquaintance with Miss Miranda
had grown into a friendship. Accompanied by Caliban we ex-
plored the dark, fern-grown woods and the whole smiling coun-
try side. Miss Miranda knew the note of every bird, the name
of every leaf, arid she poured forth to us the wealth of her
poetic fancy, her humor, and her intimate knowledge of books
and nature. She told us, too, of her brother with tears in her
eyes spoke of his unappreciated genius; but of herself she said
little, "because," she told us, "there was nothing to say." Be-
tween the lines of her brother's story we read her own little
pathetic life history, the negation hardest to bear, borne how
gladly and cheerfully!
Of course by this time we knew the gifted Ferdinand. When
we met, Miss Miranda told him that I wrote for the magazines
and Nan illustrated my little verses and stories.
"Charmed, I assure you," he said, "to meet fellow-artists.
My career has been unknown to the world, working like the
river that tunnels below ground. You are fortunate in having
your poems recognized by an obtuse world."
I hastened to assure him that my verses were not great
poems, none too large for the world upon which they were
launched.
" Ah, indeed ! " he said. " Like my sister's, perhaps. She
has really a pretty fancy, and a certain facility in rhyming ; but
she never mistakes her work for poetry. I sometimes think it
was well that her gift was a little talent, and not the divine
afflatus, for after all one must live, and the Muses reward not
their votaries materially, while Miranda's little nothings are re-
ceived." The air of superiority with which he uttered these
words made my fingers tingle with a shrewish desire to pull
his long locks, but Miss Miranda listened admiringly.
After he had gone she read us some of his poems : long, te-
dious effusions, polysyllabic, verbose, with vast suggestive titles
having no connection with subsequent lines, though the thought
of each poem was hard to determine, being hidden under a tor-
rent of words, "rattling reverberatory," as he would have said,
1894-] AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. 47
for he dearly loved alliteration. Nan said the feeble idea of the
verse was like a field-mouse squeaking on the battle-ground of
Waterloo, quite drowned in the roar. And then Miss Miranda
showed us her little sketches, and verses done for children, such
dainty, exquisite verse that we were enchanted.
Nan and I discussed it going home. I was rigid with indig-
nation at the lazy, selfish man for whom this gifted little wo-
man had slaved all her life. " How could she, with her humor and
taste, be imposed upon by such a bombast of words?" I asked.
" She might have been called Titania as suitably as Miranda."
"But isn't it lucky she is deceived?" asked Nan. "Think
how she would suffer if she saw the ears ! "
"Well, it is wicked," I answered, "and I feel that for jus-
tice's sake I want to set it right." Nan stopped short.
" For kindness' sake, Pen," she cried, " never say that ! I
think where one is inspired to do anything for justice's sake,
one would better put helm hard a-lee, or whatever it is, and
sail in the opposite direction."
" Don't be afraid ; it's only a desire," I answered.
We agreed that Miss Miranda must have written other and
different things, which she had never shown to any one, and we
promised ourselves the discovery of them.
Very shyly the dear little woman admitted our conjecture,
and finally we obtained the coveted sight of them. There they
were, her hidden dreams and fancies ; not for children, as her
known work was; no, but tender little love stories, and verses
as exquisite as her own fragrant life and personality.
" I never felt love," she said, blushing very much, " so I
have no right to speak on such a subject."
" Ah, that doesn't matter," I said indifferently, fearing to
betray much feeling lest she dimly guess the plot Nan and I
had laid. " After all the talk of ' realism and idealism,' what
we like is the ideal, and fortunately in love the ideal is the
true. May we take these home to read quietly, if we promise
to return them safely ? They seem lovely, but I would rather
talk to you now."
Miss Miranda did not object and we carried them off in
triumph. Nan and I sat up all night copying the best of them,
and then I accomplished my act of treachery. I sent them to
the editor of The Acropolis, a friend of mine, telling him the
history of our discovery. And I think even my first story was
not committed to the mail with greater trepidation, nor the
reply awaited more anxiously.
48 AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. [Oct.,
It came at last, filling me with delight. The praise of Miss
Miranda's work was all we could desire ; it was accepted, and
more requested.
Nan and I did not sleep that night very much. We planned
how to tell Miss Miranda in the morning, we wondered how
she looked when she was very glad, and we talked about the
winter, saying that she should come to us in the city, leaving
her brother in Mrs. Ellis's care. We would introduce her to
people who were, as Mrs. Ellis said, "her kind," and for once
she should be thoroughly appreciated, and enjoy herself.
" Think of showing her the pictures and the big buildings ! "
said beauty-loving Nan.
"Oh, and think of taking her to hear Wagner! Just imag-
ine her face as she listens to Lohengrin, and catches Elsa's
story, or hears an orchestra ; or do you think she will like
Italian opera better ? " I cried. " Oh, I hope they will sing
everything this season! And just imagine that lovely soul, that
became a Catholic, and stayed one, up here in the Silsby Four
Corners church, and has managed by her poetic insight to get
the beauty of the services with only her missal, and that un-
speakable choir imagine her in the New York churches ! "
We rose early, in a tumult little calmed by our few hours'
sleep, and betook ourselves early to Miss Miranda's tiny white
house.
We had planned all sorts of ways of .telling her the glad
tidings, and imagined all sorts of things she would do and say,
but as usual we none of us followed our programmes.
We handed the letter from the editor of The Acropolis to
Miss Miranda, and bade her read it, and we watched her
changing face in trembling silence. For a moment it was trans-
fused with joy, and then, to our horror, she burst into violent
weeping.
We knelt on each side of her, incoherently begging her par-
don, until she grew calm enough to speak. " It's not that,"
she sobbed. " You were very good to do it, and it was no
liberty ; I am very grateful ; but my poor Ferdinand ! It is so
unjust. He sent his poems to The Acropolis long ago, and they
were refused there."
I was at my wits' end at this unexpected point of view, but
Nan put her arms around her.
" Dear Miss Miranda, it is because of influence," she said.
" You know your brother had none, and you know too that,
though we think every word that the editor said is true of
1894-] AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. 49
your work, after all Pen is his personal friend, and of course
that made him read what she sent attentively. If she had sent
your brother's poems he would have read those too, but proba-
bly they were never read at all when they were sent by an un-
known youth, so long ago. So it was perfectly just, after all,
and you must be glad in this good fortune with all your might.
We'll have your brother's work printed for private circulation
this winter when you come to see us. That is the best
way to manage with such work as his, for then no sordid con-
sideration is mixed up in it, and you would like that better."
My pretty Nan ! She coaxed Miss Miranda into her view
of the matter, and we had a dinner of jubilation after all, to
my intense relief, for I had begun to fear that I had broken
Miss Miranda's, unselfish heart.
The dear little princess walked about in a dream for a
week, and then she wrote the loveliest little poem of all she
had ever done, and we got her to send it to The Acropolis in
her own name, which she did affrightedly, and her delight
knew no bounds when that too was accepted.
It helped Miss Miranda greatly to enjoy her modest success
that her brother did not mind at all, as she had feared he
would. She exalted his unselfishness and nobility of soul, but
Nan and I knew that even to his career he was indifferent ;
that his life was an epic called Dolce far niente.
We turned all our attention then to luring Miss Miranda
into acquiescence to our plans for her pleasure in the winter.
We should probably never have succeeded, though ably
seconded by Mrs. Ellis, and having won Ferdinand's indolent
consent to closing the house and boarding with that good soul,
had it not been for Nan's happy thought of having her
brother's poems printed for his friends, which we represented
required her personal supervision and editing, only to be done
on the spot.
So she promised to come to us in December for not less
than two long months, and from the time that we won the
promise we would sit under the strong pines, and build castles
of such future delights that dear Miss Miranda would put her
little hands over her ears and shake her head, declaring such
happiness could never be for her. But we knew it was to be,
and she looked so pretty as she listened to our enthusiastic
pictures that when we were in our room again Nan would
wonder if among all the congenial friends to whom we were to
display her, the real Ferdinand, the princely lover, might not
VOL. LX. 4
50 AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS. [Oct.,
present himself tardily, 'tis true^ but in time to bring joy to
this maiden princess. But I shook my head over Nan's
romance. To my mind she must be beloved by all, but live in
her spiritual world of innocent sea-dreams, weaving beautiful
fancies, Miss Miranda to the end.
And so came September, and the day of parting. We
found that we could hardly have borne to leave North Silsby
were it not that Miss Miranda was to follow us so soon, and
that we had planned to return to Mrs. Ellis's spotless hospitality
spotless in every sense when June should come again.
" Well, I'm dretful sorry to see you goin'," that kind
woman said, as she pressed upon us knobby bags of apples,
and unexplored hampers full of her famous cooking. " But
'twon't be so long till summer again, an' 's long 's you've got
to go to get Miss Miranda to see you, an' hear all that music,
an' everything you've been talkin' 'bout, why I declare I ain't
sorry one mite you're goin'." So saying, she furtively wiped
away a tear with her gingham apron, and waved it to us as we
drove past the white- washed stones of the carriage-way.
We looked long and lingeringly back from the car-windows
at the green hill, beginning to turn brown and red under the
September tints of its blackberry vines and sumach, the yellow
golden-rod waving on its crest, behind which we knew lay the
farm, and the little Maitland house, in each of which we were
followed by loving thoughts as the train whistled in the hollow.
We fancied that we could see Lemuel driving slowly back over
the hill, as he had driven us on our arrival, only now his
honest heart was rent with the sorrow of parting, and we
believed that Caliban, who had escorted us to the" station,
shared the feeling.
" It has been an idyllic summer," sighed Nan, turning from
the last glimpse of Silsby, "and I am thankful for every
moment of it. We are richer by a friend than when we came,
and we have known an unrecognized genius. Only, Pen, which
" do you suppose it was ? "
" Why, Ferdinand, of course," I answered promptly. " It
can't be Miss Miranda, because, you know, The Acropolis has
accepted her poems and stories, and she is to come to New
York this winter to be petted and lionized. There's no doubt,
Nan, at all that Ferdinand is the unrecognized genius."
1894-] THE PHARAOHS OF BRITISH RULE. 51
*
THE PHARAOHS OF- BRITISH RULE.
BY JOHN J. O'SHEA.
IFTEEN years ago the House of Lords, the non-
representative branch of the British Legislature,
fully aware of its responsibility for what it was
doing, drove Ireland to the verge of civil war.
By its refusal to pass the Compensation for Dis-
turbance Bill, passed by the Lower House at the instance of
the late Mr. Forster, then chief secretary for Ireland, it precipi-
tated a crisis in that country whose developments were hardly
less grave than those of a revolutionary outbreak. The strain
of dealing with it proved too great for Mr. Forster, and cer-
tainly undermined his health and hastened his demise. Mr.
Forster was an eminent man in many ways, a philanthropist
and a great promoter of the cause of education. His loss to
the Liberal party was momentous. Had he but exhibited the
same firmness in dealing with the obstructive Lords as he did
in his subsequent ineffectual struggle with the forces their obsti-
nacy called into evil activity, he might have been the means of
averting many miseries and preserving his own life to the full
measure of its public usefulness.
It was to no purpose that the House of Lords then held out
against the demands of the Liberal party. They were soon
compelled by the irresistible logic of events to pass measures
far more revolutionary in their character, for the relief of the
suffering Irish agriculturists, than that which they rejected in
1879. By the agrarian legislation of subsequent years they were
coerced to recognize for the first time the startling principle
that the tenant cultivator of the soil was a partner with the
landlord in the ownership of the soil, rendered so by the value
of his labor expended on it and the value of the improvements
he had made in his buildings and the condition of the cultivable
land.
But the defeat of the landlord representatives did not stop
there. Its consequences were not confined to the economic
condition of Ireland merely. A formidable agitation sprang up
amongst the Scotch cottier tenants, and it was not allayed un-
til Parliament had passed what is known as the Crofters' Act, a
52 THE PHARAOHS OF BRITISH RULE. [Oct.,
measure of relief far more effectual in its spirit and operation
than anything enacted on behalf of Ireland. Under this act the
commission created to settle vexed questions of rent and tenure
was empowered to wipe out .arrears of rent and fix the boun-
daries of commonage lands, which the landlords had been gra-
dually filching from the tenants contrary to immemorial custom.
Arrears in many cases amounting to five and six years' rent
were swept away at a stroke of the pen, and reductions of a
very substantial character in the rent were in every case de-
creed. The mountain pastures which had been taken from the
tenants were restored, and the tranquillity of the country there-
by placed on a permanent basis.
By what fatuous principle the ruling power in England is
guided in discriminating between the cases of Ireland and Scot-
land it is hard, save on racial grounds, to divine. It is certainly
remarkable that no violent opposition to the ultra-radical measure
of land reform for Scotland was offered by the House of Lords,
and hardly less so that it was passed by a Tory government.
These facts point, by inductive reasoning, to the sinister inten-
tion of the dominant class in British politics to maintain tranquil-
lity in Great Britain, even at a sacrifice of cherished privileges,
in order that no internal difficulties may interfere with a settled
policy of repression toward Ireland concurrently with the main-
tenance of a condition of political inequality.
A calm review of the recent transactions of the Upper House
must strengthen the belief that this nefarious design underlies
the policy of the territorial oligarchy, and that it has been de-
liberately adopted to frustrate the natural effects of the benefi-
cent legislation of the Liberal party. When Mr. Gladstone
abolished religious ascendency in Ireland, and conferred upon
the people of that country the right of vote by ballot, he
opened the flood-gates for a wave of reform which must follow
its course as surely as the tides. Ireland was then a century
behind England in the march of progress, but since that time
she has sprung forward with leaps and bounds. The Home
Rule Bill was the logical outcome of a condition which pre-
sented the anomaly of an apparent equality in political freedom
between the people of Ireland and the people of Great Britain,
which in its real working left the will of Ireland powerless to
effect any amelioration in her hampered and humiliated posi-
tion. Mr. Gladstone foresaw that, once he admitted the people
of Ireland to this nominal equality, the practical barrenness of
the change must soon become apparent, whenever the voice of
1 894.] THE PHARAOHS OF BRITISH RULE. 53
Ireland's parliamentary representation was drowned at St. Ste-
phen's. It was no easy task to convert the people of England
to his view that this anomaly must, in justice and in wisdom,
come to an end.
Events have marched rapidly in that direction. The historic
close of Mr. Gladstone's long public career by the passing of
the Home Rule Bill forms a parliamentary episode more strik-
ing than anything presented by the British Legislature since
O'Connell's rejection of the insulting Abjuration oath. If the
aged statesman fulfilled the day-dream of a great career by this
fitting epulotic to the scars of ages of wrong, the House of
Lords proved true to its own hoary traditions. Only for the
privileges of its own caste was it ever known to make a stand
on principle ; and, often as it has had to pass perforce the meas-
ure which it had before rejected, it is still undismayed in its
self-imposed task of obstruction. It dismissed the Home Rule
Bill in a burst of scornful laughter. In a similar homeric way
it treated the measures of reform for England, notably the Em-
ployers' Liability Bill and the Registration Bill, passed by the
present Parliament. And now it completes its task of frustrat-
ing the whole work of the Parliamentary year by rejecting, with
greater scorn than it showered on the Home Rule Bill, the
great measure which the ministry proposes for the ultimate
pacification of agricultural Ireland, the Evicted Tenants' Bill.
It is curious to observe that while some of the leading
English papers commented on the rejection of our Tariff Bill
by the Senate as the act of a corrupt body legislating in the
interests of its own members, not one of any note took heed
of the enormity of the House of Lords' action. Here is a
legislative body, every member of which is an owner of land,
not only taking part in corrupt legislation, but actually defying
the representatives of the people to legislate for the good of
the state at large. Here is corruption on a gigantic scale, yet
no journalist on the other side of the ocean can see anything
in it to raise his ire on high constitutional grounds. If ever
there was a clear illustration of overlooking the beam in one's
own eye whilst crying out over the mote in a neighbor's, it is
surely this.
One of the provisions of the Great Charter upon which the
English Constitution rests is that "no man shall be a judge in
his own cause." What is the difference between judging and
legislating? Nothing more than between the minor and the
major premises of a proposition. The one process is the off-
54
THE PHARAOHS OF BRITISH RULE. [Oct.,
spring of the other. Parliament makes the laws upon which
judges pronounce. Here, then, we behold a whole house of
Parliament sitting in judgment in their own cause, and giving
judgment, moreover, in their own favor!
Oliver Cromwell is said to have entertained a great con-
tempt for Magna Charta. He could not trample it more effect-
ually under foot than the House of Lords is now doing. Yet
the English press is silent under the outrage, and can see no
corruption anywhere but in the American Senate.
To form an intelligent idea of the situation now created in
Ireland by the action of the House of Lords, it is useful to
look at the salient facts. A recent Parliamentary return gives
the number of farms from which tenants have been evicted
since 1879 as r >375- We may assume that each farm represents
a family; and the average family in Ireland comprises five
persons. This gives us a total of 6,875 persons dispossessed.
Although a considerable proportion of these have either emi-
grated or got back somehow on their farms, the preponder-
ance lies with those who are still under temporary shelter in
the neighborhood of their old homes. Of the moral effect
of the presence of so large a number of discontented per-
sons, smarting under the sense of a cruel wrong, we may judge
from the fact that so many as 119 of the farms made vacant
by their eviction are untenanted and run to waste. These are
described in the report as derelict farms. The dispossessed
tenants cling together, for the most part, where their holdings
are situated on large properties, such as the Massereene estate,
the Lansdowne estate, the Clanricarde estate, and others of that
class. It needs no great imagination to show how formidable
an element of danger to the country lies latent in the aggrega-
tion of such a large number of incensed and outraged people
outraged in the fact that the Land Courts, by their repeated
decisions in cognate cases since their eviction, have demon-
strated that they only made a stand for bare justice. It is
because the Evicted Tenants' Bill proposed that landlords must
restore these tenants on the terms fixed by the Board of
Arbitration that the House of Lords rejected the measure so
ignominiously. They seem to forget that in clinging around
the land from which they have been ejected these tenants are
only stubbornly holding on to what they consider, and rightly
consider, their own property. They have an equal stake with
the landlord in the soil. This is the law of the land now, and
they are manifestly within their right, although it may not have
1894-] THE PHARAOHS OF BRITISH RULE. 55
been the law when they were turned out, in demanding that
the landlord, under cover of the law, shall not be allowed to
rob them of their just and equitable right.
In the speech delivered by the Marquis of Salisbury, when
he moved the rejection of the measure, there was an additional
aggravation. It is an unfortunate habit of that nobleman, from
which his sense of responsibility as a former and possibly a
future prime minister cannot restrain him, to indulge in bitter
and biting remarks toward those whom he regards as political
opponents. This unbecoming habit renders him at times as
formidable to his friends, or rather those who are on his side
in politics, as to his antagonists. The late Lord Beaconsfield
and he could never agree, and their wordy rencontres often
took a very acrimonious turn. It is only a few years since he
described the people of Ireland as comparable only to a nation
of Hottentots. It is a deplorable piece of fortune that a person
with the tongue of a Thersites should at such a juncture be
the leader of the opposition in the House of Peers and at the
head of the Unionist party in Great Britain.
Only one large feature is lacking to make the historical
parallel between the close of the session in 1879 and the. pres-
ent position complete. In the former year the shadow of
coming famine was projected darkly over the country ; the past
couple of years in Ireland have been periods of comparative
prosperity. But in 1879 there were no large bodies of evicted
tenants in the country, as there are now. So that in point of
potential danger to Ireland's peace the present state of the
agrarian trouble there is much more minatory than the crisis
which called the Land League into existence.
Of the merits of the case as between the evicted tenants
and the landlords, the general public may not have more than
a hazy idea. That the tenants have been evicted owing to their
inability to meet excessive rents, to put the matter in a nut-
shell, the casual observer who has not studied the question, no
doubt, believes. Whilst this broad proposition covers the ques-
tion as a whole, the special circumstances of its application
must be studied if a knowledge of the real iniquity of the case
is desired. Such a knowledge is hardly to be got save by a
study of the question on the ground and from the lips of the
Irish tenant-farmers, but those to whom this course is not open
may find some help in the current official literature of the sub-
ject. A Parliamentary Commission sat all last spring and sum-
mer inquiring into the modus operandi of the agricultural tribu-
5 6 THE PHARAOHS OF BRITISH RULE. [Oct.,
nals in Ireland, and from the majority report we get a few lead-
ing facts which help to throw light on the subject luridly
enough. The report declares that the rents fixed by the courts
between 1881 and 1885 are excessive, in the light of existing
conditions. It adds that the present system of determining a
judicial rent is costly and tedious, and that tenants should not
be compelled to pay extra rent on their own improvements.
The reasons which led up to the latter recommendation are
well illustrated in a case cited by Mr. Healy in the course of
the debate on the second reading of the Evicted Tenants' Bill
in the House of Commons. The report is worth preserving.
Mr. Healy said :
" I take this case not from the files of any Nationalist news-
paper. I take it from the files of the Irish Land Commission,
produced by the head of that court, and I ask this house to
say whether it is reasonable to expect Irish tenants, evicted or
non-evicted, to remain patient under these circumstances. A
man named Patrick Moore held eight acres under Mr. Villiers
Stuart, formerly a member of this house member for Water-
ford. Moore held eight acres on a mountain which, according
to the report, was five hundred and fifty feet above the level
of the sea and exposed to the sea. The rent he was paying
was only twopence an acre. He was paying for his eight acres
sixteen pence. He reclaimed this holding. He built on it a
house, cow-house, a boiler-house, a piggery, and a stable, and
he reclaimed seven acres of land from the original heath and
furze. What was Patrick Moore's reward ? The landlord first
raised his rent to i%s. 9^., although there is a clause in the
Irish Land Act which says that no rent shall be allowed or
made payable on tenants' improvements. He had expended,
according to the evidence, on this holding a sum of 210. He
and his predecessors in title had been working the land since
1826, and during that time not a copper of expenditure was
made by the landlord. This clause which says that no rent is
to be allowed or made payable on tenants' improvements is
construed by the Irish Land Commission as if the word ' no '
was omitted, so that it is made to read that rent shall be
allowed and shall be made payable on the tenants' improve-
ments. Accordingly, the landlord having raised the rent to
iSs. yd., the tenant applied for the benefits of the Land Act."
Mr. Healy then proceeds to tell of Patrick Moore's case
going from court to court until it was finally decided on.
What the final decision was Mr. Healy tells as follows :
1894-] THE PHARAOHS OF BRITISH RULE. 57
"On November 23, 1893, the sub-commissioners fixed on
the holding a rent of i8.y. gd., which before the land act had
been \6d. Was the landlord satisfied with that? Nothing of
the kind. Here is the sub-commissioners' official report :
" ' The position of the farm is exposed to the sea. The en-
tire holding was evidently a poor wild mountain, and will
require continuous outlay in the shape of labor to prevent its
going back to its normal state of furze and heath.'
" And with that statement before them the Chief Land Com-
mission on appeal raised the rent from i8.y. gd. to 30^., and
ordered the tenant to pay the costs ; that is, the landlord's
costs."
J.t may be thought that the case here cited is an exceptional
one. The very contrary is the fact. Wherever the process of
reclamation and improvement went on upon the land, such
action of the landlords was the rule almost invariably. The
writer has gone over the estate of the landlord above referred
to, and seen some of the patches for which such exorbitant
rent is demanded. The hovels in which many of the wretched
cultivators dwell are not good enough to shelter pigs.
In the ranks of the ministry there appears to be some hesi-
tation as to the line of policy to be pursued in face of the
rejection of the ministerial measure. Although Lord Rose-
berry's speech on the debate in the House of Lords conveyed
an impressive warning to the peers on the dangers they were
incurring, the subsequent conduct of Sir William Harcourt,
when challenged in the Lower House to state the intentions of
the government, showed plainly that there was a want of har-
mony on the ministerial benches. Mr. John Morley subsequent-
ly pacified Irish members somewhat by a more satisfactory
declaration. But the feeling aroused in Ireland is intense ; and
herein lies the danger and delicacy of the situation. In playing
the game of bluff which they are most unquestionably doing,
the Lords, whilst they have many chances of losing, have at
least one of success. If they can but provoke the Irish into a
state of semi-rebellion, then the game is in their own hands
without any question. The extreme party in Ireland will take
the place of the party of constitutional methods, and all the
old dreary tragedy of secret conspiracy, coercion, treachery, and
wreck of noble lives be enacted over again.
This, then, is the hour of trial for the Liberal party. It is
not easy to take a sanguine view of its adequacy to the strain.
Bereft of the great name of Mr. Gladstone, it loses an influence
58 THE PHARAOHS OF BRITISH RULE. [Oct.,
that in itself was victory-compelling. But even the loss of
great leaders has not prevented the gain of many a glorious
battle. If only those who take up the command keep cool,
close up the ranks, and struggle still toward the goal, the
disaster may be retrieved. But a ministry which is only half-
hearted is not the ministry for such a crisis as that which has
now arisen in the affairs of Great Britain and Ireland.
Perhaps the people the democracy of Great Britain have
not as yet realized the full meaning of the issue which the
Lords have raised. If they have, they exhibit a most extraor-
dinary torpidity over the question. Only one public meeting,
up to the time of writing, had been held in protest, and this
by no means of the magnitude which such an occasion might
have prescribed. They do not seem to understand that the
whole system of representative government is at stake. Per-
haps when they have grasped this important truth, they may
act in such a way as to show they are not insensible to the
value of constitutional rule.
All through the long Parliamentary session, the Irish Na-
tional party in Parliament worked assiduously with the Liberal
party in carrying measures of reform for Great Britain. Their
support was unflagging. Without their aid not one great mea-
sure would have been got through. It is to their unprecedent-
edly close attendance that the British people are indebted for
the most beneficial budget ever passed. To them, in fact, the
Liberal party owes its existence. If that party and the people
do not stand up loyally in defence of their faithful allies,
they will disappoint all the believers in the better qualities of
the Anglo-Saxon.
LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE,
59
A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY OF LA GRANDE
CHARTREUSE.
BY CH. CHAILL^-LONG.
HE Monastery of La Grande Chartreuse is situ-
ated in the centre of a chain of the Alps
known as La Grande Chartreuse ; calcareous
mountains the periphery of which is about one
hundred miles, bounded north and east by
Notre Dame de Myans from Chapareillan to Chambery; north
and west by the valley of the Giers-Mort from Echelles to
Voreppe, and south and east by the valley of the Isere from
Voreppe to Chapareillan. The principal summits of this huge
mass, Chamchaude, Grand-
Sure, Petit-Som, and Grand-
Som, are covered with snow
and ice during eight months
of the year, and for the re-
mainder are green with sombre
forests of pines, among which
grows a rare and luxuriant
flora. Under the shadow of
Grand-Som (2,033 metres alti-
tude above the sea-level), in a
valley (977 metres) studded
with stately trees, stands the
monastery, accessible to the
world below and beyond by
three routes : the Col de Porte,
Col de Cucheron, and Saint-
Laurent-du-Pont.
The monastery was founded
by Saint Bruno in June, 1084.
Saint Bruno, although born in
Cologne (1035), was educated
in Reims, and was considered
as a Frenchman by his con-' ST. BRUNO.
temporaries, who named him
Bruno-Gallicus. Chosen archbishop by reason of his great tal-
ents and learning by the pope, Hugues de Die, Bruno shortly
6o A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY [Oct.,
after resigned his high office, and having first distributed his en-
tire fortune among the poor, he retired to the solitude of the
cloister. Failing to find either at Molesme or Seche- Fontaine
the absolute seclusion which he desired, he set out with several
companions to seek the counsel of Saint Hugues at Grenoble.
THE DREAM OF ST. HUGUES.
" Now about this time," so says the tradition, " Saint
Hugues had a dream in which he saw seven stars, which fell at
his feet and rising crossed the mountain deserts and fixed them-
selves in a place called Chartreuse. Hugues then perceived
seven angels who proceeded to erect a building in the solitudes,
upon the roof of which appeared the seven mysterious stars.
The bishop on awakening sought to learn the signification of
his dream, when suddenly Bruno and his companions (seven in
all) entered, and falling at the feet of Hugues, prayed that they
might be directed to build a convent in some desert and
secluded spot. ' I know the place. God has chosen it, and I
will establish you there in his name,' cried Hugues ; and accord-
ingly he led Bruno and his companions to the desert of La
Chartreuse, where, on the spot where now stands the chapel of
Saint Bruno and that of Notre Dame de Casalibus, Hugues ex-
claimed : ' Here is the spot which I saw in my dream, here
the angels built, here the seven stars which appeared upon the
roof ; those stars, they are you, Bruno, you and your com-
panions ; build here.' '
St. Hugues having arranged for the construction of a con-
vent, blessed its founder and returned to Grenoble. It was
thus, according to the legend, the Order of the Chartreuse was
created and the first monastery constructed.
THE ORIGINAL CHARTER.
A fragment of the original charter reads as follows :
" The holy and indivisible Trinity having given us grace in
his pity to think of our welfare, and reflecting upon our exist-
ence here below and how fragile is this life which escapes in
spite of us, and is passed in offending God by our sins ; we
have resolved, poor slaves of sin that we are, to snatch our-
selves from the hand of eternal death ; to this end, and in
order not to be crushed under the weight of bitter regrets in
this world and the next, and also not to find in the miseries of
the present life anything but the commencement of the pains
and griefs of eternity, we exchange our perishable riches for
1894-] OF LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE. 61
treasures which will never disappear, and we buy at small cost
an eternal heritage. For this reason we concede to Maitre
Bruno and freres who accompany him, seeking a solitude to
reside and execute the affairs of God : we concede, we say, to
them and their successors for all time a vast desert whose
limits are herewith marked. I, Humbert de Miribel, have made
this donation conjointly with my brother Odon, and all the
persons who may have rights therein."
DEATH OF ST. BRUNO.
Saint Hugues exacted as a condition to this donation and
to recall the benefits conferred by the church of Grenoble upon
the order, that each year the Chartreuse should contribute to
the bishop and the cathedral fifteen small rolls of butter and
one quintal (too pounds) of cheese.
Saint Bruno was not left long in the enjoyment of his
coveted repose. In the commencement of 1090 he was recalled
to Rome by Pope Urbain, and charged with the foundation of
the Order of Chartreux of Colubria, where he died on October
6, noi. On the Rotuli, or death-roll, which according to cus-
tom is circulated among the orders, Saint Hugues caused to be
written of Bruno as follows :
" Bruno, vir religione scientiaque famosus, honestatis et
gravitatis ac totius maturitatis quasi quoddam speculum homo
profundi cordis."
Seven times the faith and tenacity of purpose of the Char-
treux were tested by fire and water. The first time on January
i, 1132, when the convent was crushed beneath an avalanche of
snow which buried in their cells seven monks ;
an incident which confirmed indelibly in the
monastic mind the legend of the ever mysteri-
ous seven stars and the seven angels in the
dream of Saint Hugues. The chapels of Saint
Bruno and Notre Dame de Casalibus, although
adjacent to the convent, were untouched by the
avalanche, and still remain as sanctuaries of
prayer and pious pilgrimage. The arms of the
order, composed by the Reverend Pere General
Dom Marten in 1233, affirms the perpetuity of the order, and
a cross planted upon a globe surrounded by seven stars bears
the device : Stat Crux dum voivitur Orbis the stars recall the
origin of the order, and the cross, the symbol of penitence,
will stand while the globe exists.
62
A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY
[Oct.,
MASSACRES BY THE HUGUENOTS.
In 1521 the Order of the Chartreux numbered 206
branches in Europe. During the religious wars of the sixteenth
century 39 monasteries were suppressed and sacked or burned,
and the monks driven from their cells or massacred. The
Huguenots in 1562 burned La Grande Chartreuse, but, notwith-
standing a long period of plagues by pestilence and by fire, the
order was successfully maintained, and at the close of the
seventeenth century numbered 200 monasteries, 2,500 monks,
1,300 converts, and several hundred nuns, the whole under the
THE iMONASTEhY IN 1676.
supreme direction of La Grande Chartreuse. From 1778 to
1784 the Emperor Joseph decreed the suppression of 24 monas-
teries. In 1-790 the number had been reduced to 122.
DRIVEN OUT BY THE REVOLUTION.
A decree of the National Assembly of France dated Sep-
tember 13, 1792, obliged the Chartreux to quit La Grande
Chartreuse, and seek asylum in the convents of Germany, Swit-
zerland, and Italy. In 1816, after twenty-three years of exile, the
surviving members of the order were permitted to return by the
government of the Restoration, since when the monastery has
become the property of the state, which grants certain privi-
leges to the Order of the Chartreux.
The actual monastery was completed in 1686, under the
1894-] OF LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE. 63
regime of the Reverend Pere Dom Innocent Le Masson. The
architecture is simple, massive, and majestic, and its gray and
stately outlines seem clothed in a sort of solemn grandeur
which accords with the severe and austere life within.
The best route from Chambry to La Grande Chartreuse
runs by rail to Saint-Bron (forty-five minutes), and thence by
diligence a ride of four hours to the monastery by reason of
the steep ascent. From Saint-B6ron the road enters a deep
gorge and climbs the precipitous mountain-side, under whose
overhanging ledges, in the abyss below, flows the river Giers,
which, strangled within its narrow limits, breaks in noisy cas-
cades over the boulders which obstruct its course. The road
passes through the famous Gorges des Chailles ; the quaint vil-
lage of Les Echelles, and finally Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, with a
population of two thousand souls, but which in 1367, during the
black pest which ravaged all Europe, acquired the pseudonym
of Ne"mos, from the fact that not one soul was left alive in the
village. Saint-Laurent-du-Pont is the key to the Grand Char-
treuse, and is situated on .the left bank of the Giers-Mort and
at the foot of the steep mountain which we are to ascend.
A road on the right leads to Curriere, the ancient Chartreuse
monastery, which now serves as an institution for the deaf and
dumb under the direction of the freres Gabriel.
Fourvoirie, on our left, stands at the entrance of what is known
as the Desert, and consists of a number of buildings, saw-mills,
and the laboratory and depot of the celebrated Chartreuse liqueurs,
the importance of which may be determined by the amount of
production, one million three hundred thousand litres having been
sold in the year 1890. The proceeds are applied to the expense
of maintenance of the order and its almost unlimited charities.
The entre"e of the Desert, through which one must pass to
reach the monastery, is grand and impressive. Near the ruins
of a primitive fortress, known as the Porte de la Jarrette, a mag-
nificent waterfall, called the " Cascade du Logis," marks the point
from which the road was constructed as far as the Pont Saint-
Bruno in 1715 by the Chartreux road. The road is hewn from
the mountain-side, often out of the solid rock which projects in
many places over the brawling river below, which may be faintly
heard from the depths as it breaks and foams into countless
cascades of unsurpassed beauty. The Pont Saint-Bruno, which
traverses the Giers, is a model of symmetry and elegance, and
was constructed in 1495 by Jean Ode, a Chartreux monk.
Twenty minutes distant from the bridge stands a curiously
6 4
A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY
[Oct.,
(i.) OLD MILL ON THE GIERS.
(4.) CLOISTERS.
(2.) THE RIVER GIERS. (3.) ENTRANCE TO DESERT.
(5.) THE CHAPEL OF ST. BRUNO.
1 894.]
OF LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE.
(i.) GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHARTREUSE. (2.) THE Pic D'AIGUILLE.
(3.) FRONT VIEW OF THE CHARTREUSE.
VOL. LX. 5
66
A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY
[Oct.,
shaped rock named Pic d* Aiguille, forty metres high, on the
summit of which an iron cross has been erected. The road
passes through several tunnels bored through the solid granite,
and over the entrance of one of these an inscription declares
that from that point to the convent the construction (1854-36)
is due to M. Eugene Viaud, sub-inspector of forests for works of
public art. Still skirting the mountain-side the road curves
finally to the left and dividing, the left arm ascending by a pre-
cipitous way practicable only to pedestrians, the right describes
a half- circle, crosses a small
bridge, and suddenly, as if by
magic, we find ourselves in full
view of the convent, dominat-
ed by the snow-clad summits
of Grand-Som. On the right
of the entrance to the monas-
tery stands the Chapelle-des-
Dames, where a daily service
is recited by a Chartreux pere
and where ladies have the
privilege of attending. The
Hotellerie-des-Dames is situat-
ed a hundred yards distant,
where ladies receive hospital-
ity, the hostelry being under
the direction of nuns from
Grenoble, who remain during
the summer season. The Cha-
pelle-des-Dames and the hos-
telry mark the limits of lady
visitors, the privilege of enter-
ing the monastery being ab-
solutely denied to the fair sex
by the rules and regulations
of the order.
It was a hot, sultry afternoon in'August, 1892, that we arrived
my friend and myself at the convent, and having knocked
at the gate we were received by a Chartreux frere, who con-
ducted us across the court, in which were two large basins which
contain the water brought by pipes from the fountains of Saint-
Bruno near by. At the door of the monastery the frere confided
us to the care of a servant, who, conducting us into the office r
a large, low-ceilinged room, demanded our t names ; inquiring if we
THE LADIES' CHAPEL.
1894-] OF LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE. 67
desired to remain for the night. Such being our intention, we
were informed that the pere prior would assign us cells after the
customary visit at four o'clock.
Formerly visitors were required to register their names in an
album kept for this purpose, and curious indeed it would be
if one could glance at the long list of distinguished men who
have made pilgrimages to La Grande Chartreuse. Here came
Petrarch, the illustrious poet, to visit his brother, a Chartreux
monk, in 1352'; St. Frangois de Sales, in 1618; Jean Jacques
Rousseau, in 1695 ; and Chateaubriand, in 1805.
The government of the Chartreux is monarchical rather
than communistic. The general-chapter is supposed to be the
supreme power to which the reverend pere general is subject,
but inasmuch as this officer is the head of the chapter, he in
fact, and not the chapter, is the lex suprema.
The office of reverend pere general is elective, as well as a
number of inferior offices: the pere superior, pere prior, etc., all
of whom are elected by the chapter, in which all members of
proper age or service in the order are electors. The order is
divided into priests and laymen, peres and freres, monks and con-
verts (or novices). Besides these there is a class known as donnes,
who are not bound by the usual vows, but who give themselves
to the order on a simple contract. They perform the necessary
labor or secular business of the order, wear a costume of
brown color, shave their beards but not their heads, and in-
habit the lodges on the right of the entrance to the con-
vent.
Latin is the official language of the order, and this fact
alone creates an aristocratic community. The greater number of
converts are young men who, having completed their education,
know little or nothing of the world.
The costume of the monk is of white wool, cut somewhat
after the model of the tunica talaris of the Romans, bound at
the waist by a belt of white leather, from which hangs a chap-
let. Over the tunic the cuculle, or scapulaire, is worn, surmounted
by the capuchon, the coiffure of the ancient Gauls. Thus clothed
the prostrate monk kisses the altar, and places thereon his
cedule of profession, signed only with the cross, for henceforth
he has no name, and, though living, he is now for ever dead to
the world.
We were now conducted to the Salle du Chapitre, where, as
its name implies, are held the meetings of the general chapter,
the object of which is to pass rules and regulations and main-
68
A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY
[Oct.,
(i.) THE REFECTORY. (2.) THE CHAPTER HALL.
(4.) THE CHAPEL OF ST. Louis.
(3.) LIBRARY.
1894-] OF LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE. 69
tain the order in its ancient usages. The salle is ornamented
with forty-nine portraits of the generals of the order, and at the
extreme end stands a statue of Saint Bruno executed by the
sculptor Foyatie, and in the adjoining room a tableau by Le-
sueur, representing the death of Saint Bruno.
From the general chapter we passed into the Chapelle de
St. Louis, so-called in honor of Louis XIV., who, following the
initiative of Charles V. of France, in 1370 founded at the Grand
Chartreuse a chapel upon condition that a daily Mass should
be recited for himself and the queen ; subscribing to this object
four thousand florins. Charles VI., 1413; Louis XL, 1469; Hen-
ri III., 1576; Louis XIII., 1630; and Louis XIV., 1682, each
confirmed by letters patent the foundation of Charles V., and
donated considerable sums for the maintenance of the chapel
and its ornaments.
Our guide now conducted us to the library, which contains
twenty thousand volumes. In the early days the principal oc-
cupation of the occupants of the cloister was the copying and
correcting the text of manuscripts ; but the invention of Guten-
berg changed this, and the monks have since turned their at-
tention to printing of books as well as writing them. The
library not only contains ecclesiastical works, but the classics of
Plato, Cicero, Socrates, and Aristotle may be found side by
side with Pascal, Bossuet, and Montaigne. Quitting the library
we passed into the cloister, a colossal gallery 215 metres in
length by 23 metres in width, and which receives the light of
day from 113 windows. On the east side of the cloister 36
doors lead to the cells of the monks, on the sides of which,
piercing the massive walls, are small windows or doors, through
which servants pass food to the hermit whose solitude is not to
be broken.
Our guide opened the door of an unoccupied cell with a
pass key, inviting our attention to the curious lock, or vertevelle,
being an exact copy of the lock used in the original construc-
tion of the monastery. Within we found ourselves in a narrow
gallery, which we were told serves the monk as a promenade
when the cold of winter prevents his exercise in the garden
attached to each cell. Ascending a stairway, on which there is
planted an iron cross, we entered the cell, the first part of
which formerly served the monk as a kitchen, but which is now
unused, the chapter having concluded to cause the hermits' food
to be prepared in the general kitchen, that more time might
thus be devoted to meditation and solitude. Next to this piece
A VISIT TO THE MONASTERY
[Oct.,
VIEWS ON THE GlERS AND BRIDGE OF ST. BRUNO.
1894.]
OF LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE.
is a small division which contains a table and chair and is used
as a study, and next is the sleeping-room, the bed or berth being
enclosed in a sort of cupboard, a mattress filled with straw and
covered with coarse linen.
Descending a narrow stairway we found ourselves in a cell
where the monk saws the wood necessary to heat his cell in
winter, and as well a carpenter's bench with tools, which serve
him both for physical exercise and mental relaxation. The cells
in the middle ages were founded by the charitable or the peni-
A MONK'S CELL AND HERMITAGE.
tent, upon condition that the inmate should recite prayers each
day for his benefactor, and it is thus they are maintained at
the present time. From the cloister we were taken to the
cemetery, where nameless crosses of wood or stone marked the
narrow graves of the monks.
The Chartreux, if asked if solitude, which is the cardinal
point of their order, is not contrary to human nature, will re-
ply in the words of Montalembert in Les Moines d* Occident:
" Who has not understood that it is good to reserve at least
some corner of the world, away from the revolutions, agitations,
and jealousies of ordinary life, to bless and venerate the Creator?
Who has not dreamed of a future where, for one day at least,
he may say to himself with the prophet : ' Sedebit solitarius et
tacebit ? '"
72 THE COLISEUM. [Oct.,
THE COLISEUM.
RIGHT REV. J. I,. SPALDING.
COLISEUM! ruin vast and strong,
Defiant still, spite power of time and fate,
Thou boldest well thy solitary state
Amid new worlds that idly round thee throng :
And through the centuries thou dost prolong
The majesty of Rome, her mighty weight
Of will, upraised above the little gre'at,
And quick to punish all who did her wrong.
But I behold, cold and indifferent,
Unmoved by awful sternness of thy face,
Heedless of all the memories which have lent
To thy unyielding form a tender grace :
For thou art but the shameless monument
Of the fierce strength of an unloving race.
1894-] THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY" 73
THE LESSON OF "THE WHITE CITY."
BY VERY REV. A. F. HEWIT, D.D.
SECOND PART.
'HE First Part of this article left off with the
question : What is there in Modern Civilization
which brings it into conflict with the great
movement of Liberty ? This movement was ex-
plained as a struggle of the people to become
free to possess those earthly goods which make life worth living.
The principle was laid down that the true welfare of a nation
is the welfare of the whole number of its individual members.
Also, that this welfare consists in the aggregate of the virtue
and happiness of this multitude. That civilization which was
represented by the " White City " was accused not of essential
evil in its elements but of a short-coming, on account of which
a certain warfare is waged against it in the name of liberty, a
warfare which some foreboding prophets of evil to come pre-
dict must become internecine and irreconcilable.
I left my readers to find an answer to the question pro-
posed, for themselves. I have concluded, however, to attempt
to give them the answer which I did not promise.
In a word, the whole answer is summed up in this state-
ment : The Modern Secular and Material Civilization which I
have in view, lacks that moral and religious element, force, and
vital principle, which alone can give it power to dominate and
direct the great popular movement of the age in the civilized
world. The civilization of Christendom is the creation of the
Catholic Church. The popular movement against slavery and
every form of servitude under despotism and oppression origi-
nated in the Catholic Church. But a fatal schism has separated
the Church and the World, Civilization and Christianity ; has
divorced science, literature, politics, secular progress, from faith
and religion. All have become, not indeed absolutely and
totally, but in a large measure tending toward increase, un-,
Christian, even anti-Christian, except in so far as the great
lump still remains leavened with what it has formerly absorbed
and still retains of the elements thrown into it at the beginning.
That disastrous cataclysm miscalled the Reformation, though not
74 THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY:' [Oct.,
the beginning or the completion of this deplorable schism, was
the principal explosion which rent Christendom and interrupted
the development of the grand work of human redemption
through the Catholic Church. The catastrophe of the French
Revolution was its logical sequel, followed by the devastating
career of Napoleon, the degeneracy of Continental Protestant-
ism, the rise and progress of infidelity, the atrocious invasion
of Rome, the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian crusade in all its
monstrous shapes ; the hideous social maladies and miseries of
modern states ; and that dreadful portent of anarchism which is
now threatening the destruction of both liberty and civilization.
The governing powers in France and Italy are the responsi-
ble authors of that anarchism which has raised its venomous
head and is striving to wind its deadly coils around them.
They have sown the wind and are reaping the whirlwind by
their war upon religion. They are more worthy of execration
and punishment than the wretched assassins upon whom just
vengeance has fallen. I do not meari by this, that M. Carnot
is to be classed with Cesario Santo. Nor will I single out
among historical characters of the past three centuries, any
names of sovereigns, statesmen, ecclesiastics, or authors in phi-
losophy and literature as worthy of special reprobation, though
I could easily do so without any violation of historical justice.
The schism is no mere disruption of ecclesiastical order, like
the Greek schism. It is a violent separation, leaving a chasm
between the church and the world. In the original Christian
civilization, Church, State and Society, were closely united as
parts of one whole. One theory, one idea, one principle domi-
nated over all. Modern civilization has abandoned this archi-
tectural idea for another, totally opposite. This modern idea
recognizes nothing beyond material and secular good as the
object of all political, social, and individual striving, as the chief
end of man and all human development. If this material and
secular good which governments aim at were the welfare of all
the people, there would not be so much reason to complain.
But it is otherwise. What is aimed at chiefly, is national
aggrandizement. Thus the interests and aims of the distinct
nations of Christendom are made to clash with each other.
.They are brought into conflict. Instead of a happy family of
allied peoples, bound together in Christian fellowship and
brotherhood, there are hostile and warring powers, and all
Europe is turned into a collection of armed camps, the trade of
every citizen is to be a soldier. The greatness of each nation
1894-] THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY:' 75
is principally in its army and navy, and upon these its re-
sources are lavished. Thus the welfare and happiness of the
people are sacrificed. Italy presents just now the most signal
example of the ruin which is brought upon a people by the
effort to keep up a large army and navy. It has not even
'brought to the Italian kingdom that imaginary good which is
called glory. The army was defeated at Custozza, and the
iron- clad fleet was annihilated by a squadron of Austrian
wooden frigates at Lissa ; and these disgraces have not been
-counterbalanced by .equal successes elsewhere. The people have
been impoverished and brought to misery, and the nation to
the verge of bankruptcy.
The modern battle-ship is one of the master-pieces of
modern science and art. The Indiana, for instance, is one of
the proudest boasts of our national achievement. We must re-
.gard it with wonder and admiration, as a trophy of human skill.
It is a wise and necessary policy to create a navy composed
of battle-ships, cruisers, and other vessels of the best quality ;
to perfect our coast-defences ; and to put our army on such a
footing that the government may have an adequate military
force at its disposal. But this very necessity of defending our-
selves against destructive violence and preparing engines of de-
struction for our enemies, is a proof of our defective civilization.
All the great national efforts to extend civilization among
the half-civilized and barbarous nations have for their motive
to increase the political and commercial power of the several
Christian nations, and to open new avenues of wealth to their
traders and manufacturers. Their enterprises are good and
useful, and to a certain extent philanthropic. They have done
a good work in breaking down the barriers which shut these
.peoples in, in protecting Christians from violence and murder,
and in beginning a crusade against the horrible and cruel slave-
trade, which we may hope to see carried on until Africa is
entirely delivered from it. Indirectly, this movement of civil-
ization serves the cause of Christianity. It opens the way to
apostolic missionaries. It is not, however, a Christian move-
ment, although many of its agents are personally governed by
Christian motives and principles. There is much zeal and
generosity in Christian nations, but it is not national, and the
nations, as such, do not aim at propagating the gospel. It is
much if they are merely indifferent and not actively hostile to
missionary operations. At home, some governments have done
all in their power to enslave or destroy the church, and to
76 THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY." [Oct.*
uproot Christianity from the minds of the people. Every-
where, there is a party which outruns the governing policy in
its hostility to religion, and to this party belong all extreme
radicals and anarchists.
It is a plain and palpable fact that the union between
church and state which existed throughout Latin Christendom
in the Middle Ages has passed away. There have been in the
modern period relations between the two powers, and concor-
dats ; and these have been to a great extent prejudicial to the
church. Now, however Christian the people may be, there is
no state which is, as a state, strictly and properly Christian,
notwithstanding the fact that many Christian principles, espe-
cially in ethics, are embedded in the laws and traditions by
which the political and social order is regulated. The church
and the state are in their nature distinct, and each one is
autonomous. Their union in the Christendom of the Middle
Ages, under the spiritual sovereignty and temporal presidency
of the Popes, grew up naturally, and was not merely advanta-
geous but necessary to the development of the new civilization
which followed the fall of the Roman Empire and the conver-
sion of the barbarians. The temporal dominion of the Pope
grew naturally around his spiritual sovereignty, as the human
environment of a divine institution, resting for its legitimacy, in
so far as it was a direct power, on the concessions and the
consent of sovereigns and states. It is not surprising that
when the two orders, the spiritual and the temporal, were so
intimately blended, they should be confused in the dominant
Catholic idea and public opinion. The events which preceded,
accompanied, and followed the Reformation, causing the schism
in Christendom, generated a vast cloud of smoke which over-
hung the battle-field of contending parties. Only very gradu-
ally has the new position and policy of the Roman See and
the Catholic Church in face of the modern state and modern
civilization become clear, apparent, and well defined. Naturally,
there was a powerful instinct of conservatism, and an effort to
bring back the old state of things, which was manifested in the
policy of St. Pius V. toward England. Even now there are,
perhaps, some theorizers of the closet, who look back regret-
fully to the mediaeval period, and dream of a retrograde move-
ment in that direction, as the only alternative of a headlong
downward course toward the abyss of final ruin. Nevertheless,
we may affirm positively, that in the sphere of doctrinal teach-
ing and of practical policy, the dominant Catholic authority has
1 894.] THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY" 77
no disposition or intention to assert the dependence of the
state upon the church, or any divine right of ecclesiastical do-
minion over it. Less than anywhere, is there any such disposi-
tion in the hierarchy and the intelligent leading laity of the
Catholic Church in America. We are content with the total
separation of church and state, and with the freedom enjoyed
by citizens and associations, leaving us at liberty to propagate
our religion, and to educate our youth. We are content that
all Christian sects; Jews, and in general all associations which
do not conspire against the laws, should enjoy equal liberty.
Precisely on this ground of our American principles, we
denounce and condemn the effort to make our government
discriminate in favor of infidels, rationalists, and secularists, and
show itself hostile to all other sects. The state is incompetent
in spirituals. It has no right or power to decide which is the
true church or what is the true Christian doctrine. It is not
the mission of the state to teach philosophy and theology, to
preach the gospel, to convert sinners and unbelievers. But it
is within the mission of the state to suppress crime, to promote
the political, civic and social virtues, to ameliorate the condi-
tion of the suffering classes, and to watch over the education
of the youth who are to be entrusted with the right of suffrage,
so far as that is necessary to secure their receiving the instruc-
tion needful to make them fit for the position of citizens in the
republic. All these things fall within the general scope of the
right and duty of the state to provide for the common weal in
temporal things, to protect the rights of all individual subjects
of the state, and to punish those who invade them.
Now, all churches which teach the great truths of natural
religion, inculcate good morals, insist on honesty, obedience to
the laws, fidelity to the conjugal, parental and filial obligations,
patriotism, industry, temperance, etc., are powerful aids to the
state in its proper office. All colleges and schools which train
up men and women for their various and useful occupations are
likewise serviceable to the commonwealth. Hospitals, orphan-
ages, asylums, and other charitable institutions are of vast
benefit to the country. Because these are conducted by minis-
ters or members of a religious society, because the special doc-
trines and practices of some particular church are also taught,
this is no reason why the state should withhold any kind of
.protection, support, or aid which can be lawfully and wisely
.granted to any similar institutions, which are purely secular and
.are called non-sectarian.
Our great republic must find its vital force and strength in
78 THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY:' [Oct.,.
morality. The only sufficient basis of morality is in religion,,
the only possible religion for America is Christianity, and the
only pure and perfect embodiment of Christianity is the Catho-
lic Church. I do not deny the existence of virtue in many who
are not professing Christians. I do not deny or wish to be-
little the good which is in the Protestant churches. I am con-
vinced that only the Catholic religion can supply what is want-
ing to our civilization. But its work can only be done by con-
vincing and persuading the minds of our people of its truth,
and by infusing into them principles of faith, piety, and virtue.
What is true for us is substantially true for all other
civilized nations. And as for the heathen, they are not to be
converted by governments, soldiers, or traders, but by mission-
aries. Happily, our missionaries in Africa and elsewhere, of
whom Cardinal Lavigerie is an example, are equal to the apos-
tolic heroes of ancient times who adorn the annals of the
church. They want nothing from the governments except the
protection and countenance which is given to other subjects
engaged in the work of civilization and in carrying on their
legitimate business. Formerly it was the Pope and the Em-
peror, in England the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury,
yoked together in theory though not always in fact, to draw*
the great wain of the state. Hereafter it must be the Pope
and the People, but the Pope in a purely spiritual capacity
without any temporal sovereignty,* as the Universal and Infal-
lible Teacher of faith and morals ; the People as the source of
the legislative and executive authority lodged in the hands of
their representatives and delegates. If the nations are to be-
come Christian, it must be by the regeneration and reformation
of the people, through the doctrine and law of Christ pro-
claimed by the church. If they are imbued with Christian
principles, they will make the laws conform to Christian moral-
ity, of their own free will, under no ecclesiastical coercion.
Let all become good Christians, and conscience reign supreme
in all human affairs, and Church and State will still remain dis-
tinct, each confined to its own proper sphere, but both in har-
mony, and the result a complete Christian civilization. The
Catholic Church, alone, can, if not hindered by some insur-
mountable obstacles, accomplish this result. If it does not at
least make a sufficient approximation to this result to save
society from utter ruin, the alternative is a rush of the popular
movement, undirected and uncontrolled, into the chaos of anarchy.
* There is no reference here to the political principality of the Pope in Rome, which is-
entirely another question.
1894-] THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY." 79
In that civilized world which has been rent from the church
by the great schism, there are other obstacles to a reconcilia-
tion besides those already mentioned.
A great number who profess to be Christian teachers and
advocates look on a return to the Catholic Church as a return
to a prison and to enslavement. They boast of their reforma-
tion as an emancipation of the human mind from the fetters of
dogma and law.
A greater crowd of philosophers have broken all the fetters
which Protestant Orthodoxy and even Protestant Latitudinarian-
ism has endeavored to fasten by human authority upon those
who have broken the bonds of divine authority.
A much more formidable band of sophists have erected a struc-
ture of infidelity and atheism on the basis of the physical sciences.
Polite literature has been perverted into another potent and de-
structive instrument of warfare against Christian faith and morals.
The nations have been widely and deeply corrupted by irre-
ligion and immorality, and the eighteenth century was perhaps
the most degenerate age which the world has seen since the
advent of Christianity. We have inherited the legacy of misery
bequeathed to us by the foregoing centuries, and the worst part
of it is that disorganization of the whole social order which has
produced pauperism ; the moral and physical filth of the great
cities ; the precarious condition of a great mass of working-
men ; and an alienation between the higher and lower classes
which threatens to become a state of permanent hostility.
If we seek for the causes of all the disasters and dangers
damaging and imperilling civilization, the chief one must be
found in the neglect of duty and the abuse of power and
privilege by those who have borne rule and been possessed of
the largest share of wealth, the aristocracy of the nations.
Justice requires the confession that the ecclesiastical aristocracy
has a share in this responsibility, much more by neglect of duty
and worldliness of life, than by any positive abuse of spiritual
and temporal power.
The evil principle which has been at work in all classes and
departments of Christian civilization, is a practical estimate of
the value of earthly life, which, reduced to theory, is a false
and fatal doctrine. It is materialism and secularism. It looks
on the possession of material and worldly goods as the chief
and only end of life and effort. It ignores the immortal soul
of man, the future life, and God. Reduced to a metaphysical
and logical theory it is atheism. The small number who pos-
sess a large share of this worldly good worship it as a god ;
8o THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY:' [Oct.,
they strive to seize on the greatest amount of wealth attainable,
disregarding and even oppressing the majority who are poor.
The spread of knowledge among the people, the awakening
of their minds, their increased share in government, the general
democratic movement, have naturally aroused them to reflect on
the vast disparities in social conditions. Alienation from re-
ligion, still more the spread of positive infidelity, leaves them
nothing to hope for and to strive for except the goods of this
present life. Naturally, they are discontented with their un-
equal partition and the possession of much the largest share by
a small number, many of whom pass all their lives in pleasure
without doing any good to the commonwealth or to their fellow-
men. Whenever their opportunity to earn the necessaries and
common comforts of life is rendered precarious and their con-
dition even becomes miserable, they are easily roused to in-
dignation against the wealthier classes. The effect of material-
istic and secularist doctrines is to excite them to a rivalry and
a struggle with those whom they regard as enemies and op-
pressors, for the prizes of life. Here is the actual and the im-
pending strife.
Now, the equal distribution of wealth is a vain dream. Pov-
erty cannot be abolished, the earth cannot be made an Eden,
in which all can enjoy an easy life and possess a genteel com-
petence. It is true that destitution, misery, the squalor and
filth of the human sewers and cesspools which are the disgrace
and the curse of our modern civilization, are abnormal and in-
tolerable evils which ought to be abolished. A remedy ought
to be found for the depression of the laboring class below their
just level, and for their precarious condition. All who wish to
lead a decent, honorable, virtuous life, with a secure enjoyment
of all that is necessary to make them happy and self-respecting,
ought to be enabled to do so. All the helpless ought to be
amply provided for. The worthless and vicious ought to be
put under the restraints of strict and well-administered laws.
All who have power and influence, intelligence, education, and
wealth, ought to do all in their power to promote the welfare
of the commonwealth and the people. All classes ought to
place the fulfilment of their duties before the claiming of
their rights and the advancement of their interests. The rich
have much more need to learn this lesson than the poor. If
they will not learn it, they have reason to fear that they will
be forced to do so, by a discipline more severe than agreeable.
It is a religious and moral reformation which is first of all
necessary, in order that economic and philanthropic efforts for
1894-] THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY" 81
ameliorating the condition of the working classes may be suc-
cessful. The Catholic Church can accomplish this reformation.
It may be asked why did not the Catholic Church prevent
the evils which call for this reformation ? Did it not prove to
be a failure? It is often said that Christianity is a failure.
With just as much reason it may be said that the Redeemer has
failed and that the Creator has failed. In order to judge this
case of impeachment, it is necessary to determine what God
undertook to accomplish by the creation, what Jesus Christ un-
dertook to do by the redemption, what the Catholic Church un-
dertook, or rather what the Holy Spirit undertook to accom-
plish through her instrumentality. In the creation of man, Al-
mighty God chiefly intended to glorify himself by bringing a
multitude of men to supernatural beatitude, including in the
number of those for whom the attainment of this end was made
possible on conditions, all the offspring of Adam. By the re-
demption, the Son of God undertook to restore to all men the
forfeited opportunity of gaining their supernatural destination,
on different conditions. It was no part of the divine intention
in creation or redemption to fulfil the ultimate purpose of bring-
ing a multitude of men to beatitude, independently of their
voluntary and free concurrence and co-operation with divine
grace. The Creator did not fail in his work, when Adam fell ;
it was Adam who failed to do his part. The Redeemer has
not failed in his work, because a multitude of the redeemed have
failed to comply with the conditions of salvation. The Holy
Spirit, in making the Catholic Church his instrument for the
sanctification and salvation of men, did not intend to institute
a mechanical and magical agency, efficacious without respect to
the free concurrence of men. A multitude have been and will
be sanctified and saved through the church, which has existed
in various forms, as the patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian Church,
during all ages. The work of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit has not failed, but will be fully consummated in
the kingdom of the heavens. The divine ideal has never been
fully realized in the ecclesiastical and civil history of Christen-
dom. The failure has been *in men, whether ecclesiastical or
civil rulers, or the people. Notwithstanding this failure, the
promises of God have been fulfilled, are now being fulfilled, and
will be fulfilled in the future. It must be remembered that we
have been looking at the dark side of civilization, and that
there is a bright side which might be presented. AH the good
there is in Christendom, higher than that which is merely ma-
VOL. LX. 6
82 THE LESSON OF " THE WHITE CITY:' [Oct.,
terial and secular, has come from the Catholic Church, even
though existing in a state of external schism from Catholic
communion. All baptized Christians who have the divine vir-
tue of faith belong to us by virtue of a bond which has not
been broken, and if their faith is informed by the love of God
they are spiritually united to the soul of the church, from which
all those members of the body of the church who are living in
mortal sin are separated.
M. de Champagny, in his Ccesars of the Third Century (vol.
iii. p. 485, et seq.), has said : " More and more decidedly^will two
things confront each other, leaving in obscurity all that lies be-
tween them. On one side atheism the most cynical and radical ;
on the other Christianity the most practical. To make a deci-
sion and take part with one or the other will be a matter of
necessity, no middle position will any longer be tenable."
All who conscientiously and cordially take the side of Chris-
tianity, notwithstanding imperfect conceptions of its doctrines,
un-Catholic prejudices, and their state of ecclesiastical separa-
tion from Catholic unity, may be regarded as co-operators with us
in one common and sacred cause. The Parliament of Religions
was a signal exhibition of the approach toward more amicable
relations among all those who, although separated from each
other by dogmatic differences which admit of no compromise,
are nevertheless united in one great principle, that a morality
based on religion is the only palladium of a nation. So, also,
all honorable, patriotic, and philanthropic men, who sincerely
desire and endeavor to promote the welfare of the people, to
remedy social miseries, to ameliorate and elevate the condition
of the working and the poorer classes, are our coadjutors, and
deserve our sympathy and co-operation. It is our firm and un-
changeable conviction that the Catholic religion is alone ade-
quate to the great work of regeneration and reformation, of im-
provement and elevation which is needful to make modern civ-
ilization truly Christian. The only power which the Catholic
Church can exercise on the nations in bringing about this re-
sult, is spiritual, intellectual, and moral. The degree and extent
of its actual success in the future depends on the free-will of
men, co-operating with the grace of God. They can have the
reign of Christ if they choose. Otherwise, there is nothing to
be awaited but the triumph of Antichrist and the final confla-
gration, of which the burning of " The White City " is a type.
The church is immortal and will never be conquered. The only
question is, What will become of the world, between the pre-
sent day and the Last Day?
1894-] AN IRISHWOMAN'S ROSARY. 83
AN IRISHWOMAN'S ROSARY.
BY MAGDALEN ROCK.
ERE is the story of Lady R 's conversion, just
as Father Conway, a missionary of twenty-five
years' experience, tells it :
I had just returned to London after ten years'
experience of colonial life, and while giving a
mission there I met Father H . He was a convert, young
and of noble family, yet he and I became remarkably good
friends in a short time.
We were walking together one spring morning in the direc-
tion of Kensington when Father H said:
" I have to call on Lady R . Will you come with me ? "
I shook my head. "I don't know the family; but I will
wait here for your return."
" No, no," the young priest said. " Lady R is a convert,
and she is never so delighted as when a missionary calls on
her. So come along."
I went with him, and in a few minutes I was introduced to
a stately, pleasant-voiced lady, who greeted me very kindly.
" Now," and Father Conway smiled a little, " I am not in
the habit of staring at ladies, but I suppose I did so then, for
after a few minutes Lady R remarked with a smile :
" Father, you seem to be admiring some of my jewels."
" No, indeed, your ladyship," I responded, " but I am won-
dering very much why you wear an Irish bog-oak Rosary among
your gems."
" Oh ! " the lady cried eagerly, " that's the missionary that
converted me and many others."
I looked my surprise.
"Yes; may I tell you the story? It is not very long."
" It will give me great pleasure to hear it," I replied, and
Lady R commenced :
" You must know that the R family were among the most
bigoted known, and my ideas concerning Catholics were cer-
tainly vague. Ignorance and idolatry were among their failings
I had been taught, and both my husband and myself were
84 AN IRISHWOMAN'S ROSARY. [Oct.,
careful not to allow a Catholic into our service or about our
children. This, I suppose, became known, and many stories
false and mischievous found their way to our ears. One day
tny maid entered in some excitement the room where I was.
" Oh ! your ladyship, look what I have found."
"What is it?"
" It is one of those horrible Popish idols " ; and she held
forth these very beads you see.
"Really; and where did you find it?"
" At the lodge gate, and Mrs. Parr says it belongs to an old
Irishwoman who comes each day to sell water-cresses."
" I carried the Rosary to the drawing-room, where Lord R
and his youngest sister were, and while we were laughing over
the superstitions and practices of Rome some callers were
announced. The Rosary was duly inspected, and at last my
young sister-in-law exclaimed :
" Let us have the old woman up to-morrow, Letty ; it will
be such fun."
" I assented readily to Clara's whim, and after some slight
demur my husband gave his consent. The two ladies were
invited to witness the scene we expected to enjoy, and one of
the servants was instructed to bring the old woman to the
house from the lodge in the morning.
" Well, at an unusually early hour we were all again assem-
bled. Harry had entered completely into the spirit of the fun,
but I was in my heart thinking how easily we might convert
the poor, ignorant creature.
" Here she comes," my husband cried, and we crowded to
the window to see a small, tidy-looking old woman walking
beside our tall footman, and evidently talking and protesting
vigorously.
"An" what does the lady want wid me?" we heard her
exclaim ; and a giggle went round the hall where the servants
were collected.
The footman opened the door. He had brought the old
woman so far, but further she would not come.
" Go in there to that grand place wid my muddy boots, is
it? Bedad ! I won't then. Sure the lady can come here, and
say whatever she has to say."
" No, no, my good woman ; come in," I said, advancing to
the door. " We don't wish to harm you."
She made an old-fashioned courtesy.
" Harm me ! Sure what would any one harm me for ?"
1894-] AN IRISHWOMAN'S ROSARY. 85
" Certainly not ; but come in ? "
With some persuasion she did so, and then I said :
" My good woman, you have lost something."
"Troth, then, an' 'tis little Molly Feenan has to lose, ma'am."
" Oh ! but you have. You have lost your god."
" Lost my God ! The good God Almighty forbid ! An* what
do you mane at all?"
" Don't be excited, Mrs. Feenan. You have lost an idol,
one of the things you Papists worship ; this, in fact," and I held
out the Rosary.
"Och! did ye find my bades? Well, God reward you,
ma'am ; that's all I can say. An' 'tis greatly obliged I am to
ye for thim."
" Stop, pray. Don't you know it is sinful and wrong to
worship idols, my good woman ? "
" But I don't worship idols " ; and Mrs. Feenan drew herself
up. " It was Father Mahoney God give him the light of
heaven this day ! that taught me to say my Rosary, and taught
me the manin' of it, too."
I smiled pityingly, and said :
"You should read your Bible, my poor creature, and not be
tyrannized over and befooled by your priests."
Mrs. Feenan had forgotten her timidity, for she laughed.
" An' sure I can't read at all, ma'am, but I know as much
of my religion as many that can."
" Pray tell us."
She had been drawing the big black beaqfs through her fin-
gers.
" I know right well that 'tis laughin' at me ye are ; but
here's what the bades teach, here's what I read from them ";
and with uplifted voice and brightening eye she began :
" Ye see that crucifex. Well, when I look at that I think how
Jesus died for me on Calvary; I think of all his wounds an'
sufferin's, an' I say : ' Sweet Jesus ! keep me from vexin' you ! '
Och, ma'am ! sure if ye had the likeness of a some one ye loved
of a dead child maybe wouldn't ye love it as I love this ? "
and she kissed the cross.
" Then ye see that one big bade an' the three small ones.
These tell me there is one only God, an' in that one God there
are three Persons. An' ye see there are six big bades in all
and one medal, that minds me of a tabernacle. (Maybe ye
don't know what a tabernacle is. It is a place in our church
where the Blessed Sacrament is kept.) Well, the six bades an'
86 AN IRISHWOMAN'S ROSARY. [Oct.,
one medal mind me that there are seven sacraments, an' one of
these is greater than them all. That's the Holy Eucharist."
A deep stillness had fallen on us, and Clara had drawn near
the old woman.
"An' these six bades mind me, too, that there's six com-
mands beside those of God that I must keep"; and she sang
them out, and paused to gain her breath.
"An* then the Rosary itself consists of fifteen mysteries in
honor of the Mother of God: five Joyful," and she repeated
them ; " five Sorrowful," and she repeated them ; " and five Glo-
rious," and her voice rose in these last.
" An' when I am goin' about tryin' to earn my livin' in hon-
esty, I say the Joyful mysteries ; and on a bad day, when I'm
wonderin' maybe how I'll get my supper, I just repeat the Sor-
rowful mysteries, and say to myself : ' Mary Feenan, what sig-
nifies your bit of trouble? Sure one day it will all end, and God
give ye grace to end well.' An' when I've done bravely 'tis as
little as I can do to keep sayin' the Glorious mysteries over an'
over in honor of her who is the Mother of us all. An' there's
the way I pass my days."
This was not as we had arranged. My friends were listening
respectfully and attentively, and I was inclined to follow the
example of my sister-in-law, who was crying softly.
" There, we've had enough of this," whispered my husband.
" Give the woman her beads and some money, and let her go."
None of us cared to speak of what we had listened to, but
I wondered if that was the religion I had been taught to de-
spise. I saw Mary frequently afterwards, and she gladly gave
me her cherished Rosary when I asked her for it ; and at last
there came a day when I begged Father to instruct me
for baptism.
When I was received into the church I told my husband.
He was angry more angry than ever I saw him but I waited
and prayed, and after a few weeks he said :
" Go to your church, if you must, and the children and I
will go to ours "; and thus the time passed, till one Sunday I
said to him :
"Come with me to-day, Harry"; and he yielded, and before
a year ended I had the unspeakable happiness of seeing my
seven children and their father received into the one true church.
" So you always wear the Irishwoman's Rosary ? " I asked
after a few moments.
1 894.]
To W. S. LILLY, ESQ.
87
" Always, father ; and frequently at ball or levee some lady
of my acquaintance will come to examine my jewels.
"O Lady R , such strange stones! Do they come from
India?"
" No, not from India."
" And are they very valuable ? "
" Oh, very valuable ! They have been worth millions to
me." And when I have her curiosity fully aroused, I tell this
story as I have told it to you ; and so you see the Irishwoman's
Rosary still works good.
TO W. S. LILLY, ESQ.
NE sultry, sleepy summer day,
When even soothing zephyrs slept
And bees in shining droves held sway
O'er sweating maple-trees, while crept
From crackling clay the insect throng
In diverse form and rainbow hue
The gnarl'd roots of trees among,
To quaff the lurking drop of dew ;
Upon the burning yellow grass
I lay, when she of auburn tress
Thy volumes brought and said, "You'll pass
A pleasant hour, nor love the less
Lilly, who can all shams deride,
To- show that fools the age may guide."
WALTER LECKY.
88 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Oct.,
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY.
BY REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH.
CHAPTER VI.
Further Missionary Aspirations, " Crazy Richmond." Tyng's Lecture.
Ward's " Ideal of a Christian Church." Meditation. Private Retreats.
Parish Missions.
I
HE reader of this series of reminiscences will
already have seen that the missionary question
opened a large field of hope, doubt, and anxi-
ety to myself and to other Anglican students
within the seminary and outside. The attrac-
tion to such work was especially strong in minds progressing
towards Catholic faith. During my second year's course at the
seminary I made acquaintance with a very peculiar sort of per-
son, an Episcopalian minister of the diocese of Rhode Island,
whom I frequently met at a house near the seminary where I
boarded. It was the Rev. James C. Richmond. He was dis-
tinguished by the sobriquet of " Crazy Richmond " from his
brother, who was, if I remember right, an officiating clergyman
at Manhattanville. This James Richmond had a sort of roving
commission in Rhode Island, and loved to carry the title of
missionary. On learning that I was president of the missionary
society at the seminary and much interested in missionary en-
terprises of every kind, he urged me to join with him in doing
something with the neglected poor in New "York City. On
Sundays, when going to a Sunday-school attached to Nativity
Church, near the East River, I frequently passed through
Tompkins Square, where a large number of poor people loved
to gather on all Sundays and holidays of leisure to find fresh
air and amusement. Richmond had heard me speak of this.
To his quick intelligence and eager activity it suggested an
opportunity to labor among the poor. He would conduct the
services of the church and preach in the open square, while my
part would be to lead in the singing. I would very willingly
have engaged in an enterprise of this kind if I had felt more
confidence in Mr. Richmond's prudence, and had not feared that
our movements might come to clash with the authority of
Bishop Onderdonk. Upon this he offered to apply to the
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 89
bishop for permission, although he did not seem to think it
necessary.
This application and its result is incidentally recorded in a
pamphlet published in 1845, during a melee of pamphleteers who
rushed into print after the memorable trial of Bishop Onder-
donk. This pamphlet is entitled Richmond's Reply to " Richmond
in Ruins" In this publication Mr. Richmond had occasion to
refer to two visits made by him to Bishop Onderdonk, and
says:
" He [the bishop] has also mingled my call upon him July 4
with another call in August or September, which I made after
a conference with Clarence Walworth in reference to my duty
of preaching in the German language to the churchless and
almost Godless Germans that assemble around Tompkins
Square. On the last visit I said not a word that could be tor-
tured into an implication of a shade of a wish to ' return to
his diocese.' On the contrary, after saying that I was desirous
of preaching to the Germans, and felt that I was bound to do
so by my ordination vow, ' to seek for Christ's sheep that are
scattered in this naughty world,' and that it was not through
duty, as I previously told C. W., but for courtesy that I waited
on him, having already not only a privilege but an obligation
thus to officiate, with the consent of the nearest rector or rec-
tors ; he asked, on my reference to the Catholic Oak, what
was there accomplished. 'My friend, if you are doing so much
good in Rhode Island, why not remain there ? ' I replied : ' I
intend to do so ; but having one spare Sunday, I thought it
would be best to help you and begin here ; then the people
who wish to talk can spend as much of the winter as they
like in discussing the merits of the movement, and the ques-
tion of my sanity, pro and con, and by next summer they will
be tired of the talk, and when I come again it will be an old
story, and the ice will have been effectually broken, and the
way prepared for others.' He wittily replied, ' I am afraid, my
friend, it would freeze over again this winter.' I waited a mo-
ment, weighing and appreciating the bon mot y and then replied
nearly thus, in my stupid way : ' Bishop, the ice is of long
standing ; the neglect of the poor is old and crusty, and do
you not think by breaking it up once now, the new ice would
break more easily next summer ? '
My recollections accord very well with those of Mr. Rich-
mond above given, except in two or three particulars. The
Germans in the vicinity of Tompkins Square were not at this
90 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Oct.,
time destitute of church privileges. There was a Catholic
Church near by the square, on Third Street, with preaching in
German. Those who frequented the square were by no means
all Germans. To many English was their native tongue, and I
think that nearly all the crowd could speak it, and were em-
braced in our intentions. I think, also, it was not intended to
confine ourselves to one Sunday. This, of course, could do
but little good. The bishop refusing permission, of course our
project failed.
It is not really necessary to the purpose of these reminis-
cences to say anything more here of Mr. Richmond. Neverthe-
less, having been once introduced, it may not be too much of
a digression to add one passage more from this same pamphlet.
It develops still more the peculiar character of the man. It
shows somewhat his idea of himself and his consciousness of
the light in which he stood in the eyes of many others. It
shows also the light by which he surveyed his critics and esti-
mated the value of their opinions :
" My ' erratic peculiarities ' I gratefully admit, and thank my
stars that I am not so humdrum as most other people, who
walk with pious care in their forefathers' steps, just as some
farmers always plant their potatoes in the old way because it
was good enough for their grandfathers."
I have never since this occasion, so far as I remember, been
called upon to take part in any religious services conducted in
the open air, except at the laying of some corner-stone or
monument ; or when in some parish, at the beginning of a
mission, it was thought necessary to speak to a crowd in the
street and invite them to services in the church ; or when at
its close a memorial cross was erected in the open air; or
when soldiers on their way to war were gathered in camp to
hear Mass, make their Communion, and listen to preaching. I
have dwelt, perhaps, a little too much on this Tompkins
Square project, and on the figure of this peculiar man. I have,
however, an excuse for it. It will be necessary for him to
appear again in the course of these reminiscences in matters of
deep import to the Chelsea Seminary, to the New York diocese,
and to Anglicanism generally.
The agitation which pervaded the air at the time of my
seminary course, and which was at its highest height at that
time, was fed from many sources, and reached to every
Anglican circle. It was fed by every new tract which issued
from Oxford ; by the British Critic, which was the principal
1894.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY, gi
organ of the Tractarian movement ; by the Lives of the Early
English Saints, and by other volumes of books and published
sermons for and against the movement ; by every attempt to
engraft some Catholic practice into Anglican worship ; and by
every attempt on the part of authority, either civil or ecclesias-
tical, to stifle the movement. All these things reached the
seminary and became subjects of eager discussion. , It was a
contest between old sleep and new life. It could not be kept
out of any society instituted at the seminary. I recall to mind
an instance where our society for the encouragement of foreign
missions divided itself into high and low church partisans, the
question being whether a certain sermon or lecture delivered in
the Church of the Ascension, before the society, should be
published by it or not. The lecturer had been the Rev. Dr.
Tyng, a prominent clergyman of that day. A motion had been
made and carried at one of the regular meetings of the society,
that the reverend doctor should be asked to furnish the manu-
script of his lecture for publication. Some of the members who
had been absent were dissatisfied with this, and a new meeting
was called to reconsider the matter. A few words will suffice
to explain the cause of dissatisfaction, and of the contest which
ensued.
Dr. Tyng was a very prominent and talented low-churchman.
This alone would not have been enough to constitute a diffi-
culty in publishing his lecture. It happened, however, that
there was a vacancy at this time in the bishopric of Pennsyl-
vania, and Dr. Tyng was known to be a candidate for the
office. His lecture had been quite free from anything that
savored distinctly of evangelical low-churchmanship. Consider-
ing the peculiar atmosphere which prevailed at the seminary
this was not to be wondered at, but a thing which excited
much remark was that the reverend doctor had assumed a certain
high-church tone in some parts of his lecture. This was looked
upon by many as an insincere bid for support in his preten-
sions to the mitre, and the majority of ouf students, who were
either Tractarians or at least high-churchmen, were not willing
that the seminary should seem to lend any endorsement to the
man.
At the second and special meeting of the missionary society,
called as above stated, the attendance was unusually large. A
motion was offered, if I remember right by Dr. Everett, to
rescind the action of the regular meeting. An eager contest
ensued. The low-churchmen were in the minority, but, led by
92 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Oct.,
Harwood, they showed a great skill in endeavoring to protract
the debate, which was very animated, and to prevent any
decisive vote being taken before adjournment. The high-church-
men were equally determined, equally skilful, and equally
watchful. I have reason to remember this contest very well.
I was president of the society at the time, and it was my first
experience in ruling troublesome points of order in a sharp
contest. It seemed to me as if all the discordant elements that
are combined in Anglican-
ism had broken their com-
promise and had gathered
into that one room where
our meeting was held, while
it had become my duty to
bring the confusion back to
order. The Rev. Dr. Ever-
ett, however, now rector of
the Church of the Nativity
on Second Avenue, was the
spirit which really presided
at the meeting. He man-
aged the forces of the ma-
jority, pressed his motion
to a decisive vote, and so
the matter ended. The lec-
ture was not printed.
A few of the members
of this society not only felt
strongly interested in for-
eign missions, but actually
looked forward to a mis-
sionary life for themselves.
REV. WILLIAM EVERETT. This interest, however, had
not^been originated by any-
thing going on in the Anglican Church, nor did it find there
any serious encouragement. I do not know of any seminarians
of my time that ever entered into the missionary field. All the
life that existed in Episcopalianism was concentrated in a strug-
gle to keep itself alive. All really earnest hearts anxious to be
engaged in gathering abandoned or neglected souls into Christ's
fold were driven about wearily from hope to hope, not willing
to sink back into despair, and yet not knowing where to settle.
Surely, they argued, that great church to which we belong must
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 93
somewhere have a heart corresponding to the pulsations which
we feel.
It was such a time as this and such a juncture of circum-
stances that saw the appearance of Ward's Ideal of a Christian
Church.
The book itself did not appear until the close of my second
year at the seminary, namely, in June, 1844, but much of the
substance of the volume had been published during that year
in the British Critic, of which both Ward and Dr. Newman
had been editors.
The numbers of the
British Critic had always
been eagerly welcomed
by Tractarian students
at the seminary, until the
violent opposition excited
by it in England brought
it to a sudden stop.
We did not all of us
find time or means amidst
our studies to read these
numbers of the British
Critic, but McMaster,
Everett, and a few others
of the higher classes did.
I have already given in my
Reminiscences of Bishop
Wadhams a letter of Ar-
thur Carey's, written from
his lodgings in Charlton
Street, a few lines of
which I will repeat here.
Carey says to his friend
in the Adirondacks:
" McMaster is now sitting by my side ; he has just come
down from the seminary, and is now reading to me out of the
October number of the British Critic."
In my mind's eye I seem to see him now, with those large
young eyes beaming with intelligent interest at Ward's disclo-
sures in regard to Catholic meditation and Catholic mission work,
with a smile on his lips at McMaster's more emphatic ebullitions
of delight.
It is well known that Ward's Ideal not only led to its
REV. ARTHUR CAREY.
94 GLIMPSES OF LIFE iff AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Oct.,
author's public condemnation by the authorities at Oxford, but
was the culmination point at which Tractarianism broke down,
and after which a crowd of converts, both in England and
America, came fluttering into the ark. This makes it necessary
for me to revive the memory of this book and give some idea
of its contents.
The principal significance of Ward's Ideal, and that which
made it so intolerable to its adversaries, was that it was so
pointedly practical. It represented the Roman Catholic Church
as full of practical piety, and, on the other hand, represented
the English Church as lost in a lifeless formality. For brevity's
sake I shall confine myself to such parts of this remarkable work
as touch upon the care due from the Christian Church to her
candidates for orders ; how such a church must train them to
piety, virtue, and Christian perfection, and how she needs must
hold them to their daily duties as ministers of religious worship,
instruct and animate them in the work of saving souls, and par-
ticularly the souls of those who are the most destitute and aban-
doned.
With abundant quotations from recognized works, this as-
pect of the Roman Catholic Church is exhibited by Ward, and
the absence of similar provisions in the English Church is point-
ed out : Meditation, to make the truths of religion more vivid ;
constant examination of conscience, that sin may not be passed
over or forgotten ; occasional retreats, as a fresh start after
neglect ; the literature of ascetic theology and hagiology to
stimulate in the service of God by example and precept ; the
confessional for pardon and direction ; moral theology to save
priests from caprice, and give them the benefit in advising their
penitents of the experience of the Corporate Church, here, says
Ward, are the spiritual weapons of the Church of Rome; and
where, he asks, can we find their counterpart in England?
(William George Ward and the Oxford Movement, by Wilfred
Ward, pp. 279 and 289.)
Mr. Ward does not content himself with general declarations
in favor of such practical work among Roman Catholics. He
gives an account of the actual Rule of Life carried out in a French
Ecclesiastical Seminary, as furnished him by the rector. Such
a rule of life will be nothing new to Catholic readers. They
may find it interesting, however, as showing how plainly this
fearless Anglican divine shook the red scarf before the eyes of
John Bull. John, of course, received it as a bitter taunt, but
not a few of John's children were pained to the heart by it,
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 95
and grieved over it as those grieve who gaze upon graces for-
feited.
The French rector divides this rule of life adopted in his
seminary into eighteen points of practice. For brevity's sake I
will content myself with merely naming the most of these
points. These are : vocal prayer at half-past five in the morn-
ing, followed by meditation ; after this the holy sacrifice of the
Mass; visiting the altar where the Holy Eucharist is kept, and
praying before it for a quarter of an hour each day ; a spiritual
reading each day from some book of piety ; reciting the chap-
let that is, a third part of the rosary ; a religious discourse
spoken every evening by the superior to the whole community,
called the Spiritual Conference. The day is finished by evening
prayer said in common. The prayers then recited are the Lord's
Prayer, the Angelical Salutation,- the Apostles' Creed. Confession
of sinfulness is made by a prayer called the Confiteor ; then
acts of faith, hope, and charity, and of contrition, are made.
Prayers are then offered up for the dead. In conclusion, the
superior gives out the subject for next day's meditation. The
rule advises the students k to fix their thoughts upon it just be-
fore going to sleep, and as soon as they awake.
Twice in the course of the day, when assembled in the
chapel, during a pause in the prayers a private examination of
conscience is made by each one. The first is made at noon,
just before meal-time, and is called the particular examination
this means an examination as to the progress made in some vir-
tue specially proposed by each for his own acquisition, or in
conquering some vice proposed in the same way for correction.
A more general review of conscience for the day is made in the
evening.
Each student is required to read a chapter in the Holy Scrip-
tures twice in the day. It would be a departure from the ob-
ject intended by the rule to spend this time in reading to im-
prove one's self in learning, or to satisfy one's curiosity. The
motive here proposed is the quickening of the heart.
It is scarcely necessary to mention prayers at rising and get-
ting into bed, before and after meals, at the ringing of the An-
gelus, at the beginning and ending of classes, pious aspirations
at the sound of the clock, etc., which are common not only to
ecclesiastical seminaries but to all Catholic colleges and convent
schools.
Mr. Ward quotes his French informant as stating that the
superior of a seminary must keep his door open to the students
96 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Oct.,
at all times. He must " cease to be a man of study. He must
give up the notion of being a learned man, otherwise he will
not be able to do the good which the diocese expects of him."
I also pass over what the good rector says in regard to the
confessions and communions of the students and their selection
of a spiritual director. Our Tractarian students at Chelsea,
particularly those belonging to the missionary society, were
more specially interested at this crisis in what the good French
rector said to Mr. Ward about the practice of meditation and
spiritual retreats, as used at the seminary. These naturally
lead up to that great surprise which the Ideal of a Christian
Church brought to us, in its account of the " giving of missions."
The most important spiritual exercise noted by the French
rector in the list furnished by him to Mr. Ward, as inculcated
upon the students by rule, is mental prayer or meditation.
This, indeed, is found in all Catholic seminaries. The rector
speaks of it in the following terms :
" Mental prayer, or a meditation ; in which the student first
bows down in adoration before God, acknowledging himself un-
worthy of keeping himself fixed in his divine presence, and call-
ing upon the Holy Spirit to help him in his meditation. He
then enters on the consideration of the subject proposed for
meditation, all the while frequently entering into himself, by
acts of humiliation, by making good resolutions, and one special
good resolve for that very day."
These meditations, with some vocal prayers before and after,
are made in the chapel and last half an hour. At the semina-
ries of St. Sulpice they continue for an hour. This matter of
meditation requires some further explanation. Protestants are
not easily made to understand what Catholics mean by medita-
tion. And Catholics who have never been Protestants do not
know what Protestants mean when they use that word. Among
Catholics prayer is generally distinguished into two kinds, oral
and mental ; but oral prayer is not always uttered according to
a prescribed form of words. As a general rule Protestants,
whether in public or private prayer, do not follow any set form
of words, except when they repeat the Lord's Prayer. Angli-
cans, indeed, follow a ritual in public worship, and the Com-
mon Prayer Book contains a form of prayer for family worship.
The general rule, however, is to follow the lead of their own
thoughts when praying. Their prayers, indeed, are not medita-
tions. A good memory for thoughts and phrases, coupled with
a certain degree of pious excitement, is all that is necessary to
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 97
furnish a facility for vocal prayer. Nay, more than this, prayer
may be purely mental in the sense of being inarticulate, and
yet not constitute meditation considered as prayer. When a-
Protestant minister is said to pray extempore, it simply mean*
that he is preaching to his hearers over the divine shoulders,
Whatever claim it may have to be called mental prayer, it is>
by no means meditation. At best, it is only fervent oratory.
No doubt private and silent prayer among Protestants does of-
ten reach to true prayer of mind and heart. I am not aware,
however, that it ever takes that form of systematic study dur-
ing a set time which is called meditation in the " Exercises " of
St. Ignatius, and can be taught to students in a seminary or a
convent, or to novices in a religious order.
When, during my course at the seminary in Chelsea, I read
Mr. Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church, and what the French
rector wrote to him concerning mental prayer, I was unable to
understand how it could be systematized and taught. I under-
stood it better when, a little later, on my way to the Adiron-
dacks with Bishop Wadhams, then a deacon of the Episcopalian
sect, we had for fellow-traveller on the Champlain Canal a young
Catholic priest recently ordained in Ireland. We questioned him
very closely upon this subject, and, although not apparently a
man much given to seclusion or meditation, he was able to give
us a very satisfactory account of what he had been taught in
regard to the nature of meditation and the means of practising
it profitably. The substance of what he told us may be found
thoughtfully and beautifully presented in Addis and Arnold's
Catholic Dictionary, now a familiar book among Catholic Amer-
icans :
" Meditation in its narrower and technical sense may be de-
fined as the application of the three powers of the soul to
prayer the memory proposing a religious or moral truth, the
understanding considering this truth in its application to the in-
dividual who meditates, while the will forms practical resolutions
and desires grace to keep them." ..." The method given
by St. Ignatius in his exercise is that generally recommended
and used, at least till the person who meditates forms a method
of his own."
In truth it may be said that the more thoroughly the habit
of mental prayer is acquired the less necessity for the use of
method. The "points" selected for meditation become shorter;
a single verse of Scripture, a single stanza of a familiar hymn,
or indeed a single line or expressive word, furnishes to the soul
VOL. LX. 7
98 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Oct.,
all the matter needed to start with. A thousand cumulative
thoughts cluster around it, the fruit is soon ready to be
gathered, holy affections of the heart are sooner reached ; holy
purposes and resolutions grow up so spontaneously that all
thought of method is cast away. The hour or half-hour ceases
to be long, until meditation is abandoned for other duties with
regret.
I do not stop here to introduce the idea of contemplation,
where all process of reasoning ceases and is lost in a sort of
passive beholding, a high grade of prayer to which only a few
Christians reach.
The French seminary rector quoted in Ward's Ideal supposes
the nature and purpose of meditation to be well understood,
and gives us only the methods to be adopted in order to make
it successful and fruitful. A habit of spiritual reading is neces-
sary as the more remote preparation for it. This furnishes the
mind with material for thought. To bow down in silence, to
call to mind the presence of God, and to invoke the Holy
Ghost, are the immediate steps to be taken when beginning
this kind of prayer. St. Ignatius intensified its power and ex-
tended its influence over souls by introducing his system of
spiritual retreats, in which an entire month was given to soli-
tude and meditation. This time is now often shortened to a
week, or even three days. These meditations, moreover, were
systematized into an admirable series, so arranged that each
meditation should naturally lead up to another. The soul is
made to consider by turns and progressively the object of its
being, its destiny, its sins, the punishment due to sin, the
remedies provided through the mercy of God, the means of
sanctification through his grace, until at last in this sacred soli-
tude the soul is brought forward to the highest desires for
union with its Maker, to the strongest resolves to live for the
glory of God alone.
The Catholic Church is furnished with a large number of
priests who have trained themselves by long study and careful
experience to guide others through these spiritual exercises, as
St. Ignatius trained his first companions in the order which he
founded.
Finally St. Vincent de Paul began his work of popular mis-
sions in country parishes for the benefit of the poor, and es-
pecially those most destitute of instruction and spiritual succor.
This new form of domestic missionary work has now grown to
be almost universal in the Catholic Church, carrying everywhere
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 99
into the bosom of her fold in a rational way, and with a deep-
er and fuller power, a reformation of morals and a quickening
of spiritual life which the wild emotional efforts of Wesley
and Whitefield could not bring about. These missions, regarded
in the light of the means and methods employed and the
effects produced, may be considered as the natural outgrowth
of spiritual retreats. The large audiences gathered cannot be
brought to the same solitude and silence, but much of retire-
ment from the world is practically involved in their constant
attendance at the church. They cannot meditate as in more
private retreats, but an unusual amount of reflection is involved
in listening to so many daily sermons and instructions, and
taking so much part in prayer. Skilful missionaries consult to-
gether upon the order of subjects to be introduced. The con-
fessional shows how far the good seed sown has produced good
results and what is still most wanting, and both the order of
preaching and the special way of treating each sermon may be
varied accordingly. In fine, the method of " giving missions "
has grown to be a peculiar science and holy art unknown out-
side of the Catholic Church.
All the above is introduced in this place as belonging to
these reminiscences of a Protestant seminary at a most momen-
tous period. We seminarians at Chelsea were all of us more or
less interested in a great attempt to galvanize Anglicanism.
Ward's new book introduced us to Romanism, so called, as fur-
nishing the best practical ideal of a true Christian Church.
One prominent sign of its vitality lay in its wonder-working
custom and method of giving missions. His book gave a de-
scription of a mission furnished to him by a prominent Roman
Catholic, with most interesting details of its purpose, plan, and
effects. It was a new light. Mr. Ward's book is not accessible
to me at this moment, and perhaps it is not necessary at this
time to introduce any extracts from it. Suffice it to say that
for the most part the conduct of these missions is left to mis-
sionaries reared in convents. To this circumstance is due in
some degree the fact that many of us students, when looking
forward to our own career in the ministry, were led to associate
monasticism with our aspirations to a life of missionary labor.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
ioo FROM NORMANDY. [Oct.
FROM NORMANDY.
BY V. A. C. I.
SHOUT to the horses, a crack of the whip, and
we are off !
Dieppe, with its busy quays, hotels, and villas,
is soon left behind, and before us stretches the
unwavering line of the grand route along the cliff.
Although so near, the Channel is lost to sight, excepting
now and then when an occasional valley crosses our path and
grants a glimpse of waves dashing on the shore. For a moment
the road abandons its direction and zigzags down to the village
nestling under the protecting hillside, then mounts again by like
easy degrees upon the further slope.
Once more it seems to extend without end over the level
country, through miles of cultivated fields where the colza has
just been harvested.
Already new ground has been made ready for the next
year's crop, and men, women, and children are engaged in
transplanting young shoots, thrusting their wilted stalks into
the soil with but a single touch, and leaving them apparently
dead. Knowing that upon their survival depends the harvest
of the following year, we anxiously ask if they do not water
the plants. With surprise and a shadow of reproof in her
tone one of the women replies : " C'est le bon Dieu qui les
arrose
Far away upon the horizon lie irregular bands of blue,
which lose their atmospheric color as we draw near, and gradu-
ally assume the proportions of groups of tall, slender beech-
trees, sheltering beneath their lofty canopies old chateaux and
peasants' cottages.
Large flocks of sheep, guarded by faithful dogs, graze upon
the plain, while the old shepherds patiently knit their time
away, resigned to the monotony of their lot.
Again the grating of the brakes upon the wheels, the sway-
ing of the carriage from side to side as we turn sharp corners,
tell us that we have begun the descent into another valley.
This time we stop to change horses, entering the courtyard of
102 FROM NORMANDY. [Oct.,
the inn with a louder cracking of whip, and a noisier rattling
of wheels over the rough pavement.
Confusion reigns. Men and women, waiters and maids, run
hither and thither gesticulating and wrangling in shrill, loud
voices, and not until a wedding party, the cause and object of
their excitement, emerges from the house and merrily moves
away is quiet restored.
We see their gala dresses swing around the corner of the
narrow street, and later catch another glimpse as they dance
across the meadows and ploughed fields, where the bride's
white satin slippers may become quite soiled and worn, thus
insuring her great good luck in life.
The scenery becomes more varied. Picturesque ravines break
the monotony. We pass through hamlets where the cottages
are protected by high banks of earth, hiding all but their
thatched roofs. Beech-trees robbed of their lower branches
bear their crests proudly aloft, and hold fast between their
naked stems great heaps of rape. The empty pods are sere,
and rustle mysteriously in the breeze.
On the broad acres where the wheat has just been harvested
a crowd of women, boys, and girls is assembled. They dispose
themselves at regular intervals, and at the signal " Allez !
glanez ! " fall to work with a will, pouncing upon every spear
of grain like a hawk upon its prey. The sparrows must look
elsewhere for food, for scarcely a kernel is left upon the ground
when the gleaners have done their work. But the thank-offer-
ings placed by the peasants upon the many Calvaries along the
roadsides make partial amends to the birds, who do. not hesi-
tate to profit by them. The offering of these bunches of grain
is the last act of the service which takes place early in the
season. Then the cure, preceded by a long procession of
children, little girls decked with flowers, boys and priests, bears
before him, beneath the tarnished dais upheld by white-robed
acolytes, the Sacred Host, invoking the divine blessing upon
the lands of his little flock.
Now a wider valley spreads before us, and descending to
the level of the water, we follow the sea wall between the
massive portals formed by the chalky cliffs that rise on either
side. Midway between them is the " falaisette," and in the nar-
rower vale thus formed lie the chalets and the cottages of X .
The chalets are perched about the hillside in capricious
fashion, wherever a pretty view of sea or country offered, leav-
ing the retired and sheltered nooks for the peasants' homes.
1894-] FROM NORMANDY. 103
Their thatched roofs border the road that winds its way from
the shore back to the more inland villages.
The hamlets are small, a few poor, dingy little cottages,
generally overgrown with a charming confusion of ferns, moss,
and vines, while here and there a climbing rose has braved the
thickness of the mildewed straw, and dared to peep into a
dormer window. Gaily-colored flowers grow about the door-
ways, but fail to carry their sunshine inside, and the damp
earthen floors and scanty furniture afford but meagre comfort.
The peasants seem to have few ideas beyond those of gain-
ing their daily portion of coarse bread, but from an artist's
stand-point they are admirable as we see them gathering sea-
weed on the shore, launching a fishing-boat, casting a seine, or
working in the fields.
Quite above the village, on the cliff, stands a tiny group of
cottages clustered about a chateau. Another village two or
three kilometres away boasts its chateau too, a grand one, with
a Renaissance portico, and more than that a ghost ! Every
village has its chateau ; X alone in that respect is incom-
plete. It has no chateau, no titled patron, and no ghost.
But yet, though wanting these, it has an object of pride and
reverence, the centre of converging paths worn smooth and
hard by feet of admirers and of worshippers the church.
The centuries of consecration to God's service seem to have
left their impress upon the building itself, until it reflects some-
thing of the divine character.
Standing in the village below, it towers above us like a sol-
emn warning, and we bow before the unwavering Judge of
mankind. From the height of the cliff we look down where it
rests confidingly in the heart of the hillside, and we know it is
the type of the loving Friend and Brother of humanity ; while the
sweet peace borne away in the souls of those who have wor-
shipped within its walls bears witness to the truth of the Spirit.
Old Time has laid a loving hand upon the crumbling
masonry, and the mildewed stone and plaster make music for
the eye, their color blending with harmonies of form in clus-
tered pillar and in Norman arch. The heart is softened and
breathes forth a warmer, deeper prayer. Here come the faith-
ful, at mid-day or at even, and, kneeling a moment in the sweet
peace of God's presence, lay aside their burdens and refresh
their souls. Near by, stands the " presbytere," which in the
peasants' eyes must seem a grand house, for its roof is of
slate. Not a vine conceals its uncompromising squareness, and
104 FROM NORMANDY. [Oct.,
not a bit of lichen or of moss relieves the monotony of its
newness. Here the cur6 leads his peaceful life, attended by a
doting sister, whose happiness consists in serving him. What-
ever aspirations his parish work cannot meet are satisfied by
the flowers he loves to paint, for at heart he is an artist.
The cur is always glad to show his work, the old bell-ringer
tells us ; and he adds, in an undertone, even more glad to part
with it for a consideration.
We enter the garden by the tiny gate in the high stone
wall, thereby disturbing a flock of sedate hens and turkeys en-
joying a siesta upon an old well-curb. Their angry cackling
gradually subsides as we pass on between the peach and pear
trees to the house.
That the cur6 loves the flowers we know without asking, for
a profusion of roses frames the doorway, shedding their per-
fume throughout the little parlor. The sister patters across the
painted brick floor in her noisy wooden sabots and disappears,
bidding us ere she leaves be seated upon the straight-backed,
comfortless chairs. Spotless cleanliness prevails. The pervading
quiet is oppressive. At last the silence is broken by the en-
trance of the cur, whose broad smile beams a welcome upon us.
With simple pride and undisguised pleasure he brings forth
his pictures and displays them one by one. Here some com-
mon field flowers, there a cluster of regal roses, and again a
study of humbler vegetable life.
They are admirably painted, and we wonder why he has been
content to remain thus unknown to the world in this far-away
corner.
We are about to ask the reason, but something in his
reserved manner forbids. Then we recall the church, the
beauty of its interior, and remember that to him is due all
praise for saving it from the desecrating whitewash that has
ruined many neighboring churches.
Doubtless his ambition is satisfied by this deed accomplished.
There is yet one picture to show. Hesitatingly, timidly, he
uncovers it to our gaze as something almost too dear for
vulgar eyes. With tenderest care he turns it that the light
may fall to its best advantage. We see but a careless bunch of
luxuriant asters. A moment passes. The expected word of
admiration is spoken. Then the cure adds in a voice full of
emotion, as if speaking of a dearly beloved child: "This was
exhibited at the Salon, my ' Queen Margarets.' " His eyes
seem to caress the canvas as they fondly trace the outline of
1894-] FROM NORMANDY. 105
the petals through light and shade across the whole surface ;
" this one I cannot sell."
We venture no questions, and, thanking him for his courtesy,
take our leave.
The old bell-ringer is impatiently awaiting us. He is more
than ready to satisfy our curiosity. Yes, he has known the
cur since boyhood, and a useless boy they thought him too,
dreaming his time away instead of studying ; but to study he
was forced, for his father had destined him for the church.
Into the church he accordingly went, but that step could
not banish the dreams, quench the thirst for fame, nor keep his
fingers from the brushes.
Ere his college days were over the hours of recreation were
spent in painting, and in secret he tried to work out by
patience and experience the lessons he could not gain through
a master's help.
The budding hopes of greatness began to swell in his heart
the heart that should have been fixed on theological problems.
The little flaw grew apace, becoming more ominous when the
"Queen Margarets" hung upon the Salon walls.
His zeal for the church began to wane, while the fire of am-
bition burned fiercer. Often he was reproved for his lack of
fervor, but penance failed to remedy the evil.
A year passed. The season for exhibitions had again opened
in Paris. Diligently, in solitude and in secrecy, had he worked
during that twelvemonth ; but he had worked fruitlessly, hoped
madly : the jury of admission found the painting unworthy a
place upon those famous walls.
Deep down behind the grand stairway in the Palace of
Industry, among heaps of rubbish and other rejected pictures,
it was waiting, dishonored and unnoticed, until such time as its
owner should take it away.
The tide was stemmed. Once again his life was consecrated
to the interests of Holy Church.
With renewed and redoubled zeal, and truly penitent, he
strove to atone for his fault. Among the poor and needy
he became the ready helper and friend, entering into his work
with an earnestness undreamed of before.
When quite free from all duties and obligations of his little
parish, only then wouid he retire to the quiet of his atelier for
an hour among his dearly beloved brushes. Never again did he
vie with the world's criticism nor seek for worldly honor, but
to those who wished them he gladly sold his paintings, that
io6
FROM NORMANDY.
[Oct.
their earnings might go to lessen the sufferings of the poor.
One cherished canvas alone he could not part with the
" Queen Margarets."
Only by continuous plying of questions do we glean the
whole story from the old man. For his part, he says, he sees
no great beauty in the curb's pictures ; neither does he think he
has done well in removing all the gay tinsel hangings, plaster
ornaments, and many-colored paper flowers that enlivened the
church ; but " chacun a son gout " it matters little to him,
and he can pull the old bell-rope as well, day in and day out, as
he has done, and, please God, will do for many a year to come.
With an abrupt adieu he leaves us at the gate, for the sun
is setting and he must hasten to the church.
As our faltering footsteps turn away amid the deepening
shadows the voice of the Angelus resounds through the still
twilight, descending upon us like a benediction. Our hearts
respond : " Let those who will have their chateaux and their
glory, but to this village leave its cure and its church."
ALONE.
BY CHARLOTTE GRACE O'BRIEN.
" Ami encore aveugle et brisant ma prison." V. Hugo.
Y God! how shall I speak to Thee
Of that which is, and is to be ?
Of that which is gone by?
Of hopes that lived and grew and fell ?
Of love and its unnamed spell ?
Of life that lives to die?
Thou seest my life what it is now
Cut off from men, a leafless bough
No child, no love, no strength.
What hope is there on which to rest?
What love to turn to and be blest ?
Only the grave at length.
Only! O God! that "only" may
Mean life and love and glorious day.
God ! what a tale is there !
Hid in that foul, forbidding cloud
What ecstasy of life may shroud
Its outlines brave and fair.
I barely hope, I stand at gaze,
Bewildered by the unshaped maze
Of life and death and thought.
I know that life is sad : is death
But the cessation of our breath ?
Is it all things or naught ?
Is it God's light? or is it rest?
Proves it our Christ, or the mad jest
Of brute life-bearing man ?
Man who might be brute and die
When weary of brutality,
But now nor dares nor can.
Silence ! My heart holds hope still safe,
Tossed though my life may be a waif,
Flotsam and jetsam on a shore
All bare and wild and bruised with storm,
Worn out it lies a worthless form,
Haply a prison door.
io8 DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. [Oct.,
THE DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH OF
VIRGINIA.
By WILLIAM F. CARNE.
HE actual, real church cannot be disestablished.
It was founded upon Peter, with the declaration
of its Divine Architect, " On this Rock I will
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it." But simulated churches which
men establish they can also disestablish. " I made you," said
the virago Elizabeth to an Anglican bishop of her establish-
ment, "and by G I will unmake you."
The church of Virginia was a man-made church. No
martyr's blood had made the soil fruitful for the Master. No
old men like Father Jogues had lifted there to heaven
hands mutilated for Christ. No young man like Rene Goupil
had pressed into the wilderness to die for the cross.
Civil power established the Virginia church. In the March
session of the General Assembly of 1624 its foundations were
laid. It was enacted
" That there shall be in every plantation where the people
use to meete for the worship of God a house or room seques-
tered for that purpose, and not to be for any temporal use
whatsoever, and a place empayled in, and sequestered- only for
the buryal of the dead.
" That there be a uniformity in our church, as neere as may
be to the canons of England, both in substance and circum-
stance, and that all persons yeild readie obedience unto them
under paine of censure."
Under the same enactment absence from church on any
Sunday was to be punished by a forfeiture of a pound of
tobacco; it was ordered that no man dispose, of any of his
tobacco before the tithes of the minister be satisfied, and that
one man in every plantation collect the tithes out of the first
and best tobacco and corn ; that whoever should disparage a
minister without proof should " not only pay 500 Ib. waight
of tobacco, but also aske the minister so wronged forgiveness
publically in the congregation." The ecclesiastical jurisdiction
of the Assembly was also exercised in the making of a canon
1894-] DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 109
"that the 22d of March be yearly solemized as a holliday";
and the suspension of all other holydays of obligation " betwixt
the annuntiation of the blessed Virgin and St. Michael the
Archangell."
The Assembly had before this, at its first session in 1719,
directed that all ministers in the colony should preach and
catechise every Sunday, and that all persons should attend
church, and that such as bore arms should bring their pieces,
swords, powder, and shot, but no church-making was then at-
tempted. The Virginia church was established by the legisla-
tion of the General Assembly of 1724. From that time until
1776 parishes were established by act of Assembly, lands were
provided as glebes for the residence of the ministers, churches
were built by public assessments in tobacco notes, and vestries
elected who supervised the parson, as well as poor.
All this had been done by laymen, under clerical influence
certainly, but in it the clergy, as such, took no direct part.
Clergymen when they came over brought with them generally
faculties or licenses from the Bishop of London, and were ap-
pointed to parishes by lay officials. The Bishop of London had
designed at first Rev. Mr. Temple, and afterwards -Rev. James
Blair, to be a sort of vicar-apostolic, who took the unepiscopal
name of commissary.
There were thirty-seven Anglican clergymen in Virginia,
when in the spring of 1719 Mr. Commissary Blair attempted
an organization by calling them in convention at Williamsburg
on the 8th day of April of that year. The convention was at-
tended by twenty-five clerics, and proved, indeed, a Comedy of
Convocation ; for the first question which Commissary Blajr, in
the name of the Bishop of London, proposed to the Assembly
was, whether any of the members present knew of any minister
that officiated in the colony without episcopal ordination ?
Whereat twelve of the clergymen present said that in their
opinion it was doubtful whether Commissary Blair, himself, had
episcopal ordination or not. Eleven thought his ordination
was valid, and one, Mr. Sclater, suspended his judgment. It
appears that Mr. Blair had been ordained in Scotland. Rever-
end Hugh Jones objected that Mr. Blair's certificate, although
signed " Jo. Edinburgen," a Scottish bishop, certified " that
Mr. Blair had been ordained presbyter, and that it should have
been priest " (sic].
The convention, however, proceeded to reply to all the
bishop's inquiries and to draft a letter to him. All were agreed
i io DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. [Oct.,
upon one paragraph, viz. : " The people in general are averse to
the induction of the clergy the want of which exposes us to
the great oppression of the vestries, who act often arbitrarily,
lessening and denying us our lawful salaries."
Says Campbell, writing in his History of Virginia of this
time, " It was an age when the state of religion was low in
England, and of those ministers sent over to Virginia not a
few were incompetent, some openly profligate ; and religion
slumbered in the languor of moral lectures, the maxims of
Socrates and Seneca, and the stereotyped routine of accus-
tomed forms. Altercations between minister and people were
not unfrequent ; the parson was a favorite butt for aristocratic
ridicule. Sometimes a pastor more exemplary than the rest
was removed from mercenary motives or on account of a faith-
ful discharge of his duties. More frequently the unfit were re-
tained by popular indifference. The clergy, in effect, did not
enjoy that permanent independency of the people which proper-
ly belongs to a hierarchy. The vestry, a self-perpetuated body
of twelve gentlemen, thought themselves ' the parson's master,'
and the clergy, in vain, deplored the precarious tenure of their
livings. The commissary's powers were few, limited, and dis-
puted ; he was but the shadow of a bishop ; he could neither
confirm nor ordain ; he could not even depose a minister. Yet
the people, jealous of prelatical tyranny, watched his feeble
movements with a vigilant and suspicious eye."
So the church of Virginia continued. It was composed of
the General Assembly and the vestries, who employed clergy-
men that had licenses from the Bishop of London. Its visible
head was the governor, and its invisible head a king or a
queen beyond the sea.*
In this condition of affairs the Presbyterians, Anabaptists,
and other Dissenters who exercised their religion under the
toleration-laws, began " New Light " revivals that, continued
from time to time, carried off, not only all the most emotional
but many of the most pious, to the non-conforming churches.
The vestries in many parishes were parsimonious in providing
* The mandament of one of the prefects of the English curia to the chief of the Virginia
church would hardly be considered orthodox now, even by the broadest churchman. Ben-
jamin Franklin tells that when Mr. Commissary Blair was arguing at. the English court in
favor of an appropriation for the founding of William and Mary College, " he represented
that it was intended to educate young men to be ministers of the gospel, and he begged Mr.
Attorney-General Seymour to consider that the people of Virginia had souls to be saved as
well as the people of England. ' Souls ! ' exclaimed the imperious Seymour ; d your
souls ! Make tobacco.' "
1894-] DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH OF VIRGINIA, in
for the church services, and the ministers careless and some-
times rude. A combination of these evils afflicted a parish in
Prince William County, whose church was near Haymarket, not
far from Bull Run. It is related that at that church there was
but one book of common prayer in the chancel. The custom
was for the minister to read the versicle, then hand the book
over the pulpit-top to the clerk below, who would read the re-
sponse and hand the book back to the parson ; and so continue
this exchange until the service closed, parson and clerk doing
the work of battledores with the book, as a shuttlecock, between
them. It happened during the " New Light stir " that a large
number of the people became Anabaptists. On Sunday, when
the minister as usual began service, read his part, and stretch-
ing his hand down from the pulpit suspended the book below,
no one took it. " Whar's the dark?" said he. " Jined the
Baptists," cried a voice in the scant congregation. " The h
he has," responded the minister drawing up the book. " Then
I'll be parson and clark like a double-potato " ; and he com-
pleted the service according to law.*
Amid scenes of which this incident is a striking, though for-
tunately an unusual illustration, the church of Virginia pro-
ceeded on towards its fall. The Dissenters supported their own
ministers, and besides paid tithes to the clergy of the Establish-
ment ; but, as the tithe was largely in tobacco, they made a
quiet boycott by making as little tobacco as possible ; so that
Beverly says : " 'Tis observed those counties where the Pres-
byterian meetings are produce very mean tobacco, and for that
reason can't get an orthodox minister to stay among them."
The church of Virginia lived by tobacco ; and the failure of
the crop of 1756 came very near to putting an end to the
church. Each parson was entitled to a tithe of sixteen thous-
and pounds of the best tobacco, which was ordinarily rated at
2d. per pound. In 1756-8 the scarcity of tobacco raised its
price to 6d. and even to &/. per pound. The Assembly in 1758
made a " readjustment," and declared that tobacco taxes might
be commuted in moneys at the rate of 2d. the pound. The
* The New England Congregationalist must think twice before he smiles at the old Vir-
ginia clergy. Lyman Beecher's biography tells that "just after his settlement at Litchfield,
Conn., there was an ordination in a neighboring town. The Consociation found at the
house of the new pastor a sideboard set out with decanters with all the liquors then in vogue,
with water, sugar, and pipes. The reverend gentlemen took a drink all round as soon as they
came in," and continued drinking until the ordination, and after it was concluded. The
sideboard, with its spillings of water and sugar and liquor, looked and smelled like the bar
of a very active groggery. Then they smoked and were hilarious. The Consociation, if not
drunk, was clearly fuddled. The society or church paid for the treat.
ii2 DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. [Oct.,
clergy held a riotous convention, and appealed to the king.
Sherlock, Bishop of London, wrote denouncing the act of 1758
as "manifestly tending to draw the people of the plantations
from their allegiance to the king." The king disallowed the
act. In the year the act had been passed thousands of colonists
had not raised one pound of tobacco; ruin stared the country
in the face, and "the legislature was obliged to issue money
from the public funds to keep the people from starving." Amid
this destitution some of the clergy sued for their tobacco, or
its value at %d. per pound. At Hanover Court-House Rev. Mr.
Maury was about to get judgment for his tithes, when Patrick
Henry, then scarcely more than a beardless boy, made his first
speech against the parsons, carried the jury with him, and the
jury overruled the king. William Wirt has told the story with
classic elegance. That Hanover jury began the disestablishment
of the Virginia church. The parson's case was decided in 1763.
Very soon church matters were dwarfed by the exigencies of
the questions which grew out of the relations of the colony to
Great Britain. The stamp act, the tax on tea, and the like, took
all the attention of the community. The church of Virginia
had never had a firm hold on the people, and its grasp weak-
ened year by year, until at last the Assembly, which had in 1624
established the church by the enactment " that there be unifor-
mity in our church, as neere as may, to the canons of England,"
disestablished in 1776 by the enactment "that all laws which
render criminal the maintaining any opinions in matters of re-
ligion, forbearing to repair to church, or the exercising of any
mode of worship, or which prescribe punishments for the same,
shall henceforth be of no force or validity in this commonwealth,"
and that all Dissenters should be free of all levies for support-
ing the church.
Singularly enough the Assembly did not, for some years,
seem to recognize what it had done. It evidently had in view
the continuance of tithes to be paid by others than Dissenters
towards maintaining some sort of church, " as it now is or may
be established." The ministers and vestries in possession were
allowed to keep their churches, glebes, books, plate, and orna-
ments, and to tithe those who did not choose to declare them-
selves Nonconformists; but in 1779 all laws granting salaries to
ministers or authorizing the vestries to levy tithes were repealed.
This cleared away every vestige of the state-church, but left the
ministry and vestries in possession of the glebes, etc., which had
belonged to the church of Virginia. These gentlemen were
1894-] DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 113
still in possession of this public property when in 1784 they,
clergy and vestrymen, on their own petition, were made cor-
porations, each under the title of "the ministry and vestry of
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the parish of ." At the
same time all acts as to fasts, festivals, catechisms, etc., were
repealed. It had been expected that the Baptists, Presbyterians,
Quakers, etc., would also become incorporated in the same way,
and take the power from the state to tithe their own members.
A bill had been carried to its second reading in the Assembly
of 1784 which provided for "the establishing of a provision
for teachers of the Christian religion." A tax was to be laid
on all persons subject to tax, and the money raised was to be
appropriated by the vestries, elders, or directors of each reli-
gious society, for a provision for a minister or teacher of the
Gospel of their denomination ; or the erection of church build-
ings. Quakers and Mennonites were also provided for.
While this plan was under consideration Washington wrote
to George Mason as follows : " Although no man's sentiments
are more opposed to restraint upon religious principles than
mine are, yet I must confess that I am not among the number
of those who are so much alarmed at the thought of making
people pay for the support of that which they profess if of the
denomination of Christians, or declare themselves Jews, Ma-
hometans, or otherwise, and thereby obtain proper relief. As
it is, I wish the bill had never been introduced, and could die
an easy death."
And it did die an easy death, still-born. The Presbyterians
and Baptists had no thought of allowing the Episcopalians to
succeed the state church and retain the precedence, property,
and position that the old law had created for the Established
Church. They bided their time and attacked the right of the
new Protestant Episcopal Chvch to own the glebe lands, which
had been bought by taxes levied on the whole community.
Meanwhile those Catholic principles of public law, which
Calvert had exemplified in Maryland, came to possess the pub-
lic mind, and Thomas Jefferson gave them, in the "Act for Es-
tablishing Religious Freedom," their first authoritative utterance
in Virginia. They were not new. They are as old as free will.
Fenelon had laid them down years before as guides for the
reign of Bonnie Prince Charlie when "the king should come to
his own " in England. The similarity of the utterances of the
Archbishop of Cambray and of the Governor of Virginia is so
remarkable that I give them in parallel columns :
VOL. LX. 8
1 14 DISESTABLISHMENT OF TEE CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. [Oct.,
FENELON, 1745- JEFFERSON, 1785.
No human power can reach " Whereas Almighty God hath
the impenetrable recess of the created the mind free; that all
free will of the heart. Violence attempts to influence it by tern-
can never persuade; it serves poral punishments or burdens,
only to make hypocrites, or by civil incapacitations, tend
Grant civil liberty to all, not only to beget habits of hypoc-
in approving everything as in- risy, and are a departure from
different, but in tolerating with the plan of the Holy Author
patience whatever God toler- of our religion, who, being Lord
ates, and endeavoring to con- of both body and mind, yet
vert men with mild persuasion ; " chose not to propagate it by
therefore, etc. coercions on either, as was in
his almighty power to do ; "
therefore, etc.
The established church of Virginia was dead. Administra-
tion on its effects alone remained. The new Protestant Episco-
pal Church corporation claimed to be its heir. Born of a free
father and a slave mother, it seemed willing to accept the max-
im of the slave code, "The child takes the mother's condition,"
and most of the effects of its mother became its inheritance.
The Baptists did not want her baptismal fonts, the Quakers had
no use for her surplices, nor the Presbyterians for her books
of common prayer; so these were left with the Episcopal cor-
poration without controversy. The Dissenters were attached to
their own meeting houses, consecrated by persecution. Besides,
the churches of the Establishment were, in most cases, in a ruin-
ous condition, and often not worth the cost of repair. So Dis-
sent made no claim to the churches, but the Dissenters were
not .villing that the Episcopal corporation should take the glebes.
They demanded that land bought with public money should be
held for the use of the public. For twenty years this claim
was denied by the civil government. Catholics took no part in
these contests. A few families at Alexandria, Norfolk, and else-
where were all who held, in the rising commonwealth, to Peter's
faith. The contest over the glebes continued at every session
of the General Assembly during the last twenty years of the
eighteenth century.
;< The crisis," writes Rev. Dr. Hawks, endorsed by Bishop
Meade, "came at last, and on the 1 2th of January, 1802, the leg-
islature passed the law by virtue of which the glebes of Vir-
1 894.]
THE BIRTH OF FRIENDSHIP.
ginia were ordered to be sold for the benefit of the public.
The warfare begun by the Baptists seven-and-twenty years be-
fore was now finished. The church was in ruins and the tri-
umph of her enemies was complete."
Yes, the king's church was in ruins. Had, indeed, the gates
of hell prevailed against the church ? Not so. The choirs of the
little Catholic congregations which had sprung up at Alexandria
and at Norfolk were already chanting at Vespers : " Dominus a
dextris tuis confregit in die irae suae reges. Judicabit in nationi-
bus, implebit ruinas."
THE BIRTH OF FRIENDSHIP.
BY JAMES BUCKHAM.
S when the soft-reminding touch of morn
Lights on the lids of rosy boyhood, sealed
By sweet and dreamless slumber all night long ;
He stirs at last, and lifts his happy arms
To clasp the sun, and sky, and air, and all
Restored delights in passionate embrace :
As when a mountain-climber, all aglow
With hot midsummer thirst, seeks out a spring,
And plunging lips and forehead in the cold,
Unstinted crystal, drinks, till hands relax
That grip the mossy rock, and all his veins
Are soft and cool with the unfevered blood :
As when before some biting icy blast
A poor wayfarer, tost on trackless mere,
Benumbed, despairing, sees a sudden light
Flash o'er the waste, and hears the low of kine,
And warms for joy of cozy ingle nigh ;
Such, unto me, the rapture long reserved
Of heart's communion with a noble friend !
n6 CATHOLIC CHARITIES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. [Oct.,
CATHOLIC CHARITIES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE.
HATEVER the motives which have really ani-
mated the gentlemen who lately led the assault
upon the system of Catholic charities in New
York, all who are interested in those noble insti-
tutions have much 'reason for thankfulness for
their action. The spirit of Persecution often proves to be a
blessing in disguise. In this particular case it has been con-
jured up only to slink back into its dark abode abashed and
humiliated before the shining wand of the spirit of Truth.
The plague of our free government is the ever upspringing
crop of doctrinaires who think they can make a good system
still better. The theorists who would hand us over bodily and
mentally to the care of the state are not less an evil than the
individualists who want the whole field of human action, un-
trammelled by any governmental check whatever, for their en-
ergies of acquisition. To what class belong the sticklers for
rigid principle who have been moving in this matter of chari-
ties, it is not necessary to inquire. Their motives may be un-
selfish ; the rigid spirit of Brutus, ready to sacrifice even their
own flesh and blood on the altar of strict constitutional justice,
may have animated them. But the fact that the lictor's axe
must fall heaviest on the homes which Catholic charity has pro-
vided for the outcast and the unfortunate, remains to testify
trumpet-tongued against them. Seemingly their intention was
that of the anarchist anxious only to destroy, caring nothing
what was to take the place of that which had been cast down.
The practical strain in the American character runs through
it like a coal-bed in a mass of rock. It was inevitable that the
pick of the explorer should strike this vein when he had got
deep enough. The American Constitution is nothing if not prac
tical, for it is the reflex of the American mind. And when the \
representatives of the leading State were asked to give a bias
to the Constitution by cutting off the support heretofore given
to those homes wherein the ministering angels of Catholic charity
tend, it was the practical view which at once presented itself
to the minds of those charged with the responsibility of recom-
mending changes. They gave no decision until they had satis-
fied themselves of the soundness of their advice. They went
1894-] CATHOLIC CHARITIES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. 117
and saw for themselves ; they looked closely into the working
of the obnoxious charities ; they studied the tables of receipts
and expenditure, and compared them with those of institutions
maintained by the State alone. Many of them went, like the
prophet Balaam, briefed, as it were, to curse, but compelled by
the power of conscience and truth to bless instead. In all the
history of enterprises whose currents were turned awry by the
logic of events, there is nothing to compare with the outcome
of this investigation. The turning of the tables is, in fact, dra-
matic in its completeness.
The crisis was grave. Men eminent in standing had been
got to sanction the movement against the charities by a strain-
ing of arguments. A supersensitive regard for the principle of
impartiality and non-favoritism had been led into the mistake of
looking at dereliction of duty and the cruelty of abandonment
as the only solution of a painful difficulty. A religious test was
sought to be enforced as a condition of State aid, where the
Constitution is distinct in the disavowal of religious discrimina-
tion. It was sought to make the Charities Commission of New
York an inquisitorial tribunal with formidable punitive powers.
And this startling innovation was to be effected under the pre-
text of respect for the sacredness of the principle of neutrality.
Blindfold Justice was asked to fling her sword into her own
scales, like the Gaul of old, while successful Bigotry croaked out
" Vae victis ! "
All that eloquence and earnestness could do to make the
worse appear the better reason was done. No one can deny
that the case for injustice was well presented. If specious ar-
gument and spurious constitutionalism could have won the
cause, the fires of the Catholic charities might soon burn low.
The Rev. Mr. King earned his fee by his zeal and address in
sophistry. If white could be argued into black, he and the
other gentlemen who appeared for black would have turned
alabaster into ebony. But the eloquence was not all on that
side. The case made for the charities by Messrs. Coudert and
Bliss was impregnable in its logic. As a citizen of the Repub-
lic not brought up in, but won over by, the Catholic faith, Mr.
Bliss took his stand upon the constitutional right of those who
by misfortune were rendered dependent on charitable aid to be
protected from the application of any religious test as a condi-
tion precedent to the gaining of relief.
There was very little of Solomon's experimental method
about the judgment of the committee. Nothing was taken on
ii8 CATHOLIC CHARITIES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. [Oct.,
hearsay; circumstantial evidence was by no means necessary.
Its members had eyes to see, and ears to hear, and tongues to
question withal; and they determined to use them. A delega-
tion started out to investigate the whole system of Catholic
charities, in their actual every-day operation. Some of them
started out prejudiced against the charities, but all started out
with the honest determination to give fair play and acknowledge
the truth, whatever it was. The exhaustive nature of the in-
quiry and the painstaking and conscientious manner in which
it was conducted showed that, in electing Mr. Edward Lauter-
bach as the chairman of the delegation, the committee made
sure of the best service at its command. The report which ap-
pears over his signature is a businesslike document. Its findings
are of a remarkable character. After recapitulating briefly the
heads of indictment, the report goes on to point out that
" No demand of the character referred to, for a change in
the methods which have prevailed in regard to the poor and
needy, seems to have come from any of the great host of men
and women in this State whose devotion to charitable work and
whose familiarity with all the details have been the greatest."
Having recited the holding of the inquiry the report goes on
to say :
"As a result of these investigations, the committee is of the
opinion that the public has received adequate return for all
moneys paid to private charitable institutions ; that the expen-
ditures made have been, in most instances, far less than if the
institutions had been conducted by the public ; that the religious
training which is insured for the young by the methods now
pursued is of incalculable benefit ; that the care of those in private
institutions is better, in most instances, than that received in those un-
der control of public local officers, and is, at least, as good and fully
on a par with the institutions, fewer in number, directly under the
control of the State itself ;* that the public moneys expended
under the prevailing methods are supplemented by the expen-
diture of enormous sums from private sources; that to a large
extent the buildings and accessories of these organizations have
been supplied at private cost, and that the method, upon the
whole, is certainly the most economical that can be devised,
and will be still more economical when some comparatively
trifling abuses, such as the too long retention of inmates or
laxity in their admission, shall have been remedied.
*This passage is not italicized in the original. ED.
1894-] CATHOLIC CHARITIES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. 119
" If the amendments proposed by the earnest people who sub-
mitted them were carried out to their legitimate conclusion, and
if the partial support from public sources to orphan asylums,
foundling asylums, and kindred institutions which are neces-
sarily under denominational control, were withdrawn, it is to be
feared the State itself, or its civil divisions, would be called up-
on, at infinitely greater cost, to endeavor to perform a service
which it could never adequately render, and which would tend
to deprive the orphan, the foundling, the sick, and other unfor-
tunate dependents upon charity of the advantages afforded
through the aid of thousands of volunteers, many of whom now
devote their lives, without compensation, to co-operation with
the State in this, its noblest work, inspired thereto by praise-
worthy religious impulses, and which bring to these institutions,
not the perfunctory service which would be rendered by paid
public officials, many of them qualified only by political service,
but a sincere devotion of officers, directors, managers, and
subordinates engaged in their work as a labor of love and
not for emolument."
Total disseverance between the State and all sectarian institu-
tions sound well, but have those who raised the cry looked into
the possibility of maintaining the change in every contingency?
What have they suggested as a substitute for the obnoxious in-
stitutions in case of widespread calamity and public danger ?
Nothing. On this point the report goes on :
" Probably the noblest, sectarian charities in the world are
hospitals in the city of New York. They are supported entirely
by private sectarian contributions and endowments, but they
extend their benefits without regard to race, creed, color, or
religion. In former years they occasionally required and re-
ceived local assistance, which, however, at present they do not
require or receive, but the occasion might arise, at any moment,
calling for the use of these hospitals by the city for public pur-
poses, and the establishment of contractual relations between
the city and some one or more of these institutions. If the
prohibitory amendments were adopted such arrangements would
become impossible, and the city would be deprived of what
might be an indispensable facility in its charitable work.
" The proponents of the amendments against which your
committee reports in substance, point to the constitutions of
other States as establishing precedents in their favor. But the
situation of the Empire State, and especially the Empire City,
120 CATHOLIC CHARITIES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. [Oct.,
is unique. They are called upon to render charitable work not
only for those born within the boundaries of the State, but for
hundreds of thousands coming to us from every nation, from
every clime, and from every other State. Should the ability to
continue the methods heretofore employed be terminated, it
would be impossible for us to cope with these burdens.
"These conclusions have been arrived at by your committee
not hurriedly, but only after the most patient examination of
the whole subject, both generally and in its details ; an examina-
tion which, while it served in the case of some few of the mem-
bers of the committee to strengthen existing impressions, in the
case of the majority of the committee cause the adoption of
these opinions despite contrary views which had been entertained
before investigation." (Official Document No. j-p.)
Besides the public institutions of the State and city, a num-
ber of orphan asylums are supported by local funds, and to
these, as well as to private families of different denominations,
the local authorities send a large number of helpless children,
to be maintained and educated in their own faith out of the
local funds. Were the proposed amendment on sectarian chari-
ties adopted, it would be unlawful for the local authorities to
continue this salutary practice. The orphans sent to these in-
stitutions thereafter would then be somewhat in the position
of prisoners held in places of confinement, in which, while they
would be fed and clothed, they would be deprived of all chance
of religious training ; in other words, compulsorily brought up
as pagans. Would this be in accord with the spirit of Ameri-
can liberty and the American Constitution ?
Liberal-minded people of all shades of belief will be gratified
by the finding of the Committee on Charities ; had the Commit-
tee on Education only taken similar pains to inform themselves
on the subject of their inquiry they could hardly, supposing them
all to be equally conscientious and fair-minded as the Committee
on Charities, have arrived at the recommendation which stands
in their name. They propose to cut off from State aid all
schools connected with denominational institutions ; thus placing
the Constitutional Convention in a self-stultificatory position.
If the recommendations of the convention be scheduled and
codified before presentation to the public, this anomaly must
stand out strikingly. No constitutional body can afford to make
itself ridiculous by trying to pull in opposite directions like the
teams in a tug of war. They must pull all together, or not pull
at all.
1894-] THE GOB HAN SAER. 12 [
THE GOBHAN SAER.
BY REV. GEORGE MCDERMOT.
[IN Irish legendary lore this personage has the place, to some extent, that
Mercury holds in the oldest Hellenic myths. But the Gobhan is a Prometheus
as well as a Mercury. Even to this day structures of extreme antiquity are
ascribed by the Irish peasants to the Gobhan Saer. In these verses I make him
one of the Tuatha de Danaans, the most illustrious and civilized of the Irish
races, and who, the old chroniclers tell us, possessed almost unlimited magical
powers. By means of their incantations they sent a storm on the Milesian fleet
as it approached the Isle of Destiny, but some more potent spirit guarded the
fortunes of those whose descendants were to bear a part so wonderful and touch-
ing in the history of European civilization. The Danaans next wrapped the
island in Egyptian darkness, and it took " our great forefathers," as Moore calls
them in the most exquisite of the melodies, three days to find the shore. In the
battle that followed the Danaans moved all the elements to fight for them, but
nothing, of course, could resist the valor and fortune of their enemies. In their
despair the kings and magi changed themselves into fairies, in which shape they
have had the satisfaction of employing a capricious, but not always an unami-
able, hostility to their conquerors for the last four thousand years. I suppose it
was only the common people that were slaughtered or enslaved.]
INDUCTION.
I saw the greatest Danaan king, and last,
'Mid rocks that travail'd nature bore in pain :
He stood a phantom from the ages past,
With eye and hand uplifted o'er the main
That far below its angry surges ca">t,
And claimed as his that desolation's reign.
It must have been a dream, that solitude
And phantom standing 'mid the rocks so rude.
But clear as light I saw the witness-scars
Which knowledge writes on faces of the wise ;
And clear against the moon the mountain-bars,
And clear the lustre of his musing eyes ;
As though he knew all things beneath the stars
And changes endless of the circling skies.
I knew him then; and now I'll tell his tale,
An echo from old time a sigh, a wail.
LEGEND OF THE LAST DANAAN.
In Erin once there lived a wizard old
Into whose heart, 'twas said, the gods had sent
I22 THE GOB HAN SAER.
Profoundest wisdom ; so he could behold
All thoughts, all times, as through a curtain rent.
His beard like a white torrent downward roll'd ;
His form, as one bends o'er a lyre, was bent
By age, and shaken, as by wind or flame,
With purposes like waves that on him came.
Each glen and hill is of his life a page ;
Unknown his race, though in the city long
He'd lived a seer from a forgotten age
Amid the wrecks strewn by the seasons strong
In their triumphant course an archimage,
Who wonders wrought undreamt in poet's song.
He rais'd the city-walls and towers on high ;
He laid the bridge where the swift waters fly.
He led the blanching torrent from the height
A captive serving at the city's heart ;
He fix'd the rod that draws the lightning's flight,
Else winged with ruin, from the cloud apart ;
The pillar tow'r he built, to watch at night*
The firmament above him like a chart ;
And read the destinies of kingly men,
In tranced stars that circled o'er him then.
He was from forth the mighty Danaan kings,
Those magians deep whose spells had pow'r on all
On land and sea, and on the inmost things
Which the great mother hides within her pall :
And hence they sent the wind upon its wings
To sink th' invaders and their galleys tall.
But all in vain. Next raising up a cloud,
They covered all the land as with a shroud.
In vain ; for the invaders gain'd the shore.
Next on them fell fierce arrow-flights of rain ;
The thunder mingled with the ocean's roar,
And lightning, earth-created, flash'd amain.
But the Milesians, fortunate still, bore
All down, and piled up pyramids of slain.
Yet on the Danaan Kings they had no pow'r,
For these to fairies changed in that sad hour:
* One of the theories about the round towers is that they were sun-dials (gnomons) and
astronomical observatories. It is quite needless to say that this theory has been completely
refuted by Dr. Petrie.
1894-] THE GOB HAN SAER. 123
Save him who stands in the eclipse of time
Half light, half shadow called the Gobhan Saer.
And forty centuries have struck their chime
Since his strong spirit cast its spell in Eire,
And made her rise, amid the lands, sublime,
With glory's radiant crown upon her hair;
For, led by love's transforming alchemy,
He taught his foes the arts that keep men free.
By knowledge all a nation's power is bought,
While ignorance precedes it to its doom ;
Thus why he show'd the arts his fathers brought
From Tyre* the dyes, the cunning of the loom;
And how the secret of the arch he'd caught \
From the bow radiant o'er the morning's gloom ;
How on a frame of wood he stretched the strings
That ravish when the summer sea-wind sings.
And kindness is a greater king than fate,
And stronger love than the all-conquering bier ;
Still on good deeds the deathless ages wait,
So thus lives still the memory of the seer
In whom was love a greater power than hate.
And when night drives the chariot of the year
His deeds by peasant firesides still are told,
As once in halls in Erin's age of gold.
And sometimes when the earth is in a swoon,
When stars wink in the spaces of the sky,
And hangs like a white lamp the midnight moon,
Making men dream that something weird is nigh :
From haunted rath a wild, melodious tune
Comes sobbing, throbbing, like a banshee's cry.
Then all may know the Gobhan Saer's at hand,
Lamenting o'er the well-beloved land.
*The Danaans were supposed by some to be Phoenicians, but they were men of "fair
hair and large size " according to others. They were, perhaps, Celts of another period.
t Strangely enough, the arch seems to have been used in Ireland before it was known
anywhere else in north-western Europe. The arched stone fort is of very great antiquity
certainly long before the Danish invasions, which only began in the eighth century. Those
who ignorantly attributed such works to the Danes, did so from confounding the Danaans
with those barbarians. No antiquarian now makes such a mistake. The Danes were, how-
ever, in the opinion of Laeing, greatly superior to their Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic conquer-
ors in knowledge of the arts of life in the Viking times. But Laeing seems to go too far on
account of his contempt for the swinish propensities of the English and Germans. But Eng-
land undoubtedly owes an inestimable debt to her Norman-French conquerors. In connec-
tion with this it is right to add that the Normans in Ireland always called themselves Norman-
Irish, never Anglo-Irish, and that in England, before the reign of Edward I., the Normans
never called themselves Anglo-Normans, but Frenchmen or Normans simply.
As a writer of short tales Miss Lelia Hardin Bugg
has hitherto been known to the public ; she now
challenges its verdict in a different role. The more
ambitious attempt is in reality the easier of the
two ; for every one who has trod the weary road
of literature knows that the real art of the novelist is shown in
the quality of the work which is concentrated because circum-
scribed. The writer who can produce one of those literary
cameos which catch the interest and sway the imagination
despite of itself performs a feat, and the ability to do so ought
to be equal to the task of writing a more leisurely and beaten-
out story of equal brilliancy. Miss Bugg has an excellent outfit
for the literary road. She possesses the two useful qualities of
wit and sympathy ; power of observation and ability to convey
her analysis* clearly she also reckons as part of her kit. Yet
many will prefer to read her, we venture to say, in her briefer
efforts than in the novel Orchids* which she has just published.
For purposes of general classification, novels may be roughly
divided into two kinds those which aim at presenting an
artistic picture of life, and those which give us its tragedy or its
comedy just as it .occurs, without any harmonious " equities,"
to use a legal metaphor. There are many gradations and
subdivisions in these two orders, of course ; but every novel
dealing with mundane life comes under either heading. Orchids
belongs to the former class, and its shortcomings are in the
"equities" of the story, its excellences in the detailed treatment.
The central figure in the tale is a woman. The conception
is well worked out ; in the flesh and in the spirit the model of
womanhood is faithfully copied, with those weaknesses of
worldliness and those elevations of heroism of which some are
capable. A character to whom such loftiness as she is made to
show was possible should not be unequally matched. It is cer-
tainly as true as anything we know that this is one of the para-
* Orchids. By Lelia Hardin Bugg. St. Louis : B. Herder.
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 125
doxes of life. Women of such a type are frequently met with,
bestowing the priceless treasures of an unselfish love and sacri-
ficing everything in life upon and for very worthless objects.
But the dramatist will not select such ridiculous and inexplica-
ble opposites for dramatic purposes. The personality to engage
a woman's soul to the point of renunciation of everything for
his sake must have some transcendent qualities of mind if not
of person a man of noble parts or magnificent ambitions.
There is no adequate reason visible in this novel why Margaret
Clayton, the American heiress, should have fallen in love with
the English nobleman, Lord Parkhurst. There is, on the con-
trary, the strongest reason why she should, if she were a high-
minded woman, scorn him, since his original motives in seeking
her affections were mercenary and his real love for her only
incidental. The lord's pecuniary embarrassments prevent him
from marrying, save for the purpose of preserving the fam-
ily acres, and when Margaret Clayton gives up her fortune
to save her dead father's memory from disgrace, he takes
leave of Margaret, instead of having the manliness to re-
nounce the acres which were now in reality the Jews', and
saying " Love against the world ; I shall go and work for our
living." That Margaret should seek consolation in a convent is
not too preposterous a consummation, considering that she
figures as a Catholic ; but it is not the climax of the modern
American love-story of real life. But Margaret Clayton is not of
the fin de siecle type of American girl by any means.
The chord of the romance is the tragic lesson of the inevit-
ableness of the Nemesis of evil deeds. It is the fraud by which
Margaret Clayton's father became rich which bears the train
of consequences that involves her heart's ruin, besides inflicting
direful miseries upon others. This is sure ground, and much
can be made of it by any writer of ordinary skill. The author
of Orchids has not transcended the limits of every-day experi-
ence in her application of the time-worn principle. The only
thing novel is the voluntary sacrifice by the heroine of all her
money in satisfaction of a very nice scruple of conscience. It
is only when she has done this, and in consequence been dis-
carded by her lover, that she becomes religious. Up to this
point she shines as a society butterfly merely. In the case of
a young lady who had not been trained in a Catholic convent,
this might not be startling ; but as Margaret Clayton is pic-
tured ( as having had that advantage, her worldliness is incon-
sistent and unnatural.
I2 6 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
It is ill-judged of Miss Bugg, in fine, to anticipate the
criticism of her work which her publishers specially invite and
at which she becomes sarcastic. It is the duty of the press to
criticise books proffered to the public, and it is good for an
author to know what the critics think. The public who read
are, after all, the tribunal of public resort, and they will judge
between the critic and the author. Thi* fact, any reflecting
author ought to know, is a wholesome deterrent upon malevo-
lent criticism. And, furthermore, were it not for the criticism
which a work receives, favorable or otherwise, it would have
very little chance of ever reaching the tribunal of public appeal,
to any remunerative extent.
In a recent magazine article Mr. J. A. Froude announces the
discovery that it is only great people who make any impression
on history, and the mass of men and women who lead common-
place lives pass away and nobody minds. Perhaps a more use-
ful function for such writers as he would be to correct this ten-
dency of an unjust eclecticism, by searching out the work of
the commonplace people and leaving the Alexanders and the
Hannibals rest content with the glory they already enjoy. The
world is beginning to read history upon a new scheme. It has
discovered that commonplace people have had quite as much
to do with the making of history as the heroes whom Mr.
Froude and Mr. Carlyle worshipped, only somehow nobody
ever thought it worth while to chronicle their doings. The cur-
rents of the ocean are never seen ; it is only the vast billows
which splash against heaven that excite our awe and admiration.
From time to time Mr. Froude has written a good deal
about Ireland, yet it never struck him to write about the com-
monplace priests and obscure friars who furtively lived there
during the long winter of the penal days. And yet he might
with advantage to his own chances of post-mortem fame have
done so, for these commonplace persons influenced the fortunes
of the country and the course of British affairs there not a
whit less forcibly than the sword of Cromwell or the policy of
Pitt. There are other hands, fortunately, quite as capable of
performing the work, willing and eager to rescue from oblivion
the memory of the heroic men who fed the flame of religion
and patriotism in those abysmal days. The Rev. Edmund
Hogan, S.J., has begun the work,* and, since it is too vast a
* Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century. By the Rev. Edmund Hogan, S.J.,
Fellow of the Royal University of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy, Todd Professor of the
Celtic Languages.
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 127
one by far for any one pen, it may be hoped that others may
be found in time to imitate so worthy an example.
It is chiefly with members of the Jesuit Order who minis-
tered in Ireland during the Elizabethan period that this first of
a series of books deals. In time, no doubt, the learned author
will take up the story of other priests, and distinguished lay-
men, too, perhaps, who co-operated with them in the mainte-
nance of the old religion in Ireland. He has had the advan-
tage of studying the personal correspondence of the subjects of
his memoirs, and the value of these documents as authentic his-
torical material will be readily recognized. In truth the letters
quoted throw a wonderfully vivid light on the political and so-
cial condition of Ireland in Elizabeth's time, such as cannot
easily be found in any other sources. It is a singular circum-
stance that whilst the Catholic clergy were being hunted to death
by the government, they were in many places actively engaged in
the good work of restoring public order and converting many men
driven to outlawry by the measures of the government into the
ways of honesty and moral living. The picture of active persecu-
tion of the Catholic population at the same time gives a vivid
idea of the ordeal through which the country passed, and the
indomitable spirit in which the priests and their flocks faced
the bitter situation. It is a stirring record, and one without
any parallel since the days of the Roman Empire.
There are sixteen sketches embraced in this volume, fifteen of
the subjects of which were members of the Society of Jesus
namely : Fathers David Woulfe, Edmund O'Donnell, Robert Roch-
fort, Charles Lea, Edmund Tanner, Richard Fleming, John How-
ling, Thomas White, Nicholas Comerford, Walter Talbot, Flor-
ence O'More, Thomas Filde, Richard de la Field, Henry Fitzsi-
mon, James Archer, William Bathe, and Christopher Holly-
wood ; also Brother Dominick Collins of the same order. The
latter was one of those who were in the Castle of Dunboy
when it was seized by Carew; he fell into the hands of the
English, and was hanged, drawn, and quartered.
There is no work we are aware of which gives so startling
a picture of the horrors of the Elizabethan period in Ireland
as the letters contained in these biographical sketches. The
perils of privation, of imprisonment, and torture which the Irish
priests faced, too often to succumb to, recall the Church of
the Catacombs.
The perfidy of the foe who lay in wait for them was not
the least conspicuous of his savage characteristics. It was quite
I2 g TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
habitual to invite the Irish chieftains to friendly conferences
and banquets, on the pretext of amity, and whilst they were
feasting to cause them and their retainers to be massacred. At
one time it was announced that any priests disposed to leave
the country would be provided with ships to sail away to what-
ever place they wished to go. Forty Cistercians and two Do-
minicans thought to avail of this favor to get over to France,
and they were taken on board a man-of-war. When out at sea
they were all thrown overboard. The captain and crew were
imprisoned for a while for the crime, but were shortly after-
wards rewarded ; and for a similar act of atrocity committed
in 1644 an English captain received the thanks of Parliament.
It is not alone upon the troubled affairs of Ireland that these
absorbing records throw light. Some of the priests mentioned
were engaged in military chaplain duty with armies of the
Catholic powers, and they give descriptions and details of many
events, in the course of their correspondence, which have no
small historic value. A thrilling sketch of the battle of Prague,
for instance, is found in the letters of Father Henry Fitzsi-
mon, and it is accompanied by a graphic sketch of the distin-
guished soldier the Duke of Bucquoi, who commanded the
Catholic forces in the campaign in Bohemia in 1620.
The learned author and compiler of these memoirs has laid
the justice-loving portion of the world under a deep obligation
in rescuing the memory of those sublimely heroic men from
the haze of ignorance regarding them which the studied neglect
of prejudiced historians had flung over the theme. It is not alone
the style in which the work is done, but its thoroughness, so
far as materials were accessible anywhere, that renders it an in-
valuable addition to a Catholic library.
A very serviceable book for photographers is that of Pro-
fessor Wilson.* The publisher is a recognized authority on
everything connected with the art, and the diagrams and expla-
nations with which his dictionary abounds leave no. point in all
its range, down to the very latest discovery, untouched.
A great enterprise carried to a successful completion finds a
fitting record in the Final Report on the Catholic Educational Ex-
hibit at the World's Columbian Exposition. f Now that the
great Exposition is a thing of the past and a memory merely,
it is consoling to know that we have at hand for practical pur-
* Wilson's Cyclopedic Photography. New York : Edward L. Wilson, 853 Broadway.
Frnal Report on the Catholic Educational Exhibit, World's Columbian Exposition, Chi-
cago, 1893. Chicago : Rokker-O'Donnell Printing Company.
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 129
poses the substantial record of the work done by our great edu-
cational establishments and the triumphs won by their apt pu-
pils. The report which finally closes this important chapter in
education is a comprehensive document. It deals with details
no less than principles, and carefully classifies and categorizes
the work done by every diocese. It gives a minute and con-
secutive history of the movement, from its inception to its
close ; and the impression which a study of it leaves on the
mind of the reader is that of wonder at the conscientious man-
ner in which all the details are carried out.
The report is addressed by Rev. Brother Maurelian, F.S.C.,
the secretary and manager of the exhibit, to the Right Rev. J.
L. Spalding, D.D., Bishop of Peoria, in his capacity as Presi-
dent of the Board of Directors, and it opens with an introduc-
tion by the bishop, acknowledging the document and containing
at the same time a remarkable tribute to its value and impor-
tance. We know that Brother Maurelian modestly disclaims the
credit to which he is entitled for his herculean labor in con-
nection with the exhibit. The Bishop of Peoria, who has borne
the chief burden of the direction of the work, knows how much
of its success was really owing to 'the painstaking zeal of the
secretary and manager, and he bears frank testimony to what
he and many others have recognized. The Holy Father, under
whose cheering auspices the exhibition was begun, has had pho-
tographs of the whole presented to him and a statement of the
work, and has been pleased to express his high approval of it
all. Bishop Spalding dwells on the excellent effect which the
bringing together of the work of so many schools must have
upon the teachers, in the comparison of methods and the en-
couragement to exertion which the sense of fellowship and as-
sociation must have upon many teachers working in remote and
secluded places. The moral effect which the magnitude and
beauty of the great display has had upon the public mind, ac-
customed to look upon the Catholic education as something
superficial, shallow, and unpractical, must have been great.
Some notion of it may be gleaned from the many opinions of
the press and special reports of various institutions quoted in
the Final Report.
A balance-sheet is appended to the report. This shows that
close on forty thousand dollars were subscribed for the purposes
of the exhibit, and of this only two hundred and ninety two
dollars remained unexpended at the close. Only about one-third
of the United States' dioceses sent exhibits, but liberal subscrip-
VOL. LX. 9
I30 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
tions were forwarded from the bishops of the unrepresented dio-
ceses in furtherance of the work.
Large photographic views of the exhibit, in every part, have
been prepared ; and these, we are glad to learn, are to be pub-
lished in instalments, together with descriptive letter-press. We
have no doubt they will be widely welcomed and carefully treas-
ured by all the schools which have borne a part in this great
Catholic enterprise.
Absolute atheism and infidelity is not the really formidable
obstacle to the spread of God's light and truth. The greatest
stumbling-block is the inert mass of semi-doubt and semi-belief.
Those who accept so much of divine revelation as suits, and
reject what they do not agree with, form the majority of the
stubborn enemies of God. Under whatever name or form it is
disguised, this rationalism is the deadly weed, omnipresent and
ubiquitous, whose trailing roots threaten death to the fair har-
vest of faith. The rationalism which admits much of the truth
of the Gospel and yet denies the divinity of the fons et origo
of the Gospel, Jesus of Nazareth, is the most crass and perverse
of all. This divinity which they impugn is the corner-stone of
the church, yet these fatuous reasoners believe the church can
stand when they pull that corner-stone out and leave a vacuum
in its stead. What incredible self-deception !
Of the nature of the divinity itself, it is little wonder that
the human mind should find itself powerless when it endeavors
to grasp the meaning ; faith and reason are alike impotent in
the face of that unfathomable mystery. But of the claim to
divinity of the Redeemer of the world how any one can doubt
who believes in the rest of the New Testament, it is amazing
to contemplate.
It is to encourage rather than to strengthen the belief of
his proteges that Pere Didon has written his lectures on the
Divinity of our Redeemer.* His own ardent faith in it is of a
kind not to be easily described. It is a passion with him, so
to speak, which glows through every sentence of the book he
dedicates to the pupils of the schools of Albert le Grand, La
Place, and Lacordaire. We would commend this work, for its
style no less than its contagious enthusiasm, to the alumni of our
own colleges. It is marked throughout by that emotionalism
in feeling conjoined to precision in statement which is charac-
* Belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. By the Rev. Father Didon, of the Order of St.
Dominic. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. ; New York, Cincinnati, and
Chicago : Benziger Brothers.
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 131
teristic of the French school, but the tone is chaste and sub-
dued, as becomes the solemnity of the subject, all through. In
fine, whether as examples of earnest expression of an irresisti-
ble belief, or a classic grace of style, these lectures deserve a
place amongst the literary treasures of the day.
The Congregation of the Oratory occupies so unique a posi-
tion in the process of Catholic recuperation, that its story de-
serves a place apart from the general ecclesiastical chronicle.
Our own times have been the witness of the singular intellec-
tual conflict which resulted in its triumph in England, at a mo-
ment when the Catholic light in that country flickered appar-
ently in its last feeble struggle for life. Reflection on its rise
and progress brings home most forcibly to our mind, not alone
the fact that a Divine power watches over the course of Christ's
barque in time of storm and stress, but that in the selection of
instruments and opportunities there is a special adaptation of
men and means to the intellectual thought of each particular
period of crisis. There is nothing in the natural course of mun-
dane affairs to call forth such saviours of the faith, as there is
so frequently in the great political crises which produce patriots
and heroes. The times get out of joint, and when they are at
their lowest moral level it has always been found that men,
animated by the spirit of God, appeared and changed the whole
drift of the danger by sheer force of personal character. St.
Philip Neri was one of the most prominent examples of this
supernatural law.
It is with great gratification we welcome the appearance of
a second edition of Cardinal Capecelatro's Life of St. Philip
Neri* The cardinal's work is held in high estimation, inas-
much as it is one which follows the modern style of biography ;
that is, the style "of painstaking research on all obscure points,
rather than the older way of dwelling upon particular phases or
periods. This was the fault of two previously existing biogra
phies of St. Philip namely, those of Gallonio and Bacci. Their
value cannot be minimized, so far as they go, as what they
wrote is the record of what they saw and knew as contempo-
raries and intimates of the extraordinary subject of their me-
moirs. But in this work we have the consecutive narrative of
St. Philip's life, from the beginning down to the wonderful end.
The period embraced in this mortal span covered most of
the sixteenth century, and was made memorable by the growth
* The Life of St. Philip Neri, Apostle of Rome. By Alfonso Cardinal Capecelatro. Lon-
don : Burns & Gates ; New York : Benziger Brothers.
TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
132
of the singular movement known as the Pagan Renaissance
This extraordinary craze had its culminating point, or rather at-
SnedTs maximum of force, during St. Philip's Ufc It differed
from the Neo-Platonic movement of the early centuries of Chi
adty in the fact that it was an absolute recoil from Chris-
anity instead of an honest attempt of philosophic paganism to
reconcile itself with the new tenets, as Neo-Platomsm in genera
eems to have been. The formidable character of this assault
upon Christianity may be inferred from the fact ^at it pene-
trated even to the Vatican, and caused the writings of the Gree
philosophers to be regarded as of higher value than even the
sacred Scriptures! The author cites proof of this amazing fact
in the correspondence of Cardinal Bembo, secretary to Pope
Leo X Writing to his friend, Cardinal Sadolet, this dignitary is
found advising him to give up the study of St. Paul's Epistles,
lest "their barbarous style" might injuriously affect his own,
and study the Greeks instead of the Scriptures. When deca-
dence had penetrated so near to the heart of Christianity, it was
little wonder that the extremities should suffer from atrophy.
It was hardly to be wondered at that Protestantism found such
a time favorable for its propagation.
But if the danger was great the resources of the threatened
citadel were greater still. Intellect met intellect, and in the
struggle that intellect which placed its hope in divine grace
triumphed over that which stood only on the ground of ancient
philosophy. What a galaxy of great and glorious names glitter
on the records of the church in those days ! Teresa, Catherine
of Genoa, Cajetan, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri,
Charles Borromeo these are only a few of the more illustrious
ones. Whilst the giant mind of Ignatius Loyola bent itself to
the task of assailing the foe outside the gate, it was the still
more onerous mission of St. Philip to reorganize the forces with-
in. Both operations proceeded simultaneously, and St. Philip's
was destined, under God, to be crowned with complete success.
This second edition of Cardinal Capecelatro's work does not
appear a day too soon, the first having been published a good
many years ago. The translation into English has been made
by the Rev. Thomas Alder Pope, M.A., of the Oratory, Bromp-
ton. An excellent tinted copper-plate engraving of St. Philip's
bust, from an old painting, is given as frontispiece.
A symptom of the reappearance of the Napoleonic fever is
the republication of a number of Alcxandre Dumas' works re-
lating to the Consulate and the First Empire. The series em-
I
1894.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 133
braces The Companions of Jehu and The Whites and the Blues*
each of which may be regarded as veritable romance of his-
tory, or rather history pure and simple with a glamor of thin
romance wound about it. These works are useful. They help
to light up a period about which many conflicting views have
been put forward, and give us some idea of what the great
actors on the stage of the Revolution were really like in the
flesh, and not as they appear in the concave mirrors of Car-
lyle's prodigious descriptions. At the same time these books
must be taken quantum valeant. They are essentially Dumas-
esque in their style theatrical, galvanic, lay-figurish, and dime-
novelish. It is to be noted that this edition is embellished
with many choice plates and is turned out in handsome blue
and gilt covers.
We have got past the days when the story of Poor Cock
Robin was thought the sort of literature to amuse the juvenile
mind. It is better, after all, to rouse the sympathy of young
minds by recitals of the vicissitudes and heroism of real fellow-
creatures than chimerical beings. Mrs. Clark's book telling of
the fortunes of The Children of Charles I.\ is one eminently
suited for young readers. The sorrows of " Charles the Mar-
tyr " and his unhappy but heroic queen and their children are
more real than the " sorrows of Werther," and even the chil-
dren of republican fathers and mothers may derive more
advantage to their feelings by the recital of them than they
would from anything appealing to a false sentiment for things
purely imaginary whose unreality is known to both story-teller
and listener. This book is nicely brought out and is embel-
lished by photographs of Vandyke's portraits of the chief char-
acters and other pictures.
The association of the most exquisite flowers with devotion
to the Blessed Virgin is a natural thought. Flowers are the
most wonderful examples of God's power and perfection in the
work of material creation, and a figure therefore, in some sense,
of the ineffable loveliness and spiritual beauty of his chosen
Maid. It is not wonderful that we seek to show our ardent
admiration for this flower of fallen humanity by laying the
fairest flowers of our gardens on her altars, or that poets and
preachers should find in them the happiest illustrations of their
* The Napoleon Romances : The Companions of fehu. The Whites and Blues. With
The She-Wolves of Machecoul and The Corsican Brothers. By Alexandra Dumas. Boston :
Little, Brown & Co.
t The Children of Charles I. By Mrs. C. S. H. Clark. Baltimore : John Murphy
& Co.
TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
conceptions of her sublime attributes. One of the most charming
pieces of Marian anthology that we have seen is the series c
addresses by Father Louis Gemminger, delivered at Ingolstadt
in May, 1858. This work has gone through four editions in
German, and it is now rendered into English by a sister of
Benedictine Order, under the title Flowers of Mary*
vout reader will find in this rare collection a very large number
of flowers which have been connected with the veneration of
the Virgin, either emblematically or by tradition. These ad-
dresses of Father Gemminger are not only models of devotion
to God and our Lady, but their literary style is also charming.
They afford a rare spiritual treat, and the independent character
of the chapters enables the work to be taken up in a spare
moment and laid aside for future use, without any loss of con-
tinuity, and leaving a delightful feeling of mental refreshment
as the immediate effect. Gratitude to the good sister who has
provided us with this excellent stimulus to devotion is the feel-
ing that must actuate every reader.
Two little books for young children may be specially com-
mended ##/// Hours of Childhood and By the Seaside.^ They
are devoted to short stories suited to very little people, and
whilst the style of these is simple, the incidents they relate and
the lessons they convey are at once human enough to hold the
juvenile intellect and striking enough to be impressive. They
are from the pen of a lady who seems to know how to write
for children.
One of the most useful contributions to the literature of the
movement for union in the churches is a little pamphlet just
issued by the Catholic Truth Society, Worcester Conference,
under the title Infallibility. The Rev. Thomas F. Butler, the
author, puts his case in such a way as to make it clear to the
meanest intelligence. Only such minds as do not desire to be
convinced of error can refuse assent to the argument he makes
for the principle of inerrancy as an indispensable element in
the Christian Church. The tone and temper of the plea must
commend it powerfully. It breathes throughout of charity and
fraternal persuasion, such as becomes men engaged in serious
argument on the most vital business of their lives. An exten-
sive circulation of this admirable brochure cannot but be pro-
ductive of great benefit to doubting souls. The pamphlet is
published at the Messenger office, Worcester, Mass.
* Flowers of Mary. By Rev. Louis Gemminger. Baltimore : John Murphy & Co.
t Happy Hours of Childhood. By the Seaside. By a member of the Order of Mercy.
i Vrvrb- P rVCV,.>
New York : P. O'Shea.
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 135
One of the " Catholic National Series " of the Messrs. Ben-
ziger is especially commendable. It is called The New Fifth
Reader. The selections embrace some of the best compositions
of recent years, in poetry and prose. Some fine engravings
are interspersed. An excellent little volume of Bible Stories for
Little Children is also issued by the same enterprising firm. An
illustrated volume of Bible History, by the Bishop of Cleveland,
Right Rev. Dr. Gilmour, deserves a special word of c'ommen-
dation.
Pranks, a farcical comedy, by Mr. and Mrs. Me Hardy
Flint, is a little bit of fun intended for the amusement of
convent-school pupils. It is lively and full of harmless pleas-
antry. An Elocutionist selected by the same authors, for school
recitations, displays excellent taste in choice of subjects. The
publishers are George Philips & Son, Fleet Street, London.
The most difficult thing for any one short of a mystic is to
picture the future existence, and this is the task which the
author of The Wedding Garment * sets before him in this strange
rhapsody. Of one thing there appeared to be no doubt in his
mind : that persons entering the next world carried with them
there much the same sort of ideas, the same appetites, passions,
likes and dislikes that agitate them on this mundane orb.
Many grotesque things are put into the book, and some rather
disgusting ; some of these seeming to be allegorical, others
satirical, of things in the author's cognizance. In his idea the
place where these supramundane things occur is a sort of
intermediate world between the spiritual and the physical.
Whether the work be entirely satirical or merely aimless fancy,
we cannot say ; but amid the preponderating silliness there are
occasionally some pretty bits of sentiment and fancy.
I. SCIENCE AND SCRIPTURES.f
The topics treated of in this volume are of very great im-
portance, and of very great and wide interest at this present
time. Treatises on these topics written in a plain, popular
style, and within a reasonably small compass, so that they are
suitable for general use, are of very great utility, and are few
in number. Those who write on such topics need to have
special and rather uncommon qualifications. In the first place,
* The Wedding Garment. A tale of the life to come. By Louis Pendleton. Boston :
Roberts Brothers.
t Bible, Science, and Faith. By the Rev. J. A. Zahm, C.S.C., Professor of Physics
in the University of Notre Dame, author of Sound and Music, Catholic Science and Catholic
Scientists, etc. Baltimore : John Murphy & Co.
I3 6 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
a writer must be well acquainted with the scientific subjects of
which he treats, and know how to discriminate between science
and scientific hypothesis. In the second place, he must be well
acquainted with theology, and know how to discriminate be-
tween Catholic doctrines and opinions of Catholic authors. In
the third place, he must have a spirit of docility and reverence
toward that doctrinal and disciplinary direction of ecclesiastical
authority which is a secure even when it comes short of being
an infallible rule, and the strongest safeguard against specula-
tions which if not directly heretical are erroneous or temerarious.
A writer, however well intentioned he may be, who is wanting
in any of these qualifications, and who lacks the consummate
prudence which is required in order to guide inquirers safely in
paths which have not been explored and surveyed before the
present generation, may fall into serious mistakes. He may
restrict or enlarge too much the bounds of free opinion. He
may pass off mere opinions for Catholic theology, or baseless
speculations for science. He may err by servility toward theo-
logical or scientific authority, or by impertinence. There are
some very forward advocates of Catholic liberty who have fal-
len into this last fault to a very marked degree. In either case,
it may happen that a work written for explanation or defence
of some parts of the Catholic religion, will be a nuisance, and
do more harm than an openly infidel or heretical attack.
We look on Father Zahm's volumes as a veritable god-send,
because they are both theologically and scientifically sound. He
is bold and unhesitating in his statements and arguments, but
only where he is sure that his ground is tenable. Respectable
and trustworthy authors have gone over every part of it before
him, and he has followed in their footsteps. This is just what
intelligent and inquiring Catholics need, namely, a guide who
can be trusted as safe, so that they need not fear to be led
astray from faith and orthodoxy. We can recommend Father
Zahm as safe.
His first volume is a defence of the Catholic Church against
the accusation of being indifferent or even hostile to science.
The scope of the present volume is to make it clear what the
faith does really teach in regard to the origin and history of
the world and the human race. This being done, what is be-
yond and outside of this teaching is an open field, wherein the
important and interesting questions relating to cosmogony,
geology, astronomy, chronology, and physics may be discussed
by scientific and historical methods and decided according to
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 137
the same, In different and even opposite senses, without preju-
dice to orthodoxy, the church remaining perfectly neutral. The
great interest manifested at the Summer-School in Father
Zahm's Lectures shows how eager a great many of the laity are
in seeking instruction in this class of subjects, and how compe-
tent Father Zahm is to give it.
2. STAFFORD CATHOLICS.*
Mr. Gillow, to whose labors we are indebted for the Biblio-
graphical Dictionary of English Catholics, has in this volume
given what may be called chips from his work-shop in illustra-
tion of the history of a single parish (or, as it is called, a
mission) from the time of the Reformation up to our own days.
He has devoted the same unwearied and evidently loving labor
to this smaller volume as to the larger work a work which we
regret to say is still unfinished. It is hard to estimate the
amount of research involved in tracing out and discovering the
genealogical record of the priests and benefactors of the
mission in the accurate way in which Mr. Gillow has performed
the work. It may be worthy of note and will certainly be in-
teresting to our readers to learn that while of most of the
priests Mr. Gillow gives us the family tree, of the priest who
seems to have been of the greatest service to the mission, who
built the present church, and who won the warmest affections
of the people the late Canon O'Sullivan the only ancestral
record as given by our author is that "he was a native of
Ireland, [who] when but three months old had the misfortune to
lose his father, a farmer of the middle of one of the southern
counties."
This will, we believe, be found an interesting record by others
than those who are locally interested in the town and mission
of Stafford. It is in small a history of the Church in England
from and during the days when to be a priest involved the
serious risk of being disembowelled while still alive such was
the fate of the second missioner who served St. Thomas's Priory
to our own happier times when the present servant of the
mission is summoned to the councils of the Prince of Wales,
not indeed, it is true, for spiritual but for musical advice. To
conclude in Mr. Gillow's own words: "And now, after three
centuries of oppression, by every form of persecution that
*St. Thomas's Priory; or, The Story of St. Austin's, Stafford. London: Burns &
Gates, limited (New York : Benziger Brothers).
I3 8 NEW Boojfs. [Oct.
human ingenuity could devise, what a marvellous change has
come over this country! Is it the effect of a new leaven, or
rather the return of the prodigal to ' the days of our fathers ' ?
The nets of Peter are again let down. Narrow prejudice and
extreme ignorance are fast giving place to ingenuousness and a
sincere desire of enlightenment. Half a century ago there was
hardly a bell in England that could be rung from a Catholic
church to call its congregation to divine worship. Thrice a
hundred years intervened ere toll from turret and steeple called
to the ancient service the sole one of old. Now from number-
less Catholic churches peal forth sweet chimes, and over the
land hundreds of bells like St. Austin's daily send forth their
summons :
"When mirth and joy are on the wing,
I ring;
To call the folks to church in time,
I chime ;
When God requires of man a soul,
I toll."
"The gloom is lifting, gleams of pure brightness are spread-
ing. May we not hope, therefore, that our well-loved country is
once more to see the splendor of the day, and to rejoice in the
radiance of the true Faith in the one fold ? "
NEW BOOKS.
CASSELL PUBLISHING Co :
(Sunshine Series.) / Forbid the Banns. By Frank Frankfort Moore. A
Wild Proxy. By Mrs. W. K. Clifford. Edleen Vaughan. By Carmen
Sylva (the Queen of Roumania). List, ye Landsmen. By W. Clarke Rus-
sell. Parson Jones. By Florence Marryat. Lottie's Wooing. By Barley
Dale. New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land. By Basil T. A.
Evetts, M.A. Under the Great Seal. By Joseph Hatton. All Along'
the River. By M. E. Braddon. The Medicine Lady. By L. T. Meade.
A Superfluous Woman.
B. HERDER, St. Louis :
A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture. By Frederick Justus Knecht,
D.D., Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Freiburg.
OPEN COURT PUBLISHING Co., Chicago:
Fundamental Ethics. By Dr. Paul Carus.
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co.:
My Lady Rotha. By Stanley J. Weyman.
One Hundred Years of Business Life, 1794-1894 (W. H. Schieffelin & Co.)
is tr cord of one of the most eminent and successful business houses in New
York, forming an excellent centenary souvenir. It is embellished with portraits
its chief personages, from the founder down to the present partners
THE waning cause of French monarchy has suf-
fered a heavy reverse by the death of the Count de
Paris. This event took place on September 8, in
England. Personally the deceased gentleman was estimable in
the highest sense, but politically he was a dangerous enemy to
the peace of France. His unfortunate intriguing with the notable
General Boulanger went very near to plunging the country
into the horrors of another civil war, and the effect of the
danger has been to make the French people still more embit-
tered against all forms of monarchical government and to
strengthen the barriers already raised against its revival. By the
people of the United States, however, the prince was held in
different estimation. He had lived long amongst them, and had
lent his sword to help the Union. When the war was over, he
proved his literary skill by giving the world the best history of
the great military struggle that had been written. In private life
he bore the reputation of an honest and a blameless man. For
such the world always finds use, if it can dispense with princes.
The Italian government at last seems disposed to cry peccavi
and do penance for its monstrous crimes against the Papacy.
Manifestations of this disposition have been witnessed of late,
so strikingly as to rouse the attention of the whole world. A
couple of speeches recently made by Signor Crispi openly
advocated an alliance between the church and the civil power
for the repression of anarchy, and it is reported that his private
secretary has had an audience of Cardinal Rampolla, the Pope's
secretary of state. Furthermore, the King of Italy has signed
the exequaturs of bishops to territory in Africa and other places,
although he had previously declined to do so. All this points
to the well-nigh complete collapse of the " Kingdom of Italy,"
and its tardy recognition of the only force which can save it
from total destruction.
i 4 o THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Oct.,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
WITHIN the past year the list of associate members in the Fenelon Reading
Circle of Brooklyn, N. Y., has increased to the number of two hundred.
From the report of the president, Miss Anna M. Mitchell, kindly sent for publica-
tion in this department, as well as from outside sources of information, we have
no hesitation in declaring that the plan of work adopted has been most success-
ful. It serves to give another proof that no uniform course of reading can be
devised that will be universally accepted, owing to the different needs and oppor-
tunities of favored localities. The members of each Circle should never be
exempted from the task of doing some share of the thinking about plans for their
own self-improvement. We commend the following report of the Fenelon for its
value to other circles.
The line of reading done by the active members during the year covered the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. Having heard so many deprecatory allusions to
the " Dark Ages " we thought we would endeavor to throw a little Catholic
light upon them. We took the pontificate of Gregory VII. as our starting point.
A list of books of reference was furnished by our spiritual director and the
members selected at will the ones they preferred to read. Three papers treating
Of the most important historical and biographical events under consideration
were assigned for preparation during each month. The subject of Investitures
under Gregory VII. led us to an examination of this subject under Henry II. of
England. During the winter months we had papers prepared on the following
subjects: Henry IV., Countess Matilda, Gregory VII., Feudal System, William
the Conqueror, Henry II. of England, Thomas a Becket. This will give some
idea of the historical and biographical ground covered during that time. The
rise of the cathedral having occurred during the eleventh century, we decided to
devote the spring months to the artistic and literary events of this period. This
led to the preparation of papers on the cathedrals of Canterbury, York, West-
minster, Notre Dame, and Rouen, while the literature was treated in papers on
the transition period of the English language and Geoffrey Chaucer.
The lecture course was arranged so as to have a special bearing on the line
x>f reading. These lectures took place the first Tuesday of every month, at what
is known as our monthly tea. In November the Rev. M. G. Flannery gave a
strong impetus to our reading by his lecture " An Introduction to the Study of
'Gregory VII." In December the Rev. Dr. O'Donohue, of Brooklyn, treated as
his subject " A Plea for the Study of St. Thomas." In January. Mr. John Malone
gave a very interesting lecture on " The Catholicity of Shakspere," which he
interspersed with recitations from the great dramatist. In February we made
somewhat of a departure from our line of reading in order that we might cele-
brate the ter-centenary of the death of Palestrina. Professor Bernard O'Donnell,
of Brooklyn, gave us a very interesting lecture on " Palestrina and Church Music,"
assisted by a quartet of picked voices from Brooklyn choirs. In March Dr.
George Herbermann, of the College of the City of New York, gave us a scholarly
discourse on " The Universities of the Middle Ages," and in April the Rev.
Arthur M. Clarke, C.S.P., aroused considerable enthusiasm for Hildebrand by his
lecture on " A great Pope of the Middle Ages." In May the lecture course
closed with a concert arranged under the musical direction of Dr. Walter
1 894.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 141
O'Brien, of Brooklyn, assisted by some of the leading artists of Brooklyn and
New York.
The advisory committee, with the co-operation of the president, made all ar-
rangements for the lectures and the entertainment attending them. The work
is systematically divided among the three members comprising this committee*
One member has special charge of the literary programme for the business meet-
ing which takes place the third Tuesday of every month. At these meetings the
programme is disposed of first, the spiritual director presiding and answering all
questions having a theological bearing. Then the president disposes of the busi-
ness before the meeting. I would like to say, right here, that I think that the
members of our Circle have benefited very much by our method of disposing of
business in a parliamentary manner. I have observed, with much satisfaction, a
great growth in this respect during the past year. It is a lesson that women
need very much to learn ; namely, how to economize the time and strength that
is often wasted in useless discussion. When the business of the Circle is con-
ducted on parliamentary lines they soon learn that the greatest good of the great-
est number must be considered, and the will of the majority must rule. Petty
personal prejudices are thus allayed, and the supersensitiveness, so characteristic
of women, is sufficiently cured to enable them to look at things with the broader
view which characterizes the transactions of men. Such a result, although desir-
able, we cannot hope to accomplish all at once. In " The Fenelon " it has been
of slow but sure growth, and I would recommend it to the attention of other Cir-
cles as proving the unquestionable benefit to be derived from a constitution.
A notable feature of our lectures has been the attendance at them of several
non-Catholics. The lectures requiring no admission fee, the members are urged
to invite Protestant friends, and we have had occasion to believe that our Circle
has been the medium of much good work in this respect. Father Clarke has
pertinently asked : " What are we doing for non-Catholics ? " Catholics do not
sufficiently realize that they have a duty to perform in disabusing the minds of
people outside the church of erroneous ideas which it is often not so much their
fault as their misfortune to hold. We have heard such remarks as these made to
members of our Circle at the monthly lectures : " Do you mean to tell me that
these are all Catholics ? Well, I will admit that I,have been very much prejudiced,,
but it is because I have never met any Catholics like these." It is evident from
this that the Reading Circle can be made not only a source of good to its mem-
bers, but a medium of missionary work to those outside their pale. If the lead-
ing motive is made an intellectual one, and the standard is kept high, we may be
sure of commanding the respect and admiration of thinking Protestants.
A famous professor in one of our leading colleges has recently said that the.
thing that this generation needed most was enthusiasm. I would add to this
earnestness of purpose ; for many of the Reading Circles that have met an early
death have started out with no lack of enthusiasm ;' but there has not been
sufficient earnestness of purpose to continue the work month after month in spite
of the petty obstacles that may arise. The history of the world teaches us that
those who have reaped the greatest intellectual benefits are generally those
who have had to pursue their studies under the most adverse circumstances.
The fact that difficulties arise in the organization of these circles should not dis-
courage those who are anxious to benefit by them. To systematic organization
and tenacity of purpose among the members may be attributed much of the .
success that has made the year just closed an eventful one for the Fenelon,
Reading Circle, of Brooklyn.
,42 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Oct.,
The following letter from a devoted friend was written to the members of
the Ozanam Reading Circle :
As I cannot be with you in person this evening, to atone, in a measure, f(
my absence I will put down some points here in an informal manner which may
serve as an introduction to the work you hope to accomplish together during
the season. You have now had eight years' experience by which to judge the
plan and purpose of the Circle, and I think you will agree with me that it has
stood the test. We may not have realized all that we had hoped to do (what
human effort does?), but we can look back to some actual achievement, and,
what is better, we feel justified in promising ourselves a fruitful future.
That to know what we ought to have and to be willing to devote
thought and labor to getting it is the secret of success, is a plain way of put-
ting a truism. Still I think a good many people are in the dark as to what is
really desirable, especially in the way of those refinements and accomplish-
ments of life which help to make us attractive as well as useful in the world. I
think it is the good fortune of your society to have no pretentious mission.
You do not propose to astound the public. You want, first of all, to improve
yourselves ; and then, it may be, incidentally to entertain your friends ; to ex-
press your thoughts in speech or writing naturally, and without the pretence
of more knowledge than you really possess ; to give the proper utterance and
expression to those masterpieces of literature which are best brought home
to us when they are read or recited, not for mere elocutionary display but to
bring out the beauty and the inspiration they contain such, I take it, is what
you are striving to be able to do.
The purpose of your Circle makes necessary a certain unity of sympathy
and taste among its members ; but, at the same time, no severe standard should
be set up to bar out from your Circle those who, in good faith, seek admission.
Culture is a much-abused word, but in its best sense it implies gentleness and
tolerance rather than exclusiveness. Let us always remember that, however im-
perfect they may be, our tastes and sympathies can be educated and developed,
and even should that development reach no further point than to teach us the
art of listening, of giving our attention to what is worth attending to, that in it-
self is a desirable acquirement.
And let me here upon this very point descend to particulars. The habit of
serious, receptive attention is one the importance of which I would strongly
impress upon your Circle. It is a duty we owe ourselves, as well as those who
speak, read, or recite to us, to listen without distraction and with a positive ele-
ment of sympathy. Nothing will bring out the best work from a speaker or so
effectually create the right impression in ourselves as will this bond of sympathy.
How often do we discomfort those who seek our attention, and bore ourselves,
because we forget this. And I am naturally led just here to another point and
recommendation. Our minds go wandering from the grandest utterance of the
grandest thoughts. We look at the speaker, at the musician ; not that our eyes
must be directed towards the source of the sounds, but that nothing may come
between our mental vision and the pictures which the speaker or musician can
bring up before us. If our minds yawn, so to speak, we are bothered with dis-
tractions and ennui. If we could realize perfectly how intimate is the relation
between mental and physical conditions, I think a great many problems, especi-
ally in the art of expression, would be made clear to us. On this point and
others akin to it I hope we will be able to bring to bear practical illustrations in
the course of our meetings.
1894-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 143
I do not want to claim too much, but I really think that the Ozanam Reading
Circle, in its essential features, has been a pioneer in a new field. Let all the
members, to the full extent of their abilities and opportunities, do what they can
to further its interests and I feel assured that the Circle can be made a perma-
nent power for good, in its own proper sphere.
* * *
As briefly noticed in the mid-summer issue of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, a
memorial meeting in honor of the late Brother Azarias was held on May 17, at
Washington, D. C.
Since that time the addresses and letters read on the occasion have been col-
lected by Rev. Brother Fabrician, President of St. John's College, and come to
us in the form of an admirable little volume, dedicated as " an inspiration to
Catholic educational institutions to encourage in life and honor in death Catho-
lic men of letters."
The introduction to the work is from the vigorous pen of the Rev. John
Talbot Smith, and consists of a short life-sketch of the gifted Azarias, followed
by a number of papers from men prominent in education and letters, each occu-
pied with some special phase of the great author's character, forming one of the
most beautiful tributes and brilliant expositions of germ-thought.
We must read a great deal in these days if we would glean even a little
knowledge. Books are made ; we read them. We sigh a little and pass them
from our hands. " Words, words, words." Then we pick up another and
repeat the process, and so on ad infinitum ; so that we are relieved when we do
come in contact with a healthy group of ideas, really sound and pure and good,
projected to us, as it were, from a skilful setting of concise and accurate lan-
guage.
It is seldom that more has been said in an equal number of pages than in the
present publication. This fact is mainly due to three reasons. That each writer
was a master-hand in the theme assigned him ; that the themes themselves were
of their nature very broad, and that each paper was limited to ten minutes.
" There came," says Brother Fabrician in his preface, speaking of those who
took part in the memorial, "the Right Rev. J. J. Keane, D.D., the worthy head
of our system of Catholic education in this country ; secular education sent its
highest representatives, Commissioner W. T. Harris and the late Commissioner
John Eaton. The far-famed Woodstock was present in the person of its gifted
son, the Rev. Thomas J. McCluskey, S.J.; and the secular clergy voiced its senti-
ments in the philosophical paper of Rev. P. B. Tarro, while Catholic laymen of
letters spoke most eloquently in Dr. A. J. Faust and Colonel R. M. Johnston."
To those of us who were present at the memorial, and whose privilege it also
had been to be in attendance at the Catholic Summer-School, there was some-
thing of a strange melancholy pleasure in the words and presence of Colonel
Johnston. It will be remembered that during the closing week of the second
session at Plattsburgh, when in turn we laughed and were sad with Colonel John-
ston, he was succeeded immediately after each lecture by the lamented Azarias ;
and to many of us, on this account, the wonderful personality of the one was in-
timately associated with the profound scholarship and endearing characteristics
of the other. Indeed, even while the closing words of Colonel Johnston's address
at Washington were still full in the hearts of his hearers, swaying them like
sweet, sad music, it seemed as though the dear Azarias must be at once forth-
coming. But he did not come ; and who is there among us that will fill his place,
now that the scenes of his life-work can know him no more ?
I44 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Oct., 1894.
Bulletin No. 28 of the Regents of the State of New York contains the report
of the Thirty-second University Convocation, which includes a most i
timate of the writings of Brother Azarias from the pen of Dr. John A. Mooney.
* *
An extra number of the Catholic Reading Circle Review will be issued, con-
taining a complete report of the third session of the Catholic Summer-School
of America, on Lake Champlain. This report will be very valuable as a souvenir
and for reference, containing, as it will, a detailed account of the proceedings.
In the interest of the Summer-School we request aid of the Reading Circles in
the dissemination of this report. Price, twenty-five cents a copy. Send orders
at once to Warren E. Mosher, Youngstown, Ohio.
In a letter received from one of the most successful workers in the Reading
Circle movement this passage is found :
" To mention the Catholic Summer-School is to recall one of the pleasantest
memories of my life. The season, the place, the surroundings, all contributed
much to the happiness of those who enlisted as students under its banner. But
more than anything else, the beautiful spirit animating every one on every occa-
sion tended to make the stay in Pittsburgh enjoyable. In fact such was our
measure of enjoyment that pleasures at home seemed rather dull, and city out-
looks very tame in comparison. The absence of such a thing as a clique or class
distinction was marked, and consequently on all sides were found the most ge-
nial companions. Each one seemed to have put aside, for the time being, per-
sonality, and made it a point to be ready on every occasion to further the
general good.
" Such a feeling, I dare say, was due as much to the surroundings as to any-
thing else, for wherever we might look in the neighborhood o'f Plattsburgh we
found no inharmonious element. Such was the charm of the place that it is
difficult to choose points for description, for each successive day its beauties
grow on one, and the memory of it becomes sweeter. It is a spot that must be
seen to be appreciated.
" Whether we recall the pleasant drives around Cumberland Head, or to
Fredenberg Falls, or the delightful trips on the far-famed Lake Champlain
to Ticonderoga, Burlington, and Bluff Point, our thoughts and expressions are
only those of praise and gratitude ; praise of all the natural beauties, so near and
yet so far until the Summer-School brought them within our reach of enjoyment;
gratitude for kindness which made such a possession possible and dispelled an
amount of ignorance regarding the many advantages of this fair land.
" Of the beauties in this Adirondack region in particular it may be said they
never cease ; for whatever the day in summer, let it be one of sunshine or storm,
there is spread before the observer a perfect feast of delights. . The great ex-
panse of lake studded with beautiful islands, the quiet village with the river
gliding by its side, and the grandeur of the mountains, with the smiling valleys
between, are pictures which once seen are not easily forgotten.
" To those lovers of nature anxious to enjoy all her varying moods, to those
desirous of obtaining rest for mind and body fatigued after a year's hard work,
as well as to those eager to enlarge their fund of knowledge by attending the
lecture courses, no invitation can be extended which will prove more cordial,
once it is accepted, than that which the Summer-School extends when inviting
them to strengthen mind and body in the charming country that surrounds Lake
Champlain."
THE VIRGIN OF LOURDES. (See page 237.}
THE
VOL. LX.
NOVEMBER, 1894.
No. 356.
THE CHURCH vs. THE STATE IN THE CONCERNS
OF THE POOR.
BY REV. M. O'RiORDAN, PH.D., D.D., D.C.L.
HERE are three elements in hu-
man life, without taking account
of which it would be absurd to
consider the condition of society
for any practical purpose ; name-
ly, riches and poverty, human suf-
fering, and human passions. Rich-
es and poverty have always been,
and ever shall be during our pre-
sent life, and the contrast will al-
ways be a temptation to human
passion, spurring those who have
not to envy those who have.
The true socialism is that which
can institute a concordia discors be-
tween rich and poor. The church
has done that both by word and by deed. On the one hand it
teaches patience to the poor by making them feel the full value
and meaning of life, by submitting the motive of a reward in the
next life for privations patiently borne in this, by giving the world
the example of men who, when they might be rich, remained poor
of their own accord in order to be more conformed through life
and in death to Him who " became poor for our sakes." But
whilst it gives the poor motives to suppress temptations to dis-
content which human passion might awaken, it draws a clear
Copyright. VBRY REV. A. F. HBWIT. 1894.
VOL. LX. 10
I4 6 THE CHURCH vs. THE STATE IN [Nov.,
distinction between the poverty that must work and the misery
that is left to starve. It encourages industry and gives a model
of labor in the religious orders of such Christian heroes as St.
Bernard and St. Bruno.
NEW PAGANISM AND OLD.
One of the first social results of the church's mission amongst
men was to remove from the workman the brand of dishonor
with which paganism had marked him. The dignity and the
rights of labor are the creation of the church ; its lot was dis-
grace and slavery in that civilization which was created by the
prototypes of those who are the apostles of naturalism to-day.
Let it not be said that the failure of paganism as a social mainstay
is no argument in favor of the church as against the state. In
what does a modern state divorced from Christianity differ from
old paganism ? In nothing that I can see unless that its bor-
rowed plumage makes it more conceited and ungrateful. It
has indeed one advantage, but not of its own making ; that
is, its Christian tradition, which is not yet quite gone, though
it is fading fast. The church revived social order by infusing
new principles into the pagan world, and formed the Christian
state. The state has, like the prodigal, gone out from its mo-
ther's home and is wasting its Christian heritage. But it is not
all spent yet, and the little that is left gives it its only advan-
tage over the paganism of old Rome. Like all the wilful and
wayward, it ignores that. But let us eliminate the work of the
church in the world, and we have left but the mere natural so-
ciety of the old paganism running parallel on the same plane
with the mere natural society of the new. When it has run its
course, the extreme necessity of self-preservation will complete
in it the life of the prodigal, will force it to rise and return
home in misery, gasping for the breath of charity and truth, as
the old paganism did when the Saviour came.
THE CHARITY OF THE CHURCH AND THE ALMS OF THE WORK-
HOUSE.
For the poor, whom illness or old age left without the
means to live, the church founded institutions which, unlike our
modern work-houses, they thought it no shame to enter, because
they were the sanctuaries where the poverty of Christ was ven-
erated in his poor. But we shall see this more in detail further
on. On the other hand, the church taught the rich, likewise,
that " all flesh is grass "; and, moreover, that property has its
duties. The full meaning of noblesse oblige has never been so
1894-] THE CONCERNS OF THE POOR. 147
thoroughly realized as it was in the Christian converts of apos-
tolic times. In the mind and spirit of the church the ownership
of wealth is not so absolute that it may be lawfully hoarded
and used without any reference to the community in which it
has been made. In the ages of faith Catholic charity filled a
place in society which the "laws " of modern economists cannot
explain. They did not write libraries on political economy as
we do now ; the fact is, they devoted so much of their time to
good works that they had little time left for talking and for
theory. Of course, we who, in this age of reason, have reduced
social economy to a science could provide for the poor by
much better methods than they had that is, if we liked.
But we don't ; and that makes a difference. Those whom ad-
versity drives into work-houses somehow feel as if tainted by the
disgrace all through life. Their thoughts become transformed ;
their spirit is bent or broken ; they feel that they have lost the
frankness which they had retained even through the time of
their greatest need, and that they can never raise their heads
again. Whatever be the reason of it, that is the fact. Perhaps
our scientific economists have a " law " to explain it.
INHUMANITY OF THE PAGAN SYSTEM.
The writer of an essay on " Pre-scientific Socialism," in a
joint work on Socialism, Capital, and Labor, which was published
in London in 1890, says: "The current of the social move-
ment in the Roman Empire was considerably changed by the
introduction of Christianity. Its Founder laid, in fact, the foun-
dation stone of a new society, where the slave and freeman,
the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, were placed on
a footing of equality, where mutual affection of the human
brotherhood, devotedness to the common cause from a principle
of love, forms the moral basis of the social edifice. It produced a
silent revolution by means of ideas, the church became the libera-
tor of the oppressed classes and the chief organizer of the new
society, curbing passion and pacifying the feuds of a rude social
order, making out the patent of liberty and the nobility of labor."
What a contrast to the social methods of human nature left
to itself ! Paganism had quite another way of providing for the
poor; it was, as Chateaubriand says, "infanticide and slavery."
No doubt there is enough good left in human nature to give
to the world individuals of great natural benevolence. But that
is not enough to save society ; it is too uncertain and incon-
stant. The church reduced charity to an institution ; the care
of the poor was made a public concern, not dependent on the
I4 8 THE CHURCH vs. THE STATE IN [Nov.,
wavering philanthropy of individuals. The great difficulty it
had to meet was not in securing the condemnation of the un-
natural treatment from which the poor had suffered ; for, to
those at least who had become converts to the faith, an abuse so
unnatural should appear evident as soon as it was pointed out.
The difficulty lay rather in devising such a. system of relief as
would embrace all manner of deserving distress. Were it not
for the charity with which it had imbued the faithful, it were
vain to tell the wealthy that they were bound to provide for
the poor. Without the church no state system of compulsory
taxation was possible, with its influence no such compulsion was
necessary. The faithful saw the duty, and they did it ; they
saw the need, and they relieved it. We think that quite an
easy matter now that the taxpayer has become used to such
claims ; but it was otherwise before the charity of the faithful
was moved by Christian teaching.
NECESSITY NO VIRTUE.
But, it may be said, even in states which have become de-
christianized benevolent institutions continue to be supported.
Quite true, but their foundation is due to the church, and their
continuance by the state was more a matter of necessity than
of choice, as we shall see presently when we come to deal with
the origin of the English " poor-law." The laicized hospitals of
Paris, on the testimony of even infidel physicians, are an in-
structive object-lesson on what the philanthropy of economists
means in reality, however fair it may appear on paper. How is
it that the Roman Republic, with its warriors, its orators, its
statesmen, its architecture whose beauty surpasses the power of
modern art, its constitution the wisdom of whose laws we study
at present, its aqueducts, theatres, and temples how is it that
we find no trace in its ruins, no provision in its laws, for a
single hospice for the poor ? The Sempronian laws were but
the work of two brothers ; they arose rather from love of the
state than from love of the poor ; some of them were evidently
mere moves in the game of selfish popularity ; others, such as
the corn-laws, proved fatal to the public peace and were a
fertile source of demoralization for those in whose behalf they
were ostensibly devised. A single institution of charity such as
sprang up like mushrooms with the rise of the Christian state
we look for in vain from those wise old Romans who were able
to subdue, and knew how to govern, the world. Had not the
tradition of Christian principles and practices lived on in states
now ruled without reference to God, would they do a whit
1894-] THE CONCERNS OF THE POOR. 149
better in the interests of the poor and the weak than the
Romans did ? We have no warrant that they would, whilst
there are many reasons for thinking that they would not nay,
that they would do worse.
RELIGIOUS ASYLUMS IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TIMES.
From the earliest times of the church institutions of charity
have been established for the infirm and the poor. When the
church was, so to speak, in the Catacombs and had not a juridi-
cal existence in the eye of the Roman law, it was not possible
for its charity to do much ; but it was not idle. Amongst the
duties of. the deacons was a work similar to that which is done
at present by members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
Every diaconia was a centre of philanthropic activity. One of
the canons of the Council of Chalcedon, which orders that the
cleric in charge of the Ptocheia (asylums for the poor) should be
subject to the authority of the bishop of the place, declares
that the decree is "according to the tradition of the fathers."
This council was held in A.D. 451, and it appeals back to the
" tradition of the fathers " respecting the government of
asylums for the poor.
HOSPICES UNDER THE FRANKISH KINGS.
Whilst the barbarians, who were becoming masters of the
Western Empire, were undergoing the process of conversion to
Christian faith, principles, and habits, the church was alive to
the insecurity of those institutions which had been founded
under her patronage. Hence we find a canon of the Council
of Orleans (A.D. 549) confirming the foundation of a hospice
erected in Lyons by King Childebert, making provisions for its
proper administration, and censuring any attempt to turn its
endowment from its purpose as a " homicidium pauperum."
In each parish there was an organization to look after the
wants of the poor and of all who needed consolation and
relief. To this a canon of the Council of Tours (A.D. 566) re-
fers, which orders that each parish should take care of its own
poor, lest they should become mendicants and vagabonds.
AMELIORATION OF PRISON CRUELTY.
Equal care was taken of those who were confined in prison.
Until times quite recent state punishment was purely vindic-
tive, took no account of prevention, and ignored the possibility
or value of reformation. But, from the earliest times, the
church recognized the wise maxim prcestat cautela quam medela
I5 o THE CHURCH vs. THE STATE IN [Nov.,
which since the time of Howard has been learnt by states-
men. One of the duties of the archdeacon, or the provost of a
diocese, was to visit the prisons every Sunday, and see that any
wants of the inmates consistent with their condition were
supplied. In the middle ages, attached to the monasteries and
the colleges of chapters were hospices for giving hospitality to
pilgrims and relief to the poor. As all those institutions of
public charity were established under the inspiration of the
church, the bishops in each diocese had authority over their
administration. The Council of Vienna ordered bishops to see
that the hospices were not mismanaged, and the canon law had
decreed penalties against administrators guilty of mismanage-
ment.
THE CHURCH ABOLISHES SLAVERY.
What has been said is but a mere skeleton sketch of the
remedies which the charity of the church had for the ills of so-
ciety, as contrasted with those two nostrums of naturalism in-
fanticide and slavery. It would be too long to trace the charity
of the church in the gradual abolition of slavery. From the
first it exercised its influence in that direction ; decrees to that
effect ran through all the canon law. Of course actual manu-
mission had to await its opportunity, but it came in time.
" Nothing is more beautiful than the rise of this Christian civili-
zation. When slavery began to melt away ; when fathers with
horror cast from them the power of life and death over their
children and their slaves, as a thing too hideous for Christian
men ; when husbands renounced the power of life and death
over their wives ; when the horrors, and injustice, and abomi-
nations of pagan domestic life gave place to the charity of
Christian homes, then the world was lifted to a higher sphere.
And this new Christian world was the germ of modern Europe.
The popes laid the foundations of a world which is now pass-
ing away a Christian commonwealth of nations, though they
never cease to destroy it." That is Cardinal Manning's descrip-
tion of the influence of the church on society.* Under feudal-
ism a mitigated form of serfdom existed. The serf was said to
be addictus glebes ; that is, he could not transfer his services
from one property to another at his will, and remained attached
to the property in case of transfer. But early in Saxon times
in England that class had definite rights and privileges of their
own. The amount of service due from them became early limited
* The Four Great Evils of the Day. Lecture III., " The revolt of society from God,"
p. 86.
1894-] THE CONCERNS OF THE POOR. 151
by custom ; indeed, in some respects, they were better off than
free laborers, for the master had to defend them and to pro-
vide for all their wants. In the fourteenth century arose the
farming class in England. The rise of the free laborer came
about the same time ; the laborer was no longer bound to one
spot or one master, but was free to hire his labor to whatever
employer he chose. By the end of the fourteenth century, over
a great part of England, the lord of the manor had been re-
duced to the position of a modern landlord.
THE RISE OF THE GUILDS.
Whilst these changes were going on the spirit of the church,
so essentially social, led to the formation, for all trades and
manufactures, of societies which included masters and men.
These began to be formed as early as the eighth century, and
developed by degrees. Through them were regulated amicably
all those questions which are now so fruitful in dissension be-
tween employer and employed. In their organization guardians
were appointed to see that men were properly provided for by
their masters. They were first of a religious character ; their
rules were based on religious principles. The common condi-
tion of membership was " to work well and honestly," and any
misconduct forfeited the privilege of membership. The church
in forming these did not leave masters and men to settle all
matters separately, as two classes with divided interests, each for
itself. Masters and men were blended together in common
guilds, with a common interest and fellowship. So favorable
has the church been to association, so opposed to isolation.
The law of the land did not meddle with their working any
more than by enforcing among the members the engagements
they had made, just as at this day penalties levied by by-laws
are recoverable at common law. In these two characters the
old guilds entirely differed from our present trades-unions.
CHARITY OF THE MONASTERIES.
The wealth of the monasteries also afforded a refuge and a
help to working-men. By the canon law they were bound to
distribute a third to the needy ; but they voluntarily did a great
deal more. In the common feeling, and in fact, their property
was held in trust for the poor. When workmen were unable to
obtain fair terms from employers, they had help and protection
through the charity of the monasteries. But a jealous genera-
tion came which envied her endowments, which she shared with
, 52 THE CHURCH vs. THE STATE IN [Nov.,
the poor, and hated the power which she used for their pro-
tection. When the spirit of covetousness was in the hearts of
rulers, it was inevitable that they would assail church and poor
together ; that they who coveted the property of the church
would grudge the wages of the poor ; that they who would
cripple her power should seek also to enslave those in whose be-
half she used it. And it happened just so. It is a curious and
telling fact in English history that at the time when the first
formal legislative encroachments on the church took place, we
find records of the first legislative oppression of the poor. The
first statute of mortmain directed against religious houses^ in
England to prevent their acquiring land was passed in the reign
of Henry III. The statutes of mortmain, though directly af-
fecting the religious houses, indirectly bore upon the poor, and
affected the rate of wages; because, the more the resources of
the religious houses were crippled, the less relief could be dis-
pensed to the poor, and the less able they would be to enforce
favorable terms of wages.
THE BEGINNING OF REPRESSION.
It was not long, however, till direct legislation was turned
against them, and precisely in tthe reign in which was passed
the first act against the Holy 'See. Henceforth we find in the
laws of England acts against " valiant beggars and sturdy vaga-
bonds," these vagabonds and valiant beggars being the result of
the legislative spirit which now saw the need of repressing
them. An act of the reign of Edward III. decrees "that every
man and woman able in body, and not having of his own
whereof he may live, if he be required to serve, shall be bound-
en to serve him who shall so him require, and take only the
wages which were accustomed to be given in the places where
he oweth to serve, in the twentieth year of the king's reign, or
the five or six common years next before ; and if any such
man or woman, being so required to serve, will not the same
do, he shall be taken and committed to the common gaol,
there to remain in strict keeping until he find surety to serve."
It was further enacted " that no man pay or promise to pay
any servant any more wages than was wont to be paid in the
twentieth year of the king's reign " ; moreover, " that workmen
shall be sworn to use their crafts in the manner they were
wont to do in the said twentieth year ; and if they refuse, they
shall be punished by fine and ransom and imprisonment, at
the discretion of the justice."
1894-] THE CONCERNS OF THE POOR. 153
THE BLACK DEATH.
These justices were precisely those who were personally
interested to keep the rate of wages and the price of handi-
crafts low. The Black Death had destroyed half the popula-
tion. The dearth of hands left the corn unharvested and the
cattle untended. The laborers met the demand for their ser-
vices with a refusal to work any longer for the former rate of
wages. Hence the crisis between the laborers and their em-
ployers which culminated in the insurrection of Wat Tyler.
After the suppression of the Tyler insurrection it was enacted
that the statutes of the laborers and the craftsmen be firmly
kept and holden, and that there be stocks in every town for
the punishment of such as should violate said statutes.
A REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE.
Stock-farming began now to supersede husbandry, arable
land was changed into pasture. A single herdsman had
charge of a range of land on which many a ploughman was
once employed. The husbandman by degrees disappeared ;
lambs* gambolled over their roofless tenements; parks, war-
rens, and wild grass stretched over wide demesnes. We find
an act also against " unlawful orders made by masters of
guilds, fraternities, and other companies." These societies had
long been recognized by law, and were allowed to regulate the
rate of wages. Why, then, are they now on a sudden harmed ?
Evidently because they did not see their way to regulate
wages on a basis conformable to the " discretion of the jus-
tices."
LICENSED MENDICANCY.
In the reign of Henry VIII. it was enacted that nobody be
allowed to beg without a license from a justice of the peace,
" and if any do beg without such license, he shall be whipped,
or set in the stocks three days and nights upon bread and
water," and a vagabond " taken begging shall be whipped, and
then be sworn to return to the place where he was born, and
there put himself to labor." These seem on the surface to be
very wise laws, and they contain an implication of their neces-
sity moreover. They should certainly recommend themselves to
any one who would not wish to see a country overrun with
* These inoffensive animals devoured the men, wittily remarks Sir Thomas More in
Utopia.
I54 THE CHURCH vs. THE STATE IN [Nov.,
" valiant beggars " and " sturdy vagabonds," if the circumstances
under which they were enacted and the tenor of the laws
themselves did not remind one that a workman was exposed
"to have the upper part of the gristle of his right ear cut off,"
or " the letter F in token of falsity burnt in his forehead " as
the result of not subjecting his ways to the " discretion of the
justices." What the effect of all these enactments was we can
learn from the fact that they were mostly repealed in the reign
of Queen Mary, and from the wording of the following enact-
ment of her reign also " weavers have complained at divers
times that the rich and wealthy clothiers do many ways op-
press them ; some by employing persons unskilful, to the decay
of a great number of artificers which were brought up to the
said science of weaving; some by giving much less wages and
hire than in times past they did." Evidently the " Reforma-
tion " did not mean reformation of wages for the workman.
FRUITS OF THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES.
It has been pretended that the promotion of industry was
the purpose of the confiscation of the monasteries. " From that
moment," says Montesquieu, " the spirit of industry and com-
merce was established in England."* Historical truth would
say: "From that moment Henry VIII. filled the royal coffers and
bribed his abettors from the plunder of the poor." When a
royal robbery is perpetrated on the patrimony of the poor under
cover of utilizing ecclesiastical wealth, there have always been
some profound economical motives for it. That is always the
way; but, as Balmez justly observes in this connection: "A
prejudiced mind will see what it wants, whether in books or in
facts." f Even though trade and commerce were extended by
those acts of Henry, which is not the case, the extension was
dearly bought. What was extended, however, was the despotic
power of the king, which made it possible for him to rob the
people of their ancient faith. The social changes which suc-
ceeded the Black Death, followed by the Wars of the Roses, left
the power of the old nobility broken ; and a new race of men arose
in their place, the creatures of the king, grasping adventurers
whom he easily made his willing tools by paying them out of
the wealth of the monasteries which they helped him to sup-
* L* Esprit des Lois, livre 23, chap. 29.
t European Civilization, chap. 33. It has been sought to spread the belief that the mo-
nastic charities encouraged laziness. But that implies a very stupid supposition : namely,
that ecclesiastics were not able to distinguish the deserving poor from tramps. For many
reasons they were much better able, I should think.
1894-] THE CONCERNS OF THE POOR. 155
press. Let it be well borne in mind that the church property
was the accumulation of the voluntary offerings of private indi-
viduals for the relief of the poor; the king had no claim on it.
Let us hear an unprejudiced and competent witness on how the
poor fared before and after the power of the church was crushed
and the monasteries suppressed.
PROTESTANT TESTIMONY.
James Thorold Rogers * calls the fifteenth century the " gol-
den age of the English laborer." He says, moreover, that " The
monks never regarded their property in any other light than as
held for the support of religion and of the poor. The purpose
for which the monastic property was diverted from its possessors
and given to the king, is stated to be 'that his highness may
lawfully give, grant, and dispense them or any of them at his
will and pleasure to the honor of God and the wealth of this
realm.' It was further enacted that on the site of every dis-
solved religious house the new possessor should be bound, under
heavy penalties, to provide hospitality and service for the poor
such as had been given them previously by the religious foun-
dations. The repudiation of these rights of the needy by those
who became possessed of the confiscated property is one of
the greatest blots on our national history. It has caused the
spoliation of monastery and convent to be regarded as the ris-
ing of the rich against the poor."
Henry George writes : t " The church lands defrayed the
cost of public worship and instruction, of the care of the sick
and the destitute " ; and he holds, therefore, with every true
and dispassionate historian, that the confiscation of these church
lands at the time of the Reformation was a robbery really per-
petrated on the poor. Mr. Hyndman, a London socialist, is
stronger still. He says : " That the influence of the Catholic
Church was used in the interest of the people against the domi-
nant classes can scarcely now be disputed. Catholicism in its
best period raised one continued protest against serfdom and
usury, as early Christianity had denounced slavery and usury
too."
He shows \ that Henry VIII. used the church property to
conciliate those who sided with him, that the wealth which the
church had used for the poor came into the hands of grasping
* Six Centuries of Work and Wages.
t Progress and Poverty, p. 267 ; see also pp. 270, 370.
\ Principles of Socialism.
, 5 6 THE CHURCH vs. THE STATE IN [Nov.,
upstarts and conscienceless courtiers, that poverty and vagran.
cy increased because the poor were deprived of the church lands
their last hope of succor." In another work the same au-
thor writes words which are well worth quoting at some length.
He says :
" The relations of the church, the monasteries, and the clergy
to the people were most noteworthy from every point of view.
There is nothing more noteworthy in the history of the hu-
man mind than the manner in which this essential portion of
English society in the middle ages has been handled by the
ordinary economists, chroniclers, and religionists. Even sober
writers seem to lose their heads, or become afraid to tell the
truth in this matter. Just as the modern capitalist can see noth-
ing but anarchy and oppression in the connection between the
people and the feudal nobles, as the authors who represent the
middle-class economy of our times, the Protestant divines whose
creed is, the devil take the hindmost here and hereafter, fail to
discover anything but luxury, debauchery, and hypocrisy in the
Catholic Church of the fifteenth century. It is high time that,
without any prejudice in favor of that church, the nonsense
which has been foisted onto the public by men interested in
suppressing the facts should be exposed. It is not true that
the church of our ancestors was the organized fraud which it
suits fanatics to represent it ; it is not true that the monaste-
ries, priories, and nunneries were receptacles for all uncleanness
and lewdness ; it is not true that the great revenues of the
celibate clergy and the celibate recluses were squandered in
riotous living. The church, as all know, was the one body in
which equality of conditions was the rule from the start."*
Again : " It is certain that the abbots and priors were the best
landlords in England, and that, so long as the church held its
lands and its power, permanent pauperism was unknown." f
Again : " The lands of the church were, at the accession of
Henry VIII., of an extent of not less than one-third of the
kingdom. But they were held in great part in trust for the
people, whose absolute right to assistance, when ia sickness or
poverty, was never disputed. What useful and even noble func-
tions the priests and monks, friars and nuns fulfilled in the
middle-age economy has been stated in the last chapter.
Universities, schools, roads, reception-houses, hospitals, poor-
relief, all were maintained out of the church funds. Even the
retainers who were dismissed after the Wars of the Roses were
* Historical Basis of Socialism, p. 14, et seq. \ Ibidem.
1894-] THE CONCERNS OF THE POOR. 157
in great part kept from actual starvation by the conventual es-
tablishments and the parish priests. Not a word was heard
against them in high quarters until Henry VIII. wanted to form
an adulterous, if not an incestuous, marriage in the first place ;
and to get possession of this vast property, in order to fill his
purse and bribe his favorites, in the second. As to the whole
infamous plot, from beginning to end, it is enough to say that
the heroes of the business were Cranmer and Cromwell, the vic-
tims More and Fisher. The manner in which our middle-class
history has been written is evidenced by the strenuous attempts
to whitewash the pander and the rogue, and to belittle the
philosopher and the patriot." *
STATE DEGRADATION OF POVERTY.
That illustrious Frenchman, Augustin Cochin, in a very able
pamphlet published in i854,f judiciously divides legislation for
the poor in England into four periods: ist. From conversion to
Christianity to fourteenth century ; 2d. From the fourteenth cen-
tury to the Reformation; $d. From the Reformation to 1834;
4th. From the creation of the Poor-Law Board onward. I had
intended to follow out that division in order to set forth the con-
trast between the condition of the poor when the Catholic
Church had power in England, and their condition under the
selfish despotism which set it aside. After the Reformation, so
fast did the faith and charity of the wealthy decline, and so
dangerous had become the discontent of the poor, that the
government had, in its own defence, to intervene at last and
do something. Hence the Act of Parliament, 5 Elizabeth c. 3,
which made poor-relief compulsory and gave England a Poor
Law for the first time. But, the old church system cherished
the dignity of the poor ; the poor-law system has pauperized
them. The truth is, as I have shown, poor-relief was originally
the creation of Christian charity ; and what was a necessary
agency to create it must be a necessary agency to preserve it
in its true sense. A rate levied under compulsion for the poor
by state naturalism, and administered according to the cast-iron
rules of expensive red-tapeism, brings them bread at the cost of
their dignity. It feeds but degrades them.
* Ibidem, p. 30, et seq. \ Lettre sur retat du panperisme en Angleterre.
THE VOCATION OF IDA. [Nov.,
THE VOCATION OF IDA.
BY L. W. REILLY.
I.
HE lovers had quarrelled. The trouble between
them was so trivial in itself as not to be worth
specifying. Either he fancied that she had
slighted him for clever Mr. George Lester, of
whom he was somewhat jealous, or she imagined
that he had shown some needless attention to pretty Miss
Elaine Joyce, whom she was tempted to dislike. It was some-
thing of this sort, a trifle of misjudgment that should have
been set aside by means of a soft answer. But instead of this
the chiding, which had been begun by one or the other of them
without any intention of making a formal rebuke or leading to
a scene, had brought on denial and recrimination, one hot word
being followed by another and another still more fiery, until
Ida, taking the token of her betrothal off her finger, laid it be-
fore Edward on the little onyx table at which he was sitting,
and said :
" There is your ring, sir."
Edward stood up as she came towards him from the sofa,
not divining what her purpose was, a look of expectancy in his
eyes as if hoping that her womanly tact was about to find a
way out of the discord. When, however, he understood what
her act implied, his face grew pale. He stood quite still, both
hands grasping the back of his chair. For a full minute he re-
mained motionless and silent, not knowing what to say or do.
Then he drew a long breath and said slowly and with evident
effort to control himself :
"Do you mean to break our engagement, Ida?"
" I do," was the quick reply.
"For good and all? "
"Yes, sir; no man shall talk to me as you have. If he
would do so before marriage, what could I expect afterwards?
This ends it for us."
He looked at her sharply, doubtingly, sadly, wistfully, but
seeing no hesitation in the flashing eye, no uncertainty in the
set lips, he picked up ^the ring, slipped it into the pocket of
1894-] THE VOCATION OF IDA. 159
his vest, made a bow to her as he passed her on his way to
the parlor door, and said :
" I wish you a good evening, Miss Powers."
She simply returned his bow.
Then he took his hat and cane from the rack, opened the
hall door, and departed.
She listened intently to the noise that he made as he left
the house, every nerve on edge, still on fire with resentment at
what he had said. " He's gone," she murmured. Then she
thought that she heard him coming up the steps again and a
pleased expression began to drive the pain away from her coun-
tenance. She strained her ears to catch the sound of his ring
at the bell how well she knew his double pull ! but no, her
heart had tricked her. " He's gone for sure," she whispered.
Then a mighty feeling of desolation and darkness, of loneliness
and coldness came upon her ; the things in the hallway seemed
unsteady, and she caught at the newel of the staircase to keep
herself from falling to the floor. Even while her senses seemed
to be leaving her she caught the odor from a bunch of lilacs in
the vase upon the hat-rack, which, so she strangely fancied in
a flash of thought, spread a pungent, strong, and cooling aro-
ma about her. How often she thought of it afterwards ! How
lasting appeared the scent ! But the faintness soon passed off.
It was followed by another flush of anger as she recalled all
the details of the falling-out, and the reproof that she had re-
ceived stood out in her mind like words writ in flame.
" I'm glad that he's gone," she muttered bitterly.
II.
Her joy at Edward's abrupt departure was not apparent that
evening, however, to the other members of the Powers family,
because she retired at once to her own room on the plea of a sick
headache. Alone, she could do nothing but go over and over
that foolish quarrel. She tried not to think. She attempted to
read a novel, but her eyes passed along the lines of letters and
she understood not a word of all she saw. She picked up the
waist of her best blue dress, in which there was the beginning
of a rip under the left arm ; but she hadn't the will to mend it.
She put it over the back of a chair, went to the bed and lay
down. " Why did it all happen ? What have I done ? Is this
the end of my dream ? Will he come back ? " These questions
she asked herself and these she answered in a hundred ways,
until exhaustion came and restless sleep.
,6o THE VOCATION OF IDA. [Nov.,
Nor was her gladness visible the next day when she came
down to breakfast with swollen eyes, and there moped notwith-
standing her resolution to be so nonchalant that no one should
suspect that aught was amiss. And when her mother exclaimed :
"Why, Ida! what in the world is the matter with you? You
look as if you had lost your best friend ! " she burst into tears,
got up from the table without tasting food, and fled to her
own apartment.
There Mrs. Powers found her half an hour afterwards, and
there, without going into particulars, she made confession that
she and Edward had quarrelled and that she had given -him
back her engagement ring.
" Oh, never mind, you foolish girl ! " said the mother en-
couragingly. " Edward will be around again this evening, you
may depend upon it, and then you and he can ' make up ' and
be happy again."
But no Edward called that evening. Mr. Lester appeared,
however, arrayed as usual in stylish garments and immaculate
linen, and was slightly taken aback when informed by the house-
maid that Miss Ida was " not at home." It would not do to
announce that she was not well, for the news might get to Mr.
Ewirig's ears, and she would not for her life let him know that
she so longed for his company that his absence had made her ill.
Day followed day, yet her lover did not come back. She
could not stand the separation much longer, she thought, when
at the end of a weary week he did not return, and at times
she caught herself considering how she could, while guarding
her self-respect, make the first advances towards a reconciliation.
"If he stays away much longer," she said to. herself, "I shall
die or go mad." Poor thing ! she did not then know the full
bitterness of the chalice of grief that she was to drain, nor how
very much the heart of a woman can endure without breaking.
" Ida must have driven Edward away without hope," said Mrs,
Powers to her husband late on Sunday night ; " yet it is pain-
fully evident that she loves him, and I know that his heart was
full of affection for her. Something ought to be done to put
an end to this miserable misunderstanding of theirs. It is kill-
ing her, and he, too, must be suffering. Couldn't you see him
by chance, as it were, down town?"
I could, of course; but these storms had better be let set-
tle themselves without outside interference. Ida has not yet
gone into a decline, and if Edward is as fond of her as you
say he'll not give her up for a trifle."
1894-] THE VOCATION OF IDA. 161
The next day Ida was shocked when her brother William
brought home the news that he had heard from young Joe Ew-
ing to the effect that Edward had left for parts unknown the
morning after his last visit to her. He had written a note to
his parents stating simply that. his engagement with Miss Pow-
ers was at an end, hoping that his father would get a trust-
worthy assistant in his place, and announcing that he was going
away until he had learned to forget. He implored them not to
worry about him, as he was Christian enough not to do what
would afflict or shame them, and man enough to earn a living
for himself anywhere. He said, in conclusion, that he would
not write home until he had conquered himself, unless he should
fall sick, so that so long as he did not write they might be
certain that, physically at least, all was well with him.
Ida had read in novels of somewhat similar disappearances,
but had never before encountered one in real life. In fiction the
heroine always falls insensible when she hears of her lover's
flight, and forthwith is seized with an attack of brain fever.
But Ida did not collapse in this fashion. She did, indeed, lose
color for a moment and felt as if benumbed by an inward chill,
and, later, she languished in spirits somewhat. But being a re-
solute and healthy young woman, with a good appetite, she
went about her daily ways pretty much as if nothing unpleas-
ant had happened to her somewhat subdued in manner, but
still bright of eye and rosy of cheek and the little world
about her knew not how acutely she was suffering. One person
only was allowed to enter the sanctuary of her heart and note
how sorely she was wounded her sympathizing mother. Every
one else blamed her, possibly because she was present in the
light while Edward was in the darkness of an unknown where-
abouts ; yet none but herself and her lover were aware of the
details of the quarrel, as she was loyal to him even in their es-
trangement, neither accusing him to others nor permitting them
to pass an unfavorable judgment upon him. Mr. Ewing's kin
especially were hard and cold to her. Without any evidence
they laid the fault on her, and they took occasion to let her see
that their feelings towards her had become unkind.
As man forsook her, Ida turned to God for comfort and
support. He would not misjudge her. He would take care of
Edward and bring him back safe. Her first great grief softened
and humbled her, and led her often to the throne of grace in
prayer.
VOL. LX. II
l62 THE VOCATION OF IDA. [Nov.,
III.
When information of Edward Ewing's departure from home
was spread throughout the circles wherein he moved, various
comments were passed upon it. . The opinion of the majority
of his acquaintances found expression in the observation of Clem
Barclay : " There's as good fish in the sea as ever were caught,
but if I had hooked the fish that was to my taste and it got
back to the water, I wouldn't run away before I had tried the
virtue of more bait." Then he added : " But if I had my choice
I'd take for my helpmate Miss E. J. And now, you mark my
words Ed Ewing will come back from a three months' vaca-
tion, cured of his recent infatuation, and we'll all be invited
to his wedding with Miss Joyce."
Notwithstanding this prediction, month succeeded month,
and still no tidings of the absconder were received by his peo-
ple. He had gone out of their world completely. Where he
was, what he was doing, how he was getting along, they knew
not. After waiting four months, his parents advertised in the
daily papers of all the large cities offering a reward for infor-
mation concerning his whereabouts, and they had a description
of him sent to the police authorities throughout the whole
country. Still, nothing was heard of him. They were worried
almost beyond endurance, and poor Mrs. Ewing's health failed
visibly, while her husband's hair grew still more gray. Yet
were they consoled by Edward's assurance that as long as they
did not hear from him they might be certain that all was well
with him so far as health was concerned.
" Keep up your courage, mother," said Mr. Ewing one day ;
" the Lord will protect Ed for us. He always was a good boy,
and I feel sure that he'll turn up all right."
But hope deferred maketh the heart sick ; it is hard to keep
up courage in the face of persistent disappointment.
When a year and a half had passed away without any news
of Edward, all but three of his friends gave him up as gone
for good his parents and Miss Powers. " He met some ill
fate," said some persons. " He must have committed suicide,"
said others, who forgot that he was a Catholic and that Catho-
lics do not kill themselves. " He'll never be heard of again,
even if he be alive," quoth more.
Ida could not bring herself to believe that he was dead or
that he would not return some day. She was persuaded, how-
ever, that ;he must have lost all love for herself. Otherwise,
1894-] THE VOCATION OF IDA. 163
she reasoned, he would have come back and tried to make up.
She no longer censured him. All her upbraidings were for her-
self. She had been too hasty, too sensitive, too resentful,
too repelling. She had cast him off. She had returned to
him his ring. She had said that the estrangement was final.
No matter what had gone before, it was she who had
broken the engagement. " Mine was indeed the fault," she
sobbed.
But, after all, what was the use of deciding who was the
more to blame ? The past was past. The engagement was as
if it had never been. Edward had vanished. Her dreams of
earthly happiness were at an end. Why couldn't she die ?
There was nothing for her to live for and the grave was very
peaceful.
" O God ! " she prayed many a night, " please let me die
soon."
She did not then say " If it be according to thy will,"
No, she thought only of her own misery and selfishly longed to
escape from it.
" Merciful God ! " she kept ejaculating in secret, " please let
me die."
IV.
But her day had not yet fallen. And at last Time, the
healer, began to soothe her pain. As the romance of her
life receded further and further from among actualities, it be-
came to her like a dream. She could hardly realize at times
that it had all been real. Then the present claimed her atten-
tion and constantly pressed the past still farther out of sight.
The future, too, demanded some consideration. What was she
to do with her existence ? She could not go on to the end
with a handkerchief up to her eyes. There must be a work for
her to do. Her neighbors were busy with their destiny. What
was to be hers ? The world had not stopped still because
Edward Ewing had chosen to disappear. " There were great
men before Agamemnon," and afterwards also. The prize that
Edward had lost and abandoned seemed goodly to others.
Mr. Lester, for instance, continued to be a frequent visitor at
the Powers' home, and called as often there as Mr. Barclay did
at the residence of the Joyces. So did other friends of the
family who might be supposed to have matrimonial intentions.
So that, as might be expected, it came to pass that Miss
Mollie Talbot told Miss Grace Ewing in great confidence that
l64 THE VOCA TION OF IDA. [Nov.,
she had heard Mrs. Northwood assure Mrs. Heilman that Mr.
Lester and Miss Powers were betrothed.
Just about this time Ida went to her confessor to ask his
advice about her future. She felt a strange peace come over
her as she entered the plain parlor in the pastoral residence,
with its uncarpeted floor, its old-fashioned hair-cloth furniture,
its three pious pictures, and its crucifix. It seemed so unworld-
ly, so unobtrusive, so comfortably homely! It was like its
owner, dear old Father Shryver, who had baptized her, taught
her her catechism and given her her First Communion. As she
sat down on the wide sofa she gave a sigh of relief her anx-
ieties would leave her and her way be made plain to her, she
hoped.
Soon the priest appeared. After mutual greetings and some
polite inquiries he took a chair near her sofa, and she made
haste to broach the subject that had taken her to his door.
What should she do with her life?
"What would you like to do with it?" he asked.
" I hardly know, father. I have thought much and prayed
much, but the light is not clear."
" Why not marry some one else ? "
He knew, of course, about the broken engagement, and
there was no need to mention who the " else " referred to.
Ida only shook her head.
" Lately," she said, " I have been seriously considering the
idea of becoming a sister. The more I have studied it the
better I have liked it. My wish for marriage is dead. Now I
should prefer to deny myself in order to be of use to others.
What do you think? "
He was an old priest and a shrewd reader of character. He
was inclined to doubt that she had a vocation to a convent
life. Still, experience had taught him that human nature can-
not be judged off-hand, and that man cannot limit Providence
to set methods in its operations, nor determine in advance pre-
cisely how the Holy Ghost shall work for the sanctification of
souls. So, although he did not at once share her conviction,
he would not take the responsibility of discouraging her from
aspiring to lead a life of heroic virtue, for she had, as he knew,
many of the sterling qualities that go to the make-up of a
good religious. Accordingly he answered :
" Possibly the Lord let what has happened occur in order
to show you your way to himself. Who knows? The human
heart is often deprived of creatures in order that it may turn
1894-] THE VOCATION OF IDA. 165
to the Creator. Yet in all my experience I never knew of but
two cases in which young women called to the counsels were led
to the convent through a disappointment in love. It is a rare
occurrence. Still it has occurred and you may prove an
instance of it. However, take time to pray. Week after next
there is to be a special retreat at St. Mary's Academy. I'll
get you permission to attend it, if you like, and you can take
those nine days to find out the will of God in your regard.
What do you say ? "
Now that she had come to the bridge, however, Ida wanted
to cross immediately. Having let her secret thoughts find vent
in words, she was eager to go on to action. She was crest-
fallen at Father Shryver's hesitation in approving her purpose of
entering the cloister. However, she admitted to herself that
she was not quite ready to go at once and that her participa-
tion in the retreat would prepare her family for her departure,
in case she should feel herself called away from them.
All this passed through her mind like a flash, so that with-
out any discourteous interval of silence she responded :
" I thank you for the suggestion, father, and shall be grate-
ful to you if you'll obtain the Rev. Mother's consent for me
to make the retreat."
V.
Out of the retreat Ida came fully determined to be a nun.
Her "Angel Guardian" at the academy was delighted with her
decision. That impulsive and warm-hearted religious had an
awful horror of that unknown country that she called " the
world," and then she felt sure that such a good, bright,
amiable, accomplished, and energetic young person as Miss
Powers was, coming from a large and well-to-do family, would
be a welcome accession to any community.
" Oh ! you'll be happy, never fear," she said to her ; " I feel
sure you will, just as I am."
The missionary who gave the retreat was less enthusiastic.
"You have chosen the better part," was his comment.
" But it is not all sunshine in the convent, nor is perfection
reached when the habit is assumed. You'll have plenty of
trials there. That is the way of the Lord. Those whom he
loves he refines by temptation, troubles, and darkness and dry-
ness of spirit. And the closer he draws his chosen souls to him
the more he exacts from them, the heavier he lets the cross
weigh on them, the further he takes them up Calvary.
i66
THE VOCATION OF IDA. [Nov.,
However, my child, he will be with you and will not suffer you
to be tempted beyond your strength supported by his grace.
Have courage, be generous, and trust him. Besides, you'll have
two years to make up your mind definitely. In that space
you can see the life of the counsels thoroughly and study your
own aptitude for it. If you be not suited for it, the door will
be open for you ; whereas if you are indeed called and per-
severe to the end, you will receive the reward promised in
Holy Writ a crown of eternal life. May God bless you ! "
A fortnight later, Miss Powers, having bade good-by to her
friends, entered St. Rose's Convent. After three months of
probation as a postulant she was clothed with the holy habit
of a religious and received the name of Sister Mary Paul. A
great throng was present at her reception. Many of her own
kindred and the nearest members of the family of Mr. Ewing,
now reconciled with her, together with a concourse of social
acquaintances, besides some pious and some curious strangers,
crowded the chapel at the function. She looked radiant in her
bridal robes. The altar was brilliant with lights and beautiful
with flowers. The music was sweet, devotional, and thrilling,
although the sisters gave a French tone to their pronunciation
of the Latin of the hymns. The instruction, delivered by
Father Shryver, was short, stirring, appropriate, and full of the
spirit of faith. After the new novice had retired to an inner
apartment and donned the habit, with the white veil, she looked
like a saint, gentle and innocent, joyful and modest, dead to
the world yet abounding in peace.
One thought disturbed her during the reception. There
were lilacs on the altar, big bunches of white and purple
blooms that scented the whole chapel. When their perfume
first reached the novice on her entrance it nearly took her
breath away. It brought back, like a flash of light passing
through her memory, her quarrel with her lover. " O God ! "
she prayed, "take care of Edward and bring him safe home to
his own." Then she forced her thoughts away from him to the
great step that she was about to take herself in the service of
God.
After the ceremony the new sister received in the convent
parlor the tearful felicitations of her friends. She was flushed
with excitement. After about one hour spent with her they
bade her good-by.
" What a foolish girl ! " exclaimed Mrs. Northwood on her
way home from the reception, speaking to Mrs. Boatner, like
1894-] THE VOCATION OF IDA. 167
herself a non-Catholic, " to bury herself in that nunnery while
she has health, youth, beauty, money, and everythin' good to
live for. Even if Edward Ewing has gone, there's lots and
lots 'd be glad to have her. Now there's Mr. Lester, who "
" H-sh-sh ! " broke in Mrs. Rexford, who is one of those
dear old souls who may take privileges without offence ; " don't
touch the Lord's anointed, Mrs. Northwood, if you please. Let
us leave Ida in the hands of God. He has guided her where
she is. There is work for her there, work for humanity, a
useful, noble, and unselfish career before her in the field of
education or in some one of the other charities of her order.
Let her follow her vocation in peace."
VI.
In all the duties of her convent life the new novice was
most fervent. She endeavored to be exact in the observance
of all the rules and to follow the customs of the house. She
aimed to be moulded into the shape of the perfect religious.
She tried hard to put the past behind her, out of sight, of out
mind, out of memory, beyond recall. But she did not succeed
very well. At times, in seasons of consolation, she fancied that
she had triumphed. Then she felt in her soul a flame of love
for God. Bowed before the tabernacle or prostrate in her own
cell, she desired to be all in all to Christ, and she longed to do
and suffer for his sake. On such occasions she was inclined to
echo, if she thought of it at all, her old statement : " I'm glad
that he's gone ! " At other times she was depressed in mind,
discouraged, moody, sad. It was not simply spiritual aridity
that she endured. That comes to all who aim at perfection
to saints as well as to ordinary Christians, to religious oftener
than to the devout in the world. She had, on such occasions,
a disgust for the routine of the convent. She was beleaguered
by bitterness towards all at home. She was disposed to be
impatient, curt, rude. Her heart was troubled in its hidden
depths. At such periods she almost hated herself for having
conceived the idea of being called to the cloister.
These fits of peace and disquiet kept alternating with each
other with an eccentric regularity only the spells of discontent
came back more promptly and lasted longer than the others.
Sister Mary Paul was not so happy in the convent as she
had expected to be. Was this because she had left a portion
of her heart behind her in the world ? Anyway she was kept
too busy with vocal prayer, meditation, spiritual reading, study,
jgg THE VOCATION OF IDA. [Nov.,
and manual labor to have time to mope. Her new confessor,
Father Drury, the chaplain of the novitiate, was studying her
vocation, and, until he should reach a conclusion, he bade her
reject all doubts concerning it as possible temptations from
below.
The mistress of novices was kind to Ida, encouraged her to
do her best to imbibe the religious spirit, and strove to exer-
cise her in the virtues of her state. But at the end of six
months she went to the Rev. Mother and said :
" After examining closely the character, disposition, gifts, and
graces of Sister Mary Paul, I do not believe that she has a
religious vocation. She is pious and of good will, docile and
ready enough for mortifications, yet I fear that she is not
called to the life here."
"That is my own judgment," said the Rev. Mother slowly,
putting down her pen on her desk as she spoke and folding her
hands before her. " Yet I am so fond of her personally, and
her family have been such good friends of ours, that I have
been slow to accept my own opinion. Indeed I have prayed
more over her case than I was going to say, over all the
others. What does she think about it herself ? "
" She is still undecided, but more and more she inclines to
believe that she has no vocation. Nevertheless she is afraid to
make another mistake, and so she is more and more harassed
in mind."
" The poor child ! my heart feels for her. Well, let .us con-
sult Father Drury, who '
There was a knock at the door. It came from the sister
portress, who had gone up to announce that the reverend
chaplain was down-stairs in the parlor, and had asked for the
mother superior.
"Come down with me," said Mother Agnes to the mistress
of novices, " and we'll see what his reverence thinks."
Down they went. After passing the courtesies of the day
and listening to the business that had brought the father to
the convent, the mother superior asked him what his judgment
was concerning the vocation of Sister Mary Paul.
"She is not called here," he said emphatically. "She knows
it herself. For after my Mass this morning, which I celebrated
in honor of the Holy Spirit to obtain light for her and at
which she received Holy Communion for the same intention, I
asked her ' Yes or No ' at the sacristy door as she came in to
put away the vestments, and she answered' No.' "
1894-] THE VOCATION OF IDA. 169
"I'm so sorry!" exclaimed the mother superior.
" And so am I," echoed the mistress of novices.
" God's will be done ! " replied the priest.
VII.
Later in the day Sister Mary Paul was summoned to the
Rev. Mother's room. Together they studied the question of
her vocation. Together they reached the conclusion that her
place was in the world.
" My way is all dark again ! " the poor child cried. " I had
hoped that it was clear and straight for the rest of my days.
All I can see now, however, is one step ahead this is not my
place and I must go away from it. I am happy enough here.
I know well that no one is perfectly happy on earth, and, if
my vocation were sure, I'd be satisfied to stay here to the end.
What I cannot understand is, Why did God permit me to
make the blunder of coming here, to be deceived or rather to
deceive myself into the belief that he wanted me here? Did I
not pray to be enlightened, and has he not said 'Ask and you
shall receive ' ? Did I not ask to know his will ? Why, oh !
why did he let me come here if I must go away again ? "
Then she broke down and cried, covering her face in the
ample folds of her habit.
The afternoon sun was streaming in the window and fell
half way across the mother's desk, leaving her in the shadow
and glorifying the bent figure of the grieving novice. The
clock on the mantel ticked loudly. A cart, driven by a colored
boy, went rumbling down the street outside.
"My dear sister," said the superioress slowly, "you must
not judge the Almighty. He does what is best in what is
purely his, and he turns to good what we do amiss. He may
have had a special object in bringing you here. You may live
to see that this was a favor, a great grace, to be sheltered in
this quiet haven for nine months. Who knows what temptations
might have come to you in the world during that period ? Who
can tell what you would have done in your disturbed condition
of mind ? You might have accepted some offer of marriage
that would not have been good for you, or you might have
otherwise taken some fateful step that would have defeated the
plans of the Lord. Be sure that he loves you. He has en-
dowed you with a sterling character and a heart of gold ; he
has enriched you with graces ; he has given you a fine educa-
tion ; he has favored you with excellent parents ; he has lav-
I70 THE VOCATION OF IDA. [Nov.,
ished blessings upon you. Have confidence in him. Believe
that he had a wise purpose in view in sending you here, or in
allowing you to come here of your own accord in the belief
that you were obeying him. You will have your reward for
obedience. Besides, your time with us has not been lost for
this world or the next. You have been trained in piety, have
learned to know yourself, have been taught to meditate, have
measured the world with the principles of eternity, have gone
through a course of good reading, have had the science of the
saints made easy and practical, etc. Your soul has been
showered with graces. Altogether you have received a strong
impulse upward and onward that ought to raise you all through
the rest of your life and land you safe in heaven when you
die."
The novice was no longer crying. She had uncovered her
face, but her eyes were still cast down.
" But what will the world say when I quit the convent ? "
" Have you been in it six months and still care for the gos-
sip of Mrs. Grundy?"
" I would not care for that if I were to stay in it, but I
must go out and face the talk."
" Offer that trial up to Him who suffers it to fall upon you.
So you'll take the sting out of it and make it meritorious for
you. But what can be said ? Your acquaintances will all know
that you leave of your own accord, bearing our love and
esteem. Those among them who love you will say : ' She's a
sensible girl to come out as soon as she discovered that she
was not called to the life there.' Those among them who are
not fond of you well, what can they say? People will talk,
but what do you care for their chatter ? Besides, my dear, the
world is not so much absorbed in your affairs as you think it
is. There will not be so much gossip as you imagine. And it
will not last. Moreover, you are doing nothing singular. You
remember Sister Nita and Sister Celestine. They tpo returned
to their homes when they found out that they had no vocation.
And there wasn't even a nine days' sensation about them. Dry
your eyes and go to the chapel to assure our dear Lord that
you are contented to do his will whether he lifts you up or
casts you down, whether he shelters you in a cloister or sends
you to carry the light of a Christian life out into the world.
Tell him that you will do whatever he wants you to do. Be-
sides, you are not going to leave us in a hurry. You will
stay for a week or two yet, to write to your parents and make
1894-] THE VOCATION OF IDA. 171
your preparations. In fact, I don't know that I can give you
up even then, for I love you dearly."
As she spoke the last words the superioress got up from
her chair and went over to Ida and kissed her on the forehead.
VIII.
Two days after that conversation a letter and a cablegram
reached the home of the Powers. The letter was from Ida. It
said :
CONVENT OF ST. ROSE.
MY DEAR PARENTS: After a nine months' experience of life
in the convent, after earnest prayer, and after consultation with
the superiors here, I have reached the conclusion that I have
no vocation for the religious life. This conviction has brought
me great grief. I hope that it will not also give you pain.
But my heart is not here. What shall I do ? Would that I
had work that would make me forget the past, or, since that
cannot be, that would turn my sorrow into a blessing for
others. I cannot write more now. Come to me soon.
Your suffering daughter, IDA.
The cablegram was from Mr. George Lester. It said :
Rio DE JANEIRO.
Found Edward Ewing petty officer steamer San Francisco
here ; enlisted assumed name in China when advertised in
New York May letter next mail. GEORGE LESTER.
The letter came within a fortnight. It announced that Mr.
Lester, while walking in the streets of the capital of Brazil,
had encountered a " blue jacket " whom he instantly recognized
as Edward Ewing. The latter seemed delighted to meet him,
and beset him with questions, asking him about every one at
home, especially of his own folk, of Miss Powers and her
family, and of other close friends. He told how he had gone
to New York to escape thought in the mad whirl of that city,
had not been able to get work at once and feared the strain
of a new anxiety, had wandered across the Brooklyn Bridge a
few days after his arrival in town and, without knowing where
he was going, had strolled down to the Navy-yard. The sight
of the government ships had suggested to him the project of
enlisting as a common marine under the name of Robert
White. He had been with the South Pacific Squadron for two
years, had been at all the South American ports, in Chinese
THE VOCATION OF IDA. [Nov.,
i/z
waters back to Hawaii, and finally to Rio de Janeiro, and
would soon sail for the United States. He had won his way
up one step. The two friends had spent the day together.
Mr. Ewing was astounded to hear of Miss Ida's entrance into
the convent. He had finally said that, seeing that she was not
to marry him, he was glad that she was not to marry any one
else. He added that he had abandoned all thoughts of
marriage for himself and intended to devote himself to a sea
career. Then followed a long and humorous description of life
in Brazil, ending with: "But I'm tired of it all and homesick,
and will be back, D. V., about the time that Mr. Ewing reaches
port. By the way, he begs that no hint of his whereabouts or
intentions be given out, as he desires to come unannounced. So
tell no one, if you please, but Mrs. Powers and Sister Mary
Paul, whom he is willing to trust as well as yourself, unless his
father or mother is sick."
" Well, this is news and more of it ! " exclaimed Mr. Powers
when he had read the letter.
The day after Ida had sent word to her parents that she
wanted to see them, they hurried to the convent, consoled her,
had an interview with the Rev. Mother, and made arrange-
ments for the return home of their daughter. She came out
the day that Mr. Lester's letter was received. She was anxious
to have the ordeal over and be once more among her own.
The trial was not so hard as she had feared. Father Shryver
was among the first to call, not waiting for her to pay -him a
visit and after hearing her story, he said : " You did right, my
child; welcome home!"
IX.
In May the San Francisco arrived in New York harbor.
Two days later Edward Ewing startled his family by appearing
unannounced at the dining-room door just as they were all as-
sembled for dinner. It was almost too much for his dear old
mother, who thought at first that it was his wraith, and, utter-
ing a cry, sank fainting in her chair. Joe was the next to see
him. " My God, it's Ed ! " he cried, jumping up from his chair
to grasp his hand. But Edward had rushed to his mother,
lifted her up, taken her in his arms, and laid her on a sofa,
kissing her face and taking her hands in his. He had no greet-
ings for any one while she was unconscious. Soon she revived,
however, and then there were welcomes and handshakes and
questions without end.
1894-] THE VOCATION OF IDA. 173
Edward was amazed and delighted when he learned that
Miss Powers had returned from the convent. He had not
intended to call on any friends for a day or two, " to get
rested," so he had said, " and acclimated once more to civilized
and home surroundings." But as soon as he knew that Ida was
near and free to see him, the old flame sprang up in his heart,
where it had been smouldering all this while. He resolved to
call on the Powerses that very evening.
Ida expected him. She had been told that he had been
found, but only on the day after her return. The news seemed
to lift up her spirits. Perhaps Providence meant them for each
other after all. So she scanned the papers closely for news of
the San Francisco. She saw the report of its arrival. Was it
by intuition that she felt that Edward was near her the day
that he reached home ? Anyway she was expecting him. All
that afternoon she was listening for his double-ring.
When he did come to the door, wearing a lilac spray as a
boutonniere, Ida was somehow there to open it herself. She had
wondered to herself all day how she would receive him, and
had settled that she would let the maid announce him formally
and keep him waiting a reasonable time before making her ap-
pearance in the parlor ; but it happened that a fire-engine had
gone clanging by the door and she had looked out to see where
the fire was, when around the opposite street-corner came Mr.
Ewing, and just as she regained the vestibule he stood beside
her.
"Ida!"
" Edward ! "
The many months that had intervened between the night of
the quarrel and the night of the reconciliation were blotted
out. The future was not considered. The present was joy su-
preme, the joy of two hearts that God had intended to join
together, separated for awhile but now once more, after many
sorrows and much uncertainty, happily brought together again.
The whole family were charmed with the bronzed and
bearded traveller, who had so much to relate of adventures on
land and sea, and whose very presence seemed to bring sunshine
into the house.
Father Shryver overflowed with affectionate greetings when
Edward called on him the next day. After a long and delight-
ful chat the priest asked :
" When is the marriage to be ? "
"What marriage?"
174
THE VOCATION OF IDA. [Nov.
"Yours."
" If you had asked me yesterday morning I should have re-
plied, Never. Now I can only say that the date has not been
fixed by Ida."
"Thanks be to God you have come back to her, for both
your sakes," said the priest. " I will not scold you for hiding
so long, for what's past is past and beyond recall. But you
were made for each other ; you will help each other to save
your souls. Matrimony is a great sacrament, and men and wo-
men' are as truly called to it as they are to the altar and the
cloister."
Clem Barclay seemed to be the only one of all Edward's
acquaintances that was not pleased with the way things had
turned out. Whether he was sorry that his prophecy had not
proved true, or that he wanted to cast sheep's eyes in the di-
rection of Ida himself, or that, even with Mr. Ewing out of the
race, he could not persuade Miss Joyce to reciprocate his admira-
tion for her, no one ever found out ; but he was heard to mutter :
" There's as good fish in the sea as ever were caught, but I don't
seem to have the right sort of a hook on my line ! "
When the Rev. Mother of St. Rose's Convent received the
cards of invitation to the wedding (which, by the way, is to
take place to-morrow, with Mr. George Lester as groomsman
and Miss Elaine Joyce as bridesmaid, strong influence at Wash-
ington having secured Mr. Swing's discharge from Uncle Sam's
navy), she wrote to the bride-elect a loving note full of good
wishes, ending with: "The married state must have its saints.
In it I am certain you will be holy as well as happy. In it
you have found your true vocation."
ITS WALLS ENCLOSED TRACTS OF VINEYARD AND ORCHARD, OF FIG AND OLIVE.
A NEGLECTED MISSION.
BY DOROTHEA LUMMIS.
HE historians of the past had their frank pre-
judices, their amiable bitternesses, their patent
partisanships. It is doubtful whether the his-
torian of Mary meant to be just to Elizabeth.
Even the historian of to-day, with his modern-
ity, his all-sidedness, and his intentional realism, has his fashion,
his idiosyncrasy, his whim : sets a feast here, allows a famine
there. Always is the story-teller the slave of his temperament,
and sees through its glass but darkly.
Thus it happens that in the wide field of the world there
are neglected corners, whose story is but lightly recorded and
whose present is by men forgot. Of the wonderful pictur-
esque past of California this land of the sun whose rich story
yet awaits its adequate chronicling, there remain witnesses
which, though silent, yet speak the Missions.
176
A NEGLECTED MISSION.
[Nov.,
On the slope of the fecund foot-hills, protected by the
battlemented mountains, or midway on the plain between sea
and hill, they rise, gray, ruined, majestic, fighting the disin-
tegrating forces of frost, of rain, and of tropic sun, with insati-
ate patience and constancy. Did not each arch and tower grow
in the face of daily danger, consecrated in blood and fostered
by a million prayers?
Modern research in archaeology has obliged history to recon-
struct on far more just and kindly lines the conquest of this new
world by the old ; but even so it could only be by danger and
by death that those of Spain might win for themselves and call
their own this lotusland, so soft, so smiling, so like home.
It was neither gold nor the lust of dominion that sent the
priest always in the van, but the strong desire to show these
dark, unwilling natives the one true God. To the courage, the
constancy, and the frequent martyrdom of the Padres was due
the real conquest. On these gentle figures, men of learning and
THE RUINED WALLS OF ADOBE.
of humanity, content with danger and rejoicing in hardship,
teaching and practising honesty and good faith, should shine the
white halo of the holy, for these were the real Conquist 'adores.
There is a strange intensity in useless and belated sympathy.
One may live stolid years within the very horizon of a moving
1 894-]
A N-EGLECTED MISSION.
177
spectacle only at last to be most keenly awake to its pity and
its pain.
As the " poor islanders " have left Stratford-on-Avon to the
American traveller, so the dwellers in California have left their
missions to the sometimes untender mercies of the tourist, whose
distinguished regard has proven enervating rather than tonic.
IN THE DAYS OF ITS PRIME ITS BUILDINGS WERE MILE-LONG.
The writer, though fain to stand with those who make for
righteousness, must cry peccavi : I too have sinned. For, riding
upon a day in June up the warm blue valley of San Fernando,
she has visited her young peach-trees, and hung lovingly over
each new leaf on fig and vine ; then turning her back, returned
as she came, when a few shimmering miles away, like a patch
of gray upon the valley's verdure, lay the ruins of the Mission
of San Fernando, its soft Angelus lingering faintly on the
wind ; a voice searching and plaintive surely to a soul not
buried in base problems of profit.
The Mission of San Fernando Rey one of that marvellous
chain seven hundred miles long, reaching from San Diego to
Sonoma was founded in 1797 in honor of Ferdinand V., King
of Castile and Aragon.
They made no mistakes in location, the old padres. " Walk-
ing barefoot over those thorny miles, possessed with a burning
desire to baptize, longing only to preach the everlasting gospel,
VOL. LX. 12
I7 g A NEGLECTED MISSION. [Nov.,
they yet knew where the land was good, where the wild grapes
grew, where there were roses which reminded them of those
that in their youth they had seen in the braids of the maids of
old Castile."
The Mission of San Fernando was built after the death of
Padre Junipero Serra, but his spirit was vital still. The aro-
ma of his prayers sanctified its walls, for it was believed by his
brethren that his soul was with God as soon as it passed from
the pale lips moist with the oil of the last Sacrament.
In the day of its prime its buildings were mile-long, and its
far-reaching adobe walls enclosed tracts of vineyard and orchards
of fig and olive. Behind were the guardian mountains inter-
posing a lasting barrier to the winds of the great Mojave
desert, fiery hot at noon and frosty at midnight. Before lay
the forty-mile slope to a horizon whose curling fogs and salty
savors hinted of the unseen sea. To-day, between two sudden
slopes of the Sierra Madre range, a long and dusty highway
leads down and down twenty miles to the City of the Angels.
Her bustling capitalists have achieved the land about and be-
tween ; and their yearly encroachments reach the very doors of
the deserted Mission. Nay, more ! for the central room of the
one building yet holding together is transformed into a modern
kitchen ; and where once the priests held daily service the slant-
eyed Celestial reigns supreme over his pots and pans. The
consecrated bell that once rang only for prayer, or tolled for
the dying, now answers to his ribald tattoo as he calls to din-
ner the workers in the neighboring fields.
In this central building there is still soundness of viga, and
resistance in roof and wall. The shadow of the arches still
cuts an unbroken line across the sunny floor of the long
portal. But the great chapel behind has fought a losing battle.
Through wounds and gashes on every side, the enemies of rain
and wind pour in ; the broken vigas whiten in the long sun of
summer, and the graves of the saints within lie deep under the
unregarded wreckage.
Beyond, on the quiet northern side, is a forlorn little breadth
of grave-yard, its impudent weeds faintly trampled by the
infrequent feet of the mourner, and under the straggling
shadow of the gaunt eucalyptus shines out incongruously the
white-washed railing and tawdry flowers of a new-made grave.
Stretching away still farther north, their gray trunks lost in
the tall barley at their feet, are the old, old olive-trees, turning
the rippling silver of their small oval leaves upward at every
vagrant breeze. And among them, standing alone, are three
1 894.]
A NEGLECTED MISSION.
old palm-trees, who long ago came a-visiting from the South,
their plumed heads tousled and frayed by the rushing trade-
wind from the ocean.
Time had served the olives kindly had not some ignoble
creature cut and deformed them, that forsooth the tourist might
take home a slice of them on which some provincial dauber
had drawn an infamy in ink. Sorely gnawed by the tooth of
time and engulfed by the rampant weeds, the walls appear only
here and there to mark the confines of the former demesne.
THEIR YEARLY ENCROACHMENTS LEAD TO THE VERY DOORS.
Two miles away lies the wee town of Fernando, through
which rush the trains of the great Southern Pacific Railroad.
Sometimes the solitary figure of a painter or " camerist " is seen
crawling, encumbered with paints or plates, along the wide
white ribbon of the highway, bringing back some bit of canvas
or of film that has caught and kept the tender purple or warm
brown that rests on the crumbling adobe, or the long, dignified,
gracious line of the tiled roof sunk, as it were, into the blue
opacity of a noon sky.
Thus the Mission of San Fernando lies starving in the midst
of plenty. The poorest child of the Catholic Church may have
a priest and a hasty prayer, but in the hour of her defeat ard
death San Fernando Rey is left alone.
i8o
THE MENDICANT.
[Nov..
THE MENDICANT.
BY P. J. MACCORRY.
I MET her to-day on the
street,
The child of wan Penury's
race,
And the scourge of the wind
and the sleet
Had stricken the bloom
from her face.
And her lashes were dripping
with tears,
And hunger had palsied her
feet,
And her hand stretched be-
seechingly out
When I met her to-day on
the street.
I passed her to-day on the
street,
Unheeding her tremulous
tone ;
And my footsteps were careless and fleet,
In some selfish conceit of my own.
And I paused not to gladden her heart,
Nor deign her a morsel to eat.
Christ's mercy recoiled 'neath the smart
When I passed her to-day on thej^street.
It is not the things that I do
That shall haunt me when night's speeding on];
It is not the deed I shall rue,
Nor the word howso idle and wrong ;
It is not so much for the thought
That my eyes dare not lift to the sun ;
But rather the wrong I have wrought,
In the actions by me left imdone.
1894-] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 181
PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS.
BY WILLIAM BARRY, D.D.
I. THE CERTITUDES OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
DO not imagine that Catholics are likely to be
moved by arguments which Professor Huxley
employs, or the eloquence with which he adorns
them, in his collected anti-Christian Essays lately
given to the world.* But I am strongly of
opinion that those among us who are called to the chair of
teaching, should read, mark, learn, and answer them. It has
often been my fate to listen to disputations in form, syllogism
following upon syllogism, in which the very subjects handled
by Professor Huxley were dealt with on the lines of mediaeval,
or, at best, of seventeenth century procedure. And I have no
intention of denying that the distinctions taken were often as
well-founded as they were subtle, or that in pure metaphysics a
sound conclusion is available for all time. But the difference is
simply astonishing, as regards effective force, between objec-
tions derived from dead heresiarchs, and those urged by a
living and a famous man, whose competence in his own depart-
ment is universally admitted, while the freshness, energy, and, I
had almost said, the turbulent good faith which give an edge
to his rhetoric, must surely tell upon the least interested or the
most indolent of his readers. Such an opponent is worthy of
the attention which he has aroused among English champions
of Christendom, like Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Wace, and the Duke
of Argyll. His polemic, barbed with epigram and sarcasm,
though, on the whole, not ill-tempered, has made no little stir
on our side of the Atlantic nor less, perhaps, in America.
And I repeat my conviction that Catholic masters of apologet-
ics should not allow it to pass unchallenged. It is Professor
Huxley's view that he has made an end, argumentatively speak-
ing, of the Christian Evidences. Is it not, then, a duty incum-
bent on those whom he assails, to meet his positions, explain
where he has gone astray from the facts and right reason, and
* Essays upon some Controverted Questions. By T. H. Huxley, F.R.S. London and
New York : Macmillan. 1892.
1 82 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Nov.,
demonstrate that he has left the Christian Evidences un-
touched ?
A MAN OF HARD FACTS.
All this cannot be done without reading his pages carefully,
and allowing every sound statement in them its full weight a
large task, and calculated to lead us into many fields, historical,
scientific, and metaphysical. Sure I am, however, that it ought
to be done; for the precise influence which Mr. Huxley wields,
and the proof to which he makes his appeal, are of a kind to
which the English temperament is singularly amenable. Mr.
Huxley is, so to speak, a Paley in the service of anti-Christ.
There are, in his composition, no ideal elements ; he cares little
for poetry, despises sentiment, and asks with an air of trium-
phant disdain, when confronted with Mr. Gladstone's cloudy
battalions, "What are the facts?" Of course, he has a perfect
right to do so. We must come to the question of the facts,
sooner or later ; although much depends on how we approach
them, when they are confessedly of so personal and sacred a
nature as those on which the truth of Christianity is founded.
I should be the last in the world to deny that Paley's request
for evidence is to the point, and the method by which he
undertakes to test it valid so far as that method goes.
Whether it will go the whole length he supposes I take to be
a different, and a still more momentous, consideration. But,
within its own limits, evidence is evidence, and the want of it
conclusive, not against the facts alleged, but against those who
profess to ground themselves on motives of credibility which
will not bear examination.
EVEN-HANDED JUSTICE.
The most popular of these articles will be, no doubt, those
which deal with the story of the Gadarene swine, Hasisadra's
Deluge, and the days of Genesis. Nothing seems easier to
handle than details of history old or new, in which neither
abstruse scientific knowledge, nor still more abstruse metaphys-
ics, are demanded at the hands of the general reader. But,
for all that, the key to Mr. Huxley's volume and its true inter-
pretation must be sought elsewhere. I will allow him to be de-
structive, on condition that he does not destroy himself in the
process; but if he should prove to be "hoist with his own
petard," I cannot put much faith in his engineering. The prin-
ciples upon which he defends science against universal scepti-
1 894.] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 183
cism for he does and must defend it, or what becomes of his
authority ? are those by which alone he is entitled to make out
a case in opposition to Theism and the Christian Evidences. It
is required that he be consistent with himself. He must not
play fast and loose with his own method. Should it turn out
that in substituting Agnosticism for a belief in God, he is
either not logical or not thorough-going that he takes away
with one hand only to give back with the other, I say that his
argument breaks down and its value is naught. The Caesar to
which he appeals is demonstrative, adequate, and " legal " evi-
dence. To that Gesar he shall go. If such evidence, and such
alone mere, explicit logic is the one way of arriving at
" objective reality," or the truth of things, and if every other
way is uncertain, doubtful, and condemned by science as super-
stition, and if, when all this has been granted, science itself
survives, then Professor Huxley may go on to overthrow the
superstition of Christianity. But if adamantine logic, as explicit
as you please, cannot by logic justify its own existence, or prove
its methods to be valid, or carry conviction to the intellect
except by the aid of something else which is not logic, the
controversy must be transferred to another ground and takes
an aspect far less favorable to Agnosticism and anti-Theism
than Mr. Huxley imagines. Although there is a specific differ-
ence between physical science and religipus knowledge, conse-
quent on the difference between their objects ; yet in one point
of method, and that the most important of all, they agree. It
is a point which Mr. Huxley has not overlooked, nay rather,
which he expressly and repeatedly concedes. And to my
thinking, it carries the whole argument with it. I will endeavor
to make this as clear to my reader as it is to me.
THE REALITY OF SCIENCE.
Not long ago, in the pages of this Review, I contended that
" either science is a dream or religion is true." The ground
which I shall now take as common to Mr. Huxley and those
who like myself believe in inductive methods is that science is
no dream, but a revelation of " objective reality." Mark the
phrase, for it is the Professor's own ; and, when he says " real-
ity " he does not mean delusion. He means that which cer-
tainly is, and is certainly known to be. " Objective reality " is
the highest truth to which we can attain ; it is that which is,
and with which all our investigations are concerned. And
"science" aims at it, and, what is more, secures it. In regard
1 84 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Nov.,
to science, as to the reality which it discloses, the author of
the Essays would assuredly be looked upon as a Dogmatist by
David Hume. Granting that "laws" are not "agents" but "a
mere record of experience," and that " force " is no more than
"a name for the hypothetical cause of an observed order of
facts," it is still manifest that Professor Huxley takes his
experience of those facts to be real. I say nothing here of
substances, entities, quiddities, or anything but the experience
on which all scientific statements are thought to be founded.
This it is which constitutes their " objective reality," this alone
distinguishes them from the idle play of the imagination and
gives them the certitude to which they lay claim. If science is
not " objectively real," what is it ? But real it is, and objective
it is so much so that Professor Huxley would have us be-
lieve that it furnishes the " only sure foundations " for " right
action."
LOGIC AT FAULT.
Science, accordingly, is not a dream ; but, this volume tells
me, Religion is ; for Religion does not attain to an objective
reality, nor can do so. It is a sentiment, an aspiration, rooted
in the " deep-seated instinct " which impels the mind " to per-
sonify its intellectual conceptions." The most our Professor
can say for it is that it turns a symbol into an idol. By means
of science we come into contact with real objects ; while theol-
ogy, which is but a " science falsely so-called," is enamored of
chimeras and feeds upon illusions of its own creating. How
must we proceed, then, if we wish to deal with it rationally?
We must ask it for its proofs, and decline to accept a single
one of its assertions until these are forthcoming. The princi-
ple of Agnosticism in a nut-shell is " in matters of intellect
never to affirm that conclusions are certain which are not
demonstrated or demonstrable." By the " rigorous application
of this single principle" the genuine Agnostic may be known.
In other words, logic is, not only the test, but the limit of
truth. And Theism cannot stand that test, nor can the Chris-
tian Evidences. They have no means of satisfying logic ; and
the least we are bound to do under the circumstances is to
decline assenting to the propositions which are put forward by
theologians for our acceptance.
SCIENCE DEMANDS FAITH, BUT ONLY FOR SCIENCE.
Then, it would seem right to conclude that science and
1894-] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 185
religion differ in this way, viz., that science is logically certain
and religion logically uncertain. The source of certitude is in
the process, apparently, under which religion breaks to pieces.
And there is no other principle of certitude in matters of intel-
lect besides logic ; for, if there were, perhaps religion might be
thereby sustained, even when it could not appeal to syllo-
gisms. I am pretty confident that such will be the inference
drawn by most of Mr. Huxley's readers. Science, logic, certi-
tude, on the one hand so they will argue to themselves and
religion, want of logic, and incertitude, on the other. But in
thus arguing, they will have reckoned without Mr. Huxley.
Will it be believed that the ultimate source of that gen-
tleman's certitude is, not logic, and still less " legal evi-
dence," but faith faith as unqualified as the most extreme
superstition could demand, and wholly beyond the jurisdiction
of the syllogism or the rules of argument ? There can be no
mistake about it. Professor Huxley glories in his faith, and
states it in precise terms. " It is quite true," observes this
champion of explicit logic and adequate proof, " that the ground
of every one of our actions, and the validity of all our reason-
ings, rest upon the great act of faith " the italics are mine
which leads us to take the experience of the past as a safe
guide in our dealings with the present and the future. From
the nature of ratiocination," he goes on to say, " it is obvious
that the axioms upon which it is based cannot be demonstrated
by ratiocination." But, he adds, " it is surely plain that faith
is not necessarily entitled to dispense with ratiocination because
ratiocination cannot dispense with faith as a starting-point."
SCIENCE DESTRUCTIVE OF AGNOSTICISM.
No, I grant that it is not so entitled. But let us see where
we are in this remarkable transformation-scene. What is faith ;
what are its powers, and prerogatives, and limits ; how it is re-
lated to logic, and by what kind of necessity the intellect is thus
made its subject and follower ; these questions seem to spring
up around us at the touch of Mr. Huxley's enchanted wand, and
we find ourselves in a new world. Is faith, and not logic, the
last guarantee of science ? One " great act of faith " Professor
Huxley admits, with an unwilling mind, I fancy. But he does,
and it must be a legitimate source of certitude, or else there is
none. Let us inquire, then, whether this be the only act of
faith admissible, remembering that upon it the whole " objective
reality " of science depends. Faith and certitude, so it would
1 86 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Nov.,
appear, instead of excluding one another, have turned out, when
we consider them closely, to be the same thing. On what
grounds, I ask again, does Mr. Huxley submit himself to this
" great act," which is the starting-point, not only of all science
but of all experience? Not, he candidly answers, by reason
either of experience or of demonstration. And yet all our knowl-
edge of objective reality that is to say, of truth as existing
outside of us depends on this faith which cannot be demon-
strated. Agnosticism is shattered from the beginning by so
large and formidable a concession. For it is manifest, I say,
that all the so-called " demonstrations " in which science indulges
are thus, according to Professor Huxley, conditional on the
truth of a principle that can never be proved ; the conclusions
of all its reasoning derive their strength from the premises, and
of these the great major sentence is so far from being demon-
strated that it is not even demonstrable. Is it true, then, that
we arrive at our knowledge of things by a single method only?
Or is there not another method, no less certain than explicit
ratiocination, although utterly different from it ? And if Agnos-
ticism means, and may be summed up into, the recognition of
one method and the denial of any other, what becomes of Ag-
nosticism on this showing?
FAITH VERSUS INTUITION.
Let us be quite clear. Professor Huxley talks of one " great
act of faith," viz., belief in the uniformity of nature. How great
an act of faith it is, has been dwelt upon, in his usual nervous
and forcible language, by David Hume, who has no difficulty in
proving that the connection between past and future on which
we rely when making our scientific prognostics cannot be in the
facts taken by themselves, but must be in some principle which
goes beyond simple experience. And in so contending he is
undoubtedly well-warranted, as a little reflection (to say nothing
of Kant and the metaphysicians who have followed him) will
show. But what I desire to lay stress upon is the immense
number of "acts of faith," over and above that which regards
the uniformity of nature, implied and admitted in Professor
Huxley's recognition that the logical process, or ratiocination, is
valid, and is dependent for its validity upon principles that,
from the nature of the case, cannot be proved. He may call
them by what name he pleases ; but, if anything is evident, it
is that, according to him, the whole universe of reasoning, like
the whole universe of facts, is founded upon " faith," and not
1894-] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 187
upon " demonstration." For myself I prefer to describe the
necessary implications of knowledge and experience as " intui-
tions," reserving the word " faith " to another faculty of our
minds. About terms, however, we need not quarrel. The point
in discussion is whether, by the very make and constitution of
our intellect, we are not compelled to pass beyond logical proof
to that which can be proved in no logic, and yet must be taken
as true if we are to move a single step. Professor Huxley has
granted it. And we are at once led on to consider " faith " or
" intuition " as having its own power, range, and efficiency as a
source of knowledge in other departments besides logic.
UNCERTAINTY EVEN IN FIRST PRINCIPLES.
Thus, then, our Agnostic, meaning to tie us down to one
method, and thereby to make an end of theology and, in fact,
of religion altogether cannot help admitting for his own pur-
pose the faith he has so abundantly scorned. He believes in
" Nature," and declines to believe in " Supernature." But he
comes to Nature by faith, exactly like the benighted multitude
who by faith have attained to a knowledge of God. Were he
a consistent Agnostic, resolved to grant nothing which is not
" demonstrated or demonstrable," he could, in the end, grant
nothing at all, and must remain dumb for want of self-evident,
though indemonstrable, first principles. Where " Nature " is
concerned, I have said, Mr. Huxley is a Dogmatist. And what
will he answer when his favorite Hume observes that " no phil-
osophical Dogmatist denies that there are difficulties both with
regard to the senses and to all science ; and that these diffi-
culties are in a regular, logical method, absolutely insolvable " ?
Is it enough to say, as he does, that " if nothing is to be called
science but that which is exactly true from beginning to end, I
am afraid there is very little science in the world outside mathe-
matics"? Why, not even mathematics can dispense with the
" great act of faith," which in pure geometry does not mean a
belief that the future will be like the past (for when have we
had experience of perfectly straight lines and perfect circles?),
but that certain axioms and postulates regarding space are neces-
sary and universal truths. Hume insists, again, on the insuper-
able difficulties which attend first principles in all systems ; the
contradictions," as he deems them, " which adhere to the very
ideas of matter, cause and effect, extension, space, time, mo-
tion ; and, in a word, quantity of all kinds, the object of the
only science that can fairly pretend to any certainty or evi-
i88 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Nov.,
dence." Such are the mathematics to which Professor Huxley
points as the pattern-science ; and I would ask him whether its
first principles must not be included in the " act of faith " which
seems likely to reduce the " demonstrable " parts of knowledge
to quite a secondary and subordinate position ? Is it not plain
that the consistent Agnostic ought to be a thorough-going scep-
tic ? That he who requires an explicit reason for everything, dis-
tinct from the things themselves (which is the only pertinent sense
of " demonstration " in these essays), will find himself condemned
to a regressus in infinitum, and never arrive at any foundations
of science or beginning of action ? Professor Huxley maintains,
with every possible variety of asseveration, that the science he
has acquired is real knowledge, objectively valid and subjective-
ly true. Yet, in the last analysis, it reposes, by his own candid
admission, on faith, and nothing else but faith. Why, then, may
not religion repose on faith also? And what becomes of the
single method of arriving at the truth ?
A MYSTERIOUS INNER POWER.
We have, therefore, according to Professor Huxley, a power
within us, as a constituent part of our intellectual nature, by
which things neither demonstrated nor demonstrable are certain-
ly known to us. Nay, it is the source of every certitude, and,
in Wordsworth's noble language, "the master-light of all our
seeing." Take that power away, and our knowledge would sink
into a heap or a drift of mere sensations, without connection,
or scope, or solidity. The particular certitudes of which we boast
are simply an outcome of those first general certitudes when
applied to details, without which no science could for a moment
exist. The logical faculty, dealing with conclusions, comes
second. The faculty which deals with premises, which ascertains
and secures them, comes first. It affords, not by reasoning but
by some altogether different process, the foundation on which
all Dogmatism, not excluding Professor Huxley's, is at length
compelled to rest itself. We cannot prove that it is valid, with-
out taking it for granted ; but, unless we do take it for granted,
nothing whatever can be maintained against the assaults of the
sceptic. Aristotle has distinguished it as the faculty, or habit,
of first principles. And inasmuch as it contemplates self-evident
truth, and holds within itself the guarantee of certitude, we shall
do no lesser faculty wrong in calling this, which is the light and
strength of all the rest, by the name of Intellect or Reason.
1894-] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 189
NAMES NO SUBSTITUTE FOR THINGS.
Ought we to call it "sentiment," perhaps? But "sentiment"
does not involve " objective reality " ; and, as we have seen,
Professor Huxley teaches that " the validity of all our reason-
ings " must be referred to the " great act of faith," in which he
discerns the ground of science. Shall we say that science, at
last, is no more than sentiment ? We know this to be a false
and even absurd proposition ; are we not driven, as an alternative,
to hold that " faith " wherever it means the " faculty of first
principles" includes and guarantees their self-evidence? More-
over, is it not manifest that Agnosticism must be limited as soon
as we perceive that there are ranges of truths not demonstrable,
and yet certain, in mathematics, in physics, in logic, in biology
and why not in Religion ? Finally, though we granted our
absolute powerlessness to " demonstrate " the great first princi-
ples on which Theism rests, and from which Natural Theology
has been derived and to some extent enlarged into a system,
with conclusions depending on axioms and postulates of their
own, we should not be allowing thereby that religion was- mere-
ly a sentiment, but likening it in its origin to science, and there-
fore not taking from its lawful influence upon our intellect.
The pertinent inquiry is not whether the axioms of Theism are
" demonstrable," but whether the mind is necessitated, by their
self-evidence, to affirm them. Professor Huxley, in words which
I have already begun to quote, goes far towards allowing that
it is. " I suppose," he tells us, " that so long as the human
mind exists, it will not escape its deep-seated instinct to per-
sonify its intellectual conceptions. The science of the present
day is as full of this particular form of shadow-worship as is
the nescience of ignorant ages. The difference is that the phil-
osopher who is worthy of the name knows that his personified
hypotheses, such as law, and force, and ether, and the like, are
merely useful symbols, while the ignorant and the careless take
them for adequate expressions of reality." If his quarrel with
theologians is simply a protest against their making human lan-
guage the measure of Divine perfections, he need only turn to
St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. John of the Cross,
and he will discover that no terms of his can equal the energy
with which they put from them so impious and unphilo-
sophical a fancy. But there is a great deal more to be said.
Professor Huxley, having announced to us a faith which is
toto calo removed from mere subjective sentiment which, in fact,
PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS.
[Nov.,
is the ground of science, the assurance of objective reality, and
beyond the assaults of logic declares next that there is noth-
ing within the compass of his knowledge whereby he, or any
one else, can be constrained in good reasoning to deny those
principles and events which make up the sum of religion, natural
or revealed. He allows, not for argument's sake, but in earnest,
the abstract possibility of miracles, the reasonableness of prayer,
and the doctrine of final causes. When Spinoza defines God as
the absolutely infinite Being, that is, a substance consisting of
infinite attributes, Professor Huxley observes that " only a very
great fool would deny, even in his heart," the God so con-
ceived. It appears to have escaped him that " infinite attri-
butes " must include personality, intelligence, and will or some-
thing still higher than these. But the Professor's religious ad-
missions cannot be exhausted in an article. My succeeding
paper will aim at enumerating some of them in detail and draw-
ing out their significance.
1894-] PIERRE LOTI. 191
PIERRE LOTI.
BY MARY JOSEPHINE ONAHAN.
Novelist of Nature. His Uncertain Life and the Frankness of his Adventures.
His Exquisite Style. First of Sea Painters.
: T has been sometimes lamented that those who
have adventures cannot write of them, and those
who write of them seldom have them. There is,
however, a class of moderns, chiefly novelists, for
adventure is the raw material of the novelist,
against whom no such lament can be urged. They have tra-
velled the earth from corner to corner, they have inhaled the
invigorating winds of the North, of Iceland, and the Land of
Eternal Day ; they have sunned themselves in the languid heat
of the tropics, amid the tunics and turbans of India, or alone
in Africa's sandy deserts. They, above all others, have those
two heritages of the modern novelist, the seeing eye and the
willing pen. It is almost a new element in literature, this wide-
ly travelled human. No need to tell of the young Irishman
who penetrated the Merv Oasis, and, having been made king of
one of its savage tribes, tells us of his adventures in language that
glows with the life of the Orient. Edmund O'Donovan is but
one of a thousand. It is scarcely necessary to mention names ;
it would be easier to specify exceptions. Among English writers
are Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mallock, and a host of
others. Among French pre-eminent of all stands Pierre Loti.
In him more than in any other are combined opportunity and
gift in a unique degree.
Loti's life is as will-o'-the-wisp like as the name he has
adopted. Though his books have been descanted upon by many
French critics and a few English ones among the latter long-
winded Henry James and though recently elected a member of
the French Academy, the facts of his life are hard to come at.
This much, however, is known ; his musical Polynesian name,
signifying a flower, is not his own, but is a reminiscence of
Tahiti, the delicious isle where he spent many months, and of
which he has sketched an outline in most delicate and dreamy
colors, with a love-tale for the heart of it. It is said to have
I9 2 PIERRE Lori. [Nov.,
been given him by the natives on account of his excessive shy-
ness.
In the language of mortals he is Monsieur Jules Viaud, a
native of Saintonges, and of purest Huguenot descent. Like
Lessing at Kamentz and Carlyle at Ecclefechan he was brought
up in an atmosphere of severity and rigor, with the Bible heroes
for a standard of emulation. The dreamy, solitary boy " did not
want to grow up," we are told ; loved his mother with a French
intensity of language, hated school, and got his Aunt Claire to
do his lessons for him. The butterflies and birds were his friends,
and many an hour he spent roving the woods while his Latin
and Greek were neglected.
What Loti's religion is now it would be hard to say perhaps
that chapter, like the one on snakes in Iceland, would of neces-
sity be blank. From the dedication of one of his books, his mother
is evidently a Christian, and he speaks in glowing terms of her
patience and gentleness with a wayward son. He himself is a
pagan of the pagans, yet giving evidence at every page that he
was at one time a Christian. How he lost this faith of his
fathers no one can tell ; that he has lost it no one can doubt.
There is nothing more pathetic in all his books than that closing
paragraph of Jean Berny :
11 O Christ of those who weep ! O Virgin immaculate and
calm ! O all ye adorable myths and legends that nothing can
replace, that alone sustain the childless mother and the mother-
less child, and give them strength and courage to live on when
joy is over, that make our tears less bitter and bring us hope
and cheer in the last dark hour, blessings rest on ye !
" And we whom ye have abandoned for evermore, let us bow
our faces in the dust and kiss with tears the traces of those
footsteps which have passed for ever from our ken."
This is, indeed, exquisite sadness.
But to return to his childhood. His masters, piously nick-
named "the -Bull Apis" and "the Great Black .Monkey," dis-
gusted him with learning. Going to church seems, alas and
alack! to have disgusted him with piety. He preferred his un-
cle's gray parrot, Gaboon, which talked and probably swore
in some negro dialect. As long as he might frame his own
visions while reading the Bible, and could taste the sweetness
of the quiet evening prayer at home, he was safe and his thoughts
were Christian. But when he went to church it seemed to him
that preacher and congregation were given over to intolerable
dulness and the hollowest of formalities. If there were guid-
1 894-] PIERRE LOTI. 193
ing hand to direct the youth aright which seems a bit doubt-
ful he flung it impatiently aside. He had once dreamed of
being a missionary, for, like many another who has since bro-
ken with family traditions to join the Church of Literature, he
had been destined, as the Scotch say, " to wag his pow in a
pulpit "; but as he grew older he gave up this dream, over-
whelmed, as was Amiel, by " la conscience de la vanit des
prieres, et du neant de tout," which is another word for Leo-
pardi's doctrine " 1'infinitta vanita del tutto."
This is one explanation of his loss of faith ; another, per-
haps, may be found in his love of De Musset.
Loti's elder brother had gone on a voyage round the world
and sent home many brilliant descriptions of the tropics. To
him may be assigned the chief personal influence that made
Loti a lover of the sea, and overcame his intense devotion to
the home life. But above all Tahiti had furnished his brother's
pen with its magic. There he had lived, much in the style of the
Englishman of Rarahu ; there his hut of leaves and branches
was still standing when Loti himself set foot upon the island of
Moorea, ten years later. To this brother Loti applied at the
age of fourteen for a letter of admission to the Naval Academy.
For the rest of his life we must turn to his books, which are
in most instances the record of his own varied experiences in
strange lands and waters. When told in the form of diary, they
are travels ; weaved together by a plot, novels. The sea that
wooed him in his youth wooes him still in his maturity, for he
is now an officer, at last accounts a lieutenant in the French
navy. The sea was his earliest bride ; from the frankness of his
adventures she seems to have been the only one that has ever
claimed his fidelity.
If, in the words of Lessing, "the style is the man," Pierre
Loti's many sins of omission and of commission may, perchance,
be forgiven him. For Loti's style is an exquisite style, a style
as fresh, as limpid, as silvery as the cool waters of some en-
chanted fountain that steals silently through luscious woods, re-
flecting all the shadowy lights of heaven. He is the novelist of
Nature, for he has lived close to Nature's heart. It is a French
passion, this passion for fine writing, this enthrallment through
the witchery of words, and with Loti it is predominant of all.
His pen, like Aaron's rod, has been made to blossom, and its
tiniest bud has about it the iris-hued glory of an unseen
power.
Doubtless the greatest of his books is that prose epic of the
VOL. LX. 13
Ig4 PIERRE Lori. [Nov.,
sea, An Iceland Fisherman, a romance pure and simple. There
is no analysis in it, there is no sermonizing. It is merely the
unpretentious telling of the love of a young Breton maiden for
a sturdy Iceland sailor. Brittany with its wave-washed, wind-
swept coast, with its Pardons, crucifixes stretching their arms on
every hillside as though crying to Heaven for justice ; Brittany
with its gorse that never fades, and its sea that is never stilled,
is pictured for us with perfect simplicity, with perfect direct-
ness, for Loti's art is the art of the etcher. His lines are few,
direct, and telling. He holds the key to perfect speech, for he
gives " to every word its import and to every silence its mean-
ing."
Loti has been called the " Painter of the Sea," and the title
none can gainsay him. He revels in it as a creature born to
the waters ; he knows its moods, its smiling bosom, its relent-
less depths. In the opening paragraph of An Iceland Fisherman
he describes for us the staunch little fishing-smack La Marie
bobbing upon the waters of the great northern ocean, its oily
cabin, the six rolling sailors spinning yarns of their adventures
upon the land, while the little statue of the Virgin, rather anti-
quated and painted with very simple art with its blue mantle
and yellow robe and the artificial roses nailed to the shelf,
looks down upon them, " the Virgin who had listened to many
an ardent prayer in deadly hours." In a paragraph we have all
this, the sense of safety and of security, the human lives guarded
by the few bits of board, and then the bigness of the contrast,
infinity, fate : " Outside lay the sea and the night."
Here is one of his descriptions : " It was daylight, the ever-
lasting day of those regions, a pale dim light resembling no
other ; bathing all things like the gleams of a setting sun.
Around them stretched a colorless waste, and excepting the
planks of their ship, all seemed transparent, ethereal, and fairy-
like. The eye cannot distinguish what the scene might be :
first it appeared as a quivering mirror which had no objects to
reflect ; in the distance it became a desert of vapor ; and
beyond that a void, having neither horizon nor limits. Yann
made out thousands of voices (in the huge clamor of a storm in
Northern seas), those above either shrill or deep and seeming
distant from being so big : that was the wind, the great soul of
the uproar, the invisible power that carried on the whole thing.
It was dreadful; but there were other sounds as well, closer,
more material, more bent on destruction, given out by the
torment of the water, which crackled as if on live coals. And
1894-] PIERRE LOTL 195
it grew and still grew. In spite of their flying pace, the sea
began to cover them, to eat them up, as they say ; first the
spray, whipping them from aft, then great bundles of water
hurled with a force that might smash everything. The waves
grew higher and still crazily higher, and yet they were ravelled
as they came, and you saw them hanging about in great green
tatters which were the falling water scattered by the wind."
Yann, the hero, a sturdy lion yet untamed, and Sylvestre,
the youth, pure-hearted as a girl, dreaming of the far-off
Breton coast as, with the winds of Iceland piercing their cheeks,
they draw in the heavy-laden nets, are real vignettes in litera-
ture. Gaud, too, is beautifully drawn ; perhaps better as the
wife than as the maiden, something of the strength, the whole-
souled womanliness of Milton's Eve in that young soul, the
new-made wife " affrighted yet not afraid." There is realism
in Loti, in many of his works far too much, trenching often on
entire animalism, but in the best of his works there is no
touch which can offend the pure-minded. Something of the
whiteness, the virgin strength of those Iceland cliffs, is reflected
upon this idyl of peasant love. In An Iceland Fisherman
Loti is as pure-hearted as his own Breton peasants, as Millet's
tillers of the soil whom they so much resemble.
Henry James says that George Sand draws peasants as they
are ; Loti as he thinks them to be. The distinction seems
scarcely well made, for there is no peasant in all the pano-
ramas of George Sand as true, as life-like as the pathetic
figure of old Granny Moan pleading that she may not trop bien
comprendre when she is told that her grandson has died on the
ship homeward bound. One does not soon forget that bent
figure tottering along the road, childless, hopeless, loveless,
hooted at by the children as a drunken creature, and sleeping
in her hut the " frozen sleep of old age." Equally real is the
young wife, Gaud, waiting upon the cliff, straining her eyes into
the distance, her slim figure and tear-dimmed features outlined
against the gray background of the sky, watching for her
husband to return from that grim-visaged Iceland, monster of
the North, who has clutched him and will not let him go. We
feel the throbs of that breaking heart, we look through the
eyes of a quivering woman. The whole book tastes of the salt
of the sea. The end is told as the rest is told, simply, quietly,
perfectly :
" Yann never came home. One August night out there off
the coast of Iceland, in the midst of a great fury of sound,
I9 6 PIERRE LOTI. [Nov.,
wer-e celebrated his nuptials with the sea with the sea who of
old had been his nurse. She had made him a strong and broad-
chested youth, and then had taken him in his magnificent man-
hood for herself alone. A deep mystery had enveloped their
monstrous nuptials. Dusky veils all the while had been shaken
above them, curtains inflated and twisted stretched there to
hide the feast ; and the bride gave voice continually, made her
loudest horrible noise to smother the cries. He, remembering
Gaud, his wife of flesh, had defended himself, struggling like a
giant against this spouse who was the grave, until the moment
when he let himself go, his arms open to receive her, with a
great deep cry like the roar of a bull, his mouth already full
of water, his arms open, stretched and stiff for ever.
"And they were all at his wedding all those whom he had
bidden of old, all except Sylvestre, who, poor fellow, had gone
off to sleep in enchanted gardens far away on the other side of
the earth."
His other works may be regarded as dainty, delicious
aquarelles or pastels ; this is a canvas swept over with bolder
brush. "A great writer," says Delille, " Loti is not; an admi-
rable writer he is. Of course his merits are not without their
corresponding defects. The tremulous refinement of his sensi-
bilities can degenerate into something very like hysteria. The
delicious tenderness of his emotion occasionally becomes
lachrymose. And last and worst, the troubled ardor of his
passion verges dangerously upon disease. One can discern all
this clearly enough, but one is not careful to enlarge upon the
theme. Why fasten and feed upon the unsound spots of a
genius, if one belong not to the school of critical ghouls?"
At the risk of incurring Monsieur Delille's displeasure one
must at least touch upon Loti's faults.
In view of the perfection of Loti's Iceland epic it is a pity
that unstinted praise cannot be given to his other works, but
the truth is, that when Loti flung away the plank of Chris-
tianity it was inevitable he should drift into murky seas.
Carlyle tells us that indifference is the only atheism. In this
sense Loti is indeed an atheist. He is, as some one says, a
sponge absorbing all experiences with equal frankness and with
an equal sense of irresponsibility. Madame Chrysantheme is a
tale of Japanese life, perfect as a picture of what may be per-
ceived by the senses, bewildering in its entire ignoring that
there can be anything above them. It makes one realize the
truth of the saying : " Loti understands the souls of places, but
1894-] PIERRE LOTI. 197
not the souls of men." He gives us the soul of Japan, dreamy,
weird, and strange, with its grotesque gods and monstrous
phantasies, but he nowhere gives us the souls of men and
women ; or if he does, the colors are so strange as to be lost
upon eyes un-Japanese. Perhaps no foreigner, not even Loti,
can overcome this feeling of aloofness from the inner heart of
the East. The moicsmes, with their huge sashes, small piercing
eyes, and reddened lips, are not real women rather they seem
to have stepped from off a fan. And as for the hero's adven-
tures among them (Loti himself, it is said), as Henry James
remarks, " We scarcely mention achievements of this order in
English."
It is indeed a little difficult to take him seriously in this
aspect at all. One is almost tempted to exclaim, as that sad
fellow Lamb did on a similar occasion apropos of the morals of
a French play at Covent Garden : " Is it not bad enough to
be bothered with morals in real life? Must we be pestered
with them also in fiction ? " For Loti's frankness in this regard
is quite overwhelming. What his idea of purity is it would be
quite hard to say indeed, from his later novels it may be
questioned whether he has any at all merely a thing of
latitude and longitude. Entirely apart from the sphere of
morals, and judging him merely as to his art, the mistake is a
fatal one. His style inevitably loses, for he has done away with
the greatest art factor in the world, the sense of contrast,
Evil. It was said in contempt, but it may be repeated in all
earnestness, " Sin owes half its witchery to the stern teachings
of Christianity." Loti has discarded Christianity ; the only
result achieved is that his paganism is uninteresting animalism.
Rarahu, a tale of Tahiti, is another evidence of Loti's one
desire to change his skin, and, as a French critic says, "his pre-
ference is almost always for a dusky one." Rarahu is luscious
as a summer in the tropics and about as enervating. Of his
Roman d'un Enfant he himself says : " It is the journal of my
great Unexplained Melancholies, and of occasional pranks by
which I attempted to distract myself from them."
If he had brought to his other works the same purity of
heart, the same at least sympathy with faith, as in An Iceland
Fisherman, he might be hailed as the greatest of modern novel-
ists. But like his English prototype, Mallock, he has turned his
back upon the higher light and is following the light o' love of
sense. Like Mallock he has become an Epicurean fatalist, greet-
ing all things with the sigh " Ce nest que $a."
198
Jo Y IN HE A YEN.
[Nov.,
" As far as he is concerned," says one writer, " Christianity
might never have existed except in so far as it has given an
impetus to art. . . . For him the Cross has disappeared and
only the Crucifix remains, picturesque in its solitude, high upon
a Breton sea cliff."
Apostle of the school of impressionism, high-priest of the
school of despondency, Pierre Loti is one of the most tantaliz-
ing figures on the literary horizon. One can but wistfully
ponder what he would have been had he kept his soul on the
heights pictured for us in his idyl of sea-blown Brittany ; had
he while wooed by the sense-world not lost sight of the
spirit-world ; had he, in other words kept the style of the
prince of modern word-painters that he is, and made it pure
and strong and great by the faith of his ancestors which he
has lost.
Alas that the beauty of earth should blind one to the
beauty of heaven !
JOY IN HEAVEN.
BY MAGDALEN ROCK.
N Heav'nly courts the joy-bells sweetly ring,
And angel voices join in triumph strain,
The jasper walls re-echo their refrain ;
Before the great white throne the censers
swing,
As seraphs bend in homage to their King.
And close by Mary's side a cherub train
Repeat her praises o'er and o'er again
In silvery tones, clear and unfaltering.
And she, that golden city's crowned queen,
Whose slightest wish unnumbered saints
obey,
Is glad at heart, and Heav'n is glad to-day,
Because on earth a sinner who had been
An enemy for long to her dear Son
In humbleness and tears has penance done.
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 199
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY.
BY REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH.
CHAPTER VII.
Slowness of the Movement Romeward, Over-Hasty Attempts to Crack the
Protestant Nut. Dunigan, Baker. Phinney. Moehler's " Symbolism."
Lives of the Early English Saints.
ATHOLICS whose attention had been called to
the novelties brewing at our seminary must have
thought it very strange that it took us so long
to find out where the truth lay and to embrace
the whole Catholic faith, worship, and church
with one confiding hug. It needs but a short argument to
show that only the Catholic body has true unity and that
variation is the very law and life of Protestantism. This ought
to be enough to bring them all into the true fold by a short
and easy process. Men who think thus, however, think so very
superficially. In real life the best and most earnest minds are
not accustomed to travel by these short cuts. An extensive
horse-breeder and trainer once said, in answer to a question of
mine: "Horses, sir, are very intelligent animals, and when they
see an old charred stump on the roadside they know very
well that it's nothing but a stump. But you see they are very
cautious creatures ; nature has made them so, and they don't
know at first sight what is behind the stump."
It was the same thing with many of us at the seminary.
We soon got used to discussions about the church. We soon
learned to understand that Christ instituted a visible church,
organized a tangible and approachable body. That church he
officered himself, giving it not only a complete doctrine to
transmit, and sacraments furnished with grace, but also a
divine mission, or right to act in his name. This right, we
understood, could only be transmitted by that church and in it.
This mission or divine current of jurisdiction is interrupted by
schism and ceases to flow into a severed member. All this was
pretty much understood by the more advanced Tractarian
students at the seminary, and yet they were by no means pre-
pared to leap at once into the ancient church. Other questions,
200 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Nov.,
profound and precious, lay before them still unsolved. Let me
here refer to an incident which occurred at some time during
my second year at the seminary, precisely when I cannot
remember, which exemplifies how hard it is for Catholics " to
the manner born" to understand the perplexities and needs of
a Protestant outsider searching for the truth.
I went down-street one day to Dunigan's bookstore. He
kept at that time, if I remember right, far down in Broadway,
or possibly in William or Nassau Street. I inquired for
Moehler's Symbolism. He said to me (I think it was Dunigan
himself) :
" I don't think it is Moehler that you want."
" What then do I want ? " I returned.
" The right book for you," he said, " is Bossuet's Variations
of Protestantism."
" No, sir. You are mistaken. The variations of Protest-
antism have been going on since Bossuet died, and perhaps I
know of many variations that he never heard of."
" Ah," said he, " I think I understand you. What you need
is Milner's End of Controversy. That's something quite re-
cent."
" No," I persisted, " I do not need Milner either. I read it
through and through, and feel no call to refer to it any more.
I know its contents pretty well and have gathered much truth
out of it, but it is not the end of controversy for me. I have
other questions to solve and deeper ones. What I -want is
Moehler's Symbolism"
He gave me a compassionate smile, but found the book for
me and I took it home to my room in the seminary. It
proved to be a treasure indeed. I think I learned of the ex-
istence and contents of this book from some reference or re-
view of it in the British Critic. It had made a deep impres-
sion on Dr. Newman's mind.
Protestants are not heathens ; far from it. .Their reasons
cannot be reached by the same easy and simple means which
suffice for the ignorant heathen. When the Christian revelation
is fairly presented to the heathen mind, their ignorance has so
little to show in opposition that they are more ready to em-
brace it trustfully and in its entirety. The obex, or obstacle, to
truth presented by their simple superstitions is a comparative-
ly small one. The Protestant mind, on the contrary, however
cultivated, is by no means simple, nor in the same sense
ignorant. It is nearer the truth to say that they know too
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 201
much. They are oftentimes, to quote St. Paul, " more wise
than it behoveth to be wise." Their minds are too much pos-
sessed with things that are not so. The obex which they pre-
sent to Catholic truth is 'something multitudinous, complex,
over-refined. It is so engrafted, so commingled with their
pious emotions, so closely webbed and interwoven with all their
past thoughts and memories, that they mistake prejudice for a
rational conviction. True doctrine "in a nutshell" is not
truth presented in a form in which they can receive it. The
2O2
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Nov.,
attempt so frequently made thus to present it, and settle the
whole question at once, is well illustrated in my memory by an
anecdote from the experience of Father Baker, the Paulist,
which I have from himself. During the time when he was
stationed as rector at St. Luke's Church, Baltimore, a priest
rang the bell at his door and asked to see him. He presented
no card and gave no name. Baker's sister, who opened the
door, noticing this and not liking the exterior make-up of the
visitor, whose language and style of dress were something new
to her, was somewhat alarmed and disinclined to introduce him
to her brother's room. This, however, she did. He took his
seat and immediately opened the purpose of his visit. What he
said was substantially as follows :
" I have heard of you, Mr. Baker. I understand that you
have strong inclinations toward the Catholic Church, but you
remain still in doubt. I can prove to you in a few short words
that she is the only true church. Now listen to me attentively
for a moment. See here ! The church is necessarily one, for
Christ her founder is one, and he only made one. Keep that in
mind. Now then: the church is also holy, for Christ made her
so, in order to sanctify the world. Keep that in mind also." He
then proceeded in like manner to show that the true church
must be Catholic and apostolic. After this, in the same brief
manner, he went on to prove that only the Roman Catholic
Church bore these four marks of being the true one. Father
Baker listened in silence to what he had to say, but was -quite
surprised to see the good father rise after completing this short
argument ; a hearty shaking of hands followed, and satisfied
with this the enthusiastic visitor withdrew, feeling that he had
finished his job. He was a good man and a most exemplary
priest. He belonged to a class of men to be met with every-
where. Wadhams and I heard of him during the course of this
year, or the winter of the next, while among the Adirondacks.
McMaster had been visited by him in his retirement at Hyde
Park, and had been highly pleased by him, for this priest had
seen much, and there were few places in the United States which
he had not visited ; he knew something of everything. He
came to me shortly after I became a Catholic and proposed to
me a variety of good devotions. I did not care to be ham-
pered with too many things all at once, and in this I was sup-
ported by the counsel of a wise director. Such men do not
generally bring about many healthy conversions. But if treated
wisely and gently by their superiors, and not trusted with the
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 203
management of difficult matters, they may do more good than
wiser men with less worthy motives.
I fear to have set down too strong an example to illustrate
well the point I would present. Many Catholics even with bet-
ter regulated minds often make serious mistakes when under-
taking to lead converts into the church.
The false maxims to which Protestants have become accus-
tomed may be digested and generalized, and so briefly stated
as to find room in a nutshell. That nutshell, however, they will
never acknowledge. They know that in their hearts there is a
religion deeper, truer, and more solid than that nut holds. You
may crack that nut before their eyes, but they do not feel hurt
by your vigorous hammer.
A little more than three years after leaving the seminary at
Chelsea I happened to be in Birmingham, England. The Rev.
Dr. Phinney, of Oberlin College, was there at the same time
preaching ; I had got acquainted with him some six years ear-
lier when in the United States. I admired the man and felt
much attached to him. Another gentleman, whose acquaintance
I had made in America, was also in Birmingham at the same
time ; this was Baron Schroeder, a highly educated Catholic
layman from Germany. He persuaded me to go with him on a
visit to Dr. Phinney at his lodgings. Dr. Phinney and his wife
received us both very cordially and we had a long and pleasant
interview. A good part of the time was spent in amicable con-
troversy. I was, of course, but a novice in theology. The
baron was a well-educated scholar, especially in philosophy.
Professor Phinney, intellectually far superior to either of us, was
not only an eloquent and powerful preacher, but an expert in
doctrinal discussion. I only introduce this visit here to illus-
trate what I have said, that Protestantism, if it be understood
to comprise all that constitutes the religious life and belief of an
earnest Protestant, cannot be reduced to the compass of a nutshell.
" Gentlemen," said the good doctor in the course of conver-
sation, " I am not prepared to say that I hold no religious er-
rors. Some of these may possibly be important errors. One
thing, however, I cannot allow myself to admit. To allow that
I do not understand the Christian religion in its substantial and
essential features is a supposition from which my whole soul re-
coils."
I give Dr. Phinney as a type of an earnest and intelligent
Protestant. There was a vast amount of belief in him. No
nutshell could cover it.
204 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Nov.,
Moehler had studied well the age in which he lived. He knew
the Protestant mind. He knew that it could not be captured
by a single syllogism, and that a few texts establishing church
authority are seldom sufficient to bring an educated Protestant
to the true faith and into the true fold. Moehler devotes his
book on symbolism not only to these but to all the doctrines
which belong to religious faith and worship. He treats of the
attributes of God, the nature of man, man's relations with God,
the nature of grace, etc. He compares together carefully the
acknowledged symbols of Protestantism and Catholicity, and
presents both in their real light to religious souls who wish to-
live by the true law of spiritual life. Such Protestants are the
only ones that come to the Catholic Church, or at least that
come to stay. Catholic polemics in our day must learn new
texts of Scripture, glean new maxims from the Christian fathers,
and provide new fish-hooks and more efficient bait. So far as I
know of, no convert of the Chelsea Seminary was brought to
the door of the Catholic Church either by Milner's End of Con-
troversy or Bossuet's Variations, strong though they be.
The general spirit which characterized that seminary was, to>
the best of my recollection and in my opinion, a good one.
There was a value attached to sound doctrine, and very little
attached to the idea that " it makes little difference what a man
believes, if only he be sincere." Dogmatic theology that is to
say, the science of presenting religious truth in its true aspect
and in its proper relations with other truths stood high in honor
there. I cannot remember that I ever heard dogmatic theology
spoken of respectfully until I came to the seminary at Chelsea.
Religion and all that is worth knowing about religion is gener-
ally supposed by Protestants to come to one as Santa Claus
comes to the children, while they are not looking out for it,
but asleep.
Our Tractarian students at Chelsea ranked high among the
others as diligent scholars, and this gained for them favor with
the professors, the majority of whom were by no means Trac-
tarian. It is not to be wondered at that students of this stamp
when once introduced to Moehler's Symbolism, should become
fascinated with it. It was not a book which professed to teach
Catholicity in six easy lessons which should avoid all necessity
of investigating farther. It did not profess to furnish an all-
sufficient egg which should develop itself and required no brood-
ing to bring it to a development. Moehler takes up the whole
of Catholic doctrine, yet article by article. The external marks
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 205
of the true church, which prove her right to teach, are not
omitted. The doctrines which she teaches are also all brought
forward and have their own distinct grounds to stand upon.
The acknowledged councils of the church with her canons and
decrees when cited are given in her own words, not fearing to
commit her to her own declarations. Side by side with these
are placed the doctrines of the Protestant reformers, expressed
in their own words. The Anglican Church, with her symbols
or formularies of doctrine and worship, is placed side by side
with the Roman Catholic, as the queen in " Hamlet " is made to
look first at the portrait of her husband and then upon the face
of her crowned paramour
" Look here, upon this picture, and on this."
Moehler understands well the effect necessarily produced up-
on a fair mind by two faithful portraits thus distinctly presented
in their own dress and with their own native features. Then
the beholder with a genuine conviction may say of the true
king
"See, what a grace was seated on this brow,"
while the other has little but his clothing to present, and stands
" A king of shreds and patches ! "
a mere show of apostolical succession, without any rightful in-
heritance of divine mission, holding forth a Common Prayer
Book which comprises in one cover a jumbled jargon of doc-
trine.
Moehler's Symbolism did more to lead me to a comprehensive
knowledge of the Catholic faith and -to take the final step of
entering the Catholic fold than any other book. I have always
preferred it above all others as a book to lend to thoughtful
and studious Protestants.
I have perhaps said enough to show what doctrinal vitality
that is, what eagerness to know the real truth existed among
Episcopalians at the time included in these reminiscences, and
was perhaps more focused at our seminary than anywhere else in
America. It would be a great oversight to make no mention of
a spirit still more precious and vital which I found kindled there
and which must account for many conversions to the faith.
Arthur Carey was the chief centre of this flame, as he was the
chief leader in the inquiry after truth. His residence at the
206 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Nov.,
seminary occupied a period of four years, including one year
during which, being too young for ordination, he kept his old
room, mingling as freely with the students as a secluded life of
study and prayer like his would allow. Every one was glad to
know him, even those who looked upon him as all the more
dangerous from the very fact of his being pious, sincere, and
virtuous. His sayings about religious topics of the day were re-
peated about among us from mouth to mouth, as the last words
would be cited that came from Newman or Dalgairns. Not all
were disposed to follow his opinions, but no one could afford
to be ignorant of what he thought and said. It cannot reason-
ably be doubted that at the bottom of the Tractarian move-
ment there lay, not merely a demand for pure and Catholic
truth but also for a holy life. The spirit of high and dry
churchmanship did not preside at the seminary. It was, no
doubt, the real spirit of Anglicanism, but it was as unpalatable
to Tractarians as it was to Evangelicals, and more so.
In this state of things it was impossible that books emanat-
ing from Oxford, and showing the new kindled piety which
breathed there, should not find free circulation at the seminary.
Keble's Christian Year lay here and there upon the tables of
those who loved poetry. Soon followed the Lyra Apostolica, to
which Keble, Newman, Hurrell Froude, and many other leading
spirits of the " Movement " contributed words burning with
piety and often radiant with the truest poetry. Faber was
better known at that time as a romantic poet, but he was re-
cognized " as one of them," and as such found a few readers
amongst us. But a greater charm than any of these possessed
was to be found in the Lives of the Early English Saints. This
was a series of biographies written by Anglicans of the Oxford
school, and was a most influential element in its great move-
ment towards real Catholic truth and life. The series was con-
fined to English saints. There was wisdom in this restriction.
It took into account English national prejudice by showing
lives of sanctity lived on English ground. At the same time
an honest presentation of English sanctity in early times
would be sure to show how little it looks like modern
Anglican piety, and how distinctly it presents itself associated
with the doctrines, worship, and austere practices of the Church
of Rome. The writers of these lives did not propose, nor in-
deed consciously intend, to lead their readers to relinquish their
own communion and unite with the Roman Catholics. What
they proposed is well stated by Wilfrid Ward in his book en-
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 207
titled William George Ward and the Oxford Movement (chapter
vii. page 142). He says :
" The love of Rome and of an united Christendom which
marked the new school was not purely a love for ecclesiastical
authority. This was indeed one element ; but there was another
yet more influential in many minds admiration for the saints of
the Roman Church, and for the saintly ideal as realized especi-
ally in the monastic life. We have already seen how this
element operated in Mr. Ward's own history. Froude had
struck the note of sanctity as well as the note of authority.
He had raised an inspiring ideal on both heads ; and behold,
with howevef much of practical corruption and superstition
mixed up with their practical exhibition, these ideals were
actually reverenced, attempted, often realized, in "the existing
Roman Church. The worthies of the English Church even
when sharing the tender piety of George Herbert or Bishop
Ken fell short of the heroic aims, the martial sanctity, gained
by warfare unceasing against world, flesh, and devil, which they
found exhibited in Roman Hagiology. The glorying in the
cross of Christ which is the key-note to such lives as those of
St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier, while it recalled
much in the life of St. Paul, had no counterpart in post-Re-
formation Anglicanism."
As early as the long vacation at Oxford of 1842 the idea
suggested itself to the mind of Dr. Newman of getting out
this series of the Lives of the English Saints, and immediate
measures were taken to secure writers and prepare for publica-
tion. The first of the series reached our seminary, I think, in
the winter of 1843 a d '44, during my second year's course. I
have no complete list by me of the saints comprised in this
series, but it included the Life of St. Stephen Harding, founder
of the Cistercians, which involves much of that of his disciple,
the great St. Bernard, St. Austin of Canterbury, St. Woolstan,
St. William, St. Paulinus, St. Bega, St. Gilbert, St. Richard and
his family, and Legends of Hermit Saints, some of these writ-
ten by Newman himself.
These biographies were couched in language more or less
watered to suit Anglican ears ; but no daintiness of style nor
dilution of matter could conceal the fact that the early English
saints were utterly unlike Anglicans of the present day. In his
Apologia pro Vita Sua Dr. Newman gives us his motives for
starting this new enterprise.
" I thought it would be useful," he says, " as employing the
208 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Nov.,
minds of men who were in danger of running wild, bringing
them from doctrine to history, and from speculation to fact ;
again, as giving them an interest in the English soil and the
English Church, and keeping them from seeking sympathy in
Rome, as she is; and further as seeking to promote the spread
of right views."
This plan, however, for holding back earnest and truth-seek-
ing minds from the necessary consequences which attach to
truth, could not and did not work. Scarcely had his project
taken wing than he was forced to write to a friend : " Within
the last month, it has come upon me that, if the scheme goes
on, it will be a practical carrying out of No. 90 ; ffom the char-
acter of the usages and opinions of ante-reformation times."
So indeed it was. Like No. 90, it forced matters onward
to a crisis both in England and America. It did more than
this. It led many eager minds to a more special consideration
of monastic life as combining in its bosom a special grace for
self-purification and perfection with a zeal for missionary labor.
St. Stephen Harding, of Citeaux, was the model of a monk to
whom the whole world had nothing to offer. St. Bernard, his
great disciple, carried out from Citeaux a burning heart to
which the world of souls was always appealing.
In the next chapter I propose to show how the admiration
for monasticism thus aroused led ardent souls among the Chel-
sea graduates and students to projecting monastic institutions
in their own church and actually experimenting in them. .
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
1894-] As BY A GREATER GLADNESS. 209
AS BY A GREATER GLADNESS.
BY KATHRYN PRINDIVILLE.
[HE was going to write a novel. Not an ordinary
story of the loves and lives of commonplace
people, but a beautiful record of high aspirations
that would lift souls above earthly pleasures and
rarefy the mental and moral atmosphere of its
readers, who would include, of course, the intelligent of the
globe. Incidentally it was to render her name brilliant before
humanity ; primarily it was to reform the world.
She did not decide at once on a novel, but spent many
weeks debating how best to deliver her wonderful message of
regeneration. The most heroic manner, and therefore most
alluring, was to compose a marvellous philippic in the style of
Demosthenes, so forcible it would convince a sceptic, so elo-
quent it would move a stone.
" Men of America ! " her appearance pacing her room would
be majestic, "seize your opportunity. Cast aside the dark ban-
dages sordid wealth lays on your eyes. Lift up your heads
and see beauty, truth, and virtue, ready to be your inspiration
to a higher life, and through you to guide mankind to the
noblest preparation for eternity." She never could advance a
second theory, for her heart would beat uncomfortably fast,*
and the glowing eyes, overleaping her words, would rest on a
vision where brotherly love and contentment made the men of
America a world example.
The President, whose prosaic nineteenth century attire would
be changed in some vague but becoming fashion into flowing
draperies imparting a benign aspect to his countenance, would
wonderingly inquire for the author of this happiness, and a
timid, graceful girl, gowned in white, would step forward and
bow gently. She tried to imagine what she would answer
when the President exclaimed in surprise at the youthful appari-
tion. She wanted to be at ease, but as every effort failed to
concentrate attention on a suitable reply, she resolved to trust
to the moment's inspiration.
Unfortunately for the philippic, a domestic disturbance
caused her to admit reluctantly that the time was not yet ripe
for her eloquent plea. She had unconsciously acquired a dog-
VOL. LX. 14
2IO
As BY A GREATER GLADNESS. [Nov.,
matic tone to her voice which rather nettled her spirited
brothers, and slightly ruffled the family serenity; but as it did
not seriously interfere with comfort, they laughed and left her
alone. But when the cook requested an interview with the
mother of the family and stormily announced her intention of
leaving because of " Miss Mary's interferin'," it was another thing.
" Sure, mum, I never was used to havin' folks pokin' around
me kitchen, and tellin' me what to do and what not to do. I
don't pertind to be a saint, mum, but I know me own business,
which is more than some others do."
That doomed the philippic. The boys were especially fond
of that cook, and rallied to her support with a vigor that sent
Miss Mary to her room dissolved in tears but secretly satisfied
to suffer for principle. All great apostles of reform were per-
secuted and misunderstood, and it was only a sign she was con-
sidered worthy the cause she would never renounce ; only, perhaps,
another way would suit better the intolerance of the age. So
the philippic never reached the President, but the cook remained.
She was rather subdued for awhile, unable to seize the
right vent for her brain energy. Disconnected plans floated
through her mind, but they were unsatisfactory illusions not
combining the two essentials of her scheme, Redemption of
humanity and Self-glorification. Once in a while the ruling
passion would overcome timidity, but a check was finally
placed on all philanthropic eccentricities and turned her inclina-
tions emphatically towards the romance.
Going into church one afternoon, she discovered the lady
next her ready to enter the confessional with her gloves on.
Now that was against the rubric of the sacrament and must not
be tolerated. She fidgeted about, ostentatiously pulled off her
own gloves, and covertly watched the effect. It was useless. The
lady never noticed the hint, and therefore must be told her duty.
Miss Mary was naturally retiring in disposition, and it re-
quired a stout buckling on of the armor of faith before she
could turn and point out the delinquency, and her confident
words were weakened by the low, faltering voice.
" Won't you please take off your gloves ? It is against the
rule of the church to wear them."
The surprised neighbor turned and leisurely surveyed the
embarrassed individual beside her, and a smile of cynical amuse-
ment accompanied her laconic answer.
" I prefer to keep them on."
The hot blood surged through Mary's frame, and she re-
1894-] As BY A GREATER GLADNESS. 211
gistered a vow in her inner consciousness to approach people
only through their emotional and intellectual veins, as duty was
a word unacknowledged. So the novel had its conception and
kept its author's attention away from family faults.
It was rather difficult to start this wonderful story. Her
mind was a confused medley of many plots, none of which ex-
actly filled requirements. The general scheme was fascinatingly
vague, and while she waited in delighted expectancy for
thought to crystallize, she occupied time in creating snatches of
conversation, describing bits of scenery that never lay on sea
or land, collecting copious extracts of others' noble thoughts,
arid dreaming dreams of a complacent future.
One thing only was definitely settled. In all the upheaval of
design and custom the beautiful heroine never lost her graceful
serenity, never faded her golden hair, never wrinkled her
broad, low brow. Nameless and alone in that sea of disturb-
ance, she was the anchor securely chained to the author's
jubilant hopes.
The hero was as illusive as the plot. Whether to redeem a
society man's society vices by the purity and virtue of Ameri-
can womanhood, or to elevate, educate, and humanize a son of
toil by contact with feminine morality, culture, and charity !
It was difficult to decide his environment ; so mentally photo-
graphing him tall and dark, she resolved to await mental de-
velopment. There was no definite hurry. The people would
be as much in need of reformation next year as to-day, and
would as eagerly hail the new apostle and the new doctrine.
She passed six months in dreamy unconsciousness of the
lapse of time, during which the opening sentence of her novel
became as changeable as the color of the hero's eyes. Then
she heard a sermon. The first words were lost on an inatten-
tive spirit, but a single sentence darted through her ears and
branded itself on mental consciousness in letters of fire :
"If you would become a saint, do the common things of
life uncommonly well."
The summons reverberated through her being for two days
"The common things of life uncommonly well" then she
slowly took up the fragmentary novel, read its manifold evolve-
ments carefully, held the papers hesitatingly a moment, then
lingeringly tore and retore the long shreds. She thoughtfully
fingered the little mound of white scraps, then quietly deposited
.it in the waste-basket, locked her writing-desk, put away some
books and opened her room door.
THE BISHOP PONTIFICATING.
THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA.
BY RIGHT REV. PAUL TERZIAN, BISHOP OF TARSUS AND ADANA.
HE first evangelist of the Armenian nation was
the Apostle Thaddeus. He converted a portion
of the people, and the work begun by him was
completed in the third century by the Armenian
evangelist, St. Gregory, called " The Illuminator."
Since that time Armenia has remained steadfast in the faith
which by the special favor of Divine Providence she received.
St. Gregory, after having baptized the Armenian king, Cri-
toedes, and all his people, returned to Rome accompanied by
the king, that the latter might make his submission to the See
of St. Peter, the supremacy of which over all the Christian
churches he recognized. The conferring of the pallium by the
Supreme Pontiff, St. Sylvester, on the patriarch, was the means
of attaching the Armenians most warmly to the august head of
the universal church. The prayer which St. Gregory composed
for the continuance of these sentiments, when he was at the
point of death, is still extant.
In the fifth century an unfortunate schism arose, however,
to mar the effects of the good work. The religious distractions
1 894.] THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA. 213
of the time and the obstinacy of some of the Armenian hier-
archy eventuated in a revolt from the authority of the Holy
See, which carried a portion of the nation along with the se-
ceders. A considerable number, however, remained faithful.
These, our Catholic ancestors, showed an admirable constancy
under many protracted and bitter persecutions at the hands of
their schismatic countrymen, which lasted in various forms
down to the beginning of the present century. Their constancy,
under imprisonment, stripes, and exile, was the means of win-
ning over many schismatic Armenians to the true faith.
THE HOLY SEE AND THE ARMENIANS.
The Holy See has taken the deepest interest in the fortunes
of the faithful Armenian Catholics. It has conferred upon them
many signal marks of its regard. Several of the sovereign pon-
tiffs have distinguished themselves by their solicitude for the
welfare of these persecuted Catholics, who at the beginning of
the present century only numbered a few thousands. Since then,
thanks to the generosity of the Catholics of Europe, many new
missions have been started, and the building of new churches
and school-houses has proceeded on all sides. Young men desirous
of joining the priesthood are sent to the college of the Propa-
ganda in Rome, and the college in Armenia founded and en-
dowed by the present illustrious Pontiff, and named after him,
receives those who prefer to remain at home. The princely
generosity and affection which Pope Leo has shown in this
matter proves that he regards the Armenians, amongst all
Oriental peoples, with singular affection. He desires, evidently,
to secure the return of the stray sheep to the fold ; and we,
Armenian Catholics, pray without ceasing for the prolongation
of his life.
So well educated now is our comparatively small community
that it is far more influential, by comparison, than the three
millions of schismatic Armenian Christians. Year by year the
condition of these miserable people becomes more deplorable.
The number of dioceses is steadily diminishing. European civ-
ilization, as it penetrates the East, produces disorganization
amongst them.
They do not any longer recognize the obligation of Catholi-
cism to stand up as the defender of Christian religion ; yet they
prefer it to Protestantism, unless in extreme cases. This I will
show by the following reasons :
214
THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA.
[Nov.,
j. THE MOVEMENT AND TENDENCY OF NON-UNIAT ARMENIANS
TOWARD UNION.
The movement toward Catholicism is an incontestable fact.
To prove it there is one reason most convincing, and embracing
all the others. This is the number of conversions effected dur-
ing the past fifty or sixty years, and the continued growth of
such conversions from year to year. Since the time when our
communion received an official and hierarchical status separate
from the non-Uniat Armenians (a comparatively short time as
things move in the East), we have had created in our patriarch-
ate sixteen dioceses and more than two hundred thousand souls
converted to the Catholic faith. Thus, before 1850, the diocese
of Adana, as well as many others, had no existence. In all the
vast extent of Cilicia there was not a single Catholic, as it is
generally known, who was not tainted with schism. About that
time a holy bishop named Paul came from Egypt and, at the
request of many Armenian Catholics, settled down at Adana.
BISHOP OFFICIATING AT HIGH MASS, WITH TWO ASSISTANT PRIESTS.
He rented a house and immediately began to quicken the dor-
mant faith of the Catholic population. In a short time he had
the happiness of converting many families. Tarsus was the
second city to which he paid a visit ; Jt was in 1854. Lis, the
most interesting city in the province, was also converted later
1894-] THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA. 215
on. In 1876 the most important city of the Cilician highlands,
Hadjine, where American Protestantism had much influence,
and had founded missions and schools, was selected as a place
for missionary work, and the only hospitality at first found was
the shelter of a hill, and since then a wretched barrack. In
this place, for want of better quarters, divine worship is still
carried on, with a congregation of about four hundred families,
all converts. Many more towns and villages have asked for
Catholic missionaries, but owing to lack of resources no priests
have yet been appointed to those places. To myself it has been
vouchsafed, thanks to the generosity of benefactors, to re-
ceive the recantation of more than a hundred and fifty Arme-
nian families ; but unhappily I have not been able to go
to all.
It must be confessed that at the outset we met with enor-
mous obstacles in those missions, and our efforts were often
fruitless. We Catholic missionaries often turn out to be the
objects of misrepresentation, and we suffer much accordingly.
The strict schismatic Armenians hold themselves aloof, fearing
that the Catholic missionaries wish to effect a union in order
to get the Latin rite, of which they are ignorant, adopted, and
so cause them to lose their national character, of which their
language and their religious ritual are such striking marks. But,
seeing that the Armenian Catholics scrupulously preserve their
rites and their national tongue, the schismatics perceive they
have been premature in this conclusion. By the same evidence
they find they are not in the true path of faith, and, un-
easy in this condition, they desire to be put in the way of sal-
vation.
The gravitation toward union is as real and tangible as all
the sufferings which our missions have endured, and which, in
the inscrutable ways of Providence, they still endure. Many
missions in my diocese had been long without a priest and with-
out schools ; and down to the present some are in the same
state of neglect for want of means; yet, despite the most rabid
persecution, a goodly number of converts remain firm in the
faith. In the East the priest is looked upon as a necessary ad-
junct to the family, and is entrusted with all their confidential
affairs. When a member is sick or in affliction he is ready to
succor and console them by day or by night. Our converts have
had to endure this privation. They are obliged to seek a priest
in some very remote place, in the hour of their need. Yet, de-
spite all these obstacles, they remain constant, and the move-
2I 6 THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA. [Nov.,
ment toward union continues. Since to become a Catholic in-
volves the recognition of the Pope as the spiritual head of the
universal church, the non-Uniat Armenians are not able to
ignore, nor yet able to deny, the supremacy of the Roman pon-
tiffs. That doctrine is clearly set out in our hymns and ritual,
and these are the same as those used by our separated breth-
ren, which they chant every day in their churches. Moreover,
the writings of St. Gregory the Illuminator, his entire teach-
ing, based upon the unity of the church, cry out from the
past even to-day to draw all the faithful into the one fold of
the universal church.
Again, through want of discipline and system the bishops and
priests of the schismatic church are sunk in crass ignorance and
deplorable indifference. Through being cut off from Rome,
which is the source of the sciences, of order and discipline, the
focus from which intellectual and moral illumination radiates,
they sink deeper and deeper into spiritual and moral degra-
dation. Under the jurisdiction of teachers incapable of
guiding, their flocks show all the inertness and uncertainty
of a crowd without leader or object. My heart was filled
with dismay on finding, during one of my visitations, that
many Armenians, sick of the attitude of the schismatic bishops
and priests, had become Mussulmans seven years before. Their
language was full of maledictions against those bishops and
priests, rapacious wolves who devoured without pity the in-
nocent sheep and lambs of the fold of our Shepherd, Jesus
Christ. In each of my journeys I passed several days with
those unhappy people, praying with and preaching to them, to
atone for the sin of hating those hirelings. Little by little I
succeeded in bringing them back.
But what shall I say of the ecclesiastics themselves who,
separated from the Catholic Church, are fallen into every kind
of misery? Here, in the town of Lis, there is a wretched man
who, from being a schismatic bishop, has gone over to the Ma-
hometans ! Imagine my feelings to find this man coming to visit
me without a particle of shame. (In those missions I have
neither servants nor doorkeepers, nor secluded apartments, so
that everybody can come in without danger of being turned
away.) What do I see ? A man with a Turkish turban on his
head, and who bears at the same time an episcopal character!
Ah! in that moment I almost forgot myself. I fain would
reason with him a little, but speech failed me ; I did not know
what to do ; I involuntarily covered my face with my hands
i8 9 4.]
THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA.
217
to hide my tears ; I could think of nothing on account of my
grief. After a little I retired to another room, that I might weep
my fill. There is nothing for the Armenians to do but to secede
from such degraded clergy and become good Catholics ? They see
the vast difference between them and the Catholic clergy. They
see the latter well educated, pious, active, zealous, given to the
practice of every virtue, well disciplined, devoted to the instruc-
tion and the sanctification of the people. They perceive their
churches are well kept, the religious ceremonies preserved in all
their purity, the rite and the national language not only ob-
served but cultivated and embellished. They behold the good
PRIEST OFFICIATING AT MASS.
behavior of the children, their careful instruction, in religious
as well as intellectual matters, which the Catholic schools give
their pupils. They cannot help making a comparison, and are
forced to confess that the Catholics are on the true road, and
that they themselves are in error. They feel that they are
branches cut off from the trunk, and that they never can pro-
duce any fruit, for they are deprived of the life-giving sap.
Hence there is a general predisposition toward union.
We sincerely hope that, before Protestantism seizes upon
this unhappy country, the good God may vouchsafe us the
means and the power, through pious benefactors, to win over
the stray sheep.
2I g THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA. [Nov.,
There is another condition which tends towards union. The
Armenians are poor. God has not blessed those rebellious
children with riches. The schismatic Armenians, whose actual
number is about three millions, for many years have been so
impoverished that they are unable to maintain their clergy
decently. So they witness the gradual ruin of their nationality
by misery, and their religion by Protestantism, whose progress
for the last fifty years has been considerable.
I do not wish to speak here of the political motives which
tend continuously towards union. These motives are powerful
and are daily growing stronger. But it is sufficient to say that
it is impossible for the schismatic Armenians to preserve the
status quo. They must either reject Protestantism, which would
destroy their national character, or embrace Catholicism, by
which they can preserve everything dear to them. The latter
is the easier course for them, since in becoming orthodox
Catholics they cannot be set down as making any change in
their religion, because they will have the same belief, the same
language, the same rite and usage, the same ornaments, the
same books so that if a schismatic entered any one of our
churches by chance he would find no difference, save in the
references to our Holy Father the Pope, in the ritual of the
Mass and the other offices. In becoming Catholics they would
only change their bishops and clergy ; and in that case, as they
are well persuaded, in place of a selfish and corrupt clergy, they
would have a body of priests who, although poor, would be
entirely devoted to their spiritual welfare. They realize, in
fine, that they would be most happy under a clergy who re-
spect the civil government of the country, since to an ignor-
ant and incapable priesthood are to be attributed so much of
their misery and the ruin of their best interests.
And why, then, some one will ask me, are not the Ar-
menians Catholics? What are the obstacles in the way? This
brings me to the second point.
II. THE OBSTACLES WHICH PREVENT THE UNION DESIRED BY
OUR HOLY FATHER POPE LEO XIII.
In the first place, after having considered the reasons set
out above, we are persuaded that all the Armenians will after a
little time become Catholics and be brought t(5 the union de-
sired by our Holy Father. This belief it is that makes us
redouble our efforts, support the most trying privations, and
work under all sorts of inconvenience and annoyances in our
1894-] THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA. 219
visitations. But, alas ! the fruits of our labor are not commen-
surate with the toil; conversions are made slowly and with
difficulty.
It would be tedious to enumerate all those obstacles in
detail, but there are some which must be attributed to the
imprudence of our Catholic missionaries in styling the non-
Uniats schismatics and heretics, and inculpating them in the
errors of past centuries ; they drive away those unhappy Chris-
tians by such rude treatment. There are others who, believing
that the Oriental rite is incompatible with Catholic faith, en-
deavor to impose upon those Christians the Latin rite, and
compel them, if not expressly, at least by implication, to re-
nounce their own ritual, to which they are ardently attached.
Once they are brought to believe that they are compelled to
change their rite by the adoption of Catholicism, it is most
difficult to persuade them to the contrary. Here are two
formidable obstacles which operate to prevent the union de-
sired by our Holy Father, in the Church of the East. He
counsels the missionaries to proceed with prudence ; and to the
Orientals he confirms the rites which have existed in their
church from apostolic times ; he enjoins them to guard these
rites in all their purity. The letters of the Sovereign Pontiff
have borne fruit, and the good work goes on. Little by little
the fears of the Armenians are being removed, and we hope
that during his glorious pontificate Leo XIII. will have the
happiness to see what he so ardently desires realized.
Coming to material obstacles, poverty and want of means
are conspicuous at the outset. The Oriental bishops, cut off
from all other sources of income, are only allowed from 2,000
to 2,500 francs per annum by the Propaganda to meet all the
expenses of their maintenance and travelling, etc. They are
compelled to live in a style hardly befitting the dignity of the
episcopacy. During my own pastoral visitations I have to
travel in the most rigidly economical style ; often with no vehi-
cle, but only the horse or the ass on which I am mounted,
with the proprietor for company. We are at the same time
hard pressed very frequently to provide food and drink for the
missionaries, because the honorarium of a franc for each Mass
is the insufficient allowance.
Amongst other expenses of a mission are the following :
The missions are. carried on amongst the poorest class of
the population, because this is the class most steeped in ig-
norance and most in need of instruction. In these cases the
220 THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA. [Nov.,
bishop is bound to provide out of his own pocket the state
expenses of getting registered as an independent religious
community the population whom he has released from the
oppressive authority of the schismatic bishop. It should be
known that in the East every bishop is recognized by the
government as the head of the local commune, and has con-
siderable power under the privileges accorded him by the
sultan, by means of which he may provide for the protection
of his flock against possible violence on the part of schismatic
neighbors who may think their interests imperilled by the
change.
Then, again, there are the expenses of maintaining the local
chapel and the school and the emoluments of the school-teachers.
For the miserable barrack wherein we are compelled to adminis-
ter the sacraments, and which becomes suffocating when filled
with people, we have to pay a high rent. Sometimes the
crowd is so great that we are obliged to administer the sacra-
ments in the open air. What a humiliating spectacle before our
Protestant friends! So, too, with regard to the presbytery and
the school-house. So small are these buildings that frequently
the bishop, the priest, the school-master, and the domestic are
obliged to carry on their respective duties all in the same com-
mon room ! I assure you that during five years' missions in
another station I have been obliged to make the room which
served me for a kitchen at times serve also for the sacred
purposes of religion. These things are all great obstacles to
our success as missionaries, because whilst we are driven to
such extremes, the Protestant missionaries are lodged in
splendid houses, are building commodious schools, paying
liberal salaries to teachers, and rearing fine churches.
Let me give you an example. Last winter one of my
priests was celebrating Mass in a temporary chapel, and in the
middle of the service he was obliged to pause for awhile
in order to sweep away the snow which had fallen upon
the altar. His hands became almost frost-bitten from the
operation, so that he suffered much pain for several hours. A
fierce keen wind was blowing at the time, and the congregation
were shivering with the cold. Sometimes it blew out the tapers
on the altar. The rigor of the seasons at times here would
tax the endurance of the hardiest Christians of the early ages.
In my own church of Adana, which I cannot dignify by the
name of a cathedral, I have had to change the site of the altar
several times in order to escape the torrents of rain in wet
1 894.]
THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA.
221
weather, or the little avalanches of clay from the sides of the
hill under which the church is built. Owing to the wretched
state of the roof, I fear that the edifice will one day be ruined
by a storm. It was at one time a store-house ; now it has to
serve the purposes of a church.
Our people, it will be admitted, deserve the highest praise
for the manner in which they bear these trials : but it is not in
human nature to endure for ever. Hence some places have
remained without churches for the past twenty or thirty years.
As at Hadjine, at Tarsus, at Char where the people,
after many sacrifices, have been able to get their children
PRIEST READING THE GOSPEL.
educated, and some families have been won over to the
Catholic faith, all but these are wavering at the sight of
the wealth and the splendid churches of the Protestants,
and the liberality with which they are supported, contrasting
so strongly with their own poverty and squalor. One year,
for example, during a mission at Char, the inhabitants,
owing to scarcity of food, were in extreme danger, and the
Protestants, on hearing it, very promptly sent them very gener-
ous help by a native messenger. But as for the Catholics,
more numerous by far than the Protestants, I myself, in order
to avoid the expense of hiring a messenger, carried their con-
222 THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA. [Nov.,
tributions, which only amounted to two hundred francs, as com-
pared -with about two thousand francs which the American
minister alone subscribed to the Protestant fund. What a
humiliation for us Catholics !
But it is not this difficulty or that humiliation which
troubles us, because we know by experience that the influence of
the ceremonies to which the Armenians are attached is very great.
After the monetary relief which Protestant bounty, out of its
abundance, had sent, was exhausted, Protestant principles were
sought to be introduced with no less celerity. It was with the
infant population that the experiment was tried, because when
religious bias is implanted in childhood it is likely to remain
fixed in most cases. It is here the greatest obstacle is found,
in the want of Catholic schools and churches, and the
failure of the seminary to furnish native missionaries of the
Catholic rite. It is for this reason that, with all my poverty,
since I arrived in this diocese I have opened eight schools in
different places ; I have brought the nuns to teach the children.
These schools I maintain only with the greatest difficulty. I
share my table and home with five seminarians, for the purpose
of training them for the priesthood of the same rite, in order
that they may in time take a good part in the spiritual work
of this extensive diocese.
I have said "priests of the same rite," because there .are in
the East many missionaries of different orders in the Latin rite
Jesuits, Franciscans, Capuchins, etc., largely supported by the
generous help of France. They are diligent, well educated,
exemplary, virtuous, and saintly in their lives; but for all that
they are not successful. The experience of a quarter of a
century proves to me that the reason they are not able to
make any conversions is that they are not of the Oriental rite.
And if in a few places they are able to win over some families
to the Latin rite, it produces a sinister effect upon their
neighbors by raising the suspicion that Catholicism will one day
destroy their nationality; and this drives them away. It is to
remove this obstacle that the Holy Father prays the Holy
Spirit may direct that the conversion of the East may be
effected by Oriental priests. To this end he encourages us in
our labors, he solicits the pious benevolence of the outside
faithful in our aid. We trust that the fervent Catholics of
America, and more especially those devoted to St. Paul, may
help us to carry on the work of St. Peter, by holding out
a helping hand to our impoverished missionaries who labor in-
1894-] THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA. 223
cessantly to bring back to the fold of Christ his wandering
sheep.
III. IF THE NON-UNIAT ARMENIANS BECOME CATHOLICS, THEY
DO NOT REQUIRE ANY CHANGE IN RlTUAL, CEREMONIES,
VESTMENTS, OR USAGES.
It is to the blessing of identity of ceremonies we owe the
continual conversions ; it is by the same blessing I have been
enabled to get hold of the one schismatic church in my dio-
cese during the past few months. Half the population are now
converted to Catholicism; but there was no local building fit to
celebrate the holy mysteries in, and the severity of the weather
would not permit of holding service in the open air always. In
those circumstances the happy thought struck me to send for
the key of the old church, which had been closed for a very
long time. Everybody came to assist the Catholics through
devotion, the schismatics through curiosity. I celebrated Mass ;
I preached to the people, speaking of the desirability of union
of the churches, and of the aspiration of the great Pontiff, Leo
XIII., waiting -with open arms to give all Christians the kiss
of peace. Fortunately there is over the main altar a painting
of St. Gregory the Illuminator, and I was able to give a brief
sketch of the life of that venerable saint who in the third cen-
tury of the church recognized the infallible authority of its head,
Pope Sylvester. On leaving the church, far from raising any
difficulties, the schismatics declared that they did not see any
difference between Catholicism and their own belief.
The identity of usages and ceremonies, then, is a powerful
source of attraction to the schismatic Armenians. To give the
readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD a notion of our ceremonies
and sacred vestments I have had some groups photographed
and sent with this article.
The first picture shows the Armenian bishop pontificating,
with two deacons who wear stoles crossed diagonally over their
chests, and are accompanied by two choir-boys. You perceive
the ornaments used in the Armenian Mass the fanlike instru-
ments borne on either side of the celebrant serve two purposes ;
they are used to keep flies away from the chalice, and attached
to each plaque are little bells which tinkle from time to time
during the sacred ceremony. These instruments have been in
use from the first ages of the church in Armenia.
The second group shows the bishop officiating at High Mass,
with two priests assisting. :
224
THE CHURCH IN ARMENIA.
[Nov.,
In the third picture is shown the Armenian priest celebrat-
ing Mass, holding the doctor's staff, according to the Armenian
rite.
In the fourth picture the priest is reading the Gospel.
The fifth group shows the costumes of our choristers. Among
them are placed two boys robed in the costume of the coun-
try.
Our offices and ceremonies are marked by many most ex-
pressive and beautiful prayers, in which the blessing of Catholic
unity and the welfare of Catholic rulers and our clergy, and the
exaltation of the Church, are many times fervently besought.
The expression of perfect faith in the Real Presence of our
Lord upon the altar is also emphasized throughout. We pro-
CHORISTERS PRACTISING.
claim our attachment to the living faith of the ancient church,
and our love for the beauty of the church which is the spouse
of Jesus Christ, which exists for the salvation of the world.
The language of our prayers is most poetic and beautiful, re-
minding us of the celestial kingdom of which this life is but the
portal. Amongst many others I wish to send you the words
of one which we always chant after the first offertory, whilst
the celebrant incenses the congregation and prepares to enter :
"Au tabernacle de la saintte, au lieu de rendement de grace,
a la demeure des anges, au lieu d'expiations des pches des
Jiommes." The chanters continue:
1894-] THE CHUKCH IN ARMENIA. 225
" In unison with this divine offering, assembled in the holy
temple to celebrate the sacraments of thanksgiving with odori-
ferous incense, we sing our canticles before the altar of the holy
Sacrifice. Vouchsafe to receive, O Lord God, the prayers, the
incense, the myrrh, and the cinnamon we offer thee, and to
preserve in holiness those who offer them, that they may
always serve thee without ceasing. Through the intercession of
the Holy Virgin deign to receive the supplications of thy
ministers.
" Thou, O Christ, who by thy precious blood hast glorified
thy church in heaven and on earth thou has given us here the
teachings of the apostles, the prophets, the holy doctors.
United here to-day with them, the priests, the deacons, the
choristers, the clerks, offer their prayers, their songs, and their
incense before thee, like Zachary of old. Deign to receive these
our prayers, mingled with this incense, as the sacrifices of Abel,
of Nocy and of Abraham. By the intercession of the heavenly
powers guard, we beseech thee, thy holy church.
"Rejoice, O daughter of light, Holy Mother Church, with
thy children of Sion ! Adorn majestically, O glorious spouse,
this altar luminous with the light of heaven ! Anoint the ever-
lasting sacrifice, consummated for the conciliation of the Eter-
nal Father, by which in expiation for our sins Christ offers his
precious Body and Blood. For the accomplishment of his holy
Incarnation, he granted the remission of sins to that out of
which he built his temple."
I cannot now occupy any more space with the prayers,
whether of the Mass or of the other offices, which express and
excite the fervent devotion of the people. I will conclude with
the last prayer of the celebrant, chanted as he stands with
arms outstretched and elevated, before the benediction, at the
end of the Mass. He prays as follows :
" O Lord God, who blessest all those who bless and glorify
thee, bless and preserve those who hope in thee ! Give life to
thy people ! Bless their heritage, guard them in the unity of
thy church. Purify all those here who are blessed in the
beauty of thy house. We glorify thee for thy divine power.
Abandon not those who hope in thee. Give peace to the
whole world, to thy church, thy priests, to all Christian princes,
their children, and their people. For all blessings and all
graces which are showered upon us are from thee, who art the
Father of light ! To thee be glory, power, and honor now and
for ever and ever. Amen."
VOL. LX. 15
226
To MY ALMA MA TER.
[Nov.,
This charming prayer cannot be recited or listened to with-
out tears, because herein is supplicated that union of the
church so desired by our Divine Redeemer and his glorious
vicegerent, Leo XIII. May heaven grant me the consolation
of seeing it fulfilled in all Armenia, and especially in my own
diocese, the land of St. Paul, in which you take so lively an
interest !
The very reverend head of the Congregation of St. Paul has
given me great support, and sends me a list of benefactors who
have contributed most generously to the object I have in view.
I hope, by working with additional zeal, I may be able to ex-
pend the money sent, to the last farthing, to the honor of God
and the glory of his church. Let me say one word to them
in person : One day the thousands of souls saved through your
bounty will render thanks to our heavenly Father ; they will
bless you without ceasing, because you have ransomed them
from the slavery of schism by your munificent alms. A thou-
sand blessings be yours, O men of good will ! May blessed
Paul, by his intercession, obtain for you the fullest measure of
prosperity, spiritual and temporal, and accord you the conver-
sion of America from end to end, for which you labor so
earnestly ! For this will be raised daily to heaven all the pious
hands in my poor diocese, all those of the children in our
schools.
TO MY ALMA MATER.
GIVE thee all, as thou hast given to me :
Whate'er I have, 'tis thou that makest it mine ;
Nor richer thou for this my debt to thee
A beggar's boon, a gift already thine.
JOHN B. TABB.
1894-] ITALIAN HARVEST SCENES. 227
ITALIAN HARVEST SCENES.
BY HENRIETTA DANA SKINNER.
EW tourists ever spend a summer in Italy, yet
if one would know anything of the customs and
characteristics of the people of that country it
is in summer, among rural and mountain popu-
lations and along untravelled ways, that one
should study them.
It is during the early harvest season, in the midsummer
days of late June, that we get some of our pleasantest glimpses
into peasant life. Following a habit which during the turbu-
lent middle ages was a necessity, the peasantry still, for the
most part, live clustered together in little fortified towns on
the hill-tops, descending daily into the fields and groves below
to till the farms and cultivate the vines and fruit-trees. Their
life is thus more social and cheerful than is common among
our farmers, who, scattered about on isolated farms, at greater
or less distance from their neighbors, often lead lonely and
cheerless lives. But the Italian peasants live in close contact,
knowing each other's joys and sorrows, sharing each other's la-
bors and merry-makings.
These little high-perched, picturesque towns, approached on-
ly by steps cut in the side of the hill, or by winding paths for
foot-passenger or donkey " donkey-towns," we used to call
them are very healthy, having fine air and natural drainage.
Each, no matter how primitive and inaccessible, has its large
parish church in the centre, with the big, shady public square
in front where all their gatherings are held social, religious,
or political its communal " palace," its free school and library,
and its village band. The steep, irregular streets are paved
solid with enormous cobble-stones, worn by centuries of donkey-
hoofs. The houses are low and roughly built of stone and stuc-
co, and are, like the peasant himself, invariably dirty and pictur-
esque without and as invariably clean and tidy within. A little
shrine adorns the outside and a few bright-colored flowers bloom
in the window.
If the peasant is at home you may enter his cottage with-
out hesitation or formality and be sure of a royal welcome.
228 ITALIAN HARVEST SCENES. [Nov.,
He does not ask you whence or why you come or who you
are, but immediately gives you the best chair by the best cor-
ner of the enormous chimney, and offers you the best of his
simple fare. You may be a prince or a wealthy foreigner, but
the peasant is undisturbed in his gentle hospitality. There is
no false shame or obsequiousness in his manner. He takes his
seat near you and enters at once into friendly conversation, ob-
serving perfect deference to his guest but without constraint or
servility. The people of Italy are thoroughly permeated with
the democratic spirit of their religion ; hence the exquisite cour-
tesy and consideration that we find between all ranks, prince
meeting peasant on grounds of confidence and friendly familiar-
ity, without thought of condescension from one or presumption
from the other.
The peasant host quickly makes the stranger at home. The
women and children gather about and take part in the conver-
sation with cordial, fearless grace and intelligence, and one and
all are hospitably anxious to contribute in some way to the
well-being and happiness of the uninvited guest.
But if the stranger has happened to stray into the village
by day during the harvest season he will find it almost deserted.
A few old women sit in the street in front of their doors with
distaff and spindle or loom, spinning flax or weaving. A few
decrepit old men watch the pigs and hens, a few little toddling
children play about them in the sunshine. But all the able-
bodied men and women, young boys and girls, are at work in
the distant fields and vineyards and groves. Even the babies
are there, for the young mothers take them strapped in baskets
and, while at work, leave them to sleep in the shade near by.
The summer working day begins with the first streak of
dawn. Soon after three in the morning the inhabitants of the
little town repair to the parish church, where the harvest Mass
is said and a blessing on their labors invoked. They are all
gathered there, men and women, young and old, and the dusky
building rings with their devotional hymns and canticles. No
Italian congregation is thoroughly happy until it sings. Their
hymns are many and sweet. They put everything into rhyme
their prayers, their devout aspirations, the stories of the Gospel,
the simple teachings of the " Christian doctrine," as they call
the catechism all are turned into graceful couplets and sung
to simple, catchy tunes which even the tiny children know from
their cradles. Many of their little rhymes are touching and
pretty, full of childlike faith and love. They are very affection-
1894-] ITALIAN HARVEST SCENES. 229
ate, if one may say so, with the " Blessed God," as they al-
ways call him.
The harvest Mass is over in about twenty minutes, and the
people then start down the hillside in merry groups, the young
people laughing and singing and running races, the older ones
following more sedately with their implements, the young
mothers carrying their babies, the little boys driving the
donkeys, the little girls trotting behind, bearing poised on their
heads the dinner-pails containing the frugal meal of corn-bread
and cheese, salt fish, and the thin, sour wine of the country.
On reaching the fields, the groves, and the vineyards, all turn
cheerfully to work till seven o'clock, when they rest a few
moments for breakfast, and then labor again till noon. They
divide into bands, working at different employments, and these
bands sing almost incessantly during their work, answering each
other back and forth in alternate strophes. Their field-songs
are almost invariably sacred in character psalms and canticles
of praise to God ; hymns to the Sacred Heart of the Saviour, to
the Madonna, to St. Joseph, patron of the laboring man ; or
rhyming stories from the Old Testament and legends of the
Child Jesus, and of the saints. Some charming examples of
these legends and field-songs have been given us by Miss
Francesca Alexander in her exquisitely illustrated volumes The
Roadside Songs of Tuscany, edited by Ruskin. The supply of
verses to their songs is practically inexhaustible, for besides those
that they have gathered from many generations of hymn-singing
ancestors they are continually adding new ones of their own.
Some one singer is noted for his power of improvisation and
will from time to time interpolate a new verse, which those
near catch up and repeat after him till soon every one in the
field is singing it. Of love-songs we hear little during the work-
ing hours, but when the hour of noon rest comes, and the sun
is blazing hotly down, the peasants leave their work and gather
in groups under the shade of the trees to eat their simple meal,
the older ones among them repeating favorite legends of knight-
ly adventure, while chosen singers sing strophes of the old
love poetry, handed down by oral tradition from the minstrels
and troubadours of the thirteenth century, and as fresh and
new to-day as six 1 hundred years ago, so little does the heart of
the generations change.
But the noon meal is soon over, the day is hot and the
singers are weary. They divide again into groups, the men and
boys going off to one end of the field, the women and children
230 ITALIAN HARVEST SCENES. [Nov.,
to another, and, stretching their limbs in the shade, all take a
long noon-day nap. About three o'clock they start up and go
to work again, lingering till half an hour after sunset, when the
bells ring out from the belfry of the convent perched on the
height above them. From a more distant summit other bells,
faint and far off, answer sweetly, and from their own village
church the noisy little bells clang joyously. It is the Angelus,
the call to evening prayer, the Ave Maria, as they call it there,
and all work is dropped, they bend their heads, cross them-
selves reverently and repeat the words of the Evangelist, which
tell of the Angel Gabriel announcing to the blessed maiden
Mary that she is indeed blessed among women unto all genera-
tions, for she is the mother of Him who shall save his people
from their sins, the Eternal Word made flesh, Emmanuel, God
with us!
And now they wend their way slowly up the hillside.
Tired? Yes, for the moment, no doubt, as they seek their
cottages, where the evening meal has been carefully prepared for
them by the aged grandparents. But no one would guess, art
hour or two later, that weariness had ever kept company with
them. The evening meal passes in social talk between young
and old, three and often four generations gathering round the
humble board, after the patriarchal fashion of the hills. The
household work is then attended to and the children laid in
bed, saying their little rhyming prayers, and even as sleep steals
over them folding their hands and murmuring:
" Nel bel Cuor di Gesu che mi ha redento,
In pace mi riposo e mi addormento."*
The older children and grown people then leave their cot-
tages and, as night closes in, gather once more in the old church
to lift their voices in the evening litanies and the prayer for
the dead, and to receive the benediction. Then, passing out
again, they all assemble on the public square, now flooded with
the light of the harvest moon, and the merry-making begins.
The older men and women sit about on benches or stand in
groups gossiping and chatting sociably ; the younger men engage
m friendly contests at bowls, pitching quoits, or a game with
balls and rackets not unlike tennis; the youths and maidens
dance tirelessly for hours to the music of violins, guitars, and
tambourines, while the younger boys and girls play merry games
*On Jesus, my Redeemer's, loving Breast
In peace I lay me down and take my rest.
1894-] ITALIAN HARVEST SCENES. 231
resembling many played by our own boys and girls, except that
they are invariably accompanied by rhythmic song, and that
under the shadow of the Apennines " King George and his
troops " become Hector and his Trojans, Charlemagne, Orlando,
and the Knights of the Round Table, or Saladin and his Paynims,
and the " tug of war " becomes the siege of Troy, or the storm-
ing of Acre. Among these peasant children the heroes of Vir-
gil and Dante and Tasso come to life, and the American child's
game of " stage-coach " becomes the wanderings of JEneas or
the adventures of Tancred, while " going to Jerusalem " is trans-
formed into a tournament, where knight after knight with glo-
rious mien and high-sounding title is made to bite the dust of
shame, and he who remains victor of the field is crowned by
the Queen of Love and Beauty. Even in their games of " for-
feits " the chivalric idea prevails. The little peasant girl gives
her knight a task to perform to redeem his pledge and win her
favor, and when he performs it to the satisfaction of the by-
standers they call upon her in chorus to reward the faithful
knight and atone for her own severity by doing homage to the
blushing hero and kissing him upon the cheek :
" Far la penitenza !
Dar la riverenza !
Dare un bel bacino ! "
Such tender rewards, however, are confined to the games of
children, for the notions of decorum are very strict among these
mountain people. The dances of the young men and maidens
are an instance of this. Anything in the nature of our round
dances is unknown. There the maidens dance hand-in-hand,
the youths opposite them, and there is much passing back and
forth and in and out, much saluting and curtseying and cutting
of pigeon-wings, much laughter and merriment, but never once
does the youth so much as touch the hand of the maiden who
is his partner in the dance. Yet with all the distance between
them they seem to understand each other very well. They
marry young, these mountaineers, and are in every way encour-
aged and helped to do so.
At intervals during the merry-making the village band plays
amid great applause. All are apparently forgetful that they
must be up at three o'clock on the morrow to begin another
day of labor, and it is nearly eleven o'clock before the laughter
and music and dancing cease and the moonlit town is once more
wrapped in silence.
232 HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. [Nov.,
HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM.
BY HENRY AUSTIN ADAMS.
T.A PROTESTANT STRONGHOLD.
3
HE whirligig of time has treated the traveller in
Europe to many a curious and unaccountable
bit of the unexpected.
So one has but half an eye to the relations
of things in general and to the exquisite per-
spectives called in time " history," the odds are that a few weeks'
quiet browsing almost anywhere in Europe will result in un-
dermining more than one old misconception as to men and
meanings.
Given a Catholic eye and an American bringing up, and the
chances are that in every corner of the old world one is likely
to meet something not down in his authorized guide book.
It shall go hard but the cocksureness and " common-sense "
of our oracles, who know it all, will get a set-back like enough
to cause us to do more thinking in the future at first hand, and
to swallow what we see in the paper and the history and the
accepted authorities generally with a copious admixture of salt.
Of course nobody need go into the Catholic countries of the
Continent unprepared for the worst. Do not one's Prescott,
one's Motley, one's Irving, drop a grand oracular phrase or two
on which your whole pack of tourists, essayists, and preachers
have been ringing the changes ad nauseam ever since ?
Assuredly nobody can justly blame the "authorities" if his
optimism suffers a shock in atheistic France and licentious Spain.
Should one so far transcend his laid-down itinerary as to stroll
from his inn at, say, five in the morning to the village church
over the hills there, to find it full of men and women actually
intent upon assisting at the adorable Sacrifice (just as though it
were still the middle ages), surely one must not blame the au-
thorities for failing to notice a thing like that. Five o'clock is
early of a morning.
Again, one turns from the " effete," " priest-ridden," naughty
countries of the South toward the magnificent, enlightened
states in the north of Europe, fully prepared to find men there
1894-] HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. 233
either emancipated from belief and leading sober, scientific lives
of thought (very unlike French unbelief, which is wicked), or
else holding a pure, reformed, and rational Christianity in one
or other of the mutually destructive but collectively Protestant
bodies. True, in America there are immense churches, colleges,
dioceses, filled with sturdy Germans stoutly maintaining that
they are Catholics. Where did they come from ? By rights
they should be either learnedly proving God an untenable hy-
pothesis over their rational beer, or else praising so much of
the Divine in Christ as the latest advices from Tubingen declare
can be proved from the up-to-date New Testament !
I was thinking about these things very early last Easter
morning as I stood at the top of the majestic flight of steps
which sweep up to the Briihl Terrace in Dresden.
Before me lay that striking picture of the " Platz " teeming
with historic associations, the central, splendid crown of the
Saxon capital.
Away to the right, from the very foot of the steps, stretched
the sturdy Augustus Bridge, whose massive arches had felt and
survived the thunders of Napoleon's cannon. And over it now
from the Neustadt side of the Elbe, in the fine bracing air,
were pouring the people churchward.
On the right, and beyond the bridge, the Royal Theatre
was the first of the stately circle surrounding the Schloss Platz
a solid and splendid pile, the home of the deepest and best
in music.
Next, the fagade of the Zwinger swept far across the broad
square ; to me, at that moment, meaning only one thing the
Sistine Madonna of Raphael. Yes, there it is in its lonely sub-
limity in the little room at the extreme right-hand side. This
Easter sun now must be falling upon it through that last high
window there.
At the left of the now thronged Platz the long, irregular
outline of the group of royal palaces completes the architec-
tural background of the picture, while the heights beyond the
city, the sparkling, dashing current of the river, and the dim,
blue, distant hills, heighten the nameless beauty.
And here, quite in the centre of the noble setting, rises the
dark, vast mass of the court church. Innumerable heroic statues
of the saints, set upon pinnacles and gables, vividly animate the
otherwise too ponderous pile.
A lofty German tower that tapers in successive stages to a
cross-capped shaft ; and a belfry full of bells instinct with life.
234 HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. [Nov.,
Not hidden bells, not bells that toll lugubriously for a faithless
cult ; but bells that clang and sing and fairly leap into the air
without. Bells rung by vigorous German arms, proclaiming Ger-
man faith.
The multitudes surge in the square below, and fill the vast
old fane to overflowing, this Easter day, eight distinct times be-
fore the service of the day begins. And this is Dresden ! The
capital of Saxony, the very hot-bed of the Reformation ! One
rubs one's eyes. And now a flourish of trumpets, and a re-
newed commotion among the people. A dozen richly capari-
soned carriages with attendant guards sweep into the Platz.
They bring the various members of the royal family.
The good old king with his beloved queen has gone into
the church over the little covered bridge connecting with the
palace.
One asks, " Is not this king, this family, the successor of
those electors of Saxony to whom the Reformation owed so
much? And is not this Saxony, with its Leipsic University
and its countless advanced schools of science and philosophy,
the very home of German unbelief ? " Certainly.
But all is not down in the guide-book, and history has two
ways of getting itself written, but only one way of getting it-
self made and that is this way.
Lacking only three years, the rulers of Protestant Saxony
have been Catholics for two centuries ! Stout old Augustus the
Strong, of Saxony, on becoming King of Poland embraced the
religion of that long-suffering but never apostate land, and his
descendants have not only continued to believe and practise
that faith, but have in every way defended and extended it in
their anomalous position as Catholic sovereigns of an intensely
Protestant people. Not, however, until as late as the Peace of
Posen, in 1806, was the Catholic religion raised to an equality
(legally considered) with the Lutheran which to this day re-
mains the " state " church.
The Catholics of certain portions of the kingdom have been
benefited, as occasion has arisen, by such agreements as the
Peace of Prague in 1635 (a quarter of a century before the king's
conversion), but having ever remained in a minute numerical
minority the graces of steadfastness and reality have been con-
stantly illustrated by them.
Here it is Easter Day in the year of grace 1894, and im-
mense multitudes of earnest, highly-educated men are joining
with their revered old soldier-king and charitable queen in
1 894.] HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. 235
celebrating, in honor of the Resurrection, the awful Sacrifice of
the Mass! The place, the conditions, the almost unaccountable
strangeness of it all, draws from one used to look for historical
meaning in passing events the exclamation : " Can this be trans-
piring in the most non-Catholic country and in this most scep-
tical decade of a faithless century ? "
Albeit it was two hours before the grand Pontifical Mass
was to begin, I found my only chance of hearing it at all
was to be packed along with hundreds of others in the
spacious corridors connecting the many chapels with the nave.
The nave, its broad galleries and immediately abutting chapels,
were crowded by a kneeling or standing mass of devout people.
After the sermon, which was delivered before Mass, I was able
through the good offices of a guard to gain a kneeling spot
within sight of the high altar and its superb " Ascension," by
Mengs.
From my new position I was also able to see the king and
queen and some of the royal family, whose bearing throughout
the services was most quiet, intent, and humble.
I confess that the hour of waiting was for me one of watch-
ing rather than prayer.
The night before, at the house of Baron von K., I had been
seriously informed that " their majesties and the Bohemian
tramps have religion all to themselves." I looked about me.
My nearest neighbors were two English lads in Eton jackets
and in the charge of a tutor. All three, better employed than
I, were absorbed in their Vade Mecum and Rosaries. Every-
body else near me was German. Two professors from the
Polytechnic knelt three seats in front of me. At my right a
venerable old Saxon and his flaxen-haired grandson whispered
the Litany of the Saints the old face looking up, up, up, as if
into those of the saints themselves, and the boy's pure, sweet
lips breathing an irresistible bitte filr uns pray for us to every
blest one whom the old man saw. Soldiers in gala dress; neat,
highly-scrubbed mechanics ; farmers with a five-league tramp to
their credit that very morning. All these were there, but in a
small minority to those in spectacles and ill-fitting black coats
too manifestly declaring them learned and poor in all save
brains. Row after row of students spent one good hour at
prayer to my own knowledge this Easter last past anyhow. I
dwell upon the men purposely. There were, of course, women
innumerable, but not on our side of the church, for they are
divided from the men in public worship.
236 HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. [Nov.,
This arrangement has the advantage, at least, of enabling
the questioner to observe how far Catholicism has lost its grasp
upon the virile mind of the Teutonic races. So weak is its
grasp upon masculinity that on several succeeding Sunday
mornings I have noticed not more than five hundred men
standing in aisles, chapels, vestibules, assisting at a Low Mass
for which a thousand or two only of their brothers had been
fortunate enough to secure seats !
D r . W , a biologist and agnostic, expressed the opinion
that our children would see the German peoples either Catho-
lic or faithless. " You, of course, doctor," I said, " expect them
to become faithless."
" Not at all, not at all Germans have too much heart :
they are in love with God." It is true. Pick up the little
books of devotion, watch these spectacled worshippers, and you
will find der Hebe Gott in very deed the object of a quaintly
beautiful childlike love.
The king is a Catholic of this type, and is a living barrier
to prejudice against the faith.
The brilliant record that he made before Paris in 1870, and
the largeness and vigor of his policy in the trying times since
the formation of the empire, have gained for him the personal
devotion of his people, while his clean, true life, and the warm,
humane, uplifting influence of his court, have compelled men
to respect the faith he cherishes. ,,
To the unspeakable regret of Saxony, King Albert has no
children. His crown will, therefore, pass to his brother, Prince
George, and to his sons, of whom there are several. The
eldest, Prince Frederic August, will in all probability soon
bear the grave responsibilities of government. He is, of course,
a Catholic, and his fair young wife, already hailed as their
future queen, is gracefully endearing herself to the good Saxons
by a life of practical religion and kind deeds. A brother of
the future king, Prince Max, has still more closely bound the
interests of the throne to the church by devoting his life (an
earnest and gifted one) to the holy priesthood.
Thus has the God of destiny parried the blows of the
electors, and Saul once more is found among the prophets !
At the heart of historic Protestantism and modern unbelief
the old faith is proclaimed and believed on of men. A rem-
nant, ever growing, has not bowed, and will not bow, the knee
to Baal.
i8 9 4-]
GLIMPSES OF LOURDES.
GLIMPSES OF LOURDES.
BY ALBA.
;N this day of almost universal travel few who are
likely to read these pages have not already seen
for themselves the far- famed Rock of Massabielle,
together with the little town of Lourdes, nestling
among the less ambitious slopes of the Pyrenees,
while the loftier summits look down on them from a distance.
If the traveller has visited Lourdes in the spirit of a Catho-
lic pilgrim, rather than in that of an American tourist, the vision
of the splendid basilica with its spire of white lace-work and its
joyous peal of bells, of the extensive surrounding meadows, fra-
grant with the perfume of the newly-cut hay, of the musical
chants of the numerous pilgrims gathered together from all parts
of the world, will revive impressions that ought to be imperish-
able. But it is not of these we would speak. It is of the ap-
paritions themselves, bearing, as they do, so directly upon the
supernatural, and of the witnesses on whose evidence our belief in
the apparitions is founded. We may observe in passing, that
M. Zola, who made it his first care to examine the only " ex-
planation " ever attempted by hostile opinion, rejected it with
contempt, and forthwith proceeded to look into the account au-
thorized by the church, of which we now give the substance :
On Thursday, February 12, 1858, Bernadette Soubirous, a
peasant girl of fourteen, the child of very poor parents, went
with her younger sister and a companion to gather firewood on
the banks of the river Gave, near the rock of Massabielle. A
small canal flowed between them and the ground they desired
to reach, where the branches were most plentiful. This the two
younger girls crossed ; but Bernadette, whose health was frail>
hesitated at sight of the chilly water. Finally, having concluded
to cross, she stooped down to take off her shoes, when a sud-
den gust of wind caused her to look up. Not a twig was stirr-
ing ; the air was still, and she stooped a second time. Again
the puff of wind swept past her toward the rock in face of
which was the Grotto now so famous. Surprised, she looked
toward the grotto; and, within a niche hollowed out in the
upper part, she beheld a resplendent light, in the midst of which
23 8 GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. [Nov.,
stood a Lady of wonderful beauty, arrayed in veil and robe of
snowy white, with cincture of blue. On her bare feet, which
rested on a branch of eglantine that extended across the niche,
bloomed two roses of golden color, and in her hand she held a
long rosary of white beads linked with gold. Bernadette, as-
tonished, could not believe her eyes, and rubbed them to assure
herself she saw aright. The Vision smiled benignly upon her ;
and then a feeling of awe took possession of the child. She
drew forth her beads, and kneeling down tried, but vainly, to
sign herself with the cross. The Lady then signed herself with
the golden cross attached to her chaplet, and began to pass the
beads through her fingers, though her lips moved not. Imme-
diately the little girl signed herself, and proceeded to recite
the Ave Maria. The Lady motioned her to approach nearer,
but Bernadette was afraid, and did not stir. Then the Vision,
still smiling, disappeared.
Bernadette, full of amazement, left the Grotto to seek her
companions, and questioned them ; but they had seen nothing.
On reaching home she made known to her mother what had
occurred ; and the mother, naturally alarmed, and fearing un-
hallowed influences, forbade her to re-visit the Grotto. On the
Sunday following, however, some little girls, urged by curiosity,
prevailed on the mother to revoke her prohibition ; and about
noon the children went to the parish church with a little bottle
which they filled with holy water, and then took their way to
the Grotto. Again the Lady appeared, surrounded, as before,
by a brilliant light. Bernadette took the bottle and threw the
holy water several times at the Apparition, telling her to ap-
proach nearer if she came on the part of God. The Vision
smiled yet more sweetly as the holy water fell on her feet ;
and, coming nearer, bent down towards the child with ineffable
serenity and benignity. Bernadette fell on her knees, and taking
her chaplet began to pray, her countenance transfigured, her
eyes fixed upon the Vision. Before evening all the town was
astir with the news.
On the second day afterward two women went secretly to
the Grotto before sunrise. Bernadette was already there, as was
also the Vision. One of the women, thinking it might be a soul
from Purgatory, gave to the little girl some paper, pen, and ink,
which she had brought, and bade her ask the Lady to write
her name and the reason of her coming. The Lady smiled
and said : " What I have to say to you does not need to be
written. Do me the favor to come here every day for fifteen
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. 239
days." Bernadette promised, and the Lady continued : " I can-
not render you happy in this world, but I promise to do so in
the next." Then the two women bade the girl ask whether they
also might come to the Grotto ? "I wish it," replied the Lady.
" I desire that many may come."
During the next fortnight Bernadette went every day to the
Grotto, and only twice did the Lady fail to appear. She, how-
ever, appeared on three subsequent occasions, making eighteen
apparitions in all. The wonderful news soon spread through
the adjoining country, and every day witnessed a larger and
larger crowd of spectators, till at length several thousands
gathered around the Grotto and watched the child. As the
Crowd is the first witness we would cite, it may be as well to
take a look at its component parts. It included not alone
friends and relatives of the little girl, inhabitants of the town
and neighborhood, peasants from distant villages and valleys ; it
included also travellers from many parts of France, to which
the news was quickly wafted ; the saintly Abb6 Peyramale, cure
of Lourdes ; government officials, newspaper men, and persons
of all conditions. It was not a credulous crowd. While "some
believed " like the Jews in presence of the miracles of our
Lord others sneered, and most doubted and suspended judg-
ment. On what they saw all were agreed ; but on what it all
meant there was great diversity of opinion. This was what they
saw.
They saw Bernadette kneeling, a lighted taper in one hand,
her chaplet in the other, and her eyes fixed upon the niche.
Presently they observed a slight thrill or movement, then her
face became transfigured, extraordinary -beauty and a look of
supreme happiness irradiating her usually ordinary features,
while the look she directed towards the niche became so inten-
sified that the bystanders said to each other " She sees."
Then they saw Bernadette arise in her ecstasy and go to-
wards the lower part of the Grotto, where, making with her
finger a little hole in the earth, she with some difficulty gath-
ered in the hollow of her hand a small quantity of muddy
water, which she drank and with which she wetted her face.
This was towards the middle of the fortnight ; but on sub-
sequent occasions she did the same, and as the water accumu-
lated she found no difficulty.
On Easter Monday, April 5, the crowd beheld a great won-
der. Bernadette, absorbed in her Vision, placed the lighted
candle on the ground before her, and clasped her hands uncon-
240 GLIMPSES OF LOVRDES. [Nov.,
sciously over the flame, which, during the space of a quarter of
an hour, played through the fingers and between the palms. A
medical man, one Dr. Dozons, was present ; and, after the child
came to herself, he examined her hands. They were perfectly
uninjured. The following is his testimony in the case :
"Astonished at this strange fact the undisturbed holding of
her hands above the flame I made sign that no one should
interfere ; and taking out my watch I observed her perfectly
during a quarter of an hour. At the conclusion of her prayer
Bernadette arose, and, as she prepared to leave the Grotto, I
detained her a moment, and asked her to show me her hand.
I examined it with the utmost care. On no part could I find
the slightest trace of burning. I then suddenly passed the
flame of the candle under her hand, when Bernadette withdrew
it quickly, saying ' You are burning me ! '
The crowd continued to pour towards the Grotto, and per-
sons prayed there constantly. But the civil authorities, in order
to prevent a " superstition " taking root, at the instance of the
minister of worship boarded up the entrance, and forbade all
access under pain of fine. Many went all the same; there
were no end of prosecutions and judicial condemnations, the
which bring us to our second witness Bernadette herself.
Contemporary free-thought, as our author observes, has made
every effort to represent the little shepherdess as a hallucinte,
or, failing that, as an impostor ; working out, with the assistance
of the cure, a stupendous fraud from motives of interest. Thanks
to the more hostile element of our crowd the civil authorities
the questions both of the girl's sanity and of her disinterest-
edness were placed beyond a doubt. Our author says :
" From the time of the first apparitions the police tried by
intimidation to prevent Bernadette from returning to the rock.
They threatened her and her parents with imprisonment, and
subjected them to a strict surveillance. Bernadette, the poor
feeble child of fourteen, calm and courageous, defeated their
precautions and braved their threats. She went in spite of men
where God called her.
" Hostile opinion accused her of playing off a sacrilegious com-
edy in order to extort money, or to obtain notoriety. It tried
to make out that she was cataleptic, that she was visionary ;
and later on the police tried to arrest her on this pretext. They
were but miserable calumnies. The candid, simple child was
incapable of deception. She never accepted either money or
gifts, despite the temptations of her poverty; and it had to be
i8 9 4.]
GLIMPSES OF LOURDES.
241
acknowledged that her brain was healthy, and her imagination
perfectly regulated and serene.
" If Bernadette had been interested, she might have chosen
on one of the smiling slopes she climbed with her little flock,
and facing her beloved Grotto, a poetic corner on which to
build a house where her old mother would have come with her
to enjoy the grand spectacle of the basilicas arising at her or-
VOL/LX. 1 6
242 GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. [Nov.,
der, and these long files of pilgrims gathered together at her
voice. That house would have become itself a place of pil-
grimage. Great ladies would have given gold by the handful
for a wooden chaplet she had passed through her fingers. Car-
dinals and bishops would have knelt, as did Monseigneur Du-
panloup, at her feet, to beg from that shepherdess hand the
benediction of a saint. And in the evening, when the sun
empurples with his last rays the Pyrenean peaks, she could
have admired the thousand tapers of the torchlight proces-
sions, and heard the mountain echoes reverberate in melodious
tones the simple history of the apparitions. Any one playing
a part in so vast a comedy would have played it out to the end."
Instead of that, in 1866, after Bernadette had seen the com-
mands of the Lady carried out, and her own mission accom-
plished, she withdrew to hide herself in religion ; not in one of
the splendid communities which rose up around her beloved
Grotto, any one of which would have been proud to call her
superioress, but among the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, many
and many a league from the home she was never to see again.
The Abb Peyramale, who was very rigorous in his investi-
gations and very slow of belief, but who, after being fully satis-
fied, carried out the magnificent work of the basilica, has also
come in for his share of misrepresentation. Yet truly, as our
author says, it was rather his interest to have discredited the
Vision, since to him as to Bernadette was the Lady's promise
made " I cannot make you happy in this life, but I promise to
do so in the next." It was fully verified. After the commis-
sion of ecclesiastics and scientists appointed by Monseigneur
Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, to investigate thoroughly both ap-
paritions and miracles, had pronounced them genuine ; after the
seal of authority had been placed on them; after the churches
were built, the pilgrimages instituted, and the pope, " yield-
ing to the luminous evidence" had commanded to be crowned in
his name the statue of our Lady of Lourdes, the Abb6 Peyra-
male, who had wielded the laboring oar through all, came in
for no sort of temporal reward. Nor did he desire any. When
sounded as to his acceptance of a bishopric, he absolutely de-
clined ; and when the title of monseigneur was bestowed on
him he never showed himself in the garo it entitled him to
wear. The only outside object which he sought was the restor-
ation of his dilapidated parish church ; and he never could at-
tain it. His remains are buried within its ruins.
It may be asked, " Why could not the Queen of Heaven and
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. 243
Earth, if she it was, make Bernadette and the Abb6 Peyramale
happy both in this world and the next ? She said ' / cannot /'
That is strong. Surely she could if she would. What hindered
her ? " We answer Unbelief. As says our author :
" M. l'Abb6 Peyramale become Bishop of Tarbes, and ven
crated during life as a saint ; Bernadette carried in triumph by
the pilgrims of Lourdes, and her family, formerly poor, now rich
and opulent, Free-thought might well have said, ' You see !
Self-interest guided it all. Monseigneur Peyramale wished a
mitre ; Bernadette, the ovations of a delirious crowd ; her rela-
tions accomplices of the priest and the girl desired the white
bread of riches instead of the black bread of misery.' In place
of that we see the priest saturated with disillusion, the voyante
the last and least among her poor sisters, and the family without
a sou wherewith to buy a shroud for the mother of her who
has made Lourdes."
On the 25th of March, Bernadette, in obedience to the cure',
pressed the Lady to make known her name. The recital in Ber-
nadette's own words, as repeated to our author by a nun of Nev-
ers, is so beautiful, and so important in its bearing on a dogma
of the church, that we cannot do better than give it verbatim :
" M. l'Abb6 Peyramale had threatened never to receive me
again, and to prevent me making my First Communion, if I did
not insist upon the Lady at least telling who she was. Three
times I had besought her to give her name, and three times she
had answered merely by a smile. At last, one day, I per-
ceived by the expression of her face that she was going to tell
me her name.
" ' I am the Immaculate Conception,' she murmured, turning
her beautiful eyes towards heaven.
" On hearing these words, which I did not understand, the
idea came to me to say to the Lady
" ' Then you are not the Blessed Virgin Mary ? '
" I had pronounced the first three words of my phrase when
the apparition disappeared. I felt very sorry, for I ivas per-
suaded that she who called herself the Immaculate Conception was
not the Virgin Mary. I thought it was a soul from purgatory
who had actually borne that name during life. Another pain
was in store for me. The crowd surrounded me, and every one
demanded
"'Well, has she given her name?' 'Yes,' I replied, feeling
ashamed.
"'Is it the Blessed Virgin?' 'I do not know.'
244
GLIMPSES OF LOURDES.
[Nov.,
"'How! You do not know!' said twenty witnesses at
once. 'What did she say?' 'I don't remember.'
" Immediately the expression of their countenances changed,
SIDE VIEW OF GROTTO AND CHURCH OF LOURDES.
(By permission of Catholic Family Annual.)
and I remember very well to have heard one of our neighbors
say Parbleu ! I have always said it. She is making fun of us.'
"I did not tell a lie in saying that I had forgotten the
1 894.] GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. 245
name of the Lady. I remembered Immaculate, but not Concep-
tion. Monsieur Peyramale awaited me on the Place de l'glise
and twenty times I was on the point of returning home, fear-
ing his anger. However, at some yards from the Grotto I
thought I remembered that the Lady had said Concession, or
Concerion. I kept on repeating these two words Immaculate
Concession or Concerion in order that I might not again forget
them. After a moment, I bethought me that the Virgin had
said Conception. This word appeared to me the true one ; and
all the way to the Place de 1'Eglise I said Immaculate Concep-
tion Immaculate Conception.
" The crowd had already preceded me ; and the cure, noti-
fied of what had taken place, had gone back furious into the
sacristy. I went in, all trembling. The first words of M. Pey-
ramale were these ; I have never forgotten them, and never will :
" ' Bernadette, if you continue to mock us, I will let the
commissary of police put you in prison.' I looked at him
astonished.
" ' You are playing off the naive',' he continued. ' I have just
heard that the apparition you pretend to see at Massabielle has
told you her name, and that you don't remember it.'
"'Yes, M. le Cur ; but I was afraid of making a mistake,
so I said nothing to those who questioned me.'
" ' Once and for all, is it the Blessed Virgin ? '
" ' I don't think so, M. le Cure 1 . It is the Immaculate Con-
ception.'
" The Abb6 Peyramale, who was very red, became suddenly
very pale, and in a trembling voice said
" ' Who taught you that word ? '
"'The Lady.'
" ' You never heard it before ? '
" ' Never, M. le Cure.'
" ' You may go home. I want to be alone. Come back to-
morrow morning after my Mass.'
"Crossing the Place de 1'Eglise I was again surrounded by
the crowd
" ' Well, have you remembered the name of the Lady ? '
"'Yes,' I replied.
" ' What is her name ? '
" ' The Immaculate Conception.'
" The crowd received this answer with shouts of laughter,
and all declared it was the first time they had ever heard these
words pronounced.
24 6 GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. [Nov.,
" Next day I was sent for by the Commissary of Police, M.
Jacomet. My first thought was ' Assuredly M. l'Abb< Peyra-
male has put his threat in execution. He is going to have me
imprisoned because my answer, faithfully rendered, has proved
to him that I am not telling the truth.' M. Jacomet received
me with a smile on his lips.
" It is time to tell the truth,' he said to me several times.
'We will not disturb you, but you must tell us the truth.'
" ' Yes, sir,' I answered.
" ' The Lady spoke to you yesterday ? '
" ' Yes, sir.'
" ' And she said ? '
"'I am the Immaculate Conception.'
" ' What does that mean the Immaculate Conception ? '
" ' I don't know, sir.'
"'You never heard that name pronounced in the church?'
"'Never.'
" ' We shall see about that. Have you your prayer-book
with you?'
" ' No, sir.'
" ' Go and bring it.'
" I ran home, and brought back my prayer-book. The com-
missary examined it, and returned it to me after a quarter of
an hour. M. 1'Abbe" Peyramale told me afterwards that M.
Jacomet looked through it to find the words ' Immaculate Con.
ception,' which were not to be found in the books of that time.
An inquest was immediately opened at Bartres and Lourdes, in
order to know if those who frequented the church knew the
words ' Immaculate Conception.' The inquest revealed the
ignorance of the faithful. It had also another object. They
wished to know if in the church of Bartres or that of Lourdes
there were any statue of the Virgin clothed like the Lady of
Massabielle. They only found clumsy statues like the Spanish
Madonnas.
" ' But, after all, where did you see a costume like that of
the Lady ? ' demanded M. Jacomet.
" ' Ah ! sir,' I replied, ' nowhere. And if I had seen such a
costume, I swear to you it would have been impossible to have
seen a countenance like that of the Lady.'
" ' Who was she like ? '
" ' Like no one on earth.' "
This account from the lips of the voyante herself seems to
us to carry a weight of testimony which leaves nothing to be
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. 247
desired. Nevertheless, we will put on the stand our third wit-
ness the Fountain.
It was attested by all the shepherds of Lourdes and its vicin-
ity that previous to the apparitions no well or spring of any
sort existed in the Grotto. Like that of Bethlehem, it was used
as a place of shelter for both shepherds and flocks during the
heavy storms which often overtook them ; but the lack of water
was found a great inconvenience. A shepherd named Davis at-
tested his having spread the straw on which he slept over the
very spot where the water now flows. When it first appeared
it was thick and muddy a fact which did not escape the cynics,
whose very sneers have served to substantiate its supernatural
origin. 4< Tell your Lady," they would say to Bernadette, " that
if she wants to give us a fountain, she had better give us clear
water, and not a mud-puddle." " Don't trouble yourselves," the
child would reply. " The water will clear faster than you wish."
The authorities employed the services of an expert to ascertain
whether there was any sign of a secret spring in the rock ; but
none could be found. Then those who believed began to sur-
mise that the water, miraculously produced, must be miraculous
in its effects ; and this brings us to our last witness the Mira-
cles.
It would be impossible, within our limits, to enter in detail
upon the cures wrought at Lourdes, or by its water. Our au-
thor does so very circumstantially, giving the names and ad-
dresses not only of scores and scores of persons cured, but also
of the medical men most of them infidels who certified to
their desperate and incurable ailments. It is not pleasant read-
ing. In order to make the cases clear he has to enter upon
very repulsive details ; and the picture presented calls forcibly
to mind what must have been seen in Judea when they gath-
ered around our Lord, the blind, the lame, the paralytic, all
who had any infirmity, that he might heal them. We shall
only notice a few facts, and then wind up with two miracles,
one wrought on the body, one on the soul, for miraculous
conversions are among the wonders of Lourdes.
The miracles that take place are not, as our author wittily
remarks, attested by monks in the state of ecstasy. Under one of
the arches of the Church of the Rosary is the Hall of Attesta-
tion, which, during all the season of the pilgrimages, is in the
hands of medical men, most of them free-thinkers, who, as
may be supposed, make their attestations under pressure of
necessity rather than of good-will. These medical men are of
248 GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. [Nov.
all countries and of all creeds or no creeds. There are doc-
tors from England, from Belgium, from America, Protestants as
well as Catholics, with a large majority of no religion. Any
doctor who wishes to do so may attach himself to the bureau,
and examine the cases. On one occasion a Jewish doctor and
a Freemason at that presented himself at the hall, and begged
as a favor to be allowed to examine the so-called miracles. "A
favor ! " they said, " why, my dear fellow, you are at home
here. Our motto is, ' Open the door and walk in without
knocking.' " In point of fact nothing is done sub rosa at
Lourdes ; everything is open and above-board.
Another thing. Although among the multitude of cases
many nervous diseases . are cured, none of these are allowed to
be registered. However signal they may be, they are resolutely
refused a place among the recorded miracles. Persons, therefore,
who try to make out that the effect of the charming climate
and exhilarating spectacle upon the nervous system of the pa-
tient is the real source of the cures are " left out." Fine cli-
mate and exhilarating spectacles have little power over cancer-
ous wounds, paralyzed limbs, and contorted spines.
When the water of the miraculous fountain began to flow
freely it naturally, as we have said, occurred to the people of
Lourdes that it more than probably possessed miraculous power.
A poor quarryman named Louis Bouriette, who had lost his
sight twenty years before through the explosion of a mine,
came to the Grotto, and, praying to the Blessed Virgin, bathed
his eyes with the water. Instantly he recovered his sight ; the
right eye, which had been grievously wounded by a fragment
of stone, being restored to perfect health. This was the first
miracle wrought through the water of Lourdes.
The following is of a different kind ; we will give it in the
words of our author:
" One day a priest approached us in the Grotto, and point-
ing out in the midst of the crowd an old man who was kneel-
ing piously with arms crossed, Question him,' he said ; ' we call
him the miracul/ of the Virgin's Smile.'
"We approached the pilgrim in question M. le Comte de
Bruissard and with the best grace in the world he related to
us his history.
' I was,' said he, ' at Cauterets at the time they were talking
so much about the apparitions. I believed no more in the ap-
paritions than I did in the existence of God. I was a debaucht
and, what is worse, an atheist. Having read in a journal of the
250 GLIMPSES OF LOURDES. [Nov.
country that Bernadette had, on the i6th of July, beheld an
apparition, and that the Virgin had smiled, I resolved to go to
Lourdes out of curiosity, and to take the little voyante in fla-
grante delicto in lying.
" ' I went to the house of the Soubirous, and found Berna-
dette on the door-step, mending a black stocking. She ap-
peared to me rather vulgar, yet her saddened features had a
sort of sweetness. At my request she related to me her appa-
ritions with a simplicity and confidence which struck me. Then
I said to her, ' How did she smile, this beautiful Lady ? ' The
little shepherdess looked at me with astonishment ; then, after
a moment's silence 'O sir!' said she, 'one must be of heaven
to reproduce that smile.'
"'Could you not reproduce it for me? I am an unbeliever.
I do not believe in your apparitions.'
" ' The face of the child clouded, then a severe expression
passed over it.
" ' Then, sir, you think that I am a liar ? '
" ' I felt myself disarmed. No ; Bernadette was not a liar,
and I was on the point of going on my knees to beg her par-
don when she said
" ' Since you are a sinner, I will reproduce for you the
smile of the Virgin.'
" ' The child slowly arose, joined her hands, and smiled a
celestial smile such as I have never seen on the lips of the
most seductive of mortals. I saw her countenance illuminated
by an inexplicable light. She continued to smile, her eyes
turned towards heaven, while I knelt down before her con-
vinced that I had seen the Virgin's smile upon the counte-
nance of the voyante.
' Since then I bear within me, in the depths of my soul,
that divine smile. It has dried many tears. I have lost my
wife and my two daughters, yet it seems to me I am not
alone in the world. I live in the Smile of the Virgin.' "
1894-] THE DUAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND IN IRELAND. 251
THE DUAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND IN IRELAND
A MYTH.*
BY REV. GEORGE MCDERMOT.
the i6th of April last the House of Commons
appointed a Select Committee to inquire into
and report upon the principles and practice of
the Irish Land Commissioners and county court
judges in carrying out the fair-rent provisions of
the Land Acts (among other matters referred to them) and to
suggest such improvements in law or practice as they might
deem desirable.
The committee consisted of seventeen members. The
Unionist party had a majority of one, if Mr. T. W. Russell
were to vote on party lines, but throughout he voted against
his party. All sections of the house were represented. Even the
few Parnellite members had their representative in Mr. Clancy.
Mr. Morley, the Irish secretary, in accordance with the etiquette
in such matters, was elected chairman. I am particular in
mentioning these circumstances, first, because that committee is
destined to be historic and to leave behind it far-reaching re-
sults, and second, because it will be subjected to the fiercest
criticism ever turned upon a similar body.
I have no hesitation in saying that no committee since the
trial of election petitions was handed over to the judges has
produced such evidence in a portion of its members of the
superiority of party and class interests to duty and principle
as this exhibits in the action of the minority. I am sure they
are all honorable men every member of Parliament is " an
honorable member " so I can only conclude that, where Irish
tenants are concerned, the prejudices of class and the claims of
party are paramount to every other consideration.
Lest there should be any misconception as to the nature of
the agrarian question of Ireland compared with that of England,
I may say that there is not a feature in common between them.
The traditional and historic character of the tenure of occupiers
in both countries is as wide asunder as the poles. The
English tenant began as a serf of the soil without one shred,
* Report of the Majority of the Parliamentary Committee on the Irish Land Acts.
252 THE DUAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND [Nov.,
one particle of right except the will of his lord. Afterwards,
when contracts of tenancy replaced the old servile relation, the
farm was let to the tenant fully equipped as a going concern,
as a hotel might be let, or a public house, or furnished lodg-
ings. In Ireland, the tenant as one of the sept had an in-
alienable title in the tribal lands. There might be a readjust-
ment of boundaries or a new allocation of the tribal lands
whenever the death of a holder without immediate heirs took
place. This may have been inconvenient and at times oppressive,
but the right to a holding somewhere in the district remained
to the disturbed occupier. He was not at the mercy of a
master who could drive him off the lands or retain him as he
wished. This was the historic memory which the clansmen
carried with them when the lands passed into the hands of the
Cromwellian and Williamite adventurers.
Moreover, they received nothing from the Cromwellian or
Williamite landlord but the permission to live upon the land
and pay for the privilege. They had no homes, no farm build-
ings. It was the wild common of nature on which they might
sit down, marry, brood, and die, provided they paid rent, and
that the landlord did not care to chase them off. Then the
morasses began to be drained, and the mountain summits to
change the gray of their granite for some tint of the verdure of
the valleys ; farm buildings and steadings, such as they were, to
dot the country side, fences and hedge-rows to give a peaceful
and comfortable aspect to landscapes which for a half-century
had known nothing but the marching of hostile armies and the
desolation caused by the fires which they kindled.
To the general statement just made, I shall add one or
two facts which will help in emphasizing the distinction be-
tween the status of English tenants and that of Irish tenants.
The estate of the predecessor in title of the Marquis of Bath
and another in the County of Monahan was worth only 200 a
year in the reign of James I. It yielded in 1868 more than
50,000 a year. It consisted at the earlier period of swamp
for the most part, in which the tenants had as their associates
the coot and other water r fowl. Mr. Trench, who examined the
estate-books as agent, testifies that during the whole of the
period every improvement was effected by the tenants.*
I found a somewhat similar state of things on the estates
of the London Companies in Derry when, as judicial investiga-
* This is the author of a sensational book called Realities of Irish Life; and any state-
aent m favor of tenants can be trusted, for he is an Eminently hostile witness.
1894-] IN IRELAND A MYTH. 253
tor of arrears, I had to inquire into the condition of their
tenants. The rent of holdings had been increased between the
beginning of the present century and the time I sat 1882-3
in some cases by more than twelve times the rent at the for-
mer period. When the London Companies entered on their
possessions, about the year 1610, the estates, including the valu-
able fisheries, did not realize more than 1,800 a year, more than
half of which came from the fisheries. In 1880 the rental was
160,000 a year, while the income from the fisheries had not
increased beyond the figures of 1610. In other words, estates
which produced a rental of less than 900 in 1610 yielded
160,000 in 1880, and that without one particle of expenditure
from the absentee landlords who guttled and guzzled it in
their civic celebrations.
That these enormous advances in rent during so short a
period were not exceptional must be gathered from the fact that,
while the whole rental of Ireland in 1729 did not amount to
2,000,000, it stood in 1875 at the respectable figure of
15,000,000. The agricultural rental, or rather income, did not
amount to this sum because cities and towns must be ex-
cluded but it went very considerably beyond 13,000,000
very nearly to 14,000,000. Then again, the rental of 1729, to
which allusion has been made, included a proportionally higher
return from towns and cities in the earlier year.
When, therefore, men like Mr. Lecky, Mr. Chamberlain, and
other leading exponents of the Unionist cause, represent the
Irish tenants as the spoiled children of legislation, while Parlia-
ment has behaved like a stepmother to English tenants, the
reader can estimate the value of their statements. There is no
parallel between the circumstances of the two classes. The im-
provements were all made by the Irish tenant, in no instance
by his English brother. At once one sees, independently of
any other consideration, that the former had an equitable inter-
est in the land which owed most of its value to him perhaps
all its value to him.
It was the policy of the successive acts which constitute
the Land Code to give to this equitable interest a legal sanc-
tion and authority. The object of the select committee was to
ascertain how far they have succeeded.
From the report of the majority it appears that the total
number of fair-rent applications disposed of by the Land Com-
mission, by the county courts, and by agreement from the pass-
ing of the act of 1881 to March 31 last was 354,890. Of these
THE DUAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND [Nov.,
the total number of fair rents fixed was 294,654. The Land
Commission courts fixed 157,178, the county courts 15,537, and
102,902 rents were fixed by agreements between the landlord
and tenant lodged with the Land Commission or the county
courts. By section 40 of the act rents can be fixed by arbitra-
tion, but there were only 37 dealt with in this manner.
The report says : " It is worthy of notice that in these 37
cases in which rents have been fixed by arbitration, the average
reduction was 30.7 per cent., or one-half higher than the average
reduction on the total rental dealt with by the courts and by
agreements, which was 20.8 per cent."
The fact certainly is significant. It goes to prove that the
landlords preferred to have recourse to the courts, and that the
agreements were made under pressure put upon the tenants.
That this was the character of the agreements will appear more
clearly by and by.
With regard to rents fixed by the Land Commission the
average reduction by chief commission and sub-commission taken
together was in the case of yearly tenancies 21.2 per cent. The
average reduction in the county courts was 23 4. or 2.2 more
than the corresponding reduction given by the Land Commission
courts. The average reduction made by agreements has been
17.7. It can be inferred that these agreements were not volun-
tary ; that, in point of fact, the tenants were compelled to enter
into them, either because they feared protracted litigation and
its attendant expense, or that they stood in some way within
the landlords' power.
The report says : " There is to be observed a still more re-
markable difference between the reductions made in rents fixed
by agreement and those settled by arbitration. As we have
noted, the average reduction made by agreements lodged with
the Land Commission was 17.7; . . . but the average reduc-
tion was no less than 30.7 in cases of rents determined by arbi-
tration."
It goes on to point out that more than two-thirds of the
agreements were made from the year ending August, 1882, to
that ending August, 1885. In those years the reductions in the
courts were much smaller than in subsequent years and down to
the present time ; and then proceeds : " The evidence given be-
fore your committee as to the course of prices and the cost of
production between 1881 and 1885 have been since 1886, and are
at the present time, materially excessive."
The report next calls attention to a paper handed in by Mr.
1894-] IN IRELAND A MYTH. 255
W. F. Bailey, legal assistant commissioner. It furnishes examples
of fifty cases in his district in which agreements had been made
between landlords and tenants within the period from 1882 to 1887,
but the agreements, not having been filed as required by rule,
were not binding between the parties, and the tenants came in-
to court to have fair rents fixed in 1893 and 1894. "The re-
sult demands particular attention," the report justly observes.
The old rents in the fifty cases had amounted to 790. The
reductions made by agreement amounted to 142, leaving the
rents as agreed upon 648. When the tenants came into court
the 648 was further reduced by i6S, bringing down the judi-
cial rents to 480. "Thus, after an average reduction of 18 per
cent, had been made by the agreements, a further reduction of
20 per cent, was ordered by the court."
A similar paper was handed in by another legal assistant
commissioner and printed as part of the evidence. It was
only owing to the omission to file these agreements the court
was able to intervene; but the incidents shed a flood of light
on the real character and value of the voluntary agreements be-
tween landlords and tenants fixing fair rents.
From the passing of the act of 1881 the landlords did all
they could to render its provisions nugatory. Possessing wealth
and social influence, they had every advantage over their needy
and humble opponents. The social influence operated in a sub-
tle but powerful manner. If assistant commissioners reduced
rents with boldness they were denounced in the landlord press,
which is supposed in England to reflect the opinion of the loyal
portion of the community. They were held up among their own
class as favorers of the refractory and dishonest masses who
were endeavoring to escape from their legal obligations by terror-
ism. It appears that the sub-commissions upon the whole were
very free from the stigma of aiding the * tenants, and must be
deemed to have exercised their judicial functions in the very
teeth of the principal act, in order to assign to the landlords a
great part of the interest of the tenants.
In this connection I shall quote from a very suggestive
paragraph one or two points which will tend to illustrate some
of the means by which a statute, intended to be greatly ameli-
orative of the state of the agricultural population, has done so
little to bring about the improved condition of the tenants and
as a consequence the public tranquillity expected from it. " The
system of rehearing on all questions of value is one of the
causes which, in our opinion, deter tenants from making appli-
256 THE DUAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND [Nov.,
cation to have fair rents fixed." It gives the grounds for the
opinion, and I think the bare statement of them justifies it.
The rehearing it is right to explain is something in the
nature of an appeal from a sub-commission court to the head
commission. All the evidence given in the court below and
any other evidence that may be forthcoming is to be received.
In an appeal strictly so-called, the reception of additional evi-
dence would not be allowed. Both parties should make their
case before the court of first instance, so far as evidence, and
stand or fall by it. But the head commission was in reality a
court of first instance and not a court of appeal, so that the
person in the situation of respondent might be in the dark
concerning the new evidence he had to meet.
What the report then states as leading to the opinion ex-
pressed above is that the system of rehearing "entails grievous
delays, it protracts uncertainty ; it imposes heavy costs, oppres-
sive to a humble class of suitors ; it necessitates expenditure
out of all proportion to the practical result." This is a very
severe judgment on this very important part of the practice
and procedure under the act of 1881. It is hardly too much to
say that the effects cited would be enough to defeat the policy
of the act. Reading the provisions of the statute, you see that
the legislature intended that rent is to be fixed on an inquiry
which should take into account the tenant's improvements and
the value of his interest in the holding, and that no rent should
be payable either on these improvements or that interest.
This would seem to be clear enough. The improvements made
by the tenant (and "tenant" included his predecessors in title)
were to be his own property. If, as on the Draper's Company's
estate in the County Derry, a rental of 5,000 a year in 1808
grew to 16,000 in 1845 by the labor and expenditure of the
tenants, one would suppose, if the provision cited were then in
force, a tenant paying 16 a year rent would be entitled to
have it reduced to 5 a year. But the Land Commission,
according to its method of estimating the tenant's right, would
only reduce it to about 12 i6.y. 2d.
There is clearly some flaw here both in the act and its
authoritative interpretation later on I shall point out what the
flaw is but I desire to give the grounds as stated by them-
selves the committee had for concluding that the system of
rehearing deterred tenants from applying to have fair rents
fixed. "The rents fixed by the sub commissions in the 19,655
cases subjected to rehearing amounted to 431,398; the net
1894-] IN IRELAND A MYTH. 257
result of the rehearings was to increase this amount by 1,282,
or only 0.2 per cent."
It is estimated that the appeals from county court judges
and the rehearings from sub-commissions cost 250,000. If we
allow 28,000 to the appeals, a liberal allowance as their pro-
portion, it will be found that to gain an addition of one-fiftieth
to the rent fixed a cost was incurred which would be almost
excessive if the rent were doubled on the rehearing. It must
be clear from this that the Irish landlords were resolved to die
hard, and that their tenacity was not without its effect on their
kinsmen and allies in the service of the Land Commission.
The leading case of Adams vs. Dunseath, decided, by her
Majesty's Court of Appeal, on appeal from a judgment of the
Land Commission, laid down that the interpretation of the enact-
ment, " no rent is to be allowed ... in respect of the tenant's
improvements," was that the tenant is entitled to an annual per-
centage of indefinite amount on his outlay in making the im-
provement, but that any remainder of letting value due to his
improvement is to be divided between him and the landlord.
The very complex code which is interwoven with the act of
1 88 1 may have made that the correct meaning of the words
above. In that decision unquestionably a minority of the
judges of appeal, strong by great legal learning and ability, held
that this recondite and mysterious meaning was not the true
one, but the words were to be interpreted in their ordinary
sense.
But one thing appears in favor of the tenant from the above
decision, namely, that whatever residue over and above the out-
lay on his improvements there was should be shared with the land-
lord. That is to say, the remainder of the letting value result-
ing from his improvements beyond the percentage on the cost
of making them was to be divided, according to the discretion
of the Land Commission, between him and the landlord, regard
being had to the interest of the landlord and tenant respec-
tively.
The committee find, though " this judgment, delivered in
1882, has been the law since then and is now the law, and
during the interim of twelve years has been binding upon all
administrators of the Land Act," that the practice is to give the
landlord, after allowing the tenant a percentage on his outlay,
any remainder of letting value due to the tenant's improve-
ments. Several of the official witnesses proved this practice ; and
that it is the practice is abundantly clear from the basis on
VOL. LX. 17
2 5 8
THE SUFFERING SOULS.
[Nov.,
which the rent is fixed that rent which an outsider having no
interest in the holding, no right of any kind in it, would pay for
the use and occupation.
Yet Irish landlords and their champions were for ever talk-
ing of the confiscation of their property, the iniquitous legisla-
tion by which their tenants were forced upon them as partners.
It is now put beyond all question that the practice which has
grown up in the Land Commission court has made the dual
ownership a myth, that all that the complicated machinery of
the Land Code has secured to the tenant is the dubious advan-
tage of perpetuity of tenure as long as he is able to pay a
rack rent for the land which he has virtually created.
THE SUFFERING SOULS.
BY W. J. O'REILLY.
!HOSE souls who for themselves
can naught beseech
From Him the Mighty One,
the sinner's friend,
Ask us, to whom His ear He deigns to
lend,
That we this month remember our friends
each ;
Who though not lost, yet Heaven forbade
to reach
Until, as Holy Church doth now com-
mend,
The Christian's humble prayers to Hea-
ven ascend ;
To quench the wrath that now those souls
doth bleach,
And send them spotless to the King of
kings ;
Where, humbly bowing, each some friend recalls ;
Ah, yes ! a friend who oft for him did pray
To Jesus Sov'reign Master of all things.
And now, in turn, before his Lord he falls,
Entreating for this pilgrim on the way.
1894-] MEN OF LETTERS AND EARLY TRAINING. 259
MEN OF LETTERS AND EARLY TRAINING.
BY W. R. CLAXTON.
: T is an opinion, generally entertained, that what a
man is bred to, is what he will best do ; and,
however true this may be in other cases, there is
one class of men whose career seems to show
that the rule is not of universal application.
Confining our attention to Great Britain, and selecting only
a few examples, we find the very remarkable fact that, of her
many men of letters, scarcely any of them started out in life to
be a poet, a novelist, or an historian. For the most part these
men, to whom every reader of English owes an unpayable
debt of gratitude, commenced their adult career as soldiers,
lawyers, clergymen, or doctors. And, what is no less surprising,
most of them adopted literature because of unmistakable
failure in their several professions.
Chaucer was a soldier and man of affairs ; and not until he
was about sixty years of age did he write the Canterbury
Tales. He had held public office ; he had been confined in
prison for political reasons ; and it was only after abandoning
the course of life that he seemed destined, in his young days, to
carry on to the end of the chapter, that he gained his true
goal in literature.
Shakspere does not seem to have been an eminent success
at his father's highly respectable trade, to follow which he was
brought home from school.
" Rare Ben Jonson " soon grew weary of his stepfather's
useful employment, and tried his luck as a soldier in the Low
Countries. Next he appeared as an actor, and that not suc-
ceeding, he retired from the stage, to enrich it with his " Every
Man in his Humour."
Sir John Suckling, whose verse about the feet " like little
mice" must mike him the object of every gallant's gratitude,
was both a soldier and politician.
Spenser was one of the few who seem to have felt the
divine afflatus from early life, and was allowed to follow his
proper bent from the time that he entered Cambridge.
Bacon's fame rests, not upon the lawyer but upon the
philosopher. Law, in conjunction with politics, was the means
260 MEN OF LETTERS AND EARLY TRAINING. [Nov.,
used for gaining lucre, much of it the filthiest. Literature was
the one disinterested affection of his life. "Libraries," as he
says, " are the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints,
full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are
preserved and repose." If, only, he had worshipped exclusively
at those shrines!
Hakluyt was a clergyman, but it is not as a preacher that
the world knows him. One might think, from reading his
volumes, that all his life had been spent in voyages.
Camden was a school master, but how little of his reputa-
tion is due to the Greek grammar that he prepared for his pupils.
Hobbes, after leaving Oxford, became tutor to Lord Caven-
dish, but it was not from such occupation that he conceived
the opinions professed in the Leviathan.
Burton, as rector of a country parish, would probably never
have been known. It was only by that quaint old volume, The
Anatomy of Melancholy, that he made his name to occupy a
place in the memory of his countrymen, and of all lovers of
original conceits.
Milton, even in his university days, was distinctly a man of
letters. And yet until he had reached his fiftieth year, when
he began Paradise Lost, he was more of a Puritan baiting the
pope and prelacy, and a republican denouncing royalists, than
devoted to his muse.
Dryden seems to have started out in life a writer, and to
have never attempted to pursue any other calling.
But the list of Britain's lords of the pen need be extended
no further; for, as it was with these early ones, so it has been,
except in rare cases, with their successors. The men that have
done most to glorify the English tongue have entered upon
life with far other, and more economical, aims than the enlight-
enment and happiness of their kind.
How did it happen that those who had the control, in
infancy and early childhood, of her poets, her historians, her
novelists, her philosophers in a word, her men of letters, failed
to see that in these children England had a treasure, in com-
parison with which all her material wealth was nothing worth,
so that their intellects might have been allowed to expand
without any let or hindrance ?
Or, was it only because of the absence of success that
attended their efforts in the various professions and trades in
which they first sought to gain a living, that these men them-
selves became conscious of their power ?
1 894.] MEN OF LETTERS AND EARLY TRAINING. 261
Whatever be the true explanation, the fact remains that,
notwithstanding the untowardness of their early surroundings,
they finally became the pride and glory of the race.
Difficult as it is, and from the nature of things it ever must
be, to discover in the earliest manifestation of an infant's intel-
ligence just what he or she is best fitted to become, surely
careful and minute observation, having this single end in view,
cannot fail to detect at least some slight indication of what
the child is most prone toward in the life of the intellect.
That most extraordinary and oft-quoted example of definite
intellectual training, begun in earliest childhood, John Stuart
Mill, shows what apparently unlimited results can be achieved
in this direction.
James Mill seems to have thought that the normal human
intellect, if taken in hand early enough, may, like modeller's
wax, be moulded into any desired form, and as he wished his
son to be a philosopher, like himself, he conducted the child's
education so as to attain that end.
The experiment succeeded, but, for all this, the whole course
of Stuart Mill's intellectual life goes far to show that, if only
by a lucky accident, the discipline to which he was subjected
was on the lines laid down by nature. What effect such an
education attempted, say, on Goldsmith would have had, is a
question more easily asked than answered. Assuming that the
treatment accorded to Stuart Mill was, at most, an undue
strain, but always in the right direction, of course the result
attained, if a like education were attempted upon a less gifted
child, would not have been nearly so satisfactory, and indeed
would probably have been fatal.
One thing, however, in the strange case seems clear, and
that is that, given a child with a marked predilection for some
one form of intellectual activity, a vast deal can be done to
develop it beyond what it would ever arrive at if left to itself.
Perhaps such a forcing process would be less successful if
applied to a child whose imagination dominated his reason,
because, on the one hand, of the danger of making the creatures
of his fancy seem too real, or, on the other, of producing con-
fusion among the inhabitants of his imagination. While the
power of the intellect seems to be well-nigh unbounded, that of
the imagination must always be limited by the data of the
senses. Hence, not only the kind, but the degree, of training
that would be helpful to one " born " a philosopher, would be
harmful to one " born " a poet.
262 MEN OF LETTERS AND EARLY TRAINING. [Nov.,
This all goes to show what immense care should be taken in
the direction given to the first human manifestation of the
infant, even if it shows nothing more.
But a something full of interest is, that each of these great
writers of England, whatever was his life, whether joyful or
sad, was not made like any other man, through mere similarity
of environment or occupation.
Hakluyt and Burton were equally clergymen, but there is
very little, in common between the writer of the travels and
the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy.
Indeed, in no essential particular is it possible to trace
similarity of effect from mere apparent similarity of cause, in
any of the great writers. That there was always present some-
thing hidden, working with or against what is open to the
sight in their several careers, is just as evident as that each
one's activity took on a form different from that of his fellow-
laborers in the field of literature.
That something, by whatever name it be called, is what
made each one himself.
It is that which made Milton the author of Paradise Lost,
and Pope the author of the Essay on Man.
Neither of these two very conspicuous examples of peculiarly
English poetry has anything in common with the other, except
that they are both addressed to the head, rather than to the
heart, of humanity.
In certain external aspects, however, there was much -alike in
the early life of Milton and Pope. Each of them began to
write in the morning of his youth, and each of them was a
serious student during those years when most boys are much
more bent upon mischief than upon books.
But for all this, how different was their work, and their purpose !
That humanity is plastic to a marked degree there can be
no doubt; but, in spite of this, certain individual men seem to
be independent of their surroundings. However genius may be
defined and defined it has been over-much in its essence it
must surpass all attempts to measure it, because in its essence
it transcends the comprehension of the would-be definer. Even
if one genius try to discover wherein consists the distinguishing
greatness of another, he must fail in his effort, for the reason
that no genius is one of a body of men that can be classified,
but is a complete whole in himself. Were it otherwise genius
would be nothing more than exceptional talent, in any depart-
ment. At most, the common run of mankind can only re-
1894-] MEJV OF LETTERS AND EARLY TRAINING. 263
cognize the existence of a certain something, in a few of their
fellows, that rises high up above the level upon which they
stand, and which eludes their most eager and searching gaze.
We ordinary mortals can see what these exalted beings do,
but we cannot hope to see how they do it.
To return again to the question how an exceptional child
should be treated, in the first revelation that he makes of him-
self, is to present a very difficult problem.
If it be no easy task to know how to best direct the
awakening intelligence of a child merely gifted beyond the
average of children, how almost, if not quite, impossible it is to
do aught than harm to one that is of a different, and entirely
superior, order of humanity. To attempt even to direct such
an intelligence seems, in itself, almost an absurdity, as being
like an effort of a dwarf to support a giant. If, then, a parent
could, without prejudice, be assured that his child were truly a
genius, it seems that the best he could do for his future
would be simply to supply whatever the child's mind and
heart craved. But the trouble is that the parent generally has
some prejudice where the child is concerned, and therefore his
best intentions lead him to adopt a course of training that may
be most harmful.
Luckily, as genius is so far superior to the highest talent
as to be even unmeasurable by it, so it is so superior to its en-
vironment as to rise triumphant over it, in time. The chief
cause for regret is that genius may be delayed in displaying it-
self by unfavorable conditions, but this seems almost inevitable.
If a very young lad display unusual interest in, say, history,
not for its stirring events but for its record of humanity, or
if he show a decided love for any of the material sciences, it
may be safe enough to supply him, during his youth, with stan-
dard works upon the subject that engrosses him, for in the case
of history, and the material sciences alike, the subject is con-
fined to facts of experience. When, on the other hand, the
youth shows a predilection for metaphysics, whether in the
moral or mental order, it is far more difficult to determine how
best to supply what is most fitting ; and this is true because,
while metaphysics have a distinct human bearing, and therefore,
like the other sciences, have to do with objects of experience,
their principal subject is eternal and absolute truth. Indeed,
without metaphysics, history and the material sciences except
in so far as one should confine itself to a simple narration of
human actions, and the other to a simple statement of the re-
264 MEN OF LETTERS AND EARLY TRAINING. [Nov.,
suits of observation and experiment would be impossible. Hence
it would seem that to guide aright the studies of a youth, in the
former department of knowledge, would be a much easier task
than an effort to the like end in the latter.
As for the budding poet, unless a parent would risk the
chance of making of his son a mere imitator of one of the mas-
ters' melody or versification, it would require the most careful dis-
crimination in the choice of models to be placed in the lad's hands.
As in all other departments of the world of letters, the
poetic genius could, and would, rise triumphant over his un-
toward circumstances, but the mere poet of talent might be
crushed by undesirable training.
If Pope had been less great than he was, it seems probable
that he would have become a mere imitator by his delight in
Dryden. Even as he was, he often used the melody of his fa-
vorite as a tune for his own verse.
When one considers how unconsciously the thoughts of others
come to be accepted, often, as one's own thoughts, it certainly
behooves a parent with an exceptional child to take care that
he be not brought into very frequent contact with the works
of any particular writer; lest, by intimacy with and fondness
for the author, the child imbibe so much from him as to crowd
out whatever of originality he may have.
Without any hope to solve the problem of what is the best
training to give a child of promise, it seems at least probable
that one step in the right direction would be diversity of read-
ing, in the scope of his special gift. Whether, on the other hand,
this even diversified specialization of training might not tend to
weaken the other faculties than the one exercised by it, is a
question worthy of serious thought. Perhaps if it were pursued
during only the first few years of the child's intellectual activity
and then discontinued, to be followed by a more general course
of instruction, the results would be, on the whole, satisfactory.
Much, of course, would depend upon the child himself. If
he were a genius, then he would surmount any and every un-
favorable condition ; but if he were only gifted above others, a
mistaken treatment applied to him might result in his complete
undoing.
After the years of childhood have passed the boy necessarily
must, in very great measure, be left to himself. But just then
will he probably be most affected by the training of his childhood.
Whatever direction his mental activity has been given, in its
awakening, it will probably pursue, and then will begin to
1894-] MEN OF LETTERS AND EARLY TRAINING. 265
appear the poet, the philosopher, the historian, or whatever else
he may have in him.
After all, it may be that the best thing to do with a child
that seems to be exceptional is to treat him as though he were
distinctly commonplace. For, as we have already noticed, the
great men of letters in all their manifestations, so far at least
as England is concerned, were for the most part, as children,
treated as though they were of no special value.
Is it possible, then, that the neglect, the hard rubs, and the
other seemingly adverse luck that accompanied them in their
outset, were so many means necessary to the development of
their greatness ?
Who knows? If this be so, then the father that has a child
apparently superior to other children, instead of trying to nur-
ture and encourage the child's talents, would do well to treat
him as though he were quite like ordinary children. Many men
whose work in letters has made them famous have done some
of the best of it under stress and strain, and this seems to af-
ford some ground for belief in the spur, not only for horse
but man ; and yet one cannot help the feeling that peace of
soul is necessary for the best effort of the soul.
It is impossible to say what effect other circumstances than
his own would have upon any man ; and so one cannot tell
how far the particular experience of any individual has contri-
buted to his essential self.
Shakspere, in his way ; Newton, in his, seem so far above
the heads of ordinary humanity, that one almost hesitates to
speculate as to the possibility of their being greater than they
were if they had had a different environment.
And yet when one considers how many writers there have
been and are, and of them how comparatively few have added
much to the real intellectual or moral treasures of the race, one
can scarcely refrain from wishing at least that of the many the
greater number had been prevented from wasting their own
time on that for which they seem so ill fitted, and the time of
the many readers who peruse books simply because they fall in-
to their hands.
Complaint is often made that, relatively speaking, so few
persons read anything ; but the truth appears to be that most
persons read too much, and think too little. It is not venturing
much to say that if all the readers of trash were to be enrolled
in an army they would present an alarmingly large proportion
of the whole population. And the very reason that so much
266 Two SONGS UNSUNG. [Nov.,
trash is read is precisely because most men abhor to think.
What they crave is mere excitement of their imaginations,
whether it be induced by intoxicating liquor or intoxicating
print, for equally, in each case, the result is produced without
mental effort.
In this day of societies for the prevention of so many other
things, why is there none for the prevention of pseudo men of
letters ?
TWO SONGS UNSUNG.
BY M. E. HENRY-RUFFIN.
IRING me a song from out thy harp," she said
Unto the wordless poet, musing there ;
Yet not a chord rose on the waiting air,
Nor song uplifted as the maiden pled ;
But lower bent the grave, denying head,
Worshipping the lilies on her brow, with ne'er
A blossom crushed their perfume everywhere
About the life, through aisles of lilies led.
How could his notes, with all their power, bring
The beauty of those lily-laden days,
The incense of those lily-guarded ways ?
So let his harp its reverent silence sing,
Knowing its best and purest music could
Not reach her high, white grace of maidenhood.
" Strike from your harp a song ! " the wanton cried.
The poet sounded all his strings ; but still
No harmony along the chords would thrill.
And when he all its hopeless discords tried,
He laid the jarring instrument aside.
She lightly laughed : " You use your art but ill ;
And cannot e'en a little moment fill
With melody." The poet only sighed,
To miss from off her brow the stately flower;
While rose around her all the poisoned breath
Of lilies broken or sin-crushed to death.
" My harp was silenced by your maiden power
Not sweet enough to sing you then, I vow;
Nor sad enough to sing you, woman, now."
1894-] THE PROPOSED AGNOSTIC AMENDMENT. 267
THE PROPOSED AGNOSTIC AMENDMENT TO OUR
STATE CONSTITUTION.
BY REV. THOMAS MCMILLAN.
ROFOUND students of social science recognize
the dangers that threaten the peace and welfare
of the commonwealth from the alarming growth
of anarchy. Only a very small number of those
devoted to the investigation of modern sociology
attempt to seek out the causes for this increased strength of the
dangerous classes. A rudimentary study of the question should
convince any candid mind, honestly seeking for evidence, that
the anarchist can easily gain adherents for his wild theories
wherever the teaching of the Christian religion is unknown. In-
tellectually there is a close kinship between the anarchist and
the agnostic. The latter, so far as he can be induced to make
any affirmation, endeavors to show that as God is unknown or
unknowable, rational beings are exempted from the study of re-
ligious truth. Hence the efforts of the church in maintain-
ing teaching agencies for the promulgation of the Gospel are
of no value in his estimation, and should be opposed in every
enlightened country. The prevalence of such a theory among
the discontented toilers who bear the burdens of the day pre-
pares the way logically for the anarchist. Religion is his most
formidable obstacle ; it is removed out of sight from the domain
of thought by the agnostic.
In a recent volume one of our most accomplished Catholic
writers shows very plainly that " the state is not a machine
dealing with dead matter. It is an organization of living men,
in many of whom the hopes and the fears with which religion
is concerned supply the mightiest and most masterful motives
of their lives. The security and order of the state are the con-
ditions of civilized life. It is manifest all history teaches the
lesson that religion, more than anything else, makes for or
against that security and order. It is the greatest instrument
of union or division. It maybe either peace or a sword" (The
Claims of Christianity, by William Samuel Lilly, p. 230).
By the hasty action of the majority of the committee on
education in the New York Constitutional Convention, endorsed
268 THE PROPOSED AGNOSTIC AMENDMENT [Nov.,
by the final vote of its delegates, an important victory has been
gained for agnosticism. Henceforth, should this amendment be
adopted by the vote of the people, the teaching of " any de-
nominational tenet or doctrine" renders "any school or institu-
tion of learning " liable to examination or inspection. The
school which is guilty of such a heinous offence wholly or in
part, directly or indirectly, is to be deprived of any hope of
compensation from public taxation, regardless of the conscien-
tious convictions of its patrons, or the value of its instruction
in the secular branches of knowledge. Any institution of learn-
ing under denominational control, no matter how distinguished
may be the citizens exercising this control, is to be assigned
to a place unworthy of notice. This proscription against every
denomination is to be a new duty for the Empire State, which
is empowered to act as supreme judge of the essential requi-
sites of a tenet or doctrine.
It is safe to say that not one of the delegates of the conven-
tion, even among the numerous learned lawyers who took part
in the discussion, claimed to have a complete knowledge of the
mysterious ramifications of the agnostic amendment. Certainly
no intelligible explanation has been given for the use of the
word " or " eleven times in a condensed statement proposed as
a luminous declaration of the separation of church and state.
Nothing akin to this new declaration of what the State must
do can be found in the records of previous legislation on this
subject. As a curiosity in legal literature it is here presented
for inspection.
THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT.
"Article IX. Sec. 4. Neither the State nor any subdivision
thereof shall use its property or credit or any. public money, or
authorize or permit either to be used, directly or indirectly, in
aid or maintenance, other than for examination or inspection,
of any school or institution of learning, wholly or in part under
the control or direction of any religious denomination, or in
which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught."
During one stage of the prolonged discussion there was a
most vigorous condemnation of section four from delegates be-
longing to different Protestant denominations: the vote was
sixty-eight to seventy-one in favor of its acceptance. At a crit-
ical point of the debate while this vote was going on President
Choate aroused the fears of unwary delegates by announcing in
explanation of his vote that he had discovered " the rankest sec-
1894-] TO OUR STATE CONSTITUTION. 269
tarianism " in a motion proposed by delegate Cassidy, whose
religious preference is for the Baptist Church. No one would
expect from a Baptist " the rankest sectarianism." Then the A.
P. A. spectre was introduced by President Choate in these words :
" There are those who believe I am not one of them that
a great foreign hierarchy is attempting to extend the influence
of its religion and its power over the institutions of this State."
One thing particularly noticeable in this and other utterances
from President Choate regarding the foreign element of our
population was the gratuitous assumption that nothing else but
his narrow view would be tolerated by the people of New York
State. Before the people or any of their representatives can
form a just judgment, they need all the evidence on this ques-
tion accurately presented.
A STATE-MADE CHURCH.
Mr. Gilbert gave utterance to a strange medley of opinions
evidently prepared for the higher instruction of clergymen hav-
ing little to do except to draw large salaries. While admitting
that Mr. Gerry was right in saying that irreligion leads to an-
archy, he seemed quite sure that the people of his district could
teach obedience to God, obedience to the Constitution, and
obedience to law better than any existing denomination. He
has no misgivings on the matter because his plan is as broad
as "the great sky above," not requiring "figures or details."
These are his words : " I maintain this proposition, namely, that
there should be religious instruction in the schools of the State
of New York. What do I mean by religious instruction as ap-
plied to schools? I will tell you exactly what I do not mean.
I do not mean anything that is sectarian or denominational."
He did not state whether the existence of God and the Ten
Commandments would be ruled out, because taught by every de-
nomination of Christians. What Mr. Gilbert really wants is a
new nullifidian sect which shall be unlike all others in having
his personal approval and the authority of the State.
Mr. E. R. Brown reminded the convention that many reli-
gious academies, founded by the churches, " have been the bea-
con lights in the rural districts of the State of New York for a
hundred years, controlled by Methodists, controlled by Baptists,
controlled by the Presbyterians very largely, controlled in some
instances by the Roman Catholics."
Mr. McDonough contributed to the discussion valuable sta-
tistics, prepared by an official of the Regents, showing that the
2/o THE PROPOSED AGNOSTIC AMENDMENT [Nov.,
school laws of Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, France,
Austria, Belgium, Hungary, and other countries of Europe, as
well as Canada, contained just provisions for religious training
by the various denominations. He made clear the fact so often
ignored with malice aforethought, that nowhere has the State
been requested to pay for religion. Public funds are devoted
to paying the expenses of teaching reading, writing, arithmetic,
and other secular branches prescribed in the course of public in-
struction. Christians worthy of the name desire the glory as
well as the burden of making known the saving truths of the
Gospel.
IT IS AGAINST ALL RELIGION.
He continues in this strain, after announcing that politically
he has been a life-long Republican :
"What have the churches of this State done to the people
that would lead us to think them so wicked that we should con-
demn them in the Constitution ? What offence, I say, have they
committed? Are you afraid of your liberties? Are you afraid
if children are educated in the religion of their parents that they
will destroy your liberties ? You are aiming here at religious bod-
ies and religious bodies only. Why, three years ago, one of the
most eminent gentlemen of this State, who was a candidate for
the nomination for governor, was turned down in a Republican
Convention because he had written against religion. Now you
propose to enact here an amendment in the Constitution that
is an attack on all religious bodies. Why, if you said there
should be no State aid in any schools in which socialism is en-
couraged, that there should be no State aid in any school in
which nihilism is encouraged, or in any school in which anarchy
is encouraged, and you embodied that in a proposed amendment
to the Constitution and went to the people with it, every one
in the State would say that your work amounted to a condem-
nation of anarchy, of nihilism, of socialism. What do you do
now? You go to the people and say: 'Not a dollar of aid to
any school in which religion is taught.' That is a condemnation
of religion.
" Your proposed amendment says that no money is to be
appropriated for ' institutions ' of learning wholly or partly
under the control or direction of any religious denomination, or
in which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught. Any
denominational tenet or doctrine ? Very well ; take away the
distinctive doctrines of the Baptists, take away the distinctive
1894-] TO OUR STATE CONSTITUTION. 271
doctrines or tenets of the Methodists, take away the distinctive
tenets of the Presbyterians, of the Episcopalians, of the Catho-
lics, etc., and what have you left? What will schools teach?
They will teach a state-made religion. It is a union of the
church and state, instead of a separation."
THE ECONOMIC VIEW.
He puts the argument from an economic point of view in
this way :
" There are in the common schools of this State, according
to the census of 1890 I take the United States census
1,042,160 children. There are in public schools not common
7,810. There are in private schools, exclusive of parochial,
77,000. There are in parochial schools of this State 119,242
children educated. Of these, the Baptists have 1,991, the
Catholics 108,152, the Lutherans 8,620, the Methodists 2,312,
the Presbyterians 848, Protestant- Episcopal 3,736 ; all others,
3,147. Now, there are 108,000 Catholic children, about one-
tenth as many as are in all the common schools of the State,
educated in parochial schools, without costing this State one
penny. Of these, there are 40,000 in New York City. It costs
thirty dollars per head to educate a child in the common
schools of New York City per annum. The Catholics educate
40,000 of them without costing the State one dollar. That is
$1,200,000 a year that the State is saved. If they had to erect
buildings for these 40,000 children, the City of New York
would have to build at least thirty new school-houses, and with
the enormous cost of property there, these school-houses would
cost on a fair estimate $3,500,000. The annual interest on this
sum is $175,000 at five per cent, interest. There is a saving,
then, on interest, of $175,000. Outside the City of New York
the 68,000 children educated, at fifteen dollars per head, would
cost $1,020,000, and to provide them with school-houses would
cost $1,000,000, the annual interest of which, at five per cent.,
would amount to $50,000 more ; so that there is a total annual
saving to the public by these parochial schools of $2,445,000 ;
and Catholics ought to have credit for that. They are giving
this to the State of New York. They are paying their taxes
for the public schools also, and they do this for conscience'
sake."
The final vote which sanctioned the educational amendment
in the Constitutional Convention was the brief triumph of a
majority not well informed on the facts of the case. It is to
272 THE PROPOSED AGNOSTIC AMENDMENT [Nov.,
be desired that the verdict of the people condemning it will
give new courage to those who still hope, amid pessimistic wail-
ings, for the triumph of justice and intelligence in establishing a
common-school system broad enough to safeguard the interests
of the State, and to utilize the volunteer forces under denomi-
national control.
IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
The Constitution of the United States plainly sets forth as
one of its basic principles that " No religious test shall ever
be required as a qualification to any office or public trust
under the United States.
" Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States."
The first article of the Constitution adopted by New York
in 1777 contains these words: "The free exercise and enjoy-
ment of religious profession and worship without discrimination
or preference shall for ever be allowed in this State to all man-
kind."
PROTESTANTS ALSO CONDEMN IT.
Some indications of the strong arguments urged by Mr.
Cassidy, whose religious convictions are not at all with the
Catholic Church, together with two notable letters from eminent
Protestants, will furnish evidence of a clear grasp of first princi-
ples by earnest minds outside of the Catholic Church.
" I am opposed to this amendment as proposed by the com-
mittee on education," Mr. Cassidy says, " because I believe it to
be unconstitutional, a surrender to bigotry and fanaticism, and
at war with the generally accepted doctrine of separation of
church and state. It merely seeks to outlaw .some of the
agencies in the State, because of their religious character. The
principle involved in the separation of church and state is that
the State, of right, exists merely for civil ends ; that it should
have nothing whatever to do with religion ; that it should make
no inquiries of its citizens, servants, or agents whether such
and such religious tenets are held by them or not.
"The State ought never to consent to run with the blood-
thirsty dogs eager to chase down their religious prey. Churches
are not exercising the most deadly influences in government
1894-] T OUR STATE CONSTITUTION. 273
to-day, and yet from the manner these A. P. A. dogs are
barking you would think that no other influences for evil could
equal them.
" A church, though primarily a religious body, is also a civil
corporation. And the State may make grants to it for civil
reasons the same as to a purely secular organization. For
instance, if the State advertises for the use of a room or build-
ing, and the church offers one, the State may vote money to
the church for the use of that room or building the same as it
would for the use of a room in a railway depot. So, if the
State makes grants to other parties for the shelter of the aged,
poor, and orphans, or for giving instruction in geography,
mathematics, and other secular branches, it may also make such
grants to a church, asylum, or school, just the same as to one
under purely secular control. For in that case the State is deal-
ing with the church, not as a religious but as a civil organi-
zation. When a church-school renders the State a secular
service by giving secular instruction, it may be given grants
from the Regents' funds, just the same as any purely secular
school.
" If a church-school renders the same secular service as a
non-religious school, why should not the State make a grant to
the former as well as to the latter? This amendment, however,
proposes that the State shall establish a ' holy or unholy ' in-
quisition, and shall hear and entertain charges that such and
such doctrines are taught, and if such charges are proved, that
such and such action shall be taken.
"The State, which exists merely for civil ends, has no more
right to inquire into ,the religious character and teachings of
school corporations than into the religious character and teach-
ings of an individual. The State has nothing to do except
with the civil character of a citizen, and it has nothing to do
with the school except with its civil character and the nature of
the secular instruction given therein. As the State could not
rightly refuse a pension to a soldier because he belongs to a
church or taught certain religious doctrines, so it cannot rightly
refuse a grant to a school corporation on any such grounds.
As the State would have no right to inquire into the religious
tenets or teachings of a man who is a candidate, so it has no
right to inquire into the religious character of a school."
Professor Norman Fox, chairman of the Board of Trustees
of Cook Academy (Baptist) and of Rochester University, in a
VOL. LX. 1 8
274 THE PROPOSED AGNOSTIC AMENDMENT [Nov.,
letter read before the convention puts the same argument in a
cogent way. He says :
" The amendment is urged in the name of the separation of
church and state. In fact it violates that principle. The sepa-
ration of church and state implies that the State exists merely
for civil ends and that it has nothing to do with religion.
Now, as the State should not make a grant to a school simply
because it is a religious school, so it should not refuse a grant
on that ground. As the State has no right to inquire as to the
religious character of a candidate for the position of post-
master or brigadier-general, so it has no right to inquire as to
the religious character of a college which is a candidate for an
agricultural college land grant or any other such State subven-
tion. The State should judge of a school purely on its civil
and secular character, simply on the character of its secular
teaching. If it also teaches religion and denominational tenets,
that is a thing of which the State should take no cognizance
whatever. This amendment proposes that the State should
institute an 'inquisition' and find out whether a school asking
a grant does or does not teach this or that religious or ecclesi-
astical tenet. . . . "
Another letter from Professor A. C. Hill, a Protestant of
Protestants, and one of the foremost educators of the State,
says that "there are many schools 'wholly or in part' con-
trolled by religious bodies that are now doing educational work
in the State. Most of these teach no peculiar religious dog-
mas, but are engaged in strictly educational work. A majority
of their trustees are by their charters required to belong to
some particular sect or church, and from. this fact come within
the class referred to as 'partly under the control of religious
denominations,' and are therefore shut out from State aid.
These schools are doing no inconsiderable part of the educa-
tional work that would otherwise fall to the State to do, at
small cost to tax-payers. They are doing no harm, but are
rather giving a moral and religious tone to education in the
State. Why then should such schools be singled out and thus
discriminated against in the matter of State appropriations? A
corporation, the majority of whose members are agnostics,
atheists, or even anarchists, may establish schools and not come
under the ban of the proposed constitutional enactment. The
Masonic order, a farmer's club, or any other corporate body
may found schools for which State aid may be granted; why
should corporations composed of Christians or Jews alone be
1 894.]
TO OUR STATE CONSTITUTION.
275
prohibited ? The measure is an infringement upon personal
liberty, a step toward union of church and state, an intro-
duction of a negation of religion into our State Constitution."
The letter of Professor Norman Fox in its entirety has
intrinsic merits sufficient to claim the attention of honest
minds. It has been honored by the editorial censure of the
Independent, which rarely presents to its readers the best evi-
dence in favor of Christian education. When it is a question
of deciding what belongs to Christ in the training of a child
and a future citizen, the Independent is a most unreliable guide ;
it encourages a most dangerous form of indifferentism, con-
demned by the most enlightened thinkers among non-Catholics.
During the five months while the Constitutional Convention
was in session, as well as long before, many of the opinions
endorsed by the Independent clearly favored the advance of
secularism. In an editorial notice of the work of the conven-
tion in its issue of September 30, 1894., these words are found :
" The most important of these amendments are those which are
designed to prevent hasty and ill-considered legislation." To
be consistent the Independent should have inquired from profes-
sional educationists what was done in advance by the conven-
tion to prevent hasty and ill considered legislation on the school
question, before praising the report of the educational com-
mittee.
-V
A MUCH greater mastery of the novelist's art is
shown in Mr. Stanley J. Weyman's latest work, My
Lady Rotka* than in its predecessors. It is not so
much the chronicle of a single person's sayings and
doings amongst a certain number of other persons
more or less artistically arranged as this author's preceding no-
vels chiefly were. It still partakes of that character, neverthe-
less, and may be regarded as a sort of panoramic novel ; but it
contains more of the arrangement and prevision of a connected
and compacted story.
Mr. Weyman always makes his chief character tell the story
in the first person singular. This literary arrangement offers the
advantage of imparting greater force and vraisemblance to the
work of fiction, and in the hands of a perfect master of style,
who understands all the different chords of human feeling, must
lead the delusion to the point where the fiction line melts into
the horizon of reality, on the converse of the principle of the
modern cyclorama, where the aim is to confuse the unreal per-
spective with the actual foreground. But the disadvantage it
involves almost counterpoises this at least when an author in-
tends to write stories as long as he can get a ready market,
He is driven to try to be versatile in his imaginary egomets,
and this, as in the case of many actors, is too great a demand
upon his intellectual resources. The make-up in all Mr. Wey-
man's story-tellers is somewhat different in A Gentleman of
France and Under the Red Robe but slightly so but the inner
man is identical. And so it is in the case of the teller of this
story, My Lady Rotha* favorite domestic, half woodman, half
major-domo, one Martin Schwarz. His mental fibre in love and
war is of the same pattern as that of the two supposititious
Frenchmen.
This literary peculiarity, however, will not strike the reader
who takes up this book on its own merits. It is an able tale
in many respects. The period at which it is laid is not often
* My Lady Rotha. By Stanley J. Weyman. New York : Longmans, Green & Co.
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 277
chosen by modern novelists. No one of note has touched it,
if our memory be not elusive, since the days of the primordial
six-novels-a-year writer, Mr. G. P. R. James. It is the period
of Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years' War.
Mr. Weyman is no superficial reader. He has evidently
pored over the history of his periods well, and mastered many
details of geography and topography, as well as of national cus-
toms and the Zeitgeist of each particular epoch. He is conscien-
tious in his treatment of details, and his language is clear-cut,
apt, and vivid. Hence his pictures of battle and perilous ad-
venture, such as abound in this story just a trifle too much for
many tastes, are such as hold the reader's interest well. He is
no more bigoted than the usual run of Protestant authors.
The character of Lady Rotha, a German gentlewoman of the
petite noblesse, is modelled on the severe classic ideal, rather than
on the actual Teutonic type. She is a mixture of Portia and
the Countess of Derby in the Roundhead days. She is a more
sensible woman than most women of reality, for she rejects a
handsome and brave young noble, but who sometimes gets
drunk, for a husband in favor of a warrior who is not hand-
some and is not young.
The book has an interest and a value, however, altogether
outside its doubtful claim as a novel. It gives an impressive
idea of some of the horrors of the great continental struggle of
the seventeenth century, and as good a notion of some of the lead-
ing characters of a portion of the drama as may be derived from
careful study. The theme is sombre, if exciting at times, and
the treatment is not calculated to lighten the effect. In this
respect the historical novel is usually a failure ; and it was only
by bringing the lighter qualities of the Celtic mind to its ser-
vice that Sir Walter Scott made it a success.
A piece of strong secondary evidence of the progress of the
Catholic movement in Great Britain may be recognized in the
growing demand for the literature of the great Oxford seces-
sion. This literature is working its way on the British intellect
slowly but irresistibly, even as the diamond drill cuts through
the solid rock. It is a peculiar literature, the distinguishing
marks of which are solidity, sobriety, and the earnestness begot-
ten of the belief of immortal issues depending on the force and
lucidity of words. One of the most notable books of this litera-
ture is the narrative entitled A Life's Decision* in which the
*A Life's Decision, By T. W. Allies, K.C.S.G. Second edition. London: Burns &
Oates, Ltd.
27 8 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
whilom Ritualist English clergyman, Mr. T. W. Allies, gives his
reasons for his spiritual metempsychosis. It is worthy of note
that although the author has published other works of a kindred
character, bearing more or less directly on the same subject, a
second edition of this particular work is now called for and has
been issued.
It is impossible to avoid being struck with the evidently pro-
vidential feature in the Oxford movement, from the course of
Mr. Allies' narrative. His own mental Odyssey furnishes a
curious example of the working of a great external force in the
inchoate phase of that wonderful new departure. His life had
been aimless up to the point of his encountering a great
sorrow, the nature of which is not indicated in his disclosure.
He had, like many other Englishmen of means and leisure, led
a wandering life, untroubled by any doctrinal views, and being,
indeed, rather nebulous, as it would appear, about religion or
doctrine of any kind. When this great sorrow fell upon him it
gave his thoughts a bent toward God. As Mr. Allies himself
says, he had come back from travel perfectly irreligious,
desirous of distinction, arid with self for his only idol ; but all
this was changed by the chastening hand of affliction. His first
movement was toward Anglican orders, yet, after having
entered the diaconate, he confesses that his mind was entirely
unformed in religious views. Of two things he had a horror in
early life the Catholic religion and theology ; yet he was
driven as by an irresistible destiny, step by step, to study the
one until he could not help but embrace the other. Socially he
was a rather friendless man, for those comrades he had known
at Oxford in his school days had been lost sight of in the
course of his subsequent wandering life. Hence, when the
period of his spiritual struggle came he had no one to advise
him, and this isolation he deplores as a misfortune, as it ap-
pears to him now that it was a matter of chance into what
school of theological opinion he should drift. Yet it is plain
from Mr. Allies' own narrative that there was nothing of chance
in it, as he was being drawn by an invisible hand to Catholic
modes of thought and Catholic belief, even when he himself
had no suspicion that such was the case.
Later on the writer knew Newman and Ward, and other
leading Tractarians, and the growing light which was breaking
over their minds at last revealed itself to his.
It was not until he had been for thirteen years an ordained
minister of the Anglican Church that Mr. Allies gave up for-
mally his connection with that establishment and was received
1894] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS* 279
into the bosom of the true fold by his friend, Dr. Newman.
The story of his progress, step by step, each step being de-
bated strenuously for and against, is an interesting piece of tes-
timony. It involves, necessarily, a review of the entire eccle-
siastical position during the long period which it covers, not
only in England but in France and other countries where na-
tional sentiment in church matters found itself in antagonism
with the broad universalism of the church. The correspondence
of the reverend author with many of the leading figures in these
controversies is not the least interesting feature in his work.
The book may be studied usefully in connection with the other
narratives of the period, for its individuality of thought as well
as for a piece of close logical reasoning in the following up of
gradually unfolding doctrinal and theological premises.
Fr. Pustet & Co. have issued another edition of Suffering
Souls* that excellent manual of devotion for those who weep
and hope for their dead. The work in its original form was by
the Right Rev. Monsignor Preston, and it has been enlarged by
the Sisters of the Divine Compassion.
Mr. Du Maurier helps us a little in the discussion about the
pure and the impure in art, by the publication of his novel of
Trilby* He gives us a good many glimpses of the inner life
of the Bohemian crowd who make the pursuit of art an excuse
for a life of irregularity and frivolity and unrestraint. These
glimpses, so far as they relate to Paris, are not by any means
overdrawn ; any one who knows the quartier latin will admit that
they err on the side of tenderness to its repute. There is al-
ways a fierce outcry whenever shocked sensibilities make a pro-
test against the^degradation of art by linking it with mere sen-
suality. The atmosphere in which the artist lives, it is claimed,
is transcendental ; neither he nor his models are conscious of
any wrong. It is only in the spirit of truth and love of the
beautiful that the sacrifice of modesty is made ; or rather, the
apparent sacrifice, for it is claimed that when the fences of
modesty are thrown down a ring of delicate and chivalrous spiri-
tuality hedges in the votaries of art far more completely and
effectually than the conventional canons and institutions of a
coarse and evil-minded civilization. They become dead to ordi-
nary feeling, and in fact completely metamorphosed, for the time,
by the operation of a sublime chalybeate influence of some in-
definable but universally admitted kind. The author gives us
his own word for it, that " nothing is so chaste as nudity."
* Trilby : A novel. By George Du Maurier. New York : Harper Brothers.
280
TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
Trilby ought to help a full disillusionment on this subject.
It is confessedly the record of the author's own experience of
the artistic and musical set amidst which he moved for many
years. Those of us who have got any personal knowledge of it
in our travels are constrained to admit the truth of the picture.
The patter of the studios, the banter, the flashing wit, the
easy indifference to outside opinion, the makeshift existence,
the wild gaiety of the life, are all faithfully mirrored in those
brilliant and audacious pages of Trilby.
It is difficult to find any standard in English letters by which
to measure the workmanship of Mr. Du Maurier. It is ebullient
in humor and just stops short at times of being extravaganza.
Whenever the author is at a loss for a phrase he appropriates
a good line from a poet or other authority and runs it into his
own sentence as part and parcel of it. This is a trick of the
tribe whom the story satirizes, adopted more from a force of
habit than for lack of wit of their own. Sometimes the reader
is almost inclined to imagine the author is laughing at him.
There is not so much of a story in Trilby as there is in
Vanity Fair. It is a creation merely around which to group a
series of satires upon men and women and opinions and habits
such as the author found them in the peculiar vocation which
he followed for so many years. A caricaturist is always naturally
on the look-out for the foibles of human nature, and whatever
instinctive qualities of detection he has had from nature to aid
him become sharpened by training and the necessity of finding
foibles where to other eyes they might be hidden. Religion,
amongst other things, comes in for its share of scorn at the
satirist's hands. One of his characters Little Billee delivers
f
himself with very great effect against the shortcomings of Chris-
tianity and the absurdities of Scripture narrative. The way in
which Little Billee puts these things is, of course, only the result
of an imperfect early training and a prolonged sojourn in the
atelier of M. Carrel.
Trilby, the heroine, is the personification of wronged model-
hood, perhaps. She seems to be the result of a study of several
characters, a strange amalgam. She is not virtuous, until the
discovery of a pure love opens her eyes to the fact that posing as
a nude model for a school of ribald students is indelicate, and
immorality of conduct sinful. But she behaves nobly after she
makes the discovery. She gives up the lover who has wrought
her conversion because his mother points out how marriage with
him would blight his career, and in her affection for the friends
of her model days she is steadfast to the last. But she falls
1894.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 281
under the evil influence of a great musician, and a great brute,
named Sveganli, and he hypnotizes her into becoming not only
a great singer, although she had no musical ear, but his most
devoted slave. Cases of magnetism of this sort are not un-
known ; but the secret influence is generally fear ; here it is un-
specified ; and, with all his loathsome repulsiveness, Trilby is
portrayed as actually made to love this fellow. A character like
Sveganli must have existed sometime and somewhere in the
modern musical world, for Marion Crawford, in his Roman Singer,
seems to have struck on him too.
Trilby is a tragedy of rare power, lighted up with innumer-
able flashes of tender pathos and fine touches of human sympa-
thy. Its defect is that it minimizes the deadly effects of sin
and shame on the most beautiful of all God's works the wo-
man's heart in youth, and by gilding over an evil state of
things in art makes the average reader a sympathizer with the
profane and licentious conditions which in some parts of the
world surround it.
There appears to be something in the nature of the new
" science " which, like the insane root, makes those who feed
on it pugnacious and aggressive, if not demented. Some of its
disciples seem to go out of their way to pick quarrels. Some
go trailing their philosophical coats up and down the world, evo-
lution cudgel in hand, inviting all who do not agree with them
to tread on its tail. Aggressiveness towards the believers in a re-
spectable origin, however, is not always accompanied by obtuse-
ness to the amenities of scholarly society ; and herein we find
an eminent scientist, Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, forming an unenviable
precedent. A work of his on biology * bristles like a chevaux-
de-frise with provoking polemics, and these are ushered in with
a string of epithets about heretics, fagots, and the Inquisition
which suggest an assiduous course in A. P. A. science rather
than the calm search into the pages of nature.
Professor Shufeldt was lately invited by Bishop Keane to de-
liver a course of lectures before the students of the Catholic Uni-
versity. He says he felt gratified at the invitation, and, although
not a Catholic, he hastened to accept it. He affects to be sur-
prised that a Catholic University wants to know anything about
science. Almost at the outset he sounds a note of battle, be-
ginning with that not altogether original old bogey known as the
Dark Ages, whose trade-marks are supposed to be ignorance,
* Lectures on Biology. Delivered before the Catholic University of America. By Dr. R.
W. Shufeldt. Reprinted from The American Field, Chicago, New York, London.
TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
superstition, and monkish iniquity, in which formula the professor
most profoundly believes. From this spring-board he quickly
got on to the familiar vantage-ground of "the inquisition, the
fagot, and the stake" as the merciless persecutors of science.
These remarks were not received with enthusiastic applause, it
seems, and Professor Shufeldt is painfully impressed with the
want of good manners shown by Catholic papers in not giving
his erudite discoveries in full. It may be that they had no ad-
equate appreciation of such truths as this: "As to how long
man has existed upon earth as man geologists are at variance
in their opinions," or this profounder conclusion: " Many of
our most competent living biologists are of the opinion a be-
lief shared by myself that we are as yet in absolute ignorance
of the causes which have led to the origination of living matter."
" We are utterly in the dark," went on Professor Shufeldt, "about
the origin of life." When we consider what a vast amount of
learning was employed by this gentleman to arrive at this sapi-
ent conclusion, we cannot share his wonder that the auditory of
the Catholic University were no more convinced by his reason-
ing than they were impressed by his politeness. The tone in
which he refers to the subject in the introduction to this resume
reminds one of the astonished victim of similar ill-treatment who
asked :
" Perhaps it was well to dissemble your love,
But why did you kick me down stairs ? "
The science of biology, if we follow the professor, makes
many demands upon study, and its claims go as far as religion
does over the origin and the end of man. But so far as its
conclusions go, according to him and all the other recognized
authorities, they are no better than those of the much-maligned
dark ages. It gives no comfort to the seeker after truth ; it
seems powerless to affect our civilization or to eliminate in man
the primordial rudeness of the being who walked about in a
suit of woad.
I. THE HOLY LAND IN SCRIPTURE.*
This is one of many works now fast multiplying in every
language on a portion of the domain of archaeology that, of all
others, most interests the civilized world. The countries bor-
dering on the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, and ex-
tending inwards as far as the Persian Gulf, have engrossed the
attention of mankind from time immemorial. They stand out
* New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land. By Basil T. A. Evetts, M. A.
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 283
in bold relief in every historical retrospect, whether pertaining
to sacred or secular studies. In the former, for over twenty
years, they have more than ever attracted attention, owing to
the wonderful discoveries of priceless archaeological treasures in
Persia, Asiatic Turkey, and Egypt. Nothing like them in ex-
tent, variety, and intensity of interest were ever before found,
so much so, indeed, that savants of every country feel under a
kind of necessity to turn aside or, at all events, to take time
from other pursuits to investigate them. The defenders of re-
vealed religion and its opponents feel themselves more specially
constrained to do so ; for facts are here brought to light that
cannot be gainsaid by either, and that have momentous conse-
quences for both. The Bible narrative was not only called in
question by the latter, but the persons and places referred to
in it were said to be mythical. Not only was it declared that
some of the narrators and writers did not exist, but it was
proved (f) that the art of writing was not discovered at the
time the earlier portions are said to have been written ; that it
was entirely unknown, at least in the country of some of the
scribes, and so forth. Of all of this and much more the Assy-
rian, Egyptian, and Phoenician tablets, monuments, and inscribed
cylinders now being unearthed thousands of years after their
execution are a complete refutation. But they will effect
more than this, much as it is. For the vast majority who cling
the more loyally to the Written Word of God, the more it is
impugned by sceptics, whether they be hypercritical philoso-
phers or philosophical critics, have light thrown on obscure
passages by these new witnesses that surpass the clearest illu-
mination of the best commentators. Indeed, it is only by them
that one can read aright many hitherto obscure passages of
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther, Kings, and other
portions. Hence it is that each exhumation of Assyrian, Phoe-
nician, and Egyptian monument is welcomed by an ever-widening
circle of religiously interested people, as well as by the more select
circle of professional archaeologists. Works treating of them
find a ready sale ; and, happily, those lately published are so
interesting as to add immensely to the already well-established
wish for such literature.
Amongst the latest and best is that by Mr. Basil T. A.
Evetts, M.A., entitled New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land,
by the Cassell Publishing Co., N. Y. Mr. Evetts's connection
with the Assyrian Department of the British Museum afforded
him exceptional advantages for such special work. The result of
his study and research he clothes in such simple and beautiful
284 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
language as brings it within reach of all, and insures both inter-
est and delight to his readers. Whilst doing full justice to all
the various explorers amongst whom Catholic missionaries have
been conspicuous he wisely avoids all appearance of being a
controversialist or special pleader, letting the facts speak for
themselves, as they do most eloquently. One who peruses them
calmly and dispassionately can come to but one conclusion, namely,
that so far as these monuments give testimony, it is all in most
striking vindication of the Hebrew Scriptures' accuracy, and against
the critics who declared them in error because many names quoted
corresponded not with those of the historians, and many event-
ful scenes referred to coincided not with the readings of classic
history. As far as the cuneiform inscriptions have been deci-
phered, nothing contradictory of the Sacred Scriptures has been
found, but a vast amount confirmatory and explanatory, as Mr.
Evetts points out.
Of the value of the work for the purpose referred to it must,
however, be stated that it could be greatly enhanced if it were
less diffuse, more methodical, and had more illustrations, espe-
cially in maps, plans, and views of the more remarkable ancient
works still existing. In reading the description of Persepolis,
from page fifty-two onward, one longs for them in a special way ;
as no verbal description could possibly convey an accurate idea
of such unique remains. An alphabetical index, too, would be a
most desirable addition.
No educated person can afford to do without perusing this
or some kindred work.
2. THE ART OF PREACHING.*
Goldsmith, in his essay on the English Clergy and Popular
Preachers, says that he never read a fine composition under the
title of a sermon without thinking that the author had miscalled
his piece. " For," said he, " the talents to be used in writing
well entirely differ from those of speaking well."
This distinction is clearly made by the writer of a bright
brochure entitled Hints on Preaching, which comes before the
corpus ecclesiasticum with a graceful approbation from Archbishop
Ryan.
The desire of the author is to place the fruits of his ripened
experience before his fellow-priests, to the end that the spoken
word may attain to the fulness of its power.
" Be natural," he writes, and this is the keynote of the work
* Hints on Preaching. By Rev. Joseph V. O'Connor. Philadelphia : Porter & Coates.
1894-] NEW BOOKS. 285
the entire tone of which is characterized by simplicity and sound
sense.
Within the small compass of the book are found excellent
suggestions for the care and cultivation of the speaking voice
and for securing a clear and articulate pulpit delivery. The
whole range of the preacher's needs is sententiously outlined,
and tkis by one whose successful public experience outweighs
much untried theory.
NEW BOOKS.
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago; BURNS & GATES,
London :
A Retreat, consisting of Thirty-three Discourses, with Meditations, for the rise
of the Clergy, Religious, and others. By the Right Rev. John Cuthbert
Hedley, O.S.B., Bishop of Newport and Menevia.
MACMILLAN & Co., New York and London :
Animals' Rights, considered in relation to Social Progress, with a Biblio-
graphical Appendix. By Henry S. Salt. Also, An Essay on Vivisection.
By Albert Leffingwell, M.D.
THE ART AND BOOK COMPANY, London and Leamington :
Under the Cress-Keys: A Story of the Pontifical Zouaves. By Wilfrid C.
Robinson.
J. T. HYLAND & Co., Chicago :
Life of Mary Monholland, Sister of the Order of Mercy. By a Member of
the Order.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co., Boston :
Childhood in Literature and Art. By Horace E. Scudder. In Sunshine
Land. By Edith M. Thomas. With illustrations by Katharine Pyle. Fol-
lowing the Greek Cross ; or, Memories of the Sixth Army Corps. By
Thomas W. Hyde, Brevet Brigadier-General of Volunteers. Jhe Chase
of Saint-Casten. By Mary Hartwell Catherwood.
JOHN MURPHY & Co., Baltimore :
Life of Blessed John Gabriel Perboyre. Translated from the French. Stu-
dent's Hand-book of British and American Literature. By the Rev. O. L.
Jenkins, A.M., S.S.
D. C. HEATH & Co., Boston:
Nature Stories for Young Readers : Animal Life. By Florence Bass.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London :
Papers of the American Society of Church History. Vol. vi. Edited by
Rev. Samuel Macauley Jackson, M.A., Secretary.
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York :
Gerald Ffrench's Friends. By George H. Jessop.
CASSELL PUBLISHING Co., New York :
(Sunshine Series.) Nurse Elista. By G. Manville Fenn. Half Brothers.
By Hesba Stretton.
286 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov.,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
AT the Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Summer-
School of America, held on August 9, 1894, it was decided that the Catho-
lic Summer-School assume the direction of all Reading Circles in this country
that desire affiliation with it, on the following lines: That the Reading Circles in
each district be organized so as to form a Central Board composed of representa-
tives from the Circles ; that from these central boards an Advisory Board be
formed, which shall act as an auxiliary to the Directing Board ; that this Directing
Board prepare suitable, comprehensive, and homogeneous courses of reading
with a view to prepare the members for the work of ensuing sessions ; that these
Central Boards shall co-operate in the dissemination of Catholic truth as occa-
sion may require ; that this Directing Board prepare a series of lectures in
harmony with the course of reading, and suggest certain lecturers ; that the
official organ of this Summer-School be made to all intents and purposes a
Catholic educational review for the furtherance of Reading Circles, schools^
colleges, and academies; and that the proprietor of the Catholic Reading Circle
Review be requested to change the name of said review to the Champlain
Review, the organ of the Catholic Summer-School, devoted to the interests
named above. The Reading Circle Union will have for its first board of directors
Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, Chairman, Pittsburgh, Pa. ; Warren E. Mosher,
Youngstown, Ohio; Rev. James F. Loughlin, D.D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev.
Joseph H. McMahon, Director of Cathedral Library, New York ; Professor
George E. Hardy, College of the City of New York.
In accordance with the foregoing resolution, the following plan of Reading
Courses for local Circles and individuals is announced by the Directing Board
having in charge this department of the work of the Summer-School. The plan
submitted is not as complete in matters of detail as the board intends to make
it, but it is believed to be comprehensive enough for a beginning. The object
is to encourage the diffusion of sound literature ; to give those who desire to
pursue their studies after leaving school an available opportunity to follow pre-
scribed courses of the most approved reading ; to enable others, who have made
considerable progress in education, to review their past studies, and, particularly,
to encourage individual home reading and study on systematic and Catholic
lines.
A full course requires four years' study, but members may join for one year
or longer. The term each year begins October i and ends July i. Special or
post-graduate courses will be prepared for those who complete the regular
course. Any person of good character, Catholic or non-Catholic, who is de-
sirous of truth and self-culture, may become a member of this Reading Circle
Union. An annual fee of fifty cents shall be paid by each member. This, fee is
required to meet the necessary expenses incidental to the work, viz.: printing,
postage, etc., and shall be remitted to the general secretary with the application.
Applications maybe sent in at any time to Warren E. Mosher, Youngstown,
Ohio. A membership card will be issued yearly to each member on the pay-
ment of annual fee.
1894-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 287
The course of reading for the year 1894-95 is as follows :
1. Church History First five centuries.
2. Early English Literature.
3. Science Physics, Astronomy.
4. Sacred Scripture.
5. Topics of the Day and Current Literature.
6. Literary Studies.
The Course begins with the study of Church History.
One book only in each study required. The books selected are :
Church History
A Popular Manual of Church History, . . . , . $0.60
Manual of Church History, Vols. I. and II., by Rev. T. Gilmartin
(Vol. I. only necessary in the Course), 5.70
History of the Church, by Rev. J. A. Birkhaeuser, . . . 3.00
History of the Catholic Church, by Dr. H. Brueck, translated by Rev.
E. Pruente, 2 vols., 3.00
Allies' Formation of Christendom, Allard's Persecutions, Northcote
Brownlow's Roma Sotterranea, an account of the Roman Catacombs, compiled
from the works of De Rossi ; Visit to the Roman Catacombs, cheap edition \
Murphy's Chair of Peter; Newman's Athanasius, and Arians of the Fourth Cen-
tury ; Butler's Lives of the Saints ; Fabiola, by Wiseman ; Callista, by Newman ;
Dion and the Sibyls, by Keon; Martyrs of the Coliseum, by O'Reilly ; Cineas ;
or, Rome Under Nero.
Early English Literature
Development of Old English Thought, by Brother Azarias, . . $1.25
Egan's Primer of English Literature, ...... .60
Brooke's English Literature, .35
Arnold's Manual of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Revised, . 2.00
Jenkins's Hand-book of English Literature 1.25
Philosophy of Literature, by Brother Azarias, . . . . 1.50
Science
Balfour Stewart's Physics (required book) .35
Molloy's Gleanings in Science, 1.75
The Fairyland of Science, by Arabella Buckley 1.50
Works in Physics by Ganot, Gage, Wright, Arnott, Steele.
Brennan's Astronomy : New and Old, i.oo
Astronomy with an Opera-Glass, ....... 1.50
Bible, Science, and F^ith, $1.25 ; and Science and Scientists, by
Zahm, .75
Sacred Scripture
Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures, by Rev. John MacDevitt, D.D.
(required book), 1.75
Christ in Type and Prophecy, by Rev. A. J. Maas, S.J. ; Preston's Protest-
antism and the Bible ; The Bible and Belief, and The Written Word, by Rev.
W. Humphrey, S.J. ; Mullen's Canon of the Old Testament ; Dixon's Introduc-
tion to the Sacred Scripture.
Topics of the Day, Current Literature, and Literary Studies will be treated
of in special departments of the Reading Circle Review.
The recommendations contained in this outline will serve as an introduction.
Other courses and books will be announced in a short time.
288 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov., 1894.
Circles or individuals that may have adopted other studies for the ensuing
year than are announced in this course might, nevertheless, add at least one of
the studies named herein, and thus become members of the large body of readers
in the Reading Circle Union.
Books may be ordered from the office of the Secretary, Youngstown, Ohio,
in sets or in single copies, as required in the order of reading. Orders for books
will not receive attention unless accompanied by the price. No person will
receive a discount on books who is not a member of the Reading Circle Union.
A discount of ten to twenty per cent, will be allowed. The order of study
recommended is :
October, November, and December. Church History and Physics.
January, February, and March. Church History, Sacred Scripture, and
Physics.
April, May, and June. Sacred Scripture and Early English Literature.
* * *
The Columbian Reading Union has cheerfully welcomed every new force
working for the extension of Reading Circles. We feel assured that all who
have watched the growth of the movement as recorded in the pages of THE
CATHOLIC WORLD since the year 1888 will extend their best wishes to the Read-
ing Circle Union of the Catholic Summer-School, whose directors have been wisely
chosen, and are well qualified by past experience for the management of work
assigned to them. Within the United States and Canada there are vast numbers
of Catholics who should avail themselves of the advantages for self-improve-
ment now within their reach.
M. C. M.
Contents.
VF.NITE ADOREMUS. (Pcem.) John J. O'Shea.
THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL.
Mrs. M. E. Henry-R^lffin.
THE PRINCE OF INDIA; OR, " WHY CONSTANTINOPLE FELL."
(Illustrated.) Rev. Charles Warren Currier.
"GLORIA IN ExcELSIS DEO." S.M.Oovey.
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY.
(Illustrated.) Rev. Clarence A. Wai-worth.
DURHAM CANDLES. (Poem.) Louise Imogen Guiney.
PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. William Barry, D.D.
DAYBREAK. (Poem.) Charleson Shane.
COUNT DE MUN : LEADER OF THE CATHOLIC REPUBLICAN
DEPUTIES. (Illustrated,) Etigene Dams.
A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. ( 'Illustrated.)
By John J. O'Shea, assisted by the following Contributors :
Marianne Kent, " Pepita Casada," Dorothy Monckton,
and Marie Louise Sandrock.
ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS.
William Seton, LL.D.
MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES ON THE "CLEVELAND PLAN."
Rev. Walter Elliott.
A NOBLE ARAB MARTYR. M. J. L.
pf
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD,
VOL. LX.
DECEMBER, 1894.
No. 357.
VENITE ADOREMUS.
BY JOHN J. O'SHEA.
ACRED Night! Thy solemn splendor,
When thy face is calm and tender,
Fills us with ecstatic wonder
Day can never give.
YOL. LX. 19
Though thy mantle be full sombre,
Rich its jewels without number,
Yet as in the tomb their slumber
Did day for ever live.
To our eyes all viewless ever
Jehovah's marvellous endeavor,
Suns and systems bounded never,
Still unknown rolled on.
To thee, more, the favor given,
Last and greatest of all heaven,
In thine hours man's bondage riven
By the new-born One.
Thine it was to mark the anguish
Ended of the souls did languish,
Thine to see the Woman vanquish
The serpent of the ground.
Night of nights ! the angels' singing
Filled the vault with paeans ringing,
Cowering fiends their flight took winging
At the glorious sound.
Copyright. VERY RBV. A. F. HBWIT. 1894.
290
VENITE ADOREMUS. [Dec.,
In their tombs the prophets stirring
Felt the angels' pinions whirring,
And their souls, to earth recurring,
Consolation found.
" Be to God the highest glory,
Peace to man till time is hoary,
Love blots out the dismal story
Of his fall from grace ! "
Such the canticle outringing
From the choirs celestial winging
Gentle shepherds heard, upspringing
From their watching place.
And the Magi saw the token
Of that promise never broken,
Of that Living Word outspoken,
In the Star of Hope.
Wisdom, science, royal station,
All that warps imagination,
With their yearning adoration
Vainly strove to cope.
Simple faith was yours, O Magi !
Choicest gift of heaven had ye
Ere assurance came to glad ye
In the Virgin's smile.
Changed all that with march of science,
Our wise men now seek alliance
With the brutes, in bold defiance
Of that Word the while.
We this science leave to revel
In its base ancestral level,
We who were redeemed from evil
Thence for evermore,
With the Magi's hope enchanting,
With the Magi's love all panting,
Joining with the angels' chanting,
Come, let us adore.
1894-] THE HILL WOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. 291
THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL.
BY MRS. M. E. HENRY-RUFFIN.
REAKFAST at Hillwood, the plantation
home of old Judge Fancher, was a very
enjoyable meal; and an attractive time to
meet the cordial family. Hillwood was
three miles from the capital city of one of
the Southern States; and the period of
which I write was in that halcyon epoch
that still stands luminously in the Southern
memory as " before the war." It was in the
full effulgence of a decade before the break-
ing of the war-cloud.
At the long table, above the tall silver coffee-urn, rose the
motherly face of Mrs. Fancher. At the other end sat the old
judge himself. On either side were ranged six young people,
four sons and two daughters. Of the sons two had reached
man's estate : Lawrence, the oldest, tall, stalwart, and thought-
ful of face ; Joseph, handsome, dashing, and attractive in man-
ner and appearance.
Near the dignified old judge sat his oldest daughter, Helen,
a strikingly beautiful brunette of nineteen. Fred, the seventeen-
year-old school-boy, and Gertrude, the school-girl of fifteen, just
home for the Christmas holidays from the college and convent
on the lower coast, came next in order. Beside his mother sits
John, the thirteen-year-old " baby " and pet of the household.
Near the judge, and opposite Helen, is a grave, intellectual
young man, dark-haired and with keen blue eyes a face Celtic
of the best type. He is Professor Hunter, the tutor of John
Fancher and three other young boys of the neighborhood.
Judge Fancher was an Irishman of the most genial and cul-
tivated type. When a young, struggling lawyer, just from the
Green Isle, he had won the affection of the only child of a
wealthy, aristocratic planter of French descent. His fortunate
marriage and his own ability soon placed him at the head of
affairs, social and political, in the prosperous little city. Honors
were heaped upon him, but he always preserved the same noble
simplicity of thought and manner. A handsome family grew up
292 THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. [Dec.,
around him. His beautiful home was the centre of generous
and refined hospitality.
"Well, young people," said the judge, " have you decided
yet what night you will have the ball?" The Christmas ball at
Hillwood was an event in the social history of the year.
Helen's dark eyes flashed merrily. " On the twenty-ninth,
father. We cannot be ready any sooner. This is the twenty-
second, and the dressmaker only came the day before yesterday."
" So, with the mantua-maker's permission, it will be on the
twenty-ninth. Well, you young folks had better write your in-
vitations to-day, and I will start Gilbert the first thing in the
morning to deliver them. Ah ! there is Gilbert now." The door
opened, and a young colored man came in. He handed a bag
of mail to the judge.
" The boat was late, sah."
"All right, Gilbert."
"Anybody come up from town ?" asks Mrs. Fancher.
" Miss Lida Carew and her ma done git off de boat, ma'am."
" Oh, I am so glad ! " cried Helen. " Lida will be here for
the ball ! "
Mrs. Fancher looks quietly at Lawrence, as does his brother
Joseph. Professor Hunter lifts his eyes an instant, then drops
them nervously on his plate. Everybody is reading his or her
letter. Fred and Gertrude are chuckling over the merry epistles
of school-mates left behind.
"Ah, here is good news!" said the judge, laying down a
letter written in a delicate hand. " Father de la Croix will be
up on the next boat ; and we shall have Mass on Christmas
morning."
This announcement gives general pleasure. Even Professor
Hunter, though a Protestant, is politely interested.
" This just comes in good time," continued the judge, indi-
cating the letter. " Helen, you must write to the Catholics
around and tell them we will have Mass on Christmas morning.
Gilbert can deliver these notices to-morrow, too. An odd com-
bination," the old gentleman laughed: " invitations to Mass and
to a ball; but life is made up of just such contrasts."
The family began to disperse for their various occupations.
Gilbert was waiting at the gate with the judge's fine horse,
which the old gentleman rode every day to his law-office in town.
" Come, father, with me to the smoke-house and the store-
room till I see what is needed for the party." The judge fol-
lowed his wife, pencil and note-book in hand.
1 894.] THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL.
Helen and Gertrude had gone to the library to write the in-
vitations. Lawrence and Joseph were relieved from duty at
their father's office, for be it understood the Christmas celebra-
tion in the old South lasted two, and sometimes three weeks
shared by white and black alike. Even now it is difficult to
make the darkies understand that the week preceding and the
week following Christmas are not seasons of rest and recreation.
Joe Fancher was busy cleaning his gun. "Mother!" he
cried, as Mrs. Fancher came back from the smoke-house,
"make Lawrence come with me. You know I cannot shoot
enough ducks and wild turkeys by myself."
Mrs. Fancher looked at Lawrence.
"You must excuse me, mother; I am going to town to
help father. He is very busy ; but he would not say so, as he
did not want to interfere with our holiday. I know he is anxious
about a case he has, and I have been preparing the papers for
him."
"O bother!" cried Joe. "Court doesn't convene for three
weeks ; and we can work up all the dry old cases before then."
Mrs. Fancher smiled indulgently at her handsome boy ; but
a softer light was in her eyes when she turned to Lawrence.
" Yes, my son, go with your father. He has just turned the
road ; and if you ride quickly you can overtake him." When
Lawrence had gone, she turned to Joe.
"You know, my dear, your brother does not care about
hunting."
" I don't know what he does care about," grumbled Joe.
" He don't care for hunting says he can't bear to kill anything.
He doesn't like racing, or cards, or even dancing, though he
can get more music out of a fiddle than any one I ever heard.
He doesn't even care about the girls. Now, there's Lida Carew,
the prettiest girl in the county. I know he likes her ;
nobody could help liking her ; and he treats her as if she were
Gertrude and talks to her just as brotherly. Now, when I get
a chance to talk to Miss Lida "
" I have no doubt you have plenty to say and flirt with her,
if she lets you. You make love to half the girls in the county,
but you cannot be so free with Lida. For all that, Joe," she
added, coming nearer, " I often think there may be something
between Lawrence and Lida. I know she likes him very much.
She is very reserved and all that ; but I have watched her
closely, and I really think she has a decided preference for
Lawrence."
294 THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. [Dec.,
" Well, she'll have to propose to old Larry herself. He's
the best fellow that ever lived. Why Charlie Carew and I are
as particular what we say before Larry as we are before you
and the girls. He's almost too good for this world."
" Hush ! my son," the mother said. " I know you are only
jesting, but Lawrence is indeed a good man, a good son, and a
good brother. Brave and full of energy, he is as gentle as a
girl. Sometimes I wonder what he will make of his life. He
seems so different from all of you boys."
" Oh ! Larry will just go on working up father's old musty
law cases and playing the devoted to you, till some girl asks
him to marry her; and then he will be the very best husband
that ever lived in this world."
Joe was half way down the path when this sentence was
finished. He called back- to his mother: "I am going to get
Charlie Carew to come out hunting with me. Professor Hunter
is helping the girls to write the invitations."
"O Joe!" cried Helen, running out on the gallery, "if you
are going to the Carew's, tell Lida to come over and we can
talk about the ball."
" All right," replied Joe, shouldering his gun.
It was a glorious day. Only such a morning as can be
seen in the South in midwinter. A slight frost that had
sharpened the early hours had passed off, leaving just enough
tingle in the air to make walking a delight through the sun-
flooded fields and woodlands.
It was a merry party of young folks that set out on Christ-
mas-eve morning to meet Father de la Croix. The pretty
study, opening into the long parterres, had been converted into
a chapel, and was tastefully decorated. Mrs. Fancher's rich
old laces were brought out to drape the temporary altar.
Several pairs of massive silver candlesticks, that tradition said
came from France with Mrs. Fancher's ancestors, were filled
with wax candles ready to be lighted.
All the family, except the judge and Mrs. Fancher, had
started to the landing. Lawrence sat alone in the buggy, while
the rest of the party went in the large spring wagon.
" Let's stop and take Lida," said Helen as they neared the
handsome homestead of the Carews. Here dwelt Mrs. Carew, a
wealthy widow, with her son and daughter.
"There's Miss Lida now, in the gallery," said Joe. "O Miss
Lida! Miss Lida! Hurry up and come with us to the landing
to meet Father de la Croix."
1894-] THE HILL WOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. 295
" Very well ; just wait till I get my hat," Miss Carew re-
sponded. The young girl vanished into the broad hall and
presently reappeared. Joe had sprung out of the wagon to
meet her. Professor Hunter had risen in the wagon ; but seeing
Joe already on the ground, resumed his seat. The young
Irishman's eyes were eagerly watching the graceful figure
flitting down the flower-bordered walk.
" Lawrence," said Joe, noticing the vacant seat in the buggy,
"perhaps you would like to take Miss Lida?" He was stand-
ing by the buggy speaking very softly. A few feet away, Lida
Carew was almost at the gate. She too noticed the vacant
place, and for a moment her heart bounded with a happy hope.
" I am going to bring back Father de la Croix," Lawrence
said in surprise. " I would not like to ask Miss Lida and then
not bring her back."
" Of course, of course ! " Joe answered shortly. Then seeing
how near she was, called to her cordially : " Come, Miss Lida, we
must have you with us ; there is plenty of room, and we all
want you in the wagon." He opened the gate and helped her
up to her place. A dancing light was in Professor Hunter's
eyes as Lida took her seat. She seemed to be entirely un-
conscious of the discussion as to where she was to be placed ;
but in spite of her cordial greeting to every one, her ready
answer and amiability, there was an indignant pain at her
heart, a smouldering light in her deep blue eyes.
A wonderfully beautiful woman was Lida Carew tall, statu-
esque, fair with bright golden hair. A manner gracious yet
dignified, amiable but reserved. Helen Fancher, the sparkling
brunette, showing in face and manner the brightness of two
races, shared with the stately blonde the fame of grace and
beauty far and near. Since they had left their convent school,
two years before, they had been belles of several counties. No
sense of rivalry disturbed their friendship. Even the difference
in religion Miss Carew being a Protestant was only a matter
of regret to Helen, but so associated was Lida with the Catho-
lic household that there was no reason for estranging argu-
ments. That Lida would be a Catholic some day, they all be-
lieved. In the meanwhile she was like one of the family, and
in the young girl's own heart was a hope that she might
indeed become a daughter and a sister of the household ; but
this hope hung on the word of a grave young man, who treat-
ed her as a child, and who was as frankly kind and interested
in her as her own brother.
296 THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. [Dec.,
The boat had just made the landing. The darkies swung
out the gangplank, and a small, neat, handsome old French
gentleman stepped lightly on land. He wore the clerical black
suit and a wide black hat. The wagon rounded the road and
the merry occupants hailed him. Passengers and crew began to
crowd the decks. Greetings were exchanged with the Hillwood
party. Scraps of city news, plantation items from other land-
ings, and inquiries for friends made a gay clatter, mingled with
the orders of the captain and the singing of the boat-hands.
Father de la Croix looked affectionately at the group in the
wagon. " I feel like a distinguished visitor. Why, my dear
children, you have all come to meet me. Miss Lida too! That
is surely a compliment. And you are all well, I can see."
It is impossible to put into words the courtly grace of this
exquisite old gentleman, the type of many a member of the
old French aristocracy who gave gentle, cultured lives in sim-
plicity of sacrifice, to found the faith in the South-west.
"And I am to go with you, my dear Lawrence? Of
course." One might have noticed that his greeting to Lawrence
was more affectionate, the pressure of the hand a little longer
than to the others.
The drive home through the woods was delightful. The
postponed breakfast was a real feast of cordial good-fellowship.
The slaves, all of whom were baptized Catholics, came in after
breakfast to see their dear Father de la Croix; and it was
only after Mrs. Fancher, with a peremptory word of dismissal,
had dispersed servants and children, and had commanded Father
de la Croix, in her pretty French way, to take his sorely
needed rest, that the meeting disbanded.
That Christmas morning Mass made an unfading picture in
Mrs. Fancher's memory. And it was a beautiful picture too ;
one to hold sacredly in after years, when the changes of time
and the inevitable working out of individual destinies made
such another household gathering impossible. There are such
precious memories in every household, the remembrance of
some day when all are gathered around the hearthstone, when
the family tie is still one, unbroken chain. Then link by link
it is severed, never to be reunited in this world. How near was
the breaking of the first link none dreamed that happy morning.
The sun of the Southern winter came golden through the
long, lace-draped windows ; and shone on saintly celebrant at
Mass, and earnest worshippers ; on the handsome, cultured faces
1894-] THE HILL WOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. 297
of the Hillwood household ; on the dark, devout faces of the
negro slaves, who in simple faith knelt beside them.
At the organ Helen sat and played, while Lawrence's violin
and Joe's flute added to the gentle harmonies. The simple
hymns were joined in by all, the negro voices swelling the
chorus. When the Adeste Fideles was sung all seemed to listen
while Helen's clear soprano and Lida's rich contralto, with
Charlie Carewr's tenor and Professor Hunter's bass, rang out the
glorious old anthem. And how Lawrence played! His violin
seemed a very soul of worship, a very spirit of prayer. Always,
to his mother, the central picture in that Christmas morning
memory was her tall, grave, handsome first-born son. His
face, then, was one to remember; its expression, as he bent
over his violin, one to inspire the noblest emotions.
The news that Father de la Croix would remain until after
New Year's was a great happiness to the family at Hillwood.
True, they would not enjoy so much of his society as they
would like, for there were the scattered Catholics to be visited,
baptisms to be performed, the little ones instructed, and all
the arduous duties of a missionary life in a thinly-populated
country. But the daily Mass was a great privilege to those so
remote from the frequent offices of the church. Then in the
evenings there was a delightful fireside gathering, to which
Judge Fancher and Lawrence hurried back from town, and
where the conversation of the gentle, cultured old priest was a
prime attraction.
The evening of the 2/th came, and with it the Hillwood
Christmas Ball.
" Ah ! it is well my good bishop tell me himself to stay
over New Year's ; otherwise, he think I wait for the party."
" Why, Father de la Croix, of course you would have to
stay for the party," laughed Joe. " Why, who else could help
mother with the salads? She thinks, because you are French,
you have an inspiration about salads that no one else has."
"Well, it is true anyway," said the judge, rising from the
breakfast-table. " I never can get such a salad anywhere as
you fix, father."
The old priest laughed merrily. " The bishop, he say so
himself ; and he tell me that is why I get so many invita-
tions to the dinners. They want me to fix the salads."
" And then, in the fever years, father," said Mrs. Fancher,
" you are worth two or three doctors."
29 8 THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. [Dec.,
" Oh, yes, madame ! " Father de la Croix laughed again ; " I
am the nurse, the doctor, the cook ; many things besides the
priest."
And so he was; and in this was typical of a class of priests
found, I believe, only among the pioneer clergy of the South.
Their superior education and experiences of travel placed these
priests in the position of advisers in diverse temporal and
domestic matters, as well as in spiritual affairs.
Mrs. Fancher and Father de la Croix had arranged the
tempting salads to their satisfaction. Dozens of hams, wild
turkeys and ducks, with venison, graced the long tables on the
galleries. Cakes and various sweets filled in the spaces.
The handso-ne double parlors, hung with holly and the
glowing yaupon berry, were brilliantly lighted. The colored mu-
sicians, some from other plantations, were on a raised platform,
tuning their instruments. The ebony faces shone with good
humor. The orchestra was gorgeously arrayed in the largest of
coats, the stiffest of collars, and the brightest of neck-handker-
chiefs.
Lawrence and Joseph were coming out of their room
on the upper hall. They were in evening dress, and were
very attractive-looking youths. The carriage was waiting ; for
Lawrence was going to escort Miss Carew to the ball, and
Joseph was to do a like duty for Miss Lida's guest, Miss
Coralie Planche, a pretty French girl from New Orleans. Full
of the coming festivity, Joe had bounded down the stairs.
" Wait a moment for me," said Lawrence from the upper
landing.
" Well, don't be long," Joe suggested.
Lawrence went to the pretty room at the end of the hall,
the one occupied by Father de la Croix.
" Ah ! my son," the old priest said cordially, laying down his
breviary, " let me see how you look for the ball. Miss Lida
will have reason to congratulate herself on her cavalier."
A few moments passed in pleasant chat, and then the young
man sat down on the other side of the little table. Half an
hour passed ; neither noticed the time. Twice Joe called up the
stairs, fuming at the delay. Another half hour and, could one
have looked into Father de la Croix's room, he would have
seen Lawrence Fancher with head bowed down upon the table,
.listening to the old priest, whose hands rested tremulously on
the young man's shoulder. A strange solemnity pervaded the
room ; Father de la Croix's voice was low and earnest, and his
i894-J THE HILL WOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. 299
eyes not wholly clear of tears. Lawrence's face was lit with a
nobility of expression, while his voice shook with strong emo-
tion as he spoke ; it was a strange prelude to a ball. At last
the young man rose.
" God bless you always and ever, and guide you ! " was the
old priest's parting wish.
"I am coming, Joe," said Lawrence to the last frantic ap-
peal of his brother. They entered the carriage and drove off.
Joe grumbled and upbraided his brother for the delay, but to
all his reproaches Lawrence was silent.
It was a pretty picture that greeted them in the Carew par-
lor. Lida was attired in pale-blue tulle, with silver trimmings ;
and dark-eyed Coralie in corn-color and black. This night, this
ball, was to Lida Carew an event of importance. She felt that
all her hopes were to be blessed or blighted on the issue of this
evening. So her choice of dress, her manner and her speech,
were all matters of tender solicitude.
Several times that gay evening Father de la Croix looked in-
to the pretty parlors. The young people were gathering all the
amusement possible out of the dance. Bright and beautiful, Lida
Carew was exerting every womanly art in Lawrence Fancher's
behalf. He was cordial, cheerful, and attentive to all his moth-
er's guests.
Once, in the quadrille, as Lida crossed over and stood beside
him, she looked up at him with a bewitching glance. He smiled
down at her indulgently, as one would to a child ; and the girl
turned impatiently away.
" Ah, my poor, dear child ! " Father de la Croix said to him-
self. " I wish it had only been some other besides my good
Lawrence. A dear, sweet child she is, and ripe for the faith, if
this disappointment does not chill her."
When the musicians went to supper there were loud calls for
Lawrence to take the idle fiddle. Then such a "Virginia Reel"
as he played ! No one, with an atom of music in their being,
could resist that reel. Even the older people joined in, catch-
ing the spirit of the dance. In the general merriment Profes-
sor Hunter forgot his timidity in Miss Carew's presence, and,
taking her hand, led her out to the middle of the floor. Law-
rence walked up and down with his fiddle. The dancers capered
merrily, and when it was over every one pronounced that reel
the best dance of the evening. Lawrence caught Father de la
Croix's eye several times during the progress of the reel. A
mist was in the old man's eyes, his gaze full of affection.
THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. [Dec.,
"My dear, dear Lawrence! How strange are the ways of
God! This seems the dear boy's place in life, and yet how far
and how different are his hopes and intentions!"
The simpler, more healthful life of these young people did
not tell upon their energies as the more exacting social life of
to-day tells upon its votaries. So it was but little later than
usual next morning when the household of Hillwood gathered
around the breakfast-table. The ball was discussed with great
zest ; and all united in pronouncing Lida Carew and her guest,
Coralie Planche, the special belles of the evening. Then much
good-natured banter was indulged in at Joe's expense over his
very apparent admiration for the dark-eyed Creole, as also over
Charlie Carew's devotion to Helen.
Judge Fancher rose from the table. Lawrence pushed back
his chair at the same moment.
"Father, I would like to see you and mother in the library
for a few moments."
"Certainly, my son," Judge Fancher answered, going in that
direction.
Lawrence drew his mother's hand through his arm and fol-
lowed his father. A general smile passed around the table, ex-
cept that it missed Professor Hunter's expressive face. He
looked down nervously and played with his knife and fork.
" Lawrence is going to tell his engagement to Lida Carew,"
was the general thought as the trio disappeared.
Judge Fancher sat down in the roomy arm-chair; Lawrence
drew up a cozy rocker for his mother. Then he went and stood
leaning against the white marble mantelpiece. Mrs. Fancher
looked up a moment at her handsome son. A pang, a mother's
natural regret, filled her heart. Another love had come in be-
tween her and her idolized first-born ; but little did she dream
of the deathless, strong nature of this new love.
With his characteristic directness Lawrence proceeded at once
to the matter in hand.
" Father, I expect you and mother will be surprised at what
I am going to say ; but, the truth is, the matter has only taken
a clear, definite shape in my own mind within the last few
days."
The old judge smiled slightly at the idea of their being sur-
prised at what they had so long expected his marriage with
Lida Carew.
" Ever since I left college I have had a strong attraction to-
wards one state of life. Lately it has become more than that.
1894-] THE HILL WOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. 301
It is now a great, almost irresistible yearning. It is no sudden
fancy. I have thought it over well, I have mingled with the
world ; I have neglected neither my social duties, my professional
labors, nor my obligations to my family and home. But at the
end of it all is this great desire. I want to be a priest, if I am
worthy. I will never be satisfied in any other life. The call
of God is now so clear in my mind that I could not resist it
and ever be happy or useful in the world."
, Lawrence paused. Surprise had indeed overcome both father
and mother. For several moments not a word was spoken.
There seemed at first nothing at all to say; then Judge Fancher
looked anxiously at his son.
" I thought, Lawrence, it was something of an entirely differ-
ent nature that you wished to tell us. We have always looked
to your marriage and your succeeding me at Hillwood and in
my profession as a matter of course. There is nothing we can
say against your entering the priesthood. It is a high and holy
vocation. If you have thought well over it, neither your mother
nor I can oppose your desire. We had believed, however, that
you and Miss Ltda Carew might marry, and that you would
gradually take my place here."
The father's strong yearning to hold near him this helpful
son spoke in the earnestness of the old judge's voice. Mrs.
Fancher was wiping away the tears she could not control. The
pang she had felt at the thought of his marriage grew greater
now as she realized that his union with the church meant a
wider, more complete separation and sacrifice than the forming
of any earthly tie.
Lawrence was looking at her intently, anxious for her answer.
" My dear son," she said, " of course you must make your
own choice of a life ; but you must let us grow accustomed to
this idea. It is, indeed, a holy calling, an awful responsibility.
Think well over it the sacrifices, the labors and hardships of a
priest's life. Still, if you desire and decide to become a priest,
we have only blessings to wish you in your new state. Have
you spoken to Father de la Croix yet ? "
" Yes ; we talked it over last night. Strange to say, he too
had taken up the idea that I intended to marry Miss Lida Ca-
rew. Miss Lida is almost as dear to me as Helen or Gertrude,
but the idea of marrying her never once entered my mind. I
do not believe she ever thought of such a thing herself. At
least there has never been the slightest approach to sentiment
on my part. I am sincerely fond of Lida. Nobody could help
302 THE HlLLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. [Dec.,
liking her ; and I know she has so many admicers that she does
not think of me among her lovers."
" I am sure, my son," Judge Fancher said, " you have been
perfectly honorable in this regard, as I believe you are with all
the world. It was just an impression we had formed ; because
we are all so fond of Miss Lida, and it would have pleased us
had you married her."
" Father de la Croix advises me to go to the college and
make a nine days' retreat, then speak to the bishop. I would
like to begin my studies at once."
" Just as you wish, my son. Perhaps you had better not
come to town with me to-day. There will be so much for you
to fix up here, and your mother will want you to stay. Are
you going down on the boat with Father de la Croix?"
" Yes, sir."
"Well, you have left all the papers in the Stallworth case in
such good shape that I will not need you at the office. Besides
your mother and sisters will want to see all they can of you for
the next few days."
No case in court ever gave Judge Fancher such serious re-
flection as he indulged in for the days that followed. At Law-
rence's request the whole family had been informed of his wishes
and intentions. A subdued, solemn air pervaded the house. It
was almost as if death had entered its sunny portals. Never
had the kind, thoughtful oldest brother and son seemed as dear,
as indispensable as now.
The morning that Father de la Croix and Lawrence rode
over to the landing they had only Gilbert, the driver, with them,
for it seemed generally understood that Lawrence would prefer
a quiet departure.
The nine days of his absence passed uneventfully at Hill-
wood, save for one memorable scene between Helen Fancher
and Lida Carew. They had walked down to the pretty, fern-
bordered spring, and were sitting under the moss-draped oaks.
Gently, and with a wealth of sympathy she dared not express,
Helen told Lida the purpose of Lawrence's visit to the city,
his retreat at the college, and his probable immediate prepara-
tion for the priesthood. She knew this fact would be widely
known in a little while, and she dreaded the sudden breaking of
such tidings to Lida in some social gathering.
Never had Helen so loved her, so sorrowed for her friend,
as she did when the full force of Lawrence's decision broke up r
on Lida. The hot tears stood in Miss Carew's blue eyes, and
1894-] THE HILL WOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. 303
with trembling lips she denounced the church that could so in-
fluence the sacrifice of its manhood. She upbraided Judge and
Mrs. Fancher that they could consent to such a sacrifice, and
scornfully wondered at Helen's acquiescence.
Helen listened patiently and sympathetically, too greatly
touched by Lida's grief to resent her criticisms ; and only glad
that no other listener had heard this first impulsive outbreak.
By the time the news of Lawrence Fancher's retirement
from the world had reached the entire circle of their friends,
Lida had disciplined herself to discuss the matter like any dis-
interested friend, all the while her heart was full of bitterest
disappointment.
There are but few more scenes for me to draw of the happy
Hill wood household. I linger over them, however; I like to re-
call that mid-winter twilight, when Lawrence came back from
his retreat. The family were gathered around the fireside in
the dining-room, waiting for supper. Looking out of the win-
dow, Mrs. Fancher saw Lawrence coming up the avenue. The
others saw him too, but none followed the mother as she went
out to meet him. At the foot of the broad gallery stairs they
met. It needed no word to tell the mother's quick intuition
what the result of that visit had been. She kissed him ten-
derly, and in her yearning heart she knew she must give him
up but give him up only to God. Lawrence put his arm around
his mother and helped her up the stairs, and together they en-
tered the dining-room.
His stay at home was short. I like to recall that sunny
January morning when he stood on the gallery to say good-by
to family, friends, and slaves. How the darkies wept at the
thought of losing their dear young master, whom they expected
to rule over them in his father's place, and who they knew
would prove a kind, thoughtful master!
The Carews had come over with the other neighbors ; old
Mrs. Carew disapproving the whole affair, Charlie wondering at
such a step for a well-born young man, and Lida hiding the
wound to her pride and affection under a manner of quiet,
friendly regret. After Liwrence had left, it seemed as if
nothing went right in Judge Fancher's office.
"Mother," he said one evening, after a wearying day, "I
shall never make a lawyer out of Joe. I wish one of the other
boys was old enough to take in the office. I think I will leave
Joe to look after things out here. He really has no taste for
3 o 4 THE HILL WOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. [Dec.,
law, and now, as Lawrence has gone, Joe ought to learn how to
manage the plantation, as it will go to him now> of course. I
only wish I had some one in the office with me. We are over-
crowded with work."
Professor Hunter was reiding some letters in a corner by
the window. He looked up eagerly ; started toward Judge
Fancher, then hesitated and stopped.
"Did you wish to speak to me, professor?" the old gentle-
man asked kindly.
" I was only going to say, sir, if you would take me in, the
office, I would be very glad to make myself useful to you. I
want to study law, but I have no means of doing so; and if
you would let me read law in your office, under your direction,
I would do all in my power to be of service to you."
"Why certainly, professor. You are just the very man for
the place. I must really let Joe go, for the whole business is
a terrible grind on him. He is a born planter."
" John is ready for college I think, judge," said Mrs.
Fancher, " and he could go with Fred this session." With
wifely solicitude, she was anxious to make everything easy
toward giving her husband the help he needed, and missed so
early in Lawrence's absence.
So Professor Hunter took Lawrence's place in Judge
Fancher's office. Talent and industry soon told in his favor,
and it was not long until he was admitted as junior partner.
In another direction he strove with all earnestness to take
Lawrence's place, and that was in Lida Carew's regard. His
respectful attentions, his worth and ability, all appealed to her
better judgment. It was not long before the talented young
Irishman was Miss Carew's accepted suitor, just as Charlie
Carew was now Helen Fancher's affianced.
Many long and serious conversations had Lida and her be-
trothed over differences of religion, and when Charlie Carew,
a few weeks before his marriage, asked to be received into the
Catholic Church, Professor Hunter and Lida asked a similar
favor of Father de la Croix.
It was a grand double wedding, the bishop coming from
town with Father de la Croix to perform the ceremony. With *
them came Lawrence Fancher. After that brief visit he bade
good-by for ever to the dear old home. None knew the depth
of the sacrifice, the tenderness of his heart's clinging to Hill-
wood, as he looked his last on the beloved vistas of field and
forest, meadow and homestead.
1 894.] THE HILLWOOD CHRISTMAS BALL. 305
There is little more to tell, and yet many changes to chron-
icle in the lives of these young people. One parting glance at
the group we found at the Hillwood breakfast-table that De-
cember morning, with apparently no more serious aim in life
than the success of a Christmas ball.
The war cloud broke. The South was prostrated; but
through the darkness the Fanchers bravely worked out their
individual destinies.
Joe married the pretty Louisianian, Miss Coralie Planche,
and ruled over dear old Hillwood, as did Charlie Carew, with
Helen, over his mother's plantation. These young men had won
prosperity after the days of weary struggling that followed the
war.
In the pretty river-side graveyard sleep the Judge and Mrs.
Fancher. Fred and John are substantial merchants in the town
adjacent to Hillwood.
Out in a far Western city Gertrude wears the black veil of
a saintly, happy nun, the superioress of her convent.
In a Northern metropolis, zealous, tireless, eloquent, and
beloved, Father Lawrence Fancher battles bravely with sin and
evil. Often as he stands in the pulpit of his stately church,
stirring hearts and lifting lives with his sacred eloquence, a
handsome matron, sitting beside her distinguished husband, an
eminent judge, raises humble eyes to the speaker, and thanks
God, from a grateful, happy heart, that her once human selfish
love did not stand in the way of so high a call, so holy a mis-
sion, as this priest has answered and followed.
VOL. LX. 20
THE PRINCE OF INDIA ; [Dec.,
THE PRINCE OF INDIA; OR, "WHY CONSTANTI-
NOPLE FELL."
A CRITIQUE ON A RENOWNED WORK OF A RENOWNED AUTHOR.
BY REV. CHARLES WARREN CURRIER.
T is now many years since I first became ac-
quainted with the name of the author of Ben
Hur. How well I remember the fascination which
that little work exercised over me, the avidity
with which I devoured it, its vivid descriptions,
its thrilling narratives, and the ever-increasing interest it awak-
ened. Truly, Ben ffur deserves its reputation, for it is a mas-
terpiece of its kind. In after years a casual glance was cast at
the Fair God ; but it was not Ben Hur, and the book was laid aside.
About a year ago the study of the Greek Revolution, the
one during which Byron ended his life, brought my mind back
through centuries gone to the period of the Byzantine Empire.
The Fall of Constantinople ! What a subject for fiction,
thought I. It seemed to me one that presented a virgin soil to
the novelist, and I determined to weave its incidents into a
story which has since seen the light, though, I regret to state,
with one or two historical inaccuracies of little consequence
which will be corrected in a future edition.
I say, that I had supposed the period of the fall of the
Byzantine Empire to be one greatly neglected by the novelist.
You may imagine my surprise when, having completed several
chapters of Dimitrios and Irene, an article in the New York
World drew my attention to the fact that Lew Wallace had a
book ready on the very same subject. Of course my interest
was awakened, and the book had hardly issued from the press
of Harper & Brothers when I procured a copy of the 'ele-
gantly bound volumes. I knew and admired Ben Hur, and
being aware of the fact that General Wallace, as minister to
Turkey, had possessed ample opportunity to render himself
familiar with the antiquities of Constantinople, I expected won-
ders from his pen and a work of historical fiction that would
even surpass Ben Hur.
You ask my impressions ? I answer briefly that when I
1894-] OR, " WHY CONSTANTINOPLE FELL." 307
compare the Prince of India with Ben Hur, I think of Paradise
Lost and Paradise Regained. The former is intrinsically immor^
tal, the latter will live only on account of the name of it
author. No ! The Prince of India is not Ben Hur. Its style is
still the concise, original style of " The Tale of the Christ,"
abounding in figures and sparkling with frequent flashes of
bright ideas, but its interest, its genius, is not the same. In
Ben Hur the interest of the reader never flags for a moment ; it
is kept up from cover to cover with growing intensity. It is
not thus with the Prince of India. In the latter there are
some thrilling episodes, it is true, but the narrative is over-
charged with long-drawn-out discussions, and interest is too
frequently permitted to wax cold by passages which, to the
average reader at least, must appear dull.
And yet the Prince of India has its merit. The author
shows deep study and a thorough acquaintance with the man-
ners of Oriental nations, but the too abundant use of foreign
expressions without a translation proves a source of annoyance
to the reader, though it may heighten the appearance of the
author's erudition.
The work is an historical romance, if you like, but many of
its principal personages are imaginary, and its most important
episodes are purely fictitious. In fact, its predominant idea,
that expressed upon the title-page, " Why Constantinople Fell,"
is a creation of the author's brain. This certainly detracts from
the merit of a historical romance, and it seems to be at vari-
ance with the practice of writers of this school, to obscure the
great facts of history by fiction. If we seek the true reasons
for the fall of Byzantium, we shall find them in the internal
decay of the empire, its numerous divisions, the duplicity of
the Greeks, the aggressiveness of. the Turks, the spirit of Mo-
hammedan propagandism, and last, but not least, in the slowness
and apparent indifference of the other Christian nations, but we
shall not seek them in the influence of the Wandering Jew, nor
in the love of Mohammed II. for an imaginary Princess Iren.
The story is based upon a trite and ridiculous legend which
has repeatedly been told in poetry and fiction, that of the
Wandering Jew.
To Christians in general, the reasonings of the Wandering
Jew, the Prince of India, imply rationalism, deism, and the very
destruction of Christianity, while to Roman Catholics and those
of the Greek Church, both united and orthodox, the part acted
by the monk Sergius is highly offensive.
THE PRINCE OF INDIA / [Dec.,
The story begins in the year 1395, and we are at once
introduced to the principal personage, the Wandering Jew, who
finds the sword of Solomon and a treasure of jewels in the
tomb of Hiram, near the ruins of Tyre. These he secretes on
an island of the Sea of Marmora near Constantinople, to make
use of in an emergency and to defray his expenses. He then
disappears, and the first book is ended.
The Wandering Jew being the principal personage of the
story, as Irene is its heroine, it will be well to pay brief atten-
tion to the legend which has given him to us. This is first
mentioned in the thirteenth century, in the chronicle of Mat-
thew Paris, and is said to have been received from an Ar-
menian bishop who visited England in 1228. According to the
legend as it first appears, Cartaphilus was a door-keeper of
Pilate's palace, who, as Christ was led forth to execution,
struck him a blow, saying : " Go, Jesus, go on faster ; why dost
thou linger ? " The Saviour replied : " I go, but thou shalt re-
main waiting till I return." The unfortunate man afterwards
became a Christian, and he was baptized by Ananias under the
name of Joseph. At the time of the crucifixion he was thirty
years of age ; but whenever he completes a century he loses
consciousness, and, on regaining it, finds himself once more
in the full vigor of a man of thirty. It may be that this
legend had been founded upon one of the many apocryphal
gospels which existed in the early ages of Christianity. At all
events, it made a considerable impression, and, at various times,
even as late as the last century, persons have appeared in Ger-
many, France, and England giving themselves out as the Wan-
dering Jew.
The Prince of India, however, is by no means a Christian.
After trying his hand at varioas schemes, instigating the nations
to war and bloodshed, and fomenting the Crusades, in his final
appearance, before the fall of Constantinople, he turns his atten-
tion to religion and conceives the idea of uniting the nations in
a vast brotherhood and a simple creed, expressed by the word
God. With this plan in his mind, he appears in the second
book as the Prince of India, having assumed the guise of a
Mussulman and taking part in the pilgrimage to Mecca, during
which he makes the acquaintance of an emir of Sultan Amurath
and a friend of Mohammed II. The Mohammedan nations do
not appear to him ripe for his plans, and he determines to try
Christianity, going to Constantinople. The descriptions in these
first two books are vivid, as they are throughout the narrative.
1 894.]
OR, " WHY CONSTANTINOPLE FELL."
309
"HE THEN DISAPPEARS." (Page 308 )
3 [0 THE PRINCE OF INDIA ; [Dec.,
In fact, the descriptive powers of the author are the principal
source of attraction in the work. He paints with simple yet
lively colors.
Here and there we find a statement or expression with
which it is impossible to agree. For instance, in describing the
tomb of Hiram, he writes : " Under the sword were the instru-
ments sacred then and ever since to Master-Masons a square,
a gavel, a plummet, and an inscribing compass." Surely such a
serious author can have no intention, as his words seem to in-
dicate, of adding a sanction to the ridiculous and unhistorical
fables of the Masonic ritual.
The author makes the Prince of India, in one of his mono-
logues, speak thus : " The knoll on which the Byzantine built
his Church of the Holy Sepulchre is not the Calvary. That
the cowled liars call the Sepulchre never held the body of
Christ. The tears of the millions of penitents have but watered
a monkish deceit. . . . Fools and blasphemers ! The Via
Dolorosa led out of the Damascus gate on the north. The
skull-shaped hill beyond that gate is the Golgotha, etc." Of
course, if the Wandering Jew were a real person who had been
present at the crucifixion, these words would command our
attention and merit our respect ; but, as it is, we strongly sus-
pect that they express the opinions of the author, who herein
is not original, but who follows Doctor Robinson against the
venerable tradition of centuries, and the opinion of Warren,
Tischendorff, and other learned archaeologists.
The third book introduces us to the heroine of the story,
the Princess Irene", a kinswoman of the last Byzantine emperor,
who resides in the charming palace of Therapia, on the shores
of the Bosphorus. Here the Russian monk, Sergius, a youth
whose sentiments and opinions are closely linked to those of
Irene, comes upon the scene. The latter, while in a boat with
Sergius, is forced by a storm to seek refuge on the Asiatic
shore, and she meets with the Prince of India and his adopted
daughter, Lael, whom a similar circumstance has brought thither.
Prince Mohammed happening to be at the White Castle in
disguise, seeing Irene", falls in love with her, and thus another
and a stronger incentive is added to those he already possesses
for conquering Constantinople.
In the fourth book we are brought into the palace of
Blacherne, where the Prince of India has an audience with Con-
stantine, to whom he begins to expound his peculiar faith. In
this book the plot is laid which will, later, culminate in the
1894-] R> " WHY CONSTANTINOPLE FELL" 311
abduction of Lael, and, by hastening the departure of the Prince
of India, finally promote the designs of Mohammed and the
fall of Constantinople. The religious opinions of Iren and
Sergius begin to assume definite shape, and the latter falls in
love with the Jewess, Lael.
Who is Iren ? Is she an historical character ?
This question, for lack of more abundant information, I hesi-
tate to answer either in the affirmative or the negative. The
author tells us that she was the daughter of Manuel, the illegiti-
mate brother of Manuel Palaeologus, the emperor ; that he gained
a naval victory over the Turks off Plati in 1412, that he was
imprisoned by the emperor, and finally liberated by Constantine
with his only surviving child, the Princess Irene". That this
Manuel really existed is certain, that he had children with whom
he was imprisoned after his victory over the Turks must be ad-
mitted as equally certain, but that he was ever liberated from
prison and that one of his children was the Princess Iren, ap-
pears doubtful. Ducange, in his genealogy of the Byzantine
families, writes as follows:
" Manuel Palaeologus, illegitimate son of the Emperor John,
is especially renowned among writers for the distinguished naval
victory he gained in a battle with the Turkish Sultan Musa,
which afterwards became the cause of his ruin. The Emperor
Manuel fearing lest, elated by this success, he should covet the
empire, or, as others say, being jealous of the glory of this brave
man, cast Manuel, together with his children, into a prison in
which he finally expired after the lapse of seventeen years."
Ducange cites Phranza* as one of his authorities. There is, then,
here an important disagreement between the historian and the
novelist. The former makes Manuel die in captivity seventeen
years after his imprisonment, that is, in 1429; while with the
latter we find him still alive in 1448. If such a person as Irene
Palaeologina had been known to history, Ducange, who has
made an exhaustive study of the Byzantine dynasties, would
undoubtedly have mentioned her. He speaks, not only of those
who were directly connected with the emperors, but also of the
descendants of the family down to the sixteenth century among
the Marquises of Montferrat, and of all those of the name of
Palaeologus whom he was able to find. I have looked in vain
over these lists for the slightest trace of our Princess Iren6.
There is mention of several persons of the name of Iren< among
the Palseologi, but not one of them is the daughter of Manuel,
* Families Byzantines.
THE PRINCE OF INDIA ; [Dec.,
the illegitimate son of John Palaeologus. It is true the author
may. have had sources of information with which I am not ac-
quainted, and for this reason I repeat that I dare not decide
the question whether the Princess Irene is an historical person
or not, though I strongly incline to the negative opinion.
The article in the New York World which I mentioned in
the beginning says: "That there was a lady of the name of
Irene" among the slaves who were added to the harem of the
conqueror may be accepted as a fact. But not all the historians
who mention her name agree that she was in any way related
to the Emperor Constantine. They greatly differ also in the
stories concerning her fate." This story of Irene is related in Ver-
tot's History of the Knights of Malta and in Knolle's History of
the Turks. The former makes her a " young Greek lady of noble
birth, called Iren<, hardly seventeen years old." Gibbon doubts
the truth of this stvory, and Von Hammer completely rejects it.
Taking all circumstances into consideration, it appears to me
that I am justified in calling our heroine an imaginary Princess
Irene, for no trace of her is to be found among the Byzantine
historians, and the legend which appears to have suggested her
name to our author is extremely doubtful.
Having disposed of this important question, several of minor
consequence draw our attention. In the twentieth chapter of
the third book the Arab story-teller, who is no one else than
Prince Mohammed in disguise, tells the Princess Irene" that the
Turkish prince (Mohammed) had had as teachers the best Arab
professors from Cordova. This is evidently an oversight, for,
at the period of the fall of Constantinople, more than two hun-
dred years had elapsed since Cordova had passed from the hands
of the Arabs to those of the Christians, and its venerable uni-
versity was then only a thing of memory, for more than four
centuries had gone by since the flourishing period of the learn-
ing of that once illustrious city. If any Moorish learning was
left in Spain, it was to be found only in the kingdom of Gra-
nada.
The description in the fourth chapter of the fourth book, in
which the anchorites are represented as a set of howling demo-
niacs taking part in the procession of the Pannychides, is an ab-
surd exaggeration, which can find no verification in the annals of
monasticism ; for, though the abuse of this sacred state may have
frequently been ridiculous and sometimes sinful, still we have no
ground for believing that in the exercise of their religious func-
tions the monks ever went over even to the state of Methodists in
1894-] OR, " Way CONSTANTINOPLE FELL" 313
a stage of over-excitement. There are three kinds of Caloyers, or
Greek monks the cenobites, the anchorites, and the recluses.
The last-mentioned never leave their cells, nor does it seem reason-
able to suppose that they would have taken part in a public
procession, and I think the same may be said of the anchorites,
who lead secluded lives in the neighborhood of monasteries. If,
at the present day, the Greek monks are to a great extent in a
condition of ignorance and degradation, we must remember that
for four centuries the weight of Turkish domination has been
pressing heavily upon their country and their institution, and
that even the patriarch of Constantinople is practically a slave
of the Turk. The procession the author here refers to is pro-
bably that in honor of the Panachia, the Blessed Virgin, which
took place on the i$th of August and which is described by
Constantine Porphyrogeneta. But several of the circumstances
related here do not seem to agree with the procession of the
Metastasis, or the Assumption.
We are told in the same book that the Hegumenos of the
monastery of St. James of Manganese had a son, the young
devil namely, member of the Academy of Epicurus, who suc-
ceeded in abducting Lael. This would indicate that the vener-
able superior of the monastery had been a married man before he
became a monk. There is no other explanation, with the know-
ledge in our mind that celibacy is one of the most stringent
obligations of Oriental monks, as well as of those in the West.
The differences between the Greeks and Latins are clearly
set forth with one exception, which the context, however, shows
must proceed either from a typographical error or an inadver-
tence. In regard to the procession of the Holy Ghost, the au-
thor makes the Greeks believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds
from the Son (vol. i. p. 459) ; but the explanation which fol-
lows being in contradiction to this statement, consequently shows
it to have been a slip. I, therefore, attach no importance to the
inaccuracy.
A more serious error is that which makes Bessarion retract his
subscription to the Council of Florence (p. 464), for inciting the
words of the Greek members of the Council, on their return to
Constantinople : " We have sold our faith we have betrayed the
pure sacrifice we have become Azymites," the Hegumen says to
Sergius, " Thus spake Bessarion ; thus Balsamon, etc."
What proof is there that Bessarion spoke thus? He was one
of the few who remained faithful to the council, and in the ser-
vice of the Roman Church he afterwards filled the highest offices,
3I4 THE PRINCE OF INDIA ; [Dec.,
being honored with the purple only a few months after the
Greeks had returned home, namely, in December, 1439, and once
coming very near being elected to the highest dignity in the
Church. Bessarion was one of the most highly esteemed car-
dinals of his day.
The author also falls into error when he states that the
Greeks deny the existence of purgatory, and believe only in
heaven and hell ; for though they do not use the word purga-
tory, and deny the existence of material fire therein, they
nevertheless admit a transitory state for certain souls after
death, and the utility of prayers for the dead, which amounts
to a belief in purgatory.
The author is guilty of an unpardonable error in the ac-
count of the life of St. Anthony which he places in the mouth
of Demedes, the son of the Hegumenos (p. 471). He makes
the saint fly from the vision of beautiful women, and follow
some children of Islam into the desert. The tempting visions
accompany him all through life; every day and night they
stand before him for eighty-nine years, in spite of his macera-
tions. What nonsense! Every student of hagiology in fact,
whoever has but glanced at the life of St. Anthony, sees the
absurdity of associating the saint with Islam, which was not
dreamt of in his day ! St. Anthony died more than two
hundred years before the founder of Islam was born. That
the occasion of his flight into the desert was the vision of
beautiful women is far from the truth, and we have only to
refer the distinguished author to an authentic life of the saint.
He need not go to the Bollandists; let him take Alban Butler.
The saint was occasionally tempted by evil suggestions, but
they were far from lasting all his life, troubling him at inter-
vals chiefly in the beginning of his spiritual career, as his bio-
graphers tell us.
Another inaccuracy I cannot fail to note, I find (p. 481, vol.
i.) where the beads, possibly used by Oriental monks to count
ths number of their prayers, are confounded with the Rosary,
including its division into chaplets and mysteries, which is en-
tirely of Latin origin. In fact, the practice of meditating upon
the mysteries while reciting the Rosary had been recently in-
troduced by a Dominican friar, Alan de la Roche, when Con-
stantinople fell, and it is not probable that it was then adapted
in the East.
The fifth book gives us the adventures of, and the singular
change which takes place in the Emir Mirza, who, being sent
1894-] os, " WHY CONSTANTINOPLE FELL" 315
by Mohammed on a secret mission to Constantinople, discovers
that he is an Italian nobleman, becomes a Christian, and falls
in love with the Princess Iren.
The sixth and last book occupies itself with the siege of
Constantinople, the tragic end of Constantine, the last emperor,
and the marriage of Mohammed with Iren6. The Prince of
India disappears from the scene by undergoing his fourteenth
transformation from old age to youth. This book contains
several passages of striking beauty and interest.
If now we review the whole story, our attention is again
drawn to several inaccuracies, and to the consideration of the
most important personages, namely, Mohammed, the Prince of
India, Sergius, and Iren6.
On page 409, vol. i., in the description of George Schola-
rius, known by his monastic name of Gennadius, the author
places before our imagination the monk with a Latin tonsure,
for the band of hair around the scalp is the peculiar Roman
tonsure, known as that of St. Peter, while the Oriental tonsure,
or that of St. Paul, consisted in the shaving of the whole head.
But Gennadius had no right to either tonsure, as he was not
an ecclesiastic, and Helyot tells us that the Greek monks allow
their hair to grow, although at the ceremony of their receiving
the habit a portion of hair is cut off in the form of a cross.
George Scholarius, having become a monk in the monastery of
Pautocrator, was elected superior, but he remained a layman
until after the fall of Constantinople, when, being elected
patriarch with the sanction of Mohammed, he received orders.
He is said to have afterwards resigned the patriarchate and re-
tired to the monastery of St. Podronus, where he died.
In regard to the patriarch, in following the narrative of our
author we find him still in Constantinople after the month of
October, 145 [ (see book v. chap, viii.) ; but this does not agree
with the facts of history, for the learned Dominican, Father Le
Quien, in his Oriens Christianus, tells us that the patriarch left
Constantinople, never to return, in August, 1451. Gregorios
Mamma, or Melissenus, was the last patriarch before the fall of
Constantinople, although it is said that after his resignation
another patriarch was elected by name Athanasius, but Father
Le Quien denies the truth of this assertion. Gregorios was a
relative of Duke Notaras, but, unlike him, he remained faithful
to the decree of Union. The opposition brought against him
was so great that, according to Phranza, he resigned his office
and went into voluntary exile. He died in Rome in 1459.
316 THE PRINCE OF INDIA ; [Dec.,
On page 239, vol. ii., our author puts a grave historical
error in the mouth of the emperor. When speaking of the
heresiarch Arius, Constantine asks : " Him the first Constantine
sent to prison for life, did he not?" Are we justified in sup-
posing the last Constantine so ignorant of the history of his
country? The fact is, that Arius was banished to Illyricum, but
afterwards recalled to Constantinople, where he shortly expired.
Chapter vi. of the fifth book seems to indicate a rather
superficial knowledge of the liturgy. About three o'clock in
the afternoon Mass is celebrated in St. Sophia, the vestments
of the celebrant are briefly given, and then "the venerable
celebrant drew nearer the altar, and, after a prayer, took up a
chalice and raised it as if in honor of an image of Christ on a
cross in the agonies of crucifixion." This description was evi-
dently written by one whose familiarity with the ancient litur-
gies is limited, as both Latins and Greeks who read it will
easily understand. The same may be said of the disgraceful
scenes described in the eighth chapter of the same book, in
which the patriarch- celebrates the Eucharist in St. Sophia.
The ceremony consists merely in the distribution of the Holy
Communion, the celebrant, clad in surplice and stole, communi-
cating himself without celebrating Mass. But what is still more
strikingly absurd, after communicating himself, still merely clad
in surplice and stole, the patriarch " blessed the Body and the
Blood and mixed them together in chalices ready for "delivery
to the company of servers kneeling about him." The author
was probably present at a service of the Greek Church, and he
observed some of the ceremonies he describes, but he, no doubt,
failed to perceive their harmony. During his sojourn in Con-
stantinople he might certainly have devoted closer attention to
the venerable liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
In the same chapter the distinguished author falls into a
serious oversight, contradicting a correct statement he made in
the seventh chapter of the fourth book. There he truly stated
that one of the differences between the Latins and the Greeks
consists herein, that the former use unleavened, the latter
leavened bread in the Holy Eucharist. Here he makes the
mistake of attributing the use of leavened bread to the Latins,
when he writes that a certain party in the church " anathema-
tized the attempt to impose leavened bread upon orthodox
communicants as a scheme of the devil and his archlegate, the
Bishop of Rome." However, this error is evidently not the
fruit of ignorance, but rather of thoughtlessness.
1 894.] OR, " WHY CONSTANTINOPLE FELL." 317
We now proceed to the consideration of certain personages
of the story and its bearing upon religion. In regard to
Mohammed, the author draws a favorable and rather pleasing
picture of the conqueror. He is young, handsome, learned,
generous, and brave, but these qualities are offset by impetu-
osity, ambition, superstition, and cruelty towards those who
resist him. On the whole, the portrait here presented to us is
more flattering to Mohammed than that drawn by historians
generally, notably by Gibbon and perhaps Von Hammer. It
softens his savage features and mitigates his duplicity, while of
his unnatural and licentious conduct not a trace appears. One
would almost suspect that there is a tender spot for him in the
author's heart.
The Prince of India is what we would call nowadays an
old crank, and yet not a harmless crank. His restless charac-
ter is filled with cunning, a burning thirst for revenge, and even
cruelty. His conduct in abandoning Constantinople in the
flames he had himself kindled, at the very moment when Ser-
gius and his faithful Nilo are seeking for the lost Lael, is most
unnatural, and not at all in keeping with the fatherly love he
had professed for the young Jewess. But it is especially from
a religious stand-point that he deserves our attention. His doc-
trine is entirely subversive of Christianity, and nothing else but
a mixture of those preached by pantheists, rationalists, Unitari-
ans, Theosophists, Freemasons, and what not of modern times.
His arguments, accompanied with a great show of erudition,
are specious sophistries, well calculated to ensnare the unwary
intellect. They are placed before the reader, not as the
opinions of the author, it is true, but as those of the Prince of
India, yet they contain a subtle poison without a concomitant
antidote. Argumentations are held against Christianity, the
Emperor Constantine is foolishly made to admire the wisdom
of the speaker, and no refutation is given. For this reason, at
kast, the book on which I have been requested to pass an
opinion is, to my mind, a dangerous book. Error is subtle,
and when the refutation is not forthcoming it may penetrate
deep into the mind.
In regard to the Princess Iren and the monk Sergius, they
are nothing more nor less than predecessors of the sixteenth
century reformers, plus the practices of the Greek Church, such
as the use of the sign of the cross, the veneration of images,
and the belief in the Real Presence, though they look upon the
latter more as a form than as an article of faith. Their creed
THE PRINCE OF INDIA ; [Dec.,
seems innocent enough, but when explained it is rank Protest-
antism with an addition of other errors. Hear Sergius in his
discourse in St. Sophia : " It is well known to you that our
Lord did not found a church during his life on earth, but gave
authority for it to his Apostles. It is known to you also that
what his Apostles founded was but a community. . . . But
in time this community became known as the church, and there
was nothing of it except our Lord's creed, in definition of the
Faith, and two ordinances for the church Baptism for the re-
mission of sins, that the baptized might receive the Comforter,
and the Sacraments, that the believers, often as they partook
of the Body and Blood of Christ, might be reminded of
him. . . . The three hundred bishops and presbyters from
whom you have your creeds (Council of Nice) took the two
articles from our Lord's creed, and then they added others.
Thus, which of you can find a text of our Lord treating of his
procession from the substance of God ? Again, in what passage
has our Lord required belief in the personage of the Holy
Ghost as an article of faith essential to salvation ? " This is
what Sergius calls primitive Christianity. What is it ? Unitari-
anism, a doctrine that would have been rejected as impious by
those who framed the Confession of Augsburg.
And this Sergius, who is he ? When he first appears upon
the scene we are told that he is a deacon of the Russian
monastery of Bielo Osero, raised to the deaconship by Father
Hilarion, of whom there is no mention that he is a bishop,
though we are all aware that only a bishop can confer the
order of deacon. If Sergius were a deacon in the Russian
Church, his order would have been recognized in Constanti-
nople, for the Greeks and Russians were of the same com-
munion, and yet the Russian monk, though admitted into the
monastery of St. James of Manganese, is placed among the
neophytes (newly converted). An absurdity ! Did the author
mean novices? Even for this fiction there is no ground. But
we find a still greater contradiction. When Sergius first ap-
pears we are told that he is a deacon, but at the end of the
work (p. 574) we read that "Sergius never took orders for-
mally." From this and other passages, I incline to the belief
that the author has a very poor conception of the Sacrament of
Holy Orders, as well as of the nature of the monastic state.
Whether Sergius were in orders or not, he was at least a
monk, and as a monk he was bound to celibacy. The monastic
vows are looked upon as of the strictest obligation both by
1 894.]
OR, " WHY CONSTANTINOPLE FELL"
319
Greeks and Latins, and among the Russians those who break
them are punished by perpetual imprisonment, nor can the
bishops grant a dispensation.* And yet Sergius, in spite of his
being a monk and a deacon in the monastery of Father
Hilarion, marries Lael the Jewess, and remains the friend of
Irene, who is wedded to Mahommed by the very man who
made him a deacon, Father Hilarion, the Hegumenos of Bielo
Osero. Some one may understand this transaction. I certainly
cannot, except by lowering Sergius to the level of an apos-
tate, and looking upon the Princess Iren and Father Hilarion
as his abettors ; but it may be that, having simplified their
creed, they had come to regard monastic vows as a human
institution of no binding power, as Luther did in the following
century.
In fine, though the work, as I have said, possesses merit ;
though it frequently presents vivid and glowing pictures and
rivets the attention by interesting episodes ; though most proba-
bly written in good faith and with no intention to give offence,
yet it cannot fail to be highly offensive to Christians generally,
on account of the reasoning of the Prince of India, and to
Catholics in particular, by the conduct of Sergius the Russian
monk, and his patroness, the Princess Irene. This is my hum-
ble opinion of the Prince of India.
* Helyot's Histoire des Ordres Religieux and Currier's History of Religious Orders,
" Monks of St. Basil."
THE light, the light, at last I see the
light !
Where now are all my weak and
foolish fears ?
Where now are all my childish, puling tears?
Where now that vague and apprehensive fright
That filled my soul with dread I could not
voice ?
Vanish'd, all vanish'd, as vanishes the night
At the approach of morning's glorious light,
When closed-up flowers open and rejoice.
So has the blessed dew upon me dropped
Of God's dear mercy, of a heav'nly calm.
My long-closed heart has opened, and the balm
Of Faith hath healed my soul, my cries hath
stopped.
My Father's love I feel ; a Father mild
I trust in Him as should a helpless child.
AT THE APPROACH OF MORNING'S GLORIOUS LIGHT.
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 321
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY.
BY REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH.
CHAPTER VIII.
A Protestant Ctteaux in the Wcst.Nashotah Founded on Monasticism. Kip's
Visit in 184?. The Founders %et Married. St. Mary's Priory in the
Adirondack*. Episcopalia n Sisterhoods.
\
KE last three chapters show how Tractarian doc-
trines, so rife at the Chelsea Seminary, acting
upon a spirit of interior piety and zeal for the
salvation of souls, and combining both of these
together in the same bosoms, led on gradually
to an eagerness to introduce something like monastic life into
Anglicanism. Americans are a people too practical and enter-
prising to be much attracted by thumb-sucking saints. Even our
transcendental pantheists of New England, inclined as they are
betimes to contemplation and fond of Brahminical lore and
legends, are not easily disposed to sit dreaming with their backs
against the trunks of trees until their hair grows into the bark.
At Brook Farm the stirring motto was
Hast thou aught to teach, then teach it ;
Preach it
Loud and long ;
Sing it if it be a song.
Be thou prophet, be thou poet,
If thou know it, go it
Strong.
When Dalgairns's Life of St. Stephen Harding first found its
way across the water to Chelsea, the sensation it produced was
intense. St. Bernard was not an Englishman, and his character
and career could not easily be put forth directly in a series of
Lives of the English Saints. But St. Stephen, the founder of
Citeaux, could give his name to a volume which should bring
forward luminously the career of the great St. Bernard, the
master spirit of the Cistercian Order. St. Bernard was one of the
very holiest of contemplatives ; and yet, forced from the seclu-
sion which he loved by his burning zeal, by the constant needs
and pressing calls of Christendom, his voice was made to resound
VOL. LX. 21
322 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Dec.,
throughout the whole Continent of Europe. He was, in truth,
the very type of a missionary monk.
Something ike Citeaux was already existing in the Anglican
Church of America. It was at Nashotah, in Wisconsin. This
institute was in reality an attempt, under the name of a mis-
sionary station, to found a veritable monastery. Its founder was
James Lloyd Breck, a graduate of the Chelsea Seminary of 1841.
Associated with him were two of his classmates, William Adams
and John Henry Hobart. That the intention was to found a
monastery is evident from a letter, now in my possession, written
by Breck to Wadhams, October 21, 1842, inviting him to come
and join them. The letter says :
" If, dear Wadhams, you conclude to come, remember we re-
ceive you on the ground of our first principles, which are: (i)
so long as connected with this institution to remain unmarried ;
(2) to yield implicit and full obedience to all the rules and regu-
lations of the body ; (3) community of goods so long as commu-
nity of purpose ; (4) teaching on the staunch Catholic principles ;
(5) preaching from place to place on circuits route, mode, etc.,
to be determined by the bishop, or by one authorized by him."
An earlier letter to the same from Adams breathes the same
spirit. " Dear brother," he writes, " if you can in almost every
way deny yourself, can be content to remain unmarried for an
indefinite period, to live on the coarsest food, to deny yourself
the pleasure of cultivated society ; then come to Wisconsin."
As Nashotah, then an object of longing interest to many
hearts at the General Seminary, grew in a few years to be a
flourishing institution, though far different from what its foun-
ders intended to make it, it may be well to give some further
description of this institute and its locality, in its early days.
Bishop Kip, of California, visited it as early as 1847. I gather
the following materials from a pamphlet of his, published at
that time, entitled A fezv Days at Nashotah. The lands of the
Nashotah Mission were adjoining those of Bishop Kemper, then
having charge of the territory in which this mission was included.
On their first arrival Breck, Adams, and Hobart had assigned
to them Prairieville, with a circuit of thirty miles around. Af-
ter nine months they settled at the Nashotah Lakes. Bishop
Kip thus describes their location :
' The whole of this part of the country is intersected by the
most beautiful lakes, so that from a hill a few miles distant
eleven can be counted in sight, while more than double that
number can be found in a circle of twelve miles. They are of
various sizes, the largest being about two miles in length some
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 323
dotted with islands the water perfectly clear, and the shore
generally a high bluff, rising many feet above the surface. Two
of these, which approach within a hundred feet of each other,
and are united by a little brook, have retained the Indian name
of Nashotah, or Twin Lakes. On the bank of one of them,
where the shore rises fifty feet above the water, and then spreads
out into a level plateau, covered with oak-trees standing in
clumps (an oak opening), are the mission buildings." Across this
lake and on a small prairie are remarkable Indian mounds,
twelve feet high. One represents a tortoise, another a serpent,
another a bear. Large trees grow on some of them, showing
great age.
.In 1847, when Kip wrote, the institution had grown from
the one-story log-house, described in my Reminiscences of Bi-
shop Wadhams, to eight or ten low wooden buildings, and he
tells us that " The view from this spot is probably one of the
most enchanting that the world can furnish."
Breck, formerly at St. Paul's College, Flushing, L. I., had
been a pupil of the Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg, whose beautiful
church on the corner of Twentieth Street and Fifth Avenue,
New York City, was building in 1843, an< ^ eagerly watched by
us seminarians. We looked upon the worthy doctor as neither
low nor high nor dry, but as a true Catholic in our romantic
sense of the word. He was particularly a favorite among stu-
dents of the ritualistic type. He was admired then as a poet,
with a keen taste for church architecture, author of the beauti-
ful hymn, " I would not live alway," now known also as the
founder of St. Luke's Hospital, under the care of Episcopalian
nuns. The Paulists in Fifty-ninth Street have a beautiful cruci-
fixion by Guido, as a testimonial of gratitude to Father Deshon
from Dr. Muhlenberg, for helping to guard his hospital during
the draft riot in 1861.
Muhlenberg was visiting Breck's institute when Kip was
there. At that time the washing of the institution was done by
students for poverty's sake. They had also a baptistery there ;
i. e., " a flight of steps leading into the water at a convenient
depth for immersion, where a platform has been placed on the
bottom." Bishop Kip gives as a reason for this, that many of
the settlers around were Baptists ; but from what I know of
Breck, and that strong yearning existing then as now among
Anglicans for some show of union with those happy Oriental
Greek churches which practise immersion, they would have done
the same thing if these modern Anabaptists had migrated
further westward. Bishop Kip gives us the mode of immersion
324 GLIMPSES OF LIFE iff AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Dec.,
at Nashotah, which, he says, is different from the way in which
it is performed among the Baptists (i. e. t more gentetl), where
the individual is immersed backwards. Here he kneels in the
water, the officiating priest places one hand behind his head,
and, taking him at the same time by the hand, bends him for-
ward till the immersion is complete, and then aids him in rising.
In addition to the practice of poverty, celibacy, and obedi-
ence, which, as we have seen, Breck and Adams announced to
Wadhams as requirements of their institute, the principle at-
tached to monasticism since the time of the earliest hermits
and cenobites of the desert, that labor must be associated with
prayer, was carried out after some fashion at Nashotah as late
as Bishop Kip's visit. He tells us that during the summer
vacation, which lasted from the middle of June to the middle
of November, the studies were suspended and the students
labored eight hours a day. Many of these were in the harvest
field, where they were seen by Kip at work. " We found," said
he, "about a dozen employed in getting in the wheat, on a
tract which had been cleared and brought into cultivation since
the mission was established." I find no account of contempla-
tive prayer as filling up the hours not occupied by labor or
study, but a routine of life is given in which appear hours for
chapel service, with days for receiving communion, etc., as in
ordinary seminaries and colleges.
This whole mission of Bishop Kemper, with the bishop's
house and seminary at Nashotah for its centre, was the carry-
ing out of a scheme to draw Episcopalian emigration and to
colonize and Anglicanize the emigrants. It much resembles
Archbishop Ireland's more recent colonization plan for Minne-
apolis and its neighborhood, and, like that plan, was eminently
successful. The plan of the Nashotah plant contemplated at
one and the same time colonization, missionary labor, and
monastic life. The first two parts of this plan have succeeded
wonderfully well. The success of the last was very short ; love
got into the tub and the bottom fell out.
This Nashotah property was held by the Rev. James Lloyd
Breck, in trust, for the education of students both theological
and academical. In 1841 they had one student. This number
had increased at the time when Kip visited it, in' 1847, to
twenty-three students. At that time the members of the mis-
sion had seventeen stations for preaching and lay reading, with-
in a circuit of thirty miles. The students acted as lay readers
and catechists among the emigrants of the neighborhood. The
idea of the three founders was to establish an institution which
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 325
should be essentially monastic. The bishop humored this idea,
for Breck and his companions were valuable men, and, however
visionary their special hopes might be, it would have been a
dangerous thing to discourage them. The letters of Breck and
Adams from which we have selected short extracts, but which
are given at greater length in the Reminiscences of Bishop
Wadhams, show the eager anxiety for celibacy and monastic
life which reigned in the bosoms of the writers. But the aim
of Bishop Kemper is better disclosed by his friend, Dr. Kip,
who writes not only to recommend the institution to the pa-
tronage of Episcopalians generally, but takes care to excuse and
explain away certain apparent tendencies to Romanism which
hover about the place. Dr. Kip writes :
" One of the most common charges against the institution
is, that the doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy is inculcated.
We take, .therefore, this opportunity to deny it. Such is not
the case. The only foundation for the story is, that a student
upon joining the institution pledges himself not to form any
engagement with reference to matrimony during his union with
it. The moment he is ordained he is, of course, left free to do
as he pleases. We believe that there is no one acquainted with
the state of things in some other seminaries of our church but
must feel that it would be better for the students if they were
under the restriction of this rule. If there was less visiting,
there would be more theology."
Dr. Kip's pleasant way of waving off the charges and sus-
picions against Nashotah agree as little with my own remem-
brances of the time as they do with Breck's own letters. I was
one of several candidates for orders whose missionary aspira-
tions blending with the love of solitude and a yearning for
the graces attached to a spiritual life in the cloister drew me
strongly to Nashotah, and I applied to my father for permis-
sion to join that institution and finish my studies there. But
the rumors above mentioned had reached his ears and made
him hesitate. He consulted Dr. Horatio Potter, afterward
Bishop of New York, and then rector of St. Peter's Church in
Albany. Dr. Potter advised him by no means to consent to it,
as Puseyism reigned there in its worst forms. This ended the
matter for me. Bishop Kemper utilized the zeal and labors of
Breck and his Tractarian friends, but all for his own purposes,
not for theirs. Breck's airy vision soon melted away like a mist.
Hobart left Nashotah in its infancy to take a wife. Six of its
early students, finding that its monastic character was nothing
but a thin garment cautiously tolerated by authority and for a
326 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Dec.,
present purpose only, broke away from the delusion to unite
with the Catholic Church. Three of these, McCurry, Graves,
and Robinson, visited me at St. Peter's Church, Troy, in 1859,
the time of their emancipation. McCurry, by my advice, at-
tached himself to the diocese of Albany, and upon his ordina-
tion was appointed assistant priest in St. John's Church, in Al-
bany City. A vacancy occurring in the church at Cooperstown,
he was sent there to supply the place temporarily, and died there.
He was a most valuable and pious priest. Graves also took or-
ders in the Catholic Church, connecting himself with one of the
Wisconsin dioceses. Robinson was rector of the Church of
the Holy Name of Jesus, at Chicopee, Mass., but within the
last few months he died.
Although John Henry Hobart's connection with Nashotah
was so brief, yet the fact of his being a graduate of the Chel-
sea Seminary, with a memory still fresh in its halls, when I ar-
rived there, as a forward Tractarian, the son of an illustrious
bishop and himself remarkable for high personal qualifications,
seems to demand further notice in these Reminiscences. I saw
him and conversed with him only twice. The first time was at
Saratoga Springs. It must have been, I think, in the summer
of 1844. My object was to obtain such information as I might
concerning the community and life at Nashotah. His answers
to my inquiries impressed me very much in his favor as a young
man of unusual intelligence, honorable feeling, and refined cour-
tesy. He spoke frankly of the Nashotah Institute and of his
former companions, Breck and Adams. His statements concern-
ing the institute were always highly favorable, and of his friends
there he spoke with much regard and affection. He did not
attempt to make the least defence of his act in leaving them.
"You must not expect me, Mr. Walworth, to offer any ex-
cuse for my action," he said, " beyond my own weakness and
instability of purpose. My companions were too noble and
spiritual for me. Their vocation is a higher one than mine, and
cheerfully will I recommend this community to any young man
who can keep pace with such spirits as Breck and Adams, and
make such sacrifices as they make. So far as I am concerned
the public will be my judges, and will, no doubt, judge rightly."
There was a truthfulness and dignity in this frank and sim-
ple confession of weakness which, to my mind at the time,
amounted to sublimity. I thought I saw in it a generosity
of nature which made him worthy of his distinguished father
and of his noble-minded sister, the convert-wife of Dr. Levi Sil-
liman Ives, who became more distinguished as a Catholic lay-
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 327
man than he had been as Protestant bishop. He was near kins-
man, moreover, to Mother Seton, foundress of Emmittsburg,
the mother-house of the Sisters of Chanty in this country ; a
kinsman, too, of James Roosevelt Bayley, who died Archbishop
of Baltimore. Every soul is precious in the eyes of God. Is it
an ill-directed sentiment to feel sad that a gifted young man,
so connected with converts to the true church, should have
died without its pale? His death occurred in 1889. He was
assistant minister of Trinity- Church, New York City.
Following Hobart's advice, I visited the Rev. Mr. Tucker,
now and for many years past rector of Holy Cross Church, in
Troy, well known as founded through the charity of Mrs. War-
ren of that city. Tucker was a graduate of Chelsea, well known
there to us both and thoroughly intimate with Breck and
Adams. I have no distinct recollection of my interview with
Tucker except that it was a very pleasant one, and that he was
well posted in what concerned Nashotah, of which institute he
was a warm advocate.
The next time that I saw Hobart was also at Saratoga
Springs, after I had become a Catholic. He was not at all sur-
prised, nor did he express the least regret. I myself should not
have felt the least surprise at that time had I heard of his do-
ing the same thing, although in such a case, having matrimony
in view, he would have been obliged, like Dr. Ives, his brother-
in law, to live as a layman.
Adams was a better school-master than he was pioneer or
monk. Breck's deeper spirituality and greater energy were in
the beginning far more valuable in drawing zealous young Trac-
tarians to what promised to be a life of mortification, devotion,
and missionary enterprise. Bishop Kemper knew well how to
avail himself of such qualities without letting his horse run
away with him. As time advanced, however, students gathered
and emigrants fell into line. This brought into greater promi-
nence and gave more comparative value to the scholarly quali-
ties and more sedentary habits, of Adams. The institute at
Nashotah shaped itself more and more to the ordinary wants
and ways of an Episcopalian seminary and college, while play-
ing monk became more of a nuisance to all interested parties,
who really cared nothing for monk or cowl.
Adams soon took a wife. What special circumstances led to
this I cannot tell, but it is a fact of history that Cupid smiled
upon him in the form of his own bishop's daughter. His voca-
tion became thus settled. He is still a professor at the Nasho-
tah Seminary, his department being that of Systematic Divinity.
328 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Dec.,
Mr. E. C. Arnold, a convert, now public librarian at Taun-
ton, Mass., and once a bookseller at Milwaukee, was quite fa-
miliar with Nashotah in its early years. I have from him the
following account of Breck's subsequent career:
" Adams's marriage to Bishop Kemper's daughter was a great
grief to Breck, and as he felt unable to cope with the ' married
influence,' he eventually turned his back on Nashotah and
started a similar institution at Faribault, Minn. While there
he paid Bishop Grace several visits,' and we sent him books from
Milwaukee; but ere long he got entangled matrimonially himself,
and that put an end to his earlier dreams."
His last station was in California. He died rector of St.
Paul's Church, Benicia, in that State. One monument to the
busy life of this remarkable man is found in the " Breck
Mission and Farm School," Wilder, Minnesota.
The only other attempt to introduce monasticism into the
Episcopalian Church in the United States in which I took part,
or of which I have any personal recollections, was a scheme
which originated also at the General Seminary in the City of
New York. The central figure in this scheme was Edgar P.
Wadhams, a graduate of the class of 1843, wno received dea-
con's orders immediately after graduation and was put in charge
of the whole of Essex County. I suppose I must name myself
as the second figure in the plan, since I was the only one of
the cenobites that actually located himself at the proposed
scene of operations, which was the village of Wadhams' Mills,
in the old homestead of that family. Our actual community
consisted of two, Deacon Wadhams and myself. We occupied
the second story of the house, Widow Wadhams presiding over
the lower story. Our flat (the convent which we dedicated to
St. Mary) comprised two large rooms with hall and stairway.
The room at the south end was the convent kitchen, with a
bed for my accommodation. The room at the north end, a
very large one, was at once the larder, general store-room, lum-
ber loft, and carpenter's working shop. Wadhams occupied a
small bed chamber on the first floor, there being no place for
him in the cloister above. Our chapel, to which we had no
claim except on Sundays, was the village school-house. On
Christmas we celebrated Episcopalian Mass in Widow Wad-
hams' parlor, which was richly decorated for the occasion with
evergreens. We had no other common oratory than the com-
munity kitchen; the stove, cupboard, dining-table, bed, and
washstand harmonizing sufficiently well with our simple devo-
tions. For brevity's sake I may call this our Chapter-House.
1 894-1 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 329
Here also Wadhams and I had our spiritual readings when we
two were alone. Sometimes, however, to please Widow Wad-
hams, this exercise was held in her kitchen, for she loved to
assist at these readings when she could, especially when we read
EDGAR P. WADHAMS AS BISHOP OF OGDENSBURG.
from the Lives of the Saints. Alban Butler's simple "Lives"
delighted her especially. On these occasions two of her grand-
sons, children of William Wadhams, a Presbyterian deacon, as-
sisted, for they lodged and boarded with their grandmother.
The kitchen. girl also could not always be absent, unless she
330 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Dec.,
stayed outdoors. A stranger could not easily have distinguished,
even in the premises outside the house, between the cloister
and the world. The cow-house was under the jurisdiction of
the convent, for Prior Wadhams owned the cow, and I kept
her apartments clean for her " with my spade and shovel " ; and
I kept the cow. Prior Wadhams also owned a pony named
Beni, who was lodged on the other side of the highway, in the
stable of Deacon William Wadhams. All the other out build-
ings belonged to Mrs. Wadhams, with all the pigs, hens, ducks,
geese, turkeys, and doves that occupied or frequented them.
This location of our monastery was only a temporary one.
About a mile distant to the northward lay a beautiful tract of
land, where a large creek, after tumbling down from among the
Adirondack Mountains, made a wide sweep around an extensive
farm of meadow backed by woodland, then headed directly for
the little village or corners named Wadhams' Mills, passing
close behind our house, to leap over a fine fall and supply
water for the village mill. Our future hopes were all centred
in the farm just mentioned. It was the hereditary property of
our prior. On it we saw in the dim future a noble monastic
pile giving shelter and seclusion to a cowled community of con-
templatives, missionaries, scholars, and a thousand other vision-
ary things of religious dream-land. This vision melted away in
the next spring-time, leaving nothing but a log hut that never
received either community or roof. Our monastic pile, if it
still remains, is only a pile of logs.
My memory recalls no fruitful experiments among Episcopa-
lians to found monastic communities of men. Religious com-
munities of women have had better success. The reader will
remember that when Dr. Kip visited Nashotah he there met
the. Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg on a similar visit. It may be that
the latter had already at that time some enthusiastic predilec-
tion for monasticism. The first introduction of religious sister-
hoods amongst Episcopalians in this country that I remember
was when Dr. Muhlenberg, of New York, put St. Luke's Hospi-
tal under charge of such women. Similar sisterhoods are now
not at all unfrequent. A boarding-school for young ladies,
named Kemper Hall, now exists at Kenosha, Wisconsin, under
charge of ladies of this kind. They are called the Sisters of
St. Mary. Other sisters bearing the same title are found at
Memphis, Tenn. ; Peekskill, N. Y. ; Islip, L. I. ; Rockaway Beach,
and at six different locations in New York City. These seem
to belong to one general order, the time of first foundation
1894-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 331
reaching back as far as 1865. Besides these, other Episcopalian
societies of religious ladies are to be found bearing various
titles, such as the following : The Sisters of the Good Shep-
herd, of the Holy Communion, of the Holy Child Jesus, of St.
John the Evangelist, of SS. Philip and James, All Saints' Sis-
ters of the Poor, Colored Sisters of St. Mary and All Saints,
Sisters of St. Martha, of the Holy Nativity, of the Holy Name,
of St. Monica. They are located at New York, Albany, St.
Louis, Brooklyn, New Orleans, Baltimore, Louisville, Providence,
Tyler in Texas, and Fond du Lac, Wis.
Some of these are branches of conventual institutes of the
Church of England ; for example, that of St. John Baptist, New
York ; that of St. Margaret, Boston ; that of All Saints' Sisters
of the Poor, Baltimore. So far as I know, and as I believe, all
these sisters are considered as nuns. They wear some fashion
of religious habit and are not easily to be distinguished at
sight from Catholic sisters, except that their eyes are not much
cloistered, and that their gait and walk have not received any
apparent modification since they put off their secular dress.
The Church Almanac and Year Book for 1892 exhibits an exist-
ing and recognized order of deaconesses. What they are I
cannot tell ; whether they are nuns or not, nor when they first
became a feature of Episcopalianism. They are specially edu-
cated to their work, one training-school being in New York
and one in Philadelphia. A still older one, called the Church
Home, has existed in Mobile since 1863.
To what extent the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedi-
ence are enjoined amongst these Protestant nuns is more than
I can tell. I remember, however, that when Dr. Muhlenberg
introduced his Sisters into St. Luke's Hospital it was said that
their vocation was cemented by vows, and that the vow of
chastity consisted in an obligation to remain single until it
should please God to call them to some other state of life.
One thing should be set down as undoubted ; that no part of
all this tendency toward the monastic life is an outcrop of
Protestantism, but must be attributed to the Tractarian move-
ment.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
DURHAM CANDLES.
Bv LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.
WAS when the rebel Tudor the wells of Joy defiled,
When greedily on altar gold the new evangel smiled,
Arose against that ruin the twain in great accord,
The Percy and the Neville, the young men of the
Lord.
The Neville and the Percy, amid the reign's uproar,
At fall of even entered at Durham minster door;
Each with a little candle came to the lonely choir,
And set it up for symbol of his own heart afire.
" By agony of martyrs, by confessors' exile,
Twin rays of Faith immortal! live perfect here awhile";
" Live," said they, " till the morning, nor let your vigil cease :
One for England's pardon, and one for England's peace."
O unto whom may view thee in watchfulness and pain,
Sad Durham and dear Durham, those warder lights remain;
But see! they pale, they flicker, they die in the Dawn's increase,
So nigh are now to England her pardon and her peace.
1894-] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 333
PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS.
BY WILLIAM BARRY, D.D.
II. THE END OF ATHEISM.
HAVE insisted at some length, in this Review,
that the principles whereby what Professor
Huxley has termed " Supernature " can be es-
tablished, are precisely those on which the
science of " Nature " proceeds and which it takes
for granted. In other words, if Religion is a make believe and
a delusion, so is Science. " Nature " and " Supernature " stand'
or fall together. It is the same identical mind which affirms
both; and in the last analysis we find ourselves face to face
with principles per se nota, with inevitable and necessary as-
sumptions, or intuitive axioms and postulates, whether we deal
with matter or mind, the mechanical or the spiritual. This, it
will surely be granted, is a point of the utmost importance.
For if, at length, it is not bare experience, how cunningly so-
ever manipulated, but reason affirming its own truths prior to
any such experience, on which the certitude of our statements
is founded, the whole aspect of Professor Huxley's " Con-
troverted Question " undergoes a change, and that of the most
surprising sort. The boast that science appeals to facts as its
touchstone, while religion trusts to fancy, can no longer be
maintained. Both are seen to be products of the intellect,
equally valid or equally delusive ; and Agnosticism, which in
practice relies upon physical science to make an end of meta-
physical, is thrown back on its own resources, these being
neither more nor less than the old-world cavils of the sceptic
or the Pyrrhonist.
SCIENCE STANDS OR FALLS WITH RELIGION.
Professor Huxley declares, as we have seen, that all science
and all reasoning start from an "act of faith." But he really
means by " faith " an affirmation of the reason which is self-
certified, and which as little needs proof as it is capable of re-
ceiving any. The power, working on materials furnished by ex-
perience, which converts these into science, is the human mind
334 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Dec.,
enlightened by its proper principles. Can' that same power, in
the strength of those principles, attain to the conviction of
there being an intellect at work behind the facts of science,
guiding and shaping them to a purpose, in some way not
absolutely unlike the fashion of man's dealing with the world
around him? An Objective Reason and a Rational Purpose-
do we, or do we not, trace these in the operations of Nature?
If we do, then Agnosticism has no standing-ground; it is re-
futed and overthrown. But if we do not, mark the alternative.
Professor Huxley thinks we shall be left in possession of
science. I say no ; science will and must follow religion over
the edge of the pit. For when we have emptied out of Nature
the Objective Mind which reveals to us the God of Nature, by
sheer force of logic we must go on to empty out the Subjective
Mind, though it be our own, to which we are indebted for the
" principle of uniformity," the " invariable order," and the
" power of prediction," so constantly invoked as giving to
science its necessary foundation. All this is implied, even if it
has not been expressed, in Professor Du Bois Reymond's famous
utterance that the " instinct of personification," out of which
religion springs, is as deeply rooted in our nature as the
" instinct of generalization," out of which science is developed.
The mind which affirms an order of things, in number, weight,
and measure, cognizable by the scientific student, affirms per-
sonality, distinct from its own and indefinitely more powerful
and pervading, by the very fact that its " order of things " is
necessarily an " order of ideas " whoso grants that there are
ideas in Nature, grants intellect, will and spirit, by the same
stroke. His otherwise blind forces will then have sight in them,
or else be directed by Him that sees they will become mani-
festations- of a mind, Dei mventis et videntis, to speak with St.
Augustine. And man, instead of simply beholding his own face
in the looking-glass which is all that agnostic science amounts
to will contemplate, as in the Greek parable, the image of the
sun in the water, even though the sun itself remain to him invisi-
ble. But quench the sun, and neither its reflection in the stream,
nor the man's countenance in the mirror, will be any more ac-
cessible to sight. The universal darkness which totally eclipses
religion cannot leave science illuminated.
COGITO, ERGO SUM.
And as science fares, so does common every-day knowledge,
the stuff of experience, which indeed is science at its first stage,
1 894.] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 335
and easily shown to be one with it in principle. For the sim-
plest phenomena, the least and lowest act of feeling, and mere
sensation which endures for a moment, all involve a subjective
construction not furnished by themselves, and not depending on
them for its validity. The great " act of faith " to which Professor
Huxley allows so much, marks in us the presence and the power
of an ideal element, call it by what name you will. There is no
knowledge without it ; and in this sense, all we conceive or
imagine is an artistic product, that which we name Self or Ego
being the artist. Intellect is an active power, governed by its
own laws, responsible only to the necessary truths which it
recognizes and to experience in so far as it has been certified
by them. Deny that " if there is Thought there must be a
Thinker," and the book of knowledge becomes so many blank
pages and a dream without a reality. The Imprimatur which
gave it a value has perished, and yea and nay have exactly the
same meaning ; that is to say, they have none at all.
My argument, it will be observed, is to this effect. Agnos-
ticism, by the mouth of Professor Huxley, assigns to metaphy-
sical science at the most an interrogative worth, and maintains
that it asks unanswerable questions, while to physicial science it
gives all the positive value of reality, as stating questions and
solving them by experience. On this I remark that experience
itself, teste Professor Huxley, is a matter of faith ; and that the
sceptic who shall choose to impugn that faith, by asking for
the grounds on which uniformity in Nature is asserted, will be
acting just as reasonably, and just as unreasonably, as the Pro-
fessor when he calls in question Objective Intellect since in
either case, it is the mind's own authority by which the matter
must be decided, and in precisely the same way. The sceptic
will be told that if he were as sceptical as he pretends to be,
he could not even ask a question, for how can he know that
the question has a meaning ? In like manner, I would ask
Professor Huxley why he trusts his own mind when it exer-
cises its instinct of generalization, but sternly declines to trust
it when, with just the same inevitableness, it exercises its in-
stinct of personification ? If one is valid, why not the other ?
Because men have blundered in religion ? Have they blundered
less in science? I trace up both these instincts to the same
intellect ; and I affirm that either we must give up all prospect
of attaining truth, on the ground that we are hopelessly an-
thropomorphic, or, distinguishing between the right exercise of
a faculty and its occasional, but not therefore incurable, mis-
336 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Dec.,
takes, we must accept its self-evident axioms and the conclusions
drawn from them by accurate logic, as making known to us the
reality of things. And in so affirming, I believe that it is the
Theist, and not the Agnostic, who upholds the claims of reason.
To deny " Supernature," or even to make its existence an
insoluble enigma, is to be profoundly irrational. What, in-
deed, is it but to precipitate mind from all things, and Itave
the world not a system or even a machine, so much as a caput
mortuum ? That alone which hinders the scheme of nature
from lapsing into chaos is Mind and not the mind of the ex-
perimentalist or the observer, who is here to-day and gone to-
morrow, while his registration of phenomena is fitful, inter-
mit 1 ent, and most fragmentary, but a Mind co-extensive, to say
the least, with all space and all time, and viewing, as in one
comprehensive scene, the beginning, the middle, and the end of
those myriads upon myriads of details which, turn in what
direction we may, at once sweep into our vision, dazzling the
sight and confounding the memory of the wisest. Can we be
sure of anything, if this is not certain ? And is there a simpler,
a more obvious and reasonable supposition, or one that the
facts will more abundantly bear out, than that our experience
and our knowledge represent intellect answering to intellect
through the universe, and not merely the echo of our own
voice, holloing into the void inane ? I can understand the re-
ligious Agnosticism which transcends knowledge without "deny-
ing it, which falters and even faints at the Alps rising beyond
Alps in the realm of science. But how shall we speak in the
same breath of knowing phenomena and not knowing whether
the intellectual look they wear is due to our own fatal gift of
fancy or no? Is not the nescience which doubts of Objective
Mind the very same thing as subjective scepticism ? Where are
we to draw the line? Why at "personification," and not at
" generalization " ? And if all " ideas " stand in a like predica-
ment, is anything left from this universal shipwreck worth call-
ing knowledge ? To me it seems that the notion of " phenom-
ena," or of "Nature," is itself metaphysical; and that, if "sub-
stance " is to be relegated to the region of the unknowable,
"accidents" must follow it; while the extremely subjective,
intellectual, and reflex notion of " experience," is destined to
share the fate of all such entities and quiddities as depend for
their validity on the forms of the understanding. In a word, the
doctrine of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason ought to be no less
fatal to experience, assumed to be real, than to the a priori
1894-] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 337
notions, or the " act of faith," on which, by Professor Huxley's
acknowledgment, that experience is founded.
UNFAIR AND DISCRIMINATING TESTS.
But in other phrases and sentences which I have marked
the Professor undoubtedly does put science and religion on the
same level, yet in such a way that science is permitted to hold
by its " symbols," and religion is treated as fantastic and super-
stitious, though doing no more " I suppose," says our author
indulgently, " that so long as the human mind exists, it will
not escape its deep-seated instinct to personify its intellectual
conceptions." By " personifying," let me observe once more,
nothing else need be meant, or as a rule is meant, in these es-
says, than asserting the objective existence of an intellect per-
vading the universe and conscious of its own activity. That is
the head and front of the Anthropomorphism to which Profes-
sor Huxley opposes his Agnostic "non-proven." However, he
continues, " the science of the present day is as full of this par-
ticular form of intellectual shadow-worship as is the nescience of
ignorant ages. The difference is that the philosopher who is
worthy of the name knows that his personified hypotheses, such
as law, and force, and ether, and the like, are merely useful
symbols, while the ignorant and the careless take them for ade-
quate expressions of reality." And he goes on to say that even
"theological symbols," provided they be not converted into
"idols," may serve a good purpose. Now, what is the precise
difference between a "symbol" and an "idol"? I cannot be
sure that the Professor has answered this question, unless when
he deprecates our looking upon " personified hypotheses " in
the light of " adequate expressions of reality." And if this be
so, I could wish that he had given a little of his time to the
study of St. Thomas Aquinas on the chapter of " rational dis-
tinctions," and of the relation of our intellect to the objects
with which it is acquainted. Does he really suppose Christian
Theists so utterly puffed up in their own conceit as that they
believe human thought or language can furnish them with
" adequate conceptions " of a Reality, confessed by them to be
infinite in all perfections ? Surely it is one thing to maintain
our certain knowledge of a Mind without us, revealed in the
universe of matter and spirit ; and quite another to pretend
that the ideas which we frame of that Eternal, Self-sustaining
Consciousness, will do more than dimly shadow forth His un-
speakable Existence and all its attributes. The " analogy "
VOL. LX. 22
338 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Dec.,
upon which we assert a God is, I say, as clear and inevitable,
as much a part of our necessary intellectual pronouncements, as
that upon which we affirm an order of Nature. And in Nature
itself we find its evidence. But to make our thought, which is
but a " symbol " or an image of the Supreme, into a substitute
for Him (as if it were not limited by the dependence of intellect
on the senses, and by its own finite nature !), who could do
so and not feel his conscience rebuke him in the very act?
Why should Professor Huxley raise these ghosts of his own
imagining? The point at issue is not whether we have an
" adequate conception " of the Eternal Mind for no one
dreams that we have but whether our conception, such as it
is, and confessedly unequal to its object, is, nevertheless,
founded on reality as known to us and interpreted by the laws
of the mind. Is it an hypothesis which explains phenomena,
and without which they remain inexplicable ? Is it demanded
by reason, under penalty of stultifying all science by taking
their objective value from the methods upon which science pro-
ceeds ? That is the question, and the root of the matter.
Again, can we account for the mind of man without postulat-
ing, or concluding to, a Mind from which his intellectual light
is kindled ? And what is there unscientific or irrational in argu-
ing from the known to the unknown, in affirming purpose
where we all admit purposive action, or in believing that the
meaning which we read out of the Book of Nature, and which
we term science, was there before we came to it and is not
simply the coinage of our own brains ? But this seems to me
the only possible beginning of Theism in the natural order ;
and though it never can result in adequate ideas of the Su-
preme ah no, at best they will be " mere imitations of the
Inimitable " it does, at any rate, snatch me from the lampless
deep of Nescience, and enable me to believe that I have a
Father in Heaven. Is that so small a thing, and shall I scorn
it because even grander and more ideal conceptions, " pinnacled
far " in some sky that I may never ascend, must yet fall short
beyond all reckoning of the Deity they stammeringly express ?
WANTS THE COURAGE OF HIS DOUBTS.
It is, at any rate, an impregnable idea. Let the reader take
this assured and comforting truth home to himself. Professor
Huxley would be an Atheist if he dared ; but his science, his ac-
quaintance even with philosophy, have made it impossible. He
knows of no weapon in the logical armory, of no fact in the mil-
1894-] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 339
lionfold inductions of science, which will warrant him to stand
up and say, " There is no God." Content though he may be /
unlike the multitude of men and women who have suffered to
"warm both hands at the fire of life" and then depart into
annihilation or oblivion ; willing even to deduce " the laws of
conduct " from " the laws of comfort," in spite of Christ and
Calvary, still this accomplished man of science leaves ample
room and verge enough for those who discern Thought in the
nature of things, Reason in the hierarchy of laws, and a pur-
pose in the development of human life and character. Is not
that in the highest degree significant? Agnosticism, therefore,
means that the whole assault upon our Faith in God, so long
and vigorously sustained, so unsparing in its attack, so deter-
mined to make an end of what it accounted superstition, and
so indefatigable in its pursuit of arguments against the Most
High from every phase and mood of existence, has failed, has
gone to froth and foam, and is given up by those who would
have delighted in urging it on to victory, if victory were ever
within its grasp. The wave which seems to be mounting on
the shore of Christianity, and which threatens to lay waste so
many venerable institutions, is, when we look to the quarter
whence it comes, a recoil from the lonely seas of Atheism. It
will fertilize where it has destroyed ; and if it makes a silence
instead of much loud and over-confident speaking on the one
hand, is it not likely on the other to stop the mouth of sheer
unbelief? To say that never has an argument been discovered,
nor is one discoverable, which will disprove the first article of
the Creed and this in the name of inductive, experimental,
unimpassioned science is to throw open the Via Triumphalis
by which religion shall one day go up to the Capitol of Hu-
manity. For it is no vain syllogism which argues that if there
may be a God, then there is a God. The possible, in this high
region, can be nothing else than the actual, and so mankind
will be assured when they have measured the significance of
Professor Huxley's good confession, and of the commanding
array of intellect, from Kant to Herbert Spencer, whose spokes-
man in this conjuncture he has made himself. I do not over-
look the grounds of nescience common to all these " champions
not of Christendom." But while there is a nescience which
avails to put down atheism for "who hath known the mind
of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor ? " it will avail
nothing against the light we possess in our own intellect and in
the make of the world. These are primordial facts to which
340 PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Dec.,
we can ever appeal ; and the Agnostic who confounds his
would-be friend, the Atheist, is himself in turn put to flight by
the Dogmatist, relying on the necessary and eternal axiom that
if we deny Thought we cannot explain Things. It is all we
ask or need to build up our Theism. With thought alone we
can go to the end of the Milky Way and beyond it, to the
galaxies and the nebulas, and wherever space extends. And as
it will take us through the depths and heights of matter, so,
and much more, will it find itself at home in the kingdom of
spirit, in the range of moral evolution where promise and
prophecy, as the ages tell us, have been ever tending to coin-
cide, and, so far as the most exact science can perceive, may
at length issue in everlasting righteousness. To all this Agnos-
ticism, represented by Professor Huxley, makes no objection
from the side of logic ; nor has it any facts to rehearse which
would bar its fulfilment. It contents itself with a demand for
evidence, and says that none is forthcoming.
" Without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is
known," writes Professor Huxley, "it is easy to people the cos-
mos with entities in ascending scale, until we reach something
practically indistinguishable from omnipotence, omnipresence,
and omniscience." Of course he means to ridicule the notion
that we should do well to go by " the analogy of what is
known " to such an extent. Yet, in another place, he assures
us that "the student of nature, who starts from the axiom of
the universality of the law of causation, cannot refuse to ad-
mit an eternal existence ; if he admits the conservation of
energy, he cannot deny the possibility of an eternal energy ; if
he admits the existence of immaterial phenomena in the form
of consciousness, he must admit the possibility, at any rate, of
an eternal series of such phenomena ; and if his studies have
not been barren of the best fruits of the investigation of na-
ture, he will have enough sense to see that when Spinoza says,
" ' Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est substantiam
constantem infinitis attributis,' the God so conceived is one that
only a very great fool would deny, even in his heart." Such is
Professor Huxley's emphatic, if somewhat truculent Credo ; and
he subjoins with equal vehemence, that " physical science is as
little Atheistic as it is Materialistic."
HETERODOX AGNOSTICISM.
But must we not conclude from so frank an admission that
neither is science agnostic, if by that word we mean the refusal
1 894.] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 341
of data, or the discrediting of methods, in virtue of which \re
may lay down that the "infinite substance," with its " infinite
attributes," is nothing else than conscious Thought and Will,
existing from eternity to eternity ? How shall we express its
infinitude better than in these or the like terms ? And how
shall w not be denying it to human ears if we say that we
know not whether it be Thought or the opposite of Thought,
and that, anyhow, we are resolved to have done with " the
effete mythology of Spiritualism"? Does "spirit," in the lan-
guage of metaphysicians or divines, signify anything except a
" thinking substance," and was not Spinoza's substance Thought
raised to the infinite? Once more, if Kant were listening to
Professor Huxley when he enunciated the above remarkable
sentences, would not the sage of Konigsberg be well-warranted
in declaring that this was a transcendental utterance of the largest
scope, committing the scientific intellect to the Real Infinite,
and carrying it beyond all limitary conceptions to the Eternal
Self-existent ? True it is that where the Professor talks of mere
" possibility," the argument requires " actuality," in obedience
to that axiom of "the law of causation " from which he starts;
for how can a possible cause produce a real effect ? But I will
not insist on this point, momentous though it be. I am satis-
fied to contrast the Agnosticism which declines to know any-
thing but phenomena with the rebuke administered in these
words to him who would deny in his heart either eternal energy
or a substance containing in itself all manner of perfection, and
therefore the highest possible degree of Thought and Power.
If this be not an acknowledgment of omnipotence and omni-
science on the lips of Professor Huxley, it proves at all events
that the " analogy " which he has elsewhere scouted is the natu-
ral dictate of reason. And perhaps I may venture to remark
that a deeper consideration of all it involves will bring to light
the true difficulty experienced by those who have seen Thought
everywhere, in the Heavens above as in the heart of man, viz.,
not that of finding tokens and proofs of its all-pervading nature,
but that of hindering the Finite from being absorbed and com-
pletely assimilated by the Infinite. So manifest are the Energy
and the Purpose which Agnosticism would fain turn its back
upon as a conjecture never and nowhere to be verified !
Now I must not omit the fact, well known from previous writ-
ings of this competent author, that, to his thinking, the doctrine of
evolution, suppose even Darwin's, is not incompatible with final
causes, with a Divine purpose, and the ordering of its every
342 PKOFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. [Dec.,
stage and detail according to a plan which comprehends them
all. Professor Huxley does, indeed, forsaking his Agnosticism
on occasion, hold it impossible to reconcile foreknowledge of
the " evolutionary process " with a "purely benevolent intention ";
but in taking this attitude, he has a real and formidable pro-
blem in view, very unlike the suicidal revolt against Objective
Thought which is at the bottom of his alleged nescience. Un-
doubtedly, the ideal of Perfect Benevolence, while it must find
a place among Spinoza's " infinite attributes," is but dimly seen
reflected in the struggle and the torment of conscious existences.
Here, if anywhere, we must go by faith and not by light, com-
forting ourselves with the indications afforded on so many sides
that pain is a means rather than an end, nor forgetting that
moral evil implies choice, and that choice is self-determination.
If it be true, in the language of Professor Huxley, that "each
figure in that vast historical procession " which the Bible un-
rolls and I suppose he would extend the saying to the whole
of history " earns the blessings or the curses of all time, accord-
ing to its effort to do good and hate evil," and if, again, the
stream of tendency does " make for righteousness," although by
" roundabout ways," the solution of our hardest enigma is, it
seems to me, already given in principle. When to this we add
the Agnostic confession, recorded in these same pages, that im-
mortality is not disproved by physical science ; or, indeed, by
any science ; and that it is not upon " a priori considerations that
objections, either to the supposed efficacy of prayer in modify-
ing the course of events, or to the supposed occurrence of
miracles, can be scientifically based," I think we must perceive
that the air is beginning to clear, and that Atheism, and not
religion, has had its day if we ought not rather to say, its night
and its twilight.
ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA.
Cardinal Newman, as the Professor feels and is not slow to
indicate, was one of the most sagacious apologists that ever
wrote. And Cardinal Newman has laid down in the Grammar
of Assent a doctrine which he was never weary of enforcing,
viz., that evidence in the concrete depends for its momentum
on the antecedent prejudices it may have to overcome, or the
anticipations in its favor which, on the other hand, make it
plausible and attractive. Professor Huxley has swept aside
once for all the presumptions, falsely called proofs, on which
Atheism was wont to rely. They are unscientific, unverifiable,
1894-] PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS. 343
and without warrant from experience. And the human con-
science, left to itself, rejects Atheism with loathing. But it
neither does nor can reject Thought as the fundamental con-
ception of science, as necessary to experience, and as an ex-
planation of the things that exist and have existed. Nothing
more does the Theist demand from those he would persuade.
He means by spirit no " mythology," but the real consciousness
to which every one may go back in his own breast. He desires
to view the universe physical and psychical in the light of
Reason, to trace its march and its presence through the count-
less worlds made accessible to research by astronomy, geology,
chemistry ; by the science of life, the certitudes of thought, and
the dictates and postulates of conscience. If ever there was a
rational enterprise, surely this is one. And though it would be
a contradiction in terms to say that the Agnostic will be his
ally to the end, he may well insist that an ally he is at the be-
ginning, not as helping the Theist to manufacture knowledge
out of nescience, or to affirm much because all is darkness, but
in this most profound and striking sense, that the old atheistic
prejudices are laid low by science even when science is handled
by the coolest intellect ; and that, supposing Theism were at
last a matter of faith and aspiration, the utmost wealth of
knowledge, and the severest scrutiny of experience, could not
justify us in calling it unreasonable. But we may remind the
Agnostic in turn of Sir Isaac Newton's far-reaching dictum,
" Deus sine dominis, providentia, et causis finalibus, nihil aliud,
est quam Fatum et Natura," requiring him at the same time
to confess, what is the simple truth, that " Fate and Nature "
to which Thought is lacking are either empty names or dead
matter. If then he does not go forward to Rational Theism,
logic and common sense will drive him back upon the material-
ism or the absolute and self destroying scepticism from which
he thinks to have escaped. The one state in which neither he
nor any man will permanently continue is that of " suspension of
judgment " concerning the Intellect which made his own, and
the Divine Purpose which gives life its meaning and its
interest. No " laws of conduct," or perhaps even of " comfort,"
will long endure, when their foundation is so unstable an equi-
librium. Shall we build the future of mankind upon this quak-
ing bog?
DAYBREAK.
BY CHARLESON SHANE.
ITHOUT, the rain
Beats wildly 'gainst my window-pane.
The roaring wind
Seeks entrance ; but, enraged to find
Himself debarred, his power defied,
With sullen clamor slinks aside.
Furious fast,
Wind-driven clouds rush madly past.
Th' awakened day
Peeps, startled, forth, as well he may,
And oh the face of heaven sheds a
light
That lends fair, wondrous splendor to the sight.
The clouds grow bright,
The rain has ceased, and lo! the morning light
Through heaven's bars
Gleams like a galaxy of daylight stars.
Stray sunbeams through the breaking gloom appear;
A smile the sky attempts, but drops a tear.
With hellish guile
The pow'rs of darkness hide the smile.
Aside is cast
Aurora's promise by the northern blast
Dull, grayish gloom has overspread the sky:
Alone, mayhap, I've seen the sunlight die.
Perish the thought!
For a good omen of my fight I sought
In yonder sun ;
And, as the gloom of midnight blackness won,
E'en so, I fear, from heaven's darkened pole
The night will fall and overshade my soul.
The day dawns dark;
Of future brightness not a sign or mark.
Yes ! Conqu'ring Hell
With legions bold has fought his battle well.
Tell me : shall I be vanquished in the fight ?
Or shall the hand of God sustain the Right ?
I894-]
COUNT DE MUN.
345
COUNT DE MUN: LEADER OF THE CATHOLIC RE-
PUBLICAN DEPUTIES.
BY EUGENE DAVIS.
URING the period of my residence in Paris, ex-
tending from 1879 to I 885, I used to visit the
Chamber of Deputies on occasions when an ex-
citing debate on some burning problem of the
hour was anticipated. Being professionally a
journalist, I had an entree into the Press gallery. From this
compartment I watched the din and tumult prevalent among
members, whose political policy was denounced in sarcastic
terms by the orator who stood
for the time being on the
tribune. Betimes pugilistic
encounters were indulged in
by opposing cliques, and some
times blood was shed on these
occasions. The French, who
belong to the Celtic race, arc-
very impulsive. Moreover,
there are so many parties in
the house that they turn it
into a Bedlam, where disorder
reigns predominant at least
once a week.
On one occasion, when the
Republican party was divided
on the wisdom of Premier
Ferry's policy of colonizing
Tonkin, C16menceau, the lead-
er of the Radicals, denounced
the invasion of that colony,
" which," he exclaimed, " not
only cost us the deaths of
thousands of our gallant sol-
diers, owing to the malarial fever of that swampy land, but also
the loss of several hundred million francs." C16menceau's aggres-
sive speech created a wild uproar among the supporters of Ferry.
COUNT DE MUN: LEADER OF THE CATHOLIC
REPUBLICAN DEPUTIES.
346 COUNT DE MUN. [Dec.,
The members of the opposing parties clutched each other in a
vice-like grasp. Confusion and fisticuffs reigned paramount all
over the assembly, except on the Bourbon benches. President
Floquet, who sat behind a table on a dais or platform, over the
tribune, where the members speak to their colleagues, rang a
hand-bell incessantly in order to restore order from chaos ; but
still the bellowings of both parties of the Republican brigade
increased with such intensity that Floquet adjourned the sitting.
During another debate on a bill introduced into the chamber
by the then premier, Ferry, for the expulsion of the religious
orders from France, the Count of Mun, who was at that time
deputy for the arrondissement of Pontivy, province of Morbihan,
Brittany, mounted the tribune, where he delivered one of his
most powerful speeches against the government. Indignation,
sarcasm, and satire flowed through his eloquent harangue. He
lashed the Republicans' hides with a whip of scorn. The infuri-
ated government deputies howled fiercely, like wolves, at the
young orator, who, with an intrepid gaze at the opposition,
stood calmly his arms folded on his breast.
" A has les Clcricaux ! " Down with the Clericals ! " A has les
Jesuites ! '" Down with the Jesuits! such were the cries of
these bigoted fanatics that greeted his ears. Yet he continued
to remain on the tribune till the voices of his enemies grew
hoarse, and then he resumed his speech amid a solemn silence.
He has passed through such ordeals on many another occa-
sion, denouncing godless schools, and condemning the con-
duct of the government of Paris, the municipal council, in dis-
missing the sisters from the hospitals, and replacing them by
lay nurses, women who were unable to take such care of the
health or soothe the dying hours of invalids as the religious
did. Cat-calls, angry shouts, and hisses did not dismay the
intrepid orator. He seemed to me a modern Godfrey de
Bouillon facing the Saracen Republicans of the chamber.
The Count of Mun was born in 1841 in the chateau de
Lumigny, situated in the department of the Seine-and-Marne.
This edifice, and its surrounding estates, fell into the possession
of Count Claude, the grandfather of the present Marquis de
Mun, when he won the hand of the daughter of Helvetius, the
well-known historian. Situated in a picturesque portion of the
country, the chateau, crowned by two towers and a belfry, is
still a solid and beautiful structure, flanked on every side, save
in front, by forests where the wild deer and other animals roam
through the green grasses.
1 894-1
COUNT DE MUN.
347
Count Claude died in 1843. Mrs. Craven, a daughter of the
noble Breton family of La Ferronnays, writes as follows of the
count's last hours in her Re'cit (Tune Sceur :
" I was reading to him those chapters of The Imitation
which speak of heaven. He interrupted me before I had fin-
ished, and remarked, ' I have often read all that, but it is only
now that I seem to understand it.' Then, with the charming
simplicity that characterized him, he added : ' You must feel
very much astonished that I have no fear of death. I should
not myself have expected to feel thus, but I believe my dear
CHATEAU DE LUMIGNY EN BRIE, WHERE DE MUN WAS BORN.
friend, La Ferronnays (the father of Mrs. Craven), has obtained
me grace from God.' Calm and courageous to the end, in this
happy disposition he breathed his last."
His son Adrian, Marquis de Mun, the father of the subject
of this memoir, was born in 1817. He married the daughter of
Mrs. Craven, Mile. Eugenie de la Ferronnays, whom he had the
misfortune to lose three or four years after the nuptials.
Mrs. Craven gives in her volume the following pen picture of
Robert, the present heir to the marquisate, and Albert:
" I have a glimpse of Albert in his mother's arms. A few
years after the death of the marquis's wife, he wedded a
348 COUNT DE MUN. [Dec.,
daughter of a noble family, partly in order to insure a Christian
education for his sons. The step-mother proved to be both
kind and judicious. She succeeded in winning their affections,
and developing in their youthful hearts the germs of piety
which had been sown there. During his early years Albert was
chiefly distinguished by his love of books, and his taste for
solid reading. Before the time came for him to fix on a path
in life his choice was already made. He came from a race of
heroes, and his desire was to serve his country on the field of
battle, as his ancestors had done."
In 1860, at the age of nineteen, he entered the military
school of St. Cyr, Paris. After a brilliant career through the
curriculum of studies he was awarded the epaulettes of a sous-
lieutenant, and was ordered to join one of the cavalry regi-
ments of the corps d'arme, the Chasseurs d'Afrique, whose
commander-in-chief was General (afterwards Marshal) MacMahon,
who was also the governor of Algiers. Here the rays of the
hot sun bronzed the features of the young count. In the many
skirmishes which the chasseurs had with the Algerine tribes De
Mun distinguished himself by his courage and intrepidity.
The Chasseurs d'Afrique were ordered back to France by
the minister of war in the fall of 1870. The count had now
reached the rank of captain. In the early portion of the
Franco-German campaign he fought bravely on the battle-fields
of Borny, Rezonville, and Saint-Privat towns that surrounded
the fortifications of Metz. As a reward for his bravery he was
awarded the cross of the Legion of Honor. Marshal Bazaine
had under his command more than eighty thousand trained
men, the very cream, so to speak, of the French army ; but
towards the close of the siege he never made the least effort to
break through the enemy's lines. When he heard that a pro-
visional government was established in Paris, and that Bona-
parte was no longer emperor, he exclaimed :
" I will not swear loyalty to men like Rochefort, who are
the leaders of a mob. I am still true to my emperor."
By remaining faithful to a dethroned potentate he betrayed
his native land by surrendering his army, without striking a
blow, to Prince Frederick Charles, the commander of the besieg-
ing forces. The Count de Mun was among the first band of
officers who would be prepared to defend Metz to the end ; but
Bazaine's treachery handed officers and soldiers over to the
Germans.
A few months after the surrender of Metz, Bazaine was de-
1894-] COUNT DE MUN. 349
prived of his marshal's baton and sentenced to death by a
court-martial held in Versailles. He took care never to return
to France. He proceeded, disguised, to Madrid, where he
supported himself, or rather eked out a miserable existence, as
French professor. Bonaparte and all his other former friends
abandoned him to his fate. In 1882 he died in an attic of the
Spanish capital.
The count was taken prisoner of war with the rest of his
comrades, refusing to give his parole of honor that he would
not fight again if he were allowed his liberty. The French
army were conveyed in trains to various fortresses in Germany.
The regiment of chasseurs, of which the count was captain,
were sent to one of the Bavarian fortresses. After the treaty of
peace had been signed, all the imprisoned French officers and
soldiers were escorted to the French frontier.
He returned to his native land in March, 1871. The Reign
of Terror, under the Commune, had just been inaugurated. Its
horrors had convinced the count that, in order to prevent any
such calamity in the future, he must go among the people to
instruct them in the lessons of Christianity, and reconcile them
with the church.
In order to carry out this programme, he requested his
brother Robert, and his friend, Commandant de la Tour du
Pin, to assist him in laying the foundation of the Catholic
societies of working-men all over France. Each of the three
gentlemen selected a third part of that nation, where he would
sow the good seed. In this tour the Count de Mun made his
debut as an orator gifted with a marvellous eloquence. He
converted by arguments, which could not be refuted, thousands
of former anti-clerical laborers on the fields and artisans in their
work-shops.
In 1875 he sheathed his soldier's, and unsheathed his politi-
cal sword in the championship of the Catholic cause. In the
opening years of the Republican administration there existed
no persecution of the church. The conservative element was in
power. When the general elections took place .in 1876 a
Republican majority was elected. From that date, under the
premiershipa of Ferry, Gambetta, Floquet, and other Republican
leaders, up to three years ago, the Catholic Church was ruth-
lessly persecuted. Gambetta supplied the watchword to his
followers " Le cttricalisme voila I' ennemie ! "
It was at this crisis in the destinies of his church and
country that a deputation of the electors of Pontivy requested
350
COUNT DE MUN.
[Dec.,.
the count to accept the candidature for the membership of the
Chamber of Deputies as their representative. The count was
always ready to fight against free thought and agnosticism.
After a week's struggle, during which he addressed thousands
of electors on the persecution of the church by a Republican
cabinet, he triumphed over his Republican opponent. Owing to
the anti Catholic prejudices of the majority of the members of
the Chamber of Deputies, he was unseated on the absurd ac-
cusation that the count's election was due to clerical influence.
Re-elected in August, 1876, and afterwards at the election that
followed the coup d'etat of the ]6th of May, he lost his seat
once more in 1878, for the same "reasons" as on the previous
occasion. In 1881, however,
he was elected by such an
overwhelming majority that
the chamber did not dare to
invalidate his election. Since
then, with the exception of
one brief interval, he has
been one of its members.
We may add that in his ad-
dresses to the voters of
Pontivy he avowed himself
a royalist. " The De Muns
of old fought for the. Bour-
bon lilies," he said, " and so
shall I ! " He was a staunch
adherent of the then royal
Pretender, the Count of
Chambord, self styled " Henri
V.," who stood sponsor by
proxy for one of the chil-
dren of the count.
In his first speech in the chambers he exclaimed: "Thor-
oughly convinced, as I am, that the Catholic faith is the sole
indispensable basis of national laws and institutions, of social
and political order ; that this faith alone is capable of counter-
acting the poison of revolution, averting the evils that its prin-
ciples bring in their train, and of securing the welfare of my
country, I am firmly resolved, in whatever position I may be
placed, to devote myself unreservedly to the defence of re-
ligion. Open war is now declared against the church, and the
hour has come for all Catholics to rally around her, to protest
COUNT DE MUN AT THIRTY-FIVE YEARS.
1894-] COUNT DE MUN. 351
against the projects of her adversaries, to defend her rights and
liberties, to secure for their children a Christian education, and
thus restore to France the peace and stability she has lost."
The count became subsequently aggressive, in the sense of
visiting the citadels of Red Republicanism in Belleville and
Montmartre, Paris, penetrating into Communistic dens, and con-
versing with the working-men. Many of these ouvriers he con-
verted to the Catholic faith. He used to attend socialistic
meetings, and mount the platform, where he defended the
church against its defamers. He faced the maelstrom of hisses
defiantly. Still there were bloused sons of toil in the crowd
who returned to the faith of their childhood, thanks to the
count's logic and eloquence.
He became in the early eighties a decided propagandist or
lay missionary among those who were Catholics originally, but
whose faith had been ruined by the editors of most of the Paris
newspapers, who preached deadly hostility to the Catholic
Church. The comic prints contained odious caricatures of
priests and Christian Brothers the latter being called " les.
ignorantins." Farcical Lives of the Saints, by Leo Taxil (who
has since done penance for his sins), had a large circulation
among the poorer classes of Paris and made most of them
sceptics. The Catholic prelates and priests who denounced the
tyranny of the government by their wanton persecution of the
church were deprived of their stipends for a year.
Count de Mun's object was to kindle enthusiasm among the
population of France for the personality of the statesman-Pope
Leo XIII., and for those principles of Christianity that had died
out owing to the cynical sneers and calumnies of free-thinking
organs. " The women of France," he once exclaimed, " have
still that intense faith which won for France the proud title of
the Eldest Daughter of the Church ! . I hope, under God, to in-
spire the young men with the same holy feeling." With this
object in view he formed all over the country associations of
the Catholic youth. In his address to these young men he
urged on them the necessity of illumining the minds of their
friends and comrades who may be agnostics, and of bringing
them back to the fold of their ancestors. His eloquence was so
persuasive that in a few years he had rallied under the standard
of Christ no less than two hundred and fifty thousand young
men, many of whom were redeemed from spiritual darkness
and became enthusiastic Catholics, thanks to the count's inex-
orable logic and power of oratory.
352 COUNT DE MUN. [Dec.,
The idea of forming this society occurred to him at the
Eucharistic Catholic Congress of Friburg, Switzerland, in 1885,
where he became acquainted with the details and scope of that
organization, which he subsequently adopted for his own so-
ciety.
In the prime of life the count married the daughter of the
Count d'Anlau, a devout lady, who bore him three children.
Each of the infants, after baptism, was carried into the chapel
attached to his mansion and laid at the feet of the statue of
the Madonna, to whose service the baby was consecrated by
one of the French prelates. His eldest boy died at the age of
five. Later on, after the passing of the infamous Ferry bill by
which the Jesuits were expelled from France, he accompanied
his two boys to Canterbury, England, where the expatriated
Jesuits had started a seminary for the education of the sons of
the French nobility. Here they received a complete Catholic
and secular education.
Throughout his public career Count de Mun has been a
warm advocate for the welfare of the working-men. In 1882 he
organized a deputation from the Catholic working-men's society,
a body numbering several hundred thousand members, to ac-
company him on a pilgrimage to the Vatican, where they were
very courteously received by the Holy Father, who endorsed
the mediaeval system of guilds, which formed the Christian so-
cialism of the count. The cardinal principle of that doctrine is
that Catholic employers of labor should act fairly and generously
towards their employees, and that these latter should be given
a few shares each in the factories, or business houses, in which
they toil. This system has been adopted generally throughout
the provinces, and more particularly in Brittany, where it is a
complete success.
At the last general elections in France Count de Mun lost
his seat for his old constituency of Lumigny, owing to his roy-
alist principles. Many Catholics voted for the Republican can-
didate because Leo XIII. , through the medium of the late Car-
dinal Lavigerie, advised the French Catholics to rally to the
Republic, in order to secure religious peace under its adminis-
tration. Times and political ideas were changed since the days
when the Republic persecuted the Church. The present govern-
ment has practically repealed the Ferry bill, and the result is
that church and state are in harmony. Cardinal Lavigerie made
a tour of France, and urged on the Catholics not to continue a
wild-goose chase for the restoration of the monarchy. "The
1894-] COUNT DE MUN. 353
overwhelming majority of Frenchmen have sworn allegiance to
the Republic," he once observed. " You are now pariahs. Take
advantage of your civil rights adhere to the Republic, and many
of you will be entitled to public positions in its employ."
Count de Mun received a personal letter from Cardinal Ram-
polla which intimated to the French Catholic leader that the
Pope would advise him to become a Republican conservative.
The count, of course, bowed respectfully to the advice of the
Pontiff, and accepted it.* A vacancy having occurred in the
constituency of Morlaix, he was elected a member of the Cham-
ber of Deputies for that town on a conservative Republican
platform. He is now the acknowledged leader of that party in
the house. There are only a score or so of Bourbons in the
chamber at present. Very few of the former group of eighty
in the preceding chamber survived the defeat that Leo XIII. 's
adhesion to the French Republic dealt them.
To resume, the life so far and the labors of Count de Mun
are indications of his Christian, his Catholic, political, and social
character. He started out in public life as a devoted Royalist.
Advised a year ago by Leo XIII. to support the Republic, he
sacrifices his former monarchical principles and becomes a Re-
publican. He has been the most successful missionary in mod-
ern times thanks to the large number of his countrymen who,
through him, returned to the Catholic fold. He has elevated
thousands of working-men to a higher social scale by the shares
given to them by their employers. He has organized the Catho-
lics of France in societies which will preserve their faith for
ever against the wiles of the agnostic pressmen.
*The Supreme Pontiff thanked him for his political conversion, and bestowed on him
various medals emblematic of his love and esteem of the count.
VOL. LX. 23
354 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND.
BY JOHN J. O'SHEA,
ASSISTED nv THE FOLLOWING CONTRIBUTORS: MARIANNE KENT, " PEPITA CASADA,"
DOROTHV MONCKTON, AND MARIE LOUISE SANDROCK.
IN THE HOSPICE OF MONT ST. BERNARD.
: S there one of the many millions of good souls who
revel in the joys of Christmas by their happy fire-
sides in the populous 'towns and the comfor-
table villages is there a single soul in all the
comfortable farm-houses and snug villas scattered
over the far-stretching lowland who has ever cast a thought up-
on the lonely watchers away up in the realm of the clouds?
Who can picture to himself the feelings and sensations of those
devoted watchers, poised high between heaven and earth, as
they keep the vigil of the Nativity in their solitary, ice-bound,
storm-beaten eyrie near the summit of the Great St. Bernard ?
Few wayfarers care to tempt the dangers of the Pass when
the winter is so far advanced as the Christmas season. But even
in the Alps the seasons are freakish ; and the rare spectacle of
traveller-guests around the great hospitable hearth of the Hos-
pice was witnessed one Christmas a few years ago. Further-
more, the still rarer spectacle of a lady visitor amongst the
number was the subject of general comment amongst the mem-
bers of the brave community.
Dr. Redfern and his wife, a young American couple on their
wedding-tour, had made the hospice early in the afternoon.
They had started from Aosta, on the Italian side, early in the
morning, and, being experienced Alpine climbers, had covered
the distance between this point and the summit of the St. Ber-
nard before nightfall. A French gentleman, travelling for a
great wine firm, on his road to Turin, had come all the way
from Chamounix, on the other side.
The trio, together with two of the " guest-fathers " of the
community, were enjoying themselves around the cheerful blaze
of the log-fire which glowed in the deep recesses of a great
chimney.
"Yes, madame, it was in that chair over there Bonaparte
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 355
sat on the evening he arrived at the hospice," said Brother
Ernest, the elder of the two "guest-fathers," in reply to the
lady's eager questioning. " We do not let everybody into the
secret, as the article of furniture would soon be in need of re-
pair, I imagine."
"Are there any traditions of the great man's behavior on
the occasion, father?" queried the lady, who, besides being
pretty and shrewd-looking, seemed to have an extra allowance
of the vivacity and inquisitiveness of her race. " We Americans
have somehow got the idea that Bonaparte was boorish and
overbearing in the extreme."
" Bonaparte was not a Frenchman, madame," answered Father
Ernest, "and he had none whatever of the French politeness or
polish about him, even to his friends, I have heard it said. His
manner here, it is recorded, was suave enough. He was ex-
tremely glad to find such shelter as this roof could give him,
and to escape the fall into the Drance from which he was
saved by his guide."
"If he had fallen those few thousand feet that day," philo-
sophized Dr. Redfern, " how different the state of Europe might
have been now. There might have been no France, for in-
stance ; it may have been blotted from the map of Europe."
The eyes of the French traveller shot Alpine lightning, and
there might have been an outburst were it not for the presence
of the lady. The angry gleam, however, passed away in an in-
stant, and a sarcastic curl of the lips and the flash of the white
teeth under the black moustache only spoke the wounded spirit
of the Gallic chanticleer.
"As well say that there would be no Alps, no Mont St.
Bernard, no hospice, if there were no travellers to visit them,"
he laughed scornfully. " Napoleon could not make a France ; it
was only a France that could make a Napoleon. It is the coun-
try, monsieur, that makes the hero the long tradition of glory,
the imperishable consciousness of national genius."
" That is an ideal view of the matter, monsieur," said the
American gentleman. " New countries that have had no sublime
traditions, no monumental genius to encourage men to work for
the degree of hero of the first rank, have developed some very
respectable military talent. I speak nothing of my own country,
where we have broken the world's record in revolution, in our
own modest way, but I will merely instance successful adven-
turers like Cortez and Pizarro, who fought without any stimulus
like that to which you refer."
356 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
" Pshaw ! They were only respectable filibusters," returned
the Frenchman contemptuously. "Men in armor, with gun-
powder and artillery, fighting against naked barbarians."
" They founded very respectable empires, though," remarked
Dr. Redfern.
" We give no credit to our own countrymen who founded
Canada," replied M. De Brissac, as the French traveller was en-
tered on the list-book, " not even to men like De Frontenac and
Montcalm, who held it so long against the British power. But
we do give the palm of true heroism to the noble Jesuits who
went amongst the savage Indians, with neither sword nor musket,
to try to teach them Christianity. They were Frenchmen, for the
most part, monsieur, and they represented the spirit that guar-
antees that France, la belle France, shall never die never be
blotted out from the map of Europe as long as a Frenchman
lives."
" The Indians could hardly be worse towards those good men,"
suggested Dr. Redfern, " than Frenchmen themselves were when
they pulled down throne and church. Indeed, the perfidy which
marked the infamous Noyades was what no Indian would ever
be guilty of. They would not entice men to their death under
false promises, as those concerned in the wholesale drowning of
the clergy at that time did."
" I have no excuse for the miscreants who were guilty of
these barbarities," answered M. De Brissac. " But a few black
sheep do not make the whole flock despicable. There were in-
stances of heroism in the saving of the lives of priests at that
time hardly less admirable, in very many cases, than that of the
calm courage of the priests themselves."
"You are quite right, monsieur," chimed in Father Ernest.
" My good mother often told us the story of the wonderful es-
cape of the Abbe" Croix, a friend of hers who lived in the south
of France, and the heroic conduct of his mother, to which it
was entirely owing."
" Perhaps you would tell us of it, Father Ernest. I am just
dying to hear that story now, after that introduction," said Mrs.
Redfern.
" I shall have much pleasure, but I must cut it short, madame,
as I shall have to leave you at nine," replied the good pere, as
he looked at the clock with a view to the usual devotions. " It
was to this effect."
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 357
THE ABBE OF ST. CROIX.
In the little village of St. Croix, in the far south of France,
the inhabitants went on their tranquil way in happy ignorance
of the evil days that were at hand. For, although the seeds of
anarchy and rebellion had been sown broadcast over France,
for awhile the agitators were too busy with the populations of
big cities to trouble themselves with an out-of-the-way rural re-
treat like St. Croix. It is an ideal hamlet, surrounded by a
wealth of vineyards and full of the beauties that nature alone
can give. The people were chiefly peasants ; and they were a
hard-working, thrifty set by far the largest proportion of them
being women, as the conscription allowed few able-bodied men
to linger in their native place. But the French peasant woman
is a strong, active creature, and never afraid of work. From
dawn to sunset she is busy carrying heavy loads, her wooden
sabots clinking over the rough, uneven stones of the village
street, or toiling through the white, dusty roads among the vines.
At this time the breath of irreligion had not swept over France,
and its peasantry, at least, were an example of fervor and piety.
Over each village a cur6 ruled, who was looked upon as the
friend and father of his flock. Instead of the venerable pastor
one would have expected to see, the Abb of St. Croix was a
very young man. With his strong, lithe figure, his bright dark
eyes, and thick black hair, he was unquestionably handsome.
He had won distinction at college, for he was a student of no
small repute, which accounted for his so early gaining for him-
self the position of pastor. When he settled at St. Croix he
devoted himself with the ardor and enthusiasm of youth, to the
work before him, and very soon he had won a warm place in
the affections of his people.
In the little vine-clad presbytery lived the abbess widowed
mother. She was a gentle, sweet- faced old lady. She idolized
her son, and was ever ready, with heart and hand, to assist him
in his work. There was not a creature, old or young, in the
village but had some cause for gratitude to " Madame la Mere,"
as she was universally called ; indeed the mother and son held
about equal places in the affections of the people.
As on some calm summer evening, when not a cloud is to
be seen, we are conscious of a distant rumble of thunder, tell-
ing us that the elements are brewing for a storm, so it was that
into this tranquil village-life there came vague rumors of trouble
in Paris. Tales of deeds so dark that the very horror of them
358 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
made them seem untrue. Gradually, however, the rumors took
a more definite form, and conviction was forced upon the most
incredulous. The women of St. Croix gathered together, in
little groups, talking shrilly of what they had heard, while the
old men, sitting outside the village inn, drank their red wine
and shook their heads over the evil fate that had come upon
the nation.
For some time the young abbe" did his best to encourage
the people, making them hope that the stories they heard were
exaggerated ; but it was not long before he too realized the
gravity of the situation. He heard how churches had been
sacked and desecrated and the ministers of God put to a cruel
and ignominious death, and he knew that at any moment a like
fate might be his own. As he went about among his people he
was conscious that they often looked at him wistfully, as if they
too dreaded the thought of what the future might hold, and
all the women, old and young, were filled with the tenderest
pity for Madame la Mere.
The mother and son seldom spoke of the future, though they
were much together in these days, and on the old lady's gentle
face the lines of care and sorrow seemed to deepen as the
hours went by.
At last the crisis came. A man arrived at St. Croix, from a
village only twenty miles distant, bringing news of the terrible
scenes he had just witnessed. On the previous day a large band
of soldiers had entered his village and, after perpetrating many
other outrages, the venerable cure" a man whose kindly presence
was well known in St. Croix had been seized and taken prison-
er. The frail old man had been so roughly handled by his brutal
captors that he had died while on the road to his destination.
It was not long before this tragic story reached the abb6
and his mother. They said very little to those who brought the
news, hearing them almost in silence; but when they were once
more alone, the young man knelt by his mother's chair his one
thought for the anguish that he knew she was feeling and be-
sought her, in the most moving terms, not to despair. But he
need have had no such fear, for a heart as heroic as that of
Marie Antoinette's beat in the bosom of Madame la Mere.
With a tender, caressing hand she smoothed back her son's
dark hair.
"Louis," she said, "you are so young, and it seems that the
good God must still have work for you to do. So let it be no
fault of ours if some way of escape is not found for you."
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 359
" I have no wish to die," he said quickly. " I have health
and strength, and life is very sweet ; still, my mother, I must
not desert my post though I may be driven from it."
"You are right," she answered; "we have only to wait."
The waiting was not for long. The very next day it was
known to all St. Croix that the soldiers were, even then, on
their way to search for the young abbe.
Madame la Mere and her son had the presbytery entirely to
themselves when these tidings reached them, for the old lady
had allowed her little serving-maid to return to her friends a
permission which she had eagerly accepted, for an almost ab-
ject terror had seized upon all the villagers and there was not
one among them who possessed the courage to offer a hiding
place to their pastor.
After a thoughtful silence the abb said :
" It seems to me that my wisest course is to allow myself
to be taken without resistance, as there is no place for safe
concealment here, and if I am discovered in hiding it will make
matters worse for you." .
But his mother would not hear of this.
"No, Louis," she said, "there is no justice now in France.
Your only chance is in eluding your pursuers. There is, as you
say, no place in this little house where you could hide ; but, my
son, I have a plan which, for the time at least, may save you."
As she spoke she led him through the kitchen at the back of
the house, the door of which stood open, showing a small yard
paved with white, uneven stones. At the end of the yard was
a wooden shed, and the door of this too hung wide open upon
its rusty hinges. The shed was only used in the winter-time
for the abbess rough little pony, which all the summer through
ran loose in the fields. The dry ground inside the shed was
thickly strewn with straw and hay. The mid day sun streamed
in through the open doorway, rendering each corner visible.
Nothing but the four bare walls and the loose straw upon the
ground : it looked anything but a promising place for conceal-
ment.
The abb6 turned to his mother for an explanation, as they
stood together on the threshold. She entered, and lifting some
of the straw aside, told him that her notion was that he should
lie upon the ground, having the straw scattered over him ; then
with the door still standing open, she believed that the men
might pass and repass and never imagine him to be there.
"Can you do this, Louis?" she asked anxiously; " remem-i
360 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.
her it will tax your endurance to the uttermost to lie there,
resolved not to stir hand or foot no matter what you may
hear going on about you."
He hesitated for an instant, and his face was pale as
death; then he answered quietly that it should be as she de-
sired. But in his own heart the abb felt that it would have
been almost easier to go boldly out to meet his fate than to
lie cowering there, liable at any moment to be dragged igno-
miniously forth, like a rat from its hole. Even as these
thoughts passed through his mind, however, there was a distant
noise; the trampling of many feet, mingled with shouts and
cries, which warned them there was no time to delay, for the
soldiers were actually in the village.
Quickly and silently the mother and son put the straw
aside, and then the abb stretched himself at full length. Ly-
ing with his broad chest pressed against the ground and his
arms extended by his side, he turned his head so that his right
cheek rested on the earth and his eyes looked in the direction
of the door. The mother bent over him for an instant, her
lips touched his dark curls, and then, with deft fingers, she
arranged the straw over him so that he was completely
covered. This done, she returned to the house and took her
accustomed place in the little sitting-room, trying to work in-
dustriously. It was not long before there was a noisy rapping
on the outer door, and, without giving time for it to be opened,
the latch was unceremoniously lifted and a party of men entered,
the leader asking in loud, peremptory tones for the citizen
known as the Abbe Louis. Madame la Mere replied and with
perfect truth that her son was not in the house. The men
took little notice of her answer as they turned to begin a
rigorous search.
There were only six small rooms in all, and in none of
these was there a place where even a child could have been
concealed with safety. At length the men stood together in
the small -kitchen, muttering angry imprecations. It was. evident
that they dreaded the consequence of failure in the task they
had been set to do by the tyrants they served, in the name of
Freedom. The poor mother sat motionless, while her heart
went out in an agonized prayer of supplication as she heard
the men's heavy boots clatter across the little yard. Out there
in the sunshine they gazed about them, a couple of them peer-
ing in at the open doorway of the shed, and then remained
just outside, discussing their plans, vowing that they would not
362 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
be baffled that their prey could not be far off, and they would
secure him yet. And not a dozen yards from where they
stood their would-be captive lay, hearing each word they ut-
tered, going through an agony of mind that no after experience
would ever quite obliterate.
At first, as his pursuers neared his hiding place, the abbe's
heart had stood still; then, with one sudden bound, it beat so
fast and furiously that it seemed to him that the men must
hear its throbs. He tried to hold his breath, but that was im-
possible, and as each panting, laboring sigh escaped his lips,
the straw about his head stirred and rustled, so that he ex-
pected every instant that savage hands would seize and drag"
him forth. But the men heard no sound, and at last slowly
and reluctantly turned to depart, saying to each other that they
must search through the village, in case the abbe" had found
shelter with any of his people.
Soon after they had gone the mother came cautiously to
the door of the shed, saying softly:
" My son, thank God ! for a time, at least, the danger is
past ; but it is not yet safe that you should quit your hiding
place, as the men may revisit us."
The abbe agreed to this, and Madame la Mere again re-
turned to the house, where she busied herself quietly and
methodically with her household tasks, feeling that at any mo-
ment she might be taken by surprise. She was not mistaken,
for as the twilight deepened, without any warning of their ap-
proach, the soldiers again appeared. A search similar to that
of the morning was gone through, and for the second time, with
a very grateful feeling in her heart, the old lady saw them de-
part empty handed. She stood by the window, watching the
leader of the party gather his men together into marching
order, shouting out the name of the village that was to be their
next scene of action, and where, no doubt, they hoped to find
at least some trace of the Abbe Louis.
It was not until the whole village was quiet for the night
that, stiff and cramped from the long hours he had lain there,
the abbe emerged from his hiding place and entered the
house. The mother still sat keeping her patient vigil. As her
son stood before her in the lamp-light, she interrupted her ex-
clamations of gratitude for his deliverance to cry out in alarm :
" Louis, my son, what has happened to you ?
And indeed the young man presented a strange appearance.
All the hair on one side of his head the side that had lain
1 894.] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 363
upon the ground was bleached to a snowy whiteness, a start-
ling proof of the agony of mind he had passed through.
The mother was deeply affected by the sight, and, for the
first time in all that dreadful day, her self-command completely
deserted her. The abb did his best to comfort and reassure
her, declaring it was of little moment what did it signify ? were
not wigs and powdered heads in vogue ? and if he resorted to
one or the other of these, who would know of the strange fate
that had befallen him ? But although he made light of it for
his mother's sake, he was then, and ever afterwards, very sensi-
tive upon the subject. He could not endure the thought that
strangers' eyes would follow him curiously. He resorted to
powder when effecting his escape and, although he lived for
many years, never relinquished the habit, wearing his hair
thickly powdered, drawn back, and secured at the ends by a
black ribbon, after the manner of a wig a fashion suited to
the times and which gave him a somewhat picturesque appear-
ance.
The concealment in the shed had only saved the abbe from
immediate danger, and the mother and son fully realized this
fact as they sat, on far into the night, anxiously discussing what
was to be done. But no plan seemed feasible, and at length
the mother begged her son to rest, saying that some fresh
ideas would come to them in the morning ; Providence would
surely show them some way out of their difficulty.
The next day, before five o'clock, while her son still slept,
Madame la Mere was astir. Her heart was very heavy as she
stood gazing out upon the fresh beauty of the summer morn-
ing, when she saw a peasant, carrying a large basket, approach-
ing the house. It was the wife of a farmer who lived a few
miles out of St. Croix. She was a kindly creature, and often
came with little gifts the produce of her dairy for Madame
la Mere, to whom she was ever grateful for having befriended
her son, a young soldier who had since died in the wars.
The old lady opened the house-door, and the farmer's wife
entered, setting down her basket which to-day seemed unusually
large and heavy upon the red bricks of the kitchen floor. The
butter and eggs, nestling among folds of snowy linen, looked
very tempting, but Madame la Mere, who as a rule was loud
in their praise, said no word, and she and the peasant gazed at
each other with anxious inquiring eyes. They were women of
the same country, and of much the same time of life, though
they were very different to look upon. The farmer's wife, her
364 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
back bent from the constant carrying of heavy loads, her
wrinkled skin rough and coarse from exposure, her bony hands
hard and sinewy from toil, was a striking contrast to the abbess
mother, frail and delicate as a piece of Dresden china. But
there was a bond between these women that made them
one, and that was the strong mother-love that filled either
heart.
The peasant was the first to speak.
" Ah, madame ! ' ' she said under her breath, " Monsieur
l'Abb, is he safe is he here ? "
There was no answer for a moment, then Madame la Mere
said gently:
" My good Marie, you are to be trusted, I know. Yes, my
son is safe ; though God only knows how long his safety will
last."
Then she went on to recount the events of the previous
day, ending by saying how sorely perplexed they were as to
what was the next step to be taken.
The peasant's rough face beamed with happiness.
"Ah, madame!" she cried, "it may be that I can show you
a way in which your son can escape in safety."
Then with careful hands she lifted the butter and eggs from
her basket and drew forth a soldier's uniform. It was the full-
dress uniform of an officer, and was in perfect condition, not
an article being missing. The abbe's mother looked on in be-
wilderment, then suddenly the glad conviction came to her that
now indeed escape was possible for Louis.
The good peasant went on to explain how, a few days be-
fore, a party of soldiers were in the neighborhood of her home
when one of the officers was struck down by sun-stroke. He
was carried into the farm and proved to be so ill that, after a
time, his comrades were forced to go on their way leaving him
behind. She had nursed him, she said, through many hours of
fever and delirium, while her thoughts were ever with her dear
abb and his mother, wondering what had been their fate, for
she knew only too well that the soldiers were searching the
village. Then last night, as the sick man had lain unconscious,
the idea came to her that it might be an easy matter for the
young abb to escape in the officer's clothes, and she at once
resolved to lose no time in taking the uniform to the presby-
tery ; so she packed it in her basket and set off as soon as it
was light. She did not believe, she said in conclusion, that the
sick officer had been one of the party who had been bound for
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 365
St. Croix. He seemed to be in a company of officers of supe-
rior rank who were returning direct to Bris.
Madame la Mere's heart went out in gratitude to the good
woman who had proved herself such a friend in need. Then
the farmer's wife declared that the abbe ought to lose no time
in quitting St. Croix; the mother agreed to the wisdom of this,
and went at once to rouse him.
The abb was delighted with the notion of the officer's dis-
guise. He knew it would require both tact and courage to
carry it through ; still there was something bold and inspiriting
in the thought of meeting his foes face to face which would, in
a measure, compensate for the ignominy of the previous day.
The uniform fitted to perfection, and his powdered hair only
added to the disguise. The mother looked proudly at his
strong, erect figure, while the peasant woman cried out, with
tears in her eyes, that he was a true soldier.
The abbe's plans were soon arranged. He would make for
the Pyrenees and so into Spain. He felt that his only real
safety lay in quitting France. Whether he should ever return
to his native land would depend upon after events. In the
present turmoil it was hard to say what might happen, but
should he be forced to stay in Spain his mother must follow
him there; on this paint he was very urgent.
Then the mother and son took a tender farewell, and the
young abbe set out upon his way. It was still early morning
and he walked through the village without coming into contact
with any of the people. He could see some of them at work
among the fields, but the majority were in their houses, having
been too scared by the rough treatment of the soldiers the day
before to care to venture out.
The abbe took care to walk with the steady, swinging step
of a marching soldier, while his mind was full of plans by
which he could render his escape more easy. About a mile
outside the village, at a sudden turn of the road, he came upon
a body of soldiers. They were no others than the search-party
returning to St. Croix for one final attempt at his capture.
For an instant the abba's heart beat as it had done while he
lay under the straw close to these very men. Then he steadied
himself and walked boldly forward.
The .band of soldiers consisted of some twenty rough-look-
ing men, in charge of a corporal. As they saw the officer ap-
proach they saluted him, and the corporal inquired if he had
seen anything of the Abbe Louis.
366 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
The abb replied in the negative, and then, in calm but au-
thoritative tones, bade them continue their search. The men,
having again saluted him respectfully, went on their way.
This encounter gave the abb courage to push bravely on,
until at length he reached Spain in safety, and there, devoted
to his studies, he remained for a time in quiet seclusion while
the Reign of Terror held its dread sway in France.
" Ah," sighed M. de Brissac, as the good father brought his
impressive reminiscence to an end, "these were miserable times
in France. All the noble impulses of her generous people
seemed to be turned aside into wrong channels, like some of
those torrents you see leaping down from the hills here sud-
denly diverted by a great shoulder of rock or the encroach-
ments of the sliding glacier. I suppose there were many
refugees from that unhappy country claiming the shelter of the
hospice during these miserable years."
" I do not know that there were many ; there were some.
How many there really were will never be known in this world.
You have seen the morgue, perhaps, as you drew near this
building?"
"Yes, I saw it from the outside, helas ! It was getting dark,
and I had not time to look further," replied the Frenchman.
" Well, there are a good many bodies there which have
never been identified. How many of these may have, been
those of refugees from France, lay or cleric, must remain a
mystery. But there can be no doubt that there were some,
for the Simplon Pass is one of the most frequented highways
over the mountains. Many refugees passed over in those years ;
many, too, were found in the snow."
" I believe those bodies last here a long time, Father
Ernest?" queried Dr. Redfern.
" Yes ; they seem, many of them, as though they would
never decompose," replied the monk. " We keep them as long
as we can, when there is no means of identification, in the same
dress as we found them in, leaving any papers or objects by
which they might be identified prominently about them or be-
side them."
"And does identification often take place?" queried Mr.
Redfern.
"There have been some instances, painful and startling in
their circumstances," replied the monk. " But the number of
cases are few in proportion to those who are lost in the snow."
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 367
"I am told that the bodies suffer little from decomposition;
is that so, Father Ernest?" queried Mrs. Redfern.
" They preserve the flesh, and a remarkably life-like appear-
ance, in most cases, for a very long period, madame. There
is one group in the morgue a mother holding her babe to her
bosom which looks startlingly real. The freezing of the body
seems to act as a powerful antiseptic, and to ward off decay in-
definitely."
" That is so," assented Dr. Redfern, " especially when the
body has been healthy previous to death. A dead body
packed in ice might take centuries to decompose. It is not
many years since the body of a megatherium was found em-
bedded in ice in North Siberia, in so perfect a condition that
even the hair remained on the skin. The monster must have
lain where he fell, when death seized him, for some thousands
of years."
" I suppose you have lost all record of even the finding of
some of the bodies placed in the morgue, father ? " queried M.
de Brissac.
" Oh, yes ! in many cases. This monastery, you are doubt-
less aware, has existed for about a thousand years. The Simp-
Ion Pass was traversed by many of the hordes who poured
into Italy from Gaul Franks and Goths and Longobardi, Suevi,
Alemani, and even Celts from Armorica and Ireland have used
this highway into Italy. For aught we know, the bones of
some of these marauders may be mingled with those of modern
travellers. The dust of haughty chiefs, like Brennus and Alaric,
may thus be mixed up with that of peaceful itinerant musicians
or travelling peddlers. Our morgue is a great democratic insti-
tution."
" The house of death should be the same in character as
the potentate himself, who is no favorer of rank," remarked
Dr. Redfern. His impartiality was recognized even before the
morgue was built :
" ' Pallida Mors equo pulsat pede pauperumque tabernos Re-
gisque turres.' "
" Your walls, my reverend host, appear to me the converse
of the invisible monarch. They give comfort and protection to
all ranks and classes of men without distinction. You welcome
the peasant as freely as you have welcomed the king and the
emperor."
" Yes, sir ; they all have a common claim upon our charity
their desperate need," answered the gentle-faced monk.
368 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
" Your resources are pretty ample, yet I suppose they are
often strained ? " observed Mrs. Redfern.
" There are times when we are called upon to give shelter
to several hundred visitors," answered the guest-father. " Even
in summer, when the airs are the balmiest and most tranquil in
the lowlands, the storms burst here with astounding suddenness.
At such seasons the hills are crowded with tourists and peas-
ants coming from fairs, and the rush for shelter then is many-
footed. Fortunately we have a large building and our stores of
supplies are usually commensurate to the strain. Firewood is
the only thing we dread running out. It is the one thing that
stands between us and death all through the winter season."
"Your winter season is a long one here, I should say," re-
marked Dr. Redfern.
" Yes, almost all through the summer, if I may use a para-
dox," answered Father Ernest. " The little lake that you may
have observed glistening at the foot of the precipice outside the
gate only melts in July and freezes again in September. The
heat is never that of summer at any time 68 degrees is the
highest yet recorded."
" Still the cold can never be so intense as in the Arctic
regions, I should say," said M. de Brissac. " How, otherwise,
would it be possible for your community to live here without
being wrapped up in furs, as they do ? "
" The monks are all hardy young men when they come
here," replied Father Ernest. "They are selected because of
their good constitution and robust physique, yet they succumb
in a comparatively short time to the rigor of the place. Four-
teen or fifteen years is the longest period that they can endure
it without collapsing altogether. The cold is not, as you say,
so intense as in the high northern regions, but it is constantly
severe, and sometimes it reaches 29 degrees below Fahrenheit."
" That is trying enough," mused M: de Brissac ; " and I
believe whilst the cold becomes colder in a high atmosphere,
the opposite principle is observed in regard to heat. For in-
stance, it takes longer to cook food."
" Yes ; it takes twice as long as in the lowlands, whilst the
water used in cooking it boils at a much lower temperature
187 degrees, instead of the normal 212. This makes it terribly
hard to keep up our supplies of firewood."
" Where do you get them, sir ? " queried the doctor. " There
is no timber visible for miles before you get here, and not
even shrubbery or vegetation of any kind, so far as I could note."
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 369
" We have to go as far as the Val de Ferret for our fire-
wood," replied the monk, "and that is twelve miles from this
place. The labor of cutting it and drawing it up here is
immense, but we would be glad if it could at all times be
possible. But sometimes we are buried in snow here completely
from thirty to forty feet. To dig our way out and fight our
way down to the pine forest in the Val de Ferret is no small
labor."
" I should say it would be one not unworthy of that mythi-
cal personage, Hercules," said M. de Brissac warmly. " When
the winter snow has accumulated for a couple of months, I
have been told, the danger from avalanches down the road to
the valley is as deadly as on the battle-field."
"There is no exaggeration in the report, sir," answered the
good monk. "Around here the avalanches hurl themselves
down upon our houses at times in such mass and with such a
shock that the walls of our buildings, stout as they are, are
put to a severe strain. The noise of their on-rush is like that
of artillery, and their descent is fearfully swift. Ah, here comes
Gervase," he added, glancing with a relieved expression at a
lay brother who had just entered, with a brace of noble
hounds of the famous convent breed. " He could tell you some
thrilling stories of the avalanches. Any news to-night, good
Gervase ? Is all quiet along the road ? "
" Ay, father ; as quiet as in the morgue yonder," replied the
man addressed, as he unwound his heavy wrappings, which were
frozen into suits of mail apparently. " Though the night is fine,
no traveller cares to stir out. I went down as far as St. Remy,
where the villagers are joyfully celebrating the festa. No one
will come up from that side, I imagine, until the morning,
when we shall have some at Mass ; perhaps Bruno has gone
down the Aosta side ; he ought to be back shortly."
He drew a chair near the fire as he spoke, and the two dogs
stretched themselves at full length before the glowing hearth,
and regarded the assembled guests with a look of quiet welcome
in their great brown, thoughtful-looking eyes. These animals
looked the personification of calm courage and noble benevolence.
" Go and get a cup of warm coffee, Gervase," said Father
Ernest, " and then, when you have seen to the wants of our
visitors here, tell them of the adventure of the English agnostic
and little Gretel ; they want to hear something about the dan-
gers of the avalanches. I must leave you to entertain them for
a little while, for there goes the complin bell."
VOL. LX. 24
3/0 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
The young man addressed as Gervase, an athletiolooking,
rosy-faced, fair-haired Teuton, whose countenance was the image
of good-nature, smiled pleasantly.
" Ah, yes," he replied, " I think I could tell that story of
little Gretel till I drop asleep. She is a very dear little frau-
lein, and a very good friend of mine. She comes from my own
country, the Bavarian Alps. Now," he said, when he had helped
himself and his listeners as desired, " you shall hear how my
little fraulein saved an Englishman's life, and at the same time
converted him from sneering infidelity. This is the story : "
THE UTTLE SENNERIN OF ISELSTEIN.
The red October sun had just crept up in the east over the
jagged peaks of the Bavarian Alps, clothing their snowy sum-
mits with a rosy mantle. Over the narrow valley a faint flaky
vapor yet lingered, hiding the picturesque Alpine chalets, until
the triumphal sun himself, throwing off his mantle of cloud,
shot a few of his golden arrows athwart the shadowy veil, at
the narrow, latticed windows, and proclaimed his reign.
In their path to the village the sunbeams lighted the narrow,
slot-like windows of a little church which stood on the upper
slope of the Iselstein a spur of the Bavarian Alps and bid-
ding defiance with its massive walls and heavy doors to the
terrors of the mountain. Avalanches thundered by from the
summit of the Iselstein, crevasses yawned in the ice around,
winter's bitter blasts raged against its sides, and the treacherous
snow circled slowly, slyly down, burying it in a white sepulchre ;
but the little church, like its great prototype, stood firm on its
rocky pedestal.
Somewhat more than a hundred years ago a prosperous
hamlet nestled on the mountain side and had grown there in
perfect security for slow centuries, when one calm spring night
a landslide occurred carrying with it the village and the larger
part of its inhabitants. The survivors and their friends from the
neighborhood erected the church as a general tombstone or me-
mento of those dear to them who had perished in the catastrophe.
Its site was as nearly identical with that of the destroyed vil-
lage as the havoc wrought by the landslide would allow them
to judge. This morning the villagers were busy gathering in
their harvests or collecting their flocks on the heights to bring
them down to the lower pastures ere the snows of winter began
to fall. Many of them had their vineyards on the mountain-
1 894.]
A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND.
37*
side, and the walk was long and the day short if one did not
rise before the sun. Nevertheless both harvesters and Senne-
rinnen, the Alpine herdswomen, who were upon the pasture
with their cattle, found time to go to the church whenever the
good pastor climbed up there, which he still did twice weekly, to
say Mass. The pastor was no mountaineer, but the ascent to
that rocky Cal-
vary was a labor
of love to him.
Among the
throng of wor-
shippers on this
autumnal morning
was a girl of thir-
teen or fourteen
years whose soft,
childish face and
innocent blue eyes
were singularly
out of keeping
with the prema-
turely worried and
troubled expres-
sion of her coun-
tenance. Around
her mouth was
that sorrowful
droop which only
comes from bat-
tling with trouble.
She wore the cos-
tume of a Senne-
rin a neat blue
skirt and bodice,
white chemisette
and high, conical
hat, quite una-
dorned by the glittering pins and coins with which even the
humblest Alpine maiden loves to deck herself. Such as she
was, however, poor, simple, and plainly clad, Gretel Bechart
was perhaps the most respected Sennerin of the Iselstein.
Just now poor Gretel was in dire trouble. Her mother, the
only parent left her, was very ill with rheumatism, and had
SUNBEAMS LIGHTED THE NARROW, SLOT-LIKE WINDOWS OF
THE LITTLE CHURCH.
372 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
not been able to leave the village or work at her lace-mak-
ing all the summer. The young girl was obliged, therefore,
to leave her to the kindly neighbors' care and go alone up to
the upper pastures with her little herd of four cows. She
slept in one of the miserable sennhutte sometimes alone, some-
times with one or two companions, and went down to Altenstiel
two or three times weekly to visit her mother and bring the
supplies of milk and butter.
Things had gone very badly this year ; two of the cows had
sickened and died, the third was now bitten with the plague.
Poor Gretel's heart was nearly broken with anxiety and worry
as she stole away from the sick animal to pray God to spare
her this last hope for the winter's sustenance.
Noiselessly the holy Sacrifice was proceeding ; the humble
folk with bent heads prayed in their quiet, earnest fashion ;
wearying cares and troubled thoughts dropped away from their
minds, and even Gretel's wearied little heart grew comforted in
that atmosphere of peace and rest. Not a sound, save the mur-
mured words of the priest or the tinkle of the altar bell, broke
the stillness until with a vigorous thrust the door of the church
was pushed suddenly open and a young man in hunter's cos-
tume, with his gun on his shoulder, tramped in. Although clad
in the ordinary green dress of the mountaineer, there was an
evident difference between him and the young peasants in the
building ; his delicate white hands and fair, untanned face bore
no traces of the burning sun or biting frosts of the Alps.
At first he did not even think it necessary to remove his
hat, probably not being quite sure as to where he was ; but the
moment he perceived that service was in progress he drew it
from his head, disclosing a frank, clear-skinned face, wavy chest-
nut hair, and honest hazel eyes. After a somewhat puzzled stare
around, as if he still hardly realized his whereabouts, he sank
slowly on one knee, with a half shrug, and remained in that
position gazing with unconcealed interest at the picturesque, in-
tent worshippers and the crude statues and decorations.
Shortly before Mass was ended Gretel, who feared staying
too long from the stricken cow, stole softly out, unperceived by
any one save the stranger at the door. He arose instantly and
followed her.
" Little girl, little girl ! " he called after her as she darted
towards the upward path with wonderful swiftness, " can you
tell me where I shall find the road to Andreas Kloft's cot-
tage ? "
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 373
Andreas Kloft was one of the best-known guides and hun-
ters of the Bavarian Alps.
"Of course I can, sir," she answered readily, speaking slow-
ly and distinctly, as she divined at once from his accent that he
was a foreigner. " I am going that way. Follow me."
He came up to her.
" You are very good," he said, raising his hat with a courtesy
new and rather bewildering to the little Sennerin. She nod-
ded, however, with quaint dignity and sped up the steep path
before him with the agility of a young goat.
" Halt ! " cried the young man at last, laughing good-hu-
moredly if in gasps " my feet are new to your mountains,
and I cannot climb them like a chamois. Take pity on me and
moderate your steps."
Gretel turned round with her sad little smile. " I will go
slower," she said, in that grave, old-fashioned manner of hers,
and immediately came down beside him. He looked at the
anxious face kindly.
" You are in trouble ? " he asked ; his soft, cultivated voice,
with its foreign accent, making the words sound almost tender.
Gretel's eyes filled with tears at the unexpected sympathy,
but she brushed them away.
"Yes! I have great trouble. My mother is sick, and my
cow is dying ; but but God is good and will not forget us in
our sorrow."
She glanced upwards at the pure morning sky, as if she
could see into that mysterious realm "where He abides." Her
trusting confidence was beautiful in its simplicity.
A smile, half-pitying, half-contemptuous, curled the English-
man's lips.
" He will not forget you ! " he repeated with unconcealed
sarcasm. " Well, I hop g e not. It would be too bad to lose the
mother and the cow."
Gretel's quick blue eyes flashed at his mocking words. She
was not angry but, oh ! so pained, so surprised.
"You do not believe God will help me?" she questioned,
her astonishment audible even in her young voice.
He shrugged his shoulders. Why cavil at her simple faith or
give open expression to his thoughts of her belief? It probably
sufficed for the consolation of her unreasoning soul in its petty,
self-engrossed channel why disturb her by his sceptical opinion ?
Acting upon this thought he answered aloud, carelessly but
not irreverently :
374 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
" I know but little of his ways, and I'm sure I hope he may
befriend you in your distress. You deserve that all would go
well with you a good, hard-working little Sennerin, as I've no
doubt you are."
"Oh! I'm not good," she cried hastily, her fair face suf-
fused with color ; " I am often cross and disagreeable, and I even
grow tired of praying. My mother never does she is surely
a saint but I, though I know God will help me at last, I some-
times get weary of asking, although he is never weary of listen-
ing to our prayers."
Her pathetic self-reproach and childlike confidence touched
the young Englishman. His face lost its sarcastic look and
grew more thoughtful.
" I almost wish I had your faith, little one," he said gently,
after a pause.
" Do you not believe in God ? "
He shook his head slowly half doubtfully, half sadly.
" And you never pray to him ? "
It seemed as if the child could not realize how he lived
without belief or prayer, those two necessaries of her life.
" I have not prayed since I was a little boy. My mother
died before I was ten years old, and since then I have never
been inside a church."
Her eager questioning had not displeased him, and now he
found himself telling this little Sennerin something he would
not confide to most of his world, and she was gazing at him
with pitying earnestness ; not the mildly reproving yet wholly
condoning looks of the Pharisees for this spoiled, atheistical
darling of society, but the sincere sorrow of a simple heart for
one who had fallen away from the straight and narrow path,
which alone leads to God.
" I am sorry for you," she said at length, in her grave little
way.
The young man stared at her in astonishment. She, this
sad, careworn mountain child, was sorry for him ! Pity was the
last thing Hugh Trafford was in the habit of receiving, and pity
from such a source! To what was he coming.
" So you are sorry for me," he repeated, as soon as he had
sufficiently controlled his feelings to speak. " Why ? Because 1
have lost faith in God? Well, so far, that has not made me
an object of pity. I have had most of the things I wanted or
wished for without calling on his aid "
" Oh, do not speak so, sir ! It is he who gives all, both
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 375
the good and the bad. When your day of reckoning comes
you will feel sorry you did not ask his help or counsel. Even
before that day a time may come when you will wish you had
a God to turn to for assistance."
Gretel spoke warmly, and her childish warning struck him
more forcibly than a lecture on theology would have done.
What truth might there not be in this innocent prophecy?
" Well, you must pray for me, little one but only when you
are not weary, remember so that if that day comes, and I
shall invoke God's help, he may not reject me."
He spoke lightly, but there was a vein of earnestness in his
speech which Gretel was quick to note. His flippancy hurt
her, for she was powerless to rebut it ; yet, with childhood's un-
erring instinct, she felt that the flippancy was only skin-deep,
and that a noble soul lay beneath the careless exterior, only
awaiting God's touch to awaken into a new life. .
They had quickened their steps the last few minutes, and a
turn in the path brought them in sight of an old-fashioned cha-
let which stood outlined in fantastic beauty against the blue,
cloudless sky. Gretel pointed to it.
"There is Kloft's cottage. Andreas and the gentlemen are
at the door already. Hasten or they will have started."
With a hasty thanks, and slipping a gulden in her hand,
Hugh Trafford ran down the path to join his friends on their
chamois hunt, while Gretel toiled upwards to the pasture where
she had left the dying cow her gulden tightly clasped in one
hand and the first prayer for the " Herr Englander" on her
lips.
Two days later a heavy snow-storm swept over the Alps.
The Sennerinnen drove their cattle hurriedly into shelter ; paths,
precipices, and crevasses were nearly obliterated from even the
experienced eyes of the Alpine herdswomen. In one of the senn-
hutte, crouched close to the small, smoky fire, sat Gretel, her
hands folded listlessly in her lap ; her eyes, with their wistful
intense look, fixed on the fire. Two or three young Sennerinnen
sat by the window, knitting and chatting.
" This will finish the upper pastures," remarked one of them
after a glance at the eddying snow. " As soon as the ground
clears from this I take my cows home ! "
"And I, too, Annchen ! " cried the other; "this will be no
place for us now the winter has begun."
" No, Lizerl," said the first speaker, " winter has not come
yet, even if we have a snow-flurry or two ; but one can't
376
A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND.
[Dec.,
How goes it
the little girl
with
with
the sick
a kindly
be too careful of one's cattle,
cow, Gretel?" She turned to
glance.
" Better," answered the little one briefly.
" Did you bring her to shelter from the storm ? " asked Li-
zerl garrulously.
"Should I be sitting here if I had not?" demanded Gretel
quickly, and no-
thing more was
needed. No Sen-
nerin seeks for
shelter until her
herd is safe.
" Ah, dear
heavens, but this
is a storm ! " cried
another girl, run-
ning into the cab-
in, her clothes
wet through, her
hands and face
blue from expo-
sure. " I'm so
thankful to see a
fire again ! v
"What brought
you here, Mina ?
You always take
refuge in the Isel-
stein huts."
"Ei! children,
the Iselstein is
threatened by an
avalanche. I had
my cows safe in
one of the pens
there, when Kloft's
boy ran up and told me they had heard rumblings on the moun-
tain top and feared an avalanche. His father went up there
with some Englishmen two days ago, and they fear if he does
not return soon that he will be surely killed. Well, when I
heard that I just ran for my herd and hurried them over here.
Why, Gretel, where are you going ? "
THROWING OFF HIS MANTLE OF CLOUD.'
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 377
The little girl, her shawl drawn tightly around her head and
shoulders, was running towards the door.
" My cows I left them in one of the Iselstein pens. I was
going home to-night and came over this way when the storm
drove me in here ; but I must go back now. Don't hold me,
Annchen ; I cannot leave them to be swept away."
She sprang forth, heedless of the entreaties of the other
women, and in another minute was breasting the furious storm,
which whirled and raged on the bare mountain sides threaten-
ing to crush the frail child against the pine trunks or bury her
under the drifting snow. But the small, sure feet never wavered,
the little slender body swayed with the wind yet never touched
the trees, and the keen blue eyes, undazzled by the snow, peered
cautiously at each landmark along the well-known path. Her
pale lips moved in incessant prayer, and despite the fury of the
storm and the dangers of the way the look of perfect trust
and confidence in God never left her face. God would not for-
get her, as she always said in her childish way, and with his
constant guidance she felt no fear.
Already she had traversed the boundaries of the Iselstein
and was rapidly hastening upward by the little church to the
pen where she had housed the cows. She had put them there
in the early morning, before starting homewards by a short cut
over the Altenberg, and now she had come back to save them
or die in the attempt.
A moment she paused at the door of the church only a
moment to ejaculate " Maria, hilf mir ! " when through the howl-
ings of the gale and the ominous rumblings which echoed from
the mountain peak came a voice a voice, faint but distinct, cry-
ing aloud for help.
Gretel stood still and listened, her ears strained to their ut-
most.
Again the call rang out from the upper region of steep
precipices and narrow, scanty pastures ; fainter this time and
half-drowned by the storm, but still a human cry. " Help, help ! "
For a second Gretel stood irresolute ; should she answer the
appeal ? Death to herself and her cherished cattle was coming
nearer every minute. All the cows were down from the Alps,
the hunters had fled before the fall of the avalanche ; at best
it was some stranger, some unknown tourist who called on her
from the heights of the doomed mountain. Must she risk her
life and the safety of her herd to bring him the help he sought
for?
378 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
It did not take Gretel quite the second to weigh all these
considerations in the balance and find them wanting. Before
the third call came she was on her way to the unknown.
"Where are you?" she cried in her clear, loud voice, and
the far-away muffled tones sounded clearer than before as they
answered joyfully: "Here on a ledge above a great crevasse."
Where had she heard that voice before, with its bad accent but
grammatical speech ? Ah ! the young Englishman, who had gone
with Andreas Kloft the day the cow sickened ; she had prayed
for him since, and was she now to bring him deliverance? God
grant it ! He was not so far off the crevasse, she knew the
one he must mean, was not more than a couple of hundred
yards above the church, and it did not take her long to reach
the ledge upon which he was standing. She crept cautiously
but fearlessly along it until she suddenly found herself beside
the young tourist. He was leaning against the precipice, his
eyes strained in the direction from whence her voice had
sounded up to him.
When he perceived her close beside him he gave a start and
an exclamation of joy which broke off into a suppressed groan,'
and she noticed that despite the cold the sweat-drops stood on
his forehead.
" Little one is it really you ? And so soon you must
climb like"
She interrupted him at once.
" What is the matter with you ? "
" I have broken my arm, I believe," he answered as careless-
ly as he could, glancing at his limp coat sleeve. " I slipped
over the precipice and landed on this ledge, smashing my arm
and maybe a rib or two. I was quite unconscious for some
time from the shock, and when I revived I found myself utter-
ly alone. .Kloft and my companions, I imagine, gave me up for
lost when I fell over the crevasse ; anyway they must have gone
on, for I have had no response to my calls until you answered.
I kept moving along the ledge, but grew so exhausted at last
that I had to stand still."
" Can you not walk ? " she asked quickly ; those awful
thunders on the summit of the mountain were growing louder;
she knew the avalanche was not far off. It was death sure and
fearful to remain on that ledge another quarter of an hour; yet
if he could not come to the shelter of the church she would
not leave him to perish alone.
" Where to ? " he asked vaguely. His eyes were clouded
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 379
and languid, his breath came in gasps, his few words to her
seemed to have robbed him of his last strength.
"To the church, it is not far, and " her voice faltered a
little "the avalanche is coming and it will sweep us from
here."
He, too, paused. That deadly languor which was creeping
over him made even death preferable to exertion. The pain
was less intense now and the longing for rest irresistible. He
almost wished he had not called for help, and then his eyes
met hers, those true, patient eyes, so noble, so unselfish. She
stood by him calmly, fearlessly ready to lead him to safety or
face death by his side rather than leave a fellow-creature to
die alone. He realized then the superior force and truth of
character in this simple, God-loving child, and, with a mighty
effort gathering himself together, he signed to her to go on.
Placing his left hand on her shoulder, he followed her as quick-
ly as his nervous strength would let him, she supporting him
with all the ease of a child of labor, until they reached the
old, snow-wreathed church. Already huge balls of snow and
splinters of rock had torn by them, the first daring heralds of
the advancing war. As the doors of the deserted chapel
closed behind them the tumult on the mountain ceased ; the
heavy clouds were sailing slowly away, and the snow-flakes no
longer fell ; even the rumblings were stilled, and for a moment
there was peace that awful, ghastly peace when Nature waits
with bated breath for the coming of disaster.
Then a strange darkness, or rather an intense gloom, spread
over the heavens as, with the roar of a hundred cannon and the
shrieks of infuriated demons, the avalanche started on its down-
ward path of ruin and destruction.
Something stronger than physical pain or weariness kept
Hugh Trafford near one of the narrow windows, gazing silently
at the mad, whirling torrent, and as he looked it seemed to
him as if all his puny beliefs and theories were being swept from
his soul by the mighty flood surging before him. What was
man's logic, after all, against the might and majesty of Him who
rules the elements ? Where was the work of earth strong or
haughty enough to defy the hand which held weapons such as
this in its grasp ? Above all, who, looking at this wonderful,
heaving mass of accumulated snow and ice, would dare to doubt
as Trafford had until this hour the existence of a Supreme
Being, to whom all nature bows in awe and answers to* his
will?
380 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec. r
Gretel had crept to the altar-rail, trying with her hands
over her ears to shut out the sounds of the tumult ; but Trafford
never moved from the window.
Still the avalanche raced on, so near the church that the
branches of some of the writhing pines brushed the windows as
they were borne onward in the rushing columns of snow, and
the loosened fragments of rock threw themselves in mad fury
against the stout stone walls, only to rebound into the fearful,
tossing mass and be drawn downwards in the arms of that irre-
sistible snow-maiden. In less time than it takes to write it, all
was over ; faint thunders still resounded upwards, while the tor-
rent seethed around the base of the mountain, heaping and
tumbling over itself ere it subsided into the narrow valley its
rage spent, its might exhausted a gigantic, unsightly snow-heap
from whence protruded huge broken stones and battered pine
trunks.
Ere the last echoes of the dying storm ceased Gretel felt
some one kneel beside her, and raising her head, perceived the
form of her companion. His face was hidden by his left hand
and his body leaned heavily against the altar-rail, but in spite
of pain and languor he had come to make his peace with God
Half an hour slipped by, but he did not move ; Gretel stole
softly to the door and looked around her. On the right of the
church, as far as the eye could reach, the mountain side lay
bare and desolate the path of the avalanche had been truly
one of annihilation ; on the left, the side nearer the village, the
damage had been slight. A few stray boulders or uprooted
trees lay here and there on the path, but they were no obsta-
cles to a descent to Altenstiel. In the west the sky had grown
clearer, a faint line of amber light gleamed from behind the far-
away Alpine peaks. Gretel glanced up to the snowy heights
above her, where the walls of the pen wherein she had stabled
her cattle gleamed yellow in the dull sunset glow. They were
safe, thank God ! the storm had swept by, leaving them un-
harmed. Oh ! how thankful she was to him for his care to-day*
A voice called from the interior of the church, and in an-
other minute Trafford came out to her ; very worn and weak
he looked, but there was a light in his eyes which completely
dominated the expression of suffering and weariness on his face.
He took her hand gently in his left palm.
" I want to thank you now, Gretel," he said in quiet, sub-
dued tones, " for what you have done for me. In the terror of
our race before the avalanche I could not speak, but now now
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 381
I will try to tell you, as far as words go, how deeply, heartily
grateful I am to you. Not only did you risk your life to save
mine, but I saw it in your eyes if I had given way to my
pain and languor on the ledge you would have stayed and died
too rather than leave me to meet death alone. O Gretel! if
only my words were not cold and formal ; but my tongue is so
unfamiliar with your language that "
" O sir ! " interrupted the little Sennerin hastily, " you must
not speak of it. I did nothing nothing. It was God who sent
me in time to hear your voice."
" Ay, Gretel, that is it ! God sent you to save me ; that
same God I have neglected and forgotten since my boyhood
did not forget me in my peril. Do you remember telling me I
might one day long for some one to turn to for a helping hand
and then regret my unfaith ? How soon that day came ! Yet
as I stood maimed and helpless on that precipice, in the line
of the coming disaster, I thought of your words, I yearned for
some of your faith and confidence. Even as I stood waiting
for my end, hopeless, despairing, a flash of memory brought to
my mind the teachings of my youth. I remombered that God
was merciful and forgiving, and that no repentant sinner need
fear to cast himself before the throne of charity. And then I
prayed for the first time in how many years!"
"And yet God answered you?"
The bright eyes were fixed on him with such joyful cer-
tainty had she not been herself God's messenger ?
" Yes ! He answered me through you," replied Trafford
gravely. " It was the turning point in my existence ; I had
just entreated for another chance, a few years more of life, and
I would turn to the right and go forward in the way my mother
had taught me. It was not that I feared death, but I dreaded
to meet my God. In a moment of awful agony and suspense
life seems but a small thing ; it is death, or rather what lies be-
yond death, which makes one cower and tremble. Well, just as
I was yielding to despair, you came a veritable answer to my
prayer and, in leading me back to life, you gave me anew the
jewel of faith I lost so long ago. God grant I nevermore may
forfeit it ! "
" Amen ! " said Gretel, with shining eyes. " I will always
pray for you, Herr Englander."
Three weeks later Trafford left for England. His arm, thanks
to the unremitting care of the Alpine doctor who had earned
382 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
more in those three weeks than he would in three years among
the mountaineers was nearly well, but still in a sling. His ac-
cident and rescue by Gretel were the talk of the village for
many a day, and the fact of his making extravagant purchases
of lace and attending Mass the last Sunday before his depar-
ture singled him out as a prince among British tourists.
Before leaving he called to bid Gretel good-by and, notwith-
standing his having bought more lace from her mother than
that good woman dreamed of selling in ten years, he left be-
hind on the little deal table a check for one hundred florins,
with a short note for Gretel. " As a token of gratitude for your
bravery," it ran, " in saving me on the Iselstein, and as a re-
membrance of your promise to pray for my perseverance in
the new life which awoke in my soul."
"It might be assumed as a matter of course," remarked Dr.
Redfern, " that a sojourn amidst those mountain regions dis-
poses the mind toward devotion. The effect of such sublime
scenery must be irresistible, even upon the most atheistically
inclined." *
" The assumption would be fallacious, like many others," re-
joined M. de Brissac. " Distinguished infidels have written their
names in the books of this hospice as well as distinguished be-
lievers. You will find there, as well as the name of Dante, the
great Christian poet, the signature of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Many eminent geologists come to live in the Alps to study their
favorite science ; and these savans are mostly of the pronounced
agnostic school."
" True," remarked the lay brother, " and there is a very good
instance just to hand. There is one Professor Tyndall, a distin-
guished savant, I hear. He lives for a considerable time in the
Alps every year, and he, I am told, is a devout agnostic. It is
a strange result of scientific knowledge that it makes a man un-
able to see what the most ignorant peasant of the hills can see
the hand of the Almighty in the magnificent mountains and
lovely valleys of the Alps."
" The peasantry all around are very devout, I believe," re-
marked Mrs. Redfern. " I have been told that these hills are
full of legends of marvellous interpositions of Providence, in
cases where death and destruction appeared to be inevitable."
" That is so, madame," answered M. de Brissac. " I have
spent a good many years, off and on, amongst them, and I
know they are as firmly convinced of such interposition at times
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 383
as they are of their own existence. Here is one of the stories
of this kind, which is most generally believed in all about the
village of St. Remy : "
THE UTTLE CRIPPLE OF THE SIMPLON.
A red light is burning dimly in the window of a poor hut
almost buried beneath the snow. The bitter cold and intense
darkness, unrelieved by even the pale rays of a winter moon, in-
spire only fear and dread in the heart of the lonely watcher
within the wretched abode. In such depths of sadness and de-
spair is that weary watcher, it would seem as though angel tid-
ings would indeed be necessary to warm a heart so chilled with
even a faint gleam of hope and love, I was about to add,
but love is there maternal love, which eighteen hundred years
ago that night found its completion and fullest benediction in
the heart of the lowly Mother of Bethlehem.
Within the gloomiest recess of the hut, on a bed of straw,
lies a boy about seven years of age. The sunken cheeks and
emaciated form speak eloquently a pathetic tale of poverty and
sickness, but the patient expression in the little face tells a
story too the story of suffering patiently endured. He has
been a cripple since earliest infancy, and the daily inability to
give him the necessary care, the constant vision of her child's
suffering, seem to Margaret a burden almost too great to bear.
The boy has been sleeping heavily, but wakens now and mur-
murs something about " father."
" What is it, my little Jean ? " the mother asks, bending
lovingly over him.
" Has father come back yet ? "
" No, dear, but he will soon. Try to sleep until he comes."
She speaks cheerfully, but is growing momentarily more anxious.
Early that morning her husband had started on a five-mile
walk to the nearest village to sell, if possible, the needle-work
which is their only means of sustenance, and so procure food
at least for the boy, who is daily becoming weaker from lack
of nourishment.
" I will try again to find work," he said to his wife upon
leaving ; " but in vain I fear, for workmen are being discharged
rather than employed in these hard times."
It was not snowing when he started, and if all had gone
well he should have reached home (if so poor a habitation can
be called by that dear name) by three o'clock at the latest, and
A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND.
[Dec.,
now it is eight, and the
storm which has arisen
suddenly is increasing in
violence every moment.
Margaret goes to the
window, tries to make
the light burn more
brightly, then turns with
a dreary sense of utter
helplessness, takes up her
knitting, and resumes her
watch by the little suf-
ferer. She bends lower
than is necessary over
the work to hide her
face as much as possible
from the watchful gaze
of the child, fearing it
may betray the anxiety
she is struggling bravely
to conceal. The boy is
always quick to detect
the slightest change in
the beloved countenance
of his mother. The pre-
caution is unnecessary,
however, for to-night the
earnest eyes are not rest-
ing upon her, but are
raised upward with an ex-
pression of deep thought
not unmingled with
brightness.
"What is my darling
thinking of so deeply?"
Margaret asks present-
ly, becoming conscious
of the child's abstrac-
tion.
" I am thinking about
the Baby on the straw
the old priest told us
about that day."
1 894.] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 385
" What priest ? what day ? " she asks wonderingly.
" Oh ! don't you remember," the little fellow replies, an ex-
pression of disappointment crossing his face " don't you remem-
ber the old man who came to see us last winter, and said he
was a priest, and told us all about a little Baby in a stable, and
how," the child continues eagerly, "the Baby was really God,
who made the mountains and the trees, and that it was all for
me, mother, to show me that he loved me though I am so
little and can't walk?"
" I would not think too much about it, dear ; try to sleep
again," his mother answers gently, fearing the effect of too
much thought upon the little brain, and noting how the pale
cheeks have flushed with excitement and the effort of speaking.
" If I could dream again of the Christ-Child I would like to
sleep ; I thought I saw him when I slept that time, and he
looked so beautiful that I asked him please to come back to
earth again and come to see me, and I am sure he will, moth-
er," he adds confidently.
" Yes, yes, dear ! " she answers again, soothingly ; " but rest
now like a good boy, won't you ? "
" Is he growing delirious ? " Margaret asks herself anxiously.
She remembers clearly now the incident to which he alludes.
A year ago a venerable old priest had stopped at the hut, and
craved permission to come in and rest awhile.
" I have been walking much," he said, " and still have some
distance to go, though already fatigued."
"You are welcome," the woman replied hospitably, agreea-
bly impressed by the kindly appearance of the old man, who
entered, glad to stop for a time in however poor an abode.
He had shown much sympathy and interest in the little cripple,
and upon leaving expressed regret that, being a stranger in that
part of the country, he might never see them again.
Margaret soon forgot the incident ; not so little Jean,
whose childish heart and mind had been deeply touched by the
beautiful story of Bethlehem. With the unquestioning faith of
a child a faith so pleasing to the Most High that he bids us,
his older children, to imitate it he had accepted the sweet
truths, and ever since tried to be patient "like the dear Baby
in the manger," he thought in his simple way, " who came to
lead me to a beautiful place called heaven, where I sha'n't be
sick any more." He had, however, said nothing to his mother
after the first day or two, feeling perhaps, with the instinctive
perception which even very young children seem to possess,
VOL. LX. 25
386 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
that she did not quite believe the beautiful tale. Poor Mar-
garet ! she has had so hard a life, so little instruction in reli-
gious truth, it is scarcely surprising she has grown sceptical and
embittered ; and yet as she gazes upon the grand scenery by
which she is unceasingly surrounded she often feels that there
must exist an all-wise, all-merciful Creator. She is naturally of
a thoughtful disposition, and in her many lonely walks during
the pleasant months of the year Nature, so austere in her
Alpine grandeur and yet so caressing in the pretty rural scenes
which adorn the pass, fills her soul with loving, half-defined
whispers of the divine Maker, and enables her to take up her
daily life strengthened and comforted. But to-night she seems
beyond the power of any comfort. Suppose her husband never
returns ? many perish in the deep snow during the winter there
and little Jean ! may he not die from want of food ?
" O my God ! " she exclaims, falling upon her knees, forget-
ful of everything as the agony of these thoughts overpowers
her, " if you do exist, reveal yourself to me, your desolate
creature, this night ; bring back my husband, spare me my child."
Almost as she prays a faint cry is heard, followed by a gentle
knock at the door. Margaret hears both, but at first thinks it
must be imagination ; but no, cry and knock are both repeated,
and she now springs to her feet with joy. May it not be her
husband ? But the joy dies away, giving place to wonder, as
she opens the door and beholds standing upon the threshold a
Boy about twelve years of age. " Will you give me shelter to-
night?" asks a sweet voice in pleading accents. He looks very
pale as he stands there, framed in by the darkness of the
stormy night, and the woman instinctively throws the door
wide open and bids him enter.
Slowly the Child Visitor obeys her, and she pours some water
into a broken glass and turns to offer him the refreshment
which, poor though it is, is all she has but lo ! the Boy, who
in the uncertain light had looked faint and weak, is standing in
the centre of the dimly-lighted room in an attitude of mingled
command and entreaty ; the light brown hair is tossed back
from a brow low and dazzlingly white, the features chiselled as
marble, while the whole countenance is illumined by an expres-
sion of such purity and calm that Margaret's heart grows
hushed and reverent. " Not even a drop of cold water given
in My Name shall go unrewarded." Clearly, sweetly, the words
fall upon her wondering ear, and almost unconsciously she
kneels. Then he smiles, and the poor abode, so dark and dreary
1894-] ^ CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 387
before, is filled with a radiance which envelops in its glory
Margaret and little Jean, who lies gazing at the unbidden
Guest with eyes in whose clear depths shines a look of recogni-
tion and of awe.
" I thought you would come," he murmurs softly.
" Yes, my little one ; no one ever seeks Me and does not find
Me, and I have come to comfort you to-night because you be-
lieved I would " ; and then resting his hand caressingly upon the
wasted one of the little cripple, in words so simple that even
he could understand, yet with majesty unspeakable, the Christ-
Child tells the story of his unrequited love for men. The
cattle-shed with all its poor surroundings seems to rise visibly
before them as he speaks; they see the stable, the darkness, the
shivering Babe, whose unearthly beauty is thrown into relief by
the light of Joseph's lantern that illumines softly the gentle
face of the Virgin Mother as she kneels in lowly adoration
before her Almighty Little One. Margaret, as she listens, feels
that the mystery of sin and its atonement is at last made clear,
and realizes how the rays of a love that is divine shines upon
human suffering in its every form, giving to the soul that
patiently endures a reward even here, in the " peace which sur-
passeth all understanding." The voice ceases, and the Speaker,
bending, imprints a kiss upon the tiny face on its hard pillow.
" I will come again, my little child," he whispers tenderly, and
then, gliding past Margaret, vanishes as unexpectedly as he had
appeared.
Scarcely had the door closed, when it is pushed vigorously
open and an old man with long white beard and merry eyes
enters hastily. " I know you will bid me welcome, my good
woman," he says cheerily, " for, like the angels of old, I bring
you glad tidings your husband is safely housed in the hospice
three miles from here."
"Thank God!" murmurs the wife. "O sir!" she continues,
"such wonderful things are happening to-night, I tremble lest I
wake and find them only a dream." Then in as few words as
possible she tells him of their celestial Visitor.
The old priest's face grows very thoughtful as he listens.
"Can it be that the Christ-Child has really visited this humble
home this Christmas eve ?" "It may be," he thinks; "God is
omnipotent and reveals himself often to little ones in ways un-
guessed by men " ; and as he sees the light and peace in the
childish face a light not unreflected in Margaret's own homely
countenance he feels it must be true, and that the shadow of
388 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
that Heavenly Presence is still resting upon them both. " The
Christ-Child has indeed been with you," he says solemnly ; " may
his benediction rest with you for ever." There is a pause of
some minutes, and then the old man exclaims : " But come,
Margaret ; your husband awaits you with impatience."
" But Jean ? " objects the woman.
" Oh ! he will be all right ; the storm has abated and I have
plenty of warm coverings." So saying he takes the child up in
his arms, wraps him in blankets, and in another moment they
are speeding over the road, the sleigh bells tinkling merrily in
the frosty air. On their way the monk tells Margaret how
that night, when out on his accustomed mission, the dogs had
darted some distance from him, but soon came bounding back
barking and wagging their tails in greatest excitement.
" I knew what that meant, didn't I, old fellow," he says,
patting the shaggy head of the huge beast that, big as he is,
nestles comfortably at his feet and blinks a sleepy rejoinder
with affectionate eyes. "In a few minutes," he continues, "the
faithful creatures led me to a man lying almost buried beneath
the snow ; not seriously hurt, however," he hastily adds, noticing
Margaret's alarmed expression, " only stunned and chilled ; by
the time we reached the hospice he was able, though faint, to
tell me who he was, and of you, my good woman, and the
little son."
At that moment a vision of a large square, white building rises
before them. The hospice ! what memories of heroism and self-
sacrifice are evoked by the mere name ! How many distressed
creatures have found comfort and shelter within that abode,
standing in majestic solitude upon the highest, bleakest point of
the gigantic pass. For nine months of the year the cold and
dreariness are intense ; but, however fiercely the elements may
rage, the monks go daily out upon their perilous mission of
charity. Hearts warmed by the fire of divine love, rise superior
to personal discomfort and danger. These noble men lead
cheerfully their lives of constant self-sacrifice, content to re-
ceive their reward only from Him whose divine example has
proved so eloquently that " Greater love than this no man
hath, that he lay down his life for his friend."
"Ah! here we are," exclaims the monk, as they reach the
house, a flood of light streaming through the doors open wide
to receive them, and in another moment the mother, with the
boy in her arms, is standing in the midst of a group of kindly
faces, that cluster round eager to bid them welcome. Very
1 894.]
A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND.
389
tenderly the little cripple is laid upon a sofa in the large, old-
fashioned hall, and while Margaret joins her husband in an
upper room, the monks warm Jean's little feet and hands and
give him the nourishment he needs so much.
" Oh," the little fellow murmurs happily, " I think the
Christ-Child must have sent me here to-night."
" Would you like to see the image of the Christ-child before
you sleep ? " asks the kindly monk, who, receiving an answer in
the affirmative, once more takes the tiny form in his arms and
carries it into the chapel.
It is almost time for the midnight Mass ; the organ is play-
THE TUMULT ON THE MOUNTAIN SIDE CEASED.
ing softly the Christmas carol. The chapel is filled with radiant
light, and fragrant with holly and evergreen, and there, in a
corner of the holy place, little Jean sees the dear story of
Bethlehem faithfully represented there is the stable, the man-
ger, the Mother, and the venerable Joseph, but above all the
infant Saviour each lovingly, if imperfectly, portrayed. And as
Margaret silently joins her child and kneels before the crib it
seems as though the Divine Babe stretches his little arms out
in a special welcome to them, and that the angels chant now, as
390 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
long ago, " Glory to God in the highest ; on earth peace to men
of good will."
Just a year from that night the Christ-Child fulfils his prom-
ise to return ; but only the little cripple sees him this Christ-
mas eve, and when the heavenly Guest vanishes this time he
carries something in his arms, something so pure and bright
that the angels are glad to welcome it into heaven the soul of
little Jean.
"I do not at all wonder," remarked Mrs. Redfern, "that the
imagination easily lends itself to the romantic and the super-
natural in these wild mountains. There seems to me something
spectral at times in the towering crags half-veiled in mist, and
showing their ghostly heads, in whose seams your fancy traces
out rude features, above a belt of cloud. These heads and
busts seem at such times to float upon nothing."
" I have heard of castles in the air," said M. de Brissac,
" but I often thought I realized them when looking at some of
the buildings perched upon the summits of the crags in these
valleys, at many points."
" There is a very remarkable specimen of that sort of airy
fortress on the road up from Aosta," said Dr. Redfern. " We
passed it as we came up yesterday. The guide-books call it
Fort Bard, and say it was battered down by Napoleon's guns
during his dash down upon Marengo."
" Yes, that is true," replied M. de Brissac. " It was a for-
tress one, looking at it from the road, might deem impregna-
ble. The Austrians held it then, and it checked the First
Consul's advance for a considerable time. But our soldiers
soon found there are crags higher than Fort Bard, and not very
far from it, and they got up on them and dragged a cannon
with them. With this they soon silenced Fort Bard, because it
could not fire up in return."
" I never could bear those Austrians," said Mrs. Redfern,
" because of the part they played in the dismemberment of
Poland. My sympathies are always with that unhappy country,
which is not strange for an American woman. The Poles played
a gallant part in the liberation of our country, and we are not
ever likely to forget it. There is, besides, another reason why
I am interested in that noble nation, and as we are in the
story-telling humor perhaps I had better let you hear it."
1894-] A CHKISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 391
AGIvAE LEVONOWSK1.
The usual exchange of question and answer incidental to that
trying ordeal, engaging a new servant, had been gone through.
But, as Mrs. Arlworth rose to intimate the conclusion of the
audience, she bethought herself of an important omission which
she repaired by the question, " I had almost forgotten to ask,
what is your name?"
" Aglae Levonowski, madame."
" What an extraordinary name ! But you are a Pole, of
course, and Polish names have always an odd sound in Yan-
kee ears. Were you born in America ? "
" I have been but one year in this country, madame. We
were unfortunate in our own land, and my father and I the
rest are with Christ came to America a twelvemonth ago. My
father's health failed here and his spirit was broken. He could
get no work to do, and four weeks ago he died. Now I am all
alone. My father's little store of money is all gone and I can-
not content myself to remain idle any longer, a burden to the
faithful friends who cared for me in my trouble and who are
almost so poor as myself."
Her voice was tremulous but sweet and refined. It was
manifestly an effort for her to speak of her grief. The kind-
hearted woman watching her felt a touch of motherly pity as
she listened.
" Is there nothing else that you can do ? You speak like
an educated person. Besides, you look very young."
" Alas, madame ! what shall I do ? It is true I have had
good training. In my childhood the best masters were given
me. But is not America filled with teachers of the piano
and the languages? and without influence, where shall I get
pupils? My Polish friends are only very poor people. They
could not help me at all. A long while I have thought, and at
last I decide ; my best gift it is the household management my
mother who is with the saints taught me long ago. And I
do not fear, madame, but that I can do these things to your
liking. I have not forgotten what my mother taught me, and I
will try hard to please you, for your face is kind, madame.
And for my age I ask your pardon for neglecting your question
so long I am not young ; I am twenty."
Mrs. Arlworth smiled and replied, " I feel sure we will get
on well together. You will come to-morrow, then, Aglae ?
Good morning."
392 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
" Good morning, madame. In my country we say but you
would not know the Polish, and in English it means ' Good
morning ; God is good.' '
For fully ten minutes Mrs. Arlworth remained at the draw-
ing-room window, watching with a puzzled smile the retreating
figure of her new cook. Long after she was out of sight the
lady was still abstractedly gazing before her.
Her reflections found voice later in the daywlfen she com-
municated to her husband, at dinner, the mor.riing!s interview
and ended her narrative with the remark: " She is^lje. most re-
j***' A
markable-looking cook I have ever seen. It would Aot surprise
me, John, if she turned out to be a countess in disguise."
" Or an adventuress," interposed the listening John.
" That is impossible. You will say so when you have seen
her. But it is precisely like a man, and a lawyer, to suppose
the worst of every one ! "
" Very true, my dear. It is also very like a woman to give
sympathy first place and capability second. How do you know
that your Polish cook, of the unutterable name, can cook ? That
question would be, I confess, of prime interest to a mere man"
" I know all about her cooking," was the dignified response.
But Mrs. Arlworth's heart sank with the certainty that she knew
nothing whatever on the subject beyond the Pole's confident as-
sertion. During the rest of the day she was tormented at intervals
by the thought that Aglae might prove an impostor or an in-
capable, or saddest rt flection of all, and from long experience
she knew it the most probable she might never appear again.
Early the next morning her fears were set at rest by the
appearance of the new cook and all her possessions. An ex-
cellent dinner manifested her possession of that subtle gift I
know not if it be a sixth sense or an infusion of genius of
fascinating the most blast palate.
Mr. Arlworth tasted and deliberated ; tasted again, and then
made his decision known.
" Your new cook, my dear, would have been a chef had she
been born a man. Destiny has been too much for her. A wo-
man may become, nowadays, a doctor or a lawyer, or even a
stock-broker ; but leap the barrier that nature has erected be-
tween the cook and the chef she cannot. However, as a cook,
your ' Owski ' I sha'n't attempt to struggle with any other por-
tion of her cognomen is not to be beaten that is to say, if
this dinner be her regular gait. It may be a mere spurt for a
starter, you know."
I894-]
A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND.
393
As time passed Mr. Arlworth discovered that Aglae or, as
he preferred to call her, Owski kept the pace her first dinner
had instituted. At the end of a week he delivered the follow-
ing encomium, as he liberally helped himself a second time to
the mayonnaise : " It is the first time in all my long experience
FROM THE MELTING SNOWS ABOVE.
of living and dining, in all my search through the m ize of
would-be mayonnaise for the genuine article, that I have found
it prepared by a woman. I would venture the assertion without
fear of contradiction, my dear, even were you not th most
amiable of women, that your Owski is absolutely the onl> ame
394 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
or damsel in the United States whose soul is alive to, whose
intellect has grasped, and whose hands have prepared real
mayonnaise. Your Owski, my love, is a Polish Koh-i noor."
"And you are the Koh-i-noor of absurd men," was the an-
swer. "One would positively doubt, John, that this is your
forty-fifth birthday."
" One would indeed," he answered with a tremendous sigh,
"except that the top of one's head is not apt to become a
polished ivory mirror at a more tender age."
While this and many similar snatches of talk took place in
the dining-room or other family haunts, Aglae Levonowski was
industriously at work in the kitchen. Noiselessly and skilfully
she went about her work, as much a marvel to her fellow-
servants as to her mistress, with the difference that, while one
respected what was so unlike the ordinary look and manner
and ability of her class, the others jeered at and were unfriend-
ly to what was incomprehensible to them. Aglae, however,
paid little attention to whatever treatment was accorded her,
although her manner to her mistress was invariably grateful and
respectful. No more of her story had she ever told, though
Mrs. Arlworth had tried occasionally to win her confidence.
As time went on that lady became more and more con-
vinced that her " Polish Koh-i-noor " had fallen from a rich
and appropriate setting. She felt an occasional flick of trouble
at the thought of the monotonous and unbefitting outlook
before Aglae, but this feeling was generally allayed by the
comforting reflection that her own worries anent the house-
keeper's problem of problems, the servant question, were at an
end. The possession of Aglae gave peace to her mind, placid-
ity to her thoughts, leisure to her pursuits, and flesh to her
bones. Had the Pole known her value, she would have raised
her wages, or, being of nobler bent, have congratulated herself
that she had been able to do good to her kind mistress.
Such a thought would have, perhaps, sent a darker glow to the
girl's soft hazel eyes, eyes that were sometimes amber and some-
times olive and sometimes a dark brown.
Taller than most of her countrywomen was Aglae ; taller
and not so thick-set, carrying her head with the superb dignity
that belongs, proverbially, to the duchess, and that falls now and
then, so contrary is nature, to the portion of the peasant.
Her hair was a light gold, with a waviness through it that no
brushing could quite subdue. Her complexion was the pale
olive that is not uncommon among the Poles, and her mouth
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 395
and chin were beautifully moulded, firm but touched with
melancholy. Her hands were well-shaped, and, more extraordin-
ary, well cared for, in spite of the inevitable marks of hard
work upon them.
Such was Aglae Levonowski as she sat one day, about two
years after her coming to Mrs. Arlworth's house, in a comfort-
able wooden rocker at the kitchen window. It was one of her
rare moments of rest, and she looked the image of comfort as
she rocked to and fro and looked out of the open window. But
one looking closely at her would have noticed that her mouth
drooped more sadly than usual, and there was the softness of
unshed tears in her eyes.
The same afternoon Mrs. Arlworth sat on her veranda
reading. That is to say, a book was in her lap, a pile of news-
papers and magazines on a little table beside her, but the
book was closed, the periodicals uncut. Mrs. Arlworth had
given herself up to an hour's dreamy, indolent enjoyment of
the exquisite September day.
" What is the charm of such a day as this ? " she thought.
" Is it that one seems to penetrate the joy of life to the very
core, or that its illusiveness pervades one's soul ? "
Before she had answered the query to her own satisfaction,
a voice broke in upon her reverie.
" Pardon me, madame, for disturbing you, but I wish to
ask"
At this point she aroused herself from her dreaming and
turned her eyes and attention to the man before her. He was
a foreigner undoubtedly. His appearance as well as his accent
told that. He was handsome, too, and evidently a gentleman.
His age might have been twenty-five or thirty. While she
took this rapid observation of his appearance he continued :
" I wish to ask if a young lady resides here called Aglae
Levonowski ? "
His voice was low and rapid. The last words were full of
suppressed excitement, which communicated itself at once, by
some strange trick of sympathy, not untouched with curiosity,
to Mrs. Arlworth. She rose as she answered : " Aglae Levon-
owski does live here. You wish to see her ? "
" If madame will be so kind."
" I will tell her. Come into the house, please."
She left him seated in the hall and went in search of Aglae.
As she reached the kitchen it occurred to her she had ne-
glected to ask his name. At the same time she decided to ask
396 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
Aglae no questions. The girl was still seated in the old
wooden rocker, and so intently was she gazing through the
window, and many a mile beyond, that she did not hear the
door turn nor her mistress's step upon the floor.
A moment Mrs. Arlworth stood regarding her. Then she
said softly : " Aglae, wake up ! I have some news for you.
There is a visitor to see you. You will find him in the hall,
but you will be able to talk more comfortably together in the
dining-room, perhaps."
Aglae started to her feet. A wave of color rushed over her
face, then receded, leaving her unusually pale.
Mrs. Arlworth did not wait to hear her murmured thanks.
As she reached the veranda, she heard Aglae walk swiftly into
the hall and then she heard a low cry. After that silence.
She did her best for the next half-hour to banish the occurrence
from her mind and interest herself in her book.
At the end of that time the hall door opened and Aglae and
her visitor stood before her, hand-in-hand.
" Madame," said the girl was it the September sunshine
that kindled cheek and eye as she spoke? "will you permit
me to present to you Stanislaus Krakowski, my betrothed ? "
Mrs. Arlworth's inward vision showed her the image of her-
self without Aglae as the St. Zita of her kitchen. A weary,
nerve-worn victim of intelligence offices, trial weeks of incompe-
tent girls, unsuccessful attempts at teaching, with fingers cut,
bruised, and burned the invariable accompaniment of amateur
cooking thus she beheld herself, while outwardly her attention
was entirely absorbed in the two people before her.
As Aglae spoke Mrs. Arlworth rose from her chair and, ex-
tending her hand to the young man, who took it with a very
low bow, said : " Mr. Krakowski, I congratulate you very
sincerely. I have good reason to know what a treasure you
have won in Aglae. Do your best to make her happy. And,
Aglae, what shall I say to you ? I think," glancing at the girl's
happy face, "that I may safely congratulate you also. And now
sit down and tell me all about it."
There was a moment's pause, during which one glanced at
the other. Finally Aglae began: "You are very kind, madame,
and, indeed, I understand that it is right for me to tell you
somewhat more of the circumstances of my life before it hap-
pened that I came into your good house.
" In my childhood my father was the possessor of large es-
tates near Warsaw, which even then, owing to repeated govern-
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 397
ment seizures, had considerably dwindled from the original lands
belonging for many generations to the family of Levonowski.
In my sixteenth year came the first sorrow the death of my
dear mother. After that trouble knocked continually at our
door. My little sisters, Olga and Maria, followed my mother.
Sergius only, the oldest, and I were left with my father. Mer-
cifully the first sharpness of our grief wore itself away. Then
came an interval of peace, so serene that even yet it is sweet to
look back upon. At that time it was that "
Seeing that she hesitated blushingly, Stanislaus, glancing at
her with a look full of tenderness and pride, took up her words.
" It was then, madame, that the Countess Aglae Levonowski
did me the great honor of promising to become my wife."
Mrs. Arlworth remembered, with a feeling of pardonable ex-
ultation, her first surmise concerning her Polish cook. The re-
membrance imparted a more benevolent sweetness to the smile
with which she regarded the look exchanged between the lovers.
" I was then eighteen," Aglae went on. " The interval of
peace, alas! was not of long duration. In a few weeks an in-
surrection, which had been plotting for some time, broke out.
It was headed by my father and Count Paul Krakowski, the
father of Stanislaus. Sergius and Stanislaus, too, were among
the leaders. It was a mad attempt. It is only the intense and
despairing love of my countrymen for the land they still, un-
reasoningly, call their country, that gives the faintest excuse for
such recklessness.
"To finish my story, madame. The insurrection ended as
every similar attempt for Poland has done. In a fortnight the
peasants, of whom the band was mostly composed, were killed
or imprisoned. My brave brother fell, shot through the heart.
My father was wounded ; Count Paul Krakowski was taken pris-
oner, and "
" Do not fear to say it, Aglae," interposed Krakowski,
with pale face and blazing eyes. " His life was the forfeit,
madame, for his love of Poland. The last acre of our estates
was confiscated. The old Count Levonowski and myself were
reduced to beggary, to accepting the charity of the peasants
who had refused to join us, and who gave us food and shelter
until we could safely leave the country. O Aglae ! " he cried
passionately, " shall I ever forget the agony of the moment when
I bade you farewell, and gave my word of honor to your father
that I would not claim your promise until I could offer you
comfort and independence ? "
398 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
Aglae's hand closed tenderly over his, and there were tears
in her eyes and his as they looked at each other.
After a slight pause, she continued : " When my father had
recovered sufficiently and could safely venture to leave his
hiding-place, we made our way to America. When we left our
home I took with me my mother's jewel-casket. It was by the
sale of its contents that we contrived to reach America and
live here until my father's death. After that I found employ-
ment and a good home with you, madame. And there is no
more to tell, for Stanislaus has come to seek me."
" I thank you, madame, for the kindness Aglae has received
in your home. She has not told you, because she has not yet
heard, by what blessing of heaven I am enabled at last to
claim her without violating the promise I make to her father.
In one word it is told. Luck, if you will Providence, I prefer.
Enough that from the ends of the earth so should I call the
diamond-fields of Africa, where the never-to-be-forgotten kind-
ness of a friend enabled me to settle and invest I have brought
a modest fortune. I have worked hard and suffered much, but
my reward is exceedingly great."
And as Mrs. Arlworth observed the smile that illuminated
Aglae's face she heartily agreed with the close of his speech.
"I hope, dear madame," the Pole continued, "you will not
think me unreasonable if I am in haste as only those can be
who have loved and waited as we have to claim my reward.
In one week, I have told Aglae, she must be my wife."
As Mrs. Arlworth could interpose no reasonable objection to
this arrangement, the wedding took place the following week.
Never, they say, before or since, has there knelt in St.
Adelbert's Church that edifice which, erected by the poor Poles
of one of our large American cities, almost vies with some of
the old world cathedrals so beautiful a bride.
In accordance with the Polish custom, the ceremony was
followed by a drive around the city, in which all the wedding
guests participated, after which Stanislaus and Aglae, blissfully
certain that they had well earned an extended holiday, departed
on the conventional wedding journey. On their return they
decided to remain in the city where Aglae had spent such lonely
and laborious but peaceful years. Krakowski built a fine house
in the Polish settlement, where Aglae soon came to be known and
loved as the ministering angel to all who were sick or sorrowful.
"Almost as romantic a story as that of ' The Bohemian Girl,' '
remarked Dr. Redfern. " But the fact is that the imagination of
1894-] A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. 399
poet or novelist never conceived of situations in romance half
so wonderful as many things which happen under our own eyes
almost every day. But what on earth can be going on outside ? "
A faint shriek outside the door, followed by a succession of
hoarse shouts of delight in a man's voice, and then a sound of
mingled sobbing and laughter, was the tumult which called forth
this exclamation. Gervase rose hastily and opened the door.
The others rose also and followed at a little distance.
" Ha, Bruno ! " called Gervase, as several large dogs came
bounding into the room, " what has happened with you ? You
have found somebody in the Pass."
The tinkling of bells was heard, and Gervase, looking out,
saw his comrade assisting a woman from the back of a mule.-
Beside another mule stood a young man with his left arm in a
sling, and around his curly head, from which his fur cap had
fallen, a bandage was wound. With his sound limb he was en-
deavoring to help Bruno to lift the form of the woman from
the mule's back. The dogs ran in and out barking joyously, as
though they felt themselves important actors in a great drama.
" Found somebody ! Well may you say so, Gervase. And
that somebody has found somebody else who was given up for
dead. Praise be to God ! Oh, it is wonderful ! "
All crowded around to hear, heedless of the keen air.
" This good girl here," went on Brother Bruno " this is
Lisette Fauchon, the housekeeper at the Chateau Belvoir, who
was married five years ago to the gardener, Pierre Lebrun, that
young fellow there. They were the happiest pair in the village
until like a thunderclap came the order for Pierre to go to the
war. He was drawn in the conscription, poor lad, and had not
the money to buy a substitute.
" Well, to cut a long story short, it was soon given out that
Pierre Lebrun had fallen in the war. It was reported he was
killed in one of the battles, I forget which ;. and Lisette mourned
him as dead.
" But Lisette had a dream last night which made her resolve
to come to the Hospice to night to attend the midnight Mass.
I picked her up as she came up the Pass from my side, and
just as we got here we met none other than Pierre Lebrun him-
self coming back from the wars to look for his good wife. He
was not killed but lay under a heap of dead, and got off with
the loss of only an arm. But he was reported amongst those
dead, and he was unable to write or do anything else, poor
fellow, for a long time, his case was so bad. And they met
here at the very door."
400 A CHRISTMAS IN CLOUDLAND. [Dec.,
" Parbleu ! A wonderful confirmation of your profound re-
flection, monsieur," exclaimed M. de Brissac, turning to the doc-
tor. " It is one touching reunion one de'notiment most affecting."
" Let us go in and talk over it," replied Dr. Redfern.
" Come, Bella dear, or you will take cold."
" Oh ! let me stay here just for a moment," pleaded his wife.
Did you ever see so glorious a sight ? One can never have an-
other view like this in all their lifetime."
She pointed upwards as she spoke, and Dr. Redfern for the
first time cast his eyes in the same direction. He stood as if
spellbound by the sublimity of the spectacle. An irresistible
feeling of worship was the sensation which instantly fell upon
both as they gazed out upon the vast profound.
Is there any power in mortal pm to depict the awful mag-
nificence of a mid-winter night on the summits of these Alpine
peaks? There is none able to approach the task even remotely.
Such splendor of the heavens, such mysterious beauty of the
enigmatical gulf of infinite space, such endless succession of
clusters of constellations, such majesty of blazing planets, such
incessant gleaming of iris-hued meteors, such vast phantoms of
mountain-peaks shimmering in lakes of ether, such thundering of
torrents in the rocky abysses below.
But the stars the overpowering beauty of the shining hosts
of stars that cover the vast mantle of night who can conceive
of their wondrous lustre, as it is revealed in those great alti-
tudes in the thin, clear air? They seem to grow in bewildering
number, until the sight recoils in pain from the labor of track-
ing each constellation through space ; the larger orbs gleam up-
on us in steely beauty like near electric globes; rays of prisms
dance around them ; shafts of light bridge incessantly the im-
measurable gulf of space which lies between the eye and them.
But even in the summer he must be a hardy wight who
stands long in the open air to watch the stars and the spectral
mountains in the region of the Alps, on such a height as that
of the great St. Bernard. Every night, even during the sum-
mer, the frost is keen in the air.
" Come, dear, let us tear ourselves away," said the doctor,
at last drawing his wife's arm tenderly within his own. " Let us
go inside and look at the Crib ; they tell me it is very beauti-
ful. It will not be long until we shall hear the bell for the
midnight Mass. Thank God there is such a place as the Alps
such a house as the Hospice on them to bear witness to his
love and chanty, as well as the sublimity of his handiwork."
1894-] ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. 401
ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS.
BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D.
OME millions of years ago, before the dawn of the
Tertiary age which is divided into three epochs,
namely the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene the
old world, as well as the new, was inhabited by
low, generalized forms of mammals, apparently
marsupials,* known mostly by scattered teeth and portions of
the backbone ; and it is from them that other and higher types
were evolved. We say evolved, for, as the root of all progress
lies in a correct system of thought, if we abandon the working
hypothesis of evolution, we may as well give up the study of
natural history. It is interesting to observe that marsupials first
appear in different parts of the globe at the same geological
horizon, viz., the Triassic. Before this period no traces of them
are discovered, and whether non-placental mammals had their
earliest habitat in the so-called Old World or in America is
uncertain ; it has even been suggested that the primitive marsu-
pials may have originated in some continent now covered by
the sea.
EVOLUTION OF ANIMAL LIFE.
With the opening of the tertiary age the placental mam-
malian fauna, which, as we know, are of a higher type of life
than the marsupials and egg-laying monotremes, become so
abundant that this portion of the world's history has been called
the age of mammals.
But let us remark that in passing from the reptile to the
mammal era there is no abrupt change in the life system ; and
in no part of the world is the transition so clearly perceived as
in North America. In Colorado and Wyoming we have a con-
tinuous series of conformable rocks, deposited in brackish water
changing gradually into fresh, where dinosaurian reptiles are
found side by side with tertiary plants. And through the efforts
of Professor Marsh these rocks, which pass without a break
from the cretaceous into the tertiary, and which are known as
the Laramie, have yielded lately a number of mammal teeth.
* Semi-oviparous mammals, in which the embryonic development is completed outside
the uterus in the pouch (marsupium).
VOL. LX. 26
4O2 ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. [Dec.,
Indeed, we may accept it as true that wherever there appears
to be a gap in the record, a break in the life-system, it is ow-
ing to our not having yet discovered the intermediate forms.
But every few years, as the record of the rocks is further and
more carefully searched, some new link comes to light which
diminishes the distance between one genus and another genus,
and every transition form thus discovered tells in favor of the
hypothesis of evolution. At the very base of the eocene, in
the WahsatcJi beds of western North America, we find the Phe-
nacodus, the most generalized placental mammal yet known. It
has five toes on each foot, and each toe ends in a blunt nail
which is neither claw nor hoof, but intermediate between the
two: and the Phenacodus is now considered to be the common
ancestor of all the odd and even toed ungulates or hoofed mam-
mals, while good authorities hold it to be also the common an-
cestor of other orders now widely distinct. And when we study
the early tertiary mammals all of which have exceedingly small
brains even when accompanied by immense bodies they cer-
tainly impress us as the growth of several stems from a com-
mon root ; as time goes on these stems become more and more
developed and differentiated, until at length some turn into
carnivorous and others into herbivorous mammals. It is also
interesting to find that more than one genus in the early ter-
tiary is the very same in Europe as in America ; and this points
not only to unity of origin, but also to the former connection
of two widely separated portions of the earth. During the first
division of the tertiary (eocene) the high plateau of western
North America was occupied by several very large lakes, and
the climate was tropical.
A SIX-HORNED MONSTER.
Among the wonderful animals that roamed along the shores
of these lakes the most curious belonged to an extinct order
the Dinocerata.* These creatures, which were discovered by
Marsh in 1870, looked half elephant and half rhinoceros. The
legs, however, were shorter than an elephant's, there were five
toes on each foot, and it is calculated that when alive the
dinoceras must have weighed between two and three tons. Be-
sides having six horns, it had in the upper jaw two razor-like
teeth ; but well-armed as it was, it must have been a stupid
beast, for no other mammal living or extinct had so small a
brain in proportion to its bulk. Yet in this respect, viz., small-
* See Marsh's monograph, The Dinocerata, in United States Geological Survey, vol. x.
1894-] ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. 403
ness of brain, it resembled all the early tertiary mammals. The
dinoceras may be considered to be a generalized type ; that is
to say, it combined characters which are found in several kinds
of existing quadrupeds.
Towards the close of the eocene epoch the dinoceras dis-
appeared, and Marsh attributes its extinction to its not being
able to adapt itself to new conditions, perhaps of geography.
But the geological record does not furnish evidence of any sud-
den change great enough to account for the dying out of these
elephantine beasts. May it not be that, instead of becoming ex-
tinct, the dinocerata migrated to more favorable regions? For
the fact that their fossil remains have not been discovered else-
where is no proof against migration.
PROBABLE MIGRATION OF LOST SPECIES.
In the same eocene sediment of Wyoming, along with the
dinoceras is preserved the Eohippus, the first of the series of
fossil horses. It was a small animal, not bigger than a fox,
with four toes and a rudimentary one on its fore feet, and
three toes on its hind feet, which shows that this primitive an-
cestor of Equus had already diverged somewhat from the other
five-toed mammals among which it lived. At a little later horizon
of this same epoch we find the eohippus developed into the
orohippus. The orohippus is larger, it has lost the rudimentary
toe of the fore foot, and is more like the animal we call a horse
than the eohippus. During the same period as the dinoceras and
eohippus there flourished in the Rocky Mountain region a mam-
mal that is now found only in Mexico and South America, viz.,
the tapir.
We also discover in the eocene strata of our continent the
typical American pig, and we can trace this pig upwards through
the several succeeding epochs to our own day, where it is re-
presented by the existing peccary. We also find near the base
of the eocene the line of ruminants leading up to the llama
and camel. But like the primeval horse, this cameloid form is
very generalized, and it is not until long afterwards that it de-
velops into the true camel and llama. But when the true camel
does appear it is as abundant in North America as the true
horse: and let us say that both horse and camel survived here
until up to a comparatively recent date ; while the llama still
survives in South America. We may also remark that the bet-
ter opinion is that the old world received its camels from Ameri-
ca by way of the land-bridge at Behring's Straits.
404 ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. [Dec.,
THE ADVENT OF THE CAT.
Although in the eocene epoch the typical fdidce had not yet
appeared, nevertheless towards the close of this first division of
the tertiary there abounded in the Rocky Mountain region a
carnivorous animal, the Limnofelis y which was allied to the cats
and almost as big as a lion. Another group of animals found
in the eocene strata of New Mexico, and at its very base, are
the Primates. They are, as we know, the highest in the class
of mammals. But as might be expected, these earliest forms
were low, generalized types allied to the lemurs (at present con-
fined chiefly to Madagascar) and showing affinities with the
carnivores and ungulates. These early primates were also at
this period widely spread over Europe, Asia, and Africa. But
it is a curious fact that the true monkeys are not found in
North America after the succeeding miocene epoch (and they
are all below the old world monkeys). While man, the highest
in the order, does not appear with certainty until the post-plio-
cene ; although, according to Marsh, there exists some slender
evidence that he lived in the American pliocene. But all the
fossil remains that have till now come to light on our continent
since this epoch belong undoubtedly to Genus Homo and to
only one species of the genus, namely, the American Indian.
THE ANCESTOR OF THE WHALE.
It is in the middle of the eocene that the first aquatic mam-
mal, the Zeuglodon, makes its appearance ; and good authorities
hold that in this whale-like creature (which was probably seven-
ty feet long, and whose fossil remains are plentiful in Georgia
and Alabama) we have the transition form which connects the
existing whales, porpoises, and dolphins with the other mam-
mals. And certainly no mammals are more interesting than
those which have assumed the shape of fish. These warm-
blooded creatures suckle their young like other members of the
class, and they are obliged now and again to rise to the sur-
face in order to breathe. Their fore-limbs have become modi-
fied into a pair of flippers, while their hind-limbs have quite
disappeared externally, and in the whale only faint traces of
them are discovered deeply buried in the muscles. Their skin
is smooth and naked, instead of being covered with scales,
while around the mouth of the young whale are often found
a small number of bristles, and these bristles point to its de-
scent from ordinary mammals. We may add that only for the
1894-] ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. 405
layer of fat which encloses the whole body, the whale's blood
would soon become chilled by the water.
MIOCENE.
We have now arrived at the second division of the tertiary,
viz., the Miocene. By this time the dinoceras, as we have said,
had either become extinct or had migrated. But another mam-
mal equally huge makes its appearance, namely, the Brontops,
which was more closely allied to the existing rhinoceros than
to any other living animal. It had one pair of horns and pro-
bably a flexible nose, like the tapir.
In this epoch we also discover the fossil remains of the Me-
sohippus, which is even more horse-like than orohippus. The
fore feet have only three toes and a rudimentary splint, and
there are still three toes on the hind feet. Mesohippus was as
big as a sheep.
During the miocene epoch there also lived in North Ameri-
ca a singular animal called the Oreodon. It was of a highly
generalized structure, for we find blended in it the characters
of the hog, deer, and camel ; and Professor Leidy has named
it a ruminating hog. Let us add that the oreodon, which was
so abundant during this epoch, did not survive beyond the fol-
lowing pliocene.
SIMULTANEOUS ARRIVAL OF THE APE AND THE TIGER.
Towards the end of the miocene a dangerous animal, the
Machairodus, appeared in Europe. We might call it a sabre-
toothed tiger, from its sharp, curved tusks, which projected eight
inches beyond the mouth. At about the same time the first
true monkeys are found in the Old World : previous to this the
lemurs had been the sole representatives of the primates out-
side of America. And let us add that the non-placental mam-
mals the marsupials which had seemingly become extinct in
America at the beginning of the eocene, now show themselves
again in this epoch as opossums.
It is commonly held, too, by scientists that it was during
the miocene that the horse, rhinoceros, camel, pig, and deer
(all distinctively American types) made their way into Asia by
way of the isthmus at Behring's Straits ; while the bear and the
antelope, which are not considered as primitive American types,
proceeded in a contrary direction from Asia to America. But
the giraffe, hippopotamus, and hyena did not reach America
at all owing to the fact that the miocene land-bridge had dis-
appeared by the time they got to Behring's Straits,
406 ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. [Dec.,
PLIOCENE.
When we ascend from the Miocene strata into the Pliocene
one of the first fossils we meet with is the Protohippus, which
is decidedly more like a horse than mesohippus. It is as big
as a pony ; each foot still preserves three toes, but of these
three only one the middle one touches the ground. And
here let us say that the American protohippus corresponds very
closely to the Hipparion of Europe. A little higher in the
pliocene strata we discover the Pliohippus, which has only one
toe, or, as we say, hoof, and is even still more horse like than
protohippus. But it is not until we reach the very topmost
strata of this last division of the tertiary that the evolutionary
change is complete and the true horse makes its appearance.
It is almost unnecessary to add that in this unbroken genealogy
of Equus we have the best evidence of evolution that can be
given at present, and for these several transition forms, begin-
ning with the diminutive eohippus of the eocene and leading up
to the large and noble animal of our day, we are solely indebt-
ed to Professor Marsh, whose unequalled collection in the Yale
College museum is worth going far to see. Let us observe,
moreover, that when a scientific theory puts us in the way of
correctly predicting what is to be discovered, this theory is
thereby greatly strengthened and confirmed. Now, in 1870,
Huxley wrote: "If the expectation raised by the splints of the
horses, that in some ancestor of the horses these splints would
be found to be complete digits, has been verified, we are fur-
nished with very strong reasons for looking for a no less com-
plete verification that the three-toed plagiolophus-like ' avus ' of
the horse must have had a five-toed 'atavus' at some earlier
period. No such five-toed 'atavus/ however, has yet made its
appearance." But since this was written eohippus, as we know,
has been discovered with four well marked toes and one rudi-
mentary toe, and this certainly comes very near to the desired
five-toed ancestor.
But equus is not the only animal whose genealogy, by the
discovery of missing links, has been completed by Marsh. He
has also traced the pedigree of the rhinoceros up from the lower
eocene; nor was its primitive ancestor, which was found embed-
ded in the Wyoming lake basins, much larger than the primi-
tive ancestor of the horse. And like equus, the American
rhinoceros became extinct long ago ; it disappeared in this epoch,
the pliocene, but what caused it to disappear we do not know.
1894-] ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. 407
DIFFERENT TYPES IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA.
It is at the beginning of this last division of the tertiary
that the bison and mastodon make their appearance in the
Mississippi valley ; but the genus Elephas is not found here
until near the close of the epoch. It is also an interesting fact
that during the pliocene, but not earlier, we discover in South
America North American types, and in North America South
American types ; and this would indicate that the Isthmus of
Panama did not rise above the sea until this epoch, and it was
probably a much broader isthmus then than now. There were,
however, many peculiar animals in South America long before
the pliocene. And let us add that the hoofed mammals of
South America are extremely isolated and differ widely from
those of North America, while the South American marsupials
comprise not only the opossum, but other non-placental forms
nearly allied to those which have only recently become extinct
in Australia ; and this last fact would seem to render more
plausible the theory of a former land connection between Pata-
gonia and the Australian region. Von Zittel, in his learned
work, lately translated, The Geological Development of tJie Mam-
malia, holds it not unreasonable to suppose that South America
may at an early period of the tertiary have been connected
with South Africa as well as with Australia, and that from these
parts of the world it may have received its first mammals.
THE HAIRY MAMMOTH.
With the close of the Tertiary, divided, as we have said, in-
to the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene epochs, we find ourselves
approaching what is called the Ice age, or glacial period, when
from some cause, not yet satisfactorily explained, a good part
of the northern hemisphere suffered a temporary change of cli-
mate, and extensive glaciers spread far to the south. It was
now that the mammoth, erroneously named E.lephas primigenius,
appeared, whose hairy covering made it well suited to endure
the cold. The musk ox an aberrant form allied to the sheep
was also quite common at this time in regions where to-day
it does not exist, owing to the heat ; while in France the rein-
deer wandered down even to the Pyrenees. But in North Ameri-
ca the mammoth did not go east of the Rocky Mountains, nor
south of the Columbia River.
THE RUMINANTS.
Compared with the epochs which preceded the ice age we
may be said to be living to-day in an impoverished world as
regards the larger mammals, the dominant type of which at
4o8 ANCIENT MAMMALS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. [Dec.,
present are ruminants, such as oxen, antelope, deer. And let
us remark that the function of chewing the cud, or ruminating,
is no doubt of advantage to such of these animals as have re-
mained wild, while in past ages it must have been of even
greater advantage to them. Rumination, as we know, consists
in reversing the muscles of the throat, and thereby throwing up
into the mouth the grass and leaves which had been swallowed
as soon as plucked and then deposited in a special compart-
ment of the stomach. When the food is thus thrown up into
the mouth it is masticated and then sent down again but this
time into the stomach proper to be digested. Now, the ad-
vantage of rumination is that it allows the animal to rapidly
take in a large amount of food (all herbivores are great eaters),,
and after this food has been swallowed the animal may scam-
per off to its hiding place and there digest it at leisure.
In our age ruminants are provided with antlers and horns ;
but we know by fossil remains that there was a time when they
either had no such weapons, or when their horns and antlers
were too small and weak to be of any use.
We may also observe that far apart as the two groups were
placed in the life-time of Cuvier, it is now ascertained, through
late palaeontological researches, that the cud-chewing mammals
and the swine are nearly related and in extinct forms the tran-
sition between them can be plainly perceived.
ANTIQUITY OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENT,
We conclude by saying that no part of the yet geologically
explored world has yielded such wonderful treasures as the
ancient lake basins of western North America, and for discover-
ing and describing these fossils we are indebted to the Ameri-
can scientists Marsh, Cope, and Leidy ; and what they have
brought to light has greatly changed our ideas of mammalian
evolution. We know now that mammals with claws and mam-
mals with hoofs are merely variations from a common ancestral
type which appeared at the very dawn of the mammal era.*"
And in studying the fossil mammalia of North America we are
struck by an interesting fact, viz., that the fauna of our Eocene,
Miocene, and Pliocene epochs are not the exact equivalents of
those epochs in the old world : the American mammals appear
to be older. And this confirms what is beginning to be generally
recognized, viz., that it was from here that the majority of mam-
mals first migrated, and that America is in reality the Old World.
* The point of union between mammals and reptiles will probably be found in a type con-
necting monotremes and marsupials.
1894-] MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES. 409
MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES ON THE "CLEVELAND
PLAN."
BY REV. WALTER ELLIOTT.
MISSION AT GREEN SPRING.
OUR nights were all that we could give to this
little village, our first mission in the diocese of
Cleveland ; and we were sorry not to be able to
give more. Fifty persons listened to the opening
lecture, ninety to the second, and one hundred
and fifteen and one hundred and seventy respectively, to the
last two. Not a minister appeared in the hall, though there are
three resident in the place, and very few Protestant women
came, for they have been led through misrepresentation to look
upon our priesthood as something unclean. Catholics are scarce
in the neighborhood, nor had we more than a score of them any
night some stalwarts, some weaklings. Among our most atten-
tive hearers were some fallen-off Catholics.
Two nights we drove to and from the pastor's town, six
miles away, having missed the train, or the train having missed
us by being late. The rain held back our audience the first two
nights dismal autumnal showers. As we sat waiting for our
hour of opening, and for our audience, we both felt and finally
said to each other that there should be no such village in America
without its annual series of public meetings conducted by Catho-
lic missionaries or semi-annual ones. Should any neighborhood
in free America remain unevangelized ?
There is a little Catholic church at Green Spring, attended
once a month. The Catholics, few and badly scattered, are
practically without public life. How they hailed our meetings !
How glad they were to see their Protestant neighbors, even in
small numbers, listening to their religion, publicly called on to
question its representatives. Even the good-natured Protestants
are pleased to see the Catholic Church stepping out into the
open, its reticence broken by a loud appeal to fair play as well
as to the religious sense, taking its place among the claimants
for spiritual allegiance. How soon shall we not see Holy
Church easily first before men's eyes, once she emerges from
the catacombs.
410 MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES. [Dec.,
My pastor is a tall man of fine bearing and manly beauty.
Part of our advertisement was to parade together through the
short street of the village, smiling and bowing right and left, as
if to say " Look at the big, hearty American men who are
among you to speak about the old Catholic Church come and
hear us ! " Often the passers-by would stand and gaze after us.
In the question box our only abundant matter was furnished
by the Seventh-day Adventists, for their propaganda had won
over a little band of fanatics. They seemed to be surprised
that I took the Protestant side of the controversy on the ques-
tion of Sunday observance, and then they deluged us with angry
interrogatories. I maintained that, first, a " Bible Christian," one
who holds to the private interpretation of the Scriptures as the
only rule of faith, can and must believe that the entire cere-
monial law of the Jews is totally abolished by Christ, including
all liturgical observances whatever, no less the Jewish Sabbath
than the Jewish sacrifice. Second, I maintained with the Cate-
chism of the Council of Trent that there is evidence in the
New Testament of the selection by the Apostles of the Sunday
as a substitute for the Mosaic Sabbath ; and if the texts are not
conclusive of an obligation, they are still plainly indicative of
the apostolic origin of the new custom. That gave me ample
opportunity to demonstrate the need of church authority in
such matters; but the two points above stated compel us, I am
sure, to take sides against the Adventists. I dread their fanati-
cism. If they ever grow strong, the Sunday is gone from our
public courts and legislatures, from the industrial and domestic
life of the people an incalculable loss to religion. These new
sectarians are making converts in many places, full of deadly
hatred of the Catholic Church, some of whose exponents have,
unhappily, supplied them with their most effective weapons to
unsettle Protestant belief and practice on the question of Sun-
day observance.
The mayor of the village, a fine old veteran, attended every
lecture. After our last one he said : " Gentlemen, this is the
best thing for our town that has happened for many a day.
The idea that a Catholic priest would appear openly in a public
hall to lecture on religion, offering to answer all questions, was
something never thought possible. A Catholic priest was looked
on as something like a lion, mostly concealed in his lair, and
only appearing outside when it was safe to do so ; and then
only for purposes of depredation."
The question box here was not fruitful of novelties. Nuns,
1894-] MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES. 411
why they cannot " talk to the public," the difference between
them and Sisters of Charity, why nuns do not marry, why
priests do not marry, why Catholics allow habitual drunkards to
remain in the church, where purgatory is, what sinning against
the Holy Ghost is, whether secret societies are a benefit or a
curse to this nation such were the common run of our ques-
tions, in addition to the perplexities of the Sabbatarians. " They
can't run down the Catholic sisters to me," said an old soldier
to us, as we waited for the train after our closing lecture ;
" they saved my life in the Nashville Hospital, where I was
suffering from a severe wound in the spring and summer of
1863."
And so we were done with Green Spring and very sorry
that we could not stay longer, very hopeful to be able to go
there again.
MISSION AT THOMASVILLE.
Armory Hall, in which we held our six meetings, was the
scene of the annual reunion of the Seventy-second Regiment a
few days before we opened. Both the pastor and myself were
invited to speak to the veterans and their friends, and this
served to introduce us to the Thomasville public. They saw us
associated with the leading men of the place, and they heard
our profession of faith in the American Republic.
The town, whose population does not reach three thousand,
is full of bigots. The A. P. A. movement is strong, and its
venom is peculiarly bitter. Though it has no help from the lo-
cal press, which has been won and held for the right side by
the pastor, it counts many members and openly boasts of its
power. Yet, curiously enough, from first to last we had a repre-
sentation of the lodge at the lectures. When the night for* their
own meeting came they postponed it, and the foremost agita-
tors, with a good contingent of other members, were in our au-
dience. The effect can only be a good one. These lodges have
but a precarious existence at best. They constantly have to con-
tend against many of the better-informed Protestants, whose con-
demnation of them is outright and even public, and is scornful and
quite unsparing. Meantime, since they are a vote-making insti-
tution, they soon fall under control of local politicians ; after
that the zealots quickly begin to tire of being handled by vote-
brokers, and the movement dwindles and disappears.
We opened Monday night, and had an audience of three
hundred, something over half being non-Catholics. By Wednes-
412 MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES. [Dec.,
day night we had over four hundred and fifty and the hall
looked crowded, many additional seats being brought in. But
Thursday night it rained hard, and our space was only half
filled, and the same may be said of Friday night ; but at the
close, on Saturday night, though it rained some and threatened
to rain hard, we had a splendid attendance, and said good-by
in a high state of good humor.
Among our most attentive listeners was the superintendent
of the public schools, a man of much intelligence and respecta-
ble scholastic acquirements. But consider this : he wanted to
know, through the query box, how we could reconcile the ad-
mitted cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition with the doctrine of
church infallibility, as that dogma supposes the church to be
wholly saved from every moral as well as doctrinal failing. Of
course it was easy to answer that infallibility of the church does
not mean security of her rulers from all wrong-doing, and also
to show that Catholicity is not responsible for the Spanish In-
quisition ; but it is pitiful that a man may be the head of the
state schools in a bright Ohio town and need to be told such a
thing as that. He is to be blamed himself, yet he is an honest
man ; and may God soon send us such a propaganda of Catho-
lic truth as will prevent the possibility of any educated Ameri-
can being similarly deluded !
As at Green Spring so here, no Protestant ministers attend-
ed. Nor did we get a hearing from the prominent church offi-
cials ; but many members of churches were present. It enlivens
one to face such an audience as was gathered in Armory Hall.
There were our own Catholic people making sacrifices to attend,
many of them having driven several miles through the rain ;
they were proud and happy and looked so, highly delighted
to hear the questions answered, to hear the familiar Catho-
lic doctrines and practices affirmed, proved, illustrated, and pro-
claimed as the dearest birthright of humanity, as well as urged
for acceptance on their Protestant neighbors and friends. There
were the Protestants, whose eyes never seemed to wander from
the lecturer's face, whose attention was fixed from first to last.
Of course in speaking publicly one can never make quite suie
of the effect of his words, but what more can one ask than at-
tentive listeners to the truth of God ? Do you want bigoted
anti-Catholics to suddenly turn into monks and nuns ? The work
of converting a nation is necessarily one of deep faith in results
which the pioneers never can hope to see. One must begin
away back and look far forward, content to get an audience.
1894-] MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES. 413
If our appliances, our advertisements, the zealous solicitation of
our own Catholic people can secure non-Catholic attendance at
public lectures, that alone places the missionaries face to face
with an imperative duty, places the church herself in that atti-
tude, and especially the men and women who feel the inner fire
of apostolic zeal. Nor does this hinder the hope of seeing some
immediate results, and at our last meeting a direct appeal was
made for study and prayer about Catholic claims, with a view
to discovering the true religion.
Another sign of how very far off we are from the non-Catho-
lic world in this section was the lack of questions. We had a
few every night, but nothing like the number we had hoped for.
We were compelled to ask some of the more important questions
ourselves as introductions to the lectures. But we got pretty
nearly all our doctrines before our public in some shape or some
connection. Of course we were tagged after by the Seventh day
Adventists, they first hoping to set us on the other Protestants
for keeping Sunday without warrant of Scripture ; and then spit-
ting fire at us for refusing to become their allies. These Ad-
ventists are a class of persons who mistake their own vindictive
feelings for emotions of piety inspired by God. One must be
careful to hold his temper with them, and should not allow them
to get too much time by misusing the query box. Our Catholic
people are sometimes quite piqued that we do not vigorously
cut and slash at the regular anti-Catholics in the community.
I had an instance in this place. One day, while taking a walk
towards the country, I got a bow from an old man digging
potatoes. I stopped and chatted with him a genuine old-
country specimen of the church militant. As I resumed my
walk and bade him good-by he called after me, " Give them
Hail Columbia, father ; don't spare them ! "
This was the mission at which we first began to work on
our " Cleveland Plan." The bishop of this diocese has long
contemplated systematic evangelization of the non-Catholics in
his diocese, and the Paulists are fortunate enough to be able to
assist him. Our community offered him my services for his first
year, to co-operate with his own priests while they are getting
settled to the work. The bishop's purpose is a separate house
which shall be the rendezvous of a small number of active lec-
turers, working in every section of the diocese, wholly freed, for
a term of years, from parish duty. To support them and pay
the expenses of their apostolate, at least in part, they are to
give some missions to the faithful, the stipends from which, to-
414 MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES. [Dec.,
gether with the contributions of zealous benefactors, will form
a missionary fund. Is it not encouraging to find God the Holy
Ghost thus inspiring men in different places and in different en-
vironments with the same apostolic zeal? Father Hecker's life
purpose, as soon as it begins to take practical shape, finds in
this diocese a similar enterprise ready to be set on foot, an en-
lightened prelate, competent priests, enthusiastic laity, all glad
to welcome a Paulist as a co-laborer in the holy cause of con-
verting America. And the least inquiry reveals the same en-
couraging conditions everywhere among us members of religious
communities glad to work for their board and lodging and en-
tirely without stipend, and numerous diocesan priests burning
with zeal to be set free from parish duties in order to devote
themselves, for some years at least, to that portion of their
Master's vineyard which is ravaged by the wild beast of heresy.
So at this mission I had a regular associate, Father Wil-
liam Stevens Kress, soon to be relieved from all parish duty
and set apart for non-Catholic missions. Two or three others
will join him, and before long they will have their own house as
a centre of operations and a quiet home for the necessary pre-
paration. They will add to the church in the diocese of Cleve-
land that forceful, resistless power of public agitation for Christ's
Church which belongs to it as an essential quality.
For Father Kress and myself to give alternate discourses
the same evening added vastly to the attractiveness -of the
meetings. We chose different aspects of our topic, made our
selections, and between us gave a fuller and altogether a more
impressive statement. We felt our souls elevated into the third
heaven to be thus yoked together to the chariot of the Lord.
Perhaps we were unduly elated, for I noticed a prodigal ex-
penditure of voice and action in our addresses some of the
evenings. The Protestants must have thought us the most earn-
est lecturers they had ever heard, and earnestness is the stamp
of the mint on the precious metal the truth.
1894-] A NOBLE ARAB MARTYR. 415
A NOBLE ARAB MARTYR.
BY M. J. L.
'HE other day, as I was listening to some old
familiar words which have been sounding now
for eighteen hundred years or more, my mind
travelled back to a fort in Algiers, the Fort des
Vingt-quatre-Heures, made of huge blocks, which
for three hundred years remained immovable and silent. But in
1853 a martyrdom which some people looked upon as an idle
tale, others as a superstitious legend, was brought to light, and
the very stones themselves, with undeniable witness, revealed
the pathetic figure of the Arab martyr, Geronimo. Just three
hundred and forty-seven years ago a little Arab baby was taken
prisoner by some Spanish soldiers, and brought to Oran to be
offered up for sale as a slave. The good Vicar-General, Juan
Caro, bought him and took him to his own house to educate
him, and baptized him under the name of Geronimo. When
the child was eight years old a few Arab slaves made their
escape from Oran, and believing they were doing the boy a
kindness, they took him with them ; so for some years he lived
with his people as a Mohammedan. But the holy faith which
Juan Caro had planted in the child's heart had taken such firm
root that his relations could not tear it out. He remained with
them till he was twenty-five, and then he took a step which he
knew no Arab could forgive, and which, if he should be recap-
tured, would lead him with certainty to suffering or death. He
fled from his home and returned to the vicar-general, and tell-
ing him of the danger of his flight, he said simply: "It is be-
cause I wish to live henceforth in the faith of the Divine
Saviour."
Juan Caro was so delighted that he received the young Arab
like a lost child, and Geronimo, on his side, could not show his
benefactor love and gratitude enough. He soon entered the
Spanish Guard as a paid soldier, and he performed such brave
deeds that he attained very high military honors. But the
height of his joy and ambition was gained when he heard that
the vicar-general gave his consent and approval to a marriage
between him and a young Arab girl (also a convert) with whom
416 A NOBLE ARAB MARTYR. [Dec.,
he had fallen in love. For ten years nothing but happiness
shone on his life; he won the respect and confidence of all
around him, he was Juan Caro's right hand, and his wife was as
a daughter to his adopted father. No shadows seemed to
cross their path ; no troubles seemed drawing near them.
One bright May day in 1569 news came to Oran that a
small Arab encampment had been noticed a short distance off.
The rumor did not seem of importance ; a handful of Spaniards
could easily manage the Arabs ; at least so Geronimo must
have imagined, for he took only nine soldiers and manned a
little boat, intending to land on the coast where the Arabs had
assembled. They rowed out of the safe harbor with the sun
shining on them, and sailed along the blue sea past the coral
fishery of Mers-el-Kebir, never dreaming of danger, when sud-
denly two Moorish brigantines, which had been lying secretly
in wait for them, chased them and ran them down. The nine
soldiers escaped, but Geronimo, who was too marked a man, was
seized upon at once, and carried off to Euldj Ali, the Calabrian
renegade. A great cry spread like wildfire among the Arabs
throughout Algeria that the Apostate was captured ; that he,
the traitor, who had abandoned his own people, denied his own
faith, was lying a prisoner in the fortress, the " Bagno." The
Moors, who knew his history, made a solemn vow that they
would restore him to his old religion ; so they began by send-
ing marabouts to convert him with arguments and fair prom-
ises. But they returned discomforted to Euldj Ali ; their fine
words had availed nothing ; the apostate remained immovable.
A fresh treatment was next tried ; he was loaded with
chains and treated with the utmost cruelty, and when he was
faint from torture and scarcely able to speak the marabouts stood
around him, offering him liberty, power, honor, riches. But no
offer made him deny his faith, no longing for freedom made
him forswear for one single moment his religion. Once, after
some most horrible threat, he raised his poor suffering head,
and with a voice so weak it could scarcely be heard he said :
" They think they will make me a Mohammedan ; but that they
shall never do, even if they kill me." For four months Euldj
Ali gloated over the daily tortures he was inflicting on Ger-
onimo ; but at last the very sameness of his cruelty palled upon
him, and he was determined to invent a new and more hideous
revenge for the " apostate's obstinacy." One morning the idea
came to him ; he was examining the works of a fort by the
gate of Bab-el-Oued, when he saw a block of beton standing by
1894-] A NOBLE ARAB MARTYR. 417
the great stones. This block was a mould in the shape of the
immense stones, filled with a kind of concrete ; when the con-
crete was sufficiently hardened, the wall was to be built with it.
Here was the height of torture. Here was the most exquisitely
painful death a man might devise. The dog of a slave should
be laid in a similar mould ; the liquid plaster should be poured
over him ; he should be built alive into the wall ; the renegade
should be turned into very stone. But as Arabs never act
hastily, the pasha deliberated most carefully whether this really
could be the most brutal death he could conceive ; and then,
believing there was no more effectual means of barbarity, he
called a Navarrese mason, who was also a Christian slave.
" Michel," he said, " you see this empty mould of beton ; for
the present leave it ; I have a mind to make beton of that dog
of Oran who refuses to come back to the faith of Islam."
Poor Maitre Michel had to obey, but he finished his day's work
with a sad heart. As soon as he entered the " Bagno " (for he
also was a prisoner), he found out Geronimo and told him
Euldj Ali's command. Geronimo heard the command in perfect
silence, and then very calmly answered : " God's holy will be
done. Let not those miserable men think they will frighten me
out of the faith of Christ by the idea of this cruel death. May
my blessed Saviour only pardon me my sins and preserve me
my soul ! "
The whole of that night this brave young Arab spent in
prayer and preparation for the death tortures which he knew
were awaiting him. Must not the memories of his high mili-
tary honors and fame, the kindness of Juan Caro, the love of
his fair young wife, have flashed through his overstrung mind
like some beautiful glittering dream ? Was nothing left ? Noth-
ing real? Nothing but death so ghastly in its fearful savagery
that the very life beyond seemed hidden away ? Ah ! it was
not too late even now. The sentence could still be recalled,
and greater earthly power than Geronimo ever had was yet
within his reach. Every line in that martyr's face, as we stood
before his plaster cast, told us what his cry must have been
then ; told us silently how his cry for strength was answered.
Between two and three o'clock next morning a guard sum-
moned him to the pasha's presence. There he stood, a suffer-
ing, patient prisoner in chains, before a great multitude of
Turks and Arabs in all their gorgeous magnificence. Then he
was dragged by a hooting crowd, striking him and beating him,
to the gate Bab-el-Oued, where he again stood before the
VOL. LX. 27
418 A NOBLE ARAB MARTYR. [Dec.,
pasha, in the midst of his pompous retinue. Euldj Ali then
addressed him slowly and clearly ; he pointed out every detail
of the fearful death ; he showed him the blocks of beton, and
every torture of such a death was carefully explained. He then
ended his speech with : " Dog ! you refuse to return to the
faith of the Islam ? " " I am a Christian, and as a Christian
will I die," was the noble Arab's answer. "As you will,"
replied the pasha. "Then here," pointing to the beton, "shall
you be buried alive." "Do your will. Death shall not make
me abandon my faith," were Geronimo's last words. The pasha
raised his hand, soldiers stepped forward, they removed the
chain from the prisoner's leg, they bound his hands behind his
back, they crossed his legs and tied them ; then they took him
up and laid him face downward into the mould. The plaster
was poured over him, and Tamango, a renegade Spaniard,
wanting to show what a fervent Mohammedan he was, jumped on
Geronimo's body and broke his ribs. This act pleased Euldj
Ali so much that others followed his example. For twentj-four
hours Geronimo lay bleeding, suffering, dying, in that block of
beton ; the jeers and oaths of his enemies must have been
ringing in his ears, the African sun in its intense power must
have poured upon his aching head ; but brave, faithful, and un-
murmuring, this noble Arab lay there till the weary day and
night were over, and another morning broke upon that beauti-
ful Algerian land. But in the land above we believe the gates
of the Kingdom of Heaven were thrown open, and Geronimo,
bearing the palm in his hand, was admitted into the noble
army of martyrs.
For three hundred years this story was handed from one
generation to another, till some people treated it as a romance ;
but thirty-eight years ago, when alterations were being made
and the wall had to be taken down, the workmen came upon a
strange hollow place and some human bones. The governor,
remembering this story, directed plaster-of-Paris to be thrown
into the mould, and very soon the life-size figure of Geronimo
appeared, proclaiming the truth of martyrdom. The cast is
now kept in the museum at Algiers; it shows a slight figure, a
face with the veins all raised, a poor mouth closed with a
patient, determined expression ; the hands are tied, the legs
are swollen, even the very broken ribs are lying there. Three
hundred years of history holding its peace ; and lo ! the very
stones, as it were, cry out, and the noble Arab's martyrdom is
brought to light.
DR. A. CONAN DOYLE has had two things in his
favor in beginning his career as a writer of fiction.
The habit of story-telling seems to have been al-
most inborn with him. As a child, with little more
literary education than the knowledge of the
alphabet, he was found weaving fanciful tales for the edification
of little comrades, generally for the honorarium of a tart, as he
tells us. Perhaps the reward was sweeter in those infantile
days than many that came later on.
A good medical education was the second favorable condition.
The experiences of an observant doctor embrace so many as-
pects of life, and so many conditions of mental and physical
suffering, that a man with a good memory and a facile pen may
easily learn to turn them to good dramatic purpose. The rami-
fications of disease, too, are so complex as to embrace many
problems besides mere physical ones. They impinge at times*
largely upon the metaphysical domain, and send the mind some-
times down deeper still into the source and spring of all human
existence.
The question of moral responsibility for crime is one that
thus comes into the purview of the medical expert, in certain
classes of disease, and in pursuit of this obscure and delicate
subject Dr. Doyle has employed his literary art in a way which,
while it fascinates, may be productive of very startling conclu-
sions. Once it is admitted that an apparently rational and
levtl headed person is by nature and heredity powerless to re-
sist the promptings of evil, the foundations 'of our existing
jurisprudence and social safeguards are placed in deadly peril.
The group of short stories ranged under the name Round the
Red Lamp give a vivid idea of Dr. Doyle's method of work.
They also induct us into the ethics of pathology which men of
his school have been broaching of late, much to the dismay of
plainer people.
420 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
If we are not easily nauseated, we may wade through pro-
fessional horrors as ghastly in their way as anything that the
feverish imagination of Edgar Allan Poe conjured up in a less
sickening school, and drain full the dregs lying at the bottom
of The Heavenly Twins' mystery.
There may be readers to whom this class of literature is
not distasteful ; it is impossible to account for the idiosyncrasies
of the many-minded reading public. In the unwholesome en-
thralment over such a story as one of them called The Third
Generation tells, some might be oblivious to the peculiar moral-
ity which underlies the reasoning of a doctor who is commended
to us as the model of medical philanthropy. A certain misera-
ble scion of aristocracy, Sir Francis Norton, calls upon Dr. Hor-
ace Selby on the eve of his the baronet's marriage, for medi-
cal advice. From what transpires it is made apparent that the
marriage must be broken off somehow, and the suggestion the
doctor makes is that the baronet commit a felony of some kind,
and get sent to penal servitude.
" How far the individual monad is to be held responsible
for hereditary and engrained tendencies," as one of Dr. Doyle's
characters, Professor Ainslie, remarks, " may be still an undeter-
mined question," but the ordinary reasoner will have no difficulty
in deciding upon the morality of endeavoring to avoid a physi-
cal dilemma by the perpetration of an aggravated moral of-
fence.
It is impossible to question the literary skill with which these
tales of medical life are woven. A concise and direct form of
narrative, a careful use of detail, and a judicious introduction
of medical phraseology are the methods on which the author re-
lies. It is only in a restricted sense that they may be regarded
as stories. They are rather brief imaginary episodes, not more
startling in their character, it may be assumed, than the every-
day experience of many medical men might furnish. An ex-
ceptional case, perhaps, is a story called Lot No. 24.9, which is
a work of imagination almost as morbid as anything ever
dreamed of by the medical romancist. The germ of the idea,
mayhap, may be found in that ghastly tale of Poe's in which
galvanic experiments upon a corpse furnish the motif.
There are doubtless some orders of mind which find pastime
in literature of this kind. Chacun a son gout. The lovers of a
healthier page will' put them by with the reflection that it is a
pity the talent which was expended on them found no better
aim than they did.
1 894.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 421
In this time of educational unrest, when one is apt to get
confused over methods rather than aims, it is of a verity
refreshing to be recalled to the truth of things by such a book
as that just published by the Bishop of Peoria, Right Rev.
J. L. Spalding. Things of the Mind* is a book for adults. It
strikes a noble key for a healthy view of life and a manly tone
in the moral system, to exorcise the spirit of pessimism which
the pursuit of mere material success infuses so widely. All
through its theme is education ; not the mere instilling of laws
and rules and scientific methods, but the incessant effort of the
mind and the soul after higher things and the search for the
holy grail of life, the beautiful and the true.
From end to end several chapters in the book are a cluster
of pearls of fine thought. Nor is the thought labored, neither
is there any semblance of jading repetition. Many of the dicta
compress the experience of years in an epigram as, for in-
stance, this : " It takes half a lifetime to learn to know the
studies we should neglect." " Man is not pure intellect he is
life ; and life is power, goodness, wisdom, joy, beauty, health,
yearning, faith, hope, love, action." " The perfect man is not
merely a knower and thinker, but he is also one who lays hold
on life and does as well as he thinks."
With all the views set forth in the book we may not agree.
There are opinions about women in politics, and there are
views on the merits of certain writers, from which many people
will take leave to dissent; but the splendidly hortatory spirit
and tendency of the work is not affected by these incidental
obstacles. The student may well read it for style ; the
thinker for light and direction. We have read it with pleasure ;
few of those who take it up can fail to find a stimulus and a
solace in it also, we confidently venture to predicate.
Mr. Gladstone's erudition is no less wonderful a characteris-
tic of him than his vitality and capacity for work at an age
long past the normal limit of man's usefulness. It is a graceful
trait of his that he always sought relief from the cares of poli-
tics and statecraft in the cultivation of belles-lettres. A proof
that his scholarly instincts still hold him strongly is to hand in
a volume of translations of Horace,f dated so recently as Sep-
tember of this year. The Greek classicists were his favorites,
* Things of the Mind. By J. L. Spalding, Bishop of Peoria. Chicago : A. C. McClurg
&Co.
t The Odes of Horace. Translated into English. By W. E. Gladstone. New York :
Charles Scribner's Sons.
422 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
we were led to believe, in earlier as well as in mature years ;
the Italian poets sometimes intermitted those studies of Homer
which have resulted in several scholarly volumes ; now we find
that the most difficult of the Latin poets has had in him a
diligent student and interpreter also. The introduction to the
present volume is conspicuous for a quality never before ob-
servable in Mr. Gladstone's work brevity.
Mr. Gladstone's apology for adding to the number of Hora-
tian translators is his belief that the quality of compression is
not found amongst the many preceding renderings, with two
notable exceptions, namely, Milton's and Conington's. Compres-
sion he considers a sine qua non to any worthy Horatian ren-
dering. He also alleges as a reason for putting himself into evi-
dence his dissent from Mr. Conington's rule that all odes
which Horace has written in a uniform metre should in a uni-
form metre be done into English. Perhaps in urging this reason
Mr. Gladstone would have been more correct in describing
himself as in opposition to Horatius Flaccus himself, rather
than to Mr. Conington. He does not think the poet showed
good metrical taste in putting his ode to Soracte and his other
ode on Regulus in the same metre, the subjects being so widely
dissimilar. With all possible deference to Mr. Gladstone we pre-
fer the poet's own judgment on this extremely delicate question.
The Alcaic measure, in which both these odes are written, is a
very effective form of verse and readily adaptable to grave and
stately subjects as well as lighter ones.
Mr. Gladstone improves on Horace, also, if we regard rhym-
ing terminations as an improvement on blank verse.
Some of Mr. Gladstone's renderings are more graceful than
Milton's, possibly owing to his having the English language
more under control than the great poet of Paradise Lost, who
at times seemed more awkward in the handling of his native
tongue than in foreign ones. The pretty ode to. Pyrrha, for
instance, becomes in Mr. Gladstone's hands more intelligible
than in Milton's.
" For whom those auburn tresses bindest thou
With simple care ? "
is much more compact than Milton's lines :
" For whom bindest thou in wreaths
Thy golden hair,
Plain in thy neatness ? . . .
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 423
"Simplex munditiis," the phrase of Horace, seems to have
been somewhat of a stumbling-block to Milton, but Mr. Glad-
stone renders it easily and aptly. So too with
. . . " Heu ! quoties fidem
Mutatosque deos flebit, et aspera
Nigris aequora ventis
Emirabitur insolens."
This Milton gives stiffly :
" How oft shall he
On faith and changing gods complain,
And seas rough with black winds
Unwonted shall admire ! "
Very different is the manner of Mr. Gladstone's version :
" Full oft shall he thine altered faith bewail,
His altered gods; and his unwonted gaze
Shall watch the waters darkening to the gale
In wild amaze."
Horace's image in this verse presents some points of obscur-
ity; but it must be owned that Mr. Gladstone, whilst not
making it clearer than Milton, comes nearer to a poetical
rendering. Some of Mr. Gladstone's renderings, as he takes
care to explain in various foot-notes, are softened from the ori-
ginal text, so that the book cannot offend any delicate sensi,
bility.
I. SAINT PAUL AND HIS MISSIONS.*
It would be difficult to find a more interesting and instruc-
tive book than Abb6 Fouard's St. Paul and his Missions. It is
translated with great spirit by Rev. George F. X. Griffith, who has
done into English Fouard's Life of Christ and of St. Peter,
As the background for the narrative Abb Fouard constructs
from Acts and the Epistles of St. Paul, he places before the
reader a carefully considered view of the state of religious feel-
ing among the heathen nations to whom St. Paul brought the
Gospel.
* Saint Paul and his Missions. By the Abbe Constant Fouard. Translated by George
F.X.Griffith. New York: Longmans, Green & Co.
424 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
It is too much the fashion to maintain that all belief in the
old worship had passed away from the cultivated classes of the
Roman world, and that only an imitative scepticism, mingled
with the grossest superstition, remained among the other classes.
Undoubtedly there was an affectation of cynical unbelief in the
upper ranks. All the strange worships of the world had found
their way to Rome and found acceptance among the plebs, or
what remained of or represented that once haughty democracy ;
but that, so far from being a proof of scepticism among them,
is rather a proof that they were wildly groping for more light,
that they had an enduring faith in the supernatural.
Neither does the sneering of the upper classes at the events
recounted of the gods prove unbelief. It would rather indicate,
when coupled with other signs, a desire for an eclectic or phil-
osophic creed. Nor does the moral leprosy that whitened all
classes, high and low alike, prove abandonment of belief. His-
tory is full of instances of great corruption of morals residing
with strong beliefs.
As a proof in some degree of what has been said, we may
mention that in the country districts of Italy the old and simple
worship existed almost unchanged from the Etruscan times. It
preserved its simplicity and strength and purity, however marred
and covered over the worship in the city may have been by
the bewildering complexity of beliefs and forms that had
gathered around it.
Glimpses like the blue sky between the parted clouds can be
seen of this patriarchal creed in the valleys, on the mountain
slopes, under the vines, on the pastures, amid the waving corn,
on the sacred hearth of the Roman country home. If the Ro-
man world had lost all belief, St. Paul's preaching would t e in
vain, because they would have lost the capacity for belief.
We take Abbe Fouard's book at the passages dealing with
St. Paul's arrival at Cyprus. A Roman noble, Sergius Paulus,
administered the government of the island. We have in a few
sentences an excellent presentation of the social condition and
religious traditions of the Cypriotes. It is so remarkably well
done that the reader may be prepared for picturesque and
effective writing throughout the work.
Sergius, as we know from St. Luke, was a man of talent.
It is suggested by the abbe" that in the leisure he enjoyed at
his government, so far from the claims of society doubtless,
and the suspicious eye of his imperial master, he must have
realized what a void the banished faith of his fathers must have
1894-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 425
left in his soul. Consequently he was haunted by that yearn-
ing so natural to man for light and order among the dim and
ever shifting fancies in which the quest after the unseen so
often wearily and vainly spends itself.
We have some evidence of this feeling in the patronage
which Sergius bestowed upon the Jewish magician, Bar-Jesus.
He was treated with distinction by the proconsul, and probably
stood in the place of the philosopher who usually enlightened
and guided the conscience of a Roman patrician.
When the news reached his court that those Jews recently
landed on the island were exciting the wonder of the syna-
gogues by their preaching, Sergius invited them. It was evi-
dently a part of that marvellous curiosity with which the East
and the world had been throbbing for some time with the ex-
pectation of a teacher who would solve the most difficult pro-
blems of life and its obligations.
A trial of skill in controversy takes place before Sergius.
The disputants are St. Paul and the magician. It must have
reminded Sergius of what he had read of the conflicts between
the great orators of Greece. Our author portrays it with fire
and energy, and the description can be taken as a good instance
of his power and the sympathy and ability of his translator.
In every passage of it we have the impress of the great
apostle's character. His vigorous, rugged, impetuous nature
lighted to highest enthusiasm by the fire of the Holy Spirit as
he launched the thunders of impassioned invective on the head
of Bar-Jesus. We can almost fancy him scorched by the eye
and the words of St. Paul.
The great apostle throughout the book stands in vivid per-
sonality. We accompany him everywhere, to Galatia, Asia Minor,
Macedonia, Athens, Corinth everywhere the old immemorial
gods are falling before him. As of old, according to the myth,
they left the earth, now they leave Olympus.
Nor does the animation of the narrative prevent Abb6
Fouard from supplying all the materials to grasp the picture in
its truth. He has brought to his work copious information con-
cerning the physical geography of the regions visited by St.
Paul as well as the customs, traditions, and creeds of their in-
habitants. These are the setting of the picture, and give to it
the completeness which any trustworthy monograph should pos-
sess.
426 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
2. HAMON'S MEDITATIONS.*
This is an excellent English version of a work which has
been extremely successful, and which undoubtedly deserves the
success it has obtained. It follows the order of the Calendar,
special meditations being added for the feasts of many of
the saints, and contains also forms for morning and evening
prayers.
One of its best features is the summary of the morrow's
meditation, to be read the night before. It is no doubt impor-
tant to have such a summary, and difficult to prepare it for
one's self ; still more difficult to have it when a book of this
kind is to be used for a community.
The only fault we should have to find with the book, parti-
cularly for community use, is that the subjects are too much
developed, making the exercise rather a spiritual reading than
a meditation properly so called. This fault, however, is to be
found with almost all similar works, and is not of so much con-
sequence for persons using them privately, as one can stop
wherever it may seem best. Another difficulty in its way for
community use is the variable number of the points, two, three,
or four. But this again may be an advantage where one is at
liberty to select what may be most profitable.
But if such a large amount is read aloud at once for a num-
ber of persons it will, we think, be usually found difficult to se-
lect any particular part for meditation, the memory of each be-
ing somewhat confused by what follows. For those, however,
who have the book at hand to help them, this objection does
not apply.
But for private meditation, a practice that is coming more or
less into vogue, no better book can be recommended than Ha-
mon's meditations. Its wonderful and phenomenal sale in France,
reaching nearly one hundred thousand copies, shows that it is
very much in touch with the popular devotional sentiment.
The revulsion against infidelity in France is manifesting itself
in a deepening and widening of the religious sense. Of this
awakening have been born the numerous lives of Christ. Pere
Didon, Le Camus, Fouard, and others have written for this new
spirit. The latest but not the least sign is the one hundred
thousand copy sale of Hamon's Meditations.
* Meditations for all the Days of the Year. For the use of priests, religious, and lh
faithful. By Rev. M. Hamon, S.S. From the twenty-third revised and enlarged edition, by
Mrs. Anne R. Bennett (nee Gladstone). Benziger Brothers.
1894-] NEW Boons. 427
NEW BOOKS.
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati :
Mostly Boys. Short Stories. By Francis J. Finn, SJ. Let us go to the
Holy Table. By the Rev. Father J. M. Lambert. Translated from the
French by the Rev. W. Whitty.
H. L KILNER & Co., Philadelphia:
Moondyne Joe. By John Boyle O'Reilly.
CATHOLIC SCHOOL BOOK Co., New York:
Hygiene, with Anatomy and Physiology. By Joseph F. Edwards, A.M.,
M D.
LONGMANS. GREEN & Co., New York :
A Text-book on the History of Painting. By John C. Van Dyke, L.H.D.
A Text-book on Inorganic Chemistry. By G. S. Newth, F.I.C., F.C.S.
The History of Marriage, Jewish and Christian, in Relation to Divorce
and certain Forbidden Degrees. By Herbert Mortimer Lucknock, D.D.,
Dean of Lichfield. Practicable Socialism. By Samuel and Ht-nrittta
Barnett. The Truth and Reality of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. By
George Rundle Prynne, M.A.
BURNS & GATES, London :
Letters and Writings of Marie Lataste. Translated from the French by
Edward Healy Thompson, M.A. Vol. III. Manual of Scripture History.
By the Rev. Walter J. B. Richards, D.D. Sixth edition.
LITTLE, BROWN & Co., Boston :
Three Heroines of New England Romance. Bv Harriet Prescott Spofford,
Alice Brown, and Louise Imogen Guiney. With illustrations by Edmund
H. Corrett. Centuries Apart. By Edward T. Bouve. Hope Benham:
A Sto*y for Girls. By Nora Perry.
J. DULACHAN & Co.. Chicago :
The Acolyte's Companion : Ceremonial and Prayer-book Combined. With
Rules and Regulations for establishing and governing a Sanctuary Society.
Compiled from approved sources by a Member of a Religious Community.
WYMAN & SONS, Fetter Lane, London:
A Life's Struggle and its Result. By Lady Herbert.
FR. PUSTET & Co., New York and Cincinnati :
St. Benedict's Manual. By Rev. Wendelin Maria Mayer, O.S.B. Sixth re-
vised- and enlarged edition. St. Francis' Manual. Arranged by Clem-
entinus Deymann, O.S.F. Twelfth edition, revised and enlarged. St.
Anthony's Manual. Compiled from authentic sources for the Faithful
Servants of the great Thaumaturgus of Friars Minor. Translated from
the German for the Devotees of St. Anthony.
MACMILLAN & Co., New York:
Love in Idleness. By F. Marion Crawford. The Use of Life. By Sir John
Lubbock, Bart., M.P.
WALTER SCOTT, limited, London ; New York : Charles Scribner's Sons :
The Humor of Ireland. By D. J. O'Donoghue.
The Brehon Laws. By Lawrence Grinnell, of the Middle Temple, Barris-
ter-at-Law.
NEW PAMPHLETS.
ALFRED COPPENRVTH'S Verlag (H. PAWELEK), Regensburg:
Aulhentische Portrdte der Konigin Maria Stuart. Herausgegeben Von
Dr. Bernhard Srpp.
P. O'SHEA. New York :
Catholic Literature in Catholic Homes. By Rev. J. L. O'Neill, O.P.
MURDOCK, KERR & Co., Pittshurg :
Centennial Celebration of the Incorporation of Pittsburg.
IN view of some recent developments in Ameri-
politics it would be well for both friends and
enemies of the Papacy to ponder on the attitude
and utterances of the Holy Father on the subject of the sepa-
ration of religion and politics. Even the bitterest enemies of
the Catholic Church must concede that no trace of ambiguity or
indirectness can be found in the clear and unmistakable terms
in which he has time and again expressed himself on the ques-
tion of the duty of both clergy and laity in various countries
towards their respective governments. Take for instance one of
his most recent declarations, made to a distinguished French
ecclesiastic :
" I do not wish the French monarchists to make use of re-
ligion as a party tool. It is not only my right but it is like-
wise my bounden duty to hinder religion from serving as a
springing board to partisans of this or that government. I
know that all are not pleased. They have gone so far even
as to hint to me that the Peter-pence may suffer from their
displeasure. I do not believe it. Be that as it may, how-
ever, I do my duty, and I shall do so to the end."
Being asked if thes"e words might be repeated, the Pope
replied :
" Most assuredly. Proclaim that I hold religion to be above
all parties. That I so will it. That I so require it."
If, then, the enemies of the Catholic Church commend
these significant utterances of the Head of that Church to its
adherents, how can they with any show of fairness pretend
that politics may utilize religion for the purpose of gaining
its own ends?
The same rule must be applied in either case impartially,
if the civil government of this world is to be carried on in
a spirit of justice.
One of the world's greatest despots has passed away since
the preceding issue of this magazine was printed. The Czar
1 894.] EDITORIA L No TES. 429
Alexander III. has had to obey a ukase more irresistible than
any of his own, and his place is now filled by his son, Nicho-
las II.
Those who desire peace in the old world wish that in this
case Amurath may to Amurath succeed, as the late Czar's con-
sistent policy resembled that of the street angel who is, accord-
ing to the proverb, the house devil. Nervously anxious to
maintain peace abroad, his policy was to keep his subjects at
home in a state of perpetual torture, by a system of police
terrorism and arbitrary punishments and expatriation more
merciless than those of Caius Marius. He lived in constant
dread of the dynamite bomb, the stiletto, and the poisoned
bowl, and he seemed to be determined that if misery was to
be his lot, it should be that of his subjects too. It is believed
that his successor is not so well disposed toward the French
Republic as the late Czar was, and it is on this account the
European powers are regarding the immediate future with
anxiety.
A frightful report, which is taken with some reserve, reach-
es us as we go to press. It affects the Christians of Armenia,
of whose condition we published so graphic a picture in our
last issue from the pen of the Catholic Bishop of Tarsus and
Adana. The story goes that a series of frightful massacres
have been perpetrated on them by the Kurds and regular
Turkish troops, owing to their inability to pay taxes. The
horrors of Tatar- Bazardjik and Philippopolis are reported to
have been reproduced and on a larger scale, over a large dis-
trict of Armenia, but some doubts have been thrown on the
accuracy of the report. All past experience of Turkish rule,
however, goes to show that it is quite within the bounds of pro-
bability.
430 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Dec.,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
FIVE bishops attended the meeting held October 1 1 at the Columbus Club, Chi-
cago, for the purpose of considering the advantages to be derived from a
Second Summer-School for Catholics in the United States. Emulous of the
good work done in the East at New London and at historic Champlain during the
past three years, Catholics living in the West have decided to establish a Sum-
mer-School within easy reach of their own homes. Among the sites proposed
for this new undertaking were Mackinaw, Green Bay, and Madison. It was de-
cided to locate for the first season at Madison, Wis. This decision holds
good for one year; afterwards another site may be selected, or it may be agreed
to move about from year to year, in order to extend the influence of the move-
ment throughout the West. Right Rev. S. Messmer, D.D., Bishop of Green Bay,
Wis.; Rev. J. A. Zahm, C.S.C., of Notre Dame University, Ind.; and Rev. T.
Hughes, S.J., of St. Louis University, were appointed a committee on studies.
Catholic Reading Circles nineteen are now established at Chicago alone will be
invited by Rrv. P. J. Agnew to co-operate with the board of managers, which
already includes many eminent names among the clergy and the laity, representing
Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, and Michigan. These
seven States contain a sufficient number of Catholics well able to give ample pa-
tronage to a new Summer-School.
* * *
The Casket, a Catholic journal, published at Antigonish, Nova Scotia, admits
the truth contained in a statement from Church Progress that it is scarcely rea-
sonable to suppose the Summer-School on Lake Champlain can draw appreciable
patronage from regions a thousand miles remote. Still the question is open for
discussion whether another school should be established so soon. Every summer
New York State is favored by many visitors from the West. The Casket thus
states an opinion deserving of careful consideration :
" One of the chief incentives to visiting what could heretofore be called the
Catholic Summer-School was the prospect of meeting in the flesh the leading
men and women in Catholic literary and educational life from over the entire na-
tion. Indeed, we here in Canada had entertained some hope that the Summer-
School might yet become an international institution American in the proper
sense of the word. More intimate relations in the field of thought between the
Catholics of the United States and Canada are much to be desired. It is not a
little disappointing, therefore, to see these hopes dashed."
Why should the hopes of our Canadian brethren be frustrated ? They will
find both at Madison and at Champlain a truly representative American gathering
of students and distinguished thinkers. Sooner or later the managers of the two
or more Catholic Summer- Schools that are to be established and conducted with-
out sectional rivalry will realize the value of reciprocity. Lecturers of national
reputation will not restrict their influence to one locality. While it may be an
insurmountable difficulty to gather an audience from California at Madison, or
any other point requiring a journey of a thousand miles, it is comparatively easy
to arrange by consultation in advance for the lecturer to travel. The problem
will be solved by a generous spirit of co-operation in the East, West, North, and
South to make effective use of the intellectual forces among Catholics. What-
ever may be the future development of the Summer-School movement it is per-
1894-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 431
manently settled by the laws of nature that the picturesque Champlain valley, lo-
cated between the Green Mountains of Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains
of New York, will always be a delightful resort for intelligent people to improve
their minds by study and recreation. For historic associations of noble deeds in
defence of religion and fatherland it cannot be surpassed anywhere in the whole
United States.
* * *
Through the efforts of many who have taken part in the work proposed by
the Columbian Reading Union the Public Library in different localities has
learned to know Catholics not simply as readers, but also as the owners and
makers of a good, honest, healthy literature, characterized by a just sense of art
and by a high claim, clean as well as modern, and covering every branch of
literary composition. A communication showing how gladly such information is
received, when presented in definite shape for use, is here given to indicate what
intelligent women may do to defend the faith :
" I wrote last January asking your help in obtaining a list of books counter-
acting one already in our Public Library. The librarian had written to other
cities for similar lists, as he thought best not to give me one with a merely local
scope. This caused one delay. Then your very necessary wish to know ' which
dogma was attacked or epoch of history was misrepresented in each book '
required some time on my part, as I was unfamiliar with most of the books. My
dunes leave me very little spare time. Unfortunately I am not always able to
utilize this, as my health is not good. Furthermore I was away from home dur-
ing July and August. Pardon me for all these personal excuses, but having
asked your help it seems decidedly ungracious not to take advantage of what
was so freely offered.
" In the meantime I have not been idle, but have been sowing the seed for
the Columbian Union here and in the places I have visited this summer. My
efforts have been so well received that I feel greatly encouraged to continue the
work. Enclosed you will find the list of the books:
" Historical Studies, by Eugene Lawrence, is a collection of articles pub-
lished in Harper's Monthly Magazine some years ago (during the 7os). These
articles are written in most attractive style, with an attempt at fairness tending
to deceive. It is not a safe book in the hands of one not well versed in history
and without the means at hand to contradict the testimony the author cites, viz.,
Migne, Voigt, Gesta, Milman, Ranke, Mosheim, Stendhal, Jorius, Michelet,
Walch, Audin, Roscoe, and others. His subjects are The Bishops of Rome,
Leo and Luther, Loyola and the Jesuits, Ecumenical Councils, the Vaudois, the
Huguenots, the Church of Jerusalem, Dominic and the Inquisition, the Conquest
of Ireland, and the Greek Church.
" The Story of Liberty, by Coffin, is, in my estimation, a most dangerous
book, inasmuch as it is a child's book gotten up in Harper's most attractive style
in regard to type, binding, and illustrations. On turning over the leaves of the
copy I procured I was heart-sick. The well-thumbed leaves gave evidence of
the number of youthful minds poisoned by the vile calumnies with which every
page teemed. The same old falsehoods (those, alas! that contain a grain of
truth) that have been controverted again and again. Infallibility, Luther, the
Jesuits, the Inquisition, Confession, Indulgences ; these and many other topics
receive their share of distortion.
" Mediceval and Modern Saints and Miracles, by an anonymous author, is
another of Harper's publications. The title indicates the subject matter. The
animus of the author can be implied by the following quotation from his preface:
" Romish proselytism . . . distorts the truth by silent suppression, by
artful equivocation, and not rarely by unscrupulous denial of damaging fact,
which its ministers know the objector has not at hand the means of establishing."
" Dr. Littledale's Plain Reasons is answered by Rev. H. F. Ryder's Catholic
Controversy.
" Catholic and Protestant Nations Compared, by N. Roussel, is offset in part
by Balmes' European Civilisation. This is already in the library. I should be
glad to have a book that is more modern than Balmes.
432 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Dec., 1894.
" Evenings with the Romanists, by Hobart Seymour, is a somewhat flippant
account of how the writer spent Sunday evenings among the benighted peasantry
of Ireland. He attacks nearly every article of our faith, and the ease with which
his hearers become converted is only equalled by his sleight-of-hand performances
in reasoning. Catholic Belief, by Rev. Joseph Faa Di Bruno, is an excellent an-
tidote for this book, which is scarcely worthy of notice. However, some person
might be attracted by it, and it would be well to have it answered. Should there
be a book that answers this purpose better than the one I have cited I should be
glad to have it included.
"The Papacy and the Civil Pnuer, by R. W. Thompson, is answered by
Father Weninger's pamphlet.
" The Sclwnberg-Cotta Family, by Mrs. Charles, is a somewhat out-of-date
novel that is, it is little read at present. I have not had time, so far, to exam-
ine it.
" The History of the Dutch Republic, by Motley, is too well known to need
any comments from me. The remaining books indicate by their titles what is
the subject attacked. We need a judicious selection of Catholic writers on the
same subjects to have these attacks properly answered."
The offensive books in this particular Western city were selected by bigots
and recommended to the Public Library. Hundreds of sturdy Catholics, having
an equal claim to make a request for books of their choice, passed to and fro
quite oblivious that the minds of their fellow-citizens were becoming infected
with falsehood by the circulation of malicious lies in print. After consultation
with six well-informed scholars, a list was sent by the Columbian Reading Union.
The books mentioned should have a place in every Public Library that provides
for the impartial study of important subjects. It will be noticed that the books
were chosen as antidotes to those already in circulation. The list is here given :
Clifton Tracts three volumes.
Spanish Inquisition. De Maistre.
Answers to Littledale. Ryder.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Montalembert.
History of Lourdes. Lassere.
Faith of our Fathers. Gibbons.
Church and the Age. Hecker.
Henry VIII. and Monasteries. Gasquet.
Queen Elizabeth and Catholic Hierarchy. Gasquet and Knox.
History of the Reformation. M. J. Spalding.
Cardinal Fisher. Bridgett.
Chair of Peter. Murphy.
Temporal Power. Gosselin.
Formation of Christendom. Allies.
Protestant and Catholic Countries Compared. Young.
No book by a Catholic writer has been suggested that would serve to counter-
act the attractive books by Coffin, entitled The Story of Liberty, A New Way
around the World, etc. Many of our correspondents have noticed that his books
are eagerly read by the young, and are to be found in all circulating libraries.
* * *
For ten cents in postage-stamps the Columbian Reading Union, 415 West
Fifty-ninth Street, New York City, will send to any part of the United States or
Canada a selected list of stories for young people. Every book on the list is
suitable for a Christmas gift.
* * *
A request from a Reading Circle printed some time ago in this department
has induced Murphy & Co. of Baltimore to print in a cheap, handy volume a
compendium on the middle ages from the writings of Archbishop Spalding/ We
hope it will have a wide circulation to encourage other publications of a similar
character. There are many sources of information not available for Reading
Circles. Excellent articles on historical subjects especially might be profitably
reprinted in cheap form from back numbers of the American Catholic Quarterly
Review and THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Opinions on this matter are requested.
M. C. M.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. LX. JANUARY, 1895. No. 358.
HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM.
BY HENRY AUSTIN ADAMS.
//. UN WITTING WITNESSES.
VER since the centurion, calling his guards away
from the hill of Calvary, gave his downright, sol-
dierly, " Surely this was the Son of God " ; and
Pliny the younger, writing of the faithful in his
jurisdiction, bore generous testimony to their
child-like guilelessness, the divine Truth has not lacked those
in high places who have been witnesses, willing or otherwise, to
its triumphant superiority.
All literatures in Christian times have teemed with thinkers
of every shade who, from all sorts of view-points, have in the
most surprising fashion seized upon one or another feature of
the Faith and vindicated it.
Even the Babel of non-Catholic theology itself, when taken
as a whole, furnishes here and there, piecemeal, the faith en-
tire ; for what one doctor learnedly denies another proves, and
so on, a majority of heretics for ever showing the utter nonsense
of any one man's special heresy !
The readers of this magazine no doubt recall Newman's in-
imitable putting of this point in Loss and Gain. All may not,
however, have seen Augustin Birrell's keen use of it in his
clever Obiter Dicta. He says that Newman's argument reminds
him of the missionary's dress-suit which fell by accident into
the hands of naked savages.
To their primitive minds it was inconceivable that so large
a number of articles of clothing could be intended for one man !
Copyright. VBRY RBV. A. F. HBWIT. 1894.
VOL. LX. 28
434 HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. [Jan.,
Accordingly the king assumed the majestic silk hat, and dis-
tributed the coat, waistcoat, trousers, boots, etc., among his
faithful courtiers. Thus a complete civilized suit was en evidence
at court, but scattered about on a dozen men !
So is it with the Anglican divines, goes on the cardinal in
his delicious humor. They teach the whole Catholic Faith but
in scraps! Everybody reveres the "standard old Anglican di-
vines." Very well ; listen to Newman.
A Catholic, he points out, is merely a man with the whole
suit on at once! He holds "the divinity of Tradition with
Laud, consent of Fathers with Beveridge, a visible Church with
Bramhall, dogma with Bull, the authority of the pope with
Thorndyke, penance with Taylor, prayers for the dead with
Ussher, celibacy, asceticism, ecclesiastical discipline with Bing-
ham ! "
Birrell is merely one of the sharp-sighted thinkers of this
day and generation one of an increasing school of writers who
say : " Don't be a Catholic if you do not wish to be, but please
do work up a new set of reasons, as the old lot is worn
out ! "
Let one read as one will far ahead on the skirmish line of
destructive and radical criticism, or back of the bulwarks of the
standard classics it matters not. Everywhere crop out these
delightful side-lights flashing forth truth.
Some time ago I decided to jot down in a leisure week's read-
ing anything that might turn up bearing on the subject of this
article, and the result was a resolution to write at least a book
on the unwilling or unwitting corroborations of Catholic verity to
be found in English literature. The dozen instances of this
transpiring in the most casual browsing of three days set me
to thinking of scores of books and authors not before noticed
with respect to it, but well enough remembered to promise me
a rich return for a renewed perusal with this in view.
There was your livid Orangeman, Macaulay, prophesying per-
manence to Catholicity so stable that his New-Zealander, perched
on a broken arch of London Bridge viewing the ruins of St.
Paul's Cathedral (i.e., Anglicanism), might yet hear Mass at
Rome !
And dainty Matthew Arnold no friend of the faith ex-
quisitely demonstrating the incompatibility of St. Paul and Pro-
testantism not to say anything of the vulgarity he points out
in dissent.
And our own mystic, Hawthorne, of the nameless charm a
1 895.] HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM, 435
Catholic in soul shrinking like an exposed and spiritual nerve
from the mechanical, the blatant, the false in Calvin.
And stout old Scott a cavalier and churchman to the quick
making a " business" century glow with the faith, the passions,
and the aspirations of the middle ages.
I thought of these, I thought of some score others poets
and novelists and thinkers and historians and for the first time
saw the " Rainbow of the Truth " spanning our splendid firma-
ment of Letters.
I thought that it was more than accident that in the
families of the last three named Arnold and Scott and
Hawthorne conversions to the Catholic religion have taken
place.
At Abbotsford the family is wholly Catholic, while Haw-
thorne's daughter and her husband and compeer in letters are
fervent children of Mother Church.
But to come back. The first book I picked up was Rich-
ardson's Clarissa Harloive the first great novel in the English
tongue, remaining yet not at all crowded by competitors for
immortality.
Richardson's contribution to my peculiar purpose was
meagre in extent, but it made up by its delicious flavor and
quaint conceit for anything that it might lack in force.
Lovelace, the villain, having compelled his victim, poor
Clarissa Harlowe, to mount his coach and drive into the
country, protests most loudly that the young lady gave her con-
sent. Whereupon sly old Richardson declares that she " con-
sented," doubtless, much in the way a dean and chapter of the
English Church " elect " a bishop !
This is delicious. It is worth more than a whole treatise
upon the mooted question (so sore with Anglicans) as to who
is the church's head. A dean and chapter, it may not general-
ly be known, " elect " their bishop in the following way : The
queen, by her prime minister, fills the vacant see by appointing
some popular divine, and then issues her conge d'etre, or per-
mission to elect, to the dean and chapter. These worthies
thereupon convene with no end of red-tape, and after solemnly
invoking the guidance of Heaven in their choice, unanimously
elect the queens appointee! And the Right Rev. Dr. Lovelace
declares that poor Anglican Clarissa said " yes " the coy
creature !
My next happening was upon a couplet of the poet Gray's,
intended by him to have been introduced into his fragment on
436 HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. [Jan.,
" Education and Government," which, by the way, deserves to
be better known than it is.
Both of my editions of Gray omit the lines to the lasting
credit of the poet as a sound Anglican ; but Mason has pre-
served it for us. Speaking of the conversion of Henry VIII.
and the founding of the English Church in consequence, Gray
had written :
" When love could teach a monarch to be wise,
And gospel light first dawned from Boleyn's eyes."
Nothing so casually thrown out by a non-combatant, pastor-
al poet during a lull in theological hostilities can be ignored,
or argued around. There it is ! And it is evidence of the first
water of the simple truth, that the labored and pathetic ex-
post facto effort of Anglican theologians to purify the motives
of the monarch who grew " wise " (i.e., reformed) ; and to vindi-
cate a schism as a result of a religious conviction which was
neither more nor less than a fortuitous outcome of a scandalous
breach of the laws of both God and man is futile.
Gray was not taken in by such poor sophistry.
He noticed and sung the coincidence of the " love-light "
and the " gospel-light " in the saucy eye of that wanton, old
Tom Bullen's daughter.
And, be it remembered, Gray was no low-churchman resort-
ing to " low " means to down Tractarian theorizers. He ante-
dated Newman by a whole century.
Strangely paralleling Gray's frank couplet are those lines of
Horace Walpole's a different man, indeed which he inscribed
upon a column to poor Queen Katherine, whom the " wise
monarch " got rid of to make room for his plump Anne Boleyn
and the gospel !
If Gray was frank and incautious enough to give damaging
witness, what shall we say of brother Walpole's ingenuous
burst of plain but indiscreet allusion to history?
He inscribes:
" From Katherine's wrongs a nation's bliss was spread,
And Luther's light from Henry's lawless bed."
There's an insular, not to say insolent, twist to the old
truth, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church !
Note, too, the monumental calm that could chisel in cold
1895.] HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. 437
stone the connection of a national bliss with a foul and cruel
divorce! Good old "St. Martin Lutjier " must be proud of the
method whereby his "light" was disseminated throughout the
British Isles ; and it would seem a bit rough, even on the gay
and festive Martin himself, to have recourse to the " lawless
bed " of a sensual king for a candle-stick to his flaring rush-
light.
Walpole was an earnest, honest man ; but as he also had
not basked in the sunshine of the " Oxford Movement," how
could he guess that he was "giving it away"?
A staunch defender of the Church of England as by law es-
tablished in these realms could not at that time possibly see
the awkwardness of that whole Henry VIII. business. Never
dreaming of an Anglc-Catholic descent from pre-Reformation
Catholicism, his simple soul was innocent of all necessity for
looking the other way on mention being made of Harry's
rather questionable marital relations.
Not that the eighteenth century was quite devoid of those
who, bravely and with sinking hearts, tended the little lamp of
Catholic tradition which never has gone out in England ; but
these were few and as yet quietly enduring their isolated and
pathetic exile.
The masses were like Walpole, Protestant, and naturally
spoke out in meeting. The " bulwarks of the Reformation "
were then intact, and the Erastianism of the house of Han-
over settling with chilling effect upon the long despiritualized
Establishment.
It was then that the indifference, ignorance, and Protestant-
ism of the English Church, thrown into relief by the awakening
of Catholicity throughout Europe, produced that unguarded,
degraded, indolent state of religion which the literature of the
period reflects, and which at length called forth the fierce
anguish of the early Tractarians and the later morning of the
Catholic Revival. But the ingenuous, unbiased, spontaneous
testimony of the great authors of the time to the effect that
there was no claim to Catholic descent, no pretension to Catho-
lic belief, no evidence of Catholic practice, but an emphatic
repudiation of these, cannot be too lightly estimated.
Dryden, himself a convert in after years, puts the common-
sense philosophy of the " wise monarch " in a nut-shell, when
he writes : " If Conscience had any part in moving the king to
sue for a divorce, she had taken a long nap of almost twenty
years together before she was awakened ; and, perhaps, had
HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM.
[Jan.,
slept on till doomsday if Anne Boleyn, or some other fair lady,
had not given her a jog: so the satisfying of an inordinate
passion cannot be denied to have had a great share at least in
the production of that schism which led the very way to our
pretended Reformation."
More subtle than this, but not more to the point, are the
delicate cynicisms of Thackeray, the broader satire of Dickens,
and the coarse guffaws of Butler's immortal Hndibras.
No mention need be made of the long list of works inten-
tionally making for or against the faith, nor could they have
the weight of these great geniuses who mirror facts and men
just as they are. These are unbiased, or if at all ex parte, they
are invariably subpoenaed as witnesses not on our side. The last
on whom I chanced was our own Lowell, from whose exquisite
passage on St. Peter's at Rome room now remains for only a
brief quotation. Could one, however Catholic, say more than
this?
" She (the Catholic Church) is the only church that has
been loyal to the heart and soul of man. . . . She is the
only poet among the churches, and while Protestantism is un-
rolling a pocket surveyor's-pl-n, takes her votary to the pin-
nacle of her temple, and shows him meadow, upland, and til-
lage, cloudy heaps of forest clasped with the river's jewelled
arm, hillsides white with the perpetual snow of flocks, and, be-
yond all, the interminable heave of the unknown ocean.""
1895-] THE HUMANISM OF PETER. 439
THE HUMANISM OF PETER.
BY K. F. MULLANKY.
ARM-HEARTED, hot-headed Peter! How he
stands out before us, clear-cut as a cameo
against the simple Scriptural background ! A
rough diamond, quick-tempered, impetuous, boast-
ful. A rock indeed, full of sturdy strength, but
rough in outward seeming ; and yet marked with the seal of
God's choice as the foundation stone whereon should rest in
undisturbable strength the mystical City of God unto which all
nations should go up. Let us look at him well, this rough-gar-
mented toiler of the sea, with the wind-tossed hair and spray-
wet face, as he cast out his net with brawny strength into the
water. A rough-hewn rock, with no lines of beauty to redeem
its roughness, and yet with capabilities within it of being trans-
formed by the power of a master's hand into a living, breathing
soul. I have seen a block of stone, rough and ungainly, laid
before a sculptor and when I saw it again a face of divinest
beauty was gazing at me from it. It seemed as if I could see
the whole majestic figure underneath the prisoning roughness of
the stone, waiting only for the magic touch of chisel and
mallet to break its fetters, when it would spring into enduring
life, never again to be returned to its former state of crudity.
The character of Peter was like that unchiselled stone before
the divine Sculptor modelled it into rarest beauty. Our Lord
called him Peter because his character was rough like a rock,
but yet full of strength and firmly immovable like a rock as
well.
How wonderful are God's ways beyond our limited ken !
Not gentle John nor the others, all less faulty than our sturdy
fisherman, did our Lord chose for his vicegerent, but Peter with
all his faults thick upon him. How impetuous he was! Full of
fire ; ever the first urged on by the impulsive love of his strong
heart and quick mind. He was always the spokesman, always
the one to be sent on errands of importance. A natural leader
of men whose friends ever push forward or fall behind natur-
ally. When the Apostles questioned among themselves re-
garding any of the teachings of our Lord, Peter was the one to
440 THE HUMANISM OF PETER. [Jan.,
speak out, asking the explanation. And our Lord loved to
question him, delighting in the unshaken faith of his simple soul
when some things were hard to be received by the people
"But what thinkest thou, Simon?" "Whatsayest tkou?" And
after each simple-hearted profession of faith in his dear Master,
our Lord blessed him. " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, be-
cause flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Fa-
ther who is in Heaven." " Thou art a rock ; and upon this rock
I will build my church ; and I will give to thee the keys of
the Kingdom of Heaven." Think of it ! the rough Galilean
fisherman to be preferred before the rest of men and given such
God-like power. Why was it that our Lord chose Peter, the
most faulty of all the apostles, as the one most fitting, most
worthy of this great charge? Because he knew, like the wise
sculptor, what that rough nature could be made ; and the warm
heart beating with almost painful love within was more pleasing
to him than gentle manners and a smooth exterior. Did he not
say of sin-stained Magdalen, " Many sins are forgiven her be-
cause she hath loved much " ? To Peter likewise he forgave
everything because his errors had no root in his loving heart.
Our Lord chose Peter because his character was strong and
faithful, and because he knew that in choosing him he selected
the one best fitted for the charge. The other Apostles depend-
ed, relied, upon Peter's self-reliance. No dissentient voice was
heard against the election. They were all well content that
Peter should be first ; and he accepted the charge as a strong
brother the care of weaker ones. Peter was so self-reliant, so
confident in his own great love for his Lord, so sure that his
love would withstand all shocks, that he said, " Though all be
scandalized in Thee, yet will not I "; and he felt so strong in
his great faith it seemed to him an impossible thing for him ever
to waver, and a little while after we find him unable to keep
awake though that beloved Master was prone in agony a few feet
distant. This weakness of Peter must have hurt the sensitive
Heart so human in its loneliness and sorrow, for it was to Peter
our Lord uttered his reproach, " What, could you not watch
with me even one hour?" After all his vain boasting of a short
time before, yet to go asleep and leave him in bitterest anguish
a few feet away ! Poor Peter ! we can well imagine that he was
ashamed ; and, as though to make up for his fault, we find him
a few minutes later, with his customary impetuosity, slicing off
the ear of the man who dared to lay rough hands on the One he
loved so well. Impetuous, stormy Peter! He could never do
1 89 5.] THE HUMANISM OF PETER. 441
anything without putting his whole soul into it. Impetuous in
all things, we find him cursing and swearing impetuously an hour
later that he knew not Him for whom he would die and then
we see him going out to weep bitterly over his wretched weak-
ness. What a grief was that to make one of his sturdy nature
weep so wildly, so incessantly ever afterwards, we are told, that
great furrows were worn in his cheeks by the constant out-
pouring of his sorrowful repentance. It was like the wildly
surging waves that waste themselves on a storm-beaten, rock-
bound shore. It needed a shock of humiliation such as this to
make Peter understand his own weakness and prepare his heart
for greater things.
We see no more of him until after the Resurrection. Where
was he when his dear Lord was being so inhumanly treated ?
and where when he was shedding the last drop of blood in
most dire anguish upon the cross ? The gospels are silent, but,
knowing what Peter was, we dare to say it was no craven-
hearted fear for himself which kept him away, but, on the con-
trary, his shame which made him wish to hide himself from the
eyes of all men. Broken-hearted Peter ! If he had been there
most likely he would have only made things worse by his fiery
temper ; and then, again, natures tender and undisciplined by
sorrow, such as Peter's was then, cannot stand the sight of their
dear ones suffering. It was wisest and best, most likely, that
he stayed away.
It was to Peter of all his Apostles that he appeared first,
and we know that Simon questioned not. Ah, that faith of
Peter's, how beautiful it was ! How our Lord loved to test it !
It was not the other Apostles he sent on that faith-trying mis-
sion to catch a fish in whose mouth money would be found
with which to pay toll, but it was Peter, unquestioning ever,
when commanded by his Lord.
Our next view of Peter, after the Resurrection, is on the
ship or fishing boat, with some of the other disciples, after a
night's fruitless labor. On the shore stands our Lord, though
they knew him riot until he spoke, and then Peter, impetuous as
ever, flings himself into the sea in order that he may reach his
loved Master all the sooner. It was there that our Lord tested
him once more, saying, "Simon, son of John, lovest thou me
more than these ? " Peter's tears must have flowed anew at
these words, for they brought back to him in painful vividness
the remembrance of his boastfulness and weak denial. No loud
self-assertiveness is here displayed, but a humble meekness
442 THE HUMANISM OF PETER. [Jan.,
which disclaims any self-esteem, " Lord, thou knowest that I
love thee!" and when our Lord asked him for the third time,
as though to make sure that all the old leaven of self-pride had
been washed away by those bitter tears, his answer was still
more humble " Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest
that I love thee." And our Lord, knowing it indeed, gave in
charge to that strong love the infant church, assuring him that
all the powers of hell would fail when brought against it.
The throes of a strong nature when cast into the fires of
humiliation, or lashed by the scourges of its own conscience,
are always piteous. Strong souls feel strongly, and when they
are bowed by some storm of sorrow sweeping over them, like
mighty trees tempest-tossed, it means either utter destruction
if unable to withstand it, or else the sending of their roots
deeper into life-giving soil.
Our Lord, without doubt, pitied Peter even when he hurt
him by his questions, probing the ulcer like a wise physician in
order to heal it.
What a different Peter we see after the Ascension, subdued
by sorrow, humbled ^because of self-knowledge, prayerful be-
cause of the great trust confided to him. Before his dearly
loved Master went from him he was but a faulty man ; now, by
the touch of affliction and the marvellous effect of supernatural
grace, he appears to us as the first time with the glory of
sainthood about him. After the descent of the Holy Ghost he
is transfigured, as it were, by the plenteous outpouring of
sanctifying grace. Who would recognize in the inspired
preacher, whose eloquence converted at one sermon three
thousand souls, the rough-spoken disciple in the hall of
Caiphas? or who, in the gentle, kindly man, going about heal-
ing the sick, the maimed, and the blind, the impetuous, rough-
grained Peter of former days ? No wonder fear fell upon the
people when they witnessed such a wonder as this. Peter is no
longer the statue in the block, but the perfect sculpture in all
its mystery of beauty. The illiterate fisherman is the teacher
of the learned, and all men marvel thereat. There is but one
characteristic which marks him as the same man he is always
the leader, the one first to speak.
It is indubitable to any unbiased student of the Gospel and
the Acts that Peter was the recognized authority and leader of
the Apostles. It was he who was chairman of the assembly at
all times, if we may so express ourselves. At the election of
Mathias to the place left vacant by Judas it was Peter who
1 895.] THE HUMANISM OF PETER. 443
presided. He it was who preached the first sermon, who per-
formed the first miracle, who first spoke to the wondering
people with the authoritativeness of a leader. John was with
him, but John was silent ; and when they were apprehended and
brought before the judges it was Peter, as the leader, who made
answer, and none questioned his right to do so.
When Ananias and Saphira brought to the Apostles the dis-
honest offering of money, it was Peter who reprimanded them,
Peter who passed sentence on them ; and none rose up to
question his authority. In fact, the entire people looked upon
him as having a greater power and sanctity than the others, for
we read " That they brought forth the sick into the streets,
and laid them on beds and couches, that when Peter came
his shadow at the least might fall upon them, and they might
be delivered from their infirmities."
When Simon the magician sought to deceive the Apostles
by his pretended conversion, it was Peter who denounced him
for his hypocrisy.
We also find that Peter visited all the churches through-
out Samaria, Galilee, and Judea, like the wise overseer visiting
all the vineyards committed to his care.
In the first council of the church, held at Jerusalem, Peter
presided and defined the doctrine of the church regarding the
reception of the Gentiles, and after his decision " All the multi-
tude held their peace." His epistles are replete with the digni-
ty of the Supreme Head as well as the overflowing charity of
the saint.
From the character of Peter much can be learned of God's
dealings with his saints ; much to encourage the faint-
hearted and discouraged to hope that, notwithstanding their
very human weaknesses and imperfections and back-slidings
which, in spite of prayer and sacraments and heroic resolutions
to the contrary, entangle their feet and trip them up discour-
agingly often, they may, by God's grace, conquer in the end
and be saints, like Peter.
" Rome was not built in a day," nor did Peter or any
other saint become perfect in a day ; not until long years of
patient conflict with themselves, the world, and the devil did
victory come to them. So too may we, if we but love God
with all our hearts, like Peter, overcome, because of that love,
all our infirmities and arrive one day at the goal of perfection,
for St. Paul tells us " we are all called to be saints."
THE VENERABLE BEDE.
(Bede died while translating St. John's Gospel.)
BY EMMA PLAYTER SEABURY.
HERE is still a chapter wanting."
" Dearest Master all the night
Thou hast not one moment rested ;
Thou art weary ; see the light.
Wait a little. Do not question
Thyself farther." Calm and bright
Came the dying master's answer,
" Quickly seize the pen and write ! "
All day long, with love untiring,
Wrote the scribe, while hopes and fears
Filled his boyish heart to bursting,
With his farewells and his tears.
All day long with zeal unflagging,
The death angel by his side,
Anxious, fearful, spoke the master,
Till the hours of eventide.
When the Angelus was sounding
Once again he interposed :
" There's a sentence still unfinished,
Ere thy noble work be closed."
"Then write quickly," said the master,
" For my life-tide ebbs so fast " ;
And they paused not till he murmured :
" It is finished done at last.
" Ah ! 'tis true, my faithful scholar,
All is finished even now.
Lift my head up from the pavement,
Wipe the death-damps from my brow ;
Let the last ray of the sunlight
Come into my convent cell ;
Hold me in thy arms a little
It is finished all is well."
So the Master's voice in chanting
Rose in melody supreme,
"Unto God be all the glory";
And his spirit, like a dream,
With the last sweet strain of music
Floated through the convent bars,
And the little scribe sat weeping
'Neath the glimmer of the stars.
1 895.] THE THREE LIVES LEASE. 445
THE THREE LIVES LEASE.
BY JANE SMILEY.
i
HERE could be little doubt that Granny was
dying. When a woman of eighty-six is sudden-
ly stricken and lies in a state of immobility and
stupor, it is natural to fear that her days are
numbered. So thought the sons and daughters
of this aged woman as, hearing the news, they hastened from
their own to their mother's house. And when all were gath-
ered round the kitchen hearth with saddened, care-worn faces,
one felt that Granny had been blessed with many children.
Idly the gray-haired sons stood about the room telling in
low tones of their success with crops and cattle. Quietly the
women sat with toil-worn hands crossed awkwardly in unac-
customed rest, whispering to each other their own fears and
the opinion of the village doctor.
" It cannot be the falling sickness, for mother's too old for
that," said the eldest of Granny's daughters in a low, sad voice.
" True for you, Sarah," answered brother John's wife ; " your
mother is eighty-six come Michaelmas, father says."
" I wonder what the boys would do if mother if anything
happened to mother?" queried sister Kate, sighing.
" We'd all have to leave the land for one thing, and go to
America ; there's naught for poor folks here," declared practical
sister Anne.
" Why would we have to leave home, mother ? " whispered
one of the granddaughters tearfully.
" Because the lease is up with the lives, Mary. Is that not
so, John ? " And Anne turned to her brother.
"That is so, that is so," answered he. "You see it's this
way," settling to his story with the garrulity of approaching
age: "Your great-grandfather, may he rest in peace! made the
lease with Lord Marc for three lives. There was his own, and
his eldest boy that died when he was four years old from the
look of an evil eye, they say and Granny here, who is eighty-
six come Michaelmas. A long life had Granny, and it kept the
lease for us all ; an' now there's no renewal, for his honor wants
an increase, and I'm giving all the land's worth ; there cannot
be aught more taken from it."
446 THE THREE LIVES LEASE. [Jan.,
" If we're all going away, you and I'll be wed the sooner,"
whispered a stalwart youth to Mary, who, smiling shyly, left her
mother's side to stand with him in the door-way.
" If we could but stay till the children were grown," mur-
mured one anxious woman sadly.
" What's to be done if Granny goes the night, John ? "
asked sister Anne; "there's the crops in the ground as will be
lost, an' the trees an' the bushes that was set in the fall, and
Peter's new shed, and all will be gone if you don't renew."
" Will we have a white lamb in America, and a donkey with
a turf-cart ? " piped one of the children.
Just here there entered from an inner room Father Cleary,
the parish priest, who had been with the sick woman.
" You may all go home for to-night," he said, looking
brightly about the circle of anxious faces. " Granny will not
die to-night, and please God she may live many a long day
yet."
With words of hope and comfort to each other the
sons and daughters went their several ways, each man speaking
earnestly to his wife of the time when Granny was laid at rest
in the old churchyard, and they would have to leave the old
home for America, and, womanlike, each wife hastily dismissed
the subject with, " Please God, Granny will live many a long
day yet, and then well then, perhaps, his honor will renew
cheap."
And strange to say the women were right. Was it due to
the old doctor's skill ? or the last upflickering of the lamp of
life before it went out for ever ? Certain it is that Granny
grew slowly better. Not her old strong self again, she who had
so nimbly tripped about at eighty-five ; but well enough and
strong enough to sit by the window or hearth in her high-
backed, big-armed chair, contentedly chatting with children or
neighbors. An odd little figure she was, this mother of ten old
men and women, with her nut-brown face and her bright black
eyes, her cheery smile, and her glad, shrill laugh. She had been
quite a beauty in her day, tradition said, and in fact it was
her pretty face that first attracted " his honor's lady," and
changed the even tenor of Granny's life. Riding alone one
day the landlord's wife had met and tarried to talk with Gran-
ny, then a girl of sixteen, and when the interview was ended
Granny had promised to enter my lady's service.
How excited were friends and neighbors as on the morrow
they watched the girl ride away to her new life. Five miles
1 895.] THE THREE LIVES LEASE. 447
was a good journey in those days, and Granny, tearful and
joyous, sat behind her father on a pillion as they rode on.
" Thou art to be a good girl, Ellen, and a credit to the
mother that brought you up ; remember that, my girl," said the
father sternly as he left her.
"Yes, father, I will try!" sobbed the little maid, and well
she kept her word. From an extra pair of hands in the kitch-
en she soon became under-nurse and constant companion to
my lady's only daughter, and as the years went by, changing
the child Margaret into Miss Marc of Dunford Hall, the two
remained fast friends. And so it came to pass that when the
beautiful, spoiled daughter secretly left her father's house to
become Robert Nugent's wife, Ellen went with her.
" Why is that woman here, Margaret ? " Robert Nugent
had asked angrily, and the young mistress had answered, " I
will not go without Ellen." No more could be said, and so
three journeyed where the bridegroom had hoped there would
be but two.
To the country girl who had never been ten miles from
home the journey was full of marvellous sights, and in the years
that followed Granny never tired of telling, nor her children of
hearing, of the wonderful trip to England. For Granny re-
turned home a grief-stricken and care-worn woman, who had
just bidden a long farewell to her dear young mistress, and
watched the saddened wife sail, with her babe in her arms, to a
far-away land in the West. Both " my lady " and " his honor "
were well aware of the girl's return to her kindred, but never
by word or sign did they inquire for their lost daughter.
Granny was still a beauty despite her heartache, and might
have chosen higher than a farmer's youngest son had not her
father and Michael's father met one market day and arranged
the match together.
Then she and Michael had been married, and had loved
each other, not passionately but well, working together and
weeping together through forty long years, until the father
died, and this fragile little woman lived on " to hold the land
for her sons," she often said ; for Granny had always been an
able manager. But this was over now, and the Granny who
rose from the almost fatal illness was not the Granny of old.
Gone were the sharp tongue and the quick temper, the con-
tempt for failure and the pride in her own success, and in
their place the children found a wise and gentle little woman,
sitting in her great chair, patiently awaiting the coming of the
448 THE THREE LIVES LEASE. [Jan.,
summons. Were her sons perplexed, her daughters weary, it
was to Granny they came ; and with shrewd suggestion and
loving word she eased their heavy burdens.
"A very bundle of sunshine!" exclaimed the little doctor;
and the listeners silently acknowledged it was true.
One year became two, then five, and still Granny " held the
land," taking a very earthly pleasure in the fact that her mere
existence was a grievous disappointment to the noble lord of
the soil, eager for new and more profitable leases.
It must have been Granny's wonderful age that awed her
neighbors. For almost half a century she had been "Granny"
to half the village ; now she was their oracle, confidant, friend,
in every happening of importance.
Was it not she who forbade the marriage of her grandchild
Sally to the sailor lover, and conclusively proved the would-be
husband was the descendant to be expected of a race of ne'er-
do-weels ?
Who would have known the rightful owner of the buried treas-
ure found on the village pasture had not Granny told of a miser
who lived and died in a cabin near the place full sixty years ago ?
To the children Granny was a fairy god-mother. None so
well as she could cure their childish ailments, telling them won-
derful tales the while ; and no youthful sinner but fled to
Granny's hearth for protection, trusting that her soft words
might turn away paternal wrath.
And so it came to pass that ninety-odd years of Granny's
life had been lived, and still she sat in the great chair close to
the hearth ; and here one day they came to tell her that
William, her eldest grandson, was dead.
"And is Willie dead too?" she questioned, raising her trem-
bling hands to her streaming eyes. " Willie dead too, with
Anne, and John, and Peter ah me ! I am very old ; and Wil-
lie was a grown man too; near fifty years, you say?" slowly
shaking her aged head and murmuring softly to herself, "and
yet I remember the day that Willie was born. Near fifty years,
and 'twas I who laid the babe on its young mother's arm, and
she smiled at me in her joy. She was but a girl, and I was
an old woman then and Willie is dead ! They must have for-
gotten me." And Granny wept, suffering the passionless grief of
age ; and even as she mourned there came into the room two
of her grandsons whose faces were white and drawn.
" What is it ? " cried their sister, feeling that William's death
could not account for their excitement.
1 895.] THE THREE LIVES LEASE. 449
" His honor's dead ! " answered one.
" Dead ! " screamed Mary. " Why he passed by the gate not
three hours gone by. I took thought of it because Granny
noticed the horse-tread."
" Dead ? " murmured Granny, as if waking from a dream ;
" and is he dead too ? He was a hard man on the poor."
" How did it happen, John ? " asked the girl.
" I was at work in the wheat," said John, " and saw him
come riding my way, when one of the dogs at his heels
ran in among the grain. Then his master jumped the wall
and rode through the field hunting the dog. I called that his
horse was trampling the crop that was to be cut on the mor-
row ; but he paid no heed, and then the dog ran up. He was
near the wall by that, yet he turned and rode across to the
gate. I called it was closed fast, but he tried to take the gate.
It was too high and I saw him fall, and when I ran up he was
dead."
" It was punishment for his pride," said Granny. " May the
Lord have mercy on him ! "
" Amen," added the others ; and no more was said either in
praise or blame of the man that was dead.
While the country-side were still talking of his honor's
funeral, there came to Granny's cottage two strangers who had
travelled down from London to see this aged woman.
" You are very welcome. What may your business be ? "
Granny said in her sweet, shrill voice.
" We have come from London, my good woman," said the
elder man, speaking very slowly and distinctly, " to find, if
possible, some trace of the heir to this estate ; otherwise the
land will lapse to the crown. My name is Mr. Snelling, the
late lord's legal adviser ; this is my friend, Mr. Pratt. We are
told you accompanied the late lord's daughter when she when
she left home. Now if you will tell us where she went, the
task will be very simple."
" That I will gladly, sir," answered Granny. " We went to
Dublin, and then to Kingstown, and then we took a ship."
" Where did this ship go to ? "
"That I have forgot, sir," said Granny sadly; "it's very
long ago full sixty years."
The strangers looked at each other silently. Their only
hope lay with this aged woman, and she had failed them.
" Make an effort to remember," entreated the younger man.
VOL. LX. 29
450 THE THREE LIVES LEASE. [Jan.,
" I cannot, sir," said Granny very slowly ; " an' strange it is,
for I remember the dock and the inn we lodged at as if it
was yesterday, an' it's sixty years ago."
" Will you come and show us the place ? " asked Mr. Snell-
ing eagerly.
" That I would, sir ; but I am very old, and it cost Miss
Margaret many a pound before, she so had little to spare, poor
dear."
" If you will come with us, Granny, we can never repay
you."
" I'll go, and gladly, sir, if 'twill do you good," said Granny
sweetly.
"Will you start in two days?"
" That I will ; but, sir, if it is not too costly, may may my
grandchild Mary I'm old and weak, and not used to
strangers."
" Take whomever you wish," said Mr. Snelling.
In the excitement that ensued Granny, despite her age, was
still mistress of her household, and paying little heed to the
lamentations of her daughters and the arguments of her sons,
she cheerfully prepared for what might prove her last journey.
" I am going for Miss Margaret and her boy," she said,
speaking no word of the husband she had so long ago learned
to despise. Sixty years ago Granny had travelled stealthily
and rapidly, now she journeyed by slow degrees, surrounded by
every luxury.
No one of the little party but watched each movement of
the aged woman, and none harassed her with questions about
the past, trusting that the impressions made sixty years ago
had not faded entirely from her mind.
To Dublin they went and to Kingstown before she showed
recollection.
" This is not the ship," she said anxiously as they led her
up the gang-plank. " It was a sailing packet ; not like this."
"That was sixty years ago," they told her; and Mr. Snelling
added to the others, " There was but one line of packets in
those days, stopping at three ports ; we will try each in turn."
" Ah well-a-day ! " murmured Granny, " this is not the place
we came to"; and she wept in her bewilderment.
" Of course it is not, Granny ; do not trouble yourself ; we
know the way," said Mary.
" Come to the baggage shed, out of this crush. I'll find a
cab at the station," said Mr. Spelling to Mary, as together
1895-] THE THREE LIVES LEASE. 451
they guided the faltering feet. " Wait here a moment," he con-
tinued when a sudden exclamation made them turn. There
stood Granny leaning on her staff, shading her eyes with one
trembling hand.
"This is the town!" she cried in glad triumph. "There's
the church that was on the corner and the inn is across the
way."
" Yes, yes," said Mr. Snelling encouragingly, as he gazed at
the great business block which marked the spot where the inn
had once stood.
"Now we will go to a hotel to -rest," he said, anxious at
the sight of Granny's agitation. To the hotel they went, but
rest was out of the question for Granny, into whose clouded
mind had suddenly flashed a ray of recollection.
"Now we've found the place, and the money's not ill-spent,"
she murmured happily, and no one had the heart to tell her
that their journey had been all in vain.
"And 'twas there we stayed waiting for the letter, but his
honor was ever a hard man ; and there Miss Margaret's boy was
born, and he that was her husband bade me go home, and
took her away."
" Where did he take her, Granny dear?" asked Mary timidly.
" He took her in a ship, child," explained Granny, with
much condescension, " to a place he called they called they
called it New York."
A shout from Mr. Snelling interrupted her.
" What is it ? " she cried in alarm.
"We've found the heir!" cried the lawyer; "you've told us
the place he is living."
" Child, child," answered Granny, " yes, that was the name
of the town. Miss Margaret bade me never tell and I have not
thought on it for fifty years. It was the church made me
think."
Two days later began their homeward journey, and as the
little party travelled slowly back the cable hummed with mes-
sages asking tidings of Robert Nugent.
That sixty years had come and gone, making the finding of
the heir almost improbable, did not enter Granny's mind.
Miss Margaret's beautiful boy would, of course, appear in a
short time to claim his own.
Strange to say come he did, a worn and gray-haired man,
with little save a few almost worthless papers with which to
prove his claim.
452 THE THREE LIVES LEASE. [Jan.,
" He is an impostor," said the lawyer ; and the stranger could
say nothing in reply. What was to be done?
" It is a foolish test, but let us go to Granny," suggested
Mr. Snelling.
As of old, she sat in her arm-chair by the hearth and smiled
brightly on her visitors.
" Granny," said Mr. Snelling, " we have come to you again
about the heir; this gentleman claims to be Mrs. Nugent's
Miss Margaret's son. He comes from New York. What do
you say ? "
"Has he Miss Margaret's marriage lines?" asked Granny
sharply.
The keen old lawyer looked at his colleague in astonish-
ment. That had been his first question to the claimant.
" My mother's papers, and much besides, were lost in a fire
twenty years ago," said the American quietly.
Granny made no comment on the information. " Come close
till I see you," she said.
For a long minute not a sound broke the stillness.
" You have thy mother's eyes, and thy father's curls, and
the look of his honor round the mouth. Have you all your
fingers?" she asked suddenly.
" No," said the stranger, " I lost a finger in my infancy."
" It was thy father's doing," said Granny sadly ; and the lost
heir was found.
Quietly the visitors withdrew, leaving the aged woman to
her meditations. The sudden change in his fortunes did not
seem to affect the new heir. Gratitude was evidently a ruling
trait in his character, as all who had shared in the search soon
discovered.
Before many days the eldest of Granny's grandsons was sent
for, and the three lives lease was renewed as never, lease was re-
newed before.
They thought that Granny would be pleased when the good
news was told, but she made no sign.
" My work is done," she murmured almost sadly as she
watched them hide the precious paper in the ancient dresser.
" I held the land for our boys," she whispered to a younger
Michael, who stood beside her chair.
It was harvest week with no time for idle joy, and into the
fields trooped the busy workers, with hearts filled with thank-
1 895.] THE SCEPTIC. 453
fulness that the tenure of their father's land no longer depended
on an aged woman's life.
It was sunset hour when they returned, weary but happy.
In the road stood Mary, white and breathless. " Come," she
gasped, and ran before them. Wondering they followed, even
to Granny's door, and awe-struck entered.
There in her high-backed chair she sat, her kind old eyes
closed in sleep, her fingers clutching her beads, her withered
cheeks pillowed on the new lease; but one glance told the chil-
dren that it was the sleep which knows no earthly awakening.
NOTE. The custom of making leases which were to last for a specified number of lives
running from father to son or, as in Granny's case, to the second child, should the tenant's
eldest die during his life-time was common in Ireland during the last two centuries. This
sort of lease is now seldom made, being looked upon as unsatisfactory by both landlord and
tenant. J. S.
THE SCEPTIC.
Bv MARY T. WAGGAMAN.
'ROUND thee ever- formless shadows roll,
Thou art encompassed by some demon spell,
Black pinioned doubts, the vampire brood of Hell,
Suck ceaselessly the life-blood of thy soul,
And thou art dumb, while thro' the cycles toll
The hymns of nations. Thou dost dare rebel
'Gainst the Eternal One, whose word doth quell
The whirlwind, and whose name upon the scroll
Of night is blazoned in vibrating fire.
Thou dost reject, in prideful impotence,
Faith's music, echo of God's symphonies
Thro' death-doomed Time. In vain shalt thou aspire
To tune the universe by arguments
To draw Truth's rhythms from jangled fallacies.
454 F& A ANGELICO. [Jan.,
FRA ANGELICO.
BY SARAH C. FLINT.
N our study of the painters of Italy we learn that
Raphael came from the hill-sides of Umbria ;
Titian, from the Venetian Alps, and Fra Angeli-
co, from the mountains of Etruria. The white
hamlets which crown the hills like diadems were
the birthplaces of these noted Italian children who have become
the royal heritage of the land of the Madonna. As rivers find
their source in the little springs which start from the mountain-
side, and, flowing downward, enrich the land through which
they pass, at last finding their home in the broad ocean, to
rise in vapor that again falls refreshing the whole earth, so did
these painters, born among the mountain fastnesses, find their
way down to the valleys ; enriching them with all their works
of art which have come down to us of the nineteenth century.
Looking at these works, our minds are filled with wonder
that in the ages which we are disposed, many times, to call
" dark " there were men who lived near to the source of all
light and strength and were enabled to embody their thoughts
so that our lives are made purer and holier thereby. The sub-
ject of our present paper belonged to this class. Vecchio, the
place where he was born, is a lofty village situated on one of
the spurs of the Apennines, overlooking the province of Mugillo
and the rich valley of the Sieve. Lanzi and Rosso agree in
saying that Fra Angelico's family name was Santa Tosmi, but
other records entitle him Guido, the son of Pietro.
His early life must have been largely influenced by his sur-
roundings, for he lived midway between the valley hamlets of
Dicomano and Borgo San Lorenzo, and but a few miles from
the famous villages of Cafaggiolo and Fontebuona. The former
was the seat of Cosmo de' Medici's mountain place, whose long
battlemented fronts and high towers still rise over the rich
meadows. Here, in later days, Lorenzo de' Medici found his
favorite resting-place, and here the member of this noted fam-
ily who afterward became Pope Leo X. was educated. At
Fontebuona the Medici afterward reared the palace of Prato-
lino. Surrounding it were broad gardens and curious fountains.
I895-]
FRA ANGELJCO.
455
Here, also, they placed the statue of the " Genius of the Apen-
nines," a colossus sixty feet high.
The lofty mountains by which he was encircled could not
have been without their influence Monte Guerrino on one
PORTRAIT OF THE FRA.
side, Giovi on the other, and the crest of Monte Falterena on
the west. These were all celebrated for their great altitude,
and must have brought to his mind the power and majesty of
their Creator, who has " weighed the mountains in scales and
the hills in a balance," and of whom it is said " The strength
456 FRA ANGELICO. [Jan.,
of the hills is his also." The language of his heart may often
have been expressed in the words of the psalmist : " I will lift
up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help."
Although his home was in this secluded nook, it was situat-
ed less than a score of miles from Florence, and was cognizant
of its busy activities. The politics, the arts and sciences, and
the half-way reforms in matters pertaining to the church were
favored subjects of conversation among the mountaineers.
He was born at the time when the science of perspective
was the chief subject of research among the great masters.
Masaccio was learning its rudiments ; others were finding out
its adaptation to sculpture, and still others were learning to
apply it to bas-relief. The work of noted painters of his time
must have been a source of constant inspiration, and the lives
of the Medici have formed a large portion of his childhood
tales. Even the great Giotto himself was one of his born com-
patriots. Often must the sons of Pietro have heard the stories
of the Tuscan cities. Vasari gives us this glimpse of the child-
hood of our artist : " Although he might have lived in the
world in the greatest ease, and, besides what he possessed, have
earned all he desired by the arts he knew so well even in his
boyhood, yet, being naturally steady and good, he resolved to
become a ' religious ' of the order of Friar Preachers, for his
own satisfaction but principally to save his own soul." From
the above words we are led to conclude that before he had
decided to abandon secular life he had devoted himself to the
study of art.
There is no means of knowing who was his first master.
Some have supposed that it was Gherardo Stamina, and that
his fellow-pupil was Masolino de Pameale. These statements,
however, are based wholly upon a certain resemblance in the
manner of these artists. It is very natural to suppose that his
art was developed by the conventual school of miniature paint-
ing, in endeavoring to represent images in those childlike ages.
He left his home in the year 1401, when only fourteen years
of age, and for six years we lose sight of him, but subsequent
events show that he had not been idle.
Ere he had reached his twentieth year Guido sought the
convent which stood upon the slopes of Fiesole and which
overlooked the City of Lilies. While here he worked inces-
santly. Besides painting and decorating his own convent, he
painted many pictures for the other churches of Fiesole, and
also sent many to Florence.
i8 9 5.]
FRA AN GEL ico.
457
Loving and amiable in all his ways, it must have cost him a
struggle to have left his home, retired from the world and
given himself to God. He never leaves his own comfortless,
however, and as in former years he had comforted Paul by the
coming of Titus, so now he brought joy to the heart of Guide
by putting into the heart of his brother the desire to enter
upon convent life.
FRA ANGELICO'S MADONNA AND CHILD.
The new name which Guido now assumed was Fra Giovanni,
but in later years he was called Fra Angelico, the Angelic
Brother. His devoted admirers also called him II Beato Angel-
ico, the Blessed. His full name, therefore, is II Beato Giovan-
ni da Fiesole, or the Blessed John called the Angelic of
Fiesole. The " Blessed," which falls but little short of " Saint,"
was not conferred by the church, but by popular esteem.
458 F KA ANGELICO. [Jan.,
In the year 1407 Fra Angelico received the clerical habit.
He did not enter the convent that he might have more time to
cultivate his art ; for if that had been his object, he would
naturally have joined the learned Benedictines, or even the easy-
going Silvestrines ; instead of which he chose one of the most
laborious and self-denying of the religious orders ; and then
not the oldest of these, but the youngest and most austere of
the Dominicans showing by his choice that his was a hearty
and thorough self-surrender. This venerable order, of which
Fra Angelico was now a member, had already existed two cen-
turies, and had been engaged in sending its ambassadors of
peace to the cities of northern Italy, striving, and in many
cases succeeding in reconciling the feuds of the Guelphs and
Ghibellines. As a thank-offering from these reconciled cities
they had received rich endowments of houses and lands, so that
in the fourteenth century they are found erecting splendid
temples of religion and surrounding them with all the charms
of art.
In connection with their architectural work many of the
monks were sculptors of ability, and others had made great
progress in painting and illuminating monastic manuscripts. Of
them it may be truly said, that they " praised God in colors."
It was Guide's good fortune to be brought under the influ-
ence of Beato Giovanni Dominic, the founder of the convent,
who was a powerful orator and had used his talents to revive
the spirit of the members of his order. He had succeeded in
founding new convents and filling them with consecrated men.
Amidst all his labors he did not forget the artistic part of his
work. Being a great lover of painting himself, he endeavored
to awaken a like spirit in others, telling them that it was a
powerful agent, used in the right direction, to develop the holy
thoughts of the heart and to elevate the soul.
The youth from Vecchio soon felt his influence, and art be-
came in his eyes a means for the advancement of the church.
While the vocation of his brother might be that of the pulpit,
his was the studio, and he realized that it was his duty to en-
rich his work from all possible sources.
In 1409 the affairs of the church were still farther compli-
cated by the election of a third pope, Alexander V., by the
Council of Pisa. The archbishop declared for the new pope,
and persecuted the brotherhood of St. Dominic because they
maintained allegiance to Gregory XII. They were forced to
abandon their convent at Fiesole and take refuge at Foligno.
1895-] F RA ANGELICO. 459
"While Fra Angelico might feel as did Jacob of old when he
said, "All these things are against me," it was owing to this
change of abode that there was preserved for him the devotion-
al feeling of his pictures, for now he was removed from the in-
fluence of the Florentine school, which at this time cared not so
much for the development of devotion and religious feeling as
for the perfection of form. Now he would be more under the
influence of the Umbrian school, as shown forth in the works of
Giotto and his pupils.
In addition to the lessons of the Umbrian school, he had
opportunity to study the old paintings at Siena, where he may
have acquired that pure and perfect type which is never absent
from his Madonnas. So we find that
" The massive gates of circumstance
Oft turn upon the smallest hinge,
And that some seeming pettiest chance
Oft gives our life its after tinge."
The brotherhood remained at Foligno until 1413, when,
driven hence, they removed to Cortona.
The Dominican church at this place contains several of Fra
Angelico's pictures in fresco. One is the Madonna and saints
and the evangelists. Another is the Madonna with her smiling
child surrounded by angels. Another picture painted by him is
now in the Gesu Church at Cortona. It represents the Annun-
ciation ; the Virgin being richly clad, seated upon a throne
with her arms crossed, while an angel approaches with a scroll
on which are written the Latin words signifying : " The Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High
shall be upon thee." The Virgin holds an answering scroll con-
taining these words : " Behold the handmaid of the Lord."
This was always one of his favorite subjects, and his brush
never ceased the song of Ave Maria.
These are but a few of the works that he executed while at
Cortona, but the most of them have been destroyed. They
were, however, the beginning of his masterpieces which he
afterward executed in San Marco and the Vatican.
In the year 1418 the exiled monks yearned for their
mountain home at Fiesole. Their foundation deed read that if
they were absent from the convent two months they forfeited
all right to return, but the bishop permitted them to do so
upon the payment of two hundred ducats, which were drawn
460
FRA A NG ELI co.
[Jan.,
from the patrimony of one of the brethren. Soon after this
they received a bequest of six thousand florins from a Floren-
tine merchant. This they expended in enlarging and beautify-
ing their home, and Cartier gives this interesting description of it:
" The convent of Fiesole is built midway up the mountain.
The church opens on the high road, and attracts the wayfarers
by its pure and simple architecture, like the fountains which
formerly offered a seat and limpid water to the weary traveller.
The apse is surrounded with buildings and cloisters, all pro-
tected by a silent valley. Nothing is finer than these palaces of
poverty the long corridors, the wall without ornament, the little
windows, where the sweet light meets with a holy image or a
pious sentence. The rays of the sun penetrating the cell is
THE CORONATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.
like Jacob's ladder, where angels are passing up and down to
exchange grace and blessings between God and man. The
mountain of Fiesole is one of the most beautiful of those that
shelter the valley of the Arno against the north winds. Rich
and wooded hills story the sides of the mountain, and their low-
est declivities end at the gate of the Athens of the Middle
Ages."
It was here that Fra Angelico executed some of his choicest
work. His time was constantly occupied. For the convent he
executed two paintings in fresco, one in the refectory and the
other, a Crucifixion, in the chapter-room. The three pictures
which he painted for the conventual church were an altar
piece, an Annunciation, and the Coronation now in the Louvre.
It was his custom never to retouch, or amend in any way,
his paintings, believing that as they first came from his hand
1 89 5.] FRA AN CE LI co. 461
was the way God intended them to be. His pictures express
strongly the sincerity of his Christian faith. He is said never
to have commenced a painting without first having engaged in
prayer. There was no hap-hazard work in the pictures with
which he endeavored to glorify God.
Any one who looks at Fra Angelico's angels must admit
that herein much of his genius lay. It must have been no easy
task to embody his thoughts, for many of the old school with
whom he was familiar represented angels as we read of them
in Isaias :
" Each one had six wings, with twain he covered his face,
and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly."
Giotto preferred to represent them as they appeared to
others, clad in the form of youth. Fra Angelico was an apt
scholar in this respect, and while he gave to his angels the
freshness of youth, he never represented them as infants, as he
did not think the age of childhood adapted to express the zeal
and intelligence which should belong to the messengers and
ministers of the Most High.
In 1436 the brotherhood, through the powerful influence of
Cosmo de' Medici, were removed to San Marco at Florence.
While he was at his country home at Fiesole he had been the
benefactor of the Fiesole convent, and now, on his return to
Florence, he was determined that the brotherhood should ac-
company him there. It was also through his influence that the
monks of Silvester were, on account of their evil lives, ejected
from San Marco, which was now given to the Dominicans of
Fiesole.
It was at this time a half-ruined building, but Cosmo
caused it to be rebuilt by the famous architect, Michelozzo
Michelozzi. While it was rebuilding Fra Angelico was at work
upon the altar-cloth, which represented the Virgin enthroned
with the infant Saviour, adored by the kneeling figures of Sts.
Cosmo and Damian. These were chosen as a tribute of grati-
tude to the patron who had been so lavish with his gifts.
Fra Angelico was so beloved by Cosmo that, having built a
wall round the church and the convent of San Marco, he de-
sired Fra Angelico to paint the whole passion of Jesus Christ
upon the walls of the chapter-house, with all the saints on one
side who had been heads or founders of any religious order
sorrowing at the foot of the cross, and on the other the
Evangelist St. Mark attending upon the mother of Christ, she
having fainted at the sight of the Crucifixion. Under this work
462 FRA ANGELICO. [Jan.,.
he had painted upon the frieze a tree of St. Dominic. At the
root of it, and in round shields upon the branches, were por-
traits of all the popes, cardinals, bishops, saints, and theological
teachers who had belonged to the order of the Dominicans
down to his own time. This painting is of great historical
value.
The decorations of the cells is one of the greatest manifesta-
tions of Angelico's disregard of earthly praises, for in them he
used his utmost skill, though he knew they could be seen only
by the brethren of the order. The cells were small, and on the
otherwise unornamented walls the artist painted his luminous
frescoes, which Vassari declares to be " beautiful beyond the
power of words to describe." These paintings were scenes
from the life of Christ, and he placed them there to stimulate
the piety of the brethren.
The Adoration of the Magi is in a large cell which Cosmo
had built for himself, so that he might meet there with the two
artist monks whom he loved. It is supposed that the heads of
the Magi are portraits of noted men of the fifteenth century \.
and herein was one of Fra Angelico's faults, he so often com-
bined the religious with the secular that in looking at some of
his pictures it was hard to tell which feeling predominated.
Many of his saints and angels had faces of well-known men of
his own day.
Fra Angelico had a wonderful gift in painting and illuminat-
ing manuscripts, and two large books which were painted by
him are in the Cathedral of Florence. They are held in great
veneration, and are exhibited only on the most solemn festivals.
His was a spirit of humility, in honor preferring others rather
than himself.
Eugenius IV. was very anxious to appoint him Archbishop
of Florence, but he begged leave to decline, saying it was easier
to obey than to command, as in the former case one was less
liable to err, but recommended in his stead Antonius.
The church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, was the
scene of his labors for a long while. The monks who held the
church at that time had been looking for painters to complete
the decorations begun by Orcagna, Memmi and Taddeo Gaddi,
and at last decided that Fra Angelico and Masaccio were suffi-
cient masters of the work to be entrusted with the task. Many
of these works have been destroyed, but there still remain the
three reliquaries which were made by Giovanni Masi, and beau-
tifully adorned by Angelico. The first is painted with a Ma-
1 895.] FRA ANGELICO. 463
donna and many saints ; the second has the Annunciation, and
the Adoration of the Magi ; and the third the Coronation of
the Virgin, and the Adoration of the Child Jesus by his
parents.
Over the door of the guest-chamber in his own convent is
frescoed the Dominicans receiving the Lord of Life clothed as
a pilgrim. He also painted for the convent two Madonnas, one
of which is in the refectory, and has an attendant figure of St.
Dominic pointing to the words of his bequest to the order :
" Have charity, keep humility, possess voluntary poverty. I call
down the curse of God, and mine, on him who shall bring pos-
sessions into my order."
The last ten years of his life were spent in Rome, where he
executed some of his best works. Shortly after his arrival in
Rome Pope Eugenius died, and before Nicholas V. was fully
established in the papal chair Fra Angelico was called upon to
paint the frescoes in the Cathedral of Orvieto. He was only
able to work here three months of the year, June, July, and
August, as during the remainder of the year he was obliged
to serve the Holy Father in Rome ; but so rapidly did he work
that with the assistance of his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, he com-
menced to decorate three triangular divisions in the ceiling.
The first represented the Saviour in the act of giving the
last judgment, and surrounded by saints and angels. The sec-
ond was sixteen figures of saints and apostles seated among the
clouds ; and the third the Virgin among the apostles. He was
never able to finish these, for he was summoned again to Rome
by Nicholas V., and was employed in decorating the chapel of
the Vatican. For two centuries the key of this chapel was lost
and the room closed up and forgotten. When the art student,
Battari, discovered this shrine he entered the room by a small
window. The Roman professors forbade their pupils studying
the paintings, thinking it might be injurious to their taste.
In 18(5 Pope Pius VII. ordered the frescoes cleaned "to
preserve them for the desire and study of all." The western
wall has suffered from dampness, and the frescoes have been
skilfully removed and transferred to canvas. In 1810 they were
engraved and published at Rome in six plate folios, and many
of the single subjects have been engraved in other forms. The
shrine in the chapel is one of the chief ornaments of the Vati-
can. The frescoes represent a pavement of white marble, beau-
tifully inlaid with representations of the sun, and the twelve
months of the year.
464
FRA ANGELICO.
[Jan.,
Angelico also decorated the chapel of the Holy Sacrament
in the Vatican, which was destroyed to make room for the stair-
case leading to the Sistine chapel.
Again, he was commanded to paint the chapel of the palace
of Rome where the pope usually held Mass. For this he made
a Deposition of the Cross, and some beautiful subjects illustrat-
ing the life of Lorenzo.
He subordinated everything to the fervent piety within his
soul, and his mind was only open to impressions of those things
which tend to elevate. Of him it might well be said that "he
found tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, sermons
in stones, and good in everything." He seemed incapable of
understanding evil, and all the faces of his angels pictured noth-
THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
i
ing but joy, peace, and love. He had no idea how to picture
despair or fear, for where he had undertaken it many of the
faces resemble those of naughty school-boys.
As the bee hovers over the flowers, extracting sweets which
it applies to its own use, so may Fra Angelico have fed on the
works of his predecessors and contemporaries, appropriating the
ideas which pleased him to his own use.
The frescoes of Orcagna, in the Strozzi chapel in Florence,
may have exercised a greater influence over his mind than the
works of Giotto himself. Orcagna was vigorous in his delinea-
tions, but Angelico was more sentimental.
The religious calm which is looked for in vain in the works
of Masaccio is one of the first things noticed in looking at those
1895.] FRA ANGELICO. 465
of Fra Angelico. The depth of feeling that is depicted in the
pictures of the God-man fills the gazer with awe, and one can.
feel nothing but admiration for the man who could so delineate
the features of the Son of Man, and bring to them the expres-
sion that gives one the feeling that he is on holy ground, and
looking exclaim, with Dante :
"And didst Thou look
E'en thus, O Jesus, my true Lord and God ?
And was this semblance thine ? "
Fra Angelico's art may truly be called " pietistic "; his faces
have an air of rapt devotion, fervency, and saintliness, and
leave the impression that those whom they are intended to
represent are far removed from earthly fret and turmoil. This
is very attractive to some, and on others it leaves little if any ger-
uine impression. Nevertheless he may be taken as a typical painter
according to his own conceptions. What was peculiarly his own
was the freshness of color and the beauty of form, without cor-
responding mastery of light and shade. The brilliancy of his
tints, combined with the free use of gilding, contributes largely
to the celestial character of his visions of the Divine Persons.
He submitted to his successors the old scheme of preparing
the ground for fresco which afterward was to be finished in
tempera. This is seen in his great mural painting, which is to
be seen in the chapter-house at San Marco in Florence. He
had laid in the sky in deep red preparatory to putting in the
blue, but for some reason was unable to finish it. When he
entered upon his Florentine career he was brought into close
relation with Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Masaccio, and his own
fame being great, he was doubtless received into their company.
It is said of the last of these three great painters that " his
art was a revelation ; that he burst through the routine by which
painting hitherto had been bound ; that he anticipated all that
was to be done after him ; that his works were studied as
models by the greatest artists of succeeding times by Michael
Angelo and by Raphael, who imitated him to the extent of
plagiarism." Fra Angelico paid but little attention to their dis-
coveries, preferring to follow the inspiration of the cloisters, al-
though their influence was effectual in modifying some of his
ideas as regards archaic traits. He clung less closely to the idea
that the pointed arch was the only appropriate architecture to
introduce into his backgrounds and he adopted the new style
VOL. LX. 30
466
FRA ANGELICO.
[Jan.,
in the Florentine structures, and there was a change in the
length of his figures, which before had partaken of the lankness
of the Byzantine pictures.
He was one of the last of the painters who performed their
work kneeling. His paintings were unsigned, and rarely paid
for. The sole object of his life seemed to be to turn the
thoughts of men and women toward Christ and his saints.
A great German critic says that Fra Angelico was the first
to express the mental emotions in the human countenance, and
adds that he obtained a decided influence on his times by the
clearness with which he impressed upon the faces the tenderest
emotions of the soul.
THE MEETING ON THE WAY TO EMMAUS.
When Piero de' Medici built the chapel of the Annunziata
in Florence no pains were spared to make it worthy of his
father Cosmo, of whom it was a memorial. It was from plans
by the architect Michelozzi, and Pagno Portigiani was deputed
to carry out his design. Fra Angelico was engaged to adorn
the receptacles for gold and silver plate that they might be
worthy to stand beside the picture of the Virgin. He also
painted thirty-five panels illustrating the life of our Lord.
These paintings bear evidence of deep theological study and an
intimate acquaintance with the Bible. The first poem is a pro-
logue to his great poem of the Redemption. On one side ap-
1 895.] FRA ANGELICO. 467
pears Ezechiel contemplating the symbolical wheel, and on the
other is St. Gregory writing the explanations. The next thirty-two
pictures are devoted to events from the life of Christ the In-
carnation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight
into Egypt, the Baptism of Christ, and many others, each with
two verses of Scripture, one from the Old Testament containing
the prophecy, and the other from the New containing the ful-
filment. The picture which closes this series is that of the Last
Judgment, which was a favorite theme among all painters.
We have now followed Fra Angelico through the three
epochs of his life. Fiesole, Florence, and Rome have all claimed
him, and now we find him, in the last years of his life, after
having enriched the cities of Florence, Rome, Fiesole, Cortona,
and many others with the wonderful productions of his brush,
retiring to the cloisters of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and de-
voting himself to still greater deeds of holiness and consecration.
It is many years since he was summoned to contemplate the
scenes which he so .often depicted here upon earth. Among
the most noted monuments which adorn the church where his
last days were spent is one upon which reposes the marble figure
of a Dominican monk. Underneath this stone are the remains
of Fra Angelico, and the epitaph which is inscribed upon it
shows what was the mainspring of his life :
" Not that in me a new Apelles lived,
But that Thy poor, O Christ ! my gains received :
This be my praise. Deeds done for fame on earth
Live not in Heaven. Fair Florence gave me birth."
" The artist saint kept smiling in his cell
The smile with which he welcomed the sweet, slow
Inbreak of the angels, whitening through the dim
That he might paint them ; while the sudden sense
Of Raphael's future was revealed to him
By force of his own fair work's competence.
Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn,
Besides Thy heaven and Thee ; and when I say
There's room here for the weakest man alive
To live and die there's room too, I repeat,
For all the strongest to live well and strive
Their own way by their individual bent."
468
OF THE ADVANTAGES ATTENDING
[Jan.,
OF THE ADVANTAGES ATTENDING THE INVESTI-
GATION OF CATHOLIC TRUTH.
BY WILLIAM C. ROBINSON
( Yale Law School).
I.
SEEKER after truth, whatever be the subject of
his inquiry, enjoys a great advantage when the
field of his investigation can be narrowed to a
single question, whose answer so expresses or
involves the solution of every other problem
which his subject may present that it relieves him from all
further danger of mistake, and from all doubt as to the cer-
tainty of his ultimate results. The mariner who has secured a
pilot to whom he can with confidence entrust himself, and thus
embarks upon his voyage over unknown seas without anxiety
and with an assurance of its successful termination, is not more
fortunate than is the student in any science who has dis-
covered some fundamental principle that serves as an unerring
standard by which he can test the truth or falsity of every
other proposition, and under whose direction he can advance
toward conclusions which no subsequent investigation will com-
pel him to modify or disaffirm.
THE SCIENCE OF SCIENCES.
Religion is no less a science than chemistry or mathematics.
Like them, it deals with facts, not with opinions or conjectures.
Its so-called " doctrines " and " creeds " are, like their axioms
and formulae, simply the correct conception and accurate state-
ment of the facts with which it is concerned. Some of these
facts are past, some are present, some are yet to come. Many
of them transcend the scope of human observation, and there-
fore can be known only through communications from some
superior intelligence. Still each, as a fact, is as definite in its
character and as impregnable in its reality as any fact of
physical science ; and taken all together these facts constitute
the spiritual world in which the souls of men have always
lived, and now live, and are to live for ever. The knowledge
I895-] THE INVESTIGATION OF CATHOLIC TRUTH. 469
of these facts, and of their relations to each other, and of the
laws by which they are produced and governed, is a true
science ; the highest, the most abstruse, and at the same time
the most practical and important of all sciences the only sci-
ence whose study is absolutely necessary to men, and which
consequently is capable of sufficient study by every man. It
cannot be otherwise than advantageous if the exploration of
this supreme science can be conducted under the direction of
some universal fact or law, to which all supposed facts or laws
may be referred, with which all actual laws and facts must cor-
respond, and which can therefore be accepted as an infallible
guide and touchstone at every future stage of the investigation.
AN INFALLIBLE TEACHER.
To the student of the science of religion the Catholic
Church presents, at the outset, such a guide and touchstone.
She affirms that a universal fact exists ; that it is discoverable
by every man ; and that having once discovered it he can, by
its means, attain with unerring certainty to the knowledge of
every other fact and law with which the science of religion is
concerned. That universal fact is this : That God, having in
divers methods, and with such definiteness and completeness as
was suited to their state, made known to men in ancient times
those spiritual facts and laws which their own reason and ob-
servation could not ascertain, at last sent into the world his
Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, clothed with divine power and
wisdom, to become the teacher of all nations and to impart to
them the fulness of all spiritual knowledge ; that in pursuance
of this mission, and in order to perpetuate his work, Jesus
Christ established an indestructible society of men and women,
to be distinguished from all other societies by its union with
the Apostle Peter and his successors as its official head, to
which society he committed the instruction of mankind in mat-
ters pertaining to the science of religion under guarantees of
infallibility, both in believing and in teaching, which effectually
preserve it from all error whether of assertion or omission ;
that this society still exists and still unerringly believes and
teaches the truths which it received from him ; and, therefore,
that in this society man now possesses, and will possess until
the end of time, an infallible teacher from whom he can obtain
a knowledge of the facts and laws which constitute the spirit-
ual world.
47 OF THE ADVANTAGES ATTENDING [Jan.,
THE SCIENCE DEMONSTRABLE.
The fact thus affirmed is one of simple human history. It
resolves itself into three questions: r. Did Jesus Christ come
into the world as the teacher of the science of religion?
2, Did he establish a perpetual and infallible society as the in-
strument through which his work should be carried on among
men ? 3. Does that society exist to-day, carrying on this work
in pursuance of his order and appointment ? These questions
can be examined and determined by the same processes of his-
torical investigation which are employed in ascertaining the
appearance of any other person on the stage of human activity,
or the origin and constitution of any other society, and the
nature and effect of the operations in which it is now engaged ;
an investigation for which abundant materials are within the
reach of every man and for the successful prosecution of which
only candor, patience, and ordinary intelligence are required.
The searcher after spiritual truth, who pursues his inquiry
along the lines of Catholic thought, is thus singularly fortunate.
His field of personal investigation is narrowed to one proposi-
tion which is demonstrable by human reason from familiar
premises, and upon whose recognition and acceptance all diffi-
culties in the science of religion immediately disappear.
Thenceforward he has but to ask and he is answered, to knock
and the door of wisdom opens. He is delivered from all fear
of error and from all danger of ignorance, and rests contented
in the sure possession of the truth, the whole truth, and noth-
ing but the truth. He believes what the church teaches, and
thus obtains all spiritual knowledge possible to man. He obeys
what the church commands, and thus keeps himself in harmony
with all the facts and laws of the spiritual world, and advances
with undeviating steps toward the destiny for which he was
created.
II.
A seeker after truth enjoys another great advantage when
his investigation, if faithfully pursued, is certain to result in his
complete mastery of the science which he endeavors to acquire.
In physical science such a result is rarely, if ever, possible.
The vastness of the field is out of all proportion to the limited
means which man possesses for its scrutiny, and however far
he may have progressed in his discoveries he always has been,
and probably always will be, compelled to recognize the im-
1 895.] THE INVESTIGATION OF CATHOLIC TRUTH. 471
mensity of those unknown regions which he has had no power
or opportunity to explore. In the abstract sciences this dispro-
portion is still wider, for the nature of the subject bounds upon
the infinite, while the appliances for its examination are more
restricted and uncertain in their operation, although our sense
of the discrepancy is less profound because the spheres which
lie beyond us are' unsuspected as well as unperceived. In the
science of religion, which includes the infinite and to whose
study man, when unaided by interior or exterior revelation,
brings only a finite reason disciplined by exercise upon the
phenomena of consciousness or of the physical world around
him, the disproportion is immeasurably increased, and with the
exception of a few general principles the whole domain of the
science remains within the realms of the unknowable. Hence,
from the beginning God has been obliged to impart the neces-
sary knowledge of this science by some form of revelation, and
in all ages and to all races, by personal inspiration, by the
events of his providence, and by the tongues and pens of his
appointed messengers, he has disclosed the facts and laws of
the spiritual world in such measure as men were able to receive
them enough at least in the case of every individual'to enable
him, if he chose to do so, to attain the end to which he had
been destined by the eternal purposes of God.
DEFECTS OF THE OLDER SYSTEMS. '
But notwithstanding this divine assistance, how incomplete
and inexact has been the knowledge of the science of religion
among men ? What one of the older systems did not and
does not leave unanswered numerous questions of absorbing
interest to the human mind ? Even among the various societies
which base their creeds upon the written words of Christ and
his apostles, where is the one which assumes to teach the
whole truth of God, or one which is not ever and anon con-
fronted with some problem of faith or morals which it dare not
undertake to solve ? In this condition of religious knowledge
what could be more welcome to an earnest seeker after truth
than a teacher from whom every reasonable inquiry would at
once receive an adequate reply, and by whom every honest
doubt would be forthwith removed ? If such a teacher any-
where exists, are not its disciples favored beyond all compari-
son in the means at their command for mastering this science
of the soul ?
472 OF THE ADVANTAGES ATTENDING [Jan.,
A TEACHER IN ALL BUT VAIN KNOWLEDGE.
The Catholic Church is such a teacher. She undertakes to
answer and does answer every question concerning the facts of
the spiritual world in which man is legitimately interested, or
the reply to which can in any manner promote his present or
his future welfare. She undertakes to explain and does explain
all the laws of the spiritual world which relate to man with
such precision and minuteness as to enable him under any cir-
cumstances to direct his conduct according to right reason and
the will of God. She does not, indeed, encourage the indul-
gence of a vain curiosity by disclosures which have no practi-
cal bearing on the spiritual life and destiny of man, but no-
where else within the entire field of religious inquiry is her
voice silent or her utterance uncertain. How well she has dis-
charged these duties of a universal teacher any one can satisfy
himself by reading either of her accredited treatises on dog-
matic and moral theology. At its conclusion he will search his
intellect in vain for rational doubts and queries to which he
has found no sufficient answer.
III.
A seeker after truth enjoys a third inestimable advantage
when the conclusions to which he attains not only illuminate
his intellect, but also rejoice his heart. Knowledge does not
invariably lead to happiness. Explorers in many sciences have
found the objects of their quest only to confess with sorrow
that ignorance contained the greater bliss. The overthrow of
long maintained opinions, the destruction of cherished hopes,
the ruin of accumulated fortunes, the extinction of a hard-
earned fame, are not infrequent consequences of advancing
knowledge. A new invention in the industrial arts, a new dis-
covery in physics, a new combination in the elements of some
abstract hypothesis by these the world may gain, but out of
these have often come to multitudes of individuals disaster, dis-
appointment, and dismay.
THE CONSOLATIONS OF RIGHT RELIGIOUS BELIEF.
An increase in religious knowledge, however, ought never to
occasion sorrow. On the contrary, since the happiness of man
consists in his attainment of the end for which he was created,
and as that end can be attained only through his recognition.
1895-] THE INVESTIGATION OF CATHOLIC TRUTH. 473
of the facts and his obedience to the laws of the spiritual
world, the knowledge and the practice of religion ought, above
all other causes, to promote his contentment and felicity in this
life as well as in the life which is to come. It is repugnant to
reason that any doctrine should be true a belief in which
necessarily clouds and saddens the believer's soul ; and, on the
other hand, a doctrine which encourages, consoles, and elevates,
exhibits in that quality alone one of the strongest intrinsic
proofs of its correctness. Hence in comparing one religious
system with another, that which not only answers most com-
pletely the questions of the intellect, but which most fully
satisfies the aspirations of the heart, approves itself to reason
as the one whose doctrines and precepts correspond most near-
ly to the actual laws and facts of the spiritual world, and con-
stitute the real body of divine truth revealed by God to men.
The student who investigates any system of religion, which
has ever exercised any influence upon mankind, necessarily dis-
covers in its precepts and its doctrines much that comforts and
uplifts the human heart. Whether he examines the sacred
books of India and China, or the Scriptures of the House of
Israel, or the venerable traditions of Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
or the theologies which under names innumerable have sprung
up from the fertile soil of the New Testament under different
modes of cultivation, he will obtain light and consolation ; for
through each one of these the voice of God is teaching, and
that which gladdens and illuminates is his truth, which alone
answers to the longings and the searchings of the soul.
But however rich may be the harvest garnered from a study
of these systems, old or new, far more productive is the investi-
gation of that system which the Catholic Church propounds for
the observance and belief of man. If out of all the religions
of the earth were collected every doctrine and precept which
makes for wisdom, righteousness, and joy, and these woven into
one golden book of truth, it would contain nothing which the
Catholic Church does not already believe and teach. The
theologies of Asia and Africa and Europe and America have
nothing to offer her by which she could enlarge the boundaries
of her science or multiply the aids and consolations which she
gives to men. Embracing and proclaiming every truth which
they profess, she reaches out beyond them into regions which
to them are only regions of conjecture, and as for every
question of the human intellect she has an answer, so is her
answer always welcome to the human heart. Whether she de-
474 THE INVESTIGATION OF CATHOLIC TRUTH. [Jan.
scribes the nature and attributes of God, or his relations to his
creatures, or the position of man in the universe and his
duties and destiny, or the various instrumentalities by which he
is assisted to attain his end, or, descending into lower truths
(which nevertheless awake sometimes a keener interest), she re-
veals to us the attitude in which we stand toward each other
both while we walk together on the earth and after one or all
have passed within the veil as from our eager eyes she withholds
no light, so is the light she sheds radiant with warmth and
tenderness and peace. To those who dwell within this light it
is no wonder that the Catholic is satisfied with his religion,
whether he be the prelate at the altar or the pauper lying at
the gate ; nor that the seeker after truth, having drunk deep
from the rivers of divine wisdom and delight which flow in so
many channels throughout all the world, should taste at last
her living fountains and thenceforth thirst no more.
A method of investigating the science of religion which pos-
sesses these three advantages requires no further recommenda-
tion to conscientious and earnest men. Its simplicity of opera-
tion, its economy of effort, are only equalled by the magnitude
and value of its results. Man needs a knowledge of the facts
and laws of the spiritual world to live by as well as to die by,
and no one can afford to spend his life-time in ascertaining
what they are, or where he must look for guidance and instruc-
tion. By this method, without delay, the humblest intellect can
recognize its true teacher, and can enter at once into the en-
joyment of immeasurable light and peace.
"I WILL GATHER ME STICKS."
1 BY P. J. MACCORRY.
"Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul 6f thee : and whose shall those things be
which thou hast provided ?" Luke xii. 20.
WILL gather me sticks," said the woodsman wise,
" While the morning yet is young ;
And I'll build me a fire of a goodly size
As the vesper bell is rung.
And then, when the evening dew-damps fall
And the chill air starts at the night-bird's call,
I will bask me there, while the flame-darts tall,
With sparks, from my sticks are flung."
So he set him to task, did this woodsman sage
Sage in the wisdom of men.
And his keen-edged sickle cleft him a gauge
'Mid the copse and brushwood den ;
476 "/ WILL GATHER ME STICKS:' [Jan.,
And the swift-speeding hours unnoted fled
As the woodsman toiled, till his fingers bled
And his brow-sweat mixed with a crimson red
Where the brier thorns had been.
Until thrice had the bells from the cloister walls
Tolled their three times three and nine ;
And thrice prayed the monks in the chapel stalls,
While answering to their chime.
But the man in the deep woods could not hear,
For the stroke of his sickle dimmed his ear,
Till the hooting owl in a pine-tree near
Proclaimed the day's decline. '
So he gathered his sticks, did this woodsman wan,
In a great heap, high and long,
And their bulk was far more than his rope could span
Than his back could bear, though strong.
So he took of the heap a goodly load,
And he trudged him, spent, on his homeward road,
And his shoulders ached 'neath the sticks' sharp goad
'Neath the bruise of thorn and prong.
Till at length, when in view of his hut he came,
The darkness quite conquered day.
Then a something touched him and spoke his name,
Whose breath seemed of freezing spray ;
And its rude hand gripped with an icy lock,
And he sank with his burden beneath its shock,
As a weird voice rose in a hollow mock,
" Thou fool of fools ! Come away ! "
1 895.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 477
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY.
BY REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH.
CHAPTER IX.
After Effects of Carey's Ordination. War on Bishop Onderdonk in Diocesan
Convention. The Bishop's Masttrly Defence. Judge Duer's Speech. A
Change of Tactics. The Bishop's Private Character Assailed. His Trial
and Condemnation.
N these reminiscences hitherto my memory has
been occupied with the rise and growth, in the
United States, of Tractarianism, or what is more
popularly known as the Oxford Movement. We
had, in truth, a little Oxford on this side of the
Atlantic. It was located in a little suburban appendix to New
York City, known as Chelsea. Its name was the General Theo-
logical Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The Oxford Movement in the United States came in due
course of time and very naturally to a convulsive conflict, a close
grapple of controversial contention and angry feeling which agi-
tated Anglicanism throughout the whole country. The imme-
diate occasion of this was the examination and ordination of
Arthur Carey, an account of which has already been given in
the third and fourth chapters of these reminiscences.
A very salient statement of the causes which led to this
struggle and of circumstances which aggravated the excitement
was thus given, at the time, in the columns of the Quarterly
Christian Spectator for October, 1843 :
" Such an occurrence as the ordination of Mr. Carey with the
protest of two eminent clergymen against him, on the ground
of his being in effect a Roman Catholic, became the town's
talk; and filled the newspapers, not only in the City of New
York but everywhere else. Nor did the news from Europe just
about those days help to divert the public attention from these
matters. The astounding progress of O'Connell's movement for
giving to Popery its natural ascendency in Ireland ; the ad-
mired secession of one-half of the Established Church in Scot-
land ; the universal agitation in England about Tractarianism,
478 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Jan.,
together with the University censure of Dr. Pusey himself at
Oxford, gave to an ecclesiastico-religious question of this kind
a new and surprising power of interesting the whole people."
It was impossible that so fierce a conflict could go on long
without a break-up of Tractarianism, such as it was, for in point
of numbers Tractarians were by far the weaker party. It is
also impossible to describe this break-up without giving some
account of the trial and condemnation of Dr. Benjamin T. On-
derdonk, President of the Seminary and Bishop of New York.
To this we devote the present chapter.
The ordination of Carey
made Bishop Onderdonk the
central point of a violent storm.
The bishop could not properly
be called a Tractarian, he was
rather a High-churchman ; but
believing the Anglican Church
to have been established on a
compromise in matters of doc-
trine, he was willing to give
that compromise its largest
latitude. This made him a
great protector of Tractarians,
whether clergymen or seminari-
ans looking forward to ordina-
tion. He was no great favorite
at our seminary, but all the Trac-
tarian students in the institution
recognized him as a protector.
His ordination of Carey
now made him a target. Every
evangelical zealot, whether bish-
op, priest, or layman, entered
upon a war the success of which seemed to depend necessarily
upon the downfall of the bishop. As for him, his Dutch blood
was fully aroused, and until his character was undermined he
stood the shock of battle like a veritable Van Tromp. The war
against him was not carried on merely in social circles and in
the columns of the press, and in multitudinous pamphlets ar-
raigning his action in the ordination of Carey ; it broke out
openly and vigorously in the first convention of his diocese that
met after the ordination. This was in the latter part of Sep.
tember, of the same year, at St. Paul's Chapel in New York
DR. BENJAMIN T. ONDERDONK.
1895.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 479
City. It was the largest gathering of delegates in convention
since the formation of Western New York into a separate dio-
cese in 1838.
On September 28, .1843, Judge Oakley, chief-justice of the
Superior Court, opened fire upon the bishop in full convocation
by the introduction of two resolutions in themselves not at all
unreasonable, but in view of all the circumstances quite out of
season if the end which he proposed to himself was the resto-
ration of peace.
The first resolution was that the delegates from New York
to the next general convention should be instructed to procure
such an authoritative interpretation of the rubrics as should
settle the question whether clergymen have the same right as lay-
men to object to a candidate in response to the call of the
bishop at the ordination ceremony.
The second resolution looked forward to the procuring of a
canon providing that upon the application of two presbyters ob-
jecting to the fitness of a candidate, a trial shall be had with
notice of time and place, so that the two objectors may be
present, and that the answers to all questions put to the can-
didate shall be placed on record.
These propositions seem innocent enough. We must con-
sider, however, the time and circumstances which called them
forth, all the heated discussions to which Tractarianism had
given rise both in England and America, the suspicions so rife
in regard to the orthodoxy of the General Seminary, the exami-
nation of Carey so widely published with all its particulars, and
above all, the startling protests of Drs. Smith and Anthon at
his ordination so summarily and indignantly disposed of by
the bishop. It then becomes evident that the introduction of
these resolutions into the New York convention was simply the
casting of an additional firebrand into the Anglican communion.
The attack was foreseen by Bishop Onderdonk. His opening
address and the whole result of the convention show how well
prepared he was to meet it.
The principal speaker in behalf of the resolutions was John
Duer, Esq., a lay delegate from Dr. Anthon's parish of St.
Mark's, a zealous Low-churchman, and one of the most distin-
guished jurists of the country. He was surrounded and sup-
ported by many prominent laymen, some of them lawyers like
himself. His manner in speaking is thus described by a friend
in an article published in the New York American of October
2, 1843:
480 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Jan.,
"We have rarely seen an instance where the sense of the
holy place in which he stood and of the sacred nature of the
topics he was discussing seemed more thoroughly to pervade
the mind of the speaker, and to impart to him the mastery
over the impulses with which he seemed struggling to a more
impassioned style and burning thoughts."
It is difficult to pass without some notice the utterances of
so strong a man on an occasion so memorable. A pamphlet
published at the time by Harper & Brothers, and preserved in
the State Library, enables us to refresh our dim recollections of
Judge Duer's argument. We
only give a few passages, select-
ing such as are most likely to
interest our readers. In the
course of his speech, after hav-
ing waived all personal applica-
tion of any of his remarks to
the chair (Bishop Onderdonk),
and making the supposition
that a bishop might arise
whose own mind should be
deeply infected with the very
errors against which, as a
church, Episcopalians had pro-
tested, he said :
" I have already spoken of
testimonials and preparatory
examinations. The only appar-
ent security is the required sub-
scription of the candidates to
our Articles of Religion, but
what security is that subscrip-
tion against those who believe
in the innocence of mental reservation ? What security
against those who have been taught to interpret the Articles
in a sense that robs them wholly of their Protestant char-
acter, and renders them easy to be reconciled with the most
obnoxious doctrines and practices of Rome ? Under such
a bishop there would be no difficulty in finding candidates
of the necessary pliability of conscience. Rome herself,
acting upon the system that in other countries she is known
to have pursued, would supply them. She would send her
own emissaries into your church, and not only permit but
JUDGE JOHN DUER.
1 895-1 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 481
command them to become its ministers. Far from considering
their subscription to your articles as a crime, she would en-
courage and reward it as an act of pious obedience : the end
to be obtained would sanctify the means. In the present state
of the church, viewing the actual progress of certain doctrines,
and the multitude and zeal of those who have embraced them
remembering the caution with which these doctrines were first
promulgated and the lengths to which their authors have now
boldly advanced, it cannot be said with truth that the dangers
of which I have spoken are so remote and improbable that it
would be useless to adopt measures of precaution. A Romanist
bishop in a Protestant church is no longer an improbable event."
A little later the speaker refers to Tractarianism, and to the
New York Churchman in particular, as follows :
" The doctrines of the Tractarian writers of Oxford have,
in certain quarters, been openly embraced have been propa-
gated in the diocese with, unusual diligence and zeal, and in a
journal which claims to be the legitimate organ of the churcH,
have not only been avowed in their full extent, but have been
defended and maintained with signal ability, skill, and learning."
He adds : " They have become a favorite study of the youth
in our seminary, the future candidates for orders, and by many
of the younger clergy who have issued from the seminary they
have been passionately embraced, and are now zealously propa-
gated."
The distinguished orator took occasion to champion the
rights of the laity, to which, in his view, Tractarianism was
especially hostile. " If you would lead the laity," he said, ad-
dressing the chairman, "the laity must know where you are
going. If you would govern their conduct, you must gain their
confidence by convincing their reason. If you claim from them
an implicit faith, the claim is sure to be rejected, and those
who, properly instructed, would have been glad to follow, will
be prompt to abandon you." Then, bringing his argument to
bear specifically upon the resolutions, he concludes: "In one
sense the spiritual powers of the bishop to ordain cannot be
limited ; he may ordain whom he pleases, but his power to or-
dain those who are to be received as ministers of the church is
necessarily subject to such regulations as the church may
impose. To deny this is to subvert the whole constitution of
the church is to demolish the edifice, in order to build the
prerogative of the bishop upon its ruins. It is to make each
bishop the pope of his diocese."
VOL. LX. 31
482 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Jan.,
A remarkable feature of this memorable convention is the
careful courtesy with which the chief combatants treated each
other. It could scarcely be otherwise, for they were all gentle-
men and bred to understand the laws of courtesy. Their ex-
pressions of mutual esteem, however, were simply formal. Like
pugilists before a combat, they shook hands, well knowing the
fearful encounter which was to follow.
The bishop opened the synod with great dignity and sol-
emnity, not affecting to conceal his consciousness that a storm
was brewing and that he was prepared to meet it. His words,
however, were kind and offered no provocation to attack unless
a manly defence of himself and of the presbyters who had
acted with him at Carey's examination is to be considered as such.
" Wicked attempts," he said, " are making without to rend
us asunder by jealousies, and to provoke the disunion of our
happy communion. To meet this, be we all as one man cling-
ing to Christ, his cross, and his church, let us resolve that we
will be one in order, in affection, and in all the graces of the
Christian faith."
In like manner Judge Duer, before closing his argument,
professed his desire for peace and proffered as terms of peace
the acceptance of the hostile resolutions for which he con-
tended. Addressing himself to the clergy and laity who had
already shown their opposition to the resolutions on the day
previous, by seeking to have them laid upon the table, he said :
" Will you reject our overtures of peace ? Instead of receiv-
ing, will you dash from our hands the olive branch we tender?
We entreat you to remember that if by your votes these reso-
lutions shall be rejected, it is upon you alone that the responsi-
bility will rest ; you and you alone will be answerable to your
church and to your God for the consequences that may follow."
These professions of a desire for peace sound well, but were
necessarily unavailing. The famous words so well uttered at
the beginning of our American Revolution may readily be
applied to the mutual declarations of amity so formally made
at this New York convention.
" Gentlemen may cry ' Peace ! peace ! ' but there is no peace.
The war is actually begun." A bugle-note of war was sounded
when the seminary at Chelsea was first assailed and Carey's
ordination objected to. Some miserable details excepted, all
that followed was inevitable.
This Diocesan Convention of 1843 was the culminating point
in Bishop Onderdonk's career. He stood at that time the fore-
1895-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 483
most bishop in an ecclesiastical body comprising many distin-
guished priests and prelates. He was in that body the most pow-
erful, courageous, and reliable champion of the High-church party.
Although much that occurred at that time has faded from my
memory, the long years have obliterated little of the picture
then imprinted of that fearless, ready-witted, and sagacious
man. He confronted his enemies in the convention at every
point. They retired from it at its close beaten and baffled.
And this was not caused by any insufficiency on their part, for
they included in their number some of the foremost men of
the day, flowers of the clergy and pillars of the bar. The tri-
umph of the evangelical cause came later and was achieved by
less respectable means.
To explain my meaning it will be necessary to give the
reader a sketch of the initiation and progress of a movement
against Bishop Onderdonk's private character. This was carried
on at first in secret, but "afterwards was brought out in the
form of public charges preferred by his enemies and resulting
in his trial and condemnation by an ecclesiastical tribunal.
The first combined efforts of the Evangelical party of Angli-
cans against Tractarianism in America had been directed against
the General Seminary in Chelsea, and only included Bishop On-
derdonk as president and professor of that seminary, and the
best-known defender of the rights of Tractarians to hold their
principles in the Anglican fold, to exercise their ministry in that
fold, and to use the advantages of the seminary.
The institution was governed by an ample Board of Trus-
tees, to which all the bishops belonged ex officio. The attack be-
gan during a meeting of the board assembled at the seminary
for the June examinations of 1843. Drs. Smith and Anthon
proposed to the trustees that the examining committee should
direct their attention especially to points involving Tractarianism,
in order to draw out any bias of the students in this direction.
The trustees declined to do this on the ground that the busi-
ness of the committee was not to examine, but to attend up-
on the examination as conducted by the professors and to re-
port the result. Drs. Smith and Anthon were, however, added
to the examining committee, and it was suggested to them that
a request to the professors to examine any particular student
or students with special distinctness on any particular topics,
would undoubtedly accomplish their object. This course, we
are informed, was taken ; but nothing appears to have been
elicited by this means either to prove or disprove the suspicions
484 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Jan.,
which had been excited. Drs. Smith and Anthon were not sat-
isfied with the manner in which the resolutions moved by them
had been disposed of. Still less were they satisfied the next
day, when a third resolution, requesting that the sermons which
the members of the senior class had handed to the professor
for inspection might be brought to the committee, shared the
fate of its predecessors and was laid to sleep with them. (See
Quarterly Christian Spectator for October, 1843.)
This direct attempt of the Evangelical or Low-church party
to purge the seminary of tendencies Romeward was soon dis-
continued for a less direct but more effectual method of war-
fare. Bishop Onderdonk, as we have said, stood foremost as
the protector of Tractarians. He was fearless and powerful.
To prostrate him would leave the cause he favored demoralized
and without a head. There were existing circumstances which
seemed to pave a way to effect his ruin, by assailing his char-
acter.
The first suspicions that the bishop's private life was open
to attack on its moral side began to circulate about the time
that I first came to the seminary, namely, in 1842. This ap-
pears by the testimony of the Rev. Paul Trapier, the record of
which may be found in a pamphlet published by that gentle-
man in 1845, directly after the Onderdonk trial. I do not
think the students of the seminary knew anything of such ru-
mors until they were made public by the action of his prosecutors.
Mr. Trapier tells us that these rumors were well known
among the presbyters of South Carolina gathered in convention
in February, 1844. Mr. Trapier himself, who was prominent
among these, was also a trustee of the General Seminary at
Chelsea, New York, and an active Evangelical. He is well known
to all who remember these sad transactions as the most active,
untiring, and unrelenting of the bishop's adversaries. Three
other presbyters are mentioned in his pamphlet as associated
with him in bringing to light the evidence of misconduct relied
upon by the presenting and prosecuting bishops. Two of these
presbyters I knew personally. One of them, Mason Gallagher,
was with me at the seminary during my first year, and was at
that time a candidate for orders from Western New York.
Gallagher is still living, a minister of the Reformed Episcopa-
lians. Another was the Rev. James C. Richmond, already men-
tioned in our sixth chapter and bearing, as there stated, the
sobriquet of "Crazy Richmond."
The convention of the South Carolina Diocese, in February,
1895-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 485
1844, joined in the attempt already referred to by passing a re-
solution to inquire into the state of the General Seminary.
Rumors were already rife, as we have said, against the personal
character of the Bishop of New York, but were not publicly in-
troduced into the proceedings of this convention. They had
their influence, however, upon these proceedings, as Mr. Tra-
pier informs us, and helped to secure a majority in favor of the
action there taken. He says :
" My conviction is that though the alarm was more extensive
on the subject of Tractarianism, yet there could not have been
the majority requisite for any action of the convention had not
others of its members been uneasy about the moral influence
of the Right Reverend Professor. As it was, the two sets of per-
sons combining, such majority was secured."
Mr. Trapier himself tells us that he was not very apprehen-
sive of Tractarianism infecting the seminary, and that he was
not much disposed on its account to carry out any further than
duty might demand the resolution of his convention. The ru-
mors concerning the moral misconduct of Bishop Onderdonk
were, in his view, more serious as they were rapidly spreading
among the laity. He arrived at the General Seminary for the
meeting of the Board in June, 1844, with a determination rather
to make a special investigation into these private rumors. He
returned home, so he tells us, without any success. No one
could be found to stand to his assertions, none could allow the
seal of confidence to be broken, and yet many were whispering.
At the next General Convention of the Church, which met
at Philadelphia, and which Trapier attended, he was seemingly
no nearer to his purpose than before. But one day, during the
sessions of this convention, he was in the yard of St. Andrew's
Church when he was informed by Mr. Gallagher that affidavits
could be procured. The two resolved to consult Mr. Memmin-
ger, a lay deputy from South Carolina, and found that he was
already better posted than themselves, and intended to bring
the matter out in open convention on the question of receiving
the report of the trustees of the seminary. Instead of this,
however, after consultation they concluded to put the matter
into the hands of the bishops only, and they drew up and signed
a memorial which was handed to Bishop Meade. A few days
after Bishop Chase returned the paper to Mr. Trapier, the bishops
having decided to present the matter in another shape. The
reason assigned was that the conduct of Onderdonk as profes-
sor could not be inquired into without involving his character
486 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Jan.,
as bishop. Nothing was publicly done at the meeting of this
General Convention. It is not probable that anything effective
upon Tractarianism or the General Seminary or Bishop Onder-
donk could have been done in General Convention, so long as
his private character remained unassailed. The evangelicals,
therefore, took the matter into their own hands. A trial of
Bishop Onderdonk for immorality was determined upon. Bishops
Meade, Otey, and Elliott undertook to present the case, and
the time was fixed upon. The bishops would not consent to
hunt up evidence, as one of them expressly declared to the
Rev. Mr. Trapier. Trapier tells us that he thought this rather
hard on the signers of the memorial ; for he as one of them
"had certainly had no expectation of being called upon to do
more than put the bishops as a body into the way of getting
at information by calling before them the clergymen whose
names were therein mentioned," and that he " did not at all
relish being transformed, though in a righteous cause, from the
sufficiently odious position of an informer into the one yet more
so of a prosecutor." The bishops, however, persisted, and Trapier
and Memminger consented to the parts assigned them, Memmin-
ger acting a lawyer's part in receiving testimony and preparing
affidavits, which work was done in New York.
The foregoing facts, gathered from Mr. Trapier's pamphlet,
seem to me important to these reminiscences, as they show how
the immediate field of war was transferred from the seminary
to more secret action elsewhere, and finally to the scenes of
the memorable trial of the New York bishop.
The proceedings of the actual trial of Bishop Onderdonk were
all published, and therefore well known to me as well as to the
entire public. Of this preliminary work, however, of hunting up
evidence and of urging witnesses to come forward I should
have known nothing at the time had I not accidentally become
acquainted with the Rev. James C. Richmond, whom I have al-
ready mentioned as very forward in the movement. He talked
freely of the part which he had taken in it.
There is good evidence to show that the bishop could have
conciliated this adversary if he had thought it prudent and
proper to do so. This we learn from Mr. Richmond himself,
in his "Reply" to the pamphlet entitled "Richmond in Ruins."
The bishop is quoted as having made the statement that
Mr. Richmond had called on him, and expressed a warm desire
to return from Rhode Island to the diocese of New York, that
he might be the bishop's friend and stand by him in his trou-
1 895-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 487
bles. This is partially confirmed by Richmond himself. He
states that he said to Dr. Onderdonk : " Bishop, are you aware
that it is in my power to render you more service than any
presbyter?" The bishop, he tells us, instead of saying, "What
do you mean, sir?" blushed and was silent.
One who would have been very insignificant as an active
ally was thus permanently made into a most dangerous foe. ; It
was a repetition of the old story of Paris and the Tendon Achilleis.
The court of bishops for the trial of Onderdonk convened
December 10, 1844, in the Sunday-school building of St. John's
Chapel, New York City.
Philander Chase, Bishop of Illinois, being senior bishop, was
in the chair. Bishop Ives of North Carolina, Bishop Hopkins
of Vermont, and twenty other bishops were present. Rev. Bird
Wilson, D.D., of the seminary, was unanimously elected secre-
tary, which office, be it remembered to his great credit, he de-
clined. Bishop Whittingham acted instead as clerk and secre-
tary. Presentment was made by Bishop Meade of Virginia,
Bishop Otey of Tennessee, and Bishop Elliott of Georgia.
The prosecuting bishops, as also Bishop Onderdonk, were
represented by counsel, eminent lawyers of New York City.
The presenting bishops were represented by Hiram Ketchum
and Girardus Clarke. Bishop Onderdonk chose for his counsel
David B. Ogden and David Graham.
The charge against Bishop Onderdonk, made by the present-
ing bishops, was that of immorality and impurity, nine separate
instances being specified. No attempt to commit any criminal
act was either proved or alleged. The offences proved con-
sisted rather of maudlin familiarities indulged in by a half-
conscious man overheated with wine, and generally before wit-
nesses the fact of whose presence precludes all suspicion of
criminal intent or any definite purpose. It was impossible for
the counsel of the accused bishop, or for his friends, to make
any complete and satisfactory defence of his conduct. It was
easier, however, to palliate these offences and to show that his
guilt was far less than his enemies would make it out to be.
None of the instances alleged against him had occurred within
two years and a half of the trial.
Under all the circumstances of the case it seems strange that
such strong measures should have been taken, and that any
number of Episcopalian bishops should have been willing to
bring such scandalous matter to so public an exhibition. Ladies
of high respectability and perfectly innocent were brought out
488 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Jan.
in open court to testify, to their own confusion, and all that
they said was paraded in the public newspapers. The proceed-
ings of this extraordinary court, including the testimony of wit-
nesses and the full arguments of the counsel, were published, by
authority of the bishops themselves, in a pamphlet of three hun-
dred and thirty-three pages, and a copyright secured. One
young lady implicated in these disagreeable matters absolutely
refused to appear and testify. Her name, however, and the
nature of the insults offered to her all went freely before the
public and appeared on the record of the proceedings.
The court remained in session during twenty-four days,
i.e., from the tenth of December to the third of January inclu-
sive. On that day the judgment of the court was publicly an-
nounced, in which the respondent was declared guilty of six of
the charges specified by a majority of the court, consisting of
eleven bishops. The verdict of guilty having thus been reached,
it became necessary for the bishops to decide what the sentence
of the court should be, namely, whether the punishment should
be deposition, or suspension, or only admonition. The votes of
the bishops on this question were given by ballot, each bishop
signing his own name and sometimes also assigning on the bal-
lot his reasons for the mode of sentence which he approved.
There were several ballotings without arriving at any conclu-
sion. Several of the bishops then changed their votes. Some
of them gave as their reason for this, the necessity of securing
a majority for some form of censure. Some of Bishop Onder-
donk's friends, who voted at first for a simple admonition,
ended by agreeing to a sentence of suspension to ward off a
more serious censure.
Suspension was the sentence finally arrived at and declared
by the court.
This sentence was never removed. A Standing Committee
was empowered to represent temporarily the ecclesiastical au-
thority of the diocese. Finally, in November, 1852, Dr. Wain-
wright was consecrated to take charge of the see, with the title
of provisional bishop. This qualified title he continued to bear
until the death of Bishop Onderdonk, which took place April
30, 1861.
The influence of this downfall of Bishop Onderdonk upon
Tractarianism in the United States, both at the Seminary and
elsewhere, will be presented and pictured to the reader in chap-
ters still to come.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
One of his Life Principles was to Preach from the Printing-Press.
THE CONSECRATED MISSION OF THE PRINTED
WORD.
BY MARGARET E. JORDAN.
" A bit of printed matter is a sacred thing." Temperance Truth.
HE invention of printing accomplishes the great-
est social revolution the world has ever known ;
henceforth two-thirds of mankind will be governed
by the printing-press." Thus wrote Right Rev.
J. S. Alemany, O.P., treating of the fifteenth
century in his Life of St. Dominic. It is a truth, be the silent/
government productive of good or of evil.
490 THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD. [Jan.,
" At the Council of Lateran," to quote the Mission of the
Press* " Pope Leo X. declared printing invented for the glory of
God, the propagation of our holy faith, and for the advancement of
knowledge" Truly a mission holy and sublime ! A mission, in
its three-fold aim, self-same as that of the preacher and the
teacher of God's word ! Well may Albert Reynaud exclaim,
writing in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of July, 1889:!
" Teaching the young has been hallowed as a vocation ; why
not the teaching of the adult and the world? Preaching has
its anointed ministers, why not the predication of the written
message ? The evangels of human triviality and error have their
zealous distributers ; why might not the evangels of truth have
consecrated agents to disseminate them with devotion and or-
ganized effort ? In a word, why should so powerful, so univer-
sal, so far-reaching a means of doing good be left almost wholly
in indifferent and purely worldly hands?"
The writer last quoted does not ignore the fact that noble
efforts have been and are still being made to secure the God-
given mission of the printing-press, but he justly says they " fail
to fill the requirements of the situation." And why this fail-
ure ? He is explicit in giving the reason therefor. It is because
THE MONARCH OF THE WORLD is TRUTH ; HIS THRONE, HOWEVER, is THE PRINTING-
PRESS. PRINTING-HOUSE OF THE PAULISTS. (CORNER OF THE PRESS-ROOM.)
" they lack the fundamental requisite of any lasting work. They
are mainly the efforts of an individual, or of a few, and they
live, at best, the length of an individual life. Something greater,
broader, larger than individual life and individual aims is what
* Tract 49 of the series issued by the Catholic Book Exchange.
t We refer our readers to "A Religious Order devoted to Publication. Why not ?"
I895-]
THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD.
491
they want ; something other than the fatal limitation of person-
ality that ear mark of mere human undertaking."
Then in one succinct sentence he makes the bold and true
His SCEPTRE is THE PEN. (EDITORIAL SANCTUM OF "THE CATHOLIC .WORLD
MAGAZINE.")
declaration of the need of the day : " What is wanted is voca-
tion and the lasting stamp of God, religious consecration and reli-
gious organization "; and in making this declaration the writer is
not only giving expression to his own view of the matter, but
he is voicing, consciously or unconsciously, the aim and the
prayer of one of the master-minds of the nineteenth century,
of one who may well be called the Apostle of the Printed
Word, Very Rev. Isaac Thomas Hecker.
Turn to this life of noble endeavors, of fruitful results, which
one of his spiritual sons has given us.* Read in its early pages
(70-71) how even before his conversion to the Catholic faith one
of his future life's aims began to unfold itself to him: "Not
yet certain of his own vocation, the dream of a virginal aposto-
late, including the two sexes, had already absorbed his yearning?,
* The Life of Father Hecker. By Rev. Walter Elliott. Columbus Press, 120 West Six-
tieth Street, New York.
492
THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD.
[Jan.,
never again to be forgotten ; . . . the union of souls ? Yes ;
for uses worthy of souls. . . . Thenceforward the test of
true kinship with him could only be a kindred aspiration after
union in liberty from merely natural trammels, in order to tend
more surely to a supernatural end ; . . . such an integral
supernatural mission to mankind was what he ever after de-
sired and sought to establish, though he only attained success
on the male side. . . . He never for an hour left out of
view the need of women for any great work of religion, though
he doubtless made very sure of his auditor before unveiling his
whole thought. He never made so much as a serious attempt
to incorporate women with his work, but he never ceased to
look around and to plan with a view to doing so."
Turn now to the pages that reveal the heroic struggle with
disease and inaction (359-367), when far away from the scene of
his life-work he bears about with him in the lands of his travels,
not only the community of men, founded and flourishing, but
the community of women still to come forth from the pregnant
being of God. He has reached Switzerland. He has seen be-
; A BIT OF PRINTED MATTER is A SACRED THING." (WHERE THE BINDING is DONE.)
l8 95-] THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD. 493
ginning there what he would fain reproduce in his own loved
America. He found that a zealous canon had " organized, or
rather begun, an association of girls to set types, etc., who live
in community and labor for the love of God in the Apostolate
of the Press. He publishes several newspapers and journals.
The house in which the members live is also the store and
the publishing house. Each girl has her own room. They
are under the patronage of St. Paul. The canon is filled with
the idea of St. Paul as the great patron of the press, the first
Christian journalist. What has long been my dream of a move-
ment of this nature has found here an incipient realization.
Our views in regard to the mission of the press, and the neces-
sity of running it for the defence and propagation of the faith,
as a form of Christian sacrifice in our day, are identical. You
can easily fancy what interest and consolation our meeting and
conversation must be to each other." *
We have seen his unaccomplished aims ; let us now listen to
his apparently unanswered prayer. He is in Rome, in the
Catacombs of St. Agnes. He has celebrated Mass there on the
feast of the martyr. "What did I pray for?" he questions,
penning a letter home. " For you all, especially for the future.
What future ? How shall I name it ? The association of wo-
men in our country to aid the work of God through the Holy
Church for its conversion. My convictions become fixed and
my determination to begin the enterprise consecrated."
His convictions are fixed ! His determination to begin the
enterprise consecrated ! Two decades of years have passed
through the fingers of Time since Father Hecker breathed this
prayer in the Catacombs. Nearly five decades since the light
into the future was first flashed upon him, and yet that organi-
zation of women has never come into existence ! Did Father
Hecker determine upon enterprises at random ? Nay. Did
God, then, permit him, the firm believer in the " direct action
of the Holy Spirit on the human soul," who trusted so im-
plicitly to " the inner and secret prompting of the Holy
Ghost," to follow, even in the planning of his life-work, a
false light ? Again, nay. Then why the delay ? the non-fulfil-
ment ?
The ardent heart of the apostle beat impetuously for the
doing of God's work, but the illuminated soul of the contem-
plative breathed to the ardent heart, " Peace, be still," and
in prayerful waiting the apostle and the contemplative, for
* See chapter xxx. Life of Father Hecker.
494
THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD.
[Jan.,
Father Hecker was both, bided God's time, his way, and his
instruments for the doing of a divine work.
There is a great lesson for us of the present day contained
in the fact that in addition to the works which Father Hecker
accomplished, he held locked up within his soul for nearly five-
and forty years another work, inexpressibly dear to him on ac-
count of its possibilities of salvation to men and glory to God.
VERY REV. A. F. HEWIT, D.D. ; NOW AT ST. THOMAS' COLLEGE, CATHOLIC
UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON.
At rarest intervals he gave to others a glimpse of that which
was living within it, and yet he passed away from earth with-
out even having made a serious attempt to do this work, " though
he never ceased to look around and to plan with a view to do-
ing so." It often happens in the divine economy that one may
never be called upon to bring into visible existence a work
with the desire of which God has imbued our souls. Our part
1 895.] THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD. 495
may be only that of prayer. We will surely strengthen by
prayer that which we may possibly, if not probably, render
abortive by premature activity. It is not in doing all the work
that we can do for God that perfection consists, but rather in
doing just what he wills, when, where, and how he wills it.
And here comes another lesson : watch for right times
and places and means and co-workers. We Catholics of
America have been censured for keeping " behind the times "
in the doing of active good works. We are awakened at
last, and we are up and doing in every line of advancement.
Let us take care. We are certainly right in endeavoring
" to keep up with the times," but let us remember that
God is not behind them. For us who are his followers it is
not on the times, but on the lines that he has drawn for us
through them, that our eyes should be fixed. Too many good
works begun in the most unselfish spirit never reach devel-
opment. They are abortive not so much because undertaken
by souls not called to undertake them, as because they are
undertaken before the marked hour, with the wrong co-opera-
tors. Too often we drop the seed before the Master has
tilled the ground or gathered about us the workmen whom
he has trained to aid us. A burning desire to be about our,
life-work may not mean that the hour has come for action.
It may be given us that by repression, of ardor to-day we
may, through the exercise of self-restraint, possess to-morrow
a concentrated earnestness that will empower us to move,
not only self, but many another in the direction in which we
would go. Christ the Master in the temple amidst the doctors
was burning to be about his Father's business. Could he have
done better in the ardor of his twelve years the work of salva-
tion that he accomplished with divine perfection after growing
for eighteen years " in wisdom and age and grace with God
and men " ?
But one may question why Father Hecker never strove to
realize his apostolic desire. It is never very difficult for any
priest to gather a body of women for purposes of religion or
charity, much less would it have been difficult for this priest
who conceived and accomplished so many great works. Yes,
one may well question why he never attempted an organization
of women whose lives should be consecrated to the spread of
the truth through the powerful, silent-voiced agency of the
printing-press, and should be, at the same time, an oblation of
praise and thanksgiving for all the blessings of which the writ-
496 THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD. [Jan.,
ten and the printed word have been the channel, and a vapor
of prayer which, rising heavenward, would descend in copious
showers of grace, irrigating the desert places of heresy, and
fructifying the seeds of truth sown in hearts by workmen the
world over. Here comes a point where this work must needs
OUT THROUGH THESE DOORS THERE GO OVER FlVE MILLION PAGES OF PRINTED
MATTER EACH MONTH. (THE COUNTING-ROOM.)
reproduce all others : where Father Hecker could learn much
from the great works of other great men.
Confraternities, societies, parish congregations, clubs, all may
be formed of members drawn collectively ; not so an organiza-
tion that is to reproduce the spiritual family life as religious
orders do. No exterior binding together of human lives can
form into one family beings of widely different human genera-
tion ; no similarity of human desires can blend the aims of
many into one great harmonious endeavor. One thing alone
has power to effect this family life, this unity of action : it is a
God-given vocation. Somewhere in God's world there must
needs exist a soul in whom he has implanted this vocation, if
his eternal designs embrace such a work ; and, doubtless, within
reach of that woman other women with corresponding vocations
exist, yet one may be unconscious of the existence of another.
I895-]
THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD.
497
Father Hecker must needs have met the soul in which the
germ of such a work was implanted, or his efforts to develop it
would be unavailing. But evidently he never met her, and
versed as he was in God's ways from his own soul-illumination,
and his study, doubtless, of works done by others, not meeting
her was to him a clear proof that any attempt at such a work
wouldc/foe premature, its effects abortive.
But does this prove that his light was false ? his prayer
vain ? his aim destined never to reach realization ? Nay. It
proves but this : that God's allotted hour for the work was not
one embraced in Father Hecker's allotted years of earthly life.
It is said that "poets never die." With far greater truth may
this perennial life be ascribed to founders of religious institutes.
They live on endlessly in the lives of the spiritual children
COMPOSING-ROOM IN THE PRINTING-HOUSE OF THE PAULISTS.
.they give to the church and the world, and the works accom-
plished by their spiritual children are but, as it were, the con-
summation of their work. "Prayer will do more than action,"
and the prayer of faith that arises from a supernatural glimpse
of God's work for future time is not unanswered even though
visible results have not been achieved till that prayer of faith
has long been crowned by full knowledge gained in the light
of the Beatific Vision.
VOL. LX. 32
498 THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD. [Jan.,
Reading of this desire of Father Hecker's ardent heart, of
this determination of his energetic nature, one is moved to
question whether or not he went even so far as to draft any
plan for this organization of women whose daily work should
be the consecration of pens and types and printing-presses to the
propagation of the truth as a form of Christian sacrifice. " He
did not," his spiritual sons assure us ; " he would naturally wait
until he had found the souls for whom to draft such a plan."
Perhaps we can find another reason of his bequeathing to those
whose dearest wish would be to develop his plans, none for
this future work for the sanctification of America.
It was not only respect, it was reverence that Father Hdtker
yielded to the God-given freedom of mankind, to its God-
given right'' to 1 listen for, to hearken to, and to follow the
interior guiding voice of the Spirit of Him who is the way, and
the truth, and the life. He never sought to make of any
human being a mere tool to work out his aims for God's glory,
but rather to find each one that which he himself was: an
instrument fashioned and tempered for its own purpose in the
great work. It was the co-operation of free men and women
that he craved always. He, no doubt, felt that if he ever met
those who were to take the initiative in this work he would
meet in one or more of them a spirit, a method, an organiza-
tion, in full or in part developed, and impressed in some one
of those supernatural ways that produce an instantaneous con-
viction of their unerring guidance. "The words of God in ithe
soul effect what they say," declares Father Faber, contrasting
the human spirit with the divine, in Growth in Holiness. " The
divine voice may have uttered but a single sound, one little
word, but the work is done. It is safe to build upon it the
edifice of years."
Looking over the universal Catholic world of to-day, and
beholding all that is being done for the spread of the printed
word of God, one may question : In sight of all this is there
any need of such a religious organization as that contemplated by
Father Hecker ? We can but judge of the present by the past.
For hundreds of years Christianity had been preached to the
nations of the earth, and yet God gave to St. Dominic and St.
Francis, to St. Ignatius, St. Alphonsus and St. Paul of the
Cross, and to others as well, revelations of his will, and forth
from those revelations came great orders specially devoted to
preaching. For hundreds of years the poor, the sick, and the
unfortunate had been cared for in Christ's name, and yet God
I895-] THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD. 499
called upon a Vincent de Paul, a Father Eudes, a Catherine
McAuley, and in response to his voice arose the Sisters of
WHERE THE PROOFS ARE READ.
Charity, of the Good Shepherd, of Mercy. For hundreds of
years the church militant on earth had offered suffrages' for the
suffering church in purgatory, and yet in our own century God
whispers in the depths of a human soul that his church has no
order devoted specially to the relief of the suffering dead, and
from that pregnant whisper comes forth the Helpers of the
Holy Souls. For hundreds of years the daily Holy Sacrifice
had been in the sight of Heaven a ceaseless reparation for
God's injuries, and yet in our century the Divine Majesty in-i
spired the foundation of a religious congregation of Perpetual
Reparation. Multiply questions as the world will, there is but one
to be answered, and it is one the world will scarcely propound :
Has this newly contemplated work existence in the eternal plan
of God? Upon the answer, yes or no, hangs its future earthly
existence.
Arises the question: How penetrate the veils that hide the
5oo
THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD.
[Jan.,
divine plan from human inspection ? There is no need to
penetrate the impenetrable. When comes God's hour his hand
will part the veils, and through the rift his light will shine, and
on earth in some soul, perhaps in more than one, will be
mirrored that eternal plan, maybe in full, maybe in part, but if
in part the soul that has received it will bide the hour of
another rifting of the impenetrable veils, for human conjecture
will never be allowed to supply aught that is wanting to com-
plete the divine certainty.
An Order devoted to Publication, to the silent preaching of
God's truth by the broadcast sowing of the printed word, to
the uplifting of the masses to a higher mental culture by the
instilling of a love for good reading in young and old, in plac-
ing good reading in mansion and hovel, such an order must of
necessity be as novel compared with existing institutes as was
that of the Visitation compared with all previously existing at
that time. If the founder of the Visitation, St. Francis de Sales,
was inspired to mark out for souls a royal way of the cross that
was free from the steel-pointed austerities of all other orders,
so must the one who will found the Order devoted to Publica-
tion keep souls safe within the royal way of the cross without
HENCEFORTH TWO-THIRDS OF MANKIND WILL BE GOVERNED BY THE PRINTING-PRESS.
(PRESS-ROOM.)
i8 9 5.]
THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD.
the iron-clad rules regulating for the sisterhoods of to-day hours
and places and prayers and garb. Is laxity here advocated for
the Order of Publication ? Nay, nay. Freedom and elasticity
do not presume laxity. If daily labor is such that it cannot be
THROUGH THE PRINTED WORD IT is POSSIBLE TO SECURE YOUR LARGEST AUDIENCE
AND DO THE MOST GOOD.
broken in upon at frequently recurring intervals for prayer, and
literary labor is such, so too is the mechanical labor of publi-
cation ; then grows upon one the necessity of making of
one's day's labor an unbroken prayer by purity of intention.
If one cannot renew that intention by visits at stated
times to the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, then
becomes more pressing the need of an abiding sense of the
real presence of the Holy Spirit around, within, directing, in-
spiring, sanctifying each faint movement of the heart, the
brain, the hand that manipulates the pen or the type. If one's
life must be more or less a public life; if one must be no strange
presence at summer-schools or press conventions; if one's voice
even must be heard in papers bearing upon the vital questions
of the day that concern minds and souls and God's truth, then
502
THE MISSION OF THE PRINTED WORD.
[Jan.,
it becomes more necessary that self be hidden even as was the
Master when, through Mary's lips, he uttered the Magnificat of
praise. If one's name must go forth on the printed page and
wia laurels for the thoughts to which it may claim ownership,
then there is but the need of a constant interior renunciation
of all ownership of thoughts and words and deeds that may
merit earthly fame or heavenly reward into the keeping of her
who kept all the words of Jesus in her heart. No ; freedom in
the fulfilment of the consecrated mission of the Printed Word
does not mean laxity or the breathing of a worldly spirit, but
an elasticity of soul that, knowing the Holy Spirit breatheth
where he wills, can at any moment find him there where he
breatheth.
What,, a mission it is even at will to write and print and
scatter broadcast the blessed truths of God ! And to save from
woeful ,:waste all that is helpful and holy of what others write
and print ! But what a thrice blessed mission for the souls who
will one day arise in answer to Father Hecker's prayer in the
Cataco,mbs of St. Agnes, and, in gratitude for the glorious heri-
tage of the faith, make their life-long Te Deum the spread of
that faith in a consecrated Apostolate of the Press.
^i ^* ' fc
,A
/-. . '.1 "* " t
1895.]
REV. FATHER MAURICE, C.P.
503
REV. FATHER MAURICE, C.P.*
BY HELEN GRACE SMITH.
HERE is a grave beside the
Southern Sea,
The shining Southern Sea
The grave of one pure knight, whose faith-
ful sword
Was sheathed right joyfully :
Now is his warfare o'er ; his latest word
Was " Patience still and courage, dearest
Lord,
Until thy mercy set my spirit free."
So pure
a knight ! He wore no waving
plume,
Nor carried yet a shield with brave device ;
There are no laurels sculptured on his tomb,
No record of past conflicts fought and won,
No tale of mighty deeds, nor service done
For sake of country, no great sacrifice;
And no one passing pauses here to read ;
He was an exile, and his country's need
Was not for him ; yet did he love his land,
And wept for parting, while his gentle hand,
So fair and strong, was lifted up to bless
What was his own, and should be his no more ;
And sails were set, while yet the brightening shore
Smiled sweet return to his mute eyes' caress.
* The Rev. Father Maurice, of the Order of Passionists, was known in the world as
Theodore Dehon Smith. He was born on January i, 1857. His religious vocation declared
itself previous to his twenty-first birthday, and after more than a year's consideration he
entered the Order of Passionists on that day. He passed his novitiate at Pittsburgh and
Hoboken. He was ordained by Bishop Wigger, of Newark, and after being stationed as a
missionary priest at Cincinnati and Louisville, he was finally appointed to a professorship to
the students at the house of his order at Normandy, near St. Louis. From this position he
voluntarily went to the missions of his order in the Argentine Republic, making his journey by
way of Italy and visiting Rome. He entered on his work in South America with character-
istic ardor, but his failing health soon compelled him to give up active duties. He submitted
with patience and resignation to the inevitable change, and after months of suffering passed
away on the isth of February, 1894. This tribute was written by his sister.
504 REV. FATHER MAURICE, C.P. [Jan.,
There have been many partings and the world
Is old in sorrow ; eyes have wept anew,
With ready tears, love's long since cancelled woe ;
And bitter waves have, writhing, foamed and curled
Round prows of many ships that, bending low,
Confessed their might, yet dared the fatal blue;
But never ship bore nobler heart from home,
And never heart more trusting, nor more true.
There have been many partings : exiles roam
Through alien lands, with hopes that longing turn,
O'er leagues of sea, to where their hearth- fires burn ;
But never heart held higher hope, nor cherished
A dearer dream than his, whose dream hath perished.
High hope, and brave ambition, young desires ;
Bright birds of passage, could ye your far flight
For once have stayed, your winging that aspires,
With force unerring, ever toward the light
Could ye have folded once your quivering pinions,
And slumbered warmly gathered to his breast,
Ye might have been content with him to rest,
And he had followed not o'er earth's dominions
The sunless way ye sought ; yet did the sweet
Recurring thought of home stay not his feet
Upon the hills. Ah ! world of banishment,
Of doubt and ills, give birth to soft content,
And speak a calmness hopeful, for again
Is wrought a mystery, and the spirit's pain
Hath earned reward. You have not seen in vain
The human creature smile through tears, and ring
A song of rapture from a breaking heart
A glad, pure ecstasy, a song apart
From poet's theme, or hymn that angels sing.
You have not seen in vain, nor vainly heard ;
A presence blest in sympathy hath stirred
The deep of woe, that hence may healing spring,
And peace be born anew of sorrowing.
In times of old, when bravest knights lay dead
Their deeds were sung, and panoply of state
Was folded round them, and the muffled tread
And bated breath of mourners, vigil keeping,
Gave solemn show of grief, and there was weeping,
And sighing for the sad decree of fate.
1895.] REV. FATHER MAURICE, C.P. 505
When such lay dead there was lament and sorrow.
Nor heart for play and feasting on the morrow.
Good knights of old, your spirit lived in him,
Who was true knight, and, through the ages dim r
Some reflex of the glory and the gleam
Of high chivalrous honor, like the stream
Of light through minster windows, round his brow
Made shining holy, and he lieth now
In such a state as they of nobler worth
Would rather choose, who reverent trod the earth:
A simple state. The suns that were his eyes
Look calmly now on awful mysteries ;
Of old they looked through tears, and there was set
A bow of colors, gold and violet,
In our dull skies. Now is the white repose
Of folded lids, the majesty, the peace
Above them, that which maketh our sick gaze
To fix itself in solemn awe, and cease
From trembling scared. It seemeth fitting close
Of such a life, since he was led through ways
Of humbleness, and all unseemly pride
Of place or fortune that were his by law
Of high inheritance he put aside,
That flesh might conquered be, and sanctified
In truth and spirit and a holy awe,
With meekness chaste, and poverty abide
Where such should dwell ; it seemeth fitly ended
That he should lie but by meek signs attended.
Death leaves no room save for high thoughts and holy,
Which only lead us nearer to our dead.
Grief is of earth, with sighs and melancholy,
And from such things the souls we love have fled.
We find them now through faith and patience lowly
Who humbly follow where they sought to tread.
Death is a joy; so felt our knight when dying,
So feel we now when thinking how he died.
Turn then, my heart, and see him sweetly lying,
Whose hope is found at last, whose truth is tried ;
And, from that place where thou art glorified,
Look, O beloved ! The morning star hath set,
Day is abroad, and from the valley's breast
The cry of labor sounds ; the grass is wet,
And bendeth to the knife ; and men forget
506 REV. FATHER MA UK ICE, C.P. [Jan.
All things in toil, save toil itself, and rest
Content alone for gain, the earnings mean
That earth allows. The tired hands that glean
The close-shorn fields count out their spoil with care,
And then, outworn, are clasped, but not in prayer.
Look, O beloved ! Self-exiled, 'twas for these
Thy voice made pleading, and God's sacred ground
Thus given up to greed, the places fair
That met thy gaze with loving, and were good
In His dear eyes and thine, all these are found
Fit cause for holy war, and, on thy knees,
Stripped for the fight of all things that were thine,
Oblation of thyself thou mad'st and stood
Clean before men, and in the sight divine.
True knight and pure, thy sword was forged of faith,
And sheathed for joy since, conqueror in death,
Thou needest love alone which is the breath
Of God, and in the rapture of high Heaven
That love is thine, the life whence thine is given.
Look, O beloved ! who lookest on the face
Of Truth itself look till thy spirit's grace
Encompass earth. So may we learn of thee :
So would we learn. O shining Southern Sea!
Tread evenly and measured where he lies
Beneath the Southern Cross. Ye kindly skies
That brought him dreams of home ; the sympathy
That little grasses speak, and winsome flowers
With shy, strange faces that were wont to smile
For comfort when he passed, or paused awhile
Too weary to smile back, keep through the hours,
The lengthening days, and months of changing splendor
Your watch with him, who kept true faith and tender
With such as ye ; watch kindly where he lies
Till earth at last give place to Paradise.
Ah, lovely grave beside the Southern Sea!
The shining Southern Sea !
And thou, pure knight, whose sword
Was sheathed right joyfully :
Soon our long warfare o'er, the spoken word
Will make us thine, and courage still, O .Lord !
Until Thy mercy tell us we are free.
Edinburgh, August 24, 1894.
PORTRAIT OF GREGORY THE GREAT, PAINTED BY HERMANN KIK, SAULGAN, WURTEMBERG.
GREGORY THE GREAT AND THE BARBARIAN WORLD.
BY T. J. SHAHAN, D.D.,
(Catholic University^)
'HE latter part of the sixth century of our era
offers to the student of human institutions a
fascinating and momentous spectacle the simul-
taneous transition over a great extent of space
from an ancient and refined civilization to a
new and uncouth barbarism of manners, speech, civil polity,
and culture. It was then that the great mass of the Roman
Empire, which generations of soldiers, statesmen, and adminis-
trators had consolidated at such frightful expense of human
blood and rights, was irrevocably broken by the savage hordes
whom it had in turn attempted to resist or to assimilate.
503 GREGORY THE GREAT [Jan.,
One moment it seemed as if the fortune of a Justinian and
the genius of a Belisarius were about to regain all Italy, the
sacred nucleus of conquest, and to proceed thence to a recon-
stitution of the Roman state in Western Europe. But it was
only for a moment. Fresh multitudes of Teutonic tribesmen
swarmed from out their deep forests along the Danube or the
Elbe, and overflowed Northern Italy so effectually as to efface
the classic land-marks, and to fasten for ever on the fairest
plains of Europe their own barbarian cognomen. It is true
that the bureaucracy of Constantinople, aided by the local
pride of the cities of Southern Italy, by a highly centralized
military government, by the prestige and the influence of the
Catholic bishops, as well as by the jealousy and disunion of the
Lombard chiefs, maintained for two centuries the assertion of
imperial rights, and a steadily diminishing authority in the
peninsula and the islands of the Mediterranean and the Adri-
atic. But, by the end of the sixth century, all serious .hope of
reorganizing the Western Empire was gone. Thenceforth
(thanks to the Lombard) the Frank and the Visigoth, luckier
than their congeners, the Ostrogoth and the Vandal, might
hope to live in peaceful enjoyment of the vast provinces of
Spain and Gaul, and the fierce pirates of old Saxony could
slowly lay the foundations of a new empire on the soil of
abandoned and helpless Britain. In the West not only was
the civil authority of Rome overthrown, but there went with it
the venerable framework cf its ancient administration, the Latin
language, that masterful majestic symbol of Roman right and
strength, the Roman law, the municipal system, the great net-
work of roads and of inter-commercial relations, the peaceful
cultivation of the soil, the schools, the literature, and above all,
that splendid unity and consolidarity of interests and ideals
which were the true cement of the ancient Roman state, and
which welded together its multitudinous parts more firmly than
any bonds of race or blood or language.
THE PROBLEM OF THE GREGORIAN AGE.
Notwithstanding the transient splendor, the victories and
conquests of the reign of Justinian, the condition of the Orient
was little, if any, better than that of the West. The Persian
and the Avar harassed the frontiers, and occasionally bathed
their horses in the sacred waters of the Bosphorus. The popu-
lations groaned beneath the excessive taxes required for endless
fortifications, ever-recurring tributes, the pompous splendor of a
1 895.] AND THE BARBARIAN WORLD. 509
great court, and the exigencies of a minute and numerous
bureaucracy. Egypt and Syria, no longer dazzled by the pres-
tige or protected by the strong arm of Rome, began to indulge
in velleities of national pride and spirit, and, under the cover of
heresy, to widen the political and social chasm that yawned be-
tween them and the great heart of the empire. The imperial
consciousness, as powerful and energetic in the last of the Paleo-
logi as in a Trajan or a Constantine, was still vigorous enough,
but it had no longer its ancient instruments of good fortune,
wealth, prestige, and arms. The shrunken legions, the dimin-
ished territories, the dwindling commerce, foreshadowed the dis-
solution of the greatest political framework of antiquity, and in
the quick succeeding plagues, famines, and earthquakes men
saw the ominous harbingers of destruction. The time of which
I speak was, indeed, the close of a long, eventful century of
transition. Already the political heirs of Rome and Byzantium
were looming up both East and West. In the East fanatic con-
quering Islam awaited impatiently the tocsin of its almost irre-
sistible propaganda, and in the West the Frank was striding
through war and anarchy and every moral enormity to the
brilliant destiny of continental empire. We may imagine the
problems that beset at this moment the mind of a Boethius or
a Cassiodorius. Would the fruits of a thousand years of Greek
and Roman culture be utterly blotted out ? Would the gentle-
ness and refinement that long centuries of external peace and
world-wide commerce and widest domination had begotten be
lost to the race of man? Would the teachings of Jesus Christ,
the source of so much social betterment, be overlaid by some
Oriental fanaticism, or hopelessly degraded by the coarse natur-
alism of the Northern barbarians ? Could it be that in this
storm were about to be engulfed the very highest conquests of
man over nature and over himself, the delicate and difficult art
of government, the most polished instruments of speech, the
rarest embodiments of ideal thought in every art, that sweet
spiritual amity, the fruit of religious faith and hope, that com-
mon Christian atmosphere in which all men moved, and
breathed, and rejoiced ?
THE MISSION OF THE CATHOLIC EPISCOPATE.
We all know what it was that in these centuries of com-
motion and demolition saved from utter loss so much of the
intellectual inheritance of the Greco-Roman world, what power
tamed and civilized the barbarian masters of the Western
5io GREGORY THE GREAT [J an >
Empire, fixed them to the soil, codified and purified their laws,
and insensibly and indirectly introduced among them no small
share of that Roman civilization which they once so heartily
hated, and which in their pagan days they looked on as utter-
ly incompatible with Teutonic manhood and freedom. It was
the Catholic hierarchy, which took upon itself the burden and
responsibility of civil order and progress at a time when abso-
lute anarchy prevailed, and around which centred all those
elements of the old classic world that were destined, under its
aegis, to traverse the ages and go on for ever, moulding the
thought and life of humanity as long as men shall admire the
beautiful, or reverence truth, or follow after order and justice
and civil security.
It was the bishops, monks, and priests of the Catholic
Church who in those troublous days stood like a wall for the
highest goods of society as well as for the rights of the soul ;
who resisted in person the oppression of the barbarian chief
just emerged from his swamps and forests, as well as the
avarice and unpatriotic greed of the Roman who preyed upon
his country's ills ; who roused the fainting citizens, repaired
the broken walls, led men to battle, mounted guard upon the
ramparts, and negotiated treaties. Indeed, there was no one
else in the ruinous and tottering state to whom men could
turn for protection from one another as well as from the barba-
rian. It seemed, for a long time, as if society were returning
to its original elements, such as it had once been in the hands
of its Architect, and that no one could better administer on its
dislocated machinery than the men who directly represented
that Divine Providence and love out of which human society
had arisen.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE BISHOP OF ROME.
The keystone of this extraordinary episcopate was the
Papacy. The Bishop of Rome shared with all other bishops of
the empire their influence over the municipal administration
and finances, their quasi-control of the police, the prisons and
the public works, the right to sit as judge, not alone over cler-
ics and in clerical cases but in profane matters, and to receive
the appeals of those who felt themselves wronged by the civil
official. Like all other bishops of the sixth century, he was a
legal and powerful check upon the rapacity, the ignorance, and
the collusion of the great body of officials who directed the in-
tricate mechanism of Byzantine administration. But over and
i895-] AND THE BARBARIAN WORLD. 511
above this the whole world knew that he was the successor of
the most illustrious of the Apostles, whose legacy of authority
he had never suffered to dwindle ; that he was the metropolitan
of Italy, and the patriarch of the entire West, all of whose
churches had been founded directly or indirectly by his see.
From the time of Constantine his authority in" the West
had been frequently acknowledged and confirmed by the
state and the bishops. In deferring to his decision the incipi-
ent schism of the Donatists, the victor of the Milvian Bridge
only accepted the situation such as it was outlined at Aries and
Antioch and Sardica, such as Valentinian formally proclaimed
it, and the Pragmatic Sanction of Justinian made the funda-
mental law of the state. Long before Constantine, the Bishop
of Rome seemed to Decius and Aurelian the most prominent
of the Christian bishops, and since then every succeeding pon-
tificate raised him higher in the public esteem.
Occasionally a man of transcendent genius, like Leo the
Great, broke the usual high level of superiority, and shone as
the savior of the state and the scourge of heresy, ,or again,
skilful administrators like Gelasius and Hormisdas piloted
happily the bark of Peter through ugly shoals and rapids. But,
whatever their gifts or character, one identic consciousness sur-
vived through all of them the sense of a supreme mission, and
of the most exalted responsibility in ecclesiastical matters.
Did ever that serene consciousness of authority need to be in-
tensified ? What a world of suggestion and illustration lay
about them in their very episcopal city, where at every step
the monuments of universal domination met their gaze, where
the very atmosphere was eloquent with the souvenirs of im-
perial mastery and the stubborn execution of the imperial will,
where the local mementoes of their own steady upward growth
yet confronted them, where they could stand in old St. Peter's,
even then one of the most admired buildings of antiquity, over
the bodies of Peter and Paul, surrounded by pilgrims from all
parts of the world, and echo the words of the first Leo, that
already the spiritual rule of the Roman pontiffs was wider than
the temporal one of the Roman emperors had ever been !
THE CAREER OF GREGORY.
It was to this office, and hi the midst of such critical events
as I have attempted to outline, that Gregory, whom after ages
have styled the Great, succeeded in 590 A.D. He could boast
of the noblest blood of Rome, being born of one of the great
512
GREGORY THE GREAT
[Jan.,
senatorial families, a member of the gens Anicia, and destined
from infancy to the highest political charges. His great-great-
grandfather, Felix II. (483-492), had been Bishop of Rome, and
he himself at an early age had held the office of pretor, and
STATUE OF ST. GREGORY, BY CORDIERI, IN THE CHURCH OF S. GRKGORIO, ON
THE CCELIAN.
'walked the streets of Rome in silken garments embroidered with
shining gems, and surrounded by a mob of clients and admirers.
But he had been brought up in the strictest of Christian families,
by a saintly mother, and in time the blank horror of public life,
the emptiness of human things in general, and the grave concern
1895.] AND T HE BARBARIAN WORLD. 513
for his soul so worked upon the young noble that he threw up
his promising carriera, and, after distributing his great fortune to
the poor, turned his own home on the Ccelian Hill into a mon-
astery, and took up his residence therein. It was with delibera-
tion, and after satisfactory experience of the world and life,
that he made this choice. It was a most sincere one, and
though he was never to know much of the monastic silence and
the calm lone-dwelling of the soul with God, these things
ever remained his ideal, and his correspondence is filled with
cries of anguish, with piteous yearnings for solitude and re-
tirement. On the papal throne, dealing as an equal with em-
perors and exarchs, holding with firm hand the tiller of the
ship of state on the angriest of seas, corresponding with kings
and building up the fabric of papal greatness, his mighty spirit
sighs for the lonely cell, the obedience of the monk, the mys-
tic submersion of self in the placid ocean of love and con-
templation. His austerities soon destroyed his health, and so
he went through fourteen stormy years of government broken
in body and chafing in spirit, yet ever triumphant by the force
of his superb masterful will, and capable of dictating from his
bed of pain the most successful of papal administrations, one
which sums up at once the long centuries of organic develop-
ment on classic soil and worthily opens the great drama of
the Middle Ages.
FIRST OF THE MEDIEVAL POPES.
In fact, it is as the first of the mediaeval popes that Gregory
claims our especial attention. His title to a place among the
benefactors of humanity reposes in great part upon enduring
spiritual achievements which modified largely the history of the
Western Empire, upon the firm assertion of principles which
obtained without contradiction for nearly a thousand years, and
upon his writings, which formed the heads and hearts of the
best men in church and state during the entire Middle Ages,
and which, like a subtle, indestructible aroma, are even yet
operative in Christian society.
The popes of the sixth century were not unconscious of the
fact that the greater part of the Western Empire had passed
irrevocably into the hands of barbarian Teutons, nor were they
entirely without relations with the new possessors of Roman
soil ; but their temporary subjection to an Arian king ; the
Gothic war, and the cruel trials of the city of Rome; the mete-
oric career of Justinian, as a rule deferential and favorable to
VOL. LX. 33
514 GREGORY THE GREAT [Jan.,
the bishops of Rome ; the painful episode of the Three Chap-
ters, in which flamed up once more the smouldering embers of
the great Christological discussions ; the uncertain relations with
the new imperial office of the exarchate, as well as a clinging
reverence for the empire and its institutions, kept their faces
turned to the Golden Horn. They had welcomed Clovis into
the church with a prophetic instinct of the r6le that his de-
scendants were to play, and they kept an eye upon the Catho-
lic Goths, on the Suabians of north-western Spain, and on the
Irish Kelts. Individual and sporadic missionary efforts origi-
nated among their clergy, of which we would know more were
it not for the almost complete destruction of their local annals
and archives in the Gothic wars. But withal, one feels that
these sixth-century popes belong yet to the old Greco-Roman
world, that they hesitate to acknowledge publicly that the im-
perial cause is lost in the West, that the splendid unity of the
Roman and the Christian name is only a souvenir. On the
other hand, the barbarian was too often a heretic, too often
slippery, selfish, and treacherous, while the Roman was yet a
man of refinement and culture, loath to go out among uncouth
tribes who had destroyed whatever he held dear. In a word,
he nourished toward the barbarian world at large that natural
repulsion which he afterward reproached the British Kelt for
entertaining toward the Saxon destroyer of his fireside and his
independence.
Gregory inaugurated a larger policy. He was the first monk
to sit on the Chair of Peter, and he brought to that redoubt-
able office a mind free from minor preoccupations and devoted
to the real interests of the Roman Church. He had been pre-
tor and nuncio, had moved much among the bishops and the
aristocracy of the Catholic world, and was well aware of the
inferior and painful situation that the New Rome was preparing
for her elder predecessor. The careers of Silverius, Vigilius,
and Pelagius were yet fresh in the minds of men, and it needed
not much discernment to see that, under the new regime, the
Byzantine court would never willingly tolerate the ancient in-
dependence and traditional boldness of the Roman bishops.
THE VOCATION OF THE WANDERING NATIONS.
It was, therefore, high time to find a balance to the en-
croachments and sinister designs of those Greeks on the Bos-
phorus, who were drifting ever farther [away from the Latin
1895-] AND THE BARBARIAN WORLD. 515
spirit and ideals ; this the genius of Gregory discovered in
the young barbarian nations of the West. It would be wrong,
however, to see in his conduct only the cold calculations of a
statesman. It was influenced simultaneously by the deep yearn-
ings of the apostle, by the purest zeal for the salvation and
betterment of the new races which lay about him like a whiten-
ing harvest, waiting for the sickle of the spiritual husbandman.
While yet a simple monk he had extorted from Pelagius the
permission to evangelize the Angles and the Saxons, and had
proceeded some distance, when the Romans discovered their
loss and insisted on his return. Were it not for their selfish-
ness he would have reached the shores of Britain, and gained
perhaps a place in the charmed circle of King Arthur and the
Knights of the Round Table, who were even about that time
engaged in the losing conflict for independence which ended
so disastrously at the Badonic Mount.
GREGORY AND THE LOMBARDS.
This is not the place to relate the details of the numerous
relations which Gregory established on all sides with the barba-
rian peoples of Europe. The nearest to him were the Lombards,
the resistless hammer of the Italo-Roman state, and one of the
most arrogant and intractable of all the Teutonic tribes. His
policy with them is peace at any price. Now he purchases it
with church-gold, sorely needed elsewhere, and again he con-
cludes a treaty with these iron dukes in the very teeth of the
exarch. He takes their rule as an accomplished fact. He re-
fuses to be an accomplice in the base, inhuman measures of the
Byzantine governors. He rests not until he has converted their
queen, Theodelinda, and their king, Agilulf ; with a certain
mixture of bitterness and joy he proclaims himself more a bishop
of the Lombards than the Romans, so numerous were their
camp fires upon the Campagna, and so familiar the sight of
their hirsute visages, and the sound of their horrid gutturals
among the delicate and high-bred denizens of Rome.
It was he who restrained this rugged and contemptuous race ;
who started among them a counter current against their brutal
paganism, and their cold, narrow, unsentimental Arianism ; who
left to them, in his own person and memory, the most exalted
type of Christian manhood ; at once fearless and gentle, aggres-
sive and enduring, liberal and constant, loyal to a decaying >
incapable empire, but shrewd and .far-seeing for the interests
516 GREGORY THE GREAT [Jan.,
of Western humanity, whose future renaissance he must have
vaguely felt as well as an Augustine or a Salvian.
GREGORY AND THE FRANKS.
Beyond the Alps the descendants of Clovis had consolidated
all of Gaul under Prankish rule. Though Catholics, they were
too often purely natural barbarians, restrained with difficulty
from the greatest excesses, and guilty in every reign of wanton
oppression of church and people. They sold the episcopal sees
to the highest bidder, and they often intruded into these places
of honor and influence their soldiers or their courtiers. With
great tact and prudence Gregory dealt with these semi Christian
kings. In his correspondence he argues at length, and explains
the evils of a simoniacal episcopate ; he pleads for a just and
mild administration; he warns them not to exert their power
to the utmost, but to temper justice with mercy, and to learn
the art of self-control. In all the range of papal letters there
is scarcely anything more noble than the correspondence of
Gregory with the kings of Gaul, Spain, and England. This fine
Roman patrician, this ex-pretor, recalls the palmy days of repub-
lican Rome, when her consuls and legates smoothed the way
of success as much by their diplomacy as by their military skill.
He speaks with dignity to these rugged kings, these ex-barbarian
chieftains, yet with grave tenderness and sympathy. He recog-
nizes their rank and authority, their prowess and their merits.
He reminds them that they are but earthly instruments of the
Heavenly King, and that their office entails a grave responsi-
bility, personal and official. At times he dares to insinuate a
rebuke, but in sweet and well-chosen words. He ranks them
with Constantine and Helen, the benefactors of the Roman See.
His language is generally brief, but noble, courteous, earnest,
penetrating, and admirably calculated to make an impression
upon warlike and untutored men, who were' delighted and flat-
tered at such treatment from the uncrowned head of the Wes-
tern civilization. Childebert and Brunehaut, Recared and Ethel-
berht and Bertha, became powerful allies in his apostolic designs,
and opened that long and beneficent career of early mediaeval
Christianity when the youthful nations grew strong and coalesced
under the tutelage of the Papacy, which healed their discords,
knitted them together, and transmitted to them the spirit, the
laws, the tongues, the arts, and the culture of Greece and Rome
treasures that, in all probability, would otherwise have perished
utterly.
1 895.] AND THE BARBARIAN WORLD. 517
OUR DEBT TO GREGORY.
We are in great measure the descendants of these ancient
tribes, now become the nations of Euiope, and we cannot dis-
own the debt of gratitude that we owe to the memory of that
Roman who first embraced with an all-absorbing love the Frank,
the Lombard, and the Gael, the Ostrogoth and the Visigoth,
the Schwab, the Wend, and the Low-Dutch pirates of the Elbe
and the Weser. Hitherto their chiefs had esteemed the vicarious
lieutenancy of Rome, so deep-rooted was their esteem for the
genius of the empire. But they knew now what a profound
transformation was worked in the West, and they began the ca-
reer of independent nations, exulting in their strength. Politi-
cally they were for ever lost to the central trunk of the empire,
but they were saved for higher things, for the thousand influ-
ences of Roman thought and experience. They were made
chosen vessels, not alone of religion but of the arts and sciences,
of philosophy and government, and of that delicate, refined ideal-
ism, that rare and precious bloom of long ages of sincere Chris-
tian life and conduct, which would surely have perished in a
new atmosphere of simple naturalism.
GREGORY AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS.
No act of Gregory's eventful career has had such momentous
consequences as the conversion of the Angles and the Saxons.
They were, if possible, a more hopeless lot than the Lombards ;
revengeful, avaricious, and lustful, knowing only one vice cow-
ardice and practising but one virtue courage. Though dis-
tant, the fame of their brutality had reached the ends of the
earth. Moreover they had already nearly exterminated a flour-
ishing Christianity, that of Keltic Britain. In a word, they were
not so very unlike the Iroquois when Brebeuf and Lallemant un-
dertook their evangelization. I need not go over the recital of
their conversion. All his life Gregory cherished this act as the
greatest of his life. He refers to it in his correspondence with
the East, and it consoled him in tjie midst of failures and dis-
couragements. His great soul shines out through the pages of
Bede, who has left us a detailed narrative of this event his
boundless confidence in God, his use of purely spiritual wea-
pons, his large and timely toleration. For these rude Saxons
he would enlist all the sympathy of the Franks and the co-
operation of the British clergy. He directs in minutest detail
the progress of the mission, and provides during life the men
5i8 GREGORY THE GREAT [Jan.,
and means needed to carry it on; Truly he may be called the
Apostle of the English, for though he never touched their soil,
he burned with the desire to die among them and for them,
he opened to them the gate of the Heavenly Kingdom, and
introduced them to the art and literature and culture of the
great Christian body on the Continent. \
ROME AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS.
Henceforth the Saxon was no longer the Red Indian of the
classic peoples, but a member of the world- wide church. Quicker
than Frank or Lombard, he caught the spirit of Rome, and as long
as he held the soil of England was unswervingly faithful to her.
Through her came all his culture the fine arts and music, and
the love of letters. His books came from her libraries, and
she sent him his first architects and masons. From her, too,
he received with the faith the principles of Roman law and
procedure. When he went abroad it was to her that he
turned his footsteps, and when he wearied of life in his pleas-
ant island home he betook himself to Rome to end his days
beneath the shadow of St. Peter. In the long history of Chris-
tian Rome she never knew a more romantic and deep-set
attachment on the part of any people than that of the Angles
and the Saxons, who for centuries cast at her feet, not only
their faith and their hearts but their lives, their crowns, and
their very home itself. Surely there must have been something
extraordinary in the character of their first apostle, a great
well-spring of affection, a happy and sympathetic estimate of
the national character, to call forth such an outpouring of
gratitude, and such a devotion, not only to the Church of
Rome, but to the civilization that she represented. To day the
English-speaking peoples are in the van of all human progress
and culture, and the English tongue is likely to become at no
distant date the chief vehicle of human thought and hope.
Both these peoples and their tongue are to day great com-
posites, whose elements it would not be easy to segregate.
But away back at their fountain head, where they first issue
from the twilight of history, there stands a great and noble
figure who gave them their first impetus on the path of reli-
gion and refinement, and to whom must always belong a large
share of the credit which they enjoy.
GREGORY AS POPE, ADMINISTRATOR, WRITER.
As pope and administrator of the succession of Peter
1895.] AND THE BARBARIAN WORLD. 519
Gregory ranks among the greatest of that series. His personal
sanctity, his influence as a preacher, his interest in the public
worship, and his devotion to the poor, are only what we might
expect from a zealous monastic bishop ; but Gregory was emi-
nent in all these while surpassingly great in other things. No
pope has ever exercised so much influence by his writings, on
which the Middle Ages were largely formed as far as practical
ethics and the discipline of life were concerned. They were in
every monastery, and were thumbed over by every cleric.
Above all, his book of the Pastoral Rule fashioned the episco-
pate of the Middle Ages. By the rarest of compliments, this
golden booklet was translated into Greek, and Alfred the Great
put it into Anglo-Saxon. It was the vade-mecum of every
good bishop throughout Europe, and a copy of it was given to
every one at his consecration. Among the essential books that
every priest was expected to own it was reckoned, and it
would not be too much to say that, after the Bible, no work
exercised so great an influence for a thousand years as this
little manual of clerical duties and ideals. It filled the place
which the Imitation of Christ has taken in later times, and in
the direct, rugged Latin of its periods, in the stern uncom-
promising doctrine of its author, in its practical active tendency,
in its emphasis on the public social duties of the bishop, and
its blending of the heavenly and the earthly kingdoms, are to
be found several of the distinctive traits of the mediaeval epis-
copate. He laid out the work for the mediaeval popes, and in
his person and career was a worthy type of the bravest and
the most politic among them. Though living in very critical
times, he maintained the trust confided to him and handed it
over increased to his successors. There is no finer model of
the Latin Christian spirit, and some will like to think that he
was put there, at the confines of the old and the new, between
Romania and Gothia, to withstand the flood of Byzantinism, to
save the Western barbarian for Latin influences, and to secure
to Europe the transmission of the larger and more congenial
Latin culture.
GREGORY AND THE EMPIRE.
Yet he was, like all the Catholic bishops of that age, de-
voted to the ideal of the Christian Empire, and while he
recognized the hand of Providence in the breaking up of the
once proud system, he did not spare the expression and the
proof of his loyalty to the emperors at Constantinople. Though
520 GREGORY THE GREAT. [Jan.
virtually the founder of the temporal power of the Papacy, he ever
held his temporal estate for and under New Rome, and was never
happier than when he could safeguard or advance her interests.
Like most men of his time, he believed that the last of the
great empires was that of Rome, and that when it fell the end
of the world was close at hand. Indeed the well-known couplet
(made famous by Anglo-Saxon pilgrims) belongs to his epoch,
and strikingly conveys the popular feeling:
" While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand ;
When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls, the World."
Long ages have gone by since he was gathered to his rest
(604) in the portico of old St. Peter's, with Julius and Damasus,
Leo and Gelasius, and all the long line of men who built up the
spiritual greatness of Rome. Legends have gathered about his
memory like mosses and streamers on the venerable oak, and
calumny has aimed some poisoned shafts at his secular fame.
But history defends him from the unconscious transformation of
the one, and the intentional malice of the other, which ever
loves a shining mark. She shows to the admiring ages his por-
trait, high-niched in the temple of fame, among the benefactors
of humanity, the protector of the poor and the feeble against titled
wealth and legalized oppression, the apostle of nations once
shrouded in darkness, now the foremost torch-bearers of hu-
manity one of that very small number of men who, holding
the highest authority, administer it without fault, lead unblem-
ished lives, and find time and opportunity to heal, with voice
and pen and hand, the ills of a suffering world, and advance
its children on a path of unbroken progress, guided by the
genius of pure religion, consoled, elevated, and purified by all
that the noblest thought and the widest experience of the past
can offer.
DR. HOLMES AT FIFTY.
TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL.
BY HELEN M. SWEENEY.
Master : What is a parallel ?
Pupil : Two lines running side by side which never meet.
NCE, in an old rectory garden in Lincolnshire,
England, shadowed by magnificent elms and
sweet with the soft greens of an early spring, a
little fair-haired boy of five ran down the garden
path, letting himself be blown about by the breeze,
and shouted in childish exuberance of spirit, " I hear a voice
speaking in the wind ! " It was the first poetic utterance of
one who seventy-eight years later died Poet Laureate, Alfred,
Lord Tennyson.
On the same day, perhaps, on this side of the Atlantic, an-
other little five year-old was playing in his garden at Cambridge,
Mass.; this a tiny plot in comparison with the more stately Eng-
lish place. The garden at Lincolnshire and the garden at
Cambridge smiled around the two boy poets, who were des-
tined to make the fragrance of flowers, the song of birds, the
cloud tints and shadows, the endless chain of succeeding sea-
522 TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL. [Jan.,
sons, live in their poetry that has lifted the people of two
worlds a little nearer the heaven of which poets are the pro-
phets. The home of a poet's childhood, if at all beautiful, is
always to him the most beautiful and poetic spot on earth. It
is the deep sea from which he draws the innumerable pearls to
glimmer on the dress of life.
These two happy little children, in the two such widely dif-
ferent flower-scented gardens, were born in the same month of
the same year, 1809. Both were striking examples of the theory
of family inheritance.
" And gently conies the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould."
The fathers of both were clergymen, men of culture, refine-
ment, and literary attainments. The mothers of both were in-
tensely, fervently religious, as mothers of poets often are. Both
gave evidence of poetic instinct early in life and lifted their
voices so as to be heard in the same decade. Their methods,
though, are as far apart as England and America. Their stand-
points have little or nothing in common. And yet, because they
both recognized that the highest aspect of man is his spiritual
aspect, and as poets have appealed to that higher element, they
have won a common triumph.
" Minds roll in paths like planets ; they revolve,
This in a larger, that a narrower ring."
Their early writings were prophetic of the power and genius
of maturer years. Read the " Poems of Two Brothers," and on
every page will be found a surprising amount of technical knowl-
edge, here and there a gleam of the future glory. Read the
first " Autocrat " papers as they appeared in the New England
Magazine, and there too we find the boy father to the man.
Even as a lad Holmes's work had the continuous sparkle, the
" electrical tingle of hit upon hit," we are apt to associate with
the name of Holmes. Take this for instance:
" When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down my dic-
tionary. The poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of
sentences. The author may arrange the gems effectively, but
their shape and lustre have been given by the attrition of
ages. Bring me the finest simile from the whole range of
imaginative writing, and I will show you a single word which
I895-]
TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL.
523
conveys a more profound, a more accurate, and a more eloquent
analogy."
Tennyson's earliest fame proclaimed htm a lyrist when he
gave to the world "The Lady of Shallott," "The Deserted
House," and " yEnone "; and as a lyrical poet Holmes has
written many exquisite songs and no bad ones, rfis power of
expression is always equal to the thought to be expressed.
What could be more tender than the lovely lines " Under the
Violets " ?
" For her the morning choir shall sing
Its matins from the branches high ;
And every minstrel voice of Spring,
That trills beneath the April sky,
Shall greet her with its earliest cry.
BIRTH-PLACE OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
" When turning round their dial-track
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
Her little mourners clad in black,
The crickets, sliding through the grass,
Shall pipe for her an evening mass."
Or that hymn of faith and trust, " O Love Divine, that stooped
to share," or " Homesick in Heaven," or that most perfect of
its kind, " The Chambered Nautilus," and the sweet, strong song
of his old age, " The Iron Gate."
524 TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL. [Jan.,
"Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers;
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers
That warm its creeping life-blood to the last."
In this same poem he says :
"If word of mine another's gloom has brightened,
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came ;
If hand of mine another's task has lightened,
It felt the guidance that it dare not claim."
This, the sunny nature that " never deemed it sin to gladden
this vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh." Tennyson sel-
dom if ever adopts this familiar tone ; once he says : " What-
ever I have said or sung, some bitter notes my harp would
give," but as a general thing remains aloof "in his magic clime,"
mystic, silent, and scornful of the public desire to read the
man's heart through the poet's lines. Holmes's silver-stringed
harp never gave out a bitter note. He was filled with unswerv-
ing optimism, and with his brother poet never " soiled with ig-
noble use" the name of poetry.
Sometimes in the unfairness of popularity Holmes is quoted
as merely a humorous poet, or the " Chambered Nautilus " is
mentioned as his one departure from the lighter vein. True, to
write good comic verse is a difficult thing. To save pleasantry
from buffoonery requires the highest art. A jest or a sharp
saying he finds it easy to turn into rhyme, and he enjoys the
rare distinction of blending ludicrous ideas with fancy and im-
agination, displaying in their conception and expression the
same poetic qualities usually exercised in serious composition.
No one, not even Hood, excels Holmes in this difficult branch
of the art. His light glancing irony and sarcasm are the
more effective from the sunshine of his benevolent sympathies.
He wonders, hopes, wishes, titters, and cries with his victims.
He kills with a slight stab, and proceeds on his way as if " noth-
ing in particular" had happened. He translates the conceited
smirk of the coxcomb, the inanities of the brainless, the vacant
look and trite talk of the bore, into felicitous words. The move-
ment of his wit is so swift that its presence is unknown till it
strikes. And in all this never being uncharitable ; with a sur-
geon's knife he cut away numerous foibles dear to society's
heart, and his influence was highly civilizing.
But, added to this rare gift, Holmes is also a poet of senti-
ment and passion. "Old Ironsides," "The Steamboat" which
I895-]
TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL.
525
is Wordsworthian in its poetic treatment of an unpoetic subject
" The Bells," " The Secret of the Stars," " The Mother's Se-
cret," and numerous passages of " Poetry " and " Wind-clouds
and Star-drifts," display a lyrical fire and inspiration equal to
some of the best lyrics of Tennyson. Those who knew him
only as a comic poet are surprised at the clear sweetness and
skylark trill of his serious and sentimental compositions.
Tennyson had a subtle mind of keen, passionless vision. His
poetry is characterized by intellectual intensity as distinguished
526
TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL.
[Jan.,
from intensity of feeling. Its pure philosophy demands for it,
and repays, profound criticism. As for Holmes's work, a spirit
of affectionate partisanship forbids much or adverse criticism on
his writings. He belongs to that class of authors who manifest
so much purity and sweetness of disposition that our admiration
for their talents is merged into love for their quality of heart.
Wherever they find a reader, they find a friend. Longfellow,
Holmes, and Whittier are pre-eminently of this class ; Milton,
Tennyson, and Emerson were outside it.
Tennyson's imagination brooded over the spiritual and mys-
tical elements in his own being with the most concentrated
power. He, even when depicting rural scenery in which none
could excel him was never spontaneous. Holmes was particu-
larly so, as his numerous, apt, and beautiful poems for special
occasions show.
Added to his spontaneity, vivid imagination, playful fancy,
and love of the beautiful, Holmes had in abundance that rare
quality that the theologians call prudence, or counsel, or judg-
ment, and what ordinary people call " common sense." We
would not be surprised to miss it in the poetic nature, but
finding it in com-
bination with the
higher faculties, we
are the more grate-
ful for the rarity.
s There must have
been a dash of
this saving element
in Tennyson also ;
for he, too, not
only achieved fame,
but amassed a large
fortune.
Both poets piled
correction on cor-
rection, revision on
revision, until their
work was as per-
fect as labor could
make it. Indeed,
Tennyson never al-
lowed a second edi-
tion to be exactly like his first. His constant revision, as
STAIRWAY IN THE OLD HOMESTEAD.
1895-] TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL. 527
that of Holmes, might be described in the laureate's own
words :
" Laborious orient sphere in sphere."
As in the eastern toy, ornate in design, rich in imagery, word
fits into line, line into stanza, stanza into lyric, as the ivory
spheres fit with marvellous precision into each other. With
Holmes the spheres were pure ivory, indeed ; but they lacked
the wealth of carving seen in Tennyson's.
As an instance of Tennyson's submission to the critic's dic-
tum, and his own passion for revising, we give these lines from
the first edition of the "Miller's Daughter":
" ('Twas April then) I came and lay
Beneath those gummy chestnut-buds,
That glistened in the April blue."
Now, chestnut-buds are gummy, and they do glisten "in the
April blue " ; but the over-fastidious " Scorpion " (Lockhart)
maintained that " gummy " was particularly unpoetical, and in
the next edition the lines read :
"('Twas April then) I came and sat
Below the chestnuts, when their buds
Were glistening to the breezy blue."
Strange to say Dr. Holmes uses exactly the same expression
in his exquisite poem on "Spring":
" On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves " ;
and we cannot find fault with it because of its very poetical
association. The buds are shrouds and the hidden leaves will
emerge, as some day our bodies will leave the grave.
This is not the only time both poets have touched the same
theme. Of course poets will sing of spring as long as that
sweet miracle recurs. Here are Tennyson's lines:
" Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue ;
And down in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song."
There is the picture, all color and light. Here is Holmes's :
528
TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL.
[Jan.,
" Then bursts the song from every leafy glade,
The yielding season's bridal serenade ;
Then flash the wings returning Summer calls
Through the deep arches of her forest halls :
The bluebird breathing from his azure plumes
The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms ;
The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down,
Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown ;
The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire,
Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire."
Is nbVthe one all art, the other all nature?
But, iilomparison as a mode of criticism is fruitful of naught
but disappointment.
The ^relationship of poets goes farther than the surface ;
theirs is,, a spiritual affinity, and the countless influences that
DR. HOLMES AT SEVENTY-FIVE.
have moulded two minds, a world apart, are not more diverse
than their products.
Tennyson was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge the
same hallowed walls that saw the youthful Milton a student.
He lived apart from his fellow-students absorbed in the great
minds of Greece and Rome, and with literature as his one love,
I895-]
TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL.
529
devoted himself exclusively to the classics and made himself so
one with them that his poetry bears upon its face the marks' in
simple grandeur of the poet's deep learning. Holmes's early
education was obtained, first at a village " academy," afterwards
at Harvard, a stripling college compared with its elder brother
As LAUREATE.
in the "right little, tight little isle." The result is obvious; the
one is always deep, " a ponderous weight of learning " sometimes,
the other seldom so, but when he is surprises us into new ad-
miration for the versatility of the genius that within a period
of four-score years produced forty-two books on medicine, two
biographies, innumerable lectures, essays, poems for special oc-
casions, and created for himself a new departure in the world
VOL. LX. 34
53O TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL. t [Jan.,
of letters, the " Autocrat " papers. Edward Everett Hale says
of him that he left college " prepared to learn." He became a
learned man ; but it was more on a scientific than classical
line. By expressing the life, feelings, and ideals of his own times
he bettered his chance of commending himself to after-times.
His muse could not depict the passion-rocked JEnonc making
the hills echo and re-echo her mournful lament ; but beautiful
as is the latter it appeals to the aesthetical sense chiefly, and is
for that reason restricted. There is a certain lack of sincerity,
despite their artistic beauty, in such foreign and antique ex-
ploits, and lack of sincerity is lack of truth.
Stedman says of Tennyson that of all English poets since
Spenser, he and Keats are most given to picture-making, to the
craft that is artistic, picturesque; but that sometimes his words
are too laboriously and exquisitely chosen. He occupied him-
self very closely with the technique of verse, its rhythm, diction,
and metrical effects, with the result of producing some marvel-
lous word-paintings.
Aristotle defines poetry as a structure whose office is imi-
tation through imagery, and its end delight, the latter caused
by workmanship, harmony, and rhythm. " Horace," says Sted-
man, "among his class none more enduring, excludes himself
from the title of true poet by the very attributes that make
him modern his lyrical grace and personality."
Then, too, our dear Holmes must bear him company in that
great outside circle that lies around the smaller, inner one, for
his writings are almost autobiographical. Measured by the ex-
treme canons of art, Holmes is not the poet Tennyson was ; but
he was 1 the poet of our own times, he sang of things we knew and
loved, and we cannot but read and love him on whatever step
of Fame's throne he rests. And what more does poet want?
Poets have been finely called the "unacknowledged legisla-
tors of the world," for the passionate or persuasive utterance
of great thoughts brings them home to the affections, and they
imperceptibly mould the minds of those by whom they are per-
ceived. The real elements in the life of any people, the most
interesting and valuable portions of their history, constitute their
poetry. When Sir Philip Sidney gave away that drink of water,
he was giving to the world true poetry. When Dr. Holmes
lectured year after year to the students of the Boston Clinic on
the wonderful and beautiful intricacies of the human body, he
was contributing poetry to the world no less lasting than the
spirited lines that saved the Constitution. " The Living Temple,"
TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL. 531
breathing as it does the strains of pure poetry, might be used
as a text-book.
If their methods are diverse, their aim being the same, their
personalities, both striking, are diametrically opposite.
William Howitt, in an article on Tennyson, speaking of the
poet himself, says: "You may hear his voice, but where is the
man ? He is wandering in dreamland, beneath the shade of old
and charmed trees, by far-off shores, where
" ' . . . All night
The plunging waves draw backward from the land
Their moonlit waters white ' ;
by the old mill-dam, thinking of the miller's pretty daughter, or
wandering over the open fields. From all these places, from
TENNYSON IN HIS LIBRARY.
the silent corridors of an old convent, from some shrine where
a devoted knight recites his vows, from the drear monotony of
the ' moated grange,' or the forest beneath the ' talking oak '
comes the voice of Tennyson, rich, dreamy, passionate, musical
with the airs of chivalrous ages, yet mingling in his song the
theme and spirit of those yet to come."
When we ask of Holmes, Where is the man ? his kindly
532 TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL. [Jan.
eyes smile into ours and we find him near unto us. All the
world, too, heard and loved his clear, sweet tones ; but he hid
not in dim forests and " moated granges." In the bustle and
whirl of the " Hub of the universe " men met and talked with
him every day ; students sat under him day by day in the lec-
ture-room ; patients were ministered to by him in his own joy-
ous, sunny way ; and though lacking in the mysticism surround-
ing his brother poet, he was none the less loved because he was
the better known. His was a most delightful disposition. A
long ancestry noted for their perfect health and spirits forbade
their descendant to live in the " purple twilight," even though
the poetic temperament seems best to thrive in the soft gloom.
Nothing happened in public or private life in which he was not
keenly interested. The titles of his occasional poems are a sort
of calendar of what is going on in the world around him. The
very plan of his chief work, the " Autocrat " papers, supposed
and established a close confidence between him and the reader.
He, more even than most men, liked the sympathy of his au-
dience, and he made large use of the colloquial style a most
dangerous by-path to one less than a genius to secure the con-
fidence he craved. The result justified his faith in his fellow-
men, and firmly manifested the solidarity of his fame.
Both men had in plenty a sort of harmless vanity, never de-
generating into conceit. In Holmes, the great desire for. admira-
tion that he had arose from his wish to be at one with his
fellow-men ; in Tennyson conservatism was at the root of
vanity. Holmes's unflinching, unvarying kindness to young
people, particularly literary aspirants, was inexhaustible. His
joyous manner, like sunshine, put every one in his company at
his ease. Tennyson's manner had always a touch of asperity in
it. All his life Holmes was young young of heart and fresh
in mind, mellowed by books and reading and .converse with
life ; and under all the fascinating surface lay the deep basis of
sound scientific learning.
Tennyson was always " Tennyson," and later carried some-
what stiltedly the title, Alfred, Lord Tennyson ; but Holmes, the
genial, the kindly, the ever-gentle, was the "Autocrat," by his
own sweet personality taking from the word any repellent shade
of meaning. After reading his two beautiful allusions to Our
Lady in his " Mother's Secret," and the lines beginning " Four
gospels tell their story to mankind " in " Wind-clouds and Star-
drifts," we as Catholics have a still warmer regard for him, and
again in " Over the Teacups " he says : " So far as I have ob-
DR. HOLMES AS AN OCTOGENARIAN.
534 TENNYSON AND HOLMES: A PARALLEL. [Jan.
served persons nearing the end of life, the Roman Catholics
understand the business of dying better than Protestants.
They have an expert by them, armed with spiritual specifics,
in which they both, priestly ministrant and patient, place
implicit trust. Confession, the Eucharist, Extreme Unction,
these all inspire a confidence. ... I have seen a good many
Roman Catholics on their dying beds, and it always appeared
to me that they accepted the inevitable with a composure
which showed that their belief, whether or not the best to live
by, was a better one to die by than most of the harder creeds."
In 1886 the two poets met for the first and only time at
Farringford, Tennyson's country seat, where both could enjoy
what was a common taste, a love for trees. Tennyson had
read Holmes's three great books, and valued them among the
best writings of their sort in our time. Six years later one of
them had " met his Pilot face to face," the other following him
" across the bar " two years afterwards. On the whole their
two lives were touched but gently by the passing years. They
enjoyed the blessings of this world, honor, wealth, fame, and
longevity to an unusual degree ; and who shall say, but that the
world on this side of the Atlantic and that on the other were
not enriched by the two lives that ran so long side by side,
with an ocean between ?
It is given to few men to leave the world at eighty-five and
have so little ill said of them as Dr. Holmes. There was not a
single unpleasant note in any obituary, editorial, or anecdote
in the press of this country or of England. The English press
compared him favorably with James Russell Lowell, who was
the best beloved of any American, which was natural consider-
ing Lowell's constant and sometimes obtrusive laudation of all
that is English ; but Holmes never was anything but purely
American, with a strong predilection for the special little
corner of it called Boston. He was always ready to make the
best of life and its surroundings ; and no man was more ready
to see the best in another's writings.
Long, long will we remember him, the man nature cast in
such tender mould, not as a physician, nor a critic, but as a
singer of unvarying sweetness whose songs well up from a heart
so pure that sorrow could not injure it, nor experience em-
bitter.
THE GREAT RULING POWERS OF THE OLD WORLD.
READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE?
BY S. MILLINGTON MILLER, M.D.
E n'aime pas la guerre ; non, je ne I'aime plus : je
Fai fait trop souvent" So spoke the gallant,
debonair Skobeleff, darling of the armies, hero of
Plevna, at one time the talk of all Russia. But in
spite of Veretschagen's pictures, and Skobeleff's
confession, and Jules Simon's passionate plea for " disarma-
ment," and the loud " Halt ! " echoing over two continents,
the nations still prepare for war ; still sharpen the sword with
the taxes on agriculture, traffic, science, and art. Since the
annihilation of the Spanish Armada in 1588 England has
grown more and more secure from .the alarms of invasion. Her
policy of foreign, colonial and imperial aggrandizement may be
said to date from the latter part of the reign of James I. It
536 READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? [Jan,
was this monarch who made the first deliberate efforts to
colonize America in 1606 and 1607, when permanent settlements
were made on the James River in Virginia.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, 1746, Robert Clive
laid the foundation of her Indian Empire. At the opening of
the nineteenth century she took possession of an enormous
territory, then known as New South Wales, which has lately
been designated by the name of Australasia. This possession
began as a penal settlement and ended as an empire. Since
that period Burmah has been conquered, annexed and ruled as
a province of India by a council of state and a viceroy. The
deposition of the Tsawbwa of Wunthro in 1891 and its occupa-
tion by the English " nutted " the rivet of possession. Various
large additions of African territory have also been made
(Central, South and East Africa, Cape Colony, and Niger Land),
including also the imperial control or " overlordship " of Egypt.
At the present day England bears rule over more than one-
third of the whole surface of the earth, and governs one-quarter
of its entire population. Her possessions abroad are sixty
times as large in area as the parent state. She owns three and
one-half millions of square miles in North America, one million
in Asia, one million in Africa, and two and one-half millions in
Australasia. She has thirty-eight separate colonies, varying in
size from Gibraltar to Canada. Originally these dependent
states were all governed in London, but of recent years the idea
that they only existed for her benefit has been " veiled," and
self-government by a self-elected parliament has been permitted.
In each case, however, supreme authority is vested in a gov-
ernor, or viceroy, appointed by the crown.
India was originally ruled indirectly through the lay figure
of some native nizam or nawab, a glittering dummy, but
authority now rests with an English viceroy and a resident
council of state. Egypt at present occupies about the same
relation to England as did India in the era of Clive and
Hastings. That is to say, that while the authority of Lord
Cromer, the English resident, is absolute and paramount, it is
exercised through the intervention of a native ruler, or khedive.
To reiterate, this khedive is practically only a puppet in the
hands of Lord Cromer.
Of all her possessions or imperial dependencies, Egypt and
India stand in most intimate relations with the entourage of
Downing Street. Her virtual possession of Egypt gives England
the practical control of the Suez Canal twenty million odd
1 895.] READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? 537
dollars worth of whose capital indebtedness she bought from
Ismail Pasha, and now holds as a national investment. This
canal has become a very carotid artery to the welfare of her
Indian Empire. All her commerce with the Orient prefers this
route, and through it would sail her battle-ships, carrying her
armies, in case of attack upon her Eastern dependencies.
THE RUSSIAN FLAG-SHIP THE "ADMIRAL SENIAVIN."
Turkey, although nominally an independent empire, is so
much swayed by English diplomatic influence as to be practi-
cally in the position of a vassal state. It is a case of mind
England, or be wiped out by Russia. Not only are the govern-
ments of Canada, Australasia, and of her South African colo-
538 READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? [Jan.,
nies less intimate with the home office, but, furthermore, the
vital importance, from a strategic stand-point, of India, Turkey,
and Egypt renders the other possessions mere quantites negli-
geables for purposes of present consideration.
To protect these colonial or imperial possessions, England
maintains a large, powerful, and admirably equipped navy, and
owns and holds by her well-nigh impregnable fortifications and
garrisons such marine depots and coaling stations as Malta,
Gibraltar, Bermuda, Hong-Kong, and Ceylon. The army of
England on a footing of active war does not exceed 30x3,000
men, with about an equal number of volunteers.
Peter the Great lifted Russia bodily into the company of
European nations occidentalizing his hitherto Oriental subjects.
By his will St. Petersburg arose like an exhalation on the
marshes of the Neva in the space of five months, and through
the corvee of three hundred thousand men. He turned an in-
land into a maritime nation by another fiat of volitions, and
founded naval depots on the Baltic and on the Black Sea.
When Peter died his territories included five million square
miles of the earth's surface. Since his day Catherine II., Nicho-
las I., and Alexander II. and III. have, by diplomacy or con-
quest, nearly doubled the size of the empire. From his throne
in St. Petersburg the tsar holds sway over nine million square
miles of territory, and rules the one hundred and twenty million-
inhabitants thereof. This territory extends from the northern-
most frozen fields of Siberia to the confines of China, India,
Persia, and the Black Sea ; while its extent from east to west
is virtually from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
The very opposite condition of affairs obtains here from that
present in England, both socially and territorially. In the one
ease the territory is widely diffuse, in the other absolutely com-
pact. On one side exists the widest possible personal liberty of
belief and opinion, on the other an enforced absence of both.
Russia is an orthodox aristocracy one church to whom all must
belong, and one tsar whose authority is absolute and final. Eng-
land is nothing less than a liberal parliamentary government.
In Russia I find a vast, semi-barbaric power ; governed by one
will ; animated by one desire ; pushing its way by a sort of
blind instinct towards the rich and fertile south. Any concerted
action on the part of the European powers to check this ad-
vance of Russia, for good or for evil, is now utterly out of the
question. The same causes that have called Russia into exis-
tence will keep her fabric together for more than a little eter-
1 895.] READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? 539
nity of epochs. The great mass of the inhabitants, more than
half Oriental in their instincts, share the innate conservatism of
the Eastern world, its hatred of change, its passive acquiescence
in all established authority. Russia has no trade of any conse-
THE RUSSIAN IRON-CLAD "ADMIRAL NACHIMOFF."
quence except within herself. She has no manufacturing inter-
ests to nourish. She is absolutely self-supporting. Her lack of
the higher civilization, and her dearth of the finer organization,
are plus and not minus qualities in the event of war. While
540 READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? [Jan.,
other political bodies are combining and separating, kaleido-
scopically, she is par excellence always the same.
Nine times since the beginning of the eighteenth century has
Russia attacked Turkey. The result of these attacks has been
to disintegrate the Ottoman power in Europe. Some of its ter-
ritory she has herself acquired, some she has indirectly parcelled
out and established as independent states.
A prophecy of extreme antiquity foretells the final supre-
macy of Russia on the Bosphorus. Eight centuries ago this
prophecy might be read on an equestrian statue then very old,
which had been brought to Constantinople from Antioch. The
Turks themselves look forward to the same consummation. This
feeling of indicible ownership is instinctive. Emperors like
Nicholas I. and Alexander II. have declared themselves as per-
sonally opposed to the annexation of Turkey, but as unable to
resist the popular bent, which was that of a furious mountain
torrent in its downward course. Edward Dicey speaks of this
southward tendency as equalling the inevitableness of the break-
ing of its shell by the chick. That Russia did not conquer
Turkey in 1829 and 1876 was solely due to the interference of
England. And this in spite of the combined protests of all her
most enlightened philosophers of history.
France has had a checkered career during the past century ;
and, while gaining much at times, has, with one exceptioa her
African possessions lost not only what she has gained, but also
suffered deprivation in the Franco-German war of a fat slice of
her own territory. Under Napoleon Bonaparte she invaded and
conquered Russia. But fire and famine, and frost and snow,
turned the balance irretrievably against her. The disastrous re-
treat from Moscow is supposed by many to have thrown the
empire of the world into the hands of Russia.
Dupleix and Labourdonnais exercised imperial sway in In-
dia previous to the arrival and operations of Clive. But this
able proconsul extracted the rich and coveted territory from
their grasp. Jacques Cartier and Champlain preceded the
colonists of James I. in North America, but the death of Wolfe
and his simultaneous victory over Montcalm on the Plains of
Abraham handed over the reins of empire to England in
America too.
Napoleon conquered Egypt- and introduced French com-
merce, literature, science, and art Champollion and the splen-
did array of his compeers and successors. But Nelson's victory
in the Bay of Aboukir eventually drove the great Corsican back
1895-] READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? 541
to France. And that pre-eminent French influence and prestige
which marked the reign of Mehemet Ali, and of succeeding
pashas and khedives, was lost when the French admiral de-
clined to assist in the bombardment of Alexandria, and sailed
out of the roads leaving the burden of battle with the general
of the English fleet. Since then there has been a veiled pro-
tectorate and not a dual control in Egypt. It does really look
as if that signal coup de thtdtre of Gladstone's premiership
actually interfered with the grinding of the mills of God.
But, as an offset to all these losses, which would form the
matter for a very interesting article on " French chefs and
English appetites," France laid the foundation in 1827, with the
overthrow of the Barbary corsairs and the conquest of Algiers,
for what seems destined to be a permanent and mighty African
Empire. In 1881 Tunis was also acquired. These were her
victories under that stately line of mare'chals Pelissier, Bugeaud,
Canrobert, and MacMahon.
There has been no question raised by any impartial author-
ity of the general beneficence of French control in these coun-
tries. Plissier's smoking to death of the survivors of an Arab
tribe in a cave is indeed a blot on the scutcheon. The Algerian
imports have been increased from $[,400,000 to $25,000,000.
Roads and bridges have been constructed. Five hundred miles
of railroad have been built. Light-houses have been erected and
harbors improved. A French engineer has surveyed a trans-
Saharan railway, the track of which already extends through
the pass of Kantara to Biskra, the African Nice. The surveyed
route is across the great desert from oasis to oasis, until the
southern shore of the sand is reached, when the trunk line
divides, one branch running south-west to the bend of the Niger
above Timbuctoo, and the other south-east to Lake Tchad.
What a sound to reverberate over the dunes of the great sand
sea and reach and rouse all lands will be the call of the con-
ductor of the first train at the junction "All out for Timbuc-
too ! "
Of late years French influence, pouring southward out of the
Kantara Pass, has, like a deep stream which finds exit from a
narrow, rocky bed, spread over the whole of Northern Africa,
Egypt, Morocco (which is already largely under French diplo-
matic surveillance), and the valley of the Nile. In defiance of
the " Hinterland " theory, France has surrounded the British
and other colonies on the west coast of Africa, thereby throt-
tling their trade with the interior. The Gambia is dead. Other
542 READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? [Jan.,
British colonies are all but moribund. Between Algeria and
Senegambia, and between the latter and Lake Tchad, all is
French, even the rocky plateau of the Sahara. The French
colony on the Congo is extending towards the Soudan, behind
the German Shere (hence the term " Hinterland," as interpreted
at Paris). France has lately acquired full control in Siam and
ANOTHER PAW OF THE RUSSIAN BEAR THE "DVENADZAT APOSTOLOFF."
in Madagascar (although the Hovas seem to still seriously ob-
ject), and her diplomatic influence is rife in Morocco, Egypt,
Abyssinia, and the Soudan itself.
Italy, Germany, and Austria, as is well known, form to-
gether the " Triple Alliance." Of these three, Germany, with
her immense "emergency money," $150,000,000, deposited in
the tower of Spandau, and other convertible funds of even
i 895.] READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? 543
greater amount, is the only one of the three adequately sup-
plied with the sinews of war.
France and Russia have combined under a dual alliance.
The armies of these two continental powers amount together to
six million men on a war footing just about ten times the
size of the forces of Great Britain. The navy of the latter is,
however, equal in size and effectiveness to the combined navies
of France and Russia. There is no imminent casus belli be-
tween the triple and dual alliances, except France's " open
sore," and she will subordinate this to profounder schemes.
Besides her offensive and defensive alliance with France,
Russia has recently inaugurated and solidified very favorable
commercial relations with Germany. This commercial entente
tordiale, particularly when taken in connection with the German
tendencies of the tsar, would indicate a certain possible weaken-
ing of Germany's hostility to Russia, or to a Russo-French
alliance in case of war.
The inter-relations of France, Russia, and England in the
past century have been remarkable, to say the least. In 1798 the
English under Nelson defeated the French fleet in the Bay of
Aboukir. In 1807 Napoleon bivouacked in the deserted palaces
of Moscow. In 1827 the combined English, French, and Rus-
sian fleets annihilated the Turkish squadron at Navarino. In
1833 Turkey made the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi as a protection
against French ascendency in her vassalage of Egypt. In 1854
France and England united their armies against Russia in the
Crimea.
Since 1829, when Nicholas I. and his one hundred and fifty
thousand Russians were " hindered," almost within sight of Con-
stantinople, England's hereditary policy has been the mainte-
nance of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. The avowed ob-
ject of this has been that ogre, " the balance of power in Eu-
rope." Sir Henry Elliot, in a letter written to Lord Derby from
Stamboul in 1876, says: "We have been upholding what we
know to be a semi-civilized nation, liable under certain circum-
stances to be carried into fearful excesses, but the fact of this
having just now been strikingly brought home to us (by the
Bulgarian horrors) cannot be a sufficient reason for abandoning
a policy which is the only one that can be followed with due
regard to our own interests."
The dynasty of the Ottoman Turks has been supported at
Constantinople by England. It has been a constant menace and
scourge to humanity. Edward Freeman, the great English his-
544 READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? [Jan.,
torian, has bruited this inhuman attitude of England so unspar-
ingly and so incessantly that no policy which was not stubborn-
ly intent upon the very thing denounced would dare live on.
The Sultan of Turkey receives about $3,500,000 annually
from Egypt. In plain words, England takes this amount out of
the pockets of 5,500,000 fellaheen in Egypt and gives it to Ab-
dul Hamid for the exigencies of his harem. Turkey is thus
1 895.] READY TO STRIKE BUT WHEN AND WHERE? 545
supported as a "buffer" state, but at no expense to England.
In the same way Abdur Rahman Khan, the Amir of Afghan-
istan, receives $900000 annually out of the Indian treasury, that
he may be relied upon as a " buffer " between the Russian outposts
on the upper sources of the Oxus (in the Pamirs) and the most
northern frontiers of British India. In the past fifty years Eng-
land has alternately fondled and fought the Afghan amirs
Dost Mahomet, Shir AH, Yakub, et al.
Another paw of the Russian bear is planted, Ignatieff wise,
at Vladivostock. What the " bolted " or the " buffer " state
there will be depends largely upon the outcome of the Corean
war.
The Eastern question to-day can be readily put in a nutshell.
Russia and France are closely united ; Russia and Germany are
friendly ; Russia must have Turkey, hankers after India, would
not object to Corea. France is determined upon the reposses-
sion of Egypt.
England is safe from attack in her island home, but is ter-
ribly open to blows aimed at her imperial dependencies. France
can strike her in Egypt, from her African Empire with its foun-
dation in Tunis and Algiers. France can threaten her Indian
Empire from Siam. If Egypt be recovered by France, she can
not only close the Suez Canal to England, but interfere (from
her station in Madagascar) with the passage of English vessels
north-eastward from the Cape of Good Hope. Russia hovers on
the outskirts of Constantinople, India, and Corea.
If some power were to strike at England herself there might
be a terrible collapse among the foundations of her colonial
scaffolding.
Late advices from England which depict the new tsar as
already shaped to play the fly to Queen Victoria's spider must
be accepted cum grano salts. This is not the first time that
mistakes have been made in forecasting the horoscopes of kings.
The shy poetaster and voluptuary of Potsdam, who divided his
time between laying out flower beds and composing mediocre
French verse, became in a flash the greatest captain and the
most absolute despot of Europe Frederick the Great.
This article must not be mistaken for a suggestion of Alarm-
ism. It merely illustrates Opportunism.
VOL. LX. 35
546 THE MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. [Jan.,
THE MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS.
BY REV. WALTER ELLIOTT.
MISSION AT MARVIN.
HE problem here was how to keep the Catholics
away from the meetings. The tonw has over
twelve thousand inhabitants, with two flourishing
Catholic congregations, a zealous clergy and ac-
tive-minded laity. The Opera House is a large
hall, seating twelve hundred, so we undertook to " corral "
the non-Catholics in the parquet, which our ushers reserved for
them as the best place for hearing and seeing. But the plan
was not wholly a success. Many Catholics tried to get in there
and some succeeded, and the result was that the non- Catholics
got what they could in all parts of the house and were secured
the bigger share of the parquet. If we had had three thousand
sittings we could have filled them some nights. We are sorry
to learn that many Protestants were unable to get in at all
each night after the opening. Let somebody with a genius for
getting rid of a surplus study and solve the problem.
The mission was managed by the pastor of the German con-
gregation, who, with his brother, has known how to achieve a
splendid success in the difficult undertaking of holding on to
the new generation without losing the old. It was President
Lincoln who first gave currency to the saying, " Don't swap
horses while crossing a stream." But what will you say to the
dire necessity of swapping languages while crossing the stream
of passionate race sentiment ? It must be done, nevertheless,
and it is being done in some places in a way to excite the
admiration of all who closely observe the processes of divine
grace in a faithful clergy and people. I have lived with many
secular priests and have known familiarly many congregations,
but I have seldom known the equal of this parish and its two
devout and enlightened priests for serving God as he should be
served, both by individual sanctification and general edification.
St. Joseph's choir was a feature of our meetings a large Ce-
cilian choir, perfectly trained, and executing with facility and
exquisite taste most beautiful selections three times each even-
1 895.] THE MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. 547
ing. Such fine singing makes good speaking. It tones one up
to "concert pitch "thus to hear religious sentiments proclaimed
in enrapturing harmonies. When one of the missionaries rose
to address the audience his soul was so resonant of melody
that his words came from his choicest vocabulary, and were ut-
tered in whatever sweetness of rhythm and cadence his vocal
organs were capable of.
" Don't talk to me about Catholics any more," said a good
old Protestant lady to her Catholic neighbor. " I was at that
meeting last night, and the priest said that no Catholic over
seven years old is allowed to read the Bible." " Did you hear
him say that ? " was asked. " No, but I was told it by another
lady who did hear him." " Who is she, for the land's sake ? I
was there, and heard just the contrary who told you that, any-
way ? " " Well, I'm not allowed to tell who she is but she
certainly told me, and I believe it, too." Such stupidity annoys
Catholics, but it also annoys sensible Protestants and helps
them to appreciate just what sort of a thing prejudice is.
Most of our Protestants, however, here as elsewhere, were of
the more thoughtful class. Many came early and waited an
hour in" the hall so as to be sure of good places, paying the
strictest attention, critical, we cannot doubt, but not without
fairness. We had a minister in the audience at two or three of
the meetings, but as a rule they ignored us. There is a large
theological seminary of the German Reformed Church here, but
we were unable to attract more than a very few of the stu-
dents. The institution belongs to the section of that denomi-
nation which has finally dropped the German language in pub-
lic services and preaching, and are connected with the Mercers-
burg Seminary in Pennsylvania.
Among our audience each evening we noticed one of the
leading men of the city, president of a bank. He stopped the
pastor in the street one day and assured him that the lectures
were timely, and were beneficial to the people. " They will do
much good ; they will show Protestants just what Catholics
believe." He is an indication of a more genial religious atmos-
phere than what we found north and east of here, in the old
Western Reserve. That is a section in which bigotry survives
in pristine vehemence. But so does religious earnestness, even
among those who are tending towards rationalism. The main
thing we hope for is fondness for religious discussion, for that
is seldom dissociated from sincerity of character ; and I am
548 THE MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. [Jan.,
persuaded that Catholicity will win its way into the disputa-
tious minds of the New England race for that is the Reserve
population if we can manage to present it in accordance with
their natural mental tendencies.
We had a fruitful query box here, and therefore we man-
aged, as usual in that case, to bring in the entire scheme of
the Catholic faith and practice by way of answering the ques-
tions. I was not conscious of anything insulting, or specially
indelicate in any of them ; yet I was stopped on the sidewalk
one morning by the following salutation from an ordinary look-
ing citizen : " Brother, I am sorry for that question. I am a
Protestant, but I have enjoyed your lectures greatly ; and when
that question about nunneries came up last night I felt ashamed
of myself, and I sympathized with you." The question he
meant must have been one asking why there were certain rooms
in every nunnery which no one was allowed to enter. In
answer I said there was no such room in any nunnery, unless
it might be a garret or a lumber-room, and I added that the
questioner should not harbor suspicions about his neighbors.
Two days after we had closed a bright Catholic girl, who
writes in the street-car office, came to the pastor for some
more leaflets. Said she: " They used to attack me and argue
with me about religion, but now they let me alone and argue
among themselves." A prominent Protestant remarked to the
pastor that it would be of no use to bring ex-priests to the
town after this " Father Elliott has set at rest all the points
they used to urge against Catholics." It remains to be seen
whether this will be the case. The ministers here, and there
are not a ftw of them, including professors in the seminary,
gave us very little attention* though when any ex-priest has
vomited his blasphemies and his slanders they attended conspicu-
ously. Ministers are certainly not all mean men, but courage
and fairness and consistency must not be counted on in dealing
with them. The financial necessities of their existence make
them men-pleasers, in the meaning of the Apostle : " If I
please men, then am I no longer a servant of Christ."
I wish that I could give something novel from the questions,
but they range very generally over the same ground so plenti-
fully treated of in former articles. The first night I got from
one questioner a round dozen of double texts from different
parts of Scripture, the numbers of chapter and verse only
being given, with a request for harmonization. I declined, on
the ground of want of time to look up all the matter. Next
1895-] THE MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. 549
night a portion of the texts were found in the box written out
for me. But they were about curious and recondite matters,
and I objected to discuss them for that reason, and also because
they did not touch our differences with Protestants or infidels.
God's foreknowledge and permission of evil came up, being
vigorously put and often returned to. I afterwards learned that
the questioner is a young infidel lawyer of the town. I spent a
good deal of time in dealing with his difficulties, not only be-
cause of the intrinsic importance of the questions, but also be-
cause our energetic affirmation and proof of God's goodness,
man's liberty, and the real guilt of sin is high recommendation
for us with the Protestant public. It must have been the same
questioner who handed this in : " If a man is a good citizen,
honest and moral, but believes wholly and only in the unity of
God, why could he not become a member of the Catholic
Church?" Answer. Because the Catholic Church has all the
truth to teach which Christ revealed, and that is far more than
the unity of God. Natural religion knows that much without
the aid of revelation. God has appointed the visible society
called the Catholic Church to teach the Unity of God in the
Trinity of persons, the Incarnation of the deity, the redemption
of man by Christ's death, the Grace of God, or supernatural
love of God for man, the ways and methods of securing that
grace and thereby saving our souls, and many other truths, all
necessary to be known either for salvation or because God has
revealed them ; among them being the origin and constitution
of the church itself.
To the following I answered that I didn't quite see what
the questioner wanted to know. I give it as a specimen of
mental confusion often revealed by the query box. It was pro-
perly spelled and type-written :
" If trials or temptations, seemingly, chain the heart, the Bible
whispers its consolation ' Whomsoever the Lord loveth he
chastiseth.' Again, if those trials are apparently the result of
the heart yielding to silent influence, the Catholic is heard to
say, ' You are reaping the harvest of your ambitions ' ; in other
words, God is displeased with your deeds ; hence the trials. If
he loveth, he chastiseth you ; if you wrong him, he will punish
you ; the logic of this I don't understand. Kindly answer."
Question. " If God rules heaven, and Satan rules hell, who,
then, is the ruler of purgatory or the middle state, as you re-
presented it in your lecture Wednesday eve?"
In answering this I said that God ruled everywhere, by his
550 THE MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. [Jan.,
love in heaven and purgatory, and by his justice in hell. But
the questioner was by no means satisfied with my answer,
seeming to think that a middle state of souls must have a
middle ruler, and so handed in the following : " Answer by
' Yes ' or ' No ' ; not being satisfied with your answer last
night : Is there a ruler in purgatory ? if so, what is he called ? "
The following seemed to be the plaintive wail of a good
Catholic with a houseful of children and nothing in the bank:
" Can you explain why apostate Catholics in a majority of cases
are successful in their financial undertakings, and in almost
everything else they undertake? Everything seems to come
their way; while so many good and sincere Catholics who do
their religious duty, and are in their hearts good Christians,
have nothing but trials, tribulations, and financial reverses ;
nothing seems to come their way but many children.
" Respectfully submitted."
Question. " Would a priest marry a couple if the contracted
parties were Protestants? By an interested listener."
I judged this to be the outcome of a consultation as to who
should officiate at the " interested listener's " approaching
nuptials.
If the printer will reproduce the spelling of this question he
will assist in exhibiting a specimen of private interpretation of
Scripture :
"The Bible Says heven and earth shal pas A way but my
wordes shal never pass A way
" wher will those spirtes go to that are in heaven when
hevenes passes away "
The following is a sort of puzzle question: "If Christ came
on earth to die in order that we might be saved, why should
the Jews be censured for killing him ? Were they not assisting
the plan of sdvation?" Answer. If the business of the sheriff
is to arrest criminals, why should he censure thieves and mur-
derers ; do they not assist him in earning an honest living?
If the Revolutionary War secured our independence, why should
we censure the red-coats, since they were necessary for that
patriotic achievement ?
A humorous Protestant illustrated his pleasure in assisting at
the lectures by saying to a Catholic friend : " I wish I was a
single man I would marry a Catholic girl and have her convert
me, so much does your religion please me."
We thought that our audience would be wholly drawn from
the towns-people, but in this we were agreeably disappointed.
1895.] THE MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. 551
Catholic farmers drove in from many miles' distance, and not a
few Protestant ones. The names of several of these latter were
given us, some of whom had come a journey of five, and one
nine, miles every evening. The weather favored this, for we had
beautiful moonlight nights. Everything seemed to favor us here
except the rush of Catholics. They, too, profited not a little
by the lectures, and if for their sakes only it was worth while
giving them. But we are like miners in the Rocky Mountains
who complain of the silver in the ore ; not because they do not
want silver, but because it is less precious than the gold ; it is
not that we love Catholics less, but Protestants more.
I worked here in conjunction with Fathers Kress and Won-
derly. Our little band is gradually forming. This mission will
be ever memorable to us, because while here we received Bishop
Horstmann's letter relieving Father Kress from parish duty and
assigning him definitely to the non-Catholic missions. We
were beside ourselves with joy, and returned thanks to God by
many prayers, and by offering a Mass of thanksgiving. Let all
who love the kingdom of God join with us in the same happy
transport.
MISSION AT ELY.
We have never met a brighter people, and seldom seen a
lovelier little city. The Catholic church has a fine congrega-
tion, a zealous pastor, and a church edifice the largest in town,
and one of the handsomest. No wonder, then, that from first
to last we drew out large numbers of Protestants. As a rule, a
good Catholic condition means a good missionary outlook.
But this calls for a high order of speaking, if not in the bril-
liant qualities of oratory, at least in the solid qualities. For
one has to reckon with an intelligence aroused to acute interest
in religious things. Besides that, we are here in the Western
Reserve, a strictly Yankee section, having been colonized by
Connecticut emigrants in the earlier part of the century. No
man need hope to fool the Western Yankee. But, on the other
hand, a plain statement is both the best and the easiest method
for winning a critical audience as long as one is certain of be-
ing right. What a joy it is to be sure of the truth, especially
when one has to deal with strong minds. We felt like lawyers
addressing an unfavorable judge, but one known to be upright.
As my eye ranged over the audience I saw faces of men and
women so grave and so deeply thoughtful that equality of
speaker and listener was born of the contact-equality in all but
552 THE MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. [Jan.
the possession of the truth. Let God but bring about that
equality in America and this strong race will convert the world.
We had one very rainy night, a downpour in fact, which
prevented a good attendance; the other five meetings were
very full, over six hundred being present some nights, nearly
half of them being Protestants. We dreaded a lack of public
interest on account of our week being just before the election.
But no difficulty was had in getting our usual audiences.
After one of the lectures a lady of much intelligence intro-
duced herself and said : " I am thankful for your statement about
human depravity. I have tried all my life to believe myself a
totally depraved sinner and never have succeeded in doing so,
and that made me feel guilty ; for I was taught the doctrine of
total depravity from childhood. Now I see things differently."
Somebody had given her a copy of Catholic Belief, and I trust
she will find her way into the church. She was deeply moved
by the Catholic view of sin and its pardon, and will, no doubt,
be drawn to the study of the entire Catholic system.
An old lady attended every meeting, sitting in front and
paying strictest attention. She afterwards called on us, and we
found her to be a sort of preacher. She lives some miles out
of town in a little village and has had a good following a bright
mind with immense devotional feeling, perfect verbal knowledge
of Scripture, and little sentimentality. She has been gradually
working and thinking and praying and preaching herself towards
the church, and will, doubtless, soon place herself under instruc-
tion at lease so we judged from her conversation.
The last night we held the meeting in the church, as the hall
had been pre-engaged ; the attendance of Protestants was fair,
though not nearly so good as at the meetings held in the hall.
The questions were just about enough each evening to occu-
py half an hour in answering, and they were nearly all reason-
able, though I do not find anything in them of sufficient novelty
to make it worth while giving them to the reader.
We had many requests from non Catholics to return and
give another course, and we hope to do so. In that case it
might be well to choose a different line of topics, expounding,
for example, the fundamental moral principles ; or, perhaps,
treating of the higher spiritual and mystical life of the soul.
A TURCOMAN BANDIT.
UNHAPPY ARMENIA.
BY JOHN J. O'SHEA.
UTHENTIC confirmation of the first sinister reports
of renewed outrage in Asiatic Turkey has been
received. These reports may have been exagger-
ated, or they may not approach the truth as to
the real extent of the tragedy. But the details
which are beginning to leak out leave no room for doubt that
a fresh illustration of the unfitness of Turkey for civilized com-
ity has been furnished in the outbreak.
Three times in the course of the fast-expiring century has
the hand of western civilization been stretched out perforce to
554 UNHAPPY ARMENIA. [Jan.,
rescue Christian populations from the brutal grasp of the Otto-
man power. And now it seems likely enough that a fourth
essay must be made in order to finish the work. If only one
tithe of the story of recent outrage be true, not all the per-
fumes of Arabia can wash the hand of Turkey clean enough to
be suffered any longer to hold the reins of power over one inch
of Christian territory, one soul professing the Christian faith.
For more than four centuries the experiment of trying to
reconcile the Oriental barbarism which Turkey represents
with the social life and the Christian systems of Eastern
Europe and trans-Caucasia has been going on. Again and
again has it been proved and decreed a failure, but a reprieve
has come on every occasion when justice had drawn its sword,
owing to the selfishness and the international distrust, of the
European powers. It is entirely owing to the non placet of
England that the Christians of Armenia are still groaning under
the iron heel of Turkish rule. For every drop of Armenian
blood shed in the recent massacres, for every outraged maid
and mother whose wrong and slaughter cry to Heaven for ven-
geance, the late Lord Beaconsfield, England's cynical prime
minister, is entirely responsible before God.
" Statesmanship " has committed many crimes in its day ;
but the policy which condemned those Christian populations in
the East to a continuance of servitude to Turkish rule, after
the revelations made about it in Bulgaria, deserves to be exe-
crated as monumental Machiavellianism. Nor will the world
ever forget the irony of it, when it is recalled that it was Eng-
land, in whose name the iniquity was committed, which first,
through the fiery eloquence of Mr. Gladstone, caused the world
to stir in behalf of the oppressed Bulgarians. Mr. Gladstone's
noble work at the time of the Bulgarian massacres can never
be forgotten. But equally will it be remembered that it was
his rival, Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, who stepped in, when the
sword of Russia had severed Armenia from the Turkish Empire,
and insisted that it should be restored to the scoundrelly
pashas. This was done with the sole purpose of preventing the
weakening of the Turkish power; there was no attempt at
cloaking the purpose. Disraeli was not hypocritical enough to
pretend otherwise. He, who was so utterly impartial himself in
the matter of religion, could see nothing wrong in compelling
Christians to live under the system whose raison (fttre is hatred
of Christianity. And so the new map of Asia which Russia
had made by her conquests in the Caucasus had to be torn up
I895-]
UNHAPPY ARMENIA. ,
555
and the miserable province doomed to sink back into the foul
and degrading slavery from which it had fondly hoped the gal-
lantry of Skobeleff had for ever freed it.
KURDS IN AMBUSH.
In the most solemn manner, in the face of the world, the
Sublime Porte undertook, as an alternative to the withdrawal of
the Armenian territory from its jurisdiction, that it should have
556 UNHAPPY ARMENIA. [Jan.,
a complete reform in its government. The demands of the
Armenian population it undertook to satisfy ; their just grounds
of complaint it undertook to remove. Under these conditions,
and no other, did Russia consent to surrender the fruits of her
costly victories in Asia Minor. Substantially, then, the Porte
has exercised since then a trusteeship only over Armenia. It
has stood in a fiduciary capacity to the great powers of Europe,
and the unreservedly expressed condition to that relationship
was a faithful discharge of its solemn responsibilities. It is lia-
ble to be held to account for the manner in which it has dis-
charged them ; and there is the strongest reason to believe,
unhappily, that the day of reckoning has been delayed too
long.
Already the Porte is preparing excuses for the outrages which
there is no longer any possibility of denying. Every precaution
was taken to prevent the disclosure being made, but despite the
censorship of the press and the manipulation of the telegraph
wires, the facts have been established beyond the possibility of
further denial. Hence, another attitude has been adopted. It
is now boldly stated that the Armenians were the aggressors,
that they rose in rebellion and perpetrated outrages on the
Mussulman tribes living near their villages, and that whatever
bloodshed took place was the necessary consequence of the pro-
cess of restoring order. We must not be deceived by this de-
nial. Similar defences were set up for the atrocities in Bulgaria,
and when they came to be investigated they were found to be
utterly baseless. The defence put forward in the case of the
Armenian outrages bears its own condemnation on its face.
It is alleged that the Armenians were incited to revolt by an
English consul. It surely is not the interest of the English
government that the fUmes of war should be lit again in Asia
Minor, and no British consul is likely to step outside the line
of his duty or his instructions through a mere spirit of knight-
errantry.
As the very existence of Islam was pronounced to be a
standing casus belli by one of our greatest of pontiffs, so in these
days the fanaticism of the Moslem is a perpetual danger to the
peace of Christendom. It is a thing inflammable as gun-cotton,
and whenever it bursts out it bursts out in massacre, suddenly
and unexpectedly. The incident at Salonica about ten or twelve
years ago is a very good illustration of the sort of berserker
rage which seizes upon the fanatical Moslem, like rabies on dogs
in summer. It is a fury like that of the Malayan when he
I89S-]
UNHAPPY ARMENIA.
557
runs amuck uncontrollable by the will of the homicidal maniac
until its rage has spent itself in satiety. Many Europeans fell
in that massacre, were murdered for no reason other than that
they were of the race of the hated Giaour. Although a heavy
reparation was exacted from the Porte for this infamy, its les-
son has been easily forgotten.
A very peculiar position is that of Turkey. Its power is
spread over a territory which embraces almost every form of
Christianity. It sits upon the ruins of many antique civilizations,
beautiful even in their catalepsy. It is a Cyclops immense and
savage clutching the fair form of Caucasian civilization, its only
NOMADIC BEGGARS OF THE ORIENT.
-eye aflame with brutality and sensualism. A foe to progress it-
self, it will have no progress amongst those enslaved peoples.
An enemy to letters, it discourages literature. Conscious of its
558
UNHAPPY ARMENIA.
[Jan.,
enormities, it hates newspapers as thieves hate the light of day.
There is no censorship so rigid as that which it has established
A PASHA'S PALACE.
over the press. The more permanent forms of literature are
equally discouraged. This is the normal condition of things in
times of tranquillity. We may easily surmise the strenuousness
of the efforts which are put forth in periods of disturbance to
prevent the truth* from leaking out. It took seven or eight
months for the discovery of the real truth about the horrors of
Bulgaria, and not all the diligence of the powers could prevent
the escape of the principal ruffians whom Mr. Gladstone de-
nounced in connection with that monumental horror. They
were encouraged in their career of rapine until the whole
horrid work of " pacification " was over, and then rewarded
for their share in it. When the cry for their punishment arose
from the horrified outside world, their escape was deliberately
connived at.
Now this is the very course which is being repeated with
regard to the desolation of Bitlis. All the avenues of intelli-
gence from that stricken province were carefully guarded until
the work of butchery and violation was finished and the victims
hidden away under the earth or devoured by the vultures and
the jackals. Then the story was stoutly denied ; now it is par-
tially admitted and defended ; and at last the Porte is reluctantly
coerced to issue an irade for a commission to inquire into it.
1895.] UNHAPPY ARMENIA. 559
Meantime it is openly asserted that the Porte has sent honors
and rewards to the leaders of the troops engaged in the mas-
sacre. This is quite in keeping with the reputation which the
Ottoman Porte has enjoyed from its earliest days. Duplicity
has been its best defined characteristic. It lies like truth at
the beginning, and when it is detected in the lie it endeavors
to palliate and defend.
In one respect there is an essential difference between the
horrors of Bulgaria and those in Armenia, and that point makes
the case infinitely worse against the rulers of Islam. The regu-
lar troops of Turkey were the chief perpetrators of the massacres,
there is no doubt. In Bulgaria the ruffians concerned were al-
together Bashi-bazouks, or irregular soldiers, not directly under
the command of the Turkish war office, but in its pay. This
fact was accepted as a sort of apology for the ruling power at
the time, but the case stands on a different footing now. This
point is too important to be overlooked in holding the Porte to
account for its crime.
It is a grim satire upon the civilizations of Europe that this
barbarous power should have no better claim to continue its op-
pressions than the necessity of its existence as a make-weight
and an obstacle to the ambition of one of the rival states. In
this sense the European powers are no better than their protege.
Turkey is a Bashi-bazouk, known to be a lawless ruffian, but re-
tained in their service solely because of his fighting powers.
The general instincts of humanity compel our sympathy with
the suffering Christian population of Armenia ; there are special
reasons which give them a strong claim upon the active moral
support of their fellow-Christians more happily circumstanced.
They are an ancient people perhaps the oldest race in the
whole world. The land which they inhabit is regarded as lying
close to the very cradle of the human species. From the ear-
liest times this region has been connected with the most sacred
tradition. Through its midst flow the Euphrates and the Tigris,
the rivers by some supposed to have watered the soil of Eden.
Its skies are pierced by the heaven-climbing peak of Ararat,
where rested the Ark on the subsidence of the Deluge. It was
holy ground, in a certain sense, under the old dispensation.
From the dawn of Christianity it has played a very impor-
tant part. It has formed an insuperable bulwark against the
Zoroastrianism of Iran, as against the encroachments of Islam
later on. Though the Moslem power crushed the princes of
Mingrelia, it could not stamp out the religion of the people. To
560
UNHAPPY ARMENIA.
[Jan.,
that and to their national language, national dress, and national
customs the Armenians clung through every vicissitude of for-
tune. Their tenacity in adhering to these heirlooms of ancient
autonomy extorts our warmest admiration. When it is remem-
bered that the strongest inducements, in the shape of honors
and rewards, were held out to these oppressed Christians if
they would only embrace the faith of Islam, it will be confessed
A TURKISH LADY ENTERTAINING ARMENIAN VISITORS.
that they deserve to take rank with the Irish people and the
Poles in love of religion and nationality.
We may estimate approximately how a free Armenia must
have progressed, in this age of universal progress, by looking
at the condition of Bulgaria now and comparing it with its sorry
plight a generation back whilst it lay powerless under the
plantigrade hoof of the Ottoman. Bulgaria, the downtrodden
pashalik, has sprung into potency as the powerful principality,
1 895.] UNHAPPY ARMENIA. 561
of high international rank, able to hold her own in the field of
war, as she proved in the campaign against Servia, and making
giant strides forward in every avenue of human progress.
The Armenian race is confessedly one of the brightest of the
Oriental nationalities. With a fair field for its energies, it must
become a power for civilization in those eastern regions which,
despite the forward movement of the world, remain practically
still in the same state of barbarism and brigandage as the
soldiers of Xenophon found their people when they hung upon
his flank and harassed his march all through that retreat which
his pen has made immortal.
A multitude of reasons compel our sympathies for the peo-
ple of Armenia, but the immediate and irresistible one is the
demand of nature and humanity. The day has gone by, if it
ever existed, when civilized people could look on with sang-
froid upon the flaying alive of Christian victims by their Mo-
hammedan oppressors. This was the favorite punishment for the
Greek rebel officers after the massacres at Scio and Crete.
There are people still living who remember it. And there are
plenty of men in the Russian army who have seen their dead
comrades mutilated and their bodies impaled in the Balkan
passes no later than the last war. The power stained with
such abominations as these must be regarded as outside the
pale of civilization, and if it be proved guilty once more, after
its solemn undertakings to the combined European powers, it
ought to be for ever removed from the control of Christian
races and rigidly confined in its own barbarian limits like a
dangerous beast in its den.
VOL. LX. 36
ALTHOUGH the tendency to connect the genius
of Catholicism with the reactionary forces of ignor-
ance and crime is not so general in these days as
it was a few years ago, it exists in some quarters
not easily pervious to truth. There are those who
repeat the stereotyped formula for no other reason than intel-
lectual density; there are others who repeat it because they
honestly believe it ; there be those, again, who utter it out of
sheer malice. Argument is wasted upon the latter class of
minds; the other two may with patience be got to see and ac-
knowledge the mistakes into which innate prejudice or mislead-
ing information led them. To the honest and candid adversaries
of the Catholic system we would earnestly commend the work
just completed by the Rev. Alfred Young of the Congregation
of St. Paul, under the title Catholic and Protestant Countries com-
pared*
Father Young has gone about the task of dispelling some
eminently respectable stock fallacies in a very methodical and
business-like way. He has mastered every detail of the case
which he is called upon to defend, and he proceeds to the dis-
section of it with all the scientific aplomb and masterly skill of
the trained advocate. The array of testimony adduced by
Father Young in support of his position is startling, not merely
by its weight but by its character. All the authorities he cites
are non-Catholic. From title-page to colophon he does not call
upon any Catholic aid save his own pen. Out of the mouths
of non-Catholics he disproves the slanders which have so long
passed current with the foes of Catholicism. It is often ob-
jected and well objected in many cases that figures and sta-
tistics are illusory things when applied to peculiar social or eco-
nomic conditions. They reveal nothing of the inner side of the
question ; and it is this side which in many cases it is desirable
* Catholic and Protestant Countries compared in Civilization, Popular Happiness, Gene-
ral Intelligence, and Morality. By Rev. Alfred Young, C.S.P. New York: Columbus
Press, 120 West Sixtieth Street.
1 895.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 563
to know when studying social and historical phenomena, or, in-
deed, of the ordinary every-day life of the outside world for
that matter. But Father Young has not relied upon bare, bald
statistics. He proves his case up to the hilt by copious extracts
from the writings of acknowledged authorities men who made
the esoteric side of life their special study, and who may all be
depended on for having no especial reason to favor the Catholic
side in any debatable matter.
The branches of the subject are many and diversified, mak-
ing the task Father Young set unto himself no mere leisure-
hour amusement. University education, intermediate, and pri-
mary ; the social life and habits of the people ; the condition of
labor, and especially the condition of women and children em-
ployed in various industrial pursuits, and the moral state of the
various populations passed under review all these things are
amply dealt with. The work, great as it is, is a work to bear
the severest test of scrutiny. It is like a great ship, complete
in all its parts, all its machinery perfect, and every bolt and
rivet fashioned of such stuff and placed with so much care as
to render the whole structure completely impervious to the as-
saults of the winds and waves of controversy. It is a book for
the time a dynamite gun, before which no foe can hope to stand
for an hour. We commend it to every Catholic home in the
land.
Half Brothers, by Hesba Stretton one of Cassell's "Sun-
shine" series is a fine example of the Exeter-Hall style of
literature. Vulgarity, bigotry, and improbability are the charac-
teristics of the production. If there be any class of English
readers of whose tastes this novel is a reflection, their intellec-
tual status must be on a par with that of the region of Tierra
del Fuego.
It is pleasant to hear that so excellent a book as Father J.
M'Laughlin's Is One Religion as Good as Another? has reached
its fortieth thousand, as the fact goes to show the spread of a
wholesome spirit of inquiry. Whether this success is to be
attributed to the catching style of the book or the soundness
of its arguments, we should hesitate to decide. The merits on
either side strike a pretty even balance. The new issue is a
cheaper one than any of its predecessors, and we confidently
anticipate for it a speedy exhaustion.
There could be no better Christmas present for young
564 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
people than Mr. Maurice F. Egan's two stories (bound as they
are in one handsome volume), The Flower of the Flock and
The Badgers of Belmont. These tales have already appeared in
serial form ; in their less ephemeral shape they will prove a
welcome addition to the literature for our jeunesse dore'e. They
are vivacious, life-like pictures of the time, and the spirit of
harmless humor which pervades them renders them very agree-
able reading for the long winter evenings. The book is pro-
duced by the Messrs. Benziger in handsome holiday dress.
An admirable little drama suitable for schools is the new
one of Ursula of Brittany, just published by the Ursulines of
St. Teresa's. A judicious selection of passages from standard
authors in appropriate places lends to the famous legend the
dignity of a fine mosaic. To judge from the reading of the
piece, it ought to make a splendid and impressive stage specta-
cle. The drama is published at the Ursulines', 137 Henry Street,
New York.
One of the oddest literary coincidences ever known, perhaps,
is the selection of the same ode in Mr. Gladstone's new Horace
by the reviewer of this magazine and the reviewer on the
London Daily News, for a comparison between Mr. Gladstone's
rendering and that of Milton. That this particular ode (To
Pyrrha) should have been picked out from over a hundred by
two minds working three thousand miles apart is a curious fact
for the psychologist. No two minds could be by any possibil-
ity more ignorant of each other's intentions, or even existence.
They were, and still are, utterly unknown to each other. Sure-
ly "there are more things in earth and heaven than are
dreamed of in our philosophy."
The Ordo for 1895 has been issued from the publishing
house of Fr. Pustet & Co., in the usual neat and convenient
form, with blank pages for memoranda at the end.
We are too apt to overlook the noble part played by wo-
men in the evil days of martyrdom and persecution. It is well
to recall the many examples of heroic fortitude and constancy
displayed by noble Catholic women in times when physical suf-
fering was relied on to overcome spiritual grace. The Countess
de Courson performs a service in this way in bringing before
the French public the career of four illustrious women* who
* Quatre Portraits de Femmes, Episodes des Persecutions d'Angleterre. Par La Com-
tesse de Courson. Paris : Librairie de Firmin-Didot et Cie, Rue Jacob, 56.
1895-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 565
figured in the grim drama of English persecution, at different
epochs namely, the Duchess of Feria (ne'e Jane Dormer), a
lady who rendered vast assistance at the court of Spain to her
compatriots who took refuge in Spain during the Tudor per-
secutions ; Luisa de Cavajal, a Spanish lady who devoted her-
self to the service of God and at the time of the so-called
Gunpowder Plot rendered much service to the persecuted
Catholics in London ; Mary Ward, who under great difficulties
established a religious community in England during the days
of Puritan supremacy; and Margaret Clitherow, the heroic
martyr of York. There is no more thrilling chapter in human
history than the trial, the torture, and slaying of this brave wo-
man by Elizabeth's minions, and the Countess de Courson
tells it well. The work is furnished with portraits of two of
the ladies treated of viz., the Duchess of Feria and Mary
Ward.
To the foregoing some section of the reading public may
find a kind of set-off in a work by H. M. Bower, M.A., entitled
The Fourteen of Meaux* Herein the transactions which led to
the Huguenot troubles in France are investigated, apparently
with the view to show the Catholic Church was to blame for a
state of civil turmoil and repression by the secular arm entirely
beyond her control. In his quest after light the author has come
upon some scraps of history which serve the purpose of vindi-
cating the institution he would fain inculpate. He shows, for
instance, the effect of the violent and outrageous proceedings of
the early " Gospellers," in filling the cities with vile placards de-
nouncing the Mass as idolatrous and containing foul libels on the
priesthood. One of these placards was affixed to the very door
of King Francis the First, as if in defiance of his authority and
as a taunt at his moderation. This was the spark that set fire
to the magazine. Parliament was summoned, and stern meas-
ures of repression civil repression were adopted. For it must
be borne in mind that the movement for religious reform at this
period meant a political and social reconstruction in every
detail of life as well. The war was begun by the Huguenot
party, and it was a civil war in France, and a civil war as purely
as any other insurrectionary outbreak that ever arose within
her borders. There were massacres and atrocities on both sides
whilst it desolated the country, at which humanity and Christianity
alike must weep. There was an intimate connection between
* The Fourteen of Meaux. By H. M. Bower, M.A. New York: Longmans, Green &
Co.
566 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
the reformers of Geneva and those of Meaux, and the mode in
which the former used the right of private judgment in a way not
agreeable to the Calvinists deprives the assailants of the French
government of the Huguenot period of any shred of argument.
In Geneva it was the church which really acted to stamp out
dissent from Calvinism ; in France it was the Parliament which
set the law in motion for the preservation of the public peace.
A volume of lyrics from Mr. Charles H. A. Esling reveals a
graceful and facile calamus. The author is one of those ready
writers who adorn the bare surfaces of opportunity, as they
present themselves, with the pictures and festoons of fancy and
music. The seasons, commemorative celebrations, social events,
visits to famous localities, historic events of war and peace, all
find him ready with an ode, a ballad, an epithalamium, or an
elegy. The title very aptly describes the collection, Melodies
in Mood and Tense* They are melodious pieces as a rule,
and they reflect many phases of life and thought. They are of
unequal merit, and some of the work might have been well
left out because of its awkwardness and straining both of idea
and versification ; but it must in fairness be owned that the
genuine ring of poesy is oftener heard than the false. A few
excellent plates embellish the work ; and to some of the pieces
there is the addition of a musical setting. The volume Bought
to be a very acceptable Christmas or New Year's gift.
Of other books suitable for the season there is no lack, but
on the contrary so many that our space will not permit us to
do a moiety of them the justice their merits demand. We
must, therefore, only briefly note the more prominent :
Three Heroines of New England Romance (Little, Brown &
Co.) is a tripartite literary effort sketching the lives and habitat
of Longfellow's Priscilla, and of Agnes Surriage and Martha
Hilton, two Boston ladies who played memorable parts upon
life's stage in pre-Revolution days. The three sketches are
rather biographical essays than personal chronicles, and they
will be read more for their quality than their bulk. The names
of the respective authors is a guarantee of good work. They
are Harriet Prescott Spofford, Alice Brown, and Louise Imogen
Guiney.
Much talk there was a few years ago about "the best hun-
* Melodies in Mood and Tense. By Charles H. A. Esling, M.A.. LL.B. Philadelphia:
Charles H. Walsh.
1895.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 567
dred books." We do not think a tithe of it worth remembering
when we go through the charming gossipy pages of Miss Agnes
Repplier's latest production, In Dozy Hours, and other Papers
(Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York). She chats
with such pleasant, erudite vivacity about old friends as well as
new aspirants for that title that she is very likely to convert
hours that might otherwise be dozy into very alert and wide-
awake ones. She gossips also about the respective qualities of
American and English humor, and about many other things,
and though we may not acquiesce in all her deductions we
continue to read on with unalloyed pleasure. The book is one
of the best we know of wherewith to exorcise dull care or
warn Morpheus off when his visits are " too previous." We
would like to see it in a less Quakerly cover.
Father Finn's holiday book, Mostly Boys (Benziger Brothers),
is capital reading for our golden youth. It embraces nine live
stories, in all of which the charm of variety and the dash of
hustling boyhood are kept up from start to finish.
Legends and Stories of the Holy Child Jesus (Benziger Broth-
ers) is an admirable collection of quaint and delightful tales of
the infant Saviour as they are found in various countries. The
compiler is A. Fowler Lutz, and the work is well done. The
book will be welcome at every Christmas fireside.
Ballads in Prose, by Nora Hopper (Roberts Brothers, Bos-
ton), are well named or if they were styled "poems in prose"
it might be better. The collection is one of old Irish legends,
and we have not seen the subjects more beautifully treated in
any literary shape. The spirit of the work is quaint and ten-
der, and the stories of witchcraft, wonderful deeds, and pas-
sionate love and revenge are brimful of Celtic sympathy.
Timothy's Quest, a story by Kate Douglas Wiggin (Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co.), is an illustration of that clever writer's best
style. It is not much as a story, but as a piece of refined
humor it is admirable. In Sunshine Land (from the same firm) is
a book of poems for young people by Edith M. Thomas. It is
full of pretty fancies and conceits about animal life and
nature. Fine illustrations by Katharine Pyle abound through-
out.
John Boyle O'Reilly's book is recognized in the Moondyne
568 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
foe of Kilner & Co., Philadelphia. The novel made its mark
deeply whilst the talented writer lived. It was one of those
which are described as " purpose " novels, but it is remarkable
for power in dramatic construction and picturesque presenta-
tion of antipodean life, no less than the wrongs and mistakes of
the old-time penal system. It is a book that deserves to live.
A Story of Courage (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is the joint
work of George Parsons Lathrop and his wife Rose Hawthorne
Lathrop. It is a record of the founding and growth of the
Georgetown Convent of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin,
admirably told. A more befitting notice of the work we hope
to be able to give later on.
Many people have heard of the Brehon Laws ; * few know
what the term means, save that it refers to an obsolete code
of legal rules for the government of a primitive Celtic people.
A little inquiry would at once place us face to face with the
startling fact that these laws had their origin in the very
foundation of modern constitutional systems, and that they
represent the earliest forms of popular and parliamentary gov-
ernment ever known to history. The Feis of Tara, which prac-
tically represented the collective wisdom of the Irish nation,
was instituted, according to the ancient chronologists, by the
high King, Ollamh Fodhla, anno tnundi 3884. It was to all
intents and purposes a national parliament, and it was con-
tinued on at irregular intervals down to the time of the coming
of St. Patrick, by whom the whole body of Irish laws, national,
provincial, and local, as well as judicial, tribal, social, and
sumptuary, was collected and revised, with the help of the
most learned legists of the time, and placed in permanent form
under the title of the Senchus Mor. This book was completed,
according to the Annals of the Four Masters, in the year of
our Lord 438. It is, therefore, an older legal compilation than
the Codex Justiniani. The much- vaunted Magna Charta is a
modern and trivial document as compared with it.
The Senchus Mor has been translated under the supervision
of the Brehon Law Commissioners, but it is a bulky volume.
Many will be glad to avail themselves of a handier work just
published by Mr. Lawrence Grinnell, Barrister of the Middle
Temple, London. It does more for the general reader than the
larger volume, from its nature and limitations, could. It gives
* The Brehon Laws. By Lawrence Grinnell, of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law.
i895-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 569
him a comprehensive view of early Irish society and civilization,
and of the causes which led to the decay of the ancient system
and the destruction of its literature. Those who might expect
to find in this volume a mere dry legal commentary, will be
agreeably disappointed on opening its pages. They will find it
instead a very luminous and sympathetic review of a most
interesting upgrowth, and a very helpful hand-book in the
mazes of a forgotten period.
I. HYPNOTISM AND THE STIGMATA.*
This very important and valuable work, the scope of which
is sufficiently indicated by its title, is a very notable contribu-
tion to even the knowledge possessed by Catholics of facts in
the supernatural order. We venture to say that few, even of
those most familiar with these matters, can fail to be astonished
at the number of the instances, particularly of stigmatization,
which are here presented, and the strength of their attestation.
Beginning with St. Francis of Assisi, we find here a list of over
three hundred persons who have, in one form or another, re-
ceived the stigmata, and in many of these a detailed description
has come down to us. And though the subject of ecstasy is
not treated at such length, and indeed hardly needs to be, as
mention of it occurs frequently in the accounts of the stigma-
tized, the facts presented, specially with regard to the elevation
of the body into the air during that state, are far more numer-
ous, and more surprising in their character, than most of us are
accustomed even to imagine. The apparition of Lourdes, and
the subsequent miracles, continued, as every Catholic knows,
down to our own day, are more summarily treated ; the evi-
dence of these will be found more fully elsewhere.
The book is written, and the facts and evidence collected,
specially as an argument against those who at the present day
explain stigmatization and ecstasy by means of hypnotism ; the
discussion of the facts, which occupies the second volume of
the work, having mainly this scope. And, for reasonable rea-
ders, the author undoubtedly accomplishes the result which he
intends. No Catholic, and indeed no person whatever who be-
* La Stigmattsation, fExtase Divine et les Miracles de Lourdes : rlponse aux libres-pen-
seurs. Par le Dr. Antoine Imbert-Gourbeyre, Professeur at 1'Ecole de Medicine de Cler-
mont (1852-1888), Commandeur de 1'Ordre de Charles III. Clermont-Ferrand, 1894.
5/o TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
lieves in God and in the possibility of his action in a superna-
tural way in the world which he has created, can fail to see
that no human agency or occult powers of nature will sufficiently
account for all the phenomena here detailed. The only escape
from this conclusion is to deny the value of the testimony pre-
sented where it does not fall in with preconceived notions ; to
say, in short, that the witnesses are liars-, consciously or uncon-
sciously. By this short cut, of course, all difficulties can be
overcome ; but we need hardly say that those who follow it
abandon by doing so the right to be called reasonable beings.
And least of all mankind do those deserve to be called free-
thinkers who are obstinately and resolutely pledged to dogmas
of their own making, and absolutely refuse to admit evidence ir-
reconcilable with them. They may call themselves scientific
men, but they bring disgrace upon the fair name of science.
Still, though such men cannot be entirely silenced and put
out of the field, and will always have their followers and adhe-
rents, it is desirable to stop their mouths as far as possible,
and not give them any more ground than can be helped for
their objections; and not to use any arguments against them
which they can find other grounds for rejecting than the gen-
eral one above stated. And it seems to us that the eminent
author lays himself open to attack unnecessarily in this way.
He is, perhaps, somewhat too strong in his own faith for the
purpose which he has in hand, and does not always recognize
that cavil may be made in cases which are to the well-disposed
quite clear. It would, we think, have been better for the pur-
pose to admit the possibility of doubt in instances where we
ourselves feel no doubt, and to allow that the natural may play
its part to some extent even in cases mostly supernatural. Un-
doubtedly the author would admit this, and actually does recog-
nize it; but he might well give the natural more scope, at the
same time devoting himself more distinctly to showing, by ar-
guments which his opponents would be forced to admit, that
there are limits beyond which it cannot go. Instead of this, he
too frequently falls back on the authority of the church, a good
authority surely for us, but worthless for those who pose, whether
sincerely or not, as unbelievers. It is utterly immaterial, for
instance, to the English or American Protestant whether an
ecstatic or stigmatized person has been canonized or not ; we
do not see why, in controversy, it should be otherwise to the
French bad Catholic, whatever his interior convictions may be.
1895.] NEW BOOKS. 571
The book is, as has been said, a very important contribu-
tion to our knowledge ; but its scientific and controversial value
might, it would seem, have been much increased on the basis of
the facts in hand, and of others which no doubt the author would
have been able to furnish.
NEW BOOKS.
FR. PUSTET & Co., New York and Cincinnati :
The Ceremonies of Holy Mass Explained, By Rev. F. X. Schouppe, S.J..
Translated by Rev. P. F. O'Hare. (Third revised edition.)
BENZIGER BROTHERS. New York. Chicago, Cincinnati :
Legends and Stories of the Holy Child Jesus from Many Lands. By A.
Fowler Lutz. Jesus the Good Shepherd. By the Right Rev. J. de Goes-
briand, D. D., Bishop of Burlington. The Lover of Souls ; or, Short Con-
ferences on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. By a Priest. A History of the
Mass and its Ceremonies in the Eastern and Western Church, By
Rev. John O'Brien, A.M. Fifteenth edition.
LITTLE, BROWN & Co., Boston :
Hero Tales of Ireland. By Jeremiah Curtin.
GEORGE H. ELLIS, Boston :
Faith, Hope, and Love. Selections from sermons and writings of James
Freeman Clarke. The Deeper Meanings, By Frederic A. Hinckley*
Old and New Unitarian Belief, By John White Chadwick.
EDGAR S. WERNER, New York:
The Basic Law of Vocal Utterance, By Emil Satro. Werner's Readings
and Recitations.
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York:
The Permanent Value of the Book of Genesis. By C. W. E. Body, M.A.,
D.C.L.
BURNS & GATES, London :
A Manual of Scripture History, By the Rev. Walter J. B. Richards, D.D.,
Oblate of St. Charles, Inspector of Schools to the Diocese of Westminster.
Journals of Retreat. By Father John Morris, S.J.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co., Boston and New York :
Occult Japan ; or, The Way of the Gods, By Percival Lowell.
LAND & LEE, Chicago :
A Frog-land Wedding. By Roy Conger and Helen Hitchcock.
CATHOLIC UNION AND TIMES, Buffalo:
Foreign Societies and American Schools, By Thomas Jefferson Jenkins.
WE have received a letter from the Bishop of
Tarsus and Adana, Right Rev. Paul Terzian, con-
veying very deplorable tidings. By an accidental
fire his church and presbytery and schools at Hadjine, one of
his principal mission stations, have been destroyed, and his school
children are now without a regular school building. The church
services are being held in a private building which has been
rented for the purpose, and great inconvenience and unseemli-
ness in divine worship are the consequence. The good bishop
is in sore distress over the disaster, and we hope that Catholics
of means in this country may be touched by his tale of dis-
aster so as to lend him a helping hand. The burning appears
to have been accidental, as Adana is not in that part of Arme-
nia where the outrages have taken place, but away down near
the sea-shore.
WE are to have a Catholic University Bulletin. This is as it
should be, in order to keep pace with the growth and impor-
tance of the institution. The Bulletin will be issued quarterly,
and its editorial work will be in the hands of the Rev. Profes-
sor Shahan. We are justified in anticipating that its literary
claims will be on a high level, and we hope it may receive all
the support needed to enable it to accomplish its laudable aims.
DEATH has been busy of late amongst our notabilities. His
latest distinguished victims are the Prime Minister of Canada,
Sir John Thompson, and Mr. Robert Louis Stephenson, the fa-
mous novelist. The Canadian premier's demise took place un-
der singular and terrible circumstances. He had been at Wind-
sor Castle, the guest of Queen Victoria, when he was seized
with a sudden stroke, and died in fifteen minutes afterward.
The tragic event created a profound impression, the Queen be-
ing deeply shocked. Mr. Stephenson died suddenly also,
away in his South Sea island retreat.
1895.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 573
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
WITHIN the past year the Catholic Truth Society established at Ottawa has
put into circulation 10,422 leaflets and bound volumes. Since its forma-
tion three years ago it has distributed 25,396 publications in defence of the
Christian religion. The object of the society is the diffusion of Catholic truth
and its vindication whenever assailed. Communications from the members to
the daily press are not intended to provoke controversy, but solely for the pur-
pose of explanation and correction of errois. This highly important part of the
work, requiring literary skill and calm judgment, has been attended with satis-
factory results.
At the annual meeting lately held in the Ottawa University the president,
Mr. J. A. J. McKenna, likened the power of the Catholic laity to a moral
Niagara,' stating that the mission of the Truth Society was to afford a channel
by which some of the power of this Niagara might be utilized to spread Catholic
truth. While Catholics knew they had the faith in its fulness, had the whole
and entire truth, had the church builded by God, not by men, the church that
had civilized and humanized mankind, they too often forgot the obligations that
go with this privilege. The obligations of the clergy did not excuse the laity
from their share of the work of spreading the truth. The achievements of the
Truth Society should encourage and attract the support of the laity.
The financial statement presented by Dr. MacCabe showed receipts $442.17
and an expenditure of $340.34, leaving a balance of $101.83.
Archbishop Duhamel thanked the officers of the society for the work dur-
ing the year, and expressed his happiness and consolation at seeing the Catholic
laity understand their duty to help the clergy. He asked all present to join the
society and to encourage others to join, that they might work towards the perfect
union of mankind on the basis of the truth as taught by the Catholic Church,
that all men might be of one heart and one soul, recognizing one Father, God,
in heaven, and one mother, the church, on earth.
* * *
Bishop Messmer, of Green Bay, Wis., is determined that there shall be no
hostility between the new Summer-School to be held at Madison, Wis., and the
one already established on Lake Champlain. In a letter to Mr. Warren E.
Mosher he states that we must preserve union and harmony at all costs ;
Summer-Schools and Reading Circles should work together to give the force of
unity to the Catholic intellectual and educational movement.
" It is my intention at our next meeting in Chicago to propose the question
whether a uniform course of study and lectures could be devised acceptable to
both Summer-Schools. Not to speak of the united work among our Reading
Circles, East or West, the simultaneous treatment of the same important sub-
jects and vital Catholic questions by different men and in diverse modes would
be, it seems to me, of incalculable advantage. Such uniformity could easily be
obtained if the respective special committees on studies and lectures of both
schools would arrange the plan conjointly. By such a plan lectures could be
interchanged the East to get men from the West, the West fiom the East.
Thus the unity of scope, plan, and object, together with the diversity of place and
persons, treatment and presentation of the object, would lend a charm to our
Catholic movement and power to its work."
574 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Jan.,
The lecture by the Rev. J. L. O'Neil, O.P., on Catholic Literature in Catho-
lic Homes delivered at the Summer-School last July awakened considerable
healthful discussion. It has now been published by P. O'Shea, New York, in
pamphlet form, with a dedication to Archbishop Corrigan, and should have a
wide circulation. Inferior publications bearing the name of Catholic are boldly
attacked. A pungent writer in the Seminary fully approves of the attack, and
desires the joy of writing a brief obituary of " a score or more so-called Catholic
weeklies," believing that nothing in their life would so become them as their
leaving it.
From the same writer we take this excellent and accurate statement of pre-
sent conditions :
" We are so accustomed to praising ourselves because of our material pros-
perity that we need frequent, plain-spoken reminders of our defects and neglects.
In the matter of Catholic literature for Catholic homes we have much to do and
much to undo ; and though many heads and hands are now engaged in the great
work of the apostolate of good reading, more wise heads and careful hands are
needed. The rich must be interested in the work. It is a duty they owe to re-
ligion and society. They should be the leaders, the exemplars of the poor, pro-
viding sound, nourishing food for their minds and souls, as well as for their
bodies. Unfortunately some of our rich men are destitute of a proper sense of
the duties of wealth.
"Then there are the publishers, the editors, and the writers. For those who
are wholly Catholic, giving their time and talents to the cause of Catholic truth,
the editor of the Rosary has a kindly sympathy; and they deserve it. The rich
do not patronize them ; nor do the booksellers share a profit with them. Indeed
there are editors of journals and of magazines who would not extend them com-
mon politeness, if common politeness were cash. Still, the Catholic writer should
know what is in store for him, and be prepared for a life of sacrifice."
The claims of the Catholic magazine as a powerful aid in the apostolate of
good reading are thus presented :
" Some argue that the reading of magazines spoils a taste for good books,
and makes superficial men and women. As far as our experience goes, every-
thing depends on the magazine and on the reader. Most people are satisfied,
and must be satisfied, with superficial information. The goodness of the sources
from which information is drawn is, therefore, the more important consideration.
We believe that because of its timeliness, its change, its freshness, its cheapness
the magazine has an advantage[over the book. The quality of the average maga-
zine is as good as the quality of the average book ; its variety is beyond question,
its quantity decidedly greater. Several dollars for a volume means one subject
soon read, soon ended, ordinarily, Several dollars for a magazine means a year's
delightful, varied reading."
* * *
In the Cosmopolitan Mr. William L. Fletcher has given the results of his
study of the public libraries in the United States. Those established by private
endowment may or may not allow equal rights to Catholic authors. The follow-
ing list shows the number of libraries wholly or mainly supported by taxation,
which should make no discrimination against good books on account of the race
or creed of their authors :
"Massachusetts, 179; Illinois, 35; New Hampshire, 34; Michigan, 26;
California, 18 ; Ohio, 15; Rhode Island, 13; Indiana, 13; Iowa, u ; New York,
i 1 ; Wisconsin, 9 ; Maine, 8 ; Kansas, 7 ; Minnesota, 7 ; Connecticut, 5 ; New
Jersey, 4; Colorado, 2; Missouri, i ; Vermont, i."
1 89 5.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 575
We have received a marked copy of the New Ireland Review, 54 Eccles
Street, Dublin (New York office, Benziger Bros., 36 Barclay Street), which con-
tains a most practical statement of the good to be accomplished by parish lend-
ing libraries. The writer, J. G., approves our plan of providing not merely de-
votional and religious books, but also popular works in history and literature,
and a collection of good, instructive, and amusing novels. Without a liberal sup-
ply of fiction no library for young people will long survive. They will have
novels if it is possible to get them, and hence the best way to oppose the per-
nicious literature of the day is to place within easy reach such novels as will en-
lighten, refine, and amuse without corrupting their minds.
Country districts in America have very much the same state of things as in
Ireland. Though passionately fond of reading, " people in rural parishes have
scarcely any facilities for procuring sound, entertaining, and cheap books.
There are no book-shops nearer than the larger towns, and even there the
selections offered for sale, through want of knowledge and discrimination in the
shopkeeper, are often of a trashy, worthless, unhealthy character. Besides no
reductions in published prices are usually given. Moreover, country people
seldom go to the larger towns except to fair or market, and then they are so en-
grossed in their business that the idea of looking out for the book-stall will scarce-
ly, occur to them. It would be very different if cheap, attractive books were
brought under their notice in the rural village, or in their houses by colporteurs
or by means of book-stalls erected near the chapels on Sundays. It would then
be found that country folk are without books simply from want of opportunity to
purchase them. The danger in the means here suggested for supplying the peo-
ple with cheap literature would be the possibility, or rather probability, that
without strict supervision on the part of the local clergy publications dangerous
to faith and morals would unwittingly or maliciously be circulated. Hence,
although it would be a boon if our country people had better facilities for procur-
ing a collection of good books of their own, the remedy to be suggested for
turning them into a reading people is not the buying of, but the borrowing of
books.
" Since, therefore, the people do not read, although eager to do so, the
question arises as to how this state of things is to be remedied. The most obvi-
ous and practical way is by means of the parochial lending library. By subscrib-
ing a small sum to purchase books, each one can thus have access to, say, 200
volumes, with as much right to their use as if all were his or her private property.
Hence it is also the cheapest way. Moreover, and this is of far greater import-
ance, each one will thus read only such books as are instructive, moral, and
healthy, and so will be protected against the terrible evil of having, perhaps,
faith and morality sapped and underminded by the immoral and infidel publica-
tions with which the country is being flooded. Happily few of them have found
their way into our country parishes, but the danger that they may remains all
the same. Strange that when we do find a few books which the young people
have purchased or borrowed they are generally of the most worthless kind, and
if not immoral or infidel, near akin to both. The only thing the good, simple
bookseller in town knows about them is that they are novels and cheap, and
on this recommendation the unsuspecting country boy or girl buys them, and un-
awares imbibes their poison. The parish library is hence the only safe way to
satisfy the people's love of reading. It is a continual and pressing want, and one
which there is reason to believe is not at all adequately supplied."
* * *
Recent events demand that we should make a loud protest against people
576 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Jan., 1895.
who want to get something for nothing. About two-thirds of the letters sent to-
us since September, requesting information concerning Reading Circles, etc.,
have had enclosed not even one postage-stamp for a reply. Each printed list
represents a money value. The minimum charge is ten cents, and this is abso-
lutely required to pay expenses. We fully endorse a statement recently published
in the Living Church. Though written by an Episcopalian and for Episcopa-
lians, it has Catholic approval, because it contains the truth :
" We started out, some sixteen years ago, to furnish a paper that would be
readable and useful at $2.00 a year, or less than four cents a week ; yet now and
then we hear of people who ' can't afford it.' In the case of poor clergymen who
are trying to support their families on a dollar and a half a day we can understand
that a dollar is a serious matter, and we generally see that they have the paper if
they want it. But when we hear the above from those who live in elegant houses,
and go to church in carriages, and dress in cloth and silk, we feel just a little im-
patient, not because we have any claims upon them to take ' our paper,' but be-
cause they make this wretched excuse for taking no paper and no interest in
church affairs. They afford a thousand things that are of no real benefit to them-
selves or their families. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for offering
such an excuse. They ' afford ' nothing which does not bring some selfish grati-
fication.
" These remarks are not intended to reflect upon our people as a whole ;
but we think it might as well be frankly stated that there are large numbers of
church people, so called, that give no attention whatever to church matters, and
care not at all to be informed about them. They supply their families with
reading of every other kind, and buy many things that they could well do-
without, but do not see a church paper of any kind from year to year. In many
cases they spend twenty dollars a year for the daily papers and the magazines,,
but they ' can't afford ' one-tenth of that sum for the papers that are maintaining
the honor and contributing to the growth of the church. It may be somewhat
the fault of the papers that they are not more interesting ; but how can we ex-
pect to enlist enterprise and capital in producing that for which there is such a
limited demand ? "
* * *
Under the auspices of the Paulist Fathers, Henry Austin Adams, M.A.,.
delivered a course of lectures during Advent at Columbus Hall, New York City,
and won deserved tributes of praise for his remarkable oratorical gifts. The
subjects are here given with a synopsis :
Random Reading in Fiction. Imagination Memory Will Habits The
Average Reader The Average Book Pure Genius versus Commercialism
The Writers How to Choose and Why A Book's Credentials The Columbian-
Reading Union Some Schools and Tendencies Friendships in Fiction Ulti-
mate Results.
Facts and Fabrications in History. The Causes of False Witness
Romance Delights of Delusion Prejudice The Idolatry of Letters The
Making of Humbug Ignorance, Fraud, and Antiquity The New Historical
Conscience Its Manifestations: Iconoclasm, Reparation, Restatements Stand-
ard Historians Some Instances of Colossal Injustice.
Duties and Defects of the Reading Public. The Public Does it Read ?
Printer's Ink Taste The Publisher The Editor The Author The Hack
The Penny-a-liner The People The Gentle Reader Who is to Blame ? Duty-
in the Matter of Reading Books Newspapers Periodicals Information.
versus Knowledge Reading Circles The Personal Question Life.
M. C. M.
THE
VOL. LX. FEBRUARY, 1895. No. 359.
LEO XIII., POPE,
TO MOST REV. FRANCIS ARCHBISHOP
SATOLLI, APOSTOLIC DELEGATE.
(REPLY TO THE ADDRESS SIGNED BY THE EDITORS
OF CATHOLIC PERIODICALS IN THE U. S.)
VENERABLE BROTHER :
Health and Apostolic Benediction.
It has ever been Our most ardent desire that in these
days of such unbridled literary license, when the world
is flooded with hurtful publications, men of marked sa-
gacity should labor for the public welfare by the dif-
fusion of wholesome literature. That this great work
was being most zealously prosecuted by Our faithful
children in North America, We were already aware,
while an Address which many of them had signed
and caused to be transmitted to Us, confirms Our con-
viction of their zeal.
Assuredly, since it is the spirit of the times that
people of nearly every condition and rank in life
seek the pleasure that comes from reading, nothing
could be more desirable than that such writings should
Copyright. VKRT RBV. A. F. HEWIT. 1894.
VOL. LX. 37
578 BRIEF OF LEO XIII. [Feb.,
be published and scattered broadcast among the people
as would not only be read without harm, but would
even bear the choicest fruitage.
Hence to all those who labor in a cause at once so
honorable and fruitful We are moved to extend Our
hearty congratulations, and to accord to them the tribute
of well-earned praise; exhorting them at the same
time to continue to defend the rights of the Church,
as well as whatever is true, whatever just, with be-
coming harmony and prudence. But we hope to treat
of this matter at another time and soon.
In the meantime you will give expression to Our
grateful and kindly sentiments in their behalf, and will
announce the Apostolic Benediction which We lovingly
impart to each one of them, as also to yourself as a
token of heavenly reward.
Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, the I2th day of De-
cember, 1894, in the iyth year of our Pontificate.
LEO P. P. XIII.
1 895-1 THE QUESTION OF RECONCILIATION. 579
THE QUESTION OF RECONCILIATION BETWEEN
CHURCH AND STATE IN ITALY.
BY WILLIAM J. D. CROKE.
N studying the question of Reconciliation between
Church and State in Italy we need not fear that
we are spending time to no purpose. The ques-
tion is a permanent one : from time to time it
gives promise of actual development, of passing
from the order of " questions " to that of facts. Reconciliation
always exists in fieri and must eventually exist in fact, unless
we count upon the certainty of a future chaotic social state
and the internecine civil and religious war which will betoken
the days of Antichrist. It is only -in such evil times that the
question would be dead and its discussion untimely ; it is
timely even in the condition of things at present existing in
Italy ; in better days and in any more normal condition of
things, the question would assume vast proportions and enforce
its own solution. The trend of the times in Italy should be
considered in weighing it ; so should the current of public
opinion ; the abating of the more general and excessive anti-
clerical violence ; the predominance of moderate opinions.
Then there are certain minor facts to be taken into account :
the comments of the newspapers and the falling into line of
officialdom with the spirit of its masters; the weighty declara-
tions of the Vatican, and, strange to say, the novelty attaching
to the public utterance of the name of God by the prime
minister. There is a rude diapason in the dissolution of three
offending Catholic syndics for the burlesque offence of object-
ing to the hoisting of the national flag on the 2Oth of Septem-
ber last.
We have here unquestionably a concatenation of recent
facts of no slight importance, as their detailing will more fully
show, but the roots of the question have some depth in the
past.
This last aspect has not been sufficiently set in relief by the
heralds of Reconciliation in the press.
Unquestionably there has been a lull during late years in
the state of warfare existing between the Italian Church and
580 THE QUESTION OF RECONCILIATION [Feb.,
State, and it has probably been the more real for having es-
caped the dangers of publicity. I do not mean that the Italian
people would have been averse to it ; but the anti-clerical sec-
tion would have been, and their accredited organs would have
tolerated it with less grace than suits their present humor.
The bank scandals form an epoch, and Colajannis' revelations
deserve the honored name of epoch-making. There was a con-
sequent sobering, and it has affected the church, partly nega-
tively inasmuch as it has distracted attention from the skir-
mishing persecution going on before, setting men's thoughts in
new channels, and partly positively inasmuch as the corruption
revealed set the integrity of Catholics in relief, they having
been notable for their complete absence. This sobering has
also been the more real because the less talked about, and
indeed almost imperceptible ; for, whatever be the case else-
where, in Italy it is in great part true that the less abundant
the demonstration made, the more thorough is the matter of
conviction.
Some Catholics call Crispi a commedian, and one hears genu-
ine anti-clericals calling him a madman. He is neither the one
nor the other. The reason of these exaggerated estimates is
the extreme versatility of his policy, to speak euphemistically.
But great ships of state in many European lands have suffered
deviation in their political career, and if Signer Crispi was not
subjected to the early and sudden transformations which befell
Beaconsfield and Gladstone, he deserves at best but measured
censure if he has compensated for the lack of direction in his
political freshness by steering steadily towards conservatism in
the latter part of his life.
He has, therefore, recognized that the Papacy is something
more than a merely resistant and conservative force, and that
it is, in every sense of the word, an enemy to be reckoned
with. Hence also, though of late years he has not neglected
occasional harassing measures, he has somewhat laid aside the
old fury of anti-clericalism. Moreover, since his coming to
office the last time, besides the question of the temporal pow-
er, there was only one serious cause of strife between the gov-
ernment and the church the question of the Patriarchate of
Venice a legacy of clumsy feud bequeathed to him by his
antagonist, the preceding minister, Giolitti. It would have
been indecorous for the armed man to have yielded this point
of honor to the vanquished Vatican. Yet never was claim more
ridiculous. In former times a very exceptional privilege had
BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE IN ITALY. 581
been granted to an extinct Catholic government, and it was
therefore purely temporary and particular to those conditions.
The present government has succeeded neither to its spirit nor
to its local character, and could only unreasonably claim to in-
stal the patriarch on its own account. This preposterous de-
mand was too trivial to be seriously contended for, and the
issue was only momentous for the moral aspect which the com-
bat had assumed. Last summer the Giolitti government
asserted its determination to withhold the exequaturs, or letters
of royal recognition, from all newly-appointed Italian bishops
until the point was won, and the Vatican's decision that the
privilege should not be granted created a deadlock.
It is not easy to admire Signer Crispi's escape from the
difficulty ; it did not save forms, but for this very reason it was
regarded as an olive-branch. The king's government nominated
the Pope's nominee, against whose person and against whose
nomination such strong objection had been taken, and a royal
exequatur was finally granted. Other exequaturs followed.
About the same time the press announced that the Holy See
had created a new prefecture apostolic in Erythrea, ordering
the substitution of Italian for French missionaries. The entire
liberal press was jubilant. The news was as timely as welcome.
To the Liberals it seemed a recognition of Italian unity as made
visible in Africa, and therefore a peace-offering, and as such a
boon. Everything here takes a French aspect. Nowhere is
France so truly la grande nation. The action was interpreted as
a favor to Italy and as not less of a rebuff to France. The
Catholic press in its " inspired " parts vainly protested that it
was the constant policy of the Holy See to depute to colonial
possessions priests of the protecting European nationality, and
various instances were cited to this effect. But years of secu-
larist education and anti-clerical fanfaronnade had engendered
crass ignorance of ecclesiastical traditions. The same Catholic
organs pointed out that the interest of souls was the only one
held in view by the Holy See, and that the fact of calling
Italians to labor in Erythrea while Italy was at enmity with the
Papacy was a typical instance of apostolic indifference to human
interests. But the liberalistic interpretation was a fait accompli,
and it had a good effect.
Then came Signer Crispi's speech. From the applause of
the audience, as disproportionately reported by the Stefani
agency, and from subsequent comments, it would seem to have
been his apotheosis. In 1884, when Naples had been ravaged
582 THE QUESTION OF RECONCILIATION [Feb.
with cholera, King Humbert and Cardinal Sanfelice had taken
an active and heroic part in allaying the evils of the scourge,
and it constitutes one of the best-founded claims of the im-
mense popularity of both. It was determined to consecrate the
memory by a lasting memorial. An inscription was erected re-
cording the fact, and Signor Crispi honored the occasion of its
uncovering by his presence. He took occasion, from the union
of prelate and king in the act of heroism, to point out the right-
fulness of union between church and state, and he called upon
the former to unite with the latter in the defence of the father-
land against subversive sects. He concluded, to the surprise of
all, with an invocation of the aid of God. An ardent discussion
was raised in the press as to the nature of the God invoked,
and an article in the Tribuna, said to have originated with the
prime minister himself, explained the expression in a moderate
manner. But the circumstances of the case and the appeal
made to the Catholic Italian majority sufficiently indicated to
what God the destinies of Italy are ultimately to be entrusted,
if she is to escape shipwreck.
So far the main facts of the case.
One is not justified in dealing with intentions either in an
arbitrary or unauthorized way. What I say of Signor Crispi's
intentions is drawn from a trustworthy source. He has been
manoeuvring with the Vatican for a long time past, and the two
facts last related are simply a public demonstration of his ten-
dency. He is supposed to have taken alarm at the Milan elec-
tions in June, when the results were as follows :
Radicals, , 7,961.
Catholics, 5,275. .
Moderates, 4,889.
Socialists, 1,905.
Anarchists, 600.
Last February he told the Chamber of Deputies that the
king was "the symbol of unity and the ark of salvation," but
there is little doubt that if the ark failed in efficacy Signor
Crispi would place his faith in the next best symbol that suc-
ceeded it. Still, in the present condition of things he strenu-
ously upholds the monarchy. He sees it threatened by Radi-
calism, Republicanism, Socialism, and Anarchism, practically
weakened and morally disavowed by the abstention of the mil-
lions of Catholics who, obeying the pontifical directions, are
1 895.] BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE IN ITALY. 583
neither electors nor elected. Were they to rally, they would form
an essentially conservative force and the safety of the cause
would be assured. But there is an indispensable condition to
the pacification which would result in their going to the urns:
the Sovereign Pontiff's repeated and insistent claims to plenary
independence by means of temporal sovereignty. It is in pro-
test against his dispossession of the temporal power that the non
expedit debars Catholics from voting. The measure is intrinsi-
cally bound up with the principle of papal independence, in fact
if not in theory. Thus, if they were to vote, their support would
be given to the power residing in the Quirinal in possession of
the conquered papal territory. The Pope declines to play into
the hands of his enemies, and the non expedit will continue in
force as a momentous protest and efficient measure. Signor
Crispi's negotiations with the Vatican have all tended to the
removal of this prohibitory measure. On his part he offers such
secondary concessions as could be contained in a pacific policy
founded on relative friendship between irreconcilable antagon-
ists. He would engage to cease from the persecution which has
wearied but not broken the Catholicism of Italy.
The compromise as such has not been accepted by the
Vatican. The removal of the prohibition to vote occupies the
same place in the desires and needs of the Quirinal as the rec-
ognition of territorial independence in the desires and needs of
the Holy See. Not even a multitude of minor concessions,
nor an entire policy of peace, could be equal in value to the
favor sought in its removal. There is no just proportion
between the advantages sought and offered by the prime
minister. The question, therefore, remains where it was before.
But if he be willing to follow pacific lines, the Vatican, I am
informed, is disposed to suspend hostilities in part, to make
fewer protests, to abstain from demonstrations which would
provoke reprisals, and to await events; but always in the ex-
pectation and hope that matters may mend radically. Each
party is tired of war and desirous of peace, and failing to
obtain the main point of contention, to suspend hostilities as
pernicious to itself. If Signor Crispi wishes, it is in his power
to establish a Truce of God with the Vatican, as with the parlia-
ment.
The negotiations are said to have been carried on through
Monsignor Carini, canon of Saint Peter's and first custodian of
the Vatican Library, a man of vast learning and in great favor
with Leo XIII. His father was a Garibaldian and general of
584 THE QUESTION OF RECONCILIATION [Feb.,
the forces at Perugia during Leo's rule there, and a warm
friendship during life happily resulted in the archbishop's re-
ceiving him into the church on his death-bed. Monsignor
Carini is a frequent visitor at Signer Crispi's house, and is a
friend as well as a fellow-countryman of the Sicilian prime
minister. The negotiations concerning Erythrea were carried
out by the minutante, or secretary, for Eastern affairs in the
Congregation of Propaganda.
Considering these negotiations for peace on the part of the
Garibaldian and anti- clerical premier of modern Italy, expressive
as they are of surrender, we cannot help thinking that Signer
Crispi has set out on the way to Canossa. True, he is still
very far from that celebrated castle, but he has unquestionably
made some steps on the way. I say this in the fullest realiza-
tion of a possible change of attitude on his part, because it is
certain that any such change of attitude would result in the
customary illsuccess. The favorite of Garibaldi, become a
royalist, after a long tenure of the reins of supreme power, has
had to beg the old Vampire to save the newly-modelled state
for the creation, but not for the maintenance, of which the
united efforts of Garibaldians and Royalists have proved suffi-
cient.
The attitude of the government during the coming months,
while showing what success has been achieved by the prime
minister, will probably reveal the final phase of the question.
In the promised destruction of the Pia Casa dci Catecumeni it
may be that we have the revenge following upon failure.
In writing the present article I have consulted a staunch
Liberal, who told me, among other things, that every effort for
reconciliation which has been made hitherto has enjoyed the
effective patronage of Queen Margherita, who is very strongly
disposed to peace and not less willing to use her great in-
fluence in that direction. He assured me, moreover, that pacific
proposals on the part of the government would obtain a pre-
ponderant majority probably in the parliament, and certainly in
the senate, and would, moreover, realize the ardent wish of the
overwhelming majority of Italians.
The fact was improbable at no time, and is more probable
than ever now. The growing organization and increasing fer-
vor of Catholics ; the disillusioning which has followed the failure
of Unitarian and secularist ideals ; the influence of the pacific
attitude to the Vatican on the part of France, Germany, and
Russia; the pressure of political and national interests; the
1895-] BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE IN ITALY. 585
tactics and necessities of the war against subversive parties ;
the truthful revelations which time has brought ; the acceptance
given the latest phase of the question ; the majestic character
of the Pontificate itself, are all signs and tendencies that go far
to make Italy recognize that its real interest is to make peace
with the great spiritual power which it is its traditional and
unique glory to possess in its midst. The efforts of the Liberals
will be met with enthusiasm by the Catholics. The success of
any peace policy will depend upon the fulness of its acceptance
by the Liberals. The Holy See, being the offended party, has
taken up a defensive attitude, from which it cannot recede* with-
out difficulty. What is required is a strong hand in the govern-
ment or the stronger force of facts. Those who are acquainted
with Italy know that a peace once inaugurated would grow
apace. It is the singular European country which has never
had a religious war, though it has been the seat of dangerous
and widespread heresy and of the Supreme Pontificate. Italians
are, for the most part, essentially tolerant and submissive to
existing conditions. The advent of peace would be marked
with the revival of prosperity for Italy. Freed from the em-
barrassments which its short-sighted polity had imposed upon
it, rid of the military incubus which it must support as a de-
fence of its present unity, strong with the moral influence of
the Papacy reposing in its heart and inevitably profiting the
chosen land of its destiny, there is every ground for the hope
that it would see a new and fuller realization than was ever be-
fore made of the prayer of her saints and pious people in all
ages : Fiat pax in circuitu tuo ct abundantia in turribus tuis.
THE ROSARY HOUSE, STOCKHOLM.
CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA.
BY MOST REV. FRANCIS JANSSENS, D.D.
'O many readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD the
three Scandinavian kingdoms, Denmark, Swe-
den, and Norway, are perhaps a terra incognita,
and it may be of interest to them to learn
some few details, taken at random, about these
northern countries of Europe.
Sweden is the most populous kingdom of the three, contain-
ing a population of about four and one-half millions, whilst Den-
mark and Norway have each about two millions. Sweden and
Norway are governed by the same king at present Oscar, a
descendant of Bernadotte, one of the generals of Napoleon I.
Norway, though governed by the same king, is free and inde-
pendent of Sweden ; it has its own legislature, laws, flag, army,,
navy, money, and import duties. The King of Sweden is recog-
nized only there when he is crowned King of Norway, and he
is obliged to spend some months every year in Norway. The
Norwegians desire no closer union with Sweden ; on the contrary
last summer they agitated the question of having their own
ministers and consuls abroad, independently of those who
now represent the two kingdoms together. The two countries
1 895.] CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA. 587
are separated by the Scandinavian mountains, and the Norwe-
gian government carefully keeps up the broad avenue cut in
the forest to mark the division line.
During the last year many travellers, who had already visited
middle and southern Europe, directed their steps to its northern
portion, and were delighted by the beauty of the magnificent
scenery of land and water, of coasts and mountains and fjords.
The inland route through Southern Sweden is a wonderful piece
of engineering, due to the genius of the famous Ericsson, of
American renown. The great Werner and Vetter and some
smaller lakes, the Gotha and Motala rivers, are made navigable by
means of canals and of seventy-four locks, built of granite, which
connect the Cattegat with the Baltic Sea, connecting also the two
principal cities of the kingdom, Goteborg and Stockholm. Gote-
borg has become well known these last years by its vast increase
of commerce and population, and not less so by a new system
for the suppression of drunkenness, originated in that city and
called the Goteborg system. Few drunkards are seen in the
city ; all the saloons are controlled by a committee of gentle-
men under the supervision of the city government. These gen-
tlemen locate the saloons, control and appoint the barkeepers \
great placards are placed on the walls which show the evils of
drunkenness and admonish the frequenters to abstinence or
moderation.
The revenues derived from the traffic, excepting five per
cent, of the net gains, fall to the city treasury, and are applied
to the erection and maintenance of beautiful and substantial
school-houses, hospitals, and orphanages ; to the laying out and
keeping up of public parks, and to the improving of the city
generally, making Goteborg one of the cleanest and prettiest
cities in Europe. The trip by boat from Goteborg to Stock-
holm takes nearly three full days. It is exceedingly interesting
to the traveller for the beauty of scenery, and because it gives
him an insight into the character and the customs of the
Swedish people. The Swedes of the better class are of an
amiable and gentle disposition, fond of pleasure and of flowers,
and polite to the stranger who comes among them. They par-
take more of the character of the French than of their nearer
neighbor the German, and they prefer to learn the language of
the former rather than of the latter. We noticed on the fin-
gers of some ladies one, two, or three plain gold rings, and
were told that it is the custom to give one when the lady is en-
gaged to be married, she receives the second at the marriage
588 CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA. [Feb.,
ceremony, and puts on a third when she is mother of her first
child ; she does not add any more for the following.
When looking at the quantity and the variety of things
spread out for dinner and supper, it would not be rash to sup-
pose the Swedes are fond of eating and drinking. Before
beginning the regular courses served at these meals, probably to
stimulate the appetite, they help themselves first from a table
on which is placed what they call smorbrod ; smor means but-
ter ; brod, of course, bread. But smorbrod is a misnomer, for
the bread and butter is the smallest portion of the table, which
holds a variety of cold meats, of salted or smoked fish, and
of cheeses (I counted once thirty different dishes for the smor-
brod), all of which may be washed down by as much gin and
kiimmel as one desires to take, without extra charge. When the
smorbrod, to which each one helps himself, is partaken of, the
more substantial courses of warm victuals are passed around.
The Swedes are so polite to the ladies that they charge them
one-third less than gentlemen for the price of dinner. At the
railroad stations where the train stops for meals the meals are
not served by waiters, but each one takes his plate, with the
necessary implements, and helps himself from the various dishes
placed without stint on a large table. When time is limited to
fifteen or twenty minutes, this proceeding, whilst novel, is very
commendable and acceptable to the traveller.
The scenery on this three days' trip is grand and replete with
variety. On the first day, whilst the boat passes through a
series of locks, the traveller, preceded by a guide, may take a
two hours' walk along the bank of the Gotha river, which near
to its connecting point with the Werner lake casts itself down
through the majestic Frollhattan falls, called the Niagara of
Europe. The falls are neither as grand nor as wide as our
American celebrity, but they are considered the finest falls in
Europe, and are well worth visiting. Further on the boat stops
at Wadsena, renowned for an old castle, but more worthy of in-
terest to the Catholic on account of the old convent, still in ex-
istence, in which St. Bridget of Sweden died and was buried.
The only native Swedish priest, an old man, has built a little
chapel in honor of the saint near to this convent, where he says
Mass for half a dozen Catholics who still cling to the faith.
On the same route whilst it takes the boat one hour to
pass another series of locks an old monastery church may be
visited at Vreta, where several of the old Swedish kings lie
buried and where are placed against the walls the remains of
I895-]
CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA.
589
statues of Christ and of his saints, torn from their niches and
broken by the iconoclasts of the sixteenth century. Stockholm
is a lovely city, surrounded by rocky upheavals and fjords of
great beauty; and intersected by many canals. The city is rich
in monuments, old churches, a national museum, a magnificent
palace for the king, a zoological garden and the Skanze, which
represents the dwellings, utensils, and costumes of different por-
BISHOP JOHANNES VON EUCH.
tions of the kingdom. The Swedes call Stockholm the Paris
of the North, and it seems to be a city of amusement and plea-
sure. In summer every one who does not go to a country
house and even families of small means leave the city for three
or four months is seen at the many saloons, where in open
gardens they listen to delightful music and sip Swedish arrack
punch. The capital of Norway, Christiania, presents little of
590 CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA. [Feb.,
interest except its magnificent bays and fjords, and we leave to
others to describe the grand Atlantic coast scenery and the in-
land lakes of Norway. We also left to others the pleasure of
travelling to the North Cape to behold the midnight sun setting
and rising almost at the same hour. It is very pleasant to have
a long day of it in summer, but what of the long night in win-
ter ? A priest, who during six years labored among a very
small congregation at Hammersfest, told me that for more than
two months in the year he had just enough of daylight, with-
out needing the artificial means of candle or oil, to say his Lit-
tle Hours, provided he placed himself near the window.
Christianity was partially introduced into Sweden during the
ninth century by the holy Bishop Ansgar, the Apostle of
Northern Germany, and it was fully established in the eleventh
century by St. Canute, King of Denmark, who also established
it in that kingdom and in Norway.
The three Scandinavian kingdoms, which in olden times were
usually at war with one another, were united into one kingdom
by the Union of Calmar in the fourteenth century, under the
King of Denmark as the head. Christian II., in the beginning
of the sixteenth century, was a cruel king. He beheaded many
of the Swedish nobles, among others the father of Gustaf Wasa.
This Gustaf Wasa availed himself of Protestantism to shake off
the dominion of Denmark and to proclaim himself King of
Sweden. At the end of the same century, Charles IX. used the
same means to dethrone his Catholic brother, Sigismund, and
to usurp his place. As a matter of course, Gustaf Wasa began
and Charles finished taking all the properties belonging to the
church and to the monasteries, and kept them for themselves
and their followers.
In Denmark the political power and the landed property were
divided between the bishops and the nobility. Christian II.
took Lutheranism as a pretext to break down the political
power of the bishops and to confiscate all ecclesiastical proper-
ty. His work was continued by his son, Christian III., and al-
ready before the middle of the sixteenth century laws were
passed by which the clergy were banished from the country,
and Catholics were debarred from holding office and deprived of
their hereditary rights. Norway, which remained united to Den-
mark until the reorganization of Europe in 1814, followed its
example and lost the faith in a similar manner. The people
fell almost unawares into the doctrines and practices of Lutheran,
ism. :The government translated the Roman Liturgy into the
1 895.] CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA. 591
vernacular, but left its substance almost untouched. Confession
was abolished, priests were allowed to marry, communion was
administered under two forms, but the order of archbishops and
bishops was retained. They are, however, appointed by the
king, who thus becomes the spiritual head, and they are considered
as superintendents and not as possessing any special power by
virtue of their consecration. Even to-day the altar is adorned
with a large crucifix, six tall candlesticks, and lighted candles ;
the Mass is, in a great measure, the same as according to the
Roman rite, and the minister wears the chasuble with the cross
on the back, and the ceremonies of baptism are almost identi-
cal: the sign of the cross is made over the child, which is bap-
tized by a threefold pouring of the water. Baptism adminis-
tered by a Lutheran minister in the three kingdoms is looked
upon as valid, and the three vicars apostolic assured us that con-
verts so baptized are not rebaptized conditionally.
These three northern bishops, whom we visited in our travels,
were exceedingly kind. They extended to us a most hearty
welcome and furnished us with much of the information con-
tained in this article, for which they will please accept our most
cordial thanks.
The Scandinavian kingdoms resisted the march of religious
freedom longer than most European nations. Until within the
present generation no religious denomination was tolerated ex-
cept Lutheranism, which even unto this day is the acknowl-
edged religion of each state.
In Denmark Catholic service was allowed in the private
chapels of the ambassadors of France, Spain, and Austria, who
resided in the capital. Owing to the many Catholic soldiers in
the pay of the government this privilege was extended in 1686
to the fortress Fredericia. The law of 1849 granted freedom
of worship to all dissenters from the state religion, and it was
from that date that any effort towards Catholic missions could
be attempted. A few Catholics, mostly immigrants, were scat-
tered here and there, and when in 1860 the present vicar apos-
tolic was sent as a newly ordained priest to Denmark, he found
but 5 priests, 675 Catholics, and two schools numbering 90
pupils. The kingdom was erected into a prefecture in 1869, and
in 1892 into a vicariate apostolic, with Monseigneur John von
Euch as vicar apostolic and titular bishop in partibus infidelium.
Monseigneur von Euch is a man of great talent and of most im-
posing and pleasing appearance; he is universally esteemed by
Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The Danes possess a firmer
592
CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA.
[Feb.,
and more steady character than their northern brethren, and con-
versions have been more frequent and are more reliable. The
poor, of course, have the Gospel preached to them, and heed
the invitation ; but many others, who by their social position-
er learning wield great influence, have entered the fold with
them. The small number of Catholics, 675 in 1860, has risen,
principally through conversions, to the respectable number of
near 6,000 in 1894, with about 1,000 children in the Catholic
schools. Copenhagen is a beautiful city and most favorably
situated on the Sund. Its population, as it is with all capital;
cities, has vastly increased these last years. The government
is finishing very extensive
works to make the city a
free harbor ; this is attract-
ing commerce and shipping,
and will still add to its al-
ready large population. The
energetic bishop does not
remain idle, but keeps pace
with this progress, and two
more churches have recent-
ly been built to give the
city population a better and
easier opportunity to attend
to its religious duties. The
so-called cathedral of the
bishop is a very modest
building without steeple
steeples on Catholic church-
es were prohibited until
within the last years and
his episcopal palace so-call-
ed, an appendix to the rear
of the church, is of still more
modest dimensions, and whilst fully in accordance with the pov-
erty of his means, it is far from being in accordance with the
dignity of his office. The bishop is assisted in his work by 36
priests, one-half of whom are Jesuits, who, besides parish work,
attend to two colleges, one in Ordrup, the other in Copenhagen.
The Sisters of St. Joseph from Chambery are already some
years in the country and God has greatly prospered their work.
They possess a very large convent in the capital, which serves
for t mother-house, novitiate, schools French and Danish, and
THE PARISH PRIEST OF FREDERIKSHALD.
1 89 5.] CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA. 593
hospital ; they number one hundred sisters in the mother-house,
and about sixty more in their other convents.
Besides these Sisters of St. Joseph there are a few of an-
other order, and some brothers. For a good many years a
weekly paper has defended the interests of the church. The
best proof that the church is making itself felt in the hearts of
the people is afforded by the fact that of the 18 secular priests
12 are natives of the soil, as well as the 4 ecclesiastical students,
and the religious orders of women count about 40 sisters born
in the country. Great hopes for conversions had been placed on
the marriage of the third son of the Danish king with the
Catholic Princess Marie, of the house of Orleans ; but the re-
sult has been disappointing. It was stated at the time of this
marriage that the conditions required by the church for mixed
marriages had been complied with, yet the three children of
this union, all boys, have been baptized by a Lutheran
minister.
The great drawback and the most burdensome cross of the
good bishop is poverty in worldly goods. In the early days of
Christianity poverty seemed not to hinder the rapid progress of
religion, and St. Francis Xavier accomplished the conversion
of thousands and thousands without any money to his credit ;
but somehow or other it is the experience of modern mission-
aries, even of the most zealous, that money 'is a necessary
adjunct to the grace of God. And so in Denmark the lack of
this precious aid makes it difficult to keep up what is done,
and still more difficult to extend, the work that should be done.
Yet the Lord has been good, conversions are increasing, and
the future of the Church in Denmark becomes daily brighter.
The vicar apostolic has charge also of the island of Iceland in
Europe and of Greenland in America, but so far he has not
been able to send a priest to those far-away and cold countries.
The Catholic religion and its adherents had been proscribed
in Sweden for nearly two centuries when, in 1789, the king
allowed Catholics to live in the kingdom and publicly to exer-
cise their religion. In 1860 the law which punished with ban-
ishment and privation of patrimony whomsoever should abjure
Lutheranism, was abolished. Previous to 1873 marriages per-
formed by dissenting ministers were illegal ; in fact, no one not
confirmed in the Lutheran faith could legally be married.
Lutheranism still remains the official state religion, but of late
all religious denominations are tolerated and enjoy full liberty
to exercise their rites.
VOL. LX. 38
594 CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA. [Feb.,
Bernadotte, born in Pau, Southern France, a marshal and
prince of the French Empire under Napoleon I., was elected
Crown Prince of Sweden in 1810, but as soon as he landed on
Swedish territory ha had to abjure Catholicity and to embrace
Lutheranism. His son Oscar, who as a child had been reared
a Catholic, followed his father's evil example. Oscar married
Josephine, daughter of Eugene Beauharnais, the son of the
Empress Josephine, the lawful wife of Napoleon. She remained
a faithful Catholic, and was universally esteemed and beloved by
the people. She favored, in as far as she could, her few Catho-
lic subjects. She founded and endowed an asylum for thirty
poor widows Catholic or non-Catholic placing the asylum un-
der a mixed administration, with the proviso that it be under
the care of the Sisters of St. Elizabeth.
Already in 1783 a vicariate apostolic, embracing Sweden
and Norway, had been established by the Holy See, but with
no visible results, for it was only in 1837 that the first Catholic
church was built in the kingdom. In 1868 Norway was made
a separate apostolic prefecture, and in 1892, simultaneously
with the erection of Norway and Denmark into a vicariate,
Sweden obtained a vicar apostolic in the person of Right
Rev. Albert Bitter, who was consecrated bishop in partibus
infidelium. The number of Catholics in Sweden is about 1,500;
probably one-third are natives and converts ; 800 live in the
city of Stockholm, and the balance, 700, are scattered here and
there over a vast territory and among a population of more
than four and one-half millions. The bishop and his clergy are
very zealous for Christian education ; their resources are ex-
ceedingly limited, yet each parish possesses a Catholic school.
Thus they retain the faith in the Catholic families and add
some few by conversion to the church. There are a dozen
priests and three orders of sisterhoods to assist the bishop in
his vast diocese. Their trials are great and so is their poverty ;
but they bear up bravely. If they reap little comfort, and at
times bitter disappointment in this world, they may reasonably
expect a very bountiful reward in the next.
When passing through Goteborg we looked for the Catholic
church ; few people seemed to be aware there existed such a
building ; at last we found it. The exterior presents no beauty
nor architectural style, neither has it any steeple; the interior,
however, is beautifully decorated. It is in charge of two Jesuit
fathers, who also attend to the neighboring missions. The
capital, Stockholm, has two churches. One is under the care of
i8 9 5-]
CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA.
595
the Jesuits; the building possesses no special attraction, but is
favorably situated in the heart of the city and well attended,
especially in winter. The ambassadors for the two kingdoms
reside in Stockholm ; several represent Catholic countries and
add respectability to this church. The cathedral is situated
on a high hill and in a poor neighborhood. It is not a
large but a very beautiful building. It was erected by the
present vicar apostolic from alms, principally obtained from
friends and benefactors in Germany. It is exceedingly neat
and chaste in design ; its interior furnishing corresponds with the
PANORAMIC VIEW OF FREDERIKSHALD.
style of the church, the decorations and stained-glass windows
display great artistic taste, and everything is kept scrupulously
clean. The good sisters, who live in the same building with
the bishop and keep a school and orphanage, sing in the choir.
We said one of the parochial Masses on Sunday ; the attendance
was small, the singing by the sisters most devotional ; the
choice and execution of their church music rivalled any we
596 CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA. [Feb.,
ever heard. The beauty of the building, the solemn services,
and the impressive music attract many Protestants and often
result in conversions. The church is slowly, though steadily
progressing; but the scarcity of means and of priests, and the
emotional and unsteady character of the Swedes, are serious
drawbacks to the spread of the Catholic faith.
By royal decree of 1842 the few Catholics of Christiania,
Norway, obtained a special permission to constitute themselves
into a congregation under the management of a priest. The
law of 1845 granted to all dissenters, among them the Catho-
lics, the liberty to observe their religious rites, yet forbade
Jesuits and men of religious orders to exercise sacred functions.
Civilly, dissenters and Catholics remained excluded from nearly
all public offices until the year 1894, when the exclusion was
restricted to the king's ministers and to all public-school teach-
ers. These teachers are required by law to teach the Lutheran
religion to the pupils, and, as a natural consequence, the law
must exact their adhesion to that particular denomination.
Still, children of dissenters, at the request of their parents, are
not obliged to assist at religious instruction. Moreover, dis-
senters are allowed to erect and control their own schools and
teach their own tenets during school hours, and the parents
are exempt from the special school-tax if their children fre-
quent a school which is conformable to certain reasonable
state regulations. Marriages of Catholics, or between a "Catho-
lic and a non-Catholic, are subject to certain regulations, which,
on the whole, are not unfair. Though the Chambers still cling
to Lutheranism as a state religion, they are inclined to deal
liberally with all dissenters. The Catholic Church in the king-
dom remained in a languishing condition ; she possessed but
one church in Christiania, built in 1856, and a handful of
members, mostly foreign immigrants, until the year 1869, when
Pius IX. erected Norway into an apostolic prefecture with a
French priest, Father Bernard, as prefect apostolic. From that
time dates a period of constant though slow progress.
In Norway, no more than in America, are conversions made
by the wholesale ; the reaping is rather a slow but steady glean-
ing of scattered ears of grain. A priest, stationed in a large
territory with but a few dozen Catholics under his ministration,
requires the patience of a saint and much strength of character
not to lose courage when gathering in the stray sheep one by
one, and sometimes at long intervals, into the true fold of the
Lord. I visited the pretty town of Frederikshald, where the
1 895.] CATHOLICISM IN SCANDINAVIA. 597
cousin of a friend was pastor. The surroundings of the town
are grand ; waterfalls hurry down from the mountains and
through a chain of lakes along the valley, the Tisdal ; the city
is overlooked by the fortress, in olden times considered impreg-
nable, and near it a monument has been erected by the Swedes
in honor of Charles XII. This Swedish king, whilst leading a
brave attack on city and fortress, was struck dead by the
Norwegian troops, who were fighting for liberty and country.
On the monument a Latin verse records that this brave king
knew not how to retreat, but knew how to die. The congregation
of Frederikshald is in possession of a nice but half-finished and
small church, and of a little frame convent, where some Sisters
of St. Joseph brave the cold in the winter, and poverty nearly
the whole year round, in order to nurse the sick and to teach
a few children. The good pastor, whose smiling face has made
friends with the whole town, and whose choir is made up three-
fourths of Lutherans, is the spiritual ruler over just forty
members, and his neighbor at Frederikstadt, about thirty
miles distant, ministers to only twenty. It is hard and trying
to be able and willing to serve two or four thousand souls and
to have but twenty or forty under one's care and ministration.
So there are many other parishes in Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark where priests find an insufficient field for their zeal,
and where they must and do keep their souls in patience until
.the Lord give them a reward greater than to priests who
labor for thousands of Catholics. In 1887 Father Bernard was
succeeded by Father Fallize, a Luxemburger, who in his
country fulfilled the office of vicar-general and of state deputy.
There were then 8 stations, 4 houses of sisters, and about 700
Catholics in the whole kingdom. The i$th of March, 1892,
Leo XIII. erected Norway into an apostolic vicariate and ap-
pointed Father Fallize vicar apostolic, who was consecrated
bishop of some extinct oriental see. The Catholic religion is
steadily on the increase, and has doubled its number by con-
versions taken from various classes of society, who seem sym-
pathetic for the old Mother Church, whom they should never
have deserted. At present there are 1 1 parishes. Each one has
a Catholic school attached, frequented by many non-Catholic
children, who are often the cause of the conversion of the
whole family. There are 9 houses of sisters, among whom 12
natives, who devote themselves to all good works ; they teach
the children, nurse the sick, care for the poor, and give an ex-
ample of heroic charity and piety to all. Seventeen priests,
598 FOR THEE THE JOYS THAT CROSS THE TIDE. [Feb.,
only two of whom are natives, assist the energetic bishop in
his extensive and laborious missions. May God send him some
more reapers for the field of the Lord, and add thereto the
necessary funds to sustain his clergy and to establish and keep
up the works of religion ! The bishop has erected a printing
press to print catechisms and devotional books in the
Norwegian language ; the same press issues a weekly paper,
called St. Olaf. This short report shows that there is life and
activity in those cold Northern countries, and any one who pos-
sesses some surplus means, and has the spread of our holy
religion at heart, will do a good work by helping the zealous
Bishops of Christiania, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. They rely
almost entirely on the alms from the Propagation of Faith,
which are entirely inadequate, and these worthy bishops fre-
quently have to take the beggar's staff in hand in order to
solicit help from kind friends in other countries.
FOR THEE THE JOYS THAT CROSS THE TIDE.
BY EDWARD DOYLE.
H, while my baby sleeps, what fancies rise !
A sparkling dew, all tremulous, she seems,
On Slumber's crimson-opening bud of dreams.
Cease, Zephyr ! hold thy breath ; nor move
thine eyes.
Lo ! angels deem her sleep auroral skies,
And float thereunder from the crescent's beams.
Oh ! God be praised that, while with woe earth teems,
It is on Gideon's Fleece my infant lies
O Beatrice ! my love spreads azure-wide
Above thy slumber, and, star-lighted, reaches
The Father whom no soul in vain beseeches.
It craves for thee the joys that cross the tide,
When the dark seas that roar along Life's beaches,
With threat of chaos, hear God and divide.
1 895-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 599
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY.
BY REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH.
CHAPTER X.
Break-up at the Seminary. Professors take Alarm. Jesuits in Disguise.
Wattson and Donnelly dismissed. Me Vickar withdraws. Walworth,
McMaster, and Wadhams cross over to Rome.
i
'HE trial and degradation of Bishop Onderdonk,
of New York, was a substantial triumph for the
Evangelical party in the Protestant Episcopal
Church. It effected in the United States in
many respects what the condemnation of Ward
had brought about in England, although accomplished by dif-
ferent means. In England it was a square, open fight. It was
made evident that the Mother Church there would not tolerate
any further advance of Tractarianism, and this spirit prevailed
even amongst High-churchmen of every variety of color and
degree. The High-churchmen in the United States, however,
had not taken so much alarm. Hitherto they had resisted all
the efforts of evangelicals to meddle with the situation of things
at the General Seminary. They had with great unanimity sus-
tained the ordination of Arthur Carey, believing that all the
leanings of Carey towards Roman Catholic doctrine and
customs were at least things to be tolerated in the same way
that the leaning of evangelicals towards the doctrines and
fashions of dissenters found tolerance.
So confident were the High-church bishops of maintaining
the toleration that they desired for their own views and for a
very large latitude in those views, that they ventured some-
times to indulge in a very humorous vein when dealing with
the alarm felt by the opposite party. This sportive mood dis-
played itself sometimes even in their General Conventions. In
the convention held at Philadelphia in October, 1844, Bishop
Chase presiding, it was proposed to send certain questions to the
faculty of the Chelsea General Seminary in order to ascertain if
Tractarianism was not propagated at that institution with the
connivance and even with the open aid of some of its pro-
6oo GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Feb.,
fessors. From the autobiography of Professor Turner (page
192) we learn that forty questions were prepared and for-
warded from the House of Bishops.
Some of these questions ran as follows :
"Are the Oxford tracts adopted as text-books in the
seminary? Are they publicly or privately recommended to the
students? Is Tract $0 used as a text-book, or (so) recom-
mended ? "
" Are the works of the Rev. Dr. Pusey, Messrs. Newman,
Keble, Palmer, Ward, and Massingberd, or any of them, used
as text-books, or publicly or privately recommended in the
seminary ? "
" Are the superstitious practices of the Romish Church, such
as the use or worship of the crucifix, of images of saints, and
the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, and other saints, adopted,
or publicly or privately recommended in the seminary ? "
The questions just given emanated unquestionably from
spirits of the Low-church type. They are ridiculous when the
character of any of the professors of the seminary in my day
is taken into account. How much fun was to be found among
the right reverend bishops convened at Philadelphia may be
gathered from the following questions, which were put in to
serve as foils to the mischievous thrusts of the Low-church pre-
lates :
" Is Calvinism, comprehending what are known as the ' five
points,' so taught or recommended ? Is any one of the five
points so taught or recommended?"
"Are the works of Toplady, of Thomas Scott, and John
Newton, and Blunt on the Articles, or any of them, used as
text-books, or publicly or privately recommended to the
students of the seminary ? "
There is not so much fun in some of the other questions
which intimate at the seminary the teaching of rationalism.
These seem to be aimed chiefly at Professor Turner. There
cannot be the slightest justice in them. Out of deep respect
for the memory of that learned scholar and truly good man, I
deeply regret them. They belong, however, to the history of
the time, they are quoted by himself in his autobiography; no
call of delicacy requires me to leave them out.
" Is the German system of rationalism that is, of rejecting
everything mysterious in the doctrines and institutions of the
Gospel, and making human reason the sole umpire in theology,
adopted or so recommended in the seminary? Are German or
1895-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 601
other authors who support that system adopted as text books,
or so recommended as guides of theological opinion?"
Had the opponents of Bishop Onderdonk left his private
character unassailed, they would have gained nothing in their war
against the seminary or the stout old Bishop of New York,
who was a champion too doughty for any honorable weapons
which they could bring to bear upon him.
As it was, however, they conceived that they had scored for
PROFESSOR SAMUEL H. TURNER.
the time being a substantial triumph in accomplishing his de-
gradation and suspension. Many churchmen who had stood by
the bishop in defence of Carey were not prepared to justify, nor
willing to appear before the public as justifying, all that was
proved against the bishop on his trial. They felt humiliated in
his humiliation. They felt demoralized and in a way discour-
aged. They became afraid to identify themselves with him in
anything, even in what they believed to be right.
602 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Feb.,
All this made a great difference with matters at the semi-
nary. Our principal defender, the Bishop of New York, had
now become defenceless. Those professors there who were either
friendly to us or naturally indisposed to listen to anything which
could disturb the seminary now became timid. They would
gladly have shielded Tractarian students, but dared not. Pro-
fessor Ogilby, on the other hand, though professedly a High-
churchman and intolerant towards dissenters, was in his way a
good deal of an Orangeman and always ready for a fight against
anything that was really Catholic. He was now ready to take
the lead in purifying the seminary of all Romanism. He soon
succeeded in making things lively at Chelsea. He took it
into his head that there was an organized party both in the
seminary and outside, including clergy, whose object was to
Romanize the Episcopalian Church.
One day near the close of December, 1844, Professor Ogilby
sent for one of the students named Wattson, of the middle class,
and accused him and several other students of being engaged
in this conspiracy. The manner in which this suspicion arose I
never knew until lately. The particulars have been furnished
me by Wattson's own son, the Rev. Lewis Wattson, of King-
ston, N. Y., with permission to use his communication freely.
His father, Joseph N. Wattson, one day jokingly said to Pres-
cott, who subsequently became a member of the English Socie-
ty of St. John the Evangelist, known in the Anglican Church
as the Cowley Fathers : " Don't you know, Prescott, that there
is a number of Jesuit students in disguise here at the General,
and that when they have made all the converts they can, they
are going openly to Rome themselves ? " Prescott took the joke
in dead earnest and reported it to the dean. Upon this Watt-
son was called up before the dean. In due course of time he, and
another student named Donnelly, of the same class, namely, that
of 1846, were publicly tried upon charges founded upon this
misconception. They were acquitted for want of sufficient proofs,
but for all that they were quietly dismissed.
The other students implicated by name in this supposed plot
were Taylor, Platt, McVickar, and myself. Of these Platt was
a graduate belonging to the diocese of Western New York and
already in orders. Of Taylor I have no special recollections,
though he belonged to my class. I find his name included in
a list of alleged conspirators named by McVickar in a letter
written at the time to my friend Wadhams, afterwards Bishop
of Ogdensburg. This letter I have given nearly in full in my
1 895.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 603
Reminiscences of Wadhams. I myself was at the time not in
the seminary, although nominally a student still. I was resid-
ing during the latter part of that autumn, and during the winter
and spring of 1845, with Wadhams in the Adirondacks. He was
in deacon's orders, having charge, under Bishop Onderdonk, of
Essex County. His principal stations were Ticonderoga, Port
Henry, and Wadhams' Mills. I did not belong to the jurisdic-
tion of Bishop Onderdonk, but had received from him a license to
act as lay-reader. This empowered me to conduct the morn-
ing and evening service as provided in the Book of Common
Prayer in the absence of my friend, as also to read a discourse
from any book of sermons published by some clergyman of the
church in good standing.
I do not remember to have read in public anything except
from the " Plain Sermons," which were discourses of simple
practical piety intended to be free from points in controversy
and unobjectionable to any Anglican congregation.
McVickar, mentioned as one of the partners in this complot r
was a son of the Rev. Dr. McVickar of Columbia College, one
of the most learned of the clergy of the New York diocese and
one of those examiners of Arthur Carey who had decided in
his favor.
Henry McVickar had his trial before the faculty on the
seventh of January. A special charge was made against him
of recommending Romish books, and of believing in the papal
supremacy. In the letter above mentioned McVickar states
that the information came through P . This may be the
same student upon whom Wattson played his perilous joke.
It does not appear that anything was made out against
McVickar at his trial, except that the latitude of opinion which
he had used was detrimental to the interests of the seminary.
His judges furthermore alleged that not McVickar, but they
themselves were the best judges of what was thus detrimental.
This claim McVickar allowed, and said that if they would point
out how they thought he had injured it, he would avoid it for
the future. Afterwards he thought he had allowed too much,
for they restricted him so closely that he felt himself thorough-
ly hampered by his own promises and preferred to leave the
institution. He retired to rooms in Columbia College, where he
prosecuted in private his preparation for orders. He did not
count, however, upon receiving orders at all. In a letter to
Wadhams, dated Maundy-Thursday, 1845, he says: "I am ex-
tremely doubtful whether I can obtain orders without exciting
604 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Feb.,
new commotions and troubles ; and if I think so when the
time comes I shall not apply for them."
Whitcher (Benjamin F.), belonging like myself to the West-
ern diocese of New York, was also involved in these troubles,
although, being a graduate and in deacon's orders, he was no
longer responsible to the faculty of the seminary. On a visit
to New York at the time, he informed his friends there that
he had been summoned to appear before his bishop. All those
supposed to be in this popish conspiracy were reported to their
several bishops. It is certain that Bishop De Lancey gave little
heed to the charges made against myself. He never spoke to
me or wrote to me on the subject. In fact I never knew that
I had been denounced to him except through McVickar's let-
ters. For this confidence in me I feel grateful to him ; I have
never ceased to cherish his memory as a loved and honored
friend of my youth.
Dr. William Everett, now rector of the Catholic Church
of the Nativity in New York City, name loved and revered by
all, then residing not far from the seminary and within easy
reach of the students, a post-graduate of the last class, was as
much a papist as any of us, but I cannot find that he was at
all involved in this alleged conspiracy. I suppose the reason to
be that, like Arthur Carey, he was considered too valuable a
man to lose whatever his religious tendencies might be.
One thing connected with this complot is and, I fear, ever will
be a profound mystery. Who could the concealed Jesuits be?
Among all the faces at the seminary, still familiar to my mem-
ory, I cannot recall one that fills the picture. Shall we look
for -them among the faculty? It could not be Bishop Onder-
donk, the president. He was bold, open, and outspoken in
maintaining the right of Tractarians to toleration in the Angli-
can fold. But boldness and frankness are not the supposed
characteristics of Jesuitism, and he would never have been
selected by that terrible society to act in such a capacity.
Dr. Turner could never be suspected of acting in such a rdle.
He was a most devoted student of the Bible, and so familiar
with it that he seemed to know it all by heart; besides this,
although not averse to quoting from the early Fathers in the
interpretation of Scripture, he leaned more to modern Anglican
commentators, and especially to such German authors as he
considered to be reliable critics in matters of biblical text.
Moreover, as dean of the faculty, he took not a little part in
this very scare of which we are speaking. Professor Ogilby
1 895.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 605
was a most violent anti-popery man and hated Romanism more
even than he scorned Dissent. Professor Haight could not have
been one of them. If so, he died in the same disguise. Good
Dr. Moore must be acquitted of any such suspicion. Although
learned in the Hebrew and gifted as a poet, he was as simple
and hearty a man as Santa Claus himself. Moreover, while
teaching us Hebrew from the Hebrew Bible, he made it an
invariable rule, as being a layman, never to interpret the pas-
sages he translated. By this rule he cast away, as a concealed
Jesuit never would, his best opportunity to poison our minds
with popery. The only two left about the institution who had
any easy access to the students were Professor Bird Wilson,
who taught theology, and a good old man who presided over
the coal-bins and furnaces. One gave out doctrines more or
less new to us, and the other furnished fuel and fire. If these
were Jesuits, they concealed themselves most effectually. No
suspicion ever fell upon either of them.
Among the students themselves I can recall only two that
can possibly lie open to suspicion. One had been va Catholic.
He did not always give the same reasons for having joined the
Episcopalian Church. Sometimes he alleged that it was because
when he was a Catholic he was not allowed to read his Bible.
This made him very interesting to a society of pious ladies who
maintained him at the seminary. He told McMaster once that
it was because he couldn't stand the fasting imposed upon him
in the Catholic Church. This roused McMaster's indignation,
who confronted him with the first reason given, insisting upon
it that he should stand upon one story or the other, and say
whether he had come over to Protestantism for the love of his
Bible or for the sake of his belly.
The other student had been brought up in the Greek
Church, and consequently early imbued with all that is held to
be odious in Catholic doctrine except the supremacy of the
Roman See. This one redeeming trait stripped him of horns
and hoofs and made him welcome to Protestantism. Even
thus, however, he might be a concealed Jesuit, but I am not
aware that any such suspicion fell upon him.
The sensitive dread of Jesuitism which prevailed about this
time, and had succeeded at last in placing a time-honored in-
stitution under public surveillance, was not confined to Chelsea,
nor to the Episcopalian Church. It found lodgment also in sem-
inaries of other Protestant sects. It existed, for instance, at the
same time at East Windsor, Conn. It existed most tenaciously
606 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Feb.,
in the mind of one of the faculty there. He was, if I remem-
ber the tradition right, a professor of scriptural exegesis, and
irreverently named by the students, for reasons of their own,
" Old Kaigar." One day he enlarged before his class on a
subtle policy attributed by him to the Church of Rome of lo-
cating Jesuit spies wherever an opportunity was afforded of
doing mischief. " They locate themselves," said he, " in every
city, every town, every community, every social circle, with an
eye upon every family. I should not be surprised to learn that
there is a concealed Jesuit, perhaps, in this very seminary, per-
haps in this class-room at this very moment." The impression
made upon the students was not a very solemn one. It was
not only long remembered by the inmates of Windsor Semi-
nary as a joke, but was well circulated outside.
In a series of lectures delivered at London by John Henry
Newman, in 1849 or ^50, he compares the great break-up of
Tractarianism to an incident related in the Arabian Nights, when
Sindbad, the sailor, and his companions found themselves
stranded on what they took to be an island, but was in reality
the back of a sleeping whale. The merry crew amused them-
selves in dancing, and shouting, and a variety of other antics
on the back of the unconscious creature, and with perfect safety.
When, however, they proceeded to build a fire upon his back
the great fish woke up to a sense of pain and, becoming conscious
that mischief was going on, he shook himself suddenly free
from these disturbers of his peace. In England the Tractarian
coals grew too hot for toleration when William George Ward,
at Oxford, published his Ideal of a Christian Church. Ward's
speedy condemnation followed, and all the Tractarians who
really meant anything by their Catholic antics were either
obliged to take refuge in the real Catholic Church, or else recon-
cile themselves to those quiet slumbers so congenial to their
Anglican mother.
The break-up of Tractarianism in the United States was
simultaneous with that in England. In the Mother Country and
in the Mother Church the coals on the whale's back lay hottest
at Oxford, and there the first nervous shock of the sleepy old
creature made itself felt. The Seminary at Chelsea was the Ox-
ford of American Anglicanism, and there occurred also the
first throes of that convulsion which forced so many enthusias-
tic young Tractarians either to climb back into the Protestant
ship and stay quiet, or else take to the water and swim for
their lives.
1895-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 607
One student had already left and united with the ancient
church before the whale began to flop. This was Edward W.
Putnam, of the class succeeding mine. His conversion occurred
in 1844. It took place so quietly that many of us did not
know of it when he left us. Even- now I do not know any de-
tails to show the special reasons and circumstances which led to
his conversion. About three years afterwards he took priest's
orders in the Catholic Church. I think he must have been or-
dained for the diocese of Albany, for I find his name in the
parish records of St. Mary's, Albany, officiating under Bishop
McCloskey during the first year of his pontificate in that dio-
cese, after that prelate's transfer from New York. He was a
good, zealous, and fervent priest, and his memory still remains
in benediction among the few Catholics of Albany who are old
enough to look back to his time. The latter part of his life
was spent in Maine. He was a fruit of the Tractarian move-
ment, but he does not belong to that great break-up of which
I am now speaking.
The first conversion consequent upon the great scare at
Chelsea in January, 1845, was my own. I was not at the
seminary when the scare took place, although my name was
involved in the supposed conspiracy. Its influence upon my
life, however, was almost instantaneous. The reader must
here recall the pretty little by-play of founding a monastery
which Wadhams and I, in connection with McVickar, were
carrying on among the Adirondacks in Essex County. This
air-drawn convent of the future went down at once into the
ocean when the scared fish shook his sides and dived.
McVickar crawled back at once into safe quarters. Our beauti-
ful Fata Morgana disappeared [like a dream. Prior Wadhams,
although suddenly unfrocked, stiM held his mission in Essex
County and could take time to feel his way out. But I was
completely afloat. Crawl back like McVickar and others, I
would not. Go forward in pure dreamland, without a single
peg to hang a hope on, I could not. Neither could I go home
to my father's house at Saratoga, and to the village circle
which surrounded it. There the atmosphere was more stifling
even than the sham pretences to Catholicity so rife in Episco-
palian .Protestantism. Besides this, my Tractarian course had
been so contrary to the wishes of my parents and other old
friends near the homestead, that it seemed to me a call of
honor to become independent, and by earning my own living
acquire a right to follow my own conscience. The monastic
6o8 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Feb.,
bond between myself and Wadhams being broken, there was
nothing to keep me any longer by Wadhams' side. Our
vocations lay along different lines, and I must strike out a
separate path for myself. I therefore made arrangements to
work at a lath-mill in Essex County until I could see my
way distinctly to join the Catholic Church, and enter its priest-
hood. Before I could carry out this plan, McMaster arrived at
Ticonderoga on his way to Canada, and my friend and I went
down there to meet him. On learning my determination to
become a Catholic, and my preliminary purpose of becoming a
miller's boy, McMaster said :
" Don't do that. I can tell you where to go. I've stumbled
on a priest in New York City that is just the man to receive
you into the church. It is Father Gabriel Rumpler. He is the
superior of a convent of Redemptorist priests in Third Street,
New York. He is a most remarkable man, full of learning,
wisdom, experience, and a truly holy man. And besides that,
it is an order of religious missionaries. You were always wild
after missionary work. You can't do better than join them."
The account he gave of Father Rumpler and of the
Redemptorists put an end at once to my project of going into
the lath business. It opened a practical door by which to
enter the Catholic Church. It promised me a wise Ananias to
take me by the hand and direct my course among the new
faces which were soon to gather around me, and in the new
life which lay before me. My determination to become a
Catholic was fixed and resolute. To unite with the Catholic
Church all I needed was an introduction to it. The oppor-
tunity was now offered and I embraced it immediately.
Wadhams and McMaster accompanied me from Ticonderoga
village to the steamboat dock by the old fort to see me off. I
urged the former to take the same step without delay.
" Don't hurry me, Walworth," said he ; "I am in a position
of responsibility and confidence, and when I leave, if leave I
must, it shall be done handsomely. You have no charge. You
have only to let your bishop know what you are about doing,
and then do it."
" Go ahead, dear old boy," said McMaster. " I'm ashamed
to have you get the start of me, but I'll follow you soon. I've
been fooling about with these Puseyite playthings too long.
Look for me in Third Street when I get back from Montreal."
There we parted. I took the steamer for Whitehall. Mc-
Master took the same boat on its return and made his visit to
1 89 5.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 609
Canada, and Wadhams went back, lonely and desolate, to his
room at the village, inn at Ticonderoga Falls.
A couple of days later found me knocking at the convent
door in Third Street. I found in Father Rumpler the very
man I needed. The Redemptorist convent and church were
wooden structures at that time and very shabby. Everything
was new and poor. I liked it all the better for its destitution.
During my stay in New York I stopped with my sister,
Mrs. Jenkins, who resided with her husband and children in
Eleventh Street, near the corner of Fifth Avenue; but I visited
the convent in Third Street every day. Father Rumpler
examined me very particularly, to see how near my religious
convictions were in accord with Catholic faith and how far my
intelligence of Catholic doctrine extended. My answers were
satisfactory, and he said : " I see no reason to delay your re-
ception into the church. Is there anything in Catholic doc-
trine which you find difficult to believe ? " I answered : " No,
father. I do not understand Indulgences, but whatever that
doctrine really is, I am willing to take it on trust without the
least doubt that whatever the church believes and teaches is
true." He smiled and said :
" Well, that has the true ring of faith. You can take your
time to study up that question, and now about your baptism."
I, told him what I knew about my baptism when an infant
by a Presbyterian minister ; and the subsequent ceremony of
trine immersion in the waters of New York Bay administered
by my old friend, the Rev. Caleb Clapp. He said that the first
baptism was probably done right and so valid, but if not, the sec-
ond was superabundantly sufficient, and could not be made surer.
On Friday, May 16, 1845, I made my profession of Faith,
in the Church of the Holy Redeemer, in the presence of three
or four witnesses only, and thus terminated at the same mo-
ment my connection with the Chelsea Seminary and with the
Protestant Episcopal Church. On the following Sunday I made
my first Communion at the same altar. Shortly after I was
confirmed at St. Joseph's Church, on Sixth Avenue, by Arch-
bishop Hughes.
In the meantime McMaster had arrived at New York. He
took up his quarters with the Redemptorists, and was there re-
ceived into the church. Both of us had come also to the deter-
mination to embrace the religious life in the Redemptorist Or-
der. About the middle of June I went to visit my parents at
Saratoga, where I remained two or three weeks. I then re-
VOL. LX. 39
6 io GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Feb.,
turned to New York, and on the 2d of August I set sail, in
company with McMaster and Isaac Hecker, for the novitiate at
St. Trond, in Belgium.
It is scarcely necessary for me to give any further details
concerning the conversion of McMaster and that of Wadhams,
since that would be only to repeat what has already been pub-
lished at some length in my " Reminiscences " of the latter. I
may be excused in like manner for observing the same reticence
in regard to my friend, Henry McVickar. He never became a
Catholic. He died, not long after his leaving the seminary,
still an Episcopalian and in deacon's orders. Another of the
same family, Lawrence McVickar, more happy than Henry,
found his way into the Catholic Church at Chicago, or Milwau-
kee, during the sixties. He was a nephew of Dr. John Mc-
Vickar, of Columbia College, and therefore a first cousin of my
old friend and fellow-seminarian. He also died young.
In my next chapter I propose to continue my account of
the great break-up of Tractarianism in the United States, in-
troducing especially what I remember or have ascertained of
other old companions at the seminary whose names have been
introduced to the reader in these Reminiscences.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
1 895-] FATHER TANQUEREY' s DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 6n
REVIEW OF FATHER TANQUEREY'S SPECIAL DOG-
MATIC THEOLOGY.*
BY VERY REV. A. F. HEWIT, D.D.
GOOD theological manual, i.e. handbook, as an
adjunct to the professor's lectures, and a com-
panion and guide in the study of larger theologi-
cal works, is of great practical utility to ecclesi-
astical students. It is also a difficult work to
compose, like every other sort of compendium. There are
several such compendiums by authors of high repute. The fact
that such an experienced teacher as Father Tanquerey has seen
reasons for adding one more to the number proves that he
finds some deficiencies in the existing ones to be remedied, and
some modifications in their method desirable, so that students
may possess a manual better suited to their wants. One natur-
ally looks, therefore, to see what are the specific differences
which distinguish this manual from others of the same kind.
The author has written especially for American students.
He has aimed to exclude all matter which has become anti-
quated and comparatively useless, and to insert that which has
become especially important for the present time. For instance,
there is a more full exposition than usual of the doctrine of
development, (vol. i. p. 33) of the dogma of the Trinity, with
a refutation of the objection of modern Unitarians ; of the
dogma of our Lord's divinity, etc., etc. The questions concern-
ing the Mosaic cosmogony, evolution, and hypnotism are treated
as fully as the succinct method of a text-book can permit.
The two volumes now published contain only the Treatises in
Special Theology, but another volume on Fundamental Theol-
ogy is promised to appear after the lapse of one year.
The first thing which arrests attention in looking at Father
Tanquerey's Theology is the beauty of the mechanical execu-
tion, which is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that it is
* Synopsis Theologies Dogmatictz Specialis, Ad Mentem S. Thames Aguinatis, Hodiernis
Moribus Accommodata. Tomus Primus : De Fide, de Deo Uno et Trino, de Deo Creante
et Elevante, de Verbo Incarnate. Tomus Secundus : De Deo Sanctificante et Remunera-
tore, seu de gratia, de Sacramentis et de Novissimis. Auctore Ad. Tanquerey, S.S. Tornaci
(Belg.) : Desclee, Lefebvre et Soc. ; Baltimore, Md. : St. Mary's Seminary. (For sale also
by the Messrs. Benziger.)
6i2 REVIEW OF FATHER TANQUEREV'S [Feb.,
published at Tournay. This may seem to some a trivial cir-
cumstance ; but really, it is not so ; for study is made much
more attractive when a book has an agreeable and convenient
style of typography.
Of course, the greatest part of a theological text-book is
taken up with the matter on which there is no controversy or
difference of any moment among Catholic theologians. Here, it
is only method and style which come into consideration, in the
case of any particular text-book. In these respects the present
work may compete with the best of its predecessors. We turn
naturally, with a more special interest, to see how the author
treats those questions which are topics of controversy between
different Catholic schools, or, at least, between authors of re-
pute who advocate different opinions. His method, in respect
to the principal questions on which the great schools are
divided, i.e., the two grand divisions of theologians, one com-
monly called Thomistic, the other Molinistic, is to present im-
partially the principal arguments on each side, and to withhold
any judgment of his own ; even professing a conviction that in
the crucial instance of predestination before or after foreseen
merits, a certain judgment is unattainable (vol. i. p. 154). A
reason for pursuing this course may be found in the fact that
the narrow limits of a compendium do not admit of the
thorough and extensive discussion of such abstruse and con-
tested topics, which is requisite to a complete understanding of
the case. The author of an extensive theology may properly
make a more succinct abstract of a cause which he has already
fully argued, in a compendium of his own work ; but it seems
more suitable that a Synopsis which stands alone, should leave
the student to investigate the most difficult controversies of
Catholic theologians in the standard works of both sides. The
questions here alluded to may probably become burning, as
the disputations which interest the public at large are turned
upon them by the progress of controversy. In fact, these
questions have already begun to be discussed, through the
already widely spread and increasing revolt from the old Cal-
vinistic formulas among the members of the Presbyterian sects.
The searching for some better formulas in which to embody
the Christian doctrines turns the attention of thoughtful minds
upon Catholic Theology, and awakens inquiry after the answers
which Catholic theologians are able to give to anxious ques-
tioners as to the relation of men to God ; the destiny of the
human race in the present and the future world, under the
1895-] SPECIAL DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 613
ruling of Divine Providence ; as to the possibility of solving
the problem, how the sovereign dominion of God over rational
creatures can be reconciled with free-will ; and his infinite wis-
dom, goodness, and power with the existence and prevalence
of evil. Catholic theologians and philosophers must therefore
look these dark and metaphysical questions in the face, and
consider whether and how far they can receive an answer ;
what, if any, the answer must be ; and what, if they are un-
answerable, is the just and reasonable ground of tranquil sub-
mission to the necessity of remaining always over-shrouded by
the cloud of unknowing. We may be permitted to wish that
another St. Thomas Aquinas may arise, who shall stand in the
same relation to him that he does to St. Augustine, and com-
plete his vast edifice of philosophy and theology.
Dr. Tanquerey has modestly abstained from undertaking any
solution of these deepest problems. He has not, however, con-
fined himself to the mere task of making a synopsis of that part
of theology in which there is a perfect agreement of doctors, or
of giving an analysis of the arguments for differing views and
opinions on questions in respect to which there is a division
among expositors and advocates of Catholic doctrine. He has
explained his own intention (Preface) of discussing questions
which are practical for the preacher, and which relate to the
task of confuting modern errors. In the questions which he
has selected for this purpose of discussion, Dr. Tanquerey fol-
lows a definite line of his own, and what is most interesting in
a review of his work is to follow this line and discover what
he has contributed of his own to the theological treasury.
In our opinion, the starting-point for the philosophy of re-
vealed facts and doctrines, is the idea of the supernatural order,
and the direction taken from this position is that which deter-
mines a large part of any theological system contained within
the limits of orthodoxy. The doctors of the two great
schools mentioned above are in substantial agreement respect-
ing this idea. There is, however, the school represented by
Berti, Belelli, and Noris, which still survives, and has in recent
times found advocates, who, although not among the masters of
sacred science, are writers on sacred subjects of honorable re-
pute. The characteristic position of this class of writers is the
impossibility of a state of pure nature. Consequently, they can-
not admit that the plane of elevation and grace is so absolutely
and completely above all nature which has been or could possi-
bly be created, as those theologians maintain that it is, who
614 REVIEW OF FATHER TANQUEREY'S [Feb.,
closely follow St. Thomas. Their theory of original sin and its
logical sequences is determined by their primary notion of the
supernatural, and a special tendency is imparted to the whole
current of their theology, which carries it far away from ra-
tional philosophy. Even among authors who profess and intend
to follow St. Thomas, there is often found a lack of clearness
and consistency in their apprehension of the supernatural idea,
together with confused notions on particular topics which really
imply the Bertian premisses which they formally reject.
This being our view, we are pleased to find that Dr.
Tanquerey has made a full and clear statement of the doctrine
of the supernatural order in all the extension and comprehen-
sion which it has in the writings of the chief theologians of
both the great schools. Of course, the possibility of a state of
pure nature is maintained, and, in harmony with the description
of the two states of pure and elevated nature, the state of
lapsed nature is explained as having for the specific difference
from the other two, privation of sanctifying grace. The three
states can therefore be tersely designated as humanity nude,
clothed, and denuded (vol. i. p. 330, etc.)
Such a view of original sin prepares the way for a recogni-
tion of the natural good, the capacity for virtue, the intellec-
tual and moral dignity, remaining in man after the fall. More-
over, it opens the prospect of a state of relative eternal felicity
as the final determination of the unregenerate who are free
from the guilt of actual sin.
The general topic of the attitude and relation of the natural
to the supernatural branches out into another series of impor-
tant questions, when the action of supernatural light on the natural
intellect, and of supernatural inspiration on the natural faculty
of will and its free self-determining power of choice, is considered.
These faculties have a concurrent action with divine grace
when the act of faith is elicited. Hence, the analysis of the com-
plete act is a very delicate and difficult operation. The Treatise
on Faith includes in its compass some abstruse questions. One of
these, viz., what is the ultimate motive of assent to the veracity
of God as the Revealer of truth ? has not been answered by a
common consent of theologians ; but discussed in various senses
by the most eminent authors, such as Suarez, De Lugo, and
Cardinal Mazzella. We believe articles of faith because God
has revealed them. Why do we believe that God has revealed
them, and that he is veracious in revealing? Is it because we
are convinced on grounds of reason and evidence, or because
1 895.] SPECIAL DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 615
God reveals that he has revealed and is veracious? Dr. Tan-
querey decidedly adopts the first alternative. The question
appears on its surface to be purely speculative and of no practi-
cal importance. It is not so, however. For, if the second
alternative is embraced, the action of supernatural grace does
not enable the intellect to elicit an act substantially different
from that which it is capable of eliciting by its natural power,
but only elevates and modifies the act of rational assent. The
assent of a philosopher, a Zoroaster, a Pythagoras, a Plato, to
those divine truths which are necessary, de necessitate medii, and
which may have been derived to him partly by the secret,
obscure tradition of a primitive revelation, may therefore be re-
garded as sufficient to make him a competent subject of super-
natural grace, elevating his rational convictions into acts of faith,
a faith which through divine grace can become that fides formata
which is intrinsically sufficient for justification and salvation.
On the second alternative, divine revelation must explicitly
and distinctly propose itself as revelation, by the mouth of a
witness specially accredited, and the assent of faith be given
from first to last to a manifest divine testimony ; otherwise
there is no material or formal credible object upon which an
act of faith can be elicited. There is no way open, then, to
the heathen, even to begin to work out their salvation. It is a
matter of some practical importance, to have a view of human
history which harmonizes with the truths we are taught in the
Bible of the universal benevolence of God, and the universal
redemption of mankind by the divine Saviour of the world. It
is also important to remove obstacles to faith from the path of
doubters and inquirers. Now, one of the chief of these obstacles
is a notion that Catholic faith represents God as governing the
world by an arbitrary and partial providence. An explanation
of Catholic doctrine which amplifies the extent of the operation
of divine grace and mercy renders more easy the refutation of
this false view, and has therefore a great practical value. Dr.
Tanquerey shows, moreover, that the opinion which he rejects
involves reasoning in a vicious circle. I believe what God re-
veals because he is veracious; I believe he is veracious because
he reveals it. This is the logical fallacy of idem per idem.
Another question is, whether the authority of the church is
an essential part of the motive of faith, in technical language,
the formale objectum quo. That is, do I believe a revealed
truth because of the veracity of God revealing, and the infalli-
bility of the church proposing? If so, I must first know the
616 REVIEW OF FATHER TANQUEREY'S [Feb.,
true church and submit to its infallible authority, before I can
make an act of faith in the truth as revealed by God. This is
as much as to say, that only one who is formally and ex-
plicitly a Catholic can make an act of faith. For, according to
this opinion, a man must believe a certain doctrine to be credi-
ble on the veracity of God revealing, because the infallible
church declares it to be so ; and no other reason or motive for
regarding it as revealed, and therefore credible, will suffice.
The necessary logical conclusion from these premisses is : that
the dictum extra ecclesiam catholicam nulla salus must be inter-
preted in the most literal and exclusive sense. Only those who
are in formal communion with the visible church, at least in
desire and intention if they are unable to be so actually, and
baptized infants, can possibly be in the state of grace and in
the way of salvation. All other adults are in the state of sin,
and if they die out of the church, are reprobates. The multi-
tude of these reprobates must therefore be a very large major-
ity of those who have already lived and died in this world.
And, if the spirit of rigorism leads on, as it sometimes does, to
the conclusion that the majority of adult Catholics die impeni-
tent, theology assumes a very sombre aspect.
I am not aware that any theologians of recognized authority
teach the doctrine just described. But there have been writers
in the English language who have done so, and thereby given
occasion to grave misrepresentations of the authentic teachings
of the church by her adversaries.
Dr. Tanquerey cuts the ground from under this whole fabric
of extravagant assumptions, by denying the proposition that the
authority of the church is of the essence of the objcctum
formate quo of faith. The object on which the act of faith ter-
minates he explains to be revealed truth, and the motive of
faith the veracity of God. The authority of the church is the
ordinary and most perfect attestation of the fact and the true
sense of revelation. But, no matter how the revealed truth, as
revealed, is brought face to face with the intellect, the objec-
tive term of an act of faith is present. One may have no
explicit knowledge that the Roman Church is the true Church
and infallible. He may live and die in the communion of a
schismatical or heretical sect. Nevertheless, he may have been
validly baptized in his infancy, thus having infused into him the
habit of faith ; he may have been taught the Creed, become
familiar with the divine gospels, kept the commandments,
remained always in good faith, and at the close of life may
1895.] SPECIAL DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 617
have died believing and trusting in Jesus Christ as the Saviour
of the world. If he has never committed a mortal sin, he
cannot have lost baptismal grace. If he has not knowingly and
wilfully sinned against faith, he cannot have lost the habit of
faith. His inculpable separation from the communion of the
church does not render him a schismatic, his inculpable ignor-
ance of a part of the revealed truth does not make him a
heretic. He has faith, hope, and charity, he may, perhaps,
receive truly and worthily all the Sacraments in some one of
the sects which have preserved them all ; and he will certainly
go to heaven. Now, it has been seriously affirmed by some
Catholic writers whose works have had a considerable circula-
tion, that infante baptized and brought up in sects which are
separated from Catholic communion, lose the gift of faith and
sanctifying grace as soon as they reach the age of reason, be-
cause they are incapable of making those acts of faith which
are indispensably necessary to salvation. It is not without rea-
son, therefore, that Dr. Tanquerey has refuted this utterly
groundless opinion.
The church teaches nothing positive about the relative num-
ber of the saved and the lost. There are some whose spirit
leads them to magnify the sphere of sin and evil, and to minim-
ize the sphere of divine grace and mercy. Others are dis-
posed to magnify the mercy of God and minimize the amount
of evil which is the dark shadow of good in the rational crea-
tion. Dr. Tanquerey has none of the spirit of the former class.
On the contrary, he is disposed to recognize a large sphere of
operation to divine grace outside of its regular and ordinary
channels within the domain of the visible church. Of course,
then, he will incline to extend its efficacy within the bounds of
the church as largely as possible.
In respect to those who are not Christians, he quotes with
approbation, among others speaking in the same sense, Gener,
who says : " There are not so many reprobates as is commonly
asserted ; for the Church has innumerable hidden cliildren, of
whom she will say at the last day: Who hath begotten these?
and these where were they ? (Is. xlix. 21.)" Concerning adult
Christians, Dr. Tanquerey writes : " If it is question of Catho-
lics only, it is commonly taught with Suarez, that even among
adults the elect outnumber the reprobate. If it is question of
all Christians, Catholics, schismatics, and heretics, many hold
that the number of the condemned exceeds that of the elect.
The contrary opinion, however, seems to us more probable.
6i8 REVIEW OF FATHER TANQUEREY'S [Feb.,
For a third part die before the age of reason, and all who are
baptized are saved ; moreover, there is a sufficient reason for
supposing in regard to non-Catholics, that many Protestants
and Schismatics are in good faith, who, even if they have fallen
into mortal sin, can be reconciled to God by perfect contrition,
and also, in the case of schismatics, by receiving absolution,
which, at least in the article of death, is valid. Besides, in
those things, which are necessary, God never fails to provide,
and therefore he will grant them special graces in their last
moments by whose aid they may be able to repent ; so that
there is no hindrance to the salvation of many of them"
(vol. i. p. 155, etc.)
It is not so much an estimate of the relative number of
those who are admitted into or excluded from the kingdom of
heaven that is requisite, in order to vindicate the justice and
goodness of God in his final judgments upon men, as a well-
supported statement of the principles which regulate those
judgments. The most serious of all the objections against
Catholic theology is this : that it represents God as leaving a
multitude of men under a doom of guilt and misery which they
are unable to avoid and from which they cannot escape. It
makes no difference with the import of this objection, whether
the number of supposed victims of this doom bears a greater
or a lesser proportion to the whole number of mankind. And
the objection has really more influence on the minds of men, in
withholding them from faith, than any difficulties respecting
history, chronology, biology, or any similar matters.
Now, Dr. Tanquerey touches the precise point, in the follow-
ing brief but pregnant sentence :
" One thing is beyond doubt, to wit, that no adult, even among
those who lack Christian faith, will be condemned, unless he has
knowingly and wilfully offended against laws known to himself, in
a grievous manner" (p. 155).
Of course, infants are not subject to any judgment at all,
being incapable of either merit or demerit, and their final
state in eternity is determined by the capacity and exigency of
their nature, whether regenerate or unregenerate.
As for all who have actually passed through a state of
moral probation, they incur the privation of natural or super-
natural felicity only in so far as they have despoiled them-
selves of the good which they might and should have obtained,
by their own free choice of evil; nor is their doom rendered
hopeless except by final impenitence.
i895-l SPECIAL DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 619
In regard to the doom of the reprobate, Dr. Tanquerey sum-
marizes the common teaching and arguments of theologians.
He maintains the physical reality of the infernal fire, but at the
same time excludes every positive doctrine concerning its nature
and mode of action from the domain of faith. Wherefore, he
gives an admonition to preachers : that " in practice great
caution should be used in speaking of the fire of hell, and
those horrible descriptions so very often employed by preachers
should be carefully avoided, descriptions which, while they
terrify some pious believers, cause others to doubt of the ex-
istence of hell or to regard God as a cruel tyrant."
The opinion advanced by the celebrated Abb Emery, for-
merly superior of the Society of St. Sulpice, that not only are
there some sufferings in hell which are accidental and tempor-
ary punishments, like those which are endured in purgatory, an
opinion favored by St. Thomas ; but also that there are inter-
vals of relief from the pain which is a punishment of mortal
sin, and a continuous mitigation of the same, finds favor in the
eyes of Dr. Tanquerey as more probable than the opposite opinion.
"A transient or successive mitigation can be admitted, in
accordance with some Fathers and theologians, a mitigation not
indeed due in justice but granted in mercy, by which the lot of
the condemned, though always lamentable since they will be
for ever separated from God, will become nevertheless more
tolerable. For this doctrine is found in a hymn of St. Pruden-
tius formerly sung in many churches, is allowed by St. Augus-
tine, is insinuated by St. Chrysostom, is expressly taught by
St. John Damascene, was proposed by Mark of Ephesus in
the name of the Greeks at the Council of Florence and not
condemned ; moreover it is altogether agreeable to the mercy
of God, and admirably shows how that mercy is exercised
even in hell. Therefore, such an opinion can be held without
hazard to faith, whatever some theologians may have taught to
the contrary. (See Emery, Dissertation sur la mitigation des
peines des damnees)" (vol. ii. p. 398).
In respect to the important question of the Mosaic Cosmogony,
the following is Dr. Tanquerey's thesis :
" Nothing certain can be defined from the first chapter of
Genesis concerning the order of creation and the Genesiac days,
wherefore the various systems excogitated among Catholics
for reconciling the Mosaic narrative with natural sciences, can
be freely discussed, without danger to faith, so long as the
truth of Scripture is firmly held."
620 FATHER TANQUEREY' s DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. [Feb.,
In respect to Evolution and Transformism, Dr. Tanquerey's
thesis is as follows :
" Mitigated Transformism, although at first sight seemingly
opposed to the obvious sense of Scripture, is nevertheless not
evidently contrary to faith, but can be maintained as a proba-
ble hypothesis, until the church has pronounced a judgment on
the matter " (vol. i. pp. 258-272).
In respect to Dr. Mivart's hypothesis on the formation of
the human body, Dr. Tanquerey expresses his opinion, in con-
formity with that of Palmieri, that it is not heretical, although
it is prima facie opposed to the Mosaic narrative (p. 317).
The use of hypnotism he judges to be generally unlawful,
but allowable when prudently employed by competent physi-
cians for medical purposes (p. 312).
The foregoing analysis is not complete and exhaustive. It
may suffice, however, to give an idea of the spirit, tone, and
scope of the work under review.
It is manifest that the author keeps carefully within the
limits of the doctrine prescribed or permitted by ecclesiastical
authority. Moreover, that he is very sober and moderate in
the exercise of his own private judgment upon disputed ques-
tions, and not addicted to novel and singular theories. His
work is, therefore, eminently safe, is in general a reflex of the
common teaching of theologians, and even where it advances
beyond the beaten path into ground where the road is not yet
so accurately surveyed and laid out, he is careful to avoid any
temerarious excursions into by-paths and across lots.
We cannot profess to agree with all the particular opinions
advanced by Dr. Tanquerey, and it is morally impossible that
any text book should command universal assent in all its special
expositions of matters within the sphere of free opinion, where
we have only reasoning and human authority as the motives of
assent. We are convinced, after a sufficient examination of Dr.
Tanquerey's Theology, that it is an excellent and useful manual
to guide students in their researches into this sublime science,
and also well adapted to assist the younger clergy in reviewing
their course and preparing themselves for examinations and con-
ferences. Its style and method are clear, and its whole con-
struction and arrangement betokens the hand of an experienced
teacher of young ecclesiastics, who is not only erudite, but pos-
sessed of the talent, cultivated by practice, of imparting his
knowledge and fulfilling well the important function of a
teacher.
1 895.] CATHOLIC VERSUS CAWTHOLIC. 621
CATHOLIC VERSUS CAWTHOLIC.
BY HENRY A. ADAMS.
III. HERE AND THERE IN CA THOLICJSM.
I '
EOPLE who rove very much over this little globe
of ours forget a great deal more than they re-
member of the places and things they see. But
who ever forgets what he sees on those miracle
spots of beauty, the isles of the tropical seas ?
They come back and come back to one's memory over no mat-
ter how many dreary years, like the subtle scent of their own
rose gardens.
In a moment one feels it all over again the nameless yield-
ing to their transcendent charms.
One sees the fleckless blue, the strange, vast clarity, the
opalescent gleaming of that wondrous light.
One sees those waters pulsating mirrors of liquid amethyst,
shot here and there with the incessant flashings of the fish,
golden and cardinal and blue and silvered green.
One can recall the merest detail of the gardens, and number
for you just how many palms stood in the little lane between
the high stone walls. And with these memories of the sublime
come the ridiculous.
I can remember the various toughnesses of beef, for instance,
in the Bermudas and the Bahamas and the West Indies. Cuba
in this respect was facile princeps ; but, then, Cuba made up for
it in other ways.
I remember that in Bermuda the asking price of all articles
in the little shops was twice the actual fetching price ; whereas
in Nassau it was invariably four times as great. A dollar
sponge in Nassau can be bought for twenty cents that is, when
it cannot be bought for fifteen.
I can never forget Nassau. And among the many, many
beauties which the very name brings back, I can best of all
remember the religion and the churches of the place.
At the quaint old landing, which is as well the market
and the rendezvous (on steamer days), I was asked by about
sixty-nine very polite colored gentlemen, if I would drive up to
the hotel at a charge as elastic as I afterward found to be the
case in the sponge market. An ebony boy with the finest teeth
622 CATHOLIC VERSUS CAWTHOLIC. [Feb.,
I had ever seen in my life, and a grin which I defy anybody
to resist or forget, held the door of his carriage open, with the
remark : " Here I be, boss. You see Charlie doant forget."
Need I say that I got in ? Well, Charlie proved to be worth
his weight in sponge.
Before reaching my hotel I had engaged him to serve me
in the capacity of guide during my stay. I was at that time
an Anglican calling myself a Catholic, and thoroughly miserable
as a result. Nassau has long been more or less dear to the
ritualistic heart through the Anglican bishop being a prominent
and very saintly advocate of the "advanced" party. Accord-
ingly I regarded my visit to the place somewhat as of the
nature of a pilgrimage, and my first thought was of the church.
Charlie was a mighty theologian. At all events he set me
to thinking more than once by his inimitably funny comments
on the religious life of his native land.
He promised to come for me after dinner, and he did
wondrously washed and starched and decorated with flowers.
" Take me to some Catholic Church that is kept open for
prayers," I said to him.
"Does you mean a Catholic Church, boss, or a Cawtholic
Church ? "
He was not joking. I looked at him. He was as serious
as if he had not just put a very mountain of controversy in
the nutshell of a phrase. He kept blinking his great eyes at
me, until the contagion of my burst of laughter had caught his
grin. I envied him his two rows of flawless ivories for a mo-
ment or two, and then asked him: "What on earth do you
mean by Catholic and Cawtholic ? " He drew up his gray horse
in the shade of some flowering trees, and took off his immense
hat as if out of respect for the subject about to be discussed.
"You see, boss, the English Churches is ob two kinds, high
and low. Dey calls de high ones Cawtholic"
" Exactly," I answered eagerly ; " of course they do ; but
what did you mean by Catholic ? "
"Why, boss, deres a sure enough Catholic Church Father
Mc's and we calls dat Catholic."
It was a matter of a broad " a " or a narrow, and yet what
a difference !
Our whole party broke out into a storm of merriment at
my expense, as I was the only " Cawtholic " present, and,
therefore, the only one unable to relish the delicious satire so
unconsciously perpetrated by the little ebony imp, as I thought
him just then.
1 895.] CATHOLIC VERSUS CAWTHOLIC. 623
Far and near, Charlie conducted us to the churches, and an
exceptional bit of church-life that is which one sees in that
natural paradise.
Probably nowhere else has the Catholic movement in the
Anglican communion found quite such a theatre for its action.
It is unique. First of all, that bugbear of a ritualist, a
bishop who is not "sound," is not present in the tight little
island diocese.
On the contrary, the bishop is one of those singularly holy
and learned men who were the fruit of that deep spiritual
movement in England forty years ago, and which led its choic-
est to the logical length of submission to the Holy See.
Such a man has naturally surrounded himself with a clergy
to whom self-sacrifice and the Faith mean all.
And, however much the Catholic may and must deplore the
absence from such a work of the vitalizing essence of com-
munion with the One Living Body, who can but see that the
English affectation of " Cawtholic " is making and will make,
in God's good way, for the truth.
Charlie, for example, was brought up in one of the out-
lying parishes there in Nassau a Cawtholic. But when we
knew him (some fifteen years of age) he was preparing for his
First Communion in the Catholic Church. His family had been
converted the preceding winter. And what had they previously
been taught ? Much which a Christian ought to know and be-
lieve to his soul's health.
One remembers, as I said, much that one sees in those
wonderful dream islands of the blue-gold South. How well I
now recall our Charlie's rector. I noticed him before the
steamer was made fast to the pier. The visage and the car-
riage of a saint. He was attired in a coarse cassock girded at
the waist, and his deep black eyes looking from the shadow of
a broad pilgrim's hat, and the long white beard, gave him the
very likeness of those old monks one sees in the more quiet
corners of the Grande Chartreuse.
We watched him as he moved like a father and a friend
among the motley crowd of English and of blacks.
His church is in a distant and despised suburb ; but for us
now it best will illustrate our point.
Fancy a long, low church, of white calcareous stone, cov-
ered with flowering vines, and lying deep among the dense
perpetual shadows of palms and oleanders and fruit trees.
Quite by itself, save for a cluster of mean, poor little houses,
homes of this pastor's flock. There is a large, plain cross above
624 CATHOLIC VERSUS CAWTHOLIC. [Feb.,
the tiny belfry, and cut into a marble slab above the door a
simple exhortation to remember death and the soul and God.
The door is never locked. Enter it. A Catholic would find
it hard to say what in this church was lacking.
The simple but most scrupulously tended altar has its large
crucifix and countless candles.
A tiny lamp before the Tabernacle speaks of a Presence.
About the plain white walls are hung rude painted Stations of
the Cross, and even as we watch, an aged colored woman is
" making " them devoutly.
The old care-taker tells us that there is " daily Mass," and
there are evidences that Holy Water and the Confessional are
known and used.
Here, with the simplicity of some Breton curt, the pious
clergyman teaches poor negro children their Our Father, their
Creed, and their Hail Mary !
They learn the virtues which build up character, and grow
into strong, clear conceptions of God and life. And yet
Yes, how a Catholic can see it ! And yet they lack the one
great Fact of all !
So, close to it the ever watchful, sleepless mother of all
souls, has built her altar and put her priest to witness for that
Fact that is the difference between Catholic and Cawtholic.
And Charlie and Charlie's people are learning that difference
now.
If to the Anglican zealot I then was that little island
church with its so great peculiarities furnished so much for
study and for most anxious questioning, certainly to us, as
Catholics, the meaning of the movement in the English Church
must for some years to come invite the closest scrutiny.
In possession as she is of the vast fabric of the Establish-
ment, and capable of deep spiritual results, as witness Nassau
and ten thousand quiet corners where souls grow, surely a com-
munion which, as she grows in life, approaches nearer and
nearer to Catholic truth, must call from the Catholic student
of history the glorious hope that the approximation toward
similarity may result in vital union and return to Catholicity.
Abiding charity and unflinching steadfastness may yet trans-
form this bleak and rugged world of ours into a " garden of
the Lord" fairer than are the islands of the tropic seas, where
under the broad shadow of the truth all men may know him
as he is and hold alike the one and only faith without so much
as the distinction of a broad accent. Spcs meet!
DULCE IN UTILE.
BY PAUL O'CONNOR.
MALL is the profit where no pleasure lies
To lure the mind along the page of thought ;
If pleasure leap not in the poring eyes,
Poor profit's best endeavor falls to naught.
The heart and mind, co-operating, tend,
In mutual ray reciprocally bright,
To perfect purpose ; soul and body blend
Not more harmoniously, or day and night,
Than profit and the promptings of delight.
Of pleasure robbed, see how the mind's dim orb,
Like eve's dull beam o'er darkening moor and hill,
Scarce conscious of the sense it would absorb,
Droops as it flies, or soars uncertain still,
In all the weakness of unaided will ;
Or if a wandering beam it chance to note
Along the dim skies of its mental night,
Mounts not the wings on which its beauties float.
But give it pleasure how the wakeful sight,
Alive to every beam obscured before,
Sweeps sunward on the pinions of delight !
Dull effort ceases, and, its languor o'er,
As dew-bejewelled larks ascend the skies,
Into the mind the beaming beauties soar,
Perspicuous to the receiving eyes,
Revealing other beauties as they rise.
VOL. LX. 40
626 DULCE IN UTILE. [Feb.,
For, skilled to catch the hidden sense within
The darkened page o'er which dull effort pined,
Pleasure is profit's parent, yet its twin ;
Sees at a glance the truth it seeks to find,
And leaves enduring impress on the mind.
O Memory ! thou mirror of the brain,
Reflecting every image in life's sun !
What but for pleasure were thy smiling train,
Thy trophies intellectually won ?
Dim Recollection ! groping in the dark,
Thy lamp still fed by Memory's sputtering oil !
What but for pleasure were thy shining mark ?
Pleasure ! which strews while profit strips the soil,
And only lack of which makes labor toil.
But dulness is the gaoler of the mind,
Locking the portals effort fain would ope ;
And all endeavor, without pleasure, blind,
Doomed, rayless still, in noon's bright beam to grope,
Grasps but to lose, each struggle but a strain
Born of the froth of the fermenting brain.
Let then this rule direct the studious mind,
Aspiring still to learning's quiet fame:
To study only when the heart's inclined,
Avoiding moments when its mood is tame ;
When pleasure kindles, profit shares the flame.
1 895.] THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. 627
THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION.
BY REV. GEORGE MCDERMOT, C.S.P.
iHE commission appointed by the President to
inquire into the causes of the strike at Chicago
and the conditions accompanying it has fur-
nished its report. It recommends the creation
of a permanent strike commission to deal with
disputes between railroads and their employees.
However, the value of this recommendation seems to be greatly
impaired by a statement in what lawyers would call the matter
of inducement immediately preceding the recommendation. It
is stated as the opinion of many and the commission appar-
ently endorses it that while the employer can be readily made
to pay under an arbitration decision more than is, or than he
thinks is, right, the employee cannot practically be made to
work. It draws a distinction then between railroads and other
employers as a reason for holding that the former may be
justly subjected to the jurisdiction of what, in plain terms, seems
to be nothing more than a one-sided tribunal.
COMPULSORY ARBITRATION THE BEST SAFEGUARD.
Upon the whole we are inclined to think the report a
valuable one, and its recommendations very far from deserving
the strictures so freely lavished by the press. In dealing with
it we shall avoid, as far as possible, topics of a controversial
character and suggestions of a purely experimental character.
The question is one of very great complexity, but by attend-
ing to some main characteristics, and putting aside circumstances
that are merely accidental, we hope to show that compulsory
arbitration is the true solution of the difficulties between rail-
way companies and their servants.
A TREMENDOUS " COMBINE."
It is seldom we can obtain so much and such reliable in-
formation as we possess concerning the strike at Chicago. We
have a pretty exhaustive account of the position of the dif-
ferent parties to the controversy, their resources, their modes of
action, and their temper. We find that, over and above the
628 THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. [Feb.,
ordinary strain of relations between labor and capital, we have
the capitalist a monopolist nay more, a league of monopolists
banded against the public and every interest that in any way
might come in collision with them. In a word, the battle of the
Pullman Company was fought by an association of twenty-four
railroads " centring or terminating in Chicago " ; so that the
wealth of this tremendous combination was for the time em-
ployed in giving a crushing defeat to labor.
THE REPORT A GREAT STATE PAPER.
As might be readily enough anticipated, the strike was a
failure. The report finds that it was injudicious, and in so far
as it involved labor interests different from those of the Pull-
man employees, injurious to those interests. This finding
should be regarded, we submit, as evidence of the impartiality
of the commission ; but the press, to a very great extent and
by very considerable organs, denounces the tribunal as if it
were no more than a working-man's committee, and its report
a labor pamphlet in the guise of a state paper. It is, on the
contrary, a state paper of importance, and deserving of the
careful consideration of the government and legislature of the
Union and of every State belonging to it. It is no excuse for
the hostile opinion of so many newspapers that the commis-
sion finds the employees had a grievance and that the attitude
of the Pullman Company was hard and unsympathetic. We do
not see, indeed, that it could come to any other conclusion as to
the company's tone and temper having regard to the evidence
of Mr. Wickes, its second vice-president. This gentleman de-
clared that they would not treat with their men as members of
any union. " We treat with them as individuals and as men,"
he continued, as if this should settle the merits of the question
for good and all. When, however, the commission suggested
that a man of his ability would have an advantage over the
individual workman, Mr. Wickes complacently replied that that
would be the latter's " misfortune " ; but in any case the
company would have nothing to do with the organizations of
their employees, and this in its naked insolence or beauty was
the pith and marrow of his evidence.
A MONSTROUS OUTGROWTH OF THE STATE.
It is not too much to say that the evidence taken by the
commission, the disclosures then made, and their relations to
each other, show a state within the state in some respects more
1895.] THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. 629
powerful than any State of the Union. So far as we know, the
government of every State, from ocean to ocean, from Canada
to the Gulf, reflects the sentiments of the majority of the
citizens within it. Whenever an executive runs counter to the
popular will, the power it used or abused is taken away. The
verdict of the electorate may be wrong and capricious, or
sound and deliberate ; but it is theirs, and their servants must
abide by it. But any single railway company, by sheltering
itself in a conspiracy with others, seems able to trample upon
thousands of citizens who are its employees, and to disregard
the rights of millions of citizens who may have the misfortune
to travel or send goods along its road ; and this although the
very company owes everything to the state, to the powers con-
ferred by the state, the concessions, the grants of land made
by the state ; although, in a word, from beginning to end, from
top to bottom, from side to side, it is the creature of the state.
TERRITORIAL WEALTH OF THE RAILWAYS.
The question has gone beyond the dispute between the
Pullman Company and its men. Divested of extraneous cir-
cumstances it amounts to this : Is a combination of railroads to
be at liberty to use the privileges and resources granted by the
public against the public interests? The twenty-four railroads
fought the battle of capital on that occasion, and they may
fight against the interests of passengers and consignors of
goods on the next. Whoever has a dispute with one must
reckon on the twenty-four. No resources of an individual could
contend against such wealth. There is nothing to prevent the
whole railway system of the United States from entering into
a league as well as the Chicago roads. What would that
mean? It is estimated that up to 1883, 255,000,000 of acres
were granted to railway companies by Congress and the States.
To more than one company belts of land eighty miles wide
were granted, to others belts of forty miles wide. The Atlantic
and Pacific Company owns a belt eighty miles wide extending
across New Mexico and Arizona to near the Pacific.
If deduction from the grants be allowed on account of for-
feitures, still it is estimated that the area of the lands remaining
in the hands of the companies is twice and a half the total
area of Great Britain and Ireland. If we take the grants as
they originally stood, we find them bestowing estates greater in
extent than the Empire of Austro-Hungary, together with the
Kingdom of Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium, and
greater than the Empire of Germany combined with Italy,
630 THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. [Feb.,
Portugal, Greece, and the Republic of Switzerland.* The
thirteen original States of the Union comprised a territory one-
fifth less than the grants originally made to the companies, and
the lands retained by the companies are very nearly as exten-
sive as the same thirteen States, f
LEGALITY OF THE APPOINTMENT OF A COMMISSION.
In his letter appointing the commission the President names
the Illinois Central as one of the two companies whose con-
troversies with their men were to be part of the subject of in-
vestigation. The Sun declares the appointment was illegal.
We apprehend that the President knew the power conferred
upon him by the statute under the authority of which he sent
forth the letter constituting the court of inquiry; so we shall
pass from this to call attention to the fact that the first grant
of land by Congress was made to the company just mentioned.
If there were an analogy between a royal charter granting a
franchise for public purposes and the grants conferred by the
United States on railway companies, then as no one could
seriously contend that a quo warranto might not issue to be
argued in the case of the crown grant as to whether the con-
ditions of the charter had been observed or broken, so we think
there might independently of any statute be a show of equity
on the part of the President in appointing the commission in
question. What are the facts?
Public traffic had been stopped, or at least greatly impeded ;
the whole police force of Chicago had been withdrawn from its
ordinary duties to occupy the premises of railway companies, a
civil and military force besides of eleven thousand men had been
engaged in preserving order and protecting property ; and all
this array of force, as well as the disorder which rendered it
necessary, had sprung from the action of corporations created and
endowed by the state ; so we can only say, if the President had
no power to institute an inquiry in order to fix the responsibility,
that the United States is behind every government in the world.
DANGEROUS CHARACTER OF THE RAILWAY COMBINATION.
There was clearly a grave responsibility somewhere. We do
not suggest that Congress can be charged with apathy or indif-
ference because those railway companies have acquired a dan-
gerous power by their combination. But it seems strange that
they may cause a civil war and its attendant loss whenever they
seek to increase profits or prevent the reduction of them at the
* Denslow, Economic Philosophy. \ Ibid.
i895-J THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. 631
expense of their employees. There must be found some means
to control action leading to such consequences.
THE REMEDY PROPOSED.
With the report of the commission before them the public
cannot be ignorant of the dangerous possibilities in store for
the country. They know the mischiefs ; it remains to apply the
remedy. But first the remedy must be found, the newspapers
say. The most favorable deny that a real remedy is suggested
by the commission. They contend that what stands for one is
so obviously unjust as to be impracticable. Others maintain
that even if there were an equal power in the tribunal with re-
gard to the parties before it, still the decisions could not be en-
forced. The meaning of this is that the compulsory fixing of
wages would destroy a number of enterprises ; while, on the other
hand, to use the language of the report itself, to compel em-
ployees " to obey tribunals in selling their labor would be a dan-
gerous encroachment upon the inherent inalienable right to work
or quit as they please."
As we have said, that opinion is the weak part in the re-
commendation, and it could not escape the criticism of friends
and enemies alike. The latter could ring the changes over the
novel experiment of an unilateral tribunal constituted to con-
fiscate the property of one class for the benefit of another; and
this tribunal would necessarily fluctuate in the character of its
blood-letting according as, with the changes in its personnel, it
happened to be more or less favorable to capital. The friends
of the working-man sneered at the recommendation on the ground
that it was not intended to be acted upon, while they admitted
that to some extent the ventilation of this particular phase of
the great and far-reaching labor question might be of value.
WEAK ATTITUDE OF THE PRESS.
It is difficult to realize the absence of responsibility with
which important organs of opinion approached the question. It
is charged that the commissioners entered upon a field of in-
quiry not included in the scope of the reference in order to
give themselves a factitious importance ; it is even charged that
they recommended the permanent board of three their own num-
ber as a means of providing for themselves at the expense of
the state. All this is discouraging. When we look for light
and leading in the press we discover only confusion, contradic-
tion, malice, folly.
We take the question seriously for the benefit of all parties.
632 THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. [Feb.,
Let the papers say the commission is hollow, unreal a mockery ;
but what paper will deny the reality of the rioting, burning,
and plundering at Chicago ? deny that lives were lost ? that the
State troops were called out, and the troops of the United
States ? Is it a dream that five thousand extra deputy marshals
were employed and two hundred and fifty extra deputy sheriffs?
that nearly six hundred arrests were made by the police, and that
indictments were found against seventy-one persons? That num-
ber of indictments a century ago in England would afford the
title of Bloody Assizes to the assize at which they might be tried.
THE REPORT REALLY MODERATE.
We think the report of the commission a singularly temper-
ate document when we consider the facts upon which it was
based. If it errs at all, it does so on the side of moderation.
It is more in the nature of a plea than of a judgment, a plea
for consideration towards the weak for justice towards the weak.
Its very moderation, its deprecatory tone, is the strongest con-
demnation of the hard and tyrannical character of the Pullman
methods and of the astounding insolence of the twenty-four rail-
way companies. Every offer of conciliation proposed on behalf
of the men before the strike was decided upon was rejected.
There was nothing to arbitrate, was the invariable reply of the
companies to proposals for arbitration. Yet the commission
finds that the reduction of wages was excessive, and expresses
the very significant opinion that if the Pullman Company had
abated the rents payable by their workmen for the tenements
occupied by them the strike might have been averted.
VERBAL SUBTERFUGES.
The company is the landlord of their workmen. They say
that they don't compel their workmen to become their tenants ;
but it requires very little penetration to see that there must be
a moral coercion when the workmen believe that their chance
of retaining employment very materially depends upon whether
they are tenants or not. No one can entertain the slightest
doubt but that the position of landlord of rooms iri the vicinity
of the workman's place of labor deprives the latter of all free-
dom of choice as to his abode. Besides, the company erected
the houses for their workmen, and, surely, it was with the cer-
tainty that they would be occupied. It appears from the
evidence that the rent was higher by twenty-five per cent, than
for the same kind of accommodation in Chicago or elsewhere.
The contention of the company that they were entitled to keep
1895-] THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. 633
the question of rent distinct from that of wages may be legally
sound, but in substance the relation of both was inseparable.
It was a form of the infamous truck system by which work-
men used to be so grievously oppressed both in England and
in this country.
CAPITALIST MISREPRESENTATIONS.
Yet the' Sun describes the commission as " three representa-
tives of a Populistic President," and their report or themselves
it is not clear which " an outrageous violation of a national
statute " ; while the Evening Post, from the serene air of an
Epicurean Olympus, informs us that the " best citizens " rejoiced
with a great joy because " the implacable Pullman and the
hard-hearted managers refused to arbitrate." The latter paper
calls the report "a travesty," and informs us that the recom-
mendation referred to above is " too absurd to be credible."
Of course we do not pretend to know what this aristos of the
pen means by the phrase " best citizens " we have been fre-
quently amused by the ardent championship of class privileges
and the lordly contempt for the proletariat written in some
garret of London or Dublin but whoever "the best citizens"
may be, we pity them if the gentleman of the Post expresses their
sentiments correctly. Something more germane to the matter
is the practicability of arbitration with or without the clog
which the commission has tied to it, and we think we can
show that it is the way out of the difficulty.
THE DOCTRINE OF STATE SUPREMACY.
The commission has laid stress on .the fact that railway
companies are the creatures of the state, and seems to infer
that where the interests of the great army of railway employees
are involved the state is entitled to step in to protect them.
There is nothing novel in the doctrine implied in this infer-
ence. Not a government in Europe but has asserted its right
to control the administration of public funds vested in private
corporations. European states have gone farther : they have
extinguished such private corporations for breaches of trust, or
when their mode of action or their existence was deemed a
danger to the state. The proposal of the commission goes no
farther than arbitration as to wages. For this there is a pre-
cedent in the fair-rent clauses of the Irish Land Act of 1881.
Labor organizations in England have asked the Duke of Dev-
onshire's commission to apply that principle to the adjustment
of wages disputes in that country.
634 THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. [Feb.,
AUTOMATIC SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES.
There fairly working schemes "of voluntary arbitration are
employed in various industries. We take, e.g., the Durham col-
lieries ; and we find that for " the settlement of disputes an
official relationship exists between the Durham Coal Owners' and
Miners' Associations." These bodies jointly deal with (i) local
questions and (2) county or general questions by a constitution
which provides for questions of the former kind by a commit-
tee of six elected representatives of the owners and six repre-
sentatives of the men. The county court judge of Durham is the
chairman of the committee and has a casting vote on all points
of dispute. The general or county questions of wages and hours
of work are considered between the federation board, consisting of
representatives of the miners, mechanics, enginemen, and coke-
men, and a special committee of the Owners' Association. This
federation board sometimes deals with serious local disputes.*'
We find a similar system in Cleveland, in Northumberland, in
South Wales, and generally equivalents to the system elsewhere.
THE ARGUMENT FOR COMPULSORY ARBITRATION.
What has been just mentioned concerning the mining indus-
try is applicable to other industries. At the same time there is
a feeling in favor of compulsory arbitration, because where the
men are imperfectly organized the owners are stubborn and im-
practicable. One cannot help seeing that the attitude of the
capitalist everywhere is naturally harsh and exacting, while that
of the workman, as a rule, is conciliatory and liberal. This
contrast runs through the passages of the commission's re-
port which refer to the position taken by the men and that of
the employers. For this the report is severely criticised by the
newspapers, as if in offering the result before it the commission
betrayed a bias in favor of labor.
But the case in favor of compulsory arbitration between
railroads and their employees has not been presented with its
full force in what we have been saying hitherto. The news-
papers in reviewing the report referred to railway companies as
if they were private capitalists in no way different from a small
shopkeeper or small farmer. The report dealt with them mainly
as public or quasi-public bodies. We suggest that they must
be treated as the owners of monopolies granted by the state,
and therefore controllable by public policy. The nearest parallel
to their position is that of the French seigneur before the Revo-
7 C mmi3sion n Labor - VoK '- : Mining. P. 59. Presented to Parliament
1 895.] THE PULLMAN STRIKE COMMISSION. 635
lution, the Irish landlord before the act of 1881. It was in the
power of both of these to turn their estates into chases, if they
preferred hunting to rent. Whole country-sides have been de-
populated in Ireland in obedience to the clamor of certain political
economists who thought beef and mutton more productive, more in
the nature of wealth, than agriculture and the hands it employed.
THEORIES OF INDEFEASIBLE RIGHT IN MONOPOLY.
Those monopolists of the old world land-system believed
themselves above all law; accountable to no one for the innu-
merable hearts they broke, lives they withered, crimes they
caused. A curious illustration of the mad selfishness of these
men is witnessed in a petition presented by the landlords of
the counties adjacent to London against the opening of roads
because it would interfere with their vested right to a monopoly of
the metropolitan supply.* There is something as blind and brutal
in the action of the associated railroads in the case before us.
CONCLUSION.
This paper has already gone beyond the space we may fairly
claim. We shall now conclude. All political economists recog-
nize that the circle of man's wants is susceptible of indefinite
extension. Whoever calls to mind Cooper's Indians, and at the
same time thinks of an Athenian of the age of Pericles, or an
educated artisan of New York to-day, will realize how much
education has to do with awakening wants. It is as much a
part of the business of education to provide for such wants as
to awaken them. Whatever stands in the way of such supply
is an obstacle to the material purpose of education ; whether it
be an European landlord of the evil past or a conspiracy of
American railroads it is equally a public enemy. The comforts
of life, with leisure to read, to cultivate in some degree a taste
for the fine arts, to enjoy the best productions of genius as ex-
hibited on the stage, these are among the wants of modern civil-
ization which every working-man of good character has a title
to satisfy. These are quasi-necessities which economists must
recognize upon their own principles. But even more than these
should be within the reach of men employed by the great cor-
porations of the country. They should be enabled to provide
for an annual holiday for themselves and their families in order
to admire the fairness of this earth of ours, in the woods, wa-
ters, mountains ; and, while gaining a fresh store of health, ac-
quire an appreciation of the lines of beauty which God has
drawn upon the world he created for man.
* Senior's Political Economy.
636 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.,
ROME VIA ENGLAND.
BY MARION AMES TAGGART.
OSTON is a city of ideas. They spring up beside
the Charles as rushes around other rivers, and
radiate from the gilded dome of the State-House
as from the helmet of Pallas Athene. Indeed, it
is well known that as soon after the destruction
of the Acropolis as circumstances would permit the goddess
made her headquarters on that same dome as a convenient
point from which to distribute ideas to the dwellers around.
Close to the State-House, straight up the " long mall " in
the Common, and a short distance northward, stood a sombre
house, the home of the Hamiltons. In this mansion the ideas
rife in the atmosphere found a shelter and fostering care.
Mr. Hamilton had been a tall, visionary man, with a high
white forehead and far-away blue eyes. He had in his youth
been imbued with the views of Channing and early Unitarianism,
and had become an ardent Emersonian. Later he left the
teachers of earlier days, and adopted German mysticism and a
gentle atheism, that was discordant with his favorite theory of
the ultimate preponderance of soul in the universe, and his un-
ceasing investigation of the influence of soul upon soul, inde-
pendent of, and superior to, the aid of the body.
Mrs. Hamilton was an entire contrast to her husband, and
her ideas had travelled in precisely opposite directions. In her
youth rationalism had possession of her, chemistry and geology
had been her passion, and John Stuart Mill her prophet. She
became a rabid abolitionist in due season, and after the war
substituted an interest in tenements for science, and a study of
the effect of improved sanitary condition of the race for that of
rocks and gases. After her husband's death she revived the
Puritanism of her ancestors, united the saving of souls of the
poorer classes with her improvements in their sewerage, and,
slavery being abolished, turned her attention to the African on
his native shore, where she proposed imbuing him with Cal-
vinism, encouraged thereto doubtless by the warmth of his
climate.
Somehow, among these ideas crowding his home a little boy
1 895.] ROME VIA ENGLAND. 637
managed to grow up, and his naturally precocious mind devel-
oped rapidly in the invigorating atmosphere. His father had
died when he was too young to imbibe his views ; but he had
inherited enough of his mystical nature to prevent him from
sympathizing with his mother, from whom, on the other hand,
he had too much practical common sense to follow his father's
steps.
Between these conflicting influences Ernest developed ideas
of his own, and in his twenty-fifth year presented in the old
house a third, and in that family quite new, phase of thought,
which took the form of ardent ritualism.
The Church of the Approach was near where the Hamiltons
lived. It was ministered to by a kind of religious order that
lived in something not unlike a cloister, and wore in the street
a habit with a large silver cross on the breast, that with their
flowing capes commanded attention.
Among the young men of their congregation there was no
one that they valued more highly than Ernest Hamilton, whose
birth, education, and qualities of mind and heart made him an
important auxiliary.
There had been a slight falling off in his fervor that was ob-
served by his mother with satisfaction. " He will settle down
to a common-sensed, ordinary Christian by the time he is thirty,"
she thought.
The truth was, there were two facts that gave Ernest great
uneasiness. One was, that though he had a firm faith in the
Real Presence in the Eucharist himself, of his Episcopalian
friends none save some of his fellow-communicants of the Church
of the Approach shared his belief. It was a source of actual
pain to him that, with the exception of a very few, all the
members of the " Anglo-Catholic Church " " ate and drank un-
worthily, not discerning the Body of the Lord."
The other cause of disquiet was closely allied to this one ;
it was the great diversity of opinion entertained by his friends,
who were all under the same bishop. These two disturbing
thoughts intruded themselves frequently, and cooled Ernest's
ardor a little. He strove to banish them, telling himself that
he must be patient and suffer with the church ; at the same time
he could not help perceiving that unless by " the Church " he
meant the Church of the Approach, she did not suffer at all.
He was dressing one evening to go to Miss Hardy's when
these annoying thoughts presented themselves more vigorously
than usual. Miss Hardy was a great friend of his; a kindly,
638 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.,
agreeable lady of thirty-five, young enough to be a pleasant
companion for a young man, yet old enough to be a safe one.
She had invited a friend of whom she was very fond Miss
Hardy was subject to violent affections to pass the winter with
her, and it was in honor of the arrival of this friend that she
had sent a few invitations for that first evening of Isabel Du-
rand's presence in her house.
Miss Durand was much younger than her hostess, younger
in fact than Ernest himself, and she was a Catholic ; " Roman-
ist" Ernest called her in his cogitations, and it was owing to
this latter fact that the thoughts he strove to banish came to
him so forcibly that evening.
At Miss Hardy's house one always met the pleasantest peo-
ple, and her circle was almost entirely composed of Episcopa-
lians ; but they were of such divers sorts, high, low, and broad
churchmen, as well as ritualists, that animated discussions fre-
quently took place between them, and Ernest foresaw the pro-
bability of their renewal with the addition of a Catholic to
help them on. Hence, as he gave a final touch to his necktie
and turned off the gas, he walked away with the painful sense
of disunion among his fellow-churchmen unusually keen.
On arriving at his destination and being presented to Miss
Durand, Ernest found her so different from his preconception
of her that he had a confused impression of being introduced
to the wrong person. As he had opportunity he discovered
that, though her features were regular and beautiful, she pos-
sessed more than that, the indescribable something that makes
what we call a charming woman. There was a womanly ten-
derness in her clear brown eyes, but Ernest saw in them too
a gleam of humor, the traces of which he distinguished again
in the lines of her sweet curving lips.
There was no other young man present besides himself, a
fact to which his hostess called his attention as she stood rest-
ing her hand on the back of her young friend's chair.
" I have been very good to you to-night, do you know, Er-
nest?" said Miss Hardy laughingly, "in giving you of all my
young men friends the chance to know Isabel first. She will be
very much sought after when they find her out; she always is,
and you have the chance to make her believe you a pleasanter
fellow than any who may come later."
Miss Durand raised her eyes and laughed frankly. "You
see, Mr. Hamilton," she said in a clear, sweet voice, "what a
delightful winter Miss Hardy prophesies for me. But no matter
1 895.] ROME VIA ENGLAND. 639
what efforts you make I shall not form an opinion till I have
seen the others."
" Unaffected, and not at all self-conscious," was Ernest's
mental comment as he answered : " I give you my word of
honor, Miss Durand, that Miss Hardy knows no one who can
compare with me, and I am sure I have had more opportunities
for judging than you can ever have."
There were only half a dozen people in Miss Hardy's bright
little drawing-room that evening. Mr. and Mrs. Townshend
were her cousins. Mr. Townshend, a lawyer of considerable
eminence, was considered a successful advocate of everything
save his own domestic authority, his energetic little wife ruling
his household, himself included, with a rod of iron, and gov-
erning her deposed lord in things temporal and eternal, from
his neckties, which she always bought, to his religion, in which
he meekly accepted her low-church Episcopalianism.
Mr. Lowton, Miss Hardy's other guest that evening, was an
Episcopal minister of the old school, who had formed his ideas
before ritualism had come to the fore, and adhered to them
with a comfortable scorn of later notions. He had been a
friend of Miss Hardy's father, and was a loud-voiced, cheerful
old gentleman, dearly loving a good story and a good dinner,
upon whom Ernest was inclined to bestow a sacerdotal dig-
nity not at all claimed by the worthy man, and which, in fact,
rather annoyed him.
As the evening wore on, after Miss Durand had sung to
them in a pathetic contralto voice some of the Schubert songs,
Mr. Lowton, who loved music but preferred English songs of
sentiment, or, better still, old English glees, had taken possession
of the singer and was telling her eagerly of the time when he
heard Jenny Lind, and how, when quite a young lad, he had
heard Malibran in Italian opera in New York.
Ernest found himself seated by Miss Hardy, a little apart
from the others ; he was singularly sensitive to music, and after
such as he had heard his nerves were always quivering, and con-
versation difficult. Miss Hardy was embroidering religious em-
blems on a white cloth in gold thread.
" How beautiful that is, Miss Hardy," said Ernest, bending
forward to examine one corner of the work. "What is it to
be?"
" It is a part of our new altar-cloths. There will be an en-
tirely new set this Christmas," answered Miss Hardy.
" Mr. Lowton," exclaimed Mrs. Townshend, in her clear, de-
640 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.,
cided voice, "have you heard that some of the ladies of our
congregation have subscribed for, and are making a complete
set of vestments, with which they propose adorning our choir?
And Mr. Bland has actually accepted them ! "
"So I'm told, so I'm told," said Mr. Lowton, smiling and
stroking the broadcloth knee that was uppermost above the other.
" It is quite true, and I am dreadfully vexed," the energetic
little woman went on. " I have been to that church since I was
a child ; it has always been low, and it is very trying to see
such a change made ; Mr. Bland should not have allowed it.
One of my friends says she will leave the church, but I am not
prepared to carry my disapproval so far at first. If Mr. Bland
should go too far, though, I certainly should leave. In that
case I should ^come to you, Mr. Lowton, which of course would
be pleasant ; but it is inconveniently far, and besides one be-
comes attached to the church one was brought up in."
"Don't borrow trouble, Mrs. Townshend," Mr. Lowton said,
still smiling. " Bland will never go too far."
"Well, Emma, what possible objection can you have to the
vestments ? " began Miss Hardy.
" Plenty," said Mrs. Townshend with perfect decision. " It
is useless to talk to you, Alicia, for we never agree, but I am
an old-fashioned churchwoman, and I am very much annoyed
with Mr. Bland."
" Pardon me for the suggestion, Mrs. Townshend," said Er-
nest gently, " but doesn't it seem to you that we have to sub-
mit to our superiors?"
Isabel Durand turned on him eyes of amused wonder.
"Look here, my dear Hamilton," broke in Mr. Lowton, as
though feeling himself indirectly attacked. "You good people
are very inconsistent. You talk more about obedience to reli-
gious superiors than any of us, yet how many of your religious
superiors approve of you, do you think? Why, in the old
bishop's time you remember the old bishop?"
" Yes, certainly ; he confirmed me," said Ernest.
" Just so. Well, he was notoriously a low-churchman ; disliked,
utterly discountenanced, in fact, all the ornamentation and ritu-
alism of the Church of the Approach. Now, I know that one
Easter they trimmed everything, as usual, as much like a
Roman Catholic church as they could, and in the afternoon,
when the bishop came to confirm, they stripped the whole thing
till it was like any other Episcopal church. What do you.
think of that?"
1 89 5.] ROME VIA ENGLAND. 641
Ernest looked troubled. " I suppose," he said slowly, "that
was, in itself, deference to a superior."
Mr. Lowton laughed. " They had a ritualistic morning out
of deference to themselves and a plain afternoon out of defer-
ence to the bishop and the majority of churchmen. No, my
dear fellow, you do not like it yourself."
" It certainly is a pity," Ernest said. " I regret such neces-
sities more than I can say."
" It is trying," said Miss Hardy, " but such things are not
usual. Obedience on one side and compromise on the other
will gradually mend matters."
" Obedience to compromise ! " exclaimed Mr. Lowton. " My
dear Alicia, you get into dreadful tangles. Just let me tell you
what happened in well, in a city of this Union," Mr. Lowton
went on, with the intense enjoyment of a joke, even against him-
self, which he always betrayed. " It happened there was as low-
church a bishop as our old one was, and as ritualistic a church
as your own Approach. The bishop was present one Sunday
morning, and as he objected strongly to the procession at best,
he begged Father I won't mention names he begged the rec-
tor at least to leave the cross behind the door. ' Certainly,
bishop,' said the rector. 'Anything to oblige you. Only you
know we shall have to alter the hymn to suit, and instead of
singing, With the cross of Jesus going on before, we shall have
to sing: With the cross of Jesus left behind the door.' And
he'd have done it, sir," cried Mr. Lowton with a laugh that
made the room ring, " but the bishop told him to carry the
cross."
Miss Durand, after her first shocked exclamation at the free
use of a name that she never mentioned without Catholic rev-
erence, laughed too. "It is very funny," she said.
" Funny ! " exclaimed Ernest with no slight annoyance. " I
cannot say I find it so. However, it may never have hap-
pened."
" I give you my word that one of the choristers present
when it was said told it me," said Mr. Lowton.
" Oh ! I knew that you believed it, sir," said Ernest with
perhaps, a temptation to satire. " But even if it be true it
proves nothing."
"It illustrates that obedience to superiors is not revived with
imitations of monastic life," said Mr. Lowton more gravely,
"and that these things are not an expression of the feeling of
our church. I am much kinder to her than you, my dear boy,
VOL. LX. 41
642 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.,
when I do not make such claims for her, but take her as I find
her, transplanted and flourishing as the Protestant Episcopal
Church in this country. Those things are not Protestant, my
dear fellow."
" Heaven forbid ! " cried Miss Hardy, while Ernest said
quickly :
"Pray do not use that word, my dear sir; we are not Pro-
testants."
" Pardon me, but I am," answered Mr. Lowton, " and you
make me a double-dyed one. I protest against the Church of
Rome saving your presence, Miss Durand and against the
people within our pale who strive to hold an impossible position
mid-way between."
"We are the Catholic Church," said Miss Hardy, breaking
her silk in the vehemence of the twitch she gave it.
" With all my heart," said Mr. Lowton, " but nevertheless
we are Protestants."
"Not that, Mr. Lowton," said Ernest. "We lament Rome's
errors, but we are not Protestants."
" And Rome is greatly obliged to you ! " said Mr. Lowton.
" She laughs at your talk of union, and denies our orders.
Here is a young lady looking amused, who considers me no
more a clergyman than a Baptist preacher. Eh ! do you deny
my orders, Miss Durand ? "
"I never enter into controversy, Mr. Lowton," said Isabel
smiling. " I have neither the taste nor necessary knowledge.
However, I deny them, certainly. The question of orders is of
secondary importance. The Greek Church has orders, you know.
That the English Church is out of communion with Peter's See
is enough. This very disunion you lament is the result of be-
ing cut off from the centre of unity."
Mrs. Townshend exclaimed : " Have we a female Jesuit
among us? She disclaims all controversial powers, and then
proceeds to cut us; Alicia, you are harboring a serpent."
Miss Durand laughed gaily. " If all serpents waited to be
invited to sting before they showed their fangs, what delightful
forests we should have," she said.
" You surely do not look upon us as heretics, Miss Durand ? "
said Ernest anxiously. "Think how in all essential points we
are one with Rome."
Isabel shook her head, "I really dislike to speak at all, Mr.
Hamilton," she said. "Catholics rest so firmly on infallibility
that we are often reproached for indifference by those who do
1 895'] ROME VIA ENGLAND. 643
not understand our peaceful security. It seems to me, however
that far from being one with us in essential points you do not
even agree together."
" In essential points ? Oh, yes ! " cried Ernest.
Isabel looked at him pityingly. " Unless the ritualists form a
sect by themselves," she said, "you certainly disagree in points
of vital importance. Baptismal regeneration, the Real Presence ;
these two alone are enough, but there are many more."
" Oh ! we believe that baptism is necessary for salvation,"
said Miss Hardy.
"Nonsense!" cried Mrs. Townshend, "I believe nothing of
the sort."
" No," said Mr. Townshend, speaking for the first time. " An
idea worthy of the dark ages."
" Well," said Mr. Lowton gravely, " I believe baptism is in
a sense regeneration ; yet I do not believe it is necessary for
salvation." Ernest's face clouded ; he looked appealingly at
Isabel, who smiled at him with sympathy for the distress he
showed.
"As to the Real Presence," Mr. Lowton continued, "I think
it is monstrous and deny it utterly."
" Of course," assented Mr. Townshend.
" I believe it firmly," said Miss Hardy eagerly.
" I believe," said Mrs. Townshend slowly, " something I can-
not define, and in this one respect I differ from the majority
of low-church people, who totally deny, as a rule, like Mr. Low-
ton. I do not believe in the Real Presence literally, like Alicia
and Mr. Hamilton, yet I believe we receive Christ more than
spiritually. In fact," she said reverently, and with lowered voice,
" I think no one can define what we believe on that awful
point."
" I believe the Lord's Supper to be a commemorative Chris-
tian feast," said Mr. Lowton, "perfectly easy to define clearly.
I believe the bread and wine to be merely bread and wine, and
I never have any compunction or anxiety about what is done
with any that may remain."
Ernest gave a genuine shudder. "You make me wish Miss
Durand were right and you had not orders," he cried in tones
that trembled. " If I thought all you say were true I would go
over to Rome to-morrow." Silence followed this outburst for
a moment.
" My dear Ernest," Mr. Lowton said, " that would be a fatal
misstep certainly, so fatal that I say a very strong thing when
644 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.,
I tell you that it would be more logical than staying where you
are now."
" It seems to me we have had tenough controversy for one
evening," said Miss Hardy pleasantly. " Isabel, please sing for us
that ' O Salutaris ' you sang for me last night."
Isabel arose and went to the piano. Her rich voice thrilled
with peculiar sweetness as she sang : " Qui coeli pandis ostium,
da robur, fer auxilium," and lingered on the last words till
" Nobis donet in patria " sank into Ernest's soul, calming the
disturbance of a few moments before. Miss Durand turned, and
met the look he gave her. " Do not be afraid of your own
conclusions," she said gently. " Let me sing something you all
must love," she added, turning to the music-stand for a hymnal.
She found Cardinal Newman's hymn, " Lead, kindly Light,"
and sang it with all its power of expression.
Ernest felt the significance of the words and author. It
aroused him to something like resistance. " I need not fear my
own conclusions," he said, as soon as the last note was sung,
" since they are to be more faithful to my church the more she
needs me."
When Miss Durand had been in Boston a month she and
Ernest were very good friends, and when he went to Miss
Hardy's house, which was not seldom, he received as cordial a
welcome from the younger as from the elder lady. He felt that
in the companionship of this unaffected, beautiful girl the lack
of a sister, which he had always known, was in a measure supplied
to him. It was, doubtless, this growing fraternal affection that
called her face before him so often in the day, and made the
light of her pure eyes the unconscious illumination by which he
more and more viewed things and people, and it certainly must
have been fraternal affection that caused him to see flaws which
he had never discerned before in the young men of his ac-
quaintance whom he met in her presence.
With the freemasonry of young and congenial people Isabel's
and Ernest's friendship reached a degree of intimacy quite dis-
proportioned to its duration, and Ernest wondered how life
had been endured before this beautiful feminine sympathy had
permeated it. They shared such mild forms of enjoyment as
Advent, which Miss Hardy rigorously observed, admitted plea-
sure seen through a purple veil and it was to Isabel Ernest
found himself turning to share every thought or interest of his
more serious occupations.
So Christmas came with its bright cheerfulness and loving
1 895.] ROME VIA ENGLAND. 645
kindness that has made it the dearest festival of the Christian
year, and caused it to win its way more and more even in Pu-
ritan Boston.
Before the New Year Ernest came one evening to Miss
Hardy's house when she was not at home, and Isabel was seated
alone in the dim firelight of the library. The night was gray
and cold, and the wind blew sharp and chill from the river.
Isabel rang for lights, which showed that Ernest's face was pale
and troubled, and his manner grave. They had not met since
Christmas eve, and Isabel exclaimed, as she saw his gloomy
countenance : " Is anything the matter, Mr. Hamilton ? "
" Yes," Ernest answered. " I am glad to find you alone to
tell you about it. I suppose a Roman Catholic is a strange
counsellor in such a difficulty, but you will understand."
" I will try," said Isabel gently.
" I received communion Christmas morning, Miss Durand,"
Ernest said, plunging at once into the matter. " Unless I can
bring myself to feel differently from my present feeling it will
be my last communion in the Church of the Approach."
"Why, Mr. Hamilton!" cried Isabel. "What do you in-
tend doing ?"
" Nothing," answered Ernest, sadly. " There is nothing
that I can do. I can go nowhere else ; it is not that. It is
hard to explain, but in some way scales seem to have fallen
from my eyes. It is not what I thought. Individually we are
often very sincere ; collectively we are I don't like to say what.
Certainly very unreal. But the main thing is the Eucharist.
Miss Durand, Mr. Lowton was right. I have been fearful for
a long time; now I know. It is mere bread and wine, and I
have believed always in the Real Presence."
Isabel sprang up, her face shining with suppressed excite-
ment.
" It is like the story of the pagan that came in disguise to
the court of Charlemagne," she exclaimed breathlessly. " It
was Christmas morning, and when the king and his court knelt
at the rail the poor pagan had a vision of the Infant in the
Host whom the others could not see, and he became a Chris-
tian. You have been shown where He is not, and it is a part of
the same mercy."
" I was afraid that you would feel thus," Ernest said sadly,
though moved by her emotion, " but I cannot feel so now. I
am adrift. It is painful to be so shaken in one's surest trust.
The disunion and varying opinions among us have long dis-
646 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.,
turbed me, and all at once I see clearly that I have been
wholly mistaken ; the faith I held is not the faith of my
church, though the awful truth seems to be that she has no
faith. What can I do?"
" It is very hard to know how to answer," Isabel said. " I
have no right you know what I would say. Try to find out
what you believe is right, and do it steadily. If it is to wait,
wait. Whatever is required of you, if you really want to know
you will be shown. All I can say is, be quiet and true, and do
not fear. No one who wants to do right can ever go wrong."
" Here is Miss Hardy," said Ernest hastily. " Please do
not speak of this. Thank you."
Miss Hardy glanced hastily from one to the other of her
guests as she entered the room, but by an effort Ernest had
thrown off much of his gloom, and Miss Hardy found them dis-
cussing plans for a sleigh-ride to the reservoir should the
threatening snow fall.
"I rejoice," said Ernest as he rose to go, "that our good
old Puritan forefathers were gathered to their reward before
my day. It is long past curfew, yet no watchman on his
rounds shall challenge me as I go home."
"Speak for yourself and Miss Alicia, please, when you say
our" answered Isabel. "There was never a 'crop-headed'
ancestor among the Maryland cavaliers from whom I claim
descent."
" We sympathize on that point," said Ernest, " so I shall
not take up the defence. Good night, Miss Hardy. Good-
night," he added, turning to Isabel, holding out his hand and
looking straight into her eyes " Good night, daughter of the
cavaliers."
Miss Hardy happened to be engaged just then in free-
ing her dress from the carved point of the table on which it
had become entangled, so she did not see the look Ernest had
given her young friend, and his words had certainly been noth-
ing remarkable, yet she walked over to the fire and began
mending it, carefully avoiding looking at Isabel.
A great deal has been said of electric glances, and the
simile holds good, for electricity affects the surrounding atmos-
phere, and it is not necessary to be struck to know that there
has been a shower.
Isabel had herself made a discovery which she pondered
upon that night in her own apartment. The result was, that
when she was aroused from her meditations by the clock strik-
1 895.] ROME VIA ENGLAND. 647
ing twelve, she walked to the glass and looked long at her own
reflection with the searching gaze of a woman who sees her-
self for the first time as the beloved of the man whose opinion
is more important to her than that of all the world. Then she
turned away with a sigh. " God bless and guide him," she
said ; " but I must go. There must not be even an unconscious
influence at such a time."
When Ernest called again at Miss Hardy's, he received a
kindly welcome from his old friend and a little note of fare-
well from the newer and dearer, but the house was dark and
empty, for Isabel had gone.
Almost every man has some hidden resource outside his
daily avocation to which he gives his best thought and inter-
est. In one it is ambition, social or political; in another art,
or some darling science ; in all, sooner or later, the love, for
weal or woe, of a woman.
Ernest's thoughts had turned in a direction unusual in the
life of American youth, a life so practical that it wastes little
energy on a future for which they seem to consider eternity
long enough without borrowing from time. He had given real
enthusiasm and devotion to the Church of the Approach, and
the withdrawal of it left a vacuum costing him keen regret.
Since he had lost her he discovered fully what Isabel had
been to him, and he had to suffer at once the deprivation of
the two' dearest objects of his existence.
When he learned from Miss Hardy that Miss Durand had
gone, he hinted to her that he might be called to Baltimore
on business in a few weeks, when he should try to see her
friend. Miss Hardy, whose conception of the state of the case
was entirely at fault, set aside the business subterfuge as be-
neath notice, and with the philanthropy of the surgeon who
amputates a precious limb to save the life of the mutilated
body, gave Ernest clearly to understand that his visit would
not only be useless, but unwelcome.
Since then he had settled down to make the best of things
that he could, but the best was a sorry one. The friends that
he had formerly seen most frequently he quite deserted, and he
left the Church of the Approach altogether, not even attending
service there as he had at first intended doing. When the
worthy fathers inquired for him of Miss Hardy she could give
them no tidings of him, for he avoided her house chiefly as the
spot that most emphasized his loneliness. He would tramp or
ride for hours through the most inclement weather, coming
648 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.,
home utterly weary, but beaten in the fight. His mother
noted and interpreted these symptoms aright, but they gave
her little uneasiness, for she did not consider them dangerous
as long as she saw that his room was properly warmed and
aired, and she had great faith in the cure time would effect,
not being of a sentimental turn of mind, though even senti-
mental people learn to smile at fifty at the wounds of twenty-
five.
Ernest had been too prominent in the Church of the
Approach for his absence not to be noticed and commented
upon, and the explanation offered for his withdrawal founded
upon experience of similar cases.
" I hear you are going over to Rome ? " said Mr. Townshend,
meeting him in the street.
" I am not sure of going anywhere," Ernest answered. " If
I do it will be by centrifugal force. It is the Church of the
Approach that sent me, and the route will be via England."
Ernest had trusted confidently in his own former con-
clusions, and they had been mistaken, he said ; he would take
all possible care that it should not happen again. What he did
not say, and was in reality the strongest reason for his holding
back, was that he feared lest his love for Isabel should draw
him toward her faith, and blind his mental vision. So having
the first necessity for self-knowledge, self-diffidence, he waited,
a Catholic outside the fold, till another Advent had" nearly
rolled around. He had come in just before dinner one evening,
and dropped into his own particular chair in the dark library.
He opened the newspaper, shaking out its damp folds and re-
arranging it so that the page he wanted should be on the out-
side. In the corner said to be most interesting to its female
readers the name of Baltimore attracted his attention, as any
familiar or especially interesting word will stand out from among
its surroundings. Turning to look again he read : " In Balti-
more, on the loth inst, by the Rev. Father Carmen, Mr. John
Black, of New York, to Miss Isabelle M. Durand, of Baltimore."
The paper dropped to the floor with a rustle; Ernest sat
quite still, and the patter of the rain and hail fell clearly against
the window. Mrs. Hamilton opened the. door and looked in.
" Ernest," she said, " dinner is ready ; come."
He sprang to his feet with something like a groan. " I am
going out, mother," he said, and rushed past her into the hall.
Once in the street he walked rapidly away, not noting where
he went, turning corners and running into passers-by without
1 895.] ROME VIA ENGLAND. 649
seeing them or hearing their indignant exclamations. He turned
into Commonwealth Avenue, and hurried along the pavement
till the lantern of the Redemptorist church came in sight.
Turning back he slowly retraced his steps, and gaining his
chamber he shut himself in with his grief.
There is a quarter of the little city far from the neighbor-
hood of the State-House far in habit, for distances are not
great in Boston. An old servitor of Ernest's house had been
injured in an accident, and Ernest bent his steps southward one
afternoon, several weeks after he had read the notice of Isabel's
marriage, toward the City Hospital to make inquiry as to the
old man's condition.
It was Epiphany : the first Friday in the new year. Er-
nest came across Franklin Square, bright in the winter sunshine,
and paused a moment before a church, over the door of which
a figure of the Blessed Virgin stood in a niche, and the pigeons
had sought a refuge in either outstretched hand. Ernest re-
membered that this was the church to which Miss Durand had
gone during her stay in Boston, and a strong desire to enter
seized him, which he attributed to the longing for her, against
which he hourly battled. " At least I need no longer fear to
trust my own motives," he thought, and went up the low, broad
steps. He had been studying Catholic claims of late, and the
title of a book which had impressed him recurred to him.
4< The Invitation Heeded" he thought, pushing the interior doors.
4t Not accepted ; heeded, yes."
The church was large and beautiful; white columns sup-
ported the vaulted dome, all was light and cheerful, and for a
moment the unity betrayed by the different classes worshipping
there struck Ernest with a sudden sense of verity. But only
for a moment. As he walked up the aisle, his eyes festing on
the brilliantly lighted altar, on the monstrance in its centre, all
sense of place, time, people, joy, sorrow, himself, was lost in an
overwhelming feeling of the Presence there. On, with eyes
fixed and senses submerged in knowledge alone, tasting the
mystery of eternity in time he could no longer measure, he
walked, till reaching the rail, he fell upon his knees.
It was not reason, it was not faith, it was the revelation
sometimes made to this degree, often dimly felt by those who
only know that " a Catholic church has such a striking atmos-
phere ; is so different." Emmanuel : God-with-us.
Like the apostle he had always especially loved, Ernest
was annihilated in the Presence for which he had faithfully
650 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.,
sought, mistakenly worshipped, at last come into, and instantly,
completely known. His life had been spotless, and that the
pure in heart shall see God is often singularly fulfilled in life,
for the pure most frequently see the truth.
How long he knelt there he did not know ; it was the ab-
sorption into God of the Christian, so different from the Nir-
vana of the Eastern mystic. He was aroused by a touch on
the shoulder ; the crowd had increased, and the church was
lighted to the door.
" Please go into a pew," whispered a lay brother. " It is
benediction time."
When Ernest left the church he staggered, and was dazed ;
he walked into the darkness of the street, his mental retina
dazzled by the light flooding upon it. He went to the college,
and rang the bell. He was shown into the bare parlor, and a
priest responded to his request for one of the fathers.
" Baptize me," Ernest said without preface, and told the
story of his life, his study, the knowledge which had come, al-
most excluding faith.
" It is the feast of the Manifestation to the Gentiles,"
thought Ernest as he stood later on the college steps, looking
up to the stars, before going home, having completed the
arrangements for his reception into the church, which could be
speedy, since he needed but to accept the primacy of the
Apostolic See and group around it in logical certainty the
dogmas he had always held. " The feast of the Manifestation
to the Gentiles, and the completion of Isabel's story of the
pagan at the court of Charlemagne."
Victory, peace, joy, sang jubilate in his heart ; human love
was denied him, but divine love held him close, and in the in-
finitude of its ecstasies the thought of Isabel could bring no pang.
Ernest's reception, into the Catholic Church, after some
time of careful instruction and preparation, though not unex-
pected, caused a good deal of indignation among his friends.
His mother was very angry, and the fact that she had been for
some time in her life without any faith did not lessen her
wrath. Some of the good people of the Church of the Ap-
proach said that Ernest Hamilton had always b,een a little
queer, and touching their foreheads significantly murmured
something about his father, and its being inherited.
Miss Hardy was immensely disgusted, but being a woman
of sentimental proclivities, and possessed of tardily awakened
suspicions, she wrote a letter telling the news to Isabel.
1895.] ROME VIA ENGLAND. 651
When he had been a Catholic a month and a little more,
Ernest received a note of invitation to pass an evening that
he should himself appoint with Miss Hardy.
Accordingly he stood one evening once more upon the
door-step awaiting an answer to his summons. The same maid
admitted him whom he had seen there a year ago, and he
went again into the library.
Miss Hardy received him with unexpected cordiality, and
he was engaged in a conversation that totally ignored the
changes of the past year when the door opened, and Isabel
walked, smiling, in holding out to him a hand of welcome.
The words he was speaking died on Ernest's lips, the room
seemed to fade before him, and he gazed at her in vain effort
to form words of greeting.
" You are surprised," she said gently, and seated herself,
turning to Miss Hardy with some trifling remark to give him
time to recover.
" Have 'you been here long, Miss Mrs. Black ? " Ernest
stammered at last.
" Only a few days," said Isabel. " Why do you call me
that, Mr. Hamilton?"
" I saw your I saw the notice in the paper," he answered.
" I hope it is not too late to wish you happiness."
" Oh ! " cried Isabel, blushing finely as a light broke in upon
her mind. "Did you see the notice of Bella's marriage? You
thought it was I? She used to live here; I suppose that was
why it was in a Boston paper. It should have been Durant,
not Durand ; it was a misprint that amused my friends in Bal-
timore ; I never dreamed that it would travel so far. My name
is spelled with one / too, while hers is Isa&ette, double / e. It
was a mistake certainly, but not a very strange one."
As Isabel spoke and Ernest's brain slowly received the
meaning of the words he heard, his face expressed the intense
emotion that made speech still more impossible than at first,
and Isabel's blush as she looked at him burned higher and
deeper, till her woman's tact deserted her and she sat with her
eyes cast down in utter silence.
Miss Hardy looked from one to the other, and as she real-
ized that she was in the midst of a genuine romance she
straightway forgave Ernest his recent conversion, and, like
the considerate woman she was, left the room murmuring some-
thing about a shade of silk that she had left upstairs.
Whether it is a good way to find forgotten shades of silk to
652 ROME VIA ENGLAND. [Feb.
walk upstairs to one's room and sit down smiling in the dark
for three-quarters of an hour is doubtful, but this Miss Hardy
certainly did, and returned at the end of that time still smil-
ing, but without the silk.
Not that either of her guests noticed the lack; they were
deep in a discussion of the comparative merits of Dickens and
Thackeray, which argument Ernest had opened by taking up
a volume of the latter author exactly fifteen seconds before
Miss Hardy opened the door.
Isabel's visit was not a long one, but in the following sum-
mer Ernest made the journey to Baltimore from which Miss
Hardy had previously discouraged him, and that this time it
was really on business may be believed from the fact that he
was very busy in arranging a charming little house before he
left Boston, and it is likely that he had to go to Baltimore for
some of the appointments.
He resumed his place among his business friends after his
return with a face so radiant and manner so buoyant that
several dyspeptics contemplated immediate removal to Balti-
more.
But the true secret of his joy lay in the soft brown eyes
that every night watched for him out of the windows of the
new home, eyes that must have had a charm since even the
elder Mrs. Hamilton vouchsafed to say that for a truly intel-
.lectual woman, and one who united grace of manner with every
accomplishment, and clear practical views for helping the poor,
she knew no one who surpassed her son's wife Isabel.
This was a great victory, for Mrs. Hamilton had been much
displeased with Ernest for throwing himself away on a Catho-
lic, when she had intended him for a young lady of advanced
views.
There were not wanting those who said that he had become
a Catholic in order to win his wife, but Isabel and Ernest
knew the truth, and were happy enough to smile at a world
which held for them no ungratified desire.
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. {Hoffmann.}
IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO.
BY MARY CATHERINE CROWLEY.
ERR HOFFMANN lives in Dresden, and is a profes-
sor of the celebrated art school of that interesting
old city. Although not one of his great pictures
has crossed the ocean, his work, as reproduced by
engravings and that friend of the humble lover
of art, the camera, is perhaps more generally known in the
United States than that of any other German artist of the pre-
sent day.
654 IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. [Feb.,
His fame is of the character hardest to win, dearest when
gained; he is not only distinguished in art, but the message of
his genius is so noble and direct that it appeals to the hearts
of those who, knowing little of technique, yet instinctively love
and are responsive to whatever is truly beautiful. His pictures
are not only noted but popular.
Shortly after my arrival in Dresden, an acquaintance con-
nected with the Academy was so kind as to give me a card of
introduction to Professor Hoffmann, saying, in response to a
demur lest the call might be an intrusion :
" Not at all ; Hoffmann likes Americans, they are very ap-
preciative of his pictures, you know. Unfortunately he is to
leave town on Monday for a little sojourn in the country. But
he will probably be at leisure to-morrow morning ; why not go
then?"
The next day was Sunday and, after attending Mass at the
Hofkirche, or Court Church, I engaged a carriage and told the
driver to take me to " Number Strehlener Strasse."
The way led through the most attractive part of Dresden :
across the quaint old market-place, now strangely unfamiliar in
its Sabbath desertion and stillness ; past a green park where foun-
tains played, and through avenues shaded by overarching trees
and lined with pretty homes. These homes had gardens in
front, and sometimes a rustic summer-house upon the garden
wall. More frequently, however, the neat parterres were en-
closed merely by an iron paling which afforded a bright glimpse
of blooming flower-beds wherein no single blossom seemed per-
mitted to grow wild, and of luxuriant rose-bushes pruned into
diminutive trees, prim and well regulated as the comely young
girls who peered at the passers-by from the ivy-wreathed arbors
or behind the blinds of the old-fashioned casements. From
one of these quiet avenues we turned into a still quieter
street and stopped on the slope of a hill before a picturesque
little Gothic house, up the stone front of which climbed an as-
piring vine, as if ambitious to peep in at the studio windows.
The small garden bore a family resemblance to the others in
the vicinity, and was also shut in by a high iron fence.
A ring at the gate brought a trim, pink-cheeked servant maid
upon the scene. When asked if she understood any English or
French she shook her head, but was good-naturedly eager to do
her part towards getting over the difficulty. I was therefore
encouraged to explain, in very halting German, the object of
my call.
18950
IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO.
655
" Ya, ya ; Ichverstehe" she cried, with a smile, and went on
to say that Professor Hoffmann was indisposed and perhaps un-
able to receive visitors that day, but if the lady would come in
wait a few moments she would ascertain.
Thereupon she led the way up the straight, flagged walk to
"GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN." {Hoffmann.}
the front door, and thence to a charming little drawing-room.
Then she disappeared with my note of introduction.
The little drawing-room was in itself a picture ; the polished
floor half covered with soft Eastern rugs of richly blended hues,
the walls hung with paintings and artistic souvenirs ; here upon
656 IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. [Feb.,
a bracket a rare bit of bric-a-brac, there on a pedestal a lovely
piece of Dresden china. Several easy-chairs invitingly placed
gave the apartment an appearance of cosiness, while in a cor-
ner stood an upright piano, suggestive of restful evenings soothed
or enlivened by music and song. A portrait above the piano
could not fail to attract the attention. It was that of a hand-
some man of fair complexion with a noble intellectual face,
thoughtful blue eyes, and a light brown beard worn long after
the German and English fashion.
Presently the maid returned accompanied by the fraulein, or
housekeeper, who said Professor Hoffmann begged to be ex-
cused from coming down, but would be happy to see me in
the studio. Following her, therefore, I mounted a narrow,
crooked staircase that led up between the walls to the unpre-
tending atelier, where in peaceful seclusion the painter has
wrought out his beautiful conceptions.
As I entered the room a gentleman, the original of the
portrait below, rose from the depths of an arm-chair, in front
of which was spread a handsome tiger-skin.
After a cordial greeting, expressed in excellent English, he
continued : " You must pardon me for not going to the draw-
ing-room to welcome you, but you see I am unexpectedly an
invalid, and walk with difficulty."
An attack of rheumatism, I thought, regretfully. It turned
out, however, that the professor was suffering from a slightly
sprained ankle, the accident having occurred the evening be-
fore.
" I am sorry, but I have hardly any work here to show
you," he said as, smilingly disregarding a protest against his
making any exertion, he slowly crossed the room.
" The only finished picture which I have in the studio is
that upon the easel."
This painting had charmed my gaze the moment I passed
the threshold. Only the presence of the artist could have
diverted one's attention from it.
It was the exquisite picture of " Christ and the Rich Ruler."
" You know it ? " he inquired. " It has only recently been
engraved."
He seemed pleased at the reply that I had admired it great-
ly, even from the reproductions. Although these are, on the
whole, satisfactory, it is not possible for an engraving or even
a copy in oils to give an adequate idea of this chef-doeuvre,
to reflect the majesty of the Christ, the searching tenderness
1 895.] IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. 657
of his glance as it rests upon the troubled, handsome counte-
nance of the young man who, though moved by that convinc-
ing appeal to mind as well as heart, and urged by lofty aspira-
tions to embrace the invitation to a higher life, yet hesitates
and finally refuses to follow in the path of self-denial.
CHRIST AWAKING THE SLEEPING DISCIPLES. (Hoffmann,')
And the coloring ! Who but Hoffmann shows us such tones
of purplish red, and dark gold, and blue and brown? Not even
amid the splendors of Paul Veronese do we see richer raiment
or such lines of old-rose, ashes of-roses, and mahogany. And
then, that hazardous dash of vivid green, which none but a
VOL. LX. 42
658 IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. [Feb.,
genius would venture to employ, yet which boldly defines, and
steadies, and brings out the harmonies of the other colors,
making the perfect whole.
The old painters knew nothing of many of these tones of
color, or of the pigments used to produce them, but Hoffmann
appears to be master of all the tints discovered by modern art.
Alluding to the " Christ in the Temple," I spoke of my
delight at seeing the original in the Dresden Gallery.
"Ah yes," said the professor simply, "Americans seem to
like that picture."
The appreciation of his visitor being evident, he drew from
a recess at the end of the studio two canvases, which he set
side by side at the foot of the easel.
" These are merely sketches," he said, " or studies for two
large pictures intended for the walls of a church, or rather a
chapel where the marriage ceremony is performed."
It was unnecessary to explain the subjects, which could be
told at a glance. One was " The Marriage of Cana," the
other " Christ at the House of Lazarus, and the Choice of
Martha and Mary."
Although the painter unassumingly described it as a sketch
and would undoubtedly bestow much painstaking labor upon it
before he would suffer it to leave his easel, " The Marriage of
Cana " would appear to the majority of observers to require
but little to make it a finished work.
The whole atmosphere of the picture is lovely, reverential,
and natural. The change of the water into wine is indicated
by the presence of the stone water-jars and the golden, jewelled
cups in the hands of the attendants. Christ is represented,
however, not in the act of performing the miracle, but stand-
ing in all the majesty of his newly acknowledged mission, with
his hands raised in benediction above the heads of the young
bride and bridegroom.
Hoffmann succeeds signally in his portrayal of our Saviour,
which is always religious and appeals to the ideal in every hu-
man heart. Thus in this picture the figure of Christ is strong
and beautiful, the attitude and expression shadowing forth the
divinity, together with all the tenderness, and graciousness, and
human sympathy of the perfect humanity.
The countenance, as in all the Christs of Hoffmann, is that of
the Child Jesus in the Temple, the same face but grown older,
more commanding, more benign, and with the divinity shining
through more and more.
I895-] I** HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. 659
Of the wedding group the richly apparelled bride, a fair
young girl with peach-blow complexion, deep blue eyes and
red-gold hair, is very sweet and winning. One can almost see
her blush in her shy happiness as she looks up with awe to
receive the nuptial blessing. Beside her stands the youthful
CHRIST LAID IN THE TOMB. (Hoffmann.)
bridegroom in costly vesture, handsome, proud, and triumphant,
yet reverent and impressed. Behind the newly wedded pair are
the parents of each, whose faces present an interesting study.
Beyond them are grouped some of the guests; the background
affords a glimpse of a spacious banquet hall.
660 IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. [Feb.,
To the right of Christ are his mother, John, Peter, and
other disciples. The gentle, pensive sympathy of the Madonna
with the joy of the occasion, the tranquillity of John, the ardor
of Peter, are beautifully depicted.
The companion picture represents Christ in the garden of
Lazarus' house. The place is bright with flowers, the sky blue
and cloudless, the sunshine all pervading. He is standing near
the fountain, and at his feet, half kneeling, half resting against
its marble base, is Mary with upturned face listening with rapt
attention to his words.
In contrast to the calm of her expression is the imperious
countenance of Martha, who has apparently just come in search
of her sister. She stands a little in the background, and the
face of Christ is turned towards her as she prefers her com-
plaint :
"Lord, hast thou no care that my sister has left me alone
to serve? Speak to her, therefore, that she help me."
One can almost hear the reproachful, tender reply that be-
speaks the will to reveal to a nature over-fretted by worldly
cares the secret of contentment and peace.
" Martha, Martha ! thou art troubled about many things."
" You will go on with this work, Professor Hoffmann ? " I
asked.
" No," was the response. " I decided to abandon it, because
it would require too much time and labor. It would be five
years before the pictures on the wall of the chapel could be
completed, for the place would be too cold to admit of one's
painting there in winter. And then, after all my trouble, per-
haps the dampness would speedily ruin them."
"There is one of your pictures, professor, which I have
always especially admired," said I ; " that is the Saint Ce-
cilia."
He appeared at a loss, saying : " I do not understand."
" Die Heilige Cecilia."
"But I do not remember," he protested.
" Oh, indeed, it is assuredly yours," I declared.
"I have always thought it very beautiful, and have treasured
a small engraving of it ever since I was a child."
He smiled, but with a puzzled air, and I found myself in
the singular predicament of trying to persuade an artist that he
had painted a picture which he had himself forgotten. At last
the recollection seemed to dawn upon him.
"Oh, yes!" he exclaimed, "Die Heilige Cecilia a little
1895-] Iff HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. 661
thing ; I did it many years ago ; it is in a private gallery at
Munich."
" If I had known that, I should never have left Munich
without seeing it, if a glimpse were to be had ! "
He looked amused. Certainly only a painter capable of
executing so beautiful a work as this Saint Cecilia could have
ST. CECILIA. {Hoffmann.}
forgotten it. Many critics consider that no modern artist has
given us so exquisite a conception of the patroness of music.
" So many of your friends in America would envy me the
pleasure of this morning, Professor Hoffmann," I said. "What
a satisfaction it would be to them if you could be induced to
send a picture, like this one of " Christ and the Rich Ruler,"
for instance, to the United States for exhibition."
662 IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. [Feb.,
" But there is always a risk in sending paintings across the
water. They may be spoiled by dampness, as I said before,
or injured by handling, or defaced in a variety of ways."
"Then your American admirers will have to come to Dres-
den to see them."
He laughed.
" But you, Professor Hoffmann, have you no desire to visit
the United States? Shall we not welcome you there some
day?"
" Ah, well ! " he answered, " we painters are a stay-at-home
people, and care little for travel and sight-seeing. We live quiet,
uneventful lives, working and dreaming in retirement and soli-
tude, and, when in need of rest or change, contenting ourselves
with very simple recreations. But we are always glad to see
our friends," he added cordially, as I rose to take leave, " and
when you return to Dresden, come and call on me again. Per-
haps I shall then have another canvas on my easel which you
will like to see."
One of Hoffmann's brother professors of the art school was
announced as I withdrew. My good-natured driver was waiting
with his cab before the gate, and after a last look at the pretty
house I was driven back to Sendig's big hotel, which many a
weary wanderer has declared to be the best in Europe. In its
noted winter garden, where one lunches under tall palms and
surrounded by the rare plants of the tropics, there was leisure
to reflect upon the visit of the morning.
At first Professor Hoffmann impressed me as being about
sixty years of age. Afterwards, however, as he stood looking
at the picture on the easel, his erect carriage, fresh complexion,
and brown hair and beard, but little tinged with gray, made him
appear younger. Upon a second visit to the Dresden gallery
I read with surprise the tablet beneath the " Christ in the Tem-
ple." "Painter, Heinrich Hoffmann, born 1824."
Hoffmann is, therefore, seventy-one years old. Amid our rest-
less, wearing American existence, certainly few individuals ap-
proach so near the full limit of life without beginning to
show signs of age. But time, and a serene and simple life in
the tranquil art centres of Germany, have dealt gently with our
artist, who is apparently as strong and active as a man of fifty,
and whose genius is still in its prime.
At Dresden copies of Hoffmann's pictures are to be seen
everywhere, and one is soon convinced that not in America
alone is the " Christ in the Temple " an especial favorite. Of
IN HOFFMANN'S STUDIO.
663
this picture exquisite reproductions in porcelain are displayed
in the windows of every art store. A dealer whose establish-
ment overlooks the quaint market-place has the exclusive right
to dispose of the authorized copies in oils, however. Each of
these copies, large or small, is submitted to Professor Hoffmann
m W
THE MEETING AT EMMAUS. {Hoffmann.')
for inspection. If it meets his approval, he signs it with his
initials H. H. This mark is, therefore, a guarantee that it has
passed his scrutiny.
But although these copies are very fine, none can do justice
to the original.
664 I N HOFFMANN'S STUDIO. [Feb.,
The ideal beauty of the boy Christ is beyond description
the graceful figure, the perfect head, the peculiarly transparent
spirituelle beauty of the complexion, the delicate features and
thoughtful brow, the wisdom and fire of the dark eyes, the light
of the divine intellect upon the face of .this wondrous Child,
the revelation of the Messias to the Doctors of the Law.
We, too, find ourselves, as it were, hanging upon his words as
the elders did, scarcely daring to stir lest the vision vanish, yet
almost ready to assert that which would proclaim it no vision
that the tint of color comes and goes in the sensitive face, and
the young breast rises and falls with vivifying breath. We no
longer think of the work of art, but can imagine that in that
far-off age and city of Jerusalem we too have discovered Jesus
in the temple in the midst of the doctors.
We watch the expressions of the latter also. That profound
thinker at the left who wears a robe of violet red and a dark
green-blue mantle. He absently strokes his beard, resting his
elbow upon the open book on the reading-desk, while his deep-
set eyes are fixed on the Child. Notice the look of interest
and surprise upon the face of the man just behind, whose head
is covered with an end of his brown mantle, below which is re-
vealed a bit of his dark gold-colored tunic. And the patriarch
in the centre, he who leans upon a staff and listens with the
shrewd calculating air of one who would fain detect flaws in the
reasoning of this eloquent young expounder of the law. See
the fair-minded philosopher beside him, who interrogates Christ
with earnest sincerity ; and the sage seated in the foreground
with the book upon his knees, who, looking from the ancient
prophecies to the Child, " marvels at his wisdom and his an-
swers."
The successful coloring of this picture probably suggested
that of the " Christ and the Rich Ruler." Here we have the
same splendid tints and costly fabrics. The velvet mantle of
the seated sage is of a deep old-rose, that of the philosopher
the striking green which Hoffmann knows so well how to em-
ploy, and of the hoary patriarch a subdued tone of ashes-of-
roses.
The lights of the picture of course centre about the figure
of Christ, the only note of color upon whose spotless robe is
the delicate oriental tracery, and a cincture of Syrian weave
and dye.
The picture in the Munich gallery, "Christ addressing the
weeping Daughters of Jerusalem," although not so elaborately
1 895.] IN THE CONVENT GARDEN. 665
finished, is very beautiful. At the National Gallery of Berlin is
Hoffmann's " Christ preaching from the Barque of Peter."
He has also executed other works, of which the scenes from
the dramas of Shakspere, especially the Othello and Desdemona,
and Shylock and Jessica, are well known.
His decorative paintings, particularly those in the Court
Theatre at Dresden, are much admired.
But his pictures of Bible scenes are generally regarded as, his
greatest works.
They impress one also as a transcript of the ideal life of a
painter, a reflex of beautiful thoughts and lofty aims, of kindly
deeds and that looking above " what is of the earth earthy "
which ennobles art and character.*
IN THE CONVENT GARDEN.
BY S. ALICE RAULETT.
> LAME-HUED and azure, rosy- veined and white,
In the fair tangle artists love to paint
In flowering maze about some calm-browed saint,
The blossoms quiver in the August light.
Beyond, the garden beds slope down a-bright
With scarlet poppies, all a living glow,
And golden-crowned anemones a-row,
And pure, pale lilies tall, a stately sight.
Dark in the sunshine's drifting, amber mist,
A veiled nun softly glides, with cloistral grace:
Careless of other flowers, she seeks true place,
And, lily among lilies keeping tryst,
She stands, with peace and prayer upon her face,
In silence, by the golden sun-glow kissed.
The name of the artist as given in full is Heinrich Johann Michael Ferdinand Hoffmann.
666 MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. [Feb.,
MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS.
BY REV. WALTER ELLIOTT.
MISSION AT WENDELIN.
E had a splendid attendance of Protestants here r
all classes coming, full of attention, deeply
interested, and loading our query box with just
the questions we wanted to answer.
The opera-house seats nine hundred, and was
filled every evening but one: that was a very stormy evening,.
with a perfect down-pour of mingled rain and snow, and yet
we had nearly as large an attendance as usual. The floor of
the hall was reserved for non-Catholics, the galleries for Catho-
lics, and both were too small to seat the audience. We
managed to exclude a good portion of the boys, much to their
disgust. One boy offered to carry an advertising banner
through the streets if we would let him in.
The congregation here is dominantly German, and is full of
zeal for non-Catholics. The pastor has received forty-one con-
verts during his three years' incumbency, and has four more
under instruction. Not far south is a small parish in which
there are about a hundred and fifty converts. These were re-
ceived by the pastor at present in charge a man with an un-
pronounceable German name and an unmistakable accent. Now
right here is seen our plan, all the more practical because so
simple. It is. to feed these little streams by lectures and ser-
mons on the part of the clergy, and by literature, conversation,
personal and social influence, and especially virtuous lives on
the part of the laity. A general missionary awakening will turn
all active spirits into missionaries, each in his own place and
measure. There should be no parish in America without at
least one week each year devoted to public meetings in the
interests of Catholic truth. The reader will easily perceive that
the " Cleveland Plan," which is a small body of capable lec-
turers exclusively engaged in the public propaganda, will arouse
private and local zeal in every direction, and maintain its
activity.
Arriving here Saturday afternoon I walked through Main
i895-] MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. 667
Street, and at the busiest corner found the Salvation Army at
work. A big bass drum, two or three tambourines, and a cor-
net which seemed to lack a musician, was the martial music of
the little squad. There were about eight of them, men and
women, all joining in the songs, all clapping hands, all looking
happy. But what they said while I listened was trivial, and
what they sang was not well sung. Their leader's accent was
cockney, and their whole demeanor was English, though doubt-
less nearly all had been recruited in America. But I said to
myself that if these religious curiosities are able to catch and
hold the attention of the street people, how much better would
the true soldiers of the Cross succeed ! The Salvationist move-
ment is almost a total failure in the smaller towns. But it is
entitled to this success : it should cause some of our bishops
and priests to open an out-of-doors apostolate. This country
now has a street population of great size. These souls can be
effectively reached only where they spend their leisure, in the
streets and squares of the cities. If a bishop and one or two
able priests would start street-preaching, assisted it might be
by men and women of the laity, the results would be marvel-
lous. Some of us little dream that there is a distinct class of
street people, grown in later years into many thousands in
every great centre of population. They live on the streets as
much as the climate allows, they read their penny papers on
the streets, they are taught by their petty leaders on the
streets the street is a roomier place, a freer place, and just as
clean a place as where they are supposed to live, but where
they only sleep. When the Catholic Church takes to the
streets with its representatives high and low, it will reach these
street people. They are not all bad, many are fairly good
Catholics, and these would secure a respectful hearing but that
is certain anyway. And meantime our highly educated and
zealous priesthood would simply revolutionize for good the
street life which at present is often a menace to public order,
and is addressed on religious topics by men and women who
play soldier and beat bass drums.
But to return to our opera-house apostolate. We were
here during election week, and we feared that this would hurt
us, but the attendance continued good throughout. In fact I
suspect that some came on Tuesday night to kill time till the
returns began to come in. Then, and for two or three evenings
after, the amazing result of the election formed a subject of
pleasantry between the stage and the audience, especially in
668 MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. [Feb.,
answering the questions. These were plentiful, and ranged over
the entire religious field. One evening we were nearly an hour
in answering them.
We had the Lutheran minister and his wife with us every
meeting, and traced to him a question wanting to know why
Luther might not have first discovered the true doctrines of
Christ !
The following question interested us :
MR. ELLIOTT DEAR SIR : I have attended all your lec-
tures and you have not opened one of them by reading a por-
tion of Scripture and praying to God to help you to carry out
the object of your lectures and what is the object ?
I answered by saying that during my last lecture season I
had always opened with prayer and Bible reading, but had
been advised that some Protestants objected to this ; upon con-
sultation I had omitted prayer, except the blessing at the
conclusion. I stated that my questioner had forgotten that we
had several times read parts of Scripture, though not always as
a formal devotional exercise. In fact the devotional question
is a somewhat difficult one. Perhaps our return course may
show us a way of uniting all in prayer in a Catholic spirit and
yet without offence to Protestants. Our original hope of regu-
larly constituted devotional exercises for all comers and in a
public hall has not yet found a way of fulfilment.
This curious question came in near the end of the week :
"Why am I a Catholic, and yet have my doubts as to the
faith ? " Answer. A genuine doubt as to the Catholic faith is
incompatible with being a Catholic a doubt known and ac-
cepted as a negation of Catholic doctrine. But oftentimes one
has momentary waverings which are only shadows of doubt.
Frequently the lower part of our mind, the feelings and in-
stincts, are restive under the rule of reason, whose whip and
spur are needed to secure their obedience. Fancies and vagaries
involuntarily occupy our thoughts, but they are not our real
selves, however much they occupy us in endeavoring to control
them. This is shown by an effort of the will to assert the
authority of reason and faith.
The following is an instance of lying on the part of Catho-
lics either in joke or for a purpose. It enrages one to be com-
pelled to set the church right with honest Protestants after she
has been hurt by dishonest Catholics :
MR. ELLIOTT REV. SIR : I have been told by faithful and,
I believe, true and honest Catholics, that they did pay a com-
1895.] MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. 669
pensation in money, ranging from twenty-five cents and up ac-
cordingly for confessing their sins before a priest. When was
this law or discipline changed ? If not changed, what has been
the object of a good Catholic misrepresenting this article of their
religion ? ANXIOUS INQUIRER.
The following shows how much like a secret society the
most open of all organizations seems to those who are repelled
from near acquaintance with us :
Are Catholics never allowed to read the code of laws and
theology governing the church ? If not, please to explain the
reason for the concealment.
Question. Would it be considered a personal query to in-
quire what has been the direct cause leading to the public ex-
position of Catholic doctrine throughout the country ?
Answer. Our church is essentially missionary, and would
decay and finally perish if it did not seek to win the whole
world. So our ultimate aim is to win you to accept the Catho-
lic Church as the divinely given means of salvation. Our pre-
sent and immediate purpose is to do away with prejudice; get-
ting men and women, especially those of religious character, to
know just what we are and just what we are not.
MISSION AT DERRICKVILLE.
We are " boarding around " here. The pastor resides eight
miles east of us, visiting this little congregation twice a month ;
and so my companion and I are the guests of families happy to
serve us. But the domestic side of " boarding around " life is
not clerical, though pleasant enough otherwise. The town is an
oil product, brand-new, muddy and busy.
Let the reader imagine a hall with about three hundred and
fifty sittings, mostly full of Protestants for our own people are
very few the gallery railing corniced with the boot-soles of young
oil-pumpers, the light being the flaring and smoky natural gas of
this region ; and then the shabby stage, adorned with two stal-
wart missionaries, one lean and tall and the other tall and not
lean, and he has our outfit.
Two nights we failed to secure more than a half-measure of
hearers, the weather being very stormy. But the rest of the
time we "drew" well. Father Muehlenbeck certainly did make
a deep impression, especially on the subject of Intemperance
and on that of Confession a convincing speaker, with the vigor
of an earnest nature.
There is an eccentric character here who is called the Come-
670 MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. [Feb.,
outer, and who rails at all churches, condemning the waste of
money in building and supporting them. He was a regular at-
tendant at the lectures and said that those men talked sensibly,
and that he is going to have his children sent to a Catholic
school and brought up in that religion, etc., etc.
The newness of all things in Derrickville, the transient nature
of the population, the small number of Catholics, prevented our
making a superlative success. But the leading men and wo-
men, including Protestant ministers, were generally present, and
many requests were made for our return.
The questions were not numerous and far from interesting,
at least to the lecturers. One old gentleman insisted night after
night on our explaining the prophecies about the scarlet woman,
the Babylon on seven hills, the abomination of desolation, and
the man of sin. We informed him and the audience that he was
behind the times, as contemporary Protestant commentators did
not generally affirm the Catholic Church to be the fulfilment of
these prophecies.
MISSION AT YELLOW HAMMER.
And if this is not the real name of the place, it is no more
curious than the real name. It is a metropolis of four hundred
souls, two miles from the nearest railroad. It is among the oil
derricks, though an agricultural village, peopled by what the aris-
tocratic oil-pumpers call " yellow hammers." The missionaries
were Fathers Kress and Wonderly, who lectured here about a
year ago, and now returned by urgent request of the Protestants,
who, by the way, are everybody but three families.
The meetings were held in the Lutheran church, so called,
for the society that owns it is hopelessly split and the building
is not at present used for church services. At the first meeting,
Sunday afternoon, the house was fairly filled ; after that there
was as good an attendance as the weather permitted, the
missionaries feeling greatly encouraged to have any audience at
all during those stormy evenings.
The music was good, being furnished by a choir very prom-
ising for the future union of Christendom, made up of Metho-
dists, who furnished the organist and the hymn-books, Presby-
terians, Lutherans, and Disciples (Campbellites), all under the
leadership of a Catholic young lady. The mission was conducted
on the lines usually followed in this apostolate, the subjects be-
ing The Bible, Intemperance, Confession, Church and State, and
Why I am a Catholic. Of course the question box was a fea-
I895-] MISSIONS TO NON-CATHOLICS. 671
ture of the meetings and made an element of interest. The
inquiries were chiefly about the ceremonies of the church and
her symbolism blessed water, palms, ashes, candles, and incense ;
the questioners seemed to think that our ceremonies had some
occult meaning, and that we had certain secret services.
" I saw a boy," said one question, " dressed in white, shaking
a vessel with a chain attached, and then the priest took it and
shook it around the altar. What is the object of it? There
was smoke emanating from the vessel."
The school-teachers of the town were the most interested of
all, the superintendent saying the last night to one of the fathers,
as he congratulated him on " the gentlemanly exposition of the
church," that he must admit that he had been very much pre-
judiced against the church, but that his " prejudices are now
removed. After this, when I hear anything derogatory to the
church, I shall make it a point to investigate before I believe
it." He then asked for a copy of the Enquirer's Catechism,
and said, " But I ought to have somebody to explain this to
me." However, the little pamphlet given him is very plain and
extremely useful, being a summary of the religion without
question and answer, furnished with ample Scripture texts and
conveniently divided up. It is an adaptation of an English
publication of Rev. F. X. Reichert called The Converts Cate-
chism.
At the end of the last meeting a large number of persons
came forward on invitation of the lecturers and accepted copies
of the Catechism, wishing to learn more fully the doctrines of
the church ; several of these said that they had attended all
through, and that was the case with all who were present at
that meeting. The last evening the fathers took tea with a
Methodist deacon, accepting one of many invitations. It was
Friday, and the meal was a fine specimen of a Catholic Friday
supper. Take Yellow Hammer, all in all, it is a most promis-
ing field.
672 THE NEW YEAR. [Feb.,
THE NEW YEAR.
BY ALBERT REYNAUD.
WEARY slept the Earth 'neath snow and gloom ;
For sin and sorrow more nor place nor room
Within its nightly, well-filled couch did seem ;
And trembling joy had fled,
And heavenward had sped
Its way upon the sunset's latest beam.
Lord, who all things with weight and measure made,
Is not the measure full, the weight well lade ?
Is it Thy breath that pierces thro* the pall,
Thy voice I hearken thro' the darkness all,
Or whispers thus the slow-expiring year :
"She is not dead but sleepeth ; do not fear"?
As at Creation's dawn the first year sprang
Fresh from its Maker's hands and brightly rang
The opening toll of Time,
So now, the New Year, freshly fashioned flies,
Bearing to listless ears in sweet surprise
Hope's reawakening chime.
O beauteous Earth a-dreaming 'mid the spheres,
And still bedewed with all our evening tears !
Thy course resume at Hope's on-beckoning word,
As started when Faith's fiat first was heard;
Till Love, eternal, waiting at the goal,
Its welcome tells to each obedient soul.
To God all praise,
To men new length of days ;
And to all creatures cowering with affright
In dusk and gloom new cycling for the Light.
Earth, sun, and stars who trustful in His palm
Hymn to His glory the eternal psalm :
Good cheer, good cheer,
God's day hails a New Year.
i8 9 5-]
A POET'S ROMANCE.
673
A POET'S ROMANCE.
BY WALTER LECKY.
RITICISM in our day has become a strange
medley of passionate exploiting and perfunctory
damning. It is the great vehicle of cant. What
the sonnet is as a lesson of exactness, it is to
diffuseness. The critic allows himself a certain
patch, and guards it jealously. All who differ, or who do not
belong to his mystic shrine, are bludgeoned with a Zulu
ferocity. The Ibsenites find in their founder the high-water
mark of genius in this age. The followers of Tolstoi are con-
tinually bombarding their ramparts. The romantic and psycho-
logical schools have their gods. Every man in his own baili-
wick is out, telescope in hand, scanning the sky for a new
star. The star is the sensation of a week maybe a month.
Its glory is trumpeted through the length and breadth of the
land by the fortunate discoverer. This glory does not escape
the arrows of the less fortunate bailiwicks.
It is the way in this strange land ; what you do not dis-
cover, decry. Of late years, the discovery of new and dazzling
stars has been the monthly occupation of reviewers. This has
been especially so in the poetical sky. The death of England's
laureate was marked by the coming of William Watson. Late-
ly Mr. Zangwill, the new expert, discovered John Davidson, a
prodigy " of every divine gift, pouring out untold treasure from
his celestial cornucopia. Fancy and imagination, wit and
humor, fun and epigram, characterization and creation and
observation, insight and philosophy, passion and emotion and
sincerity all are his."
Could Shakspere from the most loving of his critics claim
more? Evidently Davidson is the long besought bard, who is
to crystallize in immortal verse the scientific spirit of the cen-
tury. How we mortals hunger for the master's great creation.
How poignant will our sorrow be should cruel fate pervert his
mission. Strange that Mr. Zangwill's loose-strung substantives
should be questioned !
Alack for the faith of our times ! The gods have fallen on
an evil day. There is nothing to hedge their divinity.
The latest star is Francis Thompson. The Meynells, no
VOL. LX. 43
674 A POET'S ROMANCE. [Feb.,
ordinary couple, vouch for him ; the aged Patmore has said
words of cheer, while the critical Traill has marked him as a
true bearer of English song. The lesser fry for or against
keep up a constant barking. His personality has a fascination.
A little of the mystery of his life has been unveiled, enough
to poke our curiosity and beget a crop of guesses. This was
a wise move made by his sponsors. The swaddling clothes
period is too early for extended biography. So many heralded
poets of late years, bearers of messages to suffering humanity,
intellectual giants, deceivers of the elect in criticism, were but
the comets of a season. They have left us their bread was
stones for where what man cares to know ? The peep at his
life will aid the circulation of his book. It is bait to the
curious, and, after all, the curious are the buyers of books and
the givers of bread. The greatest poets did not object to a
good sale of their wares. They have been often known to give
lazy book-sellers hints as to how this might be effected. The
unveiled life of Francis Thompson bears out Mr. Patmore's
statement that he is an " extraordinary person." Born in London,
the son of a well-to-do physician, it is right to suppose his early
years pleasantly spent. It were easy to say, from allusions here
and there in his writings, that youth was to him, as it is to most
men, a golden vale where beauty wanders everywhere. He was
a born lover of books, and in his father's library must have
spent many happy hours with the true kings of men. ' At an
early age he went to the great College of Ushaw, a place of
large memories and hallowed shrines to all those of the ancient
faith. His life here, as far as documentary evidence goes, is a
blank. That he was an ardent student goes without question.
Whether he held to the ordinary curriculum, or stole away to
browse in fairer fields, is a point for his biographer. That he
laid a deep classical foundation, his writings are in evidence.
Here he had his romance, that necessary romance in the
formation of a poet. Cupid, playful elf, threw a dart. Of these
times we catch a glimpse in " Her Portrait " :
"Yet I have felt what terrors may consort
In woman's cheeks, the Graces' soft resort:
My hand hath shook at gentle hand's access,
And trembled at the waving of a tress :
My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed
Where ladies' eyes have set their ambuscade.
The rustle of a robe hath been to me
The very rattle of love's musketry."
1 895-1 A POET'S ROMANCE. 675
At Ushaw he had felt the poet's call. A life of literature
beckoned to him. Such a life is looked upon now as it was
in the days of Dryden and Pope, a precarious means to eke
out an existence, a kind of lottery where, save a few lucky
prizes, the drawings are blank. Those callow critics who foam
beget and fury vent at the name of the poet's father for drasti-
cally checking his son's original bent, will find the fathers of
most literary men in the same box. Ambitious fathers have
little respect for that old saying, " Love conquers all things,"
especially if love leads in an opposite direction to long cher-
ished designs. In the parental calculations young Thompson
was to be a physician. A comfortable country doctor, with his
smug home, easy carriage, doll-wife, and gaping Hodges, has
something tangible. A poet ! associated since the days of
Homer with light, airy subsistence, rent clothes, and capacities
largely developed for changing habitation, and often, from the
stress of circumstances, a name. A poet ! was not the country
sick and weary of their constant din ?
" Both strong bards and weak bards, funny and grave,
Fat bards and lean bards, little and tall bards:
Bards who wear whiskers, and others who shave."
Let us not judge too harshly the practical parent who fore-
warned his son from sailing with such a crew. The warning, as
often before in the annals of history, was forgotten, and Francis
Thompson was another name added to the long list in that
pathetic chapter of Literary History the " Misfortunes of Gen-
ius." His name is a peg for some well-fed moralist to decorate.
Poets pay little attention to sign-boards. The world has been
strewn with their sorrows, yet each new-comer will have his
way. To pluck the rose they will feel the thorns prick. The
penalty Thompson paid for following his " Ladye " poesy was
the withdrawal of his father's pocket-book, a serious drawback
to a budding poet. Book-sellers nowadays will not advance
cash, even if immortal song be promised. Landlords are as
obtuse to genius as Goldsmith's was. The baker will not ac-
cept the pipes of Pan for a paltry loaf. These hard truths
came early, to shape for all time the poet's mind.
Leaving Ushaw, its peaceful homes, green fields, babbling
streams, by whose banks the cattle lazily loitered and the sheep-
bells quaintly tinkled the music of happiness, fit home for a
lutanist of Apollo he wended his way, bewitched by the lights
676 A POET'S ROMANCE. [Feb.,
of London Town, to its misery and clamor. He was not the
first of the clan. His Scottish namesake had made a similar
venture a century earlier. Had not Dr. Cranston relieved him
when his credit was gone, the seasons and their changes might
have remained unsung. Here, alone and friendless, Francis
Thompson dwelt, like the children in the wood, wandering up
and down ; when weary finding rest on steps, shelter under
porticoes. A peripatetic by circumstances.
Money gone, and with it hospitality. In a great city hospi-
tality is not for the houseless wanderer. If it is met, it is in
some charitable institution, the last resort for a poet. Despite
the cant of the world-reformers, prosperity in an evening dress
cares little for poverty and its faded, torn clothes. His employ-
ment was of the most menial kind holding horses for a beg-
garly "tip," selling matches at theatre doors, glad when chance
gave him the price of a crust, herding with the city's scum, a
Galahad among them. It is sad, at this period, to write of
him as a devotee of opium. De Quincey's question comes to
mind : " How came any reasonable being to subject himself to
such a yoke of misery, voluntarily to incur a captivity so servile,
and knowingly to fetter himself with such a seven-fold chain?"
Katherine Tynan answers this query after her own way by at-
tributing it to an emulation of the writer of the query. Noth-
ing could be more absurd. No sane mind that has read De
Quincey's marvellous pages would for the sake of its mere pleas-
ure have its ultimate pain. The true cause was not the emula-
tion of the English opium-eater, nor for the purpose of creat-
ing pleasure, but of mitigating pain in the severest degree.
The baneful habit once contracted, its fascination grew apace.
His life was one of gnawing pain and glorious dreams. Books
were his only solace in those rueful waking hours when, escap-
ing from the valley of visions and dreams, he entered that of
pain and misery. Reading kept the mind from decay under its
cruel burden. He read without ceasing philosophy and poetry.
Dante, with the light of Aquinas, saw the empty, prattling hu-
manists bereft of their spurious glory, found the wheat of the
schoolmen trodden under by the rank rot of post-Reformation
divines and scientists, swept England's poesy with eagle eye,
filling his roomy mind with thoughts that bid defiance to time.
A Grecian philosopher fasted in order the more readily to ab-
sorb thought. Shelley held a similar theory. Whatever its
merits may be, it worked well in the person of the poet. Of
book-learning he has a store.
1 895.] A POET'S ROMANCE. 677
His gaunt face, peering into some old tome, his soul in his
work, was well known to the libraries, until his unkempt figure
and tattered clothing cancelled his passport. Deprived of the
creative works of others, harassed by his own mind, his only
escape was to turn creator, to give vent to the thoughts that
craved language birth. In this wise his poem " Dream-Tryst "
was written and sent to the editor of Merry England. It arrived
at the office " on the blue back of a bill so slovenly and un-
tempting a manuscript that it was pigeon-holed unread." Some
lucky chance threw it in the way of Editor Meynell, a critic of
no mean rate, who at once saw its beauty and its author's
promise.
The hunt for the poet amid the London slums, his discovery
and redemption, may well form one of the most interesting
chapters in the life of a lovable pair. The poet has been far
from ungrateful. His best thoughts are lovingly thrown at the
feet of her who led him from misery and early death to honor
and light. She has made his captivity sweet, and his harp has
been strung to sing her beauty. Not beauty as sung by the
modern school of mosaic artificers, with its lusciousness and
sensual imagery, beauty miscalled, moral ugliness rather, draped,
the folds of the drapery cunningly done the better to show the
depravity of love. Thompson has no affinity with this now
triumphant school.
His beauty is not sensual ; it is spiritual. It strikes its roots
on a high table-land, where breathing becomes difficult to
those whose hearts have been solely nourished by mundane
things. As Coventry Patmore says, " The Lady whom he delights
to honor he would have to be too seraphic even for a seraph."
This spiritual quality in Mr. Thompson's poems is genuine, and
is his least fault in these times of grovelling materialism. It is
akin to Dante's, Petrarch's, Crashaw's idealizations of beauty
as a virtue.
" Something more than
Taffeta or tissue can,
Or rampant feather, or rich fan,
Beget, a virtue that so fashions
Life, that dares send
A challenge to his end.
And when it comes say: Welcome, friend."
It is worthy of remark, that these poets were moulded by a
study of that long unworked, and, to use a phrase of a keen critic,
678 A POET'S ROMANCE. [Feb.,
inexhaustible mine of Catholic philosophy. From it came the first
stream of English poesy checked and distorted by the Reform-
ers a stream from whence Shakspere, Crashaw drew, and Mil-
ton, when at his best. To this stream belong the poems of Fran-
cis Thompson, " which if it be not checked, as in the history of
the world it has once or twice been checked before, by prema-
ture formulation and by popular and profane perversion, must
end in creating a new heaven and a new earth." Such poetry
must ever be of the highest order. It alone will express those
deeper things in life that prose gropes at. It will bear us
beyond the line of nature, to the home of things beyond
nature, and their Creator. It will not longer be enmeshed by
the phan tasies of sense, unthwarted by earth, it will live in the
things of heaven. The great debt the poet owes to his bene-
factress, Mrs. Meynell, a sweet poet, charming essayist, and
gracious woman, is returned a hundredfold both in his quaint
dedicatory verse, and in his longer poems, grouped as " Love
in Dian's Lap." The key to these verses is found in these
lines :
" How should I gauge what beauty is her dole
Who cannot see her countenance for her soul ;
As birds see not the casement for the sky ?
And as 'tis check they prove its presence by,
I know not of her body till I find
My flight debarred the heaven of her mind."
And yet by
" The loom which mortal verse affords,
Out of weak and mortal words,"
he will weave us some image, if inadequate, of his lady. Yet
he is at loss how to throw his shuttle :
" How praise the woman who but know the spirit ?
How praise the color of her eyes, uncaught
While they were colored with her varying thought ?
How her mouth's shape, who only use to know
What tender shape her speech will fit it to ?
Or her lips' redness, when their joined veil
Song's fervid hand has parted till it wore them pale.
"What of the dear administress then may
I utter, though I spoke her own carved perfect way?
1 895-] A POET'S ROMANCE. 679
What of her thoughts, high marks for mine own thoughts
to reach ?
Yet (Chaucer's antique sentence so to turn),
Most gladly will she teach, and gladly learn ;
And teaching her, by her enchanting art,
The master threefold learns for all he can impart.
Now all is said, and all being said aye me !
There yet remains unsaid the very She ;
Nay, to conclude (so to conclude I dare),
If of her virtues you evade the snare,
Then for her faults you'll fall in love with her."
Corporeal loveliness is to the poet nothing. Christianity has
taught the true beauty, and of that beauty will he sing:
" Loveliness corporeal,
Its most just praise a thing improper were
To singer or to listener, me or her.
She wears that body but as one indues
A robe, half careless, for it is the use :
Although her soul and it so fair agree,
We sure may, unattaint of heresy,
Conceit it might the soul's begetter be.
The immortal could we cease to contemplate,
The mortal part suggests its every trait."
Having subtly woven her portrait, he lingers to tell us what
she has been to him a safeguard
"Against the fell
Immitigate ravening of the gates of hell."
She must be true to the spiritual life, through faith and
prayer, else the holy Grail is lost not only to the Ladye but
to her poet.
" O be true
To your soul, dearest, as my life to you !
For if that soil grow sterile, then the whole
Of me must shrivel, from the topmost shoot
Of climbing poesy, and my life killed through,
Dry down and perish to the foodless root."
The strength of his genius comes from her ; would she be
false to her high mission, then genius, losing its stay, swept
from her " mind's chill sky,"
680 A POET'S ROMANCE. [Feb.,
" It needs must drop, and lie with stiffened wings
Among your soul's forlornest things ;
A speck upon your memory, alack !
A dead fly in a dusty window-crack."
"Love in Dian's Lap" is a series of poems that will insep-
arably link for all time the Ladye and her poet. It is a new
friendship in literature, and the only one I can recall where
the spiritual, not the sensual, from the first held sway. In
these poems the poet has struck a bold note ; he has left the
loquacious throng of idle singers to prate in simulated speech
of woman's natural beauty, to sing of the beauty that knows
neither canker nor decay. Let the tuneful choir give us their
toy songs ; the crowd's applause both pays and measures their
life.
" Deaf is he to world's tongue ;
He scorneth for his song
The loud
Shouts of the crowd."
The other poems in Mr. Thompson's little volume classed as
"Miscellaneous" and "Poems on Children," contain some of his
best work. The " Hound of Heaven," an irregular ode, would
alone rank the poet high up in English song. It tells in lofty and
sustained verse of the pursuit of a wavering and flying soul from
God, its final capture and gentle reprimand.
" Ah ! fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He whom thou seekest.
Thou drawest love from thee who drawest Me."
This poet is very fond of the irregular ode, a species of com-
position that many have tried, therein few succeeded. The metre
of this kind of ode, artless as it may seem to the novice, is one
of great difficulty, even in the hands of a true poet. Its lines
range from two syllables to ten, with an occasional Alexan-
drine ; and the rhymes follow the subtle and delicate instinct
of taste. In the hands of Patmore the effects have been a
beautiful addition to English literature. Some of his poems in
this metre are well nigh perfect. Such poetry requires not only
a delicate ear for rhythm, a technical mastery of language, but
a passion sufficiently intense to create the metre.
To write an irregular ode a long apprenticeship to the sim-
1895-] A POET'S ROMANCE. 68 1
pier forms of art is necessary. That Francis Thompson has in
one instance incomparably succeeded and given us one of the
very few great odes of which the language can boast, is no cri-
terion by which we gauge the future. Other attempts in this
line reveal that he is far more happy when using the simpler
forms of art. His training has been defective, his technique be-
times shows a strange want of mastery, and too often his pas-
sion flags before the winning-post is reached. In his " Making
of Viola," "Daisy," and "Dream-Tryst" there is a flow of lan-
guage and a smoothness that irritate the reader with a poet
who has purposely resorted to harsh versification, far-fetched
similes, defective expression, barren drapery, and positive mys-
ticism. These inelegancies may give rise to a Thompson clique,
who may see in them great genius ; but the poet who will linger
in the minfl, rich and full, with that magical quality that runs
with time, must rid himself of such absurdities. Greatness has no
tricks genius has rarely been a gymnast. Another trick of the
poet is a foolhardy use of obsolete and archaic words that ne-
cessitates a constant use of the dictionary. Here the influence
of De Quincey is felt. The poet forgets that he is writing for
the nineteenth century, and that the common tongue of that
century is capable of the highest poetic effects.
( It is not necessary either to coin new words, as Mr. Thomp-
son does on every page, nor to draw from well-merited obliv-
ion unmusical and unmeaning ones. Mr. Thompson cannot be
read simply as a recreation ; he is a poet of infinite suggestive-
ness, who will well repay the hours loaned to him. His style is his
own, as it must be to all great poets. Every poet interprets life
personally, and clothes the interpretation in the dress it bespeaks.
It is only talent that fears to leave the model. The style
of Thompson has freedom, force, and originality. It is full of
life and color. It embodies faith and beauty, revelations of the
soul's life, calmness and steadiness in the pursuit of beauty.
He has great faith ; without it there can be no great art.
Scepticism smothers genius ; it is as the blight ; nothing lives
under its spell. Francis Thompson, possessor of faith and many
other subordinate gifts that must equip a poet, has much to
learn, much to forget. Criticism, true criticism, ever the
author's friend, has shown his faults, and spoke warmly of his
graces. Shall he hearken ? Slowly and painfully must he work.
Mountain-climbing requires constant effort. On the peak is his
rightful place ; shall he, forgetting his mission, rest on the hill-
top? He believes in his mission; will he achieve it?
682 THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE.*
(R. LUCKOCK, who is a dean of the Established
Church in England, supplies us with a treatise
on the history of marriage written with special
reference to the indissoluble character of the bond
and to a large extent with reference to legislation
which is desired by powerful influences in that country concern-
ing marriage with a deceased wife's -sister. We dismiss this
part of the tract with the bare mention because its interest is
local. No doubt Dr. Luckock holds that marriage within the
degree of affinity in question is contrary to the divirfe law, and
therefore a matter of universal interest. So would be a ques-
tion of purely ecclesiastical law if the conditions were present
which transcend the material barriers of physical nature or the
moral barriers of time and training. But he seems to think it
stands upon the same ground as the law which makes mar-
riage indissoluble, and claims for this provision a binding force
which he denies to other enactments of the Levitical law. He
overlooks the difference between both enactments to be found,
first, in the fact that our Divine Lord has himself re t enacted
the primal law of the life-long character of the marriage con-
tract, and his church, which interprets his mind now and did
so from the day he founded her, so declares the law ; and sec-
ond, in the fact that while the church has always claimed the
power to dispense from the impediment of marriage with the
sister of a deceased wife we find no reference to this impedi-
ment in the New Testament. In other words, whatever may
be the force of the Mosaic laws in Dr. Luckock's judgment, he
cannot deny that there is a wide difference, to Christians at
least, between a Mosaic law re-enacted by our Lord and one
not re-enacted.
On the question of the indissoluble nature of the marriage
tie, Dr. Luckock, as might be expected, is Catholic in opinion
and bears testimony to the Catholic tone of the best class of
minds in his church on this vital question. There is, however,
a shadow on the book. It lacks warmth, heat, spirit. It is
* The History of Marriage, Jewish and Christian, in relation to Divorce and certain
Forbidden Degrees. By Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D., Dean of Lichfield. New York:
Longmans, Green & Co.
18950 THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. 683,
the echo of the voice of the prophet of a dead god and a
dead faith. It will convince no one that is not convinced before.
The work is learned for all that. The argument from the
relations between God and man is apt and lucid, the exposition
of the law of marriage among the Jews is sound, the history
since its reinstitution by the Lord himself is well stated, so far
as it goes, and logical ; but, as we shall show before we con-
clude, he does not make the most of the argument from the
action of the Church.
No one who can take in the bearings of any moral influence
or the operation of any law can deny that the Supreme Pon-
tiffs in every age expressed the mind of the church by their
legislative acts or acts declaratory of legislation. Dr. Luckock
sees this, but he half-closes his eyes. On the part borne by the
popes in maintaining Catholic doctrine the enemies of Chris-
tianity are incomparably more just than members of any of the
revolted creeds. These cannot afford to be just ; if they were
just the reason of their existence would have ceased. It is
hard to say whether a cultured dignitary of the Anglican Es-
tablishment or the preacher who tells a New York audience
in Canadian English that the pope is the Scarlet Woman of
Revelations is the more incapable of estimating the pope's
relation to the teaching church.
Dr. Luckock's tract begins with the institution of marriage
in Paradise as we find it suggested in the opening pages of
Genesis. There is in this part of the treatment of his subject
evidence of piety and earnestness such as, God willing, shall
receive their reward in a return to the fold from which his
fathers strayed. We can only briefly refer to it. God's pur-
pose in creating man was so to create him that he should
reflect the image of his Maker, but man would have fallen
short of the Divine resemblance, and that in a very important
feature, had he been left in solitude, with no companion to hold
communion with in his intellectual and spiritual nature. As
throughout man was to reflect the Divine image, however im-
perfectly, so the marriage bond could only be a reflection of the
eternal union of the undivided Trinity so far as the finite can
be a reflection of the infinite by a union which nothing could
sever but death. It was manifestly intended by the Creator
that the reflection should extend as far as possible, and if we
form any lower conception of the marriage tie we efface all
human claim to be in this feature after the likeness of God.
We pass over what we read in Genesis of the mode of the
684 THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
woman's formation out of man, and what .may be and has been
said of its deep significance. The reference to this is not with-
out interest to that class of students who are sufficiently curi-
ous to go below the surface and look for the truths hidden in
the folds of language. There is a meaning in all Divine acts
that lies under the bare narrative ; but passing from this we
have the explicit assurance of our Lord himself that he who
created male and female at the beginning had also said : " For
this shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are
no more two but one flesh."
The moral retrogression from the time of Adam to that of
Moses prepares us for great changes in the legislation which
God permitted for the Israelites. The Divine standard mea-
sures the ideal of marriage as it was in Paradise before sin
entered the world. In the later books of the Pentateuch we
have the ideal obscured and disfigured by human law, but even
here the human legislator fixes the nearest approach to it
which is practicable for fallen man having regard to the exi-
gency of time and circumstances, he must have before his
mind the original purpose of God and the life of man as it is.
With these two great facts before him, Moses framed his laws
for the greatest attainable good.
To estimate his legislation properly, it must be measured by
the standard of the time ; interpreted by the side-lights of con-
temporary history. Read in this light we see a keen discern-
ment of the condition into which the Jews had fallen through
their contact with the law and morality of the heathen nations
about them, and a determined purpose on the part of the law-
giver to elevate them to a higher moral plane. This is illus-
trated in the three particulars of slavery, polygamy, and
divorce.
Slavery had become practically a necessity. Captives were
taken in every battle whole nations were often carried into
captivity. For the captives for whom such a decree as trans-
portation was not made there were two alternatives, death or
slavery in the usual acceptation. This is the state of things that
Moses found, and he chose the more merciful of the two. It is
very plain that expediency was an influence on his legislation.
With regard to the concession he allowed in writing a bill of
divorce in the event mentioned, our Lord himself declared
that Moses allowed it because of the hardness of their hearts.
1895.] THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. 685
This shows that in the whole legislation he was only aiming at
the best standard he could lift the people to then and there,
and not the best possible standard for all time and all
peoples.
If we are to take the authority of the Old Testament alone
as the rule on matters of life and conduct, we find there as
much authority in favor of slavery as for divorce ; and yet the
very countrymen of Dr. Luckock maintain a ship-of-war on the
African station to prevent the former, while their modern divorce
court exceeds Chancery in its arrear of cases unheard, and the
common-law courts in the sensational character of its trials.
Why is not polygamy, in the Turkish sense, a British institu-
tion on the same authority ? Any Englishman with moderate
good luck can have a greater number of separated wives than
a Turkish pasha with three tails can have of wives unseparated,
or the sultan himself of wives unbowstringed or unsacked.*
In the Old Testament there is as much authority for re-
marriage as for polygamy. Those who hold the laws and cus-
toms given in the Old Testament should rule Christian society
in their unmodified integrity will find more in favor of remarriage
than against it. Such people should not be shocked like the
gentleman at the dinner-party in Vared who met four men and
their four wives each of whom had been the wife of the other
husbands. For the same reason we think the honest Teuton
who told the Royal Commission " that the state of marriage in
Germany makes a German cover his hands with shame " was
quite too squeamish. What good Lutheran is without his open
Bible printed, too, from that text which, as D'Aubign6 tells us,
was so wonderfully discovered by Martin Luther at Erfurt ?
In dealing with the subject of Christian marriage we must
keep in mind the difference between a divine and a human law-
giver. Like the human law-giver the Lord Christ had indeed
to deal with men as he found them ; but he also had to pro-
vide for all future contingencies. It was impossible for him to
temporize to substitute laws of expediency for absolute right.
He had only power to hold up an ideal standard based on the
eternal and immutable principles of truth. He could only pro-
claim a morality such as should be conceived by the divine in-
telligence and asserted by the divine authority. Prophets in
whom the purely human is so large a part gave only in mea-
* A summary way the sultans had of divorcing their wives was to have them sewed up in
a sack and thrown into the Bosphorus.
686 THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
sure the divine counsels because they only received them in
measure. When he came in the ripeness of the world, he came
to restore the law of the world such as it was when God con-
versed with man as friend and father before sin entered it and
defaced in man the image of the Creator. When we take up
the New Testament we must feel in a peculiar sense that we
tread on holy ground.
When the Lord came it was as the restorer of the world
lost by the fall of Adam. He found marriage degraded to the
character of a civil contract among the Jews. The nuptial bene-
dictions in which the divine origin of marriage was attested
and God's blessing solemnly invoked had sunk into a secondary
place. The bridegroom might repeat the form, or any layman
present. The dominant school that of Hillel allowed divorce
for any reason or for no reason. Moreover, Roman influence
was making itself felt in Palestine if not to the same absorb-
ing extent as elsewhere in drawing to itself the local social and
religious institutions and interpenetrating them with the supre-
macy of its irresistible will ; still with sufficient strength to
overshadow the old Jewish exclusiveness and bend it. Except
the more furious of the zealots* and the rugged half-savage
mountaineers of Palestine itself, the Jews were everywhere eager
to become Romans. This could not happen without a weaken-
ing of the power of the old religious laws, usages, and ceremo-
nial which had been maintained in some degree of vigor under
their ancient life of isolation, and, therefore, a decay in the
moral tone should, and did, follow.
As all the pollution of the heathen worships found its
way to Rome with their rites, so Rome gave back the foulness
to the provinces with a deeper and more fatal influence. The
Epistle to the Romans affords some idea of the way in which
flesh had again corrupted its way upon the earth. The old
Roman respect for marriage belonged to the past. The Roman
matron of rank had ceased to dispense the moralities of the
hearth and the parental board. She thought only of her as-
signations with Clodius, and no longer calculated the years by
the consuls, but by the number of her husbands. Tacitus,
Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial, fill in the unutterable horrors
which St. Paul has outlined. One shudders to think of the
Divine Lord living in such a world. We look for another
deluge as when before
* Even St. Paul himself.
1 895.] THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE.
"All dwellings else
Flood overwhelm'd, and them with all their pomp
Deep under water roll'd ; sea covered sea,
Sea without shore ; and in their palaces,
Where luxury late reigned, sea-monsters whelp'd
And stabled";
but the Sinless One came to repair instead.
He, above all great moral reformers, would see that the
purity and sanctity of marriage is the foundation of all
national virtue. We can hardly hesitate to believe that it was
the urgency of this need which caused him to choose the
marriage-feast of Cana as the occasion for the first display of
his divine power. The early church interpreted his presence
there as the indication of his will to sanctify anew the union
of man and wife ; and she must be held in all respects as the
.highest exponent of her Founder's mind in all that he did as
well as said.
The Fathers who learned at the feet of the Apostles who
had been His companions, and the later Fathers, who learned from
these, were near enough to the Lord's time to possess a vivid
sense of the influence and meaning of his life standing as they
were almost within its luminous shadow ; add to this, the world-
wide rivulets of recollection called the sense of the faithful
flowing down, in every church and city and province and na-
tion, to the time of St. Cyril, who tells us that Holy Church,
not dogmatically indeed, but in her heart and fancy so inter-
preted his presence there ; and so the whole great flood carried
the thought downward as it did other thoughts begotten of the
purity of faith in its first freshness, and this may be accepted
at least as a link in the collateral argument which goes to
prove that the Lord meant marriage should be a great sacra-
ment, and not a bargain and sale or a contract of concubinage.
Why the decent jurisprudence of the world holds illegal
such a contract as the last, but what does divorce and the
right of remarriage mean but the legalization of such a con-
. tract ?
But the real argument lies in the words of our Lord when
the Pharisees tried to test his position in reference to the two
leading Rabbinical schools. "They came unto him, tempting
him and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away
his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto
688 THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
them: Have ye not read, that he who made them at the
beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause
shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his
wife, and they two shall be one flesh? Whereupon they are
no more now but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together let not man put asunder." We have here a re-enact-
ment of the primal law, with a clear implication that it had
never been authoritatively revoked. In the words used by the
Pharisees it is evident that the law had fallen into disuse.
We have extended this notice already to a length which
prevents us from examining the Lord's utterances as they are
recorded in St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke. We can only
refer the reader to Dr. Luckock's treatment of the matter,
which we think leaves little to be desired. To ourselves it
seems clear enough that in our Lord's words we have a law
coupled with an enacting exposition of its meaning. No doubt
what seems to be a serious difficulty is created by what ap-
pears according to St. Matthew to be the Lord's teaching that
" fornication " may dissolve the bond. Sts. Mark and Luke, on
the other hand, represent him as teaching in the most explicit
manner that marriage was absolutely indissoluble.
This difficulty, we think, is fully met by Dr. Luckock so far
as reliance upon the naked criticism of the authorized judg-
ment on the passages can claim to be satisfactory. The church,
however, speaking by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has in-
terpreted the Lord's words to mean what he himself declared to
have been the primal law. In his recapitulation of the various
and successive testimonies from within the church Dr. Luckock
presents a vast and irresistible array of opinion on the question.
It, however, seems with him that the whole mass can claim no
higher value than a purely human accumulation ; but even as that
it outweighs beyond all comparison any contrary evidence, and
is not to be set aside by any mere criticism based on the
seeming exception in St. Matthew. We go with him so far.
Unquestionably we think he might have rested his case on the
Pastor of Hernias and on the apology addressed to Antoninus
Pius by Justin Martyr for the interpretation of the first cen-
turies so far as the historic fact. Independently of other con-
siderations, there must have been a reason for that interpreta-
tion in the period nearest to the speaker, and the reason could
be no other than that the seeming exception was no exception
at all.
I89S-]
THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE.
689
The falling away of the nations of Christendom from the
centre of unity from time to time witnessed in these separated
limbs a departure from the doctrine of the indissolubility of
marriage. Beginning with exceptions to the law in the
case of adultery, they ended with any exception whatever if it
were demanded on the part of power. We see this in the
Greek Church very remarkably ; we see it more unmistakably
still in the interested complaisance of the Reformers in the
sixteenth century. Dr. Luckock, we regret, does but scant
justice to the popes for their uncompromising attitude on this
question amid the enormous difficulties which so often beset
them and seemed to threaten the existence of the church her-
self.
Take, for instance, the case of Innocent III. with Philip
Augustus. Every suggestion of human prudence would have
counselled that pontiff to conciliate the greatest prince of the
age, the eldest son of the church, the crusader. But it was im-
possible the same " non possumus " for ever replied by the
Vicars of Christ to those who asked them to betray the su-
preme trust he reposed in them. It was this that saved the
doctrine which Dr. Luckock has so ably vindicated from the
assaults of power and passion. When Philip Augustus in the
rage of disappointment exclaimed " Happy Saladin, he has no
pope ! " he expressed what all others have felt when stayed in
the course of crime by the inviolable fidelity of the popes to
the commission conferred upon them by their Master.
VOL. LX. 44
690 THE CRITICS CRITICISED. [Feb.,
THE CRITICS CRITICISED.
BY REV. R. M. RYAN.
OT the least remarkable feature of the closing
years of the nineteenth century is the extraor-
dinary metamorphosis observable in the manner
of treating polemical subjects. Facts have super-
seded rationes wherever they could be made to
speak; with the result, that a general fixing-up has become ne-
cessary in the many things that were considered as stable as
the stars. In historical subjects, in particular, this necessity has
become more specially apparent. Had those hopeful offspring of
the nineteenth century's decrepitude, " the higher critics," been
permitted to continue much longer their peculiar process of
proving the wrongness of all records that did not conform to
their standards, our histories would soon have been reduced to
book-covers, and as lifeless and empty as the cast-off chrysalis
of the butterfly. Hardly a single Greek hero was left by them
to enliven the battle-field of Troy. Historic characters of
Assyrian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Hebrew fame shared the
same fate. The solvent used to blot them off the historic
pages, where they had so long figured, was the following : Con-
temporary records, which the critics thought well of accepting,
did not refer to them ; writing, which alone could perpetuate
their memory, could not even have been known at the time the
records referring to them claim to have been written ; the
spelling of their names showed them not to belong to the race
they were said to be leaders of these and other equally in-
genious arguments, which, of course, the critics first demon-
strated to their own satisfaction, are fair specimens of the
means employed to discredit the greater part of the earlier
biblical narratives. Baur a really eminent Greek scholar
established a critical canon still more remarkable. He
" showed " that a tendency to any literary excellence in any
New Testament writer, excepting St. Paul, must invalidate
his authenticity. Acting on this very flexible principle, he
deposed three of the evangelists, leaving us only St. Mark.
His disciple, Volkmar, another Greek scholar, continuing his
master's work, by "solid argument," based on another ground
1895.] THE CRITICS CRITICISED. 691
principle of his own, proved even St. Mark's gospel to be
equally undeserving of acceptance. In fact, with this new
weapon of " higher criticism," there is not a work of the
ancients or, for that matter, of the moderns either which they
could not discredit or " prove " whatever they pleased about it.
From the outset these scholars and their criticisms excited
suspicion. In the first place, they themselves seemed uncon-
scious of what to all others was very apparent, that their im-
pelling motive was the destruction of all sacred Scriptures.
Their learning was unquestioned, their industry could not but
be admired, but their motives were distinguishable by negative
and positive characteristics that could not be entirely concealed,
however carefully guarded. An honest desire to find out the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, whatever it
was, was conspicuous by its absence ; as were also all signs of a
prudent, discreet, and reasonable regard for what so many
master minds among their contemporaries and predecessors
treated not alone with implicit confidence, but with profoundest
reverence and admiration. The reasons of these latter for such
respect and trustfulness had withstood the tests of thousands
of generations, and deserved at least to be inquired into.
They were brushed aside with a majestic pen-sweep. Had the
critics let loose all their forces of argumentation on the testi-
monies to the truth of the narratives, and, after disproving them,
established on their ruins their own views, they would long ago
have been answered. But, owing to the unique mode of the
attack, it was hard to meet them on advantageous ground, or,
in fact, on any ground except that of negation. But, happily,
they have been encountered and overthrown in a way they little
suspected, and so completely that we are not likely to hear
much more of their new-fangled " higher " critical methods.
With the scholarly critic, armed, disciplined, and regularly
enrolled, but antagonistic to the Bible, go down the motley
crowd of irregulars that follow in their wake. These are the
little, loquacious, sceptic squads who prop up their doubts,
notions, and pretensions petty in everything save in their mis-
chievousness with the weapons and phrases of their betters.
By them the phrases "higher criticism," " modern research," and
" the latest scientific discoveries " are made do duty for thought,
intelligence, and personal examination of both sides of the
questions at issue. Whilst ever boasting of independence of
thought, they seem hydrophobically fearful of tasting a little of
its limpid sweetness; so much so, that their ignorance of the
692 THE CRITICS CRITICISED. [Feb.,
true import of the phrases they quote becomes sometimes pain-
fully almost disgustingly apparent.
That the same fault may not be found with ourselves, let
us, before adducing those facts that refute the critics' con-
clusions, define what we mean by " higher criticism." It is an
inquiry into the nature, origin, and date of the documents with
which one may be dealing, as well as into the historical value
and credibility of the statements they contain. It really is new
only in name, at least to theologians and biblical scholars.
The distinction between it and what is called " lower criticism "
is more nominal than real ; inasmuch as both have always been
carried on by biblical students side by side, and often inter-
mingled. Neither in the Catholic Church, nor even outside of
it, has belief in the Bible ever been based solely on internal
evidence, or even on philology and palaeography, which the
"higher critics" say constitute "lower criticism," but in the
case of the church on her infallible power of distinguishing
the true from the false; and in the case of non-Catholics, on
all and every evidence that human intelligence and human in-
genuity could supply, including all honest, well-founded methods
of criticism. The real difference between believers in the
Bible and modern unbelievers now seems to be, that the latter
invent some specious criterion, and demand that the sacred books
demonstrate their correspondence with it ; or else they pretend
to see conclusive evidences of error in their want of concordance
with certain archaeological discoveries, and become confirmed
therein if a reconciliation be not forthwith effected by those
professing belief in the Sacred Scriptures. This is like the
Roman emperor's method of removing a too powerful or too
affluent subject. He had leave to kill himself, if he did not
instanter clear himself of a hastily trumped-up accusation which
was often as fantastic as it was insidious.
On what single work of the ancients would a "higher" criti-
cal investigation make men agreed ? On what comparatively
modern work, even, are they in accord on all points ? The very
authorship of the best known of all English poetical works is
seriously controverted. What wonder is it, then, that controversy
exists about some things pertaining to the oldest and most ill-
used book in the world ? This in no way alarms the really
enlightened and really earnest Christian ; but it rejoices the
Agnostic, who finds, or thinks and boasts he finds, herein all
he wants for his position. To make still surer of it he takes up
the sacred volume and demands, with his newly-tempered criti-
1 895-1 THE CRITICS CRITICISED. 693
cal scalpel in hand, evidence of its contents that he cannot dis-
sect and disprove, or at least reduce to an unrecognizable mass.
This process having in part succeeded with the earlier histo-
ries of Greece and Rome, allured the sceptic to try it with
that of ancient Israel. The same canons that had relegated
Mycenaean power and the Trojan war to the realms of myth-
land, consigned the earlier biblical narratives to the same
unhistoric region. Abraham, Lot, Melchisedech followed Aga-
memnon. There was no contemporary record of any of
them existing; therefore they did not exist. But the spade of
Dr. Schliemann, the great Grecian archaeologist, reinstated the
"king of men " in classic history, and the pick and shovel of a
Petrie, a Bliss, a Botta, a Layard, and other oriental explor-
ers have brought to light overwhelming archaeological testimony
* some of which had lain buried for over three thousand years
in Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Phoenicia, and Palestine confirma-
tory of many portions of the Bible narrative, on which the critics
had, as they thought, piled an irremovable load of higher and
lower, positive and negative critical rubbish. Like that cover-
ing the Cross and the holy places in Palestine until St. Helen's
time, it only served to preserve them.
We are indebted to a distinguished oriental linguist, archaeol-
ogist and palaeographist, A. H. Sayce, of Queen's College, Oxford,
for bringing before the public in popular form the results of
recent explorations amongst the ruins of the palaces and temples
of ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, etc., in his admirable work
entitled The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments.
On the learned professor's work we shall freely draw for illus-
tration, and on that of Major Conder's, The Tell Amarna* Tab-
Jets, a briefer, clearer, better ordered translation and explana-
tion of this wonderful archaeological library, published last
year.
The critics had rejected the larger part of the earlier history
of the Old Testament ; indeed, Havet and Vernes had gone fur-
ther, and declared that before the Babylonian Exile there was
little of it that could be believed at all, whilst many learned
classical scholars would persuade us that before the time of
Solon there was not a knowledge of letters existing, anywhere
outside of Greece, sufficient to enable the written records, which
the Scriptures presuppose, to have been made. It therefore
* The insistence of Major Conder and Professor Sayce on their respective modes of spell-
ing these simple words, is a marked illustration of the little dependence that can be placed on
.arguments derived from etymology.
694 THE CRITICS CRITICISED. [Feb.,
is impossible, they say, to conceive of a Samuel or a Moses
writing or compiling a history. Force was lent to this from the
fact that until recently no inscription in Phoenician characters,
which were regarded as the oldest in Syria, was known that
went farther back than the time of Solomon ; but now the
Siloam inscription demonstrates that there was an alphabet used
for writing purposes long before that time, which Moses or
Samuel might have used. But there is stronger evidence of the
erroneousness of such an argument against the antiquity of
the Sacred Scriptures.
The assumption that the Phoenician alphabet is the oldest
is a false one. It is found that the Mincean, which was said to
be derived from it, is its parent, and numerous inscriptions in
southern Arabia, its home, prove that at the time of the Exodus
the Minceans had a literature with which their Semitic neigh-
bors, the Israelites, could easily have been acquainted. As Pro-
fessor Sayce expresses it : " So far from its being improbable
that the Israelites of the age of the Exodus were acquainted
with writing, it is extremely improbable that they were not.
They had escaped from Egypt, where the art of reading and
writing was as familiar as it is in our days, and had made their
way into a desert which was traversed by Mincean traders,
equally familiar with the literary arts. With them, also, the
kinsmen of Jethro, the ' priest of Madian, the father-in-law of
Moses,' must have been familiar." Indeed, the condition of the
Jews on entering Arabia must have been somewhat analogous
to what that of the negroes of the United States would be to-
day were they to betake themselves to the country of their
ancestors.
Strong as these arguments are in favor of the impugned
feature of early biblical records, the discovery in 1887 of cer-
tain Egyptian cuneiform tablets, at Tel el-Amarna, completely
settles all further controversy in their favor. These, further-
more, revolutionize all our ideas of ancient peoples, by showing
that those of Western Asia, in the time of Moses, were as
highly cultured as those of Western Europe in the age of the
Renaissance.
About one hundred and eighty miles south of Cairo, midway
between Thebes and Memphis, on the eastern bank of the Nile,
is a long line of mounds. Beneath them has been discovered a
vast library containing the records of Egypt under the eight-
eenth dynasty, which were deposited there by Amenophis IV.,
in B. c. 1500. Amongst these records are letters from Baby-
1 895.] THE CRITICS CRITICISED. 695
Ionia, Assyria, Kappadocia, and Northern Syria, as well as from
Egyptian governors of the Amorites and Philistines, and from
various other parts of Palestine. They are upon every variety
of subject, as well as from persons of every variety of race and
nationality. They testify to an active and extensive correspon-
dence carried on, not by a select body of scribes but by per-
sons of every class and condition. Amongst them are some from
the then king of Jerusalem, who speaks of his God as the
" Most High God of Heaven." They are written in the Baby-
lonian language and in cuneiform characters, a fact which
brings out in most striking prominence the schooling the
writers must have undergone to master so strange and difficult
a double language it being, like Latin in the middle ages and
French in modern times, the common vehicle of international
communication. Moreover, the writers had also to learn a dif-
ferent syllabary, consisting of five hundred different characters,
each of which had at least two different phonetic values. In
addition, each character might denote an object or idea, and
in combination another idea, different from that which the
separate characters denoted, or their combined phonetic effect
expressed. Acquiring a knowledge of this script-language must
have been equivalent to learning from three to five of our
modern languages. Yet the " critics " have " proved " the
erroneousness of Genesis by the fact (?) of the general ignor-
ance of the people, especially of writing, at the time and place
it was supposed to have been written !
The most interesting letters are from the southern part of
Palestine, which refer, with great clearness, to the conquest of
that country by Joshua. The name of one of the kings killed
by him, Japhia (Josh. x. iii.), is found, and also that of Adoni-
zedek, King of Jerusalem. The name Jabin, King of Hazor,
whom Joshua attacked, is also given. The Hebrews are said to
have come from the desert and from Mount Seir all of which
is in complete conformity with the Bible record.
Amongst other things swept away by the critics was the
biblical chronology relating to the Exodus. The Tel el-Amar-
na tablets replace it in its entirety. The date of the Hebrew
invasion of lower Palestine is exactly that which is derivable
from I. Kings vi. i. It corresponds with the time when, ac-
cording to the tablets, the Egyptian troops had been with-
drawn, and the various peoples whom the Israelites conquered
were left to shift for themselves, under the nineteenth dynasty
that is, between 1700 B. C. and 1800 B. C.
696 THE CRITICS CRITICISED. [Feb.,
" Ur of the Chaldees " ; Haran, where Thare the father of
Abram died, and several other Scripture places have been
" proved " by the critics never to have existed, after much
merry-making over the differences in them and other names in
Deuteronomy and Genesis. They have turned up on the tab-
lets, however, where it is impossible to suspect that they are
only mythical ; for data is supplied otherwise which enable us
to identify their site. The tablets also justify their difference
in spelling and pronunciation. They are given in Deuteronomy
as they were actually pronounced ; and in Genesis as they read
on some Babylonian tablets.
Again, the much-ridiculed campaign of Choderlaomer and
his allies has been proved historical; nor can the " higher critics "
any more assert the Elamite invasions of the distant West, in
the time of Abraham, to be incredible. It is no longer permis-
sible to maintain, as they have done, that the story is merely a
variation of the Syrian campaigns under Tiglathphilazer or
Sennacherib, and that the names of the Palestinian kings afford
etymological evidence of their mythical character. Ill- concealed
scepticism and rash criticism have received a severe rebuke in
the references to them through the Tel el-Amarna tablets, which it
is hoped will be profitable. From them we learn that Palestine,
and even Jerusalem, had come under and suffered from Baby-
lonian or, as it was known in these parts, Assyrian power.
According to the Babylonian records, as far back as B. c. 3800
Sargon of Accad had marched four times into the land of the
Amorites. On the bricks of the Babylonian prince Eri-Aku
we read that his father, Kudur-Mabug, was " the father of the
land of the Amorites." Now, Kudur-Mabug was an Elamite,
and his name is precisely of the same form as Koderlahomer.
There is nothing strange, therefore, in the name nor the event
in the Scripture record ; more than this, the various places
mentioned in the expedition can, by the aid of the cuneiform
records, be identified to-day.
But the second half of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis it
was that received the least quarter from the critics ; they hardly
thought it worth while to waste arguments on it at all. " Mel-
chisedech, King of Salem and priest of the Most High God, a
man without father, without mother, without genealogy," they
dismissed as too obviously a creature of imagination. And yet,
among the surprises which the tablets have in store is a vassal
king of Jerusalem answering exactly to this description of Mel-
chisedech. A letter from him to the Pharoah tells us that, un-
1 89 5.] THE CRITICS CRITICISED. 697
like any other Egyptian governor in Canaan, he had been ap-
pointed not by the Pharoah, but by the oracle and power of
the god whose sanctuary was on Mount Moriah. He says : " Be-
hold, neither my father nor my mother have exalted me in this
place "; and in another : " Behold, I am not a governor or vas-
sal of the king my lord. I am an ally of the king. . . .
Neither my father, nor my mother, but the oracle of the Mighty
King established me." Here is an explanation also of that
mysterious passage in Heb. v. 6.
There is a reason why Melchisedech should be called " King
of Salem," rather than King of Jerusalem. In the cuneiform in-
scriptions Jerusalem is written Uru-'salim, and a lexical tablet
explains uru to mean city. He was king of the city of Salim.
Of the story of the creation and of the deluge most strik-
ing corroboration has been offered. These have frequently been
referred to, and need only be mentioned now in passing to no-
tice a peculiarly obtuse view taken of them by Professor Sayce :
that they, or copies of them, may have served as the originals
from which the writer of Genesis drew his information. Is it not
much more reasonable to suppose that the memory of the event
traditionally preserved by both peoples served as the common
source from whence the inscriber of the Assyrian bricks and the
author of Genesis drew their information ? And that the former
distorted, corrupted, and spoiled his work in a very natural and
human way, whilst the latter, being preserved therefrom by divine
influence, gave the true account ? This is, prima facie what ap-
pears, and what never-ending criticism but confirms ; yet, strange-
ly enough, Professor Sayce devotes a large portion of his other-
wise valuable work to unfolding a crabbed, forced, and altogether
gratuitous theory of his own. Had he, like Major Conder, content-
ed himself, as he indeed should have done, with explanatory
comments on the text, for which he is so eminently fitted, the
public would owe him a debt of gratitude they by no means now
feel under. They cannot help thinking that in The Higher Criti-
cism he has, just as ruthlessly as the " higher critics," tried to pull
-down with one hand what he built up with the other.
698 BONAPARTE AND THE MORAL LAW. [Feb.,
BONAPARTE AND THE MORAL LAW.
BY JOHN J. O'SHEA.
'HE manes of Bonaparte are being gratified. As-
he scourged Europe in the flesh, so he is afflict-
ing us here in America in the spirit. Again he
bestrides the world like a colossus, and torrents
of printer's ink are being poured out over him
in volume as great as his own bloodshed. The conqueror has
appropriated our hoardings and our dead-walls as coolly as he
appropriated kingdoms and dukedoms long ago. He glares at
us in horrent form from a portentous steed, like a new
Gorgon. He is, in fact, becoming somewhat of a bore.
It is due to the appearance of a fresh set of Memoirs * of
this phenomenal figure that we come to swell the volume of
buzz about him now. The Baron de Meneval is the author.
He was private secretary to Napoleon from 1802, when the great
man was First Consul, down to the disastrous close of the
Russian campaign, and did literary work for him intermittently
afterwards until his departure for the Bellerophon. His oppor-
tunities for the study of his subject were, therefore, excellent \
his partiality for him, which seems to have amounted to an in-
fatuation, was not, however, the best of qualifications. The
eulogies with which he loads his idol, in the course of a
characteristically French preface, remind us of the period of
Roman decadence when the debased and degenerate wearers of
the imperial purple got parasites to pay them divine honors
and worship their effigies in public. Such a pen as his was
not the one to give us a picture of the despot in . all his true
inwardness ; and indeed he frankly confesses his own unfitness.
But he felt a sort of commission to write this biography as a
sacred duty. "You will one day write," Napoleon said to him
once, as the biographer tells us ; " You will not be able to re-
sist the desire to write Memoirs." It did not require any very
profound insight into human nature to make this prophecy.
It is useful to place this work in juxtaposition with the
Memoirs written by Madame de Rmusat, and endeavor, by a
comparison of their respective portraits, to form a sort of
* Memoirs illustrating the History of Napoleon I. from 1802 to 1815. By Baron Claude
Francois de Meneval. Edited by his grandson, Baron Napoleon Joseph de Meneval. New
York : D. Appleton & Co.
1895.] BONAPARTE AND THE MORAL LAW. 699.
kinetoscopical picture for ourselves. According to Baron de
Meneval, Bonaparte in private life was chivalrous, generous, and
tender-hearted to a fault. Madame de Remusat describes hinv
as a model of coarseness and brutality in ladies' society. The
devotion of this faithful servitor proves the exception to the
generally admitted rule, that "no man is a hero to his own
valet."
M. de Meneval was evidently a most laborious and pains-
taking chronicler. His three volumes are stuffed with details.
The multitudinous transactions which occupied the time of Bona-
parte, when he began to be a figure of national importance, are
related most carefully in these pages. His criticisms of individ-
uals are interesting, and they possess the merit of being crisp
and graphic. But he looked at everything as his master looked ;
he had no eyes of his own.
One of the darkest episodes in Bonaparte's career the shoot-
ing of the Due d'Enghien is softened down very sensibly by
the narrative which M. de Meneval gives of it. That it was a
misadventure of an unavoidable kind is what he endeavors to-
show.
It would appear from his narrative that when the duke
was under arrest and being tried for conspiracy by the military
commission at Vincennes, Bonaparte had despatched a special
messenger, State-Counsellor Real, to examine him and see that
the case was fairly tried. This envoy had been so broken
down by incessant work over the conspiracy cases that he had
to betake himself to bed, and could not be seen when the
messenger bearing Bonaparte's commission arrived at his house.
He arrived at Vincennes in time only to hear that the duke
had been found guilty and shot immediately. Beside this mishap,
the unfortunate duke had suffered from another. A personal
note which he had written to the First Consul, praying for
an interview, was not forwarded by the court-martial. Bona-
parte, according to M. de Meneval, had made up his mind that
the duke would be found guilty; but he was prepared to deal
with any such incident as this request, and it was with this
view he had despatched the letter to M. Real. But it must be
clear, from this partial description, that when he heard from
his messenger's lips the story of his failure and its tragic se-
quence, he did not exhibit any great remorse. He merely ob-
served, " It is well," and went upstairs to his private rooms,
walking very slowly. Afterwards he got the official report of
the judgment, and it caused him, as M. de Meneval says,
"fresh grief." He found that the forms of law had been vio-
700 BONAPARTE AND THE MORAL LAW. [Feb.,
lated in the proceeding, and that many irregularities and omis-
sions marked the report so much so that he had a new one
drawn up. This does not mend the matter in any way what-
ever. Napoleon assumed that the unfortunate prince was guilty
of entering into a conspiracy against France, in the carrying
out of which his own seizure was to be an incident, and he
resolved to frustrate it by having first blood. Hence the kid-
napping of the duke an international outrage without modern
parallel and the post-haste mockery of a trial, and the military
murder. The only extenuating word that can be offered for
it is that there were, without doubt, many plots formed at the
time against the Republic and against Bonaparte, and when the
public mind is excited peoples and rulers alike are driven into
a panic state, and into the perpetration of acts which their
calmer judgment condemns.
The unlimited adulation of M. de M6neval fails to convince
the reader of his Memoirs that he had implicit faith in the
idol whom he adored. To chronicle such proceedings as he
from time to time had to chronicle must have cost a conscien-
tious man a pang. That M. de M^neval had some compunction
about delicate matters, wherein the rude hand of the despot
was thrust to rend and shatter natural ties and moral bonds, is
quite apparent from the bald way in which some of these mat-
ters are stated and the absence of any lengthened commentary
on them. There were two things in especial which Napoleon
strove with all his tyrant energy to subdue to his will the
Catholic Church and its laws, and the right of his own family
to marry as it pleased its various members to do. His inces-
sant efforts in the former direction showed that he was not
discouraged by the failures of the English Henrys or the
German Henrys, the Fredericks or the Philips, but hoped
against hope still to make the church a great state department,
like the Protestant church in the English polity. In his out-
rageous attempts to prevent his brothers marrying where they
had placed their affections, he made himself ridiculous, and by
one brother at least (Lucien) to endure humiliation. The
flabby excuse that the senatus-consultum was as much the bar-
rier to these marriages as the emperor himself will not serve.
The senatus-consultum was the tool of the emperor; everything
in France was at the time prostrate and pliant at his feet.
His behavior toward the pope, amounting to rudeness, in the
coronation ceremonial; his seizure of the pope's person and
lengthened imprisonment of the steadfast pontiff, and the
whole spirit of his policy as a ruler, showed that he designed
1895.] BONAPARTE AND THE MORAL LAW. 701
that he should rule the church and be supreme in the moral
order as well as in the military state.
The process by which the Corsican adventurer endeavored
to carry out his design went far beyond anything ever pre-
viously attempted. The method known as " bulldozing " in this
country is mildness itself as compared with his. In addition to
seizing the pope's person he sought to terrorize the cardinals
and the bishops, fomenting the spirit known as Gallicanism un-
til it assumed to master, on the pretence of resisting, the church
outside. He annexed the Papal States to the French Empire,
and indeed there is not the smallest doubt that he contemplated
" running " the church from France, as well as running the
secular world on the Continent of Europe generally. He im-
prisoned bishops who stood up against his pretensions ; he ex-
iled sixteen cardinals who absented themselves from his espou-
sals with Princess Marie Louise, and deprived them of their
right to wear the' red garments which symbolized their rank. It
was only at the earnest solicitations of his uncle, Cardinal Fesch,
who played a very weak part in all these high-handed proceed-
ings, that he did not go to greater lengths in the attempt to
break down the steadfast opposition of the Holy See and the
church generally to his infamous thrusting away of an unsatis-
factory wife in pursuit of his vast and overweening ambition.
It is amusing to note the complacency with which the fol-
lower endorses the action of the dictator in these remarkable
events intensely amusing, as an instance of that self-sufficiency
which makes the Frenchman at times the very peacock of hu-
manity. M. de M6neval on this point says much, but a little
will serve to show how the spirit of the master had inflated the
vanity of the servitor. He writes :
i
" The pope seemed so necessary to Napoleon that he used
to say that if he did not exist he would have to be created.
But he wished to have him in his hands, and to establish him
in Paris, so as to make this capital the metropolis of the Cath-
olic world. In placing the Holy See in the capital of the em-
pire Napoleon would have surrounded it with magnificence and
honors, but at the same time he would always have kept the
pope under his eyes. This vast ambition was a permissible one,
and he would perhaps have had the power and the genius neces-
sary for realizing it. The establishment of the sovereign pon-
tiff in Paris would have been fruitful in great political results,
and the influence exercised by the head of the church over the
whole Catholic world would have become the inheritance of
702 BONAPARTE AND THE MORAL LAW. [Feb.,
France. That was the time of mighty conceptions ; and the
generations which shall follow us, in reading over the history
of Napoleon, will believe themselves transported to the heroic
ages."
Italics are hardly necessary to emphasize the astounding im-
pertinence of this endorsement. A duke getting a character
from his valet is only a poor parallel. It is tendered, however,
in all sincerity, apparently ; therefore, we may conclude that in
giving Napoleon a recommendation on the score of his spiritual
excellence he was an equally competent authority. He says :
" To sum up, Napoleon loved his religion and wished to
honor it and render it prosperous. This is proved by the Con-
cordat. But at the same time he wished to employ it as a so-
cial force with which to repress anarchy, to consolidate his
preponderance in Europe, and finally to increase the glory of
France and the influence of the French capital. The emperor
used to say to the Bishop of Nantes, who pointed out to him
how useful and how important for the unity of the faith was
the visible head of the church : ' Master Bishop, be without
anxiety. The policy of my states is closely bound up with the
preservation and maintenance of the pope's spiritual power. It
is necessary to me that he should be more powerful than ever.
He will never have as much power as my policy prompts me
to desire for him.' "
Bonaparte's law of comparative values in ethics is one of the
most curious paradoxes ever observed. Reserving to himself
the right of infringing and abolishing every law whatsoever,
divine or human, that stood between him and his daring schemes,
he allowed no infringement on the code he himself set up. The
senatris-consultum he considered authority good enough to annul
his marriage with Josephine Beauharnais, but he wpuld allow no
infringement of the civil law on marriage which he patronized.
Thus, when one of his servants wished to marry a step-sister of
his deceased wife, which was not permitted by the law, Napo-
leon refused to set it aside when the man appealed to him ; but
he made a sort of atonement for this scrupulosity about law by
advising the suppliant to go outside the country and get mar-
ried where such a marriage was not illegal. This characteristic
anecdote M. de Mneval relates with the greatest ingenuous-
ness.
It is well that these Memoirs have made their appearance
just now. The public mind is filled with the afterglow of a
dazzling military career, to the exclusion of the consideration
1895-] BONAPARTE AND THE MORAL LAW. 703
of the deadly menace it was to every institution which stands
for liberty of soul and mind here below. It is well that it is
afforded a glimpse into the life of the real man by one who
saw him at close range. To find how he acted towards the
Catholic Church, towards the distinguished women who op-
posed his ambition, towards the illustrious Chateaubriand, and
the greatest minds, in short, in France who would not bend to
his will, it is only necessary to go closely through the pages
of this devoted amanuensis. No spot or blemish appears in the
character of either Bonaparte or Josephine, whilst the writer
does not hesitate to blacken the character of Napoleon's adver-
saries, such as Madame de Stael, wherever he can. If there
were any scandals in the career of that illustrious and much-
persecuted woman, why not let the grave close over them as
over those of his master and mistress, which were far more no-
torious? The more we learn of the French Empire that of
Napoleon the Great and Napoleon the Sham the greater reason
we have for believing that the Republic, with all its drawbacks,
is far more beneficial to France and to the cause of universal
justice and progress than the Imperial rule. And as regards its
attitude towards the church, it is well to bear in mind that it is
at all times better to deal with an avowed enemy than with a
make-believe friend a friend who abuses the name of friend-
ship for the purpose of enslavement and humiliation.
Robert H. Sherard, who translated the work, explains that
he found no small difficulty in following the original text, so
complex and roundabout was the style. This method of com-
position is, it appears, in France the "style administrative";
and it is interesting to note that this was also the style of Bona-
parte in dictating. The popular belief was the contrary of this.
He was credited with affecting a Caesarian brevity and direct-
ness. It will surprise many to learn also that he was unable to
write a letter hardly able to write or spell anything, in fact.
Like another great man of old, he was almost supra grammati-
cam. The translator makes some very pungent and valuable
notes and corrections in the course of his exceedingly onerous
task.
The production of the book, it is but just to say, reflects high
credit on the publishers, the Messrs. Appleton. Its bindings
are in rich blue and gold, and the white and gold Napoleonic
device on the cover is beautifully reproduced. Four finely exe-
cuted portraits those of Bonaparte, Josephine, Marie Louise,
and the author are given in the work. They are tinted etchings.
AUBREY DE VERE stands apart from the crowd
who depend upon noisy fame. That feverishness
to keep their names ever before the public is no
mark of his. It suggests the fear that the laurels
they have won are not evergreens, but leaves to
wither unless kept in the sunshine of public notice with jealous
assiduity. The calm consciousness of a higher desert is dis-
cernible in his attitude ; the modesty which is ever the accom-
paniment of sterling genius restrains him from constantly figur-
ing in the public eye, or striving to catch the volatile spirit of
the age by the production of work suitable to that species of
pleasure which consists in perpetual motion and feverish haste
in all things. Work like his may indeed be said to be "cavi-
are to the general " ; it is for the retirement of the study and
the calm seclusion of the woods and brook-sides in the long
summer days.
But this is only speaking generally. There are many people
still, for all our age of rush, who love this sort of caviare, and
to these the fact of a new volume of selections* from the poet's
best work will be welcome news. This edition has been edited
by Mr. George Edward Woodberry, of Beverly, Mass., who lays
it before the American public with a felicitous introduction.
To American readers some of these poems of Aubrey de
Vere's must open up a world of ideas and ancient peoples as
strange and wonderful as a new stratum to the geologist and
biologist. Those, particularly, which treat of the mythical
period of Irish pagan chivalry must be a revelation. They deal
with beings answering in some respect to the Greek demigods,
but more distinctly human even though invested with super-
natural gifts. A past age was familiar enough with the nomen-
clature of Ossianic literature ; in America, at least the present
generation know nothing, it may be almost literally true to say,
about the subject with which that literature dealt. On the
* Selections from the Poems of Aubrey de Vere. Edited, with a Preface, by George Ed-
ward Woodberry. New York : Macmillan & Co.
1895.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 705
other side of the Atlantic commendable efforts are being made
to bring the forgotten Celtic literature on which the Ossianic
inventions rested once again under the attention of scholars.
Excellent translations of " The Sons of Usnach," " The Pursuit
of Diarmid and Grania," " The Children of Lir " and other
works, have been given the world by the Society for the Pre-
servation of the Irish Language, and thousands of copies of
these works have been sold. On these themes each of them
a masterpiece of tragic composition several modern poets have
sought an afflatus, and of these it may be said at least that
Aubrey de Vere stands primus inter pares.
" The Foray of Queen Maeve " is one of those old Irish ro-
mances whose hero commended himself most to the poet as an
ideal. Cuchullain is his name ; his existence as a real personage
is a matter of grave doubt. He is one of a race of heroes whose
military prowess altogether surpasses that of the Greek mythical
champions ; and he surpasses these, too, in the fact that the
most sensitive chivalry underlay his martial spirit, in regard to
women and persons unworthy of his warrior steel. In Aubrey
de Vere's hands he becomes a paragon of knightly tenderness
and purity of motive, and the chivalric order of the Red
Branch Knights the earliest creation of its kind, so far as we
can learn, in the whole world assumes a new character. Other
poets have handled the same personages, but none of them
have conceived of the pre-Christian heroes as Aubrey de
Vere does. Although pagan in training, he illuminates them
with the glow of the coming dawn of Christianity, and fills them
with the spirit of self sacrifice and purity of soul which ren-
dered the followers of Patrick and Columbanus the light of the
western world. This may not be in " the spirit of the old
Irish poetry " of which we hear so much but still are left to
know so little ; but we prefer to think that so poetical a people
as the ancient Celts undoubtedly were more nearly approach-
ed the spiritual conception of Aubrey de Vere than the gross
and material one of, say, Sir Samuel Ferguson.
The other selections in this volume show the author in dif-
ferent moods some of them not his best. Those of his later
years exhibit marks of saturninity. When a poet becomes
soured by the course which the mutations of the ever-changing
world takes, he had better lay down his lyre altogether and
exchange it for a bicycle. De Vere himself has nobly indicated
the spirit in which the muse should be truly wooed, and we
cannot do him better service, in view of some recent threnodies
VOL. LX. 45
706 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
of his, than let Philip sober speak to Philip in the post-pran-
dial or dyspeptic mood :
"THE POET'S SONG.
" Far rather let us loathe and scorn the power
Of Song, than seek her fane with hearts impure,
Panting for praise or pay, the vulgar lure
Of those on whom the Muse doth scantly shower,
Or not at all, her amaranthine dower;
Ye that would serve her, first of this be sure,
Her glorious Paeans will for aye endure
Whether or not she smile upon your bower.
Go forth, Eternal Melodies, go forth
O'er all the world, and in your broad arms wind it!
Go forth, as ye are wont, from South to North ;
No spot so barren but your spells can find it.
So long as Heaven is vaulted o'er the earth,
So long your power survives, and who can bind it ? "
Amongst the many fine things in this volume is a piece called
"The Sisters." It seems to be founded on a study of humble
Irish life, yet it serves as a beautiful allegory of the relations
between England and Ireland ; and its lessons are such as ought
to be laid deeply to heart by all good men who wish to see a
better order of things replace the old and evil deray.
Two good books come to us from the eminent Irish pub-
lishing house of Gill & Son, Dublin. One is The Life of
Cardinal Franzelin, by Father Nicholas Walsh, S.J. ; the other,
a volume of Essays by Mrs. Sarah Atkinson, edited, with an
introduction, by Mrs. Rosa Mulholland Gilbert. They are both
sure to be read with pleasure and much edification.
The biographer of Cardinal Franzelin resembles his subject
in his excessive modesty. He is a Jesuit priest justly famed
for his erudition, and whose reputation as a pulpit orator was
such as to draw great crowds to the Church of St. Francis
Xavier, in Dublin, whenever it was known that he is to preach
there. Yet he puts forth this work with all the diffidence of a
raw beginner, craving pardon for its defects in a very shame-
faced sort of way, as it must appear to the reader. That this
humility is not the mask of pride any one who knows Father
Nicholas Walsh need hardly be informed. He has no reason to
fear any criticism of his work. It is in style and substance a
1895-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 707
well-written biography, and must prove of exceeding interest to
all those who desire to find rules for every-day guidance in the
religious life. To these it is a work of great value.
Father Franzelin belonged to the same illustrious order as
his biographer. He was, intellectually, exceptional in his youth.
He did not delight in robust exercises or boyish games, but
was given from an early age to retirement, study, and contem-
plation. Yet this was only his mental habit ; there was noth-
ing of the ascetic or 'the misanthropic in his gentle, lovable
nature. He was fond of solitary rambles over the hills and
amidst the lovely valleys of his native Tyrol, feeding heart and
eye with the varying beauties of the glorious panorama, and
pondering on the eternal beauties of which these are but the
faint reflection. He began his studies at an early age, and he
seems to have had at the beginning the idea that he was
destined for the religious life. Although it was under the
Franciscans those studies were conducted, it was the Society
of Jesus which he desired to enter when the question of choice
was put to him when he was called upon to make a final de-
cision. He was assisted in this decision in a very remarkable
way. There lived in the Tyrol at the time one of those singu-
lar women known as ecstatics. Her name was Maria Mori.
She was a person of singular holiness and austerity of life, and
had the reputation of seeing visions and bearing the stigmata.
She was consulted about young Franzelin's choice for, although
he had decided on the vocation, there were financial and other
reasons which interfered with his free action. She prayed in
solitude for some days, and when she had finished she declared
it was God's wish that he should enter the Jesuit order. Ac-
cordingly, those difficulties having somehow been surmounted,
he entered on his novitiate at Gratz, in Styria, in his eighteenth
year ; and the record which he left in the convent was elo-
quent of his character : " In tyrocinio omnibus raro praeluxit
exemplo." But his -habit of mortification was over-great, so
that he ran imminent danger of doing himself permanent physi-
cal injury ; hence he was placed under restrictive orders by
his superiors, just in time barely to save his life, though not
avert a very alarming illness. It was at Tarnapol, in Galicia,
that young Franzelin began his more serious studies, and here
he was thrown much in the way of Father Beckx, who subse-
quently became general of the order. A great aptitude for
languages was one of young Franzelin's gifts, and he found it
exceedingly useful in those early days, thrown as he was
TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
amongst a mixed population, in imparting religious instruction
and teaching the catechism to the young people of the sur-
rounding district. He appears to have had also an extraordin-
ary gift of memory. He finished his studies in the Roman
College, his theological course being exceedingly brilliant. In
the year 1858 he succeeded Father Perrone in the chair of
dogmatic theology, and held that responsible position for the
space of nineteen years. It is recorded of his method of teach-
ing that he used no text-books or papers, but dictated slowly
and distinctly to the class, for the first quarter of an hour, and
lectured on this skeleton of his thesis until he had completed
the structure as a beautiful whole. Many exquisite things are
written of this portion of the cardinal's life, but it is as well here
to say that they are related in a way more suitable to people in
the religious life than to the lay mind. The work is essentially
a spiritual book, and we most earnestly commend it to all in that
state, and more especially to those who are about to enter it.
The second production from the press of the Messrs. Gill is
a volume of Essays by the late Mrs. Sarah Atkinson. This
lady, who died only a little while ago, was better known in
Ireland and England than she was here, not only as a literary
figure of rare talent and sprightliness but as a philanthropist
and promoter of practical religious enterprises of far-reaching im-
portance. To her the Children's Hospital in Dublin owed its suc-
cess. The still more famous establishment, the Hospice for the
Dying, in the same city, which is under the charge of her sister,
Mrs. Anne Gaynor, of the Sisters of Charity, was also in its
early days much indebted to the help given it by this excellent
lady, who never tired of well-doing. In the preface to the Es-
says, which is from the pen of Mrs. Rosa Mulholland Gilbert,
we get a vivid glimpse of the busy life which Mrs. Atkinson
led, and our wonder is how she was enabled to devote so much
of her time to literary work, so much of -it was taken up with
duties akin to those of a ministering angel. She had the good
fortune to be married to a gentleman of ardent literary tastes,
the late Dr. Atkinson, joint proprietor with Dr. Gray of the
Dublin Freeman's Journal, and the similarity in tastes and pur-
suits between those two refined minds made their lives a per-
fect idyl of noble living and thinking.
Mrs. Atkinson's Life of Mary Aikenhead, foundress of the
Irish order of the Sisters of Charity, is the work by which she
is best known. It is an admirable piece of biography, and the
1895-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 709
pains taken by the talented authoress to make it an authentic
one in every particular, make it most valuable to many classes
of readers. These essays furnish an illustration of her powers
in other directions. They are chiefly biographical studies on
St. Brigid, St. Catherine of Siena, Eugene O'Curry, John Ho-
gan the sculptor ; Henry Foley, his successor ; the Dittamonda
of Uberti, old Irish mansions, historic Dublin, etc. Mrs. Atkin-
son and her husband had travelled much, seen much that was
worth seeing, and were constant note-takers ; hence these essays
are exceedingly valuable as notes and comments. Their literary
style is smooth and graceful ; and therefore the book is in itself,
apart from its historical value, a valuable intellectual study.
As a glimpse of the literary life of Ireland, out of the beaten
track a good deal, it is eminently deserving a place on the
student's table.
A companion work to the Life of Mary Aikenhead is the biog-
raphy of Sister Mary Monholland* lately published. The author-
ess does not desire publicity, contenting herself with the signa-
ture "A Member of the Order." In literary method the work is
not the best, yet it will be perused by many with keen relish
as the glowing and ingenuous tribute of a fresh young mind,
as it seems to us, to the virtues of one of heroic self denial and
mortification for the love of her crucified Lord. It is a stirring
chronicle. No chapter of the Crusades can surpass the history
of the early sisterhoods in the West of this continent, and Mary
Monholland's life as a Sister of Mercy in Chicago two genera-
tions back.
Sister Mary Monholland had more than her share of those
" moving accidents by flood and field." On her journey down
to Chicago from New York, it being in the days when there
was no railway communication with the West beyond certain
points, she was engulfed in Lake Michigan with some three hun-
dred other passengers by the unfortunate steamer Lady Elgin,
but was heroically rescued by Mr. W. B. Ogden, afterwards Chi-
cago's first mayor. Again, the house in which the community
were located was threatened with destruction by the Know-
nothing mob ; but the Irishmen of Chicago turned out and pro-
tected all the imperilled churches and convents, and the Know-
nothings thought discretion the better part of valor. Thtn in
the fearful visitation of Asiatic cholera which swept over Chi-
cago in 1854 some of the sisterhood were among the victims,
* Life of Mar v Monholland. one of the Pioneer Sisters of the Order of Mercy in the
West. Chicago : "j. S. Hyland & Co.
710 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
yet Mother Mary and her companions never flinched, but went
into the homes where its raging made the people shunned
as lepers, and helped the sick and soothed the dying with all
the intrepidity of soldiers charging up to the cannon's mouth.
When reading the lives of such women it is not difficult to
understand how powerful an auxiliary they have proved to the
church in its sublime mission, in the living testimony they bear
to the charity of God within it. This is one of the most thrilling
of those real-life romances, and one calculated to fill the Catho-
lic heart with pride and joy in such noble witnesses for the cross.
If books were to be valued by bulk, the greatest work of
the age is the huge volume entitled The Yachts and Yachtsmen
of America, published by the International Yacht Publishing
Company, New York. The literature of yachting is not the
least interesting of the many pursuits which claim a distinc-
tive library, and the reader who might expect to find in this
work only a mere technical treatise would find himself agree-
ably disappointed. Its editor, Professor Henry A. Mott, Ph.D.,
LL.D., makes the subject a fine historical and international
study, from the time and clime of Homer down to those of
Lord Dunraven and the Isle of Wight. This volume, which
contains nearly seven hundred pages, is only the first instal-
ment of the work a fact which suggests one alarming appre-
hension on the score of library capacity. It is choke-full of
fine plates too, and is besides an exemplar of fine printing and
book binding. The facts that the work has required ten years
for its preparation and that already over fifty thousand dollars
have been expended on its production ought to speak strongly
for its worth as an authoritative work and the excellence of
its style.
*
I. A STORY OF COURAGE.*
The edition de luxe, in white vellum with gold lettering, is
of rare and chaste beauty, in the perfection of good taste, and
worthy of the Riverside Press, as well as most appropriate to a
memorial of the refined and holy community of ladies whose
story is related in its pages.
The names of the authors of the narrative are a sufficient
guarantee of the literary excellence of the work, while the
sources from which the whole account of the Georgetown
* Annals of the Georgetown Convent of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By
George Parsons Lathrop and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. Cambridge : Printed at the River-
side Press.
1895-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 711
Convent has been derived, viz., the authentic and copious
annals which have been kept from the beginning, are a warrant
for its accuracy.
The Georgetown College and Convent are among the most
picturesque and interesting places devoted to religion and edu-
cation in North America. Even the oldest institutions in
Canada are modern in European eyes, having less than three
centuries of antiquity. In our own part of America, there is
very little left of so ancient a date ; and in our young
country, even the last century seems like a very remote epoch.
The Georgetown institutions, therefore, seem to us very ancient,
because they are coeval with the age of our earliest Presidents
and with the beginnings of the capital city of our Republic.
The Georgetown Convent is associated with the early history
of the nation. A number of its inmates, and a still larger
number of its academic pupils, have come from American
families which, in our sense of the word, are old, and whose
names are distinguished in our national history. We may very
justly claim the Order of the Visitation in the United States
as an American Order in its origin and foundation. Although
it reverences St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de
Chantal as its original founders, it has American priests and
religious as its second founders. It was not a colony from
Europe, but a new and indigenous institute. The constitutions
and rules of the primitive society were adopted, and the new
crder was affiliated to the old. But its canonical establishment
and the approbation of the Holy See which it enjoys, do not
rest on the original acts which authorized the European order,
but on new and distinct decrees of the Sovereign Pontiff,
given in favor of the Georgetown Convent and its offshoots.
Moreover, the original plan of St. Francis, accidentally modified
from the stress of necessity in France, was modified in a legiti-
mate and regular manner in the American society, making the
education of young ladies a principal object of its professed
members. In fulfilling this high and holy task they have con-
ferred an incalculable benefit upon the church and upon society,
as all whose opinion is of any value must acknowledge.
The history of this venerable convent has been told in a
charming manner which gives fitting adornment to its intrinsic
and moral beauty. And it is a most pleasing circumstance Jo
us, as Catholics, that it has been done by members of the
family of one so dear to all lovers of American literature as
Nathaniel Hawthorne.
712 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
2. NEWSPAPER SERMONS.*
Doubtless there has been meat in these sermons for many a
reader of the great journal in which they appeared, and doubt-
less too as many more will find in them corn, and not husks,
in their present form. Apropos of this remark a clever
Agnostic he called himself an Agnostic, and intellectually he
is the joint product of Amherst and Harvard, so he should be
clever said in the hearing of the writer, on Christmas Day,
his remark being a part of a discussion on religion called forth
by the feast : " I hold to no creed. What religion I have I
formulate on the broad lines of reason, and of the Christian
teaching as informed by reason." His conversation indicated
that he had read Newman, Manning, Brooks, Storrs, Gibbons
the Cardinal, Liddon and others, and Hepworth. He had sat
through a long Catholic service that Christmas Day, and had
listened to a sermon on the Incarnation, had come and thanked
the preacher for the " real pleasure his sermon had afforded
him, bringing him a new hope." He was not without religious
sentiment keen and intellectual, however vague and ill-defined
it was in his mind. Dogma and authority to him are as
nothing, yet he is athirst for God, and knows not where or
how to find the living waters of life. To him, and to many edu-
cated men like him, George Hep worth's sermons will, prove
helpful. " You should believe in something, and that something
should furnish you with noble impulses, with charity for your
fellow-men, with pity for the unfortunate, and with a desire ta
do all that lies in your power to make this old world better
because you have lived in it. That much of a creed is absolute-
ly necessary, and when you have that much you want nothing
more."
Thus speaks Hepworth in one of these sermons. Better this
much than nothing. So if this Herald preacher of a world-
religion aids in keeping aglow even this spark of belief, his
preaching is not in vain. But we would like to ask George
Hepworth if he casts out the supernatural? Tell me, sir,
whence I come, and tell me my destiny ? Tell me if Christ be
not God as well as babe of Bethlehem ? Preach if you must,
following Mr. Bennett's noble suggestion of making the Herald
"helpful on Sunday in matters pertaining to religion," but
preach the Incarnate God. Tell of his Passion and death, tell
of sacrifice and penance and sorrow for sin. You are right, sir:
* Herald Sermons. By George H. Hepworth. New York : E. P. Button.
1895-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 713
"The object of the church is to make a man loyal to the
truth." But it is more. It is to teach man truth. Christ is
God and Christ is man. Christ is both God and man in nature ;
God only in person. Hold fast to the supernatural in religion.
Hold fast to that which teaches that the elevation of the
natural man to a state of knowledge and of joy far above his
highest natural condition is of God. This elevation was actually
brought about by the Incarnation of the Divine Word. The
noblest aspirations of the natural soul lack this elevation and
yearn and struggle toward it in the dark.
" An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light :
And with no language but a cry."
The very boon of Christianity is the union of man with God
in the supernatural state. The noble sentiments of many of
these sermons, the desire to be of service for God, morality,
and happiness so aptly expressed in most of them, we deem
honest and true. This yearning for God, this yearning for
union with God, this ceaseless desire for a supernatural eleva-
tion, from whence is born to us strength, is the truest of
prayers.
" Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps and the nerves prick
And tingle ; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.
Be near me when the sensuous frame
Is racked with pangs that conquer trust ;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a fury slinging flame.
Be near me when my faith is dry,
And men the flies of later spring,
That lay their eggs, and sting and sting,
And weave their petty selves and die.
Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day."
714 NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Feb.,
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
A VERY notable addition to the higher Catholic literature
of America is The Catholic University Bulletin. The
opening of the year 1895 is marked by the debut of this new
exponent of academical thought, destined, we opine, if properly
supported, to play a high part in the discussion of the more
abstruse problems, religious and philosophical, of the age. The
scope of the Bulletin is limited, in the statement of the pros-
pectus, to the meaning of its title. It aims at making itself a
link between the University and the outside world of Catholic
thought to being, in short, the organ of the University as well
as the expositor of Catholic philosophy. The processes and
progress of education will especially claim its attention, natur-
ally. In the hands of Professor Thomas J. Shahan the editor-
ial work of the Bulletin ought to be safe. A choice list of
contents distinguishes the first issue. It starts with a paper on
"The Church and the Sciences" by the Chancellor of the
University, his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons; and the other
contributors include Rev. Professors Thomas O'Gorman,
Thomas Bouquillon, Charles P. Granna, Edward A. Pace, and
Daniel Quinn ; as also Professor J. W. Spencer. Those who
delight in the profounder side of religious thought and philoso-
phy will hail the new exponent as the worthy representative of
Catholic scholarship in the New World, and wish it, as we
cordially do, a prosperous career in its nobly-ambitious mission.
The Messenger of St. Joseph for the Homeless Boys of Phila-
delphia for 1895 is now out. It sounds a cheering note:
splendid work done for the homeless boys of the Quaker City
in the past year, hopes of still greater in the year to come,
are the chief features of its story. The director, the Rev. D.
J. Fitzgibbon, C.S.Sp., is doing for these lads what the saintly
Father Drumgoole did for those of New York. The Messenger
is a bright little magazine, and its pages are full of things
which make its appeal most effective.
The Rev. Father Callaghan, director of the Mission of Our
Lady of the Rosary, New York, has published his annual state-
ment. It shows that during the past year three thousand, three
hundred and forty-seven immigrant girls . (including those who
arrived by way of Philadelphia and Boston) received the
hospitality of his Home for Immigrant Girls, 7 State Street,
New York. This number should be doubled or trebled if
account be taken of those who received advice and assistance
1 895.] NEW PUBLICATIONS. 715
at Ellis Island. On some occasions the accommodation of the
Mission was taxed to its utmost capacity sheltering and provid-
ing for no fewer than one hundred and thirty immigrant girls
over night. The resources of the mission, owing to the depres-
sion of the times, were often put to a severe test. The insti-
tution is dependent solely on public charity. It is not merely a
local charity. There is scarcely a State of the Union that does
not receive its share of those whom the mission cares for. This
great and beneficent work deserves a generous support from
the people.
St. Lukes is the title of a new Catholic magazine which
made its bow on New Year's day for the first time in London.
It must not be measured by its bulk, but by its merits. Two
interesting biographical sketches are given in this issue one of
Cardinal Vaughan, the other of the heroic but unfortunate
Charles Albert of Sardinia. Another notable paper recalls the
almost forgotten hymns of a great ancient psalmist, he who is
ordinarily known as Prudentius, but whose full name was
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens. The beauty, of these antique
hymns is quaint and striking. A paper "On the Singing of
Plain Song " deals with the important question of reform in
church music in a suggestive way. We trust St. Luke s may
meet with the success which it desires, and as it succeeds that
it may be able to give a more varied bill of fare.
NEW BOOKS.
BURNS & GATES, London :
Bernadctte of Lourdcs : A My st fry. Bv E. Pouvillon. Translated by Henry
O'Shea. The Inner Life of Father Thomas Burke, 0. P. By a Dominican
Friar of the English Province.
JOHN MURPHY & Co., Baltimore:
The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt. By David Miller DeWitt.
H. L. KlLNER & Co., Philadelphia :
Little Comrades: A First Communion Story. By Mary T. Waggaman.
MACMILLAN & Co., New York:
The Magic Oak- Tree and Prince Filderkin. By the late Lord Brabourne
(E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen).
R. WASHBOURNE, London :
The Missing Links of the English Religious Establishment. By W. W. Hard-
wicke, M.D.
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York and London :
Life of Edward fioui>erie Pitsey. By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D. Vol. III.
The Truth and Reality of the Eucharist ic Sacrifice. By George Rundle
Prynne, M.A.
BELLET, CLERMONT-FERRAND :
La Stigmatisation, I'Extase divine ct les Miracles de Lourdes, refionse aux
libres-pensetirs. Par le Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre.
PETER PAUL BOOK Co., Buffalo :
Woodland Rambles: Poems. By John A. Lanigan, M.D., B.A.
716 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Feb.,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
^PHIRTY Catholic Reading Circles have been organized in Chicago. Such is
the estimate contained in a letter lately received, which attributes para-
mount honor to the pioneer in the good work, Miss Mary E. Vaughan. Without
depreciating the zeal and energy displayed in other cities, the facts clearly indi-
cate that the new intellectual movement among Catholics is stronger in Chicago
than anywhere else in the United States. The different educational institutions,
including the parish schools, are represented by their most gifted graduates, all
seeking self-improvement by effective methods of organization and a deliberate
purpose to make a profitable investment of their time in reading by accepting
competent guidance.
* * *
The Columbian Reading Union has had from its formation visible proofs of
intelligent appreciation of Catholic literature and zeal for its diffusion from those
who fondly claim as their Alma Mater some one of the excellent academies con-
ducted by the Religious of the Sacred Heart. Only a small minority, however,
of the graduates so thoroughly taught in Christian doctrine and other branches
of the higher education for women, have fully utilized their opportunities to
counteract the spread of dangerous and pernicious literature. The following re-
port from Chicago will give new strength to many individual efforts throughout
the land, because of the sanction given to the movement by those in high posi-
tion.
For the first time in the history of the Institute of the Sacred Heart, its
alumnae have organized an association to cherish its purposes and to continue, in
science and literature, studies whose beginnings were had in its schools. The
first organization was effected in October, 1894, at Chicago, under the approval
of the authority of the vicariate whose seat is at Clifton, Ohio, Reverend Mother
Garvey, vicar. The organizing meeting was called at the mother-house on West
Taylor Street, within whose walls many of the best-known Catholic and non-
Catholic women of Chicago received part or whole of their academic training.
Several hundred ladies were present. The superior, Mother Van Dyke, called
the meeting to order, and requested Mrs. Margaret F. Sullivan to take the chair,
whereupon Mrs. Sullivan was elected permanent president by acclamation. The
following other general officers were unanimously elected : Vice- President, North
Division, Mrs. Gormully; South Division, Mrs. Wilson ; West Division, Mrs. W.
H. Amberg. Secretaries, Miss Onahan and Miss Ward. Treasurer, Miss
McLaughlin. Directors: Mrs. Gallery, Miss Moran, Mrs. Newton, and Mrs.
Charles Frederic Smith. The president, when the permanent organization was
completed, delivered an address upon the parallel between the foundation of
schools by St. Lioba and her companions and the revival of higher education by
the Sacred Heart Institute after social and martial disturbances had practically
deprived women of educational opportunities in a large part of Europe ; and
likened the coming of the Sacred Heart apostles to the United States Mother
Duchesne and her companions, sent out by the foundress, Mother Barat, decreed
Venerable by the Holy See to the mission of educated women that accompanied
Saint Boniface to the Continent from England. It was ordered that the board of
directors arrange for regular meetings of the alumnas association once or twice
a year in their discretion. Applications were received from alumnae residing at
1 89 5.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 717
various cities in easy reach of Chicago to be included in the association, which
began brilliantly and promises to be a potent influence for religion and culture.
As an illustration of the way the population of Chicago is made up, it may
be said that the enrollment of the alumna? shows that the following Sacred
Heart Academies or cities in which the institute exists are represented: Paris;
New York, Manhattanville; Kenwood, Albany ; Rochester, Buffalo, St. Louis,
Maryville, Detroit, Clifton. Among the non-Catholic members are residents of
Milwaukee, Duluth, St. Paul, and Chicago, the latter including the president of
the Chicago Women's Club, Miss Sweet. One of the members, Mrs. Sullivan, is
president of a non-Catholic club of students of literature in other languages than
English. Another member, Miss Cecilia Cudahy, is distinguished in the
Amateur Musical Society of the city, a harpist and pianist. One of the members,
Dr. Mary O'Driscoll, is a graduate of the Women's Medical College of Chicago.
Several are notable in literature, their names being seen in the pages of THE
CATHOLIC WORLD from time to time.
After the alumnas organization was perfected two Catholic Reading Circles
were organized under the Columbian Reading Union. The Mother Duchesne
Circle, the second in order of organization, meets at the convent on West Tay-
lor Street Mondays, at four o'clock. Mrs. Amberg is president ; Mrs. Gallery,
secretary, and Miss Bremner, treasurer. The first Circle, named for the Venerable
Mother Barat, meets Tuesdays at half-past three o'clock at the convent on Chi-
cago Avenue. Mrs. Sullivan is president, and conducts its work; Mrs. Mona-
han is vice-president ; Miss Kathryn Prindiville, secretary ; and Miss Alice
Moran, treasurer. .
The two Circles follow the same plan and use the same text-books, keeping
hand-in-hand, so that students of either feel perfectly at home in the other and
up in its work, week by week. The order of exercises presents points of diver-
gence to some extent from other circle programmes. The meeting is opened
with a prayer taken from the ritual of the day ; the members becoming familiar
in this manner with the history of the worship of the church as it was chrono-
logically moulded. Roll-call is by quotations, either from a source, previously
designated or at the discretion of members. The Bible is the favorite book.
The history of the books of Sacred Scripture is acquired incidentally with
.adoption of one as the quotation well of a week. The music committee then
presents a five-minute essay, telling the story of one of the great chants. The
committee began with the Te Deum, covering the relationship between the Am-
brosian modes and the Greek, and relating the origin of the noble composition
written by Saint Ambrose to celebrate, according to good authority, the baptism
of St. Augustine. The regular lesson of the day proceeds, an analysis committee
having prepared the questions which are handed by chance to the members.
The questions constitute the thread upon which the lesson, largely made into a
lecture or commentary by the leader, is developed.
The meetings have been characterized by diligence and sincerity in prepar-
ing the lessons, and by grace, accuracy, and composure in presenting the results.
There is a question-box committee who attend well to their duties. After trans-
acting any new business that comes up, each meeting closes with singing the
anthem whose story had been related by the music committee. There is a choir
in each Circle which meets half an hour in advance for rehearsal of the day's
music. Both Circles are fortunate in musical equipment.
The first text-book in course used by the two Circles is Bible, Science, and
Faith, by Rev. J. A. Zahm, C.S.C. At present a general study of figurative Ian-
7i 8 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Feb ,
guage and of Grimm's Law in Linguistics alternates with the regular text-book.
At the suggestion of the Reverend Mother Vicar the meetings of the two Circles
are open to "hearers " as well as to workers, " hearers " b<eing alumnae whose
family cares or health do not permit them to study, but who are privileged to at-
tend the meetings and derive benefit from the work of their associates. To ac-
custom all to presiding, the respective presidents call other members frequently
to the chair.
It is needless to say that the Sacred Heart Institute, of the vicariate of Clif-
ton, is rejoiced over the success of the first alumnze organization, and that the
community is delighted with the talent, attainments, and enthusiasm shown in
the two Reading Circles. A spiritual retreat for the two Circles was conducted
the first week in December at the mother-house, by Rev. Michael O'Connor, S.J.
# * *
With considerable persistence we have endeavored to overcome by reason-
able argument the reluctance shown by some Reading Circles to the publication
of their proceedings. Good people with many hidden virtues sometimes forget
that their influence for the intellectual advancement of the Catholic body may be
indefinitely extended, may be rendered most helpful to others by the aid of prin-
ter's ink. With regret we notice that the name of the directress, to whom so
much honor is due for splendid results, is not mentioned in the following ac-
count kindly prepared by Miss Anne Stuart Bailey :
On November 29, 1892, the Sacred Heart Reading Circle was organized at
Manhattanville Academy, New York City, with fourteen members. The regula-
tions were few, but they have been strictly adhered to. Membership was limited
to twenty-five, either graduates of the Sacred Heart, or Catholic ladies whose
tastes and acquirements would be of similar scope. Even in this initial meeting
the spirit of the Circle was shown ; very creditable work was done. A synopsis
of the life of Cardinal Newman was read, together with a selection from Loss
and Gain, and the study of Newman was taken up in earnest. A working com-
mittee was organized each month, and this we believe to be a unique feature of
the Sacred Heart Reading Circle.
It is the duty of this committee, about four in number, to read designated
books and to give at the following meeting a verbal or a written digest. Many
delightful talks and earnest, thoughtful papers have resulted from this practice.
Those not on the committee may read as their taste directs during that month,
but to their credit be it said, nearly all follow the course mapped out by the
directress.
It is also the custom for individual members to supplement the work of the
committee, by adding to the general fund anj interesting and appropriate infor-
mation they may have gleaned relative to the subject under discussion. Refuta-
tion of calumnies in newspapers or magazines of the day is also part of the work
expected of each member. Much ardent enthusiasm has been generated, which
has steadily increased until one essential requirement for membership seems
guaranteed "the ability and willingness to read and work."
Indeed, intelligent enthusiasm seems to be the predominant characteristic of
the Circle. Even those who do not read with the committee are kept well in-
formed on the special line of work by means of the papers, to all of which are ap-
pended the references consulted. They are then ready to take up the link in their
turn when placed on committee work, and pass it unbroken to others. A list of
the optional reading, in which fiction is limited to one volume in three, is kept,
and furnishes not only an interesting index to the literary taste of the members,
1 89 5.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 719
but is useful for others who desire a guide in reading. In both respects it has
proved thoroughly satisfactory.
The study of church history, chiefly by means of biography, has been the
main work of the Circle ; a rapid review of Darras was made the groundwork,
then have followed lives of the saints, from the earliest Doctors of the Church to
those of the English saints of later times. Special attention has been given to
the work of women in the church, beginning with an account of those who served
our Lord in his public life.
In order to be in touch with the spirit of the Columbian Celebration, a short
course in Spanish literature was taken at that time, and very interesting histori-
cal papers were read on Spain. The Congress of Religions in Chicago led like-
wise to a study of the Catholic missions in Japan, and some valuable papers were
the result.
It has been the aim of the Circle to link the history, literature, and art of the
periods studied; one memorable paper was that on the Symbolic School. In
this connection much pleasure and profit have been given through our one cor-
responding member, a former pupil of the Sacred Heart, whose ripe scholarship
and patient research are ever at our service.
At the request of an officer of the Catholic Summer-School two members,
already favorably known as translators, have undertaken to render into English
a work which will prove a valuable addition to the authorities we already have on
church history. Others have contributed interesting articles, both literary and
historical, to various Catholic magazines ; one of them is well known as a writer
of children's stories.
A question-box occupies a prominent place at the meetings. The informa-
tion asked for is given at the subsequent meeting by some members detailed for
this work, or, in some instances, by clergymen to whom the questions are re-
ferred. Many thanks are due to those members of the clergy who have taken a
practical interest in the work of the Circle, and given it the benefit of their learn-
ing and experience ; particularly do we recall two most instructive lectures.
Thanks are also due to the various libraries of the city for kind assistance and
courteous treatment. The Circle was present at the conference of Reading Cir-
cles held last June, and a report of work done was read.
A word as to the spiritual side of the Circle's life may not be amiss. The
meetings are opened with a short prayer that of St. Thomas before study. As
devotion to the See of Peter is a characteristic of the pupils of the Sacred Heart,
it seemed most fitting to place the Circle under the patronage of St. Catherine of
Sienna, that model of learning God's chosen instrument in bringing back the
popes to Rome. Last year's work closed by a spiritual retreat given at the con-
vent, in which the members participated with great zeal and earnestness.
The Circle is not at all social in its character ; the members keeping strictly
to the purpose for which they organized, work in the cause of Catholic truth,
though much friendly feeling exists among those whom similarity of taste has
brought together.
Although this is the first Reading Circle organized under the auspices of the
Religious of the Sacred Heart, it is not their first work of the kind. Fifty years
ago, in their house of Jette St. Pierre, outside of Brussels, a literary circle was
formed by our present venerated Pontiff, Leo XIII., then Papal Nuncio to Bel-
gium. At a recent audience, granted to the Religious of the Sacred Heart, his
Holiness took pleasure in alluding to " His little Academy," and even produced
some of the essays of its members.
720 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Feb., 1895.
Literary societies are also found in some of the Sacred Heart convents of
Southern Europe, and we know of at least one doing good work in the Sacred
Heart in England; in 1888 a Circle devoted to the study of philosophy was es-
tablished in one of the two houses of the Sacred Heart in Chicago.
In closing, we can only repeat the prayer of our association, that " God may
grant us ardently to desire, prudently to study, and perfectly to fulfil the things
which are pleasing to Him, to the praise and glory of His Name."
* * *
These questions have been submitted for solution : " Why is it that women
cannot be fired to read and study individually ? Why must they run after intel-
lectual truth always in squads? "
Allowing for great minds remarkable for individual strength, the average
woman, like the average man, can work to better advantage by association with
others of kindred tastes. The solitary student is exposed to the danger of get-
ting narrow opinions on many topics. Nevertheless, it is very much to be
desired that women should do much more independent thinking in choosing
books. Too many run " in squads " for works of fiction which are entitled to
no consideration from any intelligent reader. The feminine reading public is
responsible for the sale of vast quantities of literary rubbish.
* * *
One of our correspondents sends this excellent advice on reading from the
late Oliver Wendell Holmes :
" The work of hemming handkerchiefs and towels, or those other house-
labors from which few are wholly exempted, are not enough to take up all the
mental energy of the busiest young woman. What did they do before the days
of printed books ? They carried the songs of their tribe, of their nation the
songs which were the best part of their literature in their memory. Now the
rivulet which the press poured out four centuries ago has widened with every
succeeding generation, till it is no longer a stream within its banks, but an
inundation. Books, reviews, magazines, newspapers, come in upon us like a
flood, and the landmarks of our old literature are lost sight of, if they are not
swept away. There never was a time when young readers were in such need of
assistance.
"Shall we read that is, shall we make serious business of reading ? This
seems a strange question to- ask, but let me give some meaning to it. I heard
the late Mr. Edward Everett tell a story of Lord Palmerston, which I have never
forgotten and often repeated. Some one asked him ' Have you read a certain
book?' naming it. 'I never read a printed book,' was Lord Palmerston's
answer. Mr. Everett did not explain or account for this answer so far as I
remember, but I suppose he meant that he had enough to do with reading docu-
ments, newspapers, the face and character of men, and listening to their conver-
sation to find out what they meant perhaps quite as often what they did not
mean.
"Some persons need reading much more than others. One of the best
preachers I have known read comparatively little. But he talked and listened,
and kept his mind sufficiently nourished without over-burdening it. On the
other hand, one of the most brilliant men I have kndwn was always reading.
He read more than his mind could fairly digest, and, brilliant as he was, his con-
versation had too much the character of those patchwork quilts one sees at
country cattle shows, so variegated was it with all sorts of quotations."
The genial author of the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table recommends
that we acquire the habit of loving books, and admits the difficulty of guidance
for minds of varied aptitudes and different stages of education. He likewise
bears testimony that the number is legion of those young women who pass their
days and nights in reading useless novels, so called doubtless from their want of
n <>veity. M. c. M.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. (See page 795. )
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. LX. MARCH, 1895. No. 360.
ENCYCLICAL OF LEO XIII. TO THE BISHOPS OF THE
UNITED STATES.
BY VERY REV. A. F. HEWIT, D.D., Superior-General of the Paulists.
NCE more our venerable and beloved Pontiff has
given evidence of his paternal affection and
solicitude for the Church in our Republic, and
his high esteem and regard for this great Re-
public itself, and all its citizens. We may say,
with confidence and sincerity, that in no country are his in-
structions and admonitions received with more reverence and
docility, by bishops, clergy, and people, than in our own.
Moreover, all our best citizens look on him, and treat his offi-
cial acts, with respect, and reciprocate his amicable advances in
a courteous and friendly manner.
In the present Letter, the Pope not only expresses his grati-
fication at the growth and extent of the Catholic Church and
its institutions in this Republic, and his hope for a still greater
prosperity in the future. He also gives us the assurance : " We
highly esteem and love exceedingly the young and vigorous
American nation, in which we plainly discern latent forces for
the advancement alike of civilization and of Christianity."
Alluding to the Columbian celebration, he extends his view
over the entire continent of the Greater America, and speaks
eloquently though briefly of the fostering care of the Church
over its infancy and early adolescence, of the apostolic labors of
the members of religious orders and other missionaries, and the
many marks and signs^ of Catholicity and its past history with
which the New World is filled. ' Reverting to our own particu-
lar nation, he notices the coincidence of the formation of the
Copyright. VBK.Y REV. A. F. HBWIT. 1894.
VOL. LX. 46
722 ENCYCLICAL OF LEO XIII. [Mar.,
constitution of the Catholic Church, t and that of the Constitution
of our federal Republic, and the mutual friendship of our first
great archbishop and our first illustrious president : Carroll and
Washington.
The Pontiff pays a high tribute to the virtue and wisdom of
the great Father of our country, particularly singling out for
approbation and praise the principles which he inculcated so
clearly and emphatically, in respect to morality and religion as
the foundation of all civic and social well-being and stability.
Hence it follows, that from the Catholic Religion flow out
great blessings in the natural and temporal order, upon soci-
ety and the nation. We take the liberty to add to this, that
those who make war upon the Christian religion, upon the
ethical code derived from it, and who seek to traverse and hin-
der either the Catholic Church, or other religious societies, in the
enjoyment and exercise of their equal rights before the law,
are dangerous enemies of the country, who are working moral
and political mischief, and undermining the foundation of the
national welfare.
It is to the equity and liberty established and sanctioned by
our laws, and which are contravened by those who seek to de-
prive Catholics of their full enjoyment, that the Pontiff ascribes,
in part, the prosperity of the Catholic Church in this Republic :
" Moreover, (a fact which it gives pleasure to acknowledge)
thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in
America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For
the Church among you, unopposed by the Constitution and
government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation,
protected against violence by the common laws and the impar-
tiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hin
drance."
It is true that the Pope here enters a caveat, lest the conclu-
sion should be drawn that our American status is the best desira-
ble status of the Church, and that the severance of Church and
State is universally lawful and expedient. We surmise that this
caveat has been inserted, not as having a bearing on America,
but in view of some other countries, to prevent would-be inno-
vators on their order from applying the commendation given to
the American system in view of the particular state of things
in this Republic to other nations where it is diverse. The
mediaeval ideal of a Christian nation and of Christendom was :
that a society of Catholics should be a Catholic society. The
people of the United States are not a society of Catholics, and
1 895.] TO THE BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES. 723
therefore the nation cannot and ought no* to be a Catholic
society. Our status is the best and the only possible one for
us, and we all, bishops, priests, and laity, will loyally and faith-
fully concur with our fellow-citizens in keeping Church and
State separated as they now are. Loyalty to our American
Constitution does not require us to affirm that it is a model for
Russia, Germany, and every other nation to copy. Neither
does our fidelity to the same Constitution require us to con-
demn the mediaeval ideal, in respect to the union between
Church and State, or to pass judgment on the laws regulating
their mutual relations in Spain or Austria. We do not cherish
any absurd wish that the United States or any single State
should establish the Catholic Religion. There are none so in-
sane as to conspire and plot to bring about the realization of
such an impossible scheme. It is true that the Pope says that
the Church " would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addi-
tion to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the
patronage of the public authority." Undoubtedly, if the whole
people were to become Catholic, there would be a favor and a
patronage extended to schools, asylums, charitable works, which
would cause them to flourish more abundantly. The divine
law in regard to marriage and divorce would be incorpo-
rated into the law of the land, and many moral and social evils
would be corrected by the enlightened Catholic conscience of
the people and their representatives. Such a state of religious
unity and harmony we must, of course, regard as desirable ; but
it is only ideal, and there is no practical utility in speculations
upon the happy effects it might produce.
We have no doubt that it would be the greatest possible
blessing to the nation, even in a temporal and worldly sense, if
all, or a majority of its citizens were to embrace the Catholic
Religion, and live according to its precepts and rules. It is
our duty and our right to strive for this end ; but only by
argument, persuasion, example, and moral means.
We may, perhaps, give a sense to the phrase, " the favor of
the laws and the patronage of public authority," which is per-
fectly consistent with the actual state of separation between
Church and State, and the practical conduct of our national,
state, and municipal authorities during the past century.
Our greatest jurists have declared that this is a Christian
country. The Sunday is recognized and its observance protected
by law. Thanksgiving and Fast Days are proclaimed by au-
thority. Chaplains are appointed in legislatures, in the army
724 ENCYCLICAL OF LEO XIII. [Mar.,
and navy. Colleges, under the control of ecclesiastics, and insti-
tutes of charity have been liberally aided, and among these have
been some institutions under the direction of Catholic authori-
ties. There is nothing in this policy which is un-American. It
would be contrary to the spirit and letter of our laws to favor
one denomination above others. All should be treated impar-
tially, not only those which are Christian, but the Jewish com-
munity as well. It is not aid given to any form of religion, as
such, when patronage and favor are extended to works done for
the general good of the community and the service of the State,
by schools, orphanages, foundling asylums, hospitals, and indus-
trial institutes for training boys and girls in useful occupations.
It is un-American for the State to ally itself with the sect of
the Secularists, to the exclusion of all other sects, and to dis-
criminate against religious societies, as co-workers in the cause
of religion and morality. This is not the legitimate separation
of State from Church, but hostility of State against Church.
In this connection, it is gratifying to note the moderate and
amicable tone of Bishop Paret, in his criticisms on the Encyclical,
reported in the Baltimore Sun of January 31 :
" It is pleasant to find the Pope's views with regard to the
union of Church and State so much modified and expressed in
so much more kindly manner than those issued a few years ago.
It is pleasant that he gives thanks for the protection to the
Roman Catholic Church as to all other religious bodies by the
Constitution and government of this nation, and that by the im-
partiality of its tribunals it is free to live and act without hin-
drance." Then, after quoting the paragraph upon which we
have been last commenting, he adds : " It is, indeed, mildly
putting the old and well-known claims of authority over all na-
tions and all rulers."
Again, the bishop says : " There is so much that is excellent
in the encyclical, that I would avoid criticism, it ends with the
wish that those who differ from the Roman Catholic Church
might be brought back from their prejudices and from their er-
rors, and put in the better way of salvation. Surely we must
be thankful for such kindly wishes, but, having our own con-
victions, we think our best way would be to reciprocate them,
to express, as I am sure all those who are Catholics without be-
ing ' Roman ' will do, our earnest wish and prayer that our
brethren of the Roman Church may be delivered from the pre-
judices to which they have been long subject, and that they may
also find the right and true way of the Lord."
1 895.] TO THE BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES. 725
While we cannot endorse Bishop Paret's remarks, we may
nevertheless thank him for his expressions of good will and
kindness, and praise his irenical tone. By all means let him
and his brethren exert themselves to the utmost, to prove that
their communion is the Catholic Church of America. All we
ask of America is a candid examination of both sides of the
question at issue between us. And may God favor the right,
and bring us all into "the Unity of the Spirit, in the bond of
Peace."
The Pontiff recommends the Catholic University in the strong-
est terms to the cordial support of the hierarchy and people,
highly commending the noble generosity of Monsignor McMahoh,
and exhorting those who are possessed of wealth to follow his
example. In like manner he commends the American College
at Rome to the affection of the prelates and the generosity of
the people.
The Apostolic Delegation receives a considerable share of
the Sovereign Pontiff's attention. The inherent right of the
apostolic see to send or appoint legates, delegates, envoys, into
all parts of the Catholic Church, the necessity of doing so, and
the actual exercise of the right from an early period, have been
fully shown by Dr. Bouquillon, in the January number of the
Catholic Quarterly Review. The Pope deigns to explain, that
the establishment of the delegation and the mission of Arch-
bishop Satolli, are an honor to the Church in the United States,
as recognizing its title to rank with the older and most impor-
tant divisions of the Church Universal. It is moreover neces-
sary for the more perfect ecclesiastical order and administration,
and for the prosperity of religion.
The Pope explains that there is no interference with the
canonical rights of bishops. The honor and jurisdiction of the
Pope, whether his authority is immediately exercised, or medi-
ately through a delegation, and the honor and jurisdiction of
bishops, are in harmony with each other, since the Catholic
Episcopate is one body, under one head. Their union and
mutual co-operation are necessary to the well-being of the Church.
So, also, is unity among the bishops. A slight acquaintance with
church-history will suffice to show any one how disastrous con-
tests of bishops among themselves, or with the Holy See, have
proved in past ages. The Pontiff hopes, and we hope with him,
that the influence of the Apostolic Delegate will powerfully
tend to increase and perpetuate this harmony among the bishops,
and thus to strengthen the loyal reverence and obedience
726 ENCYCLICAL OF LEO XIII. [Mar.,
of the clergy and people toward their prelates and the
Church.
We can assure the Holy Father that American Catholics
receive with gratitude the mission of the Apostolic Delegate,
and are entirely disposed to give him due honor and obedience.
The Encyclical contains much more salutary and opportune
counsel and instruction, concerning Marriage, Duties of Citi-
zens, Labor Unions, and the Press.
Finally, the Pope earnestly exhorts both clergy and laity to
be zealous for the propagation of the Catholic faith among all
classes of our fellow-countrymen who are separated from the
communion of the Roman Church. Missions to non-Catholics
have already commenced, and are likely to be prosecuted on a
larger scale in the future. It is to be hoped that the exhorta-
tion of the Supreme Pontiff will encourage all who are en-
gaged in this apostolic work, and stimulate others to join in
it ; and that the divine blessing will crown it with abundant
success. The gathering of all Christians together into one fold
under one shepherd is a consummation most devoutly to be
wished. And how can this be accomplished, except by a re-
turn to that Church in which all our ancestors were once
united, before the divisions of the sixteenth century ?
The last loving look of the venerable Vicar of our Divine
Saviour Jesus Christ toward America is turned upon the mil-
lions of African descent, and the many thousands of our
aboriginal Indians, who dwell within our borders. This is a
topic of such paramount importance and interest that it de-
serves to be enlarged upon. This we are not able to do at
present, though we hope that it may be done hereafter, and
that others, more competent, may take it up and carefully dis-
cuss it, both now and in the future.
We conclude with an expression of the firm intention of all
who are engaged in the conduct of THE CATHOLIC WORLD
MAGAZINE, and the Columbus Press, to follow faithfully all
the injunctions and advice of the Sovereign Pontiff, and a pro-
fession of our perfect loyalty and obedience to the Holy See.
1 895-] PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. 727
PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST.
BY MARGUERITE MOORE.
'HE Gal way coast offers to the artist or romance
writer material with which to fill portfolio and
note-book to repletion.
Anglers find in it a paradise. Dryasdust
archaeologists and antiquarians, inquisitive bo-
tanists, hammer-armed geologists, and statistic-seeking social
economists find there a happy hunting-ground over which to
ride their favorite hobbies.
Wild in aspect, almost inaccessible, it is seldom really seen
by the tourist, who to examine it thoroughly must journey on
foot and reside for some time among the natives, studying their
ways, listening to their legends, examining their condition, and
wandering at will on land or sea ; thus alone can its possibili-
ties be understood, its beauties impressed upon the mind.
Along the stretch of ocean-washed coast, of which Arran
Island off Galway harbor, and Innisboffin at the mouth of
Clew Bay, form the extreme ends, may be found more material
for romance and song, more varied types of character, strange
costumes and customs, ancient architecture and modern pov-
erty, than one will see elsewhere through the Emerald Isle. It
is a beautiful coast. Beautiful in the sunshine of summer when
blue waters lazily kiss its rugged face ; terribly grand in the
gloom of winter storms when the wind-lashed ocean leaps upon
its shore in passionate fury. High above the inhabited island
of Innisboffin towers Clare Island (County Mayo), guarded by
three hundred and sixty-five islands of various sizes, like a
stately queen surrounded by liveried retainers. In the days of
the English Elizabeth Clare Island was a royal stronghold, but
no blood of the Sassenach flowed in the veins of Grace O'Malley,
who then ruled the island with stern hand, jealously guarding
her rights, at times administering sharp rebukes to those
thwarting her imperious will.
When she met Elizabeth of England, to whom she paid a
visit, it was as an equal, not a vassal ; she absolutely refusing to
pay homage by the slightest inclination of her haughty head
before- her sister sovereign, who was forced to agree to the
728 PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. [Mar.,
Irish princess's view of what her position demanded. To this
day one noble house in Ireland puts in practice a lesson rough-
ly taught by Grace O'Malley. The galley of that valiant lady
bore her one day into Dublin harbor, where she intended to
make a ceremonious call on the Earl of Howth's family. They
were at dinner, unconscious of the honor to be conferred on
them ; at dinner with the great gates of the castle closed
against all comers! Such a breach of hospitality was unknown
in Doona, where all were welcome, particularly at meal-hours.
All were not at dinner; the exceptions were the heir, St. Law-
rence, and his nurse, playing " bo-peep " on the strand. Grace
promptly availed herself of the opportunity to inflict the fitting
punishment for inhospitality. She had the boy and his nurse
brought on board of her vessel, a notice placed on the gate so
tightly shut gave in strong language her opinion of people
probably she called them churls who shut themselves up at
meal-times. In time the boy was returned to his parents,
hardier and more robust for his sojourn in Doona's stronghold.
The lesson was not forgotten ; from that time up to the pres-
ent the gates of Howth Castle lie hospitably open at meal-
hours, though the welcome of unbidden guest may be none
the warmer.
The Arran islands at the other extremity of the Galway
coast-line are not uninteresting, although no princess ever held
court upon them. Lever, the Irish novelist, placed here the
scene of Luttrell of Arran, one of his best works. In the
eyes of the ornithologist the islands are remarkable as the
only places on the Irish coast visited by the Cornish "chough,"
a small black crow with coral-red beak. As its name implies, it
is a native of Cornwall, and for some reason known but to
itself visits this wild out-of-the-world place.
Arran Island is wonderfully fertile, thanks to its limestone
formation. At the same time so thin is the covering of soil it
seems as though the seed could not find earth to hide its roots.
Arranmore, largest of the island groups, is fast changing its
characteristics, ceasing to be picturesque. The village of Kil-
kerrin has a church, school-house, priest, doctor, police-barracks,
jail, and other adjuncts of civilization. A steamer replaces the
trading-smack which contrary winds so often detained in Gal-
way while the provisions she bore were urgently needed on
Arran. Pampooties are things of the past or almost so.
" Pampooties ! "the reader naturally asks what are they ? The
footgear worn in primitive times by the islanders, formed by
I895-]
PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST.
729
steeping a piece of green cow-hide in water until flexible, scrap-
ing off the hair and wrapping the skin around the foot, the
shape of which it rapidly took. Inelegant in appearance they
are, yet comfortable and non-productive of corns, bunions, or
the other pedal ailments which in a higher state of civilization
afford a harvest to the chiropodist. The Galway peasant does
LOOKING OUT TOWARD ARRAN.
not take kindly to foot-coverings. The tourists note the fact
when they see men and women carrying shoes in their hands
while trudging gaily through mud or dust. They cannot walk
easily hampered by shoes, though it is considered good form
to appear in them at church or market. At the journey's end
or near it they wash their feet in a convenient stream, then
put on the shoes, with or without stockings. What a differ-
ence shows in their gait on resuming the walk ! elasticity has
gone from their step, they are uncomfortable and self-conscious.
The costume of the peasant women is variable as the cli-
mate. Looking from the window of Mullarkey's Hotel, in
Clifden, one needed but a slightly vivid imagination to fancy
the market-place a Neapolitan plaza so dark the hair of the
native Galwegian, so vivid the impression of color caused by
the dress or want of it. In addition to the short red petticoat,
the material of which is flannel, spun, carded, woven, dyed by
themselves, many wear a gay-colored patch-work quilt in lieu
730 PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. [Mar.,
of cloak and hat ; this odd substitute for a garment is cast
carelessly over the head so as to expose the face ; a piece of
strong cord passed around the head-piece of the quilt and tied
under the chin forms a hood ; the hands are thus left free, and
no brooch or breastpin is needed. Women may also be met
wearing blankets, webs of red or even white flannel fresh from
the loom and draped about head and shoulders; others appear
in the red skirt and blue cloak dear to the artist-eye. AlasT
the young women who can afford to do so ape modern fash-
ions and cease to be picturesque.
The Irish type of beauty is found here developed to per-
fection. It is strikingly Spanish, and at times suggestive of
Hebrew origin. Jet black hair, clean-cut features, heavy eye-
lashes so dark it is a never-ending surprise to find them veil-
ing orbs of bluish-gray. Their figures are tall, lithe, and vigor-
ous. Enforced abstinence from flesh-meat has its compensation
in the whiteness of their even teeth. Hard work out-of-doors
develops the physical powers, while their native buoyancy of
disposition triumphs over the misery of their lot.
In character the Galway peasant is crafty, suspicious, at times
treacherous, yet withal open-hearted and hospitable. To under-
stand the contradictions of his disposition it must be noted that
his faults are the result of the oppression under which he has
so long suffered ; his virtues are natural to himself.
The feeling of hospitaility pervades all classes. The fox-
hunting squire, whose dinner-table is spread with mutton, fowl,
game, beef, ham, fruit, vegetables, and poteen, all produced on
his own farm ; the jovial priest, who gives you hearty welcome
to his dinner of corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes whose sides
have split with laughter ; and the poor woman with nothing to
offer but potatoes, salt, and buttermilk are all representatives
of the national characteristics. As a native poet wrote :
" Tho' the cup is well nigh empty,
And but scant the meagre fare,
Heart and hand give ready welcome
All may claim a brother's share."
The Galway peasant is in many cases comfortably clad in-
gray frieze made by carding together the wool of black and
white sheep.
Superstitions long since banished from other parts of Ireland
are still rife in Galway. Of these the most prevalent is a be-
I895-]
PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST.
lief in the fairies' desire to substitute changelings for earth-born
child, youth, or maiden. When a young girl dies after lingering
illness it is not uncommon to hear a mourner say, " Shure 'tisn't
herself was there this many a day "; meaning that the original
bright, healthy maiden had been stolen with her bloom intact
and replaced by the fairy semblance that pined and died.
Belief in the power of the " evil eye " is as strong in Conne-
mara as in Cairo, and spitting is regarded as the only reliable
offset. The newly-born infant is first washed with the midwife's
saliva, and each one who looks upon the babe must remark, " 'Tis
a fine child, God bless it ! " then spit upon it for luck, or run the
A VILLAGE IN THE MOUNTAINS.
chance of being blamed for any ill-fortune that may befall it
owing to the omission of the formula. It is not safe to ad-
mire cows, horses, sheep, or even inanimate objects such as
boats, fishing-nets, etc., without the blessing and salivated punc-
tuation mark.
The Galway peasant is not particularly religious, yet he is
prone to the celebration of saints' days, or " pattherns," of which
there are several throughout the year. Each locality has its
especial patron saint all of Irish birth and from their festivals
events are dated. " So many days after St. Darragh's day,"
or " weeks before Conan's patthern," are expressions used in the
computation of time.
732 PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. [Mar.,
On St. Martin's eve blood must be shed in every house-
hold ; the very poor kill a chicken, those better off a lamb or
goose. Apropos of geese, nowhere are they cooked to such per-
fection, stuffed with potatoes, butter and onions, parboiled,
baked in an iron pot-oven buried in turf-embers, the bird which
saved Rome comes to table an epicurean feast as to flavor, a
picture as to coloring.
Geese are even more plentiful than sheep in Connemara, roam-
ing in large flocks amongst the rocks and through the scanty
pasture. Twice a year the living birds are plucked, hence the
poorest cabin boasts the possession of three or four feather
beds ; one of these is kept in a large wooden chest together
with pillows, blankets, and flannel quilts all reserved for stranger
guests ; blankets, quilts, and bed-tickings are durable as iron,
and almost as hard. In a few houses home-made sheets and
table cloths may be found, but such are rare. Connemara was
always more of a wool-producing than a flax-growing country.
The spring of the year, beautiful everywhere, is especially
so in Ireland. The young grass is softly green; hedgerows are
thick with bud and blossom ; pale, shy snowdrops, bashful violets,
golden-heart daisies, yellow daffodils, and nodding cowslips are
peeping everywhere ; fields are starred with primroses. Black-
birds, thrushes, larks, and linnets fill the air with melody, while
the pink-and-white hawthorn and yellow furze add color and
fragrance not to be delineated by brush nor described by pen.
Over all this beauty hovers the chill shadow of poverty.
Throughout Ireland, as in parts of Germany, the spring months
are called the "hungry months"; everything is scarce and dear.
Cows, to calve in May or June, give little or no milk; the
store of potatoes and turf is running short, in many cases is
exhausted ; cabbages and turnips are not to be had. On the
Galway coast most families are short of potatoes by January.
That means slow starvation, as Indian meal, though cheap, costs
money, of which there is little in the country. Credit is diffi-
cult to obtain nowadays from the Clifden shop-keepers. In
former years large quantities of kelp were manufactured by the
country people from the sea-weed which is found in such large
quantities on the coast. Kelp was then worth from twelve to
fifteen pounds sterling per ton. Clifden shop-keepers purchased
it at that price for shipment to Scotland. Having the monopoly
of the district market, they had no hesitancy in giving goods
on time, payment being made when the kelp was delivered.
Chemistry, in evolving aniline dyes from coal-tar, rendered less
1 895.] PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. 733
valuable the kelp, until then the sole source from whence those
dyes were obtained, and the price fell to one-fourth of what it
had been.
This want of food or of money to purchase it leads to a ter-
rible state of things : a slow starvation, harrowing to the feelings
of those who feel the hopelessness of individual effort in
assuaging the suffering due to want of opportunity to work.
Strong men are living on one meal of Indian mush in twenty-
four hours naked, unadorned mush without sugar or milk to
make it palatable not even plentiful, it is eked out with crabs
caught in the rocks and roasted on wood fires.
The people are naturally industrious, but have no employ-
ment. The sea is teeming with fish which they cannot catch
because they have not the proper boats, lines, etc., for deep-sea
fishing. Even if they catch a quantity of fish they have no
market for it. The town of Galway is fifty or sixty miles away,
THE CASCADE AT CLIFDEN.
with no connecting railroad. Clifden, the small town in the
vicinity, buys only what is needed for home consumption
buys at a very low rate indeed. The dreary days pass slowly ;
men and women till the land, sow the seed, and cut seaweed
for manure. The women work as hard as the men ; they
may be seen standing knee-deep in water, chilled by the bleak
March winds, gathering the floating weed rich in fertilizing ele-
PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. [Mar.,
ments, sodas and what not, then carrying it long distances over
rocks in baskets strapped upon their backs. However,
" Be the day weary or ever so long,
At length it ringeth to even-song."
Potatoes grow, corn ripens. On the twenty-fourth of June,
St. John's day, the mid-summer fair is held in Clifden. New
potatoes are ready for the market, and with small quantities for
sale the long-suffering people go forth on pleasure bent. Once
a few coins are theirs to spend, privation is forgotten as if it
never existed. They are hilarious. They sing, dance, drink tea
and eat white bread, oblivious of the past, careless of the mor-
row a state of feeling calculated to excite the envy of the un-
satisfied rich.
If you study conchology and are interested in the marine
flora, you will find pleasure hitherto undreamed of in sitting by
the edge of the translucent pools left amid the rocks by the
ebbing tides. Here are to be seen things of wondrous beauty
hidden from the gaze of all but the favored few who, loving
nature well, turn from the tourist-beaten track to rest with her
in the do Ice far niente.
In those rock-basined pools are gardens of sea-weeds in
gorgeous red browns, filmy leaved and delicate as hot-house
ferns, their colors shading from darkest red through all the
gradations of brown, pink, and cream to white. Dwelling
amongst them are jelly-fish of coral red, whose waving filaments
of silky fineness are hastily withdrawn at touch of finger-tips.
Long narrow dragon-flies dart hither and thither in search of
prey, in their eager, rapacious greed suggesting the money-grab-
bers of the far-off world. Deep in the crystal-clear waters we
see tiny green insects, gorgeous yellow ones, delicate shells of
pink, and pearls that hold the rainbow's tints. The hoary rocks
in whose shadow you loiter are gay with sea-pinks that nestle
confidingly in their old gray arms arms that were old when
the world was young. Rock-ferns and green samphire cluster
in the crevices of the most rugged boulders, leading you to feel
as if everything around were filled with sentient life, to believe
that things inanimate love company. The blue sky is reflected
in a bluer sea flecked with dancing golden light and snow-white
foam. The blue of the sea is a deception, a borrowed sheen
which, mirage-like, vanishes on nearer acquaintance. The actual
tint of the ocean here near the shore over a sandy bottom is
1895.] PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. 735
green, a beautiful pale green, the shade of which is exactly
produced in the stone called aqua marina.
Galway is deservedly celebrated for its white trout and
salmon fishing. "Anglers' Retreats " and "Fishermen's Rests"
abound near the lakes, of which the fishing is strictly preserved.
A license to tussle with the playful salmon costs much coin of
the realm, but the fish can be bought at a very moderate rate,
owing to the lack of ice and transportation facilities. The
average price of trout is three-pence (six cents) per pound.
Here a word of caution inserted may save the reader from a
future sense of being " sold." Should an enviable happy fate
conduct you to the Galway coast to make inquiries as to the
prospects for a fish dinner, do not take an epicurean feast for
granted because the fisherman to whom you speak tells you he
has a fine trout for sale ; to him every fish from a whale to a
sprat is known by the generic term trout. If the peculiarity be
unknown, a distinct shock is sure to be felt when, rushing to
the boat, intent on buying salmon trout, one is confronted with
a six-foot conger eel! With disgust the victim of such a disap-
pointment refers to it now after the lapse of many years. On the
coast sea-fish are abundant and varied. Often on calm summer
evenings they rise to the top of the water in search of food ;
far as the eye can reach the ocean is black with them in
shoals. Then, in their ardent pursuit of food, they at times
follow the sprat on to the shore, filling creek and inlet to suffo-
cation. Wild excitement results. Men, women, and children
hurry to take advantage of the glut. The boy with a hook on
his solitary suspender is well to the fore. The provident man
fastens three hooks to his line ; each time they bring in their
victims. Women dip their baskets into the squirming mass
and pull them up heavily laden. The very small boy or girl
manages to have a share of the fun by falling in, being pulled
out gasping amid general excitement, spanked to restore circu-
lation, and set on the rock to dry. Such fish as are to be
seen here! Beautiful their changing, gem-like hues, delicious
their flavor even when broiled on a drift-wood fire amid the
rocks, and eaten with hunger sauce au naturel. There are
bream, mackerel, gurnet, white, red, and gray ; black and white
pollock; scad, needle-fish, etc., in endless variety. Cray-fish of
enormous size, crabs and lobsters, lurk amid the rocks. Cockles
and periwinkles are found in abundance on the shore, but
want of money and a market paralyzes enterprise.
The ocean is not always softly beautiful, nor its bosom
736
PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST.
[Mar.,
calm and serene. When rough winds sweep across its face and
ruffle its placidity, it is difficult to give inland residents the faint-
est idea of its furious aspect. Nowhere does it appear more
terribly grand than on this wild western coast. Huge heading
billows of green-gray hue come thundering in with sullen boom ;
louder grows the sound as the rushing torrent strikes sunken
rocks, half-submerged islets over which the now broken water
pours in tremendous volume, filling the air with clouds of mist
and spray. Woe to the hapless ship exposed to the force of the
winter storm on that rock-bound coast ! where certain destruc-
tion awaits her. Spectators safe on terra firma are impressed
with awe mingled with terror as they watch the tempest-lashed
breakers arise to a threatening height. The feeling pervades
one that the huge mass of water coming landward with such
WHERE PRINCELY DICK MARTIN LIVED.
velocity might easily sweep all before it across the country into
Dublin Bay.
Tourists visiting Connemara generally begin the tour from
Dublin, thence by the Midland Great Western Railway to Gal-
way, capital town of the county a quaint, picturesque old
place, with many reminiscences of the days when Spanish mer-
chants visited it and intermarried with its daughters. The drive
from Galway to Clifden is one of fifty miles. The road excel-
lent, the scenery fine, great beauty may be discovered by eyes
i895] PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. 737
trained to observation. The bleakest mountains have gleams of
color in pleasant relief to their gray-brown hues. Patches of
yellow furze or purple heather, deep cool shadows, streaks of
golden light. White-fleeced sheep, kyloe cattle with shaggy
manes, herds of Connemara ponies, sure-footed as Alpine cha-
mois, add diversity to the landscape. Then the driver beguiles
the time with snatches of song and story; some of the latter
gloomy but interesting. Passing through wild wastes of country
the traveller is sure to notice mounds overgrown with grass and
weeds ; uninscribed tombs are these the inscription is engraved
on the hearts of the Irish peasantry with memories of former
years when the homes of Connemara were desolated by govern-
ment-fostered famine. The weird, lowly mounds were cabins
where happy families dwelt before evil days came on the land ;
until fever, born of famine, ravaged the peasant homes. One
by one they died. All dreaded the fatal fever, feared to touch
the gaunt, festering corpses which the safety of the living de-
manded should be hidden from sight. The paternal government
rose to the occasion ; by order of the authorities ropes were
placed around the walls of cabins wherein the entire family lay
dead ; a long pull and a strong pull tumbled the walls, the
thatched roof settled down upon the ruins, which thus afforded
shroud, coffin, and tomb to the victims who lay beneath.
" Nerve and muscle, heart and brain,
Lost to Ireland lost in vain ! "
At Ballinahinch is seen the former residence of Colonel Dick
Martin, M. P. dashing Dick, who used to boast of being able
to ride twenty-six miles through his own estate from the castle
by the lake to the shooting-lodge at Oughterard. Dick was the
type of Irish landlord of whom Lever wrote. A whole-souled
sportsman, a generous friend, a good all-round man with a
talent for spending more than his income ; enjoying the day,
taking no heed for the morrow ; hating lawyers, creditors, and
duns. The colonel's stables were the admiration of the country,
paved as they were with marble, their stalls and woodwork of
mahogany. The marble came from extensive quarries on his
estate, the mahogany was flung at his feet by old ocean in the
fury of the equinoctial gales. Bad times came to Dick, as to
his tenants ; the estate, forced into the market, did not bring
a tithe of its value from a London law firm. Dick died broken-
VOL. LX. 47
738 PICTURES OF THE GALWAY COAST. [Mar.,
hearted, leaving an only daughter ; she died in the steerage of
an emigrant vessel on the way to New York.
Clifden is a picturesque little town snugly sheltered at the
foot of a mountain. It has a good hotel, thriving shops, and a
large supply of the native green marble made into handsome
souvenirs, shamrocks, brooches, harps, bracelets, etc., mounted
in silver with fine effect. A vein of marble found in the moun-
tains and called moss-stone from its peculiar surface shows, when
polished, perfect pictures of mosses, grasses, miniature trees in
various shades of green on a ground of paler tint. Lustrous as
onyx, it readily lends itself to .ornamental purposes.
The archaeologist, in search of antiquities, may spend some
days profitably in Clifden, as within short driving distance of
the town are to be found wonderful remains of ancient architec-
ture. Omey Island contains the ruins of a large monastery ; the
monastic cells, in bee-hive form, are in excellent preservation.
Hermitages abound on lonely islands, some of large size, others
small cells, all built of heavy stones cemented by the wonderful
shell-mortar which defies the ravages of time. Chapters might
be written of the history of those remains, of the stones with
strange runic writings found in their vicinity, and of the legends
connected with the saintly builders. But time passes, and we
must move on through the water-soaked bogs and by the ruined
lands of banished peasants. Chameleon-like, the mind takes color
from its surroundings ; we feei desolate, dull, depressed amongst
the cold browns and gloomy grays, until at the mountains we
are forced to look upward ; then such feelings vanish, for grand
are those eternal hills that bear the modest title of the " Twelve
Pins." Some are king-like in regal mantle of purple heather,
crowned by the golden sunlight. Others bleak, bare, but grandly
threatening, like warriors in armor ; the thunder-cloud or ghostly
mist seeming to rest fittingly upon their stern brows. But we
are wandering from the object of our sketch the Galway coast
seduced by the joy of travel.
Before saying farewell it is just to remind strange visitors to
the green fields of Erin that the province of Connaught, to which
Galway belongs, is peopled in great part by the descendants of
brave men and women who, faithful to their country as to their
religion, were driven across the Shannon by the Cromwellian
spoilers of their homes in the South.
1 895.] INDIA-RUBBER ORTHODOXY. 739
INDIA-RUBBER ORTHODOXY.
BY HENRY AUSTIN ADAMS.
IV. HERE AND THERE IN CATHOLICISM. '
I
HERE is something very charming about the
present passion for politeness: As against the
polemics of our fathers, these polite phrases
of our contemporaries are as the pipings of
peace to the din of war. The roar is now
become as gentle as the sucking dove's. May it remain so !
Charming to see Moslem and Jew and Christian meeting at
the World's Fair in what Max Miiller calls the first truly oecu-
menical council ! And more delicious yet to observe sects with-
in sects of sects here in America conferring and co-laboring and
palavering just as though their differences were not profound !
Nor is this amenity of temper confined to the theological
mind. Here and there even a liberal thinker and agnostic scientist
begins to betray a possible willingness to admit that (within
limits) somebody else knows a little. Keep it up, gentlemen !
Not so entirely pleasing is the elasticity beginning to mani-
fest itself in the moral tension of our " end of the century "
civilization ; but so wide-spread is the influence of culture's
laissez faire and cosmopolitan every-man-for-himselfness, that it
is no uncommon matter to find, in the reviews, a sound, well-
starched English dean crossing swords with a hedonistic, Oscar-
Wildean acrobat on the question of marriage. Observe, question
mooted question, of marriage !
Let but some " new woman " throw down the gauntlet, and
it shall go hard but some gallant right reverend or other will
pick it up and give her battle (of the kid-glove kind) on the
issue, let us say, " Is marriage natural ? " or " Is suicide a sin ? "
or " Is life a lie ? "
Much of this is, of course, "ad gallery," and part of the
rdle Bishop Gullam has been playing, these many years, to the
infinite delight of the comic-paper people. And it must ever
be remembered, that to every infallible Ph.D. who settles things,
month by month, in the reviews, there are a million of sensible
men who do not read those ipse dixits, and would not care a
fig for the doctor's opinions if they did.
740 INDIA-RUBBER ORTHODOXY. [Mar.,
However, there is no doubt but that a spirit of tolerance is
abroad, and that the very incongruities, inconsistencies, and con-
tradictions which are now for the first time finding full play in
the warm sunshine of mutual recognition, will by this very stand-
ing side by side discover their discrepancies. Comparisons are
odious chiefly to the found inferior. The " deadly parallel
column " has terrors only for one of the things paralleled.
Indeed, now we have got the ox and the ass well yoked to-
gether, it cannot be a matter of much time when we shall know
which is the ox !
One of the best and fullest illustrations of this all-compre-
hending toleration of divergent views is furnished by that church
which, while numerically small, is powerful and, no doubt, des^
tined to provide safe neutral ground for those escaping from
the fast crumbling and disintegrating systems of the other sects.
It is her known elastic temper which has for twenty years
drawn to her fold most of her converts, ministers finding within
her latitudinarian bounds room for their ever-widening eccen-
tricities.
The broad-church party in the Episcopalian Church boast
of this fact as the chief glory of that communion ; but ritualists,
especially the self-styled " Catholics," deplore it, and prophesy
the gravest possible results. And yet it is to its existence that
these latter owe their new-found freedom to exercise their Catho-
lic proclivities. We find the bishops staving off all ecclesias-
tical trials of even the most lawless, with the very sensible, if
not very dignified, observation : " Don't make me prosecute
Father Chasuble, dear Mr. Hazey ; for if you do, he will be
certain to make me go for you ! " " Ecce quam bonum" etc., etc.
Accordingly we find the larger dioceses veritable happy
families including every variety of believer, from a shouting,
anti-sacramental Salvationist up (or is it down f) to a barefooted,
tonsured monk ! And over this ecclesiastical omnibus sits
smiling (and dodging) the bishop.
To an indignant old lady who complained of her rector's
popery the other day, the bishop said : " Madam, the Greek
word for bishop is episcopos, which is composed of ' over ' and to
' look.' I therefore overlook everything. Good-morning ! "
The rank and file are tickled by this, and a bishop so act-
ing and so speaking makes himself solid with the millionaire
man of the world so necessary for vestry purposes and when
the hat goes around. But an immense number of earnest,
pious souls are scandalized by this betrayal of the Son of Man
1895-] INDIA-RUBBER ORTHODOXY. 741
with a paradox, and hundreds of their clergy are humiliated
and disheartened by it.
Of course, one would think that such a condition of self-
contradicting and mutually destructive teaching would logically
lead men to the Catholic Church. And so it would and does,
save when the spirit of the times breathes of "tolerance" and
" breadth " and " comprehensiveness."
These are splendid mental virtues. Who dares attack them?
And so man's very logic is prostituted to the prevailing hallu-
cination, and every ludicrous absurdity countenanced in the
name of freedom.
How often we hear that in the non-essentials we must have
liberty. Grant you and amen ! But which be the non-essen-
tials? Dr. Gullam answers: "It is not essential to know what
the non-essentials are." And there you are ! Further discus-
sion (with him) proves you to be a man narrow enough to
quarrel over non-essentials !
It was not, however, of the theologians that I intended to
write; but of the unsuspecting lay victim of this reign of a
" don't-mention-it " kind of orthodoxy.
Let us contemplate the experiences of some well-meaning
layman of an open and teachable mind and obliged (as who is
not in this country?) to change his place of residence from time
to time.
He is a Virginian, let us say. In Virginia our Episcopalian
is little better than a Methodist with a (usually mussy and
enormous) surplice on him.
The church to which our supposed layman always went
looked like a Protestant meeting-house. It had an "altar" it
is true, but that not much used article of furniture was a little
marble-topped table, dusty and rickety, which served three or
four times a year for the administration of a rite which our
layman was taught to regard as a mere memorial love-feast.
No cross of any kind was to be seen in or about the
church. Flowers were forbidden. The saints' days were ig-
nored, as were also the fasts and the general system inculcated
in the Prayer-book.
His rector denounced the idea that he was a " priest " ; that
there could be any sacrifice; that there was any such thing as
priestly absolution ; and that sacraments were life-giving.
Our layman, consequently, grew up a vague sort of Protest-
ant, with the notion that his church differed from the other
denominations principally in that its service began with " Dearly
742 INDIA-RUBBER ORTHODOXY. [Mar.,
beloved Brethren," etc., that it included Jackson's Te Deum
and, as a rule, a tamer and sleepier sermon than common !
Having to " go North " in pursuit of wider business oppor-
tunity, our friend established himself in the quiet old vicinity
of Stuyvesant Square, New York.
He attends church St. George's. Lo ! Is this his Episco-
palian church ? Choir boys in popish vestments ? But the
service and sermon reassure him. They are Protestant. After
a little he grows accustomed to the breathless all-around hu-
manitarianism in vogue there, and the constant services and
meetings, and the machinery. Having to move to the West
Side, our pilgrim finds himself at the Church of St. Ignatius.
Hears Solemn High Mass! Is paralyzed when one of the
" fathers " preaches on the necessity of auricular confession !
Holy-water, incense, candles, crucifixes, pictures, Stations of
the Cross !
On May I he moves to a flat on the east of Fifth Avenue.
He is now in All Souls' parish. No popery here ! No, nor
much of the dear old Gospel preaching our layman loves so !
But he is teachable, and he listens to sermons destructive of
miracles, inspiration, orthodoxy the very divinity of his Lord.
Next May he moves westward and into St. Agnes's parish
a chapel of Old Trinity.
Here he finds via mediaism. Some ritual but not too much
to frighten people. Some teaching of innocent doctrine but
a cautious indistinctness which leaves the worshipper to think
as he pleases. If they hear confessions, they do so on the sly.
Some of the congregation bow and genuflect and cross them-
selves ; others loll around on the cushions in reassuring Protest-
ant indifference. And although there are suspicious touches
of Romish error, they are really nothing more than concessions
to the artistic requirements of the age, and have no "doctrinal
significance," says the pastor.
Moving again, our Virginian is once more compelled to set
the focus of his telescope of faith, for he finds himself at the
Church of the Redeemer on Park Avenue. With a ritual as
Catholic as that at St. Ignatius, and confessions and masses and
all the paraphernalia of an advanced parish, he finds here doc-
trines on social questions which are indeed novel to the Episco-
palians. The single tax is taught him along with prayers for
the dead, and the mass is shown to be a socialistic centre of
the life of the world.
For the first time our friend finds the poor really reached.
i8 9 5.]
INDIA-RUBBER ORTHODOXY.
743
and the easy-going, well-fed, selfish, snobbish, dominant class to
which our Episcopalian thought his church was limited, scarcely
represented at all. He fears, however, that this parish is not
loved very much by the " powers that be." From ward to ward
of the city, and from street to street, the poor layman moved
and was orthodox only if he adjusted his belief anew with every
move!
Mr. Hazey, to whom the pious soul resorted for an expla-
nation of this singular india-rubber holding of the faith, said to
him, that we should be very proud to belong to a denomination
so broad and liberal that it could lovingly embrace men of all
shades of opinion, and, after all, the differences were of a trifling
nature !
" But," answered the victim, " if my rector says he is a priest
with power to offer sacrifice and to absolve, and my last rector de-
nies it, one of them is wrong ; and wrong on a matter of stu-
pendous import. What is true on Forty-fifth Street and Seventh
Avenue is true in Stuyvesant Square, isn't it ? "
So our friend appealed to the bishop. The bishop was busy.
Mr. Hazey then called our perplexed pilgrim's attention to the
fact that our excellent system of rapid transit reduced the prac-
tical embarrassment very much. " If you take the elevated
road you will be sure to reach a church to your liking, no mat-
ter where you live ! "
The next Sunday the pilgrim attended a modest little church
uptown. As he entered the choristers were singing :
" We are not divided,
All one Body we :
One in faith and doctrine,
One in charity ! "
" What a mockery ! " he cried.
That is the kind of man who finds his way into the One
Fold sooner or later.
744 A MODERN ICONOCLAST. [Mar.,
A MODERN ICONOCLAST.
BY MARY ANGELA SPELLISSY.
ALLOO!" "Halloo!"
" When did you get back ? " " Half an hour
ago."
" Looking for board ? " " That's the size of it."
" Beastly business." " Oh ! so so."
" What do you know of these places ? "
" Less than nothing."
" I'll ask the clerk,"' said Conrad Siegwart, as he departed,
leaving Godfrey Dubois before the bulletin board in the uni-
versity hall to scan, da capo, the list of boarding places in the
vicinity.
" Well, have you found inspiration from that sheet ? " inquired
Conrad, returning.
" No ; I'm quite at sea. The place I stopped in last year
has shut up, and I know nothing of the rest."
"What do you say to our going on the hunt together?"
" I shall be much obliged ; I credit you with lots of experi-
ence, capability, and such. I'm from a country town in Penn-
sylvania, and "
" Oh, that's all right ! I remember the name the fellows be-
stowed on you last year, and honor you for it. ' Innocence '
is so rare a quality nowadays that it commands consideration.
The clerk knows the woman who runs one of these places, and
I am going to look her up. If you like we can go together ;
he says the house is clean, cheap, airy, and has a good cook. I
do not object to a room-mate, if he is half civilized. If you
choose we might go shares?"
"Indeed, I would be delighted," said Godfrey. "I think I
heard that you were a Californian."
" So they say," answered Conrad, as his long legs made two
steps of the five ascending to Mrs. Bangs's hall door.
To his companion Godfrey left the preliminary interrogations,
but he failed not to note the terms of each of the rooms and
their respective advantages.
"Well, what have you got to say?" inquired Conrad, as they
finished their tour of inspection.
1 895-] A MODERN ICONOCLAST. 745
"That third floor front is a fine room. What do you think
of two single beds ? "
" Capital idea," responded Conrad.
An hour sufficed for the transfer of Godfrey's trunk to Mrs.
Bangs's, and after an early dinner the young man departed for
Atlantic City. Lectures would not begin until the fifteenth, and
a week at the sea was an enticing prospect to an inland youth.
Steaming away to the shore, he congratulated himself on the
companionship of such a jolly room-mate. Conrad's genial tem-
per and tone of good-fellowship had made him a prominent
figure during the two previous years. From him Godfrey hoped
to derive much useful knowledge ; this was Conrad's last year,
while Godfrey was but a second-year man.
The week at Atlantic City was not hilarious. October is a
beautiful month at the sea, but to a diffident youth who has
outgrown the attractions of toboggan and the varied methods
of locomotion that the ocean promenade provides, life becomes
monotonous. The long evenings grow wearisome without con-
genial companionship, and it was therefore with pleasing antici-
pations that Godfrey returned to Mrs. Bangs's and Conrad Sieg-
wart.
Entering his room, the setting sun shone red upon a crucifix
suspended at the head of a single bed ; over the table in the
corner assigned to the Californian hung a picture of the Divine
Child standing on his mother's knee; her finger points to the
printed page of an open book. The title Godfrey easily trans-
lated, " Our Blessed Lady of Letters. From the original at St.
Peter's in Rome."
All the Huguenot blood of six generations of the Dubois an-
cestors rose within Godfrey's breast as he strode about the
room. This, then, was the explanation of the desire for compan-
ionship.
The Californian's free-and-easy air had captivated Godfrey,
and he had marvelled that so popular a man had been so ready
to admit him to such close fellowship.
" Doubtless," thought he, " this was part of a scheme to en-
trap me, but he shall find out that I am not so ' innocent ' as
he thinks me."
Resentment swelled within him. He had admired Conrad's
varied ability, and considered him born under a lucky star; he
could do anything. In the ball-field or on the river, in the lec-
ture-hall or abroad he was equally at home, and everywhere he
-diffused a joyful atmosphere. Before his hilarious voice ill-liu-
746 A MODERN ICONOCLAST. [Mar.,
mor vanished as the fog flies before the sun ; jollity preceded
him, his song or whistle announced his approach, and his jocund
face, framed by his blonde curls and full beard, was ever the
signal for mirthful banter.
The bell interrupted Godfrey's sulky promenade ; Conrad
did not appear ; and in no pleasant mood Dubois descended to
the supper-table, where he found himself the only representative
of the family. Mrs. Bangs volunteered the information that Mr.
Siegwart was out of town, and would not return until Monday.
Godfrey chafed at the thought that he must bottle up his wrath
for forty-eight hours.
Returned to his room, he unpacked his trunk and placed his
table in such a position that, when at work, he could sit with
the pious objects behind him. But when at night he laid him-
self down he found the electric light as strong a revealer as the
sunshine ; the contrast of the white figure against the black
cross was ghastly in the extreme ; the face was turned towards
him ; the sunken eyes looked an agonizing appeal from beneath
the thorn-crowned forehead ; the drooping head ; the protrud-
ing tongue ; the tense strain of the figure, hanging by the nail-
pierced hands; all gave, with soul-piercing eloquence, the story
of the harrowing torture suffered by the Redeemer. " God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son ! " Godfrey
Dubois was a Sunday-school teacher ; he knew the hymn-book
from cover to cover. From infancy he had sung :
" I will believe, I do believe,
That Jesus died for me."
But for the first time in his young life the truth in its awful-
ness was borne in upon him in all its magnitude and with its
consequent responsibilities, and he shrank from the consideration
of all that its acceptance involved. He was angry, and, like the
young man in the gospel, his inclination was " to walk no more
with Jesus."
He had read in one of the Sunday-school books, "Are there
any idolaters on our continent ? "
"Yes, the Catholics in Mexico worship images."
Towards the Catholics he then turned the tide of vexation
that boiled within him. With some difficulty he refrained from
tearing the crucifix from the wall. Quieting himself with
the resolution to look for another room in the morning, he
rose, turned the slats of the shutter, and resumed his comfort-
1 895.] A MODERN ICONOCLAST. 747
able position in bed, relieved by the effacing shadow that ren-
dered the crucifix invisible. He discovered next morning that
Mrs. Bangs's house was indisputably popular ; every room was
taken. The university men had been rallying in hundreds dur-
ing the past week, appropriating to themselves winter quar-
ters. Godfrey found he had been peculiarly fortunate in se-
curing a room affording such extended outlook ; into it the
sun shone, and abundant fresh air kept it sweet and wholesome ;
he resolved to make no change for the present, but to request
the Californian to take down the objectionable emblems.
The excitement of meeting acquaintances, and the general
hurrah that characterizes the first few days of the resumption of
university life, blotted from Godfrey's memory all ill-humor ;
not until the two were sole occupants of the chamber did he
find a chance to make his protest.
"See here, Mr. Siegwart "
" Call me Con, won't you ? "
" Thank you ; Con, would you mind taking down those
things that you have hung up there ?"
" What things ? "
"That cross and picture."
Dubois's voice stammered into ignominious silence under
the towering indignation that flashed from Siegwart's clear
blue eyes.
" Move my crucifix and picture ? " he roared. " I'll be
kicked if I do. What's the matter with them?"
" 1 object to having graven images put up for me to wor-
ship."
" What about that ? " And Conrad pointed through the
open window to where the bone of contention stood aloft in
the moonlight with its bronze nose confronting the north star.
" Oh ! everybody knows that William Penn was not set up to
be worshipped."
"And only calumniators say that Catholics worship images."
" Then that picture of the Virgin with the crown on it."
" O Du ! for goodness' sake don't be so stupidly narrow,"
said Conrad in a milder tone. " Didn't the whole country
go wild over the silver statue of the Goddess of Liberty
at Chicago, and did any single voice charge the nation
with idolatry? Look here, if you're such a dense little
bigot, we had better part company right now. I did not
dream that you were such mighty small potatoes; your
horizon has been limited by the low hills that bounded the
748 A MODERN ICONOCLAST. [Mar.,
wash-basin in which you were born. You can't help that all at
once, but if you will keep your eyes and ears open and your
mouth shut it is possible you may enlarge a little. This side
of the room is my territory, and in it I will bestow my traps as
I see fit ; and if you don't like them you can clear out."
The last two words came in thunderous tones from his
capacious chest.
Dubois left the room in a ferment. Wasn't his father the
Reverend Mr. Dubois, of Swansdowne? And did not his
mother spring from the Gautiers, who counted their descent
from the Huguenots who fled to New York in 1625? "Wash-
basin ! " Why " Chalky Valley " is the garden-spot of Pennsyl-
vania, one acre of which raises more wheat than any two out-
side it.
Godfrey's townsman, Amede Lafond, had the third floor
back at Mrs. Bangs's ; to him the discomfited Godfrey pre-
sented himself, craving shelter, which was readily accorded.
Morning found Godfrey very unrefreshed. Amed6e was a
very active sleeper, and appeared to take his half out of the
middle of the bed. The room had but one window, blocked
by the wall of the opposite stable, from which arose odors
stifling.
As Godfrey put his foot out of bed it crashed power-
fully through his disorderly neighbor's guitar. This disturbing
incident unfitted him for breakfast ; not even the blithe ques-
tion, "How did you sleep, old man?" voiced in Conrad's gen-
tlest tone, restored his equanimity. The week passed wearily.
Saturday night brought merriment to the third story front,
which the men had christened the " Lick Observatory." Dubois,
leaving his stuffy room at 9:30, jostled against Conrad, who,
with a ponderous pitcher of ice-water in hand, was ascending
the stair. " Halloo ! " he shouted. " Where are you going ? "
" I have read myself stupid ; I was thinking of a walk."
" Why not come over to my room ? Some of the fellows
are there."
" I supposed so ; I heard the racket."
" Come along ; you know them."
Dermody, the quarter-back; Heintz, stroke of the 'Varsity
crew, and Pappenheim, the quiz-master, welcomed Godfrey.
Two of them were comfortably extended on the bed that he
had found so delightful; a chair was proffered the new-comer,
and he found himself seated opposite the crucifix. The
choice spirits about him kept up a running fire of chat, inter-
A MODERN ICONOCLAST. 749,
rupted only by shouts of laughter. Godfrey noted that a re-
volving book-case, filled with coveted authorities, stood beside
Conrad's writing-table. The chest of drawers held a photo-
graph case, and two of the pictures were familiar ; the Review
of Reviews had given them in the previous month. As vis-a-vis
to these distinguished men a beautiful matron was placed, and
beside her the likeness of a magnificent girl in evening,
dress.
When the men departed, Godfrey lingered.
"I see you have a picture gallery here?"
" Only my family group."
" Who is this ? " " My mother's brother."
" Isn't he the lord mayor of London ? " "I believe so."
" Why, you're a swell ? " "I don't see it."
"Who is this?" " My father."
" General Siegwart?" "That's his title."
" If I had known you were such a big gun I should have
been afraid of you."
" I can't see why. I do not inherit the titles of either my
father or uncle."
" I see you still have your holy images ? "
" Yes, they go where I do."
" I happened in with worse since I left you." " Yes ? "
"Yes indeed, I've struck the nasty this time. All the filthy
things that Amedee lays hold of he posts on the wall ; they
make me sick."
"Why don't you clear out?"
"Well, I begin to see that a fellow can't have everything
as he wants it. The wretched food at Mrs. Bleedums made me
ill last winter, and lost me a month. Greasy food, sloppy
coffee, and the rest of it. Mrs. Bangs keeps a good table.
She can't give me a room to myself, and I could not well af-
ford to pay for it if she did. I don't mind telling you,
Siegwart, that my father is a poor minister, and that I am the
eldest of nine children. I got a scholarship at the university,
and an old family friend pays my board. I am awfully sorry
that I cut up so roughly about your holy pictures, and I am
not ashamed to say that I see now that I was a fool."
" Sit down Du, and let's have it out ; you went off at half-
cock and I should have had more sense than to mind such a
whipper-snapper pardon me. First, I had a perfect right to use
my territory as best suited my convenience so long as I did
not interfere with your side. If I were to shout and kick, you
750 A MODERN ICONOCLAST. [Mar.,
would be justified in protesting against my infernal clatter
because it would make study impossible."
"You're a reasonable fellow, Siegwart. How came you to
offer me a share in your room ? "
"As usual, a mixed motive; I sized you up last year, and
found you clean and honest. I wanted to get good surround-
ings at a low tariff, and to cut from a crowd of fellows so con-
genial that I could not work. I must let sport go this year
and work like the mischief. Army life shows a man that un-
less he works he's not worth shucks."
" This is a fine room."
" Bully, and there are no women to object if the fellows
make an occasional row."
" I suppose you can't comprehend my objection to your
images."
" I confess I can't understand intolerance and the rash judg-
ment of the Pharisee. How dared you accuse me of worship-
ping images? Do I look like a wallowing idolater? Did I rave
at you last year when you told of the hundreds of roses you
cut from your mother's garden to decorate the Liberty Bell as
it journeyed homeward from Chicago ? "
"That was prompted by patriotic spirit."
" Look here Du, will you tell me that your Redeemer is not
as dear to you as 'the bell that proclaims liberty throughout
the land ' ? Did not the Lord Jesus Christ die to give liberty
to every human being from Adam down, for time and eternity?
I should have given you some explanation before, but that I
make it a rule never to argue with a leaden-headed sulk. If you
want to come back, say the word ; I don't want to share my
room with every man. I know you are quiet and no sneak, and
I also know that I can be of service to you. I saw your
mother in town last winter, and resolved to keep an eye on
her son ; on you depends her happiness. In this room I can
promise freedom from filthy talk and beastly pictures, and
that, you know, is something in this neighborhood."
"You're a good fellow, Siegwart, and I will not forget this
talk."
" Get your traps, sonny, and say no more."
Godfrey found Conrad a hard student and a wonderful
helper.
"Pile up your questions, Du, and if I cannot answer them
I will show you where to look. You are welcome to use my
books, but replace them and don't shift the markers."
1 895.] A MODERN ICONOCLAST. 751
Conrad found an old acquaintance at table one evening.
Miss Shrewsbury and he had been fellow-boarders the previous
winter and had become very good friends.
" Who is your chum ? " she inquired.
" Oh, my room-mate ? He's a man from the agricultural
department of your noble State."
"Don't jeer, young man."
" I intended a compliment, Miss Lucy ; but the acidulous
character of your temperament changed the milk of human
kindness into an indigestible curd."
"You know we cannot all breathe the air of the sand-lots,
nor boast of our ancestors the Pioneers."
"A truce. Where are you living?"
" In various places. I am booked here for table-board, and
have a room across the street."
"To what Mass do you go to-morrow?"
" The eleven o'clock."
"Can you lend me your alarm?" "With pleasure."
" I must go to the half-past six or not at all."
" I'll leave the clock with the chambermaid to-night."
" What's the row ? " cried Godfrey as the ting-a-ling-ling of
the tiny clock sounded at six A.M. on All Saints' day.
" Go to sleep, my baby, my baby, my ba-a-a-by," sang Con-
rad, as he stalked over to the wash-stand.
" No, but what are you up to ? "
" Going to Mass, thou precious child."
" Can't you stop that darned thing ? "
"Yes, love; I'll immerse it in the water-pitcher."
With a grunt of desperation Godfrey ducked his head be-
neath the blankets.
At dinner Conrad returned the clock to Miss Shrewsbury.
"I hope my property did not interfere with your morning
nap, Mr. Dubois ? " she said as Conrad left the parlor.
" Oh ! not much. I wish I could get up at six every morning."
"What time do you go to bed?" "About twelve."
" You should have at least seven hours."
" Oh ! I can get on with very little sleep if I must ; but Sieg-
wart is the greediest man in that line that I ever saw. I've
known him to go to bed at nine o'clock and sleep solidly until
ten the next morning. He must think a k>t of his church to
go off as he did at half-past six."
"Yes; he never misses Mass on the days of obligation.
Have you many Catholic friends, Mr. Dubois?"
752 A MODERN ICONOCLAST. [Mar.,.
" No ; I never knew any until I met Siegwart. I find I en-
tertained very erroneous impressions about their belief. I have
been looking into some of Conrad's books and find the doctrines
quite the contrary of what I have credited them with."
With a tentative " Yes ? " Miss Shrewsbury departed.
Finding Conrad the only man at breakfast next morning she
attempted to relieve her mind.
" I think you have a probable convert on your hands, Mr.
Siegwart."
" Who may he be ? " " Your room-mate."
" Why do you say so ? "
" We had a word or two after dinner."
" Now, Miss Lucy, you've been fishing again."
" Oh ! indeed, no ; it all came from himself quite spontane-
ously. He has been reading some of your Catholic books."
" Ha, ha ! That explains the presence of Catholic Belief be-
tween the leaves of Ashursfs Surgery. I wondered how it got
there and credited it to the blundering chambermaid."
" Did you ever invite him to go to church with you ? "
"Not I."
"Don't you think you should?"
" Now, Miss Lucy, that's quite in your line."
" I should not hesitate a minute but for the gossip."
"And you will keep the poor youth out of the church
through your self-love ? Fie upon you ! "
" I know you are but chaffing, but there is some truth in
what you say."
As Miss Shrewsbury passed out the following evening she
found the young men enjoying the woodbine-scented air whilst
they smoked their cigars on the porch.
" Fine night for a walk, Miss Shrewsbury."
" Yes, Mr. Dubois ; would you like to escort me to church ? ""
" What time can I be back ? " " In an hour."
" Thank you ; I will be delighted to go with you."
Sage Miss Shrewsbury asked no account of Mr. Dubois'
impressions as they returned, but remarked casually that cere-
monies on Sunday at last Mass and Vespers were accompanied
by the music of a very fine choir, and invited the youth to take
possession of her pew whenever he felt inclined. On Sunday
morning she handed him the admirable leaflet, A Companion to
High Mass for the Use of non-Catholics. Thus it happened that
Godfrey Dubois soon became a regular attendant at High Mass
and Vespers.
iS95-] A MODERN ICONOCLAST, 753
" Why don't you take your friend to see a priest ? " said
Miss Lucy one evening in May.
" Why don't you take him yourself, my friend ? "
"Don't you know Father Hoffman?"
"As well as I want to know him."
" Oh ! I see what's the matter ; you've not made your Easter
and we are nearing Trinity Sunday."
"Indeed, Miss Lucy, you should set up as a professional
mind-reader."
" Never mind me ; just turn your attention to the main point.
I know the examinations are a horrid grind, but you will meet
them better if you just run over to church. The priests are
hearing for to-morrow first Friday, you know."
It was with joyful heart Miss Shrewsbury recognized Conrad
among the communicants who thronged to the altar-rail next
morning; the glad sunlight streaming through the tinted
windows glorified his golden locks. His was a noble figure,
and in his face shone the nobility of Christian manhood
" giving to God the things that are God's," whilst not unmind-
ful of those belonging to Caesar.
Gradually Godfrey's prejudices melted away in the Catholic
atmosphere he inhaled that winter. The talks at the Ozanam
Club brought him in contact with many who he was surprised
to find were members of the church he had thought so despica-
ble.
They were a lot of boyish fellows when at recreation,
merciless in their chaffing of one another, and untiring in argu-
ment, but also clear-headed and well-informed. The men were
surprised one evening by the visit of a distinguished Catholic
bishop, who, passing through the city, called on them to say a
few words of encouragement. Bishop Quincy was another
Saint Francis de Sales, gifted with keen penetration allied
with exquisite tact, and animated with that ardent love for
souls that characterizes the saint. Godfrey was enchanted with
him. A few simple, earnest words of congratulation, followed
by the introduction of each member to the delightful visitor,
speedily brought familiar intercourse ; the tone was that of a
family reunion of those long separated.
"Why my dear boy! You are the son of Barnes of '85,
and"
" You here all the way from Dakota ? I knew your mother
well ; she was in Washington the year the war broke out."
"And you, my friend? What State do you represent*"
VOL. LX. 48
754 A MODERN ICONOCLAST. [Mar.,
asked the good bishop, holding in an affectionate clasp
Godfrey's rather rigid hand, while his bright eyes appeared to
read the young man's soul. " Ah, another of great Pennsylva-
nia's sons ! Don't you think Catholics are a queer lot ? "
Godfrey started. How did this strange man know that he
was not a Catholic?
" May I ask, bishop, how you discovered that my friend is
not of the one fold ? "
" Well now that is easily accounted for. Our Divine Lord
said: I know mine and they know me, and he has endowed his
shepherds with many of his qualities ; another reason is that
Catholics approach their spiritual fathers with an air of confi-
dence that cannot be expected from the non-Catholic."
" But how do you get on with these people, Mr. Dubois ?
College men are often a teasing lot."
" Oh, very pleasantly, bishop ! I was a lonely waif in this
great city until they adopted me. I knew no Catholics until I
met Mr. Siegwart ; his friendliness has been not only a great
comfort, but a great help in my studies ; whilst using his books
I came across Catholic Belief and for the first time in my life
learned the doctrines of your church."
" You know that every acquired truth brings additional re-
sponsibility ? "
" I am finding that out, and when examinations are over I
hope to give the subject the attention it demands."
Hot weather came suddenly, and proved most oppressive to
the sorely pressed student. Happy the man to whom cool
blood was a birth-right. The neighborhood of the university
in an extensive radius was heavy with the apprehensions con-
sequent on examinations. " Woe to him who had sacrificed study
to pleasure ! " Amede was seen through the open door of his
room seated at the table on which his elbows rested ; with
head plunged between his hands, he presented a pitiable object.
The ballet-dancers leered at him from the walls; his eye rested
on one face as he looked up. Springing from his chair, he tore
the picture from the wall in a fury. " D you," he muttered,
" I should not be in this mess to-day but for your nonsense."
With hat pulled over his eyes and book under his arm, he
strode out and down the street. As the clock struck ten he
faced the examiner.
In half an hour he re-entered his chamber, tumbled his
clothes into a trunk, stamped on them until he could close the
lid. Lifting the trunk he carried it down to the pave and
1 89 5.] A MODERN ICONOCLAST. 755
hailed a passing car, which swiftly carried him to the station ;
a pitiful contrast to the handsome youth who came like the
fortunate prince, a beau ideal for the admiration of many a
gushing maiden. They voted his " lovely eyes " and " elegant
moustache " just " grand." Haggard, dishevelled, with blood-
shot eyes and aching head, he was borne through a land riot-
ing in the luxuriant growth of spring.
Beauty everywhere but within ; there the tortures of hell
were seething ruin, rage, but not remorse; he blamed every-
body but himself. To what was he going ? What welcome
could he find at home? His mother had stinted herself and
spared in all directions to spend on his education. He knew
he. might still deceive her, and pose as a victim but his sister,
clear-sighted Margaret? She would read him like an open
book, and despise him. How could he meet his debts ? Mrs.
Bangs would probably advertise all over that he left without
paying his board. He groaned in his agony.
,, Godfrey postponed his appearance before the examiners un-
til the close of the week ; he reported to Conrad at twilight.
" I've downed three of them, and I don't know anything
about it. When I tackled Dr. X he paid no more attention
to me than if I had been a tack in the leather of his chair ;
after one or two questions, he looked at me grimly and
shouted :
" Where do you live, young man ? "
" I'll be blessed if I know," said I.
"Just as I thought," said he; "look here, go out and walk
as fast as you can for half an hour. I'll see you then."
, " I took his prescription, and I suppose did better, but he
vouchsafed no word good or bad."
"That's all right; you think too much of the man; put him
out of your head altogether ; think only of your subject."
".Whom do you face next?"
Dr. z ." You need have no fear ; you are ready for
him. He thinks only of the matter you give him. Some of the
professors are vulnerable ; you can tickle them into good humor
by ) an allusion to their favorite theory or some other small
trick ; but Z is inflexible, and hopelessly just."
Commencement-day brought to Godfrey the coveted honor
of second place. Conrad received his diploma and an average
in the honor list. The evening train carried them both from
the city, and with the rising sun they entered the garden of
" Rosevale." The parsonage was set within an Eden of rural
756 A MODERN ICONOCLAST. [Mar.,
beauty, and the juveniles of the Dubois household came in a
welcoming swarm.
Breakfast was a substantial delight, and the porch invited
them afterward to social intercourse.
" Are your parents living, Mr. Siegwart ? " inquired God-
frey's mother.
" My mother died five years ago ; my father is stationed at
Fort Leavenworth."
" Then you are a son of General Siegwart ; are you an only
child ? "
" Oh, no ! my eldest brother is a priest of the Redemptorist
order ; my sister is a nun and superior of a convent in Boston.
My younger brother is still at Santa Clara College, where I
graduated. The journey home is so costly an experiment and
the members of our family are so scattered that I have con-
cluded to take a short vacation in the Catskills, as soon as I
hear from the hospital to which I hope to be elected. Can
you spare Godfrey for a month ? I mean to make the trip
cheaply, and I think the mountain air will serve both of us.
Godfrey has done splendidly, and is well prepared for next
year's studies."
"You have been such a good friend to Godfrey, Mr. Sieg-
wart, that we cannot easily refuse your request ; our boy's let-
ters have shown us that to you he owes his success this year."
" Indeed, Mrs. Dubois, any little help I have been able to
give, I have received full compensation for in your son's com-
panionship."
Sunday morning saw the two young men setting off for a
three-mile walk to the nearest Catholic church. In the evening
Godfrey took his friend to Pinnacle Hill, from which they had
a fine view of sunset on the Susquehanna. Before retiring the
Rev. Mr. Dubois called Godfrey into the library; Mrs. Dubois
followed them ; her pious soul had suffered disappointment in
the absence of her son from both morning and evening ser-
vices; but the return home of Amede before commencement
had given his defeat to the little world of Swansdowne. Letters
had been received by some of the young people of the neigh-
borhood detailing some of the incidents in his career, and the
principal fact that he had been " thrown." Mrs. Dubois wisely
concluded that virtue and honor even through Catholicity were
preferable to libertinism that brought ruin for this world and
the next.
Godfrey was amazed at the toleration he found from his par-
I895-]
A MODERN ICONOCLAST.
757
cnts ; his father soon acquainted him with the reason. Swans-
down e had been visited by one of the missionary fathers, who
had lectured in the town-hall during the evenings of an entire
week; questions had been answered from the platform, and the
listeners learned that the dogmas of the Catholic Church pre-
sented by. a Catholic priest were very. unlike the doctrines as-
signed to her by those outside her fold. Rev. Mr. Dubois was
a thoughtful man, and was much impressed by the statement
that the world is now divided between Catholicity and Infidelity,
that Protestantism is but a name for various shades of antagon-
ism to the Catholic Church, and that no two outside her fold
are united in their acceptance of dogma.
Confusion confounded is the result of private interpretation.
As this must be a short story, there remains but to tell that
the Catskill trip proved a great success, ennobling alike to mind
and body.
In December Conrad left his beloved hospital duty for a
brief trip to Boston and acted as sponsor to his friend, who was
baptized on the 8th, the patronal feast of the United States
the Immaculate Conception.
;'; Conrad urged Doctor Hoffman to allow Miss Shrewsbury to
act as godmother, but the reverend gentleman declined ; saying,
^with a quizzical expression in his gray eyes, that he desired to
avoid all future complications.
Poor Miss Shrewsbury blushed painfully as she said : " Why,
doctor, I'm too old to be the wife of either of these boys."
" Never too late to marry or mend," quoth the priest.
758 THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. [Mar.,
THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION.*
BY RIGHT REV. J. L. SPALDING, D.D. (of Peorz'a).
fUR system of Public-School Education is a result
of the faith of the people in the need of univer-
sal intelligence for the maintenance of popular gov-
ernment. Does this system include moral train-
ing? Since the teaching of religious doctrines is
precluded, this, I imagine, is what we are to consider in discuss-
ing the Scope of Public-School Education. The equivalents of
scope are aim, end, opportunity, range of view; and the equi-
valents of education are training, discipline, development, instruc-
tion. The proper meaning of the word education, it seems, is
not a drawing out, but a training up, as vines are trained to
lay hold of and rise by means of what is stronger than them-
selves. My subject, then, is the aim, end, opportunity, and
range of view of public-school education, which to be education
at all, in any true sense, must be a training, discipline, develop-
ment, and instruction of man's whole being, physical, intellec-
tual, and moral. This, I suppose, is what Herbert Spencer
means when he defines education to be a preparation for com-
plete living. Montaigne says the end of education is wisdom
and virtue ; Comenius declares it to be knowledge, virtue, and
religion ; Milton, likeness to God through virtue and faith ;
Locke, health of body, virtue, and good manners; Herbart,
virtue, which is the realization in each one of the idea of inner
freedom; while Kant and Fichte declare it to consist chiefly in
the formation of character. All these thinkers agree that the
supreme end of education is spiritual or ethical. The control-
ling aim, then, should be, not to impart information but to up-
build the being which makes us human, to form habits of right
thinking and doing. The ideal is virtually that of Israel that
righteousness is life though the Greek ideal of beauty and
freedom may not be excluded. It is the doctrine that manners
maketh man, that conduct is three-fourths of life, leaving but
one-fourth for intellectual activity and aesthetic enjoyment ; and
into this fourth of life but few ever enter in any real way,
while all are called and may learn to do good and avoid evil.
*An Address delivered before the Sunset Club, Chicago.
1 895.] THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 759
"In the end," says Ruskin, "the God of heaven and earth
loves active, modest, and kind people, and hates idle, proud,
greedy, and cruel ones." We can all learn to become active,
modest, and kind ; to turn from idleness, pride, greed, and
cruelty. But we cannot all make ourselves capable of living in
the high regions of pure thought and ideal beauty*; and for the
few even who are able to do this, it is still true that conduct
is three-fourths of life.
"The end of man," says Buchner, "is conversion into car-
bonic acid, water, and ammonia." This also is an ideal, and
he thinks we should be pleased to know that in dying we give
back to the universe what had been lent. He moralizes too;
but if all we can know of our destiny is that we shall be convert-
ed into carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, the sermon may be
omitted. On such a faith it is not possible to found a satis-
factory system of education. Men will always refuse to think
thus meanly of themselves, and in answer to those who would
persuade them they are but brutes, they will, with perfect con-
fidence, claim kinship with God ; for from an utterly frivolous
view of life both our reason and our instinct turn.
The Scope of Public-School Education is to co-operate with
the physical, social, and religious environment to form good
and wise men and women. Unless we bear in mind that the
school is but one of several educational agencies, we shall not
form a right estimate of its office. It depends almost wholly
for its success upon the kind of material furnished it by the
home, the state, and the church ; and, to confine our view to
our own country, I have little hesitation in affirming that our
home life, our social and political life, and our religious life
have contributed far more to make us what we are than any
and all of our schools. The school, unless it works in harmony
with these great forces, can do little more than sharpen the
wits. Many of the teachers of our Indian schools are doubt-
less competent and earnest, but their pupils, when they return
to their tribes, quickly lose what they have gained, because
they are thrown into an environment which annuls the ideals
that prevailed in the school. The controlling aim of our teach-
ers should be, therefore, to bring their pedagogical action into
harmony with what is best in the domestic, social, and religious
life of the child ; for this is the foundation on which they must
build, and to weaken it is to expose the whole structure to
ruin. Hence the teacher's attitude towards the child should be
that of sympathy with him in his love for his parents, his
country, and his religion. His reason is still feeble, and his
760 THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. [Mar.,
life is largely one of feeling, and the fountain-heads of his
purest and noblest feelings are precisely his parents, his coun-
try, and his religion, and to tamper with them is to poison the
wells whence he draws the water of life. To assume and hold
this attitude with sincerity and tact is difficult ; it requires
both character and culture ; it implies a genuine love of man-
kind and of human excellence ; reverence for whatever uplifts,
purifies, and strengthens the heart ; knowledge of the world, of
literature, and of history, united with an earnest desire to do
whatever may be possible to lead each pupil towards life in its
completeness, which is health and healthful activity of body
and mind and heart and soul.
As the heart makes the home, the teacher makes the school.
What we need above all things, wherever the young are gath-
ered for education, is not a showy building, or costly apparatus,
or improved methods or text-books, but a living, loving, illu-
mined human being who has deep faith in the power of educa-
tion and a real desire to bring it to bear upon those who are
entrusted to him. This applies to the primary school with as
much force as to the high school and university. Those who
think, and they are, I imagine, the vast majority, that any one
who can read and write, who knows something of arithmetic,
geography, and history, is competent to educate young children,
have not even the most elementary notions of what education is.
What the teacher is, not what he utters and inculcates, is the
important thing. The life he lives and whatever reveals that
life to his pupils ; his unconscious behavior, even ; above all,
what in his inmost soul he hopes, believes, and loves, have far
deeper and more potent influence than mere lessons can ever
have. It is precisely here that we Americans, whose talent is
predominantly practical and inventive, are apt to go astray.
We have won such marvellous victories with our practical sense
and inventive genius, that we have grown accustomed to look
to them for aid, whatever the nature of the difficulty or problem
may be. Machinery can be made to do much and to do well
what it does. With its help we move rapidly; we bring the
ends of the earth into instantaneous communication ; we print
the daily history of the world and throw it before every door ;
we plough and we sow and we reap ; we build cities and we fill
our houses with whatever conduces to comfort or luxury. All
this and much more machinery enables us to do. But it cannot
create life, nor can it, in any effective way, promote vital pro-
cesses. Now, education is essentially a vital process. It is a
furthering of life; and as the living proceed from the living,
1895.] THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 761
they can rise into the wider world of ideas and conduct only
by the help of the living; and as in the physical realm every
animal begets after its own likeness, so also in the spiritual
the teacher can give but what he has. If the well-spring of
truth and love has run dry within himself, he teaches in vain.
His words will no more bring forth life than desert winds will
clothe arid sands with verdure. Much talking and writing about
education have chiefly helped to obscure a matter which is
really plain. The purpose of the public school is or should be
not to form a mechanic or a specialist of any kind, but to form
a true man or woman. Hence the number of things we teach
the child is of small moment. Those schools, in fact, in which
the greatest number of things are taught give, as a rule, the
least education. The character of the Roman people, which en-
abled them to dominate the earth and to give laws to the
world, was formed before they had schools, and when their
schools were most flourishing they themselves were in rapid
moral and social dissolution. We make education and religion
too much a social affair, and too little a personal affair. Their
essence lies in their power to transform the individual, and it
is only in transforming him that they recreate the wider life
of the community. The Founder of Christianity addressed him-
self to the individual, and gave little heed to the state or other
environment. He looked to a purified inner source of life to
create for itself a worthier environment, and simply ignored de-
vices for working sudden and startling changes. They who have
entered into the hidden meaning of this secret and this method
turn in utter incredulity from the schemes of declaimers and
agitators.
The men who fill the world, each with his plan for reform-
ing and saving it, may have their uses, since the poet tells us
there are uses in adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and ven-
omous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head ; but to one deaf-
ened by their discordant and clamorous voices, the good pur-
pose they serve seems to be as mythical as the jewel in the
toad's head.
Have not those who mistake their crotchets for nature's laws
invaded our schools? Have they not succeeded in forming a
public opinion and in setting devices at work which render edu-
cation in the true sense of the word, if not impossible, difficult ?
Literature is a criticism of life, made by those who are in love
with life, and who have the deepest faith in its possibilities;
and all criticism which is inspired by sympathy and faith and
controlled by knowledge is helpful. Complacent thoughts are
762 THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. [Man,
rarely true, and hardly ever useful. It is a prompting of nature
to turn from what we have to what we lack, for thus only is
there hope of amendment and progress. We are, to quote
Emerson,
"Built of furtherance and pursuing,
Not of spent deeds, but of doing."
Hence the wise and the strong dwell not upon their virtues
and accomplishments, but strive to learn wherein they fail, for
it is in correcting this they desire to labor. They wish to know
the truth about themselves, are willing to try to see themselves
as others see them, that self-knowledge may make self-improve-
ment possible. They turn from flattery, for they understand
that flattery is insult. Now, if this is the attitude of wise and
strong men, how much more should it not be that of a wise
and strong people? Whenever persons or things are viewed
as related in some special way to ourselves, our opinions of
them will hardly be free from bias. When, for instance, I think
or speak of my country, my religion, my friends, my enemies,.
I find it difficult to put away the prejudice which my self-esteem
and vanity create, and which, like a haze, ever surrounds me
to color or obscure the pure light of reason. It cannot d6
us harm to have our defects and short-comings pointed out to-
us, but to be told by demagogues and declaimers that we are
the greatest, the most enlightened, the most virtuous people
which exists or has existed, can surely do us no good. If it is
true, we should not dwell upon it, for this will but distract us
from striving for the things in which we are deficient ; and if
it is false, it can only mislead us and nourish a foolish conceit;
It is the orator's misfortune to be compelled to think of his
audience rather than of truth. It is his business to please, per-
suade, and convince ; and men are pleased with flattering lies;
persuaded and convinced by appeals to passion and interest.
Happier is the writer, who need not think of a- reader, but
finds his reward in the truth he expresses.
It is not possible for an enlightened mind not to take pro-
found interest in our great system of public education. To do
this he need not think it the best possible system. He may
deem it defective in important requisites. He may hold, as I
hold, that the system is of minor importance the kind of
teacher being all important. But if he loves his country, if he
loves human excellence, if he has faith in man's capacity for
growth, he cannot but turn his thoughts, with abiding attention
and sympathy, to the generous and determined efforts of a
1895-] THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 763
powerful and vigorous people to educate themselves. Were our
public-school system nothing more than the nation's profession
of faith in the transforming power of education, it would be an
omen of good and a ground for hope, and one cannot do more
useful work than to help to form a public opinion which will
accept with thankfulness the free play of all sincere minds about
this great question, and which will cause the genuine lovers of
our country to turn in contempt from the clamors politicians
and bigots are apt to raise when an honest man utters honest
thought on this all-important subject.
I am willing to assume and to accept as a fact that our
theological differences make it impossible to introduce the
teaching of any religious creed into the public school. I take
the system as it is that is, as a system of secular education
and I address myself more directly to the question proposed :
What is or should be its scope?
The fact that religious instruction is excluded makes it all
the more necessary that humanizing and ethical aims should be
kept constantly in view. Whoever teaches in a public school
should be profoundly convinced that man is more than an
animal which may be taught cunning and quickness. A weed
in blossom may have a certain beauty, but it will bear no
fruit ; and so the boy or youth one often meets, with his ir-
reverent smartness, his precocious pseudo-knowledge of a hun-
dred things, may excite a kind of interest, but he gives little
promise of a noble future. The flower of his life is the blossom
of the weed, which in its decay will poison the air, or, at the
best, serve but to fertilize the soil. If we are to work to good
purpose we must take our stand, with the great thinkers and
educators, on the broad field of man's nature and act in the
light of the only true ideal of education that its end is
wisdom, virtue, knowledge, power, reverence, faith, health, be-
havior, hope, and love ; in a word, whatever powers and capaci-
ties make for intelligence, for conduct, for character, for com-
pleteness of life. Not for a moment should we permit our-
selves to be deluded by the thought that because the teaching
of religious creeds is excluded, therefore we may make no
appeal to the fountain-heads which sleep within every breast, the
welling of whose waters alone has power to make us human.
If we are forbidden to turn the current into this or that
channel, we are not forbidden to recognize the universal truth
that man lives by faith, hope, and love, by imagination and
desire, and that it is precisely for this reason that he is edu-
cable. We move irresistibly in the lines of our real faith and
764 THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. [Mar.,
desire, and the educator's great purpose is to help us to believe
in what is high and to desire what is good. Since for the ir-
reverent and vulgar spirit nothing is high or good, reverence,
and the refinement which is the fruit of true intelligence, urge
ceaselessly their claims on the teacher's attention. Goethe, I
suppose, was little enough of a Christian to satisfy the
demands of an agnostic cripple even, and yet he held that the
best thing in man is the thrill of awe; and that the chief busi-
ness of education is to cultivate reverence for whatever is
above, beneath, around, and within us. This he believed to be
the only philosophical and healthful attitude of mind and heart
towards the universe, seen and unseen. May not the meanest
flower that blows bring thoughts that lie too deep for tears?
Is not reverence a part of all the sweetest and purest feelings
which bind us to father and mother, to friends and home and
country ? Is it not the very bloom and fragrance, not only of
the highest religious faith but also of the best culture? Let
the thrill of awe cease to vibrate, and you will have a world in
which money is more than man, office better than honesty, and
books like Innocents Abroad or Peck's Bad Boy more indicative
of the kind of man we form than are the noblest works of
genius. What is the great aim of the primary school, if it is
not the nutrition of feeling ? The child is weak in mind, weak
in will, but he is most impressionable. Feeble in thought, he is
strong in capacity to feel the emotions which are the sap of the
tree of moral life. He responds quickly to the appeals of love,
tenderness, and sympathy. He is alive to whatever is noble,
heroic, and venerable. He desires the approbation of others,
especially of those whom he believes to be true and high and
pure. He has unquestioning faith, not only in God but in
great men, who, for him, indeed, are earthly gods. Is not his
father a divine man, whose mere word drives away all fear
and fills him with confidence ? The touch of his mother's hand
stills his pain ; if he is frightened, her voice is enough to soothe
him to sleep. To imagine that we are educating this being of
infinite sensibility and impressionability when we do little else
than teach him to read, write, and cipher, is to cherish a delu-
sion. It is not his destiny to become a reading, writing, and
ciphering machine, but to become a man who believes, hopes,
and loves, who holds to sovereign truth and is swayed by
sympathy, who looks up with reverence and awe to the heavens
and hearkens with cheerful obedience to the call of duty, who
has habits of right thinking and well doing which have become
1895.] THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION, 765,
a law unto him, a second nature. And if it be said that we all
recognize this to be so, but that it is not the business of the
school to help to form such a man ; that it does its work when it
sharpens the wits, I will answer with the words of William von
Humboldt : " Whatever we wish to see introduced into the life
of a nation must first be introduced into its schools."
Now, what we wish to see introduced into the life of the
nation is not the power of shrewd men, wholly absorbed in
the striving for wealth, reckless of the means by which it is
gotten, and who, whether they succeed or whether they fail,
look upon money as the equivalent of the best things man
knows or has ; who therefore think that the highest purpose of
government, as of other social forces and institutions, is to
make it easy for all to get abundance of gold and to live in
sloven plenty; but what we wish to see introduced into the
life of the nation is the power of intelligence and virtue, of
wisdom and conduct. We believe, and in fact know, that hu-
manity, justice, truthfulness, honesty, honor, fidelity, courage,
integrity, reverence, purity, and self-respect are higher and
mightier than anything mere sharpened wits can accomplish.
But if these virtues, which constitute nearly the whole sum of
man's strength and worth, are to be introduced into the life of
the nation, they must be introduced into the schools, into the
process of education. We must recognize, not in theory alone
but in practice, that the chief end of education is ethical, since
conduct is three-fourths of human life. The aim must be to
make men true in thought and word, pure in desire, faithful
in act, upright in deed ; men who understand that the highest
good does not lie in the possession of anything whatsoever, but
that it lies in power and quality of being; for whom what we
are and not what we have is the guiding principle ; who know
that the best work is not that for which we receive most pay,
but that which is most favorable to life, physical, moral, intel-
lectual, and religious ; since man does not exist for work or
the Sabbath, but work and rest exist for him, that he may
thrive and become more human and more divine. We must
cease to tell boys and girls that education will enable them to
get hold of the good things of which they believe the world to
be full ; we must make them realize rather that the best thing
in the world is a noble man or woman, and to be that is the
only certain way to a worthy and contented life. All talk
about patriotism, which implies that it is possible to be a
patriot or a good citizen without being a true and good man,
766 THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. [Mar.,
is sophistical and hollow. How shall he who cares not for his
better self care for his country ?
We must look, as educators, most closely to those sides of
the national life where there is the greatest menace of ruin. It
is plain that our besetting sin, as a people, is not intemperance
or unchastity, but dishonesty. From the watering and manipu-
lating of stocks to the adulteration of food and drink, from
the booming of towns and lands to the selling of votes and the
buying of office, from the halls of Congress to the policeman's
beat, from the capitalist who controls trusts and syndicates to
the mechanic who does inferior work, the taint of dishonesty is
everywhere. We distrust one another, distrust those who man-
age public affairs, distrust our own fixed will ,to suffer the
worst that may befall rather than cheat or steal or lie. Dis-
honesty hangs, like mephitic air, about our newspapers, our
legislative assemblies, the municipal government of our towns
and cities, about our churches even, since our religion itself
seems to lack that highest kind of honesty, the downright and
thorough sincerity which is its life-breath.
If the teacher in the public school may not insist that an
honest man is the noblest work of God, he may teach at least
that he who fails in honesty fails in the most essential quality
of manhood, enters into warfare with the forces which have
made him what he is and which secure him the possession of
what he holds dearer than himself, since he barters for it his
self-respect; that the dishonest man is an anarchist and dis-
socialist, one who does what in him lies to destroy credit, and
the sense of the sacredness of property, obedience to law, and
belief in the rights of man. If our teachers are to work in the
light of an ideal, if they are to have a conscious end in view,
as all who strive intelligently must have, if they are to hold a
principle which will give unity to their methods, they must seek
it in the idea of morality, of conduct which is three-fourths of life.
I myself am persuaded that the real and philosophical basis
of morality is the being of God, a being absolute, infinite, un-
imaginable, inconceivable, of whom our highest and nearest
thought is that he is not only almighty, but all-wise and all-
good as well. But it is possible, I think, to cultivate the moral
sense without directly and expressly assigning to it this philo-
sophical and religious basis, for goodness is largely its own evi-
dence, as virtue is its own reward. It all depends on the teach-
er. Life produces life life develops life, and if the teacher
have within himself a living sense of the all-importance of con-
1895/0 THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 767
duct, if he thoroughly realize that what we call knowledge is
but a small part of man's life, his influence will nourish the
feelings by which character is evolved. The germ of a moral
idea is always an emotion, and that which impels to right ac-
tion is the emotion rather than the idea. The' teachings of the
heart remain for ever, and they are the most important, for what
we love, genuinely believe in, and desire decides what we are
and may become. Hence the true educator, even in giving
technical instruction, strives not merely to make a workman, but
to make also a man, whose being shall be touched to finer is-
sues by spiritual powers, who shall be upheld by faith in the
worth and sacredness of life, and in the education by which it
is transformed, enriched, purified, and ennobled. He under-
stands that an educated man, who, in the common acceptation
of the phrase, is one who knows something, who knows many
things, is, in truth, simply one who has acquired habits of right
thinking and right doing. The culture which we wish to see
prevail throughout our country is not learning and literary
skill, it is character and intellectual openness, that higher hu-
manity which is latent within us all, which is power, wisdom,
truth, goodness, love, sympathy, grace, and beauty, whose sur-
passing excellence the poor may know as well as the rich, whose
charm the multitude may feel as well as the chosen few.
" He who speaks of the people," says Guicciardini, " speaks,
in sooth, of a foolish animal, a prey to a thousand errors, a
thousand confusions, without taste, without affection, without
firmness." The scope of our public-school education is to
make commonplaces of this kind, by which all literature is
pervaded, so false as to be absurd ; and when this end shall
have been attained, Democracy will have won its noblest victory.
How shall we find the secret from which hope of such
success will spring? By so forming and directing the power of
public opinion, of national approval, and of money as to make
the best men and women willing and ready to enter the
teacher's profession. The kind of man who educates is the
test of the kind of education given^ and there is properly no
other test. When we Americans shall have learned to believe
with all our hearts and with all the strength of irresistible
conviction that a true educator is a more important, in every
way a more useful sort of man than a great railway king, or
pork butcher, or captain of industry, or grain buyer, or stock
manipulator, we shall have begun to make ourselves capable of
perceiving the real scope of public-school education.
768 CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE. [Mar.,
CHRIST'S MASTERPIECE.
BY BARNET TOLDRIDGE.
HOU Wonder of the Ages, ever new,
Yet evermore the same ! Thou throned Queen-
That since the sweet Christ rose hath trusted
been
With His grand Truth to help men dare and do \
And hath not proved a recreant to the trust,
But proudly, humbly, hath the jewel worn
Upon thy bosom, and hath humbly borne
The rebels' strife to hurl it in the dust !
These have gone out in hordes from thy sweet care;
Gone out to wander in the dark, to keep
Their children's children from the light, to steep
Their souls in doubt, in terror and despair.
They who are folded in thy sweet embrace,
O tender Mother ! know no wild unrest ;
But like the babes, pressed to the mother-breast,
Look up, confiding, to the mother-face !
No need for baffled questioning no need
For aught but to drink in the Life that's given,
And to list humbly while she breathes of Heaven,
And sweet unfolds her tender-guarded creed.
No need for fear, for doubt, for gropings blind !
Our God a God of Light ! His children know
He hath not left them to grope blindly so.
Light's in the world for all who wish to find !
Alas for those who found and flung away !
In the world's morning races forgot God ;
Set up their idols, in defilement trod,
And have not remembered to this day !
So with His Church: At it men's doubts are hurled,
Derision and contumely ; still it goes
Serenely on, Christ-led, whose promise was
" Unto the consummation of the world."
Naught shall prevail, world's might nor " gate of hell,"
O fixd Rock, so solid built to brave
All Time's resisting force and lapping wave
And mutability. Hail, Deathless Sentinel!
I895-]
Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA f
769
IS INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA?
BY A. M. CLARKE.
T might be imagined that the prevalence of infanti-
cide in China is a fact too well authenticated to
be called in question. It is, however, not only
disputed but denied in France in the present
day by a considerable number of journalists and
other writers, and the denial is based on the testimony of
certain recent travellers, who allege that throughout the course
of their journeying in the Celestial Empire nothing has met
their eye calculated to indicate or even suggest the existence of
this reprehensible practice. Furthermore, they declare it to be
a crime utterly at variance with the well-known desire of the
Chinese to possess children. But the animus and persistency
wherewith these writers endeavor to make good their point
argue a motive more powerful than the simple wish to refute
an unjust accusation, to pro- t
claim what they believe to be
the truth concerning a nation
that has been grossly calum-
niated. The real motive is
not far to seek. It is hatred
to religion.
DENIALS OF THE FRENCH
PRESS.
Their design is not to do
justice to the Chinese, but to
cast odium on the church, to
decry those who devote their
lives to spread the faith and to
save souls. The Catholic mis-
sioners assert that they have
been the means of rescuing
from an untimely death multitudes of helpless infants whom their
parents intended to destroy ; that in the refuges and orphanages
established by Christian charity, these children have been
sheltered, taught, and trained. To expose the fraudulent misre-
VOL. LX. 49
s'
THE EMPEROR OF CHINA.
77Q Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA? [Mar.,
presentations of the missioners, and to exhibit the work of the
Sainte Enfance a wide-spread and well-organized institution in
the light of a barefaced imposture, is the object the dpologists
of the Chinese have in view. Admitting that rare instances of
abandonment of unwelcome infants by unnatural mothers occur
in China as in every other country, they assert that for the
reception of these ample provision is made by government, by
the erection of foundling hospitals. Consequently the interfer-
ence of foreigners is quite superfluous, and the frequent appeals
made for the support of their refuges is nothing more or less
than a commercial speculation under the guise of charity, a
means of trading on the generosity of a too credulous public.
SUPERFICIAL OBSERVERS.
Since, then, it is a fresh and covert attack upon religion, an
attempt to bring missionary work into disrepute, that we have to
deal with, the question whether infanticide exists to any great
extent in China assumes a greater importance, and it may be
well to examine it more closely. With regard to the testimony
of the travellers already mentioned, it may be said that it is
only certain districts of China that the European, whether he
be tourist, diplomatist, or trader, ever visits, and in those parts
foreign influence has so far modified public opinion that in-
fanticide is scarcely practised at all, or at any rate kept well
out of sight. Thus the witness of the ordinary traveller, who
only sees the large towns and most frequented regions, is of
little weight, and cannot counterbalance the statements of men
of position and character who have dwelt for years among the
Chinese, and have had abundant opportunities to acquaint
themselves with the social life of the people; to enter, as far as
it is possible for a foreigner to do, into the penetralia of the
nation.
GIRLS REGARDED AS A DRUG IN THE MARKET.
The co-existence of infanticide with the universal desire for
children, a desire stronger perhaps in China than in any other
country, admits, like many apparent paradoxes, of a ready ex-
planation. The great object of desire is the possession of sons.
This is looked upon as the chief blessing of life. Consequently
girls are the only victims. The poorest people nourish and
cherish their sons. Their labor soon becomes remunerative, and
while the daughters marry and leave their home, the sons live
under the same roof with and support their parents in their old
1 895.] Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA ? 771
age ; and when these latter are gathered to their forefathers,
they perform for them the acts of ancestral worship. Death
loses half its terrors to the Chinaman if he is assured that his
sons will be present at his tomb to perform the customary rites
and offer the prescribed sacrifices, on the due performance of
which he believes the peace of his soul depends. One detail
given by Miss Gordon-Gumming, in her entertaining work upon
China,* will suffice to illustrate the different estimate in which
sons and daughters are held
even in families where no wish
exists to destroy the latter. In
certain districts of northern
China and elsewhere the medi-
cal charge for vaccinating a
boy is 800 cash (about nine-
pence). The charge for a girl
is only 400, because the par- ;|
ents would rather run the risk"
of her disfigurement or death
small-pox is the most de-
structive and terrible of diseases
in China than pay for her at
the same rate as for a son.
Chinese students of Bible his-
tory find it impossible to accept the first chapter of Exodus as an
accurate translation. It seems to them preposterous to assert
that Pharao could have commanded the boys to be destroyed
and the girls saved alive. " The proportion of female infanticide
(the same author writes) varies greatly in different provinces.
Throughout the province of Fuh-keen it is unusually high ; in
fact, there are districts where thirty per cent, of the girls are
put to death, strangled or else drowned like so many puppies.
In Fuh-choo it is quite a common thing for a mother to avow
that she has made away with three or four girls. Throughout
the empire the numerical disparity of girls is a painfully sug-
gestive characteristic."
THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL IN FUH-CHOO.
" In Fuh-choo city there is a foundling hospital ; many infants
are handed in anonymously by their own parents, but the miserable
children thus rescued are horribly neglected. The death-rate is
enormous, and about a coolie-load of dead babies per diem is carried
* Wanderings in CAt'na, by F. Gordon-Gumming, v. i. p. 193 seq.
772 Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA f [Mar.,
out of the hospital to receive uncoffined and unrecognized burial.
Such babies as survive acquire a definite value. They are fre-
quently purchased by childless couples who want to rear a servant
to tend their old age, or by provident parents who thus cheaply
provide secondary wives for their sons. The supernumerary sons
of poverty-stricken households are occasionally consigned to this
hospital, whence they are removed by sonless couples who wish
to adopt an heir to offer sacrifice for them after their death."
But as the reports of missioners and the accounts given by
travellers are often considered to be open to the charge of in-
accuracy and exaggeration, it is to the Chinese themselves that
we will turn, and seek from them the solution of the point at
issue.
No attempt is made by the Chinese to conceal the fact that
infanticide prevails among them to a great and lamentable
extent. The official proclamations of the government, the press
and literature of the country, afford ample, convincing, and in-
controvertible testimony that its existence is no myth, but a
terrible reality. Monsignor de Harlez, writing in a French peri-
odical * on this subject, brings forward an overwhelming amount
of documentary evidence, from which we shall in the course of
this paper give a few extracts. In a book published in 1869
the following passage occurs :
" Among the population of Tchang-nan it is customary for
parents to bring up one daughter ; if more are born to them,
they drown them."
" The custom of drowning female infants," writes another
author, " is followed in many districts ; but men of the literary
classes too often refuse to take cognizance of it, alleging that
where they live it is unknown. They little know that in their
district, in their immediate neighborhood, hundreds perish every
year ; hundreds of helpless infants who cry aloud for some one
to rescue them. No one proclaims this to them, so they stop
their ears and close their eyes that they may not hear or see
what goes on around them."
AN IMPERIAL INHIBITION.
A book entitled Stories with Illustrations, to prevent the
destruction of girls, published in the reign of the predecessor of
the present emperor, contains these words : " The practice of
drowning girls prevails everywhere in China, but it is met with
principally in the families of the poor. Already thoughtful and
*La Revue Gintrale, Juillet and AoGt, 1892, " L'Infanticide en Chine."
Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA?
773
humane men of letters are disseminating pictures and pamphlets
with the object of inducing them to desist from the commission
of this crime. In the books of the wise we are told of two
THE CHINESE VICEROY, Li HUNG CHANG.
means of prevention : the issue of prohibitory laws and the
relief of the necessitous poor. The former of these deterrent
measures has been tried. From time to time mandarins have
published decrees with this design, but they have remained a
774 Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA f [Mar.,
dead-letter. The people continue in the present, as in the past,
to drown their daughters with impunity."
In 1877 one of the Shanghai papers, the Wan-Koue-Kong-pao,
said :
" The drowning of little girls at their birth has reached such
a point that it may be said to be universal throughout the
empire. It is a custom most difficult of repression."
KILLING NO MURDER.
In the country districts, where infanticide chiefly prevails,
the poorer classes of the population count it no crime. Far
from endeavoring to conceal it, they avow it openly, and even
go to the length of defending the practice. " What is the
good," they say, " of rearing daughters ? When they are young
they are merely an expense, and when they reach an age when
they might be able to work for their living they marry and
leave us. Besides, thanks to the metempsychosis, death is for
them a signal advantage ; it may be the means of enabling them
to return to the earth as one of the other sex." When it
serves their end, the Chinese can be good disciples of Buddha.
There is no doubt that in the vast majority of cases poverty
is the principal incentive to the crime. How otherwise are the
parents to dispose of infants which they regard as an encum-
brance and are too poor to maintain ? A few orphanages are,
as we have said, established in some of the large towns for the
reception of the luckless babies, but how can they be conveyed
thither from the distant parts of the vast empire ? The parents
will not and cannot undertake a journey for the purpose of
finding a shelter for children of whom they can rid themselves
by a quick and easy process. Consequently the asylums erected
by the authorities are useless for the poverty-stricken inhabi-
tants of remote villages. Miss Gordon-Cumming relates that in
the town of Fuh-choo a prosperous and liberal-minded Chinese
merchant has saved innumerable babies by the announcement
that he would give an allowance of rice for a certain time to
every mother who, purposing to destroy her infant, would
abstain from so doing. When a woman has reared a child
through the early stages of existence, she becomes fond of it
and rarely consents to put it to death. The number of the
good merchant's pensioners varies considerably in years of
plenty and of famine. During one of the latter he allowed rice
to no less than five hundred mothers to induce them to spare
the lives of their offspring.
I895-]
Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA f
775
CALLOUSNESS AMONGST THE RICH.
The practice of infanticide is, however, by no means con-
fined to the homes of the lower orders and of the necessitous
poor. The lives of numberless little girls of all ranks are sacri-
ficed daily to the feeling of contempt for the weaker sex.
Although it is true that in the present day owing in great
measure to intercourse with the European "barbarians"
a better feeling is beginning to prevail among the educated
classes, and public opinion generally condemns the practice,
many parents in easy circumstances simply will not be troubled
to bring up and educate useless daughters, who cannot repay
the cost of their maintenance, and whose marriage will involve
an outlay that they are un-
willing, and often unable, to
meet. Besides this, the mother
who has the misfortune to have
no son thinks that by getting
rid of the unwelcome infant,
instead of rearing and nursing
her, she will the sooner be able
to give birth to another child,
which may perhaps prove the
earnestly desired son, who will
perform the time-honored rites
of ancestral worship. Rever-
ence for their own institutions,
and contemptuous indifference
to the outer world, are the
leading characteristics of the
Chinese nation ; hence the
only chance of influencing the THE KING OF COREA.
upper classes is by the efforts
of native reformers, who endeavor to create a more healthy
state of public opinion.
EFFORTS OF CHINESE PHILANTHROPISTS.
In justice to Chinese literati, it must be admitted that they
are making praiseworthy attempts to deter their fellow-country-
men from committing this degrading and unnatural crime. The
number of books and pamphlets on the subject of infanticide
published of late years witnesses to the widespread and inveter-
ate hold it has acquired over the nation. All the religious sects
776 Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA ? [Mar.,
concur in inveighing against it, but the Taoists are the most
zealous and persistent in their exertions. In proof of how
pleasing their efforts are to the gods the following story is
told ; we give it in outline only.*
There lived at Kiang-si a man who, in spite of hard study
and passing several examinations, could not get on in the liter-
ary world. Knowing that a man of letters, unless possessed of
private means, must make his way by aid of his pen or his
oratorical powers, he implored the counsel and assistance of the
gods. Their answer was this : The custom of drowning infants
exists to a great extent in this country ; do you devote yourself
to the task of suppressing this crime, and you will meet with
the success you desire. The man obeyed the celestial voice,
and applied himself to the work prescribed. For three years he
labored indefatigably, inducing others to join him, and sending
them to different villages and districts to exhort the people.
During this period he inscribed in a register the names of all
his co-operators, and of those who had listened to his admoni-
tions. When the list was complete, he sent it up to heaven
(by burning it). Then the promise of the gods was immediately
fulfilled : the man attained a high position and great renown
in the realm of letters, and was made a member of the
academy.
" O hard hearts ! " exclaims another writer, apostrophizing
guilty parents, " cannot you be moved to compassion by the
cries of the unhappy infants who bewail the miserable fate to
which you condemn them. Scarcely has the thread of their ex-
istence been spun, when you snap it asunder ; scarcely has the
soul entered the body prepared for it, when you compel it to
return whence it came. Heaven wills that these children should
live; man wills that they should die. He who opposes the
will of Heaven shall be cut off ; he who takes away the life of
man incurs the penalty of death. According to a popular say-
ing, the family which for three generations has reared no girls,
but destroyed them all, will die out. If this detestable prac-
tice prevailed everywhere, there would be no wives for the
men, and the human race would become extinct. The fierce
tiger and hungry wolf do not injure their little ones ; is man
alone to be without affection for his offspring, and thus show
himself to be inferior to the brute creation ? "
* Cf. Revue Generate, Juillet, 1892, p. 10.
1 89 5.] Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA ?
"WITHOUT REMORSE OR DREAD.'
777
Appeals like this latter are of slight avail. Addressed to the
Chinese, they are little more than a waste of words. As religious
sentiment is lacking in the national character, so the quality of
pity is absent from it. Remorseless cruelty too often takes its
GATE IN NANKING.
place. " Look at the countenances of the Chinese," remarks a
recent writer. "There is plenty of intelligence, reverence, and
even generosity to be read there. But none the less they are
unfeeling, unpitiful, devoid of the mercy that is twice blest."
Since compassion is an element which does not enter into the
composition of the Chinaman, it is necessary to appeal to
778 Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA ? [Mar.,
other motives : the fear of punishment, the desire of reward.
Accordingly the writer quoted above concludes his appeal for
mercy on behalf of the innocent victims of parental indiffer-
ence by bringing on the scene one of the Chinese divinities,
who declares that he has seen in the place of eternal torment
a countless multitude of parents who had been relegated to
that dismal region in consequence of having put their newly-
born infants to death.
AN ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.
But warnings and threats that refer only to a vague and
shadowy future life have little effect on the stolid Chinese ; pen-
alties and pains to be incurred in this world impress him more
deeply. Another of the writers quoted by Monsignor Harlez
says : " The custom of drowning girls at their birth is so gen-
eral, and has reached such a pitch of cruelty, that man is worse
than the lower animals. If you admonish the parents accord-
ing to the dictates of justice and reason, they cannot under-
stand what you say. If you threaten them with the arm of the
law, they turn a deaf ear to your words. It is only by point-
ing out to them the rewards and chastisements that will be
respectively meted out to those who save and those who
destroy their daughters, that any good can be effected." The
principal argument against infanticide urged by the moralists is
that, as the murder of girls is undoubtedly displeasing to the
gods, it must tend to defeat the object in view, namely, obtain-
ing the heaven-granted gift of sons. As the prospect of dying
without male issue is what the Chinaman dreads above all else,
many tales are written to show that sons are denied to un-
natural parents, or they are taken from them in chastisement
for their crime. The following is an instance in point : " At
Kin-Hoa-Hien, it is related, the wife of one Tchang-kin-lan gave
birth to a daughter. At this her husband was enraged. ' It is
useless to waste our trouble on bringing up this girl,' he said ;
' if you spend your strength on nursing her, you may perhaps
never have another child. We will drown her ; then if we have
another, it may be a son.' But the following night the father
of Tchang-kin-lan appeared to him in a dream, apparently in
great grief. 'Alas!' he said, 'you, my only child, were
destined to have a son who should keep up the family and
perform the funeral rites. Now the great Spirit is so angry
because you have drowned your daughter that he will not
grant a son to you ; thus through your fault my family will be
cut off, and my name die out.' Tchang-kin-lan awoke in
1895-] Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA f 779
alarm ; his wife had had a similar dream. The dream came
true; they died without posterity."
A BELIEF IN RETRIBUTION.
Terrible and mysterious diseases which attack the parents
and bring them to a miserable and ignominious end are also
said to be one form of the punishment sent by the gods to
avenge the murder of children. Shortness of days is another.
Long life, which among the Jews was the promised reward of
filial piety, is among the Chinese recompense of parental virtue.
In the Book of Rewards and Punishments compiled by a Taoist, and
published with the imperial sanction in 1655,* we read that for
the crime of maltreating children or causing the death of in-
fants the divinity who presides over human existence cuts off a
portion of the delinquents' days varying from one hundred
-days to twelve years.
SENSATIONAL ART IN A USEFUL RoLE.
Another shape which the efforts of the reformers have lately
taken is that of posting up in the towns large illustrated placards
representing scenes of a startling character calculated to inspire
the common people with a horror of infanticide. These sensa-
tional and realistic pictures, coarse and grotesque as they often
are, do far more than the eloquence of orators, or the treatises
of moralists and philosophers, to produce a profound and lasting
impression on the minds of the populace. Some of these colored
prints, of a smaller size and accompanied with explanatory text,
are printed and distributed among the people not by ministers
and foreigners, but by the Chinese themselves. In one may be
seen a guilty mother surrounded by fiends who torment and
torture her ; in another she and her husband, who is her ac-
complice, transformed into human-headed dogs, are castigated
by satellites of the evil one ; or, worse still, they are brought to
shame and sorrow by the misdeeds of their only son, whom
they see led out to public execution. Sometimes a whole story
is depicted in this popular imagery, f In one may be seen a
cruel mother calling her slave to prepare a wine-bath wherein
to immerse her baby4 Then comes a picture of the mother in
the act of drowning the child. This is followed by successive
* Livre des recompenses et des peines. Traduit par M. Abel Remusat. Paris, 1816, p. 33.
t Wanderings in China, v. i. p. 96.
I In China the ill-fated infants are almost invariably drowned by being held head down-
ward in a bucket of water. Sometimes they are strangled. In India there are three methods
of destroying them : i. To lay a plaster over the mouth of the newly-born infant ; 2. To ad-
minister to it a pill of tobacco and bhang ; 3. To drown it in a pail of milk.
;8o
Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA f
[Mar.,
pictures of her condemnation after death, concluding with a
gruesome portrayal of a terrible baby-headed serpent about to
devour the ruthless mother. Others have for their subject the
rewards lavished on virtuous parents, and on persons who have
interposed to rescue an infant doomed to destruction. These
individuals are represented as well-dressed and smiling, gazing
complacently on a group of children who will be the pride and
happiness of their declining years. Of one of these, a series of
four pictures, the following description is given : * In the upper
division, on the left, a husband and wife may be seen grandly
dressed, receiving commendation and rich presents from persons
of high rank. Below is a mother embracing and caressing her
newly-born daughter, while the father of the child is receiving
two august visitors who hand over to him a well-filled purse
and a document as-
suring to him a long
life. On the right-
hand side an angel
looks down from the
clouds and makes a
note of the care dis-
played at the birth
of a female child, for
the future reward of
its parents. In the
lower compartment
an opposite scene is
enacted : two miser-
able women, who
stifled their children
at their birth, are
throwing themselves into a river to escape from the armed
ruffians who are pursuing them. Many other instances might be
given in which calamities of every kind are represented as sent
to avenge the murder of babies in order to terrify evil-doers.
THE NATIVE PRESS ON THE EVIL.
If we interrogate the press in China as to the existence of
infanticide, it will be found that the leading journals acknowl-
edge its presence, and from time to time suggest plans for its
repression. In 1875 one of the principal papers of Shanghai pub-
lished a series of articles on the subject, urging the necessity,
owing to the great prevalence of infanticide among the lower
* Cf. Revue Gtntrale, Aout, 1892, p. 251.
GATE IN THE CITY OF SEOUL.
1 895.] Is INFANTICIDE PRACTISED IN CHINA? 781
orders, of forming a society for the protection of infants. In
support of this proposal the text was given of an address pre-
sented to the viceroy of Nan-king, in which these words oc-
cur : " This crime is so habitual among the people that the es-
tablishment of asylums in different localities is most desirable,
and the organization of associations for its prevention would be
of incalculable service in saving the life of innumerable babies."
The inquiry naturally suggests itself whether the Chinese
government ignores a practice carried on for the most part in
secret, and takes no measures for its suppression? Official pro-
clamations have, it is true, been issued from time to time, and
imperial edicts dating back as far as three centuries ago have
not been wanting in condemnation of the inhuman custom.
The people have been reasoned with, and exhorted to relin-
quish it ; it has, in fact, been made penal ; but such is the ex-
traordinary reverence felt in China for parental authority that
officers of justice shrink from inflicting the penalty of the law
on parents for crimes committed against their children, lest they
should thereby lessen filial respect and obedience. Only in
cases where boys have been the victims have the mandarins
been induced to take tardy and reluctant action. It must also
be admitted that to detect the guilty persons in flagrante delicto
is extremely difficult. As the mother of a family remains in
strict seclusion, it is only her husband and the servants of the
household who are privy to the birth and subsequent destruc-
tion of an infant.
THE ONLY REMEDY.
Enough has been said to prove beyond dispute that infanti-
cide exists on a large scale in the present day, especially in
certain districts and among the poorer population in China.
The educated classes in the country, far from repudiating the
charge, fully admit the prevalence of the custom, and for the
most part deplore it. They can, however, do little to combat
it, owing to the obstinacy of the great mass of the people and
the inefficiency of the police. The customs and opinions now
in force in the Celestial Empire have existed for thousands of
years ; they are ingrained into the heart of the nation, and are
clung to with the utmost tenacity. The spread of Catholicism
is the only effectual antidote, the only check to the progress of
infanticide. The missioners and the sisters in charge of the
orphanages have already done much in this direction even
among a people so hostile to Christianity as the Chinese and
so resentful of foreign interference.
782
MARCH.
[Mar.,
MARCH.
BY WALTER LECKY.
LONG for March,
So gay and arch,
With its fleecy showers, its drizzling rain ;
When winter dies
'Mid laughing skies,
And the spring in its beauty blooms again.
I long for March
Amid the larch ;
To stroll and hear from the robin a lay,
While skipping free,
From tree to tree,
He sings to his mate of the summer day.
I long for March,
So gay and arch ;
For it wakes the flowers the winter tost
Beneath the earth,
To joy and mirth ;
And gives to the valleys the joys, they lost.
It paints the hills,
And loosens rills
That long in chains by the winter were bound ;
Lets music float
From ev'ry throat,
And a thaw in the frozen world of sound.
1895 ] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 783
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY.
BY REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH.
CHAPTER XI.
The Break-up (Continued). Diverging Paths. Donelly. Wattson. Everett.
Platt. Whitcher. American Obedience to Law. Blind Obedience. The
Chelsea Break-up echoed in Maryland. Hewit, Baker, and Lyman.
NE of the principal students at the seminary sus-
pected of Romish tendencies, and even of being
engaged in a complot against the interests of the
seminary and the peace of Protestant Episco-
palianism, was James B. Donelly, of the class of
1846. As I have already stated, on his trial before the faculty
he was acquitted for want of definite proof, but was for all that
obliged to leave the seminary. Dr. Seabury befriended him,
and found employment for him in the office of the New York
Churchman. Perhaps, also, Donelly served, as Carey had done
before him, as assistant to Seabury in the little old Church of
the Annunciation, since known as St. Ambrose's, on the corner
of Thompson and Prince Streets.
I had some correspondence with Donelly while he was thus
engaged in New York and I was residing with my friend Wad-
hams in Essex County, before my entry into the Church Catho-
lic. I sent him an article which I wished to have published in
the Churchman. The spirit of the article was altogether too hot
for even Dr. Seabury to handle, as he informed me through
Donelly, who urged me to come down to New York and have
a talk with the doctor about it.
Later, after my profession of faith, Donelly made a visit to
the Redemptorist Convent upon my invitation, made acquain-
tance with Father Rumpler, and looked at the church and
convent buildings with great interest. He seemed much de-
pressed and under great restraint, more so when talking with
me than when in conversation with Father Rumpler. Whether
the extreme poverty which prevailed everywhere was repug-
nant to him or not I cannot say, but he returned no more and
I never saw him again.
784 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Mar.,
It is certain that shortly after this last interview of ours
Donelly had it in his mind to enter the Catholic fold, but
needed encouragement to carry it out. One day when passing
by the Catholic Cathedral on Mulberry Street, in company with
Wattson, his classmate and co-conspirator, he proposed to the
latter to make a call on Archbishop Hughes. Wattson hesitat-
ed for awhile, but finally declined the offer, and the golden
opportunity of grace passed away from both for ever. This
incident I have from Wattson's own son, now rector of St.
John's Church, Kingston. In an interview with this latter gen-
tleman he communicated to me many incidents derived from
his father concerning these early days, with full freedom to
publish all he communicated. His father said to him once :
" Had I accepted Donelly's invitation at that time and visited
Archbishop Hughes, there is little probability that either you
or I would now be Episcopalians."
Some things communicated to me by Wattson (the younger)
he put down on paper, for I feared to trust my memory too
far. Among these I find the following:
" Donelly, on leaving the seminary, was ordained by Bishop
Onderdonk and was assistant to Dr. Seabury. Pressure becom-
ing too great, he was forced to leave New York and so far
ostracised that he took some out-of-the-way parish in the South
and shortly after died."
From all that I can hear of James B. Donelly, he died a
broken-spirited man. He was naturally too much of a man to
thrive while trampling upon his conscience.
Joseph N. Wattson, after being dismissed from the semi-
nary, sought his Diocesan, Bishop Lee of Delaware, who
calmly told him, "Young man, my advice to you is: go to
Rome, for that is where you belong." He was finally or-
dained to the priesthood in the diocese of Maryland, by Bishop
Whittingham. He afterwards went to Mississippi, but at the
breaking out of the Civil War returned to Maryland and re-
mained there until a few years before his death, which occurred
in Kingston, New York, in 1887. By a singular coincidence
Bishop Lee ordained to the diaconate in June, 1885, the Rev.
Lewis T. Wattson, now rector of St. John's Episcopal Church,
Kingston, New York and he was presented by his father, Jo-
seph N. Wattson, whom Bishop Lee years before had advised
to go to Rome.
William Everett, known familiarly amongst us by the name
of Doctor, was as far advanced as any of us in Tractarianism,
1895.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 785
but was of a prudent and quiet disposition, besides being highly
esteemed for his scholarship, wisdom, and high moral qualities.
I cannot remember that he encountered any difficulties in the
way of his graduation or receiving of orders. He did not enter
the true church until 1850 or 1851. I met him for the first
time after my own conversion, and after my return from Eu-
rope, while engaged in giving a mission at Saint Peter's Church,
Barclay Street, where he visited me.
It was a great joy to meet my old companion again and
greet him as a Catholic. He is still on duty as rector of Na-
tivity Church in New York, over which he has presided for
many long years.
My cousin, Charles Henry Platt, one of those included with
me in the charge of conspiracy against Anglican Protestantism
and the interests of the seminary, was, at the time, a graduate
and already in orders at Rochester. He was then as near to
Rome as man can come without actually crossing the gulf.
When Bishop De Lancey, of the Western diocese, received my
letter asking him to take my name off from his list of candi-
dates, he said to Platt, " What will your cousin do ? Will he
go over to Rome?" Platt answered that of course I would.
His manner was so indignant and the words he added were so
full of contemptuous bitterness for the thraldom in which he
felt himself enwrapped, that the bishop felt it necessary to em-
ploy every means to hold him to his chains. Several of Platt's
letters to Wadhams may be found in my "Reminiscences" of
that good bishop. They show how near he then came to his
salvation.
A short time before my departure for Europe and the Re-
demptorist novitiate, I wrote to my cousin urging him to
come to New York and see me off. He replied that he could
not come. That to do so would involve a decision to leave the
Anglican communion, and that he could not break his mother's
heart by taking such a step. I have lost his letter and remem-
ber in general only its substance. The state of his conscience
is clearly shown in the first words of the letter, which I re-
member very distinctly. It began thus :
" DEAR COUSIN : I thank my God that your feet are at
last planted upon the ' Rock of Peter.' '
Poor man ! He lived to marry and have a family. He
served as chaplain in the army of the Union. He never be-
came a Catholic. At the time of his death, in 1869, he was
rector of Christ Church, Binghamton, N. Y.
VOL. LX. 50
786 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Mar.,
The influence of my cousin's example was very unfortunate
upon his classmate, co-conspirator, and most familiar friend,
Benjamin W. Whitcher. I had sent to him a similar invitation
to come and see me before I left for Belgium. At first he was
inclined to do so and endeavored, though in vain, to engage
Platt to accompany him. Of this he informed me in his reply,
saying also that he could not venture to come alone. When
denounced, as we have seen, for his Romanizing tendencies, he
was summoned to his bishop for examination, and there was a
delay about his ordination. A letter of Platt's dated April 6,
1846, which is given in the " Reminiscences " of Wadhams, tells
us something of this affair. We read as follows :
" Whitcher is in priest's orders. He had a hard time win-
ter before the last. They passed him to the priesthood last fall ;
but he was plump with them, and kept nothing back."
Whitcher must be classed amongst that large number of
Christian workers, apparently very zealous at first, who are
covered by our Lord's rebuke when he says, " No man putting
his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the king-
dom of God." His first backward step was when he took
orders in the Episcopalian communion. The second was when
he took a Presbyterian wife. Still later on, becoming a widow-
er, he took a second wife, and became surrounded by a family
of children. Ten years of his life passed away in this false
position when, much shorn of his former strength and demoral-
ized by loss of self-respect, he found his way into the Catholic
Church. I will give in detail that part of his conversion with
which I had something to do.
In 1855, if I remember rightly, I was engaged in giving a
mission at St. Patrick's, Utica. Whitcher, at that time, had
charge of an Episcopalian church near by at Whitesboro.' One
day a card was brought up to my room bearing the name of
my old friend upon it. I soon had him by the hand. I antici-
pated a warm discussion, for I have never found any Protest-
ants more fierce in controversial fencing than old Tractarians
who have backed away from their earlier convictions. I was
therefore resolved, if possible, to get in the first thrust. After
he 'had taken his seat and we had got past the first natural
greetings, I said :
"Well, Whitcher, don't let us dodge the one great matter
we are both thinking of. Why are you not a Catholic long
before this?" Without showing the least signs of fight,
Whitcher dropped his head and answered :
1 895.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 787
" Sure enough, that is the great question, and I don't know
how to answer it."
" Ten long years of your life have passed away," I con-
tinued, " and still here you are, looking one way and rowing
the other. How can you do it? How can your conscience
bear it?"
"Conscience!" he repeated mournfully; "don't talk of con-
science. I don't know that I have any conscience left."
His case was a plain one. I urged him to do his duty
manfully and without further delay. To this he agreed. " Only
give me two or three weeks," said he, " to settle up a few
affairs, and I promise you that I will then go to Father Mc-
Farland and put myself in his hands." This promise he car-
ried out faithfully. Father McFarland, then in charge of St.
John's Church, Utica, is now well remembered as the third
bishop of Hartford, Conn. Whitcher has published a full his-
tory of his conversion, giving his religious life as Presbyterian
and Episcopalian. In this will be found some account of his
connection with the break-up at the seminary, and his examin-
ation before his bishop. It is called " The Story of a Convert,
as told to his former parishioners after he became a Catholic."
I do not think that the incidents thus far given or any
others that I may give tend to show anything like a spirit of
disobedience to superiors in young Tractarians or any others in
America who followed the Oxford movement. Whatever those
educated under European influences may think of us, the virtue
of obedience and respect for rightful authority comes as easily
and naturally to true Americans as to any other people. The
great crisis which most threatens the prosperity of our country
at the present time is one which shows foreign lawlessness
reaching to anarchy combined against American law and order.
So long as Americans remain American, nihilism and anarchy
imported from abroad will have to bow before the majesty of
law. And let me add, the more that Americans study the
Catholic Church and its religion, from her own doctrines, from
her own decrees and her own authors, the more they will find
that true obedience and true liberty are twin sisters. At the
bottom of this whole matter lies the primary question : In what
does the true virtue of obedience consist?
I have the following incident from Father Isaac Hecker
late superior-general of the Paulists. It came to him from the,
lips of Cardinal Barnabo, who was so long Prefect of the Propa-
ganda in the days of Pius IX. Once, when presenting and
788 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Mar.,
recommending to that Pontiff an appeal from an American
religious against his superior, the Holy Father said:
" What shall we think of these Americans ? Do they under-
stand obedience ? "
The cardinal replied :
" I do not think they know much about blind obedience. I
do think, however, that they understand what true obedience
is, and that they practise it as well as any other people."
Another incident goes more thoroughly into the question.
I have it from Bishop Lynch of Charleston, one of the most
learned and gifted prelates that our American hierarchy ever
knew. He was a student at Rome in the time of Pope Gregory
XVI.
A young American had been admitted into the English
College there, and held a room in the building during the
rectorship of Dr. Wiseman, afterwards cardinal. He had nearly
completed his course of studies when a young Englishman of
a distinguished family applied for admission into the same
college. It was full. The rector endeavored to make place for
him by persuading our American student to give up his room
and pursue his studies privately, promising him that he should
graduate like the rest and receive his diploma.
The student replied that he did not value his position in
the institution simply for the privilege of a diploma, but was
particularly anxious to have the benefit of the whole course of
studies. For this reason he declined to withdraw. He persisted
in this determination notwithstanding all that the rector could
urge, and although a day or two was given him to consider.
Dr. Wiseman then took a short and decisive way to enforce his
will. On returning to his room one morning the student found
his door locked and all his furniture moved out into the cor-
ridor. No remedy was left him but to appeal to higher au-
thority. He did appeal to the Cardinal Prefect of the Pro-
paganda. The cardinal was surprised and displeased. He con-
sidered that the young man had been wronged. He promised
to see him restored to his rights, and appointed a day when
he should call again.
When presenting himself again on the day appointed he did
not find the cardinal prefect so resolute. He was told that Dr.
Wiseman was a very eminent man whose standing and influence
at Rome were very high. It would be far more prudent and
advisable to yield to his desires, instead of persisting in an op-
position which would be almost sure to prove fruitless. The
. 1 895-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 789
unfortunate appellant saw that he had little to hope from the
present appeal.
"I will not trouble your eminence any further," he said, "in
this matter, if you will promise to do me one favor, which will
cost you very little. Will you obtain for me a private audience
with the Holy Father himself ? "
This promise was readily given. At the audience thus
obtained the Holy Father listened with great attention, noting
down carefully certain particulars. " I will make further in-
quiries into this affair," he said, " and that at once. Give me
your present address, and leave all the rest to me."
It was not long before some of the Papal sbirri appeared
at the English College and moved all our student's furniture
back into his room. This, of course, settled the whole matter
so far as that case was concerned. Another point, however,
was settled in the mind of the English rector.
" So long as I am head of this college," said he, " no
Americans shall get into it again. They won't obey anything but
law.' 1
I have always taken great pleasure in this anecdote because
I consider it to be highly complimentary to the American
character. I am free to confess that blind obedience finds little
favor in this country. St. Francis of Sales, when conversing
one day with certain young sisters of the Order of the Visi-
tation on the virtue of obedience, was asked what they should do
in case one of their superiors should give some order that would
be contrary to the laws of God or of the Church ? Francis re-
plied that in that case they should not obey her, any more
than if the superior were to say, "Sister, go into the garden
and gather some flowers, and throw yourself out of the window
that you may get there the sooner," when the sister should
gently and respectfully answer : " Mother, if you please, I will
go down the stairs."
I have already said that the progress of the Oxford move-
ment in the United States, although generally adverse to a
blind obedience, was not characterized by a spirit of disobedi-
ence, though this was frequently charged against some of them
by their bishops and other superiors. We have seen something
of this overstraining of authority in the experience of Henry
McVickar at the Chelsea Seminary, which led to his withdrawal
from that institution. Some of the bishops in their dioceses
carried on things with a much higher hand. I will here refer
to a few instances with which I am most familiar, or which are
790 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Mar.,
most accessible to me. Let us begin with the diocese of
Maryland.
William Rollinson Whittingham was one of the foremost
figures of the Episcopalian communion at the period of which
I am treating. He graduated at the Chelsea Seminary in
1825, and officiated as professor of ecclesiastical history from
REV. DWIGHT LYMAN.
1836 to 1840, when, being made bishop, he moved to Baltimore
and assumed charge of his diocese. I am glad to introduce
Bishop Whittingham to the reader, not only because of the im-
portance of his diocese and of his own personal eminence, but
because, so far as he dared to be so, he was a Tractarian.
Arthur Carey had been one of his pupils at the seminary.
1 895.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 791
After Carey's ordination Whittingham endeavored to secure
him for his diocese, but without success. Several young men,
however, not unlike Carey, soon gathered around the new
bishop and looked up to him as a guide and protector. Three
of these, afterwards converts to Rome, are especially memora-
ble. Dwight Lyman became an inmate of his family. When
Lyman went to Hagerstown to pursue his studies at St.
James's College, Nathaniel Augustus Hewit took his place with
the bishop's family, in Courtlandt Street. Directly opposite,
on the same street, resided Francis Baker. The bishop's
demands upon the obedience of these three rare young church-
men were remarkable, and remarkable was their docility.
Father Hewit says in his Memoir of Baker:
" In Bishop Whittingham's own eyes, he was himself the
equivalent of the whole Catholic episcopate. Consequently,
what he and his colleagues and predecessors in the Anglican
Church had decreed had full Catholic authority, and was just
as final and authoritative as if the whole world had taken part
in it. Hence the assertion of a despotic, exclusive authority of
the Anglican Church, concentrated in his person, over every one
who acknowledged his jurisdiction. He would not permit us
to attend any Catholic services, or read any Catholic books, as
an ordinary thing." Hewit was anxious to read Mohler's Sym-
bolism and Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church, but did not do
so on account of the bishop's prohibition. He even gave up
using certain Anglican books of devotion to please him. Hewit
says : " Baker was equally obedient with myself at that time ;
although afterward, when he was governed more by common
sense and a just sentiment of his own rights, he read whatever
he thought proper."
The compliance, however, which Bishop Whittingham and
other Episcopalian bishops of his type required from their neo-
phytes was not so much an obedience to law, for Episcopalian-
ism in the United States has very little ecclesiastical law to
back it up. The bishop stands in the midst of his clergy only
as primus inter pares. He is superior in dignity rather than in
power. He has not much authority of a kind that can be en-
forced. He can neither appoint a rector to a parish nor re-
move one from his charge. He has no cathedral properly so
called ; that is to say, a seat, or see, in any mother church around
which the other churches of the diocese cluster as dependencies.
The actual state of things is illustrated by the fact that in New
York for many years the bishop occupied the position of assis-
792 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Mar.,
tant minister in Trinity Church. So at Baltimore Bishop Whit-
tingham, who for a long time was rector of no church there,
had no authority in any of the churches. He could not, for in-
stance, officiate or preach at St. Paul's Church, in Charles Street,
without permission of Dr. Wyatt, who was the rector.
There is, however, another kind of authority not founded on
any canonical law, which Episcopalian bishops often claim, and
is carried even farther in that denomination than in the Catho-
lic Church. It is simply that authority exerted over the opinions,
actions, and general life of others founded upon a deference to
some superiority in age, office, dignity, or experience; or upon
a combination of these qualities in a class of prominent men.
It often has no other sound reason to enforce it than the argu-
mentum ad verccundiam. In the Anglican Church this sort of
authority was liberally and often successfully employed to keep
young Tractarians from going to Rome, or otherwise following
their consciences in the ruling of their lives. In my " Reminis-
cences " of Bishop Wadhams I have shown what warning letters
were addressed to him, urging him to yield the dictates of a
conscience already thoroughly enlightened to sagacious guides
and politic trimmers who had no authority to appeal to but
grave beards and pompous phrases.
This solemn cantiloquia went very far in the diocese of
Maryland. Bishop Whittingham himself was so far committed
to Catholic innovation in matters of outward form that it was
hard to drive his young colts with a safe and steady rein. He
was himself the first to wear long cassocks, reaching nearly to
his heels. He could not quarrel with his neophytes if they wore
theirs a little longer. This caused them sometimes to be mis-
taken for Catholic clergymen. One day on Saratoga Street
Baker, when passing by two boys who were playing together on
the sidewalk, was saluted very reverentially by one of them.
Baker felt pleased, but was soon taken down by the other boy,
who cried out :
" Hello ! What are you taking your hat off to ? That ain't
no priest. What's the matter with you?"
Baker felt at the time as if he had been caught in a sort of
fraud, but often told it afterwards as a good joke.
The bishop at the same time favored also the use of crosses
in the churches, the removal of pulpits towering above desks
and communion tables underneath, and the substituting of some-
thing in their place more like altars. Hewit, Baker, and some
others eagerly followed the bishop's lead, and would gladly
i895-] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN- AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. 793
have pushed their imitation of Roman observances much far-
ther. This they could not very well do at St. Paul's, where they
attended, for Dr. Wyatt was omnipotent there and clung to the
more Protestant practices in which he had been brought up.
There they contented themselves with kneeling with their faces
towards the altar, though the rest of the congregation faced the
other way. Providence soon opened a better way to play Catho-
lic. The Rev. Mr. Mcjilton was rector of St. Stephen's, an
insignificant brick church in a poor district of Baltimore. He
warmly sympathized with Hewit and Baker in their Catholic
tendencies, and allowed them to remodel the interior of the
church and to imitate Catholic ceremonies according to the full
desires of their heart. This liberty they carried so far that the
congregation became alarmed and remonstrated ; and as the
bishop seemed indisposed to interfere, they began to forsake
the services. The parish was threatened with ruin both spiri-
tual and financial. At this juncture a power more effectual than
that of the bishop interposed. This was the rector's wife. With
her it was a matter of bread and butter, and she interposed
her authority so effectually that all the innovations were brought
to a stop. The obnoxious symbols on the window curtains were
banished out of sight. The chancel was restored to its former
simplicity, containing no longer anything bearing resemblance
to an altar, but revealing as before the old marble-topped com-
munion table which, like so many others, would have served as
well for a washstand.
Hewit, Baker, and Dwight Lyman, whose names we have
brought so prominently forward amongst the Tractarians of
Maryland, must not be set down as characterized by a spirit of
ritualism. Outward forms have often real value as symbolizing
essential doctrine, and therefore minds most earnestly seeking
for doctrinal truth must needs often attach much importance to
ceremonies. The cross is typical of the atonement, the altar of
a continued visible sacrifice, and rich and costly vestments,
when attainable, are acknowledgments of the presence of God
in the temple. But these young men cannot be classed with
those who place ceremony, dress, or any show above truth and
true worship, or place quaint fashions or antique curiosities above
sincere and heartfelt devotion. It was an easy thing for them
to yield up cassocks or Roman collars when their bishop de-
sired it.
When the time came for Hewit's ordination to the diaconate
he gave his assent to the Thirty-nine Articles in the sense of
794 GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN AN ANGLICAN SEMINARY. [Mar.,
" No. 90." Baker was passed for ordination to the priesthood
by the bishop, despite his unqualified rejection of Articles 22
and 31, besides some others.
It was not long before Whittingham himself fell under sus-
picions of popery, and was obliged to defend himself against
the open attacks of one of his own clergy, the Rev. Henry V.
D. Johns, rector of Christ's Church. It was to avoid the charge
of popery that he put an end to the very novelties which he
himself had introduced. Paralyzed by this change of front on
the part of their bishop, many of the clergy and students dropped
quietly back into the old ways. Some who felt it hard to keep
quiet left the diocese.
Hewit, Baker, and Lyman yielded much at first. It was not
long before they found their consciences put to a far severer
test. They were expected to abandon what they felt to be the
only way to truth. This brought them speedily to a decisive
" break-up," like that which took place at the Chelsea Seminary.
Hewit was the first to take refuge in Rome. His conversion
followed close upon that of John Henry Newman in England.
He was received into the Catholic Church at Charleston, S. C.,
in 1846, at the close of Holy Week.
Baker, whose attachment to the Anglican Church reached
farther back, lingered several years longer. He was received in-
to the Catholic Church by his old friend and comrade, Father
Hewit, April 9, 1853. The reception took place in the little
chapel of the Orphan Asylum of the Sisters of Charity, in Bal-
timore. I was then residing at the Redemptorist Convent in
Saratoga Street, and saw him in his visits there during the days
of his preparation. My memory is still fresh with the keen in-
terest I took in the conversion of a man already so distinguished.
Baker was ordained to the priesthood September 21, 1856, in
the Baltimore Cathedral. Present on that occasion and in
priestly vestments was D wight Lyman, his old friend and co-
partner in so many vicissitudes of joy and grief and trials of
conscience. A few days later Hewit, Lyman, and Baker cele-
brated together a solemn votive Mass of thanksgiving at St. Al-
phonsus' Church, for the same great grace.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
'895-] ODE TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.
ODE TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.
BY M. T. WAGGAMAN.
I.
RANSCENDENT Italy,
Lodestar of History!
Her name shall stand
Thrice blessed as thy natal land :
The land of Love and Art,
The land where th' impassioned heart
Throbs out its ecstasy
In fervid melodies.
The land caressed by ardent seas,
The land of Poetry
Whose sons a Dante sings, a Titian paints.
The land of martyrs and of saints ;
The land whose vaunt is Rome,
The vanished Caesars' home,
The crumbled centre of an empire's greed
The radiant focus of a changeless creed.
Transcendent Italy !
Her name shall stand
Thrice blessed as thy natal land.
II.
Inspired Philosopher !
Unrivalled spirit of the Middle Ages,
Thou peerless genius 'midst the world's great sages !
Divine Interpreter,
Empowered by the Deity
To translate the Eternal Truth
Into Time's dialect.
The seraphs brooded o'er thy destiny,
And Wisdom watched the footfalls of thy youth ;
Her hand thy dust-begotten fevers checked,
She soothed thee with her virgin balm,
She crowned thee with celestial calm ;
79$
796 ODE TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. [Mar.,
Obedient to her voice,
Thou didst make choice
Of the Omniscient's will.
Thro' sacrificial days
Thy meek soul trod
The orbits traced by God. .
'Thwart Reason's gloom thy mind shot forth moon-rays,
The reflex glory of the Infinite ;
The dusk was cloven by an argent light,
Death felt the thrill.
III.
Thou Angel of the Schools!
Thou triumph of the Church, thou scourge of fools!
Before thine eyes all knowledge was unrolled ;
To thee did mysteries unfold
As lilies to the dawn.
Whilst whirled the hearts of mad humanity
In wheeling storms of Doubt,
Whilst Pride did shout
Her void claims, and ravening Anarchy
Flung far and wide her spawn
Upon the clanging tides of thought,
Thou, Thomas, trumpet of the Lord,
Didst sound the breathings of the Trinity
Across the deeps, and peace was poured
Upon the land.
Above the discord surged a harmony.
With humble rapture was thy spirit fraught,
With pray'rful exultation,
With a glow like that the harp feels
When a musician's hand
Strikes its gold strings and the air reels
At the ambrosial revelation.
IV.
O Saint of saints!
Thy work is done,
Thy goal is won ;
Unloosed from clay's restraints,
Thy soul among the cherubim is throned.
1895.] ODE TO ST. T&OMAS AQUINAS.
Thy sacred brow
Is lustrous with thy threefold vow ;
For ever more
Thou shalt adore
God, the Omnipotent.
Whilst thro' eternity
Hosannas are intoned
Which shake the firmament ;
Whilst hell's dread monarchy
Resounds with an unceasing moan,
In this dim world, from zone to zone,
Thy " Summa " shines, a vast electric fire
Flashed from Faith and Philosophy,
The heaven and earth-charged poles of Truth.
Thy " Summa " burns the funeral pyre
Of Ignorance, the huge, uncouth
Grandsire of Sophistry.
O Holy Ghost ! may the flame blaze
Throughout all Christendom,
Adown the yet unpeopled days
Till He shall come
To judge the generations
Of silenced nations !
797
THE LATE DR. CHARCOT.
DOCTOR CHARCOT AND HIS WORK.
BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D.
MONG the eminent men who during the past fifty
years have advanced the science of medicine in
France, perhaps none have done more than the late
Jean-Martin Charcot. His father was an honest,
hard-working wheelwright, and having three sons
he said to them : " I cannot afford to let all of you finish your
studies. The one who at the end of the scholastic year will
have done the best in his. class, he alone shall continue and re-
ceive a liberal education. Of the other two, one is to be a
soldier and one shall follow my trade." The future doctor
won the coveted honor, and we find him shortly afterwards at
1 895-] DOCTOR CHARCOT AND His WORK. 799
the Lyce St. Louis. Having completed the college course, he
began, in 1848, the study of medicine, and as the allowance
which his father made him did not suffice for his wants
although these were not many he eked out his slender in-
come by giving private lessons. During this period young
Charcot was able to see a good deal of the famous hospital,
the Salpetriere, destined one day to be the scene of his greatest
triumphs, and he quickly recognized the vast opportunities
which it afforded a medical student. Not long after taking his
degree we find him, in conjunction with his friend Dr.
Vulpian, gathering together the numberless notes and observa-
tions of the many and curious cases treated in this immense
hospital, and these observations and notes became Les archives
me'dicales de la Salpetriere. The choice materials thus compiled
formed an inexhaustible mine into which he delved deeper and
deeper, and from this mine he drew the subjects for his
original communications to the Socie'te" de Biologie, of which he
was secretary.
In 1866 Dr. Charcot commenced his lectures at the
Salpetriere ; not in the spacious amphitheatre where we listened
to him a few years ago, but in one of the sick wards, which
was placed at his disposal. In 1869, assisted by Dr. Vulpian
and Dr. Brown-Squard, he founded Les archives de Physiolo-
gie ; and it was now that his superiors and those in authority,
recognizing in him no ordinary worker, determined that he
should have a broader field for his talents, and the following
year, 1870, all the epileptic and hysterical patients who were
not insane were removed to a separate wing of the establish-
ment and there put wholly under his care ; and the day when
this was done may be reckoned a marked day for mental
science. Now more than ever he devoted himself to the study
of the nervous system, and in 1872 he published his lectures
on hysteria and hystero-epilepsy. But, like some other great
men, Dr. Charcot was rather careless as to the fate of his manu-
scripts ; and his lectures, after they had once been delivered to
his class, might never have found a wider audience except for
his intelligent and worthy spouse, who preserved them all and
finally persuaded him to give them to the world in book-form.
In this same year, 1872, he became professor of pathological
anatomy, succeeding his friend Dr. Vulpian ; but this did not
prevent him from continuing his numerously attended free
lectures at the Salpetriere. It was not, however, until 1878 that
he began his great researches into the phenomena of Hypnotism,
8oo DOCTOR CHARCOT AND His WORK. [Mar.,
and he was still engaged in them when he unexpectedly (while
taking a brief holiday) died on the I5th of August, 1893. His
funeral was held in the chapel of the Salpetrire, and the
solemn absolution was pronounced by the Abb< Girau, cur6 de
St. Marcel. It was a never-to-be-forgotten occasion.
In his exploration of the nervous system Dr. Charcot main-
tained from the very first a reserved and prudent attitude :.
the extraordinary, the mysterious did not, seemingly at least,,
attract him so much as the objective, clinical realities, the patho-
logical characters of the various phenomena which hypnotism
presented. All his studies on this subject were made upon per-
sons afflicted with that most awful of maladies, hystero- epilepsy
(liysteria major), for it is among them that the several artificially
produced nervous states attain their most perfect development.
As our readers know, it was an English physician, Dr. Braid
of Manchester, who, in 1843, first began to investigate what we
now call hypnotism. But after him this phase of the nervous
system fell into almost complete neglect, and it so remained until
Dr. Charcot, braving scepticism and ridicule, once more drew
the attention of physiologists to it and succeeded in bringing
it within the domain of science. According to him, the several
phenomena which we observe among persons who are hypno-
tized do not correspond to one and the same nervous condi-
tion ; he maintains that there are three fundamental states, each
markedly different from the other two, viz., the cataleptic, the
lethargic, and the somnambulistic. The cataleptic state is
brought about primarily either by a loud, unexpected noise, by
a bright light placed before the eyes, or again by gazing intent-
ly on some object. When in this condition the subject is mo-
tionless, the eyes wide open and staring, and tears may gather
and flow down the cheeks without causing the eyelids to wink.
We may also twist the subject's limbs into the most difficult
positions without the least resistance on his part, and they will
so remain during a long time ; the limbs, too, seem uncom-
monly light. But the sense of hearing and the sense of sight
remain, partially at least, subject to sense impressions, so that
the subject may be given hallucinations. Few things interested
us more at the Salpetriere than to witness the suggestions im-
parted by Dr. Charcot through the muscular sense ; thus, while
in the cataleptic state the person's physiognomy, which at first
evinces no trace of emotion, would be made to assume the
various expressions corresponding with the attitudes given to the
limbs. If the hands were tightly closed and the arms bent as
1895-]
DOCTOR CHARCOT AND His WORK.
801
if to strike, the face would presently take a harsh, angry^look;
while if the hands were opened wide and brought to the lips
as if to throw a kiss, the visage would brighten and a smile
steal over it. Again, with some subjects in the cataleptic^state
" THE VISAGE WOULD BRIGHTEN AND A SMILE STEAL OVER IT."
it was possible to proceed inversely, and by exciting the proper
muscles of the face by means of a galvanic current, and causing
the patient to smile or to frown, the limbs would presently take
the corresponding attitudes of pleasure or anger. More curious
still, we have seen one fist doubled up as if to strike, while at the
VOL. LX. 51
802 DOCTOR CHARCOT AND His WORK. [Mar.,
same time the other hand was opened and carried to the lips
as if to throw a kiss, whereupon one-half of the patient's face
would scowl while the other half would be smiling. These ex-
periments show how intimate is the mechanism which links ges-
ture to physiognomy ; and if it be true, as some writers affirm, that
the sculptors of antiquity made use of female models in the cata-
leptic state, it was no doubt the condition of catalepsy described
by Dr. Charcot. Moreover, these automatic actions developed by
exciting the nervous centres through the muscular sense may,
like all reflex actions, be up to a certain point educated by
practice. But to be carried out they always require a few mo-
ments' time. Here we quote Dr. Charcot : * "II semble . . .
que Timpression partie des muscles contracts de la face mette
un certain temps pour marquer son empreinte sur le cerveau et
rveiller I'activit6 des centres automatiques."
It is interesting to see the subject pass from the cataleptic
state to the lethargic ; and this may be done either by extin-
guishing the light, ceasing to beat the gong, or by pressing
down the eyelids. Frequently, when the subject is falling into
this condition, a peculiar sound is heard in the larynx, while at
the same time a little froth appears on the lips. In a moment
the subject seems to be fast asleep, the eyes are closed or half-
closed, and there is generally an incessant quivering of the eye-
lids. Although the sense organs preserve a certain activity, it
is now almost impossible to produce any effect by means of
suggestion ; and one of the fundamental characters of the con-
dition of lethargy is hyper- excitability of the neuro-muscular
system ; the muscle, its tendon or its nerve, promptly responds
to the smallest mechanical excitement, such as a slight pressure
with the rounded end of a stick. We may even cause the sub-
ject's ears to move quite perceptibly. The third state into which
Dr. Charcot divides hypnotism is that of artificial sleep, for-
merly called magnetic sleep. This is brought about by fixing
the eyes very intently on some object. Presently the subject
gives two or three sighs, the eyes close, or nearly so we some-
times press gently on the eyeballs the head droops and the
subject is asleep. And in order to awaken him you blow upon
his face and eyes; although if left to himself he will awaken in
two or three hours' time. This third state is perhaps the most
interesting, for it is now that the strangest psychical phenomena
are manifested. In this artificial sleep suggestions of the most
marvellous kind may be made. By suggestion is meant the act
* CEuvres completes de J.-M. Charcot, vol. ix. p. 445.
I89S-]
DOCTOR CHARCOT AND His WORK.
803
by which the operator imposes an idea on his subject, either
by word or gesture; and the study of this phase of hypnotism
opens new horizons to the physiologist and psychologist. At
the Salpetrtere a sore has been made to appear on what had
been perfectly healthy skin, simply by suggestion. Hunger, too,
"THE FACE WOULD PRESENTLY TAKE A HARSH, ANGRY LOOK."
may be appeased by suggestion. We may also in the hypnotic
sleep suggest to the sleeper that he is smelling a perfume, say
the perfume of a rose, and on awaking he will continue for
some time to smell a rose. Here the person remains under the
influence of the idea suggested during his artificial slumber, but
does not at all remember the act of suggestion. After Dr.
Charcot had founded what is now known as the school of the
804 DOCTOR CHARCOT AND His WORK. [Mar.,
Salpetriere, Dr. Bernheim opened another school for the study of
hypnotic phenomena at Nancy. The difference between the two
schools is this : Dr. Charcot maintains that hypnotism is a
pathological and not a physiological state ; that it is a morbid
condition of the nervous system ; that subjects who are prone
to fall into it are always hysterical. He also holds that in the
complete type of hypnotism, which he calls Le grand hypnotism,
there are three distinct states, viz.: the cataleptic, the lethargic,
and the somnambulistic. Dr. Bernheim maintains, on the con-
trary, that hypnotism is a physiological rather than a pathological
state ; he denies that persons who may be hypnotized are by
nature hysterical and inclined to brain trouble ; he considers
Dr. Charcot's three divisions as purely artificial, and he believes
that all the phenomena called hypnotic are solely due to sug-
gestion, and are its products.
We do not pretend to judge between the two schools. We
merely remark that what we have seen of this phase of the
nervous system has been at the Salpetriere, and that to Dr. Char-
cot undoubtedly belongs the honor of having been the first to
give a scientific demonstration of hypnotism. It is perhaps too
soon to tell what good may be affected through hypnotic
suggestion ; on this point physicians are not agreed. Dr. F. L.
Stuever, a member of the Sixty-sixth Congress of German
scientists and physicians, held this autumn in Vienna, has writ-
ten to us as follows : " In answer to your last letter I will say
that hypnotism is very little used here in the treatment of dis-
ease. In Germany even less confidence is placed in it. At the
Congress ... I attended chiefly the meetings of the sec-
tion on insanity and neurology, and I heard a discussion on hyp-
notism. There were only two members of the congress that
spoke in favor of it in the treatment of disease ; one of them
with some enthusiasm, but the cases he offered in proof of his
views were not at all conclusive. Hypnotism has been employed
a good deal here and in Germany, but has been found bene-
ficial only in some cases of hysteria and in some cases of func-
tional troubles, such as abnormal menstruation and constipation
of the bowels not dependent on organic disease. ... Of
course experiments are still constantly being made, but with
very critical eyes." It is generally conceded, however, that
hypnotism is a precious mine for physiologists and psychologists
to explore, and that a study of the phenomena which appear
during the hypnotic state may throw not a little light on the
mechanism of thought.
1895.] LEO XIII. 805
We conclude by saying that this condition of the nervous
system, lying as it does on the borderland of hysteria and mad-
ness, is one well calculated to inspire us with awe, and in former
times yet not so very long ago before science had fought
and conquered its way to the high position which it now holds,
not only the oi polloi, but men learned in jurisprudence and
metaphysics, believed in witchcraft, and too often looked upon
the unfortunate beings who were afflicted with hystero-epilepsy
as demoniacs. Happily those days have passed away ; through
a better knowledge of the human body we are grown more
humane he who does not say aye to this has read history to
little purpose and for this greater enlightenment and humanity
we are mainly indebted to scientists who had the same courage
and perseverance as Jean-Martin Charcot.
LEO XIII.
St. Peter s, January i, 1888.
BY RALPH ADAMS CRAM.
[ H ROUGH the white light clear peals a silver bell,
And he is coming. Smoking censers swing
And snowy plumes are tossing where they
bring
A King, and more than king. The awful spell
Is on me of those eyes where ages dwell.
Kneeling I see him Peter, Priest and King,
Wearily bearing, while hosannas ring,
In pallid hands the Keys of Heaven and Hell.
" Blessed is he that cometh in the Name
Of Christ the Lord." Yea, more than any man
Blessed art thou, and blessed shalt thou stand,
O patient prisoner of the Vatican !
A cloud by day, by night a living flame
To lead thy people to the Promised Land.
806 A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. [Mar.,
A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS.
BY VINCENT D. ROSSMAN.
JR. JOHNSON says of a certain novel a much-
belauded production of Congreve's youth, upon
which Mr. Gosse bestows considerable praise
that he would rather praise it than read it. So
most people would much rather echo the tradi-
tional praise of the famous Letters of Horace Walpole than
read theni, and satisfy their minds as to whether the Letters
really deserve all the fine things which have been said of them.
Of course there is nothing very astonishing in the fact that
in our large libraries the dust of neglect is allowed to accumu-
late upon single copies of such books as the published corre-
spondence of Walpole, while twenty-five copies of the latest
work of fiction are speedily worn to rags. The Prince of
Poets has not told us a truer thing than what he tells us in the
lines addressed by the expostulating Ulysses to the pouting
Achilles :
" One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted."
From a literary point of view, our interest in Walpole
begins with his famous quarrel with the author of the Church-
yard Elegy. In the year 1739 Walpole, having been graduated
from Cambridge where, according to his own ingenuous con-
fession, he was anything but a brilliant scholar set out "to
do " the Continent, accompanied by Gray, whom he had in-
duced to make the grand tour with him. It was an ill-matched
pair from the start. Their tastes "and inclinations were dis-
similar ; and such was the self-sufficiency and wilfulness of each
that any accommodation or subordination of the wishes of the
one to those of the other was not to be thought of. Gray,
with his studious and researching propensities, was for gloating
in contemplation of thought-awakening antiquities or works of
art, or in poring over old books and manuscripts in the
libraries of France, Germany, and Italy. Light-hearted and
1895.] A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. 807
frivolous Walpole, on the other hand, had no liking for such
pursuits, and cared little for anything but balls and dinner-
parties, and for the enjoyment of all the social pleasures at the
command of the son of Sir Robert Walpole. The mutual feel-
ing of impatient restraint resultant of such incompatibility
broke out in numerous tiffs and poutings, but the occasion for
an open rupture was had in Italy. It is said that Walpole sus-
pected that in a letter to England Gray had expressed himself
very unfeignedly touching his opinions of his travelling com-
panion, and that Walpole, having surreptitiously got possession
of the suspected epistle, perpetrated such an atrocious deed of
dishonor as the opening and reading of it. By the upbraiding
of Walpole, or by other means, Gray discovered that his mail
had been tampered with, and of course a tremendous rumpus,
and a deal of harsh recrimination, were the results, followed by
the parting of the two. Such is one story of this famous
quarrel. The cause of their ultimate and separating embitter-
ment is not really known. Walpole was in all probability most
at fault. He afterwards expressed himself very penitently
concerning the affair, and repeatedly declared that the blame
was his. He made overtures to Gray Looking to a renewal of
their intimacy, and though the latter has expressed very grave
and philosophic thoughts in his writings, he here showed himself
so devoid of right-minded philosophy as to repel them.
WALPOLE AS A ROCOCO CRANK.
Walpole, however, was not of such a mental constitution as to
disturb himself much over his quarrel with Gray, and his failure
to effect a reconciliation. On his return to London he at once
became a central figure of that social world which is so graphi-
cally described in his inimitable letters. He bought the shop
of a toy-woman situated in a suburb of London, took up his
abode there, and became a toy-man himself not a commodity-
selling toyman, but a collector of all sorts of absurd oddities
with which he toyed to the end of his life. He embellished
his house, known as Strawberry Hill, with incongruous archi-
tectural excrescences which Macaulay calls "pie-crust battle-
ments." These decorative outrages were indeed of a pie-crust
sort, for they were such as to make one of right artistic taste
have the nightmare. Macaulay has described Walpole's manner
of life in his review of the letters to Sir Horace Mann, and,
though written in the great essayist's best style, there runs
throughout his scoffing of Walpole's inconsistency and frivolity
8o8 A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. [Mar.,
a strain of bitter and contemptuous arraignment which is en-
tirely unjustifiable. It was a great deal more reprehensible in
Macaulay to be so indignant over Walpole's foolishness than it
was in the foolish Walpole to follow the bent of his unwise
inclinations. Such criticism of such a man is analogous to that
wretched system of pedagogics which subjects a pupil to pun-
ishment, or to the ridicule of his companions, because his is
the heavy misfortune to have a mind thralled in the sloughs
of sluggishness and unresponsiveness. If Walpole thought more
of pieces of broken glass and ragged bits of tapestry than of
his duties of parliamentary legislation ; more of epitaphs for
departed dogs and cats of quality and for the latest tid-bit of
scandal than of the marvellous and map-changing exploits of
Frederick the Great ; if he was a man of the affectation which
fears to reveal conditions and purposes, instead of one of that
bold, honest candor which declares, in contradistinction to lago's
avowal of hypocrisy, " I am what I am " if all this be true
of Walpole, pity rather than malediction is his due. One who
so much lacks in appreciation of the serious and vital concerns
of life as did Walpole, and who occupies himself with, and thinks
of little save trifles, does indeed perpetrate an egregious blun-
der ; and some blunders may, as is said, be more serious than
crimes ; but the blunderer merits no such measure of reproba-
tion as deservedly falls to the lot of the criminal.
A PROFOUND JESTER.
To enlarge unduly upon the mental weaknesses and aberra-
tions of Walpole, and so create the unfounded notion that his
mind was incorrigibly frivolous, and radically incompetent of
apprehending the serious aspects of affairs, would be a piece of
strained criticism for which no provocation may be alleged.
There are occasional passages in his correspondence which in-
dicate in the writer powers of keen and discriminating ob-
servation, and an ability to think well and coherently on sub-
jects other than trifles. Macaulay writes with the utmost con-
tempt of the measure of Walpole's appreciation of the litera-
ture and affairs of France, and insinuates that he failed utterly
to realize the portentous significance of the tendencies of the
French thought and happenings of the times; that he was in-
capable of feeling any forebodings of that awful deluge, the
approaching tumult of which the wretched Louis XV. heard on
his death-bed. Facts by no means justify Macaulay here. Wal-
pole visited Paris in the fall of 1765, and in a letter written
1 895.] A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. 809
from there at that time there occurs the following significant
passage : " Laughing is out of fashion here. Good folks, they
have no time to laugh. There is God and the king to be
pulled down first, and men and women, one and all, are en-
gaged in the demolition. They think me quite profane for hav-
ing any belief left." Walpole was again in Paris in the summer
of 1771, and his letters written thence at that time particu-
larly one to his friend General Conway, dated July 31, 1771
show that he possessed sufficient penetration to read aright the
signs of the times, and to sniff the premonitions of blood and
fire in the air. Edmund Burke did not see what Walpole saw.
The great orator sojourned in Paris the year subsequent to the
occasion of Walpole's visit last alluded to, and he was so en-
raptured by the beauty and graciousness of Marie Antoinette,
then Dauphiness, and so delighted with the polish and stateli-
ness of the court that did obsequious homage to the young Aus-
trienne, that he felt nothing of the tremors of those convul-
sions gathering under the thin exterior strata of French society
which were so soon to split the earth and send forth the awful
incarnations of long-repressed vengeance. Mr. John Forster
says, in his magnificent biography of Goldsmith : " Burke saw
little but an age of chivalry extant still, where something should
have been visible to him of an age of starvation and retribu-
tion ; and through the glittering formal state that surrounded
the pomp of Louis the Well Beloved not a shadow of the an-
tic, Hunger, mocking the state and grinning at the pomp,
would seem to have revealed itself to Edmund Burke." Not
so with Horace Walpole, however silly and frivolous he seems.
SCRIBBLING DOWN SLAVERY.
It is also creditable to Walpole's head and heart that he
was strongly opposed to the institution of slavery, and in Par-
liament he was as ardent as was possible for one of his temper-
ament to be in the advocacy of that anti-slavery movement
which was carried subsequently to glorious victory by the in-
defatigable labors of Clarkson and Wilberforce, Garrison and
Channing. In 1750 he writes to Mann: "We have been sitting
this fortnight on the African Company. We, the British Sen-
ate, that temple of liberty and bulwark of Protestant Christian-
ity, have been pondering methods to make more effectual this
horrid traffic of selling negroes. It would appear to us that
six and-forty thousand of these wretched creatures are sold every
year to our American plantations alone ! It chills one's blood !
8 io A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. [Mar.,
I would not have it to say that I voted for it for the conti-
nent of America."
DEARLY LOVED A LORD IN LETTERS.
Walpole's most heinous literary fault was his absurd though
not at all remarkable disposition to gauge his estimate of a book
according to the rank or gentility of the author. He actually
seemed to think a plebeian incapable of meritorious effort in
literature, and his opinion as to any performance anonymously
published was probably held in suspense until the fact of its
authorship had been clearly established. If by a man of the
people, like Johnson or Goldsmith, it was a poor performance
worthy of little notice
" But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens, how the style refines!
Before his sacred name flies every fault,
And each exalted stanza teems with thought."
He makes few allusions to the writers contemporaneous with
him who were making the real literature of the time ; they were
all too vulgar to engage his pen, except when he went out of
his way to write adversely of them, when he perpetrated some
precious bits of most nonsensical critical coxcombry. In his
correspondence there are several allusions to Fielding, in one
of which he describes how inexpressibly shocked he was when,
on calling with some friends upon the novelist on some busi-
ness connected with the latter's magisterial duties, he found
Fielding sitting before a table covered with a dirty cloth, and
eating cold ham and mutton out of one dish. How greatly,
indeed, must this vulgar spectacle have shocked the delicate
gentility of the fastidious Horace, and how must his perturba-
tion have been intensified by Fielding's crowning and unpar-
donable violation of the rules of polite table etiquette his shar-
ing of his dirty meal with several dirty beggars! Is it possible
that Walpole was ignorant of Fielding's connection with the
royal house of the Austrian Hapsburgs, alluded to so forcibly
in the well-known panegyric of the novelist in Gibbon's me-
moirs, which occasioned Thackeray to express the opinion that
to have one's name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it writ-
ten on the dome of St. Peter's? And yet it seems difficult
to believe that Walpole would have had anything but ex-
travagant praise for Fielding had he been aware of this.
Walpole has no commendation to express concerning Dr.
1895.] A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. 811
Johnson's periodicals, but is thrown into ecstasies of admiration
over some of the papers in the fashionable publication, The
World, written by his lordship of Chesterfield. The following
passage from one of his letters, written in 1773, is quite unique,
but very characteristic : " I should like to know Mr. Anstey
and Mr. Mason, but I have no thirst to know the rest of my
contemporaries, from the absurd, bombastic Dr. Johnson down
to the silly Dr. Goldsmith. Don't think me scornful. Recollect
that I have seen Pope and lived with Gray." It is indeed a
pity that in his contact with Pope and Gray he was not taught
sufficient sense to prevent him from thinking and expressing
such folly as this just quoted. Again, referring to Johnson's
stupendous dictionary achievement, he has this to say to a cor-
respondent : " Surely you do not equal the compiler of a dic-
tionary with a genuine poet ? Is a brick-maker on a level with
an architect ? " And so the great service of Johnson to the
English, rendered by the compilation of his dictionary, is here
spoken of as a piece of literary brick-work ! If Walpole had
been more sensibly appreciative of the value of a dictionary and
of the labors of the lexicographer, he might have learned to
write more correctly and to restrain his habitual predilection
for foreignisms. When one considers the intellect of Johnson as
compared with that of Walpole, the aristocratic scribbler's sneers
at the doctor's work seem exquisitely absurd. As the old pau-
per in Oliver Twist says, on a different sort of occasion, " It's
as good as a play ! as good as a play ! " Sensible Englishmen
of the day had but one opinion of Johnson's ability and attain-
ments, however much they may have disliked him socially,
feared him as a conversationalist, and censured his overweening
intellectual arrogance ; and this unanimous opinion was that
Johnson was, as Cowper expresses it,
"... a sage by all allowed
Whom to have bred may well make England proud."
Walpole seems to have forgotten that Johnson had not only
produced the dictionary, but had also written two noble poems ;
that he had not only proved himself what Walpole calls a lite-
rary brick-maker, but had also shown his capabilities as a literary
architect.
Walpole himself occasionally " dropped into poetry," and the
products of his poetic delusion are about on a level with the
effusions of Mr. Silas Wegg; indeed, they are of such a char-
acter as to explain most conclusively why their author preferred
8 12 A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. [Mar.,
Anstey and Mason to Johnson and Goldsmith why he thought
"The New Bath Guide" and " Elfrida " immeasurably finer per-
formances than "The Vanity of Human Wishes" or "The De-
serted Village." Here is one of them, composed on a certain
lady of Paris speaking English :
" Soft sounds steal from fair Forqualier's lips,
Like bee, that murmuring the jasmine sips.
Are these my native accents ? None so sweet,
So gracious, yet my ravished ears did meet.
O power of beauty, thy enchanting look
Can melodize each note in Nature's book!
The roughest wrath of Russians, when they swear,
Pronounced by thee, flow soft as Indian air,
And dulcet breath, attempered by thy eyes,
Gives British verse o'er Tuscan verse the prize."
One might write such nonsense extemporaneously and infor-
mally, and still be forgiven ; but to subject it to a formal tran-
scription in a letter to a third person as Walpole did and to
seriously comment upon it as Walpole did is really a piece
of almost unpardonable stultification. " You must not look,
madam," writes he to Lady Hervey, " for much meaning in
these lines ; they were intended only to run smoothly, and be
easily comprehended by the fair scholar who is learning our
language. Still less must you show them." Of course this,
translated, means : " You will probably, madam, think these
lines very smart and elegantly significant. You will please show
them to every one." Walpole's poetry does, indeed, sufficiently
account for his judgments on the poets of his day. A person
might possess the most delicate susceptibilities to the beauties
of real poetry, and be incapable of writing a single verse of
poetic sense ; but it is hardly within the range of mental incon-
gruity that such a person should be capable of writing versified
and rhythmical nonsense and think it poetry.
GINGERBREAD CRITICISM.
Towards the close of his life, addressing a friend, Walpole
writes: "With regard to letter-writing, I am firmly persuaded
that it is a province in which the women will always shine su-
periorly; for our sex is too jealous of the reputation of good
sense to condescend to hazard a thousand trifles and negligences
which give grace, ease, and familiarity to correspondence." This
is truly a most striking passage. It shows how entirely the
1 895.] A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. 813
writer misconceived of his own powers. It was exactly his
ability to dilate entertainingly upon social nothings, and to in-
dulge in the trifles of easy, familiar correspondence, that secured
for Walpole's name a permanent place in the records of English
literature. He was quite sure that his reputation would extend
beyond the period of his life, but his anticipations of lasting
fame were mainly based on the estimate he placed on his more
serious and ambitious literary efforts ; though, of course, he was
not unconscious of his unusual epistolary powers, and left care-
fully transcribed and annotated copies of his letters. But those
writings of Walpole which may be designated as his works, his
Historic Doubts, his Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors what
a labor of love was the composition of this last-named work !
his Anecdotes of Painting, his obnoxious tragedy, and even his
Castle of Otranto, have been almost completely forgotten, and
their very titles would be lost in the oblivion that has engulfed
many better works were it not that the Horace Walpole who
wrote these books is identified with the man who wrote the Let-
ters of Horace Walpole.
When Walpole formally put on his thinking-cap, and sat
down to spread his irregular and superficial learning over pages
of criticism and didactics, he by no means did what was con-
ducive to the augmentation of his literary reputation ; when he
diverted his mind from its native tendencies, and tried to force
it to a state of sustained and protracted seriousness, he was un-
der a delusion as to his capabilities during the prevalence of
which he was not always able to write good sense ; but when
he threw off all affectation, and dashed off the inimitable letters
he could write so well, then did he do what was to save him
from the fate which awaited so many of his contemporaries
whose verbal commonplaces and elegant inanities he thought
finer than the writings of the " bombastic Dr. Johnson " and the
"silly Dr. Goldsmith."
It is due to the ladies to say that facts by no means sup-
port what Walpole says, in the passage last quoted, concerning
an exclusive ability on their part to accomplish that expansion
of nothing which is the secret of correspondence of a familiar,
easy sort. Of course, the obvious refutation of it lies in Wai-
pole's own achievements as a letter-writer; while the implied
innuendo, that such letters are the only kind ladies are capable
of producing, might have been given the lie even when made,
for when Walpole wrote this passage both the correspondence
of the unfortunate Lady Russell, and the more celebrated letters
8 14 A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. [Mar.,
of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, had been published ; the first
of which two ladies possessed more right-minded philosophy,
and the latter more solid learning, than a score of Horace Wai-
poles rolled into one ; and either of whom displayed more ease
and' directness in the expression of profound thought than Wai-
pole did in the expression of superficial thought.
A SHAM PHILANTHROPIST.
Walpole's penchant for attitudinizing led him to a phase of
affectation which incurs the charge of hypocrisy. It pleased his
whim to sometimes masquerade in the robes of refined and large-
hearted philanthropy. The costume by no means fitted him,
and deceived no one. His borrowed plumage has been torn
from him, and he has been driven with scorn back to his own
proper level of flippant unconcern for the great interests of man-
kind. Such was the natural sphere of his thoughts and inclina-
tions, though he was not incapable of occasional elevations from
it. He pretended to entertain a most edifying horror of war,
and affected an aversion to the society of Pitt because of the
bellicose propensities of the " Great Commoner " for which cul-
pable priggishness Macaulay accords him a dressing-down which
was richly deserved. At the opening of the terrible Seven
Years' War we find this enemy of war writing, in a spirit of per-
siflage, to a friend concerning the object of his righteous en-
mity as follows : " To be sure war is a dreadful calamity, but
then it is a very comfortable commodity for writing letters ;
and as one did not contribute to make it, why there can be no
harm in being a little amused with looking on." The prepon-
derating business of Walpole's life was to amuse himself, and it
is rather surprising that he should not have been disposed to
cherish the friendship of a man who, like Pitt, was largely in-
strumental in affording him opportunities of amusing himself in
the observation of war, and in the gossiping upon its awful events.
And yet this same Seven Years' War provoked Walpole to say
some very amusing things. Sir Charles Williams, the diplomat
and political satirist, having been sent some years previous to
the opening of the war to treat, in the name of England, with
Frederick on Silesian questions which eventually caused the
war, this fact was announced to Mann in a letter from Wal-
pole, who makes a humorous allusion to the literary idiosyn-
crasies of the Prussian monarch : " He (Williams) is to teach
the monarch of Prussia to fetch and carry, unless they happen
to treat in iambics, and begin to treat of the limits of Parnassus
1895.] A PRINCE OF SCRIBBLERS. 815
instead of those of Silesia." And later, during the prevalence
of hostilities, he writes thus of the absurdly vacillating conduct
of the Russians and their Swedish allies : " They quite make one
smile. They hover every summer over the north of Germany,
get cut to pieces by September, disappear, have a general dis-
graced, and in winter out comes a memorial from the czarina
of her steadiness to her engagements, and of the mighty things she
will do in spring. The Swedes follow them like Sancho Panza."
AN UNREVERENCED OLD AGE.
Walpole had busied himself so much with fleeting trifles
that his mind contained little material for the serious retro-
spection which may be such a solacing mental occupation for
placid old age. As early as 1765, while suffering from a
severe and protracted attack of gout, he writes as follows:
"I am tired of the world, its politics, its pursuits, its
pleasures; but it will cost me some struggles before I submit
to be tender and careful. Can I ever stoop to the regime of
old age? I do not wish to dress up a withered person, nor
drag it around to public places ; but to sit in one's room,
clothed warmly, expecting visits from folks I don't wish to see,
and tended and flattered by relations impatient for one's death !
Let the gout do its work as expeditiously as it can ; it would be
more welcome in my stomach than in my limbs. I am not
made to bear a course of nonsense and advice, but must play
the fool in my own way to the last, alone with my heart, if I
cannot be with the few friends I wish to see ; but to depend
for comfort on others who would not be a comfort to me this
surely is not a state to be preferred to death."
At the threshold of the grave he craved the society of a few
sincerely sympathetic friends, but in having no such friends he
but paid the bitter price for such life as he had lived. He re-
alized the true import of all the solicitude manifested toward
him, and he choked with the ashes of the fruits of ceremony
that were offered him. He yearned for kind interest in his be-
half, and he obtained nothing but that unlovely interest of
" Ceremony that was devised at first
To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,
Recanting goodness ; sorry ere 'tis shown ;
But where there is true friendship, there needs none."
In March, 1797," God's finger touched him, and he fell asleep."
Let us now forget his faults, and trust that he rests in peace. \
THE LATE SIR JOHN THOMPSON, PREMIER OF CANADA.
SIR JOHN THOMPSON: A STUDY.
BY J. A. J. MCKENNA,
of the Department of Indian Affairs, Ottawa.
\ UST as that organization which, under the guise
of patriotism, aims at the exclusion of Catho-
lics from public office was making itself felt as
a disturbing element in Canadian as well as
American politics, death, by a sudden stroke,
brought vividly before the public view the career of a man
whose life afforded the strongest possible refutation of the
calumny that the influence of the Catholic Church makes not
for civic virtue. It is not the rarity of such examples that
causes the life of Sir John Thompson to stand forth so promi-
nently. Neither in the past nor in the present has the church
or the world's commonwealths been sterile in this regard. It
is only a few months since the press and pulpit of the chief
1895.] Sf* JOHN THOMPSON. 817
province of the Canadian Dominion resounded with the praises
of a man who had proved himself to be a most faithful stew-
ard of a great department of the provincial government. He
was looked up to as a tower of strength by the Liberals; Sir
John Thompson was regarded by the Conservative party as
the embodiment of its hopes. The political ideals of the one
were, in a certain sense, the very antithesis of those of the
other. The one stood for freedom of trade and founded his
policy on the principles of the English school of Liberals; the
other held that protection of native industry was more in the
interest of the nation, and drew his political inspiration in the
main from Conservative sources. But Christopher Finley Fraser
and John Sparrow David Thompson were at one in this:
they were faithful guardians of public trust, and no motive
whatever was potent enough to make them deviate from the
path of duty. And when death removed them early and sud-
denly from the sphere of human activity, men of every reli-
gious belief and of none political partisans and men who stand
aloof from party all to whom their lives had been made
manifest, joined in declaring these Catholic public men to have
been honest, honorable, and just ; and what is more, it was
made evident that it was faithfulness to religious principles
which begot that strength and rectitude of conscience which is
the source and the guarantee of upright conduct.
EARLY INFLUENCES.
But the extended field in which Sir John Thompson exer-
cised the power and influence of a political leader, the circum-
stances of his brief career and its most dramatic ending, give
unusual emphasis to the lessons of his life. His father was an
Irish Methodist, who emigrated from Waterford to Nova Scotia,
and by careful and laborious effort attained a position in the
civil service of the colony which brought him a decent com-
petence. He was only able, however, to give his son the bene-
fits of a common-school education, supplemented by a course
at a local Presbyterian academy. But John Thompson learned
in early youth the value of quiet, patient endeavor; and in his
life he fulfilled that saying of the Scriptures : " The diligent
man shall stand before kings." Born in 1844, he was called to
the bar in 1865. But in the meantime he had made himself
proficient in the art of stenography, and was thereby enabled
to support himself in modest independence during the dreary
and briefless years that form the prelude of the career of
VOL. LX. 52
8i8 SIR JOHN THOMPSON. [Mar.,
him who enters upon the profession of law without the adven-
titious aid of either wealth or influential connections. In 1870
he married Anne Affleck, a Catholic girl who was as fitted to
be the helpmate of the hard-working young barrister as she was
to be the companion of the statesman whom his sovereign de-
lighted to honor.
LOGIC DECIDES THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION.
John Thompson was not the man to allow his affections to
influence him in his consideration of that momentous question :
Which is the religion revealed by God? The man who held
that the least excitement disturbed the weighing power of
one's judgment, and who laid down the rule that feeling,
though not to be dispensed with, must be crushed and sub-
dued by the will until it left a lawyer's head as cool and
steady as a surgeon's hand, was not likely to leap to conclu>
sions in theology. He agreed to the conditions which the
church imposes on those not of the fold who join in wedlock
with any of her children. Further he was, not prepared to go.
But his marriage brought him face to face with the claims of
the Catholic Church, and he felt it his duty to examine and
weigh the evidence offered in support of claims of such stupen-
dous import. A Methodist minister, the Rev. Dr. Saunders, of
Halifax, in writing on the death of Sir John Thompson, tells
us that " his judicial turn of mind led him to examine every
matter to its last possible analysis," and that, when his investi-
gation was ended, " his instinctive honesty of purpose and calm
courage made open avowal of conclusions reached a very easy
matter." The calm and searching investigation of religious
truth upon which he entered, with that good faith which is
ever enlightened by the Spirit of Wisdom, ended in the convic-
tion that the Catholic Church was what she claimed to be the
infallible guide of men in the moral order.
DUTY AND WORLDLY INTERESTS.
And now came the great crisis of his life. His habit was
to dispassionately consider the consequences as well as the
grounds of his decisions. He had a religious nature, but his
mind was not of so spiritual a trend as to keep him from am-
bitioning riches as well as spiritual ease. He was conscious of
the ' possibilities of his. talents, and he felt that by the right
exercise of them he .could, without the least baseness, raise him-
self to an honorable and opulent position. One who knew him
I89S-]
Snt JOHN THOMPSON.
819
from his youth writes that Sir John once told him that his
ambition as a young man was to be a really good lawyer and
to make money, so that his family might be in a better posi-
tion than he himself had been. Sound common sense and a
high degree of practicality were ever distinguishing character-
istics of the man. His eyes were therefore wide open to the
probable results, near and remote, of the course upon which
EX-PREMIER OF CANADA.
his conscience urged him. Touching this point in the late
prime minister's career, Mr. George Johnston says: "In the
several crises of his life he was guided by lofty principles. I
remember well in one of the greatest of these how hard was
the struggle in his mind between the conviction of duty and
worldly interests. He saw before him, if he took one course,
the possible lack of the comforts of life for himself and his
820 to JOHN THOMPSON. [Mar.,
family. ' Never mind,' said he, ' stenography and I can scratch
out a living for them, even though it be a poor one,' and he
took the step." Believing he was throwing away the worldly
prize, he entered the visible fold of Christ's Church in the
summer of 1871 ; and when the angel of death smote him as
he attained the very apex of civic greatness, the grandest
eulogy pronounced over him was this : " Born a Protestant, he
did not fear, when his conscience showed him his duty, to be-
come a Catholic. He cared nothing for the approval of the
populace; he felt only the satisfaction of duty accomplished.
Could I do otherwise than admire such a man, the finest orna-
ment of Canada, who was above all human considerations ? As
it was in regard to his faith, so it was in his social and politi-
cal creed he felt convinced that he was acting right, and he
acted according to the dictates of his conscience." *
GREAT LEGAL ABILITY.
Lord Eldon attributed his rise to high office to his having,
for many years, " lived like a hermit and worked like a horse."
Sir John Thompson would not have made a statement so smack-
ing of exaggeration ; but, had he been given to talking of him-
self, in all likelihood he would have credited his advancement
to work rather than to genius. He had none of those gifts
whereby the orator ofttimes makes men's feelings rise in -mutiny
against reason ; but he developed a power higher in order and
more lasting in its effects, that of so appealing to men's reason
as to obtain their assent to his views. He was not long at the
bar when he became a recognized leader; and by 1877 he had
established so high a reputation that he was retained as coun-
sel by the government of the United States in the proceedings
before the Fishery Commission which sat at Halifax in that
year under the terms of the Treaty of Washington. Mr. Jus-
tice Meagher, who was associated with Mr. Thompson in the
practice of law, writes thus of his career at the bar of Nova
Scotia : " His devotion to his clients' interests, his untiring in-
dustry, coupled with his great love and unlimited capacity for
professional work, ably supplemented as these qualities were by
a wonderfully quick perception and ready mastery of detail in
matters of fact, as well as a most thorough and comprehensive
grasp of legal principles, enabled him to obtain a knowledge at
once complete and thorough over every feature and question
likely to arise, or necessary to be dealt with in the progress of
* Honorable Wilfrid Laorier, leader of k the Canadian Liberals.
x*95-]
Six JOHN THOMPSON.
821
the matter entrusted to his management. Fortified as all these
were by an earnest manner and an exceedingly happy faculty
of expression combining ease, simplicity, and the highest de-
gree of force and elegance it need not surprise any one that
his career at the bar was marked by an almost uninterrupted
series of victories."
ENTRY UPON POLITICAL LIFE.
Never enamored of political life, he had not proceeded far
upon his career when he was called to the discharge of civic
duties; In the early seventies he served his native city as alder-
man and as chairman of the Board of School Commissioners,
displaying in those humbler offices the same moral qualities
which later on were made so manifest in the administration of
the highest national trusts as to draw from his staunchest po-
litical opponents the most
unqualified encomiums.
In 1877 he was elected to
represent the County of
Antigonish in the Pro-
vincial Legislature, which
he entered as a supporter
of the then opposition.
In the general elections
of the following year the
Liberal government was
defeated, and Mr. Thomp-
son entered the new ad-
ministration as attorney-
general. He was a Con-
servative, but not one of
the old, non-progressive
Tory type. His conser-
vatism was tempered by
a fine sense of justice.
He was no believer in
., , , . r . i -1.1. THE HON. WILFRID LAURIEK, CANADIAN
the doctrine of the right- LIBERAL LEADER '
ness of that which is.
The dilettante worship of mere antiquity was not more conge-
nial to him than the doctrinaire notions of amateur reformers.
The government, in which from the first he exercised a control-
ling influence, pressed on the construction of railways, attempted
to simplify the over-elaborate legislative system by the abolition
822 S/ff JOHN THOMPSON. [Mar.,
of the provincial senate, and introduced a bill designed to take
from the magistrates and grand juries the functions of munici-
pal government and vest them in elective county councils respon-
sible directly to the rate-payers. On the eve of the dissolution
of the Provincial Parliament, the first minister, Mr. Holmes, re-
tired, and Attorney-General Thompson took the full command.
But, strange to relate, his well-conceived Municipal Corporation
Act a measure of genuine reform led to the defeat of his
government at the polls ; and the Liberal party were returned
to power, pledged to maintain existing conditions. Alas !
" What's in a name ? " It's oft with politicians as with roses.
THE USES OF ADVERSITY.
This defeat, however, was but the prelude to the consumma-
tion of his young ambition. Politics were to him distasteful.
He had a remarkably keen relish for jurisprudence, and from
his youth he had looked to a seat on the bench as the culmina-
tion of his hopes. He therefore received with undisguised pleas-
ure the commission of a justice of the Superior Court of Nova
Scotia, which issued to him in 1882. In his judicial career "he
showed," says Senator Power, "great quickness of intellectual
vision and a wide knowledge of law." And from abundant tes-
timony we have it that, in this as in other spheres, the vigor of
his conscience was as well evidenced as the lucidity of his mind.
He meted out judgment by the measure with which he was
prepared to have it measured out to himself. At this time he
undertook the additional duties of a professorship in jurispru-
dence, and his reputation became the mainstay of the law
school of Dalhousie University. It has been said that as an
expounder of legal science his equal was not to be found on
the continent. It is certain that on the bench and in the lecture-
hall he was seen to best advantage ; for they afforded ample
opportunities of bringing into play, untrammelled by exigencies,
all the noble attributes of his character, and enabled him to
demonstrate, in theory and in practice, that " law is beneficence
acting by rule."
THE EXECUTION OF KIEL.
But he was not destined to long pursue the peaceful paths
he loved. Three years had scarce elapsed ere the demands of
statecraft bade him launch forth again upon the turbulent sea of
politics. Louis Kiel, who led the half-breeds of the North-west
in rebellion when, in 1869, the Canadian government extended
1895-] Ssx JOHN THOMPSON. 823
its authority over the territory formerly held under the imperial
crown by the Hudson's Bay Company, tried his hand again at
revolution, and raised in 1885 his Metis kinsmen and some of
their Indian allies ia insurrection against the constituted authori-
ties. This is not the place to discuss the causes and conse-
quences of his action. He was taken in arms, tried and con-
victed of high treason, and sentenced to be hanged. And now
arose a turmoil in the state. The sword had been laid away
in its scabbard ; but there was a war of tongues in the land.
The mass of Kiel's French compatriots called for the commu-
tation of his sentence ; others not of his blood the Orangemen,
with their usual disregard of decency, loudest of all demanded
that the law should take its course. A medical commission
pronounced the convicted man to be compos mentis. Only on
the ground that he was not responsible for his acts would the
government agree to exercise executive clemency ; and Louis
Riel suffered the death penalty of treason. The clamoring of
one set of men was set at rest, but an ominous burst of pro-
test came from Quebec. Riel dead was more potent than Riel
living, and it looked as if Canada was to have a war of races,
which, though bloodless, would make stable government exceed-
ingly difficult. A section of the French Conservatives withdrew
their support from the administration ; Mr. Edward Blake,* the
then leader of the Liberal party, adversely criticised the action of
the government, and the question became the crucial one with
which Parliament would have to deal on its assembling. Mr.
Blake was facile princeps in parliamentary debate, the leader of the
Canadian bar, and an authority on constitutional law and practice
with whom no member of the Canadian Commons could cope
on equal terms. That most astute politician, the late Sir John
Macdonald, saw that the government needed as defender, not
a man versed in the art of political sleight-of-hand but one
who could bring broad principles to bear on great occasions.
Never did he more clearly evidence his rare sagacity in esti-
mating men than when he called John Thompson from the
bench of Nova Scotia to the ministership of justice in the
federal administration.
A PARLIAMENTARY TOURNEY.
Up to this Mr. Thompson's reputation had been restricted
to his own province. Beyond its confines only a few of the
leading men knew ef his standing. And the question was
*Now member of Parliament for Longford, Ireland.
824 $!/ JOHN THOMPSON. [Mar.,
asked : " What manner of man is this who enters federal politics
by the great gate and is preferred before so many ? " The
ministerialists protested against so unprecedented a putting for-
ward of an unknown man. " Gentlemen," replied Sir John
Macdonald, "wait until six months have passed before you
form your judgment of the new minister of justice. Come to
me then, if you will, and tell me that I have made a mistake."
Ere six months had passed the new minister was looked upon
as the Joseph of the Conservative party, and " Go to Thomp-
son " came to be the leader's not infrequent answer to unusually
difficult questions of state. He had met Edward Blake in the
great debate and had proved himself worthy of his powerful
antagonist. Never before had there been so dignified, so in-
tellectual, and so well balanced a conflict in Canada's Parlia-
mentary arena. Never before had there been heard in the
Commons so scientific an analysis or so masterly an arraign-
ment, such setting aside of precedent by precedent. Parliament
now indeed appeared to be in reality what it is in theory the
high court of the nation. The potency of Kiel's memory was
overcome by the calm, judicial influence of Thompson. The
stampede of the French Conservatives was stopped. The
government was saved.
INSTABILITY OF POPULAR FAVOR.
If many in Quebec looked askance at the man in whom
was so strikingly blended strength with modesty, coldness with
urbanity, faithfulness to conscience with devotion to party,
Ontario regarded him as a very Daniel. But alas ! for the
fickleness of popular favor ; the cheers which greeted him in
Ontario in 1886 had turned to groans in 1891. For another
question had arisen which stirred up an animosity that is, by a
strange paradox, called religious. In 1888 the late Honor6
Mercier, then premier of Quebec, had an act passed by the
Provincial Legislature authorizing a money payment to the
Society of Jesus in compensation for lands illegally escheated in
1800, when old Canada was subject to the irresponsible rule of
the Colonial Office. The preamble of the bill consisted of cor-
respondence which had passed between the Quebec government
and the Propaganda, Mr. Mercier considering it necessary, in
order to secure the province from further demands from other
claimants within the church in Quebec, that the Papal consent
to the settlement as conveyed in the correspondence should be
thus embodied in the legislative measure. But this official
i8 9 5.]
JOHN THOMPSON.
825
recognition of Pope and Jesuits was construed by some relig-
ionists as an insult to Protestantism and a menace to the state.
The constitution of Canada gives to the federal government
the power to veto the acts of the provincial legislatures. The
power, of course, has its limitations. But the Pope had been
recognized in the statute-book of a British dependency as a
necessary consenting party to an arrangement of state; and on
that ground there went up a Protestant cry for disallowance,
and Ontario lashed itself into a finer fury than did Quebec over
the death of Kiel. When the question came before him, the
SIR CHARLES TUPPER, CANADIAN COMMISSIONER IN ENGLAND.
minister of justice reported that there was no reason for dis-
allowance, and recommended that the act be left to its opera-
tion. Mr. Mercier was so informed ; and then the storm of op-
position broke in all its violence. It invaded Parliament in the
session of 1889, and Mr. D' Alton McCarthy, the leader of the
nisi prius bar of Ontario and the erstwhile faithful henchman
of Sir John Macdonald, directed an attack on the government
for not exercising the prerogative of disallowance in the matter.
826 Sfx JOHN THOMPSON. [Mar.,
A GREAT CONSTITUTIONAL TRIUMPH.
In repelling that attack Sir John Thompson made his great-
est speech in Parliament. The argument was more sustained
than that in the Riel case. He fel* more at home in the
Commons, and Mr. McCarthy's case was so constructed as to
admit of his using bolder strokes in dissecting it than he was
able to employ in contending with Mr. Blake. Putting aside
the religious question as one which should never enter into the
discussion of such a subject, and shutting out the clamor of
fanatics, he treated the matter, from the stand-point of constitu-
tional law and practice, with such lucidity and power, such
breadth of view and judicial calmness, as captured the mind of
the House. When he resumed his seat, Mr. Blake rose and,
making a new departure in politics, crossed the floor and con-
gratulated the only minister of justice who had attained the
high standard which he himself had set. Sir John Thompson
now became the hero of Quebec. He quelled the storm in
Ontario ; and although the suspicion with which he was for a
time regarded in the one was now current in the other pro-
vince, he had again saved the government and kept his party
off the rock of faction. But he did more. He reversed the
old policy of the government on the question of disallowance,
by defining in unmistakable terms the extent and inviolability
of provincial rights. Sir John Macdonald was a centrist, and
liked to regard the provincial legislatures as bodies dependent
on the Dominion Parliament. Sir John Thompson read the
constitution with the eye of a federalist, and he declared that,
in dealing with subjects entrusted to them, the provincial
legislatures were as supreme as the Imperial Parliament.
Thenceforth the policy of the government on constitutional
questions was moulded in accordance with his view.
THE FISHERIES TANGLE.
He had not been long in office before his hand was plainly
seen in federal affairs. The voluminous despatches of the
Canadian government on the Atlantic Fisheries question were
prepared by him ; and, for the services which he rendered as
adviser of the British plenipotentiaries who negotiated the
Chamberlain-Bayard Fishery Treaty in 1887, he was made a
knight commander of St. Michael and St. George. His influ-
ence was soon observable upon the statute-books; and in his
codification of the common and statutory law relating to crimi-
1 895.] Su? JOHN THOMPSON. 827
nal matters and criminal procedure % he has left a monumental
proof of the great ability, the painstaking zeal, and the un-
limited devotion with which he labored for the common
weal.
On the death of Sir John Macdonald, in 1891, the governor-
general called upon Sir John Thompson to take the post of
first minister. But the party then were not sufficiently advanced
for leadership by one who in his young manhood went over to
Rome and in his maturer years defended the interests of the
Jesuits. He could have wrecked the party had he so willed.
But he believed that the welfare of the state was bound up
with its existence ; and, with unexampled unselfishness, he
stepped aside, named another for the honor, while his was the
labor and his the burden. In the same spirit he carried on the
work of administrative reform, cutting off corrupt branches lest
the whole tree would cease to bear fruit and come to be con-
sidered as cumbering the ground. The retirement of Sir John
Abbott within little more than a year of his assumption of
office rendered the premiership vacant again ; and now Sir
John Thompson was pressed to accept the position of leader
which he had been too unselfish to insist upon as his by right.
THE SEAL-FISHERIES.
As a representative of Great Britain on the International
Board of Arbitration, which sat in Paris in 1893 to settle the
dispute between England and the United States respecting the
seal-fisheries in the Behring Sea, he received the praise of his
fellow-arbitrators and the encomiums of the legal luminaries
who presented the case for the Empire and for the Republic.
For his services on that tribunal he was honored by being
called to the historic and select body which forms the Privy
Council of Great Britain ; but just as he had taken before his
queen, in Windsor Castle, the oath of the distinguished office
of an imperial adviser, he was summoned by the King of kings
to the imperishable reward of an upright life. With imperial
honors and national mourning, all that was mortal of the man
whose life so eloquently taught the oft-forgotten truth that
devotion to religion and devotion to country are cognate vir-
tues was borne to its last resting place in the city where, as a
young man, he made the great choice between obedience to
conscience and the prompting of secular ambition.
828 Ss* JOHN THOMPSON. [Mar.,
A PERSONAL PARALLEL.
One who well knew him in his latter years* has told us
that Sir John Thompson's favorite character in history was Sir
Thomas More. There are many respects in which Canada's
late prime minister was strikingly like England's beatified chan-
cellor. The basic principles of their lives were those which
must form the ground-work of every career, be it ever so hum-
ble or ever so exalted, which makes at once for a man's own
uplifting and the betterment of his kind. They were both men
who sought the approval of conscience before that of sovereign
or populace. They loved truth for truth's sake, and hated all
exaggeration and hypocrisy. Piety without cant, incorruptibil-
ity of conduct without parade of righteousness, characterized
them both. Never seeking place through the base art of cring-
ing, they attained to high positions in the state ; and without
stinting their labors for the commonwealth, they found time
for the exercise of those domestic offices which best fit men
for the fulfilment of public trusts. More in a letter to a favor-
ite daughter declared that, rather than suffer his children to
lose ground, he would himself continue their education to the
loss of his worldly estate and the neglect of all other cares and
business. Thompson hesitated not at incurring great expense
to secure his children the benefits of a sound religious and
secular education in famed European schools ; and now that
his comparative poverty has been made known, his self-sacrific-
ing devotion to his children looms up as one of his most
admirable traits, reminding parents that the education of their
children should be regarded as a first charge upon their time
and their income.
Like More, he set not his heart on worldly wealth. His
youthful desire for riches faded away, and he lived in the capi-
tal of the city he governed with a modesty that afforded a
striking rebuke to that love of display, as vain as it is vulgar,
which is the source of much of the evil that afflicts our age.
Had he devoted his talents to the practice of his profession
rather than to the service of the state, or had he used public
office with an eye to personal aggrandizement, he might have
amassed a fortune. He failed as Aristides failed, in not leaving
a sufficient portion for his family. But that union of poverty
with all the virtues in a sober, industrious, just, and valiant
*Rev. M. J. Whelan.
1895.] Ssx JOHN THOMPSON. 829
statesman, which spoke the elevated mind of the one, showed
the true nobility of the other.
A PROPAGANDIST OF CATHOLIC TRUTH.
Sir Thomas More's practice was ever in accordance with his
profession of faith ; he realized in his life the mission of a lay-
man in the cause of truth, and in his death his career was
glorified. Sir John Thompson was no mere formal adherent of
the church. His life was regulated by her rules, and his soul
was strengthened and his heart kept pure by the use of her
sacraments and sacramentals. Before setting out in response to
the gracious summons of his queen, he received Holy Com-
munion with his family ; and when he died in her royal castle
there were found on his body the tokens of a simple and sincere
faith a rosary and an image of his crucified Redeemer. He
found time in the midst of the pressing cares of high office to
give the aid of his counsel to those who in the Canadian
capital seek to disseminate truth through the apostolate of the
press; and, as first president of the Catholic Truth Society, he
opened its inaugural meeting with an address in which he
dealt with misrepresentations of the church's teaching in the
uncompromising language of a man who passionately resented
the calumnies heaped upon her head. And when his mighty
spirit fled, his body, lying in state beneath the shadow of the
crucifix, demanding and receiving recognition for the old reli-
gion, brought back to ancient Windsor's storied halls the long-
ostracized rites of that faith which, within England's realm, it
was once treason to profess.
830 PASTORAL LETTER. [Mar.,
PASTORAL LETTER OF THE BISHOPS OF THE PRO-
TESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
BY VERY REV. A. F. HEWIT, D.D.
SOURCE AND IMPORT OF THE PASTORAL.
I
HIS Pastoral Letter is a very important and in-
teresting document. It is an instruction ad-
dressed to the clergy and laity of that respect-
able body which is under the chief pastoral
superintendence of the prelates by whose
authority it has been issued. It relates to two cardinal dogmas
of the Catholic Faith, professed alike by the Roman and Greek
Churches in their doctrinal formularies, and by a great number
of separate communions in the West, whose Confessions of
Faith are in respect to these points orthodox. These two
dogmas of faith are first, the Incarnation ; second, the Inspira-
tion of Holy Scripture.
The pastoral is issued by five bishops to whom the office of
preparing it was delegated by the whole body of "their
brethren of the episcopate assembled in council in the City of
New York," October 18, 1894. The prelates composing this
commission are: Presiding Bishop Williams, and Bishops Doane,
Huntington, McLaren, Seymour, and Potter. We presume that
their Letter has been submitted to all the other bishops, and
that they assent to its doctrine. At all events, there is good
reason to regard it as fairly representing their common senti-
ments and convictions. Probably, the great majority of the
clergy, also, will give their adhesion to its doctrine, and the
lay-members of this church, especially the most religious portion
of them, will receive it with a reverent and docile respect, as
an instruction from their chief pastors, and as an exposition of
truths in which they already believe as essential parts of
Christian faith.
IMPORTANCE 'AND UTILITY OF THE PASTORAL.
"V "i >
Considering the character and contents of this Pastoral
Letter, and the great moral influence it is fitted to exercise not
only within the particular ecclesiastical body to which it is ad-
dressed, but in the much larger ^community embracing other
1 895-] PASTORAL LETTER. 831
similar societies professing faith in Christ as the Divine Saviour ;
its issue is an event of great importance.
It is important, because of the influence it will have on the
convictions and belief of a multitude of persons, in respect to
that primary article of Christian Faith, the Incarnation ; and
that other essential doctrine of Christianity, the Inspiration of
the Holy Scriptures.
The Christian Creed is attacked on all sides with relentless
animosity, and unbelief or scepticism have invaded the domain
of what was once united Christendom to an alarming extent.
Even those who are by their office ministers or theological
professors in great societies, calling themselves Christian
churches, and in their universities, have been the leaders in
this unholy warfare.
There are others, both in Germany and England, and even
some English prelates, who have not gone to this extreme
length, but who have nevertheless attenuated and perverted the
Catholic doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the
Inspiration of Scripture. The bishops seem to fear lest an
heretical infection of this kind is creeping in among their own
clergy and laity ; for they say : " We have availed ourselves of
the opportunity to meet in council to consider our duty in
view of certain novelties of opinion and expression, which have
seemed to us to be subversive of the fundamental verities of
Christ's religion." The motive, therefore, of the issue of this
Pastoral, is to oppose and check this heretical inroad.
This is enough to show the importance of the Pastoral.
And also, its great utility. For, it is a most useful work, to
confirm and strengthen those who believe in Christ and in the
Bible in their religious convictions, and to guard them against
the insidious approaches of errors subversive of the great
Christian verities.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE PASTORAL ON THE INCARNATION
ORTHODOX.
The manner in which the bishops have performed their task,
in giving an exposition of the doctrine of the Incarnation, con-
firms our judgment of the beneficial influence it is fitted and
likely to exert in a wide sphere.
. We are happy to acknowledge its entire and faultless ortho-
doxy. It is the very doctrine always held and taught in the
Catholic Church, to which the Fathers and Doctors bear witness,
and which the great Ecumenical Councils have defined. The
832 PASTORAL LETTER. [Mar.,
true and proper divinity of the Son, the Second Person in the
Adorable Trinity, his assumption of a true and proper humani-
ty by a Virginal birth, the unity of person and distinction of
natures in our Lord Jesus Christ, his atoning death and bodily
resurrection, together with his ascension to heaven and sover-
eignty ; in short, every article of the Catholic Creed, in its
strict and traditional sense ; all are clearly and distinctly stated.
Moreover, this part of the Pastoral is not only orthodox, it
is excellent as a piece of theological writing a clear, luminous
exposition of the fundamental verity and dogma of the Incar-
nation. This sublime mystery is indeed the very essence of
Christianity. It presupposes, includes, and implicitly or
virtually contains all that is in the Creed, and without it, noth-
ing distinctively Christian is left in religion, nothing specifically
different from mere natural religion, and rational philosophy.
We must rejoice, therefore, to see this doctrine so positively
and clearly affirmed and defended, and hope for a happy effect
on the minds of a great many, in confirming those who already
understand and believe it, enlightening those whose apprehension
of the real meaning of the Divinity of Christ is obscure, and
preserving those who are wavering from falling into most griev-
ous, anti-Christian errors.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE PASTORAL ON INSPIRATION..
The Second Part of the Pastoral affirms in general terms
that the Bible is the word of God and inspired. It says: that
" the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is a postulate of faith,
not a corollary of criticism. It cannot lawfully be questioned
by any Christian man, and least of all by men who have
sealed their conviction of the certainty of the Faith with the
solemn vows of Ordination." In another place, the bishops
say: "What we deprecate and rebuke is the irreverent rashness
and unscientific method of many professed critics, and the pre-
sumptuous superciliousness with which they vaunt erroneous
theories of the day as established results of criticism. From
this fault, professedly Christian critics are unfortunately not
always exempt; and by Christian critics we mean, those who,
both by theory and practice, recognize the inspiration of God
as the controlling element of Holy Scripture." It is apparent-
ly this latter class of critics whose teaching is aimed at in
the following sentence : " A great danger may beset the flock
of Christ, not merely from false teaching, but through injudi-
cious and ill-timed teaching, the effect of which is not to settle
1895-] PASTORAL LETTER. 833
and confirm, but to undermine and weaken faith." Since this
inopportune teaching is not condemned as false, it must lie
within the " border-land " where liberty of opinion exists, and
undetermined questions can be discussed, and not within "the
domain of faith," " the realm of adjudicated truth," which truth
is " a body of Doctrine once for all delivered and received."
The upshot of the caution seems to be : that it is rash and
dangerous to moot openly opinions on some unsettled questions
in criticism and hermeneutics, which minimize the inspiration
and authority of the Scriptures. However wise and well-timed
this warning may be, it will be heeded only by those who do
not need it ; as for others, whether inside or outside of the
fold in which the bishops are shepherds of their flock, even if
they are Christian critics, they will proceed to construct their
hypotheses and to publish them to the world, so that all who
choose may hear or read what they have to say.
The lambs of the flock need some sure safeguard against
false and dangerous doctrine. What do the bishops give them,
as a practical rule for discerning truth from falsehood, safe
from dangerous doctrine ?
" The true corrective of the unrest of our day will be found
in the devout use of the Holy Scriptures. If any man will search
them as our Lord commanded, they will testify of Him. If any
man will study them ' for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness," he will not be disappointed."
This is good and wholesome counsel. No doubt, the hum-
ble, docile believer, who has learned the Creed, by devoutly
reading the Bible, will be confirmed in his belief of its divine
inspiration, and will find in it the Divinity of Christ, together
with all other doctrines of the Catholic Faith which he has
been taught. We have no hesitation in assenting to the above
proposition of the Pastoral, so far as this : that the devout
use of the Holy Scriptures is a corrective ; a very powerful
prophylactic and remedy against religious unrest. But that it
is, alone, the exclusive and efficacious corrective, the bishops
themselves cannot fancy; for they have thought it necessary to
administer a dose of medicine in their Pastoral, to keep off or
cure the spiritual malaria which infects the atmosphere.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE PASTORAL VAGUE AND INDEFINITE.
The second part of the Pastoral is not by any means as
clear and definite as the first part. It states the doctrine of in-
spiration in general terms which are not incompatible with the
VOL. LX. 53
834 PASTORAL LETTER. [Mar.,
more precise statements of the great Fathers and Doctors of
the church, but yet do not exclude opinions which limit the
extension and the effect of inspiration. Indeed, the bishops
seem to have studiously avoided explicit teaching of this kind,
although their general tone and manner of expression seems to
favor a strict doctrine, and to discountenance all attenuating
theories.
WHAT IS THE PASTORAL'S CRITERION OF DOCTRINAL TRUTH ?
The Pastoral Letter instructs the clergy and laity to whom
it is addressed respecting two great doctrines, the Incarnation
and the Inspiration of Scripture, which it sets before them as
Christian verities, to be received and confessed. But what is
the criterion, the determining motive of the practical judgment
that it is the duty of these clergymen and laymen, to conform
to this admonition of their bishops?
The first effort of the Pastoral is put forth to show that the
two doctrines in question are the doctrines of " this Church,"
i.e., of the Protestant- Episcopal Church. This is an easy task.
The duty of the clergy to conform to the doctrine of their
own church is inferred from the fact that they have professed
their adhesion to it, have promised to teach it, and on the faith
of these engagements have been ordained to the ministry.
This argument does not apply to the laity. It is taken for
granted that they are baptized Christians, who recognize their
obligation to profess the Christian faith, and regard the com-
munion to which they belong as a true church, in which, con-
sequently, this faith is held and taught. It is assumed, there-
fore, that they wish to believe the doctrine of " this church,"
when they are duly informed what it is ; and that they are
disposed to receive with docility the instruction of those whom
they acknowledge as their bishops, as of their best qualified
and duly authorized teachers of Christian doctrine.
The tone and mien of episcopal authority which the bishops
assume is very marked and imposing.
" We, your Bishops, having been assembled to take order,
under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, for the extension of the
Kingdom of God, have availed ourselves of the opportunity to
meet in Council to consider our duty in view of certain novel-
ties of opinion and expression, which have seemed to us to be
subversive of the fundamental verities of Christ's religion. It
has come to our knowledge that the minds of many of the
faithful Clergy and Laity are disturbed and distressed by these
things ; and we desire to comfort them by a firm assurance
1 895.] PASTORAL LETTER. 835
that the Episcopate of the Church, to which, in a peculiar
manner, the deposit of the Faith has been entrusted, is not
unfaithful to that sacred charge, but will guard and keep it
with all diligence."
Seldom, if ever, has any council of reformed bishops put on
so majestic a port, and sent forth so clear and sound an in-
struction on the doctrine of the Incarnation. One might sup-
pose it was an Ecumenical Council, so little does it fall behind
the First Council of Jerusalem, in its quiet assumption of
authority. It claims to be " the Episcopate of the Church, to
which, in a peculiar manner, the deposit of Faith has been en-
trusted."
This tone of authority is noted and remarked upon by the
Congregationalist. " This letter makes assumptions which will be
promptly challenged outside of the Episcopal Church, and
which we find it difficult to believe will be altogether accept-
able within it. ... The Bishops intimate also that their
own letter is an inspired utterance, and therefore authoritative.
' We, your Bishops, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost,
are speaking not as truth-seekers, but as truth-receivers.' The
Pope himself could not speak with greater dogmatism than
this. The doctrine that the Church is the inspired authority in
interpreting the Scriptures, and that the deliverances of its
officers are to be received without question, appears as plainly
as in the assertions of this document. Inferentially, not only
doctrines of the Person of Christ and the Inspiration of the
Scriptures are here set forth, but the body of teaching held by
the Church to be dependent on them, and the doctrine of the
inspiration and dogmatic authority of the Church moved by
the Holy Ghost, speaking through its appointed leaders."
This is somewhat unfair. The bishops do not claim inspira-
tion. They claim authority as teachers, and they present the
authority of "this Church" imposing on its clergy the doctrine
of the Prayer-book, as imperative. But we cannot ascribe to
them the intention of making their own particular Council, or
the Prayer-book itself, an original authority and a final criterion
in determining the Faith. Submission to the teaching of " this
Church " is exacted on the ground that it is the teaching of
the Church Catholic. Because they profess to teach in the
name of " this Church " the Faith which the Catholic Church
received from the apostles, and to have a commission inherited
by succession in the episcopate from the apostles, therefore they
demand for their doctrine the assent and obedience of their
flock, as to the genuine, divine revelation of Christ the Lord.
836 PASTORAL LETTER. [Mar.,
When they style themselves " the Episcopate of the Church,"
they can only mean that they are the bishops of a certain
portion of the Church, whose official designation is " The Pro-
testant-Episcopal Church in the United States." If their whole
body endorses the Letter, it is a significant act on their part,
which will gain an increased importance if the majority of
their clergy and laity give their adhesion. The rector of Trin-
ity Church, Boston, is reported to have criticised the Pastoral
in his pulpit, as the utterance of one bishop only, not of the
whole house (Living Church, February 2). Dr. Rainsford ex-
pressed regret at the issue of the Pastoral, at the Church Club
of New York, in the presence of Bishop Potter, although he
did not criticise its doctrine, but only its opportuneness. If
the bishops endorse the Letter, it is incumbent on them to
make it known; and likewise, if they do not.
Whatever may be the attitude of the rest, the five bishops
have certainly professed to give voice to the teaching of the
Catholic Episcopate, and the Catholic Church. In this instance
their utterance is certainly an echo of that voice. They have
the advantage of giving their testimony to the doctrines of the
Incarnation and Inspiration, with the Catholic Episcopate and
Ecumenical Councils to back them. They teach "quod semper ;
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus traditum est."
This is evidently the Pastoral's criterion of the truth of the
doctrines which it teaches the testimony of the Universal Church,
that it has received them from the apostles as a deposit of
Faith, entrusted in a peculiar manner to the episcopate, as the
ecclesia docens. It teaches that there is a " realm of adjudicated
truth," in which there is no place for liberty of opinion, but
only for " a holy and blessed servitude," for " unflinching loyalty
to a body of Doctrine once for all delivered and received."
" We are speaking, not as truth-seekers but as truth-receivers,"
" ambassadors in bonds "; even as St. Paul says, " that we also
received deliver we unto you." Our sole inquiry is : What does
this church teach ? What is the declaration of God's Holy
Word ? And here we rest ; for the priest's vow is to minister
the Doctrine as well as the Sacraments and the Discipline of
Christ, "as this church hath received the same," and because
she hath received it " according to the commandments of God."
And the true lover of God, the Theophilus, who would " know the
certainty of those things " wherein he is instructed, who would
have "a declaration of those things which are most surely be-
lieved among us," must receive them as they " delivered them
unto us, which were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word."
1895.] PASTORAL LETTER. 837
It should be borne in mind by all, bishops, priests, deacons, and
laymen, that the facts and truths which lie at the basis of the
religion of Christ are eternal facts and eternal truths, stamped
with the assurance which Divine infallibility gives. A revelation
the conditions of which should be pliable to the caprices of
speculative thought would be thereby voided of all that makes
revelation final and secure. A creed whose statements could be
changed to accord with shifting currents of opinion or senti-
ment, or with the trend of thought in each succeeding genera-
tion, would cease to command and guide the loyalty of the
people, and would not be worthy of the respect of mankind.
The Creeds of the Catholic Church do not represent the con-
temporaneous thought of any age ; they declare eternal truths,
telling what God has taught man and done for man, rather than
what man has thought out for himself about God. They are
voices from above, from Him " with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning," and as such are entitled to our im-
plicit faith. Grave peril to souls lies in the acceptance of the
letter of the creeds in any other than the plain and definitely
historical sense in which they have been interpreted by the con-
sentient voice of the church in all ages. Fixedness of interpre-
tation is of the essence of the creeds, whether we view them as
statements of facts, or as dogmatic truths founded upon and
deduced from these facts, and once for all determined by the
operation of the Holy Ghost upon the mind of the church. It
were derogatory to the same Blessed Spirit to suggest that any
other than the original sense of the creeds may be lawfully
held and taught.
INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DEDUCED FROM THE
APOSTOLIC COMMISSION.
In the Catholic Idea, the Bible is one of the gifts of the
Holy Spirit to the church. It is a fountain, from which she
draws living water, to distribute out of the golden vessels of
her definitions the life and health-giving drink of pure doc-
trine. The fountain itself is but one reservoir of that perennial
stream of revelation, flowing from the garden of Eden for thou-
sands of years before the first page of the Bible was written,
.and flowing onward through the subsequent centuries, as a liv-
ing tradition of Faith.
God did not give a finished Book to men that they might
learn from it religion. He gave them the church, and sent liv-
ing Teachers, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, the great Teacher
Jesus Christ, and neither he himself, nor the majority of his pre-
838 PASTORAL LETTER. [Mar.,
cursors and messengers, left any written record of their teaching.
The doctrine and law which God gave through them were com-
mitted to an organized society, beginning in the family of Adam,
developing into the kingdom of Judah, and finally transformed
into the Christian Church. Some of the prophets were inspired
to make written records, which were embodied in the Sacred
Tradition, to enrich and supplement and preserve its precious
deposit, under the custody of ecclesiastical authority, but not
to supersede and be substituted for it.
In accordance with this Catholic principle, the Pastoral
states that it was " the ancient church to which were ' committed
the Oracles of God ' " i. e., the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
It proves their inspiration, without difficulty, from the authen-
tication of Jesus Christ, who handed them over to the apostles,
and from their testimony to the doctrine of the Christian
Church.
The really important point to be proved, and one which re-
quires a more elaborate argument, is : that the Christians of the
second century received from the first century the New Testa-
ment, as a collection of inspired writings. The Pastoral does
not prove this, or give the shadow of a reason for the assump-
tion commonly made by Protestants, that the apostles be-
queathed to the church in writing the complete and only au-
thentic monument of their teaching. It asserts, indeed, that
"St. Paul, with direct reference to the Scriptures of the New
Covenant, declares in the First Epistle to the Corinthians:
' Which things we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing [com-
bining] spiritual things with spiritual ' " (i Cor. ii. 13). There
is here no reference to any Scriptures of the New Testament,
except one which is indirect. The apostle speaks of the preach-
ing of the gospel, and we can only infer that the same teach-
ing in the form of writing would have equal authority.
It is very remarkable that the Pastoral goes on to vindicate
the inspiration of apostolic writings from the general authority
of the apostolic commission, and the promise of the gifts of the
Holy Spirit to them in this capacity. " It is the men who are
inspired, and not primarily the book." " We may have full as-
surance that the Faith which was taught by the preaching, has
been preserved in the writings of men to whom, 'through the
Holy Ghost,' Christ gave commandment that they should teach
all nations to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded,
and to whom the authority committed on the day of the
Ascension was confirmed and quickened into active exercise by
1 895.] PASTORAL LETTER. 839
the power given on the Day of Pentecost, when < they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost.' "
Now, we may undoubtedly ascribe infallibility to the teach-
ing of the apostles contained in their writings, when we are cer-
tain that they are really the authors of the documents con-
tained in the New Testament, which bear their names. But
how are we made certain? Every part of the New Testament
bears the name of some one of the Apostles, Peter, Paul, John,
Matthew, James, and Jude. But there are two gospels, bearing
the names of Mark and Luke, also the Acts, bearing the name
of Luke, and then, there is the Epistle to the Hebrews, ascribed
by some very ancient authorities, by most recent Protestant and
some Catholic critics, to Luke, Clement, Apollos, or some other
author, not St. Paul. It will be said that these writings were
accredited and sanctioned by apostles. We do not question the
fact, but how do we know it ? The genuineness of the various
writings of the New Testament can be proved historically and
critically. We can prove that the four gospels and most of the
other portions of the New Testament were received as authen-
tic and even as inspired, throughout the Catholic Church of the
second century. The chief witness on whose testimony we rely,
in this instance, is St. Irenaeus, at the close of this century.
Sound criticism sustains this extrinsic evidence. There was a
New Testament received from the apostolic age by Christians
of the age following. But how about the Canon of the New
Testament ? Several books, included in the canon by the final
adjudication of the church, though generally, were not uni-
versally accepted as beyond doubt, for three centuries after the
death of St. John. The final settlement was an agreement in
respect to the tradition which came down from the apostles.
Now, we would respectfully ask the bishops, why they consider
the inspiration of the Hebrews and the Apocalypse as "a
postulate of faith " ? Is it because their right to a place in the
Canon is historically certain, by the testimony of the fifth
century, supported by criticism? Moreover, why is the inspira-
tion, not only of the deutero canonical but also of the proto-
canonical books of the New Testament, a postulate of faith *
And still further, how is the witness of Jesus Christ and of
two of his apostles to the inspiration of the Old Testament set
before us, as an object of divine faith? Everything depends
on the verity of the New Testament. If this be purely histor-
ical, we have a reasonable certainty, and a motive for human
and historical faith. But where does this human and rational
cert utity take a grasp of the supernatural and divine testimony.
840 PASTORAL LETTER. [Mar.,
by which it is enabled to pass the boundary between human
and divine faith, and to believe truth on the veracity of God ?
Is it by evidence that a certain Book is the Word of God, so
that we are to find there at first hand, by reading that revela-
tion of truths which we must believe on the veracity of God ?
THE PASTORAL TEACHES THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH.
The Pastoral does not teach this doctrine, so absurd and so
contrary to all facts. Before Christ came, God ceased to inspire
men to write books, and the Canon of the Old Testament was
closed. Christ came, he taught, he commanded men to believe
in him, he was accredited by the Father, and by his own works.
He formed his church, made a full revelation to his apostles,
commissioned them to teach and rule in his name, and gave
them authority and power, co-extensive with all nations and all
ages, to the end of the world. Their writing or sanctioning of
books was only a sequence and a corollary of this primary and
universal consecration in the Holy Spirit. By their apostolic
authority, i. e., by the infallibility of the Ecclesia Docens, the
New Testament, as well as the Old Testament, was authenti-
cated as the inspired and unerring word of God, useful for
Christians instructed in the Faith, and taught by their pastors
the true sense of the divine oracles. But the Christian faith
and religion were not founded and built up on the Scriptures
as the only and the undermost basis of Christianity. The faith
was preached and believed, and churches were founded, before
the writing of the New Testament was begun, while it was be-
ing formed and completed. The apostles took no measures to
collect its parts into a volume and to circulate it in the church
at large. They did not define its canon. They gave no hint
that it was to be substituted for the ordinary teaching of them-
selves, their associates and successors. They did not insert into
any of its documents the Creed, or the Constitution of the
Church. Their commission and the gifts which they received did
not find their culmination in the formation of a written code of
doctrine and polity which was henceforth to be the light of the
world. The commission and the gifts were perpetual, and they
transmitted them to their successors, the bishops. To them they
entrusted the deposit of Faith, which these bishops formulated
in the Creeds, and the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils.
The bishops tell us that " The Creeds of the Catholic Church
are voices from above . . . entitled to our implicit faith
. . . in the plain and definitely historical sense in which they
have been interpreted by the consentient voice of the church
I895-]
CONTRASTS.
841
in all ages, . . . statements of facts, . . . dogmatic truths
. . . once for all determined by the operation of the Holy
Ghost upon the mind of the church."
Therefore, the Catholic Episcopate is indefectible, its dogma-
tic definitions are irreformable, the Ecclesia Docens is infallible.
We trust that all who belong to the flock of these learned
prelates will study and lay to heart the orthodox teachings of
this Pastoral ; and will be convinced by it of the duty of yield-
ing implicit faith to the Creeds of the Catholic Church and all
their articles, interpreted by the consentient voice of the church
in all ages.
CONTRASTS.
BY REV. WILLIAM P. TREACY.
I.
HIGH Archangel's pride
Drew legions to his side,
Who were, like blighted stars, ,
hurled from the skies ;
A fruit, plucked from a tree,
Brought death and misery,
And closed on man the gates of Paradise.
II.
A host of angels bright,
Upon Christ's Natal Night,
Announced with heavenly hymns the
King of kings;
Beneath Love's crimsoned Tree,
O wondrous mystery !
New Edens rise, and glad Redemption
springs.
I. THE TRUTH AND REALITY OF THE
EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE.*
This is a very remarkable work. It contains
within a small compass the exposition and proof of
the Catholic doctrine concerning the sacrificial character of the
Blessed Eucharist. It is written for members of the Established
Church in England ; and, curiously enough, Mr. Prynne reverses
the process which took place when the new formularies were
drawn up at the Reformation. Then, owing to reasons which
he suggests rather than states, all the stress was laid upon the
Blessed Eucharist in its character of a communion ; now he
lays stress upon it in its nature of a sacrifice.
At page ninety he informs us that he has given no private
interpretation of the passages of Holy Scripture adduced in
support of the Real Presence and the Sacrifice of the Mass.
They are interpreted in harmony with the meaning put upon
them by the greatest and holiest intellects of the Primitive
Church; and he makes the very interesting addition that they
are interpreted according to the meaning of " the most learned
and saintly writers " of the present English Church.
He naturally complains that the English Church or, as he
loves to call her in phrase of legal and heraldic accuracy, that
portion of the Catholic Church commonly called the Church of
England does not set forth the sacrificial character of the
Holy Eucharist with "that distinctive clearness with which it
was most undoubtedly set forth in the Primitive Church." He
is anxious to maintain that the Sacrifice of the Mass was pre-
served, and with it every doctrine of the church, every law,
every observance of patristic authority, and, it would seem,
every pious practice of the faithful down to the Reformation.
Of course the English Church could not set forth in plain
and unquestionable terms the sacrificial character of the Eu-
* The Truth and Reality of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. By George Rundle Prynne,
M. A., Vicar of St. Peter's, Plymouth, etc. New York : Longmans, Green & Co.
I&95-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 843
charist when it was the boast of the most influential Reformers
that they had abolished the Mass ; that it was their business to
put an end to the idea of a sacrificing priesthood ; or of any
ministry possessing higher authority than what they derived
from the state. If the bishops and clergy under the vicar-
generalsMp of Cromwell were only the ministers of the king's
highness, we are at a loss to conceive what they were under
Somerset, and what their successors were under Elizabeth.
Cranmer laid it down and in this he expressed the opinion
of many of the council that the commissions of bishops
expired at the king's demise. Accordingly he considered it his
duty to obtain a new commission from the council of regency
a degree of scrupulous nicety we should not have looked for
in any courtier or churchman of his time ; consequently we
think this punctiliousness must have paid. But if such an
opinion stood as a principle in the minds of those who were
shaping the new church, the divine character of the church
could hardly have a place ; the divine origin of episcopacy and
the sacrament of order could have no place. There could be no
institution of priesthood, much less of a sacrificing priesthood,
in the minds of such men.
We think this is the explanation of the matter, and not
what Mr. Prynne suggests : " the great reaction against some
false notions which seemed common in the early part of the
sixteenth century." As an extreme revolt from Catholic doctrine
would be displeasing to eleven-twelfths of the nation,* there
was nothing for the leaders of the movement but a compromise.
Let us take the Reformation in England, step by step. It
is plain that Henry VIII. contemplated an Anglican Church
differing from the Catholic Church on the point of supremacy
alone. During his lifetime circumstances favored such a sys-
tem ; but the ministers who held the royal prerogatives in
trust for his infant son did not persist in it.
We find that Hooper will not wear episcopal vestments,
and that Ridley pulls down the altars in his diocese. The
latter has the communion administered at tables resembling
oyster- boards surely not because that was the practice of the
Primitive Church and the ancient Fathers. When Grindal, the
metropolitan, regarded the consecration of bishops as a mum-
mery, and Pouet said the word bishop should be abandoned
to the Papists, we can only wonder at the canon of a few
years later (1571) which enacted "that preachers shall be care-
ful not to preach aught to be held by the people except what
* This appears from a letter of Paget to Somerset, dated July 7, 1549.
844 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament,
and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have gathered
out of that doctrine." We can only wonder more that Mr.
Prynne should think such prelates must have intended to or-
dain a sacrificing priesthood. Yet he means this or he means
nothing.
We think Macaulay puts the matter correctly enough when
he says that the Church of England was the result of an
alliance between the government and the Protestants. It can-
not be doubted, on the evidence we have, that there would
never have been a reformation in England were it not for the
collision between Henry and the Holy See on the question of
the divorce of the queen. The people were content with the
faith of their fathers. It, of course, suited the courtiers and
officials enriched by grants of the dissolved religious houses to
accept the theology of the king. Foreigners had carried with
them from the Continent the tenets of Luther, Calvin, and other
sectaries, and made proselytes here and there among soured
and gloomy spirits who had -inherited, or who in some way
sympathized with, the opinions of the Lollards.*
These are the men whom Cranmer described as " glorious
and unquiet spirits," but to whose influence he bowed with such
sincerity as his false, crafty, and calculating nature was capable
of. These were, roughly stated, the elements from which the
new church was to be constituted. The mass of the people
wanted no change of doctrine or ritual ; the government wanted
no more than was necessary in the establishment of a complete
despotism in the king over the consciences of his subjects. The
third party were those seduced by " the glorious and unquiet
spirits," or by Englishmen who had brought back from Germany
religious and political opinions which in a generation or two
were to work deep and wide-reaching results in the life of the
English nation and in the destiny of the English-speaking races.
We believe that it is literally the fact, that about the be-
ginning of the reign of Elizabeth not more than one-tenth of
the English people would lift a hand for the supremacy of the
pope, and not more than one-tenth cared a straw for the re-
formed doctrines. That is to say, eight-tenths of the English
people were Catholics without a pope ; one-tenth were real
Catholics, and the remaining tenth Protestants. From this
tenth, as from the cloud which bears the storm in its bosom,
* The idea that Lollardism prevailed to a large extent among the rural population is
not well founded. That a social movement had been going on from the reign of Richard
II. is, we think, capable of proof.
1895-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 845
the humiliation of the monarchy under James I. proceeded ; from
it the long Civil War, the murder of Charles I., the revolution-
ary parliament which voted itself immortal, and the successful
soldier who cut it off with a brutal jest as he planted his armed
heel on the footstool of five dynasties, from the Norman to the
hapless Stuart in a word, from that tenth comes the whole
polity which governs church and state in England to-day.
Nor does Mr. Prynne altogether ignore the power and influ-
ence of that tenth which was the seed of Puritanism and the
ten thousand sects which infested England during the Great
Rebellion, and of all the Nonconformist bodies which since the
Restoration found in unsurpliced ministers and lay apostles the
genuine representatives of the Twelve. But he takes such
little account of it that, so far as his argument is concerned,
the Church of England had no doctrinal interval between 1549,
the date of the first English prayer-book, and 1662, when the
prayer-book was amended or altered to the form in which it
stands at present.
The alterations just referred to were made in a Catholic
direction, as one would naturally expect. The Church of Eng-
land, in so far as she had endeavored to mould herself on the
form of the Catholic Church, had been the mainstay of the
throne in the disastrous period which had just passed. All the
influence, moral and material, she could command was at the
king's service during the Civil War. The blood of Laud cried
for vengeance at the hands of every gallant gentleman to whom
the sacred building could appeal in which his fathers had knelt
for generations, and whose arms looked down upon the family
pew where he lisped his first prayers by his mother's side.
When the royal cause went down, the cathedrals were widowed,
every parish exchanged its incumbent for some crop-eared,
snuffling divine who hated the Church of England only a shade
less than he hated her of Rome. It would be hard to suppose,
then, that at the Restoration the revision of the prayer-book
should take a Puritan direction. Of course it took a Catholic
direction.
It may be true that the communion service of the Church
of England, if used by a duly-ordained priest with intention,
would be sufficient for consecration. This is the whole value
of the appeal to the passage from Welby Pugin's Earnest Ad-
dress* But where can the duly-ordained priest be found in
the Church of England ?
Mr. Prynne, in a passage of great force, maintains that the
* P. 120.
846 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
members of his church, if they are consistent, must believe in
the sacrificial character of the Holy Eucharist, because it is as
universally held by the Primitive Church and advocated by the
ancient Fathers ; and because it " was endorsed by general
council " (sic). From these facts he concludes most rightly that
the doctrine is true, and a most important part of the faith
once delivered to the saints. And yet from the same Book of
Common Prayer many members of his church, he sadly admits,
deny that truth as inconsistent with its teaching. He then
proceeds by an argument of much ingenuity to prove from his
prayer-book what ? Not the Objective Presence of our Lord in
the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacrifice of the Mass ; but that
there is nothing inconsistent with that great truth in the prayer-
book.
This no English churchman, we believe, could seriously ques-
tion since the judgment of the judicial committee of the Privy
Council in Sheppard v. Bennett. That learned body laid down
as legally tenable in the Church of England the following pro-
positions : i. The Real Presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacra-
ment. 2. The sacrificial character of the Lord's Supper. 3.
That adoration is due to the Lord present in the Holy Com-
munion. The judicial committee in this case has stated with
great fulness all that is meant by, and included in, these pro-
positions, and in this fulness we find the exact doctrine of the
Catholic Church. But all this does not prove Mr. Prynne's under-
lying and real contention that the Catholic doctrine concern-
ing the Holy Eucharist has been held without break or inter-
ruption in the Church of England, and that the bishops and
clergy of that church are a sacrificing priesthood.
We learn that one of the Anglican bishops lately addressed
candidates for ordination the evening before the ceremony in
this sense : " Don't any of you gentlemen go away with the
idea that I am going to ordain you to-morrow sacrificing priests ;
I am not going to do anything of the sort." Notwithstanding
the judgment in Sheppard v. Bennett every one is bound to be-
lieve that the bishop in question acted within his legal rights.
If ever a service could be said to be a facing-both-ways formula,
the Communion Service of the English Church is that one.
As we have said, it is the result of an unscrupulous alliance
between a government anxious to exalt the royal prerogative
above the laws and usages of the realm and the Protestants
who sought the extirpation of the Catholic religion. This off
spring of the brain and character of Cranmer claims to be a
branch of the Catholic Church, and in the same way that the
i 895.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 847
Greek and the Oriental Churches in schism possess the Sacra-
ment of Holy Order she claims to possess it too. We need
not pause over the branch theory; we no more accept a
two-fold or a twenty-fold church than we believe in a two-fold
or a twenty-fold Christ. We reject this theory of disunion, dis-
solution, death ; but while we condemn Mr. Prynne's vain effort
to prove the church of Henry VIII. and Cranmer, of Somerset,
of Elizabeth, of the drivelling idiot James, and the " martyred "
liar and despot Charles is the Church of our Divine Lord, we
cannot express in terms too high our sense of the ability and
learning he has brought to the task before him.
2. DR. PUSEY AND THE THEORY OF ANGLICANISM.
It is often a surprise to non-Catholics to learn with what
avidity we devour such of the many books issued from time to
time bearing on the Oxford Movement. Although there is al-
ready an abundant literature of this class, we venture to say
that those who read the third volume of Canon Liddon's Life
cf Dr. Pusey* will pronounce it not inferior in interest to any
of its predecessors. This volume will be of special service to
Catholics who wish to study the movement, in order to better
appreciate the position of many Anglicans who are approaching
the church along this road. The period dealt with is that which
followed the secession of Newman and many others in and
about 1845. These events had shaken the confidence of most
of those in authority, and the trials which beset Dr. Pusey as
the now recognized head of the party were not a few. He had
to ward off the attacks of enemies with one hand, while with
the other he directed and aided in the work of construction
which began as the result of the spiritual awakening and the
infusion of new ideas. Sisterhoods now began, the emphasis
being laid at first upon the work which none but specially de-
voted women could accomplish ; afterwards the life as such re-
ceived more attention, and Pusey was the spiritual director of
the young community in London. In this connection, and
gradually among the followers at large of the new school,
the subject of private confession came into a position of pro-
minence in the discussions engendered. Pusey became confes-
sor for persons all over the kingdom who were attracted to
him by his setting forth of the doctrine of penance, particularly
in the famous sermon " The Entire Absolution of the Penitent,"
* Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, D.D. By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D. Vol. Hi. Lon-
'don : Longmans, Green & Co.
TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
which was the theme chosen by him for his first discourse after
long suspension from University preaching. Meantime he was
full of anxiety for the improvement and extension of university
education, and extensive plans were formed by a corps of sym-
pathizers looking to the establishment of one or more new col-
leges at Oxford, where less expensive habits and a higher tone
of religious living might prevail. The heads of houses did
not approve the scheme, however, and it fell through. The
same philanthropic spirit which prompted this unsuccessful
effort led Pusey to take a practical interest in the relief of the
poor in Ireland at the time of the famine. He even doubted
whether it would be right to hear confessions on the fast day
which had been appointed by national authority ; but Keble as-
sured him of the appropriateness of such work for such a day.
But the chief interest of the book, for us, lies in the view,
which it gives us incidentally, of the position which Pusey con-
ceived for the Church of England, and its relation to the Cath-
olic Church. Early in the volume, speaking of the devotions
which he was " adapting," as was his wont, from " Roman
books," for the use of the newly established sisterhood, Pusey
in a letter says : " In the adaptations I admitted whatever I be-
lieved to be true "; and, further on : " The ground on which I
rest is that since our church, both by the declarations of the Re-
formers, by her canons, and by the combined teaching of ap-
proved divines, refers to antiquity, the early church, the quod
ubique, etc.; then, in receiving what is so taught, I am following
the teaching of my church. If, then, anything in our formula-
ries seems, according to any received interpretation, to be at
variance with that teaching, I think myself compelled, on her
own principles, to inquire whether these formularies necessarily
require that interpretation," etc. In these sentences, which
might be added to, we have enough to determine Pusey's notion
of the Anglican position. Catholics have always held that the
appeal to antiquity and the consentient voice of Christendom is
a criterion of faith, and the famous Vincentian formula has its
place in our treatises on dogma. But Pusey considered himself
capable of making this appeal himself alone and unassisted, and
not only of making it, but of voicing the answer as well, where-
as Catholics believe that God has from the first provided a
mouth and a living voice for His Body, the Church.
It is precisely here that Catholics must be differentiated
from even these high Anglicans. These soon came to be called
popularly, and they were, Puseyites followers of the school of an
individual learned and devout, perhaps, but still only an indivi-
1895.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 849
dual. This true state of the case was clearly seen in those early
times by some of those who would have liked to be Pusey's
friends if they could have agreed in his method. Bishop Wil-
berforce saw in it " a subtle and therefore most dangerous form
of self-will"; "and a tendency," in Pusey, "to view himself as
one in, if not now the leader of, a party." This seemed to lead
him "to judge the church " which he "ought to obey; some-
times to blame, sometimes almost to patronize her."
Any one at all familiar with the attitude of High-churchmen
all along the course of the movement knows how truly these
words describe it. Dr. Hook, of Leeds, the harmony of whose
parish the clergy at St. Saviour's were disturbing by their in-
novations, was another to voice the same sentiment. He told
Pusey plainly : " With all deference to you, I think that the
Reformers were as likely to know what was really Catholic and
primitive as you are ; and what, accepting their teaching, Con-
vocation was overruled by Divine Providence to adopt that I
receive as the voice of the Catholic Church." Here was a po-
sition, narrow enough to be sure, sectarian and untenable for
any but the short-sighted, but consistent and capable of being
the basis of corporate unity and action. It embraced a rational
conception of authority, and furnished a sphere for the exercise
of discipline all this, of course, within the bounds of its own
membership. Such had been the position of the old school of
High-churchmen, and of such were Hook and Wilberforce. Now,
Pusey and his followers, seeing the shortcomings of this kind
of religion as compared with Catholicity, and knowing the Church
of England to be in desperate straits, make an essentially new
departure. They would introduce some of the Catholic doc-
trines Penance, Baptismal Regeneration, the Real Presence
dimly at first, but in a gradually strengthening sense the Coun-
sels of Perfection. They would introduce English churchmen to
the treasures of Catholic devotional literature through the medium
of " adaptations." If any formulary of the church seemed to
militate against this process, they would say it had been wrongly
interpreted, for "the Church is Catholic, therefore these things
are ours."
The result of this departure was two-fold. First, it presented
portions of truth to thousands of truth-loving, starving souls.
Minds were quickened, hopes were raised, hearts were enlarged,
eyes were opened to the fact that there was a world of Catho-
lic thought and doctrine hitherto unexplored by the living gen-
eration of Englishmen. In this lay the strength of the move-
VOL. LX. 54
850 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
ment. Second, it involved a loss of the dogmatic principle.
The most the new school could plead for was toleration. Keble
speaks of "the large license allowed by our church"; Bishop
Forbes was dismissed with only a censure " in consideration
that the respondent now only asks toleration for his opinions,
and does not claim for them the authority of the church or any
right to enforce them on those subject to his jurisdiction "; and
the internal index of the weakness of the movement has been
the state of lawlessness, division, and disorder which has been
its constant accompaniment. The true character of the move-
ment began to be evident before long to men of discernment.
In January, 1847, Archdeacon Manning wrote to Pusey: "You
know how long I have to you openly expressed my conviction
that a false position has been taken up in the Church of Eng-
land. ... It is clear that they are ' revising the Reforma-
tion '; that the doctrine, ritual, and practice of the Church of
England, taken at its best, does not suffice them. ... I say
all this not in fault-finding, but in sorrow. How to help to heal
it I do not pretend to say." Manning foresaw " the direct and
certain tendency to the Roman Church." The new sort of Angli-
canism afforded no standing ground ; it was ever shifting, ever
progressing, never attaining, for in the last analysis it rested up-
on authority only human, and therefore subject to the weak-
ness, fickleness, obtuseness, and inconsistency of mankind. It
exercised an enormously attractive force over the minds of thou-
sands in the Anglican communion who were ready to imbibe
some portion of the church's doctrines. They were not obliged
to go all lengths at first ; congregations were to be found in all
stages of advancement ; there need be no sudden and sad break-
ing with relatives and friends; it was not taking a step which
might not be easily reconsidered. So the movement grew. Of
individuals, many were logical and eventually became Catholics ;
many followed the leaders for a time; then, seeing whither they
were tending, became frightened and turned back to the more
consistent Anglican position ; many were content to stake every-
thing upon their chosen teachers.
Allies said of Marriott that when all other arguments had
failed " his one unconquerable fact was Pusey." Subsequent
history has been but a repetition of the same state of affairs.
Good men and true, in England and America, have espoused
the cause of the " Oxford Revival " and have been its expo-
nents. As they were good men, and as they taught many
truths and exemplified them by earnest, self-denying lives, they
I8 95-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 851
have had many disciples. They have been doing a work for the
Catholic cause which, so far as is evident, the church could not
have done, preparing for a future harvest-time. It is this which
gives a peculiar interest for Catholics to works like the Life of
Pusey ; this, and not any intrinsic truth of the underlying prin-
ciples of the High-Church movement.
It is not ours to estimate the degree of good faith or the
amount of responsibility which is to be attached to the acts of
such a man as Pusey. That he was the means, under God, of
dispelling from many minds the thick cloud of prejudice which
hid large portions of Christian truth from their sight, we do
not doubt ; but that he and the leaders whom he led left many
souls in a position of deep distress, in a very slough of despon-
dency, by failing to show how God's work in the external sphere
completely corresponds with the interior leading of the Holy
Spirit, is matter of historical as well as of present fact. Indeed
the present volume brings with it an air of sadness shall we
not say of incipient penitence ? The human soul, all marred
and fallen from its high estate of union with its Maker, led by
the bitter experience of sin, and catching a glimpse of the glories
and comforts of the Father's House, longs for a share of its
light and peace, yet is loth to submit again to the paternal
rule, and seeks if haply some middle course may not be found
which will not involve the humiliation of acknowledging a griev-
ous fault. In like manner we seem to see here the portrayal of
the first throes of a nature which is waking to a consciousness
of its miserable condition towards religion.
Here are the phenomena of a being which longs for a
former and higher state, now ill at ease with itself, distracted,
disordered ; having a theory of its own autonomy, yet daily
witnessing abundant proofs of its falseness: knowing that a
great mistake has been made, yet writhing and twisting in its
efforts to find some way of self-justification ; trying at times and
in places to assume an air of easy confidence, or even festive
gaiety, as if, forsooth, the past were forgiven and reconciliation
made only to be made wretched again by fresh lapses and
the renewed clash of warring elements. These are the symp-
toms of what may be we pray it may be the beginning of
true repentance, the repentance which humbles itself in submis-
sion to Divine Authority. But if Dr. Pusey shall prove to have
contributed to so happy a result, it will be one of the cases in
which men build much better than they know.
852 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
3. HELPS TO MEDITATION*
Father Gallwey has for many years been venerated through-
out Great Britain as one of the most experienced guides of
souls in the ways of perfection. Readers of the Life of Lady
Georgiana Fullerton will remember what he was to her ; and
what is disclosed there is but a specimen of what for many
years he has been to very large numbers of others who have
tried to walk in the ways of the saints. His time has been so
filled by active work of this kind that he has hitherto published
little. In these volumes we have the results of both a life's ex-
perience and of a devoted study of the spiritual writings of
others to which study, indeed, with characteristic humility, he
ascribes, in a touching preface, whatever there is of value in
these pages.
The meditations, or rather the contemplation, of our Lord's
Passion, as contained in this work, begin with the Raising of
Lazarus and go through in great detail the whole series of our
Lord's acts, words, and sufferings, until His Ascension into
heaven. The generally received notion of St. Ignatius's method
of meditation is that it essentially consists in the application of
the memory, understanding, and will to particular texts of Holy
Scripture; and it may be a surprise to learn that this is not
really its special characteristic. Any one who will look at the
Exercises will see that by far the greater part consists of con-
templations of various scenes in the life of our Lord, or, at all
events, of directions to his readers to make such contemplation.
The saint's desire is that his disciples should learn to become,
as it were, eye-witnesses of our Lord's actions, hearers of his
words. It is this idea which Father Gallwey has aimed at carry-
ing out, and in order that the scene may be the more vividly
realized he has included in these volumes views .of Jerusalem
and of the Mount of Olives, in which every street and road as
they existed in our Lord's time are placed before the mind.
Of course what St. Ignatius wished and what Father Gallwey
wishes is that each one should do this for himself, should strive
to live in spirit in view of Christ. But not every one is willing
to do this. These volumes are, therefore, devoted to doing
for them what people in general are unwilling or unable to
do for themselves. What we have already said about the au-
* The Watches of the Sacred Passion, with Before and After. By Father P. Gallwey,
S.J. 3 vols. London Art and Book Company, 1894. Agents for the United States, Benzi-
ger Brothers.
1895-] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 853
thor will enable the reader to judge as to the manner in which
the work has been done. We will only add that while the
number of meditation-books is legion, there are very few in-
deed which are not foreign in origin, feeling, and expression ;
many of them often seem to be extravagant and sentimental,
sometimes even silly. A characteristic of these volumes is that
along with deep and fervent devotion and tender piety is asso-
ciated the most practical common sense a common sense which
adapts the often too abstract and remote spiritual teachings of
other times and places to the ways of thought and action of
our own times and country. In short, in these volumes the
reader has the summing up of the life's work of one of the
most learned theologians and most experienced spiritual direc-
tors of our times.
The quality of Celtic humor is a matter of as much controversy
as the color of the chameleon. Mr. O'Donoghue, who has done
much work as a literary collator, endeavors to help a judgment
on the point by his latest volume, The Humor of Ireland* The
only conclusion he enables us to reach is that the national
spirit has undergone a change since the time when the genius
of Ireland was purely Celtic. What specimens of early Irish
mirth have come down to us through the ages show little affinity
with the modern examples of Irish pleasantry. There is a classi-
cal dignity about the ancient stories which speaks more of the
studied joke and the wise saw of the mediaeval court jester than
the spontaneous sparkle which is a feature of the modern Celtic
wit. The grafting of the Anglo-Saxon laws and language upon
the Irish character would appear to have produced a far-reach-
ing metamorphosis in the spirit of the national drollery.
The standard of this wit is altogether intangible and uncer-
tain. We talk glibly about Irish wit, but a good deal of that
which passes current for it was mere Anglo-Saxon vulgarity.
Swift was one of the greatest wits of his age, yet his wit was
not Irish. In his day it was supposed that genuine Irish wit
consisted in perpetually making " bulls " and blunders. This
erroneous idea is visible in his own last epigrammatic effort, com-
posed ere the cloud had permanently settled down over his
intellect, as he drove with his physician through the Phoenix
Park:
* The Humor of Ireland. By D. J. O'Donoghue. London : Walter Scott, limited
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.
854 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
" Lo here's a proof of Irish sense,
Here Irish wit is seen :
When nothing's left that's worth defence
They build a magazine."
This was neither a proof of Irish sense nor of Irish wit,
since the building of the magazine was entirely the work of the
English garrison, and the Irish people had no more to do with
it than they had with the wall of China.
Mr. O'Donoghue gives some good selections in the pages of
this book, and a great many that are the reverse. A class of
writers once flourished whose aim it was to caricature and be-
little the Irish character, and these are copiously represented in
the volume. There are besides some modern mediocrities pa-
raded as men of wit whose claim will come as a surprise to the
more discriminating. There is no subject in the world on which
a more entertaining treatise could be written than this, but the
work is one for the future, when the circumstances of literature
are better, and when the standard of taste is purer.
Some nice plates are given in this book. They are the
work of Oliver Paque. They are dainty bits of drawing, but
they are not like anything Irish.
Childhood is the time for the sowing of the myth-seed in
the mind ; in the busy days of manhood things of greater mo-
ment crowd them out of view. We fear there is a growing dis-
position to make light of myths in the hard and materialistic
tendencies of our modern system. The value of these delight-
ful aids to the development of the mind is too often overlooked.
We are glad to see an attempt made to make their acquirement
attractive. Emma M. Firth's little book of Stories of Old Greece
(D. C. Heath & Co., Boston) is a good beginning. She tells in
a way suitable to the youngest mind some of the choicest old
stories of classic Hellas, and illustrates them with graceful pic-
tures, bringing out all the beauty of the quaint legends and
leaving out of sight their coarser side. There is something
beautiful in the myths of all archaic peoples, and a judicious
selection of these would help to build up the structure of the
imagination, and if their moral were well pointed show how in
even the earliest times the mind of man was struggling through
clouds of ignorance toward the light of truth and beauty.
I895-J NEW BOOKS. 855
We notice in the issue of The Architectural Record for Janu-
ary-March an exceedingly valuable paper on the interesting
subject of " Christian Altars," by Caryll Coleman (of the
Tiffany Co.) It is from a literary point of view erudite and il-
luminative in a very high degree, and an historical document
of no ordinary value. There are special attractions in it, from
a pictorial stand-point, for the lover of Christian art. It is em-
bellished with a very large number of exquisite plates, showing
some of the most famous altars and shrines throughout the
Catholic world. The article will prove, it may safely be said,
not only of deep interest but great practical value.
NEW BOOKS.
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati :
Elocution Class. A simplification of the Laws and Principles of Expression.
By Eleanor O'Grady, author of " Aids to Correct and Effective Elocution,"
etc.
Of the following new books Bengizer Brothers have imported editions :
Essays by Sarah Atkinson. Edited by Mrs. Rosa Mulholland-Gilbert ; with
Portrait. A Memoir of Mrs. Augustus Craven, author of " A Sister's
Story." By Mary C. Bishop; with Mrs. Craven's Portrait. The
Watches of the Passion, with Before and After. By Rev. P. Gallwey,
S J. History of St. Francis of Assist. By Abbe le Monnier. Translated
by a Franciscan Tertiary ; with preface by Cardinal Vaughan. Redmin-
ton School. By C. M. Howe. History of St. Philomena. Edited by Rev.
Charles Henry Bowden. Our Lady of Good Counsel. By Georgina
Gough. The Pope and the People. By Rev. W. H. Eyre, SJ. '
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York:
The Foundations of Belief. By the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P.
P. J. KENEDY, New York :
Devotion to the Holy Ghost.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co., Boston and New York :
Old South Leaflets. Edited by Edwin C. Mead.
MACMILLAN & Co., New York :
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, M.A., F.R.S. By Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A.
Vol. V.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York:
Our Fight with Tammany. By Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D.
FR. PUSTET & Co., New York and Cincinnati :
Roman Hymnal, Part I. Visits to St. Joseph. By a Spiritual Daughter of
St. Teresa.
856 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Mar.,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
ABOUT four hundred lectures have been engaged by the Brooklyn Institute
of Arts and Sciences to be delivered within a period of thirty-four weeks
from October to June. Membership in this organization costs only five dollars a
year ; the same amount is charged as an initiation fee. No other institution in
the world can offer superior advantages for the same expenditure. The number
of members is now about four thousand. With remarkable ability Professor
Franklin^W. Hooper, director of the Brooklyn Institute since 1889, has selected
subjects and lecturers representing nearly every department of modern research.
He is a Harvard man who gave up the study of theology for science and natural
history. His comprehensive plan recognizes no exclusion of any race or creed.
In the programme for 1894-5- Catholic thought is represented by Right Rev.
John J. Keane, D.D., rector of the Catholic University; George Parsons Lathrop,
LL.D. ; Henry Austin Adams, M.A. ; William T. Vlymen, Ph.D., and F. Marion
Crawford.
Among the general courses of lectures the foremost place is given to one on
The Founders of New England, as follows : William Brewster, the Elder of
Plymouth, by Edward Everett Hale ; William Bradford, the Governor of Ply-
mouth, by Rev. Dr. William Elliott Griffis, of Ithaca; John Winthrop, the
Governor of Massachusetts, by Frederick T. Greenhalge, Governor of Massa-
chusetts ; John Harvard and the Founding of Harvard College, by William R.
Thayer, of Harvard ; John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians, by Rev. James De
Normandie ; John Cotton, the Minister of Boston, by Rev. John Cotton Brooks,
a descendant of the subject of the lecture; Roger Williams, the Founder of
Rhode Island, by President Andrews, of Brown University ; Thomas Hooker,
the Founder of Connecticut, by Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Twitchell, of Hartford.
This course is also to be given in the Old South Meeting House in Boston.
Professor Hooper attaches special importance to a series of lectures on the
literature and religion of India, to be given by T. W. Rhys Davids, LL.D., pro-
fessor of Sanscrit literature in University College, London. Professor Davids is
a high authority on this subject ; his lectures will also be given at the Lowell
Institute, Boston ; Columbia College ; the University of Pennsylvania ; the Pea-
body Institute, Baltimore; Cornell University, and Brown University. The sub-
jects are The Religious Teachers of India, and their Influence on India and in
the West; The Buddhist Books and their History ; the Vedas as Literature, The
Life of the Buddha, The Buddhists' Secret, and the Ideal of the Later Buddhism.
An author's course of addresses on American literature will attract favor-
able attention. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe will speak on Patriotism in American
Literature, and her famous Battle Hymn will be sung; Professor John Fiske
will speak of America's Historians and their work ; Edmund Clarence Stedman,
on America's Poets ; F. Marion Crawford, on Romance in American Fiction ;
Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin, on American Magazine Literature, and Mrs. Frances
Hodgson Burnett, on Children's Literature.
The Brooklyn Apprentices' Library, established in 1823, was the real begin-
ning from which has developed the great work of self-improvement now organ-
ized by the Brooklyn Institute. Augustus Graham, the founder, provided that
courses of lectures should be given from time to time on " The Power, Wisdom,
1895.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 857
and Goodness of God as Manifested in His Works." By this salutary regulation
agnosticism is for ever excluded.
The departments of Pedagogy and Psychology in the Brooklyn Institute
arranged for a course of six lectures by Professor William James Ph D of
larvard University. Considering his distinguished reputation as one of the
ablest philosophical scholars in the United States, Professor James uses the
following simple language in announcing his subjects ; Mind and Environment;
Habit and Character; Association and Memory; Attention; Conception and
Reasoning ; Will. No attempt is made to befog the subject with high-sounding
words. Miss A. E. Wyckoff is chairman of the section devoted to educational
psychology, which has in charge the following special subjects : Children's Home
and School Interests ; Mental Traits of Children as revealed by physical signs ;
Infant Development; Home Life of Children; Child Study; The Child's Ideals;'
Children's Difficulties in accomplishing school tasks; The Ailments of Children;
Mental Development of Children.
Miss Isobel Camp, Ph.D., is chairman of the section on Reading Circles.
The work outlined is intended to encourage the study of the works of William
Cullen Bryant and William Morris ; also, psychology by Professor W. James,
Romola by George Eliot, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, Saracinesca by
F. Marion Crawford, Letters of an Altrusian Traveller by William Dean
Howells, and children's literature.
Law lectures for women, by Cornelia K. Hood, LL.B., are conducted on the
plan adopted by the Law School of the University of New York. These are the
subjects chosen for one of the courses :
Historical Review of Woman's Legal Status ; The Relation of Law to the
Possession of Property ; Marriage ; Legal Relations of Husband and Wife ; Pro-
perty Rights of Married Women ; Effect of Divorce and Lawful Separation ;
Parent and Child ; Legal Relations of Employer to Employee.
::
An article by Walter Lecky in the Catholic News for January 23 has awak-
ened discussion, which was doubtless the object he had in view, as he has in
many ways proved himself a benefactor of the Reading Circle movement. A
letter before us, however, suggests that the Catholic laity need to be aroused ;
that crude efforts have to be praised because they are efforts, in order to encour-
age growth ; that it is better to give a kind word of advice, even if a Reading
Circle is not doing its best work, rather than satirical criticism.
" The leaders of the Catholic Reading Circle movement must be well aware
of the fact that turning the suppressed energy of the laity into this channel is not
only going to raise the people to higher levels spiritually and intellectually, but
it is going to avert wrong uses of this energy; it will furnish legitimate safety-
valves whereby the thought stirring within may find expression."
* * *
We have received many indications of approval for the splendid work " the
Sacred Heart girls are doing." One writer wishes a larger organization in the
East, believing that there is a vast field of usefulness for talents which have
been submerged since the day of graduation. " There is no use of hiding the
fact that Catholic women must move with the times in matters pertaining to
their own good and general culture. The new woman is a myth and is used to
frighten those of our sex who want to be intelligent and useful in the social
world."
858 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Mar.,
Our attention was called to a book of fiction that has been widely circulated.
Under pretence of exposing " the most pernicious evil society has to do with,"
the author has adopted a style and introduced characters that deserve the
severest condemnation. We sent the exact title of the book, the name and ad-
dress of the publisher, to the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice,
Room 85, Times Building, New York City. This society has already rendered a
valuable service to the reading public by its vigilance in detecting the immoral
publications which are sent by mail to various parts of the rural districts, and dis-
tributed by secret messengers. In answer to our communication Mr. Anthony
Comstock writes these words of approval for the work of the Columbian Read-
ing Union :
" My recollection is, that in '92, when this (book) came out, we took action
against it, and it was, I think, withdrawn from circulation. I will endeavor to
have the matter looked into.
I congratulate you that you have asked the question ' What shall we
read?' and have started the answer by such practical outlines as you send to
me. There is great need for guarding the imagination or re-imaging power of
the mind from the defilements of corrupt literature. There is an infectious
disease that very little attention is given to and yet that is very, very important,
to wit, Immoral Imaginationalism ; a term which I have applied to the condition
of mind that exists in many youth, where the re-imaging or picturing power of
thought is kept busy in reproducing scenes or pictures which come through eye
or ear into the ' chamber of imagery ' in the heart. I am satisfied, after a most
careful study of God's word, that there has been no condition of mind that has so
grieved the Almighty as the evil imagination. With all my heart I congratulate
you and your organization on your practical efforts to redeem the mind of the
youth from the thraldom of corrupt thoughts."
Bishop Hedley, of England, in a pastoral letter has formulated the enlight-
ened Catholic opinion on this same matter. He insists that all idle reading is
hurtful : " To read, for honest recreation, even silly books that are not other-
wise objectionable, is in no way to be condemned. But continuous idle reading
of romantic, sentimental, or exciting narratives spoils one's life and causes a gen-
eral laziness and looseness in one's whole nature, unfitting the mind for exertion
and the body for self-denial. The inordinate reading of newspapers should be
avoided on similar grounds. There are all kinds of newspapers and cheap peri-
odicals good, bad, and indifferent. Catholics must remember that they are not
to take the tone of their moral feelings from newspapers, but from the teachings
and traditions of their Holy Religion. It cannot be denied that there is, on the
whole, a very free and lax interpretation on the part of the newspaper press of
that precept of St. Paul which prescribes that certain things should ' not be so
much as named ' among Christians. Because a matter is reported in a news-
paper, it by no means follows that it is right or proper for a Christian to read it,
much less to dwell upon it or to let it get into the hands of those for whom one is
responsible. The standard of right and wrong, in things of this kind, is con-
stantly in danger of being lowered. Our duty is, by precept and by example, to
uphold and maintain it. It may not be possible for us to do much in purifying
the periodical press although the disapproval of God-fearing readers is never
without its effect but we may at least preserve our own conscience free from
stain, and help many souls who otherwise would be carried away by the evil and
corrupting tendencies of the age.
Even when the newspaper is free from objection, it is easy to lose a great
deal of time over it. It may be necessary or convenient to know what is going
1895-] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 859
on in the world. But there can be no need of our absorbing all the rumors, all
the guesses and gossip, all the petty incidents, all the innumerable paragraphs in
which the solid news appears half-drowned, like the houses and hedges when the
floods are out. This is idle, and it is absolutely bad for brain and character.
There is a kind of attraction towards petty and desultory reading of this kind
which is sure to leave its mark on the present generation. The newspaper pre-
sents not only news but ideas, reflections, views, inferences, and conclusions of
every kind. As the reader takes in all this prepared and digested matter, he is
deluded with the notion that he is thinking and exercising his mind. He is do-
ing nothing of the kind. He is putting on another man's clothes, and fitting
himself out with another man's ideas. To do this habitually is to live tthe life of
a child ; one is amused and occupied, and one is enabled to talk second-hand
talk, but that is all. Men were better men, if they thought at all, in the days
when there was less to read. It is pitiable to reflect how many there are, in all
the ranks of life, who depend for ideas on the utterances of their newspapers.
And who, after all, are the writers of newspapers ? Men by no means specially
endowed or qualified ; men who have to write in a hurry, with little learning or
training, on all kinds of subjects, some of them the most momentous; and men
who have strong temptation to speak rashly and flippantly on all things connect-
ed with religion and morality. Immoderate newspaper reading leads, therefore,
to much loss of time, and does little good either to the mind or the heart."
* * *
We are very much pleased with this expression of opinion from The Casket.
It enables us to see ourselves as our friends in Canada see us :
"THE CATHOLIC WORLD, in its Columbian Reading Union department,
quotes with approval some remarks recently made by The Casket with reference
to the establishment of a second Catholic Summer-School in the United States.
It wants to know, however, why the establishment of the Western Summer-School
should interfere with our hopes for a closer union of thought and sympathy be-
tween the Catholics of Canada and of the United States. Well, to be perfectly
frank with our contemporary, our remarks were made before we had seen in the
Catholic Reading Circle Review the very cordial expression of good-will by
Madison towards Champlain. We sincerely trust that this expression is some-
thing mare than the ' assurances of most distinguished regard ' or the personal
feelings of the worthy prelate who conveyed it. We confess that, entertaining
strongly the aspirations expressed in the words quoted by THE WORLD, we were
not a little disappointed at the entire absence of Western Catholics of note at
the last session of the Summer-School. This, taken in connection with the dis-
satisfaction known to exist in the West over the location of the school, seemed
to us a- very significant fact ; and the immediate establishment of another institu-
tion, together with the tone adopted by some of the Western papers in referring
to the matter, caused us to fear that one of the worst possible enemies of the
Catholic intellectual movement was at work. For if that movement has one foe
more to be dreaded than any other, it is sectional jealousy. Let us hope, there-
fore, that if such danger ever existed, it is past and gone, and that the mutual
assurances of good-will may continue to have a deep and solid foundation."
* . * *
An official statement has been sent for publication by the Columbian Catho-
lic Summer-School which is to open in Madison, Wisconsin, July 14, 1895, under
happy auspices. The preliminary organization to carry out this important work
has been effected, and the indispensable sanction and approval of the Most
Rev. the Archbishops and the Right Rev. Bishops concerned has been given in
860 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Mar., 1895.
letters of sanction and assurances of sympathy and support. The programme of
studies and lectures for tthe first session has been determined upon, and the
arrangements for carrying same into effect is now fully in the hands of a com-
mittee headed by Right Rev. Bishop Messmer, of Green Bay, president of the
board. The general Committee of Control includes bishops, priests, and laymen.
The board is not committed to any one place as a permanent location for
the school. The choice of the capital of Wisconsin for the opening session is
regarded on every side as most convenient and appropriate because of its central
position, its proximity to the principal Western cities, the beauty and attractive-
ness of its situation and surroundings, and especially on account of the impor-
tant advantages offered in halls, libraries, museums, and, not least essential, in
ample hotel and boarding-house facilities and moderate prices. Reduced railroad
rate of transportation is also assured. The active co-operation and cordial sup-
port of Catholics is now invited. The necessity for the establishment of a
Catholic Summer-School to meet the convenience and demands of the central
west is apparent ; its importance and value to the educational and literary in-
terests of the country cannot be overestimated.
In order to place the Columbian Catholic Summer-School on a secure finan-
cial footing the Board of Control has provided for a limited number of life-mem-
berships in rtie association, and for annual memberships.
The Board of Control of the Columbian Catholic Summer-School is as
follows: Right Rev. S. G. Messmer, D.D., President, Green Bay, Wis. ;
Right Rev. John A. Watterson, D.D., Columbus, O. ; Right Rev. John S.
Foley, D.D., Detroit, Mich. ; Right Rev. James McGolrick, D.D., Duluth, Minn. ;
Right Rev. Camillus P. Maes, D.D., Covington, Ky. ; Rev. J. A. Zahm, C.S.C.,
Notre Dame, Ind. ; Rev. Patrick Danehy, D.D., St. Paul, Minn. ; Rev. James F.
X. Hoeffer, S.J., Chicago, 111.; Rev. P. J. Agnew, Chicago, 111.; Rev. Patrick B.
Knox, Madison, Wis.; William J. Onahan, LL.D., Chicago, 111.; H. J. Desmond,
Milwaukee, Wis. ; William A. Amberg, Chicago, 111. ; Maurice Francis Egan,
LL.D., Notre Dame, Ind.; Conde B. Fallen, LL.D., St. Louis, Mo. ; Charles A.
Mair, Chicago, 111.
The Officers of the Board are: Right Rev. S. G H Messmer, President;
H. J. Desmond, Vice-President and Secretary pro tem. ; Charles A. Mair,
Treasurer; William J. Onahan, Charles A. Mair, and William A. Amberg,
Finance Committee.
The full course of the Columbian Catholic Summer-School will comprise
two sets of lectures: one of a more didactic nature, giving regular class in-
struction and being intended principally for the members and pupils of the
school, the other more adapted to the public platform and addressed to a more
general audience. The subjects chosen for the class lectures are the Encyclical
of Leo XIII. on the Bible, the Eastern Schism and the efforts of the Popes for
reunion, Church and State in their mutual relation, History of Catholic popular
Education, Religion and Science, Ethics, Catholic Contemporary Literature,
Economic Questions of the day, and the work of the Catholic Reading Circles.
The general lectures will treat of some very interesting subjects of Catholic
Biography (Ozanam, Joan of Arc, Savonarola, Missionary Explorers of the
North-west) ; of American History (American Mound-builders and Cliff-dwell-
ers, The Magna Charta and American Independence, Witchcraft in New Eng-
land) ; or from the field of contemporary thought (Buddhism, Christian
Science, Hypnotism, etc.) The first session of the school is to last three weeks
from July 14 to August 4, 1895. M. C. M.
AP The Catholic world
2
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